Ratfolk
A clever, adaptable, and fastidious ancestry who happily crowd their large families into the smallest of living spaces.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Ratfolk have whiskered snouts, large ears, and hairless tails, and typically have red eyes and short brown or black fur. A common ysoki is 4 feet tall and weighs around 80 pounds. Ratfolk vary considerably, however; even a single family group can exhibit substantial variation in hair color, eye color, or size.
Instinct drives ysoki to maintain cleanliness, though this is also reinforced through their strong social structures. Other condescending humanoids often presume ratfolk are dirty or diseased, but in actuality, they are meticulous about personal hygiene. Because their appearance is often considered unnatural—and other people mistake them for wererats—ysoki often conceal their physical features with hoods, gloves, shoes, long-sleeved tunics, robes, and other layers of clothing when moving through spaces dominated by other ancestries.
Behaviour
Ysoki care more about their family than abstract concepts of good and evil. Their warrens might be chaotic dens filled with hoarded knickknacks, but they also obey strict social codes. Most ysoki are neutral.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Ysoki culture values cooperation and community. Every ysoki learns—through communal games, social occasions, and sports—to forge fast friendships and connections with ysoki outside their family. You may never know whose help you’re going to need, but when you do, you’re going to need it now.
With a long tradition of working as traders and tinkers, ysoki travel frequently from one town to another. Their wagons are usually grouped into caravans of up to half a dozen vehicles. Ysoki wagons are pulled by exceptionally large giant rats; many ysoki can speak to such animals.
Discrimination against ysoki has shaped their culture, prompting them to rely on each other and strengthening their family and communal bonds. Ysoki are very good at differentiating between bad actors and those who are simply acting out of ignorance, modeling good behavior and slowly working to reverse generations of discrimination for those willing to learn. They are always on the lookout for members of other ancestries who don’t judge them for their appearance, embracing these individuals as true friends and welcoming them into their communities. But they also can quickly spot determined bigots prone to violence and steer clear of such individuals, minimizing any opportunity for tragedy.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
You can see in dim light as though it were bright light, so you ignore the concealed condition due to dim light.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Every ysoki family has perhaps two dozen names that have been passed down from generation to generation, sometimes with minor alterations or alternative nicknames. A grandfather might be Grivver, for example, while his daughter goes by Griva and her son is simply Griv. Ratfolk are often assigned nicknames and sobriquets by humanoids they interact with, but most ysoki find these names distasteful and endure them only when outside ysoki communities.
Major Language Groups and Dialects
Common
Ysoki
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