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Hi All

I get the Abaddon it’s really powerful and skilful and a great leader and general etc. And that the black legion is a home for any astartes that wants to rebel against their chapter or faction or the imperium. But Abaddon has an arms length relationship with the chaos gods and uses their power without committing to them like a good demon prince wannabe.

Where are the word bearers are the OG CSM. They started the heresy and go harder than anyone else on their worship of chaos. So why haven’t the chaos gods gone all in on them giving them the power to wreak havoc and go on their own black crusades type adventures.


Is it just the way GW wanted to focus on the black legion when CSM launched? Or is there a lore reason?

Well, Abaddon considerably precedes our modern understanding of the Heresy, and the events and acts that lead to it.

Indeed, outside of the god aligned former Legions? The other traitor legions didn’t really get fleshed out in 2nd edition 40K, when Abaddon and Chaos as we now know it took shape.

I couldn’t tell you exactly when the fleshing out really began. Likely the Index Astartes series, but could’ve been the 3.5 Codex.

So, by the time Erebus being the architect of it all came into being? It was long established that Abaddon was the one most able to wield the various forces of Chaos as a more-or-less whole. Or, at least stop them from killing each other for a bit.

As MDG has said, Abaddon came first before the story of the Heresy was really expanded upon beyond Horus falling to Chaos and leading the Traitor Legions.

The Word Bearers were just another Chaos Chapter and actually lumped with Khorne back in Days of Yore alongside the World Eaters and *gasp* Night Lords in the Realms of Chaos Slaves to Darkness book.

As for modern reasons, the Word Bearers may have got the ball rolling but Horus was Warmaster for a reason. After his fall, the Word Bearers had been shamed by the Warmaster and were content to let the blame for the Heresy failing fall squarely on the remaining Sons of Horus during the Legion Wars in the Eye of Terror.

Then comes along Abaddon who starts the new Long War and reinvigorated the Traitor Legions and followers of Chaos with new purpose.

Because Lorgar is a *&^% and nobody likes him.

Hey now, Magnus liked him.

Lorgar was right.

Within the 40K universe, faith has a real power to repel daemons, get through warp based defenses, and combat the stilling of the Pariah Nexus Necron monoliths. The current Ecclesiarchy feeding worship to a God Emperor is how there is a credible rival to the Big 4. It is ironic that after everything, the Emperor might be coming round to the idea of being a god, and even Guilliman starting to have doubts. Lorgar could have been the most faithful and loyalist of the Primarchs if the Emperor had instead told him about the Big 4 but cast them as daemons, whose temptations and offers were to be refused and resisted. If his faith had been appreciated, Lorgar would have remained steadfast.

The Emperor seems to have already been coming round to the idea that the old secular ways were no longer sufficient, with the creation of the Grey Knights. We see the same theme in Gate of Bones where the Custodes as the epitome of the Emperor's original ideals were unable to get through the main Chaos antagonist's wards, and the Shield Captain being killed, but the faith of the SoB allowed their bolts to penetrate the wards.

Not necessarily!

The first Saintly power we see is via Euphrate Keeler. She’s not a Psyker, yet is able to banish a daemon accidentally summoned when reading the Book of Lorgar. And used golden light to do so.

And so she becomes the First Saint, and for us as the reader? The first sign there’s something to the claims of the Emperor’s Divinty.

Yet….it can’t have come from Him On Earth. Otherwise, he’d have known something was up, and Horus wouldn’t have caught The Imperium with its pants down.

What I think may be going on? A Warp Entity (and there are many entirely un associated with the big four) had been, and continues, to feed off worship of The Emperor. Overtime, its continued to grow and gain power. But doesn’t yet seem fully realised as a god. But it is being shaped by its worshippers all the same, and so isn’t exactly hostile to mankind (uncaring, arguably. But not hostile)

It may be it needs The Emperor to die, so the two entities can merge in the Warp, and boom - new God Of Smelly Hoomans.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not necessarily!

The first Saintly power we see is via Euphrate Keeler. She’s not a Psyker, yet is able to banish a daemon accidentally summoned when reading the Book of Lorgar. And used golden light to do so.

And so she becomes the First Saint, and for us as the reader? The first sign there’s something to the claims of the Emperor’s Divinty.

Yet….it can’t have come from Him On Earth. Otherwise, he’d have known something was up, and Horus wouldn’t have caught The Imperium with its pants down.

What I think may be going on? A Warp Entity (and there are many entirely un associated with the big four) had been, and continues, to feed off worship of The Emperor. Overtime, its continued to grow and gain power. But doesn’t yet seem fully realised as a god. But it is being shaped by its worshippers all the same, and so isn’t exactly hostile to mankind (uncaring, arguably. But not hostile)

It may be it needs The Emperor to die, so the two entities can merge in the Warp, and boom - new God Of Smelly Hoomans.

Yet Guilliman when he meets the Emperor sees or concludes the Emperor is stronger than before at least psychically but less able to act human. The Eldar Farseer that accompanies Guilliman has a debate about the nature of godhood and one of the potential theories advanced is that an existing soul may gather around it the power and worship of others, growing mighty in the process, but perhaps also being changed by this.

The worship of humans may have created a Warp Emperor but this Warp Emperor seems to have merged at some point either fully or partially with the original Emperor to create the God Emperor. Whereas the original 30K Emperor may have been hostile to religion and the idea of being worshipped, the merging with an entity created from the ten thousand years of worship and expectations from humanity may have shifted his beliefs where now he is ok with being a god if that is what it takes to fight the Chaos gods.

This goes back to Lorgar being right though. His view was that humanity needed purpose, and for the masses of ordinary humanity, the abstract idea of the Imperial Truth was not sufficient, and if there were no alternative given, then he and humanity would turn to the worship of the Big 4.

The real answer is the Heresy books weren't intended to go past Galaxy In Flames so all the pieces of the 40k puzzle had to be set up. Then if went for more than three books and here we are.

It does seem entirely possible they’re feeding into one another. But that doesn’t mean Lorgar was right - only that his claim became true.

The Imperial Truth may have been, technically a lie. But it’s also true. Despite the monicker? The Chaos Gods aren’t true Gods. Their influence over realspace is minimal, and whilst immeasurably powerful? They not omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent etc. They’re no more gods to the sentient species of the galaxy than I am to Ants, simply because I’m more individually powerful and can do a bunch of stuff Ants can’t.

We’ll never know the true goal of the Imperial Truth, but I genuinely don’t think it was ever a plan to bagsy all the worship and adoration for The Emperor. If he wanted that? By golly he could’ve got it, and then some.

Rather I think it was a concerted effort to get the shattered remnants of humanity to Do It For Themselves. To build a shiny, glowing Empire not for The Emperor, but for all of mankind. Because done right? Suffering and poverty could’ve melted away in a truly abundant society. And it’s hard to do that when superstition and false religions influence things.

I mean, religion and organised worship can do a lot good. Like…a lot of good. But it’s also open to being abused as a method to elevate a handful at the expense of everyone else.

And ultimately? If Chaos has fewer mortal adherents doing rituals and summoning and that? Their ability to influence realspace is ever more curtailed. They might kick and scream in the warp all they want. But if no-one is opening the door when they knock, however politely? They’re kinda stuffed.

This is reflect in the Orky resistance to Chaos. Without wibbling on much longer? Ork society is so permissively Orky? There just isn’t much there for the gods to promise an Ork can’t take for himself already. No fear of death. No formal laws to feel unjust. No disease as we experience it. No taboo about clobbering someone, whether it be for a laugh, out of boredom or to nick their teef etc.

Humanity could have that in an idealised society. And that’s what I think The Imperial Truth was a means to end for.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It does seem entirely possible they’re feeding into one another. But that doesn’t mean Lorgar was right - only that his claim became true.

The Imperial Truth may have been, technically a lie. But it’s also true. Despite the monicker? The Chaos Gods aren’t true Gods. Their influence over realspace is minimal, and whilst immeasurably powerful? They not omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent etc. They’re no more gods to the sentient species of the galaxy than I am to Ants, simply because I’m more individually powerful and can do a bunch of stuff Ants can’t.

We’ll never know the true goal of the Imperial Truth, but I genuinely don’t think it was ever a plan to bagsy all the worship and adoration for The Emperor. If he wanted that? By golly he could’ve got it, and then some.

Rather I think it was a concerted effort to get the shattered remnants of humanity to Do It For Themselves. To build a shiny, glowing Empire not for The Emperor, but for all of mankind. Because done right? Suffering and poverty could’ve melted away in a truly abundant society. And it’s hard to do that when superstition and false religions influence things.

I mean, religion and organised worship can do a lot good. Like…a lot of good. But it’s also open to being abused as a method to elevate a handful at the expense of everyone else.

And ultimately? If Chaos has fewer mortal adherents doing rituals and summoning and that? Their ability to influence realspace is ever more curtailed. They might kick and scream in the warp all they want. But if no-one is opening the door when they knock, however politely? They’re kinda stuffed.

This is reflect in the Orky resistance to Chaos. Without wibbling on much longer? Ork society is so permissively Orky? There just isn’t much there for the gods to promise an Ork can’t take for himself already. No fear of death. No formal laws to feel unjust. No disease as we experience it. No taboo about clobbering someone, whether it be for a laugh, out of boredom or to nick their teef etc.

Humanity could have that in an idealised society. And that’s what I think The Imperial Truth was a means to end for.

There is no requirement for gods to be omni-anything in order to be "true" gods. If ants were individually intelligent enough, you might very well be like a god to them. However the Chaos gods do not have minimal influence over realspace. They are vast collections of warp energy and can expend that energy to incite people to do things that give them more power, and to create various other supernatural effects or rip open warp rifts.

The idea for the Imperial Truth seems to have been a bit similar to the idea of the idea of the Tau Greater Good, the idea of a secular society all working together, but with the hidden purpose of starving the Chaos gods. However, the Chaos gods are like billionaires and can survive on their reserves for a very long time. More importantly though, they can strike back and use some of their power to promote the worship and emotions that sustain them.

The Emperor tried to prevent power from flowing to the Big 4 by suppressing any existing cults to them and then suppressing any knowledge of them, but this policy of enforced ignorance backfired. The abstract idea of Imperial Truth seems to have been unsatisfying for the masses of humanity and they eventually began worshipping the Emperor, despite his wishes. Similarly, the Tau Greater Good became a deity too due to the worship of the more psychic of their subjects, despite the Tau's revulsion. For the races of the galaxy with significant psychic potential, sufficient worship spawns gods relevant to that race. Maybe this is GW saying mortals need something/someone to worship and focus their devotion towards, to give them purpose, and that abstract ideas and philosophies are insufficient as abstract ideas, and eventually also become personified.

What are you talking about- my Word Bearers ARE the main chaos space marine faction!

The Black Legion? Mere patsies.

 Da Boss wrote:
What are you talking about- my Word Bearers ARE the main chaos space marine faction!

The Black Legion? Mere patsies.

They kind of are really.

I always figured the Word Bearers were so "pure" in their beliefs that it alienated a lot of potential followers, so to better advance the interests of Chaos they took a peripheral role. Let the Black Legion remain the posterboy all traitors can rally around and only peel off the truly faithful to their own legion.

Mainly because they're not in the 40k sections of the original, proper Realm of Chaos books and for quite a while were in the "Sorry.... who?" category of Space Marines. With the Black Legion centre stage for so long it's a retcon too far to say "It was the Word Bearers all along!"

You wouldn't need to retcon anything because it's also fairly explained why they aren't top dog.

The first is that their too zealous and devoted to the Gods for anyone who isn't a mindless fanatic. Just like in the Great Crusade, they spend as much time building temples and churches as they do actually conquering. They've even had civil wars over which shade of red Lorgar has decreed most holy.

The other main issue is that as a result of said religious fanaticism, there are multiple dominant leaders or influences within the Legion. Sure they all technically serve Lorgar, but Erebus and Kor Phaeron are the true rulers of the Legion. There's even a sizeable cult still dedicated to the teachings of the long dead Argel Tal. Erebus and Kor Phaeron play out their schemes constantly, pitting their various pawns against each other before stopping seemingly at random. And because of this there are many that want them overthrown and Lorgar to return to his rightful place as the Legion's one true leader.
In the Black Legion, there is Abaddon and Abaddon alone. The individual Captains, Lords, Warlords and Princes can plot, scheme, conquer and raid to their hearts content but they don't challenge the Warmaster or his plans.

On a meta level, Word Bearers probably *should be* the poster child for vanilla CSM at this point. They arguably fit the 10th edition vanilla CSM mold better than most. Dark Pacts really feels like it's a Word Bearers mechanic more than anything.

And on the flip side, the Black Legion's gimmick technically isn't being a big coalition of *marines*. It's more of a blanket organization for marines and whatever other chaos-y mortals they round up along the way. They may blot out the sky with their ships when they invade, but most of those ships are just packing mortals. And while the Black Legion certainly doesn't shy away from including those who make "Dark pacts" within their ranks, it's also a club for factions that aren't as wild about using the powers of the dark gods.

So at least in 10th edition terms, Word Bearers feel like the vanilla CSM faction that is best represented by the CSM 'dex. Black Legion feels like it should be leading a broader force that emphasizes dark pacts less and non-marines a bit more.

Aside from everything else, Black Legion is the ordinary vanilla flavour of Chaos Space Marines. The Word Bearers have a more interesting theme and colour scheme in my book, and therefore going for gangland swaggering punks in spiky black power armour who are Jacks of all trades of Chaos is a better bet for the same reason Ultramarines are sounder Loyalist poster boys than Iron Hands. And I say this as a lifelong lover of niche and obscure things: Vanilla has its given place, especially for marketing reasons.

Put differently, having popular crowd pullers of ordinary taste better allow all the niche stuff, the special flavours and acquired taste parts of the setting to thrive.

It would be useful to refer back to Andy Chambers' designer notes for the 2nd edition Chaos Codex for this. That was the first real detailed expansion of the CSM and the first introduction of Abaddon as a playable character.

Basically, Andy Chambers wanted the focus to be kept on the mortal CSM and their motivations as embittered traitors trying now to tear down everything they built before. The Black Legion is a "big tent" faction that can include all sorts, from the mono-god followers to the ones that are just using Chaos for their own ends like the Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Alpha Legion etc. The Word Bearers, while dedicated to Chaos as a whole, are on the whole religious zealot side which would then exclude the more transactional Legions.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It does seem entirely possible they’re feeding into one another. But that doesn’t mean Lorgar was right - only that his claim became true.

The Imperial Truth may have been, technically a lie. But it’s also true. Despite the monicker? The Chaos Gods aren’t true Gods. Their influence over realspace is minimal, and whilst immeasurably powerful? They not omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent etc. They’re no more gods to the sentient species of the galaxy than I am to Ants, simply because I’m more individually powerful and can do a bunch of stuff Ants can’t.

We’ll never know the true goal of the Imperial Truth, but I genuinely don’t think it was ever a plan to bagsy all the worship and adoration for The Emperor. If he wanted that? By golly he could’ve got it, and then some.

Rather I think it was a concerted effort to get the shattered remnants of humanity to Do It For Themselves. To build a shiny, glowing Empire not for The Emperor, but for all of mankind. Because done right? Suffering and poverty could’ve melted away in a truly abundant society. And it’s hard to do that when superstition and false religions influence things.

I mean, religion and organised worship can do a lot good. Like…a lot of good. But it’s also open to being abused as a method to elevate a handful at the expense of everyone else.

And ultimately? If Chaos has fewer mortal adherents doing rituals and summoning and that? Their ability to influence realspace is ever more curtailed. They might kick and scream in the warp all they want. But if no-one is opening the door when they knock, however politely? They’re kinda stuffed.

This is reflect in the Orky resistance to Chaos. Without wibbling on much longer? Ork society is so permissively Orky? There just isn’t much there for the gods to promise an Ork can’t take for himself already. No fear of death. No formal laws to feel unjust. No disease as we experience it. No taboo about clobbering someone, whether it be for a laugh, out of boredom or to nick their teef etc.

Humanity could have that in an idealised society. And that’s what I think The Imperial Truth was a means to end for.

I’ve long believed that the imperial truth was just an attempt to stop humans from being influenced by chaos.

The problem with the Imperial Truth was the lie denying the existence of gods and sorcery. It just makes those that eventually find out disillusioned and angry at being lied to, and then more likely to do the opposite of what the Emperor wanted. A better version would have been to not outright deny the existence of such things but put them as things to be resisted and fought against. Not feeding the Chaos gods by being educated and then denying them, rather than not feeding them through being kept in the dark and ignorant

The policy of ignorance is a failure even after the Emperor is deified and the Ecclesiarchy is in power. Ignorant people form Chaos cults all the time and Inquisitors are kept busy stamping them out.

But if the imperial truth had acknowledged the existence of gods or otherworldly being regardless of how much he demonised them some people would have sought out their power, as he did and as others did anyway. He’d have been better off giving human a reason to want to reject chaos because chaos can’t take over you unless you want it to.

It seemed to work for the interex

mrFickle wrote:
But if the imperial truth had acknowledged the existence of gods or otherworldly being regardless of how much he demonised them some people would have sought out their power, as he did and as others did anyway. He’d have been better off giving human a reason to want to reject chaos because chaos can’t take over you unless you want it to.

It seemed to work for the interex

That is what I said in my earlier post. However the Emperor went with the path of trying to keep humanity ignorant. He is like the parent that does not teach children about the bad things in the world at all, using the flawed reasoning of thinking that talking about them will somehow lead to the children being tempted by them, leaving the children woefully unprepared and vulnerable when they do inevitably encounter them.

Iracundus wrote:
It would be useful to refer back to Andy Chambers' designer notes for the 2nd edition Chaos Codex for this. That was the first real detailed expansion of the CSM and the first introduction of Abaddon as a playable character.

Basically, Andy Chambers wanted the focus to be kept on the mortal CSM and their motivations as embittered traitors trying now to tear down everything they built before. The Black Legion is a "big tent" faction that can include all sorts, from the mono-god followers to the ones that are just using Chaos for their own ends like the Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Alpha Legion etc. The Word Bearers, while dedicated to Chaos as a whole, are on the whole religious zealot side which would then exclude the more transactional Legions.

Yes, the Black Legion is a good face for the CSM as a whole because they're all about the personal and political side of it.They're not motivated by some high-concept being but simply by revenge. That they use the classic black for their main colour doesn't hurt, either!

 Karak Norn Clansman wrote:
Aside from everything else, Black Legion is the ordinary vanilla flavour of Chaos Space Marines. The Word Bearers have a more interesting theme and colour scheme in my book, and therefore going for gangland swaggering punks in spiky black power armour who are Jacks of all trades of Chaos is a better bet for the same reason Ultramarines are sounder Loyalist poster boys than Iron Hands. And I say this as a lifelong lover of niche and obscure things: Vanilla has its given place, especially for marketing reasons.

Put differently, having popular crowd pullers of ordinary taste better allow all the niche stuff, the special flavours and acquired taste parts of the setting to thrive.

Good analogy. I think Dark Pacts just stand out like a sore thumb to me. It reads as such an on-brand mechanic for WB. It's not out of character for BL (but is arguably out of character for some of the other generic legions). It's like if instead of Oath of Moment, the loyalist marine army rule was something like "Honor the Machine Spirit" or whatever and it was all about interacting with vehicle units or temporarily powering up infantry by putting the augmetics of the squad members who have them into overdrive. It wouldn't be the sort of thing that would be *exclusive* to Iron Hands, but it would certainly read as more of an Iron Hands thing than a UM thing.

Plus, a lot of the units that generic CSM get that god-specific factions don't are things like possessed or sometimes daemon engines, etc. Stuff that often feels very WB adjacent.

I suppose it makes sense because most Chaos Space Marines aren't really zealous followers of the Dark Gods. They're mostly cynics out for their own gain, often obsessed with perceived wrongs done to them by the Imperium, and the Black Legion fits that mindset perfectly.

But I think of those guys as "Traitor Marines" more than "Chaos Marines". The cult armies and the Word Bearers are the proper Chaos Marines, who embrace all that Chaos has to offer, and fully believe in it.

I wouldn’t say they’re cynics as such.

The modern turncoats, those that come from Chapters, are Astartes partially trained via psychoindoctrination.

Once they go rogue? Those sessions end, and they start to become their own person rather than a particularly fancy tool.

Whether only recently elevated to Astartes or a centuries long veteran? That’s still a no longer human being that’s never known what is to be human for at least a couple of decades. What with them all starting out as pre or just pubescent children, taken from their homes and families never to see them again.

It’s also why they no longer benefit from ATSKNF. They don’t feel fear as such, but are indoctrinated into self sacrifice. They’ve essentially got more personal agency than ever before, including the freedom to withdraw to fight another day.

To be very clear, Abaddon and the Black Legion absolutely believe in and worship the Dark Gods.

Abaddon is playing the Great Game incredibly well because he knows that by playing the Gods against each other he can secure their boons and not trap himself like the Primarchs. The Gods also know he's doing this but also can't stop him because if they refuse to play, one of the other Gods might secure his patronage. Abaddon is a genius and not just in terms of battlefield strategy.

The Legion still build monuments to the Gods, they're just literal rather than the ritualistic symbolism of the Word Bearers using ground up people as bricks and cement.

Yeah. Abaddon is using the Gods, not worshipping them. It’s kind of a transactional relationship.

He may commit a given atrocity or complete a specific ritual in exchange for aid. And whilst he won’t dedicate to a specific god, each has something to gain, or cause a rival to lose, from treating with him.

I’m fairly confident that if the gods somehow disappeared entirely tomorrow, or Abaddon found another reliable source of support? He’d just carry on. He’s not in this to advance Chaos. He’s in this to tear down The Imperium.

Exactly, which isn't the case for most of the Black Legion and Abaddon knows it, he just doesn't care.

His commanders and warlords serve him before the Gods, anyone who forgets that is made an example of.

One of his foremost warlords is an ex-World Eater who has since ascended to Daemonhood, but he is still loyal to Abaddon first.

Indeed. He doesn’t care why you’re loyal, or what you ultimately hope to gain from it. Only that you are, and when he issues orders, you drop your other shenanigans and hop to it.

Plus, if memory serves? Drach’nyen is one of a few known ways a Daemon can be permanently destroyed. So even you’re now a Daemon Prince, Abaddon is not to be trifled with.