Editing Skaven (section)

=== History ===
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{{Topquote|Rodents of unusual size? I don't believe they exist.|Free Company Sergeant Roberts, last words before being killed by a rodent of unusual size}}

====Warhammer Fantasy====
No-one knows where they came from but it is suspected [[Tzeentch]] had a hand in their creation using Warpstone, a hideous amount of mutation, and generations of breeding with normal rats. (That is to say, breeding rats with other rats, not Tzeentch breeding with the rats. That's more [[Slaanesh]]'s thing.) The 7th edition Lizardmen army book states that they came about during the Great Catastrophe. There's a poem in the Skaven codex, dating all the way back to their first codex in 4th edition, called "The Doom Of Kavzar". Written in-universe by an author in Tilea, (the Warhammer world's equivalent of Italy) it offers what is generally accepted as the most concrete explanation of their origins. To summarize;

Humans and Dwarfs lived together in a city called Kavzar, and decided to build a Noblebright Tower of Babel rip-off to thank the gods for their prosperity. But even Dorf engineering couldn't complete it, so they got some mysterious grey-clad stranger whom the Skaven refer to as "The Shaper" (and who was supposedly a treacherous Chaos Old One, and may be the Great Horned Rat before reaching apotheosis into a Chaos God. Alternatively has been theorised to be Constant Drachenfels), to complete it in exchange of him being allowed to add a giant bell as a dedication to his own gods.
Upon completion, the temple sealed itself shut, the stranger disappeared, and terrible things happened after the bell rang thirteen times. The weather turned bad with constant Warpstone-laced rain, people got sick, babies were born dead or mutated, crops failed and rats multiplied while growing bigger and smarter. (Older fluff said the stranger cursed the city because the people refused to give him money as well for finishing the temple, newer fluff just makes him out to be evil and mysterious.)
Every day, the bell rang thirteen times. Rain became hail, then hail became meteor showers. The rats kept growing to the point that swarms of rats started preying on humans. Realizing things were becoming [[Dwarf Fortress]], the humans asked the Dwarfs for help.
The first time the Dwarfs turned them down after calling them wimps for complaining about rain. The second time they were rebuffed due to the rats eating all the Dwarfs' food. The third time the surviving humans got desperate and smashed open the Dwarf gates to demand their help... only to find bearded Dorf skeletons and well-fed, but still hungry, hordes of rats and the poem ends with them swarming and eating the last surviving humans.

tl:dr a [[wizard]] met [[human]]s and [[dwarf]]s, someone was swindled so magic happens that turns rats into tyranids.

And the rest is history...

Notable this story appears to be known in universe. [[Vermintide 2|Victor Saltzpyre]] mentioned a reference to it at one point in Vermintide.

Incidentally, this isn't the only theory presented to their origins, but it's the one most gamers take as canon. Some other in-universe origin theories include:
* An Imperial naturalist named Wilfried Schtutt argued that the skaven descend from rats warped into a semblance of the human form by some malign external power, such as [[Chaos]].
* A Tilean classicist, Marcelli Verdallo, argues that the skaven are living proof of the ancient philosopher-sage Proti's theorem that all things in the universe are created by the mystical interactions of cosmic archetypes from beyond time and space (how meta), being the fruit of some union between the archetypes of Rat and Man.
* Johannes Krueger's Bestiarium mentions an ancient Estalian legend wherein shipwrecked survivors turned to cannibalism and were cursed by Manann, the Sea God, assuming rat-like forms.
* That the Skaven were created by Skavor, the Dwarf ancestor god that's the son of Gazul and cousin to Grimnir. Lacking skill in shaping stone and metal, Skavor turned to fleshcrafting instead and got exiled. He then turned himself into a hideous rat-beast and swore vengeance on his blood kin.

Also there are a few [https://i.imgur.com/FWzQkHn.jpg other origin] stories.

It is said that after their creation, Skaven spread across the world, [[Ikit Claw|learning many cultures, stealing technologies and magic techniques that could help them in their conquest for Skavendom or personal power]]. Namely the Clan Pestilens who traveled southward and westward and ended up in Lustria, Clan Eshin who traveled eastward and ended up in Cathay, Clan Moulder who traveled northward and established a stronghold in some backwater hellish landscape known as the Hellpit near Kislev and Norsca.

Further evidence that the Doom of Kavzar is the canon origins of the Skaven is that the poem's author was assassinated by [[Clan Eshin|means unknown in-universe]] and copies of the poem keep disappearing. Plus their capital city, Skavenblight, is all but stated to be Kavzar (the tower with the bell being the headquarters of the Grey Seers). This makes them a surprisingly old race, as they were actually well-established before the rise of the [[Tomb Kings]] as the undead rulers of Khemri - in fact, they had a grubby little paw in that whole sordid affair.

It was the Skaven that supplied Nagash with many slaves and warriors such as savage orcs for him to kill and raise. It was the Skaven that helped Nagash to poison the River Vitae, unleashing a magical plague to devastate every living thing in Nehekhara. It was also the Skaven who betrayed Nagash by assisting the human Alcadizaar in his defeat, which resulted in the rise of the Tomb Kings since Nagash was no longer around to control the dead Nehekharans. So, aside from the Dark Elves who taught Nagash the [[Warhammer Magic|Lore of Darkness magic]] that would eventually evolve into the necromancy all [[Vampire Counts|vampires]] love, and the [[Tomb King|Nehekharans]] hate, the Skaven were the ones that supported Nagash, making him powerful and undefeated. (This is because every time Nagash died, he re-spawned back to his black pyramid. Although it takes a fuck load of time for him to actually get up, it allows him to grasp the mortal world while preserving his existence. Also the pyramid itself is near-indestructible so he has no need to trust anyone to guard it.) In the end, they still betrayed him for their own selfish desires. Classic Skaven.

The Skaven have been popping out numerous times across history, trying to weaken the forces of order to favor themselves in the long run. For example, they appeared during one of the Norseman invasions, when Sigmar was still around. In fear that Sigmar's Empire might threaten their very existence, they tried to use the invasion as an opportunity to destroy mankind, but failed nonetheless thanks to the Dwarfs that were blocking their tunnels.

After that, the Skaven didn't lay a hand on the Empire until after their own civil war. It was at this time that Clan Pestilens developed a new disease called the Black Plague (nice real life reference [[Games Workshop|GW]]), spreading it among the Empire's population. The plague not only killed and reduced its population to less than half the size of the generation before, it also killed the current Emperor (Boris Goldgather, AKA the worst Emperor, who was actually killed by an Eshin assassin's shuriken, but who cares) and every other corrupt noble in his hideout, and good riddance some say (amusingly, his death is actually celebrated as a public holiday). The Skaven then launched their attack after the plague weakened the Empire, but were stopped by a pretty cool guy named Mandred von Zelt of Middenland, who gathered the rest of the elector counts and launched an anti-Skaven crusade. Ironically, the black plague played a major role in many of Mandred's victories, since the disease affected the Skaven as well, weakening the Skaven army and killing enough of them to force their retreat.

In the last battle, the Skaven launched their last counterattack, only to fail after their leader, Vrrmik, the warlord of Clan Mors and a member of the Council of Thirteen, was slain by Mandred. The rest of the vermin were then driven back to their Under-Empire by the Empire’s forces while suffering under their own plague from the war. What's worse for the Skaven was that the slaves they bought ended up revolting, and destroyed several already plague weakened clans while Mandred (who was declared the Emperor and sporting Vrrmik's own helmet at the time) rebuilt the Empire. The process was faster than the Skaven could expect, with the humans even installing the sewer watch to prevent further Skaven movement on the Empire. After such a humiliating defeat, the Council received many compensation notices from other disease ridden clans. But the Council decided to just assassinate them all, including our beloved Emperor rat slayer, and called it even. The assassination made mankind forget about the Skaven, even dismissing them as myth.

The Skaven are also pretty famous on [[Cathay|the eastern side that]] [[Nippon| Games Workshop refuses to talk about]]. Clan Eshin's ancestors once journeyed far to the east, losing contact with its society for 100 years. When they came back however, they had learned the art of NINJUTSU from some jerk-off at [[Nippon]] where they have skilled rats throwing shuriken, and frigging ninja flipping better than [[Gabriel Angelos|the Chapter Master Gabriel Angelos]]. In [[Cathay]], some filthy beastman and a Sun Wukong wannabe became the Emperor of not-China and took an Eshin Skaven warlord as his right hand man. Thus began an unhealthy relationship of trading warpstones and rat shit, which means either the Cathay Emperor is nuttier than a warp fruit cake (which should be obvious since the new Emperor was mentioned to be a fucking magical monkey beastman, or probably something worse if he is also like Wukong born from the meteor except the meteor is made of warpstones), or Eshin Skaven are ''slightly'' more trustworthy than the rest of Skaven. (If you believe [[Total_War:_WARHAMMER#Skaven|Total War]], they are; they're the only clan that doesn't have to deal with warlord loyalty.) It might be true depending on how [[weeaboo]] the Eshin has become; if you look up on real world ninja, they do tend to be surprisingly loyal compared to what you might think. However, one could say that the eastern legion doesn't really have any experiences with Skaven betrayals, plus the Skaven did assist the Chaos Dwarves in the End Times to siege Cathay, meaning everything the Skaven did in Cathay was but a diplomatic ploy to fool the Cathayans.

As if the Skaven aren't widespread enough, they have the operation worldwide. There is Clan Pestilens in Lustria, who like to infect themselves with diseases that Nurgle doesn't approve of, and throw feces at lizard-things for the lulz. Some of the rats made it into Naggaroth (probably as slaves or a few via the under-Empire) while trying not to provoke the wrath of [[Malekith|the strongest mama's boy in Warhammer history]]. The only place they could never set their foot on would be Ulthuan, which is a giant continent that floats on top of the water and obviously can't be connected to Skavenblight via tunnels. It's regardless just too scary for the rat-things to deal with: flame spewing dragon-things, elf-things that shoot rains of arrows from far away, and mages that have the power to summon a [[exterminatus|giant bombardment of nukes from the sky]].

The Skaven themselves have no records of their origins, and do not particularly care about their past. As far as they are concerned, the only relevant historical eras are "now, when we don't rule the world" and "soon, when we will be ruling it". Of course, any given Skaven will be plenty interested in the history of his own life, but the history of the rest of their race is dismissed as unimportant. On day to day affairs, history is whatever the Council of 13 says it is, though it wouldn't be surprising if Grey Seers keep records.

====The 9th Age====

==== Age of Sigmar ====
The Skaven survived the end of the old world by teleporting [[Skavenblight]] to another dimension. When the Horned Rat became the Great Horned Rat he immediately drew Skavenblight into the Warp and created more of his Daemons. What followed was a golden age for the Skaven, where there was Warpstone everywhere to be found, they had the direct blessing of the Great Horned Rat, and unlimited space and potential around them. They then promptly did the impossible and somehow dug so deep that part of the Warp collapsed into Skavenblight which collapsed into the material realm which is now made up of eight "nearly infinite" planes made of the former Winds of Magic.

Skaven now have access to all of reality at once, and can create realm-spanning 'Gnawholes' everywhere from beneath Sigmar's throne to beneath Khorne's throne. As can be expected the tunnels are not stable and thus only the Skaven are willing to use them, as even immortal and deathless Daemons can somehow vanish into the space between spaces never to be seen again when Skaven are involved. This doesn’t mean that the Gnawholes are completely safe for the rat kin though. Just the process of constructing one of these inter-dimensional tunnels costs tens of thousands of <strike>lives</strike> slaves, and when the Gnawhole is complete, there’s a good chance that the big brains in charge of the project were off on their calculations. So instead of tunneling directly into [[Cities of Sigmar|Hammerhal]], you instead end up in the middle of nowhere or an active volcano.

Skaven have also had an exponential population boom, which is impressive considering they damn near outnumbered insects in the old setting. With the other races generally numbering in the millions if not billions and the Skaven numbering potentially in the trillions. Each of the four former great clans from the Old World is alive and kicking <strike>eachother</strike>, each containing billions of Skaven and even entire clans. A fifth great clan is Verminus, an especially numerous and martial clan (the techy/monstery/sneaky/stinky niches were taken so someone's gotta make Stormvermin their thing).

However, Skryre, Pestilens, Moulder, Eshin and Verminus were not always the only Great Clans. In the age of Myth, there were said to be as many as 13 great clans (probably more like 9 or 10 but the Grey Seers rounded up). What happened to the rest? A couple of examples: 

* Clans Tichritt attempts an invasion of Thandria, a Sigmarite nation. It may as well be Russia in winter with the pantheon of Order united - Tichritt is annihilated.
* Clan Ikk does well during the tumult of the Age of Chaos, gaining a momentous ''four'' seats on the Council of Thirteen which sparks a civil war with the equally ascendant Clan Verminus. Verminus enlists the help of Clan Pestilens to spread an epidemic of frothjaw. The rabid rats get so erratic the other great clans temporarily unite to destroy them.
* Clans Shrykt digs a huge gnawhole and, one by one, its clans disappear through the portal. They were never heard from again. Maybe they left to join 9th age.

The increased scope of AoS lore has meant Skaven society is EVEN MORE chaotic and self-destructive than it was. And this lore makes a little more sense than their old world history: you can't expect such volatile societies to [[Warhammer 40000|maintain a millennia-long deadlock between the same four great powers.]] Still, the current status quo of vying great clans is not that different from the old world's coz... those are the models GW sells. The unknown great clans continue the trend of GW giving AoS lore lots of missing primarchs (deliberately left gaps for homebrew and headcanon). In the Age of Chaos, the Skaven nearly obliderated themselves (again) with a massive civil war before the Great Horned Rat himself had to intervene. In addtion the clans Pestilens profited greatly from their alliance with Nurgle during this time and looked to be rising as the new dominant clan. However, Order managing to push back against this smelliance has meant that the Clans Skryre is better poised to vie with Pestilens for pre-eminence on the council of thirteen. They'll probably work it out peacefully (by Skaven standards, meaning only several million rats will die).

Skaven continue to be fuck-ups at a scale never before witnessed. When Nagash attempted a great ritual of necromantic binding, it was sabotaged by the Skaven nibbling a power cord. Eshin agents had managed to open gnawholes in Nagash's great pyramid. Huge success for Skavendom? Well, maybe had another group not accidentally opened a gnawhole at the bottom of the Shyish sea. Blight City was decimated by a zombie-infested flood, like The Day after Tomorrow meets World War Z. Hilariously, the drained Shyish seabed revealed the soul-stealing [[Idoneth Deepkin]] to Nagash, Slaanesh and everyone else who was wondering about those mysteriously empty towns that smelled faintly of halibut. The moral of the story is clear: you might be able to foil Skaven schemes but it's their fuck-ups you wanna watch out for.

The Era of the Beast and [[Kragnos]]’ emergence was ripe with opportunity for the rat men, who all felt invigorated by the surging energies emanating from the Realm of Beasts. The Clans Pestilens were able to unleash another of their Thirteen Great Plagues, sending grotesquely huge ticks rampaging throughout Blight City and (presumably) into the Mortal Realms. Not wanting to be outdone by their overzealous rivals, the Clans Skryre collaborated with the Clans Moulder once again. This time they experimented with the colossal children of the [[Godbeast]] Fangathrak to create giant parasitic worm monsters to harvest a tar-black liquid found in the continent of Andtor. When mixed with liquid warpstone, this substance seems to create “super-Skaven”, though what will become of these new creations is unclear…