#nc clans

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Foamwhisker

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how does a warrior get their nines lives and become a clan leader? or is there an absence of ~magic~ in your setting?

I’ve been told I hate fun and I’m willing to accept that so there’s no such thing as actual nine lives in my clans. The cats are generally pretty lucky, though, when it comes to escaping death. I am willing to play up on the reasons it’s said cats have nine lives in the first place.

Cats become leader when the previous one dies and they were deputy. If there was no leader or deputy at the time, the cats usually democratically decide who should be the next leader and/or deputy. Sometimes cats will fight it out in front of the clan if they think they should be the leader or deputy but that happens rarely.

The cats have a very different relationship to Starclan than canon or even most fanon clans. It can even be a little bitter at times. It serves very little function to them in their daily lives generally. They care to remember the lives of their loved ones who’ve passed on in recent memory but after a couple generations with a few exceptions, when a cat dies, they’re gone forever as an individual forever then known vaguely as “our warrior ancestors” by the cats. 

Even for the cats who really believe strongly in Starclan like the canon cats, I think they on some level know it’s not real which is why “being content with the wind” among other similar sentiments is a popular phrase among the cats in general. They don’t have easy access to their ancestors so they take what they can get. “Perhaps that well-timed breeze was Starclan, maybe the car that hit the dog chasing you was sent from your ancestors, it definitely could have been Starclan giving you the extra strength to fight the strong current you were about to drown in.”

Sometimes things that are unnatural may happen but mostly, if someone gets a vision or sees a cat from Starclan, they’ve either hallucinated it, had a wild dream, or made themselves believe they’ve seen what they claim they did.

THERE’S ALSO NO DARK FOREST! THAT’S SUCH A DUMB IDEA! ALL CATS GOOD AND BAD END UP IN THE SAME BLACK VOID/STARCLAN!

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Diseases in NC Clans

A couple descriptions of diseases encountered by the cats.

Cancers, FIV, and FeLV: Called Consumption regardless of what type of cancer. There’s no known cure medicine cats can provide and is mostly seen in elders but is by no means only isolated to them. The most that can be done by medicine cats is making sure the patient’s pain is managed and they are kept as comfortable as possible.

Rabies: Poetically called Water Madness or The Wrath. No known cure medicine cats can provide. This disease lingers like a ghost in the back of the minds of all cats as the danger is ever present. When infected, cats will often display symptoms ranging from confusion and anxiety to extreme aggression, seizure, and tremors. Cats taken by The Water Madness will suffer from eternal thirst, their sickness making them unwilling to even stand the presence of water. They slobber thick, viscous saliva which contains the sickness. Once bitten by a creature infected (many other animals like dogs, foxes, raccoons, and lynx also contract it), there is no hope for the individual. It is a pitiful death to watch a loved one suffer and upon realizing a cat has fallen victim to The Wrath, all the cat’s family becomes distressed. Sandclan will usually try to give the infected cat a living burial at sea which is an altogether quicker, although treacherous death. The same logic goes by Clayclan and Quartzclan, who attempt to lure infected onto busy roads or fields or push them off cliffs respectively. Cats try to keep coyotes, foxes, ect. from eating the bodies of these cats, hoping vultures will finish them off quickly and prevent the infection from spreading further.

Asthma: Called the Wheezing disease.

Anxiety: Many causes for this feeling. With some cats it follows them constantly. Usually lavender or other aromatic plants are given to treat it.

Cold/Flu: Symptoms are treated to best effect until recovery. Constant water given.

Heart attack: A scary phenomenon most common in elders and cats who are physically weak. Symptoms include dilated pupils, gasping for breath, fainting,being unresponsive to stimulation and hypothermia. Most Clan and non-pet cats don’t survive a heart attack but pet cats have a better outlook.

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how do humans affect the daily lives of the clans?

Sandclan: Since they live in a popular tourist destination, things can be kind of a toss up in the Summer. Generally since the cats benefit from human intervention in the form of garbage, cat food being left out, and the pests that come with human trash, tourist season is good for them. There’s usually a kitten boom for all cats on the island, both in the clan and out. However, things can also be really hectic. More people means heavier traffic, more dogs, more people stumbling into their beach territory when they’re just trying to enjoy a nice swim, ect. 

Things calm down more on the off-season, though. Currituck County, North Carolina has a very low year-round human population, you really can’t overestimate how much tourism inflates the population numbers in the Summer. Although, as people have now discovered that booking vacations to the OBX on the off season is profitable for them and as that gets more popular, the cats are starting to have to deal with more humans year-round.

Clayclan: These guys live in farmland in Somewhere, Eastern NC. Generally, they’re not bothered by humans because they live in the fields and forests away from urban areas. Mostly human trouble comes in the form of cars, farm equipment, and hunting dogs straying and attacking them when there’s a raccoon or bear hunt. Some farmers have realized the negative impact feral and free-roaming cats have on their local wildlife (and have caught on to the cats stealing their animals sometimes) and the environment in general and decided that having free mousers isn’t worth it so have set up traps, some humane, some meant to kill instantly to catch and get rid of them. Clayclan is generally pretty smart, though, so very few Clayclan cats end up in these traps.

Quartzclan: This clan is the one who has the most consistent year-round interaction with humans. They live in the Piedmont region in a rock quarry, the surrounding forest, and the state park near it all located within a growing, sprawling city. They generally keep out of the parts of the quarry that are still active, especially on days it’s mined. Their closest source of water is a river that runs through the quarry. Some days the water smells and tastes really off so they have to walk north a couple miles instead of just making their way down the cliffs to drink. They deal with all the human-based problems you’d expect feral cats to deal with. 

The cats usually try to get anywhere by using the forests and the park as a route instead of roads so that they don’t deal with people and cars. They also interact with pet cats and free-roaming outdoor cats the most, too. While they could benefit from human garbage and being fed like Sandclan, since they tend to try and stick to the quarry, the forest, and park, they mostly eat prey they catch or roadkill. The best hunting in the park is on the other side where very few hikers go. There’s also lots of coyotes, foxes, bears, ect. there, too, so they have to be careful.

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Clayclan’s status among the Clans (in the verse where they’re all aware of each other’s existence) is based and influenced partially on the aristocracy (aka cotton and tobacco barons) in eastern NC back in the day and its influence on the state in general.

Clayclan’s the “richest” of the clans in terms of land, population, ect. They also know how to do basic animal husbandry (they rear chicks into adult chickens for meat and eggs) and know the inklings of horticulture (they’ll leave the trimmings of certain types of wild plants in places to grow to attract more prey), and such.

They’re the most human-like of all the Clans in terms of actions (with any luck, if they keep it up, they might start becoming Smart like Cowslip’s warren did w/o the stress of survival, but w/o the trapping). I want to say that after them, it’s Quartzclan, which definitely has it second best next to Clayclan.

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My predictions for my clans if i were to put them out to the fandom is that they would call opposumstar a huge cantankerous bitch (she IS kinda) but would love kitefang her deputy despite him being the same exact way bc he is a tom Plus he's a little hypocritical on top of that

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duck, foam, and huck are cousins to cypress and that’s really good honestly

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Genealogy is hard