Jumpers Vs. Wh40k ITP OOC 1

[Lord Raziere]

I've been doing exactly that, reading without participating, sorry about that. Feel like I don't understand the setting enough, also my schedule has been chaotic with the end-of-year festivities.

*shrug*

Hey, if you like what we roleplay and just want to watch....keep doing that. Who am I to judge?

and yeah, Wh40k is all lore, little storyline. like, its not like other franchises where you experience it all through a specific protagonist that provides you an easy window into it, its more of a setting that just exists in an eternal state of grimdark it can never truly get out of, so all developments are strictly planet-scale or lower, and there are a million books about it but they're all small stories that almost never advanced the overall plot of the setting.

like, the biggest change ever has been the whole Cicatrix Maledictum happening and Roboute Guilliman coming back and thats it. and like there is a big chunk of books that aren't even set in the 41st millennium, detailing the Horus Heresy which are like, 50+ books all by themselves.

I don't have a vast majority of those books. I have a few Ciaphas Cain books (which is the most canon parody take of the setting left), a few wikis I check, and fan series and fan information videos like If the Emperor Had a Text to Speech Device (comedic), Adeptus Ridiculous (comedic), and Luetin09 (someone whose videos take a serious look at the setting and present it as such, and is very thorough about he does so).

I understand, this is all very hard to get into due to how weird this setting works, it has no protagonist, no easily accessible form of official media and so on to truly grok how this setting is. this roleplay is no exception, because a bunch of jumpers using powers from other settings to run over this one is probably not the best way to understand the setting in any way shape or form.

So to let me tell the very, very basics to understand the setting, without any of the complicated lore or anything, the major factions:

Spoiler: Wh40k crash course

Show

Imperium: Evil, not the heroes in any way shape or form, they are genocidal theocratic fascists whose soceity is corrupt, bloated and overcomplicated, their incompetence screws them over regularly, just because the stories are told from their perspective doesn't mean they are right. army wise, the most diverse and balanced as they have so many factions that delving into them would be getting into arguably most of the setting's lore. Is basically the Holy Roman Empire In Space- in the medieval era, not antiquity.

Chaos: Super-Evil, the flavors of evil: War, Plague, Decadence and Schemes, summons demons, does the temptation and sacrifice cult thing, are basically cartoon supervillains who talk a big game about drowning everything in chaos but end up being foiled all the time because the setting can't ever advance. army wise really focused on psykers and demons

Orks: Evil, likes to fight more than Khorne does, just enjoying themselves are the most comedic guys in the setting because they just make ramshackle tech and talk like british football hooligans, but are a threat if they get big enough, their culture is the simplest and crudest but at times effective. army wise, prone to a lot of silly wild-magic like random malfunctions with their guns, weaponry and pskyers so its like playing the wargame equivalent of a wild magic sorcerer

Eldar: Evil. Elves. generally likes being mysterious, cryptic, fighting fast and dexterous, using magic, making plans to survive with lesser numbers, is shot by Imperium humans for being elves. generally an elite army of small numbers but high quality troops

Necrons: Evil. are undead-egyptian-robot scheming nobles who are immortal and thus combine politics with being quirky, used to just be a terminator reference but have moved on. also a smaller number army but slow and very resilient compared to the Eldar's fast and offensive style

Tyranids: Evil. They're basically this setting's Zerg/Flood/whatever invading alien hivemind you can think of. they exist to do nothing but eat, adapt, evolve and grow forever. origins are mostly mysterious, but recent lore states that the Tyranids coming to the galaxy are incredibly massive and basically means that the entire galaxy will have to fight them to survive, if they aren't just stragiht up doomed. a melee focused army due to their extremely organic tech nature and also a numbers focused one as you want to be a swarm. Only united faction that doesn't fight itself.

Tau: The Lesser Evil. The tiniest empire but also the only competent empire in the setting in that they actually use diplomacy, mercy and so on times to achieve their goals, such as welcoming any alien race under their banner as second class citizens, accepting surrenders, convincing people to join their greater good ideology and so on. They also have actual scientific understanding unlike the Imperium. by the settings standards this makes them "naive and idealistic". Are the most ranged army, having little to no melee weapons and thus fight entirely with their plasma weaponry and giant mecha they use to fire their bigger plasma weaponry and thus are the most "modern" army in the setting.

finally The overall story of Warhammer 40k is that everything is horrible and in eternal war and has been for a long time, and that maybe there were chances for things to be better but that was a long time ago, and now any outcome is probably going to be horrible no matter what is done. all the people in power are corrupt and just want more war for whatever they desire, if there are any heroes in this universe they are the last little lights doing what they can on some random battlefield that doesn't mean anything, and if there are any sensible people they are almost certainly not the people running the place (except for Guilliman once he came back, he's like reasonable super-bureaucrat man who laments the current state of the Imperium and its best hope for reform into something better, but given how slow the setting was to budge on him ever returning at all, don't hold your breath). more probably everything would be doomed if Games Workshop wasn't completely focused on advancing everything as little as possible to get as much money out of it as they can, so really its just this stasis state of everything being on the edge of tipping over into some apocalyptic scenario that destroys everyone but one faction to ensure their victory and everyone else's defeat but every fan knows thats never happening.

the appeal of the setting is that you can play any evil army you want without any protag/antag tropes or moral quandaries holding you back. want your army of miniatures to be a bunch of tyranids eating everything? why not, everyone else is evil in this setting anyways. want to field a bunch of soul-eating demons to kill the oppressive Imperium, go for it. its all evil, so its all allowed. (instead you'll get held back by Space marines being the most popular army by a wide margin and thus get a truly disproportionate amount of money and attention thrown at them compared to literally every other army in the game, but thats a different issue).

and thats all you need to know about WH40k! everything else is just details or specific peoples stories really. Best advice I can give? don't take the setting too seriously. Its best when its this dark comedy where someone with common sense is surrounded by crazy people and trying to navigate that and everyone being surprised when the sensible solution works.