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Ok so feth and gak go as standard but as far as the whole gamut of expletive expression goes what other sort of things might a potty-mouthed 40k character come off with?

I've been writing a guy who swears a lot for someone from a quite religious house. So he's saying things like "Emperor-Forsaken" and "Throne!" and "what in the name of the sanguine sainted angel" but I want more. And what about hell? I had him say "Warp!" but it sounded stupid.

Any suggestions?

To dust this off a bit Crowe
Emperor's toes, I saw on DOW,
Other parts of the Emperor's person depending on the level of expletion, although some that come to mind may certainly cross the threshold into heresy.

Emperor's hairy toes! Sainted Martyr! Aquila's Beak! Aquila's Toes! Emperor's Nose! Damnation! Tarnnation! Martyr's Blood! By the Living Saint! 'Insert name' wept! 'insert name!'

Abyss has a better ring to it than Warp

IMPERATOR i hit my thumb

Emperor's teeth/ sweet teeth.

Frak, sacred feth, Fug/Fuggin, Ream/reaming, slag/slaggin'.

A particularly cosmopolitan human might have had non combat experience with orks- and use zog/zoggin/zog off.

Also colloquialisms that refer to the world of origin:
Going north (going south in valhallan terminology)
Sump weasel, sump dog, sump scum.(hive world terminology)

Some nice suggestions there, thanks.

This one is a proper nerconomicon of a thread now. The story that inspired it was one of my least reader-accessible writings and it went some way into a dead end before I tried to rehash it and ultimately failed and lost the buzz for it.

It was a Necromunda story about a Cawdor outlaw gang. (Told exclusively in the voice of the de-facto gang leader, including dialogue where you only hear his voice and not the interlocutor) I know I'm an ass expecting anyone to interpret that level of head-up-assery. Anyway, I tried to dial it back but eventually gave up. The Faithful Few no doubt still lurks in a couple of versions around the underhive of Dakka Fiction.

Actually, I heard somewhere that "Feth" is actually a Tannith specific curse that relates to one of their old pre-emperor gods. So maybe Necromundans wouldn't use that one either! So basically I can't win on this story and should stop flogging the dead Ton-ton.

"Vandire's Oath!"

Rafen uses this a lot in the Blood Angels omnibus.

Some might find this pretentious, which isn't my intention, but I consider "feth" and "gak" to be particular swear words of Tanith and Verghast (?) which would not really be in common use elsewhere. I find it puts me off when I see these words in other fiction.

For example, in parts of Yorkshire, England, we use the word "scrubber" to refer to someone of poor personal hygiene or low moral standards. But this word isn't used in this context in London, for example, which is only a few hundred miles across the same country. Would humans living 8000 light years away who had no chance of ever having any contact with this specific part of Yorkshire use the same word with the same meaning? Unlikely.

This is why other official BL authors don't use those words.

On that point, if a world/region has a particular industry or living conditions certain swear words may go with that. So consider the culture and make-up of your group. Same for colloquialisms and figures of speech.

On most hive worlds being called a bottom-dweller/feeder would be an insult, because it implies you live in the worst and most squalid conditions in the city, and by extension are dirty and little more to regard than the vermin you live with in the filth filled sump of human society.

In Southern USA the term 'redneck' was a class based insult used by wealthy landowners who could afford slaves. Poorer land owners would have to work out in the sun, and get sunburn, hence red. So it is as suitable insult for some agricultural cultures.

In the other hand in an industrial/mining area calling someone a 'scrubber' (apparently a Yorkshire thing, as well did not know this, thanks NoPoet, expanding my horizons) is an insult, as being a scrubber would be doing a menial task in the most squalid conditions on the site.

Alternately making up words always works because you have dialects and other languages. Like gak (originally a strangely more offensive word for poo), it means the same, it's just different, does not have our connotations added.

I would personally avoid using contemporary slang in 40K stories. Ask yourself, would people still be saying this in 38,000 years? In the middle ages, I believe "sard" meant sexual desire or perhaps even the act itself. Who says that now, only 500 years later?

Good examples of slang based on modern words would be "figging", which Ian Watson used in his Space Marine novel, and "goit" and "gimboid" from Red Dwarf. The Dwarf writers invented several words to sound like futuristic insults, apparently by combining two different words into one. Unfortunately Red Dwarf stopped being a carefully crafted space opera after only two seasons and they reverted back to contemporary Brit slang.

Be consistent in your own fiction, don't overuse your new slang, but don't forget it. And for the Emperor's sake avoid flat-out embarrassing rubbish like "ninker"!

Personally I'd say that if you've got an in universe explanation for the setting and words used, it is appropriate for the circumstance and characters using said oath who really cares?

As said earlier, scrubber, it's an occupation, it's dirty, it's the bottom of the food chain. You could be original and look up synonyms or make up your own word, but on the other hand scrubber fits so well into multiple contexts, it does not matter what they're scrubbing, or where they are it's a good insult.