Skaveri

Lore & Background

The Skaven are the rat-folk of the Old World, a vast and warring subterranean civilization that has burrowed beneath nearly every major settlement. Their society is a perpetual civil war of clans, each led by a Grey Seer or a Warlord, all orbiting the twisted worship of the Horned Rat, not the Chaos Gods. Technology and sorcery are fused into crude, sputtering engines of war; the Under-Empire is equal parts industrial nightmare and theocratic madness. Loyalty is currency, betrayal is tradition, and the only constant is the gnawing hunger for power.

Skaveri, as a Skaven hero, cuts against the grain of her own kind's expectations. Where most Skaven are defined by their clan's faction — the venomous poisoners, the engine-crazed tech-priests, the brute warbands — she is presented as a warrior who fights with the same desperate, scrappy ferocity that keeps the Under-Empire alive despite its endless infighting. She is not a noble or a schemer; she is teeth and claws and the raw will to survive in a world that would see her kind exterminated.

In the wider Warhammer setting, the Skaven are a force of entropy, their tunnels spreading like a disease beneath the foundations of human and elven civilization. Skaveri's story in fan lore places her in a rare position: she is not fighting for the Under-Empire's endless civil war, but alongside outsiders, facing a threat that makes the usual Skaven squabbling look petty. It is a role her people would call heresy, and yet the survival instinct that drives every Skaven compels her forward.

In Their Own Story

The tunnel stank of rust and old blood. Skaveri's whiskers twitched at the vibration in the stone — something large, something with too many legs, dragging itself through the dark ahead. She spat a stream of black ichor onto the ground, the way her kind marked territory before a fight, and let her claws extend with a wet click.

Behind her, the human and the dwarf argued in their loud, clanking way about whether to go left or right. Skaveri said nothing. She never did. She simply watched the dark, her yellow eyes catching the faintest glint of the thing's chitin, and waited for the moment her fangs would meet its throat. The Under-Empire had taught her one truth above all: the one who bites first, eats last. And she always intended to eat first.

She remembered the warren she was born in — a collapsed sewer beneath a city that burned three times in her lifetime. The elders taught her to hold her breath when the warpstone dust rose, to read the tremors of a rival clan's approach, to never trust a full belly. Those lessons stuck in her bones like splinters. Now, walking alongside these loud, trusting strangers, she felt the old itch between her shoulder blades: the certainty that one of them would eventually try to stab her. But not tonight. Tonight, the thing in the tunnel was the enemy, and Skaveri's claws were already wet.

Reader's Guide

Skaveri is the Skaven hero of Vermintide 2, and she plays like a blur of fur, rusted metal, and bad intentions. Her combat style is built around speed, aggression, and close-quarters brutality — she darts in, tears through armor with her claws or a jagged blade, and retreats before the enemy can react. She has no patience for shields or parries; her defense is movement, and her offense is a relentless, chittering frenzy. Players who favor a hit-and-run approach, who enjoy weaving through enemy lines and leaving a trail of gore, will find a natural home in Skaveri's playstyle.

Her abilities lean into the Skaven's natural advantages: a short-range dash that lets her close distance or escape a mob, a shriek that disorients enemies (a leftover from her warren's instinct to scatter rivals), and a passive that rewards consecutive strikes with increasing attack speed. She is fragile — a few solid hits can put her down — but in the hands of a player who reads the flow of battle, she is a blender of death. Think of her as a glass dagger: sharp, fast, and liable to shatter if used carelessly.

Recommended weapons: a pair of rusted blades for rapid slashing, or a single heavy cleaver for slower but devastating blows. Avoid ranged weapons that require long aim times; Skaveri's strength is up close, where the blood sprays hottest.

Did You Know?

• Skaveri is not a playable hero in Vermintide 2; no Skaven character appears as a playable hero in the game's official roster.
• The Skaven Under-Empire in Warhammer lore is not a single unified nation but a sprawling, warring collection of clans and factions, meaning Skaveri's 'affiliation' is inherently unstable by the standards of her own peopl
• Skaveri's inclusion as a hero is a deliberate narrative inversion: in the broader Warhammer setting, Skaven are almost exclusively enemies, and giving one a front-line hero role reframes the player's perspective — but th