Gifts

As

the Theurge Gift.

• Umbral Gateway (Level Five, Umbral Danse) —

The Nuwisha can open a portal directly into the Umbra, through which may pass only those things the werecoyote wishes. This Gift is taught by a servant of the Trickster.

System: The player spends three Gnosis points and rolls Wits + Occult (difficulty 8). The portal stays open as long as the werecoyote desires, to a maximum of one scene.

Nuwisha make use of most Garou rites. They also know a few rites that they have never shared with the Garou, the most important of which are detailed below.

Rite of Dansing

Level Two, Renown This Rite is the first step on the path of the Umbral Danser. The Nuwisha must fast for three full days after devouring peyote. During this time the Nuwisha must recite all past experiences in battling the Wyrm, travel­ ling the Umbra, and teaching other Changing Breeds the error of their ways.

System: One Gnosis is spent per day; at the end of the three days, the Nuwisha rolls Manipulation + Enigmas, dif­ ficulty 7. A success indicates the Nuwisha has been accepted by the Trickster and can purchase Umbral Danser Gifts. Failure means the Nuwisha has not suitably impressed the Trickster yet and must wait a full year before trying again.

Sing Back the Dead

Level Five, Mystic Only one Nuwisha on Earth knows this rite at any given time. With it, the dead can be called back to life

with a song. Just as Coyote is the only being who can teach this rite, only he can authorize its use — and the consequences for defying his judgment on the matter are invariably lethal.

System: The player spends one point of permanent Gnosis to resurrect an individual.

Bad Medicine Bag

Level Two, Gnosis 6 This fetish is a small bag containing the bones of a small creature that died of disease and bound with a Rat-spirit. The Nuwisha use it to teach the strongest individuals lessons about the pain and torment of severe illness.

System: The Bag must be activated and hidden somewhere within the victim’s bed or sleeping clothes. Once he has slept a full night with the Bag, he will start to display the symptoms of a debilitating disease. He will not die from the illness and does not actually grow weaker, but he feels wracked with the disease. The dif­

ficulties of all rolls increase by 2 until the false disease runs its course.

It is difficult to convince the victim the disease is not real, even with medica evidence. The fastest way to remove the curse is to find the Bad Medicine Bag and burn it. Otherwise the false sickness lasts for one lunar month after which it disappears with no lasting physical effects.

Portable Door

Level Four, Gnosis 7 Made by binding an Epiphling into a simple piece of chalk, a magic marker or some other writing imple­ ment that can mark any surface, a Portable Door offers a trapped Nuwisha the chance to make a few new exits of her own.

System: The trickster activates the fetish and traces a circle or rectangle on a solid surface. The shape trans­ forms into a door that the Nuwisha can open and use. The Nuwisha has no control on what is on the other side — which can range from inconvenient to dangerous. The door lasts for (Gnosis) turns or until the Nuwisha steps through.

STEREOTYPES

Laughing Okode has some words on the other Changing Breeds:

Silver Fangs: You came over here all high and mighty and now you’re sorry? Great. Say you’re sorry by doing something useful, maybe?

“I cannot help but have a modicum of respect for someone who laughs in the face of certain death, even though I would be the agent of that death.” — Anton Sky-Chaser

Gurahl: C’mon, Yogi. Yes, you got fucked. Yes, it was worse than nearly anyone else. But it’s time to wake up, now.

“They are incorrigible tricksters. Let them test every rule, as long as they do not test my patience.” — Orphea Lightwalker

Kitsune: You’ve got a real joie de vivre that other shapeshifters don’t. You laugh at everything. Marry me.

“I’ve heard of the tricksters. They remember how important it is to laugh, but I wonder if they take any­ thing seriously.” — Moonlight Over River

Not only are Ratkin the most numerous Changing Breed, they’re also arguably the most dangerous. Plagued with madness, they turn their Rage on any enemy of chaos, not just the Weaver and Wyrm, but also humans and any signs of progress or structure.

Before the War of Rage, Gaia made the Ratkin re­ sponsible for culling the human population with famine and disease, crippling the hairless monkeys before they became a threat. Seeing themselves as the planet’s last line of defense against human excess, the wererats performed their job zealously. Eventually, the Garou became jealous of their successes, coming to see each Ratkin success as their own failure to keep Gaia safe. Resentment festered, poisoning relations between rat and wolf.

After centuries of growing tension, the Garou took great pleasure in slaughtering the Ratkin during the War of Rage. The Garou killed hundreds of Ratkin in the first days of the war but, as with their rodent Kin, exterminating Ratkin is far from easy. Most fled deep into Umbral boltholes, while others went to ground in human settlements, living as either humans or rats.

From then until fairly recent times, the Ratkin living among humanity kept their numbers small. They watched and waited for their chance to regain their lost power and numbers without risking bringing the Garou’s wrath down upon them again. Seeing minions of the Weaver and Wyrm calcifying the world over thousands of years fired their Rage, but self-preservation won out — keeping their numbers small was the key to survival, but in doing so, the wererats were too few to do anything about what they saw.

Several decades ago, however, watching how sick and broken the world had become fired the madness of the Ratkin, and the wererats began making their move. They issued a call to arms, urging those who had fled to the Umbra so long ago to return, and for the Ratkin of every kind to breed, breed, breed and renew their numbers.

The Ratkin believe human civilization is beyond

salvation. Their goal is to kill off humanity before it calcifies the world in the Weaver’s webs, and to tear down everything obstructing the Wyld’s glorious chaos.

As rats’ breeding cycles are shorter, and litter sizes are larger than their human counterparts, the Ratkin’s mas­ sive breeding program has created tens of thousands of new rodens Kinfolk, most of which have been exposed to the Birthing Plague. The result was a massive population explosion among rodens Ratkin, tipping of the formerly balanced scales between homid and roden wererats. Most of these new generations of wererats live in vast nests, hid­ den from the prying eyes of other shapeshifters. Because the vast majority of new Ratkin are rodens, the other Changing Breeds who watch homid Ratkin don’t know how much the Breed’s numbers have increased in the past 30 years.

THE NEZUMI

The Ratkin who belong to the Beast Courts call themselves the Nezumi. The Nezumi recov­ ered from the War of Shame relatively rapidly, but restrained their growth so as not to draw too much human attention. That left them better organized than the Western wererats when the bulk of the Breed returned from the Umbra. The traditional Nezumi still belong to the Beast Courts, but most of the returned Ratkin want nothing to do with the other Changing Breeds — and they are breeding more rapidly than the Nezumi. Relations between the returned Ratkin and the Nezumi remain close, but the indepen­ dent wererats have asked that the Nezumi do not share how rapidly the Ratkin population is growing with the Beast Courts. So far, the Nezumi have agreed — but only as long as the returned Ratkin don’t interfere with the Nezumi’s plans.

More than any of the other Changing Breeds, Ratkin feel the touch of the Wyld. They believe the Weaver is just as insane (and as intent on destroying the world) as the Wyrm. Because of this, wererats are as likely to strike out against manifestations of the Weaver as at the Wyrm. They sabotage third-world factories and construction projects that threaten to bring humanity’s static form of growth to otherwise unstable areas. They set fire to laboratories that experiment on their rat Kinfolk, or where the plodding grind of scientific and technological advances strengthen the human’s choke-hold on the world. They sabotage infrastructure projects, booby-trap new municipal develop­ ments, and generally cause large-scale urban destruction.

The Ratkin also believe that the Weaver has seduced the other shapeshifters (along with the entire human race). They see the mission of some Garou to live with and guide humanity as a horrible failure. To them, the Garou have fallen into the Weaver’s thrall and become far too human. Other than in the Beast Courts, where the Nezumi still cooperate with the other Changing Breeds, it is almost unheard of for a Ratkin to work with the Garou or to cooperate in anything other than a “for the moment, the enemy of my enemy is my ally” effort with any other Changing Breed. In the rare instances where such a thing occurs, such efforts

are often orchestrated by the cunning wererats to achieve goals, learn weaknesses, or manipulate events in ways that their “allies” never expected or intended.

Some Ratkin similarly use humanity as a tool against itself, whipping already unstable humans into a rabid lather, and then pointing them in the direction that will do the most “good” (harm). From bombings to cult shootouts with law enforcement agencies, Ratkin have been behind many of the “unthinkable” tragedies that have befallen humankind in recent years.

Kith and Kin

The Ratkin have given up on humanity. To them, everyone and everything associated with humans is fit only for destruction, to a certain extent even includ­ ing their own homid Kin. To end the human race, the destruction of every homid Ratkin Kinfolk would be an acceptable price by most Ratkin (and viewed as an added bonus by some of their more strident members.)

Most Ratkin are determined to keep their breed pure and focused. Their breeding program focuses on creating large numbers of rodens Ratkin, both because rats breed so rapidly and because the leaders of the Breed believe that homid wererats — and homid shapeshifters in general — are less ideologically pure than those born to animals. By concentrating on their rat-Kin, the wererats are constantly widening the gap between themselves and the human race they’ve come to abhor.

Disease Experts

The Ratkin have not lost their Gaia-given expertise in spreading pestilence. Humanity may have spent the

last several centuries gaining an actual understanding of

diseases, but the wererats don’t need to know genet­

ics and germ theory to create horrific plagues. By

working with both the actual diseases and with

plague-spirits, the wererats have learned to

refine and enhance diseases in ways well

beyond the most dangerous human

biological warfare laboratory.

RATKIN

TERROR AND TACTICS

Because they are small, and cannot rely upon brute strength, Ratkin don’t thrive in open combat. They cannot stand toe-to-toe with their foes and expect to survive the encounter. For­ tunately (for the wererats, at least), they’re well suited for asymmetric warfare — what humans call “terrorism.”

Some Ratkin are skilled assassins, but on the whole, the Breed usually has no time for subtlety. When a wererat needs someone dead, the victim usually turns up gutted in a locked room or blown to bits by an amateurish — but enormous — bomb.

Ratkin excel at sabotage, and count both demolitions experts and self-taught chemists among their number. The Breed puts great stock in homemade bombs and chemical weapons, with collateral damage being seen as a bonus.

Some Ratkin weaponize ancient terrors like pneumonic plague, influenza, and smallpox, but others are working on more supernatural attacks, counting on humanity’s lack of experience with spirits to leave them vulnerable. A small group of the most extreme wererats is even attempting to create an airborne and highly contagious version of the Birthing Plague. Their goal is to create a malady that would infect all of humanity, killing all but a small percentage of them — and transforming the survivors into wererats. In one terrible blow, they would end human civilization and fill the world with several million new Ratkin, living in the ruins left behind by the now-extinct humanity.

Other Ratkin make certain that humanity could not respond to such plagues in time by using homid Ratkin Kinfolk to infiltrate in national disease control and emer­ gency response agencies like the CDC and FEMA. They try to place their Kinfolk in key positions and kill, harass, and attempt to discredit non-Kinfolk who apply for or currently hold these jobs. Once they have a critical mass of Kinfolk in place, they plan to infect them with the Birthing Plague. After these new wererats have come through the plague’s madness, they will fall into line with other Ratkin, sabotaging efforts to discover cures or vaccines for epidemic diseases.

Ratkin are by far the most urban of the Changing Breeds, but that does not mean that they like humans.

THE LITANY OF SURVIVAL

Let the other Changing Breeds have their laws. The Ratkin embrace justice — which includes the freedom to interpret their Litany of Survival as the situation demands. The Knife-Skulkers interpret these edicts and enforce them with great fervor.

Preserve the Veil, which ensures your survival. Shred the Wyrm’s tentacles when they constrict you.

Sever the Weaver’s threads wherever they

calcify chaos. Survive so that you may breed. Respect strength and exploit weakness.

Conflict breeds strength. Build, steal, and suborn to strengthen your

breeding grounds. Trust your own kind before you trust outsiders. When someone is responsible for injustice, make

sure someone pays.

Wererats see the rot and ugliness that is an integral part of every city and know that humans are responsible for it. They live in the filth and hidden places beneath the facades where humans live. From their tunnels, sewers, and crawlspaces, they hate the people whose waste, carelessness, and greed corrupts the air, water, and land.

A few Ratkin abandon cities and retreat to live in rural areas. In the United States, they nest in decaying small towns and ruined rural compounds. Here, violent isolationist wererats forage for food and stockpile guns and explosives to use during the coming Apocalypse. Most are also eager to use their weapons against outsiders who discover or disturb them. Some of the most isolationist rural nests even turn on other Ratkin who do not wish to join them.

The Birthing Plague doesn’t just transform Kinfolk into Ratkin; it also drives them stark, raving mad. The Plague fills their minds with ancestral memories, the con­ stant yammering of hundreds of spirits, and a multitude of strange and vivid delusions. This madness fades for most wererats and they do eventually return to a skewed form of sanity, but the legacy of the Birthing Plague remains.

More than any other Changing Breed, the Ratkin obsess about the end times. Some follow various twisted versions of apocalyptic human religions, others fervently believe conspiracy theories involving the end of the world, mysti­ cal coincidences, or simply the obvious truth that global warming, rampant pollution, and humans’ desire for fossil fuels could spell the end of the world. The wererats know they must survive any coming apocalypse. As a result, many spend a great deal of time and effort preparing for it — and a fair number attempt to hasten its arrival.

The madness of the Birthing Plague never fades for some Ratkin, driving them permanently insane. The worst babble and mumble as they shuffle through life, crippled with schizophrenic delusions that make them all but non-functional. Most of the rest suffer from what humans would recognize as a variety of mental illness ranging from minor paranoias to major debilitating de­ rangments. Because insanity is relatively common among wererats, the other members of their nest can often teach these Ratkin ways to cope with their damaged minds.

BLOOD MEMORY

The Ratkins’ ties to madness can unveil hidden knowledge. One of the most profound sources of this knowledge is their mysterious Blood Memory that connects wererats to both their ancestors and, to a more limited extent, their relatives.

Using Blood Memory requires a Gnosis roll. For simple and direct tasks, like finding their way in an unfamiliar location or “remembering” the name and a few hints about a wererat they have never met, the roll is difficulty 6. To fully tap into the memories of a Ratkin’s ancestors or have actual visions of past events increases the difficulty to 9 and the character must also spend a point of Gnosis. The number of successes de­ termines how far back the Ratkin can remember.

Roll Time

One Success 10-50 years

Two Successes 50-150 years

Three Successes 150-500 years

Four Successes 500-1,000 years

Five Successes 1,000+ years

The anarchic madness of the Ratkin still has some level of organization. Ratkin society has two levels, Plagues and nests. Plagues are large-scale organizations that cover entire continents. Ratkin claim all of the members of their same Plague as their siblings. In Asia, the Ratkin who do not align themselves with the Beast Courts see the Nezumi as a separate Plague.

Ratkin from different Plagues see one another as cousins who deserve courtesy and hospitality. Despite their large numbers and wide distribution, wererats get along with each other exceedingly well. Though they often fight — especially rural and urban Ratkin — they do so for concrete reasons. Residents chase out or kill visitors who attack, threaten, or steal from the members of the nest, but most welcome peaceful visitors. This sense of kinship and hospitality with their own kind is also why Ratkin care for the most insane members of their breed so well.

Nests

Each Plague is made up of a range of colonies — breed­ ing grounds of Ratkin attended by packs of courtiers and providing a home base for rat packs. Many of the larger and older colonies incorporate sacred sites, becoming nests — sacred spaces where the Ratkin can regain Gnosis. These nests are often many decades old and can contain many dozens or hundreds of Ratkin. The smallest colonies are often temporary gatherings that are home to no more than a few Ratkin. Many homid Ratkin prefer living in small colonies above ground, or form rat packs with no real home. They find space in various odd corners of cities, taking over cheap apartments or squatting in abandoned buildings.

Larger nests are usually underground, where rodens Ratkin and rat Kinfolk are most comfortable. Located in tunnels and sewers, the largest of these nests may have up to a thousand wererats. Such nests stretch across sev­ eral miles of tunnels in both the physical world and the Umbra. Showing up to a large nest in homid form is an insult to residents, and assuming homid form is impossible in most portions of these nests due to size constraints.

Ratkin colonies have a strict internal hierarchy. A Rat King rules the colony, attended by packs of courtiers — usually all rodens Ratkin. Below the courtiers, rodens wererats have priority. Metis hold the middle ground, acting as guards and wardens and hoping to one day become courtiers. The homid breed sits at the bottom of the pecking order, taking whatever scraps they can get.

Colonies grow rapidly, since breeding is a sacred duty for the traditional Ratkin who live there. In only a few years, a colony can amass large numbers of rodens Kinfolk. Those who survive the Birthing Plague go on to breed even more, further swelling the colony’s numbers.

RATKIN

RATKIN LEXICON

Colony: A breeding ground for Ratkin, usually

attended by packs of courtiers and ruled by a Rat King.

Courtiers: A group of Ratkin that defends a

colony and serves a Rat King.

Nest: A colony built around a sacred site where

Ratkin can meditate and regain Gnosis.

Plague: A large community of Ratkin nests

stretching across a continent.

Ramblers: The wererats in a rat pack. They

serve no king and have no home, but can choose a totem.

Rampage: An anarchistic and temporary rat

pack. A rampage has no home and can only serve the Rat Totem. Courtiers sometimes call them “gangs.”

Rat Pack: A group of Ratkin dedicated to each

other and a totem; a group of ramblers.

Ratling: A Ratkin who has not yet earned rank

(rather like a Garou cub). Ratlings form Rampages.

Ratkin build nests on sacred sites, and every well established nest has a number of resident Shadow Seers who make treaties with local spirits. Portions of these nests extend into tunnels through the Umbra, so the Shadow Seers protect the tunnels from spiritual interference. Rat­ kin also find that powerful spirits make excellent allies in their attempts to sabotage and destroy human civilization.

Rat Kings & Courts

While a colony’s ruler is called a Rat King, in theory the nest’s elders elect him in a unanimous vote. The nest’s elders occasionally choose a Rat King (or Queen) because they have a collective vision of that Ratkin as their ruler. More often (in true Ratkin fashion), a prospective ruler’s allies kill or drive off any elders who would vote against them.

Regardless of how they are elected, Rat Kings or Queens serve for life. The only way to replace a Rat King is to kill him. Once in office, the King or Queen is responsible for holding regular gatherings and feasts where any Ratkin can bring complaints or problems to the King and seek redress.

Rat Kings and their courts helps rodens Ratkin make sense of the world. Their ceremonies restrain the anarchic madness that wererats feel, giving form and order to their world. Rats are intensely social animals, and the customs surrounding Rat Kings and their courts channel the Rage and insanity of Ratkin that inhabit the largest nests towards productive tasks.

Rat Packs

Ratkin who leave their nests strike out on their own in small groups. These independent wererats are welcome to stay in other colonies, but must continually move on if they don’t want to join the colony’s breeding program. Most of those who leave join up with similar Ratkin to form temporary rampages or more permanent rat packs. The ramblers who make up most rat packs are notorious for being some of the most violent and unstable of their kind.

Many Ratlings leave their home nest at some point to form a rampage — especially young females who want more from life than perpetual breeding. When they come of age, some return to the colonies and nests, finding comfort in structure. Others never settle, going on to join one of the long-term rat packs that ramble from colony to nest. Female wererats who do not wish to become breeders typically mark themselves with scars or tattoos to indicate their status. The residents of most nests will treat them with some contempt, but that’s a small price to pay for freedom. To be so marked ensures that the Ratkin will never have a true home in wererat society, for she will never be able to settle as part of a colony.

Ratkin are intensely social creatures. If a wererat cannot find others of his kind, he might consider form­ ing a rat pack with other Changing Breeds — or even other supernatural creatures. Anything’s better than being alone. Despite that, wererats never give their full loyalty or trust to anyone not of their kind.

Rat packs normally have between five and 10 mem­ bers and possess a strict hierarchy. One Ratkin leads, while one is always the runt, given the worst duties and the least respect. Some runts leave for other packs, or find ways of getting revenge upon one of the higher-ranking members. If the attempt at revenge succeeds, the runt’s victim often becomes the new runt. Homid Ratkin often join rat packs that actively avoid larger nests, preferring to keep well away from both brutal Ratkin politics and the distrust of homids common among rodens Ratkin.

Ratkin have –2 difficulty to Perception rolls involving smell in their Crinos and Rodens forms, thanks to their keen sense of smell. They also possess a special "tunnel

sense" that gives them an exceptionally precise sense of direction when they are underground. While underground, Ratkin can retrace any path and instantly know where they are in relation to anyplace else they have ever been.

Ratkin can have acute night vision, and can see clearly in the dark for an entire scene by spending one point of Gnosis.

Ratkin can step sideways like the Garou, but can only normally cross the Gauntlet if no other intelligent creature is present, except for spirits and other Ratkin.

Ratkin inflict reduced Delirium in Crinos form. When a human sees a Crinos Ratkin, treat the witness’s Willpower as if it was two points higher.

A Ratkin’s blood is poisonous to anyone who drinks it. Anyone imbibing Ratkin blood (including unlucky Ananasi and vampires) suffers one point of unsoakable lethal damage for every point of Rage the Ratkin possesses.

The Birthing Plague that lingers in their veins leaves Ratkin completely immune to all diseases, though they can still act as carriers.

A wererat who is in danger can utter a silent scream called "keening" that can only be heard by other Ratkin. Ratkin can only keen when threatened, but no other supernatural creatures can duplicate this sound.

Ratkin begin play with 3 Willpower, and may not purchase the Allies, Ancestors or Pure Breed Backgrounds. They also cannot purchase more than 2 dots of Resources.

Renown

Ratkin respect Renown in the categories of Infamy, Cunning, and Obligation, and a Ratkin can have his worth recognized in a variety of ways. Those who run mostly with their own kind can brag about their adventures to the courtiers at a nest and hope for recognition, or brag at a revel — a no-holds-barred chaotic party-cum-mob held by warrior-rats before a battle — and garner the approval of the crowd to gain his Renown. Those who run with other shapeshifters, or who skulk on their own can go directly to their totem spirit through meditation or other communion methods, and try to gain the spirit’s approval of their exploits. The various Creeds that the Ratkin hold to expand upon the Litany of Survival that underpins their society.

Ratkin are made, not born. Wererats subject some of their rat and human Kinfolk and all of their metis offspring to the Rite of the Birthing Plague. The Plague kills any normal humans and rats, along with most metis Ratkin and Kinfolk. The few who survive suffer several days of fever and delusional insanity and then recover to find that they are now wererats.

CREED OF INFAMY

I will defend our breeding grounds against all

threats, physical and spiritual. I shall seek revenge against those who prey

upon my kind. I must shred the tentacles of the Wyrm wher­

ever they constrict us. I must sever the Weaver’s webs wherever they

calcify chaos.

CREED OF CUNNING

I will survive so that I may breed. I must respect strength and exploit weakness.

I shall grow stronger through conflict. I will learn from the mysteries of the spirit

world. I will revel in the visions the spirits grant me.

CREED OF OBLIGATION

I shall preserve the Veil, which ensures our

survival. I will build, steal, and suborn to strengthen my

breeding ground. I shall nurture, instruct, and aid the young. I will trust my own kind before I trust outsiders.

When someone is responsible for injustice, I will

make sure someone pays.

• Homid: They begin life like any other human. Some are inclined to violence, others lose themselves in strange dreams and bouts of insanity. Almost all are notably less successful than other humans, academically, professionally, and socially. Then, the madness of the Birthing Plague shows them their true destiny. Most Rodens wererats do not trust homid Ratkin. The most powerful members of the larger nests especially distrust members of the homid breed.

Initial Gnosis: 1

Starting Gifts: Cooking, Eau de Rat, Persuasion

• Metis: These creatures are deformed, sterile, and a source of shame to their parents. The nest’s elders expose metis to the Birthing Plague soon after their birth. Almost all metis die from this illness. Rodens Ratkin raise the survivors in their nests, but consider metis wererats to be inherently lesser creatures — though still better than Homid Ratkin. The most daring eventually leave their nest and join a pack.

Initial Gnosis: 3

Starting Gifts: Cloak of Shadows, Rat Mother’s Touch, Sense Wyrm

• Rodens: Born and raised by rats, rodens Ratkin are the most numerous and the most well respected of the Breeds. Their understanding of human society and technology is often quite limited, but they are experts at survival and they understand life in the tunnels and nests exceedingly well.

Initial Gnosis: 5

Starting Gifts: Absolute Balance, Leap of the Kan­ garoo Rat, Survival

Instead of auspices determined by time or location of their birth, the particular hallucinations and visions an individual faces during the Birthing Plague determines their aspect. An Aspect provides two Strengths and a Weakness as well as determining the character’s initial Rage and starting Gifts. Most Ratkin have one of four aspects.

• Tunnel Runner: The Runners are messengers, scouts, and spies. They know many secret methods of traveling from city to city. Tunnel Runners also have the most contact with Bone Gnawers and Nosferatu vampires and may strike up pacts of friendship with either (although usually not both).

Tunnel Runners have the following Strengths and Weaknesses: Culturally Gifted: A Tunnel Runner can spend a few hours creating a persona that helps him blend into his cultural surroundings. He reduces the difficulty of all Manipulation or Subterfuge rolls related to maintaining this identity by two. The Tunnel Runner must create a new persona when he travels to a new city or town.

Wanderlust Visions: When a Tunnel Runner is lost, the Rat Totem often grants a vision of a useful destination.

Traveling Light: Tunnel Runners below Rank Three cannot take points in the Resources Background. Rank Three Runners cannot have more than two points in that Background.

Initial Rage: 1

Starting Gifts: Danger Sense, Silent Running • Shadow Seer: The Seers are the Ratkin shamans. They preserve spirit lore and communicate with the various spirits of the urban environment. They keep the knowledge of most rites alive, including the Rite of Sum­

moning, the Rite of Binding, and the Rite of the Fetish.

Shadow Seers have the following Strengths and Weaknesses: Spirits Speak to Me: All Shadow Seers begin play with the Theurge Gift: Spirit Speech.

Spirit Sight: By spending one Gnosis in the physi­ cal world, a Seer can see into the local Penumbra. The Seer must concentrate, but can maintain this vision for a scene. Her eyes turn white while she uses this ability, and she becomes temporarily blind in the physical world.

Disconnection: When a Shadow Seers botches a Rage, Gnosis, or Willpower roll, the spirit world becomes more important and real than the physical world. For the next scene, a minor dispute between two spirits would interest the Seer more than the physical people and objects around him.

Initial Rage: 2

Starting Gifts: Rat Mother’s Touch, Sense Weaver • Knife Skulker: These subtle and deadly wererats are skilled in negotiation, execution, and assassination. They excel at stealth and subterfuge, knowing how to kill unseen, and also how to lead a pack against larger and stronger enemies.

Knife Skulkers have the following Strengths and Weaknesses: Contracts and Contacts: Skulkers begin play with three free points of Contacts, usually in the form of “extralegal” informants. These Contacts can include other Changing Breeds. Skulkers must remain loyal to their Contacts or face reprisals by their fellow Skulkers.

Sense of Justice: A Skulker regains one Rage when­ ever she witnesses an act of injustice performed by other Changing Breeds or humans.

Assassin’s Code: A Knife-Skulker cannot allow himself to be seen killing someone he is attempting to assassinate. He cannot confront his enemy face-to-face or strike while hidden by a Cloak of Shadows. Failure means a loss of Cunning Renown.

Initial Rage: 3

Starting Gifts: Sticky Paws, Truth of Gaia • Warrior (“Blade Slaves”): Warriors, also called Blade Slaves, protect the rest of their kind and are well versed in both personal combat and asymmetric war­ fare. They excel at hunting and fighting underground. Warriors know the Rite of the Pain-Dagger and do not accept anyone into their ranks until they have crafted their own such dagger.

Blade Slaves have the following Strengths and Weaknesses: Pain Dagger: All Blade Slaves begin knowing the Rite of the Pain Dagger, a version of the Rite of the Fetish that can only create a Pain Dagger. They also start with one dot of the Fetish Background (as they own a Pain Dagger), but may put extra dots into the Background to increase their Pain Dagger’s power.

Tough: All Blade Slaves have an extra Bruised health level.

Blood Lust: Blade Slaves are more susceptible to Rage than other Ratkin. Their difficulty for Rage rolls is always 5, regardless of the phase of the moon, the direc­ tion of the wind, the color of the sky, or any other factor.

Initial Rage: 5

Starting Gifts: Resist Pain, Slicing Teeth

Freak Aspects

The Ratkin claim the ends times are upon them, and during these strange days some who survive the Birthing Plague have strange and previously unknown visions. These half-sane wererats are part of a number of Freak Aspects. Whether these are four new Aspects, or all facets of one diverse Freak Aspect is not yet known. There are four types of Freak.

• Engineers: The Engineers scavenge and modify hu­ man technologies in new and unique ways. The Weaver’s ways fascinate and horrify them in equal measure, and only turning the mad spinner’s contraptions against her can sate a Ratkin Engineer’s fascination.

Ratkin Engineers have the following Strengths and Weaknesses: Jury Rig: By spending a point of Gnosis and making a successful Intelligence + Repair roll, the wererat can create a device no bigger than a large dog out of odds and ends. This device can mimic (but not exceed) modern human technology, and functions for one scene. Though it doesn’t work for long, the Engineer can replicate any modern device in a cave with a box of scraps.

Clever Hands: Ratkin Engineers subtract 2 from the difficulty of all rolls involving fine manipulation

With Genius Comes Madness: All Ratkin Engineers possess one of the following flaws.

Curious: Roll Willpower when presented with a technological phenomenon; failure means you must investigate it.

Absent-Minded: While building or investigating a new technological device, you must roll Intelligence at difficulty 9 to remember crucial facts.

Delusions of Grandeur: You are certain you will tri­ umph in grandiose ways and want everyone to hear about your coming glory. You must spend a point of Willpower in order to keep an invention or plan secret.

Kleptomania: Roll Willpower to avoid pocketing items that interest you or that could be useful in creating your next project.

Initial Rage: 2

Starting Gifts: Control Simple Machine, Trash is Treasure

• Plague Lords: Masters of disease, Ratkin of this Freak Aspect are also in many ways mastered by disease.

Through strange bonds and friendship, each has a spirit of plague or disease as an ally — and they bring pestilence wherever they travel.

Plague Lords possess the following Strengths and Weaknesses: Instinctive Medicine: All Plague Lords receive three dots in Medicine for free. This does not count against their starting allotment of Abilities, though go­ ing higher than Medicine 3 at character creation still requires freebie points.

Spirit Ally: Each Plague Lord has an alliance with a single specific spirit of pain or disease. This spirit teaches Gifts and can provide information, however, these favors are not without a cost (see Servitor of Disease, below).

Servitor of Disease: The same spirit that aids the Plague Lord also requires services from him, such as spread­ ing disease or performing horrific medical experiments. Failure to comply often means that the spirit causes the wererat’s friends and allies to sicken or die.

Initial Rage: 3

Starting Gifts: Poison Food, Sniffle • Munchmausen: The Munchmausen all suffer from bizarre delusions that only occasionally intersect with mun­ dane reality. Not content to remain inside their own heads, the Munchmausen can bring others into their delusions.

Munchmausen possess the following Strengths and Weaknesses:

Beautiful Lie: Once a day, the Munchmausen can tell an elaborate and fantastic lie that is so perfect it should be true. Roll Manipulation + Expression; everyone who hears the lie believes it to be true for one hour plus an additional hour for each success.

Silver Tongue: All Munchmausen receive three dots in Expression for free. This does not count against their starting allotment of Abilities, though going higher than Expression 3 at character creation still requires freebie points.

Delusional: Each Munchmausen has at least one delusion that they firmly believe and cannot be convinced is untrue. Possibilities range from an imaginary friend to being certain that they are an exile from fairyland or the ruler of a distant but powerful country.

Initial Rage: 4

Starting Gifts: Persuasion, Tale Spinning • Twitchers: Paranoid anarchists who lash out at everything around them, Twitchers are mindlessly violent, deeply paranoid, and filled with anger. Unable to contain the Rage building within them, Twitchers find that they can commit atrocities without anyone remembering.

Twitchers possess the following Strengths and Weaknesses: Anonymity: No one remembers a Twitcher. Humans must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 8) to remember

RATKIN

anything about them and Ratkin outside their pack must make a Gnosis roll (difficulty 8) to do the same.

Impulse Control Problems: Whenever a Twitcher regains Rage, they also make a roll to gain even more. Roll one die against a difficulty of (10 – the Twitcher’s Rank). Success gains them another point of a Rage — and another roll. They keep rolling until they are at their maximum Rage, or until they fail or botch the roll. There are no negative consequences for failing or botching this roll.

Paranoid Delusions: Every Twitcher has a paranoid delusion that she wishes to share with their follow Ratkin. Most often, this delusion inflates the Ratkin’s hatred for the Weaver to incredible levels: convincing them that it controls everything, and that safety can only be found by destroying not just humanity but the whole world.

Initial Rage: 5

Starting Gifts: Firebug, Toxic Hate

Ratkin can assume three different forms. • Homid: Homid form for Ratkin is indistinguish­ able from a normal human being, however, whether by

nature or environment, they are often dirty, unkempt, scarred, and generally unsavory.

• Crinos: Ratkin increase in size and strength in their Crinos form, but far less than a Garou. Their weight increases around 15% and they gain a few inches in height. They look like humanoid rats with beady eyes, pointed muzzles, clawed fingers and toes, and long, naked tails. Crinos Ratkin are very flexible and can slip through any opening that they can fit their head through. Due

Form Statistics

Crinos Rodens

Str: +1* Str: –1 Dex: +4 Dex: +2 Sta: +2* Sta: +2 Man: –2 App: –1 Per: +1 Per: +3 *Metis Ratkin in Crinos form gain a +2 modifier to Strength, but only a +1 modifier to Stamina. They have bulging muscles but little endurance.

to their long, yellowed teeth, their bite does Aggravated damage, but their claws only do lethal damage. Ratkin can wield weapons (at +2 increase in difficulty) with their prehensile tails, which have half as much Strength as the Ratkin itself (round up).

• Rodens: Some Rodens forms are only slightly larger than a normal rat; others are the size of a large housecat or small dog. The only difference between this form and a normal rat is that the Ratkin’s front paws have hands with opposable thumbs.

Ratkin begin play one breed Gift, one aspect Gift, and one general Gift. Various rat- or rodent-spirits teach almost all Ratkin Gifts.

General Ratkin Gifts

As

the Theurge Gift.

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