#Drawlloween #Inktober 26 - Rat


Rats, rodents and other small scavengers from a dozen different worlds are common throughout the Darkhive. Such creatures were recorded aboard the first Riven and Khar-Tui ships to collide with the huge structure, and similar creatures found they way onto the hive through the dimensional portals that sporadically open to the hidden parts of lost planetary empires, and via numerous crashed ships that lie in waste across the hive's outer surface.

Unlike apex predators, scavenging rats and rodents find plenty to eat among the insects, the waste of various settlements and the carrion of battle. Such creatures are treated here with much the same disgust and disdain that most civilised cultures treat them, as eaters of carrion they spread disease from one part of the hive to another, but they also serve the vital purpose of breaking down rotting meat into more easily accessibly nutrients for the plant life and fungal growths throughout the hive. They are a valuable part of the ecosystem especially in settlements where there are gardens, or areas where green plant life has gradually claimed the hive for it's own.

Rodents are typically not found in areas where Hiveguard have restored the Darkhive to its pristine form (there simply isn't enough refuse and garbage for them to eat in these areas), and their numbers tend to be lower in areas where their is a strong presence of Shellbrood, but they can be found almost anywhere else in the hive.

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