So who are Rippleclans Celestials so far and what are their roles?
I'm going to organize this chronologically. This list includes all those who have died before Moon 90. I'm not including Moonpaw in this list because she is the StarClan Guide, and therefore has a greater presence than Celestials.
Twinekit: Celestial of RippleClan Kits
Role: Fetcher
As the first RippleClan cat to enter StarClan, Twinekit left a permanent impact on the culture of RippleClan. RippleClan queens ask Twinekit to help their kits grow safely and happily.
Locustseeker: Celestial of Young Martyrs
Role: Jobless
While apprentices have died for their Clan many times before, RippleClan felt particularly emotional about Locustseeker's death and deeply honored their bravery. Without them, RippleClan might not have been recognized as a Clan by AshClan. As such, apprentices pray to Locustseeker to give them the strength to do dangerous tasks, while adults pray to them to save the lives of their apprentices who lay close to death from those tasks.
Puddlespeckle: Celestial of RippleClan and AshClan Relations
Role: Judge
Puddlespeckle may have been the first elder of RippleClan, but he is better remembered as a figure of AshClan culture within the developing society of RippleClan. His influence gave the Clan an odd number of AshClan traditions. Mediators, artisans, and other diplomats ask for Puddlespeckle's guidance when negotiating with AshClan.
Fennelspot: Celestial of RippleClan Clerics
Role: Blessed One
As the first cleric of RippleClan and one of the guiding voices of its founding, every cleric looks toward Fennelspot's legacy to guide their paws in both medicine and spiritual matters. As they reach graduation, clerics may pray to Fennelspot for his blessing. Honeybuzz and Weevilsight have both reported Fennelspot visiting them in their dreams at StarClan's Shrine after they got their names, so it is believed that you must be visited by Fennelspot to be accepted as a full cleric. If you are not, you must continue your training.
Rustshade: Celestial of RippleClan Codekeepers
Role: Jobless
Even though Rustshade prefers to enjoy his afterlife and truthfully wasn't the greatest codekeeper in the world, he was still RippleClan's first, and every founder shall be remembered as a Celestial in RippleClan's heritage. Like Fennelspot, codekeeper apprentices pray to Rustshade to pass their assessments and guide their training.
Scrubmask: Celestial of RippleClan Warriors
Role: Judge
Scrubmask was everything a good warrior should be, in the eyes of RippleClan historians. Warriors pray to her to develop their skills in battle and protect their Clan as best they can. She is another figure that apprentices ask blessings of before assessments.
Parsley: Celestial of RippleClan Loners
Role: Judge
Parsley was the first loner accepted into RippleClan, establishing a precedent that continues with cats like Estherfern. She was such a vibrant personality within the Clan that no one wanted her memory to fade. The Clan asks for Parsley's advice on accepting outsiders, while outsiders are told that if they want to connect to RippleClan's spiritual heritage, they should pray to Parsley. She shows that you don't need kin in the Clan to be remembered and valued.
Tempestshade: Celestial of Cursed Demise
Role: Fetcher
Tempestshade couldn't help the dark energy that sunk into them at birth, the curse that endangered others when they were alone with them. Their tale is somewhat tragic, but Tempestshade was still a happy cat. By praying to them, it is said you can ward off the effects of a deadly curse.
Weedfoot: Celestial of RippleClan Deputies
Role: Fetcher
Did anyone doubt Weedfoot would be a Celestial alongside her first and second mates? She reflects all a deputy should strive to be. Oilstripe will make certain that all RippleClan deputies think on Weedfoot's legacy and search for her blessing.
Foampaw: Celestial of Protection From Autumnfrosts
Role: Jobless
With the introduction of a new common Spirit of Shadow, the Autumnfrost, the Clans looked for a figure they could pray to for protection. Who better than the first cat documented to die at the ghostly fangs of this spirit?
James: Celestial of RippleClan Elders
Role: Jobless
What, do you think James is going to work in the afterlife? Ha! This tom was born to be an elder with his natural laziness. As such, as RippleClan gets older and goes to the elder's den, they'll ask James to help them rest and give them a peaceful retirement.
Would love to know the meaning or reason behind Vervaincough’s name, it’s so unusual I’m so curious
Looks like another personally requested Name Deep Dive! Vervaincough time!
Prefix: “Vervain”
Vervain is a well known plant with tiny, bright purple flowers grouped together into a sort of cone. Now there are technically no purple cats in the Clan (Thundergale… yeah I don’t know what to say that woman is purple, but canonically brown so idk), but purple substances like vervain flowers are popular picks for black, dark gray, or dark blue cats. While that may seem silly to some, artistic parents may love the prefix. It’s also a beautiful flower, and therefore could imply a beautiful cat.
Vervain has multiple medical uses. It reduces inflammation, especially in the throat, eases anxiety, fights off tooth and gum infection, and promotes healthy gums. Clerics often experiment with the herb to find other uses. This makes “Vervain” a prefix ripe with powerful medical connotations.
Suffix: “-cough”
So I won’t lie; “-cough” can be a little controversial. In the language of cats, cough is synonymous with disease, with the prefix denoting the telltale trait of the disease. Greencough literally means the green disease. This means that “-cough” appears more frequently in dishonor titles as opposed to typical names.
However, some like Downstar are able to separate cough from disease and instead view its definition as “the body creating an abundance of”. In this definition, greencough’s literal meaning is “the body is producing an abundance of green”. For names in this perspective, “-cough” implies that the cat in question produces their prefix, or is so rich in their prefix they literally cough it out. It isn’t pretty, since coughing is harsh, but it can work!
Full Name: Vervaincough
Let’s look at this name from two angles: Vervaincough as a disease, and Vervaincough as “the body produces an abundance of vervain.”
Vervaincough as a disease sounds like some type of cough that also affects the gums. It brings to mind images of purple gums, but clearly this isn't what Downstar was going for, even though it is funny to think that Vervaincough's name means "Gum Disease".
In actuality, Vervaincough's name implies an abundance of beauty and usefulness. She is actually a beautiful molly, despite her insecurities. While she is a codekeeper, she is also very skilled at maintaining the territory with the caretakers, something that Downstar took to note. Downstar chose this name in order to relax some of Vervaincough's seriousness and remind her of her skill.
The next update is taking a bit, so musings on Clan life, circa Moon 87:
Currentsmoke’s jaw healed straight, but the muscles themselves are weaker. It takes more force in his bite for him to kill prey, and sometimes chewing/moving his jaw for a while makes it ache the rest of the day.
Meanwhile, Yarrowclaw has mixed opinions on her day-night cycling. She’s proud of how focused and determined she feels in her day cycle, but is terrified of another psychotic episode terrorizing her friends and family. Mainly, though, the problem has been other cats acting like the feelings police and getting worried whenever she gets really energized, day cycle or not.
There isn’t much distinction between stages of a romantic relationship in Clan culture (a possible future lore post), but in terms of seriousness and family bonding, Ravenweaver and Brightreed are closer mates than Wolfgaze and Billowhaze.
While Darkkick and Spikecrash don’t really have a mother-daughter relationship, they’ve found their own protective instincts toward one another and have grown closer!
Whitekit still uses distant southern dialect with Mr and Ms because he noticed when he talked like that, a lot of the older cats seemed really happy. The Clan still misses Parsley.
Speaking of Parsley, she is the Celestial of RippleClan Loners, acting as a guiding force for loners who join RippleClan. She has special interest in older cats who join, such as Estherfern.
Each Clan can directly channel a spirit of StarClan through official rituals and paths about once a year due to the amount of energy StarClan actually has; since RippleClan used their early summoning almost as soon as the year began in contacting Splintcarve, Celestial of Broken Bones, the other clerics teased Estherfern and Weevilsight for that so much that Troutpool uncharacteristically snapped at them.
Slushtrail has to defuse a lot of arguments between Gingerkit and Frostkit.
Shrewpaw got into a lot of trouble during the Moon 86 Gathering because he snuck off with SlugClan apprentices to one of their “smoke-dens” where they burn herbs like catmint and valerian to get high.
Aww.. Twinekit’s death was so sad. Died way too young. But considering that Twinekit died so young and a long time ago, do they still have a child-like mentality, is it permanent? Or does Twinekit have a matured mentality but still have the form of their kitten self?
I’ve been thinking about kit personalities in StarClan. I think it’s an odd blend of “their personalities and perspectives have changed due to experiences and education” and “their brains never had the chance to develop to adult productivity”. I think Twinekit, Duskkit, Littlekit, all the kits and even some of the apprentices who die young, they’re a bit like child prodigies. Intelligent, worldly cats whose opinions are respected, but their minds are perpetually stuck in a certain stage of development. Imagine you had all the intelligence, knowledge, and experience of a middle aged man but still had the hormones of a teenager.
[Image ID: a faded Dark Forest spirit (a red transparent cat with black holes for eyes) stands under the title, “Spirits of Shadow: Compendium.”]
I wanted to make sure I wrote down all the Spirits of Shadow I’ve created for the series so far so that if I use them, they don’t feel weirdly placed. Basic summaries await!
Skin N’ Bones: spirits of hunger and cannibalism. Well known tormentors of those in the Dark Forest, driving them into the depths of hunger before turning them so mad, they try to eat other cats. Visit the living world when they struggle to find victims in the Dark Forest.
Wraiths: echos of pain and suffering that haunt a location in the real world and the Dark Forest. They pull cats in to repeat their horrific tales. The shipwreck was once thought to house wraiths, but future generations will say the birth of Carnationspeckle in that shipwreck drove them off with the energy of her pure compassion.
Heralds: spirits pretending to be regular cats. They ask for aid and when the clans give them permission, they open portals to summon more Spirits of Shadow.
Honeybites: spirits who mimic strange dens and enticing caves, luring curious cats into their gaping mouths, which look like typical entrances.
Shardlings: the broken pieces of a destroyed Dark Forest cat, representing their inner thoughts and emotions. Without their other pieces, they are volatile and intense. While they can be “killed”, they always remain as some trace of the dead spirit.
Stormfoots: born of the Dark Forest warrior Stormfoot, who left his bastard kits to freeze to death. They create powerful storms that StarClan has trouble controlling.
Dark Forest Warriors: the general population of the Dark Forest. While some have arisen to become unique enemies in their own right, the entire population of the dark forest can be considered a type of spirit of shadow. While some spend their afterlife quietly, others try to engage with the living and join forces with some of the monsters that plague them.
Darkhounds: the Clan equivalent of hellhounds, the darkhounds are a common enemy in the Dark Forest, chasing down warriors and devouring them again and again. Some cats can manipulate them, just like they would manipulate a pack of dogs. Other times, when a darkhound doesn’t find a soul to snack on, it will slip to the mortal world for a hunt.
Dog-cat: a horrific fusion of dog and cat. Said to be born of Dogcall, who befriended dogs and used them against the other Clans.
Forsaken Prey: if you hunt prey and do not respect its sacrifice, its spirit can turn into a crazed and rabid ghost, seeking to treat you the same way.
Rat Leader: a mass of rats, their tails entangled. Carriers of disease and panic, it is unsafe to be around them for long.
Scarecrows: stories of the strange human figures that stand in the wheat fields have given birth to a new Spirit of Shadow, a human made of wheat and plants that hides and waits for a passing cat.
Leatherwaste: Leatherwaste is the dishonor title of a careless and callous artisan who desecrated the bodies of prey animals beyond use. Now scraps of fur/leather fall off this Dark Forest soul and turn into leather amalgamations who like to destroy Dark Forest spirits in the same way.
Manykits: the spiritual children of Goldtoe, who had mates across the Clans and sired many children. These ghostly kits make cats lost and lure them far from home.
[Image ID: Scaleripple, a gold tom with white vitiligo markings and dark blue eyes.]
My beautiful boy gets a name deep dive all of his own! Oh I'm so proud of him. Isn't he gorgeous?
Prefix: "Scale"
As I'm sure everyone knows, a scale is a specialized plate that grows out of an animal's skin, often for protection and camouflage. For the Clans, there are two main variants of scales; fish scales and snake scales. Fish scales are big, beautiful and serve many purposes on a fish, but prove largely useless for the Clans. These scales, as such, are associated with art and frivolity. Snake scales, meanwhile, stick together and are seen more like skin, with snake leather being a rare but useful material largely produced by SlugClan. Snake scales still have an artistic connotation, however.
While its use in a prefix is undefined as being fish or snake, "Scale" brings to mind images of both sorts of animals, who have their own sleek and nimble connotations. Its appearance in SlugClan often denotes creative influences, but the other Clans focus more so on the fish and snake connection. The tiny size of a scale is also a useful marker for cat size, making Scaleripple's prefix ironic.
Suffix: "-ripple"
I've explored the importance of this word quite a bit in the early days of RippleClan, so I'll be brief here. The symbolism of a ripple is one of growing influence, where a small action creates important, long-term consequences and grows far beyond that one event. When used as a suffix, there is an air of importance bestowed to the cat. Their leader is saying that, no matter how minor their role may seem, their presence affects the entire Clan. Perhaps this was a way to let Scaleripple know that despite his aloof nature, RippleClan cares for him.
Full Name: Scaleripple
Scaleripple leans heavy into fish imagery with his name. Specifically, his name forms the mental image of a fish splashing slightly out of the water and quickly returning to the depths, leaving just a flash of scales and ripples in their wake. It’s almost a magical image, something that typically requires time and attention to see. It’s beautiful, even if all it does is touch your heart for a moment. In some ways, that sums up Scaleripple nicely.
When a Clan cat hears Scaleripple’s name, they imagine someone who made an important impact on just a few cats. A stranger would assume Scaleripple to have a tight circle of kin and family who wouldn’t know what they’d do without him. Even though part of Scaleripple’s name acted as a way to honor Ripplefern, it fits him perfectly. He struggles to connect with many cats, but those who care for him are bonded to him for life.
[Image ID: A lore post titled "Clan Culture: Family Dynamics." Halibutdusk, Clammask, Potterypool, Moontide, and Vervaincough all sit together, representative of the average Clan family.]
Family dynamics within the Clans are small examples of the overall Clan structure. Kits learn of the bond they share with their littermates and parents so they can reflect that bond onto their community as a whole. The model family of Clan cats use one another as a touchstone for social interaction, a permanent fixture of their lives they can trust to provide support in the face of more complex intra-Clan relationships. Each Clan has a similar approach to family and family values, but as different cultures, there are nuances.
Note! While these dynamics apply to queer family structures, I’ll be using a male/female couple able to produce biological kits as the basis for most of these explanations unless stated otherwise, just for the sake of a simple explanation.
Universal Family Dynamics
Kits spend the first six moons of their lives in the nursery with their birth parent, typically their mother. Their mother lives in the nursery with them in order to each them basic functions and social etiquette. Fathers are more than welcome to visit the nursery itself, but are usually expected to stay in the warrior’s den.
The mother and father have special responsibilities to their litter. Mediators and clerics will inform them of their kits needs and discuss treatment options with them. Kits need the approval of their parents for special activities, like the rare supervised visit out of camp. As kits are developing their problem solving skills, their parents assume responsibility for certain decision making not covered by normal Clan structure. For example, parents decide when their kits should go to sleep, whether they get to eat early or have to wait, and other such decisions.
However, most decisions are still typically handled by other members of the Clan or the kit themselves. Clan parenthood is not like human parenthood in the farms or northern settlement. Parents don’t control their kits. They’re simply a special level of authority, like mentors and leaders. This authority fades after their kit’s apprentice ceremony, with the kit’s mentor taking up what aspects of decision making still apply while the apprentice is not an adult.
A Clan cat is typically close to their littermates/siblings and both parents, as you would expect. The inability to move away creates a more communal identity within a Clan cat. Family ties beyond this can vary, however. Grandparents are often added into family circles, and kits may get to know their aunts and uncles if their parents maintain a close relationship. Beyond this, however, Clan cats stop considering one another kin in any meaningful sense. From there, relations are only tracked for the sake of “blood health”, or genetic diversity.
RippleClan Family Dynamics
RippleClan families are larger than average, with more family units considering grandparents and aunts/uncles, even cousins at times, to have close kinship. The Weedfoot family is a good example of this, especially with diverse litter ages.
Once a litter is finished weaning, it’s more than acceptable for the father/non-birth parent to stay in the nursery. James watched over Scaleripple quite a bit in his kit days so Weedfoot could return to her duties. Meanwhile, Waspdawn completely moved into the den to care for his litter. Other Clans do this as well, but no one is as relaxed about it as RippleClan.
Parental rights are quite weak in RippleClan. Parents should be informed of their kit’s visits with a mediator or cleric, but they don’t have as strong a control over their litter’s decisions as in other Clans.
AshClan Family Dynamics
As you may notice in Weedfoot and Puddlespeckle’s interactions, kits in AshClan exclusively call their parents Mother and Father as a sign of respect. AshClan values parental authority the most out of all the Clans, holding it in the same high regard as the authority of codekeepers and mediators in their given tasks. Disrespecting a parent’s decision is like refusing to assist in a codekeeper’s investigation, it is an insult.
AshClan has a special holiday, set in the middle of the summer, where kits cater to their parents, similar to Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. A parent’s authority is heightened that day, even over their adult kits. Beyond Heritage Day as AshClan calls it, cats turn to their parents for advice, guidance, and approval in many life decisions. This makes the process of grieving a parent particularly painful.
While this can be a recipe for abuse in some situations, it also means the process of adoption is sacred. If a cat takes a new mate after having kits, that new cat is not immediately considered the kits’ parent, like in other Clans. Clerics must perform a ritual to transfer parental rights to a kit’s new mother or father. There are two types of adoption rituals in AshClan. The first maintains the respect of the birth parents by simply sharing responsibility with a new cat or cats. This is the more common ritual, done when a cat’s parents die. The second ritual permanently cuts the relationship between parent and child and gives all that authority to the new parent. This is a way for families to disown one another and completely join another lineage.
WheatClan Family Dynamics
WheatClan’s family dynamics are influenced by the farm cats and loners that live to the south. In those families, once a cat reaches adulthood, parents typically aren’t very involved in their lives, as the cat usually ventures off on their own. Since WheatClan has occasionally accepted these cats into the Clan, they’ve developed a similar paws-off parenting style. Adult cats are not especially close to their parents, at least not more so than they are to any other Clanmate. The adult child/parent relationship in WheatClan is more like that between Clanmates and friends, with no trace of earlier authority. You can see this in Rustshade’s relationship with Oilstripe, although his attitude changed somewhat with his second litter.
WheatClan families are highly maternal. WheatClan has the highest rates of honor siring out of all five Clans, as many mollies focus on starting a family regardless of their love lives. A mother has inherently more authority over a kit than a father. This actually makes couples consisting of two mollies the prime example of parenthood in WheatClan, with tom/tom parentage at a lower percentage than the other Clans due to stigma around a tom in the nursery. WheatClan sees this maternal focus as honoring the mother’s burden of pregnancy, nursing, and guiding kits into adulthood, whereas fathers can easily ignore their offspring. A present father is well-regarded, but an absent one will not raise many questions.
SlugClan Family Dynamics
SlugClan is the strictest Clan in regards to blood health (the Clan term for inbreeding). It was SlugClan who discovered the concept of blood health and introduced it to the other Clans, and thus they keep a close eye on it. In order for a couple to produce healthy kits, their nearest blood relative must be, at most, a great-great grandparent. This means that second cousins (whom the other Clans consider to be far enough away health-wise) are essentially forbidden from having biological kits together. They aren’t seen as kin, so they can be mates, but there is too much risk for bad blood if they reproduce.
Because of this stricter approach to blood health, SlugClan is the most accepting of couples who choose not to have kits over the course of their relationship. A cat's mate is often adopted by their littermates and parents as a new addition to the family (a trait that carried over to RippleClan, but is less common among the other three).
SlugClan's relationship with blood health also affects their relationship with honor siring. WheatClan may have more single mollies becoming mothers, but SlugClan often features couples who find an honor sire. For tom/molly and molly/molly relationships (or any relationship with a cat capable of giving birth), the partner who plans to give birth will search for a cat who resembles their mate in order to have kits who look like both parents. In these situations, the honor sire is not involved in the lives of the kits and may not even know the cat giving birth beyond their initial meeting. In tom/tom relationships, however, one tom asks a molly in the Clan (typically a single molly who was already planning to have kits) to be a surrogate for the two toms. Both the toms and the molly giving birth are considered the resulting litter's parents. These approaches can be seen in the other Clans but happen most frequently in SlugClan.
LynxClan Family Dynamics
While there is nothing particularly special about the parent/child relationship in LynxClan, its the bond between littermates and siblings of different litters that draws the most attention. To be someone's littermate in LynxClan is to make a permanent vow to protect and support one another for their entire lives. When a cat has a problem, their littermates are the ones they turn to first. A litter almost behaves like a Clan within a Clan, willing to prioritize the safety and future of their littermates over other Clanmates.
If a couple has two different litters, the older litter will take on a parental role for their younger siblings. While this behavior can be seen across the Clans, it is a respected and official form of authority in LynxClan. Older siblings are like mentors to their younger siblings, making sure they understand the connection of blood between one another. This means that aunts, uncles, and cousins are a respected form of kinship in LynxClan in a more official capacity than RippleClan, but parents and grandparents are given less focus over time.
