What are the rats and skulls for???

[Parzival]

My AH/Hasbro set (US 2021) included several rat and skull miniatures. I assumed that they had some sort of game function, but after running through that set’s quests, plus two and half of the Mythic tier quest books, I still haven’t found any mention of these things in either rule books or quest books. I also picked up the new First Light set, and found that the rat miniatures had been replaced by cardboard rat tokens. “Aha!” I thought. “If they bothered to do that, then the rats will pop up in the rules or the new quests!” Nope.

What the heck are these things for?!?

I’ve encountered mentions that the figurines appeared in the original game, and I’ve seen references to them just being “set decorations” you could put on top of furniture. Okaaay… yeah, you could do that, but why? To freak out players? Because it looks cool?

I’m fully prepared to accept that back in the day GW was starting its fascination with “skullz” and “ratz” and slapping them on everything they produced, but why did these end up in a Milton Bradley game?

I’m sure I could use the skulls as “hit” tokens— mark the monster minis with skulls as they are hit rather than the cardboard skulls on the backs of stone tiles— but what about the rats?

Do these ever pop up as having an in-game function in later expansions? I’ve got everything currently released, but I run through these things solo using the HQ Companion App before introducing them to players, so I don’t read the Quest Books until I’ve finished the run throughs. (So no spoilers— as simple “Yep. They pop up in [whatever].”)

[manaknight14]

Vintage HQ used them as decorative attachments that connected to furniture like cupboards and desks. I'm guessing Avalon Hill elected to include them to achieve "completeness" for a remake of an old product, but they don't generally serve any purpose in the base game. To date I have only seen one expansion actually do anything with these. Crypt of Perpetual Darkness does include something that calls for a rat miniature, but it happens in such a way that using the mini itself is completely unnecessary. I don't think I can say more than that without spoiling what it is.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

You could use the rats as a swarm type monster, see New EU monster idea: Vermin

[Onan]

Back in the day it was easy to put them on furniture, and you could easily exchange them. You wouldn't have 2 identical bookshelves. We all loved the rats and skulls.

In the new edition I didn't manage to glue them on in a reliable way. They fell off and were not used until someone invented a goblin merchant selling "chocolate rats" that allow you to recover 1 Body point each That goblin already made a fortune and keeps popping up once in a while.

[Kurgan]

Vintage HQ used them as decorative attachments that connected to furniture like cupboards and desks. I'm guessing Avalon Hill elected to include them to achieve "completeness" for a remake of an old product, but they don't generally serve any purpose in the base game. To date I have only seen one expansion actually do anything with these. Crypt of Perpetual Darkness does include something that calls for a rat miniature, but it happens in such a way that using the mini itself is completely unnecessary. I don't think I can say more than that without spoiling what it is.

Pretty much! Rat minis were also going to have a use in the ("lost") Wizard Quest pack.

Vintage ROTWL also came with extra skulls, I guess in case you lost any or just wanted to put decorative bone piles around...