Cove And Quarry - Tumblr Posts

I just figured I’d do a map mockup of the territories before I post the next thing about these clans so there’s some context for where they are. It’s kinda rough and now that I think of it, super weird that there’s just a quarry in a grassland near a very scenic beach area, but stranger things have happened in nature (I saw a thing on TV about sinkholes on a beach and that’s some scary shit). The grass is higher beyond this area, which eventually extends into woodland.

 Coveclan territory encompasses the second cliff and a nearby rocky pool area which is great for finding both prey and interesting items alike. Their cats are surmised to have descended from kittypets, which accounts for their more laid-back nature compared to their dry-pawed counterparts.

Quarryclan territory extends outward into the field area, though they do traverse into the forest for better hunting sometimes despite not technically “owning” it. They’re drawn to the forest since that’s where their cats originated from, though there are whispers that more sinister things lie deeper within...

The two clans are fairly peaceful with each other overall. Their territories don’t actually overlap, which is likely part of it. They are also smaller clans and have less issues as far as prey populations and competing for resources goes. But they weren’t always at peace, just ask Ryestar about the leader that preceded him...

Back when Ryestar was a freshly-made deputy by the name of Ryerush, he was a nervous wreck. This is his first gathering in his new position and needless to say he is overwhelmed.

Turtlestar (then Turtlebreeze), on the other hand, is basically a chill stoner in cat form. She finds this little dude amusing, though she’s surprised that Barkstar didn’t pick Oakclaw instead since he’s more in line with her ideologies. 

I did this partly because I felt like Brackenkit’s design needed a little something more, and also to drop a tiny bit of C&Q lore. 

There is a story in Quarryclan that is simply referred to as Barkstar’s Curse. Brackenkit hears this story and is immediately curious. She wants to see if there are ghosts in the woods and drags her siblings along. They sneak out, though are thankfully found and brought back quickly. Hallowkit swears she saw a ghost and is mortified. When she is apprenticed and it seems like it's not going to work, it is found out that she has headache-inducing visions that increase in strength the farther she goes from camp. She is offered to be a medicine cat apprentice by Mallowcloud, who relates with her anxieties and similarly acquired his ability after a dangerous experience. As she grows into her position, she finds that she can also commune with spirits, and later foresees Emberdusk’s death.

Like I mentioned before, Mallowcloud takes Hallowpaw in as he relates to her. As an apprentice, he and his littermates decided to have a race to the top of the gathering cliff. Mallowcloud slips and falls into the water below before being rescued by a Coveclan apprentice (Sootear, then Sootpaw), sustaining an injury that leaves him with an unbalanced gait and a fear of water. He also then starts to realize that he can make accurate predictions through cloudwatching.

“What’s the report on prey today, Mal?” “Good day for birds. You get a robin, Robin.” “Oh, funny!”

Even though he’s usually a bit skittish and reserved, he’s got a dry, punny sense of humor (some cats don’t realize he’s joking). It comes out more when around his brother Robinswoop, though he remains stoic around Honeyshine. The race was her idea, after all, and he doesn’t want to get tangled up in her disastrous ideas of “fun”.

“What if they find out?” “Well, I don’t think Turtlestar will mind much anyways. There was always talk that Wavestar probably had kits outside of the clan with how relaxed things were. ‘Sides, your dad’s the leader and he doesn’t seem like the kinda guy to kick you out.”

So... this has been a pairing I’ve been thinking about for a while. After Sootear saves Mallowcloud, the two become friendly at gatherings. A playful nudge from Soot, a rare smile from Mallow... oh no, what are these feelings? Mallowcloud goes out to gather herbs and Sootear just happens to wander on by... Sootear is more calm whereas Mallowcloud tends to get in over his head with worry, so when his beloved black-and-white fluffball expresses concerns, he does his best to ease him.

Now for things from Sootear’s perspective. Quotes from the picture are in italics because I’m aware my handwriting is horrible, to say the least.

“Oh Sooty, you and Cricketleap would be such a cute couple!” “Haha, yeah...”

At least a small group of cats in Coveclan are waiting for Sootear and Cricketleap to “realize their feelings for each other” and announce that they’re mates (read as: I was originally going to pair them together once). The two would be perfect for each other, with how goofy and high-energy they both are. They’re just close friends, though. Finchwing’s comment is made extra awkward since Sootear is... already taken but nobody knows.

“When are you gonna settle down and start a family like your brother?” “Never! It’s the single life for me, Pops!”

Allow me to sidetrack for a second and say that I headcanon Sootear and Rainfoot’s dad Icetail as sounding like Daud from Dishonored. That aside, Sootear’s seen as the irresponsible, troublemaking younger brother between the two. It’s not entirely wrong, but he does exaggerate a little to keep up the charade so nobody suspects a thing.

“So who’s this bundle of crow feathers here?” “This is my apprentice, Hallowpaw. Hallowpaw, this is Sootear. He’s the cat I told you about who saved me.” “...Hi...”

To make her feel more comfortable about her place in the clan, Mallowcloud has told Hallowpaw his own story at some point. They go out to collect some herbs--conveniently close to Coveclan borders--and who should show up but Sootear. Hallowpaw has always been very shy and remains so, even though she’s been assured this cat is a friend. Not long after this she wanders off to get herbs a little closer to camp while Mallow and Soot catch up.

“Y’know, she looks like she could be our kit.” “I mean, she’s my sister’s, so close enough.”

Sootear finds it amusing when he looks at Hallowpaw: with her tall, tufted ears, amber eyes, and long fur that sticks out despite how much it’s washed, she looks halfway like his kin. Her demeanor is far more like Mallowcloud’s, though. At gatherings, Soot notices that Hallow has the same kind of relationship with her siblings that Mallow does with his (an observation that Mallowcloud is very much aware of), and in a way feels a sense of protectiveness towards the quiet molly.

Mallowcloud brings some herbs to Marshflower and Swiftmist in the elder’s den. He stays to hear some very interesting information about Coveclan from his old mentor.

"Turtlestar never took a mate or had kits. There’s some rumors that she was in love with Icetail's mate Gullfeather. She always doted on their sons like they were her own, especially after Gullfeather died."

Swiftmist nods. "Pebblesplash and Granitespeckle also lost their parents, and Mistleleaf lost her father."

"That good-for-nothing tom rejected her after her mother and all her littermates died of sickness. I wish Mosstuft had told me sooner, because I would've done something about it..." Marshflower's ears folded back as she recalled. "Dustbark and his mate took her in, though. He always was kind. Quite the looker in his youth too, I've heard, but not nearly as flighty as Wavestar."

Robinswoop would be the first of Mallowcloud’s family to introduce himself to Sootear. He’s just a very friendly guy. He is also very small as he takes after Ryestar. I personally think that Robin’s positive reputation would make him the best candidate for deputy to the more stoic Snowstar in the future.

Also, an accurate depiction of Sootear’s reaction to meeting Hallowpaw for the first time.

Next up will be some stuff about Creekpaw’s family. Oakclaw in particular had some personality development, but not necessarily the good kind...

What is this, me giving background characters actual personalities? No way. I tried applying some tarot symbolism and assigned each character a card based on looking up what they meant and some bits that stood out to me, but I’m not involved in the tarot so don’t read too much into it I suppose.

[read more below bc there’s a lot of story; also content warning for Oakclaw generally being an abusive piece of shit.]

Oakclaw sort of always had this vibe of being a more “traditionalist” and antagonistic character. Basically, Tigerstar. He was always sort of suspicious of Emberdusk, and didn’t like that outsiders such as he and Windsong were welcomed into the clan. It makes more sense now with the lore of quarry cats believing those born in the forest are cursed by Barkstar.

Ahh, Barkstar. Speaking of her, Oakclaw was her biggest supporter, and in fact they’re actually kin. She always wanted things to be more like the old clans, with a stricter adherence to the warrior code and all its aggressive territorialism, closed-minded ideologies, and total loyalty to the leader and StarClan. To her, the old clans fell apart because they lost sight of that, when in fact the opposite was true. When a separate group of cats decided to inhabit the nearby cove, it was mistaken as a threat and war was waged. Many were killed, Barkstar herself included.

Oakclaw in all his self-absorption thinks he’s their last chance. He still feels anger and betrayal that Barkstar picked that runt to be next in line over him. It must’ve been a lapse in judgement. He peers over the other cats at gatherings, how awfully friendly they all are. If he was leader, he’d have driven out the cove cats and claimed their land. His eyes rest on one in particular: Sootear. His involvement with their medicine cat irritates him. Ryestar’s youngest has always been soft, just like his father. Though it was startling to see the look of absolute fury on Ryestar’s face and the threat to exile him for suggesting that Mallowcloud be punished (Oakclaw’s exact words were more extreme, not that he’d admit it).

It’s a wonder that a cat so passive and quiet would take to someone like him, but perhaps that’s why he likes Fawnspot: she won’t argue against his opinions. Whether or not she agrees with him, she won’t say. She’s more content to be a rule-abiding follower than try to come up with her own ideas. Fawnspot is stressed by the change in order, and frequently joins patrols and hunting parties because a part of her is afraid at the idea of having free time to just do... nothing. She doesn’t know what she even likes because she’s never stopped to ask herself that.

As a result, her three kits don’t have much of a relationship with her. Which, sadly, is better than what they have with their father. Oakclaw is varying degrees of disappointed with all his children, and by extension believes that their mentors are bad influences, unfit to teach them.

Foxpaw is the simplest case: he’s pretty ‘no thoughts, head empty’. He is surprisingly happy-go-lucky and doesn’t particularly care about his father’s goals, if he’s even aware of them. Oakclaw deems him lazy and a failure, and doesn’t even bother with him.

Where Oakclaw is Tigerstar, Hickorypaw is Brambleclaw... Well, the whole “cats assuming I’m like my dad because we look similar and having to step out from under his shadow” thing they had going on originally with him and then dropped the ball on, anyway. He’s a big soft fluffball who is kind out of pure spite, though he feels the most pressure from his father to challenge the current leadership in his stead. Oakclaw knows he’s not getting younger and that his chance has just about passed.

Creekpaw suffers from the same flaw as her mother: staying silent. She knows of her father’s disinterest towards her (but why? she’s done nothing to offend him) and is afraid to speak up for herself. Combined with her distant relationship with her detached mentor, she’s left confused and wondering what’s going on. Creekpaw takes the role of an observer, watching everything that goes on from the background, until certain events force her to take action. 

When Hickoryheart’s life is in sudden danger at his father’s claws, Creekwhisper may finally have to break her silence.

This is Wilder, he is relevant to my Cove and Quarry thing. I will leave it intentionally vague as to how for the time being, however, so make your guesses.

The sun was starting to sink in the sky as they made their way through the field, its colors washing the earth and their pelts in a deep orange like that of flames. Times like this made Emberdusk think his name very befitting of his appearance, with his bright orange pelt and amber eyes. Lost in his thoughts, he almost didn't hear Smokestep's scoff as he continued talking about... whatever it was.

"Eh, I don't believe that whole thing about "Barkstar's Curse". It's just a tale to get kits to behave."

Emberdusk wanted to forget about the curse that hung over his head like a storm cloud. Any cat expecting kits was reminded of it as a warning: do not have your kits in the woods, or they will end up like Barkstar's. Emberdusk was born in the woods; would he meet the same fate? Or worse, was everyone he held too dearly doomed to die? "I don't know... What about my parents? Whitefern's father...?"

Just then, he felt the molly's paw on his shoulder. Her fur was dappled by the setting sun casting shadows through the high stalks around them. She was a radiant, soft cloud, no matter the weather. "Emberdusk, none of that was your fault. Kits' tale or not, I don't think you're cursed."

He found he had nothing to say.

"We're out here to hunt, so let's look around!"

"Okay..." He found that gloom could not cling to his pelt when she was around. "Thanks, Whitefern."

She perked up when his mood slowly changed. "It's nothing!"

Having walked ahead of them, Smokestep stopped to turn around. "Ugh..." He rolled his eyes. "You guys! Get over here."

As her mentor and the cat he clearly held affection for dashed to catch up, Creekpaw quietly hung behind, wondering about this curse. Could it really be true? Perhaps this was why Emberdusk was so avoidant of her and kept shoving off his duties to train her on other cats. Whatever it was, her father certainly complained on his irresponsibility. Oakclaw had already been mad enough when the outsider had been appointed her mentor. It must be a lonely life to be an outcast, Creekpaw thought. Will that be my life, too?

I've been having a hell of a time with cat genetics lately. I had previously mentioned how much Emberdusk annoyed me (he didn't even have the full set of colorpoint markings) so I modified him a little. The one on the left will be his new design going forward.

I also tried my hand at figuring out how close I could get to his design in a more realistic cat. I had to figure out what his parents were first. So I messed with this generator and had to figure those out first. His sister having flame/cream points and him having seal and a darker main body color than white/cream was most of what I had to work with and I tried to get something for him as close as possible to a color that could look red, even if only by sunlight. Ended up with seal sepia and decided it was good enough.

Then I spent the next several hours determining Whitefern's genes so I could figure out what their kids would look like so I can design them. Oh boy. And I probably still got some stuff wrong I bet.

Welcoming fall with Applepaw

"Go get Flashpoint and Pineburr. It's time something was done about our outsiders."

More of Barkstar committing war crimes. Hating the presence of the cats living in the cove for how they seemed to treat this life as an easy game, ignorant of the old clans and their code that she felt she was destined to restore, she wanted to teach them a lesson. Taking her supporters (and a handful of cats who did not want to go), she set out to lay waste and claim the land for hers. A lot of cats on both sides died.

Gullfeather had been with her kits when Barkstar and her most loyal follower arrived, and thought quickly to hide them in some shrubbery. She'd been no match and they were still found.

Barkstar hated the cats that came from the woods with their kittens. How dare they get to survive the forest while two of her own kits died there? She devised a plan to lure them into this den with the false pretense of taking these now-motherless kits back to the quarry after they were done, and use the opportunity for more slaughter, blaming them for the death of a queen and her kits as an excuse to drive their own children out.

She'd gotten finished with Flashpoint and Pineburr and was turning towards the two grey kittens cowering in the bush, when who but Wavestar would come in carrying Barkstar's own young son, the last of her doomed litter, limp in his jaws.

It has occurred to me that I never posted the redraw I did of my old Cove and Quarry refs even though it's been a while since I made them... So here they are because why not (I deleted the original posts apparently idk so no link to those for reference).

So besides the fact that my cats are slightly less ugly and more expressive, the biggest change is that I'm not calling them clans anymore. QC is still sort of connected to the Warriors universe by way of "what if the clans fell apart circa OOTS, the survivors left to create the Quarry Colony, and the 3 plus Hollyleaf ended up becoming the new afterlife." (that's the short version, anyway) Which I guess technically makes this a post-cat-society-apocalypse AU?

Anyway because I am bad at brevity, change log below cut as well as a family tree (I have a version with spoilers but I will not be posting that).

CHANGES:

Mostly a lot of design changes, clarifications on details, and for the tortie/calico characters they got a small reference of their other side because that was something the old sheets were severely lacking since none of them besides Robin are symmetrical. Basic rundown:

Marshflower is a dilute tortie. She looks more like an actual cat that could exist now instead of... well, this.

I decided to go with Robinswoop's second design I came up with. He is also a trans tom.

Honeyshine's name is now Honeysnap, as Cloudkit's warrior name was going to be Cloudshine and I didn't want too much overlap with suffixes.

Brackenkit is also a dilute tortie.

What was once a typo has now become lore for Hallow's name having been changed. That will be addressed as I have a story written for this. Hallowpaw is the lore-heavy character instead of Emberdusk now, really.

Emberdusk and Windsong are both colorpoints, and their parents are to match, though they're not the most realistic I guess. Emberdusk would ideally take more after his mom and be a seal sepia but I specifically wanted him to be dark ginger since he was originally bootleg Wish.com Fireheart.

Turtlestar, Finchpetal, and Applepaw got design changes.

Cricketleap is supposed to be a Havana Brown, having been a housecat, though I'm sure that doesn't come across very well here.

Pebblesplash and his daughter Silverpaw got some adjustments. They (or at least, Silverpaw) also have vitiligo. Cinderkit might as well, though that's not clear yet.

Willowpaw is nonbinary, which I'd always felt like they should be, but never updated any of my notes until I redid all the designs.

Cloudkit! I've been feeling like Cloudkit is the Cove's equivalent of Hallowpaw and I want to do something with them eventually. He's a chimera and goes by he/they.

Here is the family tree without spoilers, though this was made before the redesigns and so has the older versions of the cats on it.

Snowstripe's eyes swept across the gathering spot, snagging on the familiar black and white pelt of his colony's healer as he sat very cozily next to a stocky tom with thick grey fur. He squinted, trying to recall if he'd ever interacted with this cat, let alone what his name was.

Who but Robinswoop would hop by to sit next to him, chirping helpfully when he noticed Snowstripe's confused expression, "Oh, the grey tom is my brother's mate. Sootear."

"Hm?" Snowstripe blinked, getting Robinswoop's full attention now. Sootear... He sniffed thoughtfully, remembering how he'd been the first to pick up the scent of the cove near their borders. A sandy, salty scent, with something akin to seagulls mixed in. Then Mallowcloud had a large shell in his den and feathers in his nest, and he knew that Mallow, with his limp and preference for mice, was not one to be high-leaping for seafaring birds. "...Explains why his scent is familiar."

Being deputy and not much of a talker, Snowstripe had a reputation for being a stoic, closed-off character. Robinswoop, who had a way of making friends with ease, had known better. It was nice, actually, to just have someone to casually talk to. Robin had a tendency for making others comfortable around him, so happened upon all sorts of information by chance. Having family in charge must've made it easy, though his family was... eccentric, Snow had come to realize.

"Between my brother and your sister being... terrible parents..." It was a harsh way to put it, but he wasn't sure of another way. Smokestep was always a fool, and Honeysnap... well that wasn't his place to speak, but he'd noticed how Hallowpaw would stare after her, while Honeysnap blithely ignored her existence. Mallowcloud and Sootear were probably better parent figures to her. "And your brother being with a cove cat, that sounds--"

"Like quite a life, huh? Hahaha!" Robinswoop laughed, finding it funnier. He looked up at Snowstripe with sincerity. "But really, Snowy, I think you'd be a good dad. I see how Stormpaw looks up to you, and you're so gentle with him."

Snowstripe was taken aback. He knew about Stormpaw, that he idolized him from kithood, always talking about how he wanted to be deputy someday just like him. But he had never considered parenthood himself. Kits, huh? It didn't sound like a terrible idea. But there wasn't anybody... "...Thanks." After a moment of sitting with it, he figured he may as well be polite and return the conversation. "What about you?"

He thought he saw Robin's whiskers twitch as the small tom laughed again. "Me? No way! I'll stick with being the fun uncle!"