Skulltaker

TOASTY!!!

Of all of Khorne's Bloodletters in both 40K and Fantasy, none is as angry as U'Zhul, known more widely as Skulltaker.

The moment Khorne created him was also the day he scored his first kill by slaying the first creature he met via chopping off its head. That creature was another Bloodletter.

After scoring his 888th skull for the Skull Throne, Khorne promoted U'Zhul to the rank of Sacred Executioner, and thus he earned his moniker of Skulltaker.

Skulltaker is extremely competent and dead serious when it comes to fighting (and that's saying something about him, as Bloodletters treat war and slaughter as serious business). When the fighting is extreme, and the slaughter is immense, he will walk the battlefield looking for exceptionally powerful warriors and challenge them to manly combat one on one. When not waging war he wanders the Mortal Realms (or realspace), showing up at a place and demanding that someone face him one-on-one unless they want a bloodbath. When someone accepts his challenge, he briefly salutes them before attacking.

Unfortunately for his enemies, Skulltaker is a master duellist beyond and above the capabilities any other Bloodletter could possibly achieve. The daemon simply cuts off his adversary's limbs (but never slays them), grabs their heads and utters the eight Words of Sacrifice that wreaths his victim's heads in magical flames that burn away their flesh; this leaves only a bare skull that he throws into a sack he carries, along with the other skulls he collected while fighting. He'll often lift said skulls up in the air for everyone to see them before putting them on his cape. Despite duelling many heroes, there are only three confirmed stories where Skulltaker lost the duel; one of those times was against Sigmar himself, which left Skulltaker with a permanent scar and a grudge against Sigmar's followers and descendants.

After a battle, he returns to Khorne's Brass Citadel to give the skulls he collected as offering to the Blood God. Most of them Khorne collects, but the skulls of the most exceptional of opponents he lets Skulltaker keep as personal trophies that he sews into his cloak.

The Bloodletter's achievements are as follows:

• Slaying a quarter of the Grey Knight Brother Captains during the First War for Armageddon. Even though this only adds up to two, this is still enough to seal his status as total badass since he's a daemon that killed two experts at daemon-slaying.
• Slaying the Ork Warboss Grimsnag Urk and his Mega Armoured Nobz on Agripina-6.
• Slaying 17 Eldar Exarchs on Haranshemash (seems they gravely underestimated him).
• Dueled Castellan Crowe for SEVERAL HOURS (keep in mind that the Grey Knight cheated evened the handicap by throwing super-special holy water at Skulltaker before the duel).

Weirdly, before Skulltaker was released as a Daemon special character, the name U'zhul was given to the Daemon inside the Slayer of Kings, the Daemon Weapon wielded by Archaon. Whether this is a sign of something or just GW not fact-checking their lore again, who knows? The daemon in Archaon's sword is called U'zuhl and is a Bloodthirster.

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