Urchin Rabbles
Urchins almost always gather in communities in large groups. They do not live alone in single family units: on a farm, for example. Generally they live within larger communities of the big folk, among human towns and cities. A community of Urchins is called a rabble.
Often unbeknownst to their hosts, a rabble can be much larger than they think. The urchins can me multiple, even up to ten times how many the big folk in a town or city think lives among them.
It is said that the term rabble-rouser came from the urchin communities, from “don’t arouse a rabble of urchins.”
The city of Gaithewaite has the largest known rabble of urchins in Taluma. Some claim that the urchins number nearly half as many as the humans of the city.
Legends say that the Gaithewaite rabble is the of the oldest in Taluma, and is in fact the very origin of the urchin people. The humans of Gaithewaite tell a tale about when the city was called Gaddahy, before the Orcstrife, in the venerable days when the Skaan people ruled the western shores of Taluma alone as the kingdom of Grendlskaan. Gaddahy was, as Gaithewaite is now, a prosperous port city of the Skaan humans. The Lokk people to the north coveted the protected haven and attacked many times over centuries from sea and land. On one occasion, the Lokk were at the walls of Gaddahy and were close to breaching its gates. Desperate for a solution, a holy man named Koshuusk came to the realization that there was an army around them, everywhere in the city, if only he could find a way to use them - the pests that inhabit every city: the rats and mice and pigeons. Calling upon the luminaeries, their patrons gods, he asked them to turn the scourges of the city into warriors for the battle against the Lokk. The gods answered: turning the thousands of rodents and birds on Gaddahy into the urchins. Despite their small size, the sheer numbers of urchins that appeared that day helped turn the tide against the Lokk and turn them back for the last time. The legend seems to explain why the urchins have many characteristics of rodents and birds from appearance to temperament and practices - being purportedly derived from those beasts.
Because of this miracle, Koshuusk was as beatified as an Exemplar of Luminism, and there is a park named after him with a statue in Gaithewaite city. Additionally, it has given the urchins a place in the history of the city and helps them be accepted - no matter how frustrating they may become to the other citizens - as important members of the community and there will always be a place for them in the Gaithewaite.
