Even WH40k, Grimdark Incarnate, has its nice people. For instance, Ciaphus Cain (HERO IF THE IMPERIUM!) would probably give our little guy at least half a chance.
Hence, in our world, there's probably enough nice people that at least one is in this party of adventurers. Especially since a party full of complete murderous bastards wouldn't be liked much by the populace...
Ciaphas Cain would give a part-demon creature whose master he had killed a chance.
Ok then.
I said, "...at least half a chance". He's not the whole "PURGE THE SLIGHTLY DINGY," he's only interested in purging those he understands are irreparably corrupted.
At least, that's how I read it. And, anyways, I was showing that beacons of light exist in even the worst of settings. Are you going to claim this universe is anywhere near as bad as 40k?
P.S.
I wouldn't say that Warhammer 40000 is all that grimdark. The people in charge all have their ambitions, and have means of progressing them, even if those means are often difficult or thwarted, The individual participants often have small victories to celebrate, means of keeping themselves busy, and at least some forms of hope for the future. Some folk even have other folk that they can legitimately trust. The only real problem with the setting is the steady flow of "Dear John" and "Billy was a hero" letters, the occasional community vanishing, and the thought police... I would expect more traditional cosmic horror to have far more grim darkness than that...
Let's look at the three "good" races:
Humanity--Genocidally xenophobic, what with killing just about anyone not 100% pure human (except Space Marines). Also almost murderously adverse to progress, and so incompetent and/or apathetic that it loses whole worlds to rounding errors.
Eldar--Also xenophobic and elitist, also to murderous extent. They also accidentally made a
Chaos God (read: nigh-omnicidal god of evil) through depravity. That leaves the unusually-xenophobic Craftworld Eldar and the unusually-depraved Dark Eldar.
Tau--The nice guys by default due to not automatically being hostile to other races or wanting to destroy any given part of reality. Aside from many of their practices being comparable to the less pleasant of the Nazis', they're also by far the weakest of the main races.
And let's not forget that the most powerful factions--Orks, Necrons, Tyranids, and Chaos--are among those with the least pretense about their darkness. And the orks--who make their Middle Earth name-roots proud and rather terrified--are the
comic relief. And there are several apocalypses waiting to happen.
This was a setting that they consciously
tried to make grimdark.
Can someone tell me what we're arguing about?
My questioning of "Dark-And-Edginess" leading to the possibility of no "nice" people in the adventuring party, which lead to someone criticizing my example of an absurdly DaE universe with such a nice person, which lead to discussion of if WH40k is really that grimdark.
Just another day at Bay12.