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So I'm I'm the middle of bashing together a daemon Prince of Khorne. I've used daemon Prince spare parts, talos parts, a head from a juggernaut of Khorne and hive tyrant legs. The result looks good thus far but I like to add a back story to my DPs. I like the idea of a rat ogre giving himself over to khorne for eternal life and war.

Does that sound acceptable or is it incompatible with skaven fluff?

Rat Ogres are mindless creations of clan Moulder, and the Skaven (without exception) worship the Horned Rat. It's their thing. They don't worship the other Chaos gods, because they have their own personal one.

Actually I'm of the impression a Skaven might worship the chaos deities if they promise him more warpstone and protection from his former master's wrath.

Hm. An interesting idea!

To be honest, I'd have to say that the Skaven race seems to worship the Great Horned One exclusively. There's never once mention of any sort of deviation in faith, to my knowledge.

I don't think it's a choice, honestly. The Skaven worship the Horned Rat because they're Skaven. It's in their makeup.

A Vampire may struggle with echoes of his humanity in a suitably traffic and angsty way, but there's no such thing as a reformed Bestigor who does the work of Ulric, or a Night Goblin moved to build a shrine under the roots of Athel Loren.

When they were born/mutated/whatever it is the greenskins do, their minds (and thus, religious beliefs) were sort of set.
Daemons are the most extreme example, of course. But I think the idea is the same.

Really, it's men, elves, and dwarfs alone who have free will, in a sense.

Now. To your Daemon Prince.
Do you know about the old special character? A champion of Khorne, captured by Clan Moulder and somehow transformed into a Rat Ogre (I wanna' say...brain transplant?). He hated it, of course, but then again, he's a champion of Khorne. He hates everything, anyway.

Maybe your Prince was such a wretch; a twisted experiment of the Skaven, but still devoted to the Blood God...who eventually visited his favor unto the vile thing.

Or maybe a Bloodthirster and a Verminlord met upon some rotten, blood-soaked field. And in a moment of desperation ('cause OH EFF THAT'S A BLOODTHIRSTER), the Verminlord called down fell powers even he could not contain, and the two were fused together into a creature of iron sinews, twisting horns, and a mind torn between slaughter and machination.
Khorne laughed as the lesser daemon was asorbed into his favored child, and the Horned Rat smiled a terrible smile, knowing he would exert his will upon this furious puppet when the time was right.

Keep in mind that skaven are children of chaos in the same way beastmen are... they have jsut adopted a unique diety on top of that... I always wanted to do a 1k auxillary of my main chaos force that was all plague/nurgle themed.

Woe to the ever increasing price hikes!

Plague monks are a weird hybrid of nurgle and khorn, having the resilience to plague weapons from nurgle and frenzy from khorn... that is probably the direction i would go.

Perhaps a runt that is cast out of traditional skaven society, only to devote himself to other gods and come back to claim his rightful place?

The Skaven were made by the Horned Rat. To worship any other god seems literally unthinkable. As in, the Skaven would not be able to consider it as an option.
Warhammer likes it's evil simple.

And as far as Clan Pestilens goes...I believe, if you look on the map in the Daemon book, the Horned Rat is holed up in Nurgle's land.
I like to think that he sneaks into the cellar, gnawing on old bones and learning scraps of terrible secrets while the Grandfather is asleep.

I have to echo some of the other posters here: Chaos and Skaven do not mix. Skaven worship the Horned Rat. I am no master of fluff, but I've never read anything that points to the idea of Skaven worshiping the others.

The kitbash you describe sounds cool, but the backstory for it... you're going to have to reallllllly reach for it to make it 'work'.

It's more than they worship The Horned Rat, they were created by him to consume the world. He is a creation of Nurgle, and nothing other then that.

 Mort wrote:
the backstory for it... you're going to have to reallllllly reach for it...

I don't want to brag, but I think I offered some pretty Warhammer-y suggestions, above.

 FakeBritishPerson wrote:
It's more than they worship The Horned Rat, they were created by him to consume the world. He is a creation of Nurgle, and nothing other then that.

Has this been in the fluff? I haven't read any Warhammer fluff for 20 years, but last I read it was very ambiguous what exactly The Horned Rat was.

 Purifier wrote:

 FakeBritishPerson wrote:
It's more than they worship The Horned Rat, they were created by him to consume the world. He is a creation of Nurgle, and nothing other then that.

Has this been in the fluff? I haven't read any Warhammer fluff for 20 years, but last I read it was very ambiguous what exactly The Horned Rat was.

That's how I remember it at least, I may be mistaken since its been over 5 years reading anything about the Skaven, but I am reasonably sure, but I'll have to check later.

Warhammer--and fantasy in general--seems to have developed a tendency to avoid definitive answers.
It could be this, it might be that, or maybe it's something else.
And when it comes to things as unknowable as the nature of Chaos, that is exactly the right approach to have.
The Horned Rat is like the rodent offspring of Nurgle and Tzeentch. Plagues and plots. Pox and (warp)fire.

Plus very soon skaven might have 3 gods to chose from.

Kiwidru wrote:
Perhaps a runt that is cast out of traditional skaven society, only to devote himself to other gods and come back to claim his rightful place?

Runts aren't really "cast out" of skaven society. They're eaten. Literally.

 streamdragon wrote:

Kiwidru wrote:
Perhaps a runt that is cast out of traditional skaven society, only to devote himself to other gods and come back to claim his rightful place?

Runts aren't really "cast out" of skaven society. They're eaten. Literally.

At a bare minimum, they're made slaves.

 Bi'ios wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

Kiwidru wrote:
Perhaps a runt that is cast out of traditional skaven society, only to devote himself to other gods and come back to claim his rightful place?

Runts aren't really "cast out" of skaven society. They're eaten. Literally.

At a bare minimum, they're made slaves.

And then eaten.

 streamdragon wrote:

 Bi'ios wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

Kiwidru wrote:
Perhaps a runt that is cast out of traditional skaven society, only to devote himself to other gods and come back to claim his rightful place?

Runts aren't really "cast out" of skaven society. They're eaten. Literally.

At a bare minimum, they're made slaves.

And then eaten.

But isn't everything eventually eaten by them? The attempt is at least made twice.

 Shenloanne wrote:
So I'm I'm the middle of bashing together a daemon Prince of Khorne. I've used daemon Prince spare parts, talos parts, a head from a juggernaut of Khorne and hive tyrant legs. The result looks good thus far but I like to add a back story to my DPs. I like the idea of a rat ogre giving himself over to khorne for eternal life and war.

Does that sound acceptable or is it incompatible with skaven fluff?

I'd say go with it. Sounds like a great idea.

Gonna have to agree with warpsolution here. I don't know all the details any more than the army book and some of the rulebook stories but skaven at most use other factions to do their dirty work. Rat ogres are for the most part mindless. What little fluff i have read on them suggests as much.

However if you don't care about fluff just do whatever you want.

Most followers of chaos are humans with beastmen and daemons. I dunno what the case for chaos dwarfs was. I heard they weren't even chaos related and it's just in the name. Elves can also be corrupted but to my knowledge not by chaos. Same thing goes for vampires. Humans usually are the ones to become vampires. The reason for this is mostly that elves live forever anyway and it's usually about not wanting to die. I can't remember the reasons dwarfs don't become vampires. Oh and orcs & goblins have no real want to live forever since they're too busy fighting and killing and generally don't contemplate those things.

Skaven fear the Horned Rat too much to cross him. Skaven have two driving instincts: to survive which leads to their servile submissive cowardice and to dominate others, which leads to their perpetual conspiring and backstabbing to get ahead. In terms of religion Skaven submit to the Horned Rat and seek to dominate others in his name. They recognize him as something truly terrible, but if they serve his cause he is on their side. Simply give him other bones to gnaw so that he does not gnaw your bones.

Clan Pestilens was targeted for destruction because they were deemed heretics of a Nurgle bent (and a genuine power threat to the Status Quo) eventually they were recognized as a legitimate cult of the Horned Rat but still hated for their power and undermined as only Skaven can. Clan Mors likely follows a more martial aspect, but it's still the Horned Rat, not Khorne even if it wears red and has so much cruelty and viciousness it's will to dominate outshines it's submissive qualities.

I say a daemonic fusion is your best bet. Followed by a devotee of Chaos, caught and captured by the Skaven.
Maybe their resilience or shattered mind is what drew the attention of the Chaos Gods, after the wretched creature escaped.
Or maybe the Skaven, somhow, bound a Daemon and attempted to augment it's otherworldly flesh. I could totally see that.

"The Bloodthirster's hands were cut-replaced with Doomflayer gauntlets, and it's wings take-taken to make room for the warpfire rockets...but then something went wrong..."

Easy enough, clan moulder sold it to the demon for warpstone. rat ogre is dumb and knows nothing beyond who its master is. Done your demon bought the rat ogre now its his "pet"

So...how does the Rat Ogre gain the blessing of Khorne?
And why would a Daemon want to buy a Rat Ogre? I can't see a Daemon bargaining for anything beyond souls.

If you want to run with Rat Ogres, specifically, then take that first idea I threw out there.
Still can't remember that special character's name, though.

Also, is the whole army like this, or just this one model? Because...Rat Ogre Chaos Spawn. Yes.

 namiel wrote:
Easy enough, clan moulder sold it to the demon for warpstone. rat ogre is dumb and knows nothing beyond who its master is. Done your demon bought the rat ogre now its his "pet"

So how would it become a daemon prince? It seems like something that would just mutate into a spawn. And what daemon is buying rat Ogres? And why?

 Bi'ios wrote:

 namiel wrote:
Easy enough, clan moulder sold it to the demon for warpstone. rat ogre is dumb and knows nothing beyond who its master is. Done your demon bought the rat ogre now its his "pet"

So how would it become a daemon prince? It seems like something that would just mutate into a spawn. And what daemon is buying rat Ogres? And why?

why not? and forge your narrative.............hell if I know why because it likes sunshine and rainbows. its a silly silly rat ogre

That is a lazy answer. Warhammer has a huge well of existing themes and tones, as well as facts within the setting.
If you don't go along with what's been laid out already, then your idea clashes with the rest, and ends up looking sloppy.

You want a deal with a Daemon? Okay:

A Grey Seer tries to summon a Verminlord deep within Skavenblight for it's sagely (if treacherous) council, but accidentally calls a Bloodthirster instead.
After the Greater Daemon butchered every living creature within those tunnels (and the three levels above them), the Seer, saved by a timely Skitterleap, returned to bargain with the baleful creature.
The horned rat-mage offered the Bloodthirster a steady tide of foes, ones far more worthy of it's boundless strength...

And so on. And...I guess, as time went on, maybe the Daemon began to change it's physical aspect, becoming more like the creatures that now held it's leash, and brought it a never-ending banquet of blood.

Or whatever.

I think people are getting a bit too hung up on the idea of a Skaven actively worshiping Khorne and forgetting a simple point:
Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows...
Say a chieftain has a particully short temper which in battle spill over into somewhat unskavenlike blood lust. This chieftain gains a following due to his prowess in battle and his brutal, but effective battlefield tactics. This is until he encounters a blind seer who claims that is his destiny to sit upon the Council of Thirteen and become the most powerful Warlord in Skavenkind. To accomplish this goal the seer tells him of a huge stash of Warpstone located deep in the Chaos Wastes.

The chieftain musters his forces and heads out into the wastes. Unbeknownst to him the blind seer is actually an agent if the council of thirteen who are becoming jealous of his burgeoning popularity and worried by his unskavenlike lack of cowardice and lack of subtlety. They sought to send him to his death chasing a treasure that didn't exist, thinking that he and his army would probably be dead within a week.

They, of course, underestimated him.

After nearly a year of searching, fighting a string of desperate battles against marauder war bands and other stranger denizines of the wastes he finally came to the place the seer had guided him too - a blood soaked shrine upon a bleak and lonely mountain. However he was not the only one who sought out the shrine. A large marauder warband was engaged in a pitched battle with a foul beast man herd over control of the shrine and hence the blessing of The Lord of Slaughter.

Sensing his destiny was at hand the chieftain drove his forces into the flanks of the two opposing armies. Fearing their leader's wrath more than the axes of their enemies, his few remaining Skaven fought like daemons and routed both opposing armies in vicious and bloody battle.

With the field belonging to him the chieftain approached the altar. Finding no trace of Warpstone the chieftain flew into a terrible rage, cutting down the pitiful few survivors of his ill-fated warband.

But while he had not found the prize which he sought he was to receive a reward of a different kind all together, for the Blood God was watching, and he was pleased with what he saw. The human and beastmen who sought his blessing were proved unworthy but here, here was a champion truly worthy of his gifts...

It's an interesting idea. And yeah, Khorne doesn't care, as long as there's killing.
But the Chaos Gods don't care much about the children of Chaos. Beastment and Daemons and, in a smaller way, Skaven. Because they have no choice. No free will. They're born twisted and vicious, and their worship is more instinct than any active choice.
The Dark Gods delight in the temptation and ruination of the mortal soul. And to do that, they must look to the realms of Men and Elves (and Dwarfs, I guess. But they're too stubborn and resistant to the pull of Chaos. And Ogres, but they're dumb and gross. And Halflings, but who cares. Those are all second-place prizes, by comparison).

I mean, surely the Headtaker has earned a reputation for being as brash and bloody-minded as the followers of Chaos. And Grimgor's mind is as dedicated to slaughter and war as a Daemon of Khorne.