Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion XIII: You Must Smash Additional Pylons!

[Drasius]

2 totally seperate things:
1) Technically, Slaanesh has always been a thing as a warp entity since there was the first instance of something somewhere doing something to excess, though it only gained enough power to qualify as one of the big 4 due to the fall and as such, wouldn't technically have had the name of slaanesh yet, but would have been, for all intents and purposes, the exact same thing. n excess by any other name and all that jazz

2 ) Why would the DA, most secretive of all chapters and one of the most vocal and vehement opponents of chaos (to outside observers at least) choose to take in a splinter of another chapters renegades? This does more to jepordise their secret than letting another chapter find one of the fallen. If you had argued Salamanders, then there would definately be precedent for it, but of all the other chapters, the DA would be last on my list to let anyone else into their clubhouse.

[The Patterner]

Actually for a lot of humans life is still harsh to brutal. And thats not the ones getting dragged off to war. Just for a start hive cities have generally been described as horrible places.

I think it does a bit of both, if you read books that make blanket statements you get things like "In the DARKDARKNESS of the GRIMGRIMNESS people live HORRIBLE lifes in hive cities"

However, when you read books that take place in the cities people have familiies, friends, work etc.

Thats why the general evaluations in the last threat were made mostly on how a faction treats others, with how they treat their own then used for tiebreakers.

I never agreed to this, but by this metric DE, Tyranids, Daemons, Chaos and Orks would still be way worse then the Imperium.

I'm on the fence about Eldar, I'd say they are more good guys than the Imperium, but not really all that good.

[deuterio12]

I never agreed to this, but by this metric DE, Tyranids, Daemons, Chaos and Orks would still be way worse then the Imperium.

I'm on the fence about Eldar, I'd say they are more good guys than the Imperium, but not really all that good.

The Orks are the pinnacle of creation. For them, the great struggle is won. They have evolved a society which knows no stress or angst. Who are we to judge them? We Eldar who have failed, or the Humans, on the road to ruin in their turn? And why? Because we sought answers to questions that an Ork wouldn't even bother to ask! We see a culture that is strong and despise it as crude.

Oomans are pink and soft, not tough and green like da Boyz. They'z all the same size too, so they'z always arguing about who's in charge, 'cos no way of telling 'cept fer badges an' ooniforms and fings. When one of them wants to lord it over the uvvers, 'e says "I'm very speshul so'z you gotta worship me", or "I know summink wot you lot don't know so yer better lissen good". Da funny fing is, arf of 'em believe it and da over arf don't, so 'e 'as to hit 'em all anyway or run fer it. Wot a lot of mukkin' about if yer asks me. An' while they'z all arguing wiv each other over who's da boss, da Orks can clobber da lot

Being a Dark Eldar is pretty spiffy when you consider all the sex and drugs and the haemonculi being able to make you get better even if you're a corpse after last night's party. And their codex even mentions DE warriors carry cameras into battle to record their raid kills and show off to their fellow DE, so yes they know how to have good fun without killing/maiming each other.


Chaos gives everybody a chance at success. Doesn't matter if you're some lowly slave, you too can climb all the way to Daemon Prince! Which is the crucial advantage over the Imperium, that considers that you should know your place as another expendable cog in the machine, and the Imperium will crush you without mercy if you ever question the place they assigned you to. And your friends and family. And your planet too for good measure. And that's how we get such lovely Imperial planets as Vraks where people are grown in cloning vats and trained to be good little fanatic soldiers that have less love for themselves than tyranid mooks.

Sure some people in the Imperium may have happier lifes, but that's just because the Inquisition hasn't caught up with them yet.

[Gauntlet]

Chaos gives everybody a chance at success. Doesn't matter if you're some lowly slave, you too can climb all the way to Daemon Prince! Which is the crucial advantage over the Imperium, that considers that you should know your place as another expendable cog in the machine, and the Imperium will crush you without mercy if you ever question the place they assigned you to. And your friends and family. And your planet too for good measure. And that's how we get such lovely Imperial planets as Vraks where people are grown in cloning vats and trained to be good little fanatic soldiers that have less love for themselves than tyranid mooks.

Sure some people in the Imperium may have happier lifes, but that's just because the Inquisition hasn't caught up with them yet.

Chaos gives everybody a chance at success, but everyone who doesn't achieve that success is probably going have an awful, short existence and eventually have their soul eaten by something.

If you're a resident of a generic Imperial world, you're unlikely to be tithed into the Imperial Guard and die a horrible death unless you volunteer for it (and then get unlucky with your posting). You have reasonable odds of living a (grim, admittedly) relatively normal existence of work in some hive city somewhere. The chance of being in an active warzone (beyond the occasional gang if you're in the undercity, or feral orks) are extremely slim given the sheer size of the Imperium. The Imperium as a whole doesn't really care about you, admittedly, and if you're born onto a random hive world the best you can reasonably hope to achieve is achieving a ranking position in the Guard, Administratum or some other branch of the bureaucracy, but that's not terrible prospects compared to Chaos, where you do have the potential to achieve immortality and incredible power as a daemon prince but you're way less likely to have a comfortable existence if you don't make it all the way to the top.

[lord_khaine]

Above Orks? Absolutely. If you can't fight, Orks will treat you awfully. You are enslaved, worked til you drop, and then eaten. If you can fight, then they might spare you to fight another day.

Well.. are the empire any different there for 99% of the population? There you are enslaved no matter what, and again worked until you are no longer useful. Where the least bit of disagreent might result in torture and death.

Ork tribes meanwhile are good for other orks. You might be beaten regularly by bigger orks, but you also get to beat other orks as well. And orks thrive with violence.

Tau remain the number one spot though.

Bit confused about this. Would say Eldars have the best standart of living. They have a higher degree of personal freedom than anyone else, dont need to do any work they dont care about. And are not caste-locked like Tau.

I'm not sure I'm convinced of that but I don't rule it out. The only instance that springs to mind was a story about a young night lord growing up on Nocturn (sp?) which wasn't really a poster child for hive cities (see: den of thieves and murderers beyond hive city standards). Do you recall offhand any other instances?

Mainly necromunda stories about how horrible the lowest levels are.

I think it does a bit of both, if you read books that make blanket statements you get things like "In the DARKDARKNESS of the GRIMGRIMNESS people live HORRIBLE lifes in hive cities"

However, when you read books that take place in the cities people have familiies, friends, work etc.

Its more that since hive cities have an extremely high population, then a very large % of the Imperiums citizens live in those. And i have not read anything that described the live of those in there as anything but large shifts of hard, dull and monotone labor.

I never agreed to this, but by this metric DE, Tyranids, Daemons, Chaos and Orks would still be way worse then the Imperium.

I'm on the fence about Eldar, I'd say they are more good guys than the Imperium, but not really all that good.

Really.. the people with the stated goal of exterminating all non-human sentient life in the galaxy is not noticeable worse than the people that just want to live in peace on their floating continents.. ?
And by that metric the Imperium is really no different from Orks, Chaos or Tyranids.

[bluntpencil]

Bit confused about this. Would say Eldars have the best standart of living. They have a higher degree of personal freedom than anyone else, dont need to do any work they dont care about. And are not caste-locked like Tau.

Personal freedom? They are forced into Paths, in order to escape the slavering beasts that they unleashed. Corsairs and Rangers are kinda sorta free, but Corsairs are a hair's breadth from being Dark Eldar, really.

Regarding most worlds' citizens' lives being long, hard, dull labour...

...sounds just like real life.

The majority of human worlds aren't terribly different from modern Earth. They're not exciting. They're probably not awful. Their desire to exterminate all the non-humans who get in their way might not be right, but it's born of countless millennia of seeing why it's 100% necessary - those pointy eared bastards, the loud green guys, the beak-faced eaters of the dead... all of them want to murder the hell out of Man, and they sure as hell can't be trusted.

[Forum Explorer]

I never agreed to this, but by this metric DE, Tyranids, Daemons, Chaos and Orks would still be way worse then the Imperium.

I'm on the fence about Eldar, I'd say they are more good guys than the Imperium, but not really all that good.

Well here's my original list from worst to best

Tyranids
Dark Eldar
The Imperium
Orks
Chaos
Necrons
Eldar
Tau

and that's from the perspective of a neutral alien race with very little power. Like the Vespids. Orks and Chaos are above the Imperium because if Orks and Chaos win, your species will at least still exist. And with Chaos, you're more likely then not been corrupted by them, rather then outright conquered, so it's more falling to Chaos which isn't unpleasant when you're alive, and has the chance of winning eternal glory.

From the prespective of a Human

Tyranids
Dark Eldar
Chaos
Orks
Necrons
Eldar
Imperium
Tau

Well.. are the empire any different there for 99% of the population? There you are enslaved no matter what, and again worked until you are no longer useful. Where the least bit of disagreent might result in torture and death.

Ork tribes meanwhile are good for other orks. You might be beaten regularly by bigger orks, but you also get to beat other orks as well. And orks thrive with violence.



Bit confused about this. Would say Eldars have the best standart of living. They have a higher degree of personal freedom than anyone else, dont need to do any work they dont care about. And are not caste-locked like Tau.


Its more that since hive cities have an extremely high population, then a very large % of the Imperiums citizens live in those. And i have not read anything that described the live of those in there as anything but large shifts of hard, dull and monotone labor.



Really.. the people with the stated goal of exterminating all non-human sentient life in the galaxy is not noticeable worse than the people that just want to live in peace on their floating continents.. ?
And by that metric the Imperium is really no different from Orks, Chaos or Tyranids.

Yes. That's only on Hive Worlds, and most Hive Worlds aren't that crappy. There's the underhive and gangers, whose lives are incredibly awful, but they aren't the majority of a Hive World. Most of everyone is low class workers, who work boring 12 hour shifts, before returning hope. They do get to rest, they aren't beaten regularly, and they get paid a wage. Advancement to a slightly higher class is even possible, for their children at least.

And that's just Hive Worlds. Agi-worlds are generally pretty pleasant if you like the farm life, and Imperial Worlds are pretty equivalent to modern society. Death Worlds have a really hostile environment, but the people are generally nice simply because constant danger tends to bring people together. Feral worlds are what you'd expect, and space ships can be any of the above. Forge worlds suck, but if you're smart and good with machines you can become a tech priest rather then being stuck as a factory worker.

Well, yes. Every other faction is good for it's own faction except for Chaos. So far we've looked at a neutral prespective and a human prespective. By the standards of their own people, each other faction would place their own at the top.


It's not like Humans get to have an Eldar's life.

That is the majority, but there are a lot of other jobs in the hive. Like working at a bar or restaurant. Being a lawyer. Working as a cop. Working as a priest. And so on and so forth. The middle and upper class do exist.

[Bobby Baratheon]

2 ) Why would the DA, most secretive of all chapters and one of the most vocal and vehement opponents of chaos (to outside observers at least) choose to take in a splinter of another chapters renegades? This does more to jepordise their secret than letting another chapter find one of the fallen. If you had argued Salamanders, then there would definately be precedent for it, but of all the other chapters, the DA would be last on my list to let anyone else into their clubhouse.

It's irrelevant to the larger discussion, so I'll spoiler my answer.

Spoiler

Show

It's a Dark Angels successor chapter, and one that's drifted away from the whole DA secret legion thing for several hundred years now. Still loyal, and still hunting the Fallen, but the Chapter Master isn't thrilled about being yoked to the Dark Angel cart and so is trying to make other alliances and friendships in case it all blows up. They're called the Storm Knights, so for ease of reference I'll just refer to them as the SKs.

A while ago, the SK's had a successor chapter split off from them called the Favored Sons. The Favored Sons fell to Chaos (except for a few survivors who escaped the purge of loyalists) when a Lord of Change pulled some shenanigans. The Favored Sons, now called the Sons of the Dragon, chased these survivors, who took refuge with a friendly IF successor chapter. The IF know knew the shame of the SKs, who reacted as Dark Angels do and tried to suppress the knowledge by telling everyone they were wiped out to a man fighting Tyranids, as they panicked and thought that anyone knowing about the Favored Sons treachery could lead them to the great secret of the original Dark Angels. Not wanting that to happen, the SKs Chapter Master of the time (named Abimelech) convinced the IF successor chapter to join them in wiping out the Favored Sons.

Abimelech pulled a Uriah gambit in the resulting campaign, and got most of the IFs killed in a hopeless battle, but his next in command, Absalom, did the same to him (and the few other marines aware of the Uriah gambit) as he felt such actions stained their honor, etc etc. Absalom became the new Chapter Master, and took in the surviving IFs because he 1) felt bad that most of them died because of his chapter's dirty laundry and 2) he still didn't want the secret of the Favored Sons getting out. He also is presumably the only one who knows the full truth about what happened to both the Favored Sons and the IF successor chapter.
The result is that there are three sub-factions within the chapter, which have considerably strained its cohesiveness.
-the original SKs
-the few (and by few I mean like a dozen) remaining loyal Favored Sons
-the remnant of the IF successor chapter

Hopefully that clarifies it. I probably shouldn't have brought up My Dudes fluff, as its fairly irrelevant.

On a bigger picture note, which chapters are caught in the Dark Imperium now? I don't know the galactic map as well as I should but IIRC the Blood Angels are on the wrong side, right?

[Renegade Paladin]

The Blood Angels are on the wrong side, and Fenris is right smack in the middle of the rift.

[Wraith]

Assuming that the location of Home Worlds hasn't been disrupted too much, notable Chapters now in the Dark Imperium include:

Space Wolves (Who are right in the middle of the new Warp Phenomena)
Iron Hands (Just barely - they're on the 'wrong side' of the Eye of Terror, in Segmentum Obscurus)
Blood Angels
Ultramarines (and the vast majority of their Successors)
Fire Lords
Death Spectres
Hawk Lords
Doom Legion
Silver Skulls
Howling Griffons

There are probably a lot more, though as I was looking very few Home Worlds are given much in the way of a definitive location beyond their Segmentum, and often not even that.

Notably, Rynn's World - home to the Crimson Fists - has moved further to the Galactic West than they used to be, putting them in Segmentum Tempestus (South-West) and thus are now in the Imperium proper whereas in 7th Edition they wouldn't have been.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

So Guilliman's Indomitus party is only limited to the Terran side of things, unless he's already found a way past the Cicatrix. So much for Primaris Blood Angels then. Wonder if we'll have the story progress past this point.

[Voidhawk]

Assuming that the location of Home Worlds hasn't been disrupted too much, notable Chapters now in the Dark Imperium include:

Ultramarines (and the vast majority of their Successors)

No? Macragge is galactic-south of the Tau empire.

New map.

[lord_khaine]

Personal freedom? They are forced into Paths, in order to escape the slavering beasts that they unleashed. Corsairs and Rangers are kinda sorta free, but Corsairs are a hair's breadth from being Dark Eldar, really.

The only way the paths impede on personal freedom is that when faced with a huge buffet, then your not allowed to jump up on the table and randomly take a bit out of anything in sight. Instead you have to pick a single dish, take it down to your table and focus on it. And you can then always return it to the kitchen if you dont really like it, or grow tired of it, and pick a new dish.
Or you can focus entirely on it, declare that its your favorite meal, and newer, ever, eat anything else. Then your an Exarch.

It still dont change though that an Eldar gets a Buffet made by a master chef, a Tau gets a single dish from that table picked for him by the Etheral Kitchen Chef, and a humen gets a bucket of gruel.
The human also get the Commisar chef to stand behind him with a boltgun in case he dont praise his bucket of gruel loudly enough..

As for Dark Eldars, they also get the buffet table, and they get to jump up on it and eat whatever they want, however they want. They just also have to live with everyone else doing the same, and randomly poisoning some of the dishes they like to keep them for themselves.

Necrons got a Buffet table thats almost as grand as the Eldars, and a chair thats placed right before it so they dont need to go back and forth. But sadly they all lost their tongues, so they cant really taste anything, or do much besides look at the feast laid out before them.

And thats relative 40k standarts of living explained with food

Regarding most worlds' citizens' lives being long, hard, dull labour...

...sounds just like real life.

Depends on where you live i guess. And dont change how they are more or less no choice in it, or change to move up. Your stuck in the position your father held as welder nr 464 east block baneblade track factory.

The majority of human worlds aren't terribly different from modern Earth. They're not exciting. They're probably not awful. Their desire to exterminate all the non-humans who get in their way might not be right, but it's born of countless millennia of seeing why it's 100% necessary - those pointy eared bastards, the loud green guys, the beak-faced eaters of the dead... all of them want to murder the hell out of Man, and they sure as hell can't be trusted.

Except its not. Humanity coexisted for millenia with the Eldar Imperium in a quite peaceful manner. But its sadly not just every non-human that gets in their way, its every non-human they came across. And its man that want to murder them.
I keep pulling Tau up because its the perfect example of this. A group of stone-age primitives on their own little planet in the middle of nowhere. They get spotted by an Imperial scout ship, and as a matter of habbit a few warships are send to exterminatus them all. Thats not self defence. And its not even getting in the way of anyone.

From the prespective of a Human

Oh thats what you meant with that. I took it as for an inhabitant of said faction.

Yes. That's only on Hive Worlds, and most Hive Worlds aren't that crappy. There's the underhive and gangers, whose lives are incredibly awful, but they aren't the majority of a Hive World. Most of everyone is low class workers, who work boring 12 hour shifts, before returning hope. They do get to rest, they aren't beaten regularly, and they get paid a wage. Advancement to a slightly higher class is even possible, for their children at least.

Well.. i would also say that working 12 hour shifts of hard labor, with irregular beatings and no freedom is awful. Especially since to your planetary gouverner you are nothing but a resource to be spend as desired.

Its certainly a lower standart of living than the one had by Eldars, Tau or even Orks. And i do think all of those leads a happier life than a average human.

And that's just Hive Worlds. Agi-worlds are generally pretty pleasant if you like the farm life, and Imperial Worlds are pretty equivalent to modern society. Death Worlds have a really hostile environment, but the people are generally nice simply because constant danger tends to bring people together. Feral worlds are what you'd expect, and space ships can be any of the above. Forge worlds suck, but if you're smart and good with machines you can become a tech priest rather then being stuck as a factory worker.

Well yeah, i guess Agi-worlds and Imperial worlds are a bit nicer than that, if you can look past the brutal authoitarian regime and the complete lack of any sort of civil rights. Its just that my understanding is that humanity is concentrated in Hive cities because they have an absurd high population. So they drag the average living standart down.

[Wraith]

No? Macragge is galactic-south of the Tau empire.

New map.

Weird. That's the map I was using, and I could swear that Macragge was more North-Eastern that that.

Oh, well. Perhaps I was just looking at the word "Ultima" and fixated upon it. Still, a lot of their successors are still out there - the Sable Swords, Novamarines, Sons of Orar and the Aurora Chapter probably being the most recognisable of the ones I found.

[Drasius]

Now you're just being silly. Everyone knows that successor chapters aren't real chapters, the only ones who actually matter are the first foundings, everyone else is the marine equivalent redshirts...

[bluntpencil]

Now you're just being silly. Everyone knows that successor chapters aren't real chapters, the only ones who actually matter are the first foundings, everyone else is the marine equivalent redshirts...

Exceptions made for Black Templars and Crimson Fists, for sheer badassery.

[Tome]

Exceptions made for Black Templars and Crimson Fists, for sheer badassery.

Blood Ravens, Space Sharks and Raptors all also stand out as having their own flavour too.

[bluntpencil]

Blood Ravens, Space Sharks and Raptors all also stand out as having their own flavour too.

Not Dorn enough.

Black Templars and Crimson Fists are just as Imperial Fist as the 'real' Imperial Fists anyway. ;)

[Mr. E]

Silver Skulls have a distinct flavour as well. That said, (suspected) Loyalist factions of traitor legions don't really count as successor chapters, I suppose.

[Silverraptor]

Hey, I was thinking of starting a tabletop RPG of a warhammer 40k campaign and I was wondering, is Deathwatch the only rulebook out there? Or is there other editions or rules out there for me to use?

[Tome]

Hey, I was thinking of starting a tabletop RPG of a warhammer 40k campaign and I was wondering, is Deathwatch the only rulebook out there? Or is there other editions or rules out there for meto use?

Dark Heresy - Play as inquisitorial acolytes, investigate heresy and corruption, probably get eaten by a daemon. Investigation focused, you're basically mooks in 1e, 2e gives you a bit more heft. Only game with a second edition.

Rogue Trader - Play as a rogue trader and crew flying around the galaxy in your awesome ship. Rogue traders being a fusion of privateers and merchant princes. Characters are very powerful, but mostly due to a combination of being filthy stinking rich, knowing the right people and owning a fully armed battleship. Goals and direction tend to be very player focused, since there's very few people with authority to boss them around. Has rules for playing as a few xenos species, such as Kroot, Tau, Orks and Dark Eldar.

Black Crusade - Play as followers of the dark gods, manages to make regular humans and astartes pretty balanced against each other. Try and earn the gods favour and ascend to daemon princedom. Players will probably be racking up power and influence as fast as they can, since the alternative means becoming a chaos spawn in the end. Again, more player directed as they're encouraged to come up with their own schemes and plots.

Only War - Play as imperial guardsmen, including most players getting their own NPC squadmate to help out. Players also get to design their regiment together. Military campaign focused, obviously.

[Bobby Baratheon]

Hey, I was thinking of starting a tabletop RPG of a warhammer 40k campaign and I was wondering, is Deathwatch the only rulebook out there? Or is there other editions or rules out there for me to use?

If you're not committed to being a Spess Mehreen you could look into Dark Heresy or Only War. Dark Heresy is the more well-regarded and versatile of the two from what I've heard and seen, but both are viable options.

[Renegade Paladin]

But the rulebooks are going for hundreds of dollars since they're out of print. I've heard rumor that GW is going to announce a 40k RPG in the near future (source: A Facebook post I read today; take with salt) so waiting a bit might be more advisable.

[Drasius]

Having said that, since they're no longer being made, a case can be made for aquiring them via ... alternate means and not feeling bad since you're not robbing the people who made it of any money.

[Silverraptor]

Interesting. So is only Blackwatch the rulebook for Space Marines? And is there instructions in making a sister of battle PC? One of my potential players expressed interest in making a Sister, and it goes in hand with my idea of scattered Space Marines from different chapters find each other and band together to get back to Imperial Space.

[hamishspence]

Interesting. So is only Blackwatch the rulebook for Space Marines? And is there instructions in making a sister of battle PC?

The Dark Heresy game has rules for those (two different sets of rules - one in The Inquisitor's Handbook, the other, in Blood of Martyrs.

There's also rules for playing Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader characters in the other games - basically, advance them to the proper level first, to make sure the power levels roughly match up. Note that they may be a bit unbalanced as a result. Dark Heresy characters need Dark Heresy: Ascension, just to reach comparable power levels to Deathwatch marines - but Ascension options are a bit more powerful in some respects, so there may be overshoot.

I'm told that a well-build high level DH character tends to out-power a Rogue Trader character of the same level:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...me/RogueTrader

not sure how much this applies to Deathwatch as well though.

[Cheesegear]

I've heard rumor that GW is going to announce a 40k RPG in the near future...

I have heard the same thing, though I'm fairly sure they're talking about something along the lines of Silver Tower. A Tabletop RPG, not PnP.

[Trekkin]

I'm told that a well-build high level DH character tends to out-power a Rogue Trader character of the same level:
[...]
not sure how much this applies to Deathwatch as well though.

About like you'd expect: with the partial exception of Tech-Priests and Explorators, Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader characters are far less resilient than the Deathwatch norm, but in my experience there's no clear winner in damage output across all situations -- and, of course, the normal humans can acquire different skills more easily.

[Blackhawk748]

About like you'd expect: with the partial exception of Tech-Priests and Explorators, Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader characters are far less resilient than the Deathwatch norm, but in my experience there's no clear winner in damage output across all situations -- and, of course, the normal humans can acquire different skills more easily.

Dark Heresy: Ascension Psykers are freaking insane though.

[Trekkin]

Dark Heresy: Ascension Psykers are freaking insane though.

Sure, after they've used their powers once or twice. So is everyone else in the vicinity.

In all seriousness, it helps to decide on one version of the psyker rules that everyone will use since it's so different between games, and that changes the power level of psykers considerably.