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Ahzek Ahriman

2018-01-12T01:16:32Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:7CB7:9ACE:3532:1A89: /* Early Life */

[[File:Dooooom Bolts!.jpg|340px|right|thumb|Remember kids, spend enough time in the library and you too can shoot bolts of insanity lightning from your hand!]]

{{topquote|Zarathusa....had taught his people to regard life as a continuous struggle between '''Ahriman''' and Ormuzd, the Gods of '''Evil''' and Good.|Hendrik van Loon, ''A Story of Mankind''}}

''"All is not yet dust."''

"Man errs till he ceases to strive."
-The Lord; ''Faust'', Part 1

'''Ahzek Ahriman''' (a.k.a. '''The Sorcerer of the Red Cyclops''') is a powerful [[Chaos Space Marine]] of the [[Thousand Sons]]. He is one of the mightiest [[psyker]]s in the whole galaxy. He is also noted for pissing off [[Magnus the Red]] to the point where Magnus kicked his ass out of the Thousand Sons after Ahriman simultaneously saved/damned his legion with the 'Rubric of Ahriman'. On the tabletop, he is known for two things: costing as much as a [[Land Raider]] (the only special character in the CSM codex that costs more than him is [[Abaddon]]) and dropping a [[Touhou]]-esque level of [[Psyker|mind-bullet]] [[dakka]] each round he's on the table. Although being a Thousand Son should make him a space Persian, his major quote in the fluff, "the only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance", makes him Socrates in space, since Socrates said that in real life. The man was quite a bro before the [[Horus Heresy]]; he noticed all the flaws of the [[Imperium]] even during the [[Great Crusade]]. This was evidenced during the fall of [[Prospero]], when he fought for the future of mankind rather than the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor]], which, ironically, puts him in the same league as [[Roboute Guilliman]].

== Early Life ==
Ahriman was born among the wealthy tribes of the Achaemenid Empire, whose kings had allied with the Emperor during the [[Unification Wars (Hektor Heresy)|Unification Wars]]. His name and birth region indicate that he is Iranian. He was then inducted to join the [[Adeptus Astartes]] along with his twin brother, Ohrmuzd (who later died of severe mutations, making this a clear reference to Ahriman and Ormuzd, the two Zoroastrian deities of light and dark—guess which one Ahriman is). His brother's death traumatized him and motivated him to seek a cure against the flesh-change for himself and the Legion. He quickly rose through the ranks and became both Captain of the First Company and Chief Librarian of the Corvidae (the most powerful cult of the Thousand Sons).

== During the Heresy ==
Like all Astartes, Ahriman assisted his [[Primarch]] during the [[Great Crusade]]. Unlike most Astartes, he served as [[Magnus the Red]]'s second-in-command and advisor. Perhaps he was not as close to Magnus as the Primarch's foster father Amon, but he nevertheless was entrusted with guardianship of the Book of Magnus. Considering said book was a compilation of the most important secrets and powerful spells Magnus [[Blood Ravens|acquired]] from all over the galaxy, it gives an idea of the esteem he held Ahriman in that he would let him both wake over and read from said book. (And how [[rage|unhappy]] he must have been when Ahriman misused it to cast his Rubric, more on that below.) Ahriman was present during the time when [[Horus]] became Warmaster. He was also present during Magnus' trial on Nikaea - but blacked out due to Magnus' overwhelming aura when it came time for [[Mortarion]] to speak against psykers. (Magnus got ''mightily pissed off'', and forgot to tone it down for people who aren't him).

When the [[Space Wolves]] attacked Prospero (under orders from Horus), Ahriman led the Thousand Sons Cults to battle, defying Magnus' orders to accept their fates under the belief that their only redemption would be in death. Despite this, the Sons were already near total annihilation until Magnus finally decided that enough was enough. Magnus battled [[Leman Russ]], but Russ got super raggy with a blind shot into Magnus' eye of epicness and was about to slay him. Magnus then swore allegiance to [[Tzeentch]] in a desperate move to save his legion, and so Tzeentch teleported Magnus, Ahriman, and the Sons to the Planet of the Sorcerers.

== Rubric of Ahriman ==
Seeing as to how the Thousand Sons were quickly succumbing to the flesh-change, since Tzeentch is the God of Change and all, Ahriman attempted to permanently cure them of their mutations. (Yes, he actually tried to use the energy of change to stop change. Tzeentch is still chortling ten millenia later.) Without Magnus' consent, he, along with a cabal of other sorcerers, cast the spell known as the Rubric of Ahriman. On the upside, all the psychics in the legion stopped mutating and became more powerful than they had been before. On the downside, everyone else in the legion who wasn't a psyker was cursed to be turned into dust and sealed in their armor for all eternity, turning them into [[Rubric Marines|soulless automatons]] who are unable to think for themselves. At first, Ahriman was [[Just as planned|satisfied]] with the results of his spell since it did prevent [[Tzeentch|a certain troll]] to have some chaotic and messy fun with his fellow Thousand Sons. However, once he realized all the implications of [[not as planned|what he'd done]], Ahriman went [[derp]].

After Magnus learned of this, he really wasn't happy and confronted Ahriman. Believing he'd succeeded in saving his fellow Thousand Sons, Ahriman flipped him off, with the result of Magnus flying into a nerd [[rage]] so great that even an [[Angry Marine]] would take pause to admire it. Magnus was about to kill Ahriman, but Tzeentch himself ([[troll|who had been rolling on every non-euclidal geometrical floor at the same time with laughter from the beginning]]) intervened, told Magnus that everything was [[just as planned]], and so the Cyclops kicked Ahriman's ass off of the Planet of Sorcerers instead.

Ahriman was initially remorseful and went incognito for a few centuries until <s>his emo phase had ended</s> his former brothers tried to capture him so he could undo the Rubric. With the help of some renegade Marines, Ahriman came out on top, got rid of his rivals, donned the bitchingly horned helmet he wears to this day, and began his "War Against Fate". Since that day, he made a second Rubric spell, which which failed in trying to restore the Rubricae to flesh (with the exception of one named Helio Isidorus) but managed to heal Magnus from the soul-splitting effect he suffered from teleporting everyone to Prospero (despite Magnus kicking him off his lawn earlier; shows how much of a bro' he is) and he also managed to turn one of his Rubric Marines back to normal. It is revealed during these events that Ahriman believed he had to sacrifice his own life to make the Rubric work as he intended, and he went on perfecting it anyway. I repeat, here is a Chaos Space Marine who is still willing to die for his brothers, also, there was a part of him who still wanted to serve the Imperium despite all what had happened, [[grimdark|this speaks volumes of what a bro he was in his earlier centuries and how far he has fallen by the 41st millenium]] *sniff*.

Just to show that it takes A LOT more then a simple Rubric to change Tzeentch's plans, Khayon had this to say about Ahriman´s Rubric in the latest novel about his vacation with the [[Inquisitors]] and his tales about his time in the [[Black Legion]]:

"Ahriman´s Rubric banished mutation from the Thousand Sons, yes, but only amongst them who had little in the form of psychic talent and only by destroying their physical forms. The rest of us are as prone to the whims of the Warp and our own sins, just as any other being dwelling inside the Eye. If you believe my former brother Ahzek is entirely unchanged beneath his Eye-touched armour, you are as dangerously naive as he was when he unmade our Legion. Ahriman believe he is perfectly unaltered, hmm, did you know that? Yet I have seen the void that screams where his face used to be."

Seems like Tzeentch just [[troll|LOVES to mess with poor little Ahriman]] as much as GW likes to change their fluff.

== Current Status ==
[[File:Ahriman-tumblr.jpg|250px|left|thumb|The man himself!]]
Unlike most other Sorcerer Lords of the Thousand Sons, Ahriman's war band, the [[Prodigal Sons]] (GW hope you notice the <s>(potential)</s> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUuyyVaCOzw completely canon foreshadowing of that name]), have no ties left with the Planet of Sorcerers and its resources (not to mention Magnus's ability to resurrect fallen sorcerers), but they make up for it by mixing in non-Thousand Son Marines and mortals, as well as using their own stashes of magical artifacts (which they have a lot of). Pretty much like the Thousand Sons legion as a whole, Ahriman's band is split into tiny covens most of the time, only gathering together for particularly important battles.

Unlike [[Kharn]], [[Lucius]] and [[Typhus]], Ahriman is NOT a devoted servant of his Chaos god, and in fact does not even consider himself Tzeenchian, instead pursuing his own goal of becoming a god himself (He aspires to become a God of sorcery, ambition, and fate!... Creative?). The Architect of Fate, however, still thinks of Ahriman as his greatest champion, as he does not concern himself with the faith of his servants, but with their actions and hopes. In a way, Ahriman's rebellion against his patron god and his quest to overthrow him makes him even more Tzeenchian.

In order to further his divine aspirations, Ahriman is constantly trying to gain entrance into a particular [[Eldar]] library. And not just any library, where he can nerd out like most other geeks, but the mystical [[Black Library]] where he can nerd out mystically and become a new major chaos god (Which would tear reality yet another great big asshole like the [[Eye of Terror]], though this is probably just one of Tzeentch's plans to be personally summoned into the material world. Let's be honest about it, convincing a follower to go on an epic quest to attain 'the power of a god' for 9999 years only to be a worthy sacrifice is basically what Tzeentch is all about.). And he is constantly failing at that task because [[Advancing the Storyline|villains can't win]]. To be fair though, the Library is hidden in the ass end of the [[Webway]]. It's also protected by the [[Harlequins]], who are really good at getting their shit done, and the [[Cegorach|Eldar Laughing God]], who still has the full measure of his god-like power and is a master of [[just as planned]] (to the point that he can play this dreadfully complicated game on a fairly equal level with [[C'Tan#Mephet'ran, The Deceiver|The Deceiver]], Tzeentch, and the Emperor), and is capable of challenging [[Slaanesh]] for the souls for the Harlequin Solitaires—and winning.

In addition to this, he has the shards of a consecrated silver bolt shell constantly moving towards his hearts, only being repulsed by his powers reinforcing the flesh around it(So, Iron-Man), adding more motivation for him to find the black library and ascend to godhood. However, during the casting of the Second Rubric, Ahriman allowed these shards to finally reach his heart and kill him under the assumption his sacrifice would restore the Rubricae to flesh and blood. A [[Magnus|myriad]] of [[Tzeentch|assholes]] intervened and Ahriman ended up with [[Not as Planned|his body restored instead.]]

In spite of this, he is one of the most awesomely powerful psykers in the galaxy. His miniature can psychic power spam like no one else can, as he is able to throw seven powers per turn, three of which are the same witchfire, which means that he can kill pretty much anything dead with just a mean look. Nerd [[rage]] abounds as to whether the [[Zoanthrope|Doom of Malan'tai]], [[Mary Sue|Varro Tigurius]], [[Eldrad|Eldrad Ulthran]], Ahriman, or [[Mephiston]] is the most powerful psyker alive who is not balls to the wall insane or a daemon.

(Pretty much answered: at least in terms of [[crunch]]y psychic power, Eldrad's got powerful anti-psyker and Perils of the Warp-bypassing stuff that Ahriman doesn't, though Ahriman can manifest more psychic powers per turn with enough allied sorcerers around to rob them of their charges. They are now both boosted to Mastery Level 4 in the 6th edition codices, so a psychic duel between them can go either way. Other mortal contenders though are not even near the god-like power level of these two.)

And he may well still be a loyalist. Or at least, he may still think he is a loyalist… wait a second…

Let us clarify this point: the main reason Ahriman wants to enter the Black Library is his hope that this will allow him to achieve enough power to reverse the state of the Rubric Marines and rebuild Prospero (among other things), which was supposed to be the first city populated solely by psionically attuned humans, without having to go through all the [[grimdark]] soul-binding processes which are common in the Imperium at present. Want to know how cool Prospero was? Medics of Prospero could cure cancer with their mind powers, and that was an average procedure. In [[Horus Heresy]], a Thousand Sons Sorcerer claimed that he could undo the damage done by Butcher's Nails on MOTHERFUCKING [[Kharn|KHARN]] OF ALL PEOPLE. (Kharn beat the sorcerer to death moments later.) So yeah, no need for Emprah-miracles. Too bad Ahriman is currently not above using torture, genocide and daemonology to get the work done (then again, it isn't like the [[Inquisition|Imperium doesn't do the same thing here and there]]).

Basically, he's merciless Persian Wizard Space Marine reeking of [[JUST AS PLANNED]] and good intentions (well at least his end-game is good, his methods... not so much). His origin also puts him in a rough tie for oldest human (excluding the [[Emprah]]) with a certain [[Kharn|pretty fun guy to be around]].

By the way, Ahriman has his own series of novels and stories and is also one of the main characters of the ''A Thousand Sons'' novel, and is the main antagonist in ''Atlas Infernal''. You can compare how crazy he has gone by reading the [[Horus Heresy]] book first, his increasing moral slide in ''Exile'' and ''Sorcerer'', his justification for his actions in ''Unchanged'', and the unmitigated villain in ''Atlas Infernal''. Grimdark indeed.

In Gathering Storm, he got into a fight with the Ynnari in the Webway, ''and won''(sort of, it depends on whether you think being sent running through the Warp whilst your forces get annihilated to be a win, Ahriman certainly had the advantage at one point, but seeing as the Ynnari fought their way through and still got to their destination regardless, the Ynnari actully won the battle). Ahriman along with his Rubric Marines and a massive combined demonic hoard (that included titan sized Keepers of Secrets) ambushed the then ragtag group of outcasts within the Webway. [[Yvraine]] showed Ahriman that she could reverse the rubric by demonstrating her ability on three rubricae, restoring them, in order to get away. Ahriman, overcome with emotion, agreed to let Yvraine and her pals go as part of the deal. In typical Eldar fashion however [[troll|Yvraine screws him over and kills the restored Thousand Sons]], something that even fucking ''[[Eldrad]]'' would have called a dick move, and it's earned Yvraine and her cronies the [[Angry Marine|everlasting, planet-destroying hatred]] of a [[rage|ripshit pissed]] Ahriman. Whether this is going to bite her on her elfy behind is unsure, but considering she just screwed with one of the most powerful sorcerers in the universe on a whole new level; you can bet Ahriman's going to find a way to get even (and he should probably consult with [[Honsou]] for ideas. ''That'' man knows how to send a [[Exterminatus|"don't fuck with me"]] message). Besides, Yvraine knows how to reliably reverse the rubric. Squeezing that secret out of her would be a huge leap for Ahriman's ambitions.

==On the Tabletop==
[[File:AhzekAhriman2016.png|thumb|right|300px|His new model. Looks badass.]]
{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Ahriman:''' || 230 || 5 || 5 || 4 || 4 || 3 || 5 || 3 || 10 || 3+/4++
|}
Ignore the fact that Ahriman's stat line is no better than that of an average Space Marine Commander; it's not what you're paying for with 230 points. What you're paying for is the following: Mastery Level ''4'', a trait he shares only with the likes of [[Eldrad|Eldrad Ulthran]] and [[Kairos Fateweaver]]; the Black Staff of Ahriman, a S+2, AP4 Force weapon that allows him to [[dakka|cast the same witchfire power up to THREE TIMES in a single turn]]; and psychic powers generated from Telepathy, Telekinesis, Daemonology (Malefic), Divination, Biomancy, Pyromancy, Ectomancy, Geomortis, Heretech, Sinistrum, Tzeentch, and the kitchen sink. No other psyker in the game besides Magnus himself has Ahriman's potential for sheer volume and variety of psychic damage output.

He also has Fearless, Mark of Tzeentch, Aura of Dark Glory, Champion of Chaos, and Veterans of the Long War. The combination of Mark of Tzeentch and Aura of Dark Glory give him a 4++ invulnerable save, which is always nice. However, Mark of Tzeentch can be problematic as it also forces him to generate at least one power from the Tzeentch discipline, and a couple of the powers from that table, including the Primaris, are lame sauce (keep in mind he still has three more power slots, though). But even Tzeentch's Firestorm, if you're forced to settle for it, can attain to a semblance of utility with Ahriman's ability to cast it three times in one turn. And if you get Doombolt or Baleful Devolution, put your troll face on. Ahriman's biggest problem, though, is he doesn't have Eternal Warrior anymore and can be instakilled; rest assured your opponent will try immediately to do that, and those 230 points will have gone down the toilet.

You can have him ride around on a Disc of Tzeentch to up his Toughness to 5 and increase his mobility, which is highly recommended. When on Disc he can also do the "Gunship Sorcerer" trick where he runs alone, fires his witchfires on the guys you want to royally fuck up and then turbo-boosts 24" away, preferably behind a solid LoS in the shooting phase like a Jet-packing Tau Battlesuit on steroids. Be aware that it only works if the enemy have no super-fast units, deepstrikes or barrage weapons, but then nothing stops you from hiding him in a nice tough unit until all reserves are out and flyers are down, your hiding place is not observed by artillery spotters and it's safe to enter gunship mode. If you roll on Biomancy for Iron Arm/Warp Speed the Disc would also allow Ahriman to reach melee faster and be bolter-proof and generally a bitch to kill (T8) while doing so and also kill shit faster when he's in melee due to +1A that would really matter when your attacks hit like a lascannon.

====8th Edition====

3 powers and 3 denies with +1 to both rolls. Average in combat (he has still forgotten a power weapon equivalent) and his disc no longer provides him with extra toughness and, funnily, instead gives him an extra weakness by handing Ahriman the 'Daemon' key word (thus making him a tasty pastry to GK's and possibly Nurgle daemons). Also, the Black Staff now apparently adds nothing to his psychic potential. All in all, he's not what he was (and is far more a support psyker than an attack character, contrary to his entire history of having rules) but he also lost 100+pts from his cost to make up for it. Relative to his peers, GW's approach has not left him weaker but relative to other units in the game and the current bastardisation of psykers, Ahriman is a much weaker unit as a whole. He has a bubble effect, lending to the idea that a better tactic for Ahriman now may be to stick him just behind the advancing gun line in order to ward off anything too nasty with his ability to throw out some mortal wounds and to use warp time for effective counter attacks.

==Gallery==
<Gallery>
File:Ahriman The Exile2.jpg|Mess with him and you'll be shitting lightning bolts. As cool as that sounds, you won't like it.
File:Horus-Heresy-Ahriman.jpeg|During the Horus Heresy.
File:Cartoonish.jpeg|Disco Ahriman.
</Gallery>

{{Chaos-Marines}}

Ahzek Ahriman

2018-01-12T01:14:40Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:7CB7:9ACE:3532:1A89: /* Rubric of Ahriman */

[[File:Dooooom Bolts!.jpg|340px|right|thumb|Remember kids, spend enough time in the library and you too can shoot bolts of insanity lightning from your hand!]]

{{topquote|Zarathusa....had taught his people to regard life as a continuous struggle between '''Ahriman''' and Ormuzd, the Gods of '''Evil''' and Good.|Hendrik van Loon, ''A Story of Mankind''}}

''"All is not yet dust."''

"Man errs till he ceases to strive."
-The Lord; ''Faust'', Part 1

'''Ahzek Ahriman''' (a.k.a. '''The Sorcerer of the Red Cyclops''') is a powerful [[Chaos Space Marine]] of the [[Thousand Sons]]. He is one of the mightiest [[psyker]]s in the whole galaxy. He is also noted for pissing off [[Magnus the Red]] to the point where Magnus kicked his ass out of the Thousand Sons after Ahriman simultaneously saved/damned his legion with the 'Rubric of Ahriman'. On the tabletop, he is known for two things: costing as much as a [[Land Raider]] (the only special character in the CSM codex that costs more than him is [[Abaddon]]) and dropping a [[Touhou]]-esque level of [[Psyker|mind-bullet]] [[dakka]] each round he's on the table. Although being a Thousand Son should make him a space Persian, his major quote in the fluff, "the only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance", makes him Socrates in space, since Socrates said that in real life. The man was quite a bro before the [[Horus Heresy]]; he noticed all the flaws of the [[Imperium]] even during the [[Great Crusade]]. This was evidenced during the fall of [[Prospero]], when he fought for the future of mankind rather than the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor]], which, ironically, puts him in the same league as [[Roboute Guilliman]].

== Early Life ==
Ahriman was born among the wealthy tribes of the Achaemenid Empire, whose kings had allied with the Emperor during the [[Unification Wars (Hektor Heresy)|Unification Wars]]. His name and birth region indicate that he is Iranian. He was then inducted to join the [[Adeptus Astartes]] along with his twin brother, Ohrmuzd (who later died of severe mutations, making this a clear reference to Ahriman and Ormuzd, the two Zoroastrian deities of light and dark—guess which one Ahriman is). He quickly rose through the ranks and became both Captain of the First Company and Chief Librarian of the Corvidae (the most powerful cult of the Thousand Sons).

== During the Heresy ==
Like all Astartes, Ahriman assisted his [[Primarch]] during the [[Great Crusade]]. Unlike most Astartes, he served as [[Magnus the Red]]'s second-in-command and advisor. Perhaps he was not as close to Magnus as the Primarch's foster father Amon, but he nevertheless was entrusted with guardianship of the Book of Magnus. Considering said book was a compilation of the most important secrets and powerful spells Magnus [[Blood Ravens|acquired]] from all over the galaxy, it gives an idea of the esteem he held Ahriman in that he would let him both wake over and read from said book. (And how [[rage|unhappy]] he must have been when Ahriman misused it to cast his Rubric, more on that below.) Ahriman was present during the time when [[Horus]] became Warmaster. He was also present during Magnus' trial on Nikaea - but blacked out due to Magnus' overwhelming aura when it came time for [[Mortarion]] to speak against psykers. (Magnus got ''mightily pissed off'', and forgot to tone it down for people who aren't him).

When the [[Space Wolves]] attacked Prospero (under orders from Horus), Ahriman led the Thousand Sons Cults to battle, defying Magnus' orders to accept their fates under the belief that their only redemption would be in death. Despite this, the Sons were already near total annihilation until Magnus finally decided that enough was enough. Magnus battled [[Leman Russ]], but Russ got super raggy with a blind shot into Magnus' eye of epicness and was about to slay him. Magnus then swore allegiance to [[Tzeentch]] in a desperate move to save his legion, and so Tzeentch teleported Magnus, Ahriman, and the Sons to the Planet of the Sorcerers.

== Rubric of Ahriman ==
Seeing as to how the Thousand Sons were quickly succumbing to the flesh-change, since Tzeentch is the God of Change and all, Ahriman attempted to permanently cure them of their mutations. (Yes, he actually tried to use the energy of change to stop change. Tzeentch is still chortling ten millenia later.) Without Magnus' consent, he, along with a cabal of other sorcerers, cast the spell known as the Rubric of Ahriman. On the upside, all the psychics in the legion stopped mutating and became more powerful than they had been before. On the downside, everyone else in the legion who wasn't a psyker was cursed to be turned into dust and sealed in their armor for all eternity, turning them into [[Rubric Marines|soulless automatons]] who are unable to think for themselves. At first, Ahriman was [[Just as planned|satisfied]] with the results of his spell since it did prevent [[Tzeentch|a certain troll]] to have some chaotic and messy fun with his fellow Thousand Sons. However, once he realized all the implications of [[not as planned|what he'd done]], Ahriman went [[derp]].

After Magnus learned of this, he really wasn't happy and confronted Ahriman. Believing he'd succeeded in saving his fellow Thousand Sons, Ahriman flipped him off, with the result of Magnus flying into a nerd [[rage]] so great that even an [[Angry Marine]] would take pause to admire it. Magnus was about to kill Ahriman, but Tzeentch himself ([[troll|who had been rolling on every non-euclidal geometrical floor at the same time with laughter from the beginning]]) intervened, told Magnus that everything was [[just as planned]], and so the Cyclops kicked Ahriman's ass off of the Planet of Sorcerers instead.

Ahriman was initially remorseful and went incognito for a few centuries until <s>his emo phase had ended</s> his former brothers tried to capture him so he could undo the Rubric. With the help of some renegade Marines, Ahriman came out on top, got rid of his rivals, donned the bitchingly horned helmet he wears to this day, and began his "War Against Fate". Since that day, he made a second Rubric spell, which which failed in trying to restore the Rubricae to flesh (with the exception of one named Helio Isidorus) but managed to heal Magnus from the soul-splitting effect he suffered from teleporting everyone to Prospero (despite Magnus kicking him off his lawn earlier; shows how much of a bro' he is) and he also managed to turn one of his Rubric Marines back to normal. It is revealed during these events that Ahriman believed he had to sacrifice his own life to make the Rubric work as he intended, and he went on perfecting it anyway. I repeat, here is a Chaos Space Marine who is still willing to die for his brothers, also, there was a part of him who still wanted to serve the Imperium despite all what had happened, [[grimdark|this speaks volumes of what a bro he was in his earlier centuries and how far he has fallen by the 41st millenium]] *sniff*.

Just to show that it takes A LOT more then a simple Rubric to change Tzeentch's plans, Khayon had this to say about Ahriman´s Rubric in the latest novel about his vacation with the [[Inquisitors]] and his tales about his time in the [[Black Legion]]:

"Ahriman´s Rubric banished mutation from the Thousand Sons, yes, but only amongst them who had little in the form of psychic talent and only by destroying their physical forms. The rest of us are as prone to the whims of the Warp and our own sins, just as any other being dwelling inside the Eye. If you believe my former brother Ahzek is entirely unchanged beneath his Eye-touched armour, you are as dangerously naive as he was when he unmade our Legion. Ahriman believe he is perfectly unaltered, hmm, did you know that? Yet I have seen the void that screams where his face used to be."

Seems like Tzeentch just [[troll|LOVES to mess with poor little Ahriman]] as much as GW likes to change their fluff.

== Current Status ==
[[File:Ahriman-tumblr.jpg|250px|left|thumb|The man himself!]]
Unlike most other Sorcerer Lords of the Thousand Sons, Ahriman's war band, the [[Prodigal Sons]] (GW hope you notice the <s>(potential)</s> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUuyyVaCOzw completely canon foreshadowing of that name]), have no ties left with the Planet of Sorcerers and its resources (not to mention Magnus's ability to resurrect fallen sorcerers), but they make up for it by mixing in non-Thousand Son Marines and mortals, as well as using their own stashes of magical artifacts (which they have a lot of). Pretty much like the Thousand Sons legion as a whole, Ahriman's band is split into tiny covens most of the time, only gathering together for particularly important battles.

Unlike [[Kharn]], [[Lucius]] and [[Typhus]], Ahriman is NOT a devoted servant of his Chaos god, and in fact does not even consider himself Tzeenchian, instead pursuing his own goal of becoming a god himself (He aspires to become a God of sorcery, ambition, and fate!... Creative?). The Architect of Fate, however, still thinks of Ahriman as his greatest champion, as he does not concern himself with the faith of his servants, but with their actions and hopes. In a way, Ahriman's rebellion against his patron god and his quest to overthrow him makes him even more Tzeenchian.

In order to further his divine aspirations, Ahriman is constantly trying to gain entrance into a particular [[Eldar]] library. And not just any library, where he can nerd out like most other geeks, but the mystical [[Black Library]] where he can nerd out mystically and become a new major chaos god (Which would tear reality yet another great big asshole like the [[Eye of Terror]], though this is probably just one of Tzeentch's plans to be personally summoned into the material world. Let's be honest about it, convincing a follower to go on an epic quest to attain 'the power of a god' for 9999 years only to be a worthy sacrifice is basically what Tzeentch is all about.). And he is constantly failing at that task because [[Advancing the Storyline|villains can't win]]. To be fair though, the Library is hidden in the ass end of the [[Webway]]. It's also protected by the [[Harlequins]], who are really good at getting their shit done, and the [[Cegorach|Eldar Laughing God]], who still has the full measure of his god-like power and is a master of [[just as planned]] (to the point that he can play this dreadfully complicated game on a fairly equal level with [[C'Tan#Mephet'ran, The Deceiver|The Deceiver]], Tzeentch, and the Emperor), and is capable of challenging [[Slaanesh]] for the souls for the Harlequin Solitaires—and winning.

In addition to this, he has the shards of a consecrated silver bolt shell constantly moving towards his hearts, only being repulsed by his powers reinforcing the flesh around it(So, Iron-Man), adding more motivation for him to find the black library and ascend to godhood. However, during the casting of the Second Rubric, Ahriman allowed these shards to finally reach his heart and kill him under the assumption his sacrifice would restore the Rubricae to flesh and blood. A [[Magnus|myriad]] of [[Tzeentch|assholes]] intervened and Ahriman ended up with [[Not as Planned|his body restored instead.]]

In spite of this, he is one of the most awesomely powerful psykers in the galaxy. His miniature can psychic power spam like no one else can, as he is able to throw seven powers per turn, three of which are the same witchfire, which means that he can kill pretty much anything dead with just a mean look. Nerd [[rage]] abounds as to whether the [[Zoanthrope|Doom of Malan'tai]], [[Mary Sue|Varro Tigurius]], [[Eldrad|Eldrad Ulthran]], Ahriman, or [[Mephiston]] is the most powerful psyker alive who is not balls to the wall insane or a daemon.

(Pretty much answered: at least in terms of [[crunch]]y psychic power, Eldrad's got powerful anti-psyker and Perils of the Warp-bypassing stuff that Ahriman doesn't, though Ahriman can manifest more psychic powers per turn with enough allied sorcerers around to rob them of their charges. They are now both boosted to Mastery Level 4 in the 6th edition codices, so a psychic duel between them can go either way. Other mortal contenders though are not even near the god-like power level of these two.)

And he may well still be a loyalist. Or at least, he may still think he is a loyalist… wait a second…

Let us clarify this point: the main reason Ahriman wants to enter the Black Library is his hope that this will allow him to achieve enough power to reverse the state of the Rubric Marines and rebuild Prospero (among other things), which was supposed to be the first city populated solely by psionically attuned humans, without having to go through all the [[grimdark]] soul-binding processes which are common in the Imperium at present. Want to know how cool Prospero was? Medics of Prospero could cure cancer with their mind powers, and that was an average procedure. In [[Horus Heresy]], a Thousand Sons Sorcerer claimed that he could undo the damage done by Butcher's Nails on MOTHERFUCKING [[Kharn|KHARN]] OF ALL PEOPLE. (Kharn beat the sorcerer to death moments later.) So yeah, no need for Emprah-miracles. Too bad Ahriman is currently not above using torture, genocide and daemonology to get the work done (then again, it isn't like the [[Inquisition|Imperium doesn't do the same thing here and there]]).

Basically, he's merciless Persian Wizard Space Marine reeking of [[JUST AS PLANNED]] and good intentions (well at least his end-game is good, his methods... not so much). His origin also puts him in a rough tie for oldest human (excluding the [[Emprah]]) with a certain [[Kharn|pretty fun guy to be around]].

By the way, Ahriman has his own series of novels and stories and is also one of the main characters of the ''A Thousand Sons'' novel, and is the main antagonist in ''Atlas Infernal''. You can compare how crazy he has gone by reading the [[Horus Heresy]] book first, his increasing moral slide in ''Exile'' and ''Sorcerer'', his justification for his actions in ''Unchanged'', and the unmitigated villain in ''Atlas Infernal''. Grimdark indeed.

In Gathering Storm, he got into a fight with the Ynnari in the Webway, ''and won''(sort of, it depends on whether you think being sent running through the Warp whilst your forces get annihilated to be a win, Ahriman certainly had the advantage at one point, but seeing as the Ynnari fought their way through and still got to their destination regardless, the Ynnari actully won the battle). Ahriman along with his Rubric Marines and a massive combined demonic hoard (that included titan sized Keepers of Secrets) ambushed the then ragtag group of outcasts within the Webway. [[Yvraine]] showed Ahriman that she could reverse the rubric by demonstrating her ability on three rubricae, restoring them, in order to get away. Ahriman, overcome with emotion, agreed to let Yvraine and her pals go as part of the deal. In typical Eldar fashion however [[troll|Yvraine screws him over and kills the restored Thousand Sons]], something that even fucking ''[[Eldrad]]'' would have called a dick move, and it's earned Yvraine and her cronies the [[Angry Marine|everlasting, planet-destroying hatred]] of a [[rage|ripshit pissed]] Ahriman. Whether this is going to bite her on her elfy behind is unsure, but considering she just screwed with one of the most powerful sorcerers in the universe on a whole new level; you can bet Ahriman's going to find a way to get even (and he should probably consult with [[Honsou]] for ideas. ''That'' man knows how to send a [[Exterminatus|"don't fuck with me"]] message). Besides, Yvraine knows how to reliably reverse the rubric. Squeezing that secret out of her would be a huge leap for Ahriman's ambitions.

==On the Tabletop==
[[File:AhzekAhriman2016.png|thumb|right|300px|His new model. Looks badass.]]
{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Ahriman:''' || 230 || 5 || 5 || 4 || 4 || 3 || 5 || 3 || 10 || 3+/4++
|}
Ignore the fact that Ahriman's stat line is no better than that of an average Space Marine Commander; it's not what you're paying for with 230 points. What you're paying for is the following: Mastery Level ''4'', a trait he shares only with the likes of [[Eldrad|Eldrad Ulthran]] and [[Kairos Fateweaver]]; the Black Staff of Ahriman, a S+2, AP4 Force weapon that allows him to [[dakka|cast the same witchfire power up to THREE TIMES in a single turn]]; and psychic powers generated from Telepathy, Telekinesis, Daemonology (Malefic), Divination, Biomancy, Pyromancy, Ectomancy, Geomortis, Heretech, Sinistrum, Tzeentch, and the kitchen sink. No other psyker in the game besides Magnus himself has Ahriman's potential for sheer volume and variety of psychic damage output.

He also has Fearless, Mark of Tzeentch, Aura of Dark Glory, Champion of Chaos, and Veterans of the Long War. The combination of Mark of Tzeentch and Aura of Dark Glory give him a 4++ invulnerable save, which is always nice. However, Mark of Tzeentch can be problematic as it also forces him to generate at least one power from the Tzeentch discipline, and a couple of the powers from that table, including the Primaris, are lame sauce (keep in mind he still has three more power slots, though). But even Tzeentch's Firestorm, if you're forced to settle for it, can attain to a semblance of utility with Ahriman's ability to cast it three times in one turn. And if you get Doombolt or Baleful Devolution, put your troll face on. Ahriman's biggest problem, though, is he doesn't have Eternal Warrior anymore and can be instakilled; rest assured your opponent will try immediately to do that, and those 230 points will have gone down the toilet.

You can have him ride around on a Disc of Tzeentch to up his Toughness to 5 and increase his mobility, which is highly recommended. When on Disc he can also do the "Gunship Sorcerer" trick where he runs alone, fires his witchfires on the guys you want to royally fuck up and then turbo-boosts 24" away, preferably behind a solid LoS in the shooting phase like a Jet-packing Tau Battlesuit on steroids. Be aware that it only works if the enemy have no super-fast units, deepstrikes or barrage weapons, but then nothing stops you from hiding him in a nice tough unit until all reserves are out and flyers are down, your hiding place is not observed by artillery spotters and it's safe to enter gunship mode. If you roll on Biomancy for Iron Arm/Warp Speed the Disc would also allow Ahriman to reach melee faster and be bolter-proof and generally a bitch to kill (T8) while doing so and also kill shit faster when he's in melee due to +1A that would really matter when your attacks hit like a lascannon.

====8th Edition====

3 powers and 3 denies with +1 to both rolls. Average in combat (he has still forgotten a power weapon equivalent) and his disc no longer provides him with extra toughness and, funnily, instead gives him an extra weakness by handing Ahriman the 'Daemon' key word (thus making him a tasty pastry to GK's and possibly Nurgle daemons). Also, the Black Staff now apparently adds nothing to his psychic potential. All in all, he's not what he was (and is far more a support psyker than an attack character, contrary to his entire history of having rules) but he also lost 100+pts from his cost to make up for it. Relative to his peers, GW's approach has not left him weaker but relative to other units in the game and the current bastardisation of psykers, Ahriman is a much weaker unit as a whole. He has a bubble effect, lending to the idea that a better tactic for Ahriman now may be to stick him just behind the advancing gun line in order to ward off anything too nasty with his ability to throw out some mortal wounds and to use warp time for effective counter attacks.

==Gallery==
<Gallery>
File:Ahriman The Exile2.jpg|Mess with him and you'll be shitting lightning bolts. As cool as that sounds, you won't like it.
File:Horus-Heresy-Ahriman.jpeg|During the Horus Heresy.
File:Cartoonish.jpeg|Disco Ahriman.
</Gallery>

{{Chaos-Marines}}

Arkhan the Black

2018-01-11T21:57:45Z

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[[File:Arkhan's new style.png|300px|thumb|right|Arkhan the Black's new look]]
{{Topquote|You've read the signs as well as I. Nagash must rise, or our kingdoms of silence will fall. And yours will be the first.|Arkhan the Black}}
{{Topquote|One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.|Friedrich Nietzsche}}

'''Arkhan the Black''' is the first and most loyal follower of [[Nagash]], who somehow went from a wastrel in a minor noble family to a super-badass necromancer-warrior. He has decimated kingdoms as Araby never fully recovered from the war he waged against it following Nagash's first death. Due to his power he has fought for and against many of the Tomb Kings as a warlord-for-hire.

Before 8th edition and the End Times he had no personality beyond being Nagash's right hand lich. He came back as a playable character in the 8th Edition Tomb Kings armybook, with the stirrings of his plan to bring back Nagash. The End Times were surprisingly kind to Arkhan. Following this, he's now an introspective, mercantile smartass, Warhammer Fantasy's first Hero Killer and he kind-of gets the girl (see below). To wit, he's the first playable Special Character to kill off other playable Special Characters and during the End Times he has the highest body count of all of them.

He has a voice actor now! While not as ideal as Vincent Price would have been, rest his soul, the one we have is fantastic. See below for more.

==Mortal Life==
Born thousands of years ago, back when Nehekhara was a kingdom of the the living, Arkhan was originally a member of a noble family in Khemri during the reign of king Thutep. Despite his lineage he was the black sheep of the family, more interested in gambling, drugs, back-alley brawls and whore-mongering (the latter implied with "favors" from the temple of Asaph, but reputedly he had to pay double before any of the priestesses went near him). He earned the nickname "the Black" as a human from his appalling dental hygiene and his love of chewing juseh root, which reduced his teeth to black shards. However, all depictions of his skeleton form have him with normal, bone-white teeth, implying that Nagash has a very good dental plan. Maybe that's why he's so loyal to him.

==Vizier of Khemri==
When Nagash sought a cabal of followers to assist him in usurping the throne of Khemri he found them in Arkhan and his compatriots. In particular they were convinced by a demonstration of his newly created art of necromancy. The group supported Nagash by kidnapping victims off the street, this served to both supply Nagash with bodies for his experiments and to undermine his brother’s rule. Arkhan and the others started to learn rudiments of necromancy themselves during this time, and he was the first of Nagash's followers to partake of the elixir which granted eternal life, becoming the first of Nagash’s so-called "Immortals".

When Nagash finally usurped his brother’s throne, declaring himself king of Khemri, Arkhan was appointed his vizier. In response the Priest Kings of Nehekhara formed an alliance against Nagash, and Arkhan served as the great necromancer's foremost lieutenant in the struggle that followed. Battle after battle was waged, but inevitably the more numerous forces of the Priest Kings proved too much, and Nagash and his armies were forced back into the city of Khemri.

Arkhan is officially credited with leading the suicidal counterattack that allowed Nagash to escape the Army of the Seven Kings, single-handedly holding them off with spell-casting and swordplay for an hour before some random schmo managed to hit him in the heart with a spear (in the Time of Legend's novel it's a shot from a Cathayan gun, but GW said the army books trump Black Library novels). Dying, he croaked out a curse that anyone who touched his bones would die horribly, and burst into black flames that left behind only a blackened skeleton. The Khemrians were so spooked that they wouldn't dare touch his bones, so they just covered them under a great heap of rubble (In earlier lore, there was no curse, but the Nehekharans didn't desecrate Arkhan's remains out of respect for his badass last stand).

==Imprisonment in Lahmia==

This was followed by a moment of retconned lore. According to the Time of Legends:Nagash novels and backed by a sentence in the End Times:Nagash book, the story of Arkhan's demise by a spear thrown by an unknown soldier was a lie. He was incapacitated by a shot to the heart from a Cathayan gun Lahmashizzar wielded. Then Arkhan and Nagash's nine books were smuggled to Lahmia. There Arkhan was restored to unlife and kept as a prisoner of Lamashizzar and W'soran to teach them Nagash's magic. Lahmashizzar was not smart, so not only did he have no magical ability, he brought in his sister [[Queen Neferata|Neferata]] to aid in the lessons. Sound Neferata decided to visit Arkhan herself and chatted with him. She wanted Arkhan to teach her as well, and used her charm to try and persuade him. To everyone's surprise, including her own, Neferata sympathized with the imprisoned lich and formed a genuine rapport with him that grew into something more. Arkhan gladly taught her magic until she was able to overthrow Lamashizzar and take the throne for herself with the king reduced to a figurehead under her thumb.

This turned out to be a grave error however when the king, still supported by many members of the cabal, tried to have Neferata assassinated with a deadly magical poison. Arkhan tried to save Neferata, but his methods reacted with Neferata's blood and she appeared to die. Furious and determined to have his revenge, Arkhan snuck into the royal palace and assassinated Lamashizzar in return. The king’s bodyguard Abhorash, though too slow to save his king, beheaded Arkhan in personal combat for his crime. Unbeknown to Arkhan his magic in fact had saved Neferata and turned her into the first vampire. She had Arkhan's corpse discretely but respectfully buried in the Lahmian necropolis.

==As the Liche King==
Many years later Nagash, now secured in his northern fortress Nagashizzar, decided to take his revenge on the Priest Kings of Nehekhara. Although generations had passed, he had not forgotten his most loyal lieutenant. Knowing he would soon have need of him Nagash had Arkhan rise from his tomb and join him in the north. Once again he led his master’s forces against the united Priest Kings. During this time, Arkhan formed a bitter rivalry with W'soran. The former thought the latter was overconfident, the latter thought the former was a coward. They two often argued; when they weren't disagreeing on the best way to conduct the battles, they bickered over which of them was the better wizard, which form of undeath was best or who was Nagash's favorite. Between their mutual animosity and the great leadership and military prowess of king Alcadizaar of Khemri, they were unsuccessful despite a long campaign.

When Nagash enacted the first part of his Great Ritual, Arkhan commanded Nagash's undead army once more and this time easily defeated the plague riddled Nehekharans, taking Alcadizaar prisoner. Staying in Khemri to take control of Nagash’s supreme army of the whole undead Nehekharan nation when the second part of the ritual was cast, he instead was forced to flee when Nagash’s assassination left the risen kings with their own willpower. United under Settra, the wrath of the Tomb Kings was simply too great.

Intent on wreaking vengeance on the living for the death of his master, Arkhan ransacked Nagashizzar (fighting his long time rival W’Soran and other returned Immortals in the process) he then turned his army towards Araby, and for generations battered its kingdoms in what Arabian chroniclers would come to call the Wars of Death. Inhabiting the desert wastes that surround Araby, Arkhan would lead his armies upon an Arabian city, razing it to the ground before withdrawing again to the deserts.

Later he established himself once again in Nehekhara in his fortess of old, the Black Tower. From here his repeated raids and incursions, while not a major threat, soon became more than just a mere nuisance. Repeatedly Settra would be forced to do battle with Arkhan and whilst he had a vastly superior sense of strategy and better troops at his command their battles always resulted in a stalemate as Settra could never hope to match the great necromantic power of Arkhan. Therefore Arkhan would submit to Settra's authority and swear fealty before once again defying him just a few short years later. This stalemate might have been broken had the other Tomb Kings assisted but Settra was too proud to ask for their help and most considered Arkhan a valuable, if untrustworthy, ally.

Over the following centuries, Arkhan busied himself with hunting down various treasures of Nagash in order to serve his master on the day of his return. However, for some reason, he didn’t re-join Nagash when he was resurrected and engaged in his northwards campaign against Sigmar.

Arkhan had for a long time foreseen the End Times coming and knew Nagash was one of the few beings who could be relied upon to defeat the Chaos Gods. In order to restore Nagash he needed to gain many of the items Nagash had imbued with his power over the years. Already possessing a number of his Nine books, Arkhan sought Nagash’s staff. By allying himself with Khalida of Lybaras to attack the vampire lord Mandregan in Sylvania, Arkhan acquired one of Nagash’s lesser staffs, and soon learned the location of his primary staff Alakanesh; Bretonnia. Though being undead and serving Nagash dulled his emotions, he's still in love with [[Queen Neferata]].

==The End Times==
With the coming of [[The End Times]], Arkhan made his move. To try and find Nagash's staff he backed Mallobaude's coup with resulted in Bretonnia's civil war, which was a failure for Arkhan due to the intervention of the Wood Elves and the return of Giles Le Breton. Since he already had two of Nagash's books, he entered Sylvanvia seeking the rest of them, but Mannfred took exception. After an amazing duel that resulted in a stalemate, they called a truce and the two formed an alliance. After much politicking, they arranged the plan to retrieve Nagash's treasures, with him and Mannfred leading several armies. Arkhan was the one who broke them out of the Wall of Faith trapping them in Sylvania through an ancient ritual; Mannfred had the power but lacked the knowledge of how to use it. The second time Arkhan tried to retrieve the staff he had to kill Kemmler for it because the necromancer had betrayed Nagash to serve the Chaos Gods. In the battle Arkhan lost one of the few things he cared about, a zombified cat he had adopted. Despite repeated assassination attempts from Beastmen led by Malagor and Mannfred's vampire knights, Arkhan succeeded and Nagash returned to the world.

During this time, Arkhan also established himself as a Hero Killer, killing Kemmler (magical duel), the Fey Enchantress (bled out as the sacrifice to bring Nagash back), Eltharion (aged to dust by magic) and Nekaph (incinerated by magic). During the war for Nehekhara he took all the undead in Nagashizzar and conquered Mahrak and Quatar, [[FAIL|the latter in a big offscreen battle that's barely alluded to]]. At Khemri he was the visible commander of Nagash's armies and managed to do alright despite being outmatched. Eventually he was cut in half by Settra, who'd had enough of him by that point, and magically smuggled Nagash into Khemri within his own body. After the battle for Khemri ended with Settra's defeat and its destruction, Arkhan was permitted to go to war wherever he wanted at the behest of his master once more. Now the [[Mortarch]] of Sacrament, riding the Dread Abyssal Razarak, The Doom of Traitors, Arkhan still serves Nagash with dedication in his actions... though for the first time in millennia he started having second thoughts.

When Nagash entered his sarcophagus to absorb the wind of death after conquering Nehekhara, Arkhan led the undead in his absence. When Isabella and the Nameless attacked, Arkhan showed some tactical savvy and organized the defense, but was defeated after a vicious fight with Isabella and killed. After the destruction of the Black Pyramid Nagash was furious over Arkhan's failure, but knew Arkhan was reliable and intelligent so Nagash restored him and Krell. When Nagash travelled to Athel Loren to work with the living, Arkhan was silent but snickering to himself about the irony of Nagash's situation. Apart from some witty banter with Vlad, Arkhan only speaks because Nagash doesn't want to, making Arkhan in effect the Mouth of Sauron. After a fight with the forces of the Chaos Gods, the Incarnates and their forces are sent to Middenheim. Arkhan helps co-ordinate Nagash's army, then Throgg came with an army of monsters. Nagash told Arkhan to take two Morghast hosts and hold them until dead. When Arkhan asked for any further instructions he sensed Nagash's doubt before Nagash said, "DIE WELL MY SERVANT." and abandoned him. Though it ends with Arkhan fighting, it's repeated that it's a fight he can't win.

In the Lord of the End Times novel, after the Incarnates fail to stop the rift, Neferata encountered Arkhan with an unconscious Isabella. Arkhan had survived Nagash's last order and driven back the army of Chaos monsters (with the unexpected help of Settra) but he was battered. Arkhan told her that Aliathra's magic gave him a vision of a mysterious figure who could save/restore the world even after it was destroyed, and that he would help them if he could. Arkhan then showed her his slowly disintegrating hand; with Nagash's destruction Arkhan was dying as well. He bade Neferata flee and try to avoid the world's destruction, and take Isabella with her, stating he thought it was possible she could survive the end of the world. Neferata kissed him, took Isabella and fled while Arkhan tried to buy her time with his magic. As Neferata escaped, there was a last burst of purple magic and she could no longer sense him and grieved, thinking him destroyed (OTP confirmed).

==Age of Sigmar==
With the world's reconstruction in Age of Sigmar, Arkhan's back! He's bound to Nagash and it's confirmed while Nagash exists, so does Arkhan. He fought alongside Nagash when the latter was allied with Sigmar, and followed him after Nagash's betrayal. When Nagash fell against Archaon, Arkhan led the counterattack where Nagash's body was retrieved. However, the novel ''Nagash: The Undying King'' implies that he is not the same. He seems to have no memory of the previous world or any interest in Neferata. The idea is that he is not the original Arkhan; either a construct made from Nagash's memory of Arkhan or another person who took up the mantle (like one of the theories about [[Farsight]] before it was revealed he's the same guy with life-stealing sword).

Arkhan shows up in the Age of Sigmar audio book "The Bridge of Seven Sorrows". His voice actor is unknown but he makes Arkhan's voice sound, ironically, a bit like that of the late Sir Christopher Lee. In the audio book, Mannfred and the Stormcast enter the Underworld to find Nagash. They are stopped at the the other side of the bridge by Arkhan and his steed, Razanak. Arkhan calls Mannfred schemer, ingrate and fearful before ordering him to leave. The Stormcast give their message to Arkhan, but he states Nagash doesn't want to hear it and wants nothing to do with Sigmar before ordering the Stormcast Eternals to leave or die. When they persist Arkhan summons seven banshees to kill the Stormcasts while he duels Mannfred. Arkhan manages to hold Mannfred off until Tarsus joins the duel and stuns him, with Mannfred taking advantage of the distraction to cut of Arkhan's sword hand and hurl him against the bridge. After explaining that the entire confrontation was a test, Nagash himself arrives and Arkhan stands aside to let Nagash handle things.

What's notable is that Arkhan ordered them to leave or die rather than attacking at first sight, even warning the Stormcast several times. This implies that he still has a shred of mercy.

==On the Tabletop==
===As a Tomb King===
Arkhan's a spellcaster, first and foremost. Though he can only use spells from the Lore of Death, his copy of the Liber Mortis makes him a level 5 caster (though he loses a level, and thus a random spell, if it ever gets destroyed), and his Staff of Nagash lets him convert three dispel dice from one turn into three fresh power dice in the next turn. Like a Tomb King, he has the Nehekharan Undead, Flammable and "The Curse" special rules.

Fluffwise, Arkhan's supposed to be good in melee as well as a caster, and his Tomb Blade of Arkhan, which restores wounds to a unit he's with for each unsaved wound he inflicts on an enemy unit, would seem to support this. Statwise... not so much. At Strength and Toughness 5 and with 3 Wounds, he might seem survivable, but with only light armor for protection and a Weapon Skill of only 4, backed by three Initiative 3 attacks, it really isn't worth it. Especially not when he costs 360 points, takes up a Lord slot, and can potentially be your Hierophant.

If you feel you really need the magical offense, he's not a bad choice in a higher value game, but making him your Hierophant is a pretty bad move, since he can't use any of the Lore of Nehekhara spells that a Hierophant is supposed to use. He's also got the option to ride a flying chariot; using it is inadvisable.

===As Mortarch of Sacrament===
So, how does Arkhan change in the [[Undead Legion]]? He costs 650 points, loses Flammable, loses the Curse, is a Monster (Special Character), and has gained +1 Toughness, +5 Wounds and +4 Attacks. His Tomb Blade now only restores his own health and he's traded the Liber Mortis and Staff of Nagash for the Staff of Spirits, which operates much the same as his old staff (can sacrifice two Power Dice in one magic phase and then apply them to a spell in the next magic phase). He can Fly, is a Large Target, causes Terror, is Undead, rolls a D6 at the end of any Close Combat phase in which he's caused a Wound and recovers a lost Wound of his own if he rolls a 6, he reduces the wounds he suffers due to Unstable by -1 (in addition to any other modifiers), can march as normal, and doubles the points worth of models he summons when casting spells from the Lore of Undeath, including the additional points generated by Raise the Dead counters. He's a level 4 caster who can generate any combination of spells he wishes (that is, four from one, or two from each, or three from one and a fourth from the other) from both the Lore of Death and the Lore of Undeath. If this make him sound like a mini-Nagash, that's because he pretty much is - While [[Nagash]] is awesome and can do awesome things, he's 1000 pt, so Arkhan is like a budget version of him, with lesser, altough still powerful versions of his abilities. Take him if you don't want [[Nagash]] to fill up half your army and when you want room for other dudes and dudettes.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Arkhan_older_picture.png|Arkhan the Black [[Old School Roleplaying|back in the day.]]
File:Arkhan the Black's old model.jpg|Arkhan's first model (surprisingly less derpy than [[Nagash|his master's original model]]).
File:Arkhan2.jpg|He probably wishes serving Nagash came with a dental plan.
File:Arkhan the Black new model.jpg|Arkhan's badass new model.
Image:Nef+Ark.jpg|Arkhan's dream, a reality as of the End Times "Kiss me you magnificent bastard. Give me your bone!"
File:Arkhanageofsigmar.jpg|"The more things change, the more they stay the same."
File:Arkhan Total War.jpeg|Now in digital form.
</gallery>

{{Tomb Kings}}

[[Category:Undead Legion]]

Nehekhara

2018-01-11T21:57:24Z

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[[Image:Warhammer_Map_Nehekhara.jpg|right|thumb|400px|Nehekhara and its cities, prior to the destruction of the latter in the End Times.]]
'''Nehekhara''' was the ancient land of the [[Tomb Kings]], analogous to real life Egypt. It was a cradle of human civilization and prosperous enough to rival High Elves' culture. Thanks to one <strike>dick</strike> [[Nagash|boner]], Nehekhara became a bone-filled dry hellhole with majestic cities, [[The End Times|then it later lost even those]].

== History ==

Unlike Egypt, it encompasses most of [[Warhammer Fantasy]] Africa as a giant desert where a whole topographical layer of skeletons sit beneath the sand (many of whom have a predilection to get up and get grumpy when disturbed). Originally a lush land that was rich in gold that developed civilization back when the rest of the humans in the world (other than possible [[Cathay]]) were tribal savages being kept as slaves by [[Wood Elves|High Elf colonists]] or used as target practice by [[Dwarfs]], Nehekhara was a paradise. It was ruled over by supreme rulers leading individual kingdoms which fought against each other constantly. Although there were fair differences between kingdom to kingdom, generally speaking the High Priests and the Kings (and rarely Queens) had supreme power over all. The pantheon of the Nehekharans was numerous and diverse, although death was a central theme in each important deity. Priests had their own magic Lore as a derivative of the Lore of Death due to the Winds of Magic tied to Death being the only one to blow through the land, making Nehekharans the first humans to not only discover but also master a form of magic independent of [[Tzeentch|Daemon assistance]].

Eventually, all of Nehekhara was unified under [[Settra the Imperishable]], although with his death the kingdoms once again became independent. With the rise of [[Nagash]] the magic of the land became unstable, and in two wars all the kingdoms of the land united to wage war on the Undead threat. With the kingdom of Lahmia falling to Vampirism, the kingdom of Khemri (birthplace of both Settra and Khalida) lead the charge. In his (second) death throes Nagash cast a spell which killed all plant, animal, and human life in the land. The spell resurrected everything that had died as an Undead servant. With Nagash's death from Alcadizaar, who stabbed sleepy necromancer with a blade made of [[Warpstone]], the spell was somewhat broken: the Nehekharans were still "alive" but no more slaves to Nagash's will.

Most Undead were devoid of much intelligence, only retaining enough to perform tasks with a degree of skill unseen in the skeletal servants raised by [[Vampire Counts|common Necromancy]]. But the nobility of the land, well-preserved in their elaborate tombs and burials, awoke with their personalities intact and their souls forever bound to the land that gave them birth and held their corpse in death.

Each former ruler sought to retake their throne, only to find a hundred generations of rulers prior and a hundred after also claimed the throne. The land became a giant battle of skeleton against skeleton, a whirling skull-tossing fight that would have made [[Khorne]] jizz himself watching had he known of it, until the former High Priests throughout the ages gathered and conducted a ritual to awaken the most powerful of the Tomb Kings who had not yet arisen. The greatest of them, Settra the Imperishable, immediately slapped the shit of EVERY other Tomb King and demanded them swear fealty to him. Those that did had their thrones and kingdoms divided between the families who all had a claim to them. Some, like Queen Khalida, were not particularly interested in rulership beyond what they saw as fair and became allies of Settra rather than servants. Others saw fit to rebel, and most were given fates worse than death (trapping their spirit in just their skull to be used as catapult ammunition is a popular one).

== Modern Warhammer Fantasy History ==

More Tomb Kings continue to awaken, and each gets their shit slapped by Settra. Often, other races seek incursions into the land. [[Dwarfs]] invade seeking gold (which to them is not plunder, as non-Dwarfs are shit in their eyes and the dead have no claim to possessions...unless they're honored Dwarven dead anyway; good old Dwarven hypocris... honor). The Empire mounts expeditions for gold, or to seek alliances with the intelligent Undead (despite the heresy of it).

[[High Elves]] seek to establish [[Waystone|Waystones]] in the land, sometimes with the aid and permission of the Tomb Kings and others against the will of the Undead. [[Bretonnia|Bretonnians]] and [[Warriors of Chaos]] invade looking for challenges and [[loot]], although this has never once turned out well for the invaders...

== End Times ==

Despite being one of GW's more original ideas, the End Times was hard for Nehekhara. Nagash and Arkhan conquer Mahrak and Quatar by zerg-rushing them with all the skeletons from Nagashizzar, and Nagash using magic to entice a few of the remaining the Tomb Kings to turn traitor. After defeating Settra, Nagash used magic and sandstorms to pulverize Khemri, utterly destroying it. The rest of Nehekhara's cities only get a single sentence mentioning that Nagash and his armies destroyed them too. A bad end for an ancient (in-game) and relatively interesting setting.

The final nail in the fucking sarcophagus came in Age of Sigmar, [[FAIL|with the Tomb Kings having been revealed to have been squatted]].

{{Template:Tomb Kings}}

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]] [[Category:Tomb Kings]]

Queen Neferata

2018-01-11T21:57:03Z

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''"A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water."''
[[Image:Nef or nothing.jpg|right|thumb|350px|Although in [[Warhammer 40k]] she'd be a planetary governor with a skin condition, in [[Warhammer Fantasy]] she's one of the most powerful and evil beings outside the [[Warp]].]]

-Eleanor Roosevelt

''"Behind every great man, there is a great woman. Behind those great women, there is me!"
''

-Neferata

The very first fucking vampire in a setting where vampires are still cool, which is a product of her own creation rather than a Biblical curse or demonic possession. She's something of a Cleopatra expy who's been in a lot of positions of leadership (pun not intended), then found she preferred to run things behind the scenes.

==The Legend==
During the war against [[Nagash]], there was a young princess of Lahmia in the Egypt analogue of the [[Warhammer Fantasy|Warhammer]] setting, [[Nehekhara]], named Neferatem (Neferata was the name she went by outside of Nehekhara, although later writers forgot about it and had her always called Neferata). While her [[Queen Khalida|cousin]] wore pants, rode horses, shot arrows, and prayed to the snake god, Neferata spent her time doing all of jack shit while her father lead the forces of <strike>good</strike> Order against Nagash. After her pappy died, she was put in charge of the kingdom. Her brother took command of the forces of Nehekhara and made a deal with [[Arkhan the Black]] to become necromancer bros by looting Nagash's house. Her brother Lamashizzar won the backstabbing competition and took Nagash's books home with a crippled and (re)dying Arkhan to give cliffnotes along the way. Since Neferata was already a fucking level 2 Wizard, he threw the books at her and told her to get to work as he took over the job of ordering cooks to suck face with stablehands.

Now it's well known that in order to be based on Egypt, you have to be obsessed with immortality. But she took that to new levels. Neferata found her brother's secret tutor and chatted with him. She wanted Arkhan to teach her as well, and used her charm to try and persuade him. To everyone's surprise, including her own, Neferata sympathized with the imprisoned lich and formed a genuine rapport with him that grew into something more. Instead of taking notes and translating shit for Lahmia to gain an army of Level 1 Mages she started experimenting, and actually managed to improve on Nagash's techniques. She swapped Nagash's ability to become a self-sufficient lich for eternal youth powered with fresh blood, although in a different version of the story Arkhan helped a great deal more as Sphinx venom is a key ingredient which caused the drinker to fall into a coma necessitating an assistant to finish the ritual.

After the people around her used the rare skill of common sense and realized she wasn't aging and was going through more servants than most, she realized she'd need some meatshields that weren't mooks. She picked the captain of the guard and all around badass [[Abhorash]], her high priest [[W'soran/Melkhior and Zacharias the Everliving|W'soran]], her younger brother [[Ushoran]], [[Maatmeses]], [[Naamia]], [[Prince Xian Ha Feng]], [[Harakhte]], [[Zhuras]], [[Ankhat]], Neferata's husband Vashanesh, and one other. [[Vlad von Carstein]] hints in his own novels that Vashanesh is the father of his Bloodline but all other Bloodlines said such a person never existed. Later it turned out they were full of it, as Vlad was revealed to be Vashanesh himself. (There is a canon conflict here, since the novels set in and shortly after this period never mention him.) Neferata also selected another seven. Each of them was given some of Nef's home brew, and she filled them in on their new strengths and one minor recurring habit.
She also sent some vials of the Elixir to [[Cathay]] for unknown reasons.

Everyone (except Abhorash, who was a NOFUNALLOWED kinda guy) got ultra into vampirism and swapped out the Nehekharan religion for worshiping Nagash. Neferata kept studying Nagash's books and improving her magic until she figured out how to make more (albeit weaker) vampires through a ritual rather than a potion, which saved time and kept the youngbloods in their place. She became a cougar and stuck to drinking blood from shotas like wine. The vampires mutated over time and became fucking godlike, and when they get some adrenaline (their own anyway) in them they underwent quick transformations into a more feral state with sabertooth fangs and ultra sharp fingernails and such (basically the opposite of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark).

The other Nehekharan kingdoms began to get suspicious, particularly good ol' cousin [[Khalida]] (who had became a Ranger/Paladin dedicated to the asp goddess (guess where this story is going. Just guess)). To preemptively silence her, Neferata accused HER of being a vampire (note that this was after [[Malekith]] had used a similar strategy, although arguably Neferata's way was a bit more successful since it didn't involve [[Fail|trying to use a god of justice and rulership to prove your lie is the truth]]). Khalida called her out on the fact that a grave accusation of treason and heresy with no proof against an equal from an entirely different nation meant all of jack and shit, and challenged Neferata to a duel to the death for HONOR. Even though Khalida was a mere mortal badass fighting a fucking VAMPIRE DEMIGODDESS, Khalida put Neferata into single digit HP before she got to -1 herself. Neferata was forced to drink from Khalida on the spot...in front of the assembled nobles of Khemri and Lahmia. While restoring her hit points, Nef tried to turn Khalida into a vampire. Faced with the incestuous advances of her cousin (oh, and the minor issue of whatever unknown dark magic shit the sabertoothed mutant was doing), called out for the snake goddess to save her soul from damnation. Asaph (the aforementioned snake goddess) sent poison through Khalida's veins, purging the vampire [[heresy]] though Khalida still died of blood loss and the minor issue of a knife in the stomach.

Later the Queen of Rasetra came to Neferata asking help with her difficult pregnancy. Knowing that if male the child would be the next king of Khemri Neferata gave the woman an infusion containing her blood and when the boy was born, claimed him as her own saying he would stay in Lahmia until he came of age and took his throne. This child was called Alcadizaar. Neferata grew to believe that Alcadizaar would become her partner and started practicing wife husbandry on him, training him in every aspect of war and statehood (while also making sure he didn't get with any other woman). However when he finally discovered the truth of Neferata's undead nature, he rejected her and fled into the wild, eventually being welcomed into a nomadic desert tribe.

Neferata continued consolidating her powerbase until Alcadizaar's tribe killed one of her vampire minions and presented his head as proof to the other kings. After this the Nehekharans realized how dangerously close things were to becoming Twilight, so they gathered their forces into a vast army and laid siege to Lahmia. Some Lahmian civilians rebelled against the vampire nobility, others gathered to Abhorash and fought against the foreigners and race traitors. Led by the newly returned and crowned Alcadizaar of Khemri the Priest Kings united and destroyed Lahmia, the entire city being reduced to rubble and most of it's vampiric aristocracy destroyed. Neferata barely escaped with her life. The city fell, despite major losses on the side of <strike>good</strike> Order.

==Exile==

Of Neferata's Eleven, only seven survived. Abhorash and Neferata separately took their minions and headed north, both finding passes through the supposedly impassible mountains and reaching the Badlands, [[Orcs & Goblins|greenskin]]-infested no man's land. Due to this she avoided the final war between Nagash and Alcadizaar that saw the rest of Nehekhara join Lahmia in becoming a lifeless ruin. She did however experience it's consequences when the newly risen Tomb Kings began to hunt down vampires. In particular her cousin Khalida, returned from the dead and filled with rage, chased her across the world.

In the absence of their leaders the vampires were left in a panic. They went their own ways along the same route Nef and Ab had taken, founding different bloodlines. When Nagash cursed the vampires with weaknesses to the sun, running water (like all old people), garlic, and other random things. Neferata and her minions caught the curse too despite not being there (although there's also the suggestion this was Sigmar's doing).

Then a fuckton of time passed while Neferata traveled the world. During that time she became a [[SJW|feminist]] and a misandrist, espousing the belief that men are blood farms without worthwhile thoughts or emotions unless they kowtow to women (being effeminate, watching Sex and the City, be unthinking Sugar Daddies, that sort of thing). Eventually Neferata found herself compelled to come to the capital of the Strigoi empire, Mourkain. Here she found a kingdom that was a pale reflection of her long lost Lahmia, ruled once again by a vampiric aristocracy. It's king was her former Lord of Masks Ushoran and his vizier W'soran, who together she blamed for the destruction of her home. She had been drawn by the Crown of Nagash which was buried at the heart of the capital as had most of the others of her kind.

==Queen of Mysteries==

A group of [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dorfs]] investigating the douchebaggery of the other vampire bloodlines eventually uncovered her <strike>lesbian love den</strike> SERIOUS GROUP OF VAMPIRE LADIES DOING NOTHING WRONG. In response she had her minions slaughter the Dawi and turn them into zombies before gathering an invasion force and making their [[Dwarf Fortress]] her new <strike>love-den</strike> MANLY BASTION OF BADASSERY. The undead Dwarfs rebuilt the mines, crafted with Granite and menacing with spikes of Onyx, into an Egyptian-style palace.

Nowadays the zombies are soaked in perfume and drum while skeletons do the skeleton dance ([[Meme|''2spooky!'']]) to entertain her court. Eventually Ghouls showed up to serve her, which she spent several generations trying to exterminate before being confined to the sewers when she realized they would be great for garbage disposal. She bathes in blood (because nobody has ever made vampires do that before!) of young men, then heads off to the war room an organizes her femvamps and shotavamps (all vouched for by femvamps as their subordinates) to spy on the civilizations of the world and manipulate them into getting into wars with each other ([[Skaven]] also do this, but more capably), or rooting out rival bloodlines and wiping them out (the VonCarsteins also do this, but less capably).

Queen Neferata had one goal: make the <s>women</s> worthy mortals of the world into Lahmian vampires and the <s>men</s> unworthy mortals cattle or pampered pets. Meanwhile, her cousin Khalida (who's such a badass not even [[Settra the Imperishable|Settra]] wants to fuck with her) was a [[Tomb King|Tomb <strike>King</strike> Queen]] and wanted to purge the world of vampires and their homoerotic heresy, with Neferata at the top of her list.

Neferata's cat is her Cathayan concubine shape shifter Naamia who is in love with her (at least in the novel [[Neferata (Black Library)|Neferata]] by [[Josh Reynolds]], in all other sources the cat is simply a familiar named Bastet).

==End times==

Neferata was recruited to rejoin [[Arkhan the Black]] (who was still in love with her after thousands of years) and [[Mannfred von Carstein]] in their plans to resurrect Nagash. Nef followed the plan, sending one of her minions (who may be fan favourite the Vampire Genevieve) to [[Balthazar Gelt]] to manipulate him into building an anti-Chaos wall protecting the humans of the [[Old World]] (in theory so Nagash could have them all to himself). Realizing that Nagash's return meant either her servitude or destruction, Neferata sent no further aid at first. However, Neferata grew concerned concerned that if she didn't have something to offer Nagash might destroy her out of spite (because her spies were trapped in Sylvania and Arkhan never called, Neferata was antsy from lack of knowledge).

After daemons attacked her fortress Neferata decided to try and get shit done, massing the forces of the Silver Pinnacle to get a re-birthday present for Nagash; the magic power of the Dwarf gods themselves (which Neferata had accidentally discovered while backpacking across the world). Fighting her way through various greenskin tribes at Skull Chasm, she led her army to the Lost Pass of the dwarfs, a long lost treasure trove of the ancestor gods. There at the Battle of Valaya's Gate her army, supported by the Wight King Krell (who had been sent by Arkhan as a precaution), defeated the throng of Karak Azul leading to the deaths of both the venerable runelord Thorek Ironbrow and the mighty King Kazador. Having secured a source of power for the returned but weakened Nagash she was inducted into the ranks of his Mortarchs, becoming the Mortarch of Blood.

Once Nagash fed on [[Valaya|Valaya's]] magic, he used the power to shroud Nehekhara in darkness so the vampires wouldn't burn in the sun (no such thing as sunblock in the Warhammer world). The assembled Mortarchs then waged war on the Tomb Kings. When Nagash led his forces south into Nehekhara Neferata was given permission to lead a force to the ruins of her long lost Lahmia. There she was once more met by Khalida and the army of Lybaras. As the two armies clashed the two undead queens dueled in the Temple of Blood in the heart of the city itself. Once more Neferata was forced to flee before her vengeful cousin. Though she failed to secure the city Neferata's expedition had performed all Nagash required of it which was to lure troops away from his main target- Khemri and his Black Pyramid there. In the end defeated the Nehekharans, bringing their skulls under Nagash's boot. In a spectacular twist of irony, Neferata and Khalida were charged to work together. As a result, they basically dropped out of End Times until the very end when Mannfred managed to completely fuck up the last chance at stopping Chaos and the world was slowly drawn into the Warp as a third Warpgate was activated in the Empire despite every non-Chaos group from Orcs to Wood Elves all working together (yeah, ET was a complete fucking mess).

Neferata and Arkhan were present at the end of the final battle, with the latter promising to fight to the last to give the former a chance to outrun the encroaching wall of solid Daemonic blackness despite her Abyssal being injured. After a parting kiss with Arkhan (who she still had some feelings for) Neferata only just made it back to the fortress in the [[Moot (Warhammer Fantasy)|Moot]] that she and Khalida had established offscreen. The Halflings and remaining humans of the Empire fled there for protection, and the undead under Khalida's command allowed them in. Neferata arrived and immediately shouted to make preparations to repel Chaos, before Khalida told her there was no point; Chaos won. Neferata instead convinced her to fight together, as Nehekharan Queens, and their assembled forces readied their weapons as the Warp overtook them.

==Age of Sigmar==

...then [[Age of Sigmar]] happened. Nagash is an immortal god of the afterlife and gets all souls Chaos doesn't, barring the [[Stormcast Eternals]]. Since Games Workhop undid their complete reboot with identical factions reappearing, Vampires came back too. Neferata was shown alongside the other Mortarchs meaning that the entire End Times story meant jack. But since Khalida hasn't been shown and the Tomb Kings were revealed to have been Squatted, Nef at least outlived her.

Neferata got her own part of the realm of death and "creatively" named it Nulahmia. However it came under attack from an army of mortal followers of Chaos... of Slaanesh, of all the Chaos forces... because apparently some Chaos Lord wants himself [[A Song of Ice and Fire|a nice, juicy slice of Mortarch minge]]. That's a hell of a thing to sneak past the kiddies, GW! (In the novel Lords of Death, the same lord kills a beastman who tried to stop him raping it).

==Lahmians==
The bloodline of Neferata, most of them are female and all of them are found in positions of power within society, although most prefer aristocracy or the mercantile class. While the wandering Necromancer is a Necrarch, the homeless beggar or bandit is a Strigoi, the noble knights and warriors of the world <strike>being murderhobos</strike> getting into fights and doing awesome shit are Blood Dragons, and while the Von Carsteins are nouveau riche pricks in crumbling manors surrounded by stinking corpses and emaciated thralls, Lahmians are a cut above. They've got ''style''. Skilled middle class priests and merchants, aristocrats of fantastic breeding living in the city and attending every party, hookers, criminal bosses, and artists.

Lahmians prefer the undead that doesn't stink, like skeletons. While many are skilled swordswomen, they lean more on the Elf side of things with higher skill and speed rather than strength or toughness (of course being vampires they have those as well, and Lahmians by nature come from different backgrounds and have diverse sets of skills). Lahmians are also one of the two most magical Bloodlines, although rather than the mad science of the Necrarchs they lean towards the diverse and refined knowledge that only those who see every shipping charter before a vessel even sets sail can get. Most of all, Lahmians rely on guile and charisma (which in Warhammer Fantasy terms means Leadership and abilities that manipulate that of others) to get the job done.

While all beings in Warhammer Fantasy are prone to backstabbing ([[Skaven|some]] more than [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|others]]), Lahmians are particularly hierarchical in a manner resembling [[Vampire: The Masquerade|the Camarilla from VtM]]. No major action may be performed without the blessing of a higher up, keeping silent and maintaining secrecy is of utmost importance, and everyone is vying to be the <strike>pussy in Neferata's lap</strike> favored servant of the Queen while also fearing what would happen if one so much as annoys her, or shows weakness to a rival. Lower rank Lahmians tend to be more resentful of the higher ranked ones, as most of the difficult work in the lower classes is done by them.
In regards to other Bloodlines, Neferata views herself as the supreme ruler of the Undead (until she swears loyalty to Nagash, who serves more as the divine power behind her rule in her mind). As a result she will generally work to better their place in the world and control over all other factions unless she feels threatened or insulted, which given her typically Nehekharan arrogance and demand for protocol on par with Settra is quite often, leading her to bring complete ruin on her rivals both real and imagined without a second thought. Those who do endear themselves to her find themselves pampered and protected with their skills honed and many powers granted (although on rare occasion they are sacrificed for [[Tau|the greater good]]), and as Naamia describes it her minions love her for it all.

Lore is vague on which nations exactly the Lahmians have infiltrated. The Empire is entirely within their domain of control, and they spend a great deal of time keeping the Witch Hunters off their backs while diverting Sigmar's holy zealots towards the other Bloodlines and Chaos infestations. Lahmians have agents in Bretonnia, although how much belonged to them is unknown. The Warhammer Silk Road to Cathay, and an unknown amount of Cathay itself, is also completely within Lahmian control and they have agents in the Border Princes and other human kingdoms. Old lore hinted the Lahmians also had agents among the Elves and that she was aware of the goings-on in [[Ulthuan]] and [[Naggaroth]]. Lahmians will work in the interest of the societies they infiltrate by suppressing riots and purging the corrupt (or at least the corrupt and unpredictable/unmanipulatable) via "accidents", long-planned falls from grace, or even just flat-out disappearances and have helped secretly defend the populace from the predations of other Vampires and of Chaos plots and invasions.

One of Neferata's favorite tricks is to turn a woman into a cat, get a merchant or a nobleman to take her in, then have her turn back into a woman and fuck his brains out like it's an [[/d/|erotic manga]] so he'll establish her as his wife and thus put one more Lahmian spy in the world. As a result of Neferata's manipulations most of the [[Sisters of Sigmar|nun]] organizations are now Lahmian vampires. The poets and playwrights of the world are often Lahmian vampires. Brothel owners are often Lahmian vampires. Upper class escorts are often Lahmian vampires. Noblewoman are often Lahmian vampires. [[Alpharius|That gay guy who does your wife's hair is a Lahmian vampire.]] Your [[Genevieve Sandrine du Pointe du Lac Dieudonné|wife]] is a Lahmian vampire. As long as you do what they say, everything will be alright. ''We'' promise.

<gallery>
Image:Lahmian Models.jpeg|The standard Out Of Production Lahmians on foot and horseback.
Image:Mounted Lahmian Variant.jpeg|Another Mounted Lahmian type.
Image:Foot Lahmian Variant.jpeg|Another Lahmian On Foot type. Note the more Nehekharan look.
Image:Another Foot Lahmian Variant.jpeg|The oldest Lahmian variant.
Image:Special Lahmian Models.jpeg|Limited run Lahmian models. Male Lahmian, winged Lahmian, topless Lahmian.
Image:Lahmian Art.png|Artwork depicting the above models.
</gallery>

==Nagadron The Adevore==
The [[Dread Abyssal]] given to Neferata by Nagash in End Times. In the times of the Nehekharan gods, Nagadron resided with the other Dread Abyssals in the afterlife of men. Nagadron's job was to punish the glutenous, ambushing selfish souls and chewing on them for all eternity. In Neferata's service, Nagadron now consumes the souls he eats, vomiting them up in smaller and smaller chunks as he gorges himself on flesh and spirit alike and eating them again (so yeah, Neferata's giant undead dragon demon is predictably a giant cat on the inside).

According to the team that produced the model, the hooded eyes are supposed to resemble a predatory [[snek]].

Nagadron was last seen in End Times re-dying from mortal wounds with its last act being carrying Neferata and the unconscious Isabella back to the fortress of Nef and Khalida, but was resurrected alongside its (no gender is given, though since it is a supernatural, partially divine creation it may not have or doesn't need a gender) master in Age of Sigmar.

==On the Tabletop==
===Old Editions===
Queen Neferata used to have a model in the game, but she suffered from [[Everqueen|Alarielle the Everqueen]] syndrome and had a badass model you wanted to use for fluff reasons, but it was pretty crap on the field and thus was unlikely to ever be used. So GW removed it, leaving the von Carsteins as the only models in Vampire Counts until the latter part of 8th edition. The original model came with a cat, referencing the aforementioned story about [[felinid]] vampires.

===The End Times===
With the addition of Nagash's campaign, Neferata makes a triumphant return to the field as a mounted model with an on-foot option (although GW makes her share a kit with [[Mannfred von Carstein]] and Arkhan the Black, the thrill of her return far outshines the insult).

Since bloodlines are gone, Lahmians are represented by gearing out your Lord and Hero vampires with Beguile and similar abilities as well as ample spellcasting. Use skeletons, ghosts, and similar minions that can be handwaved as unwanted hauntings or the bones of ancestors when the Witch Hunters come calling. Feel free to use proxies of living models from any faction you want as servants to a mortal lover/manipulated army but statted as zombies, ghouls, skeletons, or whatever. Finally, Coven Thrones. The only two bloodlines that should be using Coven Thrones are von Carsteins and Lahmians, and you better not let those lower class fuckers put more on the tabletop then you or Neferata will want to have a private chat with you...

Lahmian armies will do very well against low LD armies, and poorly against armies like High Elves with 9's across the board in Leadership.

As for the Queen of Mysteries herself, her latest incarnation hits hard and can debuff the enemy ten ways from town. She has eight Strength 5 attacks that Always Strike First at Inititative 9. Eight Strength 5 attacks are rough but always striking first takes it to another level, then you have Thunderstomp. With a combined profile with her mount, that's D6 Strength 5 hits at Initiative 9 since ASF and ASL cancel each other out. As for the Debuffs, Neferata can debuff to a level that even [[Nagash|her boss]] can't. Her Dagger of Jetl minuses 1- to the Strength, Initiative and Attack of a model that suffers an unsaved wound for the rest of the game. There's also Twilight Allure making all shooting and close combat attacks are at -1 to hit, so even a Chaos Lord will be hitting her on 5's. She also has a fun little trick of being able to, once per game, turn a character she slays in a challenge into a Vampire. If they get to keep all their gear (come on FAQ!) imagine turning Korhil or, even better, Kurt Helborg, into a Vampire.

===Age Of Sigmar===

===The 9th Age===
In [[The 9th Age]] there are no named characters, so instead all models have to be emulated out of generic upgrades.

End Times Neferata is fielded as a Vampire Count of the Lahmian Bloodline riding a Monstrous Revenant upgraded to the Great Monstrous Revenant with Mask Of Innocence, and as a Level 3 Wizard. Add in other abilities as desired, although Random Attacks for the not-Dread Abyssal and weapons that boost her own Attack value are popular.

==Gallery==

<gallery>
Image:Neferata_2.jpg|Neferata's original model.
Image:Neferata Returns.jpg|Neferata's new model. Note that the [[Hat]] principle is still in effect.
Image:Neferata 3.jpg|This is what she looks like while casting.
Image:Neferata 4.jpg|This is what she looks like a minute later in melee.
Image:Neferata Book.jpg|What Neferata wears on weekends. (and when with arkhan)
Image:Neferata-Warhammer-Age.png|Even after an apocalypse she's still got it.
Image:Neferata.jpg
Image:Nef Lite.jpg
</gallery>

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category:Vampire Counts]]
[[Category:Undead Legion]]

Skaven

2018-01-11T21:56:32Z

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{{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, dating all the way back to their first codex in 4th edition, called "The Doom Of Kavzar". Written in-universe by an author in the Warhammer world's equivalent of Italy, it offers what is generally accepted as the most concrete explanation of their origins. To summarize;

* Humans and Dwarfs lived together in a 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 [[human]]s and [[dwarf]]s, someone was swindled so magic happens that makes Skaven.

And the rest, is history...

Incidentally, this isn't the only theory presented to their origins, but it's the one most gamers take as canon. Some in-universe origin theories mentioned in the 6e fluffbook "The Loathsome Ratmen and Their Vile Kin" include:
* An Imperial naturalist named Wilfried Schtutt argued that the skaven descend from rats warped into a semblance of the human form by some malign external power, such as [[Chaos]].
* A Tilean classicist, Marcelli Verdallo, argues that the skaven are living proof of the ancient philosopher-sage Proti's theorem that all things in the universe are created by the mystical interactions of cosmic archetypes from beyond time in space, being the fruit of some union between the archetypes of Rat and Man.
* Johannes Krueger's Bestiarium mentions an ancient Estalian legend wherein shipwrecked survivors turned to cannibalism and were cursed by Manann, the Sea God, assuming rat-like forms.

Even the Doom of Kavzar has some doubts thrown upon it, because the Skaven race is actually surprisingly old (but young none the less when compared to the likes of Dwarves and Elves). They were actually well-established before the rise of the [[Tomb Kings]] as the undead rulers of Khemri - in fact, they had a grubby little paw in that whole sordid affair.

It was the Skaven that supplied [[Nagash]] with the [[warpstone]] 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 Alcadizaar in his defeat, which result in the rise of the tomb kings since Nagash was no longer around to control the dead Nehekharans. So aside from the Dark Elves who taught Nagash the [[Warhammer Magic|Lore of Darkness magic]] that will eventually evolve to the Necromancy all [[Vampire Counts|vampire]] loves or hated by the [[Tomb King|Nehekharans]], the Skaven was the one that supported Nagash, made him powerful and undefeated (because everytime Nagash dead, he re-spawned back to his black pyramid. Although it takes a fuck load of time for him to actually get up, it allows him to grasp the mortal world while preserve his existence. Also the pyramid itself is indestructible), and still ended up betraying him for their own selfish desire.

The Skaven has been popping out numerous times in the history where they tried to weakening the forces of order in order to favor them in the long run. For example, they appeared during one of the Norseman invasion when Sigmar was still around. Fear that Sigmar's Empire might threaten their very existence, 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.

Since then, Skaven has not laid a hand on the Empire until after their own civil war. It was at this time, Clan Pestilence developed a new disease called the Black Plague (nice real life reference GW) and spread it among the Empire's population. The plague not only reduced to less than half the size of the generation before, it also killed the current Emperor (AKA the worst Emperor, who was actually killed by an Eshin assassin's shuriken) and every other corrupt piece of shit in his hideout. The Skaven then launched their attack fter the Empire has been weakened in the worst state as possible, but they were stopped by a pretty cool guy named Mandred von Zelt, who gathered the rest of the elector counts and launched an anti-skaven crusade. Ironically, the black plague played a major role in many of Mandred's victory, since it also weaken the Skaven army and killed them enough to force them retreat. In the last battle, the Skaven launched their last counter attack, only to fail after realized their leader, Vrrmik the warlord of Clan Mors and one of the councils of thirteen. The rest of the vermin were then driven back to their under Empire by Mandred while suffered plague from war. What's worse for the Skaven was that the slaves they bought ended up revolt and destroyed several already plague weakened clan while Mandred, who was declared the Emperor and sporting Vrrmik's own helmet at the time rebuilt the Empire. The process was faster than the ratmen could expect, even installed the sewer watch to prevent further Skaven movement on the Empire. After such defeat, the councils received many compensation notices from other disease ridden clans. But the councils decided to just assassinate them all, included our beloved Emperor rat slayer and called it a even. The assassination made the mankind forget about the ratmen, even dismissed it as myth.

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]]. The 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 Sun Wukong 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 aren't popular enough, they have the operation world wide. There is Clan Pestilens in Lustria, who likes to infect themselves with disease that Nurgle doesn't approve of. Some of the rats made into Naggaroth (probably as slaves or a few via the Under-Empire). The only place they could never set their foot on would be Ulthuan, which is a giant continent that floats on top of the water which obviously can't be connected to Skavenblight via tunnels, and regardless is just too scary for the rat-thing to deal with flame spweing dragons, elves that shoot rains of arrows from far away and mages that has the power to summon a [[exterminatus|giant bombardment of nukes from the sky]].

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 aggression who still practice a survival-of-the-fittest pack-mindset based loyalty, orcs that are hardwired to love to scrap, goblins who are no strangers to bacstabbing and dark elves who've literally made assassination and tretchery 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. Except that Calhoun's rodent experiments were published in 1962, Warhammer Fantasy was created in the early 80s). 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 the Horned Rat's blessings and spat directly in his face for daring to presume GHR can bless the self-righteous ass that is Archaon.

=== Magic ===
Skaven wield a form of Dark Magic fueled by [[warpstone]] and derived from their own inherently corrupt abilities. However, select kinds of skaven are capable of actually tapping that energy; traditionally, only the Grey Seers, rare mutants who function as the skaven's shamans snd the Warlock Engineers of [[Clan Skryre]], who use [[magitek]] devices to draw upon and manipulate Dark Magic, possess this power, but that lore has fluctated over editions.

In 4th edition, Warlocks could be 1st to 3rd level casters, with Grey Seers being 4th level casters, and both used the same "Lore of Skaven" magic system.

In 6th edition, only Grey Seers were casters, still using the Lore of Skaven; Warlock Engineers instead had to spend points on magitek weapons that also allowed them to cast a single spell, ''Warp Lightning''. However, the optional rules for Great Clan armies in the back of the book also featured clan-based casters; these "lesser mages" were treated as level 1 casters who only knew a single pre-selected spell. Clan Eshin had Sorcerers (Skitterleap), Clan Pestilens had Festoring Chantors (Pestilent Breath), and Clan Moulder had Harbingers of Mutation (Vermintide). Clan Skyre's Warlock Masters could still only cast Warp Lightning, but could try and cast an 11+ variant that was much more powerful.

In 7th edition, things changed; now, Skaven had two different schools of magic - Ruin and Plague, with Warlock Engineers being Hero level casters of Ruin and Plague Priests getting an upgrade to be Hero level casters of Plague, with Grey Seers being Lord level casters who could mix and match spells from both lores, and had access to the unique "Dreaded 13th Spell", which could transform enemy troops into skaven clanrats.

"Children of the Horned Rat", the skaven sourcebook for [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] 2nd edition, tweaked the Skaven magical lores around. Naming the two primary schools of Skaven magic as Plague and Warp, it also upgraded Eshin Sorcerers to full-fledged casters, with their own unique school of magic; the Dark Lore of Stealth, a corrupt form of Shadow Magic that lets them do more animesque ninja stuff. As CotHR was written around the time of 6th edition, it doesn't quite mesh up with either 6e or 7e fluff; instead of being masters of all the skaven styles, it's implied (it's a little hard to ascertain) that Grey Seers only use Warp Magic, whilst Plague Priests and Eshin Sorcerers only use Plague Magic and Stealth Magic respectively. Warlock Engineers, meanwhile, can't use magic at all, but instead can make unique magitek gizmos.

Also, CotHR says that rogue Grey Seers can learn Chaos Magic or Necromancy, although this paints them as skaven heretics.

=== 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.

=== Special Characters ===
The cast of Skaven special characters has shifted and flowed across editions, but this is the original list from 4e:
* [[Verminlord]]
* Grey Seer [[Thanquol]]
* [[Lord Skrolk]], Plaguelord of Clan Pestilens
* [[Ikit Claw]], Chief Warlock of Clan Skryre
* [[Throt the Unclean]], Master Mutator of Clan Moulder
* [[Deathmaster Snikch]], Chief Assassin of Clan Eshin
* Warlord [[Queek Head-Taker]]

7th edition added two new characters to the list:
* Beastmaster [[Skweel Gnawtooth]]
* Chieftain [[Tretch Craventail]]

6th edition also saw the creation of a handful of new characters, whose stats appeared either in [[White Dwarf]] or on Games Workshop's website - back before they turned it into a mere shopping center. In addition to converting many 4e characters who'd been left out of their 6e army book, such as Snikch and Ikit Claw, 6e saw the creation of:
* [[Ghoritch]], Castellan of Hell Pit
* Warlock Master [[Klawmunkast]] and his [[Steam Tank|Rat Tank]].
* Plague Lord [[Morbus Sanguis]]

=== 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==
[[Image:Female skaven.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Canon image of a female Skaven.]]
[[Image:Skaven female cheerleaders.jpg|thumb|250px|left|The closest thing to a female Skaven model to come out of Games Workshop.]]
The skaven as a whole fit the idea of "ratmen" - with particular emphasis on the ''men'' part. All named skaven characters are male, and new fans invariably wonder; what about females? Where do skaven come from?

There was never any great emphasis placed on them. Indeed, they were left so ambiguous that the first ever description of skaven females actually came about as a result of one fan's fanfiction, during those hoary days when [[Gnome]]s and [[Half-Orc]]s were still canon. In "The Book of the Rat", a fan-made netbook of skaven lore for [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying]] 1st edition, female skaven were stated to be as sapient as their male counterparts, but hugely oppressed; they were kept as sexual slaves in segregated chambers of the warren, to which only the clan's elites were allowed access. Kept in miserable conditions, their life consisted of nothing but rough sex, pregnancy and looking after their mewling ratlings. Female skaven were described as rarer than male skaven, partially due to biology, primarily because their mothers and the bitter, infertile/elderly midwives tended to be particularly callous towards the female offspring and so female skaven have a much, ''much'' higher mortality rate than the males.

Those looking for official lore had to wait until the first ever Warhammer Armies: Skaven sourcebook was released, way back in Warhammer 4th edition. There, fans were presented with what is the earliest known mention of skaven females: a single line describing them as being "indolent" and "semi-intelligent" in the general Skaven entry in the bestiary section (page 50).

Modern lore, established in the Skaven's 6e army book and preserved since then, built upon this singular line and is considerably more [[grimdark]] than the fanon presented in "The Book of the Rat": female skaven are horrific monsters, implied to be basically female [[Giant Rat]]s of enormous stature, who build upon their description in 4e by being described as feral, effectively non-sapient creatures. They are basically giant wombs, locked away separately from the males and existing only to feed and produce offspring, so monstrously pregnant and indolent that their limbs have atrophied, rendering them incapable of doing anything but wallow in the breeding pits.

Further female skaven lore, such as it is, was fleshed out by Black Library fiction and most prominently by ''Children of the Horned Rat'', a skaven sourcebook for [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] 2nd edition. In CotHR, it's theorized that only one in ten skaven are female, reaching sexual maturity at the age of 2 and spending the rest of their 2 decades of life doing nothing but breed, averaging 12-24 pups a litter and 4-5 litters per year.

What's explicitly stated in that same book is that skaven females are not naturally mindless, but instead this is the result of the skaven's malevolence and their need to [[fleshcrafting|"improve" upon nature]]; from a young age, skaven females are constantly dosed with Warpstone-based narcotics and hallucinogens, intended to keep them docile and segregated, so they will not protest their life of endless baby-making. There is a single line hinting that this may not be as effective as the male skaven think: "So cloistered away from the rest of their race are they that they do not learn their race’s chittering speech, nor are they proficient in even the simplest social skills…or so the Skaven believe." But still the vast majority of "Rat Mothers" spend their lives incessantly pregnant and an interminable drug-fueled haze, often blind and/or crippled, and dependent on the ministrations of the "Ratwives" - castrated skaven who serve as nurses to the female Skaven themselves and midwives to their endless litters.

Access to the females is carefully guarded. The most powerful of skaven are allowed to own one or more females for their private use - females are readily traded between clans as extremely valuable bargaining chips - and access to the communal females in the breeding pits is restricted to high-ranked or otherwise successful skaven; in one of the [[Gotrek & Felix]] novels, a Skaven is rewarded by his superior by being given permission to mate with one, whilst "Thanquol's Doom" features a skaven who partially lost their nose in an "incident" whilst mating with a breeder - apparently, she got too excited and tried to eat him.

It bears mentioning that the status of the "breeders" does have some real-world basis to it. The rodent contains the only known eusocial mammals; the mole-rats, who live in colonies consisting of a single reproducing female with one (or up to three, for naked mole rats) reproducing males reigning over a large brood of sterile offspring that work as a collective to survive. In these cases, however, there are equal numbers of males and females, and it's the presence of a breeding queen and her pheromones that causes sterility into the younger mole-rats; if removed from her presence, they become fertile in turn.

It also bears mentioning that, in [[Blood Bowl]], the Skaven team comes with cheerleaders who are non-"Breeder" females, which you can tell because they have [[/d/|four big breasts each]]. But then, Blood Bowl also has [[Orcs & Goblins|fem-Orcs]], so its connection to canon of any edition after 3e is kind of dubious.

===Non-Canon Female Skaven===
{{Promotions}}
{{Heresy}}

Fans being fans, and the natural appeal of the skaven as a [[beastfolk]] race to [[furries]], there have been many fans who find the fate of female skaven to be rather... disappointing. So, there is an undercurrent in the seedier, steamier depths of /tg/ where fans like to talk about non-Rat Mother female skaven. Many have tried arguing that, given the reverence for the Grey Seers, combined with the Chaotic tinge of the skaven, then surely there are rare female Grey Seers who are thus spared the fate of their sisters. Others have pointed that since Breeders are heavily dosed up with chemicals, then if that fate was spared for some reason, then surely female skaven would turn out to be at least as competent as their brothers. Still others note that skaven can't resist tinkering, so it's not impossible a Grey Seer or Master Moulder might make use of a "thinking Breeder".

And, in fact, this last argument one even has a dash of canon to it: in C.L. Werner's "Grey Seer" novel, [[Thanquol]] encounters a [[Grey Seer]] (Thratquee of Under-Altdorf) who owns two personal breeders he has [[fleshcrafting|"improved"]], granting them an unusual clarity of thought, freedom of motion and muscle hidden under their chub; built like a cross between a breeder and a [[Rat Ogre]], they're essentially the skaven equivalent of [[amazon]] bodyguards, and Thanquol is simultaneously horrified and a little impressed at the realization that these "harmless females" will actually kill any skaven who dare to threaten their mate. This makes them the ultimate bodyguards in the eternal backstab-fest that is skaven society.

All of these arguments are reaching, understandably. But that hasn't stopped fans from dabbling in fem-skaven [[Your dudes|homebrew characters]] or [[Rule 34|more cheesecake-level artwork]]. One infamous skaven-loving furry even created his own homebrew clan of renegade female skaven, Clan Sniek, an offshoot clan of Clan Eshin who scavenge on the outskirts of skaven society and raid weaker warlord clans to steal away their females to bolster their own numbers. Clan Sniek is also known to "dabble" with human men, for pleasure and/or procreative purposes; there's even a named Gutter Runner female in a relationship with an Imperial human. His artwork tends to pop up whenever a [[ratfolk]] thread does or the topic of non-Breeder female skaven arises.

Thus, the argument about whether or not Rat Mothers are interesting will probably rage forever.

<center>
<gallery>
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.
Image:Female Gutter Runner.jpg|Sneaking around in the human's storehouses clearly has its advantages.
Image:Female Poison Wind Globadier.jpg|We won't make the obvious pun.
Image:Female Stormvermin.jpg|Being high in the clan's totem pole has its perks.
Image:Futa Master Molder.jpg|Some Master Moulders go [[dickgirl|a lot further]] than others when it comes to [[fleshcrafting]].
Image:Female Stormvermin Fangleader.jpg
</gallery>
</center>

;Clan Sniek
<center>
<gallery>
Image:Gutter Runner of Clan Sniek.jpg|A Gutter Runner of Clan Sniek; the clan relies on stealth for survival.
Image:Assassin of Clan Sniek.jpg|An Assassin of Clan Sniek; they tend to focus more on other skaven than on humans.
Image:Packmaster of Clan Sniek.jpg|Clan Sniek's packmasters specialize in capturing human men - sometimes as slaves, sometimes as breeding partners.
Image:Master Assassin of Clan Sniek.jpg|Almost Prophet, a mutant female skaven born with pale fur but no horns, Master Assassin and founder of Clan Sniek.
Image:Grey Seer of Clan Sniek.jpg|Clan Sniek's Grey Seer yearns to dethrone Almost Prophet and rule the clan herself.
Image:Master Molder of Clan Sniek.jpg|Tichiz, Clan Sniek's Master Moulder, is perhaps the most feared skaven in the clan.
Image:Sorceress of Clan Sniek.jpg|Vaquit Silverspit, a female skaven sorcerer, wields great power in Clan Sniek for both her mastery of the Dark Lore of Stealth and her expertise with her rifle.
Image:Verminqueen.jpg|The mysterious Verminqueen is the dark patron of Clan Sniek.
Image:Audience with the Verminqueen.jpg|Sometimes, the Verminqueen deigns to tryst with mortals.
</gallery>
</center>

==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 -- the "Design a [[Daemon Prince]]/Chaos God" rules in 3e's Slaves to Darkness - The Lost and The Damned even features a skaven turned Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided.

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. Notably, 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]]

Nagash

2018-01-11T21:55:57Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:7CB7:9ACE:3532:1A89:

<div style="text-align:left;font-size:1.10em;font-weight:italic;font-style:bold;font-family:MS Gothic;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em"> THOSE SOULS ARE MINE YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! - Nagash bitching at Sigmar and co. for Stealing his Shit'''</div>

''"There will be no escape, no blessed oblivion. I can end your life as easily as I can extinguish a candle, and before your corpse is cold, I can reach out and grasp your soul. You will be my slave for all eternity, and I shall laugh at the depths of your pain. Such is the power of Nagash."'' 
- Nagash the Undying

''"The only greatness for man is immortality."'' 
- James Dean
[[File:Age Nagash.jpg|right|600px|thumb|What an [[Assholetep|asshole]] and a colossal skeletal dickhead.]]'''Nagash''' is the <strike>first</strike> second [[Necromancer]] and arguably the second <s>most evil character</s> <s>biggest asshole</s> most evil badass evil asshole character to ever curse the [[Warhammer Fantasy]] world. Ever. After [[Drachenfels]], of course (though in the End Times Drachenfels is forced to play second fiddle to Nagash after getting beaten by a playwright wielding the power of Sigmar).
He went into hand-to-hand combat with the likes of [[Sigmar]], and has plans to kick [[Khorne]], [[Tzeentch]], [[Slaanesh]], and [[Nurgle]] (as of Age of Sigmar, the [[Horned Rat|Great Horned Rat]] as well) out of the [[Warp]] and become [[Chaos]] itself. Despite being the setting's main villain apart from [[Archaon]] and the Chaos Gods, he hasn't been directly involved in as much as you think. To be fair, he did destroy Nehekhara, nearly killed Sigmar (but successfully handicapped him until his ascension) and used his armies of undead to [[Awesome|fight THE ENTIRE SKAVEN EMPIRE to a stalemate]], but until the End Times (see below), his main mark on the setting was creating Necromancy and what his various [[Vampire Counts|fan-clubs]] and [[Tomb Kings|critics]] did with it. In Age of Sigmar, he is [[Sigmar]]'s fav frenemy.

==Early life==
Nagash was the firstborn son of King Khetep of Khemri. Unlike most places, in Nehekhara the firstborn sons of the royal family were given to the temples and the second sons would become kings. He joined the Nehekharan Mortuary Cult and quickly rose to become High Priest. Like all Mortuary Priests, he was searching for a means of achieving immortality; following the command of the by then (oh irony!) long-dead [[Settra the Imperishable]]. Despite his rank of High Priest in the Mortuary Cult, he coveted even greater power.

After the death of their father, Nagash's brother Thutep took to the throne, becoming the ruler of Khemri. Rather than mourn his father that had died gruesomely (which was the first red flag for the uninitiated that something was wrong with the guy), Nagash was more interested in what killed their father, for his corpse bore the marks of powerful dark magic. Unfortunately for the Khemrians and the world as a whole, he found the source of the magic. During a ceremony he got his hands on some [[Dark Elves (Warhammer)|Dark Elf]] sorcerers who'd been taken prisoner (back before [[Malekith]] forbade males from learning magic, as the group consisted of one man and two women). An interesting piece of trivia is that these trio of Dark Elves were the leaders of the covert-op unit that was killing Dwarf caravans to start the [[War of the Beard]]. So we can place Nagash in the timeline properly; the first Nagash novel occurs approximately just after the second War of Vengeance novel and demonstrates another way the Dark Elves have helped fuck up the world.
[[File:Wallpaper-nagash-sorcerer.jpg||thumb|right|400px|Nagash; once was human, always was an asshole.]]
He trapped them in his father's pyramid, forcing them to barter their sorcerous knowledge for their freedom. Despite this, they were far from subdued, demanding whatever they could from Nagash, from silk pillows to books (particularly ones about tomb construction and architecture...). From them, Nagash learned of the Chaos Gate in the far north and the Winds of Magic that blew from it, and how they may be harnessed by a careful practitioner. Unlike the sorceries of Khemri, which relied on the intercession of gods, Nagash learned that mortals could manipulate magic for themselves. He learned of Dark Magic and of how it coagulated into warpstone. Although the Dark Elves withheld the full depths of their knowledge; Nagash, a twisted and brilliant genius in his own way, had become one of the few humans to truly master Dark Magic from what they had taught him.

Nagash was a very good student of the Dark Elves. When not learning from them he performed many experiments of his own (which involved mass human sacrifices) along with other evil magic-y things. When Nagash was done with the sorcerers he brutally killed them during an escape attempt and consumed their souls (you know that when someone can out-evil and out-betray '''Dark Elves''', they're cold mothafuckas). Taking everything he’d learnt, Nagash created an elixir out of human blood which allowed him to stay alive through death (although the body degenerated, becoming essentially a lich without a Phylactery). He wandered the Necropolis of Khemri, summoning spirits of the departed and daemons with his new power, and learned great secrets. He penned nine different [[Necronomicon]]/Book of Vile Darkness books which contain all of his work and experiments (which nobody to date has ever managed to attain the same degree of working knowledge of; because Nagash took a leaf from [[The Lord of the Rings|Sauron]] and inscrolled part of himself in each of his artefacts so no one but him could master them). The books explain the details and use of Necromancy, a form of magic that Nagash had codified from Death magic along with the rituals of the Tomb Kings and the Dark Magic tidbits his Dark Elf tutors gave him (He was not the first to attempt this, but he was the first to be so unequivocally successful). Necromancy, although usable by the forces of Chaos, also repels it; in a way the Undead are artificial Daemons made of equal amount of magic and material which flips the middle finger at the laws of physics (as much as Chaos can be said to have such laws anyway) of both.

==King of Khemri==
During his studies Nagash also planned to overthrow his brother, scheming with several disgruntled military officers and nobles ([[Arkhan the Black|including a certain wastrel who would go on to become his infamous right hand man]]). Initially his reasons were that he thought his brother, Thutep, was a weak king and that Khemri needed a stronger hand to rule it (his own) and that he REALLY had the hots for Thutep's wife, but couldn’t have her at the time due to the marriage and required celibacy of priests. When confronted over his experiments with dark magic, Nagash then killed his brother by entombing him alive in their father’s pyramid. The next morning, Nagash claimed the throne of Khemri for himself along with Thutep’s wife. To secure his throne he murdered her son/his nephew and used the elixir to make her his sort of undead sex-slave. Nagash contracted the services of the [[Skaven]], and assembled the largest pyramid in Nehekhara (a big feat) made entirely out of black [[Warpstone]]. However doing so was so expensive, Nagash demanded such a large tribute of building materials and slaves that he nearly bankrupted Nehekhara; the fabulously wealthy kingdom became as poor as a wino in a war-torn city. During this time, his unholy work had become an open secret, and many others in Khemri flocked to his promise of immortality and power as well as a third of the Priests of Khemri.

However, the other Kings of Nehekhara were aghast at Nagash's reign of terror. Enraged at the corruption he had brought, and in fear of the wrath of the gods, the kings from seven other lesser cities formed an alliance to force Nagash from his throne. A powerful army was raised against Khemri.

Nagash, in turn, used the Black Pyramid to channel the energies of his Necromancy and raise an army of the undead; a horde of skeletons to destroy the attacking armies. [[Just as planned]]. Such a thing was unheard of, and in the death-obsessed culture of Nehekhara, it was recognized as the greatest of obscenities. Hundreds fled, terrified by the thoughts of battle versus the departed. Things got even worse when Nagash had his undead wife killed to break the covenant between the Nehekharans and their gods. However all was not lost. Although many did flee the sight of the dead army, the forces of the other kings rallied; Lybaras brought with them new technologies (including [[Awesome|steam-powered hot air balloons]]) and Lahmia brought guns from Cathay. With the awesome new tech and the fact that though the priests no longer had the god's blessings they still had magic; they managed to push the undead back to Khemri and after a final battle defeat Nagash. He retreated to his sarcophagus in the Black Pyramid while Arkhan and an army of undead covered his retreat.

It was generally decided at that time that all that Nagash had wrought during his accursed reign should be destroyed: the cabal of twisted followers he had ensnared to his ghastly practices were put to the sword, and great fires consumed much of what Nagash had done and written—even his precious Nine tomes were believed to be among the ashes…

==The Great Necromancer==
Nagash had not been slain, but had fled into the desert, the Saharan style one with no water anywhere. He wandered through the desert, yelling and raging to scare off the hungry jackals that followed him until he got far enough into the desert that even they abandoned the chase. Without any of his elixir, he was doomed to perish in the wastes. One night, he did die. During this time his brother Thutep's soul found his and rightfully castigated Nagash over all of his evil. He pointed out that breaking the covenant with the gods had made it hard for the dead to find Nehekhara's version of heaven and that many vengeful dead wanted payback against Nagash. However, the next morning, Nagash returned to his body, got right back up and kept walking.

[[Awesome|That's right, Nagash went "fuck this!" to being dead and just kept going.]] (Once again, another being who makes the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emprah]] look like a failure. [[Archaon|It's sort of a theme in Fantasy though]]).
[[File:Nagash-necromancer.jpg|400px|thumb|right|"For you, death is the end of your life. For me, it was Saturday."]]
He eventually came upon a mountain inhabited by various tribes of humans. Taking the guise of one of their fell gods, he used his undead armies to conquer them and, with an army of living and undead, made a new domain for himself. He took the mountain and turned into a fortress-city to inspire terror and awe the world over - Nagashizzar. The mountain's highest peak was its tower. During his exile, Nagash learned how to manipulate the warpstone, and at Nagashizzar he forged many of his famed artifacts of power including his wretched sword Mortis (AKA Zebt-Nefar), his Crown of Sorcery, and his Black Armour (AKA Morikhaine). Prolonged exposure to the mutagenic warpstone twisted Nagash into a hideous monster, no longer recognizably human. It increased his size and his strength but left him little more than a walking skeleton.

Such a large amount of warpstone drew other creatures, namely Skaven, who fought a massive war against Nagash for control of Cripple Peak. The Skaven armies were vast, but Nagash's magic abilities were also massive, as were his armies of undead. After years of war led to a bitter stalemate, Nagash offered the Skaven a truce: he would give them warpstone if they would give him slaves in exchange. The Skaven, wary of his plans but coveting the warpstone, agreed; luring several Orc tribes into the pits beneath his fortress for Nagash to slaughter and feed his rituals.

When Nagash checked in on Nehekhara, he found that the folks in Lahmia had been up to mischief. For hundreds of years the kings continued to rule Nehekhara much as they had before. In Lahmia the reigning Queen Neferata had come across a copy of one of the Books of Nagash; they hadn’t been destroyed, but had been taken there by the Queen’s power-hungry brother. She was captivated by the dark lore contained within and begun studying Necromancy.

Finally driven by her quest for immortality to make a pact with Nagash, she took an elixir distilled from his own blood. The moment the elixir reached her lips, Neferata's fate was sealed. She had chosen damnation and exile: Her heart stopped beating, and she became something both more and less than human. She became the first true vampire. Nefereta gathered to her the eleven greatest minds and champions of Lahmia, and gave to them each a portion of this elixir. They were the Master Vampires, from whom all other vampires in the world are descended.

But Nagash had underestimated his former countrymen. Alcadizaar the Conqueror was the greatest general of his age (the 6th dynasty of Nehekhara) -- and some argue the greatest king to rule Khemri since [[Settra the Imperishable|Settra]] -- and led a unified army against the undead invaders. After many years of bloody war the hordes of Nagash were pushed back. After a night of dueling and namecalling the vampires made a run for it (other than W'soran's followers, most of whom refused to leave Nagash's burning library. For W'soran's part, he grabbed as many books as he could carry and made off into the night). As such the Master Vampires decided to flee, with only W'soran remaining at Nagash's side eager for more necromantic lore.

Nagash was so furious he cursed all vampire kind to burn in the rays of the sun and threw a tantrum for a fortnight. Once he stopped killing failed minions and wrecking things, he sat down and brooded. [[Grimdark|He decided that undeath was awesome and life was overrated]]. Nagash had gained knowledge of all of the Winds, including those that did not blow through Nehekhara, and became one of the only mortals to gain a grasp of understanding about the Chaos Gods without his mind breaking. Far from it in fact, he saw them as a goal; to become Chaos and rule over the material plane consisting only of the mindless Undead. His first targets were the Nehekharans. He paid the Skaven to poison the River Vitae and unleashed a magical plague to decimate every living thing in Nehekhara (ironic considering Nagash and Nurgle don't get along later). He then sent an undead army to Khemri to capture the current king, named Alcadizaar, and bring him to Nagash.

This was so Nagash could personally make an example of him and for the final phase of his omnicidal dream. Nagash used Alcadizaar to cast a ritual that would kill EVERYTHING in Nehekhara (making it a land with no water anywhere, no vegetation, no animals, nothing; just skeletons), then awaken all of the dead in Nehekhara into a gigantic undead army under Nagash's command. He would use this army to [[Grimdark|kill every living thing in the world get his kingdom of undeath where only he would rule for all eternity]].

After the biggest summoning in history, Nagash was weakened so he needed to recuperate for the last part. He had Alcadizaar thrown into a dungeon for later torture and took a power nap on his throne. Fortunately for the rest of the world, Alcadizaar was spirited away by the VERY frightened Skaven (united for the first time in THEIR history in order to stop Nagash; should give you an idea how scary the bastard was at the apex of his power) into Nagash's throne room itself and given [[Fellblade|a sword made of pure Warpstone which was SO deadly, Alcadizaar only had a short amount of time to use it before he himself died just from touching it]]. So our "hero" was teleported straight to the big bad's throne room and chopped off Nagash’s hand before he could react. The only thing the Skaven DIDN'T do was actually physically do it, though the Council of Thirteen did use their magic to protect Alcadizaar from Nagash's magic even as it slowly killed them (the fact that SKAVEN were co-operating and knowingly risking their lives shows just how much shit had hit the fan).

Despite both being fatigued and weakened by their ordeals, the ensuing battle was titanic. The battle lasted for ages, for even in his weakened state, Nagash was a foe to be reckoned with. But finally it was Alcadizaar who emerged victorious. Flying into a rage, Alcadizaar flew at Nagash and hacked away at him until he was dead and his corpse left in many small pieces. Alcadizaar took his crown as a trophy and staggered off, with Skaven agents gathering all of Nagash's body parts (except for his right hand, which crawled away unnoticed after the fight...) and burning them in Warpstone fire. For Alcadizaar it was the ultimate sacrifice; killing Nagash cost Alcadizaar literally everything. His kingdom (the largest empire in the world) was killed to a man during the final battle, in which his family died which ended his line forever, his sanity was shattered, and the weapon he needed to use to kill Nagash was slowly killing him as well since he was too broken to even think of abandoning it ([[Grimdark|or maybe Alcadizaar wanted to die at that point]]). And it did; the Skaven got the Fellblade back when his lifeless body washed up on a coast, still clutching the deadly blade.

==Nagash’s Return==
Nagash's nine books were lost, popping up in various times and places. Alcadizaar's body, bearing the Crown of Sorcery made by Nagash (which was actually a modified Phylactery) washed up on shore in the [[Old World]] along the Mediterranean equivalent, which gave rise to the Necromantic kingdom of Mourkain.

Nagash did not stay dead. Using the power of his Black Pyramid, he was able to knit his body back together, piece by tiny piece, over 1,111 years. The next time he rose, he found the lands of Nehekhara defended by many jealous undead kings with their combined armies of skeletons equal to anything he could muster. Nagash challenged the reigning king of Khemri, the first King Settra, for the rule of Nehekhara. Settra and the other Kings, furious at what Nagash had done, chased him from Nehekhara. They had no fear of his monstrous form or the undead hordes he commanded, for they commanded skeletal legions of their own and had become just as monstrous in appearance as him. And while powerful, Nagash no longer had the power to bend them all to his will, despite being their creator. He had lost too much, and the Tomb Kings had gained in power and independance while he regenerated.
[[File:The Black Pyramid.PNG|thumb|right|300px|The Black Pyramid, when active.]]
Returning to his fortress, Nagash found the Skaven had mined most of the warpstone away. Nevertheless, in one night, he drove all the Skaven from Cripple Peak, venting his frustrations on the ratmen. The Skaven made many attempts at regaining Cripple Peak, but having been defeated by Arkhan who once again joined his master, they eventually decided that they had gathered enough of the warpstone, and left Cripple Peak for good.

After wiping out the Skaven who'd taken over his fortress, Nagash realised that he needed his old magical artefacts to reassert his power, including his stolen crown. So Nagash forged a new hand to replace his missing one out of a warpstone alloy. The crown had been taken north into the Badlands, where it fell into the hands of Orcs who raided across the Black Mountains and seemingly disappeared. Nagash led a great army into the nascent Empire to reclaim it. During the final battle he fought in a duel with [[Sigmar]] himelf and nearly defeated him. Sigmar, realizing what was at stake went on a [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Humanity Fuck Yeah!]] [[Rage|rampage]] and finally crushed Nagash's skull with his hammer. The spirit of Nagash fled the battlefield and went back to his fortress were he recovered, having learned that the world now has powers capable to match him. Even Sigmar at the height of his power only just managed to defeat Nagash, and even then only by wearing Nagash's own crown to protect him from Nagash's magic. A crown that had pretty much sent Sigmar insane the last time he wore it. Even then, fighting Nagash crippled Sigmar; while he still kicked a lot of ass he did not regain his full strength until much later.

Nagash did pop up a few times more after that, but each time he did, he was weaker than the time before; pre-retcon every time he died the ghosts of people he killed would gang up on him in the Afterlife and hurt him a bit more each time. Post-retcon the Fellblade was ''so'' deadly, its killing blow was continuing to eat away at Nagash's very spirit, slowly making him less and less with each incarnation. Nagash once again returned to life, 1,666 years after his death at the hands of Sigmar, in the night known as the Night of the Restless Dead, but was so weak he was only alive for a single night before his power weakened and he slipped back into the afterlife.

During the downtime, Nagash recruited a "young" Vampire named [[Mannfred von Carstein]] to serve him, and he worked with Nagash's servant [[Arkhan the Black]] to resurrect their master. Now the time has come...FOR [[Games Workshop|GAMES WORKSHOP]] TO UNLEASH THEIR LATEST CASH COW IN THE NAME OF NAGASH!

==In the Game (Old Times)==
[[File:Nagash_Derp.jpg|left|150px|thumb|Nagash in all his [[Derp|derptastic]] evilness.]]
Nagash was actually a special character back when it was just ''Warhammer Armies: Undead'' and all the dead boys were united in one armybook. Despite being described as "a pale shadow of his former self" he was an unholy rapetrain - a statline with the lowest stats being 6's (init and attacks) and everything else being a 7. Add in a completely unmodifiable 4+ save against everything (including any and all spell effects), a sword that gives him +1 str and lets him use any wounds he causes to heal himself and being one of the most powerful mages in the game making him pretty much unstoppable. (<s>''Unless you threw a High Mage at him with Drain Magic and Banishment which resulted in epic lulz.''</s> Foolish Elf. Nagash would take High Magic with his book just to prevent you to do that.)

It used to be speculated, before Games Workshop advanced their storyline with [[Skub|The End Times and Age of Sigmar]], that Nagash getting off his bony arse and doing shit would be a game ender. There were only a handful of non-divine characters equal to or more powerful than him such as Sigmar [who'd beaten him once before], Kroak [though now he's much weaker as a ghost-Slann] and other First Spawning Slann who would simply think Nagash out of existence if they were still alive, arguably Morathi, Malekith, Aenarion, Teclis [is described as being if not his equal in magic, then close behind], and Archaon the Everchosen. It was even said that nothing short of the direct intervention of gods would stop him and even then, the world would be a graveyard.

[[The End Times|His return was a game changer; it was the big event used to introduce and promote The End Times]].

In those days Games Workshop chose to give him what might very well be the single most [[Derp|derptastic]] model to ever blight a tabletop with its presence, an unholy abomination of fail so ridiculous that it makes the [[Tyranid]] [[Biovore]] look like a towering monument of awe and might in comparison. Even the beardiest of [[cheese]]mongers thought twice before fielding it, knowing all too well that they would pay for it not only in army points, but in dignity and self-respect. There was a running joke that the model was made stupid-looking to prevent people from using Nagash, therefore keeping him from changing the status quo.

Interesting, there could have been a chance to have a non-derpy Nagash model the whole time. The true reason for this terrible model was internal strife within the company. [[Old School Roleplaying|Years ago, when GW cared somewhat about the customers more than their money]], the sculptor wanted Nagash to have more of a desiccated corpse look, while a skeletal look was being demanded from his superiors. [[Just As Planned|In an attempt to force them to accept a resculpt with a non-skeletal face, he made Nagash's skull as stupid-looking as he could]] (oh, how he succeeded). [[Not As Planned|Unfortunately, they decided to go with that sculpt instead of demand he redo it]].

==[[The End Times]]==
[[Image:Nagash White Dwarf.jpg|500px|thumb|right|1000 points in WFB and costs 100 <strike>Naggaroth</strike> 'Murican dollars, now 70-99% derp free! (Percentage largely depends largely on your opinion of the pope hat to end all pope hats; some players cut it down, or replaced it with the larger skeleton head from the Necrosphinx.)]]
'''GUESS WHO'S BACK!!!!!!!'''

Nagash is back, with fuckawesome (and fuckexpensive) model (*It would be 100% if not for the derpy skull face on the staff; which can be solved by using the sword instead, the ridiculous skeleton pope hat that is the size of a man standing on another man's shoulders; though that is meant to evoke [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pschent the Pschent crowns] of real-life Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, the [[/d/|naughty tentacle]] spinal cords borrowed from Doctor Octopus, or the buck-teeth on the ghosts. Oh yeah, and that long bone hanging between his legs...) and another storyline chapter that involves everyone this time.

His primary goal is to bring order to the world; with the dawn of the End Times we see the [[High Elves]] and [[Dark Elves (Warhammer)|Dark Elves]] getting railed by massive chaos incursions while the [[Wood Elves (Warhammer)|Wood Elves]] sit in their forest laughing about how everyone is gonna be speared on [[Slaanesh|Slaanesh's]] dick but them. The [[Beastmen]] who are massing disagree with this assessment however. The [[Empire]] is currently taking it from behind by nearly every faction in the game (mainly the [[Warriors of Chaos]] lead by [[Archaon]] who is determined not to end up looking like a little shit this time) at the moment, with [[Kislev]] having been almost entirely wiped out (assuming this "End Times" is a wash like the last one they'll have rebuilt their green wood castles in a week, but still). [[Bretonnia]] was in flames as civil war tore through the country, but has mostly united now, even if 50% of the population died. The [[Orcs & Goblins]] have been decimated by the attacks of [[Eltharion]] against their race as WAAAGH!s that lasted since the dawn of time were obliterated with fire magic, leaving no spores to repopulate. The remainder of their race (barring individuals and their bands such as [[Skarsnik]], Warlord of the Eight Peaks and [[Grimgor Ironhide]]) are heading straight for eastern [[Ulthuan]] into a trap that could possibly work and wipe out most of the greenskins. The [[Skaven]] backstabbing and plotting against the world hasn't changed of course and are currently conquering the majority of the southern human nations with numbers that even vampires think is excessive. [[Lizardmen]] are under assault from [[Chaos|Daemons]], and Mazdamundi declares that the great plan has failed and that a great exodus must begin. [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dwarfs]] have barricaded themselves in their holds, or else gone about trying to retake and rebuild the [[Eight Peaks]] thanks to being shunned by both the Empire and [[Tyrion]] when help was offered in their missions against the Undead (of course, thanks to the fact that Dwarfs will rather destroy their own race than let grudges go, it's unlikely that the Dwarfs will be around long after reunification and the chance to avenge themselves at each other with impunity).

Of course since this is [[Games Workshop|Games Whiteshop]], we wouldn't have heard about what's going on in the rest of the world with the browns and Asians... if not for Josh Reynolds. Cathay was embroiled in a civil war instigated by local Tzeentch worshippers along with them and everyone else being clusterfucked by Chaos, Skaven and/or Undead too.

In his own End Times book, after much scheming, magic and war from Arkhan and Mannfred, Nagash has risen again. By the way you can read the efforts of Arkhan and Mannfred to bring back Naggy in the "The Return of Nagash", brought to you by Black Library, among the highlights of the novel you get Count Nyktolos "Count Von Count", finally fulfilling the long time wish of /tg/ to get the old Sesame Street star as a vampire Count.

Once he came back he held up his hands for quiet, then told the assembled peoples of the world this; "Guys, I got a plan. Everyone just take off your skin and meat, and line up over there. Trust me guys, this'll work for sure." As one can imagine, that isn't going over so well. The first to get crushed was [[Settra the Imperishable]], who united the [[Tomb Kings]] (and punished those who refused to kiss the ring and get in line by ordering their unliving skull by used as artillery ammunition) against just such a threat. The idea that anyone rule over SETTRA THE FUCKYOU was too much for the old man, but it turned out badly and his army (plus one of his gods) were destroyed/eaten by Nagash. Likewise, Archaon stopped his march into the Empire and instead followed a route that would lead him to the massive Undead fuckhead that DARED to take HIS rightful place as big-bad of the setting.

Following similar logic, [[Queen Neferata]] has gathered a massive army pulled from the Undead across the world, as well as the living armies whose leaders have been under her thumb since day one. But she has not yet decided who she'll follow; on one hand, serving Nagash would be beneficial as he's seeking to become the Chaos God of Undeath (replacing all four of the other Chaos Gods and BECOMING Chaos Undivided) which would make her ruler of all beneath him. On the other hand..."serving" isn't something she does, to the point that one of her earliest decisions after leaving his service originally involved [[Ushoran|pooling all the forces available to her to go fuck up one of her closest allies and his entire kingdom because he implied that he was better at ruling than her.]] If she DOES choose to serve however (as in, if the player who shells out $79 for her model fields her as a model in the [[Undead Legion]] army) she becomes known as the Mortarch of Blood and takes place in Nagash's trinity of servants.

But Nagash has planned for his return well. His first servant and first in the big three Mortarchs, [[Arkhan the Black]], became known as the Mortarch of Sacrament. Arkhan leads Nagash's main army against the forces of the world. Meanwhile [[Vlad von Carstein]], Mortarch of Shadow, leads a detachment of Nagash's forces against Archaon's Chaos army to ensure that the <s>Nordic fuckup</s> half-blooded EMPIRE Daemon Prince fuckup that got boo-ed offstage in [[Storm of Chaos]] doesn't interfere with Nagash's big moment in the spotlight. He even cemented power by entering the Afterlife, defeating and consuming the god of the dead for humanity Usirian (AKA Morr and all the other names humans have for their god of the dead in Warhammer Fantasy). He even tore Settra apart, though didn't kill him, and forced Settra to watch the destruction of Khemri. Nagash then went on to bitch-slap the Tomb Kings into submission, destroying the few that resisted and finally has his FUCKHEUG undead army to conquer the world, which he will use to ruin the day of Chaos' forces, he also has now <s>a Necron Monolith</s> his own Flying Black Pyramid.

Nagash landed the Black Pyramid in Sylvania, surrounded by a River Styx expy where the magic builds up, and spent the next three books chilling in a sarcophagus, slowly absorbing the wind of Death Magic. During that time Arkhan took a leaf from [[The Lord of the Rings|the Witch King and the Mouth of Sauron]], keeping the undead legions in order. When Isabella and the turncoat Nameless lead a Nurglite host attack Sylvania, Arkhan arranged a battle plan. The undead hold them off but they force their way to the front, even slaying Krell and Arkhan. Just after Arkhan is killed by Isabella, Nagash wakes up and enters the battle, but while Isabella distracts Nagash by trolling him her Skaven allies destroy the Black Pyramid with warpstone bombs (the warpstone equivalent of nukes) placed by tunneling teams. Nagash gets pissed enough to impress an [[Angry Marine]] and destroys all the daemons, including a Great Unclean One, with a single blast of magic. After venting, Nagash took stock. Between that epic, magical temper tantrum and the Black Pyramid's destruction he can't reach godhood as he originally planned. After much introspection Nagash swallowed his pride and conceded that he would either have to serve the Chaos Gods or ally with the living to survive. He reluctantly chose the latter, bringing back Arkhan and Krell; despite his frustration over their failure, he needed loyal, intelligent servants.

He leaves Neferata to rule Sylvania and its undead legions before going to Athel Loren, sending Mannfred as a messenger to parley. During the meeting Nagash tries to engender goodwill by handing Mannfred to the elves as compensation for Aliathra's death, but he also taunts Alarielle and Tyrion about Aliathra's fate and withholds Arkhan's involvement because he's too useful (the only reason Nagash even did this was because Malekith had nearly convinced the other Incarnates that they didn't need Nagash and, combined, the six Incarnates present could have destroyed him). His army is ordered to stay out of Athel Loren, except for Vlad and Arkhan. Nagash and his accompanying two Mortarchs are escorted everywhere under heavy guard including at least two other Incarnates because (understandably) no-one trusts him. When the forces of Chaos arrive, Nagash goes "Bitch Please!" and gives a beatdown to anything thrown at him, from Beastmen warbands to monsters; he even solos A [[Bloodthirster|BLOODTHIRSTER]]... AND WINS! After being teleported to Middenheim with Arkhan, Krell, Vlad and part of his army he roftstomps his way through the Chaos forces occupying Middenheim until they get to the the excavation. Along the way he kills Chaos' prisoners, bringing back all the dead as zombies under his control. His forces do take losses, including Krell being killed by Sigvald. He then he meets Settra, who was restored by the Chaos Gods. He tells Nagash he was sent to kill him, before killing a daemon that was about to attack Nagash. Settra explains that NO ONE COMMANDS HIM, that he's going to take down the Chaos Gods for offering him rulership for service, then he'll come back and Nagash had either better bend the knee or be slain. Settra then goes off to fight the Chaos army, leaving Nagash to join with the others.
Nagash gives Arkhan the remaining Morghasts and tells him to cover his retreat and hold the line until dead.

Nagash reaches the artifact with the other incarnates and tries to fight the forces of Chaos, providing a rearguard of zombies raised from the combined dead of Middenheim. He continues curbstomping anything that directly engages him, only fighting an opponent who can match him in the form of a stronger than average Bloodthirster, Ka'bandha.

After all the Chaos forces are defeated with Archaon MIA, the Old Ones artifact destabilizes, creating a magical rift that will consume the world. The surviving Incarnates and Teclis (who takes two winds of magic into himself) start to contain the Rift but fail when Mannfred disrupts the ritual by killing Balthazar. This led to Teclis' death as he tried to re-stabilize the magic by taking a third wind but the power is too much and he is disintegrated. Free of their control, the rift grows; when it touches the surviving Incarnates it sucks out all of their magic, including Nagash's. He is last seen collapsed and panicking while his body crumbles to dust.

Nagash is/was the hero the Warhammer World needed, and probably the one they deserved, but not the one that they wanted.

==[[Age of Sigmar]]==
The Warp was affected with the essence of the Incarnates, giving rise to eight new gods; meaning Nagash has achieved godhood, but not on his terms and with others who can challenge him. Being Nagash, he was not content with this and proceeded to nom all the other gods of the Afterlife until he was the only one left, so all dead that don't go to another god, such as Sigmar, go to him.

For a while he was allied with the other incarnate gods in this new era, providing order and occasional undead reinforcements. Soon the Incarnates went their separate ways. Surprisingly, he was the last one to abandon Sigmar and step out on his own. Unsurprisingly he did so in the most dickish way, kicking Sigmar's forces in the balls on the way out. This was the last straw, with Sigmar going back to being a barbarian god-king and roftstomping his way through Shyish to try and teach Nagash a lesson. They fought twice, with Nagash quitting the fight both times before Sigmar could finish him. After working out his rage, Sigmar finally bothered to check his inbox.... and found out that in his absence Chaos went "all your bases are belong to us!" on the realms. This made Sigmar head back and seal off his realm before working on [[Stormcast Eternals|his newest weapons]].

To add insult to injury Nagash is the reason the Stormcast Eternals degrade with each death. Nagash thinks that the souls of all the dead belong to him and doesn't like that Sigmar is taking souls to make his Sigmarines. So Nagash sticks his skeletal fingers in Sigmar's pie to try and grab some each time; the bits of memory and personality that each Stormcast loses with each death and rebirth are the bits Nagash claims. It's unknown if Sigmar is aware of this, but he has some Stormcast entering Shyish to find Nagash.

They find him all right, but with predictable results. Nagash throws their message back in their face and a fight breaks out. Nagash kills all the remaining Stormcast except their Lord-Celestant, Tarsus. Tarsus gets up, noticing that the Stormcast's souls are being trapped by Nagash, unable to return to Azyrheim and Sigmar. He mocks Nagash and hits him with a bolt of his cape hammers, hurting Nagash enough to distract him and freeing the souls of his brethren. Nagash, furious, rounds on Tarsus as he charges. Nagash kills Tarsus with a wave of amethyst fire and imprisons his soul. The story ends with Nagash gloating to the imprisoned Tarsus about how he going to torture Tarsus' soul and pry as many of Sigmar's secrets as he can from him.

Nagash's evil extends beyond his universe. Apparently, GW must have bribed Naggy with souls or whatever, because in the new Death Faction Nagash didn't see fit to bring back the Tomb Kings.

The coming campaign "Malign Portents" seems to be focused on him. He finally got his Black Pyramid repaired (there is a pool about how long it will last before it gets nuked again, especially since once again Nurgle's forces are sticking their hand in Nagash's pie) and he's planning to raise the dead everywhere. The new Knights of Shrouds champion lore revealed he also managed to win one tug-of-war for someone's soul against Sigmar.

==Why Nagash is so evil==
While most evil characters on the game have done their share of bad deeds, Nagash has a special place amongst them thanks to sheer volume and scope. The following lists illustrates how sick this fuck is:
* Entombed his own brother alive and stole his wife.
* Turned said wife into an agony-ridden walking corpse and kept her that way for centuries. The process he used to accomplish this involved tricking her into drinking the blood of her murdered son; who was also Nagash's nephew. Sadistically, the trick was based around a mocking promise he would never harm said nephew again.
* Usurped Nehekhara's throne; then his reign was responsible for the deaths of at least tens of thousands of people, and he nearly destroyed the kingdom's economy to build his Black Pyramid.
* Captured the spirits of his enemies and kept them in eternal torment.
* Started a war which destroyed many of the Nehekharan cities and killed even more of the population.
* Broke the covenant between the Nehekharan gods and their people, not only removing the divine powers of the Nehekharans but ensuring that after death they wouldn't be able to go to their gods and would have to stay in a nether dimension forever. Especially jarring if you remember that he used to be the High Priest of their Death Cult.
* Indirectly corrupted some of the nobility of Nehekhara, who became the first vampires.
* Turned a whole tribe of his followers into ghouls because they annoyed him several times by asking him to give them a promised reward.
* Used his loyal vassals as tools in a terrible incantation to make himself a magic set of armour and then, for the only time in any of his fluff, he does something nice for someone besides himself (he compliments them for exceeding his expectations). After complimenting them he devoured their souls anyway.
* Started a new war against Nehekhara which cost thousands more lives.
* Used a horrible plague spell to annihilate the entire Nehekharan civilization after losing the war against them; because on top of being a mad wizard and an immoral bastard, he's a sore loser.
* Raised the Nehekharan dead, turning them into millions of undead minions with the idea of annihilating all life in the world.
* Almost destroyed the Empire and nearly crippled Sigmar in a duel by using a poisoned blade.
* Cursed the [[Vampire Counts|Vampires]] with a vulnerability to Sigmar's power and other curses after the assholes were too self-absorbed to help Nagash out during the two major battles: war with the Empire and the Nehekhara war. This might seem like a good riddance because of Vampire's treachery dickish nature, the evil thing about these curses is that it prevents vampires from enjoying life with their new found immortality.
* Corrupted the dragon's graveyard and created the zombie dragons.
* The End Times adds killing several demigods, including [[Valaya]], the ancestor goddess of the Dwarfs, while she slumbered and a god so he can take over from the Chaos Gods. (Although, from a certain point of view, this might not be as bad as it sounds...)
* Killing messengers from the Empire asking for his help when a 'no' would have been enough, then turning around and expecting to get help when he's forced to ask the living for it.
* Betrayed Sigmar and the forces of Order to become the supreme god, allowing Chaos to take over seven eighths of the realms, only to get beaten by Archaon.
* The new campaign of GeeDubs has the quote "The Age of Hope is Dead", which may mean Nagash will manage to screw all over again all the victories obtained by the forces of Order, while simultaneously bringing back the GRIMDARK to the NOBLEBRIGHT Age of Sigmar setting.

While some of the deeds on this list may have been done by your average [[Skaven]], [[Dark Elves|Dark Elf]] or [[Chaos]] Lord there is a basic difference between them and Nagash, the former usually do this either to advance their entire race, clan, tribe or to appease and/or promote their gods; and no single member of those factions has done as much as Nagash, points of case, [[Thanquol]] at least respected and paid homage to the Horned Rat, [[Malus Darkblade]] actually cared up to a certain point for his own troops and [[Archaon]] was very protective of his family. Nagash on the other hand didn't care about anyone, despised the gods and had no empathy for his family and people. He fucked up his own nation and a large section of the world for his own personal gain and, so far as the fluff goes, he has never cared or done anything for anyone other than himself, with his ultimate plan being quite literally to turn everything into undead with no will under his command. To be fair, Nagash honestly believes this to be the best thing for the warhammer world, and he might be right. Chaos has a hard time corrupting the undead, and Nagash has already managed to steal one of Khorne's favoured champions (Krell). Though he is also a gigantic sociopath; sadistic, arrogant and with all the empathy of a brick to the dick. In the End Times, even [[Malekith]] considered Nagash too evil for him at first and wanted to destroy him. Black Library seems to share the idea, since a banner promoting the book ''"The Return of Nagash"'' names him as ''"The Greatest Villain in the Warhammer World"''. He also appears to have helped GW [[Squat]] the Tomb Kings. On a side note Nagash also enjoys the occasional orphanage being slaughtered as a snack, we wonder how is that Sigmar kept him in check during the entire Age of Myth (probably judicious application of Ghal Maraz to his frontal bone).

==On The Tabletop==
Nagash used to have a rather blocky-looking model back when Undead was one army, and had a statline so impressive that it took [[Matt Ward|"Ward Save"'s]] Daemon wanking to make people forget it; the model we have now is very similar to the one that existed back then, including statline, with the main differences being he was just as a level 4 monster wizard with +1 to cast, he only knew 5 spells, his staff could only store 2 power dice/cards, and his sword did not have the D3 wounds special rule. He was removed with the modern editions, and lore referenced him as some vague force that was preparing to return to the world.

[[The End Times]] update brought Nagash back into the game as a powerhouse, boasting higher stats and better spellcasting than anything else in the entire game. In short he's a Level 5 Wizard with access to the Lores of Death, Light (he's Nehekharan, remember?), Vampires, Nehekhara, and a new Lore called "Undeath". He carries his nine books of Nagash which lets him carry NINE spells (total), one being "Ryze, the Grave Call", with the rest generated from any combination of the mentioned Lores, as he pleases (with the newest rules from the Khaine book, he will have ALL spells from all 5 of those lores, plus a special Summon Arcane Fulcrum spell, giving him 41 spells in total). But wait, there's more. He re-rolls any Miscast (but must accept the new result) and can store, at any time in the Magic Phase, up to four Power Dice for later, surpassing the six-dice-per spell... or to empower attacks adding the ''Heroic Killing Blow'' to his already powerful sword (+1 Strength and Multiple Wounds (D3), but only one die per attack has that rule) and being a Monster he also has the Thunderstomp Attack; this guy is a rape machine in close combat.

Thought that was bad? It gets worse; any Undead within 12" suffer two fewer wounds from Unstable, plus any other rule that stacks (for example, Battle Standard Bearer). And the cherry on this hell cake: each time he casts a summoning spell of Undeath the points summoned and the range are TRIPLED (e.g. Ryze, The Grave call he ALWAYS has: with difficulty 9+, anyone else can summon 50 points of troops within 12" or 100 at 14+. At best(16+) 150 points worth of Monstruous Infantry at the same range. Nagash summons 150, 300 and '''450''' respectively at 36"). This also includes Raise the Dead tokens, so spend five tokens and now Nagash can raise 600 points worth of models, whereas all other wizards can only raise 200.

Lastly he's 1000 points to field, which is fine because End Times came with a rule update allowing half your army points to be spent on Lords and Heroes, so fielding Nagash has to be at a 2000 point game at the minimum, <s>although you will have no other characters at all (including a Battle Standard Bearer</s> and thankfully Lords and Heroes have a SEPARATE allowance, so if you get Nagash in a 2000 point game you cannot have any other lords(don't forget, he can summon characters with a base 195pt cost, not to mention any tokens he spends to up that total), but you can have plenty of heroes (which a BSB is). He costs a whopping $105 Ameribucks, although considering the size of his model it's not a terrible deal (for GW anyway). He also currently has the biggest hat in either Warhammer setting, proving that he's the single biggest force to be reckoned with.

Nagash can only be fielded with the [[Undead Legion]], his own army that consists of everyone from [[Vampire Counts]] and [[Tomb Kings]] that he's brought under his rule. As a result there's no "wrong" way to field Nagash; everything you CAN field him with is supported in fluff. His army is even Neutral in alignment, meaning you can get in a 2v2 battle with any army in the game supporting any army in the game. Throwing an Empire army lead by Karl Franz on the field being BFFs with Nagash against Wood Elves and Ogre Kingdoms is completely copacetic in the fluff.

In Age of Sigmar he's a murderbeast in open play but in matched play... let's say he's a bit expensive. Brutal, but expensive.

==Trivia==

It is possible, especially considering GW's love of basing things in both 40k and Fantasy on actual history, that Nagash's name and backstory come from a variety of sources. Most obviously, Nagash is Warhammer's answer to [[Vecna]], being an evil man who invented necromancy, used it to decimate a kingdom, lost a hand that became a powerful magical artifact and could operate independantly and went on to become a god of undeath/death. There is also a fictional shout-out to the works of Lovecraft, as his backstory resembles that of Nephren-Ka from Yog-Sothothery (he was a tyrannical Pharaoh who set up an unholy cult, built a giant evil structure, and was overthrown by his people because of his tyranny; all evidence of his reign was purged and he became immortal after the defeat). His name could be derived from Nahash, which is both one of the names used for the serpent in the Abrahamic faiths that tempted Adam and Eve and later the name for a warlike king during Old Testament days.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Nagash.jpg|Old school Nagash art.
Image:Nagash White Dwarf 2.png|Just when you thought you had convinced the Dwarfs not to bring 6 cannons, they get justification for it.
Image:Nagash's_return.jpg|Fuck mortality
File:Uncle_Nagash.jpg|"I WANT '''YOU''' FOR UNDEAD LEGION"
Image:Settra V Nagash Dawn of Boner.jpg|The Tomb Kings undergo a... management dispute.
Image:Nagash Thirsters.jpg|Nagash, CRUSHING A FUCKING BLOODTHIRSTER in the final battle.
Image:Nagash Fanart.JPG
</gallery>

{{Template:Tomb Kings}}

[[Category: Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Vampire Counts]][[Category:Tomb Kings]][[Category:Undead Legion]][[Category:Gods]]

Gabriel Angelos

2018-01-11T21:51:41Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:7CB7:9ACE:3532:1A89: /* On the Tabletop */

:''"Had the Emperor not intended I suffer, then I would feel no pain."''
:-Gabriel Angelos in ''[[Dawn of War#Dawn of War|Dawn of War]]''.
[[Image:Gabriel_dow.JPG|300px|thumb|right|Gabriel Angelos is one of the few non-[[Space Wolves|Sphess Wolf]] space marines that actually has some hair, not to mention a huge mouth.]]

'''Gabriel Angelos''', AKA Gabriel Mangelos, is a commander of the [[Blood Ravens]] [[Space Marines]]. He first appears in ''[[Dawn of War]] 1'' as third company Captain, and as of ''DoW 2: Retribution'' he has succeded that scheming heretic Azariah Kyras as Chapter Master.

Contrary to other stubborn, hot-headed captains of other [[Space Marines|Spess Mehreen]] chapters, Gabe is cool and calm in most situations - like [[Vance Motherfucking Stubbs]]. Instead of first killing the enemies and then helping the population, Gabriel manages [[Just as planned|just as planned]] tactics that let him do both things at the same time. Apparently Gabriel had to call the [[Inquisition]] after a recruiting excursion to his home planet, Cyrene, when he discovered some heretical (no one really knows) shit going on. The Inquisition launched an [[Exterminatus]] to fix it, which resulted in Gabe turning into a mournful bastard and also the only mournful bastard left alive from Cyrene.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Q34IEdK-8 He also plays the grand piano], making him one of, if not the only non-[[Noise Marines]] known to play a musical instrument. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1zMF53jmbE He's not the only one...]. He also has a tendency to yell "Dick" while throwing dildos at peoples faces ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z1Nd_2zIrY&list=PL0D8C3E4B80598B78 especially if those are Chaos Space Marines or Traitors]).

Angelos is nearly universally liked by /tg/ and indeed the Warhammer community as a whole. He's strong, heroic, and noble, while compassionate, intelligent, and perhaps one of the few objectively good people in all of Warhammer while still being grimdark (in fact, he's basically [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Ser Davos Seaworth]] in 40k). And unlike [[Marneus Calgar|some]] [[Kaldor Draigo|others]] he manages to pull this off in a believable manner, is realistically flawed and generally was dragged through hell to accomplish his deeds. While not everyone thinks that Relic did the best job with Warhammer, few will say that Gabriel is a poorly done character. Problem, Ward?

==Gabe's role in Dawn of War I==
Gabe commanded the Blood Ravens 3rd Company who were tasked with stopping an Ork invasion of the planet [[Tartarus]] led by [[Warboss]] [[Orkamungus]]. After wading through the Orks and assorted Eldar, it's eventually revealed that [[Bale]], a [[Chaos Lord]], was orchestrating everything and planning to recover an artifact called the "[[METAL BOXES|Maledictium]]", which imprisoned a great daemon of Khorne (It wasn't a Bloodthirster, but probably a daemon prince).

During the campaign he proves to be a pretty reasonable dude, saving civilians and diverting resources to protect them, proving that one does not have to be grimdark 24/7 in the shitpile battlefield of a galaxy to be a famous character. Unlike [[Marines Malevolent|certain assholes]], they care for the innocent, and spend extraordinary effort to rescue people and actually walk the walk when all you are what remains between [[Ork|retarded beligerent fungus]], [[Chaos|spiky faggots on crack with dental issues]] and a horde of innocent men, women and children.

Gabriel's friend and one of the only other survivors from Cyrene was [[Isador Akios]], a Librarian who served in Gabriel's company. Bale's [[Chaos Sorcerer]] lieutenant, [[Sindri Myr]], telepathically subverted Isador against the Imperial forces, which led to him taking the Maledictum when it was unearthed. Isador blamed Gabe for the [[Exterminatus]] of Cyrene, but Gabe claimed that he did it for the good of humanity. Isador may have further argued the point, but Gabriel instead decided to cut the bullshit and to perform a time-honored Space Marine cleansing ritual to free Isador from the taint of the dark gods; [[Blam|the ritual itself closely resembled discharging a bolter round directly into Isador's head at point-blank range]].

After the death of Isador, Gabe got his shit together and faced off against Sindri, now a daemon prince of Khorne (Much to Khorne's dismay, a sorcerer even offering tribute to him). He eventually succeeded in bashing Sindri's head into his spine and saving Tartarus from becoming a daemon world. His last act before leaving Tartarus was to smash the Maledictium with God-Splitter, [[Mordecai Toth|Inquisitor Mordecai Toth]]'s daemon hammer, even after the warnings of [[Macha]] that he'd doom everyone by doing it. In Just as Planned fashion, it did; rather than banishing the bound daemon (which given that God Splitter is an Daemonhammer built to kill daemons would be an expected out come), destroying the Maledictum freed it. Based on the daemon's endgame gloating monologue, all the "blood sacrifice" of wartime death (mostly Angelos's personal handiwork, including Orkamungus, Bale, and finally Sindri) had strengthened the daemon enough for it to escape the shattering intact. Gabriel then had to live with the fact that he was responsible for its freedom and would fight it if it should ever appear again.

==Gabe's role in DOWII==
In [[Dawn of War II]] Gabe is back, now a full-fledged hair-etic, with a bitchin' cape, his old Daemonhammer and several drop-pods of fuck you to share with the Tyranids. He's so awesome that his battle-cry makes everyone around him almost as awesome as he is, and so becomes invulnerable for a few seconds, and he can hit someone so hard that their motherfucking armour shatters. You only get to play him during the final mission in the original DoWII though.

==Gabe's role in Chaos Rising==
In the many battles that transpired during the Campaign of Chaos Rising, Gabriel Angelos stayed on the Litany of Fury and did very little apart from kill stealing in the final battle. His phoning it in this time made even more egregious since he wasn't stuck in the warp, lazy old codger that he is. This may be a clever ploy however to 'dispose' of a certain HAIRITIC, by sending him on suicide missions. He was also branded a traitorous heretic by Kyras (The Blood Raven' Schmuck Master and Chief Dick) through the Honor Guard leader Diomedes. However, depending on the Force Commander's actions, Diomedes can be persuaded to see that Kyras is a heretic or can simply be slain.

At the end of the game, Angelos made this speech;

"''Brothers, victory is ours! You have driven the Black Legion from the sector, and defeated the vile daemon who sought to consume us. But a more terrible battle yet remains, our chapter is in the hands of a madmen and a heretic, Kyras, he who should be the greatest of us, has bargained away his soul to the Powers of Chaos! While we, are branded as renegades and traitors, my brothers, this CANNOT, THIS -WILL NOT- STAND. (Insert Force Commander's fate here) LET NONE FIND US WANTING, BY CHAPTER AND EMPEROR."

The rest of the speech regarding the Force Commander and his men depends on how well you take care of not going to Chaos. Maintaining a high purity level leads you to becoming the Force of Retribution within the Chapter, partial Purity leads both you and Angelos to be declared Renegades by Kyras. Maintaining a neutral purity or slightly corrupted level means you are exiled to the Eye of Terror for at least a 100 years until you die or kill everyone. At half+ but not at full corruption, Angelos brutally kills you on the spot with his Thunder Hammer. At full corruption, Angelos swears to kill you for becoming a Chaos Lord. He can't do it there because you took your ship for a spin in the Eye of Terror.

==Gabe's role in DOWII Retribution==
[[Image:Rt sm gabriel 01.jpg|thumb|right|Gabriel in his most Awesome in Retribution]]
In Dawn of War II Retribution, Gabe gets his ass pwnd by Kyras, the previous chapter master who turned to the dark gods during Chaos Rising. After getting said ass pwnd (literally), he got smashed by Kyras' demon fists of fisting. He gets saved by [[Apollo Diomedes|Diomedes]] (the player) via spamming orbital bombardments on Kyras' face, thus proving that [[dakka]] > chaos.

Lastly, Gabriel comes back at the end of the game as the Chapter Master of the BLUHD REHVENS. So, lets make this perfectly clear to you: Thule gets cut up by a Warrior beast and has to be interred in a [[Dreadnought]] (because of poison). Angelos is crushed by the flaming fists of a Daemon Prince of Khorne. Chapter Master Angelos is now mostly bionics, which, when combined with his profound dedication to the Emperor and Imperium as a whole, makes him a kind of foil for [[Lugft Huron]]. Anyway, this may be explained by the fact that the aforementioned flaming fists were just flaming fists (in other words, sterile, though chaos infused) while the aforementioned Warrior Beast had all sorts of shit on it's claws '''THAT COULD MELT POWER ARMOR AND FLESH LIKE SOME REALLY STRONG ACID OR SOMETHING''', either that or his fucking AWESOMENESS or raw [[plot armor]] allowed him to live

<s>(Which begs the question how the fuck was he able to kill SIIINNDRIII the Daemon Prince back in DoW and come back one piece.. wut)</s> ''(Sindri merely tapped a small portion of the Daemon of the Maledictum's power, which while making him significantly more powerful than an ordinary daemon prince, does not hold a candle to Kyras becoming ONE with the Daemon of the Maledictum AND gaining enough favour through mass slaughter to ascend normally, making him quite likely the most powerful new daemon prince since the Daemon Primarchs)''

It is said that the retribution 'Epic end' is a combination of the Eldar, Imperial Guard and space marine endings, as well as parts of the Chaos Space Marine ending. [[Taldeer]]'s soul stone is rescued, the Blood Ravens purify their chapter, Castor gets the head of Kyras mounted in his already impressive trophy gallery, and Eliphas will regain his badassness and become a Daemon Prince.

He also has a sexy old man voice and several of the most broken (and awesome) abilities in the game. Though he is second to [[Eliphas]] in this regard, who, with a fully upgraded Sweeping Doom, can ROFLstomp an entire army with a single sweep.

==Old Gabe's return in DoW III==
[[Image:Gabriel-DoW3.jpg|thumb|600px|Angelos in DoW3 in his new shiny armor]]

For now we don't know much about Gabe's role in DoW III other than that [[Magnus the Red|he's lost his right eye]] and that he's confirmed as Chapter Master and he will be the commander of Space Marines and their Imperial Knights allies in the new story. It also appears he will be donning Tartaros (<s>or Cataphractii...nobody knows</s> its a heavily modified Tartaros, if you look at the chest section from behind its quite clear.) Terminator Armor (that somehow allows him to [[C.S. Goto| ninja flip into enemy formations while dropping Godsplitter on them like he was in fucking Cirque du Soleil]]) [[Blam|He also has a new voice actor...again.]]

He leads the Blood Ravens to the planet of Acheron, battling with the Eldar and Orks in a race for a powerful weapon known as "The Spear of Khaine". Gabe, however, desires not its power as he believes the Spear to be corrupted (and will corrupt any who wields it), and swears that no one will obtain the spear until his dying breath. He then has a heart-to-heart with Macha about smashing the Maledictum.

[[Wat|He then teams up with Gorgutz and Macha to defeat a bloodthirster. After the fight, he just... leaves them be. He doesn't try to kill them or anything, he just let's them fuck off,]] [[Grimdark|Because apparently Relic forgot what Warhammer is about.]]

==In books==
{{WTF}}
{{heresy}}
The [[C.S.Goto|Midget Goto]] wrote a series of DOW books (this pleased him) which were about Gabriel's adventures, but since this only provoked Nerd Rage from both fans and Redshirts alike, his stuff is not [[canon|CANON]]. Speaking of Novels, one apparently claims that Gabriel was an Imperial Guardsmen before becoming a Space Marine. This is bullshit of the highest order, as the biological implants of a Space Marine can only transplanted into candidates at a young age and many only join the ranks as full fledged battle brothers at something close to 18 (the only exception is the [[Angry Marines]]; their writefaggotry implies they can recruit from adults too, as well as, presumably, the Space Wolves because they only recruit from people who have already fought gloriously in battle and children don't really do very well with fighting). That means that Gabe must have been something between 8 - 13 when he became an infantryman in the Guard, which is impossible because the conscription age of the guard is usually 13 ([[Cadia]] notwithstanding), and they usually don't conscript unless they're under constant attack and are running out of trained guardsmen to throw at the enemy. Additionally, according to the Midget Goto, he's a 'symbol of hope to the Biel-Tan Eldar', despite the Biel-Tan being the most racist and xenocidal craftworld of all. He also had a thing with Macha which ended when she had to turn herself into some kind of green warpfire to stop the Necrons at Lorn V and disappeared from the story afterwards.

Dammit Goto! Just stick to putting multilazers on the multilazers on the multilazers. So that you can shoot multilazers while you shoot multilazers while you shoot multilazers. It might be retarded but it can be written off as an in-universe quirk of some idiot with a few spare multilazers lying around. [[Matt_Ward|Completely '''fucking up''' the fluff by re-writing the fundamental motivations and character of entire races]] can not be overlooked in the same way!

A more recent short story reveals what exactly happened on Cyrene- while there were no explicit signs of corruption present there at first glance, the planet was just about ready to launch a full rebellion against the Imperium; in light of the discovery that psykers were no longer being taken to the Black Ships and that trade with xenos was the norm, the Inquisition declared the situation to be grounds for Exterminatus. The one week of orbital bombardment was actually preceded by an all-out assault on the ground by the Blood Ravens and the Grey Knights, because apparently the Inquisition wanted to be absolutely sure nothing could possibly survive (that, or they were afraid killing too many psykers at once would cause bad things to happen). Gabe had hope he could save his father from the purge, but to his horror he learned that his father was one of the rebellion's leaders and had despised the Imperium ever since Gabriel had been chosen to become a Space Marine. With a heavy heart, Gabriel had no choice [[Grimdark|but to execute his own father]](<s>Doesn't this mean that Gabe is pretty young for a Space Marine? I mean, his father is still alive</s> You don't have to be a space marine to live for centuries as rejuvenate treatments for higher ranking Imperials like former officers). No wonder he refused to talk about what happened on Cyrene.

==On the Tabletop==
[[File:Gabriel-Angelos Mini.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Gabe has a Mini now! And you might want to convert a helmet onto it because by the Emperor did [[Forgeworld]] [[FAIL|fuck up his face.]]]]

Recently, [[Forge World]] has seen fit to grace the tabletop with Gabriel's presence, based on his Dawn of War III appearance; while his official statline isn't quite as cheesy as the fan-made version below, he's still a force to be reckoned with.

{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="left"
! || Pts || M || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Gabriel Angelos:''' || 185 ||6" || 2+ || 3+ || 4 || 4 || 6 || 4 || 9 || 2+/4++
|} 
As you can tell, his BS is low for a named Space Marine character but that doesn't matter much since his only ranged weapons are grenades. Instead, he should be in melee at all times, ideally backed up by a squad of other Tartaros Terminators to take advantage of his higher-than normal movement compared to a standard Captain/Chapter Master in Terminator armor. His signature God-Splitter can be used in two modes: the standard mode acts like a basic Thunder Hammer but with the added ability to cause mortal wounds, while (as a nod to his "jumping Terminator Armor attack") the Arcing Swing mode is a dedicated horde-killer that lowers its stats to +2S AP-1 1 D in order to give Gabe the ability to perform a number of attacks equal to the amount of units within 1" of him- and just as importantly, it lacks the -1 to hit that a Thunder Hammer would normally have. Between that and coming with the Chapter Master's ability to reroll failed hits, he's far better at fighting blobs than he looks. Finally, his Retribution rule give him one last "fuck you" to an enemy who removes his last wound in melee by letting him deal d3 mortal wounds to the model that took him out. He also has a little bit of added versatility when compared to other named Space Marine characters due to a quirk in the rules; as the Blood Ravens' primogenitor is unknown, Angelos doesn't need to be restricted to a Chapter-specific Warlord Trait like most named Space Marine characters and can use any of the available Chapter-specific Stratagems or Chapter Tactics. In fact he might be the best character you take.
As Master Artisans Salamanders tactic will allow him and army to reroll hits during the Assault and Shooting phases. While Anvil of Strength will allows [[Anal_circumference|God-Splitter to hit at Str10!]]. Iron Hands tactics, while not buffing his damage output will give the Magpies. It does improve their durability on a +6. However the real reason to choose Iron Hands is that it allows you to use Captain [[Smashfucker]] in the same army as Gabriel.

==Codex: Gabriel Angelos==
If you ever wanted to play a cheesy Captain/Chapter Master for fun based off of Gabe's DoW/DoW2 appearances, here's your statline.

{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="left"
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Captain Gabriel Angelos:''' || 200 || 6 || 5 || 4 || 4 || 3 || 5 || 4 || 10 || 2+/4++
|-
| '''Chapter Master Gabriel Angelos:''' || 260 || 7 || 5 || 4 || 5 || 4 || 5 || 4 || 10 || 2+/4++
|} 

'''Chapter Master''': Chapter Master Gabriel Angelos possesses the rank of Chapter master, and as such, may be accompanied by an Honour Guard squad, in addition, he may call down a single orbital bombardment per game (see Codex: Space Marines).

'''Wargear''':
* '''Master Crafted Power Sword (Captain Only)''': Can be Swapped for Godsplitter for 10 pts.
* '''Godsplitter (Only weapon when as Chapter Master)''': Force Weapon that's Master crafted to be usable by those with Pi-Rho psyker levels
* '''Left Hand of Gabriel''': Is replaced when Gabriel chooses to take Godsplitter.
* '''Artificer Armour''': See Codex Space Marines.
* '''Reclamation of the Chapter (Chapter Master Only)'''
*'''Iron Halo''' (Captain only)
* '''Frag Grenades'''
* '''Krak Grenades'''

'''Special Rules''':
* '''Independent Character'''
* '''Eternal Warrior'''
* '''And They Shall Know No Fear'''
* '''Chapter Tactics (Blood Ravens)''': As per the rules for all Chapters who do not know their primogenitor Chapter, the Blood Ravens do not have a unique Chapter Tactic. Instead, the player can elect to "borrow" any existing Chapter Tactics from Codex: Space Marines and any Forge World supplements.
* '''Inspiring Presence''': Even before becoming Chapter Master, Gabriel was known for his uncommon leadership capabilities. All friendly units in a range of 18" can use Gabriel's Ld when testing for Morale, Pinning and Fear.
* '''My Foe Shall Fall!''': Gabriel has squared off in combat against some of the most terrifying and powerful foes the Blood Ravens have faced in recent centuries, including colossal Daemons and Tyranid Bio-terrors. Gabriel's close-combat attacks against Monstrous Creatures gain a +1 to I.
* '''My Faith is My Shield! (Chapter Master Only)''': Despite the heresy and treachery that has plagued the Blood Ravens in recent years, Gabriel has never wavered from his faith and maintained absolute loyalty to the Emperor. In combat Gabriel channels his purity through the hallowed wards inscribed into his blessed armour. Once per game, Gabriel may give himself a 2++ Invulnerable save for the duration of a single combat phase, regardless of whether it is yours or your opponent's.
* '''Cybernetic Enhancements (Chapter Master Only)''': After his battle with Kyras much of Gabriel's body had to be rebuilt with so much cybernetics that he would put [[Marneus Calgar]] to shame. As a result he is more resilient than before. This grants him +1 Toughness (already included in profile).
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* '''Godsplitter''': God-Splitter is a powerful Daemonhammer gifted to Gabriel Angelos of the Blood Ravens 3rd Company by Inquisitor Mordecai Toth on the planet Tartarus to combat the Daemon of the Maledictum. Just like every Daemonhammer, Godsplitter strikes with the speed of a lightning bolt. Unlike every Daemonhammer, this weapon strikes with an even greater and truly terrifying power.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Name !! Range !! Strength !! AP !! Type
|-
| '''Godsplitter''' || - || 10 || 1 || Melee, Two-Handed, Master Crafted, Concussive, Strikedown, Anathemic Presence
|}

** '''Anathemic Presence''': Attacks from this weapon force units with the Daemon USR to re-roll all successful saves granted by that rule.

* '''Left Hand of Gabriel''': Blood Ravens Captain Gabriel Angelos used this pistol to slay the traitor Isador Akios, once his closest friend. Angelos discarded the weapon in disgust at the Ruinous Powers and the taint they bring to Man. His battle brothers recovered the weapon and returned it to the chapter armory.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Name !! Range !! Strength !! AP !! Type
|-
| '''Left Hand of Gabriel''' || 12 || 4 || 3 || Pistol, Master Crafted, Precision Shots
|}

* '''Reclamation of the Chapter (Chapter Master Only)''': This suit of Tartaros Terminator armour was granted for Angelos by the Chapter's Techmarines to honour his ascension to Chapter Master and is designed around his extensive bionics. It has also been inscribed and blessed by the Chapter's Chaplains to signify his victory over the forces of heresy. This is Tartaros Terminator armor that infers the 'My Faith is my Shield' special rule.

== External Links: ==
*[http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=246133 Gabriel Angelos can now be played online via mod]

{{Template:Marines-Characters}}
[[Category: Dawn of War]]
[[Category:Space Marines Chapter Masters]]

Ghal-Maraz

2018-01-11T21:49:43Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:7CB7:9ACE:3532:1A89: /* Age of Sigmar */

[[File:Ghal-Maraz.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The hammer that started it all.]]
Ghal-Maraz ("skull-splitter" in Dwarvish) is [[Sigmar]]'s main weapon and according to some the [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle|"Warhammer" of the franchise]]. As such it bears special symbolism for all things Warhammer.

==Warhammer Fantasy==
It was originally a two-handed hammer forged by the dwarfs for the Dwarf king Kurgan Ironbeard, but the dorf gave it to Sigmar as a gift for saving his and his kindwarf's asses from a mob of Orks. It became the symbol of the Empire and the favorite weapon of the Emperors. It has some kind of magical power due to the Dwarven runes engraved on it, which helped out a lot at times. For instance, when Sigmar he fought the leader of the Middenland and the hammer was blessed by [[Ulric]] after said leader threw [[Sigmar]] into Ulric's flame, only for him to come back out completely unharmed and shatter the leader's precious long sword along with his skull. The other is during the last battle against Nagash, where the moment Sigmar is about to strike at Nagash with the hammer, it suddenly grows with Dwarven rune magic from its rune. Using that power, Sigmar hit the Nagash's bone rib. The bad chemistry of Dwarven magic mixed with Nagash's dark magic has created some form of instability within the bone daddy himself and was BLOWN. THE. FUCK. OUT. to the sky.

After Sigmar's absence, the hammer was passed down from Emperor to Emperor all the way to [[Karl Franz]] where he smashed many orks with the hammer, then to [[Valten]] after many people believe he was the reincarnation of Sigmar himself.

During [[The End Times]], Valten carried the hammer to smash many a chaos prick (Notably: '''Crom the Conqueror, Wulfrik the Wanderer, Count Mordrek the Damned''' and a changeling that impersonate Gelt's disciple) while on his way to Middenland. He was ultimately killed by a backstabby Vermin Lord Deceiver after being exhausted from his duel with Archaon. The hammer was in Archaon's care for a while until Sigmar manage to reunited with his hammer then smash [[Ka'bandha]]'s face with it. It allows him to outmatch [[Archaon]] in battle but it was not enough to save Mallus (the Warhammer world) with both Sigmar, Ghal-Maraz and Archaon falling through a warp-rift which consumed the planet.

Both Sigmar and Ghal-Maraz managed to survive the apocalypse and were merged with the essence of the [[Azyr|Realm of Heavens]], becoming even more powerful than ever, unfortunately [[Tzeentch]] tricked Sigmar into throwing Ghal-Maraz into another warp-rift while trying to strike down Archaon, which ensured Sigmar's withdrawal and the coming of the Age of Chaos.

==Age of Sigmar==
With the coming of the [[Age of Sigmar]] one of the first tasks the God-King gave to the Stormcast Eternals was to recover Ghal-Maraz, they succeeded and Sigmar gave the hammer to the Celestial-Prime (we still don't know his true identity but people think it is [[Settra the Imperishable]], Alcadizaar, or [[Karl Franz]]). The Celestial-Prime, now named after the hammer, managed to rescue Alarielle the [[Everqueen]] of the Realm of Life from being caught by Nurgle while in the process defeating Chaos Lord Torglug the Despised, <strike>killing the chaos guy like the [[Abaddon|failure]] he is</strike> No wait! You thought it was slay-the-heretic-inquisition-time as usual? Ghal-Maraz is presently imbued with the power of [[Noblebright]], and it purged Torglug, bringing him back as a Stormcast Eternal, that's right kids, Sigmar's main weapon can pull back mortals from corruption (as long as there is still some sliver of soul to be saved, so you better don't try this with Archaon), needless to said, Nurgle [[rage|needed a lot of ice after that incident]].

==Tabletop==
Ghal-Maraz was wielded by only two people on the tabletop prior to Age of Sigmar: Karl Franz and Valten. Both got the same use out of it: [[anal circumference|all hits automatically wound, allow no armor saves and deal d3 wounds]]. This means that you roll to hit, then roll 1d3 per hit to see how many wounds your opponent eats. Given that both karl Franz and Valten had pretty high WS and Attack stats, this means that in a duel they wreck face like it's nobody's business and could deal massive damage against infantry hordes, especially when paired with either a monstrous mount (like Karl Franz), a large support unit (Valten) or even both if you can afford it.

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Age of Sigmar]]