#caterwaul

Image © TSR Inc.

[Before I ever played D&D, I was obsessed with monster books. I bought a copy of the 2e Monstrous Manual with my allowance and combed through the internet looking for official and unofficial monsters alike. The caterwaul was one I encountered during that era, and the unsavory glee of this picture (from the 2e Fiend Folio Monstrous Supplement) stuck in my head.

The caterwaul first appeared in the 1e Fiend Folio, where it had some classic 1e exception-based design: it had exceptional Dexterity, and there were 2 d100 tables the GM had to roll on to figure out exactly how nimble any given caterwaul was. The 2e version sensibly simplified that to just giving it haste. The Hackmaster 4e version, the predacat, elaborated on it to the point of being a d10,000 table; there's a .0003 % chance for your predacat to be so fast it's effectively invisible! The 3e Tome of Horrors version doesn't give it either, just the sprint ability of a cheetah and a high Dex for its CR. If you're wondering why I'm doing these Fiend Folio monsters even though they already exist in PF1e through the Tome of Horrors, that gives you a glimpse why. The original 3.0 Tome of Horrors is a very important book for the purposes of the SRD and the history of D&D spinoff games... but a lot of the monsters in it are mechanically boring.

Lastly, some speculation. An evil black cat monster appearing in a British book written in the 1980s makes me think the caterwaul might be inspired by "alien black cats", feline cryptids found around the world but especially in Great Britain. The Fiend Folio was written in 1981, before the Beast of Exmoor or Beast of Bodmin Moor had major flaps, but both stories were known already. I gave them the endonym "bodmin" as an homage to that. I also think that the caterwaul "evolved" into the rooftop prowler in later Hackmaster products. That monster is also a stealthy sapient feline with slightly humanoid characteristics.

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Caterwaul CR 4 CE Magical Beast This man-sized creature looks like a parody of a black panther, with midnight blue fur and a long flexible tail. Its face is unsettlingly humanoid, with pointed ears and a leering expression.

Caterwauls are monstrous felines with supernatural speed and agility. They are sapient, albeit not very smart, and refer to themselves as “bodmins.” Bodmins can survive perfectly well on a diet of birds and mammals ranging in size from rabbits to cattle, but enjoy hunting humanoid creatures for the challenge and for the treasure picked from their corpses. Although a caterwaul’s paws are only as articulated as those of an ordinary cat, their tails are prehensile, used for clearing brush and sifting through treasure.

A caterwaul is incredibly stealthy, and typically attacks from ambush. Before pouncing, a caterwaul can grant itself haste, and their keen senses allow them to launch a surprise attack from a considerable distance. Their tactics are fairly standard for a cat of their size—pounce, bite, grab on, rake with back claws until the prey stops moving. If multiple prey items are clustered in an area, or if the caterwaul is surrounded during a counterattack, the beast screams so powerfully that it deals sonic damage. Caterwauls often kill more than they can eat, and only feed on the freshest of meat, leaving bodies behind to rot and attract scavengers.

Caterwauls live in rocky areas, typically cliffs and caves, and are highly territorial. These territories are marked with scent and scratch marks left on trees and boulders. Bodmins collect treasure, particularly small shiny things like coins and gems, and their hoards are often also littered with metal scraps, chips of mica, or other worthless but sparkly objects. Male caterwauls wander between female territories a few times in their lives seeking to mate, but have no role in rearing the young. Young caterwauls are regularly abused by their mothers to ensure they grow up properly mean, and are then driven off to find a new territory or die trying when they are around half grown.

Mary Brock: Wait... all of you are dating my baby brother?

Felicia: Yep!

Mary [awkward]: I see.. So... uh, how did you... all of you meet?

Cletus: In prison. :)

Frances: He crashed our wedding.

Felicia: When Cletus dragged his corpse in.

Venom: He has delicious organs!

Mary: What the fuck?

Eddie: I swear it's not as bad as it sounds. I was in prison interviewing Cletus for the paper, I wasn't arrested.

Mary: I found that less concerning... Organs? Corpse?

Eddie: ...I got better.

Carnage: For what it's worth, I'm not dating him because humans get weird about that. Mine are Cletus and Frances. I just like to watch... And sometimes help.

Mary: ...Excuse me but what even are these things?

Carnage: Hmmm, rude!

Eddie: Let me try. This [referring to Venom] is my husband. And these are our friends.

Felicia: Friends... with benefits.

Cletus: Yes, there are many benefits to being our friends! :)))

Eddie: Yes they're our friends who help us kill Eldritch horrors. And definitely do not try to kill us.

Venom: Nailed it!

Frances: That is one of the benefits. As is sex.

Eddie [groaning]: Come on...

Frances: You're not embarrassed of us are you, Eddie?

Eddie: No. Of course not but she's not gonna understand...

Frances: Let me try. Cletus is my husband, Carnage is our partner. Eddie and Venom are married and are our special friends, and Felicia is my special friend and brain buddy from when we were kidnapped by the government together!

Mary: Half the time I can't tell if you are joking or not... Do I even want to know what the red one was talking about humans getting weird?

Venom: Well, because Carnage is our daughter--

Mary: What?!

Venom: Spawned asexually from me of course but if you wanna get technical in bonding Eddie and I do share DNA. As does Carnage with her host. So she has some human in her, just as I do.

Felicia: In you, huh?

Cletus: Literally and figuratively!

Frances: Hey Carnage, does that mean Mary is your auntie?

Mary: [*looking between the red monster and her brother in shock and horror*]

Carnage: See? They're getting weird about it. We spawn asexually. We don't have your taboos. On the comet we wouldn't even be considered related...

Mary: This isn't a comet.

Carnage: ...If we didn't want to. We choose our families. Decide what Hive we want to belong to. I want to. We are family, despite the initial abandonment and... unpleasantness.

Venom: You know most of the time we don't even know when we spawn to avoid eating each other.

Carnage: ...I see. In any case I truly do not mind when our hosts screw. In fact, I encourage it. It's a free meal. It makes our human hosts release those chemicals that depressed gray matter of yours is so loathe to produce.

Venom: And it's not like our hosts are related. Cletus became the host for our offspring when he took in our genetic material...

Cletus: ...Okay now you're making it sound like you knocked me up.

Venom: Because we did.

Mary: ...

Cletus: ...

Eddie: ...technically that was before we were screwing.

Cletus: Yeah, that was just a little light cannibalism.

Mary: Please tell me you're joking? You're not joking, are you?

Eddie: ...Sorry.

Mary: Just... I need a moment here.

Eddie: So like... we heard you're getting married and wanted me to be here and bring my "special someone" so how exactly does this--

Commission Covenant frame Kyrian Cross Stitch