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.

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.

It can be met in both the Nocturnal and the Diurnal Endings, on top of the Polyhedron or on a Stairway to Heaven, depending on the ending.

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