Oblivion’s rats are now as ungainly as they are unclean, thanks to a mod from the creator DavaScript (opens in new tab) that imbues the game’s rodents with all the unbridled fury of the early 2000s internet. Cursing rats mod (opens in new tab) uses clips of an infamous (and longtime) Ventrilo user collapsing to turn their squeaks and shrieks into a barrage of inventive swear words. There is no reason for it to exist and we should all be very thankful that it exists.
The mod is scary effective. Hearing the rats of Oblivion – probably the weakest enemies in the whole game – threatening to tear off several of my appendages and find them new homes in other parts of my body really makes them a lot more intimidating than they usually are . It’s like being chased by a hundred four-legged versions of Malcolm Tucker (opens in new tab); I can’t think of anything more terrifying.
I refuse to believe there’s anyone old enough to read this website who doesn’t remember Ventrilo, but just in case: it was pretty much a Discord from the early 2000’s, making you with friends could voice chat while playing games like DotA (no, the other (opens in new tab)). It was forever etched in the annals of human memory by a Basshunter song (opens in new tab)for reasons anthropologists have been unable to explain, and now lives on in the form of this strange, wonderful mod.
The Ventrilo meltdown in question is attributed to a lucky pseudonymous user known as Miss Peggy, who has hopefully mellowed a bit in the years between then and now. Miss Peggy fell victim to a common Ventrilo prank at the time: someone used a Duke Nukem soundboard to work them up into an increasingly violent tizz, until it reached the point where they threatened Duke with physical violence. It was, to be honest, pretty immature, but it did deliver the incredible line, “Get off Vent or I’ll bend you,” so it’s impossible to say whether it was bad or not.
It’s not DavaScript’s only mod, but it’s probably the one most likely to take off. Most of the rest is things like Reduced flare radius (opens in new tab) and Death notifications (opens in new tab). I think there’s the Sounds of stool (opens in new tab) mod, but I refuse to try those for the sake of what’s left of my dignity.