Dungeon Master Forum

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Sight - Rat sight isn't great. Apparently they're colourblind and can't see red very well. I don't fancy the murafu being colourblind so they can see in full colour, at least when it's light. But their eyesight when it's light isn't really fantastic - they can see quite a way. Several metres clearly, I would imagine - they can leap quite a way, remember, like normal rats, so they'd need to see where they were leaping to. I would imagine that their long-distance vision doesn't quite match up to that of a human's. I'll just use human as the basis for comparison here, since they're the sort of "average" race. Murafu sight by night I would imagine to be worse than their daytime sight, of course, but not so much that they can't see a paw in front of their noses. Like cats and things, they can probably make quite good use of low light in order to see. Or you can nerf this a bit, for gaming purposes, and say that they're better at seeing things by moonlight than by torchlight (it's a different type of light, after all). Maybe they're used to looking out for moving shadows (potential predators), which by moonlight is easier because the light is still. Torchlight flickers all over the place, so they'd get nervous around it because no shadow stays in the same place for long. Although a murafu's sight isn't great, other senses make up for it so a blind murafu wouldn't be much worse off than one with sight - they'd probably just be worse at reacting to things coming at them quickly (unless said things made any noise).

Hearing - Murafu hearing is excellent. While their sight isn't amazing, their hearing is one of the senses that makes up for it. Although rats are omnivorous and can eat pretty much anything, they don't really hunt prey as such but are prey for plenty of other creatures so alertness and environmental sentsitivity are rather a necessity for them. The same is true of murafu. I would expect murafu ears to be pretty much the same as rat ears in terms of sensitivity. If there was a conversation going on in the next room of a building, where a human might only hear a mumble of voices, a murafu would probably hear it almost as clearly as if there was no wall (though might have to press an ear up to the wall to clearly distinguish every single word, especially if there was background noise). I imagine that a murafu could, indeed, hear a pin drop.

Smell - Another of the murafu's fine senses. Along with touch, murafu can use smell as a substitute for sight. They are capable of recognising an individual by their scent. To a murafu, each race has its own sort of smell - call it a blood smell if you like. A human who'd spent all his time living in caves and a human who'd spent his whole life in a forest would still both carry the basic human smell, detectable by a murafu. On top of that, there would be the specific smells of the individual. So the cave-dwelling human might smell of various minerals, fungus, etc and various creatures that he might have interacted with in his habitat, while the forest-dweller would have an obvious smell of plants and things. Even if there were two forest-dwelling humans who lived in exactly the same place, they'd still have an individual, personal smell which a murafu would be able to detect. If these two humans both passed along a path and then took different routes, the murafu would easily be able to find both scent trails. As the trails grew older, the scents might be harder to distinguish (the murafu would know a human had passed, and if familiar with both humans might know that it was one of the two, but may not be able to tell specifically which one as the personal scent is the quickest to fade). Some surfaces can retain a scent longer than others, and other scents can mix in and confuse the trail. But if a whole crowd of humans had passed along a path and a murafu was searching for a particular one, they might still be able to detect that person's scent for a while afterwards. The scent of one species among a host of many others (for example, a lone elf among a crowd of orcs) is much easier to distinguish, as then the murafu only has to concentrate on the race-smell, rather than going into the finer details of the personal scent. Things like plants are easier to smell, since it's never necessary to differ between two individuals of the same species of plant, and every plant species smells different so only the "race-smell" needs to be sniffed at. Inanimate objects can also carry their own scent. Wood, for example, has a smell, but different types of stone may be difficult to distinguish unless the murafu has spent much time around them - their noses are more attuned toward smells of life (or death) than toward inanimate objects. On a final note regarding this sense, smell is one of the more important social senses of a murafu - two murafu, on meeting, will brush their noses together, getting the scent and remembering it. Murafu will do this whether the fellow murafu is a stranger or not - it could be compared to a human handshake, or two dogs sniffing each other's rear ends. Murafu will also, of course, want to get the scent of other creature in the same way upon meeting them, but they know that getting so physically close to someone, particularly a stranger, tends to be frowned upon and reacted to with confusion, suspicion, sometimes even fear. The murafu don't really understand such behaviour to a friendly greeting, but accept that other races don't have the sensory abilties or social structures that they do, and resist instinct whenever they meet someone of another race.

Touch - Probably joint with smell as the most finely-tuned of senses. At least, when used through the whiskers. A murafu touching something by hand cannot get a good sense of what something is made of, or what it feels like - most of their tactile input comes through their whiskers, which are immeasurably more sensitive than human fingertips. A murafu can brush their whiskers against a surface and quickly find every little nook, every imperfection, every tiny little bump or crack. If a murafu were to blindfolded, handed an uknonwn object, and told to identify it, they would be able to do within seconds by simply giving it a whisker-whiff, provided they'd had contact with an object of that type before. Touch is also probably the most highly-regarded of all the senses when in a social context. When murafu meet, they will always sniff each other, learning a new scent or remembering an old one (depending, of course, on whether or not the other murafu is one they've met before), but after that they will happily touch each other. Murafu like to sit close whenever possible - eating, talking, especially sleeping. Murafu are happy to sleep in a similar way to rats - all together in one big comfortable heap. When one murafu detects a negative emotion (sadness, fear, etc) in another murafu, the instinct of both is to sit close together, not necessarily speaking but simply sharing contact and offering reassurance by simply being there. An unhappy murafu never turns away this contact, and the other murafu is happy to give it. Unlike other sentient races, murafu don't interact with their hands (forepaws) very much. Their heads are much more dominant when it comes to social interaction - little movements of the ears or whiskers can convey a great deal of information, and when interacting with other races, murafu take care to remember this, as they ensure they also remember the usual dislike of physical contact. It seems that when two members of another species rub up together (not like that...I mean with clothes on, tell your brain to stop being dirty :P), they are doing so because they wish to engage in mating behaviour. As such, attempts by murafu to perform physical reassurance on other species can sometimes be misinperpreted, as can attempting to sleep in their company. Travelling murafu are usually more content to come across a fellow murafu and cuddle up with them, because they each know that neither of them minds, and both of them prefer it.

Taste - Since I've covered the other four main senses, I might as well mention this one, thought there sin't much to add. As with humans, most information on the taste of food comes through the smell. If an unfamiliar food smells alright, a murafu will try it, but like rats they won't eat much - just a tiny nibble to begin with. If they've felt no ill effects after a while, they'll consider the food safe and will eventually eat some more of it. If they try and unfamiliar food and soon after find themselves feeling ill, they will thereafter avoid that particular food, and will also caution other murafu against eating it - this behaviour is more or less identical to that of rats, and is something of a necessity as, like rats, murafu can't vomit. Therefore any harmful substances they ingest can't be expelled and must run their course through the body, whatever effect they might then have. A murafu will always sniff any kind of food before eating it, even if it's familiar.