The Skaven Conversion Process
This actually starts about 6-8 months before our campaign started.
Here’s me receiving some excellent advice on setting the campaign up.
@RobH pointed out to me that you could make the argument that Halflings = Roden, and that set the ball rolling for me, as puzzle pieces clicked into place, and opened up a new way of looking at the setting (mixed metaphors ahoy!).
The basic change for our setting is that Halfling and Skaven come from the same Stock, and might each view themselves as the “original” Stock.
Partly old secret, partly 2 Peoples “separated at birth”. One lot look like Halflings, one lot look like Halfling-sized rats. There’s a connection, but nothing is certain or official.
So, we set up our campaign, and one of the players decides to play a Halfling, using the Roden lifepaths, and we end up with:
Sluice
(24 year old Halfling Cutpurse turned magical Albino)
Lifepaths: Born Below, The Gauntlet, Fingers, (Exile) Albino
The backstory part is that whilst scouting / hiding in the sewers, he comes across a secret ritual space used by the Society (= Skaven = “evil” Roden), and the place / warpstone (“magic B-movie-style glowing radiation rock”) makes him an albino, and makes him Gifted.
So, a Gifted Halfling, whose powers derive from running right into the dealings of their (Stock-) “cousins”. The first Gifted Halfling in the Empire (and not officially recognised - good thing one of the party members can forge an impressive looking Wizard’s Licence).
Pretty early on, the party encounters Skaven, with all of in their conniving, scheming, backstabbing, mad-scientist vibes.
Sluice (and Sluice’s player) leans into the “familial connection”, and sees them as people pretty early on.
The whole party is big on disguises and false identities (the only game I’ve had where I’ve repeatedly needed to check with each player “so, who are you right now… and who knows about this identity?”), so there’s definitely some disguising themselves as Skaven to get close and… do something.
Sluice pulls off some high-risk plans, and starts proclaiming himself as an apostle to the Skaven.
Does he believe it? No. Not yet.
Is he going to use this charlatan religious-con-man approach to sway various Skaven they meet? Yes. Absolutely.
Over time, he grows this into a philosophy / religious movement, and starts to see the potential to turn some of them away from some of their exploitative / backstabby / abusive society towards something with hope, and a different more integrating / accepting approach.
Sluice also starts to believe that he can (and should) make a difference, and that this is not “just a con”, but a mission.
The other characters? Not so much.
Indeed, Dieter Fuchs (our doctor/church investigator type) is all for a “lure them in together and then wipe them all out” kind of approach.
The players are really pushing into this beautifully, enjoying seeing their characters at loggerheads, and not rushing to force-resolve the issues between them (even in the face of lots of antagonism between them all).
We’re now something like 100-and-something sessions further down this road, and little / not-so-little communities of Skaven are being converted to Sluice’s philosophy.
One of their initial main reasons for going to the (Halfling) Moot was to set up a Skaven enclave there, and look to integrate them into Halfling society in a sleepy safe environment away from the glare and threat of the Empire at large.
Now to see if Sluice and Co can reconcile the Empire’s pantheon / doctrine, and Sluice’s “I made it up as I went along” / “I’m tweaking with aspects of the Skaven Horned Rat religion” into a coherent philosophy / doctrine… and then getting the Empire to accept it. Good luck, folks!