Gotrek and Felix are a pair of characters in the Warhammer Fantasy setting, appearing in a series of novels written primarily by William King, secondarily by Nathan Long.
The novels chronicle the adventures of a Dwarfen Slayer named Gotrek Gurnisson and his poet/insurrectionist companion, Felix Jaeger. As a Slayer, Gotrek seeks a glorious death in battle to atone for his unknown sins. Felix, bound to him by a Dwarven blood-oath sworn after a drinking binge, is tasked with writing and recording his heroic exploits and ultimately his death. Felix, however, has long since come to adopt the opinion that "anything capable of killing The Slayer would finish me off shortly afterwards". Together they have rid the Old World of trolls, skaven, beastmen, orcs, mutants, dark elves, goblins, chaos worshippers and other monsters beyond count, on several occasions they have also destroyed other much more powerful beasts such as dragons, giants, vampires and daemons, but seem doomed never to be recognized for their heroic achievements.
As well as appearing in the novels they have also been incorporated into the Warhammer Fantasy Battle game appearing initially as hero characters for the Dwarf army and then later in the Dogs of War army book.
They also appear in the MMO Warhammer online at the Screaming Cat bar on the docks in Altdorf.
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Gotrek Gurnisson is the greatest (or worst, depending on the viewpoint) Dwarven Slayer ever to have lived. In a vision of the Slayer's past seen by Arek Demonclaw, it is shown that after returning from his first incursion into the Chaos Wastes, Gotrek found his wife and children dead. The vision then shows Gotrek in the court of an unnamed dwarf lord, and Gotrek arguing with the said lord. Afterward the dwarf lord sentences Gotrek to an unnamed fate, at which Gotrek kills the Lord and his bodyguard and all others that do not flee. Wracked with guilt and shame, Gotrek shaved his hair, becoming a Slayer. Like all Slayers, Gotrek shaved his crimson hair into what usually is a crescent shaped mohawk. He drinks ridiculous amounts of ale whenever he gets a chance. He is described as broader than he is tall, heavily muscled, and wears a patch to cover an eye which he lost in battle with Orcs and Goblins. He wields a battleaxe imbued with powerful rune magic, having gained this weapon during his first excursion into the northern Chaos Wastes, where he recovered it from the dead son of King Thangrim Firebeard. Gotrek's axe is as powerful as that wielded by the dwarven High King, Thorgrim Grudgebearer. This weapon was the Runemaster's Axe of the lost dwarven fortress of Karag Dum, and supposedly previously belonged to the dwarven deity Grimnir. The elven mage Teclis once read the magical aura of Gotrek, and determined that immense power is flowing from the axe and slowly changing The Slayer into something greater than an ordinary dwarf - having already been proved in the previous eight books when all the creatures Gotrek has killed are considered. He is also far stronger than the average dwarf and is able to perceive secret passageways in seemingly impenetrable tunnel walls. He is seemingly impossible to kill, having survived, among other things, a single combat with a Bloodthirster of Khorne, being hit by a stone hurled by a trebuchet, being catapulted into an orc ship and falling three hundred feet off a cliff.
Felix Jaeger is Gotrek's reluctant companion and "Rememberer." The black sheep of a rich mercantile family, he was initially a poet but was expelled from university after accidentally killing a student in a duel. After Gotrek saved Felix from being killed in the Window Tax Riots in Altdorf, Felix, in a drunken stupor, swore a blood-oath to record Gotrek's doom so that his honor could be maintained and to let him be remembered by the world. A blood-oath was the gravest one a dwarf could make, and so Felix was compelled to travel with Gotrek. Felix is a human with a swordman's physique and long blond hair, who favors a chain shirt and red cloak. Over years of following Gotrek, Felix has become an accomplished swordsman and duelist. His own weapon is the rune sword Karaghul, a blade with a dragon hilt recovered from the fallen hold of Karak Eight Peaks. A relic of the Knights of the Order of the Fiery Heart, it was forged for the purpose of slaying dragons. As shown in Dragonslayer, it grants him a shield from a dragon's fiery breath, as well as providing a powerful confidence when facing such a creature. As the decades pass, old acquaintances comment that Felix has not aged a day. First shrugged off as niceties, this soon becomes fact when, in Elfslayer, Max Schreiber verifies that Felix has indeed become immortal, or as close as to make no difference. Upon self-inspection, Felix also discovers that many of his old scars and wounds have vanished from his body. Max attributes this immortal state to various causes, from both Felix's and Gotrek's magical weapons, to some force encountered during their sojourn in the Chaos Wastes, to his passing through the wormhole in Sylvania. Many of his diaries concerning his and Gotrek's adventures have been published by his brother, Otto. The outlandishness and impossibility of the tales in question have brought most of its readers, including Otto, to believe it to be pure fiction. The stance on their tales may be a jab at the rules of the game as no character no matter the status would be able to do the deeds that Gotrek and Felix manage.
Ulrika Magdova is a vampire, formerly Kislevite noble and Felix's former love interest. She was daughter to Ivan Straghov, March Warden of the Border, which was the first defense against the Chaos Marshes in the north. While still human, she was a notable swordswoman and beauty, attracting the attentions of both Felix Jaeger and Max Schreiber during the expedition to Karag Dum. Felix won. However, due to differences in background, they began to split after the Battle of Praag, and their division compounded when Ulrika was turned into one of the bloodsucking undead by Adolphus Krieger in Sylvania. Her transformation is one of the reasons why Felix stayed out of the Old World for two decades. She returned in Manslayer, seemingly wanting to patch things up with Felix, but once again their differences (now predator and prey) prevented a complete make-up and she abandoned Felix and Gotrek to fight fellow vampires, forced to abide her "mother's" command to kill them. Ulrika also now has her own book series (which seem to chronicle her adventures between her last appearance in Vampireslayer and return in Manslayer), beginning with Bloodborn and continuing with Bloodforged.
Maximillian "Max" Schreiber is an Imperial wizard, first encountered by Felix and Gotrek in Middenheim aboard the Spirit of Grungni. Max swiftly established himself as a powerful ally, and a bitter rival with Felix for Ulrika's affections. Max is an avid scholar into the powers of Chaos, having lost his family to beastmen as a child, and has made it his mission in life to destroy Chaos wherever he found it: however, he was expelled from the Imperial College of Magic for displaying too great an interest in the subject. However, Max's knowledge proves invaluable as the group find themselves in battle with the forces of Chaos. Specifically, he is a wizard of the Light College and uses the Wind of Hysh.
Borek Forkbeard is an ancient dwarf who is near 500 years old, he was originally of the hold of Karag Dum where he and a group of other dwarfs escaped just before the siege of Karag Dum to bring aid. He funded the first attempted rescue mission into the Chaos Wastes in armored dwarf ground vehicles in which he, Snorri and Gotrek were the only survivors. His second (and successful attempt) was to fly over the waste in an airship built by Malakai Makaisson.
Malakai Makaisson is a dwarf Slayer and mad genius engineer. The creator of the Spirit Of Grungi, the great (and only) airship that carried the fateful expedition to Karag Dum, he has a peculiar accent similar to real world Scottish. One of Gotrek's and Felix's staunchest allies, he has helped them several times when no one else would. He is also the only known remaining living being, besides Snorri, Borek, and Gotrek and Felix, to have the traversed the Chaos Marches and returned alive, sanity intact.
Snorri Nosebiter is another Dwarf Slayer and an old friend of Gotrek. Snorri is portrayed as being courageous, but incredibly stupid. However, he doesn't let this, and the numerous jokes Gotrek and other Slayers make about his stupidity, bother him. He is one of the few Dwarfs to treat Felix with a great deal of respect, partly because of his connection to Gotrek, and as a result of the things he has seen Felix do. His most notable feature is his crest: instead of a mohawk of hair, Snorri has a row of bright red nails hammered into his skull to make his crest. By the time of Shamanslayer, Snorri has lost much of his vitality and appears to be suffering dementia, having forgotten much of his past, including the reason he became a Slayer (one of the greatest blasphemies in Dwarven society). Snorri seeks to make a pilgrimage to a shrine of the Dwarf gods and ask for his memory back. He also suffered another major loss, losing most of his right leg to a Minotaur's axe.
Rodi Balkisson is another Dwarf Slayer, whom the pair encounter in Shamanslayer. Rodi, along with Snorri and another Slayer called Argrin Crownforger, had been travelling across the Empire since the Storm of Chaos, looking for their dooms. Rodi, being younger than most Slayers, got on Gotrek's nerves quite a great deal, as Rodi often made blunt and unsubtle comments about Gotrek's inability to find his doom after nearly twenty years (a subject Gotrek is exceptionally touchy on). After surviving the battle with the beastmen and retreating from the zombie onslaught to Castle Reikguard, Rodi played an instrumental part in the castle's defence, but in the final undead attack, Rodi elected to stay outside the walls, bluntly telling Gotrek that he believed the older Slayer cursed; none near him would die, and Rodi didn't want to be afflicted with that curse. Rodi met his death fighting to the end against the undead champion Krell; later, when Gotrek and Felix returned with the Reikland army to stop Kemmler's ritual, they discovered that the necromancer had raised Rodi as an undead slave. Showing respect to the young Slayer for the first time, Gotrek killed Rodi to free him.
Kat (full name Katerina) is a young woman who serves as Felix's current love interest. Gotrek and Felix first encountered her in Trollslayer when she was a little girl, the only survivor of a beastmen attack led by a female Chaos Champion. As the story unfolded, it turned out Kat was the Chaos Champion's daughter (the woman having been raped in her youth), who sought to murder the child and become a Daemon Prince, but the champion was killed by Kat, who stabbed her in the back with her own sword as the woman tried to kill Felix. After the battle, Kat begged Gotrek and Felix to let her go with them, but the pair refused, knowing a child wouldn't be safe travelling with them, and left her in the care of a woodsman and his family. However, they encountered Kat again in Shamanslayer many years later, now a woman in her late twenties and a deadly warrior, driven to kill all beastmen to avenge the murder of her adopted family. As they journeyed together, Felix and Kat began to feel affection for each other; while Felix initially had misgivings about falling in love with a woman half his age, whom he'd known as a child, after rescuing Kat from bandits who'd abducted her, Felix accepted what he felt, and the pair became lovers. They survived the battle against the beastmen and Heinrich Kemmler's zombie horde, though Kat was left behind accidentally as they tried to flee Castle Reikguard, and only just managed to avoid death by starvation before the Reikland army arrived, though she still had enough strength to assist in the final battle, distracting Kemmler long enough for Gotrek to reach him.
Grey Seer Thanquol is one of the most recurrent enemies of Gotrek and Felix, a rarity in that he has encountered the pair more than once and lived to tell the tale. A Skaven Grey Seer of great power, Thanquol conspires to achieve a position on the Council of Thirteen and to bring about the day when the armies of the Skaven, led by him, will conquer the surface world in the name of the Great Horned Rat. Thanquol first came to prominence when he took command of the armies of the Skaven Clan Skab (after his predecessor, Warlord Vermak Skab perished in a 'tragic accident' involving a loaded crossbow and an exploding donkey) and used them for his own ends. He came close to his goal in the novel Skavenslayer, nearly conquering the city of Nuln, but the constant intervention of Gotrek and Felix thwarted his plans, forcing him to flee. Every time they encounter one another, Thanquol's (self-proclaimed) ingenious schemes are either confounded (as Thanquol paranoidly believes) by the incompetence of his lackeys or utterly destroyed by Gotrek and Felix (or both); as a result, Thanquol has lost much power and prestige in the Skaven Under-Empire. Thanquol has vowed to one day find and kill the pair for the many indignities they have brought on him, along with the loss of his health, sanity and his right hand which was chopped off by Gotrek's Axe in Thanquol's last encounter with the pair. Likewise, Gotrek and Felix have vowed revenge on Thanquol when they next meet, especially Felix as Thanquol was responsible for the death of Felix's father. Thanquol like Gotrek and Felix is a proven survivor, though unlike Gotrek and Felix who survive on skill, bravery and honor, Thanquol survives mainly due to his cowardice and his willingness to put others in the line of fire. It is proven fact that most Skaven armies or forces led by Thanquol are either wiped out or suffer extremely high casualties (even by Skaven standards).
Though Thanquol thinks himself a tactical genius, a mighty sorcerer and a brave leader, Thanquol is, like all Skaven, a maniacal egotist and a complete coward who flees at the first sign of trouble. While it is true he has phenomenal sorcerous skill and great cunning, Thanquol prefers to leave his dirty work to his underlings: in particular his bodyguard, the ferocious Rat-Ogre he calls Boneripper. There have been thirteen Bonerippers, nearly all of which have been killed by Gotrek and Felix. Thanquol has his own book series (which would appear to chronicle his schemes in the period between his last appearance in Beastslayer and his return in Elfslayer) which started with the novel Grey Seer and is continued in Temple of the Serpent and Thanquol's Doom.
The fate of Thanquol's Rat ogre bodyguards:
Some other enemies Felix and Gotrek have faced (and defeated) in their adventures include:
The series comprises the following:
The first nine books of the series, from Trollslayer to Manslayer, have been reprinted in three Gotrek and Felix Omnibus collections.
The pair have been in several short stories as well including:
Gotrek and Felix make (small) appearances in many Warhammer Army books during the fourth edition of the game as well as an old version of the magic rulebook for Warhammer Fantasy Battles:
Characters in Gotrek and Felix with their own series:
Ulrika the Vampire
Grey Seer Thanquol