Worldbuilder Spotlight:
- Venture to Russitea, south of the Tanshu Mountains to the nation of Shetugu! Take the time to visit the many ziggurats of the capital, and bask in the local culture (unless of course, you happen to not be human.)
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Territory
The Boggy Empire of the Rats ("Gxx'xtc'kgg" in Verminic, the local language) has no distinct borders. Based in the cold, soggy marshlands of northern Russitea, its territory is as ever-shifting as the ground on which is is situated. Among the Rat-men themselves, it is generally agreed that the Empire's territory extends to wherever its people are standing at the present time (although this rule of thumb is not as widely accepted by outsiders, for obvious reasons).
People
The citizens of the Boggy Empire are in fact *not* rats, as one would originally expect. Suspected to be a distant relative of Humans, Dwarves, and Woodwoses, the Rat-men ("Gxx'ptt" in Verminic) are slightly shorter than average Dwarves - and a good deal less muscular, although they are prone to obesity. They sport a long "mane" of hair that grows down their spine, which is often crudely braided or fashioned into dreadlocks, and rather long feet, which cause them to stand and walk in a curious hunched fashion. Their faces are elongated and angular, with long, upturned noses and very small eyes, and their teeth are small and rather sharp. Female Rat-men (or Rat-women, to be politically correct), are generally taller, heavier and more prone to obesity than their male counterparts, and are seen even less often than the Rat-men.
Rat-men and -women wear heavy, haphazard clothing fashioned from the skin of the abnormally large Swamp Ratbears found within their Empire (usually with the hair kept on), and often decorate the rough edges of these garments with piercings of Ratbear bone. Their mysterious taboo on killing rats seems not to apply to these mammals, perhaps because they are more akin to bears than true rats.
Technology
The Boggy Empire is rarely entered by foreigners, due to its perilous nature and a general unwillingness to be in the company of Rat-men by the outside world. However, the unlucky few who have visited the Boggy Empire (mostly unwillingly) have given accounts of a primitive society with little advancements, except in the field of domesticating the rats they hold dear.
Food & Shelter
The Rat-men reportedly enjoy a rather unorthodox diet, subsisting mostly on a sort of rice (which they eat raw) that is grown amongst the soggy pools of their home. They supplement this staple with a crushed up paste concocted from any combination of the various fungi, mosses, small mammals, insects (primarily dragonflies and water-beetles), and amphibious creatures that inhabit the bogs and marshes. They do *not* eat rats.
The dwellings of the Rat-men are a kind of hybrid wigwam-mud hut - a frame of long, thin stalks from a tough, tall marsh-grass, covered with woven reeds or Ratbear skins and cemented on the outside with mud and clay. These huts can be quite large - up to five metres high in some cases, depending on the materials handy. Within these shelters is the Rat-man's most prize possession: his Fire Stick (discussed below under Culture).
Tools & Crafting
A pronounced lack of accessible metals within the Boggy Empire has led the Rat-men to find alternate materials from which to make their tools - bones and tough reed stems form the basis of their craftsmanship.
Rat-men are adept at skinning, weaving reeds and creating pastes that perform various tasks, from waterproofing their Ratbear-hide garments to providing relief from insect bites and infectious wounds.
Taming Rats & Ratbears
Every village in the Empire has its own corral of rats, which is the property of the village leader (or Rat-father), but tended by all its inhabitants. These rats are bred for strength, speed and intelligence, and are used to hunt prey and defend the village - since the Rat-men themselves are useless warriors. A skilled Rat-master can command a pack of rats with extreme tactical cunning, so that at times it seems that the rats are acting of their own intelligence.
Ratbears are much less clever than their smaller cousins, and are used mainly as pack animals, as well as for their skins. Rat-men occasionally ride Ratbears as well, but the swampy terrain of their Empire does not allow for much speed, or indeed much usefulness except when traveling long distances.
Government
Individual Rat-man villages are presided over by a Rat-father ("Gxx'tk'ptt"), who normally lives in the centre of the village, in a hut in the middle of the fenced rat corral, and who spends most of his time caring for the rats, divining their will, and dispensing justice when needed. The Rat-father's word is law. Rat-fathers choose their own successors from the most skilful Rat-masters, usually on their deathbed. If a Rat-father is unable to choose his successor, a contest of skill is held to determine the most able Rat-master.
Oddly enough, the Empire has no Emperor, nor even a visible capital city. All Rat-men believe that somewhere deep in the trackless mists of the swamp lies the Burning Manse of Dark Vermin, a grand city ruled solely by rats and ruled by the Rat-fire Emperor, whose will is manifest through the divinations of each Rat-father.
Rat-fathers live among the rats for the express purpose of being as close to them as possible in order to determine the will of the Emperor. The birth of one rat, the death of another, the sickness of a third and the eating habits of a fourth all lead the Rat-father to make "informed" decisions about the governance of his village.
Culture
Language
The language of the Rat-men - called Verminic by those outside its borders, and "Gxx'ptt'jkt" (Rat-man-talk) by those within them - is a simple language to learn, but nearly impossible to speak by foreigners, due to its bizarre inflections.
The basic structure is merely a string of consonant-less syllables - nouns, verbs and adjectives stuck together haphazardly in a chain, with placement determining the actual meaning of each syllable in context. For instance:
~Verminic proverb
In this instance, the only way one can tell whether the "gxx" or the "gxx'ptt" is the subject is by determining which comes first in the sentence, or after a transition.
Speaking Verminic is an incredibly difficult endeavour for outsiders, since it is spoken incredibly fast, and the apostrophes denote quick, whistling breaths which cannot be accurately reproduced by the average learner. Fortunately, there is little reason for one to ever want to learn Verminic, and any Rat-men one sees outside the Empire will most likely speak another language (since it is much easier for them to learn other tongues).
The Fire Stick
The continuing tradition of the Fire Stick ("Twk'Hnhg") is the only reason that Rat-man culture today possesses the secret of fire - since all accounts agree that they do not know how to make fire for themselves. Generally a reed stem or a long, straight root, the Fire Stick is exactly what its name suggests - a long stick, lit at one end and stuck in the soft ground of the bog at the other. Each Rat-man dwelling has at least one Fire Stick (most have more) and it is the responsibility of the youngest adult Rat-man or -woman (the "Hnhg'ptt'fn", or Fire-keeper) to keep this Fire Stick aflame or to find a replacement before it burns out.
Should a family's Fire Stick burn out, it is then the duty of the Fire-keeper to ask a neighbour to relight their Fire Stick, in a humiliating ritual known as Begging the Fire (or "Hnhg'ptt'hjhkz'k'ggn" - Verminic gets steadily more complex as verbs are added). The newly deprived Fire-beggar and his family must congregate outside the neighbour's hut, in the presence of the village Rat-father and anyone who cares to observe, and implore him in the most debasing ways to share his fire with them - usually shaming the Fire-beggar's own family with the gravest of insults and glorifying the neighbour's family.
They must continue to plead until the neighbour has heard enough (which can take a long time, among less generous Rat-men), at which point he will agree to relighting their Fire Stick under certain conditions - usually that the Fire-beggar's family will aid his family in their labours for a certain amount of time - which may be disputed by the Fire-beggar or the Ratfather. After having agreed upon a Begging Debt, the Fire Stick is relit and the Fire-keeper's family returns shamefully to their own dwellings until called upon by the neighbour to fulfil their debt.
If a Fire-keeper allows his Fire Stick to go out many times, he and his family could potentially collect quite a hefty debt to any number of families in the village - or possibly even face exile if it is felt that they are a danger to the continuing possession of fire by the Rat-men. The penalty for purposefully extinguishing another family's Fire Stick is death by drowning.
Religion
The religion of the Rat-men is at once monotheistic and mildly shamanistic, and is unsurprisingly centred around the ever-present rats and the precious gift of fire. It is thought that a great city of rats is hidden somewhere within the bogs: the Burning Manse of Dark Vermin (Hnhggn'dggk'htk'gxxt), wherein resides the Rat-fire Emperor (Gxx'hnhg'xtct) and his host of fiery rat subjects, waited on by the spirits of departed Rat-men - and by studying the motions of average rats, Rat-fathers can discern the will of the Emperor and act accordingly.
The Burning Manse is said to be a many-tiered citadel, rising far above the swamp below, fashioned from blocks of a strange, hard material (an odd description, since Rat-man architecture makes no use of stonework or brickwork whatsoever), and lit with a thousand Fire Sticks. The Fire Sticks that the Rat-men possess are said to be a gift to the Rat-men from Gxx'flk (The Bright Rat), a messenger-prophet of the Rat-fire Emperor - much as the first rat is said to be a gift from Gxx'htk (The Dark Rat), who accompanied the Bright Rat on its journey to the Rat-men.
The Rat-fire Emperor himself is said to be a terrible sight indeed - much larger than any Ratbear, and with fur made of hungry flames, he sits upon a massive throne and is served by his rat courtiers, who are in turn served by Rat-men after death.
It is believed that the respect one shows to the rats will determine the position one is given in the afterlife. Rats are believed to ascend to the Burning Manse as well when they die, and to occupy a position based on their accomplishments under the tutelage of the Rat-men. In a sense, the Rat-men see themselves as pedagogues of the worldly, immature rats, to ensure they are given a good education before making the journey to the Burning Manse where they are to spend eternity.
History
Population
International Relations
Economy
World-View
For a civilization centred entirely around the glorificaiton of rats and the preservation of fire, the Rat-men have an understandable lack of interest in the rest of the world. Indeed, very few villages even acknowledge the *existence* of lands outside the bog, preferring instead to look inwards and secure themselves an afterlife of moderately comfortable servitude.
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