Moonrats: The Untold Story of the Sewers

today's video was sponsored by hit point press and humble wood tails now on kickstarter what are we gonna do tomorrow night the same thing we do every night pinky try to take over the world welcome to monster of the week the only show on the internet that will try to convince you the common rat is the most deadly monster in dungeons and dragons don't worry we're gonna get there because this week we are talking about moon rats really moon rats you might say and that was exactly what the creatives in charge of d and d at the time told steve winter when he put forth the creature as an addition to the monster manual 2 in the days of 3rd edition dungeons and dragons but he showed them all by creating what is truly one of the most compelling and cult classic-y monsters in d d's history as always my goal today is to go over the moon rats lore ecology publication history and of course provide you with some spicy plot hooks story ideas and updated 5th edition monster stats so if you're ready to learn why ratatouille is secretly a horror film i am more than prepared to take you on this journey [Music] the moon rat got its start in d d third edition as part of the monster manual 2. this book is considered pretty hit or miss from a design perspective depending on who you ask but i think it brought us some really cool creatures and the moon rat is one of them as the book explains moon rats are indistinguishable from regular rats at least as far as appearances go but what makes the moon rat worth even talking about is how they interact with well the moon in much the same way that lycanthropes are affected by the phases of the moon moon rats undergo a transformation of their own while the moon is shining under the light of the full moon for example they become a bit stronger and a hell of a lot smarter like a lot smarter their intelligence score directly coincides with the current phase of the moon during a new moon when the sky is dark moon rats are about as dumb as your standard rat or someone who thinks nfts are a good investment but as the moon becomes more prominent in the night sky so too does the intelligence of the moon rat by the time the moon is full they have an intelligence score of 12 which is higher than your average humanoid creature they might not transform into a super intelligent genius creature but by rat standards a 12 in intelligence is some einstein but before we all go crazy and start pledging allegiance to our new rat overlords let's take a step back and still remind ourselves that they are just rats right wrong that's just what they want you to think allow me to explain moon rats are big time schemers they operate in the shadows and move to enact planes that take weeks months or years or even decades in some instances before they come to fruition they manage to get away with a lot of stuff that most people wouldn't normally be able to get away with because when something mysterious in town happens most people don't look to the rats as suspects for example if somebody in town is murdered the local detectives probably aren't going to think to check in with the local rat brood for questioning but no matter how intelligent they are because they are indeed still in rat bodies they tend to favor tactics like blackmail and espionage as well as political deception to further their goals because as tiny denizens of the city or town they manage to see and hear most everything plus given their unique situation regarding how their intelligence kind of waxes and wanes as the moon does it pays to have someone working for you who is in full control of their faculties during the entire month and not just when the moon is mostly bright in the sky because of this they plan every detail of their lives meticulously and when you think of it given their situation they really kind of have to on average there's typically only going to be one full moon every month there are some exceptions to this rule because believe it or not making a perfect calendar that lines up evenly with every cosmological event is pretty tough but generally speaking one full moon is all the rats are going to get because their intelligence rises and falls with the moon roughly half of the time in any given month the rats are going to be in a state where their intelligence is animalistic at best so most of their time spent actually doing things and trying to achieve their goals is relegated to the days surrounding the full moon with the actual night of the full moon being when the rats are at their peak this is a really tricky thing to try and plan around how do you get anything done when you know just in a few days from now you're gonna be relegated to acting simply on your basic survival instincts now the rats have of course come up with a few creative solutions to this problem in most moon rat colonies they choose to lock themselves up in cages with food and water during the periods where their sentient mind fades away that way they know they won't mess up their plans by doing something counter to their goals or more likely get themselves killed it's kind of a perfect system when you think about it because once their intelligence returns to the point where they would know how to unlock the cage they're probably safe to do so they also make a habit of writing down everything they can from knowledge that they've gained about magic or the area surrounding where they live or their plans and schemes whatever the case it is all of these rats essentially keep a very thorough diary as well as a sort of diary of the entire colony so that they have a written record of everything that they're trying to do or every idea they've had when they were in their most intelligent state also this is great because then the dm gets to describe a little rat library to all the players so whether their goals end up being benign or villainous measures like these are important to ensure that the rats have some semblance of control over their kind of chaotic lives so before we get into encounter building and plot hooks let's briefly talk about [Music] according to a cursory google search rats take about three weeks to mature into adults and tend to live for two or three years at a time also worth noting they reproduce insanely fast with a pair of rats being capable of breeding up to 2 000 children within one year now in all fairness that's assuming they have no predators and peak conditions for making rat babies but even if the realistic figure is only half of that you're talking about a species with an insanely quick growth rate that only has potential to grow further and more exponentially as time goes on the biggest problem though at least from the rats perspective is their lifespan assuming a moon rat lives three years that equates to 36 months or 36 lunar cycles that's really not a lot of time when you think about half of that time is going to be spent in a state of limited mental capacity and of the other half of it very little is gonna be spent at peak efficiency and this is why for moon rats intergenerational knowledge is so important they put a huge amount of value on passing things down that they've learned the next generation so whatever grand plan they have in place at any moment can continue they also recognize themselves as fragile beings knowing that they're only one mistake away from death at any given moment this value flows deeply within their culture and it's kind of echoed in everything they do and speaking of things that they do let's see what they might just get up to when initiative is rolled try to take over the world this might end up being the shortest combat segment i've ever done on this channel because i'm not going to lie to you the physical capabilities of the moon rat aren't very exciting shall we say this is not the type of monster you run in combat if you're looking for complex and unique combat mechanics they are tiny beasts with two hit points each and an armor class of 12. in a straight up fight their only attack option is a bite which deals one damage the one advantage they do have going for them is as the moon becomes more full they don't just get smarter they also get a slight bonus to attack and damage rolls that scales with the phases of the moon so as they become more intelligent they also become more dangerous but even assuming peak combat conditions under a full moon the moon rats still only deal 6 damage with their bite attack so as tiny creatures you can throw a lot of them at a group of players and if they're not ready with plenty of crowd-controlling spells it can get messy pretty fast something i do want to touch on really quick though is that moon rats as intelligent creatures are capable of using weapons and armor they would have to craft appropriately sized weapons and armor but they're smart sometimes so they'd be able to do it and when it comes to using magic items things get a bit more nebulous because some magic items are just straight up off the table and not usable by a tiny beast but there are also plenty of magic items that could conceivably be used by a tiny creature or a group of tiny creatures and if you want to bend the rules a little maybe even have a few of them carting around wands of a magic missile and using them like artillery cannons or maybe if one of them learns how to use magic it can cast enlarge on one of its rat brethren and then that creature can put on a belt of giant strength that the rats found and go on a rampage hey rebby how you doing i do sincerely think there is a lot you can do here as far as designing an encounter you just have to get a little bit creative beyond what the stat block suggests its abilities might be i find this is a lot easier if you don't think of them as rats just think of them as humans or orcs or goblins or any of the other intelligent monsters that we find in the monster manual but just a lot smaller now with all that said let's talk about how we might actually use them in a story [Music] also if you're enjoying the video thus far please don't forget to leave a like and or comment thank you have a good one subscribe click a button i don't know this isn't in the script bye [Music] moon rats are incredible little plot devices the way they're kind of intended to be used at least as the book lays them out is as a sort of shadowy organization they use their physical appearance as a mask relying on the fact that most people will see them and think oh it's a rat while everything may appear normal on the surface they could indeed have a vice grip over a city or town by blackmailing and collecting secrets about all of its residents this could lead to a state of paranoia as the rats are masquerading as some kind of god or powerful organization that leaves notes and instructions for people threatening to reveal their secrets if they don't comply with the rat's instructions also as intelligent beings sometimes you can take their story in sort of any direction you see fit maybe they're just out here trying to take over a town so that they have a place in the world they can call their own a town like that would not only make for an interesting plot if the players are in it as this is happening but also a cool location to discover after the fact perhaps there's some kind of perceived ghost town that is actually a town inhabited by moon rats during the weaker phases of the moon the rats just kind of hang out in their cages but as the moon begins to rise in the sky and become more full the entire place turns into a thriving metropolis with art poetry politics the whole shebang i also like the idea of the moon rats discovering some kind of artifact linked to a dark deity maybe they were just regular rats when they discovered this artifact and it was the artifact itself that bestowed this kind of curse of intelligence on them if you want to go this way and put a twist on an old trope maybe the secret cult trying to bring about some dead evil god back into the material world is actually a bunch of moon rats and maybe this evil deity has promised to bestow the rats with permanent intelligence so they don't have to kind of play this game of scheming and timing with their intelligence fading away and then coming back and that kind of touches on one of my favorite things about moon rats they are a monster with a built-in problem i mean sure having sentience is great but it sucks when that sentience fades away this seems like something to me that the moon rats would want to try and solve and how they go about solving that would make for a great story opportunity perhaps they're working on some kind of magic portal that will literally take them to the moon and they've devised a way to live there maybe and breathe without oxygen but by living on the moon and drawing from its power at all times they would find themselves not wanting for intelligence but rather living in a place that bestows it upon them at all times try to take over the moon if you happen to be preparing a spell jammer game or you intend to do so when spell jammer comes out this summer or whenever depending on when you're watching this video this could be really cool maybe your space-faring party comes across a bunch of moon rats living on the moon that orbits some kind of beautiful lush planet ripe with resources but the reason they're on the moon is because they don't want their intelligence to fade away so they have to time their expeditions to the planet's surface to gather materials with when the moon would be full in the sky at that given moment or for something in a completely different direction maybe the moon rats have found an ancient text in an old wizards tower that details the path to lichdom becoming an undead rat lich would certainly allow at least one of them to cling to their intelligent minds and not have to worry about the pesky fading of their sentience would also give them a lot longer to live than just a few years or maybe the rats aren't up to anything shady at all and they're just a bunch of friendly npc rat moon rat folk that are hanging out in some town ripe for your party to bump into and interact with the sky truly is the limit when it comes to moon rats and what you can do with them and i think that that is large in part why they have such a reputation among those who have used them or been exposed to them through the game now a brief word from today's sponsor this week's video is brought to you by hit point press and humble wood tails which is now live on kickstarter humble wood tails is a companion book to the humble wood campaign setting for 5th edition featuring expanded lore around the mystical tree city of alderheart gather your party and embark on 5 new humble wood adventures for levels 3 through eight where you'll encounter pirate mercenaries face off against a slime king take on the amaranthine krenn in a nightmarish dreamscape and much more with over 200 pages of new content that's all fully compatible with your 5th edition games including pre-made characters a full bestiary myriads of new magic items and more there's plenty of thrills to be had for both new and seasoned humblewood adventurers anyone who watches this channel regularly knows that i love monster lore and love new monsters so you better believe i'll be checking this out humble wood tails is available as a book a box set and as a kickstarter exclusive collector's edition so what tales will you tell check out humble wood tales today by visiting dd.humblewoodtails.com or simply by clicking the link down in the description below thank you so much to hitpoint press for sponsoring today's video and bringing us here today to talk about moon rats it seems only fitting that the moon rat video would be the one sponsored by a setting filled with sentient woodland creatures so if you have a cool idea for a moon rat encounter definitely let us know about it in the comments down below and while you're down there in the description of course you can find a link to a fifth edition stat block made by yours truly that will contain everything you need to run this monster at your game table you'll also find a link to the patreon page where patrons have access to the dungeon dad patreon exclusive pdf stat block with the beautiful layout done by a friend of the channel indestructible and speaking of which that reminds me it is time for patron of the week this week's randomly selected patron is mark jolly mark you have been a longtime supporter of the channel actually and thank you so much for it it makes me feel well jolly and thank you so much for watching i appreciate it immensely thank you for being here and do not forget that if there's a monster from an older version of d d or another table top game that you would like to see converted into 5th edition and maybe show up here on monster of the week so i can talk about it let me know in the comments below or in the monster suggestions channel over on the dungeon dad discord and who knows you might just see it show up here i also do just want to give a quick shout out to and destructoboy the lovely graphic artist who's been doing the dungeon dad stat blocks for the patreon page uh he does an awesome job and he just released a new fifth edition class called the alchemist which is out now on the dm's guild i'll link to that somewhere down below as well you guys should go check it out and check out taryn he's a super solid dude he makes good content and all of his stuff is pretty neat so check out the alchemists show them some love and tell them that dungeon dad sent you also speaking of recommendations i do want to thank caloris and cole pot for recommending this monster both of you guys recommended this i think one person was on youtube that wasn't discord um it ended up being a really cool monster and i had a ton of fun unraveling it and talking about it so thank you guys so much for the awesome recommendation i apologize some of the videos have been a little bit on the short side lately as a lot of you guys know things have been kind of wild in my personal life um there's lots of stuff going on so getting the time to put these together and edit them has been tricky to keep them coming out on a weekly basis but hopefully that's going to be changing somewhat in the near future so we might start to see some longer videos showing up but regardless thank you guys all for showing up every week i appreciate it a lot and i think that's pretty much everything i have to say so i don't know if the credits are still rolling are you still rolling yeah sure whatever awesome well thank you guys i'll catch you in the next one until then [Music]

Channel: Dungeon Dad

Views: 109,034

Keywords: How to play Dungeons and Dragons, dungeons and dragons lore, dungeons and dragons combat, d&d lore, d&d story, d&d online, d&d basics, d&d battle, dnd monsters, d&d monsters lore, dnd monsters explained, dnd monsters for level 1, d&d game breaking monsters, best d&d monsters, d&d cool monsters, creepy d&d monsters, d&d 5e custom monsters, classic d&d monsters, Dungeon Dad, Monster of the Week, D&D 5e, Dungeons and Dragons 5E, aj pickett, mr rhexx, D&D explained, homebrew

Id: cyj276Cyx40

Length: 19min 22sec (1162 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 08 2022