Original Post: Ember, January 28, 2018
Hello everyone! I hope that all of you are getting into the swing of the new year. On Warrior Cats of the Forest, it’s been a super exciting month both in terms of plot and out of character activities. In-character, The Deliverance plot has only thickened and all of the clans have new rules on their members in response—though, in each of the clans many cats are also tempting fate by ignoring these rules. There are a handful of other plot threads planned for this February, so if you’re not all caught up check out the Plot Planning Threads and the History Page. Out of character, we marked the New Year with a gift-exchange, celebrated the website’s ninth birthday and welcomed in a new spike of memberships. A handful of new guides were also posted, including the Glitches Guide, Environment Guide, and Naming Guide.
Before we get into the main topic of this Monthly Meow, we have some housekeeping to do. First off, I’d like to remind everyone that I am taking member-submitted Monthly Meows and if you have any interest in writing one, please reach out to me. In a similar vein, I’m running low on stocked-up Monthly Meows, so if you guys have any topics you’d like to see me cover, I’m looking for new topics to dive into. As well, Webs is currently being stubborn about publishing pages, but when that's sorted out I will post a public google folder containing old records onto the Help Page. You guys are welcome to look through these to find old character descriptions, check name usage, or just for nostalgia’s sake. For now, that folder can be accessed here. Finally, make sure you’re keeping your profile page character list up to date! Those are an invaluable resource in piecing them back together after sections publish incorrectly, as they have been this past week.
Onto the fun part! This Monthly Meow is part seven of the series comparing the canon universe to Warrior Cats of the Forest, focusing on the clans’ relationship to the predatory animals they share their territories with. In the future, comparisons with prey animals and plants will also be explored. Previous topics in this series included The Warrior Code, naming conventions, demographics, the living clans’ relationship with their dead, a general overview of all of our clans in comparison to all of the canon clans, and direct comparisons between canon clans and their WCF “counterparts.” As in the previous Monthly Meows, I used the Avon paperback 2004 American edition of Into the Wild, my sketchy memory of the rest of the books, and the Warriors Wiki to write this, so if you see anything inaccurate please speak up. As well, The Warrior Cats canon universe is notoriously riddled with contradictions and continuity errors and is far beyond the scope of these newsletters, so I’ve limited these Monthly Meows to primarily focusing on the first six books published (Into the Wild-The Darkest Hour) with occasional references to the other books. However, I have not actually read most of these books and can only comment on the scenes on their own and what information I’m able to get from talking to other Warriors fans and through the Warrior Cats Wiki.
In both the canon series and in our roleplay, badgers act primarily as enemies of the clans. They are found throughout the territories and are formidable enemies due to their aggressive nature, large size, strong jaw, and hard claws. As well, as badgers share much of the same food sources as the clans, having too many in the territory can threaten a clan’s prey supplies. In SkyClan’s Destiny, it’s even mentioned that no one warrior should even take on a badger on their own, no matter how talented and experienced they are at fighting. In Yellowfang’s Secret, Foxpaw tries to brag about not being afraid of badgers and is scolded by a warrior telling her that not being afraid of badgers isn’t courage, it’s simply stupidity. In the canon series, badgers are considered especially dangerous to nurseries. However, to my knowledge a badger has never broken into a clan’s nursery on this website, as they are always scented or spotted before they reach the well-defended and watched nursery. Badgers themselves are lumbering, loud, and have a strong, distinctive smell and are therefore unlikely to sneak up on a warrior, especially a camp full of them.
In Midnight, a patrol comes across the titular character -a badger- who unlike the rest of her kind is friendly to cats and can communicate verbally with them. Later on, in Moonrise, it’s revealed that she can also communicate with foxes and rabbits. On top of that, she can contact StarClan as clearly as a medicine cat and delivers a prophecy about the destruction of the forest. In Starlight, Midnight is seen within StarClan territory and implies that she can travel freely between the worlds of the living and the dead, and is seen later in the living clans giving a warning that a group of badgers are planning an attack on the clans. This power is shown again when in Long Shadows she appears in the prologues talking to the ancient leaders in StarClan. This could never happen on this website, due to the rules stating that only cats may be roleplayed, cats cannot communicate with other animals through any means, and cats cannot communicate with StarClan outside of approved Moonstone visits. Oddly enough, it’s mentioned in The Last Hope that Midnight is a ghost, despite the presence of ghosts as understood by people- in contrast to StarClan/Dark Forest cat spirits- not existing anywhere else in the Warriors Universe. Needless to say, we don’t have ghosts on this site.
In Twilight, a group of badgers attacks ThunderClan camp. This plan is known to have been planned in an organized fashion, as Midnight warns ThunderClan warriors that the badgers were planning revenge for the badgers that they had chased away from their new territory. We’ve never had an organized badger attack take place on this site, though there is an interesting potential in-universe reason for this. While European badgers are social animals that live in permanent burrows in groups, American badgers are more solitary and mobile. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that the badgers our clans encounter would be less inclined to gather in a group to enact revenge for being chased away from their home than the canon badgers would be, due simply to the behavior of their specific species.
Foxes share a similar role to badgers in the canon clans and in our roleplay, that is, primarily as easy antagonists and obstacles for patrols to come across. Foxes are fierce and territorial and attack cats on sight, resulting in cats opting to chase them away whenever possible. Unlike with badgers, a well-trained and talented warrior could single-handedly defeat a fox. Foxes also cause problems when they compete with cats for food, and when their presence causes two-legs to set up traps. In the canon series, a kit gets trapped in a fox trap during Sunset. On this site, there are no two-leg farms nearby and therefore there is less reason to set up traps, so no cats have been injured in this way.
Foxes also have a distinctive smell, making their dung a common thing for cats to roll in when they want to hide another scent. Oddly, no one questions why they were rolling in fox-dung despite this never being done for any other purpose, to my memory. Regardless, cats rarely hide their scent on this website, and usually when they do they opt for garlic or a swim in the river, which is less likely to arouse suspicion.
It’s possible that warriors interact with foxes more often than badgers, as is reflected in fox-length being used as a common system of measurement alongside other fox-related sayings, while badgers never appear in their sayings.
Dogs are distinct from badgers and foxes in that the range of danger presented by a dog is extremely variable, in both the canon series and in our roleplay. Small dogs pose much less of a threat to a cat than a larger dog would and a well-fed stray pet dog less than a feral dog. Sometimes dogs are only harassing the cats for sport, and are restrained by leashes or fences and pose no threat at all. As well, dogs are more organized than foxes or badgers, as when they are in a pack there is one “alpha” dog usually portrayed as keeping the others in line.
In the canon series, dogs are a less common enemy than badgers and foxes, and are usually only encountered when cats are making journeys near two-leg areas or are wondering lose alone or in a small group and are confronted by a patrol or by a lone cat. A Dangerous Path has the only true diversion from this pattern, in which the primary conflict of the book revolves around a pack of ferocious guard dogs who escaped from the treecut place and resided in ThunderClan territory. The dogs are shown to command a rudimentary language that can be understood by the cats (chanting “pack, pack” and “kill, kill”) and are manipulated by Tigerstar, who lays a trail leading the dogs into ThunderClan camp. As the dogs are enormous, the cats cannot hope to chase them off as they would with a fox or a rabbit, and Firestar instead completes a successful plot to take advantage of the dogs’ stupidity and lure them over the edge of the gorge. A somewhat similar plot occurred on this website, when a pack of dogs terrorized MoonClan. However, they were not set up by an enemy cat, and were not capable of any language.
In this roleplay, dogs take the place of badgers and foxes for NightClanners in that they offer an easy enemy for patrols or other side-plots. Unlike fox and badger encounters, though, these dog confrontations rarely end in an actual fighting, as dogs are usually restrained by twolegs and even if they aren’t, climbing trees or other structures is a reliable way to escape loose dogs, as two-legs will take away a disruptive dog barking at the cat up in the tree. The other clans of this roleplay come across dogs less frequently, and when they do, it’s often a more dangerous situation akin to the canon cats’ relationship to dogs as the dogs are less likely to be restrained and are more likely to be seriously lost or feral.
One other point of overlap between the canon and noncanon relationship to predatory animals is with cougars. Only one is ever encountered in the canon series, Sharptooth, and he doesn’t venture down from the mountain territory of The Tribe of Rushing Water. In the canon series, the small patrol of cats sent to kill him realizes their inability to attack him directly, and instead attempt to poison him and eventually crush him with a broken-off stalactite. Cougars have similarly only been encountered by our clans once, but instead the clans gathered their forces and attacked the cougar directly, using their numbers to overwhelm the great cat.
The biggest way that the WCF clans differ from the canon clans is in the variety of enemies encountered, ranging from very rare encounters with bears to poisonous caterpillars to porcupines to large, aggressive fish, as listed on the Enemy Animals Guide. While most of these aren’t encountered often, many of these species simply don’t exist in England or, if they do, don’t make major appearances in the canon series. I hope to incorporate more of them into our own roleplay in order to make the environment of our clans feel even more in depth and unique.
MoonClan
Apprentices:
Snowkit, Emberkit, Smolderingkit, Kiwikit, Chickadeekit, Antlerkit, Stonekit, Owlkit, Silverkit, Buck-kit, Leopardkit, Warkit: Early February
Sunnykit, Specklelight, Streak-kit: Mid February
Scorchingkit, Searingkit, Moosekit, Poplarkit, Mosskit, Sprucekit, Juniperkit, Mistykit, Beechkit, Turtlekit, Lakekit: Late February
Warriors:
Tommy, Owlpaw, Blazepaw, Dipperpaw, Mousepaw: Mid February
Whisperingpaw, Monroe, Maplepaw, Pythonpaw, Shadepaw, Honeypaw: Late February
Elders: Reichstag, Gingerheart, Dutchflag
Deaths: Littleclaw, Elkwhisker
SunClan
Apprentices:
Sheepkit, Hasani, Brewingkit, Jackalkit: Early February
Blitzkit, Oak-kit, Desertkit, Heatherkit: Mid February
Pinekit, Royalekit, Fatalkit: Late February
Warriors:
Desertpaw, Howlingpaw, Honeypaw, Midnightpaw, Anat, Klorel, Heatherpaw, Chestnutpaw, Crosspaw, Petalpaw, Floodedpaw, Stormpaw, Rosepaw, Honeypaw, Thornpaw: Early February
Sandpaw: Late February
Elders: Whitefire, Ligerheart
Deaths: Tazmainiantwister, Wanderingbear, Kingcobra
EarthClan
Apprentices:
Sixkit, Cryingkit, Arctickit: Early February
Smolderingkit, Brownkit, Beachkit, Sandkit, Jackalkit, Runningkit, Sprucekit, Fawnkit, Falconkit, Mask-kit, Sandkit, Foxkit, Dauntlesskit, Quakingkit: Mid February
Dusk-kit: Late February
Warriors:
Stormpaw, Flintpaw, Echopaw, Dawnpaw, Nightpaw: Early February
Brookpaw, Sunpaw, Namelesspaw: Mid February
Skeletonpaw: Late February
Elders: Lightningfire
Deaths: Malardcry, Rustfeather
EclipseClan
Apprentices:
Queenkit, Tigerkit, Wildkit: Early February
Illiad, Jumble, Kindle, Mirna, Poplarkit, Koikit, Coyotekit, Crimsonkit: Mid February
Sagekit: Late Feebruary
Warriors:
Snakepaw, Kobrapaw: Early February
Fallenpaw, Cow, Tate: Late February
Medicine Cat: Nettlepaw (Late February)
Deaths: Grackleflight, Chronus
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