>>52634996
PREVIOUS THREAD AT >>52262671 , even

AS SOON AS I MAKE A THREAD. I'll delete.

Is Angronfag still alive?

Has he given up claim?

Tell me a story about Taldeer!

>>52636121
we already did love can bloom stuff, there's a bunch on the drafts page, unless you want serious, standalone stuff

>>52636152
Sure yeah, and pictures too. I really REALLY like her and I'm disappointed with DoW3.

>>52636152
There's also a codex entry that needs to be adjusted to fit in the new stuff about Sreta and LCB since it was written.

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>>52610683
>Khaine worship being the same god but worshiped differently is an idea I stole from WHF. High Elves appease Khaine but killing a fuckton of warriors on the battlefield while the Dark Elves just randomly murder people out in the streets.

Is this a good idea? This explains the Scions of the Helm, Eldar society right before The Fall, why Eldar started to stop worshipping the gods, and Dark Eldar never ever working with Imperial Eldar.

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>>52636821
It is a very good idea.

It also offers a satisfying example and reason for why both Khorne and Slaanesh both had claim on the mad iron bastard.

What the Craftworlders have now is basically warp saturated Nightbringer necrodermis with what's left of Khine's soul hiding inside it.

The rest of his soul is now incorporated into Khorne of Slaanesh and possibly shat back out in the form of deamons. When Khine avatars fight Khorne and Slaanesh deamons Khine is literally hitting himself.

Also in the last thread it was mentioned of pre-Imperium hives being built around the ruined stumps of the old Dark Age orbital tethers. Pic related is what it might look like.

>>52636121
WHY DOES SHE WEAR THE MASK

>>52634996
So this is tts 40k?

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>>52637062
If she removed it she would be very beautiful.

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>>52637003
I think that would be a good history for the Palatine on necromunda. Also, I have no idea how it would work lore wise, but your description of Khine makes it sound like its shards could be the source of that third kindred of vampires. I assume they'd be the weakest and the most prone to dithering about to minimal effect, but they might exist, for some measure of worth.

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>>52637220
The Necrodermis infection Khine got in the War in Heaven might be transferable to those already deep in his service.

If so it could be a replacement for the sacrifices he isn't getting in this AU.

Each avatar is already just a "shard" of what Khine should be in much the same way hat the C'tan shards are fragments of what they were and for maybe the same reason. It could be that each Khine avatar takes a single Exarch, usually the most prominent member of the warrior path most favoured by the avatar's home craftworld.

The new supplicant is accompanied by other Exarchs to the avatar shrine, for preference with at least one Phoenix Lord to actually conduct the ceremony. At the final hour of the ceremony the supplicant is stripped of their armour and stands naked and unmoving as senior Exarchs ritually scar them. Then they walk into the darkness of the shrine and the door closes.

The rest of the Aspect Warriors, and maybe some guests of sufficient renown, then go and have something to eat and maybe a drink or ten. Eventually the doors to the shrine reopen and the new High Priest of Khine walks out. The ritual cuts have healed a metallic silver, their eyes are like pools of mercury and their teeth have a rather predatory look to them. They may never again wear Exarch armour or be dedicated to one path of war. They are now murder made flesh and a living bridge to the great murderer himself.

It is their job to rouse the Bloody Handed Menace in times of desperation and act in his stead in the mortal world as their broken god slumbers.

>>52637181
for me? :3

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>>52637659
They have a much lower level cap than any other breed of Vampire and there can be only one per avatar. Their speed, strength, endurance, stamina and rate of recovery are all boosted to some degree but they generally cap out at Grey Knight level. Except for the speed of healing which is fast enough to be visible and perceptible to the unaugmented eye. Impressive but nothing compared to a late stage Vampire of other breeds.

On the positive side they don't go crazy and don't fall apart in ultraviolet and beyond light/radiation.

They do require blood to survive. And not just any blood, they need eldar blood. But due to the fact that they aren't insufferable cunts like the other vampires they generally don't kill to get it. Typically they are fed in a once every "sunset" ritual that ultimately involves either someone bleeding into a bowl or someone holding out an arm.

High Priests of Khine are held in reverence by the craftworlders but are also considered more than a bit weird

Are there any Eldar High Lords? I know that we have many seers acting in advisory positions to the High Lords of Terra, but are there any Eldar high lords themselves? The reason I say this is it was mentioned in a previous thread that the Eldar make up a decent chunk of the Imperial Population (something like 8%?). The High Lords of Terra essentially run the Administratum, which essentially runs the Imperium. It would be extremely weird for a sizeable chunk of the Imperial population to not have any official say in Imperial government.

I can see why the Tau and the like might not have a seat, because the Imperium only started officially allowing non-human, non-eldar races into the Imperium in the last 4,000 years or so, but it’s harder to say why for the Eldar. Heck, the Fabricator-General gets a seat on the High Lords of Terra, and I’m almost sure that there are fewer tech-priests than there are Eldar (including Craftworlders, Exodites, enclaves, etc.)

The other question is if there is a High Lord who speaks for the Eldar, who are they and where do they come from? The Eldar Craftworlds don’t seem to be able to agree on what to put on a pizza, much less elect an official. The only reason they seem to regard Earth as the capital of the Imperium is because that’s where Isha is and if one Craftworlds proclaimed they were the capital of the Eldar the others would all throw a fit. Earth was picked because while it was a decision that nobody really liked, it was the least divisive of all the possible options.

The other thing is that it seems that a lot of Eldar politics seems to be an extended power struggle between Ulthwé and Biel-Tan. The two seem to have the biggest influence on the other Craftworlds out of all of the non-isolationist ones, but have very different ideas on policy. Iyanden with its huge population could have easily formed the backbone of a third faction pre-Kraken, but they wanted as little as possible to do with the Imperium.

>>52637091
TTS 40k but without the daddy issues, the pre-existing grimdark, the insanity of the Inquisition/Marines/Everyone - and most importantly, without the stale 1d4chan yeems that are suddenly fucking hilarious now they've been given a new lease of life

Seriously, I'd never properly lost my sides to the warp at a Boreale yeem until Thunder's DoW review. Good shit.

>>52636821
>>52637003
I don't think the Dark Eldar even worship the old gods. In their mind the gods deserved what they got because they were weak.

Do like the idea about Khaine being fought over by Khorne and Slaanesh being due to how he is worshipped differently by different people.

Little iffy about the idea of the Avatars being Nightbringer necrodermis. It sounds a lot like the "everything is C'tan" problem that 3rd edition had.

>>52637659
>>52637821
One question is how do we distinguish these guys from the Phoenix Lords? I know there was some suggestion of making the PLs demi-gods of Khaine or something, but I don't remember what happened to it.

>>52637845
It's a good point.

>>52637845
It has been stated previously that there are no Eldar High Lords. Is it fair? Probably not. But then eldar live a long as fucking time and if you have one you are stuck with them forever. They would eventually dominate the High Lord Council and as they make up less than a 10th of the Imperium humanity would start to feel that they are being ruled by a "foreign" power. A "them" and "us" mentality starts to deepen between the HLoT and the rest of the population that can't be healed and in the fullness of time leads to a civil war.

The Farseers can all see this and so can numerous adepts of other institutions. It is therefore prudent for human and eldar that no eldar ever gets that high office.

Instead they limit their power to an advisory capacity. Every High Lord and numerous senior figures beneath them all have at least one Farseer on the payroll giving them advise and imparting wisdom. Also Emperor has his Empress so in the minds of the common eldar their people are already represented above rank of the HLoT.

Also the Fabricator-General is a prominent member of the Religio Mechanicum/Faith of the Omnissiah. There might be by numbers less ordained tech-priests than Imperium than eldar but that's just the clergy. The congregation who worship the Omnissiah are represented on almost every Imperial planet. They are probably the largest religious/cultural/political group in the Imperium.

Iyanden with it's fuck hueg population and fuck hueg navy and XBAWKZ HUEJ population of the living dead is vying for prominence as the new cultural heart of the eldar people. Ulthwé with exception of Sreta generally gives no shit beyond the fortification of the Gate-World and any cultural dominance they have they are indifferent to so long as the requisitioned supplies turn up on time. Biel-Tan are salty about it because they don't think Iyanden is aggressive enough and there is a rivalry forming.

>>52637821
>>52637659
>>52637003
Time for the obligatory once-per-thread reminder that we're trying to stick somewhat close to canon if there's no reason to change.

And I agree with this anon >>52637978, this weird Khaine vampire thing doesn't really have a narrative niche that's not already filled, either by the Avatar of Khaine or the PLs.

Interestingly enough, Exodites may well be the most politically active, if disunited eldar culture in the Imperium. Exodite communities, after having it patiently explained to them that no, they really should stop killing intruders on sight, face a challenge. Their goal is to live simple, free of frivolity, and protect the worlds they inhabit. However, despite the influence of Biel-Tan and Isha, there is incredible pressure to make the most of what is becoming rapidly crowded civilized space.

At the height of the Segmentum Obscurus famine, the Careful Gardeners were the first to open their world (Sharvan's Tear, regrettably lost to the tyranids in 311M39) to general habitation, after a series of meetings with House Ulthran representative intermediaries. Any who wanted to colonize however, were subjected to incredibly strict controls, enforced brutally by Exodite rangers. Despite the frank and open promise of repression for those that would seek to colonize Sharvan's Tear, they were thronged with millions of refugees, and rapidly became a much needed agriworld and repository for those lost or seeking opportunity. Reluctantly, other exodite worlds followed suit, opening their metaphorical doors to settlers in exchange for strict rules. Far from most, but enough to ease refugee crises and famines across the imperium.

After a few generations of the exodite thaw, sector lords began to uncomfortably realize that billions of their inhabitants were, technically, without representation. The exodites running the worlds didn't seem to care so long as they had free hand to run the worlds their way, but some inhabitants were agitated about the lack of usual imperial amenities, such as access to the astropathic network or Adeptus Arbites law enforcement.

Thus far, only two of the one hundred and seven 'open' exodite worlds has elected a planetary governor to represent themselves in any sector councils. A sleeping giant.

>>52638207
Ulthwé for a long time was the craftworld that was doing the most to work with the humans, organizing the Craftworlds, and bring them together, in part due to Eldrad. Biel-Tan has the second largest population after pre-Kraken Iyanden. Both are willing to work with a variety of groups within the Imperium (humans, isolationist Craftworlds, Exodites) but have completely opposed political philosophies. Ulthwé puts a heavy emphasis on seers and integration. Biel-Tan is more about soldiers, is about as Eldar supremacist as you can without getting into Dorhai territory (they're described as liking humans but frustrated that we can't keep up with them and are being asked to slow the pace of rebuilding the New Eldar Empire, I head the term "Space Noldor" used once)

The issue is not whether all of the High Lord positions are open to Eldar, but whether there is a High Lord position that speaks for the Eldar. A Representative for the Craftworlds and Colonies or something. Humans see "advisor" as different from "representative" (specifically, you can disregard an advisor, at your own peril). A representative can draw a line in the sand. A representative can also hear the decisions of the other High Lords firsthand (like if they are thinking of doing something stupid that might affect the Eldar).

Also, it's not like many of the other seats could be occupied by the Eldar. There's no Eldar Navigators. There's no Eldar tech-priests. The only position which could easily have an Eldar representative is the Inquisition, and even then it was mentioned last thread that the Inquisition probably rotates representatives out.

Iyanden had a fuck hueg population pre-Kraken. They had 90% casualties in the war which wrecked them. Their numbers have obviously rebounded a bit since Kraken was several millenia ago, but it's nowhere near what it was given Eldar generation time.

>>52638722
Aren't the Exodite worlds different from the Maiden Worlds that the Eldar have started settling on? Although I agree that there is probably a lot of refugees flooding Exodite worlds, especially in the post-tyranid, post-necron era.

The Exodite/Maiden World thing from several threads ago needs to go on the Notes page.

>>52638207
its a good point that Isha is already a permanent fixture of imperial government, and only less prominent as a sovereign because she plays on an even longer timescale than her relatively young ten thousand year old husband. The difference in timescale for Eldar and Human denizens of the imperium might even mean that while the human side of politics see the High Lords as the executive body in the government of their dear laissez-faire enlightened despot, the Eldar see them as only slightly more notable than functionaries of the sovereign's guiding will.

>>52638513
Did we ever actually settle on anything for the avatar?

>>52638746
Not this time it wasn't. Horrible casualties were projected and shit loads of the dead were risen from their sleep.

Then Prince Yriel comes marching through the webway with a snazzy military looking hat and half a million Kriegers. They hold out long enough for the rest of the Imperium to turn up using more conventional means of transportation.

Iyanden now even huger because the risen dead hit the social tipping point and now every dead citizen of Iyanden wants to be a wraithguard.

Also High Lords don't represent a specific people or patch of worlds. They represent Imperium wide institutions that are at least in theory supposed to apply to all citizens regardless of species. In theory.

>>52638801
It doesn't need blood sacrifices anymore.

Because on some spiritual level the whole Imperium is the Eldar Empire Reborn it doesn't need a soul to kick start it. It can get it's serious nark on from the low level background rumble of quadrillions of humans in times of great war. It sleeps lightly now.

Something needs to actually wake it up but it's less of a blood offering and more of someone yelling loudly.

On at least one occasion Khine has been roused by Marneus Augustus Calgar. Calgar and Khine were friends or as near to friends as Khine can get. It's possible that from the point of view of the soul he couldn't actually tell that Calgar wasn't an Exarch. All avatars are just independent limbs of the same entity so it was always the same Khine that he woke up. That Calgar is now beaten to a near death coma has only added more fuel to his hate.

>>52638801
We decided that it exists, at the very least.

>>52638893
Iyanden still went through horrible, grievous casualties. Yes Yriel came riding to the rescue, but the casualties were still bad. Wraithguards were said to outnumber living Eldar by 10 to 1. The population has bounced back somewhat and Iyanded had to be expanded to accomodate both the living and the dead, but it isn't the 100 trillion powerhouse of living Eldar that it was in the past.

>Also High Lords don't represent a specific people or patch of worlds.

In theory, but then you have the Fabricator-General of Mars, the Paternoval Envoy of the Navigators, etc. The issue is at some point the Eldar would notice that the High Lords could make some completely anti-Eldar order behind closed doors (e.g., mess with the maiden worlds) and they would have limited power to deal with it without resorting to open war.

This is particularly an issue before Isha became the official Empress. Or worse during Vandire's reign where there was no Eldar goddess married to the head of state, both of which were unaccounted for.

>>52639117
Fabricator-General of Mars represents the entire Mechanicum when they can be persuaded to listen to him.

Navigators are an Imperium wide thing that just have their breeding ground in the Jovian Orbitals.

And it's not supposed to be a completely perfect system because there is no perfect system that everyone would be happy with.

Eldar make up less than a 1/10 of the population. More power and the humans will throw an increased number of salty bitch fits. Less and the eldar get salty. This way everyone is merely mildly briny.

>>52639238
It's also worth noting that currently, technically speaking there is a fairly heavy divide between craftworlds and the imperium. With Isha at the head of the Imperium, technically speaking it'd be a theocracy for the eldar to get involved any closer with Isha. For a race that had such a traumatic occurrence as the Fall happen, it may well be that there is a concern about getting so close to the divine again. And a suspicion that any eldar that get too close to Isha should be separated from greater eldar society for the benefit of both sides.

The only other parallels are Cegorach and Khaela Mensha Khaine. Any who follow Cegorach become their own thing, joining up with the harlequin troupes, leaving their craftworld (Or exodite world, or dark eldar kabal, maybe even crones?) behind. Harlequins are considered close allies, but not part of craftworld society.

Then we have Khaine. The closest thing to a central figure in eldar society, all aspect warriors give him homage. But the closer you get, the further you get from the society at large, culminating, again, in leaving your craftworld/roots/identity as an individual behind to become a phoenix warrior.

Due to the path system, eldar psychology might just not allow any high level integration in the Imperium.

>>52639477
Harlequins do not recruit from or visit the Croneworlds. So far as they and their god are concerned the denizens of those worlds aren't eldar any more.

They used to visit and recruit from the Dark City but stopped visiting and recruitment when Vect got married to Malys. Now they consider it a Chaos Eldar city.

Every craftworld and settlement has at least one temple or even just a shrine to Isha. She is their collective mother. But yes. The closer you get to any of the eldar gods the more you have to let go of the particular society that you hail from and serve all the faithful without fear or favour. A priestess of Isha is as at home on Saim-Hann as she is in the xeno district of Necromunda. They serve Isha, not any nation.

Of the 3 surviving eldar gods she has the largest following if for no other reason than every eldar mother is in some small way touched by her and every eldar with a soulstone is grateful to her.

>>52639630
Hence the difficulty of having an eldar work that that closely to Isha (Relatively speaking) AND represent the craftworlds.

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>>52639662
It's everyone touched by something greater than themselves that this happens to. Not just eldar.

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>>52639630
Would it be too much for crone world eldar to be colloquially referred to as goblins?

>>52639967
We have gretchins for goblins. Don't want that confusion. Still, a better term for the crone worlders would be welcome. Fair Folk? Sidhe? Unseelie?

>>52639892
At once, I really dislike Jubblowski for the blatant fetish bait nature of her, while also simultaneously liking it for being an uncomfortable display of Isha's less...Conventional aspects of being a fertility goddess. The uncomfortable tension of such a highly placed holy prostitute/living idol in an otherwise secular society is honestly a fairly interesting bit of tension. In character discomfort with this bit of imperial society adds a bit of a break from the 'war war always war' aspect of the setting.

But that's just me.

>>52640061
I have to agree that having cultural tension and variety that goes beyond differences in martial tradition is one of the high points of this AU, in that case and others. Hell, its honestly one of the main things that separates this from vanilla, inasmuch as this Imperium would be aghast at the canon "Only WAR" mentality because it reaches the point of essentially extinguishing actual civilization. In an actual civilization matters of taste, gossip, and cultural frivolity are everyone's bread and butter, be they pro or con for any of those things, be they benevolent or malicious, be the state at war or peace. Even faced with an existential threat, if time cannot be made to exist outside of war one can hardly be called civilized.

>>52640061
Fair Folk could work as called by humans.

>>52639967
>>52640061
The thing I love about the Croneworlders is they're essentially the Unseelie/Wild Hunt up to eleven on cocaine. Even moreso than the Dark Eldar, who at least have a modus operandi. The Cronedar are just nuts, their goals being whatever they think will please the gods that day. Just like the Eldar in this timeline play up the Tolkien roots a bit more, the Croneworlders play to the other side of elven mythology.

Think of the Eldar in canon. The people who are absolutely terrified of using anything warp-related, for fear of getting nommed by a daemon. Got it? Now look at the Cronedar, who climb over each other to get daemonically possessed because they think it will bring them closer to their gods. Who waltz through the warp relatively unmolested (well, about as much as CSM in canon) because the daemons know the Cronedar will provide them with more souls by feeding on the carnage in their wake and then nomming them if they die than just outright eating them.

>>52640261
Lack of cultural tension and variety outside of total war also means that some of the best reasons why war does happen in real life simply can't happen in vanilla 40k outside of civil war. All of the crazy historical things that happen due to diplomatic incidents, or botched negotiations of surrender, or weird shit on the battlefield. War of the type the vanilla!Imperium wages means everything boils down to you shoot them, they die, which reduces possible conflict. It's something I've really noticed when reading up on old Warhammer Fantasy lore and comparing it to 40k.

>>52640061
Feel the same. To the average human (and reader), Jubblowski is kind of weird, but at the same time the thought process is familiar enough that the reader can see why the Eldar think this way, even though it's kind of discomforting.

>>52638997
>On at least one occasion Khine has been roused by Marneus Augustus Calgar. Calgar and Khine were friends or as near to friends as Khine can get. It's possible that from the point of view of the soul he couldn't actually tell that Calgar wasn't an Exarch. All avatars are just independent limbs of the same entity so it was always the same Khine that he woke up. That Calgar is now beaten to a near death coma has only added more fuel to his hate.

This might be a little too much. I know we have Khaine being on good terms with Calgar (by Khaine standards), but he's still an Eldar god formed from the Eldar psyche.

Alternatively, it could be that instead of being woken up by Marneus Calgar the Avatar merely fought alongside him and Khaine likes the cut of his jib. Khaine primarily has grievances with the Eldar for two reasons.

1) The whole "prophecies about killing him", which are kind of a non-issue now
2) The whole "Muh moral issues over killing" thing

Space Marines have neither of those problems, and Khaine might like it that the Eldar have stopped being pussies and started hanging out with people he approves of. Of course this is still freaking Kaela Mensha Khaine, so an endorsement from him is not necessarily a good thing.

Also, if we need to grim up the Avatar a bit to justify why the Eldar aren't pulling it out every battle, it could be that Khaine isn't very gentle with his hosts (or however the Young King interacts with the Avatar), either overclocking their bodies or having a high chance of leaving them with brain damage. Just a possible suggestion.

An additional idea for the Tarellians regarding weaponry. I was trying to make this into basically a polearm-tomahawk to fit with the Tarellian's Native American theme (with the mahukultarr being like the microblades of a whole bunch of cultures and the macuahuitl of the Saurus in Fantasy), but I think this might be too close to the kroot's scythe-bayonet staves. What does everyone else thing?

Perhaps the most distinctive weapon of the Tarellians, aside from their disruption weaponry, is the kultarr. The melee weapon of choice for Tarellians, kultarrs resemble a cross between a polearm, a pickaxe, and a hatchet. The kultarr was originally thought to have started out as a simple hand tool repurposed for war, until it developed into the weapon known today. At the far end of the kultarr is a simple spike. The main purpose of this spike is to blunt cavalry or infantry charges, or finish off a downed foe. Just behind this spike is a recurved spike, which is the main armament of the kultarr. Typically, a kultarr is swung downwards like a tomahawk to brain a foe or impale them and allow them to be dragged closer. The spike can also be used as a hook to drag cavalry from their mounts or pull an opponent off balance (their more traditional use, seeing as the Tarellians did not have cavalry until the Industrial Era).

>>52642737 (cont.)
The military success of the kultarr has led the Tarelians to produce numerous derivations on the design, most prominently the mahukultarr. Instead of a single recurved spike, a mahukultarr has several backwards slanting blades appressed together to form a massive cutting edge. The purpose of a mahukultarr is to leave large, jagged wounds that bleed readily and are difficult to easily close. Although resembling a broadsword, the weight of a mahukultarr means that it is wielded more like an axe or a club. The cutting edge is composed of numerous smaller blades, rather than one complex piece of metal, in order to prevent breakage and make it easier to replace blades that are broken. However, the sheer weight of a mahukultarr means that it is almost impossible for a Tarellian soldier to carry both one of these weapons and a rifle at the same time. As a result, mahukultarr wielding-soldiers are relatively rare.

>WOOP WOOP POTENTIAL STUPID IDEA ALERT WOOP WOOP

Biel Tan hasn't deployed an Avatar of Khaine for neaerly one hundred years. This wouldn't be surprising for a lesser craftworld, or a craftworld that is peacable, but this is Biel Tan. The most well known, influential, and martially famous craftworld. That Khaela Mensha Khaine hasn't made an appearance in a year, much less a near century would provoke suspicion.

However, among the eldar, it's considered a bit of a faux pas to ask about this. The inquisition is another matter entirely though, and they already know the answer.

Biel Tan's avatar has been awake this entire time. Biel Tan summoned the avatar for the ghoul campaign, to help a desperate sword wind against a siege of orks with daemon support. The avatar of war led the survivors, many wounded, to victory against the orks, culminating in the avatar decapitating the bloodthirster Yel'Grazruk shattering the spirit of the enemy. The sword wind rejoiced.

Then they noticed the avatar wasn't gone. It had followed the fleeing enemy, and was killing as many as it could reach. The next day, the avatar was still killing. On the fifteenth day, it ran out of enemies to kill, and came back, planted its sword at the center of the biel tan fortification, and waited.

After the twentieth day, the biel tan forces found themselves very worried indeed. The burning avatar still smoldered, glaring out at the horizon. In the face of their persistent god, finally they attempted to psychically contact the avatar, a hazardous venture for even the most skilled warlock.

After the warlock stopped chanting in a dead language, she managed to sputter out "Khaine waits for his chariot." No one knew what that referred to. But when the autarch ordered the sword wind back to Biel Tan, the avatar followed, marched through the craftworld, and returned to his temple, still burning.

The avatar has sat there since, waiting for his chariot.

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>>52642986
>I KNOW I HID THE GALAXY'S FASTEST STARSHIP AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE
>IT WAS THAT LONG SILVER ONE WITH THE CRESCENT SHAPED KEEL
>ACTIVATE THE DRIVE AND IT JUST GOES
>WHAM
>GOT IT OFF THE GALAXY'S BEST KILLER
>WELL, SECOND BEST
>THE CHARIOT GOES WITH THE TITLE
>IT'S MINE NOW
>WHEREVER IT IS

>>52642986
>>52644202
That's what the bloody-handed one gets when he tries using space-Uber.

Random thought: our Primarchs in this AU are a pretty diverse bunch compared to vanilla where it's 16 white guys, an asian guy and a black guy (I guess Magnus is technically red). Assuming that ethnicities correspond roughly geographically to modern day despite 40,000 years of intermingling and genetic drift, we have:

Vulkan - African
Angron - North African/Mediterranean
Corax - Chinese
Curze - Japanese
Khan - Mongolian/Central Asian
Lorgar - Indonesian
Perturabo - Greek/Macedonian
Magnus - maybe Himalayan?

Doesn't really pertain to anything, just thought it was interesting. Looks like only South America lacks a Primarch.

>>52644429
>Looks like only South America lacks a Primarch.
We wrote up a whole thing for Ursh, seeing as a ton of primarchs were involved in its fall. Hy Braseal only really shows up with Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus, but it lasts until the War of The Beast with a fleet of about a dozen star ships and a nation's count of men. Malcador dies in a galaxy where the great crusade is pushing the across the stars, but Old Earth is still officially "the birthplace of humanity, Capital and domain of the Imperium of Mankind, excepting Hy Braseal". Hy Braseal was one of the few pre-unification powers that the Imperium ceded the moral authority to refuse unification, and unlike the rest of the planet's few sane occupants, they fucking did, not just when the Imperium was a new world government, but when it unified the powers of the solar system, and when it started its empire of stars, and after the initial Eldar signed on. They passed, each and every time an occasion came up to join the imperium, and each time is could be said to be on a footing of increased prestige since the last. They decided that the Imperium wasn't shit and they'd hold the fucking line against the Orks, whatever the hell Orks were, and you know what? They nearly all died. But when the war was over they were still leery about accepting the gold warlord's bargain.

>>52644429
Magnus is non applicable.

His mother could have come from anywhere and his father was a Navigator.

>>52644429
Ethnicity isn't usually a thing worth noting as far as the Imperium cares.

The Primarchs were not appointed on some idiot Affirmative Action/Race Quota scheme. They were appointed their lofty rank because they were the cream of the global crop.

Also Angron originated from Timbuk rather than Nord Afrika and only ended up in the fighting pits of Tunisia because he was taken in a slave raid.

Also you can't ascribe a normal ethnic group to Magnus. His mother was called Ada and variations of that are found across three continents and his father wan't fully human.

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>>52636121
>>52636152
>>52637181
Still remembering someone saying and or mentioning that in any warhammer 40k AU, there'll always be Love Can Bloom.

Plus another pic for LCB.

>>52642986
I like that. It's metal as fuck.

Dude is supposed to be a limited time attack powered by hate and the need to murder, burns brightly, burns briefly then goes cold once more.

Now he just waits for his chariot to arrive. What is his chariot, how does he know it's on it's way, how far off is it? Who even fucking knows.

Possibly the Scythe of the Nightlord was the flagship he lost when it got sucked down a warp hole during the War in Heaven. Possibly in the same battle that saw Khine infected with the blood of the Nightbringer.

If that is the case then Khine may have taken it as a trophy assuming he was victorious.

At some point soon the Scythe is going to come out of the warp somewhere in the manner of a Space Hulk and Death and Murder are going to battle over it.

By that time maybe Biel-Tan Khine will have gotten the Blade of Vaul back off of Farsight..

Whatever happens it's just one more indication that Rhana Dandra is coming. Judgement Day approaches.

>>52647005
Oh shit the sweetness just gave me diabeetus.

>>52639238
Fabricator-General of Mars also has varying degrees of influence over 85 - 90% of all industry in the Imperium.

>>52647005
Oh god the Cute! It burns!

>>52637978
>I don't think the Dark Eldar even worship the old gods. In their mind the gods deserved what they got because they were weak.

More so the pre-Fall Eldar degenerates want any excuse to conduct blood orgies. Saying things like "Oh this murder fucking? We are just a Khaine cult... yea... faithful followers." After the Fall, the Dark Eldar being mostly not insane also say things like "Oh this torture? We were just feeding ourselves... yea... fending off the She-Who-Thirst."

>>52650906
I think that it's only the old monsters that claim the torture is for medicinal needs. The youngsters just do it for fun and even if Slaanesh was killed would carry on regardless.

Bump

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Who should be next?
>Indigo Crow
>High Conservator of Nurgle
>Slaanesh's Taskmaster

>>52653328
I'd like to see the High Conservator.

>>52647005
And who is that young man or boy trying to court Lofn? Doesn't look like an imperial judging by those flower or rose emblems and insigna.

Also Colonel Taldeer Ulthwe does not seem to approve while Livvi is hesitant.

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>>52653754
If I was to guess I would say some navy man in parade uniform or part of a diplomatic team.

Either way they aren't Ulthwé and they aren't Cadian. Taldeer disapproves.

>>52653824
censor that lewd shit

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>>52654052
No.

Hide your children, this thread belongs to Slaanesh now

>>52654052
It is censored, though.

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>>52654496
absolutely shameless

>>52653824
>>52654496

MODS MODS MODS

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>>52653328
My vote is for Indigo Crow.
Also, the rivalry between Luther's Fallen and the Scions to be the go-to heavies in the Eye seems ripe for story ideas.
>>52653674
Looking at the notes for this, the atendants seem to fill the role of word bearers, except for being undivided.

>pic is Luther by m41

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>>52654970
Call to your false gods, there is nothing but lewds here now.

>>52655049
Is Luther still alive by M41? I was under the impression that Lion cut him down.

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>>52655098
Alive or not, someone has to keep Vect satisfied when Malys is pining for (a chance to violently rape the body of) Oscar.

>>52655098
Other way around I think, during the fight Lion held back out of love for his bro just like Emps did with Horus (or is that not the case any more? No idea with the new HH books). The Chaos juice was enough for Luther to overcome Lion's Mk III S buffs and boink him on the head into a coma.

Though this raises the point, we should finish up Lion. Who was the writefag that wrote up the stuff we bashed out in the threads? It was a good summary, come back and help us finish anon.

>>52655098
Chaos needs to bring the gang back together for one last Black Crusade, aka the 13th Black Crusade. I thought Luther won the fight against Lion which caused him to fall into the coma.

13th Black Crusade still happens in 999.M41 right?

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>>52655480
>13th Black Crusade still happens in 999.M41 right?
Oh yes it is. And it's going to be a big one because the Dark Eldar have bred an army worthy of hyper-Mordor. As of the stroke of midnight on the last day of 999M41 the skies of Cadia are darkened. The stars are blocked out.

The Queen of Deamons has come. They say that this is the last days of Cadia. The Lord Castellan disagrees. The armies of Chaos have come to Cadia to die, it shall be their finest hour.

>>52655286
If Lion is comatose then there could be a King Arthur going on if his sword is still in the possession of the Dark Angels on their flagship. There is a sleeping old king ready to come back, his sword lies in a bed Rock and this is surely the Imperiums time of need. Either that or Russ is going to come back, an old warrior king needs a worthy sword.

That sword is a Kinebrach blade. It was handed over in the ceremony to finalize the alliance between the young Imperium and the Interex. It was the last blade made by the venerable master Mez-Go-Bur. It is said and witnessed that he used no forge or hammer and the metal was taken from the hide of a fallen Cybernetica robot. He struck the metal with his fists and it started to heat up and become pliant and into that metal he beat all his sorrows (which were many) and his wroth (which was considerable). That cherry red blade was quenched in a barrel of ceremonial oil mingled with his own blood and on that blood he placed binding words. Deamons had made his life a misery, his blade would cut them and leave them maimed and that pain would follow them to their Hell and no matter if they healed they would never stop hurting as he would never stop hurting. But where he would die they remain immortal and would go on hurting for ever and ever and ever.

He smiled when the sword was handed over to Lion el Jonson. He died not long later.

>>52655907
damn. I get the best sort of silmarillion vibes from your description of the forging, reminds me of the origins of Eol's black swords. Even the abiding thirst for the blood of kinslayers/crones matches up.

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>>52655907
There are many Kinebrach blades in circulation in the Imperium and the art of making them is in no danger of ever being lost but few are as vindictive as the ones made by Mez-Go-Bur and that was his last creation and believed to be his best.

It has been idle for too long now. Too many summers under a shroud of dust despite it blade being razor sharp. There was a legend among the people of Franj; if an implement is left for more more than a year and day it will hunger for blood. If such stories are true then the Lion Sword is somewhat thirsty. It would take a man of iron will to tame that blade now.

>>52655907
>an army worth of hyper-Mordor
>the skies of Cadia are darkened
>The stars are blocked out
laughingbugs.bmp

>>52657832
>not knowing the vampires are trying to combine the C'tan shards
>by M41 they actually started doing this
>trying to bring back War in Haven 2.0
awaken_my_masters.mp3

>>52655286
>>52655480
Yeah, that's what happened. Lion held back in the fight because he thought Luther could be redeemed, Luther said he did all this for Franj, Lion flips out because Franj is a radioactive wasteland due to Luther and goes to town on him. Chaos Buffs were enough to allow Luther to go toe to toe with Lion "shredding machine" El'Jonson. Lion injures Luther (though I think Erebus is the one with no arms now, due to revised Sangy fluff), but Luther puts Lion in a coma and survives thanks to Chaos Gods not wanting such an amusing pawn to die (shades of Arthur and Mordred's mutual kill at Camlann).

Could be split into two parts. Lion holds back for round one during the WotB, when Luther hadn't gone nuts yet, round 2 Luther has chaos buffs out the wazoo and has gone nuts due to Lion revealing what his actions did to Franj.

Am the guy who wrote up Lion. Couldn't figure out how to best implement Lion's battles with Luther and Luther's ideas of the Galactic Eldar Conspiracy. Brain is mush. Can't write battles for shit.

>>52655907
>Lion sword
Me gusta.

One of the guys who archives stuff here. So, looking over the previous thread, the following things need to go on the wiki or the Notes page.
Necron Stalkers
Gutsmek Wazdakka
Tarellian culture
Arrotyr, Lord of Fire and Marshall of the Scion of the Broken Helm
Apep and Malal in general (just spitballing, goes in notes)

However, there are a couple things to account for before they can go up:

Tarellians, are they Old One-related or not? The poster said they weren’t too keen on the idea, since it makes the universe more closed-off and the Old Ones have been said to be amphibian-like as opposed to reptilian, but there’s also the correlation with the Cahokian/Puebloan thing they’ve got going. Maybe just make them another race that had to rebuild from a Dark Age of Technology height like the kinebrach?

What to do about the presence of Isha in Arrotyr’s backstory. It was mentioned that removing Isha from Arrotyr's backstory was a good idea, since the Eldar gods were still in the Materium prior to the birth of the Slaanesh. The question is what do we put in its place to lead Arrotyr to win the favor of Khorne?

Where do the Stalkers go? Right now we don’t have a page for any of the Necron Star Empire stuff. Just put it on the Notes for now despite the entry being done?

Any other concerns?

>>52660274
Fulgrimfag dumped a bunch of barely edited writing a few threads back that have yet to reach the wiki, but wrapped up the unification war, on earth at least.

This may well be the most unneeded thing for this AU, but I'm tempted to do a write up for Ronahn. Any objections/pointers?

>>52661174
Literally who?

>>52661181
Okay yeah bad idea.

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>>52661181
>Ronahn is an Eldar Pathfinder who aided Farseer Idranel and later Autarch Kayleth during the Aurelian Crusades.

>>52661212
Also, Taldeer's brother.

>>52661212
>>52661284
Huh, that makes sense, I only ever played the orginal DOW, not DOW II.

>>52661197
Don't me dissuade you, fresh OC is always welcome, I just had no idea who you were referring to.

>>52660568
I edited it, gonna post it and see if people have any further suggestions before it goes on the wiki

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>>52661386
Fulgrim himself was attempting to engineer a coup. Having seen the Imperium in his advance raids and having equated it with the empire of old he deramed of, Fulgrim planned to cut down the old leadership of his nation while it seemed within his power and steer it into his bright vision. He had surpassed even Lucius as a swordsman during his adventures in the New Atlantis campaign, and now Fulgrim planned to use his charm, fame, and the lure of technological enhancement to access necessary targets, and to ingratiate his cadre of enhanced officers in the matters of succession before decapitation. Though his early plan went well Fulgrim overestimated his own and his agents' ability to manipulate a government in the mounting chaos of total war with the Imperium, and it was not long before the self styled superhuman was at the mercy of Merikan secret police. He was saved by two plainly dressed men that introduced themselves as Ames and Ozzy, and bore the sigil of a hydra.
Following the aegis of these two Hydra contacts the Doe cadre continued Fulgrim's strategy to build support in the mass produced populations of the manufactories further back from the coast, but Fulgrim himself was made to concede direct control over the operations in the capital. Fulgrim's laboratories in the capital became the futurist's edifice to a pheonician Merika, to the wonderment of the officer class, and Lucius built up the manufactories of Moton into an advanced fortress city on the near edge of the Kalbi territories. Fulgrim had little contact with either project. These power bases were tended by the Doe Cadre's inner circle under the direction of the Hydra and Major Lucius respectively, and while Furris visited his old home when it was under the major's command his work took him yet further from the center of the Doe conspiracy.

>>52661423
Under the cover of another exploratory mission to the bunkers and cracks of the western mountain line, Fulgrim and his mechanists traveled the length of the rocky spine and loosely governed western territories beyond. It was true they again delved the chains of fortresses and redoubts and sunken chambers under those lands for new relics of the golden age, but only least of these fruits ever reached Merikan high command. The rest became assets of the conspiracy, and some even found their way across the wastes of Beringia to the Imperium. More than this, Fulgrim secured the support of the enclaves whose knowledge had driven his successes years prior, and in the druidic labs of the Geno-hippes (an ancient title) Fulgrim and his proto-Alpha legion contacts established forward positions from which to build Astarte forces. The work done in these installations unified Fulgrim and the Geno-hippes' cybernetically and biologically upgraded "Doe" MkII Astarte with the Deutch-Jemanic genesmiths' MkIII pattern.

By Fulgrim's promises and intrigues much of the western territory would come to favor his succession, and for his technological efforts on their behalf they held him in better regard than high command. The collaboration of the Geno-hippes allowed state of the art super soldier forces to be built in the mountain enclaves stretching even into the heart of governor Dorn's beleaguered territory. Less than a year since it nearly died with its indiscreet leader, Fulgrim's conspiracy was at its zenith.

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>>52661469
The destruction and capture of the Merikan airbases on New Atlantis saw the top admirals and generals returned to the capital to prepare a counterattack to keep the theater of war on the artificial continent, as well as the fortification of the atlantic coast. Lucius had made dramatic use of the Doe combat cyborgs Fulgrim had premiered in Europe to aid the hapless commander tasked with the re-conquest of Dorn's dominion entrenched in west and northern Kalbi. These showy hunts by air-cav and drop-troop had done more to lionize the cyber-soldiers as they strode about in gleaming gold and purple than they could ever have hoped to have done to Dorn’s defense.
In weeks the guns of the Imperium were turned squarely to Merika. Massive Skandian naval forces and the air forces of Europa and the quadruple alliance gathered at New Atlantis. The ancient Merikan voidships that hung in orbit over the continent were moved in a careful dance to deny space superiority to the heirloom fleet the Imperium brought to bear, though it was ever vigilant above the panama fortresses for movement from Hy Braseal as well. Fulgrim returned to the capital as plans were being drawn up to leap back to New Atlantis and charge from Europa to Uralia with Doe cyborgs leading the way. Others were being conceived to quickly stamp out Governor Dorn's decades long rebellion and annihilate it to the last, with the field marshal already engaged in the north backed by masses of advanced weapons deployed from Moton. Neither plan would ever see action.

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>>52661503
As Fulgrim made to announce promises of support from western military governors with all due fanfare he was accompanied by a brigade of what seemed to all a new generation of cyborg soldiers, fair as their inventor and clad in bright ceremonial armor. Days after he arrived Merika and the Imperium were fighting in and above the atlantic, all west of the artificial continent. Air Forces clashed above the naval blockades and the coasts, and orbital assets made firing lines hundreds of kilometers long. Orders began to issue to Moton to begin operation in Kalbi, and soon Doe designed and Doe piloted gunships and drop troops were buzzing northwest towards the Merikan position. Impenetrable havoc erupted in the Merikan capital and the first company of Terra's Sons, led by Fulgrim the Futurist, fortified the Doe laboratories and began conducting brutal raids on enemy factions within the Merikan command structure and officer class also entrenched in the capital. In the first hours of fighting the citadel of the high command had been raided by teleporter insertion of un-blazoned power-armored commandos. Subsequent fighting over the building saw it bombed to rubble by Merikan air assets. Fulgrim officially seized dictatorial emergency powers, and with a company drawn from his long honed circle of mechanists he corrected his rivals in the capital, making great show of the advanced forces those same officers and ministry heads had counted on in their grand strategies. The Futurist took Merika's reigns, and with the nation’s purple and white still flying high, cowed the fractious military houses in the wake of what he called an opportunistic Hy-Brasealian attack, and his enemies attributed to him, and the Imperium.

>>52661522
Prior to the decapitation of the Merikan military the Kalbi expeditionary force had embarked on a hard offensive against Dorn, counting on support from Moton's special forces as they drove for the pacific. Lucius lead the second company of Terra's Sons and cybernetic Moton drop brigades to smash the expeditionary force against Dorn's built up battle lines. The Merikan ship above Kalbi was quick to react with the the bombardment of the Moton citadel, and its few volleys were devastating before it was crippled by boarding forces of Merikanized skitarii and mechanists. In the capital there was stalemate between Fulgrim and the remains of the high command, with most of the lower officers sided with the futurist or removed, but the campaigns in the north were fast concluded and Lucius advanced southeast ahead of some of Dorn's own forces.
The Merikan Orbital Brigades and Navy were old institutions staunchly opposed to Fulgrim, and supported ground forces throughout the gulf coast and around the panama fortifications. As Merikan reserves were mobilized by the panicking high command the Astartes forces in the rockies swept east across the continent at the head of the western governors' military forces and made rapid progress securing the Merikan heartland despite orbital bombardment from opposing factions. The machine-stubber, rocketeer, and armored fighting carriage battalions that had been the Merikan Junta's unbeatable scourge were hardly sufficient against their own colonial forces backed by Astartes and Skitarii. In the week of the stalemate in the capital the Merikan navy and space brigade retreated and shortened the blockade so they could both bombard the capital and keep imperial forces from doing the same.

>>52661533
Fulgrim and Terra's Sons first company continued the fight for the capital under heavy shelling and the highest rate of lance strikes the capital's guarding geostationary starship could muster. They were supported by most of the remaining officer corps against the remaining high command holdouts, themselves reinforced by Merikan marines and loyalist military regiments. Fireteams of Astartes in Imperial livery moved openly in the south and west. Imperial soldiers landed in Newfoundland and the gulf to be met by the advanced guard of the forces that started from the rockies or Moton. Lucius and Dorn's forces and the Terra's Sons third company that led the midlands campaign marched on the eastern seaboard and pacified or simply co-opted the remaining ground forces, nearly all of which remained unclear on the state of affairs for the duration.

>>52661621
Merikan Space Brigade was forced to retreat from the battle for the capital by subsequent attacks. They abandoned the Merikan Navy to regroup with Merika’s remaining voidships over the Panama defenses, which had become the last stronghold of the high command. In short order the Merikan blockade was broken by the Imperials and the Merikan Navy suffered mutiny and folded. The Imperial Navy and Air Forces accompanied the battered Merikan Navy into the harbor of the capital, and the cratered slopes of its anti-fallout pyramid bunker-citadels were lined with Merikan officers and civilians as Imperial engineers and officials of every land and discipline piled off amidst the columns of proud soldiers in the livery of Franj, Gredbritton, Achemedinia, and Europia. The Imperial delegation was marched to the Doe complex by the Futurist's own soldiers, equal in stature and clad in purple with emblems of raptors, well known to the capital from the past weeks. The Imperials had hardly arrived at what had become the de facto seat of government for a day before those same engineers and Furris's mechanists were seen together drafting plans for reconstruction.

>>52661982
trying the last bit over.
The battered merikans that remained in the capital had seen among the Imperial delegation the gold giant that had been the subject of much propaganda, and the Skandian warrior at his side, his tattooed sorcerer, his towering iron-fisted automaton, his cadre of princes, the vassal warriors he’d taken from Ursh and the PPL, and so on, and on, as they had disembarked. The transcripts of the meetings within the Doe laboratories were sealed with the mark of a hydra, and vanished after some select members of the office corps were pointedly denied a chance to read them. In the eventual announcement from the grandstand on the capital’s debris strewn parade ground made by Esteemed Dictator Furris Doe and ‘Warmaster’ Oscar the former waxed poetic about the wonders of history and the wings of the Aquila, and the latter made a kurt and businesslike statement sketching out the terms of Merika’s stake in the imperium, which had already been decided. This was all much in keeping with Merikan custom. The general impression among the Merikan Junta’s officers and people was that Fulgrim had brokered an alliance and won them an entry on the footing of equals. In truth Fulgrim met the Warlord in Sibar for the Astartes III hybridization project, long before the operation began, and the conference was in many ways a formality, though Furris took it as an opportunity to lobby for his future projects.

>>52662165
The remains of the Space Brigade took aboard much of the Panama garrison and its war material, but lingering between the changed Merikan regime and Hy Braseal was not a longterm option. What remained of the Merikan Space Brigade never reconvened after that regrouping at Panama. The bulk of the small fleet dove for deep space, and vanished from common histories, while about half their number mobilized to attack the Imperial ships above the eastern seaboard, of which two were disabled and one compelled to surrender. The six that remained over Panama held for two months, and subsequently defected to Hy-Braseal. Of those ships, one is recorded to have been used by Hy Braseal in the War of The Beast, further cementing their victory over their long term rival. They were too the “winners” of the unification war, and the last holdout on earth centuries into the Imperium.

guess the character count just won't let me be happy

>This is how I imagine short range psyker messaging works for those that speak same Low Gothic variant

Back on Manchuguo Upper Archives, a 30-something-year-old psyker was asleep drooling on the desk next to her psylock station. From nowhere, her mind felt like a hammer was hitting it to grab attention. “I’m awake, I’m awake!” said the psyker then wiping clean her face after she shot up in her seat. The old adept man next to her took out his paper to start typing. The psyker started to hear the message from Isha’s Poison with ‘Inquisitorial code...’ which caught the attention of a Securitas Sister who was reading a book near them. When she got up to the cubical, the rest of the message was heard by her as the psyker spoke it out loud while the old man typed down everything. “Inquisitors,” said the Sister with annoyance flowing out of her mouth. The adept handed the paper to the Sister after tearing it off from his roll, “Don’t worry, I’ll vox this over to my Sister Superior, you just go back to sleep.” His afternoon nap was back on schedule and his psyker coworker resume creating a spit puddle.

>>52634996
CSMs, you say?

Every Legion had its black sheep in the War of the Beast. Luther, of course, for the Dark Angels. Sigismund of the Imperial Fists. And for the Iron Warriors, Captain Varkand.

Captain Vandro was in command of the Astartes of the 144th Unification Fleet on the outbreak of the war. Ambitious, aggressive, and dour, he wasted no time assuming overall command when the Sky Marshal and his second-in-command were both killed when the flagship hit a vortex mine. Likewise, finding himself cut off and behind enemy lines, he wasted no time in ordering a series of raids and counter-attacks, trying to cut enemy supply lines and throw the drive towards Terra into disarray.

Some historians suggest that he deliberately arranged for the death of his superiors so that he could seize control of the 144th, but there is no evidence of this. By every account, he served with honor, courage, ability, and loyalty through the Great Crusade and the early stages of the War of the Beast. He would have been remembered as one of the heroes of the war, except for what happened next.

Vandro, an Iron Warrior to the core, grew increasingly dissatisfied with the raids he was making and the damage he was doing. The Crone-Worlders and their various puppets had erected a great fortress out of the hollowed-out ruins of the sector capital hive, Riskail; as long as that fortress still stood, he became convinced, the Croneworlders could never be driven out. He resolved to lay siege to it, crack it open, and kill every last enemy of the Imperium in the place.

>>52662739
-

The initial assaults did not go well. Vandro had spent a great deal of time in the sector capital, and expected his deep knowledge of Riskail's architecture to deliver a swift victory. However, its destruction and reconstruction at the hands of Chaos had eliminated all the vulnerabilities he had planned to exploit, resulting in a series of embarrassing defeats. Worse, the enemy defense was commanded by a sorcerer of considerable power, who used his considerable powers to turn every assault into a catastrophe. Stung and furious, having lost hundreds of Astartes and tens of thousands of human soldiers with nothing to show for it, Captain Vandro settled in for a long siege.

As days turned into weeks into months, supplies grew short and the 144th turned to increasingly dubious methods to maintain the siege. Captured enemy weapons were used, regardless of how deeply Chaos-tainted they were. Roving elements of the fleet started, essentially, extorting and enslaving surviving pockets of civilization within the sector. Worlds already ravaged were stripped to the bone to fuel the demands of the war effort. 'Liberated' slaves were herded right back out to clear minefields and act as decoys for enemy guns. There were sporadic instances of cannibalism as food supplies grew tight.

Captain Vandro finally breached the outer walls after five months, but this was hardly an improvement. The sorcerer and his cabal had not been idle, and had transformed Riskail's interior into a ghastbone maze carefully wrought to mislead and confuse on the psychic as well as physical plane. Casualties skyrocketed, and the 144th began to crumble under the continued psychic assault. From atop the stump of the DAoT-era space tether Riskail was built around, the sorcerer constantly mocked the attacking forces, and his words were themselves lethal weapons.

>>52662768
Captain Vandro and the 144th Unification Fleet had been sliding into the abyss for a while by that point. Now, they acknowledged the inevitable. Captain Vandro was the first to fall, pledging his soul to Khorne, and the rest of the fleet swiftly followed.

The murder-maze that had once been Riskail fell swiftly afterwards. The newly-empowered Iron Warriors simply shrugged off every psychic assault directed at them, smashing through the walls of the ghastbone labyrinth with supernatural ease. Captain Vandro himself killed the Croneworld sorcerer with his bare hands.

The 144th were pushed back into the Eye of Terror along with the rest of the Fallen, where they re-organized as the Crumbling Wall. They retain the Iron Warrior focus on fortification-breaking, and have a hatred of psykers remarkable even among the servants of Khorne. The destruction of fortresses is their sacrament to Khorne, and they have gotten very good at it. At the time of their treason, the Crumbling Wall had about 8,000 Astartes and 5 million mortal soldiers.

Thoughts?

>>52653754
>"Mom relax, I'm not gonna go on a date with him despite him asking me out. But I'm just being friends."

>"I Don't know..."

>>52662781
would they try dropping tanks down the light shafts in one of Perturbo's hives, assuming they breach the blast doors on top? If so you have my aproval

>>52663278
Answer: No, because dropping tanks from great heights is a great way to have less tanks, and tanks are of limited use in most hive environments anyway. Light-well assaults are a matter for jump infantry, primarily Assault Marines.

>>52663278
Perturbo didn't start designing hives until after War of the Beast.

>>52662781
It looks good. It shows how good men can fall to Chaos even as they fight Chaos.

>>52662176
>>52662188
MOAR! It is glorious.

>>52662409
>her mind felt like a hammer was hitting it to grab attention

I forgot this was not Noblebright 40k.

>>52666426
It's less shit than Vanilla being a psychic but not that much better.

In a all fairness Astropaths are e the least likely to get possessed.

>>52667049
This is just one part of the writefag I was working on, there is a previous part that tells how a weak astropath can accidently become braindead if they input frequency 0.00 while hooked up to the psylock. Some psyker shit about how if a message is sent on that number it causes a feedback loop that short circuits the brain.

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Purge nurn burmf!

So Luther alive

yes or no?

>>52671763
Yes

>>52671961
So is here an outline on the Lion's life?

>>52673161
It's on 1d4chan, under the Nobledark Imperium Primarchs page.

any ideas about the relationship between the Fallen and Malys and Vect's commanders

>>52673356
The original old-School Fallen don't like xenos much but have learned to deal with it for the most part.

Chaos eldar consider everyone not them as either slaves or potential slaves.

Dark Eldar think everyone not them (them personally, not them as in a collective) is food waiting to happen.

They don't like each other much at all and it takes a special flavour of crazy to herd them all in the same direction.

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>>52673533
>Chaos eldar consider everyone not them as either slaves or potential slaves
you're still thinking Dark Eldar here. Remember that most crones are born and raised in the writhing pit of degeneracy that is Slaaneshi Shaa-Dome, and have the balls-to-the-wall outlook you'd expect from hedonistic fae folk that live in a region of space where physics resembles a perverse episode of looney tunes on the best of days. The Slaaneshi faction is full of xenophiles that would make /d/ blush, but being slaaneshis tends to limit their diplomatic prospects to other slaaneshis. Tzeentchian crones could be assumed to be as varied a bunch of esoteric lunatics as possible, and any power that could offer greater sorcerous knowledge would be welcome as long as they survive. The Scions of the Broken Helm seem pretty omnicidal, but the descriptions of the Attendants of Isha have always alluded to them rallying large forces of chaos worshipers, so across the board the crones seem pretty big on recruiting absolutely anyone. They also love their Ork vassals. Speaking of which, what sort of horrors could be inflicted on a battlefield by a
>Khornate ork
>Nurglite ork
>Slaaneshi ork
>Treentchian ork

>>52673533
Basically, what >>52674839 said. Chaos Eldar are Eldar supremacists, but they're not necessarily vanilla!Imperium or Dark Eldar kinds of supremacists. Stuff like super-/d/, KHORNE CARES NOT FROM WHERE THE BLOOD FLOWS, etc. It's one of the reasons why Malys can get the various factions of Chaos to point in one direction on a good day.

Many of the Cronedar are said to see Chaos as the natural end result of the Old Eldar Empire, and that the gifts of the old empire must be spread across the galaxy.

>>52674839
>Speaking of which, what sort of horrors could be inflicted on a battlefield by a Chaos Ork.

That Looney Toons thing you mentioned? Enough WAAAGH! Juice and the materium starts turning into that. Full-out Skaven-level bullshit.

>>52673356
Erebus kind of acts as a messenger between the various major warlords of Chaos and is a mediating force when they are actually on a Black Crusade.

Malys is tactically brilliant even without the crazy and is able to come up with strategies that only a madwoman could come up with, but she's also prone to mania and Leeroy Jenkins her way into problems.

Be'lakor Knows Things, which gives him an edge on everyone else, but has a massive ego which makes him hard to get to cooperate.

Luther is a cuisinart in human form and talented in organizing troops, but he's also ridiculously paranoid and thinks everyone is out to get him (I mean they are, but more than is reasonable).

Erebus blunts the warlords' flaws when they operate in concert during a Black Crusade, acting as a voice of reason. Additionally, most of the time he is able to keep them focused on the Imperium and not fighting each other. Erebus serves whoever the Chaos Gods have chosen to lead the forces of the Primordial Annihilator at the moment (which 90% of the time is Malys), but is human, so he can get Luther to cooperate.

Erebus' main flaw is that he's completely monomaniacal about the spread of Chaos. Exploit that somehow and you'll break his composure, and thus Chaos' main voice of reason.

>>52661174
Sure, go ahead.

Did we ever decide anything concrete about Chaos Orks? I'm trying to assemble a comprehensive section on the Orks for the wiki.

>>52677740
we've yet to have anything substantial

>>52677867
>>52677740
I'm of the opinion they should be a small minority of the Orks. Most are still followers of Gork and Mork and are tenuous allies of convenience at best to Chaos, and more often they see Chaos as another good fight and pansies that need krumpin'. Not to mention in large numbers the Ork's natural psychic fields would give them some protection against Chaos, it would only be isolated groups of Orks that become vulnerable to Chaos corruption.

>>52678036
I think in some of the early threads it was suggested that Chaos Orks are the result of one of Nurgle's most potent plagues, created immediately after the theft of Isha.

>>52678078
I think it was dropped

>>52679467
its in the wiki

>>52679857
Where? I can't find it.

Bumpan

>>52677740
Orks follow gods if they think they're fun to follow more than any other reason.

Most Chaos Orks follow Khorne for obvious choppy reasons.

Slaanesh has quite a following because bright colours and gotta go fast. Also Orks like recreational drugs as much as the next mortal.

Tzneetch has a small but dedicated following. Those that take glee in a plan coming together, those that go full kunnin'.

Nurgle is the least represented as orks don't do despair, but for whatever reason there are some.

So far no Malal Orks are known, but it's probably only a matter of time.

>>52678036
Orks are like Fantasy Dwarves. They can't become corrupted by Chaos, but they can fall to it willingly. So they would definitely be a small minority. You probably have two major divisions of Chaos Orks. One that is more loyal to Gork and Mork than Chaos, and so would stand with the rest of the Orks, and the other that is trully well and gone and wants to bring the rest of the Orks over to their side. Same situation with the Bug Boyz.

>tenuous allies of convenience at best to Chaos, and more often they see Chaos as another good fight and pansies that need krumpin'

This I think might be a bit too far. If this is the case, then why does Chaos keep trying to recruit them for the Black Crusades? If the Orks are just as likely to fight Chaos as the Imperium, then why bring them because they'll just weaken your forces as much as the Imperium. I liked the idea where Chaos tends to broker a non-aggression pact with the Orks in exchange for being informed where the best fights are. Which is getting harder and harder with the Brain Boyz around, because the Orks can tell now when a fight will be non-productivd for them. Of course they're Orks, and they'll always try to pick a fight, but it's not like they're fighting each other as much as the Imperium. Or maybe I'm thinking of a different kind of allies of convenience.

>>52680434
Seconded, I would like to know where this is too.

>>52684623
I think Nurgle is the only Chaos Gods that has Orks following him in vanilla. Some Orks realized Nurgle was the biggest and the greenest and started worshipping him accordingly.

>>52684654
There is the Cult of Khorne in Vanilla. It's mostly rebellious yoofs.

>>52684633
Only mention I can actually find is in the pantheon section, when it says Khorne takes credit for getting the other three gods to cooperate on the War of The Beast. It essentially says that Khorne was the one that got them to their war footing by convincing Nurgle to channel his waifu-bereft sulk into making a strain of chaos corruptible orks that could mutate like nuts and still be recognized by ork command protocols. The other two would likely make similar claims as to their personal significance to nurgle's invention. In any situation it seems a fun idea that following the theft of his wife Nurgle was induced to a bout of furious and uncharacteristic activity before he sunk even deeper into his normal apathy and complacency. For a moment he almost becomes the galactic cultivator and shaper he once was, ready to kick ass to preserve the rightly arranged beauties of his garden, and it makes for fun characterization opportunities of lesser nurgle worshipers.

>>52684633
> If this is the case, then why does Chaos keep trying to recruit them for the Black Crusades? If the Orks are just as likely to fight Chaos as the Imperium, then why bring them because they'll just weaken your forces as much as the Imperium.

Because you don't really ally with the Orks, you bait them and steer them in the desired direction and watch the fireworks from afar. It's like the wild animals in Far Cry (if you played it), they're just has happy to eat you as the NPC humans but if you bait them into an enemy base you can watch and laugh as they tear shit up and do the heavy lifting.

Also narratively speaking, the Orks have always been a wacky wild card and to tie them too closely to Chaos would be to lose some of their flavor, otherwise you couldn't have shit like the Warboss that Waaagh'd into the Eye of Terror and fought daemons for eternity. Not mention Chaos has gotten a significant buff now that they're allied to the DE.

>Orks
>"non-aggression pact"

"Wot da zog iz dis pointy-ear grot talkin' about?"

>>52685624
(cont.)

Forgot to mention, that's what made the Beast unique/dangerous, he was the only Warboss to fully commit himself to Chaos and as such got a shitload of buffs for it on top of being a Prime Ork powerhouse. And now with the rise of Ghazghkull and the Brain Boyz it's gonna be even more of a free-for-all shitshow since ol' Ghazzy doesn't like Chaos and wants to "krump those zoggin' weird Kay Oss gits."

>>52685624
"""Non-Aggression Pact""" with Chaos, even those doesn't last long.

>Barging with Ork clans for "great fights with the humies" and some shiny hats, Lady Malys was able to launch a campaign of extermination on some surrounding sub-sectors while the fighting on Cadia stall.

>>52685075
Waaaay back in like thread 9 or so, there was a suggestion that Nurgle basically went bipolar after Isha was taken from him and basically unleashed the 40k equivalent of Spanish Flu on the galaxy.

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I think that the basic way of getting an alliance with a group of orks consists of persuading their leader whose job it is then to beat the rest of the mob into submission.

The leaders are also the ones with some concept of future planning so that really helps.

You basically tell them that you will bring them the best fight they can imagine. This is the payment. The chore is not killing your dudes.

You also need to be dealing with a warboss with some concept of the future for safety. You promise them that you can find them more fights like that in the future or they will turn on you for want of another target.

Gazzy is the first prominent warboss with the brains to realize that the orks have been made a fool of and also having the personality to give a shit about it.

Also hormonal Taldeer is hormonal.

>>52685624
>Also narratively speaking, the Orks have always been a wacky wild card and to tie them too closely to Chaos would be to lose some of their flavor

I agree with this sentiment. Though if you absolutely had to divide the galaxy into categories, the Orks would probably fall closer to

The other thing is the buff from the Dark Eldar has only been starting M40. So that's at least nine thousand years of no Dark Eldar backup.

>"Wot da zog iz dis pointy-ear grot talkin' about?"

It means that Orks get to have better fights because not only do they learn where those fights are, but they can draw the fights out (because either now they have the forces to take on bigger targets without getting slaughtered immediately). Because while Orks don't mind dying if they die fighting, it's less fun to just be blown up in an artillery barrage before you can even start fightin'.

And of course, an Ork alliance with Chaos is about as likely to last as long as a Chaos alliance with Chaos. I.e., not long. But it's more common than Orks allying with, say, the Necrons or the Imperium.

>>52687021
There has been limited cooperation between Chaos and Dark Eldar before the formal alliance, as a result of overlapping goals and methods. There's been mention of Dark Eldar raiding parties following the Black Crusades around, for instance.

>>52688697
DE are scavengers at heart. If there's a major conflict or any sort of upheaval you can be top throne they will be along shortly.

They've been around for every Black Crusade in some capacity or another and followed in the wake of The Beast back in the day.

Clearly we need more waifus to resurrect interest.

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>>52691328
We need collaborative writing on a big event like the 2nd Black Crusade or an Armageddon War to have a lot of discussion and debate.

In short, no waifus without good reason. (pic related?)

>>52691606
I'm kinda sure we discanon'd Reri.

>>52691670
Aw man, that sucks.

>>52691670
We did

>>52688697
>>52689897
Yes, but that wasn't Crone Eldar and Dark Eldar actually forming an alliance. That was Dark Eldar raiding in the wake of Ork and Chaos attacks to exploit destroyed Imperial defenses and make off with a shitload of slaves. It would be like saying vultures team up with lions, or pilot fish team up with sharks.

Dark Eldar see themselves as ubermensch, the Craftworlders and Exodites too indoctrinated to their gods and the Croneworlders too indoctrinated to theirs. Only the Dark Eldar are truly free.

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>>52691871
Unless you want to write up the story of the bio-engineered slave/pet that Leith commissioned from Fabius Bile and occasionally throws into enemy positions like a show-eversor so she can watch, cackle, and shlick, go right ahead, but the best she might hope to be is a very unfortunate and heavily cyberized and spliced clone.

>>52691606
Second Black Crusade, then. How long after the First? 700 years?

>>52691606
Here's a big one that should be pretty popular: let's hammer out Dorn in the thread like we did for Lion. Any one have any thoughts?

One particular issue for me is how we reconcile Dorn being an early Mk I Astartes (so joined up and got augments early-mid Unification) with the fact he's faffing about in Calbi by the late Unification.

>>52692048
Why do you have to shit on something nice like that?

>>52692161
He was augmented by the Merikans, who had managed to reverse-engineer the Mk 1 from captured samples but hadn't cracked any of the later models.

>>52691670
>>52691871
>>52691913
I thought we recanon'd Reri for the same reason she originally came about in 1d4 legend - as nega-Lofn.
No, but seriously, I thought that we had her as the antichrist-figure in our little Starchild mythos

>>52692425
honestly I might write it if you don't, sounds fun
>>52692554
we never had this, and lofn isn't the starchild anyway

>>52692000
>Bile makes a DE tube-born battlefield assassin with so much splicing and cyberization that she looks more human then eldar.
>Reri is sent to kill targets on the battlefield for shits and giggles by her mother.
>One of the best duelist in the galaxy but bad at pretty much everything else.
>Another version of the Star Child prophecy interpretation.
>Where Lofn brings peace and tranquility (or at least trys to), Reri brings war and disorder.

I prefer that version of Reri instead of "look another daughteru."

>Only the Dark Eldar are truly free.
The fedora tippers of 40k.

>>52692554
We said that too many hybrids ruins the point of the Starchild prophecy and strains belief, so we decided to keep it at Lofn plus whatever the Starchild turns out to be.

>>52692884
I also voted against Lofn.

>>52692953
Well Lofn remains a wee psyker-bun in the oven at the eve of the millennium, and we definitely brought up badly tacked together experimental hybrids in the past.

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>>52692161
This is most of what we have on Dorn so far from previous threads. There might be some extra on the Notes page.

>>52694089
From what sort of family does Dorn come from? Should he have a family of his own?

>>52695108
Well the new Fulgrim stuff calls him military governor, the same as the people running the west, so he must have a good level of prestige with the Merikans. It also has him at war with Merika for decades, and his stronghold seems to be west of Moton, which I've been thinking is near where the great lakes were.

>>52695431
He would have to be not too old Bonaventure compatible with the augmentations. If we are still keeping that.

Also it was suggested that his rise up the ranks was sped up slightly because he covertly murdered his predecessor for being awful.

>>52695108
I don't think so, given his no nonsense demeanor I think he would have been one of the married-to-his work kind of Primarchs. In fact I don't know if the thought of a family would be appealing to him, maybe it was a theoretical future plan that was always being put off because there was always one more battlefield for Dorn, and he couldn't rest until the Imperium was safe.

>>52695701
Did he have any named friends in the Legion or out of it in Vanilla we can work with here?

>>52640061
>>52642565
For all that Jubblowski is quite obviously fapbait she is fapbait in universe as well, at least in this AU, so it was almost certainly intentional. Her blessing was given by a primordial xeno goddess who attained consciousness on some distant world 65 - 70 million years ago during the Neolithic era of that native population. Learning current social conventions are probably not high up the to do list for Isha all things considered.

Jubblowski prays to Isha because her figure was politely called "boyish" and cruelly called "puberty forgot about you".

It highlights the fact that for the most part the average human pleb and grunt don't know all that much about the eldar. They know them as a species of space dwelling xenos that look suspiciously human but taller and do weird stuff but are ultimately on our side. The average pleb don't know the sheer depth of history behind them. Jubblowski's blessings being an example of this. They know her as the Eternal Empress. Eldar know her as the All-Mother.

It also raises the question of how long it took Macha/Isha to adapt to a life in Imperial Politics.

As a Neolithic pagan goddess she would have had to learn that no it is not acceptable to assault or try to kill political opponents at a state function, cutlery and the using of it is necessary and put on some real clothes.

>>52696577
Sigismund founder of the Black Templars maybe.

Could be a bit of a problem considering that in this go around the Templar movement was started by Typhus the Pilgrim.

Maybe this time Sigismund took over the Imperial Fists after Dorn died in the 1st Black Crusade.

>>52698075
Problem then is that we've established that Primarch death is usually when the Legions began to split

>>52698715
Or Dorn decided to break his Legion up whilst still alive, seeing it as inevitable and wanting it to be done properly.

>>52698075
I thought Sigismund fell to Chaos in the Battle of Necromunda.

>>52699059
Then we need another ye oldy Great Crusade era dude to fill the space.

If we already have the Tmpelar movment founded by someone else then we don't actually need Sigismund to do it.

So I suggest that Captain Halbrecht be given the job due to be a cautious and meticulous sort of person that this Dorn would like.

Dorn intentionally breaks his Legion up after WotB because they need to fortify things on opposite ends of the galaxy and message time makes it necessary.

Halbrecht gets sent to be the Imperial Fists detachment on Cadia to offer their expertise to the Black Legion of Abbadon who are setting up shop there but only know the basics of Fortress building.

Dorn is the head of the relief effort that rides in during the 1st Black Crusade and ultimately sees Dorn dying manning one of Halbrecht's walls.

Halbrecht survives but there is no primarch and nothing really binding the Legion together. The individual chapters that made up the Legion were already independent in all but name by that point and the pretence of a unified organization is dropped at this point.

Halbrecht remains a citizen and defender of Cadia after the 1st Black Crusades. After Abaddon the Last's death he transfers to the Black Legion and takes command due to his seniority and experience.

>>52686962
Here's a question.

How long are eldar pregnant for?

We going with normal human 9 months or the Tolkien elves 1 year?

>>52700249
Either way the Imperium will have a count down for shit happening with the Impossible Child.

>>52700249
freeshrugs.jpg

I personally lean towards longer pregnancy because that helps to get across the alien/ye fancy elf factor across, but I don't know if that actually matters.

>>52700249
Not sure, I think it is longer, because an Eldar fetus is fertilized over multiple periods of intercourse (which is probably an adaptation to make sure the male sticks around to ensure the offspring is his, like many reproductive behaviors and adaptations in other animals). To make up for this low reproduction rate and long gestation period, there seems to be a higher frequency of twinning or multiple births in Eldar.

However, Eldar don't seem to be as crippled in giving birth as human females, given that Dark Eldar trueborn exist (any pregnant female would be murdered messily in Comorragh if they were like humans) and female Eldar serve in the military as much as male Eldar (implying they lack things like the greater femoral angle that make it harder for humans).

>>52695701
He probably saw his younger Astartes as his sons if anything, as opposed to brothers-in-arms like most of the other primarchs.

>>52698715
>>52698866
In the Breaking of the Legions fluff on 1d4chan, the Imperial Fists were an early adopter of the Chapter structure proposed by Guilliman since Dorn saw that smaller groups would be the best way to fortify the rebuilding Imperium, though he was also the one who proposed and laid the groundwork for the Reformation of the Legions in times of crisis, which he called the Last Wall.

>>52699439
I believe it's said that Morty and Typhus were the ones who founded the Templars in this AU since the Death Guard's schtick is "always crusading all the time," though its certainly possible a prominent IF member played some role as well. Also, in canon wasn't Helbrecht the High Marshal of the Black Templars in M41.999?

>>52701492
According to the Lexicanum there was a captain called Helbrecht back in the Great Crusade also. Presumably a different man with the same name.

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>>52697818
It was suggested that Macha/Isha looks not unlike this. So it appears that she can learn even if she refuses to wear anything under the dress.

>>52701860
Not to rain to hard on anyone's fap parade, but she was a goddess for millions of years that also had a vested interest in her people enough to circumvent a divine prohibition from interacting with them. It's not like she never had the chance to learn about clothes. If we invoke the 'Neolithic mores' excuse for that jazz, maybe we should ask where she picked up modern language, indoor plumbing, cooked food, air conditioning, shelter that isn't a collection of branches and leaves, the notion of marriage, or the concept of a galactic government.

As funny as it is to imagine a shit covered cave elf fucking everything in sight, digging in fields for roots and berries, running for cover every time a transport flew over, and braining high lords to eat their organs for strength, I can't imagine any divine marriage lasting that long afterwards.

>>52702046
Fair point. Although she might still take the direct approach to problem solving for preference.

>>52702046
Plus there's the fact that she has all of Macha's memories as well. Who was most distinctly not a cave elf.

>>52702046
Yeah, unless we're also gonna grapple with the problem of Cegorach's primordial sense of humor this is a non issue

We seem to have a firm idea of what Isha is not but that just begs the question of what Isha is.

What is Isha like?

>>52703524
Cegorach's "actually not a tiger!" jokes got old quick.

>>52703820
I'm a fan of cave elf.

>>52703820
In all seriousness... As soon as I get to a computer with a keyboard, I'll write in greater detail, but here's a slight overview of my thoughts.

Alien motives, incomprehensible intelligence, enormous power, and the feeling of being perceived as less than an insect. The typical report of being in a god's presence.

Not so with Isha. She is the most accessible of gods, as accessible as any power labeled a 'god' can be, often deigning to go among the common folk of Terra, or traveling the Webway when her homesick feelings grow too great. Most reports of meeting her are glowing. Rarely is there any impression given beyond awe struck benevolence.

However, another common thread is the brevity of these meetings. Beyond just feeling brief, they actually are. The great black templar hero Tankred earned the honor of one such meeting, but it was timed at approximately 41 seconds. Tankred would later write he did not feel spurned but he felt she was " needed elsewhere."

Isha has not been front and center in politics. But behind the scenes, she is very busy indeed. Her personal ranger cadre venture the whole of the imperium, found wherever disease and illness reign to return with samples to Isha's sanctum so the goddess might concoct cures. She does not limit herself to ailments of the body either- on occasion, chosen servants of the imperium afflicted by chaos or shattered in mind report feeling the goddess in their thoughts or hearing her words in their dreams. Those she meets in person invariably report a feeling of elation and wholeness afterwards, and typically go on to do good. Not typically becoming extraordinary galactic heroes, but local pillars of the community.

>>52704602
Despite being the galaxy's most overworked and patient social worker, she is still a goddess. Easily forgotten with all of her charity, but brought to a stark reminder when an assassin that was waiting to meet her in a crowd suddenly burst with roots and thorns under her gaze. Described traumatically by all who witnessed it, the screaming elder begged forgiveness even as he was dragged through what was once marble floor as Isha strode by, not sparing a second glance. Her visage then was not the gentle, wise mother's then, but the uncaring gaze of nature, red in tooth and claw.

Isha is also influenced by Macha, once a farseer of Biel- Tan. How much is Macha, and how much is Isha is a mystery for theologians to grapple with. Rumor has her as a daughter of Eldrad, but then again in Imperial culture, most anything to do with the eldar has conspiracy theorists trying to trace whatever happened back to Eldrad.

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>>52704622
I'd leave the connection to Eldrad Ulthuran as the mad ramblings of the Imperium's tinfoil hat merchant.

In the Eldrad fluff it says that although Eldrad sort of recognized her back in the old days he can't remember why because The Fall scrambled his brain and he doesn't remember much of anything before that point. If she remembers him she hasn't said. Were they kin or friends or something else? Who knows. Maybe she doesn't know either.

Also Tankred is a thing in this AU now. I have absolutely no problem with that.

If he is a Black Templar should he be a transfer from the Imperial Fists or should he be raised in the Templars in the teachings of Typhus the Pilgrim. Given how old Tankred might be he may have even been a neophyte when Typhus died, making him the last living link.

>>52662176
As the guy who asked that you edit it, this is much better, good work. Only question is what do you mean by the "hybridization" of the Fulgrim's Astartes pattern? If I remember correctly, Fulgrim stole/reverse-engineered the Mk II pattern and the Mk III MP pattern was created before his coup by the Duscht when they joined the Imperium. So when Fulgrim met the Warlord in Sibar wouldn't Oscar just hand him the data for newest version and say, "here use this, it's better than what you currently have"? Is Fulgrim using a weird, tweaked version for his men?

>>52704602
>>52704622
Quite nice, I like it. It bears repeating that only a small fragment of Isha exists in the material world in the form of Macha, as no mortal body could hold that much power. Another question, since Isha is free now couldn't she protect the Eldar's souls from Slaanesh like how Cegorach protects the Harlequins? Some of the fluff has mentioned soul stones, but what else could they be for?

>>52634996
Is this the one about the chapter who died on th ice planet? That was some good headcanon

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>>52706282
Isha isn't capable of going toe to toe with She Who Thirsts. If she were she wouldn't be hiding in the world of matter.

One day, one glorious day, she will claim the blood price and be the Valkyrie ascending to the heavens to return fire to the gods with interest. One day she will tear Slaanesh limb from limb and burn whats left and sift the ashes for the souls of her innocent children and her garden will be opened to them to dwell forever beyond sorrow. One day she will remind the gods that yes, yes they can hurt and they can be maimed and they can die. One day. And the thing is that they chased her to a realm of linear time. That was a mistake because now she is bound to time and so is what she touches to an extent of how she touches it and because of linear time Judgement Day for her is only drawing closer and she is dragging their formally timeless souls towards it like the tide.

And she's bringing friends with her, oh yes she is. When she was rescued she was cold and naked and alone and broken. But now she is a queen again, dark and terrible and beautiful, capable of great kindness and capable of bringing ruin and anguish. And she has friends now, and she is growing stronger.

But for now the eldar have to hide their souls away for safe keeping in stones and in the bones.

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Is there a Cherubael in this AU?

>>52707350
I don't see why not.

>>52707350
eisenhorn came up, the conclusion seemed that he's actually worse off

>>52706282
>>52706746
Yeah, this is pretty much what we came up with in previous threads. Isha isn't capable of going up against She Who Thirsts face to face. If she was she wouldn't have to be in the Materium in the first place. The best she is able to do is salvage scraps of the souls eaten by Slaanesh, which she is able to pass on to young Eldar as a sort of memory or something.

Cegorach can contest for the souls of the Harlequins, but then the Harlequins are much fewer and Cegorach is much more adept at boxing outside his weight class by using trickery.

>>52703820
One suggestion we had is Isha's personality has gradually shifted over the years from "young mother trying to figure out how this parenting thing works with the best intentions" to "matriarch of the entire galaxy".

She sees the entire galaxy as her extended family and after the shitshow that was the fall of the Eldar Empire has vowed to never let her family be hurt in such a way again. If that means showing a bit of discipline to her children, then so be it.

>>52704602
>Despite being the galaxy's most overworked and patient social worker, she is still a goddess. Easily forgotten with all of her charity, but brought to a stark reminder when an assassin that was waiting to meet her in a crowd suddenly burst with roots and thorns under her gaze. Described traumatically by all who witnessed it, the screaming elder begged forgiveness even as he was dragged through what was once marble floor as Isha strode by, not sparing a second glance. Her visage then was not the gentle, wise mother's then, but the uncaring gaze of nature, red in tooth and claw.

This is what the Neolithic side of Isha should look like. Someone who has put the barbarity aside, but is more than willing to pull it back out if need be. Plants, in many ways, are worse about the whole survival of the fittest thing than animals. Isha is kind of like an Eldar cross between Demeter-Aphrodite. Remember what Demeter was like.

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>GeGe's Odd Adventure Part 1.3
>https://pastebin.com/Gdxk1JrQ

Sisters, Handmaidens, and Astropaths. Oh my!

would people rather a picture of Isha, Dorn, or Trayzn be drawn first?

>>52710639
We already have Oscar, why not Isha to complete the pair.

>>52710639
I'm with this anon
>>52710675
Isha would be nice.

>>52710639
Isha plz.

>>52710603
It is good.

I like the inclusion of the rule on limiting Inquisitorial Retinue size, given that the Inquisition isn't unaccountable now it fits perfectly. Also the attitude towards servitors is very in-universe.

>>52705924
>Tankred is a thing in this AU now
He endures

>>52706282
>Is Fulgrim using a weird, tweaked version for his men
Fulgrim's backstory has him and his inner circle already enhanced with their proprietary version of the astartes treatment, which was closest to the mk II, when that meeting occurred. There had already been mention of the gene-hippes, which go on to found the biologicus with the gene-smiths, in which they made the final stabalixing modifications to the mk III mass production model. Fulgrim is using a weird tweaked version of mk II in his inner circle that was made before support from the imperium, while he was meant by the Merikan government to be their answer to the astartes program. When he goes turncoat he goes to Sibar, gets mk III designs, and essentially gives them to the gene-hippes to stabilize and finalize. The result is the Terra's Children being mk III, their leaders being Fulgrim's mk II likely brought up to mk III standards with imperial resources they originally lacked, and the final version of Mk III is produced.

>>52716990
I'll write something soon about Tankred unless there are objections

>>52719113
I welcome it!

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>>52715310
>Ordo Securitas doesn't trust anybody
>not even themselves
About as paranoid as in vanilla but less illogical.

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The unstoppable force that is Tankred began his march through the ages on the perennial shithole of Nuceria on the periphery of ancient Ultramar. Like many on that blighted world he had little to love of his home. He was born some forty or fifty years after the War Hounds tore through the place and imposed at least some notion of law and order, a time when Nuceria had become merely shit rather than it's previous state of fucking intolerable.

Tankred's mother offered him one piece of advice for his future life as she lay dying of Raggy Lung in an AdBio hospice on the outskirts of Desh'ea "get off this shit world. Run to the stars, never come back". They were words he took to heart and after he buried her he sat about pondering exactly how to do this, penniless street urchin that he was. In those days the War Hounds had set up a recruitment station in the semi-derelict palace of the previous corrupt planetary ruler. They were Tankred's ticket to a new life, hopefully one with less pestilence and famine in it.

The recruitment master was unimpressed by the malnourished gutter oik and although he did hand over his sandwiches he would not let him through the door. This was in the latter half of the Great Crusade when supply lines were being crisscrossed and rearranged and resources were being reallocated as the Imperium expanded on all sides. Nuceria was on the list to be substantially rebuilt after the Red Angel expended much enthusiasm knocking it down. Due to positioning of major Imperial assets and the ever shifting and retreating nature of the frontier the planet was soon to shift jurisdictions from being Angron's responsibility to coming under the tender mercies of Mortarion. Grim as the prospect was the locals, those that knew anything of what was going on, did consider their future prospects improved by this change. Tankred certainly did.

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>>52722463
The War Hounds all throughout their history have had a somewhat tenuous relationship to paperwork. In the confusion of the switch over it was easy enough for the young Tankred to slip into the ramshackle fortress and pretend he had always been there. Either he was convincing enough or the Dusk Raiders just didn't care, they were less picky than the War Hounds and would conscript anyone who could be trained to hold a gun right way around best out of three. The war effort was always in need.

The man given command of the Desh'ea post was an astartes captain by the name of Calas Typhon. For a super soldier he was remarkably scholarly and a veteran of the Imperium backed Barbarus Uprisings and a native of that toxic world. To him Nuceria seemed quite pleasant.

Tankred endeared himself somewhat to the grizzled old captain for his almost Mortarion levels of levels of endurance and dogged determination, qualities that the Legion put great value in. For Tankred's part he just wanted off the planet and if becoming part of the Legion was his ticket out he would hold back no effort.

Years past Tankred grew to be a young man. Scared from hard training and as enduring as a mountain. He was deemed worthy. He would not join the Legion as a mere Imperial Army soldier, he would become an astartes.

The transformations were not gentle. Most of the glaring flaws in the process had been long since ironed out by then, this was not the Unification Wars, but there is a limit to how kindly you can disassemble a man and stitch him back together with extra parts buried in there.

>>52722735
Tankred did survive to the surprise of many though not himself, Tankred endures all things. For his tenacity he was granted his greatest desire. He was loaded onto a ship and he left cursed Nuceria. He never looked back and eventually the bleak world became nothing but a bad and fading memory of another life. His early career as a Space Marine was unremarkable when compared to those of his peers, which is to say it was a constant meal-storm of glorious combat, conquests and victories of the sort that other men would talk about for generations and some becoming legends that would reverberate around a world for centuries.

His brothers in arms thought quite highly of him. He was quick to laugh and quick to forgive. His face was much accustomed to smiling, which given the scars was not pretty, and his only really annoying flaws were a degree of irreverence and a "fascination" about ordained women.

It wasn't until the awful days of the War of the Beast that Tankred really showed just how awfully tenacious he could be. They were dark days. he could kill a thousand orks before dinner and there would be ten times that left to butcher and although his arm would not tire he couldn't kill them fast enough. But he did kill them fast. He exemplified the teachings of Captain Typhon; Not one step back, march and kill and never stop moving forwards. Where he strode forth they fell back, their lines twisted and buckled and broke and the only thing that slowed his pace was having to step over their cooling bodies.

One battle blurred into another as he fought and fought, his wounds sustained were grievous and he was practically rebuilt several times in transit between battles but always he would rise from what should have been a deathbed itching to satisfy his ire against something wretched.

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>>52723341
One misadventure of carnage after another and Tankred ended up upon the Eisenstein as it burned it's engines out to get to Old Earth. It is difficult to say how fast the ship was going when it slammed into the flank of an Ork Killa Krooza in low Earth orbit as by that time the surviving crew had abandoned ship and all Space Marines were screaming through the atmosphere in drop pods.

But they were far too late to save Sanguinius. The Angel of Baal was dead and mutilated beyond all recognition and The Beast was slain. Some level of frustration was relieved upon the surviving orks and the Chaos scum that still crawled upon the irradiated and ash blacked surface of Old Earth but it was not all that satisfying.

Tankred served in the Wars of Reconquest as the Imperium was painstakingly rebuilt. It was a bitter task to walk upon worlds the Imperium had failed or had failed the Imperium and it was a long time before Tankred would again feel the same joy in his work as he once did.

That time was a time a time of rebuilding for the Imperium and the Legions could not stand apart in this. Calas Typhon, now Marshal Typhon the Pilgrim, was a source of much of that change in the Death Guard. He was at odds with the Primarch in Legion doctrine. Mortarion wanted a measured march in the long war to rebuild and bolster defenses, Typhon believed that only in preemptively decapitating potential threats could time for others to rebuild be granted and no other Legion had the stamina for the job. Unable to reconcile the schism and resigned to the fact that the Legion would have to be divided soon anyway Typhon became first High Marshal of the Black Templars. In a touching display of generosity and proof that no lingering ill will was held Mortarion gave them the aptly named Eternal Crusader for a flagship. High Marshal Typhon, now Typhus due to Administratum typo when the ships paperwork was transferred, attracted many battle-brothers to his side who shared his beliefs of war

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>>52723880
Tankred served in the Black Templars, founder order of the Templar movement, with as much ferocity and tenacity as he did in the Death Guard but tempered with hard won experience and the wisdom of painful lessons. More scars were had, more mending, more new recruits marveling at his insane endurance and more Apothecaries baffled at his continued survival.

It continued like this for centuries. Tankred never never achieved the rank of officer, he lacked the temperament or the willingness to be educated and he tended to intentionally annoy outsiders a lot. He was there in the Malagant campaign when the old Pilgrim died to Fallen hands, his last living link to Nuceria finally cut.

It was in the war of Sanctia that Tankred came closest to finally meeting Death. A Dark Eldar Kabal were in alliance with Fallen Marines and they were dragging people out of their homes and off of the streets. All women and children, the Dark Eldar weren't interested in men, they were of no use to what was the earliest incarnation of the Daemonculaba experiments ████████ █████████████████████ ███████████████████████████ ███████ █████████████ ████████████████ ████████ █████████████ █████ █████████ ███████████████ ██ and better to have died by their own hand, the Fallen Raven Guard had much to answer for.

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>>52724306
With false radio signals and staged refugee convoys the Imperial forces made it appear as though a very rich target was heading for the old nuclear fallout shelters in the arid wastes, there Tankred and his forces placed their feet squarely upon the ground and sold their lives for misdirection's sake. So tempting and real the target seemed that all descended upon it like vultures. They had to fight. It had to be "real". Real enough to die for to catch them all. Tankred was the last to fall, a serrated knife shoved under and up his ribcage, neatly bisecting both hearts. As he slumped to the ground and the lights dimmed from his eyes he had time enough to see the Fallen Raven King turn and try to flee. Then the nuclear warheads went off.

A fisherman found Tankred or at least what remained of him twelve miles away on the bank of a meandering river. A chunk of burned meat and charcoal so badly ruined it could not be said where the distinction between his armour and his flesh was.

When a novice Apothecary reached down to see if his primary progenoid had survived in a salvageable state he discovered to his horror and pity that Tankred endured. The one remaining arm with the bloody stubs of fingers grasped the apothecary by scruff of his neck and drew him close and with a death rattle and blood speckled whisper imparted these words "I'm not going out like this you workshy little shit, lash me up and strap me into a Dreadnaught or by The Old Gods I will give you such a kicking".

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>>52724488
When Tankred next saw the light of day he weighed several tons and couldn't be hurt by anything short of anti-tank weapons. Since that dy his legend has only grown. He is Tankred, he endures. He epitomises the truth that to win a fight you have to be the last man standing. And he is, oh he is. He is a wall that moves forwards, as inevitable as Death.

Although he has always claimed to be in the Long War only for the beer and the bitches his deeds have been noble and he marches onward, forever. Tankred endures.

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>>52724621
And done.

It turned out more clumsy seeming than I hoped

>>52724621
great work. Only thing I'd question it the alliance between Fallen and Dark eldar, since those are pretty much the two most xenophobic factions, with particular enmity between eldar and human going both ways. That's luther's fallen at least.

You mention Daemonculaba, so these could presumably be agents of Fabius Bile. You mention a Fallen Raven King, so whatever that is could stand for a moment of elaboration.

My only other question is this. Wasn't Tankred being brought in as a character to flesh out the Imperial Fists? If not, never mind.

As to my own contributions, I'm planning to write up something about Fulgrim's relationship with the other primarchs and role in the War of The Beast and something about the Iron Cage equivalent during the great hunt that messes up the Terra's Children and marks the decline of Fulgrim's superhumanist doctrine.
I'm not really sure how to lay out the military campaign for that story, my descriptions of military engagements go more Herodotus than Thucydides, and as demonstrated with the fall of Merika, take forever for me to write. Any ideas for a war between perfectionist art-deco marines and Tzeentchian Orks would be much appreciated.

The last bit I'd want to do is the fallout of this loss. Fulgrim essentially steps back from the legion, takes his inner circle, and retires to his projects for a couple centuries. In that time Lucius slowly goes colonel Kurtz while leading his chapter on distant adventures. Eventually Fulgrim returns to more active work, it becomes clear to Lucius that the latter can make neither of them immortal, and this causes Lucius to break off and find immortality himself. Fabius Bile would likewise be part of Fulgrim's immortality project, either thrown out long before or poached by Lucius. I was also toying with the idea that Lucius got a C'tan sliver instead of the blade of Laer, seeing as the latter is already supposed to be locked up on Ganymede.

>>52725316
It doesn't say when the blade was acquired for the Vaults. Lucius wants the blade maybe because it was stolen from him.

>>52725664
honestly I just don't like the blade very much, and while its inextricable from canon Lucius I'd like it to be less prominent here, leastwise because swordsmanship has been a much more incidental part of both his and Fulgrim's AU personas.

>>52725316
I imagine the Iron Cage was something like the Battle of Stalingrad, an absolute meat grinder against a relentless enemy with superior knowledge of the battlefield where the German/Terra's Children efforts were hobbled by Hitler/Fulgrim's tactical micromanagement and neuroses.

>>52726825
I was leaning toward war on terror/nam, with teleporting psychic orks instead of tunnels, impotent sock-and-awe strikes, and no clear win condition for Fulgrim.

So far it had been decided that as opposed the absurdity of grinding an elite fighting force to a nub on an otherwise unimportant deathtrap planet to prove an unclear point, the issue was Fulgrim trying to address a sector level threat, more or less personally. Part of the problem for the Imperium in my mind is that the Big Wyrd, or whatever we call him, and his mob, are an embeded and really unusual threat, closer to fighting Brain Boyz than even other chaos Orks, and it takes a while for fulgrim to even fully grasp the issue.

>>52724306
Seconding >>52725316. If anything it would be Cronedar pretending to be Dark Eldar. Or people working for Bile. Indeed, I'm not entirely sure we have an origin for the Daemonculaba in this timeline. We have it being crafted to increase Cronedar birth rates, especially since the geneseed is standardized and easier to get. Because the Cronedar benefit the most from the Daemonculaba and the thing has a tenuous at best grip on the laws of physics, it could be a Cronedar creation.

I'm not sure what Honsou is doing in this timeline. Perhaps he was an Iron Warrior whose gene-seed came from a weird source (turned out to be flawed?) The led him to become interested in genetics, leading him to become one of the better geneticists in the last few millennia, ironing out a few minor kinks in the gene-seed.

Or maybe not, given he's supposed to be tank-born in canon.

>My only other question is this. Wasn't Tankred being brought in as a character to flesh out the Imperial Fists? If not, never mind.

I think he was, but he's a Black Templar, which in this timeline are Death Guard descendants.

>>52726925
also, I keep imagining the Ultramarines that eventually come to support them as having a lot of un-augmented soldiers in their fighting forces, though their front line is mostly full Ultramarines. I say this because I imagine those support troops as wearing regular flak armor with blue helmets and a small Omega, reminiscent of UN blue helmets. I guess it might also lead to Omega legion jokes and conspiracies, totally unfounded of course, but that just builds on the unclear presence of the Hydra in other legions. Also, this could be when Guilliman finalizes the codex from general organizational structure into something more defined and tested.

>>52725316
>>52725664
>>52726630

It's just been said that Lucius wants the Blade and hears it calling to him. It had to get from Laer to Ganymede somehow, and Lucius had to have encountered it at least once. It could be that he got corrupted by it and the Blade represents something simple for him: more power.

I agree that having the Blade be involved with Fulgrim himself doesn't work that well, given how little his swordsmanship has been discussed and he would be logical enough to know that a sword made by a race of Chaos-worshippers is probably corrupted.

>>52727008
>It's just been said that Lucius wants the Blade and hears it calling to him. It had to get from Laer to Ganymede somehow, and Lucius had to have encountered it at least once. It could be that he got corrupted by it and the Blade represents something simple for him: more power.
I'm down for that. It could even be that he and Fulgrim captured it during the great crusade, at which point they were both sane and young enough not to be corrupted or tempted by its power, and brought it back to Ganymede just like all the horrific trinkets Fulgrim would bring back to the capitol after his expeditions.

By the time Lucius is even considering going renegade the blade has long been on the 'never open this vault' list. If he does return to Sol one last time before going off the deep end, probably to demand Fulgrim make him immortal or something of that nature, he might take a crack at it or try to plant a foothold to do so. Also, Fabius Bile's body hopping seems Laer-tastic. It would figure that he was either involved in the initial acquisition of the blade and left soon after, was part of Fulgrim's immortality project and somehow gained the power then, or left with Lucius and developed the technique since then for want of the actual blade.

I'm still tempted to make Lucius a shard vampire, since it fits the character and we've yet to actually work that faction into any backstories.

Also, what do people think of Ultrasmurf blue helmets? still stuck in my head.

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>>52727661
>ultrasmurf helmets
I like it.

>Lucius becomes a shard vampire
People have done more insane things to find immorality, especially if they consider themselves important enough to affect everybody. Something to consider is that if he does convert to vampirism, it has to be during the Great Hunt and before the 2nd Black Crusade. I would think the first vampires were made some time in the later stages of the Great Crusade.

>>52727888
>I would think the first vampires were made some time in the later stages of the Great Crusade.
I'd been imagining the Deceiver's splinters had been dispersed far and wide by galactic spin since the War in Heaven. Strigoi slivers sufficient to produce vampires might have mental or sensory influence that would help find a sentient host, or something of that nature. If I remember correctly we had the Nightbringer released mostly in-tact, by some kind of ultramarine fuckup, and it too went around propagating its bleak legend by siring vampires.

there's now also been talk of Khaine related vampires, but that doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

I wasn't aware of a connection to the 2nd black crusade, please inform me?

>>52728119
I think the Khaine vampire thing was one guy that got a hard veto by the rest of the thread.

>>52728119
There isn't so much a connection to the 2nd Black Crusade but more of the fact Lucius would have to become the Iron Cage which happened either in the Great Hunt or 1st Black Crusade.

>>52728822
>become a vampire before the Iron Cage
fugg

>>52726925
I can see where you're coming from, but the gap in that comparison that the difficulties in Vietnam to a partial extent and more largely in Afghanistan/Iraq is an asymmetrical opponent hiding amongst the civilian population and exploiting ROE by pretending to be a goat farmer by day and then picking up guns as a guerrilla by night, whereas Orks (obviously) will not be hiding amongst civilians.

On a strategic level I could see how that comparison makes sense, a more direct Primarch like Mortarion probably could have just virus-bombed the Orks into oblivion in the same way the US with no ROE theoretically could have just leveled everything in Vietnam or Afghanistan. Here's where the Stalingrad comparison comes back though: both Stalingrad and whatever sector the Iron Cage happens in had symbolic value for Hitler and Fulgrim, hence the micromanagement, since Hitler was trying to rub it in Stalin's face by taking the city named after him and Fulgrim I imagine had his person pride and doctrine riding on the outcome of the campaign.

I'm not sure the Ultramarine auxiliaries should be involved, it seems to me that Fulgrim wouldn't want the credit for the victory potentially split to another Primarch. Even if the auxiliaries were deployed at first, Fulgrim's strategic choices and micromanagement would probably piss off Guilliman, the big-picture thinker and strategist.

>>52728822
>>52728839
Yeah, with you there. My thought was to have Lucius leave after the iron cage, after being defacto leader of the broken up legion for a while, and become a vampire after that.
I was confused as to why Militaryfag was saying it has to be "during the great hunt and before the 2nd black crusade", in what I thought was reference to the conversion to vampirism, which doesn't make sense for the reason you indicated.
>>52729139
Yeah, again, I'm down. I hoped to show off Fulgrim's strategic style in the Merika operation, and I guess fleshing out the actual doctrine he meant to employ there would help with this. My mention of the Ultramarines is because I want to tie it vaguely back to vanilla, and because I was expecting the engagement to get really bad for the Terra's children, and Fulgrim to resort to stuff like personally hunting the Wyrd cabal that require intervention. He might get as far as drawing up plans for some stupidly ill conceived shit like a knockoff blade of Laer, or hooking himself up to the biggest chunk of an iron mind he could recreate, before the wars turn entirely. At this point what's left of his legion is essentially already breaking into chapters, though he and Lucius are still in charge of the biggest chunk, and he's forced to reconsider. He turns to the logistics master among his peers, admits that his supply lines are gone and he is trapped in a sector of psychic orks, and retires for a hundred years because he'd like to go back to his hedonism/workshop. I was originally calling the characterization gatsby/ozymandias/spider jerusalem, and I'm sticking to it.

>>52728212
As the one guy that got vetoed hard it is not a thing. Looking back it didn't fit with the setting.

>>52647005
Now why does Taldeer and LIVVI look like they dissapprove? Just a young man or boy trying to befirend their daughteru.

>>52732138
Yes. """Befriend""".

How would Fyodor be like in this AU?

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>>52732829
Oh holy fucking shit. How has this not been touched upon yet?

This dude is insane, and not a quirky and nice way.

Also his rhetoric of not deviating from some sort of God-Emperor divine plan would fall utterly flat in this universe considering that the Emperor would be the first to admit that he and his father orchestrated the Uralia - Clan Terrawatt alliance and have been more or less making it up as they went along since then.

Assuming his actions remain more or less the same then he is not some sort of harsh but fair judge that the Imperium needs. He is a fucking psychopath, renegade Inquisitor that the Imperium can do better without. Kryptman was bad enough but Kryptman was doing it be cause he needed to do it and it was objectively proven that he needed to commit those atrocities when he submitted to trial. Also Kryptman hated the Kryptman Line and declared himself damned beyond any possible forgiveness for doing it.

Fyodor Karamazov on the other hind gets his jollies off on having and exerting power and authority over lesser people, hence the pimp chair. He's a kid with a magnifying glass burning ants. But those are Oscar's ants.

Inquisitor Fyodor Karamazov starts a rebellion among the Inquisition and those who will lend them aid. His belief is that the Imperium is too soft to survive the coming storm. Only through strength and iron resolve and his vision will humanity survive (eldar can come along as a subjugated race if they grovel nicely). He is massively popular among the monodominats although he never gets quite as many to his side as he wants.

This is the first real civil war in the Inquisition too big to be swept under the rug before anyone finds out and it comes at a time when the Imperium can ill afford it. Not that Fyodor Karamazov much cares, he's doing this as a power trip. He is not touched by Chaos despite the claims, he's just an arsehole.

Or that's what I see.

>>52733272

Nice one.

He could even be the opposite of Thor Sebastian, god damnit! Insanely charismatic and extremely ingenius in every way and form, he could have been worthy for the Emperor's if for the fact that he is a real big bastard and frothing at the mouth insane. Just like Goge Vandire second coming or Thor Sebastian opposite.

Kryptman hates him with a passion, second only to the Tyranids but that is a given. But still... On some bad day even more. He sees within Fyodor the Devourer that had consumed his home, the bastard's Hunger for Power and Glory equals to that of the Great Hunger of the Swarm...

>>52733751
Kryptman sees the Hive in everything he despises. He believes Karamazov to be a gene-stealer. He isn't, of course, but you can't convince Kryptman of that.

When Karamazov finally went full batshit and tried to enact his coup it was almost a relief. Kryptman was proven right in that Karamazov needed to die, even if it was just for being a bad human rather than actually being inhuman.

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>>52634996
>More weebs

>>52734928
Thank you for your contribution, I assume you'd prefer it even more of a HFY Imperium wankfest like both canon 40k and all the other """rewrites"""?

>>52735609
Whats with the upset?

>>52735609
I've noticed that off all the factions, vanilla Tau is the only one who can win a ground war against the Tyranids. Mobile infantry (TM) along with rapid voidcraft and weapons platforms makes it frustrating for those bugs to eat a world.

>>52736298
Wait what? If you're referring to Hive Fleet Gorgon, it's repeatedly stated that Gorgon was small for a hive fleet yet still represented a huge threat to the Tau, whereas it was mostly an irritant to the Imperium. Imperium-wanky, yes, but thems the facts according to canon.

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I want to ____ a tau girl!

>>52737242
>I want to
Have a fulfilling and informative cultural and philosophical exchange with
>a Tau girl

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>>52736298
>>52734928
It also helps that the Tau Have Shas'O "Doomguy" Kais, a man who tried to solo an entire Chaos Incursion as his trial by fire, did ten years in Inquisition that he won't tell anyone about and has ordered his corpse to be posted to Pech because he and the Kroot have an understanding.

Many people ask what the fuck Kais is. He's just a Tau. How has done amazing shit worthy of the tales of Bjorn and The Red Wake up to and including bisecting a Changer of Ways with a dress uniform Aun sword? We know how. We know exactly how he did it because his helmet had a camera built into it and the mad bastard dumped the entire content onto the T'au data-web before anyone could stop him.

Ethereal Council were appalled because it was confirming to the general populace all in one go that yes there are monsters and things that go bump in the night and they would fucking eat you body and soul. The Inquisition told them that everyone already knew and now they can know that they can be cut the fuck down.

Kais spent a few years in isolation dealing with what he had seen, then he picked up his wargear again because he was a Fire Warrior and thats all there was to it.

>>52737313
We aren't falling for it again Vect.

>>52737242
give some clothes to

>>52709022

Or he is exactly the same but the rest of the Inquisition is better, making him look worse.

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Shit just got archived.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Nobledark

Also are, in this AU, all warp entities still super malevolent?

Are there entities that deals can be made with without it being worse than suicide?

filk related maybe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1hUf4qYwbM

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page 10 bump

So, ideas for how Tzeentchian Orks would fight on a sector scale?

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>>52741347
Oddly I imagine them working in a way not dissimilar to the way the Chaos Eldar do in that they "trick" the other orks into fighting where they want the mt o fight.

They wouldn't usually be the ones running the show as Big Bird is more about manipulation than outright command, the one that caused the Iron Cage incident being a bit of a freak. They would occupy the space in society left by the loss of the Brain Boyz and towards the dying days of the Dark Millennium would be their greatest rival for that position in their society.

Their armadas and armies would be glass cannons in that they can deal a lot of damage not because they are particularly strong but because they are far better than normal warbosses at steering them to where you are weak and working on the principle that you don't need armour if you kunnin' enough to not get chopped. The flip side to this is that you can seriously fuck them up if you do manage to out maneuver them.

This might be intentional by Big Bird as anyone that can out maneuver one of his champions is obviously embodying him more.

Guldan from the Warcraft film springs to mind.

>>52741561
Probably make heavy use of psykery too. Maybe even mind-affecting powers, concealment etc. in addition to the usual mind bullets.
Hell, maybe they've got ways to make everyone on the battlefield think like Orks. Turn the tables, make the Guard recklessly assault the Orks' defensive gun-lines.

I think Lofn should already be around, but as a time traveler before she was born.

I wanted to bump the the thread and had no good ideas.

>>52743821
That is a terrible idea.

>>52733751
>>52734916
When Boaz "200% Ahab" Kryptman is on the (relatively) sane side of an argument, you know things can't be good.

>>52737522
Hilariously, IIRC, in canon O'Kais is said to favor a different Puretide strategy than Farsight (Mont'Ka) or Shadowsun (Kauyon) that basically focuses on augmenting strengths and covering weaknesses on an individual level to make yourself as much of a one-man army as possible before helping others. Kind of similar to what the Custodes do but invented independently. So basically his combat strategy even in canon is "be Doomguy".

>>52738947
Well, Cegorach and Isha aren't malevolent, and Khaine is...debatable. The issue is that right now the pool is full of sharks, and any neutral or benevolent warp entity out there would have to get out of the water fast or get devoured.

It was suggested in a previous thread that when the Chaos Gods aren't actively waging their war against humanity, they've been trying to consolidate their power in the Warp. The realms of the big four are expanding, at the expense of the Chaos Wastes. Most of the remaining warp entities have sworn loyalty to Chaos Undivided and/or Be'lakor, because being part of Chaos is better than being crushed or restricted by one of the monomaniacal gods.

The things Magnus summoned in his rage when he snapped during the Battle of Terra were said to be non-aligned (as any servant of the Chaos Gods would not obey an order that was against its patron).

And then you have things like enslavers and psychneuin who are not even really sentient, more like warp-based animals.

>>52744632
Yes. Yes it is. I just wanted to bump the thread with a terrible idea.

Here's another- Lelith Hesperax is in a love triangle with Prince Yriel and Drazhar.

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>>52745392
Leith is probably preoccupied with abusing the """"""daughter"""""" Fabius Bile made for her. A love/hate relationship between the pirate princes sounds fun though.

Small suggestion: make the Eldar more like MU.

I know this is WH40k nobledark version, but their stance is a bit much 'friendly' towards other races.

>>52746334
Drazhar isn't really a pirate prince. More of an evil master samurai.

>>52746493
All Theo Phoenix Lords are bound to Khine in some way. I'm going to suggest that Drazhar looked upon the corrupted avatar of Altansar and declared Khorne to be Khine in a purer form.

>>52746477
Well, at this point they've been allied for 10,000 years, and the force that broke Isha out of prison was partially human.

>>52747302
This. It's taken 5 time the lifespan of the Roman Empire to achieve but finally the eldar are learning to get along.

>>52747323
Also, literal divine intervention.

>>52745392
Prince Yriel is committed to Spiritseer Iyanna Arienal of Iyanden craftworld. People say that he sleeps around and indeed he used to be known for having a lover in every port. He does not any more. Now he has a wife in all but name and he is happy.

He will never actually marry her because he is convinced that any holy establishment he steps in will catch fire and that any wedding ceremony that involves him will be blasphemous by definition.

>>52741561
>>52743070
Would it be too much to have Old Zogwort of Catachan be a Tzneetchian Shaman?

Fyodor Karamazov, the Despoiler, the High Proctor of Salem, or more commonly as the Butcher of a Thousand Worlds is a man whose name is whispered in hushed tone across a million worlds, and rightfully so.

His career had been a legendary one, his mind, charm, determination and zeal rivaling even that of the great Sebastian Thor himself, with him rising from a small Arbiter in the middle of nowhere to an Inquisitor of Ordo Maleus and then, for a short time, the High Lord Inquisitor during the 12th Black Crusade over his specialty in spotting heretics and cultists. But still, however great his mind and wit, his paranoia and psychopathic tendencies dwarf them all, rivaling even those of the Primarch Perturabo. Still, however brutal his deeds were, they bring results and with extreme bitterness did the Emperor allowed him the free rein to do what ever he willed to keep the Imperium intact from the Black Crusade. And thus, on his Throne of Judgement Fyodor crusaded across the millions of planet of the Imperium, leaving alive no heretics nor cultists in his wake - for all he suspected, he burns and his paranoia is great indeed.

He is also said to be a psychopath that enjoys the suffering of people, the smell of flesh burning and snatching candies from babies, but only two of that is probably true.

>>52749784 (cont)

However, as expected, power corrupts, and the greater the power the greater the corruption. It is unknown where and how did he begin to fall, but it is undeniable that it was seeded with his deep paranoia, and was completely undeniable at what was known later as the Salem Witch Trial, where he condemned Saint Salem and her crusader who had liberated an entire system and the people who were liberated as heretics and witchs and commited Exterminatus on every last planet in the system and all those nearby. The Emperor, as expected, when heard of this had flipped his lid in pure rage and ordered Ordo Sicarius to get Fyodor, allowing them to use whatever resource needed (and may be more) to get it done. Burning innocents, that -may- be slightly acceptable in the direst of circumstances (which the 12th BC was, to the eternal grievance of the Emperor) but -that- many for no reason? Some could have wondered why hadn't the Emperor went after the now-sacked-and-put-on-most-wanted-list-High Lord himself if not for the event that had transpired next.

Fyodor, even before becoming an Inquisitor, had secretly saw the Imperium as being too soft and was determined to 'fix' it. He, with his unparalelled charm had won over (and built his power base on) the more orthodox factions of the Inquisition, with many if not most monodominants being members of the upcoming Coup and Inquisitorial Civil War (which he called the Crusade of Change) that aims to bring the Imperium to his wanted direction.

>>52749794 (cont)


Now, at the end of the 41st millenium, in the heart of the 13th Black Crusade and Tyranid's Invasion and Armageddon War, the dreaded man is at the head of the dreaded Judgemental Crusade Fleet, burning and enslaving all in his way and waging a shadow war agaisnt the Emperor and the Inquisition. He is yet to be caught, for his fleet is equipped with some kind of 'experimental' Warp Drive almost twice as fast as that of the fastest Imperium craft (the Drive required people to be burned, but that he had in abundance) and armed with never seen before weaponries and equipments... the Future seems dark indeed.

---

"I will tell you this for the one last time: that thing is no man, but a vile Genestealer that had infiltrated our ranks! He. Needs. To. Be. Purged!" -Inquisitor Boaz Kryptman on Fyodor Karamazov to the High Council, 1 year before the Salem Witch Trial.

"JUST. AS. PLANNED!!!" A certain big blue bird/ Warp God.

>>52749802
Damn that's grim. It fits perfectly.

>>52749802
I like this as a piece of writefaggotry, but it does raise an issue that's been bugging me for a while, namely the Emperor's passivity and lack of agency in this AU. Like, I get that narratively you can't have the Emps stomp around solving everything, but the lack of actions of substance undermine his status as probably the most powerful material being in the galaxy. It also conflicts with his characterization, which has been hands on and compassionate though practical out of necessity, so I can't imagine he would just be content with touring the Imperium with Isha when there are existential threats to the Imperium.

>>52751080
He couldn't dictate action on every event in the Imperium. There are a million worlds each with a million problems and there just aren't enough hours in the day for just one man, even a Golden one.

That's the reason for the High Lords. Emps sets policy and precedent and they follow it. The constant tours are to inspect and see if it's working and tweak what needs refining.

It's the only way to effectively rule an Imperium of about a million predominantly human worlds and an unknown number of xeno ones.

He also can't be on every battle field for that reason also. Not to mention that if he did get killed, and he could get killed, the Imperium would have no overseer to hold the High Lords and Inquisition accountable. And there would be no more astropaths. Also you want the 'Nids to get hold of Emperor DNA?

Emps and Isha work tirelessly in the most efficient way possible on such a grand scale based on the principle that there are only so many hours in a day and they can only be in one place at a time.

>>52751430
This and he wanted and probably on some level still wants to step down when everything is safe.

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Bumping with Tankred approved nun.

>>52751080
I think its reasonable that Fyodor could gain a position and commit some atrocities before being stopped, and in general human monsters are able to do pretty serious damage to the Imperium. In fact, the canon Imperium is noted to be one big mass of internal hemorrhages in this manner, and is much weaker because of it, but brushes this off with grimdark.

On the other hand, in the AU pre-apostasy shadow war BS that climaxed with the Goge could get extra terrible, especially because there are standards to uphold, shades of grey to misunderstand, and some semblance of good the horror contrasts to. After the apostasy there's a general assumption in the interplanetary level of imperial command and in the Inquisition that you respect the people of the Imperium, and inquisitors are noble, ernest agents of the Imperial peace. Essentially, even with the ordo securitas, without the inquisitorial practice of completely frivolous exterminatus by fanatics there's not gonna be an existing culture of preventing frivolous exterminatus by fanatics. The toned down version of the Kryptman line was controversial, Karamazov's behavior would be unthinkable. Even Night Lords descendants direct their efforts towards nominally appropriate targets, Karamazov would be the imperial equivalent of general ripper from dr. strangelove.

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>>52754473
The big difference legally between Kryptman and Karamazov is that when the Arbiters turned up with the handcuffs and a warrant with the Imperial Seal on it Kryptman put his hands behind his back and went quietly to trial.

Karamazov killed the arbiters and started a rebellion.

Both were responsible for the deaths of billions because it was needed, both were Curze monsters.

On thew subject of Curze I like the idea that Isha went in person to Nicor and stood before Tyberos the Red Wake. She would see to it that the Emperor himself would hand over the ancient deeds to the Nicor, because he commissioned it and kept the paperwork, and end all possible dispute over ownership so long as they cut down Inquisitor Fyodor Karamazov and his followers. His whole rebellion had to be expunged, torn up root and branch and burned. Capture the Inquisitor alive for trial if practical.

As a sign of good faith when The Red Wake swore his whole order to this task she handed over the deeds as payment for a favour they were yet to do.

Karamazov gets his jollies off on being powerful, on being the alpha predator in any given situation. Soon he's going to realize just how much he done fucked up. Tyberos is head of the largest group of Curze spawn and can either call in favours or good will or beat into submission most others of that dark line. As the primarch said;
>although the Imperium could tolerate a useful monster, it should have no love for one.

>>52746477
Unclear what MU is.

One of the big differences in this universe is everyone doesn't have as much of a stick up their ass. Not just Eldar, but humans, Tau, Necrons. Eldar still act like they have a stick up their ass, but that's because they were always uptight even compared to the other races.

Also, as >>52747302, >>52747323, and >>52747338 pointed out, there is also the aspect of time and Isha. Eldar until the WotB were little different than canon (specifically pre-Great Crusade, they hadn't written humanity off yet). Eldar as of M41 are very different from Eldar of M31. Using Eldar generation times as a proxy, it's like comparing Napoleonic and modern France, or Revolution-era and modern America, or Edo-era and modern Japan.

Then you have Isha. Who was a friend to all living things even in canon, who would often whisper cures to Nurgle's plagues to any sentient life form. Who in this timeline is the closest thing to a central authority Eldar have (sort of, nowhere near what the Emperor is for humanity).

>>52749802
I like it. It reminds me a lot of Krieg. A big blotch of grimdark in the midst of all the nobledark, that sticks out all the more because it is grimdark. In this universe the actions of Karamazov actually stick out.

His motivations actually sound good as well, fitting the overall state of the universe. Also a bit of bad timing on par with Drakan "seriously, you're doing this now?" Vangorich.

>>52751080
>>52751430
>>52752942
Also the Emperor needed twenty or so primarchs in order to unite the galaxy, even in the Great Crusade, since he couldn't be everywhere at once.

Though I do see the passivity issue. Touring the galaxy would definitely be something the Emperor does during periods of relative peace. During a Black Crusade or similar scale event, he's probably involved as soon as possible. We have him involved when the World Engine and Harrowing happened.

The one issue is the Emperor is facing problems that can't be fixed by simple solutions. If he goes big and fails (like the canon Webway project), then the entire Imperium goes down with his plan. The Imperium's main foe (Chaos) is also one that can't be permanently destroyed, only better suppressed. They can't hold the Crone Worlds or seal off the Eye of Terror. Imagine Imperial Rome except with the Romans unable to go into the hinterlands to scatter Germanic encampments.

>>52755776
Rumble in the Jungle, Malice in the Palace, Carcharodons Astra vs Karamazov. I like it.

Though trying to use Arbites to arrest a freaking Inquisitor Lord is it laughably inadequate, given the standard issue Inquisition paranoia it would at least be a Securitas Inquisitor and veteran SoBs.

>>52754473
>>52755776
The fact that Inquisitors are generally more competent and decent here could be part of the reason Karamazov is so destructive in the first place. The Inquisition is known for its tendency to suspect everyone of not being on the level, but most of the previous traitors and internal wars were cloak-and-dagger affairs of a few Inquisitors or cabals.

Karamazov does not do subtle. Even in canon, it is noted that he is rather unsubtle for an Inquisitor. He made himself into a beacon for all of the zealous fanatics in the Inquisition, such that instead of a disorganized bunch of heretics trying to figure out if their fellow Inquisitors share their views from the shadows, the crazies know exactly where to go and it becomes an all out civil war.

The Inquisition is not used to all out civil war. They're used to putting down the occasional mad dog who has gotten rabies from their prey, but the idea of an organized schism is new, simply because the universe is nobledark rather than grimdark.

>On the subject of Curze I like the idea that Isha went in person to Nicor and stood before Tyberos the Red Wake. She would see to it that the Emperor himself would hand over the ancient deeds to the Nicor, because he commissioned it and kept the paperwork, and end all possible dispute over ownership so long as they cut down Inquisitor Fyodor Karamazov and his followers. His whole rebellion had to be expunged, torn up root and branch and burned. Capture the Inquisitor alive for trial if practical.

Well that explains why the Carcharodons got to keep the Nicor. Don't mess with Spess Elf Momma.

Was going to put Arrotyr on the 1d4chan page when I noticed something off. Arrotyr is said to be a veteran of the War in Heaven. That would make him over sixty-five million years old before he turned to Chaos and its typical "spits in the face of cause and effect" antics. Does this mean we need to readjust Arrotyr's timeline? If so how do we reconcile him being around to fight Imotekh during the War in Heaven and the Fall of the Eldar?

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>>52756409
I'm trying to imagine the effect Isha arriving in person on the Nicor would have. They aren't used to friendly uninvited guests. Or invited guests. Or anyone.

She would have come alone and unarmed (as if that would make her less dangerous) and clad only in a simple unadorned dress. She would have been stopped at the airlock by one of the Imperium's tame monsters. I doubt she would have killed him for doing his job. It's possible he may have needed a prosthetic arm though.

They wouldn't have shot her. It would be treason and instant death sentence but they would have watched her and accompanied her to their master. Half honour guard, half wardens.

It would not have been a meeting of friends. Isha would, or course, know what sort of people she was dealing with and the Tyberos of the Carcharodons is a predator among predators and as proud and cold as a prince of Hell.

Would he have been happy at the deal struck? it's hard to say. To him the Nicor was already his by right of conquest and until someone killed him to claim it would remain so by the only legal authority he cared for; his own. It would not have been a friendly meeting, two apex killers in the same room. It would have been a sort of cold mirth in the air. Shit was going to get done that needed to be done but was not nice.

>>52756357
Using an Arbiter imbued with the authority of the Throne to act on behalf of the entire Imperium to enact Imperial Law. An insult to such an individual is a slap in the face of the Imperium itself. The murder of such an individual is a declaration of war and suicide note all in one.

Also an Inquisitor ready, willing and capable of starting a not insignificant civil war was unprecedented.

>>52755776
>Both were responsible for the deaths of billions because it was needed, both were Curze monsters
I guess the point I was getting at was that if Karamazov burns students of Magnus's Schola Psykana as witches and exterminates friendly systems he is so far from 'needed' that the Imperium might be caught off guard. Because they have almost universally high regard for noble, just conduct a man like Fyodor in the position he's in might manage to slip under the radar for a short time, if he made an effort to do so. Even lunatics like Kryptman and Cruz, the object lessons in Imperial monsters, have the sense not to point their sadism at the Imperium's own people. Oscar will even tolerate necrons and worse under the "inside pissing out" rule, but Karamazov drops trow and shits in the proverbial living room. Which brings us to our agreement that
>although the Imperium could tolerate a useful monster, it should have no love for one.
some sectors of the westen galaxy may even hold a fondness for Kryptman produced by distance and fables, but this principle and the active influence of Oscar I expect go very far to prevent the appointment of such figures, especially after Vandire. It's a good touch to involve the Carcharodons, and that sort of epic gesture seems suited to the sort of political move a goddess would make.

>>52749802
I like him. He's like a patch of Vanilla 40k transplanted into Nobledark, and immediately flipping its shit.


>>52751080
>>52751430
>>52752942
>>52756261

>Oscar isn't hugely strong psychically - he sure as hell isn't one-rung-below-the-chaos-gods powerful like Vanilla Emps is, and it was said before that the Raid on Nurgle's Mansion (even boosted by Eldrad) was about the upper bound of his power.
>Oscar also isn't amazingly OPplsnerf martially - the Beast had fought its way through Terra's defences, slaughtered Sangy and his Honour Guard, and would've curb-stomped Oscar unless Eldrad had arrived.
Overall, I'd estimate his individual strength to be roughly comparable to a Vanilla Primarch.

His passivity (and reluctance to step in, even as Emperor) are mostly a result of his core programming, too - in spite of even Thor's best efforts, he's still deeply uncomfortable with ruling a race he was created to serve.

>>52757652
It was mentioned and not disagreed upon in a previous thread that a squad of Grey Knights would inconvenience Oscar. A full Brotherhood of GKs (150) would pose a very serious mortal danger to him.

Presumably the upper ranks of all other factions not including actual gods are at about this level.

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>>52757036
have him be mostly pre-fall Eldar Empire immortal wraithbone cyborg, or unreasonably blessed by Khaine even before Khorne started becoming a major draw on the god. Or have him be that super ancient dude's son. He's meant to be the pretty legitimate descendant of the Eldar Empire's military caste, and he totally predates the aspect warriors and dark eldar equivalents. Other than that his past could be pretty flexible.

Pic not really relevant, but he's certainly a kinslaying elvish general par excellence

>>52757727
I think a full Brotherhood was what was required to banish Angron in vanilla First Armageddon War, so that sounds about right. Daemon Primarch level.

>>52757652
On the other hand, he seems much better as a statesman, much more successful in his efforts to utilize advanced technology on a large scale as seen with what seem to be bigger engineering projects, a more advanced fleet, etc. even before his success with accessing advanced Xenos technology or pre-imperial relics.

There had also been mention of his nature as Man of Gold granting him comparable if not greater psychic power than canon, though in the great crusade this was supposed to be lessened by far less experience.

>>52757904
I'd say he has less raw psychic might than in Vanilla based on the fact that in Vanilla he managed to brain rape an entire Legion into kneeling against their will and could hold back the entire weight of the warp with his brain in his Webway projects. He could also keep the Astronomicon burning from light-years distant.

In this AU he is certainly still powerful but probably not much above the Apex Twins level of power. Which is still fucking scary by any sensible measure but not a living god type deal.

The one big thing he can do and nobody else seems to be able to do is the Soul Binding. It seems to be a Man of Gold innate ability. Nobody taught him how to do it he just realized how one day not long after the Imperium went interstellar. Given that the ability is instinctive he can't really explain it either and attempts to teach others by imitation have had no useful results. Even Magnus couldn't do it.

Also the Astronomicon isn't powered by the Emperor. That's what the choir is for.

Emperor is in possession of great raw power but it isn't as versatile or as flexible as Magnus.

>>52758128
I don't know that the Oscar is less nimble or adept than Magnus at using the Warp, seeing as his entire brain was created and programmed for that purpose. However, Oscar probably has a much more instinctual understanding and ability to manipulate the Warp, and as such wouldn't have been a very good psyker teacher since it comes so naturally. Magnus on the other hand spent all his time experimenting and picked up his tricks through experience making him an excellent instructor and thus the "Archmage" of the Imperium.

Just how strong are the Apex twins anyway? Maybe around Magnus level, but scarier because they have children's simple morality and lack of consequential thinking, and there's TWO of them.

>>52758489
They are, at least together, planet-killers.

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>>52757618
I think the implication was he was able to get away with his bullshit because it was the chaos of the 12th Black Crusade and few people were taking notes, but as the Crusade started to die down people were noticing Karamazov was taking a bit too much pleasure in his job.

>>52757652
>>52757727
It was mentioned that the only beings that could probably take him in a straight 1 on 1 fight would be the Chaos Gods, the C'tan at full power, Isha, Ceggers, actual god-level powers. Though he would definitely get steamrolled by just one of the big four if he fought one on one.

Like Hercules, going around slaying big immortal beings that would kill anyone else twice over, but still mortal and still way beneath the Olympians in terms of raw power.

And of course that's not getting into the aspect of numbers. Have enough of anything and you could conceivable take down Oscar. Pic related.

I think Oscar, Macha-Isha, and Swarmlord were said to be pretty close in power. Oscar maybe a bit more because Macha-Isha has to be more creative with how she uses her power and Swarmlord is not a singular entity but a meatsuit.

>>52758128
This is something that we never addressed. How did the Astronomican work pre-Great Crusade? As we all know, in vanilla the Emperor was able to power the Astronomican by himself, and only started needing psyker sacrifices once Magnus broke the nascent Webway gate and then once the Emperor was too wounded to power the beacon by himself.

So does this mean the Astronomican was psyker powered from day one? If so, where would the Imperium get the psykers necessary to power it? It's a chicken and egg situation. Imperium needs to send the Black Ships out to gather psykers up for the Astronomican, but the Astronomican needs the Black Ships to keep it going. Given how rare psykers are, it's likely that they couldn't get sufficient numbers of them until the Imperium encompassed at least a few star clusters.

I've heard it said that the incidence of psykers is like one-in-a-million. If Unification era Earth was as densely populated as modern Earth, the Astronomican would burn out in about a decade. If the population was ten times as much it would burn out in less than a century.

>>52758128
>Emperor is in possession of great raw power but it isn't as versatile or as flexible as Magnus.
I always figured this as being the other way around - Oscar has less power but has been trained and learned to use it by both his programming and his allies, while Magnus has great power but plays it by ear half because he's better that way, half because he's never really been able to conventionally "learn"
it; which is why Eldrad and the Eldar as a whole had to be involved to provide some of the psychic expertise to form the GKs and fight Chaos properly.

>>52758729
Warp travel was still possible without the Astronomican but was riskier and so each jump had to be shorter, which made travel time longer. Navigators predate the Astronomican.

Imperium could spread quite far (Segmentum Solar sized maybe) without the Astronomican but would need it to get to it's EKZBAWKZ HUEJ!!11!!!! state and maintain integrity. But by that time it would already encompass enough star systems to be able to play that numbers game. Further it was enhanced by the eldar who installed wraithbone buffers and shock absorbers so it was less harsh on the users and didn't flicker.

>>52758729
>>52758850
The way I figure it, the Emperor can power the Astronomicon all by himself, but he can't make like canon Emps and do so from halfway across the galaxy; he has to actually be on the Golden Throne to do so, and he can simply accomplish more if he's free to travel about the Imperium.

>>52749802

(Editted Kryptman's rant a bit)

"I will repeat this for the one last time: that thing is no man but a vile Genestealer infiltrating our ranks that. Needs. To. Be. Purged!!!"

>>52758518
That seems high to me. That would put them at the very least above canon Malcador, who as far as I know is the 3rd strongest human psyker and his best feat is hiding Titan in the Warp. Heck, in terms of raw psykery I'm not sure even the canon Emperor could blow up a planet, most of his shown feats involve manipulating minds and souls and such.

>>52762789
'Planet-killers' in the sense of annihilating nearly all life on the surface, not in the sense of turning it into an asteroid belt.
Besides, I think hiding a planet in the Warp would actually be /harder/ than destroying it. You can destroy a planet, full stop, by shoving it into the Warp, while hiding it requires that you also protect it and pull it out afterward.

>>52762909
yeah, its like the difference between sleeping with Malys and coming away with a ragged hole between your legs and getting out with genitals mostly in tact. Bravo Malcador. Bravo Vect.

>>52757824
If Oscar is equal to a whole GK brotherhood then he's a good bit stronger than even a Daemon Primarch, if I remember the story correctly Angron had a bunch of bloodthirsters with him and it was only a fraction of the GKs that eventually reached him and fought him.

>>52764012
So, weaker than gods, but stronger than any non-god? That sounds about right.

>>52759808
>>52764012
>>52764028
We don't want to make him too strong. One of the things that sets him apart from Vanilla is that he is more human.

The Night Lords suffered a number of defections through the War of the Beast, by some estimations the second highest after the Dark Angels, but relatively few made it to the Eye of Terror to plague the Imperium in the future. They fell to Chaos in ones and twos and squads, and were viciously annihilated piecemeal by the more-organized loyalists. Mostly.

One such exception occurred in the campaign for Vol Opt. A hive-world providing vital supplies to the Imperial Army on the border between Segmentum Solar and Segmentum Obscurus, it came under heavy attack from the forces of Chaos and the Orks. The main strength of the enemy was annihilated by Imperial reinforcements, caught between the hammer of the Imperial Army and the anvil of the hive defenses, but the threat did not end there. Numerous cultist demagogues, prophets, and other preachers were able to infiltrate into the underhives, raising the prospect of insurrection. In order to safeguard against the possibility and ensure the continued flow of equipment, a large force was left behind to hunt down the infiltrators as the rest of the fleet moved on to other battles.

Unfortunately, this force included both Night Lords, five companies under Commander Sarcobael, and Salamanders, three companies under Captain Quron. Conflict between the two forces began immediately. The Night Lords began their typical terror campaign, much to the horror of the Salamanders and the local PDF. Many innocents were caught up and slaughtered in increasingly vicious cycles of purges, even as the Salamanders and Imperial Guard regiments assisted in the rebuilding. The continuous complaints and censure from the Salamanders and local forces only caused Commander Sarcobael to double down, determined to prove the effectiveness of Night Lord methods. Which only made their allies more horrified...
-

>>52765419
After only a couple of months, relations had broken down near completely. Local militias, initially formed to fight the threat of Chaos, had begun guerilla resistance against the Night Lords. Imperial Guard and PDF forces were flatly refusing to support them in any operation, while the Salamanders had taken to shadowing and even harassing Night Lord patrols. And while the forces of the Imperium squabbled, the growing Chaos cults took the opportunity to entrench themselves. The situation need not have deteriorated so far, but there was no commander senior enough to enforce cooperation on the rival units, and neither Commander Sarcobael not Captain Quron were diplomatic enough to bring things to a peaceful resolution.

Things finally came to a head at a meeting between Commander Sarcobael and Captain Quron, ironically aimed at resolving the differences between the two. The exact transcripts of the meeting have long since been lost, but it culminated in Sarcobael declaring Quron to be de facto in league with Chaos for obstructing his efforts to root the cults out, then attacking. Captain Quron was mortally wounded and interred in a Dreadnought, while Commander Sarcobael escaped. Full-scale war broke out within the day, as Night Lord clashed with Salamander and the cults within the underhives rose against them both.
-

>>52765430
At this point, the Night Lord force had not yet actually fallen to Chaos. This did not restrain them in any way when fighting the Salamanders, and the first days of battle were intensely bloody in favor of the Night Lords. Similarly, the Chaos cults made massive gains in the first few days of battle, coming perilously close to capturing the vital civic infrastructure of the hives. After the initial shock, however, both were pushed back quickly. The entire population of the world had been turned against the Night Lords, and PDF forces in particular counter-attacked with nigh suicidal fury. Similarly, the Chaos cults were unable to consolidate their gains; the efforts of the Salamanders and, ironically, the Night Lords had prevented them from developing to the depth needed to seize control of an entire hive.

The Night Lords were driven off-world, escaping just one step ahead of the system defense monitors. Commander Sarcobael declared that the Imperium had betrayed them, and swore to never rest until it had been punished for this transgression. He, and his remaining 350 men, swore themselves to Chaos Undivided. Meanwhile, the Chaos cults on Vol Opt were annihilated, having emerged from hiding prematurely, and Vol Opt remained in Imperial hands.

Thoughts?

>>52765436
IS good. It shows how close the NLs operate to the line between Useful Monster and Oh Sit Nigga, What Are You Doin'? and how easy it is with the best of intentions to cross that line due to methods.

It also illustrates why you don't ideally send NLs to worlds that haven't broken down completely and you don't send them to work alongside good men.

It also shows that although the NLs are awful they are effective, their one saving grace.

All in all it is a very good read and needs to go on the Writings section of the 1d4chan.

Update on that Isha art?

I have some idea about the Coup pulled by that guy, see whether it will fit?

+The Fyodor Coup (needs flashier name)
- Fyodor, having managed to win over (or arranged something) the current head of Ordo Sicarius (somehow... may be an ultra-othordox?) and resources availble to him as High Lord Inquisitor had slipped several (cough* a lot *cough) of his followers into positions within the Travelling Court (or what-is-it-name?) for the coup. There are few men in critical positions which would be seriously scanned (especially through contact with the Emperor) but there are bucket loads in the lesser positions, i.e Janitorial, Warehouse, Reception, the positions which would grant a good access to most of the Court while remaining mostly descreet.
-Slipped in a lot (and I do mean a lot) of Assassins, most of them are Callidus, but some Eversors, Vindicares, etc that he pulled from his followers Inquisitors. Maybe 50-100? Too much? It would normally be nothing compared to what the Empra has faced, but what made this stands out is a full Culexus Kill-team, effectively rendering the Empra and Macha very much uncomfortable when faced.
-Eldrad very suspicious of the suddenly blank-spot within the Travelling Court. Shrugged it off as Empy wanting some personal time?
-Then, day of judgement came. Fyodor orchestrated the Salem Trial, burnt bunch of loyal subjects and exterminated a hell lot of worlds. Reports reached the Emperor in shape of an almost-lone survivor of Fyodor's rampage. Empy flipped his lid. Ordered Ordo Sicarius to 'do as they will' to get him Fyodor.

Big mistake.

The head of Ordo Sicarius was, as said, a follower of Fyodor. Reseult? That traitor decided to launch his coup right there and then.

Hundreds of thousands of officials, Administrators, loyal guardsmen and civillians just there for fun got slaughtered when explosives and charges and saboteurs were detonated across the entire fleet, destroying most ships and disabling the Court itself.

>>52766775 (cont)

On the Court itself, the entire place was suddenly swarmed with Assassins and Troopers loyal to Fyodor. The Emperor himself was almost killed by the Ordo Sicarius guy he was talking to if not for Eldrad's timely intervention. Yes, he did shrug off the blank spot at first as Empy needing some private time with his daughter/Goddess, but for -that- long? Something is definitely fishy, so he decided to take a visit. But when he was travelling there using the webway, he received a vision (maybe from Cegger, maybe just from the Warp) of what was to happen just any minute now leaving him to run as fast as he could, pulling alot of favour from the quinns and Ceggers and finally appearing through the webway portal on the court just in time to deck the traitor square in the face.

An awesome battle ensues, with the four heroes (Empy, Eldrad, Masha and Valdor) battling back-to-back agaisnt the tide of the coup-ers. Their psychic powers are very, very reduced from the sheer numbers of Culexus on board that they had to fight more mundanely (but still very awesome)

Of course, the traitors got their asses hamded to them. The Inquisitorial Civil war begun, Empy even more pissed and Masha going to the Space Sharks for assisstance.