Ratters

Rats and mice infest barns, houses, mills, and shops throughout Hârn, feeding off grain and spoiling food. Many households keep cats to control mice, but skilled ratters are called upon to deal with rats and other pests — wasps, snakes, and anything else that makes life uncomfortable or dangerous.

Although pest control is filthy and often dangerous, it is steady work. Rat-catching can be one of the more lucrative unguilded occupations. Ratters are often from the poorer segments of society; their unpleasant occupation makes them subject to the contempt of their betters, yet they are freemen with a dependable income. A skillful and crafty ratter can earn considerable sums and a measure of neighbourhood respect.

On rural manors, a peasant family may perform the job as part of their labour obligation or as a sideline to another unguilded craft such as thatching. Granaries, warehouses, shops, inns, tenements, and townhouses all require the ratter’s services. Catching rats in town is usually a full-time job, though a ratter may also earn coin as a mucker or labourer.

Ratting is an unguilded occupation, open to anyone — male or female, young or old. Even the Sindarin and Khuzdul employ ratters, usually human, to rid their settlements of pests. In some settlements ratters specialise, one working the guild shops and warehouses while another tends the tenements of the poor. Elsewhere, ratters compete fiercely, spreading rumours about rivals, performing underhanded tricks to steal work, and occasionally resorting to intimidation or violence.

Ratter Characters

Ratters make for interesting PCs and NPCs, with a useful set of skills and experience operating quietly in the dark. A rat catcher can be an excellent source of information — they have often been inside many of a town’s buildings, including the castle or keep. People tend to ignore ratters while they work, so the ratter may observe guard placements, patrol patterns, or know little-used means of entry. Unscrupulous ratters may sell such knowledge to the Lia-Kavair or others; even honest ones may be motivated or duped into sharing what they know.

Catching Rats

Ratting is best done in winter months before rats begin breeding in early spring. Night-time is prime, when rats come out to feed. Rats are relatively intelligent with keen senses; patience and stealth are key.

Animal Helpers

Most ratters are accompanied by one or two small dogs used to sniff out nests and flush larger vermin. Throughout Hârn and southwestern Lythia, the typical ratter’s dog is the Trierzi Terrier — a spirited, hardy, and adaptable breed with long wiry hair.

Dogs may suffice in rural areas, but urban ratters find polecats invaluable because they can enter places a dog cannot. The smell of the polecat causes rats to bolt, driving them toward a waiting net or club.

Nets and Traps

Ratters block escape holes, forcing rats through bolt holes they have left open and into waiting nets. Purse nets — so called for their resemblance to a coin purse — are circular nets of fine mesh cord, about two feet across, closed with a drawstring.

Some ratters use small traps baited with a special oil made from valerian herb, using closely guarded recipes. The plant, known to herbalists as a sedative, has an intoxicating effect on rats. Ratters often find the herb growing around a house where rats have been reported. A sly ratter may remove rats but leave the valerian plant intact, ensuring the house will attract more — and thus require repeat business.

Poisons

Ratters seldom use poisons: they can kill the lord’s hounds or livestock, dead rats may expire in inaccessible places causing stench, and poisoned carcasses can sicken anyone who eats them. Most ratters know better than to sell such carcasses.

A rat poison can be made from doshenkana — dried plants crumbled, mixed with lard, and rolled into breadcrumb-coated balls. Care must be taken because doshenkana is also toxic to humans; even touching the leaves causes an itchy red rash and blisters. Doshenkana is proscribed in some Hârnic kingdoms but often available through the Lia-Kavair.

Tools of the Trade

Very little equipment is needed. Some ratters work with only a club and a sack, but most add:

• Purse net — fine mesh net, circular, ~2 feet in diameter, closed with a drawstring
• Pole and cage — a long pole with a cage atop; a way of advertising by carrying captured rats through town
• Lantern — essential for cellars and night work
• Spade — useful for outdoor ratting
• Leather gloves — though some view gloves as a sign of an unskilled ratter

The feather adorning many a ratter’s cap serves as a paintbrush for applying valerian oil to traps.

Life of the Ratter

The job is not for the timid or squeamish. It takes the ratter into undesirable places — cellars, under floors, near privies — and puts their health at risk from filthy conditions and diseased rodents. Rats often enter buildings through drains and sewers; the horrible smells of such places are widely believed to cause fever and ill humours.

Ratters and the Law

A ratter has many temptations to dishonesty. Creeping about in a dark warehouse between dusk and dawn is a good way to be mistaken for a burglar. Smart ratters notify the town watch of where they are working and cultivate good relations with the watch. Honest ratters who witness or discover evidence of crime may be rewarded; those they implicate will not feel so kindly.

Less scrupulous ratters may be bribed or threatened by the Lia-Kavair to turn a blind eye to criminal activity.

Ratters and Religion

Like most commoners throughout Hârn, most ratters worship Peoni. Ratters in Orbaal are often from the Jarin population and worship Ilvir or Siem.

Rats are widely seen as harbingers of disease, associated with Agrik as the “Breeder of Plague, Squalor, and Decay.” There are rumours of a small cult calling itself the Order of the Lord of Plagues that worships this aspect of their dark god, believing rats to be Agrik’s minions, spreading suffering through filth and pestilence. Some ratters claim to know of colleagues who stumbled upon such a cult and were rewarded handsomely for leading the town watch to their secret meeting place.

Rats are also linked with Morgath, strengthened by the creatures’ tendency to live near crypts and graveyards. Ratters hired to hunt in such places typically charge much higher rates and rarely work alone.

The Horn of St. Emrys

Many Peonian ratters pray to St. Emrys, a little-known saint from the 5th century. Emrys was said to be a rat catcher who saved his Melderyni village by blowing a hunter’s horn and driving out the rats that were devouring the grain. For centuries, a silver-banded ox horn said to be the one Emrys sounded hung in a side chapel of the temple of the Irreproachable Order in Thay. The temple was looted during the Rape of Thay in 705 and the horn has not been seen since. Rumour has it that an Orbaalese lord now uses it as a drinking vessel.

Ratters’ Yellows

Rats carry infectious diseases transmitted through bites, scratches, and even through contact with water, food, or soil contaminated with rat urine. Ratters’ Yellows presents with yellowing of the eyes and skin, high fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, and rash — appearing after a 4–14 day incubation. The disease affects the liver and kidneys. Herbal remedies provide some relief, but continued exposure to contaminated environments is often fatal.

Some healers in the Peonian Order of the Balm of Joy have developed theories connecting rats to the spread of disease. These are welcomed by ratters but met with scepticism or ridicule by guilded physicians, who attribute such maladies to evil spirits or “bad air” from sewers, marshes, and canals.

Disposing of Rats

Getting paid to rid a building of rats is only part of a ratter’s income.

Food: Rat meat is a common source of protein for the poor. Rat-on-a-stick can be purchased in market squares and at fairs throughout Hârn, typically for a single farthing. Many a ratter’s wife pays a penny a day to the local Mangai for the right to sell the roasted results of her husband’s labours.

Fur: Those on the lower end of the economic spectrum use rat fur for trimming and accessories where wealthier people use mink, fox, rabbit, or beaver. Ratters can sell rat hides or carcasses to hideworkers, who prepare the little skins for use in clothing.

Rat-pitting: Live rats can be sold for blood sport. In rat-pitting, a number of rats are placed in a pit with a dog, and wagers are taken on how many rats the dog kills in a given period. Rat pits are roughly ten feet in diameter and four feet deep; sides are smooth to prevent escape. A rate of five seconds per rat killed is considered quite satisfactory. The Lia-Kavair often controls the gambling at such events.

Economics

Ratters are typically paid 1 farthing per pair of rats captured or killed. An average Hârnic ratter earns about 10f per day or 60d per month — good wages for an unguilded profession. Ivinian ratters are paid less, averaging about 36d per month.

Additional income from carcass sales:

• Rat fur: 1–2f per dozen hides
• Rat meat: 2f per dozen carcasses
• Live rats for rat-pitting: 1d per dozen

Rat Tales

Every ratter has a story about “the one that got away” — a rodent of unusual size or cunning that evaded all capture. Orbaalese sailors tell of rats in the Anoth Delta exceeding three feet in length, not including the tail.

Other stories feature fearsome creatures in sewers or cellars, the ratter escaping by the skin of their teeth. Ratters in Golotha swear the sepulchres and tombs on Temple Hill harbour “crypt rats” — rodents that look normal at first glance but have exceptionally long sharp claws and no fear of man.

In larger towns, stories are told of the Rat King — an exceptionally cunning rat who marshals an army of vermin from the city’s sewers and wharfs. Others tell of old ratters who went mad and now live with their rat minions in the bowels of the city.

GM Only

HârnMaster Rules

Ratter Skills (after ~3 years training): Animalcraft (Ratcraft)/5, Animalcraft (Dogs or Polecat)/4, Hunting/4, Trapping/3, Herblore/2, Club/5, Net/3

Ratcraft covers trapping and killing rats and other vermin, including knowledge of habits, anatomy, and habitats of common pests.

Catching Results

Netting/Clubbing (Ratcraft, once per hour):

• CS: 3d6 rats killed, nest destroyed
• MS: 2d6 rats killed
• MF: No rats killed
• CF: Dog or polecat runs off, or property damage

Use of trained dog or polecat: EML +20%. Allow 1 hour for a small building or barn.

Trapping (Ratcraft, per trap set):

• CS: 2 rats trapped
• MS: 1 rat trapped
• MF: No rats trapped
• CF: Trap breaks

Valerian plant lure: EML +5 × Herblore SI.

Poisoning (Ratcraft, once per job):

• CS: 3d6 rats killed
• MS: 2d6 rats killed
• MF: No rats killed
• CF: Poison ineffective; dead rats not retrievable and cause stench; or another animal/person poisoned

Modify EML by +5 × Herblore SI of the poison’s maker.

Ratters’ Yellows (Disease)

Classification: C4/H3 (see HârnMaster, Physician 4) Transmitted by bites, scratches, or contact with contaminated water/soil. Incubation 4–14 days. Symptoms: jaundice, high fever, headache, chills, muscle aches, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, rash. Affects liver and kidneys; continued exposure often fatal.

Adventure Hooks

The Order of the Lord of Plagues: A fringe Agrikan cult that venerates Agrik as “Breeder of Plague, Squalor, and Decay” and regards rats as divine minions. Almost universally condemned even by mainstream Agrikans. Could serve as a villain faction, using rats (or worse — magical plague rats) as weapons. A ratter NPC may be the party’s only contact who knows where the cult meets.

The Horn of St. Emrys: Last seen in Thay before the Rape of 705. Now believed to be in the possession of an Orbaalese lord (GM to determine who). A Peonian quest hook — recover the saint’s relic. The horn may or may not have any actual power; a GM could make it a genuine minor relic.

Ratter as informant: A ratter NPC who works the castle or a noble’s townhouse is a natural source of guard schedules, hidden passages, and overheard secrets. The party might hire one, befriend one, or find themselves competing with the Lia-Kavair for the same ratter’s loyalty.