a (not-so) brief introduction
my clans started as what was supposed to be a small project to add some actual culture to the canon clans and play around with the idea of skyclan always being there. just some quick little stories that were actually supposed to be about canon characters, i believe! that idea was scrapped however as i've roamed so much from that concept as i build them up and rename most of them - riverclan is the only one that kept it's 'original' name - that they've become completely my own; not hard really, with the cardboard cutouts the erins churn out. still, that's how it started.
i currently have five clans, maybe seven. heh. and there'll probably be a few more, the territory is quite large. the exact location is pretty loose. it might be set where the original clans were set in the UK, or i might have accidentally set across the waters in my own home of ireland - where, about exactly, i have no idea. i have a loose map drawn planned out in my head, but i really need to decide so i can research prefixes. ugh. i'm the worst for procrastination, truly. anyway, my clans.
they were founded by five siblings; wigeon of riverclan, shadow of marshclan, aspen of moorclan, sorrel "thunder"of forestclan, and lavender of mountainclan.
they were born an accidental litter of inbred maine coons; the teenager who had been caring for the cats while their aunts were away for three months got scared there was something wrong with the kits due to their parentage when their mother refused to let them nurse and at first handreared them in hopes they would be hardy enough to pawn off quickly before their aunts got home. but with their arrival date looming nearer, they left the five kits, around two weeks old by that stage, at a nearby farm they knew had a lot of feral cats with young in the hopes another cat would take in the kittens. as luck would have it, that was exactly what happened; their adoptive parent came in the form of velvet, a young black molly barncat who got her unusual name from her housecat mother, had just lost two of her own litter of three who were born early and sickly.
velvet named them in the typical fashion of the local barncats, rogues and loners; for their pelt colours, as she had done for the kittens she had birthed herself, the only survivor of which was soot. she tells them the stories that are popular with the barncat beliefs - such as, after death cats go the great hunting grounds on the moon where they are many plump mice fat on grain like you find in the barns, and teaches them how to hunt and fight.
after a couple of years, velvet is killed when she is struck by a car. the six siblings continue to stick together at the barn for a bit, before shadow decides to take off. she meets a loner a while afterwards, gets pregnant, and decides to settle in the marsh. she meets some other young cats who either have quite young kits or are expecting - or a mixture of both. there are no really older rogues in the area. shadow decides that they and their young will all have a better chance if the band together, so they set up home in the end of the forest near the marsh where they do most of their hunting. this clowder will eventually become known as marshclan.
about two years later, shadow runs into a familiar cat as she's hunting in the forest. her brother sorrel - sometimes known by his kithood nickname "thunder" - has moved into the forest with his mate and young family. shadow and sorrel, whose spats are legendary, get into an argument over the squirrel they had been both been hunting and over whose blow had killed it. shadow relents when one of sorrel's daughter makes her way into the clearing. as the clowder grows and several loners begin to join sorrel's clutter, these argument's become more common and eventually they decide to start up a border after one comes to blows between two young cats.
wigeon and aspen also decide to leave the barn, longing for something more. they come across their brother and sister. the idea of a group intrigues them, as the barncats were more so made up of different families sharing a hunting space than one large family like shadow and sorrel's groups seem to be. wigeon, who always had the strongest affinity for water, settles by the river with nir mate. aspen, known for her taste in adventure, decides instead to head towards the moors close by the loners who sometimes stopped by the barn would speak of to see what lies there.
lavender, who had been the youngest, also ends up leaving the barn shortly afterwards. he meets each of his siblings again, and their growing groups. not wanting to choose between any of his siblings, lavender becomes interested in the mountain forest that sorrel did not claim to be part of his territory. there he finds several cats who escaped when a hoarder. he takes them under his wing and teaches them as his mother taught him, while also scouting out for loners, rogues and barncats who might be interested in joining their clan.
about a year after lavender founds his clan, the winter is harsh and tensions are rising. especially between aspen and shadow's clan against sorrel's, and even wigeon with the river and forest more plentiful than the scraps of forest on either aspen's territory or shadow's, and the moor and marsh respectively. lavender, wary of the friction, calls a meeting between the five and all clan members of apprentice age and over who wish to attend. battle almost breaks out. the leaders just manage to get things under control. things are evened out after much discussion. gatherings become a monthly thing.
at some point in that year before the winter, the cats begin to call themselves clans. wigeon, aspen and lavender name them for their territory (moor, mountain) or a very important and notable part of their territory (the river). sorrel first named his clan thunderclan - though he tried to argue it wasn't for his kithood nickname, shadow wasn't having any of it and so first named her clan shadowclan. they eventually changed it to forestclan and marshclan respectively, but arguments between the two clans are generally seen as petty by the other three ever since.
so the clans form over about four and a half years, and lavender creating the tradition of gatherings about a year after that. i imagine the founders make it to around nine, shadow lives the longest at ten and lavender, always sickly, at eight. i'm currently deciding if soot also started a clan, or if they stuck around the barn and thus founded the barn cat culture seen there today. i still have some details to work out after lavender starts his clan, so the last paragraph is subject to change.
and i lied. that wasn't short at all.
expect more soon. maybe about my clans beliefs systems.