The Great Horned Rat! And The origins Of The Skaven! Warhammer the Old World Lore 

Anyone else find the Dwarf story of the men and dwarfs making a heroic last stand together against the darkness to be really wholesome? That their story has the last dwarf dying alongside the last man has a tone of respect and admiration for their human friends is something I like.

Rats, Rats, we're the rats 🐀

Probably the best lore video on the Horned Rat period. And not once did he breakdown squealing like a teenage girl at a boyband concert, so I lost that bet.

OG Arch watchers will know Arch was originally a skaven.

Clever of you Arch to talk about the horned one on the Friday the 13th, bonus points for it on the spookiest month.

You sure can tell parts of the same story over again, without it ever getting boring. You are a good storyteller.

The grand intellect of He-who-dwells-beyond-the-veil: "If I make these rules confusing enough and scare the crap out of all my children, I will get a snack every time I have to discipline them AND they get to feel important for picking a scapegoat!" He really is smarter than everyone else in the Warhammer world.

"The Doom that came to Khavzar"? Ah, now that's a reference to the Lovecraft Mythos story "The Doom that came to Sarnath", a story about humans conquering a strange race, building a city on the ruins, then 1000 years later the Lizard God of said race destroys the city and reverts the land to wilderness.

Chaos would be much better if it were actually, you know, CHAOTIC instead to four flavors of giga satan all the time. The Horned Rat is a good example of something a bit different.

Fear Chaos God. The Cowardice God. The Ambition God. The Horned Rat God.

*Chews on warpstone* Silence-quiet! The Grey Seer Arch is speaking!

Personally believe the great horned rat is another ancient evil the dwarves dug up whilst delving too greedily and too deep like the Sleeper in Orcslayer beneath Karak Hirn.

The Great Horned Rat is the best example of how differently the Warp works in Fantasy when compared to 40k. Not only does he cover MANY if not all of the aspects of the other 4 main gods he, as Arch pointed out, has almost full agency over himself and his goals. The Skaven did not create the Great Horned Rat out of their imagination, the Great Horned Rat created the Skaven to slowly and covertly increase his power over thousands of years of worship from a single race who live completely out of site of 90%+ of the other races of the Fantasy universe.

Crazy? I was crazy once... They locked me in a room, a room full of rats! CRAZY RATS! THEY MAKE ME CRAZY!! *CRAZY?!* *I was crazy once...*

I love when Arch gets into character. So many more jokes and so interesting to listen to.

Glory to the Great Horned Rat, yes yes! It would be tremendously funny if the Fantasy equivalent of the God-Emperor of Mankind was not Sigmar, but the Great Horned Rat.

Yes yes! All praise the Horned Rat! Many warp tokens and breeders for this most penultimate lorerat.

Not so has anyone ever done a lore video on the horned one with such knowledge to make a vermin lord blush warpstone green. Yes-yes 🐀 🐁 🐀 🐁 🐀 🐁

It sounds like perhaps Kyle's betryal of the Chaos Dwarf socceror was both natural and fitting for his position as a grey rat.

The joy Arch adds to his skaven videos is so apparent.

How Nagash got a lore video before THE GREAT HORNED RAT is a mystery. But like all betrayal the horned one makes things right again.

Arch has a very distinct style of narration, which has developed well through the years. One could almost forgive him his unexplainable enthusiasm for skaven.

In so many ways the Horned Rat comes off as "what if there was a god of chaos undivided". Even though I am pretty sure his lore predates that of chaos undivided.

"I have seen the Horned Rat with my own eyes, you petty creature, and he does not suffer favourites..." - Warlord Gnawdwell

I can't help but point out the art for this one is a little rat fella on an arch throne on the desk of the inquisitor.

2 Seconds in: FINALLY THE HORNED RAT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FROM ARCH FOR YEARS

Just in time for Great Horned Rat Day! A "Hip-Hip-Hooray" for Great Horned Rat day! A far better holiday than Slaaneshmas!

We all know the Skaven are the good guys.

The bestest God-Diety in all of Warhammer Fantasy! Yes-Yes! Perfect for Friday the 13th! An almost hour long video on the greatest god in Warhammer. And perfect for me as it's my birthday and this is an unintentional birthday present, a warpstone laced, incredibly volatile, and very powerful and dangerous birthday present. Friday the 13th, an hour of The Great Horned Rat, and my birthday. Just pure verminous perfection. Maybe I am a Skaven. Yes-Yes! The best birthday for the Skaven me-me!

Ah yes, Arch's personal patron. About time we got around to him!

Finally in joyous appreciation my crusade may be called off. Thank you for this most succulent of offerings. Thank you indeed, yes yes.

I prefer the dwarven version of this. There is just something about dwarf and man fighting side by side in the dark against the inevitable that makes for a much better story.

You could have slipped in the Ubershriek Five (four) at the end there. But oh well. Nice to have some Skaven stuff back. Missed-missed these guys

Just when I done with Warhammer , and stop watching videos , Arch reminds me why I still watch from time to time 🕰️ well done Arch. This one’s been a long time coming

Was worried I would miss the upload because I was driving for 2 hours. Lo and behold it shows up right when I get to my destination! Arch truly is a generous lord.

You know the one thing I’ll give AoS is… the Skaven are still the Skaven. They fuck up everything for everyone

Thank you for what you do, Arch! I listen to your videos multiple times over and use your videos and Tex's from the Black Pants Legion as comforting trying-to-sleep audio.

well it’s clear im staying up for a little while longer its only right to watch a video on the great horned rat on the 13th day of the month even if it means pushing through unimaginable tiredness

Somehow separate skaven clans embody features of Great Four. Like I can find clear signs of being marked by nurgle, khorne or tzeentch in certain clans... Even their heraldry.

I could seriously listen to your Skaven videos for hours. Definitely my favorite Lore channel. Cheers sir!

Arch, your cadence and story telling is just spot on. That being said, I don't know why I like the Skaven-- they are a diseased, disgusting, and malevolent species-- but there is something very human like in their desire to survive and thrive-- to fight and become the dominant species

What is curious is that GW chose rats. Rats breed, but they don’t act like this species. What is also curious is that the skaven haven't joined 40k yet. And they could. They have the style. But GW hasn't put them in. What is also interesting is the numbers. Abaddon's 13 crusade, that bell in Trazen''s gallery ringing 13 times. The book said that he dropped it in the warp, but I wonder.

😳 BEST VALUE FOR A SUPERCHAT EVEAH! That lit a warp fire under Arch. Magnificent sir. Thank you! 🤔Paying Arch to,,, indulge himself,,, on his favorite subject. Yeah,,, totally worth it!😎👍 Till next time.

Awesome. The only thing the council of 13 ever agreed on

I think the Horned Rat is at bottom a manifestation of the urge to survive at all cost. The paranoia, backstabbing, selfishness, cruelty, ambition, fear, all a drive to achieve absolute security. The Horned Rat will never feel safe enough, secure enough. This also leads to the trait of adaptability. The Horned Rat's demons are inspired by the chaos gods, to survive he and the skaven adapt and steal whatever they see will work.

This is the Horned Rat episode I've been wanting for a long time. I forget how much I love this race of sneaky, in-fighting, plague ridden, mad scientist, mutant, assassin vermin.

ALL HAIL TO-TO THE GREAT HORNED RAT YES-YES!!! KILL-KILL ALL THINGS OF THE WORLD!!!

You're a vary well spoken skaven. People tend to forget, under the incompetence, under the silliness, under the narcissism, just how scary the skaven really are. They are in many ways similar to the Dark Eldar of 40k, capable of doing horrible things to you beyond your imagination, if you're unlucky enough for them to not decide to kill you. They'e like the dark eldar if the dark eldar had less impulse control. I also love how in Vermintide there's a skaven who's only purpose is "I love to loot shit!" he doesn't fight and instead runs away but if you kill him he drops stuff.

Finally more skaven took you a long time

Read this Story in White Dwarf in 1993. Great Great writing and really sells the Skaven.

The Techpriest in the background:" There is a filthy Xeno on the table. It must be purged."

I want 40k Skaven...- Oh wait, thats just the imperium!

*Nazrin: cheesed to meet you*

Yes yes more lore on best faction in all warhammer

best arch video in a long time. he must have been scheming to release this at just the right moment, yes yes.

Rat Rat yes yes

I think I can prove a part of that Tilean/Khazalid poem. If we look at a map of the Warhammer world; paying attention to Historical Dawi holds ,the settlement pattern of Tilea, and of course knowing the location of Skavenblight, you can see that there is a missing Tilean settlement and Dawi hold roughly where Skavenblight is. Of particular note are the Tilean settlements of Udolpho and Tobaro. The location of Udolpho and roadway pattern indicate a settlement towards the west as would the positioning of Tobaro (outside of the fact Tobaro is also a port city) to the south across the Tilean Sea. The logical road map would put at least one settlement at the current location of Skavenblight. As for the Dawi holds is a little harder. The closest Karak is Karak Eskfilaz. However, the apparent pattern of Dawi Holds along the mountain ranges would indicate there should be a Hold located somewhere in the Irrana Mountain range. Also close to the location of Skavenblight.

The great chief-chief makes a lore video of the GRRREAT HORNED ONE Yyyeeeessssa

Thank goodness. I've been waiting so long to hear this lore video

All praise the Horned Rat's favorite Greyseer Arch of the North.

Rat Lore! Yes-yes! How appropriate for this Friday the Thirteenth!

"It's only illegal if you get caught." -The Great Horned Rat

Come to think of it, the horned rat of all things resemble the monotheist idea of a god better that any other warhammer fantasy/40k diety

Friday 13th - the day of the rat! 😂

I like this guy, he reads it the same way my favorite warhammer 40k audio book readers do it, emotion and enunciation. Great content

I love that the game listed is the obscure 1995 PC game Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat.

Finally, I'll know what's the deal with this great horni thing, yes-yes!

That rat design looks good, I am going to make 3d model out of it.

Just listened again. This is peak Arch. Your style combined with the enthusiasm you have over the subject matter made for a Masterclass on the art of what it means to be relating a story. Well bloody done Arch.

34:00 longest running game of high stakes uno ever

Damn Rats going full north Korea with magic rocks

The Skaven are right there with the Empire and High Elves as my favorite to play. With the 3 it covers almost all play styles.

**happy-happy squeeks in the distance**

Lovely ratty picture Arch. Say what you want about Horner Rat as a god but his horned daemons look great and have absolutely fantastic horns.

I love the fact this video is being recommended to me 13 days after it was uploaded 👀

I love the Skaven; they are so cartoonishly evil that they become funny

Pergaps Arch wanted to wait a few years until people forget the *LUETIN* version of the Skaven story. Wise move either way. Quality stuff, this vid, as always.

The Great Horned Rat is the giant rat that makes all of the rules.

The idea of the Horned rat being some vile unknown magician using the city as a giant ritual of ascension to become a Monstrous being is a really cool bit of lore.

I've always thought the Skaven are mutated rats resulting from humans' psychological stress of living in noisy, crowded and filthy urban environments.

Bretonnia has a keen insight in the Skaven mindset that allows them to beat them: they like cheese even more than the rats.

ANOTHER great video, cheers fella.

My personal headcanon on what *exactly* the Great Horned Rat is that he is a rogue Old One, the race that created the others and most famously, the Lizardmen, held immense magical power, and also were not overfond of Chaos. The idea that one of them would try to become an outright god makes a certain degree of sense, given all the other ones are worshipped as gods by the lizardmen, and quite frankly, because they are the only thing in all of Warhammer Fantasy that has been started to be outright capable of creating new stable forms of life. The beastmen are corruptions of the old one's works, the demons are not really life, and neither are the undead. The Skaven are the only creatures we know of that are explicitly created wholesale. It also explains why GHR steals some of Nurgle and Tzeentch's domains, as the Old Ones hated chaos, and surely one would think that a good way to deal with them would be to usurp their domain and worship, thus starving the enemy at the same time that the old one became as powerful as two chaos gods, and thus able to contest if not outright destroy Slaanesh and Khorne.

Heck yeah 1:00am arch video

Ah yes, more based Skaven content.

We need a post end times game where everyone is a skaven and the different clans Duke it out over the ruins of the old world and artifacts. I wanna see Gal Maraz in a Skaven warlord’s hands just dunking on a grey seer

great stuff arch!

When Arch does a lore video on Skaven it always ends up a propaganda video. Love it!

Finally, a video of Arch's favorite Chaos God.

Arch still has best lore videos

Ah yes-yes, the one God not afraid to show himself and get shit done.

Wooo finally more skaven lore!

13 to the power of 13 sounds like a fitting population number for the Skaven XD

No one will ever convince me that the hooded figure wasn't Drachenfel. I have no reason for this except that it fits his MO of evil for lols.

The horned rat is cursed god who's minions will always fail him for all time.

Important to remember, as GW constantly reminds us that Warhammer, 40k etc are satirical. Here we have multicultural societies building towers to the heavens, the chosen race of a distant god, pillars of legalistic commandments brought down to stop endless infighting. What did GW mean by this? 😅

Amazing how much the Skaven have in common with Hamas.

hello Arch "The rise of the horned rat" on audible by master storyteller Guy Haley and thank you for another superlative Tale

Reject the Horned Rat! Embrace the Great Unhorned Cat! Lover and Beloved of Ranald, Devourer of Unchosen Unclean Skaven and Protector of Karsnikket's Warren.

Glory to the Hornets Rat This makes me really wanna see a skaven rp again so much with that last part in the video as the campaign