Ah!! Yucky ferret thingy made me physically chuckle. They’re about 2-3 feet tall and their strength varies. Usually, they’re strong enough to carry around a metal core that would (entirely guessing) say is about 80 pounds. They can do this without slowing down. Additionally, they can stick spears in stone and (sometimes) metal walls.

Yes, you can talk to eachother. You will speak a language only slugcats know. Technically, you can talk to other things too. But it’s like a human talking to a cat. As far as your characters are aware, there are no other sentient beings. 

The average slugcat in your particular clan is red, due to the region you’re in. But there’s no limit to the colors as long as they don’t stretch into the neon territory. Light patterning is okay too, as long as it either makes sense with your animalistic trait (like the spear master who has spots they pull spears out of) or is a pattern a cat could have.

Gore will probably be pretty bloody but this won’t be focused on torture or anything of the like. You’re animals in nature, so it would be things like a character getting hurt in a fight or finding dead animals. That later part will be especially prevalent because of the illness. There won’t be any explicit sex that I could possibly think of, but I prefer to act as if there is a chance of characters talking about it. SA would need to be EXTREMELY justified. And would never happen during the game. This is not a world where that would be an interesting plot point.