Shopkeepers: Should they be human or animal?

[Viral]

What do you think? Lodithia is going to have a few different shops. Do you think the shopkeepers should be human, animal, or have it vary from shop to shop? Perhaps adding a little back story for every shop...

[Kirsti]

Human. I don't see how people can expect animals with claws, paws and fangs can work a shop till and handle products.

[GodsGal]

Personally I don't think it matters much.

[Phoenixsong]

It depends entirely on the environment of the site. For example, in Neopets the characters in the plots are also pet species, as they are the main inhabitants of Neopia. It's almost as if humans are an introduced species there, if you will. On the other hand, you have sites where the pets are actually just "animals" that are incapable of human behavior (as far as site canon goes, that is.) In that case, having a pet shopkeeper makes little sense.

Furthermore, there's no reason that an anthropomorphic animal, or a "normal" animal without claws or whatever that would get in the way, shouldn't be able to run a shop if it's intelligent enough.

So there you go. It depends entirely on the world. If pets (or other animals) in your world are not normally intelligent enough to do things like manage a shop, then no pet/animal shopkeepers. If they are, well, then, you can go ahead. You could even have a mixture of the two. It all depends on your world and the atmosphere you're trying to create.

[Viral]

Some of the creatures are intelligent. For example, the creatures that users adopt are smart (sort of, like Neopets, they can hold a conversation and have personalities, and so forth).

[Phoenixsong]

Then I suppose the next question is whether or not they could hold a "merchant status". Are they merely intelligent pets, or are they actual "citizens" (to a degree)?

[Viral]

That really depends on the providence you're in. XD
I suppose it will vary depending on the providence and the amount of intelligent creatures (including creatures with politically influencing positions).

[Aranel]

I think for the shopkeepers you should go for completely difference species.

As in anthropomorphic beings, that aren't pets you can adopt - these ones can be even smarter yet not be humans. Maybe invent a few species as NPC characters to be used in plots, as shopkeepers etc.

[Viral]

Hey, that's a good idea, Aranel! Thank you for the suggestion. It works perfectly.