Rat Catchers' Guild

The Rat Catchers' Guild was a shady organisation in the city of Letheras. Whilst they did indeed catch rats, the organisation engaged in many other activities.Midnight Tides, Chapter 12, UK MMPB p.470
Their base in the city was Scale House, which stood on the eastern side of Quillas Canal.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 7, US HC p.163Midnight Tides, Letheras city map It was a tall, narrow building, squeezed between two much larger ones, a temple archive and the quarters of the Guild of Street Inspectors. Its limestone façade and the formal, column-flanked entrance were covered with masses of carved rats in every pose imaginable. Steps led up to the entrance. The road on which it was located led out of the city to the site of Bugg's gravel quarry. This main thoroughfare ran parallel with the canal and the buildings lining it were mostly over two hundred years old and of a forgotten style.Midnight Tides, Chapter 12, UK MMPB p.443/451/452
==Selected members==
* Bubyrd, mage
* Glisten
* Guild Secretary
* Onyx
* Ormly, Champion Ratcatcher
* Ruby
* Rucket, Chief Investigator
* Scint
==In Midnight Tides==
thumb|225x225px|Members of the Guild by [https://www.instagram.com/p/CGBBf1zDRYb/ Autumn Tavern]
Brys Beddict first encountered Ormly, the guild's Champion Rat Catcher in the flooded tunnels below the Eternal Domicile. The guild had been hired to remove the rats whose bodies kept clogging the waterpumps used by the royal engineers.Midnight Tides, Chapter 6, US SFBC p.186-188 Brys crossed paths with the guild's work again when investigating a string of suspicious disappearances in the city. In the Chamber of Contracts and Royal Charters he discovered that as many as ten thousand residents of Letheras had disappeared in the past year. Three years before, the city had contracted with the Rat Catchers' Guild to conduct investigations into the deaths. The city scribes thought the guild profoundly competent as they delivered the agreed upon biannual reports precisely on their due dates.Midnight Tides, Chapter 12, US SFBC p.367-369 
Tehol Beddict and Bugg approached the guild for help in Tehol's scheme to bring down the Letherii financial system. They met with the guild's board at Scale House which was crawling with rats. As it turned out, the guild only killed rats who refused avowal to the guild, bringing the others home with them. The board's membership was composed of six individuals of whom half were illusions concocted by the guild's mage, Bubyrd. 
Tehol revealed that the knew the Guild was in fact a cover for their work as assassins and thieves, much to the board's displeasure. Then Tehol worked out a lucrative three point contract with the Guild. For the fee of half a Peak and investment advice the guild was to secretly escort every tribal refugee in the city to safety on a string of islands Tehol owned. They were also to provide him with the results of their investigation into the city's disappearances and protect his back. During the negotiations, Ormly deduced that Tehol's previous disastrous financial endeavours, which had once ruined the Guild's investments, had been deliberate. Champion Ormly briefly considering not letting Tehol leave the Guild alive. In the end, a deal was struck.Midnight Tides, Chapter 12, US SFBC p.387-392
thumb|Rat Catchers' Guild by [https://www.instagram.com/shadaan_studios/ Shadaan]
During the Tiste Edur invasion of Letheras, the guild provided Tehol with intelligence from their spies in the conquered cities.Midnight Tides, Chapter 20, US SFBC p.609-610 By the time the Edur marched into the capital, the guild had already spirited away the city's refugees while many Letherii citizens huddled in the guild's hidden tunnels.Midnight Tides, Chapter 20, US SFBC p.599Midnight Tides, Chapter 25, US SFBC p.725 Acquitor Seren Pedac contacted the guild for supplies to assist her own escape from the city.Midnight Tides, Chapter 25, US SFBC p.766 
==In Reaper's Gale==
The Rat Catchers' Guild had been one of the first victims of the new Tiste Edur regime. On his first day as Invigilator of the Patriotists, Karos Invictad outlawed the guild and sent a hundred agents to Scale House. Scores of guild members were arrested, although all later turned out to be illusions.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 3, US HC p.84 Rucket established a new office in a disused area of tombs and tunnels below Adventure Alley where she spent her days involved in paperwork amidst huddled refugees.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 3, US HC p.86-88 She also brought Unn on staff as her servant.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 11, US HC p.282
Tehol Beddict involved the Guild in a number of his schemes, hiring Onyx to produce a set of lacquered tiles as part of a puzzle box to taunt Karos Invictad and soliciting a fifty thousand dock nonrefundable contribution to put an end to the Patriotists.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 3, US HC p.87 As his and Bugg's newest scheme to bring down the Letherii economy progressed, he warned Rucket that the Guild was likely to go bankrupt. Rucket assured him the Guild had already hidden their money out of the country once they understood the scope of his plans.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 15, US HC p.423-426
When Scale House collapsed into a pile of rubble, the foreigner Taxilian described it as an ancient temple devoted to rats. He observed that the building's location was part of a greater geometrical pattern hidden in the city's design.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 8, US HC p.217-218 Samar Dev visited the site and noted that the area was filled with too many spirits of rats to count.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 9, US HC p.232-233 It was ultimately revealed that Icarium had built a complex device within the city millennia before, and its nexus lay inside the ruins of Scale House. On the day Adjunct Tavore Paran's Bonehunters invaded the city, Icarium found his way to Scale House to activiate the device. Once he stepped inside, a white fire obliterated the surrounding neighbourhood, turning Scale House into white dust.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 24, US HC p.795-799
After Tehol was finally arrested by the Patriotists, Ormly brought the revived Brys Beddict to rescue him.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 24, US HC p.782-783/787-788/803-804 They were preceded into the Patriotists' compound by a horde of rats.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 24, US HC p.784 Meanwhile, Rucket and Ormly spent a fortune hiring criers to proclaim Tehol a hero of the people to successfully turn public sentiment back in his favour.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 24, US HC p.811
==Quotes==
==Notes and references==
Category:Guilds
Category:Rat Catchers' Guild
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