Great Horned Rat
 | |
| Titles | Great Deceiver[6a] He Who Gnaws[6a] Horned One[6a] Lord of Assassins[6a] Lord of Decay[6a] Rat God[9a] Screaming One[9a] Shadow That Kills[6a] Under-Father[9a] Vermin King[6a] |
| Domains | Desolation[7a] Desperation[9a] Collapse[9a] Disaster[9a] Famine[7a] Pestilence[2] Treachery[7a] Vermin[2] Starving Wastelands[2] |
| Type | Elemental Deity[11] Chaos God[4a] |
| Status | Active |
| Aspects | Dark Innovator[4a] Good King Gnaw[9a] Great Conqueror[4a] Great Corruptor[6a] Shadow of Murder[9a] Writhing Bloodsire[9a] |
| Home | Deepengnaw[9a] |
| Affiliation | Chaos[11] |
| Followers | Skaven[9a] |
| Symbols | 13[9a] |
The Great Horned Rat is a deity of the Skaven that has recently ascended to the pantheon of the Dark Gods.[1a]
Contents
Manifestation
He is a rodent deity with multiple tails.[9a] He has thirteen sky-scratching whiskers and colossal chisel-like teeth that glint with the glow of warpfire and infernal industry.[2]
Emotion
The Great Horned Rat is a deity of Chaos formed from the desperation of Mortals, drawing strength from the acts of mortal whenever they are driven by this emotion. He is a manifestation of mortals at the worst moments of their lives, when they act like self-serving vermin.[9a]
Some examples of acts that empower the Great Horned Rat are:
- The peasant who cannibalises his family to avoid starvation;[9a]
- The preacher who prophesying disaster to increase his power;[9a]
- The child who destroys the works of their siblings for attention;[9a]
- Men who out of desperation become apostates and turn to the worship of Good King Gnaw;[9a]
- The Skaven species, sickened with the echo of the Great Horned Rat's personal need to consume, known as the Black Hunger, and their society that combines with their explosive fecundity, the scarcity of the warren-cities, the clawing for any prestige that leads the Skaven to tear down each others achievements.[9a]
Personality
As a deity, he has hateful nature and thrives whenever the others betray each other for an advantage.[9a]
A scholar, specialist in mythos and with limited capability to understand Queekish that was captured by Skaven but managed to escape, believes that the Great Horned Hat is amused by the frequent warring and self-destructive madness of the Skaven and their god thinks its good.[9a]
His mind is ablaze with nefarious schemes that he gives to his ratman disciples. His goal is to overthrow the cosmos and have rodents rule over the ruins without any thought for what come after. He even uses twisted deals and betrayals to undermine the Pantheon of the Dark Gods and eventually bring the other deities into ruinations.[9a]
Slaanesh has learned to use the Great Horned Rat's tendency towards treachery to his advantage.[12a]
Realm
The Deepengnaw, also known as the Realm of Ruin or the Netherwastes, is the domain and chief demesne of the Great Horned Rat in the Realm of Chaos. A place of tarnished dreams and half-devoured husks containing the many, myriad afterlives of the Skaven race.[9a][10a] The Great Horned Hat inhabits a shadowed lair from where he claws at creation.[9a]
Religion
The Great Horned Rat is pleased with the multitudes of Blight City, finding their endeavours and their numbers which are so large that it is hard for even him to keep track, extremely pleasing.[2]
Number
His sacred number is thirteen and holy to the Skaven. A number that often repeats in his dark omens.[9a]
Aspects
The Great Horned Rat has multiple aspects worshipped by each of the Great Clans, and at least one worshipped by non-Skaven:[4a][9a]
- The Great Conqueror is also known as the King of Lashes is a warlike and arrogant being worshipped by Clans Verminus. He is a lash-tailed conqueror who exhorts his worshippers to tear apart their enemies and feast on their corpses.[4a][9a]
- The Great Corruptor is worshipped by Clans Pestilens as a virulent horror of sloughing flesh and rotted bone who desires to unleash the Thirteen Great Plagues upon the Mortal Realms.[4a]
- The Dark Innovator worshipped by Clans Skryre is a monster of infernal machinery or automaton-deity of darkling machineries. In his name the Skaven seek to twist and re-purpose the mechanisms of reality itself.[4a][9a]
- The Writhing Bloodsire also called the Fleshgifter is worshipped by the Clans Moulder and its fleshcrafters. It takes the form of a protean mass of heaving ratflesh that seeks to bury all the realms in endless vermin.[4a][9a]
- The Shadow of Murder also called the Scuttler-in-the-Walls is worshipped by Clans Eshin and it's assassins. In his name they seek to assassinate leaders and champions to bring anarchy through the collapse of just rule.[4a][9a]
- The Good King Gnaw is an aspect worshipped by men in desperation, driven by selfish fear and self-serving abasement in search for any succour. He takes the form of a crowned benevolent lord surrounded by an endless feast.[9a]
It is speculated that these aspects might have splintered further and attained an independence of sort, each warring for primacy within the Great Horned Rat's god-mind, as a reflection of the Skaven readiness to war amongst themselves.[9a]
Worship as the Great Corruptor
The Great Horned Rat's most zealous and fervent worshippers are the Skaven of the Clans Pestilens, who horned their deity in the aspect of the Great Corruptor, the bringer of plague. In contrast to the plague god Nurgle, who finds great satisfaction in the cycle of death and rebirth, the Horned Rat cares only for entropy and the pestilent withering of all. He seeks the final corruption of everything, knowing this will bring about his own ascension as the most powerful deity of them all.
Worship as the Good King Gnaw
In their most desperate moments, Men are driven by selfish fear and self-serving abasement will search for any succour. They will find it in the 'Good King Gnaw, as aspect of the Great Horned Rat that takes the form of a crowned benevolent lord surrounded by an endless feast. They worship him by donning cloaks of filthy vermin-pelts and offer tributes of burnt crops and befouled carcasses to bell-strewn altars or rotting wicker idols. This allows the Chaos Gods to reach into their dreams and flesh and twist them both to his liking. Regardless of what they do their ultimate fate is to be eaten by Skaven.[9a]
History
Skaven legend tells that, during the last days of the world-that-was, he became so powerful that the Gods of Chaos themselves were compelled to admit the Horned Rat to their ranks. Thus was he able to spread his children across the Mortal Realms, and though the other Dark Gods see this newcomer as little more than an amusing distraction, the rat-god plans to prove them wrong.[1a]
Now called the Great Horned Rat, he is blight and pestilence incarnate. Having recently ascended to the pantheon, the Skaven deity is not yet considered an equal by his dark brothers.[1a]
A scholar, specialist in mythos, with limited capability to understand Queekish that was captured by Skaven but managed to escape, states that the Skaven believe that after the destruction of a world, the deity brought their kind to Blight City, devouring many of them before he was done.[9a]
Entering the Mortal Realms
The Great Horned Rat, like the other Dark Gods, was unable to send his agents to the Mortal Realms at first due to the purity of their magic and the ignorance of its natives about the Gods of Chaos. To gain access he tormented many Ghyranite tribes beset by verminous infestation with visions of baleful eyes in their dreams, turning them to his worship. They started to wear the pelts and tails of the largest vermin they could slay, and started dancing on their fours around the corpses of local rat-catchers. The next time the gravid moon rose green, the Skaven were able to reach the realms and devoured these worshippers.[3a]
Times of Tribulations
The plan of the Great Horned Rat was to let his fellow Dark Gods take the brunt of the resurgence of the Pantheon of Order and let each other expend their strength as his swarm of Skaven continued to grow in power and numbers in the corners of the Mortal Realms. He would then unleash his might, turning the Mortal Realms into blighted wastelands fit only for vermin and forcing the Chaos Pantheon to kneel before him.[2]
However he sensed the surging power of Nagash, the touch of undeath felt even in Blight City, a rival that contended for the same power as him, one that would be able to disrupt his ascension. This and the sneering contempt of the other four primary Gods of Chaos forced him to intervene.[2]
Hour of Ruin
The Hour of Ruin gathered the exact conditions for the Great Horned Rat to gain status amongst the Dark Gods. In every bastion of civilisation, street-prophets scream of of a new age, just as vermin burst from their flesh. Cosmic bonds are far gnawed and fractured as sanity goes out of alignment. The number 13, sacred to Rat God and the Skaven is repeated often as dark omen.[9a]
Not even the Realm of Chaos was spared of his ascension. His domain, the Deepengnaw, encroaches and pollutes the domains of the other Dark Gods. This is not like the invasions the gods expect of each other, but a flash flood of corruption and phantasmal vermin. The Brothers in Darkness are forced to divest from reality to deal with the Great Horned Rats' ascension in their own domains, but even as they try to keep his threat in check, their desire for primacy sees them seeking to take advantage for themselves. This helps the Great Horned Rat further as he thrives within such treachery, using deals and betrayals that little by little undermine the Pantheon of the Dark Gods.[9a]
Forces dedicated to the Great Horned Rat
The scheming clans of the Skaven hide in dark places across the Cosmos Arcane, where they can multiply their numberless hordes. They seek nothing short of overrunning all of reality. There are none they would not be willing to betray to achieve their goal, least of all each other.[6a]
A scholar with limited capability to understand Queekish and that was captured by Skaven but managed to escape, states that the Skaven fear their god completely. Using that fear he can compel them to unite, by sending daemon-vermin to speak for his will or hissing into their minds.[9a]
The most powerful of his followers, those that have the potential to ponder on the failings of their societies, are too twisted by it to consider change. The Great Horned Rat whispers both glory and threat into their minds to keep them that way.[9a]
Clans Verminus
Most numerous of all Skaven are the Clans Verminus, worshippers of the King of Lashes aspect of the Great Horned Rat. It is from within their ranks that the Clanrats and Stormvermin that make up the war-swarms that all Skaven rely upon for their conquests.[4a][6a]
Clans Pestilens
The rabid zealots of the Great Corruptor are known as the Clans Pestilens. These verminous acolytes are on a quest to find, and unleash, the Thirteen Great Plagues upon the Mortal Realms. With these mystical maladies they hope to infect all of reality.[4a][6a]
Clans Moulder
The fleshcrafters and beast-tamers that follow the example of the Fleshgifter are known as the Clans Moulder. The deranged rats of these clans use foul methods, many that even other champions of Chaos are repulsed by, to create their armies of horrific mutants. Warpstone, the Realmstone of Blight City, is one of their favoured ways of unleashing mutation.[4a][6a]
Clans Skryre
The dark science of the Clans Skryre, disciples of the Dark Innovator, has led to the creation of many wonder-weapons that have caused devastation across the Mortal Realms. It is Skryre that supplies a substantial portion of the weapons and machines used by their fellow Skaven.[4a][6a]
Clans Eshin
The spymasters and assassins of the Clans Eshin venerate the Great Horned Rat as the Scuttler-in-the-Walls. They are an aberration within the the teeming ranks of Skavendom, for a position among the Eshin must be earned not conspired for. Their agents have infiltrated cities all across the Realms, even Azyr.[4a][6a]
Masterclan
Manipulating all of these fractious clans is the Masterclan composed of the most powerful servants of the Great Horned Rat, the Grey Seers, his Skaven sorcerer-prophets, and the Verminlords, his Daemons. Under their guidance the Skaven are forever pursuing innumerable schemes to outwit their enemies throughout the Cosmos.[4b][6a]
Chaos Cults of the Great Horned Rat
- Worshippers of the Good King Gnaw: One example of these apostates is when the nobles of Gilder District in Hel Crown turned to worshipping the Good King Gnaw during the Skaven invasion of Slaughter at Hel Crown. After converting to its cause the nobles of Hel Crown began to undermine the war efforts of the Stormcast Eternals in its name.[8]
See also
- For Great Horned Rat in the World-That-Was see: Horned Rat.
Sources
- 1: Warhammer: Age of Sigmar
- 2: Malign Portents, pg. 18-20
- 3: Age of Sigmar: Core Book (2nd Edition)
- 3a: Daemon Incursion, pg. 34-35
- 4: Battletome: Skaven (2019)
- 5: Soulbound Core Rulebook
- 5a: Chapter Ten: Religion & Belief
- 6: Age of Sigmar: Core Book (3rd Edition)
- 6a: Skaven, pg. 190-193
- 7: Battletome: Skaven (2022)
- 7a: A Verminous Menace, pg. 4
- 8: The Slaughter at Hel Crown – The First Results Are In
- 9: Battletome: Skaven (2024)
- 9a: Children of the Rat God, pg. 12-13
- 10: Inferno! Volume 4
- 10a: At the Sign of the Brazen Claw Part 4: The Sorcerer's Tale, pg. 133-142
- 11: White Dwarf June 2019, pg. 9-10
- 12: Battletome: Slaves to Darkness (2019)
- 12a: The Inevitable Truth, pg. 9
