Nobledark Imperium Part IX: Wraithbone Balls Edition

Don't know if you're interested in continuing this conversation, but we're definitely talking past each other.

I'm aware that this Vandire starts out as a worthy person, but teleologically he's no different from canon Vandire. He still ends up as a raving tyrant and story-wise gets overthrown in a rebellion.

So, given that he does eventually does wind up in a raving mad murder spree despite starting as a good guy, this goes back to the very point I was trying to make in my first post, which is that why would decent people follow such an obviously debased ruler when a very respected and virtuous alternative exists? Now you could argue he was granted the authority by the Steward who then disappeared, but the Steward (who everyone loves) returns and explicitly says Vandire has to go. This is like if George Washington came out of retirement and supported a rebellion against John Adams, except times 10 because Washington would be a awe-inspiring demi-god and Adams would be an insane murderer. Do you really think most people wouldn't side with Washington?

You also raised the point of blind obedience as a factor and justified it on narrative grounds in that it's nobledark. This may be a point on which we have to agree to disagree, but I believe that emphasizes the Dark to the unreasonable detriment of the Noble. People can be cowardly, treacherous, fickle, cruel, etc., but in this universe they are at their basis essentially good, and again I think there needs to be a compelling reason for good people to side with Vandire (This is setting aside "banality of evil" arguments, because real life is depressing and we're looking for heroism). Blind obedience is much more in line with the zealotry of grimdark, truth be told. Sure, there's plenty of nobledark works where good people follow bad rulers but rarely to the extent of someone as far gone as Vandire.

tl;dr: I know Vandire started as good, but too me that doesn't completely justify good people following him

So, I had an idea of how to implement a nobledark!Book of Lorgar into the setting. I was hoping you guys might like it, provided it doesn't conflict with the already established lore. Writefaggotry inbound...

Perhaps more than any of the other primarchs, Lorgar reacted the most negatively when he learned of the existence of Chaos and the Chaos Gods. Lorgar considered himself first and foremost a man of peace, a man of unity, and here were a group of beings that not only profaned everything civilization stood for, but in their own way profaned the very virtues that made mortals great. As a result, within days of being told of the true nature of Chaos by the Steward, Lorgar was at the Steward’s quarters imploring the Steward, with all the fire only an inspired zealot could bring, to allow him to write a book to teach mortals how to steel themselves and fight off the depredations of these false gods. Here was an enemy that not only represented to him all that evil in the universe, but one that he could fight with his most powerful weapons: his words. At first, the Steward was reluctant to give Lorgar his blessing to write such a book, given that he did not want to set up any state-sponsored religion and Lorgar had very prominent Katholian leanings, until it was pointed out to him by Malcador that the only other person really qualified to write a book for Imperial citizens on how to resist Chaos was Magnus the Red, who would probably write a version that would be considerably more…chummy than the Steward would have wanted. (Indeed, it may have been this conversation that inspired Magnus to write his “Gods and Daemons: A Spotter’s Guide”, for people who dealt more closely with warp-related phenomena and would probably be interested in more specific knowledge than how to ward off Chaos in general).

cont.

The Book of Lorgar (or as it is sometimes sarcastically referred to: “Resisting Chaos 101”), is the average Imperial citizen’s go-to guide for how to deal with Chaos and other commonly encountered warp phenomena. The book does not go into technical detail about many aspects of Chaos, but acts more as a survival guide: summarizing what you are facing, why it is bad, and how you can survive it. Although it is primarily considered a work of Lorgar (to the point that it is called the Book of Lorgar, rather than its official, much longer title) the work was also partly a product of Magnus the Red, with whom Lorgar consulted extensively while writing the book. In addition, commentary on earlier drafts was sought from the Steward and all of the surviving primarchs, as well as some well-known Eldar individuals. The book has heavy Katholian leanings, largely in part due to having been written by Lorgar, but the book does take pains to point out that many of the methods proposed in the book are applicable to all religions and how to adapt them to most of the major religious beliefs practiced in the Imperium at the time it was published (this is thought to have primarily been the Steward’s hand at work, keeping Lorgar from getting too overly supportive of one religion).

cont.

It is said that late into the writing of the Book of Lorgar, the manuscript suddenly took a very surprising change in tone. This version, later known as the “Black Manuscript” claimed that not only was the Steward the savior of mankind, he was the avatar of a benevolent god or else a prophet for some higher power. It is not known who brought this version to the attention of the Steward (there are several possible options), but it is known that shortly after Lorgar finished these changes to the manuscript, the Steward requested to speak with Lorgar privately.

The Steward told Lorgar that for all his achievements, all that he had done for Earth, for humanity, and for the Imperium, he was not a god and did not want to be worshipped as such. At first Lorgar denied the Steward’s claims, but eventually the Steward convinced him otherwise. He told Lorgar that the entities that many less advanced beings would have called gods Lorgar had called nothing more than “bottled-up Warp farts”. And perhaps more poignantly, the Steward told Lorgar of his failings. Yes, the Steward had accomplished many great things in his lifetime, but he was far from perfect. A god, he told Lorgar, would have been able to avert the great armies of the Beast and have ended the war without subjecting the people of Earth to near-extermination. A god, he said, would have been able to save Sanguinius.

Having been convinced by the Steward’s words, Lorgar deemed all of the copies of the “Black Manuscript” heretical and ordered burned. However, rumor has it that one copy of the “Black Manuscript” was secretly saved by Magnus the Red, for “historical posterity”. However, as of the 41st millenium no such manuscript can be located, and if it did exist, it is probably sitting in a dust bin on Ganymede.

The tl;dr version

- When told of the existence of the Chaos Gods by the Steward, Lorgar is deeply offended by their existence rather receptive to them than as in grimdark!40k, in part because he knows of their true nature as warp phenomena and in part because he is able to see the "may contain evil" on the side of the box this time
- Petitions the Steward to be allowed to write a book to help Imperial citizens protect themselves; the book ends up being heavily religious in tone because Lorgar
- Lorgar gets the same idea in canon to revere Steward as a god, but someone (Malcador? Magnus?) tips Steward off and Steward sits down with Lorgar and convinces him otherwise
- Currently, the book is regarded as the go-to guide for how to deal with Chaos in the Imperium, because it outlines why Chaos is bad and how to be vigliant for it without going so far as to give instructions for daemon summoning (essentially formalizing the precedents set up by groups like the Interex).
- Book has a heavily Katholian slant because Lorgar, but is still considered an "official" book because the contributions by other authors helped temper Lorgar's leanings.

There are just two more things that I had thought about adding, but I wasn't sure if they conflicted with the lore too much.

First, would Magnus and Lorgar argue over the finer points of the book? Normal40k!Magnus would absolutely try to argue Lorgar's head off if Lorgar tried to put in something he disagreed with, but in this universe, Magnus seems much more cynical and distrustful. According to the established lore he didn't even know people in power could be decent people until he met the Steward.

The other thing is I had the idea that during the writing of the Book of Lorgar Magnus might have offered to teach Lorgar how to use his psychic abilities. Lore-wise Lorgar was supposed to be the secondmost powerful psyker among the primarchs (IIRC, he is the only one besides Magnus and technically Sanguinius), but in canon he never really shows it until he falls to Chaos. But again, if this universe's version of Magnus is closed off and slow to trust others, he probably wouldn't even point out Lorgar's psyker powers to him. I imagine that if Lorgar did learn how to use his psyker abilities, it would be more for making your brain too swole for daemons to possess, similar to what has been suggested for the GKs, with Lorgar considering any militarily applicable uses like throwing a land raider with your brain a side effect that he reserves for dire situations.

Pretty good homie, keep it up.

As for Magnus, he starts off as deeply mistrustful because his childhood was so shitty. Instead of having his intellect nurtured on a planet like Prospero, he's exploited and treated like a walking nuke by the Despot of Ursh who keeps him in line by threatening his mother. I imagine that once he finds others like him, forms his own legion and gets to know people he would start opening up, and since Lorgar is a nice guy in this AU he might be willing to teach him a few things.

I have a soft spot for stories where broken people learn about their feelings and the meaning of friendship

It's possible that Lorgar remained a latent psyker.

Had the potential to be a low to mid range psychic, gift never activated and Magnus wasn't inclined to kick his brain in the balls in the hope that it would shake things loose because it would run the very real risk of giving him brain damage.

Also even if it did work he would become more attractive to deamonic assault. Magnus considered psychic powers a noble burden but still very much a burden.

Also given that the Emperor seems to be anctual friends with way more of the primarchs this AU it raises a point. From Oscar's point of view he got to watch all his friends and family die, and this time be really did care about every one of them. Perhaps his marriage to Isha/Macha provides him with stability he would otherwise be the worse for without.

Macha and Eldrad are at this point the only faces he has seen more or less continually for his whole life, and it's very possible Eldrad hasn't got much time left.

What's the stance on anyone else within the Imperium outside of AdMech conducting scientific research and applying said research for technology?

The stuff I have in mind will not be superior to AdMech creations but rather different.

Would a colony dedicated to such pursuits have to be kept as a secret pet project of an inquisitor (or a group of them) or could they be open about what they are doing?

On another note is there a canon character in 40k who shares the personality traits of Balthasar Gelt from fantasy?

Imperium isn't concerned too much about whay you do in your own workshop.

So long as it isn't deamonic, A.I. or likely to explode in an unusual way the Imperial authorities don't usually care.

The Ad-Mech on the other hand will REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE till your ears are bleeding and petition the local planetary Governor to have your shop shut down and your shit confiscated.

Governor is well within his rights to tell the cog-fuckers to piss off but then his planet had better be able to survive without the Ad-Mech because they will stop all imports of theirs from off world and issue a recall order to all their adepts on the planet.

This is extremely unfair and obvious bullying but the Ad-mech make up ~90% of all industry in the Imperium and fractured and fractious as they are this is one of the few things they will all get behind.

There is no Balthasar Gelt type character mentioned as of yet.

Maybe there could be. Some Demiurg engineer clan patriarch or some shit.

Thank you for letting me know

And yes I am planning on making an heir to a governor a technological savant that is a little bit like Balthsar Gelt in his behavior.

Gonna take some time to make a reasonable scenario.
I have some of the stuff figured out but there are still blanks I need to fill.

That actually explains a lot. I had been wondering how exactly Magnus and Perty got to where they are in this timeline. Magnus by the end of his life seems a lot like the scholarly type we know him as in regular 40k, where as Perty is described in this universe as having been "an artist at heart", despite the two of them growing up with the former having been treated as a walking nuke and the latter being said to have a soul filled with nothing but cold pragmatism as a young man. So how did they go from point A to B?

>It's possible that Lorgar remained a latent psyker

The idea I had was if Lorgar did awaken any sort of psyker abilities, even if it was just in the "keep daemons out of my brain" sense, he would do so through some sort of meditation regiment, making him a sort of SPESS Buddha in the same way that Jaghatai is SPESS Genghis Khan or regular 40k Angron is SPESS Spartacus. Katholianism seems highly western-influenced but like all the major religions of the 31st millenium and beyond is a weird mish-mash of beliefs from many different theological schools of thought. I just wanted to put it out there, but this might be going a little too far, and I'll leave it for the Veeky Forums hive mind to decide whether to keep it or scrap it.

Ah, I knew I forgot something.

>Also even if it did work he would become more attractive to deamonic assault. Magnus considered psychic powers a noble burden but still very much a burden.

Isn't the standard 40k lore that the latent psykers are the most heavily targeted by daemons, because they don't have enough understanding of their own powers to defend themselves and if they use their powers subconsciously they aren't aware they are drawing daemons to themselves like moths to a lightbulb?

If that's not the case and latent psykers have to actually be prodded into becoming visible to daemons (as opposed to "regular" psykers like Magnus), then your idea seems like the more likely scenario. Magnus would notice, but keep his mouth shut, because he doesn't want to put the burden of psyker powers on someone else and at this point in time he doesn't really feel comfortable talking with someone else about such personal things.

Logar is now Jedi Jesuit. One of a select order within the Katholian clergy. Typically they only invite in the brightest of the scholars and then move around advising national, international and later interstellar administrators to manipulate them into greater Imperial cohesion even if it was against their self interest. Rest of the clergy were pretty pissed off at them because they should keep dicks out of politics but the Jedi Jesuit (we probably need another name) would argue that a stable and strong Imperium is everyone's concern,

They were pretty sure Lorgar was fair book smart, just not to their exacting standards. On the other hand he was a primarch and that counted for a lot. Also he had before this written the Lectitio Divinitatus that was the theological keystone in bringing the Kartharanites back into the fold so there was something there.

They take their vows of austerity very seriously. After his death the Legion serfs went through Lorgar's stuff. His personal effects could fit in a shoe box.

It could be that Lorgar is then an active psyker but with little conscious control over how he can use it.

A bit like Sangy. Sangy started out with getting prophetic dreams that just got more intense as he got older eventually becoming visions when he was awake and finally culminating in the gods of Chaos trying to make him their bitch at the Eternity Gate.

Lorgar could never consciously use his abilities and might never have even been aware of them. He would meditate and pray and maybe it was that his mind was so full of total certainty in his faith that the deamons had no way in. When he roared the battle hymns deamons and the deamon-touched would fall to the ground clutching their bleeding ears. Possibly it was because of the huge pool of faith of his soldiers and his self he was channeling, possibly it was because he couldn't sing for shit history will never know for sure.

>Ganymede

The place administratum won't talk about.

All the weird shit the Inquisition recovers? Guess where it gets stored.

Technically it belongs to the Administratum because the entire institution is based on filing. In practice its joint Inquisition run because someone has to give the drones training.

If you do your internship on Ganymede you done fucked up and annoyed someone.

>That pic
I'd like to believe that there's a planet that every race jointly maintains to store the sheer amount of wierd shit in the galaxy, and they use everyone of those signs.

Apparently it's Ganymede.

All the weird shit nobody wants to keep but are to concerned about to destroy gets contained on Ganymede.

I have it saved, but it's a long one. I'll copy and paste it when the thread ebbs. I don't want to drown discussion.

>SCP Foundation: Segmentum Ultima chapter

>Well I guess this counts as an ebb.

"This was our galaxy once. The Old Ones, the predecessors those that made us- left it in our care. It was ours to tend. Reward, for all that we had suffered in our war against the Yngir slaves. Entire generations, entire histories, entire cultures were lost in that dread war, but this, this was our reward. Freedom, and an unblemished canvas to write our fate upon it. We were stewards of life, the victors over death, and we were told not to waste it."

"And we didn't. We flourished, taking barren rock and tainted ground, and making fertile and green pearls of them. We made such works of art, such wonders of technology. We even made gods. For millenia, we worked, honed our art, and at every turn, brought life to this scarred galaxy. We had peace, as strange as that sounds today. It's a distant dream, isn't it? But you know it's there, that it's possible. You feel your spirit rise at the very thought. We had peace."

"But then we had the Fall. And it was all lost."

"Every eldar that is taught our history- even, the warped and half complete history of those led astray by the dark gods- is struck by that. Here, here is our people at their peak! We are surrounded by their works, the very galaxy owes its life to them in their power, but yet, we lose it all in a matter of years, reduced to this shadow of ourselves? How could this happen?"

"Arrogance, my child. Arrogance blinded them so far back. Arrogance of a few, that sought power at the cost of the many. Even, at the cost of their very gods. We were at the very cusp of ascension, when those, the fanatics, the usurpers, the primitives out of fear and envy destroyed the greatest work of those halcyon days."

"They tried to make a miscarriage of the birth of our greatest hope. The distillation of all of our gods in to one, purer being. Our Child Goddess, Slaanesh."

>So how did they go from point A to B?
Magnus retains his core inquisitiveness and natural scholarly qualities. He starts as the tsar's prized psychic slave, in conditions comparable to those of a canon imperial sanctioned psyker, but after his mother's death there is nothing to bind him to the despot. He deserts the Urshian war front and wanders Eurasia, and this period of freedom and exploration let him settle the feelings of his enslavement. After joining the imperium and finding a place among the primarchs and the steward's inner circle, through lifetimes of war and un-avoidable statesmanship, he becomes the sort of arch-mage figure of the imperium. He should be accessible as a resource for powerful imperial figures throughout his life, only really being notably distrustful in his earlier years. It's also worth noting that the primarch circle is a pretty fair split between princes, ascended slaves, and other

"The birth cries were terrible. What should have been a moment of joy and celebration would prove, with the treachery of the usurpers, traumatic. A great storm of pain tore the warp asunder, as eldar turned against eldar, brother against sister, mother against son, all for what? A handful of dirt balls the exodites call planets so you're free to freeze in mud and gnaw on roots. Flimsy scraps of wraithbone drifting the void called craftworlds, where you can have your fate decided before you are even born by the dead that rule. And that pathetic pantomime of glory in Comorragh, where they pretend at the past that's dead and gone. What glories have those rebels have earned? What proof of righteousness do they have in their miserable lives? They have turned their backs on Slaanesh, only to suffer under the lash and call it freedom."

"Thank the Many-Gods-in-One that they did not succeed in circumventing our child goddess's ascension, or we might all be trapped under their rule. Slaanesh is mighty, but her might is tempered with kindness. She waited patiently on the other side, in the dimension unbounded, waiting for the souls of her wayward children to be reunited with her. She did not snuff them out, though they truly deserved it. She did not hunt them down, though they wished her dead. She kept her arms wide open for them, ever welcoming their arrival."

"And then came the mon'keigh. And their insult."

"How gullible are those that lay outside? Short lived, murderous, stupid, and unworthy creatures come to them, and whisper poison in the ears of those already poisoned. They whisper of raiding like a band of thieves in the immaterium, of stealing and murdering. They speak of defiling the realm of the gods, and these that dirty the name eldar smile and nod, that ancestral sin of greed rising in them again."

"Those misguided heathens outside begged for the collar of the mon'keigh on their necks, in exchange for injuring a goddess that only loved them."

"Isha? Is that so? They speak of Isha, long gone, returned to guide our people unto a golden age? It is a lie. Look upon the histories- all the gods and goddesses save Cegorach agreed to combine, to set aside their individual identities to unite and make something better of themselves. Through those thousands of years since the fall, no one spoke of Isha, except in the past. Through these thousands of years, eldar hands were not up to the task of rescuing her? Preposterous."

"Now, now they claim that Isha, goddess of health, the harvest, and life bearing was kept captive in the hands of Nurgle? This betrays the work of the mon'keigh to misguide and mislead you. The lie is at the root- the mon'keigh would believe our goddess, pure and strong, could be captured and caged like an animal by that brute Nurgle? The story betrays their own intent! Like this false Isha, they would want us caged by them, used by them, made slaves by them. The story of her 'rescue' is a lie to convince the unwary that the eldar are weak, and it is only with the help of mon'keigh they can do anything. It makes me sick to the think children are being raised to believe this, and to think themselves less than mon'keigh. Trying to indoctrinate us into slavery."

"But they did attack a god that day- the mon'keigh and the false eldar. And they did perhaps even see Isha. Isha, as one part of the Many-Gods-in-One of Slaanesh. I was not there that day, but a comrade was, and he wept bitterly at the very memory of the sight. Slaanesh, in her radiance. In her glory. The innocent child god, looking curiously at these strangers that came to her. She smiled. Even among the black hearted and soul sick eldar infidels, some stopped and for a moment the truth came through. They fell to their knees and wept, tried to warn Slaanesh, tried to stop their fellows. They were slain by the mon'keigh, filled with bloodlust and eager to tear the flesh of the innocent."

"We counter attacked of course. Drove them back into the blighted materium, sending the cowards shrieking as soon as they faced something more than an innocent goddess. But the damage was done."

"Once it was, any eldar was guaranteed as soon as their soul left their body or the cruel soul traps devised by the craftworlders would be reunited with Slaanesh automatically. They would return to the child, and we'd be one step closer to divinity, and our heaven in the immaterium, when the eldar could claim the birthright of the old ones, and remake the unreality as we had remade the reality."

"But the evil ones broke that bridge. They severed one more strand of Slaanesh's goodness to your world. And now Slaanesh withers."

"The Child Goddess is no more. Innocence is no more. Denied the very love of her people, she withers and hungers. And she has learned from her mistake of trust. And we, in our sorrow, now must redeem our failing. The Crone Worlds must unite again, the masters of the warp must be awoken, and our goddess's due must be retaken. We can be patient no more as paradise itself is under threat. We can no longer wait for the misguided to realize their mistake, and come once again to the embrace of the Many-in-One. Our goddess hungers. And we shall feed that hunger. Just as we did so long ago against the slaves of the yngir, so must we do for the slaves of the mon'keigh."

"The War for Heaven calls. You shall serve- either in Her warhost, or as Her sacrifice. Either is better than your kind deserve."

-Unknown, Battle of Merr's Reach, speech given to prisoners.

>WE WUZ GODZ AN SHEEIT!

But in all seriousness that was pretty fucking epic.

Sounds Aztec as fuck. I like it.
>Look, you can either further the cause of our "unified god" either as footsolders, or as food

That actually brings up a question. Since Cronedar are now Chaos' chosen along with what Chaos Space Marines do exist, how do they deal with the fact that when they die they go straight to She Who Thirsts stomach? I imagine some feel like the ones in the above posts, but surely others must have some sort of survival instinct. Maybe that's the way you get Cronedar of Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle; Cronedar that although they wanted to be part of Chaos, they didn't want to be soul food, and so pledged themselves to one of the other gods so that Slaanesh doesn't get dibs on their soul. That would really help fill out the Chaos ranks since we don't have specific traitor legions/chapters devoted to a particular god anymore. It would also explain the lack of Chaos undivided Cronedar: Slaanesh gets the unclaimed spoils.

How early on should Jaghatai Khan defect for it to seem like a genuine change of heart rather than just jumping ship to the winning side?

Assuming we are keeping that origin, although given that he is a Mongolian called Khan and the Mongolia is center of Ursh I can't see it changing.

Since in this timeline humans and Eldar are on relatively good terms and can actually talk reasonably to one another, I wonder how the Eldar would react when they find out that mankind really did use to be much more technologically advanced than they currently are, and that their claims are not just hot air. Assuming everything is still the same pre-Unification, DAoT mankind was capable of some scary stuff back in the day, and there are a lot of similarities between what mankind went through and what the Eldar went through pre-Imperium. I imagine that some Eldar would just brush it off as expected, rationalizing it as “when mankind fell it was because their creations turned on them and all they lost was some of their technology, when we fell it was because we accidentally fucked a god into existence and lost 90% or more of our population”. But maybe others would see a kindred spirit in mankind, seeing them as a people that because they had also reached dizzying heights of technology and culture yet refused to go quietly when the apocalypse came could be considered near-equals, or perhaps viewed more patronizingly (ala “these are the people we could have uplifted and shown them the stars if we hadn’t screwed up” or “Eldar’s burden”). This would be a train of thought that would probably be kept private or rarely if ever seen among the non-Eldar inhabitants of the Imperium, because if there is one thing that is true about the Eldar it’s that they are prideful and don’t like to bring up the Fall in the first place unless it is absolutely necessary or admit that they did something wrong. On top of that, most Eldar the average non-Imperial citizen is likely to meet are diplomats and auxillaries, who probably project the stereotypical stuck-up Eldar image because they’ve learned that the “snobby, sophisticated, high-cultured, and knowledgeable” attitude gets them results among non-Eldar. (cont.)

And maybe there is a another school of thought, one that is held among some humans as well as a minority of Eldar, that looks at the history of Eldar and mankind and sees a common pattern, believing that a sapient species has to be have been “reforged”, able to claw itself back into some sense of stability after surviving a near-total extinction event, to even afford the honor of being called a “civilized” species (perhaps similar to regular 40k Inquisitorial Istvaanism). By this definition the Tau have only just earned the right to be called a “civilized” race, though still the “youngest”, having gained the requisite wisdom by surviving the onslaught of the tyranids and their own AI uprising by the skin of their teeth. (cont.)

I’m reminded of the relationship between the Greeks and Macedonians pre-Philip II. The ancient Greeks were notoriously xenophobic and looked down on other peoples, calling them barbaroi, even though in some respects the outlying civilizations were actually more advanced than the Greeks (people from Greece often went to Bablyonia or Egypt to learn math and astronomy). However, they called the Macedonians and some other peoples hemibarbaroi, or half-barbarians, and even though they looked down on all non-Greeks, they had to admit out of all the non-Greek people the Macedonians were the least bad and could actually get along with them to some degree. Still didn’t enjoy being conquered by Philip II though.

Again, this is supposed to be more what the average Eldar citizen of the Imperium might think, particularly their own personally held beliefs, rather than the higher-ups and the people in position of power. In addition, I imagine the types of beliefs held in particular vary greatly depending on the world they are from. Eldar in general probably see humans and the younger races as probably a bit too boisterous and emotional for their own good, but that is probably because most (looking at you, Saim-Hann) Eldar are raised up in an extremely ascetic lifestyle, in order to avoid being the targets of Chaos, and as a result many probably don’t realize it’s possible to live another way.

Perhaps the ruler of Ursh had conquered Khan's people and were using them as shock troopers, as rulers in the past often did with nomadic peoples. Khan's father, who was the de facto leader of the nomads, tried to stand up against the ruler of Ursh but was killed, and Khan privately swore revenge. Somehow or other Khan and his nomads are part of an army dispatched to deal with the Warlord, only for Khan to betray the ruler of Ursh after secretly meeting the Warlord when he realizes this is his chance to avenge his father.

As a result, Khan ends up helping the Warlord win a decisive victory that allows him to push further into Ursh lands, either by conveniently "forgetting" to show up or actually conspiring with the Warlord to switch sides in the middle of the battle and catch the Urshites in a pincer attack, similar to the Battle of Talas.

(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas).

Khan swears loyalty to the Steward for giving him the opportunity to free his people, and the fact that the Warlord never abuses his trust strengthens this bond.

Does this work, or does it sound too much like a retread of Genghis Khan. I was trying to make it sound more like what happened to Yelü Chucai, but in reverse (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelü_Chucai). However, given that Ursh is supposed to be a despotic hellhole, I don't think loyalty to such a regime would endear him to the Warlord.

Just a minor quibble
>ascetic
>Saim-Hann

Nope. Saim-Hann are the hard drinking, hard fighting hover bike riding hemibarbaroi that joined the Imperium because they thought Russ was hilarious and any Empire that would make him a Primarch was definitely something they wanted to be part of.

Alaitoc is the No Fun Allowed craftworld.

Also they know humanity was once more advanced than they currently are. They've left dangerous shit unattended on hundreds of worlds, it's why archeology has a high turnover rate. The Golden Age Empire was at it's height just as the Eldar Empire really started to drown in the cocaine heap. Eldrad probably went touristing around it when he was young, although his mind is so fucked up good luck trying to remember anything coherent at this point.

Eldar were more advanced at their height, near stagnant as they were. They had millions of years to get good. Their fall was a long time in the making and they enjoyed supremacy of the galaxy for a very, very long time. Humanity gets a few thousand years, spread across the galactic disc and implodes.

The timing of the Eldar Fall and the onset of the Age of Strife are not coincidence. You can't stir up the warp so hard it renders a 10,000+ Light Year wide patch of space uninhabitable and makes a new god without it fucking up everyone's shit.

Maybe the eldar feel they have ancient wisdom to share with these mayfly friends, maybe they feel they need to teach the barbarians how to be people. Humans feel the same way. Mostly they feel that they eldar need to calm the fuck down and develop some emotional stability.

Sounds good.

Although Khan would have to time it right.

He would need to lie low until his betrayal would result in The Warlord taking custody of whatever miserable patch of Earth his family are being held on. If they were still in Ursh territory by the end of the day their fate would be unenviable.

That's why I said most. Saim-Hann are probably the most prominent exceptions.

>Oscar

FUCKING SHIT FUCKING SHIT FUCK FUCK YOU ALL!

I just got the joke.

The Emperor's original name was Oscar if we ignore Unusual Item 43.

He is a Man of Gold.

Fuck you Veeky Forums, fuck you all.

Jesus Christ that penny dropped from a height.

what the fuCK I'VE BEEN WRITING HALF OF THIS FLUFF AND I DIDN'T GET IT

god fucking dammit, Malador writefag

Ah, right, I see the misunderstanding here.

>but the Steward (who everyone loves) returns and explicitly says Vandire has to go

I didn't realise you were asking why they followed Vandire AFTER the Emperor revealed himself - which is fair enough, since I thought you were asking how he got any support at all. As for an actual response...

...all I can think of is that, since the Assmaster fluff as far as I can remember it last time I trawled it for my shitty typos only specifies the Steward returning in time to personally take down Vandire, instead of leading Thor in rebellion against Terra (although that means that that particular bit of the timeline is still perfectly fine and unretcon'd).

If we're looking for an explanation /apart from/ Banality of Evil (which would probably be the main angle being played here and throughout nobledark, I'm afraid), I guess it would be that the Steward intentionally only intervened at the Imperial Palace rather than helping the rebellion as a whole; this'd probably be because he knew that if he led the counter charge the people would want him as Emperor. Seeing as he values mankind's self determination almost to the point of being a flaw, it's a plausible excuse (but not much more).

And of course, he wouldn't have predicted how insistent Thor would be on instating HIM as Emperor.

Also take into account that the Steward was not keeping up on events. He was on some backwater nowhere planet that had a nice beach and a bar. He wasn't getting any news.

Maybe he wasn't rediscovered until near the end of the Civil War. Civil War being cut short because Steward strode into the Imperial Palace and snapped a mans neck.

This does raise the question of who was performing the Soul Binding whilst Steward was away. Maybe it was Magnus. He was still around at that point.

>“Gods and Daemons: A Spotter’s Guide”
kek'd...

>A god, he said, would have been able to save Sanguinius.
...and sobbed.

>All of this
Yes, yes yes yes. I really like the idea of contrasting with Vanilla by having Primarchs being Emps's sons in all but blood, instead of in blood only. Plenty of feels, especially since we can't play the "he's been stuck on the throne watching his Imperium decay for 10 millenia" card any more.

>“Gods and Daemons: A Spotter’s Guide”
>kek'd...

The High Gothic would be

Ego-Video Liber Deorum et Daemonum

Or possibly it should be

Dei: Liber Videndi

Depending on how accurate you any your Latin.

I don't think they'd be father-son relationships, it'd be more close friends and bros with some of the Primarchs. Others Emps would probably be too distant or disapproving of to be close, or he may have made an effort but they simply weren't interested.

I think the Emperor would be close with Vulkan, Lorgar, Sangy, Magnus, Guilliman, Dorn (no fluff on him yet though), maybe Corax, maybe Fulgrim (if that one writefag ever returns to write him). I considered and excluded Russ, who is probably a bit too wild and anti-authority for Emps (and spends most his time dicking around on Fenris), and notably Horus, who in this AU is probably too ambitious and grasping for Emps to be close with, but this might go either way.

I feel we have a few too many Primarchs who are the "I fight for my people!" types, so for the sake of variety I'm wondering if you guys are open to another interpretation. I'm not the most versed in canon Khan's fluff, but to me the core of his character is is stubborn independence and commitment to unifying mankind. Thus I think it would make sense if he's a wandering pragmatist who follows whatever leader he thinks is most worthy and capable of achieving his dream. So at the start of the Unification, he would be part of Ursh since they seem militarily most powerful.

As for his conversion, I'm thinking that maybe he's defeated in battle by the Warlord, who recognizes his skill and potential and offers him a place in his army, and Khan accepts because he sees the Warlord is a greater leader than the Despot. (I've been reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms) Keeping the timeline in mind, this would all have to be mid-unification and before Khan is 25 so he can receive the Mk II Astartes augments.

Yeah, when I wrote that I imagined that the Cronedar know that this is pure propaganda. Sure, some might love and worship Slaanesh, and might even think Slaanesh will deliver paradise with enough soul juice, but none of them can swallow the lie that being eaten by Slaanesh is 'nice.'

I think Slaanesh is falling. The daring raid at the cost of heroic lives want futile- the rescue of Isha and subsequent freeing of eldar souls from the grasp of She Who Thirsts should be a bonafide Good Thing. I usually lean on the dark side of Nobledark, so I do want to have a bit of Noble in that the freeing of Isha actually had serious damage done to Slaanesh.

But, even if Slaanesh is weakened, that is still a very pissed off god. Without a constant source of souls, Slaanesh is viewed as weaker by the other dark gods and subsequently is getting bullied. Leading to Slaanesh turning on the Cronedar with an ultimatum: get me food or be food.

Most of the Cronedar stayed loyal. But some managed to find protection from the other gods. Despite the contempt Khorne, Tzeentch and Nurgle have for Slaanesh, they need capable servants, and Cronedar are very capable.

I'll work on Chaos when I get free time.

Page 10 bump

Looks good. Although it could be that they genuinely believe that they go to paradise Spaaneshii Garden or Eden when they die.

Maybe enough do to keep up the impression that they all do.

It takes power to make a deamon.

Maybe Slaanesh doesn't make them out of whole cloth like the others usually do. Maybe the vast majority of Slaaneshii deamons are in fact slightly uplifted elder faithful.

Bump

Stay alive

Given the increased inhospitabe nature of the galaxy to counter the nobility of its denizens what of the Exodites?

Would they still be capable of survival?

What do the Imperial Authorities think of the Phoenix Lords?

From an early age, it was clear to most people that Jaghatai “White Scar” Khan was going to grow up to be a troublemaker. Some might have doubted such a claim, but that would have been put to rest by the time Jaghatai was ten, when he was thrown from his vehicle during an accident while tending the flocks, giving him the scar that would later become his most identifying feature, only to dust himself off with little to no concern for the cut on his face. Unfortunately, “most people” did not happen to include the Despot of Ursh. For years, Jaghatai and his people had lived the way his people always had, raising flocks of livestock on the steppes with the help of motorcycles and off-road vehicles. It was this skill with motor vehicles that had brought the people of the steppes to the Despot’s eye. He saw a greater use for their talents than simply herding livestock, and so he pressed the people of the steppes into service. The people of the steppes were turned into shock troopers, raiding enemy supply lines, tearing into retreating battalions, and burning down villages that refused to completely subjugate to the Despot, becoming yet another boogeyman for the Despot of Ursh to use to scare his enemies and subjects into submission.

Jaghatai’s father was the nominal representative of the steppe peoples to the Despot of Ursh, and so was given the title of Khan: a once noble title that had come to mean nothing in the years since the people of the steppes were enslaved by Ursh. Jaghatai's father pleaded with the Despot to try and make the lives of his people better, but the Despot had a heart harder than adamantium and had no love for people whose loyalty was not absolute. And so it was that at the age of nineteen Jaghatai was awoken one night by emissaries from the Despot of Ursh, who dropped his father's head in a sack on his doorstep and gave Jaghatai the same ultimatum the Despot had given his father. "Serve me absolutely, or die".

Faced with not only the threat of his own demise but the demise of his people, Jaghatai swore loyalty at the point of a sword. But privately, the new Khan swore another oath. He swore that if there was any justice in this world he would not rest until he had avenged his father and it was the Despot of Ursh who had his head put in a sack. And so it was that for several years Jaghatai served as the leader of the one of the most feared forces in the entire Urshite army. And he hated it. He hated seeing his people being turned into animals, being used as attack dogs to terrorize people whose only sin had been to ask the Despot of Ursh for a bit of mercy. He hated the pain and suffering he caused in every burned out husk of a settlement he left behind him. Even when his people were kept out of the fray of raiding and pillaging, his conscience still gnawed at him over the fact that it had been his support that had allowed the Urshites to win and allow this to happen.

This went on for several years, until reports began to come in about a strange new power known as "the Imperium" led by a most peculiar Warlord, which was pushing against the Urshites from the west. Fortunately for Ursh, much of the south and west of the Urshite heartland was bordered by near-impenetrable mountain ranges, with only a few major passes between them. Khan and his people were dispatched as part of a force to guard one of these mountain passes from incursion, along with several thousand elite Urshite troopers. The Urshite troopers had no love for the nomads, forcing them to set up camp far away from the rest of the army and making them do most of the scouting. It was because of this that the Khan and his forces were alone when they quite literally stumbled upon the expeditionary force of the Warlord one fateful day.

What is the Illuminati doing now that the emperor doesn't need to be reborn?

Coming around a corner in the bottom of a river valley, the Khan and his scouting forces quite unexpectedly came across some incredibly angry men holding some very imposing guns. After a few minutes of an intense standoff, the leader of the opposing forces called a ceasefire to try and figure out why either of the two sides hadn't begun shooting at each other yet. It was at this point that the Khan first met the Warlord. The Khan realized that this was his opportunity to get revenge on the Despot of Ursh and avenge his father. He told the Warlord the truth, the real truth he had carried inside him since the day his father died. Although initially skeptical, the Warlord was so impressed by the sincerity of the Khan's answer that he believed his story.

The Warlord and the Khan began to conspire as to how to defeat the Urshite army at the pass. At first, the Warlord suggested to the Khan that he simply hat to "forget" to show up to the battle, but the Khan vehemently disagreed. The Urshites had denigrated his people, the Khan said, and blood had to be repaid in blood. Therefore, a new plan was formulated, in which the Khan's forces would change sides once the Urshites and the Imperium became locked in combat. Rather than being flankers as intended, the Khan's troops would tear into the Urshite army from behind, forcing them to fight a two-fronted battle. The plan worked, and the battle was a complete rout for the forces of Ursh, allowing the Imperium to cross the mountain passes into the core Urshite territories. The former slaves of Ursh were skeptical to see the Khan's people as liberators, rather than devastators, and this bad blood would persist for years even after the fall of Ursh. Nevertheless, being involved as the front lines of a massive liberating army went a long way towards alleviating such concerns. When the Despot of Ursh was toppled and that abominable empire finally fell, the Khan finally felt that his father had been avenged.

The Warlord had earned the Khan’s gratitude and trust, but the Khan made sure to let the Warlord know that his people would never again be unthinking slaves.

“You have helped me avenge my father and free my people, and for that you have my gratitude. But remember, that gratitude makes my people and I your allies, not your slaves. For all that you have done, you have my trust, but if you abuse that trust, know that not even death will be fast enough to catch you before I do.”
-- Jaghatai Khan, reportedly said to the Warlord upon the final fall of Ursh

Fortunately, the Khan never had to put his newfound trust to the test. The years of the Great Crusade were probably some of the best of the Khan's life. His people were no longer slaves, and they had a vast new galaxy that had just become open to them. He even fell in love, something he had been studiously avoiding under the reign of the Despot in order to avoid giving that monster something he could exploit him with. He caught the eye of a girl, a former Urshite woman who had worked in the fields as an agricultural serf. He showed her the ways of the steppes, and the two of them fell deeply in love. He was heartbroken when she died. She died at 110, a ripe old age by the standards of those who lived before the Dark Age of Technology, but from a disease that befell many who worked in the fields of Ursh late in life that no amount of juvenant drugs could fix. And yet the Khan had to go on, as the Imperium still had need of his services. It was this sense of duty that led Khan to become an Astartes. Khan spent most of the Crusade on planets that had problems with orks and occasionally dark Eldar, beings that the Khan saw as truly reprehensible and therefore had no moral problems with hunting them down.

Late in life, the Khan began to feel the age seeping into his bones, and looked back at what he had accomplished during his life. He had avenged his father, freed his people, taken them to the stars, started a family, and helped build an empire. It was "more than any man could hope to accomplish in one lifetime", as the Khan said in his own words. But there was still one last thing Khan had to do. The old warrior planned to travel the galaxy one last time, to say goodbye to the friends he made before he passed away. However, the Khan never finished his trip. Although most of the people close to him did report seeing him shortly before his disappearance, the Khan never made it back to Earth to be buried in his homeland, like he wanted. Many of the White Scars say that like many of the other primarchs, Khan did not truly die, and will return to lead them once more when times are dire. One can only hope.

Although the Khan got along well with many of the warrior primarchs like Russ, perhaps his strangest relationship was his odd friendship with Magnus the Red. Part of the reason for this is that Khan actually knew Magnus (though not well) before either had become known as primarchs, back when they had served under the Despot of Ursh. Khan knew firsthand that Magnus was a man, not a monster, and treated him as such. It was probably this friendship that lead to the Khan being so pro-psyker in life. Although he was not a psyker, he knew of the suffering psyker powers could bring to an individual, and so was a strong advocate for pro-psyker policies like the schola that would help psykers control their gifts. He was also not averse to the use of psykers in combat, though like most he drew the line at warp sorcery.
Outside of the Steward and the primarchs, the Khan often had trouble socializing with other people. Part of this was due to a lack of things he could talk about with other people, and part of this was that he never really got the hang of Gothic, always speaking it with a rather heavy accent, which he was embarrassed by. As a result, the Khan was often known for being taciturn at public appearances, and was well known for regarding actions higher than words.

So here's some preliminary writefaggotry on Khan, primarily on the early parts of his life. Take from it what you will. I was torn whether to have Khan have a "peaceful" death like many of the other primarchs, or to have him go out like in canon, chasing Dark Eldar into the webway. I tried to write it as a deliberate contrast with how Genghis Khan reacted on his deathbed. Genghis Khan lamented because despite all he had done in his life, he had not managed to conquer the world, whereas Jaghatai looked around and though "Yup, I've done a lot. More than any man could hope to accomplish. I've lived a good life"

I deliberately left out Khan's actions during the war of the beast, as I do not know what the Veeky Forums consensus as to what he was doing then.

Was Khan around during Goge Vandire's apostasy-ing? Given the Khan's views on loyalty and trust, I imagine he would have reacted...poorly to someone who would have seemingly abused the Steward's trust like that. I know that only three primarchs lived to the end of the Age of Apostasy, but I didn't know if Khan was one.

I see your point. Khan was always one of the most independent of the loyalist 40k primarchs, to the point that he was quoted as saying that he and the Emperor had very different ideas as to what they thought best for the future of mankind.

Here, I tried to write Khan as someone who although he was concerned for his people, he also had a great deal of sympathy and compassion for those who were not his people, which is part of what drew him to the Warlord's attention. Khan is a little hesitant at first, remembering the last ruler he "served" under, but the Steward's actions time and time again showed he truly had the wellbeing of humanity at heart, which lead to Khan's increasing loyalty to the Steward and the Imperium, probably moreso than in regular 40k. I think a lot of the nobledark!primarchs can be read as people who once thought of their own people first, but once they realized there was a larger galaxy out there of people who needed help, they put their big boy pants on and learned to be much more compassionate to other people and commited to the Imperium as a whole. It helps that most of them had dealt with their own personal enemies at that point (Despot of Ursh, the Kaiser of Duscht Jemanic, the Unspeakable Tyrant).

Is this from an SCP? If so, which one?

Lets add a bit more dark to the nobledark…

The Condemned Subsector

Most fans of 40k know Nurgle as the “happy” god, the Chaos God that really does love you, even if it is in his own twisted, abominable way. But in nobledark!40k, Nurgle was insulted more than he ever was in the regular 40k timeline, when the Imperium rescued Isha from his mansion. And that made Papa Nurgle very, very angry.

In response to the raid on Nurgle’s mansion, Nurgle cooked up the nastiest, most lethal concoction he had ever created. Primarily warp-based to avoid killing itself in its own frenzy, the virus would destroy living tissue, rupture cells, dissolve organic crystals, tear genetic material into base atoms. And it worked on nearly everything. It didn’t matter if you were human, Eldar, tau, or even tyranid. If you were made of organic matter, it would kill you. And then Nurgle unleashed it upon a single world in the Imperium and watched his efforts bear rotten fruit.

The disease ended up wiped out an entire subsector, being perfectly tailored to spread and destroy civilized life with optimum delayed onset and maximum virulence and lethality. The Imperium tried to set up a blockade and send relief efforts into the system, but it was too late. Those who arrived early became caught in the pandemic, whereas those who arrived late found nothing but dead worlds. The virus had been so lethal that it had run out of targets and wiped itself out.

In time, Nurgle would calm himself down. After all, he still loved all his children, even if they had ABSOLUTELY VIOLATED HIM. The warp-based virus was put to the side, it took too much of Nurgle’s energy to sustain and just wasn’t cost-effective, especially for the god of stagnation. It is even said that he may have completely forgotten the recipe he used to cook up the awful creation. But the worlds still stand devoid of life, as a testimony to Nurgle’s rage. All attempts to recolonize the sector failed, for it seemed that the worlds remained cursed with a less virulent form of the virus that viciously attacked anyone who tried to reclaim them. The Eldar have been unable to recover the soulstones of the fallen, though many have tried. Even the tyranids seem to steer clear of the subsector, after tendrils of hive fleets tried and failed to cross the region several times.

Hoarding books on deamonic lore, overseeing the Possession Therapy of the Exorcists, training deamon slayers and traveling the length and breadth and depth of the Imperium looking for deamons to deport back to the warp.

Let's make them the ones that are in the know about Oscar's origins and seek more knowledge and power of and through the Men of Gold. It's a very old and very selective conspiracy, and it's hard to separate the list of members of the so called illuminati from the list of people that knew the steward's nature and had an oppinion on it recorded by history. The members of the illuminati have been high lords, eldar farseers, rogue traders, harlequins, inquisitor lords and explorator techpriests over the ages, with some claiming the primarchs as early 'informed', others pointedly excluding them from the history of the illuminati. The vague organization's agenda has varied wildly over the years, and by conspiritor, each reacting to understanding of the jocularly styled golden man's real place in human history and heritage in their own kind. As such the illuminati is a sort of secret convention of all the parties aware enough to reckon at the bigger picture but inclined to form a secret contingency instead of striding in and grilling Oscar.

The illuminati lie somewhere between being gossiping courtiers and scholars, ones fitting a galaxy's primer imperial court ruled by a demigod and god, and beign the best connected and armed informal organization in the imperium. Their views would cover all the relationships with the emperor's nature written up last thread, and in most cases a meeting between illuminati would be full of sound and fury/pointed subtlety as the ultimate ramifications of everything is debated, then no drastic action is really taken as everyone returns to their own high level projects and plotting and command. Ultimately the inquisitorial faction would like to have oversight of the emperor or some ordo to actively address Men of Gold and other DAoT mysteries. The farseer contingent want to be future seeing dicks with the information, and are never sure if they're ahead of Oscar or if Oscar is just fucking around with them.

That was beautiful and it ended beautifully. I don't think Khan was one of the three that saw the Great Civil War. I think the three were Vulkan, Magnus and Ferrus Manus.

I'll put it on the 1d4chan page as soon as I get to a computer assuming it isn't on already.

Rouge traders that are aware and involved in related plots are mostly pursuing personal wealth, glory, or technologies that will really obviously ruin them. The mechanicus are the real force behind any serious action in this loose order, and their voice is dominated by explorator magos and eccentric, innovative forgemasters giddily grasping for the golden circuitry of the past age. Still, there is also a more orthodox contingent that would bring the Golden Man in line with mechanicus techno local doctrine, and even those that would reinterpret Mars' original treaty with the imperium as license to claim the steward as their technology. The countering force is often the members of the imperial military, whose highest offices retain a tradition of passing down the knowledge and accumulated history as a matter of strategic awareness. These and other informed high imperial officials aren't usually called illuminati because they use their knowledge in some ulterior conspiracy. The same goes for any of the above parties when they know but don't try to shake things up with the knowledge. The harlequins get involved because Cegorach feels it's important for the court jester to be involved in intriguing. They often insist that Cegorach knows where the men of gold went, that they made the jokaero, that they are the jokaero, that the men of gold are in a fortress made of black holes waiting at the center of the galaxy for things not to be so shit, that they became double chaos gods, that they time traveled and became the c'tan, etc.

Who knows but this one

Is what gets placed on the door frames of the containment cells.

These
Are the sort of thing the Administratum workers put on the doors of their Inquisitorial overseers.

>because they use their knowledge in some ulterior conspiracy
don't use it for conspiracy

What Isha and Oscar make of all this is unclear. While he never proclaimed his origins from the throne, to be writ in adamantine letters and hung in orbit Oscar never really made it a guarded secret, and might even be willing to openly discuss it in person, though he has no intention of moving the imperium along any lines related to the matter. On a personal level he almost imagines he had a good sort of youth and upbringing with Malcador (he really mythologized Malcador and his introduction to earth in his memory), notably more caring and peaceful than his primarch friends', and in terms of self image he acknowledges the wider ramifications of there being Men of Gold only as much as he must to remain realistic. Oscar, in my mind, is aware of the ramifications, but they break his immersion in feeling human, which he works to stay close to to avoid becoming an ascending AI. He tends to already be working to address any concern the illuminaty may turn up, and the upper echelons of the alpha legion has them throughly outmaneuvered and outmatched in tradecraft should they act against the imperial good. The political situation is pretty safe, nobody among the illuminati has much to gain by ruining everything. The illuminati are a liability for chaos subversion, but so is anyone with any specific knowledge or power, or means to gain through betrayal, and even conniving men can be strong willed and uncorrupt.