So can someone clarify something for me? It was said the Indigo Crow doesn't remember his original identity beyond being the Indigo Crow due to Tzeentchian quantum bullshit. Did Tzeentch steal the Crow's identity as punishment for screwing up with the Raid, or am I derping out and remembering it wrong?

Also, how did the Crow fit in with the Crones in the Crusade era. Was he really a colleague of Eldrad who fell, was he pulling an imposter act or acting as a mysterious scholar from elsewhere, or what?

>>57243617
The quantum amnesia is a side effect of what he is more than anything I think. I certainly don't remember it being imposed as a punishment.

He was already Chaos by the Fall I think. He was, in the Raid, more playing the part of mysterious scholar turning up with useful technical information.

How many people know about Taldeer and LIVIi in this AU?

>>57244428
Because of all the prophecy surrounding the Impossible Child, it is being kept very very quiet. The high-level spooks know, probably a few Inquisitors that 'coincidentally' always happen to be in the same sector know, parts of the regiment almost certainly know. In essence, the people who need to know know.

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These were an interesting thing in the notes, where would be some good places to bring them into stories.

>>57246303
Just explaining what they are would be a good start. Not everything needs stories, but they could use codex entries.

>>57248156
I was mainly thinking of ways they could fit into the background of stories, not servobrain centric stories

>>57242663
>Deep Field Recon

That could be a good way for thenTau to spread across the galaxy.

Given the low psychic emissions they would be harder to detect via long range psychic scans.

>>57244979
Are Malys and Vect mentioned in the Star Child Prophesies.

Has the actual practices of the Isha Disciples ever been discussed?

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>>57250800
Yes. Malys comes up quite a lot. In several of the Starchild Prophesies it is she rather than Isha who bears the Impossible Child and in one horrible prophecy (which out of universe has been referred to as "Vect's magical realm) she kills and rapes the Emperor before bearing the Starchild. Possibly in that order.

Naturally, Malys and Vect are thrilled at the versions of the prophecy where they when, and have been hitting up every augur in the Eye for a repeat diagnosis. Chaos seers may be crazy, but they normally aren't stupid, so they tend to give Malys and Vect fake prophecies of what they want so they don't get a Drach'nyen to the face. So far there has only been one of those prophecies that has been valid (though there have been others where Malys is the mother of the Impossible Child).

Nimina Demthring and The Attendants of Isha (a.k.a. the Nurgle nutjobs) are also hopeful that the "Vect's magical realm" version of the prophecy comes to pass because they think it means they will get Isha back.

>>57251414
I'm not sure. There was a little bit of talk about how it's sort of Babylonian-esque in terms of sacred prostitution (which actually was a thing in many real-life ancient cultures), and how the amount of doublethink involved makes humanity's head spin.

It's likely the disciples often do double duty as healers simply because this is Isha we're talking about. Healing is part of her portfolio.

If we're talking the Handmaidens, that's something different entirely. Praetorian Guard buffed up by Isha's power to ninja-elf levels (and as potential backup hosts should Macha-Isha die).

How intelligent is the Swarm Lord?

Could you have a conversation with it?

>>57252131
Do you recall where Nimina’s backstory is saved, I remember it was written but I haven’t found it since.

>>57253793
It should be on the Forces of Chaos page.

>>57253750
Theoretically it could talk, but it doesn't really have anything to say. It's the avatar of a horrific space predator with a mind full of aggression and hunger, it mostly just screams.

>>57255220
It may be willing to try manipulating stupid mortals to fight each other in hope of being left alone or eaten last.

>>57255339
That's increasingly likely if the Tyranids dont fare well in their hunt. It's been a suggested possibility that while the Tyranids may be like an intergalactic wolfpack, the Milky Way may prove to be intergalactic Australia, and could effectively swallow up the Tyranids just as much as they could strip the galaxy. Another observation was that the Chaos Gods are like the venomous spider to the Hivemind's scorpion, waiting in a web for prey. To overstretch the metaphor, the C'tan/Necron Star Empire is fucking insecticide and a bug zapper respectively, the Silent King just needs to turn it on. The fact that Cadia is too harsh for Tyranids to compete biologically (and also arguably that various galactic species have colonies on planets too toxic for the Tyranids to bother *cough*Savlar*cough*) shows that the bugh might have misjudged their prey, and have a good chance of being eaten or at least given sepsis.

>>57255740
>Cadia is too harsh for Tyranids to compete biologically
I meant Catachan, but I'm not sure if the above statement is incorrect

>>57255765
Well there are Tyranids and Tyranids.
Tyranids is/are multitude of species/subspecies so group that got on Catachan might be of weaker ones without numbers to evolve quickly enough(or at all), where proper hive fleet would consume the planet and add it's fauna to hive fleet gene pool.

>>57255740
The tyranids are also likely to be the type to try this "lateral thinking" if their normal methods don't work out. The Swarmlord only really shows up in the first place when the Hive Mind hits a roadblock or needs more brainpower and coordination to solve a problem.

Even if the Swarmlord can't talk (which I would say it probably can't, since it's a custom bioform not meant to diplomate and we all know what happens if you try psychic contact with it), it probably has a shitload of base cunning that make Jurassic Park velociraptors and xenomorphs look like kindergarteners.

>>57256466
In this universe the reason tyranids look like some lifeforms on Catachan is the Ymgarl genestealers stole genetic sequences from Catachan before the main hive fleet showed up. They did the same with the Eldar, Fenris, and the Orks, among others.

The reasons for this range from not making all the megafauna in the Milky Way secretly tyranids, which undercuts the Outside Context Problem-ness of the 'nids, to the fact that Fenris and Catachan are on the opposite side of the galaxy from the Hive Fleets, to the fact that making squigs tyranids like in canon makes no sense given how Orks function; without squigs Orks could never even get to the Ork phase of orkiforming because they rely on squigs for food and tools and the utility of the Orks as self-replicating bioweapons with no supply train pre-tyranid would be low.

I'm gonna take a shot writing the Taskmaster of Shaa-Dome's codex entry.

>>57252131
Handmaidens are not ordained priestesses. They are royal guards with a few extra buffs and duties.

I can't see their being a hierarchy beyond each temple and Isha. Isha dictates to all the temples but there is no real amounts of communication between temples. Eldar are by nature only begrudgingly team players.

The temples would, I imagine, be a High Priestess (or just a priestess in the case of smaller temples), a few subordinate priestesses and each priestess with a collection of not ordained acolytes who may or may not be trying to become ordained.

There would maybe be temple guards although it's more likely that this duty would have been delegated to the local Aspect Warrior Temples. Possibly complete with a Changing of the Guard ceremony when the job is handed from one temple to another. This would be the nearest that a male could get to serving in the Isha temples.

Collectively they and the Handmaidens all get referred to as Disciples of Isha.

The temples would also double as the hospitals. Not all eldar healers are attached to the temples as in Vanilla there are male healers who serve in the aspect of healer but without official ordination. There are also unattached female healers but not as many as getting the backing of a temple is only smart.

The priestesses are not whores, although Imperial gutter media would try to claim differently. They are a contributing factor to the (glacial speed) growing eldar population in that they habitually invite pilgrims to engage in ritual sex and are much more likely to have twins than regular eldar couples. Even triplets, though that is extremely rare.

>>57257709
So is the hierarchy of the Attendants of Isha similar to the modern disciples, given that they were essentially the papacy of Isha worship on Shaa-Dome (or perhaps more like the priestesses of the Parthenon in a really messed up Athens, given that the Eldar are polytheistic and Isha isn't even top god at that time)?

>>57257306
Go for it. The Taskmaster needs characterization.

>>57258590
The pre-fall priestesses seem to be organized as the "papacy of Isha worship" you describe, but rereading the Nimina story I get the impression they decayed into something much more akin to a cult of personality around her and her children, and it was also influenced by her mile wide yandere streak towards the high priestess she was born into the service of once she same eldar woman was inhabited as a last refuge of their goddess.

I also recall the original post about her saying the writefag based her on his impression of Nice Daemonette, hence their shared initials.

>>57260977
Yeah, the priests of the Eldar gods were originally some of the only sane people (along with the Exodites) when Eldar society went to pot (while their respective gods were screaming at the Eldar to get their heads out of their collective asses from the Warp but could do nothing because of Asuryan), but it sounds like by the end most of the priests had succumbed to the temptation of the same debauchery their fellows engaged in.

Since the Harlequins showed up early in this timeline it may be that the "vanishing" of Cegorach's followers occurred when Cegorach had his lightbulb moment and realized that the whole thing had changed from harmless fun into something ugly. As a result, some 200 years (date variable) before the Fall of the Eldar, the followers of Cegorach up and vanished. All of them.

Reminds me of a quote from Isha's namesake Ishtar about her freaking out over the fallout from the flood in Babylonian myth.

“The olden days have alas turned to clay,
because I said evil things in the Assembly of the Gods!
How could I say evil things in the Assembly of the Gods,
ordering a catastrophe to destroy my people!!
No sooner have I given birth to my dear people
than they fill the sea like so many fish!”

Or tweaking it a bit...

"The olden days have alas turned to clay,
because I allowed evil to exist in the heart of Shaa-Dome!
How could I allow such evil in the heart of Shaa-Dome,
creating a catastrophe to destroy my children!
I was their mother, who saw them rise
Now their bodies fill the sea like so many fish!'"

>>57261229
>Now their bodies fill the sea like so many fish!'"
'the sea' doesn't quite work in the context of an anciently spacefaring civilization, I think. 'fill the void like so much debris', perhaps?

Air Caste Tau in this AU rather than evolving from flying squirrels could have evolved from dwellers in the high mountains. Hence the name; they dwelt up in the air.

Aun'Da and his successors employed them as messengers because they were native to land nobody wanted and so were outside the feuds and rivalries that plagued his world. Nobody had a grudge against them and they were easily distinguishable at a distance because they were a distinct tall and gangly ethnic group.

They were the Post Office and the messengers that bound the old homeworld together. When they started colonisation of nearby worlds they adapted the job to space travel and keeping the colony worlds in regular contact.

The laxk of gravity exaggerated the ganglyness.

And that's where the Air Caste is today. They are the Tau equivalent of the Void Born.

>>57252131
Has anyone written down any snippets from the prophesies?