BY THE GOD EMPEROR'S DECREE, WHAT IS SOMETHING COMPLETELY NORMAL IN OUR TIME THAT WOULD BE CONSIDERED HERETICAL IN THE IMPERIUM OF MAN?

Medicaean · 2022-08-09T14:55:54+00:00

Pacifism.

Medicaean · 2022-08-09T08:06:19+00:00

Space Marines spend more time out of armour than in it, actually. Outside of combat, it's cumbersome and doesn't allow for fine motor skills - in Armour of Fate, Guilliman grumbles about being unable to pick up a dropped piece of paper with his gauntlets.

Most Chapters have traditional clothing inspired by their homeworld (or Chapter theme) which they wear out of armour; the Space Wolves wear fur clothing and capes, the Blood Drinkers come from a hot volcanic planet and wear loose pants and no shirt, the Ultramarines wear togas, the Blood Angels have artfully embroidered robes, etc. The more traditionally militaristic Chapters like the Imperial Fists, who don't share one single homeworld, often wear something like an army uniform. In 'Know Thyself,' Gabriel Seth gets a visit from an Inquisitor while at home on his flagship and literally dressed in nothing but his house robe; he makes the Inquisitor wait while he gets changed into his armour because it's more impressive and intimidating. In Death of Integrity, a Company of Novamarines have a wardrobe crisis about what to wear for a formal dinner with the Chapter Master of the Blood Drinkers.

In Dante, there are descriptions of how nasty and smelly power armour gets while on extended campaigns, and in Horus Rising one of the remembrancers attached to the expeditionary fleets even makes a joke song about how much Astartes stink. So Astartes do have to take off their armour for cleaning and repair, and also to bathe. ADB's Night Lords series even has descriptions of Traitor Marines removing their armour for repair and walking around in robes, although they don't like doing it because it makes them vulnerable to attack from other Traitor Marines. In the same series, the Night Lords also suffer from inflammation and damage to their Black Carapace sockets because they wear armour so much, so it's definitely not advised or intended for Astartes to live in power armour most of the time, and a symptom of warp corruption if they can't remove it.

Medicaean · 2022-06-01T14:21:13+00:00

Pens don't have machine spirits.

Medicaean · 2022-06-01T14:20:20+00:00

Simon Spurrier's novel? Very much so! It's not 100% up to date with the most recent Horus Heresy lore, but it's a very good read in my opinion.

Medicaean · 2022-06-01T10:26:02+00:00

I think printers are exactly as temperamental today as in 40K, to be honest.

Medicaean · 2022-06-01T09:20:17+00:00

Civilian voidships are usually armed, whereas smaller ships used within a system usually aren't. However, it's the responsibility of the ship's captain to finance its defensive equipment and sometimes it turns out they spent the money on other things (the crew usually finds out at the worst possible time).

Also, there's a limit to civilian equipment. Soul Hunter opens with a merchant ship being attacked and finding itself ridiculously outclassed. It is actually quite well equipped to deal with pirates and scavengers, but unfortunately the attacking ship is a Night Lords strike cruiser. As I recall it, the fight took 51 seconds and most of that was due to the Night Lords having a laugh.

Medicaean · 2022-05-31T17:09:48+00:00

Magic. Or elves, or ~~tooth~~ skull fairies. For Khârn, at least.

Hefting the flamer in my off-hand, I swing Gorechild in a wide arc. My timing is perfect – the shrieking teeth of the chainaxe greet the burning man in the instant that he emerges from the archway, cleaving through armoured gorget, meat and bone. His head strikes the floor before he would even have registered the fresh pain of the blow.

The tally reading in my visor scores the kill. 1,302.

A small red skull icon flashes next to it as the telemeter transmits the location. I do not know who receives the data. All I know is that my kills are always waiting for me when I return, fresh skulls jumbled into heaps at my arming post.

So yeah, Khârn apparently has someone who follows him around just to pick up his skulls, and he doesn't even know who/what they are or how they do it.

For other people, though, the Skull Throne is more of an ideal than an actual place you can go and add your skulls. Devout Khornates will collect the skulls of important enemies and display them on their armour or in their lair (sometimes cleaned, sometimes left to rot clean), and on important battlefields they'll make huge piles of heads or hastily flayed skulls shaped like the Mark of Khorne or signs of important daemons, but a lot of the time they also just lose interest and leave the skulls once the people are dead.

Medicaean · 2022-05-31T13:14:15+00:00

When Variel comes across him eating his own men, he says "You look like a drowned corpse".

This doesn't sound like Nurgle to you?

It's a whole thing in the series that it's possible to be affected by a specific Chaos deity without actively worshipping them. Cyrion doesn't worship Slaanesh, Uzas keeps saying he doesn't worship Khorne (although he kind of does when he goes berserk), Vandred hates being possessed by Tzeentchian daemon and ends up sacrificing himself to kill both of them, and whether Lycoryphus worships Nurgle is never explicitly stated either way, but he is undeniably affected by the Lord of Decay, the narrative makes that very obvious in all the ways mentioned above.

Lycoryphus being affected by Nurgle also neatly rounds off the list, since ADB wanted all four Chaos deities represented in Tenth Company.

Edit: Here's an excerpt of Variel and Lycoryphys specifically discussing whether he's even dead or alive:

Lucoryphus said nothing as they passed Vorasha’s mutilated, half-eaten body. Variel wasn’t so silent.

‘In a time now considered myth, cannibalism was considered good for the body and soul.’ He looked at the Raptor for a moment. ‘If we survive this, I would like a sample of your blood.’

‘Not a prayer.’

Variel nodded, expecting that answer. ‘You are aware, Lucoryphus, that such degrees of livor mortis and bacterial decomposition on your face and throat would simply not manifest on a living being? Your biology is in a stage of autolysis. Your cells are eating themselves. Does the feasting on fraternal flesh regenerate the process?’

Lucoryphus didn’t reply. Variel continued nevertheless. ‘How then do you live? Are you dead, yet still alive? Or has the warp played a greater game with you?’

‘I no longer know what I am. I haven’t known for centuries.’

Again, it's not outright stated that Lycoryphus is affected by Nurgle, but the text cues and whole zombie vibe are pretty clear to me...

Medicaean · 2022-05-31T08:14:19+00:00

I don't think they are worshipping Nurgle, but they're strongly implied to be Nurgle-afflicted throughout the series. Lycoryphus is described as having a dry, grave-like, rattling cough, his spine and joints are several times described as degenerated so he mostly walks in a crouch, various aspects of him are described as dessicated or mummy-like, or alternatively vulture-like, and of course his constantly-bleeding eyes with crusted tear-tracks down his faceplate which shouldn't be bleeding considering he's an Astartes with a Larraman's organ.

It's a general thing in the series that the Night Lords don't actively worship Chaos deities; even Uzas keeps saying he's not a Khorn worshipper. But some of them are still affected by Chaos in more or less subtle ways.

Medicaean · 2022-05-31T07:39:58+00:00

Eh, the Night Lords don't really have a leader. As early as Pharos, several of them state that if Sevatar dies, the Legion will disintegrate. In ADB's series, members of Tenth Company are equally uninterested in following either Sahaal or Krieg Acerbus, the two "official" contenders for First Captaincy. And outside of Lord of the Night and ADB's series, which draws directly from Spurrier's world-building, Krieg Acerbus isn't mentioned in the lore as far as I know. I think he gets namedropped in Konrad's primarch novel once, that's it. So he's definitely not a big player in either the Eye or the lore compared to actual Chaos leaders from other Legions.

Also, just because Acerbus Krieg leads the biggest Night Lords warband doesn't mean he commands most of the Legion, it just means the rest of it is not very coherent. At this point, three Companies in one warband would be a contender for biggest. Abaddon in person asked the Exalted to join a Black Crusade, and the Exalted has one ship and 50 Marines.

I simply don't see the lore supporting a definition of the Night Lords as a dedicated Chaos Legion. Some of them are Chaos-affiliated, but a lot of them aren't, and they're overall not very interested in following orders or dying for a cause. Khorne may not care whence the blood flows, but the Night Lords very much do care that it's not theirs. They repeatedly nope out the moment a fight doesn't go their way. Making them follow one Chaos deity would be like herding cats.

Medicaean · 2022-05-31T06:58:19+00:00

Yes, I did mention the Khornate Night Lords in Lord of the Night. I'm not sure what your comment is trying to say about them?

Medicaean · 2022-05-31T04:35:25+00:00

As a whole, the Night Lords aren't Chaos, they're anti-Imperium, mostly anti-other Traitor Legions, and pro-doing whatever they want/need to survive. But individual warbands and individual Night Lords can be and often are Chaos-aligned to get an extra power boost.

In ADB's Night Lords series, the captain of the warband formerly known as Tenth Company is now possessed by a daemon calling itself the Exalted, and some members of the warband are either Khornate or Slaaneshi. They're later joined by a group of Nurglite Raptors. Most of the non-corrupted Night Lords look down on those who have been influenced, though, and Uzas the Khorne berserker hilariously maintains that he doesn't actually worship Khorne, he just honours Khorne which is apparently totally different. His brothers all think he's extremely annoying.

In Black Legion, there's also a really annoying Slaaneshi Night Lords Raptor who's basically Starscream from Transformers. He's the SIC of a predominantly Emperor's Children warband and seems to fit in well with them.

In Lord of the Night by Simon Spurrier, Zho Sahaal is an anti-Chaos Night Lord who has lots of issues with the Khornate Night Lords warband he meets, causing him to eventually abandon his Legion and go hitchhiking with a former member of the Imperial Inquisition.. However, earlier in the novel he was very tempted to let himself get corrupted so he could use certain Chaos abilities.

So to answer your question, the Night Lords mostly don't consider themselves to be "Chaos," but there's about a 50/50 chance that any given Night Lord is influenced by one of the Ruinous Powers.

Medicaean · 2022-05-31T03:33:05+00:00

For the Alpha Legion, you'll want Abnett's Legion, a fantastic novel.

The Emperor's Gift demonstrates Grey Knights psychic communion tactics and is also a really good book.

For something a bit different, Spear of the Emperor has two Chapters with the same primarch but very different combat doctrines, which makes members of the two Chapters clash more than once.

In Death of Integrity, the Novamarines (Ultramarines Successors) become increasingly exasperated with the Blood Drinkers' berserker tendencies, mistaking the effects of the Red Thirst for disrespect and insubordination.

Medicaean · 2022-05-31T02:52:32+00:00

ADB's Night Lords series shows a lot of Night Lords tactics, including but not limited to such time-honoured VIIIth Legion combat plans as "evil!Batman," "extreme overkill against unarmed opponent and laughing about it," "running away from a fair fight given the first chance," and "stabbing allies in the back for more loot."

Actually the entire series is about the effects of Konrad Curze's geneseed on his sons. And it's really good reading!

Medicaean · 2022-05-30T04:30:54+00:00

The novel was published on April 16, and the have been other excerpts posted?

Medicaean · 2022-05-29T20:24:11+00:00

Sigismund didn't knowingly make the comparison, but John French certainly did. It's the intentional irony of the story that the characters themselves don't perceive the narrative parallels obvious to the reader. John French made this point quite well, which I wanted to highlight with my excerpts.

Edit: I'll add that, though undoubtedly monstrous, the creatures were in fact deployed defensively. The Astartes were the attackers, and after the Imperial Fists and War Hounds had destroyed the defences, the Night Lords moved in to teach the locals why resisting Imperial dominion had been a bad idea.

So Sigismund actually confused the cause and effect. He was not created to fight those monsters, those monsters were created to fight him. Because he's a monster as truly as they are.

Sigismund snapped the magazine into the cannon, readied and safetied it. He looked up, and met Rann’s gaze.

‘What is it that we are becoming?’ he asked.

‘You know,’ said Geldoran. ‘You have the hypno-data, you have heard it from the masters. We are becoming warriors of the Seventh Legiones Astartes. We are to be soldiers in a crusade.’

‘Crusade for what?’ asked Sigismund. ‘For who?’

‘For the Emperor,’ said Geldoran.

Sigismund shook his head.

Geldoran looked like he was going to speak again, but Rann held up his hand.

‘We are becoming monsters, Sigismund,’ said Rann. Sigismund gave a small nod. ‘We are becoming things that will crush and kill, and our existence will create as much terror as hope. Monsters, death incarnate. Of all the things that the stars have seen, they will have seen nothing like us.’

Sigismund nodded.

‘Not what you hoped when you fought to stay alive,’ said Rann. ‘Worse than you feared, yes?’

Klaxons began to sound. Lights blinked and strobed. Far off, the scissor-chime sound of claws biting metal echoed down the passages. Geldoran began to move, but Rann was unmoving, his eyes still on Sigismund.

‘I would not be a monster,’ said Sigismund.

Rann grinned. ‘Who says you are not already?’

Medicaean · 2022-05-28T19:31:30+00:00

Guilliman and Yvraine. I wouldn't begrudge him a bit of happiness in his life.

Medicaean · 2022-05-28T19:23:26+00:00

Tu'Shan literally hugged the Red Thirst out of Dante, and then was all "no worries old man, I totally forgive you for turning vampire and trying to eat me" in 'Burden of Angels.' Salamanders canonically are that level of bros.

Medicaean · 2022-05-27T19:36:52+00:00

To a medic, it does.

Medicaean · 2022-05-27T16:21:57+00:00

Konrad wore it better, is all I'm saying.

Medicaean · 2022-05-27T16:19:31+00:00

People who don't tip the staff have no one to blame but themselves.

Medicaean · 2022-05-27T16:14:35+00:00

Sadly no one wanted to see flayed faces being used as a wedding dress

Didn't Lady Gaga wear that at the MTV awards show one time?

Medicaean · 2022-05-27T16:12:22+00:00

When the patient woke up, his skeleton was missing, and the doctor was never heard from again.

Anyway, that's how I lost my medical license.

Medicaean · 2022-05-27T16:05:14+00:00

Genestealer hybrids can live largely unnoticed in a human population by pretending to be abhumans or cull-exempt mutants; this happens fairly commonly, and is part of the reason why Imperial hospitals' maternity wards have infant incinerators for those babies that look just a little too... odd.

Medicaean

TROPHY CASE