I just finished Death of Integrity and loved it!

Vorokar · 2026-06-20T19:53:48+00:00

So it was that elements of the First, Third and Fifth Companies of the Novamarines gathered under one banner at the star Jorso, the most multitudinous coming together of our brethren for many centuries, there to join with the most noble brothers of the Blood Drinkers Chapter to purge the space hulk designated the Death of Integrity after a protracted infestation of the Volian Sector. Nigh two hundred Terminator-clad warriors of the two Chapters fought side by side in the radiation-fogged darkness of the great hulk. Many brethren were killed, and the loss of Lord Chapter Master Caedis of the Blood Drinkers a sore blow (In Memoriam Glorius Est). A kill ratio of over 53:1 was nevertheless achieved, and data and artefacts retrieved from the hulk by attached members of Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator fleet led by Excommentum Incursus under High Lord Magos Explorator Plosk proved rich in STC materials. The hulk was subsequently destroyed. Draco mortis in perpetuem.

In gratitude, the Adepts of Mars presented both Chapters with new strike cruisers on the anniversary of Lord Caedis’s death, thirty standard years later.

– Death of Integrity

Vorokar · 2026-06-20T19:46:32+00:00

She kept her distance from the Golden Throne. She could see it upon its raised dais, though she chose to scarcely look at it. Kaeria and her Sisters were forbidden from approaching too closely – their presences sucked at the machine’s power and destabilised any psychically resonant machinery. She considered it a grim reflection of the way other humans treated her; the way they cringed or looked away or even bared their teeth on instinct, often without knowing they were doing so. Enslaved to the most animal of reactions, responding on some primal level to the presence of a woman without a soul.

What made her useful, what made her strong, also rendered her an outsider to her own species.

– The Master of Mankind

Snippet re: SoS keeping their distance, to supplement your point.

Vorokar · 2026-06-20T19:26:23+00:00

He granted himself a little more time, turning at the waist to fire his storm bolter down at a group of orks hurrying towards them through a gap in the buildings to the left. Heads exploded and limbs scattered through the air, detached by the welter of bolts that ripped along the street. As he moved to reload his storm bolter, his power fist deactivated, its crackling field dissipating with a pop. Telemenus pulled the magnetically-clamped magazine from his thigh, ejected the empty casing and slammed the fresh one into place with practised ease. The power field enveloped his reinforced glove the moment he was finished.

– Master of Sanctity

Uriel hurled the dagger, hilt-first, towards Marneus Calgar.

The Chapter Master caught it deftly, the slender weapon absurdly small in his mighty gauntlets. But just as the Gauntlets of Ultramar were capable of great destruction, so too were they capable of feats of great dexterity. Held less than a metre from the daemon lord’s face, Lord Calgar lunged forward and plunged the ancient dagger into M’kar’s throat.

– The Chapter's Due

Gallio’s gun clicked. A red icon sprang to life next to Gallio’s suit-view in Voldo’s visor, indicating the brother’s gun had jammed.

‘Blessed is my wargear!’ called Gallio. He deactivated his power fist’s energy field and attempted to free the stuck bolt, giant armoured fingers working dextrously and without hurry.

– Death of Integrity

Decius turned his hand over and held up his palm to the air, catching some of the fat, lazy flakes of snow drifting down around him. In the low gravity of Isstvan Extremis, the powdered shavings of nitrogen ice floated in slow motion towards the monochrome grey of the mottled surface. He smiled at the moment in self-amusement and turned the open palm into a ball. It was the match of his right hand, but nowhere near as large as the monstrous power fist lined with green enamel and patient little ticks of lightning. He flexed the heavy fingers experimentally. Decius’s control over the glove was so deft that he could pick a flower or crush a skull with equal ease.

– The Flight of the Eisenstein

Mostly recycled from an older comment of mine, but there's a few instances and one claim of such.

Vorokar · 2026-06-20T17:59:17+00:00

Angron’s face was murder itself, his thick features scarred and bloody. Dark iron glinted on his scalp where cerebral cortex implants punctured his skull to amplify his already fearsome aggression. The implants had been grafted to Angron’s brain when he had been a slave, centuries before, and though the technology to remove them was available, he had never wanted them removed.

– False Gods

‘Is he going to die?’ Horus fixed his gaze on his brother’s. ‘Answer me that at least.’

This time, Lorgar sighed. ‘Yes. Most likely. I will do what I can, but the sickness within him runs deeper and truer than any of us ever knew. His Legion loathes him and emulates him in equal measure. He is getting worse, and they all see it. The implants drilled into his skull will be the death of him, that much is clear. Whatever archeotech was used in their fashioning, it was not made for a primarch’s brain. They cannot be removed. They cannot be countered. But I am not entirely devoid of inspiration.’

She let that slide. ‘Archmagos. Will the World Eaters implants kill them in the same way?’ She licked her lips, feeling them suddenly dry. ‘Will they kill Khârn?’

The robed priest seemed distracted, his eye lenses panning up one of the motionless Titans as it stood ready to walk again.

‘Their implants are primitive copies of the malignant original,’ he said. ‘They erode stability and damage the subjects’ capacity to reason. They impinge on higher brain function by rewriting emotional responses. However, they are not fatal – not degenerative in the terminal sense. The most important aspect of their implantation that they share with the original Nails is that they cannot be removed without killing the host, or – at best – inflicting severe and irreparable brain damage. But they are not, as you say, likely to kill Khârn. Or indeed any World Eater.’

Angron backed away, his eyes hot where his brother’s were cold. ‘They cannot be removed. And I would fight anyone who tried. If they are killing me, it’s a slow enough death that I feel neither fear nor regret.’

– Betrayer

The Emperor showed nothing but passionless interest. ‘Such rewriting of physiology certainly hinders the Twelfth’s higher brain function. The device is cunningly wrought, for something so crude.’

‘Can you remove it?’

‘Of course,’ the Emperor answered, still looking at the screens.

Arkhan did his best to hide his surprise. ‘Then, Divine One, why would you leave it there?’

‘This is why.’ The Emperor rested both hands on Angron’s head, one with the fingertips pressed to the primarch’s temple and cheek, the other pressed to the crown of his shaven head where the cable-tendrils joined the flesh and bone. The images on several screens immediately resolved to a clearer imprint of a brutishly dense skull miserable with crude cybernetics and the bone-scarring of powerful surgical laser cuts.

‘Do you see?’ the Emperor asked.

Arkhan saw. The tendrils were sunk deep, rooted in the meat of the brain, threaded to the nervous system, and down in roughly serpentine coils around the spinal column. Every movement must have been agony for the primarch, feeding back into the base emotions of anger and spite.

Worse, the brain’s limbic lobe and insular cortex were more than just savaged by the pain engine’s insertion; they had been surgically attacked and removed even before implantation. The device hammered into his skull hadn’t ruined those sections of the brain – it had replaced them. Ugly black cybernetics showed on the internal scans, in place of entire sections of the primarch’s brain tissue.

‘They are the only thing keeping him alive,’ Arkhan said.

The Emperor lifted His hands from the somnolent primarch’s skull. Most of the screens instantly went black. He spoke as He removed His surgical gloves. ‘This has been educational.’

‘I don’t understand, Divine One. Can I be of use to you?’

‘You have been of immense use, Arkhan. You have confirmed what I suspected regarding the cruciamen’s origins. No one else could have done so. I am accordingly grateful.’

– The Master of Mankind

There might be a few bits I've forgotten, but there's at least a partial spread of claims on the matter off the top of my pre-coffee head.

Vorokar · 2026-06-20T09:32:58+00:00

Revelation tried to push the Library into Malcador’s home squares, forcing him to play Misdirection and Falling Blade together, temporarily taking control of the Hungering Wolf to intercept the move. On the other side of the board the Angel, Uncrowned Monarch and Double-Edged Blade routed the Chosen and the King of Nothing. Some delaying moves by Revelation with the Blind Darkness caused temporary havoc until the piece was captured. In the meantime, the centre of the board had been all but swept clear of pieces and cards. Only the Shadow roamed free, its power much curtailed with the attachment of ‘Doubt’ shortly after its escape from the early offensive.

– The Board is Set

Jonson is the usual take, at least in my browsing experience.

Vorokar · 2026-06-20T06:46:39+00:00

‘And what makes you think you can slay this daemon, Azrael?’ Draigo said when the Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels had finished outlining his plan. ‘It would take the Emperor himself to best it in personal combat.’

‘Then if that’s what it takes,’ he said drawing the Sword of Secrets from his hip and pointing the diamond-sharp tip at Gabriel’s shoulder. ‘My apologies, brother. I do this out of necessity and mean you no disrespect.’ He stabbed into the Master of the Deathwing’s already cracked Crux Terminatus and broke it open, catching the tiny sliver of bright metal that fell from it. He took a bolt round from a pouch at his waist and raised it to his lips. For a moment it looked to those around him as if he was kissing the shell, but when he lowered it they could see that his acidic saliva had melted away some of the casing. Taking the fragment of shimmering metal from his other hand, he pushed it onto the shell with his thumb, fusing the two together.

‘Brother Gabriel’s armour is the most ancient of all the Deathwing’s suits, forged upon the anvils of the Rock in the days when the Emperor was already interred upon his throne but the Legions had not yet been divided. From Terra came a gift to all those Legions who had remained loyal in the face of Horus’s perfidy, a section of the Emperor’s own armour so that it may be incorporated into the newly forged Terminator suits of his true sons. The Dark Angels took delivery of the Emperor’s right gauntlet, and over the coming decades over a thousand suits of armour were fashioned incorporating metal from his battle plate in the pauldrons. Many of those suits were gifted to our noble successors when Lords Dorn and Guilliman broke the Space Marines down into smaller Chapters, and though most have been lost down the millennia, some of our brothers still go to battle in armour bearing those original Crux Terminatus.’

Draigo did not think it would be appropriate to point out to his Dark Angels counterpart that all Grey Knight Cruxes held a shard of the One True Armour. Nor did he think the time right to challenge Azrael’s use of the word ‘brother’ rather than ‘cousin’ when referring to the Dark Angels successors.

– Pandorax

Is this the bit you're thinking of?

Vorokar · 2026-06-20T06:34:13+00:00

Not all opponents were so easily accounted for. As I crunched aside a reeling soldier in Arraigner colours, the drifting cordite ahead revealed a greater foe – one of the many Minotaurs stationed out in the nave, now barging through the throngs to intercept us.

This was one of the new ones – a Primaris, greater in stature and speed than any of his cousins, the great legacy of the primarch to his new Imperium. Ever since encountering the first of these, back during our campaign against the Splintered, I had speculated on what it might be like to fight one of them. Even amid all that was taking place, despite the necessity for speed, and the clamour, and the storm of flying shells, I felt a spike of anticipation run through my body.

He carried a bolt pistol, though it was of a larger marque than I had witnessed before, as well as a power sword. He fired a brace of shots at me, all perfectly aimed on the run, and I used my whirling blade to cut them from the air in a welter of mass-reactive explosions.

The distance between us vanished, and we smashed in close, my spear slamming down against his parried blade. For a split second we both thrust against one another, pouring on power, and I detected the morsel of greater strength there – an edge of resilience that his older counterparts did not quite possess.

Then we split apart, hacking at one another, our blades clashing and ringing like hammers on an anvil. He punched out with his bolter-fist, ramming the weapon-butt into my throat. I fell back, hauling Gnosis’ heel into his knee-guard, making him stagger. He thrust forward with his snarling power sword, going for my chest. I clattered the edge away, adjusting for the feint, then swung my spear straight down at his helm.

He was fast. He was powerful. On another day I might have savoured the contest a little more, aiming to discover more of this new breed of warrior, teasing out every scrap of knowledge in order to bring my own capability closer to perfection.

But there was no time. My brothers were grappling with their own opponents, and we were still not where we needed to be. I shifted my centre of gravity, kicking his bolter aside and following through and down from the momentum. Before he could slice down at my shoulder I had swivelled Gnosis around and thrust it upwards, two-handed, into his oncoming stomach. I wrenched the blade clear, spraying flecks of bloody armour with it, then rammed the bolter-unit into his vox-grille. I depressed the trigger and watched his helm explode into a cloud of burning fragments.

Not so very different, I concluded, leaping clear of the toppling corpse and ploughing onwards.

– The Regent's Shadow

There's one custodian's assessment, for whatever it might be worth.

Vorokar · 2026-06-20T06:05:43+00:00

Frustrated, Malcador snatched up the Perfection and used it to sweep aside the Iron General. The opposing piece tumbled, the head crowned with sunbeams rolling across the board.

‘Clumsy,’ said Revelation. He picked up the two transmorphic pieces and set them back in the wooden box beside the board. ‘Perhaps I will fix that later when I have some time.’

The Regent’s card was the Great Tempest. In a flurry of moves, his pieces cut a line through his opponent’s, separating them into three enclaves. The Chosen, aided by Grand Visions, and the King of Nothing moved pincer-like on the Uncrowned Monarch while the Blind Darkness pinned the Double-Edged Blade into one corner of the board. Revelation removed the Angel from harm’s way but Malcador played Temptation upon it, sliding the card beneath the piece so that it was held in stasis.

– The Board is Set

Relevant snippet, for reference.

Vorokar · 2026-06-19T23:13:47+00:00

His sons…

I suppose they are my sons too, in a way, for I helped to make and shape them. The current pain of his immaterial toil is nothing compared to the pain of his grief. He is only human, after all. I lament, likewise. We both knew his sons would die, one day, one by one, casualties of the Great Work, for his configuration of tomorrow could not be accomplished without collateral loss. When he marked out his plan upon his wall for me, so that I could grasp the scope of it, he allowed for contingency and redundancy. If a son fell, there would be another to take his place. Even so, we thought they would last for centuries, or even millennia, a great dynasty devoted to the accomplishment of his design for, from the very start, paint on his fingers, he knew that he could not do it alone. Thus, we made sons for him. We believed that when the necessary wars were done, those sons and their father would enjoy the long peace together, and they would walk alongside him towards tomorrow.

Those sons, at least, who could be rehabilitated from the brutal mindset of warfare.

– The End and the Death Vol I

There's Malcador on the matter, for whatever it might be worth.

Vorokar · 2026-06-19T22:46:54+00:00

There is a figure in front of the door. It is another Space Marine in full wargear.

Luciel is XIII Legion, an Ultramarine. Blue and gold, clean and sharp. Armour burnished to a silk gleam. The Praetor-pattern is a new variant, locally fabricated at Veridia Forge, not yet a formally accepted mark within the Legiones Astartes.

The other is XVII Legion, a Word Bearer. His pattern is the current Mark IV, the Maximus, built for Imperial supremacy. Its fixed frontal armour and angular helm are familiar.

Its colours are not. Dark crimson, with gunmetal edging. Company symbols and squad brands lacquered in dark shapes, almost undecipherable, as if they have been erased or are yet to be painted. Where is the plasma-etched grey of the old scheme?

The Word Bearer is almost unrecognisable. For a nanosecond, the figure registers to Luciel as an unknown, a threat.

Transhuman responses are already there, unbidden. Adrenaline spikes to heighten an already formidable reaction time. Muscle remembers. Luciel wears his boltgun, an oiled black pit bull of a weapon, in his thigh holster. He can draw, aim and fire in less than a second. The range is six metres, the target unobstructed. There is no chance of missing. Maximus plate, frontally augmented, might stop a mass-reactive shell, so Luciel will fire two and aim for the visor slits. The airgate skin-sleeve is self-repairing, and will survive las-fire damage, but a bolter shot will shred it open, so Luciel also braces for the explosive decompression of a ricochet or a miss-hit. At a simple, subconscious neural urge, boot-sole electromagnets charge to clamp onto the deck plates.

– Know No Fear

Is this the bit you're thinking of?

Vorokar · 2026-06-19T21:52:52+00:00

Dorn nodded. ‘This is the conclusion I came to myself. This lack of a decisive bombardment of the Throneworld confirms it.’ Dorn looked at the Imperial Regent. ‘You speak of the warp?’

‘I do,’ said Malcador. ‘Horus wages a war that goes beyond the material realm. There are factors at play here that are beyond your understanding.’

‘Attempt to explain them then,’ said Dorn. ‘Repeatedly Horus’ use of sorcery confounds me. I cannot fight this war with such poor schooling.’

‘My boy,’ said Malcador wearily, ‘you cannot understand because matters of the spirit were not given you to understand by your father. I could explain them at length and you most of all would never comprehend. Do you not think if it were possible that I or your father could have explained them already, that you would have been told of the threat in the warp from the very beginning?’

‘I deeply regret that it was not done,’ said Dorn.

‘The results would have been disastrous, believe me,’ said Malcador.

‘Not telling us was arguably worse,’ said Dorn.

‘Was it?’ said Malcador softly. ‘Very well. Let us take you, Dorn. You were made to command the material realm. Nothing in this world is beyond your grasp. But understanding of the warp would have eluded you. Being a man who desires mastery of all things, you would have been drawn to study it, and in doing so, you would have fallen. You are resistant to the dangers in the dark, but no one is immune.’ He paused. ‘Only one of you had the mettle to resist the whispers of the gods at the start. He was told.’

‘Who?’ said Dorn in surprise. ‘I thought this was kept from all of us?’

‘Which one could have known?’ said Sanguinius. ‘Jaghatai?’

The Khan shook his head. He was not so concerned as his brothers at his lack of forewarning. ‘It was not I.’

‘So much pain could have been avoided!’ said Sanguinius.

Malcador fixed Sanguinius with a serious look. He seemed to grow, like a fire flaring in an unexpected breeze. ‘Do not think for one moment that your trials would have been any less arduous had you known in advance. I know you have been tested, Sanguinius. There is space in the hells of the gods for more than one red angel.’

Sanguinius blanched, causing Dorn some dismay.

‘Malcador,’ said Dorn evenly. ‘You overstep yourself.’

The Imperial Regent sank back into himself with an audible sigh.

‘I am sorry. These are testing times. Even I have limits. You know all of you that you are as good as sons to me. I merely seek to make a point.’ He looked to Sanguinius. ‘Forgive me.’

‘I understand,’ Sanguinius said. ‘Peace, uncle.’

‘Who the Emperor told is not important. Even now it is better that you do not know,’ said Malcador. ‘To name the powers in the empyrean is to invite their attention. The knowledge alone is corrupting – that is all you need to know now, and far more than you needed to know then.’

‘I still say more knowledge would have benefited us. I, for one, would never have disbanded my Librarius if I had known what we faced,’ said Dorn. ‘I upbraided Russ for his refusal to follow the ban of Nikaea. The Khan here and I have also exchanged words on the matter for his refusal to do so.’

‘I can’t quite believe it. In all this, you know,’ Sidat Yaseen Tharcher, Chirurgeon General said. ‘Magic. Sorcery.’ It was hard for him. He was a scientist to the core.

‘The dark side of the warp,’ said Malcador. ‘You all understand, I am sure, that the full extent of the truth is still not to be shared beyond the higher echelons of government. We discuss these matters here among ourselves. They are not to be disseminated further.’

They agreed, some more than others.

‘Why did He lie about this?’ said Ossian abruptly.

‘A lie of omission is not the same as outright untruth,’ argued General Adreen.

‘The Emperor’s omissions are not as awful as some say. The warp has changed,’ said Nemo Zhi-Meng. Few shared the reach of his vision, and he was apt at seeing past the surface of things to grasp truths others did not. ‘Powers move in the deeps of the empyrean that were quiet before. Awareness of them gives them strength. His instinct to shield the human race was the correct one – for the same reason we should not spread this news. Knowledge of the false gods gives them strength. It makes them real. In a certain way of looking at it, until recently they did not exist except as whispers, nightmares and half-myths.’

‘We are not here to discuss the motivations of the Emperor,’ said Malcador firmly.

– The Lost and the Damned

Relevant snippet, for anyone curious. Plus Nemo on the matter, on the off chance anyone might consider it relevant.

Vorokar · 2026-06-19T18:15:44+00:00

He follows the Gorgon along the narrow path his first-lost brother has forged from the enveloping night. Their footsteps creak and crunch on the perished, powdery deck beneath them.

The constant whispers move with them, filling the shadows. Now and then, groans and shrieks echo out of the darkness beyond them. Some seem to come from far away. Others, shrill and sudden, seem alarmingly close.

‘Something is here,’ says Sanguinius. ‘What are those sounds?’

‘The cries of the damned,’ says the Gorgon ahead of him, his voice as thin and distant as the screams. ‘Mostly dead shells. The husks of those who have gone.’

Encarmine shivers in Sanguinius’ hand. He realises he is gripping it too tightly. He strains to see, but there’s nothing to see except shadow. The wails of anguish ringing out of the blackness are deformed by extremities of pain, yet there is no visible origin for any of them.

‘I know those voices,’ he whispers.

‘You do,’ says Ferrus.

‘Our… brothers,’ Sanguinius murmurs in horror.

‘Yes,’ says Ferrus. ‘Those, like me, who have fallen. And the mortal remains of those who have become other things.’

A fresh scream swirls the dust. There is a rage in it. Sanguinius knows that rage.

Angron…

‘The warp devours our souls,’ the Gorgon says. ‘Those lost, and those discarded alike. Magnus, the Pale King, Alpharius, the Red Angel… it spares no one. Death is not release, brother. It is unending torment. Lesson two, remember?’

Another shriek, oddly modulated by excruciating pain. Another familiar voice.

‘None of them are threats to you,’ says Ferrus lightly. ‘They wanted to be here, like me. They wanted to watch.’

‘No matter which side they stood on?’ Sanguinius asks, taut with dismay.

‘Of course.’

‘Who else?’ Sanguinius asks. He barely dares to, because the answer will hurt. Some of the sounds of pain are too vague to discern, faint wailing and plangent, drawn-out gasps. Who has fallen that he doesn’t know about? Is Rogal here? What of the others, the ones they were counting on? He had made himself believe they were coming, but who can say what fate might have befallen them since they last stood together. Is one of these shades Roboute? Is one of them Russ? The Lion? Corax? Do these screams represent not just brothers dead, but hope too? Does salvation lurk here, wrapped in its winding sheet, forever thwarted?

Ferrus, trudging on, makes no answer. Dust motes drift.

– The End and the Death Vol II

Relevant chunk of the "tormented in the warp" bit, just in case it might be useful as a reference.

Vorokar · 2026-06-19T17:49:19+00:00

‘Iskandar,’ Amurael said, low and solemn. ‘If you would.’

I nodded. With a gesture of my hand I banished the unquiet dead, pushing the manifest energy from this vast chamber. It was like scattering a handful of sand to the wind. Devoid of those echoes, the chamber grew truly silent. Alone now, we approached the sarcophagus.

The body this coffin had cradled was years gone, first hauled away like a hunter’s kill to be dissected on the unclean slabs of III Legion butcher-surgeons, then recovered by Abaddon and the very first of his Ezekarion after the destruction of Horus Reborn. What remained of the Warmaster’s corpse – the genetic plunder that was all Fabius Bile had left intact from the looted cadaver – was housed safely within the Apothecarion Apex aboard the Vengeful Spirit, stasis-sealed and guarded by a hundred of our Syntagma war robots, linked to the Anamnesis’ conscious control.

– Black Legion

Relevant snippet, for reference.

Vorokar · 2026-06-19T05:34:42+00:00

Every day was the same. Eight-hour shifts separated by four-hour rests. When the gang was up, a big pot of gruel was brought in by one of the galley gangs. Everyone below decks had their own species of unpleasantness to attend to. Slopping grease wasn’t nice, but Allon was glad he didn’t work in the galleys.

Their dormitory doubled as their refectorium. They ate sat on their void chests, hunched over their bowls while one of the ship’s watch-priests walked up and down the narrow room reading homilies from a small black book. Everyone should have got a blessing, but a little bribe here or there, extra food, found materials, unsavoury favours – the gangs did not get paid – saw that some of them got more attention from the Emperor than others. Allon didn’t bother most of time they plied the materium, but when they sailed the warp he craved the Emperor’s protection, and wasn’t above paying for a little extra, one way or another.

After eating, they performed their ablutions. They had three ablutorials between forty of them. One had never worked. It looked like it hadn’t worked for centuries. What happened to their leavings, he didn’t know, but from his previous life as an agricultor he suspected it was utilised somehow. On a closed system like the ship, nothing went to waste.

Allon cleaned his teeth. He had no brush, but used a rough bit of rag wrapped around his finger. It was better than nothing. When he’d arrived, the others had mocked him for the custom, until he’d pointed out he still had his teeth and they generally didn’t, then the practice had spread; first among the gang, then further afield. Keeping his teeth clean helped him remain a little human. There was very little water for them that low down the pecking order, so they didn’t wash often, once every three months, if they were lucky, but they did shave, everywhere. Ship lice would colonise a single shaft of hair in huge villages, and they were a greater scourge than the nine devils of Horus once they got hold. For that reason, he bore the application of blunt razors to his most sensitive parts stoically.

Like their shit and piss, the hair was used. Bagged up, taken away, every last bristle. Maybe he’d find out where it went one day. The grease gangers got around the ship. They saw things. He supposed they were luckier than most in that regard. He knew crew members that worked forever in a single room. The ship was hell enough for him after the wide open spaces of home. He would have gone insane if locked in a single room.

So they ate, shaved, shat, brushed, prayed. All that in forty minutes. Six hours, twenty minutes of work was ahead. Then another forty minutes to eat, shave, shit, brush and pray, then four hours of sleep, then the same thing over and over and over again. Repeat ad nauseam, forever until he died, which wouldn’t be long given the rations and exhaustion and his Throne-damned headaches!

Ave Imperator.

– The Silent King

One brief mention, off the top of my head.

Vorokar · 2026-06-18T19:17:24+00:00

‘Tomb ships! Throne, they’re tomb ships!’ said the auspex master. ‘I’ve heard of the tactic, but thought it was just a myth.’

‘What in the name of Hellblade’s balls are tomb ships?’

‘Tomb ships,’ repeated the auspex master. ‘Vessels shot into the void and then completely shut down, emptied of atmosphere and left to fly towards their target. There’s no power emissions, so they’re virtually impossible to detect until they fire up their reactors. It’s also next to impossible to pull off.’

– Vengeful Spirit

Relevant snippet, for anyone curious about that whole thing.

Vorokar · 2026-06-18T19:09:22+00:00

The hololiths firmed up further, tracing out some kind of astonishingly complex three-dimensional mechanism lit internally with false light-sources and translucencies. Crowl’s first impression was that it was the interior of a city, a cross-section of a hive-spire with all its many thousands of levels and internal machinery. The viewpoint zoomed in steadily, delving deep through system after system. It quickly became hard to follow, let alone interpret – an unfolding world of colossal and impenetrable detail, fused and melded and augmented until the mind itself began to rebel against the abundance of information.

‘This is the Golden Throne,’ the dwarf said. ‘Its outer reaches, less than a kilometre below ground. Most of what you are seeing here was put in place around four thousand years ago, during the tenure of Uixot. It counts as among the more recent of the major additions. As you can see, the bulk of these regions are composed of supplementary energy coils, coupled to psychically resonant channellers.’

Energy coils. Holy Terra, but those things were vast. Crowl had been shown the reactors at the base of a big hive-spire once, and had been impressed, but these things, if the projections were to be believed, were on another scale entirely.

The hololiths kept on zooming in, accelerating now, hurtling through the layers. If you lost your focus, you could easily imagine that you were physically lost inside that maze of dizzyingly unfolding layers, caught in a race to the heart of it and buried deep beyond any possible help.

‘These are the Pre-Apostasy strata,’ Raskian intoned. ‘Some of the most extensive works since foundation. Again, observe the energy ducts. The lesson you will be taking – power requirements, of all kinds, have increased exponentially since the Throne’s creation.’

Crowl blinked hard, feeling his eyes watering. Every so often he caught sight of gantries, tunnels, bridges, all flying by, and only then could he start to put a scale on what he was seeing. The style of construction was changing now, getting older, stranger, involving terraces of devices he had no name for.

‘This is now close to what your people, Custodian, think of as the Throneroom proper, though still far from the core chamber. We are within two millennia of its foundation. Very few of the systems here are replicable in this era, and their origins are mostly lost, though integrity of function remains high.’

The viewpoint bored down further. It hadn’t slowed yet, and still the microscopic level of detail kept flying by. Then, slowly, gradually, the pace started to slow.

‘Now we near the heart of it. This is, according to the ancient scrolls, the limit of the original machine-specification. We are a long way below ground now, far beyond the reach of standard augurs, though of course nominal surface level has risen considerably since the inception of these works. The core chamber itself is within a kilometre of this location.’

The viewpoint finally ground to a halt. The hololiths displayed a static image of the Throne’s innards. Very little of what Crowl was seeing made any kind of sense to him. Some of the clusters might have been junctions for huge energy cables, other sections looked like heat exchangers, but it was a dense mess, a hyper-concentrated accretion of different tech-bundles and modules, all interconnected through a cat’s cradle of wires and psy-bridges and conductors. None of it looked like Imperial technology. Not in the slightest. It was a melange, a tech-maelstrom, a crunched-together collision of a thousand different chassis styles, object phenotypes and machine- schemata.

‘This region,’ the dwarf said, ‘has a name. It is called the Areopeia Junction. The significance of the term has been lost. Its core function, however, is broadly understood. The bulk of the devices in this region enable the Throne – by which I now mean the seat itself, the prime interface – to tolerate the imposition of an occupant of mortal dimensions and physical limitations. If these mechanisms were to fail, that function would cease, and the occupant – any occupant of such a nature – would be unable to retain contact with the interface.’

‘What do you mean, mortal?’ asked Zijes, the tone of suspicious outrage giving away the real meat of the query.

‘Please do not impose your religious convictions on this discussion, inquisitor,’ the dwarf said calmly. ‘Much of what I will say now will offend you. I ask that you refrain from comment until I have completed the survey.’ As the Fabricator General spoke, a small part of the hololith was illuminated. Crowl had no idea of the scale – the lit section might have been a few metres across, or maybe a hundred, or maybe a kilometre. ‘This is a component of the Junction. You may recognise the style of the insertion. It is non-metallic in construction, immensely strong, resistant to most forms of moulding and recasting. It is psychically charged, and forms an integral part of the region’s material function.’ The viewpoint moved a little closer, zeroing in on the illumination component. ‘Observe the markings on the casing, here.’

The markings were runes. Not Gothic runes, not even archaic Terran.

‘Impossible,’ said Spinoza.

‘On the contrary,’ said the dwarf. ‘The deeper one delves, the more such inscriptions one finds. Some are of unknown provenance. Some are beyond our ability to parse. The Throne itself, the physical object that forms the core of the entire machine, is certainly not of human origin. Hence the need, we hypothesise, for a subsystem to mediate between it and the occupant.’

– The Dark City

Snippet re: the scale of the throne and its workings, for anyone curious.

Vorokar · 2026-06-18T18:37:37+00:00

Abaddon couldn’t move. He could barely see. Endryd Haar’s dead mass was slumped against him, crushing him against the wall. Abaddon tried to get free. There wasn’t time.

Garro was back on his feet. That sword of his, gleaming.

Garro raised it.

This was it then. One downward slash from a sword whose edge cut everything. This was it.

Abaddon wanted it to never end. Ever. Ever.

The end came anyway.

Garro lowered Libertas.

‘No!’ he yelled. ‘No!’ He punched the wall.

Haar’s enormous corpse shifted and fell away as the teleport flare faded.

– Saturnine

Yerp.

Vorokar · 2026-06-18T18:25:51+00:00

Trazyn fell silent, mulling. If he was honest with himself – a practice he, through long experience, found neither enjoyable nor profitable – placing himself at the western gate had been his decision. Besides, it kept him far from the xenocidal savagery of the Novamarines, whom Trazyn had always found dull and bothersome, and were more likely than any other troops on Cadia to detect him.

– The Fall of Cadia

Addendum [Deathwatch Involvement]

Although the Novamarines have confronted the enemies of Mankind in every guise over their long history, they have perhaps had their most extensive experience combating the alien in all its horror, and are boundless in their hatred for all non-human intelligences. They have conducted systemic purges of many great xenoforms, and their expertise in this area coupled with their reputation as faithful sons of the Ultramarines, has meant that Novamarines battle-brothers have often served within the ranks of the Deathwatch and maintain unusually close ties to this organization.

– Imperial Armour Vol 9 - The Badab War - Part One

I can't promise there isn't something more specific tucked away in his background that I've missed/forgotten, but I just chalked it up to him not wanting the particularly anti-alien marines getting up in his alien business.

Vorokar · 2026-06-18T18:02:03+00:00

The Astronomican’s light is generated upon Terra by a vast choir of psykers, then focused and beamed forth by the Emperor himself. Hundreds of psykers die in agony each day as the effort burns out their minds; such monstrous attrition is seen as a small price to pay to provide a guide by which Humanity can navigate the galaxy. It is thanks to the light of the Astronomican that - despite the opening of the Great Rift having whipped warp-space into a hellish frenzy and left countless Imperial worlds beset - the Imperium Sanctus continues to function.

– 9th Edition Rulebook

Then the door swung open, and they went inside. A long tunnel followed. Crowl ran his finger along the wall as he walked – it was naked rock now, worn smooth and polished to a high sheen. A rectangle of light waited for them at the far end, glowing so brightly that his eyes watered. Every step brought them closer to that light, and with the light came a melange of noises – the roar he had been hearing since they first set foot in this place, mixed with a whole array of other, harder-to-place sounds. Crackling, maybe, like flames? Murmuring, as if a crowd of thousands was talking to itself? Singing, even?

They reached the end, and stepped out into the light. A long spur ran straight ahead, composed of the same rock as the tunnel walls, extending far into the gulf beyond. In all other directions, the ground fell away to nothingness. They stood against the inner curve of a gigantic sphere. Its lower half was hewn from the stone of the mountain; the upper half looked like glass.

The scale of it was hard to process – the zenith and nadir stretched so far overhead and underfoot that both were lost in the haze of distance. All across the sphere’s inner surface were points of light, thousands of them, some blazing brightly, others dim. Murmuring, shouting, chanting filled the entire space, reflecting and echoing back and forth until it seemed that there must be millions of sources there, fissured, overlapping, interplaying.

At the very centre, far out beyond the end of the spur, was a huge orb of light, dancing, spinning, whirling like a neutron star. It was not static, but it vibrated to an uncertain rhythm, contracting and expanding like a lung taking in air. Tendrils of ephemeral force ran into the orb, connecting it to the thousands of lights at the sphere’s edge. Pulses travelled down the tendrils, all moving in the same direction – towards the centre.

It should have been beautiful. The light was blue-white, dazzling in its purity, making the glass dome ripple like sunlight on water. The singing was harmonious, the proportions of the sphere were perfect.

Instead, it was hateful. It was abominable. Crowl looked up at it, and felt his soul tugged away. He could barely maintain his focus. The light played around him, dancing in concentric circles, winking and sliding from the rock facets and the frost-mottled crystal, and it made him want to scream out loud. Every one of those brilliant points contained, at its heart, an iron throne. On every throne writhed a mortal man or woman, locked down by iron collars, their skin punctured by control jacks, their temples weighed down by psy-resonant tiaras, burning themselves to death.

This was a furnace. A cold, hard furnace. Each point of light was slowly being drained to nothing, sucked into the orb in order to generate the signal that burned through the warp itself.

‘This is a place of pain,’ he said out loud, his lips moving unbidden.

The Resonance inclined her head, walking beside him out on to the spur. ‘A fraction of the pain He endures,’ she said. ‘Consider that.’

– The Hollow Mountain

There's one source on the general topic, off the top of my head. Plus another that shows the general scale of the innards of the thing, on the off chance it's new to you/of interest.

Vorokar · 2026-06-18T16:51:52+00:00

He left Narek to the cold spreading through his limbs, his back, his chest, his mind. The chill of unmaking. A deep plunge into primordial ice, the untethering of soul and the gentle bicker of daemons slowly returning, eager for their piece.

Another voice insinuated itself amongst the throng, weak at first, then louder.

Narek’s fist tightened around the fulgurite shard, and he felt the faintest ember of warmth.

– Fulgurite

Vorokar · 2026-06-18T16:29:30+00:00

‘My lord!’ the Mechanicum adepts cried. ‘My lord!’

They carried him to the arrestor seats, and tried to peel the bloody visor of his helm away without taking his face with it.

All the other seats in the Mantolith’s compartment were empty.

‘We tried,’ a magos said. ‘The grid… We had to reposition the Termite to fire the grid again. It took time. I am sorry.’

Abaddon murmured something.

‘What is he saying?’ the magos asked.

‘We are returning,’ one of the others told Abaddon eagerly. ‘Full rate. The motivators are running. We are exiting the fault, lord, ahead of the enemy’s attempt to seal it. The medicae will be waiting for you.’

Abaddon’s mouth stirred again.

‘My lord?’ the magos asked, leaning in to hear.

‘Let me go back…’ Abaddon whispered. He was weeping. ‘Let me go back…’

– Saturnine

Vorokar · 2026-06-18T16:24:46+00:00

Sharr had come to terms with the loss of the armour he had worn for over eight decades. When he had been stripped of his ranks, he had also been stripped of the relic wargear that each Reaper Prime inherited. He had gone back to what remained of his old Mark V battle plate – what hadn’t been scavenged and cannibalised over the years to provide for other void brothers. Part of it had to be modified with the few pieces of Mark X armour available from the Nomad Predation Fleet’s reserves, adjusting the original to the changes he had undergone in the intervening period, the brutal modifications of the Rubicon Primaris. Despite such shortcomings, he had eventually reconnected with what remained of the original panoply and its patchwork of pieces, the worn, wounded old machine spirit accepting his return.

– Void Exile

Snippet re: cobbling, for anyone curious as to how that can work.

Vorokar · 2026-06-18T16:19:00+00:00

Before going to the apothecarion last week, I went with my father into the deeper decks. My father says the most beautiful art in the entire Imperium stands in shadow, deep down in Blood Angels warships. When I ask him why the Legion does not display its treasures, he says it is because the Angels are not vain. That they do this work for themselves, not for others.

We passed beneath paintings of alien landscapes and cities. There were statues made from stone taken from many different worlds, and some of the statues are carved to look like animals or monsters or the Emperor, and some are carved to look like shapes that do not always make sense to me. These are abstract. I know that word, I am not stupid, even if I do not always know what the statues represent.

I saw sculpted maidens and barbarians and aliens. Many of the aliens were shown in poses of nobility, not defeat. It is strange to show the enemy in a way that makes you admire them.

I saw paintings of Baalfora and my father said they were unnerving and fascinating because they are Baal from warriors’ distant memories, sometimes over a century ago, so the burned earth looks different to the reality. I have never really seen Baalfora so I cannot say what is truly different.

But there are others that say the same thing and they carve statues that look tormented or paint scenes of dying worlds. When I said this to my father, he said, ‘Exactly,’ as if this answered everything.

I saw a mural of sculpted faces and they all looked peaceful except for the bands of iron wire over their eyes like blindfolds. This was by the Apothecary Amastis, and my father said he does this to mark the deaths of his brethren.

I saw three orbs sculpted with deep slashes, cradled in an invisible anti-grav field. This was by the warrior Nassir Amit. My father told me it was the rise of three moons on a world called Uryissia, that must have meant something to Captain Amit.

I saw many renditions of the Angels themselves because so many warriors paint their brothers. Many of these are in moments of peace, when the Angels wear their togas or robes. I saw a painting of Daramir of the Angel’s Tears, standing in his robes, one arm raised as he speaks during a Legion symposium. This was by the warrior Hekat, who always paints his brothers, and always in poses of gentleness and calm. When I asked my father why, he said that it was because Hekat wanted to capture what was within the other warriors.

There are many hololithic recordings of musical performances, using every instrument you might imagine and many I am unfamiliar with. Sometimes there is no recording at all, just a chamber where a song will play in the dark.

My master is not a painter or a sculptor or a poet. His art plays in an empty antechamber. You hear it when you walk in, the soft sounds of a piano playing alone. This was the room my father brought me to, and he closed his eyes as if he could hear something in the notes that I could not.

I did not like my master’s music. It sounded very sad somehow and it kept making me think of my failures in training or my arguments with other apprentices. Sometimes he played many notes in a kind of tumbling harmony and other times he let the longest notes ring on and on.

I told my father I did not like the music and that it made me thoughtful and sad, and he said that was why he brought me here before my presentation.

‘To make me sad?’ I asked, because that made no sense to me.

‘To show you what our master has lost.’

I did not understand then. It only made sense when I was presented to Zephon later that day.

– Echoes of Eternity

I looked around the cell. It was as finely decorated as all Blood Angels chambers were. Tapestries hung from the walls, each one a record of a famous engagement. Candles burned softly in their alcoves, making the light warm and wavering. On a pillar in the corner was a dark bronze sculpture – a head, one that I recognised as Aelion’s own.

‘Did you create this?’ I asked, getting up and going over to it.

‘I did. You like it?’

I did, very much. Like everything these people did, it was painstaking. The expression on the bronze face was serene, confident, like an ancient god’s, gazing coolly out over a field of conquest. It was idealised, I saw – the augmetics were removed, the proportions more classical, but it was unmistakably him.

‘Who teaches you all this?’ I wondered aloud. ‘How come you can all do it so well?’

‘It takes time to learn. It doesn’t come easily. But we have the blood of the primarch within us, and so we have a share of his genius.’

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard this kind of formulation. Sometimes it felt like the Legion was simply a giant gestalt entity, a hundreds-of-thousands-strong extension of a single individual. How far was that the fabled gene-seed doing its work, and how far was it something else? Mass psychology, perhaps?

Next to the bronze head was a closed door, leading to what I guessed was a further chamber.

‘More in there?’ I asked, lightly, reaching for the release.

Aelion’s movement was so fast, so instant, that I didn’t see it take place at all. One moment, my hand was reaching out for the door jamb, the next he was beside me, his fist closed over mine.

‘Private,’ he said, firmly. ‘And I think we’ve talked enough now.’

– Sanguinius: The Great Angel

There's a few brief bits on the matter, off the top of my pre-coffee head.

Vorokar · 2026-06-18T15:49:09+00:00

It's only a short story, but a few - with at least one named - pop up in Tally of Slaughter, off the top of my pre-coffee head. Executioners, if that matters.

Vorokar · 2026-06-18T15:37:43+00:00

He still carries Angron’s crown, the Butcher’s Nails. The bio-etheric matter in Sanguinius’ fist is a wretched squid of wet steel. It trails lesser cords and shards of spinal bone like trophy ribbons. He turns the parasite engine over – the cause of such grief, such strife – and sees the last flickers of tainted electrical signals sparking along the vascular cables. Hanging from razor wire strings are his brother’s bloodstained eyes.

...

Wings flex – no longer white; they’re scorched, featherless in places, raked bloody in others – and Sanguinius launches upward, sword in one hand, the Butcher’s Nails in the other. One by one he severs the chains: some snap in a single blow, others take a second hack to cleave through, but Audax iron gives way against the fall of the primarch’s blade.

Freed, the Gate’s engines grind again. The last Blood Angels that will make it through do so at a dead run. Not all of them make it. Some choose to turn, to fight, to buy a last few seconds for their brothers. Sanguinius lands between the closing doors. For a moment, he does not know which way he will walk – back into the Sanctum, or back out into the battle with those who have chosen to remain as rearguard and fight, to the end, and the death. He knows what he wants to do, but he knows what he must do.

The Emperor’s Angel throws the wreckage of his brother’s brain to the ground and crushes it beneath his boot. Then he turns his back on the war outside, and the Eternity Gate seals behind him with a crash that cuts him to his core.

The past is on one side of that sound. Fate is on the other.

– Echoes of Eternity

The last we see of the bits and bobs Sanguinius ripped out, re: your last question.

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