Skaven
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the Finnish musician, see Peter Hajba.
The Skaven are a race of humanoid rat-like creatures in Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy setting. They live in a series of overpopulated tunnels beneath the surface of the world, plotting for the day when they will rise up and overrun the surface realms. Humans remain mostly ignorant of the Skaven, a state of affairs which the ratmen take great effort to maintain. Those who do know of their existence tend to mistakenly classify them as merely a sub-breed of Beastmen rather than as a unique race.
Contents |
[edit] Skaven in Games Workshop products
Skaven were introduced for Warhammer Fantasy Battle in the Spring 1986 issue of the Citadel Journal, billed as "a new Chaos race". The Skaven background was by the renowned scultptor Jes Goodwin who was also repsonsible for the 1986 Skaven range of Citadel miniatures . The elements he produced, including the Clan structure, the Council of Thirteen, the Grey Seers, the Horned Rat, and so on remain to the present day. The miniatures proved very popular, and the range was expanded by Goodwin over the next few years.
Skaven formed the core opponents of Games Workshop's popular Advanced Heroquest adventure game, released in 1990.
[edit] Skaven in print
Skaven feature heavily in Bill King's "Gotrek and Felix" novels. One of King's best-loved characters, the cunning but cowardly Thanquol, became integrated into the game background and received his own Jes Goodwin–sculpted miniature in 1994.
The Black Library produced a background book on the Skaven titled The Loathsome Ratmen and All Their Vile Kin.
Roysten Crow, an author of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay material, also explored the Skaven in great detail in the fan fiction novel Warpspawn. The novel was written from a Skaven perspective and portrayed the species as the Warhammer world originally depicted them: highly complex, ultra-Machiavellian, and riddled with internal conflict. Warpspawn contains most of the information available in the first-edition Skaven army books; material that has not been incorporated in later editions. More recently, Black Industries have released Children of the Horned Rat, a racial sourcebook for the Skaven for the second edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
[edit] Inspirations
The idea of the Skaven race may have come from a series of novels by Fritz Leiber, a famous pulp fiction novelist. The Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories involve a race of intelligent rats who live under the cities of men, led by a council of thirteen rat sorcerers who attempt by covert means to take over a large cosmopolitan city that bears a passing resemblance to Altdorf.
Rumours that the name 'Skaven' comes from 'Here's Kevin', a catchphrase of the British children's TV puppet, Roland Rat, have not been confirmed, but still the story persists.
[edit] Skaven in Warhammer
The background and character of the Skaven race in the Warhammer setting has been developed by various authors since their introduction in 1986. The most significant additions were made by Andy Chambers in the army list for the fourth edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
[edit] History
Long ago, before the founding of the Empire, a great city was built in the place now known as the Blighted Marshes. Men lived above ground and a great dwarven city was also built below the ground. Men and Dwarves lived in harmony for many years.
One year a council of the wisest men and dwarves of the city decided to build a great tower in honour of their gods. The tower was to touch the sky and pierce Heaven itself; it would be the greatest building man or dwarf had ever created. So construction of the tower was duly started. Men and dwarfs worked on it for years; years turned into decades, and generations passed with the builders passing their great task on to their sons. After almost one hundred years of construction, the tower was nowhere near finished. One day a hooded man apeared at the gates of the city. The stranger conversed at length with the council and offered to help them finish the tower within a week as long as he could add a small part of his own design to the massive construction. The council agreed.
Sure enough, the tower was finished by the end of the week. The townsfolk crowded round, gazing in awe at the giant wonder. When the council inquired what the stranger had added, he replied that he had added a huge bronze bell to the very top of the tower. The stranger demanded payment for his work, but the council refused — there had been no mention of payment in their deal. The stranger warned that if he did not receive his payment by midnight the next day the bell would ring thirteen times and a terrible curse would be placed upon the city. The council laughed at this statement and had him thrown out of the city.
On the stroke of midnight the following night, the bell at the top of the tower began to chime. It was a terrible sound that would wake the dead; all the townsfolk came out of their houses to stare. Several men went mad with the sound. The bell struck thirteen times and then stopped abruptly. The stranger appeared at the top of the tower, appearing like a tiny speck on its surface.
The next morning, rats began to swarm around the city, eating people's food and causing a nuisance. On the second day foul warpstone began to rain down upon the city. The city's crops were ruined and the rats began to mutate and grow fat under the influence of the foul substance. On the third day rats began to gather in groups and attack humans, dragging the weak or young off to devour them. Food was in short supply and the citizens began to worry.
On the fourth day warpstone continued to rain down upon he town and the dwarfs, growing wary, retreated to their underground city to ride out the danger. They entered through the gates that morning, magically sealing them behind them. No dwarf left the tunnels alive.
On the fifth day the rats became clever; several began to walk on two paws and managed to start simple communication. Many of them roamed the streets devouring corpses and sometimes — if they were bold — entering houses and slaughtering their inhabitants.
On the sixth and last day the bell tolled a final thirteen times. All humans and dwarves within the city were dead or dying. The city belonged to the rat men, and Skavenblight, capital of the Skaven Empire, was born.
See also: Tower of Babel, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Moria (Middle-earth)
[edit] Appearance and culture
A skaven is essentially a crossbreed of a rat and a man - in that they are in appearance large bipedal rats with intelligence sufficient to use weapons, make tools, and converse in a developed language). Most skaven stand four to five feet tall and have brown fur (which darkens as their strength grows), although this can vary. White and grey-furred rats are prized among Skaven litters, as grey and white-furred skaven often become grey seers and black-furs often become the elite troops of an army (Stormvermin). Most skaven have luminous eyes and long tails. Skaven with black fur are usually stronger and taller than other skaven and make up a substantial part of Skaven armies. Albino skaven are rare but not unheard of. An average skaven has a lifespan of about 20 years but higher members of the Skaven society can live much longer (possibley owing to their access to life prolonging drugs/magic or the effects of warpstone)
Male skaven are workers and warriors. Females are docile and barely intelligent, and spend much of their lives hidden away in the nest to breed. Female skaven typically produce three to five litters a year, each containing 20 or so young.
[edit] Council
The council sits at a long table with the seats at top and bottom empty. The top seat is the symbolic seat of the Horned Rat. Therefore, the most powerful members sit to the left and right of the Horned Rat and share equal power. Each member is the equal of whomever sits opposite him. The council are constantly shifting allegiances, backstabbing, cheating, lying, and hiring assassins to kill each other — much to the amusement of the Horned Rat. It is often noted how if the skaven organized themselves properly they could probably rule the world, but they are far too paranoid and sly to ever band together properly. Each member of the council is open to replacement at any time. The applicant must simply challenge his rival to a fight to the death; if he wins, he takes the place of the loser on the council.
The current Lords of Decay have been in their seats for over 200 years. The current Council members include:
- Lord Kritislik (Seerlord)
- Lord Morskittar (Lord-Warlock of Clan Skryre)
- Nurglitch (Arch-Plaguelord of Clan Pestilens)
- Kratch Doomclaw (Clan Rictus)
- Warlord Gnawdwell (Clan Mors)
- Lord Sneek (Nightlord of Clan Eshin)
- Lord Verminkin (Packlord of Clan Moulder)
- Lord Paskrit ("Warlord-General of all Skavendom")
Kritislik occupies seat number 1 on the Council, Morskittar seat 12 — hence these two are the most powerful of the Lords of Decay. Verminkin occupies seat 9 and Paskrit seat 4. The current Plaguelord Nurglitch is the seventh to bear the name; the first Nurglitch originally brought Clan Pestilens to prominence by defeating Lord Vask for a place on the Council of Thirteen.
Below the council are the Grey Seers, prophets of the Horned Rat and powerful sorcerers. Grey Seers have prophetic powers and are usually grey-furred; hence the name. Grey Seers are often physically weak and make up for this in cunning, guile, and the use of magic. Most other skaven fear and hate grey seers in equal measure. The most feared symbol of the Seers is the "Screaming Bell", a massive, horned bell mounted on a carriage and pushed into battle, the daemonic chimes enthusing the skaven hordes.
The rest of skaven society is organised into innumerable clans. Four clans are traditionally more powerful than the rest: Clan Pestilens, Clan Moulder, Clan Eshin, and Clan Skyre. These four are collectively known as the Great Clans.
[edit] Clan Moulder
Clan Moulder is based in the far north, where Master Moulders use warpstone in a mad combination of alchemy and genetic engineering to breed all sorts of monstrous beasts for war. They are a very wealthy clan, and rent out their beasts for other Skaven to use in battle. Their most common war-beasts are the wolf-sized Giant Rats and the enormous Rat Ogres, anthropoid vermin four times the size of a man whose massive, filthy claws can take down even a heavily armoured knight. Their lair, known as "Hell Pit" greatly resembles hell from Dante's Inferno, consisting of nine levels of laboratories, barracks, a giant colosseum hanging from chains and a level where their most powerful creatures are kept in pitch darkness.
[edit] Clan Pestilens
Clan Pestilens is based in the southern part of the world, and has been the cause for both of the two Skaven civil wars. They were considered lost in the jungles of Lustria, but when they resurfaced, they were changed. They had become completely devoted to the Skaven god, the Horned Rat, in his aspect as the Bringer of Disease. They are immune to most diseases and use the very plagues they worship as deadly biological weapons against the other races. Due to their diseased bulk, their plague monk troops are extremely tough, and deliriously fanatical in combat. They also use rats infected with various foul contagions, and the deadly plague censers, flails laden with burning warpstone, that emit lethal poison gas.
[edit] Clan Eshin
Clan Eshin was also considered lost for a long time, having travelled to the far Eastern lands of Nippon and Cathay. When they returned, they had changed as well. They were now stealthy assassins, skilled in the art of the silent kill. They are feared throughout the Skaven Kingdoms as the long arm of the law. Their prices are exorbitant, but their results are unmatched. They played a large role during the Storm of Chaos. They field Night Runners, cheap expendable units of skirmishers. Those that survive go on to learn the skills to become the veteran Gutter Runners who do the same with far more skill and efficiency. If they survive for much longer then the very best become the elite and incredibly deadly assassins unparalled in the entire Old World (save for possibly those of the Dark Elves).
[edit] Clan Skryre
Currently, the most powerful Clan is Clan Skryre. These Skaven have devoted themselves to the study of magic and blending it with insane science and engineering. Thus far, their engineers have created many deadly machinations, ranging from the Ratling Gun (a warpstone-based Gatling gun with an obvious pun on rat), the Warpfire thrower (a warpstone - based flamethrower), the Jezzail (a massive warpstone rifle which has to be carried by two skaven), the Globadiers (grenadiers who fling glass spheres filled with noxious gas), to the fearsome Warp-Lightning Cannon. They also employ Warlock Engineers, who harness the winds of magic to project deadly arcs of Warp Lightning. In ealier versions of the game, there was a Skyre machine known as the "Doomwheel", something like a hamsters exercise wheel crossed with a chariot. This was replaced by the Warp-Lightning Cannon in the sixth edition rulebook(however rules for the wheel were recently released, but can only be used with consent from the opponent).
This clan was also responsible for the creation of the infamous "Doom Hemisphere" - a device much akin to an atomic bomb, which was placed underneath the Empire's city of Middenheim. The intention of the device was to destroy and mutate the entire city and mountain that it was situated upon, but when the time to detonate the device came, it only partially went off. This killed countless Skaven and men who were in the tunnels at the time, and completely changed the tunnels as well, but more or less left the city unchanged. The Doom Hemisphere is resputed to still be dormant, waiting for someone to fully activate it and destroy the city.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Games Workshop.com Skaven
- Skavenlair - Skaven community
- Underempire.net - Skaven community
- Children of the Horned RatThe official source book for the Skaven for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, from Black Industries.
| Warhammer Fantasy | |
|---|---|
| Major Games: | Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warmaster, Mordheim, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Man O' War |
| Nations and races: | Bretonnia, Chaos, Chaos Dwarfs, Dark Elves, Dogs of War, Dwarfs, The Empire, High Elves, Lizardmen, Ogres, Orcs and Goblins, Skaven, Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts, Wood Elves |
| Places: | The Old World, Araby, Cathay, Lustria, Ulthuan, Southlands |
| "People" | List of major Warhammer characters |
| More | Warhammer Fantasy creatures, Warhammer Fantasy deities |
