Kzinti Warrior with a variable sword

From a distance, Kzinti resemble huge orange housecats, however no human has ever survived making this comparison. Male Kzinti easily reach eight feet tall and can weigh in excess of 200 kilograms. Their bodies are covered in a rich coat of typically orange-red fur with yellow or white stripes. Black markings around the eyes are common. Their tails are long, hairless, and ratlike.

Kzinti have remarkably human eyes with round, instead of the slitted pupils of terrestrial cats. Their ears are hairless with multiple points. They hold their ears flat against their heads while they are calm or fanned out like parasols when angry or listening intently for the sound of prey.

They have paws like black leather gloves and sheathed long, retractile claws which are sharpened and polished. Kzinti mouths are full of needle-like teeth for tearing raw flesh. Kzinti are famous for their grin. A Kzin grins when angry or challenging someone (or something), readying their teeth by exposing them in a deadly smile.

The members of the nobility often have their own unique colouration indicating their particular class.

Kzin Genetics

The following is an extract from "The Survivor" MKW IV

"During heroic reproduction the male egg combined with the female egg to form a doubled nucleus. The kzin-code groups, not unlike human chromosomes, were then distributed, leaving the super-egg to divide into two fertile male and female eggs which then migrated to the kzinrett's pouch in pairs, a litter always containing an even number of kits, half kzintosh, half kzinrett.

Reproduction wasn't all that dissimilar among monkeys but there were unfortunate differences. The nuclei of kzincells were more complicated than those of mancells, containing three distinct kinds of protein coding, sexual, major-group, and lumpy-constellation. The kzincode strands that determined kzinsex were enormous, four time as large as any strands in the major kzincode-group, and several octals larger than any member of the lumpy kzincode-constellation. In the male cells the kzintosh-strand appeared twice,while in female cells a dominant kzintosh-strand was lord over the single kzinrett-strand, the latter acting to edit physical size and repress language in the female who carried it."

The following extract describes Eater-of-grass/Trainer-of slaves' difficulty to use the same mechanism, to make Lt. Nora Argamentine more like a kzinrett again from "The Survivor" MKW IV

"It would be difficult to genetically engineer male sex dominance in the man-beasts because with these animals it was the female who carried the twinned sex chromosome! A perverse reversal of the normal situation. Given their genetic makeup one might wonder how male monkeys, balding and hemophiliac, came to be intelligent! Worse, the male and female sex-chromosomes of the man-beast were normal-sized, the male chromosome runtish, even, and unlike the kzintosh-strand or the kzinrett-strand, were not major centers of developmental switching."

Psychology

Kzinti are bad-tempered, take offence at almost any slight, and have a society and a code of honour that compels them to react violently if an apology is not immediately forthcoming. The same code of honour also permits no apology if the kzin in question believes himself to be in the right. As such, kzinti society has developed a great number of ways of reducing such conflict, not always successfully.

Kzinti honour is considered so personal, that a dishonoured individual would rather die than loose face. This system of honour is so important that a Kzin will not lie to anyone under practically all circumstances.

A attacking Kzin appears to be berserk to a human, as they seem to attack without caution and ignore all but the most catastrophic damage. In fact they are usually quite calm during battle, but headstrong and willful to an inhuman degree.

Kzinti see themselves, at least in their heyday, as the unquestioned lords of creation, and believe military expansion and subjugation of other races to be their birthright.

Kzinti honour forbids the unneccesary torture of prisoners, although verbal abuse and a bullying outlook are common, if frowned upon. Prisoners are seen as practically devoid of rights, and can be summarily hunted down and eaten if they are not of immediate use.

This having been said, kzinti are not cowards, and truly respect those with strength, or to a lesser degree, intelligence, and may even bestow great honours upon members of other races if they prove worthy.

Scientists and scholars are generally looked down upon in kzinti society as weak, however the greatest of such kzinti are respected in the same way as our own men of learning and geniuses.

The Kzin have a sub-class in their society, those that have the Telepathic gift.

In addition to the Telepaths, there are also individual Kzinti who have a "Zirrgah" sense which enables them to sense emotions and gives them limited sixth sense insight. This talent is usually kept hidden by the individual Kzin who does not want to be distinguished from his fellow Kzin.