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Soo...... my opinion of the Black Templars just went up by a bit.

The Cacodominus was the name given to an extremely powerful alien-cyborg Psyker who was behind The Howling in M34. The Cacodomius' powers were such that it was able to exert complete control over an area of 1,300 planetary systems. Eventually, it was slain by the Black Templars, but the resulting backlash distorted the signal of the Astronomican and burnt out billions of Astropaths across the Imperium. The resulting anarchy from the events resulted in millions of ships being lost and entire Sub-Sectors descending into barbarism.

Please tell me there is some Lore on this beyond the scant references in the 5th edition book.

If there isn't, this is a novel waiting to be written!

I mean. "Alien-Cyborg Psyker that could exert Complete Control over 1,300 planetary systems with its power" puts Cacodominus up there in the big leagues with the Primarchs.

Heck.... maybe even with the mortal version of the Emperor.....

And how in the heck did the Black Templars kill this thing?! Even its Death caused massive damage to the Imperium.


Another question that pops into my head: Can you think of anything else that is a kind of Primarch-level threat?

Abaddon is a Primarch tier threat at this point.

The Beast was an Emperor-tier threat, and by the looks of it, Ghazghkull is heading the same way.

So the Black Templar caused the lose of millions of ships in subspace?

Now I'm thinking of an angry police chief scenario between the High Lords and the Black Templar chapter master.
"You're the donkey-cave who just caused several million ships to be lost to the warp! You're a loose cannon! I've now got the Adeptus Astronomica so far up my ass that I could be used as a fething lighthouse"

The War of the False Primarch.

It's unknown what exactly it was but it apparently enthralled eleven space marine chapters and took the combined effort of the Red Talons, Death Eagles, Carcharodons, Flesh Eaters, and the Charnel Guard to defeat. That's a pretty intense group of chapters.

What does everyone think the name 'Cacodominus' is meant to allude to?

To me it just sounds like a big chocolate :S.

nareik wrote:
What does everyone think the name 'Cacodominus' is meant to allude to?

Cacodemon. An evil spirit.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

nareik wrote:
What does everyone think the name 'Cacodominus' is meant to allude to?

Cacodemon. An evil spirit.

To expand on cacodemon, the term originates from ancient Greece (kaikodaimon or something like that) referring to - as stated by SomeRandomEvilGuy - an evil spirit. What is perhaps really intriguing is that from cacodemon came the term cacodemomania which was a condition in which an individual is convinced that they're possessed by an evil spirit AND the first known usage of cacodemon in English literature comes from Shakespeare's Richard III where it is used to describe Richard himself.

to be honest it looks like a throw away piece of bad writing used to try and make the combatants sound impressive without really thinking of the consequences.

I recall reading about this event, or at least a very similar one, in 4th ed. Something about the Astronomican flickering and many ships being lost. A bunch of planets also fell all over the Imperium because support and military materia could not be transported in time. The event was called something else but I'm pretty sure this is an expansion of a previously written event.

As to how they killed it it's probably not as impressive as you think. With a powerfull enough gellar field you can effectively make the ship "unnoticable" to the psyker and with a host of blanks employed you can counter most of the psychic assults. Hence all that is left is slay minions, avoid telecnetic and then kill the thing. If I where a high lord I would order a strike force of culex assasins to accompany the black templars along with all the blanks that could be mustered from the black ships.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


The Beast was an Emperor-tier threat,.

What was the Beast? Source? This sounds interesting.

GrapeApe wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


The Beast was an Emperor-tier threat,.

What was the Beast? Source? This sounds interesting.

There's a 12 book series being written on the events surrounding the Beast right now. Go read it. It's actually pretty damn good.
http://www.blacklibrary.com/the-beast-arises

 Nerak wrote:
I recall reading about this event, or at least a very similar one, in 4th ed. Something about the Astronomican flickering and many ships being lost. A bunch of planets also fell all over the Imperium because support and military materia could not be transported in time. The event was called something else but I'm pretty sure this is an expansion of a previously written event.
As to how they killed it it's probably not as impressive as you think. With a powerfull enough gellar field you can effectively make the ship "unnoticable" to the psyker and with a host of blanks employed you can counter most of the psychic assults. Hence all that is left is slay minions, avoid telecnetic and then kill the thing. If I where a high lord I would order a strike force of culex assasins to accompany the black templars along with all the blanks that could be mustered from the black ships.

You're most likely describing the event in 801.M41 which indicated the first obvious signs of the Golden Throne's failure, something that occurred over 7,000 years later and is unrelated to the event in question.
As to your explanation for how they killed it, by the time of this event the Sisters of Silence would've been gone for approximately 2,000 years. The Black Ships are not crewed by blanks but instead by strong-willed stormtroopers and specially trained anti-psyker astropaths armed with bindings, drugs, and psychic might. It's a lot cruder than when the Sisters of Silence ran things, but it's all they have to work with.

jareddm wrote:

GrapeApe wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


The Beast was an Emperor-tier threat,.

What was the Beast? Source? This sounds interesting.

There's a 12 book series being written on the events surrounding the Beast right now. Go read it. It's actually pretty damn good.
http://www.blacklibrary.com/the-beast-arises

So its the Ork Boss of Ork Bosses........

About time we had an uber-serious Ork threat around....

GrapeApe wrote:
So its the Ork Boss of Ork Bosses........

About time we had an uber-serious Ork threat around....

Yep, pretty much. Nothing spells 'Ork Threat' like a Warboss that was (from what I've heard) the size of a hab-block. Makes Ghazgul look like a very small, whimpish child haha

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

nareik wrote:
What does everyone think the name 'Cacodominus' is meant to allude to?

Cacodemon. An evil spirit.

Am I the only one who thought of the poop daemon from dogma?

Hmmm... Cacadominus would make a pretty sweet name for a Nurgle Daemon Prince...

 JustALittleOrkish wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

nareik wrote:
What does everyone think the name 'Cacodominus' is meant to allude to?

Cacodemon. An evil spirit.

Am I the only one who thought of the poop daemon from dogma?

The Excremental / Golgothan?

Thought it might be a DOOM reference myself.

jareddm wrote:

GrapeApe wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


The Beast was an Emperor-tier threat,.

What was the Beast? Source? This sounds interesting.

There's a 12 book series being written on the events surrounding the Beast right now. Go read it. It's actually pretty damn good.
http://www.blacklibrary.com/the-beast-arises

 Nerak wrote:
I recall reading about this event, or at least a very similar one, in 4th ed. Something about the Astronomican flickering and many ships being lost. A bunch of planets also fell all over the Imperium because support and military materia could not be transported in time. The event was called something else but I'm pretty sure this is an expansion of a previously written event.
As to how they killed it it's probably not as impressive as you think. With a powerfull enough gellar field you can effectively make the ship "unnoticable" to the psyker and with a host of blanks employed you can counter most of the psychic assults. Hence all that is left is slay minions, avoid telecnetic and then kill the thing. If I where a high lord I would order a strike force of culex assasins to accompany the black templars along with all the blanks that could be mustered from the black ships.

You're most likely describing the event in 801.M41 which indicated the first obvious signs of the Golden Throne's failure, something that occurred over 7,000 years later and is unrelated to the event in question.
As to your explanation for how they killed it, by the time of this event the Sisters of Silence would've been gone for approximately 2,000 years. The Black Ships are not crewed by blanks but instead by strong-willed stormtroopers and specially trained anti-psyker astropaths armed with bindings, drugs, and psychic might. It's a lot cruder than when the Sisters of Silence ran things, but it's all they have to work with.

On the first part: That might very well be it but the whole "the throne is breaking" thing didn't appear untill 5th ed, though I have to doubble check to be sure.
On the second part: I had no clue the sisters of Silence ran the black ships back when they where around, in any case it's entirely irrelevant since this was after they got disbanded. See most Black ships has at least one blank on hand. They are brought in like psykers but, seeing as how hard they are to detect, there's not that many of them. Blanks have no unified adeptus wide military structure (except for the culexus Temple) and mostly are just pressed into service in the Inquisition or as psyker guards. That being said Inquisitor Eisenhorn does at one point (in Malleus I think) have some 30blanks trained as his personal anti psyker fighting force. Doesn't it makes sence that the most powerfull organisation in the Imperium (the hlot) can round up significally more than that versus a foe of this scale? All cred to the Space marines and storm troopers but there's only so much you can do vs something that's alpha+ in psyker Level. The Black Templars unmistakingly brought the final blowingly though.

EDIT: One more thing. As to the storm troopers (or astra milaturm) crewing the black ships this is true but they only serve as guards. The crewing is done by other non specified people (seeing as it takes some 1.000.000 people sometimes to crew a vessel) and they're lots of various specialist personal onhand. Though I've not read it I'd be surprised if there wasn't a Inquisitorial representative on each ship.

My opinion of GW's writers just went down a bit (further )

. . . but the resulting backlash distorted the signal of the Astronomican and burnt out billions of Astropaths across the Imperium.

Billions of Astropaths?

Billions?

That's . . . what? A couple of thousand Astropaths per world. If they were, you know, evenly distributed. Since some worlds are noted as having not even one that must mean there are some worlds with, in don't know; ten of thousands, hundreds of thousands of them, just wandering about, bumping into walls.

*sigh*

Maybe I'm completely off base here, maybe I'm overreacting. . .

Just a little, Pendix.

Most of those Astropaths will by on deep space facilities and space ships. We've seen several times that there are relay stations scattered through the Imperium like giant psychic telephone exchanges, housing hundreds if not thousands of astropaths - astropathic communication is limited by range, after all, which is determined by the strength of the 'path in question.

Each Astropath can process a single message at a time and it could take hours for them to pick it all up, sort out the actual message from all the echoes, reconstitute into something comprehensible and hopefully not too warp-twisted, then send it on to the next relay (or if they're lucky, the destination), who will then have to go through the whole thing again.

There's a reason they're called Astropathic Choirs. You need a lot of them to maintain any kind of recieve/transmit speed given how much information has to be sent around the galaxy at any given moment.

 Nerak wrote:
See most Black ships has at least one blank on hand.

Got a source for that?

jareddm wrote:

 Nerak wrote:
See most Black ships has at least one blank on hand.

Got a source for that?

Looking for one. Checked Lexicanum and Skimmed through 1st ed DH and RT. There's clear hints to it but no outright statements. Don't see why you'd call this one out of all things but will keep looking.

 Nerak wrote:

jareddm wrote:

 Nerak wrote:
See most Black ships has at least one blank on hand.

Got a source for that?

Looking for one. Checked Lexicanum and Skimmed through 1st ed DH and RT. There's clear hints to it but no outright statements. Don't see why you'd call this one out of all things but will keep looking.

Because your argument is based around the High Lords being able to acquire a host of non-Culexus Assassin blanks, and by a host I don't mean the handful that Eisenhorn had that were wiped out almost entirely by a single kill-team. I mean the kind of numbers that assaulted Prospero. The only practical way of getting a large number of Blanks would've been the Sisters of Silence, which don't exist post-M32. If you can find a source that says that Blanks are still used regularly on each Black Ship, then getting a large number of them becomes less of an issue. I'm saying that you will not find it and that Blanks are not present on Black Ships, nor anywhere else in any meaningful numbers outside of the Culexus Temple.

That said, while I wouldn't be opposed to assistance from the Culexus Temple, one of the cornerstones of 40k is that faith and willpower can put up a meaningful fight against warpcraft and sorcery. And few have a deeper font of willpower than a Black Templar Crusade fleet. For me, it is not beyond reason that the Black Templars defeated the Cacodominus on their own. Not take back the 1,300 dominated solar systems mind you, that's for the Imperial Guard, just be the ones to kill it.

 Pendix wrote:
My opinion of GW's writers just went down a bit (further )

. . . but the resulting backlash distorted the signal of the Astronomican and burnt out billions of Astropaths across the Imperium.

Billions of Astropaths?

Billions?

That's . . . what? A couple of thousand Astropaths per world. If they were, you know, evenly distributed. Since some worlds are noted as having not even one that must mean there are some worlds with, in don't know; ten of thousands, hundreds of thousands of them, just wandering about, bumping into walls.

*sigh*

Maybe I'm completely off base here, maybe I'm overreacting. . .

Perhaps the backlash reverberated through time? Best fudge I can think of.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Just a little, Pendix.

Most of those Astropaths will by on deep space facilities and space ships. We've seen several times that there are relay stations scattered through the Imperium like giant psychic telephone exchanges, housing hundreds if not thousands of astropaths - astropathic communication is limited by range, after all, which is determined by the strength of the 'path in question.

Each Astropath can process a single message at a time and it could take hours for them to pick it all up, sort out the actual message from all the echoes, reconstitute into something comprehensible and hopefully not too warp-twisted, then send it on to the next relay (or if they're lucky, the destination), who will then have to go through the whole thing again.

There's a reason they're called Astropathic Choirs. You need a lot of them to maintain any kind of recieve/transmit speed given how much information has to be sent around the galaxy at any given moment.

Your probably right. Still, seems like an inordinately large number, wouldn't it be hard to support those kind of numbers though? The soul binding can only happen in one place right? And those selected are only a small subset of Sanctioned Psykers, who in turn are only a small subset of those harvested by the Black Ships? Am I thinking to much about this?

nareik wrote:
Perhaps the backlash reverberated through time? Best fudge I can think of.

It does involve the Warp, and the Warp does have an all-bets-are-off clause.

If you take it as meaning "essentially exterminated the astra telepathica" then billions would be fine.

Certainly Terra and comparable core worlds would have them in their thousands, and the Rogue Trader RPG implies that a successful Rogue Trader's flagship is likely to have a choir of half a dozen or more. You can assume important naval warships (say battlecruiser class or above) would be the same.

Remember that we don't know how the Cacodominus did it. Whilst some degree of psychic control was involved, it might well have been something like the Borg - i.e. something (psi-amp) forcibly implanted into people, or whatever. The Black Templars were clearly seriously badass to take it on, though.

And yes, The Beast and post "You Are Not My Father" Abbadon* are the other threats that spring to mind at the moment.



* See Talon Of Horus. Seriously. If you haven't read it, go and buy a copy right bloody now.

locarno24 wrote:

* See Talon Of Horus. Seriously. If you haven't read it, go and buy a copy right bloody now.

Bit of a love hate relationship with that one. I like a few parts of that one. I couldn't get my head around Abaddon
Perhaps I should re-read that.
Either way, the Black Templars again rose to the challenge with

Now we are left in the 41st millenium, 10,000 ish years later and Abs is still alive and kicking whilst all the heroes of that age are long dead.
That's the ruined world that is 40k, but Captain Homebrew or Warlord Titan Expensivus Maximus nailing Abaddon on the tabletop will never have the same satisfying feel, entertaining as the Warmaster of Chaos getting drowned in conscripts or ambushed by plasmavets may be.
Similarly, if he were beaten by any other race- Chaos almost consumed the galaxy, but luckily, an Ork Warboss ran the Warmaster over in a Battle Wagon.

Plus he always teleports out at the last second- as Eldrad's beating him in hand to hand that one time shows.

The main victories these days seem to be SM Chapters killing craftworlds and psychic abominations offscreen.

I'd consider Ghazzy at the brink of Primarch tier threat if not then he's just crossed over. Even though he's on Octaria having cleaned it free of tyranids with another tendril on its way and billions upon billions of orks pouring in from all directions, he's still in full real-time control of the war on Armageddon with his astounding ability to see, hear, and speak across the galaxy instantly with no lag putting all telepaths to shame. Billions upon billions of orks are still pouring in on Armageddon from all directions. To top it off Ghazzy is about to leave Octaria, as he did with Armageddon, to go find another spot to create another massive galaxy shaking war like the previous two locations. No doubt he'll have the same instantaneous clairvoyance/clairaudience telepathic thing to command Octaria as he does with Armageddon but to further +1 his controld, Orkimedes announced that he's almost perfected his tellyporta tek to instantly teleport Ghazzy across the galactic distances so he pop in on all his officer's in a flash. This puts ALL other forms of travel to shame and is reminiscent of the instant galactic travel of the Old Ones.

Then there's Ghazzy himself. He's not as big as the Beast yet whom was the size of a hab-block. But Ghazzy is still the size of a dreadnought and still growing. He's been up against and survived more the most in the galaxy can take. Head and brain blown to bits when he was a Boy. Skull of a greater daemon on his bosspole from his warp journeys. Took a battle cannon hit to the mid rif. Handed the famous Belial a good whoopin whom barely got out alive with some help. Most recently killing a Mawloc solo after being swallowed. Apparently, due to some huge horn/tooth thing piercing through his armour and body stung him a bit on that last one. He had to 'take it easy' for an hour or two. RoFL.
Something more powerful then the above is going to have put him down. Pretty hard to top Belial without a Primarch kicking around.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
I'd consider Ghazzy at the brink of Primarch tier threat if not then he's just crossed over. Even though he's on Octaria having cleaned it free of tyranids with another tendril on its way and billions upon billions of orks pouring in from all directions, he's still in full real-time control of the war on Armageddon with his astounding ability to see, hear, and speak across the galaxy instantly with no lag putting all telepaths to shame. Billions upon billions of orks are still pouring in on Armageddon from all directions. To top it off Ghazzy is about to leave Octaria, as he did with Armageddon, to go find another spot to create another massive galaxy shaking war like the previous two locations. No doubt he'll have the same instantaneous clairvoyance/clairaudience telepathic thing to command Octaria as he does with Armageddon but to further +1 his controld, Orkimedes announced that he's almost perfected his tellyporta tek to instantly teleport Ghazzy across the galactic distances so he pop in on all his officer's in a flash. This puts ALL other forms of travel to shame and is reminiscent of the instant galactic travel of the Old Ones.

Then there's Ghazzy himself. He's not as big as the Beast yet whom was the size of a hab-block. But Ghazzy is still the size of a dreadnought and still growing. He's been up against and survived more the most in the galaxy can take. Head and brain blown to bits when he was a Boy. Skull of a greater daemon on his bosspole from his warp journeys. Took a battle cannon hit to the mid rif. Handed the famous Belial a good whoopin whom barely got out alive with some help. Most recently killing a Mawloc solo after being swallowed. Apparently, due to some huge horn/tooth thing piercing through his armour and body stung him a bit on that last one. He had to 'take it easy' for an hour or two. RoFL.
Something more powerful then the above is going to have put him down. Pretty hard to top Belial without a Primarch kicking around.

And people accuse SM fans for 'fanwanking' and what have you.

Holy hell.

As far as I am concerned Ghaz is the most overrated threat since anything at all ever but I have explained that before.