Skitterers



The children of the ten thousand eyed god, Sizztizz, the Skitterer are an ever present menace throughout the world. They stand as a tide of vermin that will devour everything in its path. Luckily for the world, blood feuds run deep between the ratmen clans causing them to slay one another with heavy abandon. Having no capital or centralized ruling structure it is impossible to unite the clans into something that could truly threaten.

However, there are alliances and every so often clans will gather to raid a neighboring race, and with sheer numbers and furious violence they can overcome some of the most stalwart defenses.

Description:
Skitterers stand nearly as tall as a full grown human male, ranging between 5’3 and 5’7 though they hunch over more often than not. They appear as large bipedal rats often wearing clothing and wielding weapons. They may have paws but they are able to dexterously use them like other sentient races.

Using salvaged weapons and armor with only the best of the best able to afford “good” armor and weapons, the masses of Skitterers usually are equipped with very little and still are expected to perform. They do possess powerful incisors which can shred through flesh. Unlike smaller rats, Skitterers don’t have to constantly grind down their teeth for fear of them growing too long and killing them.

Most Skitterers have brown, black or grey fur with red gleaming eyes, long snouts with twitching whiskers. They gained the name Skitterer from the common expression of rats skittering in the walls.

History:
Born from rats that had been corrupted by powerful Void energies that Sizztizz unleashed during the 1st Void Invasion. The Skitterers hid away under Sizztizz’s guidance until their numbers were sufficient to branch out into the world. At the end of the 1st Void Invasion Sizztizz was defeated by the dwarf god Grimundaz and thrown into a mighty god made prison on another plane of existence. The rat god can call to it servants every so often when the moons align right, granting them prophetic dreams and sending them his will.

Because of the loss and imprisonment of their god, the Skitterers hate and fear the Dwarfs of all the races. Dwarves are one of their main competitors, aside for shrilkul and darklings for underground territory and are extremely difficult for them to defeat.

Since Sizztizz’s imprisonment the Skitterers have spread to every continent and can be found with warrens below every major city. Traveling into abandoned mines you are as likely to find Shrilkul as you are Skitterers, and further below the surface the two races battle one another incessantly. Both breed fast and throw large numbers at each other with abandon. (This further keeps their population lower)

There have been two notable attacks on cities of man, one near a goldmine the Skitterers wanted to possess, attacking the city of Freycliff both above ground against the city’s formidable defenses and below ground from the sewer systems they mined into and into the gold mine itself in a three pronged assault. The defenders on the walls were able to repel the vermin until they were forced to retreat to help in the battle in the streets. The goldmine was overrun in several hours. Two days of intense street to street and house to house fighting finally threw back the Skitterers from the city, but in that time the Skitterers had sealed off the goldmine for themselves.

The second attack came on the stronghold of Holdenmar over a Void artifact that had been housed in a temple vault. The artifact is said to be a prophetic token of Sizztizz. The force assembled to attack the town was staggering even by Skitterer standards, with nearly a hundred thousand warriors and even lesser rat slaves.

Luckily the city and stronghold was well defended and had caught wind of the impending attack a day before it struck, giving them time to send for aid from two other nearby strongholds that quickly marshaled their forces and arrived during the full fury of the Skitterer assault.

For three days the city fought off repeated assaults, cutting down untold numbers of Skitterers and slaves. Archmages arrived on the third day by teleportation and helped end the assaults. Still the city was in ruins and the defenders battered, with many dead or dying. After this point the artifact was moved to an even more secure location and fortified against scrying magics that could find it.

Society and Culture:
Skitterers embody many nasty qualities and no redeemable ones. They are paranoid to a core, craven, delusional that they are the best Skitterer ever spawned by Sizztizz, and untrustworthy. A Skitterer would kill its own litter mates and mother if it thought it would advance its goals, and would never think twice. They all believe that every other Skitterer is out to cut them down or usurp their position and power. Because of this, assassination, and intrigue are cores to Skitterer life.

There are untold numbers of clans, which generally war with all the others over territory in the depths of the earth. Some clans have formed unease alliances with one another, but betrayal often makes those short lived.

Only one clan has ever been truly recognized by the rest of Skittererdom, Clan Swarm which is recognized as the first clan to be created under Sizztizz. They are holy to other Skitterers as they receive the most visions from their malicious god than all the other clans combined. They are also notoriously stronger, and smarter than the rest of ratman race. They are the ones who spend their time searching for the lost artifacts of Sizztizz that they may one day release him from his prison.

Skitterer clans run on a murder built hierarchy with a Prophet at the top who can only be replaced by being challenged to single combat to the death. Anyone that murders a Prophet is struck down by Sizztizz himself.

Under the Prophet is a warlord who commands the clan’s army on the battlefield, generally from the rear. Beneath the warlord are the Oracles, who are albinos raised to be powerful magic users. Beneath the Oracles are generally twenty one clan leaders which govern various parts of the clan and lead the clan rats in battle, also generally from the rear.

Below the Clan Leaders are generally a multitude of Skitterers who have risen to prominence through varied ways and with varied skills. Below them is the general mass of the clan with the lowest tier of slaves at the bottom.

Skitterers at War:
War is a constant affair of the Skitterer, who are often flung into full scale battles or skirmishes against rival clans. Slaves are the unfortunate ones to receive the brunt of the work before clan rats are lead in by Clan Leaders. Oracles and more elite Skitterer warriors like the Shockrats are held in reserve with the Oracles fighting a ranged magical duel against their opposition until one side is defeated, then they turn to bringing their magics to bear on the battle itself.

Sometimes clans are able to breed the rare Roar Rat, a massive beast of bulging muscle and limited intellect. These fleshy tanks are covered in plates of scavenged armor and given weapons with great reach that they can inflict devastating casualties as they wade into battle.

Lesser rats, those without the warped existence of the Skitterer also fight in mass swarms of fur, teeth and beady eyes, chewing through their foes.

Tactics are generally only required when the first several attempts to overwhelm a foe with sheer numbers is not working. Then the cunning and guile of the Skitterer race comes to the forefront, showing their capacity to overcome that which is against them.