Skaven (Warhammer)
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Skaven are a race of man-sized anthropomorphic rat-creatures in Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy setting. They were officially introduced as a new Chaos race in 1986 by Jes Goodwin.
In the background of the setting the Skaven are described as a clan-based society in which the number 13 holds important significance. All Skaven pay homage to the Horned Rat, their only deity, whom they worship primarily out of fear of retribution. Skaven are portrayed as sneaky, conniving, selfish, cowardly and backstabbing - traits associated with rats. They are also closely linked to plague and disease (particularly the Skaven clan Pestilens). The Skaven believe themselves to be superior to all other races, especially those that live above ground.
Despite its large population, the existence of an organised Skaven society is carefully and violently concealed from humans and other races of the Warhammer universe. Even when presented with irrefutable proof, the common man regards them as no more than rat-faced Beastmen, although there is no direct link between the two species. It is a widely held belief that if the Skaven could put aside their in-fighting and distrust of each other, they could potentially take over the world: fortunately their innate paranoia and deceitful, treacherous natures make such an occurance all but impossible.
Release
Skaven were officially introduced into the tabletop wargame Warhammer Fantasy Battle in the Spring 1986 issue of the Citadel Journal magazine. They were billed as "a new Chaos race". However, the race had appeared a few months earlier as a free 'giveaway' Blood Bowl team in an earlier 1986 issue of White Dwarf magazine.
Jes Goodwin sculpted the original 1986 Skaven range of Citadel Miniatures. Goodwin also provided the original background found in the 1986 Citadel Journal. This background introduced core elements of Skaven lore, including clan structure, the Council of Thirteen, Grey Seers, and the Skaven God - "The Horned Rat".
The miniatures proved very popular[citation needed], and the range was expanded by Goodwin over the next few years. Today, they are one of the main fourteen armies of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
Skaven also formed the core opponents of Games Workshop's popular [citation needed] Advanced HeroQuest adventure game, released in 1990.
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.
History
The origins of the Skaven are for the most part unknown. The only background information provided in Games Workshop literature is a poem called "The Doom of Kavzar" which loosely describes how the first Skaven came to be. It is presented in a myth-like fashion, detailing a building project by dwarves and men which is cursed by a mysterious stranger, resulting in a warpstone shower which mutated the rats of the city into Skaven.
The introduction of the Skaven supplement to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay answers these questions with the dogma of the Horned Rat, although Skaven philosophers have questioned the nature of the mysterious stranger, wondering whether this entity is indeed a deity or a merely demonic entity.
Appearance and culture
A Skaven is described as crossbreed of a rat and a man. They have the appearance of large bipedal rats with sufficient intelligence to make tools, converse in a developed language and develop and use advanced weaponry. An average Skaven is said to have a lifespan of around 20 years, but powerful members of the Skaven society can live much longer, even hundreds of years (due to use of drugs,magic or to the effects of warpstone). Recent information[citation needed] has revealed that with an abundant food source and little predation the average Skaven can live well past 50. However the chances of this occurring are extremely slim, as Skaven are prone to in-fighting due to self-destructive natures.
Skaven are a bit shorter than men, between four and five feet tall on average. Most have brown fur, although this can vary. White and grey-furred ratlings are prized among Skaven litters, as they often become Grey Seers (the Skaven equivalent of priests and wizards). Black fur is looked upon as the sign of a true killer, so the elite Stormvermin corps draw their members from black furred ratlings (it is also common for lighter colored Skaven to dye their fur, especially if they happen to be a member of the Stormvermin[citation needed]). Albino Skaven are rare but not unheard of. The Stormvermin in charge of protecting the Council of Thirteen (the Skaven ruling body) are all albino.
Male Skaven are workers and warriors. Females are called breeders and are docile, barely intelligent creatures who spend much of their lives hidden away in the nest to breed. Though they are far larger than the average Skaven (about 10 foot tall), female Skaven can't take care of themselves and rely on eunuchs to feed and protect them. Female Skaven typically produce three to five litters a year, each containing about 20 young called ratlings.
Council
The Council of Thirteen is the ruling body of the Skaven race. They sit 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 their malevolent god. This backstory helps justify why a rapidly-reproducing, disease-resistant race does not rule more of the world; they are too busy fighting each other. 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.
Council members mentioned in the backgrounds include:
- 1.Lord Kritislik (Seerlord)
- 12.Lord Morskittar (Lord-Warlock of Clan Skryre)
- 7.Nurglitch VII (Arch-Plaguelord of Clan Pestilens)
- Kratch Doomclaw (Clan Rictus)
- Warlord Gnawdwell (Clan Mors)
- Lord Sneek (Nightlord of Clan Eshin)
- 9.Lord Verminkin (Packlord of Clan Moulder)
- 4.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. Nurglitch I brought Clan Pestilens to prominence by defeating Lord Vask for a place on the Council of Thirteen.
Below the council in the fictional hierarchy of the race are the Grey Seers, prophets of the Horned Rat himself, and powerful sorcerers. Grey Seers have prophetic powers and are usually grey-furred; hence the name. While the Grey Seers are often physically weak, they 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. This holds a fairly unique place in the game as it is based like a monstrous creature, but fielded within a unit of skaven troops, granting bonuses to both the unit, and the larger army with its effects.
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 Skryre. These four are collectively known as the Great Clans, and dominate the back-story of the race and most army units.
In prior editions of Warhammer, the Skaven at times would be led by daemonic beings called VerminLords. Believed to be some sort of avatar of the Horned Rat, VerminLords were greater demons that even the Grey Seers feared and acquiesced themselves to.
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 war-beasts are reflected in the game by wolf-sized Giant Rats and the enormous Rat Ogres, to an Ogre, what a normal skaven is to a man. To reflect their lower intelligence, they are led by Packmasters on the battlefield, and suffer severe penalties if the Packmaster is killed.
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. The clan was considered lost in the jungles of Lustria, but when it resurfaced, it was changed. The rats of the clan had become completely devoted to The Horned Rat in his role as the harbinger of disease and plague. 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, providing a needed role of holding up powerful enemies without breaking in the relatively low-leadership army of the Skaven. They also use rats infected with various foul contagions, and the deadly plague censers, flails laden with burning warpstone, that emit lethal poison gas. Their own leaders are subject to the diseases and includes the Plague Lord and the plague Pontifex.
Clan Eshin
Clan Eshin was also considered lost for a long time, having traveled to the far Eastern lands of Nippon and Cathay. When they returned, they had changed as well.They ended the first Skaven civil war by assassinating the leaders of Clan Pestilens and their allies. They were now stealthy assassins, skilled in the art of the silent kill. In the background literature, they provide a type of secret police for the Council of Thirteen. They played a large role in the backstory of the Storm of Chaos world-wide campaign, as the ones who placed the Doom Hemisphere (see below) under Middenheim. They are represented in the army by Night Runners, cheap expendable units of skirmishers; Gutter Runners, who function as a scout force; and Assassins, elite close combat characters who can hide in units of regular skaven until they strike at enemy characters. All three are described as being on one development path. The best Night Runners become Gutter Runners, the best of which become Assassins.
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. Their engineers are used to explain Skaven warmachines: the Ratling Gun (a warpstone-based Gatling gun with an obvious pun on rat), the Warpfire thrower (a warpstone-based flamethrower), the Jezzail (an extremely long-ranged warpstone rifle which is so large that it has to be carried by two skaven), and the fearsome Warp-Lightning Cannon. They also employ Warlock Engineers, who harness the winds of magic to devastating effect. In earlier versions of the game, there was a Skryre machine known as the "Doomwheel", something like a hamster's exercise wheel crossed with a chariot. This was replaced by the Warp-Lightning Cannon in the sixth edition rulebook, as the team working on the (then) new Army Book explained in White Dwarf 267 that it was too blatantly a hamster wheel and wanted something more serious; however, an update for the Doomwheel was recently released online as an optional ruleset for people who still wanted to use the model.[1]
This clan was also responsible for the creation of the "Doom Hemisphere", a device much akin to an atomic bomb, which was placed underneath the Imperial city of Middenheim.
On The Tabletop
The Skaven army is loosely classified as a 'Horde Army', typically consisting of large numbers of weak troops. They receive bonuses to their leadership based on their rank. Ranged warfare is provided almost exclusively by warmachines (in contrast to the archers of most armies), and is potentially devastating, but easily destroyed in close combat. Skaven sorcerers are capable of wielding magic, with special rules for when the dice roll equals their "magic number" of 13.
Enemies and Allies
The Skaven hold the same opinion of other races as do the Dark Elves: everyone is their inferior. However, the Skaven extend this belief to include each other, with each Skaven believing himself to be the epitome of Skaven superiority. As such, the Skaven see no need to ally with anyone, but believe that they are always intelligent enough to manipulate their inferiors into fighting their enemies for them.
It should be noted that due to these views and their tendancy for back-stabbing, no one (not even the minions of Chaos) ever wants to count the Skaven as their allies. Everyone who knows about the Skaven knows that there is only one rule for trusting a Skaven: don't.
Skaven Army List
Skaven forces are currently comprised of the following units (for the standard army list)
- Lords and Heroes
- Grey Seer
- Warlord
- Chieftan
- Assassin
- Master Moulder
- Warlock Engineer
- Plague Priest
- Core Units
- Clanrats
- Clanrat Slaves
- Giant Rats
- Night Runners
- Poisoned Wind Globadiers
- Rat Swarms
- Stormvermin
- Special Units
- Gutter Runners
- Plague Monks
- Rat Ogres
- Warplock Jezzails
- Rare Units
- Plague Censer Bearers
- Warp-Lightning Cannon
- Chariots
- Screaming Bell
- Special Characters
- Grey Seer Thanquol & Boneripper
- Throt the Unclean
- Warlord Queek Head-Taker
- Deathmaster Snikch
- Ikit Claw
Most of the available choices reflect the four clans mentioned above, and some of the Special Characters are mentioned at length in the Army book as major powers in the Skaven world. These clan designations do not affect the playing of the army, though players are free to 'theme' an army around a particular clan, and alternate lists for each major clan exist, emphasizing 'their' troops.
