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[Grim Portent]

What is the Dark Man? A potent psyker? Rogue AI? Series of coincidences attributed to a single bit of folklore?

Anything or nothing. Idea is intentionally vague in the same way as the Beast of Solomon and other story ideas in the RPG books.

If I had to go more specific, I would think of the Dark Man as a minor daemon of some sort, anchored to the world in some manner. Manifests outwardly as a literal black-hat gunslinger type of guy. No breathing aparatus, not even a cloth mask to keep the abrasive air from his lungs, a long black coat worn over a well tailored waistcoat, broad brimmed black hat, face shrouded in shadow, pale skinned despite the scorching sun. Two revolver-bolt pistols, one on each hip. Eyes glow faintly in dark places. He's essentially the spirit of bad things that happen in the desert, likes to make deals that drive people to treachery, paranoia and self-doubt.

Every man who gets stranded and turns to cannibalism, every jaded lawman that drowns themselves in a bottle, every tech-priest who dies grasping for the secrets of the past, every nomad clan that tears itself apart over missing supplies, all things of that manner are his bread and wine.

He could also be an actual flesh and blood human, a mutant, an alien, a rogue AI, a folktale to rationalise the flaws of mankind. It all works.

I was brainstorming whilst stuck on a long-haul flight about tyranids and the ocean, as I try and come up with a lore-plausible tyranid-ocean story. This is what I've come up with so far and I'm hoping there aren't any glaring holes I can't fill in:

'Nid ocean is a fun idea. Only nitpick is that tyranids would probably make aquatic bioforms to drop onto a planet if they're going to land in an ocean, but a dying fleet might not have the luxury to do so so it isn't a big deal.

It might be interesting to think about how a tyranid digestion pool and breeder organisms would work underwater, or just go down the route of the ocean being tyrannoformed in ways the Imperium can't actually completely kill, resulting in perennial weirdness that's tyranid adjacent but not tyranids proper.

There's a planet in one of Graham McNiel's stories that was partially tyrannoformed, even decades later with all the proper tyranid lifeforms long since dead the jungles still grow at a rapid pace, belch toxins and actively try to eat people and destroy buildings. They need to be kept beyond a perimeter by frequent use of fire and chainsaws. Apply the same concept to the ocean and you could have strangling kelp, actively hostile venemous molluscs, man eating eels that drag people into underwater caves, coral that grows to block boats from leaving harbours, seals that become bloated with toxic spore cysts and so on.


There was a story piece from one of the TT story campaigns a few years ago, where the tyranids invaded a planet that was covered in a never ending tidal wave. The human populace lived in constantly moving convoys that managed to stay ahead of the wave. Sororitas were sent to evac them because of the encroaching tyranids, with a schedule imposed by being cut off from heading forward by the 'nids and the inevitable wave catching up and killing them all. The 'nids filled the miles high planet wide wave with adapted bioforms, so even if you survived the wave as it killed all the ground based bugs fucking carni-fishes or whatever would just rip you apart.

[nenjin]

Dunno if this has been posted before. But if you've ever tried to navigate that labrynith that is the Horus Heresy novels, audio books, short stories and graphic novels, you know how hard it is to keep the chronology of it all straight or complete a collection of stories. Some blessed archivists have done that legwork.

https://www.heresyomnibus.com/

[scriver]

I'm not clicking that

It's literally heresy

[nenjin]

You are to be commended. Ignorance is strength, as the saying goes.

Unfortunately for you though, technology begets heresy.

[Loud Whispers]

Anything or nothing. Idea is intentionally vague in the same way as the Beast of Solomon and other story ideas in the RPG books.

If I had to go more specific, I would think of the Dark Man as a minor daemon of some sort, anchored to the world in some manner. Manifests outwardly as a literal black-hat gunslinger type of guy. No breathing aparatus, not even a cloth mask to keep the abrasive air from his lungs, a long black coat worn over a well tailored waistcoat, broad brimmed black hat, face shrouded in shadow, pale skinned despite the scorching sun. Two revolver-bolt pistols, one on each hip. Eyes glow faintly in dark places. He's essentially the spirit of bad things that happen in the desert, likes to make deals that drive people to treachery, paranoia and self-doubt.

Leaving it ambiguous is pretty cool. Good tools for GMing and every now and then it's always cool to throw a mystery at your players that even you will never fully have the answers to. I love the idea of it being a minor daemon, especially since I think people don't give enough love to unaligned daemons, or daemons with free will. I do suspect the gradual sidelining of unaligned daemons may be a move on GW's part to gently erase the kinds of demons which are hard to copyright. The Nurgle fartmaster of plaguesipping and the Slaaneshi nipple-ripper of ecstasm may be very copyrightable but stuff like the King in Yellow are owned by other people whilst a dude who is "unaligned demon" may be hard to defend in court.

But I can just imagine it now, a techsorcist walks into a smoky bar, their glowing green eyes scanning the room full of rust-lung scavengers and desperados for signs of warp-afflicted augmentations...

'Nid ocean is a fun idea. Only nitpick is that tyranids would probably make aquatic bioforms to drop onto a planet if they're going to land in an ocean, but a dying fleet might not have the luxury to do so so it isn't a big deal.

The out of character rationalisation I thought of was:
-A Hive Fleet under non-stressful conditions can probably figure out what a planet is like and modify its dudes for proper landings. But if there's a void battle and they're making a rushed landing, or it's a case where the hive ship is launching all of its spores as a desperation measure after being mortally wounded, it's a "spray and pray" kind of measure. In this case the hive ship was carrying troops meant for land combat, as the planet is not an ocean world, but a world that is mixed between oceans and landmasses. So in my mind the hive ship didn't get to reach its desired landing point. This also serves as a convenient/plausible way for how the nids might make planetfall without coming into immediate conflict with humans.

-There are cases where tyranid ships used the first wave of nids just to "feel" out the planet and what sort of modifications they would need to survive. Also in one of the Graham McNeill nid stories, he has the nids land on an ultramarine controlled planet in winter. The first wave gets wiped out by cold, so the nid sends in a second wave that is modified to have extra thick insulation. When this wave is also wiped out by the cold, the nids decide it would be more efficient to just terraform the entire planet by causing a greenhouse gas effect to raise the planet's temperature significantly so it can commence with a full invasion. So it seems that tyranids prefer to avoid "wasteful" modifications when full tyrannoforming is available

It might even be a thing where different hive fleet splinters have different methodologies, (to account for different writers lol). I imagine maybe some tyranid splinters pre-modify before attacking a planet whereas others go by a "bare minimum modifications required" to preserve energy. But I like having the first wave of nids drown just because it establishes the limits of tyranid adaptability; the nids need queens to adapt quickly (unless Hive fleet Gorgon is something they can all do by scaling down with rapid-breeding, small tyranids?).

-But basically I just need a contrived set of circumstances as to why the nids would go for a slow, gradual infiltration of an ocean ecosystem instead of the usual zerg rush total planet consoomtion blitzkrieg

It might be interesting to think about how a tyranid digestion pool and breeder organisms would work underwater, or just go down the route of the ocean being tyrannoformed in ways the Imperium can't actually completely kill, resulting in perennial weirdness that's tyranid adjacent but not tyranids proper.

There's a planet in one of Graham McNiel's stories that was partially tyrannoformed, even decades later with all the proper tyranid lifeforms long since dead the jungles still grow at a rapid pace, belch toxins and actively try to eat people and destroy buildings. They need to be kept beyond a perimeter by frequent use of fire and chainsaws. Apply the same concept to the ocean and you could have strangling kelp, actively hostile venemous molluscs, man eating eels that drag people into underwater caves, coral that grows to block boats from leaving harbours, seals that become bloated with toxic spore cysts and so on.

That's some sick ideas. Maybe the ocean also gets warmer & more acidic, there are highly-productive but nigh unusable toxic algae blooms, and the tyranids adapt to their initial lack of access to queens by producing egg-laying & life birthing tyrafishes. I think there would also be room for weird stuff where people are not sure if they're animals that have become more niddy or nids that have become more feral, like nid-sharks and psychic octopi that seem to prey on everything opportunistically. Obligatory inclusion of the black carpet, where the entire ocean-floor is alive and filled with a giant super-colony of venomous siphonovores that occasionallly extend tentacled-feelers up to catch passing prey to drag to the deeps.

There was a story piece from one of the TT story campaigns a few years ago, where the tyranids invaded a planet that was covered in a never ending tidal wave. The human populace lived in constantly moving convoys that managed to stay ahead of the wave. Sororitas were sent to evac them because of the encroaching tyranids, with a schedule imposed by being cut off from heading forward by the 'nids and the inevitable wave catching up and killing them all. The 'nids filled the miles high planet wide wave with adapted bioforms, so even if you survived the wave as it killed all the ground based bugs fucking carni-fishes or whatever would just rip you apart.

Interstellar: bad ending

You are to be commended. Ignorance is strength, as the saying goes.

Unfortunately for you though, technology begets heresy.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[nenjin]

You jest, but I literally watched a friend do that at dinner one time.

[Grim Portent]

Leaving it ambiguous is pretty cool. Good tools for GMing and every now and then it's always cool to throw a mystery at your players that even you will never fully have the answers to. I love the idea of it being a minor daemon, especially since I think people don't give enough love to unaligned daemons, or daemons with free will. I do suspect the gradual sidelining of unaligned daemons may be a move on GW's part to gently erase the kinds of demons which are hard to copyright. The Nurgle fartmaster of plaguesipping and the Slaaneshi nipple-ripper of ecstasm may be very copyrightable but stuff like the King in Yellow are owned by other people whilst a dude who is "unaligned demon" may be hard to defend in court.

I think the walking back of unaligned daemons is more to do with the decision to push subfactions in tabletop, as well as an attempt to make Be'lakor/Abaddon/Archaon more special. As was the only unaligned daemons that had rules were Daemon Princes, Soul Grinders and Furies, which isn't really enough to make an undivided subfaction, so they just made it so you had to make them aligned to one of the gods so they would fit the mono-god builds they are encouraging.

Tabletop still incentivises going mono-god over mixed-god for daemons, only Be'lakor has benefits that apply to more than one group of daemons. Granted it was always the case that a Herald of Khorne doesn't buff Plaguebearers of whatever, but back in the day aura buffs and subfaction bonuses weren't a thing, so you only needed one Bloodletter or Bloodcrusher unit to use a herald to full effectiveness, post-aura and subfaction bonuses you're incentivised to have several Khorne units around a herald to maximise the buffs, which pushes armies towards mono-god builds and the codex as a whole towards mono-god design.

You jest, but I literally watched a friend do that at dinner one time.

It's the case with any large complex setting. I do it with Lord of the Rings sometimes. Hell, my brother and I have done that with Stephen King's stuff. Big, interconnected settings are hard to explain without going off on tangeants.

If I had to boil 40k down into a short description it'd be something along the lines of;

It's set in the far future, a lot of it is rooted in parody but has drifted away from that as it took itself more seriously over the years, humanity is split between a vast fascistic theocratic empire and daemon worshipping cultists, various alien races pick at the borders of the empire and internal conflict within the empire is frequent and violent. The better stories in the setting deal with the tragedy inherent to being a human in this time, where even good men have to commit atrocities in the name of civilisation surviving one more day, even though the civilisation they defend is hopelessly corrupt and decadent.

Obviously there's tons of spots there where the temptation to overexplain could come in, but resisting that urge is vital to not winding up blathering nonsense for ages.

[Kagus]

"Over-the-top space fantasy" also works. Depends on how much detail they're actually looking to get.

[nenjin]

"Sci-fi fantasy Space Opera" is where I'll generally stop.

[Egan_BW]

"Tolkien but edgier" in space and even edgier.

[Loud Whispers]

"in the grim darkness of the future, two fat men hit each other with swords forever"

[Loud Whispers]

You jest, but I literally watched a friend do that at dinner one time.

It's how I got two of my friends into 40k. They'd ask one question and before I could finish the story they'd ask more questions; managed to keep it below epic-length by just keeping it to cool moments

I think the walking back of unaligned daemons is more to do with the decision to push subfactions in tabletop, as well as an attempt to make Be'lakor/Abaddon/Archaon more special. As was the only unaligned daemons that had rules were Daemon Princes, Soul Grinders and Furies, which isn't really enough to make an undivided subfaction, so they just made it so you had to make them aligned to one of the gods so they would fit the mono-god builds they are encouraging.

Yeah, but GW needs to see at some point that telling everyone how special Abaddon/Be'lakor is instead of making them special is lame

On a somewhat related note, I'm rather pleased to find that minor chaos gods are still canon in 40k, like the Night Lords' one or references to chaos gods that come and go. Gives a lot more flexibility when there are more demons with free will and more gods you can throw at players. As an update to nid-ocean world building, I did find this canon example of a nid ocean war where the Imperium used atomic depth charges to clear the ocean of nids:

The Tyranids first struck at the Ocean World of Deuteria, deploying winged and oceanic organisms. The xenos were met by heavy anti-aircraft fire, barrage balloons, and minefields. This Tyranids were eventually defeated by an enormously risky operation that saw the majority of the Imperial hunting flotillas gathering one place and drawing in the Tyranids, only to unleash flights of gunships with atomic depth-charges. At Sigma-Ulstari itself, the defenders were aided by its vast toxic oceans. Genestealers and Lictors identified these as threats and put down warning-scents to make sure the Tyranids would avoid them, forcing the xenos into several bottlenecks.

The octarius war does also corroborate the whole surprising notion that "nids would drown on planetfall?"
Because although nids make creatures that can survive the void of space or extreme heats/colds/radiation, the octarius war has an example where some nids get lured onto a frozen lake and drown, or nids avoid the toxic oceans. But when it becomes a strategic impediment the Imperials get thrown for a ride when the nids suddenly become amphibious and resistant to freezing water/toxic water. This supports the idea that the nids will do the bare minimum amount of modifications needed to adjust to a planet, only modifying when:
-tyrannoforming is not possible
-not modifying is more costly than modifying

On an unrelated note, the Black Crusade rulebook is hilariously well-written from the POV of a 10,000 year old CSM. It's full of the most generous interpretations of CSM actions but is also cool for having an in character source for loads of 40k defining events. My favourite take is this one:

The dangerous taint of zealotry and xenophobia remains strong about all humans however, leading to some demand for their use as bodyguards among alien traders that enjoy intimidating their clients.

Alien rogue traders favouring the use of human bodyguards because they have a reputation for being space war criminals could make for a fun rogue trader campaign. Reminds me of a Last Chancers novel (I think) where the guardsmen are infiltrating a Tau world. One of the guardsmen picks a fight with a tarellian in a bar, thinking a quick barfight would rapidly establish his credentials as a worthwhile ruffian to be hired. A kroot mercenary quickly intervenes and takes him outside, asking if the human guardsmen knew how close he was to dying. Human guardsmen says no, he thought it'd be a quick scrap and then they'd be done. Kroot mercenary says of the dozen and a half races in that bar, most of them have lost their homeworld to humans. More craftworlds have been destroyed by humans than chaos, orks or tyranids. And lore is full of anecdotes where a human empire created a nice xeno-friendly federation before the Imperium showed up and said "yeah exterminate your neighbours or we'll exterminate you too."

It's like there are multiple layers of 40k knowledge possessed by everyone

The Good Citizen Tier
Mostly random Imperial citizens just going about their lives, the kinds of people indoctrinated by the Imperial creed
-Mutants are unclean. Wipe them out.
-Heresy is evil; burn it.
-Witches are dangerous. Black ships for them.
-Aliens are out to get you. Kill them first.

Noticeably around this level citizens barely even know what they are hating, as in-depth knowledge of/interactions with mutations, heresy or aliens is something that can get you in trouble with the adeptas. And it doesn't seem to vary with class; the highest aristocrat to the lowest factory dreg tends to share the same prejudice AND ignorance as to what they're specifically hating at any given moment

The Enforcer Tier
The kind of people who keep the Imperium loyal to the Imperium, or who have to deal with threats that citizens are lucky to never face. Guardsmen, the cult of Mars, Arbites, mid-level administratum, SOBs, voidsmen and munistorum priests fall in here.
-Has a better idea of what mutants are, which ones are sanctioned, which ones are necessary like astropaths/navigators/astartes.
-Actually has a rough idea what the ruinous powers are. For voidsmen/guardsmen/SOBs/munistorum priests, may have even witnessed demonic activity firsthand.
-Has actually encountered alien tech/alien foes before.

It's highly contradictory around this level as to what level of knowledge gets you killed by astartes/inquisitors/arbites. Decades of different writers tends to produce that. A good example would be the Grey Knights purging everyone who sees them, even if they're impressed by the stalwart resistance against chaos of their compatriots. But then there are all these additional retcons and stipulations. Astartes don't usually get purged, but mind-cleansed. But then sometimes guardsmen who fought alongside them were allowed to live as Inquisitorial prisoners, or banished to isolated worlds, or sworn to secrecy, or even inducted into the Inquisition. Sometimes they're purged because they know of chaos, or know too much beyond a permissable threshold of chaos, or because they have seen the Grey Knights and GKs are supposed to be top secret (even though every demon a Grey Knight banishes brings knowledge of the GKs with them into the warp?). There has been an admirable attempt to reconcile the conflicting lore and the most consistent approach I've seen is:

-There is considerable Inquisitorial dispute over what level of forbidden lore is permissable. Radical puritans genuinely stick to the "old school" approach where they are willing to exterminatus an entire world just because one guardsmen (a loyalist one no less) who saw demon-prince Angron and lived escaped (with the help of the space wolves) onto that world.
-There is a level of value/firepower someone provides before you can't kill them just for knowing about xenos/chaos/heresy/warp. Space wolves, Dark Angels, Black Templars, Imperial Navy battlegroups all have too much experience with sailing through the warp everyday and too much firepower to try and force them into the mindwipe/sterilisation camp. But sometimes a place is also just too valuable.
Cadians lived under the eye of terror with constant warp exposure, mutations, an overabundance of knowledge about heresy, sorcery, chaos, grey knights and the long war. Still got exported around the galaxy without getting purged from orbit. Loads of guardsmen in lore have endured ridiculous amounts of exposure to the warp and after very tense interrogations by the Inquisition, been allowed to continue service, like the Tanith First and Only getting the ]I[ seal of approval after living on a chaos-occupied planet.

The way I see it, is there is a sliding scale of knowledge, like in the Ciaphas Cain series where guardsmen expected to fight chaos or xenos are brief in as much detail as they need to be effective. And the higher ranking you go, the more the officers are told about the true nature of their enemy. And if for whatever reason personnel end up far exceeding what the Inquisition would like them to know:
-They are examined for signs of taint or corruption. If found, they are purged.
-If they are found to be robust and faithful, they are declared "dead" but in actuality inducted into an Inquisitor's personal forces. As far as their former peers know, the Inquisition really did kill them.
-Grey Knights don't automatically exterminate everyone who looked in their general direction out of "secrecy." But there are bands of Grey Knights who are so secret, even Ordo Malleus Inquisitors don't know about them. These ones probably are the ones who kill loyalists who witness them, less so because their personal secrecy is important, moreso because what they're guarding/doing is so important. But if they suspect a high likelihood of taint/insanity, Grey Knights will frequently exterminate a loyalist population because they fall on the extreme end of "take no chances."

Everything you know is a lie tier
Xeno-artifact smugglers involved in the cold-trade. Malteks, Magoses and tech-heretics. Warp-dabblers and radical preachers. Admirals, Astartes and Commanders. Rogue Traders and Inquisitors.
Around this level people have enough authority, sanction, clout or skill to know some seriously forbidden stuff without immediately dying. But they are likely to also begin to understand everything they learned in the previous tiers is a lie. They might gain the trust of their Chapter Master and learn the Emperor never wanted to be worshipped as a God, and his Imperial Truth was replaced by Lorgar's lectitio divinatus - meaning the Ecclesiarchy is the work of the first heretic. They may be ordered to escort an Eldar craftworld through Imperial Space by an Inquisitor, and through acquaintance with the alien find more common cause with the xenos than their fellow man. Dig deeper and they may even unearth the inglorious history of the glorious great crusade; that most of the alien species who persecute and assail humanity, lived peaceably with humanity until the day the Emperor put their worlds to the sword. Their alien hatred and xenophobia of humans attributed to all humans forever thereafter. Finding out what the Omnissiah is, discovering how to manipulate the warp, innovating, engaging in Stygies VIII tier xeno-engineering, pushing for psyker ascension of humanity, making daemonhosts, trying to become a daemon - this tier is full of stuff where even those who can get away with murder need to watch what they say and who they say it to.

Everything you thought you learned was also a lie tier
Not really a separate tier from the previous one, but more like a continuation. This tier is populated by the people who learned these kinds of forbidden lore but have found ways to apply the knowledge to further their own causes and ultimate agendas. Like an Inquisitor being told "the Emperor never said he was a God" only to reply "yet now he is." This is where you get the deepest Alpha Legion level conspiracies and philosophies. Dark Mechanicum working together with Inquisitors, serving neither chaos nor Imperium, but instead purely devoted to fusing dark age archaeotech, warp science, AI and xenotech to recreate the heights of human civilisation. Ordo Hereticus inquisitors graduating from hunting heretics to hunting Inquisitors trying to reincarnate the Emperor. Ordo Xenos inquisitors making pacts with alien gods in the webway or locked away in dying stars. Inquisitors who know the Ecclesiarchy is bullshit but maintain the lie just to maintain civil order within the Imperium. Alpha Legion level philosophy where astartes/agents/psykers/naval units/sorcerors all form one dangerous society.

The journey of realisation would go something like this:
1. Puritan acolyte priest distinguishes himself after leading a raid on a heretic cult that resulted in the summoning of a bloodletter. Gets inducted into the Ordo Malleus.
2. Gains more experience, surviving against the odds, exorcising and banishing demons. Sees firsthand how the ruinous powers destroy a person's soul, reducing the masses to broken wretches and its champions to little more than psychic appendages of the four chaos gods.
3. Ends up becoming a high will-powered vanquisher of chaos. But all the tools they have accrued over the years to destroy chaos can also be used to control it (mechanically this is very fun - in the TTRPG holy seals used to repel/imprison demons also provide a bonus to any pact-making attempts with demons for example. A high will-powered priest is exactly the sort of person who can wield a daemon-weapon, and a daemon-weapon is capable of permanently killing a daemon, not just banishing it).
4. For whatever reason ends up sliding down the slippery slope of radicalism, experimenting with sorcery, summoning demons, demonhosts. They might discover interesting things. E.g. if you're an imperial then every demonhost you see is either someone being forcibly possessed, or a creation of a radical inquisitor; in either case it results in the demon hijacking the body of its owner. But they learn about cases where tech-heretics produced warp-infected humans who were possessed of great intelligence and saint-like demeanour, or cases where chaos space marines willingly became demonhosts and lived symbiotically with their demon; neither side dominating the other, but sustaining each other.
5. One day one of their powerful colleagues catches wind of their old puritan friend making "Angels of the Emperor." They dig deeper and discover to their horror their old friend excitedly telling them about how they were able to overcome the limitations of the flesh and limitations of the warp. Humans who could sustain themselves in the material world, whilst sustaining the vast powers of the warp. Beings who would not succumb to the will of the chaos gods, but retain their human free will - now devoid of human mortality. They boasted of finally achieving the Emperor's vision to ascend humanity into a psychic race physically capable of handling its own nascent psychic might.
6. The purge ensues.
7. A bumbling scribe one day encounters a dusty tome, half-burnt. It describes Angels of the Emperor, but this scribe does not recognise this religious text in any of the Munistorum's canon. The cycle does not repeat, but it does rhyme.

I think I'll throw the "Angels of the Emperor" plotline at my players once they're done with the current one. I realised my whole xenos threat wasn't that satisfying for the characters, since all of their actions revolved around heresy and betrayal. Seemed disjointed to throw aliens in as the big enemy after it's been nothing but heresy hunting. The Xenos plotline will still go on in the background - I am keen to have them play it with different characters. But for the Sororitas, I am going to embroil them in a Temple Tendency/Mechanicus/Noble plot.

The current situation of my players is that they are in charge of a minor order of Sororitas, the Order of the Furious Angel. They have barely enough sisters to maintain a mission strength, numbering 49 sisters of militant orders and 103 sisters of non-militant orders. Logis Philikos Skille of the Divisio Investigatus is going to approach them and offer them numerous suits of Sororitas power armour of unknown providence they just so happened to "find" in the Amaranthine wastes, in exchange for helping him and his two maniples of Skitarii seize control of Hive Erebuni's refineries, with the ultimate long-term goal of dividing the planet between the Order of the Furious Angel/Ordo Hereticus and the Mechanicus.

The layer below that is that Philikos Skille is not high ranking enough to really be making such deals, and he is effectively trying to usurp the mechanicus hierarchy. His boss, the Magos, has disappeared alongside the Sororitas's own inquisitor under suspicious circumstances. The Mechanicus has no interest in disrupting their relationship with Erebuni; Philikos wishes to seize the hive to be his own personal power-base as he seriously worships the God-Emperor as the incarnation of the Omnissiah and believes he can empirically codify "Faith is motion. Fire is change. The Omnissiah is immaterial made material."

He is the secret sect leader of the small Cult of Gellar, radical tech-priests who worship matter and its material properties in countering the warp. I like to imagine he had a religious experience working on some Gellar Fields, and may be supported by a coven of Macready techsorcists who want to know why pouring holy water on a cogitator stack works better than their best canticle chants, holy firewalls and scrap-code defences, or may spend much time investigating and trying to codify the material effects of faith (e.g. blessed weapons/miracles/holy wards/charms). Whilst not exactly tech-heresy or heresy, Philikos Skille knows this sort of work will likely get him branded a double-apostate anyways by the Mechanicus and Ecclesiarchy unless he has backing from the Hereticus. In mechanical terms if my players choose to ally with him, they'll gain a reliable source of high-quality gear (once/if they turn over Hive Erebuni to his forces) and access to experimental fusions of Mars/Holy gear (holy hand grenade style). They'll also gain peer (+20 to all fellowship tests) with the Erebuni Mechanicus and lesser nobles (the latter of which benefit from the loss of power of greater nobles). But they'll also gain distrusted (-10 to all fellowship tests) with the mechanicus, ecclesiarchy, inquisition and sisters of battle from other orders, and gain hated (-20 to all fellowship tests) with the Erebuni greater noble houses.

Lord-Governor Ashant's objectives are simple enough. Try to contain his receding hairline and maintain order as everything falls apart and his allies desert him one by one.

Arch-Deacon Kaefor Lamaar is going to present them with some arco-flagellants, made from "volunteers" who the players will recognise as people who fought alongside them to seize Bailong Station. Kaefor Lamaar is going to suggest this is a deliberate provocation from the Lord Governor Melvin kon Ashant. Now kon Ashant is already embroiled in his own conspiracy involving the dark eldar, at least one inquisitor (maybe three), mutants, tyranids and is just generally having a bad time. The Arch-Deacon is going to suggest to the Sororitas that Ashant is deliberately formenting the seeds of civil war so he can eliminate the agents of the Adeptas in the chaos, as after the withdrawal of the guards and the scout titans, the majority of forces on the planet are PDF ostensibly loyal to the planetary government. He is also going to point fingers at the Mechanicus, blaming them for the disappearance of their Inquisitor.

Whatever course of action they decide upon, it's almost certain they are going to be attacked by the sudden activation of the arco-flagellants, who will prioritise killing sororitas above anything else. Arch-Deacon Kaefor Lamaar is in charge of managing the Ecclesiarchy's "temporal duties" of wealth collection and distribution on Erebuni. But he is secretly a member of the Temple Tendency - actual "heresy" heretics in that they believe in the Goge Vandire-era Ecclesiarchy, of a priesthood supreme ruling over all the galaxy with a limitless legion of elite zealots & mission fleets, limitless political power and unequestioned authority. If he's successful, Arch-Deacon Kaefor Lamaar's objectives will be:
1. Kill the Cardinal of Erebuni, so the head of both the Church's spiritual and temporal matters will be in his hands.
2. Defeat the Lord Governor, so there are no challengers to his rule.
3. Eliminate discretely or ally with the arbites and mechanicus garrisons, giving him more time to consolidate power before anyone can raise the alarm on someone breaking the decree passive.
4. Link up with other Temple-Tendency plots throughout the sector. Establish himself as Arch-Cardine.
5. Eliminate the Sororitas.

One of the neat things about the Temple-Tendency plot is that my players will have to deal with someone turning all the infrastructure they use against them. The planet will be rallied against them, and they will be the ones declared as "heretics." But this will also provide them with a strategic advantage if they can figure this out - the Temple Tendency is a well organised conspiracy, that is well-equipped and highly motivated. Everything has been planned for centuries, but Sororitas introduce a weakness in their plan. The Temple Tendency absolutely loathe Sororitas, viewing them as prime traitors who betrayed Goge Vandire and the Ecclesiarchy. Whereas most of their actions are well thought-out and carefully considered, the Sororitas are likely to make the Temple Tendency heresy show their hand prematurely out of anger and rage. It seems fitting that their order is an Order Minoris of the Order of the Valorous Heart, who in turn are the Sororitas who are most "repentant" for having helped Goge Vandire in the first place.

I'm really pulling out the stops to find some "unconventional" allies who would not obey planetary authority, but be a surprising help to Sororitas on the run. Like a horde of beastmen in the amaranthine wastes who prayed for angels of the Emperor to descend from the heavens and save them from a marauding vampire-witch. Or a criminal network of underhivers who praise the Emperor and spit in the face of the Ecclesiarchy; the kinds of allies the Sororitas reeeeally wouldn't willingly associate with under normal circumstances but may temper their usual "purge now ask questions never" approach. Especially since ammunition will not be something they can replenish easily. Pious mutants, feudal-flagellants and knights with plate armour, tech-priests of Terra and anti-ecclesiarchy gangsters may be fine allies in times of crisis, but I don't think they'd compromise on working with actual dabblers of sorcery or heresy, or even the dark eldar, so I imagine there aren't that many more unorthodox allies I can throw at them?

[Kagus]

Y'know, I've been thinking... The vast majority of WH40k games tend to put you in the power-greaves of the space marines, which, sure, I can understand... They're nominally human, which the primary audience is expected to identify with, due to mainly being nominally humans themselves. And with the spess mehreens being the poster boys of the poster boy faction in the universe, it makes sense conceptually.

...but in practice, putting Astartes under the direct control of players tends to result in some really non-codex behavior. Extremely risky and chaotic (often extremely individualistic, with no regard for backup or cooperation) tactics, unorthodox and even occasionally heretical loadouts, complete disregard for Imperial tenets and even more infighting than usual.

(And yes I'm aware that you can find multiple examples of all of this in the actual chapters, but for the sake of argument no u)

Frankly, I don't feel like space marines are particularly well-suited to being piloted by your average gamer... And that one Tau game being even less appropriate. However, there is a faction which I feel perfectly embodies and celebrates the traits exhibited by such a playerbase.

Namely: Orks.


Complete ignorance of and disdain for tactical maneuvers unless specifically beaten into it, wildly reckless (some would say suicidal) bravado. strapping every random bit and bob onto your equipment because they think it'll become "more stabby" or "more dakka" or even just "more flash", the cohesive dichotomy between extreme chaotic individualism and mindless horde behavior, a general obsession with being the biggest and the stompiest, and a perpetual sojourn in search of the best fight... Wherever that may be, and whoever it might be against (doesn't really matter, so long as whatever it is happens to be big).

I was quite excited when I heard the announcement of Shootas, Blood and Teef as an incredibly rare example of Orky protagonists, but... I have to say I'm not hugely inspired by what is effectively a WH40k-colored reskin of the studio's earlier game Guns, Gore and Cannoli. I feel like there's a lot of untapped potential there.


Hell, if there's ever an MMO featuring orks, they could make a leaderboard where your character model gets bigger the higher your rank

[LordBaal]

I had a dream about a  game, a city building game... for an Ork settlement. It was a mix of city building and combat. Kind of what Manor Lords wants to be. It was filled with antics and everyonce in a while you lost population to raids or whaag recruitment but as long a spore remained you could start over again.

[MrRoboto75]

There's an ork car combat game around the corner too