[center][color=9e0b0f][h1][b]The Under-Republic of Rodents[/b][/h1][/color][/center]

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Rattus Regius Ignatius Fell-Eye looked out upon the assembled mass of the united Rodent Army before him, The Vermintide. It had been many generations since a Vermintide had been called, and few living rodents could boast that they'd seen one, let alone participated. It was a call to war unlike the raiding campaigns which clans organized independently, or calls to defend the Under-Republic from invaders, this was an offensive campaign of complete and total war, and one which sought to deliver retribution upon the races and their empires and nations above whom had mistreated them, and it was a war that would not stop until either there were not enough capable rodents left to persecute it, or until their vengeance was satisfied.

Ignatius had gotten the approval of the fellow members of the Ring of Rodents, whom all stood about him in their full war regalia on his raised platform before the gates of Petrus' Maw, the largest single gateway into the Under-Republic and out into the world above. For as far as the eye could see into the massive Ratway into the mountains were hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Rodents, from the small Rattus Commenus packs with their shepherds, the upright Rattus Faber who were either organized into their clan units or Vermin Units if they were regulars, and the comparatively giant Rattus Gigantai who all stood out from their kin, Bubonic Philosophers close by.

The call had been sent out a week ago into the tunnels from the capital of Verminia, and basically everyone who would be coming to seek glory, riches, and the chance to kill their former oppressors was here, so now Ignatius stepped forward, and the unfathomable legions of Rodents all quieted and looked up at him, their whiskers twitching and green eyes gleaming.

[b]"My fellow Rodents, today we set forth on a campaign that most of us have never lived to see in our short lifetimes. A Vermintide has not graced this world's surface in so long that most of them have likely forgotten what it is and why it used to be a word spoken of in terror and fear. But that changes now! We will teach them that we are not merely pests to crushed and exterminated, that the descendants of the oppressed Rodent forebears will not merely stand by and let the murderers of our kin around the world go about unpunished!"[/b]

The assembled army of Rodents was yelling affirmatives after each of Ignatius' sentences by now.

[b]"I will be honest with you, my kin. Many of you likely will not return to the Under-Republic. None of us are exempt when death calls to us, no more than our enemies, and many of us will fall before this campaign is finished. But you all know who I am, and that I'm not in the business to throw Rodent lives away needlessly, I'm in the business of making sure we win, for only a fool fights a battle he knows he cannot win. And though the surface races may call me foolish, I'm standing in front of the largest and greatest army of Rodents that this world has ever seen! We will show that no matter how many of us fall, there will always be others to take up the spear, bow, or sword!" [/b]

The Vermintide's shouts are deafening in the echoing tunnels, the cheers reaching likely to the deepest foundations of the World's End Mountains. With a flourish of ringing Adamanthine, Ignatius draws Retribution, the cutlass signifying the Rattus Regius' authority as Master of the Vermintide, and used to strike at the enemies of the Under-Republic and all Rodent-kind.

[b]"Now, as our ancestors before us have done, as Rattus Regius of the Under-Republic, and with the authority of the Ring of Rodents, I formally declare upon the world above, and all who have transgressed against Rodent-kind once again. Let us not stop in our conquest until we are satisfied! March, Rodents! March and let us teach them why their ancestors feared the Vermintide![/b] 

With that, and with a upward flourish of Retribution to thunderous cheers and war cries, the mighty gates of Petrus' Maw opened wide, and the Vermintide began its march out into the sunlit world above, with Ignatius and the Ring of Rodents hopping down to join them and the multitude of their kin march and file out around them into the massive swarm formations of old. It would take 3/4 of a day for the massive gates to shut again as the entire army made its way out and started the long march east across mostly uninhabited wilderness that cordoned off their mountain homes from the outside world.

Many miles ahead, they would find their enemies and show them war as had not been seen in generations, a new Vermintide had begun.