I should look into who/what is the horned rat exactly.

I only see a great horny rat making demands here.

" Ohhhh noooooo, the horror "

primonyr said:
I should look into who/what is the horned rat exactly.

God of the Skaven.

tarkovkinto said:
God of the Skaven.

So thanks to how divinity works in Warhammer, enough people believing in a God can plausibly make them real (it is very more complicated than that simple answer, though, and a lot of elements are deliberately mysterious). The Skaven all believe in the Horned Rat, the manifestation of what it is to be Skaven, and since there's billions of Skaven, the Horned Rat is a thing.

However, Skaven society is an absolute disaster of paranoia, factionalism, backstabbing, getting absolutely horny-high on racial superiority, and getting just regular high on wizard cocaine plutonium (read: warpstone). That and you really don't want to know how they canonically treat their females. So since the Horned Rat is the manifestation of all these things, it's a god with a mind broken into squabbling pieces whose nature rapidly and strongly reflects the powers present in Skaven society.

(The Skaven society is also a not-very-subtle fascism analogue, it's worth noting.)

Just about the only thing the Horned Rat is absolutely consistent on is that it thinks the Skaven are hilarious. It loves watching them fail and panic and blame each other as much as it loves watching them succeed. This is why it has basically bottomless support for Grey Seer Thanquol, perpetual "nemesis" of Gotrek and Felix; Thanquol fucks up constantly and spectacularly, which is the funniest thing the Horned Rat has ever seen, so it keeps giving him its support so it can watch the next episode of the Thanquol Comedy Hour.

duracell said:
So thanks to how divinity works in Warhammer, enough people believing in a God can plausibly make them real (it is very more complicated than that simple answer, though, and a lot of elements are deliberately mysterious). The Skaven all believe in the Horned Rat, the manifestation of what it is to be Skaven, and since there's billions of Skaven, the Horned Rat is a thing.

However, Skaven society is an absolute disaster of paranoia, factionalism, backstabbing, getting absolutely horny-high on racial superiority, and getting just regular high on wizard cocaine plutonium (read: warpstone). That and you really don't want to know how they canonically treat their females. So since the Horned Rat is the manifestation of all these things, it's a god with a mind broken into squabbling pieces whose nature rapidly and strongly reflects the powers present in Skaven society.

(The Skaven society is also a not-very-subtle fascism analogue, it's worth noting.)

Just about the only thing the Horned Rat is absolutely consistent on is that it thinks the Skaven are hilarious. It loves watching them fail and panic and blame each other as much as it loves watching them succeed. This is why it has basically bottomless support for Grey Seer Thanquol, perpetual "nemesis" of Gotrek and Felix; Thanquol fucks up constantly and spectacularly, which is the funniest thing the Horned Rat has ever seen, so it keeps giving him its support so it can watch the next episode of the Thanquol Comedy Hour.

The Skaven are basically The Horned Rat's favorite TV series - an always streaming Truman Show of Epic hilarity.