Ratter

Ratters are a miniscule, rodent-like people that live in groups called infestations, often inhabiting the swers beneath heavily populated cities. Their metabolisms are just a quick as their minds, creating a ravenous hunger in most ratters for both food and knowledge. This curiousity and preckishness combined with their flexible bodies means that if there's a place a ratter shouldn't be, they probably found a way to get in.  

Sewer Critters

  Ratters have large, rounded ears, beady eyes that range from light brown to deep black, and pointed snouts ending in inquisitive pink noses and elongated foreteeth. Their fur comes in a variety of understated colors such as grey, black, brown, white, or any combination thereof. This fur is long and fluffy when clean, but will often appear matted, unkempt, or even spiky due to a lack of grooming habits and a tendecny to live in filth.   The bushiness of their fur belies the lithe bodies underneath. Ratters are deceptively slim and highly flexible, with loose joints that allow them to squeeze into seemingly impossible gaps. They also have broad, pointed claws on the tips of their fingers and toes, which are ideal for climbing or burrowing in soft earth. Lightweight, felxible, and capable of slipping or scraping through tight spaces, ratters have little trouble infiltrating food stores and getting into other places they aren't wanted.  

Live Fast, Die Young

  As intelligent creatures, ratters are acutely aware of just how short their twenty-year lifespans are as compared to those of other humanoids. Ratters despise wasting time. They speak quickly, think quickly, and take action quickly, without dwelling on the consequences or any other "wasteful" thoughts. They take offense, often violently, to any action or custom they deem to be a waste of their time, such as smalltalk, waiting in lines, or dealing with bureaucracy; ratters will usually put their quick minds to work finding a creative way around such pointless obstructions.   Most organized societies consider ratters to be loathsome pests and will go to great lengths to keep an infestation out of their sewers. For their part, ratters harbor a much more powerful dislike, and sometimes even hatred, of these longer-lived races; they're viciously jealous of creatures with greater lifespans, especially elves. Compared to other races that seem to have all the time in the world, ratters find it incredibly unfair to have been given so little time.   A ratter's short life also sparks within them a fundamental desire to continue to have an impact after they're gone, to leave a legacy behind. While many ratters believe their legacies are completed simply by surviving to continue their lines, others are dissatisfied at the idea of using their limited time only for the purpose or procreation. These ratters yearn to accomplish greater freats, and some, seeking something new they can contribute to their infestations, turn their minds to gaining and utilizing knowledge. Painfully aware of how limited their time is, these scholarly ratters blaze though texts and tomes, desperate to discover some lost lore such as the secret to attaining immortality, or to find an adventure that will be sung of in tavers across the world-- anything that will keep that memmore alive throughout the eons.  

Family Matters

  Ratters undersand just how little time they have with their family members, so they cherish these bonds deeply while they can. Mother ratters tend to give birth to several litters per year, each litter containing six to ten pups, causing ratter infestations to expand rapidly. Quick to form attachments, ratters tend to consider the rats, mice, and other rodents of the sewers to be family, too, often treating them as siblings or beloved pets. Whether this behavior is due to similarity of appearance or of circumstance is unkown, but the attachments formed are fierce, and ratters even develop ways to communicate with their smaller, subterranean fellows.   Unfortunately, the ratters' high birth rates, huge families, and fast metabolisms can quickly combine to casue food shortages within an infestation, eventually forcing the family to the point of desperation. Ratters' terrible hunger, when left unsatisfied for extended periods, begins to drive them mad, until they must either leave the infestation on a blind and perilous search for food, or begin feeding upon each other. Most ratters taht survive to reach adulthood bear numerous scars, afflictions, and diseases due to the feeding frenzies they've battled through dwon in the sewers. Even this violent cycle of starvation adn madness cannot break a loyal ratter's family bonds, however. After a frenzy has abated, the remaining members of the infestation quickly make amends, their devotion running deep enough to survive the carnage.  

Ratter Adventurers

  Most often, a ratter becomes an adventurer after their hunger drives them from tehir infestation, and once their faculties return, they find themself completely lost in a place they don't recognize. Occasionaly, a ratter infestation will be discovered and routed by authorities of the city that lies atop the infestation's sewer dens, causing much of the faily to become separated or slain. And once iin a great while, a ratter may be grivously wounded during a feeding frenzy that their familial bonds snap, causing them to leave the infestation of their own accord.   Ratters hunger for a social group nearly as much as they do for food, and they find it hard to resist the urge to find a replacement for the family they lost. Most often, this is achieved by stumbling onto an adventuring group. Thanks to their capacity for deep familial bonds and their extreme impatience, rattters tend to make themselves into fiercely loyal, if often troublesome, members of these parties.   Though their instincts and physical attributes naturally lead many ratters to become rogues, the more scholarly ratters who pursue knowledge tend to follow teh path of wizardry. however, it isn't uncommon to find ratter fighters traveling with adventuring groups, their bellicose inclinations and violent experiences having inspired them to master weaponry.  

Ratter Traits

  Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 30 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. YOu can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.   Bite. Your sharp, pronounced foreteeth are a natural weapon, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal piercing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.   Impatient Mind. When you resolve the Research downtime activity, you roll the Intelligence check for the Research Outcomes table twice, gaining the results of both rolls.   Loquela Rattus. You have the ability to communicate in a limited manner with rats and similar rodents. Such creatures can understand the meaning of your words, though you have no special ability to understand them in return. You have advan tage on all Charisma checks you make to influence them.   Rodent Nimbleness. You can move though the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours. Additionally, you are considered one size smaller for the purpose of squeezing into narrow holes and passages.   Vermin Infiltration. Due to your light weight, quick mind, and specialized clawas, you can get inside almost any place you choose. You have a climbing speed of 25 feet, and a burrowing speed of 5 feet. You can only use this burrowing pseed to tunnel through soft dirt or mud, and the tunnel quckly collapses after you pass through.