Nekomimi (Cat)

Nekomimi are the people blessed with the blood inherited from the cat spirits. Often viewed as lazy, capricious, and vain, the nekomimi, like their yokai antecedents are creatures dedicated to exploration of luck in all its forms. To truly understand them, one has to know they consider luck to be a living, sapient cosmic force, capricious and unpredictable, twisting events and coincidences according to its whims, sentiments, and desires. It is not without its mortal favorites, though it is inconstant in its blessings, often being cruel to its preferred playthings. Nekomimis lives are shaped by this understanding—they know the well deserved fruits of hard work can be taken away in a blink of an eye, the lazy can prosper, and the true love can be found and lost on the same night. This sense of impermanence and undeserved consequences of life makes nekomimi either detached and distanced from the life or passionately grasping the life as it comes, riding the waves and ripples of the turbulent Fortune. While some nekomimi choose one of those stances over the other, many oscillate between those two, with the most extreme and the most stereotypical ones doing that on a moment’s notice.

Physical Description: Like other kemonomimi, nekomimi are almost human, except for a pair of ears and a tail, resembling ears and tail of a cat. They are usually slender and lithe in build. Their skin colors ranges from pure black, through various bronzes, to reddish, orange, various tones of pink, to almost white, while their hair can be of any color seen in humans plus tones of green and blue. They can also have unusual combinations of hair and skin color, such as orange hair and brown skin.

Society: Nekomimi often live among humans and other kemonomimi, observing, testing their luck, sometimes taking advantage over the less blessed by the Fortune and sometimes desiring to spread its favors among the others. True nekomimi societies are rare, for they believe that gathering too many of the Fortune’s chosen would dilute its blessings and attention, or worse, focus too much of the Fortune’s fickle attention. They do gather occasionally in small groups, either extended families or joined by shared interests and preferences. Such miniature nekomimi societies lack rigid government, besides the maternal authority over underage children, which is near absolute if rarely fully exercised.

Relations: Nekomimi prefer to live among other races, and most of them love to, even if the other races are not always showing understanding of their approach to life. The more detached nekomimi respect the stoicism of the akaimimi, while the more hedonistic ones feel particularly aligned with the curiosity and joyfulness of araiguma and tanukimimi. Their opinion of inumimi and usagimimi tend to be less respectful, finding their communal spirits too restraining.

Alignment And Religion: Nekomimi approach the concept of the Fortune from all the angles, and alignments, with evil nekomimi enjoying and spreading the cruelty of the world itself, and good nekomimi going out of their way to share the fruits of the benevolent luck. The lawful nekomimi tend to be more detached from the world and the antics of the Fortune while the chaotic ones are usually the more passionate breed. Some nekomimi choose to be mortal servants of the Fortune, deliberately inciting events for good or for ill, depending on their alignment. Worship of the gods is not strong among the nekomimi, who are often too strong-headed and prideful to show proper reverence and respect to deities. There is common sentiment among nekomimi that, despite all their supernatural power and command over the world, the deities are no less playthings at the mercy of the Fortune than the mortal beings.

Adventurers: Adventurers often live with the blessing of the Fortune and die at the Fortune’s slightest whim more so than most other people so it is no wonder that nekomimi are attracted to adventuring life. Bards, rogues, and swashbucklers are particularly common classes, though the sense of awe, respect, and control over one’s fate associated with sorcerers and oracles is very appealing to nekomimi.

Standard Racial Traits

• Ability Scores: Nekomimi are agile and charming. They gain a +2 bonus to Dexterity and Charisma.
• Type: Nekomimi are humanoids with kemonomimi subtype.
• Size: Nekomimi are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Speed: Nekomimi have a base speed of 30 feet.
• Languages: Kemonomimi begin play speaking Common and Sylvan. Kemonomimi with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following languages: Catfolk, Celestial, Giant, Goblin, Tengu, and Vanara.
• Low-Light Vision: In dim light, nekomimi see twice as far as humans.

Feat & Skill Racial Traits

• Racial Bonuses: Nekomimi gain a +2 racial bonus to Climb and Perception checks. They learn to climb almost as soon as they can walk, and they have keen senses.
• Cat Affinity: Nekomimi gain a +4 racial bonus to Handle Animal and wild empathy checks made to interact with cats and cat-like beasts. All kemonomimi have an affinity for their animal kin.

Other Racial Traits

• Fortune’s Favored: Nekomimi can reroll a single dice roll once per day.