#slugcats are mustelids

[dopscratch]

My Slugcat Designs

gaze upon the glory of my slugcats, i have gone full mollusk :)

feel free to use with credit! also show me if you do hahaha

fun design details/headcanons under the break

edit: find out why they're all tubemammals instead of felines here

All of them are mostly Smooth Creatures, no fur in sight. Also all of their limbs can be retracted into their bodies because slug. They each have a maximum of 3 fingers and 2 toes, though some have none at all. They are all toothless and instead possess radulae. Some have beaks and some don't, but I haven't decided which ones. The hunter is the only one with a confirmed beak. Beaks are all dark in color.

Monk is Tall because I said so. Lonk. Also I noticed its tentacles are slightly larger than survivors. Also I like the tall little sibling thing because it's funny to me.

Survivor is very average all around. Maybe slightly on the short side.

Hunter is squid. That is all (Not really). Hunter is an absolute beast and I really liked the idea of rotating colossal squid hooks instead of claws. Also squid worked really well for its long legs form :) Edit: As its rot progresses, its orangey color fades (read: parts of its skin start peeling off) and it becomes pinker like its ingame sprite until it becomes that sickly pink of Hunter Long Legs!

I thought the Spanish Dancer really invoked the tattered ribbons of the explosion spears. Also I know it's an aquatic slug and Artificer is terrible in water but I think the flailing to swim around really fits it haha. Also its a skunk because of the whole chemical weapon theme.

Gourmand is an absolute unit. It is very round. I don't have much else to say about it.

I love axolotls but they're overrated, so instead of having the gills of everyone's favorite neotenic Mexican salamander, Rivulet is an octopus. It can use the pink tentacles around its face to hide its big silly eyes if its scared. It can also stretch them out to look bigger. the space in between is webbed, just like in an octopus, though the webbing is not always visible when the tentacles are folded back or in a relaxed position. It has suckers on the back edges and can twist the tentacles around if it wants to use them to grab or hold something near its face. Its arms and legs can extend to great lengths but they cannot support Rivulet on land very well so they usually stay short then (or will only push it up a short height). A siphon on its underside lets it move faster underwater and it may spray water with it playfully.

Spearmaster is also very long like Monk. The spears are pulled from underneath the shell rather than straight out of the tail.

Saint is a sea sheep, complete with the silly closely placed eyes. Its "tongue" is just a tentacle. Also it's short. And a raccoon because I just felt like it fits.

Nightcat is a scaly-foot gastropod because I said so. I think that since it's a pretty mysterious creature it can get a pretty mysterious feature, though with a generally basic silhouette.

Enot/Inv/???/whatever you wanna call it is just cuttlefish. A wild, crazy creature whose colors, shape, number of arms, and texture are never consistent. It is dense and will not float well. Usually its tentacles and limbs have a bit of a curl to the ends.

I think a flamboyant cuttlefish was perfect for its design, and I chose a yellow mongoose because a) silly creature and b) it's not actually a mustelid so it kinda fits how incredibly weird this guy is.

and that is all, hope you enjoy my slugcats.

[dopscratch]

love this interpretation!! i personally went for the more mollusk interpretation myself (for the exact same reason you chose the mustelid one, honestly, since i find mollusks more interesting than the average mammal and feel like mammals are overrepresented in popular media and i found more fun ways to explore the slugcat's abilites as mollusks) but this is also really cool! for my designs i did indeed take a lot more inspiration from mustelids as well simply design-wise, and i am firmly within the "reject actual cat/cat? more like polecat" so i really appreciate that i'm not the only one in that department!!

RW Headcanon: Know the Difference! | An Overview of Quetzalli's Slugcats

Here’s a headcanon I’ve wanted to elaborate on for a while, and today I finally felt compelled to make it real! Also, just a disclaimer I am not a huge biology nerd nor have I studied it that heavily, so I apologize if something here doesn’t make sense or if I get something wrong. I just like fantasy worldbuilding from time to time, and I always like trying to make sense of things I’m interested in!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Basically, I’m in the crowd that interprets slugcats as mustelids rather than literal slugs. When I say this, however I don’t mean that slugcats would necessarily be classified in the actual mustelidae family, seeing as Rain World’s world is most-likely not Earth and therefore our taxonomic classifications and phylogenetic relations can’t necessarily apply. Thus, when I call them “mustelids”, I really just mean that I imagine them as some kind of weasel with all the necessary physical traits to earn that general label. 

The first half of the name “slugcat”, in my headcanon, is thus not referring to any literal connection to slugs or other mollusks, but is instead derived simply from their appearance. Due to their long ears and thick tail, and because their fur and fat often squishes together in such a way that it makes their features blend together and their bodies appear more smooth (it’s the same physics as that whole “cats are liquid” idea), the general silhouette of a slugcat can easily be likened to that of a literal slug. The second half of their name is also not literal, and instead refers to their jumping and acrobatic abilities and their skill in hunting and pouncing on small prey, which is very similar to that of small cats.

Species Overview

Now to give a little more detail on slugcats themselves as a species! I headcanon them as small to medium-sized mammals most similar to Earth weasels in both their biology and their ecological niche, who originally served as cute low-maintenance pets for the Ancients and as hunters of small pests in facilities on the ground. They’re clever by nature and good at fitting through tight spaces, and later on they evolved greater jumping abilities to pounce on prey. They’re also very social creatures, who’ve taken to forming medium to large colonies primarily in and around the massive trees that thrive between the cracks in iterators’ rainstorm areas (like the one Gourmand, Survivor, and Monk’s colony lives in). Due to this social nature they also generally travel in groups of at least two, both for company and protection against tougher animals. Travel partners are usually siblings or good friends, and sometimes even whole families will journey out together to find food and other resources for the rest of the colony.

Despite being a small prey animal, slugcats have managed to get by not only due to their intelligence — the evolution of which would be seen as a rather unexpected twist of events if you asked their creators, for the Ancients found them cute but rather simple — but because of their impressive adaptability. It’s similar to that of real life red foxes and pigeons, and it allows them to survive decently well even in less ideal environments; a trait especially necessary for a world as industrialized as this one, even if its people are gone and most of the machinery is inactive. As such not all colonies live in trees; some find homes in the abandoned facilities, large underground hollows, and a few bold colonies have even claimed territories high up in iterator cities alongside scavengers. Slugcats are opportunists and masters at making the best of their surroundings, yet even beyond that they carry a certain other, “special” ability of their own that makes them as diverse as they are clever. But that’s a headcanon for another day…

Reasoning

Now for some out-of-universe explanation for this classification choice. I’ve always seen slugcats as some kind of small scurrying mammal (kind of a bias on my part, I just like mammals honestly, and they’re most familiar to me), mainly due to the way they look and move when on all fours, and their place in the game’s food chain. Originally though I saw them as rodents and compared them to mice and rats, which I still sometimes use for anatomy reference for these creatures. But one day a friend of mine saw me drawing slugcats and thought they were weird ferrets, and the more I thought about it and the more I developed personal speculative biology headcanons for slugcats, the more that label seemed the most fitting for them. It was also solidified when I did a bit more research and realized the main characteristic of rodents is their buck teeth, which just didn’t seem to fit with how I perceived slugcats. Not to mention rodents aren’t really predator animals, and slugcats’ implied natural diet and the gameplay itself does strongly imply if not confirm they have some instinctive hunting ability. 

Thus, it seemed “weasel” was the best classification for these creatures, and I quite like it so far! Once again it satisfies my mammal preference, but I also just think it’s a fun idea that neither part of the “slugcat” name is literal, similar to a lot of real-life creatures named after completely different animals, including fellow weasel, the polecat. Plus, I realized recently it’s kind of ironic with how I perceive the messenger slugcats, Hunter and Spearmaster, as being like hunting or guard dogs for their creators, when weasels are exactly the kind of animal humans with their dogs would normally hunt for! It’s cute, it’s familiar, it’s fun, yet I think it still has just as much potential for some interesting speculative biology ideas as the literal slug slugcat interpretations!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

I'm so glad to finally get this out! I like seeing specbio slugcat headcanons in the RW fandom, yet I haven't seen many more in-depth takes from artists who don't take the "slugcats are literal slugs/mollusks/primarily mollusk-based" angle. Not that that's a bad headcanon of course; do what you think feels right! But once again I personally prefer slugcats being mammals, and I always look for fan-content that's as close to my personal preferences as possible. And when I can't find enough of it, I make it myself!

So hopefully this serves as a bit more of that kind of representation for the mustelid slugcat interpretation. It at least helped me develop my own idea of the species a bit more; much of that stuff in the overview part was ideas I came up with while typing this whole headcanon out!

As always, I hope you enjoy this headcanon of mine! I've still got so many ideas to develop and share, and even more coming as I continue to ponder these characters and their stories, so as long as you guys still like these Rain World headcanons of mine, they'll keep coming!

[thunder-wolf64]

Slugcats but their anatomy is based on different mustelids part 1

We got Monk and Survivor: based on ferrets. Hunter: a pine marten, Watcher: a weasel

[squiggl3]

funny shaped beasts

[tenspontaneite]

Still figuring out how I want to draw slugcats, but I'm definitely going for Weird Mustelid vibes now. Have some Survivor 🙏

[equipment-manifest]

Curated list of Rain World analysis I like

The Ancients dragonpropaganda on popular misconceptions about the Ancients' culture ikayblythe's speculative biology kociamieta's notes on Ancient character design

Character analysis eliias-bouchard on NSH's portrayal ikayblythe on Pebbles' age and motivations pocket-goat's thoughts about Moon in the context of the Saint campaign shkika on Moon and Pebbles' relationship shkika on whether Moon and Pebbles are siblings skybristle's and my own thoughts on the decay of Moon's organic parts

General speculative biology chaotic-minds-think-alike's interpretation of lizards dragonpropaganda on the relationship of purposed organisms to ingame fauna flickering-nightfall's interpretation of the reproductive strategies and social structures of various species in the game sluglore on the intelligence of Slugcats and the experience of playing Rain World for the first time

Iterator anatomy bonniesband's exposition on the Rot as a type of cancer copepods and myself on whether parts of post-collapse Moon beyond the puppet could be conscious copepods on viewing iterators as more than the puppet delta-orionis' method for estimating the height of Iterator cans delta-orionis and myself discuss the meaning of the terms "Recursive Transform Array" and "Abstract Convergence Manifold" mebis-art-dump and I discuss the axon-like coral stems and other internal biota of Iterator superstructures my theory about how an Iterator's memories are stored and why Moon doesn't forget anything when she loses a neuron orangedoorhingeinstorage and kayjaypax on movable components in the memory conflux and adjacent systems skybristle's and my own thoughts on the decay of moon's organic parts

Iterator puppet anatomy aluminum-angels' interpretation bitsbug's puppet interpretation copepods' mechanical interpretation: moon & pebbles / post-collapse moon flickering-nightfall's journey to understand the puppet arm: part 1 / part 2 flickering-nightfall on the "umbilical" ikayblythe's arthropoidal interpretation: overview / endoskeletons / "skin" joowee-feftynn observes that puppets can't walk spotsupstuff on the relationship between puppet and can trashiiplant's ragdoll interpretation yellowsnacc's "jello-covered skeleton" interpretation

Slugcat anatomy arrayydee's slugcat design artihunter's take on the fur/slime question dopscratch's mollusk/mustelid interpretation honey-marrow's interpretation of Spearmaster's anatomy

Themes and storytelling bitsbug draws a comparison between Rain World's Cycle and the real-world Water Cycle comrade-slugcat and myself on themes of inevitability and futility in Monk & Survivor's campaigns dragonpropaganda on how Rain World's level design is based on the idea of civilizations successively building upon each others' ruins grunckle's theory relating ascension, void worms, and voidspawn together through the idea of qualia grunckle's illustration of the parallels between the iterators and void worms and some connections to Gnosticism nyuuronfly and vodens on the relationship between Rain World's lore and gameplay and the experience of a blind playthrough seventeendeer on the thematic significance of ascension and the player's agency in choosing it sick-ada's theory that the final cutscene in the Void sea leads back to the start of each vanilla campaign sluglore on the intelligence of Slugcats and the experience of playing Rain World for the first time Miscellaneous bitsbug and ikayblythe discuss the age of the ecosystem flecks-of-stardust's theory that (in vanilla) the Chimney Canopy pearl was created by Five Pebbles grunckle's notes on what we know about the cosmology of Rain World ikayblythe's speculative geology of the surface and void sea monkmain on the illustration for Stolen Enlightenment my theory on the meaning of "HR_LAYERS_OF_REALITY" my timeline of architecture on the surface rw-me elaborates on the canonicity of Downpour shkika on the distances between members of the local group shkika, flecks-of-stardust, and fluffybunny35 discuss why it rains in Shaded Citadel soaricarus, flickering-nightfall, and myself on why Seven Red Suns is probably not a member of the "local group" yunnifo discusses Rivulet ending projections

[kelocitta]

Hey I was just wanting to ask if you some tips on drawing Slugcat legs. I really want to be able to draw these little cuties and I have everything else done but the legs (specifically poses and action) is really tough for me

It'll depend heavily on how you actually wanna do their legs, but since your asking me I'll assume you like how i do them- I draw them digitigrade when in motion, which basically means that the weight of the animal is carried on the on the toes (the other is plantigrade, which means the back of the foot makes contact with the ground when moving.) This is important since it changes how the leg tends to be formed and rest, but slugcats have a lot of flexibility here.

The other thing to keep in mind is that slugcats are *sleek* and tend to be smooth no matter what pose they're in, so you can hide the specifics of the legs under this and squash and stretch them as you see fit. Think about how fur or feathers tend to hide exactly how the body looks (and thats why so many animals look weird when wet and all that stuff lays flat) As for how I do it, I try to keep slugcats to a tube or triangle shape with most of the weight/fat being in the hips and tail. In most cases, you can get away with just imaging the leg as a flexible ball, and treat the foot as a point (like your pulling on a water balloon). The further the foot from the body, the more that ball stretches. The specifics of whats going *on* in the ball can be hidden unless its its really stretched out

Mentally I don't put much thought into it, but if you need more structure think of the bones of the leg as three sections- the foot, fibula/tibia (Lower leg bones) and femur (Upper leg bone/thigh). Digitigrade and plantigrade tend to favor certain positioning, but ultimately the only major focus is on how the foot functions. Digitigrade in particular tends to favor this sort of 'z' formation even when fully stretched (Humans, in contrast, are plantigrade, and our legs can be fully straighten out even if they still fold the same way). So if your going for that you'll always want to keep a bit of a 'z' shape even if your stretching it waaay out. When at rest, I keep the foot of the slugcat flat. But anytime it's in motion or would be active they shift weight to their toes. You could keep them fully plantigrade, but personally I think digitigrade allows for easier shows of motion and more natural looking action shots with the upright posture if you dont want to stretch the leg out fully. Also i just like the look of it more. (If you want to get into biology more, this would normally be hard on the legs weight-wise, but I like to imagine slugcats are mixed tripedal rather than strict bipeds, and make use of their tails as a third grounding point.)

And heres a very quick run over some of the official cutscenes to show similar:

I personally just wing it when it comes to the sizes of those sections, but a general rule of thumb is that everything gets shorter as you go down- the upper leg has the longest bones, then the middle leg, then the foot. A lot of that is hidden in the body of the slugcat, but keeping that in mind might help keep the leg length feeling natural. (But the biggest secret is that your drawing a fake, stretchy blobby animal so you can bs a lot and be imperfect and honestly just do whatever in a lot of cases and not end up with something that noticeably wrong. This DOES get a little harder if you draw them more lithe or cat like, just because that exposes the leg more) And lastly, if cutscene art isnt helping and you might benefit from a real life reference- rather than using an actual cat I would actually recommend mustelid like a ferret, otter or stoat. They're plantigrade rather than digitigrade, but their form and posturing is a little bit closer to the slugcat and it might help with visualizing the way the legs can sink into the body. I will give a heads up that these are little predators so general search results do tend to show them hunting small animals like mice, if your sensitive to that stick to domestic ferrets for safer results.

Just remember to fatten them up- they're way longer and thinner than slugcats are

[rain-world-headcanons]

slugcats are more like mustelids than rodents

-

[cordycepsbian]

we see mustelid-based slugcats a lot and we like mustelids as much as the next guy but we think it makes more sense for slugcats to be based on a feliform mammal. so here's our million dollar idea: mongoose slugcats

[dieselpvnk]

Is your Enot capable of being visceral during combat? They don't really seem like it tbh lol they seem more "uwu cutesy" /lh

they rip and tear, the obly slugcat besides artificer to be able to maul !! like a mustelid, looks cute, but a viscious hunter

[mizzyislost]

decided to try out drawing @dopscratch's slugcat designs,,,,

big fan of these guys anyone who gives slugcats different animal traits has my utmost admiration, particularly with mustelids. we need more of those i think,,,,,

[dopscratch]

slugcat psa

slugcats are more slug than cat and the cat refers to polecats

yes i will be taking questions and no you cannot change my mind

pretty much every slugcat feature is an ACTUAL REAL FEATURE ON MOLLUSCS

intelligence? cephalopods.

spearmaster? gypsobelum (love darts) (edit: chitinous darts some slugs and snails produce and shoot at others as a mating ritual)

rivulet? aquatic molluscs galore (sea snails, sea slugs, cephalopods)

saint?? fur?? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A SEA BUNNY OR A SEA SHEEP??

also can CATS have long prehensile tongues?? no. can molluscs have long prehensile tentacles?? YES!!

ALSO slugs come in all of the colors

AND also polecats polecats and other mustelids you CANNOT tell me slugcats are not built like mustelids they are LONG with LITTLE BABY ARMS and are usually PLANTIGRADE (pay attention to their feet!! in this image they're all standing on their full foot rather than their toes! check other offical art too- they're only going up on their toes in action poses and when they're mid-stride when their foot leaves the ground!)

therefore, the name slugcat is slug + polecat and they are mostly slug while built like a tubemammal and you cannot convince me otherwise

[amerricanartwork]

A non-serious, but fun little elaboration on my previous headcanon about slugcats being primarily mustelids: slugcats with real mustelid patterns! Apparently people were doing the same thing a while ago using real cat patterns, so I wanted to try my own spin on it and see how it would look! Plus it was nice to practice more dynamic poses with these guys, especially quadruped ones.

Sorry I haven't posted as much as I meant to; this took a LOT longer than I expected. But I think the result is pretty cute, and I honestly enjoyed realizing the similar color patterns in all these animals!

Which one is your favorite? I think I like the black-footed ferret best!

Also, non-patterned alt below:

[thunder-wolf64]

Slugcats but their anatomy is based on different mustelids part 2

Gourmand is a european badger, Artificer and her pups are wolverines. I made their patterns closer to the species's coat this time.

[marguerite-pizza]

rain world art dump. sorry guys they got me

also made a little headcanon chart and it’s gonna be under the cut

I rlly like thinking of the slugcats as those like. Inbetween mammals. yknow like you can’t really tell where they fall :3c mostly mustelids

survivor - European polecat + Doris odhneri

- standard ferret thing

monk - mink + Doris montereyensis

- it was funny

- i thought having both surv and monk as similar slugs was neat

hunter - american badger + Okenia rosacea

- badgers are mean but also protective

gourmand - raccoon + Doriopsilla albopunctata

- c’mon it’s so fitting

- also that slug is called a “white spotted sea goddess” and I thought that was rlly funny

spearmaster - marbled polecat + Edmundsella pedata

- just something abt them

rivulet - sea otter + Hypselodoris bennetti

- bffr

- I was actually rlly surprised there was a sea slug that fit rivulet so nicely

saint - fisher cat + Costasiella kuroshimae

- they just look the same to me

- I’m a slugcat fur denier he is WET and SLIMY

artificer - tasmanian devil + Aplysia californica

- also speaks for itself

- California sea hares are so ugly I love them <3

[h4zardousch3micals]

Slugcats are mustelids to me:

Survivor is a stoat, Monk is a ferret, Arti is a honey badger, Rivulet is an otter (still thinking for everybody else)

Do you see my vision?