History Characters / TotalWarWarhammerTheSkaven

* DemotedToExtra: Exaggerated. Supreme Warlord Kratch Doomclaw of Crookback Peak is the leader of Clan Rictus, a member of the Council of Thirteen and one of the most powerful Skaven alive. How powerful? He outranks Grand Nightlord Sneek, leader of Clan Eshin and Deathmaster Snikch's boss, and is considered equal to Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch VII, leader of Clan Pestilens and Lord Skrolk's superior. He (or an IdenticalStranger bearing his name and ruling his territory) appears ingame as Chief Doomclaw, the generic warlord leader of minor faction Rictus Clan-Nest in Mortal Empires.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Possibly more so than any other ''Warhammer'' race. You'd be hard pressed to find a single redeeming or sympathetic feature about them -- they're all hateful, backstabbing, savage monsters. They worship a GodOfEvil who encourages betrayal and cruelty, they practice WeHaveReserves to the ''extreme'' and make heavy use Chaos-based sorcery and [[{{Magitek}} magitek]], and their ultimate goal is to wipe out or enslave "the surface races" (read: everyone) and claim the world for themselves. To illustrate how foul the Skaven are, it's best to compare them to the other Destruction factions: Vampires will enslave whole populations to use as food and servants, but are capable of feeling very genuine love and even a sense of noblesse oblige toward their "flocks". Dark Elves are cruel and have a culture based on torture and slavery, but are more driven more by historical grievances than innate nature and some of them can even potentially become questionably heroic. Orcs are violent brutes, but they'll develop what could be considered friendships and attachments to their fellows, and even the most brutal Black Orc will cry if his pet squig dies (though not in front of the other boyz because that just makes him look like a runty git). The Beastmen may be savage animals that want to destroy civilization but they have a tragic FreudianExcuse of being discarded for their mutations and deformities as well as not having free will. Even the Dark Gods of Chaos can draw from humanity's positive attributes as well as the negative ones.[[note]]Khorne can represent martial bravery and skill, Slaanesh can represent love and joy, Tzeentch can represent knowledge and hope, and Nurgle can represent emotional and physical endurance[[/note]] Skaven hate everyone and everything: they are more cowardly and paranoid than any goblin, crueler and more hostile than Dark Elves, and more fractious than Chaos. [[EvenEvilHasStandards Some Chaos Champions and Dark Elves even openly consider the skaven scum.]] Love, friendship, and honor are completely alien to the Skaven's psyche.

* GatlingGood: Skryre weapon teams can carry [[IncrediblyLamePun ratling guns]], multi-barrel gatling cannons that rapidly deliver dozens of warpshards a second at incoming enemies, using a warpstone-heated steam engine to drive it. Not only does it have an insane firerate, its missiles are armor-piercing, being very capable of shredding apart both chaff and elite soldiers alike, and to top if all off it has a suppression effect, meaning any unit unlucky enough to be under its barrage will be considerably slowed down, making it particularly effective against fast units.

Out of all the mortal civilizations within the greater world, no single race, neither the ruthless Barbarian tribes of the North, nor the savage Greenskins of the East can be compared in terms of instability to that of the Skaven Under-Empire. The Skaven race as a whole is extremely divided, often far more divided then perhaps any other race known in existence. Such disunion and ruthless lack of cooperation stems from the Skaven's insatiable need to survive, thrive and reign tyrannical over his other brethrens. To the Skaven there are no such things as pity, remorse, compassion, or cooperation. There is simply survival, survival in a turbulent society that only spares those that possess the brute strength, extreme cunning, and the vicious instinct to outmaneuver and kill the opposition, no matter the cost or the body count of either friend or foe. Though no matter how divided their race may be, they are nonetheless unified in a single cause, and that cause is to conquer the surface world and bring about the Great Ascendancy, where it is said that the Horned Rat's children will swarm across the face of the earth and claim all of it as their own.

** This has been ''heavily'' expanded with the Under-Empire mechanic, which was added in a post-launch patch. Essentially, to represent the fact Skaven live practically ''everywhere'' in the Old World, it's possible to build a ''fully functional'' city underneath any settlement. They're not only always spreading a large amount of Skaven corruption, they are fully upgradable, and these Under-Cities have a huge variety of building options, including Warp-Stone workshops, mushroom farms, secret armouries, and more. There's several special options available, such as letting the player spawn an entire army above the Undercity to be used in sieges. One must be careful when developing them, however, as if they're ever detected, they can be razed by the owner of the settlement above the Undercity.

* BlackMagic: As one would expect, Skaven magic is divided into the Lore of Ruin and the Lore of Plague, and both are as malevolent as the ratmen themselves. Few of their spells do anything but curse enemies or blow them to smithereens. ''Shadow and the Blade'' added a third; the Lore of Stealth. A secret art mastered in Nippon in which, in contrast to the above two Lore, grants the elite Eshin operatives tons of utility rather then direct damage.

** The ''Mutated'' Rat Ogres take the BodyHorror nature of the previously mentioned unit, crank it up a few notches, make them ''slightly'' smaller then Giants, and graft countless Warp-Infused weapons, a few new limbs and adornments to them. The cream of the Rat Ogre creations in Clan Moulder's possession, they are giant single-unit monster brawlers rather then coming in packs due to their colossal size, who excel at butchering infantry clumps and killing armored units.

* EvilOldFolks: Like most of the Skaven overclass, Ikit's (ab)use of Warpstone has extended his life radically and his age is counted in centuries. Unlike those of the Grey-Seers, Ikit's white fur is because of his age, and he's ''no less'' sinister then they.

* CombatPragmatist: He doesn't even loosely understand the concept of a fair fight, fittingly for what amounts to a rat shinobi. He has used many unorthodox methods in his countless assassinations, in a fight he always coats his blades in poison, and he readily fights dirty when confronted. Clan Eshin as a whole embraces this mentality even more then the other Skaven clans.

* ProfessionalKiller: What he is, and a ''damn good'' one we may add. He's probably the premier assassin of the series, and quite possibly the most skilled out of all of them. Clan Eshin's portfolio as a whole is this, their numbers are filled with skilled Assassins and non more so then the Deathmaster himself.