I have been hearing a lot of talk about Skaven lately and it's all balderdash. All of it.
Honestly. Rat-men. In the sewers. What sort of simpletons are you? How can you fall for such childish rumours?
Do not tell me you were taking that utter drivel that dribbles out of those drunken dwarfen louts at the tavern seriously. They have probably spent so long crawling through those dirty little holes of theirs, that the lack of air and having your face right in front of another dirty scoundrel's posterior has made them soft in the head.
What proof do you even have that these "Skaven" exist. Chicken scratches on a drain cover? Peasants going missing? Vermin becoming more common?
Bah, there is a hundred and one ways to explain any one of those events. You are just completely delusional.
This is one of those aspects of WHFB's setting that I've always found really dumb and not funny enough to make up for it.
There are dwarf societies which are continually and regularly at war with Skaven clans. Estalia and Tilea have sewer guard corps who fight Skaven all the time. One of the Emperors of the Empire was Mandred Skavenslayer and his assassination by Skaven led to a 400 year interregnum of suffering and civil war for everyone.
So: people not believing the scale of the Skaven threat, sure. People believing Skaven are only another type of Beastman, great. Skaven not existing at all? Fucking retarded.
Parker Williams
Skaven are not real, citizen, stop spreading lies or you shall be sent to the chopping block
William Phillips
you have to keep in mind: clan Eshin works its ass off to spread disinformation throughout the Empire.
Jaxson Nguyen
Considering the average tech and education level, it's perfectly reasonable for a peasant or even burgher to think all of this is tall tales from dwarves and fancy lies from foppish foreigners.
Xavier Allen
The skaven themselves make sure that the people in charge of the Empire are either kept unaware of them, or working for them.
If you have high responsibilities in the Empire and haven't been assassinated by the Skaven yet, it's either because you firmly believe that they don't exist, or because you're one of their agents.
Christopher Morris
>t. skaven
Nicholas Richardson
Wait, the Skaven have high-level human agents?
I thought they just bribed merchants and other mid-level people. What does a Skaven have to offer a noble apart from not getting repeatedly stabbed by a weeping blade?
Jaxson Evans
That just makes Skaven TOO powerful, more than they actually are.
Bentley Hall
I mean that's good enough for me user
Ayden Thomas
"Yes-yes we should all believe the mighty Skaven of the Under Empire do not exist. This is correct fellow man-things."
Lucas Peterson
Wait...Are skaven jews?
Ayden Perez
"Questioning my authority? Perhaps I should throw YOU on the pyre as well, we'll see how far your doubt lasts while burning atop the smoldering corpses of a hundred, foul, rats!"
Asher Williams
*chuckles* actually, his was Mandred Ratslayer
Cameron Sullivan
And when a Skaven raid sacks or (even worse for the great conspiracy )is outright repelled from a town does the empire still refuse to acknowlage it happened to the very people it literally just happened to?
What about all the soldiers who have clearly seen and done battle with the Skaven armies or invaded Skaven warrens? Or the times when a Skaven bribery falls on deaf ears or the bribe’d fella betrays them anyway? Or the times when a Skaven assassination actually *Fails*. And all the random-ass sightings from farmers and the ‘rumers’ from foreign people who constantly tell them strait up that ratmen are real?
So much this.
Bentley Jenkins
You're a retard. Know why? You know tidbits but as a whole nothing. A lot like the general populance who are easily told its more mutants or chaos spawn. How can you not see that?
Josiah Anderson
Jews don't exist citizen
Andrew Brooks
Random/renegade/lost Beastmen, perhaps?
Angel Hughes
You forget yourself sir! Even one as esteemed as yourself cannot go around making such declarations to a noble, such as myself, without evidence.
But as I am a loyal and law abiding citizen of this glorious empire, I shall go back on my words if you can prove beyond a shadow of the doubt that Skaven exist.
Take as much time as you want honourable sir, I will continue to go about my daily duties in the meantime.
See, even this Bretonnian peasant, ill-bred and wretched as he is, can see the folly in this "Skaven" nonsense.
Jack Martinez
It wasn't Skaven, it was a odd bunch of beastmen!
Ethan Cook
>See, even this Bretonnian peasant, ill-bred and wretched as he is, can see the folly in this "Skaven" nonsense.
That's legitimately hilarious.
Cameron Hill
That's fine, and that's different from Skaven don't exist full stop.
Oliver Rogers
not getting repeatedly stabbed with a weeping blade is good enough
they can also assassinate rivals for them or provide them their next fix of warpsdust.
That's a neat little tidbit of Skaven lore: they get people (usually wizards) hooked on warpstone dust.
THEY WENT TO THE MOON, BUILT A NUKE AND CRATED AN UNDERGROUND TUNNEL NETWORK UNDER THE OCEAN FLOOR
COERCING A FEW HUNDRED HUMANS INTO DOING THEIR BIDDING IS WELL WITHIN THEIR POWER
Isaac Scott
They're crust punk jews
Jack Thomas
They mostly either make sure everyone think that they are some sort of beastman, or they spread the disinformation to avoid panic in the cities
Jayden Jones
Skaven bribery that falls on deaf ears falls on dead ears.
They're watching. You don't refuse their offer and live to tell the tale.
Jaxon King
I'm not that well versed in Skaven lore; where can I read more about these great feats (Moon travel, nuke and underocean tunnels)?
Evan Torres
their army books, some WFRP supplements and the End Times books.
Dominic Davis
End Times. It's shit.
Elijah Carter
What do you think warpstone is? It's a gay bomb, baby. And I'm not saying people didn't naturally have homosexual feelings. I'm not even getting into it, quite frankly. I mean, give me a break. Do you think I'm like, oh, shocked by it, so I'm up here bashing it because I don't like gay people? I don't like 'em putting chemicals in the warpstone that TURN THE FREAKIN' RATS GAY! Do you understand that? I'm sick of being social engineered, it's not funny!
Gabriel Myers
Saltzspyre and his bantz are the fucking best
>Blessed Sigmar, this elf does your work!!!
Grayson Russell
but it's canon
Michael Walker
>THE NOBLES ARE ARE CULTISTS FANATICS! I HAVE THEM ON MANUSCRIPT ADMITTING TO IT!!!
Xavier Reyes
Skaven are both the strongest and weakest faction in Warhammer, the moment they get organized is the moment everything’s over. Luckily, the only thing-thing a Skaven hates more than a man-thing is a fellow Skaven. They hate them even more than Lizard-things, and that’s a war of Dawi-grade autism.
Dominic Long
>What about all the soldiers who have clearly seen and done battle with the Skaven armies or invaded Skaven warrens? Or the times when a Skaven bribery falls on deaf ears or the bribe’d fella betrays them anyway? Man this isn't internet age. So some thousand soldiers are adamant that skaven exist? Then what? they try telling their small ass village about it? Those reasons you listed are exactly why skaven existing rumor is so widespread, but it's hard to conveince people of something they are taught is false and fed reasons why people get that wrong too.
Chase Phillips
The game is clearly a passion project for everyone involved, no wonder it was so successful it’s forced Games Workshop to consider reversing the End Times.
Wyatt Edwards
I just have things as people thinking the very thought of the Skaven being an organized empire is absurd. Because it kinda is. Skaven are worse than humans at working together, but they are a nominally unified empire?
Asher Diaz
It just so happens that I found some 8 pointed symbols in your manor house. You are a witch. Time to be burned.
Ryder Garcia
I am Emperor Karl Franz, and I declare the Skaven threat to be real. No Chaos creature shall walk in this Sigmar-blessed land, no matter if underground or above!
Asher Barnes
Total war 2 game gave the Skaven a (failed) Rocket/satellite and old fashioned diving suits, They (Ikit Claw specificly) built a strait up (explicit) atomic bomb in Gotrek and Felix. They also had an experimental submarine in those books. There is the Skaven continental rail system called the warprail, They have transcontinental/trans oceanic tunnels linking the old and new worlds and made the DOOMWHEELS!!!!
I assume that the Skaven would instantly unite by necessity once it comes to general attention that there happens to be some external danger that threatens all of them and then just go right back to petty backstabbing once the threat isn’t sopuch a big threat anymore....So really it’s more of an extreme version of regular human tribalism.
Jacob Rodriguez
Yeah, of course you’d say that! Just wanna put more “state” guardsmen in Middenland, huh? Looking out for your stinkin’ rats, though we all know what you’re tryinga sniff out! We don’t need your proclamations or your precious Sigmar, boy, Ulric and good honest steel’s good enough for us!
Skaven are the only race in Warhammer that still retained the tongue-in-cheek satire of the setting. They’re extremely goofy and absurd while being a massive threat.
Bentley Barnes
LET ME SAY IT REAL SLOW FOR YOU
GAAAAAY
RAAAATS
Julian Bailey
You're constipated?
Wyatt King
One of the worse thing to happen is that they started pushing more grimderp and serious shit in fantasy once 40k got popular.
Mason Gray
>tfw you breath too much Shyish
David Hughes
Exactly why I can’t stand Chaos wankers, since their faction was grimderped the hardest in Fantasy and was thus directly responsible for the End Times.
Caleb Allen
>Man this isn't internet age.
It's not even the print age. The moving press was invented...I wanna say in Karl-Franz's lifetime.
David Stewart
They've actually tried to build the atom bomb twice, I believe.
The satellite was successful. It even tricked the elves. It crashing was not a setbacl, by then it had already done what it was supposed to do.
Printing Press is such a new piece of tech it hasn’t impacted society beyond the most progressive of demagogues.
Alexander Rivera
Directly referring to your Emperor in such a disrespectful manner is a most grave crime to the Empire's godly order. You are coming with me.
Owen Green
I don't mind Chaos being a super serious and dangerous threat, but they went into overdrive wither their powerlevel, doubly so after they lost the SoC event. geedubs love marines and Chaos.
When you read shit like ?peasants give up 9/10th of their earning and are put to death for reading and DON"T play it tongue in cheek it just comes off retarded and derpy.
Ryder Watson
>peasants give up 9/10th of their earning That's actually a fairly realistic figure in a feudal society. IIRC, serfs in Russia gave similar percentage of their income to their lords.
John Brooks
Storm of Chaos was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, the Greenskins WON and had Archaon in their grasp, but GW got scared their OC Donut was about to die so they gave us that half-assed ending.
Anthony Miller
>Man this isn't internet age. So some thousand soldiers are adamant that skaven exist? Then what? they try telling their small ass village about it?
Literally yes. They get collected by another group of soldiers and explain what happened with rat corpses to prove it. Now *All* of the army there knows. One day the soldiers get discharged and tell the people in some village exactly what they fucking saw and fought while drinking in a tavern, some village drunk who saw a Skaven dash on a rooftop or some farmer who had to deal with giant rats on the farm both put 2 and 2 together and realize that they aren’t loonies.
They tell their *Families* about it. Maybe bring back severed ratmen heads as proof.
And you very specificly tried not to address a specific point outright as it kills any possibility of subduing the truth and making this stupid conspiricy possible. >And when a Skaven raid sacks or (even worse for the great conspiracy )is outright repelled from a town
What then? What does the empire do in that context?
Then that happens everyone in the town *Knows*
Joseph Brooks
That's bullshit, it was more like 1/10th. Maybe not for the Russians, but certainly for the French and English.
Zachary Evans
No, it isn't. Most peasant households gave up at MAX, 1/2 their earnings. They also werne't forbidden to read (though most couldn't).
Luke Edwards
I think the most recent skaven army book mentioned mass Grey Seer rituals in which they clouded the minds of the human realms, making everyone doubt their existence/be uninterested or unwilling to believe in them.
Carter Cox
I don't know, having Grimgor kick Archaon full-force in the balls and leaving him making funny squeaking sounds on the floor was a pretty good way to end it after all the railroading they did to get to that point.
Samuel Cox
>I assume that the Skaven would instantly unite by necessity once it comes to general attention that there happens to be some external danger that threatens all of them
And this is why the Empire suppresses knowledge of them. Franz isn't stupid. He says skaven don't exist so the skaven will think that the humans don't think the skaven exist, so the skaven don't get any ideas
Joseph Jackson
If the Skaven can kill the avatar of Sigmar, they can do anything.
Grayson Walker
We don't talk about end times
Jackson Bell
Why not? It's canon.
Liam Torres
You do realize that was Boris Todbringer, right?
Luis Brown
But of course my liege. As a loyal and diligent servant, I will endeavour to carry out your majesty's orders to the best of my ability.
I shall add it to my list of duties and will, very soon, start work at rooting out this rat-man menace. The proud Harumphington line has yet to let down our most glorious leader and I most certainly do not plan to start today.
As a side note sire, there has been a minor sickness in the area which causes sufferers to enter a short period of delirium. Not that I am implying your humours are out of balance of course, it's just that one can never be too careful with ones own health, can they now?
I can assure you sire that my own personal physicians are more than up to the task if you have any worries what so ever.
That's a dining plate, you illiterate buffoon.
Then again I suppose people like you just feed out of troughs or with those grimy, little hands of yours. Because of this, I will forgive you your ignorance this once.
Now, leave this place and return to your hovel; unless you want me to send some men to escort you out.
Jacob Wood
...
Nathaniel Ward
Gee, it sure looks like there's some sneaky shen-SSSSKKKKKAAAAVVVVVEEEEENNNNN!!!
Carter Jackson
You don't understand how slow information moves in a pre-telephone world.
Fuck, LotR had Gimli not know an entire dwarven mine owned by his family was overrun with satan.
Blake Reed
"Skaven" are just beastmen. Some people get worked up over nothing.
Chase Perez
...
Michael Miller
>You don't understand how slow information moves in a pre-telephone world.
The vast majority of people in the Western world simply can't comprehend what life used to be like before mass communication and cars. It's one of the bigger reasons you get people playing fantastical characters from very far off, and when you ask what they're doing there, they'd always say, "Oh, they heard about X or Y, or just wanted to immigrate."
Josiah Sanchez
>my smug-snout when
Eli Gomez
This man squeaks... Sorry, "speaks" obvious sense. We should all listen to him.
Carter Cox
The Skaven are the most powerful faction. The only reason they don't take over is because they don't act like a faction. But on something like staying hidden from the empire on which they all agree. Then you get to see their true power brought to bear.
Kevin Ross
Bah! Here in kislev we know chaos greatest threat not silly rat rumors
Connor Walker
Almost everything in WH stops making sense the second you think about it. How does that enormous population of rats even feeds itself? The figures are inconsistent between sources but they're said to outnumber humans by several to one.
Parker Harris
Your setting is dead
Jack White
They eat each other. Skaven aren't just a civilization. They're an entire rat based ecosystem where rat eats rat, but they reproduce so fuck fast it's self sustaining. Yep, nothing but endless hordes and hordes of rats eating other rats without end. Like what happened on that Russian cruise ship.
Easton Hill
Warhammer X-Files? I want to believe.
Dylan Nguyen
>Like what happened on that Russian cruise ship. Go on.....
Aaron Jones
>Mandred Skavenslayer
You can name yourself after something that isn't real.
>assassination by Skaven
Wew fucking lad, next you're going to tell me the fucking elves control the banks.
Joshua Thompson
>"Now that they know our plan, they will plan around our plan, and so we shall in turn plan around the plan that they are planning around our plan!"
Jace Morales
Legit?
Gavin Hughes
Yeah in one of the Gotrek and Felix Novels Nuln is attacked by hordes of Skaven surging out of the sewers to the point of open war in the streets and the aristocracy, who were in the middle of a ball, were taken hostage. After the Skaven were repelled Felix' own brother who saw and even helped kill one will only admit that the city was raided by an admittedly large horde of beastmen.
I'm sure that the aristocracy came to believe in the skaven threat or at the least were a little less dubious about it but the average middle class+ go back to willingly putting their heads in the sand.
William Taylor
The bringer of Tod?
Dominic Reyes
Tod is german for 'death'
Ryan Reed
I know there were a few skaven threads in the past, can someone post a link to skaven greens? If i remember well, there was a dedicated pastebin.
>MFW I cannot post Skaven pics, because all of it is NSFW
David Mitchell
Brother Friederich, whilst i would not presume to tell you how to prosecute your own hunts, as a fellow Templar of Sigmar I feel obligated to humbly suggest...
Just...ignore...middenlanders. Their deliberate and relentless truculence tends to snowball if punished. Let Boris' Dog boys patrol their snowy pines; we shall take care of the Empire.
Jack Morgan
It would have been gold for Grimgor to turn to a bleeding Franz or Teclis after this, and say something like
"Dis world, dats where da fightin is. Is our world too."
Samuel Bailey
Ah, the ambassador from Ind. I am glad that you are here old friend, it seems that madness has taken root in this land and it does me good to be in the company of one as wise and trustworthy as yourself.
A word of caution however, most people are not as...well travelled as you and I. They may mistake you for one of these "Skaven" creatures that have enthralled the minds of the populace lately.
Because of this, I insist that you stay in my own personal section of the estate. I simply cannot bare the thought of any ill coming of you. You will have free access to all of the grounds during the day, of course. Especially the underground chambers that you seem so fond of.
I suppose you do not have such things in Ind? It must be so joyous to be surrounded by so much wonder and novelty on a daily basis, yes?
Good day to you my dearest cousin. What brings you to my grounds on this finest of days?
Have you met the ambassador from Ind yet? He has been paying yearly visits to our home ever since I was a boy. Truly a noble could not ask for a more steadfast advisor and a loyal friend.
Chase Green
It's bullshit. Debunked, and based on nothing remotely factual.
The boat was the MV Lyubov Orlova.
Joshua Baker
Disregard this impostor fellow citizen-things. These lies-lies about ratmen are spread by chaos cultists who want to sow panic-fear. Please arrest all propaganda mongers and bring-bring them to your local witch hunter chapter house in the sewers.
It's fairly easy to maintain secrecy in a medieval society. The upper levels of the empire know skaven exist but don't share it with commoners because there'd be mass panic. There are 150,000 skaven under altdorf alone
Daniel Bennett
Well, this was...different, i guess? Not what i was asking for, but im a little surprized Veeky Forums has the same amount of closet fags as /k/ or /gif/ has. Thanks, anyway.
Samuel Fisher
R.O.U.Ses?
I don't think they exist.
Daniel Ortiz
>but im a little surprized Veeky Forums has the same amount of closet fags as /k/ or /gif/ has It's known that on occasion Veeky Forums stands for /totally gay/
Which also makes some sense when you consider just how prevalent rats are in Empire cities - or any medieval/renaissance-era city. If you went around thinking they were all Skaven spies, or part of an invasion force waiting for when the time is right, you'd probably go mad or off yourself
Charles Parker
Warmbloods, vengo en busca de las mareas de los hombres rata que viven delante de ti. mi pueblo, los Hombres Lagarto, han librado siglos de guerra contra ellos, ofreciendo muchos corazones rata a Sotek, el Dios Serpiente. ¡Debes tomar esta amenaza en serio, para que los hombres rata no te destruyan a todos!
Aiden Lewis
>tfw the empire and bretonnia don't know about skaven because they don't speak Estalian