WARHAMMER ARMIES -
SKAVEN

THE HISTORY OF THE SKAVEN

Little is known of what became of the children of the Horned Rat after they overran the city that came to be known as Skavenblight. Perhaps they laired in the tunnels beneath the city, bred and sought out more warpstone; perhaps they warred with one another until only the strongest survived. It was around sixteen hundred years before the birth of Sigmar that the first true Skaven crept out of the black pit of madness beneath the empty city. With their heightened intellects and humanoid bodies, the Skaven were soon the absolute masters of Skavenblight.

The Skaven sacrificed lives and warpstone to the Horned Rat and began to learn the ways of magic. As warpstone grew scarcer in the ruins of Skavenblight they ventured further afield and started to expand the tunnels beneathe the city. Skaven expeditions found the surface world to be a dangerous place full of wild beasts, Orcs and Goblins, and hostile human tribes migrating along the coast. The Skaven turned inward again, seeking lordship over the realms below for a secure base before they attempted to conquer the world above.

"Once upon a time, long long ago, men and Dwarfs lived together beneath the roofs of one great city. Some said it was the oldest and greatest city in the world and had existed before the time of the longbeards and manlings, built by older and wiser hands in the dawn of the world. The city lay both above and below the earth, in keeping with the nature of the populace thet dwelt there. The Dwars ruled in their great halls of stone below ground and wrestled the fruits of the rock free with their day-long toil while the manlings reaped the fields of swaying corn that surrounded the city with a patchwork blanket of gold. The sun smiled, men laughed, and everyone was happy.

One day the men of the city decided that they should give praise to their gods for their good fortune. They planned a temple such as the world had never seen before. In the central square a colossal hall would be built and topped with a single, cloud-piercing tower. A tower so tall it would touch the very heart of heaven. After much planning with the help of the longbeards they set about their monumental task.

Weeks became months and months became years and still the manlings built. Men grew old and grey working on that great temple, their sons continuing their work through summer sun and winter rain. At last, after many generations, work began on the great spire. Years passed and the tower reached such a height that the manlings found it ever more difficult to take the stone up to the top. Eventually the work slowed to a crawl and finishing the tower seemed impossible. Then one came among the men of the city who offered his help in their great scheme. He asked a single boon of them in return and claimed that if they would grant it he would complete the tower in a single night. The manlings said to themselves, "What have we to lose?" and offered to make a bargain with the greyclad stranger. All he wished was to add his own dedication to the gods onto the temple structure. The manlings agreed and the bargain was struck.

At dusk the stranger entered the unfinished temple and bade the manlings to return at midnight. Clouds swept over the moons, cloaking the temple in darkness as the manlings left. All over the city men watched and waited as the hours slipped past until, near midnight, by ones and twos, they gathered again in the temple square. The wind blew and the clouds parted as they gazed up at the temple. In rose like an unbroken lance against the sky, pure and white. At its very peak a great horned bell hung gleaming coldly in the moonlight. The stranger´s dedication to the gods was there but of the stranger there was no sign.

The manlings rejoiced that their fathers´ fathers´ work was done. They surged forward to enter the temple. Then, at the stroke of midnigt, the great bell began to toll, once... twice... thrice. Slow, heavy waves of sound rolled across the city. Four... five... six times the bell rang, like the torpid pulse of a bronze giant. Seven... eight... nine, the tolling of the bell grew louder with each ring, and the manlings staggered back from the temple steps clutching their ears. Ten... eleven... twelve... thirteen. At the thirteenth stroke lightning split the skies and thunder echoed the sound. High above, the dark circle of Mórrslieb was lit by a bright flash and all fell ominously silent.

The manlings fled to their beds, frightened and puzzled by the protents they had seen. Next morning they arose to find darkness had come to their city. Brooding storm clouds reared above the roof-tops and such rain fell as had never been seen before. Black, like ash, the rain fell and puddled in the streets, slicking the cobbles with darkly iridescent colours.

At first some of the manlings did not worry, they waited for the rains to stop so that they might resume their work. But the rains did not stop, the winds blew stronger and lightning shook the high tower. Days stretched into weeks and still the rains did not stop. Each night the bell tolled thirteen times and each morning the darkness lay across the city. The manlings became fearful and prayed to their gods. Still the rains did not stop and the black clouds hung like a shroud over the fields of flattened corn. The manlings went to the Dwarfs and beseeched their help. The longbeards were unconcerned - what matter a little rain on the surface? In the bosom of the earth all was warm and dry.

Now the manlings huddled in their dwellings, fear gnawing at their hearts. They sent some of their number to faraway places to seek help but none of them returned. Some went to the temple to pray and sacrifice their dwindling food to the gods but found its great doors were sealed shut. The rains grew heavier. Dark hailstones fell from the sky and crushed the sodden crops. The great bell tolled a death knell over the terrified city. Soon great stones cleft the heavens, rushing down like dark meteors to smash the homes of the manlings. Many sickened and died from no apparent cause, and the newborn babes of the manlings were hideously twisted. Skulking vermin devoured what little stored corn there was left and the manlings began to starve. The manling elders went to see the Dwarfs agian and this time demanded their help. They wanted to bring their folk below ground to safety, they wanted food. The longbeards grew angry, and told the manlings that the lower workings were flooded and their food had also been devoured by rats. There remained barely enough food and shelter for them and their kinsmen. They cast the manlings out of their halls and closed their doors tight.

In the ruins of the city above each day became more deadly than the last. The manlings despaired and called for soccour from the dark gods, whispered the names of forgotten daemon princes in the hope of salvation. But none came, instead the vermin returned, bigger and bolder than ever. Their slinking, furred shapes infested the broken city, feasting on the fallen and pulling down the weak. Each midnight the bell tolled thirteen times on high, seeming now brazen and triumphant. The manlings lived as hunted creatures in their own city as great rat packs roamed the streets in search of prey. At last the desperate manlings took up such weapons as they had and beat upon the Dwarfs´ doors, threatening that if they did not emerge they would drag them out by their beards. No reply came from within. The manlings took up beams and battered down the doors to reveal the tunnels below, dark and empty. Steeling themselves, the pitiful remnants of the city´s once-proud populace descended. In the ancient hall of kingship they found the Dwarfs, nownaught but gnawed bones and scraps of cloth. Ant there they saw by the dying light of their torcches the myriad eyes about them, glittering like liquid midnight as the rats closed in for the kill.

The manlings stood back to back and fought for their lives, but against the implacable ferocity and countless numbers of the verminous horde their weapons were useless. The tide of monstrous rats flowed over them one by one, dragging them down to be torn apart, the yellow chisel-teeth sinking into their soft flesh, the dark furred mass drowning their pitiful screams with their hideous chittering."

Translated from the Tilean tale "The Doom of Kavzar" also called "The Curse of Thirteen".

DISASTER AT SKAVENBLIGHT

The numbers of Skaven grew rapidly despite the starvation and disease rife in Skavenblight. Soon the tunnels were teeming with ratfolk. Pressure grew to expand the tunnels even further and the nascent Skaven sorcerers were called on for help. In a grandiose scheme the sorcerers planned to open a great rift beneath the earth where they could dwell in safety. They built a great machine powered by sorcery and warpstone that would control the engergies of Light magic coursing through the earth. They planned to twist these energies to their command, splitting open the rocks beneath the mountains as the willed.

In a great ceremony in a specially excavated chamber beneath Skavenblight the cabal of sorcerers began their invocations, summoning forth the power of Light magic. The great machine of iron and brass throbbed and smoked as it absorbed and condensed the Light magic. As the sorcerers´ incantations reached their climax the machine spat showers of sparks and the ground began to shake, the groan of shifting rock became deafening as the earth began to split asunder.

High above in the temple of the Horned Rat the great bell tolled as the tower swayed and creaked like the mast of a ship at sea. The sorcerers squeaked triumphantly as a great rift started to inch open in front of the thundering machine. But then some part of their machine failed and with a blinding flash it split apart, the unleashed magic ripping through the great chamber. Hundreds of Skaven were smashed apart in a tidal wave of destruction, the ceiling cracked, convulsed and then collapsed in with a roar. The uncontrolled deluge of Light magic crashed out through the earth. It swirled into the roots of the Black Mountains where it gathered new strength and rushed onward like a river in flood.

Around Skavenblight the land shuddered and great cracks opened. Hundreds of tunnels collapsed crushing thousands of Skaven in their underground lairs. As the shock waves rippled outward great geysers of gas and steam spumed out of the ground. The undermined plain about Skavenblight sank with an earth-shaking rumble as the sea rushed in, drowning the tortured land. Away to the east the coursing Light magic triggered earthquakes and volcanic eruptions all along the Black Mountains - here wrenching the ground asunder, there throwing up new mountains in its wake. As the wave struck the worlds Edge Mountains the fury of it rocked the Everpeak itself. Long-dead volcanoes were rekindled to sudden wrath and the mountains trembled like a frightened beast. The ancient realm of the Dwarf kings, painstakingly carved out of the mountains over thousands of years, was smashed asunder. Earthquakes, landslides and lava flows swept away whole Dwarf cities overnight. Already weakened by five centuries of war with the High El ves of Ulthuan, the Dwarfs were even more devastated by this terrible disaster than the Skaven far away in Tilea.

THE TIME OF THE GREY LORDS

In Skavenblight the ruins of the city lay under a pall of dust. Cracked and partially collapsed, the temple of the Horned Rat still towered over the rubble. All around the city grey water stretched away beneath roiling vapours. Slowly, small knots of Skaven dug their way out of the ruins and emerged to blink at the devastation they had wrought. As the day wore on a great mass of them gathered around the temple. The rank scent of fear hung over the horde. None dared enter the temple though they knew they must seek the guidance of the Horned One. Even as they sqabbled before the temple its great doors yawned open and twelwe figures stepped from within.

Twelve grey-clad ratlords spoke with one voice to the assembled multitude. The time had come for the children of the Horned One to spread across the world, to hide in the deep places and gather their strength for the Time of Anarchy. Only when the shackles of order and civilisation were destroyed could the Horned Rat rejoin his progeny and revel with them in the ruins.

The twelve Grey Lords warned the assebled Skaven that others would follow to ensure they did not fail in the Horned Rat´s great plan, and they should give heed to their words of face the wrath of the Lords of Decay. The they set the Skaven to re-excavating the tunnels below Skavenblight. Weeks later, when they reached the chamber of the machine, they discovered the deceased sorcerers had partially succeeded in their schemes. Great cracks led away into the darkness below, down into countless miles of dank and lightless caverns forgotten since the world was young.

The Grey Lords convened in council for many days and nights. When they emerged they divided the Skaven horde into twelve parts. Some of them remained in Skavenblight, others led their followers away across the oozing plain and most descended into the roots of the world. The children of the Horned Rat spread out from the depths of the Under-City like a cancer; never again could a single great desaster threaten to wipe out the Skaven race.

Within months Skaven were gnawing at the roots of the Dwarf hold of Karak Varn. Here the Dwarfs were already hard-pressed by hordes of Orcs and Goblins attacking the upper levels. When the Skaven broke through into the partially flooded lower workings the Dwarfs were helpless to stop them. Within a few years the Skaven had seized to stop them. Within a few years the Skaven had seized most of the lower levels, established a colony and were fighting the Orcs and Goblins for possession of the levels above. But the tunnels leading away east from Karak Varn had been completely flooded by subsidence in the lake of Black Water, and to the south-east lay the intact subterranean fortress of Karaz-a-Karak.

The Skaven were blocked from travelling further east for a time. Instead they crept and tunnelled their way north and suth through the Worlds Edge Mkountains using the natural caverns and abandoned Dwarf tunnels to speed their progress. They crept around Karaz-a-Karak and Karak Kadrin. They tunnelled beneath the shaking roots of Thunder Mountains and the Goblin-infested den of Red Eye Mountain. Within a hundred years of the disaster at Skavenblight the wandering Skaven clans had spread along the Worlds Edge Mountains to the South Lands, Araby and the Dark Lands.

In the far north the Grey Lord Malkrit led his followers ito what later became known as the Troll Country in the Northern Wastes. Here warpstone dust often blew down from the north, twisting and changing beasts into new forms overnight. Malkrit´s clan buried themselves deep beneath the wastes and learned to use cross-breeding and mutation to twist creatures to their will and create ferocious fighting-beasts to augment their strength. Thus they became the Clan Moulder, the beastmasters and mutators. In the Dark Lands the furtherst flung of the Grey Lords, Lord Visktrin, was mortally wounded by a dragon in the Mountains of Mourn. He instructed his successor to lead the clan far into the east and establish a colony in the land of cathay. So Clan Eshin passed beyond the knowledge of the Lords of Decay and into the east.

THE WAR OF CRIPPLE PEAK

After their rapid period of expansion the Skaven stayed below the suface and gathered their strength for the next hundred years. They Grey Lords formally created the Council of Thirteen to rule over the Skaven. The surviving Grey Lords (by now exceptionally old and wicked even by Skaven standards) occupied most of the places on the Council but the remaining places were allocated to any Skaven who could fight their way to the top of their clan and prove themselves worthy of membership. Many Skaven tried and failed butsoon the Council stood at full strength. They first order of the Council prohibited the general study of magic so that only Clan Skryre and the Grey Seers, the mysterious solitary prophets of the Horned Rat, could pursue its use.

Around thirteen hundred years before the birth of Sigmar the Skaven discovered that a huge warpstone meteor lay interred in te sundered mountain called Cripple Peak at the edge of the Sour Sea in the Worlds Edge Mountains. The great and evil necromancer Nagash ruled over Cripple Peak and the lands about it, worshipped by the primitive human tribes as a god. His Undead legions ined the warpstone for Nagash´s own use and with its dark power Nagash had forged a powerful evil empire.

The Council ordered that the warpstone be captured at any cost. At their command uncounted thousands of Skaven burst into Nagashizzar, the mine stronghold beneath Cripple Peak, and sought to overrun it from below as they had at Karak Varn. But the minions of Nagash were not caught between two foes and cut off from help. They fought back with equal savagery and held the tunnels against the seething hordes of rat-warriors from below. The Warlocks of Clan Skryre unleashed their dark sorceries to break the deadlock but the ancient power of Nagash was stronger and their spells flickered and died. An endless war of attritio ground on in the mines, the two armies fighting foot by foot, inch by inch. At times one side or the other collapsed sections o the tunnels and relative peace would fall until the warring factions found new routes to reach each other.

As the war stretched into years and then decades the Council of Thirteen hurled ever more warriors into the conflagration. Skaven armies besieged the cities of Nagash´s human followers to cow them into submission. The cities burned and the streets ran red with slaughter but the humans still feared Nagash more than death or torture at the hands of the Skaven. Nagash struck back with his legions of walking dead and evil magic. At the last the war bogged down into a complete stalemate: the Skaven were unable to prevail against the power of Nagash and Nagash was unable to drive away the Skaven and complete his own dark plans.

In the end Nagsh offered and unholy opact to the Council of Thirteen. In return for their aid in his evil schemes he would supply them with warpstone mined below Cripple Peak. After much deliberation the Council agreed to Nagsh´s offer. Though in truth the Council desired all of the warpstone and considered it the property of the Skaven by manifest destiny, their reserves of warriors were not inexhaustible and something was better than nothing.

THE RISE OF CLAN PESTILEN

Just over a century after the crowning of Sigmar in the Empire a new power arose within Skavedom. Clan Pestilens, long believed lost of scattered during the first migrations out of Skavenblight, emerged from the rotting jungles of Lustria. It became clear that they had passed far beyond the knowledge of the Lords of Decay, across trackless wastes and distant seas before settling at last in Lustria. At first the clan had been devastated by disease in the streaming jungles and insect-plagues swamps. But the survivors quickly became inured to the deadly pestilences and welcomed the paw of the Horned Rat in such virulent corruption. The clan eventually made its home in a vast prehuman temple deep in the green hell of the Lustrian interior. They learned much from the degenerate inhabitants of that once-mighty fane and unearthed many dark secrets from the catacombs beneath it.

The generations passed and Clan Pestilens grew stronger. Their warriors fought many skirmishes with the wierd tribal inhabitants of the caverns and rain-forests surrounding their crumbling temple-city. They enslaved or sacrificed thousands to the Horned Rat in week-long rituals and became ever more obsessed with worship and ceremony, dedicating themselves to their god with fanatical devotion. Perhaps some ancient madness permeated the stones of the temple or it echoed with the unquiet spirits of past victims, twisting the Skaven´s minds to worship as in some earlier time. Or perhaps the Horned Rat really did single out Clan Pestilens to be his desciples of decay and blessed them with his divine vision of corruption.

Whatever the truth, Clan Pestilens thrived and multiplied in their temple-city. Eventually the Plague Monks became a mighty power in the hot, verdant heartland of Lustria and the purulent PlagueLords judged the time was ripe to make their presence felt back in the Old World. A great horde of Plague Monks and slaves departed the temple-city soon after and carved their way through the jungle to the coastal mangrove swamps. Apart from insects, leeches and sweltering heat no-one and nothing assailed them as the travelled. The natives knew well enough to avoid any confrontation with the Plague Monks and wild beasts could scent their corrupton from afar. When they reached the coast the monks set the slaves to building a fleet of crude barges.

After months of building the Plague Monks set sail aross the Southern Ocean. Miraculously unmolested by storms and sea monsters the fleet passed over the waves far to the south of Ulthuan and the Elf fleets of Bel-Korhardris the scholar-king. The Plague Fleet made its landfall in the far Southlands and established a new stronghold there. The Lords of Decay convened in Skavenblight to receive emissaries from Clan Pestilens. When the emissaries arrived they bore a list of demands to the Lords of Decay for status, tithes of warpstone, breeding rights and the grant of several positions on the Council of Thirteen. The emissaries were summarily butchered for their presumption and their remains returned to the Plague Lords in the south as an object lesson in humility.

The Plague Lords were angered but unsuprised by the Council´s response. Soon afterwards Clan Pestilens launched attacks against two Warlord clan strongholds in the South Lands. the Plague Monks overran the old human city at Bhagrusa in a single night of fire and slaughter before layingsiege to the clan stronghold below it. That was the last the Council of Thirteen heard from Bhagrusa before a scouting force reached it several months later. They found an empty city and a stronghold full of festering, plague-slain Skaven corpses. At Mount Lhasa the Plague Monks surrounded the stronghold of Clan Merkit with great cauldrons filled with warpstone mixed with bubbling offal and putrescence. The monks used great bellows to fill the caves below with noxious, bubonic vapours, forcing the clanrats to the surface to be captured and enslaved. Only Lord Merkit himself and a handful of his lieutenants escaped enslavement by Clan Pestilens.

The Council of Thirteen responded by despatching more armies of clanrats supported by Warlock Engineers of Clan Skryre against Clan Pestilens. But several South Lands clans capitulated to the Plague Monks after their demonstration of power and helped them resist the armies of the Council. As the years passed and the Council of Thirteen appeared incapable of bringing the Plague Monks to heel other Warlord clans split away from their control. The rogue warlords either joined the Plague Monks of made war on each other to settle old scores and take slaves. Within a few generations the Council of Thirteen lost control of the South Lands entirely and was starting to have problems keeping the rest of Skavedom in order.

For four hundred years the Skaven race remained divided into two hemispheres: the north led by the Council and the south by the Plague Lords. Many clans stood apart from the fighting and continually attempted to ally with whichever side had the upper had. Constant battles were fought between the factions, terrible magics were unleashed and sorcerous plagues ravaged the South Lands but the wqr remained locked in a stalemate. neither the Council nor the Plague Lords were willing to parley or accede in any way that the other was favoured by the Horned Rat and therby in the right. Finally the deadlock was broken by the reappearance of another supposedly lost clan, Clan Eshin, whose assassin-adepts returned from the far land of Cathay in the east.

Clan Eshin had learned much of the art of stealthy killing from one of the oldest human civilisations in the world. Their black-clad murderers could infiltrate the most well-defended lair and slay the mightiest foes with their deadly skills. The assassins pledged their allegiance to the Lords of Decay in Skavenblight and were soon despatched on many missions against the rogue warlords and the Plague Lords themselves. Over the next five generations the Lords of Decay used fear and assassination to systematically bring the Warlord clans ack under their control, gradually eroding the support of Clan Pestilens.

The Plague Lords realised that their position was becoming untenable and requsted an audience with the full Council of Thirteen in Skavenblight. At the intercession of the Grey Seers the Lords of Decay agreed and swore not to try to assassinate the Pestilens delegates. Accordingly, the mightiest Plague Lord on Clan Pestilens, Nurglitch, travelled north with a small band of disciples.

After surviving several assassination attempts en route Nurglitch arrived and abased himself before the Lords of Decay in the temple of the Horned Rat. Clan Pestilens now only requested acceptance into the Council and unreservedly placed the resources of the clan at the disposal of the Council of Thirteen. Furthermore, Nurglitch respectfully informed the Lords of Decay that he and his disciples were carrying vials of a particularly virulent strain of yellow skull fever. Further attempts to foreshorten his life or deny the requests of Cln Pestilens would leave him no option but to release the lethal contagion in the heart of Skavendom.

Smiling, the Lords of Decay welcomed Clan Pestilens back to Skavenblight. They were pleased to have the resources of the clan at their disposal and happy to preside over Nurglitch´s trial by combat to ascertain his worthiness as a Lord of Decay. They added that hidden assassins stood ready to slaughter Nurglitch and his disciples in an instant if he failed to comply. Nurglitch complied.

The trial of Nurglitch was unusual in that it was fought above ground - far, far above ground on top of the great bell tower. As the great bell shuddered out the thirteen tolls of midnight Nurglitch climbed up to face his opponent, Lord Vask, on a space some five paces wide and so dizzyingly high that clouds crept past below it. The burly Lord Vask stood armed with to cleavers against Nurglitch´s own serrated blade.

As the bell tolled the thirteenth time to two rat lords snarled and circled carefully around each other, their long tails lashing. Nurglitch darted a slash at Vask´s exposed leg, only to be blocked and almost pushed over the edge by his return blow. Vask´s other cleaver cut the fur of Nurglitch´s shoulder as he rolled away. Vask laid back his ears and stayed in the centre of the platform, forcing Nurglitch to fight with his back to empty nothingless. Nurglitch desperately rained three quick blows on his foe and forced him back a pace. As Nurglitch closed Vask swept his razor-sharp cleavers down at his head and crotch with blinding swiftness. Nurglitch blocked one with his own blade and snarled as the other tore off his ear.

Nurglitch flipped a cleaver over the edge with a practised twist of his blade but Vask cought hold of his wrist before he could recover. The second cleaver rose for the killing blow and slashed empty air as Nurglitch lunged in to sing his fangs into Vask´s neck. Nurglitch and Vask fell together with a grunt, each flailing to keep hold of the other´s weapon, blood slicking the stones.

Nurglitch´s legs kicked out into nothing as Vask heaved him away over the edge. Suddenly Nurglitch was hanging by his paws, scrambling to climb back up at Vask lumbered to his feet and retrieved his cleaver. Nurgitch´s arms shook as he clung on above the infinite gulf of darkness, Vask´s blood dripped down on him as the Lord of Decay stepped slowly to the edge and looked down. Vask swayed and tried to raise his cleaver, bloody foam and pus leaking from the black tendrils of contagion already spreading from his ruined throat. With a final, despairing croak Vask pitched forward over the edge.

So the bell tolled for Vask´s passing and Nurglitch took his place on the Council of Thirteen. The name of Nurglitch is celebrated by the Plague Monks to this day and by tradition the holder of Clan Pestilens´ positon on the Council takes the name Nurglitch as a mark of respect.

THE BLACK PLAGUE

In the winter of the year 1111 Clan Pestilens unleashed their most deadly scourge in the Empire. ClanEshin adepts emptied vials of this vile pestilence into sewers and wells beneath many cities, poisoningthe water with a foulness that spread through the human populace like wildfire. It began as dark blotches on the afflicted´s flesh which would spread to eventually cover the entire body. Joints swelled and seized leaving the victim contorted in screaming agony. After anything from a few minutes to a week the afflicted would die in convulsions, flopping around like a gutted fish until their neck snapped. The citizens of the Empire came to call it the Black Plague, but many simply called it the Death, or feared to sprqak of it at all.

The plague began almost simultaneously in Nuln, Altdorf and Talabheim. The roads and rivers that made trade and transport so easy in the Empire sprad the plague further and faster than the Clan Eshin ever could. Soon towns were closing their gates against desperate refugees fleeing before the sickness. One by one the besieged towns succumbed to the plague or fell viction oto their own diseases in the craped owvercrowding that followed. Middenheim closed its viaeducts early on and so escaped the Black Plague altogether but elsewhere whole villages were swept away by the tide of death, towns were abandoned and cities became empty coffins where the living were outnumbered by the dead.- Men prayed to the gods for deliverance but none was forthcoming. Bands of Flagellants wandered the land proclaiming that the wrath of Sigmar had fallen upon the currupt Empire.

As winter turned to spring the grip of the Black Plague abated somewhat and the Council of Thirteen released the Warlord clans against the tottering remnants of the Empire. Chittering hordes of clanrat warriors overran te depopulated towns and villages of the southern Empire one by one, slaughtering the weakened defenders in an orgy of violence. Crops and livestock were looted and dragged away below ground. Dozens of settlements were burned, often with their occupants still inside. Vertholf Bergon of Nuln described the lands surrounding the city as "A scene from hell, the blackened land pocked to the horizon with burning pyres which painted the sky a lurid red and spread dark, choking clouds as far as the eye could see."

Only the great cities escaped the ravaging Skaven armies in the south; in the north the plague still held the land in a death grip. After years of corruption and neglect the Imperial army was helpless against the incursions of the children of the Horned Rat.

In 1115 Boris goldgather, the much hated and incompetent emperor of the time, succumbed to the plague himself and the hard-pressed citizens of the Empire finally hade something to celebrate. The emperor was one of the Black Plague´s last victims, its hold having graduelly weakened over the past four years. But by 1115 over theree quarters of the population had fallen victim to the plague or the Skaven. Huge tracts of the Empire had been across Reikland, Averland and Talabecland. Every winter thousands starved in the handful of towns and major cities that had escaped the scourges of disease and war.

In Skavenblight the Council of Thirteen convened and judged the time to be ripe for their final blow. They set armies in motion to destroy the last resistance and enslve all the surviving humans in the Empire.

Over the next seven years the Skaven started to systematically enslave the surviving human settlements. Swarms of scuttling clanrats would surround a farm or village at the dead of night and set fire to it, netting and clubbing the occuantsas they fled the flames. They drove long, shuffling columns of men, women and children awa to great slave-camps n the ruins of Ubersreik in Reikland and Pfeildorf in Wissenland. The lucky ones were left to work above ground growing food for the Skaven hordes but the less fortunate were sent below to work in the mines and forges of the Under-Empire. Whole families were dragged away in chains, doomed never to see the sun again.

As the slaves and booty stripped from the corpse of the Empire rolled in the status of Clan Pestilens rose immeasurably. Even the other Lords of Decay could not deny that the virtual collapse of the Empire had been brought about by the potency of the Black Plague. Because nene of the Lords of Decay were willing to openly resist them the Plague Lords of Clan Pestilens succeeded in slaying two members of the Council and securing and unprecedented three positions in the Council of Thirteen. The remaining Lords of Decay separated to their respective strongholds to plot a way to stop the Plague Lord´s runaway success.

Meanwhile Skaven armies marched into the previously untouched province of Sylvania. At the beginning of the Black Plague heavy showers of meteors had plunged down from Mórrslieb upon that nighted province and now the Skaven entered to search for warpstone. To their dismay they were met by great bands of plague-slain Zombies and Ghouls. The Skaven made slow progress in a series of skirmishes and small battles and soon started lose many warriors to a resugence of the Black Plague amidst their own ranks. Grey Seer Skrittar riminded the warlords of the lessons learned fighting Nagash in the war of Cripple Peak and the clanrats withdrew from Sylvania to find easier prey.

In the north of the Empire Middenheim had weathered the preceding years of famine and pestilence very well. The Count of Middenheim, Count Mandred, had done all he could to help the refugees flooding up from the south and the Priests of Ulric had so far kept the city free of plague. Well-defended, and set atop a giant rocky pinnacle in the forest, Meddenhem had no fear of attack and was well provisioned for a lengthy siege in any event.

Late in 1118 a huge horde of Skaven emerged from the forestes around Middenhem and encircled it. The citiezens of Middenheim only just managed to destroy the four viaducts giving access to the city before the first waves of clanrat warriors scuttled up. Several days later the Skaven infiltrated the tunnels beneath Middenheim, threatening to overrun the whole city from below. But Count Mandred co-ordinated a brilliant defence of the city and the tunnels beneath in the following weeks, combining flooding and barricades with desperate tunnel-fighting by the Knights the White Wolf and many other stout warriors. Often the count patrolled the subterranean outposts himself, raising the spirits of the hard-pressed soldiers there by joining them in the dark beneath the streets. Together the warriors of Middenheim kept the varminous hordes at bay and Count Mandred was hailed as the saviour of the city.

Months of skirmishing and prowling through the labyrinth underneath the city followed, with occasional groups of Skaven getting into the city above to murder and poison before they were hunted down. By early spring the Skaven horde was too riven with famine and pestilence to maintain the siege any longer and withdrew, establishing a secret stronghold in tunnels beneath the city before they left.

As a parting gift the children of the Horned Rat released the plague into Middenheim, already crammed with refugees trying to escape the Skaven and the harsh winter. In such close packed conditions the Black Plague ran riot but miraculously (as the priests of Ulric were quick to point out) the plague seemed to have weakened and only a third of its victims died.

By 1122 Count Mandred had rallied enough support from the surviving Elector Counts to lead a crusade against the Skaven in the Empire. Famine and internecine warfare had thinned the Skaven´s ranks, weakening them considerably. Over the next two years a series of great battles was fought in Averland, Reikland and the Howling Hills. Many smaller skirmishes were fought between small forces of Skaven and Empire troops around deserted villages and farms across the land. Gradually the Skaven armies were pushed out of the Empire step by step.

In 1124 the Skaven were finally driven below ground in the Empire. Count Mandred Skaven Slayer was hailed as a saviour of the Empire and crowned Emperor shortly afterwards. Many Skaven strongholds established in the preceding years remained undiscovered and the slaves taken were never freed but the Skaven were exhausted by their efforts. The Lords of Decay realised they were too weak to counter-attack and finish the humans properly this time. In truth the Skaven had captured so many slaves that they were starting to get seriously outnumbered in som parts of the Under-Empire and the Council of Thirteen feared a revolt. The Council convened again at Skavenblight, determining to consolidate their position and build upo the strength of the Warlord clans before launching another assault on the Empire.

Over the next twenty five years the Empire recovered more rapidly than the Lords of Decy believed possible. Under Emperor Mandred´s dynamic rule towns were rebuilt and land resettled by refugees returning from Bretonnia and Kislev. To make matters worse, Mandred ordered a constant guard to be kept against the Skaven, setting up organisations such as the sewer watch to halt their incursions. In the Under-Empire the Council was beset by a slave revolt and several outbreaks of Black Plague depopulated some of the holds. The Lords of Decay convened at Skavenblight in the winter of 1151/2 Recriminations flew between the Plague Lords and the rest of the Council, as well as a demands for compensation and a number of assassination attempts. Eventually a decision was made to delay further operations in the Empire.

To protect what remaining holds there were in the Empire the Council of Thirteen ordered the assassination of Emperor Mandred Skaven Slayer. A master assassion of Clan Eshin named Nartik succeeded in breaking into the Imperial palace and murdering Emperor Mandred later the same year. He cunningly completed his act by leaving evidence of a mutant atrocity before escaping into the sewers.

As the Council of Thirteen had predicted the Elector Counts failed to find a successor and fell back into territorial disputes and personal rivalries. By the following winter the Empire had collapsed into civil war and the Skaven had an opportunity to recuperate their strength. Over succeeding generations the scholars of the Empire failed to make any connection between the incursion of the Skaven and the Black Plague so the Skaven were quickly dismissed as a threat to the Empire. Within two centurie what was known about the Skaven became so emshrouded in myth and legent that many educated men even refused to believe in their existence at all.

THE HORNED RAT INCARNATE

Around 2300 the Under-Empire was in the fifth century of its second great civil war. The other Lords of Decay had long been jealous of the power wielded by Clan Pestilens after the unprecidented success of the Black Plague. When a similar campaign was undertaken in 1812 to destabilise and then destroy Bretonnia with the Red Pox the Plague Lords had confidently predicted its success. After the disastrous failure of the Red Pox many of the Lords of Decay demanded Clan Pestilens be removed from the Council of Thirteen altogether. After months of political manoeuvring, threats, blackmail, cover-ups, bribery and corrupton, a vote of the full Council was ordered.

On the day of the vote Clan Pestilens atempted to seize control of the Council chamber with the help of a number of Warlord clans, declaiming the old Council as traitorous and heretical. Fighting soon broke out between the albino temple guards, Plague Monks and clanrats in the precincts of the temple of the Horned Rat. complete anarchy ensued as the clans squabbled internally or with each other. Old rivalries flared up and ambitious clan lords seized the opportunity to advance themselves at the expence of the other clans. The Council of Thirteen was fractured as the Lords of Decay retreated to their respective strongholds. Skavenblight itself became a battleground for the warring clans with first one faction and then another gaining control.

Clan Skryre eventually seized the temple and fought off all-comers with the many diabolical weapons at their disposal. Warpfire throwers covered every entrance, Poison Wind Globadiers and jezzail teams wee ensconced in the bell tower. Morskittar, Lord-Warlock of Cla Skryre, declared himself ruler of Skavenblight but was ignored by the many factions as the fighting spread throughout the Skaven strongholds in the Old World.

Skavendom splintered into dozens of warring factions for over four hundred years. The war was marked by constant shifts in allegiance, treachery and back-stabbing as the clans sought to support whichever faction was winning at the time. Clan Pestilens, Skryre and Moulder each headed a faction. Clan Eshin remained neutral and hired its services to the highest bidder. During this time the Grey Seers travelled between them. Though the Seers were greatly feared and respected some of the factions would not evenconsider giving up the fight.

As the time of the great Chaos incursions approached portents abounded: a crackling corona played about the dark disc of Mórrslieb, showers of meteors fell from the skies, feverish dreams assailed even the most obtuse and many were driven mad. A rising tide of Dark magic swept through the Old World. The Grey Seers visited every stronghold and clan again. This time they gave the lords an ultimatum. At Skavenblight, during the great annual feast of Vermintide, the Grey Seers would beseech the Horned Rat to pronouce judgement over the warring clans. Any lord who did not attend would be defying the will of the Horned One and become the eternal enemy of him and his servants.

As the time approached the leaders of the clans began to arrive in Skavenblight. Some sent representatives, fearing a trap, but none dared to stay away altogether and defy the Seer´s decree. As each lord and representative arrived the Grey Seers place a powerful and terrible geas upon him to bring no harm upon the others. So it was that on the eve of Vermintide that for perhaps the first time in three thousand years members of every clan in Skavendom were assembled before the temple of the Horned Rat. High above, the lightning-etched curve of Mórrslieb bisected the bell tower, seeming huge and close. An atmosphere of fearful expectation settled over the hushed ranks as the temple doors swung open and the full order of one hundred and sixty nine Grey Seers filed out from within.

The Seerlord emerged last with a great brass-bound tome which he placed upon an iron lectern. As he opened it, glolwing blackness from the pages seemed to underlight his face. He read the first words ofthe incantation, twisted sounds which seemed to crack and split in the air. The other Grey Seers took up the chant and the mists around Skavenblight began to writhe and shift. Storm clouds gathered on the horizons and rushed across the skies towards the city. The squeals of the Grey Seers rose in intensity as they bagan the sacrifices.

One hundred and sixty nine slaves died one by one in increasing agony, the last dying slowly at the paws of the Seerlord himself. Their fear and pain reached out into the owels of creation to where the Horned One gnawed at the roots of reality. The great bell tolled as the brooding storm broke, lightning lashed down at the bell tower and blinded the assembled Skaven with its actinic glare. The bell tolled again and again, impossibly loud, drowning out the thunder and the frenzied chants of the Seers. The ground shuddered and cracked as the bell tolled for the thirteenth time and then fell silent.

In the sudden quiet the Seerlord opened his jaws and screeched with horror. A great, black crack spread from his open mouth to slowly split his head apart and spread through the air. It widened and dark vapour poured out, and the night-black crack grew until it reached the height of the temple itself. Skaven scurried back with shrieks of dismay as the vapour spewed out and plumed up into the heavvens, those caught in its embrace rotted and collapsed as they ran. Now a blacker shape could be seen amidst the vapour. Two blood-red eyes gazed out unblinkinly, wide as castle doors. The Skaven fell to their knees and pressed their muzzles in the dirt, some dropped stone dead as their hearts stopped in terror. The silhouette of curving horns could be seen as the glaring eyes moved closer. The shadows about it heaved and shifted like a wriggling mass of vermin. A great claw reached out and leisurely scooped up a handful of squeling Skaven. Yellow fanged jaws flashed as the Horned Rat consumed them with relish.

The Horned One swept his burning gaze over his quailing children and reached out again, clenching his mighty paw before them. When the paw withdrew a glowing black pillar of purest warpstone was revealed. It had thirteen sides, each marked by thirteenblocks of burning runic script. Then the Horned Rat whispered to the assembled horde with the voice of a million scratching and gnawing rats. He told them that though their wars amused him they must make peace and obey his commandments, they must spread corruption so that they could inherit the world and assure his return. Only his chosen ones could touch the pillar of his commandments and only his chosen ones might join the Council of Thirteen. All must obley the Council of feel his wrath. With that the awesome presence withdrew into the netherworld once more, the crack it had made narrowing and sealing behind it.

The musk of fear hung heavy over the survivours as they blinked up at the pillar and reassured themselves the Horned One had really gone. Lord Rakin was the first to touch the pillar. He burned with black fire until there was nothing but ashes. Over the long night that followed many relinquished their claims to the Council rather than face the test, but many more touched the pillar and of these twelve lived. Each of the new Lords of Decay was imbued with and aura of dark power and energy, a mark of the blessing of the Horned Rat. From that day unto this the council of Thirteen has ramained unchanged even though any Skaven can try to pass the test and then fight any of the Lords for their place. Many have tried, some have even passed the test, but none have managed to defeat the existing Lords of Decay.

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