Catfolk

This article contains PROMOTIONS! Don't say we didn't warn you.

This article or section is about Monstergirls (or a monster that is frequently depicted as a Monstergirl), something that /tg/ widely considers to be the purest form of awesome. Expect PROMOTIONS! and /d/elight in equal measure, often with drawfaggotry or writefaggotry to match.

/tg/ and the furry fandom have long had a great deal of hostility towards each other. And yet, hate and love can be said to be two sides of the same coin. Furries have often shamelessly involved themselves in roleplaying games, from the likes of Ironclaw and its weeaboo spin-off Jadeclaw to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles And Other Strangeness. And yet, even more mainstream games have thrown them some encouragement.

Cats are, without a doubt, one of the most commonly admired of animals by furries. Consequently, anthropomorphized cats are a common feature in fantasy and science fiction settings, even in games; ironically, catgirls, despite being monstergirls, are very much a rarity in official game materials, because they are seen by many writers as being "too deviant and/or weeaboo". Yet catfolk somehow get a pass on this. Catgirls were introduced into science fiction literature by Murray Linebarger, writing as "Cordwainer Smith", first appearing in his short story "The Ballad of Lost C'mell".

Anyway, there's a lot of different cat-people races that run around various game settings. This article will serve to house and refer to them all.

The notorious Pooka of Changeling: The Dreaming can easily be adapted into catgirl form, as can certain others -- hell, there's an entire catgirl kith called the Nyan. Likewise, Changeling: The Lost has kiths/seemings you can spin as catgirls. Big Eyes, Small Mouth, being "the anime RPG", of course lets you design catgirls as fantasy races or aliens. These are just a couple of examples. Also there is a /tg/ homebrew rpg for them, named CATastrophe.

Chakats are not cat girls and are terrible. Even most furries don't like them.

Dungeons & Dragons

Catfolk in Dungeons & Dragons go all the way back to first edition, with Rakasta first appearing in the modules X2: Castle Amber and X1: Isle of Dread, alongside the Lupin (dog/wolf-people, another hugely common furry race), and Tabaxi first appearing in the Fiend Folio. The Rakasta have a long enough history to warrant their own page, but as for other D&D catfolk...

Tabaxi

• 

  The original tabaxi from the Fiend Folio.

• 

  The revised tabaxi from 2nd edition.

• 

  And they wonder why there are so many furries in D&D.

• 

  The latest take on the tabaxi; looks kind of like the Cheetos mascot.

Initially appearing in the Fiend Folio, Tabaxi are a reclusive race of humanoid felines native to tropical and subtropical jungles. They live in Stone Age-level clans, shyly hiding from most other sapient humanoids and hunting native game like peccaries and capybaras. The Tabaxi were later made a native race of the Forgotten Realms indigenous to Maztica - because of course you're going to have jungle-dwelling cat-people in the South America expy, right? - in the Fires of Zatal adventure. They were then chosen to be added to the official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monstrous Manual.

In the shift, tabaxi went from having an implicitly catgirl-like appearance and tiger-colored pelts to a furry appearance and a yellow with black spots pelt with either solid spots (like a leopard) or roseate spots (like a jaguar); those tabaxi who look like leopards pronounce their species name as ta-BAX-ee, whilst those who resemble jaguars instead call themselves tah-BAHSH-ee.

Maztican tabaxi share something in common with lizardfolk, in that they have a larger, more powerful, innately magic and utterly evil "lord" version that possibly has infernal origins and which sometimes enslaves their clans. Unlike the Lizard Kings, though, "tabaxi lords" appear as huge, talking, non-anthro male jaguars or leopards. They're most notable for the fact that they're bitter rivals of couatls, and in fact were probably made to be expies for the Huitzilpochtli and Quetzalcoatl rivalry, and the fact that they can only reproduce by humping the female tabaxi, which is kind of squicky even for many furries.

Speaking of which, the fact their picture in the Monstrous Manual depicts a naked, big-breasted female tabaxi was probably responsible for more than its share of closet D&D furries.

Tabaxi became a full-fledged PC race in 5th edition, appearing in Volo's Guide to Monsters. They are notable as one of the absolute fastest races in the game, with a base speed of 40 feet per round and the ability to make a super-charged Dash that eats up their next turn's movement action... which is a pretty cheap price for moving close to 160 feet in a single turn. This turned out to be something of a mistake, as their base speed was actually a good 10 feet slower, but still, tabaxi can really sprint, which is odd, given they were jaguars & leopards, not cheetahs.

The 5e Tabaxi PC writeup looks like this:

Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Dexterity, +1 Charisma

Size: Medium

Speed: 30 feet

Vision: Darkvision 60 feet

Feline Agility: When you move on your turn in combat, you can double your speed until the end of your turn. Once you use this trait, you can't use it again until you move 0 feet on one of your turns.

Cat's Claws: You have a Climb speed of 20 feet and can make unarmed strikes with your claws, dealing 1d4 + Str modifier Slashing damage instead of the normal bludgeoning damage.

Cat's Talent: You have Proficiency in Perception and Stealth.

Catfolk

In 3rd edition, when Mystara was lost in WoTC's files, they created a more generic anthro cat race, and they called them... catfolk. First appearing in the Miniatures Handbook, they were later reprinted with a fuller racial writeup in the Races of the Wild. They're described as basically a primitive and nomadic tribal society of humanoid big cats, most commonly resembling lions, with leopard, tiger and cheetah-like individuals being just a difference in coat patterns. They're described as having an emotional nature and tending to act in "fits and starts" rather than in a smooth, continuous effort. Bursts of activity interspersing consistent laziness. They have the habit of leaping impulsively out of hiding and into combat when a foe is in the vicinity, and this is among the reasons why they tend towards Chaotic Neutral alignment. Many catfolk favor the use of charms and totems that they braid into their hair for luck in battle, success on the hunt, and good fortune in other such endeavors.

+4 Dexterity, +2 Charisma.

A catfolk’s base land speed is 40 feet.

Low-Light Vision: Catfolk can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. They retain the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.

Racial Skills: Catfolk have a +2 racial bonus on Listen and Move Silently checks.

+1 natural armor bonus.

Automatic Languages: Common, Feline. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Gnoll, Halfling, Sylvan.

Favored Class: Ranger.

Level adjustment +1.

Amurrun

The first ever Amurrun, in all her catgirl glory!

A Serendipity Shaman, one of the unique class styles developed by the Amurrun.

Pathfinder also includes catfolk, which refer to themselves in-universe as the Amurrun, as part of their fantasy kitchen sink approach. This elicited some query from fans over differences in artwork, portraying them various as catgirls and as catfolk, until it was clarified in one splat-book that Amurrun are very "mutable" and so the exact ratio of cat to human in their appearance varies wildly between areas, or even between individuals, sort of like the Khajiit of The Elder Scrolls. Whether or not this has to do with humans tending to screw Amurrun is left unclear.

Like many of the more popular Pathfinder races, Amurrun have a wide array of alternative racial traits and options.

Core Amurrun Traits:

+2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, -2 Wisdom

Racial Type: Humanoid (Catfolk)

Medium

Base Speed: 30 feet

Low-Light Vision

Cat's Luck: Roll a Reflex saving throw twice and take the better result. This can be done once per day.

Natural Hunter: +2 racial bonus to Perception, Stealth and Survival checks.

Sprinter: +10ft racial bonus to speed when using the Charge, Run or Withdraw action.

Variant Amurrun Traits:

Cat's Claws: Replaces Natural Hunter, grants the ability to make claw attacks (inflict 1d4 damage) as primary attack-class natural weapons.

Clever Cat: Replaces Natural Hunter, grants a +2 racial bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy and Sense Motive checks.

Climber: Replaces Sprinter, grants a Climb speed of 20 feet and a +8 racial bonus to Climb checks.

Curiosity: Replaces Natural Hunter, grants a +4 bonus on Diplomacy checks made to gather information, Knowledge (History and Local) are always class skills, +2 racial bonus to Knowledge (History and Local) if they take a class with those skills.

Nimble Faller: Replaces Sprinter, the catfolk lands on its feet after a fall even if the distance caused lethal damage, +1 racial b onus to CMD against Trip maneuvers.

Scent: Replaces Low-Light Vision, grants the Scent trait.

Jungle Stalker: Replaces Cat's Luck and Sprinter, grants +2 racial bonus to Acrobatics checks, ignore the first square of difficult terrain caused by foliage in each round.

Tibbet

Perhaps the most obscure of all the D&D catfolk, tibbets are a race of shapeshifting sapient felines that originated in Dragon Magazine #135 as a monster before being rewritten for 3rd edition as a PC race in the Dragon Compendium Volume 1.

The original tibbit, or cat-were, was an absurdly overpowered little freak. Said to be a very rare (5% chance) result of crossbreeding between a feline wizard familiar and an ordinary housecat, they were magical cats with "Very High" intelligence, 15% magic resistence, and the ability to shapeshift between the form of a "fat but energetic" black-furred housecat and a small, stealthy, dark-skinned humanoid with cat's ears. Roguish and mischievous by nature, tibbets are naturally chaotic race - 85% Chaotic Neutral, 15% Chaotic Good. As shapeshifters, they are immune to mundane weapons, needing at least a +1 to be hurt, and their feline natures give them both keen senses, making them immune to surprise, and feline agility, making them immune to falling damage.

In its humanoid form, the AD&D tibbet has the powers of a 10th level Thief-Acrobat, whilst in cat form, it can use its meow to Dispel Magic 3/day, spend 1 round licking itself or another tibbet to cure 3d8 hitpoints of damage 2/day, or generate a Mirror Image by arching its back 1/day. Its spell-like abilities are cast as a 10th level wizard. In either form, it has access to the psionic powers of Body Equilibrium, Precognition, and Telempathic Projection, which it can use as a 10th level psion.

If that's not enough ridiculousness for you, just once in its lifetime, a tibbet can make a one-way Plane Shift that transports itself and up to 200lbs of various materials to the plane of Pandemonium, where tibbets apparently dwell "in great numbers". Given that this was made before Planescape recognized the planes, it's probably more logical to place them on the Beastlands now. The tibbets who remain on the mortal world can also issue a plea for help, summoning 5d10 of their fellows from Pandemonium who will fight on their summoner's side for 30 rounds before they are drawn back into the planes.

And the cherry on top: if you ever kill 20 or more tibbets in one place, there's a 25% chance that the Cat Lord, a powerful lesser deity that watches over all cats, will materialize at that spot and seek vengeance for their killing.

The 3rd edition version is altogether less powerful, and is essentially what you get if you try to mix "werecat", "catgirl" and "halflings" in a pot. They are now described as having evolved from wizardly bonded cats generations ago, so you can no longer try and engineer the birth of tibbits by crossbreeding your familiar with other cats. In their humanoid form, they look pretty much like halflings or maybe gnomes; small humanoids with pointed ears. Their feline-like eyes and their cat's fur-colored hair betray their true nature. In feline form, they look like any normal housecat.

Moody, curious and often rather arrogant, tibbits are by nature both hedonistic and adventurous, flexible, but surprisingly loyal to those they consider a true friend.

Their stats are as follows:

Monstrous Humanoid (Shapeshifter)

+2 Dexterity, -2 Strength

Small

Base land speed 20 feet

Darkvision 60 feet

Feline Transformation: A tibbet can spend a standard action at will to transform into a house cat. In this form, it becomes Tiny, gains +2 to AC and attack rolls, +8 to Hide checks, +10ft speed, suffers -8 Str (dropping it no lower than Str 3) and gains +2 Dex and the Scent ability.

It gains a natural bite attack (1d3 piercing damage) and 2 natural claw attacks (1d2 slashing damage) and its only full attack option is to make 2 claw attacks and 1 bite (-5 penalty), no matter its base attack bonus.

Weapons, shields, armor and robes are melded into the tibbet's body during the transformation and cannot be used. Items that require a physical apparatus to function, such as rings or boots, shift into an appropriate form for a cat and remain viable.

In cat form, a tibbet can't speak or use its paws to manipulate fine objects, which prohibits the use of casting spells with verbal or somatic components, using scrolls, or activating magic items.

Whilst in cat form, a tibbet's true nature is only revealed to any effect that can pierce the effects of a Polymorph spell. If slain in cat form, a tibbet reverts to its true form in 1 round. Returning to its humanoid form takes a full-round action and, once it has done so, the tibbet must wait for 1 hour before transforming again.

+2 to Spot checks, Jump checks and Escape Artist checks.

Can speak to cats as an innate ability.

Favored Class: Rogue

Paka

An elegant, well-groomed, aristocratic swashbuckler catgirl... pity she'd rather eat your heart than win it.

The original Paka artwork from 2e... yes, 2e Ravenloft art could be kind of crap.

Though certainly not as obscure as tibbets, few but the setting's most devoted fans remembers the existence of pakas, a race of evil feline lesser shapeshifters hailing from the Ravenloft setting. Possibly drawing their inspiration from a cheesy horror flick called "The Cat People", pakas are evil, malicious catgirls (and catboys) who can take on a human form to disguise themselves amongst the ignorant, xenophobic peasants that make up 99% of the non-monstrous population in the Demiplane of Dread. Except, in this case, they're justified trying to burn pakas at the stake, because pakas are fucking douchebags. Seriously; their whole fluff is that they believe humans committed some transgression against them long ago, and so now they want revenge on all humanity. They don't even remember what humans supposedly did, they just take it as religious doctrine that humans did something, and that nebulous something is justification to trick, harass, and even kill or eat humans forever. Yeah, they're assholes.

That said, they are capable of gratitude, and are known to appreciate and repay acts of kindness, generosity and mercy towards them. This was even used as justification in Quoth the Raven #19, which houses the largest amount of paka-related lore in any Ravenloft book, to give them potential PC status. After all, they're a chaotic species more than an evil one, and so that means there are some paka out there who decide that the whole revenge deal is stupid and devote themselves to just having fun instead.

Beyond being able to switch between catgirl and human forms, pakas have the magical ability to telepathically communicate with and control felines of all kinds, from common housecats to great cats like lions or tigers. They can also heal wounds by licking them, though not very often.

Paka society is essentially matriarchal pride-structure; females group together and form stable bands, whilst males roam as they see fit, occasionally hooking up with a pride (usually to bang any interested females) and then leaving when they're not interested anymore, with kittens being raised by the female prides.

4e Stats:

Mandatory Ability Score Increase: +2 Dexterity

Flexible Ability Score Increase: +2 Intelligence OR +2 Wisdom

Size: Medium

Speed: 6 squares (30 feet)

Skill Bonuses: +2 Bluff, +2 Stealth

Shapechanger: You have the Catform at-will racial power (shift between your paka form and your human form as a minor action) and are considered a Shapechanger for effects and conditions that target racial types.

Lick Wounds: Racial encounter power, only usable when bloodied, use a minor action to spend a single healing surge.

Pathfinder Stats:

+2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, -2 Strength

Medium

Normal Speed (30 feet)

Low-Light Vision

Change Shape (Su): A paka can use a standard action to shift between its normal form and its "human guise", a single specific human identity of the same gender as its normal form. In human guise, a paka has a +10 racial bonus on Disguise checks made to pass itself off as a human. This otherwise functions as Alter Self, save it does not adjust ability scores.

Claws: A paka has two primary natural claw attacks dealing 1d4 damage.

Jumper: A paka is always considered to have a running start when making a jump.

Lick Wounds (Su): As a standard action, a paka can lick its wounds, gaining fast healing 2 for 1 round. A paka can use this ability to heal 2 hit points per character level each day.

Speak With Cats (Sp): Once per day, a paka with a Charisma score of 11+ can communicate with any feline; beyond species restriction, this functions as a Speak With Animals spell with caster level equal to the paka's character level.

Sneaky: +2 racial bonus to stealth checks.

Terali

The terali are a race of leopard-featured catfolk native to the jungles of southern Termana in the Scarred Lands campaign setting. Materially primitive - they are a Stone Age people, using wood, bone and ivory as their primary materials - they are, none the less, one of the more civilized races of Termana - certainly compared to their gnoll neighbors.

These leopard-people live a seminomadic lifestyle; traveling in tribes up to 200 strong, they build vilages for shelter during the rainy season, and then roam the jungles following the game and living out of temporary shelters during the dry season. As natives of the Gamulganjus, part of the region of Termana so colorfully known as the Land With No Gods, they give no fealty to God nor Titan. Instead, they worship a pantheon of spirits, both ancestral and territorial.

A terali tribe is led by a hereditary chieftain, who is advised by a council of elders and tribal sorcerers. These latter souls are instantly recognizable; they are melanistic, giving them an entirely black coat in comparison to the black-dappled yellow of their kinsfolk. Only 1 in 20 terali are born with this trait, and they are highly revered by their fellows for being so obviously touched by the spirits.

For the most part, the terali are content to stay in their jungle, but every so often one of the tribe's marked ones will declare that a terali must be sent to the outside world in search of wisdom - or even be chosen by the spirits for this role themselves. This is in no small part because their spirituality is heavily defined by ritualistic approaches to cleanliness, with outsiders being considered impossibly filthy by spiritual standards - it takes a month to "decontaminate" any terali who returns from the outside world.

Whilst the spirits worshipped by the terali are never defined, a D&D player could do worse than to look up 4e's "Primal Power", which gives one of the most detailed looks at such "spirit religions" as D&D has ever had and whose Primal Spirits are certainly minable for inspiration.

Terali have yet to appear in the 5e update for the Scarred Lands, and in 3rd edition, appeared in the Termana Gazetteer with the following profile:

+2 Dexterity, -2 Wisdom

Medium

Base speed 40 feet

Low Light Vision

Natural Weapons: 2 claw attacks (1d3 damage each) per round, or 1 bite attack (1d4 damage) per round; a terali cannot use these when armed with a weapon or carrying a shield, and still provokes attacks of opportunity when using them unless it has the Improved Unarmed Strike feat.

+2 racial bonus to Listen, Search and Spot checks.

+2 racial bonus to Wilderness Lore checks in jungle and forest terrain.

Favored Class: Druid and Ranger for normal terali, Sorcerer for marked one terali.

The Races of Pathfinder
Player's Handbook:	Dwarf - Elf - Gnome - Half-Elf - Half-Orc - Halfling - Human
Advanced Race Guide:	Aasimar - Catfolk - Changeling - Dhampir - Duergar Drow - Fetchling - Gillman - Goblin - Grippli - Hobgoblin Ifrit - Kitsune - Kobold - Merfolk - Nagaji - Orc - Oread Ratfolk - Samsaran - Strix - Suli - Svirfneblin - Sylph Tengu - Tiefling - Undine - Vanara - Vishkanya - Wayang
Bestiaries:	Android - Astomoi - Caligni - Deep One Hybrid - Gathlain Gnoll - Kasatha - Munavri - Naiad - Orang-Pendak Reptoid - Rougarou - Shabti - Trox - Yaddithian
Adventure Paths:	Being of Ib - Kuru
Inner Sea Races:	Ghoran - Monkey Goblin - Lashunta - Skinwalker Syrinx - Triaxian - Wyrwood - Wyvaran
Ultimate Wilderness:	Vine Leshy
Blood of the Sea:	Adaro - Cecaelia - Grindylow - Locathah - Sahuagin - Triton
Planar Adventures:	Aphorite - Duskwalker - Ganzi

The Elder Scrolls

A family of Khajiit. Given how these things work it is very possible that the housecat the catgirl is holding is the father of the tiger in the back. TES is weird like that.

"If you have coin, Khajiit has wares."

– Any Khajiit merchant proving that money overlaps the barriers of race and language.

Yeah, The Elder Scrolls is technically /v/ rather than /tg/, but it's popular enough on /tg/ to get its own article, so it counts for here.

In the world of Nirn, the indigenous catfolk are a people called the Khajiit. Like the Argonians, khajiit predate the arrival of elves in Tamriel, the continent where all the games take place. This gives them some unique cultural aspects, most notably in that whilst their pantheon has some clear similarities to the mainstream religion of Tamriel, they believe their gods to take the form of mighty dragon-cats. They are a tribal people, with related tribes forming greater groups called clans, and matriarchal, in that a (typically hereditary) female khajiit called a Clan-Mother, who has authority over her clan and with greater government matters being settled by meetings of Clan-Mothers.

Of course, because Tamriel is full of racist pricks, the khajiit have traditionally suffered from prejudice and oppression, even being kept as slaves in some provinces. Ironically, they share a strong, mutual dislike for the argonians, despite both being in the same boat.

One thing that makes khaijit unique is how mutable they are: all khajiit start life as a non-morphic kitten, and grow up into a unique form based on the states of Nirn's two moons - the large moon, Masser, and the small moon, Secunda - during that kitten's birth. This can result in anything from the standard humanoid cat, with different sizes and appearances earning different names, to creatures that resemble housecats with human sapience, to sentient tigers and dire tigers. In fact, there have been seventeen named variants of khajiit, all based on the different moon statuses, although they are readily grouped into four categories based on Masser's state: Large Quadruped khajiit are born when it's Full, Large Biped khajiit are born when it's Waxing, Small Biped khajiit are born when it's New, and Small Quadruped khajiit are born when it's Waning.

For obvious reasons, the moons are an important part of khajiit culture and religion. Indeed, their one supreme spiritual authority is a being called the Mane; a living god-king born on the incredibly rare convergence of Masser and Secunda, which in the khajiit tradition forms a third moon. He's known as the Mane because for reasons of tradition, all khajiit shave their manes (head-fur) to represent the dawning days of their race, when only the Mane was allowed to wear a full mane. In fact, he's traditionally supposed to weave the shorn-off manes of all his tribe into his own hair, which leads to modern Manes being gigantic shaggy balls of fluff that can't even walk under the weight of all that hair.

Another way the importance of the moons to khajiit is shown is in their holy mana, a substance they call "moon-sugar" due to believing it originated as crystalized moonlight before being carried in by the tides to the region where the sugarcanes they produce it from grows. Khajiit do have a massive sweet tooth, but they also consider moon-sugar to be sacred, and consuming it is very important to their religion. Unfortunately, this has only made their reputation with other races worse; see, moon-sugar functions like a drug when consumed by any creature other than a khaijit, who have racially immunized themselves by ingesting it in just about every sweet food they make (which is just about everything). On its own, moon-sugar is a fairly mild drug, but the problem is, if you mix moon-sugar with nightshade, you can create a super-nasty opium-like narcotic called "skooma", which is irreversibly addictive and tends to really fuck you up.

One rather notorious book in Daggerfall mentions that, like real cats, the males have barbed penises.

Magic: The Gathering

A wild nacatl warrior-woman from the plane of Alara.

Given the wide array of monsters in Magic: The Gathering, and especially what they did with minotaurs, you shouldn't be surprised to know that there are quite a diverse array of catfolk scattered across the planes.

One of the very first catfolk breeds to appear in M:TG were the Cat Warriors of Jamuraa, a continent on the plane of Dominaria. There are multiple different physical subspecies - tigers, leopards, jaguars and cougars - and various different cultural tribes, but not a lot is known about them. They scattered across Dominaria after the Phyrexian Invasian devastated their homeland.

Dominaria is also home the Panther Warriors, a culture made-up of exiles from Jamuraa who sometimes serve dark forces, but are mostly neutral in their outlook.

The Leonin are a race of lion-folk found on two planes. The more well-known are the White Mana-aligned leonin of Mirrodin, a highly religious and honorable race that worships the white sun of their world. They tame the pterons, flying reptiles, as steeds. In contrast, the leonin of Theros are disgraced outcasts who scrabble on the edges of civilization.

The Nacatl are a race of "jungle-themed" catfolk from Naya, a shard of the plane of Alara. They resemble tigers, jaguars and ocelots, and are divided into three strains; Cloud, Wild and Savage. See, the nacatl used to own Naya, their empire stretching far and wide, but a religious nut named Marisi came out of the woods preaching that civilization had corrupted and weakened the nacatl, arguing that they needed to go back to a more primal lifestyle. The resultant civil discord as nacatl either fell for her dribble or shunned her ended up destroying the empire. Now, the bulk of the nacatl race are the Wild Nacatl - stone-wielding tribals who stalk the lowland jungles. The Cloud Nacatl are those who dwell in the mountaintop ruins of their former empire and still preserve their former civilization. Savage Nacatl are an extremist branch of the Wild Nacatl who refuse to even use stone tools, instead relying on teeth and claws like their primal ancestors.

The nishoba are a race of ogre-sized sabertoothed snow-leopard-folk, native to the continents of Terisiare and Otaria of Dominaria.

Rakshasa are black magic-practicing catfolk native to Tarkir, whose dark practices have warped them until they are considered both Cats and Demons in terms of creature type.

Warhammer 40,000

The back of the Warhammer 40k 6th Edition rulebook mentions "Homo sapiens hirsutus", or Felinids as one of the fifteen known races of abhumans. Because Games Workshop never gave a definitive description for Felinids from Warhammer 40,000 other than the fact that they're abhumans and have a suggestive feline name, /tg/ likes to imagine them as catgirls, regardless of other, more literal interpretations. So if you see an Imperial Guard regiment with cat ears and the player insists it's canon, that's why.

Red Dwarf

Evolution of Cat to Catfolk

The first non-human "party member" of the Red Dwarf TV show was Cat, the survivor of a race of humanoids who evolved from Lister's pet cat over the three million years that the ship was flying off aimlessly into deep space. So, naturally, in Red Dwarf - The RPG, Evolved Cats are one of the player options.

Unlike most catfolk, Red Dwarf catfolk aren't furries; they look like humans with slightly pointy ears and elongated canines. Sort of like downplayed elves with vampire teeth, really. Though according to dialogue in the show, they have six nipples, and it's implied the women thusly have six tits. They are characterized for being vain, shallow, short-sighted and self-centered, more interested in themselves and in looking as sexy as possible than in anything else, to the point of tending to ignore bigger issues to focus on their personal grooming.

In the Red Dwarf RPG, Evolved Cats have maximum Agility 7, Dexterity 6, Strength 5, Perception 7, Intelligence 5 and Willpower 6. They get 1 free point in both the Awareness and Athletics skill, but their vanity and self-absorbed nature imposes a -2 penalty to all Empathy checks.

Monstergirls

Everybody loves catgirls, even the Space Marines. See Felinid above. Totally not a Xeno. Any such claims will be considered Heresy.

The catgirl is one of the most iconic forms of monstergirls in the known world, with a popularity that transcends multiple media and which means many actually don't recognize them as such, since catgirls are often held up as more of a "cute Japanese thing". They are endemic in Japanese media, especially fantasy settings ranging from classical to urban to star opera, and because of this, there are some on /tg/ who don't accept them as legitimate fantasy creatures, deriding them as weeaboo.

Like all of the "beastfolk monstergirls", exactly how cat-like they are differs hugely from depiction to depiction. At the lowest, most vanilla tier, you end up with a perfectly human girl who merely dresses up in a cat motif, has hair styled to resemble cat ears, and probably makes use of the iconic meowing verbal tic. These are, ironically, the most contentious of the catgirls, with most monstergirl fans mocking them as not really proper monstergirls, for the same reason "humans wearing cat-ear hairbands and strap-on tails" aren't considered catgirls. The average catgirl at the least has cat ears atop her head and a cat's tail sticking out of her rump, and this is the most iconic form for the race.

But, Japanese artists in particular like to get a bit more beastly: clawed (or outright paw-like) hands and/or feet, limbs covered in fur, and digitigrade legs are all common aspects on more "monstrous" catgirls. Some catgirls go so far as to have human-like faces but bodies entirely covered in fur (or at least colored to look that way), a rare but not unheard of "blending point" between the beastfolk and monstergirl fetish zones. In some corners of the internet, this is known as the "Flora Paradox", after a particularly prolific webcomic that uses this look for its catgirl protagonist: "If you'd hit that, you're a furry; if you wouldn't, you're gay". On /co/, this is known as either the Tigra Paradox, after the Marvel superheroine who happens to have that exact look or, more traditionally, the Cheetara Paradox, after the female protagonist of Thundercats.

Particularly in anime and Japanese media, catgirls often display cat-like mannerisms, such as loving fish, being easily distractible or lazy, hissing at people they don't like, etc. One especially iconic Japanese trait is a verbal tick where where they frequently say or finish their sentences with "nyan" (which sometimes comes in the form of a speech impediment instead). This is intended to ramp up the cuteness factor, and it stems from the fact that "nyan" is the Japanese onomotapeia for the noise a cat makes, equivalent to the Western "meow".

Whether or not the sphinx should be considered a catgirl is a topic of some debate. On the one hand, she literally is a blending of woman and cat. On the other hand, she traditionally very much doesn't look the typical catgirl, closer to a lion-centaur.

Gallery

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•