Character Overview- Tabby

One of many possible Tabbies

"Tabby" has gone through a lot of iterations- often re-imagined differently for one game world or another, but usually just as a supporting cast character.  She's made appearances as an NPC in a homebrew roleplaying game, GURPS Supers campaigns, but didn't get much attention for very long in City of Heroes or Champions Online.  

Her last name has changed a bit in each setting, mostly due to my ambivalence.  It's currently Tabitha Lachaan. 

Background

Tabby's home life wasn't the best- an overworked mom who died on her 13th birthday, a dad on disability, addicted to pain meds and alcohol, living in an old Victorian home on a mostly-overgrown farm at the edge of a dying small town.   About her only solace in childhood was the attic space she'd adopted as a playroom- and the chests full of all sorts of books, crystals, and knickknacks that would appear right at home in a witch's lair.

The fact that nothing blew up or created a portal to another world in all her childhood play is a minor miracle herself, but that luck ended on her 14th birthday during an alcohol-infused self-loathing-driven ritual meant to imbue one with great power- an invitation for possession.  Something took her up on the offer, and the frantic attempts to un-do the invitation involved a comedy of errors including- but not limited to- a tri-county car chase, the destruction of sixteen mailboxes, 18 damaged cars, including her dad’s half-reconstructed  ’76 duster, dozens of moving violations, the desecration of a church, the destruction of a centuries-old work of art, the near-death of one police officer, and Tabitha remanded to juvie for 4 years (only because the original judge couldn’t extend the sentence further).  It ended in the church, shortly after angrily yelling at a tabernacle that it was time for God to "put up or shut up" she blacked out and awoke- demon possessor gone, but in her current form.

Typical origin story that we’ve all heard before.

Tabby spent 4 years enrolled in St. Ives Prep-  a juvie facility that’s normally reserved for wayward teenage girls of America’s elite. She was a charity case- one of the poor lower-class that would have had trouble fitting in even if she hadn’t been the only one covered in fur.  Socially, she was an outcast rebel dreaming of the day she’d leave, lay low until she found a cure, complete her community service, go to college, and hopefully re-start her life without all that old baggage.

She arrived in the city four months ago and proved that there’s no plan- however simple- that she can’t foul up.  She hasn’t found a cure, still owes tons of community service, hasn’t secured financial aid for college, and rather than keep a low profile, she’s gained her own unwanted internet celebrity, appearing in hundreds of memes, video shorts, mashups, deepfakes, video game mods, and even appeared on the boxes of a Brickstown pizzeria (with the text “Tastes like Victory”-- don't ask.) . 

There’s even a Tabby Tracker website that trades sighting pics for a chance at a free pizza! 

Despite constantly trying to suppress the attention and drive away her “fans,” she’s now got her own subreddit and is a frequent topic for a fanfiction site’s writing challenges- usually 'shipping her with one (or all) of the people she was recently sighted with.  

Of course, this is your typical “internet celebrity” - a rabid, focused fanbase, 80% toxic, but virtually unknown out of that circle.  “Tabby, who?” is much more common, so she couldn’t capitalize on this notoriety even if she had to.

Roleplaying Hooks

Some ways people may know Tabby without meeting her:

Internet Memes/Rumors-  Consider Tabby’s ‘net noriety as something of a collaborative-writing game.   If you can think up something insane that her fans have done, I’ll play along.  Or, heck, let her see you snap a pic for the Tabby tracker!

Classmates-  Got a character that had a similar “bad teen” past, or who has a friend of a friend who was enrolled/confined-to St. Ives?   Imagine any story about any high schooler’s antics, particularly those that blow up in someone’s faces.  Put it in an all-girls version of the bully boarding school. I’ll play along.

Food-  If you’re in a place and Tabby’s in a place and free food’s in the place, Tabby’s eyeing it, approaching it, or already eating it.   If you’re eating it, then she’s probably doing her best not to watch you eat it while still being unwaveringly drawn by every crunch, chomp, or slurp.

Tabby's a frequent visitor to City Hall for their donut days...  it's intended to be employee-only, but nobody actually SAYS that explicitly.  I mean, there's no signs up stating the fact and there's always plenty to go around.

She's also a frequent visitor to supergroup recruiting events- CATERED ones, that is.  Never joins, but frequently visits them.  If it's free food.

A Past-  Tabby’s got a case worker from the “special offender” part of the probation office- a group that usually handles rehabilitating villains.  She’s got a redacted juvie record and was kept in juvie for a very long time.  Among the cops of the Brickstown precinct who’ve also had to deal with incidents involving her, there’s a lot of rumor on what she may have done. 

No rumor too wild.  Make it up.

Mage Sight- Tabby can "see" auras... actually, it's more of a aura synesthesia.   Someone may "taste like the color blue" or feel like an electric current tastes.   She's got very little control over it and has no idea what it means, but if you have an intriguing aura you want her to notice, share it.

If *you* have mage sight, she comes across as a strange amalgam- almost a mosaic of several different auras rearranged uniquely together.

Catgirl Notoriety- Consider this another collaborative writing project.   Catgirls have a... reputation... (particularly Pocket D) and despite most of those catgirls looking a lot less catty than Tabby, that reputation carries over to many (TOTALLY UNEARNED) rumors about Tabby.   Make one up, and I'll play along- doing my best to deny it or craft a zany backstory of how it's all (really) a total misunderstanding that's not at all how it appeared.

Superpowers

In all incarnations, Tabitha's magical powers are relatively underdeveloped.  While she has some inherent magical abilty (“how d’ya think I ended up in this mess?”) she was barred from any arcane studies while in boarding school.

From the experiments she’s done when "the wardens weren’t looking," she’s come to realize that “surge” magic (magic drawn upon in sudden bursts, like much combat-based spellcraft) is extremely exhausting to her- to the point of debilitation. She's had more success with ritual magic, which has a slower-draw of mana over a larger time. Because of this, you're more likely to see her develop grig gris or similar talisman magical resource rather than blasting arcane energies on the battlefield.

She demonstrates what some would call “feline” agility, acute senses of sight, hearing, and smell, and catlike claws.  The claws are at least as useful as you’d expect from a lesser “great cat” -- dangerous against the unarmored foe but likely to just get snagged on heavy armor. Some note that the agility and grace manifest mostly when she’s not weighed down by the burqa and suspect that the discomfort and distraction of this work against her naturally-enhanced spatial sense that’s so necessary to make use of her agility.

Despite her diminutive size, she’s a durable little Manx... er Minx...err... movealongnow..., and while she doesn’t regenerate or heal up magically overnight, she can take quite a beating and keep on moving. Her ear may be nicked, her face covered in scratches, her tail kinked, and half the fur may be burnt off her buttock, but she’s still able to truck along, cursing and channeling her inner Bruce Willis. If you encounter this, it is advised to NOT compare her to an alley cat that just won a fight with a pitbull- unless you're a superspeeder.

In Champions Online, she was a blend of arcane powers, particularly runes, along with some claw attacks and a smattering of agility effects.

In City of Heroes,  I made her a Kinetic Melee / Willpower Stalker.  Her incantations that should send bolts of arcane energy at her foes, but most of the time the energy just dissipates (explosively) just after leaving her fingers.  That frustrates her to no end, but while she works out the kinks in her craft, she’s adapting: learning to launch the volleys from nearly point-blank range.  Note that she rarely sees this as an accomplishment- it's an admission of her failure to work spells right.

Tabitha's Claws

In a cat,the outermost bone in the finger (the distal phalanx) appears bent back when the claws are retracted, rather than extended along the tip of the finger as a human hand would be.

Tabitha's claws work in a similar way.  This means that when her claws are retracted under the fur along the back of her finger, the fingers appear somewhat short and fat-- as if they were missing a digit..  They're not quite as bad as "paws" but are still quite notable, particularly to someone that absolutely hates everything about the form she finds herself stuck in.

To help appear more "normal," Tabby has come up with gel caps that snap over the claw and hold it into the extended state, giving the illusion of normal-length fingertips.  She rarely goes out without them, even though they have a bad habit of falling off at the worst moments (or failing to come off when she NEEDS the claws.

NO ERP:

Yes, a no ERP catgirl.  At least one exists.  Contrary to the many tales I've heard of catgirls in City of Heroes Pocket D and... well, practically anywhere in Champions Online, Tabitha's story is not inclined to  following a... romantic... path.

Tabitha's thoughts on relationships are rather simple:

• Any guy that would be interested in a "catgirl" is a freak with a capital F. No, make that a FREAK all in caps-lock. That puts them immediately on the "not a chance" list.
• Any nonhuman guy is also out of the question- she's totally not into Furries.

That set of rules could be interpreted to make things very simple for Tabby or very complicated.

Complicated always wins.

Visual Reference

I've never been a good artist, and I've never been satisfied with Tabitha's appearance in any of the video games.   In both City of Heroes and Champions, I used a grey "striped tabby" appearance.  

Tabby in City of Heroes

Tabby from Champions Online

The long hair was useful to hide the model's human ears, but seemed kinda problematic for someone jumping around. I'd expect Tabby to have her hair somewhat long but tied back to keep it out of the way.

A Skyrim mod appeared closer to my vision... except that the character Tabitha doesn't really fit into a story of northmen and dragons:

Still not quite there.  No obvious whiskers and the ears may be larger, extending farther down the side, but until I learn to draw or do computer models, they serve as reasonable references.