Wescat

Diet
 Attributes
 Status
 Lifespan
 Height
 Manna Type
 Kingdom
 Native Language

Wescats are the smallest of the ten ruling creature-kinds of Valadae. They are practical, highly adaptable creatures, with an innately resourceful disposition.

Wescats are actively social and live in large communities, where families of all trades and bloodlines are treated with equal standing. Most have inquisitive natures and are unapologetically candid in their opinions.

## Appearance

Wescats are mustiled in appearance (akin to weasels, stoats, and minks), with a long, flexible spine, three layers of insulating fur, short rounded noses, and four powerful claws on each paw.

Being primarily underground dwellers, the layered fur helps to protect their skin from collecting dirt and particles during their burrowing jaunts. Their claws are long and straight; ideal tools for digging into the ground.

Female wescats have a chest pouch, which they use to nurse and carry their young during the first few weeks after birth. They usually have one or two cubs at a time.

The outer layer of fur on males wescats is twice as thick as on females, especially around the faces, necks, and along their backs. This is a natural source of padding, to protect them during fights, as well as possible hazards during burrow-crafting (males nearly always dig the first shafts of burrows).

Colouring in wescats is extremely diverse. Not only do fur tones range from whites, yellows, oranges, all the way through to reds, browns, and blacks, but wescat fur can be mottled, speckled, patched, and even multi-hued.

## Lifestyle and Lifespan

Wescats are inherently active and adventurous. Their often charismatic and pragmatic traits ensure they get along well with almost every other sentient creature-kind in Valadae, including dragons and morwulves. They have an especially deep and rooted bond with fellow subterranean dwellers, the duards, of which they share many interests, both cultural and primal, including mining, stone-craft, archaeology, travel, as well as social structures, male to female dynamics, lore, and creed.

Due to their hyperactive metabolic rate and lively lifestyles, wescats have a far shorter lifespan than most other sentient creature-kinds. The average lifespan is forty cycles—which is really put into perspective when a centaur (another of the ruling creature-kinds) is entering the final stage of adolescence around that age.

## Weaker Denins

Although wescats are denin—naturally capable of using magic—their connection to the flows of manna outside of their bodies is weak, and as a result, they rarely show promise in becoming proficient magic-wielders. To compensate for such poor inborn abilities, wescat often use enchanted objects to boost their spell castings—the most common being talismans worn around the neck, and bai batons crafted from wood, metal, or bone.

Even with enchantments, wescat magic is still considered below average. As such, they often only dabble in diffusion and mild manipulation magics of such powers as Counters, Dispels, Deflection, Telekinesis, and Assistance.

## Trivia

**Valadilian Trivia:** A wescats fur is so well insulated that they can survive in almost every biome in Valadae, including the scorching arid regions, and sub-terrains of sub-zero temperatures.