Killer Cat of Gin-Seng

The Killer Cats of Gin-Seng were sapient felines from the Gin-Seng region of Gallifrey. (AUDIO: Erasure) The Second Doctor once mentioned mercenaries from Gin-Seng as one of the Felinetta races. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People) They hated the rituals of the Great Houses and had the ability of precognition. (PROSE: The Return of the King)

The Killer Cats once rose against the Time Lords (AUDIO: Erasure) in the Crisis of Gin-Seng, (AUDIO: The Last Fairy Tale) which was stopped by the Fourth Doctor. The Celestial Intervention Agency erased all records of this incident, a cover-up that Narvin believed benefited not just the Time Lords but everyone who lived on Gallifrey. (AUDIO: Erasure)

By the beginning of the Imperator's rule, the Cats were vanishing from the Homeworld to escape the coming War in Heaven. Thessalia's oracle was one of the few remaining Cat People. (PROSE: The Return of the King) The boy who would grow up to become Lord Yellow Dog of the Thirty-One Cuts told Larissa that during his nighttime explorations he once journeyed to caverns beneath House Ixion and saw meetings of wild things who hid sharp teeth and claws in their dark robes. (PROSE: Newtons Sleep)

The Second Doctor mentioned "mercenaries of Gin-Seng" as one of the many races of Felinetta across the stars. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People)

Behind the scenes

Dee Robson's 1977 designs for the Killer Cats. (DWM 336)

• The Killer Cats of Gallifrey were to have appeared in the cancelled Season 15 story Killers of the Dark. Dee Robson's 1977 designs for the Killer Cats were printed in DWM 336.
• Daniel O'Mahony referenced sentient cats on the Homeworld in his Faction Paradox stories The Return of the King and Newtons Sleep. His short story A Rag and a Bone ^[+]Loading...["A Rag and a Bone (short story)"] similarly mentioned the cat people of Gallifrey as having fought against Rassilon's parahumans in the early universe "for the sake of the future". This alluded to the lore of Alan Moore's "Quality Universe", defined as an alternate history of the Doctor Who universe where the Warpsmiths actually succeeded in wiping out the Chronarchy using the "Death-Cats".