Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

As we know, with Warhammer, there is no canon.

Gav Thorpe said with Warhammer and Warhammer 40k, the notion of canon is a fallacy. Warhammer and Warhammer 40k exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong.

ADB said there is no canon. There are several hundred creators all adding to the melting pot of the IP.

So what's your personal headcanon?

I have 2.

First, that the Heresy was planned. There were things that the Emperor didn't foresee, like Cegorach swapping Fulgrim and the Khan, Magnus did nothing wrong, etc. but overall it was planned.

However, it was planned as a response to the interference of the Chaos gods scattering the primarchs. Chaos influence was on the primarchs now, and something had to be done.

The primarchs had roles when the Imperium was complete. As governors, in a loose sense. But they wouldn't be there forever. At the end of the day, this was the Imperium of Man, not the Imperium of demi-gods. Eventually they would be removed, when the galaxy was at peace. When all Xenos were purged and Chaos was drowned out. Even the Emperor saw himself as a temporary tool, one that humanity eventually would no longer need.

With the Heresy, half of the traitor legions and primarchs would be culled. The Emperor's goals would take longer to come to be, but they would still eventually come. He would still have loyalist primarchs, like the Lion and Guilliman, he would have their legions, and they could still wage war against the threats in the galaxy.

The second is that the Emperor obtained god powers on Molech rivaling that of the Chaos gods. He ascended from being just The New Man to something even greater than that. But he needed that power in order to start the Great Crusade. To create the primarchs and their legions.

In 40k, the concept of Abrahamic definitions of what a god is doesn't exist. We know with the infamous quote from Lorgar what even a primarch sees to be a god. We know Gork and Mork and the Chaos gods don't fall under the Abrahamic definition, and yet they are still viewed as gods. We have that established.

However, the Emperor couldn't tell people that he had become a god. It went against his entire goal of creating an atheist society with the Imperial Truth. To starve out the Chaos gods, to quell the idea of gods completely from the Imperium. He needed the power only, not the title that came with it. But without that power, he couldn't create the primarchs, he couldn't start the Great Crusade. It was a burden that he had to bare.

He had become the very thing he sought to destroy, but it was necessary. A means to an end.

Yes, i have a belief there are a small number of humans who know the truth, the whole truth, and secretly keep the imperium running and mankind alive.

They are so secret even the inquisition knows nothing of them even to many are inquisitors.

They basically know the imperium is based on lies, the emperor is not a god and never wanted to be, that the imperial creed is base on the works of lorgar, they know the truth of the chaos gods, ad infinitum.

Think of them maybe a little like "men in black".

I imagine they have some secret world where they raise populations in full knowledge of the truth, an psykers are educated from childhood to resist chaos influence, the people are educated in technology and science, the truth about the dark age of technology and what happened to it, the mistakes the emperor made, etc.

I have lots! I guess here are my main ones.
1. The Great Crusade is still ongoing, though with the Emperor on the Golden Throne as usual. This leaves large sections of the galaxy not under Imperial control and allows for smaller human civilisations and factions with different Sci Fi aesthetics.
2. Primarchs were just a step above a normal chapter master. Space Marines are monsters, not saviours, being hyper aggressive murdermachines made from the scum of the galaxy.
3. Orks tech works because Mekboyz are smart. The gestalt psychic stuff is just an explanation the Mechanicum use because they cannot understand Ork tech.
4. Necrons are a collection of AI races that infect other AI. The necron warriors and other humanoid necrons are various human androids that have been corrupted by this, essentially the Men of Iron of myth, and this is why AI is taboo in many human cultures (though not all, some have not been exposed to the necron threat). The more insectoid necron constructs are from the ancient originator culture of the Necrons. All that stuff with the Ctaan and whatever is not part of the setting.
5. Most eldar are Drukhari. If you meet an Eldar they are massively more likely to be Drukhari than any other sort, though the others do exist. Drukhari are toned down from their OTT depictions and are a bit more like Eldar Corsairs, decadent pirates who enjoy blood sports more than existentially compelled torture addicts. Commoragh probably still exists but you will encounter Drukhari moving around the galaxy independent of Commoragh fairly often.
6. Demiurg exist, they are from high gravity planets and are a bit like deep sea fish in that they are evolved to live at high pressures. They wear fully enclosing suits of armour when not in their home tunnels. I use Forge Fathers from Mantic with enclosed helms to represent them.
7. Tau are pretty much unchanged, but the evil elements introduced after their original release are toned down or restricted to certain factions in their collective rather than being the overarching plan of the Ethereals.
8. Minor Xenos are much more prevalent and mixing between Xenos and humans is more common in non-imperial space.
9. Chaos is a bit toned down from the modern interpretation. It is less unambiguously evil and has positive aspects etc. It is also not as huge a threat as implied, it is a bit harder to cause warpspace-realspace overlaps and Chaos is mostly operating at the margins and attacking the structures of the Imperium rather than causing huge daemonic invasions all the time. Huge daemonic invasions can still happen but they are very rare and usually require some sort of additional factor to allow them such as proximity to a stable warpstorm like the Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom.

I have made these changes to make the game fit more with what I want from a setting. I want to be able to run wargames with factions I like, and introduce new factions if I am inspired to do so, and this leaves "room" for that in my view. I also want a variety of different human civilisations to explore. I want a setting you could easily play a sandbox RPG in, and the standard 40K setting is too nailed down for that, the Imperium too restrictive. I actually see the Imperium as the "big bad" of the setting, slowly conquering the free parts of the galaxy and destroying them, turning Chaos sour in the areas they control due to the tremendous unhappiness they create.

The emperor is MALAL! It’s obvious if you look closely enough.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/63141.page#:~:text=Malal%20is%20the%20renegade%205th%20Chaos%20God%20in,this%20was%20a%20self-imposed%20exile%20is%20not%20clear.

Read the first paragraph. Who has caused more destruction than the emperor and the destruction inflicted on the galaxy will lead to humanity’s destruction. He is the lost chaos god that those who fear chaos have turned to destroy chaos.

Also half whit and half black skulls everywhere!

People in the Imperium are a lot more tech-savvy than their dogmas about machines seem to suggest. Sure, the Adeptus Mechanicus peddle nonsense about "machine spirits", but even they don't really believe it, and are only trying to protect their dominance in tech production and maintenance. By and large, apart from feral-worlders, most citizens of the Imperium understand that there is nothing mystical or esoteric about technology, and are often quite adept at maintaining and repairing it themselves.

Accusations of tech-heresy are not that common. They mostly happen when the Mechanicus' power is threatened in a very conspicuous/public way and the Mechanicus want to remind everyone who's boss. Even the most hard-line members of the Adeptus Mechanicus are well aware that there are not nearly enough tech-priests to maintain all the technology required to keep the Imperium running, so if some farmers on an agri-world repair their own farming vehicles themselves, they'll let it slide (as long as those farmers aren't foolish enough to go around training dozens of repairmen or advertising their services to third parties).

.

My personal Headcanon is that someone goes back in time, buys 51% of GW stock and fires whoever thought of the idea of the Horus Heresy books and The Gathering Storm/Turning 40k into a storyline instead of a setting.

The Trustworthy One did nothing wrong and I agree with everything he says.

The Emperor is not 40K's Sigmar, but 40K's Archaon. "He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the Gods" says the 40K intro spiel, and I take that literally. He is exactly where the Chaos Gods always wanted him to be. And as long as he's stuck there on the Golden Throne, the Imperium serves as a galaxy-spanning death-cult grinding human souls into the perfect food for the Chaos Gods: a psychic stew of hatred, rage, false hope, corruption, fear, despair and desperate yearning.

Daemons call Him 'Anathema' and people think that means He is the antithesis of Chaos. But the original meaning of the term 'anathema' was 'dedicated to the gods'. It later took on the connotation of 'untouchable' (because mortals weren't allowed to touch something dedicated to the gods), and hence 'divinely cursed'. But I think daemons are using the term in its original sense. 'Anathema' = 'Everchosen' in the Warhammer sense.

That's a cool interpretation!

mrFickle wrote:
The emperor is MALAL! It’s obvious if you look closely enough.

Nah, the Emperor is the Horned Rat. 12 minions, he's the absentee 13th member of the council, ruling over a civilization of hypocritical, rapacious, exploitative, deceitful creatures. The Imperium is emblematic of all the sins of civilized humanity, just like the Skaven are.

My main piece of headcanon is that the Emperor is an explicitly villainous figure. In mythology, there's a recurring theme of kings who try to hold on past their time being something cosmically wrong. Accepting that you will have a time in power and then a time when that power is past is part of the natural order. Osiris is an example of a mythological character who works in tune with this understanding, moving to rule the underworld while his son rules the cosmos. The Greek Cronus and Russian Koshchei are examples of characters which try to fight against this cycle and end up making everyone suffer for it. The Emperor has more in common with Cronus and Koshchei than Osiris - he doesn't view his role as a father to be to raise his sons, but rather his sons as tools to be expended and used for his own benefit. He expected his sons to sacrifice their lives for him in a perversion of the paternal instinct. So I think it makes more sense to view the Emperor as a corrupt, evil figure himself, and the current state of the Imperium as a sort of consequence of his original sin.

The Old Ones, actually, in the few sources we have from earlier editions that talk about them, thought this way, despite their long lifespans. Ironically, the Necrons missed the plot on that one, and that's what got them into their situation.

Other headcanon elements - Ork technology actually has some high points, the AdMech is just crazy. Orks are amazing engineers even if they are gakky scientists. The gestalt psychic field mainly is what powers Weirdboyz and protects Orks from demonic gak.

SoB "miracles" are psychic phenomena caused by their connection to the Horned Rat-er, Emperor of Mankind.

My headcannon (probably inspired from playing Epic often in my youth) is that the whole "SM Chapters are 1000 men strong" is just imperial propaganda. All Chapters are much, much more numerous than that, and all the stories about the recruitement rates, the supposed near-invincibility of Marines... are Imperial propaganda designed to keep Marines an inspiration to lower-end Imperial troops such as IG (and also to keep would-be rebels in their place).

There are no Primaris marines in my headcanon. Belisarius Cawl has designed some new vehicles and a new mark of dreadnought armour called "Mk X Gravis Armour" but firstborn marines are wearing them to battle. Mk X Gravis is starting to replace traditional terminator armour, since the knowledge required to build new suits is becoming a lost art, and parts are getting unobtanium to find and impossible to remake. Gravis armour however utilizes components and tech which is easier to come by for current AdMech.

AdMech functions a bit like scientology; a secret society of layers within layers. Superstition and ritual is dominant on the lower levels of the organization, Hard Science and research dominates the highest levels, most AdMech have a position somewhere between those two extremes as dictated by their status in the organization. Higher level priests are not allowed to reveal their knowledge to lower level members of the AdMech, a violation of this code results in excommunicae traitoris designation.

In most other respects, my headcanon aligns pretty much with the Rogue Trader lore, exception being that all of the 9th ed factions exist. The Imperium Of Man doesn't have a total hold on the human civilization, many systems have been cut off due to warp storms and war campaings thinning out IoM rule on the systems, and rebels and independent societies exist alongside the Imps. Therefore, many "Imperials vs Imperials" battles on the tabletop actually involve non-imperial forces most of the time. An old imperial planet turned into indepence doesn't just throw all that Astra Militarum gear away once Lex Imperialis ceases to matter on their world... Easy enough to buy ammo and spare parts from Rogue Traders

CorwinB wrote:
My headcannon (probably inspired from playing Epic often in my youth) is that the whole "SM Chapters are 1000 men strong" is just imperial propaganda. All Chapters are much, much more numerous than that, and all the stories about the recruitement rates, the supposed near-invincibility of Marines... are Imperial propaganda designed to keep Marines an inspiration to lower-end Imperial troops such as IG (and also to keep would-be rebels in their place).

Oh yes, absolutely. The "less than one Space Marine per world of the Imperium" thing is utter nonsense. If there were so few of them, they would be stretched far too thin to have much of an impact on the wars of the 41st millennium, even if each and every one of them were a one-man army.


Another of my headcanons (might be canon, actually, but not spoken about much) is that levels of freedom vary widely across the Imperium, depending on the planetary governor. While the fluff often focuses on dystopian hellscapes, there are many worlds where people enjoy free speech, human rights and good material conditions. The administration on Terra is too busy to micromanage whether the governor of some far-flung planet appropriately stamps down on dissent and heresy. They only get involved when the planet is genuinely at risk of falling under the sway of Chaos worshippers, Xenos sympathizers or anti-Imperium separatists.

.

Might actually be more or less canon:

The Tau Empire is a pheronome based brainwashing cult. Normal Tau are literally biologically incapable of disobeying Ethereals in their presence. The Ethereals were created artifically by an outside-party (read: Eldar). which also explains how they suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and instructed with the task of creating an inter-stellar empire (so basically, they are also brainwashed unwitting drones) because some Farseer somewhere thought they'll make a good pawn in the distant future. Maybe the Eldar wanted to take over the Tau Empire as the heartland of their own new Empire - note how it's located as far away from the Eye of Terror as possible.
Only the Tau in the Farsight Enclaves are free of this ordeal.

In earlier editions, I also liked to think that Farsight's dark secret was originally devised as him being a secret Khorne worshipper (Chaos artifact blade, red armor, close-combat, a honor guard of "eight" etc) but this doesn't fit his newer lore at all.

The Old Ones were not entirely destroyed and they created the Tyranids as a galactic reset switch when they saw the galaxy was going to hell in a hand cart. By cleansing the galaxy of all life they would destroy the chaos gods and quieten the warp, leaving a sterile galaxy the Old Ones could then repopulate with life to their own design (and having learned the lessons of the past do a much better job of it). This also explains why Tyranids attack Necrons since the Old Ones would not want to destroy all life and leave their ancient enemies to inherit the galaxy in their place.

 Esmer wrote:
Might actually be more or less canon:

The Ethereals were created artifically by an outside-party (read: Eldar). which also explains how they suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and instructed with the task of creating an inter-stellar empire

This is actually the lore I created for my own Eldar Craftworld. They are basically trying to implement the plan the Cabal envisaged and recognise that to save the galaxy from Chaos humanity must be destroyed as it is the Chaos power's main fuel source. But to simply cause the collapse and destruction of the Imperium would create a power vacuum other hostile races would fill. Enter the Tau - a non-xenophobic race with little presence in the warp programmed to create a unified and ordered galactic empire to replace the Imperium. The Eldar may or may not have the ability to influence the Tau or "kill off" the ethereals. Most likely they just see the Tau greater good as inherently useful for their purposes. My Eldar have been moving away from this plan of late - with the coming of the great rift it is becoming increasingly apparently the galaxy is doomed and there simply isn't time to collapse the Imperium and replace it with a more suitable power. If the final battle cannot be prevented then it must be won - so my Eldar are putting some of their apples in the Ynarri basket as well.

I also like that my Eldar's plan is just a far less ambitious (and thus tragically doomed to be insufficient) version of my headcannon Old One's plan for the Tyranids.

Or maybe the Emperor is this guy...

Duskweaver wrote:The Emperor is not 40K's Sigmar, but 40K's Archaon. "He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the Gods" says the 40K intro spiel, and I take that literally. He is exactly where the Chaos Gods always wanted him to be. And as long as he's stuck there on the Golden Throne, the Imperium serves as a galaxy-spanning death-cult grinding human souls into the perfect food for the Chaos Gods: a psychic stew of hatred, rage, false hope, corruption, fear, despair and desperate yearning.

Daemons call Him 'Anathema' and people think that means He is the antithesis of Chaos. But the original meaning of the term 'anathema' was 'dedicated to the gods'. It later took on the connotation of 'untouchable' (because mortals weren't allowed to touch something dedicated to the gods), and hence 'divinely cursed'. But I think daemons are using the term in its original sense. 'Anathema' = 'Everchosen' in the Warhammer sense.

That...makes too much sense. Wow, never thought of that.

CorwinB wrote:My headcannon (probably inspired from playing Epic often in my youth) is that the whole "SM Chapters are 1000 men strong" is just imperial propaganda. All Chapters are much, much more numerous than that, and all the stories about the recruitement rates, the supposed near-invincibility of Marines... are Imperial propaganda designed to keep Marines an inspiration to lower-end Imperial troops such as IG (and also to keep would-be rebels in their place).

Yeah, that's pretty much my head canon too. Even if the codex says 1000 Marines, my head canon is that most chapters go "well, the codex doesn't include command staff, Techmarines, or vehicle support in those numbers. And, with us sending forces out so much, we should keep more on hand, just in case some don't come back."

All of the Space Marine troop numbers above squad size are ×10. A company is 1000 marines, with 10 lieutenants. A chapter is 10,000 marines. The legions were 100,000. Makes the spread and the actions of the chapters make more sense.

Oh jeez. I have a bunch. Um. A few off the top of my head:

* Ynnead will eventually slit Slaanesh's belly, restoring the eldar pantheon and adding a tamer, eldar-based version of Slaanesh to the pantheon. Not destroying Slaanesh, but rather cutting out the eldar-based core at the center. This is a metaphor for the eldar species losing sight of everything but trickery and war to their bought with toxic excess, then becoming whole again once they learn not to rid themselves of their addictive personalities but to accept and cope with them.

* Drazhar's origin is this: Arhra went to the dark side and basically lost himself to Khorne, the natural enemy of Slaanesh. This is consistent with the brutal, "let the hate flow through you," exarch powers the incubi have exhibited in the past. When he realized what he'd become, he excised most of his own soul to become "free." All that's left is a mute intelligence completely obsessed with martial perfection. Which is why Drazhar doesn't talk.

*Ethereals are, in fact, subtle psychics rather than pheromone users. Based on the way Ethereals seem to be able to exert their calming influence over large crowds (too large from some mind control stank to have spread to everyone's sniffers) even when people aren't paying attention to them. (See: the train scene from Empire of Lies.) This psychic effect is comparable to an exarch power or red paint on an ork trukk. It's the sort of thing that is probably psychic in nature but isn't overtly psychic in a way that lets, for instance, a Culexus shut them down.

* Alpharius and Omegon conspired to "kill" Omegon so that he could further their schemes from the shadows and to brainwash Alpharius into thinking that they'd genuinely sided with Horus so that he wouldn't give away the game while in the presence of his brothers or potent psykers.Which is why one of them seemed to die in such a pathetic and out of character way at the hands of Rogal Dorn.

* Khorne isn't the god of rage and martial prowess. He's the god of toxic, closeted self-loathing. This is why he won't mark sorcerers despite having an army of daemons that are summoned into reality by blood magic defy physics with magical weapons on the regular. Just admit you're into magic, Khorne. It's okay. You don't have to throw fireballs if you don't want to, but just accept that the Biomancy discipline would have been your jam back in 7th if you'd been more open-minded.

* Lady Malys is, in fact, the bearer of Cegorach's heart and is probably basically his herald in a similar fashion to Yvraine being Ynnead's herald.

* At some point, Yvraine was supposed to be Malys, which is why they're connected in fluff and why Yvraine is modeled with a fan. The visarch was maybe meant to be Yriel at some point, but then they opted for someone "mysterious" instead. This is why the visarch's last-minute helmet looks kind of silly and why Yriel's death/ressurrection was kind of disconnected and rushed in Fall of Biel-Tan.

Orks aren't as dumb as they are made out to be. Their speech only sounds moronic when the few that know some gothic speak that language to humans. In general, an average ork is less intelligent than an average human, but with a similar bell curve so there are a good proportion of very intelligent orks too. However, they all love fighting, generally prefer simple solutions to problems and have less regard for their own lives than humans

Basically they are smarter than their fluff depicts but aren't just green humans.

I also agree with Da Boss, the gestalt psychic-tech thing is a human theory and isn't true

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
Orks aren't as dumb as they are made out to be. Their speech only sounds moronic when the few that know some gothic speak that language to humans. In general, an average ork is less intelligent than an average human, but with a similar bell curve so there are a good proportion of very intelligent orks too. However, they all love fighting, generally prefer simple solutions to problems and have less regard for their own lives than humans

Basically they are smarter than their fluff depicts but aren't just green humans.

I also agree with Da Boss, the gestalt psychic-tech thing is a human theory and isn't true

Hm, from the fluff that bit about intelligence is much what it seems like to me. Yeah the average ork is pretty dim, but they aren't stupid and a lot of the things we associate with intelligence are simply not behaviors they would engage in anyways.

Duskweaver wrote:The Emperor is not 40K's Sigmar,....

For a while it was rumoured that Sigmar was a Primarch! As there was crossover between 40k and WHFB setting (Chaos Warriors with bolt guns etc.) and Sigmar 'arriving heralded by a comet etc.

Da Boss wrote:I have lots! I guess here are my main ones.
2. Primarchs were just a step above a normal chapter master. Space Marines are monsters, not saviours, being hyper aggressive murdermachines made from the scum of the galaxy.
6. Demiurg exist, they are from high gravity planets and are a bit like deep sea fish in that they are evolved to live at high pressures. They wear fully enclosing suits of armour when not in their home tunnels. I use Forge Fathers from Mantic with enclosed helms to represent them.
7. Tau are pretty much unchanged, but the evil elements introduced after their original release are toned down or restricted to certain factions in their collective rather than being the overarching plan of the Ethereals.
8. Minor Xenos are much more prevalent and mixing between Xenos and humans is more common in non-imperial space.
9. Chaos is a bit toned down from the modern interpretation. It is less unambiguously evil and has positive aspects etc. It is also not as huge a threat as implied, it is a bit harder to cause warpspace-realspace overlaps and Chaos is mostly operating at the margins and attacking the structures of the Imperium rather than causing huge daemonic invasions all the time. Huge daemonic invasions can still happen but they are very rare and usually require some sort of additional factor to allow them such as proximity to a stable warpstorm like the Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom.

I really like this list!

Really a lot of things you talk about here are the older incarnation of the game universe. For example no. 2, Primarchs did used to be an almost 'commander' level. Marines were 'chemically hardened' before the WH40k Compilation book, representing more like the Sardakur from Dune - trained killers who were given armour and weapons and unleashed on enemies. The 'Noble Knight' and defender of mankind thing came before 2nd edition and has gradually developed from there. I personally think there should be room for both the 'Noble' and also ruthless, trained killers (which is why the Great Crusade is such a great setting! As you have room for that kind of thing, hopefully untouched by Cawl and other modern, drastic changes to the setting).
For number 9 I totally agree. The modern 40k description of demons is so limited compared it's influencing material, which was the Michael Moorcock books, with its pantheon of Gods playing and fighting between each other and mankind caught in the middle (which is really taken from Greek classical literature). It's a lot more fun and varied I think, with Chaos being this 'Pandora's Box' of infinite possibility that opens your mind to the universe vs. the straight-line 'order' of the Imperium. You really want to open that box but it will destroy your mind and change you if you do it! I can see that being something people would want to do. Who the hell would want to be given a horrible disease and turned into a rotten pile of puss, have to wear red leather and collect skulls or unwittingly suddenly turned into a haemaphrodite with claw hands?! (actually don't answer that question )

I'm sure there is a paper to be written on how a more modern Judeo-Christian viewpoint has altered the outlook of 'Daemons' within the 40k universe, away from its almost paganistic (Michael Moorcock-esque) origins to something that is more acceptable to a modern Christian sensibility. i.e. Demons are bad, they only exist to cause pain and suffering to you, as you are the reason for and centre of their existence. I find this latter conception much more limiting and pretty dull by comparison TBH.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
Orks aren't as dumb as they are made out to be. Their speech only sounds moronic when the few that know some gothic speak that language to humans. In general, an average ork is less intelligent than an average human, but with a similar bell curve so there are a good proportion of very intelligent orks too. However, they all love fighting, generally prefer simple solutions to problems and have less regard for their own lives than humans

Basically they are smarter than their fluff depicts but aren't just green humans.

I also agree with Da Boss, the gestalt psychic-tech thing is a human theory and isn't true

Hm, from the fluff that bit about intelligence is much what it seems like to me. Yeah the average ork is pretty dim, but they aren't stupid and a lot of the things we associate with intelligence are simply not behaviors they would engage in anyways.

Once again I will sound like a grognard and once again say I much preferred the older, Rogue Trader conception of Orks. Where they had towns and behaved in activities which were similar but different (and perhaps just cruder) to our own. You had several books written on the subject of Ork Kulture! And it was just so packed with character. Obviously having some intelligence was part of that; having a real, functioning society, being able to trade with humans (even allying themselves as Mercs). Orks could turn to Chaos because they could actually think about that kind of stuff, and presumably had rituals and belief structures.

That's all been changed over the years to essentially a slightly more comedic version of Tyranids. The 'born from mushrooms' thing gets rid of the concept of Ork families (which again alluded to a more complex society) and now they are really only portrayed as screaming lunatics that run at things with choppas until they or the enemy are dead. Like a lot of the setting, it's been reduced to something very basic that's easy to understand and fits around the limits imposed by the tabletop wargame.

The Emperor being a psychically souped up bio-construct, with Malcador being the true power behind the throne, and the true master of mankind.

Robute Guilliman is still in stasis on Ultramar, he's barely conscious and has just enough faculties left to dream. Many of the changes in the galaxy since his entombment are wishful thinking; Ultramar doesn't rule a large sub-Imperium vastly more competently than the rest of the place, Cawl hasn't improved on the Emperor's work and pulled a more advanced new iteration of the Astartes out of his ass, and new Chapters are made from a variety of gene-seed, not almost always his own. His rivals within the Imperium are far more competent than he thinks; the Mechanicum hasn't mothballed their entire Heresy-era arsenal to build an entirely new army of smaller and worse things, Cadia's actually just fine and still sending Guardsmen out to gain combat experience across the Imperium between Black Crusades, the Inquisition maintains their Stormtrooper regiments still rather than relying entirely on a few thousand specialized Space Marines to do their jobs, and the Space Wolves are actually sensible people that don't preface every noun with "wolf" or ride wolf-pulled sleighs or rip the sleeves off their power armour. His enemies aren't conveniently constructed so that only Space Marines can defeat them, no Space Marine has ever soloed an Avatar of Khaine, Greater Daemons tend to manifest fifteen-foot bodies rather than fifty-foot bodies so they can fit indoors, and there's no super Warp Rift splitting the galaxy and requiring Guilliman to come back and relive his glory days of the Great Crusade to address. The Tyranids are a serious threat, a Hive Fleet can't be stopped by parking a hundred Space Marines in their way and shooting 'till the Tyranids run out of biomass. Guilliman's mind may be bad at inventing new people but in the real world the cast of characters does actually rotate; Cawl may have been a senior Magos back when Guilliman was alive but he's actually long-dead now. Eldrad died destroying the Planet Killer, Vect wasn't able to maintain stable control over Commoragh for very long and it dissolved into factional infighting again after his death, and the cast of CSM named characters have all either died or ascended to Daemonhood long ago. The nine Traitor Legions have all long-since disintegrated and aside from small forces that have stuck to their Daemon Primarch the forces of Chaos haven't bothered to keep up the traditions and heraldry of their forebears.

 Pacific wrote:
Really a lot of things you talk about here are the older incarnation of the game universe. For example no. 2, Primarchs did used to be an almost 'commander' level. Marines were 'chemically hardened' before the WH40k Compilation book, representing more like the Sardakur from Dune - trained killers who were given armour and weapons and unleashed on enemies. The 'Noble Knight' and defender of mankind thing came before 2nd edition and has gradually developed from there. I personally think there should be room for both the 'Noble' and also ruthless, trained killers (which is why the Great Crusade is such a great setting! As you have room for that kind of thing, hopefully untouched by Cawl and other modern, drastic changes to the setting).
For number 9 I totally agree. The modern 40k description of demons is so limited compared it's influencing material, which was the Michael Moorcock books, with its pantheon of Gods playing and fighting between each other and mankind caught in the middle (which is really taken from Greek classical literature). It's a lot more fun and varied I think, with Chaos being this 'Pandora's Box' of infinite possibility that opens your mind to the universe vs. the straight-line 'order' of the Imperium. You really want to open that box but it will destroy your mind and change you if you do it! I can see that being something people would want to do. Who the hell would want to be given a horrible disease and turned into a rotten pile of puss, have to wear red leather and collect skulls or unwittingly suddenly turned into a haemaphrodite with claw hands?! (actually don't answer that question )

I'm sure there is a paper to be written on how a more modern Judeo-Christian viewpoint has altered the outlook of 'Daemons' within the 40k universe, away from its almost paganistic (Michael Moorcock-esque) origins to something that is more acceptable to a modern Christian sensibility. i.e. Demons are bad, they only exist to cause pain and suffering to you, as you are the reason for and centre of their existence. I find this latter conception much more limiting and pretty dull by comparison TBH.

I think a good example of why Chaos might feel appealing to an average schlub in the Imperium is that if your kid is born with, say, a cleft palette or something like that, in the Imperium, your kid is just killed unless you hide it, and you'll be killed if you're found doing so. In Chaos-controlled territory, the reaction might vary, but it would be considered a gift from the gods on some level. Perhaps not the healthiest reaction, but far better than genocide.

 Pacific wrote:


Once again I will sound like a grognard and once again say I much preferred the older, Rogue Trader conception of Orks. Where they had towns and behaved in activities which were similar but different (and perhaps just cruder) to our own. You had several books written on the subject of Ork Kulture! And it was just so packed with character. Obviously having some intelligence was part of that; having a real, functioning society, being able to trade with humans (even allying themselves as Mercs). Orks could turn to Chaos because they could actually think about that kind of stuff, and presumably had rituals and belief structures.

That's all been changed over the years to essentially a slightly more comedic version of Tyranids. The 'born from mushrooms' thing gets rid of the concept of Ork families (which again alluded to a more complex society) and now they are really only portrayed as screaming lunatics that run at things with choppas until they or the enemy are dead. Like a lot of the setting, it's been reduced to something very basic that's easy to understand and fits around the limits imposed by the tabletop wargame.

As a big ork fan I like the fact that they reproduce asexually - it makes them *alien* (while still being the kind of entity you could walk up and have a conversation with, unlike Tyranids). I think, by implication, a lot of that culture (rokkerz and so on) still exists, it's just that they have this method of reproduction which implies their outlook is completely different from many of the other races, since sexual reproduction drives so much of their behavior. For orks, the way they reproduce is when fungal strands grow together - so if they want to reproduce with a partner, they need to go out and fight them, and shed spores and possibly corpses will mix and create offspring with mixed qualities of both.

I am the same, I like the mushroom background for Orks and I like them having their very singular approach to life. But I agree, they should not be comedy Tyranids and I think they should be capable of negotiating with others and working as Mercs and so on as well.
I would just tone it back a bit, so they still love to fight and are focused on that, but make it so it is not the only thing they ever think about.

My list is pretty "rogue trader" inspired for sure, because I want to get the game back to what attracted me to it in the beginning without losing any of the cool stuff. That is part of why I want the Imperium to have less control, because then I can still use the over the top stuff from the Imperium which is quite fun or interesting while having freedom to do other things outside it.

As faction identities got stronger over the years stuff got concentrated down into very particular brands, and I think that drove some of the Flanderization of the setting. So I just want to tone all that stuff back and allow for a bit more nuance and complexity.

I want to run a Stars Without Number campaign in this setting, so it needs to allow for a fairly loose sandbox approach to gaming, and I think the 40K setting as it is presented is a bit too particular for that. The extreme Xenophobia, hatred of new technologies, extreme prejudice toward Psykers and mutants and all that makes them a good antagonist faction, but really limits what you can do aside from that and kinda locks you in a very specific genre. I want to be able to have access to that but also to mess around with other Sci Fi tropes and ideas.

The alpha legion is actually trying to save humanity from both chaos and the imperium. They were shown that chaos would destroy humanity quickly, the emperor would destroy it slowly thru stagnation and decay.

They are trying to save humanity from both fates and work towards the defeat of both chaos and the imperium, they are playing the very long game and must keep both sides unaware of their true intent.



I also believe most ork vehicles, flame weapons and jump packs use squigfarts for fuel. I think there are huge gas squigs that eat ork excrement and constantly produce massive highly flammable farts which are collected via hoses inserted in the gas squigs and used as fuel for vehicles and flame weapons.

You can run vehicles off gas, australia did it in ww2 when their oil was cut off.

I'm guessing the Australians Gestalt Consciousness played a part too?

OP

The Sisters of Battle are a good girl faction. You can throw as much grimdark symbolism as you want but effectively it’s an army of holy warrior women fighting against evil creatures that want to exterminate humanity. Plus the Emperor is legit the God of Humanity to all intents and purposes. Whether they worship the man or the spirit born of all the people worshipping him is semantics. They embody hope.

Some writers do roll with this notion in Black Library, others don’t and there’s kind of this odd moral equivalence between the violence used by Chaos and them being mildly disdainful towards Demons and those who side with Chaos.

For example they say in the trailer that their mission to purge the alien, the mutant and the heretic. Sounds very grimdark. Aliens who want to exterminate and conquer humanity except for those we can reason with like the Eldar. Mutants, meaning only those warped by Chaos and not the likes of Ogyre, navigators, ratlings (in faith and fury book one of the Sisters keeps a voidborn mutant as a servant), and heretics meaning entirely the forces of Chaos whereas any human creed or theology is considered per the Codex to be worshipping the Emperor. They aren’t actually intolerant when you consider what Chaos is and what the alien empires do to humanity on a daily basis.

But yeah same codex and art style depicts them in a super sinister manner. Sure, Repentia are a bit extreme, but they take that on themselves.

I like fungal Orks as well, and I like that their whole mentality is focused on fighting. It is really difficult as a human to truly put yourself in the mindset of something inherently inhuman, but GW has done so with Orks and done it well. They also have background for which their state makes perfect sense. Orks are perhaps the only race I don't have any problems with fluff wise.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

For example they say in the trailer that their mission to purge the alien, the mutant and the heretic. Sounds very grimdark. Aliens who want to exterminate and conquer humanity except for those we can reason with like the Eldar.

Sororitas want to kill peaceful aliens too. They want to kill their civilians. They want to kill their children, and don't give a gak about their horrified cries of pain, and won't relent until they are dead. They (in particular, since they're so fanatical), and all other members of the Imperium, are ignorant monsters who have turned their backs on all that is worthwhile in humanity.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Mutants, meaning only those warped by Chaos and not the likes of Ogyre, navigators, ratlings (in faith and fury book one of the Sisters keeps a voidborn mutant as a servant), and heretics meaning entirely the forces of Chaos whereas any human creed or theology is considered per the Codex to be worshipping the Emperor. They aren’t actually intolerant when you consider what Chaos is and what the alien empires do to humanity on a daily basis.

No, they're incredibly intolerant. By "mutation" they mean "physical deformity" and the most recent fluff on the matter says that 1 in 1000 mutants is kept alive, the rest are killed. The ones who are kept alive are mostly Beastmen and other mutants that are useful for the Imperium's murder machine. So if you were in the Imperium and had a kid who was born with a cleft palette or intersex or whatever, a Sororitas would kill your infant child, and if you tried to stop them they'd kill you, too, probably torturing you slowly to make a point.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I like fungal Orks as well, and I like that their whole mentality is focused on fighting. It is really difficult as a human to truly put yourself in the mindset of something inherently inhuman, but GW has done so with Orks and done it well. They also have background for which their state makes perfect sense. Orks are perhaps the only race I don't have any problems with fluff wise.

What's your issue with Eldar?