History Main / SwarmOfRats

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* In ''Pinball/WHODunnit,'' each trip to the Sewers rewards a "Swarm of Rats" and 1,000,000 points.

* In ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', {{Room 101}} contains [[spoiler: for Winston Smith anyway]] a caged-apparatus that immobilises the body while letting rats crawl over every inch of skin. This proves frighteningly effective at carrying out [[DespairEventHorizon the room's ultimate purpose]], especially because [[spoiler:Winston is absolutely, utterly [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes terrified of rats]]]].
* The clan in ''Literature/TheAmazingMauriceAndHisEducatedRodents'' like to pretend to be this as a scam in a spoof of "Literature/ThePiedPiperOfHamelin". Then they come into contact with a real (mind-controlled) rat horde.
* When [[BalefulPolymorph David]] returns late in {{Literature/Animorphs}} it's just after rat swarms overtake Rachel and Cassie. David then claims that he's become a RatKing and can command them with his superior intelligence; but since this isn't a setting where rats have secret high intelligence, Rachel doesn't believe him and realizes the swarms were arranged and controlled by [[GreaterScopeVillain something else]].
* In ''Literature/AnitaBlakeVampireHunter'', you have the rodere, groups of giant wererats. As if that wasn't frightening enough, they can call regular rats to an extent to horde around them, and so can some vampires.
* In ''Literature/TheBoneCollector'', one of the victims is chained to a sewer pipe and left to be eaten by rats. Lincoln chews out his assistant for shooting one the rats off of the victim and thereby contaminating the crime scene.
* The short story "The Burial of the Rats" by Creator/BramStoker features a character recounting a tale where a bunch of hungry rats had cleaned a corpse clean from flesh, [[StrippedToTheBone leaving only bones behind]].
* In the ''Literature/FafhrdAndTheGrayMouser'' story "Ill Met in Lankhmar", sorcerer Hristomilo's {{familiar}} can summon a swarm of rats.
* In the last ''[[Literature/TheAnimalsOfFarthingWood Farthing Wood]]'' book, White Deer Park is colonized by rats. The initial settlers soon become a horde that threatens even the larger carnivores. Several characters are bitten to death by swarms of rats.

* Stephen Gilbert's ''Literature/RatmansNotebooks'' involves a reclusive young man who trains an army of rats to do his bidding. Adapted into two different films called ''Willard''.

* ''Literature/TheRatsInTheWalls'': Happened in the backstory, about 150 years or so before the story takes place. A few months after Walter De La Poer massacred his degenerate family and fled to America, an ''enormous'' swarm of rats erupted from Exham Priory and devoured everything in it's path, including crops, livestock and humans, further establishing Exham as a cursed and evil place. [[spoiler: With the De La Poer's dead, the rats had fed off the human cattle they had kept in their secret CannibalLarder beneath the priory and undergone a population explosion. Once their prey was depleted, they escaped the caverns and set upon the countryside.]]

* When [[BalefulPolymorph David]] returns late in {{Literature/Animorphs}} it's just after rat swarms overtake Rachel and Cassie. David then claims that he's become a RatKing and can command them with his superior intelligence, but since this isn't a setting where rats have secret high intelligence Rachel doesn't believe him and realizes the swarms were arranged and controlled by [[GreaterContextVillain something else]].

* PlayedForLaughs in the second ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' movie (''Nihao My Concubine''). The antagonist unleashes a load of rats to scare all the girls; of course Ranma gets all superior about this, saying [[GenderBender she]] isn't scared of little furry animals. The rats are then pursued by a herd of cats (which are Ranma's WeaksauceWeakness). HilarityEnsues.

** In ''Film/Ghostbusters2016'', one of the hauntings shown plaguing the city is a swarm of ''ghost'' rats that come flying out of a subway entrance.

* ''Film/{{Ladder 49}}'' had this. It wasn't a ''swarm'', though...more of a ''sea'', really...

* PlayedForLaughs in ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}'', where the rats swarm around the health inspector's car, then come back with him gagged and tied.

Rats and mice are perfect for the "huge swarm" treatment, since, as any exterminator will tell you, they tend [[ExplosiveBreeder to breed a lot. And really fast]]. Also, as omnivores, they can and will eat meat -- sometimes even if said meat is still alive -- and rats in particular have strong enough teeth to chew through metal. [[PlagueMaster And they spread diseases, too]].

->''"'The rat,' said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible audience, 'although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless.'"''

* The Creator/StephenKing short story ''Graveyard Shift'' (from the ''Literature/NightShift'' collection), as well as being an example of RodentsOfUnusualSize.
** Rats also appear in the novella '1922' from ''Literature/FullDarkNoStars''.

* ''Manga/InuYasha'': lesser {{youkai}} Zushinezumi carries around a zushi (a wooden container for buddhist scrolls) which spawns an endless horde of ravenous, one-eyes rats that devour everything in their path and multiplies if damaged. Hakudoshi unleashes them to wreak havoc in an entire valley in order to force Kikyo to come out.

* ''VideoGame/TwilightPrincess'' has ''invisible'' [[https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/zelda_gamepedia_en/thumb/a/a2/TP_Ghoul_Rat_Model.png/320px-TP_Ghoul_Rat_Model.png?version=c16611281a7ea3b83b9e61a789e90cd9 ghostly rat swarms]] in the Arbiter's Grounds. The only indication that they're on you is that you suddenly start moving slowly (and in wolf form, Midna gets all jittery). Use the wolf's senses and you'll suddenly see that you're covered in the things, though fortunately a good SpinAttack will clear them away.

* Used horrifyingly in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' episode "Gorillas in Our Midst", in which The Spectre turns a supervillain into cheese -- but leaves him alive and conscious -- and then releases a swarm of mutant rats to eat him alive.

See also CruelAndUnusualDeath, DevouredByTheHorde, and RodentsOfUnusualSize. A subtrope of TheSwarm and a sister trope of SpiderSwarm. Contrast with EvenTheRatsWontTouchIt, and with ReducedToRatburgers, an inversion. Usually overlaps with EekAMouse and YouDirtyRat, for added effect.

%% Image replaced per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1310297218036320100
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* The trilogy of novels ''Literature/TheRats'', ''Lair'' and ''Domain'' by Creator/JamesHerbert.
* The Creator/HPLovecraft story "Literature/TheRatsInTheWalls" has this occur in the backstory, where a huge swarm of rats came flowing out of the ruins of the De la Peur estate sometime after they had been massacred by their son, killing both livestock and people. [[spoiler: They came from the caverns underneath the estate, having already devoured all of the De La Peurs human "cattle"]]

* Horror writer Creator/JamesHerbert made his name with debut novel ''Literature/TheRats'', where London's rat population mutates into an intelligent hive-mind, grows to monstrous size, develops a taste for human flesh, and can transmit a terrible new plague into the bargain. London is soon taken over and the war of humans versus rats begins. ''The Rats'' spawned several sequels and plays on the oft-repeated assertion that in London you are never more than twenty feet away from a rat.
* Stephen Gilbert's ''Literature/RatmansNotebooks'' involves a reclusive young man who trains an army of rats to do his bidding. Adapted into two different films called ''Willard''.
* In the last ''[[Literature/TheAnimalsOfFarthingWood Farthing Wood]]'' book, White Deer Park is colonized by rats. The initial settlers soon become a horde that threatens even the larger carnivores. Several characters are bitten to death by swarms of rats.
* In ''Literature/RevelationSpace'', the Lighthugger ''Nostalgia for Infinity'' has janitor rats, bioengineered rodents that the ship uses for cleaning. After the ship gets taken over by Sun Stealer, he uses the ship's control over the rats to make a swarm that attacks the crew.
* In ''Literature/TheGirlFromTheMiraclesDistrict'', the Bestiar, who can command and talk with rats, is always surrounded by a moving swarm of them.
* Averted in ''{{Literature/Redwall}}'': While outnumbering the enemy is the most common strategy among villains, it's hardly limited to rats, and no mammalian species seems to follow the ExplosiveBreeder route, having children one at a time instead.
* ''Literature/TheRatsInTheWalls'': Happened in the backstory, about 150 years or so before the story takes place. A few months after Walter De La Poer massacred his degenerate family and fled to America, an ''enormous'' swarm of rats erupted from Exham Priory and devoured everything in it's path, including crops, livestock and humans, further establishing Exham as a cursed and evil place. [[spoiler: With the De La Poer's dead, the rats had fed off the human cattle they had kept in their secret CannibalLarder beneath the priory and undergone a population explosion. Once their prey was depleted, they escaped the caverns and set upon the countryside.]]

* ''Series/LittleHouseOnThePrairie'': The first season episode "Plague", where a swarm of rats has infected sacks of meal meant for human consumption, causing several of the townsfolk to fall seriously ill (some even die) with typhus.
* ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'': Referred to in the very first clue on the current (1984) incarnation of the show. The $100 clue in the category "Animals," the contestant, Greg, correctly replied "What are rats?" for the answer, "These rodents first got to America by stowing away on ships."

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Survivorman}}'', Les Stroud is stranded on a tropical island that is utterly overrun with hordes of ship rats, against which Stroud has to build a shelter. Of course, this being ''Survivorman'', he also ends up eating several of the rats.
* In a rare ''friendly'' example of a Swarm of Rats, an episode of ''Series/{{Hoarders}}'' featured a man who'd let his one male and two female pet rats escape from their cage, then didn't have the heart to stop feeding the resulting horde of offspring. By the time help arrived, he'd been forced out of his own house, which was completely overrun by more than 3000 drywall-gnawing, furniture-destroying rodents. Luckily, animal rescue shelters from all over the state were able to mobilize one of the biggest hoarding-recovery operations of all time, and all but a few severely-injured animals were shipped out to rat-lovers statewide.

* ''Series/{{Survivors}}'' (1975). The TwoPartEpisode "The Lights of London" had an AfterTheEnd community struggling to survive in a rat-infested London.

* Creator/{{Gottlieb}}'s ''Pinball/HauntedHouse'' is filled with large black rats.

* The 1937 short story "Three Skeleton Key", by George G. Toudouze, was adapted several times for the radio anthology series ''Escape'' and ''Suspense''. Creator/VincentPrice starred in two of these adaptations. The story features three French {{lighthouse|Point}} keepers who are trapped in their tower by a starving horde of rats.

* One episode of ''Radio/JohnFinnemoresSouvenirProgramme'' features an interview with a couple whose house is swarming with rats ... because they run a Rat Sanctuary. The husband is completely taken aback when the interviewer asks if the world ''needs'' a Rat Sanctuary, because that wasn't a question he'd ever considered before. The wife points out she's been saying this all along.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': Skaven Packmasters breed and command swarms of rats, and their Grey Seers even have spells that summon them.

* This is a staple trope of ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', which has cards like [[http://magiccards.info/m11/en/113.html Relentless Rats]], [[http://magiccards.info/arb/en/44.html Sanity Gnawers]], [[http://magiccards.info/dpa/en/31.html Ravenous Rats]], [[http://magiccards.info/mr/en/37.html Sewer Rats]], [[http://magiccards.info/fut/en/79.html Stronghold Rats]], [[http://magiccards.info/9e/en/166.html Swarm of Rats]], [[http://magiccards.info/mbs/en/55.html Septic Rats]], [[http://magiccards.info/shm/en/73.html Plague of Vermin]] and even [[http://magiccards.info/di/en/113.html Hellhole Rats]], which are ''[[IncendiaryExponent on fire]]''. They're associated with Black mana and festering disease, and tend to get bonuses for dealing damage or being in the presence of other rats. Relentless Rats is notable for being an exception to the normal "maximum four copies of a card in one deck" rule. You can have as many as like, and the more you have the stronger they get.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Dominion}}'': The "Rats" card has the effect of trashing one of your other cards and replacing it with a Rats card. If you're not careful, they can clog your deck and reduce your chances of drawing something more useful.

* ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' has cranium rats, which are rats that share a HiveMind with other cranium rats in close proximity and get smarter in higher numbers. With enough of them, they are capable of human (or superhuman) intelligence and even spellcasting if enough of them gather in one place - several areas of the game feature a ZergRush of rats coming at the player character, tossing balls of lightning. There is even [[spoiler:a huge collection of cranium rats that form a mysterious being known as Many-As-One, who acts as somewhat of a king of a rat kingdom]].
* One of the more gruesome deaths in ''VideoGame/FearEffect''. One Website/GameFAQs writer had listed this above Franchise/ResidentEvil and Franchise/SilentHill as the worst fate to befall a video game character.
* Swarms of rats are a common enemy in ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'', also being the carriers of a terrible plague that's gripping the game's setting. The protagonist can weaponize rats as well, by magically summoning them to either attack the enemy or to make a quick escape by possessing one of them while the others deal with enemies. The number of rat swarms you encounter is directly proportional to how many people you kill in the game, since corpses attract rats. If you're trying not to kill people, you'll also have to hide them from the rats after knocking them out.
* In ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'', one of Princess Kenny's abilities is Swarm of Rats, in which he summons a huge wave of rats to sic at his enemies (though it can backfire if he fails the prompt, causing them to devour him). Similarly, if he's defeated in combat, rats come by to rip his corpse apart, preventing him from being revived until two turns, after which he comes back by himself.
* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/LayersOfFear'' believes that his house is infested with rats. No one else can see them.

* One of these serves as a boss during a dungeon escape in ''VideoGame/{{Lunarosse}}.'' They're even more of a threat due to magic enhancement, but it leaves them WeakenedByTheLight.

* While young ursipedes in ''Webcomic/HereThereBeMonsters'' are not actually rats they're about the same size, and when Victor accidentally steps through the covering to a nest full of them their swarming out of it and up his leg invoke a swarm of rats quite well.

%%* Starfire's "demise" in ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' episode "Fear Itself".
* In the early seasons of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', Kenny's [[TheyKilledKennyAgain death of the week]] was often followed by rats swarming to the body to pick it clean.
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'':
** In one episode, Donatello accidentally creates an evil clone of himself who then joins forces with a mob boss and clones thousands of rats to take over New York City.
** Any episode involving the Rat King also tended to involve this, since he kept hundreds of rats as pets in his sewer home.
* Done to frightening effect in the ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'' episode "Plagued". Think a swarm of rats is bad? Try a swarm of rats [[DemonicPossession possessed]] by an [[AIIsACrapshoot evil computer program]]!
* Happens in the "Planet Radio" episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Superjail}}'', where a rat eats the vocal chords of an inmate and starts to talk and rule over other rats.

* In ''WesternAnimation/LuckyAndZorba'', the rats plan an uprising against the town's cats.
* An episode of ''Literature/TheLittles'' entitled "The Rats are Coming!" has such swarms of rats appearing throughout the town of Grand Valley on [[ItWasADarkAndStormyNight a dark and stormy night]], looking for shelter from the rain and light flooding. This especially is a threat to the Littles, due to their small mouse-like size.
* In ''WesternAnimation/CentralPark'', Season 1 "[[Recap/CentralParkS1E4GarbageBallet Garbage Ballet]]", when Cole tries to stop Paige from killing the rat in the basement, Paige drops her flashlight and the light reveals a swarm of rats eating their food and Paige and Cole run out of the basement in terror. But at the time, both of them are sick and it turns out that they both hallucinated the rats as Owen tells them he and the exterminator didn't find anything in the basement.

* PlayedForLaughs in the second ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' movie (''Nihao My Concubine''). The antagonist unleashes a load of rats to scare all the girls; of course Ranma gets all superior about this, saying [[GenderBender she]] isn't scared of little furry animals. The rats are then pursued by a herd of cats (which are Ranma's WeaksauceWeakness). HilarityEnsues.

* In one episode of ''Anime/SailorMoon'', Zoisite follows Luna and a cat named Rhett Butler (Hercules in the DIC dub) into the sewer. Worn out by the chase, he places his hand on the wall... only to realize it's ''moving''. What follows stirs up a literal wave of rats that is shown swallowing him up at one point.
* In one ''Manga/CryingFreeman'' story, Bugnug lies crippled in a sewer and a swarm of rats attacks her. She defends herself by ''[[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome killing the rats with her teeth]]''.

* Taken UpToEleven in the [[HorrorAnimeAndManga horror manga]] ''Manga/{{Region}}'', as a plague of starving rats swarms across the entire nation of Japan.
* ''Anime/YuGiOh'': Combined with RedEyesTakeWarning, a huge horde of rats is what is shown chasing the Kaiba Brothers in episode 174 of the [[FillerArc DOMA / Waking the Dragons Arc]]. You know things are bad when you have to flee a huge horde of possibly mind-controlled rats ''by car''.

* In Robert Southey's ballad "God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop", (1799, based on a 14th century legend) the evil Bishop Hatto is eaten alive by a giant army of rats.
-->''They have whetted their teeth against the stones,\\
And now they pick the Bishop's bones:\\
They gnaw'd the flesh from every limb,\\
For they were sent to do judgment on him!''

* ''The Shooting Star'' has ComicBook/{{Tintin}} hugging a lamppost to escape rats swarming through the streets.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Chlorophylle}}'', the black rats invade Val Tranquille (the Quiet Vale) after they've been chased away from an old mill.

* In ''ComicBook/BeastsOfBurden'', the sewer rats are usually encountered in swarms.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheHauntedWorldOfElSuperbeasto'' ends with thousands of rats coming out of a guy's arse (you read that right).

* Similarly in ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'', after the explosion in the Russian embassy, Bond and Tatania's escape route in the underground reservoir is diverted by a swarm of rats.

* ''[[Literature/RatmansNotebooks Willard]]'', after the title character befriends the rats in his basement and trains them so he can exact revenge on his boss. In the 2003 movie, the swarm of rats even consume a [[TheHunterBecomesTheHunted live cat]].

* ''Film/{{Ladder 49}}'' had this. It wasn't a ''swarm'', though...more of a ''sea'', really...
* ''Film/GhostbustersII'' averts this when the guys are down in the subway system.
-->'''Winston:''' Just shut up about the rats!
** In ''Film/Ghostbusters2016'', one of the hauntings shown plaguing the city is a swarm of ''ghost'' rats that come flying out of a subway entrance.
* The mutant rats in ''Film/DeadlyEyes'' move in one swarm around UsefulNotes/{{Toronto}}, attacking people after another. Once they make a move against a new subway tunnel, they receive a fiery death in a crowded space.
* Film/{{Garfield}} comes across a huge swarm of these in an alley while trying to find Odie. They plan on eating him, and when Garfield says that [[YouWontLikeHowITaste they wouldn't like him because he's too fat]], [[SubvertedTrope they say that fat's fine with them]]. He finally gets rid of them by promising his mouse friend (who had arrived on the scene) his favorite macadamia cookies, and the mouse shoos the rats away.
* ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''. The protagonists are having to change a tire on their vehicle in a darkened tunnel when a swarm of rats goes running up it--one man in particular is not happy as he's flat on his back under the cab at the time. Things go FromBadToWorse when they realise the rats are fleeing the Infected.
* ''Film/ThePitAndThePendulum1991'': As in Poe's [[Literature/ThePitAndThePendulum original story]], a swarm of rats overrun Antonio as he strapped under the PendulumOfDeath, and he is able to entice them into gnawing through his bonds.

* Some versions of the "Literature/DickWhittington" tale have a plague of rats, the ''{{Pantomime}}'' versions nearly always has one with the character of King Rat being the major BigBad.

* ''Literature/WarriorCats'': Rats serve as antagonists numerous times throughout the books, always attacking in huge swarms.
** Bluestar loses one of her lives to a horde of rats in the first book.
** In the Super Editions ''Firestar's Quest'' and ''[=SkyClan's Destiny=]'', a huge {{Hive Mind}}ed swarm of rats serves as a major antagonist. There are so many that when one character tells Firestar "you can't see the ground for all the rats", Firestar thinks he's exaggerating, but realizes when he goes to fight the rats himself that the cat was right.
** In ''Crookedstar's Promise'', a swarm of rats attacks a [=RiverClan=] patrol in a barn, killing [[spoiler:Hailstar]].
** ''Yellowfang's Secret'' has [=ShadowClan=] facing off against swarms of rats (one of their primary food sources) twice. The second time, [[spoiler:Foxheart]] is killed by two rats who jump on her as if they were trained.
* In ''Literature/TheJungle'', Stanislovas is eaten by rats after being locked in the lard factory he works in at night.

* The trilogy of novels ''Literature/TheRats'', ''Lair'' and ''Domain'' by Creator/JamesHerbert.
* Subverted in "Literature/ThePitAndThePendulum" by Creator/EdgarAllanPoe. The rats don't injure the hero (much, and anyway, what's a few rat bites when there's a heavy, razor-sharp pendulum about to cut you in two?), and in fact he uses them to escape his bonds.
* Subverted in ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe''. After Aslan is killed, mice descend on his body. But it turns out they're only chewing through his ropes.
* The Creator/HPLovecraft story "Literature/TheRatsInTheWalls" has this occur in the backstory, where a huge swarm of rats came flowing out of the ruins of the De la Peur estate sometime after they had been massacred by their son, killing both livestock and people. [[spoiler: They came from the caverns underneath the estate, having already devoured all of the De La Peurs human "cattle"]]
* In ''Literature/AnitaBlakeVampireHunter'', you have the rodere, groups of giant wererats. As if that wasn't frightening enough, they can call regular rats to an extent to horde around them, and so can some vampires.
* In ''[[Literature/GauntsGhosts Straight Silver]]'', Gaunt and a team of infiltrators are sneaking through an abandoned siege tunnel when an artillery bombardment starts. This sends a horde of rats straight through the team. While no one died, they still bemoaned their situation and all of them were bit multiple times.

* A novel-only sequel to ''Film/WarriorsOfVirtue'' had Tsun return to her home, an underground Lifespring facing a nasty rat infestation. Several times, she has to deal with the rodents being so thickly packed on the ground that there's hardly any place to step, and reacts to being bitten at least once.
* In ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', {{Room 101}} contains [[spoiler: for Winston Smith anyway]] a caged-apparatus that immobilises the body while letting rats crawl over every inch of skin. This proves frighteningly effective at carrying out [[DespairEventHorizon the room's ultimate purpose]], especially because [[spoiler:Winston is absolutely, utterly [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes terrified of rats]]]].
* In ''Literature/TheRunelords'', at one point the One True Master of Evil unleashes a horde of plague rats against human villages.
* In ''Literature/TheBoneCollector'', one of the victims is chained to a sewer pipe and left to be eaten by rats. Lincoln chews out his assistant for shooting one the rats off of the victim and thereby contaminating the crime scene.

* In ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'', a swarm of friendly rats help get the Cowardly Lion away from a field of sleep-inducing poppies. This would have been too difficult to replicate in the 1939 film version of course.
* In Valerie Martin's novel ''A Recent Martyr'', the main character, Emma, is on an outing to a public park near the river when she sees an army of dying rats being cleaned up (i.e., hidden) by city workers. This is foreshadowing for the epidemic of bubonic plague that occurs later in the story.

* In the Literature/FafhrdAndTheGrayMouser story Ill Met in Lankhmar, sorcerer Hristomilo's {{familiar}} can summon a swarm of rats.
* In ''Literature/TheLotusWar'' novel ''Stormdancer'', [[spoiler: the Royal Huntmaster]] calls up a swarm of rats in fight.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' has rules and stats for swarms of rats, including some exotic types such as skeletal rat swarms, corpse rat swarms, spectral swarms (incorporeal undead that typically result from careless fireball-flinging adventurers inflicting large amounts of collateral damage on the local rat population), cranium rat swarms (psychic rats!) that become more intelligent as more gather together, and moonrats (rats that become more or less intelligent depending on the phases of the moon). It is also part of the powers of a vampire to summon lower creatures, including swarm of rats. The Tamer of Beasts prestige class, from the book Masters of the Wild, has similar powers and is depicted in the artwork as controlling a massive army of rats.

Rodents are widely reviled, but not very threatening; after all, anyone can set a mousetrap. So how do writers make them a legitimate threat? By having a [[ZergRush very, very large swarm]] of them all at once! One rat isn't scary, but a [[DevouredByTheHorde huge wave of rats eating a victim alive]], [[DeathByAThousandCuts one bite at a time]]? Horrifying.

Rats and mice are perfect for the "huge swarm" treatment, since, as any exterminator will tell you, they tend [[ExplosiveBreeder to breed a lot. And really fast]]. Also, as omnivores, they can and will eat meat -- sometimes even if said meat is still alive -- and rats in particular have strong enough teeth to chew through metal.

->''"'The rat,' said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible audience, 'although a rodent, is [[SomewhereAMammalogistIsCrying carnivorous]]. You are aware of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless.'"''

* In one issue of ComicStrip/ThePhantom, set in Victorian London, this is the fate of the UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper inspired villain Hack Jack, who gets trapped in the sewers while fleeing the current Phantom, and is devoured by a horde of rats. His remains aren't found until weeks later.

See also CruelAndUnusualDeath, DevouredByTheHorde, and RodentsOfUnusualSize. A subtrope of TheSwarm and a sister trope of SpiderSwarm. Contrast with EvenTheRatsWontTouchIt, and with ReducedToRatburgers, an inversion. Usually overlaps with YouDirtyRat, for added effect.

See also CruelAndUnusualDeath, DevouredByTheHorde, and RodentsOfUnusualSize. A subtrope of TheSwarm and a sister trope of SpiderSwarm. Contrast with EvenTheRatsWontTouchIt, and with ReducedToRatburgers, an inversion. Usually overlaps with YouDirtyRat, for added ScareFactor.

See also CruelAndUnusualDeath, DevouredByTheHorde, and RodentsOfUnusualSize. A subtrope of TheSwarm and a sister trope of SpiderSwarm. Contrast with EvenTheRatsWontTouchIt, and with ReducedToRatburgers, an inversion. Not to be confused with YouDirtyRat.