Half crazed Rat Brownie, that managed to unite 3 out of the 5 tribes then living under the city of Santhala.

Picture description. One of the most famous Rat Brownies, Arxxt the Bold, at work deep down in the sewers below Santhala. Image drawn by Faugar.

His ascent to power was more of an accident of timing, than anything else. Arxxst was born into the Mole Tribe in 1678 b.S., a compactly-built tribe favored with a preternaturally acute sense of hearing and of smell, and brown earth colored skin. When he was still small, he was captured by the Deathwalker Tribe - a tribe that lived off of the dead corpses of those that lived Above, and bound, taken to the lowest levels of the sewers next to the Everpond, and prepared for sacrifice to appease the demons that lived below the Everpond, and throughout the dark sewers of the Underworld. He was rescued by the Treedreamers, a tribe of Akdorian Ancestry, who among all the underworld were the only ones not to engage in sacrifice as it was prohibited by their religion. After months of haggling, the Treedreamers accepted ransom of food and supplies from the Mole tribe, and returned Arxxst to his own people. When Arxxst was returned to his people, it was not as a free Brownie, however. He was now servant to the chief, expected to perform menial tasks for the rest of his life. But as he grew, he watched the petty wars, the scheming and plotting, the dashed dreams of greedy chiefs, and he learned from what he saw.

On the day of his coming of age, Arxxst was nowhere to be found. One morning two weeks later, he reappeared, to the shock of the current chief, standing regally on a freshly severed human head that half-filled the section of rusted pipe used for the chief's councils. With such obvious evidence of his great warlike prowess, it was a simple task to convince the cheif's advisors to kill him and follow Arxxst as the new chief.

Arxxst's first act as chief, was to declare war on the humans living Above. Nighttime raids, which were before conducted with extreme stealth in groups of 2 or 3, now consisted of dozens or hundreds of Brownies. Townspeople began to lock their doors, bought watchdogs, and set mousetraps next to every small opening. Hundreds of the Mole tribe died in these attempts, and it was all Arxxst could do to keep his grip on the reins of power, and his life.

Then something happened that changed everything. The Year of Darkness came. Rat Brownies in general had a field day during this time, and Arxxst in particular, with his policy of war on humankind, had virtually free run of the city. The Treedreamers joined him, and eventually so did the Shadows, a tribe of small, slighly built Brownies that were not only the color of midnight, but also somehow seemed to disappear and reappear at will. The pale, sticklike Deathwalkers and the hideously mutated Demonchild tribe remained separate of this alliance, but dwindled steadily in numbers, until only a handfull of each were left. The Rat Brownies became the scourge of Santhala, until the first new dawn turned the tables on them. Having been a nightmare for so long, the nightmare now became theirs as the townspeople ruthlessly hunted them down and killed them. The survivors huddled once again in the damp sewers, their masses fragmented, yet now with stories of a golden age of darkness when not just the night but the day also belonged to them, a time when the world above died to give them life.

And Arxxst? As he stared transfixed at the new first dawn, he was caught, played with, and killed by a Housecat. Today his name is used as an oath and his deeds are told as a story to frighten young children into staying inside at night.