Who Is the Great Horned Rat? — The Fifth Chaos God

The Great Horned Rat is the Chaos God of the Skaven — the youngest of the Dark Gods who rose to prominence when Slaanesh was captured. He embodies pestilence, scheming, backstabbing, and the endless multiplication of the ratmen race. Unlike the other four Chaos Gods who represent broad universal concepts, the Great Horned Rat is deeply personal — he is the god of one specific race, and his power is inseparable from the teeming billions of Skaven who worship him.

The Great Horned Rat’s ascension to the ranks of the major Chaos Gods is one of the most significant theological events in the Age of Sigmar setting. For aeons, the great powers of Chaos were four: Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Slaanesh. The arrival of a fifth god — one born from the collective worship of the most numerous and most treacherous race in existence — has disrupted the Great Game and altered the balance of power among the Dark Gods in ways that are still unfolding.

What Is the Great Horned Rat’s Nature?

The Great Horned Rat is the divine embodiment of everything the Skaven are — and everything they aspire to be. He is a god of pestilence and plague, reflecting the Skaven’s affinity for disease and biological warfare. He is a god of scheming and treachery, reflecting their culture of constant backstabbing, betrayal, and political manipulation. He is a god of endless proliferation, reflecting the Skaven’s extraordinary reproductive rate and their ambition to overrun and consume everything.

Unlike the other Chaos Gods, whose natures encompass broad aspects of mortal experience (rage, change, despair, excess), the Great Horned Rat’s identity is specifically and intimately tied to the Skaven race. He is not a god of pestilence in the abstract — he is the god of Skaven pestilence, the plagues that the ratmen breed in their warrens and spread through their tunnels. He is not a god of ambition in general — he is the god of Skaven ambition, the endless desire to gnaw away at the foundations of every other civilisation until only the ratmen remain.

This specificity is both a strength and a limitation. The Great Horned Rat draws enormous power from the Skaven’s vast population — they are arguably the most numerous sentient species in the Mortal Realms, and their collective worship fuels their god’s might. However, his narrow focus means he lacks the universal appeal of the other Chaos Gods. Non-Skaven rarely worship the Great Horned Rat (and would likely be eaten if they tried), which limits his ability to expand his influence beyond his chosen people.

How Did the Great Horned Rat Become a Major Chaos God?

The Great Horned Rat’s ascension to the ranks of the major Chaos Gods is directly tied to the capture of Slaanesh. During the End Times — the apocalyptic conclusion of the Warhammer Fantasy setting — the world-that-was was destroyed, and the Mortal Realms came into being. In this cosmic reshuffling, Slaanesh gorged on an enormous quantity of Aelf souls and fell into a stupor, eventually being captured and imprisoned by the Aelf gods Teclis, Tyrion, Malerion and Morathi.

With Slaanesh imprisoned and largely removed from the Great Game, a vacancy opened among the major Chaos Gods. The Great Horned Rat — who had existed as a minor Chaos deity for millennia, sustained by the worship of the Skaven — seized this opportunity. Empowered by the destruction of the world-that-was (which killed billions, generating enormous amounts of psychic energy) and by the Skaven’s survival and proliferation in the Mortal Realms, the Great Horned Rat swelled in power until he could claim Slaanesh’s vacant seat among the Dark Gods.

This ascension was not accepted gracefully by the other Chaos Gods. Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle all view the Great Horned Rat with contempt, considering him an upstart who has not earned his place at their table. They particularly resent the implication that the Great Horned Rat is their equal — the three elder gods have existed since the dawn of sentient emotion, while the Great Horned Rat is a relative newcomer whose power is derived from a single, despised species.

The situation has been further complicated by Slaanesh’s partial escape from imprisonment in recent lore developments. If Slaanesh fully returns to power, the question of whether there is room for five major Chaos Gods — or whether the Great Horned Rat will be demoted back to minor deity status — becomes urgent and potentially violent.

What Is the Great Horned Rat’s Relationship with the Skaven?

The relationship between the Great Horned Rat and his Skaven worshippers is both intimate and dysfunctional, perfectly reflecting the nature of Skaven society itself.

The Skaven worship the Great Horned Rat with genuine fervour, but their worship is coloured by the same treachery, selfishness, and paranoia that defines all Skaven interactions. Every Skaven prays to the Great Horned Rat, but every Skaven also believes that the Great Horned Rat favours them personally over all other Skaven. Skaven religion is intensely competitive — clan leaders, warlords, and Grey Seers all claim to be the Great Horned Rat’s chosen instrument, using their supposed divine favour to justify their authority and undermine their rivals.

The Great Horned Rat, for his part, encourages this competition. Like his worshippers, he is capricious, unpredictable, and fundamentally untrustworthy. He grants blessings and curses with equal arbitrariness, rewards failure as often as success (if the failure is entertaining or serves his inscrutable purposes), and takes evident pleasure in watching his children betray and consume each other. The Great Horned Rat does not want obedient servants — he wants scheming, backstabbing, endlessly multiplying ratmen who embody his nature through their very existence.

The Grey Seers serve as the Great Horned Rat’s primary priesthood. These albino Skaven sorcerers wield magic granted by their god and serve as prophets, advisors, and religious authorities within Skaven society. Grey Seers are feared and respected by other Skaven — they are the closest thing to a unifying authority the fractious ratmen possess, and their ability to call upon the Great Horned Rat’s power gives them leverage that even the mightiest Warlord cannot easily challenge.

The Verminlords are the Great Horned Rat’s greater daemons — towering, horned rat-beings of immense power that serve as the god’s direct agents in the Mortal Realms. Verminlords come in several varieties, each reflecting a different aspect of the Great Horned Rat’s nature: Verminlord Warbringers embody martial destruction, Verminlord Corruptors embody disease and plague, Verminlord Deceivers embody stealth and assassination, and Verminlord Warpseer embody sorcery and prophecy.

What Are the Great Horned Rat’s Domains?

The Great Horned Rat’s divine portfolio encompasses several overlapping domains that reflect the nature of the Skaven race.

Pestilence and plague: The Great Horned Rat is a god of disease, though his approach to plague differs from Nurgle’s. Where Nurgle’s plagues are about decay, acceptance, and the cycle of death and rebirth, the Great Horned Rat’s pestilence is about weaponisation — using disease as a tool to weaken enemies, depopulate rival territories, and create conditions favourable to Skaven expansion. The Pestilens clan of the Skaven is most closely aligned with this aspect of their god.

Scheming and treachery: The Great Horned Rat is a god of plans within plans, betrayals within betrayals, and the constant jockeying for advantage that defines Skaven society. This domain overlaps with Tzeentch’s portfolio, which is one of the reasons the Changer of Ways particularly dislikes the upstart rat god. The difference is one of sophistication — where Tzeentch’s schemes are cosmic in scope and byzantine in complexity, the Great Horned Rat’s scheming is more pragmatic, more personal, and more immediately lethal.

Multiplication and consumption: The Great Horned Rat embodies the Skaven’s defining trait — their ability to breed in enormous numbers and consume everything in their environment. This domain has no direct parallel among the other Chaos Gods and is perhaps the most distinctively Skaven aspect of their deity’s nature. The Great Horned Rat wants the Skaven to multiply endlessly, to consume every resource, to undermine every foundation, until nothing remains but ratmen — an endless tide of chittering, gnawing, scheming vermin covering the Mortal Realms from horizon to horizon.

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Warpstone and mutation: Warpstone — solidified Chaos energy — is sacred to the Skaven and central to their technology, magic, and culture. The Great Horned Rat is associated with Warpstone in all its forms, and the Skaven’s addiction to this substance is both a gift from and a form of worship to their god. Warpstone fuels Skaven weapons, powers their war machines, enhances their sorcery, and mutates their bodies — it is the physical medium through which the Great Horned Rat’s power manifests in the material world.

How Do Other Chaos Gods View the Great Horned Rat?

The other Chaos Gods’ attitudes toward the Great Horned Rat range from contempt to active hostility.

Khorne despises the Great Horned Rat for his cowardice and reliance on treachery rather than honest combat. The Blood God considers the Skaven’s approach to warfare — overwhelming numbers, poison, backstabbing, and flight from fair fights — to be beneath contempt. However, Khorne cannot deny that the Skaven produce prodigious quantities of bloodshed, which feeds his power regardless of the methods used.

Tzeentch views the Great Horned Rat as a crude imitator of his own nature. The Changer of Ways considers Skaven scheming to be a pale shadow of his own masterful manipulation of fate and destiny. However, Tzeentch is also wary — the Great Horned Rat’s unpredictability and his vast base of worshippers make him a genuinely dangerous rival in the realm of plots and counter-plots.

Nurgle has the most complex relationship with the Great Horned Rat. Both gods claim dominion over plague and pestilence, and their followers sometimes come into direct conflict over whose diseases hold priority. However, there are also moments of cooperation — Clan Pestilens and Nurgle’s followers have occasionally worked together when their interests align, much to the discomfort of both sides’ allies.

Slaanesh (when not imprisoned) views the Great Horned Rat as a usurper who stole a throne that was never vacated. The Dark Prince’s followers resent the implication that Slaanesh can be replaced, and the question of whether five major Chaos Gods can coexist — or whether one must fall — remains one of the most volatile theological questions in the Mortal Realms.

The Great Horned Rat in Warhammer Fantasy vs. Age of Sigmar

The Great Horned Rat existed in Warhammer Fantasy Battles as a minor Chaos deity — powerful enough to sustain the Skaven race but not considered an equal of the four major Chaos Gods. His ascension to major god status occurred during the End Times and was formalised in the Age of Sigmar setting.

This transition represents one of the most significant theological changes between the two settings. In Warhammer Fantasy, the Chaos Gods were four and only four — a fundamental cosmic truth. In Age of Sigmar, the number of major Chaos Gods is five (or potentially four again, depending on Slaanesh’s status), reflecting a more fluid and dynamic cosmology where divine power can be gained, lost, and contested.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Great Horned Rat as powerful as Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle?

This is debated. The Great Horned Rat claims equality with the other major Chaos Gods, and his ascension to their ranks is recognised (if resented) by the other three. However, many scholars of Chaos believe that he remains the weakest of the major gods — his power base, while enormous (the Skaven are incredibly numerous), is derived from a single species rather than from universal concepts that affect all sentient beings. If the Skaven were ever significantly diminished, the Great Horned Rat’s power would shrink accordingly.

Do any non-Skaven worship the Great Horned Rat?

In extremely rare cases, yes. Desperate or deranged individuals among other races have occasionally turned to the Great Horned Rat, usually because they have been exposed to Skaven culture or warpstone corruption. However, these cases are vanishingly rare — the Great Horned Rat is not interested in non-Skaven worshippers, and the Skaven themselves would likely kill any non-ratman who attempted to join their faith. The Great Horned Rat is, fundamentally, a god by the Skaven, for the Skaven.

What happens to the Great Horned Rat if Slaanesh fully returns?

This is one of the great unresolved questions of Age of Sigmar’s narrative. If Slaanesh breaks free from imprisonment and reclaims full power, the Great Horned Rat’s position among the major Chaos Gods becomes uncertain. He may be strong enough to maintain his status, resulting in five major Chaos Gods — an unprecedented situation that would fundamentally alter the dynamics of the Great Game. Alternatively, he may be forced back to minor god status, which would have devastating consequences for Skaven society and morale.

Is the Great Horned Rat evil?

By any conventional moral standard, yes — he is a Chaos God who embodies plague, treachery, and the desire to consume all life. However, like all Chaos Gods, the Great Horned Rat is a reflection of the beings who worship him. The Skaven are not evil in a simplistic sense — they are a species driven by survival instincts pushed to an extreme, existing in a hostile universe that rewards aggression and punishes weakness. The Great Horned Rat is the divine expression of that survival instinct, magnified to cosmic proportions and stripped of any moderating influence of compassion or restraint.

What is the Council of Thirteen?

The Council of Thirteen is the ruling body of Skaven society. Its twelve seats are held by the Lords of Decay, the most powerful Skaven clan leaders, who scheme against each other constantly. The thirteenth seat is reserved for the Great Horned Rat himself, and Skaven believe he will claim it in person when the ratmen finally triumph.

Who is Grey Seer Thanquol?

Thanquol is the most famous Grey Seer, a horned Skaven sorcerer-priest of the Great Horned Rat known for grand schemes that go spectacularly wrong. He is usually accompanied by his rat ogor bodyguard, Boneripper. He began in Warhammer Fantasy and returned in Age of Sigmar as one of the Skaven’s best-known named characters.

Is the Great Horned Rat in Warhammer 40k?

No. The Great Horned Rat and the Skaven belong to the fantasy settings, Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar. Warhammer 40,000 has no Skaven, and its four great Chaos Gods are Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh. Ideas about a rat god lurking in the 40k Warp are fan speculation, not official lore.