Conversion Notes: This package is based on the city rat occupation from Rifts role playing game. I based this package deal on the absolute minimum of abilities of a first level city rat. This write-up uses Champions 5th edition rules.
The city rat is one of the denizens of the cities who lives in its lower levels, tunnels, and sewers. Most have never been beyond the city walls and view the outside world as wondrous, scary, and alien. Their world is the dark city streets, crowded with people, garbage, vehicles, and vermin. They know the back streets, and often the sewers and access tunnels, like most know the highways and avenues. They can spot a drug dealer from a 1000 feet away and know the advantages and dangers offered by the cyber-doc.
Those who live in the lower levels of a city are generally nicknamed "Down Siders," but the city rat is a designation for a Down Sider troublemaker. Rats are usually young men and women in their teens or 20's who walk on the wild side. They crave adventure and find it by bucking the system. A city rat may be an idealistic rebel who seeks reform and justice in a corrupt and unjust society like that of the Coalition, or he may be a computer hacker, beggar, thief, or gangland thus. The individual's orientation and skills will reflect his alignment, ideals, ethics, and goals.
The heroic city rat is generally an anarchist in the full sense of the word. He tends to see himself as beyond the law and believes that boundaries are made to be stepped over. Whether he is a thief who plunders a corrupt government and/or the wealthy (a la a self-serving Robin Hood who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, himself included), or a computer hacker who craves to know things (just to know what is forbidden or secret because it is forbidden or secret), or a rebel who believes it is his duty to make people stop and think about their lives and injustice by disrupting their lives (revealing embarrassing fact about government officials and laws, skirmishes with law enforcers, vandalizing government/police property, etc.), the city rat revels in his perceived image of being a self-made, swashbuckling hero (or antihero).
Villianous city rats are the street scum that prey on innocent people. These are the bandits, assassins, drug dealers, cyber-snatchers, gang members, and truly vicious and cruel street criminals. They are the brutes who think power is the ability to hurt and humiliate, and to use and destroy, their fellow man.
Whether a brigand or a hero, the city rat is always a cocky, freewheeling scoundrel, bold, and macho. He or she is as conscious of personal image as they are personal goals. The image is one of strength, resourcefulness, success, and looking cool/new wave, even if that image is mostly flash and little substance. They tend to be attracted to glamour, wealth, and fame.
A child of the city and technology, the rat has often subjected his body to cybernetic improvements, usually in the area of implants, not prosthetics or bionics. The rebel may be extremely literate and versed in computers, or a complete illiterate who puts his money on skill and cunning rather than words.
