Aktos the Ineffable: My phylactery is a small pebble I tossed into the deepest depths of the ocean. Sure, if my body destroys I gotta walk back to the shore, but the inconvenience is worth the security. How about you guys?
Zorak the Malevolent: I have an arrangement with a powerful dragon, a coin near the bottom of his hoard. I simply pay him rent for the privilege and can be assured it will either remain secure, or in the unlikely event of his death be looted rather than destroyed allowing me to make new arrangements.
Tessarius the Inconcievable: I folded up a pocket dimension on the astral plane. Can’t get in if you ain’t got the key and the password, but I can leave whenever I feel like once I regenerate there.
Kolok, Scourge of Nine Blasphemies: Actually… Same as Aktos. Remember how we met on the walk back last time?
Aktos: Oh yes. It was Kraken mating season if I recall correctly.
Kolok: Yes, had to walk ten leagues to go around their territory. Very inconvenient. How about you Phil?
Necrotic Phil: Condom.
Kolok: I’m sorry?
Phil: Well, ain’t nobody gonna think too hard about a condom they found in a lich’s pocket, are they?
That thing about how cats think humans are big kittens is a myth, y’know.
It’s basically born of false assumptions; folks were trying to explain how a naturally solitary animal could form such complex social bonds with humans, and the explanation they settled on is “it’s a displaced parent/child bond”.
The trouble is, cats aren’t naturally solitary. We just assumed they were based on observations of European wildcats - but housecats aren’t descended from European wildcats. They’re descended from African wildcats, which are known to hunt in bonded pairs and family groupings, and that social tendency is even stronger in their domesticated relatives. The natural social unit of the housecat is a colony: a loose affiliation of cats centred around a shared territory held by alliance of dominant females, who raise all of the colony’s kittens communally.
It’s often remarked that dogs understand that humans are different, while cats just think humans are big, clumsy cats, and that’s totally true - but they regard us as adult colonymates, not as kittens, and all of their social behaviour toward us makes a lot more sense through that lens.
They like to cuddle because communal grooming is how cats bond with colonymates - it establishes a shared scent-identity for the colony and helps clean spots that they can’t easily reach on their own.
They bring us dead animals because cats transport surplus kills back to the colony’s shared territory for consumption by pregnant, nursing, or sick colonymates who can’t easily hunt on their own. Indeed, that’s why they kill so much more than they individually need - it’s not for fun, but to generate enough surplus kills to sustain the colony’s non-hunting members.
They’re okay with us messing with their kittens because communal parenting is the norm in a colony setting, and us being colonymates in their minds automatically makes us co-parents.
It’s even why many cats are so much more tolerant toward very small children, as long as those children are related to one of their regular humans: they can tell the difference between human adults and human “kittens”, and your kittens are their kittens.
Basically, you’re going to have a much easier time getting a handle on why your cat does why your cat does if you remember that the natural mode of social organisation for cats is not as isolated solitary hunters, but as a big communal catpile - and for that purpose, you count as a cat.
