Extract’s from Ratcliff’s journal.
My first memory was waking up on an operating table. My...Father had been experimenting, trying to find the perfect mix of Rat and Human. I wasn’t it. He still makes use of me when he is bored an angry, he can take it out on me. That’s good I guess. I like to know that I can help him in some way.
I...I saw what I look like. To other people I mean. I am...hideous. I know now why Father asked me not to leave the house.
Magic!!! I found a book in Father’s study and it contained words that taught me magic. I will read more but he can never know.
Someone saw me!!! I don’t know what to do. She ran screaming and...and I think she will bring people to come and kill me. I don’t want to die.
Father said to run, so I ran. I am in the sewers hiding; I took some books for company and for the magic. Father didn’t come with me I don’t know what happened to him.
Ratcliff’s Father was a strong wizard in the city of Absalom and was well respected and liked. Till the day people found out he had been experimenting with children to create a hybrid of Rat and Human. That day when Ratcliff was seen, a mob was formed that attacked his home and burnt it to the ground. To this day it is still a burned and derelict ruin, small bleached bones have been found in the wreckage. People fear this place and say it is haunted with the ghosts of mutated children.
Ratcliff luckily escaped the mob that burned down his ‘Father’s’ home and even managed to take some tomes of magic which he read and re read. He lived on scraps for years, sneaking out into the night to search the city for food and any books on magic he could find.
One night however he was caught stealing from an old Wizards merchant store but instead of punishing Ratcliff he took pity. Ratcliff still lived in the sewers but now he was able to eat well and was also given a cloak to allow him to hide his features when travelling. Every night he would get lessons from the old wizard Cirdia.
Some years later and Ratcliff was more powerful than he had ever felt before. He stayed with his old friend Cirdia until the day he died. Now he searches the city hidden from site, for a purpose and most importantly for a chance to prove his worth.