Wererats' Sewer
Cursed with lycanthropy, wererats lurk in the dirty, foul places no one else wants or can tolerate.
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Outside the Lair
The stench of decay, rot and excrement is almost overpowering in the lair’s locality.
Slime, detritus, civilisation’s foul leavings and excrement cover the walkway.
Rats scuttle about the filth in search of food. If disturbed, they flee, squeaking loudly.
Part of the wall has collapsed, dumping stones and bricks into the sewer channel. The resultant blockage has created a dam of sorts.
What’s Going On?
A dozen or so rats scuttle about the lair’s entrance. They scatter at the sight of intruders.
A large brown rat, missing its left ear, sits in the mouth of another corridor, watching the party. It seems utterly unintimidated by the characters.
A man wearing nothing but rags lies against one wall, snoring loudly. Scratches cover his legs, shins and hands.
A human-sized rat cradling a crossbow guards the lair’s entrance. It is vigilant and difficult to surprise.
Major Lair Features
Dozens of small holes at floor level pierce the lair’s walls—the winding tunnels beyond lead to a rat nest.
Piles of noisome rubbish scavenged from the sewers lie piled against the walls throughout the lair.
As #2 but some of the piles are rigged to collapse on intruders. These traps can be operated manually by the wererats as well as by the blunderings of intruders.
Portcullises block the lair’s entrances. The wererats change into rat form to pass through the barriers, and thus the mechanisms are rusty and have not been operated for years.
Minor Lair Features
Signs of rat infestation—droppings, tracks and the like—are commonplace throughout the wererats’ lair.
Foul water lies pooled on the floor here and there throughout the lair. Dirty water also oozes through cracks in the walls in some places.
Coal-filled braziers smoulder sullenly in the lair’s rooms.
A crude map daubed in charcoal on a wall shows where the sewers intersect with the town’s cellars and vaults.
Wererat’s Appearance
This monstrous brown rat stands on its hind legs and grips a short sword in one hand. It wears filthy studded leather armour.
Missing most of its tail and left ear, this black wererat has seen its fair share of desperate battles.
Wearing ripped and filthy peasant garb, this half-man half-rat has a sword strapped to its back. It chews enthusiastically on a human arm.
A rat perches on this human/rat’s shoulder. It chitters away, and the wererat stops to listen. Both have large, glittering black eyes.
Treasure
This small bronze statuette depicts a hideously leering two-headed humanoid rat of troublesome proportions. The beast is crouched as if about to pounce.
A lidless coffer holds a riot of copper and silver coins. Many of the coins are local, but some are more exotic.
This rapier is wickedly pointed and perfectly balanced. Its worn hilt suggests it belonged to a skilled warrior, but no crest or identifying sigil adorns its pommel.
A doorless wardrobe holds an incredibly jumbled array of clothes. A disguise kit, complete with wigs, cosmetics and the like, fills the wardrobe’s bulging upper shelf.
Trinkets & Trash
A slimy, ripped backpack lies crumpled on the ground. It holds nothing but gunk and a decomposing rat’s corpse.
A gold coin, redolent with slime, fills a small crevice low down in a wall. The coin has sharp edges; unwary characters may cut themselves when extracting it.
A bent short sword lies unwanted amidst a mound of detritus and rubbish.
This small barrel once held average-quality wine. The wine is now horribly contaminated with sewer water.
Credit
This is a short system-neutral extract from Monstrous Lair #66: Wererats’ Sewer by Robert Manson.
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