Character Creation Part 1​

Your everything is in pain. Your everything is in agony. The whole of the world is defined by torment. Suffering gives existence the barest texture by which you even know you exist, because there must be a medium for such torture to exact itself upon you. You know you have five limbs because you can feel the bones in each of them as they jitter and tremble and try to shake free of the muscles that convulse around them. Something like lightning and acid and fire runs in little channels throughout these, around them, feeding to a straining thing in the centre of your being that seems to be stabbing itself and you in a thousand little ways every moment. You can feel where your fur emerges from your skin by the suffering their slightest motion feels as each hair emerges from you. Your snout is given shape and form in your senses by the way your nose is trying to either ram itself back through it or pull violently off, and your teeth feel like they’re trying to yank themselves out whilst still stabbing you in the gums. Your tongue is helping you understand the shape of itself and the inside of your maw, given how it’s jerking and slapping about, trying to punch itself clear of your body when not trying to roll back down your throat and end your misery.

You don’t remember having something that tastes of wood in your mouth, but you don’t really remember much right now so maybe that isn’t that unusual? Not that you’re really thinking about that. Or thinking at all, really. You thrash and flail and strain in vain against more hand-wood-things and tough binding things. Thinking is something of a hard prospect right now, with your tail trying to rip itself off your rear, rubbing and straining against a few points of something tight holding it against more wood.

Something in your chest - yes, that’s what it is, your chest your torso your body - burns. It’s the thing that hurts every time it beats, maybe. It beats, and pumps liquid agony through you that meets the fiery torment coming the other way. Little bits of something inside you rage and burn and sizzle. Something else seeps, drinking and devouring and when they meet inside your... your veins, that’s it those are the channels carrying the storm throughout your world. Inside them, inside your veins a battle is being fought. No, not a battle. A dozen battles. A hundred. Countless. Battles in the war that is playing out inside your every vein and across the surface of your body. Each organ is a battlefield for the cackling energy and creeping darkness, and they suffer for it. More importantly, you suffer for it.

"Da, interesting... it appears that this one is surviving longer than the others." The voice is... you know it’s wrong, even if you don’t know why. Too slow, not fast enough, each word being enunciated as if it needed to be considered carefully before releasing it into the world. It’s a dead-thing voice, a cold-hungry voice. You can’t see the source since your eyes are busy trying to explode, or so they feel. "The warpstone is still reacting, just less violently. I wonder if this one will simply burn out instead of, aha, exploding."

You don’t understand. You can’t think deeply. But something inside you still recognises what Cold-voice is saying, if not precisely than in concept. Something, someone, is using you. Testing something, trying something, using you. Expending you like a warptoken, like something that is theirs to play with and use and throw away on a whim, fully expecting you to expire.

In that moment, pain is no longer the entirety of your existence. Now there is anger. Rage. A single point of difference that throws the agony into stark relief. It doesn’t help, not in the least, but it’s something other than pain. It’s something you latch onto, if only you can bring yourself to do it, because in having something besides torment you can truly appreciate what it is you’re suffering where before it was so all-encompassing that you couldn’t understand it.

Pain is death. Pain is an end. Pain is freedom from suffering… and yet pain is defeat. It’s a loss. It’s being a loser. It would be accepting that you have, forever, been beaten.

You don’t know how, but you know that’s what has always happened. That you have never stood at the heights of power or strength or anything else. You have always had someone else beating you, somehow, in some way, standing above you.

No more. Never again. With a squeal-squeak, you hold-take the rage and take it into yourself.

It hurts. It hurts so terribly, in some vast way you’ve never felt before, to embrace the heat of the rage. But you have to. You don’t let the pain define you any more. You refuse to. You can’t let it. If you do you’ll sink back into it and, somehow, you know that means that you’ll never rise out of that agonising mire. The black depths will claim you and your existence will come to an end too soon. Ambitions never realised, slights never avenged, a future never grasped. So you dig your fangs into the rage, you wrap your paws around the fury, and you remember!

Before the pain, before this mockery of existence that is still better than nothing, you were a...

[] Skavenslave The lowest rung on the ladder, when shit rolls downhill you were the one it lands on. You lived every day knowing any sign of weakness could see you devoured by the other skavenslaves while watching for one of them to show that same weakness so *you *could pounce. You might be used as fodder, spent for less than the value of a single warptoken, might be turned into feed for clanrats, might simply die as the black hunger became too much and sent you into a gnawing frenzy. Every day could be your last, and through it all you hated hated hated. You watched the clanrats, the stormvermin, the skaven who were given skills and knowledge and you hated them for it, envied them for it, wanted it! You always knew you were going to die. But to die like this, at the hands of a thing that isn’t even skaven, die in pain and discarded? No, you can’t let this be your end! You have zero training in any skills, you have no knowledge, just the raw and unfiltered desire to achieve something, and an intimate understanding of what it is to live with a constant, gnawing hunger and yet retain your wits. You’re not especially strong or fast or smart or anything… but you have the will to live, the will to survive, the will to be **more! **If only you had any of the skills to achieve that, or anything beyond your own claws and fangs to aid you, a lack you’re entirely, painfully aware of. Pros: Best starting Willpower, A Lot of Spite Cons: Very low in every other stat, very few opportunities for skills, A Lot of Spite

[] Clanrat You were nothing special, simply one clanrat among so many others. One among the vast bulk of a clan’s numbers, often foremost fodder (behind the slaves, of course) when dragged onto the battlefield. A civilian, perhaps, or maybe you joined up for the sake of getting more food for a while, hoping to avoid getting thrown into battle. Obviously, you ended up somewhere far outside the safety of your warren. You’ve been trained to basic proficiency in fighting and have other civilian skills, and are perhaps the most ‘common’ of rat (slaves don’t count) with all the knowledge about how to blend in among the vast unwashed masses of verminkin. Pros: Good starting stats determined by next phase of character creation, access to a wider range of less advanced skills Cons: No stats will be as high as the other careers, and unlikely to have access to more advanced skills

[] Stormvermin You were born with pitch-black fur, the colour of the deepest, darkest corners of the Under-Empire and thus you were destined to be among the elite of all skaven warriors. You were fed good food, trained to fight with some level of technique and coordination, given armour and weapons wholly lacking in rust, all so you could proudly kill the enemies of your clan… once they were exhausted butchering the skavenslaves and battering the clanrats. You’re not stupid, after all, or at least when it comes to fighting you’re not. Unfortunately, all your sturdy, well-fed body does now is provide an even bigger playground for a war to play out. You’ve been trained in fighting and nothing else. You know how to wield spear, blade and shield with actual skill, you understand battlefield coordination and you’re used to maintaining discipline better than most skaven, but that’s all you know how to do. Well, that and bully those weaker than you but that goes without saying. Pros: High Prowess and Martial, Decent Willpower, access to higher combat skills *Cons: *Very low Learning, Low Diplomacy and Stewardship, Average Intrigue and Piety, very few non-combat skills available

[] Mordkin Bonehide You were one of the warriors of Clan Mordkin, proudly bearing the rat ogre skull helm that marked you as one of the foremost murder-killers of the undead in all of Skavendom! Well, you’re better at it than most skaven, at least. Morbid and ghoulish, you’re no stranger to combat, but Clan Mordkin has long made their name slaying the undead. Largely the mindless base form of skeletons and zombies, but you’re made of sterner stuff than the coward-fools of other clans! You’ve been trained in fighting, particularly against the undead, and know more than most skaven about the dangers of necromancy. The taste of rotting flesh is hardly unknown to most skaven but you’ve grown up with it, you prefer it. You may find this has implications for your future... Though fear is built into all skaven, the undead stir it less than it should and you are, like most of Clan Mordkin, of faintly ghoulish mein. Indeed, you know well how to use this fear as a weapon against others, embracing it wholeheartedly. Pros: Good Prowess, Martial and Learning, Decent Piety and Willpower, start with knowledge of the undead and access to some more obscure skills *Cons: *Very low Diplomacy, Average Stewardship and Intrigue,a ghoulish mein and taste for rotting flesh (this may have implications as a vampire)

[Winner] Volkn Firerat You were a firerat of Clan Volkn, that clan of red-dyed pyromaniac skaven who dwell within the heart of Fire Mountain. The brand seared into your flesh has never bothered you, for like all those born within their infernal warrens, the sight of things charred and burned pleases something deep inside you. Setting things on fire is not merely what you’ve been trained to do, it’s what you love doing. You may even have some knowledge of the primitive enchantment magic known among Clan Volkn, crafting weapons of obsidian with burning runes, but if nothing else you know the ways of fire. You entirely lack any hint of fear of fire, and are much more used to bright lights than other skaven, or at least skaven outside Clan Volkn. You’re not wholly fearless, and probably viewed as a little bit mad, but you have some knowledge of more obscure aspects of fire’s nature… Pros: High Willpower, Good Learning, Decent Prowess and Stewardship Cons: Low Diplomacy, Intrigue and Piety, Average Martial [Specialties available in next vote, mostly to work out what we’ll be working with for Clan Volkn’s apparent access to strange fire enchantments]

Note: This option will require the most extensive AU/homebrewing, to expand upon the interesting but sadly underdeveloped Clan Volkn, so be aware of tha

t.

[] Verms Swarmkeeper You were born to a legacy of bitterness and humiliation in the fallen Clan Verms. Trained to breed and command the insects which once brought your clan to the heights of power, and though your clan has long since fallen from prominence, Verms remains, engraining a bitterness towards Clan Pestilens for their treachery and Clan Skryre for supplanting their greatest product into every whelp spawn from their brood mothers. You know how to control swarms of insects, how to capture and breed them, how to mix warpstone into their feed and environment, even some secrets of mastering the monstrous insectoid monsters that lurk in the depths of the Under-Empire. One day, you dreamed of ascending to the rank of Beemaster, Hive Tyrant, Stingslinger or even becoming the Wormlord to redeem the failure of long-dead Blight Tenscratch. You’ve been trained as a Swarmkeeper, with a knowledge of insects that’s honestly impressive, both their uses as living weapons and in the uses of their bodies or products, giving you a strong knowledge in specific forms of crafting*.* You’re far less squeamish about monstrous insects than the average skaven, and are very, very used to doing things that should make you squirt the musk of fear without faltering, however much you want to. Pros: High Willpower, Good Learning, Decent Martial and Stewardship, access to obscure insect related knowledge and crafting skills Cons: Very low Diplomacy, Low Prowess, Average Intrigue and Piety [Specialties available in next vote, including specialising in swarms, in particular insects, etc]

Note: This option will require some AU/homebrewing, to expand upon the material available regarding Clan Verms, so be aware of tha

t.

[] Warlock-Engineer One of those smart and lucky enough to survive apprenticeship to one of Clan Skryre’s mad geniuses, you never needed the fickle whims of the Horned Rat to draw upon the power of the aethyr. No, you have the rickety, slapdash, brilliant power of skaven technomancy! A blend of arcane forces and cutting edge skaven engineering, you know how to construct weapons and devices that usually explode when they’re meant to, and often when they’re not! Just as you planned-schemed! You’re learned in the use of warpstone as a power source, and in wielding the weapons produced by the brilliance of skaven science! You’ve been trained in skaven technomancy, the union of engineering and warpstone, both making it and wielding it, along with some chemistry, and have a decent instinct for when something is about to explode or otherwise blow-up in your face. You’re smarter than the average rat, more technical, but probably also more maniacal and the need to experiment and learn may push you into dangerous acts. Everything around you exists to be tinkered with, experimented, pushed to the very edge to see when it explodes. Even yourself. Pros: Best Learning, Good Stewardship, Decent Martial and Magic, start with access to skaven engineering skills, warpstone science and Lore of Warp Cons: Very low Diplomacy and Piety, low Prowess, Average Intrigue and Willpower **[Specialties available in next vote, including specialising in particular types of engineering, weapons and other options]

[] Moulder Mutator

** One of Moulder’s masters! Well, one day! You’re no Master Mutator but your deft touch with directing and controlling beasts is quite useful when you’re able to practice the art of Moulder’s horrific science, rather than being shanghaied into herding packs of monsters. The blending of flesh with warpstone to ease the process, how to cultivate mutations, how to graft and combine without the subject always dying, these are the secret arts to which you’re privy. And oh, irony of ironies, now your flesh writhes and twists as something seeks to change it. You always knew it was a possibility, you’ve seen it happen to rivals before for failing in some way, but never would you dream it would happen at the hands of any but another skaven! Through the pain and indignity, some part of you can’t help but be fascinated by what is happening to your body… You’ve been trained in managing animals, both natural and not, how warpstone can be used to mutate or manipulate creatures, general biology knowledge, and have a the knowledge and Learning to manipulate base beasts to your will. Pros: High Learning, Good Stewardship, Decent Martial, start with access to Moulder biological engineering and warpstone science Cons: Low Diplomacy and Intrigue, Average Prowess, Piety and Willpower **[Specialties available in next vote, including specialising in particular animals like giant rats, wolf rats, giant bats, rat ogres or etc]

[] Plague Deacon

** Blessed by the Horned Rat in his aspect as the Lord of Decay! One of the chosen, those who saw the truth of the great master of your race, infused with divine disease and sickness. Your body is not quite a hive of plague and death as the most favoured of his foul servants, but you’ve collected your own small horde of illnesses and wield the divine magics of plague in the Horned Rat’s name, spreading His putrid word among all skavendom! How terrible, to die like this, unable to even learn what this pain is and brew a new plague in its shape! You’ve been trained in the Lore of Plague and Clan Pestilens’ brand of theology, basic oratory skills (or what passes for it among skaven) and have an understanding of biology by virtue of knowing how many diseases and illnesses kill their victims. Your faith is stronger than most skaven, but your view of the world is warped by that faith into something that is alien even to most other skaven. Pros: High Piety and Magic, Good Intrigue and Learning, Decent Diplomacy and Willpower, start with access to plaguecrafting skills, skaven theology skills and Lore of Plague Cons: Low Prowess, Average Martial and Stewardship, you’re stanky

[] Plague Monk A warrior of the pestilential faith of the true Lord of Decay, you glory the Horned Rat through as his plagued blessings ravage your body. It is your honour among all skavendom to be unshackled from fear and cowardice, for to die in martyrdom is to know your soul goes to become another ingredient in the Horned Rat’s greatest plague! You have the strength of the plagued and the will of the unwell! You’re trained to fight and kill, and little less, for you are a devoted warrior monk of the Lord of Decay. You still possess knowledge of disease, but mostly as something to venerate and with more of a ’gotta catch ‘em all’ sort of attitude. None can claim to have stronger faith than a Plague Monk, and your faith utterly dominates your world view. How that faith may be changed after succumbing to this disease of vampirism, who can say? Pros: Best Piety, High Prowess and Willpower, access to combat skills and some plague/biology skills Cons: Very low Diplomacy, Stewardship and Intringue, Low Martial, Average Learning, you’re a frothing mad stanky rat

[] Eshin Assassin You were one of those who stalked through the darkness of the Under-Empire and the nights of the surface world, plying a bloody trade. You learned how to kill without being seen or heard or smelled, knowing that you were one of the shadows all successful squirt the Musk of Fear thinking about. True, not by name, you were no Death Master Snikch, but you were *one *of the clan’s assassins! There are so, so many still waiting for you to kill, so many waiting to die at your paw, and now the pain threatens to ensure you’ll never, ever get to snicker fiendishly as you loom above an unsuspecting man-thing about to die ever again… You’ve been trained in the arts of stealth, how to fight silently with a number of weapons and unarmed, including the use of poisons, and you possess an instinct for how to land a critical killing blow. Pros: Best Intrigue, High Prowess, Decent Willpower, access to combat, stealth and poison skills, access to skills related to vulnerable points in other creatures Cons: Very low Martial, Low Diplomacy, Learning and Stewardship, Average Piety

[] Eshin Sorcerer The greatest ‘secret’ of Clan Eshin, you stood among the cabal of shadowy sorcerers who are tolerated to exist by the Grey Seers by virtue of the polite fiction you don’t exist and keeping the knowledge out of the hands of all but the highest among skavendom… and the fact that trying to tell the clan that has all the assassins not to have magic assassins is not a wise idea for any individual Grey Seer. You learned secrecy in all things, wielding a magic far superior to those awful-bad no good coward-fool ‘Grey Wizards’, ugh. Alas, being able to cloak yourself in darkness was not enough to help you escape this terrible fate. The shadows you’ve learned to conjure were not enough, but something beckons through the pain, a deeper darkness than any in Clan Eshin have ever imagined... You’ve been trained in the Lore of Stealth along with some weapons training, the arts of stealth and Eshin martial arts, and you have a more subtle touch when wielding the Aethyr than most magic users. Pros: High Intrigue, Good Prowess, Learning and Willpower, Decent Magic, start with access to specific combat skills, stealth skills and Lore of Stealth Cons: Low Martial, Diplomacy and Piety, Average Stewardship

**[] Grey Seer ** You were chosen, yes-yes! Born with blessed fur of white or grey, your skull marked by tiny nubs that have grown into horns! You even survived the years it took to become an apprentice! An initiate into the most holy order of Grey Seers, the Prophets of the Horned Rat! You survived your apprenticeship, at last, and boldly struck out on your own before anyone higher up could notice you and decide to use you in their schemes. After all, *your *schemes were obviously the only ones that would bring about the destiny of the skaven. If they were meant to have done it, they’d have achieved it long before you came along. You command the mightiest of skaven magic, all in the name of leading your uninspired kin in rising up against those who think the surface is theirs, and to maintain the power of the Horned Rat’s emissaries, of course. So why are you suffering like this, like some underling, as if the Horned Rat cares not for the insult that any who do you injury give unto him?! And worse… through the pain you sense the energies writhing in your body are carrying you towards a precipice. A terrible yawning precipice over which waits something terrifyingly new. Something new that can be put into the service of the Horned Rat... or, perhaps, lift you **beyond **a petty god’s whims! You’ve been trained in the lores of Skaven Magic and the use of Warpstone as an aid to spellcasting, how to lead and bully those physically stronger than you, some understanding of politics and theology, and you have a greater insight into the realities of how skaven society functions. Pros: Best Piety and Magic, High Diplomacy, Intrigue, Learning and Willpower, Good Stewardship, Decent Martial, access to all Skaven Lores (Warp, Plague and Stealth), and access to more Magic related skills, access to wide range of skills Cons: Very low Prowess, little access to combat skills, You are the Horned Rat’s, little dead-thing, and He is a possessive-greedy god

Yes, yes, that’s what you were before this moment and you remember it now. You refuse to forget it. Pain, rage and the context of your existence give you the dimensions by which you begin to grasp the world around you. Something is wrong, you know that already, because your life before this moment was not the pain of your body being the battlefield between raging forces. It moves through your blood, some creeping darkness, draining the warmth and life from every drop it passes through. It spreads, leeching the very essence of your feeble life away... and it’s not your own life that’s fighting it.

Warpstone. You heard the voice, that slow voice that must be a man-thing but sounds nothing like one with its sepulchral, glacial tonelessness. It said warpstone. The essence of the Horned Rat, undisputed Master of Ratkind, fighting against the pain, the poison. The curse? You don’t know what it is, what it could possibly be, other than the fact that it’s going to kill you and the warpstone is fighting it.

"Is it really that interesting, Yegor?" The voice is different, now, still too slow, too smooth and silken and it makes you think of things that slither and bite and kill. Serpent. A serpent-voice that sends fear and hate rippling through you, little flourishes that mix with the pain and rage. You can hear the disdain in that voice, the sheer disregard. You hate-fear Serpent-voice and Serpent-voice sees you as nothing. "I don’t understand the point of this fetid little experiment. If you *must *watch vermin explode, at least use one of Raphael’s minions. They smell slightly better and their blood is at least useful."

Vermin? What does Serpent-voice know of vermin, when it is a thing of slither-hiss, a thing that cannot appreciate what it is to be skaven? Your fingers curl, your paws twitch, and you howl in pain into the wooden bar-strapped into your snout, back arching before slumping against the bench you’re strapped to. Details begin to swim into focus through the pain. Darkness, dark stone cut and shaped, weak-wrong man-thing stone squares stacked and stacked into an artificial cavern, lit by hateful flames.

This is not the comfort of a warren, the safety of a burrow. It is the creation of the wretched, stupid man-things. Ugly and weak and wrong and solid and wrought of blackened stones.

"The whore speaks truly, even if she can’t count. We all have better things to do than this." It makes your ears twitch and writhe in fresh pain to hear this voice, a voice that rings hot and eager, the way stormvermin hungry for violence upon those beneath them always sound. It burns with impatience. The Burning-voice reminds you of so, so many skaven despite speaking so disgustingly in that way that makes you think it thinks it matters. Like it’s important and nothing else really is. Like its more important than you!

"Oh, I’m sorry, Hamza, did you forget how to speak a language used by men with balls between their legs? Is the cold too much for you? Maybe I can find you a camel to keep you warm, I’m sure that’s all you need," hisses Serpent-voice, its layers of hate at odds with its words in ways that makes your skull twitch like it’s splintering and digging into your brain.

"Much as I’m sure the men of your barbaric homeland would obviously prefer mating with beasts to touching their women, things are quite different in places where there’s actual civilization," sneers Burning-voice, confident and arrogant in its superiority. "For example, to go back to my last example; counting. Can you tell me how many of Raphael’s pets are left, Ylva? Ah, perhaps the question is too hard, let me help. It’s fewer than two. That’s the number before ‘three’. Perhaps your *owner *didn’t teach you numbers before you ran away with your tail between you legs."

Metal scraps against stone, sending talons deep into your ears to wrench your brain from side to side and then erupt out your eyeballs and nose. Or maybe that’s blood? You blink, catching the dim light of the fires - torches, those are torches on the walls, the way man-things use them, you think? - as they reflect off the dark liquid that has splattered onto the black stone in front of you. Blood? Your blood? It should be redder, it was last time you saw it, and not sizzling and popping and seething. That’s new. That’s unusual.

That probably explains why your veins are made of suffering, if your blood is cackling and steaming and writhing like that while inside you. Probably.

"Come now, my friends, let Yegor finish his work with the ratta. He always has a reason for his work in our joint cause, does he not? Even when he must play with one of the skaveni, he has his reasons that we can but speculate upon. Do you not, my friend?" It’s a too-soft, almost-quick-enough voice, now, laced with a quiet contempt that runs talons down your spine. So friendly sounding that you know that Soft-voice must be plotting something, must be scheming-planning. "And he is always so happy to share it with us, for he knows it could not be done without our little contributions."

Cold-voice chuckles, each rasping noise a dagger jammed deep into your ears as it rings out like a carefully planned ambush on your senses. Its not a natural sound, not the chittering snickers the suffering of a rival deserves or the cackle of a triumphant superior. Its wrong, like a lie made into pure sound, and that only makes it hurt more. You can hear your voice as your shriek into the gag, but the noise is muted and muffled. None react, even as the pale figure that you only now realise is looming over you draws back.

"Da, da, I do! Your understanding is so very appreciated, good Rossa. To understand the secret of Neferata’s Elixir, to surpass the limitations of our meager bloodlines, I must see all that it can do," Cold-voice says, each word as precisely enunciated as the last. It almost sounds like its trying to be warm, and friendly, play-acting at something utterly alien to that cold, dead, glacial voice.

"I doubt that dried up old Nehekharan bitch ever tested it on the least of the Children of the True Gods. Why would she? Why are you? It’s clear the Rat won’t surrender its grasp on them," Serpent-voice sneers, and something in you shudders and screams at the blasphemy, as if simply hearing it spoken condemns you. "All know the Rat is a thing of jealousy and envy, feasting on the scraps left by the True Gods and clutching its toys all the more possessively for it."

The air grows cold, but it does nothing to ease your pain. It only makes the hot flow that runs through your body burn ever more brilliantly in comparison. It would be a relief to hear Cold-voice talk again, the words passing over you without truly grasping or comprehending them, if not for the fact that your muscles are stretched and compacting. They wrap your bones in a vice and you howl, ignored, as the voices talk.

"The warpstone. There is nothing in all the world that lives and breathes warpstone the way the skaven do, not without being some twisted thing of Chaos that operates more by magic than biology. Children of Chaos they may be but d’yavol they are not. Their bodies must function. Already I learn things from this process, I see more than even W’soren himself! In this rat’s death, I take one more tiny step towards doing more than merely replicating the work of our distant ancestors." The Cold-voice grows ever more intense, but you can grasp only one thing from the otherwise meaningless babble of a stupid man-thing.

Death. Your death. Through the words you can’t follow, through the arguments and dissent and the sound of violence almost occurring, that one thing is what you grasp upon. You’re going to die. They know it. They’re expecting it. They’re *using *it.

You’ll die here, your death nothing but a momentary distraction, a step on their own path to glory. These voices that are cold and wrong and slow-stupid, they’re going to gain from your death and you’re going to lose, barely even aware of who and what you are.

As your nose burns from the inside out like fire and acid are leaking into your pores, as every hair on your body digs into your flesh like hateful needles, your innards hiss as your blood boils, you come to a decision.

No, it’s not a decision. It’s a realisation. It’s an understanding of what is going to happen because you refuse, you refuse, to consider that anything else could happen.

You won’t die here.

You refuse to die here.

You’re going to live.

You’re going to survive.

Cold, dark fire made of shadows and death and blood churn in your chest, reaching out with a thousand fingers through your whole body.

You’re going to survive. Every mistake you’ve made, every success you’ve enjoyed. Every wound you’ve suffered and every wound you’ve inflicted. You’re going to carry them forward into the next instant, and then the one after that. You’re going to live!

The cold and the dark claws at you, trying to drag you under. It grasps onto who you are, while the burning tingle in very fiber of your being tries to seize what you are. Both seek to feed, one like the Black Hunger itself made manifest and the other a fire desperate for fuel.

All they need, all they want, is for you to just give up a little bit. To let them take some part of you.

You refuse.

You’re going to survive, and that means carrying every last little bit of yourself forward, out of sheer spite if nothing else.

After all, you’re one of the skaven. That you know with unshakable certainty. And being a skaven means holding onto what’s yours with everything bit of cunning and skill and spite you have, because everyone else wants it.

What’s more yours than yourself?

**Personality Traits: **

Flaws

** Virtues**

You are truly a great-excellent example of skavendom, replete with all the virtues of the Horned Rat himself! That your so-called superiors and brainless peers and witless lackeys have never noticed or appreciated this is only a sign that they were themselves are deeply flawed beings. If only there were more skaven like you…

…

…wait no that would be bad, there’s only one of you!

Pick 2. Skaven are pretty much universally awful in countless wonderful ways, these just represent the most significant aspects of your personality.

**[] **

Aggressive

** Eager** "Kill-slay! Stab-slash! Raaargh! I’ll crush-smash you!" Your first instinct is to lash out, to respond to danger, insubordination, confusion, frustration, boredom, failure and pretty much any other emotion by diving forward with a snarl, teeth and claws and the nearest weapon bared. You’ve learned the best way to stay alive is to attack attack attack! Your fear remains as ever-present as it does all skaven, and running is never *not *an option, but lashing out is also an option!

**[] **

Anxious

** Anticipatory** "What was that?! Who goes-lurks there?! Gah! Oh, yes-yes, just a falling rock…" Danger can come from unexpected places, even when you expect it. That’s why you’re always, always, ready to leap away, ready to duck, ready to react without waiting to really think through how you do it. It’s kept you alive (until now) even if it does sometimes mean you overreact to an errant noise or something innocent. But better to throw yourself with a mad leap into a ditch because someone dropped their warptokens than to waste time trying to work out what was going on. What if that had been an assassin creeping up on you?! Better to leap and *run *and react even if you’ve had no time to consider what or why or how.

**[] **

Arrogant

** Confident** *"Victory-triumph will be mine, for none are as great-brilliant as I. I’ve never failed - I’ve just been *sabotaged! *It’s never *my fault-failure!’" You’ve always known that you’re better- no, that you’re the best! The fact is self-evident and you live it in every moment. You know you’ll succeed, you know you’ll win. Even if you haven’t won yet, that ‘yet’ right there is very important because you will, eventually. No matter what comes your way you know you’ll be able to outwit, outhink, outfight any opponent. After all, you’re clearly the finest example of a skaven to have ever lived and you live that truth every day of your life! You go into any situation absolutely certain you can win or find your way out of it, regardless of whether that is actually the case or not, or whether you have a good reason to think this. *Cannot be picked with *

Realistic

• Depressing *

**[] **

Bitter

** Reflective** "Grrr, it should have been me-me, I should have taken that patrol, I should have checked the bodies first… I should have done more, done something else, I should be the one eating the live-fresh man-thing meat!" Every defeat or failure persists in your mind, lingering about you like an odour that you can’t escape. Every opportunity that slipped through your paws, every chance to get ahead that someone else managed to lie-cheat their way to first, you can’t help but stew on what you should have done, how you should have acted, and you just can’t ever move on, be it someone else getting the tastiest morsel while you only got the mere *second *tastiest, or the fact that you didn’t arrive in time to get any of the good assignments. It sits with you, constantly... or until something worse happens for you to seethe on. It’s not that you have a drive to improve yourself or prevent these things from happening again, but you just can’t let go of any failure on your part, you think about it often.

**[] **

Convoluted

** Cunning** "Yes-yes, it’s so simple, so perfect. When the moon comes out and the clouds part at that moment, the light will shine-glint off the glass and blind the man-thing, who will trip and bump the dwarf-thing. When the dwarf-thing drops the treasure, I’ll squeal-squeak "Thief!" like a man-thing and grab it before they see! With the box I put there, I can hide-cower while they fight, thinking each is the thief! So long as the dwarf-thing comes to that bar, and a man-thing walks near him, and the glass doesn’t fall from the wind… my plan is perfect!" Elaborate plans to achieve the smallest thing come to you naturally, because how else are you supposed to get things done? Oh, yes, just ‘dot it’, right, that’ll work and won’t let your jealous rivals predict you, not at all! It’s obvious that the only way to get ahead of your rivals is to outhink and outwit them, plotting out wheels within wheels within wheels. Just going over and stabbing someone you need to kill when there’s no witness? No! You’ve devised the perfect means of killing them and all it requires is a fat goblin, three arrows, a barrel of Kislev whiskey and a clanrat convinced he’s not carrying a bomb filled with owl dung. It’s flawless, so long as everything works out exactly the way you planned. *Cannot be picked with *

Direct

• Dimwitted.*

**[] **

Fickle

** Devious** "Oh, shiny! Ah, that’s even shinier! Hmm… yes-yes, I said-squeaked that I would trade you this shiny thing but now I think I want it, you can have the other one. I’m not changing my mind! I just thought about it more! Actually…" Whatever plans you might have, whatever goals you’ve got… well, you don’t always hold onto them. You seemingly change your mind on a whim, unpredictable as your attention drifts and shifts almost moment to moment. Which is absolutely on purpose. Yes, it’s because you’re devious! That’s definitely it! You don’t want to become predictable, it’s not that you’re fickle and change your mind at the drop of a hat and are entirely unreliable!

**[] **

Gossip

** Informative** "Yes-yes, I heard that Gnawb ate Krusb’s half of the giant rat they hunted! Oh, did you know the packmaster in the Moulder quarter has a source of elf-thing fingers for his rat ogres? Its true-real, I heard-spied it being squealed by one of his minions who saw-smelled a barrel of them that were still wiggling! Worms? No no, don’t be dumb-stupid!" You just love to share, at least when it comes to things you’ve learned. From sordid little secrets to rumours without even the slightest hint of reality to them, once it hits your ears you can’t help but squeak-squeal it to someone. There’s just such a thrill from sharing things. Oh, you can keep secrets but one of the few pleasures in your life has been gathering all the rumours, stories, dramas and petty plots, and swap them for more!

**[] **

Groveller

** Appreciative** "Oh mightiest of masters and gnawer of ruination, brave and intelligent tyrant-feasting monger of victories! This unworthy wretch squirts the musk of fear at the sound of your mighty approach! None can squeak-say otherwise, for your excellence is beyond question!" You know the best way to

suck up

show your appreciation for the brilliance of those above you. All skaven know when to grovel and kowtow but you’re especially talented as grinding yourself into the dirt and convincing others you know your meager place. Fawning and lavishing praise upon those who hold themselves above you with apparent sincerity always comes easy, and you’re very good at focussing wholly on said praise in the moment so there’s no hint of treachery in your thoughts. Better to be a toady, grovelling in the dirt, than to challenge someone who can crush you underpaw with barely a twitch.

**[] **

Impatient

** Proactive** "Wait? No-no! Now! We do it now, hurry, quick-fast!" You know that waiting for the perfect opportunity is foolish, a waste of time and just means losing your chance. You don’t want to wait, you don’t want to keep still and let things come. You want to act now, be proactive, do it, without sitting around doing nothing! Now now now! Act! Strike! Win!

**[] **

Lazy

** Efficient** *"Dumb-stupid to take long way, slow and hard and ugh package is big-heavy. Why carry the long-far way when I could just… float it down the stream? And keep it safe, by resti- *guarding it from on top of it! Maybe-maybe get banged up, should be fine-safe!" Everything is so tough-hard or boring to do! Why do things for yourself when you can have someone else do it? Sure, it takes a little lying, or maybe thinking up a way to avoid having to do the work… or taking shortcuts, cutting corners, making excuses… but really, you’d rather spare yourself any more effort than you really have to go. Which just means you’re doing things *efficiently *or thinking up new, innovative ways of doing stuff! Not ‘lazy’, no no, never that!

**[] **

Liar

** Creative** "I know I said the man-things were distracted, and they were! At the time! They must have gotten undistracted after my scouting mission. Hm? No-no, I always had this sword. I wouldn’t steal it from the man-things, not when we were ordered not to alert them to our presence. No, I don’t think the scratches on it look like the one on the man-thing leader’s fancy banner." You can’t help but… bend the truth, sometimes. No no, not a lie-trick! You just can’t help making the truth more interesting, or maybe twisting it a little to make it benefit you. Sometimes the truth would just complicate things or confuse the issue! Sometimes you just want to keep the whole truth to yourself. Sometimes you just can’t help but do creative with things you tell others. These are all different times, so they tend to fill up *most *of the time. *Cannot be picked with *

Honest

• Stupid *

**[] **

Lunatic

** Genius** *"They said-squeaked that my ideas were mad, crazy! But what would they know, those old fool-things?! Skavenkind *can reach the moon, and I’ll prove it even if the world ends!" You on levels and in ways that no other skaven can conceive of, which must mean you’re a genius! Even if no one has ever said so, you know it. Only *you *would think of ideas that you’ve heard described as ‘utterly mad-crazy’ or ‘entirely useless-dumb’, but bah, what do they know! If no one knows what insanity- genius is about to spill from your possibly frothing muzzle then they’ll never be able to predict it!

**[Winner] **

Manipulative

** Helpful** "This unworthy one only wants to help. I could never achieve what you could, if you listen to my advice." You love giving advice! You’re always willing to squeak-say what someone needs to hear, what will help them work out the best thing to do. Obviously you’re only doing what you can to benefit a trusted ally, or to assist someone with the potential for greatness! You’d never use them for your own purposes, you’d never do that. No, no, you’re just trying to help. If you happen to achieve everything you want, everyone else dies and you’re able to reap the benefit… Well, sometimes things just work out like that, right? *Cannot be picked with *

Honest

• Stupid *

**[] **

Paranoid

** Vigilant** "Someone tried to kill-slay me! I know it! But I’ll kill them first…" It’s a simple fact of life that all skaven are always out to get you- out to get each other! They… probably aren’t *all *against you specifically. But what if they are? What if they see-sense your terrible potential?! Well, you’ve always been cautious, careful, watching with unceasing vigilance for the knife in the back, the trap hidden behind a loose rock, the poison in the drink you thought someone just forgot about but might just be pretending to forget knowing you’d swipe it. You don’t take chances and you never trust anything or anyone. *Cannot be picked with *

Reckless

• Daring or *

Brave

• Suicidal.*

**[Winner] **

Power Hungry

** Ambitious** "Enough? No-no, there is never enough! I must have-take more!" Enough is never enough, and you have always known you were destined for greater things. You need to reach for greater things. Climbing the greasy pole has always been what kept you going, the certainty that you can scramble-crawl to some greater height, that you can seize more than what you have. You’re hungry for it, you crave it. Your life is forever defined by the need to ascend!

**[] **

Reckless

** Daring** "This will work, don’t be stupid, pull the lever! Fire me over the walls, dumb-thing! It’ll work and I- we’ll be rich!" Unusually for a skaven you’ve always found it easy to simply leap into action regardless of the risk, daring disaster as you scramble and claw your way to success. Usually this is done by not thinking about the dangers, not pausing to consider that you could fail, or dwelling on the consequences. You aren’t any less cowardly, you just don’t always stop to think about what you should fear until you’re hip deep in it. You’ve lived this long, right?

**[] **

Treacherous

** Cooperative** "Soon we’ll have all the warptokens we could want… oh no-no, you first~" In the immortal words of famed skaven bureaucrat Humfree Fruitwasp, "They must see-believe you are their friend. You have to get-sneak behind someone before you can stab-kill them in the back." Words you’ve taken to heart, which is why you’ve always been a big fan of working with others, being helpful and cooperative all the way to the finish line at which point you redistribute the credit for any success. Preferably by sliding a blade into their back or giving them a gentle nudge while passing a cliff with a terrible lack of anything to stop people going flying off the edge. Or at least there isn’t now, after you snuck over a few hours beforehand…

**[] **

Vengeful

** Righteous** "They’ll pay! They’ll ALL PAY!" Every slight, every wound, dealt to you must be repaid. It’s not enough to merely overcome those who set themselves against you, you must ensure those who have stood in your way suffer most terribly! Examples must be made. The dumb-stupid man-things, especially the useless ones in white in the ugly bird temples, speak of this thing called ‘forgiveness’ and it disgusts you. Except when you’ve had to grovel-beg for it from a shortsighted superior who wrongly thinks you screwed up, of course. Naturally, said ‘superior’ is on the list too. You don’t just seethe in silent bitterness, you actively seek the best chance to deliver the most deserved justice you can to any who wrongs you, from smallest and pettiest of wrongs to the grandest and most vicious.

Personality Traits: Weaknesses & Quirks

Alas, you may not be the most perfect skaven to exist. But really, isn’t having some minor weakness that you overcome on your path to glory simply going to make it even more impressive when your foes are squeal-squeaking your praise as they tremble in fear of your great power-might? But perhaps not all are weaknesses. Some are merely quirks that aren’t expected to be found in skaven, and to be fair they usually aren’t to any great extent, or are so exaggerated they become the very flaws that have held back the Great Ascendancy.

*Pick 1. Even skaven can have virtues, well-hidden as they often are, for even this depraved race produces the occasional genius or prodigy, capable of terrible things with a skill belied by their own nature. But they’re *very well hidden and even the most ‘virtuous’ of skaven are so only within their own foul mockery of morality. Anything that might, from a distance, begin to resemble the virtues of a race not born of Chaos is seen as nothing but a weakness to be purged.

**[] **

Brave

** Suicidal** *"Of course it’s scary! My glands are *empty! But if we cower-hide here we’ll die anyway, so we need to try!" Well, maybe not ‘brave’. You’re hardly immune to fear, for there is nothing so constant in the life of a skaven as that overriding emotion, but you are better at handling it, at least some of the time. You do not, in fact, cower-tremble in fear of danger and terror. When others let the musk of fear squirt from well practiced glands you’ve found it in yourself to suppress the urge and brave the dangers before you. Fear is for lesser rats… most of the time.

**[] **

Curious

** Foolish** "How do the dwarf-things make their tunnels stay stable? How do the man-things build such tall towers without them falling over?" The superiority of the skaven is, of course, a given. You know your kind are the greatest race to exist... but you’ve always been curious about the things done by the other other, lesser races. Obviously ratkind can do anything they can much better, but the lesser species can sometimes have a novel idea and you’ve always been in