Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

== Ratlings ==
Because the Imperium isn't as xenophobic in this timeline, ratlings have been allowed to expand and have colony worlds all across the Imperium. This proved to be a lifesaver when Ornsworld, the ratling homeworld, was depopulated during the 12th Black Crusade. The loss of Ornsworld was a tragedy, but it wasn't fatal to the ratling subspecies.

Ornsworld is a world kind of like Earth, but with a lot more mountain-building and mountain-ranges. About the same time the Age of Strife happened, Ornsworld started going through an Ice Age, so the ancestors of the ratlings got hit with a double-whammy of being cut off from their technology base and being in the middle of an Ice Age. Ornsworld's extensive mountains didn't help, as all they did is provide more space for glaciers to grow and cut off the various basins and valleys from one another. Populations were isolated, and food and living space was at a premium. Like many species stuck in environments with little food and viable land, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_dwarfism the inhabitants of Ornsworld became smaller in size], and this period greatly contributed to the ratlings' behavior and culture. They're gluttons because evolved in an environment where you're never going to know where you're going to get your next meal. They tend to filch things because their ancestors had to hoard anything that might be useful to survive. They're really good cooks because their ancestors had to learn how to make terrible things palatable in order to survive another day (sort of like jellied eels used to be a food for the poorest in the U.K.), and those cooking techniques were passed on through families even after the ratlings were no longer on the edge of starvation.

About a thousand years before the Imperium arrived the Ice Age broke and Ornsworld got really nice. Large portions of the planet went from being covered by glaciers to fertile valleys that could support bountiful harvests. Basically a combination between the Shire and Space Austria. The ratlings, normally used to living on the edge of existence, exploded in population due to the sudden abundance of food and good living conditions. Of course, that was before the 12th Black Crusade and the Warp Hounds burned the planet down.