Maybe I haven't gotten far enough, but is the Black Cat that follows you important? It has followed me since the start of the game, and every time it dies, I feel sorry and reset whatever I was doing. So, I just wanted to know how [spoiler:maybe?] to possibly change it back? I have the pet pal perk, it seems as if it might have been poly-morphed? [/spoiler] or to get read of it, or if its worth saving every time it dies.

It also easily gets lost (example if fleeing).

I have no idea where my black cat currently is, I just know it didn't die. Where it got stuck and I lost it... no clue.

I wonder if that could be Arhu in disguise... like after some magical accident which turned his fur black...

I think it's gonna be the undead companion.

Here kitty kitty kitty kitty.

Am I the only one who actually restarted the entire game when the cat died?

And now the stupid thing is lost! I miss that little fur face. I wonder what that was all about..?

No, I did that too, although it was fairly close to the beginning! As with seemingly everyone else, though, mine has wandered off somewhere and is nowhere to be seen.

We have a similar visiting black cat IRL that also follows me around meowing until it gets bored and goes to sleep somewhere.

I felt bad for the thing, I apparently couldn't help it with whatever it wanted and now it's lost. Poor creature.

Perhaps it'll reappear later in the game?

My cat was shot down by guards. I just moved forward like it never happened.... :<

I kept expecting Ahru to pop up but the guards murdered the crap out of the cat guess I will never know.

I want this cat as my in-game pet. I love cats. I hope he has a cool quest coming for it.

If you have Pet Pal talent it appears to be running from someone and confused. I think it is connected to some quest, perhaps unfinished?

Yea, I thought someone turned him into a cat. He was all confused and didn't know what's going on.

It's very possible no doubt, I appear to have lost him too, which makes me sad :(

First one guard shot him but I reloaded and tried to save him. But after some time he lost interest and ran away ^^

Yeah with Pet Pal it's hinted he might not actually be a cat.
Mine was eaten by a Hound when I wasn't looking

Maybe it's just an elaborate joke, someone played a trick on a poor fellow and now he's stuck as a cat. I too thought of Arhu, but he was white. On the other hand, he was sane (as far as mages go) as well. Hm.

Did you get a tooth when he died? Is it a random object or might it be important?
(it seems to be a random tooth from the description, though)

I actually purposely had it killed my second play through, because you cant talk to Buddy when the cat is near.

I'd been expecting Arhu to show up at some point via this Black Cat but each playthrough I either lose him due to teleporting / area transitions / vine and ladder climbing, or he gets slaughtered by a random Magister.

I've read rumors about it being related to an unimplemented quest we'll see on official release. It'd be neat to see Arhu at some point. Since you know... Arhu is like thousands of years old and whatnot. Can only assume.

So, I've found out what the black cat is about, its not part of a quest, but once you get out of fort joy, it becomes all happy and dissapears, it turns into a summon spell, which from my experience is useless in combat, but is great for getting to hard to reach places, as it has 2 abilities, Feline Leap and Swap Places, both of which are pretty self explanatory, the cat can basically serve the purpose of the teleport spell without the damage, it also just happens to be cute as hell.

I believe I'm limited to escaping through the tunnels in order to obtain said cat spell. It followed me down the ladder near the shrine of the 7 and can't get back up. So I may have to leave via the tunnels/dungeons as opposed to teleporting or other various means.

Thanks for the info - I had been wondering if the cat was going to provide anything useful for keeping it alive.

I seem to have lost my cat: there was no combat or anything, I just noticed he suddenly wasn't there as with the alphas...

It is extremely valuable, randomly the Red Prince (as opposed to my custom character) received the summon spell.

Combat wise it allows you to reposition a character instantly, in the case of my opportunist attacker, I can safely move him across the field with high speed via the cat. The cat does mediocre damage, but isn't absolutely terrible (might help shred off armor, the two points required to summon it are more than made up by the ability to hard shift away).

I have tried to see if I could get the summon spell on my main character (Rogue) as it seems it would make the most sense to have a black cat as a summon on a Rogue, at least from a lore perspective, however; It seems to be drawn toward the Red Prince every time I reload and try to get my main closest vicinity (after escaping via the sewer tunnel).

Edit:
Yeah confirmed the cat is triggered by the Red Prince it seems. He will only follow the Red Prince and will only become his summon

The cat is currently following my main character who most certainly isn't the Red Prince!

Oh, and he eventually reappeared after going missing for a couple of hours. I guess like any black cat he found somewhere secret to hide while he was snoozing.

The cat follows the first character it sees which is a bit unfortunate since that can lead to unlocking the spell on a character you don't want it on.
I was hoping we'd get a skill book like Zombie Nick from D:OS1, but it seems like Larian didn't want that.

Yeah, I'm not totally sure how useful a familiar will be with my main character who's an inattentive halfwit since she's basically the personification of me. At least I've escorted him to the other side of the fort. Now I just need to deal with the consequences. D:

Well, since I wanted Ifan to have the cat spell, I separated him from the rest of the party and made him walk a lot alone. The cat simply ignores when I approach it and starts walking all the map through Red Prince and starts following him. The Red Prince is my main character, so maybe that's it.

If RP is your main character you were most likely by yourself when you first encountered the cat which resulted in the cat following him.
When I look at other people's results/screenshots, including my own game, it seems a lot of people also have the cat spell on RP. Coincidentally he's also the only companion that can be picked up before you reach the cat unless you take extensive measures to avoid having the cat see you at all.

For some reason it ended up dead for me near the gate magisters before I even got them mad at me. Also not cool how it just latches onto the first character it sees. Really irritating.

Mine got shot by the archers on top of the castle towers. For no obvious reason, since there wasn't a fight.

Absolutely moronic design to have it attach itself AFTER you can find other characters.

As a summoner main it decided to see Red Prince first, meaning it's attached to someone who has no use for the ability, no reason to buff it and ultimately just going to make me have to completely restart the game JUST TO FIX IT. (Sure, I could ignore it, but that's still forcing me to change my game over it).

As for Arhu, his name has been mentioned in Fort Joy and it's definitely not attributed to the cat.

So it's possible to get the summon for your main character?
I just escaped Fort Joy about 5 minutes ago and got the summon skill for RP.

I guess I'll restart

For me the cat also went for the Red Prince. Even if you send the Red Prince to the beach where you start and approach the cat alone the cat ignores you and runs straight to the Red Prince. So you can only get the skills for your main character, if you haven't recruited the Red Prince yet. I just loaded an earlier save, got the cat first and then the Red Prince. I trapped the cat with barrels at the beach to pick it up later, when I am ready to leave.

UPDATE: The cat followed the Red Prince all the game through, even so Ifan was the one with Pet-Pal. After I left Fort Joy, even though I reloaded and did a bunch of different stuff, the cat would talk to my custom Elf (that have never before interacted with the cat) and give her the spell.

Can Anyone please tell me which way I must take to leave fort joy? I already escaped thru the sewers in the Flenser's playground, and killed around a lot before going back to fort joy to remove my source collar to bless the pigs... anyway, I just killed Orivand, and I just realised the cat is back with me.. so... thru where do I leave to get the skill?

Going out through Flenserville worked for me.

Right after leaving the sewer gate from Flenser's place he said he remembers who he is and gave me the skill.