Inspired by Goblin Punch’s Rat Master
Starting Equipment: Icon denoting you as the Rat King, Sling, Cheese (3), Lockpicks
- A: Rat Friend, Call Rat
- B: Throw Rat, Rat Mapping
- C: Rat Bullet, Dire Rat
- D: Transfer Affliction
A: Rat Friend
You begin play with a variant of Faelul called Ratspat. Unlike Faelul they may respond, though in broken tongue.
Additionally all rodents recognize you as the beloved rat king, and will improve their starting attitude toward you one step. This protection doesn’t extend to your friends.
A: Call Rat Spend a turn tapping on walls, singing a song, or emitting a high-pitched squeak. Gamble a brain die, If there are rats nearby (and there are nearly always rats) a rat who is loyal to the rat king will emerge.
Loyal rats obey you unhesitatingly, although they require a portion of cheese if given obviously suicidal orders.
The maximum number of rats you can have under your control is equal to your level, with an additional at B and D. Rats who are out on missions for you (such as carrying messages or mapping) still count towards this limit.
B: Throw Rat
You can throw your rats as weapons. The rat becomes attached.
Each attached rat does 1 point of damage per turn and gives a -1 to damage on attacks from the target. A rat can be pulled off and held with a +4 Save. A held rat can be crushed in your hand as a free action.
B: Rat Mapping You can send your rats into a dungeon to map it. This takes 20 minutes per room explored, but is relatively low risk. Choose how many rats you want to send in.
Rooms are described primarily through smells as well as a general sense of “good place”, “bad place”, or “indifferent” based on whether or not the room contains anything of interest to a rat. Rats enjoy food, water, safety, warmth, and an abundance of places to hide (such as furniture debris or dirty straw). Rats don’t enjoy fire, noise, large creatures moving around, people talking, or a complete lack of places to hide.
The map is just a list of circles with lines drawn between them, labeled with the smell of that room (if any), with occasional smiley faces and sad faces.
Your DM will draw your rat map as follows: Get a d6 for every rat sent. Assume that all the rats move into the first room and roll all the d6s. So if you sent in 4 rats, roll 4d6 for the first room.
A result of a 1 or 2 indicates that rat has died, gotten bored, or wandered off.
If you have at least two dice that show a ‘6’, the rats have paid especially good attention to this room, and return with a more useful description of the room.
You don’t get to cross-examine the rat about the description.
Then pick up all of the remaining d6s, the GM picks an unexplored path (from any room), repeat this process for the next room.
- an example of what the rat mapping function will return
- notice that they must have gotten at least two 6s on the first room
- also notice that they have an equal chance of exploring any unexplored room
You can use this ability from within a dungeon, too. Just remember that you eat away at the Underclock while you sit there waiting for the stupid rats to come back.
Rats used in this way wander off. Mechanically this is the same as all rats used in this way dying.
C: Rat Bullet When you throw a rat you can choose to instead focus on impact. The rat deals 2d4 damage and dies on impact.
C: Dire Rat When you Call Rats you may instead call a dire rat. This counts as 4 rats for the sake of the maximum you can command. This dire rat cannot be thrown or map dungeons but does have the combat prowess to act on their own. You can command them as a free action on your turn but they always go last in initiative.
D: Transfer Affliction Once per day, you can transfer a disease, poison, or curse onto a willing rat. Your loyal rats always count as willing (although they may curse your name or haunt you).