Hunting specialities are the tactics that cats use whilst hunting. Treeclan has three distinctn tactics, and each cat specialises in at least one of these methods. Those cats that are masters of hunting as a whole may have two to three different hunting specialities, but they will be considered masters only of the one that is ranked highest within their bio.

Hunting specialities exist in three rarities, namely;

Cᴏᴍᴍᴏɴ
Virtually all cats of the clan have some ability to use this tactic, and half to three-quarters of its members will have taken it as their speciality. This is the clan’s main means of obtaining fresh-kill.
TCE’s current common specialities are: Ground Hunting.

Uɴᴄᴏᴍᴍᴏɴ
Most cats of the clan will be able to use this tactic, but no more than half of these cats will have taken it as their speciality. This is the clan’s secondary means of obtaining fresh-kill.
TCE’s current uncommon specialities are: Branch Hunting.

Rᴀʀᴇ
Only a very small percentage of cats have learnt to use this tactic, and virtually all of these cats will have taken it as their speciality. These are usually new or dying tactics and merely supplement the fresh-kill collected by other means, though they may, on occasion, push their clan over the fine line between starvation and survival.
TCE’s current rare specialities are: Tree Hunting.

In a word: yes. However, it’s important to note that Treeclan has been designed to dislike/be intolerant of anything ‘different’ – which unfortunately includes LGBT+/nonbinary cats. As such much of the clan would be against (or simply fail to understand) non-hetero/binary individuals, and nonbinary cats would largely be treated/referred to/seen as members of their biological gender. In practice it’s likely that player-owned characters would be on the more open end, but you would need to assume that the majority of the clan is not and take this fact into account when designing and writing your character. Remember that Treeclan is a very large clan, and as such most of its numbers comprise of NPCs who would follow the more general views/temperament of the clan.

That said, it’s also important to note that Treeclanners tend to be blindly loyal to those they value, which means that it’s entirely possible for LGBT+/nonbinary characters to have a few friends/family who accept them as they are. In addition, Treeclan has a tendency to grow more tolerant of members who can prove themselves particularly valuable to the clan (in effect they would simply ignore the 'difference' in question)– and this would extend as much to LGBT+/nonbinary individuals as it would other differences. On a final note, there’s also the chance that the clan in general may grow more tolerant of these individuals in future, but this is entirely dependent on the outcomes of TCE’s roleplays and plots.

Currently, there are two ways of obtaining a given hunting speciality. The primary method is in-character training from a cat bearing the desired speciality; this usually occurs during apprenticeships, with apprentices inheriting their master’s skills. That said, common and uncommon specialities may also be taught to full warriors, though this rarely occurs.

The second means of obtaining a hunting speciality is character creation. All common specialities are permanently available to those making new characters, and uncommon specialities, though occasionally closed, will generally be available as well. To obtain these, members need only include them within their bios, and, unless it is an uncommon speciality that is temporarily unavailable, the cat will be accepted.

Finally, rare specialities can be claimed here, or occasionally obtained via apprenticeship (if the mentor specialises in that hunting tactic). Unless otherwise stated, these specialities can never be obtained through normal character creation.

TCE defines an ‘odd’ breed as any type of cat that was specifically bred to match a pedigree, and that wouldn’t feasibly occur within the wild. As an example: Munchkins, Scottish Folds, and Siamese would all be considered odd breeds, whilst the Maine Coon and Bengal Cat would not.

Because Treeclan has been living in the Valley for generations, and the traits that make these breeds would likely be bred out relatively quickly, it is not possible for any of its members to be both an odd breed and considered ‘pure’ Treeclan. However, because Treeclan also has a history of accepting lones/rogues into its ranks, we do allow some odd breeds to be played. The proviso is that these cats are not from ‘Pure’ lines, but are instead either Mixed, Half-clan, or Foreign.

Please see this page for a summary of how TCE defines pure/mixed/half-clan cats.