I have been thinking on how the Ratkin of Pannithor could be differentiated from the Skaven of AoS realms. The history places them as escaped slaves of the Abyssal Dwarves, but they still remain under the overall influence of the Abyss.
So I have been thinking, what if they are not a force of wanton destruction like the orcs, but are fierce collectivists (with world-domination complex, of course) who have been duped by the powers of the Abyss into the service of evil and their society now is trapped in that state?
In that regard, we can have a society similar to the USSR in the 1920’s-30’s: “egalitarian” society with heavy propaganda for the masses of the “workers” who provide the bulk of the warriors (read conscripts). The slaves are the socially-suspect individuals undergoing “rehabilitation” in labor camps. There are professional military elements of the infantry, cavalry, artillery and the “tank corp”.
On the top of the hierarchy are the political elites of the top military leaders (warchiefs & blight lords), magic users, swarm criers etc. The Rat demon is an outstanding issue – it is supposed to be unique, but also may just be a very rare entity to enter a battlefield as one of the “politburo” members.
So the attacks of the ratkin on the other races is just an attempt to bring the enlightenment to the rest of the world. Of course, when conquered, those of other races cannot just be trusted to join the proletari-rat ranks right away and thus start from the re-education work camps as slaves. If the work hard (and survive) they could, theoretically join the ratkin greater society.
The proletari-rat class includes the workers and the farmers who, in times of war form the ranks of the warriors and spear-rats respectively.
I’m really keen that they don’t speak the tongue of other races. Just their own language. They regard the other languages as below them so only speak ratkin.
Afterall, to change the mentality of the masses one needs to fundamentally change them including how they speak. The ratkin reject the languages of the oppressors – the dwarves, the elves, and the humans. Down with the old lingo and welcome the language of freedom!
The role of the Blight – they form a special/medical corp of the military when marching to war “tending” to the wounded. In peace times, they are responsible for the clearing of the warrens and thus contract all kinds of diseases. Those who do not perish, develop some serious stamina.
The regular military is held in high regard and is composed of several “corps”: infantry corp – Elites, brutes, abominations & clawshots, recon corp – scurriers & the cavalry. The death engines and tunnel runners belong to the “tank” corp. Artillery, shredders and weapon teams are parts of the artillery corp. The members of these units are treated with higher regard and receive better rations. Deserving candidates from the proletari-rat class are accepted into training and (if they survive) join the ranks.
Confession: I don’t know anything about skaven. Never really played warhammer.
But the broodmother concept from veer myn is cool. So there is one female matriarch. Rules the whole clan like bees or ants. She has female breeder attendees but each colony is spawned from her. So rats aren’t gendered, apart from warlocks and specific breeding males that she and the ruling females breed from. They’re just worker ants, bred for different traits.
This is an interesting idea and fits more with Mantic’s vision. The skaven of WHFB used to have “breeders” which were one of the tradable commodities in their society.
I suspect Mantic’s fluff is far more developed than we know. There are hints of it in the new Brute model for the League. It seems at least some of them hero worship the Abyssal Dwarfs that created them. Which probably means they’ll speak the dwarfs’ language.
They’ll never be as chaotic as Orcs since they were created to be workers not fighters.
I’m not sure broodmothers will make it over. Standard rats don’t have queens and the thing Bharzak liked most about rats was their ability to breed quickly. I think queens would slow that down (causing linear rather than exponential population growth).
In the original forum I made a post about how their belief system should be. We know for the army list they use the powers of the Abyss, but that doesn’t mean worship, it can mean just utility. I do think ratkin would probably feel at a disadvantage compared to the long established races of the world, so they feel entitled to use any mean at their disposal to conquer land and secure their position.
Another interesting aspect is that they were created for labour by another race. Now, which society would aknowledge something like that? No one. I can imagine ratkin leaders propaganda, stating that they where the true original race of Mantica until celestial/dwarfs came and enslaved them, and how is due time they reclame they inheritance.
Again, this would fuel their rage against the other races and their self-entitlement feelings, justifying their “anything goes” attitude to warfare.
eusocial rats? neat. certainly would make them different from Skaven.
eusociality might not apply to normal rats, but the Naked Mole Rat is eusocial and they breed pretty fast.
and eusocial societies don’t always have a breeding bottleneck… a number of eusocial species of insect actually have hives with multiple breeding queens… usually one head queen and a number of junior queens.
