The Horned Rat

The Horned Rat is the malevolent god of the Skaven, the ratmen who teem in their countless millions through the tunnels beneath the world. Counted by some as the thirteenth of the Ruinous Powers, he is the deity of ruin, pestilence, treachery, and boundless ambition, a god whose worship is indistinguishable from the endless scheming and betrayal of his children.

The Skaven believe themselves the chosen race of the Horned Rat, destined one day to swarm across the surface world and devour all beneath the sun. In his name the Council of Thirteen rules the fractured empire of the ratmen, and the thirteenth and greatest seat of that council is always left empty, reserved for the Horned One himself. His favour is won through cunning, cruelty, and the successful backstabbing of one's rivals.

His is a faith without mercy, honour, or loyalty, mirroring the nature of the Skaven themselves. Weakness is punished with death, ambition is rewarded, and every treachery committed in his name is an act of worship. The horned grey seers, marked by his touch, serve as his prophets and enforcers, wielding the corrupting power of warpstone as both sacrament and weapon.

To the surface races, the Horned Rat is a plague-god of the dark below, a whispered horror whose numberless faithful gnaw ceaselessly at the roots of civilisation, patient and pitiless, awaiting the day the world above at last collapses into the dark.