Ratfolk Biology & Culture Thread

>No mention of In Our Shadow

To Rat-folk, sleeping is seen as a communal event.
Rat-folk who sleep alone are usually doing so due to being outcast by their society for some unforgivable crime.
Choosing to sleep alone is seen by other Rat-folk as something akin to metal illness, further shunning them from their society.

Nothing attractive about Skaven.

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You wanna reconsider that statement?

I think rat-people should be taller than dwarves, but shorter than humans. (That falls into like, 4-5 feet on average, right?)
As for "Ratfolk" being a name, that sounds like something uneducated peasantry would call them simply because it's easier and it gets the point across.

Ratfolk clothing, when they opt to make it for themselves, places a great emphasis on striking a balance between being comfortable, and being practical.
Families of ratfolk tend to be on the relatively larger side, so fantastically ornate outfits are either absent, or saved as heirlooms and only making an appearance for important festivals or events such as weddings or holidays. You are much more likely to see ragged coats and scarves than furs, and the women wearing pants instead of dresses.
An important note that dresses, skirts, and similar gowns are usually seen as youthful, immature, and 'pure' and as such are only traditionally worn by young girls, or young women at spring-time festivals.
It has come to be known in commoner circles that the rats will cannibalize and convert any articles of clothing they can obtain to better suit ratfolk anatomy. (Longer legs, tail holes, staying close to the body, etc.) and that the community leaders, mothers, fathers, and even priests or shamans are expected to be proficient tailors and seamstresses. In some circles it's even considered to a point of pride to be wearing as many separate articles of clothing from as many separate sources as possible.
An example would be a Rat Merchant I met on my travels that claimed to have a halflings trousers, an elven nobles shirt, and a human coat. Admittedly however, I could not verify his claim.
In addendum, the longer an article of clothing has been kept in the family, or rather, been kept together, the better. That same merchant claimed that his coat had been sold to his great-great-grandfather and had since known over twenty various owners in his family alone, and that each separate patch was to be seen as proof. Again, I could not verify this, but it serves as a testament to the ratfolk dedication to thriftiness.

Due to the arrangement of their fur, ratfolk tend to wear long or thick gloves and boots, with lighter clothing near their torso.

This was my take on ratfolk.

It's hard to find art for them that isn't furry-bait or the hissing, rabid-looking vermin that are skaven.

PFs ratfolk are pretty neat.

Originally native to subterranean areas in dry deserts and plains, they are now more often found in nomadic trading caravans. Much like the pack rats they resemble, ratfolk are tinkerers and hoarders by nature, and as a whole are masters of commerce, especially when it comes to acquiring and repairing mechanical or magical devices. Though some are shrewd merchants who carefully navigate the shifting alliances of black markets and bazaars, many ratfolk love their stockpiles of interesting items far more than money, and would rather trade for more such prizes to add to their hoards over mere coins. It’s common to see a successful crew of ratfolk traders rolling out of town with an even larger bundle than they entered with, the whole mess piled precariously high on a cart drawn by giant rats.

oh hey what a coincidence

Well, it is one of the first pics that show up on google for ratfolk. Pathfinder has done quite a few excellent pictures of ratfolk.

>SEXTUPLE

Bless this post

Where various business concerns lie ratfolk families have no trouble finding occupations that would otherwise be unsavory to others and excelling in it which, unfortunately, feeds into the stereotypes typically levied against them.

However, in spite of this, as long as the job is lucrative (and legal, although even ratfolk are not above illegal enterprises) they will do their jobs with pride and skill although they will typically only employee other ratfolk and even then prioritize immediate family first.

>Can I fuck them?
Of course you can. What a silly question.

(Literally just me stealing/editing a bunch of completely unrelated Chinese zodiac blurbs for people born in the years of the rat plus a bit of my own thoughts)

It’s a fate that rat people and other beings are often related and tolerant of each other for the ratfolk is a tolerant one, They often eat other’s food, inhabbit their cities but in truth have the ability to survive and wander nearly anywhere. Ratfolk are not picky about food or their surroundings. The ratfolk are outgoing, optimistic and highly adaptable in any environment. They are not people who haggle over every ounce but they lean towards staying at ease or shying away as being preferable to bombastic actions or words. They are wanderers who often build underground warrens under existing settlements that allow for them to do so.

Some more PF art of ratfolk, this time the notIndian ratfolk who practice psychic portal magic.

At least for my world, it mostly follows PFs idea of them but their origin is that of ancient aliens having crashed to the world. An exploration vessel in the vein of the Enterprise or such, gets sucked through a doomsday portal made by aboleth kings to kill off the notAtlanteans by throwing asteroids at the world, and mores specifically their nation. This results in a race of scientists and explorers who have to survive an impact winter for the next few hundred years on a hostile world filled with unknown monsters.

Eventually they spread out to the rest of the world, with a culture strongly focused on knowledge and technology. I've got a half formed idea of a form of the Da'at Yichud from Wolfenstein since it would fit their culture so well, worshipping the gods by creating tech and science. Even one of their gods is based on tech, a ship AI that ascended to godhood, and still resides deep within the core surviving section of the ship.

Clothing wise i've just had them mirroring whatever majority culture they reside in, but with a strong emphasis on decoration with jewelry.

Merciful Christ.

What's this from? A comic or something?

>What's this from? A comic or something?
I think it's from a newer or the newest Ironclaw book.
The coverart is misleading because the pictures inside it is pretty damn good.

ALL HAIL TG’S NEW SUPREME RATFOLK OVERLORD!

>ratfolk has a bad reputation among other races for a perception of them being diseased beasts because of infamous plagues a long time ago just because mundane rats were involved
>some ratfolk tries to get away from that perception by washing regularly and thoroughly. Some even train to become legitimate plague doctors to combat that stereotype

I've always liked the idea of Ratfolk as a harried underclass in big urban centers. The better off among them work as servants, clerks, couriers and the like while the rest run the gamut between poor manual laborers and literal street-rats.

I'm not actually sure.
I think it -might- be from that furry tabletop thing. Ironclaw and/or Jadeclaw, maybe?

You're right, it's from Ironclaw's second edition, notable only for the rather excellent species art and the fuck awful other art in the rest of the book.

I'm not sure how outreaching you are for ideas of ratfolk, but one of my favorite interpretations of them was the Burmecians from Final Fantasy IX. I wish they were more expanded on, but I'll give my thoughts of their lifestyle based on how their city was set up.

Much of their architecture seems to be built without much privacy in mind, and actually seem to promote communion with themselves in every day activities.

The first great example are the roads, as they are rather narrow. There are many streets and routes, without a defined "main" path. They tend to follow a "laissez-faire" approach, curving up and over hills, rather than leveling them, and criss-cross many other paths without an exact system or general map of the place. Inhabitants are given the assumption to know where they are going without guidance. Even some destinations cannot be reached without go through a home or two. A stranger can get lost quickly here. Whether this is strictly for brushing elbows with their kin, or serve a more practical purpose (its hard for a pursuer to give chase inside a maze; or maybe as a weird irrigation system to prevent floods), seems to be left to the imagination.

Even houses don't seem to breed individualism, as mentioned with the roads. They are shared among families, separated off by floors or doors. These seem to never be locked in the game, so perhaps one always expects visits from neighbors, or even passerbys. All the homes share an open foyer in the middle, which can be outfitted as a common dining area, or perhaps recreation. The more complex housing has floors and rooms which cannot be accessed except by navigating two or even more "homes", further cementing an innate of this "extended family" lifestyle with their kin.

The only place that seems to not share this cramped feeling is a few courtyards and prayer/tribute rooms for mass.

tl;dr ratfolk love being around ratfolk, and enjoy busy lives with one another.

Here's some legit rat-person art

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Can I stereotype them into the rogue class? They seem like they’d be pretty good at it I want to fuck the rogue mouse

sauce on all these is nsfw blog. they also do lewdbolds.
chivalrous-innuendo.tumblr.com

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Ratfolk would make the best IT types.

>Run around the office taking care of various trouble in the office.
>Even as ramshackle as their efforts might be it just works
>People freak when they take a weekend off

I covered the naughty bits on this for you, Veeky Forums
Not well, but censored all the same

Thank you user

>tfw was pondering just cropping this pic
Thank you user.

where's the porn

Blue board, gonna have to find fap material else-where
But try here first

Office workers bribing their IT-Rat with bags of cheese curls and bottles of mountain dew.

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Ratfolk are highly social regularly exibiting altruism and humor. They don't mind living together, they do not like being alone.

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Is it an anti-Horned Rat? The one who causes skaven to panic-flee?

The Thealone (the alone) are rat folk who, for whatever reason, shun close personal contact and act as loners.

They are typically frightening to regular rat folk who view them as strange and evil often equating them to be consumed by embodiments of lonliness and isolation. Most Thealone tend to be ratfolk who's family groups have been murdered save for themselves and often left to fend for themselves. If they don't die they tend to develop strong instincts of personal survival and shun contact for fear of similar emotional trauma.

Even in such a sad state these poor souls have their uses often making excellent thieves and assassins who don't mind doing tasks that are personally dangerous often doing so because it offers the chance to be killed where they can't bear the idea of doing it themselves.

>artist does ratfolk and kobold lewds
how can one man be so patrician?

I can see that and it fits them very well. Especially if it's in a hospital since rats are apparently pretty hygienic.

>IT Ratfolk running around a hospital collecting stuff to be either replaced or reprogrammed.
>Hospital staff either find out that wires, connections or broken devices were replaced almost the moment they turned around or were in another room taking care of patients.
>Nobody, not even the patients or visitors even notice them weaving through the foot traffic in a hurry.
>However, you can always find them in a central office they claimed as their den. With the door right in front of a table where extra food ends up after a staff meeting or little celebration.
>The IT Ratfolk den also happens to be directly above the cafeteria on the basement floor and literally an elevator ride or a single flight of stairs away.

IT rats....this is a goddamn brilliant idea, im stealing this for my campaign.

I do my ratfolk partially based on the Nezumi from the "Legend of Five Rings" setting but with my own twists:

*They live in the plane of shadow and operate normally under its influence, they are inmune to its potentially ill-effects

*They are an unwitting kind of "disease vectors" because of the negative energy accumulated in their bodies, a ratfolk needs to "detox" himself from negative energy in order to interact safely with the material plane but this is uncomfortable to them

*They have unusual magical devices that look too crude to be called machines but too sophisticated to be called fetishes, these often dont work properly when taken outside of the shadow plane

*Ratfolk have an incredibly short lifespan but they have the ability to reeincarnate with their memories intact in the newborns of their community, this is achieved through a big contraption called "soul catcher" that is installed in a pivotal social center of their native community, the problems with this are:
a) The soul catcher records information about the details of their death before rebirthing them
b) The soul of a dead ratfolk must reach the soul catcher "by foot", this becomes increasingly more difficult the more they stray away from their home
c) To this end ratfolk either need to train the art of "ghostwalking" (basically learn how to become a strong and mobile enough undead as soon as possible in order to reach their soul catcher) or be wealthy or influential enough to have "soul valets" (servants who search for and return safely the soul of their fallen ratfolk master)
d) A ratfolk can only use a soul catcher has been previously attuned to a personal totem, most ratfolk are only allowed to use a single soul catcher

>A global dungeon is replaced with a global office/factory
>Ratfolk IT
I want to smooch you.

*This dynamic has massive influences in their culture

1) Ratfolk have no concept of a proper family, only a community

2) Adventurous and skilled enough ratfolk held their own safety on little regard, they are prone to practicing incredibly dangerous hobbies and fighting styles and are willing to do extreme body modifications to do their jobs

3) Skilled Ratflok who bite the dust for real end up becoming mounstruous unique undead thanks to their extensive experience in being one

>censored

Where's the uncensored?!

That's dangerously short.

I mean it's edited porn so...

snowskau on weasyl.com, newest pic.

*There are instances of "immortal" ratfolk who have tried tampering with the reincarnation process (spliting their souls, changing their gender, even trying to become another species) this has never went well for anyone

*Ratfolk who grow accustomed to the material plane are more comfortable in busy cities that resemble the ones in their native plane, ratfolks who would rather live in the open are mostly ascetics

*Ratfolk who venture into the Feywild are immediately overwhelmed and intoxicated, their psyches destroyed in matter of hours, it doesnt takes long for them to be assimilated into the background of the plane one way or another, they have many stories that warn each other against this in their culture

>Ratfolk Magic
What do you think?

What?

Is there anything special or unique about how Rats interact with magic?

Mmm, I think it would be something “basic” like blood sacrifices and simple incantations, I don’t see them as being very powerful spell casters and stuff

I imagine them as scroll junkies. Like once a week or something, everybody in the commune get together and just start making scrolls with components they find from scavenging and that, and give it to the adventurer on their travels, or trade them for even better material.

He make-makes the signs!
He Speaks's!

In my setting ratfolk specialize in 5 distinctive styles of spellcasting

Shadowcasters: Ripped off the Tome of Magic, doing spooky things with shadows and rogue-like stuff

Ectoplasm-Munchers: A type of shaman/necromancer, they reconfigure their own vital enery to regurgitate as ectoplasm to channel spirits (mostly undead) they channel through their abdominal chamber

One-Man(Rat?) Bands: Bards that prioritize quantity over quality, they usually employ the use of curses on their musical implements to make up for talent, their music often is often awful but weirdly hypnotic

Lobe Monks: Psionics that try to combine psionics with magic in a harmonious fashion, not very succesful

Jesters: Ratfolk warlocks/sorcerers that purposely exploit the exaggerated effects of fey magic on their peers and themselves

>good ratfolk and evil mousefolk
Or would it just be a reversed cliche?

good mice and rats.

evil rabbits.

If we follow reality, Rats would be scrappy survivors that thrive in adversity, support community, and expert scavengers.
Mice would by psychotic, inbred lunatics that regularly rape and cannibalize each other and other people. Imagine hordes of very short, very angry mega-hicks.

Pics like this make me wanna run a Rescue Rangers game.

In Pathfinder they use a special form of psychic magic that uses portals called ranatagi. They also have druids who specialize in swarms. In addition, they are excellent tinkerers and so are often worshippers of the clockwork goddess Brigh.

Warp (Psychic Discipline)
Ratfolk mythology claims they were appointed by the gods to sniff out the ragged edges of creation. Whether the art of ranatagi descended from this glorious role or formed the source of such myths, this psychic tradition among the ratfolk of Vudra (notIndia) and eastern Casmaron (notMiddle East) unlocks the psychic potential in trainees, teaching them to sniff out folds and tears in reality. Ancient practitioners of ranatagi even claimed that the art once allowed ratfolk to guide great caravans to the stars. This is true, they also live on Akiton, notMars in the style of the John Carter series
Phrenic Pool Ability: Charisma. (oh hey, sexy confident ratfolk with mind powers)
Discipline Powers: Your powers allow you to sidestep obstacles, defend yourself, and assault others by tearing holes in reality.

God I love the little snippets of PF lore for ratfolk.

Would actually reflect the real animals. Mice are nasty little brutes and cannibals, barely better than rodent style chimps. Rats are actually extremely altruistic, ridiculously smart for such small animals, and work for the common good of their families, whether rat or not.

I thought Guoh removed all of their lewds from there.

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I wish someone would draw rat Marcille as the doll from Bloodborne.

I don't think Magic has been mentioned yet? So let's planeswalker to one of WotC's least favourite planes (and thus by corollary one of the planes with the biggest cult following), Kamigawa.

Nezumi are the rat folk on this Japanese plane and I'd like to now take an aside to express my admiration of how accurate a portrayal of Japan this plane turned out to be. Racism runs very heavy on this plane and you see this best when a Moonfolk interacts with a nezumi. Nezumi are the rock bottom as far as the races are concerned to the extent that moonfolk barely recognise them as sentient beings. The nezumi of course do themselves no favours, as I recall they wallowed in the swamp all day, ate garbage and smelt bad. Rivalry forms biologically within a litter and no one trusts them, not even their own kind. They're the slave race and demons, ogres, humans and moonfolk with low self esteem engage them to get dirty work done. This fapbait for instance was slave to an ogre but a demon fancied her and made her kill her master and she now serves the demon.

A single nezumi will never be smart and swift enough to take out a moonfolk or a kistune, they are too weak to take out ogres, but can be cunning enough to take out more unsuspecting humans.

Who is this majestic motherfucker who draws Marcille as a rat and how can I request more?

He split it into three, so that the shitty prude algorithms of Tumblr didn't kill his art blogs.

>NSFW
chivalrous-innuendo.tumblr.com/
>SFW
guoh-art.tumblr.com/
>Personal/Random shitposts
guoh.tumblr.com/

What about Ratfolk in a modern-ish setting?

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>hiding your identity by disguising yourself as a different beastfolk race
I like that idea.

Problem is it'd only work on the dull-sense human-types.

Any other beast folk would...well...smell a rat.

That mask must be really uncomfortable.

Probably use perfumes or cat pheromones or some such.

What about Ratfolk in space?

Do Ratfolk have prehensile tails? It'd be a definite advantage in microgravity.

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Small bodies, dexterous fingers...definite plusses in space travel.

Sort of. Its mostly for stabilization in microgravity, at least in Starfinder. But their little grabby feet work pretty similar enough to hands to allow more points of contact unlike us lumbering humans.

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You got a Tumblr or something?

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Celestials and infernals tend to take on the shapes of whatever mortals are summoning them. Ratfolk angels tend to have bat wings, which other races tend to find surprising, but that's just the sort of wing you put on a rodent. It's ratfolk DEVILS that have feathered wings, specifically reminiscent of owls: omens of misfortune and bane of tiny mammals everywhere.

A giant black owl is the embodiment of lonliness and is represented as an ever present shadow that stalks the ratfolk and is a reminder of why you must stick close to friends and family least you fall prety to it

Dare you to click this: youtube.com/watch?v=OXQwx1EolD8