Death Burst. When the rat dies, it explodes in a burst of fiery poisonous gas. Each creature that isn't a torment rat within 5 feet of it must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw, taking 10 (3d6) fire damage and 13 (3d8) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Fiendish Might. The rat counts as one size larger when determining its carrying capacity and the weight it can push, drag, or lift.
Keen Smell. The rat has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.
Pack Tactics. The rat has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of the rat's allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn't incapacitated.
Smell Fear. The rat can detect the presence of frightened or surprised creatures up to 5 miles away. It knows the general direction they're in but not their exact locations, and the rat has advantage on attack rolls against such creatures. This trait can't detect celestials, constructs, fiends, or undead.
Bestial Subtype. This creature is bestial, meaning the spells animal messenger, beast bond, beast sense, locate animals or plants, and speak with animals affect the creature as if it were a beast.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 1 piercing damage plus 3 (1d6) fire damage and 4 (1d8) poison damage. If the attack's damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, the target is stable but poisoned for 1 hour, even after regaining hit points. While poisoned in this way, it is frightened and paralyzed, and it can't be unconscious.
Description
The rodent-like fiends called torment rats are native to the plane of Hades, but they have long ago spread to not only all of the Lower Planes, but to the Shadowfell and the Material Plane as well, where they survive in sewers and caverns that have been forgotten by civilization.
Hungry Cannibals. Torment rats are wildly hungry at almost all times, but they rarely compete with each other for food. They happily attack larger creatures as a swarm, eating their prey as a group. When starving, however, the rats will eagerly attack and eat each other, consuming each others' fiendish flesh without regard for the fiery poison that pulses in their brethren's veins.
Fear Seekers. Torment rats have the supernatural ability to smell fear itself, and they use this trait to hunt down the most vulnerable of nearby prey. The rats can also taste fear; in fact, there is no taste that they relish more than fear. Torment rats are named for their love of torturing their prey, slowly eating the creatures alive as their searing and poisonous saliva leaves the prey both paralyzed and unable to pass out. The rats will drag off any prey they have paralyzed to eat in the darkness.
Devils, demons, and yugoloths are not the only creatures native to the lower planes. All manner of wild beasts live as fiends among the lower planes. Some of them, such as the canine hell hounds and the equine nightmares, are well known to adventurers, while others are more enigmatic. The following fiends are native to the lower planes but live like wild, feral beasts.
Sometimes, these fiends can be summoned into the Material Plane or other planes. In rare cases, a group of wild fiends can find suitable environments to reproduce in another plane, and a small population may begin to live there, such as in a hellish volcano, poisonous jungle, frozen wasteland, or death-choked hollow.
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