Games - Skaven

	Games - Skaven

The Skaven are an evil, sentient race of rat-like creatures in Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy
setting. They live in a series of tunnels beneath the surface of the world, plotting for the day when they will rise up and conquer the surface realms. Humans remain mostly ignorant of the Skaven, a state of affairs which the ratmen take great effort to maintain. Those who do know of their existence tend to classify them as merely a sub-breed of Beastmen rather than as a unique race.

Skaven is also the handle of Peter Hajba, one of the musicians of the popular Finnish demoscene group Future Crew.

= Skaven in the real world =

First sighting

Skaven were introduced into the Warhammer world in the Spring 1986 issue of the Citadel Journal, billed as "a new Chaos race". The original 1986 Skaven range of Citadel miniatures was sculpted by renowned sculptor Jes Goodwin, who also provided the original background in the 1986 Citadel Journal (introducing the core of the background that remains to this day, including the Clan structure, the Council of Thirteen, the Grey Seers, the Horned Rat, and so on). The miniatures proved very popular, and the range was expanded by Goodwin over the next few years.

Skaven formed the core opponents of Games Workshop's popular Advanced Heroquest adventure game, released in 1990.

Skaven in print

Skaven feature heavily in Bill King's Gotrek and Felix novels. One of King's best loved characters, the cunning but cowardly Thanquol, became integrated into the game background and received his own Jes Goodwin-sculpted miniature in 1994.

The Black Library produced a background book on the Skaven entitled The Loathsome Ratmen and all Their Vile Kin.

Roysten Crow, an author of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay material, also explored the Skaven in great detail in the (fan-fiction) novel Warpspawn. The novel was written from a Skaven perspective and portrayed the species as the Warhammer world originally depicted them: highly complex, ultra-machiavellian, and riddled with internal conflict. The book became available as a free download at the profit-free fan sites of and . It contains most of the information formerly available in the first edition Skaven army books and is useful because much of this data was not reprinted in later editions.

Inspirations

It is thought that the idea of the Skaven race may come from a series of novels by Fritz Leiber, a famous pulp fiction novelist. The Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories involve a race of intelligent rats who live under the cities of men, led by a council of thirteen rat sorcerers who attempt by covert means to take over a large cosmopolitan city that bears a passing resemblance to Altdorf.

= 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 4th edition of the Warhammer game.

History

Long ago before the founding of The Empire a great city was built in the place now known as the desolate marshes. The city was great, Men lived above ground and a great dwarven city was also built below the ground. Men and Dwarves lived in harmony for many years.

One year a council of the wisest men and dwarves of the city decided to build a great tower in honour of their gods. The tower was to touch the sky and pierce heaven itself, it would be the greatest building man or dwarf had ever created. So construction of the tower was duly started. Men and dwarves worked on it for years, years turned into decades and generations passed with the builders passing their great task onto their sons. After almost one hundred years of construction the tower was nowhere near finished. One day a hooded man appeared at the gates of the city. The stranger conversed at length with the council and offered to help them finish the tower within a week as long as he could add a small part of his own design to the massive construction. The council agreed.

Sure enough the tower was finished by the end of the week. The townsfolk crowded round, gazing in awe at the giant wonder. When the council inquired to what the stranger had added he replied he had added a a huge bronze bell to the very top of the tower. The stranger demanded payment for his work but the council refused there had been no mention of payment in their deal. The stranger warned that if he did not receive his payment by midnight the next day the bell would ring thirteen times and a terrible curse would be placed upon the city. the council guffawed at this statement and had him evicted from the city.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Skaven ]

Games - Skaven

First sighting

Skaven in print

Inspirations

History

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