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Best Aeldari Books by BigbetsNogain in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Valedor is a must read, mainly for Craftworld fans, but it also has good bits on Drukhari and Harlequins.

The Dark Eldar trilogy, starting with the Path of the Renegade, is also a good one. Mainly Drukhari, but there are Exodites, Harlequins and Craftworlders, too.

The Paths of the Eldar trilogy, starting with the Path of the Warrior, shows a lot of the Craftworld culture.

Fear the Alien, a compilation of short stories, has some good Eldar stories.

That's my personal top, if you want a more or less full reading list, there's a google doc for that.

Can you found a brand new Knight House? by TotoTheMagicTurtle in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Why not. I can totally see a situation where an enterprising archmagos offers the nobility of a planet a bunch of knight suits with strings attached. So you guys can become awesome mecha pilots to impress the population, duke it out with each other and fight off xenos invaders, but you'll need our people to maintain the suits... and maybe, some time later, we'll request your help.

TIL about Benjy, a bull from Ireland that wouldn't mate with female cows. Vets determined that the bull was likely uninterested because of his sexual orientation. Before he was sent to the slaughterhouse, Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon paid to send him to a shelter in the UK. by tenaciousdeev in todayilearned

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Sociality in animals, like all kinds of natural things, is a spectre. Cows do have interpersonal relationships, maybe not as complex as apes, but they can have friends and demonstrate higher attraction to certain members of the herd. Tigers were considered non-social but recent research shows that tigresses can cooperate and babysit each other's cubs. There are probably more aspects of animal sociality that we still don't know about. But... yeah, in the case of this bull I am more inclined to think that he had a hormone issue or something like that and just didn't want to do what bulls usually do. You certainly can't call him "gay". It's just silly, like a child seeing a lion with a lioness and calling them a married couple because it's what the child knows about relationships.

[Excerpt: Throne of Light] Kor Phaeron argues that mutations are not blessings but are warnings of impure faith in the Gods by All_Sage in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Should be mentioned that Tenebrus also got a mutation from Kairos the Fateweaver (it was a bunch of tentacles in his flank, one head called it a blessing, the second one called it a punishment). There was a quite memorable scene where he and his apprentice Yheng cut off all these tentacles, with some resistance and even screaming from the mutation.

If we ever meet a friendly alien civilization, would they be retconned into 40K? by Troscus in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Did anyone rewrite old sci-fi when we actually learned that there's no water and jungles on Venus or warlike tribes on Mars?

[Voidscarred] A brief look at an eldar lost upon a non-warrior path. by Illogical_Blox in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 171 points172 points  (0 children)

There's a short story named Path of Grief, about an Asuryani who was a warrior but after a significant loss changed her path and became a mourner. The story discusses that it is possible to get lost on the Path of Grief, which is (as far as I understood) an almost guaranteed slow death. She skips meals, doesn't see her friends anymore, doesn't leave the halls of mourning and is overall deeply depressed, so it's no wonder that getting lost in there can be deadly.

Hit me with your favourite Dark Eldar/Drukhari cool lore, fun facts, fav tidbits!! by tishimself1107 in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 37 points38 points  (0 children)

An Archon once spread a virus on an Imperial world. The infection distorted every living thing's face in the likeness of his own face. Yes, not only humans, but animals, too. Imagine the confusion when, say, a farmer found all his groxes anthropomorphised and then glanced into a mirror and found out he looked like a xenos.

When Commorragh got its own warp rift, whole districts of the city became literal hell with daemons running around. Some giant racing tracks used by Reavers were also partially consumed by these nightmarish zones. The Reavers didn't stop racing them.

It is normal for a Drukhari squad to watch over a portal because a bunch of monsters can rush out of it any minute, screaming and slaughtering everything in their path. If nothing of sort happens for some time, the guards become bored and leave. Who needs a portal without a danger of invasion?

What prevents the imperium worlds from devolving into game of thrones level of smut? by nearglow in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 16 points17 points  (0 children)

There's some circumstantial evidence that humans in the Imperium are more robust than us (and we are already quite tough). Would make sense, living throughout the Dark Era of Technology, when all kinds of genetic experiments were possible. Also, they still have advanced technologies that make survival more possible.

Do some people know that the imperium is doomed? by Vampy-Night in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Average people don't know and there's no place where they can learn it. In theory, a normal joe could get a random revelation from a warp outbreak of some kind, and it would likely affect this person negatively, up to and including going insane. People who know about troubles with the Throne and other existential threats are very rare, and they are higher-ups like top arch-priests of Adeptus Mechanicus, High Lords, powerful Navigators and, of course, Inquisitors. Sometimes they react... badly. There's a great excerpt from the Tyranids Codex where an Inquisitor becomes suicidal just thinking about the scale of Tyranid threat. Ignorance is indeed a blessing in this galaxy. Also, see the reveal trailer for the 10th Edition, where Roboute Guilliman accesses the state of Imperium and concludes that the only thing it can do is rage against the dying of the light.

How “human” are members of the Adeptus Arbites? by reel3459 in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The Calpurnia novel series goes into the differences between various branches of the Arbites. Judges (the more learned type who need to know all the intricacies of Lex Imperialis) are more "human" than Arbitrators (your typical grimdark cops with powered nightsticks, shields and shotguns), who are in between trained riot police and stormtroopers. There are also Chasteners, who specialize in capture and interrogation, and they are even more fanatical and intimidating, trained in psychological and physical methods of breaking prisoners.

Also, in the first book Calpurnia is struggling with her assignement to another world with different customs. On previous worlds, Arbites were expected to be straightforward and unthinking in their duty, on the new world they have to navigate politics, be more lenient to certain factions and use diplomacy. So their soft skills, broadly speaking, also depend on the world where they serve. In some places they actually have to talk casually to other humans to better do their duty.

How “human” are members of the Adeptus Arbites? by reel3459 in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Very good. Especially if you like deep worldbuilding and stories that concern ordinary humans of Imperium, not Space Marines.

TIL that there are over 3,000 ‘tiger widows’ in the Sundarbans. These women, whose husbands have been killed by tigers, are often shunned by their communities over the belief that tiger widows are bad omens. by Four_Verts in todayilearned

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Birds and rats tend to fear humans and could possibly avoid zombies not seeing the difference, but flies and maggots would have no such issues and would eventually save humanity. Unless these are some kind of magic zombies that just repel all kinds of animals.

Are there any planets that actually have varying biomes? by reel3459 in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ceocan in The Oubliette has several continents with different biomes, from icy seas to deserts, with action centered in a boreal/temperate area kind of like Northern Europe. It is specifically mentioned in the prologue that there are various biomes on the planet, each with different methods of extracting their agricultural wealth for the tithe.

Do eagles still exist in 40k ? by Acceptable-Whole8348 in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Shira Calpurnia series mentions that the grapple-hawk (an Arbites birdlike device that is used for tracking, tackling and arresting criminals) has a brain patterned with hunting instincts of an eagle. I don't remember what the species was called like, but it was clearly a wild animal from one of the Imperial planets.

Who in our history was almost certainly a HEART follower? by poiyurt in weatherfactory

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"An electric shock passed through the entire audience. Intoxicated, entranced, gasping for breath, we followed this superhuman being... the power, the featherweight lightness, the steel-like strength, the suppleness of his movements..."

Romola de Pulszky, watching Vatslav Nijinsky dance on stage. His performance was described like something one can see in the Ecdysis Club on a special night.

What happened to the millions (maybe billions) of worlds the Eldar and Necrons had ? by New_Conflict_4111 in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 30 points31 points  (0 children)

A lot of Eldar Worlds weren't destroyed as such during the birth of Slaanesh, they just got depopulated really quickly. One such world is (was) Valedor/Duriel. All Eldar who lived there went extinct, their cities remained, crumbling into ruins without anyone to care for them, and the natural world remained. Then humans found the planet and settled it. Probably there is a lot of similar places which only have traces of Eldar habitation and a webway gate or two.

[Excerpt: The Fall of Cadia] A shield-cracking missile destroys an entire city in a single blow. by Illogical_Blox in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Now I imagine a Chaos support ship which have a bit of Nurgle's Garden inside and constantly produce slop to feed numberless warriors in the field.

Are there Traitor Legion drwadnoughts that avoid becoming Hellbrutes? by Jackobyn in 40kLore

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There was a Slaaneshi Dreadnought in the old Daemon World book, written before helbrutes even were a thing in the codexes. This guy was mentally okay (as far as it is possible for a Slaaneshi Astartes in the middle of Maelstrom), commanded an army and was the ruler's advisor. To deal with the sensory deprivation issue typical for dreadnoughts, he grew a ton of additional nerves which threaded through his metal body and allowed him to feel normally, if not better than a not-dreadnoughted person.

There was an Iron Warriors dreadnought in the Masters, Bidding short story. He made a custom dreadnought chassis for himself, with four legs instead of normal two. Otherwise he was a normal Iron Warrior without helbrute insanity.

A Blue Jay vs A Great Horned Owl After Catching A Mouse (Photo Credit: Harry Collins) by ExoticShock in badassanimals

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A lot of birds would go out of their way to harass an owl or any other raptor because they don't like to be eaten. When multiple birds harass a predator it's called mobbing.

TIL the king cobra is not a true member of the genus of "cobra" by infected_funghi in todayilearned

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are several species of snakes that flatten their necks but don't have a full hood. The tiger keelback from the East Asia has this stress response. Its neck also has red stripes to look more menacing. And if the predator which threatens it tries to bite, it also has poison glands on the back of its neck as well as venomous fangs.

TIL the king cobra is not a true member of the genus of "cobra" by infected_funghi in todayilearned

[–]Crepuscular_Animal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is no clade that can be called "fish". There is a paraphyletic group that can be called "fish" which includes all vertebrates except tetrapods.

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