Nobledark 40k 28: Multi-Drug withdrawal eddition

Eversors as they are in Vanilla would probably be way too grimderp for this AU.

I'm going to suggest that they are what happens when you training of a grammaton cleric from Equilibrium

youtube.com/watch?v=y_JGI0JhCkQ

But instead of training them how to sniff out dissent they are trained in additional combat techniques. Assassins don't choose their targets, that's what the Inquisition and the Arbiters are for.

Then they are cybernetically enhanced but not to the point where they couldn't pass for human to a casual observer.

Then they are given temporary buffs when they go in for the kill by performance enhancing drugs.

The end result is not quite The Terminator, it's not quite a Grammaton Cleric and it's not quite and agent from Syndicate but it has quite a lot of elements from all of them.

They are as altered for their task as a space marine if not more so but built for speed and offensive above all else. The final stage of the job, the closing in and the kill, must be done reasonably quickly due to the drugs. They don not kill the assassin usually but the withdrawal will often have them curled up in the bottom of a closet weeping and/or shivering.

They are expensive and time consuming to produce but they can go through a room of lesser combatants like a hot knife through runny butter. And they are volunteers.

For all that even with the best medical care and no workplace fatality they probably won't live much past 50 at the very most. But the pay is holy shit levels of good and much as Mortarion volunteered for Thunder Warrior treatments it's usually for the benefit of their families that they do it.

Probably. I keep thinking of a Nobledark Eversor as a weird cross between Bender Rodriguez and John Wick. Does horrible things for a living, and is completely non-chalant about it. Like "yeah, Uncle Eversor kills people for a living, wanna see my skull collection?" Though that may be the wrong idea.

The Asssassins, despite having cleaned up their act, are still monsters. They are habitually neat, well-groomed, and efficient monsters, but monsters nonetheless. No matter how much they try, there is always that dark streak in them. Draco Vangorich was hinted at having tried pulling the Beheading so that the history of the shameful origins of the Assassins could be destroyed and the order could start fresh. He failed.

As mentioned in the assassin fluff, they're essentially Hashshashin that cleaned up their act and became civilized enough to fit in with the rest of society. Just civilized enough. They're a religious sect pretending to be a government organization. Given the nature of their job, I assume modern assassin...er...beliefs might tend towards Faceless Man or movie!Wanted-esque "kill one person, save a thousand".

On the nice end you get people like LIVII who have a huge body count but yet still have a soft side. On the other you get people that Conrad Kurze would have found over the top.

Just to throw out some more ideas, I once read a cracky AU with an Eversor who managed to be both oddly endearing and pants-wettingly terrifying. Seemed downright friendly with people who weren't targets, never raised his voice once, meant every word that came out of his mouth, absolutely believed in what he was doing. He was extremely memorable.

Alternatively, pic related. (It STILL weirds me out, but again, memorable!)

So does the little snip on Captain Ahab's 'spear' last thread counts?

Aka the Heartseeker

An idea for a Dark Mechanicus faction. More to follow, hopefully.

>Heretekal sects of the Dark Mechanicus

>The Church of the Omnissiah-Beyond-The-Horizon/"Visserites"
An offshoot of the merely heterodox Tiplerite sect. The Tiplerites believed that the Omnissiah did not exist- yet, but needed to be built, the final end goal of the quest for knowledge. The Visserites got the brilliant idea to try and accelerate the process by building a machine that would receive messages from the future Omnissiah through the warp, instructing them on how to bring itself into existence.
It worked, after a fashion. They started getting messages from... something.
Although they make heavy use of warptech, they seemingly have no affiliation with any of the gods or even Chaos Undivided; whatever they're talking to, it's something more strange and obscure than that, something from out in the Chaos Wastes.
Even by Dark Mechanicus standards, the constructions of the Visserites are strange and disturbing. They tend to incorporate human (specifically human- xenos are utterly unsuitable for the creation of human machines) tissues seamlessly into the electronics and ironmongery. Many components are utterly incomprehensible, their principles of operation entirely alien. The goals of these machines and procedures, likewise, is often obscure; whatever distortions they have on the world around them, they usually seem to be mere side-effects of their actual purpose. Whatever that might be.
-

(These devices undoubtedly use the powers of the warp, but it should be noted that they are not daemon engines. The Visserites do not deal with daemons; they have other sources of power.)
When the Visserites have held a world long enough, scarred enough of its surface with their machines, it becomes... daemon-ish. Not precisely a daemon-world, since the Visserites don't use daemons. But a similar blending of the real and unreal. Impossible machines fading into existence out of thin air. Bastard offspring of Escher, Giger, and the complete contents of a patent office. Sometimes subtle enough that you need to really pay attention to realize you've gone a level beyond the usual Dark Mechanicus bullshit.
Generally, when you blow up enough of the stuff the effect goes away again. Generally.

Thoughts?

>tune in to hell
>do what the sounds over the radio tell you
devilishly simple, to the point of real menace. Sounds good to me.

Creeepy. Excellent specimen of those "What the hell is this, where did it come from, how do we get rid of it" phenomena that crop up in canon occasionally. Sounds like a good addition to me, too.

Yes. It was good fluff.

That is some really weird shit. It also adds a faction for even Chaos to be wary of.

Vindicare are probably more like the Sniper from TF2; polite, professional but with a plan to kill everyone they meet.

Unlike the Eversor they are generally as human as the day they were born with any alterations done purely to undo damage sustained on the job.

Or if they save up enough they can have their lungs and heart replaced with something that doesn't keep fucking up their aim. But that's a personal decision done in their off time funded by their own pocket.

All that is required of the Vindicare is inhuman patience, an insane attention span, the ability to determine where to perch and wait for the target and excellent aim. all things that can be done by a baseline human, if an exceptional one.

Other than the Vanus and the Callidus they are the most capable of passing for normal, if slightly odd.

I feel like I should do some stuff for Lorgar. Because holy shit there has been no work on him at all.

There was some talk of him joining the Jedi Jesuits towards the end of his career/life.

This being after the break up and wide distribution of his Legion some time after the WoTB.

Yeah, the stuff on Lorgars latent psykery from thread...9...I believd needs to go on the notes page but never did.

Do the Blood Angels still drink blood in this AU?

Do you remember what was said about it in that thread?

only ceremonially in most cases

I'm guessing that it's a Baalite influence.

Is Baal recruited from by multiple chapters?
Given the low population it couldn't provide for multiple chapters exclusively.

So it would imply, should the blood drinking practice be widespread, that the Baal influences have spread beyond one world.

So it implies that most of not all Blood Angels recruit from a common pool, supplied by many worlds and the Baal influences spread that way.

>generally as human as the day they were born with any alterations done purely to undo damage sustained on the job

Wouldn't that preclude use of the canon Exitus rifle? I read somewhere that they need muscular reinforcement just to fire those things without hurting themselves, though I admit I'm not sure if my source was an official one anymore...

Baal is a lifeless rockball in this timeline. Blood Angels claimed it when it was clear that Sanguinus was gone and they had to move on, and named it Baal after Sanguinius Baal to show that they were all symbolic sons or brothers of Sanguinius.

To make a long story short, Lorgar was a latent psyker, probably second strongest among the primarchs. He never noticed. Magnus figured it out, but he noticed it while he was still mistrustful of others and never said anything.

Lorgar avoided daemonic possession because he was so full of faith combined with his psyker powers he was like a living daemon bane. He would sing hymns and daemons would tear at their ears screaming. This was exacerbated by him joining the more monastic higher-ups of the Katholian secs, who were like 50% cardinals and 50% buddhist monks. They didn't want to let him in, but Lorgar had accomplished so much it was hard to keep him out. A side effect was that Lorgar became extremely ascetic. When he died his personal possessions could fit in a single box.

So no native Baalites then.

Why did they choose that world to set up shop?

what were his personal possessions that he decided to keep?

I hadn't realized that the Exitus rifles were that heavy. Not doubting but have you got sauce?

Skeletal reinforcement and some muscular enhancements cover it maybe?

Also has it ever been stated or speculated where polymorphine comes from?

That's more describing a very impressive Death Cult assassin, rather than a capital-A "Assassin," who are all augmented in canon. While a baseline human could be very skilled, a Vindicare is on a whole other level, like "circumcise-a-fly-from-1km" level of shooting skill which a baseline human simply can't reach. As it stands, canon Vindicares could probably fit into this AU without a whole lot of editing, other than the whole kidnapping children recruitment process.

While this makes sense, it seems like it loses the flavor of Eversors though. I mean we all love them because they're insane human missiles crossed with blenders that cackle as they explode. Maybe they're condemned criminals who are compatible with the augments and modifications? Can't be a worse fate than servitorization.

Yeah, there's no warp shenanigans or physical flaw they makes the BAs drink blood like in canon. They could drink blood ceremonially in this AU as a (gross) reminder of the lives they are dedicated to protect, the blood they will shed, and the ultimate sacrifice each of them will eventually make.

Don't think this was ever stated in the fluff. Is there a comment in a thread regarding Baal?

I went looking again, and weirdly, the Lexicanum gives no specs at all that I found.

The wikia, though, has this to say re: the *pistol* version:

>The recoil from an Exitus Pistol is such that only a Vindicare's enhanced musculature allows them to fire the weapon one-handed

and I'd assume that the rifle kicks a hell of a lot harder, so even if you're properly braced, OUCH.

>While this makes sense, it seems like it loses the flavor of Eversors though. I mean we all love them because they're insane human missiles crossed with blenders that cackle as they explode. Maybe they're condemned criminals who are compatible with the augments and modifications? Can't be a worse fate than servitorization.

Condemned criminals you run a serious risk of them turning and WRRRYYY!-ing you. I would say that the above is what happens when you get an Eversor who wants to be "friendly" and subtle. Many aren't. Even on their best behavior, they're still murder machines that aren't safe to be around and are disturbingly uncomfortable.

Seeing as the Assassins are already kind of a death cult, Eversors could be people who want to be a murder machine, the embodiment of death at its most violent (including, eventually, their own). People look at these guys even weirder than they do Space Marines, because while most can see where someone would want to be Captain America, what kind of mind do you have to have to want to be Spawn? Eversors are comparatively chill because they're at ease with the fact that death comes to everyone, but they still turn into exploding whirlwinds of violence the moment you flick the switch.

>Baal

It was brought up a couple of times in the thread, namely how the Blood Angels ended up on a world with the same last name as their primarch.

whoops. Turns out my source...

>a full one point eight seven meters long when fully deployed, nearly as tall as the man carrying it, weighing eight kilograms unloaded, a full nine loaded
>Ordinary human beings do not hold a rifle in one hand, and a pistol in the other. Much less a rifle designed to pound a near kilogram round across a battlefield to, if necessary, blow apart a monstrosity spawned of nightmares and the unholy vagaries of the Warp. The pistol was little better than a sized down version of the rifle. This is because it might break your arms.

...was actually Love Can Bloom. O'course, I don't own any of the actual game books, so maybe Bloom Writer had a source, but I can't verify it.

Still, the wikia confirms that they kick like grox, and I've read of much smaller real-life rifles that'll bruise your shoulder something dreadful, so we can still assume that this is a serious whopper of a gun.

...

>Heretekal Sects of the Dark Mechanicus, part two
>The Malevolence Engine
Dedicated to destruction, to a degree unusual for the Dark Mechanicus. Where most heretek sects have goals beyond pure destruction, the Malevolence Engine does not; they exist solely to destroy societies. The Imperium is the most common target, but other forces of Chaos, the Silent Empire, minor xenos... everything is a valid target.

The psychology of the Malevolence Engine is reflected in their most common chant: "The Malevolence Engine sees all weakness!" Interrogations of captured subjects indicates that they feel compelled to exploit any flaw they perceive, whether military, economic, social, psychological, architectural...

To this end, they make far greater use of infiltration than any other Dark Mechanicus sect, or indeed almost any faction. Using a sophisticated array of mind control devices, front corporations, suborned criminal organizations, etc. they insert agents into all levels of Imperial society to gather information and attack from within. They carefully gather intimate knowledge of their target before attacking along every possible avenue, ruthlessly exploiting every weakness.

The actions of suborned merchant houses combine with short-sighted sector fiscal policy to cause a sector-wide economic meltdown. As prices rise and jobs vanish, revolutionary groups arise on a hundred worlds simultaneously, overwhelming law enforcement with surprisingly well-planned attacks. Hamstrung by logistical issues, the sector military struggles to resist; the few counter-offensives they manage to mount are crushed by an enemy with absolute mention of their doctrines. As populations collapse into hysteria as news of defeat after defeat leaks past the censors, charismatic demagogues stoke the flames higher and higher...
-

They rarely manage anything on that scale. The Inquisition is vigilant, the Farseers far-seeing. But every so often, the chance comes along, the flaw left exposed... and worlds die.

Although generally considered a Chaos force, they follow no god; the Malevolence Engine cannot stand to subordinate itself to something so clearly flawed. It would destroy the gods if it could, but it cannot. So it is Undivided, grudgingly. Because what it wants cannot be achieved without the power of the warp.

Thoughts?

Not bad, but seems to be only tangentially related to the Mechanicus. Hard to say how it advances knowledge since at its basis the Dark Mechanicus still follows that aim, they're just willing to go farther and delve into knowledge that the normal Mechanicus would shun.

It is good
. A credible threat of back stabbing asshole that are not Big Bird

Maybe they are EXTREME stress testers.

they seem like Malal worshipers. Malal is himself subordinated to Khorne, but these looneys could be some of his few followers in aimless malice and pointless obliteration.

I think, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, that the box was the size of a shoe box and contained

Very old letters from long dead Kor Pharon
A plastic religious icon on a cheap plastic necklace that his parents gave him when he went to join the clergy
1 extremely old bottle of wine, possibly the last of any AoS vintage
and a few other knickknacks of no importance to anyone else accumulated over his long life.

I think the idea was to try and make the Assassins less grimderp.

If we are going Nobledark then they would have to be volunteers rather than abductees or specially groomed child soldiers. So then begins the task of making a willing volunteer end up like something not unrecognizable as like the Vanilla version but with the grumdurp removed.

Given that it was previously stated that religion/race lines are getting slightly runny around the edges. Some bonesingers see Vaul and Omnissiah as the same thing (laughing_dragon.holo) so it is not soo unlikely that some humans feel drawn to Khine. Calgar a few threads back got along well with Khine, death cultists are still a thing and maybe those sorts of people would have less of a problem about signing up with the Assassins.

It is possible that LIVII in this AU holds Khine in some measure of veneration or is part of a milder death cult. Or not. Who knows.

The Venenum and Callidus assassins could by 999M41 have reformed to the point where they are, in addition to their standing and duties in the Officio Tacitum, they also offer a lucrative side business in educating the nobility much like the Discworld Assassins Guild. The actual Assassins are the ones who opt to do the Dark Curriculum, though the really deadly fuckers are the ones who get in on the scholarship program.

Baal could have been discovered, back in the Dark Age, by a possible very distant ancestor of Sangy.

Bump

The only thing is the Assassins existed long before Earth made contact with the Eldar.

No bonesingers sees the Dragon and Vaul as the same thing. It's more like the dragon wants to take over his old "friend"'s job on behalf of his people whether those people like it or not. But that's a moot point at the moment because he has to get out of his cage first.

I don't think that the Bonesingers see Vaul as the Dragon because they don't know that Omnissiah is Dragon.

What is buried on Mars is not known to many.

It will be a strange day for everyone when they find out.

Are there non-malevolent warp entities hiding out in the Chaos wastes?

Could there be?

Malal's scattered daemons leftover from the War in Heaven are by definition malicious, there was mention of Savlar's small gods being skanky daemon junkies from the wastes, and the daemons gathered around Bel'akor can be contracted much more cheaply than those around the big four.

I was thinking more on the lines of "friendly". Did the eldar gods have deamon equivalents?

the small gods are friendly, and you're free to float whatever ideas you have

I would say unlikely. Not because there can't be, but rather because the Warp is a pack of frenzied sharks right now and it's not safe to be in the water.

A lot of independent beings signed up with Be'lakor when Chaos started getting big and expanding into the Wastes. As a result, Undivided daemons are a diverse bunch, as opposed to the rather single-themed followers of the Big Four.

The best chance I could see for any real small gods (as opposed to hallucinations or beliefs that don't have an entity backing them up) would be entities that have taken partially physical form somewhere, like that bullshit they gave about the World Spirit of Fenris in Warzone Fenris.

I would keep them to a minimum though. Nobledark is about "us against the darkness" or something similar, and having a ton of independent planet-sized entities backing the Imperium dilutes the "Citadel of Civilization" feel and the fear of the unknown. While it may be that one day the galaxy will be safe again for massive-scale exploration and discovery, today is not that day.

Or maybe I'm looking at it too narrowly, I dunno.

>Nobledark is about "us against the darkness" or something similar, and having a ton of independent planet-sized entities backing the Imperium dilutes the "Citadel of Civilization" feel and the fear of the unknown. While it may be that one day the galaxy will be safe again for massive-scale exploration and discovery, today is not that day.
The citadels of civilization thing could actually work pretty well with minor embodied spirits, like the junkie spirits of Savlar embodied in some of the mind-altering exotic matter in the runoff from the neutronium process, as little gods of the hearth or patrons of cities in classical style. This might also incorporate the 'memories/princedom from Isha' instilled in worthy subjects, and demigods of smithing and huntsmen go pretty well with the whole survival civilization vibe.

Also, it would be fun to include the Severan Dominate as a violent oppressive enclave that is trying to break away from the imperium and holding on through grimderp pseudo-pragmatism.

supportive bump

There was a suggestion for the Severan Dominate in an earlier thread that because of the Dominate's position, they have never really experienced the worst the galaxy has had to offer. They've had to deal with Q'orl invasions and Blood Pact raids, and think that tyranids and Black Crusades are the same scale of problems that have been exaggerated by the Imperium and shell-shocked soldiers.

They see the Imperium as using the tyranids, Necrons, Chaos, and Brain Boyz as boogeymen used to justify the incredibly high costs placed on worlds like the Dominate to support worlds like, say, Cadia. They think the Imperium is overexaggerating the threat and that they can survive perfectly well on their own. They have no idea the kind of rapetrain that is out there in the darkness.

Of course, the issue is that canon Severan Dominate is pretty close to the Eye of Terror, and should know what a Black Crusade looks like.

Beyond that, the "surviving through grimderp in the name of pseudo-pragmatism is basically what the idea boiled down to".

The only difference between a warp god or benevolent spirit and a daemon is motivation.

Intentionally created Warp Gods also tend to have a bit more structure in how they behave. The stories and the old ideals give them a framework in which they can naturally expand and grow. They're basically created to naturally grow and change as individuals like mortals. As a result, wholly immaterial gods like Isha and Khaine have more aspects to their personality than "waifu" and "murderhobo", respectively (though it is hard to tell with Khaine).

Compare this to the Big Four, who are essentially cancerous and single-minded. They have a hard time perceiving things outside their domain, as well as growing as individuals. They also have a hard time being consistent, because they have trouble doing things beyond "gets them more emotions to get high". As an example, Nurgle had the opportunity to develop as an individual beyond "the Preserver" when he rescued Isha, or when he experienced personal despair for the first time when she was rescued. But he rejected that opportunity, ironically because he is a god of stagnancy.

Do the eldar know how to strengthen the subway or repair damaged sections?

There is also the issue that the Imperium can't afford to let them leave.

If the Imperium allows a state to leave then others in a similar position will leave. If they all piss off it's going to be a small number of worlds holding up a large number of fortress worlds that are keeping the monsters out.

The walls fall through lack of support and monsters get in and the Imperium gets annihilated and, and here is the real kicker, those worlds that ran away realize their folly only after it's too late to possibly going anything about it and everyone is dead and there is no hope for meaningful survival of any member of the Imperium.

So whilst cutting Severan Dominate loose to avoid a war with them and letting them get orked would be a considerable short term gain for the Imperium it would also hang them slowly.

Taldeer would be the most horrifying mother in law. She's a psychic and can see the future. She knows exactly what you have been doing to her daughter.

>source was actually LCB
My sides have been lost to the warp

Sort of. They know how to slap a big band-aid on sections and call it a day, but the don't know how to make more sections or repair a section that is too badly damaged.

Think of a car. Many people know how to change a tire or perform some slapdash fix to get it running again, but they have to go to a mechanic if something major happens like the engine craps out. Now imagine all the mechanics are extinct.

The eldar didn't make the Webway, and despite being light-years ahead of anyone else in operating it they still don't know all its secrets. That's why the eldar don't want unlimited human access to the webway; they're afraid that many minds in the Webway will break it in a way they can't fix.

One of the possible futures of The Imperium that the Royal Couple is aiming for is that the Cthonian Ring get turned into the ultimate agri-world. It's one Earth circumstance thick and ~one astronomical unit radius.

You set up a railway/mag-lev system from there to all of the hive worlds via the web-way and there is no more famine in the Imperium. Also the Imperium becomes a very much smaller place with helping hands just a train ticket away.

It has been mentioned that one of the reasons why Dark Age humanity never tried to take on the Old Eldar Empire was because the entire empire was in effect within walking distance. The Imperium wants that, but for practical reasons rather than just chest thumping.

So do Lugganath and the Silver Skulls. Lugganath's aim is to settle the webway as a village at each intersection rather than one FUCK HUEJ Dark City. Silver Skulls patrol it due to their links to Lugganath and probably have bought into the vision.

How many 40k AUs are there now?

Imperium Asunder
Darkhammer
Siege of the Eye
BrightHammer
The Ship Moves

There's that Warmasters' Triumvirate one as well.

You forgot the Hektor Heresy.

Thank you,

Now I know how ' works in relation to plurals. I'm not even joking, though I wish you were. Dyslexia is a fucking stupid deformity of the brain.

Now I'm wondering, have they actually tried to explain this to the Dominate?

>She knows exactly what you have been doing to her daughter.
she knows preemptively, and acts accordingly even before you do it

The Dominate is predicated specifically on Imperator Severan's express refusal of that explanation

The idea would be that the Imperium tried explaining things to the Dominate, but the Dominate didn't believe them. They've never seen a real war. They think Grimtoof Git-Slaver is on the same level as Ghazghull. When they hear about innumerable hordes of insectoid xenos, they say "we have those too, they're called the Q'orl". They think the local Necron enclave led by Bumfuck the Insignificant is what the Imperium is facing on a galactic scale (that is, a bunch of small enclaves popping up out of nowhere), not knowing about the massive stellar empire being created by the Silent King in the galactic east and northeast centered around the Sautekh Dynasty.

They're the equivalent of someone fighting in the Africa during World War I hearing about what was going on in No-Man's Land and finding it too ridiculous to believe. They're the logical extension of someone hearing of how the galaxy really works and finding the truth to be more ridiculous than fiction.

The Severan Dominate is also said to be a bit of an ego trip in canon for the Severus family.

The issue with that is they're explicitly said to be right next to the Eye of Terror, though Calixis is to the west I believe. So they would be in prime Black Crusade territory.

Interestingly, where it is in the Segmentum Obscurus is right on the border between the Segmentum Obscurus and Pacificus, meaning they would be close enough to be neighbors of the Q'orl and Blood Pact.

>Women only tolerated men because they were being oppressed by count Dracula
CANT ARGUE WITH THAT LOGIC!

Bonus points for the fact that it would be a huge "fuck you, this does work" from the Emperor to Horus, who had predicted that the Imperium would naturally evolve into a collection of confederated peoples united by common goals rather than a single empire.

Although the Skulls have a close association with the Webway, I doubt they would actually patrol it. You would think the Eldar (particularly the Harlequins) would be able to police the Webway on their own, like in canon (though canon doesn't have the Croneworlders). It was also mentioned that only the Grey Knights and Inquisition along with a few others have unrestricted access to the Webway. The Silver Skulls could be guarding human exits to the Webway. The Eldar can take care of their parts well enough, but tons of Imperial worlds have Webway exits, and you need someone to shoot anything unauthorized that tries to come out. Skulls as IW descendants would be perfect for this kind of fortifying.

Because the Skulls, being engineers, see the Webway with respect as opposed to treating it as a "magic space highway" like much of the Imperium, the Eldar like the Skulls better than most Space Marine chapters. The Skulls might also go through more psychic training than most chapters for the times when they do have to enter the Webway. The Grey Knights may be the Astartes group with the least damaging effect on the Webway, but when reinforcements have to be called in the Eldar prefer the Silver Skulls. In the unthinkable event that a civil war does happen in the Imperium along human/Eldar lines, the Silver Skulls would be in the awkward position of being on the Eldar side of the equation like Valhalla, having closer ties to the Eldar than the rest of humanity.

the fact that the character in that scene is a ghoul means she's a hypocrite on top of being a significant sinner, and the women she refers to being vampires means they are gleefully and intentionally perverse and evil in their own sight.

Add to that the Draculas don't oppress anyone. They just employ people to govern for them and they choose to employ oppressive methods entirely of their own volition. Like all modern western feminists she creates victims so she can feel like she is saving someone from something.

She's also begrudgingly employed by J. Edna Hoover, the bloated undead hypocrite-pirate-blimp queen of hell, and the most reasonable, sane characters in the series are the Elric-esque self-hating Nazi vampire reincarnation of a satan-worshiping crusader and his jewish holocaust-ghost resistance leader/witch girlfriend, and possibly the blood banking demonic soul of alister crowley.

In general Requiem is too metal to be any sort of social commentary, because even the relatively simple truism of 'the people in hell are bad' is hacked apart by the absolute schizophrenia of the setting as everything from everywhere is shot at everything.

On the other hand, its perfect inspiration for what life is like on the Crone worlds, where the average lunatic has the resources of hell and a post scarcity society lying around to be put to horrible use.

The difference being that in Resurrection, or at least in the part of it ruled by Dracula, all technology of the Old World had to be buried and cast away by law.

The Croneworlders on the other hand are all for getting hold of the old toys of their old empire and the left over relics of the Old Ones.

to be fair, the Scion Marshal Arrotyr does horde a good deal of the ancient battleships, death rays, and agony beams for his personal faction.

So.. work on the Blood Pact next??

I don't know with you guys, but I think the highborn noble looking guy at the pic of looks like a good candidate to court Lofn. Taldeer and LIVVI's daughterfu.

Lofn isn't born yet as of 999.M41. Any ideas regarding Lofn's later life fall under the category of possible yet not determined alternate futures, as with everything else post M41.

We have a bit on the Blood Pact already. Namely that they were a region of space being uplifted by the Imperium that got corrupted by Doombreed. They're currently one of the most dangerous groups of the Lost and the Damned, given that they actually hold worlds and have a manufacturing base rather than being Cronedar cannon fodder.

Also Doombreed is the daemon prince ascended from the last prince of Ursh, and he makes a point of harassing and agonizing the primarchs that overthrew him in life, and he's fucking obnoxious.

Yes, this is correct. Doombreed is an ass.

He especially harassed Magnus, but that was less because Magnus was the primarch that pissed him off the most and more that he was the one who lived the longest. Magnus and Doombreed's last fight was the one that created the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath and ended up killing the already elderly Magnus in the exertion a few weeks after the battle.

What do we have on Doombreed while he was mortal? Doombreed seems to have been particularly creative as far as the despots went, seeing as he gave the Warlord trouble despite ruling a fragmented empire and incorporated some of Ursh's worst ideas into Chaos.

He had the very finest Ursh could offer since birth, and was never tainted by the smear of Imperial thought. His wit was tzeentchian, his strength khornate, his steadfastness nurglite, and his refinement slaaneshi. The Prince of Ursh is alike to a great and ancient sage in wisdom, but more handsome and virile, he is also alike to a great warrior of ancient song upon the battlefield, but his song does not end. His words are pearls, and he makes the future as he wishes.

Just discovered this universe you fellas are creating. My favourite legion is the Alpha Legion. So what happened to Alpharius-Omegon?

That almost sounds like a dark reflection of Sanguinius.

Sort of tough to answer, since Alpharius and Omegon were deliberately left extremely vague, but they were instrumental in founding the Inquisition this time around instead of Malcador, who served as more of a wise father figure and moral compass to the Emps. The "current day" Alpha Legion is still around and essentially are sneaky gits who collect intel and run black ops to keep the Imperium safe.

>That almost sounds like a dark reflection of Sanguinius.
that was not my intention

Well, two things I recall about daemon princes: one, they're elevated to that status while alive (for certain values of alive), and they're generally elevated for a specific act- after a lifetime of distinguished service to Chaos, but they need to do something particularly impressive to push them over the edge.
Thus, Doombreed probably did something staggering Chaotic while still fighting the Warlord on Earth, and would likely have been Oscar's first real encounter with the daemonic.

this gets a good portion of it , but misses a bunch too. The Alpha legion is vaguely what user described, there's also the Omega legion, which is a black-site sort of deniable asset organization that is technically outlawed in the Imperium in the few places that don't outright deny their existence or don't actually know. They might or might not do shit like chaos false-flags, infiltrating the warp, and other stuff that is strictly off record. There are also non-astartes assets, even guard companies, officially earmarked for Alpha legion use, but nobody can tell you shit about them either, just that they exist on paper. Or there might not be any Omega legion at all, and its just coincidental names and rumor.

There's also reference to The Hydra, nobody but the highest of Imperial officials could say if its an organization unto itself, another collective name for the Imperium's millennia old spy apparatus, or a proverbial reference describing the nature of the same. Whatever it is, the many heads of the Hydra are said to vie against and stand among the Illuminate league, and the word often comes up describing the high command of any given ordo when in interservice rivalry, and also rarely in official matters of the emperor's metaphysical nature. The Illuminate are known to be a loose secert congress of high officials, officers, inquisitors, magos, and scholars that grasp the ancient history of the Great and Bountiful Human Empire of the Iron Minds, and the current emperor's nature in relation to such. The Hydra has been called the Emperor's check on the illuminate, but that again could just be proverb from galactic politics.

Alpharius-Omegon themselves are an enigma. There have been spymasters that claim both names, official histories that read like children's books and name them the brothers that founded the inquisition, Fulgrim's backstory has two agents named Ozzy and Ames appear as nebulous fixers as early as the unification.

well he probably had a backup b-grade Magnus at his disposal at very least.

I thought of some theories as to what the Hydra might be, not to actually say what it is but to have various out-there plots imagined by the illuminate conspirators that worry about Oscar being a Man of Gold.
>they're the Emperor's extra secret service that exist solely to act as stagehands to execute all the various coverups and ruses to hide or discredit any number of generals' or magos' pet conspiracy theories
>They're an even more secret and ancient Terrawatt Clan conspiracy to mind control the Emperor and use their pet Man of Gold to rule the galaxy to various ends
>The Hydra is other Men of Gold come from the Chthonian ring or a secret inertialess spaceship outside the galaxy (depends who's asked) to tutor and induct the Emperor in a plan to steal the Omnissiah, make the imperium slaves to their whims, etc.
>Iron Minds doing more or less the same, or playing a long con to steal all the baryonic matter in the galaxy, etc.
>Iron Minds from the warp trying to possess the noble and heroic Emperor that must be saved from the clutches of the Abominable Intelligences and repaired by whatever obscure order
>The Hydra is the Emperor's Eldar farseer cabal that came to aid his conquest and hegemony over humanity for the installation of the Eldar as a galactic aristocracy over humanity, etc.
>The Hydra is the Emperor's Man of Gold power to mind control everyone in however big an astronomical distance and thwart the given Illuminated person and vex their designs

There was no one even close to Magnus on Old Earth at that time.

Malcador was close in ability but only because of experience over raw power. Oscar was of comparable in raw power but was younger than either Magnus or Malcador.

Magnus was, in effect, a one of a kind mutant freak.

backup army of raving mad witch-priests?

>The Hydra is the Emperor's Eldar farseer cabal that came to aid his conquest and hegemony over humanity for the installation of the Eldar as a galactic aristocracy over humanity, etc.

(((Eldar))) Internet Defense Force where are you? The mon-keigh know, shut it down!

That on the other hand I can definitely see them having as a warrior elite. I'm also imagining that The Despot as also the High Priest of Undivided Chaos.

Given what we know of the Navigators in this Nobledarkness it's probable that Magnus got his psychic abilities amplified by the Old One DNA inherited from his father.

>Bonus points for the fact that it would be a huge "fuck you, this does work" from the Emperor to Horus, who had predicted that the Imperium would naturally evolve into a collection of confederated peoples united by common goals rather than a single empire.

It still might come to be more like Horus' ideal given the Traveling Court and the changing nature of the Imperial internal setup.

Ulfrik and Logan Grimnar are forging the Fenrisian Colonies into their own diffused Ultramar and power blocs are forming in the Imperium of prominent worlds and their closely associated neighbours. Rights originally reserved for the Survivor Civs are, in some post-999M41 date, going to have to be extended to them. The structure of the Imperium will change drastically to a vast coalition of small empires rather than one big Imperium with a few little older empires incorporated into it.

The old Survivor Civs would complain that their distinction and advantages are being eroded, but they are in the minority and they trade with the newer worlds so don't complain too loud. On the whole I can't imagine Oscar being to upset by it, it's just an administrative rearrangement and expression of changing social trends. So long as the integrity and security of the Imperium is not compromised, and therefore his peoples' safety, it's all good.

The Eldar don't give a shit. Humans gonna human.