Rust Rat
For a society built mostly on foundations of metal, rust is one of the greatest threats there can be. Luckily, with the majority of creations on Layman's Belt using electrum or brass, environmental rust tends to not be a significant issue. For many years, this meant that the Eligni and other Belt denizens could create fantastically strong buildings, able to stand up to the force of some Blinker collisions without major destruction. This was until a new threat arose. A threat taking the form of an enlarged, enraging cricket-like pest.
Despite its name, the Rust Rat has nothing in common with the simple rat, bearing a much closer resemblance to the crickets found on the Planet below. However, unlike the Planetary cricket, a rust rat can vary in size from around an inch to up to seven feet in length. This leads them to range from a slight structural threat to a genuine personal threat, as rust rats are extremely territorial and will attack anything that they view as threatening their food source. And their food source? Metals. The rust rat has the strange ability to rust any metal so far known, then eat through the oxidised metal with sharp, vicious mandibles. They do this by excreting some kind of digestive enzyme from their long antennae that rapidly rust any metal that they come into contact with. When a rust rat is small, this process is slow and affects a very small area, and is very easily fixed if noticed quickly. But as a rust rat grows, their ability to degrade metals grows too, with larger specimens able to cause significant structural damage within a matter of minutes. This has caused a number of incidents, some incredibly funny as someone sits on a seat that crumbles under their weight or saddles into a MEKA that quickly has all of its limbs detach, some incredibly dangerous, with a handful of buildings having fully collapsed under their own weight after an undiscovered nest of rust rats causes serious havoc.
Interestingly, rust rats are the direct reason that so many cats exist and live on Layman's Belt. When rust rats were first discovered, it was not known that they could grow to such sizes, and so it was theorised that cats could be used to hunt them down just as the Elven Spires use them for normal rats. Whilst this plan proved to be somewhat successful, the eventual realisation of the potential size of the rust rats meant that cats ended up being inefficient at dealing with the terrifyingly sized elders.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Closely resembling the Planetary cricket, the rust rat bears a three-segment body with six long legs and two great, arching antennae above sharpened mandibles. The rust rat trades the naturally strong legs and thin wings of the cricket for tougher chitin plates across the forelegs and back, allowing the larger. older rats to withstand blows from swords. Two orange compound eyes sit just above the mandibles, giving the rust rat a rather haunting look, especially in the low-light areas they are frequently found in.
Growth Rate & Stages
It is unknown just how long a rust rat can live. It seems that they simply get larger as they get older, requiring them to eat more and more often, most often dying out from a lack of food. However, rust rats that find abandoned areas of scrap metal or, indeed, metallic foundations of buildings, can grow to terrifying sizes.
Dietary Needs and Habits
The rust rat seems to only be able to eat oxidised metals, though its natural digestive enzymes excreted from its antennae seem capable of rusting every kind of metal, even those identified as "rust-proof". It is unknown as to why they survive exclusively on this diet, though it is theorised that the magical fields present on the Belt may have influenced this strange evolutionary ability.
Additional Information
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Found exclusively on Layman's Belt, most frequently in towns and cities
Lifespan
Unknown
Average Height
1 inch to 3 feet
Average Weight
10 grams to 20 kilograms
Average Length
1 inch to 7 feet
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Pale orange tint with light brown splotches across the tough chitin
Geographic Distribution
