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I heard a lot about how he carried the most during the heresy. What's his style of fighting and strategy? Considering how he's also a inventor and not just a general.

From Khorn’s Wiki:

“Khornates take no artful approach to killing, seeking only to slay rather than to inflict pain, because while the blood and death of their victims strengthens Khorne, their suffering actually empowers its nemesis Slaanesh.”

If I were new to Warhammer I would read that, accept it and move on. But I’ve read about the chaos gods for a huge chunk of my life and I’m confident in stating that EXCESS is at the absolute core of what embodies and therefore empowers Slaanesh. It isn’t just pain and suffering, like the Drukhari focus on. It is excess. Anything in excess. And Khorn worshippers seem extremely EXCESSIVE in their pursuit of murder.

Obsessed is the second trait I would ascribe to Slaanesh, and Khorn followers might be the most obsessed fighters in the galaxy.

So 2 questions:

1. Why don’t Khorn worshippers’ singular focus on spilling blood, for as long as possible, empower Slaanesh?

2. If you argue that Khorn worshippers DO empower Slaanesh, does that mean that Slaanesh is at least as “strong” (empowered, rather) - as Khorn?

If a pysker could become a space marine, or at least have there abilities become actualized. Could a blank become a marine.?

In so many reels and excerpts, its shown that the Primaris were hilariously bad at fighting, often taking numerous losses that the firstborn would have either avoided or found better ways to mitigate. So, even with their augments, were Primaris marines REALLY that bad at fighting?

I know that boltshells are for marines and mortals alike. But are larger guns firing larger shells (like the ones strapped to tanks, knights, titans etc. etc. etc.)?

We know that the admech creed forbids the development of new technologies and both they and the Votann are only dedicated to searching for the lost technology of the dark age. The eldars and necrons reached their peak and seem to be technologically stagnant. Orcs are orcs. Tyranids are Tyranids.

That leaves the Tau as the only faction that innovates technologically, no?

Hi all! I am working on a Homebrew Chapter and want to create an article on the 40K Homebrew Wiki on Fandom. The chapter has a history stemming from a current canonical chapter. If I am saying that Guilliman chooses to obscure that history from the wider Imperium (no, they aren't from Traitor gene stock), would you make that known in the article? Or write it from the point of view of someone who does not know their history?

In other words should I keep that history to myself? Or share it with the community?

I don't know much about the lore before the Horus Heresy, and all of the sources I found on this matter are out of date and sporadic in answers. I hope you guys can help clear the waters for me and the guy 5 years down the line finding this post.

Simply put, who would be the best legion to build off of if I wanted to do a custom chapter that was deeply connected to nature. I’m guessing Dark Angels?

Can anybody shed some light on the Baltics during the Unification Wars? I am currently starting a new First Founding Chapter, and want to incorporate elements of my ancestry (Latvian) into the chapter. I know Raven Guard were Xeric in origin, but the region of the Asiatic dustplains seems to range between now Indonesia and as far as the Urals, or as far as China depending on the sources. Thanks!

So I've been listening/reading the Ciaphas Cain series and every time Amberley Vail brings up 'From Interesting Places and Tedious People: A Wanderer's Waybook' I feel like I'm learning some really minute information for a planet or system in the world setting which shows a lot of basic world building information I tend to soak up. Is there any book like that from the Black Library or another source for some of the smaller detail bits that are usually left out of most major series?

I finally finished the trilogy and it’s probably the best set of books I’ve read in 40k. The ending is interesting if a little bit packed, though the bit where Bile calls himself a god has me wondering why?

I can understand that he’s more chill with demons now or some of him is, I’m just curious if it’s out of spite or if he’s trying to get ascension like the emperor has through faith. I also read Gene father so there is some nice follow up and honestly I just want New men on the tabletop.

Just tapping into the lore experts with an idea for a faction i was working around in my head let me know below

So this faction would essentially be made up of Humans whom left the Galaxy during the Dark Age of Technology. They left because they felt constrained by the comfortable lives of Human society at the time so these were the most pioneering or warlike of humans (Which may have contributed to early human losses during the Cybernetic Revolt)

The Cybernetic Revolt cut off the technology used to maintain the connection with the Home Galaxy and the subsequent Age of Strife with the Birth of Slannesh meant there was no way to rebuild the connection. As such they had to face what was outisde the galaxy on their own.

These survivors found the wider universe was something of a mix between Cosmic Horror and Dark Forest view of the universe with Eldritch Beings competing on a grand scale game of survival where the losers find themselves consumed by Predators like the Tyranids.

In order to survive these Human Pioneers became a Semi Nomadic mercenary people, working as pawns betweeen the powerful beings outside our universe. These humans developed a hyper Darwinian culture and mindset dedicated to survival and working towards returning home unaware of everything that had transpired back in the Milky Way. Unlike Humanity at home these humans never had the Cybernetic Revolt or the chaos wrought by Psykers in the Age of Strife. However they are not immune to these dangers as there are defenitely powers similar to chaos outside the galaxy, but they have come up with an alternate solution of every human being cybernetically pair bonded with an AI from Birth, The AI watches for any signs of Psychic Corruption or posession while the Human is on the lookout for the Logic Viruses and Megalomania rogue AI is in danger of developing. In some ways this society and faction is the mirror opposite or the other side of the coin from the Leagues of Votann. Where the Votann are Clone Batches these Returners live in complex families and value individualism. Where the Votann specialise themselves to living in the Core the Returners broad adabtibility and flexibility.

The entry of these "Returners" back into the setting would be somewhat mysterious they may have tracked the Tyranids, Co-ordinated with the Silent King or made a deal with some Eldritch Power. And they are coming back to their home. However they are enterting via the Ghoul Stars and which both shields them and slows them down as they deal with the horrors of that region.

Has any of the tyranids hive fleet found their way into the Eldar webway and pose a threat to the Harlequins and Dark Elders?

Loyal Space Marines are often described to be superhuman warrior-monks with monasteries, ascetic lifestyles, and religious devotion, yet does this still apply to Traitor Marines?

For Marines belonging to the Word Bearers or World Eaters I can see how they still can be considered warrior-monks, albeit with a dark twist. However, then there are the Emperor's Children and the Night Lords who I feel can hardly be considered monks.

Thus, when a Space Marine turns to chaos, can they still be considered a warrior-monk?

Lorewise is there anything stoping primaris marines from using firstborn weapons or armor? Primaris gear is cool and all but i wonder if it would not be annoying for chapters like carcharodons who kinda have to use gear that is old, easy to mantain and cheap to produce/repair like MK.V Heresy armor to have to now only use this new Cawl trademarked gear

Any read this series and if so any good? I generally like John French's stuff but have heard very little about this series. Looking for a new BL series to get into.

Any and all help much appreciated

as per the title i want to create my own regiment, but i want the lore to relfect the slow process of buillding it irl. basically i would want a regiment that has lore reasons for being super small at first and to slowley build the lore as i get new sets. how would you guys lay the foundations for the regiment, im not sure where to start?

There are both universe building arguments and lore arguments as to why Carrion Throne is ideal:

General universe building success criteria:

1. A competent, interesting newcomer protagonist who is thrown into the world, who is the main vehicle for exposition. They has to overcome trials and tribulations and can be subject to twists because of their newcomer status. i.e. who the viewer envisages themselves as.

See Neo, Luke Skywalker, Paul Atreides, Frodo and Bilbo respectively, The Witcher, Mandolorian, Wolverine, Aang last airbender, Starbuck (Battlestar Galactica), Daniel Jackson (Stargate), the protagonist (tenet) etc

2. Set in the relevant time setting not the past/beginning of the universe you are trying to build. Books are good to build from foundation up, films/TV are good to throw you in the mix, get you hooked then give the backstory.

See all plots associated with characters and universes from 1.

3. Has an interesting small core of characters that you can flesh out while their journey intersects with the grand themes, main lore of the setting and main plot lines. allowing you to dip your toes into hardcore lore without drowning you.

4. A plot that begins small and interesting, grows in complexity with the universe in time. Not requiring you to know huge lore background to understand.

5. Generally a thriller, uncovering plot is best IMO so you learn while the plot unfurls, with lots of plot twists and shock moments.

6. Ability to become trilogy with a universe of good spin off series.

In the Carrion Throne you have:

1. Spinoza the tough competent female interrogator protagonist, being thrown into Terra, the heart of palace affairs and a heretical plot. This allows us to follow her perspective as Spinoza is introduced to major concepts like the reality of the throne, the Emperor, the Custodes, Xenos, the Inquisition, the high lords, Mars, the space marines and more. All gradually as the conspiracy is unravelled and unmasked.

2. CRUCIALLY it is set in the main current setting bang in the middle of the main time setting right before and as the great rift happens. This with a trilogy potential with the other two vaults of terra book.

3. The main retinue and supporting characters are interesting and diverse from a Custodian, to high lords and other inquisitors etc.

4/5. it starts off small being a heretical plot, then twists to a larger Xenos smuggling plot, then a larger heist uncovering conspirator proof plot, then a battle to hunt down the Xenos plot, then a major world ending plot.

6. It has a TONNE of spin off and sequals that are relevant, important and amazing such as the watchers of the thrones series, Dawn of Fire, the fall of cadia, Cypher: Lord of the Fallen, Godblight series, and all the current lore setting.

Why the others don't cut it

Eisenhorn series does fit a lot of these criteria but it is so isolated from the main setting. Even when you get to Pariah. Its isolation is it's Achilles heel.

Horus Heresy is too grand with too many characters, it's plotline also takes place over a considerable timescale with considerable backstory required. Maybe it can be doable but like dune you normally need a fulcrum protagonist who can intro the universe and HH doesnt have a clear candidate.

Imperial Guard stories like Gaunt's ghosts are also hard to introduce large elements of current plot and setting though could do very very well as war movies.

Space marines stories are pretty bland for the launchpad of world building a cinematic universe (sorry but not sorry)

Anyways keen to get your thoughts.

I put the spoiler as for the current belief that he's dead and Ghazghkull Thraka declaring war on Chaos because of said rumor but I don't believe he's dead.

We know that Yarrick's Power Klaw works because he is psychologically and spiritually connected to it in such an Orky way that the embued WAAGH energy has connected with him and of course the Orkz believe that he can shoot lasers out of his bale eye.

So I wonder if through his connection to the Power Klaw and with Ghazghkull's respect and how the Orkz belief of him as a great warrior and powerful that if he does not die in a fight against Ghazghkull would Yarrick live on for as long as the Orkz believe that he is alive, essentially turning him into a minor warp entity of Gork and Mork.

First I apologize if I make any errors or mistakes

Has there ever been a example of a non chaplain space marine using a crozuis either as a weapon of choice or due to being unarmed but finding a crozuis and having to use it save them.

Would this cause any issues or would they be able to surrender it back the second they don't need it or if the encounter a another chaplain or is it a serious punishment for doing so

I don’t mean as a punishment for a crime or done to a vat grown, I mean an actual citizen coming up to a tech-priest and saying ‘I wish to become a servitor’.

Did it ever happen? For what reasons? What did the mechanicus think of that request?

As a followup to "it would suck to be a perpetual" i decided to think about how horrible it would be to be a space marine.

First of all, you basically live forever so everyone around you (except other space marines) will wither and die around you. Second you will have constant PTSD from all the hundreds of wars you will fight.

And finally for less obvious reasons, being a space marine physically would suck. Space marines are massive, much larger than a regular human. This also means that it would be generally annoying to try to live in normal human society because you would constantly be bumping into everything and occasionally breaking things with your immense strength.

Finally you will be forced to eat super food to keep your calories up, which means that eating regular food is basically pointless.

I think one of the reasons that space marines are perfectly fine with commiting mass amounts of warcrimes (other than the religious doctrine and the racism) is because they have just done it so many times they have become completely numb to it. Its a fucking miracle that the salamanders have any amount of empathy left at all.

I was reading the Lion Primarch story and noticed how he often reffered to his Dark Angels as "little brothers", at least in this specific short story. I'm aware many primarchs refer to their legions as sons, but do many stray from this norm? Might it vary depending upon their homeworld, such as Leman possibly viewing his Terran wolves as sons but not his companioins from Fenris in that manner? Just a thought I had whilst reading the book.

I was just wondering what are they made.
What if they made of sulphur or a material for explosive.
The reason I thought of this is because ;

1. The Orks teefs goes off in a few Terran years. which for human teeth they don't do that but sulphur has a shelf life of about 5 years.

2. The Bad Moons, I think, they grow more teefs and they are more yellow than normal Ork teef. Sulphur is yellow as an element and is a common ingredient for gunpowder and the bad moons are know for using more guns (dakka) then the other clans.

3. It could of been a design by the old ones to allow the kroks a way to make more explosive so they have to keep making supplies runs for ammo as they could just use their bodies. Their Teeth for sulphur and their bodies for nitrates and carbon. (plants draw nitrogen from the ground to grow, so I'm assuming the Kroks/Orks do that as well). Which I think makes sense as they are genetically engineered to be basically the front line so having a way for them to always have a way to make ammo is reasonable to assume.

4. I think it also fits in with their culture. Having the teef being used a currency could be derived from the Kroks using teef to make bullets, more bullets the better off the krok is. To the Orks simplifying that to more teef the better off (wealth).So them just forgetting about the middle part of making them into bullets.

It could also explain their savagery toward Other Orks, imagine the korks killing their own squad members just to make more bullets (they probably have to kill their own members due to Necrons weapons disintegrate things so they can't use the fallen as they are atomised.) and that trait of infighting for teef is passed down but they don't know the reason and just think it for currency (and they just enjoy fighting), instead of necessity.

But hey ,I'm just having fun theorising.
I'm not that well read in the Ork Lore. Just curious what other people think?
Do you think this has some validity or just some goofy ideas for the goofy boyz

I just finished reading the whole trilogy of Draco, Harlequin, and Chaos Child and what a ride it was! I feel like I need to talk to someone about what I just read so I'm going to put it down here, mostly to show that Ian Watson had a very unique idea of WH40k that seems so at odds with modern fiction. Spoilers, NSFW, potential trigger warnings, and rambling thoughts ahead...

Draco

To start, all I knew about the Inquisition Wars trilogy before reading it was from the Emperor TTS series and from Lexicanum. The first book, Draco, is about an Inquisitor, Jaq Draco, and his retinue unravelling a conspiracy to supplant the Emperor with a warp based brain controlling parasite to control all of humanity. The meme's about this book aren't far off, but when you take them in context of the book they actually don't seem as ridiculous. For example, Draco definitely has a thing for his Callidus Assassin Meh'Lindi, who can only transform into a genestealer hybrid, but the book makes clear his interest is only in her original form.

Highlights from Draco include an astropath sentencing a world to exterminatus and only being upset when she realizes her cat will die (in fairness I would too), a Callidus assassin being mind raped to induce pleasure by a human pretending to be an Eldar Harlequin, and our band of heroes sneaking into the Emperor's throne room to have a chat with the schizophrenic and split personalities of Big E himself.

Ian Watson's writing definitely includes a distinctive body horror and sexual premise that really helps to increase the creepiness of Chaos. For example: the following is what Draco and his retinue see after landing on a planet in the Eye of Terror and had just killed a band of Chaos:

LUMINOUS VEILS DRIPPED from the glowing soup of the night sky. The buildings of the city ahead were gross idols to corrupted pleasure.

Some of those buildings were modelled to represent lascivious deities: many breasted, many organed avatars of twisted lust. In the weird veil-light the hunchbacked shadows of dark gods seemed to brood everywhere. Spouts of flaming gas leapt up, adding further spasmodic illumination.

Other great buildings were giant mutated solo genitalia. Horned phallic towers arose, wrinkled, ribbed, blistered with window-pustules. Cancerous breast-domes swelled, fondled by scaly finger-buttresses. Tongue-bridges linked these buildings, sliding back and forth. Scrotum-pods swayed. Orifice-entries pulsed open and shut, glistening. Some buildings were in congress with each other: headless, limbless torsos lying side by side, joined abominably.

Through his magniscope Jaq spied nipples that were heavy-duty laser nacelles, and lingam shafts that were projectile tubes. The inhabitants were mere ants by comparison with this architectonic orgy. Eager, scurrying ants. Jaq’s ear-bead picked up wailing music, drumbeats, screams, chants, and the throb of machinery. The city pulsed and palpitated flexibly. Somehow plasteel and immaterium were alloyed together. Thus buildings moved, butted one another, penetrated one another, crawled upon one another. Towers bowed and stiffened. The deity buildings caressed and clawed at one another. And the ant-like inhabitants swarmed within and around and over, sometimes being crushed, sometimes sucked into vents, or spewed out.

Jaq turned away sickened, muttering exorcisms. Meh’Lindi’s claw closed on his gauntlet and squeezed a couple of times consolingly.

‘Are we to go into the body of that city?’ whispered Googol. ‘The body, aye, the body!’

‘Huh, living in that lot it must be some relief to get into the desert!’ said Grimm. ‘You reckon the hydra was made there, boss?’

‘Maybe... They do seem to possess a technology of immaterium in the service of foulness. Ah: party heading out this way, I’d say.’

‘In search of their lost bedmates?’

...

Jaq’s own band lay on a shelf of rock overlooking a road which wended away from the lascivious, living, cruel city. An antigravity palanquin – a cushioned platform sheltered by an awning – bore a gargantuan individual upon it. Four enormously long-snouted quadrupeds, striped blue and red as if wearing livery, pulled this palanquin along, hovering a metre above the road. Probably the buoyant land-raft could have proceeded under its own power except that the monstrous passenger preferred this ceremonial charade. Or maybe the passenger’s fingers were too fat to manipulate the control levers accurately – if she could even reach them.

Rows of tattooed breasts circuited her enormous trunk and belly; through each nipple, a brass ring. Coiling in and out amongst all those glistening, oily bosoms, squeezing its way between, was a long thin purple snake, its origin, seemingly, the woman’s navel. A birthcord grown to hosepipe length, it bound her around like a rope, creasing and squeezing so that flesh flowed forth. The snake’s flat venomous head wavered hypnotically alongside her cheek, caressing it.

The fat woman’s face was bovine, with big oozy nostrils, large liquid eyes, floppy lips, and a jaw that seemed to chew cud, ruminating placidly. Her snake – her other self – did not seem so placid.

A dozen bare-headed Traitor Marines escorted her, encased in mock-bone armour. They carried plasma and projectile weapons. In the vanguard danced a dozen sisters of Slishy, lashing their tails, swirling their pincers.

The procession advanced almost to where Jaq’s party lurked, then halted. The Slishy look-alikes pirouetted to the rear, to join the legionnaires. The creatures that pulled the palanquin crouched, stabbing their snouts underground through the very fabric of the road. The enormous, mutated woman faced out into the desert of spires, her snake swaying beside her.

‘Boole!’ the woman mooed mightily into the veil-lit night.

‘Cover your ears, Meh’Lindi!’ ordered Jaq. ‘Visors down. Switch off audio. She will be deafening.’

‘B-O-O-L-E! BOO-OOO-OOO-LEEEEE!’

Even with microphones deadened, the great noise seemed that of a starcraft at take-off. Her voice jarred and vibrated their very bones inside their suits. A stone spire shattered and fell. Meh’Lindi writhed, clutching her unprotected head. That voice was directional like a searchlight beam. Legionnaires and Slishy-sisters behind the palanquin merely rocked to and fro in the backwash of echoes.

‘WHERE ARE YOU, BOOLE? I WISH TO BE HUNG UP BY A HUNDRED RINGS! THEN BY FIFTY LESS! THEN BY TWENTY LESS!’

Letting his psychic sense loose, Jaq was invaded by a vision of the massive, multibreasted, altered woman hanging suspended on many strong slim chains clipped to her many nipple-rings. Of her being joggled up and down on variable numbers of rings, moaning in distorted delight, while the bull-man served or slapped or kneaded her, or pricked her with his horns.

At such times, Jaq perceived, the woman’s snake participated too, entering her by one orifice or another, completing the circuit. The giant woman gathered herself again, her head turning in a different direction. ‘BOOOOOOOOOLEEEE! BOOOOOOOOLEEEEE!’ Earth shook; another pinnacle snapped apart. Jaq lay stunned. A muted roar of anguish answered the woman’s call from out of the radiant, iridescent night.

The bull-man came pounding into sight. He was eyeless, faceless, burned to the bone. The flesh had crisped to crackling on his arms and chest. His very horns were black and twisted.

Her voice had called him back. Could she raise the dead with that shout? Or had he been stumbling blinded, half-cooked, in the desert, yet kept alive by daemonic protection? Through her protection, if she was possessed by Slaanesh.

See what I mean? Freaky shit. But it does a great job of making Chaos feel other and disturbing. Watson uses fairly explicit imagery throughout his writing to really evoke this feeling over and over again.

Harlequin

I'll say this was probably my least favorite of the series. It follows Jaq's band as they attempt to, and successfully, infiltrate the Black Library in the Web Way to steal the Book of Rhana Dhandra. Along the way our intrepid protagonists get two Navigators killed, potentially sexually torture their squat companion (don't worry, excerpt in a moment), damn another planet to destruction, gain a Space Marine from Ian Watson's previous novel as a companion, and ends with Draco losing his shit when Meh'Lindi, his assassin and crish, gets run through by Phoenix Lord. By the way, Meh'Lindi's name stems from her being kidnapped by the Callidus temple from a "primitive world" and her repeating "me Lindi!" over and over again. Brilliant stuff.

Now for that excerpt you obviously hoping for. Grimm, the Squat engineer of the Inquisitorial band, is held in suspicion by Draco and Meh'Lindi for being a spy for the "Harlequin Man" and the secret society from the first novel. The best they can come up with to ascertain the truth:

GRIMM WAS IN the engine room, mumbling some squattish ballad as he polished.

The barrel-vaulted chamber reeked of sacred oil and ionization and hot insulation, though not of incense. Electrocandles imparted a jaundiced glow to the fluted rune-painted turbines, capacitors and accumulators. Cables like the web of a titanic spider led to the cores of the great warp-vanes. Ornamented dials glimmered with icons. Since Tormentum Malorum was currently falling towards Darvash, the main engines barely hummed, on standby, though the gravity generator was droning.

Jaq sealed the adamantium bulkhead hatch behind them. No noise would reach the Navigator or the astropath. He seized the abhuman in a grip which hardly permitted Grimm to move, though his heels drummed the deck. ‘What’s the matter, what’s the matter-?’

From her sash Meh’lindi pulled some silk with which she blindfolded Grimm. Working around Jaq’s shifting grip, she peeled off Grimm’s flak jacket. Then she divested him of his coverall, and finally of grey calico drawers worn beneath.

Grimm was bare but for his red beard and the smaller beard fronting his loins.

‘Oh, my ancestors!’

Meh’lindi’s fingertips roved in a dire parody of the art of the courtesan.

THE SHEER EXPECTATION... The imagination: a person’s worst enemy...

She touched Grimm gently on a nub of nerves. How he shrieked. How he babbled. He confessed that he had poured the Veritas into the fuel expansion basin, from which it had trickled to mix with the octanes.

‘A little truth goes a long way, eh?’ Jaq murmured into Grimm’s ear.

At no stage did Meh’lindi actually hurt Grimm with her fingertips or teeth or tongue. Yet his fantasy excruciated him. Writhing, the abhuman screeched, and begged.

Naturally, this is the perfect scene to provide exposition to the readers on the Illuminati, the natural born sons of the Emperor (the Sensei), and that the Harlequin man is actually a good guy posing as a Harlequin posing as a bad guy.

Chaos Child

This book came off like a rambling fever dream. Draco has pretty much lost his marbles at this point and I'm not even sure I can summarize the story, despite having just finished it. So I'll focus on some interesting points and then the one big thing that stuck with me. Of interest:

Draco manages to doom a third planet to destruction by his ineptitude.

Lex, the Imperial Fist captain who is accompanying Draco, is feeling anxious. So naturally the send a thief they just kidnapped (more on this in a minute) to steal an Astartes thigh bone from a shrine so he has something to scrimshaw with.

Said space marine's left hand is possessed by the spirits of his dead comrades who slap the shit out of him with him so he doesn't fall for a Slaneeshi sex dream.

Our band makes a monocle out of a Navigator's third eye so that when Draco allows himself to be possessed by a daemon, he can reveal the monocle and look into a mirror to banish said daemon. He also ensured said eyeball monocle was dangerous by using the kidnapped thief as bait for human traffickers before forcing one of them to look into the monocle (still deadly).

Despite all this, I think what stuck with me most about Chaos Child, and the series as a whole, was the incredibly disturbing situation of Rakel, a thief that attempts to steal the Book of Rhanda Dandra from Draco purely for the jewels on its cover. I truly have no idea if Watson knew what he was doing with the amount of innuendo he included but this poor woman barely went a mention without some type of threat, mental torture, implied physical debasemen, or manipulative entanglement. I'm going to weave together some excerpts from throughout the book to illustrate this:

GRIMM SOON RETURNED to the neighbouring cellar with flexible black-coated wire.

‘Frisk her for lock-picks first. No, what’s the use of that? You probably wouldn’t find them all. Nor any hidden digital weapons, nor poison. Even a body has its hiding place. Remove all her clothing first before you tie her hands and feet.’

Did Rakel misunderstand their purpose? Did she imagine she was to be violated by this near-nude giant and this hairy dwarf and the bearded, crease-faced man – before her body was injected and thrown into agonizing flux?

While Grimm stripped off her body-stocking, Lex shifted his grip from limb to limb. How attentively Jaq studied their captive’s anatomy, analysing the cusp of the breast, the flexure of flank, the crease of buttock.

‘Clean her face and hands,’ he ordered. Because of the camouflage paint her features now contrasted bizarrely with the creamy whiteness elsewhere.

In a corner of this cellar stood a basin and ewer and rags, deposited by Grimm after the washing of the lectern on its arrival. The water was stale and dirty, but it served.

At last Rakel was left in darkness; and Jaq led his companions away from the door.

‘I regret our rough discourtesy,’ he told them. (Would Meh’lindi have even flinched at such treatment?) ‘There’ll be worse if she’s to survive. I must not care about her too much.’

‘You want to inject her with polymorphine,’ Grimm said. ‘You want to make her into an exact Meh’lindi. But how?’ From his gown Jaq produced the Assassin Tarot card, which was the perfect representation of Meh’lindi.

‘With this as psychic focus, little fellow.’

‘I thought you burnt ’em all apart from just the Daemon card! So you kept hers after all...’

‘We can employ this to save a life, at least for a while. We can make use of an expert thief. If I’m ever to understand the book we need to lay hands on an Eldar language programme for a hypno-casque. If there’s such a thing on this world, I would say it’ll be in the courthouse.’

Judges were mainly concerned with internal security, yet it was a fact that the eldar sometimes meddled in human affairs. Somewhere in its data store it was just possible that the courthouse could have the means to interpret alien language messages. It would indeed require an expert thief to sneak into that battlemented citadel, evading the minor-masked Arbites.

‘That lady deserts people,’ Grimm reminded Jaq.

‘That’s why she must be bound to us – so that she will never dare desert me. That’s why we shall force her into the exact mould of Meh’lindi.’ Such torment was in Jaq’s voice. ‘She must believe that only by regular psychic reinforcement of her new appearance, using the card in my keeping, does she escape going into agonizing flux.’

Grimm asked softly, ‘Is it true she would go into flux?’

Jaq lowered his voice. ‘I insist that it is true.’

‘I see...’

‘Bear in mind,’ added Jaq, ‘that some criminals may well have sources of information within the courthouse, however pure the judges and Arbitrators are themselves. I must pray for guidance. I must meditate. Then we shall act.’

Jaq took himself off along a dark side-passage towards a little crypt.

‘What you reckon, big fellow?’ whispered Grimm. ‘They having a living replica of Meh’lindi around here be good for the boss’s mind?’

Lex considered.

‘I think,’ he said finally, ‘this may divert Jaq from futile obsession. No matter how exact the duplication, the mind in the body will never be Meh’lindi’s.’

'Yeah, wean him away. That’s what I was thinking myself.'

...

Could Jaq be said to have loved Meh’lindi? Hardly! How could he respond to her with love – were she even alive! In his thwarted desire, foreshortened by death, lurked deep mystery and paradox... and thus a route to illumination.

Probably it was sheer fantasy to imagine that, even if illuminated, he could ever find the legendary place in the webway where time could reverse – thus to call Meh’lindi back into existence in her own living body from before the time she was slaughtered. Hadn’t Great Harlequins searched in vain for that rumoured place for thousands of years?

Yet could he accept that Meh’lindi’s fierce spirit had simply dissolved into the sea of souls when she died? Hardly! If he became illuminated, and led Rakel into the webway – so close to the warp! yes, led her, transformed by polymorphine into the absolute twin of Meh’lindi in body, might not Meh’lindi’s spirit be attracted irresistibly to that duplicate body? Might not Meh’lindi regain flesh and blood?

Mind and body would melt together. The consciousness which had been Rakel binth-Kazintzkis would be displaced – like some lesser daemon, exorcised! Meh’lindi would be Meh’lindi again, entirely.

...

LAMPS WERE LIT, and Rakel was untied.

Hunched naked upon a flagstone, she listened with wide-eyed horror to Jaq’s explanation of what must happen to her – as an alternative to her demise by laspistol. Death was no longer an option for her, unless the transformation failed.

‘The transformation will not fail!’ vowed Jaq. He entrusted the Assassin card to Grimm to hold constantly before Rakel’s eyes throughout the agonizing process of metamorphosis. ‘Rakel, you must focus on this image the whole time. I shall guide you as regards tattoos upon the body. Those are blazoned eidetically upon my mind—’

Likewise upon his heart.

Meh’lindi had been richly tattooed in black, to disguise and embellish scars. A fanged serpent had writhed up her right leg. A hairy spider had embraced her waist. Beetles had walked across her bosom. Her surface was tattooed – and hair-trigger lethal. Rakel must imitate that surface perfectly. What of the depths? Why, Jaq had twice been admitted to those depths, to purify and consecrate Meh’lindi; with Meh’lindi’s full consent, and with more than consent.

Assassins were trained to tolerate pain, to banish pain. Rakel wasn’t trained. If her concentration failed she might go into flux. ‘Be staunch, female!’ Lex advised her. ‘Pain is the teacher and saviour. Dolor est lux.’

Rakel gritted her teeth then managed to say: ‘Women do give birth, you know—’

‘Have you given birth?’ enquired the giant.

A shake of the head.

‘Well then,’ said Grimm, ‘you’re about to give birth to yourself, to your brand-new self.’

...

NOW AND THEN a scream tore its way out of Rakel’s throat as her body remoulded itself. ‘Concentrate! The serpent’s neck bends leftward—’

Often Rakel whimpered, like a beast caught in a bone-crushing trap.

‘The voice, a little less husky—’

‘Now the right breast smaller—’

‘Golden eyes, think golden—!’

‘Flatter, the face—!’

‘More muscle in the calf—’

‘Just a fraction longer, the legs!’

What a litany of invocations. Rakel’s whimpers were the responses. Somehow she managed to keep her gaze fixed upon that Tarot card which Grimm held out before her, while her own flesh and bone racked her, there upon the flagstones.

AT LAST A counterfeit Meh’lindi stood unsteadily in the cellar, supported by Lex. In Jaq’s eyes was a harrowed awe and a kind of appalled adoration. Almost, idolatry. What else was Rakel but an animated idol of his assassin-courtesan?

Jaq retrieved the Assassin card from Grimm. The card was hotter than the warmth of Grimm’s palm could have caused.

‘Rakel!’ Jaq addressed her harshly. He resisted the self-beguilement of calling her Meh’lindi. ‘Rakel, this card is the one thing you may never steal. Without my psychic boost you could never use it on your own.’

...

Abruptly Jaq seized a flagon of ale – and drank, and drank, to disorder his senses. He swigged from the bottle of djinn.

Seated there in the black-curtained dining room, Jaq swayed. Was arcane energy still hovering nearby? Did his vision swim as he gazed at the false Meh’lindi? To Rakel he said bluntly: ‘Come to my room, now.’ With him he took the amputated finger.

...

WHAT RITE DID he perform with Rakel – known only to inquisitors who had plumbed depths of perversion by proxy during their investigations of evil?

When both returned later, Rakel was white-faced and trembling. Jaq was sweaty and feverish. Grimm snored by now, his head resting on the table. Lex sat with the waxed thigh bone before him, as if that were indeed the remains of a mastiffs meal. He was polishing the bone meticulously.

‘Lust – or Change?’ Jaq asked aloud, of the very air. He brandished the finger, now bereft of ring and data-disc. The finger had become stiff and leathery.

‘Behold a Finger of Glory! A lumen for my mock-Meh’lindi, my thief, whose body is willing though her soul evades me! Perhaps I’m becoming a magus without recourse to Slaanesh or to Tzeentch.’

...

‘Lex,’ said Jaq, ‘I want you to start up a prayer-mantra in your mind as a screen against psychic intrusion. Grimm: I want you to start reciting your longest ballad to yourself – silently – and don’t stop. Rakel: I need to conjure protection around you. I need to embrace you with protection.’

Did a moan escape her lips?

...

Jaq nodded. ‘Shuturban can bring as many bodyguards as he pleases.’ He turned to Rakel, and took the Assassin card from inside his robe. ‘Come with me, my mock Meh’lindi, in nomine Imperatoris, to be clasped with protection.’

...

Rakel shuddered. ‘What is really to be my fate?’ she asked Grimm.

Grimm eyed her. ‘Not to worry. That body of yours will see many years of service yet. Keep up with your exercises, hmm?’ Did a hint of a tear appear in Rakel’s eye?

...

Jaq and Lex and Rakel knelt in the centre of this four-fold junction bathed in the blue light of the alien webway. Only Grimm stayed standing, defiant of piety, lacking grace.

Jaq prayed aloud to Him-on-Earth, and to the Numen, to the Luminous Path.

He turned to Rakel. Appropriate words would not come. ‘You are asking me to accept my own death,’ Rakel murmured. Fleetingly she glanced at Grimm.

Frustration coursed through Jaq. ‘What have you told her?’ he cried at the dwarf.

‘Nothing!’ howled Grimm. ‘I swear by my absent ancestors, nothing!’

‘I did strive,’ said Rakel in a shaking voice. ‘I strove so hard. Please give me oblivion before such nightmares as tyranids seize me. Or Chaos, or other honors.’

‘Indeed,’ Jaq said softly. All was well, after all. ‘The real Meh’lindi wished for oblivion too,’ he told her. ‘She denied oblivion to herself.’ Rakel was weeping. ‘Now you wish to drag her back into horror and suffering! You see, I understand your desire,’ she said quietly.

‘You great soul,’ exclaimed Jaq, in wonder. He experienced a surge of exalted rapture. This must augur well for what was surely so soon to happen.

‘You great soul...’

Yet not a soul as great as that of Meh’lindi, who must soon supplant this woman from her altered body.

‘I need Meh’lindi, do you see, Rakel? I need her! I need her by my side – to cope with Lucifer Princip.’

‘Oh you needed her,’ was Rakel’s reply, ‘before we ever heard of Lucifer Princip. I do accept my destiny. I accept! Send me into darkness to save my eyes from seeing any more abominations such as I already saw. I cannot face any future. All futures are fearful and foul.’

‘All, apart from the Shining Path, which your sacrifice will help kindle. Oh, Emperor of All,’ cried Jaq, ‘forgive me! Perceive that this is... the way.’

Rakel wept. Yet she also nodded in affirmation. And her affirmation was at the same time the negation of her self – in favour of another, whom she so exactly resembled, even to the very tattoos, courtesy of polymorphine.

...

Rakel sobbed. ‘I rejoice in oblivion.’

...

SHUDDERING, RAKEL SLUMPED forward. She squirmed. She twisted and flexed. She writhed as if in agony. And from the writhing woman’s lips a cry of defiance and assertion tore: ‘Me, Lindi!’

By the time you get to this point the story is going all over the place, there's no resolution in sight and there's only 9 pages left in the book. I was actively cheering for something awful to happen to Draco at this point. The guy forced this woman into an abusive relationship, just so he could replace her soul with his dead assassin's. Oh the story points about the Illuminati, Harlequin Man, warp parasite, and sensei? All completely dropped with no resolution. The only good part of this what happens to Draco now that he has finally brought Meh'lindi back to life:

The resurrected Meh’lindi was mentally locked in those last lethal moments of ultimate combat. She was reliving her last battle. This had occurred elsewhere in the webway, close to the Black Library. Here at this crossroads of time-twist, that previous climactic event dominated her consciousness. The manner of her death monopolized her reincarnated psyche. And she fought. Meh’lindi fought her final fight all over again, like a soul condemned to a hell of agonizing repetition. Of intensifying repetition. All three figures were Phoenix Lords. The terrible triple-vision possessed her as surely as a daemon might possess a victim. Such were the energies of the webway, concentrated here, weaving tyrannical illusion.

She would not be a victim! She would not!

...

HER FIST SMASHED into Jaq’s chest under his heart.

The impact should have killed any unprotected enemy. But the mesh armour under Jaq’s greatcoat absorbed the bullet-like force of her blow. Aghast, he staggered back, shock scouring his soul.

She seemed to realize instantly about the armour. She was upon him, her hands seeking grips. She paused briefly so that the mesh armour might relax its stiffness. He stared appalled into her spellbound unseeing eyes.

‘Meh’lindi...’ he gasped. Still she did not know him.

With implacable force, applied smoothly, she hoisted and levered.

JAQ’S ELBOW SNAPPED. Pain lanced through him as if the very marrow of his bones was lava, boiling, spurting. Momentarily he shrieked.

In his agony, she pivoted him across her hips. Jaq crashed to the floor of the webway. The collision stiffened his armour for several tormenting seconds.

He had fallen heavily. A pang in his own hip must be from the monocle lens, crushed by his fall.

...

Meh’lindi stabbed a finger towards Lex. Whirling, she stabbed another in Grimm’s direction. Swinging, she jerked a final finger at Jaq.

INSTINCTIVELY JAQ INTERPOSED his uninjured arm. Energy exploded upon his hand, which no armour nor even a gauntlet sheathed.

The shock wave stiffened the mesh upon his arm, all the way to his shoulder. Briefly his arm remained raised, like some crooked staff which might display regalia. The regalia consisted of scorched stubs of carpal bone to which blackened ribbons of flesh and gristle clung. The energy packet hadn’t amputated his palm and his fingers. It had vaporized his hand.

Pain hesitated... before surging into tyrannical existence. Even though Jaq’s hand no longer existed it seemed that it was being roasted. Tears started from his eyes. A greater grief moaned within him, all-gnawing. Despair consumed him. All hope was crushed. Not only his own proud tragic hopes! Hope for humanity too. Hope that the Imperium might endure. Hope that salvation might emerge.

...

JAQ WAS RUINED, in body and in soul. An arm, shattered. A hand, seared away. Agony flayed him. Tragedy scarified him. He might almost be partaking of the Emperor’s own illuminated anguish.

...

He sagged upon his knees. He forced himself to withstand. He knelt, self-condemned. He riveted Lex with a glare of homicidal, psychotic hatred.

And he blasphemed. How he blasphemed.

‘May the puny human Emperor shrivel! May the light of your primarch wink out like a candle! Glory to Tzeentch! Chi’khami’tzann Tsunoi!’

Jaq was evoking the greater daemons of Tzeentch, in their own language. He must have become possessed anew. Jaq bared his teeth in a bestial snarl. This time daemonry owned him utterly – so it seemed.

Lex steadied the boltgun. With Rogal Dorn’s name upon his lips, he fired at Jaq’s head. RAAARK—

A VIOLENT BLOW upon the vault of a skull might leave it intact. If the bolt had only struck a glancing blow a compression-wave would have been transmitted around the skull to the rigid base, which might fracture.

An explosion within the skull was another matter. It tore the great jigsaw pieces of the skull apart. And even though Jaq’s head had not entirely disintegrated, what had been knitted together since childhood was separated now. The frontal plate was divorced from the sundered parietal plates of the cranium, and those in turn from the occipital plate at the rear. Liquified pulp of brain had gushed out of its broken container.

So, if your still reading after all this, I have to thank you for coming along for the ride. Reading the Inquisition Wars was a truly unique experience as a fan of WH40K lore. Despite the insanity of the plot and the off the walls writing of Ian Watson I would recommend reading the series, even if just to see what early 40k lore looked like.

With all that said, I'm going to get some fresh air and then a stiff drink.

We all know how much Orks love a good scrap but why do they seem to favour fighting humans? Ghazgul did not become the largest most powerful Ork in the galaxy by fighting Necrons or Tyranids he did it by fighting the Imperium.

Why don’t the Orks focus more on the other factions when they would probably give them a better fight? Some nameless Hive world is going to be an easier fight than a Necron tomb world or a daemon world for example.

Is it because humans are physically weaker than an Ork? After Ullanor and The Beast do they expect a great fight from humans? Is this just to do with Imperium centric storytelling? Am I wrong and Orks don’t favour humans?

I assume it's the Beast Arises (chronologically)? What comes after that?

Obviously having a society where you're not working 20-hours shift 6 days a week, nor at risk of getting shot for the flimsiet reason is already going to do a great deal to prevent psykers from going rogue and/or possessed, but do the t'au empire have a system in place to use psykers? Or at least to teach them to not spontaneously open a gateway to hell?
My first instinct would be to say "the Nicassar handle all the pyschic stuff", but i'm not sure if that's canon? Or even mentionned what they do to the humans/Nicassar/Kroot (kroot can be psyckers, right?)/other psychich-capable species of the empire?

Does it just depend? Thanks.