Mammalian Heritage
Also known as tabaxi
Hailing from a strange and distant land, wandering tabaxi are catlike humanoids driven by curiosity to collect interesting artifacts, gather tales and stories, and lay eyes on all the world’s wonders. Ultimate travelers, the inquisitive tabaxi rarely stay in one place for long. Their innate nature pushes them to leave no secrets uncovered, no treasures or legends lost.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Tabaxi have cat-like heads with slightly elongated muzzles, large eyes, triangular ears mounted on the tops of their heads, and whiskers. They have digitigrade legs with clawed feet and hands, and long tails. They are covered head to toe in fur except for the tips of their noses and soft pads on their hands and feet.
Genetics and Reproduction
Tabaxi females have litters of 1 to 4 kittens after a 7 to 8 month pregnancy. They mature at the same rate as human children.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Each tabaxi has a single name, determined by clan and based on a complex formula that involves astrology, prophecy, clan history, and other esoteric factors. Tabaxi names can apply to both males and females, and most use nicknames derived from or inspired by their full names. Clan names are usually based on a geographical feature located in or near the clan’s territory.
The following list of sample tabaxi names includes nicknames in parenthesis.
Tabaxi Names: Cloud on the Mountaintop (Cloud), Five Timber (Timber), Jade Shoe (Jade), Left-Handed Hummingbird (Bird), Seven Thundercloud (Thunder), Skirt of Snakes (Snake), Smoking Mirror (Smoke)
Tabaxi Clans: Bright Cliffs, Distant Rain, Mountain Tree, Rumbling River, Snoring Mountain
Courtship Ideals
Tabaxi courtships begin when two tabaxis' obsessions become each other. They then move through a complex game of gift-giving and learning the mysteries of each other while trying to keep their own close to their chests.
Relationship Ideals
Long-term relationships among tabaxi are rare, and in cases where they exist they are often poly-amorous. Once a mate holds no more secrets to uncover, a tabaxi is likely to start looking for a new mate.
Culture and Cultural Heritage
Tabaxi treasure knowledge rather than material things. A chest filled with gold coins might be useful to buy food or a coil of rope, but it’s not intrinsically interesting. In the tabaxi’s eyes, gathering wealth is like packing rations for a long trip. It’s important to survive in the world, but not worth fussing over.
Instead, tabaxi value knowledge and new experiences. Their ears perk up in a busy tavern, and they tease out stories with offers of food, drink, and coin. Tabaxi might walk away with empty purses, but they mull over the stories and rumors they collected like a miser counting coins.
Although material wealth holds little attraction for the tabaxi, they have an insatiable desire to find and inspect ancient relics, magical items, and other rare objects. Aside from the power such items might confer, a tabaxi takes great joy in unraveling the stories behind their creation and the history of their use.
Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals
Wandering tabaxi are mercurial creatures, trading one obsession or passion for the next as the whim strikes. A tabaxi’s desire burns bright, but once met it disappears to be replaced with a new obsession. Objects remain intriguing only as long as they still hold secrets.
A tabaxi rogue could happily spend months plotting to steal a strange gem from a noble, only to trade it for passage on a ship or a week’s lodging after stealing it. The tabaxi might take extensive notes or memorize every facet of the gem before passing it on, but the gem holds no more allure once its secrets and nature have been laid bare.
History
The tabaxi's ancestors were some of the few genetically modified habilis that the Elder Things created with a purpose, rather than from pure scientific curiosity. Inserting the genetics of Torian felines into the habilis made them preeminent scouts and spies for the Elder Things, giving them both the physical talents and proper mental state to ferret out secrets but not to dwell on what they learn.
Once the first gaians began to change during the millenia of living with magic following the Godswar, those that started to change into tabaxi began to vanish. They were being drawn into another phase of reality adjacent to the prime phase. This place was inhabited by all manner of strange creatures known as the fae (or fey), who called the place the Feywild. The tabaxi were welcomed and made a part of the fey homeland.
Over the following eons occasionally pockets of tabaxi would wander out of the Feywild, driven by their innate curiosity and wanderlust, and arrive in the prime material phase. They created a society there calling themselves by another name, but that society was wiped out by The Culling. Since then and until very recently, tabaxi have been little more than stories told of cat-men by the other species.
Curiosity drives most of the tabaxi found outside their homeland. These tabaxi work in small troupes, usually consisting of an elder, more experienced tabaxi who guides up to four young ones learning their way in the world. They travel in small, colorful wagons, moving from settlement to settlement. When they arrive, they set up a small stage in a public square where they sing, play instruments, tell stories, and offer exotic goods in trade for items that spark their interest. Tabaxi reluctantly accept gold, but they much prefer interesting objects or pieces of lore as payment.
These wanderers keep to civilized realms, preferring to bargain instead of pursuing more dangerous methods of sating their curiosity. However, they aren’t above a little discreet theft to get their claws on a particularly interesting item when an owner refuses to sell or trade it. The ever-present curiosity sometimes drives one to leave his or her troupe to seek out more interesting mysteries.
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Scientific Name
Homo farrago felis
Average Height
5 to 6.5 feet
Average Weight
100 to 150 lbs
Average Length
3 feet (tail length)
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Tabaxi fur can be free of markings, or it can have any of the common patterns found in true felines, such as a leopard's spots, a tiger's stripes, or a calico's splotches.Their fur is typically a shade of white, black, gray, brown, or orange, or some combination thereof.
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