The Imperial Palace is roughly at the center of the great field known as the Fallows.
To the north, it is bordered by the Forest and its huge trees. There are guardposts near the Forest to keep an eye out for monsters coming out of it, but they've grown lax over the years.
The east, it's bordered by the Great Lake. This and the area around the palace proper are the most prosperous parts of the kingdom.
To the west lie the Wildlands. Rough, hilly terrain, almost completely untamed and still beset by giant predators. There used to be a fair number of settlements in the Wildlands, but they've been abandoned over the years and now are either rotting and empty or are controlled by barbarian tribes. The western parts of the empire are controlled by numerous minor nobles and their holdings, although they all technically still serve the Emperor. Their private soldiers mount regular patrols, but it's mostly to guard against barbarian invasions and to collect taxes.
To the south lie the Forbidden Lands. Here the land is still flat, but overgrown with tall weeds and bushes. Military patrols occasionally move along the edge, maintaining the markers and keeping an eye out for trouble. Far above and beyond the overgrowth, a keen-eyed mouse can just barely make out the walls of a tremendous structure, something like a house but unbelievably large. According to ancient legend, the Titans live or lived there and the original White Lords came from it. Now the path between the Fallows and the Titans is guarded by three great serpents, ensorcelled by the White Lords to allow no one to approach the building save royalty.
Cult of the Silent Death: worshippers of Hoorooru, the great Horned Owl. Their master desires the service and worship of all mice, particularly in the form of regular sacrifices of talking mice and rats. Hoorooru promises power and protection to his followers, saying that his priesthood will become the new rulers of the empire after the White Lords are overthrown. There is a secret community of owl-worshippers in the Great Forest just beyond the empire's boundaries, where they plot and scheme to topple the empire.
In traditional fantasy terms, these are death-worshippers who sacrifice outsiders to their dark god. Hoorooru is bound by ancient geases, but his magical powers have grown over the years to the level of the original White Lords. He is intelligent and patient, but ambitious. Honestly, he doesn't need the sacrifices... between his skill as a hunter and his magical powers, he can eat his fill of the common, mindless mice outside the empire whenever he wants. He has come to crave the ego boost of being worshipped and now thinks of himself as a real god.
The Keeper of Secrets: some mice believe that Ssa the great serpent is a divine being of incredible wisdom. Certainly the serpent is a persuasive and charming figure who generally communicates with mice from hiding, so as not to spook them with his great size. He claims to feel a great loneliness and offers advice and magical aid to those who come to him. He is skilled at corrupting people in slow and gradual ways, leading them to greater and greater depravities in his service. It's not certain whether he is working towards the destruction of the empire, or simply amusing himself by toying with the lives of his followers.
Ssa's "cult" is small and scattered, but he maintains a magical link to all of his actual priests and they can contact him when they need his aid. Ssa is a master of the lost magical art of Delving, which allows him to see through another's eyes and work magic through his agents. While establishing these permanent magical connections does weaken his powers in the usual fashion, Ssa can generally get his investment back by simply eating the follower in question once their usefulness is over.
When one of his servants needs a particular thing, Ssa usually directs them to an out-of-the-way location, often outside the boundaries of the empire itself. There they will find what they wanted... or possibly meet Ssa in person, which is usually short and fatal. The items are generally provided by other servants... if Ssa needs, say, a bag of gold for a greedy underling, he might compel a merchant who serves him to carry a bag of gold to an isolated spot and leave it there. To the merchant, it's a mysterious and purposeless chore... but to the other underling, it's a miraculous gift.
Sethias, the Black Lord: according to his own account, Sethias was one of the original White Lords who was betrayed by his fellows and murdered. But so great was his magical power and his righteous rage that his spirit never truly left this plane. When the secret tomb that his corpse had been hidden in was finally opened, Sethias emerged as a spirit of power and vengeance. Now he has his own cult of fanatical worshippers who feed him the blood of noble mice whenever they can, and common mice when they can't.
Sethias is basically a lich. He has extraordinary magical powers but physically is dead and mostly rotted. As such, he slowly but steadily "bleeds off" magic whenever he uses his powers. He recharges by soaking in the blood of talking mice, particularly mages.
Sethias is largely insane. He constantly plots to overthrow the White Lords but is paralyzed by his own paranoia and delusions. He sometimes confuses the current lords for his own siblings, forgetting that they are all long dead. He is served by several outcast mages (all of common descent, not white mice) who are eager to learn his magical secrets, including the ability to reanimate corpses.
The Imperial Palace is a massive, opulent structure made out of magically shaped metal, ceramic and stone. It rises out of a mound of rock in the center of the Fallows. It has numerous towers and domes and these are often girded by sharp spines intended to help protect it against large predators.
The inner sections are decorated with innumerable shiny objects, whether gems, metal or glass. Plush woven carpets line the corridors, and the truly important rooms are lit by floating glass spheres that contain magical lights... enchantments created by the ancients, back when magic was more plentiful.
Only a small portion of the inhabitants are actually nobility. The vast majority are servants. Those mice who serve specific nobles have higher status than those that serve the palace as a whole... the personal assistant of one of the royals is a more important individual than many minor nobles, and wields considerably more power.
The Alabaster Temple is a sprawling complex of white stone buildings. Officially dedicated to the worship of the gods, it's basically a monestary populated by the priesthood. The brothers and sisters here spend their time copying books and records, studying ancient texts, and practicing the magical arts. The priesthood, while nominally the spiritual leaders of the land, spends most of its time acting as accountants and bureaucrats for the nobility.
Noble children with an interest in learning are often sent to the Temple to be properly educated and a portion of the complex is dedicated solely to the housing and training of young noblemen and noblewomen. Some of these children have higher status and more authority than their tutors, making discipline difficult.
There are several smaller monestaries scattered through the empire, most of which try to copy the polished white walls of the Alabaster Temple. Even small town churches are painted white whenever possible.
Grennedell (sometimes known as Forest Edge) is a community built on and around the trunk of an ancient oak on the edge of the Fallows. It was established to guard against intrusions from the forest itself, but the guards have grown lax over the years since no real dangers have materialized of late. It's said that the tree was alive when they started building their community in its branches, but over the years the community expanded inwards, carving out new rooms inside the oak's core. The tree has been dead for generations now. A few, more foresighted folks worry about the rot slowly weakening the city's core, but they're generally regarded as fools by the locals.
Stump (or The Stump) is a moderate-sized mouse community in the central portion of the Fallows. The town is built into an enormous treestump, which has now been entirely hollowed out and turned into a mouse town. According to legend, the Stump was once a huge oak that one of the White Lords cut off at the base so that it would fall and crush a terrible Ka'at, but if so, no one is sure what became of the tree itself, because no sign of it has ever been found. There's only the Stump itself.
Stump is most famous for its breweries, as a small patch of wild berries grow nearby that the locals ferment into alcohol. It's most commonly bottled in distinctive heavy ceramic jugs, each of which bears a carved picture of the city... the older, more expensive wines have detailed and intricate pictures that are minor works of art themselves, whereas the cheaper wines rarely have more than a brown square on the side.
Lakeside is a fishing town on the shore of the Great Lake. While the ordinary populace makes do with little wooden boats and rafts, there are a couple of Imperial mages here whose job is to ensorcell turtles so that parties of vacationing noblemen can fish off of their backs. The roof of Lakeside's town hall is made from the top shell of an ancient turtle and is considered an important landmark in the area. Mice are normally forbidden to climb onto the roof to minimize wear-and-tear on the slowly decaying structure, although servants polish and shine the scutes so that it'll look more impressive whenever a party of important nobles come to visit.
Mindless, non-magical mice are referred to as mindless or feral. Mice who are on the verge of becoming feral are referred to as the forsaken, indicating that the White Lords have turned their backs on them. In the old days, it was generally believed that forsaken mice were born to parents who had done something wrong... now, however, as their numbers swell on the edges of the empire, some people are beginning to doubt that explanation.
Forsaken mice generally have very low Knowledge, Charm and Magic ratings, but often have higher Size and Perception.
The term barbarian is generally used to refer to those clans of forsaken mice and rats who live outside of the boundaries of the empire. They have been known to launch raids on small towns on the edges of the empire, burning, looting and pillaging, then fleeing before the Imperial army can be summoned. So far, while they have laid waste to a few of the smaller villages, they haven't been brave enough to attack any major cities.
Talking mice are physically different from normal mice in a few ways. Firstly, they instinctively know how to speak. While practice and training helps them communicate more eloquently, the basics of the language are inborn and require no training. Literacy is harder, but there is still an instinctive element to it... a really smart mouse may be able to make sense of simple writing even without any formal training.
They also have thumbs... normal mice only have four toes on their "hands", but talking mice are born with a thumb on each forepaw.
They feel more comfortable standing upright, although baby mice learn to run on all fours long before they can walk on their hind legs. Because of this, running on all fours is associated with feral mice and babies... it's regarded as undignified when done by adult mice. That doesn't mean that it isn't done... it's much faster, so it's often used to flee from monsters or to deliver an urgent message, but it's not something that anyone is proud of and they'll often be teased about it.
To further distinguish themselves from their bestial relatives, talking mice wear clothes and generally feel uncomfortable naked. Unlike humans, however, they aren't trying to cover up any particular parts of their bodies... instead, the clothing marks them as intelligent people, rather than mindless animals. Thus a given mouse might wear just a jacket or a hat in hot weather and feel perfectly well clothed, but would be embarrassed if seen with nothing at all. The higher class the mouse, the more garments they generally wear and the nobility are often garbed ornately from head to toe.
Grasshoppers: a common prey for hunters. Their tough carapace gives them some protection but the head is still vulnerable. Experienced hunters generally have one person serving as a "spotter" who climbs to a high location. If they fail to kill the grasshopper outright, it will often jump and the spotter can tell them where it landed.
Dragonflies: hunted occasionally for their iridescent hide and wings, which are used to make stylish fripperies for the noble classes. It's a difficult target to take down without magic, however, since damaging its wings and shell is counterproductive. To common mice, dragonflies are seen as a sign of good luck and a good harvest.
Toads: avoided by most mice, because a few of them get large enough to try and swallow a small mouse. Their poison sacs make them a poor source of food.
Slugs: killed and eaten by the lower classes as a supplement to their diets and to keep the slugs from damaging their crops. They taste awful, however, and are only consumed by folks who can't afford better fare. "Slugeater" is a minor insult, implying that the target lives in squalor or has no taste in food.
Crows: crows are too large and too smart to be regarded as prey. Some of them have actually mastered a pidgin form of speech and have been known to trade with rodent communities, offering scavenged objects (usually reflective items called "shinies") for food or vice versa. No one trusts them however, and the sudden disappearance of food that was left out is often blamed on crows. The army keeps them away from the inner regions, but they move freely about the edges of the Empire.
Shrews: regarded as horrific monsters by the mice. A starving shrew will attack creatures larger than itself and they are vicious and swift opponents. Their voracious appetite also means that shrews are often starving. They furthermore have a habit of taking over the homes of slain mice and using it as their burrow until they find a better one. Shrews vary in intelligence... some are simply vicious animals, but others have learned to stand upright and can use simple tools. Mice kill shrews whenever they can, feeling that even if it's ignoring them today, sooner or later it'll be hungry enough to come after them.
Ants: individually, ants are harmless little bugs that can inflict a painful bite but are about as dangerous to a mouse as a squirrel would be to a human. Youngsters often catch and torment them for fun. This behavior is encouraged by their elders, because if a scout ant happens to find a ready source of food they can return en masse, accompanied by the larger and more vicious soldiers. Swarms of ants are very dangerous and often have to be outrun rather than outfought. Magic and fire can even the odds, but only a fool faces down an angry swarm directly. The mounds themselves are always avoided, since damaging a mound can unleash a swarm right away.
Smart Ants: some wild rumors indicate that there is an ant mound in the west where the ants behave with a strange level of intelligence and tendrils of smoke are often seen rising from their mounds. According to one particularly unbelievable tale, a bard was captured by the ants of the region and carried into a deep, underground cavern where he was placed on trial for trespassing by an oversized "queen" who could actually speak. The story claims that he managed to win her over with his music and was set free, but very few people give the tale any credence whatsoever. The area is still shunned by most people, however, because the ants there are notably aggressive and dangerous.
Riding Beetles: something like a rhinoceros or hercules beetle, these enormous, armored insects are actually raised by mice as mounts and beasts of burden. They're bred for stupidity, obedience and endurance. Many will actually ignore nearby food because they're so used to handlers putting their meals right in front of them. Various breeds exist and the noble classes prefer males with as large and elaborate of horns as possible. Commoners use the smaller, often hornless females in groups to pull wagons and plows. Wild beetles generally can't be trained in this fashion; they have to be "programmed" with regular use of Influence and Compel spells and constant contact with mice since shortly after they molt into adults until they reach full size, or else they'll be untamable. Rats are generally too large to ride comfortably on these beetles, so they often have to ride in wagons pulled by them or simply walk instead.
Pigeons: strong enough to carry an armored mouse soldier and relatively easy to tame and keep, the Imperial Cavalry keeps a roost of pigeons in part of the Imperial Palace. Their numbers have fallen off over the years, and now only about half of the stalls have occupants. A large number of servitors tend to the birds' needs. Elaborate woven saddles are available so that extra gear can be carried. Each cavalryman is a mage and is expected to be able to control his steed himself.
Starlings: the Imperial Star-Riders are a small group of very elite messenger-scouts. They have a totally different attitude towards their steeds, forming a deep, personal bond with a single bird, which lives freely in the area until summoned by their rider. No saddle is used; in fact, the rider must generally be small, lean, and unencumbered or his bird will quickly tire. But starlings are faster, smarter and more agile than pigeons, making them ideal for scouting missions.
Scorpions: while these predators won't normally attack a mouse without being threatened, they're regarded as a threat anyway. They are usually killed with crossbow bolts or long spears. Since they're almost blind, two hunters can easily outflank one and kill it. The venom in its tail is sometimes harvested for use as a poison, but this practice has been banned and can only legally be performed by members of the military.
Small Snakes: smaller snakes are hunted by the mice for both food and to make sure that they don't grow up to be larger snakes. Even the smallest can be dangerous to a single mouse, but not to a group of hunters with spears and shields. Should the snake get lucky enough to bring down a single mouse in a hunting party, the hunters have a brutally effective technique for dealing with it. They simply pull back and wait until the snake starts swallowing its prey, then charge in to the attack while it can't bite. If a small snake is sighted near a town, it's common for the locals to put together a hunting party and go after it, before it can go after them.
Great Serpents: but there are some snakes large enough to swallow even rats in just a few moments. These terrible predators are widely feared and there's often little a town can do except to seal their doors and windows and hope that it isn't their abode that the creature breaks into first. The Imperial Army is often dispatched to deal with such creatures, often using magic to paralyze them and then putting out their eyes, or rigging powerful ballistas to kill them outright. A few such serpents have proven to be dangerously resistant to magic and are often capable of speech themselves. The Empire contents itself with driving such "dragons" outside of their territory.
Well, actually, rhinoceros beetles might make good mounts. They're capable of carrying 100x their own weight and individually they weigh about as much as a mouse. They feed on fruit and decaying vegetable matter. Adding in the assumption that they can be trained relatively easily with Compel and Influence spells, and you've got a fairly decent riding critter for small rodents. The larvae eat rotting wood and such and the beetles can take up to 2 years to reach full size so you couldn't crank them out en masse even if you could train that many.
Pigeons and starlings. Pigeons are big, strong and comparatively stupid. They can carry an armored mouse and are the preferred mount of the Imperial Cavalry.
Starlings are smaller, faster and smarter. They tend to bond with a single trainer and generally won't carry anyone else. They also aren't as strong and can't really carry much cargo besides the pilot. Starling riders need to be small and lean and travel light or they'll exhaust their mount too quickly. The Imperial Flyers (a strange group of scouts and messengers) prefer starlings to pigeons for their faster reflexes and increased agility. They're smart birds and can learn a number of tricks if they like their trainer. Due to their intelligence, it's very dangerous to try and fly one that doesn't like you... magical compulsions can help point them in the right direction, but may interfere with their ability to fly properly. And, of course, they'll leave or shake you off as soon as the compulsion ends. But they can be marvelous mounts if they get along with their trainer.
While pigeons are normally kept in coops maintained by the mice, it's common for a starling flyer to allow his mount relatively free reign, only summoning it when it's needed (usually with a particular whistle). Again, bonding with the bird is essential for pulling this relationship off.
Crows are too damn smart, the bird-trainers say. You can't trust them to do (or not do) anything when you're not right there controlling them. This makes them too dangerous. Worse, a handful of the crows in the Empire can actually talk in pidgin english. This is probably due to them scavenging the corpses of dead talking mice, but it may also just be due to their native intelligence. As such, they're regarded as pests and kept away from the inner territories, but they've never been enough of a threat for the military to be called out against them.
Turtles are good if you want to travel on the Great Lake (perhaps call it Endless Waters?). Sometimes a group of upperclass fishermen will find and compel a turtle to let them sit on its back and fish, but it takes a good mage (or two) to make sure that the turtle doesn't suddenly dive out of under them.
Larger animals should get a Size bonus to resist Influence and Compel spells. Perhaps something like 1/3 of your Size rating? Or Size - 5 (minimum zero)? Basically, I don't want mice to be able to Compel a deer... although that might not be a bad thing to allow... I just wouldn't want them to go get a deer and use it like some super war machine to destroy a mouse-town.
Movement: 5+Agility "yards" per round, quadruple that if you drop to all fours and run. Let's see, scale-wise... a mouse is commonly about 2-4" long. A human about 4-6' tall. Call it 3" and 5'. 5' is a little less than 2 yards. So a "yard" should probably be about 5" in mouse terms. I may go with 3 inches just to keep things simple.
House mouse: run up to 8 miles per hour, runs out of energy around 900 feet.
Jumping mouse: can leap up to 3 feet.
So, with a "yard" being 3 inches, how many inches do you travel at 8 miles per hour? Hm. 8 miles / hour = 0.1333 miles / minute = 0.01333 miles / 6 seconds.
A mile is 5280 feet. That's 70.4 feet per 6 seconds. That's 845 inches per 6 seconds. Divided by 3... 282 "yards" per 6 seconds. That's way too big of a number to be tossing around, even after dividing by 4.
Let's assume 5x movement for running with 6 second intervals. That's 169 inches per round for regular walking. Still way too fast. What's human walking speed? 4.5 feet per second, roughly. Call it 27 feet per round. I can see why D&D went with 30 feet per round. With 5 feet per second times 3600 (seconds per hour), we get about 3.4 mph. Typical human can run at 15mph, about a 4.4x increase.
So, let's got with 4x speed for running and see what we get... it might be unrealistic, but it makes them more humanlike. With a max speed about 1/2 of that of a running human, we can set their movement rate at about 15 feet per round. That's a huge distance for critters that are only 3" long... about 60x their body length. Humans can only go, say, 10x body length because they're so much bigger.
Perhaps we should set movement as being unrealistically slow. Bipedal movement should be slower, really... more like human level. Say 10x body length... 3" x 10 = 30" = 2.5 feet. That's about 10 "yards" per round. So, go with speed 10+Agility, with running speed being about ten times that. Hm. Realistic, but I dunno... I may need to solicit input.
Rats are faster. I should probably use a D&D-ish movement rate split. Rats move at the equivalent of 30, mice at 20. Say 7 yards and 10. Mice move 7+agility yards, Rats move 10+agility. Movement x10 if on all fours (and much less exhausting).
Hm. How about a size comparison? The typical mouse is about 4" tall when standing up. Typical human about 5 1/2 feet. Let's assume that the mouse is 5" and the human 5'. So, the human is 12x taller. For a movement rate of 30 feet per round, scaled down to the mouse's size, we'd get 30 inches per round, about 2.5 feet.
So, 2.5 feet normally. 10 feet when running (x4 speed). 15 feet when scurrying on all fours (x6 speed). Rats are double this.
Hm. Running shouldn't be as efficient for mice. Go with x2 speed. 2.5' walk, 5' run, 15' scurry.
Rats move at 4' walk, 8' run, 16' scurry.
The Imperial Military would have several branches: A small, elite cadre that ride birds (probably not predatory birds, because those are hard to keep fed during times of peace). The common soldiery, many of whom only serve for a few weeks each year, just enough to keep them from forgetting all of their training (they're called up en masse in the event of a major military action, but that hasn't happened in years). Some elite ground forces, probably big rats in heavy armor. And a lot of archers and artillerymen.
One branch that's almost completely independent from the normal chain of command, though, is the Imperial Hunters. These soldier/bounty hunters are employed to keep the Imperial larder filled with exotic meats. As the nobles have become more decadent over the years, the demand for such treats as stewed snake brains or fresh honey has grown. The hunters are the folks employed to provide this stuff, and it's dangerous work.
As a result, while they're technically part of the military, in practice they're more like licensed big game hunters than soldiers. They can get military weapons and training, but they're paid in bounties rather than a set wage.
Also, because creatures of the sort that they hunt tend to have been exterminated in the areas around the capitol, they generally have to ply their trade on the outskirts of the empire. So you'll find the occasional hunting outpost on the edge of the empire, crewed by tough but undisciplined warriors. They do their own hiring and firing and their membership changes regularly... if the bounties paid weren't so large, they'd probably all desert... they're much too far removed from the central authorities for the empire to really keep track of them.
It's also a way for adventurous types to earn some cash... even if you aren't a member, it's easy to find a hunter who's willing to split the bounty with you since you've already taken all of the risks yourself.
Serpents aren't regarded with as much fear as many other predators, mostly because many of them are small enough that the mice kill and eat them instead of the other way around. Small snakes (and their eggs) are regarded as a delicacy amongst the nobility and the cooks at the Imperial Palace are always looking for new ways to prepare them.
They are still dangerous, of course, but it's more like having a lion or panther in the area than a dragon. If a small serpent is sighted near a town, they'll often put together a hunting party and go after it instead of cowering in their burrows.
There are the Great Serpents, however... discarded skins have been found that could stretch from one end of a village to another. These creatures have been wiped out inside the Empire proper, but can still be found in the wilderness.
Story and rumor has it that some of the great serpents were geased by the White Lords to guard treasures and that enormous riches lie somewhere in the depths of their lairs. Wise mice discount these tales, but there is the occasional adventurous sort who heads out into the wilderness beyond the Empire's borders, seeking their fortune. Very few return.
Okay, let's list off some likely demons for the mice.
DEMONS
Hoorooru: Death Without Warning, The Enemy of the Gods. Hoorooru is the white spectre of death. Never seen clearly, he is merely a rush of air and a terrified squeak as some poor rodent who was out after dark is snatched up and vanishes forever.
Hooroou is the Owl and represents all of the terror that they hold for mouse-kind. His children soar through the air silently in the darkness, and woe to the poor mouse-child who ignored his mother's warnings and strays from cover during the night. His name is often used in reference to any owl and, honestly, most common mice don't really realize that there is more than one owl in the world.
Rituals to Hoorooru normally take the form of prayers for mercy and burnt sacrifices intended as offerings. These rites have been banned by the Empire, but they are still practiced (or invented again) by mice on its edges.
On the rare occasion that an owl does enter the empire's territory and sticks around, the Emperor will dispatch a group of elite warriors and mages to track it down and ensorcell it into leaving and never returning.
Amongst well educated white mice, Hooroou refers not to just any owl, but to a dangerously intelligent (and possibly magically active) white owl said to live in the woods to the northwest. He was geased long ago by the White Lords, but was smart enough to remain as close to the Empire as the spell allows him.
"Hoorooru take you!" is considered a fairly vulgar insult, about on the level of saying "Devil take you!"
Sckzentic: Described as a huge, bloated tick, Sckzentic is the father of all parasites. Fleas, mites and ticks are all regarded as his children. Those who are particularly afflicted by these pests are often believed to have offended him. It's commonly believed that the smoke from ritually burning certain plants will keep him and his children away.
It's actually true, more or less. There are some particularly fragrant herbs which, if burned, put off a pungent smoke that is harmful to most parasites. It's not terribly healthy for any mice in the area either, but it can help clear an area of fleas and such.
Fleaman's Day is a twice annual holiday, wherein dried leaves are tied together in great bundles and the tops set aflame so that the smoke rises into the sky. This rite is believed to keep the town free of parasites for the coming seasons and is performed at the beginnings of Spring and Fall. Generally they don't use actual medicinal herbs anymore, but rather just burn whatever plants happen to be available that burn most cleanly. Mice gather and dance around the bonfires with much singing, food and merriment. By old tradition, no one gets married on Fleaman's Day, ever... it's seen as very bad luck and inviting Sckzentic to destroy the newlyweds.
The Ka'ats: During the early days of the Empire, it's said that the greatest danger were the terrible monsters known as Ka'ats. These gigantic predators were fierce and powerful and several White Lords were slain by them before the first Emperor declared war on these monsters.
Now it's commonly believed that Ka'ats are extinct, or at least banished to the underworld. None have been seen within the Empire's boundaries for at least a generation.
Most mice have only a vague idea what a Ka'at looks like... a gigantic four-legged monster with a long tail, glowing eyes and terrible fangs. The Imperial Ivory Throne is said to have been shaped from the skull of one of these terrible creatures, slain in battle by the first Emperor himself. His modern descendants, however, regard that chamber as excessively morose and unstylish and it is now only used on special occasions such as the trial and execution of traitors. The current throne room is an opulent masterpiece of glittering glass, paint and metal, displaying the riches of the Empire for all to see.
Ka'ats are not worshipped or even placated by modern mice; rather they are regarded as demonic beings that haunt isolated and forsaken places.