#wcnl

Ok so now we get to how the actual….story line?? Was sort of going to go…admittedly saying that I knew how I wanted it to end may have even been a bit of an exaggeration. I had a very loose and blurry shape of how I wanted it to end and explaining it is a bit difficult because mostly I have some disconnected half-formed ideas that I never figured out how to fit together. I’ll just attempt to describe each concept individually

First off, I made some additions to StarClan and The Dark Forest (that frankly I think drift quite a bit away from feeling like “warrior cats” but w/e)

And as preface, ALLL of this was scribbled down a year before the broken code came out, so any overlap with that lore is a funny coincidence.

StarClan and the dark forest have some minor “deities” for lack of a better word. They are spirits that resemble cats just sort of born out of the magic innate to these afterlives (which all originated from the clans faith, because in this world belief/memory can manifest things into existence, like canonically thats how it seems to works). They have little jobs that keep their little afterlife realm running smoothly. Some over see dreams, other over see receiving prophecies, if I knew about the concept of starclan trials I probably would have said thats mostly made up of starclan born spirits as well. They are probably in charge of enforcing rules, and some starclan cats don’t agree with starclans judgement of morality. So keep that in mind.

One of them is a guardian between starclan and the dark forest, that being oakpath. He is apathetic and has grown to dislike starclan. Oakpath guards the barrier between the worlds, and you met him briefly at the start.

I had this idea that, similar to how little spirits have manifested in starclan, the dark forest has also manifested spirits. The clans imagine the dark forest like an entity that has a will to do evil, and so in response those scary stories brought the dark forest itself to life, and it’s further fueled by the hatred and bitterness of former-clan cats banished there. The Dark Forest can manifest as anything, usually a shadowy cat, but also as a bird, as prey that refuses to be caught, and as the trees themselves--and they are growing powerful/intelligent enough to learn how to make their own little dark forest born spirits, similar to the ones that come from starclan. The shadowy cats that attack the group might be old vengeful ghosts, but mostly they are half-formed cat-shaped dark spirits

The Dark Forest is the narrator of this story, he is omniscient and aware of everything all the time in his forest (hence why the story is told in present time 3rd person, and why it has a mocking tone, it's meant to be like he is watching and describing the events as they happen. He is just amusing himself. He plays around with the cats trapped in his woods when he’s bored, and this is one of those instances. He is very enamored with the concept of stories, stories are after all how the clans keep their spirits alive, and the very thing that created/maintains starclan and the dark forest. He’s kind of mocking the main cast with how he talks about them, as if he’s treating their afterlives like a simple story told for the amusement of kits.

This also leads to one of the more important characters--Starsight Starsight was based on my mew in game……..which i guess I should explain. I did have an exception to my nuzlocke rule, this run was initially inspired by me researching all the crazy glitches you can do on the gen 1 games, including this one that lets you get a level 7 mew (normally it is completely unobtainable in this game, it was never meant to be caught by any player! It was just added in for fun at the end…research mews origins for yourself sometime, BOY these old games are so buggy it's unreal). Anyway, I wanted to play through a game with a mew on my team, but gen 1 is sort of boring so I decided to make the rest of it a nuzlocke, the exception being the part of the game where i’d glitch everything to make a mew appear. In the story, I interpreted this as Starsight is a StarClan-born spirit who doesn't like the way things are done in the clan's afterlife. She doesnt like the dark forest at all and doesnt think every cat there deserves to be there forever. She has a small amount of starclan cats who agree with her and she decided she wanted to prove that even cats who had done bad things could become better and prove themselves if given the chance. She is strong enough to maintain her spirit in the dark forest, but it is very dangerous for any starclan spirit as (in this world) the dark forest is one of the only places where they can be permanently destroyed. Mostly it was family and friends of my dark forest cats who decided they wanted to see their lost loved ones again. Starsight had a flashback scene with Foxrunner, who desperately wanted her daughter back (her relationship with Elkfeather was going to be a whole thing. I doubt she’d ever want to be around her mother, but she would be willing to help her find her own place in starclan if, and only if, Elkfeather could safely bring her daughter (plumtooth) back to her.)

So, it’s canon StarClan spirits maintain themselves on memory of some kind, otherwise they peacefully start fading (or at least go dormant. I believe this is more of a choice on their part than a forced phenomena). Dark forest cats hardly even have the opportunity to fade naturally. Their fear always shocks them back to consciousness, and difficulty fading is perhaps part of the punishment. It’s all a very cruel existence. I was trying to reason out some logic along the lines of like…so these old spirits were banished from the memory of their clans and former family because of their misdeeds, so they are very weak spirits. If they are remembered at all, it is only as echoes in monstrous scary nursery tales, and that being their only anchor to the living was not something acceptable for StarClan warriors. They would have a hard time surviving the journey between StarClan and the Dark Forest without destroying themselves, and even more difficulty maintaining their spirit in StarClan, if they did not have some kind of new anchor in the living cat's memories--some kind of story of their own that would be worth telling and passing down. Starsight saw an opportunity to bring cats out of the dark forest when one cat, a talented storyteller, slipped into despair and unconsciously put himself into the dark forest because he thought he deserved to be there (or maybe the Dark Forest Spirit took him down there, he was close to dying and maybe comatose or something so…I think the dark forest is also trying to kill him?). Starsight thought he could wake up again and tell the story of every cat he met and journeyed with in the forest, because they still mattered and then they all could become strong enough again to find a place safely in StarClan. If he manages to wake up, of course.

The Dark Forest wanted to send someone to steal his body and then use that agent to spread chaos, to spread stories with their own agenda that will give them a more vivid memory in the clan's collective consciousness and nightmares, and maybe add more cats to the dark forest. Just for fun. His long term goal is another war like the one from OotS to build up, enough fear in the living cats minds to give them the power to manifest in the living world again. So all this between Russet and the mysterious rude blue cat he met at the start is a race to claim Russet’s comatose body (keep in mind this was before the broken code came out…i thought the body snatching was a little too silly but now, with the exception of the dark forest being an entity, most of this, including wandering around as a ghost when you’re in a near-death coma, is perfectly plausible within current wc canon, so, lol)

Starsight has a limited time to help, not just because of the danger to herself but because the rest of StarClan knows of the risks, and they want to just kill Russet's body for the greater good so no one can have it. The StarClan warriors on Starsight's side are stalling them.

Anyway the dark forest is not at all happy about Starsight, because Starsight is cheating and ruining his game. She, as the only character aware of everything, is also the only other character who is as omniscient as the Dark Forest narrator and she can talk back at him. Her introduction was really funny in my head.

[alt text: A soft light breaks through the dark, shining blue eyes peered back at Russet as--wait. Wait a minute. What? Oh no. You have got to be joking. What is this? This isn’t allowed! This is not even remotely allowed! You're ruining everything! Starsight: And yet, here we are! Hello, hello, Russet, right? I’ve been following your scent and I think I can be of help!]

She would probably snark back at the narrator multiple times throughout the story, and everyone would look at her strangely as she was speaking to the empty air. (and. Slight tongue in cheek reference to the fact that her existence on my pokemon team was breaking the nuzlocke rules lmao.) She wouldn’t be able to tell them the truth, she would just guide them away from unnecessary dangers. They have to discover who they are and become better cats on their own, or else the spirits would have no chance of escape. If they knew they could get out, they would just act better for the sake of a reward.

I’ll be honest, Russet’s backstory is one of the big things I couldn’t figure out. I know he was a storyteller. His hidden last name “-song” is a reference to that (I suppose I interpreted -song as a poetic way of referencing legends and story-telling in the clan). Taking away his name was mostly about taking away his confidence in himself, as the weaker his will is, the easier he’d be to body-snatch. The Dark Forest wanted him to forget what he was known for, forget what it was like to feel like a full member of a community, and generally feel like a nobody who could slip away into death easily and unnoticed. I don’t know what exactly happened in his life to make him so depressed and disillusioned with everything he held dear. Whether or not bad cats can be redeemed or deserve to be remembered needed to play a part somehow in his life in order to tie in with the overall theme. I never really worked it all out. But remembering his name would coincide with remembering why he should try to live as well. The stronger his will, the stronger his uncanny scent showing them all the way out--his spirit is trying to guide itself back to his body, hence why only he has a vague sense of what direction to go. But it is not very reliable, the Dark Forest is always getting to him and weakening his hope.

I never ended up finishing the pokemon game this was story based on, I stopped somewhere between badge 7 and 8, so who knows how many would have died. (as it was, only two actually died in my game. Honeyhawk the beedrill, and a pikachu called Sparkleap) All I know is in the end, they would discover the truth and every character would have gone through some big personal trial to face their past mistakes and learn how to be better people. Starsight would slowly help lead them to the edge of the dark forest, which would become more and more clear the more the characters developed and did good deeds or something.

Russetsong would eventually get his memories back, and find his way back to his body with help from Starsight and his new friends, and when he wakes up he carries memories and stories of the cats who strove to become better than they had been. He can pass those stories on and give their spirits something to hold onto--memories living on where they are more than merely forgotten monsters. Starsight would use it all as an argument that dark forest cats CAN change, and they should be let into StarClan.

I am uncertain if every single character would be redeemed. I think at the start I envisioned everyone who's pokemon counterpart survived would be given a redemption arc, where everyone who died would fail the test and turn on the group to join The Dark Forest's side--but i’m too good at nuzlockes and p much no one died sooooo oh well. This sort of thing probably should have been based on a COMPLETED game, because I was coming up with story lines and arcs when I didn’t even know who the final cats would be yet!

Anyway! That’s all I have on this story. Don’t know why it took so long to get this out, but if you actually managed to read all these long word dumps, thank you!! It’s fun to look back on this story. Apparently the first post is like…over 5 years old?? Good lord it doesn’t seem like it was so long ago… But at the same time it feels like I wrote it ages and ages ago. I have long since moved past it, but i'm happy to give some uh...vague conclusion at last. It was fun to work on--the handful of times I managed to do so. Sorry I never managed to turn this into a finished story, hopefully I will have some completed writing/art projects some day in the near-ish future! (Follow me on my current main blog yarrowleef to see if that ever happens~)

Well, to begin I can show the last ask I outlined since I’m not sure where else to put it! it’s only the script, as I never got to the art. (Yes that ask does say 2 years ago)

Blueheart: I got the feeling Plumtooth is younger than either of us

Elkfeather: i’d hardly know it, the way she grooms her pelt makes her look like a haggard elder, but somebody doesn’t like listening to me

Plumtooth: there’s only so much time in a day and I don’t have time for grooming, get off my tail! You’re not my mom!

Elkfeather: Lucky i’m not or i’d have given you the worst chores in camp for moons. Anyway, I was the nursery caretaker in my clan. I had a litter of three of my own, and I remember my two brave wonderful flawless boys, they were the strongest kits any cat had ever seen when they were born. Model warriors in every way! Of course, my kits are grown now, thankfully. I look over our young cats and help struggling young mothers. I had an apprentice, who I desperately hope is taking her duties seriously and keeping the nursery clean. We are scheduled to have a large litter of kits soon, so StarClan help me I’d better be back there before long.

Russet: [to blueheart]: (if she's the same here as at home I fear for her apprentice. She snapped at me this morning for having a dirt clump behind my ear. Something about hiding fleas.)

Elkfeather: Do you think I can’t see you back there? I know every word you say as well as Blueheart. Gossip is a rotten habit, hasn’t your mentor taught you basic manners yet?

Russet: (My what? I’m an adult!)

Elkfeather: …Pardon? you’re really a warrior?

Plumtooth: Wait...what did he say? really? I honest to StarClan thought you were a new apprentice apprentice at your size!

Russet: (I’m not!)

Blueheart: don’t listen to them Russet, even the apprentice sized cats in my clan were fine hunters, or--wait, that came out wrong

Elkfeather: hm. Interesting. I must have us hunt soon, you're clearly not catching enough for yourself. Also, don't walk so hunched over! That’s certainly not helping the matter at all. ShadowClan and their terrible posture…

Russet: (if this is what you’d call doting, i fear for the kits in her nursery as well! I think if I was a kit I'd just be scared of her.)

--Aaand that was the last bit I had fully written out. Onto the rest of the outline.

For starters, the characters are all lost in the dark forest. I assume that was obvious, I never expected it to be a well kept secret to the audience if you have any knowledge of the warrior cats world. The suspense was more meant to come from “but why? what will they do about it? how will they react when they realize?”. 

Which yes, does also mean that all the characters are actually long dead ghosts!!! only for some reason none of them remember dying, nor do they realize they are ghosts. It’s possible some of them have a creeping suspicion that the place they are lost in looks an awful lot like stories of the dark forest. I think at least Russet and Blueheart definitely suspect this somewhere deep down, but they are not ready to admit it to themselves, let alone say it out loud. Besides, none of them remember dying, so they don’t understand how they could have come to a place where only dead cats should be. And as dead dark forest cats, all of them have done bad things in their lives to earn them a place here. Where they started going wrong in life is roughly where their living memories cut off.

Russet is the exception to this. He is the only one who is not actually dead, though it will take him time to realize this, because naturally he assumes he is in the same boat as everyone else. But we’ll get to that later.

I wanted all of this to be revealed gradually, first they would start finding visions (I don’t know how they experienced visions together, I suppose because the Force Behind The Dark Forest wanted them to. Chalk is up to magical nonsense. We’ll also get to that later.) first they would find bits and pieces of some of their party members' lives, I believe Plumtooth and Elkfeather would come first, and they’d see the bad things they had done. Eventually they would start seeing their deaths as well. And as they find these visions, they’d come to the inevitable conclusion that this isn’t unique to Elkfeather and Plumtooth, they are all dead and they all have horrible pasts they’ve forgotten, waiting to be revealed to them. The Dark Forest seems to be mocking them with this knowledge.

So, let's go through the rest of the significant characters and what their stories were (at least as far as I got)--and the ~hidden dark pasts~ of the characters we already know

The first backstory that would have been revealed was Elkfeather’s, and then Plumtooth’s. When her story is revealed, some of the cats have started to secretly suspect they are really long dead spirits, but they refuse to believe they could deserve the dark forest--until they are at last given details of one of their forgotten memories.

This was a story told to the group like a nursery tale, in a vision where they were gathered together around a speaker who curled around them like a loving mother would, with a face too dark and cloaked in shadows to properly see. This was a tale of a terrible queen

Elkfeather

Elkfeather was a perfectionist. She took a lot of pride in her social image, and even more pride in the image of her long awaited kits: two strong sons, and one small daughter. She had always wanted a daughter, and had high hopes hers would follow in her pawsteps. Little Palekit had a rebellious streak, and Elkfeather thought it was best to keep her at her side in the nursery, where she could make sure her daughter wouldn’t embarrass herself--or more importantly damage their perfect image. After all, no cat could be worthy of training her daughter save for herself. Palekit was frail, but still beautiful. Her fur was a faded dusty orange, but her eyes were vivid and striking--copper as blood, bright as a flickering flame, with a fierceness as sharp as the edge of a claw. They were lovely and almost frightening, as a great warrior and queen should be. But when apprenticed, Palepaw did not share in the desire to stay and attend the nursery with her mother, and this upset Elkfeather a great deal. Elkfeather ended up lashing out at her in little ways the more Palepaw disobeyed her wishes. She often compared her unfavorably to her talented brothers, talked down to her, punished her with unnecessary embarrassing tasks, and refused to allow her to become a warrior--always insisting she wasn’t ready. Elkfeather told herself she did it for her kit's own good, that she just wanted Palepaw to stop rebelling and come to her senses. It had the opposite effect. 

Some moons after Elkfeather’s other two kits became warriors, a terrible accident occurred resulting in both of their untimely deaths. Elkfeather was miserable to be around after this, and in needing some cat to blame, Palepaw often found herself on the receiving end of her mothers ire. She was already crushed at the deaths of her siblings, and this was an additional weight she couldn’t stand. Palepaw ran away from the clan not long after. It turned out she had struck up a friendship, and later a relationship, with a ThunderClan cat, and she left her miserable life in WindClan behind to be with them. 

Elkfeather couldn’t stand this blow to her ego in addition to her grief. Her own kit rejected her publicly, and worse, she had abandoned her clan for a mate amongst their rivals. This reflected very poorly on Elkfeather, as both her mother and her mentor. She somehow truly didn’t see it coming, and had no idea why Palepaw had done this to her. To add further insult to injury, she later heard that Palepaw had taken a new name in her new clan: Foxrunner. This was the final cut to their relationship, to take her given name that was chosen for her so lovingly and erase it. Foxrunner was sending a message that she intended to cut Elkfeather from her life entirely. Elkfeather was inconsolable, alternating between directionless anger that she usually took out on her clanmates, and days of wallowing alone in quiet misery.

Always the proud cat, Elkfeather could not admit any fault in herself. It was easier to be angry than to regret and be sorry. 

When she heard Foxrunner was pregnant with kits, Elkfeather was at her breaking point. She had dreamed of having a daughter in the nursery with her, so she could help raise her future kin--it was why she had been so grateful to have a daughter in the first place. Now with her beloved sons’ dead, these kits were to be her only legacy, and she decided that her irresponsible daughter couldn’t be trusted with anything, let alone with something as precious as Elkfeather’s grandkits. Elkfeather had no kin left. She needed these kits in her life. The idea of them being raised in ThunderClan infuriated her. She snuck her way into ThunderClan to track down her daughter, and tried to convince her to give the kits to WindClan so they could be raised properly. Foxrunner had at this point been subjected to enough guilt and abuse from this cat. She firmly refused Elkfeather’s demands and told her mother she never wanted to see her again, and her kits would never have anything to do with their awful grandmother. 

Elkfeather lashed out. It’s unclear exactly what happened, but when it was over, Foxrunner was lying dead at her mother’s paws--having accidentally broken her neck when she was pushed down a rocky slope. Elkfeather was horrified at what she had done, but she was far beyond thinking straight now, she just took Foxrunner’s two young kits and fled back to WindClan territory with them. Of course, her scent was all over the crime scene and they weren’t far from ThunderClan camp, so it didn’t take long until there was an angry patrol at the WindClan border.

It was an early leafbare and the snow fell fast and thick. Both ThunderClan and WindClan were desperately trying to find the delirious queen. Elkfeather wouldn’t go back to camp where her leader would surely insist on giving the kits back to ThunderClan. The kittens were slowly freezing with her out on the moor, but Elkfeather had convinced herself she could raise them on her own if she had to. She was certain they needed her now more than ever, and she would die before she let any other cat have them.

Then from out out the flurrying snow, she saw a pale orange shape coming towards her. She saw black lips drawn back over the long barred teeth of a hungry fox. In a heartbeat, the monster had descended upon her.

WindClan’s once cherished queen, a mother to so many cats, a provider, reduced to mere food for a mindless beast on the moor. This was no way to die. And yet, as with many deaths, she had very little say in the matter. Those cursed kits lay still, in the open not too far away. She couldn’t help wonder, why hadn't the fox taken that easy prey? It wasn’t sensible. Why her? Why had all of this happened to her, was all she could think through the flurry of pain and torn flesh and the stench of her own life blood draining from her. It was not a quick death. It was as if the monster wanted more than food. It wanted her to suffer. That snarling stinking creature, with more fury in its’ fangs than any mindless predator had business having toward its’ weak prey, stood over her, silhouette blocking the light from the sky. A fox's hungry gaze would be her last sight in the world. And in that hazy instance before the light faded, Elkfeather could have sworn that fox’s eyes glared back deep into hers. As copper as blood, as bright as a flickering flame, as cold and sharp as the edge of a claw. Almost lovely, but mostly just frightening.

Those eyes were the last thing she saw, before she saw nothing but darkness forevermore.

[this story is written in the most detail because it would have been the first told, the rest are less fleshed out]

Plumtooth

Plumtooth is Elkfeather granddaughter, the only surviving kit of Foxrunner, who actually was revived from the cold when the clan found the bodies. I never fully figured out what it was that led her to the dark forest. I think her father may have died trying to find her in the snow as a kit, and she always felt like some blamed her for it. Like the clan had traded him for her, and she wasn’t enough to make up for it. No one mistreated her, but she was generally very insecure and often tried to overcompensate by acting recklessly and dangerously to show off. She wanted deputyship some day, and was in a fierce rivalry for it with one of her foster siblings. Some stunt she pulled (I don’t think I decided what it was) to try and win the leader's favor and also make her foster sister look bad went very badly, and it ended up getting someone killed, and perhaps this is the event that got Plumtooth killed as well. Plumtooth’s trial that sent her to the dark forest was a complicated one, and a lot of cats were in disagreement over it. Some argued she acted selfishly for her own glory, and it was against everything warriors stood for--thus she hadn’t earned a place among them. Others said it was an honest mistake that got out of control and it's not fair to damn her when she never even got a chance to try and make up for it because her life was cut short. Was that not punishment enough? For whatever reason despite the protests, whoever led her trial decided she hadn’t proven herself worthy of being a StarClan warrior.

This is one of the overarching problems of this story, StarClan had gotten very strict with who they let in--after the fiasco with the dark forest, they wanted to be sure they could trust all who walked among them. On top of that, they were making sure it was more difficult for Dark Forest cats to find each other.

Honeyhawk (Beedrill) of SkyClan 

[pay no attention to how far this creature strays from the concept of “cat”, she wasn’t important enough for a second draft asdwhbafeefhsfe]

Honeyhawk would have been the next to join the group. She attacked them out of fear when they accidentally stumbled upon her hideaway, and then started following them because…well, she didn’t know where else to go and they were the first cats she had come across in a long time.

She was also the first death in the group. In the game, not long after I evolved the beedrill, it immediately got killed by a trainer in a nearby cave. On one hand, I was sad I had wasted a cool name, on the other, beedrill can’t learn any good moves in red version and was a virtually useless party member.

To reflect this, when the group finds a dark tunnel they have no choice but to cross through, Honeyhawk proves to be even more useless at fighting then Russet when they are attacked by a bunch of strange shadowy cats. She tries to push Russet into one of them to save her own skin, and when she turns to flee, she is killed by an attacker.

In her forgotten life, Honeyhawk was an aggressive, selfish, and cowardly little warrior. She left an apprentice to die because it was easier to run, and she didn’t go for help because she didn’t want to look bad for running. She valued her pride over a life, and was banished from her clan. Honeyhawk quickly realized how miserable it was fending for herself without other cats to mooch off of, and she cursed her clan and vowed revenge on them for making her suffer like this, and for (in her mind) unfairly blaming the apprentice’s death on her (it’s not her fault the stupid little tom didn’t recognize a badger den! He was basically asking to be eaten!) She tried to strike a deal with a bunch of rogues, coax them into tormenting her clan by ambushing their patrols, stealing prey…a lot of violent petty things. But unfortunately, they just took the prey she brought them as a bribe, and promptly killed her because they found her annoying. In the end, she was too incompetent to become a real threat to the clans, but her failure certainly wasn’t due to lack of desire.

Since this character died so quickly, I’m uncertain if her backstory ever would have been revealed.

Rockfall (Graveler) of ShadowClan

The next to join the group, right when Honeyhawk died actually. Rockfall appeared and chased off the straggling shadowy cats that killed Honeyhawk. He’s a gruff and powerful tom of few words. He does not like helping cats from other clans at all, but once he hears Russet is from his clan and is also the cat they are unofficially following as the “leader”, he immediately pledges himself to Russet and declares himself his bodyguard who will follow every order without command. This makes Russet a tad uncomfortable, and puts Rockfall at odds with Blueheart--who was Russet’s companion first. Blueheart is a pushover, and Rockfall eventually makes peace with him. But because Blueheart is a RiverClan cat, Rockfall keeps trying to convince Russet to be wary of him, until Russet tells him to knock it off because he LIKES Blueheart. Rockfall takes the order unquestioningly and shuts his mouth quickly…maybe a little too quickly. Everyone gets the impression this guy may have lost a few marbles from being alone in the dark so long. But he is undeniably strong, and easy to ignore because he talks so little, so they let him come along.

In life, Rockfall was the muscle and right hand deputy of a horrible leader. Since he was young, he was taught that bravery and loyalty in service of your clan was all that mattered. To him, his leader was his clan so that was his sole purpose. He did not ponder on morals, his leaders' morals were his morals. This, he believed, was what made a true warrior. As deputy, he wasn’t so much second in command as he was a constant yes-man to a leader who took up all the duties herself. He had no opinions, he was not even cruel on his own, he was just an extension of his leaders claws. He was a terrifying fighter, and on top of being his leaders personal guard, he was later her executioner who killed anyone that got in the way of their commands. Rockfall became disillusioned towards life and everything except his duty. He had been dedicated to it for so long, it was too late to question it now. His leader needed him, she told him so often. He was loyal to a fault. Eventually, he was killed when the other clans, and a rebellion within their own clan, rose up against the tyrannical leader and took her down. He gave his life trying to protect her and prevent her banishment, an effort which ultimately amounted to nothing. She was forced out of the territories, and he was left dead without vigil or mourners.

Nightstep (Gloom/Vileplume) of RiverClan

A gifted former healer. Nightstep was sweet and gentle, and also eccentric and experimental. Secretly, the position was a bit of a power-trip for her and she loved that she held her patients' lives in her paws. It made her feel needed. She started playing with poisonous plants, testing the effects--how quickly they worked and how easy they were to disguise. She even experimented on killing her own clan’s elder, justifying it to herself that he was dying anyway of an illness. One day she got news that another clan's medicine cat had died, and per custom so one clan would not fall, a different clan's medicine cat came to train a new apprentice. She was the one chosen. This clan had been a threat to hers before, and a cat she was very fond of even died in a battle with them. So, she intended to use the opportunity to poison and kill the fiercest warrior who had the most RiverClan blood on his paws, and blame it on the new apprentice by hiding poison in prey and herbs. Her plan worked, the warrior died not long after ingesting the poison, and they never even traced it back to the herbs because he was set upon by a scavenger bird. But the apprentice she had made her unwitting accomplice had watched her prepare the poison. The apprentice trusted Nightstep fully, why wouldn’t she? So she copied her method, and gave the medicine to other cats. Many innocent cats died, and the apprentice was permanently scarred when she realized what she had accidentally done. Nightstep fled the clan in fear, and died trying to leap across a flooding river in her haste to escape.

Rowanscar (Fearrow) of WindClan

Wily and aggressive to all outsiders, but within his own clan he was mild-mannered, polite, and endlessly kind. He loved his clan and longed for its prosperity so much he grew to despise everything else. He grew up in a famine, and regularly had to starve himself so others could eat. He did anything to get prey from others. Eventually he began crossing borders, and then stalking enemy clan hunting patrols, even killing them in order to take their prey--and limit his clan's competition in the future. He had a very high body count, including young apprentices, and it’s a miracle he got away with it for so long. His clan had no choice but to banish him for so many accounts of egregious code breaking, though it caused many of them pain for he had suffered so much to take care of all of them. The other clans of course found out, and some angry warriors tracked down and killed him in revenge for all the lives he took. 

Bearfoot (Snorlax) of ThunderClan

A massive cat with a massive appetite, he was greedy and had little respect for the code, often stuffing himself with prey before taking any back. He probably would have left to become a kittypet if twolegs were anywhere nearby. Although he wasn’t fun to be around, he was a big and powerful fighter--which the clan needed when a famine made rivals more of a danger. But one terrible leafbare when his clan was starving, everyone was on edge and fights broke out in his clan. It was difficult to think of anything but survival. When the hunger got worse, Bearfoot tried to convince everyone to consume the bodies of those who died of starvation so that they could live. The clan was horrified by the suggestion, but Bearfoot did it anyway in secret. He had offered to take the bodies away for burial himself since he was the only one still strong enough to lift them at that point. Only StarClan knew of his crime. He died not long after of a stomach sickness. 

In the Dark Forest he is cursed a bit differently than others. Prey comes to him eagerly in a way it doesn’t anywhere else in the forest, more than any cat could ever want. He can catch it easily and give it to others, but if he tries to eat any of it himself, it turns to dust between his teeth. He can only watch others eat. (may have tied into the story and how he attempts to improve. the rest of the group is wary of him at first, but he becomes invaluable as he is capable of feeding all of them, which is a relief since they have not been able to find any food and only hadn’t died of starvation/exhaustion due to dark forest magic keeping them just on the brink of it. I think I planned for him and Rowanscar to have some kind of enemies-to-friends arc)

Bonestar/Bonefang (Rhydon) of ShadowClan

(regretfully I seem to have lost her art)

Bonefang was born weak and skinny and expected to die. She has oddly patched fur (looks a bit like a lyokoi) and always appeared sickly. However, she grew into a large terrifying she-cat, and had just as terrifying a temperament to match. She reveled in her ability to cause fear in her enemies. Her skill made her rise to leadership in her clan. Even though she had little fur to protect her, she shook off egregious battle wounds and kept fighting, soaked in blood and licking it from her lips. Some outsiders nicknamed her the bloody faced leader. She lived for the glory of winning each fight, and got herself and her patrols into many unnecessary battles to invoke fear. She launched raid after raid focusing on one clan at a time to bend them into submission. A group of rogues hungry for their own power caught her attention, and she tried to join her clan with them so they could become even more feared and powerful. These cats had no respect for life or the code obviously. Bonefang, for all her faults, cared about the warrior code surviving, and for the safety of the young cats in her clan. She realized she may have gone too far when she saw how careless the strangers she brought in were, and how cruel they were to her own weaker clanmates, and she tried to drive them out. By then her clan had had enough, and eventually she was overthrown and had her title stripped from her by a group that wanted peace and was tired of marking their boundaries in blood. 

She was furious, but more so devastated that so few cats spoke up for her. She had lost her clans love in her crusade for power. But even then, she refused to leave her clans territory, and waited in the shadows. She died as she lived, furiously attacking another clans patrol who came to invade her clan in vengeance for past attacks. She looked so haggard the invaders thought she was a vengeful spirit, and she managed to chase them off single-pawed, although she would die of her wounds not long after. Her last gift to her clan was providing them, for once, with one less bloody battle to suffer through. She lived on in the nursery horror stories from all the clans about the bloody faced leader. In the dark forest, she hears these stories, slowly realizing that what she left behind for her clan was a legacy of distrust and pain that left them always without allies. She never had her memories hidden from her, she accepts her place in the forest most easily, and wanders in regret.

It will be revealed that Rockfall was actually her deputy, the only cat who remained loyal to her. She has difficulty facing him even though he wants to serve her again as soon as they reunite. She blames herself for what became of him, she took a loyal and true warrior and twisted him into a monster--and still he wants to offer her his service. (Part of their arc would involve Rockfall finally disobeying an order from her in order to do something good and rescue someone else in the group--even though they were of a rival clan.)

Blueheart

At last, a little about Blueheart…What about him?? How could dear sweet Blueheart have ever done anything bad in his entire life? That’s certainly what Russet thinks, and Blueheart’s past would have been the last revealed.

Well for all his disdain of Rockfall, he found he could actually understand the tom more than he wanted to admit.

Blueheart was always an endlessly kind and open hearted cat. He couldn’t stand needless violence or cruelty to others, even outsiders, and would do his best to negotiate peaceful solutions for everyone. Although he would speak for what he believed was good, he was easily swayed and over powered by even more determined and outspoken cats, to avoid harsh conflict. His younger sister discovered their brother's plot to do something bad in order to gain power in the clan, and she had threatened to tell on him. So, their brother arranged to have her killed. Blueheart didn’t know of this, he found her body in the forest and his brother tricked him into thinking it was the fault of a rogue that Blueheart had previously taken pity on. Blueheart blamed himself, if only he had listened to his brother and driven that rogue away instead of helping them, they wouldn’t have had a chance to hurt poor Cottonpaw. His brother allowed him to go on thinking this, and it badly shook his morals. The guilt made Blueheart very easy to control. Blueheart became a follower to his brother, who he loved dearly as his closest surviving kin. His brother grew more ambitious and violent and made Blueheart help him scheme his way to power. Blueheart never killed anyone directly, but he covered for his brother, he let him lie and hurt cats because he was too afraid and weak willed to say no to him. His dear littermate *had* to have good reasons. After all, what did Blueheart know? things that seemed good to him (like helping a sick rogue) could turn out worse in the long run, and get more cats hurt. So maybe his brother was right when he talked about the greater good, and how it would all be worth it and save more lives in the long run. He was soon a husk of his former self, leaving all decision making to his sibling. He didn’t have the will left to question it, and the longer it went on, the more unwilling he was to see what his kin was becoming--it had to be worth it.

In the end, Blueheart was banished with his brother, for he had spent moons covering crimes and forced into lies that lead to so much unnecessary strife. Later when his brother died of infected wounds, Blueheart died beside him, thinking he deserved this fate. He would not even face StarClan for a trial; he simply let himself sink into the dark forest. 

I played with the idea of making the “rival” blue cat turn out to be Blueheart’s brother, Tealsong. Blueheart’s arc would involve finally confronting him with Russet’s help. It was either that, or the cat was just a manifested spirit of the dark forest

So that’s the first chunk of my notes---most of what I had actually written was dedicated to character backstories since that's what I enjoy writing. In the game I was playing, I’d catch a pokemon and name them and if I intended to use them I'd start thinking of their background and general personality as I went. The overarching narrative actually tying them together and doing things with all those elements and potential arcs was an after thought...that’s part of the reason why continuing this became difficult. But in the next part I’ll talk a little about Russet, and a few other key characters and what the (very) rough idea of the dark forest story was going to be

But, as a quick added bonus, there were a lot more potential characters. As I said, i only developed character based on the pokemon i ended up actually using, but i named everything I caught, so here were some more pokemon/cats that didn’t end up with a definite planned appearance so they didn’t get art…but i did have fun coming up with names and a couple potential ideas.

Lapras- Azureheart, RiverClan (mother of Blueheart? Might have found a way of using her)

Doduo- Twoface, had a split face pattern, originally cast out from WindClan but joined a different clan. was a medicine cat --bad at medicine but great and interpreting signs. His clan was afraid of him and he used this to his advantage to undermine his leader and get his clan to do his bidding under threat of harm from the stars. Twoface wasn't his true name, but the nickname he was called for his deceit (i wanted to use this guy because I liked his concept, and would have if Rowanscar ever died, but that didn’t end up happening)

Pikachu- Sparkleap: this is one I intended to make a significant character cause I was really excited to have caught it, and maybe use him as a foil to Russet. but almost immediately after I caught it and started brainstorming ideas, the stupid thing died to a random bird so it didn’t have a chance to go anywhere (I was very angry. Do you have any idea how rare it is to get a pikachu in these early games in a nuzlocke?? and dying to a BIRD of all things. unbelievable) I tried to think of a way to use that, have them be an also alive cat like Russet that ended up failing and dying horribly in the dark forest, sort of to show the stakes to Russet and “this is what could happen to you if you aren’t careful.” Idk never fully figured it out. Too bitter about it dying immediately.

Eevee- Sparkpaw (was somehow connected to Sparkleap, maybe a younger sibling? I had an idea that they weren’t a dark forest cat but a starclan cat that got lost there by mistake and the gang has to help save them and get them back to StarClan. I would have given them a full name when/if I decided on an evolution, but I didn’t end up using it)

Hitmonlee- Adderleg

Ditto- Marshpaw

Drowzee- Shadebelly

Staryu- Rubyshine

Oddish- Hollydust

Magikarp- Riverwish

Koffing- Smokebreath

Venonat- Lavenderdust

Krabby- Crabpelt

Krabby- Hollysnap

Gastly- Blackmist

Geodude- Stonefoot

Spearrow- Appletalon

Pidgey-Finchthroat

Pidgey-Alderbeak

Pidgey- Birchbreeze

Pidgey- Fuckwings (.....look I was real sick of getting pidgey’s at this point)

Rattata-Haytail

Rattata- Violettoe