Folklore

'You are over-bold, little thief,' gloated the thing with the tentacles. It felt secure in Its power.
'No doubt, great one,' the wily raccoon replied, 'I am a foolish little thing, used only to twisting forest paths, and not the tentacular by-ways of thought. Will you not teach me wisdom?'
'Wisdom is to ponder long, beneath the deeps, between meals. Wisdom is only for one as long-lived as I, as strong in the ways of the hunt.'
'I apologise. I will leave you, great one.' And thus the White Raccoon paddled off, having learned the secret levelling-power of Food, Lifespan and Contemplation.

– From “The Deluding of the Deep”

In the world of White Raccoon, knowledge about the history of the City, humans, and animal-kind is shared via the Oral Tradition, which shapes the understanding of the intricacies of the setting. As a result, differing and competing theories surrounding such themes exist of equal validity, and there is no one specific retelling of events. Animals enjoy both sharing and creating stories, which can often be passed down for many generations until they enter widespread circulation, where, once established, they are accepted by many as an account of the preceding sequence of events and consequently enjoy a long life of being retold. Nonetheless, there is a high chance that such stories will gradually change and diverge over time.

Folklore and storytelling is an important theme of this game. The animals understand the places they inhabit largely through storytelling, and this storytelling is crucially collaborative, weaving together cultures and philosophies, and diverging through variant tellings.

Where there are attempts at something like an academic historians' approach to the research of the human past (as seen in the sterling work of Professor Pancake), the rules and patterns of stories are the only real framework for understanding Spirits. Some have even hypothesised that they are intertwined with the stories animals tell about them, drawing some kind of sustenance from the wondering half-belief their mysteriousness evokes in those who observe them always-obliquely, through imaginative recreations of others' half-glimpses.

The story-festival of the Carnival, on the boundary between Forest and City, takes place as the land transitions into Winter (i.e. during the game).