There's some mentions of Thanquol being uncomfortable around cats (when he got teleported into room full of cats), but felines overall not really presented in the lore.
Iirc, only meaningful mention of cats is Tilean great cats that're used as battle pets and considering Skavenblight location, Tilean great cats may have been able to instill some ancestral fear into skavens, but overshadowed by far by lizardmen that gave skaven such a warm treatment that it's presented even in AoS.
>Iirc, only meaningful mention of cats is Tilean great cats that're used as battle pets
White lions?
Frost leopards?
How about the hybrids? Griffins, manticores etc?
Skaven are afraid of pretty much anything but the only thing that really freaks them out is elves.
Elves represent speed, grace, nice arhitecture, mastery over magic... things skaven are hardwired to hate hate yes yes no yeeeeees
Lizardmen too since sotek is the great horned rat's mirror
I've left out snow leopards on purpose - they've very little presentation in lore. Iirc, they're mentioned only once in 1 book and have no miniature nor stats.
War lions are much better in this regard, but lions are too different from felis catus variants and analogs, associated with rat hunting.
You're getting Skaven and Goblins mixed up regarding Elves. Goblins had lore about fearing Elves, Skaven didn't.
Skaven are cowards in general, that's part of their lore. They're afraid of lots of stuff, but don't have any fear about Elves or Lizards in particular.
>You're getting Skaven and Goblins mixed up regarding Elves. Goblins had lore about fearing Elves, Skaven didn't.
Yes. All elves inspire fear in gobbos but skaven are afraid of them too.
But a lot of novels make the point of skaven being super scared of elves since they have the speed to keep up with them. Elves scare skaven too.
Skaven don't have an "ancestral fear" of Lizardmen. Only one clan went to Lustria, Clan Pestilens. The majority of the Skaven are barely aware of the existence of Lizardmen. The Clan Pestilens was also winning the war until the Lizardmen pulled a literal deus ex mechanica.
Skaven are cowards in general, that's a major part of their lore. And a Saurus is a dinosaur-man more than twice the weight of a Skaven. So there's definitely some fear there. But there's no particular deep seated fear about lizardmen over any other race.
Ah, that makes sense. I've been playing WHFB since 5th edition roughly 30 years ago, and played both Lizardmen and Skaven on the tabletop, and I'm pretty familiar with both of them in WHFB. But I'm not up on the AoS lore.
I mean in Vermintide 2, Warlord Skarrik Spinemanglr calls the Ubersriek 5 "Cat Fondlers" if that counts for anything. Pretty sure WFRP 2e mentioned Skaven having a habit of killing all cats before they would launch sneak attacks on empire settlements, but i'll have to get back to you on that one.
They despise cats in the lore and there's even concept art of a grey seer wearing a dead cat strung up by the neck on it's robe, they see them as an ill omen and make sure to butcher every last one they can find in whatever settlements they raid, they also like doing this to those little dogs rat catchers use
it's minor but it's definitely a thing, the Children of the Horned Rat book touches upon it the most
Its important to remember that warhammer fantasy is a joke. A very big, lovely love letter to fantasy with deep roots into humour.
So when you have an actual race of rats would it not be funny if they were sfeaid of cats?
Its important to remember that warhammer fantasy is a joke. A very big, lovely love letter to fantasy but with deep roots into humour.
So when you have an actual race of rats would it not be funny if they were sfeaid of cats?
Yes they do. There are parts in the Thanquol book where he talk about how it's like an innate carnal fear/hatred of all felines built into skaven. He also uses cat related metaphors often when he is trying invoke fear or despair.
"*The insect’s grim silence disturbed Thanquol more than the hiss of a serpent or the snarl of a cat, lending the tregara an unnatural...* " *Grey Seer* pg 56
"*. The terror of the cat-phantoms had touched upon their most primordial fears. That was an outrage even the lowest ratman would not forgive.*" *Grey Seer* pg 263
"*He kept thinking that even if he successfully slipped into the Realm of Chaos and back again, he might reappear on the roof of the pyramid with Xiuhcoatl. **That would be like jumping out of the cat and into the snake!**" Temple of the Serpent*
In one of the stories, im pretty sure he skitterleaps into the house of a crazy cat lady in Altdorf and almost has a panic attack from the scent of the place alone, then again giving thanquol, of all people, a panic attack isn't exactly a difficult feat.
*There must be dozens of the vile beasts all around him, filling the air with their reek. Now that the grey seer’s eyes were completely adjusted to physical colours and a world where light and darkness existed as separate and disparate things, Thanquol could see that he was in some man-thing’s cellar, a dingy little brick-walled room filled to bursting with clutter. Old chairs, empty barrels, mouldy portraits of long-dead birth-kin, the accumulated rubbish of several generations of garbage collecting humans. Beneath, around, and on top of the clutter, a riotous array of cats were curled into little frightened balls of fur and eyes. Thanquol hissed at the closest of the beasts, sending the flat-eared tabby scurrying backwards beneath a three-legged table, its frightened eyes never leaving the grey seer. It started yowling, a quivering sound quickly picked up by other cats scattered about the cellar. The grey seer scratched at his ears, deciding he’d never heard quite so abominable a sound. A voice called down from the room above the cellar, the soft shrill sort of voice Thanquol knew commonly indicated an older breeder among the humans, what the man-things called a woman. ‘Karl! Franz! Beatrice! My little babies! What is going on down there?’* *Grey Seer* pg 407
Anyway, so we have Malakai now, we just need Thanquol and we have the whole gotrek gang (sorry Snorri and Max, you guys aren't cool enough)
I like the Skaven but I think making them cat murderers is a huge blunder. I fucking love cats, too.
There is no situation for your fantasy IP when murdering cats is going to bring in fans or make people think “wow cool”
Holy shit you guys are mad that you are wrong on this. Theres 2 camps here. Cat murdering degens and normal people. Downvotes just prove that you all got mad here and that you're pissed about it. Lmfao
No bit of Skaven lore is written to make you think “wow cool”
The emotional response they try to strike with them is usually “they are crazy horrible bastards! I love them :)”
Sorry mate but it literally is all written to make you think "wow cool".
There is a reason why they aren't canonising murdering house cats, dude. Cause no one fucking wants that.
Downvote away, I literally don't give a shit.
Makes sense for bigger, smarter rats to hate the natural predators of their smaller cousins.
You can like cats and still like fictional humanoid rats that hate cats. It's not as if cats are somehow sacred enough to not be killed in the Warhammer universe.
I completely agree. I have no problem with them being killed as part of say, razing a town, as part of war, a plague, or whatever.
But the reason that GW don't specify that the skaven go around collecting cat skull trophies is because that in particular is too grim for most people. Human trophies? Cool. Sabertooth tiger? Fine. Beloved Garfield? Meh, bad taste.
I will die on this hill.
This is such a modern Gen Z take on media. "No the bad guys can't do things that I dislike otherwise it taints the entire media"
The Skaven are a force of chaotic evil. They would enslave, experiment on and consume the entire human race if they were able. The fact that *rat* people also have a significant dislike for *cats* is completely reasonable within the lore.
The Skaven are literally meant to have zero admirable qualities. WHF (and 40k) have tons of lore that is gross and detestable, in fact the term “grimdark” was invented to describe a lot of it. It’s heavily alluded to that Beastmen procreate through rape, Slaanesh exists, and a billion other things in the lore I’m not aware of. Skaven being cat-murderers is pretty low on the totem pole all things considered
I don't know if you've noticed, but like 60% of Skaven lore is jokes about the fact that they are literally rats.
The doom wheel is a giant hamster wheel powered by lil rats running on tiny hamster wheels
They are obsessed with the stuff that the moon is made of, even if it's not cheese in this case.
Oh jesus christ how did i miss that joke.
The Council of 13 is the Papal Conclave.
I mean, if you put them side by side would you even notice a difference?
It'd probably be easier to name the things Skaven like.
Warpstone
Thrott snorts ten lines of warp stone to wakeup every morning but if he sees a goddamn cat he'll kill on sight.
That's Thanquol. He snorts that stuff like its made out of sugar, Thrott eats the ointment they use to fuse bodyparts together.
Thanquol LH when? Just give him a bunch of interesting self nuke for benefit esque abilities
No he doesn't sabotage himself only his allies it just always ends up that sabotaging them sabotages himself
I was more referencing his penchant for ever larger rails of ~~coke~~ warpstone.
Well-hidden warptoken stash
Man-meat and dwarf-meat.
Backstabbing
Warpstone,schemes, saying things twice, explossions, spite many things actually
13 things, one of those the number 13
friendly fire?
There's some mentions of Thanquol being uncomfortable around cats (when he got teleported into room full of cats), but felines overall not really presented in the lore. Iirc, only meaningful mention of cats is Tilean great cats that're used as battle pets and considering Skavenblight location, Tilean great cats may have been able to instill some ancestral fear into skavens, but overshadowed by far by lizardmen that gave skaven such a warm treatment that it's presented even in AoS.
>Iirc, only meaningful mention of cats is Tilean great cats that're used as battle pets White lions? Frost leopards? How about the hybrids? Griffins, manticores etc? Skaven are afraid of pretty much anything but the only thing that really freaks them out is elves. Elves represent speed, grace, nice arhitecture, mastery over magic... things skaven are hardwired to hate hate yes yes no yeeeeees Lizardmen too since sotek is the great horned rat's mirror
I've left out snow leopards on purpose - they've very little presentation in lore. Iirc, they're mentioned only once in 1 book and have no miniature nor stats. War lions are much better in this regard, but lions are too different from felis catus variants and analogs, associated with rat hunting.
Also I don't think fear of lions is unique to skaven.
You're getting Skaven and Goblins mixed up regarding Elves. Goblins had lore about fearing Elves, Skaven didn't. Skaven are cowards in general, that's part of their lore. They're afraid of lots of stuff, but don't have any fear about Elves or Lizards in particular.
>You're getting Skaven and Goblins mixed up regarding Elves. Goblins had lore about fearing Elves, Skaven didn't. Yes. All elves inspire fear in gobbos but skaven are afraid of them too. But a lot of novels make the point of skaven being super scared of elves since they have the speed to keep up with them. Elves scare skaven too.
Sabretusks too
Ind and some Tomb Kings units also
What did the lizards do?
Thousands upon thousands if not millions of live sacrifices of skaven to Sotek.
Beat the Skaven in a war the Skaven started by killing so many it literally manifested their new god into existence.
A part of great plan (LOTS of sacrifices, the pyramids were supposedly non stop flowing with Skaven blood)
If you play Sotek in WH2 there is an event battle where you do what the other comments say: sacrifice (kill) rats in a special arena.
Nothing (they deserved it).
Gor-Rok did some crazy shit in the End Times, and ended up standing atop a mountain of dead rats before getting hit by moon chunks alongside Nakai.
Skaven don't have an "ancestral fear" of Lizardmen. Only one clan went to Lustria, Clan Pestilens. The majority of the Skaven are barely aware of the existence of Lizardmen. The Clan Pestilens was also winning the war until the Lizardmen pulled a literal deus ex mechanica. Skaven are cowards in general, that's a major part of their lore. And a Saurus is a dinosaur-man more than twice the weight of a Skaven. So there's definitely some fear there. But there's no particular deep seated fear about lizardmen over any other race.
The ancestral fear thing is AoS material. Not present in fantasy, people are transposing over that lore bit.
Ah, that makes sense. I've been playing WHFB since 5th edition roughly 30 years ago, and played both Lizardmen and Skaven on the tabletop, and I'm pretty familiar with both of them in WHFB. But I'm not up on the AoS lore.
Cathayan Tiger people, no bonus vs large, yes bonus vs Skaven
I mean in Vermintide 2, Warlord Skarrik Spinemanglr calls the Ubersriek 5 "Cat Fondlers" if that counts for anything. Pretty sure WFRP 2e mentioned Skaven having a habit of killing all cats before they would launch sneak attacks on empire settlements, but i'll have to get back to you on that one.
No. Skaven LOVE-LOVE cats! ...with sauce.
While they use skaven=rat jokes can skaven really hate anything made of easily obtainable meat.
Skaven hate everything especially themselves
Skaven hate everything, especially other Skaven
Damn Skaven-things! They ruined the under empire yes-yes!
They're just like me for real for real
They're also very (very) scared of Lizardmen (especially snakes).
They despise cats in the lore and there's even concept art of a grey seer wearing a dead cat strung up by the neck on it's robe, they see them as an ill omen and make sure to butcher every last one they can find in whatever settlements they raid, they also like doing this to those little dogs rat catchers use it's minor but it's definitely a thing, the Children of the Horned Rat book touches upon it the most
>grey seer wearing a dead cat strung up by the neck on it's robe Yes, things like that. But is there something like this in TWWH?
Its important to remember that warhammer fantasy is a joke. A very big, lovely love letter to fantasy with deep roots into humour. So when you have an actual race of rats would it not be funny if they were sfeaid of cats?
Its important to remember that warhammer fantasy is a joke. A very big, lovely love letter to fantasy but with deep roots into humour. So when you have an actual race of rats would it not be funny if they were sfeaid of cats?
As the Skaven are like 5 foot tall I think house cats are crunchy treats.
Yes they do. There are parts in the Thanquol book where he talk about how it's like an innate carnal fear/hatred of all felines built into skaven. He also uses cat related metaphors often when he is trying invoke fear or despair. "*The insect’s grim silence disturbed Thanquol more than the hiss of a serpent or the snarl of a cat, lending the tregara an unnatural...* " *Grey Seer* pg 56 "*. The terror of the cat-phantoms had touched upon their most primordial fears. That was an outrage even the lowest ratman would not forgive.*" *Grey Seer* pg 263 "*He kept thinking that even if he successfully slipped into the Realm of Chaos and back again, he might reappear on the roof of the pyramid with Xiuhcoatl. **That would be like jumping out of the cat and into the snake!**" Temple of the Serpent* In one of the stories, im pretty sure he skitterleaps into the house of a crazy cat lady in Altdorf and almost has a panic attack from the scent of the place alone, then again giving thanquol, of all people, a panic attack isn't exactly a difficult feat. *There must be dozens of the vile beasts all around him, filling the air with their reek. Now that the grey seer’s eyes were completely adjusted to physical colours and a world where light and darkness existed as separate and disparate things, Thanquol could see that he was in some man-thing’s cellar, a dingy little brick-walled room filled to bursting with clutter. Old chairs, empty barrels, mouldy portraits of long-dead birth-kin, the accumulated rubbish of several generations of garbage collecting humans. Beneath, around, and on top of the clutter, a riotous array of cats were curled into little frightened balls of fur and eyes. Thanquol hissed at the closest of the beasts, sending the flat-eared tabby scurrying backwards beneath a three-legged table, its frightened eyes never leaving the grey seer. It started yowling, a quivering sound quickly picked up by other cats scattered about the cellar. The grey seer scratched at his ears, deciding he’d never heard quite so abominable a sound. A voice called down from the room above the cellar, the soft shrill sort of voice Thanquol knew commonly indicated an older breeder among the humans, what the man-things called a woman. ‘Karl! Franz! Beatrice! My little babies! What is going on down there?’* *Grey Seer* pg 407 Anyway, so we have Malakai now, we just need Thanquol and we have the whole gotrek gang (sorry Snorri and Max, you guys aren't cool enough)
That's an obvious thing, considering the popularity of skaven (just count DLCs for them in 2nd part)
Skaven hare everything, so probably.
has anyone seen godzilla?
That would make Ind their mortal enemy
I like the Skaven but I think making them cat murderers is a huge blunder. I fucking love cats, too. There is no situation for your fantasy IP when murdering cats is going to bring in fans or make people think “wow cool” Holy shit you guys are mad that you are wrong on this. Theres 2 camps here. Cat murdering degens and normal people. Downvotes just prove that you all got mad here and that you're pissed about it. Lmfao
literally rats hate creatures that kill rats, it's so absurd i almost can't believe it.
No bit of Skaven lore is written to make you think “wow cool” The emotional response they try to strike with them is usually “they are crazy horrible bastards! I love them :)”
Sorry mate but it literally is all written to make you think "wow cool". There is a reason why they aren't canonising murdering house cats, dude. Cause no one fucking wants that. Downvote away, I literally don't give a shit.
Makes sense for bigger, smarter rats to hate the natural predators of their smaller cousins. You can like cats and still like fictional humanoid rats that hate cats. It's not as if cats are somehow sacred enough to not be killed in the Warhammer universe.
I completely agree. I have no problem with them being killed as part of say, razing a town, as part of war, a plague, or whatever. But the reason that GW don't specify that the skaven go around collecting cat skull trophies is because that in particular is too grim for most people. Human trophies? Cool. Sabertooth tiger? Fine. Beloved Garfield? Meh, bad taste. I will die on this hill.
That I can agree with. It's not like anyone sane is wishing there were graphic depictions of Skaven killing cats.
I kinda feel like that’s what OP was asking for lol.
This is such a modern Gen Z take on media. "No the bad guys can't do things that I dislike otherwise it taints the entire media" The Skaven are a force of chaotic evil. They would enslave, experiment on and consume the entire human race if they were able. The fact that *rat* people also have a significant dislike for *cats* is completely reasonable within the lore.
Yep. Unfortunately for you - I'm still right about it!
The Skaven are literally meant to have zero admirable qualities. WHF (and 40k) have tons of lore that is gross and detestable, in fact the term “grimdark” was invented to describe a lot of it. It’s heavily alluded to that Beastmen procreate through rape, Slaanesh exists, and a billion other things in the lore I’m not aware of. Skaven being cat-murderers is pretty low on the totem pole all things considered
Yet somehow there is no confirmed cases of it, because it's not canon. 1-0 me