Wampower

Of Petty States: A Warhammer NRP

Clan Mordkin

The Osseous Hollow

Tweep Smalleyes

“And you are certain-sure of this, yes-yes?”

The Bonelord’s low, rumbling words made him clench his glands even tighter. Tweep Smalleyes kept his eyes to the ground, not daring to look up at the face of death looming over him. From his position on his knees, prostrated before the Osseous Throne, the man-thing hair rug was cleaner than he expected. Well except for the bit of discarded gristle inches from his snout.

“Yes, oh mighty Bonelord, it is true-certain,” Tweep stammered. “All the malign portents of the foul-thing’s awakening have come to pass, just as you said! Savage man-things rip and tear and howl! Wight warrior departs from tunnels! All my wall creepers report the same.” He bobbed his head enthusiastically, which threatened to send the warpstone lens goggles careening off his head. He stopped them, but only just. It would cost another month’s flesh rations to replace them if they broke, and he could not dirty himself with eating mushroom stew for so long again!

The Bonelord was silent for a long moment. Tweep was sure his lord’s dread blade would come flashing down at any moment for some impasse. Tweep could maybe scurry away faster than Skelett, make a new life in nearby Clan Fester, sell his secrets, but the two chieftains in the room would surely catch him if he tried to bolt. Perhaps if he-

Then the Bonelord spoke. “You are a satisfactory minion.” The Bonelord paused, perhaps realizing that Tweep did not know what “satisfactory” meant. “Good-fine sneaking. You are not so useless after all!” Skelett’s hot breath washed over him as his heart soared. “Scamper to feeding pit now!”

Tweep needed no excuse to leave.

Bonelord Skelett Skullreaper

Skelett glowered at the black-robed clanrat’s backside as he scurried out of the room like his life depended on it. Of course Skelett wouldn’t kill the imbecile! He was the only one who fully understood the labyrinth of sneak holes under Azzsar. Then again, his cowardly behavior perhaps showed Tweep was getting too comfortable as a puppet master. Maybe one of his bolder subordinates, who actually put himself in danger sneaking past ghouls, would be better suited to be his Chief Skulker Under the Mountain.

He noted with delight that Chieftain Veskitt Foulthief snarled at Tweep’s backside as he left. The rivalry between Chief Skulker Under the Manthings and Chief Skulker Under the Mountain was one he could play off. Chieftain Zatch Mournjaw remained as stoic as ever, but Skelett thought he could detect a faint glimmer in his eyes as he too noticed Veskitt’s jealousy. Skelett narrowed his eyes. Zatch liked to play the simple, brute stormvermin, but Skelett was no snotling-brained son of a mouse! He knew Zatch had his ambitions and games. But as the clanrat left, it was time to get back to the matter at hand. He shivered in excitement as he processed Tweep’s words again. The Strigoi Ghoul King had finally awakened! He grabbed a handful of succulent, zombie fingers from a bucket near his throne, chewed, and swallowed, letting the moment linger on as the Necroflayer guard closed the bone-handled door behind Tweep.

“I trust you know what this means?” Skelett intoned regally.

Veskitt gnashed his fangs. Zatch nodded.

Skelett answered anyways. “From my readings and ruminations on necromantic lore, these are portents that their arch foul-thing has awoken. Our unholy enemy, blood of Nagash.” Of course, the history was more complicated than that, but he found throwbacks to the great necromancer always had a way of scaring his pawns into action. “We have a great many plans to lay, but first must gather strength.” He turned towards Veskitt, fine chainmail jiggling as he did. “Chieftain Veskitt, does the Helmgart Undertown prosper-succeed?”

Veskitt grinned toothily, as much as a ratman could, anyways. The brown-furred Skaven wore black leathers with a variety of jagged blades strapped to his belt. Most prominent was a fine hand crossbow that Veskitt took pride in pilfering from a witch hunter some years ago. While Skelett kept his fur carefully dyed white in keeping with Clan Mordkin tradition, Veskitt’s only concession to that tradition was a band of white paint around his eyes and the circumference of his furry head, broken in the center by his snout. “Helmgart Undertown does prosper. Many generations of warriors buried in death garden. Jeweled swords, silver hammer god symbols, and succulent bones,” he snorted “man-things leave perfectly good meat in gutters and alleys too.”

“Good-good. Intensify your gathering. But only so many rich corpses in Helmgart. Most man-things are squalid wretches. Start digging sneaky tunnels under plains into Brettonia.” Skelett tried to speak with more refinement than the average Skaven, but the troublesome word Brettonia came out more like Brettuna. He cursed himself and made a note to review man-thing vocabulary later. He continued “More to be found there. And with the news you brought of the foolish quarrel between mouse brained man-thing elites of knight land and the Empire, perhaps more battlefields to scavenge soon, yes-yes? Make tunnels deep and sneaky, use other clan’s tunnels sparingly. We want no war with Fester and other Clans with arch foul-thing awake.”

Veskitt nodded this time and responded with a hint of sarcasm “Yes, Bonelord. Your wisdom is great.”

For now, Skelett ignored the impudence as he turned to Zatch Mournjaw. His orders were much simpler. “Begin gathering warriors from tunnels. Thin out less important sections. Concentrate forces in Rotbane Mine, closest to Azzsar’s caves, yes-yes? Begin preparations for a raid. We must test the Ghoul King’s strength.”

The hulking, former Necroflayer’s fur was fully dyed white as Skelett’s was. His plate was stained pinkish, flesh color similar to the Mordkin banner. But his namesake feature was his overgrown jaws, closer to a rat ogre’s than a normal skaven. Once Zatch had gained the warp tokens, he had even encased his teeth in a silver-bonesteel alloy, so that Skaven and dead-things alike feared his bite.

Zatch’s red eyes gleamed and he nodded silently, offering a hint of a snarl on his otherwise stoic snout. A sign of battle-readiness.

Skelett leaned back in his throne, feeling another thrilling shiver. It was all soon to be worth it. Leaving Sylvania behind, fighting green-things and other Skaven on great tunnel journey, taking tunnels beneath Azzsar for himself. The fools back in Skulsreach would tremble if they saw him now.

“May the Horned Rat smile on us,” he murmured, feeling very satisfied with himself.

Of Petty States: A Warhammer NRP

Clan Mordkin

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Culture

The dreadful “culture” of Clan Mordkin is worth detailing before going further. From centuries spent fighting Nagash’s forces under Cripple Peak, Clan Mordkin became obsessed with death. They adorn themselves with bones of their enemies and dye patches of their fur white. Bones and skulls are worked into their designs, and bone weapons are not uncommon. But most gruesomely, the skaven of Clan Mordkin have gained a dietary preference for rotten and decayed flesh. They often “let their meat ripen” in carnal pits before eating it. A sign of hard times for Clan Mordkin is having to eat their meat fresh. Skaven of Clan Mordkin often form nests under graveyards and scour refuse piles and battlefields. They gain both meat ripened to their liking, bones for their crafts, and often trinkets to sell or adorn themselves with. They appreciate baubles and trinkets they extract from graves, so it isn’t uncommon to see higher caste Mordkin skaven with silver hammer pendants or golden chains.

But it all goes back to the undead. They hold a particular hatred for the undead, who they have fought for millennia. Bitter struggles with vampires and necromancers have kept their hatred for undead alive since Nagash’s time; a war forgotten by most Skaven clans. To say they “have no fear” of the undead would be a sore overstatement, but they certainly attack dead-things with a viciousness unparalleled in the rest of Skavendom. Clan Mordkin’s clanrats and slaves are just as bullied as any other clan’s, so they take pleasure in lording over stumbling zombies; something weaker and stupider than them. There is also always the promise of a meal with each zombie and ghoul slain.

One other quirk of Clan Mordkin is their particular religious fervency for the Horned Rat; perhaps a result of their long centuries of combat with the unholy. Typically, detachments of Clan Mordkin find themselves as enforcers for Grey Seers, but this has diminished over the years as Clan Mordkin has suffered many devastating losses as puppets of the prophets. Their faith still remains strong, with one ancient superstition saying that gnawing on the bones of Grey Seers can provide visions into the Horned Rat’s designs. Rumors have spread that the corpse of Grey Seer can be found somewhere beneath Helmgart, so some of them spent time searching for this dead prophet. Their leader claims to have gnawed on the bones of a Grey Seer, providing him great wisdom, but the veracity of this is uncertain. Their leader does hope to attract one of them to his cause to give his mission holy inspiration and magical artillery.

Held territory

The Skaven of Clan Mordkin have burrowed and tunneled into the Grey Mountains near Helmgart. They have travelled far from the traditional warrens of their clan in Sylvania and the World’s Edge Mountains after one prize: the Realm of Azzsar. So though the confusing network of tunnels they occupy, contested as it often is between rivals, may be impossible to map in detail, most of their dingy grottos and tunnels are beneath the Realm of Azzsar. Though they do not dare as of yet emerge into the higher caverns where more of Azzsar’s dead-things lurk in numbers, they constantly pick at the edges of his rule, striking fast and scampering away before ghouls arrive in greater numbers. They devote more forces to occupying and taking warpstone veins in the mountains, so more permanent shanties are thrown up there. The warren at the heart of this operation is the Osseous Hollow, an expansive and deep cavern where skaven throw up hives amongst the huge bones of long dead prehistoric creatures.

Even a skaven knows, however, to not keep all their warpstone nuggets in one basket. They have a smaller under-town in Helmgart, where they nibble at the edges of the city’s Garden of Morr. They tread carefully here though, as other skaven clans devote more of their resources to Helmgart. Humans also may begin to suspect something if the less forgotten crypts begin to turn up empty. After all, the unscrupulous doktors of Helmgart only need so many corpses for dissection.

Ruler WIP

Bonelord Skelett Skullreaper - Bonelord Skelett Skullreaper is an enterprising traditionalist of a ratman, rigorously following the grotesque customs of Clan Mordkin but charting a risky course by relocating his branch of the clan to the Grey Mountains. Devoted to the Horned Rat, a connoisseur of the dead, and somewhat learned by skaven standards, Skelett considers himself a scholarly and cultured warlord. So much so, he claims the title of “Bonelord”, a throwback to the older days of Clan Mordkin. Indeed, he considers himself superior to the clan’s elite who make their nest in the Skulsreach Cavern in Sylvania, considering them “snotling brained, false-squeekers” who style themselves as “Warlords” and fail to rigorously follow Clan Mordkin’s customs.

When reports filtered back to Skulsreach Cavern of a mountain filled with ghouls and warpstone, a veritable El-Dorado to the Skaven of Clan Mordkin, the young, self-righteous warlord Skelett knew he found his chance to prove his superiority. Other skaven called him “foolish” when there were so many unquiet dead in Sylvania to feast upon, but Skelett decided he would prove them wrong! Thus, he renounced the titles of Warlord and Chieftain, and moved his warband and any other enterprising skaven to the Realm of Azzsar.

Quirks aside, Skelett is no Warlor- eh, Bonelord to disregard as a fangless eccentric. He hulks above other Skaven at six feet tall; a muscled mass of fur bleached white. He wears a mix of mail and jagged plate typical for Skaven warlords, but is set apart by another Clan Mordkin tradition. A previous Warlord’s skeleton, slayed by Skelett, is worked into the armor. Skelett dipped the bones in molten steel to act as better protection, and stained them bone white. Rather than a chest plate, the steel ribs of the unfortunate Warlord are worked into Skelett’s chain coat. His pelvis was split into two thigh plates. Choice arm and leg bones were welded to the leg and arm plates, with the blunt, heavy end of a leg bone extending just past Skelett’s sword hand to act as a gauntlett bludgeon. And of course, the skull was stretched out and molded into a helmet connected to a mail coif, with the jawbone also bending around Skelett’s jaw. The mail coif connects down to Skelett’s backplate, which is naturally ordained with a protruding skull rack. Indeed, Skelett sees skulls as a wonderful piece of natural art, collecting them from his various victims.

In battle, Skelett wields an atypical sword and shield. The shield is a common, triangular shape, but is made of a single oak trunk with steel trimming rather than the typical assortment of wooden boards banded with iron. Protruding spikes at the shield’s top often hold two or three skulls from his collection; preferably, orc skulls for their hardiness. Fastened to the shield’s face are a chaotic, gnarled, and protruding mass of ribs and jawbones meant to spike enemies or trap their blades.

For a sword, Skelett wields a facsimile of the infamous Fellblade used to slay Nagash. The blade is made out of steel stolen from dwarfs rather than gromril, and Skelett was not wealthy enough to have Grey Seers imbue it with deadly enchantment like the Fellblade. The blade is nevertheless blended with silver and warpstone so as to better slay undead. A warpstone nugget is embedded in the blade’s base like the Fellblade, theoretically providing protection from magic. Thinking himself clever and witty, Skelett named his own sword the similar title of Direbrand.

Despite his impressive physique and certainly astonishing intellect, Skelett has problems roiling through his expedition. His clan’s position in the Grey Mountains is a precarious one, as other, more entrenched clans have not taken kindly to the new arrival. Skelett’s vicious assault on the previous warrens under Azzsar earned him enmity. Now that he has dominance under Azzsar, he has since attempted to smooth friction with the clans under nearby Helmgart, but has naturally had mixed success. Clashes with other Skaven clans break out infrequently.

His two primary chieftains also have begun tentatively nibbling at his control. Zatch Mournjaw, hulking, ruthless, and often possessed with a menacing silence, has risen from the "Necroflayers", Skelett's personal stormvermin guard and enforcers, to be Skelett’s trusted Chieftain, but secretly wonders if his less eccentric and more forthright rule would better serve the war against Azzsar. Zatch commands daring underground raids and the most meaningful battles underneath Azzsar. Veskitt Foulthief is a nimble and cunning chieftain who commands the clan’s position under Helmgart. As the best sneaker in the warband, Veskitt is perfectly suited to prowling through Helmgart’s tombs undetected. Veskitt believes Skelett’s obsession with Azzsar is poisonous when there are perfectly good graveyards and ruined battlefields all throughout the Imperial border. He is generally less traditional than other skaven of Clan Mordkin too, but follows Skelett opportunistically. These ambitious chieftains respect Skelett’s authority (Zatch more than Veskitt) for now, but the longer the clan goes without a vampire’s head on a stake the more restive they grow.

Economy

The Skaven of Clan Mordkin have no impressive sector of the Under Empire’s economy cornered like Clan Skyre, but have a few specialties that Skelett Skullreaper brought with his expedition. Mordkin is no wealthy clan and many Skaven refuse to do business with the foul rats. But if skaven refused to do business with every clan they found disgusting, then there would be few trade partners left, wouldn’t there? Skelett’s warband in the Osseous Hollow has moderate wealth, but only just. They only trade with other skaven clans as of now, but Veskitt Foulthief has been pushing to trade with the chaos-things in the woods nearby.

Steel. Long ago, an unsafe proliferation of bones in a ratsmith’s workshop led to the discovery that the carbon in bones can turn iron into steel akin to that of humans. With so much osseous material around, Clan Mordkin have made it into a chief craft of theirs to mix bone and iron into stronger weapons. This is no incredibly rich trade, since most warlords are content to send their rats into battle with ancient scraps of rusty iron, but still draws a moderate amount of warptokens from stormvermin regiments and wandering tinkerers. Skelett has a handful of workshops dedicated to this craft, though most goes to his own warriors.

Ore. There are rich veins of ore beneath the grey mountains, some of it warpstone. They make good profit off it, but most clans have mining operations already, given the obvious nature of the Under Empire.

Scavenging. The skaven of Clan Mordkin make a life off prowling through dusty tombs, battlefields, and any other place with many corpses. Whether rich merchants in gilded tombs or fallen soldiers, man-things often go to their graves with much wealth. Clan Mordkin makes many warptokens off family jewels, Morrite trappings, weapons pried from corpses, and all manner of trinkets and baubles. And of course, it’s even better when the corpses get up and walk to them, their now forgotten silver pendants and golden rings ripe for the taking.

Resources

Clan Mordkin has the resources above, as well as an abundance of bones for their own use. The brutal world of Skavendom requires self-suffiency, but they often import technology and beasts from Clans Skyre and Moulder respectively. Occasionally they run low on fungus and stunty grain for the slaves, such is their relentless focus on ripened meat, so food imports are needed.

Active Service

(OOC Skaven numbers are a bit hard, but I’ll do my best)

Chieftain - 2
Warlock Engineer, charged with overseeing weapons teams - 2
Packmaster, charged with overseeing the Moulder beasts - 1

Skavenslaves - 2000
Clanrats - 1000
Skavenslave Slingers - 500
Stormvermin - 350

Poison Wind Globadiers - 12
Ratling Guns - 12
Warpfire Throwers - 36
Warp-Grinders - 50

Rat Ogres - 12
Giant Rats - 100

Reserves

Warlord - 1
Warlock Engineer, charged with overseeing weapons teams - 2
Packmaster, charged with overseeing the Moulder beasts - 1

Skaven Slaves - 5000
Clanrats - 500
Stormvermin - 100

Warplock Jezzails - 12
Poison Wind Globadiers - 16
Ratling Guns - 24
Warpfire Throwers - 24
Warp-Grinders - 36

Giant Rats - 250
Rat Ogres - 24
Stormfiends - 9
Hell Pit Abomination - 1

Warp-Lightning Cannon - 1

Garrisons

Tunnel Network - Most active service with varying concentrations

Osseous Hollow: All the reserves

Rotbane Warpstone Mine: 400 Skaven Slaves, 100 Skaven Slave Slingers, 100 Clanrats, 30 Stormvermin

Cripple Cave Warpstone Mine: 400 Skaven Slaves, 100 Skaven Slave Slingers, 100 Clanrats, 30 Stormvermin

Lucky Paw Warpstone Mine: 400 Skaven Slaves, 100 Skaven Slave Slingers, 100 Clanrats, 30 Stormvermin

Helmgart Undertown: 300 Skaven Slaves, 200 Skaven Slave Slingers, 200 Clanrats, 50 Bonerunners, 24 Warpfire Throwers, 12 Warplock Jezzails, 12 Ratling Guns.

Regiments of Renown

“Bonerunners” - Veskitt Foulthief’s force of Nightrunner imitators that prowl with him beneath Helmgart (These are worse than actual Nightrunners, but are unique, so I thought I would put them here.) - 200

“Necroflayers” - Skelett Skullreaper’s elite guard of stormvermin, with fur bleached white and equipped with finest bonesteel like their master. These stormvermin are masters at the slaying of undead, jabbing out to pierce brains and shear off clawed arms with blinding speed and ferocity. Most have a variety of superstitious trinkets and gadgets in addition to their glaives, swords, and halberds, such as powdered silver, garlic, and bags of grain. They often debate the nature of the macabre and how to best slay it when unoccupied.

Foreign Policy

Besides total war with Azzsar, they hope to stabilize relations with the other nearby skaven clans in the wake of their conquest of the rich tunnels beneath Azzsar. Otherwise, they have no diplomatic relations with other powers. They try to keep a low profile under Helmgart, as generations of skaven have done. Some minds, such as Veskitt, suggest discussing terms with chaos factions, but this has not been done yet.

Notable locations WIP

WIP, done sort of previously.

Warning, a bit gory, stomach turning perhaps, and a bit mean as Skaven can be.

Of Petty States: A Warhammer NRP

Clan Mordkin

Banner

Culture

The dreadful “culture” of Clan Mordkin is worth detailing before going further. From centuries spent fighting Nagash’s forces under Cripple Peak, Clan Mordkin became obsessed with death. They adorn themselves with bones of their enemies and dye patches of their fur white. Bones and skulls are worked into their designs, and bone weapons are not uncommon. But most gruesomely, the skaven of Clan Mordkin have gained a dietary preference for rotten and decayed flesh. They often “let their meat ripen” in carnal pits before eating it. A sign of hard times for Clan Mordkin is having to eat their meat fresh. Skaven of Clan Mordkin often form nests under graveyards and scour refuse piles and battlefields. They gain both meat ripened to their liking, bones for their crafts, and often trinkets to sell or adorn themselves with. They appreciate baubles and trinkets they extract from graves, so it isn’t uncommon to see higher caste Mordkin skaven with silver hammer pendants or golden chains.

But it all goes back to the undead. They hold a particular hatred for the undead, who they have fought for millennia. Bitter struggles with vampires and necromancers have kept their hatred for undead alive since Nagash’s time; a war forgotten by most Skaven clans. To say they “have no fear” of the undead would be a sore overstatement, but they certainly attack dead-things with a viciousness unparalleled in the rest of Skavendom. There is also always the promise of a meal with each zombie and ghoul slain.

One other quirk of Clan Mordkin is their particular religious fervency for the Horned Rat; perhaps a result of their long centuries of combat with the unholy. Typically, detachments of Clan Mordkin find themselves as enforcers for Grey Seers, but this has diminished over the years as Clan Mordkin has suffered many devastating losses as puppets of the prophets. Their faith still remains strong, with one ancient superstition saying that gnawing on the bones of Grey Seers can provide visions into the Horned Rat’s designs. Rumors have spread that the corpse of Grey Seer can be found somewhere beneath Helmgart, so some of them spent time searching for this dead prophet. Their leader claims to have gnawed on the bones of a Grey Seer, providing him great wisdom, but the veracity of this is uncertain. Their leader does hope to attract one of them to his cause to give his mission holy inspiration and magical artillery.

Held territory

The Skaven of Clan Mordkin have burrowed and tunneled into the Grey Mountains near Helmgart. They have travelled far from the traditional warrens of their clan in Sylvania and the World’s Edge Mountains after one prize: the Realm of Azzsar. So though the confusing network of tunnels they occupy, contested as it often is between rivals, may be impossible to map in detail, most of their dingy grottos and tunnels are beneath the Realm of Azzsar. Though they do not dare as of yet emerge into the higher caverns where more of Azzsar’s dead-things lurk in numbers, they constantly pick at the edges of his rule, striking fast and scampering away before ghouls arrive in greater numbers. They devote more forces to occupying and taking warpstone veins in the mountains, so more permanent shanties are thrown up there. The warren at the heart of this operation is the Osseous Hollow, an expansive and deep cavern where skaven throw up hives amongst the huge bones of long dead prehistoric creatures.

Even a skaven knows, however, to not keep all their warpstone nuggets in one basket. They have a smaller under-town in Helmgart, where they nibble at the edges of the city’s Garden of Morr. They tread carefully here though, as other skaven clans devote more of their resources to Helmgart. Humans also may begin to suspect something if the less forgotten crypts begin to turn up empty. After all, the unscrupulous doktors of Helmgart only need so many corpses for dissection.

Ruler WIP

Bonelord Skelett Skullreaper - Bonelord Skelett Skullreaper is an enterprising traditionalist of a ratman, rigorously following the grotesque customs of Clan Mordkin but charting a risky course by relocating his branch of the clan to the Grey Mountains. Devoted to the Horned Rat, a connoisseur of the dead, and somewhat learned by skaven standards, Skelett considers himself a scholarly and cultured warlord. So much so, he claims the title of “Bonelord”, a throwback to the older days of Clan Mordkin. Indeed, he considers himself superior to the clan’s elite who make their nest in the Skulsreach Cavern in Sylvania, considering them “snotling brained, false-squeekers” who style themselves as “Warlords” and fail to rigorously follow Clan Mordkin’s customs.

When reports filtered back to Skulsreach Cavern of a mountain filled with ghouls and warpstone, a veritable El-Dorado to the Skaven of Clan Mordkin, the young, self-righteous warlord Skelett knew he found his chance to prove his superiority. Other skaven called him “foolish” when there were so many unquiet dead in Sylvania to feast upon, but Skelett decided he would prove them wrong! Thus, he renounced the titles of Warlord and Chieftain, and moved his warband and any other enterprising skaven to the Realm of Azzsar.

Quirks aside, Skelett is no Warlor- eh, Bonelord to disregard as a fangless eccentric. He hulks above other Skaven at six feet tall; a muscled mass of fur bleached white. He wears a mix of mail and jagged plate typical for Skaven warlords, but is set apart by another Clan Mordkin tradition. A previous Warlord’s skeleton, slayed by Skelett, is worked into the armor. Skelett dipped the bones in molten steel to act as better protection, and stained them bone white. Rather than a chest plate, the steel ribs of the unfortunate Warlord are worked into Skelett’s chain coat. His pelvis was split into two thigh plates. Choice arm and leg bones were welded to the leg and arm plates, with the blunt, heavy end of a leg bone extending just past Skelett’s sword hand to act as a gauntlett bludgeon. And of course, the skull was stretched out and molded into a helmet connected to a mail coif, with the jawbone also bending around Skelett’s jaw. The mail coif connects down to Skelett’s backplate, which is naturally ordained with a protruding skull rack. Indeed, Skelett sees skulls as a wonderful piece of natural art, collecting them from his various victims.

In battle, Skelett wields an atypical sword and shield. The shield is a common, triangular shape, but is made of a single oak trunk with steel trimming rather than the typical assortment of wooden boards banded with iron. Protruding spikes at the shield’s top often hold two or three skulls from his collection; preferably, orc skulls for their hardiness. Fastened to the shield’s face are a chaotic, gnarled, and protruding mass of ribs and jawbones meant to spike enemies or trap their blades.

For a sword, Skelett wields a facsimile of the infamous Fellblade used to slay Nagash. The blade is made out of steel stolen from dwarfs rather than gromril, and Skelett was not wealthy enough to have Grey Seers imbue it with deadly enchantment like the Fellblade. The blade is nevertheless blended with silver and warpstone so as to better slay undead. A warpstone nugget is embedded in the blade’s base like the Fellblade, theoretically providing protection from magic. Thinking himself clever and witty, Skelett named his own sword the similar title of Direbrand.

Despite his impressive physique and certainly astonishing intellect, Skelett has problems roiling through his expedition. His clan’s position in the Grey Mountains is a precarious one, as other, more entrenched clans have not taken kindly to the new arrival. Skelett’s vicious assault on the previous warrens under Azzsar earned him enmity. Now that he has dominance under Azzsar, he has since attempted to smooth friction with the clans under nearby Helmgart, but has naturally had mixed success. Clashes with other Skaven clans break out infrequently.

His two primary chieftains also have begun tentatively nibbling at his control. Zatch Mournjaw, hulking, ruthless, and often possessed with a menacing silence, has risen from the "Necroflayers", Skelett's personal stormvermin guard and enforcers, to be Skelett’s trusted Chieftain, but secretly wonders if his less eccentric and more forthright rule would better serve the war against Azzsar. Zatch commands daring underground raids and the most meaningful battles underneath Azzsar. Veskitt Foulthief is a nimble and cunning chieftain who commands the clan’s position under Helmgart. As the best sneaker in the warband, Veskitt is perfectly suited to prowling through Helmgart’s tombs undetected. Veskitt believes Skelett’s obsession with Azzsar is poisonous when there are perfectly good graveyards and ruined battlefields all throughout the Imperial border. He is generally less traditional than other skaven of Clan Mordkin too, but follows Skelett opportunistically. These ambitious chieftains respect Skelett’s authority (Zatch more than Veskitt) for now, but the longer the clan goes without a vampire’s head on a stake the more restive they grow.

Economy

The Skaven of Clan Mordkin have no impressive sector of the Under Empire’s economy cornered like Clan Skyre, but have a few specialties that Skelett Skullreaper brought with his expedition. Mordkin is no wealthy clan and many Skaven refuse to do business with the foul rats. But if skaven refused to do business with every clan they found disgusting, then there would be few trade partners left, wouldn’t there? Skelett’s warband in the Osseous Hollow has moderate wealth, but only just. They only trade with other skaven clans as of now, but Veskitt Foulthief has been pushing to trade with the chaos-things in the woods nearby.

Steel. Long ago, an unsafe proliferation of bones in a ratsmith’s workshop led to the discovery that the carbon in bones can turn iron into steel akin to that of humans. With so much osseous material around, Clan Mordkin have made it into a chief craft of theirs to mix bone and iron into stronger weapons. This is no incredibly rich trade, since most warlords are content to send their rats into battle with ancient scraps of rusty iron, but still draws a moderate amount of warptokens from stormvermin regiments and wandering tinkerers. Skelett has a handful of workshops dedicated to this craft, though most goes to his own warriors.

Ore. There are rich veins of ore beneath the grey mountains, some of it warpstone. They make good profit off it, but most clans have mining operations already, given the obvious nature of the Under Empire.

Scavenging. The skaven of Clan Mordkin make a life off prowling through dusty tombs, battlefields, and any other place with many corpses. Whether rich merchants in gilded tombs or fallen soldiers, man-things often go to their graves with much wealth. Clan Mordkin makes many warptokens off family jewels, Morrite trappings, weapons pried from corpses, and all manner of trinkets and baubles. And of course, it’s even better when the corpses get up and walk to them, their now forgotten silver pendants and golden rings ripe for the taking.

Resources

Clan Mordkin has the resources above, as well as an abundance of bones for their own use. The brutal world of Skavendom requires self-suffiency, but they often import technology and beasts from Clans Skyre and Moulder respectively. Occasionally they run low on fungus and stunty grain for the slaves, such is their relentless focus on ripened meat, so food imports are needed.

Active Service

(OOC Skaven numbers are a bit hard, but I’ll do my best)

Chieftain - 2
Warlock Engineer, charged with overseeing weapons teams - 2
Packmaster, charged with overseeing the Moulder beasts - 1

Skavenslaves - 2000
Clanrats - 1000
Skavenslave Slingers - 500
Stormvermin - 350

Poison Wind Globadiers - 12
Ratling Guns - 12
Warpfire Throwers - 36
Warp-Grinders - 50

Rat Ogres - 12
Giant Rats - 100

Reserves

Warlord - 1
Warlock Engineer, charged with overseeing weapons teams - 2
Packmaster, charged with overseeing the Moulder beasts - 1

Skaven Slaves - 5000
Clanrats - 500
Stormvermin - 100

Warplock Jezzails - 12
Poison Wind Globadiers - 16
Ratling Guns - 24
Warpfire Throwers - 24
Warp-Grinders - 36

Giant Rats - 250
Rat Ogres - 24
Stormfiends - 9
Hell Pit Abomination - 1

Warp-Lightning Cannon - 1

Garrisons

Tunnel Network - Most active service with varying concentrations

Osseous Hollow: All the reserves

Rotbane Warpstone Mine: 400 Skaven Slaves, 100 Skaven Slave Slingers, 100 Clanrats, 30 Stormvermin

Cripple Cave Warpstone Mine: 400 Skaven Slaves, 100 Skaven Slave Slingers, 100 Clanrats, 30 Stormvermin

Lucky Paw Warpstone Mine: 400 Skaven Slaves, 100 Skaven Slave Slingers, 100 Clanrats, 30 Stormvermin

Helmgart Undertown: 300 Skaven Slaves, 200 Skaven Slave Slingers, 200 Clanrats, 50 Bonerunners, 24 Warpfire Throwers, 12 Warplock Jezzails, 12 Ratling Guns.

Regiments of Renown

“Bonerunners” - Veskitt Foulthief’s force of Nightrunner imitators that prowl with him beneath Helmgart (These are worse than actual Nightrunners, but are unique, so I thought I would put them here.) - 200

“Necroflayers” - Skelett Skullreaper’s elite guard of stormvermin, with fur bleached white and equipped with finest bonesteel like their master. These stormvermin are masters at the slaying of undead, jabbing out to pierce brains and shear off clawed arms with blinding speed and ferocity. Most have a variety of superstitious trinkets and gadgets in addition to their glaives, swords, and halberds, such as powdered silver, garlic, and bags of grain. They often debate the nature of the macabre and how to best slay it when unoccupied.

Foreign Policy

Besides total war with Azzsar, they hope to stabilize relations with the other nearby skaven clans in the wake of their conquest of the rich tunnels beneath Azzsar. Otherwise, they have no diplomatic relations with other powers. They try to keep a low profile under Helmgart, as generations of skaven have done. Some minds, such as Veskitt, suggest discussing terms with chaos factions, but this has not been done yet.

Notable locations WIP

WIP, done sort of previously.

Warning, a bit gory, stomach turning perhaps, and a bit mean as Skaven can be.

Of Petty States: A Warhammer NRP

I'm interested and thinking of playing Skaven. Specifically, Clan Mordkin most likely.

War Never Changes 2 : A Post Nuclear Nation Roleplay

Here's my heavily WIP nation sheet.

The Lazarene Union

Name: The Lazarene Union of Texas officially, but typically just the Lazarene Union to reflect its universalizing nature.

Flag (N/A)

Territory (picture or description) and Geography (WIP)

Settlements radiating south, east, and west from the Texas Hill Country.

History (WIP)

While the strange nation of Tekiasu began to grow in north Texas, the southern and central stretches of the state endured a long period of suffering. Slavery and tyranny had ruled the land for nearly a century. Petty barons, perhaps once called raiders, had defeated the last coalition of free settlements in 2137. Freedom was becoming a distant memory. Then, in 2200, the prophet Isiah Hernandez received a vision from the Archangel Gabriel and led a holy uprising against the slavers. He spread his teachings through a small pamphlet called the Lazarene Writ, a simple text fitting to the wasteland. Its new commandments among others made freedom and equality holy, stated that God had many faces, and offered a cookbook for a slave uprising. Beginning in San Marcos, the fires of religious revival and slave uprisings radiated outwards across the Hill Country, the South Texas Plains, and into the Big Bend Country. In response, the slaver barons sent an army of mercenaries and slave soldiers descended upon San Marcos, hoping to cut the head off the snake. At the Battle of Five Mile Dam in 2201, a smaller rebel force defying orders from the Prophet to retreat to San Marcos cost the massive slaver army dearly, but was overwhelmed. In an upset, the Prophet routed the remainder of the force in the subsequent Battle of San Marcos. Bloody battles would rage in Austin, San Antonio, San Angelo, but once the rebels had shown they could defeat the slavers in open battle the revolt became a revolution.

After much of the heartlands were subdued, the Prophet himself led a march to the gulf, as the power of the vile slave traders were strongest there and the slave revolts in those regions had been defeated. A ramshackle, yet zealous, force set forth, made up of rebellious militia, country men, escaped slaves, and a cohort of Desert Rangers eager to leave Fort Bliss and strike a blow against the tyranny that had surrounded them for so long. The battles along the gulf coast were bloody, but in the end the rebels captured every major port settlement from Corpus Christi to Matagorda. The Prophet, already an older man, was weakened by a wound taken during the battle. He returned to San Marcos, where he began consolidating the revolution into a nation. It would be called the Lazarene Union, as it would be a union of settlements and regions that had heard his holy word, rose up against their overlords, and joined with him. He established the government of the Lazarene Union, which would be defined by the Congress of Ministers, led by an executive Eminent Minister, the Lazarene Church, and the Holy Tribunal, an equivalent to the Supreme Court. There was no separation of church and state, for the Prophet imagined a corporate society, where the state and faith were one body and American values such as freedom, justice, and equality were made sacred. It was at this time the Prophet also wrote the Lazarene Book, a collection of his texts and writings that expanded upon the Lazarene Writ. Around this time, the Lazarene Constitution also enshrined the nation’s legal process.

The Prophet naturally took the place of Eminent Minister until he passed on from the world in 2217. The ensuing decades have been of consolidation, periodic wars with raider factions, and expansion as the Union moved from a ragtag coalition of settlements to a nation in its own right. By the 2290’s, the Union has consolidated its federalism and created states within itself. Periods of intense zealotry have come and gone, but the Lazarene Book and Lazarene Constitution aspired to be living documents, flexible to each generation’s interpretation of God’s creation. “The spirit of 2200” is still alive and well. Woe to the invader who challenges it.

Population

~500,000

Notable People (N/A)

Military (N/A)

Economy (N/A)

Culture and Technology (N/A)

Religion (WIP)

Some Aspects of the Lazarene Christian Faith: The name “Lazarene” is a reference to the raising of Lazarus from the dead in the bible, Jesus’s last miracle. Isaiah believed it was his purpose to echo this act on a grand scale; a revival of the faith, a revival of American ideals, and a revival of the Wasteland from the morass of moral decay and hardship. But he was under no illusions of the damage to the faith wrought by the Great War. If there was a God, why had he failed to stop humanity’s doom? Cynicism or phony superstitions were more often than not the rule of the Wasteland. In response to the climate around him, Isaiah came to advocate certain beliefs about the nature of the world: He focused on the sacredness of creation, asserting that the Earth and all its bounty were God’s gift to man, the instruments of man’s success and happiness.This was why God chose not to intervene so rigorously; this was why science was to be trusted in: God was in the life saving penicillin; God worked through the moral liberator of the Union.

Thus, it was truly up to man to make use of God's creation to its fullest extent. It was truly up to man to be the master of his domain. The calamities that befell America and humanity as a whole in the 21st century became a cautionary tale for what happens when men let others become their masters beyond a healthy extent, when man let his ideals be compromised and injustice rule the land. That had been the state of Pre-War America and had led to the nuclear apocalypse. In waging the Great War, man had destroyed God’s creation rather than master it, creating a man made Flood. The lessons of this fable reflect the values the Prophet believed in wished to spread, and which he believed would find a receptive audience in Texas. Individualism and disobedience against the government was to be celebrated.

The Lazarene Church in Practice:

War Never Changes

@Crusader Lord There's a map on the first post of OOC channel. But to put it simply, there's ample free area in the deep south, northern midwest(Montana, Dakotas, Minnesota), Canada(There's some faction markers up there, but most of those are people who dropped, so we might could work something out), and a good bit of Mexico.

Warhammer 40,000: Indomitable Spirit

Doing alright. Starting to think of posting

Warhammer 40,000: Indomitable Spirit

Basically, I’m just saying no one needs to wait on me because I can’t come up with anything compelling for where we are right now.

Warhammer 40,000: Indomitable Spirit

@Paradoxial@Loo Tenant Hey I don't think I have much to add besides more shooting. You can go ahead and post.

Warhammer 40,000: Indomitable Spirit

@Paradoxial Sorry about that. It's been finals season, but the year is almost done. I'll start working on a post on and off and try to have it by this weekend.