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

[Forum Explorer]

Such is the paradox of immortality. If you live long enough, the chance that you will be horribly maimed and forced to live (forever) in agony and despair inevitably approaches 100%. It's no longer a matter of 'if' it will happen but just 'when' - whether its 1 year away or 10,000, you can't dodge every bullet, every time, forever.

No wonder so many Space Marines - already superhuman, already immortal - turn to Chaos. Immortality is a lot more fun when one knows they can invoke the gift of their God in order to grow back their arms and legs when they inevitably lose them....

To be fair, the Imperium does have pretty good medical technology. Cybernetics make for good replacements, and are plentiful enough.

[LeSwordfish]

I mean, very straightforwardly they made The Mandalorian vulnerable by giving him things and people to protect, and principles to maintain while he did it. Space Marines protect big abstracts like "this gate" or "this planet" or "the imperium" and on occasion they actually do have to look after other people, they're typically kind of a **** to them. And then they're indoctrinated so their principles are, essentially, "try really hard not to lose" which is much harder to use as a separate source of tension than "don't ever show your face". In a way, that's a thing Deathwatch does very well - you can eke at least some drama out of "don't ever retreat" or "I should always be in charge" or "kill anybody who's a heretic", especially if it's not the baseline expectation of every named character in your story.

[Kris Strife]

...Is because Space Marines sell more than any other GW product, so they have a vested interest in making them look great and driving more sales.

I always wonder, and not just with GW stuff, how much of that is because they put 90% of their promotional materials towards that one part of their product line.

[noob]

I always wonder, and not just with GW stuff, how much of that is because they put 90% of their promotional materials towards that one part of their product line.

Because they like tall men?

[Cheesegear]

Pretty long way of saying you agree that poor writing is the problem.

I'm clarifying that it feels like the writing is intentionally poor, and that's the problem.

I mean, very straightforwardly they made The Mandalorian vulnerable by giving him things and people to protect, and principles to maintain while he did it.

There are several - and many major - sequences and scenes where that just isn't the case.

Space Marines protect big abstracts like "this gate" or "this planet" or "the imperium" and on occasion they actually do have to look after other people, they're typically kind of a **** to them. And then they're indoctrinated so their principles are, essentially, "try really hard not to lose"...

Which again falls into another characterisation problem of Space Marines; What is it, that Space Marines want? What are they working towards? What are their hopes and goals?
Unfortunately, unless you present your Marines as underdogs (which GW/BL doesn't, anymore), they don't really want, anything. Except to win the current engagement. Why? So they can win the next one. And then the next one after that, too.

That's why Space Marines are so hard to write - accidentally and intentionally - because how do you give a Space Marine, a want? What do they want? They don't want anything, because they're indoctrinated to not want anything except exactly what's already on the tin.

Gabriel Seth has very clear goals, and that's why he's one of my favourites. I actually know who he is and what he's about.

In a way, that's a thing Deathwatch does very well - you can eke at least some drama out of "don't ever retreat" or "I should always be in charge" or "kill anybody who's a heretic", especially if it's not the baseline expectation of every named character in your story.

Deathwatch - and other 40K RPGs - are, well, RPGs. The players get out of it exactly what they put in, and since it's game, failure states and threats are built into the game and they can't really be avoided.

I always wonder, and not just with GW stuff, how much of that is because they put 90% of their promotional materials towards that one part of their product line.

Circles.
GW sells Space Marines. Space Marines sell. Promote the fact that Space Marines sell, so that Space Marines sell more. GW sells even more Space Marines.
If Space Marines never sold in the first place, would GW promote them?

[Wraith]

To be fair, the Imperium does have pretty good medical technology. Cybernetics make for good replacements, and are plentiful enough.

True, but going down that road eventually gets you put into a Dreadnought, which has been described as a fate worse than death by even some Loyalists whose only goal is to kill the enemies of the Emperor.
Or if you're not Astartes, that still leads ultimately to Servitordom. Did you know that those guys are functionally immortal, too? Even during the Heresy, Sanguinius had a servitor in his office that had served him for about ~180 years, and had belonged to the Legion long before that.

Even if you don't go that far, augmetics kind of suck. Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium, complains that despite being stronger his bionic fingers aren't as tactile as his real fingers. Battle-Captain Garro, who has access to bionics meant for the top 1% of Astartes Legion in quality, hates his bionic leg because it just doesn't compare to his peak physical prowess.

I always wonder, and not just with GW stuff, how much of that is because they put 90% of their promotional materials towards that one part of their product line.

A long, long time ago - I think during the slump of 4th edition or something like that, just before Specialist Games closed down for the second time - I read a statistic/report/something or other that stated that Space Marines accounted for 50% of all GW products. This was when Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Necromunda, Blood Bowl, Mordheim, Epic 40k and Lord of the Rings were all still supported, but before Black Library had really started to pick up speed, so if it's even close to true then it's impressive and implies that Space Marines were genuinely just popular.

From what I remember of 2nd edition, when I started playing and when GW pretty much was just 40k or WHF, Space Marines were popular because they were Space Marines. I definitely agree that they have had a considerable push since those long gone days, but I also think it at least started in genuine appeal to players rather than hype alone.
Especially given how AoS exploded in a way that I don't think anyone was able to predict - by all rights it should be the New Popular Kid On The Block, but still Space Marines have nearly as many codices available as AoS has army books combined. AoS was a runaway success, but people still seem to prefer Marines - I find it hard to believe that GW marketing alone is the cause of that, given how many hundreds of thousands of dollars were thrown at the AoS launch.

[Platinius]

Hmm, in the context of Darktide, Fatshark could also have made a game where you play 4 different Sisters of Battle, preferably from different orders and different specs.
They could also have made a group of assassins with each from a different temple to form the group.
They could have taken a member from some of the most famous IG regiments like a Catachan, a Cadian Shocktrooper, a Death Korps of Krieg combat engineer, a Vostoryan Firstborn and Mordant Acid Dog. This would have been neat in part because it could have given them easy material for interaction when they each mention their uniquely horrible homeworlds (or for the Cadian, how it is not there anymore)

I mention these in these groups to keep their relative power level close enough to each other.

[Lord Torath]

Have you tried the Wayback Machine? Or if you've forgotten the URL, do you remember any distinct phrasing from any of the stories that could be used in a targeted search?

I don't have the url for the old website.

But here's the short story:

Spoiler: The Intruder

Show

The ice was gone, of course, long before the seas themselves went during the sacrilegious bombardment of Holy Terra by the forces of the Great Traitor. All that was left behind was bare rock, rippled and whorled into a new sea of glassy, black stone from the unimaginable forces unleashed during those darkest of days.
Seeking new territory on Holy Terra came the Inquisition; the dread Ordo Hereticus. From one pole, already the site of their hidden headquarters, to another they went, new dungeons to exhume. Under this fused and newly-frozen ocean the Inquisition dug. Deep into the tortured bedrock they went, new halls and chambers won from the cold, dead stone, and filled with unnamable and eldritch secrets wrenched bleeding from a galaxy of horrors, stored far beneath the surface, never to rise.
Their labyrinthine delvings continued over the decades and centuries that followed, their underground empire branching new limbs and organs in the stygian depths, but the rumours that had plagued the sunken fortress of despair could not be buried.
Rumours of a man who stalked the tunnels, the corridors, the hallways in the eternal night, wreathed in red fire and rimmed with hoar-frost. Rumours of a man who was not a man, a daemon who could not be caught, not even by those who hunted the greatest and most mortal enemies of the Imperium. A cursed revenant of ages past who appeared once every year, evading security systems that could catch the mote in a man’s eye, one breath in a hurricane, the shadow of a shadow. Locked doors could not stop him; trusted steel and adamantium like rain unto a wave, and so the Inquisition huddled in their cells once a year, terrified to fall asleep.
But sleep they must, and sleep they did. And awoke, in the fake morning of that fake night, to find by their beds a single piece of darkest anthracite. And always the echoes, fading away down the endless halls and tunnels:
“Ho. Ho. Ho.”

That story was linked to on the old Eastern Fringe Forums, which are now defunct. I guess I could check the Wayback Machine for that one. Here's hoping!
Edit: No joy at the Wayback Fringe.

[Wraith]

Bittersweet news, for those who remember it - Today is Black Library Rejection Day. Responses are finally coming in from the Halloween Horror submissions, so be sure to check your inboxes if you applied.

Unfortunately, but not really surprisingly, BL weren't interested in my idea for The Usual Suspects-Meets-Hannibal in Space, so...maybe next year?

[LeSwordfish]

What are some good Imperial Fist Horus Heresy books? In case I was, say, staring down the possibility of picking up a super expensive, super hard to paint army.

A follow up to this: I pulled the trigger on said expensive hard to paint army with a second hand copy of Betrayal at Calth, and picked up Praetorian of Dorn as well, which I enjoyed a lot! Felt like a good contrast of fighting styles and skills, nearly had me wanting an Alpha Legion army instead. I'm really enjoying Dorn's characterisation, though.