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yeah furburt i’m literally obsessed with the fact you also took inspiration from the national park system for your fanclan 🙏🙏 i’ve got some of my own warriors-inspired cat xenofictions that take place in YNP and ENP ITS AWESOME!! anyway looking forward to more all the time :3c
That's awesome!!! I looove the NPS. Yellowstone and the Everglades are such cool inspirations too! Plus - did you know NPSpecies has lists of recorded species in over 300 parks??? It's one of my favorite sites but I hardly ever hear it mentioned! And TY for the kind words, of course :]
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Hiya! Recently I've been trying my hand at creating some FanClans. They're based in a setting inspired by the Taal Volcano and lake region in my native Philippines. Super super excited over developing it but also a tiny bit nervous! Could you perhaps give some insight/tips on how you developed ClayClan? I'd be really grateful if you did 🥹 I'm a tiny bit overwhelmed and don't know where to start.
P.S: here are some cool photos of Taal+some extra info below bc I'm a nerd and can't help myself lol
Where's the volcano, you may ask? The answer to that is: it's the lake you see in the photos! Basically Taal erupted so much in prehistoric times that the rock collapsed inward+downward into the empty magma chambers, forming a bowl shape (otherwise known as a caldera). It's also got like, a fuckton of vents and craters that it also erupts out of too sometimes. She's funky and I like her!
tldr volcanoes and cats r pretty neat :3
WOAH that's so cool!!! :0 This is awesome, thanks so much for sharing! I loooove seeing unique fanClans, it's such a versatile prompt. And a caldera is a GREAT setting! What a pretty one, too!
As for advice... I've been making fancontent for Warriors for a decade now, so a lot of it just comes naturally. I'll explain how I made ClayClan then give some tips I find helpful! And thank you for asking, I'm really flattered :]
(Info + tips below the cut to keep this from being a huge text wall!)
ClayClan started as a worldbuilding project to support a story I was tossing around in my head. At the time, this story was unnamed and followed Minkpaw, a new apprentice who joins the Clan and unravels a mystery.
At this point I only knew it was set in a swamp. I like taking reference from National Parks, so I started searching for Parks with swamps, and after some googling I found out Arcadia National Park has a ton of wetlands! So I started compiling a species list. As I worked I gradually switched the model region from Arcadia to a general Maine wetland, as this was more appealing to me.
Once I had that together, I started working on ClayClan's culture. This was largely a matter of tossing ideas at the wall and seeing what stuck! I wanted there to be a new rank between warriors & deputy, so I gave them captains. I like exploring religions unique from canon's StarClan, so I gave them the pantheon. I couldn't decide if I wanted their camp to be in the woods or by the lake, so I gave them two camps. Once I had down my base ideas, I just refined them until they felt complete, and since then I've been adding fun tidbits to my own liking.
As I worked, I realized that Pickerelstripe - a supporting character in the original story, as Minkpaw's mentor - was much more interesting to me than Minkpaw herself. So I decided to switch the story to her perspective, and it began developing into the Heart Rot that I love!
With this switch came a change in tone, as Heart Rot is much darker and more serious than my early plans. So I made some worldbuilding changes to fit! ClayClan's religion solidified, kepbon sculptures came into existence, that sort of thing. I'm still making tweaks here and there to tighten everything up.
Okay! Thanks for sticking with me through all of that, here's some random tips! :D
A good place to start is with location! I'm a total nerd about ecosystems, so I like to make my Clan territories as close to their real-world inspirations as possible. iNaturalist is a great reference for finding species in a specific area! Google is also your friend, and I've even used physical field guides in the past. It's a really fun process and enriches your knowledge of the real world - win-win!
Of course, not everyone's interested in this level of detail, and that's all good! I would, however, recommend having an idea of your Clan's territory and the types of animals/plants they regularly encounter. It can be a good springing-off point for worldbuilding! Take ClayClan's bobcat lore as an example, that came directly from wanting to do something cool with bobcats being in Maine.
Is this worldbuilding for a story? If so, what story are you trying to tell? Try and focus on worldbuilding that will affect the plot and see where it leads from there. For example, if your story focuses on family ties, you can explore how your fanClan views family!
Does your inspiration region have any interesting history? If so, you could try and tie it into your Clan's mythos! For example, the setting you've got makes me really curious about how your Clan views the caldera, and all its vents & craters. Do they believe the caldera has always been there? Do they have some lore about the ancient volcano? How do they rationalize the vents? There's lots to explore!
What do you want to see expanded on in Clan culture? The rank system, naming, religion, social structure, etc? Go ahead and change them to your liking, then see how that impacts the world! This is your Clan, after all, play with it how you'd like.
Focus on what's interesting to you! At the end of the day, this is your project, and you should enjoy working on it. If something doesn't interest you like it used to, you can take a break from it and find a different focus, or toss that part entirely and start over. Do what makes you happy!
I hope this is helpful! Sorry for rambling haha. Thank you so much for sharing your new Clan, I wish you the best of luck with developing it :] If you end up sharing any more on Tumblr feel free to send it to me, I'd love to see what you come up with! Have a great day/night!
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Lexicon Changelog - 11/24/23
Hello hello! I've been working on Heart Rot as a story lately but I have made some small changes to Claymew, so here they are. I'm also thinking more about numbers, and I think I've hit on something I like... so hopefully I'll have a number system post ready soon.
Added words:
Felssa, a dead tree that's still standing
Yosh-felssa, a snag with half its trunk remaining and minimal branches
Warl-felssa, a snag with less than half its trunk remaining and one or no branches
Changed/fixed words:
Assuassu -> asoosoo, American goldfinch
I feel that asoosoo is a more accurate representation of goldfinch calls. It also fixes the minor inconsistency of me pronouncing assuassu as "asoo-asoo", when u is always supposed to be "uh", as in under or uncle.
Chochocho -> chwee, northern waterthrush
As much as I love repetition, chochocho kept bothering me because it felt clunky to say. I feel that chwee is better!
Veerr -> weerr, veery
I don't think cats could pronounce v so now it's a w.
The lexicon is now at 194 words.
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Oh follow up ask because I forgor to add it- could you elaborate on the accessories and costumes used for theatre if you haven't already?
Absolutely!
Theater is a new art in ClayClan (it's only been around for a few generations) and, as such, there's still a lot of experimentation. Costuming is a great example of this! Different casts will go for different things - sometimes a show will use no costumes, other times it'll be a huge thing that cats spend days putting together. It's really just restricted by their materials.
This is something I'm still researching, actually... I'm trying to figure out what exactly they can use, and how they'd harvest it. What I do know is that they'd utilize mud and natural items such as twigs, plants, and feathers. I'm still deciding if they'd skin prey animals and utilize pelts... I think they're smart enough to do it, but I don't know if it'd be too tricky without blades.
One thing that's solid is that gods are never portrayed on-stage, so that's not an issue. The most elaborate costuming instead goes to the play based off the folk hero who made a deal with Yiaow to banish bobcats from ClayClan territory, turning herself into a bobcat in the process. This involves an on-stage costume change! Once I hammer out the details and finally name this folk hero lmao I plan to write up a more detailed summary, likely with art of popular costuming choices.
Thank you for asking! Also, happy Halloween :]
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Ngl I was captivated the moment I learned ClayClan has theatre lmao (<- would-be theatre kid)
Absolutely something I really really want to put into a fanwork!
Hehe well thank you! I've worked theater tech for years, it's very dear to me. It's been a lot of fun adapting it to fit ClayClan. I recommend having a go at it for your own fanworks, it's a really fun art form!
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wctober #2 - creep
#furbert art#heart rot#timberstar#warrior cats#wc oc#warriors oc#hi im doing wctober with heart rot kitties! :]#ill be posting the fun ones haha yesterdays was boring bc I had to rush it#but todays is more fun.... treat it like a proof of concept I might redraw it in the future#btw im using harriertails 2022 list its awesome
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[CM] - Flowering Plants 1
More lexicon posts, woohoo! Today I've got some flowering plants. This isn't the full list, but it's the ones I've assigned words so far, so it'll have to do until I work on more.
New york aster (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii) - Palefi
Derived from base Clanmew palifuh* (purple) and pfefi* (fluff petal). Tall, thin-stemmed plant with narrow leaves and pale purple flowers. Grows on marshland borders and may be found in nutritionally poor soil. Attractive to butterflies, moths, and bees!
Bog aster (Oclemena nemoralis) - Oskfi
Derived from palefi and osk* (white). Very similar to palefi, but a little smaller and with pale, pink-or-white flowers. Found in wetlands and on shores.
Bog goldenrod (Solidago uliginosa) - Morree
Derived from waymor* (taller than it is wide) and rreen* (golden). Very tall with a thin, reddish stem and fluffy golden flowers that bloom in late summer. Grows in wetlands and on shores. Resistant to deer and attractive to butterflies.
Water hemlock (Cicuta maculata) - Mwrai
Branched plant with clusters of tiny white flowers and deeply-toothed leaves. Grows in marshes and on shores. Mwrai is highly toxic! Consumption results in tremors, extreme pain, fever, and death. Mwrai is especially dangerous due to its resemblance to the herbs boneset and valerian.
Blueflag iris (Iris versicolor) - Pail
Derived from palifuh* (purple) and pai* (petal). Thick-leaved plant with fancy blue-to-purple flowers. Found in marshes, fields, and on shores. Though beautiful, pail is irritating when handled, and ingestion results in stomach upset.
Fragrant water-lily (Nymphea odorata) - Ssoskai
Derived from osk* (white), pai* (petal), and yasschoop* (sense of smell). Leaves are wide and float on the water; flowers are ornate, white with a yellow center, and bloom from morning til noon during warm months. Ssoskai are found exclusively on the lake. Flowers carry a sweet scent that may be detected hundreds of yards away!
Wild sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) - Sikibow
Cat-sized plant with tiny white flowers in spherical clusters; these flowers develop into dark berries in mid-summer. Grows in forest understories. Browsed by deer and moose, while the berries are consumed by foxes and chipmunks.
Sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia) - Besskaf
Derived from beka* (pink), peske* (clusters of flowers), and mwssaf* (poisonous). Shrub with thick, leathery leaves and circular pink flowers. Grows in wetlands, forests, and on shores. Besskaf is highly toxic to cats and also exudes chemicals that inhibit other plants, particularly conifers.
Northern St. John's-wort (Hypericum boreale) - Mwurfs
Leafy, shrubby plant with fancy yellow flowers. Found in wetlands, on shores, and in shallow lake water. Mwurfs is toxic - contact may result in boils and irritation, while consumption leads to photosensitivity, drooling, and depression.
Red clover (Trifolium pratense) - Shuf
Tiny spreading plant with little pink-or-red flowers. Grows in fields and on shores. Shuf is an herb that aids skin inflammation and (possibly) arthritis! It's also consumed by numerous animals.
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[CM] - Bugs 1
Here's a bug post! I'm not sure how deep I'll go into ClayClan bugs... I do know I'd want to create a unique taxonomy system (like base Clanmew has), and that intimidates me into leaving it for later haha. Not to mention the undertaking it would be to find and name all those species. So, for now, take some notable ones!
Small flying insect found on meat - Pfsee
Pfsee is used primarily for flies, and refers specifically to small insects that produce maggots on meat. These pose a seasonal threat to the prey-pile... I'm yet to find a solution that the cats could use to prevent infestations, though. Please let me know if you have any ideas!
Small flying insect not found on meat - Ssis
Ssis is the word used for little flying bugs that don't lay eggs on meat. It's used most often for midges, gnats, and other tiny buzzing things that have a habit of annoying every cat they come across.
Blood-sucking insect - Nagnak
A nagnak is any insect that bites or sucks blood from cats. This is a general term - there's more specific ones for some of the most common nuisances, including mosquitos, flies, and ticks. If a cat receives an insect bite with no known source, they're blaming a nagnak.
Mosquito - Eek (homophone with base Clanmew eek*)
Biting fly - Gnasee (gnam* + pfsee)
Tick - Byyufwo (byyo* + ssuffss* + owo*)
Maggot - Slaw
Slaw are what pfsee create! At least, that's how Clan cats see it. Slaw infest meat and turn it inedible - cats generally detest them for this. Unlike the Clans in Better Bones, ClayClan is not medically advanced enough to practice debridement, so slaw have no medical function.
Cicada - Eekr'kf
Big annual insects that crawl aboveground every summer, molt, and scream. They're named for the sound they make when pounced on - the song halts and they start buzzing! The empty brown shell they leave behind is called a bakr'kf (babaak* + eekr'kf).
#claymew#bugs#fun fact: the word for cicada is based off the sounds I heard while watching a cardinal chase down a dogday cicada earlier this week#also making words for the bloodsuckers made me itchy lmao
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Lexicon Changelog - 8/31/23
New words! Figured I ought to get this changelog out before the full lexicon post.
Added Words:
Bakr'kf, cicada shell
Byyufwo, tick
Eek, mosquito
Eekr'kf, cicada
Gnasee, biting fly
Nagnak, biting or bloodsucking insect
Slaw, maggot
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I've got some new lexicon posts in the works and we're so close to 200 words!!! I'm so happy with how far this project has come, thank you everybody for the support :]
#furb chatter#tomorrow is bugs and then ive got some posts on plants coming (hopefully) this week! im a full-time student so its harder for me to work#this time of year haha
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hi!! i noticed in your most recent changelog that throat [mwelf] and st johns wort [mwurfs] share a prefix, i was wondering if there was a connection between the two? i love what you are creating here it's so neat!! ovo
Thanks for the support!
That specific connection is actually unintentional!
Mwelf is based roughly off guttural sounds and the vibes of a soft kitty throat, if that make sense haha. Usually I use mw for dangerous words, derived from the growl of an uneasy cat (this is an aspect of base Clanmew too). You see this in mwurfs, because St. John's-wort is a toxic plant! Other mw words in Claymew include mwryyn (American yew) and mwrruobeh (bobcat). That said, mw is not always an indicator of danger - like mwelf, mwelka (whitetail doe), and mwip (dusky salamander), sometimes it just comes up by coincidence.
#claymew#ask#I wrote this whole response... then deleted it... waugh#but fr thank you for asking! it means a lot I love asks
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howdy! could you expand on mud-kittens? i’m fascinated by how they’re seen as gifts from silverpelt
Howdy! I gladly can :]
It ties back to how ClayClan view their lifestyle as ordained by the gods. Cats are meant to live in a community like this - outsiders may join the community if they prove themself willing to follow the gods' example, and after proving this they're seen no differently than Clanborn cats, but there's still a testing phase. Cats who choose to live beyond ClayClan are seen as a little bit lesser for not following the gods.
Mud-kittens, on the other hand, are seen as direct gifts from the gods! They're young cats with no prior allegiance, no need to "test into" the Clan; just extra kits who appear on the territory and are ready to be taken into the fold. They're almost always adopted by somebody as a child. There are currently two former mud-kittens in ClayClan; the warrior Stormwhistle, adopted by Troutscale and Gravelstream, and the acolyte Eftrunner, adopted by Shadlight.
It's worth noting here that if a parent wants to join the Clan with a litter, those kits are not considered mud-kittens. The parent may be given more leniency in their testing phase, though, depending on the leader's kindness towards outsiders - some leaders may withhold the testing phase until the kits are old enough to fend for themselves and/or choose their own place in the world.
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Eek my queue messed up and posted something early! If you saw the unfinished copy of a post on flowering plants... woops
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Kepbon has been added to this post!
[CM] Words for the Arts
Our second expansion pack, words for the arts! I’ve talked extensively about ClayClan’s art culture in this post, I recommend checking that out before reading this. Here I’ll be sharing words for clay sculpting, story-telling, and theater.
Keep reading
#I loooooove the concept of kepbon sculptures so I hope you guys like them as much as I do#they play a very fun symbolistic role in the story
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Lexicon Changelog - 8/5/23
Finishing up my name list! I now have a full list of valid prefixes and suffixes in Claymew, AND a perchance generator that produces valid names. I have a pretty specific method of naming cats so I might make a full prefx/suffix spreadsheet sometime... if I ever need to burn 5 hours, anyway. I’ll also be putting out some more lexicon posts at some point soon.
Added Words:
Gip, gill
Ip, yip or yelp; a short high-pitched sound, also the term for animal alarm calls
Kepbon, a sculpture made for the purpose of being buried in place of a dead Clanmate
Maree, slang term for a cat who polarizes opinions
Mwelf, throat
Mwurfs, northern St. John’s-wort
Pababap/pabab/paba, to chase or pursue
Swass, fin
Yaoop/yaoo/yao, to call or summon
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[CM] Pronoun Expansion
Bonefall recently revealed the “we” form of pronouns for base Clanmew, so I decided to update Claymew’s pronouns to match. I’ve been doing lots of translation work for plants recently so this was a nice easy detour.
Close family - prr, prrs, prrp, prrsk
Indirect family - mya, myas, myap, myask
Clanmate (close) - rrup, rrups, rrupup, rrusk
Rrup runs into the issue of already ending in p, so its “we”s are unique! Rrupup repeats the end sound to clarify what form its in, while rrusk replaces the p with sk.
Clanmate (generic) - mao, maos, map, mask
Map and mask have shortened over time from their original forms, maop and maosk.
Godly - shaf, shafs, shafp, shafsk
Shafp and shafsk are exclusive to storytelling because using shaf for a normal cat is blasphemous. It only shows up in dialogue between gods (or if a particularly bold cat were pretending that two religious sculptures are chatting with each other). It should also be noted that, if these were pronouns for regular cats, they’d be shortened to shap and shask - this will never happen, though, because shortening shaf would be considered blasphemous as well.
Trusted non-Clan cat - mwao, mwaos, mwaop, mwaosk
Unlike map/mask, mwaop and mwaosk remain in their original forms. This is due to the fact they’re not used very often - it’s rare to be referring to yourself and someone else as “trusted non-Clan cats”, rather than using closer pronouns. If they were in more frequent use they’d shorten to mwap and mwask.
Non-Clan cat - mwrr*, mwrrs*, mwrrp*, mwrrsk*
Mwrrp* and mwrrsk* are very rare in Claymew, rarer even than mwaop/mwaosk. They’re so rare that I actually considered leaving them out entirely, buuut I decided to preserve them. They’d likely be seen in stories related to exile or broken relationships - a pair of cats emphasizing what they’ve lost by calling themselves mwrrp*, as opposed to closer pronouns. They are utter strangers to each other.
Objects - yin, yins
There’s no “we” for yin/yins because these are pronouns for non-cats. Objects, plants, and other animals don’t speak Claymew.
It should also be noted that, due to the relational nature of Claymew pronouns, “we” has a slightly different weight than in base Clanmew - it communicates the relationship between you and the cat you’re referring to, without referencing the pronoun of the cat you’re speaking to (in the case of exclusive we). Here’s some examples to explain:
Let’s say you and your brother are eating duck together - “rrawk prrpnomna”. Using the prrp pronoun here indicates your shared relationship as siblings.
If you’re telling a Clanmate that you and your brother are eating together, you’d say “rrawk prrsknomna”. Your relationship to the other half of the inclusive we is considered more important than your relationship to the cat you’re actually speaking to, so you continue using prr (prrsk in this case, since you aren’t speaking to your brother).
As a final note, it can be assumed that rogues, loners, and kittypets have their own dialects that are related to but distinct from Claymew. Since ClayClan accepts other cats into their community, I’d like to explore loanwords and ways that these dialects have influenced each other... but that’s a topic for the future.
Speaking of the future, I’ve been exploring Claymew slang, so expect a post on that soon enough! That’ll be a fun one.
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Lexicon Changelog - 8/1/23
A small update this time, a few words I was working on earlier today. Figured I’d add them now while I have time.
Added Words:
Besskaf, sheep laurel
Eesha, shadblow serviceberry
Puhfrr, common cattail
Also, happy base Clanmew day! Clanmew lovers rejoice :]
#changelog#ive been following the clanmew updates all day and i love to see clanmew get words I made for claymew#like its fun to compare how words are different or similar and why#again as always massive thanks to bonefall for letting people make dialects! this is a super fun project
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