The kinowa species has evolved since I first came up with them. They're not lemurs, anymore - they're highly evolved rats that just convergently resemble lemurs, mainly because I couldn't think of a way to get lemurs into the correct continent. This version looks a bit squirrely, what with the hair tufts on the ears and poofy tail. Males are bigger, with a thicker neck ruff and extra hair turts jutting out from the lower part of the ear. I wanted them to look considerably less humanoid than they started, more like a natural race than fuzzy little humans.

Redcap herself started out as a cat, of all things, in a book I'm struggling to write - a tabby cat named Rune. Originally a plot twist had the markings on Rune's side being the trigger for a very destructive spell, which the main character discovered accidentally. But there aren't any cats in Caranoctia, at least not little pet ones. Well, nothai, but they're mini-panthers, not cats.

Anyways, the current version of Redcap is a kinowa, which if you haven't read any of my other stuff, is a 10lb intelligent arboreal race that lives exclusively in the upper canopy of Andavadoaka trees (which make our sequoias look like Charlie Brown's xmas tree). They're inventive, adventurous, bossy little beasts, the females at least - the males are laid-back homebodies. They have a fairly advanced "bamboo science" tech level, including gliders, and a religion so mysterious no one knows the details, not even me. Their homes are so hard for other species to reach, at the time of the story there are only the vaguest rumors of their existence, which kinowa explorers use to their advantage. They're infiltrating the settlements of those interesting new invading species, humans, under the guise of simple pets ("chee").

Redcap (real name: Kofali Maaz) is one such spy. An absolutely typical female kinowa, she is an expert glider pilot, gadgeteer, and swashbuckling heroine who chafes at pretending to be a brainless animal and can't help subtly assisting the main character. The male one is, like most males, a bit on the slow and blundering side (in her opinion!) and the female she feels a great deal of sympathy and fellowship for. She's a mother herself, her kids (Right and Left) at home with her current mate, Vuvati Zato ti-Maaz. By the end of the book she has declared herself leader of their little colony, and no one dares question her.