Warhammer 40k Fluff Thread IX: "Post-human Centipede"

[gooddragon1]

This has far too few views I think. I commend the artist.

[Hazzardevil]

That's.... Odd. Nicely drawn though. And who is that person talking in the background?

[gooddragon1]

That's.... Odd. Nicely drawn though. And who is that person talking in the background?

That is also pyramid head.

[Feytalist]

And the words are lyrics from Lordi's Hard Rock Hallelujah.

Although why would be anyone's guess.

[Grim Portent]

Does anyone know if eldar aspect warriors always wear the colours of their shrine or do they sometimes wear the colours of their craftworld?

[Oracle_Hunter]

Does anyone know if eldar aspect warriors always wear the colours of their shrine or do they sometimes wear the colours of their craftworld?

Always Shrines.

The Aspect Temples are one of the few cross-Craftworld organizations; their allegiance is to their Aspect. Their colors are as tied to their organizations as the garments of real-life religious orders are to theirs.

[Dead_Jester]

Always Shrines.

The Aspect Temples are one of the few cross-Craftworld organizations; their allegiance is to their Aspect. Their colors are as tied to their organizations as the garments of real-life religious orders are to theirs.

More than that, the shrines are fixed psychological constructs of the Eldar culture; every one of them is a distinct facet of the Eldar psyche, which an Eldar embraces fully for as long as he is part of it (possibly losing himself fully to it). For instance, Grim Reapers aren't just long-range fire support, they are the symbolic representation of cold, calculated destruction, and everything in their garb is both symbolically and practically designed to echo this both in the Eldar himself and in others.

What may happen is that shrines from a specific craftworld may harbor small design elements indicating their origin (most notably on joint plates, tabars and banners), simply as a method of identifying the individual shrines for practical purposes, including things like battlefield organisation. Moreover, variant designs can identify different shrines of the same aspect on the same craftworld.

[Kesnit]

More than that, the shrines are fixed psychological constructs of the Eldar culture; every one of them is a distinct facet of the Eldar psyche, which an Eldar embraces fully for as long as he is part of it (possibly losing himself fully to it).

That brings up something I was wondering about a few days ago.

What happens if an Eldar on the Path of the Warrior "loses her/himself," but the Exarch of his/her shrine is still alive? As I understand the fluff, the Exarch takes the armor of the previous Exarchs, eventually merging with it. But that can't happen if the armor of the Exarch is being used by the original Exarch, so what does the new Exarch do?

[lord_khaine]

It happenend in Path of the Warrior, the Aspect warrior there took over for another shrine.

And in the extreme case where all Exarchs are still alive, well then i guess you would see the start of a new Exarch persona.
They do have to come from somewhere initially, and i guess they would also get lost completely once in a while.

[Oracle_Hunter]

That brings up something I was wondering about a few days ago.

What happens if an Eldar on the Path of the Warrior "loses her/himself," but the Exarch of his/her shrine is still alive? As I understand the fluff, the Exarch takes the armor of the previous Exarchs, eventually merging with it. But that can't happen if the armor of the Exarch is being used by the original Exarch, so what does the new Exarch do?

Every Exarch is an Eldar who has lost himself on the Path, but not every Eldar that loses himself is an Exarch.

Eldar are supposed to move from Path to Path throughout their lives but when one gets "stuck" they simply stop trying new Paths. So at any time there are probably more than a few Aspect Warriors for each Shrine which have become "stuck" (and become incredibly skilled despite not getting Tabletop Bonuses like SM Sergeants ) and are ready and (more importantly) willing to accept the mantle of the Exarch when one dies.

Also: new Exarch Armors have to come from somewhere. It would make sense that some of these "Inchoate Exarchs" live long enough and are skilled enough to earn the right to start a new set of Exarch Armor. I'm not sure there's any canonical texts to back this up but surely not every suit of Exarch Armor was made within the first generation of the Shrines being founded.

[Wraith]

I wonder if it is also possible that multiple 'hosts' of the Exarch gestalt personality will share one suit of armour.

I think I could make it make sense. For example; Three or four Eldar warriors get lost on their path and are ritually embued with the Exarch persona - they each put on the Exarch suit of that Shrine and their personalities merge with that embedded within the Exarch suit. Eldar are inherently psychic, as is their technology, and given what we know of communicating with Spirit Stones and the Infinity Circuit, who says that they have to be dead before that happens?

They all become extensions of the same Shrine, one personality manifested by three bodies who are taking it in turn to wear the actual armour to war while the others maintain their duties on the Craftworld.

[Beowulf DW]

New episodes of If the Emperor Had a Text-to-speech Device are here. This is some of the funniest stuff I've ever seen. I almost wish this was canon.

[lord_khaine]

I wonder if it is also possible that multiple 'hosts' of the Exarch gestalt personality will share one suit of armour.

I think I could make it make sense. For example; Three or four Eldar warriors get lost on their path and are ritually embued with the Exarch persona - they each put on the Exarch suit of that Shrine and their personalities merge with that embedded within the Exarch suit. Eldar are inherently psychic, as is their technology, and given what we know of communicating with Spirit Stones and the Infinity Circuit, who says that they have to be dead before that happens?

They all become extensions of the same Shrine, one personality manifested by three bodies who are taking it in turn to wear the actual armour to war while the others maintain their duties on the Craftworld.

Im pretty sure this is not possible though, or at least such a gigantic source of headaches that the Eldar would newer do so, even if it were somehow doable.

Because the exarch is not as such a manifestation of the shrine, if anything its the other way around. And given that thë Exarch is suposed to be some of the Eldars deadliest warriors (at least before the stupid 3rd ed nerfs..), then i cant see any reason for having 1 Exarch at the time when you could have had 3.

Its not like an Exarch have any duties to the craftworld that cant be performed in the armor anyway.

[Cheesegear]

Im pretty sure this is not possible though [...] i cant see any reason for having 1 Exarch at the time when you could have had 3.

This. If it was possible, then every Eldar Shrine should be doing it. It's not like the Fluff says that a Shrine can't have three people sharing the same suit of armour, but, I hate that sort of logic. What I've always wondered, is what happens when an Exarch's Armour is destroyed? There are all sorts of alien weapons (in this context, the Imperium are the aliens) that are capable of vaporising or annihilating (in the physics sense) stuff. If an Exarch's Armour is 'Just. Gone.' do the Shrines just pick a new Exarch and declare his Spirit Stone the new Exarch...Repository? Or is the Shrine now completely ruined and all Aspect Warriors of that Shrine on that World have to move to a new Shrine on a new World and their numbers absorbed by another Shrine that still has their Exarch?

[Wraith]

Im pretty sure this is not possible though, or at least such a gigantic source of headaches that the Eldar would never do so, even if it were somehow doable.

In a universe that runs on grimdark, where giant locusts fight talking fungus and get blindsided by monsters from Hell that eat Hope, two people wearing the same set of clothing is 'not possible'? Also bare in mind that 'normal' Eldar - those who would happily sacrifice a billion lives for that of a single one of their own - are exactly the same species as Dark Eldar, who habitually engage in the most sadistic, evil and perverted of vices in the same way that you or I eat lunch. What they "won't" do can't really be measured by our miserable Mon-Keigh moralities!

Stuff.

This is one of the things that having 'aspirants' might solve. If the absolute #1 deadliest at the Shrine is the Exarch, and he is killed in battle, the #2 and #3 are he most sensible choices to send out to retrieve his armour and equipment, if it can't be collected by his 'normal' squadmates.

Unless, of course, Exach Armour works like Phoenix Lord armour and, under dire circumstances, will get up and walk itself back to the Craftworld via the nearest webway gate. That's also a possibility, I suppose.

Someone with the "Path of the...." books might know better than I; are there multiple Shrines to each discipline per Craftworld?
I was under the impression that, say, Ulthwe had one Warp Spider Shrine, one Howling Banshee Shrine, and so on. That the Codex allows you to take multiple Exarchs of each Aspect (up to 6 in the case of Dire Avengers) suggests that either there's more than one of each Shrine per Craftworld (which I do not believe is right, though I welcome to being corrected) or that the title "best in the Shrine"is either very fluid or simply an honoriffic that's badly translated form Eldar and into our native Gothic.

If an Exarch's Armour is 'Just. Gone.' do the Shrines just pick a new Exarch and declare his Spirit Stone the new Exarch...Repository?

One would reasonably assume that an Exarch's suit does not include EVERY single Spirit Stone of every Exarch ever produced at that Shrine - the logistics of that alone are silly, discounting the fact that they are so very precious and unlikely to be kept all in one place, especially during a perilous situation such as open conflict.
While I have no evidence to back it up, I would expect that there's a 'pool' of Spirit Stones from different suits, warriors and eras, and they get cycled in and out of the Infinity Circuit periodically, and when some are broken or lost they get replaced by new (old?) ones.

[Cheesegear]

While I have no evidence to back it up, I would expect that there's a 'pool' of Spirit Stones from different suits, warriors and eras, and they get cycled in and out of the Infinity Circuit periodically, and when some are broken or lost they get replaced by new (old?) ones.

I believe we've had this discussion before, that once a Spirit Stone gets put in the Infinity Circuit, that's where it's going to stay, as the Stone is absorbed by the Craftworld's Wraithcore...Thing. I shouldn't have said Spirit Stone, that's entirely the wrong thing we're dealing with when it comes to Exarchs. What's important with Exarchs is the Armour. That's what I meant. Ignore all references to Spirit Stones - they don't matter.

Every Exarch's knowledge is pooled into the Armour. Whosoever wears the Armour has all the memories of everyone who has worn the Armour before them (as opposed to a Phoenix Lord, where if you put on that Armour, you become the Phoenix Lord and your soul is obliterated). If Exarch Armour is destroyed, does #2 Aspect Warrior's armour become the new Armour (albeit that you have lost all the memories of the previous Exarchs), or is the 'Exarch Cycle' (for lack of a better term) for that Shrine just simply gone?

Jain Zar's Armour can remain functional after being pummelled by a Dreadnought (though the meatsuit inside the Armour was not). Who knows how?

[Hexalan]

New episodes of If the Emperor Had a Text-to-speech Device are here. This is some of the funniest stuff I've ever seen. I almost wish this was canon.

Oh, lawdy, I cannot believe I didn't know of these before.

These deserve way more views.

[Beowulf DW]

Oh, lawdy, I cannot believe I didn't know of these before.

These deserve way more views.

Go forth and spread the word! The Emperor speaks!
...Sort of.

[Wraith]

I believe we've had this discussion before, that once a Spirit Stone gets put in the Infinity Circuit, that's where it's going to stay, as the Stone is absorbed by the Craftworld's Wraithcore...Thing.

If we have, I honestly don't remember being a part of it.
I knew that 'inserting' a Spirit Stone into the Infinity Circuit was A Big Deal as the soul held within becomes a part of the Craftworld's gestalt consciousness.... But there must be a place at which point a Stone can be removed, with a soul, from the circuit for other reasons. Otherwise, where do Wraithguard and Wraithlord get made? Do the Eldar - knowing that the Infinity Circuit is a tangible and very real afterlife of enlightenment for their people - deliberately keep piles of occupied Spirit Stones lying around the place instead of putting them where they would be safest?
It also makes sense in that creating a Wraithcreature is considered a form of Necromancy - it's taboo because in order to do it, one has to remove a soul from 'Heaven' to control the machine; literally awakening them from their eternal rest and returning to the land of the living in a tough, lumbering automaton. Wraithguard are Eldar zombies!

I shouldn't have said Spirit Stone, that's entirely the wrong thing we're dealing with when it comes to Exarchs. What's important with Exarchs is the Armour.

That, I get. It's as if each suit of armour were it's own small, isolated Infinity Circuit, through which the souls swim(?) freely.

At the same time, though, Exarch armour can be taken off without killing it's owner/current occupant. Unless the fluff has changed recently, that is - the old Codex said they could, as did a few short stories I remember - the famous "Rebirth of Karandras" story springs most prominently to mind. If this is still true, then it's not as though an Exarch is instantly consumed by their Armour, it must be a 'point of death' thing.

Jain Zar's Armour can remain functional after being pummelled by a Dreadnought (though the meatsuit inside the Armour was not). Who knows how?

Makes sense, considering the 'small isolated Infinity Circuit' theory from above. Phoenix Armour is made of Wraithbone, is filled with powerful Eldar souls and has no (relevant) organic component - in that sense, they're just highly advanced and specially equipped Wraithguard.
Which implies that not only do the suits maintain the consciousness of their former occupants, but they are also inherently conscious (sentient?) in and of themselves.

[Cheesegear]

It also makes sense in that creating a Wraithcreature is considered a form of Necromancy - it's taboo because in order to do it, one has to remove a soul from 'Heaven' to control the machine; literally awakening them from their eternal rest and returning to the land of the living in a tough, lumbering automaton. Wraithguard are Eldar zombies!

No, rather, fallen Eldar Warriors=>Wraithguard never get to go to Heaven in the first place. The idea is that instead of taking you back to the Wraithcore, a Bonesinger/Spiritseer grabs your Spirit Stone off of your corpse, and puts you in a Wraith Construct and can apparently do so indefinitely, denying that warrior's chance of ever making it into the Infinity Circuit. That's why it's so terrible. Spiritseers are effectively Dr. Frakensteins making Prometheans/Golems.

If this is still true, then it's not as though an Exarch is instantly consumed by their Armour, it must be a 'point of death' thing.

Not even. While I haven't read Path of the Eldar, I have read the Adeptus Mechanicus soon-to-be-trilogy, which is written by McNeill-who-learns-from-mistakes and not Gav Thorpe-who-ruins-everything. The Eldar Exarch in the AdMech books is very much a functional Eldar, engaging in pseudo-philosophical debates with his Farseer on the practice of War. The Exarch cheats because he has the memories of all the other Exarchs who have worn the armour before him, and he's got a lot of knowledge that isn't exactly his. However, when he puts on his helmet, thus completing the 'Armour Set', he gains the 'Full Set' bonus, and enters an Avatar State analogous to the Avatar cartoon. He no longer functions as 'himself', but rather a gestalt personality that is solely focussed on killing everyone who isn't an Eldar. When there's nobody left to kill, the Exarch can remove his helmet at will, and become 'himself' again - with all the extra knowledge.

Which implies that not only do the suits maintain the consciousness of their former occupants, but they are also inherently conscious (sentient?) in and of themselves.

Judging from how turning the Young King into the Avatar works, it's probably more like daemonic possession. When you put on the suit, you become the suit. Or, rather, the suit becomes you.

[Eldan]

Is that new fluff? Because I disinctly remember that for Wraithguard, it was mentioned that the souls of the dead were taken out of the circuit. No page numbers, atm, but I'll look it up later. Probably one of the older codices, I have three or four lying around.

[Wraith]

No, rather, fallen Eldar Warriors=>Wraithguard never get to go to Heaven in the first place. [....] Spiritseers are effectively Dr. Frakensteins making Prometheans/Golems.

While that's a really good analogy, I'm with Eldan on this one. Unless there's new, overriding fluff, I distinctly remember Wraithcreatures being made by separating old Stones from the Circuit. 4th Ed. Codex, I think.

EDIT: Yep, page 20;
The Waystone can then be brought back to the Eldar's own Craftworld and embedded into its wraithbone core where it will grow into a larger spirit stone. Once the stone is implanted, the Eldar's soul can travel freely through the wraithbone, mingling with other Eldar souls and forming part of the communal spirit of the Craftworld itself.All the souls within a Craftworld collectively exist inside the Infinity Circuit. In times of dire need, the Eldar are also able to retrieve the spirit stones of long dead Eldar heroes and place them into the artificial bodies of Wraithguards and Wraithlords.

And the 6th Edition Codex, page 29 under the description of Spirit Seers:
"Whilst all Seers are capable of separating a stone from the Infinity circuit and placing it within [a Wraithcreature]...."

However, when he puts on his helmet, thus completing the 'Armour Set', he gains the 'Full Set' bonus, and enters an Avatar State analogous to the Avatar cartoon. He no longer functions as 'himself', but rather a gestalt personality that is solely focussed on killing everyone who isn't an Eldar. When there's nobody left to kill, the Exarch can remove his helmet at will, and become 'himself' again - with all the extra knowledge.

This is a much better written version of what I was trying to convey. The being wearing the armour is not instantly and permanently consumed by the armour the instant he puts it on, and while their personality no doubt alters from it's uplink to the Matrix it none the less remains independent - until the point of physical death, when their soul uploads and becomes one with the others.

Judging from how turning the Young King into the Avatar works, it's probably more like daemonic possession. When you put on the suit, you become the suit. Or, rather, the suit becomes you.

Again, is there newer fluff that says this? On the one hand, no one knows (or, at least,knew) how the Young King interacted with the Avatar; he/she, naked, carries the Sword into his chamber and is never seen again. Are they destroyed outright? Is their essence 'spent' like fuel to awaken the 'machine'? Are they absorbed by the greater whole that is Khaela Mensha Khaine as other souls would go to their respective Gods (weird, given that he's supposed to be dead, but Eldar mythology doesn't have to make sense to observers)?

On the other; The few examples I know of basically say that the Phoenix Suits are empty of organic matter, so like a normal Exarch the gestalt personalities of the suit are in charge, and can't be 'removed'. You put on the suit, get 'uploaded' with no backsies, and so the only personality available is the gestalt, aka, 'the suit' as a whole.

In fact, that actually makes sense in an escalating kind of way. Aspect Warriors become Exarchs by losing their ability to mentally disconnect with the Shrine; Exarchs become Phoenix Lords by being physically unable to disconnect from the Shrine, too - they can't take the helmet off, there's no Exarch to go back to.

[lord_khaine]

Wraithconstructs are powered from souls plucked back out from the infinity curcuit, Path of the Seer briefly goes into this, with the main character personally awakening a group of Wraithguards to act as bodyguards.
The codex also goes into details about how the first Spirit Seer were an Eldar who managed to reach into the infinity curcuit to pull the soul of his lower back towards him.

Someone with the "Path of the...." books might know better than I; are there multiple Shrines to each discipline per Craftworld?

In the Path pook there were 3-4 different scorpion shrines, with it being hinted at others being left abbandoned.

While I have no evidence to back it up, I would expect that there's a 'pool' of Spirit Stones from different suits, warriors and eras, and they get cycled in and out of the Infinity Circuit periodically, and when some are broken or lost they get replaced by new (old?) ones.

No, the tragedy of an Exarch is that they becomes to focused on war, and cant let go of it, they becomes a permanent part of the suit.

But at the same time we can also see that there are nothing stopping the creation of new Exarches, all it would take is an Aspect warrior getting stuck on his path, unable to rejoin the infinity curcuit when he died. Making it nececary to instead leave his spirit stone in the suit.
And so the next time an Aspect warrior got stuck without a free Exarch suit, then we would be able to see the birth of a gestalt personality, as the 2 spirits merged.

edit.

harlequined..

This is a much better written version of what I was trying to convey. The being wearing the armour is not instantly and permanently consumed by the armour the instant he puts it on, and while their personality no doubt alters from it's uplink to the Matrix it none the less remains independent - until the point of physical death, when their soul uploads and becomes one with the others.

It goes against how things are descriped in path of the aspect however, where the budding exarch merges with the gestalt upon wearing the armor, becomming part of the whole.
Ohh.. isnt it nice when the 40k writers can agree on important parts about the fluff like this?

In fact, that actually makes sense in an escalating kind of way. Aspect Warriors become Exarchs by losing their ability to mentally disconnect with the Shrine; Exarchs become Phoenix Lords by being physically unable to disconnect from the Shrine, too - they can't take the helmet off, there's no Exarch to go back to.

Not entirely correct though, you become a Phoenix lord by being trained personally by Asur as he founded the Dire Avengers after the fall, and Phoenix lords dont have a shrine, they found them on as many craftwords as they can.

[Platinius]

I like to think that the Exarch armour is wearing the person rather than the usual other way around and only the very best of the respective aspects are strong and resilient enough for the the former wearers' souls to fight to their full capacity. If a normal guardian would put on the armor of a Banshee Exarch and try to fight (and it will fight, it's a fragging Banshee Exarch), the eldar within would die from exhaustion within minutes, tendons torn, bones broken, heart giving out, simply used up.

[Cikomyr]

THE EMPEROR OF MANKIND WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW REGULARLY THE TEXT-TO-SPEECH VIDEOS COME OUT.

SUCH VIDEOS ARE A RELAXING DISTRACTION FROM SITTING ON THE THRONE ALL DAY

I HEARD YOU LAUGHING. LAUGHTER AT YOUR EMPEROR IS HERESY, EVEN IF HERESY IMPLIES RELIGIOUS DOGMA.

(Seriously, awesome vids)

[Beowulf DW]

THE EMPEROR OF MANKIND WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW REGULARLY THE TEXT-TO-SPEECH VIDEOS COME OUT.

SUCH VIDEOS ARE A RELAXING DISTRACTION FROM SITTING ON THE THRONE ALL DAY

I HEARD YOU LAUGHING. LAUGHTER AT YOUR EMPEROR IS HERESY, EVEN IF HERESY IMPLIES RELIGIOUS DOGMA.

(Seriously, awesome vids)

There seems to be a new one about every month or so. Far as I'm concerned, the Fabulous Custodes are just about the funniest part of this series, along with the Emperor accusing Vulcan of being too nice.

[shadow_archmagi]

As far as I know, the text-to-speech videos are produced by one of the members of the Alfa Legion 40k group, and since it's a one man show he does it whenever

[Cikomyr]

"Glory or Death" was the most entertaining book or Cain's series so far. The plot was as simple as they come, and yet really made Cain's qualities (and shortcomings) shine like I've never seen before.

The entire book could be adapted into a fun yet hilarious Adventure Games, intersected with a Historical Accounts of the events you just achieved, but with your protagonist (Cain) described as The Ultimate Badass Hero.

[hamishspence]

"Glory or Death" was the most entertaining book or Cain's series so far. The plot was as simple as they come, and yet really made Cain's qualities (and shortcomings) shine like I've never seen before.

The entire book could be adapted into a fun yet hilarious Adventure Games, intersected with a Historical Accounts of the events you just achieved, but with your protagonist (Cain) described as The Ultimate Badass Hero.

If you're thinking of Death or Glory, the Ork-centric one where a fairly young Cain first does something that gets him fame- yes, that is an entertaining one. Jurgen's special powers don't really come into play here (which is what Cheesegear complaints is an overused plot point).

[Cikomyr]

If you're thinking of Death or Glory, the Ork-centric one where a fairly young Cain first does something that gets him fame- yes, that is an entertaining one. Jurgen's special powers don't really come into play here (which is what Cheesegear complaints is an overused plot point).

Cheesgear sure complains a lot.

I especially liked that the big final battle was 100% Cain being badass and pragmatic. Sure, he rushed into the bunker seeking refuge from the ork army, but he certainly single-handely killed an Ork WAAAAAGH!!! Master by himself, turned the tide of thr war and was a rallying point/salvation of a thousand people.

Whether intentional or not, Cain is one bona-fide gorram hero in my book.