If you are seeking someone schooled in feline mythos and lore, you needn't look too much further, [@Oak7ree]. The feline kind is my area of expertise, to include that aspect. All animals have magical attributes associated with them, even to this day, but I cannot name too many that have as much variety in the matter as cats both greater and lesser do. They are as much a friend as they are foe, going back to before man even so much as walked upright. One can only imagine what magical beasts could do given that. This also lends itself well to prospects of animism, shamanism and totemistic tendencies. What is more frightening than the barbarians outside your gates? An army of them, headed by a shaman who can divine the future, turn into a predator or conjure terrible storms to plague your people.

With regard to magic, I find from experience that mingling darker, lower fantasy elements with the [i]potential[/i] to encounter high fantasy has greater and more bombastic impact. Not just from a reader or player's perspective, but that of an observer. If all common folk had even some semblance of magic, why are they common? Surely they would discover and evolve those talents further. But, if you were to keep that knowledge coveted, secret and shrouded in mystery, now you are toying with potentially shattering perceptions. It makes powerful figures reasonably powerful - a court wizard of a kingdom is, beyond a doubt, perhaps the one person who truly has [i]any[/i] idea about a magic that could affecting a people and failing that, at least has a place to start.

A nobleman's private mage, who acts as the champion of his house? Much less experience, but still a person of effectively knightly station. Someone the regular rabble wisely clears out before when he's present. Sure, he might not need a sword and he might not be able to teleport across continents, but he can still set a man on fire, move things with seemingly just a thought, leap huge bounds or any other of regularly impossible feats. His weakness is however, he is just a man, a man many are likely to hate and a man probably bound by law.