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We all love 40k lore, generally speaking, but everybody I've ever spoken with about this topic has some issues with the lore. Things they would like changed or where they would have added a different facet of storytelling to iron out some grimderp or outright stupid moments in the lore. So what are your favourite piece of headcanon that change or add to the currend lore and that you might have kep over the span of multiple, if not all editions and lore iterations?

I have one that I keep coming back to and it concerns the custodes. Now I've made this point a couple of times, so people familiar with it might roll their eyes because of my golden banana fanboyism, but I'll explain it anyway. The custodes have stood idly by since the heresy. Bound by oath and law they did not interfere with the course of the imperium and dedicated all of their attention to securing the golden throne and penance for their failure to protect the emperor.
Them not being a part of the imperium anymore was a deal the captain general struck with guilliman after the heresy, but in my opinion it was a show of good faith in some way because the custodes are still not bound by any imperial law, only by the word of the emperor himself.

Now why does this bother me? Simply because the custodes are desrcibed in the lore (mainly the emperors legion and their own 8th ed codex) not only as peerles singluar warriors, but also as scholars. It was expected of them to not only converse with the emperor on various topics, but also give him insight and advice should he ask for it. This makes them the only group of people in the imperium who would have been educated enough to guide the imperium after the heresy towards the vision the emperor had for humanity. Instead they watched as the imperium succumbed to superstition, misguided religious dogma and indoctrination. Still they lament and even look down on the state of the current imperium, which makes them massive hypocrites (already made a thread regarding that topic, so just to clarify: the custodes being hypocrites or not has been discussed at length already)

Now, had they guided the imperium towards a better future following the heresy and succeded the setting would not be as grimdark and therefore boring and not as awsome as we know and love it. So, my point is this: there could have been a solution to write the custodes lore in such a way that would have explained better (in my opinion) their absence during crucial times where the imperium would have needed them. The age of apostasy and the whole beast arises saga would be prime examples (though if you are looking for lore consistency, the beast arises saga is utter dogshit).
Here is where my headcanon starts:
The custodes were not able to step in in crucial times during the imperiums history following the heresy, because they were needed to defend the palace and the throneroom itself from within. During the heresy the custodes and the sisters of silence fought a massive war in the webway to keep demons and heretics from entering the most inner sanctum of the imperial palace itself, because that is where the webway project of the emperor was located. Much of the emperors absence during the heresy was due to him trying to keep the webway gate closed.
In my headcanon the machinations of the golden throne started to break down in the milennia after the heresy and the webway gate beneath the golden throne has not been closed all the way all this time. There have been times where demons were able to slip through the gaps of an almost closed webway gate due to the golden throne breaking down over time and no one being able to properly repair it, which is also why there is a continget of 300 of the very best custodes who are stationed inside the throneroom at all times. This would be, in my opinon, a good reason to explain the custodes absence during most of the imperiums history. They had to fight back small, to medium size demon incursions within most sacred place in the imperial palace itself.
During the time the cicadrix maledictum tore the galaxy in half, the imperial palace was once more besieged by a massive host of khorne demons (plot of watchers of the throne). In my headcanon the webway gate beneath the golden throne opened up further than it ever had before since the heresy and the companions had serious trouble keeping them in check. At this dire time two figured emerged from the webway to aid the struggling custodes. A golden god clad in auramite and an even more imposing figure, a barbarian king clad in massive grey armor and a wolf pelt came and struck down the most vile an massive demons trying to get into the throneroom. When the fighting was done, they vanished into the webway as swiftly as they had emerged.

I think this headcanon of mine would not break any existing lore.

Share your favourite piece of headcanon.

That the gestalt psychic resonance of untold trillions of Orks all simultaneously having a base desire for conflict of some description is why "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war".

Eve and Jane, Primachs of II and XI, saw Daddys plan for the cataclysm in waiting it was and got memory holed for their trouble

I've posted this before a while ago in another thread, but I'll post it here too because it is still my personal favourite.

The truth behind the disappearance of the 2nd and 11th legions:

The vast Administration of the Imperium screwed up the record keeping. Somebody in an archive somewhere was numbering the legions in Roman Numerals: so II and XI, while another archivist was using Arabic numerals: 2 and 11.

The records go muddled during consolidation/inventory checking of the archives and some records were thrown out, mistakenly thought to be duplicates : Legion II and Legion 11 were consolidated into one record and so thoroughly muddled that to cover-up the book-keeping error, the scribes destroyed all records of both legions and removed them from the data archives to cover their own behinds. A few thousand years later at the next stock take, there were no records to be found and nobody could explain it, so they are officially recorded as expunged from Imperial Records. Nobody is stupid enough to ask up the chain of command, because surely someone above them knows about it and they must have been expunged for a reason, right?...

Aash wrote:
I've posted this before a while ago in another thread, but I'll post it here too because it is still my personal favourite.

The truth behind the disappearance of the 2nd and 11th legions:

The vast Administration of the Imperium screwed up the record keeping. Somebody in an archive somewhere was numbering the legions in Roman Numerals: so II and XI, while another archivist was using Arabic numerals: 2 and 11.

The records go muddled during consolidation/inventory checking of the archives and some records were thrown out, mistakenly thought to be duplicates : Legion II and Legion 11 were consolidated into one record and so thoroughly muddled that to cover-up the book-keeping error, the scribes destroyed all records of both legions and removed them from the data archives to cover their own behinds. A few thousand years later at the next stock take, there were no records to be found and nobody could explain it, so they are officially recorded as expunged from Imperial Records. Nobody is stupid enough to ask up the chain of command, because surely someone above them knows about it and they must have been expunged for a reason, right?...

Ha. I like this one.

Aash wrote:
I've posted this before a while ago in another thread, but I'll post it here too because it is still my personal favourite.

The truth behind the disappearance of the 2nd and 11th legions:

The vast Administration of the Imperium screwed up the record keeping. Somebody in an archive somewhere was numbering the legions in Roman Numerals: so II and XI, while another archivist was using Arabic numerals: 2 and 11.

The records go muddled during consolidation/inventory checking of the archives and some records were thrown out, mistakenly thought to be duplicates : Legion II and Legion 11 were consolidated into one record and so thoroughly muddled that to cover-up the book-keeping error, the scribes destroyed all records of both legions and removed them from the data archives to cover their own behinds. A few thousand years later at the next stock take, there were no records to be found and nobody could explain it, so they are officially recorded as expunged from Imperial Records. Nobody is stupid enough to ask up the chain of command, because surely someone above them knows about it and they must have been expunged for a reason, right?...

That is so Imperial. Ignoring the novels, this is a perfectly logical explanation. You might almost think it was GW's idea way back in the day back when they numbered the legions. Still, you have to wonder what happened to the expunged legion?

 alextroy wrote:

Aash wrote:
I've posted this before a while ago in another thread, but I'll post it here too because it is still my personal favourite.

The truth behind the disappearance of the 2nd and 11th legions:

The vast Administration of the Imperium screwed up the record keeping. Somebody in an archive somewhere was numbering the legions in Roman Numerals: so II and XI, while another archivist was using Arabic numerals: 2 and 11.

The records go muddled during consolidation/inventory checking of the archives and some records were thrown out, mistakenly thought to be duplicates : Legion II and Legion 11 were consolidated into one record and so thoroughly muddled that to cover-up the book-keeping error, the scribes destroyed all records of both legions and removed them from the data archives to cover their own behinds. A few thousand years later at the next stock take, there were no records to be found and nobody could explain it, so they are officially recorded as expunged from Imperial Records. Nobody is stupid enough to ask up the chain of command, because surely someone above them knows about it and they must have been expunged for a reason, right?...

That is so Imperial. Ignoring the novels, this is a perfectly logical explanation. You might almost think it was GW's idea way back in the day back when they numbered the legions. Still, you have to wonder what happened to the expunged legion?

Yeah, the HH novels make this unlikely but I still like it, seems to be a good fit for the bloated bureaucracy of the Imperium. That being said, there are lots of fun and interesting theories on the missing legions and their primarchs, and it is fun to speculate. This particular one always makes me smile though.

Are we talking about Custodes or just in general?

For the Custodes I have a more GrimDark (tm) thought. One idea that always appealed to me about 40k is that things like the Inquisition, servitors, bombing civilians because they may have seen a daemon are absolutely necessary. And everytime some soft hearted soul said "Oh just let it go" a world burned. So the Custodes have for centuries acted behind the scenes and this was the best they could do.

Beyond that... my favorite is the old question of who drives the rhinos (pre 8th edition advancement of course). It can't be a marine because there's only a 1000 of them and you don't spend decades training and enhancing a dude so he can drive the bus.

So my thought was they're from the vast pool of failed aspirants, wounded marines and exceptional serfs. Not quite servitors but less than marines.


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Aash wrote:
I've posted this before a while ago in another thread, but I'll post it here too because it is still my personal favourite.

The truth behind the disappearance of the 2nd and 11th legions:

The vast Administration of the Imperium screwed up the record keeping. Somebody in an archive somewhere was numbering the legions in Roman Numerals: so II and XI, while another archivist was using Arabic numerals: 2 and 11.

The records go muddled during consolidation/inventory checking of the archives and some records were thrown out, mistakenly thought to be duplicates : Legion II and Legion 11 were consolidated into one record and so thoroughly muddled that to cover-up the book-keeping error, the scribes destroyed all records of both legions and removed them from the data archives to cover their own behinds. A few thousand years later at the next stock take, there were no records to be found and nobody could explain it, so they are officially recorded as expunged from Imperial Records. Nobody is stupid enough to ask up the chain of command, because surely someone above them knows about it and they must have been expunged for a reason, right?...

I really like this one

Another thumbs up for the clerical faux pas theory so 1984/Brazil

Mines just to poke at magic space wizard science cant work like that bad think

Okay I got one for you:

The Warp is actually finite and bound to either the 40k galaxy, or the galaxy and its surrounding environs.

The idea is that, in the vastness of space, weird things can happen. Ours, for whatever reason, just got all mucked up with demons and magic and whatnot. If you go to another Galaxy, or simply far enough from ours, you can actually "see" the end of the warp.

Trans-galactic civilizations and such steer clear of our area, thinking its the space equivalent of a dangerous swamp or something similar. No one seriously expects anyone to be able to SURVIVE in such a place...

I mostly use this headcannon because I like the idea of the 40k univer getting to every-once-in-awhile interact with other sci-fi universes or societies, and pretty much every time it happens everyone is just totally horrified and appauled... before they are eventually defeated and destroyed in brutal 40k fashion.

I also have a real problem with the whole warp/psyker/magic thing sometimes, and like to think that at some point someone like Q from Star-Trek might eventually come along and go:

"Oh @#$%! This whole mess was NEVER supposed to happen! How are you guys even still ALIVE?!"

3e Grey Knights Codex: 3,000-ish nominal strength, a council of twelve Grand Masters who direct their operations, and closely allied with the Ordo Malleus.

5e Grey Knights Codex: 800-ish nominal strength, one Supreme Grand Master placed above eight Grand Masters, and they're the primary military force of the entire Inquisition, not just the Ordo Malleus.

You could explain it as a retcon, but I prefer to think that there was some kind of schism between the two, four Grand Masters and two thousand Grey Knights rejected Draigo's appointment and there are now several different Grey Knight home bases in different bits of the galaxy associated with different Inquisitorial commands. The Imperium cannot openly acknowledge that any of this happened as it would shake confidence, so they've used the impenetrable secrecy of the Grey Knights and the Inquisition to cloak their conflict from prying eyes. It is a cold war shrouded in darkness the fractured elements of the Inquisition wage among the stars, working in the shadows, careful not to fire on each other where anyone else is watching.

It's mostly because I think Draigo is a badly-written twit and I don't want my Grey Knight force to have anything to do with him, honestly.

To the Grey Knights explanation

The Emperor’s grand plan, prior to the abduction of the 20 Primarchs was to create a whole new sub species of humanity, able to be self perpetuating.

The reason for this is that even with His powers, the Galaxy remains a massive place, so he’s need Princelings and Regents for different areas and systems.

Given the sheer scale of His endeavour, and with his own DNA as the starting point, it was simply easier to create male Primarchs as the proof of concept.

Once they’re abroad in the Galaxy, carrying out the Great Crusade, He could then revisit the project to create female counterparts. Perhaps also as Warriors, perhaps not. But once created, he’d have the requisite bits and bobs to spawn as many Primarch level beings as needed - with no need for His creations to actually hope on the good foot and do the bad thing.

Regents and a Bloodline loyal to Him. Enough to bring a Galaxy to heel.

Chaos won the heresy. Horus was set up to fail and the decadence, decay, eternal war and corruption of the Imperium is precisely as was planned. It was also my head cannon for the olde worlde as well before AoS. Basically victory would kill them and the eternal game is what matters to the Chaos Gods.

That an IG regiment is a unit of millions of soldiers, fulfilling all roles required for a combined arms military, not several thousand, therefore a regiment is actually a force to be reckoned with in planetary warfare, and when you muster together several of them it's actually a notable event.


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Eldar can resurrected with recovered fallen eldar's soulstone, and not just as a wraithbone golums. Because they should have run out by now.

Chaos bands actually have organised production worlds in the eye of terror to provide food, soldiers and equipment. Because every time you do a raid, you're investing resources, any failed raid or costly raid will cripple you, possibly irreparably. Or at least it'll draw the other sharks in.

My sense of symmetry demands lords of order against the lords of Chaos.

But in true grimdark style order is not nice and it is not good. Order is at least as terrifying as 10' skull dudes with crab claws.

Since chaos is generated and fed by emotions and desires the lords of order see a simple fix to that little problem.

The Necrons just get to the root of the problem. If everyone is dead there is no chaos! While the Tyranids want to build something new where the galaxy (all the galaxies) are of one mind, and one body.

The Emperor and Imperium aspire towards order, the skulls, the repression, the tyranical laws are all part of a dream of a human race that functions like clockwork. The Mechanicus is closer, literally cutting out the chaotic parts of our minds. No dreams, no anger, no hate, no hope, just drudgery and duty. And the Hive Mind and the Necrons are whispering in his ear... that's not enough, you need to really commit to order. And he's starting to listen.

And your choices are that or crab claws (or death by crab claw). That's it. Any softening invites Chaos to tear you apart.

My headcannon for the Custards is pretty much the same, minus the involvement of Primarchs.

My own headcannon is relatively minor;

The Executioners Chapter, being founded by Fafnir Rann, have close ties with the Black Templars, founded by his best-bud Sigismund. As such, instead of a Codex organisation, the Executioners adhere more closely in some ways to the structure of the Black Templars. Thus, whilst technically they still have Tactical Squads, everyone carries an axe and I therefore use Crusader Squads to represent their Tac Squads. (I don't add scouts/neophytes though). I also use Black Templars chapter tactics for them.

Some companies might be a bit more codex-adherent, depending on their leader, so they might carry bolters liek they are supposed to. Other companies might have spent too long fighting alongside actual Black Templars and are even more like them, even having an Emperor's Champion.

There are possible valid chapter tactic combos for the Executioners, but the Imperial Fists stratagems and Warlord Traits just seem wrong, so I prefer the Black Templar rules.

The numbers and intergration/ training of Astartes chapter serfs being very large and ranging from juiced up PDF units to basically scions that are specialised and trained to deploy alongside and support their masters on the field.

Personally I like the idea (that I admit I first heard of on dakka) that part of what makes the Space Marines so special is that they have a more limited version of the Orks belief = reality thing. All the Space Marines and citizens believe they're incredibly awesome and that boosts their power enough that it means they get away with their numbers.

Other headcanon is that the Wulfen are an intentional part of the Space Wolves on the Emperors part and the Dark Eldar never needed to torture people, they could have used their technology to create an excess of any emotion, they just want to torture people instead of making them happy or anything.

I have 2:

1: The orks were made as a bio-weapon to combat the Tyranids in an inter-galactic war between the old ones and another galaxy. The other galaxy created and sent the tyranids, and s the old ones created the Orks, with a view to use them as the defenders of the galaxy. Then the war in heaven happened, and the Orks went their own way.

Comparisons are:

1: Tyranids devour every planet they find, and Orks are found on 90% of unexplored planets (which can host life), so they are always there to fight the nids.
2: Orks get stronger the more they fight - The imperium once lured the nids to an ork planet, and sat back laughing as they destroyed each other - only they didn't, both sides just got stronger and stronger. The fluff ended with "whoever wins, the imperium will have an even greater foe than they did before" or some such.
3: Orks breed fast, and do so by being killed. so the more the nids kill, the more orks grow to fight back. The perfect defence is one which ticks away happily infighting, then the population explodes upon 'nid invasion.


The other one I sometimes ponder is whether the Tyranids are actually a giant, living backup for all the life forms which they devour, and they are here to "save" the galaxy in an eternal cloud-based sentience. They are single minded in this, and so had to grow combat-bodies to fight through planetary defenders so they can "save" the inhabitants. Then they wipe the planet so they know where they've been.
Imagine all the dead space marines, who know the truth, fighting over the "be the swarmlord" arcade machine - Game over, insert quarter to continue?

 OldMate wrote:

Chaos bands actually have organised production worlds in the eye of terror to provide food, soldiers and equipment. Because every time you do a raid, you're investing resources, any failed raid or costly raid will cripple you, possibly irreparably. Or at least it'll draw the other sharks in.

Of course they do. That has been a fact for a very long time and even mentioned in the codexes and novels. It's the reason Bile is still alive in how he provides such services to CSM warbands.

 some bloke wrote:

1: The orks were made as a bio-weapon to combat the Tyranids in an inter-galactic war between the old ones and another galaxy. The other galaxy created and sent the tyranids, and s the old ones created the Orks, with a view to use them as the defenders of the galaxy. Then the war in heaven happened, and the Orks went their own way.

The Old Ones absolutely created the Krork (who the Orks are derived from) as that. In the latest Bile novel (Manflayer), near the start a Haemonculus taunts an Astartes that they are basically a Poundland version of the Krork, and if anyone would know that, it would be the Haemonculi, who have been around since pre-fall and seen exactly what they were.

Posted this before, but something I came up with at the start of the Siege of Terra series, as they teased that "what we know happened aboard the Vengeful Spirit is not exactly what actually happened", and the only idea I have of them making this claim actually true. Not sure if this is brilliant or stupid or both, but I feel it's right up GW's alley:

Ollanious Persons is the one on the Golden Throne.

Horus slew the Emperor aboard the Vengeful Spirit in front of Ollanious. This triggered some kind of latent powers in Ollanious that was then enough to completely destroy Horus (basically, Ollanious had powers rivaling the Emperor all along, but refused to use it a-la Superman from the 90's animated series).

Ollanious then removed the Emperor's corpse and took the form of a wounded emperor to fulfill three goals:
1) He could not let anyone know that the Emperor was dead, as this would cripple the Imperium more than it already was.
2) Being injured and insisting to be put on the Golden Throne, he could hold back the warp rift on Terra using the Golden Throne (as well as keeping the light of the Astronomicon on)
3) He would use his remaining power to subtly affect events and individuals to promote worship of the God Emperor as a means of resurrecting/reconstructing him through the power of Faith.

This would also explain why so many Chaos followers refer to the Emperor as a "corpse Emperor", as the Emperor would literally be that.

While it's an interesting idea I personally prefer the idea that Ollanius never had any special powers or immortality at all. Everything else seems like it misses the point of him but that is right up GW's ally. Screwing up their own background...

My headcanon is that female Marines exist.

Female aspirants who pass all the same trials as male ones are given gender-conversion therapy/hormone injections to allow their bodies to accept Space Marine organs. They look functionally identical to their fellow Astartes, in that Space Marines are supposed to be noticeably *beyond* human.

Adults can be made into Astartes without issue. Most chapters choose to use child soldiers because they are much easier to teach that chapter's customs and ways of war, because children's brains are geared towards learning. The added utter conviction of someone who does not and will know better than they are told is also another reason why you'd use adolescent soldiers.

Hence Spacewolves and Mortafacters actually want proven fighting ability, and individual capability above all else, and likely have most of the indoctrination done pre-recruitment.


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I can imagine most astartes having trouble thinking outside the approach to warfare that they have been taught, because of the reasons listed above, while chapters recruiting from adulthood would have more mentally flexible astartes.

That the phoenix lords, as mini infinity circuits accruing the souls of fated eldar for 10,000 years, are turning into demi gods of war.

And eventually will attain self apotheosis, bascially reaching a state of enlightenment and psychic energy that they become literal daemon princes of Khaine.

The grim thing is that if you make child soldiers into super soldiers, they're going to do what they are told. So depending on your veiw the standard guardsman is more capable of making decisions than an Astartes battle brother. But then again the Astartes just needs to carry out his orders and kill, he does not need to do anything else.
So yeah, outside of a cleanly cut war I don't imagine most Astartes to be the most suitable tool. Hell, same goes for scions.


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 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
My headcanon is that female Marines exist.

Female aspirants who pass all the same trials as male ones are given gender-conversion therapy/hormone injections to allow their bodies to accept Space Marine organs. They look functionally identical to their fellow Astartes, in that Space Marines are supposed to be noticeably *beyond* human.

I have to agree, I would not look as Astartes as being neither female nor male, because being male and female are markers for reproduction, which is not something Astartes do. They are the emperor's greatest killers. Angels of death. Really nothing more.


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They might have once been male and female now they are: Astartes.

Definitely the fact that the Eldar had such a massive and sexually deviant orgy that they literally ****ed the chaos god of sex drugs and rock n roll into existence. And also gave birth to space BDSM elves.

That power weapons act much like conventional weapons in terms of relative damage and AP ability. That a stab, concentrating the energy field on a smaller point is going to have more effect against armour than a slash, and that a purposfully designed slashing sword (single edger) is going to have a thinner edge profile and thus cut better by focusing a narrower cutting field.

Oooh, I've got a few because of my rampant Black Templars fanboyism, but my fave has to be one I first heard here, though I don't remember where.

The Dark Angels deep unforgivable secret isn't that some of them have become heretics. Not only have marines from every chapter bar the Grey Knights fallen to chaos, but also half of the legions. Just the existence of the fallen isn't the secret. The real terrible secret is that at the end of the heresy, Lion El Johnson threw his lot in with Horus, without outwardly declaring for the arch-traitor. By the time he got to the sol system, the heresy had ended with Horus's defeat. So they just kept quiet, and returned to the imperial fold. This is the secret that the Dark Angels defend so dearly, and why they hunt those who know it so fervently. The existence of a single fallen endangers the very survival of the Dark Angels.

Ok! time!
Black Templars are secretly several times over mandated chapter strength. If/when they fully muster, they are equivalent to several marine chapters, because Sigismund half-read the codex Astartes once and thought it was for nerdy Ultramarines, and made his own rules. The Templars actively reject the codex.
This is more of a retcon retcon, but Black Templars still hate all psykers, and will get agitated even by loyal imperial psykers if too close to them for too long, and start to light them on fire. That said, they revere astropaths and navigators like imperial saints, as they have seen the holy light of the astronomicon, and thus communed indirectly with the emperor.
At the fall of Cadia, the Black Templars took monumental casualties, as they refused to follow dark eldar into the webway, and would rather die fighting planetside, than flee with the help of filthy xenos.

I probably have more Templars headcannon, but I'll keep it to myself in case I get overexcited and start chaining things to my wrist while wearing a bedsheet tabard again.