| “ | He is an ancient evil: an ageless, endlessly patient, insidious horror, gnawing forever at the edges of reality. He is an eternal schemer, a skilled and subtle manipulator, a creature of dark and feral cunning: The Lord of the World Below. | „ |
| ~ The Loathsome Ratmen: And All Their Vile Kin (a God in their own image). |
The Horned Rat, or Great Horned Rat, is the deific entity that the Skaven race worships as their primary god. Like the other gods in the setting, the Horned Rat is the character, dreams, aspirations, hopes and fears of the Skaven made manifest. Everything the ratkin are, the Horned Rat mirrors on a deific scale.
In Warhammer Fantasy, he is one of many minor Chaos Gods, alongside entities like Hashut, Zuvassin, and Necoho. Like those gods, he is often ignored by the Four Greater Powers, but unlike them he would go on to rise in rank. The Skaven contributed massively to The End Times, brought about by the Everchosen Archaon, and even the Ruinous Four were compelled to offer the Horned Rat a seat at their table.
Though he is the least of the brotherly powers, the Great Horned Rat stands shoulders to shoulder with them for sheer ambition and seeks dominance in the Great Game of Power. His fellow Ruinous Powers do not consider him a true Brother in Darkness[3]and likely never will due to sheer disrespect.
General[]
In Warhammer Fantasy[]
| “ | You squabble pathetically. This will cease now. Your plans are sound, your alliances are not. I will not countenance another failure. Long have Clan Scruten had my blessing. I have given you my mark, great power, and long life. You have wasted my favour. | „ |
| ~ The Horned Rat chastising Seerlord Kritislik before consuming him |
The Horned Rat as he appears in Total War: Warhammer II.
It is unclear when the Horned Rat manifested within the Aethyr, though it is presumed his birth mirrors the birth of the Skaven in Kavsar, the doomed city that would become Skavenblight. After festering for several decades, a great catastrophe would nearly eliminate the race of the Skaven and sink much of Skavenblight into the earth. No building was untouched by the disaster, save the mighty Temple of the Horned Rat itself, and from this temple came twelve figures. The Horned Rat selected these twelve Skaven, known as the Grey Lords, and declared them the first of the Lords of Decay. It was these Ratlords who were to lead the Skaven race, as well as the Lords of Decay after them, and after excavating through the damage the then-young race of Skaven discovered tunnels from which could be accessed the rest of the world. Thus began the Great Migration, which took the verminous ratmen to every corner of the known world. In this way, their race could never be destroyed by a single disaster ever again.[4]
The Horned Rat is a jealous god who brooks no other before him. Though a chaos power and certaintly related, however distantly, to the Ruinous Four, he claims no alliegance to them and their goals. Whilsts the Ruinous Powers wish to unmake the world and feast on the soul-banquet that a dying world would provide, the Horned Rat seeks to remake the Warhammer World into a visage of his own home: The Realm of Ruin. This prophecy, called The Great Ascendency, speaks of a time when the Skaven will join together as a single verminous mass and utterly overwhelm the surface races with their sheer numbers. However, the Skaven propensity for cowardice, scheming, infighting, and backstabbing makes the actualization of this goal nearly impossible. But the Horned Rat is infinitely patient and the antics of his children amuse him greatly so he is willing to let this go on, for a time.[5]
Almost all skaven revere the Horned Rat and none at all question his existence. The Skaven are deeply religious and superstitious, their worship of their rattish god the product of fear. Like all Chaos Gods, the Lord of Decay's hunger for flesh and blood is endless and indiscriminate. If the ratkin do not sacrifice others in their stead, the Horned Rat will, and has, consumed the Skaven themselves. When the leaders of the Skaven ask a great boon of their god, or need to atone for a great failure in his name, the sacrifices can number in the hundreds or even thousands. There is no doctrine dictating which race of victim the Horned Rat finds preferable, though the young and strong are considered more optimal sacrifices than the elderly and infirm.[6][7]
It is the Grey Seers, the mage-priests of the Horned Rat, who form the orthodox religious body of the Skaven and who are considered intermediaries between his will and mortal ears. They provide some semblence of order to their fractious kind, acting as messengers to the masses for their god and the Council of Thirteen. This is especially true for the Seerlord, leader of the Grey Seers, who speaks directly for the Horned Rat and sits the council directly. Being malicious, dishonest and power hungry creatures however, Grey Seers are similar to Lords of Change in that their deity's aims are interpreted through the lens of their own goals and agendas. A Grey Seer will not hesitate to use the religious sway it has acquired to convince or intimidate the Skaven around them. The threat of summoning one of the Horned Rat's Greater Daemons, the Vermin Lord, is often enough to sway even the most stubborn of Warlords to see the Grey Seer's point of view.[8] Along with their horns and grey or white fur, Grey Seers are given power over the Winds of Magic. Verminancy, as it is called, manifests in the Lore of Plague and the Lore of Ruin, powers given to Grey Seers by blessing of the Horned Rat.[9][10]
The Grey Seers are not the only religious sect of the Skaven. The Pestilent Brotherhood, bitter rivals of the Order of the Grey Seers, tout a doctrine of pestilence and putrefaction and claim their faith is the true dogma of the Horned Rat. They believe other Skaven to be ignorant and misled and accuse the Grey Seers of being self-interested and using their blessings for their own ends rather than for the good of skavendom as a whole. Led by Clan Pestilens, some within the Pestilent Brotherhood are also blessed with sorcerous abilities, which they claim were gifted to them by the Horned Rat himself (though Grey Seers suspect a different more heretical source, namely the Chaos God Nurgle.[11]). However, in truth it was the Exalted Plaguebearer of Nurgle Uthl'kritchnaak that was responsible for the Clan's embrace of the deadly plagues that nearly eradicated it nearer to the Great Migration of the Skaven Race.[12]
This religious rivalry has erupted into several civil wars within the species at large and Clan Pestilens has made many bids for power on the Council of Thirteen or against the Order of the Grey Seers. Following the Skaven Wars and the failure of the Red Pox, one such civil-war forced the Grey Seers to take drastic measures to unite the fractured race back together and decrease the growing power of it's rival, Clan Pestilens. The Great Summoning of 2302 took place on Vermintide, a holiday of the ratmen, and saw every clan gathered together to observe a divine ritual undertaken by the Horned Mage-Priets. An Incarnation of the Horned Rat is summoned to the realm of mortals, terrifying the gathered clans into immediate and complete obedience. After a tearing a hole into the very fabric of reality, the Horned Rat consumed several massive handfuls of it's children, and when it last withdrew it's claws, a black pillar of the purest warpstone was left in his wake. This was the Black Pillar of Commandments, which contained the oft contradictory edicts and laws for the Skaven Race, of which they were to abide. The Horned Rat demanded an end to all the inter-clan wars, as while they amused him, they halted the progress of the Great Ascendency and thus his full return to the world. Any who defied him would feel his wrath. The Black Pillar also contained dictates of rulership and by touching it, Skavendom would know it's chosen. Many were dead before the twelve chosen were revealed and those twelve skaven have been ruling as the Lords of Decay since the Great Summoning.[13]
However, scheming and intrigue as natural to the Skaven as breathing and while open infigting between clans ceased, more subtle fueds did not. So it was, until the End Times, in which the Horned Rat again came to his verminous children. He was impatient and unimpressed by the progress of the current leadership of Seerlord Kritislik, Leader of the Grey Seers. To express his displeasure, he consumed the Seerlord before the eyes of the rest of the Council of Thirteen. For only the fourth time in their history, the Council was united in voting Clan Scruten, the Clan of the Grey Seers, out of power in Skavendom. Clan Skryre had pulled the Chaos Moon of Morrslieb close, allowing the Daemons of the Horned Rat to walk the land freely.[14]
The Horned Rat and his children would pledge their service to the Dark Gods during the End Times.[15] As Archaon marched on the Empire, Verminlord Verminking, Grey Seer Thanquol, and his Rat Ogre Boneripper would open negotiations with the Three-Eyed King. Originally vieled in shadow, Kairos Fateweaver revealed the hidden presence of Skreech Verminking, but the Rat-Daemon merely prostrated itself alongside Thanquol. This amazing display of deference gave the Grey Seer the space he needed to speak. Archaon would permit them to serve, as the Skaven were true children of Chaos in the same way the Beastmen were, and he valued their particular talents.[16]
In Age of Sigmar[]
| “ | In the last days of the world-that-was, a fifth deity rose to join the dark pantheon of the Chaos Gods. The Horned Rat was the pestilential father of the Skaven, that teeming race of ratmen that had long gnawed at the roots of civilization.... | „ |
| ~ Skaven Battletome, Age of Sigmar |
The skaven deity is a fractured and anarchic being, but a terrifyingly ambitious one. The Horned Rat is a grasping, paranoid abomination who seeks to achieve final primacy amongst the Chaos pantheon through the ruination of the Mortal Realms and the annihilation of all those who worship -- and thus empower -- his rivals. Gnawing endlessly at the roots of reality, the Horned Rat creeps through the dark spaces behind the physical plane and stares from the shadows with greedy, glinting eyes. The whisper of his name inspires horror, the scratch of his claws and whiskers and the drag of his worm-like tail through the void driving seers mad and sending ripples of nightmares through mortal minds.[17]
At their own peril do the other gods underestimate the Horned One, newest and therefore weakest of their pantheon. While their followers and champions fight, die, and fluctuate in their numbers, the Children of the Horned rat multiply ferociously. No matter the realm, the Skaven are never far; it is even said that holiest Azyr is not free from their presence. As the forces of Order, Chaos, Death and Destruction wane and wax, the Skaven grow at a steady pace and one day, they will unite and strike as one, crushing and consuming the competition. In this way does the Great Horned Rat hope to gain final primacy in the Great Game.[18]
To his children, the Great Horned Rat is envisioned differently according to ones clan. Those in Clan Pestilens name him the Great Corruptor, a horror composed of sloughing flesh and rotten bones who desires the Thirteen Plagues to be released upon the whole of the Mortal Realms. Clan Skryre depicts him as the Dark Innovator, a machine monstrosity in which they will use to twist and repurpose reality itself. Clan Moulder sees the Horned Rat as a the Writhing Broodsire, a mass of ever-shifting ratflesh that seeks the devouring of the realms by ratkin. Clan Eshin depicts him as the Shadow of Murder and in his name do they drive their warpstone-tipped blades into the backs and throats of kings, lords, and champions. In this way, they seek anarchy and the collapse of just rule. To the fifth Great Clan of Verminus, he is known as the King of Lashes, a being of warlike arrogance who tears apart and exploits the foe.[19]
In this world as the world before, the primary instruments Horned Rat's will are the Council of Thirteen and the Master Clan, inhabited by Grey Seers and Rat Daemons.[20]
Rivals[]
The Ruinous Powers[]
| “ | The greater powers sneered at the Horned Rat, seeing him as one of the infinite array of petty godlings whose insignificant domains marred the purity of Chaos. They were wrong to do so. The Horned Rat was no longer some minor creature, for he had grown mighty. His children were legion. Long-fermented plans were at last coming to fruition. | „ |
| ~ The Rise of the Horned Rat (Warhammer Fantasy Book 4) |
All Chaos Powers compete with one another for dominance, however for the minors powers this is mostly one sided; the Greater Gods only have eyes for each other when it comes to rivals. When the Greater Powers deign to acknowledge the Horned Rat's power, it is only to sneer at his mere existence. To them, his presence mars the purity of chaos, but this dismisal would prove to be misplaced. More than any other minor power, the Horned Rat and his children contributed massively to the end of the World-That-Was (much to the chagrin of the four brothers) and for this effort, the Horned Rat was invited into the Pantheon of the Dark Gods.
Of the four, the Horned Rat is most often compared to Nurgle as both are lords of plague and decay. However, while Nurgle represents the cylical nature of birth and decay, the Horned Rat epitomizes complete ruin and desolation. His plagues are not gifts or expressions of "love", but a means to an end, that end being total destruction. Still, ratmen are known to worship Nurgle and the Plaguelord is the second most common deity for the downtrodden and squalor-dwelling ratkin to revere.[21]
The Horned Rat has common accords with Tzeentch, a fellow scheming deity with a fractured, internally waring psyche.[22]
Sotek[]
Sotek is the Snake God of the Lizardmen of Lustria, a god of war worshipped primarily by the Skinks of their society. When Clan Pestilens invaded Lustria, the Children of the Old Ones made war upon them. While they were stronger than the ratmen, the Skaven were more numerous and were able to bring to bear several deadly plagues that sapped the strength of the much tougher Saurus and Kroxigor warriors. It is said that Sotek was heralded by the mass sacrifice of Ratmen by the twin-tailed red-crested Skink known and Tehenhauin. The prophecy held that Sotek was of a size to swallow the Rat God whole and would hold him in his belly for a thousand years.[23]
Gallery[]
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References[]
- ↑ Warhammer: Chaos in the Old World
- ↑ Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Tome of Salvation
- ↑ Age of Sigmar: Ask Grombrindal
- ↑ Warhammer Armies: Skaven (6th Edition)
- ↑ Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Children of the Horned Rat
- ↑ The Loathsome Ratmen And All Their Vile Kin
- ↑ Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Children of the Horned Rat
- ↑ Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: The Horned Rat's Companion
- ↑ Total War: Warhammer III ( Skaven Factions )
- ↑ Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Children of the Horned Rat
- ↑ Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: The Horned Rat's Companion, pg. 24
- ↑ Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Lustria
- ↑ Warhammer Armies: Skaven (7th Edition)
- ↑ The Rise of the Horned Rat (Warhammer Fantasy Book )
- ↑ Warhammer: Archaon (Book 1), pg 74.
- ↑ Warhammer: The End Times (Thanquol, pg. 179)
- ↑ Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Skaven Battletome
- ↑ Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Skaven Battletome
- ↑ Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Skaven Battletome
- ↑ Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Skaven Battletome
- ↑ Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Tome of Corruption, pg. 197
- ↑ Battletome: Disciples of Tzeentch (2023)
- ↑ Warhammer: Lustria (The Rise of Sotek), pg. 51 - 53