"The Skaven were the true children of Chaos, and this place, this foetid reek under a glowering sky, was theirs alone -- a nowhere realm nibbled out of the Realm of Chaos, given shape by the spirits of the ratmen that came to dwell there. A dismal place, the Realm of Ruin, a hell its inhabitants dearly desired to remake upon the mortal world."
- —The End Times: The Rise of the Horned Rat by Guy Haley
The Horned Rat manifests in the mortal world from the Realm of Ruin.
The Realm of Ruin, also called the Netherworld, is a small territory that lies within the larger Realm of Chaos. It is the home realm and dwelling place of the minor Chaos deity known as the Horned Rat, the god of the Skaven. The Realm of Ruin is also where the Horned Rat's daemonic children, the Verminlords, roam in abundance. [1a]
Like the other realms of the four major Chaos Gods within the Aethyr, the home of the Horned Rat openly mocks the physical laws of the mortal plane. It is a domain choked by rotting refuse and mounds of waste. However, littered about this trash are trinkets, baubles, and even fragments of ancient knowledge; all has been taken, despoiled, and ultimately discarded. This refuse may have been claimed from other worlds, while the rats and Daemons endemic to the realm cavort within the mountainous heaps.[1a]
The Realm of Ruin is said to reek with a foetid stink, while a glowering sky wreathed in purple clouds lies overhead. The air is thick with traces of Warpstone as well as the squeaking of the billions upon billions of rats present in the realm, which obliterates all other sound. The Realm of Ruin was nibbled by the Horned Rat's efforts out of the Realm of Chaos, given shape and form by the spirits of the ratmen who come to dwell there after their time in the mortal realm is over.[1a]
The land is overrun with the Daemons of the Horned Rat known as Verminlords, each one as big as a Giant, and just as numerous in that realm as the Skaven are in the mortal world. However, there are only twelve Verminlords that are truly great and hold much influence in the realm, and these are those Exalted Verminlords who sit on what is known as the Shadow Council of Thirteen. The chief among their number is Skreech Verminking. The thirteenth member of the Shadow Council is the Horned Rat himself.[1a]
Notable Locations[]
Verminhall[]
Verminhall is a mirror in the Realm of Ruin of the great Temple of the Horned Rat known as the Shattered Tower, which resides in the mortal world among the subterranean warrens of Skavenblight. It is the meeting place for the Shadow Council of Thirteen, a great edifice pocked with portals, lined with black rivers, and littered with stairways that lead nowhere.[1a]
Verminhall is where the great Daemonic Verminlords peer down on their mortal kin, which they do from a thirteen-sided table with an ocean at its centre. At the head of this table is the Horned Rat's throne, carved from warpstone and big enough for a god.[1a]