Winged Cat

Collectors and menagerie keepers covet these lovely flying felines, though no one knows where they came from. Two sizes exist.

This large cat has soft, fur-covered wings spanning 15 feet or more. Coats are usually short and sandy, gray, or black, and some are yellow or gray with black stripes. Pale cats tend to have white bellies and wings, dark ones solid black wings. Eyes are yellow or green, rarely blue. They have their own language, and 10% also speak the tongues of sphinxes or other feline races.

Calm by nature, they turn deadly when hunting or threatened. They prefer to strike on the wing, biting and clawing with the forepaws as they swoop by. If they cannot fly off, or choose to stay in melee, they rake with their hind claws whenever both front claws hit. They retreat only when their lives are at stake, and even then they remember, sometimes stalking the offender for years to get even.

They live in hills and grasslands, nesting in a patch of flattened grass. In the yearly mating season the male courts with gifts of food. Mothers raise 1-3 cubs that may stay up to two years; lifespan reaches 50 years. They favor live mammals and birds, scavenge only when desperate, rarely hunt people or other two-legged creatures, and know better than to take livestock. Caught young, one can be patiently trained to bear a rider, only its trainer, and its loyalty never wavers once given.

The lesser winged cat resembles a common house cat with furry wings about four feet across. Any color or pattern can appear, in long or short hair; the rarest pattern pairs a mid-brown body with darker points on face, ears, paws, wings, and tail. Fluttercats are curious and playful, though city dwellers can look as ragged as any alley cat.

They fight when threatened, and mothers defend kittens fiercely. Diving in with teeth and claws, they rake with the hind feet for 1-2 extra when both forepaws connect.

Lairs are enclosed nooks a few feet up. Kittens, 1-3 per litter, spend about three months with their mother learning flight and hunting. Fluttercats live up to 20 years, growing sluggish and warmth-loving with age, and are fine vermin and bird hunters. Captured as kittens, they become affectionate though independent pets worth as much as 50 gp. Wizards treasure them as familiars, but only a lucky one ever gains such a companion.