Does anyone care about the Ratlings?

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

'Cuz I don't.

 

Seriously.

 

"Hobbits in Spaaaaaaace"

 

Yawn.

 

They need a reboot.

 

I'm thinking 'Hive World C.H.U.D.s".

 

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'NuRatlings' should be the descendants of the inhabitants of Hive Worlds that became completely cut off from the rest of the galaxy during the Age of Strife. Without the constant influx of food, water and resources, the colossal city-mountains began to fail, and their inhabitants were forced to survive in the slowly-decaying mega-structures.

 

Millennia of living under such conditions produced extreme genetic deviation from the norm. The need to crawl and climb through collapsed air vents and elevator shafts necessitated a dramatic reduction in size; ratling-type Abhumans rarely exceed four feet in height, and tend to appear emaciated regardless of diet. Their senses of smelling and hearing are drastically increased, while their sense of sight is reduced. Despite being able to function in light levels low enough to render a baseline human blind, many ratlings are short-sighted, and a good number are colorblind. They also have difficulty operating in places with an over abundance of light; most ratlings need sunglasses in order to go out on sunny days.

 

Ratling physiology is incredibly resistant to toxic chemicals and radiation exposure due to countless generations being forced to subsist on tainted water and whatever life forms that could grow deep within the dead Hives. Conditions that normal humans find incapacitating often have no discernible effect on ratlings, though they don't necessarily enjoy such exposure.

 

While not usually cowardly, ratlings are aware of their own limits when compared to the rest of humanity. Ratlings that serve in the Imperial Guard tend to almost always act as snipers and scouts. Ratling criminals are almost always of the informant, thief, conman, black marketeer, spy or assassin variety.

 

The relationship between the Ratlings and the Adeptus Mechanicus is rather strained. In order to survive, ratlings had to scavenge whatever technology they could find and keep it working however they could. As a result, the whole breed has an almost preternatural talent for using, maintaining, fixing, and modifying technology of almost any sort, something that annoys the Tech-Priests of Mars to no end. While they aren't usually found creating experimental new technology, Ratling 'Tinkers' can often be found taking what they've seen and applying it to a new direction.

 

An ancient Ratling profession is that of 'Vermin-Keeping', breeding and raising the large, mutated rats, bats and bugs that could survive in the Underhive. Another is that of the 'Alchemist', an expert at turning the toxic molds and polluted sludges of the ruined cities into viable medicines and crude chemical weapons. (Imagine three-and-a-half-foot tall plague doctors.)

 

Ratlings in the Imperium are, naturally, most often found in Hives, with just as many living in starships and orbital stations. They are a common sight in places on the edge of Imperial society, and some end up in the employ of Inquisitors or Rogue Traders. The majority of Ratlings who live in places less developed can be found on Forest or Jungle planets; even the most naturalized Ratling prefers to have something between them and the open sky.

 

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Of course, that's just the Ratlings who managed to rejoin galactic civilization. There are still plenty of places that the Emperor's Light has never reached that nevertheless knows the sound of human feet.

 

These are the 'Feral' Ratlings. Buried alive beneath mountains of steel and glass, their humanity was stripped from them a long time ago; now they are embodiments of hunger, desperation, and madness.

 

Most, if not all, Feral Ratlings are Warp-touched to some degree or another. Even the most untrained of their degenerate kind can blend into the shadows to a level far beyond others. They have their own twisted versions of the Vermin-Keeper and the Alchemist, as well as 'Mad Tinkers' who create impossible machines that draw upon the Warp in order to function.

 

There are also the Feral Ratling 'Shamans', psykers who channel the power of the Warp into both friend and foe.

 

While most Feral Ratlings live on lost planets, many exist deep beneath the lowest levels of functioning Hive Worlds. There, far below the feet of unassuming Imperial citizens, these loathsome creatures bide their time until their population exceeds their food supply and they swarm to the surface to kill, and feed, and take what they can.

[GrandMagnus]

I love this idea. Rat people, but without the literal rat aspect. I really prefer this interpretation to the one used by GW. They would make excellent saboteurs, rather than snipers.

Great idea!

[Brother Emund]

I like Ratlings, but there is so 'little' written about them. It would be nice to see one of the pop up in a novel or two perhaps?