Just thumbing through my books for a critter to challenge my new players with. The idea for a series of mysterious accidents befalling a charity organization squatting in a ruined townhouse complex. When I came across the reference to paranomal cats in Feral Cities I nearly cried. So perfect! A blackberry cat with the accident trait: an alpha female with a harem of feral males. Now all I need is the stats. What's with this sourcebook? No critter stat page? Have any you come across need for these numbers? Made your own?
There's a gold credstick on the table for a reliable answer.

The blackberry cat was included in previous editions (Paranormal Animals of Europe, page 18 / Critters, page 23 which is available free at Battlecorps). It has not yet been update for SR4, but there is a forthcoming critter book called 'Running Wild' in the works.

{edit: kzt beat me to the link!}

http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/downlo...sr_critters.pdf

The jackpoint poster Winterhawk has a blackberry cat in his house... (it's debatable who's the pet)

Fantastic chummers!
That gives me something to work with.
I love the catnip weakness. The PCs will never think of adding that to their gear.

It's onle the question whether a HIGH Blackberry Cat is so much better than one that is just bored or cranky . .

I think that the awakened cats that Feral Cities talks about are Talis Cats, nice little kittens that have the power to increase their attributes and appear like panters (or something alike), and have the habit of hunting animals bigger than themselves (including metahumans); I would also like to point out that cats are totaly promisquous and the idea of a female having an harem is a bit off.
Blackberry Cats are good for unexpected developments, wildcards that blow the team's plans and force the players to rethink their role in the story, they are subtle manipulator or maybe pranksters, feral cats role is better served by Talis Cats.

i could have sworn that was the deal with cats in general...

Do the cats use blackberries?

If you don't look too close and only imagine what a Blackberry Cat can do, tell me that's not what you could have sworn your cat has done at least once allready? ^^

Well . . with Shadowruns Magic and Technology, that would not be all that far fetched O.o
Wanna do something really nasty? Give any Cat-Based Critter Sentience *snickers*

It's that way in my house for sure.

I, for one, welcome our new feline Overlords ^^

Hah, you wish.

Actualy, yes, i do.
Cats do love me.
I would have a good life ^^
Dogs hate me and i hate them in return <.<
when i grew up, there were 5 to 10 cats in the same house at times.
they fought like . . no, not cats and dogs, not cats and mice.
like cats do between each other.
only in my proximity there was some semblance of peace.
because i love cats and will care for each cat to the best of my abilites.

Garfield could be a SR villian.

*whistles innocently*

Unless the plot involved shipping a PC to Abu Dhabi, he'd be too lazy to involve himself.

It's ironic how back in the day Abbu Dhabi was probably just a joke on the part of the author who tried to look up the most obscure place he could find in an encyclopedia back in the 1970s, but how today if Nermal got shipped there he/she (forget Nermal's gender) would probably end up starting an international shipping/logistics business over there and would eventually return to buy out Garfield's neighborhood.

Garfield as a Fat Mafia-Don . . does not sound all that unbelieveable does it? ^^
Or as a Sumo-Like Yakuza-Oyabun O.o
Or a Russian Vory . . allthough the name would have to be changed, vory y zakone meaning wolves of moscow or something like that if i remember correctly ^^

hmmm?
anything you wanna tell me/us Tiggi? ^^

Just that I greatly enjoyed Lar's intro fiction for his chapter of Running Wild, and I think you will too.

Cats?
GIMME! ^^

If there's one thing that Dwarf Fortress has taught me...

Also a great Shadowrun opportunity.

I can see it now, 'Runners sneaking in a "Small Package" that's actually a narced-out Blackberry Cat into a Big Corporate Wedding Event.

Then the cat wakes up, with a headache... And a lot of noisy Metahumans (Be it the PCs or the Wedding.).

Hope they make the delivery on time.

*snickers*
Even a normal Cat would probably cause quite the ruckus under that circumstances ^^
There's plenty people to annoy, there's food, there's lots of room to hide in.
Climbey-Places too!
But yes, put a blackberry cat SOMEWHERE it does not want to be, and you can pretty much lay back and enjoy your show ^^
And imagine the panic a talis-cat woud cause O.o suddenly, there's a jaguar in the room!
And when animal control appears, nothing can be found, as the cat trudged out in small form with the fleeing humans ^^

You are definitely right. Another glowing reccomendation for Feral Cities. Not only does it not include the stats of the critters it references, but it isn't accurate in which ones it's describing. Sigh....
Blackberry Cats fit my game idea better, but maybe instead of a harem of standard feral cats, I include the primary Blackberry Cat and one or two Talis Cats as her mates. Keep in mind as you reference standard animal behaviors in relation to paranormal ones, although it may be strange for a non-sentient real world equivalent, a thinking magical varient may have different behaviors.
Think about this... One dominant female cat in a small area. Many weaker males. If that female is in heat, those males will be stupidly devoted to getting some of that tail. I don't think the harem idea is actually that strange.

Oy! bad pun!*snickers* ^^

i think i finished a downloadable sci-fi story about something like that recently...

http://www.accelerando.org/

What's it got to . . Wait, AI Kittens? O.o

Darn it all this cat talk make me wish I had one. XD

Yeah, me too . . i still miss my very own Garfield ._.

Yeah I don't think I could get a not pets apartment I want a cat too much.

Only problem i have with Cats, and the reason why i won't be getting a new one any time soon:
i don't think i could bear losing one of those little monsters again <.<

hi hi

If only there were rules for how to handle pets as player characters. We know that security organizations use paracritters to guard sensitive areas, but there are no price listings for buying them from a "pet shop," or what skills it would take to handle them. There are some vague references to animal empathy qualities, but not much beyond that.

I remember the last time I mentioned a blackberry cat during a run. It was only a red herring that I was throwing out to the group, but one of the steely eyed veteran players got a look of shock on his face and said. "No way!" as in, no amount of money is going to make me go up against one of those things.

Be careful what you wish for... Running Wild will have rules for pets. Pets of all sorts and sizes and shapes...

Ever tried to put a cat that really does NOT like Water into a Tub and giving him a sponge bath? O.o
Now imagine that cat having the magical ability to make you see, think and do whatever it wants . .

Also, cats can NOT be tamed like dogs to do what they are told.
They do what they do because they want to.
If they want to have somthing, they will do what they can to get it.
If that means standing on their hind paws only to get something tasty, so be it.
But if they do NOT want the tasty(granted, that's pretty seldom), but if it happens, there's no way in hell making them stand on their hind-legs only . .

Wear eye protection. And heavy gloves that extend at least halfway up the arms. And a sweatshirt and jeans that you are good with throwing away.

Cool! I want a Behemoth for a pet!!!

Feral cats or semi-feral cats are better than housecats. This is because they still have some survival instinct and drive left in them. Few things are more awe-inspiring than watching a cat pwn (and occasionally blind) a dog several times its size by rearing up on its hind legs and scratching the eyes.

I've seen a cat go for that 'nads before was hell funny. It was some twat trying to rough it up but the cat KOed him b4 I could intervene.

I fed a semi-feral cat in Micronesia and he used to fight on the roof every night with other cats. Eventually he got a big cut-type injury on his testicles, believe it or not, and it took forever to heal. One time I tried to help him out by spreading some bactoban on the testicle-cut but he just licked it off.

I saw a housecat drive off an annoying German Shepard with a swipe to the nose. But a friend once saw a golden retriever suggest to the siamese he was living with that it wasn't nice to steal his food by taking the cats entire head in his mouth... He let him go, but it was apparently a significant emotional event that kept the cat from trying it again.

Yeah, my tomcat was a hellion . .
his shoulder-height was just below my knee, and i ain't short!
Damn heavy too, and all of it muscles x.x
Bigger and heavier than some dogs i know.
he liked to hunt danish dogs, those big ones . .
And jumping on my from elevated placed you would not expect an animal of his size to be in . .
like, from the top of my door foir example . .
i once accidentally flung him straight through my room . .
he had been perching on top of my book shelf, which is about 2m high . .
there's about 2m space between the shelf and my bed.
i was sleeping in there, on my back . .
and that little monster jumped FROM THE SHELF onto my bed and half on my body, into my stomach.
that was the ONE TIME i REALLY did a crunch . . and subsequently flung him off of me and through the room.
coughing and wheezing, i switched on my lamp, and there about 1m away from my feet on the ground he was.
claws ground into the carpet, to catch himself, really flat on the ground, and his face, oh i will never forget that ^^
he looked like: =O.O= (what did i do?;_;)
but he never ever did that again ^^

I hate to be a thread nazi, but can we at least keep this related to Shadowrun? How about regaling us with tales of your characters encountering the critters I mentioned in the Original Post? Maybe some suggestions on how to utilize such critters effictively. I think the NMCLA (National Man Cat Love Association) forums are elsewhere.

Well, my very first character was, for obvious reasons, a tomcat shaman . .
He adored felines like i do, for obvious reasons . .
and he hid behind the muscle of the team, when a cat hissed at him.
When asked he told them to watch him, when he's doing his job.
Of course, his Mage-Mask was that of an angry cat. He was basically afraid of angry cats, because he associated them with what happened when he let lose.
Now, throwing around motorbikes, lightning and fireballs(yeah, show off, i know, but it's a CAT-Shaman) and then thinking that's directed at you?
And yes, of course, the GM could not help himself and had to use that against the character with, you guessed it, cat based critters of his own make-up more or less.
Yeah, no, Character died after a cat that looked too innocent basically made him walk off a cliff . .

So evil, so good.

Anyway being a cat related thread I would like to post a cat of mine:

Hellcat

B: 1-4 usualy 2
A: 3-8 usualy 6
R: 3-8 usualy 6
S: 1-4 usualy 2
C: 2-7 usualy 4
I: 3-8 usualy 5
L: 1-6 usualy 3
W: 2-7 usualy 4
Edge: 2-7 usualy 3

Power:
Cat Speach (just like Dragonspeach), Concealment (self only), Confusion, Divination, Dual Natured, Enhached Sense(Low Light Vision, Wideband Hearing (High), Smell, Taste), Fear, Natural Weapon (claw bite: STR/2 + 1 P AP: 0) Psychokinesis, Sentience
Special:
All the Hell Cats have the Adept quality

Hellcats are huge (half meter long not counting the tail, same proportion of a common cat) felines, its fur is jet black and very short, the eyes jade green; they are social creatures that get along well with metahumans even thought their habit to adopt whole neighborhoods as homeground without anyone being the wiser, they find metahumanity both fascinating and entertaining, considering it their natural habitat rather than a component of it, they are individualistic but when necessary they know how to cooperate, have serious problems at taking orders (corporations have attempted to tame them, failing) but can work with people that respect them and tend to be attracted by magicaly active people (especialy the one having Cat as mentor spirit).
TRIVIA: the name is due an unispired parabiologist that thought that after the Hellhound and the Devil Rat an Hellcat was the best name to give to an awakened cat.

^^
Cool! That's the kinda stuff I'm looking for. Have you used that critter in game? How'd it go?

I blame editorial. Because I can!

hi hi

I always pictured blackberry cats as that old villain who always has a cat on his lap, but in reality, the cat is the real villain and the old guy is just a puppet.

Never used, just kept going around my head from time to time; I just wanted to know what people thought about it, and I'm happy that you liked it.

Didn't the 007's Spectre's boss have a cat?