A Kitten, or a plot line?

[Slife]

Give the barbarian an opportunity to class into cat burglar. Cats are weird, make it act a little oddly. It's just a normal cat, but the metagame knowledge of the existence of these classes will add some paranoia.

 

[S. Baldrick]

Perhaps the Barbarian has gained the favor of a cat like deity such as the Egyptian goddess Bast (or Bastet) for rescuing the kitten. This favor could take the form of allowing the Barbarian to re-roll a failed save or automatically stabilize after falling below 0 hit points, a free healing or raise dead from a cleric of the cat god or something like that.
You could also use the followers of the cat god as an adventure hook. For example: The temple of Bast needs an artifact recovered and they approach the barbarian and his party to hire them to retrieve it.

 

[ImBatman]

Anyway, I'm looking for clever ideas.

ever see that old WB cartoon with the big watch dog and the kitten, that he tries to keep from constant harm as it innocently goes about and "plays" - anyway aside from eventually realizing that the kitten shouldn't be with the party because of their constant travels and danger, you could have a witch make sugar cookies in the shape of animals... right after the kitten conveniently disappears... (insert evil grin here)

 

[Quartz]

I remember an earlier thread where one of the characters gratuitously slew a cat and was then attacked by a cat which progressively got tougher as each incarnation was slain.

Simply rescueing a kitten shouldn't gain any reward of itself, but maybe it was a test? Either by the gods of Good, or by a cat deity. Or both. Or maybe it's brought the PCs to the attention of such. And what if the cat-deity were evil, like Andaras in ICE's Shadow World? It would be very like Wyre's Eadric for an exalted character to have the blessing of a dark god. Plus, imagine the look on the player's face when told that his barbarian has got a Profane bonus to his saves.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

After it grows up, have it kill a commoner.

Later
silver

 

[heavensblade23]

Have it chase a cat toy through a portal to the abyss. The party will HAVE to follow because no one wants to think of what would happen to an itty-bitty-kitty in the abyss by itself.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

It's secretly a succubus gold dragon in disguise!

Nah ... have it just maim and eat the next commoner who wanders by.

Or maybe it's Schroedinger's kitten, and it has the ability to walk through solid walls.

If they try to get rid of it, it always comes back (even if killed, deported, obliterated ...)

 

[Merkuri]

If they try to get rid of it, it always comes back (even if killed, deported, obliterated ...)

I like that idea. Just keep having the kitten come back, no matter how gruesome or final the death. It would wake the barbarian every morning by nuzzling him, coming out of nowhere. And have it remain a kitten, no matter how long the party is adventuring.

Let them puzzle over what it is. When you hear them ponder an interesting-sounding idea decide that THAT is what the kitten was all along and let the party think they figured it out.

That reminds me of an old comedy adventure game where the main character was given a fish at the very beginning of the game, and even though he was captured several times and his inventory stripped bare he always somehow got the fish back (usually somebody ducking out of a doorway and tossing the fish, saying "Hey, you forgot your fish!"). The fish (rotted and gross by the end of the game) ended up being the key item to beating the big boss.

 

[Umbran]

First of all two words - magical mice. Why? Because "magical mice" is just fun to say...

Okay, so, for a plot...

He's still young, and doesn't know it yet, but the kitten is actually The Golden Cat, a prophesied cat hero who has his own quest, and will save the world for all catkind. There will be a string of events throughout the campaign that the party will thoroughly misunderstand, where the cat's adventures impinge upon the human world.

Just like a human hero, along the way he'll pick up his own companions that start showing up and hanging around (these may include any mounts or Animal Companions the PCs may have - they think they have Human Companions...). You get the idea. One always talks about how the PCs are not the only adventuring party in the game world, right? Well, in a magical world, why do they all have to be human?

Read Tad Williams' Tailchaser's Song, or Gabriel King's The Wild Road and The Golden Cat for references.

 

[Nerfwright]

We rescued a pair of hungry, orphaned kittens somewhere in a dungeon back in my AD&D days. (I think a ghoul ate their mother.)

They were extremely cuddly, and loved to curl up on your lap and purr and knead their paws while being petted. This was how we discovered that their claws involuntarily injected a nasty grade of poison.

The dwarf fighter was very pleased with his pet death kitties.