Slaine: Skullswords lore and miniatures

Skull Swords are characters from the 2000 AD strip Sláine. They are the personal soldiers of the Lord Weird Slough Feg, Slough Throt and the other Drune Lords.

In general, the job of a Skull Sword is to act as brute muscle, killing civilians, looting villages and bringing their masters sacrifices. They made their début in the first ever episode of Sláine, when they wanted to arrest Sláine and Ukko for the impious act of killing a time-monster (a sort of huge dinosaur). The pair foiled them by escaping into the sewers.

Skull Swords were next seen taking a third of the healthy children from a village as 'tribute' so that they could be fed to the Lord Weird Slough Feg. The desperate villagers were told that without their children there would be more food to go around.

Drune Lords like to sacrifice 'criminals' to the worm god Crom-Cruach in a wickerman. When there aren't enough criminals to fill the wickerman, they make the numbers up with Skull Swords.

During the 'Horned King' saga, many Skull Swords turned on their masters after Sláine informed them that they were going to be killed once they had outlived their usefulness. A small number remained loyal, but only ended up being killed by Sláine and his axe Brainbiter.