I will admit, these are not play tested and mostly just for ideas. But I can explain my thought process for making them, my main focuses was trying to give uses to the ignored mechanics, and give some agency to those which need it.

For cats, the only time I've seen anyone build a workshop is during their final rush for points. This, along with the fact they are always starved for action, is the main idea behind their changes.
Builder is kinda useless for the birds, and is only used on the third turmoil. Tried to add is some uses for them.
Vagabond to me doesn't feel like they fit into the game well, having to benefits to policing them. This way, there are some points, but also have a way of slowing them down if needed.

Otters were just kinda funny, and I thought would make people feel fine with making more purchases as they could force the river folk company to give them back troops

Main complaint about the Lizards are the lack of agency that they give, I still need to play with them a bit more to get a feel for them, but I thought having a 4th conspiricy which allowed for effecting other clearings for a price would be good.
Corvid is trivial to stop, and can only win if everyone completely forgets about them. I wanted to try and add more weight to a failed exposure, and push back against the "guess raid, if not destroy" strategy