Celican
The Ceilican are wild and free, beholden to no one and nothing but the rhythm that beats in their veins. Ceilican love gossip, folklore, and personal secrets. As each Bastet tribe keeps their secrets, the Ceilican do so with utmost ferocity and glee. Bard, poet, scholar, drunkard... this mercurial breed lives life to the fullest.
The Ceilican originally hail from Northern Europe (Ireland, Scotland, Norway, etc.), but their curiosity can take them far afield. This tribe of Bastet lives on the outer fringes of society: embraced by hermits, witches, and the fae. Ceilican consider the fae to be cousins, and indeed they share in the dreams and passions of the Good Folk. Though the ties between the two peoples go back to their stories of creation, the actually mingling of their bloodlines is rare. The Ceilican are too canny to be bound too closely to the fae courts, preferring to slip in and out on their own terms.
The Ceilican have yet to feel the fires of the witch purges of later years, and the name of Simone is yet to be cursed. Ceilican still revel in their ties to the fae, though not unmindful of the dangers that entails. It is the nature of the Ceilican to flirt with dangers, whether they be fae or darker. There is little these cats won’t try at least once.
The Ceilican keep in touch via the Silent Way, a musical code that keeps each cat connected with even their most distant brethren. Unlike other tribes, the Ceilican also have one night a year where they gather: Samhain, or All Hallows Eve. On that night even the most pious Christians latch and bar their doors, for fear of what wanders the moors.
Their feline kin were the cave lions of europe, but now the Ceilican interbreed with the feline kin of other tribes, and so can show a wide variety of markings depending on their lineage. With the extinction of the european Qualmi during the war of rage their lynx kin were free for the taking. After the Ceilican lost their original kin the lynx represented their only options for kin in Europe. Ceilican from the near east and north Africa may be born from leopards or lions, maybe even cheetahs. The rare Ceilican might breed with a serval or caracal, but the lack of bastet blood in the species means fewer of those children are born as shifters.
A Ceilican of mixed ancestry might have spots and stripes reminiscent of a tabby, but these are no house cats. Their average size in felis form is on par with a smallish panther.
