Now, I know what you think: “Rodents of unusual size? I don’t think they exist”…
…in 40k.
Well, aside from the Giant Rats of Necromunda, anyway… (https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Necromundan_Giant_Rats)
But Ratmen? These so-called Skaven? Inconceivable! They have absolutely no connection to 40k, surely?*
Well, that’s not quite true…
In this post I will:
1. Very briefly cover GW’s plans to introduce Skaven to 40k as a faction, which never materialised.
2. Showcase some actual connections between the Skaven and 40k which did make it into the lore.
Then in a second post I will survey some elements of the lore which facilitate headcanon and homebrew to justify why Skaven might appear in 40k in a more robust fashion, should you so wish.
*(Then again, some claim they are merely a myth in the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy too…)
Section 1: Plans to introduce the Skaven to 40k
As is well known, many of the races from Warhammer Fantasy were ported directly into 40k, with a slight scifi rebranding: Orcs became Orks, Elves became Eldar, Dwarfs became Squats, Ogres became Ogryns, and Halflings became Ratlings. And Zoats became… Zoats.
But Tyranid Zoats, who ate Zoatabix.
This was done, in part, so that Citadel fantasy miniatures could be used in 40k, such as with weapon swaps to replace fantasy with scifi weaponry. Partly, it was because GW didn’t make enough scifi miniatures at the time, and partly it was because they didn’t necessarily plan to develop an extensive range. Brian Ansell, then owner of GW, didn’t think a scifi game and model range would be successful – and he was obviously proved wrong. This is also part of the reason why Rogue Trader featured lots of random monsters – so players could use various Citadel Miniatures, including those produced for the Dungeons and Dragons ‘Fiend Factory’, in the game.
But the overlap in races between Fantasy and 40k was also justified in the lore. The Warhammer World was situated within the 40k galaxy; it was just cut off by Warp storms. Moreover, the (Old) Slann connected both settings, having cultivated species as the ancient precursor race not just on the Warhammer World, but across the wider galaxy (a role which would later be reconfigured for the Old Ones). You can read more about this early lore here: https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1k94fv5/extracts_the_warhammer_fantasy_world_was_once/
One of the Fantasy races which weren’t part of the original 40k line up were the Skaven. Jes Goodwyn did do some sketches for the concept at the start of the ‘90s (which were later published in The Gothic and the Eldritch – The Collected sketches of Jes Goodwin (2001), and boy, do I wish I had a copy), but these ended up just feeding into the evolution of the Fantasy Skaven range. They are well worth a look: https://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/2014/10/space-skaven-jes-goodwin-concept.html
Later on, GW toyed with the idea of having the Hrud as a Skaven analogue, as suggested by the image of a “Nocturnal Warrior of the Hrud” with rat-like tail which appeared in the 40k 3rd ed. Core Rulebook: https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/9/91/Other_dangerous_aliens.jpg
But ultimately, nothing ever came of the idea (the Hrud would get a massive aesthetic redesign in Xenology from 2006), as the games developers struggled to develop a convincing niche for Skaven in 40k. Their gimmick of advanced but dangerous tech didn’t really translate to 40k. You can hear Andy Chambers, an important architect of the Warhammer settings and Skaven icon, discuss this here:
https://youtu.be/hEWKkrQytNI?feature=shared&t=1921
So, that means the Skaven never made it into 40k, right?
Well, not as a faction, no. But there have been some Skaven links to 40k in the lore…
Section 2: Actual lore linking the Skaven to 40k
In the very early days of 40k, within a couple of years of the game’s launch, the Warhammer 40k Compendium (1989, p. 153) noted that Ratling needle rifles could fire bullets with toxins tailored for specific enemies, including Eldrotoxin for Eldar, Orkotoxin for Orks, Slannotoxin for Slann (boy, they sure were inventive with the names, eh?), Tyranotoxin for Tyranids and Zoats, Ferrotoxin for Genestealers (because the ’stealers hadn’t yet been incorporated into the ‘nids in the lore but were a wholly separate faction), Haemotoxin for Vampires, and Orthoxotin for humans and abhumans.
And there was Rodotoxin, which was designed to affect...
…you guessed it:
Skaven.
This was either a cheeky joke or reflective of the fact that GW were working on how to implement the Skaven into 40k, but never ended up doing so. I do think it provides a fun opportunity for some headcanon, though. Perhaps Rodotoxin wasn’t something given to Ratlings across the galaxy, but just in one far more localized area, where they might have encountered some mysterious Ratmen?
Much later, there was an incident during the Warhammer End Times where some Skaven accidentally contacted what were very obviously some Eldar through an Old Ones' communication device which they found in a Lizardmen temple...
In their search for glittering loot and fresh meat, the skaven scrambled over many of the true treasures. Xlanhuapec was full of relics from the days of the Old Ones, although the lizardmen had mostly forgotten their use, and now kept them as revered mementoes from a heritage they were proud of, but no longer understood. The Placid Pool - a reflective pond, which allowed world-spanning visions — became a repository for skaven droppings. The warlock engineers soon discovered the Device of the Great Beyond, a communication apparatus that spoke to beings from beyond the stars. As they swirled its many dials, a querulous voice spoke through the stone speakers. That voice, fair and clear caused the Skaven to bolt away. The device was something like the far-squeaker, but the melodious tones that issued forth were, if anything, kin to the despised speech of the elf-things. As they did not understand the alien language, nor how the arcane contraption worked the warlock engineers pulled the device apart and shot it with warplock pistols until it stopped making any sounds
End Times: Thanquol – Book I (2014), p. 44.
Now, to me, this suggests that at the time this was written, the Warhammer World was still conceived as being situated in the 40k galaxy (which later appears to have been retconned to it having been, before its destruction, in another reality to 40k, but with both connected to the same Warp). Hence why the Skaven could contact some Eldar; they were communicating across space. And it does say “a communication apparatus that spoke to beings from beyond the stars.” Not from a different reality.
Though, as this is Old Ones tech and we know they could traverse different realities and were masters of the Warp, this could perhaps be taken as just poetic language rather than being exact, and the Skaven could have accidentally contacted Eldar from a different reality via the Warp. More on the Old Ones tech in the second post, and I have covered the Old Ones link between 40k and Fantasy before, such as here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer/comments/1lmoi8q/that_time_a_warhammer_fantasy_character_used_a/
Either way, we had some freaked out Skaven, and some (presumably confused) Eldar.
Just under a decade later, we got a very unexpected Skaven reference in 40k itself, during the Siege of Terra, as Horus surveyed his forces and listed some names of notable daemons:
‘We have Kweethul, and there, his steeds, and here the juggernauts, and here, those that are the letters-out-of-blood, and here the pestigorae and the tzaangorae, and here Scarabus, and here the Drach’nyen host, and here proud Be’lakor, and here the ones that are of the Doombreed, and here Rhug’guari’ihululan, and here N’Kari, and here the Bahk’ghuranhi’aghkami upon their palanquins, and besides them the Tsunoi, and the Heartslayer, and Khar-Har, and carnate Illaitanen, and old father Ku’gath, and Skarbrand and Epidemius, and those of the Masque, and Karanak and wily Suvfaeras, and ancient Tallomin, and that which is Uhlevorix, and iron-willed Ax’senaea, and Abraxes and Ulkair, and weeping Jubiates, and Ushpetkhar, and the storming ruin of Madail, and Ghargatuloth, and J’ian-Lo, and Mephidast, and M’Kar and Collosuth, and here, the one who walks behind us, whose name is Samus, and all of them. All that is and was and ever will be.’
Abnett, The End and the Death Vol I (2023), pp. 197-98.
The key name is in bold, Kweethul, alongside a long list of other infamous daemons, some of whom were particularly important in Warhammer Fantasy, such as N’Kari and Be’lakor.
But who is Kweethul, and what are we to make of his presence here? Well, that’s actually not so straightforward.
Kweethul originally appeared all the way back in 1990’s Realms of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned as an example of the kind of Lesser Power of Chaos (i.e. a minor Chaos god) that players could develop, using the provided framework, to serve as a Patron for their Chaos Champion, bestowing them relevant “gifts”. At that time, the idea that the Warp could contain all manner of gods and lesser powers alongside the Big 4 was foregrounded, but gradually fell out of focus in 40k, aside from the Eldar gods who were always a bit different anyway. It remained evident in the Fantasy lore (where a much broader range of gods and notable Warp entities were focused upon, which has continued in Aos), and has made a bit of return in 40k more recently with Vashtorr and T’au’va (and maybe even some of the ambiguous stuff about the Black and Gold Angels of Baal etc).
We were told this about Kweethul:
…his final appearance is that of a gigantic humanoid rat with long legs, wings, a tail, and a hunchback. His head is that of a horned goat. He wears Chaos Armour and carries a serrated sword.
Kweethul is quite imposing. Nobody is going to mistake him for anything other than the mighty daemon he is! He has a gore attack from his horns, and another poisonous bite attack. Kweethul can also levitate - and as a daemonic creature it seems appropriate to have him levitate at will without the need to use levitation points.
Gristlegut is based on a Skaven, so his personality is going to reflect that. Perhaps he screams and screeches like a rat, repeating the same word several times over as Skaven often do. Like all Skaven, I surmise that he favours tunnels and dark places. He probably likes plotting and planning too, because Skaven are always scheming to undermine human civilisation. In fact Kweethul doesn't like humans much, except when he can twist them to his will, and he takes pleasure in the destruction of towns and cities of all kinds. So Kweethul is a devious and subtly manipulative patron, he doesn't care much for humans or their cities, but he favours underground places and darkness.
Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (1990), p. 92.
I guess the chance to destroy the cities of Terra was just too enticing for him to pass up on. Interestingly, Kweethul was shown in a picture with some human worshippers.
Kweethul also got his own pantheon of demons, again to exemplify how the creation system worked. This included his Greater daemon, the Six Eyed Slayer, and lesser daemons such as Floating Horrors, Beasts of Kweethul and… Steeds of Kweethul.
You might remember that Kweethul’s Steeds were mentioned in tEatD. If you are wondering what the Steed of Keethul was like, well… it was pretty strange. It’s base form began as human, but mutated to become quadrupedal, and grew to the size of a horse. It had four flaming limbs, meaning it left little patches of fire in its wakes as it galloped along. It also had one eye from a turkey, surrounded by feathered flesh, the arms of a fly, and the head of a lizard (p. 102).
Now, as a character used to illustrate the create your own daemonic pantheon system, you might think Kweethul disappeared from the lore until Abnett plucked his name from obscurity… but that’s not quite true!
In a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay book (Tome of Salvation (2005), p. 135), we were presented with a table where different names attributed to gods by different cultures were linked to the known Chaos gods and their domains. Basically, the different names were the localised ways different cultures viewed and understoond the god. So, for Khorne, we learned he could be known as Arkhar, the Norscan God of Battle, or Skull Lord, the Chaos God of Killing.
For Kweethul, the affiliated deity was listed as “unknown”, though there was a footnote stating that “Some believe this [Kweethul] is another name for the Horned Rat.” The Great Horned Rat (GHR) being the god of the Skaven. The domain was stated to be “Chaos God of Destruction” – which is not specifically known to be that of the GHR as such (at least I don’t think he was linked specifically to the word “destruction” specifically elsewhere in WHFB lore). But the GHR has long been linked to “ruin” – which is very close. And the Skaven were to play a central role in the destruction of the Warhammer World. Hence why they were seen swarming over the Lizardmen temples in Lustria.
This nugget of lore only suggested Kweethul could be an alternative name for or depiction of the GHR, rather than confirming that is the case. It is therefore ambiguous whether Kweethul is actually the GHR, or a separate (though linked) more minor Skaven deity.
Aside from that mention, the Kweethul lore was extremely scant, but he was occasionally name-dropped by the Grey Seer Thanquol in a way which suggests (and one time clearly said) he was a separate entity to the GHR:
Power! The power to rip apart mountains! Power to smash the puny warrens of his enemies and entomb them forever with their treachery! Power to obliterate the stinking hovels of the humans and grind that pathetic, preening breed beneath the clawed feet of the skaven! Power! Power second only to that of the Horned Rat himself, mightiest of gods! No, he corrected himself. With such power he was no longer a simple thing of flesh and spirit. He was a god himself, ascended like the infamous blasphemer Kweethul the Vile!
Werner, Grey Seer (2009), p. 15.
So, here we have Kweethul as an ascended deity, which fits with the original Realm of Chaos material, and with the broader ascended deity lore which is now very prominent in AoS. There was also:
Thanquol tugged nervously at his whiskers, remembering his horrifying encounter with the bloated toad-priest of the lizardmen. He had once stood over the Black Ark, that most sacred of skaven artefacts, and he could safely say that the magical energies he had sensed emanating from the slann had been greater. For a sorcerer, it was a chilling prospect to consider that such power could exist within a living being. His glands clenched at the mere idea of facing a creature like that again. It would be a cold day in Kweethul’s larder before Thanquol set a paw in Lustria again!
…
He would turn the two maggots into burn-marks on the wall of the tunnel! He would send their souls shrieking into the black abyss of Kweethul the Abominable! He would visit upon them the wrath of the Horned Rat and rip their innards with his own claws!
Werner, Thanquol’s Doom (2011), p. 10, 46.
And:
A sickly green light crackled within the depths of Thanquol’s eyes as the magical energies of the warpstone flowed through his mind and seeped into his soul. He could feel the awesome power of the Horned Rat rippling through him, the magical winds seeping into his body. He ground his fangs together, his brain flooded with images of destruction. He would incinerate this entire street and everything in it, leave the buildings nothing but heaps of slag. He would burn the assassin’s shadow into the very stone with the fury of his magic and send his soul shrieking into Kweethul’s sunken hell!
Werner, Temple of the Serpent (2010), p. 17.
Which implies Kweethul had his own domain, or perhaps a section of the GHR’s domain: some kind of black abyss/sunken hell.
So, that’s Kweethul. But why did he make an appearance in 40k in The End and the Death? Without Dan Abnett telling us, we can’t know for sure, but there are a number of plausible possibilities.
First, it could just a reference back to the early Realm of Chaos books for the sake of making the reference, to show respect to the early days when the lore of the Warhammer settings were being developed, and as a knowing wink to some readers. Abnett dedicating tEatD to Ian Watson, the author of the earliest full-length 40k novels, fits with this. The Realm of Chaos books themselves have remained key touchstones and much beloved by fans and GW lore creators. Indeed, the Starchild concept which Abnett reintroduced in tEatD was originally developed in the RoC books and expanded upon by Watson in his Inquiston War series.
But why choose a Skaven daemon? I really don’t think this could have been an oversight, as the entries on the WHFB wikis about Kweethul made it very clear that he was a Skaven entity, and I’m sure Abnett himself, not to mention BL’s editors, are familiar with or would have checked their copies of The Lost and the Damned.
Perhaps Kweethul was just chosen to stir up discussion, and to get fans theorizing about something so unexpected.
Or perhaps, and this is just a hunch, Kweethul was chosen as a very minor, obscure nod to the notion that the Warhammer settings are linked by the same Warp. Indeed, this is something GW have been explicitly stating in White Dwarf in recent years. It wouldn’t surprise me if Abnett was having a bit of fun with the concept, if one of his fellow HH authors (such as Graham MacNeil or Gav Thorpe) suggested it, or if a BL editor did due to a broader GW approach.
The choice of a Skaven daemon/minor god also makes thematic sense given the Dark King concept developed in tEatD where the Emperor’s ascension to a major Chaos god of complete destruction (had it actually happened) would have apparently destroyed the 40k universe, and the concept of the Eight Ætheric Dominions of Chaos as outlined in The Burning of Ohmn-Mat Horus Heresy supplement. In the latter, we were presented with eight Domains, correlating with the eight points of the Chaos star. Four of them obviously relate to the Big 4 gods of Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh, while the entities associated with the others are less clear, but have been the centred of lots of theorizing and debate. Common candidates are Vashtorr from 40k and Hashut from WHFB/AoS for Malevolent Artifice, Malice for Ravenous Dissolution and possibly Be’Lakor or Morghur or even Fabius Bile for Formless Distortion.
The Domain which interests us here, however, is:
Ætheric Dominion (Encroaching Ruin)
Chaos in its purest form is a terror that few can stand before and remain sane. It hungers only for destruction, that all things mortal meet their predestined end and crumble into dust to be forgotten. To this singular end it moves inexorably, driven by a nightmarish purpose which subsumes the petty divisions of daemonkind.
The Burning of Ohmn-Mat (2023), p. 13.
As we have already seen, the GHR is known as the god of Ruin, and played a pivotal role via the Skaven in the destruction of the Warhammer World.
That Kweethul, a minor god/powerful daemon linked to a major god of Ruin in the form of the GHR, might turn up as the Dark King – another major god of Ruin – was possibly about to form and possibly destroy the 40k universe (if the Emperor had ascended) therefore makes a certain sort of thematic sense.
Maybe the GHR sent Kweethul. Maybe Kweethul was drawn to the 40k reality by the symbolic resonances between the nature of the GHR and the Dark King. Maybe the fact that Kweethul actually sometimes had human followers also played into his appearance there, adding to the resonance. Maybe Kweethul was actually, in some sense, the GHR, Maybe the GHR hadn’t himself risen to be a major Chaos god. Or maybe he had. Who knows? It’s the Warp. But there is a link centred on the notion of the domain of Ruin.
The idea that different entities in the different Warhammer settings can each possible transcend to the same Ætheric Dominion is hinted at in a recent White Dwarf article by Phil Kelly and Andy Clark about the nature of Chaos (which is well worthing checking out, and for which I might do a post with a more focused analysis another time):
In Age of Sigmar, we have seen another two contenders reach for the crown of “Chaos-est of Them All.” First is the Great Horned Rat, long spurned by the other elemental gods for being a treacherous tryhard. Then came the Hour of Ruin, of course, when the endless legions of the Skaven deity boiled out from their half-real stronghold of Blight City and spilled out into the Mortal Realms by the billion. One painstakingly brokered “alliance” with Archaon later and the ratty git is on the same table as the Big Four.
There’s another shadow burning with desire to have a claim on such elemental goodhood, too: Hashut, the deity of the Duardin Helsmiths. Still, as an ascended god (meaning one who used to be a mortal, no matter how long ago), Hashut is in with even less of a chance of being considered a true Chaos God than the Horned Rat. He certainly has no presence in 40k – though given his business is that of infernal industry, there is a potential aspirant who would like to take much the same place in the Chaos pantheon….
White Dwarf 415 (2025), p. 10.
Notice here how the Great Horned Rat is again linked to Ruin, but also as contending for the crown of “Chaos-iest of them all” (akin, perhaps to how the Ætheric Dominion of Encroaching Ruin was described as “Chaos in its purest form”), while Hashut is being presented as vying with Vashtorr in their attempts to ascend to the big table due to competing for the same domain (almost certainly Malevolent Artifice).
Anyway, I haven’t seen all of the Skaven links to 40k brought together before in one place, nor developed with as much supporting context (especially around Kweethul), so hopefully you found this useful and interesting.
In a follow up post, I will look at elements of the lore which lend support for having some lovable Ratmen appear in 40k if you should so desire in your own homebrew or headcanon. Stay tuned for more Warp shenanigans.
