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- —Anonymous
Plague Priests are the fanatical leaders of the Churches of Contagion. Whole conclaves of these rancid beings rule over each of the Clans Pestilens, maintaining their tenuous grip on power through zealotry, cunning and outright violence.[1a]
Overview
The Plague Priests of the Great Horned Rat are frothing lunatics, ranting preachers of the Withered Word andtrue believers in the Great Corruptor. These diseased fanatics are unusual in skaven terms for their propensity to lead from the front. They hack, claw and bite their way through their enemies while screeching prayers that conjure unholy miracles or blessings of foetid filth. Some Plague Priests fightin this seemingly courageous fashion because their sanity is so eroded that they do not recognise their own danger. Most simply seek to win the Horned Rat’s favour, and will gladly use their underlings as living shields at the first sign of real peril.[1a]
To the Plague Priests, the verminous god’s blessing is their main goal, for itis vital in their climb towards ever greater power. Even the smallest Clans Pestilens will be led by more than asingle Plague Priest, while the largest have hundreds, even thousands of these vile beings to drive their clawpacks intobattle and lead the devoted chitteringsof their congregations to the Great Corruptor. The internal hierarchies of these pustulant priesthoods are byzantine in the extreme, but all hinge around violence and fear.[1a]
The Plague Priests within any given clan vie constantly for dominance, and will resort to any act of bribery, coercion, violence or back-stabbing to rise above their rivals. One common tactic employed by the priests of Pestilens is inventing new and evermore-important-sounding titles for themselves. These names are tied to the priests’ duties within their church, and are ridiculously overblown; names such as the Most-blessed Master of the Chittering Chant or the Archsquealer of the Followers of the Furnace impres sdull minds – reason enough to tear the throat out of anyone foolish enough to laugh at them.[1a]
All Plague Priests have at least some ability in brewing the plagues and toxic concoctions that their clan uses against their foes in battle. The true masters of this art command heightened levels of fearful respect from their peers, using their great bubbling vats to create diseases and poxes so contagious and foul that they can devastate whole armies. It is these talented architects of death who attend the Foulrain Congregations in battle, working dark blessings upon the war machines to ensure their absolute lethality.[1a]
Known Plague Priests
Wargear
A Plague Priest can carry a Warpstone-tipped Staff and a censer filled with pestilent magic. Some also carries Plague Censer and a Plague Tome enchanted with foul sorcery.[1c][1d]
