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victims. We will not con Earth Mother’s children, of wererat society, they brokered and negotiof the dispossessed, desperate and disenfranage put an end to such cooperation. When the r on the Children of Rat, the Ratkin bards as evil to some, but essentia last and lowliest o ren of Rat. This is Rat one last act of desperation on behalf of ed their minds and s off from their human children became increastheir single-minded devotion to unspeakable arts.

Impergium, the Ratkin were reviled because of the r ties the Goddess gave them. The wererats always The Garou lashed out at human villages that prospered too much, limiting their flocks to strict population quotas.

Eventually, they culled the population of any other race that supposedly threatened their supremacy. All of their victims - at least, those that have survived -remember the horrors that followed, though each disagrees on the original cause. It was a dark age in the history of the Changing Breeds: the War of Rage, a holocaust for Gaia’s children. Entire species were devastated or driven into extinction. To “protect” mankind, the earliest Garou conducted campaigns of genocide against the other shapechangers of the world.

This would change history forever.

The stories you are about to re the world, each of the Changing The Bastet kept the secrets of magic; the healers of sacred places, and so on. Of all th The Ratkin have always had unsavory reputa Whenever a threat rose against the free-flowing nature of chaos, the Ratkin swarmed to oppose it.

One GOUP threatened this force more than any other: the human race. Human tribes grew faster than their masters, the Garou, could contain them. Once the humans learned how to farm and build cities, the werewolves watched their progress carefully. If the Wolves failed to cull the human population sufficiently, the Ratkin were entrusted to correct their mistakes. With methods ranging from the subtle to the shocking, the wererats restored the balance between the order of the human cities and the chaos of the wild. Their brutal efficiency was well-known to the primal Garou. Since Ratkin successes were based on Garou failures, animosity grew between the Wolves and the Rats. @evopulation has always been a chief amcern of the wererats. A Ratkin colony can only ensure the survival of a privileged few; the rest must get by as best they can. In the early Ratkin days of the world, young wererats would often leave their nests and roam the world to seek their fortune. To survive, they would make dark pacts and secretive contracts with other supernatural creatures. Ratkin had no qualm about undertaking tasks the other Changing Breeds thought too unpleasant to fulfill. Whenever the population of Ratkin surged, plagues of wererats would swarm into the societies of other shapechangers, offering to help them with their direst troubles.. . for a price.

Not surprisingly, the Ratkin had few formal dealings with the Garou, even before the War of Rage. Only a few aspects of wererat society had cause to commune with them. First among these were the Ratkin bards, the intermediaries betweenGarou by Garou and intoned ording to legend, they As generations bred, prospered and died in the shadows of the spirit world, the werewolves asserted their dominance over the physical world. Showing false contrition for their crim&, they =t&l&d the concord, a treaty that brought to an end to three thouand yeam of tenor. The Wetem anwrdiat reached the agreement &at humanity had &e fight to develop its o m civilization. The Gsou were to stay hidden, watching Over Gaia’s creation from hidden places. The Mother e n m t d &em with Her peatst sacred site.. . leaving the victim of the war of Ragewith~~memoriesofbetrayal.Sincethen,thewerewolves have While the Garou tried to become more humane by living among humans, the b t k h hidden. ne werewolves compromised the purity of the Wyld by allowing human society to flourish. The wererats, on the other hand, followed avery different path, relying on their m a t feral instincts to survive. The G~~~ thoughtthattheRatkinhadpassedfromtheworld, justastheyhad at &&with the rest of &e changing Breeds. nia. Wererats carry the secre its victim to the horrors of an altered existence. led, but few survive. Some infected Kinfolk ing their rage on humans who invoke their necessary. Countless g thedarkness.The w t endure until the terrifying moment of the chittering of countless a De La Poer.. . need not be a fiend.

H.P. Lovecraft, “The Rats in the Walls”

The wererats are exiles from a doomed world, survivors livesfilledwithviolence and horror. The disease of lycanthro , he is overwhelmed forgotten many of their ancient victims.. . but they were tragically wrong. The Ratkin race hashad thousandsupon thousands ofyears to rebuild, repopuiate and prepare for the future. The wererats refused to lie down and die; instead, they bolted into the hidden places of the world. Since then, the Ratkin have lived on the fringes of reality.. . and the fringes of sanity.

The Concord began the Age of Man, but now, as the Last Days approach, that age is ending. We live in the winter of the world. The wererats have watched and waited for millennia for signs of the coming Apocalypse. As the End Times draw near, more of the wererats’ distant ancestors are returning to the dimension they left behind, fulfilling the curses of the ancient Ratkin bards. The Children of Living outside human destruction. In the world of the wererats, these legends are based on hideous truths. wererats breeding a sacred duty; thus, a Scant portion of the population is descended from the Ratkin race. When a wererat breeds with a human, or even a rat, their offspring is known as Kinfolk. If the mother is a rodens Ratkin or a rat, she bears a litter ofrat Kinfolk; ifthe mother is a homid Ratkin or a human, the child is human Kinfolk; very rarely, if one of the parents is a materialized spirit, the freak that results is Spirit Kinfolk. For all shapechangers, lycanthropy is like a latent or recessive gene, one that can remain undetected for years, or even decades. In fact, the taint of Ratkin blood can endure for generations, lying dormant within its inheritors until misfortune awakens the family’s curse.

Full-blooded werema are shapechangers who can spread conuption through disease and transmit it through acts of vioIntroduction lence. WhenaRatkiiwounds an innwent human, he may choose to infect him with illness. There’s a chance the sickness may eventually d o r m intotheBirthing Plague, avirulentpathogen that has been evolving for thousands of years. The infection can be transmitted in other ways as well: wounds, poison and plague are the three most common. Performing the proper rites ensures this infection. Most humanswho are consumed by the Birthing Plague suffer horrible deaths, but the few who possess a thin taint of wererat blood inherit the legacies of the Ratkin race.

For these unfortunate few, the limits of reality they once knew are shredded by a thousand eager claws. Until the infected Kinfolk undergoes his final metamorphosis, he is rwhelmed by changes to his body and mind, tormented by lives they once knew are tom to f savage violence. For a blessed ague awakensdormant memos voices; he receives visions; he Relapses can last for days, months or years, eventually leading to the terror of the First Change. By the time the wererat is utterly consumed with anger and completes his metamorphosis, he knows the role he must fulfill in the coming Apocalypse. Each Ratkin attends to One aspect Of wererat societyToday 8 there are eight sacred Ways that musth obeyed, ranging from the wise and spiritual to the utterly deranged.

Tunnel Runners are the mavericks of Ratkin society; they act as the Scouts and spies of the swarm. Consumed by wanderlust, they learn of Secret paths through the worlds of flesh and spirit.

Shadow Seers guard forbidden secrets lying dormant in their blood. Unlike their more violent brothers and sisters, they value wisdom over vengeance. Through calm meditation, they can understand anything cloaked in shadows. TOO much introspection, however, leads to insanity.. . .

Knife-Skulkers hire themselves and their packs out to any who would pay their price. The distinctions and taboos of supernatural societies mean nothing to them; justice is allencompassing. As assassins and thieves, they will make and break contracts with anyone.

Ratkin Engineers are the result of the growing power of the Weaver. Many are infected in laboratories, using their shocking new intelligence to insidious ends. From the rubble of the modem world, they salvage and devise ingenious devices.

The Munchmausen have returned from lost realm of the spirit world, fulfilling the curse of Ratkin bards millennia ago.

Most recall fanciful tales of realms that never were; some insist that they are outcasts of Arcadia. Though many are born as spirits, the Birthing Plague transforms them into flesh and blood, Warriors wield their Pain Daggers with rapturous abandon. Masters of guerrilla warfare, pack tactics, and swarm strategies, they prove Rat's rightful position as a Totem of War.

Their methods of killing range from the imaginative reconstruction of modem-day ninja to the elaborate strategies of survivalists and militias.

These are the four sacred ways, preserved since the days of the Impergium. Yet as more Ratkin return from their exile in the spirit word, the wererats are uncovering new aspects to their society. Some followers recall the secrets of forgotten lore, while others are the result of the ever-adapting nature of the Birthing Plague. A few are the result of lush1 wererats who bred with materialized spirits. The Ratkin who fulfill these duties are known as Freaks. Most make normal wererats seem sane by comparison.

And last, but not least, are the Twitchers, Ratkin who reflect the rage of a dying world. As servitors of the Rat God, they unleash anarchy and destruction, preparing humanity for the Final Days of the Apocalypse. Succumbing to rage is all too easy for these madmen. They delight in ranting false prophecies of the world's doom.

Rat calls to all of these children, echoing the chittering demands of thousands of brethren waiting in the spirit world.

She makes her demands in myriad ways, often coordinating vastly different wererats to execute the appropriate portions of one master plan. Eight aspects of Ratkin society reflect her many needs and desires, all focused upon one goal: preparation for the final battle for the world.

Plague Lords command the forces of disease, fighting the temptations of the Wyrm as they practice their dark arts.

Though they were thought destroyed in the Dark Ages, their plagues have returned to the world in guises more sinister than ever witnessed before.

Ratkin