2d4chan - User contributions [en]

Skaven

2017-11-30T18:30:28Z

2600:1003:B02E:3163:93D4:75E:829E:24F3: fanfic isn't canon

{{promotions}}

[[File:Capture131114532.png|350px|thumb|right| DIE DIE SOLDIER MANTHINGS DIE!!!!]]

''"It would be ugly to watch people poking sticks at a caged rat. It is uglier still to watch rats poking sticks at a caged person."''
 -Jean Harris

''"Rodents of unusual size? I don't believe they exist."''
 -The Dread Pirate Roberts about to get his shit kicked in by a rodent of unusual size.

Technologically advanced [[ratfolk]] in the [[Warhammer Fantasy]] setting, you will be hard pressed to find a more unlikeable race out there.

Ugly, evil creatures that spread [[AIDS|plague]] wherever they go and topple kingdoms for fun and [[Profit|profit]]. More cowardly and cunning than goblins, crueller than Dark Elves, (probably) more hostile than Chaos. There is not a single redeeming feature about them and not a single decent individual. Psychopathy is a natural psychological trait of the race; whereas the Undead and Chaos, if intelligent enough, are still capable of warped if genuine love, Dark Elves are driven to cruelty as a way of life and many individuals can be decent people, and greenskins can have odd attachments and camaraderie with their comrades, Skaven hate everyone and everything. Due to their chronic backstabbing disorder, nobody trusts them (except Dark Elves, who have a treaty with them that both sides betray at times), likes them, or wants to be 'allies' with them. The only times they have done something that benefited the world, such as helping beat the first incarnation of Nagash, are due to purely selfish reasons - Nagash did his best to enslave them and deny them warpstone. As one can expect, they are rather bitey.

== So who are they?==
In a lot of science fiction going back to Starship Troopers there are races of [[Tyranid|Hive Creature]]. Vast beings that may have separate bodies, but have one will. One Consciousness. Each "individual" is akin to someone's finger, or a cell on someone's fingertip and is ultimately an expendable resource in service to the greater whole. All march in lockstep to expand the influence of the gestalt consciousness across as far as possible, either assimilating or crushing any other they come across. The Skaven are the antithesis of this, though this fact in no way makes them nice.

The Skaven are a race of walking humanoid rats with dubious (but not to be underestimated) intelligence and a hideous feral cunning out to conquer the world in the name of their God, the Horned Rat (not to be confused with the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emprah]]), and also for their own personal gains. Each Skaven is pure evil, and this is not racism speaking here; by instinct each Skaven is self-obsessed, paranoid, greedy, doesn't give a rats ass (hehe) for their family or their race's well-being unless their own is at stake, and find the concepts of love, honor and friendship to be so alien they can't comprehend them (to give context for this, a [[Skarsnik|greenskin]] in the End Times event was traumatized by the loss of his beloved [[Skarsnik#The_End_Times|Squig]] while no Skaven individual has ever, at any point, been shown to have an attachment to any living thing other than themselves). The only thing a Skaven hates more than other Skaven is creatures who are non-Skaven, and this gives the ratmen the vaguest ability to work together when they have a common enemy, otherwise they would fall on each other like, well, a pack of rats.

In terms of physiology, Skaven are shorter than humans, less bulky than them, slightly weaker (surprisingly not as much, considering the difference in size and mass), and generally "less" in every regard, but one. Where they do pick up is speed - Skaven live their life in perpetual superspeed with all it's advantages and drawbacks - they move faster, think faster, breed faster and age faster, generally reaching adulthood at five months and growing old, gray and frail by the age of thirteen (though very few survive for that long). All that speed builds almost insatiable appetite, and as they have no body fat reserves, so they're '''always''' hungry, except maybe after the battle when they can eat the dead (of both sides). Skaven look unnervingly twitchy and energetic to other races (even Elves, who also have a kind of inherent superspeed), while Skaven see others as slow lumbering idiots.

No-one knows where they came from but it is suspected [[Tzeentch]] had a hand in their creation through Warpstone and a hideous amount of mutation and generations of breeding with normal rats. There's a poem in the Skaven codex called "The Doom Of Kavzar", written in universe in the Warhammer world's equivalent of Italy that may explain their origins. To summarize;

* Humans and Dwarfs lived together in city, and decided to build a Noblebright Tower of Babel rip-off to thank the gods for their prosperity. But even Dorf engineering couldn't complete it, so they got some mysterious stranger to complete it who added his own dedication to the gods in a giant bell. Then the temple sealed itself shut, the stranger disappeared, and terrible things happened. The weather turned bad with constant Warpstone-laced rain, crops failed and rats multiplied while growing bigger and smarter. Older fluff said the stranger cursed the city because the people cheated him of payment for finishing the temple, newer fluff just makes him out to be evil and mysterious. Realizing things were becoming [[Dwarf Fortress]], the humans asked the Dwarfs for help. The first time the Dwarfs turned them down after calling them wimps for complaining about rain. The second time they were rebuffed was due to the rats eating all the Dwarfs food. The third time the surviving humans got desperate and smashed open the Dwarf gates to demand their help. But all they found were bearded Dorf skeletons and well-fed, but still hungry, hordes of rats and the poem ends with them eating the humans to the soundtrack "...of dying screams and hideous chittering..."

tl:dr a wizard met humans and dwarfs, someone was swindled so magic happens that makes Skaven.

And the rest, is history...

Well for we know, the Skaven is actually a fairly young race but old than the tomb kings and the vampires, whom the Skaven partly responsible for assisted in its creation.

It was the Skaven that supplied Nagash with the warp stones to build his black pyramid. It was the Skaven that helped Nagash to poison the River Vitae and unleashed a magical plague to decimate every living thing in Nehekhara, and it was the Skaven who betrayed Nagash by assisted the human Alcadizzar in his defeat. So aside from the dark elves who taught Nagash the magic that will eventually evolve to the necromancy we all love, the Skaven was the one that supporting Nagash and made him powerful and undefeated (because the black pyramid is a frigging video game spawning point for Nagash lol), and still ended up betraying him for their own selfish desire.

The Skaven appeared during one of the Norseman invasion when Sigmar was still around. They tried to use the invasion as an opportunity to destroy mankind, but failed none the less thanks to the Dwarves that was blocking their tunnels. Also, if the above story "The Doom Of Kavzar" turned out to be true, then it probably took place a few hundred or so years before Nagash's reign.

The Skaven is also pretty famous on [[Cathay|the eastern side that]] [[Nippon|the games workshop refused to talked about]], where Clan Eshin's ancestors once journey far to the east and was lost contact with its society for a 100 years. When they came back however, they have learned the art of NINJUTSU from some jerk-off at [[Nippon]] where they have skilled rats throwing shuriken and frigging ninja flipping better than [[Gabriel Angelos|the Chapter Master Gabriel Angelos]]. In [[Cathay]], some filthy beastman and a Wu Kong wannabe become the Emperor of not-china and made an Eshin Skaven warlord as his right hand man, then begin an unhealthy relationship of trading warpstones and rat shit.

As if the Skaven isn't popular enough, they have the operation world wide. There is Clan Pestilence in Lustra who likes to infect disease that Nurgle doesn't approve, some of them made into Naggaroth (probably as slaves and a few under empires). The only place they could never set their foot on would be Ulthuan, which is just too scary for the rat-thing to deal with dragons and elves that shoots rains of arrows from far away.

So yeah, Skaven is a pretty young race with a low life-span for each member of its species, with an unaccountable amount of them living world wide.

They live in a massive underground empire (with the Horned Rat being the God Emperor, ironically far more successfully than the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|OTHER Emperor]]) called [[Skavenblight]] which spans through the Warhammer world like the [[Underdark]]. No one trusts them quite rightly and few other races resist killing them on sight, which is reciprocal. They are more numerous then any other race in the world and only one enemy keeps them truly in check: themselves.

=== Society ===
----

As you may expect (if you do not know much about rat social behavior, which is fairly well developed and includes among other things evidence of rodent altruism, or work on people's stereotypes of what rats are like rather than how rats interact), Skaven society is rather literally cutthroat when it comes to promotions. In a world where you have chaos warriors who can Honor the chaos gods by killing/raping/getting minions caught up in complex plots, beastmen which are in a similar lot as chaos on top of animalistic agression, orcs that are hardwired to love to scrap and dark elves who've literally made assassination and backstabing an art the Skaven have managed to collect the gold medal in (f)ratricide. After receiving said award they've promptly began killing each other to see which Skaven individual got to keep it in a conflict which continues to this day. The only reason why their society has not murdered itself into extinction is because of a very high reproductive rate. Despite their teamkilling tendencies they obey the Grey Seers, the prophets of their god the [[Horned Rat]], without question. Except for the other Grey Seers.

The Skaven race is ruled over the by council of thirteen, Skaven of such evil they have been chosen by their vile god and manage to survive the constant threat of assassination, most likely because everyone is too afraid of these uber-ratman to go near them. Although they squeak big about their plans for world domination, they are too busy trying to outdo and kill each other (just like in real world politics!). Despite the name there is only twelve Councillors; the 13th seat is symbolic and reserved for their god and woe betide anyone that tries to sit on it!

Although unintentional on the side of writers, there are circumstances where real life rats can become Skaven-like. In a series of social experiments involving overpopulation designed to see what effects human overpopulation in cities like New York or Tokyo could be paralleled, rat populations with far too many beings in far too small an area begin to go, as individuals, insane while the group becomes far more violent despite having more than enough food and water to sustain the entire population. Fights are more likely to occur and more likely to be fatal. Cannibalism for some becomes preferential to their normal diet with these cannibal rats remaining in groups and shunning all other contact. Some will refuse to go on living and will simply waste away for no medical reason, many begin to self-harm and in a few cases chewed off limbs for absolutely no observable reason. Some will intentionally destroy toys they come across ([[Meme|this is why we can't have nice things!]]) when in small populations they only play with or ignore them. Rates of homosexuality increase and heterosexual rats become more violent towards each other with some literally hatefucking their partners to death (these two behaviors may explain the bizarre amount of Skaven porn on the internet), mothers refuse to have anything to do with offspring, and eventually all sexual behavior stops, causing the population to collapse as it loses the ability to sustain its numbers. Some rats, often referred to as "the beautiful ones" due to the absence of any injuries inflicted by other rats or themselves, do not interact with other rats at all.

When a high-density population that shows these behaviors is given more area to roam in by having another set of open cages attached or being shifted to smaller population cages, the behavior remains the same meaning the rats have been permanently mentally damaged; only with successive generations do they regain sanity. So in a way, Skaven have inadvertently made themselves fucking insane by choosing to live in horrible conditions and to overpopulate (Of course Skaven have been written like this before the experiment was conducted, so its merely an interesting coincidence rather than inspiration). Theoretically, saner and more level-headed (if not necessarily less evil) generations of Skaven could emerge if the species got access to more room and better conditions, which they had in Age of Sigmar...and then promptly fucked up, proving that they are in fact ''just that rotten''.

In fact, if the root of the Skaven's evil nature could be traced to both their terrible environment and the terrible culture that both feeds and feeds off of that environment rather than anything genetic, theoretically, there ''could'' actually be ''good'' Skaven if they were somehow separated from Skavenblight immediately after birth and raised outside of it by someone willing to give them a chance. However, seeing as how the primary…“engines” of Skaven reproduction are heavily guarded in the very heart of Skavenblight, and literally every other race in Warhammer is hard-wired to kill the mangy rat-bastards on sight (and with FUCKING good reason), such a thing will almost certainly remain purely theoretical. Especially since all that trouble would ultimately amount to little more than proving a petty point, with little to no real pay-off. Save, perhaps cheaper labor costs if you could get a female & a couple males.

====Clans====
Skaven organize themselves into Clans, through which they organize their backstabbing. The individual backstabs for position within a Clan, the Clan backstabs for position in Skaven society. Each Clan later became a Clan type in [[Age of Sigmar]].

There are many Clans, far more than any being other than the Horned Rat (presumably) knows. Clans rise, fall, split, infight, reform, and even ally constantly. Each Clan seeks to have one of their members in a position in the Council of 13, which runs the business of their entire race.

The Council of 13 is conveniently organized like a clock, with 13 at the 12 position which is representative of the Horned Rat. Members are called Lords of Decay. Each position is more powerful within the Council based on their proximity to the Horned Rat, so the Lords of Decay at the 1 and 12 position are the two most powerful, 2 and 11 behind them, while the Lords of Decay at the 6 and 7 positions are the weakest. Each Lord of Decay can outright veto the position of the one opposite them. Each Lord of Decay has their position marked by a symbol, either that of themselves or that of their Clan. The Lords of Decay have thus far remained in power for most of the existence of the Council thanks to the life-prolonging Warpstone they use (so Skeksis), although they rise and fall in power.

Skaven Clans fall into two categories: Clans and Thrall-Clans. Clans are extremely powerful, and epitomize the different aspects of Skaven society. Thrall-Clans are weak Clans that swear allegiance to a Clan to survive or grow in power. Of course thanks to Skaven backstabbing, a Thrall-Clan is an expendable frontline infantry source while the Clans are just sources of really neat toys like Rat Ogres and Ratling Guns, and of course every Clan and Thrall-Clan are waiting to betray each other while making allegiances to other Clans and Thrall-Clans to betray their REAL allies that they're of course waiting to be backstabbed by while totally being unaware of the fact that a fourth set of Clans and Thrall-Clans have set up the backstabbing conga for their own benefit, and so on as far as you want to get into it (note: this describes a single day of plotting or so).

Most Clans are Warlord Clans, producing large numbers of warriors and focusing on conquest to earn the supplies and finances needed to purchase goods from other Clans.The Pestilent Brotherhood is the religious faction of the Skaven, mostly focused on the disease aspect of the Horned Rat (so Skaven [[Nurgle]] devotees). They are allied clans (more so than the usual at any rate) by default when not backstabbing for more power within the Pestilent Brotherhood.

When fielding an army, one or two Clan paint jobs and multiple Thrall-Clan paint jobs are quite fluffy.

The four greatest (and best-described in fluff and crunch) Clans are:
* [[Clan Eshin]], the ninja assassin Clan. {MURDER [[Lizardmen|ALL]] [[Dwarfs|OF]] [[Undead|THESE!!!!!!!!!!!!!]]}
* [[Clan Moulder]], the Clan which breeds monsters and sews them together Frankenstein style to make even better monsters.
* [[Clan Pestilens]], the largest and most powerful Pestilent Brotherhood member.
* [[Clan Skryre]], the Clan which produces Warp-powered Tesla cannons, machine guns, vehicles, and other assorted machines.

In addition, there is the [[Grey Seers]], white-furred Skaven with horns that represent the servants of the Council and the Horned Rat. They are above all Skaven other than the Lords of Decay and as a result tend to be somewhat free from the backstabbing conga, other than that of other Grey Seers. Any white-furred Skaven who do not have horns are part of the Council Guard, the elite warriors that protect the Council and the Grey Seers.

The Thrall-Clans are:
* [[Clan Carrion]], nomadic scavenger Skaven, [[Blood Ravens|loot anything not nailed down unless they can take the nails too.]]
* [[Clan Crooktail]], Skaven who live under the Frozen Wastes who are prone to radical and advanced mutations.
* [[Clan Ektrik]], Skaven obsessed with lightning and machines. Have created Skaven cyborgs.
* [[Clan Feesik]], a Pestilent Brotherhood member Clan so poor it was mistaken as being blessed with extreme disease and elevated falsely into the Pestilent ranks.
* [[Clan Ferrik]], smiths and miners with many Dwarf slaves that actually produce shiny and new well-crafted masterwork sets of arms and armor.
* [[Clan Fester]], a Pestilent Brotherhood member that are so diseased they are in active states of decay.
* [[Clan Flem]], a Clan focussed on the art of the plague without having the trappings of the Plauge Monks. Toadies of Clan Pestilens.
* [[Clan Gangrous]], a Clan of gladiators with weapons replacing missing limbs.
* [[Clan Gristlecrack|Clan Gristleback]], Skaven who live under tyrants (for Skaven) whose underlings are chained together and have their tails cut off.
* [[Clan Gritus]], a Warlord Clan split-off from Clan Mors that mostly fights other Skaven, quite successfully. Fairly wealthy.
* [[Clan Grutnik]], the Clan most wealthy in Warpstone.
* [[Clan Gnaw]], Skaven who capture monsters in the Badlands for Clan Moulder. Skaven cavemen.
* [[Clan Krizzor]], a Warlord Clan allied with Moulder.
* [[Clan Kreepus]], a clan conquered by Clan Grikk that fought for freedom with the help of Clan Eshin.
* [[Clan Mange]], the most loyal (meaning they work purely for profit) Skaven have. Almost furless.
* [[Clan Morbidus]], a Pestilent Brotherhood member that acts as mercenaries.
* [[Clan Mordkin]], a Warlord Clan obsessed with death due to fighting heavily against [[Nagash]].
* [[Clan Mors]], the primary Warlord Clan which has had the most success against the [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dwarfs]]. Is currently ascendant and well underway to become one of the most powerful Clans.
* [[Clan Rictus]], a Warlord Clan that controls the passages leading to the [[Night Goblins]], who they use as their primary source of slaves.
* [[Clan Scruten]], a secret army disguised as a Clan by the leader of the Grey Seers.
* [[Clan Septik]], a Pestilent Brotherhood Clan who are the most faithful Skaven to the Horned Rat and often are sent on (and succeed at) suicide missions.
* [[Clan Skab]], the clan that produces the most Stormvermin. These warriors are often sold to the other Clans as soldiers or bodyguards.
* [[Clan Vruzz]], POISON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* [[Clan Skrittlespike]], Skaven who live the deepest underground with pure black bulging eyes, and large ears. Terrified of loud noise.
* [[Clan Skrapp]], the poorest Clan of the Skaven. God tier liars allied with Clan Eshin who claim to have the most powerful army, which no Clan wants to test.
* [[Clan Skully]], Skaven who idolize Eshin but use heavy armor which makes the sneaking pointless.
* [[Clan Skurvy]], Skaven pirates. More paranoid than most Skaven.
* [[Clan Skuttle]], Skaven pirates who are arch enemies of Clan Skurvy as the second largest naval Clan.
* [[Clan Spittle|Clan Spittl]], Skaven of Lustria who hunt [[Lizardmen]]. Almost certainly went extinct by [[Age of Sigmar]], give all Skaven are terrified instinctually of Lizardmen now.
* [[Clan Treecherik]], the assassin Clan that backstabs more than any other and almost entirely just fights Skaven and itself.
* [[Clan Volkn]], a Warlord Clan based in a volcano with obsidian weapons and armor.
* [[Clan Vrrtkin]], a Clan obsessed with poisons and gasses which are pledged to Clan Skryre.
* [[Clan Jamcreermin]], Skaven freedom fighters.

{{Skaven-Clans}}

===Deity===
The Skaven worship their creator the [[Horned Rat]], a god as sickening and vile as they are. God of disease and vermin, thankfully he gets the crap kicked out of him by Sigmar and Sotek on a regular basis and frankly anyone that feels like having a go. He got fed up with such bullshit at the [[End Times]], telling the Skaven to stop backstabbing eachother and get shit done, which they proceed to do by destroying many cities. He also made a deal with the [[Chaos Gods]] as he cannot defeat them.

As of [[Age of Sigmar]], [[Slaanesh]] [[bullshit|was kidnapped]] by three Elf gods that were formerly mortals ([[Tyrion]], [[Teclis]], [[Morelion]]) at the manipulations of [[Tzeentch]] and the newly-appointed HNIC of all Chaos [[Archaon]]. This resulted in [[Nurgle]] and [[Khorne]] immediately voting with them to boot him out of the pantheon and the [[Great Game]] and promoting Horned Rat to proper Chaos God in his place. Horned Rat immediately renamed himself Great Horned Rat, but found out that the big kids table was full of backstabbing assholes with absolutely no respect for each other, and somehow even less for him. When the Chaos Gods gave Archaon their blessings, Archaon rejected his and spat directly in his face for daring to presume GHR can bless the self-righteous ass that is Archaon.

=== Army ===
Skaven are your <strike>standard</strike> easily abused horde army. Lots of cheap vermin, whose numbers allow them to easily ignore their one theoretical weakness: shitty leadership, backed up by more expensive and/or specialized units, that are in theory unreliable but will still wreck your shit moar consistently than most anything else by sheer volume. Also, DOOMWHEELS.

<strike>Under current rules</strike> they <strike>are</strike> have always been considered overpowered, except for a brief period where DoC reigned thanks to your [[Matt Ward|Spiritual]] [[Spiritual Liege|Liege]]. They have now reclaimed their mantle, since 8th edition heavily favors mass infantry blocks, and the Skaven can easily throw out a block of 100 models for less than what some other armies will spend on a lord, no, I'm not exaggerating, which under the current rules is virtually unbeatable.

=== Fun Facts ===
* They consider the number thirteen to be lucky/holy. This a reference to how thirteen is seen as unlucky in Western society. However, several real-life nations/cultures consider thirteen a lucky number.
* Grey Seers regularly ride giant bells on scaffolds into battle
* [[DOOMWHEELS]]
* Their leaders lead from the back, to get a better view of the battle of course and not due to the meatshield tactic.
* They can improve anything, with the additional of magical radiation rocks!
**This may or may not involve improving themselves by snorting said rock.
* GIANT LIGHTNING CANNONS
* Backstabbing little bastards, they'll fuck you up five different ways without you even knowing about it, if you're lucky.
* Skaven do not abide by any codes of honor or battle etiquette, and as such, they WILL bring a gun to a swordfight (and even then they'll try to steal your sword beforehand (and poison you (and improve themselves with warpstone before (aaaaand the gun might be a DOOMWHEEL)).
* Skaven have a combination of ego and incompetence that would make [[Transformers|Starscream]] look down his nose at them.
* Skaven do NOT think about the potential consequences of ''anything'' that they do. Taken to its logical conclusion in [[The End Times]] when '''they blow up one of the moons''' and nearly destroy the planet when it falls on it.
* At one point they had the cheapest troops in any game setting. How cheap? It was measured in ''fractions of a point!''
* They can carry giant rocket launcher weaponry that will most likely explode in their own damn faces.

== DIE DIE MANTHINGS! ==
The above sentence clearly illustrates the quirks of skaven language: they often say certain monosyllabic words twice (words like "die die" and "fool fool" are popular) Also, they often end the name of a species with the suffix -things, so manthings, dwarfthings etc. etc. to indicate that non-Skaven are not people (although considering their backstabby natures it isn't as if they're trying to avert sense of shame or horror from killing others, which is why humans dehumanize during war).

==Female Skaven==
In their only mention in the modern fluff, female Skaven are described as mostly essentially mindless giant sky-scraper sized living wombs that are blind and have severely atrophied limbs, do not have the intelligence to speak, are covered in lactating breasts, are bought and sold as particularly valuable slaves, and only exist to constantly dribble baby Skaven like a faucet and to eat thanks to the Skaven tendency to "improve" on nature artificially. In one of the [[Gotrek & Felix]] novels, a Skaven is rewarded by his superior by being given permission to mate with one (the implications are mind-boggling).

In real life, eusocial rodents have only one queen (three times the size of a sterile male) who is sexually active. The other females are rendered temporarily sterile by her presence (hormone suppression).

<gallery>
Image:Female skaven.jpg|Canon image of a female Skaven.
Image:Skaven female cheerleaders.jpg|Skaven cheerleaders.
Image:Femskaven 1.jpg|Fanart of femSkaven.
Image:Femskaven 2.jpg|More fanart depicting femSkaven experiments.
Image:Reaper Wererat Matriarch.png|The Reaper "Wererat Matriarch" for those wanting to field a non-giant female Skaven model.
Image:Wererat Female.jpg|What an unmodified female Skaven would probably look like.
Image:FemSkaven Chieftain Uberous.jpg|Breeder or no, female skaven would probably spend more time pregnant than not.
</gallery>

==Beastmen connection==
So, since this is a race made of humanoid rats empowered by Warpstone (which is officially described as being Chaos energy manifest), you may be wondering whether or not they're [[Beastmen]]. Well, the answer is that it kind of flips back and forth. Way back in the early editions, yes, Skaven were explicitly a break-away faction of relatively stabilised Beastmen, even pitching in with the Hordes of Chaos or spawning Chaos Champions of their own. Since then, the connection has been downplayed extremely; the Empire generally describes Skaven as just "Beastmen who happen to look like rats", but there's no official connection between the two other than the fact Grey Seers have horns that signal them as important (a classically Beastman trait) and the fact both are animals mutated by Chaos-stuff.

==Warhammer 40k==
While no direct space Skaven exist, there are ratlike mutants described in the fluff, rat-worshiping cultists in [[Necromunda]], a [[mutant]] race called [[Ratlings]] which despite being more [[halfling]] than rat could be argued as a successor, <strike>the Imperial Guard itself which serves as uneducated and amoral xenophobes who are mass-bred and treated as currency by the Imperium with access to some nice and fancy toys which are more likely to cause teamkilling than damage to foes</strike> [[BLAM|'''*BLAM*''' HERESY!]], and lastly there are the Tyranids who are 40k's version of ungodly numbers faction crossed with the [[Ogre Kingdoms]] motivation to eat everything in sight (though for different reasons). The [[Hrud]] used to be the Space Skaven, as in giant dieselpunk rat people, but that was pretty much retconned. They look different now (on the rare occasion they are mentioned in the fluff), so the only actual space Skaven are the Veer-Myn from Warpath by Mantic games. As usual, most of their models are, well not terrible, but not the greatest things ever, there is however great potential for a fantasy warlock engineer conversions. However, it does appear that the recent Skitarii model releases may have taken inspiration from the Skaven aesthetic (though not gameplay) with their many steampunk-styled weapons, most notably the Transuranic Arquebus and Radium Jezzail.

==Age of Sigmar==
As of Age of Sigmar, Skaven had survived the end of the old setting by teleporting [[Skavenblight]] to another dimension. When Horned Rat became Great Horned Rat he immediately drew Skavenblight into the Warp and created more of his Daemons. Skaven had a golden age where there was Warpstone everywhere to be found, they had the direct blessing of the Great Horned Rat, and unlimited space and potential around them. They promptly did the impossible and somehow dug so deep that part of the Warp collapsed into Skavenblight which collapsed into the material realm which is now made up of eight "nearly infinite" planes made of the former Winds of Magic.
Skaven now have access to all of reality at once, and can appear everywhere from beneath Sigmar's throne to beneath Khorne's throne. As can be expected the tunnels are not stable and thus only the Skaven are willing to use them usually, as even immortal and deathless Daemons can somehow vanish into the space between spaces never to be seen again when Skaven are involved.
Skaven have also had an exponential population boom, which is impressive considering they damn near outnumbered insects in the old setting. Each former Clan is now only a type of Clan; what was once the billions of ratmen that made up clan Moulder for example is now billions of Clans of billions of ratmen each which all identify as a Moulder type of Clan.
Skaven thus far in the fluff have predictably allied most with Nurgle.

Despite this massive buff to their lore the arch enemies of the Skaven, the [[Lizardmen]], have gotten a boost too. Slann have lost the ability to see the present and instead are nearly omniscient concerning the past and future which allows them to outplan their enemies (the statement was vague, and it may or may not include Tzeentch himself considering even Sigmar was able to create a wall Tzeentch couldn't see past). The Lizardmen themselves are now beings of pure light, whose blood cleanses all Chaos taint and turned Nurgle's most beloved champion into a clean and healthy human again while purifying an otherwise permanently desecrated pool of water. Their numbers are unending, and to make matters worse for our beloved ratmen there now exists an ancestral memory in all Skaven. At the sight of Lizardmen all Skaven suffer PTSD flashbacks to jungles and stalking lizards tearing out the hearts of their kin, despite having been born only a few years ago and having never encountered them before.

As a result, while Skaven were backstabbing fucks who were against literally everything in the setting including themselves, in Age of Sigmar they now have a clear arch enemy faction akin to the High Elves/Dark Elves of Fantasy.

==Models==
Skaven are one of the primary things in the Warhammer IPs that are actually unique to Games Workshop. As a result, its hard to obtain miniatures for them from third party companies, which is of particular irritation to Skaven players who want Skaven Slaves to actually look like downtrodden Skaven or those who refuse to give any more money to [[Games Workshop]].

However, [[Reaper Miniatures]] thankfully has begun to produce a "Wererat" range which includes decent alternatives to Rat Ogres, Assassins, a Verminlord, and even a female Skaven with six breasts for those wanting to have the most unique Warlord in the FLGS. This is in addition to the ordinary rat models, useful for spicing up scenery or large kits (or obtaining cheap Rat Swarms). These models are produced in the "Bonesium" material in the Bones line, which while being prone to bending badly is LUDICROUSLY cheap and completely safe from being dropped from any height onto any surface. Noteably some have taken to replacing the parts notorious for bending (weapons, especially spears) and replacing them with kitbashed weapons or even greenstuff. As far as the metal range goes, Reaper also produces Barrow Rats which can be useful as Pox Rats, Giant Rats, or Rat Hounds.

A further alternative source is [[Mierce Miniatures]], in particular their Vras faction of models. They have two warrior characters, more hamster-like than rat-like in proportions but with a paintjob serve as spectacular bloated disease-spreading characters (or just fat rat bastards). More importantly, Mierce has five large creatures that serve as [[Hellpit Abominations]] or as [[Verminlords]]. "Flint-Fang, Kill-Thing of the Infernal Pits" is preferred by some as an Abomination for its less Akira and more Frankenstein appearance (some praise or are horrified by its...anatomical correctness). "Back-Cracker, Goz-Horror" is an Abomination looking more like some kind of mad science genetic horror, while "Three-Faces, the Verminous Horror" takes the basic Games Workshop Abomination and replaces "steam-powered" with "tumor". "Scar-Claw, Rat Fiend" and "Scar-Scath, Vermin-Fiend" are alternative Verminlords, and thanks to the monopose nature of the End Times Verminlord kits make decent alternatives or just sources of kitbashing materials when fielding more than one.

[[Otherworld Miniatures]] produces both small rats and naked ratmen, although the latter sadly only come in two poses.

[[Mirilton]] Ratscum resemble Slaves or Clanrats, have ratmen gunners, and ratmen cavalry riding weasels, although the sculpts are in different proportions to the Skaven in many cases and resemble older Games Workshop models (this can be a bonus to some people however).

[[Curious Constructs]] produces weapon sets including a Gatling Gun, Mortar Launcher, and Flamethrower which could be kitbashed with any ratmen models to produce the various weapons teams of the Skaven.

[[Black Tree Design]] produces ratmen monks, assassins, warriors, a rat ogre creature, and rats in gas masks with poison bombs.

[[Impact Miniatures]] produce not-[[Bloodbowl]] ratmen models that require little to no alteration to become Skaven soldiers. Or that Skaven Blood Bowl team fielded as Stormvermin for a silly army.

Of course, Screaming Bells and Plague Furnaces can be made with balsa wood and the kinds of things one can find at any head shop or similar purveyor of hippie paraphernalia.

==Gallery==
<gallery>

Image:Skaven.jpg|The original Skaven Clans.
Image:Skaven and Lizardmen.jpg|Skaven don't play nice.

</gallery>

==See Also==
* [[Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven|Tactics/Skaven]]
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category:Skaven]]

Template:Chaos-Daemons

2017-11-30T18:26:09Z

2600:1003:B02E:3163:93D4:75E:829E:24F3: don't pass off fanfic as true canon

<center>
{|class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed table" border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=2 style="margin: 1em; border: 2px solid black;"
|-
!align=center colspan=7 bgcolor="#A05050" | [[Daemon|Daemonic]] Forces of [[Chaos]] 
|-
| align=center | '''[[Chaos Gods|Gods]]''' || align=center | '''[[Greater Daemon]]s''' || align=center | '''[[Daemon#Lesser Daemons|Lesser Daemons]]''' || align=center | '''Daemonic Beasts''' || align=center | '''Daemonic Steeds''' || align=center | '''Cavalry of Chaos''' || align=center | '''Chariots of Chaos'''
|-
| align=center | [[File:Khorne mark.png|50px|link=Khorne]] || [[Bloodthirster]] || [[Bloodletter]] || [[Flesh Hound]] || [[Juggernaut]] || [[Bloodcrushers of Khorne|Bloodcrushers]] || [[Blood Throne]] [[Skull Cannon]]
|-
| align=center | [[File:220px-Nurgle Symbol.png|50px|link=Nurgle]] || [[Great Unclean One]] || [[Plaguebearer]] [[Nurgling]] || [[Beast of Nurgle]] [[Plague Toads]] || [[Battle Fly]] [[Rot Fly]] || [[Plague Drones]] [[Pox Riders]] || [[Palanquin of Nurgle]]
|-
| align=center | [[File:Slaanesh mark.png|50px|link=Slaanesh]] || [[Keeper of Secrets]] || [[Daemonette]] || [[Fiends of Slaanesh]] || [[Steeds of Slaanesh]] || [[Seekers of Slaanesh]] || [[Hellflayer Chariots of Slaanesh|Hellflayer Chariots]] [[Seeker Chariots of Slaanesh|Seeker Chariots]]
|-
| align=center | [[File:934501-tzeentch mark.png|50px|link=Tzeentch]] || [[Lord of Change]] || [[Flamers of Tzeentch]] [[Horror]] || [[Screamers of Tzeentch|Screamers]] || [[Disc of Tzeentch]] || || [[Burning Chariots of Tzeentch|Burning Chariots]]
|-
| align=center | [[File:Hornedratsymbol.jpg|50px|link=Horned Rat]] || [[Verminlord]]
|-
| align=center | [[File:Chaosundivided.png|50px|link=Chaos Undivided]] || [[Daemon Prince]] || [[Fury]] || [[Chaos Beast]] [[Chaos Hound]]
|}
</center>

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Daemons]]

<noinclude>[[Category:40k Templates]]</noinclude>

Malal

2017-11-30T18:23:32Z

2600:1003:B02E:3163:93D4:75E:829E:24F3: /* Malal Homebrew */

[[File:Malal-symbol.gif|center]]
[[File:Lord_malal_by_morporg-d78ectd.jpg|400px|right|thumb|The greatest trick Malal ever pulled was convincing the Galaxy he didn't exist.]]
<div style="font-size:1.10em;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;font-family:serif;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em">404 ERROR! PAGE NOT FOUND! THE PAGE YOU WERE LOOKING FOR WAS EITHER DELETED OR MISSING! - The Script of Malal on Himself'''</div>

:''"... and he that went before now came last, and that which was white and black and all direction was thrown against itself. Grown mightily indignant at the words of the Gods, Malal did turn his heart against them and flee into the chambers of space... And no man looked to Malal then, save those that serve that which they hate, who smile upon their misfortune, and who bear no love save for the damned. At such times as a warrior's heart turns to Malal, all Gods of Chaos grow fearful, and the laughter of the Outcast God fills the tomb of space..."
:-- from '''The Great Book of Despair.'''

''"There is no greater evil than anarchy."'' 
-Sophocles

{{heresy}}

=="Chaos Divided"==
===Malal===
[[File:Malal.jpg|300px|right|thumb|What Malal ''might'' look like...if he actually wants us to believe that he exists in the first place.]]
The character Malal was created in [[The Citadel Journal]] for second edition [[Warhammer Fantasy]] by John Wagner and Alan Grant as the patron of the [[Warriors of Chaos]] character Kaleb Daark, who allied with the forces of good to fight Chaos while pursuing his own goals by confronting Khornates and Skaven using his soul-drinking magic axe. He was sent by Malal to assassinate one of the [[Chaos God of Law]] Arianka to prove himself worthy, a story which continued in three chapters. In 1986 Kaleb and his mount were given stats in Journal and his miniature was advertised, and it along with the fourth chapter were never released for unknown reasons ("creative differences" is all that was ever revealed). Malal was referenced in several other Games Workshop works, with the [[Ogre Kingdoms]] character Skrag the Slaughterer originally being a worshiper of him (later retconned to [[Great Maw]] instead) who was cast out from his tribe for stealing an axe made of "starmetal" (later retconned to cooking his chief's favorite [[Gnoblar]]), escaping to a [[Chaos Dwarf]] hold to force them to forge him armor before slaughtering all of them, followed up by a skirmish scenario called "The Crude, the Mad and the Rusty" where the surviving Chaos Dwarf plus two Goblin Fanatics and a golem against him. The first edition of [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] states he is a rogue Chaos God who wants to destroy the Four, a Champion of Malal is killed by the protagonist in a short story found in the [[Ignorant Armies]] short story novels, and the [[Chaos Marauders]] cardgame had a card which depicted [[Beastmen]] preparing to fight other Chaos beings.

All in all, Malal was designed as an anti<s>hero</s> villain side to Chaos who is beneficial to the side of Order but is too Chaotic Evil for any being to trust, and actively drains both friend and enemy of energy to feed himself. Serving him is advancing oblivion, fighting him is to be annihilated. Any infighting on the part of Chaos resulted in Malal growing in power, essentially introducing the concept of total war to the Warp entities. Only by cooperating and shifting their attention to the mortal realm could the other Chaos Gods escape his influence, where they found his minions waiting for them.

During the year 1987 Wagner and Grant experienced a falling out over several comics they were producing at the time including Judge Dredd and work for DC Comics as well as several works for smaller publishers. This was followed by a sudden scramble for rights earned by them during their time creating for different companies and resulted in them suing Games Workshop for total ownership of Kaleb and Malal. Games Workshop had hired them for freelance work rather than as actual employees meaning they technically owned the characters they created. If Games Workshop ever used Malal again, they would either have to pay a royalty fee or enter into a lawsuit over the ownership of the character, which they surprisingly never did. Malal was only used once more, in the [[The Dying of the Light]] campaign where a Chaos sorcerer of [[Tzeentch]] named Heinrich Bors switches to Malal in order to have control over his own fate again.
[[File:Malal and Kaleb.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Malal's (only) "canon" appearance.]]
Although Wagner and Grant technically own Malal and Kaleb, neither have done anything with the characters as Wagner continues to mostly write Judge Dredd while Grant now works on zombie-related stories.

Zuvassin the Undoer and Necoho the Doubter were created by Games Workshop to replace Malal in the "The Enemy Within" adventure for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay during the "Something Rotten In Kislev" campaign.

Zuvassin and Necoho together represent the same thing that Malal did, the concept of Chaos destroying itself and Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, and Nurgle plus the Chaos Gods of Order each falling prey to the primordial nothingness they emerged from in the same way the mortals do into them.
[[File:Kaleb_Daark_CJ86.jpg|thumb|right|300px| Kaleb Daark in all his "glory." Yes, he's a brooding, basically albinistic bad-guy-who-fights-evil in the name of Chaos using a demonic sword and therefore just Elric.]]
Zuvassin and Necoho were only given a second mention, listed as Chaos Gods in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supplement "Tome Of Salvation".

===Zuvassin===
Zuvassin is a rogue Chaos God who undoes the plans of any being, Chaos or not, including Tzeentch. He accepts all followers for all reasons and doesn't issue instructions since his followers should technically be working to subvert them, so that anything Zuvassin gets involved in becomes a complete mess where nothing can be predicted and everything goes wrong for everyone to varying degrees making him the only Chaos God who embodies the concept of "Chaos".
Any time you could make a list of possible outcomes for any given thing then draw in Zuvassin, the [[Not as Planned|"INCONCEIVABLE"]] result will occur; a coin will fall through a portal into another dimension and land on all surfaces at once, a six-sided dice will crack in half while being rolled and reveal a 7 and 8 inside results, both factions in a battle will actually somehow end the day with more soldiers than they began with.

===Necoho===
Necoho is the god of contradictions and paradoxes, and represents the "Chicken or the Egg" question where the supernatural exists and doesn't. He fights against the concept of belief and faith and as a result is the enemy of all spiritual creatures and faithful worshipers. He only ever actually appears as a simple mortal being and counts everyone and nobody to be his followers.
Necoho will one day bring about the end of the Chaos Gods when nothing left will worship them and they will cease to be.

===Legacy of Malal===
Both players and Eavy Metal painters alike continued to use Malal even if he had gone without a mention, and was still considered to be canon. The early days of the Warhammer forums had the discovery of Malal as something of a rite of passage for Chaos players as well. Malal paintjobs continued to show up in many [[Golden Demon]] competitions and Eavy Metal showcases alike.

===[[Be'lakor]]===
with the introduction of [[Mordheim]], the Cult of Chaos faction revolved around a character called the "Shadowlord" who was a Chaos God of some kind and had caused the ruin of the city. Many players believed him to be the return of Malal, and many early paintjobs for the Cult were in Malal's white and black skull motif. The story was later revealed to actually be a plot by Be'lakor, a mere [[Daemon Prince]] of [[Chaos Undivided]] who had wanted to escape the control of the Four and had made the ruined city his domain before realizing he had only traded one cage for a much smaller one, and slunk back to the laughter of the Four with his tail between his legs and a revisionist version of the story already in his head. In many ways Be'lakor was intended to replace Malal as the non-Four alternative to Chaos, although Games Workshop writers by this point had [[Skub|made Chaos the Mary Sue faction for so long that the concept of anything being a danger to them was laughable]] so the "Chaos outsider" became just a whiny petulant part of Chaos that managed to wreak great destruction in the mortal world while attempting, and failing, to give a black eye to his masters.

===Malice===
Malice was created for 3rd edition [[Warhammer 40000]] in the [[Chaos Space Marine]] Codex. An axe identical to Kaleb Daark's is described which was created to kill other beings of Chaos, and a Chaos Space Marine Chapter in Malal's colors was shown under the name "[[Sons of Malice]]". They later got a short story in [[White Dwarf]] where a Sister of Battle discovers they were a loyalist Chapter who had fallen to Chaos while still fighting for the Imperium, exalting in cannibalism and blood rituals while praising Malice as the god of anarchy and fear. They then proceeded to cannibalize the Sister and her group, and were exiled from the Imperium for their heresy, and they continue fighting against the other forces of Chaos. But once again, Malice was never mentioned again although his color scheme was repeated in subsequent works.

===Canon/Archaon===
Malal/Zuvassin/Necoho/Malice have existed in a sort of limbo in canon for quite a long time. Technically they were never retconned, and "non-canon by exclusion" is a weak accusation as that would mean every character and every event must be mentioned every edition for them to remain canon. Many statements have been given saying the Chaos Gods only exist in the Four, although this was said both before and after each "Chaos God of Piss Off" was written meaning the statement has always been a false one anyway (this isn't even going into the huge clusterfuck that [[Age of Sigmar]] has made in trying to figure out who actually matters in Chaos, not counting [[Khorne|the one who gets all the new models]]).
Some people have taken on the perspective that the "Chaos God of Go Fuck Yourself" is a continually shifting being, more in flux than Tzeentch and that each incarnation is comparable to [[Doctor Who]] incarnations. In this interpretation, Malal is Zuvassin is Necoho is Malice, and there's more to come still (of course [[Khorne|Peter Capaldi]] is the best one.).

[[End Times]] and [[Age of Sigmar]] for [[Warhammer Fantasy]] both suggest that the concept of a fifth Chaos God is over with as in the leadup to the event Be'lakor snarked that the Chaos Gods of Law never existed and that only the Four exist, with everything belonging to them in the end. But his truthfulness is in doubt partially because even though he is the character who "never lies", this is only stated once in the 40k universe and that the reason he never lies is "because its boring", so as a result he's never been proven to really be a reliable narrator. It is also dubious because of the proven disconnect between [[Black Library]] and the actual army books evidenced during the massive contradictions during the event and the casual attitude of the writers, meaning that anything in said books must be taken with a huge grain of salt.
Regardless, during the event when every character (that Games Workshop remembered existed) played a part, no fifth Chaos God other than [[Horned Rat]] did anything which means he and his other selves may truly be non-canon.

In Age of Sigmar, [[Archaon]] is promoted to a Chaos God (remember that Fantasy and 40k share the same Warp which exists outside of time, so Archaon is now a Chaos God by technicality in 40k as well) representing the combined strength of the other Chaos Gods as the embodiment of [[Chaos Undivided]] (with the exception of Slaanesh's replacement in the Great Game, Horned Rat, whom he rejects) and his Black Library novel life goal is to destroy all gods and kings to let men control their own destiny and exalt in their own achievements in a spectacularly Ayn Rand way. Due to his rejection of the pretender [[Keeper of Secrets]] trying to take Slaanesh's position, Archaon himself wound up being the target of worship by former Slaaneshi who in turn are empowered by him as if Slaanesh was still around (which is not gameplay/story segregation as they still have their powers in the narrative as well) meaning that he's 1/4 of the way to his goal.
Although the actual army books state he is loyal to Chaos, the Black Library goals fall very much in line with Malal and in an accidental bit of meta his contradiction in goal even fits into Necoho's sphere. Beyond that Be'lakor (who states himself as Archaon's creator and father) is the one who manipulated Archaon's life, from a Warrior of Chaos raping his Empire mother to him becoming a devout priest of [[Sigmar]] to him losing his faith and becoming a being of pure evil who rejects both Sigmar's light and Be'lakor's blackness. This blend of light and dark fits quite well into Malal's scheme.

So it may be possible that Archaon is the latest incarnation of the Malal concept, albeit as a German rapeviking this time rather than a giant boar...thing or a fat old <strike>fedora</strike>trilby-tipper.

Archaon's endgame in Age is to somehow remove the new pantheon of Order (which includes Death and Destruction by technicality) from their Realms, which is very difficult because the "near infinite" planets that are the Realms are literally made of the old Winds of Magic (making them very chaotic and only really willing to obey the will of beings of a similar nature) with the very souls of those new gods at the cores. As a result Archaon is facing an uphill battle of trying to eliminate their armies (and all civilians, because this is Lord Edgemaster after all) then trap them and figure out a way to remove them without destroying the Realm itself all while battling against the rest of Chaos which periodically tries to backstab him despite them being his only supporters. If he achieves his goal, he will rule over all of reality (including whatever the fuck the Warp can fairly be called) itself as the sole being of any concept of power.

===Malign===
[[Tony Ackland]] was one of the artists employed by early Games Workshop to create the illustrations for their supplements and books, and they tasked him to design the Daemons that would be the models for Malal's eventual inclusion into Warhammer Fantasy as an army. The Wagner/Grant debacle left Malal in limbo with Games Workshop having never produced a model, and as a result Ackland was technically the owner of the designs he created since just like Wagner and Grant he was only a freelancer who owned what he made.

Not knowing about the boar appearance decided on in the comics nor the white/black color scheme, Ackland's idea for Malal combined insects with a general Chaos mutant themes (as he was the artist to quite a bit of the original Chaos Mutant and [[Chaos Spawn]] images) to produce extremely surrealist combinations of man and beast in a lean and segmented nature, featuring skeletal motifs coincidentally.

He eventually released his designs to the public (seen below in the Gallery section), then created new versions which he assigned to an unknown being called "Malign" in order to have them produced by third-party companies for sale.

According to Ackland, his version of Malal was going to be very similar to Khorne in that the two were extremely violent and focused mainly on sending warriors into combat rather than any politicking. But his version of Malal was much more elite and fanatical than Khorne, describing Khorne as the Wehrmacht (German army) and Malal as the Nazi SS. Yes you read that right, Malal's troops would basically be [[Commissar|BLAMMMING]] [[Bloodletters]] for cowardice or harboring Elves.

===Malice (Pantheon Of Chaos)===
Ackland has proceeded to partner with various people including sculptor Diego Serrate Pinilla to create a new model range and eventual wargame, [[Pantheon Of Chaos]], which brings not only all of the Malal Daemons into production, but also all of Ackland's Warhammer Fantasy artwork he has ownership of.
Malal is known as Malice (because that's a public domain name), and is exactly as originally imagined.

So players who for years have wanted their very own Malal army now can have exactly that.

===Malal and the [[Tyranids|Tyranids]]===

When Rogue Trader was being devised and the creatures that would later form the [[Tyranid]] Hive Fleets with it, Malal was originally going to have (as had been conceived for WHFB) armies of insectoid and beast-like chimeras that would consume everything in their path, including themselves. This bought Malal's very special form of true-chaos to each game system as well as possibly the most horrific and alien of all 40K fauna.

After the planned narrative for the other four Chaos Gods to conspire to remove Malal from the warp in M36, all of them fearful that Malal was too powerful in the Great Game, Malal was to in fact be "killed" by being booted from the warp and into the material realm.

When Malal appeared in the material realm he moved into the void between galaxies, hidden from view to everyone, from the populations of the infinite galaxies of the universe that now surrounded him to the other Chaos gods themselves who were busy enjoying their assumed victory and continuing the great game. From this dark and empty space Malal devised a plan; he would create a new form of life, one that was capable of consuming all life in the material realm whilst feeding his own power. This life would then consume itself returning it's life-energy to the renegade god. In turn the Hive Fleets were born and Malal braved a sly smile.

Malal sent the fleets across the universe, entering galaxies and consuming all life and matter within; each galaxy consumed giving even more strength to the lost god hidden in the void.

Just before the 41st Millenium (Though the exact date varies throughout RT lore), Malal sent the Hive fleets into the Milky Way; slamming into the Eastern Fringe of the Galaxy. Since this initial conflict two other major hive fleets have also attacked and as the clock races rapidly towards the 42nd Millenium the galaxy finds itself assaulted from all sides by Malal's creatures.

If the Hive fleets succeed Malal will be boosted in his objective of re-ascending to the Immaterium as the most powerful god of the warp. Whether the renegade god will succeed is left open, but as the Hive Fleets continue to spread amongst the galaxies and worlds that make up the 40K universe, things do not look good for anyone, including the other Chaos Gods.

Sadly as Malal has gone from lore due to legal issues, so have the plans for his Tyranid organisms. They remain without a clear origin story. The last hint GW gave for Malal still being behind the tyranids was in 5th Ed when the tyranids were described as being "guided by a hidden intelligence far more powerful than even the norn-queens". Since then nothing, if anything, has really been said on the matter.

==/tg/ Fluff==
[[File:Painted Malice Guardian of Contradictions.jpg|400px|left|thumb|We have a painted model of a <s>Malal</s> <s>Malign</s> Malice Greater Daemon! Praise the true atheist god!]]
Followers of Malal are kind of like [[Chaos]] Agnostics. They doubt that anything exists, including the [[Emperor]], Chaos itself, and you. ''Especially '''you'''''. The Chaos Space Marines chapter known as the "Sons of Malice", with their alternating black/white colour scheme are as likely to kill Chaos Forces as anyone else on the field, except for each other.

Malal, when he was actually canon, was the Chaos God of Fear, Darkness, Anarchy, and batshit loony self-destructive urges; Chaos battling Chaos. This also made him the God of paradoxes, Radical Inquisitors and the like trying to turn Chaos against itself, and the outcast god since he was trying to buttfuck every other Chaos God and their followers. The thing about Malal was that even though he was one of the biggest personifications of Chaos there could be, he constantly tried to destroy Chaos and if he were ever successful in ending Chaos he could be destroyed as well. Not that this pants-on head crazy a-hole cared, as suicidal tendencies and teamkilling just became part of his portfolio instead. When Malal gets involved, the [[Great Game]] turns from [[Risk]] to [[Call of Cthulhu]] with [[Old Man Henderson]] as the head cultist.

Since Malal was supposed to be the antitheses of Chaos he had only a few champions, all of whom were supposed to be [[Cheese|STUPIDLY powerful]] and would go around bitch-slapping other Chaos champions with their anti-daemon daemon-axes of doom while wearing warp-resistant warp armor. The servants of Malal fight in utter silence, but that makes them way more badass than the rest of chaos. So yeah. They work with the forces of Order, but are fairly likely to engage in teamkilling to the degree that [[Orks]] are shocked by their sudden but inevitable betrayals.
Because of this followers of Malal have to already be balls to the wall nuts and have superhuman will. Malal's trademarks were black and white bisecting armor and a horned skull equally bisected black and white. His sacred number was 11. His signature weapon was the Dreadaxe which was a daemon weapon made out of a [[derp|Daemon that hates Daemons]], and it looked like a pterodactyl head on a stick. You can still find examples of this weapon in the CSM 3.5 dex and in Your [[Matt Ward|Spiritual Liege]]'s wonderful fluff assassin of a Codex: [[Grey Knights]].

Malal has a fortress in the Chaos Wastes in Warhammer Fantasy where he captures and [[trolls]] Greater Daemons by trapping them for all eternity unable to do whatever it is that they embody. This one [[Keeper of Secrets]] he has, for example, is caught in a field that nullifies all sensation so it can't indulge in cocaine fueled sex parties with [[Doomrider]], thus eternally pissing off said daemon forever in the only way that works. He also put a [[Great Unclean One]] in a vat of Febreze; blinded and binded a [[Lord of Change]] and put him in a stasis-field; and locked a [[Bloodthirster]] in an indestructible zen garden.

Unlike his brother gods he is capable of entering the materium/Warhammer World through demonic possession if his followers had enough sacrifices, but since his followers rarely manage to not kill each other long enough to make headway towards any particular goal it mostly falls to his Champions to get shit done.

In Age of Sigmar, Malal actually controls the space between the Realms and decides when the Realmgates will function and when they will not, plucking those he desires from the space between spaces and doing with them as he wills. Since Chaos no longer fights itself he has weakened to a degree, and must now rely on his plan to turn Archaon to his will and take the massive powers the Four invested in him which will mark the beginning of the end of Chaos.

(''In 40k, Malal is actually THE ELEVENTH PRIMARCH!! Think about it: Malal's sacred number is 11, the Renegade warband [[Sons of Malice]] worship the god Malal, and the Sons of Malice also center their rituals and trophies around the number XI. And what is the number of one of the missing legions? ELEVEN. And their warband contain a large amount of unknown (Read: ANCIENT) suits of Power Armour that predate even the [[Great Crusade]].
This could mean that The [[Sons of Malice]] are actually serious possibilities as candidates of the XI Legion! '''*Mind Blown*''''')

At one point in the 36th Millennium (though of course time is a nebulous concept in the warp), the other four gods got really sick of Malal's constant interference in their plans. While Malal was at the time the strongest individual god, the other four knew that he couldn't deal with them all at once. [[Elder Scrolls|So Tzeentch gathered the other gods and]] [[Just As Planned|formulated a plan]] [[Elder Scrolls|to deal with Malal once and for all.]] So one day Nurgle knocked on Malal's door and asked Malal to step outside, at this point Tzeentch signaled the others to attack and the other Chaos Gods jumped out from behind their cover and beat Malal to death. It required about a century of constant beating, but eventually Malal died. Upon his death the other Four Chaos gods celebrated for one thousand years now that the cheese lord was out of the way.
Sadly Malal's bastard offspring Malice and Zuvassin managed to slip away.
'''However, it might be possible that Malal/Malice may just be an Alias for the Emperor, working incognito, looking into ways he can ultimately end the four-fold scourge of the Warp. It might be possible he would use "Malal/Malice", using the powers of the Dark Gods against them. That includes using the Sons of Malice(Grey Knights?). Just as soon as Kaldor stops sniffin' Warp Dust.'''
A final theory is that he's become a sneaky git and painted himself [[Ork Kommando|purple]] to wait out until the time is right to hit the big four just hard enough to finish them (considering the current state of Daemons on the tabletop, that might not be too far off), and in the meantime manipulates Orks into fighting each other by pretending to be Gork, then Mork (or Mork then Gork?) to draw them into arguments while causing the Imperium to weaken itself by BLAMMING everyone capable of uplifting the condition of man. He probably got the idea sometime after he left a giant sword for Farsight to eventually find, but before he altered Macha's biochemistry to amp up her hormone output.
In fact, the truth is much more terrifying. Malal in fact managed to travel back through time to the present, where he is now trying to manifest. This is the source of the Zalgo legends across the internet.

In Warhammer Fantasy he still exists, and is secretly sponsoring [[Nagash|Nagash's]] recent [[The End Times|rise to power]]. He hasn't been seen or mentioned because he's been crashing on the [[Horned Rat|Horned Rat's]] couch after burning his own house down.

===Getting Malal on the Table===
[[File:Warhammer-40000-фэндомы-art-красивые-картинки-681896.jpg|300px|right|thumb|The Sons of Malice gives thumbs up on [[/tg/ Gets Shit Done|/tg/ getting shit done!]]]]
As Games Workshop have proven themselves to be a bunch of IP abusing faggots, it once again falls to /tg/ [[/tg/ gets shit done|to get anything done.]]
====Humans====
To field rapevikings of Malal in Warhammer Fantasy, run Warriors of Chaos models on Skaven bases. Nothing like blowing yourself AND the enemy up to say "It doesn't matter".
Ironically (or appropriately depending on how you look at it) one of the best ways to represent 40k Malal dedicated Chaos Marines would be to use the Grey Knights codex. Think about it; elite marine units with sick powers and a plethora of daemon killing hardware, small army sizes, and more. Take an Unbound Dreadknight spam list and use Chaos bitz for a nasty Chaos smashing elite warband of Malal followers and lolstomp your opponents into the ground. Alternatively you can use C:CSM if you aren't a cheesed-out 12 year old or Daemonhunters vet.

====Daemons of Malal====
Have you ever lamented how you always wanted to put together a Malal themed army, but you didn't, because it wouldn't be worth it without the proper daemons? Well, now you no longer have a fucking excuse. Grown mightily indignant at Malal's lack of presence on the tabletop, several anons conspired together to bring you this. [http://www.cpmodelsminiatures.co.uk/CP%20Models%2028mm%20Night%20Terrors%20Demons.htm We even found models for it]; they're at the bottom, listed as Hook Horrors. Play-testing would be very much appreciated.

Alternatively, modification to existing Daemon models using their original stats is fine too (a popular idea for example is a gleeful white and black Daemon Prince tearing itself in half along the color separation).

====Malal Homebrew====
Due to the fact that there is little concrete information about Malal content, especially in 40k where he is essentially non-existent, there are a number of ways to interpret the lore into a whole. Here is the link to the fan-created rule set: [[Malal Daemonkin]]

====Forces of Malal====
Here is some fanfluff of Malal/Malice due to how little proper fluff there is. Information is subject to change of course: [[Forces of Malal]]

===Dirges of Malal===
Take the rot, to make it flesh. 
Take the skull, the soul to rest. 
Take their mind and give them peace. 
Take their will. Sensations cease. 
--------------------
"We shall deny Nurgle their flesh to fester and rot" 
"We shall deny Khorne their blood and skulls" 
"We shall deny Tzeentch their destinies and fates" 
"We shall deny Slaanesh their pleasure and pain" 
"Death to the Dark Gods" 
"For the Renegade God" 
"Let the galaxy burn!" 
--------------------
To the Skin, Ice 
To the Rot, Fire 
To the Skull, Steel 
To the Mind, Night 
--------------------
"We are the flames that scorch the garden of rot." 
"We are the waves that erode the mountain of skulls." 
"We are the quakes that shatter the labyrinth of lies." 
"We are the storms that rend the palace of perfection." 
"We are Malice." 

===Followers of Malal===
The [[Sons of Malice]]

Kaleb Daark

<s>The Alpha Legion and their two primarchs</s> {{BLAM|No such legion nor primarchs exist!}}

Scottish Koreans

Jumbo shrimp

Tau assault units([[Farsight]])

<s>You</s>

<s>Me</s>

Anarchists

Hypocrites

Dead [[Sly Marbo]]

Atheist preachers

Your Girlfriend

[[Lofn|Domesticated Tyranids]]

Tall midgets

Black albinos

Grey Knights

Billy Mays

Honest politicians

Gabe Newell

C.S.Gotohell

[[Chris-chan|Chris-chan's]] long-lost perfect, popular brother

Josef Fritzl

Eldar units that aren't utterly overpowered

Screaming Mimes

Uncle Ruckus

Assurances that don't leave Lord Bale cold

Vladimir Putin's estranged twin brother that isn't a complete <strike> badass </strike> <s> bigoted imperialist asshole </s> [[God-Emperor of Mankind|THE YUGEST, INCREDIBLE, MOST AWE INSPIRING BEING IN EXISTENCE]]

Athiest Word Bearers

Ronald McDonald

Ultramarines that deserve to live

Vegemonster

[[Sorcerers of Khorne|Khornate Sorcerers]]

Tzeentch Berserkers

Bill Gates

[[Genestealer Cult|Tyranid allies]] (7th edition anyone)

Ork mathematicians (a.k.a. Mathboyz)

Matt ward Fans (Newfags)

Chaos centurions and knights (Forge world made them.)

Pacifist Marines

Black Templar Librarians

Celibate and Sober Slaanesh Daemon (The 5th deamonette creation)

Cheap GW models

Egalitarian Eldar

Asexual and Altruistic Dark Eldar

Industrial Exodites

Germophobic Plaguebearers

Ahzek Ahriman {{BLAM|DOUBLEHERESY!}}{{BLAM}}

Two-Face

Mikhail Bakunin

Justin Bieber's popular twin brother

Pacifist army ants

Abstinent Daemonettes

Commissars that don't {{BLAM}} their own troops.

Virgin Bards

[[DOOM: Repercussions of Evil|People who don't worship Malal]]

[[Everyone Is John|John]]

DC Comics editorial and writer staff

Kid friendly [[Lovecraft|Lovecraftian]] authors

Safe for work pornography photographers

Carnivorous gorillas

Your mom

Gay Pirates

Manly douches

Half-necron organisms

Eskimo cactus farmers

Vegan sharks

Jewish Nazis

Malal

Jesus

Matt Ward (himself)

Remleiz (40k theories)

George Soros...is this [[Tzeentch]]'s thing?

[[Commander Puretide]] of the Tau, [[Grimdark|as his brain was being chewed out by computer chips to preserve his]] [[tactical genius]]

/m/ after 2013

UNDERCROFT MALICE.

==Dungeons The Dragoning==

For those of you who want to roleplay with Malal, [[Dungeons: the Dragoning 40,000 7th Edition]] has Malal as a Chaos God, because of course it does. In DtD, he's the Chaos God of Teamkilling Fucktards; nobody gets along with him or his followers.

==Gallery==
{{Promotions}}
<gallery>
Image:Lesser_Daemon_of_Malal.jpg|One of Malal's canon Daemon designs from Tony Ackland.This would either be a Lesser or Greater Daemon.
Image:Malal Daemon Sale.jpg|This model was actually produced by a third party company called [[C-P Models]] and is available for sale [http://www.cpmodelsminiatures.co.uk/CP%20Models%2028mm%20Night%20Terrors%20Demons.htm here.]
Image:Greater_Daemon_of_Malal.jpg|Another Ackland Malal Daemon. This would have either been a Lesser or Greater Daemon.
Image:Beast_of_Malal.jpg|Another Ackland Malal Daemon. Ackland said this would have been one of Malal's monsters.
Image:Steed_of_Malal.jpg|Another Ackland Malal Daemon. Identified as what would have been a mount.
Image:Son of malice.png|A Son of Malice.
Image:Malal Hipster Cultistchan.jpg|Cultist offending Malal by not wearing his colours nor the number 11. Frequently posted Meme every-time someone mentions the true god of Chaos.
Image:Malal Warriors.jpg|Prototypes for mortal worshipers of Malal, created in cooperation with Ackland which will be eventually available [http://easternfront-studios.net/ here.]
Image:Malal Lesser New.jpg|Ackland's newer rendition, which he called a "Lesser Daemon of Malign".
Image:Malal Greater New.jpg|Ackland's "Greater Daemon of Malign".
Image:Malal Chaos Steed 1.jpg|Ackland's "Steed of Malign".
Image:Malal Chaos Steed 2.jpg|Ackland's second version of a "Steed of Malign".
Image:Kaleb Daark Battle.gif|Kaleb Daark single-handedly slaughters an entire Khornate warband on the hour before its otherwise assured victory over Praag.
Image:Malalette.png|Because /tg/.
Image:Malal_Daemonette.png|Also because /tg/.
Image:Malal_Daemonette_NSFW.png|Because Rule 34. Also /tg/.
Image:MalalPossessed.jpg|Malal Possessed
Image:MalalHerald.jpg|Herald of Malal
Image:Doomrider.png|[[Doomrider|Not that Doomrider]].Demonic cavalry
</gallery>

{{Template:ChaosGods}}
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Age of Sigmar]]

Archaon

2017-11-30T17:59:03Z

2600:1003:B02E:3163:93D4:75E:829E:24F3:

<div style="font-size:1.10em;font-weight:bold;font-style: FFF Tusj ;font-family:serif;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em"> I AM THE TRUE CHOSEN OF CHAOS ! - Archaon teaching a certain armless failure on how to actually be kick ass.'''</div>
[[Image:Archaon Book.jpg|570px|thumb|right|A wallpaper version of his solo [[Black Library]] novel cover art.]]

''"Fear me, mortals, for I am the Anointed, the Favored Son of Chaos, the Scourge of the World. The armies of the gods rally behind me, and it is by my will and by my sword that your weakling nations shall fall."''
- Archaon the Everchosen, Lord of the End Times

''"My hatred is a thousand times more powerful than all your good intentions."''
- Jim Goad

'''Archaon <strike>Overchosen</strike> Everchosen''', formerly known as '''Diederick Kastnar''', also known concurrently as '''The Three-Eyed King''', '''Lord of the End-Times''', '''Kingslayer''', and various other titles besides is the supreme Chaos Lord of [[Warhammer Fantasy]] and its successor, [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. He is the current direct successor of the Kurgan High Zar Asavar Kul, who previously held the title of Everchosen before getting shived in the back by his subordinates. Archaon, on the other hand, managed to successfully destroy the world during the [[End Times]] and defeated Grimgor in single combat (while the latter was high off becoming the Incarnate of the Wind of Beasts, no less) and, more importantly, managed to beat Sigmar Unberogen himself in a match of pure strength before falling with him into a Chaos Portal to wrestle over the titular Warhammer for which the settings of Fantasy and 40K are named, which he just barely lost.

In other words, he shits all over the [[Abaddon|other guy]] in terms of competency and skill. Supposedly, his name is Tilean, meaning 'Warhammer Italy'. Because GW Latin fetish.

[http://myglobalmind.com/2015/08/25/interview-with-archaon-from-norwegian-death-metal-band-1349/| Also moonlights as a guitarist for Norwegian Death Metal bands].

==The Legend==
[[Grimdark|Archaon was born to a Nordland townswoman after her home was paid a visit to by a raiding party of bloodthirsty Norscan Chaos Warriors where the leader of said party, a Chaos Champion of Undivided, proceeded to rape her viciously before leaving her for dead amidst the burning husk of his village.]] The surprising thing here is that he was able to get his armour off in order to put his cock in her vagina, considering that most fluff indicates that Chaos Warriors are sealed inside their plate, but anywho. Of course, the village woman [[Indrick Boreale|did not die, no,]] but was found clinging to life by her husband and children and later gave birth to the raider's bastard son. This child was left to wolves of Laurelorn before having been found by a Sigmarite priest and adopted as a page for the local church, and was thus named Diederick.

Hilariously, the fisherwoman was named Viktoria Rothschild. This essentially makes Archaon an evil Jew bent on world domination. No, really, this is covered in the book Archaon - Everchosen.

Diederick grew up to a vigorous and devout lad, strong in the ways of Sigmar, and became a squire for the knight Sieur Kastnar. When the Sieur Kastnar ran afoul of some foes and died, Diederick, being a man of honour, took it upon himself to deliver the knight's ancestral sword to House Kastnar. The lady of the House, having been disregarded and despised by her husband, and touched by the young squire's dedication and integrity, adopted him to her house and bequeathed the sword of Kastnar to him, along with the dead knight's horse Orberon. With her sponsership, Kastnar then entered into the prestigious Order of the Twin-Tailed Orb, becoming the greatest warrior of the Order on account of his (unknowing) Northern bloodlust and a paragon of the Order's knightly ideals. [[Grimdark|Which essentially means he was a Black Templar level fanatic who didn't think twice of killing children if they were born with the taint of Chaos]].

Later on his career, while questing about and slaying whole tribes of Beastmen single-handed, Diederick came across a group of the Sisters of Sigmar who were transporting a heretical tome. This tome would turn out to be Liber Celestior itself, penned by Necrodormo the Insane under the direction of Be'Lakor himself, and said to hold the prophecy of the Everchosen of Chaos, the final champion who would herald the End Times. The tome was to be transported to the Grand Cathedral of Sigmar in Altdorf, where it would be kept protected from a warband of Chaos Warriors intent on using it to find the Everchosen. This warband being the Swords of Chaos.

Of course, young Diederick had not even seen the prophecy for himself. And indeed, for so many years, had been much too fanatical and thick in the head to realise that he fit the perfect profile of a Norscan warrior, not an Imperial knight. This also did not come fully to him when his own Order of the Twin-Tailed Orb began hunting him, despite him having been the greatest exemplar of their Order's religious and military ideals. Diederick, being a <s>complete badass</s> fucking Mary Sue, made quick work of the knights and also managed to evade the Swords of Chaos, seeking refuge at the Kastnar estate only to find it having been burned to the ground. There, he conferred with the Sister of Sigmar and the priest who had fostered him as to the reasons for which the Empire had declared him a heretic and why the Swords of Chaos wanted to suck his cock. They came to the conclusion that he fit the bill as the Everchosen based on the fact that:

* A). He was obviously of Norscan descent (fucking racists...)
* B). He was a knight of the Empire, like the Everchosen was foretold to be.

That's essentially it, really. It's a pretty fucking vague prophecy. But in Fantasy Worlds, this is often convincing enough, and so Diederick, on the advice of his foster father, journeyed to Altdorf to gain some confirmation of his dark destiny at the Grand Cathedral of Sigmar. Of course, this was after he succeeded in hanging himself because he couldn't live with the truth. Ballsy of him, but the Chaos Gods went 'lolno' and brought him back to life to get on without. They really wanted the End Times to happen, the little shits. So, after dragging his depressed ass to Altdorf and praying before an altar to Sigmar to give him some sign or indication that he was not forsaken by the God-King and not damned to a fate he did not choose and did not want, and reciving stone silence in return (<strike>and remember, this is a setting where magic and the direct presence of gods is not unheard of</strike>, unfortunately Sigmar was quite busy getting stuck in the wind of Azyr, courtesy of Tzeentch) [[Awesome|Archaon went batshit and managed to take down the entire knightly garrison of the Sigmarite Cathedral and even managed to break the Grand Theogonist's limbs and hold him hostage]]. Interrogating the Grand Theogonist by breaking his fingers individually, Diederick demanded to know how exactly the Knights of the Twin-Tailed Orb were so sure that he was the Everchosen; after all, there countless half-Norscans running about in the Empire, and there were countless knights of the Empire who had fallen to Chaos. The Theogonist revealed that they weren't sure at all. They had been hunting people with his profile throughout the Empire. The clincher was that the true Everchosen was prophesied to travel to Altdorf and ask that exact question.

So yes, if Diederick had ''not'' gone to Altdorf, he would not have fulfilled the prophecy. [[Just as Planned]].

Having finally been driven to Joker levels of genocidal insanity by this tidbit of information, Archaon loudly denounced the God-King Sigmar and affirmed his allegiance to the Dark Gods of his father's race, swearing that he would bring the Empire crashing down and tear away the pageantry of Sigmar's religion to reveal the god for the craven liar and charlatan that he was. It was during this shouted oath of death and destruction that the Grand Theogonist gloatingly revealed that the entire Reikland army and pretty much the entirety of the Empire's gunpowder potential was primed on the Cathedral with the order to kill the Everchosen by any means necessary, including by destroying the Cathedral itself. Luckily for Diederick, the Swords of Chaos arrived and rescued him from the clutches of the Empire, fleeing northwards towards Norsca where the Everchosen could begin his journey.

A'ight, bitches, y'all know the story that came after this. Archaon traveled North, crossing into Norsca and the Chaos Wastes and began his centuries-long journey to find the Relics of Chaos - The Burning Mark of Chaos Eternal, which bestowed upon its bearer the ultimate favour all four of the Great Chaos Gods. The Armour of Morkar, the battle-scarred Chaos Plate born by the Norsii warlord and first and greatest of the Everchosen. The Slayer of Kings, the horrifyingly powerful regicidal greatsword forged by Vangel, the Second Everchosen; bound with the soul of U'zhul, the Fist of [[Khorne]]. The Crown of Domination, the ancient battle-helm borne by the first Northern warrior to bargain his soul to Chaos's Dark Lords. The Eye of Sheerian, which bestows upon its user prophetic powers. And Dorghar, Steed of the Apocalypse. (His shield was forged by Bob the arrowsmith, who never made a shield before, but makes some damn fine arrows. It has no special powers, but will presumably become a relic upon Archaon's death.)

Archaon got the first one by traveling to the Altar of Ultimate Darkness in Naggaroth where he single-handedly brought upon the genocide of the race of bloodthirsty, atavistic monster-men who infested the temple and who feasted upon the flesh of stray Dark Elves. In the newer version, he also fought a Dark Elf army led by a dragon-riding Sorceress and was saved by a Valkia cameo after he sacrificed a Dark Elf assassin to the Chaos Gods. He earned the Armour of Morkar by travelling to the Norse King's cairn in the Southern Chaos Wastes and facing off against his vengeful spirit, and was nearly slaughtered by his predecessor then and there but for spitting out a 'yo mama' insult in the dead tongue of the Unberogens which managed to catch Morkar just off-guard due to its WTFness enough for Archaon to sucker-punch him and steal the armour. Actually, it turns out that Archaon said 'brinnan utva lioht', which means 'burn in the light', which if I'm being honest, sounds about as insulting as calling someone a scoundrel. He claimed the Eye of Sheerian from Flamefang, the Claw of Tzeentch, a three-headed Chaos Dragon. Archaon found it sleeping in its lair and woke it up by hitting one of its heads with his axe. There was an intense fight, which ended when Flamefang swallowed Archaon and flew all the way to the Southern Wastes. The armor prevented Archaon from being digested and he cut his way out of the dragon's throat from the inside and plucked the Eye of Sheerian form the belly of its corpse. He claimed Dorghar from the managerie of a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince. He entered the stables by clinging to the underbelly of one of the monsters as it returned to its roost and tracked Dorghar by Dorghar's smell (originally) or using the Eye of Sheerian (post-retcon).
He then jumped on Dorghar's back like a hellish rodeo - one where the mount burst into flame and changed shape along with fighting to dislodge and kill Archaon. Eventually he broke Dorghar's will and killed the daemon prince. He got the Slayer of Kings from a sleeping Krakanrok the Black, father of the Dragon Ogre race and a being the size of a mountain. The superstrong even for a follower of chaos Khornate Beastlord Ograx was ''just'' able to lift one of Krakanrok's fingers high enough for Archaon to grab the sword. It started screaming so loud that the mountain-sized Krakanrok began to stir and Archaon silenced the blade's screaming by impaling the Beastlord through the heart with it, thereby sating its regicidal thirst. And of course, he gained the Crown of Domination by travelling to the First Shrine of Chaos in the Northern World's Edge Mountains after Bea'lakor was made by the Chaos Gods to appear and show him the way (and some directions from Vitlich in the retcon). Archaon entered and overcoming tests set by all 4 of the Chaos Gods, including a maze made by Tzeentch, resisting a personal invitation from Slaanesh himself/herself and Khorne sending Skarbrand to fight him, whom he then strangled to death with his own whip (actually required a fair bit more cunning and planning than the armybook versions of the stories would have you believe).

==The Storm of Chaos fiasco ==
Eventually the Chaos Gods gave the order, and he led the most ferocious and largest army of [[Warriors of Chaos|Chaos Warriors]] ever assembled against the [[Empire]] during the [[Storm of Chaos]] campaign for 6th Edition. Before he reached the location where he was to end the world, he faced [[Valten]] (a reincarnation of Sigmar himself), who had managed to kill Dorghar and smash Archaon's armor before being beaten near death. The [[Orcs & Goblins|Orc]] warlord [[Grimgor Ironhide|Grimgor]] then smashed through his army single-handed, headbutted him in the junk, laughed at his sorry ass then went back to gather another army of greenskins.

The reason this bullshit happened? GW built the narrative around their battle reports, army by army. The problem is that Chaos kept losing. In fact, the good guys were winning so badly the only reason Archaon was pushing them back was due to plot. But GW had already pre-planned the story to become the grimderpofthe41stmilleniumwherethereisonlywar and make "End Times" be in the past tense. In the end, they resorted to having fans call-in the way they wanted the story to end, hoping that Warhammer Fantasy fans would pick the faction with the pointiest stuff on their armor.

They didn't.

They chose a faction that had been beaten in the last match.

Fans chose Orcs over Chaos.

GW had no backup plan.

Grimgor's entire army had been beaten by Crom while Valten and Archaon fought. Grimgor got sick of rallying his forces, went "ZOG DIS, I WANNA PIECE UV DA ACTION!" and charged in to sucker punch Archaon as he was about to deliver the final blow to Sigmar and end the world, shout for the silent and awed assembled armies of the world to hear that "GRIMGOR IZ DA BEST!", then went back home to rally his army. This resulted in the snide nickname of "Light Drizzle of Chaos."

Later on, GW retconned almost the entirety of Storm of Chaos and instead made it an alternate continuity. In the current narrative, <s>he's still amassing his army</s> the world ended.

Also, Archaon is Be'lakor's biological son. We wish we were making this shit up. It's not quite as special as it sounds since Be'lakor apparently gets around and there are numerous other would-be Everchosen kids of his running around - Archaon kills some during his quest to become the true Everchosen.

== Archaon's Posse ==
In first [[Storm of Chaos]] and now in [[The End Times]], Archaon isn't alone at the top of the hordes of chaos. He has some lieutenants to help him keep everyone organised. Closest of all is his Herald, [[Vardek Crom]], although officially Crom gets killed in a failed invasion.

In [[Storm of Chaos]], Games Workshop decided to go with the [[Your dudes]] approach, creating four lieutenants based on simply fluffing out the new Chaos Champion models for each of the four gods (save Khorne, who got a custom model based on an old Archaon head, Orc arms and an old Bloodletter body). Thusly, in [[White Dwarf]], we were introduced to:
* [[Haargroth]] the Blooded One, Champion of [[Khorne]].
* [[Feytor]] the Tainted, Champion of [[Nurgle]].
* [[Styrkaar]], Champion of [[Slaanesh]].
* [[Melekh]] the Changer and the sorcerous mutant-child Cyspeth, Champions of [[Tzeentch]].

The characters weren't received too well. So, perhaps realising their mistake, GW has revealed they're bringing back some of the big Chaos characters from their first ever Chaos Special Characters list:

* Representing [[Khorne]], it's [[Arbaal]] the Undefeated, giant Flesh Hound-riding army-butchering Chaos Lord.
* Representing [[Slaanesh]], it's [[Dechala]] the Denied One, corrupted High Elf turned six-armed poison-oozing snake-woman.
* Representing [[Nurgle]], it's [[Valnir]] the Reaper, undead soul-harvester.
* Representing [[Tzeentch]], it's [[Egrimm van Horstmann]], former Magister of the Light College turned dragon-riding daemon-commanding arch-warlock.

Unlike the others, these guys were at least respected enough to get cameos in [[The End Times]]. Two of them were even killed off, with Valnir being killed by Wulfrik in a novel and Egrimm being killed in End Times: Archaon after trying to bind the wind of Aqshy to himself. Dechala was mentioned to be in the final battle and it's said that Arbaal was kurmped as wel..

[[The End Times]] made a similar plan as well with champions representing each of the Gods, and again, Crom appears and gets his ass handed to him by Valten. This time, however, the posse is made of actually known characters:
*[[Valkia the Bloody]] representing her hubby Khorne during the invasion of Naggaroth. She eventually gets a mutual kill.
*[[Vilitch the Curseling]] being the top champion of Tzeentch while Aekold Hellbrass is busy sacking Kislev. As of ET: Thanquol, he gets sent to drag in [[Karl Franz]] so Archie may kill him once and for all. In End Times: Archaon, he and Thomin switch places, with Thomin calling the shots and Vitlich being the mindless slave.
*[[Sigvald]] the Magnificent being the only person of note dedicated to Slaanesh. He gets his face rekt by the Wight King Krell and then got killed and pissed on by Throgg the troll king.
*The [[Glottkin]] taking the position of top 3 champions of Nurgle after the guy before them gets a Runefang to the face. They get beaten in the same book they appear in by a superpowered Karl Franz and are currently sitting the rest of The End Times out in Nurgle's Mansion.

==Retcon/The End Times==
[[File:archaon.jpeg|500px|thumb|right|The Everchosen doing a badass pose.]]
GW recently realized that pushing ChaosChaosChaos in Warhammer Fantasy only turns off fans who want THEIR faction to be important (as the setting has a fair number of megalomaniacs that would put comicbook villains to shame), and as a result the End Times are finally being ushered in... by [[Nagash]]. The resident Undead [[BBEG]], who aims to take over the world by rendering everyone into undead slaves then consume the Warp. In its entirety. At that time Archaon was seeking the Glottkin and the Maggoth Riders, and upon finding them gave them three jars of plagues custom-made by Nurgle himself. Archaon planned to use the followers of Nurgle like a magical bioweapon; softening up the Empire before he came in to finish it off. Upon hearing that Naggy's stealing his thunder, Archaon prematurely led his forces to battle.

At the border of the Empire and what was once Kislev, he encountered the Auric Bastion, a gigantic wall of metal, magic and holy energy made by [[Balthasar Gelt]] that he and his troops could not cross. Then they came under attack and his army ended up in a stalemate against the forces of [[Vlad von Carstein]], the head of the Dracula Bloodline brought back from death by big bone daddy himself. Vlad's job was to keep Archaon busy while Nagash invaded Nehekhara. Naggy himself was planning to eliminate the Tomb Kings as they were one of the few forces that can challenge his rule, then subsume them into his armies and go on to kill every living thing in the world and reanimate them.

Gelt fell prey to the separate manipulations of Vlad von Carstein and the Changeling and was outed as an up-and-coming necromancer. After a misunderstanding Gelt is declared a traitor to the Empire and flees. With Gelt's fall from grace, the Auric Bastion loses the support of the Sigmarite priests, who deem the wall tainted due to its inventor's involvement with necromancy. Soon after the Auric Bastion crumbles, giving Chaos the green light to invade the Empire. Eager to make up for lost time, Archaon leads his forces in and bulrushes his way to Middenheim. Archaon planned to defeat the god Sigmar worshiped as a symbol of his superiority. However, Ulric had enough power to resist him and Chaos had a hard fight until [[Teclis|a meddling elf wizard]], unbeknownst to everyone else, stole Ulric's flame, allowing the power of Chaos to ravage Middenheim. Archaon took on Valten, Sigmar's heir, until a Verminlord decided to be a kill-stealing prick and decapitated Valten, enraging Archaon. Eventually Archaon and his forces conquered Middenheim.

After this Archaon claimed Sigmar's hammer from Valten's body as a trophy and set up camp in Middenheim. While there he schemes to have Karl Franz killed, sending Kairos Fateweaver after him. While he waits Archaon discovers a secret weapon under Middenheim. Under even where the Flame of Ulric was is a device left by the Old Ones. If properly tended to it could form a third Warp Rift that would combine with the other two and destroy the world so he seeks to activate it, forgetting that, as far as he knows, it would destroy him too. Due to [[Games Workshop|plot armor]], Kairos fails and Archaon kills the former to summon Ka'Bandha to take out Karl Franz. But he and the other Khornate daemons champed at the bit to start the fight while Archaon camped in Middenheim so he permitted them to hunt Karl Franz and the Incarnates as long as they gave him Karl Franz's flayed skin. During this time he gets several people pledging themselves to his cause who get used as auxiliaries including [[Isabella von Carstein|a possessed vampire]], [[Sigvald|a preening Chaos Lord]], the entire Skaven race and [[Settra the Imperishable|a dethroned undead king]] (though the latter's in it cos "the enemy of my enemy..." and ultimately says "fuck this shit" to Chaos).

Due to the machinations of Nurgle and the Skaven, Nagash is reduced from contender for the main villain and a burgeoning god of undeath to that "lesser villain that needs to team up with the good guys to fight the true villain" guy. The Bone Daddy approaches the Incarnates and offers an alliance which they, ''very'' grudgingly, accept. Eventually the Incarnates come to Middenheim and a gigantic clusterfuck of a battle occurs. The Orcs led by Grimgor throw in their lot with the Incarnates after some skillful manipulation from Malekith and even Sigmar himself makes a comeback. Despite everything arrayed against them, it eventually ends up being ChaosChaosChaos anyways when they fail to stop Archaon's ace-in-the-hole; his custom-made, Old-Ones-inspired WMD... Largely because Mannfred decided to betray Nagash (along with the rest of the good guys) at the last moment. While everyone else either dies or gets warped into some chaos bullshit, Archaon and Sigmar fall into the Warp Rift while wrestling for the hammer.

Whatever anyone says, if there was to be an ending to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, this is it: The Big Good and Big Bad of the setting falling into oblivion wrestling over The Warhammer. Fucking sweet

==Age of Sigmar==
So by now I imagine you're thinking "well bugger me, how can this guy get any more badass and/or mary sueish?" Well let me answer that for you, with a new model. Move over, Nagash, there's a new giant model in town and he's coming for you.

After completing a brand new series of challenges set by the Chaos Gods, smashing them all with ease and without a shred of loyalty for the Unholy Quintet, and rejecting the newly ascended Great Horned Rat's offer of a blessing by spitting in his verminous face, Archaon has been made the Grand High Marshall of Chaos. Which basically means that he can do whatever he fuck he wants without the Chaos Gods doing anything to stop him. He could go around and murder the shit out of each of the gods' best followers and get away with it, because fuck you, he's Archaon. That said, however, not everyone unanimously accepts his claim, and there were those like the Gaunt Summoners of Tzeentch (A bunch of possibly-daemonic sorcerers with eyes all over their helmets) that put up a resistance against the Marshall, and end up getting a serious ass-whooping for their troubles. Once that was dealt with he went on a rampage through the realms. One of his harder battles was in the realm of Shyish. Archaon took on Nagash as he was the only one strong enough to defeat him. Archaon did at one point and bound him into a cage of bone; bad idea as one necromancy spell later and Nagash was free before laying a vengeful beatdown on Archaon's army. The two duelled again but Archaon called on the Bloodthirsters for backup, forcing Nagash to retreat. Archaon's only defeat came at the hands of Malerion in the realm of Ulgu, and he is now fascinated by Ulgu.

On top of his legions, he also controls his own order of knights, called the Varanguard. These guys replace Archie's old warband and serve as his presence in every campaign, and in those he does deign worthy of his direct intervention, they serve as his mightiest warriors. These guys are called from every walk of Chaos, and each of them find some omen compelling them to serve the Everchosen to which they follow so devotedly that they abandon their god's calling to serve him under pain of death. Those that pass the trials laid before them on their route to the Varanspire (his new castle in the Realm of Chaos) are then chosen to join one of his eight circles and gain a giant mutant thing that possibly used to be a horse.

And that's not even mentioning the new changes to his look.

For a start, Archaon is now rocking some badass new black armour that makes him look much more sinister, powerful, and imposing, though at the cost of the Northern Warlord look he used to have. Slayer of Kings is also different, now a gigantic on-fire sword with a much more ornate design than before, very cool. But the real change isn't even Archaon himself, but the horse Dhorgar. Well, ex-horse, because Dhorgar is now a gigantic chimera monster with three heads to represent Nurgle, Khorne, and Tzeentch (Slaanesh has vanished without a trace) and two tails as a homage to the Great Horned Rat. Our man's now gathering all the forces of Chaos together to launch a massive campaign against Sigmar and finish what he started in the Old World, and stands as the greatest threat that Order may ever have to face. Just like old times, huh?

== On the tabletop ==
In an interesting irony, though probably not intentional, Archaon is also in a lot ways the opposite of Abaddon, not in a bad way. Where as Abaddon tends to get changed fairly heavily each edition, Archaon stays the same with each book, with the only changes to him being armor save's not including bonus for him being mounted or whether or not you can field him on foot. Also, where as Abaddon is characterized by his hitting power while being respectably tough to kill, Archaon hits hard (base attack ignores armor and can double attacks for the rest of the game, though if does any 1s on to hit rolls have to be directed at him or his unit) although his most impressive trait is how freaking hard he is to kill. While his statline is only slightly better than a normal Chaos Lord, he has a 1+ armor save, a 3+ ward save, all to hit rolls against him have a -1 and he can't be wounded on better than 3+. Sadly, while an indestructible death machine, his cost keeps him from getting much use. Afterall, [[Dwarfs|cannons]] are the solution to all problems in Warhammer Fantasy.

Age of Sigmar continues this trend of indestructibility in style. Now rocking a 3+ Save that he can easily buff to a 2+, a 5+ Save against Mortal Wounds, and now ''20 FUCKING WOUNDS! HOLY SHIT, THIS IS MEANT TO BE THE GAME WHERE 1 WOUND IS THE AVERAGE, RIGHT?'' Yeah, new monster-riding Archaon is even more of a tank than he used to be, and that's saying a lot. And in addition to this, his new three-headed Dorghar can use one of thee special abilities every turn he kills somebody in melee. This can range from vomiting up the remains of his victims all over the unit he's fighting, Nurgle style, to ''eating their skulls and heal D3 wounds!'' Fucking hell, and I thought he was a tank before he could regenerate. In addition to his insane defensive ability, he can also bring the pain too. He has access to Arcane Bolt (as well as the ability to gain the spells of any other wizard if he feeds the unfortunate wizard to the Tzeentch head), though Mystic Shield is always a better choice to up his defense, Dorghar can hit like a truck like any monster, and the Slayer of Kings returns as potentially one of the strongest weapons in the game with an easy To Hit and To Wound, and very heavy Rend and Damage. In addition, if you roll two 6's To Wound on the same Hero or Monster with the Slayer of Kings, then it instantly kills them with no saves of any kind allowed. Though with only four attacks, this won't happen too often. Still, with those stats he's easily going to live long enough to pull it off sooner or later.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Original Archaon.jpg|Archaon, back in the early days of Warhammer Fantasy. He had a horsie.
Image:Archaon Old.jpg|Archaon's limited edition model, on-foot.
Image:Archaon New.jpg|Archaon's new model. He gets a daemon horsie now.
Image:ArchaonAOS.jpg| Archaon's newER model, now with a gigantic daemon chimera instead of a daemon horsie.
Image:Godbeasts.jpg|An evil, powerful warrior travelling from world to world, seeking further power from a godlike serpentine dragon... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4vjJrGeh1c that sounds familiar].
Image:The three eyed king.jpg
Image:Archaon end times.png
Image:Lord of the End Times.jpg
Image:Archaon 3.png|Archaon in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]
</gallery>

==Memes==
Of course what would a Warhammer character be without the memes?

Archaon is notable for a fair few, given the tendency of writers to keep at least his foot in the spotlight.
* ANIME: Thanks to his art and general JRPG villain actions in Age of Sigmar, Archaon has become the embodiement of ANIME (always caps).
* Horns: Archaon's helmet horns have grown in each incarnation, leading to humor a la Abby's armlessness about horn growth, and the increasing difficulty lifting or turning his head.
* Penguins: Archaon has described the Beastmen inhabiting the south pole as "true Beastmen", free from human taint. Since there is no combination of Daemon, man, mutant, or beast not present in the Old World some have come to the conclusion that Archaon is scared of penguins.
* Archaos: The creator of the Archaon character identified his original intended name as the even more ludicrous "Archaos", destined to fall on his sword in the final battle after realizing what he had done to the laughter of the Chaos Gods. Since then Archaos the teenage suicide victim bullied by the Four has become a preferred way to mock the character.
* [[Slambo]]: A generic miniature from Oldhammer that some see as the REAL Everchosen.

{{Chaos-Champions}}
{{Template:ChaosGods}}

[[Category:Age of Sigmar]]