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A catfolk appears in the Shattered Star Adventure Path at one point. Its illustration looks more like the Bestiary 3 catfolk. It looks like it's wearing regular boots.
I don't have any answers for the rest of the questions.
It's just different artists' interpretations (Kieran Yanner vs Carolina Eade), most of the Pathfinder artwork is done freelance. I'm guessing Paizo isn't too strict on appearances since it's ultimately up to the players anyway. Except iconics and whatnot.
Been brought up a few times. They range from cat-headed humanoids to catgirls and Thundercats. Use what works.
Different artists.
Often there is little time or means to get a revision from an artist. Schedules can get really tight.
Bestiary 3 is kinda anime-ish, ARG is basically khajiit, and the Shatted Star one looks like a Thunder Cat style. Go with the one you like Andrea said. My catfolk is a Disney style in my mind.
Disney style?
Bypassing the obvious "Oppa Disney Style" joke, I'm presupposing she means either a) the Beast from Beauty and the Beast or b) (more likely) the humanoid animals from generic Disney cartoons (like how Goofy is a dog and Mickey is a Mouse).
You... you watched that movie, didn't you!
(Kidding. That was just a thing with its original title.)
Nope. Scientists did in fact recently unearth evidence of a 'hobbit'-like subspecies of humanity. It has been independently confirmed & everything.
Oh, yeah, I know about the 'Hobbit subspecies' - that was even part of their court argument to avoid changing the title. I just meant that it was a joke. :)
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Oh, yeah, I know about the 'Hobbit subspecies' - that was even part of their court argument to avoid changing the title. I just meant that it was a joke. :)
Several subspecies or related species can exist. So, I guess chose the catfolk that work best for your campaign. (It might be amusing if the different groups are not aware of each other and someone describes members of the different groups to each other. I remember playing a svirfneblin character years ago and one NPC asked "WHAT are you?")
In my HB version of FR I have created several different, related groups of 'catfolk'. They even have their own country in Kara-Tur (Petan).
In that setting, they made the mistake of calling both a tribe of Chultan natives and catfolk 'Tabaxi'. I fixed this by saying in the distant past Rakshasa captured a large group of the Tabaxi people and interbred with them, creating the Tabaxi catfolk. The slave-race eventually escaped (they always do, don't they?) and they still call themselves 'Tabaxi' as part of their racial pride/heritage (which is where the name -mixup comes in).
The Rakshasa (in my homebrew material) are responsible for MANY of the 'beastmen' races, and the Tabaxi eventually grew into several subgroups (the Rakasta of the Mystara setting) themselves, representing various strains of felines (in actually, the Rakshasa lord they are descended from).
So this ties into what others said above - you have a 'divergence of species' over long periods of time.
Creative Director
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Hm...considering that Mr. Jacobs sees them as the Bestiary 3 version, and Golarion as a campaign setting was originally his, I'd usually venture on having Golarion catfolk look like the B3 version. However, since I do so love khajit, in any other campaign setting I run, they're the ARG catfolk.
Parts of Golarion were adapted from my homebrew, not all of it. I never really had catfolk in my homebrew, in any event.
I do think that the look we got for them in Bestiary 3 is the best so far—the ARG version looks too much like the catfolk from Skyrim for my tastes, and the one from Shattered Star too much like Thundercats. Getting a single look for catfolk has pretty much been a fail across the board so far—not that one is empirically "better" than the others, but that we haven't managed to standardize things like how their feet and legs and ears and faces look yet is unfortunate.
At this point, it very much IS a pick which one you like best for your game. Going forward, the next time we do something significant with catfolk (I'm not sure when that will be) we'll nail it down for Pathfinder/Golarion.
Hmmmmm... there wouldn't happen to be a pic somewhere of the PF version so I could see the difference, would there? The Skyrim ones look like standard fare.
When I Google 'Pathfinder Catfolk' I get VERY different images, and I don't think any of them are official.
Edit: Nevermind, found one. I should have Googled 'Golarion Catfolk' instead. So they are more like tigers - I don't really see much of a difference other then coloration, and I would think that was variable between different tribes.
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Hm...considering that Mr. Jacobs sees them as the Bestiary 3 version, and Golarion as a campaign setting was originally his, I'd usually venture on having Golarion catfolk look like the B3 version. However, since I do so love khajit, in any other campaign setting I run, they're the ARG catfolk.Parts of Golarion were adapted from my homebrew, not all of it. I never really had catfolk in my homebrew, in any event.
I do think that the look we got for them in Bestiary 3 is the best so far—the ARG version looks too much like the catfolk from Skyrim for my tastes, and the one from Shattered Star too much like Thundercats. Getting a single look for catfolk has pretty much been a fail across the board so far—not that one is empirically "better" than the others, but that we haven't managed to standardize things like how their feet and legs and ears and faces look yet is unfortunate.
At this point, it very much IS a pick which one you like best for your game. Going forward, the next time we do something significant with catfolk (I'm not sure when that will be) we'll nail it down for Pathfinder/Golarion.
Well then the smart thing to do here is to hire Carolina Eade full time
Just re-reading what Mr.Jacobs said in the above quote...
How would people feel if the more human-looking variety were the standard fare, and feats would give certain racial (bestial) attributes? So they'd have 'normal looking' hands and feet most of the time, but when they 'go all feral' they become more like cat paws?
On the other hand, that almost makes them too much like shifters (the Eberron variety, which is a sort-of hybrid lycanthrope form).
I am only suggesting this because its nice to give folks options, and sometimes 'nailing it down' - while normally a very good thing - also curtails what some folks might want to do with the lore. The other way to go is to actually present different tribes with different looks (more work, but that could make everyone happy). I wound-up doing something similar with my minotaurs.
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Just looked over her DeviantART site - she's got my vote.
She should DEFINITELY be doing the work on the Fey Book. She has a way of capturing the 'alieness' of creatures in a way I have not really seen since Tony Diterlizzi (although that man is in a league of his own).
Yeah I like her artstyle especially for catfolk and fey.
just have multiple ethnicities of catfolk with different features
the Khajit from skyrim ones in the ARG
the bestiary 3 kind
the shattered star thundercat kind
the anime catgirl kind (nekomimi)
Kinda like what they did with Aasimar and Tieflings.
At this point, it very much IS a pick which one you like best for your game. Going forward, the next time we do something significant with catfolk (I'm not sure when that will be) we'll nail it down for Pathfinder/Golarion.
Why nail it down? I think all you will achieve with that is that some people might be disappointed.
Right now every gaming group can have it look as they want. If you make an official decision on how they look that changes.
well look at it this way, there may be different ypes of cat folk as there is the aasimar and tiefling.......
Or Elves, or Goblinoids, or halflings, or giants, or dwarves, or humans.... etc.
Not everybody looks the same. Why wouldn't catfolk have subraces? Different-looking groups can come from different cultures and climates (just like every other group on the planet).
Hm...considering that Mr. Jacobs sees them as the Bestiary 3 version, and Golarion as a campaign setting was originally his, I'd usually venture on having Golarion catfolk look like the B3 version. However, since I do so love khajit, in any other campaign setting I run, they're the ARG catfolk.Parts of Golarion were adapted from my homebrew, not all of it. I never really had catfolk in my homebrew, in any event.
I do think that the look we got for them in Bestiary 3 is the best so far—the ARG version looks too much like the catfolk from Skyrim for my tastes, and the one from Shattered Star too much like Thundercats. Getting a single look for catfolk has pretty much been a fail across the board so far—not that one is empirically "better" than the others, but that we haven't managed to standardize things like how their feet and legs and ears and faces look yet is unfortunate.
At this point, it very much IS a pick which one you like best for your game. Going forward, the next time we do something significant with catfolk (I'm not sure when that will be) we'll nail it down for Pathfinder/Golarion.
Since when did Skyrim corner the market on anthropomorphic cats? 0_o
Personally, I never got why you'd bother calling a race "catfolk" if you didn't go the whole nine yards with the similarities; fur, cat-heads, cat legs and feet, the works. It would be like slapping fox ears and a tail onto a human, calling it a kitsune and then calling it a day.
In before some other mythology buff points out that the Japanese were also not very consistent in their depictions of kitsune. :-P
I gottsa say I rather like the version from B3 best. Sure more anime I suppose, but I think it has more "flavor" than a man with a tiger head.
We looking at the same picture? That's basically what I see when I look at the Bestiary 3 catfolk; in my opinion, it looks like a human with very slight aesthetic cat-like qualities. Like someone did a fan art of the Cheshire Cat as a human and called it a day.
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Why nail it down? I think all you will achieve with that is that some people might be disappointed.
Right now every gaming group can have it look as they want. If you make an official decision on how they look that changes.
Because establishing a consistent look for a race is pretty important for an RPG. I point to our goblins and our ogres as examples.
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Since when did Skyrim corner the market on anthropomorphic cats? 0_o
They haven't... but finding a unique look for Pathfinder for races is part of what we try to do. You can tell a Pathfinder elf, gnome, or goblin, for example, apart from other fantasy settings. That's valuable to us.
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Since when did Skyrim corner the market on anthropomorphic cats? 0_oThey haven't... but finding a unique look for Pathfinder for races is part of what we try to do. You can tell a Pathfinder elf, gnome, or goblin, for example, apart from other fantasy settings. That's valuable to us.
Identity is very important for a company. I do appreciate the fact that I can tell a Pathfinder product by its art alone.
Jumping to sci fi here, but I prefer larry niven's kzinti.
They even had an ad&d coversion from an old dragon issue.
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Jumping to sci fi here, but I prefer larry niven's kzinti.
They even had an ad&d coversion from an old dragon issue.
Yes...
They're in Star Trek, too, because of Niven's authorship of an animated episode (which are considered canon, now...)
I love Ringworld. Now, if only I could play an insane, cowardly Puppeteer in Golarion...
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Because establishing a consistent look for a race is pretty important for an RPG. I point to our goblins and our ogres as examples.Why nail it down? I think all you will achieve with that is that some people might be disappointed.
Right now every gaming group can have it look as they want. If you make an official decision on how they look that changes.
Then I really hope you don't make the B3 one official. I find it rather disturbing. With it looking mostly human except for the way the leg is bent makes me think of a shadowrunesque human possesed by an insect spirit who uses bodypaint and a false tail in a weak attempt to look like a cat.
And that compells me to react in a "kill it with fire" mentality that would make this kind of catfolk a no-go for me.
Because establishing a consistent look for a race is pretty important for an RPG. I point to our goblins and our ogres as examples.Why nail it down? I think all you will achieve with that is that some people might be disappointed.
Right now every gaming group can have it look as they want. If you make an official decision on how they look that changes.Then I really hope you don't make the B3 one official. I find it rather disturbing. With it looking mostly human except for the way the leg is bent makes me think of a shadowrunesque human possesed by an insect spirit who uses bodypaint and a false tail in a weak attempt to look like a cat.
And that compells me to react in a "kill it with fire" mentality that would make this kind of catfolk a no-go for me.
Cheshire Cat in Doctor Seuss shoes! :D
Although I guess we should start talking about what COULD make an iconic catfolk race instead of what we all don't like about each and every one of the three variants seen in Pathfinder so far.
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The B3 one would make a great iconic for me! Or anything that looked like thundercats! :)
I kind of like the jadeclaw take myself.
I love the B3 version, it reminds me of Thundercats as well.
I prefer B3 to the Kizinti version.
Eh, one of my players wanted a Catfolk character who looked like an anime catgirl.
I was okay with it. If a DM says they have to look like the Bestiary ones, I'd be okay with that.
However, if a DM says they all look like the ones from the Advanced Race Guide, I'd pick something else.
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Eh, one of my players wanted a Catfolk character who looked like an anime catgirl.
I was okay with it. If a DM says they have to look like the Bestiary ones, I'd be okay with that.
However, if a DM says they all look like the ones from the Advanced Race Guide, I'd pick something else.
See, this is why I proposed leaving the topic alone and not nailing the catfolk look. For every one of those three there are people who'd decide against playing that race if they officially look like "insert one of the possibilities".
I'm all for corp identity and such. But here (in my opinion) paizo clearly has much more to lose than to gain.
Anthromorph's
cat boy/girl human with cat charistics (ears, tail, eye's)
example: nekomimi
catfolk human cat hybrid (even mix of features)
example: ironclaw/jadeclaw
werecat cat with humanoid body (bipedal stance, prehensile hands)
example: Kiziniti
Even with the large amount of variation among a species or even subspecies you should be able to tell the diffrence between a weretiger and a subspecies of catfolk with a tiger like pelt and a cat boy/girl on sight.
@Zotpox: As I didn't find good pictures showing Kiziniti or your Catfolk examples (or I don't think what I found to be good examples of what I expected) what would you say should be the differences between werecats and catfolk?
I'd see them both as having a humanoid body with fur, catlike tails, catlike legs/feet. For a catfolk I'd expect a face that's somewhere between cat and human, for the werecat I'd expect a more catlike face. I could see the werecat having more than two mammals, making them distinctly different from catfolk.
Your example for anthropomorph (nekomimi) for me looks just like a catfolk-fangirl with false ears. Or, you could say, like a perfect example how catfolk should never look like.