Rat Prophet

Pathologic 2=

The Rat Prophet is a creature that lives underneath the Theatre and is able to visit the player in their dreams. It is able to see the future, but often tells lies.

Description
"One of the obscure figures whose power lies in their inherent contradiction. Based, of course, on the Rat King—yet there are no rats in Pathologic 2! A demon, a chthonic “thing from below”, he defies expectations by being from the Theatre and not the Steppe. More of a dweller of the underside of Kain’s enlightened world. That’s why he may sometimes “break character”, letting us see that he’s no magical creature—just a child (or dwarf?) wearing a mask."

- [from the game’s design documents]

Similar to the Fellow Traveller and Mark Immortell the Rat Prophet is a player who appears to know that they are part of a performance. The Rat Prophet appears both inside and outside of the set performance, breaking character when necessary. While in character it visits Katerina Saburova at night and influences her prophecies, causing her great pain. The Rat Prophet is incredibly mysterious, and rarely reveals its true motives.

Appearance
The Rat Prophet is a giant semi-anthropomorphic brown rat. It has black eyes and brown fur, and is wrapped in a large black blanket. This blanket either obscures its human-like legs, which is a child’s body with dark trousers and no shoes, or an apparition with no visible limbs. When the Rat Prophet appears as an apparition, its eyes are white.

Haruspex Route
"My path was called "The Rat Prophet." I didn't know that it was he who whispered to me in dreams. Until the very end, I believed it was the Earth."

- Katerina Saburova in the Theatre of Death.

The Rat Prophet can be first met in the introductory sequence of the game a little aside from the street, contemplating a jerboa. It will ask whether black suits them better or not; the answer will decide whether jerboas seen later throughout the game will be black or not.

During the 'death sequences' of Pathologic 2, where the player is punished with "failure" by waking in the Theatre to speak with Mark Immortell, a stage hand notes that a 'rat escaped the theatre'. Upon returning to the Town, the player may meet the Rat Prophet outside of the Theatre, observing the tumour in the earth - a large skeleton, shaped like a bull, that begins to grow from the ground. It seems that this growth increases in size with every "failure" of the Haruspex - literally speaking, with every death the Player causes. The Haruspex can dismiss the frustrations of the prophet or take it into consideration.

As the Town grows unsteady with the outbreak, a mob stands outside the Rod one day and declare they are responsible for housing a carrier of the plague. Later, Changeling speaks with the Haruspex, requesting that he pay her adopted parents a visit to make sure they are well. When the Haruspex speaks with Katerina Saburova, she reveals to him the source of her visions, which take the form of the Prophet. It berates the ignorance of humans before evicting the Haruspex from Katerina's abode.

Later still, if the Haruspex goes to the Cemetery to deal with the overflow of dead bodies brought on by the plague and its effect on Grace, he will find the Rat Prophet after speaking to her. The former will offer a solution, though it does not reveal what exactly it does: only that it quiets the spirits of the dead.

The Rat Prophet can be met in both the Nocturnal and the Diurnal Endings. In the Nocturnal ending, it can be found on top of the Polyhedron, and in the Diurnal ending, on a Stairway to Heaven.

Pathologic: The Marble Nest
The Rat Prophet does not appear during The Marble Nest.

Background
Prior to the start of the game, the Rat Prophet was known to appear to the townsfolk from time to time, and gained a reputation of a "well-known spectre".

The Rat Prophet appeared to Katerina as both her inner voice and a character of her prophetic dreams, indoctrinating her to the belief that the town's demise is inevitable and that fighting against it would be pointless.

Description
The Rat Prophet appears to be a small child wearing a rat mask. It wears a fur coat, a suit, and holds a smoking pipe in its hand. It is described as a mendacious character, being able to twist the truth into lies effortlessly. The Rat Prophet, however, insists that it speaks the truth, despite what people say.

It can be found either in the Theatre or in the tunnels underneath the town.

Appearance
The Rat Prophet takes the form of a young child in a brown suit. It has a brown rat’s head, and carries a smoking pipe. If observing the Rat Prophet from behind, the rat head is shown to instead be a mask around a brown haired child’s head.

Bachelor Route
The Rat Prophet does not appear in the Bachelor route.

Haruspex Route
On Day 5, the Haruspex inspects the tunnels dug beneath the ground of Vlad the Younger's well. Upon reaching the exit, the Haruspex will speak with the Rat Prophet about what is happening in the town. The Rat Prophet encourages the Haruspex to listen to his father's voice in order to hear the identity of his killer.

On Day 6, the Haruspex will again speak to the Rat Prophet at the Changeling's request. The Changeling wants information about herself: How she came to be, who she is, and what will happen to her. When speaking with the Rat Prophet, it says that it cannot summon the Haruspex's father, and that Isidor is displeased. When asked about the Changeling's fortune, the Rat Prophet reveals that the Changeling is the unknowing manifestation of the Plague, and that anything she believes comes true.

Changeling Route
On Day 4, Katerina asks Clara to persuade Mark Immortell to stop the Theatre from being turned into a hospital. When she finds him, Mark reveals that Katerina believes the Theatre to be important due to the creature that lives there. Returning to the Theatre, the Changeling meets the Rat Prophet who is standing on the stage. The Rat Prophet greets the Changeling with familiarity, calling her "Lady Plague". It says that, despite being called a liar, everything that it says is the truth. It also shares that it needs to go into hiding, so it will be leaving the Theatre for the time being.

On Day 10, the Changeling and the Rat Prophet meet again as the Changeling searches for Stanislav Rubin. The Rat Prophet tells her that Rubin is underground, and ominously tells her that "it doesn't seem like he's getting out of there any time soon". It then sends her down into the tunnels. The exit will lock behind her and she will be confronted by two hostile young men who are guarding Rubin.