Skaven Origin Theory

[Bad_Lieutenant]

So I posted this theory a few years ago in a different thread but I was thinking about it again recently and wondered if it made sense to others.

The origin of the Skaven is shrouded in mystery but perhaps some lore experts could weigh in on my theory on how the Skaven possibly came into existence. Anyway here goes...


An artifact from the 40K universe (the Bell of Saint Gerstahl) held by Trazyn the Infinite made it's way to the Warhammer world at some point and is the chaos linked artifact responsible for bringing doom each time it rings. It brought such doom to Trazyn's vaults when it began to ring. What that 'doom' was exactly is not talked about in detail but the bell possibly arrived on the Warhammer world after being thrown into the webway by Trazyn who hoped it would cause trouble for the Eldar.

It's a bell that sounds 13 times and nearly destroys Trazyn's gigantic vaults and signals the beginning of the 13th Black Crusade by Chaos.

Now there is an old myth about the Skaven called the Doom of Kavzar and in it is mentioned a bell that rings 13 times spelling doom for Kavzar with each day that passes.

This is significant because I think if the Doom of Kavzar coincided with the artifacts arrival, then what that means is that Skaven are A) Definately creatures of chaos and B) So is their god the Horned Rat. But the bell rang in Kavzar to signal the arrival of the Horned Rat into the Warhammer world where previously it had not encroached before. It signalled the Skaven's own 'crusade' against every living thing in the Warhammer world.

It is likely then that the Horned Rat itself is responsible for turning regular rats into the enhanced and mutated Skaven that suddenly appeared in Kavzar for the first time.

The grey clad man who appeared in Kavzar may have been a follower of Chaos who brought the bell with him to help birth another force of chaos into the Warhammer world. He was probably a chaos sorcerer of Tzeentch but thats just speculation.

Has anyone else thought the same?

[Darth Wadewilson]

Interesting. I thought it happened during the great catastrophe. Like when every mutant beastmen got created as the world got corrupted. I always thought skaven just happened to be a special case where they gained advanced intelligence (or an intelligent race got warped into rats or something like that)

I'm not that familiar with 40k universe though.

[Wh♂♂par]

13 probably just sees use often in Warhammer because it is considered an unlucky number in a lot of countries.

[BigJ]

Its interesting taking the end times lore we know (skaven allied with chaos) and the hints of archaon and sigmar been primarchs, but the only issue is for a chaos god, the horned rat looks too similar to a mix of nurgle and tzeench and doesn't "gain power" like they do during war time, just from warpstone gatherings, also the bell that "created the skaven" is said to have had a greenish glow, 40k has nothing similar to warpstone outside of the corrupting influence of the Eye of Terror, and thats more related to the chaos wastes. Nice theory tho makes more sense than having a random bell.

[Bad_Lieutenant]

Originally posted by Darth Reyns:

Interesting. I thought it happened during the great catastrophe. Like when every mutant beastmen got created as the world got corrupted. I always thought skaven just happened to be a special case where they gained advanced intelligence (or an intelligent race got warped into rats or something like that)

I'm not that familiar with 40k universe though.

Yeah that's the part that wasn't clear to me from what I've read. The mutation of humans into Beastmen isn't anywhere as mysterious as the Skaven because so little is known about the ratmen by other races.

[Bad_Lieutenant]

Originally posted by ۞Big J۞:

Its interesting taking the end times lore we know (skaven allied with chaos) and the hints of archaon and sigmar been primarchs, but the only issue is for a chaos god, the horned rat looks too similar to a mix of nurgle and tzeench and doesn't "gain power" like they do during war time, just from warpstone gatherings, also the bell that "created the skaven" is said to have had a greenish glow, 40k has nothing similar to warpstone outside of the corrupting influence of the Eye of Terror, and thats more related to the chaos wastes. Nice theory tho makes more sense than having a random bell.

I recently heard the theory of Sigmar being a lost primarch as well, which would explain a lot lol.

I can't remember if the Bell of St. Gerstahl was described in colour or not but it's similarity in how it functions to the one mentioned in the Doom of Kavzar is uncanny.

[Spookymancer]

Okay, so the Warhammer Fantasy side of that story.
There was a super prosperous city where Man and Dwarf lived together in harmony, so they decided to build a towering mega-temple to thank the gods for their success. Not even dwarf engineering was enough to complete it, so they employed a 'mysterious stranger', an unnamed powerful wizard to help finish.
As part of his payment, the stranger wanted a giant bell added to the tower in dedication to his own gods. This they did, but the city cheated the wizard out of the rest of his payment. The temple sealed itself shut, the wizard disappeared, the bell rang thirteen times, and everybody died.
The rain fell laced with warpstone, the humans wailed and gnashed their teeth and the dwarfs mocked them for complaining about the rain. The dwarfs changed their tune real fast when the rats kept multiplying, eating all the food, growing bigger and smarter until they were the size of men...
tl:dr some humans and dwarfs got a wizard to build something, swindled him, and got eaten by rats.
There are many theories regarding the origins of skaven, but this dates to 4th edition and is the one generally accepted as canon.

[BigJ]

Originally posted by Spookymancer:

Okay, so the Warhammer Fantasy side of that story.
There was a super prosperous city where Man and Dwarf lived together in harmony, so they decided to build a towering mega-temple to thank the gods for their success. Not even dwarf engineering was enough to complete it, so they employed a 'mysterious stranger', an unnamed powerful wizard to help finish.
As part of his payment, the stranger wanted a giant bell added to the tower in dedication to his own gods. This they did, but the city cheated the wizard out of the rest of his payment. The temple sealed itself shut, the wizard disappeared, the bell rang thirteen times, and everybody died.
The rain fell laced with warpstone, the humans wailed and gnashed their teeth and the dwarfs mocked them for complaining about the rain. The dwarfs changed their tune real fast when the rats kept multiplying, eating all the food, growing bigger and smarter until they were the size of men...
tl:dr some humans and dwarfs got a wizard to build something, swindled him, and got eaten by rats.
There are many theories regarding the origins of skaven, but this dates to 4th edition and is the one generally accepted as canon.

Saltpyre mentions it when kruber asks about workshipping a bell instead of cheese.