Editing Skaven (section)

====Hierarchy====
The Skaven race is ruled over by the [[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-ratmen 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. Despite the name there are only twelve Councillors; the 13th seat is symbolic and reserved for their god and woe betide anyone that tries to sit on it! To become a member of the council all any Skaven need do is touch the sacred Black Pillar and challenge a current member for his seat in a duel. In practice it has been over 200 years since someone actually manage to pull it off, which is a minor point in favor of the current crop of leaders on it - though a large part of it is that touching the Black Pillar has a tendency to make rats explode.

Beneath the Council of Thirteen are the Grey Seers and the Warlords. Horned, grey-furred skaven pups are raised to be the priests and magic users of Skavendom that act on behalf of the council. Ironically enough the Skaven are more prone to throw around claims of [[HERESY]]! than the Sigmarite Empire. Not showing proper reverence to the Horned Rat brings down his wrath on the offender and everyone around him, so they take a dim view of anyone who misses their services. Secular Rodentism is not something which is going to catch on in Skavenblight. There is a hard cap on 169 (13x13, 13 being a sacred number to the Skaven) Grey Seers at any one time, though there are a bunch of apprentices waiting in the wings for one to die. Skaven being Skaven, one of the most popular pastimes of said novices is making slots available through assassination. Warlords are those lucky rats that have managed through guile, luck, accomplishment on the battlefield and the elimination of rivals to get in charge of a Clan. There is a Seer Lord on the Council of 13 and sometimes you get a Grey Seer warlord with his own clan, but that's usually the exception.

Beneath them, you have an upper crust of prominent individuals within the clans: Warlock Engineers, Master Molders, Plague Priests, Assassins, Chieftans, high ranking officers and so forth. Either through command of some arcane skill or having armed rats behind them they have wealth, better accommodations, hosts of underlings and regular access to breeders. This is also roughly where the Albino Guard rank, since they're basically the Skaven version of [[Custodes]].

Underneath them are those with a modicum of cultivated value: the merchants, the technicians, the packmasters, the rank and file of the Stormvermin, the apprentices to the great ones, the Gutter Runners, the overseers, skilled workers and so forth. All of which have to some degree or another got their position by struggling tooth and claw and are with it some measure of power and authority. Most of them rose from the Clanrats. Those poor bastards live in poverty packed up like sardines and have to work hard for their daily Skavenbread™ and fight tooth and claw to keep what little they've amassed. They make their petty schemes, jump on what opportunities they can and form and break alliances of convince at the drop of a hat. All of which to carve out a niche, establish a power base and clawing their way up the org chart. Far more likely they end up murdered, expended in battle, blown apart in some accident, killed by a superior making a point or deemed surplus to requirement and left to starve.

But even these wretched rats have it better than the Skavenslaves. They are the remnants of defeated clans, the pups deemed surplus to requirements if not quite bad enough to be culled, those that earned the ire of their overseers and those whose power struggles failed them and avoided being killed. Their status is somewhere between "Native in the Belgian Congo" and "Pig in a Factory Farm". Clanrats may be exploited, but Skavenslaves are actively worked to death, thrown at the enemy to absorb arrows and are fed a meagre diet of scraps, garbage and each other. That's when they are not being taken to the butcher's block so their betters can enjoy a meat dinner and have some leather. The best they can hope for is that a good deal of their superiors fuck up and die or that their clan conquers another leading to enough shuffling in the org chart that they can get promoted to clanrat status. But while clans do wax strong and skavendom produces a lot of said fuckups it also burns through skavenslaves like nobody's business.

Two key facts of this hierarchy are ''Shit Flows Downhill'' and ''The Rodent Staircase''. To a high ranking Skaven everyone else is a rival, either an immediate threat or a potential one waiting for the means, so you gotta keep a lid on them. Subordinates are to be given the minimum they need to accomplish their tasks, some rewards if they exceed expectations, and nothing else. If they step out of line they can be beaten. If they cause too much trouble they can be replaced with some up and coming Rat eager to not be a skavenslave. If things are going badly for you, assert your dominance with a show of force. Even if things are going well, you should put the fear of the Horned Rat into your underlings just to remind them who's boss to be on the safe side. This comes before the fact that Skaven are vindictive little shits that have no qualms about taking out their frustrations on others. A sternly worded Letter to a Warlord from the Council of Thirteen will lead him snapping at his second in command and will eventually manifest itself in clanrats biting the tails off Skavenslaves because they'd been the subject of the ire of their overseers and need to re-assert dominance.

Likewise if you want to get up (and as mentioned ALL Skaven want to go up all the way), you need to not only excel or have some useful talent but also deal with the million other rats out there with the same ambitions. If you want to survive in the slave pits, shiv your neighbor and eat him to get enough calories so you'll have the strength to see another day. If the clawleader's favorite mug has gone missing, say the guy who's always admired it stole it to bring down the bosses wrath upon him so you have one less rival, the boss's wrath is directed elsewhere and if you happen to be right he just might throw you a bone for being (due to the lack of a better word) loyal. Apprentices could and should steal the ideas of their fellows to become Warlock Engineers. Attempting to police the Skaven to stop such backstabbing is usually an exercise in futility, especially since whatever Police Rats you can scrounge up will inevitably engage in said activities on their own. Not that it matters much in most cases, there is always a fresh stream of replacements and those eager for dead rat's shoes. At most murder provides an excuse for removing individuals that they don't like in a move that is slightly less likely to spark the paranoia of your rivals. A good Skaven leader knows how to use this competition to keep his minions in line and to get the most out of them. A bad Skaven leader is going to end up on the barbecue sooner rather than later. This is the case from birth, even for those whose role was determined at birth like grey seers and stormvermin have to fend off both ruthless instructors and backstabbing fellow applicants. Nobody is unscathed.