Cast of Characters

Angry Sheila
Female, all black domestic short haired cat.
Sheila wears an almost permanent scowl. She has been neglecting herself off and on for the last 4 years, so she is a bit thinner than is healthy, with no muscles. Her fur is unkempt, scraggly, and thin in spots. Sheila always wears her wedding collar around her neck. Its about a quarter inch wide and made of strips of bark braided together. It is just big enough to be pulled on and off over her head.

Kristin
Female, 12 year old calico cat.
Kristin is becoming quite good at manipulating people. Her social tools consist mainly of humiliation, ridicule, insults, and angry tirades, but when appropriate she has been known to ask politely. With strangers she often uses her 'cute little girl' bit to get what she wants. This can be very effective as she is small and looks younger than she really is. Her father was the only one able to control her. He taught her all about the resistance. (and her mother tried to forbid it) Since her father drowned discovering the lake drain, she has become a dedicated escapist. Having children is frowned upon by the Resistance, she feels her very existence is a mark against the honor of her father, and the only way to erase it is to make herself an asset to them.

Wolfred
Male Timberwolf
Wolfred is very big, very strong, but fairly stupid. Among friends he is gruff and stubborn. Among strangers, he is almost pathologically shy and deferential.
He has been trying to escape for many years and hasn't even come close. He desperately keeps trying the same old failed attempts, but would rather fail forever then quit trying. His attempts are getting more dangerous, and he has hurt himself quite badly more than once.

Speaker (The Old Dog)
Male dog (German Shorthaired Pointer)
Speaker prides himself on being the oldest member of the resistance, but he has stopped actively trying to escape, and practices only ritual defiance anymore. To make himself feel he is still useful to the resistance, he tries to act as advisor, councilor, public speaker, and officiates at weddings & funerals. He has the perfect deep resonant voice for the job.

Old Gerbil
Gerbil Female, ~70 year old
Gerbil is one of the 12 founders. She was born a pet of the keeper, and remembers being fed, cared for, and played with. She considers this new life to be a wonderful gift. Unfortunately, she spent her first two years as an animal, and for a gerbil, thats pretty old. She kept her relative age and is the oldest resident.
She has an unusually clear memory of her old animal life, and she uses her moderate artistic skills to draw & carve those memories. She also remembered the lettering on things in her cage, and used them to make a written language. For a few years she and her friends kept the worlds writing collection, but gave it to Libby when they finished building their Tavern.
She is a master storyteller, the kind that can keep children fascinated for hours reading "War and Peace".

Hanta
Mouse, male, ~8-10 years old
The very first mouse to arrive since the founders 20 years ago, Hanta is annoyingly enthusiastic, cheerful, and optimistic. He's happy to meet everybody and eager to see the whole world.
The native mice completely ignore him and are a constant source of fascination. Hanta is the only resident that can hear that the mice do talk to each other, but he can't understand the language.

Kristin's Mom
Cat, Female, orange tabby.
Anxious, high stress, high guilt. Her world has two kinds of people; total strangers, and family. Kristin is now the only remaining member of the Family category.

Asaad
Lion, Male
Asaad is very big, very loud, and aggressively cheerful. Astoundingly crass, insensitive, rude, and more often than not, infuriatingly true, Much of what he says he doesn't really believe, he simply enjoys being offensive. He doesn't care what people think of him as long as his wives put up with him. That is itself a delicate balancing act, which he has gotten quite good at.

Doctor
Raccoon, Male
Back when arrivals started coming regularly, Doctor watched helplessly as one of his friends bled to death, mauled by a panicked new arrival. He has been attempting to learn how to heal. He has somewhat meager medical skills, developed by trial and error.
He now works in the welcome center. He examines all new arrivals trying to understand the differences (and similarities) between species. He typically interviews them about what their life was like as an animal. He likes to play 'match maker', sometimes putting incompatible people together just to see what problems develop.
He has a tendency to be cold, detached, and analytical. He is married to Libby mainly because she was the only other raccoon at the time.

Libby
Raccoon, Female
Stern, always busy. suspicious of strangers. Libby inherited the writing collection when Gerbil didn't want it anymore. Now she is quite passionate about protecting and preserving all the old documents, and protecting sometimes means discouraging non-crafters from touching them at all. She spends most of her time 'fixing' new writing and recopying old decaying documents. She is a very strong advocate of the crafts. She considers non-crafters useless, and is a little too willing to tell them so. Libby is 'married' to Doctor. They have one child: Riki

Riki
Raccoon, 6-8 years old
Riki is the only child of Doctor and Libby. She is very shy and quiet. She never talks to adults (other than her parents) and rarely even talks to her own friends.
When not leading Hanta into trouble, She usually stays around the Library helping her mom or running errands to the other crafts.

Checker
Praeriedog, Male
Checker is a bureaucrat without a bureaucracy. He tries to keep track of the population as best he can. (without much cooperation) He started working in the Welcome Center in year 21 interviewing and debriefing new arrivals and answering their questions. The previous checker quit without explanation and headed to the outlands. He is very high strung and startles easily, but can be quite tenacious in pursuit of information.

Smith
(undecided), male
Smith doesn't invent things, he discovers them. He experiments with everything he can find: Plants, rocks, dirt, furÉ Sometimes he invents whole new crafts.

Constable
Godawful big brown bear, male
Craft hall security guard, hospital orderly, welcome center protector, champion of the weak, hero of the lazy. He would much rather do his job without ever expending effort, which is quite easy for someone of his size. He can be very intimidating, but is never impolite even when threatening someone.

Anise
Kangaroo, Female
Anise is the administrator for the crafthalls. She is negotiator for services with the townsfolk, diplomat for intercraft disputes, and a master motivator of children. She knows almost anything that goes on within the crafts, who's working how hard, and what jobs need done next. She assigns work to everyone who doesn't already know what to do. All the crafters trust her judgment, as do most others who do business with the crafts.
She is confident, optimistic, soft-spoken and very polite even to those who don't deserve it. She always seems serene even when busy (which is always)

Easton & Weston
Cougar twins, Male
Easton and Weston are not quite adult sized, but have all the adult markings. They are in top physical shape The Twins are apprentices of Wizard. They are the practical designers for the Workshop. They can take any building project and know what materials to use, and how strong they need to be, and where it needs braced or reinforced. They are on a mission to learn everything there is to know. Even when not in the workshop they are usually measuring or testing something, or arguing over their latest project.
Easton is a bit more ruthless, and Weston is more polite. They often argue with each other until a consensus is reached, then claim the result is what they both always wanted.

Purdy
Grey house cat, male
Purdy is the Technical illustrator for the Workshop. He is very good at line drawing but has no real imagination. He usually recopies other peoples finished designs. More than anything else, he wants to be useful.

Wizard
Wallaroo, male
Wizard is an inventor, designer, architect, philosopher, and generally a professional thinker. He is the source of about 60% of the world's technology. He is not so much absent-minded as totally oblivious when he's working on an idea. He and Smith motivated the other founders into actively building and exploring their new world.

Sable
Weaselish, Female, Tan
Helps prepare ink and pigments for the whole Workshop, then uses some of it herself pretending to be an artist. Her favorite paint brush is the tip of her own tail. She tends to have brightly colored stains all over her fur.
Sable is aesthetically challenged. She likes to paint and decorate with awful bright clashing colors.

Martin
Weaselish, Male, Dk Brown
Another paint artist, and a very good one. Makes most of the brushes for the workshop out of his own tail fur. (which can look rather ragged sometimes) Rather quiet and deferential, he tries to compete with Deward for Sable's attention, but loses more often than not.

Deward
Weaselish, Male, Brown
Makes inks and pigments, but doesn't pretend any artistic ability. Brash and aggressive and full of opinions, especially about those thieving resistance thugs, and lazy worthless townspeople.

Have I forgotten anyone, like the season 3 villian, the other residents of Gerbil's Tavern, the mouse elders, The rest of the lion family.
There really aren't too many people in this whole world. It is possible to define them all. Many important characters I'm leaving undefined to leave room for future stories and other authors.

-EMail hantamouse(at)cox(dot)net