Sentient Animal Roleplay Idea

So I have an idea for a roleplay involving talking animals. But not the kind of talking animals where they're as smart as people or can interact with them in any way. Animals that can talk, but only have limited understanding of the scope of the world. They have their own mythologies and legends and societies, but they can only comprehend them on a level with which they are familiar.

A good example of this kind of take on the talking animal genre is the book Watership Down.

My idea is that we start in the small area surrounding a secluded house in the woods, where small animals such as rats and rabbits live in fear and hiding from the humans' dog, a stupid and lovable creature. It wouldn't hurt a fly, the humans would think, but although it has forgotten its predatory ways, it still is large and dangerous.

Anyone interested? It's early morning and I'm not as clear and concise as I usually am, but I could answer any questions about the idea.

This could be interesting. I'm going to lay claim to peregrine falcons, salamanders, and the old, wizened wolf that acts as grandpa to the other characters now.

Once we get a bit more about plot and whatnot, I could be up for that.

Oh that reminds me, there would probably be a problem with falcons or wolves, as they are large and predatory and wouldn't hang out with a rat or a rabbit under any circumstance. Animals aren't very nice or friendly.

I also forgot to add that one story thread I was thinking of is there is an old semi-crippled rat and his two sons, except I call dibs on the father rat. The father was injured in escaping from the dog, which killed the mother. I have no idea where I'm going with it but I wanted to have a rat father and two brothers.

So we'd be playing as rabbits, rats, and other small animals? Or just all as one species.

small herbivorous animals would sort of make up one "side" in that they would realistically interact with one another, any predators would have to be "villains" except more they just couldn't naturally interact with the prey animals on a friendly basis.

We can hand-wave environmental differences, or will there be a set biome we'll have to pick from?

And having socially ostracized characters is always fun, a predator would be an interesting route to take.

Well the biome I'm thinking is temperate deciduous forest. I'm mainly going off my home Virginia. What out of place creature did you have in mind? I'd like to keep it mainly grounded in reality, as my idea is testing whether or not a semi-realistic animal story could be interesting.

Personally, I didn't have anything like a tiger or buffalo, just wondering. I'd go for a peregrine falcon, moose, or maybe a rabbit or sqiurrel.

All of those things could work. Maybe not moose since they're HUGE. But most ideas would work if people played more than one character, as the scale of some animals would make it impossible for them to partake in everything.

Also, I think I will be the house dog and the majority of humans, as I'm sure nobody really wants to use human characters. They're not as much fun.

I was thinking squirrel, but I'm still looking into my options.

No takers for the rat brothers? Hehehe

No moose? When I was in Wyoming, those used to be the coolest things to watch when we'd go to Yellowstone.

Peregrine falcons, then.

I shall become a raven named poe.

Crows and ravens are predatory.

A vulture would be interesting.

I may have a falcon and a morbidly optimistic vulture.

I was probably going to play some sort of bird, like a grouse or something (pending seeing what interesting species are in the area).

Eo, given that it's you, as long as you make it sound fairly intelligent, you could probably get a polar bear in this RP and no one would ask questions

vultures, ravens, crows, and falcons are all native to Virginia, mid east coast. Moose, not so much. And predatory animals aren't so much a no go as they are difficult to play since most of them don't really get along too well. Just something to keep in mind when picking as the animals are more animal than human in their sensibilities.

and no polar bears, that's just ridiculous. :P

What about penguins? Escaped zoo penguins? Escaped zoo penguins with a taste for human flesh? escaped zombie penguins controlled by a penguin loving mad man that like to strap bombs on their back? And all of that was completely unserious.

A bat named Verne, but if there are no takers for one of the rat brothers, I could easily do that instead.

Perhaps an old falcon who was trained by humans and went rogue? I could throw in a few "The Second Coming" references....

A bat would be interesting since it's predatory but only on small flying bugs. And a falcon could work, and it would be interesting to have an escaped trained bird be a character since it would have somewhat conflicting instincts and allegiances.

As for the rat brothers, I don't see any problem in people overseeing multiple characters, but I am not well versed in the forum roleplay genre.

Do we want to start making character sheets for our proposed characters that I would then copy paste into the original post so we can more easily see what's "taken" and what we need more of?

Sounds good to me. I'll work on a sheet in a little while.

I don't believe that sheets would be necessary but many of the users here are more accustomed to having one. If you don't really want sheets, then just make it minimal at best.

Yeah, not really any "sheets" but a name, animal, and short physical description are all that's necessary. I need to get around to making mine...