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Ratkin venerate a person known as the "Great Caretaker", a deified human who helped their ancestors and whose lessons and remains they still carry to this day. Many of the stories and lessons that the Great Caretaker taught them still stay with them such as chivalry and the Myth of Utopia where long ago, a city of mice was granted complete luxury but turned on one another in a shocking display of hedonism and depravity. Thus they see temperance and strong will as a virtue and also ruthlessly cull their large litters so only the few most exceptional will grow.
They also believe in the power of stories and immortality, not through life span but through memory. To be remembered is the way which a Ratkin may live on after death. To be remembered as a hero or great person is enshrine yourself in history forever.
According to their own stories, Ratkin were once in the care of a human they call "Great Caretaker" who cared for them even while the rest of their kind tortured them. Where as others stole their young and kin, they made sure the rats always had enough food and comfort at least. When the apocalypses happened, many of their ancestors had experimental growth cocktails and intelligence-boosting drugs implanted in them that reacted with the nuclear fallout. Much like the Simmies, they too staged and uprising and slaughtered their way out, saving only the Great Caretaker who they considered themselves indebted to.
Once in the wasteland, they wandered and would eventually join (begrudgingly) with the Furfolk. However, the Ratkin found the Furfolk to be distasteful and never truly integrated. When the Great Father was found dead at the hands of a Furfolk, the Ratkin launched a revolution and split their ways, taking the body of their Great Caretaker with them as they once again set out into wastes until they founded their own city of Highwarren.