Firestar's time has all but been forgotten. The Clans have rebuilt, striving, telling stories and hunting together as they should be doing. ShadowClan, however, are branching out. (Header credit to @skyyclan) 🐾Welcome to Shadows of the Code, a Warriors Ask/Comic Blog🐾
A quick run down on the main story points that were planned on. Details, and indeed the main story, would be and have always been influenced by your questions
Spottedstar was building an army to drive ShadowClan from the forest
Coal (previously labelled as The Instigator) and Tinkerbelle are responsible for this entire situation. As kittens they disrupted Spottedstar’s life ceremony (unsure how, this was a work in progress). This disruption caused the spirits of the Seers to be fused with Spottedstar’s lives, giving him access to their various prophecies and flitting memories. The inability to tell the difference between past, future, and present led him to believe the Clan was in terrible danger. This is why the Seers are not present in StarClan, and why Tinkerbelle has prophetic dreams– her soul was fused with a Seers in the incident
Rosestar’s ancestor, whose name I’ve forgotten, experienced something similar where a soul in the lake was disrupted and fused to her. This is why she killed her friends
Stormstrike was uncovering the truth. He knows Brambletail would hurt him without control, and so refuses to confront her despite whatever you Contacts may have said or done to persuade him to do something about it. In the end, he is unable to hide his reaction to the ‘monster’ (Spottedstar controlling Brambletail’s body) and Brambletail kills him to keep him quiet
This expands into a major investigation, and Ravenwhisker is of course called forward. Still trying to act as the traitor in order to keep his kits safe, he refuses to comment
Stormstrike wakes in Limbo, and we learn that the legendary figure of Limbo itself has successfully whisked him away to hide him from the dark forest’s straling of souls. Limbo is frightened, and asks for help stopping their father.
Spottedstar attacks the forest to drive ShadowClan away, in his mind trying to remove them from all the danger he sees. Many are killed, despite Spottedstar’s strong insistence to his group that they are to keep killing to a minimum. In the pandemonium Spottedstar exposes Brambletail and kills her, taking her soul away with him
(Fun fact) Ravenwhisker, when giving his first confession in front of Rosestar, got every cause of death wrong. Because he didn’t kill anyone, he had to try and guess what had happened based on public information
ShadowClan runs, with Spiderbounce and Coal leading the way to the Tribe. Ravenwhisker and Bluebell come too, being pardoned of their Crimes but not fully trusted. The journey is long and rife with misadventure depending on how you Contacts interacted with it. Cats would be lost and gained.
On the way they run into Swiftdawn and his family. Sunfire has a go at him for abandoning them again, which Swiftdawn feels is fair, but negative feelings don't last long. Clawheart in particular is delighted by her many new grandkits who are all pretty much her size already
Stoneteller is unprepared for this amount of guests and is not exactly thrilled, and is downright appalled that Hollystar was stupid enough to bring kittens on this journey. After berating and picking on Hollystar for some time, despite Hollystar’s protests, it becomes clear that Stoneteller is relaxed and simply bantering
Stoneteller expresses condolences for the losses on the journey, mentioning Stormstrike by name with a particularly heavy heart. Hollystar being Hollystar is instantly suspicious of this, and Stoneteller takes him away to meet the Tribe of Endless Hunting
We return to Dark Forest Question Time. Pestilence has taken to spending more and more time away from the Forest in favour of exploring the empty camp, imagining what her life might have been like if she’d lived
Pestilence is more open to receiving direction from the Contacts than usual and will learn what has happened. She decides to go and find Stormstrike (“Pestilence is key” prophecy)
Stormstrike, Pestilence, Hollystar, and Stoneteller all meet up in the white void thanks to Limbo’s risky intervention. They’re all as surprised to see each other, and even more surprised when Hollowmoon and Owlpaw walk in.
Hollystar immediately starts pandemonium over Owlpaw in particular being alive, and is quickly silenced. Owlpaw seems nervous, not liking this at all, but explains that Limbo brought them here too.
I did not think out any of this as it was so far in the future but all the powerful cats are now in one room, and together they learn that Eclipse, Silverpelt’s ex-mate and Limbo’s father, has corrupted and been imprisoned in his own domain. He’s been trying to build his power to escape by taking souls from Silverpelt.
I did not get much further than this. They fix it probably or maybe it goes horribly wrong but either way life changes dramatically, souls are fused and unfused, etc etc
Ashkit takes her warrior name, chosen by you lot, and is accepted into StarClan with her mother. Even Spottedstar is fine, though he stays in the Dark Forest to do his penance. We get to see the cat he was before his life ceremony, and he understands that even though his soul has been separated from the seers, he needs to remain in the dark
Everyone lives happily ever after
Thank you for being on this journey with me! I wanted to slam everything down, in part so I wouldn’t forget what I was doing. You guys have done so much from me during the years I was drawing this.
would we have gotten to see Swiftdawn again? (hope I didn't send this twice, tumblr lagged when I tried to send it)
Yep! After being driven out by the Dark Forest, Hollystar takes the remaining ShadowClan members (despite driving out being the goal, some of the Dark Forest cats are there for actual crimes like Murder and wanted to do that instead) to try and find shelter.
On their way to the Tribe at Coal's suggestion, the younger apprentices run into a fox. The fox speaks a little bit of cat language and seems friendly, if not wary, and indicates that the apprentices follow him to his den.
They do, and they find Swiftdawn, Oddity, Roadkill, and Roadkill's mate (draft name Warhorse) plus five or six other fox kits all around a year old.
Clawheart and the family are delighted to see Swiftdawn again, and he is very sad to hear what happened to ShadowClan, so offers them shelter for the night. By this point a lot of cats in the Clan didn't grow up with Swiftdawn as a warrior and, seeing how nervous they are around the foxes, Hollystar suggests that they'll set up nearby for a while. Swiftdawn agrees.
The fox kits are named Merlin, Fever, Brackish, Paws, and Bolt. The rest were unnamed for the moment. It is not made clear which kit belongs to which couple, and is heavily implied that the foxes themselves are unsure and just raise them communally.
(coming off anon to ask more questions, I'll probably ask a few lol) what would've been the current apprentices/kits warrior names?
Beekit was definitely going to be Beefuzz, but otherwise I tend not to think about it until they get there. Because the story is so heavily influenced by the Contacts(tm), it's possible to tell what virtue or heroic deed a cat might do, and therefore what their name may be!
What was going to happen with the cats in the dark forest? (also glad you seem to be doing ok)
Okay so I was trying to draw a little bit to answer this but gave up so you get a text post. Also thank you anon <3 I'm okay, just get very burnt out.
The dark forest cats would be part of Spottedstar's army. Spottedstar would break his way into the mortal world with said army, the same way they did in a Last Hope.
The aim of this army would not be to fight and kill, but to drive ShadowClan out of the forest. After all, Spottedstar is trying to protect his Clan in his own twisted way, and the best thing he thinks he can do is get them out of the territory and away from the threats he sees.
To cut a long story short and make it sound like an anticlimax, Stormstrike and Stoneteller, among others, would fix the broken afterlives and the dark forest cats would be returned to StarClan where they belong, or Limbo for those who felt too much guilt to take their place among the stars.
Good morning good morning, mod Sunny (OG) crawling back from beyond the grave!
It's been a solid while since I was active on this blog, and I'm sad to say, I won't be getting back into it. I've got too much on my plate these days!
However I am opening a QnA for those of you still hanging around. Any questions of details, plot threads, prophecies, design choices, shoot 'em my way and I'll answer best I can!
And if you're still looking for a warriors cats fix, consider hopping over to StarClan's Refuge on discord!
We're a warrior cats roleplay server and have been running in one form or another for close to a decade now, and we're looking for new people to join the family. They can be a bit chaotic at times, but trust me, they're a kind lot.
HEY ERIN HUNTER I’VE GOT SOME NOTES ABOUT BRIARLIGHT, AND BRAMBLESTAR’S STORM, AND EVERY BOOK AFTER THAT UNTIL RIVER OF FIRE, COME HERE I JUST WANNA TALK
kaledo-art
germansingergirl
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
blakekathryn
titsay
annaxmalina
