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 Esmer wrote:
The soul-devouring thing, I don't get. When they were first introduced in 3rd Edi, the C'tan were explicitedly stated to exclusively feed on material essence - being completely non-psychic and all - and tossing the souls of their victims aside. There was a fluff bit where a Daemon was gloating about the free soul all-you-can-eat the denizens of the Warp were getting out of this.

It was just one more poorly thought out piece of fluff from a codex filled with it in fifth edition.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Esmer wrote:
The soul-devouring thing, I don't get. When they were first introduced in 3rd Edi, the C'tan were explicitedly stated to exclusively feed on material essence - being completely non-psychic and all - and tossing the souls of their victims aside. There was a fluff bit where a Daemon was gloating about the free soul all-you-can-eat the denizens of the Warp were getting out of this.

It was just one more poorly thought out piece of fluff from a codex filled with it in fifth edition.

it's possiable the C'tan didn't literally eat their souls but perhaps used them to fuel some sort of fancy weapon that could be used to fight the more warp focused old ones. Hell just the psykic shock of trillions of souls being snuffed out at once could have crippled the old ones.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Good, hopefully they make them even less sympathetic.

The rampant cancer and short life span were supposed to be the main reasons why the Necrontyr fought the Old Ones though; they saw the Old Ones weren't dying off at an early age and were healthy, the Necrontyr asked them how and the Old Ones refused. The Necrontyr got really mad and declared war to try to take the secrets for themselves.
It was also why they accepted the C'tan's offer; they'll get the immortality they wanted and win the war, all they have to do is trade away their humanity.

Removing that aspect is a gross simplification and removes the few traces left over from 3rd ed. If they wanted Necrons to be less sympathetic they should have started with toning down the quirky overlord garbage with its forced pathos.


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BrianDavion wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Esmer wrote:
The soul-devouring thing, I don't get. When they were first introduced in 3rd Edi, the C'tan were explicitedly stated to exclusively feed on material essence - being completely non-psychic and all - and tossing the souls of their victims aside. There was a fluff bit where a Daemon was gloating about the free soul all-you-can-eat the denizens of the Warp were getting out of this.

It was just one more poorly thought out piece of fluff from a codex filled with it in fifth edition.

it's possiable the C'tan didn't literally eat their souls but perhaps used them to fuel some sort of fancy weapon that could be used to fight the more warp focused old ones. Hell just the psykic shock of trillions of souls being snuffed out at once could have crippled the old ones.

Or it could be that the writers completely misunderstood how C'tan work and conflated life-energy with Souls.
It said in 3rd ed that the souls were set aside and the demons would come like vultures to eat them. There is no fueling a weapon here, and there is no evidence of necrons having such soul weapons anyway.

I was always under the impression that it was Biotransference that snuffed out the Necrons' souls. Not sure where you guys are getting the idea that the C'tan ate them from.

I thought that the Ctan found living creatures souls to be a delicacy, like having caviar, compared to their normal diet of stellar energies

 agurus1 wrote:
I thought that the Ctan found living creatures souls to be a delicacy, like having caviar, compared to their normal diet of stellar energies

Yep, this was the original canon. One c'tan even told a callidus assassin that the polymorphine drug they used gave human essence such a delicate flavor.

Not 'souls', though. In the original fluff, anything to do with the Warp/souls/psychic stuff was anathema to the C'tan. It was their only weakness, since they had absolute mastery of the physical universe. Hence the Talismans of Vaul being created to drop-kick C'tan into the Warp with a giant D-cannon to render them powerless. Their 'rewrite the laws of physics' abilities didn't work there. Also the reason for the C'tan plan to shut off the Materium from the Warp.

 agurus1 wrote:
I thought that the Ctan found living creatures souls to be a delicacy, like having caviar, compared to their normal diet of stellar energies

It was explicitedly their material essence - their flesh, their cells, their chemistry, their pheromones, however you may want to call it - they feast upon, not their souls.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 agurus1 wrote:
I thought that the Ctan found living creatures souls to be a delicacy, like having caviar, compared to their normal diet of stellar energies

Yep, this was the original canon. One c'tan even told a callidus assassin that the polymorphine drug they used gave human essence such a delicate flavor.

No, much like the current writers you are conflating souls with bio-electricity and material composition.
Unless you mean to tell me that polymorphine, a chemical that alters the physical body, somehow affects the human soul, a metaphysical entity that's in the warp.