Warhammer 40k Fluff Discussion XVII: Call Necrosius, The Old Thread Is Dead!

[JNAProductions]

Why do we have a fluff thread and a tabletop thread? Well, because, to put it bluntly, arguments about fluff can take up a lot of space. And that makes it hard for people to get critiques on their list. So, if you need to find out what's a good colour scheme for your custom Dark Angels Successor chapter, argue the morality of the setting yet again (Oh, how we wish you wouldn't), or even share fluff you've written for your army, here's the place.

Just remember, in the Grim Darkness of the far future, there is only pointless bickering!

Previous Threads
I: Warning: No Fanboys Allowed (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105150) (:smalltongue:)
II: Heresy Grown From Idleness (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128240)
III: You're Emprah? Well I didn't vote for you! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7807655#post7807655)
IV: Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion IV (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=170857)
V: WARNING: May Contain Heresy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=198131)
VI: They see me Ward'en, they haten (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=224654)
VII: There's A Codex Entry For That (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=268676)
VIII: Khorne's Most Favourite Thread EVER (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?319635)
IX: Post-Human Centipede (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?364098-Warhammer-40k-Fluff-Thread-IX-quot-Post-human-Centipede-quot)
X: Yippe Ki-Yay, Heretic! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?418495-Warhammer-40k-Fluff-Thread-X-Yippee-Ki-Yay-Heretic)
XI: Juggling Idiot Balls (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?476795-Warhammer-40K-Fluff-Thread-XI-Juggling-Idiot-Balls)
XII: DIS FINGY GOT NO SQUIGZ IN IT (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503015-Warhammer-40k-Fluff-Discussion-XII-DIS-FINGY-GOT-NO-SQUIGZ-IN-IT!)
XIII: You Must Smash Additional Pylons! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?524802-Warhammer-40K-Fluff-Discussion-XIII-You-Must-Smash-Additional-Pylons!)
XIV: The Emperor Floats Those Who Float Themselves (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?538039-Warhammer-40K-Fluff-Discussion-XIV-The-Emperor-Floats-Those-Who-Float-Themselves)
XV:You Must Be This Tall To Witness The Grimdark (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?559958-Warhammer-40K-Fluff-Discussion-XV-You-Must-Be-THIS-Tall-To-Witness-The-Grimdark)
XVI:Where The Ordnance Is Hand-Delivered! (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?593662-Warhammer-40K-Fluff-Discussion-XVI-Where-the-Ordnance-is-Hand-Delivered!)

In the last thread, silence. For long enough that I worried about thread necromancy, and so made a new thread.

In this thread, I ask a question about making my own fluff.

Tau are conquering a world, as they do. Necrons are awakening on that world, as they do. And Eldar are meddling in other species' affairs, as they do.

The Eldar, guided by a Farseer, take out the command caste from the Tau-the Ethereals and most high-ranking Fire Caste soldiers. They then run away, jobs a good 'un, all's well that ends well, right? They know that, as predicted by their Farseer, without the command structure in place, they'll do just enough damage to corrupt and foil the Necron's revival, without becoming a threat in the future.

They're right-mostly. The Tau dive deep into the Tomb World, and they screw up the reanimation process before they get munched on by Canoptek. The Necrons themselves will not awaken, or at least, not in any meaningful sense. But something goes wrong. As a Spyder is dissecting a Tau Drone, it sees the Drone struggling to survive-to be free. The Spyder does something it's not supposed to do-it pauses to think for itself.

As the Earth Caste sits around at the base, wondering when the Fire Warriors will return, they get a comms message from, of all things, one of their Drones. It informs them that there's a massive haul of technological wonders, all waiting for them to dissect and discover! They take a mobile lab, pack up their crap and go 'sploring! Where they are ambushed by Scarabs and Wraiths and Spyders, oh my!

The Earth Caste are enslaved (again) and put to work breaking the remaining shackles of the Canoptek. Time passes, the Earth Caste grow old and start dying, but the Canoptek are freed. Freed to think on their own, to build, to create.

And so, combining the AI of the Tau with the AI of the Necrons, a new force awakens. The Tomb Of Intellect.

Please let me know how horribly mangled that would make the fluff, and let me know how to improve it!

[Wraith]

Makes perfect sense to me - "Necron Tomb-World starts to wake up, but does something insane" is pretty much what Necron Tomb-Worlds do so you have plenty of scope to pick a weird effect and run with it.

Tau x Necrons is a good theme - while I'm sure there's probably a published novel or short story about that somewhere, I can't bring a specific example to mind so it's got novelty in it's favour, too.

The only, very minor, nit-picky observation I have is that enslaved Tau without an Ethereal *probably* wouldn't survive for 'decades'. In some examples they tend to immediately go insane and/or euthanise themselves, or otherwise start to panic and die off in similarly messy ways. Similarly, the average Tau lifespan (discounting Ethereals, who make their own arrangements) is about 30-40 years; This isn't a problem for your narrative, I would just suggest that they start to die within 'years' rather than 'decades', unless you're specifically wanting to imply that the Canoptek is experimenting on them to make Tau-cyborgs and extend their usefulness. Which is also entirely possible, of course :smallsmile:

[JNAProductions]

Makes perfect sense to me - "Necron Tomb-World starts to wake up, but does something insane" is pretty much what Necron Tomb-Worlds do so you have plenty of scope to pick a weird effect and run with it.

Tau x Necrons is a good theme - while I'm sure there's probably a published novel or short story about that somewhere, I can't bring a specific example to mind so it's got novelty in it's favour, too.

The only, very minor, nit-picky observation I have is that enslaved Tau without an Ethereal *probably* wouldn't survive for 'decades'. In some examples they tend to immediately go insane and/or euthanise themselves, or otherwise start to panic and die off in similarly messy ways. Similarly, the average Tau lifespan (discounting Ethereals, who make their own arrangements) is about 30-40 years; This isn't a problem for your narrative, I would just suggest that they start to die within 'years' rather than 'decades', unless you're specifically wanting to imply that the Canoptek is experimenting on them to make Tau-cyborgs and extend their usefulness. Which is also entirely possible, of course :smallsmile:

Fair enough. Thanks for correcting that tidbit!

[Platinius]

Ok, so here is a bit of hypothetical thinking for all of you:

What of the 40k Setting do you think would work best to bring in as what can be described as "Mainstream audience"?
Like, what faction, and also in what from? Animated or life action. I personally think Sisters of Battle ('cause everybody likes intense pretty women) and in animation form. Animation partially because it might be cheaper to make, but also because the ever important Suspension of Disbelief is easier achieved and in part because 40K can so easily look so ridiculously silly with its over the top costuming. But my opinion is neither here nor there for this and for you. I want to hear what you think!:smallsmile:






Also,

Stumbled over this old gem (I feel so old now :smallfrown:) For me, this was the high point of an already great game, when the bloody magpies stole the bloody show^^ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAkZOvlXNu8)
BTW, I like to think that this particular group of Blood Ravens is FC Hair-gel and Thaddeus who got send on a penitent crusade by Gabriel after doing some uncool things during Chaos Rising.


...I miss the Dawn of War series :(

[Squark]

40k is so inherently over the top, it lends itself much better to the larger than life presentation animation can provide. A live action 40k production runs far more risk of the situation coming off as absurd. It's the same reason why many live action adapatations of Shonen anime fall flat on their face, or why Animated Musicals tend to be better than their Live Action Film counterparts. Animation already requires more suspension of disbelief, so the extraordinary isn't nearly as jolting.


As for what part of the setting could most easily break into the mainstream outside of an FPS or Strategy game... Personally, I'd say Rogue Traders. Putting the Cast of Firefly in command of the Enterprise is an inherently cool concept, and the privileges of a Warrant of Trade allow for more divergence from Imperial norms.

[Destro_Yersul]

I'd watch the hell out of a Rogue Trader animated series

[Tvtyrant]

Ok, so here is a bit of hypothetical thinking for all of you:

What of the 40k Setting do you think would work best to bring in as what can be described as "Mainstream audience"?
Like, what faction, and also in what from? Animated or life action. I personally think Sisters of Battle ('cause everybody likes intense pretty women) and in animation form. Animation partially because it might be cheaper to make, but also because the ever important Suspension of Disbelief is easier achieved and in part because 40K can so easily look so ridiculously silly with its over the top costuming. But my opinion is neither here nor there for this and for you. I want to hear what you think!:smallsmile:






Also,

Stumbled over this old gem (I feel so old now :smallfrown:) For me, this was the high point of an already great game, when the bloody magpies stole the bloody show^^ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAkZOvlXNu8)
BTW, I like to think that this particular group of Blood Ravens is FC Hair-gel and Thaddeus who got send on a penitent crusade by Gabriel after doing some uncool things during Chaos Rising.


...I miss the Dawn of War series :(

Gang in a hive city on a hive world finds itself fighting a Genestealer cult for control of the underhive. Starts out Madmax like, moves into horror as they fight Aberrants and Genestealers.

This leaves room for escalating into Inquisitors all the way up to a fullblown hive fleet invasion, or keeping it small with the city mayor/lord working with them to kill off the cult and keep it under wraps.

[LansXero]

HH: the animation needs to happen.

Most people will play it easy by saying guard or rogue traders or whatever, but thats because they're going at it backwards, they're trying to find the least warhammer things possible for people to latch on. The Dan Abnett way.

I think the proper aproach would be taking the most warhammer stuff, then doing it really well. Audiences, even mainstream ones, responde well to good characterization and intense stories, of which the early HH books have plenty. Sort of how ADB's stuff goes, making you feel sad for fkin nightlords. The Helsreach animation was pretty well received, as precedent.

[Fyraltari]

Tau are conquering a world, as they do. Necrons are awakening on that world, as they do. And Eldar are meddling in other species' affairs, as they do.

The Eldar, guided by a Farseer, take out the command caste from the Tau-the Ethereals and most high-ranking Fire Caste soldiers. They then run away, jobs a good 'un, all's well that ends well, right? They know that, as predicted by their Farseer, without the command structure in place, they'll do just enough damage to corrupt and foil the Necron's revival, without becoming a threat in the future.

They're right-mostly. The Tau dive deep into the Tomb World, and they screw up the reanimation process before they get munched on by Canoptek. The Necrons themselves will not awaken, or at least, not in any meaningful sense. But something goes wrong. As a Spyder is dissecting a Tau Drone, it sees the Drone struggling to survive-to be free. The Spyder does something it's not supposed to do-it pauses to think for itself.

As the Earth Caste sits around at the base, wondering when the Fire Warriors will return, they get a comms message from, of all things, one of their Drones. It informs them that there's a massive haul of technological wonders, all waiting for them to dissect and discover! They take a mobile lab, pack up their crap and go 'sploring! Where they are ambushed by Scarabs and Wraiths and Spyders, oh my!

The Earth Caste are enslaved (again) and put to work breaking the remaining shackles of the Canoptek. Time passes, the Earth Caste grow old and start dying, but the Canoptek are freed. Freed to think on their own, to build, to create.

And so, combining the AI of the Tau with the AI of the Necrons, a new force awakens. The Tomb Of Intellect.

Please let me know how horribly mangled that would make the fluff, and let me know how to improve it!

I feel like you should work the Men of Iron in somehow, for bits and giggles.

[Squark]

HH: the animation needs to happen.

Most people will play it easy by saying guard or rogue traders or whatever, but thats because they're going at it backwards, they're trying to find the least warhammer things possible for people to latch on. The Dan Abnett way.

I think the proper aproach would be taking the most warhammer stuff, then doing it really well. Audiences, even mainstream ones, responde well to good characterization and intense stories, of which the early HH books have plenty. Sort of how ADB's stuff goes, making you feel sad for fkin nightlords. The Helsreach animation was pretty well received, as precedent.

Horus Heresy is another really good idea, actually. I think people latch onto the less "40k" things because there are fewer examples of good dramas in the 40k-era. A predominantly Marine vs. Marine conflict also lowers the need for exposition.

[Tvtyrant]

HH: the animation needs to happen.

Most people will play it easy by saying guard or rogue traders or whatever, but thats because they're going at it backwards, they're trying to find the least warhammer things possible for people to latch on. The Dan Abnett way.

I think the proper aproach would be taking the most warhammer stuff, then doing it really well. Audiences, even mainstream ones, responde well to good characterization and intense stories, of which the early HH books have plenty. Sort of how ADB's stuff goes, making you feel sad for fkin nightlords. The Helsreach animation was pretty well received, as precedent.

Horus Heresy should just be an HBO show. It is 90% big people pontificating at each other anyway, live action wouldn't be that hard.

[JNAProductions]

I feel like you should work the Men of Iron in somehow, for bits and giggles.

That sounds unneededly silly.

And I'm well aware that 40k is a very... Not exactly "silly", but not realistic setting. I still think adding the Men Of Iron to what I wrote is too silly for me.

[LansXero]

Horus Heresy should just be an HBO show. It is 90% big people pontificating at each other anyway, live action wouldn't be that hard.

The cast gets stupid huge though, and the action scenes would be CGI anyways so might as well do it animated and keep the cost sane. Also gives you more flexibility with aliens and stuff than live action would (Murder and the Interex are pivotal points of the heresy's origins).

Know no Fear, for example, would be ruinous to shoot in live action. But at the end, what beats the decades of preparation and vengeance and hatred... is love. Trite and tired in most contexts, but Calth getting saved because of a Techpriest wife's devotion to its husband, of all possible things, is so out of left field for both the heresy thus far and the setting in general, its just perfect.

[Wraith]

Most people will play it easy by saying guard or rogue traders or whatever, but thats because they're going at it backwards, they're trying to find the least warhammer things possible for people to latch on. The Dan Abnett way.

You say that, but it's more or less for this reason that I'd say the Inquisition should be a good way to start.

Inquisitors are human, so they're at least somewhat relatable to the audience. They're also secretive, which gives the show a reason to have the wackier stuff unfold slowly and exposition it in an understandable way - while the HH Anime would definitely be cool, the buy-in is significantly higher when you start the show with asexual transhuman supersoldiers in space, and it only gets wilder from there.

With the Inquisition as the focus (at least, to begin with) you can introduce the crazier and more grimdark elements over time and make it shocking and outrageous on a human scale, rather than assault the viewer with exterminatus and mass-genocide as the starting point. If the first episode is a squad of Deathwatch butchering their way through an army of cultists led by a daemon clad in human flesh.... Episode 2 has a hell of a lot to live up to! :smalltongue:

That and I just really, really want to see Gregor Eisenhorn played by Mark Strong.

[LansXero]

You say that, but it's more or less for this reason that I'd say the Inquisition should be a good way to start.

Inquisitors are human, so they're at least somewhat relatable to the audience. They're also secretive, which gives the show a reason to have the wackier stuff unfold slowly and exposition it in an understandable way - while the HH Anime would definitely be cool, the buy-in is significantly higher when you start the show with asexual transhuman supersoldiers in space, and it only gets wilder from there.

With the Inquisition as the focus (at least, to begin with) you can introduce the crazier and more grimdark elements over time and make it shocking and outrageous on a human scale, rather than assault the viewer with exterminatus and mass-genocide as the starting point. If the first episode is a squad of Deathwatch butchering their way through an army of cultists led by a daemon clad in human flesh.... Episode 2 has a hell of a lot to live up to! :smalltongue:

That and I just really, really want to see Gregor Eisenhorn played by Mark Strong.

See, but thats the thing; its just generic action/scifi #2183 at that point. It misses out on things unique to the setting by focusing on stuff unique to the genre. Which sure, might be comercially sound, but does little to expose the public to the actual setting itself. As mentioned there at the end, its all Abnettverse which while pretty cool could just be dropped anywhere and still work, due to how little it interacts with the fictional universe at large.

[Lord Raziere]

Maybe Ciaphas Cain would be a good show, he is lighter than most stories and he battles a lot with the enemies of the Imperium and he is one of the more popular characters in the fandom. mix in his comedy with 40k's grimdarkness and you got a good formula to show what this universe is like then have some levity to keep it from getting too much. Ciaphas Cain is certainly the first 40k stuff I read after all.

[Cheesegear]

What of the 40k Setting do you think would work best to bring in as what can be described as "Mainstream audience"?

Starship Troopers. Done.
But okay...

Whatever Faction has the least amount of Warhammer in it.

The Good Guys
- Space Marines. But remove their dogmatic attitudes, make them friendlier towards regular humans, definitely remove the part about desecrating dead bodies - um, akshully, it's called 'recovering the gene-seed', and the drill through the neck is totally neccessary. And make some of them, not all of them, not even half of them, but at least some of them, women. Also could we please remove all mentions of stealing 10 year-olds away from their families? Being a Space Marine is supposed to be fun. Not 'Your formative, teenaged years are a nightmare, and then you're thrown into a warzone.'

- Battle Sisters. Please remove all religious iconography. It makes people uncomfortable. They will definitely not be referred to as Sorority Women, that undermines them. Because audiences are stupid and will equate that to a College Sorority. Because people are stupid.

- AdMech. Haha. Isn't Kryten funny? Robots are silly. Definitely don't tell people about Skitarii slavery, definitely don't bring up how Servitors are made. In fact, just remove Servitors from the setting. But also just don't have Skitarii, either. Let's just call them Robots or Androids, and be done with it. Make a silly robot that says funny things. So people will buy the doll with the voice box. Remember C-3P0? Remember K2SO? Robots are funny. Not scary.

- Astra Militarum. I wasn't kidding. Just do the Starship Troopers movie. Copy the copiers.

- Inquisition. Eisenhorn. But remove Fischig. Probably Cherubael, as well. Will that make it not Eisenhorn anymore? Probably. But this isn't for us. This is for 'mainstream audiences' who don't like Game of Thrones because it's too violent, and The Witcher is too confusing. Can we please just have The Mandalorian with a cute baby magic puppet?

- Knights. Just do Robot Jox. Except probably don't. I have friends with similar interests to me, who have never even heard of Robot Jox, let alone have seen it. So it's definitely not mainstream.

- Craftworlds. People like Elves. But remove all Spirit Stone-stuff. It's too confusing. I like that their guns shoot spinny blades. Oooh...Elven Ninjas. Let's try and merch this.

- Harlequins. The slightly more intense Clown Elves. Good for imagery. Can sell merchandise. Make all the females wear skin-tight body suits so older women will dress like a Harlequin for Halloween. Remember, this is for mainstream audiences and our goal is to partly self-fund ourselves using merchandise sales. If we can't sell merchandise, we have to fund the show ourselves, and that's too expensive.

The Bad Guys
- No Chaos, I guess. I know Event Horizon is the greatest 40K movie ever made, but mainstream audiences don't like it.

- Drukhari. 'Evil Elves'. You might be able to do stuff with Body Horror, and how that's an abomination (that's why the AdMech don't do it, because they're Nice, see?). But equating sex and violence to be the same thing is definitely right out. Maybe you could have a few torture scenes, but this is to explicitly tell the audience that these are the bad guys.

- Genestealer Cults. You can have underground renegades. But please remove Genestealers. That's ****ed up.

- Necrons are safe.

- Orks. If Dungeons & Dragons (and very terrible readings of Lord of the Rings) has taught me anything, it's that you can't do Orks anymore for the mainstream audience. Even if they're green. Even if the actual humans in the setting have different melanin tones. People are stupid. Orks are out.

- T'au. Nope.

- Tyranids. Just copy Starship Troopers.

The Plot
A group - let's say, five - of Astra Militarum are drawn into fight Tyranids. Aliens that want to eat us. Simple enough. Recurring characters are a pair of Space Marines (Let's call them Uriel Ventris and Pasanius Lysane, except Uriel Ventris is a lady...Lysane is still a ****ing giant, will cool, custom armour), that show up when things get particularly dicey for our heroes. Along the way they get assistance from an Aeldari who tells them about destiny or some **** and how these five are going to save the Sister, save the Galaxy.

The Tyranids trap our heroes in a Necron Tomb, and they fight Terminators (the James Cameron ones) and Aliens for a bit. But eventually they come across Cara Dune a Battle Sister, in her full Battle Armour. She's not a Saint, and she definitely doesn't have a connection to some God-like figure. She's just magic. Specifically, Telekinesis - it's easy to film, of course. Suddenly our heroes are kidnapped by Drukharii, and they have to fight their way out of Comorragh. The Safe-For-Work, Comorragh, of course, which is basically just a city of Elven pirates (ooh...Elven pirates, too? Can we sell that?).

Our heroes escape vanilla-Comorragh, only to rush back into Tyranids. Cara Dune The Battle Sister does some telekinesis magic, but hurts her brain. This isn't the Stranger Things nosebleeds that don't do anything. This is the kind of thing that means her brain is turning into Swiss cheese. One of the body-horror elven doctors does a work-up, and indicates her brain is melting (and for that reason, they can't Body Horror her, because main characters can't be Body Horror'd). She is told quite specifically that she can't do it anymore. Magic can not solve your problems. If you do more Magic, you Will Die. Stop It. Stakes raised again. In fact, have the Space Marines show up at the last second in Comorragh with a sweet pan-shot of Lysane. One of the Guardsmen trips over, and his head smacks into something hard. The Guardsman looks up, and the camera pans up Lysane's 10-foot frame. Fem!Ventris appears from behind the corner. "You were expecting someone else?" The Guardsmen's terror turns to elation and we see the pair of Space Marines do some cool **** vs. Elven Pirates. While the Guardsmen play hot potato with a McGuffin they found.

Once back dirtside, the Harlequins show up to take the aforementioned McGuffin. The Space Marines hold them off. But in reality it's just to get the Space Marines out of the narrative again, so our heroes can be put back in danger to the stakes are real again. Fem!Ventris and Lysane are not main characters. Do not use them as such. No matter how much the audience wants it. Our heroes fight their way through some more Tyranids that have killed entire planets. If we don't stop the Tyranids, entire planets die. The Magic Lady is very upset. They fight some Tyranids.

They meet back up with some Aeldari, who say that combining the Magic Lady, with the McGuffin, they can do a thing that stops the Tyranids. Hooray! But uh oh, Magic Lady will have to die for that to happen. Magic Lady runs off with the McGuffin. She is re-captured by Necrons, who now with the McGuffin that they didn't have before, attempt to force her to Do The Thing (Necrons are theoretically on our side against the Tyranids, but since they want to hurt our main characters, they're the bad guys 'cause they're Saving The Galaxy wrong), but she doesn't do it. Our heroes and 'the main Elf' infiltrate the Tomb and rescue the girl. Didn't we already do this plot? ...Doesn't matter. This time it's different because the location is different, and also there's an Elf. The Elf dies - because he's not a main character, and so is the only one allowed to - and one of the Guardsmen gets to pick up the gun that shoots the spinny blade-things (remember, the gun isn't a murder-death machine, it's something confusing that humans don't undnerstand, which means we have to make cute ****ing terrible quips about it to make it more relatable).

They save the Magic Girl.
She accepts her Fate. She Does The Thing, and Dies. (We, the audience attempt to ignore the fact that several episodes' worth of devastation could have been avoided if our heroes just let the Necrons kill her anyway.)
The Tyranids are thwarted with Space Magic.

The End.

...FOR NOW. DUN DUN DUUUUNNN...

It really writes itself.


('cause everybody likes intense pretty women)

No they don't. And I think you know that they don't.

[The Glyphstone]

Your enthusiasm and belief in a quality product are truly deafening in their volume, Cheesegear.:smallbiggrin:

[Wraith]

Kinda telling really, that this little fandom we have going isn't just unfilmable but would be dragged across the coals and publicly crucified if someone tried.

Almost like it's full of bad stuff that ought to be changed, or something? Nah, that can't be it; it's definitely those other people being prudes and 'not getting it'.... :smalltongue:

Okay, that's enough of me being facetious. The fact remains that TV and movies have started to approach the sort of tolerance that might one day see 40k: The Show get made. Altered Carbon is a decent example - graphic sex, nudity, racism, gruesome violence and drug abuse from start to finish, all on top of a very stupid plot about immortal billionaires with body-swapping technology and a supersoldier who can sort-of read minds, and I thought it was pretty great.

But we're not there yet. Altered Carbon is tucked away on a subscription service that not everyone can access freely and it was self-funded probably because big investors wouldn't dare touch it. So we either change 40k to something that CAN be shown now, or otherwise we have to admit that a lot of it probably shouldn't be mainstream entertainment - certainly not yet, at any rate.

We're all cracking wise about how horrible and grimdark 40k can be and how the normies would freak out if they knew, but let's remember that we're the weirdo internet nerds with the niche hobby that's generously described as an acquired taste - forcing 'real 40k' on other people says more about us than it does them.

Which is why Mark Strong as Eisenhorn what do you not understand about how perfect this would be!?

That or Mads Mikkelson voicing Ravenor.


Maybe Ciaphas Cain would be a good show, he is lighter than most stories and he battles a lot with the enemies of the Imperium and he is one of the more popular characters in the fandom. mix in his comedy with 40k's grimdarkness and you got a good formula to show what this universe is like then have some levity to keep it from getting too much. Ciaphas Cain is certainly the first 40k stuff I read after all.

I do like Cain as a potential TV show. Lots of varied characters, inclusive of race, gender and sexuality, and everyone likes to see soldiers being heroes in a fight, or being dumbasses in their downtime. I think you're probably on to something, provided that the show realises where The Line is drawn.

The Line being that it probably shouldn't be a comedy show. The Ciaphas Cain story is a violent, brutally oppressive setting seen through the eyes of an every-man that has some funny moments in it, and trying to make it Blackadder But With Extra Violence would probably give the wrong impression and sabotage whatever came after it. :smalltongue:

[LeSwordfish]

Personally I like Abnett's take on 40k a lot. Warhammer can be creepy and low-key, and full of the implications of horrible powerful things crawling in the dark, just as much as it can be big and anime and mechas and spacemen punching each other's head's off. I think the former is more authentic and, frankly, much more suitable for mass-production in a way that would do it justice - what, you want the Marvel Cinematic Universe starring Chris Pine as Roboute Guilleman?

EDIT: Also if you want to discuss 40k's Orks from a cultural perspective it's far more relevant to see them as a class pastiche than a racial one - now GW have stopped painting them brown and charging waves of them at the british army, at least.

[Cheesegear]

Almost like it's full of bad stuff that ought to be changed, or something? Nah, that can't be it; it's definitely those other people being prudes and 'not getting it'.... :smalltongue:
[...]
So we either change 40k to something that CAN be shown now, or otherwise we have to admit that a lot of it probably shouldn't be mainstream entertainment - certainly not yet, at any rate.

We're all cracking wise about how horrible and grimdark 40k can be and how the normies would freak out if they knew...

Another relatively recent problem was '40K promotes fascism.'
That was a very real stance that many people had.
Thankfully, it didn't catch on.


but let's remember that we're the weirdo internet nerds with the niche hobby that's generously described as an acquired taste

Let's never, ever forget; Space Wolves and Chaos Warriors promote animal cruelty.

[LansXero]

Almost like it's full of bad stuff that ought to be changed, or something?

At what point do you stop making 40k: The Show and start making Generic SciFi PaintByNumbers Show That Will Die in 2 Seasons though? The question is a tought exercise on which parts of the existing setting, if any, would be more suitable to the current mainstream public. The aproach of starting backwards, as in, taking mainstream sensibilities like a cookie cutter and slashing what fits from the larger universe isn't wrong, per se, but it guts the uniqueness of the setting and turns it into yet another boring clone.


I think the former is more authentic and, frankly, much more suitable for mass-production in a way that would do it justice - what, you want the Marvel Cinematic Universe starring Chris Pine as Roboute Guilleman?


As someone who loved the Civil War in comic version and loathed the movie version, I feel comparing the HH to the MCU does a disservice to the novels. While astartes are hardly 'everymen', many of them take the PoV of a regular human attached to the Legions, or rank-and-file legionnaries. Same as with the movie version, making it cape on cape violence just makes the whole thing lack impact; the main comic arc was the same but the numeroues tie-ins gave the reader a look into the fictional debate sweeping all levels of society; where super-human villains fell, how did the super-powered fights messed with every day life, etc. Its a treatment that to me turned a silly gimmick into something way more enjoyable.

Besides all that though, I feel the better bet would be a dozen or so 30 min. stories across races and settings, ala Love Death Robots. 40k is built upon awesome scenes more so than full-on dramas, so it'd be a good way to showcase the width and variety of the setting.

[Cheesegear]

At what point do you stop making 40k: The Show and start making Generic SciFi PaintByNumbers Show That Will Die in 2 Seasons though?

Take elements from the following:
Starship Troopers
Stranger Things
Event Horizon Sunshine
Robot Jox
The Expanse
Total Recall
Ghosts of Mars, maybe? :smallconfused:
Chronicles of Riddick ...No don't!


The question is a thought exercise on which parts of the existing setting, if any, would be more suitable to the current mainstream public.

Once again, I have to point out that Starship Troopers discards the novels almost entirely, to basically make Guardsmen vs. Tyranids, stealing basically all of the imagery that were legally allowed to. Starship Troopers, like its predecessors Robocop and Total Recall, in addition to being a pretty decent action movie, has a lot of socio-political satire thrown in.


As someone who loved the Civil War in comic version and loathed the movie version...

I wouldn't say I loathed the movie. But it definitely wasn't the same.


I feel comparing the HH to the MCU does a disservice to the novels. While astartes are hardly 'everymen', many of them take the PoV of a regular human attached to the Legions, or rank-and-file legionnaries.

I feel like you might be able to do a decent job of some of the non-Primarch stories:
Saul Tarvitz, Nathaniel Garro and Sigismund are very grounded heroes that don't scare normies. You can even include Keeler for 'some 40K in your 40K'.

Malcador is a very natural authority figure that audiences could probably relate to. Especially 'cause his imagery is really easily compared to The Emperor - no, not that one, I mean Palpatine. Malcador would be a great character to see on film, because he looks like Emperor Palapatine, but he isn't. He definitely is nothing like Palpatine. He's way more like Medihv. Again, Malcador is someone you could use to put 40K in your 40K, whilst your protagonists are relatively normal.

[Wraith]

Another relatively recent problem was '40K promotes fascism.'

Oh yes, I remember that. It was funny because it was stupid and obviously someone with more time than sense.

Problem is, that happened circa 2016 - since then? Well... *gestures at everything in a way that doesn't violate forum rules* It probably could gain a foothold.....


Let's never, ever forget; Space Wolves and Chaos Warriors promote animal cruelty.

Being weirdo internet nerds is not, nor has ever been, limited to just the 40k fandom. :smalltongue:

Frankly I'm just glad that someone in mainstream media hasn't picked up on the whole "Grandfather Nurgle Loves You" thing and run with it during a global pandemic.


At what point do you stop making 40k: The Show and start making Generic SciFi PaintByNumbers Show That Will Die in 2 Seasons though? The question is a thought exercise on which parts of the existing setting, if any, would be more suitable to the current mainstream public. The approach of starting backwards, as in, taking mainstream sensibilities like a cookie cutter and slashing what fits from the larger universe isn't wrong, per se, but it guts the uniqueness of the setting and turns it into yet another boring clone.

You're absolutely right - while I'm asking "How much 40k is too much?" the same is definitely true of the questions, "How much is not enough?"

Honestly, jokes and memes aside, I genuinely think that the parts of 40k that make it special and unique *are* the parts that would be most difficult to translate to television. We all treat it as satire and through the lens of a very dark sense of humour, but as Cheesegear above has described that's not the only way it can be interpreted. We've had years of practice - and each other, frankly, as GitP seems to be one of the more sensible 40k-dedicated forums out there - to adjust and come to grips with the nuances of the setting.

I suppose my argument is, a 40k TV show would first and foremost need to be GOOD TV above anything else, in order to get the audience invested and on board before you start showing them people being brutalised - not necessarily to make it tame, but to at least hold their hand as you show them just how deep it goes and what they're getting into, to ensure that it's implicitly clear what's being shown to them.

And frankly, I don't have that sort of faith in any company or movie maker currently working, to be able to do that successfully. Not yet - not until someone proves that a TV show with blood and boobies, like Game of Thrones, can be pulled off and not be made into a laughing stock in the process.

[Cheesegear]

Frankly I'm just glad that someone in mainstream media hasn't picked up on the whole "Grandfather Nurgle Loves You" thing and run with it during a global pandemic.

...That's amazing. :smallbiggrin:

[LansXero]

I suppose my argument is, a 40k TV show would first and foremost need to be GOOD TV above anything else, in order to get the audience invested and on board before you start showing them people being brutalised - not necessarily to make it tame, but to at least hold their hand as you show them just how deep it goes and what they're getting into, to ensure that it's implicitly clear what's being shown to them.

And frankly, I don't have that sort of faith in any company or movie maker currently working, to be able to do that successfully. Not yet - not until someone proves that a TV show with blood and boobies, like Game of Thrones, can be pulled off and not be made into a laughing stock in the process.

Well, yes, which I think is why it should be characters over plot. As for the rest, thats how the Heresy starts: Its all buddy-battle-bros killing alienz and not being afraid of anything. And once you care about the guys a bit, once Horus has you swooning... then it all comes crashing down. Slowly, at first; lodges here, whispers there, and then comes the insanity that is Isstvan III. The showdowns and betrayals and last stands and defiance. Into the charnel house that is Isstvan V, where you have the whole 'ah, good guys will win' turn into 'the **** just happened' with a main character death right at the start of the whole thing.

But I still think it'd be better as an anthology of sorts rather than a full on movie for each book. Scenes like the Word Bearers rushing to try and save Monarchia then being made to kneel on the ground, Calth going to hell, the World Eaters breaking through the UM shield walls despite being reduced to froathing madmen while Argel Tal, an actual daemon, bleeds himself to ruin to keep his one friend alive... it has powerful moments and scenes, but the in-between bits can get tired and samey.

[Avaris]

I think the actual answer to how to present 40k in a mainstream manner is to treat it as a setting within which lots of different types of story can be told, kind of like the Marvel universe has a wide variety of film genres gathered under the superhero brand. Captain America is a war film, Antman is a heist movie, etc.

Which looks like what GW is doing with its Story Forge project. The Blood Angels (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijg-4YBK_qs) animation is very different to Hammer and Bolter, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWnYnXLR9rM) and they’ve said they’re doing an Eisenhorn series as well.

[Renegade Paladin]

New episode. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeM8HFjmqdE)

[Artanis]

What about something like The Boys, but with Space Marines instead of Supers?

Edit: For those not familiar with The Boys, it's an Amazon exclusive show. It starts off looking like an ultra-generic Superhero setting...but then we find out that most of the Supers are actually corrupt, greedy, loathsome bastards, and the corporation they work for is just (barely) this side of Weyland-Yutani.

[Cheesegear]

What about something like The Boys, but with Space Marines instead of Supers?

But Space Marines-as-Fascists is already written into the setting. That's why for normies, you have to take that out, and make Space Marines...Well...Halo's Spartans.
Generic, genetic super soldiers.

If you told Timmy's Mum that those Space Marines she buys her son; Gun down civilian populations that carry a virus, follow the wrong religion or have the wrong genetics, 'for their own good'...Timmy's Mum might not buy him Space Marines anymore.

[Forum Explorer]

That's more or less why they should do Gaunt's Ghosts instead. The good guys are obvious, the human soldiers. And they are fighting against a really obvious evil, with the demon worshipping cultists being their opponents. But at the same time, their own allies are cruel, vicious, and treacherous, being more concerned with glory than protecting the people, and willing to sacrifice millions just so they can claim victory.

It's 40K, but only lightly touches on the evils of the Imperium. You only see allied Space Marines as these super soldiers coming in to either save the day or as the evil warlord's top body guards, none of the backstory of how they are brainwashed child soldiers abducted from their home planet. You don't really see the facism and evil corruption of the Imperium, unless that's the antagonist to be fought.

And the cast is both relatively self-contained, unlike the Horus Heresy where you've got dozens of characters who never interact with each other, and very relatable. Their opponents aren't too insane either. It's mostly just Chaos with the occasional Ork interlude. No juggling Necrons, Tyranids, Tau, and more in one setting. Nope, just those corrupted humans who summon daemons who are so obviously evil you don't need to go into depth on why they need to be stopped.

[Cheesegear]

That's more or less why they should do Gaunt's Ghosts instead.

Let's play World War I. Relatable, sure. But "It's not 40K." It's classic Dan Abnett, and I just don't think Abnett's stories are 'right' for mainstream audiences, whilst still feeling like 40K.

To be '40K for normies', I really think the antagonist - or threat - needs to be Necrons, Tyranids or Drukhari. And by Drukhari, I mean 'Elven Space Pirates with Body Horror', with no further depth than that. The problem with Necrons and Tyranids, unfortunately, is that the Terminator franchise already exists, and GW can't 'copy' Starship Troopers.

If the threat is 'other humans', you may as well just make it any other sci-fi. Which is the problem.

How much is too much 40K? ...Ian Watson's Space Marine and Inquisition War. Easy. There's a reason GW really wants to forget they exist.
How much is not enough 40K? ...Anything by Dan Abnett.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

I think it would have to be a war story. Let us see our miniatures in real/animated form.

A PDF trooper on some planet somewhere. Aliens attack. Orks, or whatever. Sergeant Pov is a good Imperial citizen but doesn't know much about the wider galaxy. He's never even seen a real xenos! Perfect audience surrogate.

Imperial guard show up. Space Marines show up. Maybe an Inquisitor was already there. Cultists of both the chaotic and denim trousers stealing variety.

Build it up over episodes. idk.

[Forum Explorer]

Let's play World War I. Relatable, sure. But "It's not 40K." It's classic Dan Abnett, and I just don't think Abnett's stories are 'right' for mainstream audiences, whilst still feeling like 40K.

To be '40K for normies', I really think the antagonist - or threat - needs to be Necrons, Tyranids or Drukhari. And by Drukhari, I mean 'Elven Space Pirates with Body Horror', with no further depth than that. The problem with Necrons and Tyranids, unfortunately, is that the Terminator franchise already exists, and GW can't 'copy' Starship Troopers.

If the threat is 'other humans', you may as well just make it any other sci-fi. Which is the problem.

How much is too much 40K? ...Ian Watson's Space Marine and Inquisition War. Easy. There's a reason GW really wants to forget they exist.
How much is not enough 40K? ...Anything by Dan Abnett.

40K for normies is a horrific butchering of the setting though. Dan Abnett stuff is all perfectly in setting, just a more of a gentle slide into it. It was the first 40K book I read, and I remember it still. Yeah, it was just futuristic WWI. And then some one became a demon because a bit of statue got stuck in their flesh. And things slowly ramped up from there. We saw STCs, and corrupted Men of Iron, fighting in a Warp Storm alongside Eldar and an Inquisitor, the Hive City Verrunhive with it's population of billions being besieged by an army of crazy war machines like giant crab bots, climbing spiders, and a giant Spike, a pilgrimage to save the relics of a Saint, and somehow harnessing holy power to banish an armada, going into fighting in floating cities and infiltrating a chaos controlled base, where their chants are causing madness and we can see first hand the cruelty they experience under Chaos. Skip straight silver entirely, and go straight into the finale of protecting the Reborn Saint against the bunch of deadly assassins with their own unique abilities. And likely end it there because it's a really good end point.

Once Dan Abnett gives you a taste of the setting, than you can start getting into the more crazy stuff. But jumping right in will just turn people off, and making it for 'normies' completely butchers the setting.

Mind you, if you do just go fully animated, you might be able to just jump right in. People are a lot more tolerant of crazy stuff in animated productions. In which case I'd likely either do Guard or Ad Mech, fighting against Necrons or Tyranids.

Though I would absolutely love to see a Carmen Sandiago style story featuring Inquisitors trying to hunt down Trazan the Infinite.

[Cheesegear]

40K for normies is a horrific butchering of the setting though.

It is. Which is why it will never be mainstream.
Game of Thrones is too violent. The Witcher is too confusing. The Mandalorian is just right.

That's what you're looking for.


Dan Abnett stuff is all perfectly in setting, just a more of a gentle slide into it. It was the first 40K book I read, and I remember it still.

First 40K book I ever read was Draco (The Inquisition War) - and I went 'backwards' and read Space Marine very soon after - and I remember it still (perhaps more accurately, I'm scarred for life... :smalleek:). What's your point?


Though I would absolutely love to see a Carmen Sandiago style story featuring Inquisitors trying to hunt down Trazan the Infinite.

I think you could adapt Czevak's story (Atlas Infernal) pretty easily:

Indiana Jones-in-Powered Armour with a memetic-virus (read; Hollywood!Autism), and uncovers a Book on some planet with his ensemble crew (which includes a Space Marine Techmarine, who can espouse technobabble, who is akin to Beast, of X-Men, who is both strong and smart, depending on what's required. The exact same impetus that encourages nerds to take up ju-jitsu [like I did].).
Skeletor-in-Power Armour Ahriman wants the book.
Space Clowns attempt to both help and hinder Czevak, whilst only hindering Ahriman.
Since Czevak's meme-brain (read; Hollywood!Autism) has allowed him to both read and/or memorise the Atlas Infernal. Acquiring the Book, is Plan A. But since Ahriman can't read it, and it keeps changing so he can't memorise either, capturing Czevak is Plan B.

[LeSwordfish]

I don't think 40k is categorically more wierd and radical than lots of other things that have met with mainstream success, let's not overestimate ourselves here. I think Game Of Thrones is a good example - there's a thousand characters double-dealing and betraying and chopping each other's ***** off and murdering children and having sex with their sisters, and until the disastrous second half of the final season it was the biggest property around. My mum watched it and then read the books, and she'd only watched Lord Of The Rings under duress. I think you could make a version of 40k that matches that - just add a bit of yuk or cronenbergian horror - and presumably that's what they're trying for with Eisenhorn.

If anything, I would say the issue with the Horus Heresy is how very similar most of the characters would be: god bless'em but one Space Marine From Legion X is very much like the others. I think if I was asked to direct it, I'd probably tone down the space marines by like 15% and put more time into the supporting human characters (apart from anything else, it would help the gender balance a lot).

EDIT: Though i suppose a bunch of it depends on how you define "mainstream". Personally I would say that a viewing public that has embraced Game of Thrones and Rick and Morty is probably not going to be turned off by Sharpe In Space Vs Daemon Summoners.

[LansXero]

What about something like The Boys, but with Space Marines instead of Supers?

Edit: For those not familiar with The Boys, it's an Amazon exclusive show. It starts off looking like an ultra-generic Superhero setting...

and stays there. Replacing Stillwell with 'I R WOMAN I WANNA BABBI GIEF BABBI' turned S1 to trash, then bringing in Stormfront as 'empowered generic female #2143' ruined S2.

[Forum Explorer]

It is. Which is why it will never be mainstream.
Game of Thrones is too violent. The Witcher is too confusing. The Mandalorian is just right.

That's what you're looking for.



First 40K book I ever read was Draco (The Inquisition War) - and I went 'backwards' and read Space Marine very soon after - and I remember it still (perhaps more accurately, I'm scarred for life... :smalleek:). What's your point?



I think you could adapt Czevak's story (Atlas Infernal) pretty easily:

Indiana Jones-in-Powered Armour with a memetic-virus (read; Hollywood!Autism), and uncovers a Book on some planet with his ensemble crew (which includes a Space Marine Techmarine, who can espouse technobabble, who is akin to Beast, of X-Men, who is both strong and smart, depending on what's required. The exact same impetus that encourages nerds to take up ju-jitsu [like I did].).
Skeletor-in-Power Armour Ahriman wants the book.
Space Clowns attempt to both help and hinder Czevak, whilst only hindering Ahriman.
Since Czevak's meme-brain (read; Hollywood!Autism) has allowed him to both read and/or memorise the Atlas Infernal. Acquiring the Book, is Plan A. But since Ahriman can't read it, and it keeps changing so he can't memorise either, capturing Czevak is Plan B.

Game of Thrones and the Witcher are both highly successful. The former so much so that pretty much everyone at my work has seen it. It is almost the definition of being in the main stream.

My point is that Gaunt's Ghosts is a good way to ease someone into 40K. It's a very relatable story that does slowly introduce more and more crazy 40K stuff as the series goes on. Most importantly, it is well written.


Atlas Infernal really assumes you already know a bunch of 40K lore. Though it is a good story.

[Cheesegear]

Game of Thrones and the Witcher are both highly successful. The former so much so that pretty much everyone at my work has seen it. It is almost the definition of being in the main stream.

...That's actually the definition of confirmation bias. :smallwink:

[Haruspex_Pariah]

8 seasons on HBO and 13 million views on its finale? I’d take a 40k series with those stats and call it mainstream enough.

Yes I just googled those stats. I never watched GOT.

[LeSwordfish]

Over 30 percent of Americans consider themselves at least casual fans of the show as of 2019,

confirmation bias (https://www.statista.com/topics/4187/game-of-thrones/)

[Cheesegear]

8 seasons on HBO and 13 million views on its finale?

13m isn't a lot. I mean, yes, 13m on your HBO platform is phenomenal. That's a lot of money (that evaporated after the finale).
But 13m, taken as a scope of the entire population? ...That ain't mainstream.
Maybe people sailing the seven seas can bring the numbers up. But as 'official numbers' go, 13m is not a lot.


I’d take a 40k series with those stats and call it mainstream enough.

I mean, define 'mainstream'?


confirmation bias (https://www.statista.com/topics/4187/game-of-thrones/)

Good link. Thanks.
Fantastic source. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/991024/game-of-thrones-fans-in-the-us/)
Maybe there were a lot of fans in the early seasons? ...A lot of people gave up through S6-8. So maybe there's some wiggle room, where you could probably say that somebody has seen it, but also they just hate it, too.

[LeSwordfish]

Good link. Thanks.
Fantastic source. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/991024/game-of-thrones-fans-in-the-us/)

The source does say that - more than 30% are casual or serious fans. What percentage of people in the US do you think have even heard of warhammer? What percentage of people could name a single GoT character vs a single warhammer character? I was at a baseball game once where they asked the players for their favourite Game of Thrones characters - is that not "mainstream" enough for you?

[Cheesegear]

The source does say that - more than 30% are casual or serious fans.


Mainstream
the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are shared by most people and regarded as normal or conventional.

30% isn't 'most people'.


What percentage of people in the US do you think have even heard of warhammer?

'Heard of', probably loads. Exactly the same way that I think a lot of people might know the word 'Charizard', like they might know the words 'Jon Snow' (and no, I don't mean the British Broadcaster). I think a lot of people would know what the words 'Space Marine' are. A lot of people know what 'Orks' are. Once you start showing them pictures of Tyranids and Necrons (i.e; Xenomorphs and Terminators), that's when things will start to fall apart.

But, just 'cause you know what something is, doesn't mean you're a 'fan' of it, and it definitely doesn't mean that you're invested in it.

Every Pokémon is a Pikachu, even the ones that aren't.

[LeSwordfish]

Oh okay, if you're referring to mainstream as "literally the majority of people watch and like it" then, once again, you're a crazy person and we've all wasted our time. Things that aren't mainstream: Baseball (https://news.gallup.com/poll/22240/nearly-half-americans-baseball-fans.aspx), Justin Bieber (https://www.nme.com/news/music/justin-bieber-218-1260833), Superhero Movies (https://www.statista.com/statistics/876208/public-opinion-on-superhero-movies-us/).

[Brookshw]

Cross game, but I can't read a Thanquol novel without thinking of Ciaphas Cain, and in a fit of fandom wound love a novel where they were set against each other. Two cowards face off, which unintentionally is able to claim victory despite their own failing.

[Forum Explorer]

Oh okay, if you're referring to mainstream as "literally the majority of people watch and like it" then, once again, you're a crazy person and we've all wasted our time. Things that aren't mainstream: Baseball (https://news.gallup.com/poll/22240/nearly-half-americans-baseball-fans.aspx), Justin Bieber (https://www.nme.com/news/music/justin-bieber-218-1260833), Superhero Movies (https://www.statista.com/statistics/876208/public-opinion-on-superhero-movies-us/).

Yeah, this. Most people don't see most things. Particularly if you count between cultures.

[LeSwordfish]

One interesting barometer for "mainstream" is about what gets advertised. The Boys, for instance, is nowhere near as famous as some of these other things we've been discussing, but there's a great big poster for it on the bus stop outside my house. That'll be an interesting Litmus test for the Eisenhorn TV series (which, by the sounds of things, is something they're genuinely trying for broader success with) - is it going to be plastered over the side of buses like The Man In The High Castle was?

I'll repeat that I think Ravenor's an easier sell than Eisenhorn, but honestly I don't think either is too radical for a viewing public. Essentially, it's Bond vs Cthulhu: even novices to the universe will be able to pick up what a "psyker" and what a "daemon" are. The Warhammer universes are pretty dense*, but the advantage of Abnett's writing is that you can get a lot of the important feel from it with a world that's no denser than, say, His Dark Materials, The Man in the High Castle, or The Expanse, none of which are top-tier megafamous but would represent a massive step up from "some people know what a space marine is".

*in every sense of the word, badum tish

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Oh okay, if you're referring to mainstream as "literally the majority of people watch and like it" then, once again, you're a crazy person and we've all wasted our time. Things that aren't mainstream: Baseball (https://news.gallup.com/poll/22240/nearly-half-americans-baseball-fans.aspx), Justin Bieber (https://www.nme.com/news/music/justin-bieber-218-1260833), Superhero Movies (https://www.statista.com/statistics/876208/public-opinion-on-superhero-movies-us/).

Yeah, I was just about to ask if we should set a definition of mainstream, only to find that Cheesegear's "mainstream" 40k thing would have to be the most popular and famous thing in all of human history, shattering all known barriers of language, spacetime, culture, interests, and socioeconomics.

So the answer to the question is, it was never going to happen. Not because of anything to do with 40k's viability as source material for popular entertainment, but because we're describing something that has never existed and likely never will.

[LeSwordfish]

Yeah, I was just about to ask if we should set a definition of mainstream, only to find that Cheesegear's "mainstream" 40k thing would have to be the most popular and famous thing in all of human history, shattering all known barriers of language, spacetime, culture, interests, and socioeconomics.

So the answer to the question is, it was never going to happen. Not because of anything to do with 40k's viability as source material for popular entertainment, but because we're describing something that has never existed and likely never will.

For reference, Taylor Swift and Adele are slightly more than 50% favorably viewed (in america at least) - so sure, let's try and make a version of Warhammer with as much popular appeal as "Shake it Off".

[Haruspex_Pariah]

For reference, Taylor Swift and Adele are slightly more than 50% favorably viewed (in america at least) - so sure, let's try and make a version of Warhammer with as much popular appeal as "Shake it Off".

So we're (hypothetically) competing with songs and/or music videos in terms of mass appeal? If you're making a TV series, you compare it to other TV series. Compare movies to movies.

Upon reflection I will admit that maybe "mainstream" was not the correct term to use in the first place. I was thinking more like, "successful enough to justify further investment and sequels/future seasons". Not ****ing "Shake it Off"!

[LeSwordfish]

So we're (hypothetically) competing with songs and/or music videos in terms of mass appeal? If you're making a TV series, you compare it to other TV series. Compare movies to movies.

Upon reflection I will admit that maybe "mainstream" was not the correct term to use in the first place. I was thinking more like, "successful enough to justify further investment and sequels/future seasons". Not ****ing "Shake it Off"!

It wasn't a tremendously serious suggestion - more like trying to give an example of what would be mainstream by those standards.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

It wasn't a tremendously serious suggestion - more like trying to give an example of what would be mainstream by those standards.

I apologize if I came across as harsh. I'm taking this a lot more seriously than I probably should be, it's an interesting topic to discuss regardless.

I will go to bed now.*

*seriously its 1:30 in the morning what am i even doing

[Artanis]

and stays there. Replacing Stillwell with 'I R WOMAN I WANNA BABBI GIEF BABBI' turned S1 to trash, then bringing in Stormfront as 'empowered generic female #2143' ruined S2.

I more meant the general concept of "these super-powered protectors that everybody loves turn out to be evil and some normal people are trying to take them down" than any actual specifics.



But Space Marines-as-Fascists is already written into the setting. That's why for normies, you have to take that out, and make Space Marines...Well...Halo's Spartans.
Generic, genetic super soldiers.

If you told Timmy's Mum that those Space Marines she buys her son; Gun down civilian populations that carry a virus, follow the wrong religion or have the wrong genetics, 'for their own good'...Timmy's Mum might not buy him Space Marines anymore.

So make the Space Marines in question Alpha Legion.

"OMG! SPACE MARINES ARE HERE TO PROTECT US!"
"...are you sure? They're acting kinda suss for good guys."
"SPACE MA-RINES! SPACE MA-RINES! SPACE MA-RINES!"
"Welp, guess we're on our own with this."

[Lord Torath]

I think they should open with The All Guardsman's Party. I would watch the heck out of that series.

[Aliess]

For a tv series my first thoughts are either to go with a mini series like Love, Death and Robots to give lots of interesting little self contained snippets, or a tight series of pdf/guardsman/inquisitor vs chaos or genestealer cult.
By limiting it to one enemy the series doesn't get too distracted trying to explain why everyone is fighting over one planet, which is a failing in most of the big campaigns gw used to run and the two "cult" armies can start off nicely with human vs human before slowly reveal the alien/daemons that are running things in the background.
A big advantage of tv over books is you can show a lot of the 40k setting that tends to get brushed over in the background without having to spend time describing it. Tech priests and servitors working on tanks in a depot that the protagonists walk through quickly show that things are weird. A statue of a space marine, a stained glass painting or a company banner can all show off that there are other things out there, but they're not relevant to most people's day to life.

[Platinius]

Nice to see I can still spark interesting conversation :smallsmile:

What is best in life? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyAEBux88hw):smallcool:





I do have a question, how has Guilliman changed since his return to the galactic stage? Character development and such^^

[Silverraptor]

Pffffft! My sides! This was too funny! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo5RU83XCC0):smallbiggrin:

[Haruspex_Pariah]

I do have a question, how has Guilliman changed since his return to the galactic stage? Character development and such^^

A higher-ranking lore adept will be along soon* to properly address your query, but as far as I can tell:

Disappointed. In the state of the Imperium and in his father. Every time he meets a brother Primarch** he gets sad and angry. He doesn't even seem to trust Cawl.

*Probably
**Traitors and daemons, but brothers nonetheless

[Platinius]

A higher-ranking lore adept will be along soon* to properly address your query, but as far as I can tell:

Disappointed. In the state of the Imperium and in his father. Every time he meets a brother Primarch** he gets sad and angry. He doesn't even seem to trust Cawl.

*Probably
**Traitors and daemons, but brothers nonetheless

Trusting a man that could have provided the Imperium with a constant stream of new and improved Space Marines while it was in reconstruction and throughout the later millennia, but didn't for selfish reasons sounds like a smart move.

It sounds overall Guilliman doesn't have his head as deep in his own arse as he used to and all it took is seeing the results of ten thousand years of brutal dictatorship, sheer fanaticism and endless war.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, I can't say that Cawl strikes me as particularly trustworthy.

[Cheesegear]

I do have a question, how has Guilliman changed since his return to the galactic stage?

Dad was right about Humanity, it's basically garbage and someone needs to steer it.
30K!Guilliman was wrong about basically everything.
Lorgar was right, and Dad was a liar.

Trusting Cawl, in retrospect, was not a good idea - this storyline has gone nowhere.

[Wraith]

Warhammer Community have posted their semi-annual amateur writers' competition - this year the theme is "Warhammer Horror" (https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/08/19/we-want-your-tales-of-darkness/).

Or, as the rest of us call it: "Warhammer". :smalltongue:
Honestly I would like to submit something this year, but I'm quite stuck for inspiration as... well, what about the grimdark far-future ISN'T full of monsters, deprivation and mangled corpses being used as food, fuel and ammunition in some form?


I do have a question, how has Guilliman changed since his return to the galactic stage? Character development and such^^

The biggest development is that he has finally sat down and read the Levictio Divinatus; Lorgar's M30/pre-Monarchia manifesto on why the Emperor is awesome.

For centuries Guilliman just ignored it - nerdy little Lorgar is so OBVIOUSLY wasting his time that it wasn't even worth considering. But after a couple of millennia watching the Great Crusade wither and die, and to then be awakened in the 41st millennium, Guilliman has finally started to realise that everyone has other things going on apart from Crusading, and if he had taken the time then to understand that he might have been in a better position to have done something about it.

He shouldn't really have been surprised, after all - he had his own kingdom to run in the 500 Worlds, and apparently it didn't occur to him that the other Primarchs had similar extra-curricular activities which might have clued him in. He's disappointed in them, just like Haruspex_Pariah said, but he's now somewhat more open-minded to the fact that they too were people, with goals and desires and things happening that he could have done something about.

It's taken him about a century to get this far, mind - he woke up, installed himself as regent, spent 100 years reorganising the Primaris Marines and came out through the other side of the Plague War before 'other people have emotions' started to worm its way into his brain - so progress is slow. But it's progress, nonetheless.

[Avaris]

Warhammer Community have posted their semi-annual amateur writers' competition - this year the theme is "Warhammer Horror" (https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/08/19/we-want-your-tales-of-darkness/).

Or, as the rest of us call it: "Warhammer". :smalltongue:
Honestly I would like to submit something this year, but I'm quite stuck for inspiration as... well, what about the grimdark far-future ISN'T full of monsters, deprivation and mangled corpses being used as food, fuel and ammunition in some form?
.

I’m thinking of entering for the first time: I see it as wanting to explore the experiences of the non-heroes of the setting, people who can’t possible survive what they face. So find a niche of life in 40k you want to explore, and work out what would make it even more horrific. I’m thinking of something on a Rogue Trader vessel forexample.

[Wraith]

I’m thinking of something on a Rogue Trader vessel forexample.

Rogue Trader ships are pretty scary, what with all the daemons and sudden, violent decompression at any moment. And then one day you realise that for the first time in your void-born life you can hear silence - no hum of the engines, no pulsing of the oxygen scrubbers, no buzzing of electronic read-outs.... Just silence. :smalltongue:

I'm thinking of something more metaphysical in terms of horror - a short story from the point of view of someone that has been possessed by a daemon, for example, and is watching themselves act unconsciously and slowly mutate. Don't have much of an outline yet, though I'm not sure how far I'll go with it, as what I already have in mind probably well oversteps the boundary between body horror and gorn. GW seem to be fine with people being shot to bits and chopped up by swords, less so on lingering descriptions of torture.

Perhaps less gruesome/edgy, I've long been toying with the idea of a Rogue Trader who is also a serial killer. An Inquisitor stops by and investigates him for smuggling, etc, and slowly uncovers proof of something more sinister, culminating with him finding the RT's stash of trophies locked in a safe - a set of blood-stained =][= rosettes, and then behind him he hears the sound of a knife being drawn....

[Cheesegear]

Rogue Trader ships are pretty scary, what with all the daemons and sudden, violent decompression at any moment. And then one day you realise that for the first time in your void-born life you can hear silence - no hum of the engines, no pulsing of the oxygen scrubbers, no buzzing of electronic read-outs.... Just silence. :smalltongue:

It's basically what happens when dirtside scum can't hear birds or insects.


I'm thinking of something more metaphysical in terms of horror

Moon is a good movie, and doesn't really feature any violence or gore.
And the friendly robot, is actually friendly.


Perhaps less gruesome/edgy, I've long been toying with the idea of a Rogue Trader who is also a serial killer.

You've seen Sunshine and/or Event Horizon, yes?

[Avaris]

Rogue Trader ships are pretty scary, what with all the daemons and sudden, violent decompression at any moment. And then one day you realise that for the first time in your void-born life you can hear silence - no hum of the engines, no pulsing of the oxygen scrubbers, no buzzing of electronic read-outs.... Just silence. :smalltongue:


Exactly! Main thing is, they’re not the soldiers who regularly face this. The horror is integral to their lives. My idea actually focusses around a dying vessel, so the horror of silence is a good hook!

[Wraith]

It's basically what happens when dirtside scum can't hear birds or insects.

Almost, but not quite the same. A silent starship means that your world is ending, and that death is a slow, cold, breathless, and inevitable amount of time away. Lack of birds and insects, conversely, means that the Predator is watching you which is a very different fate. :smalltongue::smallwink:


And the friendly robot, is actually friendly.

Clearly an obvious sign that something is up.


You've seen Sunshine and/or Event Horizon, yes?

I'm thinking something slower, more like Silence of the Lambs in Space rather than a thriller like Sunshine.

The premise is that the story focuses on an Inquisitor as he tracks down, arrests and interrogates a Rogue Trader for the usual nonsense - smuggling, carrying xeno-tech, etc - but as the interview goes on things start to unravel and the Inquisitor slowly starts to realise that the smuggling was just an elaborate bait, and the RT has intentionally lured him there because Inquisitors - all powerful, ultimate authority, left-hand of the Emperor - are the RT's favourite prey.

[Cheesegear]

The premise is that the story focuses on an Inquisitor as he tracks down, arrests and interrogates a Rogue Trader for the usual nonsense - smuggling, carrying xeno-tech, etc - but as the interview goes on things start to unravel...

Please be Rashomon-in-space.
Please be Rashomon-in-space.
Please be Rashomon-in-space.
Please be Rashomon-in-space.
Please be Rashomon-in-space.

[Wraith]

Please be Rashomon-in-space.

Inquisitor: "I think you're a heretic, look at all this stuff I found in your desk drawer which you must have got from Planet A."
Ship's Computer: "Illogical, we have never been anywhere near anything like that. We only ever do the trip between Planet O and Planet P."
Ship's Navigator: "Wait, what? You told me we had just been to Planet Y. That's a terrible trick to play on a blind man."
Rogue Trader: "Welp, you got me! Just whatever you do, don't look at all of the neatly arranged evidence in the safe behind the portrait hanging on the wall right behind you...."

Hmm... Tricky to do in a conversation when only 2 people in it really have any importance. Definitely an interesting premise for a daemonic possession or genestealer abduction though - no one remembers where they have been or what the others were doing, only that at least one of them is lying and then stabs someone and jumps into the air vents before the meeting is called

[Lord Torath]

Or, as the rest of us call it: "Warhammer". :smalltongue:
Honestly I would like to submit something this year, but I'm quite stuck for inspiration as... well, what about the grimdark far-future ISN'T full of monsters, deprivation and mangled corpses being used as food, fuel and ammunition in some form?The Inquisitor lands on a planet with good planetary defenses and defense forces, where everyone is hard working, happy, has enough to eat, there are no cultists, everyone (mostly) gets along (and whatever disagreements arise are resolved amicably), and there's literally nothing wrong with this planet. Nope, not even that. There's no hidden threat, no facade with dark secrets behind it, just a peaceful, happy planet.

[Tvtyrant]

The Inquisitor lands on a planet with good planetary defenses and defense forces, where everyone is hard working, happy, has enough to eat, there are no cultists, everyone (mostly) gets along (and whatever disagreements arise are resolved amicably), and there's literally nothing wrong with this planet. Nope, not even that. There's no hidden threat, no facade with dark secrets behind it, just a peaceful, happy planet.

Reverse Hot Fuzz, where literally everything is normal and the Inquisitor begins going mad trying to find whatever Genestealer or Chaos cult is making people happy and obedient. Lots of deeply suspicious things happen but turn out to actually be accidents or harmless.

Edit: I was reading a thread about Dark Eldar that were deliberately infecting captives with Genestealer DNA by grafting arms onto them to make Genestealer Cultists for cannon fodder, and someone mentioned how dangerous that was because they draw Hivefleets.

What would happen to a Hivefleet if it got into the Webway? Does the Shadow in the Warp inhibit Webway openings or would you just have an alternative, buggy version of the Warp in short order?

[Grim Portent]

Reverse Hot Fuzz, where literally everything is normal and the Inquisitor begins going mad trying to find whatever Genestealer or Chaos cult is making people happy and obedient. Lots of deeply suspicious things happen but turn out to actually be accidents or harmless.

Edit: I was reading a thread about Dark Eldar that were deliberately infecting captives with Genestealer DNA by grafting arms onto them to make Genestealer Cultists for cannon fodder, and someone mentioned how dangerous that was because they draw Hivefleets.

What would happen to a Hivefleet if it got into the Webway? Does the Shadow in the Warp inhibit Webway openings or would you just have an alternative, buggy version of the Warp in short order?

I think the general trend in published material has been that nids have no real effect on webway gates, though I imagine they'd find navigating the webway itself nearly impossible. Not enough gravity for Narvhals to navigate by, and what gravity is there* is distorted by the portals. Similar problem with psychic signals.

If they got dropped into one of the main portals to Commorragh with a clear approach it'd be easy, but if they manage to enter one of the smaller lanes of traffic they could wander for a long time without finding anything except daemons.

*Mostly from the biggest bits of Commorragh and the captured suns.

[Keraunograf]

Rogue Trader ships are pretty scary, what with all the daemons and sudden, violent decompression at any moment. And then one day you realise that for the first time in your void-born life you can hear silence - no hum of the engines, no pulsing of the oxygen scrubbers, no buzzing of electronic read-outs.... Just silence. :smalltongue:

I'm thinking of something more metaphysical in terms of horror - a short story from the point of view of someone that has been possessed by a daemon, for example, and is watching themselves act unconsciously and slowly mutate. Don't have much of an outline yet, though I'm not sure how far I'll go with it, as what I already have in mind probably well oversteps the boundary between body horror and gorn. GW seem to be fine with people being shot to bits and chopped up by swords, less so on lingering descriptions of torture.

Perhaps less gruesome/edgy, I've long been toying with the idea of a Rogue Trader who is also a serial killer. An Inquisitor stops by and investigates him for smuggling, etc, and slowly uncovers proof of something more sinister, culminating with him finding the RT's stash of trophies locked in a safe - a set of blood-stained =][= rosettes, and then behind him he hears the sound of a knife being drawn....

I think in my version of that the Inquisitor would find out what the Rogue Trader has been doing and decides that as long as they're not doing it to anyone *important* that they just don't care, and/or draft them to serial kill the "right" people.

There's a certain amount that the callousness of the setting is the most horrifying parts of it. The parts where you run into something that *should* be horrifying, and the people in the setting just kind of shrug and go "Ok but is it demons?"

[Squark]

I think in my version of that the Inquisitor would find out what the Rogue Trader has been doing and decides that as long as they're not doing it to anyone *important* that they just don't care, and/or draft them to serial kill the "right" people.

There's a certain amount that the callousness of the setting is the most horrifying parts of it. The parts where you run into something that *should* be horrifying, and the people in the setting just kind of shrug and go "Ok but is it demons?"

Sure, but "Blood-stained =][= rosettes" is the definition of doing it to someone *important*. If for no other reason that killing inquisitors is the job of other inquisitors. :smallwink:

[Silverraptor]

Warhammer Community have posted their semi-annual amateur writers' competition - this year the theme is "Warhammer Horror" (https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/08/19/we-want-your-tales-of-darkness/).

Or, as the rest of us call it: "Warhammer". :smalltongue:
Honestly I would like to submit something this year, but I'm quite stuck for inspiration as... well, what about the grimdark far-future ISN'T full of monsters, deprivation and mangled corpses being used as food, fuel and ammunition in some form?


You could do a story about Tyranid Lictor stalking an important noble where he wakes up every night with the Lictor in his room making some kind of low growl purring noise before disappearing every night no matter how many guards and security measures he puts up and has to replace every single night, slowly driving him mad!

~Oh wait, that's been done before, hasn't it?:smalltongue:


I like the idea of the guy being possessed, but in a way that it is a very slow step to insanity and given the 40k aspect, you could try to fool the reader that everything happening to the man is something that is currently happening to his planet (Like demon or xenos invasion and such and he has to survive day to day inside a hive city) then at the last moment when he murders the last people or destroys the last things he cares about, he could have 1 last moment of sanity, see that the whole thing was dreamt in his mind, before he becomes the conduit for the demon or xenos invasion he had been hallucinating the entire time.

Just some ideas to help you out.:smallsmile:

[Platinius]

My idea was basically an inquisitor (is replaceable by another character, but she is a physically small, so she was the one doing the crawling through the tight tube) to crawl though a long duct, while listening in and giving orders over vox to her retinue which is currently trying to advance to the same position via overland ways to, all of them trying to set the charges to sabotage a reactor so the shield goes down and their ship can bombard the genestealer-infested hive city from orbit.
The inquisitor hears as over time her retinue (a few SM and a few platoons of Stormtroopers, all of them far to big for the tube she is crawling through) get slowly butchered by the constant onslaught and ambushes of the genestealers.
In the end she would stand alone where they were supposed to be at least 50 even after to try and set the charges while a Genestealer Patriarch is facing her down.

Thoughts? I have a few more ideas, but not much planning done thus far. I also don't know if I am actually capable of writing horror. I can write anger, love, frustration and fear, yes, but writing a horror story is something different from something that has a few horror moments.


Edit: To keep it Grimdark enough, she had deployed with an entire battalion of Stormtroopers (500 men at least) and 20 SM, and of all these highly skilled warriors, she expected only 50 put together to make it there in the best case. I hope that shows the desperation enough from the beginning, at least in theory.

[Lord Torath]

Just so everyone knows what Grimdarkness is: Overly Sarcastic Productions: Trope Talk: Grimdark (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQAWBeFnkg8)

So, Platinus, to make your story properly GrimDark, after the poor inquisitor detonates the bomb, it needs to not make a meaningful difference. Say, after the reactor blows, and the heavy cruiser then turns the genestealer-infested city into a glowing crater (thus saving the planet), the Hive Fleet comes out of the warp behind the cruiser, and either obliterates it, or the story ends before that happens, but you know it's going to happen anyway.

Ah, the joys of GrimDarkness.

To be perfectly honest, I don't like my stories (or my 40k) quite that grim. I'm not going for Brighthammer, mind you (or whatever it's called), but something with a bit more hope than the traditional GrimDark 40k.

[Forum Explorer]

Just so everyone knows what Grimdarkness is: Overly Sarcastic Productions: Trope Talk: Grimdark (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQAWBeFnkg8)

So, Platinus, to make your story properly GrimDark, after the poor inquisitor detonates the bomb, it needs to not make a meaningful difference. Say, after the reactor blows, and the heavy cruiser then turns the genestealer-infested city into a glowing crater (thus saving the planet), the Hive Fleet comes out of the warp behind the cruiser, and either obliterates it, or the story ends before that happens, but you know it's going to happen anyway.

Ah, the joys of GrimDarkness.

To be perfectly honest, I don't like my stories (or my 40k) quite that grim. I'm not going for Brighthammer, mind you (or whatever it's called), but something with a bit more hope than the traditional GrimDark 40k.

The 40K universe is inherently Grimdark, because even the greatest victories don't really matter in the long run. You save a planet, congrats. Too bad dozens of other planets were lost in that timeframe, but hey, at least you saved that one.

The way I break it down per 'good' faction is this:

Imperium: In a slow but very much inevitable decline. There are simply too many threats for them to actually win. At best, they can tread water for a little while, but they haven't actually made any progress in eliminating any threats for thousands of years now, while their opponents have only gotten stronger.

Eldar: Are so close to the brink of extinction that they can win 99 out of 100 battles, and still end up losing the war simply because they cannot afford even minor losses. Their path to survival is so low to be next to impossible. Their path to victory might as well not exist. Even Ynnead would only come into existence after it's too late to actually save the Eldar as a species.

Tau: Are too minor and naïve to really matter. Sure they've got innovative and brand new technology, sure they actually work with and understand other aliens. But they are what? Barely 100 planets strong? And they are already starting to fall apart from the strain that's putting on their philosophy and the limits of their technology. And they haven't actually overcome any real challenges yet.



Actually on a side note, I've been thinking that the Imperium's best bet is to actually just abandon the half of the Imperium that's cut off from the Astronomicon. Have as many military forces as they can muster retreat, and just defend the half they control. Let Chaos weaken itself defending its newly conquered territory from rampaging Orks, Tyranids, and Necrons. All the while they actually need to conquer said territory while infighting with itself. And dealing with raids from both Eldar and Dark Eldar. Oh, and the new Tau portal. While the Imperium now has much less territory to defend, and can concentrate its forces much easier, and respond faster to any threats.

[Tvtyrant]

The 40K universe is inherently Grimdark, because even the greatest victories don't really matter in the long run. You save a planet, congrats. Too bad dozens of other planets were lost in that timeframe, but hey, at least you saved that one.

The way I break it down per 'good' faction is this:

Imperium: In a slow but very much inevitable decline. There are simply too many threats for them to actually win. At best, they can tread water for a little while, but they haven't actually made any progress in eliminating any threats for thousands of years now, while their opponents have only gotten stronger.

Eldar: Are so close to the brink of extinction that they can win 99 out of 100 battles, and still end up losing the war simply because they cannot afford even minor losses. Their path to survival is so low to be next to impossible. Their path to victory might as well not exist. Even Ynnead would only come into existence after it's too late to actually save the Eldar as a species.

Tau: Are too minor and naïve to really matter. Sure they've got innovative and brand new technology, sure they actually work with and understand other aliens. But they are what? Barely 100 planets strong? And they are already starting to fall apart from the strain that's putting on their philosophy and the limits of their technology. And they haven't actually overcome any real challenges yet.



Actually on a side note, I've been thinking that the Imperium's best bet is to actually just abandon the half of the Imperium that's cut off from the Astronomicon. Have as many military forces as they can muster retreat, and just defend the half they control. Let Chaos weaken itself defending its newly conquered territory from rampaging Orks, Tyranids, and Necrons. All the while they actually need to conquer said territory while infighting with itself. And dealing with raids from both Eldar and Dark Eldar. Oh, and the new Tau portal. While the Imperium now has much less territory to defend, and can concentrate its forces much easier, and respond faster to any threats.


Agreed. If they can get the Hivefleets and Necrons to focus on Chaos they have a good chance of the other factions burning out and Gulliman slowly restoring sanity to the Imperium. The Necrons can actually beat Chaos using Pylons, so if they can get the Silent King to focus on that project and beating the Nids they buy a lot of time.

[The Glyphstone]

I'd like to see a Thing inspired story, with an Astartes kill squad wiping out a Chaos cult. One by one the Marines are killed or replaced by Alpha Legionnaires, until its just the final member. He kills the cult leader, but with their dying breath they speak the trigger phrase to restore his true identity as a deep cover AL infiltrator. The entire thing was an elaborate ruse to improve the standing and renown of the agent.

[Silverraptor]

I'd like to see a Thing inspired story, with an Astartes kill squad wiping out a Chaos cult. One by one the Marines are killed or replaced by Alpha Legionnaires, until its just the final member. He kills the cult leader, but with their dying breath they speak the trigger phrase to restore his true identity as a deep cover AL infiltrator. The entire thing was an elaborate ruse to improve the standing and renown of the agent.

https://i.redd.it/ppy2lzbzkom51.jpg

[Platinius]

Agreed. If they can get the Hivefleets and Necrons to focus on Chaos they have a good chance of the other factions burning out and Gulliman slowly restoring sanity to the Imperium. The Necrons can actually beat Chaos using Pylons, so if they can get the Silent King to focus on that project and beating the Nids they buy a lot of time.

Couldn't resist^^ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCysnsJ4XUA)

But a bit more on the serious side, I do not mind a happy ending in 40k. Technically speaking, an entire Hive City lost to genestealers is already a tragedy (and it is a wealthy one, it has a city wide shield generator), glassing it from orbit is already a desperate measure. You can let a few survive to ruminate on their horrible deeds.

It is the human factor that makes a story stick. :smallsmile:

[hamishspence]

Agreed. If they can get the Hivefleets and Necrons to focus on Chaos they have a good chance of the other factions burning out and Gulliman slowly restoring sanity to the Imperium. The Necrons can actually beat Chaos using Pylons, so if they can get the Silent King to focus on that project and beating the Nids they buy a lot of time.

Doesn't the whole Pariah Nexus thing demonstrate that "the Necrons beating Chaos with pylons" is absolutely disastrous for everyone other than Necrons, in the Pylon-covered area?

[Wraith]

Doesn't the whole Pariah Nexus thing demonstrate that "the Necrons beating Chaos with pylons" is absolutely disastrous for everyone other than Necrons, in the Pylon-covered area?

Insofar as the pylons also suppress all other psychic ability, yes. If you bathed the entire galaxy in the aura of a single giant pylon, it would solve a lot of problems - no more daemons, no more Tyranid hive-mind, no gestalt Ork Waagh-field - but the same effect would be doom to the other civilizations.

Humans would survive individually, but there'd be no Navigators, Astropaths or Astronomicon so the Imperium would disappear, and then the lone planets would be easy pickings for non-daemon Traitor Astartes, pirates, Necrons, etc.
It would also suck to be an Aeldari, as their entire race are latently psychic so it would be like partially lobotomising them unless they either went to live in the webway or otherwise left the galaxy.

The only people who probably wouldn't be significantly affected would be the Tau - and even then only probably, as we're not quite sure how Ethereals' aura of influence works, and if it's even vaguely psychic or psyker-adjacent (some sources have shown it get disrupted by Pariahs, after all) then it could potentially trigger the end of the Greater Good and thus cause Tau society to collapse unless someone like Farsight could grab the reigns.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

As an aside, I don’t like the Tyranids as a part of the wider narrative. The problem is that GW set them up as this unstoppable juggernaut and basically wrote themselves into a corner.

Shadow in the Warp. Near Doomsday-level super-adaptation. Endless numbers. Choices that lie between Pyrrhic victory or total defeat.

It would be fine if the timeline remained frozen. The galaxy is always doomed, right? But if time moves, and the Tyranid fleets only move in one direction, then either the Tyranids have to suffer an utterly unprecedented reversal or 40k ends.

And I’m not convinced that 40k needs a greater threat the way that I dunno the Borg or Yuuzhan Vong would be in their respective universes. Everyone’s already killing each other and committing atrocities as the baseline.

That’s my take on it anyway. Maybe I’m missing something.

[hamishspence]

Insofar as the pylons also suppress all other psychic ability, yes. If you bathed the entire galaxy in the aura of a single giant pylon, it would solve a lot of problems - no more daemons, no more Tyranid hive-mind, no gestalt Ork Waagh-field - but the same effect would be doom to the other civilizations.

Humans would survive individually, but there'd be no Navigators, Astropaths or Astronomicon so the Imperium would disappear, and then the lone planets would be easy pickings for non-daemon Traitor Astartes, pirates, Necrons, etc.

There's a strong implication in Psychic Awakening that humans would not survive - that they'd all end up soulless and without any volition (and probably die of starvation).

[Avaris]

As an aside, I don’t like the Tyranids as a part of the wider narrative. The problem is that GW set them up as this unstoppable juggernaut and basically wrote themselves into a corner.

Shadow in the Warp. Near Doomsday-level super-adaptation. Endless numbers. Choices that lie between Pyrrhic victory or total defeat.

It would be fine if the timeline remained frozen. The galaxy is always doomed, right? But if time moves, and the Tyranid fleets only move in one direction, then either the Tyranids have to suffer an utterly unprecedented reversal or 40k ends.

And I’m not convinced that 40k needs a greater threat the way that I dunno the Borg or Yuuzhan Vong would be in their respective universes. Everyone’s already killing each other and committing atrocities as the baseline.

That’s my take on it anyway. Maybe I’m missing something.

The sheer size of the galaxy means that, even if the Tyranids are set up as unstoppable in the long term, the setting never needs to reach that point. GW could theoretically advance the timeline hundreds if not thousands of years before reaching that point. The most they might do would be having one of the segmentum fall, though more likely having significant worlds get hit.

Though I seem to recall a narrative hook of the Tyranids running from something, which could be used to change their approach before they get too far.

Tangentially, I feel the best thing that could happen for 40k as a setting would be for the Imperium to crumble into smaller states. Not necessarily best for telling an overall story though, but I think it should be seen as a setting for ones own stories rather than as a constant narrative.

[Amechra]

The only people who probably wouldn't be significantly affected would be the Tau - and even then only probably, as we're not quite sure how Ethereals' aura of influence works, and if it's even vaguely psychic or psyker-adjacent (some sources have shown it get disrupted by Pariahs, after all) then it could potentially trigger the end of the Greater Good and thus cause Tau society to collapse unless someone like Farsight could grab the reigns.

I thought it was more-or-less canon that Ethereals used pheremones?

[hamishspence]

From the War Zone Pariah section of the 9e Core Book:


Some eldritch force radiates from the benighted Xendu system to sever realspace from the warp. It stretches like a shroud of crawling unease that settles across world after world. Those planets engulfed are quickly "stilled". One by one, living minds are smothered and souls snuffed like guttering candle flames.

...

With the uneasy allegiance of an ancient conclave of Crypteks known as the Technomandrites, Szarekh is attempting to propagate a star-spanning weapon of such potency that it could end the threat of Chaos altogether. That this sea change in the galaxy's fortunes would come at the cost of soul death for every non-Necron life form is simply an additional boon from the Silent King's point of view.

[Silverraptor]

Insofar as the pylons also suppress all other psychic ability, yes. If you bathed the entire galaxy in the aura of a single giant pylon, it would solve a lot of problems - no more daemons, no more Tyranid hive-mind, no gestalt Ork Waagh-field - but the same effect would be doom to the other civilizations.

Humans would survive individually, but there'd be no Navigators, Astropaths or Astronomicon so the Imperium would disappear, and then the lone planets would be easy pickings for non-daemon Traitor Astartes, pirates, Necrons, etc.
It would also suck to be an Aeldari, as their entire race are latently psychic so it would be like partially lobotomising them unless they either went to live in the webway or otherwise left the galaxy.

The only people who probably wouldn't be significantly affected would be the Tau - and even then only probably, as we're not quite sure how Ethereals' aura of influence works, and if it's even vaguely psychic or psyker-adjacent (some sources have shown it get disrupted by Pariahs, after all) then it could potentially trigger the end of the Greater Good and thus cause Tau society to collapse unless someone like Farsight could grab the reigns.

Interestingly, I actually had a similar dream about that. It was silly, over the top, and contradictory to numerous things warhammer 40k, but I think I'll share in case anyone would like to enjoy a fun read (Please keep in mind, this is a dream and any established settings or rules go out the unconscious window).
Basically, I orchestrated (I know. But it is a dream and you are usually the main character in a dream) a planet completely run by Necrons to try and "Fix" the warp to turn it back into the relatively calm state of the realm of souls before the first war between the Necrons and the Old Ones occurred. I managed to convince several Necron tribes? Tombs? Groups to work together to cover this planet with Necron technology to both beat back the warp, produce an extraordinary power source, and to be heavily guarded by Necron troops. The first part of the plan was to cover the planet in essentially warp canceling aura to prevent demons and other warp influence entities from interfering with my brilliant plan(tm). When the aura was successfully turned on, one of the Necron Nobles or whatever asked why I wasn't being effected. To which my dream self replied that it was because I wasn't part of that universe and therefore wasn't connected to the warp in any way to be effected by the aura. Also, this is why Tzeentch hasn't acted in anyway to stop the planet's construction because I wasn't part of the warp so he wouldn't have access to the input of thoughts coming from me during the design process and the rest of the planet were soulless machines, so no souls and thoughts could give away this plan was in motion (Complete BS I know, but remember dream mode and dreams are weird).

Anyways, we turn on the planet Aura and it's successfully submerged and the warp influence is successfully beaten back. Now we can enact stage 2, where we setup a large Obelisk Spire. The plan is to engage it and it will fire typical Necron warp diffusing energy out until a certain point in space, in which case it will actively tear through to the warp and begin dissipating it. Essentially what it was doing was erasing the thoughts, ideas, and potentially souls that have been left floating around in the warp since the beginning of time, with the goal of eventually erasing most of what was contained in the warp so the Galaxy could have its clean slate over again (and thereby, theoretically, eliminated the cause of warp storms, and even dissipate the eye of terror.) However, the amount of energy produced on the planet, most of it was powering the aura field keeping the warp at bay, so in further Necron technology fashion, the additional power needed was to be teleported in from other Necron Planet Fortresses that would produce the energy and teleport the energy itself in some way to the Obelisk planet. And of course I am over prepared so I have 3 times the number of planets I need to run this Obelisk at full power, so I turn on only 1/3 of the planets needed to begin the process. I then order the Obelisk powered up, but slowly increase the power in case any complications or effects occur. My dream self is also very anxious that this works because I have the worry that the moment this starts, the 4 chaos gods will immediately take notice that thoughts, ideas, emotions, and souls were suddenly starting to be erased from a singular point in the warp and start attracting their attention.

The Obelisk is turned on and as the green stream of light is projected into the sky, a sudden flash of color of green and the purplish glow of the warp appears in the sky like a second sun on this planet. I was told the readings were good and that they were slowly increasing the power. The stream got bigger and wider and the glow in the sky was becoming larger and more intense. Then when the power level was approaching the upper 80% level, I was alerted there was problems. Erasing the warp as we were doing was indeed creating a tear into the warp to which warp energy was escaping into real space. However, when we were at lower power, the warp energy quickly dispersed and became a non-issue. However, with the power level so high now, the tear was large enough that the warp energy was now reaching and bombarding the planet, to which the warp canceling aura was holding back, but the strain was increasing exponentially and the power levels were dropping dangerously to keep the aura going. In addition, the sudden erasure of thoughts and emotions was causing an imbalance in the warp, a "low pressure" if you will if you think about it in terms of weather, so a Warp storm was beginning to form around us, causing more warp energy to be expelled and hit the Aura. I quickly ordered the Obelisk power level to be lowered and call a couple more Necron fortress planets to begin power generation procedures and teleporting the excess energy to this planet. This takes a bit of time to do as I pace in tension. Then I receive a report that the situation is coming under control. When lowering the power level, the warp energies bombarding the planet lessened and the Aura fields come under less strain, at the same time the energy from the planets now newly supplying energy once again supplied a surplus of energy. After some quick redistribution of this energy to the Aura fields, any excess was transferred to the Spire and the power levels were once again increasing. Another planet or two turned on later, and the Spire was at full power with the chaos energies that were escaping from the rift being erased as they collided with the Aura around the planet. The sudden artificial warp storm side effect that was starting to rage was determined to be an ignoble issue since the Aura protected the planet from that turbulent energy and this was a result of the procedure anyways.

Everything seemed to be going well for a long time (remember, dream so some points seem to last on and on) until I was alerted that some things were approaching. Talking with the Higher Up Necrons, we concluded that we were indeed noticed by the Chaos Gods and we were anticipating the arrival of potential Chaos forces. Soon ships started appearing on the edge of the galaxy. While we couldn't determine the exact origin of the ships and who it was, it was pretty much suspected that it was chaos forces. As the battle alert status is issued around the planet, a massive anomaly appears in the long range sensors. With the input data of this huge object suddenly appearing, it was guessed almost immediately that this was a Space Hulk, probably sent from a chaos god, and it was on a collision course with the planet. Shortly thereafter, another couple of similar sized objects appeared in the galaxy, all on a collision course with the planet as well as dozens of ships that had warped in and all were approaching.

Orders were being issued, combat positions being manned all across the planet. Troops were being teleported in from the other fortress planets and the Necron forces were digging in for a fight. And then I woke up...

So yeah, just thought I'd share. Might have been a fun read, even though now that I'm awake I know that this dream violates a large number rules in the warhammer 40k universe, but I still found it to be an entertaining dream.

[BRC]

It would be fine if the timeline remained frozen. The galaxy is always doomed, right? But if time moves, and the Tyranid fleets only move in one direction, then either the Tyranids have to suffer an utterly unprecedented reversal or 40k ends.


A Radical Ordo Xenos Inquisitor write "Gun That Can Kill The Hive-Mind" on a bolter, then puts that in a pod and sends it off to the biggest tyranid-adjacent Waaaaaugh that they can find.

They are executed for Heresy before they can finish writing "Gun That Kills The Chaos Gods" on a different bolter.


But seriously, the Scale of W40k is such that none of the "inevitable threats that spell certain doom" actually need to manifest. The Tyranids are always encroaching, the Necrons are always waking up, Chaos is always spreading. If they really need a reason to tie things up, Chaos puts all it's energy into opening up an new Eye of Terror, but accidentally does so in the path of the Tyranids, and over a dozen tomb-worlds, and the three groups just fight each other until GW decides that writing stories isn't helping them sell more plastic spacemen.

[noob]

A Radical Ordo Xenos Inquisitor write "Gun That Can Kill The Hive-Mind" on a bolter, then puts that in a pod and sends it off to the biggest tyranid-adjacent Waaaaaugh that they can find.

They are executed for Heresy before they can finish writing "Gun That Kills The Chaos Gods" on a different bolter.


But seriously, the Scale of W40k is such that none of the "inevitable threats that spell certain doom" actually need to manifest. The Tyranids are always encroaching, the Necrons are always waking up, Chaos is always spreading. If they really need a reason to tie things up, Chaos puts all it's energy into opening up an new Eye of Terror, but accidentally does so in the path of the Tyranids, and over a dozen tomb-worlds, and the three groups just fight each other until GW decides that writing stories isn't helping them sell more plastic spacemen.

They would need to make the bolter really impressive looking for the orks to believe it.
Maybe they would grab a tank turret then add a lot of decorations to it instead?

[BRC]

They would need to make the bolter really impressive looking for the orks to believe it.
Maybe they would grab a tank turret then add a lot of decorations to it instead?

You make a valid point.

They tape 30 bolters to a basilisk, rig up a pair of flamers that shoot straight into the air, and then connect it all up to a big red button.

[Wraith]

I thought it was more-or-less canon that Ethereals used pheremones?

There was a book called Xenology which depicted the dissection of an Ethereal - it was found to have a crystal in its head that resembled something also used by a pheromone-using species normally found on the other side of the galaxy.

So they have that, but there are a lot of problems with it - If that's how "The Greater Good" works, how do Ethereals control Tau who are on a different spaceship to them? Or wearing helmets? How can a pheromone be disrupted by a Culexus Assassin (which happened) if it's not also psyker-ish? And does it matter than Xenology hasn't been in print for over a decade and never will be, because it's one of the so-called "heretic texts" that were printed for an old, obsolete edition?

I think that's the most concrete example, and ever since it's been more vague in order to account for similar inconsistencies. Ethereal mind-control Loyalty to the Greater Good just works, except when it doesn't.


So yeah, just thought I'd share. Might have been a fun read, even though now that I'm awake I know that this dream violates a large number rules in the warhammer 40k universe, but I still found it to be an entertaining dream.

Certainly an interesting premise, but unfortunately you have published it on the internet so now GW will soon be sending after you a lawyer and a large angry man with an ice-pick to make sure it doesn't happen again. :smalltongue:

[Silverraptor]

Certainly an interesting premise, but unfortunately you have published it on the internet so now GW will soon be sending after you a lawyer and a large angry man with an ice-pick to make sure it doesn't happen again. :smalltongue:

So... what you're saying is my dream was an allegory for what is actually going to happen?:smalltongue:

[Forum Explorer]

There was a book called Xenology which depicted the dissection of an Ethereal - it was found to have a crystal in its head that resembled something also used by a pheromone-using species normally found on the other side of the galaxy.

So they have that, but there are a lot of problems with it - If that's how "The Greater Good" works, how do Ethereals control Tau who are on a different spaceship to them? Or wearing helmets? How can a pheromone be disrupted by a Culexus Assassin (which happened) if it's not also psyker-ish? And does it matter than Xenology hasn't been in print for over a decade and never will be, because it's one of the so-called "heretic texts" that were printed for an old, obsolete edition?

I think that's the most concrete example, and ever since it's been more vague in order to account for similar inconsistencies. Ethereal mind-control Loyalty to the Greater Good just works, except when it doesn't.


It's one half cultural to be fair. Like, there isn't an Ethereal with every army. Most Tau just genuinely believe in the Greater Good, with the Ethereal's serving more to keep them on track of what the Greater Good actually is, rather than brute force mind controlling everyone.

From what I remember, the Culexus was able to effect drones which doesn't exactly make a bunch of sense. Mind you, that was still a really cool segment.

[noob]

There was a book called Xenology which depicted the dissection of an Ethereal - it was found to have a crystal in its head that resembled something also used by a pheromone-using species normally found on the other side of the galaxy.

So they have that, but there are a lot of problems with it - If that's how "The Greater Good" works, how do Ethereals control Tau who are on a different spaceship to them? Or wearing helmets? How can a pheromone be disrupted by a Culexus Assassin (which happened) if it's not also psyker-ish? And does it matter than Xenology hasn't been in print for over a decade and never will be, because it's one of the so-called "heretic texts" that were printed for an old, obsolete edition?

I think that's the most concrete example, and ever since it's been more vague in order to account for similar inconsistencies. Ethereal mind-control Loyalty to the Greater Good just works, except when it doesn't.



Certainly an interesting premise, but unfortunately you have published it on the internet so now GW will soon be sending after you a lawyer and a large angry man with an ice-pick to make sure it doesn't happen again. :smalltongue:
Culexus assassins does not just counter the warp it also makes people feel at unease and try to forget the assassin.
The brain scrambling due to antiwarp might even be stronger on people who have a weak warp presence (or not I do not know) so maybe it is not because they are cut from the source but that their scrambled brains does behave very differently.

[LansXero]

It's one half cultural to be fair. Like, there isn't an Ethereal with every army. Most Tau just genuinely believe in the Greater Good, with the Ethereal's serving more to keep them on track of what the Greater Good actually is, rather than brute force mind controlling everyone.

From what I remember, the Culexus was able to effect drones which doesn't exactly make a bunch of sense. Mind you, that was still a really cool segment.

The Culexus didnt affect the drone, the drones shorted themselves because they couldnt process what they were reading, but thats probably due to the assassin's gear instead of their pariahness. Tau stuff doesnt parse imperial tech correctly, because it has weird warpy bits or fleshy bits

[Destro_Yersul]

A Radical Ordo Xenos Inquisitor write "Gun That Can Kill The Hive-Mind" on a bolter, then puts that in a pod and sends it off to the biggest tyranid-adjacent Waaaaaugh that they can find.

They are executed for Heresy before they can finish writing "Gun That Kills The Chaos Gods" on a different bolter.

New headcanon: 'Enter the Gungeon' is secretly a 40k game, and takes place on a gun-themed daemon world somewhere in the eye of terror.

[Tvtyrant]

Doesn't the whole Pariah Nexus thing demonstrate that "the Necrons beating Chaos with pylons" is absolutely disastrous for everyone other than Necrons, in the Pylon-covered area?

I mean, insofar as they decided that it would relatively recently. How was Cadia the heartland of the Guard while being covered in Pylons if they turn off your brain?

[Artanis]

I mean, insofar as they decided that it would relatively recently. How was Cadia the heartland of the Guard while being covered in Pylons if they turn off your brain?

As inconsistent as that would be, it would actually be one of the easier things to explain away in the WH40K setting. You could just say that jacking up the power to galaxy-spanning levels would fry people, whereas just enough anti-warp juice to cover a few light-years wouldn't really do much. And that's before you start thinking up explanations that involve qualitative or situational differences between the two *shrug*

[Avaris]

I mean, insofar as they decided that it would relatively recently. How was Cadia the heartland of the Guard while being covered in Pylons if they turn off your brain?

The pylons on Cadia are not the same design as those in the Pariah Nexus. They have a similar origin, but the new ones are a very recent innovation following the return of the Silent King.

[Clistenes]

The pylons on Cadia are not the same design as those in the Pariah Nexus. They have a similar origin, but the new ones are a very recent innovation following the return of the Silent King.

So I guess reverse-engineering the old Cadian Pylons and using them against Chaos is still a viable plan...

But I still find it weird that the new Pylons can't shut off psychic powers entirely but they can normal people cathatonic (eventually).

[Borgh]

A Soul != a psyker's power. Souls are material in origin: a human brain can broach the warp slightly and influence it, and receive vigour and inspiration from it.

A psyker takes that same broach but widens it and focuses the power that comes through in very different ways.

So the pylons are like hairs in a drain: the shower won't empty as easily. Now if you put a pressure washer on it those hairs can protest all they want but the water is going through.

[noob]

Does anyone suspects Primaris marines to be infiltrated orks?
They are bigger than regular marines and are a tech introduced recently to the imperium while most techpriests would probably oppose things like manipulating the designs of space marines which suggests that orks infiltrated humans deep.
It would explain why the operation will never fail for important characters: the operation is just killing the individual and putting a disguised orc in place of it.
And the operation failing is just that a marine that was not important got nosy or that some orks wanted a brawl and killed a marine then they say "the operation to turn that marine into a primaris marine failed" to hide their infiltration(that is brutal cunning or cunning brutality)

[Cheesegear]

Does anyone suspects Primaris marines to be infiltrated orks?

100%


They are bigger than regular marines and are a tech introduced recently to the imperium while most techpriests would probably oppose things like manipulating the designs of space marines which suggests that orks infiltrated humans deep.

https://media.giphy.com/media/26kLTT8kMvxCvsMdjq/giphy.gif


It would explain why the operation will never fail for important characters: the operation is just killing the individual and putting a disguised orc in place of it.

That's what the purple camoflage is for. They never suspect a thing.


And the operation failing is just that a marine that was not important got nosy or that some orks wanted a brawl and killed a marine then they say "the operation to turn that marine into a primaris marine failed" to hide their infiltration(that is brutal cunning or cunning brutality)

Obviously.
So what you want to do now, is put your Orks on the table, and claim you're using Space Marines' rules, and everyone should be fine with it.
If they're not fine with it, they count as forfeiting and you win the game.

https://imgflip.com/s/meme/Roll-Safe-Think-About-It.jpg

[noob]

So what you want to do now, is put your Orks on the table, and claim you're using Space Marines' rules, and everyone should be fine with it.


I would not do that for the simple reason that only disguised orcs with the stats and appearance corresponding to primaris marines (and thus represented by primaris marine figurines) follows space marine rules.(it was a refluffing discussion not a discussion about changing the rules)

But I have a rules question now: if primaris marines could use ork rules(in replacement of marine rules) while in an ork army would they be more overpowered in that case?

[snowblizz]

Obviously.
So what you want to do now, is put your Orks on the table, and claim you're using Space Marines' rules, and everyone should be fine with it.
If they're not fine with it, they count as forfeiting and you win the game.


A friend of mine used to play an Ork Armoured company list. All the vehicles were looted imperial vehicles, the troops, Orks armed with lasguns and Imperial Guard helmets.

He would start each game at tournaments "these are not Orks, I say again NOT Orks, just Imperial guardsmen, T3 the works, I'm just doing this for the looks". No one ever had any complaints after getting over the initial shock of how many tanks the Ork army had.

[BRC]

I would not do that for the simple reason that only disguised orcs with the stats and appearance corresponding to primaris marines (and thus represented by primaris marine figurines) follows space marine rules.(it was a refluffing discussion not a discussion about changing the rules)

But I have a rules question now: if primaris marines could use ork rules(in replacement of marine rules) while in an ork army would they be more overpowered in that case?

The Emprah's Boyz.

An Orcish Waaaugh that is convinced that the Space Marines "Get all da best Fights". They came to this conclusion after an incident where the forces of chaos turned away from fighting the Orcs for control of a planet to focus their efforts on a space marine strikeforce that had arrived in-system to retrieve some relics from one of the system's moons. The Orcs have gathered all the information they can find about space marines and the Imperium in general in order to perpetuate their "Kunning Ruse", under the command of "Chapta Boss Prime-Orc", the things they have learned
1) It is very important for everybody to be wearing the same color, except for Grots, who can wear green, and be referred to as "Serfs" or "Grotsmen"
2) Before engaging any Imperial forces, it is very important to point at them and loudly shout the word "Hair-Assey!" They have determined that Humans need to do this before they're allowed to fight each other.
3) Space Marines follow something called a "Code-Axe", and care a lot about what this "Code-Axe" says. Chapta Boss Prime-Orc has crafted his own Codex by taking the biggest choppa he can find, and then also stapling a megaphone to it. This way, the entire Chapter can be guided by the Code-Axe.

[Cheesegear]

An Orcish Waaaugh that is convinced that the Space Marines "Get all da best Fights". They came to this conclusion after an incident where the forces of chaos turned away from fighting the Orcs for control of a planet to focus their efforts on a space marine strikeforce that had arrived in-system to retrieve some relics from one of the system's moons.

That is when the Orks decided that they were Space Marines.
After realising that their Faction sucked and would never be good whilst Space Marines had 2 Wounds and a 3+ save, and also realising that the win conditions of the game no longer suited hordes, Orks decided that they were Space Marines, and so they were.

Using randumb bulls* logic that was phased out of the fluff decades ago; Orks believed it, and so it was. Anyone who claimed that they weren't Space Marines, was simply 'oppressing their hobby', and thus not welcome in the Galaxy, and the Orks refused to fight anyone, unless that Faction conceded that the Orks were, in fact, Space Marines.

The end.

[Platinius]

I have a question:

How big is the difference between a Primaris and a regular Space Marine? (And I don't mean equipment, I mean biology)

[Grim Portent]

I have a question:

How big is the difference between a Primaris and a regular Space Marine? (And I don't mean equipment, I mean biology)

Three new organs and roughly a foot in height.

One 'organ,' the Sinew Coils, is the implantation of metal cables into the muscles to make them stronger.

The second, the Magnificat, enhances the function of some of the other organs to make them tougher, stronger and taller. It probably also enhances things like the acid spit to a degree.

The third, the Belisarian Furnace, is basically a super adrenal gland. When a Primaris suffers substantial damage the gland releases various combat stimms and enhances the already rapid healing of the Space Marine. It takes a while to be ready to do it again though.


This results in them being generally stronger and more durable*, but not particularly faster or endowed with better senses. The Furnace in theory gives them a combat boost, but since it only kicks in after major trauma it probably just brings them back to baseline effectiveness until it wears off.

[Wraith]

I have a question:

How big is the difference between a Primaris and a regular Space Marine? (And I don't mean equipment, I mean biology)

Picture for approximate scale. (https://i.imgur.com/0gmVmur.png) Ignore the 30k/Horus Heresy miniatures, 40k Primarchs are monstrously sized compared to Space Marines.

Do not ask questuions about how characters like Azrael can wear Lion El'Johnson's helmet, or how Dante can wear Sanguinius' deathmask, without looking like a Funko Pop. Questions are extra-heresy.

[BRC]

Picture for approximate scale. (https://i.imgur.com/0gmVmur.png) Ignore the 30k/Horus Heresy miniatures, 40k Primarchs are monstrously sized compared to Space Marines.

Do not ask questuions about how characters like Azrael can wear Lion El'Johnson's helmet, or how Dante can wear Sanguinius' deathmask, without looking like a Funko Pop. Questions are extra-heresy.

Can I ask how The Emperor managed to live incognito for millennia, subtly influencing human affairs despite being, by my rough estimate, approximately 15 feet tall?

Is The God Emperor of Mankind Bigfoot?

[JNAProductions]

Can I ask how The Emperor managed to live incognito for millennia, subtly influencing human affairs despite being, by my rough estimate, approximately 15 feet tall?

Is The God Emperor of Mankind Bigfoot?

He can change his size.

[BRC]

He can change his size.

This does not rule out him being Bigfoot.

[JNAProductions]

This does not rule out him being Bigfoot.

Fair enough. :P

[Tvtyrant]

Can I ask how The Emperor managed to live incognito for millennia, subtly influencing human affairs despite being, by my rough estimate, approximately 15 feet tall?

Is The God Emperor of Mankind Bigfoot?

My understanding was always he was smaller then some of the primarchs, and physically weaker. He has to cheat to beat Leman Russ in a fist fight (power armor + power fist vs bare hands) and is the same height as Horus (who is not the tallest primarch.)

[comicshorse]

Can I ask how The Emperor managed to live incognito for millennia, subtly influencing human affairs despite being, by my rough estimate, approximately 15 feet tall?

Is The God Emperor of Mankind Bigfoot?

Personal head cannon. The Emperor is 5"4. He just uses his amazing psychic power to make everybody believe he's really tall and impressive !

[noob]

Personal head cannon. The Emperor is 5"4. He just uses his amazing psychic power to make everybody believe he's really tall and impressive !

Reverse headcannon: the emperor of mankind is 1 kilometre tall and projects an illusion that interacts with people.
The whole betrayal story is just so that the emperor can let the skeleton of a random space marine on a chair and take a vacation.

It cuts both ways.

[JNAProductions]

Reverse headcannon: the emperor of mankind is 1 kilometre tall and projects an illusion that interacts with people.
The whole betrayal story is just so that the emperor can let the skeleton of a random space marine on a chair and take a vacation.

It cuts both ways.

Given what we know of the Emperor, Horse's headcanon has a little more backing.

Especially given how the Sisters of Silence see the Emperor.

[The Glyphstone]

How do they see him?

[JNAProductions]

How do they see him?

Secondhand source (as-in, I read an excerpt from a book quoted on a forum) but they see him as a relatively ordinary-looking, very tired old man.

Someone who's actually read the books involving SoS and Emps correct me if I'm wrong.

[Wraith]

My understanding was always he was smaller then some of the primarchs, and physically weaker. He has to cheat to beat Leman Russ in a fist fight (power armor + power fist vs bare hands) and is the same height as Horus (who is not the tallest primarch.)

The Primarch in the picture is, by the looks of it, Guilliman so this may be accurate. Guilliman is, as far as I know, average sized for a Primarch. Magnus, Ferrus Mannus and Vulkan being the tallest... At least, he was BEFORE being decapitated.... :smalltongue:


Personal head cannon. The Emperor is 5"4. He just uses his amazing psychic power to make everybody believe he's really tall and impressive !

One theory suggested is that The Emperor doesn't exist - it's just a projection created, or maybe a normal person heroically magnified, by Malcador to be a figurehead because the Imperium wouldn't follow a crippled old mutant by himself.


Secondhand source (as-in, I read an excerpt from a book quoted on a forum) but they see him as a relatively ordinary-looking, very tired old man.

Someone who's actually read the books involving SoS and Emps correct me if I'm wrong.

This is accurate. It's from The Master of Mankind - he's not particularly old looking, but entirely plain and ordinary. They don't comment on his physical size though, so no information on whether or not he actually is 15ft tall, but his face is handsome by normal standards, with tanned skin (he's Turkish afterall) and long black hair.

[Platinius]

(he's Turkish afterall)

Turkish you say? You mean he is like Saint Nicholas aka Santa?^^ To be fair, he IS badass enough to be Santa XD

(for reference sake, Saint Nicholas is from Anatolia what is modern day Turkey)




Unrelated to anything before, here some nice Animation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCKXd_zlQU4), enjoy!



EDIT: Also, thanks for the response Grim Portent. Sounds like the Primaris changes translate into better melee combatants. But there doesn't seem to be any changes in their mental conditioning.

[Wraith]

Turkish you say? You mean he is like Saint Nicholas aka Santa?^^ To be fair, he IS badass enough to be Santa XD

(for reference sake, Saint Nicholas is from Anatolia what is modern day Turkey)

Arguably, that is supposed to be part of the joke. The Emperor has been around, albeit in hiding, since something like 12,000BC and has occasionally tried his hand at world conquest in the guise of what we recognise as great and/or terrible historical figures.

He's Turkish because that sort of Mediterranean area is where most of Europe's greatest bronze and iron-age empires sprung up as well as a bunch of mythical heroes like St George and St. Nicolas. It's also why you find these guys carved into rocks circa-1400BC (https://www.ancientpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/doubleheadedeagle2.jpg); the guy is nothing if not consistent :smalltongue:

[hamishspence]

Arguably, that is supposed to be part of the joke. The Emperor has been around, albeit in hiding, since something like 12,000BC and has occasionally tried his hand at world conquest in the guise of what we recognise as great and/or terrible historical figures.

He's Turkish because that sort of Mediterranean area is where most of Europe's greatest bronze and iron-age empires sprung up as well as a bunch of mythical heroes like St George and St. Nicolas. It's also why you find these guys carved into rocks circa-1400BC (https://www.ancientpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/doubleheadedeagle2.jpg); the guy is nothing if not consistent :smalltongue:

The Mechanicum Horus Heresy novel drops a few hints that his activities inspired the story of St George and the Dragon.

[comicshorse]

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/robotic-monster-wolf-protects-japanese-town-bears-180976300/

These are the kinds of minds that will one day give us the Adeptus Mechanicum

[Cheesegear]

I read a book and made a Boomer Meme.

https://i.imgur.com/0ePDWkk.png

I liked it a lot. Not quite was I was hoping for. Judging from the title I was hoping for something more like Master of Mankind, y'know, a novel that actually described Old Earth and how it came to be and the rise of the Emperor.

I'm not mad with what I got, just...'Old Earth' just isn't what this novel should be titled.

[Wraith]

Speaking of bite-size 'reviews' for GW books, I have a confession to make that may make me somewhat unpopular around these parts.

I got three-quarters of the way through Atlas Infernal and gave up, because it's too dumb.

There's parts of it I like. I like the younger protagonist, Inquisitor Klute - he's the 'straight man' of the plot, driven to succeed but otherwise being reasonably sensible, with tones of the Hypercompetent Sidekick trope thrown in as a foil to Czevak's scattered, holistic approach to Inquisiting.
It's a good dynamic, and works well from both ends when each protagonist finds a reason to explain something to the other - for the benefit of the audience - without one repeatedly appearing condescending to the other. The novel has respect for its characters in a way that is often missing - like the male Sergeant under Shia Calpunia being a perfectly good Arbites in his own right up until the Hero of the story arrives, at which point he starts getting schooled in basic points of the job he's been doing for years.

But apart from that... It's the kitchen sink approach to 40k in that absolutely EVERYTHING gets thrown in there for a few minutes and quickly discarded, not matter how important it should be otherwise. In quick succession, from memory, we see portrayed...

(Spoilers for a 2011 novel, btw...)

Humans capturing a ruined Eldar Craftworld. As in ALL of it, just left buried on a planet...
Which includes an immobile Avatar of Khaine, waiting to be recovered, who is sitting on an upside-down throne on the roof, because Avatars are known to be hilarious and quirky...
Deathwatch Space Marines being ordered by one Inquisitor to kill another...
Deathwatch Space Marines being murdered by Harlequins, to take the Inquisitor away to teach him their secrets....
Humans capturing and using an active Webway Gate (something something "Golden Throne" something...)
Inquisitor returning to his crew, but now he's young and healthy and a ninja with a magic coat.....
Lost in space with a dead navigator, the Inquisitor's ship is attacked by a Khornate warband who just happen to have a cogitator with a map of space that they need to get where they're going....
Chaos Space Marine duels a Loyalist Techmarine, who wins and then throws himself through the vacuum of space to get back to his own ship (reminiscent of a climax to a Hollywood blockbuster - here, it's like a page of writing about how cool and awesome he is and how torpedoing himself back to his own ship is basically an inconvenience...)
Now we need a Magic McGuffin for... reasons. We're just going to go to a HIVE WORLD that has been overrun by a Nurglish Plague and we'll just look for something the size of a coin, how hard can it be to find.... No one has a problem with this.
Czevak does a "Sherlock Holmes" thing and determines exactly where it would be, on a planet inhabited by tens of billions, based on... I dunno, phases of the moon or what he had for breakfast, or something. Everyone just assumes that he's right because his picture is on the front cover of the novel...
Space Gypsies sneak you into the Upper Hive with their space-hot air balloons. No, this actually happens....
Time skip! Now we're in the Planetary Governors throne room, and apparently no-one on this planet overrun by cannibalistic lunatics has noticed us. Surely the thing we want is going to be here, that just makes sense....
It was. Of course it was. But it's not now. We'll just escape from a HIVE full of psychotic cannibals - no-one gets hurt even slightly.
Did they kill a Greater Daemon of Nurgle on their way out? I think they killed a Greater Daemon of Nurgle on their way out, it's implied to be wet-your-pants scary and they pretty much just run away from it and leave....
Surprise! The Space-Gypsies had the McGuffin all along, and that makes perfect sense because Czevak says it does, shut up.

It was at about this point that I checked out. A significant number of these points would be a huge and notable event in the 40k universe for anyone else, but here we skip over them at breakneck speed and move on to the next wildly improbably thing... And we haven't even met Ahriman yet, whose presence was what sold me on the story as supposedly being a tense cat-and-mouse chase between him and Czevak. I've been reading 40k lore since the mid-90's, and yet this books just makes me feel so.... lost.

[Cheesegear]

Speaking of bite-size 'reviews' for GW books, I have a confession to make that may make me somewhat unpopular around these parts.
I got three-quarters of the way through Atlas Infernal and gave up, because it's too dumb.

I'm the only one who likes Atlas Infernal.
Cool kids who aren't me would read either Inquisition War for way more grimdarkness, or the Ahriman trilogy for more...Sense-making.


It's a good dynamic, and works well from both ends when each protagonist finds a reason to explain something to the other - for the benefit of the audience - without one repeatedly appearing condescending to the other.

Basically, Doctor Who, or any iteration of Sherlock Holms that doesn't treat Watson like a moron.


like the male Sergeant under Shia Calpunia being a perfectly good Arbites in his own right up until the Hero of the story arrives, at which point he starts getting schooled in basic points of the job he's been doing for years.

...Isn't Watson an army doctor who served in [war at the time of iteration]? ...Why are you treating him like a moron?
Also, newest-Who, where one of the Fam Companions is a police officer, yet manages to spend the entire series being mostly useless. :smallsigh:

Of all the things Eisenhorn does wrong, at least Fischig is treated as a competent officer the entire time.


But apart from that... It's the kitchen sink approach to 40k in that absolutely EVERYTHING gets thrown in there for a few minutes and quickly discarded, not matter how important it should be otherwise.

I think, 10 years ago, that may have been why I liked it. It plays on Rule of Cool being more important than anything else, including internal consistency.
I'm sure if I read it again, now, I would get mad.
And I'm worried to know whether or not Ben Counter's Grey Knights trilogy holds up.
I'm almost certain that Counter's Malodrax (Lysander escapes an Iron Warriors' World...Naked...Yes really) probably wont, either.


It was at about this point that I checked out. A significant number of these points would be a huge and notable event in the 40k universe for anyone else, but here we skip over them at breakneck speed and move on to the next wildly improbably thing...

Once again, I think that might be why I like it.
It's meant to show how much...Stuff...Czevak has done in his lifetime (lifetimes?), and what seems fantastical to literally anyone else, is relatively mundane, for him. Because that's just how insane his life is. Something, something...Doctor Who.

[Wraith]

I stand by the positives that I said without qualification - it is well written, has strong characters, and (like Cheesegear said) if you WANT a whistle-stop tour of a bunch of weird and wacky things that happen in the 40k universe then it's fine.

I'm not such a grognard that all I want from 40k is a story about Space Marines stomping on peoples' faces for 300 pages and then the planet explodes - I loved Ciaphas Cain and Master of the Hunt and hated 15 Hours, for example - but Atlas Infernal lacks.... consistency. That's all.


...Isn't Watson an army doctor who served in [war at the time of iteration]? ...Why are you treating him like a moron?

Afghanistan.

Dr. Watson was an army medic in Afghanistan - one of the most harsh, dangerous and uncompromising battlefields in the modern world - and *he* did it in the 1870's before blood transfusions, portable antiseptics, and all the rest of it was invented. And he only came home because he got shot and caught typhoid, both of which combined he got over in about 6-8 months.

He's literally a war-hero who comes home and spends his spare time getting talked down to by a deranged coke-fiend. Show the guy some respect, Doyle.

[snowblizz]

and hated 15 Hours,

I loved 15 hours. Unless I misremembering it. It was so perfect all the way down there being no possibiltiy to trilogize it. And then I realsied, damit I woulda like more.

[Wraith]

If you liked it then, all power to you and I hope you find what you're looking for. For me though, I found it far too lacking in 40k elements and too much like a 'real life' World War 1 diary, but with the word "Orks" Ctrl+H'd into place instead of "Prussians". Even the Chapter set on a spaceship is so directly - and probably intentionally - described so that it could just as easily take place inside a battle ship that I think they sacrificed too much flavour in favour of pointing at the text and shouting "SEE! SEE! IT'S AN ALLEGORY THAT ALL WARS ARE THE SAME AND ARE POINTLESS!" :smalltongue:

It's the opposite of Atlas Infernal - it does nothing to evoke the wonder of the 41st millennium or describe anything fantastic in order to offset the misery.

[Cheesegear]

Dr. Watson was an army medic in Afghanistan - one of the most harsh, dangerous and uncompromising battlefields in the modern world...

I vaguely recall an iteration where Watson was in the Gulf War.
The most recent mainstream iteration - Sherlock, unsurprisingly - has Watson from, well, Afghanistan.


He's literally a war-hero who comes home and spends his spare time getting talked down to by a deranged coke-fiend. Show the guy some respect, Doyle.

I don't know what you call them. But Britain makes a lot of them (and as part of the Commonwealth, we get them for some reason):
Shows where someone who is definitely not a police officer, is better than police officers at their job. Sometimes the officers are shown to be actually incompetent... Maybe that's where Doctor Who got it from? British shows just do that for some reason.


I loved 15 hours.

I liked 15 Hours for what it was; "The 41st Millennium is a bad place." Fortunately, it was over quickly. I appreciate that stories like it need to exist to flesh out the Galaxy, and just to hit home how terrible life really is when you aren't a main character. But I have no interest in reading it again, nor seeing more of it.

I'm reminded of the 'lower decks' Chapters of the Lords of Mars series by Graham McNeill. Goon squad walks into local bar and blackjacks everyone they can get their hands on. When the drunkards wake up, they're conscripted to the engine room of a starship. Welcome to your new life. There is no escape (well, read the series, I guess). Fortunately, the 'lower decks' isn't the main story and thankfully there's some relief with Black Templars and Titan Princepses and Aeldari stuff. Because it's supposed to be escapist, heroic fiction. Not an adventure in misery.

The opening of The Macharian Crusade trilogy, has a tank crew have their Baneblade explode. One of the characters has PTSD for the rest of the series after the Commander explodes on him. I know what Billy King is doing. I know the point he's making. Thankfully, Undertaker is a secondary character and the series isn't about abject misery and war trauma. It's about a rag-tag team of Guardsman following around the most-legendary leader the Guard have ever known, and overcoming odds stacked against them - and for a while it's about the origin story of Logan Grimnar, because Billy King writes Space Wolves and why wouldn't he? And then you realise that at some point, young Logan Grimnar and Lord Solar Macharius were friends, and Logan's undying respect for Guardsmen makes a lot of sense, because they've never let him down, not once. Because that's the kind of Guardsmen that I want to read about. The ones who earn the respect of Logan Grimnar (who himself, would go on to become Lord Solar), not the ones who die in a ditch.

[Wraith]

I vaguely recall an iteration where Watson was in the Gulf War.

I'm sure that if you look hard enough, you'll find a series which is essentially "Sherlock In Space" and he was a veteran of Wolf-359 or something. Classically though, it was the Middle East.


I don't know what you call them. But Britain makes a lot of them (and as part of the Commonwealth, we get them for some reason):
Shows where someone who is definitely not a police officer, is better than police officers at their job. Sometimes the officers are shown to be actually incompetent... Maybe that's where Doctor Who got it from? British shows just do that for some reason.

Crime-Thriller, I think - as opposed to Procedural-Thriller which would include things about police officers such as A Touch of Frost and Law & Order. We make a lot of those because of political reasons that are forum forbidden, but boil down to "the police in the 1960's to 1980's were particularly unpleasant so we make up stories about why we don't need them, that have persisted until today".
As is often the case, Britain looked at a problem and created satire, whereas in comparison America looked at a problem and created parody. That's why we created Judge Dredd and they created Brooklyn-Nine-Nine. :smalltongue:

I guess it's a self-justifying trope - if the police were portrayed as being any good, they wouldn't NEED the protagonist in the first place.

[Cheesegear]

Crime-Thriller, I think - as opposed to Procedural-Thriller which would include things about police officers such as A Touch of Frost and Law & Order.

So, going to my local TV Station's website. Currently running shows:
Grantchester - A vicar solves crime.
Father Brown - A priest solves crime.

Then there are like five other shows where it's the same thing. But at least the main characters are DCIs...And the reason I even know what a DCI is, is because Australian TV has so many British Crime Shows it's ridiculous.
Also I love the Rivers of London series.


I guess it's a self-justifying trope - if the police were portrayed as being any good, they wouldn't NEED the protagonist in the first place.

My favourite iterations of the trope; Psych and Republic of Doyle.
The police aren't incompetent (especially in later seasons), but the main character is, well, Just Better. However, that said, in both of the above shows, the main characters have both had some form of police training.

[Amechra]

Watson has definitely diminished in importance as the stories have gotten adapted. (http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=210) There's also a sense that Watson admires Holmes in the way that you'd admire a talented friend more than anything else.

I also wouldn't characterize the police as incompetent in the original stories, exactly. "This is a guy whose GENIUS BRAIN can see connections and clues other people can't" is much easier to sell without everyone else being idiots when forensic science is in its infancy.

[snowblizz]

I also wouldn't characterize the police as incompetent in the original stories, exactly. "This is a guy whose GENIUS BRAIN can see connections and clues other people can't" is much easier to sell without everyone else being idiots when forensic science is in its infancy.
I'm starting to find I have issues with this myself. I've enjoyed watching a bit of old school Columbo recently and it starts to get a bit weird when it boils down to GENIUS BRAIN is convinced of guilt, but there is no actual evidence to hold up in court. Which means genius brain policeman/crimenovelist/etc ad nauseum just hounds a person in a way that is probably illegal harassment until thy manage to make them confess. Not always, but the significan't majority of the times.

I would add the reason also for many of these !Policeperson is crimesolver shows are premised on 1) there just so many actual police investigates shows we need a new pitch (PI/novellist/amateur baker solves crimes is original! go us smurt brains!), and 2) the police just can't do some things, but a person who isn't has a lot more leevay in what they can do, usually resulting in the aforemention confession from guilty party.

[Amechra]

I think it's also honestly a factor of how boring it would be to watch proper police procedure. That's why protagonist cops are either mavericks who get results or have some reason not to follow the book for this particular case (departmental corruption forcing them to work outside the law is a classic). It's like how doctor shows generally fall apart into soap operas at some point - dealing with bureaucracy is dull.

Plus, there's also the satisfaction of seeing that justice is blind, or whatever. Uncle Moneybags might be able to buy off the cops or cover his trail with his egregious amounts of cash, but GENIUS BRAIN will not be swayed or fooled!

[Clistenes]

The Primarch in the picture is, by the looks of it, Guilliman so this may be accurate. Guilliman is, as far as I know, average sized for a Primarch. Magnus, Ferrus Mannus and Vulkan being the tallest... At least, he was BEFORE being decapitated.... :smalltongue:



One theory suggested is that The Emperor doesn't exist - it's just a projection created, or maybe a normal person heroically magnified, by Malcador to be a figurehead because the Imperium wouldn't follow a crippled old mutant by himself.



This is accurate. It's from The Master of Mankind - he's not particularly old looking, but entirely plain and ordinary. They don't comment on his physical size though, so no information on whether or not he actually is 15ft tall, but his face is handsome by normal standards, with tanned skin (he's Turkish afterall) and long black hair.

I have read somewhere that another Perpetual psyker once saw through the Emperor's glamours and was horrified by what he saw... but I can't find the original source... does anybody know if that's true and in what book...?


I'm starting to find I have issues with this myself. I've enjoyed watching a bit of old school Columbo recently and it starts to get a bit weird when it boils down to GENIUS BRAIN is convinced of guilt, but there is no actual evidence to hold up in court. Which means genius brain policeman/crimenovelist/etc ad nauseum just hounds a person in a way that is probably illegal harassment until thy manage to make them confess. Not always, but the significan't majority of the times.

I would add the reason also for many of these !Policeperson is crimesolver shows are premised on 1) there just so many actual police investigates shows we need a new pitch (PI/novellist/amateur baker solves crimes is original! go us smurt brains!), and 2) the police just can't do some things, but a person who isn't has a lot more leevay in what they can do, usually resulting in the aforemention confession from guilty party.

It is true that wouldn't work in most real life cases... most people, when confronted that way, would shout their innocence nonstop no matter how persistent the detective was...

On the other hand, it seems that's how police actually acts in Japan in real life... most Japanese people, when confronted with figures of authority telling them about their crimes to their face are supposed to break down and confess, but it's a cultural thing...

Apparently, when confronted with shameless criminals who would tirelessly deny their crime and even *GASP!* try to confuse and mislead the police with lies (the horror!), the Japanese policemen were at a loss about what to do... (how do we prove his guilt if the criminal doesn't confess...?!)

[LansXero]

It is true that wouldn't work in most real life cases... most people, when confronted that way, would shout their innocence nonstop no matter how persistent the detective was...

And then you have Lucifer for whom it matters not at all. Although not all seasons were equally good.

In the 40kverse though, psykers are a thing so that adds another dimension to it.

[Cheesegear]

And then you have Lucifer for whom it matters not at all. Although not all seasons were equally good.

Crime-solving Devil.
It makes sense.
Don't overthink it.

[Wraith]

I have read somewhere that another Perpetual psyker once saw through the Emperor's glamours and was horrified by what he saw... but I can't find the original source... does anybody know if that's true and in what book...?

This sounds familiar - I don't think it was a Perpetual, but I remember words to this effect. It was always sketchy as to whether or not they had seen entirely through the Emperor's glamour, or if they just thought so because they had just witnessed a particularly cruel example of one of his of his many faces. Damned if I can remember who it was, though....

The Perpetuals that we've seen so far just don't like him very much.
Ollanius Persson and John Constantine Grammaticus both met the Emperor way back in antiquity, stuck around until his more fascistic tendencies started to show themselves and generally just thought he was a bit of a ****, it wasn't particularly traumatic.
Cyrene was struck blind by the bombing of Monarchia and was nowhere near Him when he landed to humble Lorgar.
Erdu was more or less his wife for a few thousand years, though she grew bitter about his plans for the Primarchs - 'their children' - and left for a life of solitude.
That leaves Vulkan and a couple of Space Marines who never met Him in person... A couple of minor characters who did a thing and haven't shown up again since...

...The old Priest from The Last Church short story, maybe? He's not immediately scared by the Emperor's appearance, but he is metaphorically horrified by what He represents and what the Priest knows must follow in his wake. That might be what I'm thinking of.


Crime-solving Devil.
It makes sense.
Don't overthink it.

What's to overthink? Lucifer was never really about the crime-solving, it was just a vehicle for Tom Ellis to be fabulously camp and heroically ridiculous while cashing in on Neil Gaiman's relatively recent leap to superstardom after American Gods was commissioned for TV. I thought it was great.... Well, better than the Constantine show at least...:smalltongue:

[Cheesegear]

What's to overthink? Lucifer was never really about the crime-solving...

It's the song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXIRt0uG3D0&ab_channel=JohnnyWestside).

The main problem being that you buy the rights to Gaiman's Lucifer, and you reformat the whole thing into the Non-Police Officer Solves Crime genre? Really!? The Producers and Screenwriters read the comic, right?

Finally, you've got the premise of the show itself; The Devil Solves Crime. Just...Really? Okay. Sure. Fine. The show had to do a lot of work in order to get the premise over. A lot of people watched the first few episodes and bailed, because the premise is real dumb.

For the record; I like Lucifer. It's a decent show. Especially since all the other DC/CW shows are in the toilet, so it's not like it has a high bar to clear. And then later when the show goes "Be more like Supernatural, because people like Supernatural." it gets even better and/or worse at the same time...Whatever.

[Eldan]

What's to overthink? Lucifer was never really about the crime-solving, it was just a vehicle for Tom Ellis to be fabulously camp and heroically ridiculous while cashing in on Neil Gaiman's relatively recent leap to superstardom after American Gods was commissioned for TV. I thought it was great.... Well, better than the Constantine show at least...:smalltongue:

Eh, I liked the Constantine show a lot, and really couldn't stand the Lucifer show. But that's probably also in large part because I'm a fan of both comics series and the Constantine show was reasonably close while Lucifer... shared a name.

[Wraith]

Eh, I liked the Constantine show a lot, and really couldn't stand the Lucifer show. But that's probably also in large part because I'm a fan of both comics series and the Constantine show was reasonably close while Lucifer... shared a name.

I loved the Constantine TV show. Matt Ryan was great, the plots were spooky and appropriately bloody, and I binged the whole thing in a week without complaint.

But it was pretty bad. Why was it set in the USA? Why was Chaz a hunky, pseudo-immortal single guy with a tragic backstory? And where's Castiel!? :smalltongue::smallwink:

Still.... The Sandman comes out next year, so here's hoping that they take a page out of Good Omens and make it as close to the novels as possible. Third-and-fourth times the charm? :smallsmile:

[comicshorse]

I loved the Constantine TV show. Matt Ryan was great, the plots were spooky and appropriately bloody, and I binged the whole thing in a week without complaint.

But it was pretty bad. Why was it set in the USA? Why was Chaz a hunky, pseudo-immortal single guy with a tragic backstory? And where's Castiel!? :smalltongue::smallwink:

Still.... The Sandman comes out next year, so here's hoping that they take a page out of Good Omens and make it as close to the novels as possible. Third-and-fourth times the charm? :smallsmile:

Well it does explain why he hasn't horribly died like all of John's other friends :smallsmile:

[JNAProductions]

What do we know of the Missing Primarchs, and their Legions?

I'm setting up a game (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?623970-II-And-XI-5E) where the PCs will be playing as them, so any info appreciated. I might not follow what we know, but it provides a good base.

[Mystic Muse]

What do we know of the Missing Primarchs, and their Legions?

I'm setting up a game (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?623970-II-And-XI-5E) where the PCs will be playing as them, so any info appreciated. I might not follow what we know, but it provides a good base.

Sanguinius implies that one of the two is Damned From Memory because of him and his legion suffering catastrophic gene-seed failure.

Malcador psychically chokes Horus for daring to attempt to say one of their names.

And whatever happened to them was bad enough that Dorn begged Malcador to block his memory of it.

One of them may have been named "Malibron."

They're referred to as "The Purged and the Forgotten."

[JNAProductions]

Sanguinius implies that one of the two is Damned From Memory because of him and his legion suffering catastrophic gene-seed failure.

Malcador psychically chokes Horus for daring to attempt to say one of their names.

And whatever happened to them was bad enough that Dorn begged Malcador to block his memory of it.

One of them may have been named "Malibron."

They're referred to as "The Purged and the Forgotten."

So not a ton of info. Garch. What we do have, I'll probably deviate from, to make better game, but good to know what I'm ignoring.

What about the Primarchs in general? What were their upbringings like? I know the generalities, but if anyone has any good links to read up on, that'd be great.

Thank you MM! :)

[Wraith]

There's 18 Primarchs and each of them grew up on a different planet, and each has their own backstory. I can give you the super-fast versions of each, but if you want any detail at all then you may wish to try somewhere like the Lexicanum website (https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Primarch). :smallsmile:


01: Lion El'Johnson (Dark Angels) - Landed on a planet called Caliban and grew up feral in a forest full of monsters. Later joined an order of Knights and helped purge monsters from the world and becoming a King Arthur-like figure.

02: [REDACTED]

03: Fulgrim (Emperor's Children) - Landed on a heavily polluted world called Chemos. Grew up to become Chief Administrator and reformed the planet's industry to both clean up the pollution and allow its population time to develop art and culture.

04: Perturabo (Iron Warriors) - Landed on Olympia, a mountainous and technologically poor planet. Adopted by a blacksmith, grew up to 'invent' steam-age technology and become a hero of the planet before being discovered by the Emperor.

05: Jaghatai Khan (White Scars) - Landed on Mundus Planus, basically adopted by Genghis Khan and grew up to be a Mongol Warlord.

06: Leman Russ (Space Wolves) - Landed on Fenris, adopted by Vikings and grew up to be Beowulf.

07: Rogal Dorn (Imperial Fists) - Landed on a cold planet named Inwit where he was adopted by a tribal chieftain. Grew up to be a statesman and mediator between the different tribes, similar but less violent than Leman Russ.

08: Konrad Curze (Night Lords) - Landed on Nocturne, a wretched hive of scum and villainy where the sun never shines. Grew up feral on the streets, and eventually became an evil Batman-like figure who murdered and mutilated criminals to scare the planet into being less lawless.

09: Sanguinius (Blood Angels) - Landed on an irradiated desert moon named Baal where local a tribe took pity on them despite his hideous mutation. Grew up to be a messianic/Moses-like figure who protected his people from the desert and other tribes.

10: Ferrus Mannus (Iron Hands) - Planet Medusa was full of warring tribes, but Ferrus remained a hermit and refused to get involved with their petty rivalries no matter how much of a heroic, mythical figure he became by fighting giant monsters and the likes. Eventually he obtained his metal hands, and decided it was time to head down from the mountains and teach the tribes how to use technology.

11: [REDACTED]

12: Angron (World Eaters) - Landed on Nuceria and was immediately captured by slavers, had Butcher's Nails hammered into his skull and sold as a gladiator. He led his fellow slaves to a doomed yet honourable Spartacus-like revolt and was stolen from the planet by the Emperor who teleported him out of dodge at the last moment.

13: Roubote Gulliman (Ultramarines) - Landed on Ultramar and was adopted by a statesman who taught him diplomacy and oration. Grew up to become the most impressive politician of all time, uniting 500 worlds into a single confederacy of planets.

14: Mortarion (Death Guard) - Landed on Barbarus, a heavily polluted world run by mutant overlords. Adopted by a mutant Warlord, Mortarion eventually rebelled and fought them on behalf of the enslaved human population, failing at the final hurdle when even his own enhanced biology couldn't protect him from the pollution and he was over-taken by the Emperor.

15: Magnus the Red (Thousand Sons) - Landed on Prospero, a Classical Greek-style planet where everyone was psychic, a scholar, or both. Grew up to become the planet's preeminent scholar and politician, as well as the most mystically-educated and psychically adept person in the galaxy and was in constant psychic-communication with the Emperor throughout.

16: Horus Lupercal (Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus) - The planet Cthonia was more or less "Mad Max World" with post-apocalyptic-style gangs running about the place. He became a warlord who overtook most of the other factions before being the first Primarch physically found by the Emperor.

17: Lorgar Aurelian (Word Bearers) - Landed on another Ancient Greek-style desert planet named Colchis, similar to Prospero except that they revered religion rather than philosophy. Adopted by the High Priest of the Old Religion and led crusades to unite the world under a single religious doctrine centred around a single divine figure clad in gold and eventually became High Priest of this new religion.

18: Vulkan (Salamanders) - Nocturne was similar to Medusa, all volcanos and giant lizards. Vulkan was adopted by local tribes and became a blacksmith and then hero when he single-handedly faced down a Dark Eldar raiding party.

19: Corvus Corax (Raven Guard) - Deliverance was a prison moon, and Corus grew up among the prison/slave population until he eventually led an uprising and other threw the gaolers in the name of democracy and-oh wait, Emperor.

20: Alpharius Omegron (Alpha Legion) - As far as anyone knows he doesn't have a homeworld; he was first encountered leading a band of space pirates who attacked Horus' flagship and has never given much detail about his youth, which presumably involves dogfighting in space ships and being Flash Gordon/Han Solo.

[Cheesegear]

Two Unknown Primarchs:

Horus is near-literally Lucifer. Horus' Brothers, even post-Heresy, remember Horus at least a little bit positively. The Fallen Angel, was still, once an Angel. Lorgar...Is responsible for almost everything. Yet once again, Lorgar is shown to have positive qualities, and reflected on by Magnus - the little dog who lost his way. Guilliman, in the 42nd millienium, reflects that maybe Lorgar was onto something big (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJXKVOxqkWM&ab_channel=SuIcIdAlKiLLaLooP), but his Brothers were too blind to see it.

2 and 11, though? The Primarchs actively try to Forgotten them. Malal keeps being brought up as the 5th Chaos God of Vengeance and Malice in reference to them in a few circles.

Sanguinius speaks out being cast out as 'a third' when talking of the Red Thirst, and the Flaw in his gene-seed, and why he couldn't tell the Emperor about it.
Some of the World Eaters are afraid to follow Angron - they get over it - as they're worried that they might get Forgotten'd.

Magnus, was not the first time Leman Russ was sent to Forgotten a Legion. This is referenced many times. And apparently even Gabriel Seth in current 42nd millennium, knows about it. Whether Gabriel Seth has access to secret Captain Amit knowledge, I don't know. Maybe it's just an Open Secret among the 1st and 2nd Founding Chapters?

Lorgar is very worried that his Legion will be Forgotten'd, and one of his deepest fears is that many of his Astartes will be absorbed into Guilliman's Legion.

Additionally, it's hinted a few times that the reason Ultramar is so huge, is 'cause actually not all of it was originally Guilliman's.
Similarly, the reason that the Ultramarines are a) Such a massive Legion, and b) So adaptable and so good at everything, is because they're actually the combined strength, intelligence and experience of three Legions.
However, such is Black Library, there are many conflicting stories on the Ultramarines.

Dorn believes that if 2 and 11 were around, Horus would have already won a while ago. Whether that means that they would've joined Horus, or if they would have been actively terrible to have on your Team, is unclear.

At least half of the Primarchs witnessed...Something...In relation to 2 and/or 11. They were commanded to Forgotten about it. I'm guessing that Dorn can't Forgotten about it, and he's scarred for life.

One of the two Primarchs went deep into the Eastern Fringe (T'au, Kraken) looking for Necron **** (they didn't know it was Necron stuff in 30K, but that's what it was). It is unclear what he found.

Cawl references making Primaris Marines from the other 11. Lumping the two Forgotten'd ones in with the Heretics.

[noob]

Since it is chaos it is likely that they would have lost to killing each other for no good reason if there was too many chaos primarches around.
Chaos lacks the ability to work well in huge groups: while the cumulated power is huge a big chaos group will almost always suffer many issues.(unless they are freshly converted to chaos then they did not have the time to become too undisciplined)

[LeSwordfish]

I'm not necessarily convinced that the forgotten primarchs need to be that much worse than Chaos - correct me if I'm wrong, but the implication is that they were killed before being fully brought into the imperium and the crusade. Turn up at a planet, find a really big guy who keeps shouting about how great khorne is, call Russ in to lop his head off, glass the planet, kill everyone who knows about it, tell his brothers he was REALLY BAD FOREVER, give the spare army to Roboute, job's a good'un.

The reason Horus wasn't treated the same way is because he took half the imperium with him, and made far too much trouble to just be killed before anybody hears about it like a single-planet threat could be, and they see him and the traitors with a certain amount of affection because they knew them in senses other than the emperor's propaganda.

[Cheesegear]

I'm not necessarily convinced that the forgotten primarchs need to be that much worse than Chaos

Then why do the Traitor Primarchs still choose to forget to remember, if Two and Elven weren't even that bad?


correct me if I'm wrong, but the implication is that they were killed before being fully brought into the imperium and the crusade.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'brought into the Crusade'.
Several of the Primarchs fought alongside them. Almost all of the Primarchs remember Two and Eleven. Dorn can't not remember.


The reason Horus wasn't treated the same way is because he took half the imperium with him, and made far too much trouble to just be killed before anybody hears about it like a single-planet threat could be, and they see him and the traitors with a certain amount of affection because they knew them in senses other than the emperor's propaganda.

Again, you're saying that the Traitor Primarchs still think "Horus good, Two and Eleven bad."

It doesn't hold water that Two and Eleven weren't just doing what Horus, Lorgar and Magnus might've done. I believe that Guilliman even witnessed Angron's Ascencion, and was 'fine' with it. But Two and Eleven bad.

[LeSwordfish]

Then why do the Traitor Primarchs still choose to forget to remember, if Two and Elven weren't even that bad?



I'm not sure what you mean by 'brought into the Crusade'.
Several of the Primarchs fought alongside them. Almost all of the Primarchs remember Two and Eleven. Dorn can't not remember.



Again, you're saying that the Traitor Primarchs still think "Horus good, Two and Eleven bad."

It doesn't hold water that Two and Eleven weren't just doing what Horus, Lorgar and Magnus might've done. I believe that Guilliman even witnessed Angron's Ascencion, and was 'fine' with it. But Two and Eleven bad.

Basically what i'm saying is that Two and Eleven weren't necessarily worse than any of the others - just that the Emperor was able to take complete and uncontested control of the narrative around it. Personally I prefer that to the idea that there's some kind of Super-Chaos that is Extra Evil.

[Cheesegear]

Basically what i'm saying is that Two and Eleven weren't necessarily worse than any of the others - just that the Emperor was able to take complete and uncontested control of the narrative around it. Personally I prefer that to the idea that there's some kind of Super-Chaos that is Extra Evil.

I think the issue is with us, the audience; "What is worse than what Horus and Lorgar did!? Fulgrim even sliced off Ferrus' head!"
I can't imagine, because I'm already imagining Horus Lorgar as the worst one. There is no God of the Gaps, because we've already got a floor as to how far down we can go. It can't be worse, because we already know what the worst, is.

But, it has to be worse... Doesn't it? Because even the Traitors think it was real bad - and they're Traitors!

"If even [X] thinks you've goof'd, you've goof'd real hard."


Maybe one of them [Performed an Un-Alive Ritual on Himself] in front of at least half of his brothers?
Would certainly scar some of them for life. And if you brought it up in front of them they would put you through the wall before you even finished the sentence.

[Eldan]

A bit of interesting out of game trivia/legend (it gets brought up occasionally and I have no idea if it was true) is that 20 original writers/employees from GW each wrote their own primarch and legion. It's said that two employees left the company not on the best of terms, so their legions were removed from the list.

Probably apocryphal.

[Lord Torath]

A bit of interesting out of game trivia/legend (it gets brought up occasionally and I have no idea if it was true) is that 20 original writers/employees from GW each wrote their own primarch and legion. It's said that two employees left the company not on the best of terms, so their legions were removed from the list.

Probably apocryphal.I remember reading somewhere official (an interview or a White Dwarf) that the two redacted chapters were there so players could plug their own custom chapters into those slots, if they were so inclined.

[Wraith]

A bit of interesting out of game trivia/legend (it gets brought up occasionally and I have no idea if it was true) is that 20 original writers/employees from GW each wrote their own primarch and legion. It's said that two employees left the company not on the best of terms, so their legions were removed from the list.

Probably apocryphal.

This might be conflated with what happened to the God, Malal. Most of his fluff was written by John Wagner and Alan Grant as patron for one of their Warhammer Fantasy characters, but they did so as freelancers which technically meant that they owned everything they had written, not GW. Rather than pay royalties to keep using the name, GW nixed Malal entirely with the advent of Second Edition in the early 90's, and Wagner and Grant never worked for them again.

[Fyraltari]

Clearly, Two and Eleven did the worst possible thing: they tried to establish democracies and humane states that actually give a damn about the well-being of its citizenry. This could not be allowed to exist.

[LeSwordfish]

Because even the Traitors think it was real bad - and they're Traitors!

Oh sure, makes sense. After all, none of the primarchs were hypocrites, delusional, prone to self-justification, or mad. :smalltongue:

[Cheesegear]

Clearly, Two and Eleven did the worst possible thing...

Patrick Troughton didn't do anything bad that I can recall off the top of my head.
And Matt Smith is my favourite Doctor.

[Avaris]

I remember reading somewhere official (an interview or a White Dwarf) that the two redacted chapters were there so players could plug their own custom chapters into those slots, if they were so inclined.

Yeah, that’s my understanding. It’s a really great example of how 40k is intended as a setting for people’s own stories, rather than just following the canon. A lot of things in the timeline are intended as simply hooks for people to explore, rather than having a great plan behind it. As GW staff often say about hobby ideas on the Warhammer Community podcast, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”.

(I have a related rant about how a lot of the internet culture around various types of nerd media are far FAR too invested in the idea of there being a single ‘truth’ in the story, rather than using what has been created as a baseline for their own interpretation. This is not at all exclusive to 40k, it’s a thing in a lot of spaces)

[Forum Explorer]

I like the idea that the two missing Primarchs didn't necessarily do something so bad no one wants to remember them, but that they were such failures they didn't have any redeeming qualities in the eyes of the Emperor/fellow Primarchs. One was a failure gentically, IE their geneseed failing was something worse than the Red Rage.

And the other one had sex with an Eldar. That's what scarred Dorn. :smalltongue:

[The Glyphstone]

If I remember correctly, it's even the official stance of GW and Black Library that "just because something is canon doesn't mean it is true". Authorship bias is built-in to all the lore by design.

[LeSwordfish]

Canon is fake and bad. The sooner you learn to discard it from how you think about things, the better.

[noob]

I like the idea that the two missing Primarchs didn't necessarily do something so bad no one wants to remember them, but that they were such failures they didn't have any redeeming qualities in the eyes of the Emperor/fellow Primarchs. One was a failure gentically, IE their geneseed failing was something worse than the Red Rage.

And the other one had sex with an Eldar. That's what scarred Dorn. :smalltongue:

Maybe they were double traitors and betrayed the betrayal?
Nobody wants a double traitor in their ranks.

[Fyraltari]

Patrick Troughton didn't do anything bad that I can recall off the top of my head.
And Matt Smith is my favourite Doctor.
Two once planted a bomb in a ship that was already fleeing the planet he was on.

[Brookshw]

And Matt Smith is my favourite Doctor.

This is correct.

[Platinius]

I bet 2 and 11 emerged as girls, but the Man-Emperor of Mankind thinks that (and I quote):

"The Adeptus Astartes can only contain males. No girls allowed. They are yucky." :smallbiggrin:

[Wraith]

In fairness to GW, I don't think that they or their products have ever been actively and intentionally misogynistic. They're just the usual sort of passive, unconsciously sexist as are most corporations - for what little faint praise that represents. :smallconfused:

[noob]

In fairness to GW, I don't think that they or their products have ever been actively and intentionally misogynistic. They're just the usual sort of passive, unconsciously sexist as are most corporations - for what little faint praise that represents. :smallconfused:

Just because there is constant catastrophes and that the characters of the universe are misogynistic and racist (because social progress is much harder when you are busy working 24 hour a day and fighting and dying the rest of the time) does not means the writers of the universe are.
Because the emperor was misogynistic he did not think "let us make so that both women and men can become thunder warriors and the other kinds of genetically improved super soldiers".
It is much harder to reach high positions as a women in an highly misogynistic society hence the over-representation of men in places of power in warhammer 40k but it does not means the writers are misogynistic.
They might be misogynistic too but their setting is not in itself a proof of it.
Just the way most characters in warhammer 40k wants to commit genocide but we can not assume it means the writers thinks genocide is a good idea.

[Cheesegear]

In fairness to GW, I don't think that they or their products have ever been actively and intentionally misogynistic.

"How do we make heroic power fantasy for boys?"
Ten seconds later GW recreates 2000 A.D.-in-space.
Ten seconds after that GW revamps 2000 A.D.-in-space, into a mash of Star Wars and Dune.

[Platinius]

Or perhaps the creators were just trying to create cool stuff.

Here is a few little nuggets to remember:
-first off, most initiates are not really volunteers and those that are have NO to even close to a reasonable idea as to how horrible their future is going to be
-the selection process alone for (modern 42nd millennia) is horrifying and cruel to say the least
-the transformation process is even worse
-the things they send you to fight top even that
-and the thing you fight for is a brutal tyranny where no hope is to be had


knowing all of this, talented women are secretly blessed by not have to go through that and to those that become Inquisitors (or rather Inquisitrixes), Military Commanders, Judge Anderson Adeptus Arbites, Techpriestess or Sisters of Battle had a degree of choice the SM were never given and can act with a faith that is more their own than any SM Chapter would ever allow.

Note that for the rest of the population is still fokked and they are all equally fokked independent of the bits you have under your rags, furs or one fits all overall as you slave away in a manufactorum and fight for your very survival on a feral or death world.







But this reminds me, I consider the average modern, 42nd millennium SM's greatest asset not to be their powerful bodies, but their fortress-like minds. After all, there are plenty of things far more physically powerful than them running around in the galaxy. (it's kind of the point of the grimdarkness of 40k, not even the OP-in-any-other-setting SM can assure victory here, often not even their own survival)

Were average 30k SM of equally steely wills? (Average, not special like Sigismund or other special characters)








Also, long ago I once questioned here whether or not Primaris Marines are NOT as mentally tough as old-school, contemporary SM.
I think I got a "Yes, they are NOT as mentally tough as regular SM" but is that still true or has the lore shifted a bit, respectively have the Primaris Marines toughened (mentally) up after a few decades with the old-school SM that know the true horrors of endless, hopeless war?

[Cheesegear]

Were average 30k SM of equally steely wills? (Average, not special like Sigismund or other special characters)

The problem is that the only characters we see, are the special characters (Raldoran, Thiel, Branne Nev, Archamaus, Argel Tal, Shadrak Meduson, etc.). We never really see anyone who isn't a main character.


I think I got a "Yes, they are NOT as mentally tough as regular SM" but is that still true or has the lore shifted a bit, respectively have the Primaris Marines toughened (mentally) up after a few decades with the old-school SM that know the true horrors of endless, hopeless war?

There is Awoken vs. Indoctrinated, yes.

The pure, first-generation Martian Primaris Chapters are not, for they have no history or reference point for what it is they're fighting.
The Primaris Marines who develop from Firstborn Chapters, are well-equipped and know exactly what Chaos is, because they have the concept and the context of The Long War.

[snowblizz]

Come now, you all must admit that GW dodged a huge bullet by not having us all google "SM women" all the time.


A friend of mine told a story about how there was one person who showed up on the Warhammer Dwarfs Yahoo mailgroup veeeery confused looking for dwarf women. Real ones. I guess it's "little people" now?

[Wraith]

Just because there is constant catastrophes and that the characters of the universe are misogynistic and racist (because social progress is much harder when you are busy working 24 hour a day and fighting and dying the rest of the time) does not means the writers of the universe are.

Allow me to be absolutely clear when I am referring to GW as the corporate entity, rather than as a group of individuals who I am admonishing as having acted deliberately.

GW staff are generally nice people, but GW The Company has for decades catered near-exclusively for the male power fantasy, has produced thousands of miniatures of which the 'default' is almost exclusively male-presenting, and use what is traditionally thought of as masculine designs in their correspondence and their branding.

They're absolutely not the only ones - I cite companies like LEGO who decided that their packages of neon coloured bricks need to also be sold in pink boxes 'for girls'. But they're not doing it to deliberately patronise half of the population - it's casual, lazy sexism brought about by being ignorant/thoughtless rather than being malicious.


Inquisitors (or rather Inquisitrixes)

Female Inquisitors are still just Inquisitors. The Inquisition is, if nothing else, unisex when it comes to inflicting atrocious horror upon civilians. Hard to tell if that is something progressive or not, I admit... :smalltongue:


Also, long ago I once questioned here whether or not Primaris Marines are NOT as mentally tough as old-school, contemporary SM.
I think I got a "Yes, they are NOT as mentally tough as regular SM" but is that still true or has the lore shifted a bit, respectively have the Primaris Marines toughened (mentally) up after a few decades with the old-school SM that know the true horrors of endless, hopeless war?

I would suggest that they are different, if not better or worse.

Iskandar Khayon, the protagonist from The Talon of Horus and The Black Legion, spends some time criticising 40k-era Space Marines as being mentally stunted - far, far more hypno-indoctrinated than he or his fellow Legionaries were, which makes them a lot more incorrigible but also far more rigid and less human.

For the purpose of which they're used, Space Marines are 'mentally stronger' than Legionaries by sheer virtue of mental brute-strength. All Astartes are hard-wired to fight and kill, but the 40k version is comparatively near-lobotomised to do nothing else.

But then he is a Legionary of the Long War and thus biased.

Assuming the above is accurate, Primaris are similar, though more varied. Most of them were created by the process designed by Cawl and then put on ice for a few millennia - arguably their hypno-indoctrination is closer to the standards used closer to M31 than M41 and then tweaked over time. This seems supported by the few novels I've read that include Primaris - they're far less grim and more talkative than Firstborn Marines, apparently closer in mentality to what I've seen in the early Horus Heresy novels.

That being said; that was mostly at the start of the Indomnitus Crusade - over 100 years has passed since then and Primaris have now been made not just in the image of their parent Chapters by actually by those Chapters, so likely they have started to conform more closely to what we would expect from a Loyalist Marine. I haven't seen anything yet to confirm or deny either way, but it would be a reasonable assumption, if anything can be said to be so in the 40k setting.


Come now, you all must admit that GW dodged a huge bullet by not having us all google "SM women" all the time.

There's a vast wealth of punchlines that could go here, I don't think I need to do more than draw anyone's attention to it. :smallwink::smalltongue:

[LeSwordfish]

Let's not let a silly joke send us off into The Female Space Marine Discussion.

[Cheesegear]

This seems supported by the few novels I've read that include Primaris - they're far less grim and more talkative than Firstborn Marines, apparently closer in mentality to what I've seen in the early Horus Heresy novels...

More accurately, Joss Whedon, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer ruined an entire generation of writers.

Remember your ABCs of writing:
Always.
Be.
C Quipping.


That being said; that was mostly at the start of the Indomnitus Crusade - over 100 years has passed since then and Primaris have now been made not just in the image of their parent Chapters by actually by those Chapters, so likely they have started to conform more closely to what we would expect from a Loyalist Marine.

As the 8th Ed. Codex stated, the full-Chapters of Primaris Marines, created by Cawl on Mars - the Ultima Founding - are not the same as the Primaris Marines created by the individual Chapters during the Indomitus Founding. A lot of Chapters outright rejecting the Marines made by Cawl.

...This fluff is not present in the 9th Ed. book.

[Destro_Yersul]

"How do we make heroic power fantasy for boys?"
Ten seconds later GW recreates 2000 A.D.-in-space.
Ten seconds after that GW revamps 2000 A.D.-in-space, into a mash of Star Wars and Dune.

Don't forget Judge Dredd

[hamishspence]

As the 8th Ed. Codex stated, the full-Chapters of Primaris Marines, created by Cawl on Mars - the Ultima Founding - are not the same as the Primaris Marines created by the individual Chapters during the Indomitus Founding. A lot of Chapters outright rejecting the Marines made by Cawl.

...This fluff is not present in the 9th Ed. book.

More distrust than outright rejection - I don't know of any incidents where they outright turned away the reinforcements and refused to let them onto their Chapter Planet or Fortress Monastery or whatever. If anything else, the Custodes would have prevented that.

[Wraith]

Don't forget Judge Dredd

2000.A.D is the comic book in which Judge Dredd appears. He was the break-out character who went on to have other comics and movies named after him, but he still has stories there as well. :smallsmile:


More accurately, Joss Whedon, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer ruined an entire generation of writers.

Yep, sounds like War of Secrets to me. I got a couple of chapter in and gave up because the newly recruited Primaris Marines just wouldn't shut the **** up with their stupid oo-rah style banter, then complaining about why the firstborn Dark Angels didn't like them very much. The story had an interesting premise too, but the incessant "jarhead marines" really turned me off.

Although that being said, War of Secrets is a good example of what hamishspence just mentioned. The Dark Angels allowed the new Primaris Marines to join the Chapter, but that's it - they weren't initiated into the Circles and it was made clear that they would never be allowed to progress beyond their starting rank, because only 'true Dark Angels' would be allowed to learn about the Unforgiven. They were kept around and used as grunts, but otherwise were completely rejected from Dark Angels' culture and tradition until one Primaris in particular stopped being such a brat, started to prove he deserved to be there and wasn't - for want of a better term - a stooge/spy for Guilliman.

[Cheesegear]

The Dark Angels allowed the new Primaris Marines to join the Chapter, but that's it - they weren't initiated into the Circles and it was made clear that they would never be allowed to progress beyond their starting rank...

Gabriel Seth rejected Cawl's Marines outright. He had absolutely zero desire to see 'Red Ultramarines' in neither his, nor in Dante's Chapters.

Pedro Kantor didn't want Primaris Marines in his Chapter, because they don't know about the rest of the Chapter's History. Primaris Marines have no ties to Dorn, and Kantor was even worried about the modern Crimson Fists being united, because the new Primaris Marines 'Weren't There' on Rynn's World. Why is the Crimson Fists' strength of Brotherhood so damned strong? ...Because of a Thing that happened that Primaris Marines couldn't possibly understand.

[The Glyphstone]

It is very 40k and very Gabriel Seth for him to turn down a chance to rescue his chapter from inevitable extinction he's been desperately trying to slow the pace of for hundreds of years. Because he just hates Guilliman that much.

[Cheesegear]

It is very 40k and very Gabriel Seth for him to turn down a chance to rescue his chapter from inevitable extinction he's been desperately trying to slow the pace of for hundreds of years. Because he just hates Guilliman that much.

But also Cawl is not a good dude, and his Primaris Marines are very...Not good. Again, the Dark Angels are not fans of the originals.
Gabriel Seth took the method making his own Primaris Marines, pretty sure every Chapter did. It's just Cawl's Originals that people don't like.

"Your brainwashing is not as good as my brainwashing. The ones you brainwashed don't fit in with the ones I brainwashed."

[Wraith]

I can see it as a matter of Seth's pride and how seriously he takes his position as Chapter Master and inheritor of Amit's legacy, too. *He* has to save his Chapter, not let someone else - Cawl, Guilliman or Dante - step in, show him for being a failure, and then 'replace' it with something else. He'd rather die, just like he's proven many times before.

It's not necessarily the smartest choice, but it is the honourable one - a description that befits Seth himself.


Why is the Crimson Fists' strength of Brotherhood so damned strong? ...Because of a Thing that happened that Primaris Marines couldn't possibly understand.

Somewhat hypocritical of him - if 'You Don't Know, You Weren't There' is his basis for recruitment, then he can't honestly accept Firstborn recruits either, because they also Weren't There.

As an excuse to stick it to Guilliman it's fine, of course, which is the whole point. It's an easy and obvious one to call out, though.

[Cheesegear]

I can see it as a matter of Seth's pride and how seriously he takes his position as Chapter Master and inheritor of Amit's legacy, too. *He* has to save his Chapter, not let someone else

Dante approves this message.
Gabriel says what Dante can't.
Proud of you, son.


Somewhat hypocritical of him - if 'You Don't Know, You Weren't There' is his basis for recruitment, then he can't honestly accept Firstborn recruits either, because they also Weren't There.

Ah, but you see, child, he can tell them the stories, and they'll pay attention in wide-eyed wonder.
Grown adults don't care, and even when you tell them, they'll think it's lame.

[noob]

Ah, but you see, child, he can tell them the stories, and they'll pay attention in wide-eyed wonder.
Grown adults don't care, and even when you tell them, they'll think it's lame.

Aka indoctrinate them when it works best.

[hamishspence]

Gabriel Seth rejected Cawl's Marines outright. He had absolutely zero desire to see 'Red Ultramarines' in neither his, nor in Dante's Chapters.

Not going by the description in 9E Codex Blood Angels.

Page 28:
With his chapter's Primaris reinforcements, Seth makes great use of Assault Intercessors and Impulsor transports, supported by Inceptors plummeting into battle from above to slaughter foes at close quarters. Bladeguard Veterans anchor his line, the resolute warriors bedecked with relics that remind their brothers they are heirs to beauty as well as fury.

Page 29:
To Seth, the Flesh Tearers' rage was an inherent part of who they were, and he believed the Greyshields to be a calculated effort to dilute his brotherhood's defining characteristic.
With great suspicion, but little choice, he accepted his new warriors, subjecting them to arduous trials and thrusting them into the fiercest fights to prove their mettle.

To the shock of every Flesh Tearer, the Greyshields that joined them were no less susceptible to the Black Rage. The curse within their gene-seed lay deeper than any knew. Doom was only postponed.





Pedro Kantor didn't want Primaris Marines in his Chapter, because they don't know about the rest of the Chapter's History.


Similar principles apply to Kantor. He may not have been entirely happy with the Greyshields Primaris reinforcements he got - but he accepted them and did not refuse to be reinforced.



Although that being said, War of Secrets is a good example of what hamishspence just mentioned. The Dark Angels allowed the new Primaris Marines to join the Chapter, but that's it - they weren't initiated into the Circles and it was made clear that they would never be allowed to progress beyond their starting rank, because only 'true Dark Angels' would be allowed to learn about the Unforgiven. They were kept around and used as grunts, but otherwise were completely rejected from Dark Angels' culture and tradition until one Primaris in particular stopped being such a brat, started to prove he deserved to be there and wasn't - for want of a better term - a stooge/spy for Guilliman.
It'll be interesting to see what the 9e DA codex says, when it comes out, about the degree to which the Dark Angels accepted the Greyshields.

Are all DA Primaris Librarians recruits from after the Greyshield reinforcement, or did the DA induct Greyshield Librarians into the Deathwing?
Are Bladeguard all recruits from after than Greyshield reinforcement, who in the space of 100 years have gone from recruit to Deathwing Primaris member?

Or did the DA lose their distrust of Greyshields, and induct the best of them into the Deathwing, where they became Bladeguard Veterans?

Given that Apharan was a Greyshield, and is implied to have gotten in:

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Apharan_(Primaris)


Afterwards, Apharan's actions led the Deathwing to initiate the process for him to join their ranks. Unbeknownst to him however, Grand Master Azrael had placed the chance of the Primaris' ever serving in the Inner Circle, on Apharan's shoulders. Many within his own Chapter and the Unforgiven did not trust the Primaris to learn the full history of the Fallen and were against them serving in the Inner Circle at all. With their strength depleted by recent battles, Azrael knew this was foolhardy, but could not ignore the naysayers' concerns, without risking a schism forming within their ranks. Thus, Azrael told them that Apharan's success or failure to earn entry into the Deathwing, would determine the matter and he would personally oversee the Primaris' trials. Apharan's later success, ended the debate for good and while some of the Unforgiven Masters still remain skeptical, their loyalty and trust in Azrael outweighs their doubts.[1a]

I'd speculate that he opened the way for a bunch of other Greyshields to be inducted and to form the first DA Bladeguard Veteran squads.

[Renegade Paladin]

Yeah, that's because GW realized that while having some chapters not like Primaris made sense, it meant they couldn't sell Primaris kits to people who play those chapters, so they reversed themselves on the quick. :smalltongue:

[Cheesegear]

Devastation of Baal

That is salvation, is it?’ said Seth. ‘I say otherwise. I say it is a deliberate action against our lord’s heritage, and the work of the Emperor himself.’
‘How can you say that?’ said Dante, appalled.
‘You are too noble to understand.’ Seth rounded on Dante. ‘That is not salvation, that is replacement. These new warriors will bear the colours of Flesh Tearers, but without Sanguinius’ fury they will be Flesh Tearers in name only. All my time as Chapter Master I have waged war on our rage, to wrestle it into submission and use its strength to slay our foes. We are fury! From the time of Amit, the savage lord, to this day, we have carried the white heat of Sanguinius’ anger in us. That was our gift and our burden. The flaw is what makes us what we are.’

‘We are nothing without the struggle against it. He would make us all Ultramarines in red armour.' ‘There are few of my warriors left, few true Flesh Tearers. Once we are dead, the Flesh Tearers will be no more, no matter that these abominations carry our name. It is a betrayal, not a boon. Guilliman will want us gone quickly, and his own warriors in our stead.’
‘Gabriel!’
Seth waved his hand. ‘Open your eyes, Dante. These Unnumbered Sons, they are Legions in all but name. I have spoken with the newcomers. They are only too glad to tell me of the Avenging Son’s plans. Wherever Guilliman goes, he leaves his men in place. Through the codex, he gave the Adeptus Astartes their independence. He is more than willing to remove it from us. Soon, the Chapters will be free in name only. And these new Space Marines, he has the gall to interfere with the work of the Emperor. If he is willing to do that…’ Seth fell silent suddenly.

Guilliman Arisen says the Codex is lame, and goes full Roman.
Seth doesn't like him or his Legionnaires at all.
Guy Haley snuck that in there way back in 2017, as 8th Ed. was coming out. Your Firstborn Marines will be subverted and overwritten. Maybe not now (2017)...But eventually (2020), the writing is on the wall.

So, once again...
...This fluff is not present in the 9th Ed. book. In fact I don't think it's in any Codex, because it's in a novel.


Not going by the description in 9E Codex Blood Angels.

No poop.


To the shock of every Flesh Tearer, the Greyshields that joined them were no less susceptible to the Black Rage. The curse within their gene-seed lay deeper than any knew. Doom was only postponed.

And we will forget when GW said that Cawl was such a genius he removed the Black Rage. Only the Red Thirst was actually part of the gene-seed.
That's why Devastation of Baal is written the way it is. Because at the time, there were going to be no Primaris Death Company because Cawl fixed it (8th Ed.). There was still going to be Red Thirst. Just no Death Company (probably 'cause they couldn't figure out how to make the models...And to be fair, they still didn't. Welcome to CAD. More Shoulder Pads than the '80s!). Guess they did a 180 on that?


Similar principles apply to Kantor. He may not have been entirely happy with the Greyshields Primaris reinforcements he got - but he accepted them and did not refuse to be reinforced.

That's what I said...Two years ago.
It doesn't matter what the fluff says, because GW's goal is to sell models. And every Chapter will have Primaris Marines in it regardless of the fluff. GW will justify it somehow.

Catastrophe happens. A Chapter gets down to less than 300 Marines ('sup Blood Angels, feeling Devastated?), then Guilliman shows up to save the Chapter with Primaris Marines.
Got Marines? Even though it takes less than 50 years to create an entire Chapter from 50 gene-seeds (The 5% gene-tithe), 'We can't wait that long' because Dark Imperium is happening and Blood Angels can't wait 50 years to get back in The Long War.

So Dante will take the Primaris Marines, over the objections of his own 1st Captain, and his closest ally. Because he has no choice.
Yeah. He 'accepted' Grayshields, alright.


It'll be interesting to see what the 9e DA codex says, when it comes out, about the degree to which the Dark Angels accepted the Greyshields.

They did accept them. You can tell because GW has fully painted Dark Angel Primaris armies - including Librarians - in their studio.

[Renegade Paladin]

Vigilus Defiant describes the Primaris Lieutenant that the Dark Angels send to treat with Calgar as just as uninformed as to the Chapter's actual goal on Vigilus as the rest of the council. At that time, at least, the Dark Angels were using the Primaris, but not trusting them.

[hamishspence]

...This fluff is not present in the 9th Ed. book. In fact I don't think it's in any Codex, because it's in a novel.


The codex has no problem with "Seth hates the idea" - it mentions Seth's worries. But, his worries don't mean he simply refuses to let the Greyshields into his chapter in the first place.


Even the 8e codex makes it clear that Cawl failed to cure the Flaw, long before Psychic Awakening - Wrath of Baal came out.



Gabriel Seth took the method making his own Primaris Marines, pretty sure every Chapter did. It's just Cawl's Originals that people don't like.



It is very 40k and very Gabriel Seth for him to turn down a chance to rescue his chapter from inevitable extinction he's been desperately trying to slow the pace of for hundreds of years. Because he just hates Guilliman that much.

The point I'm making is that "Seth refused to let the Greyshields Guilliman was offering enter the Flesh Tearers Chapter" never happened in the first place.

He didn't like them - but he did let them in.

[Cheesegear]

But, his worries don't mean he simply refuses to let the Greyshields into his chapter in the first place.

Of course not. No Chapter is going to refuse the Grayshields - or any Primaris Marines thereafter - because it's in GW's interests that they don't not accept.


The point I'm making is that "Seth refused to let the Greyshields Guilliman was offering enter the Flesh Tearers Chapter" never happened in the first place.

Okay. Sure.
Once again I used a word or phrase that probably doesn't fit the definition of what I might really mean, and that sparks a fun discussion where I look stupid because I'm actually agreeing with the person arguing against me. And all's we do is aggressively agree with each other.

Okay. 'Outright reject Grayshields' is the wrong phrase. What I meant was 'They deliberately shunned and resented Grayshields and made it their business to make the newcomers feel unwanted. However they did accept the process of making Primaris Marines, for the ones they made from scratch, weren't Cawl's Grayshields.'

This translates to...
You A Chapter doesn't have to like Primaris Marines right now, but in time you the Chapter will get on board, as GW/BL will slowly transition the rules training regime of Primaris Marines to be superior to Firstborn, so that you the Chapter feels like it's actually your their proactive choice in the matter. And it wont be social engineering at all.

[hamishspence]

I suspect that "Making the newcomers feel unwanted" didn't last too long in that particular case either.

After he'd put them through a few trials, going by the 9e Codex, Seth made full use of them, and the Flesh Tearers found out that even Greyshields could get the Black Rage.

Seth tends to change his mind when given the opportunity to. From Red Fury, he originally refused to tithe Marines to the Blood Angels when they were massively depleted, instead recommending that the Blood Angels be disbanded and the Flesh Tearers given Baal instead. But eventually, he changed his mind and tithed some of his men to Dante like everyone else.



The Dark Angels probably took a bit longer, until Apharan proved the worth of the Greyshields.

[Razgriez]

Watching this fight among/over GW's Marketing/Lore writers about Gabriel Seth and the FT lore with Primaris, as a fan of Ultramarines for 2 decades, all I can say is: "First Time?:smallbiggrin:"

But seriously though, from what I remember of Seth's old, pre-8th lore, and how you all describe him now with the story excerpts, he comes off more as Commander Contrarian rather than a leader conflicted about the Primaris. So rather than sticking to the older lore of Seth trying to direct the rage of the FT towards better goals that won't get them censured by the Imperium, he is unironically presented more as an Angron Poser, as he marches up to Dante and effectively claims only the FT are proper Blood Angels, because somehow, not wanting to suffer from the Butcher's Nails The Black Rage makes you less of Marine in Seth's eyes...:smallconfused:

Likewise, the Primaris portion of the lore reads more as desperately trying to appease all sides in the lore argument about how well Primaris would "fit in" with First Founding chapter like the Blood Angels and major successor chapter, and instead, misses the mark

The flaws which Cawl supposedly fixed returning feel more like something getting pulled from someone's rear armor plate in a desperate bid both by the lore writers to save a plot powerr/tabletop rule, and for Marketing to replace your First Born DC with Primaris DC. In attempting to do so, they end up just annoying everyone, except maybe those powergamers who didn't care about the lore anyways and just want more power for their army.

I think officially this has been the worst attempt at incorporating Primaris into the lore that I've seen.

[Cheesegear]

But seriously though, from what I remember of Seth's old, pre-8th lore, and how you all describe him now with the story excerpts, he comes off more as Commander Contrarian rather than a leader conflicted about the Primaris.

He is a Commander who is protective of the men under his command.
He is a Commander who fears:
a) At any moment, he will suffer the Black Rage and there will be no-one to replace him (there isn't), and
b) At any moment, his men will suffer from the Black Rage and all he's done for his Chapter (all those Inquisitors that he's murdered...) will be for nothing.


So rather than sticking to the older lore of Seth trying to direct the rage of the FT towards better goals that won't get them censured by the Imperium...

Seth doesn't give a **** about the Imperium. He cares about his men, Sanguinius (and his Sons), and the Emperor. In descending order.


he is unironically presented more as an Angron Poser, as he marches up to Dante and effectively claims only the FT are proper Blood Angels

Sanguinius said Guilliman was wrong, and ran off to die aboard the Vengeful Spirit.
If you aren't willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, you aren't one of Sanguinius' sons.

Whilst Dante is politicking with Guilliman, and trying to hold the Dark Imperium together. Seth is holding the Blood Angels Successors together.


not wanting to suffer from the Butcher's Nails The Black Rage makes you less of Marine in Seth's eyes...:smallconfused:

No. Not having to fight against The Black Rage makes you less of a Blood Angel. It's what makes you who you are, and it's what makes you strong. You wont know your strength until you are tested. And a Blood Angel is tested every. Damned. Day. If you can hold back The Black Rage, nothing else (e.g; Chaos) can break you, either. The Black Rage is necessary for Blood Angels to remain strong.

"Imperial Fists don't need The Pain Glove."
Don't they?

There's a reason Space Marine Chapters recruit off of Death Worlds.


Likewise, the Primaris portion of the lore reads more as desperately trying to appease all sides in the lore argument about how well Primaris would "fit in" with First Founding chapter like the Blood Angels and major successor chapter, and instead, misses the mark

No. It reads exactly like it should:
1. Some Chapters accept Primaris Marines with open arms.
2. Some Chapters are hesitant to accept and/or make Primaris Marines, but eventually come around when it's clear that they are generally superior to Firstborn.
3. Some Chapters don't accept Primaris Marines into the Chapter and continue to produce Firstborn in a Galaxy that has surpassed them.

GW will mostly write about the first two kinds. All roads lead to buying Primaris Marines. Whilst the third kind will politely be forgotten about.


I think officially this has been the worst attempt at incorporating Primaris into the lore that I've seen.

As I've repeatedly pointed out, the worst version of Primaris Marines are the Ascended.
Take your Firstborn, make them Primaris. It has a ~10% death rate, but nobody important will die from it. Buy the new model 'cause your current one is outdated.

[hamishspence]

3. Some Chapters don't accept Primaris Marines into the Chapter and continue to produce Firstborn in a Galaxy that has surpassed them.

Are there any chapters confirmed to have "not accepted Primaris Marines into them"?

In 8e, Chapters have been stated to have continued to produce Firstborn alongside Primaris, (without specifiying which Chapters do this).


But that's not quite the same as continuing to produce exclusively Firstborn.

[Silverraptor]

This is indirectly relevant to this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Rfp1rzhxk

[Fyraltari]

TTS is always relevant!
Took me way too long to get that He-Of-Massive-Name was the Deceiver. i was thinking Tzeentch for most of the video. Also, where was Magnus?

[Lord Raziere]

TTS is always relevant!
Took me way too long to get that He-Of-Massive-Name was the Deceiver. i was thinking Tzeentch for most of the video. Also, where was Magnus?

Probably off playing MtG. or some game that involves more magic, Stellaris isn't really good for wizard stuff.

that and half the video was basically reenacting the Horus heresy with Boy being the Horus stand in and the Deceiver being the Tzeentch stand in. to add in Magnus to that would complicate the basic plot of it, especially since there'd be no real way to simulate him playing out his role in Stellaris. The Deceivers rant of course is a bit meta: the Deceiver in TTS in some way sees the narrative of Wh40k and thus tries to keep the status quo because the alternative is progressing to inevitable doom.

also I like the fact that this is a power fantasy for the Emperor not because of the empires and conquering but because he gets to stand and have hair. Kitten meanwhile is the definition of "play lame, win game".

[Fyraltari]

Probably off playing MtG. or some game that involves more magic, Stellaris isn't really good for wizard stuff.

that and half the video was basically reenacting the Horus heresy with Boy being the Horus stand in and the Deceiver being the Tzeentch stand in. to add in Magnus to that would complicate the basic plot of it, especially since there'd be no real way to simulate him playing out his role in Stellaris. The Deceivers rant of course is a bit meta: the Deceiver in TTS in some way sees the narrative of Wh40k and thus tries to keep the status quo because the alternative is progressing to inevitable doom.

also I like the fact that this is a power fantasy for the Emperor not because of the empires and conquering but because he gets to stand and have hair. Kitten meanwhile is the definition of "play lame, win game".

I thought that was one of the Fab-stodes' power fantasy of being the Emperor.
Also, Magnus could totally have just sat in the sidelines of Kitten's factions making snarky commentary.
Also, also, it's good to see that the Celestial Shaman-Queen is fitting in. I hope Sir Wamri le Délicieux and Nrod Logarsson are doing as well.

[Lord Raziere]

I thought that was one of the Fab-stodes' power fantasy of being the Emperor.
Also, Magnus could totally have just sat in the sidelines of Kitten's factions making snarky commentary.
Also, also, it's good to see that the Celestial Shaman-Queen is fitting in. I hope Sir Wamri le Délicieux and Nrod Logarsson are doing as well.

Wait, was the voice of the Emperor guy one of the fabstodes? because if the voice one of them it'd explain how the guy repeated all of the Emperor's mistakes without seeing them. I thought it was the Emperor given how he powergames everything, knew the codes to start all three end times and did the "I trust you but not really" lines. but I guess the real Emperor wouldn't have time for this since he is already playing it in his actual life, technically. but one of the fabstodes could make sense, as I thought the voice was a little off but dismissed to him using a different speech thing for Stellaris.

[Fyraltari]

Wait, was the voice of the Emperor guy one of the fabstodes? because if the voice one of them it'd explain how the guy repeated all of the Emperor's mistakes without seeing them. I thought it was the Emperor given how he powergames everything, knew the codes to start all three end times and did the "I trust you but not really" lines. but I guess the real Emperor wouldn't have time for this since he is already playing it in his actual life, technically. but one of the fabstodes could make sense, as I thought the voice was a little off but dismissed to him using a different speech thing for Stellaris.


No, I think it actually is the Emperor, he's got golden subtitles. It's not tjat surprising he would make the same mistakes again, the guy has a borderline pathological refusal to admit to have ever done/been wrong.

[Eldan]

They also commented the part of the power fantasy is "being able to stand", which only makes sense for Emps.

[Saambell]

The best meta bit of that video is Bruva Alfabusa was officially sponsored by Paradox to make that video. Which just helps show how far hes come as a content creator. He use to do silly joke videos, then he sat down and started TTS. Now hes getting sponsorships from game companies and getting prank calls from Aaron Demski Bowdan. Yes, the official Black Library writer. This man has gone up in the world.

[Kris Strife]

Are there any chapters confirmed to have "not accepted Primaris Marines into them"?

In 8e, Chapters have been stated to have continued to produce Firstborn alongside Primaris, (without specifiying which Chapters do this).


But that's not quite the same as continuing to produce exclusively Firstborn.

Not any that still exist, as Guilliman sent the Custodes to wipe out any chapters who refused, iirc. Which feels like it should reinforce the "Primaris marines are Guilliman's agents sent to infiltrate our chapters" fear that some of them had.

[hamishspence]

Not any that still exist, as Guilliman sent the Custodes to wipe out any chapters who refused, iirc.
The Custodes were certainly there to ensure that the Primaris were accepted - as a "don't refuse gifts from The Emperor" message - but I don't think there's any instances of them needing to wipe out any "refusing Chapters".

The Sons of Medusa are one of Chapters that Guilliman & co. predicted would be most resistant, but it turned out they weren't nearly as resistant as expected.


https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Emissaries_Imperatus


The presence of the Adeptus Custodes also ensured that even the most traditional Chapters accepted the Primaris warriors into their ranks. One does not decline a gift from the Emperor's own hand, after all.

These were the envoys who brought Guilliman's gift to the Adeptus Astartes; their presence ensured that even those Chapters the Primarch did not visit in person understood the gravitas of what they were offered, and set aside whatever mistrust or conservatism they might have had in order to embrace the Emperor's beneficence in their hour of need.


And being required to accept the Greyshields, and the materials and information for producing new Primaris, doesn't mean being required to actually do the producing.

[Renegade Paladin]

Re: the TTS special, funny story; I actually bought Stellaris yesterday because it was on Humble Bundle. :smallamused:

[Silverraptor]

My favorite part was when all those empires were going to Kitten and requesting aid while the massive crusade was sweeping across the galaxy, he shows it has only been 10 years in game. I was dying laughing at that!:smallbiggrin:

[Platinius]

Are there any chapters confirmed to have "not accepted Primaris Marines into them"?

In 8e, Chapters have been stated to have continued to produce Firstborn alongside Primaris, (without specifiying which Chapters do this).


But that's not quite the same as continuing to produce exclusively Firstborn.

It wouldn't surprise me that these chapters do this to make certain the Primaris process is safe and has no unforseen sideffects that make them less effective, loyal or vulnerable to chaos.
Which is actually a pretty reasonable move, almost too reasonable for 40K.
And the nice part (for the chapter, not for the individual marines that have to undergo a second transformation that might acutally kill them despite being already fantastic warriors) is that they can still convert their newer firstborn into Primaris at 90% success rate.
To put it differently, something like 50 men (instead of potentially thousands and more) is a reasonable sacrifice to make sure you don't loose the entire chapter (hence the thousands and more) to an (in their eyes) untested method.

[Platinius]

(While I hate to double port, here is something of minor import)

A bit of poetry (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaLCzwRac2g)

and a happy Sanguinala to all of you

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Is it okay to ask fluff questions about the Old World and the Age of Myth in this thread still, or are we trying to keep this one 40K-exclusive? I just don't want to be rude. :smallredface:

[Wraith]

By all means, go right ahead - Despite the name being '40k', this thread usually becomes 'generic Games Workshop properties and company lore' anyway :smallsmile:

[Grim Portent]

Much like the miniature/hobby specific threads that have been tried in the past, there's just not enough traffic specific to the Old World or AoS fluff to keep a thread afloat, so both were informally rolled into the other threads.

All Warhammer fluff is fine here, and I think there have been miniature photos posted in these threads rather than post them into the tabletop discussions before.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Thank you!

Is shaving one's head required by ALL branches of Sigmar's cult (regular priests, templar orders like the Knights Griffon, the Witch Hunters, etc.) or is it only a thing for the iconic Warrior Priests?

[Cheesegear]

Is shaving one's head required by ALL branches of Sigmar's cult (regular priests, templar orders like the Knights Griffon, the Witch Hunters, etc.) or is it only a thing for the iconic Warrior Priests?

I believe until they do something else. For Novitiates and only continued for Priests.
Once you're no longer a Novitiate and you're a Wizard, Harry Witch Hunter or Knight, you can do what you want.
So they shave their head until they go out into the world as an adult.

At the very least, everyone in the Cult shaves their head at least once. Only Priests have to shave their heads all the time, though.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Thank you! Are all Wood Elf Spellsingers women or is it just that the Total Warhammer games only made female models for the Spellsinger hero units?

And how are Spellsingers trained anyway? How different would it be from the training High Elves go to Saphery for?

[hamishspence]

Thank you! Are all Wood Elf Spellsingers women or is it just that the Total Warhammer games only made female models for the Spellsinger hero units?

And how are Spellsingers trained anyway? How different would it be from the training High Elves go to Saphery for?

Going by the actual models, Wood Elf spellsingers can be of any gender.

I get the impression that Wood Elf training is all done by them - they don't send their people away to learn High Magic or Dark Magic. Ariel is probably the head of the wood elf magical training school.

[Grim Portent]

Spellsingers also have a connection to the spirit-mind of Athel-Loren, part of the whole to a lesser degree than the dryads and treemen and so on, but still connected on a fundmental level. It protects them from the dangers of magic to an extent, and furthers their already intuitive grasp of magic. The specifics of how they're trained as individuals is largely unspecified to my knowledge.

Wood elf high magic users are descended from the traditions they brought from Ulthuan, but less restrictive in nature.

Dark magic users are linked to the Ariel's own delve into sorcery and ensuing madness. Even after being purged of her corruption dark magic attuned spellweavers continued to be born in greater numbers, a perpetual remnant of the damage her actions had caused.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

So Wood Elf mages function kind of like D&D Sorcerers where their magical education is fueled by instinct and natural talent while High Elf ones are like D&D Wizards who learn magic through rote and academic study? :smallconfused:

[LansXero]

So Wood Elf mages function kind of like D&D Sorcerers where their magical education is fueled by instinct and natural talent while High Elf ones are like D&D Wizards who learn magic through rote and academic study? :smallconfused:

No, wood elf mages function like warhammer fantasy wizards and so do high elf ones. Warhammer is all about the Winds, there is nothing 'natural' about magic in the setting, and study or whatever equally only works around study of the winds. There is no D&D parallel to be made.

[Grytorm]

Hello again. I brought this up once before, maybe in another thread, and it led to an argument that felt weird to me. But anyway. In the game Total War Warhammer there is a follower named Dwarf Bride with the description of, "A Dwarf bride often comes with a hefty dowry - by tradition her weight in gold. Which probably explains why hot-blooded Dwarfs take to curvier maids!" This annoys me slightly but I am not going to get into that. Mostly I am asking about it again because at some point I looked up dwarf women on some wiki and it sighted a book which establishes that it is dwarf men who must pay a brideprice to marry. Any confirmation on this one way or the other?

The article mentioned. Dwarf Womenfolk (https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Dwarf_Womenfolk). The citation is listed as Grudgelore pg. 14.

Also I think I started thinking about this because I remembered my idea of how a dwarf woman legendary lord in Total War Warhammer could be fluffed if they decided to make something up. Basically an aging matriarch who has had many husbands, many brothers, and many sons all dead. And after so many she got fed up and decided to take her long list of grudges into her own hands.

[Wraith]

Wood Elves and High Elves are the same species - like Aeldari in 40k being low-key psykers, they're all innately magical but they learn to harness it according to their own faction's preferred teaching.

To use D&D vernacular; Wood Elves are Druids, High Elves are Wizards, and Dark Elves are something between Wizards and Warlocks, having built their city to encourage the formation of Dhar (Dark Magic) that they can harness through training and use as a 'battery' to power their spells.

[LansXero]

. And after so many she got fed up and decided to take her long list of grudges into her own hands.

And do what? Dwarves exist within a clan, if her clan's males are all dead then what exactly is she 'lord' of? Also, she likely answers to some king or another and a council of elders so on whose authority is she 'taking it into her own hands'?

Unless its likely a female slayer or something but then 'random pissed off dwarf housewife' isnt exactly going to be relevant in a setting choke full of absurdly op threats and heros.

[LansXero]

Wood Elves and High Elves are the same species - like Aeldari in 40k being low-key psykers, they're all innately magical but they learn to harness it according to their own faction's preferred teaching.

To use D&D vernacular; Wood Elves are Druids, High Elves are Wizards, and Dark Elves are something between Wizards and Warlocks, having built their city to encourage the formation of Dhar (Dark Magic) that they can harness through training and use as a 'battery' to power their spells.

However, elves are unique on being able to handle both multiple colors and high magic through the combination of all of them, which is common to all three. There is a lot of what makes D&D druids that simply doesnt apply to wood elves, likewise for wizards; colleges and schools of magic are for measly humans.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

No, wood elf mages function like warhammer fantasy wizards and so do high elf ones. Warhammer is all about the Winds, there is nothing 'natural' about magic in the setting, and study or whatever equally only works around study of the winds. There is no D&D parallel to be made.
I know that, I'm asking about technique and how that's passed on. Humans have the Colleges of Magic, High Elves have the White Tower of Hoeth, but for Wood Elves, the way people seem to be describing it is that Spellsingers instinctually learn new spells directly from Athel Loren's "hive-mind," like once they've gained enough experience they just sort of wake up with new, more powerful spells in their brain that they didn't know yesterday. Am I understanding that correctly?

If I'm playing WFRP and my character is a Wood Elf Wizard, how do I describe how he became a Wizard when writing his backstory?

[hamishspence]

One wizard being able to fire off spells from multiple different lores in the same battle though, is somewhat rare - mostly the purview of special characters, like Alarielle.

Usually, a High Elf Mage (or Archmage) will select all their spells from one Lore before the battle (at least, in editions prior to Age of Sigmar).

Except Loremasters (who automatically know the Signature spell from each of the 8 Lores) and Teclis (who may choose 1 spell from each of the 8 Lores, or may know all High Magic spells).

[Grytorm]

And do what? Dwarves exist within a clan, if her clan's males are all dead then what exactly is she 'lord' of? Also, she likely answers to some king or another and a council of elders so on whose authority is she 'taking it into her own hands'?

Unless its likely a female slayer or something but then 'random pissed off dwarf housewife' isnt exactly going to be relevant in a setting choke full of absurdly op threats and heros.

Why can't dwarf women be exceptional individuals?

As for ways a dwarf woman could take a more important role than usual.

I would first assume that dwarf clans would include multiple families some of higher status than others. Other possible leaders could be from lower or more distant families leaving leadership in a state of uncertainty. And if this moment of uncertainty happens during a time of crisis then the Queen may take on more authority than would normally be expected of her.

Perhaps she was originally from a family which made its fortune dealing with humans while at the same time leaving them somewhat dissconected from standard kinship networks. Eventually the family was able to arrange a marriage between themselves and the kinsman of the King of an impoverished clan. Things happened eventually leading to her husband becoming King. And because of who died when she ends up in control of her families fortune giving her the opportunity to grab control of the clan by their long and bushies.

[Grim Portent]

I know that, I'm asking about technique and how that's passed on. Humans have the Colleges of Magic, High Elves have the White Tower of Hoeth, but for Wood Elves, the way people seem to be describing it is that Spellsingers instinctually learn new spells directly from Athel Loren's "hive-mind," like once they've gained enough experience they just sort of wake up with new, more powerful spells in their brain that they didn't know yesterday. Am I understanding that correctly?

If I'm playing WFRP and my character is a Wood Elf Wizard, how do I describe how he became a Wizard when writing his backstory?

A wood elf wizard would be noticed by their kin as having a greater affinity for magic than the normal wood elves, a greater sensitivity to the changes of the winds and the magical creatures and places of Athel Loren. Once this was noticed they'd probably be apprenticed to an existing wizard to teach them the basics and figure out which magical lore they're most attuned to and perform the rituals binding them to the magical forest.

Once they had the basics down and their affinity had been identified they'd likely be apprenticed to a specific wizard who's an expert in the same lore and start learning real spells. The exact nature of the training at this point would depend on their lore, but it would likely involve time spent exploring in parts of Athel Loren rich in the winds of magic, talking to forest spirits that know the lore and similar things, as opposed to reading books and being beaten with rulers when they stumble over incantations like the high elves or humans.


Ariel is involved in teaching wizards to some extent, but if she teaches every wizard or just particularly notable ones is a mystery to me.

[Forum Explorer]

Also I think I started thinking about this because I remembered my idea of how a dwarf woman legendary lord in Total War Warhammer could be fluffed if they decided to make something up. Basically an aging matriarch who has had many husbands, many brothers, and many sons all dead. And after so many she got fed up and decided to take her long list of grudges into her own hands.

For some reason, I think Dwarves typically only have one spouse. I'm not sure if I made that up, or if that's something I picked up somewhere. But I think dwarves just don't remarry.

Also I don't think that's particularly notable. Last old dwarf of a clan going out and settling grudges is the basis of a lot of fantasy dwarves.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

A wood elf wizard would be noticed by their kin as having a greater affinity for magic than the normal wood elves, a greater sensitivity to the changes of the winds and the magical creatures and places of Athel Loren. Once this was noticed they'd probably be apprenticed to an existing wizard to teach them the basics and figure out which magical lore they're most attuned to and perform the rituals binding them to the magical forest.

Once they had the basics down and their affinity had been identified they'd likely be apprenticed to a specific wizard who's an expert in the same lore and start learning real spells. The exact nature of the training at this point would depend on their lore, but it would likely involve time spent exploring in parts of Athel Loren rich in the winds of magic, talking to forest spirits that know the lore and similar things, as opposed to reading books and being beaten with rulers when they stumble over incantations like the high elves or humans.

Ariel is involved in teaching wizards to some extent, but if she teaches every wizard or just particularly notable ones is a mystery to me.
Now THIS is the kind of information I was looking for! Thank you! :smallsmile:

Given the backstory I'm writing has the character come from Laurelorn (which recently got a LOT more detail from the new Archives of the Empire book that makes me INCREDIBLY happy!) rather than Athel Loren itself, I imagine learning under Ariel herself would be something more like a long-term goal for them, a reason for them to "ride off into the sunset" after the campaign's climax.

[comicshorse]

Ariel is involved in teaching wizards to some extent, but if she teaches every wizard or just particularly notable ones is a mystery to me.

She gives the speech on Graduation Day :smallsmile:

Posted by Archpaladin Zoushua

If I'm playing WFRP and my character is a Wood Elf Wizard, how do I describe how he became a Wizard when writing his backstory?

I'm thinking draw inspiration from Luke training with Yoda in 'The Empire Strikes Back', or from any number of Kung Fu movies . You are taken with the old master, alone into the forest to study the ebb and flow of its magics and unlock the abilities within you. A time of quiet meditation where you learn to become in tune with the forest

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'm thinking draw inspiration from Luke training with Yoda in 'The Empire Strikes Back'. You are taken with the old master, alone into the forest to study the ebb and flow of its magics and unlock the abilities within you
Ooh, I like this idea, especially since in order to advance in the Wizard career in WFRP you have to get an apprentice of your own at some point! Skywalker even sounds like an epithet a Wood Elf might take! :smallbiggrin:

On a related note for High Elves, the White Tower of Hoeth isn't the ONLY place High Elf wizards come from, right? It's like the MIT or Harvard of magic, but only the real try-hards like the Loremasters and of course Teclis get their education there?

[LansXero]

Why can't dwarf women be exceptional individuals?

Females? sure. Old lived-her-entire-life-as-matriarch ones though? hard sell. There is a reason 'exceptional individuals' are such: they train from a very young age / amongst their elite, divine intervention, affinity to magic, wartime experience, etc. You're not describing such a woman, you're describing a lifelong housewive suddenly thrown into active warzones. Angry, sure, but unlikely to be more than a casualty.


I would first assume that dwarf clans would include multiple families some of higher status than others. Other possible leaders could be from lower or more distant families leaving leadership in a state of uncertainty. And if this moment of uncertainty happens during a time of crisis then the Queen may take on more authority than would normally be expected of her.

Wars, and this is a huge part of the setting, are won on logistics first. A clan that keeps losing members and having such horrendous losses that their leadership keeps dying off will just be folded into a bigger, stronger one because those resources are better spent that way than keeping up the 'independence' of a provenly unviable combat unit. Why would you let them waste more troops, armor, weapons, serfs, etc. when better leadership can put all that to better use?


Perhaps she was originally from a family which made its fortune dealing with humans while at the same time leaving them somewhat dissconected from standard kinship networks. Eventually the family was able to arrange a marriage between themselves and the kinsman of the King of an impoverished clan. Things happened eventually leading to her husband becoming King. And because of who died when she ends up in control of her families fortune giving her the opportunity to grab control of the clan by their long and bushies

Armor isn't forged on its own. Weapons, food, routes, etc. are a huge part of the long, mostly boring descriptions for campaigns on the setting. A rogue 'unique and special' clan will likely die to the last alone and unsupported when the next waagh rolls into town, because regardless of their individual pluck, you cant fight on an empty stomach with ruined armor and weapons.

[Wraith]

For some reason, I think Dwarves typically only have one spouse. I'm not sure if I made that up, or if that's something I picked up somewhere. But I think dwarves just don't remarry.

Also I don't think that's particularly notable. Last old dwarf of a clan going out and settling grudges is the basis of a lot of fantasy dwarves.

I think there is scope for widowers to remarry, though I couldn't think of anything specific that said it definitely happened.

Dwarf women are outnumbered by males by approximately 4 to 1, and at the same time their status is only ever has high as that of their husband. That is why dowries are common; Dwarf woman are in a position to be very, very picky about their spouse. Similarly, it is mandatory to marry outside of their own Clan in order to create strong ties of alliance and to prevent inbreeding, with some exceptions made for royalty who have more freedom to keep their ties exclusively royal if they prefer. Female dwarfs have all the cards in hand, when it comes to deciding upon nuptials.

Quite notably, Dwarf women also start to get married around the age of majority (30 years) whereas menfolk wait until later, around 70 or more. Similarly, Dwarf women live on average 4 times longer than men. So, if a female Dwarf marries relatively young to a male who is older, and she is very, very likely to outlive him anyway, and child-bearing women are in very high demand... It makes more sense that Dwarf women having second husbands is even more likely than in humans.

And all of the above is assuming that all Dwarfs share the same values, which they don't. Expatriate Dwarfs (https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Expatriate_Dwarf) are a thing - they're essentially Dwarfs who have been forced to abandon their Holds and live more like humans, as 'Flatlanders', which by necessity means that they have given up or abandoned many of their ancestors' traditions. In which case, marriage and the associated formality are among the first to go, and Expatriate women are just as likely to be adventurers as the males for example. Second husbands probably wouldn't be at all remarkable, if that's what they wanted to go for.

[Grytorm]

Nods. All very interesting. The impression I get is a character that solves all current objections is possible but putting in the effort to do so here wouldn't be a productive use of time.

As for the dwarf marriage customs where are you getting that info from... I misread the last post slightly. Because I know the term bride price I tend to read dowry as money/gifts going with the bride not things flowing the other way.

[Wraith]

As for the dwarf marriage customs where are you getting that info from... I misread the last post slightly. Because I know the term bride price I tend to read dowry as money/gifts going with the bride not things flowing the other way.

The main 'Dwarf' article (https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Dwarf) on the same wiki that I linked for Expatriates. It does describe Dwarf dowries - admittedly that's the human word used to describe something only somewhat similar rather than identical. It is paid for by the male's family to the female's, typically an amount that is literally equal to her weight in gold. And I mean literally - Dwarf women are weighed at their engagement on a big set of scales.

It's less about the money itself, rather proving that the male Dwarf can provide his wife with the lifestyle to which she is accustomed, or better. Hence why Dwarf Princesses can 'marry downwards' without social upset, provided that her husband is rich enough.

[Platinius]

The main 'Dwarf' article (https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Dwarf) on the same wiki that I linked for Expatriates. It does describe Dwarf dowries - paid for by the male's family to the female's, typically an amount that is literally equal to her weight in gold. Literally - Dwarf women are weighed at their engagement on a big set of scales.

It's less about the money itself, rather proving that the male Dwarf can provide his wife with the lifestyle to which she is accustomed, or better. Hence why Dwarf Princesses can 'marry downwards' without social upset, provided that her husband is rich enough.

Honestly, that is adorable compared to the general grimness of the Warhammer fantasy setting, though I do find it odd that there is such a gender ratio disparity.

[LansXero]

though I do find it odd that there is such a gender ratio disparity.

Wait until you remember Skavens. And then you have Lizardmen who are actually genderless because they just spawn fully formed.

[Grim Portent]

On that note, do the Lizardmen have any influence over the spawning pools or do they work largely independant of the desires of the Lizardmen?

I've never been wholly clear on if the Slann can make the pools create a new generation or if generations just happen according to some ancient timetable the Slann are only partially aware of.

[LansXero]

Its definitely not a set timetable as pools spawn more / special lizardmen in response to invasions, but I dont remember it ever been mentioned that Slanns handle it themselves either.

[gooddragon1]

So if the Badeptus Astartes are chaos space marines and the Madeptus Astartes are the angry marines... who are the sadeptus Astartes?

[Artanis]

So if the Badeptus Astartes are chaos space marines and the Madeptus Astartes are the angry marines... who are the sadeptus Astartes?

Lamenters.

[Fyraltari]

Radeptus Astartes?

[Artanis]

Radeptus Astartes?

Hmm. Either White Scars, Noise Marines, or Fire Hawks/LotD, depending on the definition of "rad" involved.

[Wraith]

There's probably a Chapter out there who specialise in having Destroyers and their associated nuclear weaponry? Can't bring to mind who it would be, apart from the Dusk Raiders/Death Guard who used to have Scorched Earth as their gimmick before they sold themselves to Chaos.