Ratfolk were not "ratmen."
Unlike pureblood races such as ratmen, Minotaurs, and Boar People, Ratfolk were mixed-bloods through and through.
It began with a battle during the Era of Glory thousands of years ago, when the ratmen's cowardice and flight led to the defeat of the entire war.
This made all Turan People loathe them to the marrow, convinced that impure blood flowed through their veins, that they were unworthy of the ancestral spirits' blessing and even less qualified to wield Totem Power.
The Five Great Clans joined forces to exile all ratmen, driving them into the desolate mountains and vicious waters at the edge of Turanze, leaving them to fend for themselves.
Gradually, the Turan People began branding every coward, weakling, surrenderer, and deserter among their own kind as "gutless rat scum," driving them all into the ratmen's place of exile.
To survive, these dishonored cowards and deserters had no choice but to huddle together with the ratmen for warmth, even intermarrying and bearing offspring.
—There was no helping it. Other than one another, fellow sufferers in the same boat, they could hardly find noble Turan Heroes willing to continue their lowly bloodlines.
And so, passed down generation after generation, the traits of different races continued to blend and mutate.
By now, the Ratfolk looked vastly different from one another.
True "pureblood ratmen" had long since become fewer than one in a hundred.
Most Ratfolk displayed, to varying degrees, traits of Minotaurs, Boar People, Mammoth Men, Golden Lion Men, Lizardmen, and Jackal Men.
Some even possessed so many conflicting racial traits that they canceled out most of one another instead.
Their fur kept falling out, their skin became smooth and delicate, and they came to resemble the blonde-haired, blue-eyed barbarians from the fertile land north of Turanze, said to