Job Suggestion:

Town Crier: This not-cat keeps everyone up-to-date on the news and has a small chance of boosting a random not-cat's Perception stat for the day. Either the amount it boosts or the number of boosted cats or the chance of boosting a cat (whatever ends up feeling more balanced) would be affected by the Town Crier's Extroversion. It would work kind of like a personal Luncheon bonus?

You could probably have other similar jobs for boosting each stat, but again depending on the stat balancing it might or might not stack if the same cat is rolled as the recipient of multiple boosts.

Engineer - based in cleverness, bonus for imaginative/curious/adventurous personalities - upgrades village infrastructure, allowing cats to go farther while working; allows for a chance of out of season items

Idea almost entirely inspired by the 'lodge' part of the name: a 'visitor' slot that, instead of using the player's cats, is taken up by a rotating cast of npcs. Effect would vary on the visitor. An artist-in-residence might boost artist gathering rolls, a visiting bureaucrat might boost lodge exp gain (if it has upgrades), maybe a celebrity has a rare chance of showing up, and boosts the village's rep/stats or generates some unique scenarios while they're visiting (autographs!). Maybe certain visitors help with unlocking new lodge positions, and every x number of visitors is one of these cats until all unlocks are achieved.

Could be a limited roster of npcs, or the common visitors are drawn from cats sent to the city and the rare/unlock ones are designed npcs.

Upgrade to visitor feature could be to unlock the ability to host cats from other players (both players need to have upgrade and select/confirm option), like a temporary trade. Cat returns to original village automatically when time period expires, maybe a travelling cat slot is blocked out for the duration of the visit to ensure room. Could be fun for roleplaying, or designed in a way that allows for 'studding' if wanted. If the visiting cat can enter scenarios in the host village they could create long-distance friendships and rivalries.

@Quid
I want to add to your idea!

So- maybe instead of cats sent to the city (since they're deleted), every day there's a chance that a cat from another player who was sent traveling will decide to spend the day in your lodge (they need a place to rest from time to time). There will be a notification and when you go to their profile, a note similar to traveling cats will be seen, but this time it'll say something like "Note: This not-cat is currently visiting your village. You can't edit them", last part added to avoid confusion (maybe when the owner of the cat checks their profile, for them the note will say "Note: This cat is currently visiting -username-'s village")
I had another two ideas for this visitor that go hand-by-hand. Basically, when the not-cat comes to visit, they'll ask for something specific and hard to get, and succeeding to complete the request will grant you with a rare prize, but the rare prize wouldn't be given to you automatically, no, no. Instead, when the not-cat leaves your village in the next rollover, they'll send you a message through the mail telling you how much they liked to stay there and would love to come back, and they wanted to gift you something for being a great host. The prize will be a rare drop of the not-cat's best suited job (if the not-cat has more than one job with the same level of skill, it'll be randomized between the options). Maybe they'll also send a message to their own village telling them how fun the day was.
If you fail the request, the not-cat will still send you a message, and it'll say that they had a good time, but it's time to leave (basically, the not-cat will show less enjoyment than if they get what they request). No gift will be sent.

More things about it:
- New role: Host. A not-cat can be chosen to be the host of the lodge, unlocking the ability to let not-cats visit your lodge (before this role is given, no cat can visit you). Higher extroversion means higher chances for not-cats to visit your village.
- Only one visitor per day.
- Maybe add a cooldown for visitors. Like, if a not-cat had visited you in the last few days, you can't let another one visit (let's say they're cleaning the room and that). This is to avoid players from getting those rare prizes too easily if they get struck by luck and many not-cats visit their lodge, asking for items they already have.
- Maybe let the visitor stay more days to let the player have a chance of getting what the not-cat is asking for?
- Not-cat visiting have a high chance/are guarantee to appear in at least one scenario. They may develop a relationship with any of the village's not-cats, from rivalry to lovers. A way to incentive people to talk/RP.
- Adding to that last one, visitors will have special scenarios. Probably these scenarios will be about the host showing them the place or them visiting another cat to see how's life here. The options will always be actions our not-cats, the ones from the village, will do, either to impress the visitor, annoy them, prank them, etc.
- Maybe there could be an option to disable your cats visiting other people's villages if you don't like the idea.

That's all for now. I really liked your idea, and I like to write, so I couldn't resist expanding on it

I'm back again with new ideas! Hello~

I had a question. Can you have more than one leadership roles at the time? Like Mayor and weathercat. And it's there an unlocking system for the roles besides building the lodge?
Because I got an idea about that:

• So, you've built the village lodge, and the first and only leadership role is the Mayor. The Mayor not only boost cats based around their personality and stats, but it's the one that decides the main decisions of the village. Unlocking the Mayor is needed to unlock new special roles (like weathercat, village doctor, mail carrier, etc.) since they're the one who, lore-wise, chooses the not-cats who are better on the job.
  
• After unlocking the Mayor, you'll unlock the possibility of unlocking even more special roles. But, contrary to the Mayor who was "free" (depending on if you consider building the lodge counts or not as the price), these new roles require you to pay with resources (which maybe only unlocks the role, or maybe it can also give you a special building, similar to unlocking other basic jobs, and after unlocking the role, you can make even more of that building for a lower price, if you like decorating with them). Why I think this is a good idea? Because not only gives "end-game" players something to work for, but, also, because these roles seems to be really good and helpful. I don't think unlocking them for "free" (again, unless you count the lodge as the price) to be that exciting. Maybe the stronger the boost that the special role gives, the pricey it will be to unlock it. It could also use monster loot, so it doesn't depend too much in RNG, which can be pretty tiring and end up being bad in the long run, since it can make people feel burned out (...thought, depending too much on farming can also be prejudicial, and people can feel burned out too because of that, so a balance should've met, I believe ).

For now, I think these are the only ideas I've got. Just a way to keep people playing, since it will give them even more stuff to work for, but at the same time, these roles doesn't seem to be like super important (helpful? Yes, but won't actually block you from progressing, contrary to daily jobs which if you don't have, for example, miner, you'll not get many of the material needed for other stuff) so players won't be pressured into unlocking every single one unless they want to.

@Lem This is actually just about exactly how it is going to work! Different roles will require different buildings to unlock them. (For example, in order for your mayor to appoint a weathercat, you might need to build an observation tower.)

Wait... really? oh
I mean, I believe it's a really easy suggestion to think, so I'm not too surprised you actually wanted to do it before I said anything, but I do find it funny anyway. I never saw info about it, now I wonder if you already said something and I skipped it, or I just predicted what you were going to do randomly...
Still, good to see there will be even more things to work for, and also to decorate!

@Lem Some great ideas! I love the idea of a fetch quest, and that the visitor sends a thank-you gift in the mail a little while later. That would be so much fun! Perhaps as a slight variation, whether a gift is sent or not is a little randomised, so that it's a nice surprise for the player when it does happen. Would also help keep the rarity of the gift items up.

I must confess I do not personally like the idea of my own cats visiting other player's accounts without my say-so, nor do I want to see other player's travelling cats visiting my own village. I definitely wouldn't want there to be a chance of my cats picking up new relationship statuses without a way for me to refuse it, as that would cost a speciality item to remove. I was a bit uncertain to even suggest city cats because of this, to be honest, since they were once somebody's cat and might still be a part of their lore. The system I had in mind was one where the visiting cat is visible in the lodge pages, but not taking up a slot in the player's village cats pages. More like 'here's the visitor page with the visitor npc, but the npc switches out occasionally'. I was also thinking that each visitor would be around for at least a week or even longer, so that players that don't log in every day don't have to worry about missing out.

Your special scenarios idea is a fun one. Even with npc visitors there's lots of scope for this - a celebrity giving out autographs, an artist-in-residence running a workshop, a travelling adventurer showing off their archery skills. Could include item drops or just be a fun mini-story to read.

___

Now for some other ideas for roles unrelated to the above:

- Some kind of neighbourhood watch. Could give an adventuring stats boost, or maybe there's a mini-quest each day, like a lost item, and if you find it you get a reward of some kind. Very similar in concept to previous 'guard/knight' suggestions, but less about martial protection and more about community support.

- Barista: runs a cafe, boosts apothecary or positive relationship scenario chance

- Sports coach: Gotta have that community team spirit Perhaps a way to passively level or raise the stats of adult cats as a sort of mirror to what 'Teacher' does for kittens. What gets raised could be determined by the sport chosen - rock stacking levels up finesse and/or strength, swimming races level up agility, orienteering levels up cleverness and/or perception, that kind of thing.

Oh, yeah, I totally understand that, I've seen people care a lot about their cats, which is completely valid. I said the option to disable your own cats from visiting others, but it's true that I overlooked most of that problem due to it not being an issue for me, sorry!
But, trying to fix that, the best idea that I have at the moment is that we have three options:

• You can choose if you allow or deny your not-cats of visiting other people's lodges. It is exactly what it says, your cats wouldn't appear to other people's lodges if you deny it.
  
• You can choose if you allow or deny other people's not-cats of visiting your own lodge. If you deny it, the game instead would generate random not-cats as visitors (just like that generator we can see when we aren't logged in)
  
• You can choose if you allow or deny your cats of asking for relationships when visiting. If you allow it, both users involved will be asked, and the relationship will only occur if both accept it.

Another option, scrapping the idea of using traveling cats as visitors... it'll be pretty close to your original idea:
The not-cats are random NPCS generated by the site completely. They come to your lodge to spend the week (at first I said a day because I wanted to make it challenging, but it's true that not everyone has the same time to play and stuff happens all the time, so it can be unfair, yes). Maybe, instead of requesting just one, but very rare item, they can request many, somewhat easy to find, items during the week. And depending on how many requests you completed, plus how your not-cats treated the visitor in scenarios, you'll have a higher or lower chance of a prize once the not-cat's stay ends. The scenarios are also like a help just in case the visitor requests many things you don't have, as a way to still have a chance (just lower) to get the prize.
What are the prizes? It could still be something rare, since now it'll be more randomized (due to the requests now being easier to complete, I think it's fair to never have the prize as guarantee. Also, to avoid the item to become super easy to get, yes)
Another idea I got for the prize was that the not-cat would ask you if they could join your village, but then I became unsure, because the lodge is late-game stuff, and people will probably have many cats at that point, so it may not sound like a good prize, hmm...

If celebrities became a thing in this idea, I suppose they'll be harder than normal not-cats. Asking for harder items, but the prizes are obviously better. They could also boost the villager's working skills for the time the celebrity stays. Why? Because they want to impress them, so they try to work twice as hard! Which will also explain the rarity of these not-cats beside better prizes.


I think these are all my ideas for now. If you believe I overlooked something again, go ahead and tell me. I like to think a lot about this kind of things (Even though I don't use anything because, well, I don't know how to code), so it doesn't annoy me to keep trying until something sounds good and doesn't affect anyone

I think having cats visit/have relationships with cats in other villages (with both users' agreements) is a really neat concept :0

However, I do think they should be prohibited from having higher-tier relationships, since not-cats can only have a limited number of best friends/partners. Although I guess if both users agree to it there's no real issue.

Maybe they could have a special sub-category of friendship, like, say, pen pals! Having more cats with pen pals would lead to an increase in chances for getting mail, even when your cat isn't traveling.