G. L. Drummond is a sword-toting alien with a fetish for fur and four-legged creatures who writes fiction and tweets.
Her latest release is Code Walker, which you can find on Amazon and Smashwords for 99 cents for a limited time.
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Playing Goddess of Creation
Since Becka mentioned world building was of particular interest to her, that’s what I’m going to yap about.
One of my most favorite species of characters to pop into the House of Craze is the Katarr. They’re a felinoid species of my creation in the After the Fall series. I love them so much that I named my publishing imprint after them (Katarr Kanticles Press).
Their species and planet name are the same, and they speak Katarran. It’s a jungle planet, and the Katarr themselves can be any normal house cat or big cat colors and patterns, though perhaps a bit more exotic with some combinations.
For example, Pral (the Katarr warrior in A Little Nip, co-written with JC Montgomery) is a black tiger: black furred with white striping.
Part of the world building for them included writing some back-story on their evolution, which became A Brief History:
In the beginning, thousands of years in our past, our race was controlled by the most primitive of instincts: the need to survive.
We were driven by the need to hunt and mate to continue our bloodlines.
The strongest males of that time took as many mates as they could to breed upon.
When one was challenged and defeated, his progeny was slaughtered by the new leader of those groups.
Bloody as that time was, it did lead to the seeds of the culture we are proud to claim as our own today. The weak were weeded out; our strength increased, as did our intelligence.
Our females are the ones who planted the seeds of the Creed. Their instincts to protect their young formed; as a result, during battles for domination of a group, some of them left, taking their kittlings with them. Others faced and defeated the successful challengers.
As this grew to be more common, our males took notice and our females held a great Council. It was decreed that they would no longer allow themselves to be seen merely as breeders; instead, they’d accept only one mate, who wouldn’t be allowed to hunt and claim other females.
Some males immediately saw the wisdom of this decision, and so began the formation of the twelve great Clans. A new age dawned, where those who worked together began building cities. The twelve Clans developed into the twelve Great Houses.
There were bloody wars for territory during that period of our history between the Houses. Eventually, however, peace fell upon Katarr and our time of reason began.
Each Great House was allowed to form twelve Lesser Houses, so that every Katarr has a House to claim allegiance to. Our cities grew and our race made great advances in science as the Creed was taught to all kittlings so that they would learn to control their primitive natures and be more than animals battling for survival.
This has led to what we are today.
We have fought our worst enemies – ourselves – and we have won.
We are warriors, fierce and strong. We strive always to be just and honorable in our actions. We do not view love or succoring those weaker than ourselves as weaknesses.
We must never forget the countless numbers sacrificed along the path to achieve this goal, and we must never lessen those sacrifices by reverting to the violent beings we once were.
We are stronger together than separate, and our race will survive regardless of what may befall us as a people because of that.
Another thing was written that acts as a guideline to how Katarr behave (JC helped with this as well).
Some highlights from The Katarr Warrior Creed:
•A warrior must always be prepared to fight until his last breath to defend females, kittlings, and House.
•Females are the means of continuation of our kind, therefore must be protected above all others, even before kittlings, since they themselves will fight until their last breath to protect those kittlings.
•It is a matter of honor to protect those who are unable to protect themselves, regardless of species. As Katarr warriors, we are strong, and the strong should always protect the weak.
•Kittlings are to be raised with kindness, patience and understanding. Our young represent our uncontrolled instincts; it is our duty to teach them to control those instincts once they are old enough to begin understanding.
•Kindness and love are not weaknesses; they are our greatest strengths.
•There is no dishonor in failure to succeed, only in failure to act. We may not always win the day, and must understand that our sacrifice(s) may allow others to do so in the future.
What I wanted were knights who actually adhered to a code of chivalry. Fortunately, the Katarr Voices in my brain were quite happy to be knights.
These knights just happen to be furry, have fangs, retractable claws, and tails.
We also have a list of worlds and more alien species we’ve come up with for this universe. World building can be a lot of fun, no matter how you go about doing it. These are just a couple of ideas of useful building blocks.
Thanks for having me here today, Becka! =)
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Just a reminder G.L. Drummond’s latest release is Code Walker, which you can find on Amazon and Smashwords for 99 cents for a limited time.
