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I have heard people call the shaman origin a theory. Why? Its like saying the Emperor getting his power from Chaos in the Vengeful Spirit book is a theory even though it was published (or am I interpreting something wrong?) I have even seen some people say it was a theory that was not published anywhere. Yeah, the shaman origin is from the lore of 1st Edition Rogue Trader, but it was published. The lore from 1st Edition Rogue Trader was the best (to many, at least), but that's beside the point.



It does not look like this would fit anywhere else after reading the rules, so I post here.



I am curious about this one and am not (and will not) being hostile or anything. And it seems to me Luetin09 got their info about the shaman origin wrong as well (unless I am interpreting something wrong).



This is mostly a simple question.


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WARHAMMER-BOOK-HARDBACK-REALM-OF-CHAOS-THE-LOST-AND-THE-DAMNED-/382270144333

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Realm-of-Chaos-The-Lost-and-the-Damned-WFRP-Games-Workshop/202329342967?hash=item2f1bc4c3f7:g:GJMAAOSwv7da6fzn

http://imgur.com/dImnK6j

http://imgur.com/dImnK6j

http://imgur.com/dImnK6j

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3OjoxwOFVg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TNPoiLfNpA&t=2s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bcb45Ac1sI

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/06/40k-retro-corner-realm-of-chaos-lost-and-the-damned.html

https://www.scribd.com/doc/190349236/Warhammer-Realms-of-Chaos-the-Lost-and-the-Damned

https://www.scribd.com/document/259888154/Realm-of-Chaos-The-Lost-and-the-Damned

https://www.scribd.com/document/100200843/The-Lost-and-the-Damned

https://spikeybits.com/2018/01/nurgles-lost-the-damned-realms-of-chaos.html

https://spikeybits.com/2018/01/nurgles-lost-the-damned-realms-of-chaos.html

https://www.amazon.com/Warhammer-40-000-Rogue-Trader/dp/1869893239

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LOST-and-the-DAMNED-SLAVES-to-DARKNESS-Realm-of-Chaos-Wahammer-WFRP-40k-GW/132756831637?hash=item1ee8ec7d95:gfIAAOSwtLxbgINn

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Lost-And-The-Damned-Realm-Of-Chaos-Book-/263979127177

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Realm-of-Chaos-the-Lost-and-the-Damned-HB-Warhammer-40kRPG-SOTDL-WFRP-OSR-/202463265789




And the HH books do show something like this to a degree. He talked to Perpetual Oll Persson outside of Nineveh in our past.


He hears Him, the day they met, recognising a kindred being. ‘The likes of us,’ He says to Oll, ‘the likes of us will leave our print on things down the ages. That is why we were made the way we were. The courses of our lives will not go unmarked.’

‘Mine will,’ Oll assures Him. ‘I have no stomach for the games you want to play with the world. I just want an ordinary life.’

‘My dear friend, you’ll have as many of those as you want.’ It was summer, a meadow beyond the walls of Nineveh. He had never met another Perpetual before. He would never meet another like Him.

That quote was from Mark of Calth. And this.

Oll takes out his compass, and checks the bearing as best he can. Thrascias. It still seems to be Thrascias. That used to be the word for the wind from the north-north-west, before the cardinal points of the compass rose were co-opted for other purposes and given more esoteric meanings. Thrascias. That's what the Grekans called it. That's what they called it when he sailed back across the sun-kissed waters to Thessaly in Iason's crew, with a witch and a sheep-skin to show for their efforts. The Romanii, they called it Circius. Down in the oardecks of the galleys, he hadn't much cared about the names of the winds they were rowing against. The Franks called it Nordvuestroni. - Know No Fear, pages 360 and 361.

https://www.amazon.com/Calth-Horus-Heresy-Laurie-Goulding/dp/1849705755

https://www.amazon.com/Know-No-Fear-Horus-Heresy/dp/1849701350

Can’t you just continue discussions in one thread instead of making another?

Wouldn't that be off topic? I suppose I'll do that next time, but I thought it would be off topic.

It’s a theory in universe. In this world we don’t know a definitive explanation of where the emperor has come from. Lots of ideas, some more believable than others.

Also, a lot of stuff from the Rogue Trader era does not really fit to the later versions of 40K, so not all of it is necessarily true from the perspective of the current setting.

Andykp wrote:
It’s a theory in universe. In this world we don’t know a definitive explanation of where the emperor has come from. Lots of ideas, some more believable than others.

It was not presented as an in-universe theory originally. It was made explicit in Realm of Chaos that the 'reincarnated shamans' story was the Emperor's true origin and that essentially nobody in the setting actually knew about it. The idea that all fluff should be written from the limited PoV of characters in the setting didn't come along until 3rd edition.

That was thirty years and seven editions ago, of course. You can argue that it is not intended to be the 'one true origin' of the Emperor any more, but it certainly was when first published.

Personally, I take such early-edition fluff as still valid until it is explicitly retconned.

 Duskweaver wrote:

Personally, I take such early-edition fluff as still valid until it is explicitly retconned.

I tend to be more 'cautious' about it... the more common attitude I've come across regarding Rogue Trader-era fluff since 2nd edition came along and changed so much of it was to take it as 'legacy' fluff that doesn't really still apply unless it is reproduced somewhere more recent. More of a curio than canon.

 Duskweaver wrote:

Andykp wrote:
It’s a theory in universe. In this world we don’t know a definitive explanation of where the emperor has come from. Lots of ideas, some more believable than others.

It was not presented as an in-universe theory originally. It was made explicit in Realm of Chaos that the 'reincarnated shamans' story was the Emperor's true origin and that essentially nobody in the setting actually knew about it. The idea that all fluff should be written from the limited PoV of characters in the setting didn't come along until 3rd edition.

That was thirty years and seven editions ago, of course. You can argue that it is not intended to be the 'one true origin' of the Emperor any more, but it certainly was when first published.

Personally, I take such early-edition fluff as still valid until it is explicitly retconned.

It might be lore from 1st Edition Rogue Trader, but it was the best. I love 1st Edition Rogue Trader.

Onething123456 wrote:

 Duskweaver wrote:

Andykp wrote:
It’s a theory in universe. In this world we don’t know a definitive explanation of where the emperor has come from. Lots of ideas, some more believable than others.

It was not presented as an in-universe theory originally. It was made explicit in Realm of Chaos that the 'reincarnated shamans' story was the Emperor's true origin and that essentially nobody in the setting actually knew about it. The idea that all fluff should be written from the limited PoV of characters in the setting didn't come along until 3rd edition.

That was thirty years and seven editions ago, of course. You can argue that it is not intended to be the 'one true origin' of the Emperor any more, but it certainly was when first published.

Personally, I take such early-edition fluff as still valid until it is explicitly retconned.

It might be lore from 1st Edition Rogue Trader, but it was the best. I love 1st Edition Rogue Trader.

You or anyone thinking something is the best doesn't make it canon.

Well, it is canon, just not necessarily true. And Rogue Trader had a lot of cool fluff, though this perhaps is not an example I'd specifically choose.

 Crimson wrote:
Well, it is canon, just not necessarily true. And Rogue Trader had a lot of cool fluff, though this perhaps is not an example I'd specifically choose.

Wait, I thought so you said there is no canon at some point? I'm gonna be honest, it's getting confusing with half of the OP's ideas being basically stretched across multiple threads at this point.

 Grimskul wrote:

Wait, I thought so you said there is no canon at some point? I'm gonna be honest, it's getting confusing with half of the OP's ideas being basically stretched across multiple threads at this point.

There is canon in sense of 'official body of work.' That's the lore published by GW. There is no continuity (what many people insist calling canon too) in a sense that it all forms one coherent unified whole 'truth.' It's like all four Gospels in the Bible are in the Christian canon even though in some parts they contradict each other. So there are no one true canonical last words of Jesus, there are several contradictory ones, all canon. Similarly there can be several contradictory accounts in 40K canon (like who saved Emperor on Horus' flagship.)

 Crimson wrote:
Well, it is canon, just not necessarily true. And Rogue Trader had a lot of cool fluff, though this perhaps is not an example I'd specifically choose.

rogue trader had so many things differant from modern 40k I'd not accept ANYTHING from Rogue Trader as nesscarily current unless brought forward. Now I think "this is what we know about the emperor... XYZ" and "the old rogue trader material said this about the emperor.... and they seem to corellate" CAN be said. There is some evidance that the "Shaman Gestalt" idea may in fact be what GW is working from, but there are other areas where it seems... off.

I suspect if there is any true theory (ADB's comment make it sound like they don't have a definitive decided emperor orgin theory) it'll be a bit more complex then just a Shaman Gestalt.

The difference between comic book canon and GW canon is that GW hasn’t ever stopped to say “Okay, we’re rebooting and changing things now”, they just skip the reboot and change things as they become inconvenient. Whether or not one author’s story is trampled over (and contradicted) by the next author’s story, or that first author’s story is just nudged over into a better context by the later author’s story.

The two posts above me are both pretty much spot-on. Many of the current ideas in the fluff are based on ideas in Rogue Trader but to take any of that too literally without a more recent indication that we should is a bad idea. The 1st edition background was never meant to last as long as it has and huge amounts of it are tonally way out of sync with the current edition or horrendously outdated, or just plain bad in-jokes since that edition was much more focussed on satire than future editions.

Then there's the fact GW don't really do "official" canon, in the same way that comic books or Star Wars do. There's no one true background and nobody curating in the sense they do for other universes. Yes, there are things we won't see in the Horus Heresy novels - female Space Marines, for example - but beyond such obvious incongruities there isn't an editor at the BL telling the authors they can't write their own personal theories into the stories.

The most accurate way to look at the background is probably to take anything from 2nd edition as being pretty accurate, given it was when they codified a lot of stuff and jettisoned much of the weirdness from 1st edition. Anything from 1st edition not directly contradicted by 2nd edition could well still be considered "canon" (whatever that means in the context of 40k) but it's probably best to wait to see what gets corroborated in more recent stories. In this case, Master of Mankind seems to support the shaman theory but givent hat the visions the Emperor gives to Ra are clearly meant to prepare him for what happens at the end of the book, you could argue they may not be the entire truth. Given that there is potential grounds to consider those scenes to be inaccurate, if another authro writes something contradictory there could be a reasonable in-unvierse explanation for it.

 Crimson wrote:
Well, it is canon, just not necessarily true. And Rogue Trader had a lot of cool fluff, though this perhaps is not an example I'd specifically choose.

Whats not to love about the shaman origin, the Sensei and the Star Child? Those things, and other things from 1st Edition Rogue Trader, are better than anything in the Horus Heresy books. Horus' fall in the HH books was badly written, in my opinion. As are many other things. In my humble opinion, the Perpetuals are alright, but that's besides the point. 1st Edition Rogue Trader craps on the Horus Heresy books.

Onething123456 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Well, it is canon, just not necessarily true. And Rogue Trader had a lot of cool fluff, though this perhaps is not an example I'd specifically choose.

Whats not to love about the shaman origin, the Sensei and the Star Child? Those things, and other things from 1st Edition Rogue Trader, are better than anything in the Horus Heresy books. Horus' fall in the HH books was badly written, in my opinion. As are many other things. In my humble opinion, the Perpetuals are alright, but that's besides the point. 1st Edition Rogue Trader craps on the Horus Heresy books.

A lot of that though is that GW over the years have lost sight of two key elements that can help make a story strong, though they are somewhat contradictory. One is show, Don't tell. Don't just say that xyz is something, give me actual dialogue or actions that show why a character or thing is something.

GW has a lot of problems with claiming xyz is the best or worst thing ever but not giving enough details into why. 5th edition Ultramarines are a great example of this, we are told they are the best chapter, they have the best successors, almost all their characters are the best example of that characters general arch-type. We get no real details though on why or how this is, they just are.

Conversely, GW also has a really bad case of not getting less is more. Mystery in a setting can be a good thing as it allows for players to make their own inferences and conclusions. If anything the HH series is an example of way to much hard facts being dumped on us.

GW need to take some lessons from Zack Snyder on show don't tell. Whatever you think of the rest of the film, that opening montage in Watchmen is a masterclass in this.

 Grimtuff wrote:
GW need to take some lessons from Zack Snyder on show don't tell. Whatever you think of the rest of the film, that opening montage in Watchmen is a masterclass in this.

if GW tooks lessons from Snyder they'd look at their one sucess and start trying to cludge it into every product they ever made no matter how tonally it doesn't fit

but that is what GW has been doing, just endlessly recreating the sa

oh it was a joke, nice one.

pelicaniforce wrote:
but that is what GW has been doing, just endlessly recreating the sa

oh it was a joke, nice one.

even GW isn't as bad. I mean Snyder made the watchmen which was basicly all about taking the super hero genre and deconstructing it, and thought that a batman and superman movie series needed to START that way but we;'ve gotten off topic. suffice to say I don't think even GW is THAT tone deaf.

Onething123456 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Well, it is canon, just not necessarily true. And Rogue Trader had a lot of cool fluff, though this perhaps is not an example I'd specifically choose.

Whats not to love about the shaman origin, the Sensei and the Star Child? Those things, and other things from 1st Edition Rogue Trader, are better than anything in the Horus Heresy books. Horus' fall in the HH books was badly written, in my opinion. As are many other things. In my humble opinion, the Perpetuals are alright, but that's besides the point. 1st Edition Rogue Trader craps on the Horus Heresy books.

Have you actually read the Rogue Trader background? There's some brilliant stuff in there, including seminal work on Chaos and Orks which has never been bettered since IMO. But my God there's some rubbish in there too. 1st edition was all over the place tonally and quality wise, which isn't surprising given GW were still pretty much a young pretender run by enthusisasts rather than the huge corporate entity they are today.

Similarly, the HH books have had some really well-written elements and explored some interesting areas of the background. Both bodies of work are far too inconsistent, IMO, to say either one craps all over the other. The biggest problem with the HH series is, as others have pointed out, the annoying need to reveal everything. We don't need to know all the details of, for example, Perturabo's fall to Chaos, or every last move made by Horus on his way to Earth, but GW are going to keep milking that cash cow for a while yet. We also see a perfect example of why you shouldn't reveal too much about your mysterious background - the reality never lives up to whatever people have imagined themselves.

Slipspace wrote:

Onething123456 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Well, it is canon, just not necessarily true. And Rogue Trader had a lot of cool fluff, though this perhaps is not an example I'd specifically choose.

Whats not to love about the shaman origin, the Sensei and the Star Child? Those things, and other things from 1st Edition Rogue Trader, are better than anything in the Horus Heresy books. Horus' fall in the HH books was badly written, in my opinion. As are many other things. In my humble opinion, the Perpetuals are alright, but that's besides the point. 1st Edition Rogue Trader craps on the Horus Heresy books.

Have you actually read the Rogue Trader background? There's some brilliant stuff in there, including seminal work on Chaos and Orks which has never been bettered since IMO. But my God there's some rubbish in there too. 1st edition was all over the place tonally and quality wise, which isn't surprising given GW were still pretty much a young pretender run by enthusisasts rather than the huge corporate entity they are today.

Similarly, the HH books have had some really well-written elements and explored some interesting areas of the background. Both bodies of work are far too inconsistent, IMO, to say either one craps all over the other. The biggest problem with the HH series is, as others have pointed out, the annoying need to reveal everything. We don't need to know all the details of, for example, Perturabo's fall to Chaos, or every last move made by Horus on his way to Earth, but GW are going to keep milking that cash cow for a while yet. We also see a perfect example of why you shouldn't reveal too much about your mysterious background - the reality never lives up to whatever people have imagined themselves.

Yes. I have three books from 1st Edition Rogue Trader.

Onething123456 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
Have you actually read the Rogue Trader background? There's some brilliant stuff in there, including seminal work on Chaos and Orks which has never been bettered since IMO. But my God there's some rubbish in there too...

Yes. I have three books from 1st Edition Rogue Trader.

According to Wikipedia*, there were 10 books published during 1st edition. Have you read all of them, or just picked a few of the more popular ones? Because if we're talking about consistency of quality and tone, it makes a big difference why you have read the ones you've read.

It's like comparing music from the 60s to modern music by picking the best-lasting, most time-honoured songs from the decade and comparing it to the highest sellers from the last 12 months. There's selection bias and an element of rose-tinted goggles in play.

* Yes, yes, I know, but the first couple of sites I saw got flagged by my phone as risky so I went with a relatively safe source instead.

Aelyn wrote:

Onething123456 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
Have you actually read the Rogue Trader background? There's some brilliant stuff in there, including seminal work on Chaos and Orks which has never been bettered since IMO. But my God there's some rubbish in there too...

Yes. I have three books from 1st Edition Rogue Trader.

According to Wikipedia*, there were 10 books published during 1st edition. Have you read all of them, or just picked a few of the more popular ones? Because if we're talking about consistency of quality and tone, it makes a big difference why you have read the ones you've read.

It's like comparing music from the 60s to modern music by picking the best-lasting, most time-honoured songs from the decade and comparing it to the highest sellers from the last 12 months. There's selection bias and an element of rose-tinted goggles in play.

* Yes, yes, I know, but the first couple of sites I saw got flagged by my phone as risky so I went with a relatively safe source instead.

I picked up probably three of the most well known.

That's his point though, they are well known because they have some of the better fluff and even most of what are in those books have been modified or heavily retconned since then.

Onething123456 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Onething123456 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Well, it is canon, just not necessarily true. And Rogue Trader had a lot of cool fluff, though this perhaps is not an example I'd specifically choose.

Whats not to love about the shaman origin, the Sensei and the Star Child? Those things, and other things from 1st Edition Rogue Trader, are better than anything in the Horus Heresy books. Horus' fall in the HH books was badly written, in my opinion. As are many other things. In my humble opinion, the Perpetuals are alright, but that's besides the point. 1st Edition Rogue Trader craps on the Horus Heresy books.

Have you actually read the Rogue Trader background? There's some brilliant stuff in there, including seminal work on Chaos and Orks which has never been bettered since IMO. But my God there's some rubbish in there too. 1st edition was all over the place tonally and quality wise, which isn't surprising given GW were still pretty much a young pretender run by enthusisasts rather than the huge corporate entity they are today.

Similarly, the HH books have had some really well-written elements and explored some interesting areas of the background. Both bodies of work are far too inconsistent, IMO, to say either one craps all over the other. The biggest problem with the HH series is, as others have pointed out, the annoying need to reveal everything. We don't need to know all the details of, for example, Perturabo's fall to Chaos, or every last move made by Horus on his way to Earth, but GW are going to keep milking that cash cow for a while yet. We also see a perfect example of why you shouldn't reveal too much about your mysterious background - the reality never lives up to whatever people have imagined themselves.

Yes. I have three books from 1st Edition Rogue Trader.

Firstly (And I can't believe I'm having to explain to someone how to git gud at foruming), it's generally considered a good idea when trying to have a discussion to actually address the points in the posts you're replying to. Your reply doesn't actually further discussion at all, nor does it deal with any of the points raised in the thread. If anything, your reply closes down discussion since it's so abrupt and lacking in any actual content. Did you just not read the rest of my post after the first sentence? Your threads would probably be more productive if you engaged more with what other people are saying, rather than leaving brief one-line answers to rhetorical questions. Note, that doesn't mean dumping paragraphs of quotes, it means responding to the points people make with ideas of your own.

Secondly, three books? There's a hell of a lot more to Rogue Trader than just three books. At miniumum, Rogue Trader itself, the two Chaos books and the two Ork books are usually considered the important books from a background point of view. Even then you'll notice things that just don't fit any more. Many of the races were still being fleshed out and you get a sense the general approach was just to throw every idea into the mix and see what worked. That's why I mention 2nd edition as being the best starting point for the current 40k background. It took most of the best bits from 1st edition, or at least didn't explicitly overwrite them, and solidified most of the core concepts that make up the 40k universe.

Two Ork books? There's three.

You can probably skip the Battle and Vehicle Manuals since they're almost entirely rules, and Chapter Approved as it was overwritten almost immediately. But as well as the Realm of Chaos books, the Comendium and the Compilation, you'll want White Dwarfs 110 to 155 for Adeptus Titanicus / Epic 1st and 2nd edition, Space Fleet, background on Necromunda, Tyranids, Space Wolves and the first and second wars on Armageddon and the siege of Earth at the end of the Heresy.

Also, "good writing" is different from "explains the background". Ian Watson's Inquisitor and [I]Space Marine[/] are the two best 40k novels ever written IMO, in terms of getting the grand decaying theme and feel of the Imperium of Man, even though the actual events and characters in those novels aren't "correct" by the standards of current 40k.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Two Ork books? There's three.

Damn, forgot about Freebooterz.

It does rather support your point about the wealth of material printed for 1st edition.