Ratfolk Hide: Humanoid Vermin Reskinned
Ratfolk Hide: Humanoid Vermin Reskinned
Rats, like humans, are everywhere. In cities, in country farmhouses, on sailing ships, in the desert, in the tropics, in the frozen wastes. Rats, like humans, can be sweet, or they an be filthy purveyors of disease, and sometimes they can be both. That versatility why I'm personally fond of ratfolk as a fantasy race.
In my own Desteon campaign setting, ratfolk occupy the place halflings do in other peoples' fantasy worlds. They're underfoot, they're overlooked, they're not taken seriously, and they aren't particularly treated with respect by other race. Add in the fact that rats are considered vermin, and you've got a race that can be scapegoats to hiss at one minute and underdogs to cheer for the next. This offers up opportunities to tell heartwarming stories of unexpected heroism, as well as creating credible reasons for stories of bitterness and revenge. Ratfolk make great heroes, and fantastic villains.
My love of ratfolk probably stems from a childhood love of anthropomorphic animals. Muppets, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM, even things as odd as the trickster character Ignatz from the class Krazy Kat comic strip. Temper that with being at an impressionable age and living in the city when the films Willard and Ben came out in the 1970s, and there seem to be plenty of rat tropes to work with. In Ratfolk Hide I've tried to portray them as a complex, misunderstood, multifacited race that offer up plenty of stories to tell.
