Nobledark Imperium: The Shining Bunkers of Civilization Edition

Welcome to Nobledark Imperium: a relatively light fan rewrite of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, with a generous helping of competence and common sense.

PREVIOUS THREAD: ( →)

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52262671/

Wiki (SLOWLY BEING OVERHAULED):
1d4chan.org/wiki/Nobledark_Imperium
1d4chan.org/wiki/Nobledark_Imperium_Drafts

THREAD FOCUS:
>Consolidation and codification
>Seriously, we have a ton of good stuff, but it’s all informal and the Notes page is becoming a bloated mess
>Still need to finish Dorn, Fulgrim, Lion, and Angron among the primarchs
>Any writefaggotry would be seriously appreciated, whether it is new stuff or a writeup of old stuff


And, as always:
>More bugs
>More weebs
>More Nobledark battles
>Maybe more Orks too

wrote the kryptmann story last thread and now i need more shit to write so lay it on me boys, what should i write about?

would you be down to go over the notes and write the notable worlds description for Cthonia?

i cant find the notes on it but i get the info about i can give it a shot

So what did ya guise do with Eldars?

For me, Eldars and DE needs whole redesign. Chaos wouldn't hurt to, rip its roots from 90' Heavy Metal spiky sheningans and you are set.

also Malal?

you could elaborate on one of the chaos eldar champions in the notes. they're on 1d4chan with everything else.

How many wars for Armageddon have occurred so far? I'm working on a big fluff block for orks and orkoids, so I'd appreciate any and all fluff we currently have for orks.

The rough bits I can remember from the threads is that enough Orks are roughly chaos aligned that Khorne sometimes grants them blessings. The biggest of these was The Beast who was a bad enough dude to bring the Imperium to the brink of destruction even as the Emperor was kicking. Though defeated, The Beast entered racial memory, and now you get a bunch of Orks mimicking that one git every once and a while.

Orks vaguely cooperate with Chaos Eldar and other minions of the Dark Gods, and Gork and Mork are still kicking around. Or something. Also something about Brain Boyz might be coming back. I can't remember all that well.

Anything I'm missing?

craftworlders have become close allies with humanity over the course of ten thousand years of mutual dominion over a unified imperium. The Emperor is married to the avatar of Isha, and the eldar and harlequins are a sort of fey aristocracy that overlaps with the imperial aristocracy. The upper reaches of the imperial human nobility and officials are enhanced with Biologicus made rejuveants and bespoke cybernetics, and can live up to a millennia or so at most, so the eldar and them have a decent understanding. The Craft world eldar see the imperium as a new empire under their rule through the God Empress Isha, and also the emperor. The human nobility see it as a way to reclaim the golden age empire of the DAoT, with the benefit of the Eldar's cooperation and legitimacy of their greater galactic legacy.

Dark eldar have been played up as despicable pirates striking from the safety of a sprawling, pocked dimensional megastructure. They were in the classy private clubs of the pre-fall eldar empire, and not the epicenter of slaany's debauched birth. In the AU's background they long held to be the true inheritors of the eldar aristocracy, and turned on the craftworlds when they united with humanity to raid the eye and rescue Isha, but also long held the crone world eldar in contempt for their degenerate thralldom to the chaos gods. In the 41st millennium the Great Tyrant Vect has a blasphemous wedding to Malys, champion of chaos undivided, and the Dark eldar become the true allies of the chaos eldar.

Malys is this universe's Abaddon, because Abaddon is a heroic starship captain that dies in the first black crusade (his cybernetic arms later recovered still clutching his command console). Malys is a maniacal lunatic of a witch that gets shit done in ways canon chaos doesn't for plot reasons, and she likewise wishes to reestablish dominion of the galaxy.

Five so far, with the fifth ongoing. Ghazzy's leading the fourth and fifth, and is angling to take up the mantle of the Beast. The Brain Boy caste recently emerged, acting as strategic and tactical advisors; individual Orks remain as stupid as ever, but on the whole they're acting smarter. Ghazzy might be an overgrown Brain Boy, or his pet grot, but one of the two definitely is. There are Chaos Orks, which are relatively rare and I think throw up the specialist castes (Doks, Meks, Weirdboyz, etc.) much more rarely. Not never, there's been a Plague Dok and a Tzeentchian Weirdboy, but rarely. Black Crusades are generally accompanied by massive WAAAGHs because the Crone Eldar distribute bribes freely to get more cannon fodder.

Hm, the brain boys might be a bit of a wrinkle. How well known are they in the United Imperium? I'm writing this bit from an out of touch imperial perspective.

Chaos Eldar also have a many layered shell world that serves as their main industrial base in the eye. Slaaneshi eldar rule much of the megastructure, once the eldar capital and birthplace of the prince, Khornates of the old warrior caste blast the surface and drill across the upper layers, Tzeentchian libraries and cabals are established in redoubts in the frayed webway around the Eye, and a clergy of Nurglite eldar that followed Isha into captivity try to rally the slums throughout on an eternal crusade to return her to the garden.

Malal was once the god of neutralizing destruction, the diametric opposite to Tzeentch, who was the creator in the early realm of souls. They were the first two gods, somewhere between spirits born alongside the living old ones and mega-beings of the old-one's making, and early on the realm of souls was calm and sorcery easy. Other early experiments included Nurgle, originally meant to be the preserver between Tzeentch and Malal, and Bel'akor, an early old one who was the first to try ascension (who resents the gods that surpassed him the way an early transhuman would resent a later designed AI that surpasses him by far). The last two gods were born from the war in heaven and fall of the eldar respectively.
In the war of heaven Khorne superseded Malal as god of destruction. The nature of destruction changed, and Malal ceased to be a god, and became a vizier of Khorne. After the C'tan self destructed Khorn named himself blood king of the galaxy, and later Slaanesh was born, shaking things up. Or the God Malal ceased to exist when Khorn took his place, and in ceasing to exist it's nature in the warp meshed with The Outsider's, locking them together as soul to body and driving both insane.

It would be hard to miss. The average citizen probably wouldn't be familiar with the details of Ork kultur, but it would be common knowledge among the military.

Okay. I can adapt.

Brain Boyz are not well known in the Imperium.

At first it was only the Harlequins and other holders of ancient lore that knew of their existence at all and even then only as a historical curiosity.

Then an old horror from ancient history turns up to haunt the living.

Then the military leaders got told the horror stories and they were not happy.

I wouldn't say that the Harlequins and eldar make up any sort of aristocracy. Harlequins don't rule, they don't govern, they don't administrate and they sure as shit don't do much paper work. The nearest they have to any formal organization is the Dark Carnival and that's not exactly organized.

Regular eldar might go into governorship but bar a few exceptions they do not formally rule. Instead they direct from just behind the obvious powers. It combines the optimal balance of responsibility, power and safety.

>competence and common sense

These things have no place in my 40K!

Normies, REEEEE, etc.

Looking over the last few threads, some of our major points of confusion are actually right where they should be, in a funny sort of way.
We're unsure about
>the true relationship between the Hydra, the Alpha legion, their guard assets, their inquisitorial assets, and what exactly the Omega legion is up to
>weather Ghazzkhul or Makari is the brain boy behind the new beast, and which is a decoy
>What exactly is going on in The Outsider's mind/sphere
>whether or not the Hivemind comprehends individuals that fight it
These are all great bits for ambiguity, and mainly just need blurbs to be refined out of the notes/past threads, instead of needing much new content.

Seconding this. We have plenty of new content it reached the "there's no way I can possibly keep up with this so imma just read the bits that I'm familiar with" threshold half a dozen threads ago, we just need it cleaning and polishing. Editfag, the anons of this thread cry out to you for aid!

I think that those things were intentionally made obscure or at least poorly defined.

AL, OL, Hydra and friends are secret society that may have roots going back to pre-imperial times.

I think that it was suspected that Makari is the Brain Boy but Ghazzkhul is hellishly smart for an ork.

Outsider is a self-deleting idea and an immortal that wants to die.

Kryptman is the highest authority of n the 'Nids and he believes that the Hive Mind can comprehend and even recognize individuals. But he's completely fucking insane so it could all be in his head.

SOMETHING keeps tangling up his festmas day lights.

There is also one daemon prince of Malal. One. Malal got the crap beaten out of him at the end of the War in Heaven, and so he only had enough power to exalt one daemon prince.

However, because so much of Malal's essence is bound up in this daemon prince, it makes him almost impossible to kill permanently. Oh they can try, but he'll always come back.

After about the twelfth time or so the Grey Knights got fed up with killing his ass and decided to take a page from the Kinebrach. They captured the daemon prince alive and Cask of Amontilladoed him in a padded, warded cell on Ganymede.

>whether or not the Hivemind comprehends individuals that fight it
I think this one we actually have a good handle on. IIRC the Hive Mind is sapient, it's just not sapient in a way that we can understand. It can pick out individuals that threaten it, but more in the sense of a predator picking out potential threats that will spoil a meal than actual malice.

The Swarmlord is the avatar of the Hive Mind, but it only shows up when the Hive Mind needs a boost of Tactical Genius beyond what the tyranids are normally capable of. Most of the implications that the Hive Mind is actively malicious and intelligent in a human manner come from Kryptman, who is not the most reliable observer on the subject.

I think we mentioned a few threads back that since Malal is so weak in the immaterium, but has empowered the shit out of His Guy, the daemon prince is pretty much the entirety of Malam, at least in the materium.

>I wouldn't say that the Harlequins and eldar make up any sort of aristocracy. Harlequins don't rule, they don't govern, they don't administrate and they sure as shit don't do much paper work. The nearest they have to any formal organization is the Dark Carnival and that's not exactly organized.
>Regular eldar might go into governorship but bar a few exceptions they do not formally rule. Instead they direct from just behind the obvious powers. It combines the optimal balance of responsibility, power and safety.

Yeah, I would say the Eldar as a whole don't make up an aristocracy. There's plenty of civilian Eldar, not to mention Exodites and such. It's just that there are a disproportionate number of Eldar in high places relative to their population (which is like what, 10% of the Imperium?), so they seem to be overly common in the aristocracy.

One of the suggestions I loved was the idea that major worlds of the Administratum often have seers (though not farseers) on the payroll as advisors. You know how in canon you often get worlds starving or revolting because the Administratum forgets to fills out the paperwork? Well now you have seers to look into the future to see if the paperwork actually got through and fix things accordingly.

Yup, that was what we had. Which is why it's so hard to kill him.

Actually had a few thoughts on the first and only daemon prince of Malal (which I was calling Apep, or some other name for some kind of self-destructive force of Chaos).

It is said that in his mortal life, the being who would become Apep was a man who through his own hubris caused the destruction of all that he held dear. But rather than realize his self-inflicted role in this tragedy and accept the consequences of his actions, Apep blamed everyone else, cursing the universe itself for his loss. It was this hatred, and his irrational denial of the fact that he was the cause of own suffering, that drew him to Malal's attention in the first place. The rodent-like god came to Apep with a simple offer: "Your old life is gone, there is nothing more for you here. Serve me, and you will have your revenge on the universe".

However, Malal was not the Chaos God he once was. Years of fighting with the four great Ruinous Powers had left him a shadow of the being he once was, and so he had to invest a far greater proportion of his power into Apep. Thus, there could only ever be one daemon prince of Malal. Of course, perhaps this is what Malal intended all along, for if there were more than one Daemon Prince of Malal, one would surely turn on and betray the other.

I'm imagining Apep as a amorphous and never quite stable cloud of what looks like red and orange sand.

It's usually a sort of spider in shape, but mostly because of habit.

Apep's great fuck up that pushed him into the embrace of Chaos was messing around with nano-machines. Possibly his people were one of the early recoveries after the War in Heaven. The nano-bots were salvaged from a Necrontyr tomb.

And that's how the K'nib homeworld was lost.

There was an incident where a killteam of Nobs teleported simultaneously and reliably behind Imperial lines and fucked things up until they were killed. Then there are the Attack Moons. Between stuff like that it's clear something's up.

Ghazzy's got a personal hangup about the Orks being manipulated by Chaos. But he's willing to focus on the Imperium for now and go after Chaos later in revenge for 10,000 years of cannon fodder. It's one thing for an ork to be tricked into a fight (which they probably see like a surprise party). It's another thing for them to be tricked into a losing fight. This is very much a Ghazzy thing, and others just like that Chaos just told them where the best fightin' was. Though with the Brain Boyz now they're starting to see through the thinly-veiled suicide missions where there would be nothing for the Orks (read: no good fightin').

The Chaos Orks are starting to catch on to Ghazzy's dislike of them. Ghazzy's going to have to krump the biggest of them to ensure his hold over the WAAAGH!

For many years, after the reemergence of the Necron Star Empire, there was considerable debate among Imperial scholars as to what a Necron Titan would look like. Many theorized that a Necron Titan would simply look like a giant Necron. Others hypothesized that the C’tan were the Necron’s equivalents of Titans, and after the War in Heaven the Necrons may have had no need for Titan-scale weaponry. This was all before the Necron-Imperium Conflict, that brief period in M40 when tensions between the Imperium and the Necrontyr Star Empire ran hot after the Silent King demanded a trillion subjects for biotransference experiments before settling into the quasi-cold war state that it has today. It was during this period that the Necrons brought out some of the heavy weapons they had to bear, and Imperial scholars learned they had been wrong. Completely, horribly, wrong.

In contrast to nearly all other races, Necron Titans, or Stalkers, are distinctly non-humanoid, almost arachnid or insect-like in appearance. This is perhaps best exemplified by the most commonly seen Necron Stalker, the Tomb Stalker. Rather than standing upright on two large limbs, Tomb Stalkers support their weight via dozens of insectoid limbs, resembling Earth centipedes. These limbs are not only effective in carrying the construct’s weight, but also in burrowing through the ground and tearing through the armor plating of opposing vehicles and titans. This is true not only of the generic Warhound-sized Tomb Stalkers most commonly seen, but also of the larger Scolopendra class Tomb Stalkers, which can be the size of an Imperator Titan.

Compared to other Stalkers, Tomb Stalkers use little in the way of quantum shielding, which is thought to be the Necron’s answer to Void Shields. Instead, they use the very earth as their shield, burrowing beneath the ground in order to ambush their prey. In doing so, Tomb Stalkers are able to achieve something very few Titans are capable of performing: stealth. The effectiveness of the Tomb Stalker’s burrowing strategy became clear during the Necron-Imperium Conflict, when a Tomb Stalker burrowed a circle around an Imperator Titan before erupting from the ground, using the unstable substrate to drag the Imperial Titan to its grave.

Surprisingly enough, Tomb Stalkers are thought to be weaponized construction vehicles. Records obtained from the Imperium’s Necron contacts report that Tomb Stalkers were originally used in constructing the vast tomb complexes that the Necrons inhabited in their heyday. The Necrontyr apparently evolved on a world with blistering levels of stellar radiation, which would kill most lifeforms over an extended period of time. As a result, the only logical place to build cities on the Necrontyr homeworld was underground, resulting in an architectural style that resembled increasingly ornate bunker complexes. The Necrontyr found this architectural style to be highly effective in protecting against meteoroid strikes and orbital bombardments, even after they spread off their homeworld to planets less affected by radiation.

At the other end of the spectrum are the Crypt Stalkers, which resemble gigantic versions of the Terran daddy longlegs. The control center and weaponry are all mounted on the central body of the Crypt Stalker, allowing them to instantly change direction in response to new threats, even capable of rotating their heat rays 180 degrees and suddenly reversing direction without even having to turn. Crypt Stalkers have a sensory array which gives them a nearly 360 degree field of vision, and their long legs allow them to simply step over most obstacles in their path. Crypt Stalkers make much heavier use of void shielding, mainly because their small body and comparatively narrow legs would make them otherwise easy targets for anti-titan weaponry. Triarch Stalkers are similar to Crypt Stalkers, except are smaller with a distinct pilot (closer to tank-sized) and are not capable of omnidirectional movement. They compensate for this with huge melee appendages they can use as melee weapons.

It is still not entirely clear how Stalkers work. It is clear that Stalkers have some kind of intelligence, given their ability to react to changing conditions on the battlefield, but whether that consciousness is a pilot or intrinsic to the machine itself is unknown. The kneejerk assumption would be that Stalkers are operated by an uploaded Necron consciousness, or otherwise powered by a C’tan shard. However, evidence indicates that Tomb Stalkers were around in nearly their current form (minus the heavy weaponry) before the First Wars of Secession, given their use in carving out the underground complexes the Necrontyr called home, long before the Necrontyr had developed biotransferrence or discovered the C’tan. The current running hypothesis is that the Stalkers are controlled by some manner of artificial intelligence, similar to the Scarabs, Canoptek Wraiths, and Crypt Spyders, except on a much larger scale.

Nemesor Zandrekh is known to treat his personal Tomb Stalker like a beloved pet, but it is unknown if this is typical or just another one of the Nemesor’s…eccentricities.

...

Interesting, if not terribly new and exciting. Planning on dealing with the rest of the Necron arsenal?

>The Chaos Orks are starting to catch on to Ghazzy's dislike of them. Ghazzy's going to have to krump the biggest of them to ensure his hold over the WAAAGH!

Man the amount of ad libbed ork fluff in this thread between you and that other user is insane.

Stop passing off your head cannon as cannon.

I don't have much else on the rest of Necron arsenal. Thought I'd give the Necron Titan equivalents some fleshing out since they don't get any love in canon (to the point that people wonder/debate if there are any Necron titans).

Also helps put things in context. Much like how Baneblades are light tanks and Imperial Knights are gardening tools in canon and lasguns are training weapons turned lethal in this timeline, Tomb Stalkers are basically bulldozers someone retrofitted with heavier armor and slapped some guns on to use as a weapon.

It also gives some insight into the Necron's frame of mind. Much like how the Tau thought bombers were more efficient use of time and material than a Titan, it shows how not every race is going to have the same ideas on waging war.

Speaking of which, what caused the Tau to develop Titans in this timeline? Damocles Gulf never happened, or at least it wasn't the shitshow on both sides it was in canon. I assume Sho'Aun is still around Pacific Rim-ing it up in the Tau Empire?

Agreed, let's talk this out before we set anything in stone, shall we?

This was literally discussed way back when Ghazghull first came up back in thread 11.

>We should come up with some suitable chaos ork contender for Ghazghull to surpass. Any noteworthy Orks that fit the bill? My current picture of chaos Orks is a motley band of green horrors, running the gamut from barely coherent, shape-shifting tornados of grots to chaos-mek designed gargants of metal and sinew that fly through the warp belching lightning. On the other hand Ghazghull would bring true brainboyz, absolutely insane intentional wagh-manipulating plans and tech, and forces like kommandos and other specialists that chaos orks are too removed from their genetic programming to become.

Aside from the debate over whether Ghazzy is a true brain boy or just a really smart warboss, there really wasn't a lot of problems with any of the other stuff. And it makes some sense. Chaos followers are known to chafe under any sort of hierarchy, even one as loose as the orks. It's not wiping out all the Chaos Orks, it's fighting the biggest ones who wouldn't have recognized Ghazghull as the biggest and the baddest to make an example of them.

It also gives Ghazghull something to do between the Armageddon Wars, he's not just WAAAGH!ing against the Imperium, he's cleaning house.

Mechanicum plz go.
Plz stay go.
Hubworld tech priests better.

A couple of threads ago it was mentioned we don't have very many notable Orks, so.

Gutsmek Wazdakka began life as but a simple Mek and Speed Freak, tearing about the galaxy on his kustom warbike under one Warboss or another or none at all, upgrading his bike and getting into fights, and he was content.

Then, while chasing a retreating Eldar kill-team, he somehow managed to chase them into the Webway itself. He chased them down, killed them, then looked around and realized he had no idea where he was and no idea how to get back.

For over a year he rampaged around inside the Webway, getting into fights with with Craftworlders and Croneworlders and Dark Eldar and Inquisitors, somehow always managing to evade pursuit, vanishing into the most tangled and gnarled parts of the Webway. It took him a year to find his way back out, winding up on the Ork-held world of Vesp Vi.

When he came out, he was an Ork changed- an Ork inspired. He had seen, in the Webway, his vision of a perfect battleground, of Kults of Speed tearing their way from one end of the galaxy to the other without once having to slow down. He promptly sought out the nearest Kult and challenged their Warboss to a battle for supremacy. The Warboss was bigger, but Wazdakka had the better bike and a holy vision, and when the dust settled he was Warboss Gutzmek Wazdakka. He promptly led his new warband right back into the Webway, trusting in the whims of fate and the will of Gork and Mork to lead him to the next fight.

(cont.)

The method and degree by which Wazdakka navigates the Webway is disputed. At first, it was suspected he was getting by on blind luck, but this seemed increasingly improbable as his rampage continued. Some suspect he is a latent Weirdboy on top of being a Mek, and uses some sort of subconscious psychic talent to navigate. Others believe that Gork and Mork are in fact leading him to good fights. A few suspect he is subtly empowered by Chaos, probably Tzeentch. Some even whisper that he is guided by the subtle hand of Cegorach, shaping Wazdakka and his WAAAGH into a weapon to be rammed into the rotting heart of Commorragh.

Whatever the case, he is a consistent thorn in the Imperium's side. Although his WAAAGHs have been defeated on multiple occasions, each time Wazdakka has escaped, popping back up on the closest Ork world to raise another horde so he can have another go. His astonishing good luck in survival is yet another mystery, one that lends further credence to the idea that he is somehow aided by a higher power. Worse, other Orks have occasionally been finding their way into the Webway independent of Wazdakka's guidance, apparently simply drawn by the WAAAGH energy of his Webway Wars. Only a few, but the number seems to be increasing.

The Imperium's sole consolation is that Wazdakka poses as much a threat to their enemies as to them, with entire Dark Eldar Kabals or Croneworld slaughter-parties wiped out to the last man when they had the misfortune to stumble across his warbands. However, this is small consolation in the face of his raids against Imperial worlds, Exodite worlds, and occasionally even minor Craftworlds.

As the failed assassination attempts pile up and the galaxy grinds closer to its final cataclysm, it seems likely that Warboss Gutsmek Wazdakka will have some role to play in the confrontation- but what, nobody can say. At least, nobody willing to talk comprehensibly.

Thoughts?

What are you doing on page 10? Get back up here.

I like it plz put on the page.

It's proper orky.

Saw these pictures and was inspired to write a brief blurb

---

Excerpt from “The Warmasters: Their Lives and Their Legacies,” by Remembrancer Vinnstan von Krausvitz

“…The rare few individuals elevated to the exalted rank of Warmaster were all famed leaders of great talent, and thus invariably invite comparison to their legendary predecessors, the Primarchs. As the greatest of the Warmasters, Macharius is the one most often held up to the Primarchs’ as an equal, and the Primarch Vulkan (with whom Macharius worked very closely) once said that Macharius possessed Lion El’Jonson’s idealism and tactical acumen, Roboute Guilliman’s eye for detail and planning, and Mortarion’s single-minded stubbornness. However, it is also said that Macharius had Angron’s temper, and on occasion Fulgrim’s love of carousing and drink.
Other Warmasters, such as Joanna of Aarkius, have been compared to…”

>Fig. 1: A portrait of Marshal Macharius shortly after his promotion to Segmentum Obscurus Command at the young age of 78. Famously austere in his everyday life, Macharius shunned the elaborate uniforms and symbols of office of his peers, seen in the simple officer’s uniform he wears in this painting. Note the Star of Terra, the highest military commendation of the Imperium, pinned on his left chest, won for his actions as a colonel in the Battle of the Melas Gulf where he took command of a few broken regiments of guardsmen and a Navy cruiser wing after their commanders fell and set up a brilliant trap that destroyed a marauding Dark Eldar warband that was threatening the integrity of the entire-subsector.

>Fig. 2: A late portrait of Warmaster Macharius, painted at the age of 437 towards the end of the Macharian Crusades and his life. The second Star of Terra pinned on his right chest was won during First Macharian Crusade at the Battle of Granicor VI, where Macharius personally led the tank line in a surprise attack on the Khrave lines, breaking the bulk of their gathered army, which would lead to the eventual defeat and destruction of the Khrave Empire and the extinction of this particular species of Xenos Horrificus.

---

Tried to bring in a little more Alexander flavor to our AU's Macharius, especially in his temper and boozing.

Also more Angron will be posted either Saturday or Sunday.

I like it.

It is well done. It gives a real sense of weight and makes a character both legendary and flawed.

To really imitate Alexander the Great he would have to have been planning another crusade at the time of death.

Is good. I like the 'young age of 78' detail.

I think he was. It was mentioned in the Machairius stuff that he wasn't too fond of the Eldar having a bunch of habitable worlds that they had no greater presence on than a bunch of Space Amish. But to actually plan such a campaign rather than voice his politically incorrect opinion ("Carthago delenda est") would be outright treason and I'm not sure Machairius would have gone that far. Of course, it's almost a given that Machairius would have been planning a crusade in the opposite direction of his main one as soon as resources allowed.

Macharius was said to be like a mix between MacArthur and Alexander. He could turn a rout into a victory and a victory into a resounding victory. He could plan logistics and wage war with more success than any other man. Problem is he had less social graces than Dorn (who was more like Churchill or Patton in that he was just blunt and could still win people over in person, as opposed to Machairius who seems to be the type who just didn't care) and tended to pick a bunch of stupid fights. So the trade off with Machairius is that with him around you tended to win a lot more, but you also had a whole bunch more wars in general.

Thanks homies. I pretty much wrote this in a few minutes since I saw the badass picture of Clint Eastwood in a Russian general uniform and thought, "Man, that would make a great Macharius." That there was a picture of Hugh Jackman as well who looks eerily like Clint was just icing on the cake.

In the Fig 2 blurb I do mention a "First Macharian Crusade," with the assumption there would have been several to mirror Alexander's campaigns.

(cont)
I also massively disagree with the comparison to MacArthur. This is personal bias, but MacArthur may be one of the single most overrated military leaders in US history, if not history in general. He miserably failed in the defense of the Philippines despite have time to dig in and prepare, and his island hopping campaign was formulated by his underlings which he then took credit for. Even then he treated the Australians like shit and disregarded input from the front lines because he thought he could just take the island by throwing bodies at them. There's a reason he was mocked as "Dugout Doug," and his only real talent was propaganda, self-promotion and having his helicopter-parent mother nag politicians for his promotions.


Macharius may have similarly been abrasive and a bit of an asshole, but he was genuinely devoted to the Imperium rather than himself and was personally extremely talented.

How about more like Montgomery, then?
>Fits with the general britbong influence IG have already have
>Kept service branches separate but kept them working as smoothly, if not better, than new-fangled combined arms.
>Insisted on having contact with his men, both to raise their morale and their standards
>Pissed off allied commanders who kept expecting his pride to get the better of him
>"I have cancelled the plan for withdrawal. If we cannot stay here alive, then we will stay here dead"
>Described as "In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable"
>To this day, historians still aren't sure what was the next step in his master plan

That's where the "pick more fights than was a good idea" (MacArthur and China) and "bad habit of mouthing off" comes from. Alex, despite being a drunkard and an entitled little shit, at least led from the front lines (which nearly got him a Persian haircut). I agree that Machairius was actually skilled, which is why he wasn't sacked in the first place when he started getting weird.

Getting hyped for Saturday and Sunday.

I think the Montgomery comparison works pretty well, especially since we have the Macharian philosophy of keeping roles separate as seen in the Krieg fluff (for any readers who are unaware): "The Macharians take their name from Lord Solar Macharius, who famously forged an army from a mass of diverse elements and worlds, making a flexible legion ready for every element. In their minds, trying to force guardsmen to march and act the same is an act of folly, that denies useful specialization and experience. Any attempted reform would take hundreds of years, untold fortunes, and would cause the war machine to grind to a halt even as they are besieged on all sides. Catachans are expert jungle fighters, Valhallans ice worlders, Chem Dogs tunnel fighters, and so on and so forth. Why break what isn't broken?"


Also, random question, are people happy with the intro blurb I wrote at the top of the Nobledark Imperium Drafts page? Should I move it to the official page above the current welcome message?

>what was the next step in his master plan
God fucking dammit I hate this place

It's damn good, especially with the tone matching the vanilla 40k blurb. I was honestly going to originally move it over when it first went up, but I was just a little concerned that the opening of the page is pretty wall-of-text already. I'll leave it up to all you other anons to decide.

Montgomery Macharius sounds good to me, and if you're good with general fluffy writefaggotry, would you mind finishing the Road to M41? I'm not really good at summarising without forgetting a lot of important shit.

Crushing this WAAAAAGH - with no survivors!

Blurb looks good, perhaps a little human centric but not badly so.

It gives the right feel to it being every civilized world manning the barricades against the endless horde, waiting out the night knowing that the dawn will come and they just have to somehow survive until then.

Looking through the wiki, I noticed we've got basically nothing on the Tau up there. So, somebody tell me what we've got on the Tau so I can start filling it out.

bump

Check the notes. There's quite a bit on several Tau characters there.

The Tau are the largest "minor" race in the Imperium, which means they number in the billions rather than the trillions like the Eldar and humans. Tau Empire is larger than in canon, about the size of Ultramar. They're really ambitious and want to be the next big movers and shakers in the galaxy, and that goal may just be attainable if they survive the End Times.

Main Tau Empire is more progressive, sees a lot of similarities between Imperial policy and Greater Good (of which the Tau believe in the more ideal form, of course), whereas Farsight Enclaves are the traditionalists who picked up their ball and went home.

One big thing that hasn't been talked about a lot is a lot of the more negative traits of the Tau in canon are gone in exchange for their plot armor. For example, the Ethereals can't be brainwashing the Tau in this timeline, because in canon the brainwashing abilities of the Ethereals were engineered by the Eldar using Q'orl glands to make the Tau into future allies. But since Eldar are allied with humans, there's no need to uplift a race for that purpose. That's why we came up with Aun'O Da. As befits a nobledark universe, the Tau in this timeline unified their people through hard work and blood, sweat and tears, just like humans. The Tau's adherence to the Greater Good is because they literally believe it is the best way to live (combined with some social engineering) as opposed to mind control.

That's not to say they're flawless. Ethereals currently have a big problem where they want Tau society to advance but they're reluctant to let go of the reins. The Tau also had some arrogance issues early on, but it's less prominent now.

(cont.)
>the Ethereals can't be brainwashing the Tau in this timeline, because in canon the brainwashing abilities of the Ethereals were engineered by the Eldar using Q'orl glands to make the Tau into future allies. But since Eldar are allied with humans, there's no need to uplift a race for that purpose.

Iwas thinking that the Tau probably have some ability to detecy pheromones naturally, and their slit is a Jacobson's organ. For pheromones, you have to have a reciever to send a signal. In practice, it just means that Tau are capable of loosely sensing emotional states of those around them (works best with Tau, less well with other races). Minor stuff like one fire warrior getting pumped up for battle getting everyone pumped up, but not enough to overwhelm someone.

Did we ever settle when they joined?

Mid M39ish.

You're underestimating the numbers.

Humanity has quadrillions. Elder have more than a hundred trillion counting all the exodites, craftworlders and enclaves.

Dat pic.

I'm guessing that every member state of the Imperium took a look at the Space Marines and said some thing on the liens of "we need something that can do that"

This would be the Kinebrach equivalent.

It might have it's A.I. based/transferred from an old pet.

Scabbles the dog analogue will live forever.

Bumpin for hopes of the Angron writefaggatory

I don't think we need extra flavours of the exact same thing with distinct factions blanding out

Seconded. We're already accused of being too human-centric a lot and rightly so so wanking them off more won't really help.

That being said, is what I'd imagine Nobledark gue'vesa would look like; not exactly those under Tau rule, but those living on their worlds and/or brought into Tau regiments instead of regular IG

Yeah, you're probably right. Iyanden was said to have like a hundred trillion pre-Kraken. Sounds like a lot, but an utter drop in the bucket compared to humanity (and orks, but the day Orks form an actual society is the day Ahriman brings back Prospero).

Point is that humans and Eldar are so numerous that Tau are essentially part of "other" in terms of percentage. The biggest contributor to "other", by and large, but still "other". Tau were said to have a disproportionate presence in the military relative to their population, because they see it as their way to show up the establishment.

Kinebrach may not need super soldiers. In Horus Rising the Kinebrach were used by the Interex as their shock troopers, along with their robo-centaur suits (the name of which eludes me right now), which also functioned as heavy cavalry, and the centaurs could take on a space marine one-on-one (though I think they had the edge in range, whereas the space marine won in RIP AND TEAR quarters).

The Kinebrach may not be the finely tuned war machines that the Astartes are (which is why they're the Imperium's super soldier of choice, they're just so efficient and can do a multitude of things), but they're nothing to sneeze at.

I think that the Kinebrach's main contribution to the war effort should not be soldiers, although those that they have are formidable. By weight of numbers they are insignificant on their own.

It's their weapons, specifically their blades that the Imperium craves.

They have a sort of Sauron-lite thing going where they put a lot of themselves into their work and that's not entirely figurative.

There's a lot of ceremony and ritual to it but one of their masters smiths can beat a blade containing hate and anger and sorrow and it will hunger for war and vengeance on his behalf.

The inquisition is always willing to pay top throne for a genuine Kinebrach knife. They make great deamon stabbers and a deamon stabbed with one of those knives knows it's been stabbed.

But there is a price to this.

Strands of fate twist around that metal and it will always be dragged to the war and will drag whoever is holding it. Not that this makes any difference in the Dark Millennium, everyone who owns one of those blades is already marching along the war path.

>is the day Ahriman brings back Prospero
mein negro

The blurb is great. I would argue that the human-centricness actually helps a bit in this one instance, even if it doesn’t elsewhere. It’s a deliberate parallel to the intro of vanilla 40k, which is human-centric (really human-centric now that I go back and read it, it doesn’t even mention any of the non-human factions by name), but it does so in a way that helps introduce new readers to the project by contrasting what’s said in vanilla and what’s said here, enunciating the major differences between the two timelines. In particular it throws you a curveball by saying “nope, it’s not just humanity standing on the walls of the citadel of civilization, it’s also the Eldar, Tau, demiurge, etc.” A good in-universe intro to the out-of-universe one currently on the main page.

Agreed. It was mentioned in the Kinebrach fluff that the Kinebrach entered into the alliance with the Interex because the Interex offered the Kinebrach protection in exchange for gear. Like gorillas, the Kinebrach mostly want to be left to live and let live, and if someone else wants to make war on their behalf so be it.

Kinebrach shock troopers worked well for the Interex because they were so small, but they aren't viable on a large scale. You probably wouldn't see any Kinebrach on the battlefield outside of the Segmentum Pacificus.

A kinebrach working at their forge can contribute far more to the war effort than one on the battlefield.

I'm thinking that in war the Interex focus heavily on their mechanized cavalry (sagitarr, that's what they were called) and long-ranged weapons (the weird bow-like things), making them great at mobility, positioning, and making the battle happen on the Interex's terms. It makes them bad when they actually have to stand and fight (which got them wiped out in canon) but before the Imperium that's usually when the kinebrach were called in. Sagitarr can function as heavy infantry with the right weapons and combined with the Kinebrach that was usually enough.

I like the idea of kinebrach weapons being kind of weird in the way they seem to pick up a history and act like more than chunks of metal.

I like a lot of this, particularly how it fits with Machairius’ doctrine of war (also mentioned by ) However, from what I can tell, it sounds like Montgomery could function just fine once the war was over. Though maybe I just haven’t read enough on him. The comparison with MacArthur was more to give an example of a general who liked war too much for his own good that existed in an era of guns as opposed to swords.

It sounds like the basic gist for Machairius is…
- One of the best commanders in Imperial history in terms of tactics and logistics, particularly in terms of offensive tactics as opposed to Guilliman's empire-consolidating ones
- However, he just couldn't function off the battlefield and like Alexander he spent most of his non-crusading time either drunk or drawing up his next crusade
- To his credit, other than alcohol he was completely straight-edge and incorruptable, which was even more of a virtue in this era where Chaos is an ever-present threat
- Like Montgomery, he kept the branches of the Imperial military separate, but was so good at coordinating and assigning the right division for the right job that he made it work wonders
- Additionally like all of the above he was absolutely obnoxious in terms of socialization, and like MacArthur had a tendency to escalate situations that could have been resolved in other manners
- However, like Montgomery, he was good enough to win his way out of the holes he dug himself (although there may have been some political damage that others had to clean up), to the utter frustration of those who knew him.

Ironically, I think Alexander was also heavily influenced by his mother as well. I would recommend this not be a feature of Machairius.

So is Colonel-Commossair Ibram Gaunt in service to Prince Yriel or indebted or what is the deal?

Indebted, I think. It's mentioned though that Yriel is recognized as a saint or great hero in Tanith's native religion.

Cool, thanks for the feedback, will move the blurb over soon.

Yeah, I could take a stab at the summary stuff, but it will probably have to wait until after Angron and the Sanguinor stuff I've been meaning to write for a while. If I'm really ambitious I may even finish the ancient Sons of Antaeus stuff I wrote half a page of before abandoning way back when we discussed them. So if any of the other writefags is feeling up to the task, feel free to write up the summary.

“You want me to explain to you why we did it? Why? And why ask me?”

“I see. An accounting then. And I suppose I am the closest thing the galaxy has to an actual historian in this era. Aside, perhaps, from that old wraith in the weeds Orikan.”

“When the Necrontyr first spread beyond the confines of our world, it was not long before we encountered the Old Ones. But the Old Ones had known of us long before we knew of them. They knew of the horror and suffering we had experienced on our homeworld, and had known for millennia. And they did nothing.”

“I want you to picture that. A race of god-like beings capable of bending the galaxy to their will. And they did nothing. The Old Ones could have offered us sanctuary on another world. They could have told us that Aza’gorod was hiding in our star. But they didn’t. They only cared about themselves and their experiments. How many other races had suffered like we had for the sake of their curiosity? How many species had been uplifted and then discarded like tools, or removed like weeds.”

“I imagine the declaration to go to war with the Old Ones was met with shock across the Necrontyr Star Empire. Regardless of their actions, the Old Ones were still as gods to us, capable of things we could barely begin to comprehend. But after the Old Ones, we were the most advanced race we knew of in the galaxy. The only ones capable of defying them. The eldest child standing up against the abusive parent. The Old Ones were truly lords of the galaxy, capable of cultivating species like more primitive civilizations cultivate crops. But any lord that would inflict such suffering in their name upon their subjects deserves to be dragged from their throne.”

“Was that how it truly was? Was that how the Old Ones really saw the younger races? I don’t know. I was not there when the first shots of the War in Heaven were fired. I was only there when it ended.”

“All I know is that the War in Heaven was such a colossal waste. Trillions of Old Ones and Aeldari and Necrontyr and Krork killed and for what. The Old Ones are extinct. The Necrontyr sold their souls and the moral high ground for the power to defeat them. The Realm of Souls turned into poison for life. Thousands of species killed or turned into living weapons. We sought to free life from the Old Ones’ dominion. Instead we brought the hell that was our homeworld to the rest of the galaxy. The ‘original sin’, as I believe you humans would put it. Maybe there was a better way. Maybe things could have been resolved peacefully.”

“But at the same time, that is why I have so many expectations for this era.”

“You seem surprised. Perhaps I should explain. When I awoke from the Long Sleep, it was as if everything old had been made new again. The scars of the old war were still there, but it was as if galactic history had been rewritten from scratch. So many new things to learn. So many new species to encounter and study. And it was a galaxy without overlords. Life free to develop as it chose. Without a single species to impose their overarching will on the galaxy, there is so much more room for diversity. A place for everyone, one might say. Not just the races united in your Imperium, but the Q’orl, the orks, the rak-ghol, the tyranids. And yes, even the old Star Empire, if it is willing to adapt to the times. Whereas you see the galaxy in crisis, I see something different. The galaxy has had sixty five million years to write its own story. I, Trazyn the Infinite, want to see what it has written.”

- Trazyn the Infinite, regaled to a human scribe on Solemnace

Excellent work, and in an area that could definitely use some fleshing out since vanilla 40k never really does explain Trazyn's kleptomania, does it?

I noticed that Fulgrim and Dorn are the two primarchs that need fluff, so is Primarchfag still around, and if you are, are you still planning on writing up Dorn? Or do we want to hash out details collaboratively in the thread like we did for Lion, and have someone write up afterwards?

And will Fulgrim be finished during our lifetime?

I was giving it a bit more editing since when I posted last week people complained. My hope is to deal with his time through the Great Crusade and his retirement, and the rough shape of the iron cage incident, but I'm not going into detail on it.

by all means go ahead with Dorn.

>Known to operate on toxic worlds, these warriors can withstand plagues and poisons. This ability has led them to be frequently used by the Ordo Securitas and Orders Securitas or Militant to fight minions of Nurgle. The 68th is rather infamous for their last passing exam. Recruits are given the final training mission of either surviving or completing objectives on a poisonous Death world. Those that pass or live this deadly test are offered to drink the blood of their predecessors. The foundation for the regiment goes is that The Empress herself blessed the original 68th Delphic Lions Regiment back during the War of The Beast or the founder was one of the humans in Isha's Rescue. The story is surrounded in mystery but what is clear is that whoever drinks the blood of those who were originally was blessed, are transferred the immunity to most poisons and plagues. The same effect of being able to transfer the blessing is also present among those who have not been blessed but drank blessed blood.

This doesn't sound Grimdark right? Maybe the whole poison-world-test could be changed.

It looks right.

Scions are the elite of the elite, poison world test fits.

This raises the question of how powerful is Macha/Isha?

I would say that she and Ceggers are not that powerful as individuals.

It's like with the deamons. It's easier to summon a small one because it takes less upkeep to fuck reality over enough to let it exist. The bigger they are the more effort required. Greater Deamons require a lot of effort to maintain a presence in reality for even a short time. The gods can't walk in the real world because they are to big and reality is too demanding.

How do Isha and Ceggers do it? They shed a lot of their unreal mass till the point that they can pass for nearly normal. The power is then distributed and kept safe in their followers and other people they have taken a liking to.

How powerful is Isha/Macha as in the person standing besides the Emperor? Probably high end psychic of Magnus or Apex Twins levels.

It seems kind of shit but being so small they can stay in the real world indefinitely and the real world is relatively safe. Also it makes their followers more powerful.

Harlequins are more graceful and swift than any other elder can be with out unnatural means. Isha disciples are supernaturally brilliant doctors and often have no trouble having large families.

That is brilliant. It gives a much needed why for what he is doing. The shit he does is still pretty fucking stupid, because he's Trazyn the Infinite, but at least there's a reason for it.

So when the Impossible Child is born what are some of the things that could happen?

Also how well known is Taldeer's pregnancy and how badly are people freaking the fuck out?

>have no trouble having large families
and again, this is by eldar standards, with many centuries to cement their legacies, so to speak

Not really a 40k fan here, but I really like the idea behind the obliterator cults and the mutilators.

Has anything been done with them yet? Maybe a fusion?

Ork obliterators are a thing but nothing more beyond that so far. Regular Fallen Marine obliterators are probably more rare than Ork ones.

I think that it was also mentioned that the Isha priestess' are the only ones who can make soul stones, so there is also that.

>Orkbliterators

Oh shit

They killed Ferus Mannus in a previous war for Armageddon. As the last of the Primarchs his death marked the end of an era.

I'm going through the 1d4 wiki now. Amazing work so far.

We still need to expand on the named Crone Eldar characters and the Dark Eldar in general.I was thinking of making a Cronefleet commander who is the evil mirror of Honor Harrington that fought in the 7th Black Crusade where Fallen Marines stole updated gene-seeds from several different Space Marine regiments.

>Mary Sue Horatio Nelson
Why not just base the character on Nelson himself instead of a shitty expy? Though I was thinking Nelson would be a good basis for Abbadon in this AU especially with the shared trait of losing arms in battle.

Other options as a basis for your character could be Yi Sun-sin, the Korean guy who repeatedly BTFO the Japanese if you want a story of a smaller Chaos fleet driving back the overwhelming numbers of the Imperium, or Ching Shih, a crazy Chinese pirate lady who built up a truly ridiculous sized fleet if you want to go for the marauding raider angle.

Also, I don't know that gene-seed would be something that traitors would have to steal or have upgraded versions of. The augmentations aren't based on Primarch DNA and instead can just be vat-grown from a template, and the final version of the standard marine (Mk III MP) was finished before the Great Crusade even started. I suppose traitors could raid the augmentation facilities for the organs if their own facilities are insufficient or can't produce them fast enough.

>So when the Impossible Child is born what are some of the things that could happen?

A lot of the things that could happen aren't directly related to the Impossible Child, but are supposed to happen in tandem with it. But there's stuff like someone letting the Void Dragon loose and Sol being under siege, "The exile returning from his banishment", "the lord of war taking to the field of battle once more", Ghazzy becoming the Beast 2.0, etc.

>Also how well known is Taldeer's pregnancy and how badly are people freaking the fuck out?

Not sure. Taldeer isn't a super well-known figure, but she's well-known enough that her disappearance would be noted. She's known for her extreme competence in leading the 1st Kronus Liberators after Sturnn died despite being field promoted, like Colonel-Commissar Gaunt. Her relationship with LIIVI is more of a secret few know about.

Still, Taldeer's pregnancy is well-known enough that some military officers know of it, and it triggered a human supremacist attack on Sreta (though that could have just been disgruntled members of House Ulthran). It could be that it was meant to be a secret, but ended up being a very badly kept one.

I was actually thinking about an in-universe reason for why everything seems to be coming to a head at the turn of M41. Obviously, the reason out-of-universe is it’s simply more dramatic to have the main fleet of the tyranids make galaxyfall, Chaos gear up for its biggest Black Crusade yet, Ghazghull becoming the Beast 2.0, the Necrons finally getting their shit booted up, the Starchild Prophecies being fulfilled, etc., all at the same time. However, in-universe it might be possible that all of this happening at the same time is backlash from Eldrad mucking around too much with the threads of fate. Manipulating the future is generally done in the least invasive manner possible, but eventually all those changes build up and you get a backlash. It’s like trying to change the course of a river. At the same time, Eldrad might actually be aware of this, and has been trying to beef up the galaxy’s defenses the best he can so it can ride out the backlash and we get Eldrad’s Golden Age as a result.

Alternatively, this could be just one of several theories posted by in-universe sources. Chaos could claim that everything coming to a head exactly 11,000 years and 13 Black Crusades after the Imperium formed was a massive case of JUST AS PLANNED by the birdman. The Necrons would say that it merely coincides with how long it took them to get their shit together. Death has no meaning, save for that which the living try to ascribe to it in passing. The tyranids…well, no one bothered to ask them, but it would probably be something like “screeee!”