Written by Garrett Lepper

The Skaven are a race of mutant humanoid rats living in a teeming society where overcrowdeness, the scarcity for food and the strict hierarchy based on the strong litteraly eating the weak make their existens very uncertain. The Skaven polical system is ripe with backstabbs, deals, bribes, threats, douple-crossing, betrayal and murder. The goal of the Skaven race is to prepare the world for the coming of the Horned Rat, meantime the stronger individuals do everything they can to increase their personal power while the weak die from starvation, cave-ins, inhumane working conditions or are murdered by a Skaven with even lower status. However the Skaven do not hold the lowest position, the slaves do and every lowly Skaven take every chance of inflicting pain and remove the dignity of these slaves. Slaves are humans, goblins and dwarfs captured in one of the numerous wars the Skaven unleash upon the Surface-World.

The Skaven power structure is divided into a clan structure where the strongest clans have the most influence in the Council of Thirteen, the political government of the Skaven. However the Council members work as much against each other as they do against the surface dwellers. The strongest clans are Clan Pestilen, the devotees of disease. Clan Skryre, warlock-engineers of weapons of death and destruction. Clan Eshin, black clad assassins that hold the entire Under-Empire in fear and are frequently used by the power seeking Skaven to rid themselves of any oppossition. Clan Moulder, famous for their specially breed creatures of war like the fearsome Rat Ogre, part Ogre part rat. There are also the numerous Warlord Clans that make up the bulk of the Skaven military forces but who are often allied with one of the ruling Clans. The Order of Grey Seers is not a clan but the religous spokesorgan for the Horned Rat and the administration of the Council of Thirteen, of course individual Grey Seers do have their own agenda."

The fundamental unit in Skaven society is the Clan. The Clan will determine the Skaven's place in life and their role in Skaven society. For nearly all Skaven, their life will revolve around the fortunes of their Clan. If their Clan prospers, they prosper. If their Clan faces severe poverty or other misfortunes such as slavery, the fate is the same for all members of the Clan. A Skaven's personal existence is utterly indistinguishable from the fortunes of their Clan. Skaven don't share the same spirit of individualism as humans, elves, or dwarves. The closest they ever come to being any sort of individualism, is when the Skaven feels it must act in its own self-interest out of fear or ambition. Skaven are notorious for being cowardly and self-serving, and rarely face danger alone. This instinctive need to shelter in amongst a crowd, to be anonymous, is far stronger than any notions of singular self-identity. As such, and coupled with the social hierarchy, the Clan is the single most dominant feature in Skaven society. Skaven can expect to live and die in the same Clan, and that Clan is all they will ever know. It is that kind of security that nearly all Skaven seek out. It is this need for security that keeps the Skaven from striving for any true concept of individuality. Most Skaven live in one of the numberless minor Clans. These Clans are led by a Clan Chieftain and compose of a large group of Skaven sharing the same warrens, burrows and nest within a particular locale, which interact or depend on each other and share common lifestyles, and are under the leadership of the Clan Chieftain and his loyal followers. Powerful and clever Clan Chieftains may increase their own influence by defeating or cowing nearby Clans into submission. These stronger Clans composed of the victorious Clans and their subservient Clans are known as Warlord Clans, with the victorious Clan leader claiming the title of Clan Warlord. The smaller member Clans within these Warlord Clans are led by individual Clan Chieftains, whom owe their position and authority to the Clan Warlord. The Clan Warlord is often distrustful of the Clan Chieftains under their command, and those deemed too ambitious or competent are eliminated in bloody purges.

Amongst Skaven society, there are four major dominant Clans, who, despite their size, wield a disproportional amount of power. These Clans, Clan Eshin from the East, Clan Moulder from the North, Clan Pestilens from Lustria and the Southlands, and Clan Skryre from the Old World are the most significant Clans. Each of these four major Clans are described in greater detail later in their respective sections.

Skaven Family The Skaven family is almost non-existent in comparison to the families formed by other races. The Clan Warlords, Chieftains, and Clan guards are essentially breeding studs that spend their leisure time in the breeding warrens. Whose get is whose is a fairly confusing matter! The progeny of these loveless acts are cared for by the old matriarchs who are no longer of reproductive age. Skaven offspring are not very well cared for by the elderly and infertile female Skaven, who are quite bitter about their status, and who are forced into servitude in vast nursery warrens.

By the time the time the few Skaven who survive the rigors of childhood are set out on their own, the concept of family is entirely alien. The one concept for them to latch on to is their identity and social status based on their position in the Clan, and indeed their entire world are their Clan warrens.

Skaven Lairs The tunnel complexes that the Skaven live, breed, and die in, are usually a massive twisting labyrinth of tunnels and caverns, natural and Skaven-made, that have been linked together centuries ago. The massive concentration of warrens, burrows, tunnels, and communal caverns is the center of the community, and may exist in various levels. To go up levels, Skaven will build gradual ascending and descending tunnels, or steep tunnels or wells with crumbling stone steps, rickety wooden ladders, or in the more sophisticated communities, lifts pulled by Skavenslaves or other undesirables. This entire area is overcrowded, and reeks of filthy matted Skaven, of offal and excrement, of waste, and of dying Skaven. The air is close and foul, and the caverns themselves are fairly dark, illuminated occasionally at intervals by torches or other means of illumination. In the few outlying tunnels live the Skaven outcasts and other parasitic types. Beyond that, are guarded tunnels to other communities.

Female Skaven Female Skaven make up less than a quarter of the Skaven population. Many Skaven females die under the squalid conditions they are kept under. Skaven female newborns are often either killed and eaten by their mothers, or neglected of care and die. The lot of all female Skaven is a terrible one. Most are sequestered in filthy breeding warrens, where they merely sit and wait for the conjugal visits of the Clan Chieftain and his Clan Guard. Skaven females are seen as useless in Skaven society beyond their reproductive purposes, and few if any female Skaven escape this fate. The female Skaven can look forward to bearing between three to five litters of squealing newborns, with each litter consisting of up to a score. Of their progeny, around a quarter may survive into adulthood.

The center of Skaven culture and civilization is the miasmic city of Skavenblight. From the decrepit city extends the network of tunnels and warrens throughout the Old World known as the Underground Empire. This area is under the control of the Cult of the Horned Rat, and its constituent members, the Council of Thirteen and the Grey Seers. While the great majority of Skavendom at least nominally obey these authorities, some groups have become isolated or have rebelled, and defy the traditional authorities. The nature of Skaven society and the Skaven themselves makes any strong central control over the Underground Empire impossible. With the Skaven population dispersed about in fairly isolated communities, and their ambitious, scheming and self-serving behavior, the Council of Thirteen only imposes control in times of dire need. Within the individual Clans, all Skaven Clans are organized along a hierarchy, where the strongest and most cunning will control and dominate the lives of the others. In the competition for this power and authority, the Clans are eternally embroiled in political and military crises, with various factions and individuals dueling, fighting, plotting, murdering, scheming, abducting, torturing, allying, betraying, and dying in a complex and unending web of conspiracy. This never-changing existence insures that the weak and slow will eke out short miserable lives at the bottom while the strong and cunning will fight a bloody path to the top.