The Great Hall

Lore & Background

The Skaven build their cities in layers, stacking warrens atop warrens in a vertical sprawl that defies any surface-dweller's notion of architecture. The Great Hall sits among the upper tiers of Ebon Cap, a chamber vast enough to swallow a human cathedral whole. Its vaulted ceiling is a lattice of corroded iron ribs and hanging chains, from which swarms of Vermin Mousers and hooded Clansmen drop without warning. The floor is a mosaic of cracked flagstone and riveted metal plates, slick with the oily residue of alchemical furnaces that line the walls. Unlike the crude warrens of lesser Skaven settlements, the Great Hall carries the pretensions of a throne-room. Broken banners of green and black hang in tatters. Crude statues of rat-deities—bloated, grinning, many-toothed—flank the central thoroughfare. The air hums with the distant clatter of the Under-Empire's endless industry: forges, laboratories, and the ceaseless scuttle of millions of paws on stone. For the heroes who storm its length, the Hall is both a gauntlet and a statement. Every wave of Skaven that pours from side-pits and overhead chutes is a reminder that the Under-Empire does not merely tolerate intruders; it digests them. The alchemical vats that dot the periphery can be shattered to flood the floor with corrosive spray, turning the battlefield itself into a hazard. It is here that the sheer, industrial scale of Skaven power becomes undeniable—not the scattered raids of a warband, but the coordinated, factory-like brutality of a civilization that has turned an entire subterranean continent into its workshop.

In Their Own Story

The torchlight caught the edges of the hall first—long, low shafts of amber stretching back into a darkness that had no floor, only the distant drip-drip-drip of water on wet stone. Karak spat, wiped soot from his beard, and raised his axe. The sound of his breath was swallowed by the vastness above. Then the ceiling moved. A hundred small shapes peeled away from the iron ribs overhead, landing in a soft, chittering rain. Clansmen. Dozens of them, green-clad and hooded, their tailless backs hunched, their eyes catching the torchlight in wet, yellow glints. Behind them, the deeper ranks shifted—something larger, something with too many teeth and a voice like grinding gravel. "Right then," Karak muttered, settling his axe into a two-handed grip. "No one told the rats about the party."

The first wave hit like a wave of green water, and the Great Hall roared.

Reader's Guide

You enter The Great Hall from a narrower warren passage, and the space suddenly opens up—vast, dim, and vertically oppressive. The visual tone is industrial-gothic: corroded iron arches, hanging chains, pools of green-tinged alchemical runoff, and the perpetual murk of a space that has never known sunlight. Torches and alchemical braziers provide the only warm light, casting long shadows and making the Skaven silhouettes flicker. Enemies here come in dense, coordinated waves. Expect Clansmen as the baseline fodder, Vermin Mousers dropping from overhead chutes, and periodic heavier threats like Skaven Blasters or a Clan-Sublord-type boss anchoring the end of the sequence. The key tactical element is the environment: alchemical vats and cauldrons line the walls, and smashing them floods the floor with corrosive spray that damages both you and the Skaven. This creates a risk-reward loop—use the hazards to thin the swarm, but don't stand in the green mist while you're reloading or recovering from a stagger. What makes this distinct from a generic Warhammer interior is the sheer verticality and the sense of an industrial machine. This isn't a medieval great hall with tapestries and a long table. It's a factory floor that happens to be shaped like a cathedral, built by a species that thinks in terms of gears, poisons, and endless production. The architecture is wrong—angles that don't quite close, surfaces that are too smooth or too pitted, a scale that feels designed for something smaller than the heroes walking through it. It's Ebon Cap's grandeur, and it's deeply, thoroughly alien.

Did You Know?

• Ebon Cap, the Skaven city in which The Great Hall is situated, is one of the largest and most politically complex Skaven settlements in Warhammer Fantasy lore, with internal factional rivalries that mirror the chaos of t
• The Skaven in Vermintide 2 are not a single uniform enemy type; the game differentiates between Clansmen, Vermin Mousers, Blasters, and other castes, each with distinct attack patterns that change how you manage crowd co
• The alchemical hazards in Skaven interiors reflect the broader Warhammer Fantasy setting, where Skaven technology is a crude, toxic parody of human and dwarven engineering—functional, but built on poison, rust, and despe
• The cooperative design of Vermintide 2 means that The Great Hall's wide, open layout is specifically tuned for multiple players to split up, cover different flanks, and trade off aggro from the dense Skaven swarms that p