Overview
Rat Men are small, wiry humanoids with long tails, slit eyes, and a nose for secrets. They live in the undercities — the tunnels, sewers, and forgotten warrens beneath every major settlement. They are despised by most races and underestimated by all of them: scavenging, smuggling, and information brokering is their trade, and they know where everything is buried.
Habitat
Rat Men live in The Underwarrens, dark tunnels beneath the old cities, where the claw-light is the only glow and the word the only law. They need three things: a tunnel deep enough to hide the word, a drop of water that is worth the price, and a secret that is worth the keeping. They are settled in massive, loosely-organized colonies of hundreds beneath every major settlement; a rat-man who has not spoken a secret in a season is called "the one who forgot the word."
Appearance
The rat-man silhouette is the small, low, quick shape — hunched at the shoulder, narrow at the waist, with the head sitting a little too low on the body, like a word that is waiting to be sold. Males stand 91 cm to 1.22 m, 18 kg–27 kg, heavier through the jaw and shoulder with a coarser, darker pelt and a longer, lower voice; females stand 91 cm to 1.04 m, 16 kg–23 kg, leaner and quicker, with a finer pelt and a longer memory. The base fur is a fine, dense coat in a range from dull grey-brown to a true, quiet soot-black, with a faint pattern of darker brown speckles along the shoulder and a clean, deliberate bone-white at the tail-tip that is the rat-man line's most persistent claim. The skin beneath the fur is a pale, wet, pink-grey, the color of old river-mud, with a faint network of fine, pale veins at the temples that show when a rat-man is listening. The eyes are the mark: a pair of small, hard, flat amber eyes with a slit pupil, set low in the skull, built for seeing the tunnel from the dark, and the eyes are always moving, because the moving is the point. The head is the mark: a long, narrow skull with a pointed snout, a pair of true, rounded ears set high on the head in the same soot-black as the fur, and a set of true, long, curved claws at the fingers and the feet, in a range from dull grey-brown to a true, quiet black, with the claw-tips a clean, deliberate bone-white, and the claws are always clean, because the cleaning is the point. The tail is the tell: a long, thin tail, in the same grey-brown as the fur, with a clean, deliberate bone-white tip, worn as a mark of the blood, and the tail is the rat-man's only ornament. Males carry the line in the jaw and the shoulder; females in the neck and the tail. Elders are marked by a pelt gone full silver-grey and a back that has stopped trying to be straight — an old rat-man moves with a slow, deliberate economy, like a tunnel that has decided to stay. Everyday wear: a simple, clean tunic in a muted grey or soft soot-black, a thin leather belt, and a single silver coin sewn into the hem, because the coin is the only ornament that is not a distraction.
Behavior
Disposition: cunning, social, clannish, territorial. In peace, rat-men are quick, watchful, and absolutely certain of the tunnel — they have the undercity, and they let the surface know it. In war they fight as the scavenger does: with the secret, not the spear — they do not strike first, but they do not forget the strike, and the forgetting is the point. Strangers on the surface are either a secret or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the word remembers. The social unit is the colony, hundreds strong, led by a single elected Whisker — no colony follows a claw, it follows the word whose price is truest. Two signature quirks: a rat-man never lies — he simply sells you the truth that costs him least, and the selling is the point. And they keep the secret for a lifetime: a secret sold is a debt, and the debt is paid in words, and the word is the rat-man's most persistent claim.
Warfare & Markings
Tactics: the scavenger's war — the rat-man line does not fight as the warrior fights; it fights as the tunnel fights, with the secret, the poison, and the long, deliberate patience of the one who has already heard the ending. Armor: hide, by choice — a single, thin coat of stitched rat-skin hide in a dull grey-brown that is light enough to forget and strong enough to matter, because a rat-man who wears plate has already decided the tunnel is not enough. Weapons: the short blade, the poison that is not a weapon but is used like one, and the secret that is not a weapon but is used like one. War markings: the Claw-Notch, a single, deliberate chip in the left claw for every secret kept, worn as a record of the long word; the Oath-Knot, a single knot in the tail-braid for every colony oath kept, in soot-black; and the Word-Brand, a small, deliberate mark on the inner wrist — the first secret the wearer ever sold, worn as a mark of the beginning. Post-battle: the dead are carried to the warren, their names whispered over the tunnel, and their blades laid across the threshold — a rat-man buried without their blade is buried as a secret that was never sold.
Magic Alignment
Primary domain: shadow — rat-man magic is the tunnel, the dark, the word that is spoken in the place where the light does not reach. Secondaries: illusion and divination. Named inborns: Tunnel-Sense (a rat-man can feel the tunnel's mood the way a sailor feels the wind), Dark-Sight (a rat-man sees in the dark the way a human sees in the light, and the seeing is not a choice), Secret-Carry (a rat-man's secret carries across the colony, and the carrying is not a choice). Signature power: the Whisker's Word — a rat-man can speak a word in the undercity tongue and let it land on a wall, and the wall will keep the word until the secret is paid. Limitation: rat-man magic is spent on the tunnel; a rat-man who has spent their whisker's word must sit silent in the dark for one day, and the day is the worst one of the warren.
Religion
Rat Men keep Vessurax, the Veiled Eye as their primary god — the shadow, the secret, the truth that no one ever told. The tunnel is Vessurax's, and the rat-man is the tunnel's whisper. Priestly class: the Whisker, who keeps the warren-temple and speaks the word at every rite. Heresy is not blasphemy — it is a secret broken in the colony, and there is no rite for that one; the colony simply stops whispering to the breaker.
Society
Colonies of hundreds, led by a single elected Whisker, rank decided by the word — whose secret is truest. Outsiders on the surface are either a secret or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the word remembers.
Home
They live in The Underwarrens, dark tunnels beneath the old cities, where the claw-light is the only glow and the word the only law.
Relations
The "the word is the only law" faction — under-neighbor kin whose secret is a price, and the ones whose nod is the word. The Goblin bands of the ground are the small kin the underwarren tolerates — the goblin keeps the burrow and the rat-man keeps the tunnel, and the two have learned that a burrow that is not sold is a burrow that is not a secret, and the not-selling is the whole of the distance. The Kobolds of the warrens are the neighbors the word tests most often — the kobold keeps the warren and the rat-man keeps the underwarren, and the kobold who has sold a secret is the kobold the word has already decided is a mistake, and the deciding is the whole of the law. The Serpent Folk of the shallows are the ones the word keeps at a distance — the serpent keeps the bank and the rat-man keeps the dark, and the two have learned that a secret that is not sold is a secret that is not a word, and the not-selling is the whole of the peace. The Mole Men of the deep are the oldest neighbors the underwarren keeps — the mole-man keeps the tunnel and the rat-man keeps the secret, and the two are the same dark seen from two diggings, so a tunnel that a rat-man has sold is a tunnel the mole-man will keep, and the keeping is the whole of the treaty. Above, the ground-folk of The Forgotten are the ones the underwarren tests most often, and the testing is the whole of the bond, because the forgotten are the ones the dark keeps the word for, and the keeping is the whole of the promise. Uaellaen keeps a page of the underwarren in the wiki — the word, the secret, the nod that is the law — and the keeping is the whole of the record, because the camp has learned that a rat-man who has been written about is a rat-man who has been sold with, and the selling-with is the whole of the welcome.
In the Story
In the current story, the rat-men are the word in the dark — the secret Uaellaen writes about when the underwarren is the law. The Forgotten keep their distance at the tunnel line, and the distance has held for two seasons. This season a secret came up from the underwarren that is not in the word — a secret the Whisker does not remember selling, and the not-remembering is the whole of the warning, because the underwarren keeps its word, and the word has started to sell. The selling is the hand the camp has not been shown.
A rat man never lies. He simply sells you the truth that costs him least. — old smuggler's proverb