Genius Womp Rat

A Star Wars Creature Feature

By Jeff Quick

Variations on womp rats are hated and feared on several worlds, but none so much as the desert variety found on Tatooine. There, if the criminals and dehydration don't kill you, the womp rats will.

Unlike the crime lords and lack of liquid, though, moisture farmers can do something about womp rats. They shoot them. Happily. It's a pastime for the local kids and a necessity for the adults, and sometimes you can find an expedition arranged for the benefit of the odd tourist who's come to Tatooine for reasons referred to as "legitimate business." They fly off into the canyons and take a few shots at whatever moves. Hunting the predators is mostly harmless, and as the moisture farmers say, "Keep the desert scavengers fat on womp rats, and they won't come looking for people."

This system has worked tolerably well for as long as anyone can remember. Every once in a while, after a disappointing run, some tale drifts in from the canyons about a womp rat as big as a dewback or one with weird bogeyman powers like camouflage or incredible leaping ability. No one pays them much mind, since the people who talk like that are children, feverish from heat stroke, or disreputable tourists. Or sometimes, they're Jawas who jabber on about all sorts of crazy things.

But one kind of unusual womp rat story is told often enough that it might have a grain of truth in it. This is the story of the super-intelligent womp rat, or the so-called "genius" womp rat. Supposedly, these womp rats are smart enough to set traps, use tools, and fight for things besides food or water.

Reports of genius womp rats are scattered but remarkably consistent given that stories of them range over much of the southern hemisphere of the planet. According to the rumors, genius womp rats are normal sized and even more ferocious than their dumber cousins. They sometimes travel in genius packs but also are said to travel with normal womp rats. Geniuses are reported to move less predictably than their cousins, and often are described as having an intelligent gleam in their eyes.

The One That Got Away

Jent Loquoy is a 17-year-old Human, daughter of local moisture farmers Burdo and Lorna. When Jent's T-16 crashed last month, she said it was because of an ambush by genius womp rats. "They strung up some sort of wire in the canyon and it clipped my top wing. I barely had time to eject before the whole thing piled into the canyon wall. I came down on top of the rock. If I'd landed on the floor, the womp rats would have got me for sure."

"There was [sic] one or two that had pieces of metal they were holding like clubs. They were in charge, like, leading the others to climb up and get me. When I shot off my rescue flare, they took off, but the others kept trying to climb up. If Pa hadn't picked me up, I wouldn't be here now."

Jent has a reputation among her friends as a hotshot pilot and has been known to exaggerate for effect. She could have just flamed out and made up a story to save face. But the stories get more interesting.

Business Competition

Jawas don't get much respect on Tatooine, and with good reason. The scavengers will steal nearly anything that isn't locked up and strip it down inside their three-story tall sand crawlers. However, Jawas spend more time out roaming the desert than any Human, and they see a lot of things. One known only as Wassak tells a story (through a translator, of course) about technologically curious womp rats that fight for scavenged parts in the desert.

According to his story, Wassak had found an Imperial probe droid lying inoperable in a dune, and he was picking it up to return to local authorities. Before he could reach it, four womp rats charged across the sand and attacked the lone Jawa.

Wassak went on to say that these womp rats had fingers and thumbs like he did, and that they wanted to take the droid with them. They surrounded the inert droid chassis, and two of them began dragging it away. When the Jawa drew his blaster, he said all the womp rats reacted like they knew what he had. One charged him.

Jawa blasters look cobbled together, but Wassak demonstrated how well his worked. He said that he shot the charging womp rat point blank, killing it. Then (he claims) the other womp rats stopped dragging the droid and instead gathered up their dead packmate, retreating with the womp rat's body.

Wassak had no one with him to corroborate his story (a frequent feature of genius womp rat stories), and he claimed to have returned the droid to its rightful owners several weeks ago, removing any actual evidence of the encounter with the womp rats.

Conclusions?

Most stories end like Jent's and Wassak's, with the storyteller firmly convinced that he or she has experienced a near miss with a smart, unusually capable womp rat. The genius usually displays noticeable physical differences compared to normal womp rats, mainly in the front claws having somehow mutated into simple hands.

In fact, the detail of the hands is a recurring theme when people talk of brushes with genius womp rats. This fact crops up often enough in descriptions that it's likely that such a creature, if it exists, uses tools, although it's probably not capable of rigging all the traps and ambushes attributed to it.

Another feature heard repeatedly is that the genius womp rats often seem curious about pieces of technology left out. Few people ever listen to Jawas, but if someone did, he or she could hear repeated stories of assaults by womp rats that steal scrap machinery and run away with it.

Unlike Jawas, the genius womp rats don't seem to know what to do with machinery once they take it, but perhaps some are learning. A recent wrinkle in the genius story is that of the malfunctioning evaporator. Three different moisture farmers had personal accounts of going to check on malfunctioning evaporator equipment and being ambushed by a pack of womp rats when they arrived at the site. It could be coincidence, but the farmers don't seem to think so. It's more than a little telling that, considering how many womp rats get shot every year, none of the so-called genius womp rats have ever appeared in civilization. Even so, every year, a few more reports trickle in, suggesting that something is out there. But exactly what that something is remains to be seen.

Highly Evolved Womp Rat: Desert predator 1/fringer 1; Init +2 (+2 Dex); Defense 18 (+3 class, +3 natural, +2 Dex); Spd 10 m; VP/WP 8/19; Atk +3 melee (1d4+2, bite) or +3 melee (1d3+2, 2 claws) or +3 ranged; SQ manipulative digits; SV Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +1; SZ M; Face/Reach 2 m by 2 m/2 m; Str 15, Dex 15, Con 11, Int 7, Wis 11, Cha 10. Challenge Code B.

Skills: Climb +6, Hide +6, Intimidate +6, Jump +4, Listen +4, Spot +4, Survival +8.

Feats: Alertness, Headstrong, Track (bonus feat), Weapon Group Proficiencies (primitive, simple).

Special Qualities: Manipulative Digits -- The highly evolved womp rat's forepaws have developed into rudimentary hands.

Check out the final installment of this month's "Planet Hoppers" feature on the world of Ralltiir, and then dig into the archive for more!