“Peace… What a pretty name for a cancer. The Dominion’s laws do not recognise such a thing. Truces? Yes. Peace? No. There are always more wars to wage.”
- Meditations on Empire, allegedly authored by Desraki Khrodes
In the Desraki Dominion, the only god that is exalted is Khorne. All other forms of worship are outlawed on pain of death; even beliefs and cultural practices deemed ungodly are suppressed by the Dominion. Enforcers deal with the day-to-day application of the religious laws of the Khrodes Dictates, while Arbiters root out unorthodoxy, heresy and impiousness. It is believed that so long as the Dominion stays true in their faith in Kharneth and spread his corruption through the Realms, he will watch over their empire.
Worship of Khorne among the slaves of the Dominion is strictly forbidden; only the worthy are allowed to pay homage to the Lord of Skulls, and those conquered by the Dominion and unable to improve their station by violence can’t be counted among them. Though some of the Blood Gods’ faithful find this to be an odd limitation to their evangelism, the truth of the motives of this dictate is known to the few Arbiters who can trace their line of apprenticeships back to the first Arbiters appointed by Desraki Khrodes.
The first Brasslord knew that Khorne cares not where the blood flows, and that violent slave revolts overthrowing the society Khrodes had so carefully crafted would be just as pleasing to him. The power of Khorne must be hoarded by the Desraki dynasty, to be given out only to the trustworthy. This secret has been so well kept even the Brasslords have forgotten it and embraced the lie their founder promulgated.
Regardless of the reason, any worship of Khorne by one not permitted is met with execution upon discovery. Sometimes mass-execution of entire cults among the slaves, created by less wise Arbiters.
While the worship of Tzeentch, Slaanesh and Nurgle is suppressed, no force can fully excise their influence. Try as they might, Arbiters and Enforcers aren’t able to police the thoughts of the uncounted millions within the Brasslords’ empire. So long as a single fracture in the faith of the masses exists, Khorne’s siblings will find a way past the armour of orthodoxy imposed by the Dominion.
Among the Brassblooded, the martial austerity of Khorne’s tenets can become a tiring obligation, and the wealth amassed by their position and war-plunder a growing temptation, and so Slaanesh’s whispers reaches their ears. For those who struggle beneath the exigencies of their aristocratic overlords, despair is as endemic as the plagues that periodically ravage them. Some surrender to the hopelessness of their circumstances, and in doing so knowingly or unknowingly enter the embrace of Nurgle. And throughout all the Dominion, wherever rival families plot against one another, schemers sharpen knives or the oppressed hope for a reversal of their fortunes, Tzeentch digs their claws a little deeper into the Dominion.
The task of rooting out such threats is a tireless one, but one the Arbiters accept for the survival of the Dominion, and Khorne’s glory.
Perhaps oddly enough, of all the gods the Great Horned Rat is the one that faces the least repression. Or perhaps not so oddly, when one considers that aside from the truly desperate or mad, few outside the Skaven worship their god, so there is little danger of spiritual corruption in the Dominion from the Great Horned Rat.
Some of the nobility even have illicit dealings with the rat-folk, for they possess experimental technology, assassins, magic and many other for hire. More than once an entire barrack of slaves has disappeared, and the rival of the owner of those slaves found in bed with a slit throat. Though the Arbiters crack down heavily on any that would cooperate with Skaven, the wilful blindness of the aristocracy frustrates their efforts enough that the children of the Great Horned Rat find good business in the Dominion.
