Khorne really just cares that you're in the moment, focused on the killing. Like if you're just so mad that the warp twists to make folks heads explode he'll give you a thumbs up, or used it to augment your own strength. The problem with sorcery is the whole controlling the warp through ritual and study rather than raw animal aggression.
Warhammer 40k General thread
- Thread starter Alex
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- Megathread
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- Georgia, US
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- He/Him
But that's my point, the sorcerer in question was a sorcerer. Controlling the warp through ritual and study was what he had been doing IIRC the entire game.
It just doesn't make sense for Khorne to suddenly forgive that because he totes promised to not do sorcery any more.
The Blood Gym accepts everyone as long as you promise to adhere to its tenets (loud grunting is encouraged but clean up the blood for the next guy's set). Guy wants to join Team Awesome he's welcome to as long as he gives up his nerddom.
That's the thing with the Chaos Gods, they take anyone, but they punish those who betray their ideals most harshly.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Warp stuff doesn't require sorcery — after all, psykers exist. You are raising a valid question, though — how do Khornate cults bootstrap without some degree of what Khorne would consider "trickery"?
- Location
- Somewhere on Earth
They probably do slip in at least a little trickery to start, which then gets weeded out when/if it becomes successful. Remember, chaos cults don't automatically know every detail about their god like we, with our codexes and dozens of perspectives, do. A cult sworn to Khorne could at first be treating their faith as being sworn to serial murder that you are expected to commit in the dead of night and escape unseen, or they think it's just a secret upperhiver party club that has a weird obsession with blood. And then once they gather enough favour and sacrifices they summon a demon who murders everyone who did that and takes charge. Or maybe they don't! Daemons don't need to take on every aspect of their god, and an individual Khornate Daemon might be willing to focus more on the 'murder and skulls' part than the 'honourable combat' part.
- Location
- England
You know how people say the film Event Horizon is an unofficial prequel to Warhammer 40K?
I've often considered that the film Fight Club is a great example of how a Chaos Cult starts.
Disaffected people, bored with their lives and with undiagnosed mental illnesses start acting on impulses.
Apart from the obvious Khornate Fight club if you push the group in Marla's direction you get Slanneshi hedonists, Project Mayhem gets more Tzeenchian and Edward Norton's starting character is in a Nurgle nihlistic malaise.
They aren't in their tabletop forms but the emotions are very Chaos. Simply adding humanities "burgeoning psychic potential", as the rulebooks put it, and you get things from the outside starting to influence the inside.
I've often considered that the film Fight Club is a great example of how a Chaos Cult starts.
Disaffected people, bored with their lives and with undiagnosed mental illnesses start acting on impulses.
Apart from the obvious Khornate Fight club if you push the group in Marla's direction you get Slanneshi hedonists, Project Mayhem gets more Tzeenchian and Edward Norton's starting character is in a Nurgle nihlistic malaise.
They aren't in their tabletop forms but the emotions are very Chaos. Simply adding humanities "burgeoning psychic potential", as the rulebooks put it, and you get things from the outside starting to influence the inside.
Captain Orsai
Davion Heavy Guards Captain
Well, having been rereading vairous bits of Imperium v. Tau stuff - none of which I've found terribly satisfying, have dug up some thoughts posted over on SB RE Imperium v. Tau, with my being as noted rather unsatisfied with G Dubs' handling thereof (and there I go with the understatement again), and consequently each side's tactics against the other. Particularly, the Astra Militarum's tactics, which are going to be focussed on airspace denial/contest and tactical defensive fighting, as well as misdirection. As long as they have air superiority, the Tau have mobility that the Guard can't match, so denying them that, or at least making it much more difficult, is a high priority for IG forces; mainly using air defence artillery (so, Hydras, Manticores, Praetors and the towed-mount equivalents; but primarily the self-propelled models as they can displace easier after firing). Even limiting the proximity to Imperial forces that Tau air transport can operate in would be a major help in retarding their mobility advantage, as well as preventing a direct assault landing. Similar reasoning applies for holding to the tactical defensive; the Tau's edge is in mobility, the Guard's in field engineering and firepower. So use that; try and force the Tau to come into their reach via, effectively, the hedgehog concept, mutually supporting strongpoints/fire support bases rather than a contiguous line, in order that to reduce each the Tau have to come into the artillery radius of multiple others (as well as doing things like preregistering the best LZs for Battlesuit formations or firing positions for Sky Rays, etc.).
As far as misdirection, well, the Tau Fire Caste are, frankly, a bunch of tactics snobs; they're obsessively wedded to the tactical engagement as the highest art of warfare. And, of the observed Fire Caste senior officers, Farsight's one of the very few able - although O'R'Myr from the Taros campaign seems to be also - to make the conceptual leap needed to see war as something other than a series of disconnected tactical engagements. That gives the Guard options, particularly for using drop troop regiments (or engaging allied Astartes forces for that role) to hit the Tau from unexpected directions and generally upset their tactical planning.
None of this is perfect or supposed to be a magic bullet solution, but it would be a whole lot more interesting to read about than the average (from Phil Kelly, notably; and that git seems to be the only one getting Tau novels), "The Guard troopers file mindlessly into the Tau death-cannons, clogging them with bodies!", which is both ball-achingly boring and doesn't do the Tau any favours either.
As far as misdirection, well, the Tau Fire Caste are, frankly, a bunch of tactics snobs; they're obsessively wedded to the tactical engagement as the highest art of warfare. And, of the observed Fire Caste senior officers, Farsight's one of the very few able - although O'R'Myr from the Taros campaign seems to be also - to make the conceptual leap needed to see war as something other than a series of disconnected tactical engagements. That gives the Guard options, particularly for using drop troop regiments (or engaging allied Astartes forces for that role) to hit the Tau from unexpected directions and generally upset their tactical planning.
None of this is perfect or supposed to be a magic bullet solution, but it would be a whole lot more interesting to read about than the average (from Phil Kelly, notably; and that git seems to be the only one getting Tau novels), "The Guard troopers file mindlessly into the Tau death-cannons, clogging them with bodies!", which is both ball-achingly boring and doesn't do the Tau any favours either.
16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Once again I have a reason to shout out Baldemorts Tankers Vs. Tau series, I know I know, fanfiction but neither side is depicted as statically as what you describe.
Nemesis_Scar
Y Herlidwyth.
- Location
- Alabama.
- Pronouns
- She/They
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Thought: we hear very little about what the sector lords get up to in their day to day.
But I think there's room there for a story or a game, either boardgame, or rpg, or computer game.
Consider, the sector lord has very limited direct control over things and many responsibilities.
They might be able to order around the heads of the imperial guard, navy, and administratum in their territory, maybe.
but due to how things are liable to work, all of those people will need to prioritize orders from within their own chain of command over those of the sector government.
And there's no level of conventional civilian government in between sector and segmentum, while all those organizations probably do have sub-segmentum multi-sector divisions of command, so trying to appeal those orders to your own superior to get them changed from above will be much slower than the ability of the superiors in your key subordinates chains of commands' ability to cause new problems.
Your authority is broad enough that there's always going to be a war on somewhere in your domain, but not broad enough to be sure you can do anything about it.
In practice your authority extends firmly over most of the planetary governors, and most of the chartist traders in your sector, and beyond that you rely on the ability to convert soft power into hard power, make things very difficult for the major officials from the imperial branches in your sector if they choose to make things difficult for you, and to subvert the limits the system places upon you.
If you bypass those limits too aggressively or effectively someone in the Inquisition and probably sector command will become concerned and probably your enemy, if you colonize new planets too expansively compared to the rate of lost planets someone in the Inquisition and probably sector command will become concerned and probably your enemy, if you lose too many planets to those wars you can't be sure you'll be able to do anything about someone in the Inquisition or segmentum command will become your enemy and try to remove you in favor of someone who they think will handle the situation better.
And yet in a very real way the buck stops with you, all the nonsense that various adventurer-equivalents and subversives get up to, and everything the inquisitors and rogue traders and planetary governors have too much trouble dealing with becomes your problem, because there's no guarantee that escalating it to the next level of of government will accomplish anything, because not only are many of the sectors isolated enough from eachother that it's impractical to send aid from one to another in a timely manner, the segmentum government is liable to be overworked and unresponsive overseeing way too many subordinates because of the flaws in how the Imperium is organized.
Does anyone have any game mechanics they'd like to brainstorm for such a scenario?
But I think there's room there for a story or a game, either boardgame, or rpg, or computer game.
Consider, the sector lord has very limited direct control over things and many responsibilities.
They might be able to order around the heads of the imperial guard, navy, and administratum in their territory, maybe.
but due to how things are liable to work, all of those people will need to prioritize orders from within their own chain of command over those of the sector government.
And there's no level of conventional civilian government in between sector and segmentum, while all those organizations probably do have sub-segmentum multi-sector divisions of command, so trying to appeal those orders to your own superior to get them changed from above will be much slower than the ability of the superiors in your key subordinates chains of commands' ability to cause new problems.
Your authority is broad enough that there's always going to be a war on somewhere in your domain, but not broad enough to be sure you can do anything about it.
In practice your authority extends firmly over most of the planetary governors, and most of the chartist traders in your sector, and beyond that you rely on the ability to convert soft power into hard power, make things very difficult for the major officials from the imperial branches in your sector if they choose to make things difficult for you, and to subvert the limits the system places upon you.
If you bypass those limits too aggressively or effectively someone in the Inquisition and probably sector command will become concerned and probably your enemy, if you colonize new planets too expansively compared to the rate of lost planets someone in the Inquisition and probably sector command will become concerned and probably your enemy, if you lose too many planets to those wars you can't be sure you'll be able to do anything about someone in the Inquisition or segmentum command will become your enemy and try to remove you in favor of someone who they think will handle the situation better.
And yet in a very real way the buck stops with you, all the nonsense that various adventurer-equivalents and subversives get up to, and everything the inquisitors and rogue traders and planetary governors have too much trouble dealing with becomes your problem, because there's no guarantee that escalating it to the next level of of government will accomplish anything, because not only are many of the sectors isolated enough from eachother that it's impractical to send aid from one to another in a timely manner, the segmentum government is liable to be overworked and unresponsive overseeing way too many subordinates because of the flaws in how the Imperium is organized.
Does anyone have any game mechanics they'd like to brainstorm for such a scenario?
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- Location
- Washington, USA
There's three main layers, as I see it. First, there's the overall sector's economy, with administrative interventions acting like a PID controller or "idle game" trying to prevent various local breakdowns. Some types of overproduction can be just as much of a problem as direct shortages: Tuesday 24 January 2006
Second, personal relationships with the people important enough to mess up that first layer - planetary governors, rogue traders, inquisitors, space marine senior officers, etc. Also potentially includes courtiers, support staff, family, childhood friends, and other "persons of interest" who aren't political juggernauts themselves but are connected.
Third, lines of succession, tipping point between cost-effectiveness of reconciliation vs. assassination. When one of those relationships goes sour in some way that's costly to fix, how much would the other party cost to kill - directly, in terms of disruption to their surroundings, and in reputation? Who will take over that position afterward? Flipside of that is costs of keeping unusually favored / useful people alive and in power when they're short on adequate heirs.
Mustapha Mond
World Controller, Western Europe
I have found most of the T'au stories I've read to be pretty boring. I did however enjoy the new Shadowsun novella, but to a large extent I liked it because it didn't focus on the T'au as much, bringing in more focus on their auxiliary species and the Death Guard. Also, Shadowsun can be a genuinely interesting character. Which is another problem with the other T'au stories I feel: not enough character focus on a specific T'au who actually breaks the mold somewhat. No, I haven't read the Farsight novels yet, why do you ask?
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Looking for a 40k fanfic:
I think it involved following the perspective of a ?cloned? woman(possibly produced by a planet that specializes in producing and selling slaves to other places in the Imperium) who'd been sold as a mail-order bride to a farmer on a new colony world that had a severe shortage of women moving there willingly.
With a plot point about how basically all of the people they sold were highly educated by the standards of most places, including in fields like chemistry, as the mechanicus cared more about keeping mechanical knowledge exclusive than chemical knowledge.
I vaguely remember thinking I wasn't sure how cannon-compliant their view of the setting was.
I'm pretty sure that all of the farmers on that world were supplementing their income by growing and selling lots of illegal drugs, ?probably heroin?, that would be traded off world through various smuggling routes.
I think there was then a series of disasters. The main town getting blasted from orbit and cutting off crucial supplies necessary to survive, imperial guard fighting ?someone? For possession of the planet. Stuff like that.
Was probably on ao3 or fanfiction.net.
I think it involved following the perspective of a ?cloned? woman(possibly produced by a planet that specializes in producing and selling slaves to other places in the Imperium) who'd been sold as a mail-order bride to a farmer on a new colony world that had a severe shortage of women moving there willingly.
With a plot point about how basically all of the people they sold were highly educated by the standards of most places, including in fields like chemistry, as the mechanicus cared more about keeping mechanical knowledge exclusive than chemical knowledge.
I vaguely remember thinking I wasn't sure how cannon-compliant their view of the setting was.
I'm pretty sure that all of the farmers on that world were supplementing their income by growing and selling lots of illegal drugs, ?probably heroin?, that would be traded off world through various smuggling routes.
I think there was then a series of disasters. The main town getting blasted from orbit and cutting off crucial supplies necessary to survive, imperial guard fighting ?someone? For possession of the planet. Stuff like that.
Was probably on ao3 or fanfiction.net.
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Nemesis_Scar
Y Herlidwyth.
- Location
- Alabama.
- Pronouns
- She/They
The Mechanicus would absolutely have purview over chemists; they have it over biologists. And most notably, phosphex was a chemical concoction.
Can't help you with finding the fic, though.
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- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Yeah, I wasn't sure how accurate that part of the fic was at any point from reading it until I brought it up here.
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Nemesis_Scar
Y Herlidwyth.
- Location
- Alabama.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Nemesis_Scar
Y Herlidwyth.
- Location
- Alabama.
- Pronouns
- She/They
16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
So maybe reddit is a better place for me to seek lore information...but I'm wondering is the Lifeater Virus supposed to be an actual virus?
It reads a lot more like some cocKtail of disolving nanomachines and prions.
Like, the closest real virus I have heard of is the ebola virus, but for how dangerous that is..it's not going to be able self mutate in seconds to be able to infect anything from a jellyfish to a sequio to a bacterium to a space marine.
Is the weapon only called viral out of ignorance or out of analogy in universe?
It reads a lot more like some cocKtail of disolving nanomachines and prions.
Like, the closest real virus I have heard of is the ebola virus, but for how dangerous that is..it's not going to be able self mutate in seconds to be able to infect anything from a jellyfish to a sequio to a bacterium to a space marine.
Is the weapon only called viral out of ignorance or out of analogy in universe?
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It works on the same principal that the G virus turns skinny nerd William Birkin into a hulking monster over a few minutes:
SCIENCE!
More seriously, virus bombs have always read to me like a slurry of "we put every nasty thing that can be concocted together, suspended it in a superscience retention field, and dropped it on some planet to go pop. It's flesh-eating bacteria, it's mutagenic viruses, it's nanomachines (son), it's memetic Fallout radiation; even if you can defend against one or two things in the mix the rest of it is still going to eat you alive.
SCIENCE!
More seriously, virus bombs have always read to me like a slurry of "we put every nasty thing that can be concocted together, suspended it in a superscience retention field, and dropped it on some planet to go pop. It's flesh-eating bacteria, it's mutagenic viruses, it's nanomachines (son), it's memetic Fallout radiation; even if you can defend against one or two things in the mix the rest of it is still going to eat you alive.
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
My understanding is that it's literally just a single super virus. It is after all called the life eater virus (note the singular), if it was a cocktail of a bunch different pathogens I feel the name would reflect that.
I also highly doubt it's supernatural, the Imperium isn't Chaos- they don't slap warp stuff on all of their weapons. Especially not an older 30k era tech like the virus bomb. It would be heresy for the modern Imperium and would arguably be worse during the Emps era (kind of hard to push an atheistic state idealogy if you're applying magic to your WMDs).
I also highly doubt it's supernatural, the Imperium isn't Chaos- they don't slap warp stuff on all of their weapons. Especially not an older 30k era tech like the virus bomb. It would be heresy for the modern Imperium and would arguably be worse during the Emps era (kind of hard to push an atheistic state idealogy if you're applying magic to your WMDs).
