r/40kLore

In a perfectly written book, where everyone can agree that a Primarch returns by whatever way they deem fit, no matter if they were permanently killed or turned to chaos...

Which Primarch would be most disappointed how their legion and sons turned out, and if so can you point to certain in-lore instances to back it up?

Let's assume these returned Primarchs are of sound mind and pre-Great Crusade mindsets.

Somehow I believe it would either be Dorn or Fulgrim...

Between the whole entire legion being wiped out/religious zealots and the Lords of Excess...

​

So I was watching the sororitas episodes, and that got me wondering, what exactly prevents a mortifier or penitent engine from just committing mutiny or get revenge on their captors ? After all heretics and traitors are mainly put there, so you'd think they would be down to kill them, and from my understanding they are the ones controlling the machines, they are just in immense pain and suffering doing that.

The Excerpt in question :

>‘Despite our early issues and personal differences, Commander Branne, I would have no problem serving under you. Against overwhelming opposition, you rescued Lord Corax and the remains of your Legion from Isstvan. That is a feat worthy of respect and praise. You are a Hero of the Imperium, commander.’

>‘I am?’ laughed Branne. There were chuckles from the other legionaries, both Raven Guard and Imperial Fists. Since Isstvan, the commander had felt as if he had failed. The most important battle in the Legion’s history and he missed it. He and his warriors had been apart from the others, isolated from the bond that had brought the rest of the Legion together, Terrans and those of Deliverance. To hear Noriz speak of his actions in such terms allowed him for the first time to think differently about the matter. ‘If that makes me a Hero of the Imperium, we’ll have to come up with a new title for whoever kills Horus.’

>‘It’ll be Russ,’ said one of Branne’s honour guard. ‘Just you wait. Once the Space Wolves get involved, this’ll be over quick.’

>‘Maybe we’ll get to him first,’ said another.

>‘Sanguinius,’ said Noriz, silencing the debate. ‘The Sons of Fenris are far away, still likely dealing with the aftermath of Prospero. As much as I admire your enthusiasm, the Raven Guard cannot match the might of the Luna Wolves. No, when the Blood Angels hear of this treachery, there’ll be no stopping Sanguinius. Lord Dorn calls him the Angel of Death, and I can’t imagine Fulgrim, Perturabo, Lorgar or any of the others wanting to step between Horus and the Angel’s vengeance. It’ll be Sanguinius, mark my words.’

>Branne reached into his belt and pulled out a ring with two large keys on it. They were dull, much scratched and slightly bent, the wear of decades plain to see.

>‘I took these from the first man I killed during the liberation war,’ said Branne. ‘If Sanguinius kills Horus, they’re yours.’

>‘A wager?’ said Noriz.

>‘If you like,’ said Branne. ‘What do you offer up?’

>Noriz glanced at his legionaries and received nods of encouragement.

>‘All right,’ said Noriz. He unhooked a golden shield from the lanyard on his right shoulder plate and held it up to Branne. It was inscribed with a single word: ‘Narandia’. ‘My first battle honour, awarded for slaying an ork commander. If Russ gets to Horus first, you can have it.’

>This was greeted with claps and a cheer from the Raven Guard.

>‘I‘ll be watching your back, to make sure that you survive long enough to hand over that shiny medal,’ said Branne.

>‘And I will be watching yours, commander,’ replied Noriz, slapping his hand against Branne’s breastplate. ‘I have always desired to own a rusty set of keys.’

>Returning the keys to their pouch, Branne hoped that one of them would prove right. If Horus reached Terra, nothing would be certain.

My question is, what did Dorn see to have that high an opinion of Sanguinius

No, seriously, what do they *do*? Cram stupid heretic astartes into hellbrutes and other machines? Is that it? They’re whole schtick is that they’re the Cult Mechanicus but with no ban on the innovation of technology, and other tech-heresies. What are some examples of them doing that? Have they ever actually made something? Can they use xenos tech to improve STC’s?

They’re not even the guys that the CSM go to for weapons and other shit, that’s the Fartifane. So do they worship him too or just the ominissiah? Is Vash’tor heresy to the heretics?

Lastly, are there remaining Mechanicum members from the Horus Heresy in the Dark Mechanicum?

Had the Emperor been able to speak after his duel with Horus, would he have been okay been interred into the Golden Throne, or he would have given other option. Or did he plan this as a possible outcome.

I always wondered why Curze never attempted to murder all his sons. He hated them, he says as much, but he never tries to kill them personally. He sends them to die, orders a suicide strike during the Dark Angels ambush to kill off the 1st company so they can't unite, but never does anything beyond that.

Why? If he hated them so much, why not kill them all? Why not sneak around the fortress and murder them all one by one?

No instead he continues to lead them up until the moment he is killed. He gives them council, he tells them his inner thoughts and motivations, but he just lets them live to plague the Imperium.

I could accept that he was telling the truth, he truly did not care what happened to them by then and was fine with them just being a thorn in the imperium's paw. But lets say that's not the case. He wants them eradicated. Sure many of them had left by then, but lets say he just decides to go around murdering them all.

Does he have a chance? Or do they unite against him and kill him?

Since one of the goals for Ad Mech personal is to replace your body with sacred machine parts, at a certain point are they too much machine and no longer have their souls? Is the soul attached to the person regardless of howany flesh parts they have?

any traitor space Marines that are d!ks just for the love of the game and not because they feel to chaos?

Something like having to be inconspicuous or blend in maybe while working with the inquisition. I know they’re still walking tanks without the armor but that’s nothing a dope cloak wouldn’t fix.

Idk where I heard this. It was either through a conversation with a friend or in a 40klore video(I’m too stupid to read). But I remember hearing that the Galactic Federation during the Dark Age of Technology was a post-scarcity communist utopia. Kinda like humanity in Star Trek. Is this true?

Major spoilers for the Legends of the Wolf omnibus & Helwinter Gate. Over the course of Chris Wright's Space Wolves trilogy we are introduced to Baldr Fjolnir, a Grey Hunter of the Space Wolves Chapter who over the course of the books we discover he is awakening psychic abilities. Unfortunately for him the thing that kick starts his powers is an attack by a Death Guard sorcerer that almost leaves him corrupted. He is later inspected by Njal Stormcaller, High Rune Priest of the chapter and has a null collar placed on him to block his psychic powers which as the story progresses starts to slowly kill him as it was intended as a temporary measure. Fortunately in the third book when his pack makes it to Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade attempting to stop the assassination of Ragnar Blackmane they encounter an Eldar Farseer that is willing to break the collar in exchange for returning her soul stone to her Craftworld. Now free of his collar he could unleash his power:

He was surrounded, all the time, up close. Not by physical bodies – by minds, by souls, crowding at him, clamouring for him, reaching out spectral hands to drag him down.

Baldr knew that his body was in motion. To some degree, he retained full control of it – his limbs moved as they should do, his eyes witnessed the clamour and destruction, his mouth spoke and his hearts pumped. And yet, the divide between the worlds had thinned, blurring into a mist of time-fractured impressions and ghost-images. The souls of those he slew were like hot coals in an empty brazier-pan, glowing faintly, apt to be snuffed out by a gust of air or a smatter of water.

He saw the structure of the fortress towering away in semi-translucence like some gigantic hololith. The walls and the floors were hard to pinpoint, but the souls within it were not – they were points of fire, flickering, moving, whirling like a star field. They were beyond counting, and more streamed into combat with every moment, fuelling the inferno that made the foundations of the fortress shiver.

Not all those fires burned equally brightly. Most were dim and easily extinguished. A few raged with intensity, looking as if they might resist the rigours of the storm ahead, even flourish in it. Many of those souls fought for the enemy, and their auras were edged with strange resonances. Others were clearly defenders of the kasr, leading desperate charges to shore up defences and claw back lost ground. Baldr could sense types, too – mortal humans, those corrupted by the daemonic, those who had lived for mere decades and those whose threads were centuries old.

Most intensely of all, he felt his own self, his own essence, raging at the bonds his body placed on it. He could feel the pressure of the forces within, struggling to escape, to unleash. He could do it now, here, exploding at any point of his choosing and sweeping all resistance away. The spirits of the ice were snarling and unravelling, ancient war-gheists that had always been there, just sleeping, just suppressed, now unfettered and lusting for violence. They bore raiments that he recognised – ravens, serpents, dragons of the deep, and, most salient of all, the monstrous wolves, their fur matted with blood, their teeth long and yellow, their eyes as red as the world’s end. Just keeping those avatars in check now took almost all his strength, pressing them down into the depths of his psyche, grasping them by the nape as they slavered and leapt.

‘Ahead now,’ he murmured, almost to himself, only dimly aware of Ingvar running at his side. His pack-brothers were like shades, their outlines lost in the darkness, only their souls strongly visible. Gyrfalkon’s was stark and vivid, a cold star that burned in the gloom, made colder by his long years of exile. Olgeir’s was huge and generous, though checked now by suspicion and doubt. Hafloí’s was the brightest, the hottest, but also the most brittle. And, far off, he could still just make out Skullhewer’s aura, the mightiest of them all, though obscured now, beset on all sides. How long could it last? Was it already on the road to annihilation, just to buy a little more time?

They were close, now. The vaults rose up around them, ever more immense, gathering themselves up towards the undergates and the mighty galleries, places where the fate of the kasr would be decided. He could feel Blackmane’s presence, sense the furnace of his existence, hotter and more striking than any other, though also surrounded, also obscured, as if smothered by a hundred lesser entities, all trying to sink their claws into him and bring him down.

The beasts within him growled, opened their eyes, exposed their teeth. They could not be held back forever, not in this place, where the fury of ancient powers had already been let loose and the warp itself lapped at the corpse-thick shore. They knew where he was headed. They knew what was taking place within the walls and under the earth.

He needed to hold out a little longer. Just a little longer.

Time was running out, space was running out.

Just a little longer.

Olgeir ran too, his chest aching, his limbs aflame, his hearts thumping fast. The tunnels ahead still offered plenty in the way of prey – the barricade had been an incomplete barrier, one around which roving bands of cultists had managed to infiltrate via any number of other routes. Brutal battles still took place in the dark – Militarum forces grappling with enemy fighters, taking back some chambers before losing others, locked in a grim struggle for every inch of ground. Sounds of combat came from high bridges above, glimpsed as the pack ran across the base of great shafts, or from below, when they skirted pits that seemed to descend into the bowels of the planet itself.

They could not pause, they could not hesitate to support the beleaguered Imperial positions, only keep going, driven onward by Baldr’s unerring other-sense. It sickened him to see the unravelling of the defences, the slow erosion of the entire kasr’s vast foundations. It sickened him, if he was honest, to do so in the pale glow of witch-light. For that was what it was, in all truth – an echo of forbidden power, one that should have been placed in rigorous bonds, marshalled by the Rune Priests and judged every day for all the long years of aspirant training. Just being close to it, unbound and clearly fluctuating in intensity, tore at him. More than once he’d hefted his weapon, not against an enemy, but close to Baldr, just in case, just in case. And each time he’d pulled back, seeing his pack-brother’s determination to master the power, his drive, the runes on his armour burning hard, one by one, just as they had done on Njal’s own sacred battleplate, just as they did with every gothi who had earned the trust of the Chapter.

.....

The las-bolts flew, the blades flashed, and a dozen gauntlets reached out, desperate to haul him down and finish the job. A chain-length whipped around his blade-arm, weighing it down. A power-knife plunged up into his armpit joint, puncturing the muscle, before he swatted its owner away.

As if in sudden premonition, Ragnar’s mind briefly flashed back to Fenris, to the night-storms of the wide oceans, the fury of the endless, frigid tempest where battles raged in an endless cycle between tribes forever on the edge of annihilation. He would have given anything just then to have his old companions at his side, even if the odds still counted against them, just to fight back to back in the ancient way, blades whirling in counterpoint, roaring out both defiance and denunciation.

‘Heidur Rus!’ he thundered, crashing anew into the traitors, smashing them aside in a last, final, bruising heave.

*And, against all hope, the call was answered.

‘Hjá, jarl!’

The battle-shout came from more than one throat, a cry that echoed down the long tunnel. Four figures sprinted into view, grey against the black of the tunnel’s edge, fighting hard, laying about them with blade and bolter. One was huge, bellowing every war-curse known to the Chapter and opening up with a heavy bolter that shredded and pulverised. Another looked raw and pale for a Grey Hunter, but fought in their manner nonetheless, slaying expertly with a short-handled axe. The third moved faster and more surely than either of them, and his rune-carved power sword would have been recognised by even the rawest aspirant of the Chapter. All of them fought furiously towards Ragnar, hewing a path through the assassins, creating panic in the rearguard and breaking up their disciplined onslaught.

But it was the fourth who dominated. It was hard to lay eyes on him. Hard even to see what kind of thing he was, only that he carried the icons of Fenris along with him in a ghost-grey tide, flickering and shimmering, caught between the world of the senses and the world of dreams. He was greater in stature than he should have been, though still in the form of a Sky Warrior, his gauntlets snarling with ice-white lightning, his eyes flaring. Creatures bounded alongside him, spectral and fractured – clouds of ravens, as thick as curdled storm fronts, swooping and ripping with translucent beaks. Greater beasts roared within the miasma – all creatures of the Fenrisian bestiary, the hunters and the hunted, thick hides and snarling maws, loping, panting, ripping into the stunned warriors and mauling them apart. Some were shaggy and gigantic, others sleek and long-limbed, and at the forefront, as ever, was the greatest of them all – the hulking blackmane of legend, yellow-eyed, bloody-fanged, slavering through the carnage as if summoning the end of all worlds.

Ragnar recognised the pungent tang of the wyrd, the same tingling aura created by the gothi when they invoked the storm. Maybe it was rawer, a little wilder and more strident here, but it was the same basic thing. Njal himself might have been proud of the terror created in that tunnel, the screams and the growls, the wind-howl and the lightning-snap.

He took full advantage, launching back into the enemy and adding to the slaughter. Caught between the devastation of the gothi’s art and the physical fury of the Grey Hunters, the assassins’ discipline broke at last, making them easy prey. Frostfang whirled, carving into the reeling knots of a suddenly desperate enemy, while the looming blades of the Grey Hunters made quick work of those at the rear.

What followed was butchery – brutal and blunt-edged, swept up in the swirl of the gothi’s rampaging wyrd-beasts. Ghostly they might have been, but they were still capable of dealing out real damage. They swept up and around Ragnar’s own strikes, the ravens swooping in the lee of his flying pelts, the serpents coiled about his striding boots, the wyrd-wolves pouncing in the shadow of his chainsword. He felt as if he were immersed in magicks, his blood boiling with them, lending strength to his every blow and burning the pain from his wounds.

As the revenants swirled and dived, he fought his way to the side of the Grey Hunter, one whose armour-marks he recognised from a long time ago, and they slew together in the heart of the witch-light-flickered darkness.

‘Gyrfalkon,’ he panted, working his blade fast and hard. ‘It has been a while.’

The Grey Hunter carried on fighting, his movements unrestrained and lavish, as if energies held back for an eternity had suddenly been let loose.

‘You told me to keep the edge of my sword sharp,’ Ingvar replied, sending it whistling into the neck of an exposed traitor. ‘I did as I was ordered.’

.....

The fighting never truly stopped, after that. Five hundred trained killers took a while to purge from existence, even with the help of Baldr’s horde of storm-magicked allies. The noises of combat had drawn the attention of the real enemy, and while the Fulcrum Hunters still fought their desperate rearguard action, the first outriders of a greater invading army were already filtering up the winding tunnels towards them. Baldr’s wyrd-beasts tumbled through the dark like crashing waves, flushing out the last resistance in a surge of dream-cast fragments, just in time for the first of the Heretic Astartes to arrive.

Given all that, there was no time for explanations. Ingvar fought at the side of the Young King, and was soon given a reminder of just how deadly the jarl was when given freedom to move. Shadowed by the spectral beast-spirits, he was nigh-unstoppable – like a vision out of the ancient myths, pulled from a time before the Imperium had stamped its mark on the mountains. Ingvar had to try not to laugh out loud for pleasure, at times, seeing some of the truly ludicrous strikes, bleeding with force and speed, driven by arms that had no equal in the Chapter, save for Grimnar himself.

Chris Wright's trilogy is a great series that I adore and I really enjoy how distinct he makes the different warp abilities very unique and flavourful. We know from the Space Wolves codex that Rune Priests have the ability to summon the spirits of Fenris in battle but we so rarely get to see them in action and Wraight makes them a terrifying force to be reckoned with. It's also interesting to see how the Priests are able to empower their brothers while in combat.

In short Rune Priest doing cool Rune Priest shenanigans.

3 of my 5 Chaos Warbands are young not Heresy Era members of their respective factions but thinking about it, I do not think any loyalist force would ever care.

Ironically it would be other Chaos forces who would care about such semantics. “Young pup! You know nothing of this war or galaxy!” “Yet I do not boast for fighting for a time I have not. The warp changes times, remember?” Something like that.

Maybe a random Inquisitor but that’s it. I’m asking this for a double check because who knows, maybe Interrogator Chaplains of the Dark Angels or their successors would care.

What were they, where did they go? Is there some connection to the Leagues of Votann?

What would happen if a female Chapter Serf, for example a shipmistress, had a fling with another Serf and got pregnant?

Would the child be automatically considered a possible Aspirant or would they be just another Serf? 

So, I’m reading the HH series and I’ve been wondering.

To what extent does Sanguinius know the future? Did he know he would die at the hands of his beloved brother? Did he know the emperor’s fate?

If he did know all this, could he have done anything differently? Or had he accepted it?

Somewhat new to the setting, but when the word “Inquisitor” is mentioned it generally evokes to me a very characteristically Gothic-style dressed Inquisitor, power armor or dark trench coat overalls, similar styled-top hat like a Saltzspyre from V2, but I was wondering if the Inquisition also allows their members to retain some measure of the cultures of their own home planet, like in terms of esoteric styles, borderline shamanistic or members who have an innate affinity with the warp using totems, witch-doctor type of tools and outfits that might seem too “primitive” to the high gothic citizenry, but who are equally effective at their job.

Or does the Inquisition maintain a strict dress code?

This is a general question, but I see people disagree about it all the time. Some say they are tools, others say he saw them like sons he unfortunately had to sacrifice. I’m curious to see the different perspectives people have

My own view is that he did actually love them, at least most of them, but knew he had to sacrifice them and have the heresy happen, so saw it as an inevitability.

My personal favorite quote is the one from Hammer of Olympia where Perty first meets Big E

'I want nothing more! I swear that I shall serve you faithfully for all time This I pledge.' The Emperor looked at him with an expression of infinite wisdom. Deep in his eyes, sorrow lurked. Perturabo wished more than anything to banish that sadness, if he could. 'Then rise, my son.' The sadness was hidden away again, so that Perturabo doubted he had ever seen it, and was ashamed he could impute such an emotion to so perfect a being. 'Your road will be hard, but few are worthy of it,' said the Emperor. 'I have many tasks for you, the indefatigable, the indomitable, the unrelenting. You shall be my Lord of Iron.'

I interpret this as The Emperor being sad to hear Perturabos loyalty, and it being hard too see how much his son is suffering, and knowing he will have to do the same to him. He is sad, but covers it up with “it’s a necessary sacrifice”

What are your thoughts?

I am currently chugging my way through John French's Ahriman series about the ex-chief librarian of the Thousand Sons (it's pretty good so far, just finished the second book).

Am I correct in saying that the books so far take place around the middle of M31, many centuries after the Horus Heresy but before the First Black Crusade? Reasons for me saying this being:

• The Inquisition show up, but there is no mention of the different Ordos as far as I remember, and the Ordos only became a thing after the War of the Beast in M32.
• The Grey Knights show up and appear to be pretty widely recognised for who they are during an Inquisitorial conclave; while the Grey Knights were 'formally' created during the Second Founding, for them to be known of semi-widely within the Inquisition a lot of time must have passed.
• Iskandar Khayon is referenced by Ahriman and co numerous times, but they make no mention of his current activities and the Black Legion is never referred to.
• Furthermore, the traitor legions in general appear to be seen by parts of the Inquisition as a myth, with no real evidence for their existence; proving that they - in this case the Thousand Sons - are still a threat is a plot point. Presumably Abaddon hasn't launched a Black Crusade yet to prove that the Long War is still on.

Am I correct in my analysis?

I love the blood angel's honour, their devotion, their stark similaraties to Christian iconography, however one thing about them i can't get over is how animalistic and beastial they are with the red thirst and how they turn on their allies like rabid animals.

Are there any blood angel successors that either are very resistent or straight up immune to the red thirst that still hold their sense of honour, values, iconography, etc.?

(Btw yes i know this sounds impossible but i'm just curious)