Plagueborn
The Plagueborn are a cursed breed of ratfolk birthed in filth, forged in disease, and twisted by devotion to Diemos, The Rat Lord of Rot, Decay, and Ruin—one of the vile Betrayer Beasts cast out by Tagyn, the Goddess of Beasts. Born not of nature but of blight, the Plagueborn are the festering children of decay, a living contagion that festers beneath cities, in ruined warrens, and in the shattered underbelly of Aigusyl.
Small, hunched, and wiry, Plagueborn resemble bipedal rats covered in patchy, greasy fur mottled with sores, scars, and scabbed-over boils. Their eyes gleam with a sickly yellow or rheumy red glow, and their snouts are often streaked with dried bile or crusted blood. Despite their frail appearance, they move with uncanny speed and intelligence—furtive, twitching, and ever watchful.
The air around a Plagueborn often carries a faint stench of mildew and sickness. Their very presence invites unease, as if something foul clings to their soul. This is no accident; Plagueborn are living vectors of pestilence, each carrying a unique blend of diseases—mundane and magical alike. These are not illnesses they suffer from, but tools of warfare, passed through claw, tooth, breath, or bite.
Their natural resistance to disease borders on the supernatural, gifted by their patron Diemos, who views their suffering and spread as a divine sacrament. Plagueborn see disease not as a curse, but as a blessing—an inevitable truth that cleanses weakness and reveals hidden strength. Many among them believe that those who survive their plagues are chosen, and those who die serve as fuel for a better, rotted future.
Their culture is ritualistic and nihilistic, built around cults to Diemos and the concept of entropy. They build effigies from bones, discarded trash, and infected flesh, lighting green-black candles of rendered fat in praise of their patron. The greatest honor is to become a Living Vessel—a Plagueborn so saturated with pestilence that even standing near them causes skin to blister and eyes to weep.
They thrive in abandoned places, like plague-wracked villages, sewer ruins, or the deep, mold-ridden burrows of fallen cities. In the underworld, they wage quiet wars with goblins, outcast Beastfolk, and other subterranean species, seeking to spread disease as far as their claws can reach.
Some Plagueborn wander the surface world as prophets of decay, alchemists of infection, or assassins wielding poisons unseen in centuries. Others infiltrate societies as carriers of slow ruin, sowing sickness over weeks or months in Diemos’s name. Their magic often centers on necrosis, vermin, and contagion, with many developing a twisted blend of druidic rotcraft, necromancy, or plague alchemy.
Despite their malign reputation, not all Plagueborn embrace evil. A rare few reject their origins, striving to use their immunity and knowledge to fight diseases or resist the spread of darker plagues. These renegades are hunted by their kin and often seek sanctuary among outcasts or strange orders who tolerate their presence—if not the stench.
To most of Aigusyl, the Plagueborn are a creeping nightmare—a memory of The Fracture War's horrors, when Diemos unleashed vermin legions to rot entire fields and cities. Their name is whispered with dread, their scent feared as omen, and their footprints watched for signs of rot.
