Right now my players are in a forest tracking down some giant rat people, I got the idea from skaven. As of right now I have only presented the rat people as a combat encounter. Does any one have any other ideas on how I could let them learn more about them or let them see them without them being attacked? Also they have been tracking them for quite sometime and I was also wondering if anybody knew of any other forest creatures they could get attacked by and lead them off on a mini adventure to keep them exited and moving?

Sorry for all the re posts, when I hit publish it was taking a while so I double clicked it again, sorry.

RoBro said:

Other foresty-type creature that could assault your group? Large feline beast of some sort. After all, where there are rats...

-=Brother Praetus=-

To learn more about the rat-people, the party could come upon a campsite/small village/outpost that the rat-people have attacked and left clues as to their motives...

For generic forest creatures, the DH Rulebook has some generic animal stats (Crawling Creature, etc.) that work well for impromptu encounters- just describe them like Earth animals with a sci-fi twist: wolves became a pack of spike-backed Red Howlers, bears become towering Spadeclaws, etc.

Another simple idea, go with feral humans on planet who'd want to kill the PCs 'cause of the idea that they don't like modern tech. Gives ya a mini-campaign right there, say the ferals worship a chaos daemon or the like. Heck, ya could do a little campaign of them trying to instruct the ferals, and in return say they let you use a couple of their best scouts/trackers to find the rat men a little easier?

You could have your PCs come accross a very large group of rat-people without being seen. Attacking such a large group would be suicidal but they would have an opportunity for them to learn more about the enemy.

A mix of "learn more" and "other attack by a forest creature"

While the pc walk underneath some very large giant tree with lots of dangling vines and lianes, make them role for awareness as some "vines" suddenly try to graps them in order to pull them up!

This is actually a predator, a "Treetotop" or "Aboreking". The thng is vaguely similiar to a giant octopus which many small tentacle looking like vines. The "vines" have "thornes" which will inject a venom which is both paralyzing and (later) liquifing inner organs.

The "body" is high up in the trees, it feels prey by "vines" reaching down to the ground, reacting to ground vibrations.

As the pc escape/battle the Treetopod, the recognize dead husks hanging in the tree like flies in a spiderweb. Among them is one or more husks of rat people..still clutching gear and or/wearing clohtes (?)

If the pc want to investigate the items the rat people use, they need to get the husks. Since the body of the treetopod is high up and well concealed, they have to climb some other tree in order to a clear line of sight for shooting..or have to take out all the tentacles.... which will not work since after loosing some of them, the thing will just pull the rest up...and will flail at anything that climbs after it reaches a certain height (defense instincts).

In venom starts out very lush (easy tests to resist), but each round more is pumped into them..so next round ist isroutine, then ordinary and so on. Anyone staying in the grasp of a Treetotop to long will suffer.