Character/s/ concepts: "The White Rat"

[DataPacRat]

I recently recalled one of my earlier characters, a minor Egyptian spirit/deity, "Abbashon, the White Rat". Now, I'm thinking of using him as an inspiration not just for a single character, but for a whole series of them over the campaign's history. I have a few ideas, but would love to have a few more, and any suggestions to expand upon what I already have...

 

Original background: When Egypt was learning to store grain to bake bread, their greatest menace was the rats who ate the grain. Two spirits competed to become the deities to solve the problem - Bastet, the cat who ate the rats; and Abbashon, the /white/ rat, a good rat opposed to all the nasty evil rats. The two were briefly lovers, then bitter enemies, and eventually Abbashon was sealed away by her for a few millenia. Somewhere around 1895-1906, scientists started breeding white labrats to help them... which weakened the seals on Abbashon, allowing him to start influencing the world again...

 

 

1930's Pulp "White Rat": A hard-boiled noir detective in the style of the Shadow, the Spider, the Green Hornet, the Red Panda, the Gray Ghost, and so on. "Sure, I'm a rat. You know that and I know that. Everyone in this cesspit of a city has to be one just to survive. But unlike all those dirty, stinking, low-down rats who're always scrabbling on top of each other for a bigger hunk of cheese, /this/ rat has a /conscience/..."

 

1940s WWII White Rat: A guy wearing a white costume and a rat's head, like DC's Wildcat the fighter.

 

1950s Golden Age commie-buster White Rat: Update the fighter with a techno-suit, like Blue Beetle's.

 

1960s Silver Age mystical White Rat: Instead of wearing a suit, this hero has actually made contact with Abbashon and has rat-related magical abilities.

 

1970s Bronze Age fad-era White Rat: Gotta admit I'm kinda stumped for this one. Maybe a 'White Rat Society' that does general good works and which kids could send in coupons to join, sort of like a 'Junior Green Lantern League'.

 

1980s Iron Age gritty White Rat: Cashing in on the TMNT phenomenon, an actual white rat who's been granted intelligence and has to deal with being a rat living in a human world, ala the "Rats of NIMH" book and movie.

 

1990s Vertigo-style White Rat: Abbashon himself is now out and about, finds out what happens to the rest of the Egyptian pantheon, visits various afterlives, meets and/or merges with other supernatural rats (such as the Chinese Rat of the Zodiac, and Ganesh's pal, and the rat-kingdom established by the rats who survived Hamelin's pied piper, and Discworld's Death of Rats).

 

Cartoon sub-universe White Rat: Merging several of the other White Rats and never quite making it clear which one it really is, ala DC's "Teen Titans"' Robin.

 

Movie sub-universe White Rat: Hm.

 

Foreign Adaptation White Rats: The Japanese version has the ability to turn into a giant monster rat, the Indian version is associated with the Karni Mata temple of rats.

 

Millenium-era self-conscious White Rat: Spread thin by tie-ins and crossovers and universe resets, even /he/ isn't really sure what he's supposed to be or how many of him there are anymore.

 

21st Century cyberpunk future White Rat: A member of a species of genetically engineered sapient animal slaves. Or maybe a hivemind created from the individual processors of a line of robot rats.

 

30th Century sci-fi future White Rat: A generic super-alien in the shape of a man-sized rat. Or a hivemind species of rats.

 

 

 

(Partial inspiration also from 'other versions of the Crimson Chin' at http://www.answers.com/topic/crimson-chin )