Great Migration (-1600 to -1500 IC)

The Great Migraitons

The Great Migration of the Skaven race.

Following the great catastrophe that had befallen the Skaven race, their once
mighty city was laid low as crumbling masonry littered the streets with rock and
debris. But even this dreadful event had not relieved the world of the Skaven
threat, for from underneath the ruins, small pockets of survivors began to claw
their way out. As they emerged all they saw was destruction; no building stood
undamaged, all was in ruins except for the great bell tower that loomed over the
great city. A seething mass of these survivors began to crowd around the great
temple doors as they begged their god for guidance in this "Time of Woe", but none
dared to enter, lest they incur his holy wrath. Even as the Skaven began to
squabble and fight at the temple's footsteps, the great chapel door swung open and
twelve figures emerged, eerily backlit by an ominous light shining within the
temple.[2n]

The twelve grey-clad ratlords, aptly called Grey Lords, spoke with one voice to the
assembled multitude. The time had come for the Children of the Horned Rat to spread
across the world, to multiply in the dark places, to gather strength. The Great
Horned Rat had whispered his plan and it was the Lords of Decay, as they named
themselves, who were to lead them. With the Skaven hordes finally united under the
guidance of their god, the hordes began to burrow once more into the caverns of the
dead sorcerers. Upon their entrance, they found that the sorcerers had indeed
succeeded in their ritual. Great cracks within the earth had created long passages
that connected the city of Skavenblight to a massive highway of tunnels beneath the
spine of the Worlds Edge Mountains. The surviving Skaven heeded their god's will,
and the hordes began to divide into twelve armies, each led by one of the Lords of
Decay. Like a cancer eating at the world, the Skaven spread far and wide amongst
the tunnels and caverns that their sorcerers had provided them. Within months, the
Skaven had already begun numerous raids and assaults against Dwarfen mines and
settlements along the spine of the Worlds Edge Mountains, and from this, the
glorious Under-Empire had been brought to reality.[2n]

Over the next few hundred years, the Skaven became a widespread race, with clans
spreading to nearly all corners of the world. But each clan, no matter how far and
wide, would always consider Skavenblight to be the one true capital of their race,
with operatives and diplomats making constant contact with their home city. During
this time, rumours began to spread across the Under-Way about a massive hoard of
warpstone deposits located within the southern reaches of the Worlds Edge
Mountains. The mountain in question, known as Cripple Peak, had within its roots a
motherlode of the dangerous mineral embedded deep within its sundered core. With so
much warpstone to be gained from this mountain, the Skaven clans launched multiple
expeditions towards the mountain in hope of claiming this rich mineral deposit for
themselves.[2n]

However, as the Skaven began to encroach upon the tunnels beneath the mountain,
reports from scouts and raiding parties bore the news that the upper reaches of the
mountain were occupied by a great horde of undead warriors, led by the ancient
Nehekharan necromancer Nagash, and the mountain he currently claimed was the great
Fortress of Nagashizzar. Initially, each Skaven clan greedily attacked Nagashizzar
separately as they tried to be the first to grab the riches of the mountains for
themselves. But the formidable fortress was not so easily overtaken, and the Skaven
hordes were pushed out of the mountain time and again. As this grueling war of
attrition between the two factions began to stretch well into the decades, this
series of invasions and military engagements became known by the Skaven as the "War
of Cripple Peak".