What are the coolest/most interesting bits of background lore in 40k? Those minor factions, races, events...

>When the fan-fiction is better than the canon

1d4chan.org/wiki/Story:The_Shape_Of_The_Nightmare_To_Come_50k

I'm convinced the constant obsession with spess mahreens is more than just GW following the money, that the most of the writers truly don't understand their own setting and really do see it as an excuse for big muscly guys to punch each other

The nature of Chaos in its undivided glory.

...

Not trying to brag but I basically wrote the entire lexicanum page in the rak'gol back in the day.

They should have gotten they're own faction. Chaos cyborg lizards flying through space in radioactive garbage.

I liked that bit in which a Oldcron was masquerading as an Inquisitor what showed that Necrons weren't mindless bots but a deangerous, cunning enemy to the IMperium.

I like the fact that Magnus' drops of daemonic blood is potent enough to create psychedelic mushrooms. Do you think Lorgar's blood would create minuscule dark cathedrals where small creatures come and get all chaotic and stuff ?

I could see that getting really silly really fast

>Angron's blood creates roid rage inducing fight pits
>Fulgrim's blood produces tiny handsome statues of himself
>Kurze's blood makes Hot Topics

Chaos is silly and 40K used to be satire.

This! I do also quite like the idea of the Dusk Hag ... some kind of ancient and mighty warp entity, maybe even a survivor from a time before the dominance of the big four (at least that is what she is in my story).

>dusk hag
Que?

Emphasis on used to be. Too many edgy tryhards who think the setting is "epic" and "dark" and "not retarded".

Dark Heresy fluff ... a legendary figure from the swamp planet Dusk (think swamp planet/Bayous/Voodoo). Prominently displayed in the third part of the Haarlock trilogy adventures if you are familiar with it. She may give you anything you want (especially knowledge) ... but the price is different for everybody and it is usually very very high.

It was shit when it was satire, though. It was best in the period between when they were pretending to be a super serious well thought out setting and LE BARFING CONTESTS XDDDD

Gimme ma Exodites!

I want the new Knights codex to expand on their relationship and maiden worlds. I know the whole Knights being introduced to human by Exodites has been retconned but there's still plenty they can do with the concept

Reminds me of the Hag from Thief 3.

Warp entity? Do you mean Daemon of Chaos?, Because nothing exists in the warp or uses the warp that isn't in service to the four ruinous powers.

Chaos has to be done right. The big Four are rather overused. Did introduce my RT group to some form of demon prince that is a soul echo of Goge Vandire from the Age of Apostasy. The thing is like a 'demon of the Ecclesiarchy', representing the worst aspects of the Imperial Faith ... and it is trying to induce a church schism using the Drusian cult as pawns in its game (my take on the DH adventure with the resurrection of St. Drusus). My players shat their pants when the demon did take possession of a 10m bronze Aquila emblem in a cathedral, turning the symbol of the Imperium into an abominable two-headed metal bird monster which spat phosphex as well as clouds of Life Eater virus from its seeing head ... took them a while and quite a frenzied fight to figure out that decapitation was the beast's only weakness.

I imagine it more like an autochtonous entity of the Warp ... like the Enslavers or psychoneuin. Something that did survive the ascendence of the big Four by hiding in a backwater realm of the Empyrean that is tied to the particular planet that thing 'lives' on. A shadow of herself in more glorious times but still mighty on her own turf.

Wrong. All Daemons are part of the Four Great Powers. Talk about your fanfiction elsewhere

meh that's only been the case since 6th edition and there's still plenty of seemingly unaligned in the HH novels

Recaf.
No seriously, I find it both inspiring and hilarious that the Imperium as a whole runs on recaf, and it's one of those useless pieces of information that adds so much flavor to the setting. Speaking of, if GW's new cafe doesn't sell coffee branded as recaf, there is a serious problem.

Literally the worst part of Warhammer lore and I'm including every piece of spesh marine wank in that.

Minor gods like Hashut etc and daemon princes being worshipped as gods in their own right is far more interesting.

Seemingly. No confirmation and multiple CANON sources saying that the Gods are the only real powers in the warp and that everything is either part of them or their irrelevant prey.

whats there to say? its the common name for whatever coffee equivalent there is on the planet they're dying on currently

>831.M33 Year of Ghosts: Spectres of the deceased are reported to have risen up to defeat an incursion from the Warp.

Nicassar

Was thinking that too ... big four alone tends to get boring. Mind you, I am using this stuff as a RT GM so I have to sometimes catch my players off their footing as they all know their fluff and expect the big four to act according to their nature. Also, stuff like Eldar gods could also be considered warp entities and some are still rolling in the 41st millenium (in a way at least).

>Nicassar

Thx for mentioning the 40k spurdos!

The Hrud. I want to see more of the race of difficult-to-perceive, hyper-flexible monsters with time-warping technology.

Yes, I mentioned the Gods prey.

Quite like those, I also like the impressions we get of the techno-barbaric chaos of Old Night and the scavenging of terribly powerful DAoT tech by warlords - the Unification Wars, the stuff the Emperor deemed so dangerous he had Custodes guard it, that high level of mysticism and shit with the really nasty stuff, that's my jam.

Might be going a bit out of "background", but that and the portions of the Crusade forces that basically have to get to horror-levels to fight this stuff, the Destroyers, the undead mechanicum soldiers and so on - I love the Crusade and the Imperium when it's at it's grimdarkest with what it's deploying.

That is my point too. Those things are remnants from another age. They hide. They linger. Maybe they have taken up aspects of the big four (the Hag may as well have some Tzeentchian schtick going on) but they could retain some of their fromer 'glory' by restricting themselves to certain places in the Empyrean that are not easily accessed. They are dying flames of weirdness in a raging storm and will in time be swept away ... shadows of an age long gone.

>not easily accessed
The Gods are multiversal, timeless, and omnipotent. The notion that something could hide from them, let alone in the warp, is laughably stupid.

>>>/fanfiction.net

The Rangdan.
An alien empire that is implied to have wiped out one of the Lost Legions and took the Emperor opening the Labyrinth of Night to destroy.

They're the major powers yes but not necessarily the only, there's some old sources that refer to the big four as being the most powerful daemons not even gods in the traditional sense and similarly mention of other lesser (un-named) chaos gods. Trying to find them but here's an excerpt from codex imperialis, not that it says "most" mighty and "other daemons"

>The four most mighty Chaos Gods are Khorne the Blood God. the master of battle and patron of mighty warriors: Nurgle the Great Lord of Decay. the bringer of plague and physical corruption: Slaanesh the Lord of Pleasure. the purveyor of sccrct vices: and Tzeentch the Changer of the Minys, the Lord of Change. It is these four Dark Gods who vie for the dominion of mankind. and whose daemons seek gateways through the minds of the weak and careless.
>There are other daemons too, a vast and impenetrable array. bur the daemons of the four Great Powers are by far the most dangerous. Fortunately for mankind daemons cannot exist except where the material universe has already started to break down, for daemons need the presence of the warp to survive and the more powerful the daemon the more energy it requires to manifest itself

See

>old sources
>old sources
>OLD
Old and out of date, thus not correct. Please consult the current, real lore and not your idiot faggot fanfiction based on incorrect old books.

Old and wrong, and never even once relevant to 40k.

Also the Cacodomius

Feels almost like I have not left /pol/ yet ... I must be dead, my soul slowly being torn apart by the tides of the Empyrean...

the IP is subject to change and always will be. That said there are undivided Daemon princes in current lore M'kar for example so it's not unfeasible that there are other powerful but not god like unaligned entities

The Ordo Chronos

Why are people responding to an obvious troll?

Gods, omnipotent the terms are mutually exclusive. you cannot have more than one all powerful being. Also they're clearly not omnipotent otherwise the great game would not be a thing

I like that, seems fun to play.
I made my own Daemon as well, he is inspired by this story of this Keeper of Secrets trying to atain godhood. He is a Daemon King ruling over his own Warp Storm and is basically evil Buddha.

It is voluntary. At the very, very least they're omnipotent compared to any other warp entity and to the entirety of the Materium. They could easily wipe out all of the mortal world, and will.

>omnipotent compared to any other warp entity
something is either omnipotent or it isn't, they are powerful for sure but omnipotent they are not.

Did the writer gave up on Age of Dusk or something?

how did the horned rat become a chaos god then? Yeah I know it's not 40k but I still want to know what you think

That guy is just a troll, ignore him. For the Emperor.

They're functionally omnipotent. While they almost certainly have some sort of limitation but it's so far beyond mortal comprehension it doesn't matter

The Chaos Gods are less powerful and the warp less monolithic in fantasy/AoS.

The Q'orl and Slaught are really great as armies. Hell the Q'orl empire is even bigger than Tau space. Sadly the Chaos and Marines wanking will only stop when it kill the entire setting.

>They're functionally omnipotent
no such thing

>the Chaos Gods have warred with one another, vying for power amid the immaterial planes. Despite their myriad differences, the great Gods of Chaos have the same goal: total domination of the universe. There is no realm that they do not wish to claim for their own, and each seeks absolute rule, the mere concept of sharing power with another anathema to them
>vying for power
>There is no realm that they do not wish to claim for their own
>sharing power
>wish to claim
that does not speak of omnipotence to me, impotence maybe

Are there any good sci-fi/space opera wargames out there? Chaos is really boring but I want my xeno armies.

>What are the coolest/most interesting bits of background lore in 40k?
cultist chan being canon, as proved by these digits

>The Chaos Gods frequently send their daemonic legions into the galaxy. Such invasions may be part of a long-engineered plan, or merely an opportunity seized – for instance, taking advantage of a newly opened rift or swirling warp storm to materialise a Daemon host that will run rampant across the mortal worlds.
>taking advantage of a newly opened rift or swirling warp storm
huh funny it's almost as if their "omnipotence" fails them when dealing with the material plane. Kind of like despite the infinite power that omnipotence describes fails them when faced with a gellar field or genetically engineered space locusts

Hell, Chaos Dwarfs are great because they don't worship the big 4. It gives them something unique beyond being corrupted dwarves.

I personally like infinity, and it's got two pretty decent alium factions. One is a giant, Covenant-esque hegemony of many alien races invading human space, while the other are weird duplicitous kinda lizard men with biotech and autism for the number 3

>evil Buddha

I am gonna so steal your idea! Sorry in advance... ;)

>The Boons of St. Alys

"Nobody can run forever."

I like this, the gods themselves always kind of bored me but exploring why the various cults turn to them is pretty interesting.

Chaos gods were a mistake.

What if Chaos had merely been Chaos, without particular entities guiding it ?

Urdhanvanna is the Daemon King of the Akaran Resurgence. There he is worshipped as the prophet of the primordial truth, he knows the secrets of the wheel of live and if you follow all of his 16777216 teaching you will become one with Infinite.

If this thread stays alive long enough I will post the pdf with his backstory. He functions a bit like Darkseid to the DH players. His evil is too great but he remains in distance.

Would definitely better. It's retarded that the sum total churning maelstrom of mortal souls and psyches is just four very specific big demons. You really have to stretch to even make them represent emotions instead of just some goofy aesthetic themes

without the gods at all or simply without the gods "being" chaos? I preferred the earlier stuff where they were certainly the most powerful but not to the exclusion of other gods

Without the gods at all. Just one big soup of Chaos in every direction.

Maybe "flavors" of demons to still keep it managable? Maybe sorted into the general emotion they embody, sort of like pic related (except with white and black replaced with real emotions)

I always adored the Umbra. Something about these weird, unearthly fragments of an Old One that exist entirely due to a last demand to "LINGER" after it was chopped apart by Slaanesh and translate darkness into nightmarish physical matter always seemed so cool to me. They're not the kind of thing that could have their own army, or even really their own units, but they're the kind of thing that adds this strangely poignant idea of what can happen to things like Old Ones or other warp-potent entities after their death.

Man Xenology was great.

hmmm I'm not so sure, while they're pretty two dimensional they do provide a linchpin for a lot of decent plot hooks when used sensibly and a fair amount of the existing canon kind of relies on them.That said I do quite like them being sort of cardboard cut outs, as I said earlier it makes the followers more interesting as they project their own circumstance onto the gods in a way that wouldn't be possible if they were more nuanced.
I do want undivided back though, not necessarily as a mark of chaos in general (although it could be) but to represent the followers of lesser gods, that and a couple of lesser daemons that can work either with the gods(like furies are now) or with lesser/no gods (like furies used to be)

Hell, you could probably still have the Big Four, just as lords of some description. Big names, but not the end all be all of chaos.

??? What are genestealers, mindflayers and the minor gods?

I'm sure there are countless others too

They're tyranids (who are the prey of and weaker than the Gods), a thing from D&D and only a sign of your retardation, and sub-facets of the real Gods. You prove nothing other than you are a faggot with no knowledge

>functionally omnipotent
>If I keep backtracking with new phrases, I'll win on the internet

They'd only have been nigh-indestructible had he pulled off the ritual.

I like that the regions religious fervour survived their own holocaust.
Also, I really like stories about greater daemons masquerading as gods so if anyone know of more such stories feel free to link them!

The Cabal. No, not the deldar ones.

>The Chaos Gods are less powerful and the warp less monolithic in fantasy/AoS.

What? In Daemon codex, the Daemons of Chaos could have annihilated the galaxy and everything in it but descended into infighting and were drawn back to the Warp for the Rift Wars and then the great contest between the gods.

There is absolutely nothing the races of the galaxy can do to stop Chaos united. Chaos can only be defeated by itself.

And then no one heard of the New Devourer or other Tyranid hivefleets ever again.

The C'tan would have words with ye

The C'tan are ded.

That's a fantasy scholar talking about Chaos. So trash. The lore itself that the people in the settings can never understand Chaos and that their speculation often lead away from the truth.

Enslavers, Chymerae, the Legion of the Damned, Ebon Geists, and Mandrakes would like to have a word with you, idiot.

Turns out Earth isn't and never was Holy Terra. Just a planet very similar to Terra circa 40 millennia ago, in a similar star system.

Some might say suspiciously similar.

>[Rak'gol] should have gotten they're own faction.
I absolutely agree. It's one of the things that would definitely make me play the tabletop game.

guess what? that quote is direct from the current codex

I can't remember which book it was in, but that one planet that's basically just covered in toilets (worn out ones that are dumped there en masse) and people mine them to reclaim the materials.

It was only a passing reference in one of the books but I thought it was interesting.

Bumpin cus this a cool thread.

What quote?

>The Chaos Gods frequently send their daemonic legions into the galaxy. Such invasions may be part of a long-engineered plan, or merely an opportunity seized – for instance, taking advantage of a newly opened rift or swirling warp storm to materialise a Daemon host that will run rampant across the mortal worlds.
>taking advantage of a newly opened rift or swirling warp storm