Rat
Value: 6
Mysteries • Rats • Mirrors • Stone
Meanings: Survival, resistance, shadows, concealment
Rats are masters of survival. They’re hardy, smart, and stealthy. Some rats, of course, get very smart, and devise whole new ways of prospering amid humans, literally right under their noses. A few rats learn to adopt human identities through disguise, concealment, and trickery. Humans, as a group, are notoriously easy to fool as long as you don’t overtly threaten them, and rats have no need to do so.
The Rat is the companion of the Mysteries family. The Rat sees much and learns much, and keeps those secrets to itself. It keeps to the shadows, and in fact is the lord of the shadows.
Divination: If one can keep a low profile, success is very likely. If a stronger force presents itself, resist but do so cleverly and from the shadows—not openly. Sometimes survival is the best one can hope for, but that is the very thing the Rat card suggests. No matter what, the person in question will at least survive (if they keep concealed).
Game Narrative: A terrible calamity or disaster occurs, but hardy survivors withstand it. A community is plagued by rats. A secretive resistance forms to combat a larger force (like a government). Something strange is going on with shadows.
Joy: The PC survives something he shouldn’t have been able to survive through sheer tenacity. The PC remains concealed from those looking for them. The PC withstands an effect (a poison, a disease, and so on).
Despair: A surprise attack comes at the PC from the shadows. Something hidden remains out of sight of the PC. An NPC foe survives something that should have killed them.
The Rat can be anywhere. Or anyone.