Published art conflict: Do catfolk have human faces or not?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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In their first appearance in the Paizo core line (Bestiary 3, page 47), catfolk have human faces. Seven months later, on page 94 of the Advanced Race Guide, catfolk instead have white tiger heads on human bodies, but with an additional and reverse-articulated joint in each leg that is not present in their original depiction.

Both retain tails, a light coat of spotted fur, cat ears, human hands with clawlike nails, human torsos, and human upper legs. It is unclear if the Bestiary 3 version has clawlike toenails due to the odd choice of footwear. But one has a human head and human lower legs, while the other has a cat head and reverse-articulated joints reminiscent of a quadruped.

So which is it?


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Both? Personally I didn't the shift in art but I'm okay with the catfolk race being as genetically diverse as actual cats and allowing for both.


No, they use the litterbox.

Oh FACES. My bad.


I think it's far better to leave it undefined. That way, you can say "catfolk", and the Tolkien fan imagines a guy with whiskers, cat eyes and clawfingers, while the furry imagines something better left inside his head (and Deviantart folder).


You go by the description in the ARG. So the picture depicting a Cats head on human body with reverse articulated joints is just picture but not a catfolk as per the description. Though if you want catfolk to be like that you can but it's not description given in the ARG. The description describes catfolk more like bestiary picture.

Sczarni

Thats like saying 'are birds big or small' when looking at a picture of an Emu and a Hummingbird. They are whatever makes sense in the world ecosystem for that area. What part of a world are you asking about? A Catfolk in a Cold weather climate is most likly more catlike, while one in lightly forested area, more human. If you're in an area with a city that been around for thousands of years, then I'd say human if human is the predominate race in the city, cat if not.


James Jacobs on Catfolk:

James Jacobs wrote:

"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."

From this thread.

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