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Okay. Weird question since this is heavily based on one of my homebrews.

I have eight bolter marines from the 8th reserve company (long story, instead of the 8th being a reserve assault coy, it is instead a 8th tactical coy) from a 8th Founding Chapter fighting a endless skirmish against endless waves of orks.

There's a lot of melee. And dead orks.

Based upon the sheer amount of 8s (its a chess joke), how increased is the susceptibility of khornate or chaotic 'influence'.

the-gentleman-ranker wrote:
Based upon the sheer amount of 8s (its a chess joke), how increased is the susceptibility of khornate or chaotic 'influence'.

Honestly? Until you specified 'chess joke' I thought that was the point.

Not sure it’s terribly clear.

We know the Chaos Gods have favoured numbers. But what that actually means beyond “doing a ritual type thing based on multiples thereof tend to work, or work better”?

I’m not sure just being 8 years old, or living at 8 Acacia Avenue, or getting 8 Sliders for your dinner at White Castle is going to grant Khorne influence over you?

Numbers are significant in ritualistic settings rather than having inherent power.

A scribe who writes the number 8 a lot is no more likely to succumb to mindless rage than a scribe who writes the number 2.

The Imperium also has a habit of assigning blame after the fact. If the 8th Company of the Swords of Octavian who were stationed on the 8th world of the Octoscaria system happened to fall to Khorne, then the Inquisition would probably nuke the entire Chapter just to be sure. It wouldn't matter that the 8th Company found a massive Khornate shrine on Eggamus XVI twenty years earlier and had been engaging in Khornate rituals in secret for two decades, it's the 8's that did them in.

In the Imperium, Coincidence is Proof of Conspiracy.

Well the universe has magic words equal magic powers in the form enuncia, so I don't see why magic numbers equal magic powers isn't also true...

It's actually less ridiculous because those numbers are tangibly attached to warp powers that affect the universe, while the other was a dumb addition with no connection to any 40k metaphysics...

 BorderCountess wrote:

the-gentleman-ranker wrote:
Based upon the sheer amount of 8s (its a chess joke), how increased is the susceptibility of khornate or chaotic 'influence'.

Honestly? Until you specified 'chess joke' I thought that was the point.

It was me being silly and referencing the whole 8 pawns vs 8 pawns mirror schitck

There have been a few BL writers that have used repetition of patterns to show the influence of the warp. That these events were somehow 'fated' by the gods of chaos. So if your chapters has a strange numerology going on, then people are going to assume that some kind of tzeentchian shenanigans is happening with your chapter. Which would be an interesting thing to lean in to.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
There have been a few BL writers that have used repetition of patterns to show the influence of the warp. That these events were somehow 'fated' by the gods of chaos. So if your chapters has a strange numerology going on, then people are going to assume that some kind of tzeentchian shenanigans is happening with your chapter. Which would be an interesting thing to lean in to.

So i'm guessing that means it won't be toooo on-the-nose if some members of the Inquisition or Ecclesiarchy were giving the eight chuckles the side eye because they wear armour the colour of dried blood, have blood drop insignia on their armour and run around shanking orks with serrated combat blades.

the-gentleman-ranker wrote:

 Mr Nobody wrote:
There have been a few BL writers that have used repetition of patterns to show the influence of the warp. That these events were somehow 'fated' by the gods of chaos. So if your chapters has a strange numerology going on, then people are going to assume that some kind of tzeentchian shenanigans is happening with your chapter. Which would be an interesting thing to lean in to.

So i'm guessing that means it won't be toooo on-the-nose if some members of the Inquisition or Ecclesiarchy were giving the eight chuckles the side eye because they wear armour the colour of dried blood, have blood drop insignia on their armour and run around shanking orks with serrated combat blades.

Given that an Inquisitor once kidnapped an Ultramarines Captain for... ::checks notes:: ...being too resistant to the Warp, I'd say they don't need much reason to side-eye anybody.

the-gentleman-ranker wrote:
Okay. Weird question since this is heavily based on one of my homebrews.

I have eight bolter marines from the 8th reserve company (long story, instead of the 8th being a reserve assault coy, it is instead a 8th tactical coy) from a 8th Founding Chapter fighting a endless skirmish against endless waves of orks.

There's a lot of melee. And dead orks.

Based upon the sheer amount of 8s (its a chess joke), how increased is the susceptibility of khornate or chaotic 'influence'.

So, the way I see it, it's the other way around.
It's not the number that attracts the influence of a given chaos god, rather the influence of said god is represented by the number.
To give a khornate example, Khârn was captain of the eight company. He did not become champion of Khorne because he was captain of the Eight, rather he was destined for Khorne, therefore he was captain of the 8th company, if that makes sense.

My understanding of the sacred numbers of the chaos gods is that they are basically a sort of signature, the corruption of the god in question following a specific pattern, for example : Tzeentch will probably corrupt nine psykers in the planet he wants to bring to chaos, and so on for the other three.
The number is nothing but the pattern they follow, which I find ironic for a faction which is supposed to follow none. But then again, the very concept of Chaos is very paradoxical.

 Dr Jabbinton wrote:

the-gentleman-ranker wrote:
Okay. Weird question since this is heavily based on one of my homebrews.

I have eight bolter marines from the 8th reserve company (long story, instead of the 8th being a reserve assault coy, it is instead a 8th tactical coy) from a 8th Founding Chapter fighting a endless skirmish against endless waves of orks.

There's a lot of melee. And dead orks.

Based upon the sheer amount of 8s (its a chess joke), how increased is the susceptibility of khornate or chaotic 'influence'.

So, the way I see it, it's the other way around.
It's not the number that attracts the influence of a given chaos god, rather the influence of said god is represented by the number.
To give a khornate example, Khârn was captain of the eight company. He did not become champion of Khorne because he was captain of the Eight, rather he was destined for Khorne, therefore he was captain of the 8th company, if that makes sense.

My understanding of the sacred numbers of the chaos gods is that they are basically a sort of signature, the corruption of the god in question following a specific pattern, for example : Tzeentch will probably corrupt nine psykers in the planet he wants to bring to chaos, and so on for the other three.
The number is nothing but the pattern they follow, which I find ironic for a faction which is supposed to follow none. But then again, the very concept of Chaos is very paradoxical.

Exactly

That's not to say that sorcerers in the setting won't and use numerology. Sometimes these pattern can be forced into being, invoking the attentions of these forces of chaos.

If our world is objective reality, then the warp is the subjective reality. Time passes like a dream and probability dissolves into something more malleable. The warp behaves more like myth or legend than hard reality. So as the warp bleeds into the material realm, synchronicities begin to pile up and improbabilities become much more common. Numbers suddenly start to have more meaning than their basic symbology.