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 Wyzilla wrote:
Plus the Blood Ravens don't even look like Thousand Sons.

Is that really relevant though? The Mortifactors, a Second Founding chapter, look nothing like the Ultramarines for example.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mortifactors
or the Genesis Chapter. Look more like Blood Angels to me.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Genesis_Chapter
or the Brazen Claws. Look nothing like the Iron Hands, chapter symbol included.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Brazen_Claw
etc

Just saying...

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'm talking about facial features. Blood Ravens don't resemble their Primarch at all. They look more like Ultramarines, given that almost all of them look like burly white dudes with receding hairlines. Plus given the odds, they're almost certainly Ultramarines.

Fair enough. But there isn't much evidence the Silver Skulls look more like the Iron Warriors than any other chapter. Also the burly white dudes would also apply to the Iron Fists, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, etc.

jareddm wrote:
Most geneseed does not change facial features and the ones that do are considered the oddballs. Salamanders, Space Wolves, Raven Guard, Luna Wolves. It's the planet being recruited from that defines a chapter's primary facial features in other cases.

Yea that's what I thought as well. You're implanting recruits with new organs but you're not building them from scratch.

 Shidank wrote:
I honestly wish I could have found exactly where I read this, but I believe it was written in BL literature that if the aspirant has traits similar to the Primarch, the geneseed will pronounce those features over other development. This follows why many legionnaires looked alike and they all seemed to mirror their primarch. They were all from the same world, sometimes the same regions, and the differences between themselves and Terrans was huge. In 40k, with so many chapters drawing from so many worlds, the genetic diversity alone means unless you have a plain faced white guy (Row-boat Girly-man), everyone will deviate significantly from their primarch.

I think that's mostly the Alpha Legion or in one case, Little Horus (though I think there were more look-alikes in the chapter). I can see how your features might change to resemble your primarch (Salamanders for example) but it's the exception rather than the rule. And it doesn't change all your primary features. Otherwise the Thousand Sons would all have red skin and flowing red hair.

Wait, I just realized I've never actually seen a picture or read a description of what a Thousand Son looks like. Don't tell me they all had red skin and hair, and were all giants??

 dusara217 wrote:
Well, Blood Angels are the pretty boys with long, luscious locks of blonde hair, so they definitely aint bald, just look at Corbulo.

Oh I don't mean bald necessarily. I was just meant the white and receding hairline thing. The Blood Angels aren't really exempt. In the grim darkness of the far future, no one is exempt from receding hairlines! NO ONE!

 ChazSexington wrote:
[The Salamanders black skin and eyes is due to a reaction between Nocturne's sun and their gene-seed, afaik, so that's indirect. But as mentioned above, the other Legions/Chapters do sometimes change slightly to look more like their genetic forefather, which is rather plausible.

Yea their looks changing to resemble their genetic forefather is possible but it doesn't necessarily have to be the case. There's no mention of the Thousand Sons looking like Magnus for example.

None of the named Dark Angels really resemble the Lion either.

Guys, look what I found! There really are Thousand Sons that look just like Magnus! What the feth??

This is from the Horus Heresy: Collected Visions on pg 168. The tag is "The Scarab Occult * Magnus's Veterans * Franz Vohwinkel"

You can also find it uploaded here:
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Fall_of_Prospero



It's the only depiction I could find on what a Thousand Sons legionnaire might look like under the helmet. So I guess this is either a fluke or Space Marines really do take on their Primarch's features. This is a bit extreme though. I didn't think the average Astartes would take on their primarch's features to this extent. Otherwise all Dark Angels would have flowing golden hair, etc.

While I agree with the whole filling the gaps thing I'm just amazed there's actually art of mini-Magnuses running around. It's significant because it would actually rule out the Blood Ravens having Thousand Sons geneseed. Course it might just be a fluke since it seems to be the only illustration of its kind.

 Shidank wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:
While I agree with the whole filling the gaps thing I'm just amazed there's actually art of mini-Magnuses running around. It's significant because it would actually rule out the Blood Ravens having Thousand Sons geneseed. Course it might just be a fluke since it seems to be the only illustration of its kind.

Since we keep ignoring this, I'll bring it up again:

Geneseed does not seem to make a carbon copy of a Primarch. It seems to rather expound on traits already present that are shared with the primarch. If you already had long blond hair, I'm sure Sanguinius's geneseed would make it more luxurious than ever. If you were already a red-headed stepchild, Magnus would make you more gingery than ever before.

Geneseed is not a cloning mechanism.

And you seem to be ignoring this.


I never said gene-seed results in a carbon copy. In fact I was saying the appearance of the Blood Ravens has little to do on whether or not they do have traitor gene-seed (since the features should primarily stem from the recruits). Then I realized no one here actually knows what a Thousand Sons marine looks like so I found an illustration from the Horus Heresy artbook.

Last I checked the topic was about chapters made from tratior gene-seed... which includes the Blood Ravens. So you'll excuse me if I ignore what you said when we have angry Magnus clones staring us in the face.

 dusara217 wrote:
And what makes you think that native Prosperites didn't have red skin?

No idea, I'm wondering if anyone here can clarify since I haven't read the Thousand Sons novels in the HH series. It would be rather odd though since there's no special mention of a red-skinned population in other fluff sources.

jareddm wrote:
The red skin is plausible. The missing eye is not. That said, I can certainly see a sub-cult within the legion that ritualistically removed their eye as part of respect for their primarch, or for other esoteric reasons. But that would be completely unrelated to geneseed.

Yea, I can see the removing the eye part. But unless the native populations really did have red skin and hair, it would mean the colour comes from the geneseed... and that Blood Ravens can't have Thousand Sons geneseed. Course its only a single picture and could easily be retconned ... not that it's from the most credible source anyway.

 dusara217 wrote:
I'm currently reading a Thousand Sons, and there is absolutely no mention Thousand Sons having red skin, though I believe that they said Ahriman had bronze skin.

Exactly, there was no reason for me to assume the inhabitants of Prospero had red skin since it's never mentioned (as far as I'm aware) whereas Magnus is specifically called "the Red."

jareddm wrote:
I decided to do a bit more investigation myself and I've found that the previous shown image is not the only picture in Collected Visions of Thousand Sons without helms.



Both clearly show Thousand Sons with greyish skin, possibly native to Prospero, rather than what has been previously shown.

Yea, I was going to do more digging but I haven't had access to my book for the past few days. That's what I thought, it really is just that one picture. Still, if it's actually printed then it's possible there was a small group that looked just like Magnus - still mindblowing! You could use that to make your own mini-Magnuses for example.

 Shidank wrote:
Phew. Glad that's resolved and we can move on to more interesting things than how the Thousand Sons looked

Determining what the Thousand Sons looked like or how much the gene-seed affects their appearance is perfectly relevant to the thread since it might rule out the Blood Ravens having Thousand Sons (traitor) gene-seed. Did you have something more interesting in mind?

 Shidank wrote:
As a favor, I'll ask you to stop spamming the same pictures and bringing this up over and over unless there's something new to add.

Wow, you're friendly one. I re-posted the picture once since you were complaining about us continuing the discussion. It was an over-top picture that was oddly relevant to the discussion so I thought it worth discussing. And it's from material published by GW. What makes your opinion more valid as a fluff source?

And what exactly has your contribution been other than stating your opinion as fact, then complaining about other people discussing the topic?

 Shidank wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Shidank wrote:
As a favor, I'll ask you to stop spamming the same pictures and bringing this up over and over unless there's something new to add.

Wow, you're friendly one. I re-posted the picture once since you were complaining about us continuing the discussion. It was an over-top picture that was oddly relevant to the discussion so I thought it worth discussing. And it's from material published by GW. What makes your opinion more valid as a fluff source?

And what exactly has your contribution been other than stating your opinion as fact, then complaining about other people discussing the topic?

There's no reason to get angry and try to stoke up a flame here. I was perfectly polite in asking you to stop repeating the same information that had been all but dismissed. I'm sorry if it seemed otherwise.

My contribution? Personally, stimulating a changing narrative in the discussion before it stagnates as it has.

With both of your aggressive points addressed, I trust we can get back on track now? If not, I invite you to message me privately rather than further spam the thread.

Uh if that was your intention then you failed because there weren't any new posts on the thread for something like three days after your post trying to get us to "focus." And I wasn't the one being aggressive. And no, the picture has been discussed and I was satisfied that an answer from a fluff source could be found.