This Warrior Cats quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the whole Erin Hunter saga, from the day a kittypet named Rusty walked into the forest in Into the Wild to the possessed leader of The Broken Code and the arcs beyond. It asks about the Clans and their territories, StarClan and the warrior code, the great villains (Tigerstar, Scourge and BloodClan, Ashfur), the medicine cats, and the family tree that runs from Firestar and Sandstorm through Leafpool's secret kits. It also goes behind the pen name: who Erin Hunter actually is, why the surname was chosen, which real forest inspired the setting and which 17th-century herbalist supplied the medicine cats' remedies. About a third of the questions are answerable by anyone who has read the first arc; the rest are for readers who can name Graystripe's mate, Bramblestar's father and the cat who killed Whitestorm. Every answer has been checked against a cited source, shown under each explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01'Erin Hunter', the credited author of Warriors, is what?
A pen name for a team of writers
The team, working with HarperCollins and the packager Working Partners, includes Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, Victoria Holmes and Tui Sutherland. Holmes plans each plot and the others take turns writing.
Q 02The surname 'Hunter' was picked partly so the books would shelve next to which other animal fantasy series?
Redwall
Brian Jacques's mouse-abbey saga was the obvious comparison.
Q 03Which member of the Erin Hunter team creates the plot of every Warriors book before the others write it?
Victoria Holmes
HarperCollins asked her in 2001 to come up with a fantasy about cats, a subject she was not especially interested in until she found themes she cared about.
Q 04Who wrote the first two Warriors novels, Into the Wild and Fire and Ice?
Kate Cary
Cary and Baldry alternated books through the early arcs, with Sutherland joining later.
Q 05In which year was Into the Wild, the first Warriors book, published?
2003
HarperCollins released it in January 2003. By 2014 the series had spent 119 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
Q 06What is Rusty, the hero of Into the Wild, at the start of the book?
A pet housecat, or 'kittypet'
He leaves his Twoleg owners to join ThunderClan and is renamed Firepaw. The Clan cats' word for pets is 'kittypet', and it is not a compliment.
Q 07How many Clans of cats are there in the Warriors universe once the lost fifth Clan is counted?
Five
ThunderClan, WindClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan and SkyClan. The first arc features only four; SkyClan's return is the story of A Vision of Shadows.
Q 08What is StarClan?
The spirits of the Clans' dead ancestors
They send prophecies and omens, and it is StarClan that grants a new leader nine lives at the Moonstone.
Q 09What prophecy does Bluestar receive about ThunderClan's future in Into the Wild?
'Fire alone will save our Clan'
The flame-coloured kittypet Rusty is the fire in question, though it takes the Clan a long time to accept it.
Q 10What warrior name does Firepaw receive at the end of Into the Wild?
Fireheart
Graypaw becomes Graystripe in the same ceremony. Firestar comes much later, when he receives his nine lives.
Q 11Which ambitious ThunderClan warrior murdered the deputy Redtail in the hope of taking his place?
Tigerclaw
Ravenpaw witnessed it, which is why Firepaw and Graypaw smuggle him out of the Clan to a barn for his own safety.
Q 12Where do Firepaw and Graypaw take Ravenpaw to keep him safe from the traitor he witnessed?
To a barn outside Clan territory
He lives there happily with the loner Barley for the rest of the series, appearing in his own manga trilogy.
Q 13Which exiled ShadowClan medicine cat does Firepaw meet on his first solo hunt?
Yellowfang
The grumpy old she-cat becomes ThunderClan's medicine cat and, it is later revealed, is the mother of the tyrant Brokenstar.
Q 21How does Scourge kill the ShadowClan leader who summoned his gang from the Twolegplace?
A single blow that takes all nine lives
The small black cat with the dog-tooth collar slices him from chin to tail. Firestar then kills Scourge in the great battle, losing a life himself.
Q 22Which ThunderClan deputy is killed by the alley-cat enforcer Bone in the first arc's final battle?
Whitestorm
The apprentices then take Bone down together. Graystripe becomes deputy in Whitestorm's place.
Q 23Who is Firestar's mate, and mother of his two daughters?
Sandstorm
Q 14Which ShadowClan tyrant is secretly the son of a medicine cat, a breach of the code she hid for years?
Brokenstar
The ShadowClan leader who drove WindClan from the moor was born to a medicine cat in breach of the code, a secret Yellowfang carried for years.
Q 15In Fire and Ice, Fireheart and Graystripe are sent to bring home which Clan, driven from the moors by ShadowClan?
WindClan
The moor-runners are the fastest cats in the forest and the smallest Clan, which is why they were easy to drive out.
Q 16Graystripe breaks the warrior code by falling in love with a she-cat from which Clan?
RiverClan
Silverstream dies giving birth to their kits, Feathertail and Stormfur, whom Graystripe takes to live in RiverClan for a time.
Q 17How was Cinderpaw crippled, forcing her to become a medicine cat instead of a warrior?
A trap set on the Thunderpath, meant for Bluestar
The Thunderpath is the cats' name for a road; the 'monsters' on it are cars. Cinderpelt went on to train Leafpool.
Q 18Cloudkit, later Cloudtail, is brought into ThunderClan as a kit. Who is his mother?
Princess, Fireheart's kittypet sister
The Clan is slow to accept another kittypet-born cat. He grows up to be a warrior, if a sceptical one about StarClan.
Q 19Where does Firestar receive his nine lives from StarClan?
At the Moonstone
The glittering stone under Highstones is where leaders and medicine cats meet StarClan in the forest days; after the move to the lake it is the Moonpool.
Q 20In The Darkest Hour, which group of alley cats does the exiled ThunderClan traitor bring to fight the Clans?
BloodClan
The alliance backfires spectacularly: their leader Scourge kills Tigerstar rather than take orders from him.
She began the series sneering at the kittypet apprentice. Spottedleaf, the medicine cat Firepaw first loved, died in Into the Wild.
Q 24Which medicine cat secretly bore Hollyleaf, Jayfeather and Lionblaze?
Leafpool
A medicine cat is forbidden to have kits, so Squirrelflight raised them as her own.
Q 25What is Jayfeather's disability?
He is blind
He can also walk into other cats' dreams, one of the three powers of the Power of Three arc. His brother Lionblaze cannot be wounded in battle.
Q 26What supernatural gift does Lionblaze have?
He can never be wounded in battle
The prophecy of the three said kin of Firestar's kin would hold the power of the stars in their paws. Hollyleaf, to her grief, had no power at all.
Q 27Bramblestar, who leads ThunderClan after Firestar, is the son of which cat?
Tigerstar
He spent his youth proving he was not his father. His mate is Squirrelflight, who eventually leads ThunderClan herself as Squirrelstar.
Q 28In Omen of the Stars, the spirits of which place, led by the first arc's great villain, prepare to attack the Clans?
The Dark Forest
The Dark Forest is where the wicked go instead of StarClan; its cats train living warriors in their dreams for the Great Battle.
Q 29In The New Prophecy arc, what forces the Clans to abandon their original home?
Humans destroying it with machines
The Twolegs' 'monsters' tear up the trees for a road. The Clans journey to a new home around a lake, guided by a badger named Midnight.
Q 30Feathertail dies saving which group of cats from a mountain lion?
The Tribe of Rushing Water
The Tribe live behind a waterfall in the mountains and had prophesied that a silver cat would save them from Sharptooth.