Swampclaw

[tenacious]

GENERAL

Name: Swampclaw

Name Explanation: Swamp; dark, murky pelt claw; fighting skills

Gender: Tom

Age: 69 moons

Clan: ShadowClan

Rank: Warrior

APPEARANCE

Body Type: Medium in height, strongly built hindquarters for jumping

Fur: Dark tortoiseshell

Eyes: Light yellow

Markings: White chin and chest

Overall: Calicos and tortoiseshells are she-cats, generally. But this tortoiseshell will claw your ears off if you call him a she. Swampclaw is a male and proud of it, may I add. The tom has strongly built hindquarters for jumping and is not too tall or small when it comes to height. This may make some think of him as average when it comes to build, but, despite this, Swampclaw is a skilled fighter and can hunt some things, which is better then being unable to hunt anything at all.

His pelt is dark and murky, much like the swamp like areas in his Clan. The tom’s primary color seems black to some, a brown like that of a rotting tree bark to others. He has orange in his medium length, generally coarse pelt as well, giving him the impression of having been rolled in ashes with some embers still burning around them. His nose is black as the night with a dark mask on the left side of his face; such makes his expressions hard to read. Swampclaw’s chin and chest are white as snow, though, giving him a striking appearance.

PERSONALITY

Positive Traits: Not required

Flaws: Ferociously loyal, revengeful, deceitful, crotchety

Fears: Swampclaw fears the moor- he fears the open space. He’s like a reverse claustrophobic. The tom also fears StarClan.

Quirks: Swampclaw always has to eat frog in the morning- no frog, no meal. He also has a tell when lying: his tail will twitch in a circular sort of shape.

Ideals: Loyalty and a cat who is cunning.

Overall: Ferociously loyal, revengeful, deceitful, and as crotchety as they come, Swampclaw is defiantly not a social cat. He tends to stay by himself, merely surveying and only offering forth opinions at important Clan meetings, during patrols, or in battle. Really, these are not opinions, but more so orders, as he can forget his rank while battling. Swampclaw’s loyalty may seem like a good thing, but it is not. Yes, in most cases it is, but Swampclaw takes it to the extreme. He absolutely refuses to speak to a cat from another Clan, unless it is to insult them or to warn them off ShadowClan territory. Hatred runs through his veins when he faces them and the tom wants nothing more then to shred off their fur; this is, and his temper, does not help his cause when it comes to not doing so. Often, the tom will be the one who finds some little excuse to attack a rival Clan.

If you are foolish enough to harm Swampclaw, or one of the few cats he cares about and never will admit to caring about, you have been warned. He is not invincible, but he is very revengeful, and will find a way to get back at you somehow. Swampclaw will never harm a Clanmate physically, but he will do so to others. His fear of StarClan makes it so he tries to follow the warrior code. Tries and fails at times. But he tries. It is a strange fear, actually; he believes in StarClan and thinks that they will punish all wrongdoers, that they are tyrants of sorts. They can inflict unimaginable pain.

Swampclaw tends to be dishonest as well; he is a very good liar because of it. But, if the matter is life or death for him or a Clanmate, he generally will tell the truth.

HISTORY

Family: Sparrowpelt; mother- deceased. Father is unknown. Turtlekit, Mottledwhisker, and Hawkfur were his siblings. All are now deceased.

History: Kithood: Sparrowpelt did not reveal the identity of the father of her kits, but many believe it was Stormclaw, a tom who died in battle not too long before the kits were born. It was quite likely, as the tom had always watched Sparrowpelt from a safe distance, some pride in his eyes. The she-cat did not seem devastated when he died, though, but she did leave the nursery, plump with kits soon to come, to sit out in the Leaf-bare cold for a vigil. One of the few that did.

Swampclaw’s mother gave birth to four kits: Turtlekit, Mottledkit, and Hawk-kit. Turtlekit was dark brown, as was Hawk-kit. Mottledkit was a mixture of browns and oranges, making many cats reconsider Stormclaw being the father, as he had been grey as a stormcloud. Swampclaw was a surprise- he was thought to be a she-kit until the medicine cat began to clean him and exclaimed that it was a male. None of them had seen a male kit with his coloring. Sparrowpelt pushed away the strangeness of her son and named him after his dark, murky coat: Swampkit.

Apprentice: Swampclaw was apprenticed to Whitefur, an old warrior who would retire after Swampclaw was made a warrior as well. Turtlekit had died not too long before from greencouh, so Sparrowpelt was mourning the death of her kit still when the others were apprenticed. Swampclaw did not associate himself with his family- he came up with many lies, got himself into trouble, and was not made a warrior for four moons after his siblings. Whitefur appeared strained whenever he came into camp, but he never stopped bragging about Swampclaw, either. The young tom was decent in hunting, but his strong spot was fighting.

Warrior: Right after the tom’s ceremony, Whitefur retired to be an elder, along with his mother. Sadly, a sickness passed through the camp, killing off the two old cats. Swampclaw would never show it, but he had cared for them, and so he grieved silently. He was a trouble making cat, always getting into fights on the borders, always speaking out of turn at Gatherings. Swampclaw often found himself being punished, but nothing he ever did called for exile. Swampclaw was too fearful of StarClan to get into that much trouble; StarClan was the only authority he truly respected, and he respected them for all the wrong reasons.

When the tom was forty moons old, he had straightened up somewhat, able to keep his temper and hatred under more control. Most Clanmates did not suffer physical harm because of him launching himself at them, no matter their age, and Swampclaw also stopped seeing the medicine cat frequently. The apprentice was named Frostpaw; she was a keen young cat and Swampclaw found another to care about. It was only with Frostpaw that he didn’t randomly leap into battle- he feared for the life of the young cat. She only disappointed him because she was compassionate and keen to befriend the other Clans. Frostpaw died from a fox when she was out patrolling with Swampclaw.

Swampclaw never forgave himself for that. Not long after, his siblings died from infected wounds after being attacked by a rival patrol.

RP SAMPLE

See Crowtail