>>57265950
Agreed, funny how the thread before last was pretty active and hit bump limit but the last one just died.

We got some good writing and some good times out of this AU, it's been a good run.

>>57265950
As I've said in the past, I will continue working on the stuff I've started

I have three write-ups I'm going to try to get done, no guarantee on being able to get them done before the thread dies.

>>57266381
I think the problem is there's an uneven distribution of posters. The threads always tend to die about 8-10 AM Eastern Time, and even when they survive they get down to about page 10. I think interest is still here but things just aren't going fast enough to keep up with 4chan.

Whats the point of rewriting?

>>57268188
It's been fun.

>>57267896
Also it seems that many of us are in similar timezones or timezones that line up in an unfortunate manner regarding sleep and work patterns.

>>57267779
Looking forward to reading it.

Are Legi and Draco still running around?

Does anyone know what happens to a C'tan shard when you try to break it through brute force means? We know you can kill a C'tan vampire through Heliomancy or high intensity radiation due to their nature, but what about something like a minor C'tan that the Necrons might use as a weapon?

I assume since the C'tan are fractal beings they would just break down to the point where they are non-factors, but I don't know. The Necrons imprisoned them because they couldn't kill them without breaking the universe, but that was killing the whole C'tan in one go, destroying a shard while the entity as a whole still exists should be different (and indeed, I think canon is the shard explodes and the C'tan's essence goes to rejoin the main body).

>>57270047
They can be broken down, the Mechanicum would theorize, indefinitely. At least in practical terms beyond the scale where they can be measured and beyond where they have the technical means to break them down further.

It seems that they loose none of their personality or faculties but their ability to effect the world is after a point diminished beyond any meaningful way. The tiny shards of the same kind can merge back together, personality and memories syncing up in t he manner of cogitor engines, and can continue to combine theoretically until it runs out of shards of itself to merge with.

Which is almost certainly the reason for propagating vampire-shards. Eventually vampires turn into C'tan shards or something at least close enough to merge with and psychologically sync up with safely.

>>57270047
well your post kinda helped answer your question. Being fractals, presumably made of necrodermis homunculi attuned to their nature down to planck length, any way you cut them you just get two smaller shards. The solution is to break them into such small bits they're no longer an issue, but also not to disperse the mater, else you'll have a major vampire problem in a few eons when the shards have reformed into slivers. Breaking a C'tan shard down to slivers, instead of atomizing it, may actually be a good way to contain them, since slivers are known to need hosts to hijack to act and think, but that presents the obvious problem of creating a massive trove of immortality and power granting nails of living alien god-metal that needs to be safeguarded against misuse.

That would probably be another vault on Ganymede, kept very very locked.

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Wrote up the bit on Craftworld Kaelor from last thread to get it written down.

Kaelor is an independent Craftworld, not associated with any other Craftworld or the Imperium, though not anti-Imperial to the degree of Dorhai. Kaelor’s troubles began shortly before the Fall, when the Craftworld first left the Old Eldar Empire. A small Craftworld that had left Empire space in a hurry, the eldar of Craftworld Kaelor found that the path they had chosen had accidentally put them on a collision course with the Craftworld Saim-Hann. Both Craftworlds refused to change course, and the two ended up going to war against each other over what essentially amounted to an interstellar game of chicken. Kaelor, being both of smaller mass and smaller population, lost the conflict, and was forced to make a jump through the Webway. Unfortunately, this was a blind jump through the Webay with no set destination, and Kaelor ended up emerging on the far edges of the Milky Way galaxy.

Craftworld Kaelor had the dubious honor of being one of the very last Craftworlds to be discovered by the Imperium in early M39, as it took nearly fourteen millennia for the Craftworld to make its long trek back to known space. Kaelor had almost no contact with the rest of the galaxy before that time, with the other Craftworlds believing Kaelor to have been lost, and therefore Kaelor had not been up to date on the political developments of the last nine millennia. As a result, first contact between the Imperium and Kaelor went horribly wrong. Imperial forces precipitated the event by acting overly friendly, believing Kaelor to be an already known Craftworld, whereas Kaelor reacted disproportionately to the fact that these mon-keigh were approaching them as if they were friends (if the eldar of Kaelor noticed that there were kin among the Imperial number, they never mentioned it).

>>57272187
In the ensuing carnage, El’Ashbel, the maiden queen of Kaelor, was gruesomely injured by the Imperials in self-defense, leaving her blinded and crying tears of blood whenever she used her psychic powers.

Normally in these situations eldar of other Craftworlds would be on hand to defuse the situation, as had happened with Myrmeara or great Iyanden. However, the eldar of Kaelor regarded their fellow Craftworlders with about as much respect as they do the mon-keigh, remembering the Craftwars with Saim-Hann. The other aren’t too fond of Kaelor either. As opposed to other Craftworlds, which tend to be ruled by a council of elders in some fashion (whether autarchs or farseers), Kaelor retains much of the political structure of the Old Eldar Empire, being composed of noble houses constantly jockeying for power and ruled by a single autocrat. It is thought that Kaelor has retained much of the political infrastructure of the Old Eldar Empire due to ending up so far from the Milky Way, and so they had less of an impetus to change their ways due to being less exposed to She Who Thirsts. The political structure of Kaelor uncomfortably reminds the Craftworlders of the Crones or the Dark Eldar, with many fearing that Kaelor is a ripe target for Chaotic corruption. The only eldar to regularly make contact with Kaelor are the Harlequins, and even they only do so rarely. Upon being informed of the situation on Kaelor, Grand Empress Isha has made it a point of order to visit the Craftworld, though she has not had the opportunity as of yet.

>>57272209
For now, Kaelor is considered an unaligned Craftworld, and Imperial forces have been ordered to give it a wide berth. Kaelor has refused all attempts at confederation, even with Craftworld Dorhai, preferring to go it on their own. Kaelor prowls the northern edges of the galaxy, coming and going from Imperial space on rare occasions seemingly at random. It is clear they are looking for something, but it is not clear what. However, it is clear they have no problems attacking or manipulating humans and other Eldar (something that lowers their standing even further in Craftworlder eyes) when it suits them to get what they want.

Any thoughts or criticisms would be appreciated.

Though that interstellar game of chicken? That's taken straight from canon

>>57270622
>>57271686
That’s what I was thinking. Okay then.

On a related note, in the previous thread it was brought up what Necrons we could use that are loyal to the Silent King. One potential option would be Valgul, the Gore King, of the Drazak Dynasty (a.k.a. the Dynasty Szarekh used to wipe out Llandu’gor the Flayer). In canon Valgul is said to be the only Necron in Drazak who is immune to the Flayer Virus. The only sane man in the land of the mad.

Here it could be that Valgul is the only one immune to the Flayer Virus, or he is infected but is the only one able to control his hunger. Llandu’gor still serves Szarekh dutifully, in part because he still has his mind and in part because this is Szarekh and having absolute loyalty over his subjects due to control protocols is kind of his thing. Nevertheless, he knows the rest of his dynasty are monsters and has no problem with the Silent King using them as disposable meat-shields and sowers of terror. Despite this, most of the Silent King’s Necrons dislike the Flayers with what little self-control they have, and Szarekh himself tries to avoid direct contact between his forces and the flayers because he doesn’t want to infect valuable officers and resources.

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>>57272530 (cont.)
There’s also Illuminor Szeras, which we have nothing on so far. We suggested bringing the Necron Pariahs back, it could be the Pariahs are the results of Szeras’ experiments on blanks, since the Necrons have no clue what’s going on with the pariah gene as it was a theoretically possible idea to fight the Old Ones that got shelved when robo-skeletons became a more viable option. It’s not common knowledge that the Deceiver took that idea and his shards implanted the pariah gene in the genepool of a widespread species (humanity) as part of his plans while the Necrons were all asleep. The Pariahs could be the weaponized results of that research or biotransference in general.

Also what are the Destroyers in this universe? Since the Silent King is in control of most of the entire Necron race at this point, I could see the Destroyers not being the result of Necrons consumed by nihlism. Perhaps they are instead Necrons who the Silent King ordered modified into war machines and who complied with joyful obedience (maybe altered to have personalities of extreme zealots to keep with the "kill everything" feel of canon Destroyers) to show how little value self-determination and how utterly disposable the individual is in Star Empire society to keep with the "post-everything" theme.

>>57271686
Another thing about the shards on Ganymede is that there's a good chance that slivers of C'tan shards felled in battle with Necrons would be much more exotic, relative to Nightbringer and Deceiver slivers, and more controllable because the C'tan they replicate would lack a distinct mind, let alone a warp reflection, by virtue of having been consumed by the Outsider. That would probably make them much easier to retain one's individuality with as a vampire, and seize more star god power through, but that would definitely magnify the voice of the corresponding C'tan in the mind of the Outsider, if not outright indicating the vampire to it. One could imagine a sufficiently powerful vampire of this sort might cause the Outsider to quickly journey from its sequestration sphere, find it in secret, and destroy it utterly.

>>57272596
Absolutely jubilant, prattling, decorated officer Warmachine-Skellington sounds perfect for the post-scarcity Victorian-esque ETI civilization we've been giving the Necrons. It would actually be pretty fun to have more of the naval campaigns of extreme evil between the Stormlord and Arrotyr, their rivalry is pretty ripr for epic battles.

>>57273450
I was thinking more of an Etruscan-esque "I serve my lord, even unto death", except happy about it instead of dreading it because these are Necrons since it was mentioned we need a bit more Egypt to balance out the Victorian in the Egyptian Space Victorians. But that works too.

To be honest, I'm not sure what would be the best avenue to add Egyptian motifs to the Necrons, since I know little about Ancient Egyptian culture beyond mythology and the bare basics of its history (pharaohship, Upper and Lower Kingdoms, etc.)

>>57272228
It's extremely good.

>>57272228
The crossing paths reminds me of some sort of joke or fable where two scotsmen face a similar predicament and it becomes a problem, or the Dr. Seuss version, Where a city is built up around them

So, Egypt (under some Pharos) liked to mythologize battles yet to occur, and the scribes in particular had a developed sense of class consciousness and pride in their monopolization of literacy. It would also be interesting to translate egyptian burial culture into the years of the Necron Star Empire just after the War in Heaven and before they went down into their tombs, when those that retained their wills and minds (usually in proportion to their rank) amassed the wealth of equipment and technology they would cache in their bit of tomb world. Now waking up they reassemble their society wholecloth beneath the Silent King, and up from the deep are brought aristocratic yachts and steeds, and the dressings of official residences and plazas, and the fine instruments of their diviners and scientists, all to be arranged and operated in perfect order for their king.

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I was trying to polish up the following suggestion to make it sound as good as possible, but if the project is going down I might as well post it.

The Void Dragon is not whole. Although perhaps 95% of the great Dragon lies half-buried beneath the surface of Mars, the Dragon still bears a number of old wounds, chunks of him torn off in the war with his kin. But the Void Dragon is a god, and gods do not bleed. Like all powerful entities in the universe, his lost essence was turned into shards, scattered across the cosmos.

Throughout time, history has spoken of encounters with strange metallic dragon-like creatures. These encounters are consistent enough that they cannot be simply dismissed out of hand, but are so maddeningly rare that it has been impossible to create a clear picture of exactly what these sightings represent. These creatures are generally referred to as Wyverns. However, to those few privy to the horrible secret of what lies buried underneath the surface of Mars, the identity of these beings is clear. Wyverns are shards of the Void Dragon.

These shards somewhat resemble the Void Dragon, except they are more bestial looking (having only legs and a pair of wings and no arms, for example) and have no semblance of intelligence whatsoever. They are animalistic, only seeking to eat and survive and nothing else. It is not clear why these shards of the Void Dragon act so differently from their sire, as even similar-sized shards of the Deceiver or the Nightbringer show some level of intelligence. It is possible that the Dragon’s prison is somehow acting as a signal blocker, cutting the Wyverns off from the Void Dragon’s mind.

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>>57277402
Only a few encounters with Wyverns have been well-documented. One involves the primarch Ferrus Manus. During unification of the planet Medusa, he learned about a creature the locals called Asirnoth that descended to prey upon the people of Medusa from its lair in the planet-encircling Telstarax. When Ferrus reported to the Mechanicum what the people of Medusa had told him, they were in shock and immediately informed him that he must dispatch this creature with all haste, giving the primarch permission to use the otherwise forbidden holy archaeotech relics aboard his ship. Three maniples of Iron Hands Skitarii accompanied Ferrus Manus into the lair of the beast, but less than a dozen came out. The battle was hard-fought, but by the end of the battle the primarch managed to strike down the wyvern and bind it within the strange archaeotech device. Ferrus Manus never knew exactly what he fought, but the high Magi of the Adeptus Mechanicus said he had performed a great service for the Mechanicum, and so Ferrus felt satisfied by his actions.

The Steward also fought one. Once.

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>>57277433
It was an unexpected fight on what was supposed to be an otherwise peaceful world. Granted, the Steward had the upper hand for much of that fight, the issue was that no matter how many times the Steward would smite the wyvern it would simply rise again, ready to continue the fight. The creature was eventually defeated when the Steward staggered the beast with a particularly powerful blow and a Mechanicus adept sealed it in its inert state using a strange device that no one had ever seen before. When the Steward asked what the creature was, the adept evaded the question by claiming it was piece of archaeotech, which could only be deactivated by another piece of archaeotech the Mechanicus normally forbade the use of (which was technically true). Stranger things made by the hands of men had been found at that time in the Great Crusade, and at that time there was no reason to suspect there was anything unusual about the metal beast.

Another noteworthy feature about these creatures is that they seem to be impervious to normal means of harm, rising over and over again from seemingly lethal injuries. As a result, stories about these creatures tend to feature particularly innovative ways of incapacitating or imprisoning them. Burying them alive in lava is a popular option.

The Void Dragon somehow knows about the Wyverns despite his imprisonment, to no one’s surprise, and has repeatedly asked the Adeptus Mechanicus where those shards of him are. It is not clear if the Void Dragon truly does not know the exact location of his shards, or if he is merely reminding the Adeptus Mechanicus that they exist and the Mechanicus do not have complete control over him. Some among the Order of the Dragon have theorized that the Wyverns are somehow necessary to free the Void Dragon from its non-Euclidean chains, a prison that can only be unlocked by the prisoner. This is an idea that no one is particularly interested in testing.

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>>57277451
In terms of how the wyverns fit into the universe, we’ve mentioned before how Nobledark is a universe well suited to RPGs like Dark Heresy and the like. C’tan vampires are more like a final boss following a quest of political intrigue. Wyverns are when you want to run a good old “slay the dragon” campaign but in space. Their durability also encourages novel solutions to dealing with them. Powerlevel can be varied by how much it’s eaten. In terms of tabletop, a wyvern is something the Necrons could bring along as a monstrous creature should a dynasty ever manage to wrangle one. Wyverns are your typical animalistic St. George “break stuff” dragon, whereas the big daddy Dragon on Mars is more like an eastern dragon, Smaug, or as mentioned before "eldritch robot space Quetzalcoatl" (with hints of Prometheus and Autocthon). So we get multiple types of dragons for the price of one.

I wasn’t sure where to state it, but the reason the Ad-Mech can seal these things is they have a limited supply of Necron Tesseract Labyrinths they pull out the minute they hear rumor of a Wyvern. In canon, the Grey Knights have a collection of Tesseract Labyrinths they use to imprison particularly nasty daemons, which they had to have gotten from somewhere. Here they got them from the AdMech who keep their own stash handy in case they have to bury any of their dirty little secrets.

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>>57277494
The explanation for why didn’t they try using this on Apep? They tried. The Tesseract Labyrinths were good at capturing the relatively straightforward daemons of Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, and Nurgle, but Apep is based on such contradictory Malalic bullshit it didn’t stick. In essence whereas other entities would try to fight the labyrinth and try to escape (thereby doing what the labyrinth wants by drawing you in deeper with paradoxical shit), Apep immediately did the opposite and found the exit, and so he basically poofed out of the Tesseract Labyrinth.

If the binding device created by the Old Ones were to be turned off, the Wyverns would probably all snap back into being heralds and extensions of the Void Dragon as a sort of single mind in multiple bodies, more like the other C'tan are now.

The Void Dragon might have plans to intentionally use shards of himself (particularly after seeing what his brother the Deciever has done) to help wean humanity off of that ridiculous little A.I. phobia of theirs. Specifically by using shards of himself geth-style to take over major Imperial systems as a pseudo-A.I.

It is doubtful people would find having a C'tan in their systems any better than an A.I.

Alternatively he might use them to keep tabs on people of note. This is assuming he doesn’t just go full Godzilla.

Also, looking through canon fluff, I found it hilarious that Saim-Hann’s Cosmic Serpent is basically exactly what we have for the Void Dragon in this timeline. “Pals” with Cegorach after Cegorach bested him in a game of wits and Cegorach earned a boon? Check. Exists in both the Materium and Immaterium at the same time? Check. Associated with knowledge? Check.

I put together a write-up of Taldeer based on the bits and pieces of stuff we had floating around, welded onto an edited version of Assassinfag's old writing. Hopefully it's good enough.

Apologies for the lack of pictures.

When she was born, there was little indication that Taldeer Ulthran would have ever played any role in the fate of the galaxy. Rather short for an eldar, a mere six foot two, she was arranged to be married off at a young age as a political ploy by her half-sister (well, half-sister numerous times removed) Sreta to foster closer ties between the eldar Rogue Trader dynasty House Sylander and the Ulthran Cartel. The fact that her betrothed, Lithian Sylander, had not even been born yet did not seem to come into the decision. It would have been a life of luxury, albeit one in which Taldeer had next to no control over her own fate, the idea of which the young Taldeer seethed at. Yet no one would speak up on her behalf. Her parents did truly love her, but like most of the house of Ulthran they were too cowed by Sreta to even think of speaking up, and it is possible that they had truly convinced themselves that being groomed to be the perfect little housewife of a Rogue Trader was in their daughter’s best interests. The only person who seemed concerned about Taldeer’s individual wellbeing was her distant grandfather Eldrad, who noticed her interest in psykery and gave her some instruction in the basics and theory during her childhood and adolescence as an outlet.

>>57278844 (cont.)
It is little wonder, then, that Taldeer effectively ran away to join the military. Although it is true that all citizens of Ulthwé, even the members of the House of Ulthran, are expected to serve in the military in some form, there was some wiggle room in when the term had to be served. Taldeer signed up on her own at the minimum age of consent of 45. Additionally, within the house of Ulthran, family members favored by Sreta often tended to find themselves in positions far removed from the worst of the fighting for the duration of their term. Taldeer would have none of that. She would either succeed on her own merits or not at all, and so rather than being assigned to some cushy guard position for the duration of her service she spurned any such “assistance” from the Ulthran Cartel and ended up assigned to a regiment on one of the Imperium’s most active battlefields: the Cadia 412th.

>>57278871 (cont.)
It is not clear why the Ulthran Cartel never protested Taldeer’s assignment to Cadia, though there is some suspicion that the Ulthran Cartel saw military service as an opportunity to scare Taldeer straight and knock her off of the Path of the Seer. Taldeer’s obsession with the Path of the Seer and the psychic arts were considered unseemly due to the possibility of getting Pathlost especially with the attraction of the Seer's Path. It was thought that spending a few decades with humans, getting involved in minor policing actions and avoiding being shot far from the wraithbone and the crystal domes and psyker studies would get her to focus on the present, drop all this seer nonsense, and return to the path the cartel intended for her. She didn't. She instead had all the more incentive to follow her obsession, seeing as that potentially the lives of thousands rested on her predictions. She doubled down, self taught, sought out other seers to learn from when off the battlefield (and sometimes depending on circumstances, on) until she was as accomplished a seer as any. By her eightieth year things started to get dangerously obsessive. By her hundred-and-fiftieth year she was pathlost.

>>57278880 (cont.)
Sreta expected Taldeer to last less than six months on Cadia. She believed that after half a year in No Man’s Land the rebellious “princess” of the Ulthran Cartel would be begging to be reassigned to a less dangerous position. Six months after Taldeer joined the military, the cartel sent two emissaries to Cadia in fine but drab robes. Their clothing after less than an hour on the surface was mud up to the knees and soaked by the constant drizzle. They descended into the Stygian depths of the Cadian Tunnels, a place whispered in fear by allies and adversaries alike. The only light was from ancient glow-globes fading away to oranges and reds but down here it is warm and dry. The Cadians move differently down here. Up there in the chemically tainted mud and the radiation they scuttle about fearfully, alert and wary and never looking up if they can avoid it. Here they moved with surety and confidence like bears in their caves. Purple eyed bears with arms and armour. They move deeper and deeper into what might be natural caverns or might be crudely carved and undressed naked rock. A labyrinth of unmarked passages through which purple eyed demons walk and the Kasr fortress cities that haven't ever seen sunlight. In the outskirts of one such Kasr they found little lost Taldeer. She must surely be desperate to return to civilization now. They find her in a seedy drinking establishment full flack armoured pants and a vest top locked arms with a human dancing in circles on a table with a bottle of something 80% in the other hand. On her shoulder is tattooed a cartoon daemon head with crosses for eyes. Little Baby Tally has just bagged her first daemon. Taldeer had gone native. When the representatives finally caught her attention and expressed Sreta’s dearest concerns for her well-being as well as a half-hidden offer of reassignment, the bar went silent. This was Cadia. You didn’t just walk out of military service.

>>57278900
It is likely that an incident would have occurred had the enraged Taldeer herself not cursed out the two emissaries in a long stream of High Tongue that eventually devolved into the guttural Base Cadian, causing the two emissaries to leave in embarrassment.

After several favorable auguries Taldeer quickly found herself in the good graces of the commanding officer of the Cadian 412th, the grizzled General Sturnn, veteran of more than a hundred military campaigns and someone who Taldeer saw as the father figure that she never had. She served loyally in the 412th in the equivalent rank of major, often serving as a calming voice to oppose or complement the strident remarks of Regimental Commissar Anton Gebbet, until the campaign on Lorn V. Sent to safeguard a Titan scuttled in the Imperium-Star Empire war of the M40s, the 412th found itself facing the combined armies of Beast cultists and Orks on the one hand and the Lost and the Damned on the other, all of whom desired the same prize. Not even the 412th's famous dogged determination could have saved them from such enemies united, and it was only through Eldar misdirection and illusions that truce between the Orks and heretics broke.

>>57278925
However, such a deception could only last so long. As they began securing the Titan, the 412th found itself under attack from the remnants of their enemy forces. Even so, they could have easily withstood such a shattered rabble, but in activating the power systems of the Titans, they awoke the very same forces that had brought it down thousands of years ago, and turned Lorn V from a bustling Imperial world to a realm of broken ruins. Taldeer had once thought legends of Necron ferocity had been exaggerated, accounts overblown by myth and legend. The assault on the Titan was more than enough to shatter her illusions. The Cadians managed to prove themselves in the fight to come, powering up the Titan's weapons systems, and not even the might of Lorn V's Necrons could withstand the wrath of a God-Machine. Even so, getting to that point was a hard one. Thousands of Cadians lay dead on the snowy fields of Lorn V, and thousands more had been reduced to atoms. Most grievous of all, was the loss of General Sturnn, who lived just long enough to hear the Titan's guns roar, and the cheers of his troops as the Necron forces were decimated. Imperial propaganda and Guard legend say he summoned his last measure of strength, and stood up before proclaiming his last words in a single triumphant shout before expiring. However, more reliable accounts are just as romantic; apparently he whispered to Taldeer to hold him up, and whispered his last words to her before finally dying with a smile on his face.

>>57278937
The Necron assault was a terrible one, and though the 412th would emerge victorious, it would only be with a tenth of their original number. More importantly, General Sturnn himself would give his life in the final defense. "He died as any guardsman should," Taldeer was heard to say later. "He died standing," she added, a phrase which ended up on the general's monument.

While Cadia wasn't lacking for recruits, what the 412th needed most were commanders. Spurred on by duty, and upon the recommendations of the regiment's surviving officers both Eldar and Imperial, Taldeer sound found herself wearing the twin mantles of Farseer and Colonel. These ranks would soon be put to the test on Kronus.

>>57279063
Officially, the 412th was there to help train the local Tau and human PDF alongside their Tau counterparts, while the Space Marines of the Blood Ravens chapter accompanying them were there to remove a hitherto-unknown stockpile of ancient bioweapons from the planet's northern regions, with the unlucky archaeologists in the region silenced to prevent a panic. As expected, the poor governor of Kronus, an Ethereal named Aun'El Shi'Ores, was quite overwhelmed despite his own considerable talent. Unofficially, the Guard were there to help combat the Necrons, whose awakening on Kronus a local Inquisitorial cell had detected. Segmentum Command had deemed the 412th fit for such duty as they had faced the Necrons before; that the regiment had been decimated, and its ranks full of fresh troops didn't seem to occur to them.

Of course, what happened next would only convince them that they were right to do so all along. When the 412th emerged from the Warp next to Kronus, they were met with a barrage of messages from the Inquisitorial outpost in the northern continent- not only had the Necrons awoken ahead of schedule, but both Beast-Cultist and Ork forces had also landed in the south. Forced to land at what would later become Victory Bay, the 412th grimly pressed on once again against near-impossible odds, liberating valuable caches of archaeotech and combining their might with those of the Blood Ravens Legion and the remaining Tau cadres. The tripartite leadership between Captain Thule of the Blood Ravens, Shas'O Kais (himself well-known as the Hero of Dolumar IV) and Farseer-Colonel Taldeer eventually proved too much even for the ancient Necrons and their savage 'allies', and the world was liberated in short order.

>>57279171
Unfortunately, in the process Kronus’ population and native infrastructure were nearly destroyed and the planet had to essentially be rebuilt from scratch. Aun'El Shi'Ores could deal with some of the rebuilding, but he had little experience with military matters. Being the highest ranked and most experienced surviving officer by a wide margin with the exception of the Blood Angels, who as per usual vanished after their mission was accomplished, and Shas’O Kais, who was recalled to Kaurava to help with the ill-fated campaign there, Colonel-Farseer Taldeer was essentially put in charge of Kronus’ PDF until the planet was fully rebuilt. Not helping matters was the fact that the Imperium decided to repopulate the planet by using it as pension planet for Guard regiments from across the galaxy, turning Kronus into a complete clusterfuck. Taldeer was basically the lead military officer on Kronos in all but name. It was a fate she would not wish on her worst enemies, and if it was not for her second in command, Major Lukas Alexander, she would have probably gone mad by now.

>>57279508
Taldeer is a somewhat controversial figure in Eldar society, albeit not by her own choice. Many older and more experienced seers see her methods as crude and sloppy, the equivalent of using an antique heirloom as a sledgehammer. This is not due to any lack of skill on her part, but rather due to the fact that she is mostly self-taught and the fact that she prefers fast, practical solutions rather than taking ten hours to engineer a perfect outcome that will take place ten years from now. Such an outlook makes her popular among Guardians, Aspect Warriors, and humans, who see her as a farseer who actually cares about the common soldier, but less so among the older generation. There is also the fact that she managed to get Pathlost while less than 500 years old, something which many farseers and portions of the Eldar public who have forgotten the horror of battle see as somewhat embarrassing.

Taldeer has also managed to sow dissent within the once-united Ulthran cartel. Previously, within the Ulthran Cartel, Sreta’s word was law. The only person who could have overruled Sreta was Eldrad, who only rarely intervened in disputes amongst his kin. Those who refused to toe the line or spoke out against her practices were ostracized, cut off from family resources and forced to eke out a living on their own. When Taldeer refused to follow Sreta’s will, everyone assumed that she would flounder and fail. But Taldeer didn’t. She thrived, in spite of being cut off from the Cartel’s resources, showing that Sreta was not all-powerful and it was possible to succeed without her blessing. This has led many of the previously outcast members of House Ulthran to become increasingly vocal about their criticisms of the Cartel’s standard practice.

>>57279521
As with most Cadian-born regiments, there are Ulthwé Black Guardians associated with the 1st Kronus Liberators. They know about the politics, dissention, and in-fighting within the house of Ulthran, but their reasoning for staying quiet has merely shifted from a fear of Sreta to a fear of Taldeer.

Taldeer herself could care less about her effect on Eldar society and the Ulthran Cartel. The 1st Kronus Liberators are her family. They’re what matters now.

In recent months, Taldeer has been sidelined with a mysterious illness, one that those in the know have been strangely tight-lipped about and which even the 1st Kronus Liberators know few of the details. It is assumed that the Liberators will ship out once she gets better, given she is expected to make a full recovery.

>>57279577
And that's the Frankenstein I managed to make. As I mentioned before I deliberately avoided references to LIVII and her pregnancy (aside from the "mysterious illness") since this is supposed to be more her "official" bio and what she has done outside of her relationship.

That last paragraph should probably go after the one talking about Kronus.

Wished I could have put in the comparison with how humans view her versus the general Eldar population. As another anon put it...

>[S]he would get along better with humans because they actually take her seriously. She is over a hundred years old, can see the future to an uncanny extent, has earned numerous victories, has a noble bearing and is not at all afraid of getting into the dirt with the common soldiers.
>To the eldar she is a amusingly short with slutty ears, lacks refinement of her talents and managed to get pathlost with barely any formal training, is far too young to have accumulated any real wisdom, her uniform is bulky and unwieldy and covered in mud. To them she is a late teens/early twenties playing soldier.
>Then they learn that she has a very mean right hook and even if you see it coming she already knows which way you are going to go to avoid it and you will not avoid it. Then they have two choices; fall in line or get another black eye as a final warning. This Cadia you stupid sons of bitches, don't make us use you as a training exercise.

As well as the bit about how defying the Cartel actually made her one of Eldrad's favorites because she was willing to make her own name for herself than rely on the name of the cartel (seeing shades of himself in her).

In regards to Ulthwe, despite Ulthwe and Cadia having similar culture I'm imagining the Cartel being slightly insulated from the general mood of "total war" due to their nature. Hence their surprise as to Taldeer thriving (not to mention the differing reactions between the inner members of the cartel and the outcast/other citizens of Ulthwe)

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>>57279679
Finally, if the Kronus section is too much of a mess we could always have it where Aun'El Shi'Ores having died in the invasion giving Taldeer even more pressure and fewer people to relieve the burden.

>>57275313
No Scotsman gif? For shame laddie.

>>57279679
I didn't think it possible that anyone could make sense of the clusterfuck that was the Taldeer fluff. But you did it and it is wonderful.

>>57277591
>Saim-Hann’s Cosmic Serpent

I hadn't realised. Holy shit this is good

I have writefagging to do. And reading.

I hope this thread is still here by afternoon.

>>57280679
i hope so too anon

Do the AdMech know that the Tau have a few true A.I. left around?

>>57283971
I think they do but the AdMech claimed the A.I. that did not turn were machine spirits sent from the Omnissiah in order to make themselves feel better and to try and redefine the situation with the Tau A.I. rebellion into a form that fit the AdMech worldview.

They may have a point but for the wrong reasons. Canon suggests that for the more advanced machines (e.g., Land Raiders), it's not clear if the piloting intelligence is a true A.I., an amalgamate A.I. formed out of scrapcode, or some kind of Warp entity. Knowing that in this universe ancient mankind was able to build machines with souls in the Warp (up to god-like levels with the Iron Minds), it may be that both are true. Titans are said to have machine spirits that border on A.I. and that's not getting into the Ark Mechanica which are outright A.I. from the DaoT in hiding both here and in canon.

That said, the AdMech probably didn't think things this far out. They probably just said it to make them feel better about the fact that 100% of the Tau's A.I. didn't blow up in their face like the AdMech predicted.

>>57284165
How many Tau A.I. are there and do they have names?

>>57285583
At least eight big ones (as in probably about the level Elmo is today, though they didn't start out as children's toys), one for each sage of Da (Aun'Va must be groaning internally). They don't have names or personalities yet beyond being advisors to the Ethereals.

Not clear how many others survived. Likely not many between them being destroyed by their corrupted counterparts or just destroyed by the passage of time. All were older models IIRC.

And of course the non-sapient A.I. survived, as well as engram technology if the Eight are still canon.

>>57285951
Its actually a pretty interesting prospect that both the Tau of the Imperium and of the Enclaves could have a large amount of non-sapient Ai integrated into society.

What has Commisser actually done in this AU?

We know March of the Liberator happened but what else?

>>57286233
The Enclaves might go so far as to claim the Imperium intentionally sabotaged the Tau's A.I. because they feared the Tau's potential. Of course, that raises the question of why they didn't just rebuild super-A.I. (and get wrecked by Chaos again).

Of course, more extreme usage of A.I. could also be one reason the Enclaves have survived so long against the much larger empire.

That said, I believe it was mentioned the Tau don't completely believe the Imperial line on A.I. They found nothing to indicate there was some quantun leap point at which A.I. will turn on its creators, and the Interex, Hubworlders, and other non-Mechanicus dependent states have A.I. on a comparable level to canon Tau. Not to mention they know once upon a time humans and eldar had A.I. and nothing went wrong (and if they knew the true nature of Oscar and the Ark Mechanici they'd laugh themselves silly). They know that something happened to make their advanced A.I. go wrong, and they're willing to try again, but not until they find out what went wrong and patch it.

Indeed, the Tau's actions during the A.I. rebellion are rather applaudable. When human A.I. went berserk it took down much of galactic civilization. When Tau A.I. went berserk it was a historical crisis of note but not civilization-ending. That means the Tau were able to shut down their A.I. much harder than humanity was (which makes sense as the Tau never got to god-machine stage) or Tau A.I. were so well-designed their madness took a different form than human A.I.

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I had been kicking this idea around a while back when another anon mentioned the idea of Kroot that had decided to forgo the traditional ideals and eat people back when we were talking about ratlings. So here it is. Chaos-corrupted people-eating Kroot.

The Sarcophages are a splinter faction, some would say a religious movement, among the Kroot of the Ultima Segmentum. Whereas most Kroot are allied with the Imperium (though their loyalty is shaky by human standards), the Sarcophages are unusual in seeing all sapient life as prey, Imperial and non-Sarcophage Kroot alike. The founder of was a Kroot by the name of Khamor Wet. According to legend, Khamor Wet was performing the traditional rite of eating the dead after battle with the Orks when he was struck by a vision, or what others would describe as a drug trip. It is believed that Wet’s vision may have come from eating a Chaos Ork who had recently turned and whose body did not show any outside signs of corruption.

From his vision, Khamor Wet was said to have come to have come to a realization. The Kroot were the apex predators of the galaxy. Humans could not eat humans without extensive processing into corpsestarch, and even then they ran the risk of illness and only did so in the direst of circumstances. Eldar also did not eat eldar, though this may be less due to physiology than the cultural stigma of the cannibalistic Mon-Keigh early in their history. The Tau similarly could not eat Tau, and in fact only ate small amounts of animal flesh. The galaxy was not full of allies or clients, but prey. To Khamor Wet, the order of the universe was clear. Animals ate plants, sapient beings ate animals, and Kroot ate everything. Only by hunting the other sapients and the weak among their number could the Kroot evolve into truly perfect beings.

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>>57290009
To say that the Shapers were horrified by this idea was an understatement. They ate the flesh of the honoured dead to preserve its essence and prevent it from dissipating into the earth. They ate the untainted flesh of those who would be an enemy to the People (mostly Orks) to remove it from the world. They ate the flesh of many beings, but they ate the flesh of sapients to preserve the link of wisdom between ancestor and descendant and prevent the Kroot from going mad. They did hunt game, but to hunt sapient beings like animals as opposed to fellow warriors was outright heresy. They immediately declared Khamor Wet and his followers to be namotek, or tainted flesh, and demanded that they be killed and their essence scattered to the winds. Unfortunately, Khamor Wet and at least some of his followers evaded their doom at the hands of their fellow Kroot and escaped into the cosmos.

Today, the Sarcophages are a constant, though minor, threat on the Eastern Fringe. They are either seen acting alone, or in association with Chaos warbands, Ork WAAAGH!s, or other groups to which the traditional shapers would find anathema. Many Sarcophages, including the core of the movement, have fallen to Chaos, with most pledging their allegiance to Khorne, though distinguishing Kroot that have fallen to Chaos and those who simply believe Khamor Wet had good ideas is often a difficult task. After all, the Kroot are just as variable in their mindset as any other race.

>>57290092
As an aside, I know the social habits of Kroot cannibalism have not really been fleshed out even in vanilla, but it’s probably unlikely they hunt sapients like animals, even before you take into account that this is a nobledark rather than a grimdark universe. Cannibalism is actually very common in animals, it is the rule rather than the exception in invertebrates, fishes, amphibians and reptiles. In the few groups where cannibalism is rare, it’s more a case of “they would if they could”. Most birds physically cannot eat members of their own kind because they can’t shove the body down their throat, whereas many mammals get sick if they do. But they have no problem with killing each other, and otherwise that body is just wasted protein (chimps eat chimps, for example).

However, cannibalism also makes it very, very hard to form a society. It’s very hard to socially interact with another member of your species if you’re afraid they’re going to try and eat you. Most social species either aren’t cannibalistic, do not eat each other except in abnormal circumstances (starvation or overpopulation), or have some kind of restrictions on who they can eat (e.g., no eating members of the in-group, but strangers are fair game). As a result, it is likely that cannibalism is likely not that common across the galaxy (assuming Earth-like conditions), though it is impossible to account for culture overriding biology (see: corpsestarch, the Ad-Mech boiling people down for nutrient slurry). The Kroot would have to have some kind of social restrictions on who they can eat and/or when, otherwise they would have all just eaten one another and never formed a society. Hence the way they culturally justify to themselves what is good to eat and when while balancing the need for social order and eating sapient flesh.

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>>57290281
Some might point out that Orks eat other Orks (indeed they mostly eat other Orkoids) and tyranids have no problem eating tyranids. Or the examples with humanity listed above. That is a good point. No one ever said visions from eating tainted-mushroom people were logical. Especially not if they were attempts by the Ruinous Powers to sow dissent amongst the Kroot and get a portion of the species under their control.

Also does anyone else like the idea of going full Predator with the Kroot and having them have solo assassins who travel the galaxy seeking out great enemies to fell in single combat to bring their flesh back to strengthen the clan? Or something similar?

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>>57290380
>>57290281
I can imagine that there is a cultural divide among the Kroot regarding food. Previously it was mentioned that they need to eat sapient flesh in order to maintain their own sapience and not very slowly degenerate back into vultures. Thankfully Ork is sapient enough to work for this, which is what got them making tools and fire in the first place.

They would be divided on food. Some say that sheet-meat grown in a factory is just as good as the real thing. Also you can grow a wall of human muscle tissue and hack pieces off of it as needed. It's not alive in it's own right, it feels no pain but it is genetically sapient meat. Such practices also allow the Shapers to more carefully tend their flocks as they can monitor exactly what/who they are eating.

The Puritan Kroot regard this not a good idea. Hunting shit and eating people has worked well for thousands of years and even if all that is hoped and dreamed comes to pass and a lasting galactic peace is forged they can still farm squig. Squig are genetically the same as ork. Also even the flocks that trust the AdBio know for a fact that the AdBio are mildly baffled by the exact process of genetic assimilation so they don't want to entrust their species' survival in their chimeric hands.

The two groups can usually put aside their differences as both sides consider ork (and others like the Q'orl) hunting fun. Also most Neo-Kroot will eat a natural corpse if it's going to go to waste otherwise out of principle of not letting good food go to waste.

In a similar manner they come in two camps regarding technology. The Old School Kroot will only use what is made on their homeworld in the traditional manner. Black powder rifles, bone handled knives, wooden armour and the like.

New Breed Kroot are tooled up as much as the rest of the Tau Empire.

Neither like using AdMech made things as they don't typically do customizing jobs for xenos and Kroot are distinctly different proportioned to humans.

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>>57292052
I can see that. Also the whole different moral standards of what constitutes acceptable to eat. Hunting down something non-sapient? Acceptable. Hunting down sapients like game? Unacceptable. Ambushing sapients during war and killing and eating them? Acceptable.

The seeming double-standard makes people's head spin, though to the Kroot the difference is clear. Outsiders ask how is trapping game any different from ambushing sapients during war and eating them.

The Kroot reply that trapping and hunting game is part of everyday life. Doing the same to sapients is disrespectful. Eating the fallen during war is part of the nature of war. It is a straight up confrontation where warriors pit their strength against each other and one comes out alive. Even if you set traps the other guy is walking into the woods knowing there's hostile stuff in there and someone is out to get them, you're not just hitting them with a sucker punch by letting them walk into a pitfall trap without a declaration of war.

Hence why the Kroot try to work their way into every battlefield they can, because it's the best way to get the sapient flesh they need regardless of philosophy.

>>57288252
What do we have on the Tau A.I. rebellion, besides 'it exists'?

>>57293352
The cause of the rebellion is unknown.

Tau jut assumed that the AdMech were being assholes with them to deny them good shit and cripple competition.

Given that there hasn't been a confirmed case of a single Chaos Tau the vector for infection would have had to have been a non Tau or by direct exposure to Chaos itself. To this end it is believed by most of the Earth Caste high ups that the AI was infected by Dark Mechanicus. AdMech maintain that it was inevitable, it's just what A.I. consistently do as their own history has shown.

>>57293352
It was one of the major points of change in Aun'da's outlook in regards to the Imperium, seeing as the AI rebellion collapsed the first Tau expansion and set them back a millenium in terms of development, as well as leaving them vulnerable to the whims of the Druchari in the intervening time. At the end of this reclamation they hand have the reforms and civil war.

The Imperium, mostly through Ultramar, was always the ancient, massive, incomprehensibly exotic foreign neighbor to the Tau for their entire spacefaring history. Their first expansion, with AI at their side, was characterized by a very technocratic and Tau centric historical and political outlook and interpretation of the Greater Good, and an assumption that the major powers of the galaxy were on their order of magnitude in age and development. Following the AI rebellion and their own little taste of Old Night they return to their lost domains less confident and more experienced, and with greater understanding of the universe, but with more anxiety and prudence having been stripped of the false enlightenment of their first gilded age. Pre AI rebellion Tau thought they were well on the way to being a post-scarcity moral arbiter society something like the Culture, post, they gain some understanding of the scale and strangeness of things, though remain aloof for quite some time much like Hy Brasil. Eventually they have their reforms and join the Imperium, as much through cultural osmosis and codifying efforts to adapt to the galaxy's diplomatic and philosophical discourse as an attempt at glasnost/perestroika for the Ethereals. The Imperium's men and eldar have been watching from their golden city spires and gossamer sailed ships for the whole escapade, and were often as entertained by the petty dramas of the young Tau as they were vexed by their foibles.

>>57293352
>>57293554
I think we had it implied it was caused by Chaos. Tau manage to get advanced A.I. online and it's a game changer for the mortals. If the mortals figure out that it's possible to make advanced A.I. and have it not blow up in your face, then it would be possible to basically just blockade off the Eye with robots and the Black Crusades, which now even in the absolute worst case scenario result in millions of deaths and turmoil that feed the Chaos Gods, would become unprofitable. It wouldn't be an instant win button but it would make things a lot more difficult.

A.I. definitely can be made without them going full Skynet as shown by Oscar. He knew a bit about the Warp from his birth, Malcador basically told him not to go staring into the abyss, and he's generally learned to avoid sanity blasting stuff from there. Oscar's technically not an A.I. but the principle in the same. Plus it took all the turmoil from the birth of Slaanesh to drive the unprotected Iron Minds and Men of Gold mad. Oscar is probably smart enough to have some plan to shut his psychic senses down and keep him from going insane in the event it ever happens again.

Oscar may be a crippled Man of Gold, but he could run circles around the original ones when it comes to avoiding Warp corruption.

>>57293352
>>57293554
>>57293793
>>57293961
As a cautionary note, we need to be really careful when we plot out the Tau A.I. rebellion. On the one hand we don’t want to hand anyone the idiot ball, but on the other we don’t want it to seem like we are engaging in “Tau ball-kicking” as if we were salty over Fish of Fury. It’s generally been suggested among the 40k fandom that if the Tau were to keep advancing the way they are they are likely to have an A.I. crisis (which, since the emergence of the Tau empire has been shifted back by a few millennia, was likely to happen here) but having the Tau A.I. fail for no reason would come across as ham-handed, especially since it’s been established that the failure of human A.I. wasn’t due to any inherent tendency of A.I. to turn against their masters, but a side effect of the birth of Slaanesh and the Warp turmoils it brought.

The fatal flaw of the Tau (particularly in their early history) is arrogance and naivete (more the latter). As mentioned, the Tau originally saw themselves and the Greater Good as the miracle cure to all the galaxy’s woes, and remained unaware and/or in disbelief of the scale and the antiquity of the field they were entering. Remember that when the first Tau diplomats visited the Sol System, the Ethereal Council didn’t believe the reports of what the diplomats had seen. The Tau joining the Imperium is part of the high concept of the setting of the Imperium basically being all of the “sane” races joining in a bulwark against Chaos, but the Tau had to reach the point that they’d be willing to join in the first place, especially since at first the Tau thought they could go it alone. From a meta perspective getting the Tau to join is a delicate balancing act. Too soon and they’d just get absorbed without developing the culture that makes them Tau. Too late and they might not join at all.

>>57294863
Keep in mind that while they try to be better than vanilla, the Imperium in this universe isn’t perfect. Their general fear of A.I. is perhaps one of the best examples of this. Mainstream humanity basically has an irrational species-wide phobia of A.I. because from their perspective most of the A.I. just went nuts one day and they have no idea why. Humanity was so busy trying to avoid getting killed in the crossfire of the insane Men of Gold and the Iron Minds that they didn’t have time to correlate the Iron Minds going insane with the Eldar fleeing from the giant galactic axe wound where their homeworld once was.

The Eldar in general had A.I. that functioned very differently from that of humanity (essentially being wraithbone drones puppeted by psychic powers), and so they don’t have the context of a widespread, sapient creation turning on them. Additionally the use of these drones freed up the Eldar to do other things, which essentially precipitated the birth of Slaanesh in the first place, leading the Eldar to mothball most of their A.I. technology so they could work more directly with their hands, and on the subject of sapient A.I. they probably look to humans in the same way that humans look to the Eldar for Warptech advice. Because these two groups are the largest demographics in the Imperium, chances of the attitude towards A.I. reversing are glacial at best.

Add onto this the fact that the main source of technology for most of the Imperium comes from the AdMech, who took the empirical observation of the A.I. rebellion and extrapolated from it “A.I. is fricking evil”, which because they tend to be A) the resident tech experts for the non-member states, B) control most of the manufacturing, and C) have the most leverage when it comes to tech direction, tend to stymy efforts to improve A.I. beyond “pterasquirrel” levels by the other technologically advanced powers like the Interex, Hubworld League, and yes, the Tau.

>>57294863 (same)
>>57294883 (same)
The Tau do have great potential, and may indeed be the spark necessary to reignite the galaxy, but that is a spark that needs to be kindled, especially since they’ve traded their plot armor and Orwellian overtones in exchange for common sense and a societal history that one would expect of a younger race that in spite of great talents entering into a realm dominated by older ones.

Might the Mechanicus have tried to get involved in the Tau A.I. war? It seems possible that they would have provided "assistance" in killing a bunch of rebellious AI... regardless of if the Tau wanted it.

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Wrote up the section on the tyranids stealing genes from all over the galaxy using the Ymgarl genestealers so we have that written down.

When the Adeptus Biologicus analyzed tyranid specimens for the first time, they found all sorts of things they shouldn’t have. Genetic sequences and biochemical signatures otherwise unique to lifeforms on Fenris, Catachan, and numerous other worlds in the Imperium. There were even sections of genetic material that seemed to come from Orks and the Eldar. The bio-priests were at a loss to explain how such a motley of genes could be present in a single creature, until a new tyranid bioform was discovered far from the front lines of the tyranid invasion.

Originally thought to be natural wildlife native to the moons of Ymgarl, these creatures were first discovered by the Imperium at about the same time as the genestealers in M36. However, sightings of these creatures were soon reported across the galaxy, supposedly caused by the creatures stowing away in space hulks and the holds of spacecraft. There was concern about the similarities between these creatures and “classic” genestealers, but the Imperium was never able to find a connection between the two. Genestealer activity did not follow in these creatures wake, and even their supposedly simultaneous discovery was in actuality more than two hundred years apart. And so the Imperium turned its attention away from the Ymgarl creatures. It was understandable, this was late M36, the peak of the Genestealer Wars, and the Imperium had more pressing issues to learn about. However, with the appearance of the first true tyranid Hive Fleets in the form of Behemoth, the Adeptus Biologicus decided to take another look at the Ymgarl creatures. And they turned out to be something else entirely.

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>>57297284 (cont.)
These creatures, which later came to be renamed genehounds, resemble a cross between lictor and a purestrain genestealer. This suggests that genehounds may be a cross-breed between the two, or at the very least share genes with these bioforms. Like lictors and purestrains, genehounds have a much more complex nervous system than most tyranid bioforms, allowing them a higher degree of independent thought and the ability to function for extended periods of time away from synapse creatures of the Hive Mind. They are certainly intelligent enough to use spaceships and space hulks as a means to spread throughout the galaxy. However, whereas lictors and genestealers were meant to be sappers and beacons for the Hive Fleets, these creatures were something else entirely. Hunters. Hounds of the Hive Mind.

The motus operandi of a genehound is simple. First, the genehound locates a target. Another effect of the genehound’s increased intelligence is that a genehound is smart enough to target species with novel genetic features. This target can be as harmless as a squig or as dangerous as a Catachan Devil. Then, the genehound rushes forward in an explosive burst of speed to take its sample. The mouth of a genehound resembles a lamprey or a cookiecutter shark, a spiral ring of teeth designed to shear chunks of flesh from its targets and a piston-like tongue with a serrated tip built to make incisions and drink their bodily fluids. This allows a genehound to easily obtain a genetic sample of the organism for the Hive Mind, or feed itself in the long intervals between action. Its task completed, the genehound makes its way back to the Hive Fleet to be reabsorbed, bringing its genetic trophy with it.

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>>57297295
Unlike other bioforms, the Hive Mind does not go out of its way to track down genehounds. To do so would be to expose the ruse, as happened when the Imperium discovered the true nature of genehounds and ordered them killed on sight. The genehounds had not managed to hit every system of note in the galaxy, but they had hit enough to give the Hive Mind access to some choice adaptations. When the Biologicus realized what these creatures were they were horrified by the implications. The tyranids hadn’t just been scouting the galaxy for millennia. They had been raiding its genetic armory.

Thoughts?

>>57296118
I would expect Emperor Oscar to have given explicit orders for the Mechanicus to stay out of the Tau-A.I. war, although I would expect the red-robes to try some kind of cordon to contain the war, and nothing less. Other than not permanently crippling the Tau and not really changing Imperial opinions on AI, do we have much set for how the schism actually went?

>>57297303
That is certainly some disturbingly creative imagery. Can't really say much else about it at the moment.

>>57297410
The Schism or the A.I. Rebellion? Because those were two different things. First the Tau had their A.I. problem in late M38. Then they had a "Silver Age" where they reclaimed and then expanded beyond their own borders. Then they had trouble with the tyranids and the Imperium had to bail their ass out of the alligator pit as well as the Schism in M39. The timing is a little unclear, Drafts page has Schism first then tyranids but I recall some suggestions that had the tyranid invasion happen first and the fact that the Tau managed to win only after a lot of Pyrrhic victories and Imperial support is what led the Ethereals to consider closer ties to the Imperium.

The Schism was long after the A.I. war though. It would be nice to hammer out a timeline of events and cause/effect.

Also are the Kroot Sarcophages any good or not? Not entirely sold on the name.

>>57298516
Idea's good, I dunno enough Latin to have an opinion on the name.

>>57298516
Sarcophages is good although almost certainly not their word for themselves

>>57290380
Do the Kroot have anything to trade?

>>57297284
It looks like a cross be tween a bobbit worm and the xenomorph.

Are there any named Kroot characters? Is their a King of Chickens?

>>57300970
There's Anghor Prok, the leader of the Kroot resistance when the Tau first found them, and then two or three characters in the Ciaphas Cain or Last Chancer novels. The Kroot haven't gotten a lot of love from GW.

>>57301305
Has there ever been any indication on the state of things on their homeworld?

>>57301864
In canon? Pech is said to be still essentially jungle, mountain, and evergreen forest, with the Kroot building homes out of regurgitated wood pulp in the trees. It's suspected they have industrial bases in hollowed out mountains to make their gear, but they keep the rest of Pech mostly pristine (or pseudo-pristine, like how Native Americans selectively arranged forests through controlled burns and other means to make it easier to hunt game and grow berry bushes) because they like it that way.

Much better from when the Tau found it, in which it was riddled with Orks.

>>57279679
Is this on the 1d4Chan page? It needs to be.

Should it be under Notable Planets or Notable People?

>>57303013
Notable people (under "Taldeer Ulthran") I can go through and put all the new fluff in this thread up later. I was more waiting to see how much we got in case the thread went down and/or people had problems with it.

Kronus itself still needs a writeup. Unless it had one in the old threads and I am derping.

>>57300970
>>57301305
Something must be done about this. I have some ideas.

Are Shapers psychic? Do the kroot have psychics?

>>57304780
Glory to the veloci-chickens.

Kroot are all naturally subtle psykers, like orks (mostly because they became sapient by eating orks), and have that same hard-coded knowledge of technology. Kroot pilots are naturally able to gravitate towards inhabited worlds based on gut instinct, and this is implied to be a psychic ability (again, probably picked up from Orks) since in canon the Tau can't figure out how the hell it works.

In canon there were Kroot that became psychic by eating Eldar corpses. They literally turned into Predators, complete with cloaking abilities, a face that looked kind of like the classic Predator mask, and could project psychic illusions. So it seems that when Kroot get psyker powers they use them in context that seem natural to them (they probably could case magic missile, but it just doesn't occur to them).

Kroot are also the only race in canon besides humans that can naturally produce blanks. Mostly by eating human blanks.

Shapers are more revered for knowing how to best exploit the adaptive abilities of the Kroot, but they seem to have some weird abilities in canon. They have a lot of rituals involving ancestor worship and prophetic dreams, but it's not stated if these rituals actually work or if it's just paredoilia and the placebo effect.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Shaper

>>57305166
Well that's a thing.

Given the increased broadness of sapient diet they can sample (human, tau, eldar, other) they can maintain their brain power but still manage to loose the instinctive orkness.

A 3rd internal divide in Kroot society. Green Kroot (the ones with prominent orkness and all it brings) vs "Grey" Kroot (the ones that aren't green).

Still, even after driving the orks off of the homeworld the Kroot are still going to have access to Ork DNA even beyond cannibalism. It also puts Kroot on the same level as Catachan and Cain's Attache (what did we call him) in terms of "predators that make a living off of hunting Ork".

>>57306581
When the Kroot were discussed a little bit back in Thread 21, it was mentioned that the current stopgap solution until they could figure out a more reliable and ethical way to get sapient meat was by eating Ork. Which they are very good at, to the point that as one anon put it:

>The Kroot are veritable ork-eating machines. You want to see what a natural predator of orks looks like? This is it.

However, some Kroot kindred have become really aggressive about it, declaring an effective war of extermination on the Ork species until the last squig is dead. This has led the more stable Shapers to worry if these kindred have been getting an overdose of Ork in their diet.

Do Kroot eat Tau in this timeline? In canon they don't, because that was what Angkhor Prok and the Kroot swore in gratitude to the Tau in gratitude for removing the Orks from Pech. That was why here O'Kais donating his body to the Kroot was such a big deal, because he was donating it willingly. Though seeing as this was in the Tau's codex, it might have been more like that was the Kroot's boon. If the Kroot were in gratitude to you, they'd want to eat you even more (after you die naturally, of course) to preserve your spirit. It was also mentioned in canon that the Tau kind of projected their own culture on the Kroot, seeing carnivory as savage and cannibalistic carnivory doubly so. It's been implied later on that the Ethereals in canon were trying to force the Kroot to break their cannibalistic habits in a bid to wipe them out. Since the Ethereals aren't moustache-twirling cartoon villains in this timeline, that may not be the case.

>>57307924
I can actually see some late Tau golden age or (nearly reformation era) silver age Ethereals offering themselves to the Kroot after death, golden age Ethereals seeing it as a means to transfer their wisdom directly to the unenlightened and to have the very material of their body serve the advancement of the Tau'va and the uplift of one of the species of their empire. Silver age Ethereals would be a bit less patronizing/magnanimous about sharing their flesh to advance the Kroot's uplift, but would still come with similar ideas of subsuming their corpse and essence into the greater good, in addition to Imperial ideas about pattern resonance in their understanding of what the Tau call might call hyperspace and ideas of genetic sharing and refinement taken from their fights against the Tyranids, as well as that era's budding understanding of the circuitous paths taken by both Human and Eldar genetic history.

>>57308475
What are Tau burial customs even like? I'm not sure if Tau even believe in an afterlife, since they seem to have trouble comprehending spiritual concepts due to their type of soul. Their trains of thought tend to be more secular and material. I can't find any mention of Tau burial customs anywhere (even just "dead is dead, dump/cremate the body).

You know, the Kroot and the Exodites might get along pretty well. When an Exodite dies their body is left a soulless shell as their soul is merged with the World Spirit. That body is useless right there, and having the Kroot around means Chaos can't try any shenanigans by resurrecting the corpse as a meat-puppet or using it to trap the soul. The Kroot also are strong proponents of living in harmony with nature and don't believe in going MAXIMUM INDUSTRIALIZATION like humans, tau, and their Craftworld kin do (yes most places are less industrialized than in canon, but by the Exodite's standards it's still too much), so they don't have to worry about them running off and strip-mining the planet.

>>57309579
I assumed that between their secularism and the general greater good philosophy Tau tend to think along the lines of "When this material body dies it will dissolve and be reintegrated with the greater material of the universe" almost to the extent that in they bring the same honor and reverence to purely materialistic processes that more warp-affecting species put into spirituality. Conversely, as seen with Tau caste names and the Tau'va, the basis of their philosophy and symbology is an elevation of the materialistic and pragmatic to the level of spirituality and ritual.

This would also mean that when they eventually are confronted with the warp and its denizens they begin to incorporate it into their understanding without necessarily overturning their existing understanding, but it would take a very long time. This is because while daemons and warp phenomena writ large aren't at odds with their understanding of a material universe and its laws, they also lack the mythological, spiritual, and cultural frame of reference to understand them intuitively as Eldar and Humans do. So to Tau, daemons are the fundamentally hostile meme-beings from hyperspace, not the fundamentally evil emotion-demons from hell.

>>57310868
>fundamentally hostile meme-beings from hyperspace

There's an Internet joke in there somewhere but I'm not smart enough to make it.

>>57309579
I dunno. I get the feeling the Exodites don't really get along well with anyone, they just tolerate some groups for limited periods of time.

>>57314275
We had that early story where the exodites and feudal-worlder humans got along quite well, in the same sense of a sleepy little hamlet getting along with the local fairy folk living under the hills. If I remember correctly it involved an exodite lassie meeting a voidborn boy who got brought down into the gravity well as part of the business/away party when his ship was in the system.

It was really sweet, and part of its charm was how it also showed the greater variety of peoples and themes brought in by the unified Imperium in a really great, slice of life sort of way. It was such a great feeling to picture the meeting of a young elf girl straight out of antique, Tolkienesque idyllic fantasy and a pale, lanky cabin boy/space sailor from a similarly ancient space merchant navy, and the shared society, if not culture or experience, that brings them together.

>>57315140
I'm going to have to find that now. Any clues?

>>57316550
Here you go

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50874097/

It's a sickeningly sweet slice of life.

>>57314275
There was also the case with the APEX twins where the leader of the Exodite colony where Inquisitor Sabine was in hiding offered to hunt down and feed the twins psychologist to the dinosaurs when she found out the psychologist was a Chaos-worshipping pedophile.

I think it's more like the Exodites don't like people as groups, even their Craftworlder cousins they seem to regard as annoying protective siblings, especially since people keep bugging them to industrialize or exploit them. They can like individuals, but even then they're cautious and slow to trust.

And of course Exodites are going to vary dramatically from person to person. You're going to have things ranging from an Exodite who can't stand outsiders, a little girl who is enthralled by tales of the outside, a snob who looks down on those who don't live their lifestyle, a hothead 150 something who can't stand the simple life and leaves for the bright lights of a Craftworld, and everything in-between.

>>57318130
Was the psychologist a Chaos worshiper or was he just a pdophile?

>>57318965
Both, I think. He was trying to convince them that it was A-OK to listen to the whispers telling them to murder people and also convinced them to halt their growth at eight years old, despite the fact they are 173 now.

>>57319480
They seem to have turned out not to bad despite this. They helped to undo some of the madness of the Thracian Gate Atrocity and in doing so saved the life of Inquisitor Voke, they visited the Dark Carnival and made friends with the Laughing God and their only acts of violence seem to be against people who ary to attack them first.

Of course those acts of violence are fucking horendously disproportionate but it's not unprovoked.

So all in all they could be far worse. Best case scenario at this point is that Inquisitor Sabine catches up with them and convinces her fellow Inquisitors that they should be adopted by the Royal Couple.

Most probable case is that they are never caught. Due to the influence of the Great Harlequin they remain a random event wandering through the Imperium, generating stories in their wake.

How does the Imperium deal with Space Hulks in this AU? Is there more or less of attempts to capture, cleanse, disect and salvage them?

>>57320789
Only thing that's been suggested about Space Hulks so far is that the Crones often use them as a source of spare parts. But I'm not sure how well that would work given they can just poof matter out of existence with ghastbone.

Other than that space hulks are wide open.

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>>57265950
As a spectator who's just been observing the project, let me just say I'm glad you guys went trough with this.

Kudos to you all.
You guys should seriously run a game in it

>>57317689
Thank you.

That is so sweet I think I got diabeetus.

I know this is the last thread, but i just found out about this and read through. There's a lot of interesting stuff that can still be done, methinks.

>>57322337
I'm not letting it be the last thread, I have more work to finish

>>57317689
>>57322269
Ah jeez, you had to go and pull this out of the archives. I kinda hated it upon rereading so I was too embarrassed to put it on the 1d4chan page as "canon," but if you enjoyed it there's a Part II of the story a thread or so after.

Ironically, the version of the story that got posted is cut down from a longer, more descriptive version I have that I now think captures the idyllic and slightly fantastical tone I was aiming for a bit better. Even if it failed at being an effective piece of writing, it was a worthwhile experiment in different, more personal writing style.

>>57323174
I'd love to see it

>>57323174
It's a wonderful little read. Sometimes a man wants steak, with sinus destroying Colman's Mustard and glass of whiskey. That would be the epics of the primarchs, the life or death wars and trials of worlds trying to kick Hell in it's collective nutsack and the grand affairs of galaxy spanning state.

But sometimes a man might really crave Parma Violets. Parma Violets are awesome. That story was wonderful, delicious Parma Violets.

If you're telling me that you have more where that came from then I am very interested.

>>57323503
Oh I know, I didn't have any problem with writing a nice, wholesome story about kids being cute. My issue was that in aiming for a particular mood some of the writing/word choice may not have flowed as well as I would have liked. I also felt like the characters were a little off. Since it's mostly dialogue, nailing the voices for the children was key, and since I don't interact with kids all that often I have no idea whether I succeeded or not.

>>57324322
just going by tone I think you did a good job. They came off as kids, but not modern earth first world school children.

>>57323503
This reminds me of something I once heard from the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender. In an interview, they said something along the lines of the best kind of setting is one that you can tell all kinds of stories in. And it kind of shows in their work. Despite the fact that the overall plot arc of The Last Airbender would be considered a heroic fantasy, you have episodes that would be considered westerns, slice-of-life, “fugitive” plots, and outright horror stories, all still fitting thematically within the universe.

That's one of the things I like about this AU. It looks at many of the fun elements of canon through a different lens, and also allows for many types of stories to be told. It would be hard to write a similar heartwarming story in canon without being pressured to put "and then everyone got eaten by tyranids" at the end. Such stories do exist in canon (e.g., Ciaphas Cain, All Guardsmen Party, etc.), but they're harder to pull off well and often heavily criticized. Remember, when Ciaphas Cain first came out there was a sizeable backlash against it because the story wasn’t “grimdark” enough.

That's not saying I begrudge canon 40k. It's more like a flavor preference. Just because I like chocolate ice cream doesn't mean I would begrudge someone who prefers strawberry instead.

>>57322260
>>57322337
>>57322769
It's not necessarily the end, OP just said they wouldn't be able to keep posting new threads. There is still a lot of interesting stuff that could be done with the universe. The main issues with keeping this going are the following
1: New writing. New writing and ideas have really tapered off, this thread being an exception. We need more writing and the Notes page is a fricking mess. It may be to the point that it scares off newcomers.
2: Keeping threads up. There just isn't enough consistent interest to keep threads bumped enough to stay on 4chan.

>>57322260
I hope that this is not the end.

I would be contributing more, and have been contributing more in the past, but my work is very seasonal. At the moment it is winter so I am busy and when I am not busy I am drained and can't into writing good.

Hopefully soon I will start to recover. Then I will be back up to the task.

Have we touched on how Void Born society is after Abaddon The Last?

>>57327154
Not really. Early threads had the modern Voidborn a bit more integrated with the interstellar aristocracy of the Imperium (as opposed to planetary or landed aristocracy), and thus were pretty tight with the Navigator Houses and Rogue Trader Dynasties, as well as having a major presence in the Imperial Navy. We had them fragment again into regional houses and clannish power blocs, and that combined with their part in the navy and affiliation with merchant princes gives voidborn society the appearance of something between a galaxy wide trade conglomerate/East India Company style royally chartered monopoly, a collection of affiliated noble houses and their respective leiges and vassals, and a privateer paramilitary naval force with a compartmentalized command structure.

>>57327154
There was the High Lord who was one of the few remaining 100% Void Born.

There was also the bit about how the Void Born have been intermarrying with baseliners so much that most of the old Navy families carry some Void Born ancestry and traits. You have a whole spectrum of people with full Void Born ancestry to little ancestry. It's also how the descendants of the Void Wolves are able to recruit since geneseed doesn't work well on Voidborn (at least outside of Sol, whose Voidborn had a slightly higher acceptance rate).

Also, wasn't there some bit about Horus offering Void Born citizenship to grounders during the Crusade in order to get the numbers of marines necessary for the Void Wolves (mostly boarding, counter boarding, and drop shock troops).

>>57323174
>>57324322
I thought it did a pretty good job in showing two individuals with some elements of shared culture, yet extremely different lives. Never noticed anything off about the dialogue.

This is a question that's been asked before, but should someone wish to make changes to the wiki (grammar edits, organization, etc), do we have a set of general advice/suggestions for them to heed when a thread isn't around?

Also hoping to run some stuff by you guys later, busy at the moment.

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>>57330453
I'm not sure. I'd say just stick to the general codex format we have (the discussion in the threads, while hilarious and fun to read, is probably a bit too informal for someone reading the 1d4chan pages). Of course that's just me.

The bigger thing would be making sure new fluff doesn't mess up old fluff too much unless the general consensus is the new stuff is better. But that's kind of hard to do without a thread around.

Also got some stuff in the works.

>>57331240
In general the notes page is a good place to look for concepts that need fleshing out, but it should not be the final destination of any new additions.

So what's going on with the moons of Shaa-Dome? In canon the Eldar homeworld has three moons, one named for Lileath, one for Kurnous, and one for Eldanesh.

I could see some crazy stuff going down with the Crones there since they're close to Shaa-Dome and living space in Shaa-Dome is at a premium. Maybe places where non-Slaaneshi tend to dominate?

>>57333114
Maybe each moon id the domain of one of the other chaos gods?

>>57333114
Shell moons.

>>57265950
I'd Love to write, but I just don't have the time RIP

>>57331240
It's been stated that the Chaos Eldar have the Avatar that was on Altansar Craftworld when they captured it. They defield it and made it host to the will of Khorne. Do the Dark Eldar have an Avatar in their city of sins? They have a Phoenix Lord and what amounts to an Aspect Temple.

I can imagine it having gone to war alongside The Fallen Phoenix Lord, if they do have one, and his warriors but after the wedding what would it's attitude be?

Also what is the origional Striking Scorpion's view on the Unholy Marriage? Is he regretting his poor life choices of totally unconcerend?

>>57335186
I'd say the Dark Eldar's avatar probably doesn't respond because the DEldar generally worship the Dark Muses, but O don't know about the Incibi.

I'm pretty sure Arhra regretted his life choices as soon as he got back from the raid. Though it sounds like he was too busy gibbering to care about the alliance and panicking that the eldar had just kicked the biggest hornet's nest in the galaxy. Though we haven't entirely fleshed out why Arhra went nuts and how he dealt with it between the raid and when he burned down the Shrine of Asur.

>>57336096
Reasons for Arhra going nuts could be as followes

>Not really into this whole "reclaiming lost glory" thing. Just want to survive and have the eldar people survive.
>Rescue Asurmen so he can take a new host with the help of the others.
>Long term plan? Abandon everything, get on a big ship and sail for the horizon. Survive in the dark where none will look, kill only to deter people from finding you.
>Imperium rising. Good. Extra meat-shield around whats left of the eldar (Craftworlds and exodites)
>High ups start getting chummy with the humans. Shit niggaz, waht are you doing? Stay quiet!
>Oh by the dead gods! Seriously!?! Raiding the Mansion of Nurgle? All the others are in on it. Can't back out.
>OH FUCK SHIT FUCK SHIT FUCK FUCKING OH GOD WAT FUCK SHIT FUCK OH GODS NO WHAT HAS BEEN SEEN CAN NOT BE UNSEEN
>I think we just pissed off every god there is
>Maybe this will all blow over
>No reprisal yet
>None yet either
>maybe it's all blown over. Nurgle is the god of not doing anything, right? And all the others hated him so they won't help him, right?
>What is Beast? Orks can into Chaos? Chaos Eldar are a thing?!?
>FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu------------------------
>Why did nobody listen? Now they are here to get us?
>Quickely! Everyone out of the universe!
>Where is a place the gods can't see? The Dark City. I'll be safe there. Set up temple, convert the heathens, start again in a place so buried even the gods can't find it.
>Maybe if I trash the Shrine of Asur on the way out they will know I have renounced my sins against them and honetly repent my folly.

And that's how I imagine the reasoing for the founding of the Incibi and the treachery of Arhra went.

>>57334279
Could work.

At this point, even with the low population desnsity as previously mentioned, They wouldn't/shouldn't have many other outposts of any real size. If they had more than one arangment like Shaa-Dome shellworld + 3 shellmoons the population right there would be enough that they wouldn't need the orks.

It also allows some degree of power play in that the rulers of the moons would be only 1 Chaos Undivided tier down from Lady Malys all by themselves. Theoretically they could overpower her if they worked together. They will not as they fucking hate each other.

Also they know damn well that her Ladyship will not stay dead and she will probably not find it amusing. Or she might. Either way it could result in much unpleasantness.

We will need 3 names for the 3 shellmoon lords. Are there any good characters we can lift from vanilla?

>>57337985
One should be the equivelent of a Forge World with an eldar 100% Oblitorator Virused into the workings of it. He sits at the centre of that world and dictates all of it's comings and goings.

>>57337985
Well we’ve already got Arrotyr ruling the outer surface of Shaa-Dome, making massive firestorms, mooring his fleets in the atmosphere, and marshaling his troops trying to force an entry into the deeper layers and inner spaces for a second invasion of Slaaneshi territory. While he holds large portions of the shellworld’s surface it isn’t the location of his base of operations, they’re just there to protect the swaths if the capital Arrotyr says are his, and to harass the other powers in the Eye so as to ensure they don’t leave him out of their considerations. He was also said to have an official manse on the mid layer, what amounts to the Crone palatine, that he rarely uses. His main goal on Shaa-Dome is seizing the shipyards and ghast-choirs that are held by the Taskmaster, and making sure everyone knows their place beneath THE BLOOD KING OF THE GALAXY.

>>57338682
More of what I remember about the mid layer. Because the heart of Shaa-Dome has become the Brass Palace, essentially the lewd equivalent or a singularity, after the fall the official and ostentatious business of the Crones was reorganized at the middle layer of the shellworld. While it’s officialy neutral territory, really it’s Malys’s playground and seat of power, but all Crones of real note have estates there, and it is there that many black crusades could be sait to have begun. The midlayer itself is a massive space, made even bigger by sustained spacial distortions to increase its area with warp fuckery, and it is one of the most heavily built up areas in Shaa-Dome. It’s population is a mix of all the gods’ worshipers, but deeper into the shellworld is firmly slaaneshi territory, as are the shipyards and manufacturing facilities that are housed on the layers directly above it. In the layers above that the slaaneshi population thins and the worshipers of other gods are more common, populating the upper levels, and finally on the surface there are the Scions of the Broken Helm, burning shit and often marching down into the endless, hellish-even-for-the-Eye slums between them and the Slaaneshi manufacturing assets. These upper levels have a mix of chaos undivided/undecided Crones and Nurglites united under Nimina’s evangelical mania, as well as not insignificant numbers of Slaaneshis. As has been said elsewhere, the Indigo Crow and his acolytes dwell in the tatters of the webway around the eye (sometimes even collecting tolls for use of their secret passages) and mostly come to Shaa-Dome as advisors and court wizards, but it also maintains some power bases throughout the upper levels and on the midlayer.

>>57337985
The only thing known about them is one is the white moon of Lileath (who is associated with moons in general in addition to dreams, prophecies, and the future), the green moon of Kurnous (no clue why it's green, could be plantlife or minerals), and the blood-red moon of Eldanesh (which was only named that after Eldanesh died, it's possible it was named after Khaine or Asuryan or someone else before).

If the three are dedicated to the other three Chaos Gods I could see then being divided up as follows.
Tzeentch: Dibs on the white one
Khorne: DIBS ON THE BLOOD-RED ONE
Nurgle: Dibs on the green one dedicated to my lovely Isha's dead...heeeey.

Despite the obvious maiden, mother, crone naming scheme, I assume Isha doesn't get a moon because she's the goddess of fertility and growth and Morai-Heg doesn't get one because she's partly the goddess of the ground itself.

>>57339745
>>57338682
Well seeing as Arrotyr is already occupying the surface of Shaa-Dome and keeps some of his fleet nearby, and is apparently after the Slaaneshi manufacturing base, the red moon would be a good fortress/shipyard/weapons forge for his faction wars in the capital.

Also, since tzeentch lacks major holdings in the actual capital I can see lileath (or whatever it’s renamed as) being one of the main strongholds of tzeentchian Crones outside the edges of the Eye. I’m picturing it covered with black geoglyphs and structures arranged like runes, somewhat like the moon in Requiem Vampire Knight but more developed than a lone inverted cross.

>>57340945
So, like evil Nazca lines (maybe with ley line overtones for that fair folk feel?)

>>57338264
The "Nerd" Chaos Eldar all moved to Altansar. All the ones who were mad on the experiments and treated the cause of Chaos like a science rather than an art. They are looked down on by the mainstream Croneworlders for being fucking pathetic and debasing the teachings with their irreverence. But they are tolerated because they make the best toys.

If there was going to be a Chao Eldar mad enough to infect themselves with the Oblitorator Virus it would be them. After much experimentation.

Possibly it is one mad and relatively young eldar in the heart of the infinity circuit. He oversees the projects.

>>57342202
Something like that, as well as massive interconnected temple complexes that also form runes at astronomical viewing distances.
Any ideas as to what Kronus should be like under Nurgle’s influence and presumably Nimina’s rule? I can imagine it’s fertility has been corrupted into filth and decay, but it’s inhabitants still see it as edenic and fertile. To fit Nimina’s associations with evangelism and squalor I could see the moon being used as a nominal sanctuary for the poor and downtrodden masses of Shaa-Dome, but actually ends up being an even worse collections of slums and wastes that fester in jolly apathy as comfortable despair, presided over by Nimina and splattered with Nurgle’s gifts.

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>>57344065
Like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtOcbZG5xA4

The air has a mild anasthetic quality to it so the longer you are there the less things hurt. It isn't healing you as such but you could be mistaken for thinking it is. Every surface is variations on sticky, slimy or damp and if you have any open cut on you it will soon be infected. Even if you don't it get's in via any orifice but takes a little longer.

Assuming you die you get absorbed into the living walls or floor. Or if you fall asleep for more than a few days due to fever. If you get absorbed whilst still alive you will die at some point. Sort of. Loose cohesion and coherent function would probably be a more accurate way of describing it as your bits and pieces are broken down and moved around and digested. Brain is usually the first thing to start to be broken down, the moon doesn't need additional thinking time. Sometimes one is preserved and put to use. There is some evidence that consciousness is regrettably preserved.

Those that don't die, or at least live a longer time, are gradually subsumed by fungal and parasitic infections. They replace you one bit at a time like a rather sad ship of Theseus until nothing remains. By that point you probably don't look like you anymore but in some cases the semi-conductive algae (or something else) mirrors the old brain activity so completely that you could probably pass for you over the phone. Assuming you can still use a phone.

The resident native population are only theorized to have once been eldar. There were eldar living there before The Fall. These things are there now. They don't appear to be deamonic in origin but good luck trying to find a definitive answer. Some of them can be spoken to but they are all quite mad.

It is claimed that the original stain of Nurgles Rot came from here.

>>57344545
That could work, but Nimina's purposes wouldn't actually be served by such a process seeing as her main goals are paradoxically proactive for a Nurglite, as she is Nurgle's main proponent of the recapture of Isha, and she launches constant crusades to this end into which she throws converts. She is wrapped up in the very core of Nurgle's regressive and accumulative nature, and would value even the least soldier that would serve her, but simply neglect to keep them in good order.

>>57345245
Maybe she's cultivating it as a garden for Isha to entice her to return. It is definitely full of life.

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>>57345245
>>57345551
Or that's where she throws people that won't accept the glory of Nurgle/Isha and aren't powerful enough to fight her off. Let them get digested and stew for a few millenia until they finally accept Nurgle's gift.

>>57344065
The moons probably need specific names. Maiden Worlds in Eldar are called Lileathan, so -an or -than might mean world in Eldar.

Unfortunately there is no indication of what "moon" in Eldar is, beyond one highly dubious source. Mars is referred to in canon as the Vaul-Moon, but the Eldar word is not given.

The Eldar themselves probably wouldn't use the old names. The Crones would have renamed each of the moons in favor of their new gods and the other groups prefer not to speak of such cursed places or refer to them in passing as "the cursed moons".

So just as a question, we're all in favor for trying to keep these threads going as long as we can keep interest and keep them from falling off the board?

>>57346860
I am in favor in keeping these threads as long as we still have people interested in Nobledark 40K, they're pretty useful for discussion and probably help remind others that we exist.

Still working on getting an outline or something ready for posting, but busy with other stuff at the moment.

>>57346860
Aye. And if its not working I'm all for moving to discord, apparently the other AUs we've outlasted have already made the jump.

>>57349892
I know there's a single discord for all of the AU projects, but I have long since lost the invite.

>>57338682
>THE BLOOD KING OF THE GALAXY
that title sounds really stupid

>>57351299
That's the point. It's both a parody of many of the official titles Khorne has been given in canon as well as to point out that when you get down to it, Khorne's not really that imaginative. There have been times where he's been cunning, but it's not his first response.

Therefore, if you groan every time you read BLOOD KING OF THE GALAXY, then the job has been done.

>>57351362
fair enough, the Blue Cockatoo's name is pretty fitting that way too

>>57351362
>>57351419
Do Nurgle and Slaanesh have similar titles?

>>57352682
None that have been mentioned yet, though it would be fitting for them to adopted them to try and one up THE BLOOD KING OF THE GALAXY.

>>57352682
>>57352763
I'm not sure it's in their nature. They have titles, just not ones that are groan-indicing as BLOOD KING OF THE GALAXY.

>>57352682
I read that as titties.

>>57345792
That's suitably grim. I vote for giger prison moon

>>57353946
Man, Nurgle seems to get the most terrifying stuff in this timeline. I guess he did go a little bipolar when Isha was rescued.

>>57353567
Then the answer would be no. Khorne would be athletic, muscular and flat.

Nurgle would be lopsided, saggy and suffering from some sort of infection that makes them discharge pus.

Slaanesh would have a good handful, perky and firm and perfect for snorting cocaine off of.

>>57353549
In the notes there's this big thing 'On the Slaaneshi condition' or something, about how Slaanesh is trying to set itself up as more luciferian and to get lots of attention from the Imperium so that its stature in the warp increases. This was an extension of Slaanesh's place as the weakest god with the most potential for growth. So stuff along the lines of Prince/ss of Pain and Pleasure and Prince/ss of Darkness would probably be Slaany's go-to pompous titles.

Nurgle still goes with Grandfather or Papa Nurgle, as well as his old titles from before the War in Heaven, Preserver, and The Gardener of Souls, essentially still clinging to his ancient purpose and reason for being. Probably also announces himself as Isha's rightful husband.

Tzeentch has tons of names, and would use them all. The Changer of Ways is likely a favorite, as is any variation that declares him the cleverest or the best sorcerer among the gods, or reaffirms his nature as eldest and first (not counting Malal, who doesn't count any more). One thing about Tzeentch's titles is that they should be especially grating to Be'lakor, because they remind him that he is a mere prototype surpassed by subsequent iteration.

Malal is Vizier to Khorne, the one who stands beside the skull throne, and the Khornate Sorcerer. He is also master, or former master of the Tyrant Star, and the impossible planet that orbits it, though that may have been claimed by Tzeentch.

>>57355067
Technically, it would probably be more accurate to say that none of the Chaos Gods or C’tan have any real genders. Three of them were created by the Old Ones, who as we know did not give a flying fuck about their creation’s personality or how they evolved as long as they fulfilled their purpose. Despite being referred to as male, most are probably better referred to as “it”, and are really only referred to as male out of convenience, just like Orks. What, you thought eldritch constructs of pure emotion would make sense?

Nurgle is as much attracted to Isha for her despair at the loss of her people, status as a nature deity (which he *technically* is), and status as one of the last of her kind (got to preserve all the things) than any physical attractiveness.

Khorne should be obvious. Despite no obvious gender, his sexual orientation is violence.

Tzeentch is Schrodinger’s gender. His gender shifts from moment to moment, and the very act of observing that information causes it to be the exact opposite of what you would expect via Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.

Of the Big Four, Slaanesh is the only one with any real, permanent gender, having been created by a distinctly non-Old One race in the image of their other gods (which do have genders). Of course, as we know from canon, as the god of pleasure Slaanesh is every gender. All of them. At the same time. Even the obscure ones that only exist on Earth among bacteria, as well as genders like “Ork”.

The C’tan don’t have any gender, because they don’t reproduce. Prior to the Necrontyr giving them material bodies, they were beings of pure energy only concerned with was eating. If the Void Dragon took a look at the Internet he would probably say “I have noticed that approximately 90% of this database is composed of material related to the act of reproduction. Is this proportion comparable to what exists in your minds? No wonder you fleshy ones are so inefficient”.

>>57355036
It's like with Slaanesh. GW is constrained with the PG13 rating. We aren't.

What should the other 2 be like?

>>57357073
Not sure how to make Khornates scary beyond "juggernauts with no sense of reason who will kill anyone" (circulatory fluids for the circulatory fluid god, craniums for the cranium chair, mandibles for the mandible ottoman)

Nurgle so far seems to thrive on body horror. Tzeentch is supposed to be the Lord of Mutation, so he could get in on that as well as general Lovecraftiness.

Slaanesh is scary because he/she/it has no lines. Lines in the sand to a Slaaneshi are just directions on where to go next.

The other scary thing about Slaanesh is more subtle. I think this was in an old thread, but in keeping with the Slaanesh's Luciferian theme, Slaanesh likes to appear to people as more reasonable than the other Chaos Gods. Tzeentch screams about "plans", Khorne screams about "blood", and Nurgle screams about "despair". Slaanesh tells you this in a calm, impassionate voice, trying to convince you that it is the only reasonable option. And then you realize that, no, this one is just as crazy as all the others, and if anything is the worst of the lot because it can hide it's madness beneath a veneer of sanity.

As god of excess, Slaanesh wants to eventually kill or subjugate the other three and take their portfolios for itself. There's a reason the other three Chaos Gods hate it more than almost any other.

>>57357032
I thought that the C'tan could reproduce in their energy form due to their being more than one of them.

>>57357464 (same)
Forgot this, but something to consider. When Slaanesh was born, Lileath was the first of the Eldar gods to die. Which raises some interesting ideas as to how Slaanesh got the drop on Asuryan and the like in the first place.

"Lileath" calls a godsmoot ostensibly to discuss things. The other gods show up, only to eventually realize that "Lileath" isn't who she seems to be. It's something else wearing Lileath's face as a perverse means to get close enough to the other gods (perhaps especially Asuryan, who I think it was suggested was Lileath's husband in this timeline) to stab them in the back.

>>57357478
I think they can fragment and fractalize, but ultimately the fragments are all part of the same being.

Lets do some math. Take a shard of the Nightbringer. Lets say he has an arbitrary strength value of 100. Nightbringer gets stomped and you get the main body with a strength of 99.9 and a shard of 0.1. Shard gets put in a vampire and eats and eats and eats until it's equal to the old Nightbringer in strength. But in total, when the shard merges back into the main body, you end up with a Nightbringer with a strength of 199.9. Metabolism (if you can even use that word) to maintain themselves however means that C'tan do not grow in power non-stop.

The C'tan weren't meant to die nor blot out the universe with their numbers. Killing Llandu'gor required Szarekh to essentially break reality. Before the Necrons came along the C'tan were essentially space cows (with all energy in the universe being the grass).

Or at least that's how I saw it.

It's kind of like with daemons. The pure daemons are basically broken off fragments of the big deities given sentence. Their personalities differ but that is because they reflect different aspects of the same being. They are separate but not.

This is why daemon princes/ses and Be'lakor's catfish pond are so important. Daemons are limited in their personalities because they are pure reflections of their god. But that also means they are predictable. Daemon princes carry that spark of a mortal mind with them, giving them much more lateral thinking.

At least, that's the impression I get.

>>57357536
I really like that idea, its giving me all sorts of other ideas for a story of the fall that reads something like Metamorphoses, or other classical stories with shape shifting gods that want to subjugate everything to their libidos with deception and force. On the other hand, it would probably devolve into deific smut and snuff that could get really nasty.

>>57357716
Yeah, that sounds mostly right. Another aspect is that our version of C'tan seem in some ways to be the physical, materialistic equivalent of Warp gods, starting out as fairly simple but powerful 'physics gods' and then gaining more will and agency as they were made less abstract and more sentient by their bodies.

So I've been looking at pictures of classical emperors and royalty as well as chinese imperial imagery for the tattoo my little brother wants me to design for him, and I'm finding Oscar's motifs really reminiscent of the Yellow Emperor, in themes, mythic origin, and even color scheme. I'm curious if this is deliberate, or if it just worked out that way because we're leaning on more or less the same symbols and archetypes.

File: Holt disaproves.jpg (14 KB, 378x353)

14 KB JPG

>>57359646
I don't think it was intentional.

Also is there a Commissar Holt in this AU? How would the Volistad campaign have gone?

>>57359646
Okay, strap in. This is going to take a while, drag in a few places, and I don't have pictures.

Khaine. Khaine. Kaela Mensha Khaine. Khaine the Bloody Handed.

In order to fully comprehend the functioning of the Imperium, it is necessary to understand Khaine. Khaine is noteworthy one of the few extremely powerful entities still fully aligned with the Imperium, not to mention worshipped as a god of war by a significant minority of its population. However, in order to fully understand Khaine it is necessary to have some understanding of the War in Heaven…

The War in Heaven is by far the most popular part of the eldar collective consciousness. However, the eldar’s penchant for favoring dramatic license and poetic justice over accuracy and sixty-five million years of oral tradition has made the history of the original events all but lost to time. It is often said, even amongst the Eldar, that at any given time in the Imperium there are at least three different versions of the War in Heaven being performed and all of them are wrong. In some versions of the story Khaine was a valiant warrior, whereas in others Khaine sided with the C’tan to make war upon the eldar gods. Distinctions between the war between the Old Ones and the Necrontyr and the later quarrel between the eldar gods are similarly murky. Perhaps the only people who know the true events of the war between the eldar gods are Cegorach, Isha, and the Harlequins of the Black Library, preserving the memory in the event that truth proves more important than fiction.

>>57361780 (cont.)
When the eldar and their gods returned from their exodus into the Webway at the end of the War in Heaven, they found the galaxy to be an empty place. The Old Ones, the Yngir, and all of the other races had seemed to disappear. The eldar did manage to make contact with the K’nib, who had survived the war mostly intact, but shortly after the K’nib completely vanished and the eldar never heard from them again. The eldar had virtually free reign over the entire galaxy. And as expected it almost immediately devolved into in-fighting.

Khaine, lesser twin to Asuryan, did not handle the end of the War in Heaven well. Originally a god of murder elevated to include war in his portfolio, his mind struggled to reconcile the concepts of honor and discipline in battle with the fact that war, at its core, boiled down to systematic murder. In addition, despite having being victorious, his body has been injured in his legendary battle with the Kaelis Ra, the Nightbringer, bringing a great sickness upon him. Never one to exhibit great self-control even before the War in Heaven, Khaine was nearly driven to madness by the time Lileath came upon him.

Shortly after the eldar emerged from the Webway and began building their empire, Lileath, Lileath the maiden, Lileath the dreamer, Litheath the schemer, had a vision. She saw that one day, in the future, the actions of the mortal eldar would strike Khaine and destroy him. It is not entirely clear why Lileath acted the way she did on this knowledge. She might have succumbed to the foolishness of youth or, more likely, she had some sort of plan in mind. Nevertheless, she did what most would consider the absolute worst thing one could have done with this knowledge. She told Khaine.

>>57361790 (cont.)
Khaine’s wrath, as expected, was fiery and immediate. The eldar never stood a chance. Khaine had been a war hero to the eldar, a symbol of eldar strength in the face of unimaginable adversaries. Now he was cutting them down like they were crops for the harvest. Isha wept at the sight of the slaughter, and she and the rest of the eldar pantheon immediately petitioned Asuryan to stop Khaine, as he was one of the only beings with the power to reign in his bloodthirsty sibling. Asuryan responded by decreeing a barrier of separation between the eldar and the gods. The eldar gods were no longer to walk among mortals, and mortals were no longer allowed in the realm of the gods. The mortal eldar were no longer being killed, Khaine no longer had anything to fear, and by Asuryan’s reckoning everyone should have been happy.

Khaine was pleased by the turn of events, but Isha was not. Cut off from her mortal children, she wept at her plight, and her husband Kurnous could do naught but console her. Vaul, the kind-hearted smith god, could not stand this, and forged Isha’s tears into the first spirit stones so that gods and mortals could still communicate with one another from across the veil. Khaine was infuriated when he discovered Isha and Kurnous violating Asuryan’s decree, and demanded that Asuryan punish them, going so far as to ask his brother that he be made an arbiter of Asuryan’s wrath. Asuryan reluctantly agreed, allowing Khaine to do with them as he wished, and he tortured Isha and Kurnous in a pit of hot fire. Vaul could not stand this, and bargained with Khaine that he would give Khaine one hundred blades of the finest make as payment for Isha and Kurnous’ release and reparation for their offense.

>>57361803
Vaul worked for almost a year to get the gift ready, finishing ninety-nine of the one hundred swords. However, he was unable to finish his masterpiece in time, and slipped the finest blade of mortal make into the gift, hoping that it would act as a good enough placeholder and the splendor of his masterpiece would be enough to not only make up for it, but to win over Khaine himself. Unfortunately, Khaine immediately noticed the mortal blade and decried that he had been tricked, and that because of this he would not release Isha and Kurnous. What’s more, he claimed he would visit Vaul personally for his treachery. Vaul was similarly incensed at Khaine’s sadism and oathbreaking, using his anger to fuel the final forging of his masterpiece, Anaris. When Khaine arrived at Vaul’s forge, Vaul stood before the war god, wielding his masterwork blade, and said he would repay Khaine’s missing blade with interest, point-first. Vaul was an artificer without measure but he was not the duelist that Khaine was, and despite Vaul’s ferocity Khaine crippled the smith god and chained him to his anvil.

These actions caused a flurry of activity and division among the gods. Some decried Khaine, saying that he had gone too far in the pursuit of justice and his actions had become cruel and petty. Others argued against their kin, saying that Isha, Kurnous, and Vaul had sinned and it was Khaine’s right to extract satisfaction from them. The disagreements soon became too much to bear, and the gods came to blows. The mortal eldar were soon divided among similar lines as the gods went to war. Only Asuryan and Lileath stayed neutral in the conflict, and both soon realized that something had to be done.

>>57361822 (cont.)
The War in Heaven produced many mortal eldar heroes, among all others the twin brothers Eldanesh and Ulthanesh. The two were legendary for uniting the Eldar people to fight off the monstrous cannibalistic Mon-Keigh even before the Old Ones arrived. Eldanesh had fought alongside Khaine numerous times including Khaine’s legendary battle with the Nightbringer, to the point where the war god regarded him a friend and a blood brother. Uthanash stood with Vaul when he faced the Void Dragon and was one of the few mortal survivors of that fateful conflict. Each was granted a boon for their service in the War in Heaven. Eldanesh, for his fame and legend, was elevated to demigodhood, not truly immortal but able to walk side by side with the gods. Ulthanesh on the other hand was named the supreme leader of the mortal eldar peoples. Despite this great honor, Ulthanesh saw this boon as playing second fiddle to his brother and resented him for it, souring their relationship.

Asuryan decreed he would call upon Eldanesh, who as a demigod was the only mortal still allowed to set food in the realm of the gods, to act as a third party to judge Khaine’s actions. Khaine agreed to this, believing that the validation of one mortal was all that he needed to show his actions had been justified and that as his blood brother Eldanesh would defend him. But Eldanesh took one look at the situation, and while he reaffirmed that Khaine was his friend and he loved him, told him that the other gods were right. He told Khaine that he needed to act less like a child, and more like an adult. Enraged, Khaine struck Eldanesh across the face for his blasphemy. But Khaine was a god, whereas Eldanesh was but a mere demi-god. The blow broke his neck, and Eldanesh died on the spot.

>>57361836
When Khaine struck Eldanesh, the rage lifted from his mind and he saw in horror what he had done. Asuryan swooped in, punishing Khaine for betraying a sworn blood brother and striking them down in cold blood. On Shaa-Dome, Uthanesh felt the loss of his brother and vowed retribution against Khaine, and the eldar people were once more united. And so Khaine became Kaela Mensha Khaine, the bloody handed, forever cursed to drip blood from his hands in punishment. In truth, the meeting between Khaine and Eldanesh was little more than a plot by Asuryan and Lileath. They had hoped the mortal comrade of Khaine could talk the war god down, but were more than willing to entertain the possibility of Khaine striking down Eldanesh if that failed. Either way the rage of the war god would be quelled and the increasingly ridiculous war between gods would be over.

The history of Khaine post-War in Heaven is much better known. In the millennia since the War in Heaven Khaine worship had dramatically decreased (especially once the eldar had few serious threats left in the galaxy), to the point that by the time the Fall occurred Khaine worship had actually been banned (and subsequently reversed) on several separate occasions. Even when Khaine worship was allowed, Khaine was often seen as a deity that was to be appeased rather than beseeched, and was only openly worshipped by some segments of the Old Empire’s military.

>>57361868
Khaine himself had slightly mellowed by the passing of Eldanesh. He was still the short-tempered god of murder and war, but following the death of Eldanesh Khaine seems to have purged the madness from his system and become more disciplined. When Slaanesh was born, Khaine took up the unlikely position of protecting Isha from Slaanesh after Lileath, Asuryan, Morai-Heg, Qah, and all the other gods had fallen. Khaine fought valiantly against Slaanesh, despite Slaanesh being powered by the souls of nearly the entire Eldar pantheon and 90% of the Eldar race. However, Slaanesh was prevented from devouring Khaine by the intervention of Khorne, who claimed that as the Blood King of the Galaxy and undisputed lord of all forms of war Khaine was rightfully his vassal, and the neonate god/dess needed to know their place. Unfortunately in the ensuing battle Khaine was shattered into pieces, which eventually found their way to the various Craftworlds in the form of iron and wraithbone idols emerging from the Craftworld’s Infinity Circuit.

>>57361889
In terms of battle, the Avatar of Khaine is one of the strongest singular entities the Imperium can field. Only the Emperor, Empress, or Cegorach can match Khaine in raw power, and even a Custodian, Grey Knight, Handmaiden, or Harlequin Troupe Master would be likely to fall before the Avatar’s onslaught. The Avatar is a juggernaut, a living mass of molten rock and metal, trampling anything that stands in its path. In M38, the Avatar of Iyanden was awakened to face down Hive Fleet Kraken in Iyanden’s darkest hour and cut an ichor-slicked path towards one of the Hive Fleet’s Hive Tyrants before being dogpiled by a dozen carnifexes. The Avatar eventually went down, but took six of the carnifexes with it (crushing one’s skull beneath its heel and vomiting molten slag on another) and managed to take the Hive Tyrant’s head from its shoulders. The Avatar wields the Wailing Doom, the favored weapon of Khaine dating back to the days of the War in Heaven, which gets its name from the ethereal howling the weapon makes as it is swung through the air. The Wailing Doom is capable of transforming into virtually any simple weapon, a sword, a spear, a mace, a bow, whatever it feels is best suited to harming its foe.

Yet awakening the Avatar of Khaine is not without cost. Creating an Avatar of Khaine requires two components: the iron and wraithbone statue at the heart of every eldar Craftworld that hold Khaine’s essence, and a suitable mortal host. Every year, one among each Craftworld’s most skilled Aspect Warriors is elected to a position called The Young King, named in honor of Eldanesh’ sacrifice. This is a position of great respect, but potentially one of great danger. For if the future is threatened by great danger, and there is no other choice, the Young King enters the Avatar’s chambers to awaken it and become one with Khaine.

>>57361908
Awakening an Avatar of Khaine is essentially the same kind of possession that created Macha-Isha, and although each avatar is only a fragment of Khaine’s power, Khaine is not gentle like Isha. Short channelings of the Avatar are survivable with immediate medical attention. Longer bouts run the risk of severe brain damage. Extended channelers are lucky to survive as Soulstones, or are outright consumed by the Avatar. However, once an Avatar is awakened, it remains active so long as there are enemies to slay and the host’s willpower holds. The longest an Avatar has been active was the Avatar of Biel-Tan in 892.M41, which {DATA EXPUNGED BY ORDER OF THE INQUISITION}. If the physical avatar is destroyed, its totem eventually reforms in its respective Craftworld, unless the Craftworld itself is lost.

>>57361932
Today, worship of Khaine is unsurprisingly much more popular among the eldar. The eldar have been laid low and the galaxy has been in a state of war for more than ten millennia. Even if this were not the case, Khaine is one of the last remaining connections the eldar have to their pre-Fall culture. Khaine is even worshipped as a war god by humans and other species in some highly eldar-influenced parts of the Imperium. Indeed, Khaine actually likes humanity and approves of the relationship between humanity and the eldar, if for all the wrong reasons. Khaine’s animosity towards his own people comes from two factors: the fact that Lileath prophesized that the Eldar would be responsible for his own downfall, and the fact that the Craftworld and Exodite eldar deny their darker natures and try to downplay any acts of violence through self-justification (the Dark Eldar don’t worship him at all, seeing him as weak due to being shattered by Khorne and Slaanesh). No such prophecy exists regarding humanity or the other races and Khaine actually likes how humans are more in touch with their baser instincts and are less likely to dress up their killings with false tears or excuses. For most humans, who don’t see themselves as a species of murderers and try to hold themselves to higher ideals, this is rather disturbing. Khaine has even showed respect for several individual non-Eldar, such as Marneus Calgar, who he fought alongside several times and was enraged when he was brought low by the Swarmlord.

>>57361946
The future of Khaine is uncertain. Some say that Khaine shall be reforged and made whole again (either by the Phoenix Lords or by the forges of Vaul himself, which makes no sense), no longer molten metal and half-baked rock but pure fire and red-hot iron, in preparation for the Rhana Dandra. Others say he will fight side by side with another god of war to strike down Khorne, though who that could be nobody knows. Some even say he will claim the Skull Throne at the end of Rhana Dandra. While many wonder how that could be a good thing others say at least Khaine is a known quantity, and better he claim that mantle of power than anybody else.

Grand Empress Isha, as might be expected, isn’t a big fan of Khaine. She pities him for his situation, for he is still her kin, but she has not and will not forget what he did. Cegorach’s opinion of Khaine is as opaque as always. It is clear he disapproved of Khaine’s actions after the War in Heaven, he did side with Vaul after all, but at the same time Khaine is one of the few beings left in the galaxy he can call family. Even if he disapproves of his methods, it may be necessary for the Laughing God to stay on Khaine’s good side for his plans to come to fruition. The Emperor has only ever met Khaine on a scant few occasions, never long enough to have any meaningful discussion, and never without supervision from Isha. Isha knows what happened the last time Khaine was allowed access to a demigod unattended.

>>57361970
Hot damn that was a ride and a half.

>>57357836
It's Slaanesh. It was going to go that way no matter what anyone did.

>>57359646
Despite the fact the Imperium has taken more of a page out of Imperial China in this timeline, it's really just a coincidence.

>>57357887
Another thing is that the personalities of the C'tan seem to have been influenced by their experiences upon getting bodies. Before all they had to worry about was eating and survival. Then they found out there was a universe beyond that.

Aza'gorod was the first C'tan to be given a Necrodermis body. When he was "born" he had no equal except for the Old Ones, and therefore no one to push back and say no and give him limits when he went too far. Is it any wonder he turned into a narcissistic sociopath who thinks it's all about him?

Mag'ladroth realized "holy shit, there's so much more to existence than I thought" and became enthralled by it.

Mephet'ran was initially subconsciously trusted by the Necrontyr, due to being named after the Hermes/Thoth equivalent of their half-forgotten pantheon. He soon realized he could say just about anything and he could get away with it because they would believe him, and it spiraled out from there.

Tsara'noga who knows, all that is known of his pre-mad personality is Szarekh tricked him into killing his fellow C'tan and he was one of the three strongest.

Nyatha'zadra was a pyro.

>>57362390
The Outdider was supposedly always selfless and obedient to the point of being robotic, almost non-sapient. It was physically super powerful among its kin, and was supposedly always at their beck and call, so it would make sense to be a C’tan that got its body after its more willful “older siblings” developed their personalities. The Outsider being domineered as it formed lead it to fundamentally reject agency and deffer to others.

It was also meant to be unclear if the Outsider was commanded by the Silent King to kill and eat the other gods, and it was simply obeying like it always did, or if the Silent King lacked the authority to issue such a command, and the Outsider only obeyed because it truly wanted to kill its siblings, and needed a pretense. In the former case, the Outsider doesn’t actually feel guilt, because it rejects agency in its actions, and it’s just the objections of the other C’tan that’s are disturbing it, if the latter, its madness is a mix of guilt for its fratricidal rampage and terror at its own dark intentions that drive it in its recursive denial.

>>57362840
Or it saw Szarekh as a C'tan. Szarekh was given basically admin status over the Necrons second only to the C'tan themselves, and he locked them out after they were destroyed by setting the commands of the C'tan as bottom priority. As in, below things like "should I go carnifex hunting today".

>>57361970
Good shit my dude.

>>57364028
>Or it saw Szarekh as a C'tan
Well yes, if it saw Szarekh as a C'tan
>it was simply obeying like it always did
but
>if the Silent King lacked the authority to issue such a contentious command
then
>the Outsider only obeyed because it truly wanted to kill its siblings, and needed a pretense

Szarekh only had admin status for the Necrons, not the Outsider, at least as far as we've indicated.

>>57364033
Yeah, and it flows pretty well with our other big piece for the War in Heaven, being The Birth of Khorne. In fact, the only edits that really come to mind are ones to string these chapters together more.

>>57362390
>Aza'gorod
>Nyatha'zadra
Who are these two?

File: Nyathazadra.png (2.31 MB, 791x1152)

2.31 MB PNG

>>57365726
Aza'gorod - Nightbringer, as well as the original name for the Necrontyr's sun. Aza'gorod was the Necron god of the sun and of death.

Nyatha'zadra - The C'tan that wanted to burn the Webway down. The one that the generic C'tan shards are typically taken to represent.

>>57361146
I don't know much about Volistad and Commissar Holt except from quickly reading over this wiki article, http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Volistad, but it seems like there isn't any particular grim-derp stuff that would play out differently from canon. The idea of Astropathic Choirs being used to stabilize the Warp is interesting, but the campaign itself doesn't look like it would go much differently. Perhaps the IG and Mechanicus got some extra support from small Astartes attachments, but even in this AU the red-robes are still very territorial over their fancy relics and Titans.

Kaelor, wyverns, and Taldeer are up due to positive feedback. Khaine is ready to go but just waits for any changes that need to be made (also his Space Uber).

>>57366051
>The one that the generic C'tan shards are typically taken to represent.
connecting this and this >>57272947 would there be a risk of pyromaniacal flame vamps in the vicinity of any place one of his shards are defeated, due to fractal contaminants blasted from the shard that could find their way into living organisms? Would that be a problem with fighting C'tan shards writ large, where any blow that damages one enough to matter will have potential to separate a proportional amount of fractal material from the shard, resulting in star god slivers scattered around battlefields?

So are we keeping that Khine still needs his sacrifices?

>>57368599
yeah, it was worked into the myth/history pretty well

>>57368599
Why do you do this spellchecker?

Khaine FFS.I

Also if thread still lives by evening I'll try and do writeup of Titus

>>57361970
Is Khaine actually a singular, coherent entity? I think canon suggests he isn't, that he's just a bunch of scattered Avatars at this point.

>>57369807
I think it's implied it is and he isn't. General 40k mythos implies that any being powerful enough shards instead of dies (Magnus, the Emperor, the C'tan, Khaine, daemons as mentioned by >>57357716). If you can get the fragments back together you can theoretically resurrect the being, assuming they haven't been corrupted/destroyed/etc.

>>57368599
>>57368659
Guy who did Khaine here, I wasn't sure how to handle that. We had talked about Khaine not being as brutal in previous threads, but aacrifice is a big part of nobledark and we needed a reason for the Craftworlds to not summon an Avatar every time they get into a battle. So I went with a suggestion in an old thread about brain damage at best, absorbed by the Avatar at worst.

Also worded things in a way that if Telgaranor lost his body it could have been due to being an avatar because he's not-Tyrion.

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>>57357836
"You thought you were making out with Lileath, but it was I, Slaanesh!"

>>57373279
Fuck you. That's too stupid to be as funny as it is.

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This is your Emperor for tonight.

>>57374830
We've already established that porn of Emperor and Isha is legal on some worlds so long as it is tastefully done.

>>57374830
Not shiny enough, everyone knows the real emperor is golden and radiant

Hmm. New guy to the thread- do we have any details on Guard heroes? Like a Pask that, as alliances grew, became a master of Pirahnas and Wave Serpents?

>>57376813
We have a few, but so far we've gravitated towards officers, and naval officers in particular. There's plenty of room for stalwart grunts and tank commanders, etc, but something in the nature of the "Noble" in Nobledark has kinda tied us to the more sweeping, momentous or tragic turns in the various wars.

>>57376813
>>57376915
There's Yarrick. There's also those two Eldar that got really into commanding armored regiments.

There was a mention of an eldarboo human commander a few threads ago, but I cannot remember who they were.

Does Dorhi still have an Isha priesthood if they reject all that the Imperium is?

>>57325989
>Just because I like chocolate ice cream doesn't mean I would begrudge someone who prefers strawberry instead.
CHOCOLATE FOR THE CHOCOLATE GOD!
ICE CREAM FOR THE ICE CREAM THRONE!

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>>57378476
They don't believe Macha-Isha is the real Isha. They believe she's some false idol or a completely made-up story to get the eldar to fall for the bait.

When a human got a blessing of Isha they tried to assassinate her because she obviously "stole" it and almost had the wrath of Biel-Tan dropped on their heads.

Theoretically they might listen if Isha showed up on the Wraithbone screen or through a Webway gate and went full All-Mother on them, but even then they might try to blow Isha out of the sky or shoot her. Especially since they remember her as the crybaby who needs everyone else to do things for her rather than the tough-as-nails matriarch.

>>57378881
>but even then they might try to blow Isha out of the sky or shoot her. Especially since they remember her as the crybaby who needs everyone else to do things for her rather than the tough-as-nails matriarch
I didn’t actually realize there was a way to get the Custodes, Handmaidens, Inquisition, assassin temples, and harlequins, as well as the Cult of Nurgle, Attedants of Isha, and Nimina’s fetid crusades to all race to your location and eagerly beat your smoldering corpses with sticks.

You learn something new every day

I'm having trouble.

I promised to do the Titus writeup but shit is not fucking happening. I write half a page. Re-read it, get angry, delete it and swear at the screen. This has happened 4.5 times.

Problems I am having, the big ones, are;

What is Titus' full name?

Was he captain before Cato Sicarius or was he just acting captain whist Cato was on pilgrimage or some shit and adopted as Chapter Master in training by Calgar afterwards?

What was his exact feelings, if any, towards Mira? Should he adopt the Cadians to try and whip the lagging behind Ultamarians back into shape?

Did he get arrested by the Inquisition in this AU?

Where should he be from?

>>57380005
Threads 31 and 32 have most of it. Just get those off suptg and Ctrl+F "Titus" and "Mira". That's what I usually do when I have to trawl the archives.

The gist of Titus' promotion was as one anon summed up was this...

>Graia got WAAARHHHG'ed. Drogan called for the Ultramarines, then murdered/soul-raped by Nemeroth.
>Ultramarine Second Company deployed, Cpt. Sidonus deployed along with Veteran Titus and Leandros to field-test these two to find his (future) replacement.
>Titus was flexible, got results. Cpt. Sidonus got Nemeroth'ed, named Titus his successor over Leandros based on merit.
>Leandros got butthurt, thinking the possessed blade must have done something to the Chapter Master (Titus' warp resistance didn't help). So when they got back to Macragge Leandros started complaining about it.

>Titus did stunts that made other Cpt raises eyebrow/ dislike. Not helping is Leandros.

>Hivefleet Behemoth happened. Calgar got put in a coma, but also named Titus his successor over the whiny (but admittedly very badass) Cato Sicarius.
>Okay, once is a coincident; but TWICE? FHUCKING CHAOS PRICK!!! - Cato Sicarius and Leandros. Ultra-butthurt.

>Mira
The two are in a mildly frowned upon relationship. Ultramar adopted the remnants of the Cadians to beef up Ultramar's IG regiments and PDF. So he says. On the other hand Titus is kind of emotionally stunted even for a marine in this timeline and does not know how to deal with women and his feelings for them.

I don't think he got arrested by the Inquisition.

I think he jumped the Tribune promotion because Calgar knew Cato Sicarius doesn't actually care about being chapter master that much. In his actual appearances in canon Cato seems happier being the chapter's champion, because it means he gets to kill things and throw his weight around without the responsibility of being a chapter master. Like when he put the hurt on someone for insulting Tigurius. The Chapter Champion gets to do that. The Chapter Master can't.

>>57380360
>Last Name
Just me, but I was thinking Titus Guilliman. It's not an uncommon name out in Ultramar, about as common as "Johnson". But he hates, hates, hates being called by his last name. He is an Ultramarine and he will succeed on his own merits, not based on half-baked nostalgia and nepotism. But that might be too much.

>>57379066
There's a reason not even Kaelor wants to deal with Dorhai.

>I didn’t actually realize there was a way to get the Custodes, Handmaidens, Inquisition, assassin temples, and harlequins, as well as the Cult of Nurgle, Attedants of Isha, and Nimina’s fetid crusades to all race to your location and eagerly beat your smoldering corpses with sticks.

They'll have to get in line. Isha's going to remanifest in Galadrea and suddenly there's going to be a new Shaa-Domean rainforest where Dorhai used to be.

You know what Ariel (who is Isha, long story) did in Fantasy? When she found Morghur was corrupting her forest, she tracked him down for months until she found where he was living, then waited until the bastard thought he was safe to call down a pillar of flame to immolate him where he stood.

Momma Isha knows where you live.

What is Calth like? Is it a verdent agriworld or cave dwellers amd burned rock?

Also is there a Uriel Venturis?

>>57382225
Verdant agriworld. War of the Beast was bad, but Ultramar wasn't hit as hard because Lorgar didn't fall and want to specifically destroy the place to spite Guilliman.

There's probably some interesting WotB story there, especially with Charadon being almost next door, but it hasn't been written yet.

Calth's prosperity was actually one of the reasons Macragge went for Guilliman's reforms. Macragge maintained its position as hegemon of Ultramar by its greatest population, but Calth could effectively support twice what Macragge could because it had just as much arable land below surface as above. So Calth could grow past Macragge and kick Macragge to second place. Guilliman's reforms meant Macragge had to give up some power but it didn't have to worry about losing its voice.

Ventris exists. All that's been said is he was the guy who let (or accidentally allowed) the Nightbringer out. Would wager a guess that he's a pretty decent guy like in canon, just either made a mistake or had to make a decision which was shit either way.

Thread archived.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57265950/

Also, on the 1d4chan page, should we have links from the characters to pertinent stories? For some characters, like Malys, all we have in entry form are things like "Me Time" and her getting Drach'nyen.

>>57385305
I am of the opinion that we should, it would make navigation to different parts of a character easier and tie the separate stories together better. However, IIRC, there were issues with getting the links to work, or something like that.

>>57382731
I like to think that it was done before the Imperium knew what a C'tan was.

That would make teir widespread understanding quit late.

Bump

>>57387271
I think it was said that Szarekh didn't bother telling Oscar anything about the C'tan or, more inportantly, that several shards had gotten loose in the Necron's 65 million year sleep, so it's fair to say knowledge of what the C'tan are would be pretty scarce.

Plus no one expected there to be a mostly complete (like >50% C'tan out there) let alone three

>>57391270
Deciever is not complete or anywhere near. It has no main shard, hence the batshit schemes against itself.

>>57392386
Outsider, Void Dragon, Nightbringer.

Deceiver is just a bunch of pieces. But at the same time there's evidence he wanted it that way so he could troll all over the galaxy at once like a more malevolent SG-1 Baal and his clones.

>>57392603
Does the Silent King know where the Void Dragon is?

>>57387271
>>57391270
The Imperium at least at the higher levels definitely knew what the Ctan were thanks to Isha and the Harlequins who have access to the Black Library. Also, we’ve said that we want to avoid clustering everything in M41 like in canon and there’s no reason the shards can’t have popped up throughout the Imperium’s history, even from th the start.

That said, a shard and a true Ctan are vastly different so at first the Imperium may have thoughts the shards were another sort of threat, especially since the Ctan were assumed to be long gone. It wouldn’t be until a few encounters and some research by Ordo Xenos historians that they manage to put the evidence together and realize what they were up against, maybe around M35.

>>57392646
Possibly. He's certainly in a position to know, but that doesn't mean he does know. I imagine the question keeps the AdMech awake at night.

>>57380360
So unlike Macha in this universe Titus is the blushing perma-virgin? I'm surprisingly okay with this.

>>57392646
>>57393354
In a past thread, it was mentioned that if the Necron's Martian Adventure still happened in this timeline, it may have been the Silent King scoping out Mars to see if that's where the Void Dragon really was, especially since the infamous World Engine event was implied to be due to a programming glitch.

>>57392816
When was the first C'tan vampire encountered? I imagine it wasn't fun for the Imperium (maybe on a "Planet Demeter" if we really want to push the vampire parallels).

I don't know how we're going to handle Uriel's trip to Pavonis (other than probably "dug too deep" like in canon), but if it goes the same way where he was forced to stand down and let the stupid humans who got seduced by the promise of power open the ship, it could have been he thought whatever was in there was on the same level as a vampire or those C'tan shards the Necrons originally throw around when they get desperate, so he thought the idiots would get Ark of the Covenant-ed and his marines could put the shard down.

It turns out what was in the ship was much, much worse.

>The shards can’t have popped up throughout the Imperium’s history, even from the start.

Deceiver shard has been implied to have been seeding human worlds with the artificially-created pariah gene during the Age of Strife, including Old Earth, which would be M25-M28 or so.

Here’s an interesting thought. The Old Ones called themselves in their own language the Slaan or Slann. The various races uplifted by the Old Ones took that name and incorporated the term Slaa- or Shaa- into their own language. The Hrud knew the Old Ones as the Slaa-Hai, or “most mighty”, a term they came to apply to just about every incredibly powerful being including Qah and the Eldar gods.

The Eldar called their homeworld Shaa-Dome. It’s not clear if they used this name before or after the Old Ones came, but if it came after once the Eldar realized there was more than one planet, then the “Shaa” in Shaa-Dome could mean “god”. No clue what “Dome” means in High Tongue but it’s possible it could mean “home” or “domicile” if we want to be boring and draw on Earth roots. So Shaa-Dome could mean something like “house of the gods” or “hearth of the gods”, sort of like an Eldar Mount Olympus, reflecting the fact that Shaa-Dome is the place where they came from and the place they saw their gods as having the closest connection to.

Also consider the case of Slaanesh. -Esh is a common suffix for Eldar names, such as Eldanesh and Uthanesh. Slaanesh in Fantasy means “most exquisite”, but if we assume the “Slaa” means “god-like” here, then Slaanesh’s name could literally translate to “mighty or divine person”. A rather egotistical name for a rather egotistical being.

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>>57393670
>Also consider the case of Slaanesh. -Esh is a common suffix for Eldar names, such as Eldanesh and Uthanesh. Slaanesh in Fantasy means “most exquisite”, but if we assume the “Slaa” means “god-like” here, then Slaanesh’s name could literally translate to “mighty or divine person”. A rather egotistical name for a rather egotistical being.
I can dig it. The etymology works really well when it comes to Slaanesh and Shaa-Dome, and is reminiscent of Sauron's self aggrandizing titles like King Excellent, Lord of Gifts, and "the admirable", which also works with the Luciferian image Slaanesh seeks to cultivate and his associations with the most industrially inclined of the Crone factions.

Dome could also be something like door or gateway, or something to the effect of foundation or firmament, seeing that Shaa-Dome was only the real-space hub and anchor of the Old Empire's vast extradimensional megastructures and infrastructure. The impressions I get from our descriptions of the Old Empire is that for all its vastness, at their height Shaa-Dome was more of a central junction and plaza for their galaxy spanning civilization than it was a distinct and separate capital.

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>>57394077
>Lord of Gifts
Uh-Huh. And what kind of gifts are we talking about. /sarcasm

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>>57395132

>>57394077
It has been mentioned that due to the webway the entirety of the Eldar Empire was essentially housed in one vast mega-structure. It only appeared a diffused collection of worlds from the outside. From the inside you could walk from one end of the galaxy to the other.

At least you could in the days that it was a functional empire. Towards the end you wouldn't survive the trip.

The Dark City and Shaa-Dome would just have been the two high rent districts. The former the stately homes of the aristocracy and the latter the nightclub district. Both highly sought after for distinctly different members of society.

And this brings me to a point. How was the upper crust of the Eldar Empire organized? Was there an eldar Emperor or a council of the highest and most respected/feared families or what?

>>57397015
I don't know. Kaelor was said in canon to more closely mirror pre-Fall culture, but Kaelor's history is also characterized by the unusual occurrence of one noble family assuming control and becoming outright dictators over the others. On the other hand Saim-Hann is also said to retain older aspects of Eldar culture, and it's the exact opposite of Kaelor in almost every way.

Eldar are really clannish, but at the same time I can see the Old Empire as being the most centralized Eldar ever were. Everything was linked together, all the way up to whoever was in charge at Shaa-Dome.

Additionally, even though Eldar aren't predisposed to seek power, in a population of trillions you'd get at least a few individuals who wanted to stay in power.

I dunno. I liked the Rise of the Roman Empire meets WHFB High Elves that Hektor Heresy had, but I don't think we should knowingly rip off another project.

>>57398297
Well we already have mention of Arrotyr's illustrious family and military heritage, and Nimina was born into a religious hierarchy. There are vague early mentions of an eventually dominant faction of cultural figures/artists and Seers organized around the synthesis of their God of Joy, but that sounds more like a social/political movement than the actual structure of rule. And presumably freely exercised psychic might is a significant part of the structure.

>>57379066
And at least one band of Word Bearers. Her daughter Sister-Superior?Abbotess Miriam Cain commands a band of them in near Biel-Tan space.

The failed assassination attempt is Dorhi lucking the fuck out

Does Malal still have followers?

>>57400559
I can imagine he still has a few mortal followers scattered around. Apep and Skarbrand were both converted after the War in Heaven and Malal existing as one of the big name gods so he is still active to a degree.

Malalites don't really get along in canon. Malal's modus operandi is to supercharge a single champion and have them rip and tear a swathe through Chaos forces, only to renege on that and fuck them over twice as hard the minute they use their usefulness. Ever read David Brin's "Thor Meets Captain America"? It's exactly like that.

>>57398503
Is Slaanesh's intended creation being a God of Peace and Joy to calm the Warp down out of noblesse oblige and to secure the Eldar's future from despair still canon? Don't have a problem with it, just want to know if it is.

Something that was floating around my head as I was adding the proto-Orks and Krork to the Notes page.

“Go! Go! Go! Run faster you pansies! Do you lot want to die here!”

Eldanesh ran. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest and the ache in his legs. It seemed like he had run for hours, as if it was the only thing that mattered in the world.

The galaxy was turning upside down. It hadn’t been so long ago that the order of the universe had seemed clear. The Old Ones ruled the galaxy, and the C’tan and the Necrons sought to kill them and everyone that Eldanesh had ever loved.

But all that had changed. The Old Ones and C’tan had disappeared. There were still sporadic reports of Necron activity, but even that was growing scarcer by the day. Instead the galaxy was becoming infested by strange creatures, which turned people’s bodies into flesh gates and poured into reality like krath worms attracted to a rotting carcass. The Realm of Souls was no longer safe either. Other things, these…daemons had infested it, tearing anything that tried to enter to shreds. He hated to say it, but he wished for the days of the Necrons back. Necrons died when you shot them, no matter how many times it took. These things didn’t.

He heard the thunder of legs and saw the ruddy green form of Bonestomper rush past him. He didn’t know what he would have done without the Krork. Bonestomper had fought by his side for as long as he had known the Krork to have been involved in the War in Heaven. He didn’t know where they had come from, but by Asuryan he was glad they had appeared. Only Ulthanesh or Khaine had been a more reliable compatriot than Bonestomper. The two of them had fought everywhere from the biological preserves of the Old Ones to the Necrons’ own worlds. Now they fought to save Eldanesh’s people.

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>>57403173
The Materium wasn’t safe. The Immaterium wasn’t safe. All that left was the Webway. Eldanesh was trying to get as many Aeldari as he could and get them through the nearest Webway gate. Bonestomper was helping round them up and encouraging them onward…in his own way.

“Let’s move! Come on! It’s like you don’t even want to live.”

Nothing like a Krork to make you focus on immediate survival.

He was fairly sure this was the last batch. Or, at least, the last batch they could rescue before those fleshbags came down on them like a tidal wave. The throng of refugees rounded a sandstone bluff, and that’s when he saw it. The Webway gate. His heart soared in relief as the gate groaned to life, and people began pouring in like there was no tomorrow. However, as the fight-or-flight reflex wore off, and the last of the Aeldari entered the Webway, Eldanesh realized something. Bonestomper wasn’t coming with him. He stood by the Webway gate in his best “at ease” posture, but it was clear the Krork wasn’t planning to go in.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us, Bonestomper? There’s plenty of room in the Webway for the Krork.”

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>>57403198
“Nah. There’s too many Krork spread all over the galaxy for us to get ‘em all in the Webway. And I couldn’t stand it if I ran off and left them to rot. My people need me, Eldanesh. My place is here. If the Krork are going to go down, we’ll go down fightin”.

“I see. I cannot thank you enough, Bonestomper. I swear, as long as I live, my people will never forget the Krork”.

“You do that then skinnyboy”.

The hulking Krork was silent for a moment.

“Live free, Eldanesh”.

“Die well, Bonestomper”.

The Krork paused for a moment, before giving his friend a smile and an uneasy wave, obviously unfamiliar and practiced. Then, just before the Webway gate closed, he seemed to hear something behind him, drawing his axe and letting out a cry of “WAAAA…”

And that was the last that Eldanesh ever heard of the Krork.

>>57403225
That's great. I think the level of nobility invested in the Krork work really well to demonstrate the heights of development that Ork/Brainboyz driven society could potentially reach, and that works somewhat to show the Orks fallen state, but mostly it builds up the utted juggernaut their rise will become.

How widespread are Tau warp skimming drives in the Ultima region? Can they be used as a sort of backup Warp drive, especially for warfleets expected to do battle with Tyranids? I think someone mentioned that although slower, they allowed ships to get to planets cut off by the Shadow in the Warp, and this seems like a pretty useful capability that would likely not be ignored. Ships could do a normal Warp cruise to a neighboring system, then make the final approach under Warp skimming.

>>57404815
Mostly still ijmthe Empire and Ultramar but theuy are spreading.

>>57403225
That's the good shit.

Are there any named Old Ones in Vanilla?

>>57405589
No, unless you count Warhammer Fantasy. Apparently helps keep the Old Ones ethereal and mysterious.

>>57403225
I like it because it shows how far they have fallen. The cultural momentum started by the oldones would have been severed in the Enslaver War as no noble orks remained to raise the spores.

>>57403198
How bright are Enslavers?

>>57409628
I don't think they're too bright. What little we've said about Enslavers here is they're essentially another galactic gribblie, parasites or parasitoids that feed and grow in metaphorical open wounds.

The tyranids have the issue that they've gotten themselves committed to attacking the Milky Way, but the Milky Way is a much more toxic meal than they're used to. Not so much that the Milky Way can fight them off, but more the tyranids will eat us, one our bones punctures their gut going down, and they get a gut infection from it. Then the Enslavers swoop in and finish the weakened Hive Mind off.

That's what the Enslavers and their ilk represent. A reset button the likes of which not even the Necrons would push. Ressetting the galaxy to zero. The events of the entire last 65 million years and all the sacrifices therein meaning nothing. In the end, it might not be Team Imperium, Team Chaos, Team Necron, Team Ork, or Team Tyranid standing above the ashes. It might be Team Enslaver.

Go Team Enslaver.

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>>57393539
Lucius was said to going to end up a C'tan vampire trying to steal the Blade of the Laer from Ganymede, hence how he got to be "The Eternal" in this timeline. That's would be like M31-32 or something.

Also, if the dude has been a vampire for this long, he must be one of those few really old suckers approaching Dracula by way of Steven Armstrong levels of power.

>>57403225
Keep in mind that the Krork killed and ate their progenitors for sport and fun.

>>57412191
This is also true. Despite any nobility the Krork may have gained through their uplifting, their origin still involves creating abominations, commiting atrocities, and outright genocide either directly (first batch of Krork) or through inaction (Old Ones).

Hence why Eldanesh doesn't know about the origins of the Krork. He would be horrified if he found out how the sausage was made, and the Old Ones damn well wouldn't have cared about telling their soldier races what they were doing. It's possible the Old Ones had some long term plans for the Krork, Aeldari, Hrud, etc. but they would have largely boiled down to them being managed by the Old Ones as shock troops and executors of their will in the same way as the Chaos Gods do for their mortal followers (though arguably more benevolent, because being more humane than the Chaos Gods is a low bar to overcome).

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As someone whom lurked since the founding, this AU was better fleshed than others. And I think most of it's material is, indeed, better made than canon counterparts.

Everyone involved deserves a medal, IMHO.

How long did the War in Heaven last anyway? We know Eldanesh fought off the Mon-Keigh before the War in Heaven, participated in the entire war, and lived long enough to see his people start spreading back across the galaxy before he got bitch-slapped by Khaine. The proto-Eldar were essentially a Bronze Age society before the Old Ones came and are implied to have lived about as long give or take as Bronze Age humans during this time.

So let's assume Eldanesh was in the proto-Eldar equivalent of his thirties when the Old Ones beamed him up and turned he and his people into super soldiers, complete with the extended longevity to match. The normal issue of travel times (one year or so to cross the Milky Way) wouldn't be much of an issue because everyone involved is using Webway gates or teleporters or LUDICROUS SPEED inertialess drives. Even Warp travel would be faster because for most of the war the Warp was calmer.

Szarekh was flesh for most of the initial War in Heaven until the eldar started showing up. That also puts a time limit on things since Necrontyr don't live that long.

Essentially, the question is how long would this galaxy-spanning war take when the eldar enter and old age stops becoming a thing, plus how long does it take for the Enslavers to clean up the pieces and the eldar to consider it safe to come out again.

>>57413392
This is something I've been meaning to ask the thread. Do people feel like we're sticking too close to canon, or do we have just the right amount of re-imagined ideas mixed in with the old? I don't really have an opinion on it I just wanted to ask the mood of the room.

Hopefully we can keep these threads going a bit longer, since we decided to keep them going until they fall off the board pre bump limit. But we really need more codex entries of what's been talked about in the threads and listed on the Notes page.

>>57393670
>>57394077
Wrote up the whole etymology thing just so we had it. Where would be the best place for this if we put it on 1d4chan?

The Etymological Legacy of the Old Ones

As might be expected of beings of their stature, the Old Ones had a powerful effect on the languages of many species. Although most of the galaxy knew them as the Old Ones, the Old Ones typically referred to themselves as the Slaan or Slann. As a result, many of the uplifted races of the Old Ones began using the terms “Slaa-” or “Shaa-” into their own languages, typically meaning “mighty” or “god-like” (especially in the superlative sense). For example, the Hrud called the Old Ones “Slaa-Hai”, which roughly translated to “most mighty”, a term they eventually extended not only to the Old Ones but to any sufficiently powerful entity worthy of respect such as the Eldar gods and their own god Qah.

The extends to the Eldar as well. The Eldar referred to their homeworld as Shaa-Dome, something they only started doing after the Old Ones uplifted them and the previously Bronze Age society realized there was more than one planet in the universe. “Dome” in ancient Eldar (High Tongue having not been invented yet) meant many things, including “door”, “home”, “threshold of a house”, or “hearth”, depending on context. Shaa-Dome, in effect, means “hearth of/doorway to the gods”, referring to the fact that the Eldar saw their homeworld as intrinsically tied to their gods, a sort of Eldar Mount Olympus. This belief extended well into the waning days of the Old Eldar Empire, where Shaa-Dome was essentially a central junction and plaza that housed all the administrative and executive functions (as well as the most important temples of the gods) of the multi-planetary city that the Eldar called an empire.

>>57414847
A final example of the effect of the Old Ones on Eldar terminology is in the name of one of the Ruinous Powers, She Who Thirsts, Slaanesh. –esh is a common suffix in Eldar names, as seen in the Eldar folk heroes Eldanesh and Uthanesh, and essentially means “person”. “Slaanesh”, therefore, literally translates to “mightiest person” or “godliest person” in High Tongue. It is not clear whether Slaanesh’s name was chosen long before it’s birth or whether the entity adopted the name upon its creation. Either way, adopting a title that means “mightiest/godliest being” is entirely appropriate for such a narcissistic entity as She Who Thirsts.

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>>57414319
Necrons, at least the ruling elite, extended there apparent life with the best medical care and leapfrogging down the ages in biological suspension. They could leave instructions with trusted subordinates, freeze themselves and only be woken up once the task is done and more instruction is needed or if some sort of emergency happens.

War against the Old Ones could started in the days of Szarekh's grandfather or great grandfather and despite the natural ~35 - 50 year lifespan ends a thousand years later because the royal families got the best doctors and so ended on the higher end of the estimates and were only living one month a year. I'm assume a shorter development time than humans. Perhaps 10 - 12 years.

Also Szarekh would have started leapfrogging earlier due to becoming the Silent King at a very early age. Also the shorter childhood but not lessened demands of a galactic ruler ensure that there would be little time for play, just preparing for the role he would have. Which might explain some of why Szarekh is such a joyless cunt.

So at the 1,000 - 1,200 year mark (could be longer if it was an even more distant ancestor to Szarekh that saw the start of the war) the C'tan turn up and shit starts to get real. Then Void Dragon gives them robo-skelly bodies and the war does not stop there. From the perspective of the Old Ones that is where the war actually starts. By then the Necrons are immortal so time does not matter as much. Also Szarekh gets to be more dictatorial and the immortal elite get to rule even harder as they no longer have to delegate to commoners/lesser nobles whilst they sleep away the years. Also the stratification of society is absolutely set in stone at this point.

War could have continued for thousands of years by then with Szarekh at the helm.

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>>57415647
Eldanesh on the other hand was and eldar. Eldar pre-Fall could reincarnate. Could the proto-eldar? Who the fuck knows. Eldanesh could have been when the Old Ones came an aging relic refusing to stay down well into old age, pic related. Or he could have been already a serial reincarnater who had lived a fair few lives before pushing his date of birth back by however long you feel is needed.

Once the Old Ones turn up they definitely can reincarnate and have lifespans measuring centuries though not as long as they one day would. It has already been mentioned that they tweaked themselves down the ages. Their longevity would have been good for the uses of he Old Ones but given the nature of the war not a massive priority as it wasn't as if they would probably have massive opportunities to enjoy it.

Old Ones only uplift the Eldar and friends when the ants they were stepping on get uplifted and uppercut them so Szarekh predates (barely) the modern eldar as a species, though due to hibernation isn't as old as them by a long way. Szarekh is as old as the real stage of the War in Heaven plus a chunk of Imperial History, which means in terms of birthday candles Eldrad probably still wins the Oldest Bastard Award.

Eldanesh gets killed a few times in the WiH, keeps coming back, growing up, training new body up, marching back to war. Presumably the others, the other First of the First Eldar like himself, gave up and went to Isha's garden or whatever afterlife their favoured deity prepared for them. Not Eldanesh. Eldanesh slogged all the way through that war by sheer bloody stubbornness. And then the Enslaver War, shepherding survivors into the webway. And then did his part in the first rebuilding. And then just hang around afterwards as the official Wise Elder Eldar as he was the last mortal with continuity of vision from the first days. He picked up his sword in the days of the God War and it took being slapped down by Khaine to get him to stop getting back up.

>>57415647
The Szarekh timeline we have so far has Szarekh being the Silent King who started the Old One war. Indeed, it almost seems like his personality is why the war exploded into violence in the first place, because Szarekh just couldn't stand being told no. That said, it was said he was really young at the time the Wars of Seccession were finished and the War in Heaven started up a few years later, and the initial stages of the war (Old Ones versus Necrontyr, no allies, Final Destination) was an absolute curbstomp in favor of the Old Ones. He could have been pretty young when they discovered the C'tan.

If the Old Ones panicked when the Necrontyr actually started to win fights against them (which no one had before) and started uplifting en masse then, Szarekh could have spent a decent portion of his life fighting the war as a fleshling. Most of the war seems to have been Necron versus everyone else, not Necrontyr.

If age is a problem we could handwave it with royalty had the best rejuvenants.

>>57416085
I think it was said the reincarnation was the solution to the immortality problem. Rather than keep increasing lifespan reincarnate to continually get a fresh perspective on things. It would definitely be a post-Old One thing at the earliest because before then eldar were only mildly psychic, hadn't invented wraithbone yet, and still thought bronze and walled cities were groundbreaking.

That said with a centuries to 1k long lifespan Eldanesh could have easily lived through the whole war and the following events, given travel time was a non-issue and it would be unlikely total war could be sustained for millenia (though it wouldn't really be as much of a problem for Necrons, C'tan, and Old Ones).

Looking through the Notes page, it looks like the Bane of the Swarm is almost ready to go up as is. Any idea what page it should go on?

>>57414319
Time for the regular reminder: staying close to canon is the point, one of the draws of this AU is that it’s somewhat recognizeable to people coming in instead of a complete rewrite with Space Marines.

>>57418504
Probably with Kryptmann.

>>57419146
Looking at the timeline, there is a date issue where the events happened in M39 assuming present in 999.M40, when it is 999.M41. Should we just move the date of the attack on Felusia up one millennium and say it was from a splinter of Leviathan coming around for another go?

Also, while looking up Maiden Worlds, found one that might be worth adapting to the fluff. In canon, the Maiden World of Lilarsus was destroyed by the Tau (I guess they can perform Exterminatus) in M39 because they think it was harboring a Dark Eldar pirate. The Tau awkwardly try to apologize to Iyanden afterwords, who "icily ignore the primitives' offer and bend their efforts towards making Klax pay for the unnecessary carnage he has caused".

That actually fits eerily well with our timeline. M39 was right about the time of the Tau Schism and the Tau joining the Imperium. Perhaps the Dark Eldar or even the Chaos Eldar intentionally made it seem like the Dark Eldar were based out of Lilarsus, in order to sour Tau opinions on the Imperium and get the Tau-Imperium war both parties had always wanted. The Tau, being sick and tired of these motherf**king Dark Eldar in this motherf**king galaxy, overreact and burn Lilarsus. Fortunately they manage to find out the truth before things escalate into an all-out Imperium-Tau war, but it leaves a bitter taste in many mouths.

bump

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>>57422909
Working on a writeup of the Indigo Crow, should be done sometime tomorrow or the day after.

>>57420585
Would be a good addition.

>>57423479
Curious what its about. Is someone finally writing out what the Blue Cockatoo's fuckup around the Raid?

>>57423479
Oh fuck yeah, looking forward to this shit.

>>57420585
I imagine that Tau Exterminatus consists of nuking the population centres from orbit and letting the fallout do the rest of the work. It's cheap, usually pretty effective and allows for resettlment in a few hundred years tops.

They haven't seen the shit a full Chaos Incursion can do, they don't understand that sometimes it is needed for a planet to be scoured of all life to the bedrock and rendered into a state not suitable to live on for thousands of years minimum.

So the exodite world gets nuked.

Presumably the Wraith Tree survives as they tend to be far from population centres in sacred groves. So we have an irradiated Exodite world. Eldar live a long time. The surviving Exodites will probably be around when the radiation reaches tolerable levels to move back home. In the mean time they can appeal to the Aspect Warriors of the craftworlds to take it in shifts to guard the tree.

Klax could be the Dark Eldar Pirate Lord that has caused the Tau much trouble in the past. Whenever they have problems, be it AI or 'Nid or whatver, the DEldar always turn up like the vultures that they are. They do this to everyone. Klax is the one who has dibs on Tau space. It's awlways Klax and his people heaping misery on the Tau.

The bounty on his head is staggering. Tau Empire doesn't usually go in for head hunting, if you have to kill it should be for duty of defence or something a little more noble than naked greed. With Klax they've stopped giving a fuck, they just want the fucker dead. Even Aun'Va. Especially Aun'Va as he has had to put up with this shit longer than any other.

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>>57424271
Makes sense. Explains why they were able to defuse tensions between them and the Imperium: they didn't trash the world enough to kill everyone and make the planet permanently uninhabitable.

>>57423479
Pic related.

>>57335186
>>57336096
Found the solution to the Dark Eldar Khaine thing. Khaine avatars get spit out of the Infinity Circuits of the Craftworlds in canon. So even though the Dark Eldar might be able to use them it's unlikely they'd ever get it back. Add to that only the Incubi really worship Khaine anymore in the Dark City.

So if the Dark Eldar do have an Avatar, either the Incubi have it and aren't keen on activating it anytime soon, or Vect has squirrelled it away for a rainy day. If they do have one, it's likely stolen from a destroyed Craftworld.

>>57416441
>>57416085
The eldar in the webway would have been a strange society. Enslavers can't get in but the eldar have to come out to scavenge for food.

Life would have been one big game of scurrying and running back to the gate. You find a world tht you know has edible fruit or docile animals, open the gate, grab as much as possible as quickely as possible and sprint back in before you are seen.

Keep that shit up for thousands of years.

The eldar that came out of the other side of it would have technologically regressed. When they start again they would essentially have been an interstellar iron age civilization.

But still interstellar, so they would probably have had a mild advantage over the others who survived by being less psychic but retained more of their toys.

>>57426217
This though begs the question of how the other species survived.

>>57426531
Many of the others could have scurried into the Webway.

The Hrud are known to be capable of creating temporal singularities by pooling together their entropic fields if enough of them (read: a huge number) are in one place. In canon the Star Phantoms had a temporal singularity warp rift dropped on their heads when they fought a Hrud mass migration. The Hrud could have either done this to make themselves too nasty for the Enslavers to touch or speed up time from their perspective until the Enslavers went away.

From the Necrons we know it's possible to survive the Enslavers by hibernating and sealing yourself in nice, sterile tomb complexes. Though in the Necron's case they didn't have to worry about themselves attracting the Enslavers even though the Enslavers could still ruin their day.

>>57426217
I think the Eldar were at least a spacefaring race by the time they popped their heads back out, though I agree they probably lost the best toys the Old Ones' gave them. Slaanesh was built using the same methods the Old Ones gave them to make Isha and the others, and it's clear this was something they weren't familiar with (look at the result).

Eldar cultural development is very clearly symptomatic of having jumped from Bronze/Iron Age to Space Age with no in-between. They never had a medevial era. They never had an industrial revolution. They never learned how to deal with living in jam-packed sprawling metropolises, and complex social hierarchies where absolute loyalty is expected, at least until after the War in Heaven.

Most of early Eldar history is figuring out how to build a society where space travel and advanced technology are a thing when your previous frame of reference is metal tools and masonry. And figuring out how the technology actually works in the first place so you can build more of it. This was suggested to be one of several reasons why the Eldar are so arrogant. Early post-WiH eldar civilization was probably a lot like the Imperium with a lot of Schizo Tech due to having some idea how to work some things but also having a few highly advanced pieces of technology they're afraid to pull out because they don't know how to replace them. Though in the Eldar's case they eventually figured out why and how most of it worked, barring things like the Webway.

>>57427464
they have some understanding of the webway. Just not complete

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So last thread we were discussing what to do with Anval Thawn.

I personally am all for him suffering from serial resurrections. He is not a perpetual. It's an unwanted, unasked for curse laid upon him by Nurgle. Nurgle wanted him to live, to see the galaxy become darker with each passing generation and give in to despair. He wanted to claim him mind and soul and have his own man on the inside of the Grey Knights to one up the rest of the gods.

But it didn't work. Knight Thawn took that curse when it became evident and ran with it. He has died many times, each one willingly, each one dutifully. He has in his time died to damn near anything and everything a Grey Knight can die to from deamon to xeno to cultists.

It was thought that when he went to fight Nurglite deamons his curse would be lifted as Nurgle empowering something fighting aspects of himself would be self destructive. Anval Thawn holds on to the curse and won't let him take it off.

Chaos isn't bright sometimes and this one has backfired quite spectacularly. He is Captain Scarlet + Chosen Undead. It tried to show him the pointlessness of his struggles and made a monster who will spend all eternity kicking them in the bollocks long after his foot has eroded to a stump, regenerated, eroded, got infected, fallen off, regenerated, died, resurrected and eroded all over again. Why? Because every generation he sees new acts of nobility and greatness in those around him.

>>57380455
>But that might be too much.

Given the number of other names it could have been the odds of him being a distant descendant of the primarch are pretty slim.

Maybe have him be the great, great, great grandson of one of the previous Chapter Masters if you want to keep that angle.

Also added bonus that none of the Dreadnaughts take him 100% seriously due to remembering him being a kid.

So what have we done with Titans and Knights?

>>57432585
Much as they were in Vanilla as they are Mechanicus and the Cog-Heads are much as they were in vanilla, if slightly less arseholeish. Slightly.

>>57420585
>>57424271
Sounds interesting. Iyanden are some proud and morbid bastards, so the Tau definitely would not get away without getting punched in the mouth. I could see a few Ethereals getting assassinated by Iyanden Rangers, and the commander of the Tau expedition being found impaled on a wraithbone spear along with his command staff. Not sure if Prince "Bad Motherfucker" Yriel was born/had his own fleet by M39 when this happened; maybe this was how he came to prominence?

The one bit of decent fluff that came from the retarded Months of Shame trainwreck in canon is Bjorn ending the conflict by being such an unimpeachable figure of power and respect that both sides stand down, and I could see the Emperor taking the same role here (because seriously, Oscar needs some post-Vandire/Age of Apostasy fluff). Both sides are escalating despite the truth of the misunderstanding coming out, and as an Iyanden fleet and Tau fleet are about to battle, the golden Imperial flagship Bucephalus emerges from the Warp and the Emperor freezes both fleets with his mind before telling them to stop being retarded. It would also serve as the Tau's main introduction to the Emperor; we've talked about how the Tau leadership dismissed the diplomatic reports of the Emperor and Empress being immortal beings that could cast entire planets into the Warp, and this would be their "oh SHIT" moment where they come to realize just what they're dealing with.

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>>57432980
They would also have to come to terms with their place in the military hierarchy. Up until then they could comfort themselves believing that the border skirmishes in which their GREAT AND MIGHTY FLEETS were capable of holding off the aggressive and might of the "whole Imperial war machine".

Sure some of the higher up Fire Warriors and Ethereals knew that it was just the entire Segmentum Ultima Imperial Navy but that's still a fair old fraction of a galaxy spanning Imperium's collective might.

But then The Emperor and the entire Traveling Court and hangers on translate into the system. And holy fuck. Those aren't any Segmentum Ultima ships they have seen before. Hell, they haven't even seen most of those ship classes before. And they, if not outnumber, hilariously outgun both sides of the conflict currently squaring up. If shit starts shooting then he's going to crush both of them. Actually not both of them, his wife just told the other side to go home and tend their wounds and they are doing and without hesitation or complaint.

It would be at that moment, that exact moment, that every Fire Caste present would realize just deep the pit they are standing over really is. And then Oscar, Last of the Golden Men, Emperor of the Empty Throne, Servus Servorum Imperium, Emperor-Consort of the All-Mother and Defender of the Realms Uncounted requests the presence of their leader at his next earliest convenience to discuss "recent events".

>>57430260
Just an opinion, but Nurgle curse makes much more sense than reintroducing Perpetuals.

>>57432980
>>57433409
That sounds really good. Only question is whether Oscar is strong enough to brute force the fleets to stop. Though if he's way beyond an Alpha+ psyker, who can bench press a planet, it shouldn't be too hard.

Does he bring Isha and the Handmaidens to make sure Iyanden listens, or is this something he does himself?

>Yriel
Yriel was definitely running around at this time, Kraken was in M38 and that's when he pulled his Krieger stunt (also we need to move the timeline of the Krieg thing, since it doesn't make sense to have it in M40 if modern Kriegers showed up for Kraken and Krieg's pre-calamity appearance to be nearly been forgotten by the Imperium).

It's not just Yriel the Tau have to worry about. Admiral/Spiritseer Iyanna Arienal was also active at this time and she's an active figure in Iyanden politics.

>>57433892
If Oscar was there and traveling by ship then the rest of the Traveling Court would be with him. That's a battle fleet in it's own right. Regardless of how powerful his psychic abilities are, and we haven't really nailed down what he can do beyond "waling gellar field generator" and Soul Binding, he would be bringing a lot of weaponry.

>>57424271
It's also a good way to point out that Va doesn't come from the days when the Tau were friendly and diplomatic and the Ethereals were mostly armchair generals (I see you Aun'Shi. I said mostly). He comes from the days when if you wanted someone dead you marched an army to do it, status be damned, and then mounted the poor sod's head on a stick to make sure he was dead.

>>57433978
So far in addition to "walking Gellar field" and Soul Binding, we have him capable of psychically capable of crushing someone into the size of a soup cup, capable of fighting Lady Aurelia "all the cocaine" Malys to a standstill, ripping his way between the Materium and Immaterium with some difficulty after being hit with a vortex grenade, suplexing a C'tan shard (one on a level that took Ferrus Manus three regiments of Skitarii and grievous casualties to achieve) over and over until the AdMech trapped it in a Tesseract Labyrinth, and the suggested possibility that the flaming sword he swings around is not an actual sword but a psychic construct in the shape of a sword (the flames, at least, are psychic, seeing as Sangy and Celestine can do the same).

>>57434384
I want to second the part with the Emperor’s flaming sword being a telekinetic wedge that ignites the air around it, and on top of being a decent swordsman he’s able to strike with his psychic “blade” in ways impossible for a solid weapon. Also we granted Oscar strong interstellar telepathy and mental influence, in keeping with the original purpose of his wetware was working as a point in a FTL galactic communications network.

>>57435957
This was discussed way back in an old thread, but essentially the Beast in this AU was roughly as powerful as canon Horus during the HH, and Oscar was slightly less powerful than him (since he needed Eldrad’s help in taking him down). Since then, Oscar’s powers have grown vastly since he’s gotten stronger and learned how to control them better over the millennia. So current day Oscar is at least as powerful as canon Malcador (who put Titan in the Warp for centuries) and probably in the same ballpark as canon Magnus, who was capable of powering the Golden Throne (which, as we all know, turned poor Malcador into dust).

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>>57433409
>>57433892
>>57434384
>>57435957
>>57436944
Since we're talking about Oscar's power level, thought it might be worth mentioning an idea I had been kicking around trying to think of opportunities for Oscar to do things pre-WotB.

When humanity and Eldar struck a blow by rescuing Isha from Nurgle's mansion, there would certainly be a knee-jerk reaction from Chaos. Particularly from Khorne, who couldn't stand any challenges to his authority and is known to be impulsive.

So he sends Ang'grath, the mightiest of his bloodthirsters, to put these mortals in their place. Ang'grath basically blindsides Oscar and the Custodes, but at the same time it didn't go well for him because he picked a straight fight with Oscar and the Custodes.

Ang'grath was a really, really tough customer,
but Oscar and the Custodes eventually won (explaining where he was during the WotB). The final blow of the battle was struck (at least according to legend) when the Steward leapt at Ang’grath with his flaming sword held high, splitting the Bloodthirster in twain with a single blow.

It is said that this was the point at which the Chaos Gods realized that brute force alone would not be enough to revenge themselves on the mortals who had dared to challenge their authority, and that a more comprehensive approach would be necessary to put these heathens in their place (read: started plotting WotB).

Didn't bring it up before because I wasn't sure how well it would work out and I feared it treaded on Sangy's turf. To be honest we need some more good Chaos victories. So far the main ones I can think of are burning Prospero, Ornsworld, Tanith, and Tallarn (the former two being more prominent), causing the mess that is Krieg, masterminding the "destruction of the Spanish Armada IN SPESS", destroying Altansar, and there was a vague mention of them subverting Kher-Ys.

>>57433978
>>57434384
>>57435957
Speaking of psychic abilities for the Emperor, have we discussed how he and Macha/Isha react to the presence of Culexus(Culexii?) assassins? I believe that in canon sufficiently powerful psykers can ignore the pain of being around a trained blank, but I'm not familiar with how they interact with one another.

The Indigo Crow writeup! Sadly, his involvement in the Raid will have to wait for another day, and possibly another author.


The Indigo Crow. The Indigo Crow. What can be known about the Indigo Crow?

Well, first of all, the Indigo Crow does not exist, and yet does. For Tzeentch is Lord of Paradox as well as Change. The foremost servant of the Lord of Change can have no unmoving 'I', can have no solid core of an identity; all must be flux. So there can be no "person" (for lack of a better word) which is the Indigo Crow. And yet, Tzeentch itself changes hardly at all, identity changing on geologic timescales. So, too, its many daemons, and so too must the Crow.

How are these two states reconciled? The secret is that the Indigo Crow is always changing, shifting every second into a totally new and random form. But, every time, that new and random form is the Indigo Crow. A set of unloaded dice coming up all sixes every time, millions upon millions of times in a row. Constant change resulting in no change. The Lord of Paradox is pleased.

What mind resides in this form of ever-shifting static? Its form is its function is its thoughts, and thus its mind must likewise be both ever-changing and changeless. It can only know either what it is doing, or why it's doing it; never both. While the Indigo Crow knows what it is doing, its motive is in flux; all possible motivations that could lead to its action in a state of superposition, even- especially- those which are mutually contradictory. While it knows its motivations, all possible actions flowing from that motivation are in superposition, less than real but more than imaginary. The Indigo Crow's 'mind' is a pair of quantum waveforms, forever locked in opposing amplitudes.

(cont.)

>>57438527

Perhaps as a result of this, the Indigo Crow either does not or cannot perceive the world with normal senses. Instead, its only method of perception is divination, foresight and hindsight, pre- and post-cognition. It 'sees' the world as a haze of probability, innumerable possible futures; and for that matter, possible pasts. Although this divination is exceptionally powerful, the Crow cannot see the present. It can see close to the present, very close, but for a second around itself it is blind. This is rarely a problem for it, usually it can see threats coming from far enough away to avoid them. Usually.

As a consequence of this unusual mode of perception, the Indigo Crow frequently acts or reacts in relation to nonexistent stimuli; things that could have happened but didn't, false pasts. Sometimes this is revealed to be another play in a deeper plot. Sometimes it's just delusion.

And sometimes it's something stranger still. There are indications that the Indigo Crow is capable of time travel and causality manipulation to some degree. That, just as a skilled pre-cognitive steers the course of history towards his preferred future, the Crow can steer the course of fate towards his preferred past, bringing plots and plans and schemes into being retroactively. Constrained by the need to be consistent with the rest of the universe in the present, but that is not as much of a constraint as one would hope.

(cont.)

>>57438538
The Indigo Crow, although foremost among the Tzeentchian Crones, does not lead them in any conventional sense. It does not issue directives or prophecy. Instead, on its eternal winding path between the webway academies around the rim of the Eye, it has accumulated a vast parade. Hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of sorcerers and madmen follow the Indigo Crow, obsessively examining every syllable that spills from its mouth and every twitch of its limbs for encoded commands and hidden lessons. Many are obsessive in this regard; even on the Crow's rare ventures to real-space battlefields they follow, ignoring artillery shells and laser fire for the sake of their observations, continuing to observe and speculate even as they die in the crossfire.

On occasion, a Crone who believes they have accumulated enough power and knowledge will challenge the Indigo Crow for its position and secrets. Whoever wins, when the smoke clears the Indigo Crow remains. Its form is its function is its thoughts; the foremost Crone follower of Tzeentch is the Indigo Crow. Always.

The normal forces of the Imperium (for values of 'normal' that include most of the Inquisition and Astartes) have little to fear from the Crow. They are beneath its notice. Not for it the direct clash of steel and sorcery on the battlefield, or even the subtle weaving of plots that cripple whole sectors. In all honesty, the Indigo Crow may not fully realize the Imperium at large exists. Its focus is wholly on the strangest and most rarefied levels of the Great Game. Its opposition is the Alpha and Omega Legions, the Illuminati, Eldrad, Oscar and Isha, Magnus when he was still alive. The Deciever and Orikan the Diviner with his magic pyramid scheme. Cegorach and his Harlequins. And, of course, itself. These are the chosen foes of the Indigo Crow, and its private wars take place on a level most citizens of the Imperium do not even realize exist.

(one last paragraph)

>>57438553
This might be for the best. On the rare occasions the Crow exerts itself against the pawns, planets die. Or perhaps not; at the level it operates, success and failure is measured in far stranger and more important things than the lives of planets.


And done. Thoughts?

>>57438566
Really great, looking forward to seeing it on the wiki, hoping it will prompt the other guy that said he'd do the taskmaster to post. You did a great job with the weird conceptual nature of the crow, and the last bit noting the rarefied level the Crow operates on really fits well with his Tzeentchian mumbo jumbo. I imagine Trayzn might also make that list on occasion, and Ahriman and the Daemon Breakers when at the very top of their game, and possibly The Hydra/Cthonia project.

>>57438462
When Jenetia Krole was being mentioned, it was pointed out in the fluff a sufficiently strong psyker can eclipse a blank, since psykers and blanks are basically matter and antimatter, and if you have enough matter left over you're good. Problem is you have to be a Magnus or Oscar level psyker to be able to tolerate it, and it also depends on the strength of the pariah. Most Eldar probably couldn't handle it, though Isha probably could.

It also explains how canon Emperor was able to have the Sisters of Silence around without a problem.

I'd imagine it works more on daemons than psykers, since daemons are essentially nothing but warp energy and can't handle having their auras muted like mortals can.

What are Solitaires like? We know they don't have a pariah gene but in canon they are said to be soulless and the Eldar (except maybe the Harlies) freak out if they make psychic contact or physically touch one. Just no soul? "Tainted" by Slaanesh? Just superstition? All of the above? I'd say they'd be the closest to figuring out how much an Eldar can handle.

>>57438566
Wonderful

>>57438566
This needs to be on the page.

>>57438566
Sounds good. Captures that real Schrodinger's cat weirdness that defines Tzeentch on some levels. Reminds me of birdman's "are snacks real" soliloquy in TTS (that's a good thing), combining sheer absurdity with the irony that this absurdity has to be taken very seriously indeed.

>>57430260
Could be good if handled well.

Will turn into Mary Sue level of awful if not.

>>57434041
I think it was previously stated that Va has seen a lot of shit and a lot of change.

It's like if St Peter was an adviser to every Pope down the long years and eventually lived long enough to see Cpt. Picard defeat the Borg.

It could also be that whilst Farsight and other youngsters see the Teaching of the Greater Good as becoming watered down to appease the Imperium for the sake of inclusion he sees things differently. He remembers what life was like in the medieval era and he remembers the origional itteration of the Greater Good. If anything they've reverted to something that Aun'Da would recognize after an extended period of increased fanaticism.

>>57432834
They still turn people who don't make the grade into servitors.

On the subject of which should vat grown servitors still be a thing?

>>57443548
I would say yes, vat-grown servitors are still a thing, most commonly found in service to Adeptus Mechanicus workforces. It would fit with their attitude, and vat-grown servitors are probably less controversial than using normal human being. They would also provide labor to do the tasks that are more menial/tedious or are too dangerous for a normal human being, but not worth the time/skills of an actual Tech-Priest.

In our fluff didn't we have someone in the Mechanicus who tried to make a Servitor army and got purged for it? I can't find it at the moment, but it seems relevant to this topic.

>>57445333
It was the same guy as in canon, Strog or something, and his disgraced descendant was the explorator that discovered stillness.

On the subject of servitors, one of the notes sections has a shift in Mechanicus cybernetics doctrine to make smarter servo-brains replacing servo-skulls, and it would figure that regular servo skulls would be from vat-grown stock.

>>57443548
>>57445333
>>57445444
Definitely a thing. The Imperium has to get its servitors from somewhere and being servitorized outside of forge worlds is seen as the most severe of capital punishments. Servitorization is the sword of Damocles that scares people straight. Other capital punishments, like hard labor or being BLAM-ed, are less scary because people see it as abstract and survivable. Servitorization hits that primal fear because you know exactly what might happen to you, and that it's not as simple of a death as being shot with a bolt pistol.

There is also a clear difference between normal servo-skulls which are not normally intelligent, and the ones that are preserved brains of adepts so their skills can be retained through the ages (basically a cross between R2-D2, a servo-skull, and a dreadnaught).

>>57445444
>>57445333
Strogg. As a Quake reference.

And it was implied that they were not taken willingly or legally.

>>57445608
That's one of the things I like about this Imperium. Unlike Vanilla it does try to impose some measure of justice on the galaxy whilst at the same time makes no additional effort to be "nice". It has public executions, servitorization and the Night Lords and friends are still on the payroll.

>>57442972
It was mentioned in earlier threads that the caste system in and of itself as well as the Tau being "first among equals" were additions to the Tau'va (the first being done by the early Ethereals to make sure Da's Ethereals were always in power).

Va might not be able to do anything about the caste system because it's too deeply entrenched to do anything about it, and at the very least it provides some degree of meritocracy. No more feudal bullshit where you're promoted to lead the army because you're buddies with the king, you get promoted because you're good at your job.

Aun'Va's been said to be kind of like the canon Emperor during his "work from the shadows" phase, only instead of being able to bludgeon someone with psychic charisma when logic fails he's just a middle age-looking Tau who happens to be biologically immortal (something he's not particularly interested in stress testing) and has the expected wisdom of ages. He can't go striding into the room saying "look at me I'm one of the original disciples everyone pay attention to me" because he'd get hauled off to a loony bin and he can't brute force things with psyker powers.

Va's big problem is he seems to have trouble trusting people, and when he does he finds it hard to keep them numbers of them around because of the Tau's short lifespan. The irony is that while back in M40 Oscar was trying to make friends with Szarekh because he desperately wanted more friends who wouldn't die on him and knew what it was like to be an immortal ruler, there was another being on the other side of those galaxy who fit those exact criteria and wasn't an asshole hoping desperately that the Emperor wouldn't notice that he was immortal. If Oscar knew the truth about Aun'Va the two would probably get along like a house on fire. Oscar gets another point of stability in his life and Aun'Va gets more ins to advance the Tau Empire and knowledge from people who have been down this road before.

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58 KB JPG

Khaine and the Indigo Crow are up. Mentioning this because it was said that Khaine might need some tweaks, but no one said anything specific.

Thinking of putting the Krork story up under “the Last Casualties of the War in Heaven”.

Also, a few housekeeping points of order.
> Indigo Crow, Khaine, Caerys, Taldeer, Rynn’s World, Cthonia, and some of the stuff on the Drafts page need catchy subtitles
> Moving calamity of Krieg to M37-ish, yea or nay?
> Is Slaanesh’s origin as an intended God of Joy that went horribly wrong canon or not?

Am thinking about starting a new thread when this one hits 300+ to keep momentum going.

>>57448023
Sounds good with the new thread, also, seems like yes, Slaanesh's origin is God of Joy as conceived by the cenobite order of Shaa-Dome.

>>57448023
Someone was probably intending to create a god of Joy but I think the teeming masses just wanted to drown in the cocaine orgy. As to whether it went horribly wrong or not it probably depends who you ask. Many of the Chaos Eldar have never been having so much fun.

Moving Krieg seems the right thing yo do.

>>57447694
Do the Tau drink alcohol?

>>57449521
Yep, they have at least one, Ky'husa. Vanilla!O'Kais' father was also said to have some sort of problem, and I don't know if it was stated that he was an alcoholic or not.

>>57424271
Hey, writing this up, and I need a Kabal name for Klax. Was thinking Kabal of the Spiteful something, but couldn't come up with an addition word.

"Kabal of the Spiteful Blow" was the first thing that came to mind, but it seemed a bit silly.

>>57450208
He is La'Kais, you moron. La'Kais is different from O'Kais who is Farsight's Student-brother. There is 200 years gap between them. I meaan for suck sake, Farsight's first name was also KAIS. This pretty much confirms to me that you are racist.

And La'Kais's father issue is pretty much the same as his son's. Extremely bad temper which led him to execute one of his men once. This was covered up for the sake of propaganda

>>57451625
Kabal of the Deft hand of Spite

>>57451691
Kais is literally the "Steve" of Tau names. It means "skillful", which means just about every Fire Warrior with talent get it. Tau change names as they get older. They usually tend to adopt the weirdest simply because it makes it easier to identify themselves (i.e., Shaserra/Shadowsun and Shovah/Farsight are much more unique than Kais/Skillful, because it implies a much more unique achievement).

Moral of the story: If you ever meet a Tau with a name that translates to "tyranid puncher" or something weird, there's probably a story behind it.

The fact that THE Kais, the one who everyone knows by Kais and not by Shas'O Shovah, just needs the name Kais to let people know who he is speaks volumes.

Also, his OTHER nickname is considered to be a very inappropriate term in Tau culture.

>>57451823
Good one.

Also new thread.
>>57452096
>>57452096

>>57452109
There's still some life in this one, though.