The Ratter

Overview

Names

The Ratter, Rag-man of Corvaise, Old Yellow Teeth

The Ratter is a dark legend among the homeless and downtrodden of Corvaise. It was a creature that was believed to be living in the tunnels and chambers of the city sewers, that subsisted on a diet of rats, lizards, fish or any other small creatures it could catch. According to the stories it also craved larger meals, and would snatch lone children or the other wayward folks and drag them below the city to feast.

Theories about how the Ratter came to be are as numerous as the vague descriptions or rumours of its powers. Most involve a treahni either cursed to live as vermin, or one who embraced dark magics and sold his soul to some demon or devil. Some stories claim the Ratter is a monster born of the unholy union between a woman and some beast.

According to some people it was destroyed by a nameless hero who patrols the shadowed streets and back alleys of Corvaise protecting the innocent. Other stories claim it was not alone, that there are others of its kind that live together in a great warren filled with the rat gnawed bones from their victims over the years. Whichever one believes, there hasn't been a recent attack attributed to the Ratter in quite some time, but when ever a child goes missing or someone catches an exceptionally large rat, the old memories and fear resurface.

Appearance

Descriptions of the ratter vary widely with separation between any eye witness and the one describing the encounter. Such encounters were always fleeting, and usually in the dark of night, during fog, or underground in cramped tunnels of the sewers.

• Dirty, bloody, and rag covered treahni who moved about on all fours in a hunched squat.
• A giant rat, large as a man, complete with tail, and great incisors.
• Some monstrous hybrid of man and rat, walking upright like a man, with a rats head for a face, claw-like hands, and long tail.

Abilities

There are so many different stories that attribute various powers to the Ratter, making it impossible to guess which are true or false.:

• It could move about silently, and pull shadows about to hide its monstrous nature until it pounced on a victim.
• It could move through solid ground, rock, or bricks with or without leaving a burrowed tunnel.
• It could change shape and size, transforming at will between the form of a treahni and that of a overly large rat.
• It could transform into a swarm of rats and move about in many smaller bodies before reforming into the monstrous singular entity.
• It could paralyze a person with a glance, freezing them such that they could not run away or fight back.
• It could take on the appearance of its past victims, to lure friends to their doom.
• It could breathe poisonous clouds which render its victims unconscious and helpless.

Stories

Vermin (fifty word fantasy)

See Also

Ghül

Therianthropy