Wererat [Lycanthrope]

Wererats, sometimes called ratmen, shift among three shapes. As humans they are short, thin and wiry, with restless eyes and a nose and mouth that twitch when excited; men often wear a scraggly moustache. The ratman stands a bit shorter, with a rat's head, body and tail on human limbs. The third shape is a giant rat about 2 feet long, used for travel and for spying on prey. One to six ordinary rats or mice often trail a wererat, drawn by instinct rather than control.

Whatever their shape, wererats fight with weapons, favoring daggers and short swords. In ratman or rat shape only silver or magic can hurt them. Wounds from a true wererat pass on the curse at 1% per point inflicted. Each can call and command 2-12 giant rats.

They love ambushes. A favorite ploy is to go out in human shape as bait and lead victims into a trap, the only time a wererat chooses to be alone. Those caught are robbed, ransomed or eaten. Wererats attack only when sure of winning; if a fight turns, they scatter, turn into rats and run for the sewers, abandoning even their lairs, since stolen goods can always be stolen again.

Packs are the rule, in any shape; a lone wererat is either the last of its group or up to no good. They form no bonds of love or marriage and seldom breed with each other. A male wererat and a human woman have small but human children. A female bears ratlings, giant rats with humanlike paws, which mature in two years and can take the shape of a human child roughly three times their true age.

Lairs hide in sewers and catacombs, and nothing moves through the tunnels unnoticed. The sewer's stink and stains cling even to their human shape, confining them to a city's seedier quarters and making unwitting human mates rare. They enjoy pitting their cunning against stronger, more numerous humans, haunt cheap taverns for the liquor, and follow drunks out to drag them off as tomorrow's dinner. They hoard anything that might be valuable, so a stash is mostly junk, though a careful search can turn up real valuables.

Physically outmatched on the surface, wererats have claimed the one niche they can rule: the world under the streets. They eat humans and steal their wealth, while the city above unknowingly shields them from surface threats and from things digging up from below, and even pays to maintain their sewers. To humans they are proof that walls never keep every monster out, and mothers invoke them as bogeymen for misbehaving children.