Homebrew Skaven Species Details

Skaven are a clan based society where they worship their one and only deity, The Horned Rat, out of fear of retribution. They are sneaky, conniving, selfish, and backstabbing. They are also almost always closely linked to plague and disease. In fact they love creating new plagues to torture the world above ground with. They believe themselves to be superior to all races, especially to those that live above ground.

The Skaven are human-sized anthropomorphic rat creatures that live in subterranean areas that are often plagued in disease and filth. They are clever vermin, with an itch for the dangerous. Their cowardice is only matched by their tendency to stab their fellow rat and commander alike in the back with a rusty dagger.

History

No one knows where the Skaven came from. Ancient Dwarves, tell horrifying tales of hungry red eyes, scouring through a human settlement in the mountains. Dwarven scholars speculate, that it was the great bell in the recently constructed cathedral, which rung specifically thirteen times, before going silent. The following chaos was one never seen before, man turning on man, children eating the faces of their own mothers, large green meteors of pure chaos fell from the sky; almost none of those exposed to the bell's tolls were spared from the madness. The few souls that were still sane, knocked the doors of the cathedral open, with the intent of finding the culprits to this dark sorcery. Inside, corpses of Dwarves lay scattered throughout its great halls, every single piece of flesh torn from their bones. From the darkness, lay thousands of red eyes on the disturbers of the feast. Since then, that city has been renamed to Skavenblight, the wretched capital of all Skaven.

Society

The Skaven live in large underground cities, where all rats, sooner or later, go. Life here is harsh, with few Skaven reaching the age of a human teenager, before being crushed under a rock, stabbed in the back by a colleague, or falling from a high point to his death. Four clans dominate most of Skaven society, and all who wish to make it far in Skaven society will eventually join one. Or get eaten by a rat ogre; whichever one comes first. The four clans are: Skyre, Moulder, Eshin, and Pestilens. Clan Skyre focuses on developing new and interesting toys to blow soldiers up with, and occasionally something useful for nonmilitary purposes. Such as, massive drills that can do what would take thousands of slaves a month to do, in a week's time. These drills have been limited to drilling out new tunnels, far away from cities, as one of them almost got Skavenblight crushed under tons of stone. Clan Moulder are the breeders of the clans, using magical rocks known as Warpstone, filled with pure mutating chaos inside it. By far the most popular mutants are the Rat Ogres, a horrible fusion of an Ogre and a Skaven the result more brutal than it is cunning. Clan Eshin is a clan of assassins, trained by ninjas of Nippon to the East. Eshin is almost permanently bought out by the Council of Thirteen, for their services in dealing with troublesome Skaven or those of other empires. The fourth clan is Clan Pestilens, an entire clan of decease-ridden monks who screech the teachings of Horned Rat from their tomes. They love inventing new plagues and would want nothing but to watch the entire world rot. At the center of all is the Pillar of Commandments, a large stone of pure stone containing thirteen sides with thirteen commandments. If you survive the horrible mutations given, you have a chance at getting a seat in the Council of Thirteen. That is if you kill one of the current members in a fight to the death. Though some have tried members haven't changed for four hundred years.

Skaven Names

Skaven names are often beast-like or attributed to disease, rot, beast features and are often genderless.

Male/Female: Skrin, Vaskal, Roter, Kritess, Vulga

Skaven Traits

Human-sized anthropomorphic rats riddled with scars, filthy plague-ridden fur, and unbridled envy wanting nothing more than to put themselves at the top of their hierarchy.

Ability Score Increase

Your Constitution score increases by 1. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.

Age

Due to their extremely fast metabolism Skaven can live naturally to the ages of 12 to 15, however, due to their tendency to stab and kill co-workers, they normally live to the age of 4 if they're lucky. Although there are many other contributing factors to the age of a Skaven rat. For example, being blessed by their god, known as the Horned Rat, these Skaven rats are known as grey seers as their fur is white, they are strong spell casters and can live up to the age of 70 and beyond. Another example would be a plague priest, these Skaven are so disease-ridden that it can prolong their life to 50 years. One of the last is the long life elixir created by clan Skyre, it's extremely expensive but it can prolong their life by a minimum of 100 years.

Alignment

Skaven have a strict hierarchy to their volatile lifestyle, and they will often use their position to exterminate any and all who oppose them. The only way to go up in their society is to murder your rival and to obtain his position in a sly or cunning way. They favor trickery or short-lived truces with enemies to which they will eventually backstab at a later date if they don't get backstabbed themselves. They almost always turn out chaotic evil. In some rare cases, (if they are not killed as children), a Skaven will escape the clans and go towards a more neutral alignment above ground. 

Size

Most Skaven grow to no taller than 5 feet tall but some can be much bigger if they become mutated by themselves or forced by the clans. Your size is Medium.

Speed

Base walking speed is 35 feet

Superior Darkvision

Due to living in nothing but darkness except for the occasional bonfire or ritual killing underground, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Plagued Upbringing

Growing up and spawning in filth has its advantages. You are immune to disease. Additionally, you can spread diseases unbeknownst to you or on purpose to your enemies or short-lived allies. If you come in contact with a disease you act as a carrier for it to fester and can imbue your unarmed attacks with those you carry. As a bonus action, after you make an unarmed attack, you can force an enemy to make a Constitution saving throw against one of the diseases (DC 16). You can carry 4 diseases and when you come in contact with a new disease you can trade them out for the new one.

Conniving

You are proficient in two skills: Deception, and Sleight of Hand.

Language

You can speak Common and Undercommon. You cannot Read or Write.