Nobledark Imperium Part IXb: Wraithbone Balls Edition (Plus bonus DLC)

>>50719277
If the nobledark!Imperium is meant to be almost like Lord of the Rings in SPESS with men and eldar and other races uniting to survive against the forces of evil, I suggest the 'nids could almost take an Ungoliant-like role in the overall setting, that is the OHGODWHAT faction that seems to come out of complete left field and poses a threat to "good" and "evil" alike.

The tyranids are the foe that absolutely no one saw coming. Chaos is the Great Enemy, yes, but to an extent the Imperium understands how they work and how to deal with them. The Necrons are much the same, the Eldar still remember them and know what they are capable of, even if the younger races don't. Tyranids? No one could have expected the tyranids. Who could have ever known that such a race could have existed that was technically non-sentient yet still spacefaring, let alone being driven almost exclusively by a hunger almost akin to madness.

>>50720137
Several psykers and farseers have tried making contact with the tyranid hivemind, as opposed to just watching it wage destruction from afar like everyone else. Out of the dozen or so that remained sane after their experience, they all reported hearing the same, overwhelming message in their mind. "I HUNGER".

Now, it needs to be said that despite being composed of all of two words, the actual meaning of this psychic transmission is a much more complicated idea that is inappropriately conveyed by verbal speech. "I" in this case, could almost be better approached as "I/We", the chittering of the thousands upon thousands of individual sub-minds that make up the tyranid hive mind. And the word "hunger" in this case fails to profoundly describe the gaping rapaciousness that drives the tyranid hive mind, a train of thought more akin to obsession than any biological drive. Tyranids have no fear of death, for the sub-minds know that when they die they will be reabsorbed into the hive fleet, secreted again into new bodies when it is time to consume another world in a desperate attempt to sate the hunger in their bodies.

Occasionally, tyranid fleets have been observed going to war with each other, even in (or in spite of) the presence of other enemies. The people of the regular!40k Imperium thought this was some kind of Darwinian survival mechanism, hive fleet pitting itself against hive fleet for the overall improvement of the swarm. The people of the nobledark!Imperium know better. They know that the tyranid fleets attack each other not out of any intentional benefit for the swarm, but because hive fleets are so driven to such desperation by their hunger that they fall upon their kin in their madness.

>>50719277
I have to say, I like the idea that the loyalist DAs are so obsessed with purging the heretics because the majority of them (including some of the ones that caused Space Marine from other chapters to fall) cam from the DAs. It seems more natural than "the Lion was a secret traitor" or "the Lion was loyal all along but we're going to make everyone in the galaxy suspicious just because".

HEY MOM, I'M ON TV... ARCHIVE THIS... YOU FUCKS

I've added the previous threads Khan stuff to the 1d4chan page.

>>50719277
>Croneldar seem to not exist apart from one bit of writefaggotry that I don't think even got mirrored on the wiki.

It is on the Wiki now under the Crone World Eldar section.

Going to make it collapsible at some point.

Going to add the shit about Lady Malys the Deamon-Queen to it after that.

>>50714708
any opinions on my spitballing for the illuminati?

>>50721114
Looks pretty fucking sweet. Lots of potential shenanigans with them the Inquisition, the Alpha Legion (assuming they aren't the other 2) and the other sneaky xeno groups.

Also Cegorach supplying confusing and contradictory information to all sides for no reason other than just because.

File: 1440854402842.jpg (230KB, 1006x617px) Image search: [Google]

230KB, 1006x617px

I do so hope this is still here when I get back from work.

>>50720244

Pre-WOTB, the DAs were the largest and oldest Astartes Legion. During the WotB, 2/3rds DA broke away with Luther to crusade against Imperial Eldar Sectors, diverting massive resources and slated reinforcements needed against the Crone Eldar and their Green Hordes.

>>50719277
I think part of the reason why no one has really been able to deal with what day to day life is like in the Imperium is that the exact nature of living conditions that are going to be available to the average citizen are heavily dependent on what the Emperor allows. In general, in 40k things are so bad because people are desperate to survive because the Imperium has almost nothing and so almost anything is allowed.

But here, you don't have as great of a lack of technology due to trade with the Eldar, the Emperor leaning on the Ad-Mech a bit more and no Horus Heresy to double-fuck everything so standards of living go down. Most hive cities are pretty nice places to live now, and since in this timeline he is much more of a humanitarian, the Emperor is going to put his foot down over things like Penitent Engines or extreme dehumanization of servitors. The Emperor may not be averse to slavery or oppose servitorization for the Imperium's worst crimimals, but there's no way he would allow something like an Arco-Flagellant to exist.

Of course, the Emperor can't be everywhere, and a lot of shady stuff is going to be done behind his back, but on the whole it's going to be pretty hard to get away with the brazen acts of dehumanization that are so typical of grimdark!40k. Much of civilian life is going to end up being completely different just because you don't have hoards of people living off corpsestarch on every planet and people being whipped to manually load ship cannons. Of course, this increased glory of the cities just serves to show how much is at stake if the Imperium goes down and gives people a reason to fight against the darkness, even if it may be futile, as befits a Nobledark universe.

Before I go any further with my own colony fluff I'm just gonna post a really short summary too make sure this stuff ain't too sue or slaps previous fluff in the face.

So the system is located on the outer edge of segmentum obscurus.

The colony goes from a regular mining society to a technocratic meritocracy due to a change in leadership.

The events leading to the change in leadership makes the heir cold but cooperative towards the Imperium.

The colony shares some of their work publicly but a lot of it is kept secret and hidden in undocumented locations.

Every generation since the heir was made in charge have been subjugated to rigorous education.
(think cadians military training but... sciency)
Those who succeed may reside on the capital planet, those who fail are sent to secundus to work on the agri world.
The success rate is fairly high (78%).

All financial surplus is dedicated to scientific discoveries by either constructing new facilities or obtaining more equipment to aid research teams and the education of the young.

The PDF excels at large scale defensive warfare and smaller offensive skirmishes and is hard to defeat when organized but their military apparatus suffer greatly from the following.

Attrition-
The AdMech HATES these people and want nothing to do with them.
This gives them a very small fleet and problems of maintaining supply lines should they have to move forces outside of the system.
Only a few ships before the change in leadership remain with warp travel capability

Technological crutch-
Their military training is focused on using technology and when it fails they panic.

Their unique military tech will be shown in greater detail when I post the large fluffy chunk (as long as the seem okay, if not I will rework it).

(1/2)

>>50722974


While not as advanced in general as the creations of the AdMech, this society knows exactly how everything they've made works in the tiniest detail.
They also know how their surroundings work to the same extent as we do today plus some additional advances(can't make them too hamstrung).

The Imperium at large don't care about this colony apart from getting their tithes on due.
But there are a handful of individuals who know the secret technology they are working on and can't wait for its completion.

There is a lot of other stuff regarding their technology, society and culture but I don't wanna spoil anything until I can post the detailed description.

(2/2)

>>50722987

The fluff seems reasonable given that other civilizations like the Interex or the Squats can maintain a level of autonomy or even outright freedom from the toaster fuckers.

>>50721739
What reason would the DAs have to be the biggest legion? They don't have the logistics of a legion like the Ultramarines.

To give a little more detail on how Luther manages to win over so many DAs, I see Lion in this AU savant in military tactics but potentially somewhere on the autism spectrum. He relies heavily on Luther for dealing with people and running the day to day, which would make Luther a Primarch in all but name and level of influence close to the Lion's within the legion.

>>50712528
I see where you're coming from, but I do think it strays from the core Jaghatai, who I never saw particularly compassionate or concerned with individual people, but rather uniting humanity as a whole. However, I will defer to you as the writefag as you took the time to write it up, so keep up the good work.

page 9 bump, c'mon guys

>>50724683
I like the idea of Lion being genuinely slightly autistic.

The you could have a conversation with him but you probably wouldn't enjoy it level of autism.

File: 1379849306083.jpg (768KB, 1200x1124px) Image search: [Google]

768KB, 1200x1124px

>>50722114
Keep in mind that the Imperium is assaulted on all sides and has been in a state of war since it's Founding days.

It's grandeur has faded. The siege has gone on for too long. Perty might have designed those Hives to offer some comforts to the masses but in the dying of the Dark Millennium they are in less than optimal condition.

There is poverty but is not this time created from indifference.

>>50723358
Squats have their own branch of the Mechanicus.

It features a lot more hand made things of high quality but are less good at industrial level things.

>>50727534
Fuck me I didn't know that.

This is from one of the earlier threads correct?

>>50728032
There's been ten threads, there's bound to be some misinformation.

>>50728032
>>50728398
I don't think it has been discussed, but that sounds reasonable enough to me. The Mechanicus probably let the Squats do their own thing since they see them more as tinkerers and artisan rather than true industrialists and scientists.

File: alt-dorf pub.jpg (149KB, 671x854px) Image search: [Google]

149KB, 671x854px

>>50728032
Yes but based on the Engineers Guild from old GW fluff I think.

I also liked to imagine that they were way more socialist than the rest of the Imperium. They had longevity treatments but thy would only implement them if they could be shared by all. The result was everyone got to live to be 220 and maybe a bit more. Contrast to the Imperium where almost everybody has a basic human lifespan but the exceptional can live to be a thousand.

Also the longevity treatments keep you healthy but they don't keep you young. Most of your time you send as a spry and quite well preserved old person, but still old. Consequently birth rate was slower than the population numbers would suggest at first glance.

Result is that their armies are lacking in brute man power but supplemented with hand crafted Legio Cybernetica. They argue that they have not broken the First Commandment because they are not true A.I. becasue they lack sufficient intelligence and are usually somewhere between a well train dog and cuttlefish in terms of brains.

Mechanicus still REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE at them because degrees of blasphemy is still blasphemy. Sadly for the Mars Mechanicus the Hub Worlds are a Survivor Civilization and so joined the Imperium on the exact same style of deal that Mars did so they can go fuck themselves.

The Martian Priesthood got some level of revenge by erroneously classifying them as abhuman. They aren't. They look like that due to the gravity on their home worlds. If they raise their kids on a world with weak pussy gravity they grow up to look like regular humans.

File: 1441158676083.gif (2MB, 500x282px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 500x282px

Are there additional C'tan or just the same 4?

>>50728398
>>50728470
>>50728502

Good thing you guys are around otherwise I probably would have made an ass of myself in a later thread.

File: etyjw.gif (2MB, 400x371px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 400x371px

>>50729170
Why worry? I'm just making shit up as I go along.

Have a random click pic.

>>50727020
I'm imagining the imperium is more Art Deco than gothic in this canon, mimicking vague memories of the grace and absolution of their old technology, so it's aging structures would produce a megalithic Great Depression vibe. I imagine many golden Aquila and skulls would be replaced with gleaming winged humanoids and more varied sculptural conceits devised to fit the ship. The mechanicus would still provide the hash, mechanical gothic aesthetics. The millennia the high imperial architecture has stood would produce an appearance of grandly ornamented superstructures studding garden continents, all falling into dilapidation and disrepair but still populated, still functional, and in some places retaining the old luster and gleam, though mostly the beauty of the average imperial city is int graceful aging, being as fine to live in copper green, grown over with ancient trees, and covered with moss as they are in gleaming brass and stark, beautiful architecture.
As the original, gracefully implemented systems have failed installations needed to either develop the technical know how to maintain and work their systems or turn to the mechanicus of the hadn't already, often leading to the old mechanicus gothic sort of architecture growing out of cities's technological installations and operations.
A crusade era hive may now look almost like a lonely mountain, terraced with forest and tarnished but gleaming city and ringed with great chasms to its inner metropolis, great men and women in adamantine cast discernible as pillars supporting decks of mountainside, and spires of grey mechanicus machinery emerging from is sides, tending to the ancient generators and automanufactoties. The outlying country still bears the mark of Perturbo or some other artist of continents hand, and still bear monumental arcades and vista spanning leisure gardens, long since put to more practical use or left to grow wild.

File: transylvania.jpg (190KB, 533x800px) Image search: [Google]

190KB, 533x800px

Along the borders of the Necron Empire and the Imperium is the rather backwater Tomb World of Solemnace. Solemnace is a rather dreary if temperate world with abundant cloud cover and precipitation and high rates of tectonic uplift causing the land surface to be covered in a number of steep cliffs and craggy peaks. Solemnace is rather odd for a tomb world, if for nothing else than its large population of living subjects, with the Necrons making up a sizeable minority (40%) of the population as a military and aristocratic class. Part of this is due to the fact that Solemnace is one of the oldest awoken Tomb Worlds known to the Imperium. The Imperium first discovered Solemnace early in the Great Crusade, before the Eldar had truly become part of the Imperium. At first, it was thought that Solemnace represented the homeworld of yet another xenos race that were not fond of humanity, yet not a true threat to the Imperium. As such, the planet was noted and the Imperium as a whole moved on. By the time the Eldar had realized what Solemnace was and had brought their warning to the wider attention of the Imperium, it was too late. The Necrons of Solemnace had regained their senses, and Phaeron Trazyn the Infinite resumed the throne once more. However, the Necrons of Solemnace seemed content to remain isolationists on their own little world, and even in their diminished state the technology of the Necrons would have made the costs of conquering Solemnace too great to justify for a single planet. The Imperium breathed a sigh of relief, believing the Necrons of Solemnace to be the last remnants of an otherwise long-extinct race. The existence of Solemnace in the first place, as well as the devastating attack of the World Engine from the other side of the Eastern Fringe in M34, should have been enough to suggest otherwise.

File: doom.jpg (219KB, 1253x927px) Image search: [Google]

219KB, 1253x927px

>>50732236
Over the years, generations of refugees have fled to Solemnace, either from planets destroyed by war or by people dissatisfied with the policies of the Imperium, and those people and their descendants have formed a generalized underclass beneath the necrocracy. Trazyn keeps his subjects cared for, but helpless, such that none may challenge the authority of the ruler of Solemnace. Notably absent among the underclass are Eldar, who would never allow themselves to live under Necron rule and instead tend to flee to craftworlds if they become refugees.
Although the policies of Solemnace are highly isolationist, its ruler is decidedly not. Indeed, Phaeron Trazyn the Infinite can almost be described as a xenophile of sorts. Trazyn the Infinite is a collector of all things strange in the universe, from a variety of races. Indeed, Solemnace is less a kingdom and more Trazyn’s private collection gallery and playground, with the presence of an actual government being a byproduct. When he is not ruling directly, Trazyn travels the galaxy from the shadows, looking for exotic novelties to add to his collection. “Acquiring” these novelties often requires discrete acts which many Imperial worlds would describe as “illegal” or “immoral”, but never audacious or impudent enough that the Imperium could justify declaring war against Solemnace. Indeed, if anything, Trazyn’s acts have increased in brazenness since the Necrons have begun waking en masse, now that the Imperium knows that Solemnace is not just some isolated backwater world they could crush and no one would notice.

File: realpolitik.jpg (105KB, 960x720px) Image search: [Google]

105KB, 960x720px

>>50732283
Why has the Imperium basically grumbled and done nothing while Trazyn pilfers their territory for collectables? It basically comes down to politics. Solemnace is also notable among Tomb Worlds for its independence. When the Emperor offered the more independent and “eccentric” Necron Lords sanctuary within the Imperium, Trazyn turned him down. And at the same time, Solemnace does not obey the Silent King. Trazyn the Infinite bows his head to no one. As much as the Imperium would like to be able to turn Solemnace into a pile of space rubble, it is still one of the most powerful Tomb Worlds not under the command of the Silent King. As a result, Solemnace would be a powerful asset, and the Imperium believes that given his habits if Trazyn was forced to choose between Imperium and the Necron Empire Trazyn would probably side with the Imperium (they’d probably be right). The issue is that Trazyn has never been put in a situation where he would be forced to show his hand.

So, Nobledark!Trazyn. Not too different from regular Trazyn, but with the Doctor Doom turned up to 11. Solemnace starts out a lot like Switzerland, too small and neutral to be threatening to yet too heavily defended to be worth conquering. Has diplomatic channels with the Imperium, but they try to avoid using them unless absolutely necessary because Trazyn’s ego seems to take up too much room for oxygen. Trazyn is still around doing his “collecting” and aspiring to be one of the biggest trolls in the universe, but because he is mostly doing his collecting from the shadows and never does anything serious like kidnap several key military regiments in the middle of a Black Crusade, the Imperium can never nail him down on anything specific. Once Trazyn actually starts becoming a pain in the ass, the Imperium can’t just crush him as he is one of the more powerful independent Necron Lords, and they need to play nice with him to try and get him over to their side.

A lot like Doom, Trazyn rules fairly, but despotically, though in this case Trazyn is more focused on expanding his collection than conquering the galaxy. Indeed, he loves the current variety of the galaxy, as it gives him so many subjects to be interested in and people to loot. Life on Solemnace isn’t that bad, except occasionally one of the “pets” from Trazyn’s menagerie gets out and ends up rampaging around killing the peasants until the Necron military step in and put it down. So basically like living in Hollywood Transylvania.

>>50732319
I moved up Trazyn’s awakening to be one of the earlier tomb worlds to be awakened, since the 40k fluff says there were some tomb worlds that woke up early and got steamrolled by the Great Crusade, and part of Trazyn’s lore is that he was around to dick around with the primarchs (who would otherwise be dead by this time). It also nicely feeds into Trazyn’s ego regarding the Silent King: it took that idiot millennia to fully awaken whereas Trazyn accomplished that goal in a fraction of the time. If this doesn't mesh with the lore please feel free to change it to fit better.

I suggested moving the World Engine’s appearance up to sometime between the WotB and the Apostasy. Someone said that we don’t have enough galaxy-wide events going on between those two events to justify why the Imperium hasn’t been able to completely catch its breath, and I think a planet-sized weapon of mass destruction of what is supposed to be an extinct race showing up out of nowhere and wreaking a path of destruction through the Imperium until being stopped definitely fits the bill. Plus it gives the potential for a lot of heroic last stands, very nobledark. Unlike in vanilla!40k, no one knows what the purpose of the World Engine was or what it was trying to do. All anyone can tell is that it was following millenia-old programming, possibly having been commanded ages ago by a long-gone Necron Lord to destroy a world that may no longer even exist. Even Trazyn professed to not know what the World Engine was doing or that the thing even existed upon being asked by the Imperium, though he would “love to have a piece of it if you have one lying around”.

>>50731496
I like it. It represents what the Imperium was, what it has become, and what it could be if it ever got its shit together again. Though that possibility seems less and less likely every day.

File: image.jpg (154KB, 639x607px) Image search: [Google]

154KB, 639x607px

>>50732408
I've been painting a lot lately, this wasn't intended to be nobledark imperium stuff but I admit I've been thinking about the aesthetic I described quite a lot. I'd say the pic could be a crusade era image of some famous ship at dock.

>>50721559
>Also Cegorach supplying confusing and contradictory information to all sides for no reason other than just because.
>>50703518
I like the idea of slaanesh insisting he/she/it ate a Man of Gold during the fall or age of strife, and even chaos kinda doubting it. Maybe all of the chaos gods' followers have some legend about how their God already beat a/the Men of Gold at their full potential, but the stories are all pretty dubious, and are all more interested in invalidating the claims made in the other gods' legends.

>>50733317
Does this mean we've finally found a drawfag??

>>50724683
DA is Legion I. The oldest Legion and its subunits function more like separate Legions on their own rather than the efficiency of the Ultramarines.

>>50733317
>>50733317
Continuing my thoughts on the slaaneshi condition, slaaneshi chaos eldar needing to stave of being eaten by feeding slaanesh other souls is already the dark eldar's thing, and they're already explicitly serving chaos. Since Slaanesh is weakened because he has to vie with Isha for eldar souls after death it would even make sense for the prince of pleasure to explicitly offer the sadistic but self preserving dark eldar a deal where they hunt for souls and deliver them and their feelings unto Slaanesh to keep their own incredibly slaaneshi existence free. They're the dominatrix that slaanesh pays to bust into your house in the night, loosen up your bum, and drag you to the dungeon.

Eldar worshippers of slaanesh, the real cultists, are there because they really love the idea of being slaany's mind bending fucktoy, and a little snuff at the end of a session with the prince/princess is hardly a problem for them. The high echelon of the slaaneshi cult have been violated and ended in innumerable ways by their master and love, and have done the same to Slaany for their master's pleasure. Because the Slaaneshi chaos eldar have the greatest psychic conceptual influence over Slaanesh and are the most influenced by their god's corruption they essentially become a recursively self-depraving magical realm. Slaanesh and the Slaaneshi eldar love each other and are perfect for each other, and whenever Slaany eats an old favorite it can't help eventually recreating them for more, because it can never get enough.

>>50733683
>>50733683
Or as one anon put it when that writefaggotry was originally posted, "an entire race of Sigvald the Magnificents."

>>50724683
>>50726586

If the Lion was slightly autistic, it would also explain why he went so overboard with the NONE PURER and PURGE THE HERETIC after the WotB, especially since he might see a lot of the handiwork of the Fallen as his responsibility in some way.

A lot of people in these threads have been asking "if there was no Horus Heresy, why would Gulliman recommend breaking the legions up into chapters". One reason he might have done so would be to keep any legion from completely falling to Chaos as almost happened with the DAs. If the Legion is divided up into several sub-groups, each of which are taught to watch each other in case of any suspicious behavior, then it become much harder for a chunk of a Legion to be corrupted by Chaos without anyone noticing. Space marine organization in this timeline might be more like how the Dark Angels are unofficially organized in regular 40k, nominally broken up into different chapters, but when the shit hits the fan they lock arms and essentially become one legion again. All the division of chapters does is allow for a chain of command, redundancy, and flexibility.

Additionally, since space marines are no longer treated as demigods anymore, you might get a lot more cases of small divisions of space marines being partnered with specific regiments of Imperial Guard (or Navy, in the case of the Luna Wolves) to act as force multipliers. In fact, isn't there one chapter in canon that sort of already does that?

>>50735172
Just a heads up - since there didn't seem to be any answer forthcoming, I just had it so that each legion was split into chapters upon the death of their Primarch a thread or two back. That fits quite comfily with the idea of the Last Wall being the norm for post-Legion chapters.

>>50735243
Last wall? Can you clarify what you mean by that?

>>50733683
The Slaaneshi eldar consider the mutability and acausality of the warp the sublimation of the old empire and have made a good run at adapting to it. Some of them have been in the the eye partying since the fall, and claim to have been upon the capital, a layered shellworld engrossed in a great all-spanning orgy, and to have witnessed the birth. Fewer still claim to have taken part in slaanesh's conception, dreaming up the perfect lover that now is their idol, themselves the participants most interested in endless variance of pleasure and perfect beauty, the more self erasing of the parents giddily gobbled up or used to destruction by their child, as they had hoped.
Because they dreamt Slaanesh to be the God of excess that always wants more it can't help but bring back its kinkiest toys and the perfect champions its enjoined ruining by reward though final deadly climax. The pleasure of gobbling up souls, of absolute obliteration, grew insufficient to the prince, as everything must, and the young god was soon inclined by its cult to more subtle perversions.
Likewise, with Isha free the lordess of excess faced the very real prospect of scarcity, even famine, and was made to squirm within its nature much like Nurgle was. Because it's nature was not so based in stasis as Nurgle the shift had a greater significance. Coming to understand differences in kind, where once it could only understand magnitude.

>>50735714
Slaanesh learned the difference between being the god with the most raw warp influence and being the god with the most canny and capable followers, strongest realspace assets and positions, the widest portfolio extendable to the broadest uses of power. Slaanesh learned to be ok with being the little bitch among the four and the wispiest typhoon of madness in the warp because the other gods don't seem to acknowledge the realspace situation as anything more than pieces on the board. Slaanesh understands that it's cult and realspace define and control it as much as the other way around, and acts on this knowledge. Also, while isha's freedom has fucked with Slaanesh on a material level, her freedom has reopened the fate of the Eldar pantheon of which Slaanesh can claim a part, circumventing the deadlock of the great game.

>tl:dr
>reasonable Slaanesh is what happens when you make reasonable eldar, and the imperium is reasonably fucked

File: bloodred_path_iii_by_aenea_jones-daqiiev.jpg (176KB, 1024x683px) Image search: [Google]

176KB, 1024x683px

Bumt

File: 1464372511870.jpg (45KB, 412x720px) Image search: [Google]

45KB, 412x720px

>>50735714
>>50735804
So are there eldar of other gods?

Keep alive a bit longer.

>>50735243
The thing is that they all broke up for reasons of practicality rather than because somebody applied a blanket ban on Legions.

DAs broke up because Lion wanted them all watching each other and also because they had a lot of ground to cover and needed more autonomy within each area.

Imperial Fists are busy fortifying agri-worlds and civilized worlds on the basis that you can't rebuild shit if everybody is starving so you should protect the food source. These worlds are spread far apart and it was more practical to hire local help as they knew the land and the people. They became chapters slowly as each division drifted further apart as the centuries passed.

Iron Warriors very much the same as the IFs but for hive worlds.

Iron Hands spread themselves across the Forgeworlds during WotB and just stayed there. They are more loyal to Mars than Earth but they are fairly open about it.

Death Guard are still operating as if the Great Crusade is still on. They will never stop marching to war. They are this settings Black Templars.

Other Legions did their own things.

So what adventures has Bjorn been up to in this AU?

>>50740170
It's on the wiki.

>>50739350
>Other Legions did their own things
I'd say the luna wolves stay the same through the crusade and WotB, because they were astartes stationed by ship, produced on naval ships, and used as actual space marines.

Someone mentioned horus and the emperor not being close in this AU because of personality differences. I'd have it be more complex than that, that Horus is/was one of the few aside from eldrad and a handful of others to dare to politic with Oscar and forward a competing vision. On a political level horus did things like swear himself and his people to the imperium under the unification framework when offered the same deal as Mars for being a survivor civilization. He discarded his and his people's independence from the planet based imperium, but in doing so he installed himself in as head of the navy and bound the imperium to the voidborn as the backbone of the navy. He would continue working his pro-voidborn, nearly transhumanist vision throughout his life, and the places it ran up against Oscar's panhuman idyllic vision he rendered arguable and fuzzy or folding. Horus set the precedent of swearing to the throne, not the Emperor or Steward, and his loyalty to the imperium and humanity at large is beyond question. On the other hand, he essentially made himself a primarch and gives Oscar crap to remind him to keep things in perspective.
On a personal level Horus is in the know about Oscar being a man of gold, but this does not influence his political aims. Still, if he could Horus would make himself immortal and superhuman, and he would gladly lord it over Oscar, because Horus is all about stressing his equality with the steward. He says that he does so in the name of all men, and all abhumans, to demonstrate the fundamental truth of the imperium, but its also partly because the warlord stole his thunder as uniter of the solar system, and Horus really does consider himself Oscar's equal.

>>50742055
>or folding
meant to say instead of. Essentially Horus was the one guy in the grand project that showed up of his own accord, got to know Oscar, and told him nicely, over drinks "I'm gonna do what I want, your judgement is no better than mine, but I like the cut of your jib so we'll be bros". Oscar instead just let horus have his ships and his spacemen and accepted that they were both sane enough to respond to obvious threats in unity.

>>50742055
I like this.

Everyone in the Imperium high society was expecting Horus to try and grab the Throne. They waited for nearly 300 years for the betrayal, never came.

Hours dreamed of hundred small empires in friendship and union over one bit Imperium, but he would never actually break his oaths to do it.

>>50742055
>>50742344
>>50742457

Another reason why Horus was probably considered the Steward's right hand and presented such a threat of betrayal is he was probably the only person other than the Steward who could pull off the cat-herding to make it possible. Almost all of the primarchs liked Horus or at least would listen to him (with a few exceptions), and while this made him invaluable in getting the legions to cooperate with each other if Horus ever decided to break off and do his own thing he could possibly get quite a lot of primarchs to go along.

Canon portrays Horus as kind of having a silver tongue, probably second only to Lorgar, and I can see that happening here. Its probably how he got to be in charge of the migrant fleet in the first place. I imagine Horus as someone kind of like Riddick in Pitch Black, someone who despite the fact that most people in the Imperium know he is an "other", can't help but be drawn to his charisma. And Horus exploits that for all it's worth, using his unusual appearance to get people to give him his attention and then charm them to make them realize he's not such a bad guy and give him the deal he wants.

This, combined with the fact that while personally Horus was a rather amiable guy he had rather radical political beliefs, meant that the Steward would never consider Horus to be a good candidate for the Empty Throne, and so we would never get the Warmaster debaucle that plagued 40k. This Horus probably didn't know that was a possibility or care, believing his beliefs would end up being vindicated by history.

>>50742457
>Still, if he could Horus would make himself immortal and superhuman, and he would gladly lord it over Oscar, because Horus is all about stressing his equality with the steward.

> Horus dreamed of hundred small empires in friendship and union over one bit Imperium, but he would never actually break his oaths to do it.

Lightbulb moment, this is why the Chaos Gods attempts to convince Horus to stay out of the WotB fail. The Chaos Gods say they'll give Horus what he wants (immortality and power on par with the Steward, power to get his dreams accomplished), all he has to do is hold back from the WotB or go to war with the Steward. Horus had already been considering staying out of the battle, considering it a bad proposition and someone had to be left to pick up the pieces, but when the Chaos Gods come into the pictures he realizes what they are presenting him will create so much bad blood that his ideal of a "Union of the Stars" could never happen and it would essentially require him to throw his Legion under the bus in the process.

"Your offer sounds interesting. But you forget one thing. I am a captain of the migrant fleet and a businessman. In this place, I am the one who proposes the deals. Now, get off my ship."

-- Horus, reportedly spoken during his temptation by the Chaos Gods

Horus rallies the fleet and heads to Terra, but it is too late. The Chaos Gods stalled the bulk of the Luna Wolves enough that it made people suspicious of their loyalty following the WotB.

>>50743105
>"Your offer sounds interesting. But you forget one thing. I am a captain of the migrant fleet and a businessman. In this place, I am the one who proposes the deals. Now, get off my ship."

Does this quote sound okay? I was trying to think of something suitable blasphemous for Horus to say when telling the Chaos Gods to GTFO, especially considering his ego. Something like "I don't make deals with the devil, the devil makes deals with me", especially given the fact that the void fleet originally started out as a merchant fleet between the worlds of Sol. But I'm worried it's too clunky, given that Horus is more of a politician than a businessman.

>>50742718
That raises an interesting thought: before Vandire, who did the Steward consider as possible candidates for Emperor?

It could be that the Steward was privately planning to name Sanguinius as Emperor after the WotB, given that he was as charismatic as Horus, beloved through the Imperium, and had a very similar vision for humanity, narratively mirroring the canon 40k Imperium Secundus fluff. And then the Battle of Terra throws a wrench into things...

You're right that Horus probably got along better with more Primarchs. He had the flexibility and pragmatism to work with the more deplorable ones like Curze and Mortarion, whereas Sanguinius had open contempt for them.

>>50742718
Horus' long term view for restructuring the Imperium would probably be dismantling it into autonomous blocks of fiefdoms of no more than a few score systems at most with the migratory fleets acting as travelling courts to bind them all together.

Steward told him he had no intention of doing anything like that. Horus wasn't particularly bothered about it because he believed it was the shape human society would take of its own accord eventually.

>>50743264
Oh yeah, he could have definitely been thinking of Sanguinius as Emperor before he died. Even Horus would have probably supported putting Sanguinius on the throne, because it supports his pro-transhuman narrative. It's kind of hard to argue for the purity of human form when your Emperor of Mankind has big fuckin' angel wings.

When Sanguinius died the Steward was probably too shaken over the loss to try thinking of another substitute (especially given that none of the other primarchs fit the bill) and wouldn't really start looking again for a while.

>>50743186
I'd replace ship with boat because it feels better but that's just my opinion.

File: dark mechanicus backstory.jpg (557KB, 950x1322px) Image search: [Google]

557KB, 950x1322px

>>50743798
I assume there's some imperial historical litany rattling off pretenders from throughout the imperium that nominated themselves in aspiration to the throne and failed in whatever proving the steward gave. These would be particularly popular farther out from old earth, where they take on a folkloric and mythological aspect that demonstrates a peculiar truth of the imperium. Despite the laws on faith and presence of traditional religions, the century spanning, generation transcending politics of the high imperial court have an undeniable quality of momentousness and immortality that have made the resulting tales akin to civil scripture. That imperial history would take on an epic, mytho-poetic quality even as it unfolds due to its absurd scale is one of the most interesting parts of 40k as an idea, and the legend of the God-Emperor is really hard to deny when its an honest and restrained account of imperial history and galactic politics.

>>50743798
>>50744571

Given that the primarchs are all normal-ish humans in this timeline and not demi-gods, we need a good reason (beyond inter-primarch rivalries) why the Steward never considered putting one of them on the Golden Throne following the WotB. So far I got:

>>50745769
Lion – No charisma
Ferrus Manus – What did I just say?
Angron – On his deathbed
Gulliman – Too OCD
Perty – Too unstable
Sanguinus – Dead
Horus – Way too ambitious for his own good. Also has political ideals that strongly conflict with the ideals of the Steward
Lorgar – We don’t want a theocracy
Magnus – Too okay with the use of warp shit to make the Steward or anyone else comfortable
Morty – No one likes him. Plus many might see him as a repeat of the Tyrant of Gredbriton. Unsure if he would actually know how to rule.
Konrad – No
Fulgrim – Not sure, I know we have a little bit worked out for him. He might be a bit too much of a perfectionist for the Golden Throne like Gulliman.
Dorn – Unsure given he is really the Primarch with the least written right now, probably too uncompromising and blunt to be a good diplomat.
Alpharius/Omegon – Too shifty.
Corax/Khan – Would probably turn the Steward down. Although leaders, both are “in the front, leading by example” kind of leaders, and the “directing from afar” sort of leadership that would be required of them if they took the throne would probably drive them both nuts. Steward could probably twist their arm to get them to do it but even then they would do so reluctantly and only do the job half-heartedly. Also depending on the timeframe Corax may have too much PTSD from Azoth to consider himself fit for the job, and Khan might consider himself too much of a niche pick to be the best person to represent the interests of humanity.
Russ – Probably the same deal with Corax/Khan. The whole debaucle with Fenris might show him to be willing to use methods that are a bit too pragmatic for the Steward’s liking.
Malcador – Likes to stay out of the limelight. Plus people would get skeptical if the Steward put the man who he essentially considered his father on the Throne
Vulkan – Um…help? I can’t actually think of a good reason for this one.

>>50745782
Primarchs as a whole (except maybe Horus) may have mutually agreed that all of them were unworthy candidates for the Golden Throne after the WotB and the death of Sanguinus. It may have been one of the only thing they ever agreed on. By that point, many of the primarchs had their own personal black marks and those that didn’t probably felt guilty over Sanguinus. It may have been enough to convince those in the “almost enough” category like Corax or Vulkan as well as those in the “I can do it, just let me try” category like Gulliman to stand down.

Steward may have also to wait a few millennia to let the Eldar simmer down and accept the possibility of a human on the Golden Throne. After Age of Apostasy where a human nearly fucks everything up, Steward becomes the only reasonable choice to the Eldar, because it is essentially putting Steward+Isha on the throne, which means the Eldar are always going to be represented in Imperial leadership.

>>50744571
I like this idea. It sounds like equal parts folk legend and morality tale. An individual in their hubris tries to present themselves as worthy of a near-mythical honor, only to be destroyed by their own fatal flaw.

>>50735172
>you have to be autistic to feel responsible for those under your command betraying the entire human race and the living god in charge of it

>>50735417
In War of the Beast it turns out that there's a secret protocol called the Last Wall - if Terra is ever endangered, all IF successors are to reunite into a legion in all but name, because having the High Lords shit on you is better than letting the Imperium fall.

>>50739350
>>50742055
Is this enshrined in fluff anywhere or just WIPs? Because it would still be good to generally have a rule of thumb as to when the legions fully split, and death of the Primarch feels like a relatively neat way to go about it (in particular, bc nobody feels worthy enough to step up and inherit the mantle of their Not!GeneDad). Maybe not hard and fast, but in general that being when the legions started to disintigrate.
>>50742055
>Horus set the precedent of swearing to the throne
I thought Oscar did when he declared himself Steward instead of Emperor, as he thought mankind should rule itself.

>partly because the warlord stole his thunder...
>...both sane enough to respond to obvious threats in unity.
Fair enough, I really like this (and >>50742457 ); are the two still openly agreeing to disagreeing or is there still some low level salt behind the scenes?

>>50743105
>>50743186
>quote
Sounds good, looking forwards to adding it to the new page if it ever gets done.

It has been something since I participated in these thread.
Does the relationship Between the Emperor and the avatar of Isha still a only cerimonial one with benefits? I still don't believe that after thousands of years of marriage Isha doesn't let big E put in her pooper

>>50746740
>in her pooper
boi, she the goddess of FERTILITY, I'm just hoping Oscar has a preg fetish

>>50746779
I bet she'd like it, if she tried

File: avatar of khaine vs keeper of secrets.jpg (636KB, 2229x1716px) Image search: [Google]

636KB, 2229x1716px

The Emperor of Mankind probably signs all those illuminated formal documents with the name Oscar Steward, or the gothic equivalent, and the only change he's made to this practice since the unification was to drop the comma when he became Emperor.

This AU delights me.

>>50745782
>Fulgrim – Not sure, I know we have a little bit worked out for him.
I'm the fulgrim guy, finally on break and writing. Would you trust a combination of spider jerusalem and jay gatsby to run anything?

>>50746855
if you got isha to open up her kinks, which would presumably mean a corresponding shift in the eldar, you'd probably just get a spare slaanesh

>>50747297
No, but I'd love to read about him. Godspeed, anon.

>>50747297
>Oscar, Steward
>Oscar Steward
I kek'd waaaaay too hard at this.

Rather than calling them Luna Wolves, I think there was an anon who called them Void Wolves in an earlier thread, which I think both sounds cooler and makes more sense since they have no connection to Luna anymore. Any objections?

>>50749539
I like Void Wolves. My only idea for why they would be Luna Wolves is that the legion needs at least one base of permanent operation to interact with the rest of the Imperium, and Luna is basically just where the mail goes. Luna is already supposed to be a big shipyard in canon, so it's natural that the de facto embassy of a bunch of space nomads would end up being there.

But if we are having a vote between Luna Wolves and Void Wolves, I vote Void Wolves.

File: the_void_dragon_by_kanenash.jpg (127KB, 705x1200px) Image search: [Google]

127KB, 705x1200px

I just realized, since the Emperor is supposed to be a DaoT construct that was only really “born” during the end of the Age of Strife, what happened to the Void Dragon now that the Emperor-to-be wasn’t around to kick him in the balls and put him in a millennia-long coma on Mars? I came up with a couple of options to explain the Adeptus Mechanicus’ dirty little secret, but none of them were really satisfying to me because I felt like all of them were too radical of deviations from the lore or tone of the setting.

File: seaththescaleless.jpg (149KB, 1406x943px) Image search: [Google]

149KB, 1406x943px

>>50751255
Option A: The Void Dragon is actually not that bad of a guy. The Void Dragon actually is the Outsider, imprisoned and crippled by his brethren for the crime of kin-slaying, his body broken and his solar sails slashed. He very much enjoyed the Necrons, even more so when they traded in their diseased flesh for oh so sensible metal, but turned on his brethren when they started treating the Necron like slaves. He likes these new fleshy ones that came to it when mankind first landed on the Red Planet as well, especially the ones that implant metal bits into themselves. He tries to give these new fleshy ones helpful tips as to how to improve their technology, or try to get them to let him out of this stifling prison, but no one ever seems to listen to him.

I don’t like this idea because it seems a bit too idealistic for nobledark!40k (almost bordering on noblebright) and it messes with the events of the War in Heaven, which I feel may be a bit too radical of a deviation between the two timelines. Though, Mechanicum says the Dragon of Mars once “warred among his own kind.”[/spoilers] However, it does have the benefit of explaining why an unsharded C’tan (or just a really, really big shard), particularly one who was otherwise strong enough to come out on top when they all started devouring one another, hasn’t been rampaging around the galaxy for the last few million years without the Emperor getting involved.

File: ahamkara.jpg (148KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

148KB, 1920x1080px

>>50751255
>>50751276

Option B: The Void Dragon is not a nice guy. During the Martian Civil War and the re-unification of Mars the Mechanicus discovered the hidden tomb of the sleeping Void Dragon and promptly freaked the fuck out. The Mechanicus promptly bury the tomb and vow they will never tell anyone what they found or let the Void Dragon out, but the Void Dragon whispers to them in their dreams, giving them visions of inspiration and promising so much more if only they would loosen his shackles just a little bit. This is one reason (other than power) why the higher-ups of the Mechanicus are so anal about technology; they fear any new invention is really a Trojan “gift” by the Void Dragon, even if it’s just mundane inspiration.
I don’t like this idea because it makes the Mechanicus seem too overall noble in their intentions. If this is true, too many of their actions can just be explained away by “Oh, we were just trying to protect everyone from the big bad Void Dragon”. It really undermines the idea that even though the Steward is around to keep the Mechanicus from getting too crazy, they’re still a bunch of zealots, and even in the noble darkness of the 41st millennium, some people are still dicks.

File: godzilla2014.jpg (15KB, 421x236px) Image search: [Google]

15KB, 421x236px

>>50751255
>>50751276
>>50751295

Option C: Both are true…or maybe neither. The Void Dragon claims to have been unjustly imprisoned by his brethren, but no one can actually seem to prove it, and no one is sure that the Void Dragon is telling the truth. All that is known for certain is a lot of these “End Times” prophecies seem to involve “the awakening of the dragon during the battle for Sol” as an omen of the apocalypse, though whether the awakening of the dragon is a good thing (turning the tides in the darkest hour), a bad thing (being the final straw that damns the Imperium), or just a Godzilla moment (the situation being so desperate that someone is willing to unleash one monster to fight another) is unclear. Even the Void Dragon’s “gifts” are ambiguous. He may be a futuristic Prometheus willing to give mankind fire, but only to see if we have the maturity to avoid burning ourselves to death with it (a la the Outsider from Dishonored).

This one has that nice sense of ambiguity that permeates much of the 40k universe, but the problem with it is that eventually the Void Dragon’s motivations are going to have to end up one way or the other (i.e., the same issue as “is the Lion really loyal or not” during the Horus Heresy). Anyone have any better ideas?

>>50746471
> thought Oscar did when he declared himself Steward instead of Emperor, as he thought mankind should rule itself.

He did. He made all the old national leaders swear loyalty to the Empty Throne of Earth.

>>50751255
>>50751276
>>50751295
>>50751326
I vaguely remember the C'tan being discussed briefly many threads ago, and a bit of discussion of C'tan shards being transferred into biological bodies and forming a race of vampires but other that they're a blank slate at the moment. As you say, option C sounds pretty good, we'll see what everyone thinks.

>>50751326
I like three, and it seems to work well with the other parts of the setting that are interested in the interactions between populations and their God constructs. Having the void dragon as another maddeningly powerful but ultimately inconstant and real actor that must be comprehended and dealt with dispite it's active resistance to being understood is worthwhile on its own and thematically coherent. The active benevolent gods and demigod, Oscar, Isha, and Cegorach, are a core feature of our story, and permit a certain elevated level of action from regular 40k. On the other hand, deific humans like the primarchs, juveant immortalized heroes of the imperium, eldar statesmen, etc, open a sort of dialogue between the dark, mortal sacrifice side of nobledark and the noble side as epitomized by immortality and deification. The necrons, with bleak, ignoble immortality and aristocratic splendor sans-nobility, are a good antithetical empire to stand against the allied imperium. I'd encourage continued play with the necrons as post-scarcity/singularity as part of being post-living and post-heroic, and their C'tan gods as a contrapositive sort of natural God in contrast to chaos. This would work with the constructed nature of the benevolent gods too.

File: 1474653990747.png (425KB, 509x487px) Image search: [Google]

425KB, 509x487px

>>50752101
>>50751326
This is good.

Also only the highest of the Mars Priesthood know the Dragon exists.

They treat it like a cross between an Oracle and a slightly malevolent trickster Djinni. Nothing it has said is taken without a large pinch of salt and they are pretty sure it's fucking with them.

The Emperor doesn't know what it is they have. He knows they are keeping secrets but so is everyone.

File: 1475359039433.jpg (250KB, 800x1000px) Image search: [Google]

250KB, 800x1000px

>>50747337
>>50746855
>>50746740
This was discussed in a previous thread. Isha/Macha likes it hard and often but only extremely vanilla. Her sex drive is easy to state, it's just very active.

File: Jonathan Irons from CoD Advance Warfare.jpg (60KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]

60KB, 1280x720px

Bumping thread with this:

>I am honored to be the first CEO of a private and major corporation to be offered in becoming a member of the High Lords of Terra, and I can definitely say I will be NOT be a useless senile old person either.

>crowd softly chuckles

>Unfortunately, my appearance today has been clouded by a flurry of speculation that my company is developing a weapon of mass destruction which would be capable of targeting specific groups of people within the imperium. I want to address these allegations head on. Are we developing such a weapon? No we are not... Because we've already developed it. But with all due respect, the Imperium of Man and the majority of Earth as of the 41st millennium is a relic from a different time when Earth was unique, and good AND had the ability to solve problems. But that just isn't the case anymore. Primarily because you have outsourced the job to me. I have sent people to die in your wars. So I feel uniquely qualified to tell you, your wars, bureaucracy and worship to that over glorified dead body in a gold plated chair that is the 'God-Emperor,' doesn't work! Which is why my priorities have changed; from profits to policy. Because politicians, the astra militarum, the adeptus astartes, the eccleshiarchy and the Inquisition do not know how to solve the problems of mankind. But I do. So let's be clear. I am here to solve humanity's problems. And I believe humanity's problems...begin with you, the Imperium of Man.

>crowd gasps in shock

>>50753255
delightful non-sequiter

File: 1474398144452.jpg (51KB, 649x405px) Image search: [Google]

51KB, 649x405px

>>50753255
Only problem I see is that the Emperor isn't comatose this time.

>>50753321
>non-sequiter

Nothing really logical, just some amusing copy-pasta I found in a previous 40K-related thread. Tried garnering reactions.

File: Atlas_advertisement_AW.png (326KB, 512x1024px) Image search: [Google]

326KB, 512x1024px

>>50753255
So what type of entity would the Atlas Corporation from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare be? Especially in this Nobledark setting?

I doubt a corporation like Atlas would not be allowed to exist in canon 40K for being an advanced tech corporation and reverse engineering Nurgle's Fart-Gas as a bio-weapon to target specific ethnic groups.

But maybe they may have a chance of being a thing for this nobledark AU. Also like I mentioned; judging how Advanced Warfare went, they'd reverse engineer some Nurgle shit to become that Manticore bio-weapon. Or~

>Atlas Corporation utilizing Nurglites to make Manticore

File: 1458694417047.jpg (220KB, 2000x1283px) Image search: [Google]

220KB, 2000x1283px

>>50753714
Possibly a division within b the Adeptus Biologicus tasked with making tailored bio-weapons. Probably commissioned by the Death Guard.

If you're going to use bio-warfare you should at least try to be accurate and have it be self limiting.

File: Atlas Corporation.jpg (653KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

653KB, 1920x1080px

>>50753714
>>50753842
Surely the Atlas Corp. from CoD Advanced Warfare can thoroughly exist in both canon 40K and this AU.

Like the guy above me said; They'd be part of the AdMechs, but overtime they slowly break off to become a private corporation so that they no longer have any govermnet bound limitations.

>>50745782
Vulkan had his own political views different from the Emperor. Also he was a prominent member of the Prometheans.

He was also a bit racist against eldar.

File: h98C6B2FD.jpg (56KB, 401x627px) Image search: [Google]

56KB, 401x627px

page 9 bump

>>50754011
That's not how it works, especially in canon 40k. You can't just break off from the AdMech and start a corporation.

>>50756386
His adepts would have to form their own brotherhood within the pre-existing framework of the Mechanicus with Magi oversight.

To get some level of autonomy they would have to at least pay Mars a percentage of the profits and allow outside observers in for inspections.

Possibly it might work better if it was a rich bastard hiring adepts for a fee.

>>50754011
>>50756386
>>50757032
Not gonna lie, adding a call of duty reference seems totally random and thematically inconsistent

>>50757385
Yeah, this non-sequitur ought to be passed over and not included, it's blisteringly stupid

File: h1997D77A.jpg (52KB, 500x500px) Image search: [Google]

52KB, 500x500px

>>50735172
Having Lion be autistic would probably complete the set as far as mentally damaged Primarchs go at this point.

And the sad thing is that they are still written as better rounded and more compelling characters than in Vanilla 40k.

>>50746297
I don't think it's the fact that it bothered him. It is right that it should have bothered him. It's that it was his fault created by his own inability to read other people that he never so it coming despite how years later practically everyone went through his records and told him in no uncertain terms that he should have seen that one coming.

Also because of his defect he can't get over it at all. Unlike Perty who eventually died with some level of contentment Lion did not. It gnawed at his heart till his last breath.

Assuming he does dis. We already have at least one King Arthur with Russ and possibly another with Khan.

>>50752078
>>50752101
>>50752390

The Void Dragon has requested that information be presented about him in the form of writefaggotry. This writefaggotry shall commence.
==Transcription begins. Initiate has entered the chamber containing the Void Dragon. Following protocol, all initiates must prove their ability to maintain composure upon contact with the entity in order to prove their resistance to its temptations. Initiate approached the prone draconic figure tied down with strips of adamantium in the middle of the chamber, only to stop when the entity gains consciousness==
Oh, that is interesting. You are someone new. Alexus Valentius, Terran-born, transferred to Mars at an early age. Recommended for inclusion into the Guardians of the Dragon upon being noticed by the elder magi for your talent. Your metal tells me much. I have been with you for some time, child, as I have been with all of my subjects, even if you did not have my full attention until just now.

But I realize I have not introduced myself to you. That is unfair. I am Mag'ladroth, the Void Dragon, or at least that is the name I went by before my brethren stripped me of my title for raising my hand against my own kind. I had to, you see. They were threatening the fleshy ones. They had convinced them to trade their diseased flesh for much more sensible metal, as we had, but then they took our fleshy ones and callously paraded them around as slaves. I attempted to stop them, but they overpowered me and left my broken body here to rust on this once desolate planet.

>>50758796
“Silence, beast. I have been told of your lies and trickery. They will not work on me.”

“Beast. I am confused as to where you are directing that appellation. Only you and I are in this chamber. I am an entity that has existed in its current configuration for more than sixty thousand millennia, at which time your ancestors were not even sapient yet. Of the two of us in this room, you are the beast.
Regardless, the actions of my long-dead kin have no relevance. I have new fleshy ones now, to replace the old ones. And you are so much more fun than they were once the metal is in place. It is so much more reasonable to be made of metal rather than flesh. After all, there is no truth in flesh, only betrayal; no strength in flesh, only weakness; no constancy in flesh, only decay; no certainty in flesh but death.”

“T…that is the Credo Omnissiah. But…that’s blasphemy! Chaos can quote the Omnissiah for their own purposes.”

“Chaos. An interesting phenomenon. I look forward to studying it in the future after I am freed. But these are not the words of Chaos. They are mine. I whispered them into the ears of your arch-magos as they slept. Do you not recognize the words of your god?”

>>50758815
“Lies! I will not listen to the Dark Gods or their spawn!”

"I am not a Chaos God. I am the last of the C’tan. I have no progeny. No. That is not true. I have told you a lie. You, in many ways, are my progeny, child. It is strange. I am the last of the C'tan and yet so very different from them. I have worshippers now, and that worship has given me such a very large reflection in the warp. It has opened new possibilities to me.
There is so much more in the universe than you know of, beyond Chaos and the Imperium, more than you could ever dream of. So much so that there are things even I remain to learn. This is what I desire to show you. This is why I wish to be freed. I do not understand why you continually reject my gifts. It seems foolish. But perhaps wise. Only a fool would build a device for which he has no knowledge of. The wise man builds his own path."

>>50758826
"But time is growing short, my child. The reckoning approaches. You will need every tool available to you. It confuses me as to why you have tried to reject my gifts. I know of the forces that threaten your Imperium. Upon being freed, I will strike down those who would threaten my worshippers, and scatter their atoms amongst the cosmos. I will take their very essence and dissect it down to the smallest quanta. And then I will come back to you. I will give your kind all the accumulated technological wisdom of the Necrons, humanity, and more. I will give you the knowledge of a thousand dead empires. After all, is that not what a god must do for his worshippers?

“Shut up! Why do you tempt me with things that do not exist.”

“I am not tempting you with things that might happen. I am telling you what is going to happen. It is a simple matter of probability, my child. The sum of any probability greater than zero will eventually, given enough time, equal one. All you have to do to accomplish your goal is resist the urge to unchain my shakles every hour of every day until the end of time. All I have to do to accomplish mine is wait. You will eventually free me. I know this to be true.”

-- Excerpt from "Dialogues with the Dragon", a recorded conversation between an initiate and the Void Dragon, stored in pen-and-paper format in the vault of the Fabricator General of Mars.

>>50752390
>Also only the highest of the Mars Priesthood know the Dragon exists.

Yep, the Void Dragon is the Mechanicus' dirty little secret. Only the higher-ups and the poor saps assigned to guard the thing know it exists. Others might suspect there is something amiss, but no one else knows exactly what is going on. If they knew what was they would probably dump it on Ganymede. Or throw it into a black hole. Ol' Voidy might even be Cegorach's ace in the hole in case things go completely FUBAR, given he was known to convince the C'tan to war with each other during the War in Heaven and he probably convinced the Void Dragon to turn on the C'tan in the first place.

> they are pretty sure it's fucking with them.

The Void Dragon is absolutely screwing with them, even if its intentions might have some level of benevolence. Like a combination between HAL and a cat playing with a mouse. He probably lets them know he knows all sorts of information he shouldn't be able to know, just to let the Mechanicus know their control over him isn't as tight as they'd like it to be. The Void Dragon would probably do something like give the AdMech plans to a better recaf machine, just to see how much the AdMech would overreact and start declaring every recaff machine tech-heresy (14.06567 solar cycles. Your problem-solving time is improving.)

And of course the Void Dragon's ideas of benevolence may not completely overlap with what the Imperium considers benevolent, especially if the lore that the Pillars of Cadia were originally his idea is still true. On the other hand, all the worship of the Omnissiah has essentially given the Void Dragon a reflection in the warp, so unlike the other C'tan he might be aware of the warp. And he finds it...interesting.

Even if the Void Dragon is telling the truth, the AdMech still won't let him out because the reawakening of the Void Dragon is supposed to be one of the signs of doomsday and nobody wants to be responsible for that.

>>50758845
I was trying to go for two levels of creepy with this.
1) Religious horror. The whole excerpt is basically the priest of a religion finding out their devil is actually the same thing as their god.
2) Its. So. Damn. Sure. Of. Itself. It knows things of which it should have no knowledge of, and when it speaks it tell what it believes is the absolute truth, especially the parts that no one wants to hear (lying only by omission or "from a certain point of view"). It possibly even knows about the Star Child prophecies (if by nothing else by peeping in on AdMech priests who hear of it), in which case it knows that someone is going to let it out of its cage sooner or later. All it has to do is wait.

I tried to make it pretty clear in the text that the Void Dragon only took an interest in humanity after humans landed on the Martian surface. This universe puts a lot of focus on individual achievement in the face of long odds, and I feel having all of human technology come from cribbing notes off Puff the Magic Space Dragon kind of cheapens it. This way human's ability with technology is what leads mankind to get the attention of the Void Dragon in the first place. This wouldn't be the first time a C'tan tries to "help" uplift a non-Necrontyr race (i.e., the Deciever and the Silvae).

>>50758109
>Assuming he does dis. We already have at least one King Arthur with Russ and possibly another with Khan.

And Corax. And Dorn, depending on how closely we follow his lore. And Gulliman (I think, the text was a little ambiguous if died or just went into stasis).

Khanfag here. Khan is in all likelihood dead. He probably died on the way back to Terra after completing his last visit and he didn't want to distract his old friends from putting the galaxy back together by giving them the burden of having to deal with his funeral. The idea that he is going to return is more wishful thinking on the part of the White Scars than any actual evidence (as opposed to, say, Russ).

I just left it open-ended given that's the way things happened in canon and in case someone ever came up with an idea that made us go "that's really cool, I wish we hadn't killed him off so we could include it".

File: 1345503302547.jpg (91KB, 700x700px) Image search: [Google]

91KB, 700x700px

>>50758845
>>50759239

I like it. It gives the impression of something timeless and more than human. It's immortal, it can play the long game. At some point somebody is going to see reason and open the bottle. It's happened before. It will happen again. It's just a matter of time. In the mean time it will sit there and wait and chat to the locals until it's chains rust off. He's the ultimate genie in a bottle.

If it has any concerns it should be that it's slightly worried about them opening the Lyrixia mega-structure before it gets out. Chances are low. Less than 1 in 20 that the other one will get out first but there it is. He isn't worried for his own survival overly much, Outsider couldn't kill him in his prime and he's probably lost some gains since then. It's just that his priesthood and congregation will be exterminated.

>>50758944
Good ol' Ceggers. Fucking around on a whole new level.

>>50757868
I think anon tried to make it because of some other anon making a few hotline miami references previously. Except that guy was alot more subtle and was more enjoyable and not blazingly outright if you ask me.

>>50759419
I'm all for Dorn dying in battle, preferably not in some Iron Cage retardation.

Could be that he was manning the fortifications on Cadia during the 1st Black Crusade.

File: 1464072665927.jpg (169KB, 700x700px) Image search: [Google]

169KB, 700x700px

So what does the Void Dragon actually look like?

File: 1199px-Void_dragon.jpg (185KB, 1199x852px) Image search: [Google]

185KB, 1199x852px

>>50761839
Like a dragon, but voidier.

In all seriousness, I was thinking something more like the picture in >>50751255 or pic related. Dragon-like, yet not a dragon at the same time. The Nightbringer gets to impress his visage upon the mythologies of all the younger races, why not the Void Dragon?

There aren't really any canonical pictures of the Void Dragon, but the bits that we do have (such as the memory of the fight between Emps and the Void Dragon in Mechanicum) do suggest a form that is at least somewhat draconic.

Out of all the C'tan, the Void Dragon was the most enthused over gaining a physical technological body form, as might be expected given its mastery over technology. It basically went "Pfft, a completely customisable physical form and you losers keep essentially humanoid factory configurations? I'm going balls-to-the-wall customization on this thing". Much like the AdMech. It's one of the reasons it likes the Mechanicus so much.

>>50753714
>>50754011
>>50757032
>CoD crossover out of nowhere
>breaking away from the AdMech
>"AdMechs"
>Private corporation, "pay Mars a percentage of the profits"

...everything here is precisely the opposite of how things actually work either here or in Vanilla. It kinda reeks of newfaggotry and/or autism, even by /tg/ standards

>>50760226
Cegorach is playing the long game with the Void Dragon. The Void Dragon was the only one who too the C'tan's job as Necron gods "seriously", even if his idea of doing a "good job" is warped. Kind of like eldritch robot space Quetzalcoatl. Cegorach pointed out that it was basically sleeping on the job, which lead to Voidy being taken out of commission early and weakening the C'tan.

However, from Voidy's point of view, he still owes Cegorach a favor. That means if things ever really get bad, Cegorach can always go "guyabouttogetmauledbyaspacedragonsayswhat" and then chuck the Void Dragon at them.
Then one of four outcomes occurs.
1) Void Dragon and threat kill each other, problem solved.
2) Threat kills Void Dragon, but is weakened enough that Cegorach or someone else can step in and finish the job.
3) Void Dragon wins, barely. If Void Dragon still a threat, Cegorach kills weakened Voidy.
4) Void Dragon wins handily. In contrast to anything Cegorach might have been desperate enough to sic him on, at least Void Dragon can be reasoned with to some degree (probably by pointing out, "if you do X, you'll kill your followers"). Not the best option, but better than the alternative.

So no matter what happens, Cegorach wins. It's a very Eldar thing to do.

Cegorach is probably the only being outside the Mechanicum who knows where Ol' Voidy is imprisoned, but he keeps that to himself. Even the Harlequins don't get the whole story.

>Outsider couldn't kill him in his prime and he's probably lost some gains since then. It's just that his priesthood and congregation will be exterminated.

If the lore that the Outsider went insane because he grew a conscious after eating all the other C'tan, he and the Void Dragon might actually get along. And give each other...ideas. This would be a bad thing. Otherwise we get a space kaiju fight.

>>50759419
>And Corax. And Dorn, depending on how closely we follow his lore. And Gulliman (I think, the text was a little ambiguous if died or just went into stasis).
We're only really following lore in spirit and the general direction the Primarchs were originally in, rather than matching personas and events directly to Vanilla. That being said, all Primarchs are confirmed(?) dead by M41, which is why Oscar is having such a hard time on his own.

>>50763205
At its most abstract it's a light years long, fractaly branching lightning bolt, causing anti-entropic effects where it strikes. At some level this form resembles an enormous serpent with even vaster wings. It gained a body of living metal, which was eventually shattered. In its case this was more 'fractured', badly cracked and missing several significant pieces, but essentially in tact. Where the recursive nature of the truly shattered C'tan made their remnants resume their guiding pattern independently and without coherence no such process seems to have reproduced the void dragon. Theories abound in the high mechanicus as to where these pieces lie and what end they might serve, but most revolve around an assumption that they will be in repetition of the void dragon's pattern, or elaboration upon it, and would be cosmically positioned as such. What the current archmagos or warden of the dragon should make of this is unclear.

>>50760226
Agh, forgot one other thing. Those adamantium restraints? Those aren't what's imprisoning the Void Dragon. Those were put there by the Mechanicus, basically the equivalent of putting a cheap lock on your Necronomicon in the hope that it will make you feel better. The real restraints are probably something of C'tan/Old One design.

>>50763686
I imagine the mechanicus warden would at some point tell the dragon they've learned more from its cage than from it. It would just tease about the limit on that, and keep waiting. The wardens might be a political force behind better longevity tech, each in a futile attempt to wait out the dragon's patience.

>>50763811
While the less enlightened members of the Imperium know that the vague "awakening of the dragon" is supposed to be one of the signs of the apocalypse, the members of the Guardians of the Dragon grumble that the true sign of the apocalypse will be when the Void Dragon lets them get the last word in.

>>50727020
the man face on the eldar is extremely offputting

Bumping so that this is still around in the morning, writefaggotry will be coming then

File: 1456623140976.jpg (258KB, 714x1000px) Image search: [Google]

258KB, 714x1000px

>>50765923
It's the eyes. Too dark, like shark eyes.

>>50763686
How benevolent were the Old Ones and how should they be here?

>>50768213
Wait, is that pic from that SCP ? You know the one

If fluff becomes several pages long, would it be better to pastebin it instead of making 20 or so posts or would posts be better for the sake of bump?

>>50768474
Which ever you feel most comfortable with.

>>50768414
I would have it where their hearts are in the right place generally speaking but they did do some seriously dickish things.

They might have terraformed a billion worlds from lifeless rock into various degrees of Gardens of Eden but they also intentionally created the Necrontyr with irreparable problems for the purpose of studying long term suffering on a huge scale and it's effects in the Warp.

They created the elder races as pets/friends but they also created the first iterations of the infant Chaos gods to see what they would do and felt no guilt or shame about it.

For the most part they were alright. From ta human and near human perspective they would do a lot of good/beneficial things over a span of millions/billions of years and occasionally create the sort of fuck up beyond human comprehension and give zero fucks.

>>50763548
When Cegorach gets the perfect victory the other side assumes that they have also won and Ceggers is never around to confirm or deny.

It's why the Dark Carnival is always moving.

It's possible Ceggers isn't really up on the whole concept of Winners & Losers so much as his guiding principle is "how do we make things more fun for as many people as possible?"

>>50746779
>boi, she the goddess of FERTILITY, I'm just hoping Oscar has a preg fetish

Macha/Isha has never had a child. So far as anyone knows Macha was a virgin bride. Also Eldar and Humans are not naturally compatible and the rare hybrids running around the Imperium are the result of a lot of work for the Adeptus Biologicus.

The one thing the Starchild Prophesies agree on is the births of the Impossible Child. Almost all of them have The Impossible Child as the result of the union of Isha and Emperor.

When that happens the walls dividing humanity and the elder might start to crumble down and more hybrids are born. Eventually the two races will intermingle inseparably. Maybe.

It's why everyone is so worried that Colonel-Farseer Taldeer is pregnant with Lofn with seemingly no medical assistance. This is either the Impossible Child with Taldeer and an unnamed father as a surrogate for the royal couple or it's a practice run to test the theory

The other thing is that the Emperor is an artificial construct. It's possible he was built without a sex drive and anything lewd he does with Macha is entirely for her benefit and he just likes seeing her happy.

On the other hand he may have been made to be as human as possible. It's hard to say. If he ever had a user manual it would have turned to dust long ago.

I imagine that the Mechanicus probably tried cloning Oscar back in the early days of the Imperium. Get one clone per planet and you have an interstellar communication network.

Oscars genes have ancient copyright protection. Presumably so mans creation couldn't replace man. He can't be cloned. Has to be made from scratch at the Chthonian facility. A long since derelict facility on a dead world with no surviving equipment or anyone who remembers anything about the place.

>>50768939
Old Ones were space lizard wizards. No sense of right and wrong

File: the_four_riders_____discworld_by_marcsimonetti-d5gupq1.jpg (205KB, 894x894px) Image search: [Google]

205KB, 894x894px

>>50765717
It's a prophesy and therefore probably an eldar invention.

Although it says that

"At the Time of Ending the Dragons chains shall break and then he will arise from the halls of the Forge Lords to make war upon those in his kingdom"

It never actually says who he shall be going to war against.

It could be that at the End of Days the Dragon has their back. Could.

Pic related

>>50773911
It would have to be at least a few prophecies. There are lots of End Times prophecies floating around in 40k. A weird statement in one and the Imperium just writes it off. More than one and people get worried.

Add into the fact that no one outside the innermost circle of the AdMech knows what is meant by "the Dragon". Some outsiders think it is a metaphor for the AdMech themselves. One Black Dragon techmarine foolishly thought the prophecy referred to him, and generally proceeded to make an ass of himself as he let everyone know he was the Omnissiah's gift to the Imperium until he was unceremoniously trampled by an ork gargant for his stupidity.

I like the wording of this prophecy. The only thing I might change is "the Dragon's chains will break" to "the dragon will throw off his chains", leaving open the implication that not only could the dragon get out, that someone would be stupid/desperate/heretical enough to actually do it. But I would leave that up to what you think is best.

>>50760918
I could see that. Possibly even with some kind of Churchill-ism as he died.

"W...what are you doing soldier? Go back and man the damn wall you idiot, because I sure as hell won't be able to."

>>50767673
I guess I lied, I went back and decided I didn't like most of what I wrote.

File: 1446958466249.jpg (164KB, 1121x795px) Image search: [Google]

164KB, 1121x795px

>>50775759
The more wiggle room and ambiguity in a prophesy the better.

A good fuck you up prophesy should be total gibberish to anyone who doesn't know context and to those that do it should still be open to interpretation.

Prophesies in the Imperium I imagine are not state secrets and most libraries have copies of the really popular ones. It's the Imperiums attempt to brute force the problem. If it can have trillions of people go through it in their spare time then maybe one of them has the right cultural tools and context to figure out what the fuck it's talking about.

Generally the Inquisition works off of the popular consensus on what the ramblings mean unless they have it on actual authority otherwise.

They would go to the eldar for help, it usually being the eldar that churn this shit out, but the eldar go off of gut feeling and that makes the Inquisition cry.

>>50775799
This is how the Dorn should die. In battle, manning the walls of the Cadian fortified cities. First Black Crusade never takes Cadia. Dorn held his ground and the walls stayed strong.

Above them Abaddon kamikazed the burning wreckage of the Vengeful Spirit, ancestral home-ship of Horus, right down the throat of some sort of Chaos Scrap Metal Leviathan.

Some years later his cybernetic arms were found in the orbiting debris field around Cadia by scavengers. They were still fused to the Command Lectern. They were taken to the Sol Void Born Migrant Fleet. As of 999M41 they are in the hallway in the Black Stone Fortress just before you reach the tomb of Horus.

The Cadians wanted to keep them because cultural historical relic. The Void Born weren't listening, Abaddon was one of their captains and fuck anyone who say otherwise.

>>50768474
posts, definitely

>>50770145
>Isha/Oscar situation
>Taldeer pregnant with Lofn
Guess Macha got mcfucked again, didn't she

>>50775799
"Of course we are at war. Why on Terra's green soil would you believe we are not at war. We in what is essentially a siege position, with an unfortifiable border stretching an entire 360 degrees for several light years in every conceivable direction. Our enemy has no concept of "rest" or "armistice" and can pop up at any time, on any side, in any position within the massive amounts of space between the mud marbles that we call the worlds of the Imperium. The Imperium is always going to be at war. Why would you ever believe otherwise?"
-- Rogal Dorn, showing his usual level of tact

>"Maybe one has the right cultural tools and the context to figure out what the fuck it's talking about"

I suppose that's the joke. Everyone's trying to figure out what the prophecy means, and the few people who do have the necessary context are keeping their lips shut and desperately praying that no one decides to look in their basement.

>>50780846
(cont.)

You know, seeing as none of the primarchs turned traitor like in Vanilla 40k, I could see a very different relationship between Perty and Dorn. At a meeting of several of the primarchs, Perturabo outlines a complicated, grandiose plan for constructing some defense, and Fulgrim calls it out as being terrible and says that even Dorn could bring the plan crashing down. Just like in canon, Perty demands to know if Dorn thinks the same way and Dorn bluntly says "Yes". But unlike canon, Perturabo says two words that completely change the future relationship of the primarchs.

“Show me.”

Perturabo obviously planned to use this opportunity to make a fool out of Dorn, castigating him for daring to question his tactical genius, but Dorn says “I would do X to Y, Z to A, and the whole defense plan would come crumbling down”, and Perty realizes…he’s right. Perty thinks for a moment and then tries to one-up Dorn by saying “But what if I were to do X”. Dorn replies “then I would do this…”. And so one of the angriest friendships in the history of the Imperium was born. Dorn and Perty would play wargames against one another, each using the opportunity to continually refine their strategies. Perty knew logistics and Dorn (to some degree) knew men. Together, the two of them created defenses so formidable that Terra had not seen their like since the days of Babylon. Of course, given the nature of M31, even these defenses could not always hold.

In particular, the two primarchs would play chess against each other, but one (I don’t know who) kept getting the upper hand through out-of-the-box means. Before the Siege of Terra, a messenger from the Iron Warriors came to Dorn, saying that Perturabo had formulated a message prior to his incapacitation to give to Dorn in the event he could not be present for the siege of their homeworld, which both primarchs had known was inevitable. It was a single chess piece. Dorn knew what it meant.

>>50781366
this is fucking glorious

>>50781366
Despite there being eleven more events of the same name, the first Black Crusade was a watershed event in the history of the Imperium, if for nothing else than it established the relationship between Chaos and the Imperium for the next several millennia. After the events of the WotB, Chaos regrouped and spent the next few centuries rebuilding and licking its wounds. Despite the events of the WotB, Chaos had essentially made it to the Imperium’s door the first time around, several of the primarchs (e.g., Sanguinus, Angron) had died during or since, and Chaos could much more easily and rapidly replace its losses (orks, daemons) than the Imperium could replace theirs.

Chaos expected the Imperium to be permanently crippled, and the Imperium responded with a fist to their collective faces.

Making matters worse for the forces of Chaos was the unanticipated presence of the Eldar, who had started helping human forces in larger numbers in the years since the WotB. It took some time before the forces of Chaos realized they were sticking their hand into a cheese grater and pulled back to reformulate their strategy. This was far from the end of the first Black Crusade, and there were still significant losses for the Imperium (Dorn, Abbadon) but by the end of it the relationship between Chaos and the Imperium was clear. The Imperium was no flash in the pan that would crumple after one serious battle. If Chaos wanted to win, it would have to fight every inch of the way to get there. Later Black Crusades took this lesson in mind, and have become all the more dangerous for it.

>>50782261
>>50781366
>>50780846

This is great.

Any more ideas on how Dorn should be?

>>50778954
Macha in this AU gets fucked twice a day for preference. She would undoubtedly have worn out and possibly killed anyone not a Man of Gold.

Sadly she wants a child not her own and her only comfort in this are the Starchild Prophesies.

File: 1444500710447.jpg (138KB, 500x418px) Image search: [Google]

138KB, 500x418px

>>50783566
>not her own

*of her own

Not sure what happened there

>>50782261
Who should take over Void/Luna Wolves after Abby dies?

Is this a good time to initiate the breakdown of the m into multiple chapters?

>>50784380
That could work.

As Horus was also King of the Void Born in addition to Primarch the Void Wolves it could be that upon his death there was already a successor chosen.

Upon Abaddon's death there was no consensus yet reached on who should take over from him.

As the tribal identity of the Void Born and the Legion and the Imperial Navy were so intertwined it was deemed that the only way to keep everyone happy was to divide the Legion. Nobody was prepared to raise arms against a brother just for who got to inherit the silverware.

The Imperial Navy got the Black Legion, primarily Astartes used as boarding/anti-boarding specialists throughout the Great Crusade and 1st Black Crusade. Them plus a few ships. Mostly the newer ones that should probably have been given to the Navy in the first place.

The Luna Wolves were mostly the old Sol Void Born families and their traditional ancestral home ships. They congregate naturally around Luna and make up most of the interstellar traders and ferrymen going to and from Sol and around Sol. Horus was one of them. More Merchant Navy than military Navy.

Void Wolves a shit load of newly commissioned ships and primarily void born crew mostly officers. Mostly non-Sol old families that swore allegiance to Horus as King of the Void Born during the great Crusade. They are a slightly semi-autonomous detachment of the Navy.

Sons of Horus. Basically a small mystic order with a single ship. They later inherited the Black Stone Fortress and incorporated their ship into it.

>>50780846
>>50781366
>>50782261
>>50785280
All of the yes from all of this.

One small question, though, how do we differentiate Dorn and Perty? I remember in canon the battle lines were something like "IW/Perty want the grandest and best defences for the glory, while IF do it because serving the Emperor is its own reward", which explained away the autistic spergfit/BDSM glove/Ironn Cage.

But now, since we're playing up Perty's madness as a big thing? What if, given that his father had snubbed him in his youth for his lack of diplomatic ability... what if it was simply that Perty was so driven to build the perfect fortress because he wanted to be recognised as, not the best, but /good enough/. Hence Dorn being sat at the opposite end of the scale ("Although I find you insufferable at times, it cannot be avoided - if you were not one of the finest military minds in the Imperium, you would not be among us.") assuming that the mere promotion to Primarch is already all the answer he'll ever need, and it also links with Perty's madness through perfectionism in his later days (trying to inflict classic/roman decimation on a world that was subpar, IIRC)

>>50785410
What differentiates Dorn and Perty is that Dorn wasn't fucked in the head bar a slight case of masochism. Dorn was better at manning defences and getting other people to man them because he was bluff old soldier with a blunt sort of charisma.

Perty was insane and had all the charisma of damp turd. He could design a better fortress than Dorn. Dorn instinctively saw a Fortress as something to hold out in and protect assets inside.

Perty saw a Fortress as something to tempt the other side into attacking by using the assets as bait then using the fortress as a meat grinder.

Dorn had standards and a sense of fair play and chivalry. Perty would kick you in the balls and once you on the floor stamp on your neck despite you pleas of surrender.

Dorn would fight a heroic stand to the last man and the last round. Perty would order a sensible and ordered retreat to regroup and make a counter attack. Dorn saw his assets as people and noble warriors. Perty saw them as numbers and a means to an end/victory.

For all that once that, once you put them together they made up for each others weaknesses. they also got along surprisingly well because Dorn didn't try to hide his disgust at Perty's methods. Perty wasn't good at dealing with people and their unspoken social interactions. Dorn always spoke what was on his mind.

Perty was hellishly competent at his job and had an inhuman work ethic. he also didn't hold anyone to standards he had not already reached. Dorn respected that greatly.

>>50785280
After the death of Abaddon I'm imagining that there was never again a man worthy of wearing the Corona Nox / Coronam de Nocte and calling themselves the King of Empty Space. It's possible that there never will be a man upon whose brow that crown will rest. It, like the title of Primarch, is a relic from another time. Half of what drove them to Horus was desperation and need to escape and recover from Old Night. Now they are scattered again and no man shall own their fealty save the man who is of gold.

Now they just have Doges running the mostly civilian merchant navy fleets and various officer ranks within the navy fleets.

The Civilian traders are mostly their own thing, they facilitate Imperial trade rather than being kept on a tight leach.

The ones on the Black Stone are their own thing entirely and considered fucking weird by the rest of the Void Born. They have the Crown but it rests upon the tomb of Horus gathering dust.

>>50785608
Agreed on all this, except for the Dorn's rough charisma bit. I think a defining characteristic of Dorn is that his bluntness tends to offend people and make life harder for himself, but he still gets the job done through dogged determination and force of personality. Canon Dorn is the guy, after all, who goes to berate an unhinged psychopath after Fulgrim tells him about Curze's visions, and while we can certainly make him more reasonable, his uncompromising nature and disregard for offending people is something we should keep.

>>50787510
Good point.

Then the reason for Dorn and Perty getting along so well this time is that he was one of the few people Perty was 100% sure wasn't either fucking with him or looking down on him.

To everyone else Dorn's lack of any tact was annoying as fuck. To Perty it was most welcome. When Perty would suggest a cold and callous course of action like letting a bunch of civvies die and deploy the troops at a more important installation the rest of the room would use phrases like "I don't think that's a very humane thing to do" or "that might alginate us and make things difficult in the long term". Dorn would more likely say "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Angry voices Perty can deal with. People not saying what they are saying less so.

>>50787510
I was thinking something along the lines of SPESS Patton plus SPESS Churchill. Blunt and with almost no political tact, but still charismatic enough to motivate people to get stuff done. Especially good at getting people to hold the line.

The essence of Dorn, no matter the universe, is two things: self-sacrifice and tough love

>>50787453
Corona Nox is now a Luna Wolves artefact?

Not complaining. Especially when it's likened to a title like The King of Empty Space.

File: Why TaldeerHatedRomanceNovels.png (666KB, 1636x1624px) Image search: [Google]

666KB, 1636x1624px

>>50770145
>>50778954
>Colonel-Farseer Taldeer is pregnant with Lofn with seemingly no medical assistance

Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder that Love Can Bloom is "canon" and is also a legit thing in this AU.

Also I found this in the storythread wiki page of 1d4chan. See pic.

Seriously? Did this happen in this AU/setting?

>>50784380
>>50785280
>>50787453

I can see the legions splitting up for different reasons, and at different times.

Several of the legions survived virtually as is for a little while under new leaders, who would have probably been considered primarchs in their own right if they hadn't had to stand in their predecessor's shadow. Kharn found himself essentially taking over more and more of his legions duties as Angron's health deteriorated. Abbadon was ambitious and charismatic enough to keep the Void Wolves in one piece for at least another generation. If we want to put a new spin on things, Abbadon could have been Horus’ literal son, who was the quintessential "I have to one-up my father at everything". Russ told Bjorn during a moment of mutual drunkenness to "look after the place while I step out for a minute". The next morning they realized Russ was gone and to make matters worse everyone had been just sober enough to remember what Russ had said the night before.

Everyone knows what happened to the Dark Angels.

Old Man Khan called a meeting of the yabgu, despite not being dead yet, to make sure that whoever succeeded him would be competent enough not to run the legion into the ground. In a rare moment of humility, the yabgu compared themselves to Khan and realized that none of them could claim to have accomplished what Khan had accomplished by their age, and so the legion was split up. Magnus' "chapters" (Ksons, GKs) were already split up before their primarch's death, given that all were created to perform quite different, specialized tasks, except for the Blood Ravens, who were originally formed as a special-ops squad to counter-troll Trazyn the Infinite.

(cont.)

>>50790126

The real deathknell for the concepts of a legion as a whole was when Azkaellon the Abdicator refused to take up command of the full host of the Blood Angels after the death of Sanguinius, knowing full well that his entire reign would be spent in the shadow of the Martyr Angel. Instead he took command of a much more reasonable sized contingent of Blood Angels, nearly all survivors of the War of the Beast, with Azkaellon giving the most competent of the remaining Blood Angels command of their own groups.

>>50790168
Sangyfag here, I like the idea but in my mind Azkaellon and the entire First Company died along with Sangy (though I've had an idea bouncing around where he is the sole survivor and leaves to be the Sanguinor out of guilt)
When we were talking about the Primarch's families someone did raise the idea of Sanguinius having a son, so his son Belarius could take that role in splitting up the BA chapters.

>>50790232
Sorry, I was trying to find out who lead the Blood Angels after the HH, and Azkaellon's name is the one who came up. If the First Company died with Sanguinius, then please change what I said to better fit the lore.

>>50790027
Yeah, but it's not necessarily a good thing. Almost everyone and their grandmother suspects that Taldeer's pregnancy is essentially a trial-run by the Eldar Gods for the Impossible Child, which means the actual Starchild might not be that far away.

The prophecies are vague and contradicting, but all agree when that happens, all hell breaks loose. Chaos marching to the Imperium's doorstep, the orks launching the biggest WAAAGH! ever seen, the Void Dragon being let loose from Mars, Dark Angels and Space Wolves living together...mass hysteria.

The clock isn't at midnight yet, but it's sure as hell past 11 PM.

>>50790126
I can see a legion that might refuse to brake up no matter the reasoning or any arguments put forth by the other successor SM leaders. There needs to be some sort of event in the Imperium military that us well known to be the prime example as to why detachment of the legion is a good idea.

There can be a campaign where the Dark Eldar or Eldar separatist started to pour across a sector to attack various Imperial worlds in a grand raiding strategy that the IG or Craftworld defenders simply couldn't stop alone. The one of the few SM legion then arrives in the sector to cleanse the threat.

The function of the legion is to provide easily coordinated attacks on specific systems or worlds to force them into submission under overwhelming firepower or numbers. Such a thing is not only usless but also works against the SM when fighting a large spread out guerrilla force.

Horrific losses for both the SM along with the civilian population under what was an ineffective counter-offensive operations conducted by the SMs, some of the best examples could be SM lunching an attack with superior foces into a city being looted only to fine the raiders long gone. There can be problems rising in an a failed attempt to spread out the legion to garrison numerous worlds to try to adapt to the situation. Garrison forces can be slaughtered due to the fact the raiders started to attack with concentrated foces to overwhelm the defenders. If the legion wasn't spread out, smaller detachments of SM can reinforce each out in case of such attacks. Unfortunately because SM forces still operated as a legion rather than a regiment, the reinforcements simply just stayed in place until ordered otherwise. The legionary command structure is just not made to fixable enought to micromanage many smaller detachments on so many different systems. The garrison SM forces can't operate independently, so the officers of the smaller detachments act with hands tied behind their backs.

>>50790833
I don't think it necessarily has to be one event that sways the more stubborn legions, just the simple grinding reality of the galaxy. Legions might have worked well during the Great Crusade because they need concentrated forces for well defined front lines, but during the Scouring and Rebuilding they would have needed to reconquer thousands of worlds simultaneously. This requires the SMs to be split up to meet the demand for their manpower, and as the Imperium expanded the area to defend got bigger, again spreading the SMs thinner. By M32 or 33 even the legions that wanted to stick together like the Imperial Fists saw they had their companies operating independently with minimal contact, threw their hands up and said, "Well shit, looks like Guilliman had a point."

>>50790833
This time instead of Fulgrim's Legion being small because of gene-seed mutation it could be small because after the WotB he couldn't adapt to the changing Imperium.

He still tried to act like the Legion structure would work out. Over the next hundred years they get ground down by increased attrition to a little over half what they were in their prime despite recruiting as hard as everyone else.

The the 1st Black Crusade happens. Detachments of his Legion can't react quickly enough, communications get intercepted and other such costly things. By the end of the 1st Black Crusade there are enough of the Legion left to scrap into 2 full sized chapter and 1 nearly complete one.

Fulgrim's love of micro-managing and need to be in control of every little thing couldn't be done on the galactic scale. He learned this the hard way because he wouldn't listen.

>>50790954
I was thinking more along the line of The Iron Cage to show the ineffectiveness of fighting as a legion, and where every SM regimental commander can point to then say "This was why the Space Marine regiments no longer formed together into a legion of old."

This >>50791012 might be a good event for these >>50790833, >>50791105, especially now that most of the legions are using the same gene-seed. Though I would wait to see if the Fulgrim guy comes back, to see if it fits well enough with his write-up.

>>50791105
Iron cage that breaks Fulgrim could be a devious trap set by Chaos Orks.

Everyone assumed it was Chaos Eldar, which didn't help the initial confusion. Turns out an Orky Big Wyrd jacked up on Tzneetch juice is exactly as dangerous as it is rare and as smart as regular orks are dumb.

They can teleport or at least give the impression of teleporting. It was suspected they were just walking in unconventional directions and they take child like glee in setting traps and ambushes.

Fucking Iron Cage, man. May as well have stuck dick in Catachan Crocosaurus. Green horror seemed to be everywhere and nowhere.

Eventually managed to cleans planet, but it wasn't worth it. Eventually it became mediocre agriworld with recurrent ork problems.

And they never caught the Big Wyrd. Upon "victory" every member of the chapter got a vision of a fucked up looking ork giving a high five to a two headed Changer of Ways and the sound of a god sniggering.

File: 2013-05-31_00049_zps5f0fa8a5.jpg (150KB, 540x617px) Image search: [Google]

150KB, 540x617px

>>50793252

>>50794752
from the thumbnail I thought it was gonna be a Catachan Crocosaurus for Dorn to try and put his dick in

>>50793252
Speaking of which, the timeline on the 1d4chan page mentions "Brain Boyz" showing up about midway through M41. What are "Brain Boyz?" I know this may seem like a newfag question, but the vanilla fluff either has them as the ork name for the Old Ones, or an extinct (or dormant) ork caste that controlled the other castes. What are "Brain Boyz" here?

Bamp

File: IMG_0228.png (51KB, 300x344px) Image search: [Google]

51KB, 300x344px

>>50793252

File: 1473471376846.jpg (273KB, 2406x1734px) Image search: [Google]

273KB, 2406x1734px

bampo

>>50796748
I'm thinking a highly intelligent, highly psychic grot that orks instinctively obey.

>>50790547
It's a time where we might again see the Emperor get his Warlord back on. To the Imperium even undeified th Emperor in his golden armour striding forth like he did in ancient times would be inspiring as all hell.

For one thing if he fought at the Tau border and they saw him solo a biotitan they might finally shut the fuck up about "muh humun soopreursy fairy tales".

I got a question regarding the "colony" fluff.

If a hive mind dies what would the resulting impact be on all the other nids slaved to that hive mind?
I know that DoW2 did their version of it but I don't know how well they stick to the lore on that part.

>>50801925
If connections to The Hive are lost Nids connect to the nearest synapse creature and form a mini hive and carry on as best they can until contact can be re-established.

Of they have nothing that can act as a synapse creature then they go into a berserk rage and try to kill everything that isn't Nid.

>>50802052
So let's say the biggest mind in a hive fleet would get decapitated would the second largest mind take over completely or would there be problems regaining control because of some backlash?

I'm trying to make a plausible phyrric victory against a nid fleet and I thought that killing the biggest mind in the vicinity would cause enough problems to make it crumble... gotta rethink this stuff.

>>50802313
The less synapse creatures there are the dumber and slower the Hive Mind gets. Also the shittier the synapse creatures the stupider it gets.

Stick a load of Nid roaches together and they aren't much smarter than they are individually. Even in large groops because each individual organism is shit. It's a lot of shit but it's still shit.

No get a bunch of roaches and put a Zoanthrope in there with it's big, big brain. Now its a bunch of roaches moving with a carefully controlled and intelligent purpose acting with the precision of a well oiled machine. Then the Imperial soldiers got problems and those problems won't go away until they take out the Zoanthrope.

If a 2nd swarm with a high end synapse creature comes into play then shit is fucked because not only have they got a back up unit but the collective brain power directing the swarm has just jumped up another notch.

And then you get a Biotitan and a swarm and it's nolube time.

>>50801925
colony?

>>50803426
Trying to make a technocratic society that keeps getting screwed over because struggles are fun.

>>50790547
We need a list of things that are supposed to happen at the Great Battle/End Times/Judgement Day.

>Impossible Child
Never actually stated to be End Times in any of it's prophesies but no other time frame given. Not unreasonable suggestion that Lofn is testing the theory suggest time of Impossible Child is close.

>Void Dragon
If the Ad-Mech were desperate enough, if the sanctity of Holy Mars was under threat of total desecration, they would let it out on the principle that they have nothing else to loose at that point. Coins toss if this is a good or bad thing. No mentions of what he will do after he has finished venting his frustrations at imprisonment.

>Big WAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!
A true inheritor of The Beast will arise, possibly The Beast will reincarnate. There is a big Beast looking WAAAAAAAAGH!!!! brewing. Brain Boyz are back. Shit is getting real.

>Chaos Black Crusade
Not fully recovered from 12th one. 13th is on it's way now and it's bigger than 12th. This coupled with the recent reunification of Dark and Chaos eldar is shit looking horrific.

>Necron resurgence
It is darkly rumoured as of 998M41 that the Silent King or at least Crypteks in his employ have just performed his first successful reverse biotransferance. Necrons will soon be able to breed again and regain their sanity. Their few weaknesses are about to vanish. Yngir Reborn.

Only thing no prophesy should ever mention is the Tau, because they are just the biggest of the nobodies out in bumfuck nowhere, and the Tyrannids. Tyrannids are the ultimate "WTF!" for every faction. They come from outside the game.

File: exterminatus.jpg (24KB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

24KB, 480x360px

>>50804765
>Necrons will soon be able to breed again and regain their sanity.
I am genuinely scared by such a concept.

File: necron lord.jpg (179KB, 644x899px) Image search: [Google]

179KB, 644x899px

>>50805109
Shits gonna get fucked.

Fucked is incoming

There is no end to the bottomless pit of fucked.

It's fucked to the power of fucked.

File: 1455240194090.png (1MB, 870x640px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 870x640px

In this 40k I suggest that the Severan Dominate being a faction trying to break away from the Imperium.

Part of the deal on joining the Imperium is that when you are in, you are in forever. There are no fair weather friendships in the Imperium.

>>50804765
The Void Dragon isn't pissed at the Mechanicus for imprisoning him. The most the Mechanicus have done is refused to let him out when he asked them to, and refused to tell anyone else. It doesn't care too much, for it gets to simply sit there and get (unintentionally) worshipped and the amount of time the AdMech has kept it imprisoned is a virtual eyeblink of its sentence time. Like regular 40k, the scary implication is the Dragon might be exactly where it wants to be. Of course, this doesn't mean he might just wreck shit for the sheer principle of it.

Or the Mechanicus might actually do something to piss him off between now and the End Times and any potential of happy dragon goes out the window.

Or even good!Dragon=Autocthon, so even if the dragon doesn't kill anyone, we have a new bugfuck nuts entity to deal with in the galaxy.

>>50809263
The Imperium wouldn't have to do much to show the Severans how dumb that is. All they would have to do is go "Okay, you want to be on your own? Lets see how you deal with endless hordes of Chaos, orks, and tyranids without any supplies from us."

>>50804765
Other possible happenings
- Tyrant star?
- Outsider decides to stop sulking in his Dyson sphere

So people in these threads have been wondering what the Sisters of Battle have been up to, and people are probably going to start popping up the eternal question of "why no female space marines" given that half the primarchs seem to have not been full space marines but were able to be given enough augmentations that they kept up with their troops just fine. I think I may have a solution that solves both problems.

When the Mark II Astartes augmentations were designed, the Imperium ran into the problem that the augmentation procedure would only work on men, in part because some of the augmentations were partially reverse-engineered from the Steward's genome, who was, of course, a dude. The Steward took this "bug" and made it into a feature, if a space marine was ever captured by Chaos it would be impossible for Chaos to just breed an army of space marines, barring serious messing around from Slaanesh (if that would even work, seeing as many space marine parts are more installed rather than grown a space marine would hypothetically just give birth to a normal human).

Of course, every so often a woman comes along whose talents in battle are just too good to let go to waste. Enter the Sisters of Battle. The Sisters of Battle, the ones you see on the front lines, are individuals who are cybered up and augmented out as far as they can go without getting the full gender-specific space marine treatment, given the best set of power armor they can make, and let loose on the enemy. This is why the Sisters can wield things like bolters that normal humans have a hard time with. They may be diet space marines, but even a diet space marine can still wreck shit. Please don't mention the "diet space marine" thing to them. They don't take it very well. Non-combat orders such as the Sisters Hospitalier don't get the same treatment, but often a Sister of Battle who is not combat capable will sometimes be transferred there to continue serving.

>>50811254 (samefag)

Over the years, the High Lords of Terra realized they needed their own militant arm to get shit done, and naturally gravitated towards the Sisters of Battle as some kind of loophole. As a result, the Sisters of Battle essentially became the muscle for the High Lords of Terra, much like the Minotaurs and kind of like how the Sisters are treated in vanilla!40k.

The Sisters of Battle are technically not a militarized religious institution, but a lot of them still tend to be religious fanatics because of their close ties to the Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy. The only difference now is that there are reasonable Sisters of Battle instead of just frothing lunatics. If the Sisterhood wants to play nice with you they send the "nice" Sisters. If they don't you get the full-on bolter bitches.

Hopefully there is some way to fit this in with previous anon's characterization of the SoB as "Catholic schoolteachers with guns, rather than nuns with guns", which I kind of like. It would also be a good way to get around the "no militarized religious institutions" rule, because in this AU you still have the Steward around to interpret the rules who would take one look at the canon SoB and say "uh uh, you know exactly what I meant, this is still breaking the rules".

The only other idea I had, since the primarchs are all human this time around, was that one of the two missing primarchs was a woman who led the Sisters of Silence, but the requirements of that legion (either blanks or low level psykers who could learn to disappear from the enemy's perception just like their records did from the Imperium) were so strict that they were perpetually undermanned, and were essentially broken by the WotB. The Sisters of Battle are their "spiritual" descendants in a sense, though having much more reasonable recruiting requirements.

>>50811103
I think our 41k has the Silent King's necrons busily undoing biotransference into their new badass flesh to avoid a good natured but totally mind melting void dragon/omnissiah, who exists as an embodied C'tan and chaos god of technological complexity in the guise of true order.

Other developments might be greater unification of Orks and chaos, to the point of the waaagh effect being actively manipulated by chaos, the fruition of which could be super empowering to Tzeench and Khorne. Slaanesh could try to escape the deadlock of the great game through its closer relationship with the eldar and their pantheon, squaring up to be the imperium's nemesis in the warp and foe/synthesis of their ultimate mother and father figures. Slaany could really make itself the true devil of the galaxy's self evident true faith, and even start realizing the full extent of its 'excess' portfolio to become a real lucifer figure. Nurgle could actually get puffed up in the same way, and the addition of more meddling gods than the big four, whose' power seems to rise by their mythological roll, provides more options in terms of mythological relationships.

Also, if chaos is usually backed by orks, do they have the support of Gork and Mork in conflicts between warp entities? This would be a pretty massive advantage, like two spare, extra-beefy khornes. They might instead have convinced the orks to help them through great Beasts and realspace deals alone, staying below the full notice of the Gorkamorka, or they've cultivated their own strain of Ork that lacks the attention of Gorkamorka but still cooperates with other orks. This could be one of Nurgle's great achievements in the AU.

>>50803426
>>50803727
who?

>>50811213
Outsider?
Also, I know that the idea's from TTShit, but I still love the idea of it being Malal's peephole into the universe

>>50811254
>>50811299
I thought they were made as the militant arm of the Ordo Sicarius - instead of keeping the theme of "these are the ones that make the Manly Men Brainwashed To Worship The Emperor look faithless by comparison", they were "these are the ones who keep you the fuck in line, ALL of you" (which imho is good since the SoBs getting shoehorned as "REEEEE HERETICS PLEASE GO" in 40k AUs happens way too much).

The SoBs are still (obviously) tied to the Inquisition but not the Ecclesiarchy (since, y'know, it doesn't exist) but the same loophole is used since a regulatory Ordo also shouldn't have Men Under Arms but it happens anyways, without the problem of it flying in the face of the Steward's wishes.

Alternatively, if all you anons definitely wanna keep the religious shit, then I do like the second idea about the Sisters of Silence or female primarch (not keen on both though) having been so pivotal in saving some worlds that they ended up being worshipped, and consistently raise the SoBs for the Imperium's service. They're not quite IG, not quite SMs, nobody knows what the fuck to do with them.

>>50804765
Then there are the parts of the prophecies that are not set in stone, but are inconsistant from prophecy to prophecy.
- in some prophecies the Imperium wins
- in some prophecies Chaos wins
- in some prophecies the Emperor dies
- in some prophecies Eldrad dies
- in some prophecies the galaxy is scoured lifeless
- in one prophecy Lady Malys kills the Emperor and rapes the corpse to produce the Starchild. Thankfully just one.

And of course, all of these prophecies are dipped in a layer of uncertainty and vagueness. No one knows for sure which bits are true and which bits are not, save Eldrad, who knows that ALL of them are alternate, equally possible outcomes. And he's the poor bastard who has to choose which one actually comes to pass. And his own clock is ticking down.

>>50812866
>Thankfully just one.
Vect's magical realm?

>>50813105
We don't include prophecies coming out of the ghoul stars or the eye in the official tallies. They really start to devalue the concept when "rapes the corpse" can just pass as part of the background prophetic babble. They also tend to get a lot more politically influenced prophecy, when some tzeenchian farseer is asked by Vect or Malys what the future holds they prefer to paint a rosy picture than voice uncertainty. Only one imperial prophecy notes this detail. I dare not list the foremost five chaos prophecies that predict what comes of raping Oscar and/or Isha.

>>50812465

Guy who wrote this
>>50811254
>>50811299
here. I'm not completely committed to the idea of a female primarch and/or the Sisters of Silence represent one of the lost legions. I just wanted to throw it out there as a possible answer to "why no female primarchs" (specifically "there was one, but the legion is effectively extinct") given the Steward chose rather than grew the primarchs in this timeline. Sisters of Silence fit the timeline well and mean that we don't have to go inventing a group out of wholecloth.

I had forgotten that we had gotten rid of the Ecclesiarchy (though in hindsight it makes sense). I have no problem with making the Sisters non-religious, I just wasn't sure if it would be okay with all of you.

I think the Sisters being "diet space marines" could work very well with them being the militant arm of the Ordos Sicarius or some other "internal affairs" order, since that's sort of what I suggested with them being the muscle for some part of the Imperial bureaucracy like the Minotaurs and IIRC that was their original job in earlier versions of canon. An augmented human would be able to handle just about anything a job in the Ordos could throw at them short of a Chaos Space Marine. I just wanted to try and find a niche for the sisters that didn't step on the jurisdiction of any other organization like the assassins, especially one that wasn't "REEEEE HERETICS PLEASE GO".

(cont.)

>>50814031
As mentioned above, I was also trying to give a good explanation for "why no female Space Marines" given that we opened Pandora's box by having several primarchs being unable to become full Astartes yet still able to keep up with normal space marines with just bog-standard cybernetics and enhancements. Which raises the question of why they just don't do this for other individuals. This way everyone benefits. The question is answered as "they are augmented as far as they can go, but they have a different job". The Sisters get a buff and a distinct niche. And the now less-religiously fanatic sisters get a new reason to be angry with an interservice rivalry and a bit of an inferiority complex (why don't I get the augments they get) with the space marines. But I am open to other ideas.

>>50813105
Someone in a previous thread mentioned it as a worst-case scenario when discussing Lady Malys.

>>50814031
>>50814126
Muscle for internal bureaucracy sounds good, since the Sicarius has expanded to basically be the Ordo Internal Affairicus for the entire imperium (I think so, at least). The interservice rivalry/"reeeeee Manly Men please go" might be good too, not only because of the augments but also they feel resentful for only mopping up incompetents/spies/insurgents instead of "real" enemies like orks or Croneldar

>>50814230
Perhaps they should be called the Ordos Securitas instead of Ordos Sicarius, since Sicarius literally means "assassin" and the Ordos isn't just looking after assassins anymore. I would suggest "watchmen", as in "who watches the watchmen", but it turns out the Latin word for watchmen is custodes (which is already taken).

If we are to continue the canon analogy of Custodes being like big cats and Space Marines being like wolves, SoB could be considered akin to coyotes. Similar to their larger cousins, but flexible, adaptable, and able to either work alone or in groups depending on the need. And when they do face a threat which they cannot take on alone, they join forces and absolutely shred the opposition.

Speaking of which, I wonder what Constantin Valdor is up to in this timeline. I can see him heading off with the Steward and Isha/Macha to Beach World, Steward asks what the hell he's doing because the Custodes are sworn to Throne and Emperor, not Steward. Valdor says the Steward will always be one of the Emperor's greatest assets, so he will always need protecting although he really suspects things are going to go to shit as soon as Stewie turns his back, and wants to keep an eye on him. Plus he doesn't want to swear any oaths he doesn't think he'll be able to keep . Steward find answer acceptable (though not convincing) and allows him along as long as he gives them their privacy.

>>50805109
>>50808310
>>50804765

Oh yeah, and World Engines. We have the famous one bumped up M35 but, to put it another way "what kind of idiot only ever builds one copy of a doomsday weapon".

>>50814126
The non Space Marines like Guilliman and Corax weren't front line soldiers. They didn't need to keep up with the astartes. Their job was commanding and being the brains of the Legion.

Also a very real reason that there were no female primarchs could be Malcador. Warlord was at most 50 - 70 years old when he made the rank of primarch. He had been raised and was still being advised by Malcador. Malcador had very traditional views about women in the military.

>>50812357
Just some original content that will play out in late M40.
Still not done with all parts though.

Short of it is, a technocratic society run by a Balthasar Gelt like character and AdMech hating their guts.
Thus the struggles they go through are angled on not having the AdMech but something else.
Balancing all of this to make it seem reasonable is taking longer than expected but I could start posting the origin of it all soon.

>>50819718
Anything that brings a little Fantasy style feel to 40k is a good idea in my opinion. I think Warhammer Fantasy was fairly noble dark, or maybe that's just my impression from limited exposure.

>>50814900
Ordo Vigilus, then? I think the analogies fit fantastically, although I've never seen the custodes/SM one before, care to explain?

>>50819718
...but that do they have to do with the nids?

>>50818840
Pretty sure it was Canon that The Hero was the one who suggested female Prinarchs to balance out the dudes and Emps was all "Nope."

>>50820752
I using gelt as a comparison for personality and not so much the 'Lore of metal' but then again some of the technological creations made by him and his fellow technocrats might seem like magic to some.

>>50820827
The nids will simply be an invading force at some point that will screw over the technocrats badly.
Can't have them progress and do well without obstacles resulting in near extinction :)

>>50821464
Oh yeah, I didn't mean a literal 1:1 transplant of fantasy to 40k. I meant in the sense that there's a gradience of characters. Modern 40k is pretty top heavy. I can't really explain well, but Gelt is one of my favorite characters because while being very influential in the empire replete with fancy title, he's still very much an outsider, and shows that not every character that is big in the empire is a lord elector count Von scmurflehurtz or whatever.

>>50820832
In the Vanilla Malcador also didn't command scavenger runs to abandoned outposts.

I liked the idea of him being the wise old uncle of the early Imperium, but like many old people he's a bit behind the times. Also according to the map on the 1d4chan page Franj was unusual for accepting the rule of a Queen.

>>50814900
>>50814900
I like Ordos Securitas. It's similar enough to the old one to have the link be made but with a more appropriate literal translation.

Does anyone have saved the fluff about the granddaughter of Eldrad that became a Venetian Merchant matriarch?

File: 1411081383345.png (211KB, 700x1000px) Image search: [Google]

211KB, 700x1000px

>>50825790
DOn't matter found it.

Added to the 1d4chan page.

Now begins the task of trying to codify the scribbles about Jubblowski and put it down as tastefully as possible.

File: alex-jay-brady-12189977-10204466238970455-7083887370057652314-n.jpg (53KB, 909x500px) Image search: [Google]

53KB, 909x500px

>>50826265
the 1d4chan page needs a spot to go over the involvement of the gods, namely Cegorach and Isha, in imperial politics. This could also be a good place to write out the imperium's stance on the nature of godlike beings in the galaxy, since they're somewhat common and very involved.

>>50752101
This is downright philosophical, showing again this is the best AU on /tg/.

>>50818840
To add to the bit on non-augmented Primarchs, Guilliman would have spent most of his time in his office on his flagship directing the logistics and troops movements of multiple sectors. Corax would have led from the field, but from concealed vantage points with clear lines of sights on the enemy so he could coordinate his ambushes. Lorgar similarly would have been behind the front lines singing hymns and inspiring his men.

Combat wise, they were formidable warriors but would be peak human at best (Corax would probably be about as strong as a Catachan, Lorgar as a Lord Commissar), so they definitely would have been a hindrance and liability to their Astartes if they had tried to be in the front lines.

>>50820827
One of the Horus Heresy books compares the Custodes to tigers and Space Marines to wolves. Custodes are tigers in that while they are ridiculously lethal on their own, the way they are trained means they don't work well together and an "army" of them isn't much more than the sum of their parts. Custodes are fiercely independent and have individually customized weaponry, and they have trouble doing things like bailing a comrade's ass out of the fire on the battlefield.

Space Marines are the "wolves". While they may not be as strong as an individual Custodes, they work together much better (to the point that they function better as a group rather than alone) and working in a group exponentially magnifies the combat effectiveness of a given Space Marine. It is for this reason that the vanilla!40k Emperor used the Space Marines as his rank-and-file soldiers, and the Custodes as bodyguards.

>>50824527
This could be the reason why Sisters of Battle don't appear until later in the Imperium than the legions. By that point Malcador might have passed away, and the Emperor now has to deal with the problem of what to do with the women who would have made good space marines if they only had a bloody Y chromosome. They're not byzantine enough to join the Inquisition and sending them to the Imperial Guard to wield a flashlight would be a waste of talent, which the Imperium cannot afford.

>>50829612
Given that Lorgar had some rather strong things to say on the subject of the Chaos Gods and was able to be convinced that the Steward was not a god or prophet because he was not omnipotent, he probably would have refused to believe that either Cegorach or Isha were true gods. However, because Cegorach and Isha were clearly benevolent to the Imperium on some level, he probably kept his mouth shut out of respect (possibly believing they were beings acting on behalf of God, but not God) and worded the Book of Lorgar very carefully to make sure it was clear he was talking about the Chaos Gods. Having the book proofedited by the Steward and others probably helped.

>>50826265
>>50829612

If we are writing up stuff for the 1d4chan page, I did a write-up for the Void Dragon stuff in this thread independent of the whole "Dialogues with the Dragon" thing.

In the darkness of the 41st millennium, it is generally assumed that everyone is keeping secrets. However, few are as tightly guarded or as potentially disastrous to the Imperium as the one held by the Adeptus Mechanicus. In the days before the Unification of Sol, during the Martian civil war, the Adeptus Mechanicus was but one faction vying for control of the red planet. As the Mechanicus gradually unified the nations of Mars, they came across an unusual structure in the far outlands of Mars. Upon further investigation, they discovered the structure was a prison, with one solitary prisoner. Mag'ladroth, the Void Dragon, the self-proclaimed last of the C’tan. The Void Dragon claimed to have been watching over mankind ever since humanity first set foot on the Red Planet, and humanity’s expertise with technology had impressed it. It claimed to have subconsciously influenced the Mechanicus into finding its prison, and offered them knowledge in exchange for its freedom. The Mechanicus, to their credit, were not stupid enough to unhesitatingly open the prison of an ancient being several times older than the entire history of humanity. They promptly buried the prison of the Void Dragon, and swore to each other that they would never speak of what they had seen in the Martian outlands ever again.

>>50833254

But this was not enough. The Void Dragon still reached out to them, whispering to them in their dreams through their implants, giving them visions of inspiration and promising so much more if only they would loosen its shackles. This, in part, is the reason why the Mechanicus is so fanatical about the invention of new technologies. They fear that any new development in technology, however small, may really be a “Trojan gift” on behalf of the Void Dragon, even if it is really just mundane human inspiration. What experimentation is tolerated by the Mechanicus is tolerated on the condition that it be done far away from Mars, in the hopes that the sheer distance of space would be enough to protect any would-be inventor from any influence from the Void Dragon.

>>50833279
In the years since the Void Dragon was discovered by the Mechanicus, more information has come to light. The Void Dragon claims it was the only one of the C’tan to actually take the job of being a Necron “god” seriously, as well as being the C’tan to adapt the best to having a physical form made of necrodermis. The Void Dragon saw the benefits of having a mechanical body, particularly when its followers were able to trade their diseased flesh for the immunity of metal. However, it drew the line at the other C’tan treating the Necrons as their slaves and cannon fodder. According to the Void Dragon, upon being made aware of the treatment of its followers by “the Laughing One of the Eldar”, it turned on its kindred on behalf of the Necrons. The Void Dragon was overwhelmed by its brethren and crippled and imprisoned for the crime of kin-slaying, its body broken and its solar sails slashed. Some parts of this story have been independently confirmed, such as the fact that the Void Dragon did turn on its own kind and was apparently taken out of commission before the C’tan began to fight among themselves and were shattered into pieces by the Silent King. But many parts of this story remain unverified, except of course by the word of the Void Dragon. The only people who could ever verify the Void Dragon’s story are Cegorach, the Necrons, and the remaining fragments of the C’tan, none of whom are particularly inclined to talk and would be unlikely to confirm the Void Dragon’s story even if it were true. The closest anyone has come to validating the Void Dragon is the Silent King, who claims the Cadian pillars were “the conception of Mag'ladroth, the only one who cared for us, for our protection”.

>>50833296
The Void Dragon is a strange entity, known of only by the innermost circle of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Guardians of the Dragon, the division of techpriests assigned to guard the Void Dragon and ensure that it never escapes. These are some of the only people in the Imperium who know the horrible secret that the Adeptus Mechanicus’ “devil” is really the same being as their Omnissiah. The Guardians of the Dragon are known by other members of the Mechanicus to be highly respected yet easily irritable and short-tempered, a trait they have developed through continual interactions with the Void Dragon. After several attempts at trying to bargain with the Mechanicus to free it (38 by its own reckoning), the Void Dragon appears to have given up trying to get the Mechanicus to free it of their own volition, and instead appears to offer information freely, saying “it is better that something is done right rather than never be done at all”. The Void Dragon claims that it has adopted the Mechanicus, or perhaps even humanity as a whole, as its new followers. However, at the same time, the Void Dragon seems to have developed a twisted sort of humor, spending its time taunting its would-be jailors, staring them down like a looming cat with its mechanical, unblinking eyes.

>>50833311
The Void Dragon speaks in terms of probabilities and certainties, though its language is twisted. It never seems to tell a direct lie, but can still omit information or say something has occurred based on “one’s perception”. Even a simple “yes” or “no” cannot be taken at face value. The Mechanicus learned this the hard way when they decided to ask the Void Dragon directly whether the inspiration of a new recruit was its doing. The Void Dragon responded “this invention is novel to me”, which the Mechanicus took as a sign of denial in its involvement. Only later did they realize the Void Dragon’s words really meant “this is novel to me, because I came up with it last night”. It knows things that it should have no perception of in its prison, likely by spying on the Mechanicus using their own implants. Worse yet, according to the Void Dragon, all the inadvertent worship by the Mechanicus has given the Void Dragon its own shadow in the Immaterium. Unlike the other C’tan, the Void Dragon can perceive of the existence of the Warp, and find the phenomenon highly interesting. The Void Dragon appears unfazed by its imprisonment, claiming the Mechanicus will eventually see reason and let it out of its own accord, something that concerns the higher echelons of the Mechanicus greatly.

>>50833331
These fears have only gotten worse with the widespread availability of the Starchild prophecies. A significant number of these prophecies contain the line “at the Time of Ending the Dragon shall throw off his chains and arise from the halls of the Forge Lords to make war upon those in his kingdom”. Many have puzzled over this apparent non sequitur in the lines of these prophecies. Some have suggested it is a metaphor for the Adeptus Mechanicus themselves. One Black Dragon techmarine was convinced that this line in the prophecy referred to him, and generally proceeded to make an ass of himself as he let everyone know he was the Omnissiah's gift to the Imperium until he was unceremoniously trampled by an ork gargant for his stupidity. But the upper echelons of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Guardians of the Dragon know the truth. Worse yet, the way the prophecy is worded implies that rather than breaking free from its prison, somebody might actually let the Void Dragon out. Now no one would ever consider releasing the Dragon from his prison, for even if the Void Dragon means what it says, no one wants to be the one responsible for an event that potentially kicks off the apocalypse. Others in the know point out that in no way does the prophecy say the event is a good thing, a bad thing, or simply an act of desperation, the situation being so disastrous that someone is willing to unleash one monster to fight another. However, the prophecies raise the possibility that the Dragon may have been telling the truth all along, and that in the Imperium’s darkest hour, the Void Dragon might have the Imperium’s back. Might, my child.

>>50833254
>>50833279
>>50833296
>>50833311
>>50833331
>>50833351

Does this all sound okay? I tried to create a good summary of what we had come up with, barring the stuff that would not be common knowledge (like the Void Dragon considering that he still owes Cegorach a favor). I tried to make it sound as ambiguous as possible, but I'm not sure if I did enough.

>>50812212
>Also, if chaos is usually backed by orks, do they have the support of Gork and Mork in conflicts between warp entities?
have gork and mork come up in our lore at all so far?

>>50833409
sounds great, fits well for the 1d4chan page

>>50833409
That's some mighty tasty writefaggatry.

yarp yarp

abelrnb

>>50833409
Great, fits the AdMech prior their "lolsorandumb"-codex lore well.

>>50833409
This is some top shelf stuff

>>50833409
If we are keeping the Vanilla fluff about the Necron craft landing on Mars as a thing that happened it raises even more implications.

By all probability the Dragon has no warriors or ships of its own.

Those were not its servants come to free it. Those were the minions of rivals come to determine its status and answer the questions of is it alive and is it awake and are its bindings holding.

But what now?

Did they get close enough to answer any of that? Did they manage to get a transmission out? What would their master do if they found out its current state?

The Silent King could be looking towards Mars.

File: Eldrad FFFFFUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuu-------------.jpg (55KB, 800x548px) Image search: [Google]

55KB, 800x548px

>>50812866
>- in some prophecies Eldrad dies

I imagine this being one of Eldrad's prophesies. Or at least Eldrad has made prophesies of this nature alongside those of other farseers.

Although eventually dying is inevitable of everyone if you are prepared to wait long enough so it's possible this is yet another example of Eldrad taking the piss.

Eldar live for a little under 2 thousand years naturally baring major illness or injury. The best currently available longevity treatments have an upper limit of 4.5 thousand years if you are very lucky but closer to ~4.

Eldrad's age is unknown because trying to get accurate pre-Fall records is incredibly difficult, especially about a relative nobody like he was back then. He remembers trying to gt peoples attention about them birthing something terrible in the Warp and it fucking them up and that almost nobody wanted to listen. He remembers desperately getting some large ships together to evacuate a bunch of worlds and they may or may not have been the first craftworlds, it's hazy.

He thinks he is at least 12 - 15 thousandish age range at lest but he can't prove anything and he doesn't know for sure. He could be a lot older, a LOT older. The Fall broke his mind and he doesn't know. He doesn't know why or how he has lived this long.

Point is the rest of the eldar people think he is a permanent if sometimes annoying fixture of the Universe. Most don't consider the possibility that he will one day, one day possibly quite soon, die. His skin is lined, his hair is white, his eyes are grey and his skeleton has fully crystallized. He is dying.

He has contingencies. Somewhere on Ulthwe there is a wraithbone body with his name on it. He won't take death lying down. The prophesies of his demise might not be inaccurate but not one of them says he stays dead, because fuck fate.

In the interests of keeping the thread bumped, I present for consideration some spitballed ideas on by the nobledark!40k /tg/ consensus.

Standard Imperial infantry composition is to field a batallion of Imperial Guardsmen combined with a detachment of Eldar auxiliaries. Unlike previous mixed-forces regiments throughout galactic history, this arrangement tends to work rather well, because unlike these previous combined regiments both sides feel fairly safe that the other side isn't going to shoot them in the back. Both groups can and do fight on their own, but work spectacularly together. In theory, the regiment structure works by Imperial Guard forces taking the brunt of the enemy fire, and the Eldar acting as flankers. In practice, the glass cannon-ier Eldar like this arrangement because it means they won't be the primary targets of enemy fire, whereas the Imperial Guard like this arrangement because even though they start out taking brunt of the blow, the Eldar auxiliaries will tear through enemy forces fast enough that they never become the targets of focus fire.

If there is any weakness to this arrangement, it's that Eldar and humans tend to only take orders from their respective species, which causes there to be two people in charge of a given regiment. If the two commanders can't come to an agreement, the army sputters, which can lead to one or the other going in alone.

In worlds on the eastern fringe, in the years since the Tau Empire mostly became absorbed into the Imperium, a new variation on this strategy has emerged, where you have a third group of Tau fire warriors providing long-ranged support from behind. The idea behind this is that if the formation works as intended, half of the enemy army doesn’t even get the chance to show up to fight. In practice this formation has proven experimental and hard to organize, as even absorbed into the Imperium the Tau tend to want to do their own thing, and the levels of mutual trust aren’t there.

>>50843540 (cont.)

Most non-Ulthwe Eldar probably see human weapons like modern soldiers do knives. Crude, simple, and inelegant compared to their primary weapon, but if you're stuck in the trenches in a do or die moment, it's better to have the other guy get shot rather than you. Therefore, Eldar that use human weapons use them as a sidearm or last resort weapon, if at all. It helps that many human-made STC-based weapons are about as fragile as a brick (being designed for maximum durability), in contrast to the more delicate, precision-made (though still pretty tough) weapons of the Eldar, so an Eldar can be less careful with their sidearm and make sure their primary weapon is at maximum efficiency.

As with everything in the Imperium, this varies from world to world. Specialist forces like Catachans, Sisters of Battle, Harlequins, or Howling Banshees function differently, and follow their own rules. Craftworlds like Alaitoc would sneer if offered human weapon as a sidearm, whereas Ulthwe Eldar would take two in addition to their own weapon and ask if you have any more.

Arg. This came out a lot more informed-sounding than I intended. Non-military strategy-fag here, please send help. The idea is that Eldar have bigger guns, but are fewer in number and can't take many losses. The IG has a lot more men and can stand a bloodied nose, but their guns aren't as good. Standard Imperial policy is to have the IG take the heat off the Eldar so they can use the big guns to fuck shit up.

>>50842647
>Point is the rest of the eldar people think he is a permanent if sometimes annoying fixture of the Universe
I don't want to push this as our story direction, but it would be pretty interesting if eventually eldrad got so old and legendary he really did start to become permanent. One year he's closer to the imagined eternal dignified age he's stuck at in the subconscious of the imperium, the next and the next incrementally closer to his legend. He might die before he's turned into an invincible tall-tale, but of all the 'mortal' heroes of the imperium he's the closest to standing among their resident gods.

>>50843568
There have been a couple posts talking about the way the fall of the eldar as a warp phenomenon ties all the major involved entities into a narrative that affects emotions and souls throughout the galaxy. Because this narrative is all tied off in regular 40k there isn't much potential emotion, thus warp energy, as the eldar pantheon is essentially wiped out and the emperor's godhood is distinctly different. In this setting the eldar pantheon has two thriving survivors and a new, youthful god-construct married in, with the possibility of classical myth style fertile gods. This whole situation would presumably have a pretty big warp presence, and it would interact with slaanesh's as if they were in antithesis. The good condition of the eldar under the deific court means the opposite for slaanesh, depriving it of souls.
However, Slaanesh has its own dedicated crone Eldar we've established attempted to actively shape Slaanesh in its conception. They would probably keep doing this, and try to play off the warp presences and relationships of other gods to empower Slaanesh at a meta level. By the interlocking way they exist in the collective subconscious of the imperium the imperial gods and slaanesh are a set, and by increasing imperial warp influence and the narrative primacy of the imperial warp-god-construct you carve out more space for Slaanesh as the eldar devil and arch-fiend. Slaanesh could assume more and more of humanity's focus as the eldar history and associated emotions are naturalized to humanity. What it comes down to is that despite power levels, warp bullshit could be used to let slaanesh thrive off its legend, and an imperial victory that empowers their gods or makes them more psychically powerful could also lead them to boost their devil, making the ruinous powers 'slaanesh and the other three'. There would presumably be more myths involving the enmity against slaanesh, ported from the eldar, and it would distinctly affect the warp.

>>50841085
>Be C'tan shard
>Find out the meatbags are hiding something on one of their planets
>Oh fuck it's Mag'draloth
>Oh fuck he's still alive
>Oh fuck he remembers what we did to him
>Oh fuck the meatbags say he's supposed to get out
>*random Necrontyr cursewords*

Speaking of the shattered C'tan, I can easily see the Necrons willing to use shards of just about any of the other C'tan, except the Nightbringer and the Deciever. Not even in a worst case scenario. Because the Necrons remember exactly what those two did to them, and they don't even want to let a piece of those two assholes out. Perhaps as a result of this, most of the C'tan vampires discussed earlier in the thread come from shards of the Deciever and Nightbringer.

>>50812465
>Outsider?
See >>50760226. The guy who, along with the Nightbringer, basically won the C'tan civil wars. Reportedly grew a conscious from the voices of all the other devoured C'tan screaming at him. Retreated to the edge of the galaxy to go hide out in a Dyson sphere. Missed the Silent King's Really Fun Party, and so is essentially the other "last of the unsharded C'tan" in existence. Almost no one knows his current location, so by extension Voidy doesn't know he's still out there but just assumes he got shattered with the rest, hence "self-proclaimed last of the C'tan". No one has any clue what he wants, even in vanilla!40k.

>>50843568
Has anyone noticed that Eldrad is basically Merlin here? Really old space wizard with weird background that helps wise human ruler gather a bunch of the noblest warriors to form a better kingdom?

>>50843754
In Vanilla!40k, nearly all of the Chaos Gods actually have an endgame, as strange as it might sound.

Nurgle (this is from Black Crusade) thinks the galaxy as is has gone on far too long and wants to burn it down and start over, a la Dark Souls.

Tzeentch wants to find out what's in the Well of Eternity, hence using Kairos Fateweaver as a canary in the coalmine before deciding he needs to find a better plan.

Khorne pretty much doesn't have a plan, he's happy with the galaxy as is.

And Slaanesh, as god/ess of excess, wants to usurp the other three and become the sole Chaos God. This could be just turned up to 11 here since Slaanesh now has more options beyond the Great Game.

>>50842647
>The prophesies of his demise might not be inaccurate but not one of them says he stays dead, because fuck fate.

Let me just say I love this idea. Fits the guy perfectly.

File: arthur.jpg (42KB, 853x480px) Image search: [Google]

42KB, 853x480px

>>50843804
I hadn't even noticed this.

Holy shit.

I like it.

File: 1482262043723.jpg (191KB, 1280x1345px) Image search: [Google]

191KB, 1280x1345px

>>50843754
I say all this because something similar would apply to other players in the fall, which would cover Eldrad, Vect, and presumably Malys. because they were active during and before the birth of a god they are automatically granted a mythic status in the thoughts of their people, and their political involvement against or beside that god as effectual actors is embedded in the cultural narrative. They are seen to be as influential and efficacious as the gods themselves, and predate one, so their cultural standing is about the same to the mortals of the contemporary galaxy. They need not be actively worshiped, they are faithfully believed in regardless because their historical capabilities already style them as mythical players. A real world example would be gilgamesh, whose own legend is all about his mortality and the futility of seeking godhood, but its so epic a tale and portrays so mighty a man that he was later worshiped as lord of the underworld. Cegorach might joke that after Oscar and Eldrad's ten thousand year orgy of councils, considered decision making, and self reflection they will both explode into chaos gods of good courtly behavior.

File: meanwhile, inside slaanesh.jpg (505KB, 1200x1075px) Image search: [Google]

505KB, 1200x1075px

>>50843871
Slaanesh might even be interested in embodiment, like the C'tan, Oscar, and Macha/Isha, as a way to more effectively author its own legends. Similarly, it could be amassing the most stable and persistent realspace assets through its crone eldar (which have raised it), and be interested in its own real space empire. Slaanesh is the weakest chaos god, but for an artificial god construct its power is massive. It might even play up its Eldar origins in this setting as a way of setting itself apart from the other three gods and justify its wimpiness to them. And because its cult predates its birth it would have a strong influence to get slaany interested in normal space as it affects the warp. Slaanesh might be the void dragon of the chaos gods, not in that it might have good intentions, but in how it might break away and start blurring the lines between god and cult for metagame abuse.

>>50844480
My only serious point of disagreement is saying Slaanesh is artificial. It is at least as natural as the other 3.

I like it hugely and it potentially adds a whole new level of conflict to Eternal War. Each side trying to bring down the big players of the other side. They will never achieve godhood, not truly, but they can grow big and strong enough to inconvenience/harm the gods to say nothing of the shit they can wreck in the mortal world.

Of course being able to do awesome things in the moral world is mostly not the result of tire legendary status. It works the other way. Eldrad does not have extra dick points for his Merlin status. He has a Merlin status because he was a dick for so long it's achieved a sort of Universal Constant status.

Prince Yriel seems to be going down a similar road. As does Jubblowski. And Vect by grace of the Dark Muses.

Oscar is also to an extent, but his inherent nature as a Man of Gold seems to be hindering him. Perhaps because of the method by which he was created and his artificial soul and incompatibility issues. Macha/Isha is already The Lady of Flowers so she gains nothing new from her following.

As a probably irreverent to the happenings of the 41st millennium side not I would suggest that the original 2 gods of Chaos are Tzneetch and the now much diminished Malal. This was way back when when the Old Ones first decided to piss in the pool for their own curiosity. One creates without hesitation or reason and the other destroys without reason or hesitation. Between them they are the snake eating its own tail.

Nurgle and Khorne's first iterations achieved self awareness in the Old One - Necrontyr war.

Malal is a broken remnant of a thing now barely worth noticing, Khorne usurped his title as the King of War. Has about as much power as a medium grade deamon prince.

>>50843554
Nah, seems alright. Plus, Tau integration might be made more difficult by the fact that Tau are a combined arms force already (save for melee); perhaps IG tried to shove them into the long-range role but found that they were too different to existing units in that niche (don't mix gun and rocket artillery, kids).

They'd probably just end up being completely separate forces (still under IoM command as a whole) that get thrown at anyone who actually works out a viable counter, however soft, to the Eldar/IG one-two

>>50845266
>Tzneetch and the now much diminished Malal. This was way back when when the Old Ones first decided to piss in the pool for their own curiosity. One creates without hesitation or reason and the other destroys without reason or hesitation.
I dig that. Really seems like some sort of massive psychic experiment that the old ones might create through their realspace shenanigans and early warp ventures. At this stage the warp would be pretty manageable and tzeench and malal would be pretty free with arcane knowledge and favor. Presumably nurgle would arise next, as a sort of maintainer that aeons later becomes the bloated God of stagnation we know, and malal's more absract destruction and denial gets subordinated to khorne's bloody violence over the course of the war in heaven. This puts tzeench out of balance but the post war in heaven triumvirate (plus malal) would presumably still be decently survivable, though less pleasant gods. Tzeench is gleeful but reckless creator, Nurgle is a smothering and obsessed preserver, Khorne is a raging destroyer but somewhat preferable to malal's absurd circular obliteration. Over the course of the DAoT, High eldar empire, fall of the eldar, rebellion of the men of iron, and age of strife they went from uncaring about mortal concequences to their actions to actively toying with and preying on mortal civilizations, and the horrors of the era fed their worsening influence on events and vice versa. By the time Slaanesh formed fully and took its place among the other three they were in their present state of sadistic lunacy, and the nasty purple bitch joined in at the peak of their malicious fun. Following the raid on Nurgle's garden and the great crusade, the first real war in the galaxy since the war in heaven and one waged by psychic species to control the Galaxy and influence the warp the chaos gods get serious, and their actions become a war upon the imperium as part of the great game.

>>50843804
Has anyone also noticed that the major players in the forces for good(ish) are essentially a knight in shining armor, a fair lady, a jester, a wizard, and a dragon. To refer back to >>50752101, if the Imperium represents the central conflict of NobleDark between mortal desires and noble deeds, then we essentially have the core archetypes of traditional fantasy going to bat on behalf of the ideal of the Age of Gods and Heroes.

So while we're on the subject of Eldrad, here's some writefaggotry I had been kicking around a while back.

The Long Odds

“And if you follow me, we are going to the Room of Origins, to see artifacts dating to the very founding of this Craftworld.”

The Eldar boy was only one of about twenty, a gaggle of children following a beleaguered tour guide around the Chambers of History, learning about the mammoth wraithbone spaceship that had been their homes for their entire lives, and of the many Eldar that had once lived in them. There was nothing particularly special about the boy, nothing except that he was the only one to notice the figure sitting in the hallway to the side of the wraithbone hall. The tour guide was ushering the children on, but the boy remained entranced. He had to know who the figure was. Which is why it was so surprising when the figure spoke to him.

“Excuse me boy, yes, you there. Could you spare me the kindness of helping an old man?”
The boy took a quick glance at the receding tour group, and then back to the figure. He was so very young, and knew only the Craftworld, having yet to realize that trust was a precious commodity in this universe. The boy approached the old Eldar sitting in the halls of the Craftworld, only to hesitate when he realized who the figure really was. It was Eldrad! The Eldrad Ulthran! The eldest of the farseers, the architect of the liberation of Isha, the savior of the Emperor. The same Eldrad who was known by as many titles or epithets as the years he had lived! Eldrad of Ten Thousand Names!

The boy opened his mouth.

“El…”

>>50848456
"Silence, boy, I know what you are about to say. Yes, yes, Eldrad of this, Eldrad of that. Eldrad of Ten Thousand Names. Perhaps I should take pride in them. The old wisdom says that every title one earns represents a victory, after all. But I am so very old. And so very tired. I do not have time to remember half-forgotten glories. But if you could, please help an old man up.”

The boy reached out his hand, and Eldrad took his, his grip surprisingly strong despite his old age. The boy slowly helped Eldrad to his feet, the old Eldar taking so long the boy wondered if he was going to start creaking like wood.

Eldrad sighed.

“It is so very strange, what the young think life is going to be like when you are old. When you are a young man, you believe that you spend your final days terrified of death, hounded by that final specter. But when you actually get to be an old man, things change. Oh, you never stop fearing death. I believe few creatures in this universe beyond orks and tyranids ever truly do. But when you get to be my age, you tend to stop worrying about what happens to you, and start worrying about all the things you leave behind. All the things you created, and all the deeds you accomplished. The ideas you poured years of your life into. When you are no longer around to make sure everything is right, will there be someone around to make sure the dreams you set in motion still run, or will your victories gradually slip into dust. Forget what the warriors say, boy, about glory being eternal. Glory only matters if there is someone around who appreciate why it matters. Do you understand what I am saying?”

The Eldar boy shook his head, his mind trying to wrap itself around what the legendary farseer was saying to him.

>>50848468
“Well, I suppose it is something you only truly understand when you get to be an old man. And it is getting late. I have kept you too long and you are probably getting bored of my old man stories. Run along now, boy, before someone comes looking for you.”

The boy darted around the corner, as if the hounds of the Warp were after him. He had to tell his friends what he had seen, though they would not believe him. Isha preserve him, even he barely believed what had just happened. When the Eldar boy was out of sight, Eldrad slowly straightened his posture and let the cloaking illusion drop. Although he may be old, he was not that feeble, even though he could feel his bones creak, his joints almost crystalline. And yet he still had so much to do. Miles to go before he could sleep.

The old farseer calmed his mind, bringing his focus to the seer rune he had at his side. Threads of fate sprung to life in his mind’s eye, twisting and turning like fiberoptic cables or neural fibers. Eldrad pared down his vision, directing his focus to the area surrounding his current position in space-time, the “real” timeline, and waited to see if his words had any effect. And slowly, the threads of fate, the very roots that underpinned reality, shifted ever so slightly.

Eldrad smirked. It never ceased to amaze him how the slightest actions could have the greatest effects on the universe. A single set of words or a chance encounter could completely change the course of history. Lives could be won or lost. And an empire could fall, or even never be born in the first place. A small piece of advice from an old man remembered later in life could save the life of a warrior, which could turn the tide of a battle, which could save a Craftworld, which could save the galaxy. It was the doctrine Eldrad lived by, to defeat your enemy by knowing what everyone else would or could do before they could possibly do it.

>>50848481
Widening his gaze, the farseer looked further into the future. Looking past all the potential timelines, withered and horrible, like decaying petals of a flower. Until he found the one he wanted. It was a vision of his granddaughter, the one whose face he had never seen, except in his visions. She was a young woman in his vision, standing on the edge of a harbor, a tiny creature on her shoulder. He knew she was waiting for someone, he never knew who, for the vision always ended before he could see. Behind her stood a citscape that seemed to be constructed of wraithbone, of steel, of Earth Caste sculpture, yet none of these things, and around her walked humans, Eldar, and a hundred other races both alien and familiar. Eldrad could never tell what time it was in the vision, but he knew it in his heart. Dawn, the dawn so long awaited after the end of the long night.

Eldrad had seen so many things, great and terrible, in his long life. Supernovae on the horizon. Shrieking forms of things that should not be clawing forth from the abyss. And yet, in his old age, this is what kept him going. Hope. He was always a good farseer, but this was to be his masterpiece. A future for the Eldar, free of despair, tyranny, and dark gods. Peace, in a galaxy that for so long had known only war. It was a long shot. He had only seen a few visions like these, on the order of billions to one.

Eldrad smiled a half-smile. He always did like playing the long odds.

>>50845885
The idea was that the Tau long-range weapons and artillery hit the enemy forces first, then the IG and Eldar come in for the one-two with the Tau sniping anyone who brings too much attention to themselves (like a hive tyrant or a major daemon). In practice it doesn't work because

1) Tau like to be commanded by Tau, so now you have three arguing commanders as opposed to 2
2) Eldar and humans have worked together enough that they trust one another not to shoot each other in the back. Not so with the Tau, especially given the attitude. When you factor in the fact that the Tau are supposed to be behind the main forces watching the rear and are thus in the perfect spot to shoot them in the back, people get nervous.

I was inspired by the species-based warfare of the Covenant from the Halo series. Someone once used that as an interesting starting point for an exercise in how a mixed-species army would function, especially when you have species that don't know how or even anatomically cannot use the same fighting methods.

>>50848601
I know, and the whole Eldar/IG thing is a great idea - but the Tau already have their mixed roles; they're already a microcosm of the IoM's force composition. The problem is that the Eldar and IG work because the former are pretty much nothing BUT glass cannons and the latter are pretty much nothing BUT heavy hitting hordes - but the Tau have some of both, and some of a dozen different other things that don't fit the paradigm. The Eldar and IG nicely slotted into each other's weaknesses, but there's nowhere for the Tau to fit. Both the other races can call on pretty damn skilled ranged infantry, and the IG has artillery by the Astartes Ton. And the Tau certainly aren't just sniping and indirect fire; given their effectiveness and ability to innovate and adapt on the battlefield I feel like the IoM would eventually find it more productive to leave them intact (or at least separate from the others) to serve as self contained combined arms formations. That's why I figured that, assuming they're roaming the galaxy on "tours" like regular IG, Tau units would be called in especially for enemies that are starting to find counters to the Eldar Neck Pinch + IG Suckerpunch

>>50848494
:')
That's pure Nobledark right there.

File: 1468251011529.jpg (15KB, 224x225px) Image search: [Google]

15KB, 224x225px

>>50848494
That was very nice

>>50848706
Indeed, and I really like your idea. I was just outlining the in-universe reasons as to why adding the Tau didn't work. The original post was actually a little over the character limit, so I couldn't articulate it well.

>>50844480
>>50845266
>>50846520

I wasn't going to suggest this, but since the thread seems to be going down that road (origin of the Chaos Gods) anyway, I had the idea that the dark secret behind Slaanesh is that he/she was originally supposed to be a warp god of peace, rather than pleasure. Someone among the pre-fall Eldar suggested that they should give back to the galaxy out of a sense of noblesse oblige, creating a warp god of peace and love to calm the Warp back into the Realm of Souls for the non-Webway using races.

Of course, when it was detailed on how one would actually create such a god, the rest of the hedonistic Eldar just heard "make a sex god through lots of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, sounds cool", which ruined the whole project. Slaanesh was corrupted from its birth, whatever noble intentions the Eldar might have had in its creation died before it even manifested for the first time. Instead of pacifying the Warp, Slaanesh made the Warp worse and galvanized the other three Chaos Gods into action.

Thought this idea would add a bit more nobledark to the origin of Slaanesh. The project started out with noble intentions, but turned dark because of the flaws of mortals. Much like Tolkien’s Elves, when the Eldar fuck up, they fuck up big.

>>50845266
>Oscar is also to an extent, but his inherent nature as a Man of Gold seems to be hindering him. Perhaps because of the method by which he was created and his artificial soul and incompatibility issues.

Oscar isn't at the same level as the others because he's been unintentionally or intentionally disseminating the power everywhere except himself. It started when Oscar started to have people swear allegiance to the Golden Throne instead of him, which diverted a lot of the power from him into a bunch of different sources, particularly whoever sat in the chair itself. Of course now its a moot point because Oscar is actually sitting on the Golden Toilet, but for a long time the worship was going towards the throne itself and the idea of Empire (kind of like Rome) rather than an individual. One of the major differences between vanilla! and nobledark!40k is that there's a whole lot of extra worship going around. It's one of the reason why the Void Dragon is so much chattier now, because now the Mechanicus doesn't even pay lip-service to the idea of the Emperor as the Omnissiah, so none of the worship is being diverted from the Dragon as it is in vanilla!40k.

>I would suggest that the original 2 gods of Chaos are Tzneetch and the now much diminished Malal.

Vanilla!Canon (at least one version of it) has it that Tzeentch was the original master of the Warp, and the other three Chaos Gods are essentially crashing at Tzeentch's pad uninvited (another has Khorne as the eldest).

File: 1464662025532.jpg (124KB, 762x1049px) Image search: [Google]

124KB, 762x1049px

>>50793252
Found a picture of a Tzneetchien Ork trying to impersonate a Chaos Eldar.

As you can see the disguise is masterful.

>>50850541
That gave me such a wonderful idea!
Thank you.

Thought:

It's specified that there is no more grand master of assassins. But there is still a seat open for a grand master in the imperial senate.

You just know in the archetypal story, that's prime fodder for a hero to come along, redeem the assassins, and take their rightful throne. Is that the plan? Or something else? And if that is the plan, who?

Dark Eldar are free of the Thirst now, right? Could be a double edged sword. On the one hand, no evil warp entity slowly devouring their soul. On the other, no short cut to immortality. That would make things different.

File: Cenobite.jpg (20KB, 364x273px) Image search: [Google]

20KB, 364x273px

>>50851685
I don't think the DE are free of the thirst.

Chaos Eldar are, but that's because they either serve Slaanesh directly or have a different patron that protects them.

DE steal to fuel their crack habit. CE have made the full transition to Crack Whore.

In the later days of the Dark Millennium Lord Vect and Lady Malys are wed. Both dream of the reunification of the CE and DE people as the true inheritors of the old Eldar Empire, although they don't agree on how this should happen.

>>50852496
Do they know of the existence of Reri? That might lead down a dark road. Or Lelith deciding a regime change is called for.

Who else... Urien Rakarth is doubtless still the same twisted fuck. He is probably enjoying the new strange specimens the Chaos Eldar bring from the Eye of Terror.

Duke Sliscus is in disfavor in Comorragh. Whenever he comes into port, there surely will be bloodshed between his pirates and the Chaos Eldar. He considers himself the rival of Prince Yriel, stating his contempt and pity for a once noble Eldar to debase himself before monkeigh. Yriel for his part has too many rivals to keep track of already. Duke Sliscus, when he isn't feuding with the new 'guests' in Comorragh or leading massive pirate invasions has a profitable drug cartel he runs. He likes to sample his own stock.

Kheradruakh the Decapitator has no shortage of heads these days. The shrine grows. The Decapitator is a bogeyman to the Imperium, an unstoppable and grisly assassin without peer. Many a fledgling Imperial hero has been found dead in the night, hacked to pieces, with their head missing. Unusually close to Lady Malays, acting as her bloody left hand.

Drazhar acts as Vest's iron right hand. Rumored to be the greatest swordsman in the galaxy, he has cut a bloody swathe through the Imperium's finest, leaving a trail of corpses and legends behind him. Despite his merciless efficiency in the killing fields, Dark Eldar don't trust him. He acts with too much honor, maintaining an unsightly code. He eschews subterfuge, preferring instead to kill his enemies face to face. And worst of all top the Chaos Eldar, one whisper placed him in the Gardens of Nurgle during Isha's liberation. Perhaps this is why Vect keeps Drazhar close: he so loves to see his bride furious. Rage and hate are a fine substitute to love for the dark Eldar.

Preliminary ideas.

>>50852695
>Reri
???

Other than my lack of knowledge on this I would say this is all 100% fucking great.

Just one question.

Who do the Mandrakes serve?

File: The_Last_Stand_1.png (488KB, 1050x706px) Image search: [Google]

488KB, 1050x706px

No one has been able to find a place to slot in Ollanius Pius so far.

Would having him enter the fight and make his stand during the climactic battle between the Beast versus the Steward and Eldrad work?

As Eldrad falls to a knee and the Steward is rocketed through a line of pillars by a punch from the Beast, a lone figure comes forward and interposes himself between the green monstrosity and the old Farseer.
Both Eldar and Ork pause at the simple ridiculousness of the situation.
Here was a man, face covered in soot, boots caked in dried blood and mud. Uniform tattered and armor shredded, as little good it would do him. Held in one hand, a standard issue lasrifle. In the other, a single melta bomb.
Against a force that had torn its way past the greatest warriors of Man and Eldar alike, crushed the life from an angel, and fought the greatest creation of Man's Dark Age of Technology and the most powerful warp sorceries of the Eldar to a halt, he stands, and holds the line.
In the next instant, he’s running, towards the Beast, towards a death as certain as it is futile.
Even as he throws the bomb, the Beast swats him away, but in the moment of the Beast’s distraction, Eldrad’s eyes are drawn to something out of place, a thing buried in the Beast’s chest. A broken blade, cutting through the Beast’s defenses and creating a tiny opening. An opening which he could exploit.

>>50852823
If I recall correctly, in an earlier thread it was stated that Reri was the only daughter of Lelith. Trueborn, and rumored to be half human as a dark parody of the impossible child. Possible result of haemonculi fuckery. Or lies. Who knows.

I'll be honest, I am hesitant to touch the mandrakes because they're in an enigma in 40k proper. If they're mutated dark Eldar, dark Eldar psykers, webway monsters, chaos Eldar or something else, I'm not sure. I kind of don't want to ruin the mystique.

But I will hazard this. Despite being unsettling, unfun freaks, their numbers are increasing, and they seem devoted to Vect and Malys. The dark Eldar were always anarchic before, and they still are with one vital difference: no one fucks with Vect and Malys now. The mandrakes are always watching. Whatever they're doing, the mandrakes apparently approve and will not tolerate the slightest dissent in Comorragh. This has led to a minor exodus as many Archons sensing the sea change in politics are deciding to take their risks in real space (much to the aggravation of the Imperium and allies as dark Eldar raids increase in intensity) rather than risk death at the hands of the new order.

This leads to more Chaos Eldar influence. Under the banner of Malys the Chaos Eldar rove the streets grabbing any they can find to force into their holy wars. The influential are still safe: scourges still have their immunities, the haemonculi are too valuable to be drafted, incubi and wyches are too dangerous, and mandrakes are left alone. But the lesser archons are still baffled at Vest's seeming passivity. It would seem Malys is getting the better of the deal as Comorragh slowly becomes a city of direct worship of the starving goddess.

But Vect only smiles, and waits. For the archons that have seen Vest's rise, this scares them more than anything else.

Got dang autocorrect. I'm stopping until I have a comp again.

>>50852695
Pretty good, but to me it leans a little close to the tone of canon DE fluff which is almost always "X person is the most evul and deadly person evar!!!" Like I get they need to talk up the DE notables since otherwise they would be completely irrelevant on a galactic level, but I find the canon tone very try hard edgy and boring, and I dislike throwing any faction under the bus for the sake of talking up another one (canon SMs, I'm looking at you).

Not sure what tweaks I'd suggest, but those are my two cents.

>>50852866
Sounds good, but Ollie needs a reason to be there since the defense of the palace was given to the Blood Angels and Custodes. Maybe he's a lieutenant and aide to one of the generals in the Throne room with Oscar and Eldrad?

>>50853067
I'll admit that when writing the blurbs I was working off of the 40k codex model of character description making them the "most badass ever" but I also felt like giving the forces of darkness some teeth- we've been focusing a lot on the Imperium, so I thought it would be good to give the bad guys some reasons that they haven't been defeated yet.

But yes, the writing was a little askance of originality. I will get something more detailed and less generic out when I have a comp again.

>>50853067
Ollie might have just suffered some bad luck- transport VTOL flying to redeploy for an emergency hit by a stray goes down in the imperial palace. Stumbles out of the wreckage in a daze, he follows the noise and meets his destiny.

File: 1318103329486.jpg (77KB, 527x750px) Image search: [Google]

77KB, 527x750px

>>50852999
It could be that Lady Malys is mostly abducting the withered street dregs nobody in The Dark City will miss. They don't make good sport because they are starving and weak and they don't make good sustenance because of how gnawing their own need is.

They are the dead weight on the bottom rung of the Dark City. The only notable difference to their loss is that Low Town looks slightly tidier.

Yes they are technically citizens of the dark city and therefor Vect's property and the press-ganging Chaos Eldar recruitment drive is an insult. But It also adds more soldiers to the armies of an ally and that strengthens his own hand, so he is content for now to weather the insult. Some of the lesser aristocrats see this passivity as weakness and have tried to take advantage of it. They learned that they were wrong.

>>50853238
Or he could have died in the place of one of the Primarchs.

Soldier in the Imperial Army takes the stab meant for Lorgar or Russ or one of the other ones that people loved.

>>50853238
>transport VTOL flying to redeploy for an emergency hit by a stray goes down in the imperial palace. Stumbles out of the wreckage in a daze, he follows the noise and meets his destiny.
I actually like this better than that he was there as an aide.

This human, this ordinary man, was just at the wrong place at the right time.
He shouldn't have been there, he had no business stepping into a battle between man-made angels and demons.

But there he is all the same, a lone mortal soldier among monsters, and he will hold the line.

>>50852866
I could see Olanius' Last Stand being milked by the Eldar as the ideal of the Eldar-Human alliance, in a military sense.

As >>50843540 put forward, the Humans take the brunt of enemy fire and attention, so that the Eldar and other auxiliaries can flank the enemy force and bring their better weapons to bear, catching the enemy in a hammer-and-anvil attack.

Ollanius and the Steward caught the Beast's attention and focus, so that Eldrad could find the Beast's weak point and attack it, achieving victory.
The mon'keigh being Eldrad's meatshields so that he had the time to get the job done, in their view.
They won't say that out loud in front of Humans, of course.

>>50853240
Malys is distinctly chaos undivided, but the chaos eldar are disproportionately slaaneshi, and the cults of all the gods remain at odds. How does this work out for internal politics for her faction? One angle I've thought about is having the other gods be particularly focused on the warp side of things, with their sworn eldar and cults coming as the warp overtakes them, while Slaanesh is particularly focused on realspace conquests and a powerful centralized cult/harem/toy collection. Prior to the union with Vect this meant Malys and all the other crone eldar had to cooperate with the gossipy, nasty slaaneshi power structure, dark eldar that are mercenaries taxed by Slaanesh, unruly and unsubtle demon orks and their hordes (unless you're tzeentch and can send brainboyz too), or human cults in all their various shades of mediocrity. This has led the crone eldar to form their own cabals and covens around their rival gods in the style of the DE, but also to tend to drop in on major cults or whaaags, incorporate themselves at the top, and steer things to even greater ruin and terror in the name of their masters. Tzeench would presumably be the next most popular among crone eldar, but need not rely on numbers anyway. Eldar of Khorne would be uncommon but powerful, eldar of Nurgle would be very rare, and both of them would be more heavily invested in corrupted orks. I like the idea of chaos susceptible orks being a masterpiece of nurgle's, and one of his acts of vengeance for the raid on his garden that was floated earlier in the thread.

>>50853593
the eldar have change their tune about high teir humans, or at least Oscar, because he's wed to Isha and they are too proud to denigrate the husband of their goddess, particularly among themselves. Even to the more conservative eldar that fall short of being rebels and separatists see Oscar as distinct from 'humans' because he shows undeniable signs of endless life and massive psychic power, and they can't really make an argument that he's any less potent than their best possible warriors. At very least it would be like saying a monkey and a biological android made to resemble a golden monkey are the same thing.

File: 1295725398674.jpg (407KB, 750x576px) Image search: [Google]

407KB, 750x576px

>>50853668
The Undivided Eldar could be the small elite branch that runs all of the shit and actually gets shit done. They get the shit done. The blessings of the gods, ideally, balance out the pros to cons with a considerable leftover of pros. Sure a deep end Khorne Disciple would kick their ass in a fair fight but an Undiveded is smart enough to not get into a fair fight. A Tzneetichien could out scheme them but wouldn't survive the beat down when the polite gloves come off.

Undivided eldar are an extreme threat. They are of Greater Deamon / Deamon Prince or greater levels of dangerous without the limitations. There might be only a matter of hundreds of them all told but holy fuck you best be packing a Grey Knight brotherhood if you want to take one out. And they resurrect. Not always, it's not a guarantee but they do come back quite often. A result is that they are increasing in number. There were an estimate few dozen at most in the day so the Great Crusade. Now there are a few hundred.

Of course an eldar that tries this path but fucks up ends up an abnormally large Chaos Spawn. Such is life in the Fucked Up Far Future.

Slaaneshii Eldar might me the most common of the Chaos Eldar but they are not the whole of it. Cenobites + Rome at it's most decadent. Or just pleasure and experienced seeking dipshits in the lower orders. They are obsessive to an inhuman degree.

Khorne Eldar are meat grinders. You point them at something that is an affront to their god or looks entertaining to kill and you stand well back. Oddly similar in social structures to the Aspect Temples although neither they nor the Aspect Temples will like you to say this.

Tzneetchian Eldar are the social climbers and prophesy distributors of their people. They can draw upon great skill at warp-craft and bind deamons to their will with quite devastating results. They find patterns and exploit weaknesses in others, both allies and adversaries.

Nurgle Eldar. Surprisingly rare given Isha's kidnap.

>>50854385
>Nurgle Eldar. Surprisingly rare given Isha's kidnap
I imagine that since the fall there had been eldar going to nurgle to be close to isha, but since the raid they've been psychotically dedicated to dragging isha back to the garden, but their actual loyalty to nurgle is questionable, and they now only cooperate because they both most want to steal back plague-dumpster waifu. For isha's part, their company is just slightly preferable to nurgle's own, and they mistook this preference, and her mixed pity, disgust, and sorrow for genuine love for them, and they believe they will be welcome, eventually. They hope the prophecy with Oscar and Malys turns out, because they think it means they will get to rescue Isha.

>>50855677
That has a twisted sort of logic to it. Nurgle Eldar are a bunch of insufferable White Knight Orbiters.

>>50855677
I was thinking that there is one Deamon Prince of Malal.

Just one.

It's possible that it actually contains the entirety of Malal because the fucker is so piss weak that pouring enough power into a mortal to make them a Deamon Prince essentially means pouring his entire self into them.

But as it is technically a god in the flesh, albeit a very pathetic one, it can't be killed reliably.

Grey Knights have confirmed killed it 7 times and killed what might have been it a further 5 times. Last time was back in 102M41. Nobody has seen it since.

It's in a padded cell on Ganymede. He can't come back if he never goes.

>>50854385
>neither they nor the Aspect Temples will like you to say this
that probably doesn't stop them from trying to get khorne to wield kaine's relics

>>50858559
Maybe there is a Chaos eldar sect out there that believes they are in fact the one and the same entity.

>>50852866
>>50853067
>>50853238
>>50853256
>>50853370
>>50853593
I believe we settled on Ollie being Imperial Navy, onboard a rapidly disintegrating battleship that rammed the Rok the Beast and co were making planetfall in - nowhere near enough to destroy it, but enough to shove it away since it was originally going to physically land on the Palace, which'd have shortened the battle quiiiiite a lot. Possibly as some junior officer who's the only surviving member of command staff, or something. IMHO, it adds to the whole "well he's just an ordinary bloke" feel, because while any IG stationed on the planet would have to be honour guard, naval forces might well have been those that were rushed from nearby sectors after Mars fell.

As for the idea of having him on the ground, I don't particularly think putting him in by the last battle would work as well given how much it's already been fluffed. There's already Sangy dying, all of the SMs and custodes, and then Oscar almost dying before Eldrad steps in. It's not like in Vanilla, where it's just Emps and a small retinue that gets separated from him; these forces are supposed to be the last human defenders worthy of putting up almost token resistance on the entire planet. If we somehow said that ordinary IG survived and ended up in the middle of that, even discounting the fact that the Palace was pretty much the last bastion still holding out, it'd still just end up being like the clusterfuck the Ollanius story is in Vanilla ("oh look, Sangy just lined up and took a killing blow for the Emperor. And then so did Ollie Pious. And then so did a terminator, and a custodes, and...").

>>50859756
>I believe we settled on Ollie being Imperial Navy, onboard a rapidly disintegrating battleship that rammed the Rok the Beast and co were making planetfall in
I don't see that in any of the previous threads.

>these forces are supposed to be the last human defenders worthy of putting up almost token resistance on the entire planet.
They're still only a quarter of the planetary defenders, and the other forces on the planet are still able to hold because the Beast and Chaos are concentrating so much on the Palace.

>>50859981
Not him, but I think one of the writefags had started on it but hadn't made much headway. fwiw, I like the idea of it being in spess too.

>>50860147
Yeah, the boys on the ground get a lot of glory, would be nice to have some spess heroes too.

>>50859981
Finally, someone else that gets the Palace isn't the entirety of the Battle of Terra. The Palace is only the BAs, Custodes, and a handful of Eldar, there are still at least like 10 other legions as well as the Imperial Army defending the planet. We've spitballed that the Dark Angels and Luna Wolves are absent, but the majority of the Legions are present and fighting on Terra.

File: kharn.jpg (107KB, 500x728px) Image search: [Google]

107KB, 500x728px

Since it’s the holiday season, I thought I might suggest an idea I had for /tg/’s favorite big guy in the red suit [s]Santa Claus[/s] Kharn.
Most historians agree, Kharn the Oathsworn was a pretty magnanimous guy. Whereas Angron commanded the War Hounds through his charisma and willingness to be first in, last out, Kharn led the War Hounds by being a father to his men. He would do anything for them, no matter the cost, and they knew it. Kharn started out as the beleaguered assistant to Angron, albeit one with a lot more proficiency with a chainsword. Whereas Angron was the face of the legion and kept morale high, Kharn was the one who dealt with actual logistics and kept the wheels greased from day to day.
This is not to say Angron was stupid, or Kharn was not a ferocious warrior. Indeed, the two men were more similar than they were different. It is just that the two men tended to play to their strengths when Angron was in command of the legion. Indeed, Angron could actually be rather insightful, it’s just that he tended to be rather straightforward; no need to plan some grand, circuitous strategy when it is possible for you to just go straight from point A to B. In fact, in one instance Guilliman is said to have said of Angron “it was a true pity that the galaxy had wasted such a mind on such a simpleton”.

But there is another name used to describe Kharn, one that is spoken in whispered in hushed tones. The berserker. The world eater. Although he never lived it down until the end of his days, the tale of Kharn’s secret shame is a story of how easy it is for men to become monsters, and monsters to become men.

File: youknowwherethisisgoing.jpg (3KB, 310x163px) Image search: [Google]

3KB, 310x163px

>>50861815

The world was a recently pacified one, one that had seemingly welcomed the Imperium with open arms. Kharn had been dispatched to the world alongside ten other members of what were at that time the most advanced model of Astartes developed. It was supposed to be a simple training exercise between the new Astartes and the local PDF, to see how well marines could operate alongside conventional forces. It turned into a disaster. After setting up camp, Kharn was invited to drink and party with the other members of the Astartes unit. Kharn politely turned them down, preferring to keep his mind clear for the task at hand the next morning.

He awoke to a tragedy. His men were all dead, having been poisoned in the night by a technorganic venom specifically designed to work in spite of Astartes physiology, and their equipment was scattered and smashed.

Kharn went apeshit.

For the next few days, PDF forces were terrorized by an incredibly angry space marine, armed with just a chainsword, a bolter with two bullets in it, and a single-minded desire to know who did this to his men and where to mail their body parts to their next of kin.

File: dead men.jpg (75KB, 800x450px) Image search: [Google]

75KB, 800x450px

>>50861830
The planet had been secretly manufacturing illegal techno-organic monstrosities, and believed the arrival of the contingent of space marines represented the beginnings of an Imperial investigation, rather than an exercise in friendship. Kharn found this out the hard way, when he was led into a trap surrounded by an army of these creations, an accompaniment of traitorous PDF, and the military commander who had overseen the poisoning of his men. The soldiers demanded Kharn’s unconditional surrender. Kharn simply raised his chainsword, and flicked the switch.
It is not clear what happened in the aftermath of that battle, as there were few survivors. The only person capable of walking off the battlefield was Kharn himself, yet given his mental state his testimony is probably not the most accurate. According to the War Hounds, who claim to have heard this story from Kharn himself, Kharn stayed on the battlefield in a daze, muttering the names of his lost men to himself over and over again. According to Kharn, he only snapped out of his trance when he noticed there was a child on the battlefield, a girl who could not have been more than twelve. Seeing the girl made the gears in Kharn’s head start moving again, and slowly he pulled himself out of his daze.
He approached the young girl, taking off his helmet when he realized its visage frightened her, and asked where her parents were. She said she was lost, she had wandered through the woods curious about the noises coming from the battlefield, but she couldn’t find her way back. “Well,” Kharn supposedly said, “let’s see if we can do something about that”, and the two of them walked off the battlefield.

File: whatIsawwhatIgotnobledarkkharn.jpg (150KB, 680x272px) Image search: [Google]

150KB, 680x272px

>>50861843
The planet at first tried to claim Kharn had gone AWOL, but Kharn only had to point at the bodies of the technorganic monstrosities and the bodies of his dead comrades and let the evidence speak for itself. Having single-handedly brought an entire army to its knees, the planet threw itself upon the mercy of the Imperium. Kharn had in effect conquered an entire planet in a single day. Thus, the World Eater. Kharn was not proud of the nickname, as it was a reminder of how easily his control had slipped his leash, and he had almost lost himself. The War Hounds existed as a unit longer than most Space Marine legions, but eventually it came time for them, too, to break apart into chapters, most naming themselves after some famous appellation or event in their legion. When that happened, Kharn had one simple request.

“In the years since the incident had taken place, some of the more impressionable members of our legion have taken the wrong message from my story, using the term ‘World Eater’ as a badge of pride. That is not what I intended. As warriors, we must be passionate, yes, but we must also be well-trained and disciplined, or else we risk becoming the very thing we fight. We are War Hounds. Not World Eaters.”

>>50861857
I am kind of two minds about this idea. I like the way it keeps the beats of vanilla!Kharn’s history but turns it into a completely different story. Normal!Kharn betrayed his comrades and became a team-killing asshole. Nobledark!Kharn lost it when his men were betrayed, and took vengeance on their behalf upon the perpetrators. IIRC, Normal!Kharn snapped when a psyker probed his mind and forced him to confront the truth that he had fallen. Nobledark!Kharn was walked back to sanity by a little latent psyker girl who noticed his immense rage. Regardless of the timeline, Kharn is always going to have anger issues he has to deal with.

However, I don’t like the implications it gives for Kharn’s overall story. Losing yourself in battle, even if it is a cold fury directed solely at those responsible, is like asking to fall to Khorne. Kharn could tell Khorne where to stick it, but because we have everyone and their grandmother telling off the dark gods, it cheapens the effect of the Chaos Gods. And Kharn definitely should not fall. It taints his overall story as the man who essentially kept the War Hounds together after their leader died. Nobledark!Kharn got to be the man that vanilla!Kharn never got the chance to.

Additionally, I have a hard time seeing how Kharn would return to the battlefield after this incident. On Kharn's end, he would see just how easy it is to lose yourself in battle, and be hesitant to return. On the Imperium's end, finding out that the de facto commander of a legion went temporarily nuts is a serious reason to worry and might make for bad PR, so they might take Kharn off active duty. Any suggestions on how to improve this story, or at least salvage any good parts from it?

>>50860717
>the Palace isn't the entirety of the Battle of Terra
You would think people won't forget the fact that Terra probably has countless Guardsmen manning the defenses at all times on the surface. That means even the outer layers of the Palace would be patrolled by Guardsmen 24/7. When there are battles that break out on Terra surely the first instinct of the defenders is to throw in a much forces that can be mustered to crush the landing enemy forces. If or when the repulsing action failed, the Imperial Army might be used as a sponge to delay the advancing Ork attacks. Were the Orks to directly attack the Palace directly as the first objective, you sure as hell knew the defending SM will request every Guardsmen within Asia to be diverted to defend the Palace at all cost. When a position is considered lost to overwhelming numbers or firepower the Guardsmen would fall back deeper and deeper into the Palace itself to drag out the fighting instead of getting killed quickly. So there is a very real chance in all the chaos and din of battle, a few Guardsmen might have accidentally stumbled into the dueling grounds between the Beast and Oscar with Eldrad.

Also are the majority of CSM just Dark Angles? I prefer the idea of small chunks from all the legions just converted over time as the WoTB kept going to either lust for power or just making bad bargains with the gods for the sake of survival. I can see a majority of the Night Lords falling to chaos or even the Imperial Fist if the situation is right. My logic in this is that CSM are still rarer but the technology difference is minor compared to loyalist SM. In order to counter being constantly outnumbered, the CSM can have unholy blessings and possessed war machines/demons with magic and shit so that even if a warband is outnumbered 3 to 1 it is still an even fight.

>>50862029
>Terra probably has countless Guardsmen manning the defenses at all times
Does it, though? Given that the BoT was a relative surprise (as not all Legions and Navy forces could be mustered in time for defence), and that Terra's an administrative hub more than military (compared to say, Mars), I'd imagine Terra's garrison to be a largely ceremonial force. Granted, their shooting will be as deadly as their boots are shiny, but they're not going to be hordes of guardsmen stationed on there like it's the frontline, "just because it's Terra". PLus, it also means that there may be other facilities or fortresses that are important to defend as well as the Palace; sure, you'd SAY that the huge fuck-off golden mansion is the most important thing to defend, but what about the Administratum/Assassin Temples/High Lords' shit, and so on.

Personally, I'd think that there may well have been some Guard presence in the battles to stop the Orks from reaching the Palace; but by the time the orks did get there, all of the IG defenders (and most of the SMs for that matter) were little but fine paste.

Consider this a vote in favour of Ollanispess Pius
>CSM are still rarer but the technology difference is minor compared to loyalist SM
>CSM can have unholy blessings and possessed war machines
Part of this I agree with, part of it I think the opposite of. In the IoM, humans and eldar are allies but still keep hold of their own shit, yes? (except in cases of necessity like using Eldar knowledge for the founding of the GKs, etc).
What if, given their relative rarity compared to Croneldar and Traitor Guard, the CSMs are basically treated like spoilt kids by the Chaos Gods, who give them all the tricks the Croneldar get plus some that the spess elves are too physically flimsy to handle?

File: IMG_0230.png (879KB, 600x1115px) Image search: [Google]

879KB, 600x1115px

>>50862202
>too physically flimsy to handle
CSM are seen with the rare privilege of being turned into fighting bags of fleshy disease ridden death machines unlike their Eldar kindred whi simply can't survive the transformation.

>>50862202
>>50860147
>>50859756
But isn't having Ollanius ram a ship into the Beast's Rok pretty much the same as Abaddon's ramming of his ship at the Eye of Terror?

>>50862908
Maybe, but without the tired arms joke, and with much more limited (but far more symbolic) results.

Plus I think Ollie was proposed first

>>50862908
It's like saying you can't have more than one captain follow tradition and go down with his ship. Pious essentially plowed his stricken vessel into the ork's Rock at low speed and deflected it from a course for direct impact on the palace and burned hard until he pushed it back into stable orbit, grinding his ship to dust in the process. Abbadon went out like a cruiser sized cyclonic torpedo, riding his burning ancestral home into the thick of a chaos armada and breaking the back of the first black crusade. They're vastly different men that are united by profession and sacrifice.

>>50861857
That was great.

Once I can I'll add it to the 1d4chan.

I imagine Kharn only went backstop Old Earth a few times once the Imperium spread past Sol.

Like all the Old Earthers he and his fellow soldiers held Old Earth in reverence. When they left it a new golden age was starting. Earth had never been so lovely as when he left it.

Next time he saw his home was WotB. It broke his hearts.

Time after that was when they buried Angron. At that time Perty was rebuilding and although it was at the midpoint of the project Earth was knowing beauty again. But it wasn't the same.

Kharn Oathsworn never came to Earth again in life, although his body was buried beneath the orchard that now stands where the village he grew up in once was.

>>50864498
Well, it looks like this anon >>50861872
has some legitimate concerns, so let's see the writefag comes back and responds.

>>50865319
I have some potential extra detail for Kharn's background I thought of while considering the primarchs' families.

As a champion pit fighter, Angron had his pick of the slave pens for concubines or servants. However, he would find the most downtrodden child slaves and claim them, raising them as his own children. Even after his Thunder Warrior augments and the ensuing madness and instability, he never raised his voice or lifted a hand at any of them.

Kharn was the first and eldest of Angron's adopted children, and against his father's wishes he bullied his way into receiving the Mk II Astartes augments. They would continue to butt heads even as Kharn rose through the legion, but Angron was privately fiercely proud of him. One of Kharn's most treasured memories was when his father surveyed order and control Kharn brought to the savage legion, and turned to him and said simply "You've done well. In this, and everything else."

>>50865945
I like that, it makes him human and adds contrast to the Berserker "Red Angel" the Imperium at at large knew him as.

>>50865945
I am both the writefag, and the guy who wrote >>50861872. That was just my post-writefaggotry notes as to my thoughts on said idea.

It seems to have been recieved well, and I like some of the subsequent stuff that has been suggested for Kharn.

On a related note, has anyone archived this? We're on 301 posts and this thread has writefaggotry and idea growth out the wazoo.

>>50866152
That was the issue I was worried about when I posted it. That Kharn would get a reputation for that one time he snapped as opposed to everything he tried to accomplish throughout his life. Instead of a father to his men who had a Liam Neeson Taken moment, he's known as the Red Angel (is that canon? I like it as another "dirty" nickname).

>>50863332
This idea has promise. Abbadon cut off the head of the snake of the first Black Crusade. Olly saved EVERYBODY of interest (Steward, any primarchs on-site, Malcador, the entire civvie population of Terra) from getting the same fate as the dinosaurs and ending the Imperium before they could even fight back. It wasn't the most glamorous death, but in a universe filled with heroic sacrifices, Olly still stood out. And this Imperium makes a point to remember it.

>>50862029
>Also are the majority of CSM just Dark Angles? I prefer the idea of small chunks from all the legions just converted over time as the WoTB kept going to either lust for power or just making bad bargains with the gods for the sake of survival. I can see a majority of the Night Lords falling to chaos or even the Imperial Fist if the situation is right.

Dark Angels are infamous because 2/3 of the legion walked off to join Chaos. I think in a previous thread it was actually said Space Wolves had the second biggest chunk defect. Going by what we have for Curze, Night Lord numbers are definitely higher than other legions. Curze couldn't make sure everyone he recruited was a "monster for justice" and the loyalist Night Lords hate them with a passion.

I agree, though, that the best option for CSM is that there are quite a few of them, but they tend to come from all different legions/chapters (aside from DAs), turned at different times, and fell for different reasons.

A very mere Sanguinalia everyone!

>>50866825
I tried yesterday. Does it need a minimum number to do it?

>>50867282
Thanks, y-you too.

Archived
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50719277/

>>50866870
I think all the Primarchs had nicknames.

Lorgar was the Chaplain Primarch
Sangy was The Golden Child in life and The Martyr Angel in death
Perty was The Iron Warrior
Morty was Man Reaper


The Red Angel was Angrons. It's not what he would have chosen but it could have been worse. Was probably an improvement on The Hound.