- Created by: Garry Stahl
- Appearance: VC Rats game
- Number of Members: Approximately 300, total surviving unknown.
- Nature of Members: Criminals turned into intelligent Norway Rats *Rattus Paradoxsis Sapien
- Organization: Gang, if any.
- Game Role: Drive the PCs Nuts
- World Role: Insane weirdness, they have no role.
- Relative Influence: Minuscule, the Rats are reduced to stealing food
- Public or Secret?: Secret for the most part, and the SIS is keeping it that way.
- Publicly Stated Goal: Survive
- Relative Wealth: Dirt stupid poor.
- Group advantages: They have opposable thumbs, can talk, and will enjoy a normal human lifespan, Other Rattus Paradoxsis Sapien "advantages" are primarily for the people that deal with them, they are fully continent, unlike the usual type of rat you find.
- Special Abilities: Anything rats can do.
- Group disadvantages: "Hey, we're rats, you want a disadvantage? I got your disadvantage right here."
- Special disadvantages: Most rats ride on the knife-edge of sanity. Hey, how would you feel if you was turned into a rat.
- Those who favor them: Bureau 13 agents, if the rats come over.
- Those opposed to them: The health department, homeowners, businessmen, etc.
- Area of Operation: Greater Vista City.
- Headquarters Location: Mancuso Heights, formerly J&J Distributors, a former Mob front incidentally put out of business by the rat incident. All Rats that have turned to B-13 are housed here. Rats that have not turned can be found in various holes throughout the city.
- Public Face: They ain't got no public face.
- Notable Members: Mickey (The Rat) Bonieato Spilain: (Yea, Mickey da Rat! You wanna make sometin of it?) A former mob fence and violent little man. Mickey was caught in the initial ratting. He reverted to rathood when he couldn't resist taking a shot at looting during the Meteor crisis. He was picked up by Sonja Traveler and brought to the station when he tried to run under the wheels of her car. Mickey has become the SIS department mascot. He likes it there.
Machine Gang: 5 guys, 2 girls. They tried their hand at the big time. Credit card fraud and stealing a mini-mill to modify guns as artillery pieces. Their leader was hit by fragment from a 9mm near miss and drowned in an oil pan. The rest of the gang, once treated for wounds, were the first tenants of Mancuso Heights
Willard Gang: Five rats, all males, that were being held at the Willard Biomedical Supply Company. The firm was raided on an unrelated issue and the rats discovered. The company was trying to breed smarter rats with them. Futile as the rats are sterile. They were moved to Mancuso Heights.
Big Sur Grrrs: A couple of female gang members again, found in unrelated incidents. Both are currently living at Mancuso Heights.
- History of the Organization: Sara Founder was a leading light of the city. The woman in her late 80s was a crusader for a safe city. She sat reviewing a report on local violent crime as a magic storm burst over the city. Shaking in anger she viewed the statistics. "Rats, they are all RATS!" And it was so.
In an instant 1000 of the city's most violent criminals regardless of social class turned into rats. Mrs. Founder unaware of the power behind her statement died from the surge of energy that flowed through her.
From inference and a couple of eyewitness reports the VCPD SIS (Vista City Police Department: Special Investigations Squad) got a lead on the sudden rat problem. It was one more problem in a series of them. Such little matters as a rampaging T-rex on Industrial Drive, jocks turned into apes, a hippo in a pool, clients leaving the morgue under their own power and other "minor" side effects of the storm.
Once the current problem was solved, a personnel inversion into a fantasy world, the Power that brought their people back agreed to return the rats to people hood, on one condition. If they committed crimes again they would revert to rats.
Since that time the former rats have gone one of two ways. You have a group of gentle law abiding people who used to be violent thugs, and a group of people who prove a habit is hard to break and have revered to rats.
Some 300 people are missing. A bare handful are known for sure to be dead. 101 are currently living at Mancuso Heights. Most brought in by Mickey's pamphleteering.
At the urging of Reverend Flynn Julian has agreed to un-re-rat those that will repent and take up a holy life. This is required. They have failed one in becoming rats, failed again in not taking the warning seriously, Julian is disinclined to view them in a forgiving light.. There have been some takers.