Hey Everyone!

Russ here with a new communi-cat-ion. There may not be one of these every day but I wanted to update you all on some developments and also share some of the world lore for Cats too…

A Tale of Tails

Several commenters have noticed that Sonja didn’t look very fluffy for a Maine [see forum posting rules], especially her tail…after reviewing her, I decided that I agreed with this! So I have spent time today reworking some of her details to make herbigger, floofier and more imposing as a mini. I think the new version does her justice!



Isn't she lovely?

I hope you’ll agree that she is looking more impressive than her original incarnation- we want all our kitties to look their best, after all!

The Welcoming Dark

The rules companion for Cats will introduce the concept of the Welcoming Dark, a special place for Cats. This excerpt reveals some of the nature of this strange demiplane and its effects on feline adventurers…soon we will reveal howthis also influences some of the adventuring paths cats may choose…


The Mark of Twilight, used by cats in reference to the Welcoming Dark

Cats, although they welcome contact with others, have a low threshold for the noise and chaos of other beings and require time alone to recharge. This need is served by frequent visits to the Welcoming Dark. Brought into being bythe collective will and power of feline kind, this is a place cat go to replenish themselves when they sleep. It is a collective space that all cats can access.

A place of quiet whispers, padding feet and swishing tails in the almost silence, the Welcoming Dark is where they can be their true selves and recover from the demands of the world. All cats instinctively know of this place, butonly Awakened cats consciously draw upon its power. To do so brings them serenity, energy and solace. Some have delved deeper into its shadowed paths and found new, strange ways to use its power…


That's all for today! Keep sharing your ideas and suggestions and tell everyone you know about our Kitty Committee! It's nearly the weekend but between some much-needed catnaps I will be around the comments!

Communi-cat 04: 6000 backers and Sonya's Story!

Posted by Russ Charles (Creator)

Hey Everyone!


Russ here once again with another look into the work going on behind the scenes for Cats and Catacombs!

Firstly, we now have over 6000 people in our Kitty Committee and that is amazing! Once more, on behalf of everyone working on the project, I thank each ad every one of you for helping us write the next chapter in the story of Animal Adventures.

Next week I will be sharing some exciting news about the artists that are joining us on this project. Thanks to April's efforts, we really outstanding art incoming and I can't wait to talk about it a little more!

Today however, I thought it would be fun to share one of the stories that will appear in the Rules Companion for Cats and Catacombs. And, seeing as we spotlighted changes to her miniatures earlier this week, it felt only natural to take a look at Sonya's story.

I hope you enjoy this little slice of adventuring life and that it whets your appetites for the other great tales that will appear in the Companion...

Sonya's Tale

"What will you spend yours on Sonya?”

The skinny half elf with a straggly blond beard loitered by the crossroads, relieving himself into a bush. The rest of the party, two dwarves with heavy axes, a halfling in leather armour and daggers, and a silent, hulking figure in rough furs and a sword waited a little further on the road to the city. All of their bags were weighed down with gold, the reward for clearing out a nest of gnolls in the mountains.

As usual, they were returning to their base in the city to invest in their latest venture - a tavern called the Raider's Rest.

“Catnip and Toms!” One of the dwarves shouted, to general laughter. Sonya pretended to be offended, then ran up to the dwarf, jumped, twisted in mind-air, and landed all four heavy paws on his stomach, knocking the air out of him.

“I know what you should spend yours on,” she called, landing nimbly on her feet. “A diet!” More laughter.

The group, easy in each other’s company from long hours in battle, and buoyed up from their recent successful adventure, continued on their way.

Early the next morning, in the dawn’s faint light, no-one noticed Sonya slipping away from the Inn out of a back window. Stripped of her heavy fighter’s armour, and without her weapons, Sonya looked just like a normal cat - apart from a small pouch fastened to one shoulder. She was large, being a Maine [see forum posting rules], but her lithe form slipped easily in and out of alleyways and over walls until she reached her destination.

The cottage with the well-tended back garden was obviously poor, but neatly kept, with flowery curtains, and a little rocking chair on the back porch. Sonya was aware of other cats gathering, although they all kept their distance from her. Sonya was used to this - unawakened cats could sense her difference, had done so since she could remember. She was used to it and paid them no mind.

There was movement inside the cottage, and the cats sat up, more alert, some purring in anticipation. Despite herself, Sonya felt the stirrings of old feelings, the memories of a first home and hearth.

The back door of the cottage opened, revealing the diminutive form of an elderly human woman, her grey hair pulled back into a tight bun, an old, faded housecoat drawn over her woollen dress.

“Puss-puss-puss,” she called, shaking a bucket, “Puss-puss-puss.”

As one, the cats, nearly a dozen, scrawny, with ragged ears from lives lived on the street, jumped down and began circling her legs, mewling and crying.

The old lady chuckled and began handing out fish heads, throwing them to the more hesitant cats who dared not approach too closely. The mewling turned to purrs, as each cat set about their breakfast. Sonya stayed in the shadows. She did not need this lady’s kindness for herself - not now.

Sonya waited until the old lady returned inside, and jumped carefully down from the wall. She retrieved the small but heavy pouch from her shoulder, biting the knot to free it. She tucked it into a corner of the door, then, her duty done, she headed quickly away.

She found the tumble of kittens in the old barrel at the end of the garden. They lifted their heads at her approach and mewed in recognition. She saw that their bedding had been freshly changed, and that water and food had been left for them. They were weaned, almost old enough to leave here, but still reliant on the kindness of the elderly woman. She gave a silent prayer of thanks, and turned to go, but something stopped her.

She turned back, and met the eyes of one kitten, hiding at the back of the barrel. His gaze was steady and knowing. Sonya’s breath caught in her throat. She hadn’t dared to hope that one of her litter would be like her. Slowly she approached the stout, but tiny form.

“What is your name?” She breathed quietly, still not quite believing. The kitten regarded her coolly.

“Dale.” He mewed, in a high, quavering voice. “My name is Dale. Mother.”

Joy surged through Sonya, tempered with emotions she couldn’t quite name. Steadily, she returned the serious gaze, giving respect where it was requested.

“Good.” She replied. “Dale. I greet you.” She nodded and turned to leave.

“Wait.” The kitten betrayed his first doubt. “I...I want to go with you.”

Sonya turned back to him. “My life is hard and dangerous.” She paused, “But I will return when the moon is full. Then show me what you have learned.”

The young cat nodded, accepting. Sonya paused a moment longer. “Look for me in the Welcoming Dark.” She said, “I will be there for you.”

Then she left.

Hey Folks!

We’re into the final days of the campaign and at over 1000x funded we’re, quite simply, gobsmacked at the support you’ve shown! Every retweet, share, comment and like has meant the world to me and the team.

Kate has been hard at work putting the finishing touches on the kittie’s backstories and thought it would be nice to give them to you to get your creative juices flowing. If you’ve got any ideas for your cat’s backstory then put them in the comment section and we’ll have a read through!

Right, enough from me. Hope you enjoy the story!

Russ



The room was full of books, spilling out of the bookshelves onto the simple wooden tables and chairs, even in one or two cases onto the tiled floor. It lent the room an air of chaos, but looking more closely, it was clear that each of these books related to the others in the stacks or shelves, and each and every one of them was spotlessly clean, free of dust, and, aside from a little wear and tear on the older tomes, pristine.

Hesta could have put her claw onto any book she wished to in an instant. She knew the location of each and every one of her treasured volumes, every spell component, the levels of ink in each well, and exactly how many quills she had, and in what state of sharpness each of them was.

It was irritating therefore, that Maven kept stealing things.

The raven stood before her now, in a huff, the offending item lying accusingly between them. The bird shifted slightly in what passed for the Corvid version of guilt.

“Look at me, Maven.” Hesta tried again.

The bird met her gaze for just an instant, then looked away again. It’s clawed foot moved ever so slightly towards the coin, then curled and moved away again.

“I know you like it, Dearest, but it’s an important part of the spell, and I need it.” Hesta reached out with an ethereal hand, picked up the coin, and inspected it once again, ensuring that it was not scratched or dented after its adventure in the raven’s secret stash. The ritual spell, which was to be enacted that evening, would use the coin to ascertain the whereabouts of the evil Goblin King’s Castle. The adventuring party of which she was an occasional member had tracked his minions to a cave and had liberated this coin, one of the Goblin King’s prize possessions, from their corpses.

“Once we’ve done the spell and the Goblin King is dead and burned, you can have it forever.” Hesta offered, her soft heart breaking for the raven’s obvious distress. She reached out her paw, and with one claw extended, scritched the raven exactly where he liked it the most, just at the back of his head. His claws uncurled, and his shoulders unhunched. He began purring in pleasure, the coin temporarily forgotten.

That evening, after hours of battle, an elven cleric, a dwarven fighter, a genasi rogue with fires dampened, two human rangers, and Hesta, stood over the vanquished form of the Goblin king, his minions either dead or fleeing. Hesta leaned on her staff, breathing heavily. She was out of spells, the last of her slots being spent on the decisive blast of a lightning bolt. But the Goblin King was dead, and although his goblin hordes would take some clearing out of their hideaways in the hills and caves of the surrounding valley, the core of the threat was gone.

“Hesta!” the Genasi rogue called, “Look what I’ve found for Maven!” He poked his head out of the side room they’d missed in the heat of the battle with a grin.

Hesta limped over - she hadn’t quite managed to skip out of the way of a barbed goblin arrow - and looked. The Pile of treasure was enough to astound even her. She marvelled at the amount of gold coins - no-one would miss one or two, and they would look splendid in Maven’s secret stash.

Kickstarter

Hi all, Russ here!

So here we are, the update many of you have been waiting for… Dungeons and Doggies is now accessible on D&D Beyond! A massive thanks to Doggies’ fan and amazing human being, Luke Schoener, for his heroic efforts creating this content.And our play testers who have created many doggies in the last few weeks to ensure a smooth experience for all your character creations!

The most important thing to note at this point is that to be able to use the Dungeons and Doggies content in the D&D Beyond character builder, you have to own a subscription of Hero Tier or higher. Unfortunately, free accounts don’tallow users to use public Homebrew content from others.

There are some limitations within D&D Beyond which make adding all of the Dungeons and Doggies content to your collection a little cumbersome, so we’ve made every effort to make it as easy as possible for anyone that wishes to createdoggies characters using it.

Anindex of all of the Dungeons and Doggies content can be found here, if you just wanted to be able to view content while playing using pen and paper, this index is a great resource to have. If you have chosen to subscribe to use the character builder, thengoing through this index to add each piece of content to your homebrew collection is probably the easiest way of doing so.

If you wish to create Dungeons and Doggies characters on D&D Beyond just follow the steps below!

1) Go to https://www.dndbeyond.com/.

2) Sign in using an existing Twitch or Google account. If you don’t have an account you can create a new one.

3) Once you’re signed in you’ll need to subscribe to the Hero Tier or higher, a link to the subscription page can be found here.

4) Once subscribed you’ll need to add any Dungeons and Doggies content you wish to use to your Homebrew collection. As mentioned earlier in the update the easiest way of doing this is following the links providedin the index, link to the index can be found here. To add a piece of content to your Homebrew collection simply click the ‘Add to Collection’ button just below the entry.

5) With the Dungeons and Doggies content now added to your collection you’re ready to create some characters. Head to the My Characters page and then click ‘Create a Character’, which can be found in the top right corner of this page.

6) You’ll now be greeted by a screen asking you to select a Character Creation Method, click standard and you’ll be shepherded on to the next step.

7) Now we’re on the home screen on the character builder. A lot of the information required here is down to personal preference but make sure that Homebrew Content is enabled in the Sources section. Once you’re finishedhere, click the blue ‘Next’ arrow on the right-hand side of the page.

8) Congratulations if you’re still with us, we’ve made it to being able to choose our race! It goes without saying here, we’re choosing a Canine! And once again clicking the blue ‘Next’ arrow!

9) Now it’s up to you to fill out all the information and finish creating your very own pups!

The full racial rules, feats and magic items systems are all present. Please note that we had to make a few adjustments to allow for the D&D Beyond toolset:
•The three types of dog are present as separate races. This is because the Homebrew tool set does not support sub-races at this time. Adding the ‘Canine’ race will add the three dog races to your character builder automatically.
•A few abilities and feats are slightly adjusted to work around limitations on how D&D Beyond can calculate things like Armor Class bonuses or DC numbers. However these are very small changes and not noticeable without a side by side copy of the PDF anda magnifying glass!

We think that Luke has done an amazing job with the digital conversion of the rules and have already had a lot of fun making our own digital Doggies!

In time we will take advantage of any updates to the toolset that affords us new functions and options. Future versions of the Rules Companion will also be adjusted to make sure the rules are 100% consistent across all versions.

Have a Question for the Support Team?

If you have any questions such as you’ve received your pledge and it had missing or damaged components please submit an enquiry request by clicking the button at the bottom ofthis page.

Downloadable Digital Files

Linksto the digital downloads can all be found on this page. All backers should have received an email on March 27th containing a link to the digital files, but we’ll pop it up again here just in case anybody missed it!

Thanks for all of your support, it’s been a real journey! We’re super excited to have the Dungeons and Doggies content on D&D Beyond!

Russ

PaintingPolygons

Gen con insanity done! Doggies was the most fun thing ever to run games for and we revealed these new characters coming to retail (not kickstarter) early next year! Plus,

we just got word that there's a whole new shipment of doggies to head out to stores arrived in the UK hub and USA hub these last few days! So expect to see dogs hitting store shelves in the next couple of weeks...

And some content updates coming soon as we find ways to release the adventures, maps and maybe even bad guys from the event!