Well, you try pouncing on a bird or two, and see how little 'DEX' it takes. Tail length is indictative mainly on how much running they're likely to do, rather than 'agility' in the round (and nor is DEX precisely just agility), and I do think of them as being more pouncers than chasers, myself. Or at least, I haven't seen many sprinting at 100 klicks across the wide open Sartar Veldt, anyway. ;-)
> Indeed. I think the shadow cat is somewhat like the lynx in being a "big
> small cat". Small (sylvestris) cat's being the ones with slit pupils and
> being able to purr, and unable to roar. (generally speaking, that is,
> let's not go to taxonomy here)
Oh, but let's. ;-) Yes, they'd definitely be Felinae (I think the Bestiary even calls them Felis alynx, or some such), though when you bear in mind that mountain lions aren't 'big cats' by that definition, one's intuition may start to flounder a bit.
Disclaimer: zoological taxonomers may have changed their minds about all this again, that is it they really ever made them up in the first place...
> Too bad. I like lynxes, but a shadow cat is supposed to be something much
> more magical and mysterious. And they aren't supposed to be bred for
> interesting fur color and an obidient nature!
I don't see them as being especially _un_like lynxes, but they need hardly be 'lynx clones', of course. But I agree very emphatically on that second point: I don't much care for the readings of them as being highly 'domesticated', or 'cats of all work', so I deal with such material in the best traditions of Gloranthan Inclusivity: i.e. I don't use them in my games, and I make occassional sarcastic comments about such notions on the Digest.
If nothing else, their wide range of size confuses the 'analogising' somewhat, unless you can imagine one terrestrial animal that 'scales down' to the niche of a wildcat, and 'scales up' to that of a small panther (another animal not noted for running a long way after a square meal, when it could... well, do anything _other_ than running a long way after a square meal, pretty much) or perhaps a shady-looking puma, if you can to keep it all 'small cat'. Though HW is as we keep saying supposed to be a 'scalable' game, so maybe that's no real problem. ;-)
Cheers,
Alex.
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