The Rats In The Walls
From Changeling Venue
Contents |
Appearance
Whether one malevolent entity or a consensus of hive-minded madness, this power of Faerie is known to the changelings it takes as "the Rats In the Walls". It/They claw, devour, and scourge all boundaries, whether conceptual or physical. The Rats In the Walls exists "in-between", in-between the places, times, and sanities of the world. Recent Lost testify to this threat appearing first as infestations of vermin, swarming just outside one's periphery. A few Lost claim that the Rats In the Walls can "fill" the skins of its/their victims, wearing dead flesh as a vessel for the feasting hordes. Regardless, investigation into these manifestations inevitably leads down, first into the earth, then into the Hedge, and finally into the darkness beyond the Walls.
Nature
The Rats In the Walls is/are defined by hunger. What exactly it/they hungers for no one knows: the Rats In the Walls consume everything they encounter, physical, spiritual, or conceptual. Perhaps not all at once, but over time...
The swarm may first wash over a hapless slave and gorge itself on the victim's love of family. When it/they return again, the swarms might feast on their meal's favorite colors, memories, and songs. A limb or two are devoured in the next visit, along with an eye. Eventually, after becoming a banquet of blood, flesh, hopes, and ideals, all those aspects of Self that define one's identity are consumed. Nothing is left except a nameless, rotting carcass. Then that carcass, picked clean, begins to crawl. Driven on to join the swarms and fill its unrecognized emptiness, the corpse twists with the power of Faerie... and another fly, locust, or rat begins gnawing at the Walls.
Some Lost fear this entity simply hungers for all boundaries, the actual lines that conceptually and physically separate "this" from "that". These changelings posit that the Rats In the Walls feast on all those things that define and demarcate the world into distinct, intelligible, and sane concepts. Eventually, the theory goes, the Rats In the Walls will break down the boundaries between Faerie and this reality. In doing so, there would be no difference limiting their power, no sanctuary in the Hedge, and no escape from the swarms.
Perhaps the Rats In the Walls seek to create a world in which all existence is nothing but its/their own hunger.
Mad. Ravenous. Hunger.
As a Keeper...
To be taken by the Rats In the Walls is to be formed, infused, transformed, and victimized by its/their hunger. Almost any kind of Lost could be born in these gore-strewn abattoirs and dark labryniths of Faerie. Changelings who escaped entrapment in the Walls can take almost any form. Some possible examples...
Homeless populations are washed over by a wave of urban vermin. Some die from rabid wounds, others simply disappear in the swarms. Those taken to Faerie become feral. Their souls twist into Beasts, skittering in the shadows or hunting in the night.
In the caverns, the darkness itself grows. Entities only definable as "things" squirm in that silence, fleeing from the swarms or rushing to fresh remains. A Darkling Tunnelgrub is born in such black despair, crawling from (perhaps with?) the sentient forces that spawned it.
At least one mortal clan, The Delapore Family, have given themselves over to this cursed pit of hunger. Sacrificed beyond the Walls, the Delapore young are banished back through evolution, continuing a lineage of Cyclopean Ogres that stretches back centuries. They return to reality seeking fresh meat for themselves... or perhaps for the swarms.
Other mortals could have their humanity devoured in these caverns, escaping only as something else... If interested, please email!
Known Servants
Known Lost
The following changelings are known to escaped and oppose the Rats In the Walls:
Contact
Contact: Troy Mack
