Secrets Of The Clans

Foxes

Russet-red fur, bushy tails, sharp teeth, and pointed noses. Look a bit like dogs.

Live in dens, often in sandy ground hidden by undergrowth.

Live alone or with their cubs.

Mean, suspicious, and hostile, they don’t eat cats, but they will kill for pleasure and not just for prey.

They hunt mostly at night and have a strong and unpleasant smell.

Badgers

Large, with short black fur and a white stripe down their long, pointed muzzles.

Small, beady eyes, powerful shoulders, and sharp claws.

Live in either caves or sets, which are tunnels underground, bushes, or tree roots.

Live alone or with their kits and have a very distinctive smell.

Badgers sometimes prey on young cat kits. Can trample their victims with enormous paws or deliver a deadly bite.

Have tremendously powerful jaws that make it nearly impossible to escape their grip.

Midnight: An exceptional badger at the sun-drown-place. She has no hostility for cats. She has a special connection with StarClan and can speak both Cat and Fox. It was Midnight who passed on the message that the Clans must leave the forest.

Dogs

Size varies from that of a kit to a pony. Fur can be long or short, white, brown, black, gray, or a mix. Can have pointy or flat noses, droopy or sharp ears.

Make loud, angry noises and love chasing cats.

Live mostly in Twoleg nests or barns.

Wild dogs might sleep anywhere; one pack in recent Clan history made their home in the caves below Snakerocks.

Loud, fast, and sharp-toothed. Many dogs seem to be devoted to their Twolegs and are seen only in Twoleg company.

There is a theory that most dogs are too dim-witted to be truly dangerous. Packs of dogs are always to be feared. (See ThunderClan, Brightheart Speaks: The Death of Swiftpaw.)

Birds Of Prey

Winged predators with hooked beaks and sharp, curving talons, these include hawks, eagles, falcons, and owls.

Nest in hollows or branches of trees, or on the ledges of cliffs.

Extremely sharp vision for spotting prey from a distance. Hawks and eagles are daytime hunters; owls hunt at night. They swoop down from the sky to carry off prey, which includes kits. This was the fate of Snowkit, Speckletail’s deaf son, when a hawk attacked the camp after a forest fire had burned away its protective cover. The Tribe of Rushing Water have developed clever ways to hunt these birds.

Horses/Sheep/Cows

Four-legged farm creatures.

Horses are tall and swift with flowing manes and tails and giant, pounding hooves.

Sheep look like fluffy white clouds dotted across a green field.

Cows can be black and white or brown, and their hooves are to be avoided.

Large fenced fields and sometimes hay-filled Twoleg barns.

Mostly harmless. However, take caution passing through their fields. A galloping horse or stampeding herd of cows would trample a cat without even noticing.

Rats

Brown-furred and beady-eyed rodents, with long, naked tails and sharp front teeth. Not much bigger than kits.

Live in garbage dumps like Carrionplace in ShadowClan territory or anywhere they can scavenge Twoleg food.

Live and travel in packs. Individually they pose no threat to cats, but their numbers are often overwhelming, and bites can cause infection. A single rat contaminated the whole of ShadowClan during Nightstar’s brief time as leader.

Twolegs

Tall, smooth-skinned creatures with some fur on their heads.

Walk on two legs.

Live in large, boxy nests with hard roofs and floors, often surrounded by tidy gardens and fences.

Also known as Nofurs or Upwalkers. Twolegs ride around in monsters and seem to like dogs. They are to be avoided if possible, as they are capable of doing something unpredictable at any moment, such as tearing down a tree, starting a fire, or locking up a cat for no reason.