There was once a kingdom, whose King was a poor ruler. The King lived in comfort surrounded by stone walls and armed guards, while his subjects wallowed in mud and squalor. The Rat King they called him, because his reign was marked by rats swarming the towns and the villages, gorging on grain and meat just like the King did.

When the subjects rose in revolt, the guards swung the gates wide open and joined the roaring crowd. The King was shackled, clad in heavy mask and armor that would rust into sharp spikes, and thrown into the dungeon of his own castle. There he would suffer, surrounded by walls and armed guards, while his subjects lived free.

But the rats were not happy. Their days of plenty were over, the free men taking measures to stop them like the King never had. The streets were no longer theirs, the free men hiring catchers and hounds the King had never bothered with. When the rats stormed the castle, the guards saw and heard nothing, for the rats swam through sewers and squeezed through rotten wood and crumbling stone. Their only clue that something was wrong was the screaming from the King's dungeon.

His rusted armor had crumbled, holes swarming with rats and maggots. His old cape had been torn away by his old subjects, now replaced by a mantle of filth and death. His robes, gray with dust and filth, had torn and frayed to resemble fur more than cloth. His hands, flayed pink by rusty shackles and long-nailed after years of neglect, now grasped an executioner's sword that his subjects had seen as too merciful to use on him.

The free men's only clue that something was wrong was the screaming from the King's old castle. The Rat King had risen, and his reign was marked by rats swarming the towns and the villages, gorging on flesh and blood just like the King did.