Description

History

Main article: Origins of the Beastmen

Beastman are known as the Children of Chaos, and this is true quite literally, for they are unnatural creatures, born from men and beasts when Chaos first brought its scourges upon the world in the cataclysmic Time of Chaos.

Throughout the world, Beastmen thrive upon the edges of civilization, raiding isolated farmsteads, villages, and other settlements. They are most numerous towards the north, such as the dark forests that cover The Empire and the harsh wildernesses of Kislev. They are found in the greatest numbers throughout the Chaos Wastes of the northern and southern polar regions.

Types

A Gor, the most numerous type of Beastman.

Several distinct breeds make up the seemingly unordered hordes of Beastmen:

• Gors are the most common type, distinguished by the fact they possess horns. Gors are a broad class comprising more specific types. Below the Gors are the lowly breeds which look to them for leadership.
  • Caprigors are the most common breed of Gor, recognisable by their goat- or sheep-like heads and legs, along with, more importantly, their curling or straight goat horns. A Caprigor with these mutations and no others is called a Truegor, and are stronger, braver and more intelligent than other Caprigors.
  • Bovigors are bull- or ox-headed beasts with cattle horns. Bovigors are also bullheaded in their nature, being very competitive and prizing brute power over any form of subtlety. Bovigors which are free of any mutation besides a bull’s head and legs are considered Truegors.
  • Ungors are much more variable in appearance. They possess some form of horns, but the Ungors themselves are not recognisable as either Caprigors or Bovigors. The most favoured Ungors might possess a spectacular array of horns, or a single, fine horn, but most have only small or misshapen versions, which other Beastmen find contemptible.
• Brays are a lowly breed of Beastmen. Their name refers to the braying cacophony they make when they feast or fight together. Brays can appear in any form, and are mainly distinguished by the fact they lack any kind of horns.
• Turnskins are humans who at a later stage of life began to develop mutations. Ostracised and despised by their former peers they have no escape other than to flee human society. Many of them become renegades and some manage to join a beastmen tribe who will accept them as slaves.
• Gaves are Beastmen born to normal human parents. Some parents attempt to hide their child’s deformities while others will kill it, but many mutant babies are abandoned near a forest, or set afloat in a river on a raft of reeds, to die of hunger and exposure. These creatures rarely die however, as the ears of Beastmen are always alert to the cries of their own kind. These foundlings are adopted and raised by Beastmen, who consider such a child a gift of their own fell gods.
• Bray-Shamans are the intermediaries between the tribe and the Gods. The majority are not powerful enough to challenge the tribal leader, but some ambitious ones are more than willing and able to fulfil both positions. Shamans can spirit-walk in the Realm of Chaos and commune with the very daemons of the Chaos Gods. From these daemons he can seek advice or receive information of future events, which he can then relay to the chieftain. Spirit-walking is achieved through dreams or by the Shaman drinking themselves into a comatose trance. Shamans are marked apart from other Beastmen by their heterochromic eyes (e.g., one eye might be red, the other blue). The specific colours are believed to signify the favour in which the Shaman is held by a particular Power. A Shaman might repeat the colours of his eyes in his robes, so that he might display the favoured colours of the Chaos Gods.
• Beastwomen are female and, compared to the beastmen, are shy and gentle^[1].
• Minotaurs, are massive beastmen with the head of a bull.