Homebrew Dreamlands Cat Species Details

SOCIETY

As normally solitary and often capricious hunters, cats don’t really have a society in the humanoid sense of the word. Cats are able to live in large groups, but do not cooperatively hunt or organize. With their greater intelligence, Dreamlands cats can work together to go to war, gather for raids, and hold celebrations. Dreamlands cats have been known to form an effective militia of sorts, including having military ranks, to proactively defend themselves as a race from organized enemies such as zoogs and moon-beasts. The cat vocal apparatus is not built very well to speak humanoid languages. However, cats are perfectly capable of understanding these languages, and they can learn any of the languages spoken in their home area. Other people must learn the Cat language to communicate effectively with their fickle feline companions. Fortunately, the Cat language is fairly easy to learn: in fact, most people who own a cat are probably halfway there already. A one-week association with a specific cat allows a character to understand that specific cat without needing to learn the Cat language. This does not allow them to understand other cats unless they spend a week with those cats as well. The character can spend one week with multiple cats and understand them all after that week. Communicating with cats is a combination of learning what some of their meows and whines mean and also understanding patterns of behavior. A cat understands what party members are saying, and soon enough those party members usually learn how to talk with the cat.

CULTURE

Cats in the material world don’t have unified cultures in the sense that humanoids do. Instead, cats live for the now and participate in the culture of their humanoid neighbors. Even the intelligent Dreamlands cats use their greater brain power simply to adapt to their environment that they might better enjoy their lives as cats. Cats are not typically materialistic: they do not keep much in the way of equipment or possessions. Part of this is practical, as cats lack prehensile hands or any real means of manipulating objects, rendering them unable to create material items. Without a specially constructed harness, they can only carry small objects for short distances in their mouths. And cats are also naturally passive creatures, taking what is offered to them, like food or affection, and assuming it will be offered again in the future. Cats who do not live with people may have a den, but even this is not constructed by the cat itself: it is merely a hole or hollow tree in which the cat finds shelter from the elements.

RELATIONS

Fundamentally, cats are friendly to humanoids—or at least those who keep cats as companion animals. Of course, even within these societies, there are those who dislike cats, and cats are usually keenly aware of who likes them and who does not. Often, a cat will pay especial attention to someone they can tell does not like cats, as a way of keeping that person off balance. In the Dreamlands, cats often have tense relationships with zoogs.

ADVENTURERS

Cats sometimes adventure, most often with humanoid companions, to feed their curiosity and to contain threats to their chosen territory. Cat adventurers like to point out that they usually cost nothing when staying at an inn—far less than a horse, anyway, which requires stabling and grooming—and can often feed themselves by catching small rodents, bats, insects, or birds. They are clean and neat and take up little space. When traveling in areas where cats find it hard to go (such as up sheer cliffs), the cat can be easily carried in a pouch or on a shoulder. They are incredibly convenient as companions, and of course, a cat that can cast spells or scout and communicate has obvious value.

MAGIC ITEM MELDING

You can meld a Tiny magic item permanently into your body when you carry it into the Dreamlands. If it requires attunement, you must be attuned to it to meld with it. When you do, it permanently vanishes and becomes a part of your body, perhaps manifesting as a tattoo or a differently colored patch of fur. A melded magic item can’t be damaged separately from you but removing the matching body part ends the item’s benefit until that body part is reattached (such as by a regenerate spell). A melded item’s magic aura can still be detected normally. A single body part can’t have multiple items melded into it. When leaving the Dreamlands, you can choose to separate the item from your body en route. If you end attunement with a melded item, it remains melded but you lose all its effects until you attune to it again. Any observer can notice your body part is supernatural by succeeding on a DC 10 Wisdom (Perception) check. The item can be identified with a successful Intelligence (Arcana) check, but the DC is 5 higher than it would normally be. See below for rules on specific types of magic items; you can’t meld with a magic item that doesn’t fit into one of the listed categories.

• Weapon. When you merge a weapon, it melds into either both sets of front claws or your jaws. All magic properties of the weapon (but not the weapon’s base physical statistics) apply to your unarmed strike using the applicable part(s).

• Armor. When you merge armor, it melds into a pattern of fur on your back and underside. You must be proficient with a suit of armor to meld with it. You are treated as wearing the armor in all respects. You can suppress or resume the armor’s effects by concentrating (as if concentrating on a spell) for the length of time normally required to don or doff it.

• Wand, Rod, or Staff. When you merge a wand, rod, or staff, it melds with one of your eyes. That eye glimmers with some magical feature (such as flames) that is symbolically appropriate for the item. You can use the melded item as if it were held in hand.

• Worn Wondrous Item. When you merge a worn wondrous item, it melds with the fur on a matching area of your body. You are constantly treated as wearing the item. As an action, you can treat the item as if you were no longer wearing it until you use another action to again effectively wear it.

MOON JUMP

When in the Dreamlands, you can leap into the night sky and travel to one of your current planet’s moons (or, if on a moon, leap and travel to the planet below) as an action. This movement provokes an opportunity attack normally. This trip takes you 2d6 minutes to complete, and while jumping, you are in a demiplane. A group of four Dreamlands cats can bring a single creature up to one size category larger with them when they Moon Jump, while a group of eight Dreamlands cats can bring a single creature up to two size categories larger with them. When you use Moon Jump to return to a planet or moon you left via Moon Jump, you return to within 1 mile of where you departed that planet or moon. You can use this trait twice. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

NINE LIVES

When killed, your mind and consciousness shifts reflexively back into a dream form, creating a new dream body if necessary. You must then rest for 1d3 days in the Dreamlands, after which point you can return to the waking world. You can revive yourself in this manner up to eight times, giving you nine lives in all. Resurrections from other methods (such as via a raise dead spell or other powerful magic) do not count against this limit.

CAT EQUIPMET

You are limited in the type of magic items and equipment you can use. As you have no hands, you cannot use items that require hands (such as wielding a manufactured weapon or shield). You can hold items in your mouth well enough to aim a wand or carry a Tiny object. You can wear armor if it is tailored to fit your feline form. You can wear and benefit from magic rings, belts, goggles, gloves, boots, bracers, amulets, cloaks, and similar items, which magically adjust themselves to your size and shape when you attune to them (or when you don them, if they don’t require attunement). Cat spellcasters often create variants on magic items designed to be worn as earrings. You can speak a magic item’s command word in Cat to activate it even if it normally requires another language, and you can speak Cat even while carrying something in your mouth.

CAT SPELLCASTING

You can provide somatic components for spells by moving your tail and whiskers. You can provide verbal components for spells with normal cat sounds. If a spell requires a material component, you can hold it in your mouth, which does not interfere with providing verbal components, or use any component (or spellcasting focus, if appropriate) within 5 feet so long as the component isn’t carried by a creature unwilling to let you use the component.

LANGUAGES

You can speak Cat. You can also understand and read the language of a nearby predominant community (generally Common), but you can’t speak or write non-Cat languages without magical assistance. You can be understood by anyone who speaks Cat. As previously noted, anyone who has spent a week with you can understand you specifically, but not necessarily other cats. The Cat language has no written form. Its words sound like meows, hisses, and yowls. Since non-cats have such difficulty with the sounds, cats generally prefer others to use equivalent words and names in their own language rather than trying and failing to use Cat correctly. When a cat speaks, it meows or caterwauls, but when humanoids speak to cats, they speak in their normal tongues. It is quite a different situation from most communication, in which both parties must speak the same tongue to get anything done.

Dreamlands Cat Traits

Your cat character has the following racial traits.

Cat's Fang

You can bite with your unarmed strike. You are proficient with your unarmed strikes. When you bite, your unarmed strike has the light and finesse properties. You can make an unarmed strike with your bite as part of two-weapon fighting. If you are Tiny, it deals 1 piercing damage.

Keen Smell

You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.

Land on your Feet

When you fall, you can use your reaction to right yourself before you land. If you fell less than 60 feet, you treat the fall as 10 feet shorter for purposes of damage (reducing damage by 1d6). If you fell at least 60 feet, you have time to better maneuver and relax, instead negating all fall damage beyond the first 10 feet (for a total of 1d6 bludgeoning damage). If you take damage from a fall, you nevertheless land on your feet if you succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw

Nimble

Athletics is always a Dexterity skill for you.

Ability Score Increase

Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Charisma score increases by 1.

Age

Dreamlands cats reach adulthood at 1 year of age and live less than 25 years.

Alignment

Dreamlands cats are disinterested in societal expectations and view each relationship as a unique arrangement distinct from all others. They are most often chaotic.

Size

Dreamlands cats are typically between 15 and 21 inches long from nose to base of tail and 8 to 13 inches tall at the shoulder. Your size is Tiny. Despite your size, you have a reach of 5 feet

Speed

Your base walking speed is 40 feet. In addition, your long claws give you a climbing speed of 30 feet. You don’t need to spend extra movement to climb.

Darkvision

You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray

Feline Agility

Your reflexes and agility allow you to move with a burst of speed. When you move on your turn in combat, you can double your speed until the end of the turn. Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you move 0 feet on one of your turns.

Cat’s Claws

You can use your claws to make a single unarmed strike. You are proficient with your unarmed strike. When you make your unarmed strike with your claws, it has the light property and you can attack with it as part of two-weapon fighting even though it uses multiple limbs. If you are Tiny, an unarmed strike with your claws deals 2 slashing damage and has the finesse property.

Dreamlands Cat