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Daemon

2023-06-10T12:36:25Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:8022:3A15:9F1C:7B04: /* True Names */

[[File:Daemon Medieval.jpg|thumb|right|400px|No, you are not mistaken, its ass is a face. "Kiss my ass" now has a new meaning.]]
The word Dæmon, or "''δαίμων ‎''", originated from Greek mythology, and was the term for spirits of nature and, well, anything but the Olympian gods. It wasn't a negative term at all, but rather a term that described creatures other than humans and animals, but as they often had ethics that was just as alien, they could seem malevolent at times. In Roman mythology, the term evolved to describe two guardian spirits who all people had attached to them, one benevolent and one malevolent. When Christianity became the state religion of Rome, they were recast as purely evil beings that served Satan; somewhere along the line, they became known as [[demon]]s.

In /tg/ culture, daemon occasionally pops up as an alternative to "demon" or "devil" as the terminology for the fiendish races. The most iconic example of Daemons on /tg/ are those from the Warhammer settings.

==Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder==
[[Dungeons & Dragons]] has long used the term Daemon to refer to their Neutral Evil fiendish race, in contrast to the Lawful Evil Devils and the Chaotic Evil Demons. With the notorious anti-Satanic panic, daemons were renamed as [[Yugoloth]]s in the [[Planescape]] setting, much as devils and demons became [[Baatezu]] and [[Tanar'ri]], respectively. See the [[Yugoloth]] page for more details.

In [[Pathfinder]], [[Daemon_(Pathfinder)|daemons]] are again the Neutral Evil fiendish race, because yugoloths aren't in the OGL. Born from the souls of Neutral Evil mortals, each breed of daemon embodies a specific kind of death, in comparison to the sin-born demons. For example, hydrodaemons represent death by drowning, whilst thanatodaemons represent death by old age. Answering to the four archdaemons, styled after the Horsemen of the Apocalypse - that is, Famine, War, Pestilence and Death - they hearken back to older descriptions of Neutral Evil in that they ''hate'' life itself.

In the Pathfinder setting's closest equivalent to the [[Blood War]], daemons seek to annihilate all life, trying to sweep the multiverse clean of all life other than daemonkind. Once they have achieved that goal, they will then turn on each other, fighting to the death until only one daemon remains in existence. That daemon will take a moment to savor the emptiness of existence... and then commit suicide. They hate life that much. This naturally does not sit well with demons and devils who like existing, so they'll actually team up with eachother and even ''celestials'' to stop them.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]]

==Infernum==
In the D20 game [[Infernum]] by Mongoose Publishing, Daemon is the highest of the "common" titles, the furthest rank a hellspawn can achieve without becoming a noble of some description. It is awarded only to hellspawn who prove themselves true masters in a particular field of expertise - combat, diplomacy, spying, etcetera - and usually requires formal duels between would-be contestants under the eye of a local Captain. Ascending to the rank of Daemon awards a hellspawn with 2000 bonus experience points and grants them their first Noble Mutation.

==Warhammer==
{{heresy}}

{{Topquote|Only a fool trusts a Daemon. They are made of the very stuff of change, the raw madness of the Warp made manifest. However, like men, Daemons are creatures of greed, pride, and arrogance, and these are things I trust completely.|[[Abaddon]] the Despoiler, either being pretty awesome or talking complete bullshit depending on your point of view}}

[[File:M3060166a 2xl.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Just remember that the next time you rage at your mates for [[That Guy|being a douche]] or something, you're indirectly creating one of these.]]

'''Daemons''' (pronounced like demon, but always spelled with that a) are powerful beings, neither real nor unreal, which do not obey the laws of physics; indeed, their very existence is a warping of reality. They reside within the [[Warp|Realm of Chaos]], and usually are organized into groups obeying the rule of [[Chaos Gods]]. Though daemons are commonly associated with Chaos, independent and Order-aligned daemons exist as well.

According to wikifags over at the official 40k Wiki, daemons can be created from one of the four Ruinous Powers through a process that's kind of similar to something like a yeast or sponge budding; a Chaos God splits off a tiny fraction of their own will, essence, and power, and in doing so creates a new daemon that is essentially an extension of whatever Chaos God made it. It's worth noting that the Gods can also use the souls of deceased individuals who died under specific circumstances to forge new daemons, and given the [[Grimdark|general shitfuckery that goes on in the galaxy that results in hundreds of thousands dying on a daily basis]], this particular process of daemon spawning is typically more popular. Anyway, these newborn critters then invade the real world, buttfuck ([[slaanesh|literally, 25% of the time]]) anyone they can get their horny claws on (even other [[Dark Eldar|rapists]]), and the resulting torrent of chaotic emotions that come from being violently buttfucked by a walking pile of Warp energy feed the Chaos Gods, causing their power to grow and allowing even more daemons to be born (that's right; no matter how many morning-after pills you take, a baby is guaranteed to pop out of someone, somewhere, sooner or later as a result of your fatal defilement). Hopefully now you're starting to realise how utterly ROFLSCREWED the many unfortunate races of the Milky Way are; [[Wat|simply ''seeing'' these assholes and getting scared by them essentially gives their gods the power to make ''even more'' of these assholes]]. <s>So man the fuck up, otherwise you're indirectly responsible for giving birth to these dudes</s> nope, sorry, not even growing a manly-ass pair is gonna save you from the guilt of making more daemons, since the bravery and fearlessness you feel will feed [[Khorne]] in particular and allow him to spawn a bunch of new [[Bloodletter|horny penis-heads with sharp swords]]. For fuck's sake.

As I said; ROFLSCREWED. It's thought that the only way to rid the galaxy of this Heresy-given-physical-form would probably be to kill off every single sentient living thing in the galaxy that has a presence in the Warp ([[Halo]] array, anyone?), thus 'starving' the Chaos Gods of their juicy succulent thirst-quenching emotions. For obvious reasons this hasn't been tested, and seeing as how at least one of them revolves around a cycle of death and rebirth, to the point where some of his followers are trying to do exactly this, it's debatable on whether or not it'd work in the first place (and that's before we bring up how time in the warp's all fucked up too, which could make them immortal anyway).

Perhaps the only form of protection from this endless loop of chaos spawns is belief in the Emperor's vision of galaxy spanning order and prosperity. Not only can E-Money himself banish even the biggest of big dick daemons back to the warp with the wave of a hand, there's been at least one instance of a certain Euphrati Keeler grasping her imperial aquila and chanting "the Emperor protects" over and over, resulting in the banishment of a lesser daemon.

But wait, it doesn't stop there. Daemons are functionally immortal in that even if their physical forms are destroyed in real space, their essence will return back into the Warp/RoC where they will be ready to wreak havoc once they have another opportunity to go back, unless there are special circumstances preventing them from doing so such as being trapped in an object (such as a Tesseract Labyrinth or enchanted item), or special incantations that imprison it. It ''is'' however also possible to give a daemon a "true death" in that it is permanently erased from existence, but this normally requires some incredibly rare artifact, absurdly complicated rituals, or a psyker/wizard of immense power (after all, by truly killing a daemon, you are in essence killing a tiny fraction of one of the Chaos Gods, so of course it'd be hard as fuck). Retcon time！If you slay them with the Emperor's Sword or have the Sisters of Silence present after slaying the daemon's essence will disperse instead of returning to the Warp, permanently destroyed. Even works for Daemon Primarchs! But will not work on daemons required to be present for the final "The End".

Lesser daemons like [[Bloodletter]]s can normally be banished back by a proper bashing with a mace or a few dozen shots from a lasgun, or with a simple chant of a certain scripture that daemons fear. Greater Daemons, like a [[Bloodthirster]] or [[Great Unclean One]], will normally either require ''extremely'' powerful dakka the size of [[Baneblade|Baneblades]] or in Fantasy, mass-stabbing from spears, cannon balls, the intervention of the [[Daemonhunters]] and similar specialists. They are also [[FAIL|vulnerable]] to anyone an author wants to make [[Mary Sue|look cool]], resulting in approximately nine thousand two hundred and seventy-three Bloodthirsters being cruelly slain per novel written. Banishing Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes from real space for a long time often requires rituals which involve uttering the daemon's true name, which is a secret to begin with, almost always unpronounceable for a human, long enough to take minutes to utter, and can have nasty spells (like ones that fill your lungs with molten brimstone) included into them - and all this must happen while said angry daemon does his best to slaughter the ritual's participants.

It should be noted that even though the word "Daemon" is their widely accepted name by the mortal races, it is not necessarily the name they call themselves. One daemon in 40k even remarks that it is merely a name given to them by mortals (generally humans) due to its satanic origin (even if it technically has a more neutral, Greek origin, but scratch that, current fluff writers aren't the authors of the RoC and just because it's a daemon doesn't mean it knows jack shit about history). In conversations with mortals they actually like or at least tolerate, daemons often call themselves "Neverborn", and many Chaos worshippers prefer to use this term.

Little is known of those called the Coiling Ones, claiming to be descendants of the Godbeast Nagendra and using its patron the Ghyranic Splintered Fang tribe. Also interestingly there's the Sapphire King, a Daemon of Slaanesh created by emotions of Ferrus Manus and Fulgrim at their penultimate duel's final moments.

===[[The 9th Age]]===

===[[Warhammer Fantasy]]===
In Fantasy they are made of [[Warhammer Magic|magic]], the source of (most of) which is the Realm of Chaos, and feed upon/inspire certain emotions in mortal beings. Daemon serves as more of a general term for creatures of the Realm of Chaos, or the Aethyr for the powers of Order, though it's still a word primarily associated with Chaos (they're their bread and butter after all). Thanks to the magical nature of the world, Daemons have little trouble manifesting within the world if they can find entrance to it. Indeed, any place that the Winds of Magic linger for too long can create Daemons of various kinds which will usually haul themselves towards the nearest place living (usually sapient) beings are found and act for either good, evil, or something in between, and after being "slain" find themselves within the Realm of Chaos for the first time. They can possess hosts, although the weak mortal frames limit their power and usually this is only done to commit acts of mischief or deliver messages to other mortals.

Nature is said to abhor daemons, at least those of Chaos, and while they can appear easily enough in areas of heavy magic, their grip on the physical world is tenuous; sufficient injury, magic, or simply waiting too long can cause them to dissipate, and they can normally retreat in this manner if things go south for them in battle. Chaos daemons have a particularly tough time manifesting around holy places, such as the Shrine of Asuryan. When a daemon force attempted to overtake it, even small injuries caused them to burst into ashes, and none save N'kari would go near the Flame itself. Even he was sent away howling in fear and pain when his arm brushed the holy altar, which caused his body to flamelessly burn a deep, blistering black.

There are very few means of permanently killing daemons, restricted to the highest magic powers and divine weapons, or just whenever the plot needs it to happen. [[Skulltaker]] was once beaten and slain by Sigmar as a mortal, and though he wasn't killed forever, he still bears the scars Sigmar left him, which may indicate daemons become gradually weaker as they "respawn" over time.

===[[Age of Sigmar]]===
Age of Sigmar Daemons are pretty similar to those in Warhammer Fantasy, albeit with one major difference: they're portrayed as being a lot more permanent. Daemons need magic to exist, and since the Mortal Realms are literally made out of the Winds of Magic, a daemonic army once summoned can pretty much roam around the land indefinitely.

===[[Warhammer 40,000]]===
In [[Warhammer 40,000]] they are manifestations of the psychic emotions of psychically powerful species and individuals, like [[humanity]] and [[Eldar]]. They reside in the chaotic and hellish psychic dimension known as the Warp.
Daemons can only enter realspace under certain conditions, like being summoned in a ceremony or crossing through a warp rift. Even then, because they are made of warp energy and solidified emotion, they don't last long outside of the Warp, so in order to stick around, they have to either drag the Warp into realspace (resulting in a [[Daemon World]] in extreme circumstances) or be bound in a host. [[Psykers]] are the preferred choice of host, especially the powerful and uncontrolled ones, and they also happen to be a favourite method of opening [[Warp]] rifts -- their powers make them shine in the Warp, which attracts daemons like moths to a flame; all the daemons have to do is wait for the psyker's control to falter, and move in to take possession.
Sometimes, [[Heresy|stupid people]] try to become a daemon, often a cult committing mass suicide, in order for their souls to fuse, much like what the Emperor did, but instead of reincarnating (since they can't), their souls will then join and become a daemon, because of their chaotic natures. Since souls are not sentient, someone's soul is not him, [[FAIL|and it doesn't count as immortality]]. Daemon-Prince-hood however does, but you will suffer an eternity of Derp from Games Workshop.

===Types===
Ever since the ancient Realms of Chaos sourcebooks, daemons have been divided into three groups: Greater Daemons, Lesser Daemons, and Daemonic Creatures.

==== Greater Daemons ====
Greater Daemons are the most powerful of the Chaos God's immortal servants, and it's Very Bad News when they arrive in the real world. They are also the most difficult to banish, as they invariably have tremendously long names, not to mention enough power to give any would-be banishers a hard time. Fortunately for those living in realspace, Greater Daemons are also the most difficult to summon: they require great sacrifices and elaborate ceremonies to even enter the real world, and will not last long without continued exposure to [[Warp]] energy. Unfortunately, where Greater Daemons go, hordes of lesser daemons inevitably follow. Greater Daemons are capable of independent thought and are highly intelligent, though this intelligence is heavily influenced by the emotions that form them. However, old fluff (the Hordes of Chaos 6th edition army book from [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle|WFB]]) claimed they do not actually have a true personality or even a consciousness - they were simply hollow husks who did [[just as planned|their master's bidding]] and are merely extensions of their god's presence. Any Daemon with a sort of will of their own was instead a [[Daemon Prince]]. This is no longer canon, as former Daemon Princes are now Greater Daemons. Some Greater Daemons are in fact mortals who were particularly revered by their chosen god (barring [[Dechala]], who was just Slaanesh being a troll). Greater Daemons are also stated to have their own goals independent of their Chaos God, usually by just not advancing any greater goal but at times can even be a hindrance to the greater plans of Chaos; this is always met with forgiveness, as any punishment from a Chaos God is ridiculously rare for any Daemonic being (to date the only intentional punishments have been two Daemonettes who disobeyed Slaanesh, and [[Skarbrand|one Greater Daemon who quite literally declared war on Khorne himself]]). Some players from either game have used this to justify more..."interesting" Daemon armies, such as the [[Carnival of Chaos]] or towns which have been taken over by Daemons.

Khorne's Greater Daemons are [[Bloodthirster]]s, giant axe-wielding warriors with massive leathery wings. They are [[Angry Marines|always angry, all the time]]. There are eight hosts of Bloodthirster, each of the eight possess their own lethal skills, armaments and title. Those of the eighth host, for example, are known as Bloodthirsters of Unfettered Fury. These monstrous beings are skilled if unsubtle generals and, armed with their infamous
combination of axe and whip, are most often seen commanding Khorne’s daemonic legions in their attacks on realspace. By comparison, those of the sixth rank, known as Bloodthirsters of Insensate Rage, are berserk destroyers who wield immense axes as tall as a fortress gate. Nothing can stand before such terrors on the battlefield, and the Daemons of Khorne are drawn instinctively on in the wake of their furnace-hot fury. The infamous Bloodthirsters of the third host, meanwhile, are known as the Wrath of Khorne. These beings are fire-breathing braggarts, hunters after glory who delight in humbling the mightiest heroes of the foe and butchering them in the name of their bloody lord.

Slaanesh's Greater Daemons are [[Keeper of Secrets|Keepers of Secrets]], each carefully formed to tempt their foes and each looking to experience as many sensations as possible. Their appearance depends on <s>Slaanesh's mood</s> GW's policy at the time of creating them.

Nurgle's Greater Daemons are [[Great Unclean One]]s, whose joviality is infectious...literally. They are so plague-ridden that they excrete daemons from every available opening. Mmm, is that [[Grimdark]] enough for you?

Tzeentch's Greater Daemons are [[Lord of Change|Lords of Change]], bird-like sorcerer daemons capable of predicting the future. They like to make [[Just as planned|plans]].

Malal's Greater Daemons are "Guardian of Contradictions", looking like giant daemon goats with a woman's head for a tail (wtf). So far they are the closest interpretation we can get on what they actually look like. The name is only fanwankery based on concept art by [[Tony Ackland]] for Malal's Daemons which were <s>never</s> made into [[Pantheon Of Chaos|models]] independently.

Great Horned Rat's Greater Daemons are [[Verminlord]]s, miniature versions of himself which represent his values (all of which are simply acting like a massive asshole) as well as the values of the Skaven clans (e.g. killing, defiling, killing, proliferating and killing).

Like the Heralds, which are Exalted Lesser Daemons, there are also Exalted Greater Daemons (Exalted Bloodthirster, Exalted Lord of Change, Exalted Great Unclean One, Exalted Keeper of Secrets, and Exalted Verminlord), each of which is usually represented by the [[Forge World]] models of each daemon. They are usable in [[Storm of Magic]] as Bound Monsters - creatures summoned through the Warp and bound to their summoners through Bound Scrolls. That doesn't stop them from NOMMING their masters given the chance, though. Of course, these made the transition from Warhammer Fantasy to [[Age of Sigmar]], where these behemoths are more expensive though sometimes at the cost of utility (and often using the old Index statlines when later Armybooks adjusted the stats of the basic Greater Daemons) by expending a great amount of god-specific points exclusive to the God-aligned armies.

In 40K, only the Exalted Bloodthirsters are mentioned. Eight of them belonged to the First Host and answer only to Khorne. Each of them commands eight Bloodthirsters of the second host, each of the second host commands eight of the third host, and so on. (8^8 ie. 16,777,216 Bloodthirsters from the lowest order alone, yeah we're fucked.) That said however, the named daemons (An'ggrath, Zaraknyel, Scabiethrax, and Aetos'Rau'Keres) have persisted throughout the editions and effectively take their place as the nameless Exalted Greater Daemons did on the other side.

Madail and [[Vashtorr]] are possibly Greater Daemons of Chaos Undivided.

==== Lesser Daemons ====
The lesser daemons are the most common sort, and serve as the foot soldiers for the legions of [[Chaos]]. Each one is roughly on par with a couple of [[Empire]] soldiers in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] (generally stronger in close combat, but mostly lacking ranged attacks), or a [[Space Marine]]/[[Imperial Guard]] stormtrooper in [[Warhammer 40,000]]; they form the Core of a [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] Daemons of Chaos army, and the Troops of a [[Warhammer 40,000]] Chaos Daemons army.

It's worth noting that the canon for many of the Daemons was changed by [[Phil Kelly|this fucker]]. The entire nature of the Daemons in general was mutated in his WH40K Daemon codex, and arguably not for the better. Whilst Bloodletters and Screamers are largely unchanged, Daemonettes were changed in both fluff and function (originally they were engineered by Slaanesh from [[Eldar]] souls to be both seductive AND deadly in combat, although they remain so in Fantasy) and Nurgle Daemons were changed dramatically (as was Nurgle's Rot, which changed from a survivable-if-formidable daemon-pox to a daemon-spawned [[AIDS]] with no cure that eventually makes you a Plaguebearer <s>no matter what</s> unless you commit suicide or die before you start worshipping Nurgle, which makes about as much sense as [[Wat|this]], but whatever).

[[Khorne]]'s lesser daemons are [[Bloodletter]]s. They are disciplined as they march to battle, but they tear into enemies like nobody's business on the charge. They take skulls for the skull throne. Like Daemonettes, they underwent a significant model change for one edition, then went back to their old appearance but revamped to higher quality.

[[Slaanesh]]'s lesser daemons are the [[Daemonette]]s (though they are not all female all the time, despite what the name might suggest). They can take whatever form is required to beguile their foes as they close in for the kill, though [[/d/|some browsers]] of [[/tg/]] like them just the way they usually are. Their models have varied over the years from somewhat attractive bald sharp-toothed humanoids to six-titted graylings (you'll learn very quickly that Slaanesh has a rather noticeable tit fetish, as well as every other fetish out there, most likely).

[[Nurgle]]'s lesser daemons are [[Plaguebearer|Plaguebearers]]. They are generally stoic creatures who are born from the souls of people who died of [[Nurgle|Nurgle's Rot]]. Their models have pretty much never changed, always being swollen-gutted decaying horned cyclops things. Yum.

Nurgle also has [[Nurgling]]s, pudgy foot-tall chibis made in Nurgle's own image and which form form the pus bubbles of Great Unclean Ones or particularly devout Nurgle worshippers.

[[Tzeentch]]'s lesser daemons are [[Horror]]s. They start out pink-colored, hyperactive and batshit insane, and when they are destroyed, they split into two Blue Horrors which are morose and cynical little bastards. Their models started out as oversized heads with long spindly arms and legs, but they underwent a design change into big-mouthed tangles of tentacles and arms and have stayed like that pretty much ever since, aside from an increasingly avian theming. Recently a third stage has been added, such that a slain Blue splits into two pyromaniac Brimstone (Yellow) Horrors.

Tzeentch also has [[Flamers of Tzeentch|Flamers]], which are a bunch of mouths that all spew magical fire from countless directions. Above these are the Exalted Flamers, which are much larger and more important Flamers.

[[Hashut]]'s lesser daemons are [[K'daai]]s. Unlike other lesser daemons, the K'daai are entirely artificial; being made and constructed by the [[Chaos Dwarves]] and then blessed by Hashut to act as overglorified Chaos [[Eversor]], yes, it is as terrifying as it sounds. They kind of resemble very angry fire elemental and are completely metal (Literally) to boot.

[[Malal]]'s lesser daemons are Hook Horrors, which are once again just concept art made by Ackland for Games Workshop. They have two hook claws (hence the name) but overall they look like a <s>cheap</s> cool Halloween costume that resembles an anorexic crow whose head has been reduced to a bird-like skull.

The Chaos Gods of Order (who only existed in Warhammer Fantasy) lacked proper Daemons as far as the actual game was concerned. One among them, [[Solkan the Avenger]], blessed mortal [[Witch Hunters]] to wage war against his Chaotic Chaos kin in the physical world instead. They had them in WFRP though. One of the few fleshed out Law daemons is the Viydagg, a creature said to hunt death daemons of Khorne and permanently slay them.

Chaos Gods of Order were gradually phased out in favor of other pantheons of Order, like those of the Elves and the Empire. These were mentioned as having daemons and spirits of their own, but these were never named explicitly; the books suggest modifying existing daemons as templates, so it could be inferred that they're somewhat similar to what Chaos has, just less... chaotic. It could also be argued that "daemons" for Order come by way of their mortal champions, such as [[Aenarion]] or [[Magnus the Pious]], who proved mightier than even the greatest mortal servants of Chaos (and their daemonic legions in the former's case).

[[Fury|Furies]] can be thought of as lesser daemons of [[Chaos Undivided]], although "Chaos Undecided" might be a more accurate description -- they served the Gods of Chaos but did not devote themselves strongly to any one before dying.

As mentioned above, there also exist Heralds, souped-up versions of these daemons that are generally tasked with leading the ground forces of chaos while the Greater Daemons go off waging what carnage they can. These Heralds also bear Daemonic Loci that can empower their fellow Lesser Daemons, whether on foot or riding a steed.

==== Daemonic Creatures ====
Daemonic servants and creatures can be more powerful than lesser daemons, but are generally less intelligent. Some, classified as daemonic ''steeds'', may be ridden or otherwise directed by a suitably impressive lesser daemon, or even a lucky mortal servant, while others, classified as daemonic ''beasts'', are simply turned loose on the enemy and left to their own devices.

Khorne's daemonic steeds are [[Juggernaut|Juggernauts]], metal-skinned dog/rhino/lizard-creatures with molten blood, and his beasts are the [[Flesh Hound|Flesh Hounds]] (calling them "Khorne Dogs" earns your skull a place under Khorne's ass) which are sent to hunt Khorne's enemies (including his own servants, if they displease him). Bloodletters who managed to tame and ride Juggernauts are called "[[Bloodcrushers_of_Khorne|Bloodcrushers]]." Flesh Hounds are also used as mounts, although mostly by mortals like [[Arbaal]].

Slaanesh's daemonic steeds are "[[Steeds of Slaanesh]]" (which has ''got'' to be a sex pun), and his/her beasts are called [[Fiends of Slaanesh]]. Daemonettes who ride Mounts of Slaanesh are called "Seekers." Both Fiends and Mounts feature body parts from lots of creatures, and have long tongues (all the better to 'taste' their prey, if you know what we mean...) and rows of human breasts (there's that tit fetish again).

Nurgle's daemonic steeds are "Palanquins of Nurgle" (it's a sedan chair towed by [[Nurgling]]s) and his beasts are the uncreatively named [[Beast of Nurgle|Beasts of Nurgle]], which are like overgrown diseased slugs with the mentality of an overexcited puppy. If they get bitter from having their "playmates" banishing them, they become something else called Rot Flies, which are, who would have guessed, giant rotting flies with spear-sized stings. [[Storm of Magic|Two]] [[Tamurkhan: Throne of Chaos|splatbooks]] claim Nurgle has another (technically third, if one counts the aforementioned Rot Flies and Beast of Nurgle as being the same) daemonic creature in the form of the [[Plague Toads]], huge diseased frog-things that can swallow humans whole and which all other Nurgle daemons look down on. The second even claims that there's a counterpart to Plague Drones in the form of "Pox Riders", which are Plaguebearers clinging to Plague Toads as they hop into battle.

Tzeentch's daemonic steeds are [[Screamers of Tzeentch|Screamers]], giant manta rays that are called "Discs of Tzeentch" as when someone is riding them, Screamers somehow transform into discs. Needless to say, it's not pleasant for the Screamer. His beasts are called [[Flamers of Tzeentch|Flamers]] (not to be confused with the [[flamer]] weapon), since they look like they are made of fire.

Hashut's daemonic steeds/calvary are the [[Bull Centaur]]s, which are the unholy fusion dance of Dworf and Bull. These guys are the elite shock troops in Hashut's realm and are pretty baller in that regard. His beasts are the [[Great Taurus]] which are flying, fire-breathing bulls and the [[Lammasu]] which are a more elite variant that shoots out fireballs rather than outright charging at its enemies.

Malal's daemon steeds are "Limbo-Ticks of the Anti-God" and his beasts are "Malal's Paradoxes of Pandemonium", both of which resembles every single arachnophobe's worst nightmare. The latter is usually colored black, grey and white like all things Malal-ish and have a fuckhuge maw meant for potential OMNOMNOMNOM with two sickle like claws to boot, while the former has the body of a giant louse with monkey like limbs and a giant human-like skull with a equally giant horn on it. Like the others, this is just /tg/'s name for Ackland's artwork.

====Daemons of Order====
The [[Chaos Gods of Law]] existed in earlier editions of Warhammer Fantasy were mentioned as having Daemons of their own, such as the ''Viydagg'' (which looked something like a hippiefied Grail Damsel). While the Gods of Law slowly stopped being mentioned in the setting, the Gods of Order, Sigmar and the bunch, were said to have their own Daemons still, though none were ever specifically named; even magical creatures like Ulric's wolves weren't outright named "daemons."

With [[Age of Sigmar]] the entire [[Lizardmen]] army was refluffed as "Seraphon" which have light magic running through their veins which is as corrupting to Chaos as Chaos is to mortals; Saurus blood can cleanse any of Nurgle's plagues, rots, and diseases, and the Slann are stated to be ahead of their enemies (which includes Tzeentch) in planning thanks to their scrying caste.
[[Sigmar]] also created the [[Sigmarines|<strike>Sigmarines</strike> Stormcast Eternals]] which are mortals forged in magical metal who have the same properties as Daemons.

===Chart===
Not every god fills every slot, but a couple mortal equivalents are listed in parenthesis. Also note [[Fury|Furies]] are so pathetic they don't even get to be on the chart. Daemonic Heralds aren't in here either, though that's because they're just meaner versions of their associated Lesser Daemons and, up until 8E 40K and 1E AOS, they were merely called as Heralds of X without any fancy subnames. It doesn't help that those editions also gave Heralds different names depending on what they're riding.
<center>
{|border=1 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0
|- align=left
! [[Chaos Gods]]
! [[Greater Daemon]]s
! [[Daemon#Lesser Daemons|Lesser Daemons]]
! Daemonic Servants
! Daemonic Beasts
! Daemonic Steeds
! Mounted
! Chariots
|-
| [[Khorne]] || [[Bloodthirster]] || [[Bloodletter]] || None || [[Flesh Hound]] || [[Juggernaut]] || [[Bloodcrushers of Khorne|Bloodcrusher]] || [[Blood Throne]]/[[Skull Cannon]]
|-
| [[Nurgle]] || [[Great Unclean One]] || [[Plaguebearer]] || [[Nurgling]] || [[Beast of Nurgle]]/[[Plague Toads]] || [[Battle Fly]]/[[Rot Fly]] || [[Plague Drones]]/[[Pox Riders]] || [[Palanquin of Nurgle]]
|-
| [[Slaanesh]] || [[Keeper of Secrets]] || [[Daemonette]] || None || [[Fiends of Slaanesh|Fiend]] || [[Steeds of Slaanesh]] || [[Seekers of Slaanesh]] || [[Seeker Chariots of Slaanesh|Seeker Chariot]]/[[Hellflayer Chariots of Slaanesh|Hellflayer]]
|-
| [[Tzeentch]] || [[Lord of Change]] || [[Horror]]/[[Flamers of Tzeentch|Flamer]] || None || [[Screamers of Tzeentch|Screamer]]/[[Mutalith Vortex Beast]] || [[Disc of Tzeentch]] || None || [[Burning Chariots of Tzeentch|Burning Chariot]]
|-
| [[Malal]] || [[Forces of Malal#Guardian of Contradictions|Guardian of Contradictions]]/[[Forces of Malal#Maidens of Malal|Maiden of Malal]] || [[Forces of Malal#Hook Horror|Hook Horror]] || None || [[Forces of Malal#Pandemonic Paradox of Malal|Paradoxes]] || [[Forces of Malal#Limbo-Ticks of the Anti-God|Limbo-Ticks]]/[[Forces of Malal#Nightmares|Nightmares]] || [[Forces of Malal#Parasite Riders|Parasite Riders]] || None
|-
| [[Hashut]] || None || [[K'daai]] || None || [[Great Taurus]]/[[Lammasu]] || None || [[Bull Centaur]] || None
|-
| [[Great Horned Rat]] || [[Verminlord]] || None || None || None || None || None || None
|}
</center>

=== [[Daemon Prince|Daemon Princes]] ===

For those mortals unfortunate enough to not be daemons to begin with, there is another route to immortality: serve a [[Chaos Gods|Chaos God]] and impress them so much that they grant the gift of daemonhood, resulting in an ascension into a [[Daemon Prince]]. In terms of power, they are typically only second to greater daemons, but a few especially strong mortal followers of chaos (traitor primarchs being the most famous) become more powerful than most greater daemons upon ascending. This is the ultimate goal of [[PC]]s in the [[Black Crusade]] roleplaying game, and indeed most worshipers of [[Chaos]] with even an ounce of ambition. Unfortunately, the Gods' attentions are fickle; would-be Daemon Princes who fall short of expectations may find themselves transformed into [[Chaos Spawn]] for their failures... Did I just...well...fuck... '''GLARBLRAWRGLARBL-'''{{BLAM}}

Also, among followers of chaos, there are those who know that in the warp, the souls of dead men and women are actually devoured by the [[Chaos Gods]]; many of them actively try to escape this fate ([[Rape]]) by becoming Demon Princes.

===Exalted Daemon===

A sadly short-lived concept, '''Exalted Daemons''' were introduced in the [[Hordes of Chaos]] army book for [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles]], and can be seen as the "[[Chaos]]-Loyal" analogue to the [[Daemonhost]], or alternatively a Fantasy based, character tier version of the [[Possessed]]. Exalted Daemons are [[Chaos Champion]]s who haven't earned the moxie to be turned into Daemon Princes, but have earned special attention, which results in a Daemon possessing and merging with their body. Attendant fluff implies that, unlike conventional possession victims, Exalted Daemons are fusions of mortal and daemonic soul, with the original inhabitant still being conscious and having some influence, rather than dead or pushed aside.

Mechanically, Exalted Daemons were essentially lower-grade Daemon Princes, using up two Hero choices instead of that editions 1 Lord choice + 1 Hero choice. They had one less point in Weapon Skill, Wounds, Initiative and Leadership than the big Daemon Princes, but the same ability to Fly, cause Terror, bear a Mark Of Chaos, and a Unit Strength of 3. They could be Sorcerers, maxing out at level 2, and wield up to 50 points of Daemonic Gifts.

In 8th edition, 40k introduced [[Greater Possessed]], which are larger, individual versions of normal Possessed Marines, and are thus somewhat similar to the original Exalted Daemon concept.

=== Daemon Engines ===

Some daemons can be combined with machinery to create mighty [[Daemon Engine]]s; this gives them some actual structural integrity and lasting power, as they are now firmly anchored in reality. The really big ones are made by the Forge of Souls, while others are made by [[Warpsmiths]].
Some Daemon Engines are aligned with one of the Chaos Gods, while others (like [[Defiler]]s and Soul Grinders) serve [[Chaos Undivided]].
Even WFB has these in the forms of the Skull Cannon, Blood Throne, and Burning Chariot (and arguably the Hellflayer Seeker Chariot, even if it is not possessed), which are like [[awesome|possessed war machines mounted on top of possessed chariots]] as well as the Soul Grinder (which exists in 40k as well, though it only has a stone thrower arm rather than cannons everywhere).
Now that [[Chaos Dwarves]] are back as a regular WFB army, albeit made entirely by [[Forgeworld]], they seems to be rather fond of Daemon Engines and pack a whole lot of them, including a [[Awesome|daemon-possessed, steam-powered train which carries other war machines all around the battlefield while firing its giant cannon/crashing into the enemy lines mauling people with giant-sized pickaxes]].

=== Half-Daemons ===
A handful of characters called or calling themselves half-Daemon have existed in both settings throughout the years (as well as [[Blood Bowl]] of course where the non-footbal rules are made up on the spot and never adhered to). Generally speaking these are from old or iffy lore sources, but one recent [[Archaon|character]] does exist. For the [[End Times]] <strike>clusterfuck</strike> <strike>abortion</strike> <strike>monkey's paw result</strike> event a large kit of the Maggot Riders who ride giant maggots called Pox Maggots and serve Nurgle were released. One of the three riders was named [[Orghotts Daemonspew]] the "Bastard King of Icehorn Peak". His mother was a mortal witch (in the more classic sense of the word) and his father was a Great Unclean One (have fun imagining it). Icehorn exists on the rim between reality and the Warp, where Daemons are as much the people of the land as humans. Orghotts has an extremely long lifespan thanks to his half-Daemon nature, and longs to actually physically reach Nurgle's Garden which appears to him sometimes in his kingdom. He leads Daemon and Chaos human armies across the world, seeking not to become a Daemon Prince but be blessed by Nurgle into becoming a full-fledged Daemon alongside his father. The diseases produced within his own body have killed more than the armies he's lead, and beings connected to Nurgle know by smell that he's one of the "royal family" so to speak.

===True Names===
Daemons tend to hide their true names by giving themselves false ones. This is due to the fact that they can be banished if their true name should ever be uttered. The downside about true names is that all true names are quite a mouthful. Daemons' true names are very hard to pronounce or outright comprehend if you aren't an extensively trained daemonologist who can understand the various fel languages of the warp. There was even one instance that uttering their true names can actually make your mouth literally burn. That also isn't counting the other difficulty of trying to find the actual name of the daemon you're trying to banish in your codex of daemon names (and the consequences of invoking the wrong name can range anywhere from your banishment ritual failing, to summoning THAT daemon instead. So you now have two threats to contend with. Also you have a blasphemous book containing the countless names of malevolent daemonic entities and strong-of-will enough that you aren't going mad from the various whispers telling you to summon each one of them, right?).

Some ridiculously powerful daemons, especially those of [[Tzeentch]], have incredibly long names. One, recorded in the books of the [[Grey Knights]], had a ten-minute long true name and quite a few Knights died attempting to perform the banishment rituals... though once they got to reciting it, there apparently wasn't much it could do to stop them. Then there was [[Justicar Alaric]] and his attempt to banish the Tzeentchian [[Daemon Prince]] Ghargatuloth where he had to recite the warp spawn's true name, a incomprehensible tongue twister, FOR TWO HOURS STRAIGHT.

Daemon Primarchs are also not immune to this rule, as [[Kaldor Draigo]] managed to severely weaken [[Mortarion]] by uttering his true name (as in the original name the Emperor gave him, before he was given the name "Mortarion" on Barbarus). Fulgrim was similarly subjugated by Zardu Layak using it, although doing so wiped his memories of his life before the Siege of Terra.

The effects of their names being uttered tend to have mixed results and seems to depend on the strength of the daemon in question, although all of the results are debilitating. These can range anywhere from the daemon's strength being sapped, to them being immobilized or even explode, as well as being outright banished back into the warp. In any case, it's an event all of them would fight tooth and nail to avoid, as it's a guarantee that they'll be defeated if its utterance is ever successful. In some cases, it can even serve as the difference-maker between a daemon in question merely being banished back to the warp, or suffering a ''True Death'', meaning permakilled, and for beings that base their entire world view on an otherwise infinite existence, the fear of being unambiguously snuffed out forever is vastly more terrifying. By way of example, this fear is so pronounced that we've seen Bloodletters fleeing in abject terror once they were assailed by Necron weaponry, Plaguebearers kill ''themselves'' rather than crossing blades with Sisters of Silence, Daemonettes beg for mercy when attacked with Enuncia, and Horrors withdraw immediately to the warp when confronted with archeotech from the Dark Age of Technology. The common denominator is that the neverborn got very desperate, very quickly when faced by combatants capable of rendering them a ''True Death'', and opted to pick up sticks and run the fuck away if they could. The only silver lining is that these warriors and weapons are all exceptionally rare. By contrast, any yahoo can say a name, so it's absolutely understandable why daemons would be so defensive on keeping it hidden.

==="Daemons" of the Emperor===
It has been speculated by some both within the Imperium and by those outside of it that the nature of beings such as Living Saints, the Legion of the Damned and the [[Sanguinor]] (and maybe [[Traitor Legion Loyalists|the Anchorite]] of Word Bearers) might lie closer to the servants of the Chaos Gods than most would feel comfortable with. They are likely made of the same warp-stuff as traditional Daemons and both appear and disappear in the same manner, though seemingly of either their own power or that of the Emperor's, usually to assist struggling Imperial forces. Further evidence for this is presented during the fall of [[Cadia]], for when the Cadian Pylons briefly were brought fully online, the Legion forces present dissipated with the rest of the Daemons and [[Saint Celestine]] had much of her power suppressed. (Does that make the Chaos resistant [[Wulfen]]s roaming the Warp his daemonic beasts?)

It serves as another piece of fairly solid proof that the Emperor is on the verge of godhood, if he isn't one already. To add more credence to this theory, the Emperor is now the equivalent of Imperial heaven. Every faithful Imperial servant, from a venerated Chapter Master to a lowly Administratum scribe, will have their soul absorbed by the Emperor upon their deaths, and the Emperor has been shown to be able to resurrect these souls as needed (as shown as when he was able to resurrect a [[Ferrus Manus|giant man with gleaming silver arms and a giant hammer]] along with [[Legion of the Damned|an army of Space Marines wreathed in fire]], when Magnus accidentally destroyed his webway project and a tide of daemons started flooding inside the Imperial palace, and this was before unwittingly ascending into godhood.). Hence, the Emperor can be considered a [[Chaos Gods of Law]], and he's using his now god-like powers to aid his children and further his agendas, in the same vein the Dark Gods use their powers to the same, albeit more sadistic ends. In ''Talon of Horus'' book, there exists where [[Astronomican]] light collides with a potent [[Warp Storm]] to create the Firetide, where exists holy warp-fire angels that purges all living things and "Radiant Worlds" that are immune to the Firetide and containing avatar of the Emperor's will known as Imperious, taking the form of a humble pilgrim wearing a Scream mask of gold and light.

Of course, to even consider any of the above is tantamount to HERESY of the worst sort, so it's best to just go along with it.

===See Also===
*[[Chaos]]
*[[Chaos Gods]]
*[[Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos|Tactics on how to play the Fantasy variant]]
* [[Warhammer/Tactics/6th_Edition/Chaos|Chaos tactics for the glorious 6th edition]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Chaos Daemons (9E)|Tactics on how to play the 40k variant.]]
*[[Daemons Mod]]: The [[Dawn of War]] [[Dawn of War Mods|Mod]] that brings this army to DoW players.
*[[Daemonhost]]

{{Chaos-Daemons}}
{{Chaos Space Marines}}
{{WH40k-Factions}}
{{Playable Factions in Warhammer Fantasy Battle}}
{{Daemons-Characters}}

[[Category:Age of Sigmar]]

Long War

2023-06-09T11:47:24Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:8022:3A15:9F1C:7B04:

{{Topquote|We were made to conquer the galaxy, not to rot here in Hell and die upon our brothers' blades.|[[Ezekyle Abaddon]]}}

It's called the Long War because it truly is loooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnngggggg. That is not taking the mickey either. It has been going on for 10,000 years and sees no signs of abating. Well, sort of, anyway. Perhaps it is now more accurate to say that it HAD seen no signs of abating. From the perspective of certain a collective of [[Chaos Space Marines|edgy neerdowells]], the destruction of [[Cadia]] was a lot of fun, and adding that [[Great Rift|big jelly splotch across the galactic map]], thus [[Just as Planned|ruining the day of all of the Imperium's cartographers]] (who'd worked very hard on that map) was a [[Troll|rip-roaring laugh]]. Unfortunately for both a [[Abaddon|Certain (H)Armless Failure]], as well as his [[Chaos Gods|benefactors]], the resulting commotion had the [[Not as Planned|unintended side effect]] of waking up a [[Roboute Guilliman|very stern Super-Space-Roman]], who takes great exception to both rabble-rousing and [[Rules Lawyer|wanton disregard for maps]], and has been handing out spankings to [[Chaos]] ever since. Worse was yet to come for Team Chaos though, because that big mess they made on the map which they were so proud of, also ended up revitalizing that Super-Space-Roman's [[Emperor|Daddy]], and delivering the galaxy at large a class-act presentation of [[Not As Planned]] so grand that [[Cegorach]] himself would smile approvingly (unless of course '''HE''' was somehow [[Just As Planned|its screenwriter all along]]).

It is the ongoing conflict within [[Warhammer 40k]] between the forces of the [[Chaos]] [[Traitor Legions]] who turned to [[Chaos]] during the [[Horus Heresy]] and the mess of a super empire that is the [[Imperium]]. According to the traitors the war is still ongoing (hence ''long''), but as far as the Imperium is concerned they won when they killed the traitor leader, routed his forces and pushed them back to the [[Eye of Terror]], though even before the opening of the [[Great Rift]] they had suffered significant losses to the Traitor Legions' forces. However, that was offset by the subsequent return of [[Roboute Guilliman]] to help stabilize the Imperium, and for all the big mess caused by the Rift, it also resulted in [[Emperor|Big-E]] [[Not as Planned|receiving a massive fuckoff power boost strong enough to literally burn down a large part of Nurgle's Garden]], which doesn't exactly bode well for the Ruinous Powers. How exactly does [[Abaddon|Disappointmaddon]] [[Plot Armor|keep his job, again]]? Add to that the incoming threat posed by the new Tyranid fleet, the even more recent return of the motherfucking Lion, but most of all: the Necrons starting to wake up in greater numbers (who, if unified, effectively can shut the party down for everyone simultaneously)... Yeah, Chaos is going to be getting some awfully loud and disruptive outside interference interrupting their game which they're going to have a hard time countering.

It is a rather confusing term since no one is quite clear who is and isn't part of the conflict, what battles are covered under it and various other details about it. Do the [[Space Marines]] that have turned to Chaos since the heresy count as being part of the Long War? Do the [[Lost and the Damned]] and the [[Daemon]]s of Chaos count as taking part as well? Does every conflict fought between Chaos and the Imperium automatically count as part of the Long War? It tends to be one of those terms that people toss around casually without referencing it further. This could be GW's stubborn refusal to let too much fluff out of its forbidden depths. Then again, it's very much possible that, in universe, they aren't really sure what they mean when they use the term either. It's...well, the Chaos Marines buzzword for how much they hate the Imperium.

Actually there is likely a very good reason the Long War has gone on as long as it has: the leadership of a certain armless failure....

But more seriously, the Chaos Gods are more interested in war itself as a process rather than its final result. Especially given that according to the [[Cabal]] the ultimate Chaos victory would be their undoing. I mean eternal war spreads eternal [[Khorne|bloodshed and carnage]], [[Nurgle|massive death tolls and epidemics]], [[Tzeentch|struggles for power and epic level mind games between the leadership of opposing factions]] and [[Slaanesh|leads warriors involved into new peaks of sensual experience]]. So they subtly undermine their servants' plans if they come too close to ultimate victory, especially since they know that Abaddon's chief loyalty is to himself alone and would turn on them immediately after finishing off the Imperium. [[Just as Planned]].

{{Template:40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Imperial]]

Mirror-Caliban

2023-05-23T10:45:21Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:8022:3A15:9F1C:7B04: /* Overview */

[[File:Mirror-Caliban.jpeg|450px|right|thumb|The Lion's very own [[Nasuverse|Reality Marble]].]]
'''Mirror-Caliban''' is the name of a sub-realm located and hidden within the motherfucking ''[[Warp]]'', that was subconsciously created by [[Lion El'Jonson]] after a 10,000 year snooze fest. Yeah...don't ask us how ''that'' happened, although there are multiple theories ranging from being the creation of the [[Emprah]], to being the original home of the [[Watchers in the Dark]]. Whatever is the case, this sub-realm is now treated as the Lion's personal training course. [[Awesome]].

==Overview==
Mirror-Caliban as its name implies, ''heavily'' resembles the Lion's [[Caliban (Warhammer 40,000)|old home]]. The sub-realm is an endless expanse of forests shrouded in mysterious mist. As his own personal realm, the Lion can enter it free of charge.

It is speculated by the Primarch to be a realm that is adjacent to the Warp, which was perhaps conjured from El'Jonson's youthful memories. We know that the Warp is heavily influenced by the minds of greater or collective entities, so it can be hinted that the Lion dreaming this place into existence may lay more on his [[Emprah]] lineage than anything else. As previously mentioned, the realm is truly endless, and is home to the Watchers in the Dark and the Great Beasts that the Primarch once hunted. The only other inhabitant in Mirror-Caliban, is an [[Emprah|old wounded king who slowly bleeds from his injuries]] and is always stalked by [[Chaos Gods|hungering shadows.]] The king cannot speak simply stares in space or directly at those he sees like a paraplegic couched potato. If this guy is giving massive Emprah-vibes, then yeah, because he ''is'' the Emprah.

According to a Watcher in the Dark, however, the king is capable of answering questions, should the right one be asked of him. He can either be found fishing on a boat in a river or sitting within a castle that is located nearby. Wherever he is, he is always stalked by the shadows, which the Watchers warned the Lion to not dip his toes in it.

One of the more mysterious structure in this realm, is the appearance of a domed building, which was treated like a Pandora's box, as a Watcher appeared and warned the Primarch against entering it, stating he was not yet strong enough to safely do so.

During the Lion's Arthurian arc, the Primarch learned how to freely enter Mirror-Caliban and use it to reach other worlds. By focusing on where he wants to go, El'Jonson causes the location to slowly appear within realm, until its forest finally fades away and the Primarch enters his destination. This ability is known as the '''Forestwalk''', which also allows El'Jonson to take others with him upon these journeys. In a nutshell, the Lion can now [[Awesome|''teleport'']] as he pleases. Yeah. If the Lion isn't already a scary motherfucker, he is ''now''.

To the Lion's opponents, when the Lion activates his [[plot armour|protagonist's abilities]], an apparition of the forest suddenly appears from nowhere and then fades away after the Primarch walks out of it. Despite this ability, though, El'Jonson sometimes enters Mirror-Caliban after sensing something drawing his attention to the realm. Upon doing so, he is then teleported to another location, which the Lion discovers contains [[Fallen Angels]]. The Primarch does not know, however, if this feeling that leads him to his wayward sons is an instinct of his or if another force within Mirror-Caliban is pulling him towards the Fallen Angels.

The mysterious realm is also a 40k [[The Legend of Zelda|Legend of Zelda]] questline, as it houses the mysterious power sword '''Fealty''' and the '''Emperor's Shield''' of all things, until both were discovered by El'Jonson. The latter was contained in the domed building the Watcher had warned him against entering and upon doing so anyways, El'Jonson fought the only other unique inhabitant in the realm, which is a unique shape-shifting maybe-[[Daemon]] that could change into the forms of his brother Primarchs. This ability caused him to be overwhelmed by the creature, until El'Jonson found the Emperor's Shield within the building and used its powers to destroy the Daemon. Another theory could be that this boss fight was a construct of The Watchers and/or [[Emperor|Daddy]] created to serve as training for The Lion, as well to protect some of the Mjolnir-tier weapons Big-E had stored there. Speaking of, the idea of using a realm within the warp to house valuables is interesting, and seems to be new as well. It brings to mind the pocket dimensions the Necrons use to teleport and occasionally store things, but that's certainly not the warp. Whether this is entirely new, actually has any precedent, or is just the author playing it a bit loose with the rules of the warp, it's still cool and has a lot of interesting possible implications.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Chaos]]
[[Category:Dark Angels]]

Mirror-Caliban

2023-05-23T10:44:24Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:8022:3A15:9F1C:7B04: /* Overview */

[[File:Mirror-Caliban.jpeg|450px|right|thumb|The Lion's very own [[Nasuverse|Reality Marble]].]]
'''Mirror-Caliban''' is the name of a sub-realm located and hidden within the motherfucking ''[[Warp]]'', that was subconsciously created by [[Lion El'Jonson]] after a 10,000 year snooze fest. Yeah...don't ask us how ''that'' happened, although there are multiple theories ranging from being the creation of the [[Emprah]], to being the original home of the [[Watchers in the Dark]]. Whatever is the case, this sub-realm is now treated as the Lion's personal training course. [[Awesome]].

==Overview==
Mirror-Caliban as its name implies, ''heavily'' resembles the Lion's [[Caliban (Warhammer 40,000)|old home]]. The sub-realm is an endless expanse of forests shrouded in mysterious mist. As his own personal realm, the Lion can enter it free of charge.

It is speculated by the Primarch to be a realm that is adjacent to the Warp, which was perhaps conjured from El'Jonson's youthful memories. We know that the Warp is heavily influenced by the minds of greater or collective entities, so it can be hinted that the Lion dreaming this place into existence may lay more on his [[Emprah]] lineage than anything else. As previously mentioned, the realm is truly endless, and is home to the Watchers in the Dark and the Great Beasts that the Primarch once hunted. The only other inhabitant in Mirror-Caliban, is an [[Emprah|old wounded king who slowly bleeds from his injuries]] and is always stalked by [[Chaos Gods|hungering shadows.]] The king cannot speak simply stares in space or directly at those he sees like a paraplegic couched potato. If this guy is giving massive Emprah-vibes, then yeah, because he ''is'' the Emprah.

According to a Watcher in the Dark, however, the king is capable of answering questions, should the right one be asked of him. He can either be found fishing on a boat in a river or sitting within a castle that is located nearby. Wherever he is, he is always stalked by the shadows, which the Watchers warned the Lion to not dip his toes in it.

One of the more mysterious structure in this realm, is the appearance of a domed building, which was treated like a Pandora's box, as a Watcher appeared and warned the Primarch against entering it, stating he was not yet strong enough to safely do so.

During the Lion's Arthurian arc, the Primarch learned how to freely enter Mirror-Caliban and use it to reach other worlds. By focusing on where he wants to go, El'Jonson causes the location to slowly appear within realm, until its forest finally fades away and the Primarch enters his destination. This ability is known as the '''Forestwalk''', which also allows El'Jonson to take others with him upon these journeys. In a nutshell, the Lion can now [[Awesome|''teleport'']] as he pleases. Yeah. If the Lion isn't already a scary motherfucker, he is ''now''.

To the Lion's opponents, when the Lion activates his [[plot armour|protagonist's abilities]], an apparition of the forest suddenly appears from nowhere and then fades away after the Primarch walks out of it. Despite this ability, though, El'Jonson sometimes enters Mirror-Caliban after sensing something drawing his attention to the realm. Upon doing so, he is then teleported to another location, which the Lion discovers contains [[Fallen Angels]]. The Primarch does not know, however, if this feeling that leads him to his wayward sons is an instinct of his or if another force within Mirror-Caliban is pulling him towards the Fallen Angels.

The mysterious realm is also a 40k [[The Legend of Zelda|Legend of Zelda]] questline, as it houses the mysterious power sword '''Fealty''' and the '''Emperor's Shield''' of all things, until both were discovered by El'Jonson. The latter was contained in the domed building the Watcher had warned him against entering and upon doing so anyways, El'Jonson fought the only other unique inhabitant in the realm, which is a unique shape-shifting [[Daemon]] that could change into the forms of his brother Primarchs. This ability caused him to be overwhelmed by the creature, until El'Jonson found the Emperor's Shield within the building and used its powers to destroy the Daemon. Another theory could be that this boss fight was a construct of The Watchers and/or [[Emperor|Daddy]] created to serve as training for The Lion, as well to protect some of the Mjolnir-tier weapons Big-E had stored there. Speaking of, the idea of using a realm within the warp to house valuables is interesting, and seems to be new as well. It brings to mind the pocket dimensions the Necrons use to teleport and occasionally store things, but that's certainly not the warp. Whether this is entirely new, actually has any precedent, or is just the author playing it a bit loose with the rules of the warp, it's still cool and has a lot of interesting possible implications.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Chaos]]
[[Category:Dark Angels]]

The God-Emperor of Mankind

2023-05-20T10:05:33Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:8022:3A15:9F1C:7B04: /* "Modern" Day */

{{awesome}}

<div style="text-align:left;font-size:1.10em;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-family:serif;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em">{{Topquote|I have come to eradicate Religion as it is the bane of Man, warped in superstition, ignorance and fear!|The Emperor before the Treason of Horus, while dressed in gold, brandishing a giant flaming sword and calling his soldiers his "angels of death" }}''' </div>

[[File:Lord of Mankind.jpg|400px|right|thumb|Conquering the galaxy is one thing, but He was so powerful He never once stopped looking ''fabulous'' while doing it. <s>At least until the whole 'Horus' thing, anyway.</s> {{BLAM}}]]
{{Topquote|Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.|Niccoló Machiavelli}}
{{Topquote|The Emperor loves no one man. He cannot afford affection - that is the honest practical for the impossible task that faces the Master of Mankind. He did not love His sons, He does not love men, but He does love mankind.|[[Roboute Guilliman]]}}
{{Topquote|The Emperor battles daily with forces beyond understanding, yet you expect him to retain a mortal sympathy? He walks the paths of eternity; be thankful he is able to converse with you at all.|Malcador to Jaghatai Khan on why Big-E tends to be so inscrutable. Not an unreasonable point, frankly.}}

His Imperial Majesty the '''Immortal <s>God</s> [[TTS|Man]]-Emperor, Master of Mankind''' is the figurehead of the [[Imperium of Man]] in the [[Warhammer 40k]] universe and has been enthroned on (or rather in) a life-sustaining device known as the Golden Throne for the last ten millennia. He is nigh-on unable to communicate or influence things directly, so day-to-day ruling is done without (and too often in spite of) Him. He is the only sustaining [[Noblebright|hope]] for Humanity as faith in him is the only way humans can counter the insidious whispers of [[Chaos Gods|Ruin]], and the treacherous ways of the [[Xenos]]. Furthermore, He powers humanity's only means for safe Faster than Light Travel through the [[Astronomican]].

The [[Administratum]] He ordered to be established, continues to govern the [[Imperium]] in His name, but it is generally accepted that the absence of the Emperor's [[Malcador|proper guidance]] is what has turned the Imperium into the [[/b/|hellish mess]] that it is. In the [[Imperium]], questioning whatever your superior [[Commissar|yells]] at you, is treason and [[heresy]], typically punished by [[Blam|euthanasia]] (at least in the material realm). He created the 20 [[Primarchs]], who viewed him as their father. However, this has been complicated thanks to a lot of retcons saying he saw them more as tools, referring to them by number, rather than by name (albeit usually while speaking to his [[Custodes|aloof bodyguards]] or with senior-level members of [[Adeptus Mechanicus|a faction of cog-worshipping]] [[Neckbeard|tech nerds]] who value the excision of emotion and venerate him as an aspect of their god). Yet when speaking to his [[Malcador|right-hand man]], or the chief of his bodyguards Constantine Valdor, or a handful of other confidants, he does refer to them as his sons and by name. Furthermore, more recent fluff even saw him declare this to the Chaos Gods themselves during the Siege of Terra.

It goes without saying that would The Emperor be up and about in the 41st millennium, He would be very disappointed. Most fa/tg/uys expect Him to [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0191520/bio speak in a generic deep], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGZ97TiFGGg stentorian voice]. Though [[/v/|many]] also would expect him to speak more like another [[Kane|immortal who wishes to guide humanity to the path of Ascension, who may as well be one of his past guises.]] Clearly the cult of the extragalactic alien self replicating space rock thing didn't work out in the end so he had to try [[Grimdark|another approach]]. It would explain why he's so fond of impractically large tanks, walkers, mecha, incredibly unaerodynamic VTOLs and bling though.

==The Entire History of the Emprah==

===Early life===
[[File:Emperor of mankind by esoluna-d307owr.jpg|250px|left|thumb|Big E gets all the bitches.]]
The Emperor is a powerful [[psyker]] and <strike>(heavily implied to be)</strike> (Confirmed by GW) a [[Perpetual]]; an immortal with countless lifetimes' worth of knowledge and power and the ambition to use it. According to the fluff, the being that would eventually become known as The Emperor was born in 8000 BC in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) on the banks of the Sakarya river to a tribe, possibly in [[wikipedia:Göbekli Tepe|Göbekli Tepe]]. His appearance wise unassuming. From his own account, his path towards greatness was spurred on when his uncle murdered his father; so kid-Emps did the responsible thing and gave his uncle a myocardial infarction, or as it's known on the street, a "fucking massive heart attack". Kid-Emps then realised that humans needed laws, and good laws needed to be given by good leaders (which he defined to [[Slaanesh|refer to himself specifically]]): setting him on the (xeno/geno)cidal path of self-righteousness and conquest that would continue for the next 38,000 years. Considering that the Imperium's two-headed symbol was used by Hittites, Games Workshop, for all its flaws and pricing policies, can be given credit for doing his history homework. After that, he headed to the first cities of mankind in Sumeria to guide the start of human civilization.

[[File:Neoth-gigamesh-erda-siduri.jpg|250px|right|thumb|Neoth and [[Erda]] back in the ancient days of Chaldea, it all makes so much sense now.]]
According to Saturnine, one of the Emperor's earliest names was Neoth, in the time shortly after leaving His home and tribe. In the "time of the First Cities" Neoth had become a warlord and king. There He met [[Erda]], a perpetual like Himself, who became one of His closest companions throughout history, by His side up until she caused the Scattering of the Primarchs (so is this a retcon from the story portrayed in "The First Heretic"). Neoth and Erda, father and mother of Primarchs... which begs the question why not all Primarchs were born as perpetuals, considering that both "mother" and "father" were (perhaps it's got to do with dominant and recessive alleles? Like when two brown-eyed parents produce a blue-eyed baby?).

''According to 1st & 2nd edition fluff'', his birth was the result of hundreds of human shamans committing ritual suicide to be reborn as a single individual capable of protecting humanity from the [[Chaos Gods]]. However, [[Skub|the validity of this fluff is frequently questioned]], given it hasn't been "official" since second edition. However, this theory seems unlikely, especially given that other Perpetuals are known to exist, [[Ollanius Pius|some of which]] may be even older than the Emperor, and they don't have godlike powers. On the other hand, they also wouldn't have had the memories and soul-stuff of all those shamans telling them what to do. (This theory would go a long way to explaining the seemingly contradictory behaviors of the Emperor - all those shamans have disagreements and Big E has to listen to it all. It's similar to the concept of Abominations in Dune; pre-born children with prescient powers due to being born to a melange ingesting mother - they can access all their genetic ancestors' memory egos but risk being driven insane without the learned discipline of an adult unless they're like Emperor Leto Atreides or his sister.) That, and how Erda commented that while each Perpetual was immortal and had special abilities, everyone considered the Emperor's powers to be on a completely different scale. The Chaos Gods apparently view the Emperor as an equal/rival due to beating them at warp poker to steal the power he needed to create the Primarchs (so he would not need to use his own)''(see below)'' and name him Anathema. Yet other fluff titbits (including a C'Tan who dismissively described him as a "weapon" rather than a God) imply that he is some sort of flesh-construct from the Dark Age of Technology run amok and aping human affectation (similar to the Eldar's Gods originating as warp constructed weapons made by the Eldar under the guidance of the Old Ones during the War in Heaven).

Lore also mentions that He guided humanity throughout history under a number of guises, and many of the probable identities of the Emperor in World History may include but are not limited to Hammurabi (the first man to invent the concept of Written Law), Alexander the Great (the most fabulous conqueror in all of History, with the philosopher Aristotle as his teacher), Julius Caesar (guess why the Imperium spoke Latin), Jesus (as demonstration of his supernatural God-like status and abilities and that He will sacrifice Himself for the progress of Humanity; which is a symbolic idea, [[Skub|as pre-retcon the lore leaned towards the Emperor being one of Jesus' disciples]]), Napoleon Bonaparte (to dismantle the old stagnating monarchies of Europe and replace them with Revolutionary ideals). And, it ''has'' to be assumed, [[Conan the Barbarian]] ([[If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device|Yup, he used to be an asshole. A handsome, musclebound asshole.]] At least before he got wiser) and HE-MAN.

Sometime around the 11th or 12th century, He battled a shard of the [[Void Dragon]] in modern-day Libya. He eventually defeated it and locked it on [[Mars]], allowing the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] to control machines... eventually. Of course, it's not entirely clear whether this is true or not -- it's entirely possible that ALL of the Emperor's history is a lazily-crafted lie He throws around because no one can debunk it. Although given how [[Awesome]] it sounds, we're going to say it is. Either that, or it's just another example of how [[Games Workshop|Geedubs]] can't be bothered to keep their stories consistent even about the most important parts of the setting. Just remember to take stuff with a grain of salt, since, [[Retcon|you know]].

Whatever his actual origins might have been, for the most part He more or less stayed out of the way of humanity's progress during the next 30,000 years of history, including the [[Dark Age of Technology]], though hot-off-the-press fluff indicates He might have been traversing outer space in old-style NASA rockets with the other Perpetuals, to eventually coming to find the planet [[Molech]], where he passed through a gateway that led ''directly'' to the fortresses of the four [[Chaos Gods]]. Here, he either challenged, bargained, or stole portions of power from a source claimed by the gods as their own. This would earn him the ire of the duped/defeated Ruinous Powers, who consider him as some sort of usurper or that he reneged on some kind of undisclosed deal we haven't been made aware of yet.

===Unification Wars===
{{Topquote|‘You…’ repeated Uriah, the pain in his bones no match for the pain in his heart. ‘You are the… the… Emperor…’ ‘I am, and it is time to go, Uriah,’ said the Emperor. Uriah looked around at his now gleaming and brightly lit church. ‘Go? Go where? [[Imperial Truth|There is nowhere else for me in this godless world of yours.’]]|[[The Last Church]]}}
He returned to Terra at the closing years of the [[Age of Strife]]. With Terra cut off from the rest of the Human empire and Terra itself ruled by warring "techno-barbarians", in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, E-money decided to reveal Himself, using His mastery of genetic engineering to create the [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodians]] and cheaper, easier to make [[Thunder Warriors]] ''(the predecessors of the (the predecessors to) Space Marines)''. Using the classic "join-me-or-die" strategy, he managed to conquer the entirety of Terra during the event called Unification Wars. He also created sort of proto-primarch called the Angel with the warriors to seal the Daemon Prince Pharaa'gueotla, who has been pulling strings wrecking Terra since prehistoric times. The Angel was also sealed off being an extremist. Then, He made contact with Luna and the Mechanicum of Mars. When dealing with Mars, He called Himself the [[Omnissiah]], and convinced them to build Him weapons and space-ships. Around this time, He also created a useful philosophy, the [[Imperial Truth]], which states that religion, faith, and superstition must be all banned, because they have never succeeded in unifying the human race during all of Emps' lifetime. Simply put: the whole "Peace, Love, and Religion" mumbo-jumbo never worked before and now must be eradicated; ignoring or forgetting what happened to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union| real]-[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot| life] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_North_Korea| societies] that tried to throw faith and religion under the bus without molding the society towards abandoning religion willingly. He constructed this philosophy because he believed that belief in such things was feeding the Powers, [[Fail|but it turns out he had it backwards, and that such belief, being dedicated specifically to something other than said gods, was in fact starving them]]. Since Neoth is now a bona fide Warp entity in his own right, he has very likely realized his mistake. But religion isn't a universal truth, anywhere. Neither in 40k or irl. No need to go get deep, but religion is as only real as you think it is; are they gods because they call themselves gods? OR are they extradimensional consciousnesses of mind bending scope as to beyond an accurate understanding of life.

Exception where's He's not a perfect badass? [[The Last Church]]. It is permissible to substitute the voice of whatever angry militant atheist appeals to you most/least for the duration of this one (short) story. Also, according to that same story, this asshole wiped out Scandinavia, <strike>[[Viking|right when Scandinavia was getting fun again]]</strike> [[The_End_Times|well well well, considering what they did]] [[Warhammer_Fantasy_Battle|to the other setting no one here is gonna miss them any time soon]]. According to the Horus Heresy books that mention the Unification Wars, He burned down a lot of things on a partially recovering Terra.

===Great Crusade===
Now that he was in control the Emperor had a relatively short to-do list, he wanted to: Lead and shape Mankind into a psychic race and surpass the Eldar by learning from their mistakes, unite Humanity under one aegis and allow for instant communication and travel across all human inhabited worlds, and most importantly, prevent another calamity like the [[Age of Strife]] or [[Fall of the Eldar]].

In order to achieve this He had to shelter and protect humanity from the fell hand of [[Chaos]], reclaim every single human inhabited world, spacecraft or station, and eliminate anyone who threatened his vision of humanity in any way.

But, before He set out to conquer the stars with the newly-formed Imperial Army (which contained both [[Imperial Guard|ground forces]] and [[Imperial Navy|space-borne fleets]]), He decided to create the twenty [[Primarch]]s, using Himself as the genetic template, while splitting the additional power He supposedly ''acquired'' from the Chaos Gods (Or so the treacherous space cancers claim. Although, since the Chaos Gods view all the energy of the Warp as their property, they're probably just pissed that Big E yoinked about 20 daemon princes worth of soul stuff without the proper rituals.) into 20 portions, infusing each piece with a fragment of His own personality, to allow them, in turn, to congeal and gestate [[Heresy|(just like how daemons are born!)]] into the indomitable souls of His future Primarchs. Then, He bound each such vessel/soul to their godlike bodies/shells as they formed in their gestation capsules. Let this sink in: each primarch is basically a unique quasi-daemonic (angelic?) soul, bound to a super awesomely tough material body.

Each of these Primarchs were to have their place: Lorgar was to be the Emperor's Herald and shelter mankind from superstition through enlightenment so that if ever they heard whispers in the dark, they knew it was not natural and to be feared by it, thus denying its embrace. Magnus was to assist the Emperor in sitting on the Golden Throne of earth, thus powering the human Webway shield (somehow), becoming a key figure in Humanity's ascension. Horus was to protect Mankind from [[Tyranids|external]] [[Necrons|physical]] [[Orks|threats]] throughout the Galaxy as Humanity's general. Konrad was to be the enforcer of the Emperor's Laws. Mortarion, His watchguard of wayward deviancy etc.

It was a good plan for building an intergalactic empire, But the Imperium was only one half of the Plan. The other was the Webway, allowing nigh-instantaneous travel and communication, limiting Mankind's reliance on the warp to almost nothing in the form of Warp travel and thus protecting them against the influence of Chaos. Therefore allowing Mankind to evolve in relative safety and security under the direct guidance and control of the Emperor. When Mankind would be ready, we'd be protected from the warp naturally. That was the final crowning achievement that would bring all the Emperor's plans to fruition and pull all the wayward goals into one singular perfect Great Work. All the sacrifice, all the death, all the heartache, the glory, the battles, the trials and tribulation, 48,000 years of history culminating into that one Plan. And it all would've been worth it because Mankind would've been saved for all time. Worth any price, where the ends justified the means, or so he claimed.

Unfortunately things went off to a rocky start before he even began: since the Primarch's power was ''apparently'' stolen, The Big Four would inevitably and continually be pissed at Him for using their power for His own ends, so they snatched the Primarchs away (via time-travel-as-a-vision shenanigans, don't even try to explain it here, just read ''The First Heretic''), inside their incubator pods and all, from the secret lab underneath the Himalayas, to scatter them away across the galaxy. Conversely, most recent fluff from the novel Saturnine brings another female perpetual by the name of Erda into play in the creation of the primarchs (because like any biological being a human requires a father and a mother). She also claims to have been involved in the scattering of the primarchs. If that is a retcon from the previously canon time travel hacks described in "The First Heretic" is not entirely clear. Erda says she allowed the Chaos Gods to snatch the baby primarchs so each could forge their own destinies. As if the story was not confusing enough already. Either way, luckily for the Emperor, some genetic samples were left over from each primarch, so from that He created 20 Legions to serve as the elites of His army: The [[Space Marine|SPEHSS MEHREENS]].

So, with His armies and space-ships complete (minus the Primarchs, which He hoped to find), He embarked upon the [[Great Crusade]], to restore mankind to its [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|rightful place as rulers of the galaxy.]]

As He found each Primarch, He assigned them command of their respective Legions and to act as His generals, warlords and pantheon of heroes that humanity were meant to emulate, in the quest to unify humanity in the Great Crusade ''(although, at some point, one of them may have been executed and the other disappeared, leaving only 18 Primarchs and Legions after 100 years of the Great Crusade).''

A military campaign of a grand scale, this is also when the SPESS MEHREENS were most awesome and at their peak. [[just as planned|Just when things seemed to be going well]], the [[Horus Heresy]] took place, where 8.5 of the Primarchs and their respective legions rebelled against the Emprah. In the end, the Emperor fought and slew [[Horus]] (who was daddy's favourite) but at a great cost. The Emperor was mortally wounded to the point that He had to be put permanently on a life support system known as the Golden Throne. On that day, an untold amount of manly tears was shed. Something seems to have gone wrong though, as the Golden Throne didn't manage to do its job and the Emperor managed to die sometime between the Horus Heresy and M41, although whatever's left of him still sticks around his corpse (quite a feat since he is a confirmed perpetual, so no matter how dead he may look he certainly still is alive after a fashion). (Are we sure on this last point? Indomitus confirms he never died, and that’s hardly a retcon since there doesn’t seem to be evidence to the contrary).

==="Modern" Day===
Subsequently, 10 thousand years later, without the Emperor's leadership, the Imperium eventually degraded into the theocratic, [[grimdark]] empire we all know and love today, in the 41st millennium. In the 500th year of the 41st Millennium (the exact middle of the millennium), which is a few centuries before the Time of Ending began, visions and signs reach out to all walks of life and social status to the Imperium of the Emperor crying, whether it's to lowly denizens of an underhive having dreams about it, to respected sanctioned psykers reading it from the Imperial Tarot, to shamans on feral planets instinctively knowing that the extra rain pouring down lately are tears of sadness from their "sky god".

In the last year of M41, tech-priests discovered that the Golden Throne is failing and if nothing was done... presumably the Emperor would be deader? In any case nobody wants to find out, as the Golden Throne is breaking apart the Mechanicus and certain elements at the top of the Imperium tries to contact the Dark Eldar for knowledge on how to repair the thing. ''The Carrion Throne'' reveals that a [[Haemonculus]] did make it to Terra, he is hunted down by the Inquisitor and the Custodes. The cheeky psycho doctor had absolutely no intention of repairing the thing but wanted to instead marvel upon the largest and greatest psychic pain machine ever constructed that made even a [[Haemonculus]] stand in utter awe, and look the cadaver buried within right in the eye sockets before both it and the machine ultimately died.

{{Spoilers}}

{{Topquote|This is a warning. The warp and the materium were once in balance. For too long, you have tipped the scales. Understand that it is not only the warp that is capable of pushing back. This realm is not real. Only will is real. And none may outmatch my will..|The Emperor is done being subtle or open to maybe-maybe-not.}}

However, with the introduction of '''Godblight''', several nuclear-sized bombshells was dropped. Turns out, the massive [[Great Rift|vaginal axe wound]] originally created as [[Chaos]]' biggest victory during the fall of [[Cadia]] was [[Retcon|changed into being an Imperial victory in the end]]. With the barrier between the Warp and Realspace further weakening, it created a psychic boost for the Empra to a thousand fold. Oh yeah, and the worship of trillions being supercharged because of the Great Rift is making E-Money to actually ''physically move''. Holy shit boys! IT'S HAPPENING! We're in the endgame now!

Anyways, other bombshells include Golden Big Dick Energy suggesting that the Daemon Primarchs could still be redeemed, which kind of kicks Chaos corruption in the dick. Moreover, there is also the fact that the Emperor kicked [[Nurgle|Grandpappy Nurgle]] in his STD-ridden nuts where he possessed a dying [[Roboute Guilliman|Grandpa Smurf]] during the [[Plague Wars]] on Iax and [[Awesome|set the whole fucking Garden of Nurgle on holy fire, thereby wounding Nurgle and kicking the Chaos Gods several levels down the curb.]]

As you can imagine, though well-received by many, and especially by Imperium fans, this revelation [[RAGE|did not go well with fans of Chaos]], as the perceived [[Nerf|nerfing]] of Chaos being the main threat and Big-E [[Bullshit|''literally'' giving Papa Smurf]] [[Plot armor]] [[Skub|was a tad-bit too much.]]

Alternatively, rather than a nerfing of the Ruinous Powers, it could just as easily be argued to be a display of the [[Ynnead|might of the gods of the Warp]] [[Cegorach| other than those of Chaos]] which has been said to be growing of late, in this case, a demonstration of Big-E's increase in power, in particular.

Furthermore, ''Godblight'' is far from the first contemporary novel to establish that the power of the Emperor has been growing, but while previously it had been only hinted at, or shown as more minor asides, this is just the first time an overt, overwhelming display was made. It therefore stands to reason that such a powerful blow would be unleashed by Big-E, as this has been building up consistently for years (in and out of universe), and has been a long time coming both thematically and narratively, so take that for what you will. Moreover, lest any Chaos fans forget, the ruinous powers regarded the Emperor as an existential threat before the Horus Heresy and feared his power and intentions even then; so much so that they even agreed to work together to fight him. Chaos, pretty much by definition HATES working together, and The Four hate each other to a ludicrous degree and typically wish for nothing more than the demise of each other. A group like that doesn't work together unless there is absolutely no other choice. That was before Big-E became a god, and it's not as though he's gotten weaker in the 10,000 years since.

On top of this, it can be argued that Chaos hasn't been nerfed at all. Nurgle, who had held reign in ten thousand years of stasis, is now returning to a lower place as a great change has come. Tzeentch, Khorne and Slaanesh are certainly stronger than ever. The difference now is that The Emperor has become powerful enough to hit back at the Chaos Gods hard enough to inflict truly substantive damage. Whether or not that will actually occur remains to be seen however, especially as [[Games_Workshop|the Chief Deity would never let one side truly gain the upper hand, for fear of something interesting happening,]] but with the field levelled now, the potential to do so exists.

Oh, he ''might'' be frequently psychically communicating to this random psyker on Atoma Prime that was abruptly rescued and recruited into an Inquisitor's warband as they goes on missions to fight for the world, according to [[Warhammer 40K: Darktide]]...but that psyker's probably just crazy/has daemons talking to them...probably... Then again, some of the tidbits the psyker(s) get are awfully nuanced and insightful (not to mention fucking funny), so probably beyond the repertoire of what a daemon might say.

==The Emprah Himself==
[[File:Climax.jpg|250px|right|thumb|A typical father-and-son chat between Empy and Horus.]]
{{Topquote|1=The Emperor was a brilliant scientist, a powerful warrior, and great psyker, but he was a terrible [[Venus' Burn|father...]]|2=[[Roboute Guilliman]] giving a short, yet accurate, biography of the Emperor.}}
{{Topquote|1=I'm here to conquer the galaxy and raise children, and I'm all out of fathering skills|2=Montu Plays}}

After He shaved His goatee, His chin radiated [[Astronomican|a brilliant light]] through the [[Warp]]. The [[Imperial Navy]] uses this light as a beacon to guide them through that beautifully terrible place. He is sometimes referred to as the Emprah, a joke derived from the voice acting in the ''[[Dawn of War]]'' game, ''[[Dawn of War: Soulstorm|Soulstorm]]'', specifically [[Indrick Boreale]]'s final speeches.

It is common knowledge that the Emperor is the most powerful psyker <s>alive</s> around, humbling even the [[Eldar]]. The Emperor is said to be so powerful that He could [[C'tan|destroy suns with ease]], though He has never actually done so (However, he ''made'' a golden sun which he put in the middle of his broken [[Webway]] gate to prevent daemons from spilling through, albeit needing to concentrate on powering it for the next ten thousand years. This would indicate that the Emperor does indeed have the power to destroy stars). The [[Chaos Gods]] are scared as fuck of the guy, calling him "The Anathema", as in the polar opposite to [[Chaos]]. Their fear of him cannot be overstated: during a discussion between Ku'Gath and Mortarion, you'd think Ku'Gath was referencing Morgoth. The idea his gathering strength terrified Ku'Gath to the point he feels they're dead if he's active and won't even say his name; whatever Emps is, Chaos is THAT scared of him. The [[Eldar]] fear that if the Emperor were to die, a new [[Eye of Terror]] would pop out with Terra at its center and possibly a new Chaos God would be born.

He was also capable of summoning what can only be called an army of human souls (including every soldier who had died for him, [[Ferrus Manus]] included) to fight for him; an ability utterly unseen in the 40k universe and suggesting that he has some fundamental connection to human souls in the afterlife - a comforting thought compared to dissolving into the Warp to be eaten by daemons and giving some credence to the 40k era theory that when the Time of Ending ...ends... the Emperor and all loyal human souls will join in one final battle against Chaos.

It is also suggested that He has guided humanity in a guise of people like Julius Caesar, [[Conan the Barbarian]], [[meme|Chuck Norris]], Christopher Lee, Tommy Wiseau, Keanu Reeves, and Jesus.

Overall the Emperor has always had a strong desire to protect and shepherd humanity, even if his methods are a bit... [[Blam|unorthodox]]. His desire to guide and protect humanity, in addition to his power and foresight made the Emperor as close to a Farseer as humanity was ever going to get. He declared humanity to be superior to all Xenos which was fair enough considering the collapse of the Eldar, planned to destroy every shard of religion by force of arms if needed in order to protect them from the whispers of Chaos (though at the time he got the whole thing backwards, since said religions were starving the Chaos gods), planned to reunite humanity under His rule no matter what anyone else wanted/thought of that (again by force of arms if needed), originally loved the Primarchs as his sons (and then retconned into a confusing mess suggesting he cares little for the Primarchs being His actual sons. In "The Outcast Dead" he even implies that he sacrificed Ferrus Manus because he knew he could not win the war and that the most he could hope for was a stalemate, i.e. prevent Chaos from winning. However, this theme has varied greatly from novel to novel and is hard to pin down.), carried out many unorthodox, morally questionable experiments and much much more... all because this was the only way He could foresee humanity surviving the threats to come. Also known as the "[[Golden Path]]".

His reign eventually [[Inquisition|killed more humans]] (not even counting those who were innocent) than the entire total of all of humanity's dictators in history (ironically that may have been [[A Game of Pretend|past personas]] of the Emperor). Even during the Unification Wars, several Terran cultures were wiped out completely (Orioc on Antarctica, for example, was razed to the ground for being religious, just to make a point, even after its forces were defeated and its people ready to surrender), while simultaneously being pretty terrible at incorporating non-Terran elements. Because THAT is just how damn important and dire the circumstances were. An entire galaxy spanning empire needed to be constructed in little under two centuries when the cataclysm was foreseen to occur and ain't no one got time to fart about with treating people the way they deserve if the species won't survive.

Contrary to popular belief, he really did think the post-Ullanor phase through to some degree, Horus was the right choice as Warmaster for no other could command the respect of nearly all his brothers better than Lupercal the First, and Dorn as Praetorian was as correct a decision as was possible to make considering that his talents were put to good use throughout the Heresy that followed. There was no need to put a Primarch in charge of the Council of Terra for the Primarchs were not made to rule, but to serve as generals in retaking the galaxy since his goal was for humanity to be governed by humanity (as he clearly said to Lorgar in "The First Heretic". "This is not my Imperium, it is humanitys". Primarchs like say, Guilliman, though perfect as an administrator, were better suited and needed as generals for the Great Crusade. Stil the whole theory that the Emperor wanted to dispose of the Primarchs once they ceased being useful is utter horseshit, for why would he have created living rooms for all of his sons in the Emperor's palace. And why create 20, functionally immortal tools if he had no plans for them following the crusade. Either way, it's bewildering that no one in the military saw the need for human administration, having godlike Primarchs in charge at the top only serves to increase superstition in a secular galaxy when the idea was to rid humanity of religion and superstition in order to better protect it from warp predation (no matter how bad that idea played out in practice).

After Big E was nearly killed by his favourite son / tool, He was placed upon the Golden Throne and hasn't moved for the past 10 millennia, presumably because he later died (why he hasn't come back to life despite being a perpetual is a highly debated topic). Most of the fluff maintains that His mere existence since then has been living hell (by comparison, the torture astropaths go through when becoming one would be like a trip to the dentist). It's the mother/father/uncle/2nd Cousin of all mindfucks, so bad that even an Inquisitor would likely go insane as a result (or anybody else for that matter).... and yet He carries on. Why? He may be the universe's most powerful vegetable, but that doesn't mean that he will just sit there and remain dead. Oh no, it's exactly the opposite and death's not the handicap it used to be, because it gives Him a fuckton of work to do. Along with being THE lighthouse in the Warp, guiding the Imperial Navy, he also needs to make the aforementioned astropaths, as well as keeping all the [[daemon|nasties]] of the Warp where they're supposed to be (i.e. not invading realspace to make the lives of all living things miserable). He also does it for the good of humanity (sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it?).

That being said, his love of humanity doesn't exactly extend to his sons. In older lore it did, however, in the retconned lore the Emperor himself states to [[Arkhan Land]] ''(the guy who discovered '''Land's''' Speeders/Raiders)'' that he never considered the Primarchs to be his literal sons and saw them as well-crafted tools so he could get his work done. Likening himself to Geppetto ''(from 'Pinocchio')'' in that it is only natural for 20 wooden boys to think of their creator as "Father". Whether He felt any kinship between all of them or only some of them is not entirely known. But it seems like He was all like, "Yall think I'm a bad dad, but look, shit I just made these kids in a lab! I'm not really their dad!". Then again He puts on personas for every occasion (during the meeting, Land saw him as not as a gold armoured god, but as an utterly logical scientist and the Emperor had the whole shtick of people interpreting his words in the manner that made the most sense to them personally) who really knows when He's being genuine or not or how He feels. There must have been a reason why he prevented Vulkan from going completely batshit insane when he was killed over and over by his brother Konrad Kurze after all... but to say it in Guillimans own words (from memory) "our father never loved us, but he certainly does love humanity". Also Guilliman reflects that Big E could not have afforded deep affection for any of his sons, so lets see how the final confrontation between Horus on roid rage and Big E will play out in the end - as in older fluff Big E held back because he couldn't bring it upon himself to snuff out his most favoured son (and it did not read like in "my most favoured screw driver" kind of way). But in the end, despite being the most powerful psyker to have ever lived he may still have been "human" after all, and every living being has emotions. So maybe his biggest "flaw" (if you want to call it such) may have been that he might not have been able to separate himself from his sons (err I mean toolbox) as he would have hoped for.

*On that note, Aaron Demski-Bowden has insisted that nothing the Emperor says in Master of Mankind should be taken at face value. Moreover, the Emperor is inconsistent in how He describes the Primarchs. While He uses numbers and "it" when talking to Ra and Land, at the end of a book He's referring to Horus by name and as a "he", not an "it". AD-B has doggedly refused to clarify, because he enjoys watching the arguments he's kicked off. As noted in "Valdor: Birth of the Imperium" by Cris Wraight, it was noted by Valdor and Malcador that they were both surprised by the Emperor referring to the Primarchs, his planned generals, as sons. Valdor noted that the Emperor's emotions "are ebbing still" with Malcador saying all three predicted this and that victory had a price.
*However, in [[Laurie Goulding]]'s audiobook: Malcador First Lord of the Imperium; Malcador pretty much spells out exactly the same thing, saying that the primarchs were designed to be ''"conqueror's tools and nothing more"'', and had been manipulated into conflict with each other from the very start so that they would eventually destroy each other and pave the way for a "human" civilisation, rather than a "transhuman" one and that the Horus Heresy was always [[Just as Planned|part of the plan]]. He does later have a minor breakdown and admit that he was forced to lie though, but is not clear on what elements. As a result, it is entirely possible (and in fact more likely) that there was no such plan to have the Primarchs destroy each other and that Malcador was merely trying to hide the fact that things had gone off the rails. This is confirmed in ''The Board Is Set'' short story by [[Gav Thorpe]], which seemingly reconfirms Malcador's admission as the the Big E and His bestie play a game of cards with each Primarch represented (heavily implied). In such a game, Mal takes the role of "Warmaster" ''(symbolically representing [[Chaos]])'' whilst Big E played the position of the "Emperor". The two play out the entire events of the Horus Heresy and even hypothetical scenarios had they played each Primarch differently against the others, though they still get caught off guard from time to time as the rules change unexpectedly. Though Malcador only belated understands that considering this was a symbolic game of "what if?" rather than simply a means of devising strategy. So, while Emps and Mal were partly responsible for the current state of everything; if Malcador's "lie" was that it was all planned and that everything was under control, then the truth would be an acknowledgement that their opponents ''(the Chaos Gods)'' actually existed which was something they had been denying for centuries. Now they were backed into a corner and desperately scrambling to find a solution that didn't fuck everything.

While interred on the Golden Throne, the Emperor's psychic-essence prevents [[Daemon|daemonkind]] from directly assailing [[Terra]] through the broken remains of the Imperial Webway (in the form of a golden sun), while additionally sustaining and managing the psychic-beacon known as the [[Astronomican]], that makes warp travel within 50,000 light years around Terra possible.

An interesting theory is that if Emps was born of a group of psykers combining their might and souls in one ritual act then maybe Empy has gained all human souls since he got put on that Throne {see: leveling in Dark Souls), as he ''is'' the afterlife now, provided one excludes the veritable Hell that is the Warp (and all that [[Infinity Circuit|stuff]] the Eldar get up to).

A question that remained unanswered for a long time is that, is the above thing the only thing he is capable of doing these days? Or can he communicate with others? In the past few supplicants were allowed an audience with the Emperor though the fluff's always been iffy on whether or not they talked, or if it was more a spiritual visit to a shrine. The recent advance in the timeline revealed that the newly revived Guilliman had an audience with him for a whole day in which they did talk (and he still seems to have some sort of connection to the Custodes), so yes, he can. But then, what is he [[Black_Crusade| waiting for]] [[Emperor%27s_To-Do_List| before]] waking the [[Lion_El%27Jonson| sleepy beauty ]] up? It could be that he literally couldn't talk to anyone before that, considering that even Guilliman shuddered at the thought of the mental sand blasting that was speaking with the Emperor. It's possible the same communion might destroy a mortal, or kill the comatose Lion by accident. Perhaps the only thing stopping the Emperor from direct governance of the Imperium is his psychic voice delivering the equivalent of an Ordinatus blast every time he uses it, so he cannot chastise the incompetence of the High Lords for fear of killing them outright.

Speaking of talking to him, when Roboute was revived from stasis and finally got to Terra to talk to dad, Roboute noted the Emperor regarded him with the interest one would regard a tool. He also reflects on how he feels that the Emperor's psychic might has grown since his death, but that his humanity has gone as well, to the point that Guilliman thinks that even if he is a god he doesn't deserve to be worshiped. However, following the Plague Wars Guilliman has considered the possibility that his ascension may have been a plan B for humanity following the failure of the Imperial Truth, and both [[Mortarion]] and [[Ku'Gath]] believe the Emperor is gathering energy to create what they call an "Unliving Legion".

{{Topquote|He's been up to all sorts of things, our beloved father. Consorting with Xenos, resurrecting ancient technology. Don't believe that he is blameless in this...|Magnus the Red}}

In contrast to the above quote, the Emperor (and the Imperium as a byproduct) fucking hates aliens, though not without reason. During the Age of Strife numerous Xenos races exploited humanity's trust and either raided, lollygagged, [[loot]]ed or all of the above and were generally a nuisance the entire time. Then the Emperor comes along and decides that the best way to stop all that from happening again is to wipe out all Xenos that might even think to pose a threat to the fledgling Imperium. However, those few Xenos species that did not pose an immediate threat to humanity were usually made protectorates similar to the Tau government (unless they resisted, were in the way, or <s>possessed a planet</s> influenced human culture at all). Ever since His ascension, the Imperium mostly forgot about the part where harmless aliens could be tolerated, but on the other hand, [[Orks|the]] [[Necron|most]] [[Tyranids|common]] [[Tau|xenos]] [[Dark Eldar|are]] [[Asdrubael Vect|massive]] [[Eldrad|dicks]] and aren't exactly willing to buddy up with the Imperium themselves. Plus, at least according to ''Horus Rising'', the idea of letting Xenos exist and then eventually grow stronger is wrong on every level to the Imperium (hence the whole mess with the [[Interex|Interex/Diasporex]]).

To be even more fair (and meta), the triumvirate of Horus Heresy authors tend to have their own interpretation of the Big E. [[Graham McNeill]] generally portrays Him as competent and benevolent (if flawed), [[Dan Abnett]] portrays Him as competent but bloodthirsty, while [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]] portrays Him as a vicious, needlessly cruel imbecile (and even this is counterbalanced by his portrayal in Master of Mankind, where he's interestingly a mixture of all the previous portrayals at once - which is kinda of appropriate really). Chris Wraight, as far as he has portrayed Him, has done so through the eyes of Jaghatai Khan, showing Him as deeply flawed and distant from His own sons, but also countering that He was working towards goals even the Primarchs couldn't fully grasp. Even in Path of Heaven, where the Khan gets close to learning the secrets of the Webway project, he's shown to not have all the cards (the Emperor's knowledge that humanity is evolving into a psychic race, for example).

On another note, [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|long before the Horus Heresy novel series]], there were hidden gems Noobs are not aware of, such as a text describing the fight between Horus and the Emperor (although it wasn't written especially well), or Conspiracy Theories. One of them was actually the possibility that the Emperor was already dead when Rogal Dorn managed to reach him; however, in the aforementioned text, [[Luther|Horus had realised that he had been wronged and deceived]] by the [[Assholetep|Chaos Gods]], who immediately ceased to possessed the Warmaster and fled before the Emperor's final Force attack [[FATAL|bring woe to both of them]]. What if the Emperor had spared him or if the Warmaster survived somehow? In Olden Fluff, all Primarchs were Psykers and originally supposed to be [[Grey Knight|shining examplars of Human free from the taint of the Empyrean]] which they failed to bear true potential due to their early contact with the Warp, via the Dark Gods abducting them pedobear style.

This in turn was what caused their mutations and unique characteristics and diversity which was more of a metaphor that each Primarch was an image of humanity themselves; in fact, much of the powers of the Primarchs, like the Emperor, would have come from their psychic abilities. It is known that [[Sensei]]'s powers include health, regeneration, greater athletic prowess and [[God Stat|overpowering their Strength stat]] when they try to attack something, thus it would not be surprising if it was also the case for Primarchs (baby Sanguinius was super healthy and immune to Baal's radiations, Curze crawled out of his molten drop-pod and crater while screaming in pain and fled immediately, instinctively, into the darkness, and later his body was fully healed) prior to the new fluff messing everything up, 'cause BL writers have trouble getting their shit together.

But back to where we are; the notion that the Emperor was dead forebodes a terrible possibility, in which [[Pretend|the corpse that Rogal Dorn took back on Terra's Imperial Palace was not Big E but of Horus being passed as the Emperor... and was worshipped as such for Ten Thousand Years]]. While [[Retcon|this has become highly unlikely]], it would both be a great and GRIMDARK [[Just As Planned|plot twist]] and an immense source of [[Lulz]] especially when you mix in the events of Gathering Storm 3 with [[Roboute Guilliman]].

===On His Strengths and Flaws===
The Emperor was a firm believer that the ends justified the means and was a hard lined utilitarian, but He was a man whose vision was so long-sighted, so singular, that literally no one else around Him could comprehend either His motives, His lack of patience, His ambition, or His lack of tolerance; even those who had stuck with Him throughout the millennia saw him as being (rather ironically) inhuman. His own son, His closest and most cared for progeny, the Primarch Horus Lupercal, ends up rebelling because of this destructive character flaw that constantly shows up.

*Though his pragmatism made him a superb ruler in wartime, the ultra-militarized society He had [[First Founding|created]] was entirely dependent on the Imperium being constantly at war. Even if the Great Crusade had [[Just as Planned|proceeded exactly as the Emperor expected]], it still would have run out of enemies eventually. And when you have a few trillion newly unemployed soldiers with no other skills beyond killing on your hands and no other purpose in life beyond said killing...well, they tend to get rowdy. He may have realized this already when he had to mop up the surviving [[Thunder Warriors]]. It remains unknown how the Imperium would have continued to look after the Great Crusade was completed, how its colossal military forces would be scaled down, or how such a feat could even be achieved. Though there were signs that change was in the air as the Emperor quit the Great Crusade and the Council of Terra was formed to officially begin transition of the Imperium from its permanent war footing to a civilian government. Sure, it appears that some of the Primarchs and Legions had other skills like Guilliman's organizational talents and Dorn's talent for architecture and engineering, but what of the enormous host of veteran Imperial Auxilia? (That one's actually pretty easy; do what the Romans did and have them settle all the Imperium's new territories.) Or the conscripted or indentured taken from conquered worlds? What about the legions of super soldiers who were bred to do nothing else but war-making, such the [[World Eaters]], [[Space Wolves]], and [[Luna Wolves]]? There are hints that he might have planned to fix that by arranging the Primarchs to come to blows with each other, [[Horus Heresy|but we all know exactly how well ''that'' turned out]]- where He'd sweep in (presumably utilizing the [[Webway]]) with the Custodes and mop up the leftovers. But the sheer scale of destruction that would've caused to the galaxy and Mankind in general, not even speaking of the depth of betrayal He'd have to commit against His loyal Space Marines and Primarchs, is almost unfathomable in its callousness.
*The Emperor's concern for humanity as a whole belied his refusal to acknowledge that humanity was not just a species, but also a group of individuals with infinite variety and whose goals are also infinitely individualized. In His mind, He alone knew what was good for humanity's survival and anything short of total submission to the Imperium was grounds for destruction. In effect, all his efforts were performed in the name of an abstraction that arguably never existed in the first place. To His credit, a great many of His predictions did come to pass, and arguably when the man set His mind to a task, He got it done no matter what, but He failed to take into account that the species He so loves cannot see the future like He sees it. So that even if He was right, assuming His foresight was impeccable (and it wasn't), He's an immortal being with infinite knowledge making plans for very flawed short-sighted mortals who each act independently and have very different ideas from him about what they actually want in life. That's always going to be an impossible task to foolproof, and even if it was possible it would end up shackling people's needs, wants, and desires to a "collective good" with little to no connection to the people it allegedly represents.
*He made a critical mistake in that trying to erase religion. Lacking the immortality and inhumanly grand perspective of the Emperor, it's a basic part of human nature to look for meaning and purpose in a cause greater than oneself, especially in the harsh and grimdark universe that was the [[Age of Strife|Old Night]], and when your day-to-day existence is shit then religion becomes far more appealing than any sort of secular ideology. The Imperial Truth tried to do this, but was ultimately doomed to fail because it offered no comfort to people struggling just to survive (and for all the good things the Great Crusade did, that still described the vast majority of the Imperium's inhabitants). What good are abstract concepts like "reason", "logic", and "humanism" when you can't feed yourself or your family, when your world is obliterated and you now live in a slum, when you're liberated from alien oppressors only to be press-ganged into manual labor, when your existence is just as tiny and insignificant as it was before you became part of the Imperium, if not even more so? What good is secularism when the super soldiers who are supposed to defend you think of you as idiotic sheep? What good was the Imperial Truth when it failed to teach about the extra-dimensional alien entities that assume the form of old superstitions and wield so much power that they might as well ''be'' gods? The fact that the Imperial Cult took off so quickly after the Emperor's interment on the Golden Throne (and is arguably the only thing keeping the Imperium a remotely unified entity in the present) is proof that the Emperor was once again either too stubborn for his own good or too divorced from the "normal" human condition to understand the value of life. The latter is more probable, as the Khan recounts scrambling to even converse with the Emperor and the Custodes have an internal school to try figure out out what ''exactly'' he meant in his orders and how it applies to the modern day. Yes, his Companions have what are basically rabbis Talmudically mulling over every syllable the Emperor ever uttered.
**In either case, all the Imperial Truth accomplished was giving all four of the Ruinous Powers a reason to get rid of him, while also giving them an invaluable tool to do so in the form of Lorgar. And all while he was telling the Primarchs that daemons were just another xenos race in an ill-advised attempt to dispense with their mythological appearance and obvious possession of supernatural powers, which left them and their Legions vulnerable to Chaotic corruption. Yes, He gave them incredibly vague warnings, but those were not even close to the amount of information He needed to give them. Or, for those of us who think this sounds just a little bit religious for our tastes and don't want to get into a philosophical debate over the importance of belief, imagine the trillions of citizens who had gone their whole lives worshiping a belief only to have ol' Emps turn up and just say "No" without a word of explanation beyond "it's bad". To his credit, His strength here was that He pushed Mankind to embrace secularism hoping that not only would it combat Chaos, but that it would propel us forward with greater scientific endeavors and understanding...but the way he chose to do so was still ultimately based on a lie which blew up in his face the moment it turned out that gods and daemons were very real.
*For a guy who says he's trying to avoid the same mistakes the Eldar made, his obsession with human supremacy and the supposed "purity" of the human form (as defined by what, his own opinion?) are almost indistinguishable from the pre-Fall Eldar's certainty that they were the rightful rulers of the galaxy. Even if humanity did become a purely psychic race, nothing would stop it from making ''another'' Chaos God by accident. It's a bit of a stretch to hypothesize that this was itself a ploy for him to use the collective psychic power of humanity to elevate himself to the status of godhood, where he could truly rule with infinite power. A stretch, but not a far-fetched one. Without a doubt, this could have been a very distant backup plan. However, it may be unlikely, as the Emperor admits to his Custodian Dio that he has no idea what to do anymore after the Webway Project fails.
**The only beings who knew how to create new parts of the Webway were the [[Old Ones]], and they're all dead. At best, the Webway project would've delayed the inevitable before the fact that nobody can figure out how to keep it working became obvious. And since the Warp already bleeds into the Webway at the best of times...well, the whole thing would've been rendered pointless if no psychic material could be replicated, produced or reinvented to fix, repair and expand the Webway. We'd like to hope that the Emperor would not have undertaken the Webway's conquest without a plan to unlock its secret. Ambitious plan is an understatement, ambitious but very very fragile and dangerously lacking in any kind of backup in case something went wrong. And it went ''very'' wrong, thanks to Magnus.
**The so-called mistakes and subsequent "Fall" of the Eldar [[Lileath|may have been foreseen]] and [[Morai-Heg|apparently planned for]]. By the close of the 41st Millennium, the psychic gestalt of the conscious-dead Eldar have formed the new god [[Ynnead]], quite probably proving that willpower eventually counters [[Slaanesh|desire]] and completing the Eldar's psychic ascension as a species. The Emperor may not have been aware of this and humanity's own psychic awakening may not have been as tragic, but to give him credit, his own endgame is somewhat similar in wanting to nurture mankind's psychic ascension but without the catastrophe. He is possibly positioning himself to become the focus for humanity's willpower rather than needing enough souls to die before they gestalt together, becoming a guiding will rather than a collective one.
**The humiliation of Lorgar was the ultimate catalyst for the Horus Heresy, and is probably the most colossal failure the Emperor has ever produced. This event is what showed the future "heretics" (and us) that when the Emperor says He isn't a god, you better believe it. Lorgar was so enthralled with his father and the religious extremism he was raised amongst that he not only worshipped him as a god, but made it his life's goal to convince others to do so as well. He built gleaming monuments and cities in His name. He brain-washed an entire legion to glorify their "perfect and benevolent" father. Suddenly, the Ultramarines descend and obliterate the greatest of Lorgar's cities and the Emperor himself forces Lorgar's entire legion to kneel before the invaders. The Emperor tells his most admiring son that he, alone of all his brothers, has failed. It would be as if God descended from the heavens, set Vatican City on fire, kicked the pope over, put out the fire by covering him in dog shit, and then told him to quit being such a fucking pussy. The main thing this incident says about Lorgar is that he's such a tough motherfucker that he didn't break down completely forever or kill himself upon the revelation that the most powerful and perfect being he can even imagine hates him, personally. The Emperor took the leader of the most powerful religious organization in the galaxy, one that could have easily been one of the greatest forces for its unification, and kicked him straight into the hands of power-hungry sociopathic narcissists in his two closest "friends". However, the biggest irony is that the Ecclesiarchy used religion to battle Chaos for several millennia using the very book that Lorgar wrote and ultimately proved to be better at it than the so-called Imperial Truth. (Unless it really WAS a test as [[Traitor_Legion_Loyalists#Known_Loyalist_Members_of_the_Traitor_Legions|the Anchorite]] believes). What might be completely inexcusable was how someone as drenched in corruption like Kor Phaeron, or someone as darkly anointed as Erebus, could have escaped the Emperor's attention on Monarchia.
**Angron's case is self-explanatory; honestly, if it weren't for Emps sending him into battle so often he would have rebelled sooner. Sure, he couldn't just let one of his Primarchs get himself killed in a slave revolt, but you'd think he'd send down some of the War Hounds or something instead of just warping him away and earning Angron's undying hatred. Instead he could have earned Angron's undying love, furious loyalty and in the worst case, a martyr Primarch who'd die from the Nails and be gotten rid of. Was one fucked up dusty planet's short term compliance worth the whole shit roller coaster? We will never know. Why a <s>man</s> <s>superman</s> Primarch (god damn it!) who knew only killing (not even war, just murdering people because of the MURDER NAILS JAMMED IN HIS BRAIN), and is traumatized to ETERNALLY HATE HIS LORD should be controlling 100,000+ Space Marines is something only the Emperor and his divine ass can fathom. There's no strength here, the Emperor was simply a callous dick who treated the son that would've been the most empathic with a complete lack thereof for no good reason.
**[[Fulgrim]]'s road to damnation started because he decided to loot a Slaaneshi-possessed sword. Knowing nothing about Chaos, Fulgrim had no idea he was using an incredibly dangerous warp artifact that that would lead to untold consequences. It didn't help that his strict xenophobic teachings prevented Fulgrim from taking [[Eldrad]]'s advice about the Laer Blade into account.
**The Emperor, being the wisest and most powerful human psyker in the galaxy, should have been able to see that [[Konrad Curze]] was an unstable psyker who was on the fast road to devolving into insanity due to his uncontrolled talents. And if he already was aware of it, then at best he was being incredibly careless. And what with the whole Night Lords being comprised of sociopaths and criminals, one must really question his quality control. Or maybe he just totally relied on his <s>large</s> huge brain capacity to manage things, and simply dismissed things that couldn't fit in.
**Even with the Webway fuck-up, Magnus might have remained a loyalist if the Emperor had him stationed on Terra along with Dorn. Why not bring the most crucial piece of the building project to the construction site to keep it safe? Instead, he brings a fortress builder home with Him, whilst He secludes Himself away to work on a project that Magnus was critical to achieving, all the while He was just confronted with evidence that said son was already teetering close to the same powers he was trying to defeat. Then he sends Russ to apprehend Magnus (the one Primarch who most wanted Magnus dead). And with the door already broken, he could have simply psy-phoned Magnus to clear it all up instead of jumping to conclusions. Then again, Magnus wouldn't even comply to his demand to stop practicing sorcery...
**Similarly to Angron, [[Mortarion]] always resented the Emperor for not letting him get to kill his adoptive father, and when the Emperor refused to give him an answer about the obvious piece of Warp-tech that was the Golden Throne he concluded that the Emperor was a hypocrite and the Imperial Truth was bullshit. Which in all fairness, wasn't wrong- if Ollanius Pius' experiences with the Emperor as his first Warmaster are any indication, it's not even the first time He's tried to pull off such a stunt.
**Completely ignoring that [[Perturabo]] needlessly had one in ten men in his legion killed by decimation under flimsy pretenses. Coupled with the fact that Perturabo was originally a peaceful, diplomatic soul, these two should have triggered some alarm bells about his mental stability. While it was said that the Emperor considers the Primarchs more of tools and less of his children, in retrospect it was obvious that there was plenty of [[Rogal Dorn|favoritism]] going on. Seriously, why can't the Big E act like a spiritual psychiatrist for ONE FUCKING MOMENT?
**Horus himself was only pushed to fall because the Chaos Gods played on his worries that he wasn't fit to be Warmaster combined with the unrealized, greater fear that the Emperor never cared for him as a person and that he, the other Primarchs, and the Astartes as a whole would have no place in the Imperium after the Great Crusade's conclusion. (Horus likely being aware of what happened to the [[Thunder Warriors]] when they outlived their usefulness at the end of the Unification Wars probably stoked that particular fire nicely.) You'd have thought the Emperor's most beloved 'son' would at least have been shown the special rooms in the Imperial Palace the Emperor made specifically for the Primarchs to live in after the Great Crusade ended, or at least discussed what he had planned for them when they weren't needed as generals any longer, but no.
**Perhaps the biggest kicker to this is that if we're going to take all of Black Library into account, the Emperor never truly cared for the Primarchs at all (loyalist and traitor included), viewing them as nothing more than powerful but ultimately expendable tools to further the ambitions of Humanity's survival and ascendancy. As determined by the Emperor, of course.
***Although one can always argue that the remaining Primarchs stayed loyal either because they believed in his vision for humanity or were too loyal to be turned, there's no telling exactly how long that might have gone on after the Great Crusade's end - some of them showed signs of disloyalty to the Emperor even during the Heresy, only staying on his side either out of loyalty to Mankind as a whole or the ideals that the Emperor represented (Guilliman and his [[Imperium Secundus]] come to mind here), by recognizing the other side as an even greater evil (like Jaghatai), or only because the Imperium is on the winning side (The Lion if Curze's trolling was true, which it probably isn't considering he stabbed him in the next paragraph and told Curze that he didn't care and that he was balls-to-the-wall loyal).
******To clarify the above point, after Guilliman's meeting with the Emperor following the Primarch's revival, he noted that while he loved humanity as a whole, the Emperor was practically incapable of caring about individual people, even the Primarchs. Everything and everyone was just a tool to him. While some might interpret this as the Emperor simply being a dick, you have to understand his situation; he's an immortal superhuman with a plan to uplift humanity. The fact he's immortal means he would be unable to form any meaningful relationships with mortals, because he'll always outlast them in one way or another. His plan also involved tons of sacrifices for the <s>greater good</s> {{Blam|'''*BLAM!* HERESY!'''}}, common good, when you're forced to sacrifice anything to continue your plans; you can't afford to be too attached to someone you might have to throw into the fire in a split second. The Emprah is cursed to always look forward on the endless road of the future, so he can never live in nor understand the concept of the present. As a result, his plans failed to account for the fact others might not just meekly go along with his plans without question and became further detached from the real human condition.
*Overall, and quite ironically, the main reason why the Emperor's plan was doomed to fail in time was because while the Emperor understood the path on what humanity must take for a brighter future, he himself was either unable or unwilling to understand humanity. Instead, he chose to remain distant from them and act like he was above their understanding, and that they should just simply follow him because he's the Emperor and he alone knows what's best for humanity, because shut up or be on the receiving end of a boltgun.(Even more ironically, this was how the majority of the gods that humanity originally believed in acted as well, and at least they had the excuse that they really were divine. For all his efforts to remove religion and his hatred of religion, the Emperor played the part of a god hilariously well.)
**Lastly, maybe the Emperor understood that his Primarchs were unstable and unreliable. Given the issues with the Thunder Warriors he had to know all of this was coming eventually just from past experience. But it's possible he just didn't expect it to be in the form of a team deathmatch. For example, he probably could see Angron and Curze eventually becoming unstable enough that they and their Legions would need to be removed, but expected it to be individual Legions and Primarchs that would need censure but couldn't foresee his own flaws causing enough gulfs with each of his Primarchs that they would have a reason to band together. If that was the case, he was a poor father and a poor leader not to see his own arrogance as creator a flaw in his design. If it is true that he had always intended the Primarchs' rivalries to grow to the point that they would begin fighting each other, all of the above is even more damning since it means he had made them flawed on purpose and yet failed to see how Chaos would gladly exploit said flaws at the first opportunity it got.

On another note, the fact his ossified self has managed to shed tears and there was an incident where everyone across the Imperium saw statues of the Emperor weeping tears of blood due the incoming disasters of the End Times may mean that he has finally started to realize how horribly he fucked up on every possible level. Or maybe it's hurting even more than ever to stay sit at the Golden Throne.

The latter is far more likely; according to Roboute Guilliman, when he met with the Emperor after his revival, He treated Guilliman as a mere tool without showing even the faintest display of affection or care for him as a person. One can only assume that 10,000 years on the Golden Throne has done absolutely nothing to make the Emperor be less of an asshole; in fact, he's described as being human in name alone, and Guilliman believes that [[HERESY|even if he is a god he doesn't deserve to be worshipped.]] Strangely, the final novel of the trilogy, ''Godblight'', makes the whole thing even more confusing, as it's revealed Guilliman's meeting with the Emperor was what can only be described as fractally confusing in nature. You see, when referring to Guilliman, Emps uses all sort of descriptions, from "my son" "my last hope" to "betrayer" and "failure"- all in the same exchange, making it impossible to tell what, if anything, the Emperor actually feels towards him. in every single novel of the Horus Heresy we see E-Money seen differently through the eyes of different characters. To the Adeptus Mechanicus he acts like the epitome of passionless logic to the point of seeing his own offspring as disposable tools. A similar thing happens with the Custodes, where they see him as their king, with them being their favorites and above the Primarchs. On the other hand to Malcador he acts like an old friend who he can confide with, and we don't even need to begin with the Primarchs and the Space Marines, being a father-figure and patriarch to them, or the citizens of the Imperium, whenever he appears to one of them he looks like what they want him to look like, a glorious superb leader, a kind if stern master (Uriah Olathaire, Kai Zulane, etc), the incarnation of all that is good in mankind.

A god you say?

We may consider the following: every single human group has a tendency to see the aspects they feel more appealing in their deities, the Emperor can make people do exactly that, and unlike Belisarius Cawl who needs to upload the specific personality in his databanks for the specific situation the Emperor's glamour can make most people see what they wish from him. Simultaneously, back to Guilliman's pointing out what's going on, Emps is simply trying to be cool with everyone, even if that means falling to each specific group's personal antipathies and prejudices, since he has to be the god... like ruler of mankind of course he had to do this, he is playing the politician, the manager, the candidate, the family guy, the not-priest of the congregation and while he may still have some personal preferences and quirks TTS-style back in 30k he had to put them aside (loves no man) and by 40k it seems there is barely anything left of his original personality when occupied with his main task (loves mankind, and mankind needs him to be their god), it may be that even back during the Great Crusade this attitude is what ended up allowing the followers of the Lectitio Divinitatus to pull the miracles they did. He just provided the psychic equivalent of earthing for mankind to start creating a real god out of him and ultimately it may be he ended up running along with not really many options left. But then this leads us down the theological and philosophical debate that's raged in the Dark Imperium series, what makes a god a god? Is worship all that's required? Is power and worship? Is it just power? Is it results, power, and worship? Is it none of it? When the man says he isn't a god, is he still a god? If Mankind has forgotten that he is just a man and has worshipped him for longer than civilization has existed in real life, does that make him a god nonetheless? If he is a god, he's an incredibly flawed god, hardly benevolent, arrogant and cruel that couldn't make a divine plan to save himself. If he's not a god, then he's a tragically complicated almost unknowable person that had plans that exceeded his considerable ability, and a man of such vast power and near incalculable knowledge as to be far removed from anything remotely human. Is he a god or is he not a god? That decision is ultimately yours to decide.

tl;dr He was a horribly flawed but still well-meaning OCD workaholic with a "The needs of the many" outlook on life meaning he couldn't afford to show trust, love or compassion to anything but mankind as a whole (and even that in only the most abstract sense), not even his "sons". Ultimately his inhuman perspective prevented him from understanding the human condition, and his inhumanity was a large contributor to the Horus Heresy being as terrible as it was. If you have experience in pedagogy, he is your typical working dad who can't spare time to raise sons and makes *very* bad, fatigue influenced decisions, and after they grow up, wonders why they grow to hate him/be distant. Add the lack of a loving mother figure for the kids, and [[Horus Heresy|well...]]

====Planning for the Horus Heresy====

To throw a spanner into the works when considering whatever the Emperor's "goals" might have been: A very interesting claim was made by Malcador himself to his dying confidante Sibel Niasta that the Heresy was all [[Just as planned|part of the plan]], that the Primarchs were designed as "conquering tools and nothing more", set on course to fight for dominance and eventually turn on each other and challenge the Emperor directly. This is corroborated by what we already "knew" from ''Master of Mankind'' and the Emperor's own attitudes towards the Primarchs ''(which admittedly has constantly been shown to be shifting. As has been frequently pointed out the final confrontation between Horus and the Emperor - as we currently know it - would not make any sense if he merely considered them to be disposable tools anyway. Why "hold back" then to start out with?)''. The Primarchs were manipulated against each other with [[Rogal Dorn|unequal]] [[Perturabo|favour]], jealousies stoked in order to achieve this, and he also claims that those who [[Magnus|would not be manipulated]] [[Primarch#Two Missing Primarchs|would never reach the end game.]] What is not certain is whether he was speaking the ''whole'' truth since he does later admit privately just after the conversation that he had to lie to mortals to spare their sorrow, so what parts he "lied" about are uncertain ''(he could've made the whole "just as planned" story up, it could've all been true and he was regretting manipulating the Primarchs and their legions, it could even refer to a single sentence where he implies that the Emperor will save her soul after death)''; he also admits that the outcome had been altered by the [[Chaos Gods|great enemy]] who had emboldened their champions and started the battle early so he did not know with absolute certainty how it was going to turn out. Also, if all of the above Malcadors statemenent "if we could have saved just one of them I wish it would have been Lorgar" makes even less sense.

However, as shown from ''"The Board is Set"'' or the novel "The Outcast dead" Malcador and the Emperor were certainly shown to have considerable amounts of foreknowledge regarding the Horus Heresy and certainly ''did'' play the Primarchs against each other in order to attempt to counter the manipulations of Chaos. However in the Board is Set, Malcador is shown that the Primarchs' destinies were not necessarily fixed and could have been played in different ways; some [[Ferrus Manus|Primarchs]] were [[Sanguinius|sacrificed]] for greater goals, like you would remove a figure from the board to give you a better edge. Whilst the Emperor had the knowledge that certain [[Roboute Guilliman|others]] were crucial to final victory. Malcador is also shown to not have been aware of the full plan or the flow of destinies; he is unaware of how certain seeming "winning" strategies are left unplayed because they have unexpected knock-on effects, or that certain moves played early or late could have had disastrous consequences.
*Such as why the [[Rogal Dorn|"Invincible Bastion"]] is not used to take the [[Horus|"Lord of Hearts"]] [[Battle of Phall|early on in the war]], since it would force both of the [[Alpharius|"Twin"]] pieces to switch sides to the Warmaster and be able move on the Emperor's home space and cause the game to be lost. This is also significant because it shows that whichever side the Primarch had joined could have been variable, and did not automatically mean that it was working towards the same goal as its leaders.
*Malcador was also surprised to find out that the game could be changed by factors they might be unaware of, such as the "Corruption" of the [[Mortarion|Lord of Clouds]] in the mid-game when they had expected him to resist like he had in their previous playthroughs. The Emperor appeared genuinely saddened by this change, hinting that he either still cared about them even when they had already turned against him, or that some Primarchs could have potentially been recovered and returned to the fold after the conflict had ended. Malcador was also shocked to think that the Emperor could be blind-sided by such an alteration; with Malcador only beginning to see the game for what it truly might have been, rather than simply a means of testing strategy.
*It is important to note that from the beginning of the game, the "Primarch" pieces were essentially blank slates, and only gained their unique shapes and identities as part of their first activations after the Scattering, possibly indicating that the Primarchs could have potentially switched roles with one another depending on the first few moves. ''(Perhaps Sanguinius could have become the Lord of Hearts? or Perturabo become the Invincible Bastion?)''
*Before the first move takes place, the pieces were arranged ten per side, which was more than available Primarchs at the time. The Emperor had his own golden piece but the "Lord of Hearts" began the game in blue and became switched in the first move ''(giving the Warmaster eleven pieces after the first move)'' while the "Twins" would not be divided until the second move, providing twenty-one pieces on the board. Ignoring the additional piece ''"the Fool"'' that Malcador had never seen before, means that there must have been one other significant player somewhere that we are not aware about. That and the division of units under the control of the "Emperor" and [[Chaos|"Warmaster"]] in the game would have been very different from the apparent division of Loyalist/Traitor Primarchs in the actual conflict, meaning that the roles they played and were expected to play '''did''' change drastically as the game progressed.

Taking several factors into account, it is absolutely certain that Malcador and the Emperor had enough foreknowledge to know that the Horus Heresy was going to happen from the point of the '''Scattering''' onward. To say that it was all part of his "Grand Plan" would be a stretch, that many of the Primarchs had municipal gifts ''(Perturabo's architectural mastery, Fulgrim's artistry etc)'', came with purposes suited to the Emperor's grand plan for a post-human society ''(Magnus' and the Webway, Mortarion as a witchseeker)'' and he definitely [[Vulkan|created one of them]] [[Perpetual|"different"]] from the rest with the explicit purpose of teaching the others how to settle down after a lifetime of war shows that the Emperor probably did have a plan for his Primarchs that didn't involve losing half of them and then chaining himself to the Golden Throne. Otherwise why make twenty Primarchs with gifts related to your post-battle plans in the first place if you knew you were going to lose half of them? People who claim that this outcome was all part of the Emperor's plan have either missed or forgotten the fact that his opponent in the "game" was Chaos, and not Malcador ''(Malcador and Emps switched places several times in their playthroughs which Malcador thought was just a means of testing strategy until it finally dawned on him that there was more to it)'' and that the Chaos Gods had their own plans for the Primarchs too and were fully capable of changing the rules whenever it suited them. Not to mention the [[Cabal]]s of alien psykers manipulating humanity for their own outcome, [[Perpetual|immortal humans]] that interfere with predictions of the future, and [[Watchers in the Dark|extradimensional beings]] trying to stop the primordial annihilator from manifesting all by making their own moves and causing more complications.

If anything; ''The Board is Set'' goes a long way in explaining why the Emperor couldn't do any more with his advanced notice of impending conflict as any wrong move he made could have immediately spelled disaster for humanity. Plus the Emperor's foresight was not perfect and it did not necessarily marry up with his practical knowledge; even though the game he played with Malcador showed the "[[Lion El'Jonson|Double Edged Sword]], [[Roboute Guilliman|The Uncrowned Monarch]] and [[Sanguinius|The Angel]] spending most of the game off to the side, the Emperor had no idea [[Imperium Secundus|what they were actually doing]] until Malcador relayed the message from [[Leman Russ]]. His psychic foresight seems to have been shrouded in allegory and symbolism, rather than concrete certainty.

Also note that "destiny" is different from what the Primarchs were "designed" for ''(case in point: Magnus being designed to operate the Golden Throne, but also being destined to damage it)''. While the Emperor had designed all of his Primarchs for specific tasks, he would not have been able to identify the destined role that each Primarch was meant to play until events had already been set into motion and pulled them onto certain paths. He might been able to guess that Magnus was "the Library" or that Dorn was the "Invincible Bastion" but could not have been certain until the first moves of the game had been made. So until then he could only treat the Primarchs according to their gifts; hailing them as heroes, building them statues and trying to steer them away from obvious sources of corruption such as [[Magnus|sorcery]] or [[Lorgar|religion]]. Even if the Emperor ''had'' suspected which ones would turn against him and tried to eliminate them before they became problems, their destinies could have unfolded in a completely different way, potentially causing a similar conflict to happen albeit with a different combination of playing pieces on the board, or alternatively sacrificing any control he might have actually had over the Primarchs and still have ended up with a disaster on his hands. Also bearing in mind that he still needed to complete the Great Crusade and his Webway project; to put those plans on hold until the issue with Primarchs had sorted themselves out would probably have done him no good either because like the Emperor himself, [[Chaos]] is capable of playing the long game.

[[Lorgar]] is an interesting issue: Malcador once claimed that if he could have saved just one of the traitor Primarchs, it would have been Lorgar. However, from ''The Board is Set'', the Emperor points out that game doesn't start with any piece other than the "Chosen", strongly hinted to represent Lorgar with his initial swaying of Horus and thus beginning the Heresy. This implies that no matter what moves are planned for, or what Primarchs ended up on either side; Chaos will '''always''' have a "Chosen" piece to start the game with. If Horus had been protected, Lorgar might have simply started the conflict with someone else, making Chosen/Lorgar perhaps the more crucial piece. Though keep in mind that Malcador speaks with the benefit of hindsight, and as mentioned previously, the Emperor was not omniscient, it is possible that neither of them were to fully realise that Lorgar was the Chosen until the first move of the game had already been made. What is most tragic is that Lorgar ''really'' wanted the love and approval of his father and was probably the most fanatically loyal to him in the early days, so turning him into Chaos' most pivotal piece is a cruel irony. If it were possible to have actually saved Lorgar before the conflict started, it would have probably unbalanced the game as Chaos would have been forced to find a different Primarch to fill the role of "Chosen", potentially upending the game altogether.

Until the end of the Heresy, Malcador was not actually aware of how the final conflict actually played out; having seen himself only as an advisor, he was ignorant of his own role. The Emperor showed him in the final days that his piece, "The Fool", would switch places with the Emperor to snatch victory and allow the [[Roboute Guilliman|"Uncrowned Monarch"]] to play his "Salvation" strategy and win the game against Chaos by tearing the throat out of the serpent. Malcador's "lie" to his servant was most likely to provide the illusion of control; when in fact the Emperor and Malcador were desperately seeking to find an alternate solution that would not doom everyone. But pretty much like the Emperor stated in ''The Outcast Dead'': "Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep [[Chaos|your opponent]] from winning.".

===But what does all that mean for The Duel?===
Yeah...about that. Regarding the Emperor's duel with Horus, we're all reasonably sure we know the old story. The Emperor faces down Horus, and had the power to roflstomp him, but his love for his favorite son prevented him from going all out, and Emps gets his ass kicked. It takes an extraordinarily callous killing by Horus, traditionally Olianius but that character has changed a couple times, to finally convince the Emperor that Horus is completely beyond saving, and Emps blasts him full power to put an end to the Horus Heresy. The rising problem here is that this version of events heavily relies on the Emperor's compassion (particularly towards his sons), compassion that the Horus Heresy books and Dark Imperium repeatedly assert that he ''never had'', either then or in the 41st millennium. For example, the Emperor put down his Thunder Warriors as soon as they served their purpose, and he didn't even pretend to care about Angron and his Butchers nails, asserting that he would keep him as long as he had a use for him, and so on. Anyway, without compassion, the duel scene in its current form simply does not work. After all Horus had done in the years before, in a room with the maimed corpse of Sanguinius, a loyal and beloved (as far as it goes with Big E, at least) son of his, there is really no way he would have gone all fatherly love on Horus and not just blasted him, or at least tried to. (Maybe the current form is Imperial propaganda trying to conceal the fact that Horus simply kicked his shiny golden ass for some reason?) So what the hell actually happened? A very good question, at this point. [[Laurie Goulding]] has implied that when the Heresy books finally get to it, the final duel may play out ''very'' differently from how we think we know it. It certainly wouldn't be the [[Ollanius Pius|first time it's been retconned]].

One possible explanation for why Emps' couldn't immediately obliterate Horus is perhaps due to divided attention and strength. During the fight, Malcador was being taxed to the core and maybe the Emps was lending his power to buy Malcador some more time and thus was not able to actually unleash his full strength on Horus. However, Malcador had already received the same speech about being used as a disposable pawn by the Emperor for the sake of the overall goal, and knew he was going to die anyway as the Throne-switcharoo had been planned before the traitors had even arrived at Terra, so the Emperor would have no reason to stall just to save one man, even if they were genuinely friends. The Emperor also knew in advance that the outcome would be his entombment on the Throne; when he found out about this he claimed that it was more than he expected but went so far as to tell his Custodians that his dream for the future of humanity was pretty much dead. Without the support of Magnus ''(who was always intended to sit on the Throne)'' unless someone came around with the knowledge to fix the Throne he would be trapped there until it it failed but according to his discussions with Malcador there was room for "[[Roboute Guilliman|Salvation]]" to come later. One other possible suggestion for why the Emperor might have stalled is perhaps his prescience glimpsed some preferable alternative to simply pasting Horus then and there, but until that gets resolved it can only be speculation. The meeting between Alpharius Omegon and The Cabal in the novel "Legion" implies that if either side decisively won the Horus Heresy, then humanity would die out shortly after; either murder-fucked to extinction by Horus, or doomed to follow the Eldar's fate after a few millennia under the Emperor's rule. This reveal gives the possibility that Emps purposefully drew out the duel to clear the board for Guilliman to be able to swoop in for the win later. The scariest option might be that Horus really was a match for the Emperor after being supercharged by the Chaos gods and it was only the intervention, however small, of Ollanius or someone else to give the Emperor just enough of a lead to defeat Horus. This is implied in ''The First Wall'' and onwards with several speeches about small forces making the difference at a key moment. It's relevant to the moment at hand but could easily be foreshadowing for the final showdown.

On a rather related note, one can assume E-Money knew the tragic cases of Magnus, Curze & Angron and all of his sons through premonitions. Given that the future can be changed (as in the case of the Lion who feared the future of Curze) though not necessarily changed for the better or come without consequences ''(such as knowing that Rogal Dorn could have defeated Horus early in the war, but Alpharius would have assaulted Terra and resulted in a Chaos win anyway)'' the only options available to E-Money were to salvage the best he could from a shit situation.

Anyway, he is now stuck on the Throne guiding his subjects in the few ways available to him in his current state as an all-powerful vegetable.

Perhaps, or perhaps not, to have hesitated out of love for a son, the final weakness during the last test to save mankind, that would have shown why the Emperor couldn't afford to love anyone, not even his own sons, and turned him into what he is now. Though more recent fluff shows him to have always been more pragmatic than that. While he did seemingly care for his "sons", his foresight had shown him that half of them would turn to Chaos and move against him ''(whether or not you believe Malcador's statement that it was planned from the start)''. Perhaps he even saw that there would always be half the Primarchs turning to Chaos and all the Emperor could do was choose which ones and try to plan for them (which would explain why he was such a massive prick to some of his sons and somewhat decent to others). Maybe the two missing Primarchs were dealt with just to try and reduce the number of Primarchs and Legions involved without crippling the Great Crusade. (As of ''The Chamber at the End of Memory'' we now know that the Two Unknown Primarchs were erased because whatever they did was somehow worse than the Heresy.) Though even with this foreknowledge, the Emperor was on the back foot and many of the actions of the Horus Heresy involved playing the Primarchs against each other to prevent an overall Chaos victory rather than achieving an Imperial win.

However, recent lore has revealed that the Emperor alone would have never defeated Horus and that the intervention and sacrifice of Oll Persson/Ollanius is the only thing standing between victory or defeat. This gives a lot of credence to the speculation that Horus was indeed much more powerful that Emps by the time of the duel, oh shit.

It is implied that Euphrati Keeler, Amon the Custodian, and a virus designed to kill Horus would all play a part in his defeat further cementing Ascended Horus being more powerful than the Emperor.

==Worship of the Emperor==
[[File:646545.jpg|thumb|300px|What the Emperor looked like before Horus decided to [[Rip and tear|bitchslap]] Him so hard he ended up spending the next 10,000 years on the Golden Throne as a rotting corpse. Notice the giant skull. How did that skull get so big? Is it a plastic faux-skull, or is it an mutant or even an alien skull? <s>(What He doesn't want you to know is that The E is actually a midget, the armor is a mech and that that's a regular-sized skull)</s> [[Blam| '''*BLAM!*''']] Anyway, back to the topic at hand. You don't get to see the Emperor out of armor very often. But he still looks ''fabulous'' without his armor.]]

{{Topquote|We believe in one Lord, the Emperor, the Almighty, ruler of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Emperor of Mankind, the only Lord of creation, eternally begotten of Humanity, Human from Human, Light from Light, true Lord from true Lord, begotten, not made, of one Being with Humanity; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and came among us. For our sake he has faced down Chaos; he withstood death and was enthroned. To this day he lives on in accordance with the Scriptures; he resides upon Mother Terra and is seated upon the throne of Humanity. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Emperor, the giver of life, who proceeds from Humanity and from Terra, who with Humanity and upon Terra is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. We believe in one holy true and divinely guided Ecclesiarchy. We acknowledge one path for the defense against Chaos. We look for the justice for our dead, and the life of the worlds to come.
 ++ Ayhmen ++|the [[Imperial Cult|Creed]] of the Mankind's Council of Nicene of Holy Terra (Most Christian elegan/tg/entlemen will recognize it as a bastardized version of The Apostle's [[Creed]])}}

{{Topquote|Did Horus not say that you sought godhood? He built a [[Horus Heresy|rebellion]] upon that claim. How he would gloat, to see the Imperium now|[[Roboute Guilliman]]}}

The Imperium advocates worship of the Emperor as the one true God through the [[Imperial Creed]]. This creed is propagated and its adherence is enforced by the [[Ecclesiarchy|Adeptus Ministorum]] and the [[Inquisition]]. All citizens and fighters of the Imperium have little-to-no say about their choice in faith (or lack thereof); they ''must'' worship the Emperor through the various Ministorum-approved faiths throughout the galaxy (due to varying cultures, many planets have their own way of worshiping the Emperor. Although these are heavily regulated by the Ministorum to weed out any heretical influences.), there is no middle road or compromise that doesn't involve the apostate being on the receiving end of a state-sponsored public lynching. Anyone who defies or deviates from the teachings of the Imperial Creed (or even is just perceived to defy it), whether willingly or unwillingly (after all, incompetence is inexcusable in the eyes of the Emperor), is condemned as a heretic and is executed (whether its going to be fast or excruciatingly slow is dependent on the person judging the condemned). Even if someone hasn't disobeyed the Imperial Creed but is deemed to have will be treated as if they broke the Creed. Forgiveness for one's sins is possible, although these cases are exorbitantly rare (at least the ones that doesn't end with the accused being condemned to a glorious death, and it usually is extremely painful.). It doesn't help that some of the members of the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition are so batshit insane that they are killing countless innocent followers of the Imperial Creed for no reason.

Now, the only reason the Imperium worships the Emperor is that after His fight with Horus and His internment into the Golden Throne, the religion that Lorgar founded on the Emperor had already begun to run amok before the Heresy had even ended. Without the Emperor to specifically demand it be rooted out, and with the unifying effect it appeared to have on the population of the galaxy who rallied behind it's banner of salvation, the Imperial Truth slowly lost it's foot hold for secularism. The Imperial Truth kept on teaching that there were no other gods (for modern Imperial citizens are forbidden from knowing of the Chaos Gods even existence) and was corrupted to espouse that there is only the God-Emperor. Ol' Empy did not actually tell anyone of the Chaos Gods, withholding the information even from the Primarchs in hopes of protecting them from corruption by hoping that ignorance is bliss, unfortunately, this became part of why the Horus Heresy happened in the first place. Some saw that the Emperor [[Mortarion|lied to them by holding the truth hidden]], some did [[Magnus|not know how to handle the temptation]] the Gods conveyed, some did [[Fulgrim|not even know that they were manipulated]] all this time and by whom, some would [[Lorgar|try to seek out something to place their faith upon]], not realizing what would needed to be done to become chosen in the eyes of the Gods. Plus, it's pretty damn hard to fight against something if you don't know that it exists. The Horus Heresy novels also mentioned the [[Interex]], another atheist empire who understood that threat of Chaos, but treated that information secularly and scientifically: they told every citizen everything that was known about "Kaos", and thus resisted the taint altogether (though this is an example of what's possible on the micro scale, unlikely to have worked on the macro scale considering Chaos was already waiting for the Emperor on Colchis in the form of Erebus and Kor Phaerom who'd have found a way to fuck things up one way or another). Unfortunately this still made them targets and the Imperium was used by Chaos as a cats-paw to wipe them out.

In the Emperor's long game, he knew that humanity was evolving into a psychic species with even more potential than the Eldar, and look what happened to them? E-money wanted mankind to be [[Star Trek|a utopia of science and reason]], by eliminating religion (and thus preventing the temptations of daemons), controlling psykers (and thus preventing random daemonic possessions), and eliminating warp travel by creating the Human Webway (and thus eliminating all human contact with Chaos when traveling through the Warp). He wanted to isolate humanity from the Chaos Gods, cause who gives a shit about the Ruinous Powers if they're stuck in the Warp with no way of getting out?

However, He made a critical mistake in disregarding the human need to believe in something greater than oneself, and despite His best efforts, nothing was enough to fill the place of religion in human society. Ironically, left without supervision, faith has proven to be an effective shield against Chaos. After He went off being the most powerful psychic cucumber in the universe, and lost direct control of the Imperium, belief in Him sort of helped the Imperium stand together against all odds. With the Warp being what it is, the act of worshiping the Emperor supercharged His power in the Immaterium to the point of being truly godlike, even while His body shut down and died. The Imperium's faith in the Emperor is basically their biggest anchor of bravery and perseverance in a universe where humanity is constantly beset by:

*[[Tyranids|Unimaginably massive swarms of voracious space locusts who exist only to feed and multiply their biomass]]...
*[[Necron|Older-than-Chaos-itself zombie-terminator robots set on culling all life from the galaxy]]...
*[[C'Tan|Diabolical celestial beings literally as old as the stars, whose single desire is harvesting all living souls]]...
*[[Orks|A race of nigh-unkillable barbarians, genetically engineered to have pastimes, ambitions, job skills, and dreams only be about rip and tear]]...
*[[Tau|Technologically superior but naive and dangerously unaware fish people wanting to assimilate everyone into their hierarchical caste system]]...
*[[Kroot|Humanoid wingless bird men cannibals who absorb traits from what they eat]]
*[[Vespid|Humanoid insects with claws capable of ripping through the toughest armour]]
*[[Eldar|Snooty and uncaring space elves that can read minds and who eat, sleep, and have Heterosexual Sex in the Missionary Position in planet-sized battle cruisers]]...
*[[Dark Eldar|Psychotic, hedonistic space elves who routinely torture others to the point of death for sheer amusement before grinding their remains into refined cocaine and are callous enough to taunt their normal cousins over having to ally to survive]]...
*[[Leagues of Votann|A diverging offshoot from humanity that are now clones bio-engineered for their job and that are led by A.I.'s; and while willing to negociate/cooperate at times, are just as whimsically able and not particularly shy about killing everyone present in order to harvest all the resources off a planet if it serves their interests better]]...
*[[Chaos|Fanatical zealots that knowingly devote themselves to all that is insane or arrogant fools who think not being devoted makes their souls safe]]...
*[[Daemon|Nightmare horrors made real who will rape and eat, usually simultaneously, any sentient being they get their goat-hooves on]]...
*[[Chaos Space Marines|Deformed, demented traitors clad in power armor and aided by the evilest forms of weaponry and sorcery ever conceived]]...
*[[Lost and the Damned|Traitors who turn their backs on the Imperium and try to destroy it, perhaps out of legitimate causes being coopted by the aforementioned infohazard horrors or out of shits and giggles]]...
*[[Rak'gol|Homicidal alien, lizard, insect, cyborg type monster-pirates that horribly kill you for fun (and who may be the puppets of an older and even more malignant civilization)]]...
*[[Slaugth|Giant swarms of worms in cloaks who might be older than the Old Ones, are more sadistic than the Dark Eldar and more manipulative than regular Eldar, and feed on humans in the most disgusting and painful way imaginable (it involves maggots.)]]...
*[[Enslavers|Huge floating obese octopi that eat psykers souls and use theirbodies into warp portals]]...
*[[Q'Orl|Massive insectoid hive mind filled to the brim with heavy firepower and has a slow but growing empire that is one of the largest in the galaxy, dwarfing the Tau several hundred times over and is seen as the next successor of galactic domination after humanity's potential fall (if the traitors don't take over, which isn't exactly better for the average human]]...
*[[Hrud|Humanoid rats that cause anything, living or not, to rapidly decay through touch]]...
*[[Khrave|Powerfully psychic humanoid bats that feed on the minds of sentient beings, that can possess people from far away, and forge weapons from slid warp matter]]...
*[[Games Workshop|Malignant, omnipotent intelligence from beyond the cosmos, exerting all the power at their disposal to prevent any faction from breaking the stalemate or upsetting the dreadful status quo]]...
*[[Sly Marbo|And fuck knows who the guy in the cardboard box is]]...

Without their faith in the Emperor after His internment into the Golden Throne, the fragments of the Imperium would inevitably sought to change the mechanisms the Emperor set in place that keep the Imperium running to this day, not to mention the inevitable conflict that would've erupted over a militant athiest empire allied to a very religious technocracy. Much like IRL religion, whilst it can give hope and courage to fight on and survive in a universe that leaves the [[grimdark]] faucet running everyday and night, it also causes as much harm to the everyday mans lot through intolerance, having atrophied any possibility for change.

It's worth noting that good ol' Empy wouldn't have had nearly as much of a problem with all this unwanted worship if He hadn't, just as a quick example, insisted on wearing horrifyingly ornate solid gold armour and a big glowy halo at all times. Or on carrying a flaming sword of righteousness. Or on building continent-sized monuments to His vanity. Or on decking all His personal troops and favored genetic experiments in as much bling as they could possibly carry. Or on shapeshifting being eleven fucking feet tall. Or on creating a functional pantheon of genetically engineered demigods, one of whom looked like and was referred to as a literal Angel. If you look like space-Jesus and act like space-Jesus, people are going to take those observations to their extreme conclusions, like what Lorgar did when he wrote the ''Lectitio Divinitatus'', which can be summarized as "Ordinary men can't blow up suns and carry big glowy halos at all times, only a God can, therefore the Emprah is God." This is made even more relevant given that the fluff very strongly implies that the Emperor '''was''' Jesus. But you could also argue that when a man says I'm not a god, and I'm as close to one as you'll ever meet, you gotta admit how stupid mankind has got to be to ignore his advice entirely. Because mankind is so primitive that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck even after being told scientifically that it is human fecal matter; he is willing to tell himself it is duck and will taste like one if he's hungry enough.

That said, to Games Workshop's credit His being buttfucked by His own hubris and disregard for the humanity He claimed to be guiding in this manner was probably [[Grimdark|intentional as a classic tale of Greek Tragedy]] or in an absolute grimdark alternative him having the foresight to see there really was no other option but an eternal stalemate. If ever there was a greater example of the man being just a man and not a god, you couldn't find it anywhere else than here.

==Emperor: Endgame==
[[File:Emperor of mankind flaming sword armor.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Son, I am disappoint.]]
The Emperor's body might be broken and destroyed, and while he's dead by every clinical definition of death, there is sufficiently enough of his consciousness sticking around to still be relevant and extremely powerful. This is at odds with his status as a confirmed [[Perpetual]], but his body has been dead for longer than he's been a perpetual so chalk this up to GW not bothering to account for it properly. Very few people are ever allowed to enter the Throne Room, and accounts differ on what they actually witnessed while in there.

What is perhaps more important is the Golden Throne itself and what the Emperor expected to achieve by maintaining his silent vigil on it for the last ten thousand years. What is known is that the Throne started out as an important part of his Webway project and sit on a long sealed portal to the human portion of it; it also supposedly directs the beacon of the [[Astronomican]]. It might also be somehow enhancing or maintaing his psychic abilities through its connection to his desiccated body and this would be lost when it gives out. It also still requires a constant source of [[Psyker]] fuel to keep running, and that has only increased in demand more recently. What it actually does do now that the Emperor's body is dead and dessicatted is up in the air.

We can only guess what would happen if it ever stopped working; the Imperium might be changed forever. With the mechanism being consistently worn out, and the Tech-priests too power-armour-on-head rebooted to do anything about it (at least until they finish studying Malcador's staff, provided GW doesn't forget that plot point), it is certainly possible that the Golden Throne may stop working entirely. It's also possible nothing would change, seeing as how parts of it keep giving out yet nothing happens.

Suffice to say, no one knows exactly what might happen should the Golden Throne give out, and no one really wants to find out.

===The Nuclear Option===
Ultimately, if the Golden Throne fails (and assuming it's actually doing something), it is possible that Holy Terra might be plunged into the Warp. This is supported by the fact that the Throne was built as a part of a portal to the Webway and was a significant part of the Emperor's ultimate plan for humanity. Unfortunately the psychic wards for the webway were later broken by [[Magnus]], causing a warp tear to open on Terra and creating a whole secret war in the Webway at the same time as the [[Horus Heresy]]. Although the portal was eventually sealed with the direct intervention of the Emperor himself, the fact remains that it still sits on top of a closed doorway with an infinite multitude of daemons on the other side, though it's not been elaborated on as being a part of keeping that door shut.

According to the Old Earth novel, the Golden Throne has a Vulkan-forged device called '''Talisman of Seven Hammers''' that acts as a dead man's switch: it supposedly will destroy all of Terra if the Throne finally kicks it. The Talisman has never been referred to in previous fluff, though the fullest implications of the Throne failing have never been explored either. The effect of Vulkan's talisman is a wildcard, as it was shown to have the capability to annihilate ''(not merely banish)'' a Greater Daemon even '''before''' it was connected to the Throne, and earlier in the same section the ''residual'' energy left over in the Emperor's fulgurite was sufficient to make an army of Bloodletters simply not be there any more. Connecting the talisman to the Throne magnifies its power to the point that the Emperor believes it would not merely deny Chaos their victory on Terra, but can strike a blow against them "the likes of which they will never recover from".

Additionally, the [[Grey Knights]] have a set of instructions called the '''Terminus Decree''' with icons that match that of the Throne itself, and these instructions could either destroy the Imperium, or bring it salvation in its darkest hour, one could speculate that the two outcomes could be linked.

Chaos may still get their chance to destroy Terra and bring down control of the Imperium, but may be burned badly by the Emperor's final "fuck you".

===Regeneration===
As mentioned, the Emperor is a [[Perpetual]], just like John Grammaticus, [[Vulkan]], Oll Persson, [[Alivia Sureka]] and [[Anval Thawn]], all of who were able to survive multiple deaths that completely obliterated their bodies in the process. The question becomes why he hasn't picked himself up and dusted himself off and regenerated yet after long millennia of inactivity.

In any case, if the Golden Throne fails - '''regardless of whether Terra gets nuked, the two outcomes are not mutually exclusive''' - whatever remains of the Emperor likely will have the freedom to recover and lead humanity once again.

All of this is still speculation (duh). Vulkan, for instance, was driven mad by the torturous experiences he had endured thanks to Night Haunter, and they were child's play, compared to sitting in unthinkable agony, unable to move or speak for ten thousand years while feeling Himself rotting away. And don't you forget [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|that nose itch]]. However, a more commonly held belief is that He will get up, re-establish the [[Imperial Truth]], and [[Great Crusade|just be]] [[Commissar|a cool guy]]. Too bad the Warp rift and the Astronomican don't have time to wait for him to do so.

A whole faction of the [[Inquisition]], '''Thorianism''', exists to investigate the possibility of regeneration; looking for possible signs that the Emperor's consciousness can be transferred elsewhere, allowing Him to walk among his children once more. ''(They don't know about the existence of Perpetuals and would rather look for a new body to place the Emperor's soul into.)'' Opponents to Thorianism generally see that encouraging this is a terrible idea, as having the Emperor rise in a physical form would only cause a schism in the Imperium, as many people would not believe it to be true, having been ruled and brainwashed by the Ecclesiarchy over thousands of years, which would lead to another major [[Horus Heresy|civil war]].

A final outcome might be that the Emperor is so far gone that there would be no regeneration for him. He could you know, just be "dead" the same way that Malcador died after his stint on the Throne, though Malcador didn't get to stick around. They were both perpetuals, although the Emperor's orders of magnitude more powerful, Malcador never got up after what might have only been a few hours or days when the Emperor has been sitting there for Millennia. This would also mean the Imperium is absolutely out of luck with the failure of the Astronomican AND the aforementioned warp nuke centered on Terra and their seat of government.

Alternatively it could also be that his connection to the Throne might be the last thing preventing him from achieving true Godhood after ten-thousand years of worship. The destruction of the Throne might by the catalyst of everything that the traitors called him a hypocrite for desiring, ironically causing it to happen with their rebellion and his entombment.

This however is just speculation, so the outcome remains unknown. However, it is confirmed that Perpetuals can still die for real and Chaos does have the ability to do so. Malcador learned this the hard way.

===Beyond the Emperor===
As stated in ''The Master of Mankind'', the Emperor himself considers he already lost the game to save Mankind's from consuming itself into the Warp while attempting to give the evolutionary jump, with the loss of the Webway he seems to have concluded the only thing that remains is a long decline and there is nothing else to do but to wage an ever losing war. Or is it? The Emperor himself recognized He isn't omniscient, His foresight can't reach all. When Guilliman shows up, the Emperor is amazed that humanity has still managed to survive and the Imperium is still alive.

During recent years the writers of Games Workshop have been hinting at a few facts, let us consider the following:
* The future is not absolutely written, and this comes from Chaos itself; even [[Tzeentch]] can't predict everything perfectly, requiring him to ask his [[Kairos Fateweaver|insane bird-oracle to clarify on these events]].
* The fall of the Imperium may be inevitable, but mankind may live on. Given the sheer scope of the human exodus, it's not outside the realm of possibility that some remnant of the Dark Age of Technology has continued unchanged from its original height, though it's very unlikely. For this to be the case it would somehow have to avoid nearly all xenos, chaos influence/worshipers, have its own way of dealing with latent psykers so that they don't be used be Daemons [[Enslavers|or worse]] and never have met any of the other traders, explorators and travelers in general that make up how the current Imperium discovers new planets.
* The [[Cadian Pylons]], while destroyed, were developed by beings that still exist. The fact the [[Necrons]] are still around opens the possibility that they may yet be capable of building replacements, and thanks to [[Trazyn the Infinite|Trazyn]] we know they are capable of closing of warp storms. Oh, and it seems like [[Belisarius_Cawl|Uncle Cawl]] is working on that.
* The Akashic Records truly exist and are somehow linked to [[STC|Ark Mechanicus ships such as Speranza]], this simple fact means all already existing knowledge is never lost forever, but merely incredibly hard to acquire.
* Creating humans immune to Chaos is a reality, both the [[Exorcists]] and the [[Grey Knights]] are evidence to this, and while the process is excruciatingly slow, highly prone to failure and prohibitive in resources it means Mankind can achieve through artificial means a sort of new evolutionary step.
* Not all Eldar died during the Fall, even if we are talking about 1 percent of the race it's still a great deal of individuals, and the fact they have managed to kick-start [[Ynnead|an anti-Chaos god]] is something no one, not even the Emperor managed to foresee (assuming he did not know that is what the Infinity Circuits were for, which he no doubt did considering how old he is). [[Eldrad]] has ultimately demonstrated there are other ways to fight Chaos (by being a dick).
** And thanks to Eldrad waking Ynnead up early (if only barely), Roboute Guilliman was awakened from stasis. Now he is preparing a [[Primaris Marines|new generation of Super Space Marines]] along with some awesome new gear to help take down Chaos. Plus some of the other loyalist Primarchs are still out there, and there is a possibility that they could return to help lead the Imperium fight it's many enemies.
** And for that matter, Eldrad declared by the end of The [[War of The Beast]] that the futures of Mankind and the Eldar are irrevocably interlinked. But, he did nothing to build on that, the dumbass. Add to that the fact the necrons too have given the Imperium a hand a few times and you suddenly notice there are more parties than the Emperor interested in not letting the human race fall. Despite the Imperium's completely justified hatred of xenos, they may be mankind's best chance of survival. That said, we still do have to remember that both the Eldar and Necrons want the Imperium and each other out of the way eventually in order to rebuild their empires, and the Imperium isn't keen on relying too heavily on the entities who will turn on them in a tip of the hat. On the other hand, desperate times call for desperate measures and who knows what the future could bring? Well, at least the Eldar to have more or less accepted their empire will never return and that sticking with the Imperium is their best bet for survival and power in the universe from now on. Which broke the balance and caused plot progression.
*Nobody saw the Tyranids coming because they hadn't even noticed the Galaxy was inhabited until the whole mess with the Pharos device. Not the Chaos Gods, not the Emperor, not the Eldar (though [[Orikan the Diviner|Orikan]] saw them coming), and the Tyranids are both an outside context issue for the galaxy (being the only faction with galactic pull that is completely and unambiguously disconnected from the War in Heaven or the Horus Heresy that serves as everyone else's origin stories) ties and a wild card in the fate of the Galaxy.
* If the Emperor wasn't a god to begin with, millennia of worship and countless psyker souls empowering him means that he's almost certainly a god now- and he knows it. Even when wielded by a "mere" Primarch his sword alone is capable of permanently destroying Greater Daemons (keep in mind that during Great Crusade and before he seems not to be able to do that), and given enough time his power might eclipse that of Chaos itself. (Though one could argue that Chaos powers up much faster than the Emperor due to having more sources to feed one and possibly having more worshippers)

* Finally, there is humanity itself. While He failed to take into account the fact that humanity is a mass of individuals rather than an abstraction, He also underestimated how this could work for good as well as evil. For every traitor and heretic, there is an equally devoted believer in the inherent goodness of mankind willing to stand against the Ruinous Powers, and it is on the individual level that the struggle between the Ruinous Powers and humanity is ultimately fought and decided upon

Yes, the Emperor failed to avoid mankind's inherent flaws to hinder His Great Work (ironically, because He was guilty of several of them as well), but He also failed to see a lot of the good things mankind can bring in. In yet another twist of irony, his incapability to predict us may even thwart his own prediction of humanity's doom. At the very least, humanity accomplished more and survived longer than anyone expected, even the Emperor. This ain't true, the Emperor predicted Mankind to at least endure for 10,000 years, and the Emperor set into motion an empire who mechanisms could function even without His direct assistance in such a way that it continued to function admirably (the measure of success being survival) for millennia in spite of the galaxy constantly seeking to end it.

Indeed, this is [[Warhammer 40,000]], a cautionary tale about the End of Empires, but so was Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and, although we may not like the AoS-ification of the setting, there may still be more than [[Abaddon|just a complete failure]] for the future of Mankind and the Emperor.

==Emperor's nicknames==
Like Roboute, his central status in 40k spawns a plethora of nicknames, which warrants its own section here

'''The Emprah''', '''Emps''', '''Big Daddy Emps''', '''The Motherfucking Emperor''', '''Big E''', '''Mr. Xeno Destroyer''', '''Chaos Fister''', '''Golden Daddy''', '''E-Money''', '''The Chad-Emperor of Chadkind''', '''The Bling-Emperor of Mankind''', '''Chad Thundercock''', '''Augustus Imperator''', '''Deus-Imperator''', '''Him Upon the Throne''', '''Primogenitor''', '''[[Salamanders|The Outlander]]''', '''[[Imperial Fists|Him on Earth]]''', '''[[Space Wolves|All-Father]]''', '''[[Space Sharks|Rangu]]''', '''[[Star Phantoms|Imperator Mortifex]]''', '''Master of Mankind''', '''[[The Last Church|Revelation]]''', '''Neoth''', '''The Immortal Emperor''', '''The Golden King''', '''[[Adeptus Mechanicus|The Omnissiah]]''', '''The Cartomancer''', '''The Empinator''', '''[[Arkhan Land|Jimmy Space]]''', '''The Fresh Emperor of Sacred Terra''', '''That guy with the bigger gun than you''', '''Golden Boy''', '''Space Jesus''', '''[[/tg/|/tg/]]''', [[TTS|'''The Man-Emperor of Mankind''']], '''Glorious Overlord''', '''Lord of Bling''', [[TTS|'''My Manly Man-peror''']], '''Lord Sovereign of the Imperium''', [[TTS|'''Starman''']], ''' Mega Dick Daddy ''', [[TTS|'''Ya Boi''']], ''' The King of Terra''', '''Boney-Em''', '''Carl Sagan''', or if you are of [[Heresy|different inclinations]], called '''The Carrion Lord''', '''The False Emperor''', '''The Corpse Emperor''', '''The Corpse God''', '''Oathbreaker''', '''That Twat with the Chair''', '''Space Hitler''', '''Space Stalin''', '''[[If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device|That Loony Shaman-Chassis]]''', '''[[Tyranid|giant crunchy psychic sandwich]], [[Chaos|the Anathema]], [[Ork|Dat Big Shinny Git]], Professor Utonium, Doctor Fate, The Immortal, Leto Atreides, Vandal Savage, Manji, Shigeo Kageyama, Tetsuo, Conan The Cimmerian, Maximilian Zelevas, Gilad Anni-Padda, Henry Cavill, Great-Grandpapa Smurf, Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, [[Settra the Imperishable|and many more]].

==And now for some tabletop rules...==

These are rules I thought of. They are not meant to actually be used, and they will put the Emperor at a position where He can easily shit on any Primarch. Like, seriously. These rules will make [[Matt_Ward|the destroyer of fluff]]'s rules look mega-balanced in comparison.

The Emperor of Mankind is a single model equipped with: The Emperor's Sword, the Imperialis Bolter, psychic focusing prism. Your army can only include one The Emperor of Mankind model. If this model is part of your army, you may not take any models with the Primarch keyword.

{| class=wikitable
|- valign=top
! Name !! M !! WS !! BS !! S !! T !! W !! A !! Ld !! Sv !! Cost
|-
| The Emperor of Mankind || 16" || 2+ || 2+ || 8 || 8 || 20 || 7 || 10 || 2+ || 1000 pts.
|}

'''Weapons''':
{| class=wikitable
|- valign=top
! Name !! Range !! Type !! S !! AP !! D !! Abilities
|-
| The Imperialis Bolter || 36" || Rapid Fire 6 || 5 || -3 || D3+1 ||
|-
| Psychic focusing prism || 50" || Assault 14 || 4 || 0 || 1 || Whenever an attack with this weapon is allocated to a Psyker unit, the Damage characteristic of that attack is changed to D3. In addition, if a Psyker unit is not destroyed by an attack from this weapon, that unit immediately suffers Perils of the Warp.
|-
| The Emperor's Sword || Melee || Melee || +2 || -4 || 3 || Any unmodified hit rolls of 6 deal d3 mortal wounds in addition to any other damage.
|}

===Other Wargear:===
'''Aegis of the Emperor''': This model has a 3+ invulnerable save.

'''Relic Teleport Homer''': This model has the Judgement has Come ability.

===Abilities:===
'''The Master of Mankind''': If your army is battle-forged, this model must be your Warlord. If this model is your Warlord, then gain 3 CP. While this model is on the battlefield, any units with the Imperium keyword gain +1 to their Move, BS, WS, and A characteristics. They also gain +5 to their Ld characteristic. Any units with the Adeptus Custodes and Anathema Psykana keywords, in addition to these benefits, can reroll all failed rolls, can ignore mortal wounds on a roll of 5+ and become Fearless.

'''The Anathema''': While this model is on the battlefield, any units with the Chaos keyword get -3 to their Ld.

'''God of the Immaterium''': Add 3 to Psychic tests and Deny the Witch tests taken by this model. This model never suffers Perils of the Warp. Whenever this model manifests ''Smite'', it does 7 mortal wounds instead of d3.

'''Master of the Blade''': This model may make two hit rolls per attack made with the Emperor's Sword if the target has the Daemonic keyword.

'''Master of the Bolter''': This model may triple the number of shots it makes with the Imperialis Bolter if the target is within half range.

'''A God made Manifest''': The first time this model is slain, roll a d6. On a 1, this model releases a psychic shockwave before returning to the Imperial Palace. If this shockwave is released, then every unit within 12" takes d6 mortal wounds. On any other result, set this model up anywhere on the battlefield that is 10" away from any enemy models. The next time this model is slain, this model releases the psychic shockwave and leaves.

'''Perpetual Healing''': At the beginning of each of your Command phases, this model regains d3 lost wounds.

'''Graceful Movement''': Add 2 to armour saves taken by this model on a turn in which it moved more than 10".

'''Judgement has Come''': This model can start the battle in a teleportarium chamber in the Inner Palace. If it does, then in any of your latter four Movement phases, this model can teleport anywhere on the battlefield that is at least 5" away from enemy models.

'''Psychic Dome''': Any units wholly within 6" of this model have a 5+ invulnerable save against ranged attacks.

===Enjoy!===

'''Thought for the day:''' "The man who has nothing can still have faith."

== Gallery ==
{{SectionalPromotions}}
<center><gallery>
File:Emperor-Church windows.jpg|Put this everywhere to praise him, on your windows, the neighbours, just all your hive city.
Image:Horus and the Emperor.jpg|<s>Son, I am disappoint.</s> Empy's disappointment occurred well before this moment.
Image:E-Money_LowRes.gif|Now in animated ultra HD for your heresy needs.
Image:Golden Throne-Imperial Webway.jpg|The Big E upon the Golden Throne (before the decay set in)
Image:Emperor of Mankind Classic Portrait face.jpg|The guiding light in the Imperium of Man shines forever bright. He's also Arnold Schwarzenegger. Try unseeing that now bitches.
Image:1220179589932.jpg|The Emperor protects man from all.
Image:Wh40k-emperor.jpg| Yearbook photo.
Image:When you ruin his groove by Lutherniel.jpg| His groove, do not ruin it. Or you'll get schooled.
Image:Emperor_Decree.jpg| Emps laying down some rules, mid combat from the looks of it
Image:Go Ahead Make My day Emperor.jpg|That is EXACTLY the same look that's on Batman's face when he's about to put the beatdown on some little bitch!
Image:Emperor of Mankind model action figure.jpg|He makes for one helluva action figure
Image:8.jpg|The Em-purr-or of all Catkind! Nyah!
Image:God-Emperor_Goldlich.jpg|Death is no excuse to stop bein' pimp.
Image:God_Emperor_Interred_On_Golden_Throne.jpg|Thinking to himself, "I really, REALLY hate Horus!" Then again he never liked Horus in the first place.
Image:The Immortal Emprah.jpg|The Emperor isn't looking good here.
Image:Emperor_miniature.jpg|Roll d6; stays on the field on seven or less
Image:emperor_old.jpg|A real man never dies, even when he's killed.
Image:emperor.png|Down but not out.
Image:Emperormini.jpg|In all His miniature glory
Image:Carrionlord.jpg|<strike>The Carrion Lord with his two left arms.</strike> {{BLAM}} how the fuck did that heretic get past the custodes?
Image:Painting.jpg|This painting sold for $900, that lucky ca/tg/url...
Image:Emperor_model.jpg|Probably the best model of him yet
Image:slowemperor.jpg|Oh God-emperor, how did this get here? I am not good with computers.
Image:Emperor_Sagan.jpg|Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
Image:EmpsVSigmar.jpg| You all know you wanna see how this pans out!
Image:Emps&SigmarGenderBendBy Flick The Thief.jpg| The same situation, but improved! {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Silence Heretic!'''}}
Image:Emprasque3.jpg|How do you kill what can not die?
Image:Slavegirl Emperor.jpg|Emperor [[Rule 63]]! NO EXCEPTIONS! {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Heresy!'''}} [[Extra Heresy]]!
Image:Femprah.jpg|Not actually the God-Emperor; besides it is Heresy to believe that The Immortal God Emperor looks like Cher. {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''HERESY!'''}}, no make that [[Extra Heresy|extra Hersey]]
Image:Femprah_by_Mr-Culexus.jpg|Oh, give it a fucking rest...
File:R34 R63 Emperor 1.jpg|I don't know if this is Heresy, but I don't care.
File:R34 R63 Emperor 2.jpeg|So, who want's to visit the Golden Throne?
Image:GodEmpress.jpg|On second though... this [[lovedagger|one]] is... nice. - {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Heresy!'''}}
Image:Emperor_upon_his_other_throne.jpg|Yeah. We get it. The Emperor sits upon the Golden 'Throne'.
Image:1377291976783.jpg|Unbeknownst to many 40k fans, ol'Emps is actually fairly amicable when he meets an elf/eldar who isn't a complete and utter failure.
Image:Rainbow Emperor.gif| The Emperor in Rainbow Form, and his theme tone!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDZoyNzuWbQ&t=10s
Image:Konya.jpg|The symbol of the town Konya in Turkey. In Central Anatolia. Emprah's birthplace. CONNECTION, BITCHES!
Image:Hittite eagle large.jpg|The symbol of ancient (1600BC) Hittite Empire from Anatolia, which, unknown to many, is Emperor's first try at conquering the world.
Image:NotSureIfWant.jpg|The Emperor has just discovered [[Rule 34]].
Image:1393390057238.png|The Emperor is a man of simple tastes.
Image:Emperuh.jpg|The Emprah is watching you Masturbate!
Image:Emperor blackwhite.jpg|The very first image of the Emperor, dating back to Rogue Trader.
Image:God_Emperor_Numen_Kawai_Onii-chan.jpg|[[Drawfags|Kawaii]] [[End Times (Warhammer 40,000|Emprah teaching]] us about the evils of [[Heresy|heretics]], while displaying his mighty [[Pauldrons]].
Image:First_Founding_Problems.jpg|Perhaps with a better armor design (or if he actually cared about him), The Big-E might not have been late for all of [[Horus]]'s after school soccer games and things might have turned out a lot differently.
Image:1271118030729.jpg|Just imagine what would've happened if <s>the Chaos Gods</s> [[HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhnnnnnnngggggg-|fucking ]] [[Erda]] didn't scatter the primarchs across the galaxy and The Emperor didn't have to start the Great Crusade to go and look for them... Wait a minute, where is that little scamp Omegon? (he's just off picture, sneaking up behind Guilliman.)
File:Emperor of Mankind Contemplation.jpg|"Why IS IT that hot dogs come in packs of 8, and hot dog buns come in packs of 12? So people will have to buy 3 packs of hot dogs and 2 of hot dogs buns, hereby promoting imperial production of course! Ketchup sold separately!"
File:Strolling Emperor.jpeg|Having him look at you like this is a reliable indicator of how soon people are going to start referring to you in past-tense.
File:Emperor of Mankind 1.png|He is the ultimate Chad. Look at him. (He also proves that he doesn't just look good with the Talons of the Emperor by rocking that Bolter.)
</gallery></center>

==See Also==
* The [[Imperium]], for the empire he founded.
* [[Malcador the Sigillite]], the Emperors best bro.
* The [[Primarch|Primarchs]], the Emperors "sons".
* [[Sigmar]], his [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles]] and [[Age of Sigmar]] counterpart (especially in the latter).
* [[Emperor's To-Do List]]
[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/25959559/ This thread] which makes the Emperor even cooler.
* [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device]]
* [[Heresy from the Emprah’s point of view]]
* [https://youtu.be/2Lc_VCGbG5E A mod in Elden Ring depicting a faithful recreation of the Emperor]
{{Imperium}}
[[Category:40k and Fantasy Gods]][[Category:Awesome]]

Mirror-Caliban

2023-05-16T11:27:45Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:8022:3A15:9F1C:7B04: /* Overview */

[[File:Mirror-Caliban.jpeg|450px|right|thumb|The Lion's very own [[Nasuverse|Reality Marble]].]]
'''Mirror-Caliban''' is the name of a sub-realm located and hidden within the motherfucking ''[[Warp]]'', that was subconsciously created by [[Lion El'Jonson]] after a 10,000 year snooze fest. Yeah...don't ask us how ''that'' happened, although there are multiple theories ranging from being the creation of the [[Emprah]], to being the original home of the [[Watchers in the Dark]]. Whatever is the case, this sub-realm is now treated as the Lion's personal training course. [[Awesome]].

==Overview==
Mirror-Caliban as its name implies, ''heavily'' resembles the Lion's [[Caliban (Warhammer 40,000)|old home]]. The sub-realm is an endless expanse of forests shrouded in mysterious mist. As his own personal realm, the Lion can enter it free of charge.

It is speculated by the Primarch to be a realm that is adjacent to the Warp, which was perhaps conjured from El'Jonson's youthful memories. We know that the Warp is heavily influenced by the minds of greater or collective entities, so it can be hinted that the Lion dreaming this place into existence may lay more on his [[Emprah]] lineage than anything else. As previously mentioned, the realm is truly endless, and is home to the Watchers in the Dark and the Great Beasts that the Primarch once hunted. The only other inhabitant in Mirror-Caliban, is an [[Emprah|old wounded king who slowly bleeds from his injuries]] and is always stalked by [[Chaos Gods|hungering shadows.]] The king cannot speak simply stares in space or directly at those he sees like a paraplegic couched potato. If this guy is giving massive Emprah-vibes, then yeah, because he ''is'' the Emprah.

According to a Watcher in the Dark, however, the king is capable of answering questions, should the right one be asked of him. He can either be found fishing on a boat in a river or sitting within a castle that is located nearby. Wherever he is, he is always stalked by the shadows, which the Watchers warned the Lion to not dip his toes in it.

One of the more mysterious structure in this realm, is the appearance of a domed building, which was treated like a Pandora's box, as a Watcher appeared and warned the Primarch against entering it, stating he was not yet strong enough to safely do so.

During the Lion's Arthurian arc, the Primarch learned how to freely enter Mirror-Caliban and use it to reach other worlds. By focusing on where he wants to go, El'Jonson causes the location to slowly appear within realm, until its forest finally fades away and the Primarch enters his destination. This ability is known as the '''Forestwalk''', which also allows El'Jonson to take others with him upon these journeys. In a nutshell, the Lion can now [[Awesome|''teleport'']] as he pleases. Yeah. If the Lion isn't already a scary motherfucker, he is ''now''.

To the Lion's opponents, when the Lion activates his [[plot armour|protagonist's abilities]], an apparition of the forest suddenly appears from nowhere and then fades away after the Primarch walks out of it. Despite this ability, though, El'Jonson sometimes enters Mirror-Caliban after sensing something drawing his attention to the realm. Upon doing so, he is then teleported to another location, which the Lion discovers contains [[Fallen Angels]]. The Primarch does not know, however, if this feeling that leads him to his wayward sons is an instinct of his or if another force within Mirror-Caliban is pulling him towards the Fallen Angels.

The mysterious realm is also a 40k [[The Legend of Zelda|Legend of Zelda]] questline, as it houses the mysterious power sword '''Fealty''' and the '''Emperor's Shield''' of all things, until both were discovered by El'Jonson. The latter was contained in the domed building the Watcher had warned him against entering and upon doing so anyways, El'Jonson fought the only other unique inhabitant in the realm, which is a unique shape-shifting [[Daemon]] that could change into the forms of his brother Primarchs. This ability caused him to be overwhelmed by the creature, until El'Jonson found the Emperor's Shield within the building and used its powers to destroy the Daemon. Another theory could be that this boss fight was a construct of The Watchers and/or [[Emperor|Daddy]] created to serve as training for The Lion, as well to protect some of the Mjolnir-tier weapons Big-E had stored there. Speaking of, the idea of using a realm within the warp to house valuables is interesting, and seems to be new as well. It brings to mind the pocket dimensions the Necrons use to teleport and occasionally store things, but that's certainly not the warp. Whether this has precedent or if it is just the author playing it a bit loose with the rules of the warp, it's still cool and has a lot of interesting possible implications.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Chaos]]
[[Category:Dark Angels]]

Mirror-Caliban

2023-05-16T11:09:34Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:8022:3A15:9F1C:7B04: /* Overview */ minor grammatical correction - fixed redundant wording

[[File:Mirror-Caliban.jpeg|450px|right|thumb|The Lion's very own [[Nasuverse|Reality Marble]].]]
'''Mirror-Caliban''' is the name of a sub-realm located and hidden within the motherfucking ''[[Warp]]'', that was subconsciously created by [[Lion El'Jonson]] after a 10,000 year snooze fest. Yeah...don't ask us how ''that'' happened, although there are multiple theories ranging from being the creation of the [[Emprah]], to being the original home of the [[Watchers in the Dark]]. Whatever is the case, this sub-realm is now treated as the Lion's personal training course. [[Awesome]].

==Overview==
Mirror-Caliban as its name implies, ''heavily'' resembles the Lion's [[Caliban (Warhammer 40,000)|old home]]. The sub-realm is an endless expanse of forests shrouded in mysterious mist. As his own personal realm, the Lion can enter it free of charge.

It is speculated by the Primarch to be a realm that is adjacent to the Warp, which was perhaps conjured from El'Jonson's youthful memories. We know that the Warp is heavily influenced by the minds of greater or collective entities, so it can be hinted that the Lion dreaming this place into existence may lay more on his [[Emprah]] lineage than anything else. As previously mentioned, the realm is truly endless, and is home to the Watchers in the Dark and the Great Beasts that the Primarch once hunted. The only other inhabitant in Mirror-Caliban, is an [[Emprah|old wounded king who slowly bleeds from his injuries]] and is always stalked by [[Chaos Gods|hungering shadows.]] The king cannot speak simply stares in space or directly at those he sees like a paraplegic couched potato. If this guy is giving massive Emprah-vibes, then yeah, because he ''is'' the Emprah.

According to a Watcher in the Dark, however, the king is capable of answering questions, should the right one be asked of him. He can either be found fishing on a boat in a river or sitting within a castle that is located nearby. Wherever he is, he is always stalked by the shadows, which the Watchers warned the Lion to not dip his toes in it.

One of the more mysterious structure in this realm, is the appearance of a domed building, which was treated like a Pandora's box, as a Watcher appeared and warned the Primarch against entering it, stating he was not yet strong enough to safely do so.

During the Lion's Arthurian arc, the Primarch learned how to freely enter Mirror-Caliban and use it to reach other worlds. By focusing on where he wants to go, El'Jonson causes the location to slowly appear within realm, until its forest finally fades away and the Primarch enters his destination. This ability is known as the '''Forestwalk''', which also allows El'Jonson to take others with him upon these journeys. In a nutshell, the Lion can now [[Awesome|''teleport'']] as he pleases. Yeah. If the Lion isn't already a scary motherfucker, he is ''now''.

To the Lion's opponents, when the Lion activates his [[plot armour|protagonist's abilities]], an apparition of the forest suddenly appears from nowhere and then fades away after the Primarch walks out of it. Despite this ability, though, El'Jonson sometimes enters Mirror-Caliban after sensing something drawing his attention to the realm. Upon doing so, he is then teleported to another location, which the Lion discovers contains [[Fallen Angels]]. The Primarch does not know, however, if this feeling that leads him to his wayward sons is an instinct of his or if another force within Mirror-Caliban is pulling him towards the Fallen Angels.

The mysterious realm is also a 40k [[The Legend of Zelda|Legend of Zelda]] questline, as it houses the mysterious power sword '''Fealty''' and the '''Emperor's Shield''' of all things, until both were discovered by El'Jonson. The latter was contained in the domed building the Watcher had warned him against entering and upon doing so anyways, El'Jonson fought the only other unique inhabitant in the realm, which is a unique shape-shifting [[Daemon]] that could change into the forms of his brother Primarchs. This ability caused him to be overwhelmed by the creature, until El'Jonson found the Emperor's Shield within the building and used its powers to destroy the Daemon.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Chaos]]
[[Category:Dark Angels]]

Warhammer 40K: Darktide

2023-05-09T09:20:02Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:8022:3A15:9F1C:7B04: /* Melee Weapons */

{{/vg/}}
[[File:Darktide 40k Logo.png|700px|center]]
{{topquote|Rejects Will Rise|The game's tagline}}
'''Darktide''' is a co-op first-person shooter made by [[The End Times: Vermintide|Vermintide]] developer Fatshark. The game has an updated core gameplay loop from Vermintide, this time in space and facing Chaos cults in an Underhive and a heavier emphasis on the balance between melee and ranged combat. The game is currently [[Rage|enjoying]] mixed reviews due to crashy performance, generally bug riddled launch and microtransactions in the form of paid cosmetics. The in mission gameplay is generally lauded as fantastic, while literally everything else before and after the missions has been scrutinized and criticized (justifiably or not) to hell and back.

==Story==
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta7pEier2MQ Writing] Brought to you by motherfucking [[Dan Abnett]], with help from your favorite [[Spiritual Liege]], [[Matthew Ward]]<ref>https://twitter.com/thetowerofstars/status/1512480226651295744</ref> ([[FAIL|It's all outside-of-game though, so there's that...]])

The game takes place on the Hive World of [[Atoma Prime]], where a group of [[Nurgle]] worshipping assholes called '''The Admonition''' are plotting to take over the planet from the hive city of '''Tertium''' with the extensive use of pox gases, converting the infected to their side as [[Poxwalkers]]. Thankfully (or not), one Inquisitor Grendyl has come to cleanse the heretical arsehole. Instead of [[exterminatus|doing the mercy killing]], or calling [[Adeptus Astartes|911]], the inquisitor believes the situation is still somewhat salvageable. Scooping out the convicts they've collected [[The Last Chancers|(not for the first time)]], giving them weapons and throwing them to the meat grinder, hopefully they could find out what the hell is going on while purging some fucking heretics.

According to the devblog, the true antagonist is a concept known as the '''Darktide''' (roll credits!), a boogeyman threat that must be kept at bay, or so the people of Atoma Prime believe. In fact, it is a collective term referring to the brutal horrors of the Warhammer 40,000 universe: mutants, xenos, and worse - who want nothing more than to extinguish the fluttering flame of human civilization. The young people recruited to regiments like the Moebian Sixth have no idea where they’re being sent, or what they will face. They are as ignorant of the "Darktide" as any other regular citizen, for they were all citizens themselves. Out on the death worlds of the Fringe, the lasmen are thrown into the meat grinder and come face to face with unimaginable danger. Their world-view changes. They learn the nature of the Darktide and fight it tooth and nail. Sometimes, they learn too much. Long tours result in trauma, both physical and psychological. Some are broken by the experience. Some are made bitter and resentful that the grueling combat they experience is generally unrecognized back home, because the Imperial Administratum tends to keep all details of the ongoing conflict quiet so as not to generate public alarm. There might be a few news broadcasts about "great victories", but the rest of the turmoil is screened by propaganda. Some troopers, of course, serve brilliantly and bravely, and remain loyal despite everything they experience. But others fall prey to the insidious touch of the Darktide. They encounter the malevolent effect of the Warp, and it changes them. They become - literally, in some cases - the very thing they are fighting against.

In summary, the Darktide is basically Nurgle's way of weaponizing PTSD, throwing Imperial troops into a meat grinder to break their spirits and then brainwashing them to become one with the grinder themselves. It is no wonder why [[Adeptus Astartes]] were not sent. One can see some rather unnerving parallels with what happened to the [[Iron Warriors]] and how the their endless campaigns of grueling siege warfare caused them to snap and turn to Chaos. Or [[Indomitus Crusade|maybe the Astartes were just busy elsewhere]], [[Lamenters|some]] [[Legion of the Damned|chapters]] have gone through worse without flipping sides and the Age of the Dark Imperium has no shortage of threats that demand their attention.

And that's where our heroes, the convicts come in. They are invaluable yet expendable. Your player character's sorry ass is caught in the middle of a heretic attack on their cell. With the chance to go free, they instead go back and choose to fight for the Imperium. Whether they're Ogryns, guard veterans, fanatics of the Imperial Creed, or Psykers, they are the hardest meat the Imperium could send en masse, ready to purge the enemies of the Imperium with their remarkable abilities.

'''''The Rejects Will Rise!'''''

...unfortunately, for the game's ''actual'' narrative such as it is right now, well, the best we can say about it is that it doesn't look poorly on whoever actually wrote it because they were clearly told something to the extent of "There is no time or budget for anything more substantial, please write down the in-game narrative on this side of this napkin that was folded in half twice. [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer|DO NOT WRITE ON ANY OTHER SIDE ON PAIN OF DEATH.]]" The in-game cutscenes consist of recruiting your reject after you and Zola escape the prison ship you were on getting attacked by the Moebian Sixth, introducing the various NPCs who all tell you to get back to fucking work on missions you layabout, getting told there's a traitor aboard who's leaking information, and then Rannick summoning you and thanking you for your part in the warband after publically killing the traitor. [[Derp|That's literally it]]. Yeah neither of the [[Vermintide]] games didn't have too much of a narrative either, but it was ''still'' more than that. Hopefully, more writing will come out of the game in time as more content releases much like [[Vermintide 2]], but as it is right now, do '''not''' expect to care much for the game's narrative right now unless you're the sort that's addicted to coming up with stuff for [[Your Dudes]].

==Gameplay==
The game excitingly is one of the very few 40k video games to feature the Guardsmen and other squishy humans (plus Ogryn) in the starring role and not the Space Marines, and will play just as similar to Vermintide, only leaning more towards the shooty parts of the game. Playable classes are to be a Zealot, an Ogryn, a Veteran, and a Psyker, The classes are also apparently very customizable, both visually and gameplay-wise with lots of interchangeable weapons for classes. Also, [[Awesome|you can play as four Ogryns.]] Each character can choose between three different voices with their own unique responses, for it seems Fatshark has been pulling their weight and emptying coin pouch on this game with many different VA.

Enemies start with lowly Poxwalkers and graduate to traitor Guardsmen and Ogryns, Pox Hounds, Infested Elites and worst of all the monsters: Plague Ogryns (similar to Vermintide's Rat Ogres), Beasts of Nurgle and Daemonhosts (which are basically L4D2 witches: Highly suggested to leave them alone, will lock on to the poor fool that angered them then kill 2 of your party max before fucking off to somewhere else).

Darktide was featured on Edge magazine with a 15-page article stating that there will be some form of character creator, a backstory in that you start as a newly conscripted prisoner snatched off a transport ship by the Inquisition, ability leaks, and a shield system like Payday 2.

For new introduced features unlike in Vermintide or L4D, certain enemies now "corrupt" players, reducing their maximum health represented by a purple bar (just like in Vermintide where the players are cursed for carrying grimoire). Be aware the effects can stack, so players better stick together and be ready kill any specials in order to prevent further health reduction. The corruption cannot be healed by normal means (normal health pack are health sprays that can group heal btw), but it can be treated by healing stations that appear at certain points of the run, fully healing any players that use it. However, the healing station has a usage limit of 4, so spend its uses wisely. There are no more infinite ammo boxes like in Vermintide, so players have to think more strategically on their ammo usage lest they get pinned down due to an open area mostly being the only thing between them and a heretical firing line. However, there will always be at least 3 stacks of ammo waiting at healing stations.

A new mechanic called "cohesion" gives bonuses to players if they stick together, discouraging them from trying to wander off on their own to get killed. Another mechanic called "toughness" acts as a temporary damage soak, ensuring that players won't get stunlocked to death the moment they get shot at. It also works as a strange damage reduction: You get 100% protection from all ranged attacks except snipers so long as you have toughness, but for melee you start gaining more damage as you lose toughness. You can gain it back by killing enemies in melee or staying in coherency with your allies (stacking up to four with everyone together) There is also "suppression", where simply being shot at, whether you're hit or not, makes your accuracy sky dive. This works for both you and your enemies, and can make the heretics stop shooting and take cover even if you don't kill them, allowing you some breathing room or a chance to run up and greet them up close and personal.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olqaqM21Dro The soundtrack] was done by the venerable Jesper Kyd, and it seriously might be his masterpiece.

==Classes==
Unlike the Ubersreik Five (or Four, doesn't matter), your characters each have a customizable backstory that lets you choose their homeworld, what they did in their earlier lives, and how they ended up in prison (this being the Imperium it's often something incredibly petty, like complaining about the taste of the rations or not getting out of a magistrate's way fast enough for his liking). As a result, it's perfectly possible to form a team consisting entirely of one class (though in practice it'll probably be a good idea to have some variety). Each class has several different personalities representing the various criminal lunatics serving in the campaign. Not only do different personalities have different voicelines and reactions, your backstory will also add other reactions based on their pasts. Highlights include the aggressively German male Psyker, a Northern English Ogryn, the magnificently hammy Preachers (all of them, male and female, it's great), the Cadia-exclusive Veteran (male and female), the male Psyker who argues with the ''subtitles'', the male and female Pskyers that appear to have a hotline to [[What|Big E himself]] (or [[Daemon|something claiming to be Big E]]), the Irish female Psyker who is probably the biggest source of [[skub]] as people either hate her voice or love her poisonous snark and the French female Psyker voiced by Repanse de Lyonesse who alternates between psychotic and kind. She's amazingly the SANEST psyker with a shockingly well-developed moral compass for the 42nd Millennium, which says a lot. Sure she's just as much of a remorseless killer as the rest of them, and might SEEM an oblivious hypocrite for professing love for the citizens and horror at the Inquisition's regular MO even while gleefully popping skulls and ripping through hordes of enemies with her sword. But look at the types of abominations she's killing; they more than deserve it!
* '''Veteran:''' A member of the Imperial Guard dishonorably discharged for one reason or another. They're still killing heretics, so not much of a change in career. Their focus is ranged damage, though they do have more toughness and health than the Psyker. By default, they wield a [[Lasgun]], a [[Chain Weapon|Chainsword]] and Frag Grenades. For other weapons, they have a Lucius patterned combat [[shotgun]] (aka your favourite shotgun from L4D is back!!!),[[Stubber|a Stub Revolver]], a Plasma Gun, a Power Sword, an Autogun, and a Combat Blade. Confirmed that they will be making Forge-World variation for Basic weapons such as Lasguns and Autoguns for now. Their personalities can lean towards being a relatively agreeable Professional, a cynical Cutthroat who survived the loss of their unit, or a Loose Cannon who killed a guard just to get some extra drink. If you come from Cadia, you get the option of a special personality fitting a grizzled veteran who witnessed the death of the only home they've ever known. The planet broke before the Guard did...
** '''Sharpshooter:''' A subclass of Veteran geared towards long-ranged combat and scoring headshots, with their passive granting them a larger ammo capacity and more damage against enemy weak points. While in cohesion, they have a chance not to use up ammo when shooting, and they regain ammo for every elite killed. Their active ability is "Volley Fire", which slows them down in exchange for boosting their accuracy, damage against enemy weak points, and weapon handling; it also makes non-Ogryn elites and special enemies easier to identify from afar so you can snipe them better. By default the weapons they can wield are a Kantrael Mk Ia Lasgun, a shovel ([[Death Korps of Krieg|Krieg fanon-lovers rejoice!]]), and frag grenades.

* '''Zealot:''' Your happy go purging Ministorum Priest. Since player characters are all convicts for a reason, the Zealots was probably excommunicated for [[heresy|certain reasons]], but let's hope it is not something [[chaos|too severe]]. Depending on your build, they may sometimes say "Blood for the God Emperor! Skulls for the Golden Throne!". [[Khorne|Doesn't bode too well]]. By default, they wield an [[Autogun]], a combat axe, and stun grenades, and have also been seen using a [[Flamer]] and a Chain Axe. They can be either be a hot-blooded Fanatic, a self-righteous Judge or an insane Agitator who burned down an entire hab block for suspected heresy.
** '''Preacher:''' A subclass of Zealot that functions similarly to the Zealot from [[Vermintide 2]]: they have fast melee attacks, deal bonus damage when their health is low, and can avoid dying after taking a fatal attack, gaining temporary invincibility in the process (albeit with a long cooldown). They take reduced toughness damage while in cohesion. Their active ability "Chastise the Wicked" is a charging attack that locks enemies into melee, regenerates their Toughness, increases their base melee damage and guarantees their next melee attack will be a critical hit. By default they wield an [[Autogun#Autopistol|Autopistol]], Combat Axe, and Stun grenades.

* '''Psyker:''' A wizard type character with the exact some play style and mechanics as [[The End Times: Vermintide#Gameplay|Sienna from vermintide]], but no fire (at least, not physical fire). So I guess we know that the Inquisitor sending the Convicts out is a Radical. As mentioned previously in Vermintide, this type of character has unlimited ammo, but will explode if they overuse their powers (here referred to by Perils). Unlike Sienna, they also have the option of wielding guns in their ranged slot instead of a staff, but that's boring. They no longer suffer damage when trying to cooldown from overheating by "reloading" as Sienna did, bless the Emperor. As for other new features, the Psyker can get new spell powers in their grenade slot (which every class now gets their own unique grenades) to smite the enemies for the Emprah! One of the many demonstrated spell is the Brain Burst spell that deal massive damage to a single enemies' head, [[awesome|to the point of crushing their skull, killing them instantly]]. When blocking, they are able to conjure a psychic shield that not only blocks ranged fire, but also stagger enemies when they try to hit it, and it works on even the hardest hitting elites like the Crushers or the Maulers. Other powers include [[Star Wars|pushing away a horde of enemies in a burst of psychic wind]] (melee special attacks), and imbuing the powers of the warp into their blades and to deal lethal damage in one swing. Their unique ability allows them to instantly erase any overcharge they had. By default, they wield a [[Force Weapons|Force Sword, a Force Staff]] (aka the conflagration staff from vermintide) and the aforementioned head busting power (speculated to be able to switched for other psyker powers in future updates). Their personalities can either be a Savant simply trying to do the right thing even when everybody hates them, a batshit insane Seer who is so incredibly joined to the Warp that they hear voice from a "Beloved" who may or may not be the God-Emperor of Mankind or possibly a daemon, and a very resentful Loner twisted by all the abuse and distrust Psykers get simply by existing. Humorously, at least one voice for the Psyker has lines arguing with the subtitles. “I see in the future foreshortened li- no, no, I said FOUR shortened…!”
** '''Psykinetic:''' The most combat-focused subtype of the Psyker, their blitz is a Brain Burst that deals huge single target damage and gains a warp charge on kill, increasing the Psyker's damage. This works especially well against elite foes, not only because of its high damage, but because they gain increased damage against elites while in cohesion. While building up charges can help mitigate the risks of perils, they can also live on the edge like the Unchained from last game, enhancing their attack power and gaining other benefits at high peril levels. Their active ability is pure utility though: They send out a force wave that knocks everyone around them back and even down to the ground, while expelling a huge amount of warp peril. This allows them to balance spamming their abilities to get power at high peril and then "vent" it if things get too hairy. By default, they wield a combat sword and laspistol.

* '''Ogryn:''' Taller than the other characters ([[derp|said to be the height of three Bardins tall]]) and can send smaller enemies flying back with his attacks. Has the same charging move as Foot Knight Kruber in [[Vermintide 2]], which pushes enemies away and gives them a boost to their movement and attack speed to finish them off faster. By default, they wield a ripper gun (which has an alt-firing move that allows it to go full auto), a combat knife, and their own unique Ogryn patterned grenades (a cluster bomb that scatters and explodes in a large area, randomly). Due to how tall and big the Ogryn is and since this is a sci-fi game where majority of the enemies and characters use guns, the Ogryn will have to do the heavy lifting, [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|acting as a distraction/cover]] for his teammates. But that's fine since he's big and strong, and being tall allows him to score headshots in melee with relative accuracy and ease. You should play a strike team of four of them. Sadly, there's no female Ogryn option yet, so no Badass Fatass SSBBW Space-Ogress option (feelsbadman). They can either be a Bodyguard who held the line alongside his fellow Ogryns when all the little humies ran away and yet was still disgraced, a Bully who revels in how strong he is over everyone else and a Brawler who sounds a LOT like Bardin (but doesn't have his VA), a simple childlike soul that lost his last master and just wants to be better next time. Something else to note about player Ogryns: They're smarter than average. The Brawler and Bully have Bonehead implants, and all of them are seen counting to FIVE in loading screens. Note that the smartest and most famous Ogryn who ever lived, [[Nork Deddog]], can only count up to FOUR. Smarts like these are probably worth throwing in the brig for on its own, for fear of what such genius specimens could do if left on their own...
** '''Skullbreaker:''' [[Meme|It breaks skulls.]] This chonker is a big ol' brute in the classical Ogryn image who takes less damage, staggers enemies harder and protects da lil' unz by continuously reviving allies even while taking damage. Their active ability makes them charge straight ahead, scattering anything lighter than them with a ridiculous burst of speed. Their default weapons are a break-action single-shot shotgun, a huge metal club and a box of grenades. No, they don't toss a box of grenades with some sort of igniter attached to it to set them all off in quick succession (though there is a feat that can be taken with such a functionality, [[Awesome|turning it into a cluster bomb]] if it hits a strong enough enemy), [[Lulz|they just toss a whole-ass box of grenades at someone's face to instantly murder them with the blunt force trauma]]. This is apparently more potentially-lethal to a single person than actual shotguns, and does bonus damage to heavily armored enemies for good measure. [[Lulz|Can also lethally pimp slap people with some melee weapons' special attack.]]

==Weapons==
Being a 40k game, you have a wide plethora of weapons to shoot and beat heretics to death with, when the full game comes out, this might be of help of choosing your favored toy for killing.

===Ranged Weapons===

*'''Kantrael Pattern [[Lasgun]]:''' The humble <s>flashlight</s> lasgun, while often the butt of jokes, is arguably one of the best weapons in the game. With very little recoil, good damage (minus the light lasgun, we'll get to that later), an actual scope for good accuracy, ''and'' a humongous ammo pool both in magazine and reserves, there is very few scenarios the lasgun will serve you badly in - the only real waste of time and ammo for it is shooting at a carapace-armored Crusher, or hipfiring it at something more than three feet away. It is available to all classes barring the Ogryn, though it works best with the Veteran because his skills and passive traits reward precision headshots, which the lasgun is ''very'' good at. The special attack for all lasgun types is <s>a twin-link toggle</s> an under-slung flashlight, perfect for illuminating darkened corridors, though here's hoping we also get a bayonet in the full release. Before you start complaining about [[Skub|the lasgun somehow having recoil]], the devs ''did'' try to make fully recoilless lasguns, [[Not as planned|but it felt so off that they scrapped the idea]].
**There are three types of lasguns, '''light''', '''medium''' and '''heavy'''; the heavy lasgun is slower firing but heavier hitting, making it ideal for dealing with elites or specials, the medium serves as the middle ground between the heavy and light lasgun, perfect for all scenarios whether it be sniping or crowd control, and then the light lasgun... sucks. There's no sugar coating it. When guardsmen themselves call lasguns "flashlights", this thing is probably why; its rate of fire is the best when compared to its cousins, that means fuck all when you can't kill something heavier than a traitor guardsmen or poxwalker (read: chaff). Use the other two when available and scrap the light lasgun for thrones.
**Do note they are all semi automatic, so buy a second mouse as it will break and be prepared for carpal tunnel syndrome.

*'''Accatran Recon Lasgun:''' A fully-automatic lasgun for those who wanted their lasgun to feel a bit more like a typical assault rifle but don't want to just use an autogun like some kind of casual. Burns through ammo fast and not likely to quickly stagger even basic enemies, but almost zero recoil (making it more lore-accurate than its semi-auto cousins) and a blistering fire-rate propelling that ammo will kill most things it's pointed at very effectively...but a few things are kinda hard to keep pointed at. (*''Dog barking''*). It has variants that deal more damage and a tiny bit more stagger but takes a second to wind up and start firing.

*'''Lucius Helbore Lasgun:''' Veteran only. The [[Krieg]]er <s>special</s>standard for all of your Death Korps cosplay needs. A lower fire-rate and higher-damage lasgun with iron sights that has its use further complicated by a small charge-up time before it actually fires - the longer you charge, the harder it hits. Unlike other lasguns, this will do something against carapace armor if charged. Its special attack is, of course, a bayonet (slap yourself if you thought it could be anything else). The stabby bits comes in handy because like the bolter, the Lucius suffers from a long swap in animation. Save yourself some time by bayoneting weak isolated enemies instead of switching to your melee weapon. Hopefully the full game includes a krieger gas mask cosmetic. Then again, considering the already penitent dogmatic doormat nature of any Krieger's upbringing, they would probably have offed themselves before being branded as a "convict" on top of their already unforgiving desire to self-sacrifice.

*'''Accatran Heavy Laspistol:''' Used to be inferior to lasguns in pretty much all situations, has since been buffed to be comparable to light Kantrael lasguns in fire rate and damage per shot. An innate +10% crit modifier makes it well suited for perks like Infernus which encourage crit fishing, and it also has increased weak spot damage. However, the laspistol's main draws are mobility and sustainability. You run faster, can shoot while sprinting, and can dodge farther and more often than usual. And unlike other high mobility ranged weapons like the stub revolver and autopistol, you can shoot damn near forever without needing to reload. Increased mobility and shining with good shooting skill and a little bit of luck? Truly a [[Ciaphas Cain]] special.
**Psykers have their own special attack when using this thing that is essentially a [[Star Wars|force push]] similar to the block push on the force sword. Use it to stagger and/or keep away enemies or get environmental kills by shoving enemies off cliffs.

*'''[[Autogun]]:''' Depending on what you're going for, this weapon is either great or it sucks. Comes in automatic, burst fire, and semiautomatic variants. Some variants replace aim down sights with a recoil reducing bracing. All variants have better rates of fire than stock lasguns at the cost of worse recoil and ammo efficiency. Available to all non-Ogryn classes and notorious for clogging up the RNG when players are hoping to get a Psyker Staff or a Plasma Gun instead.

*'''[[Shotgun]]:''' With 9 shots and a very good cone of damage, the shotgun is one of the better weapons for crowd control and is almost realistic in its accuracy, capable of hitting even distant targets reliably (though almost definitely not killing them in one hit at a distance) - suck it CoD players. It's also one of the few ways that the Veteran and Zealot can knock down and kill maulers, easily one of the more annoying enemies in the game with the amount of armor they have. Its special attack loads a single round with a horizontal duckbill spread that can scythe through numerous heads in one shot, though this special round is pretty much strictly inferior against anything that can be tagged. Oddly, aiming down sights will tighten spread, so don't fire from the hip at distant targets. Somewhat struggles on higher difficulties where it's low range makes it less than ideal for dealing with mobs of enemy shooters.
**'''Agripinaa Pattern:''' A variant of the shotgun featuring lower damage, but a tighter pellet spread. Deals bonus weakpoint damage while aiming down sights. the Alt-Fire is a cover piercing slug that will take out pretty much everything short of an Ogryn or Mauler on a headshot, cementing the Agripinaa pattern combat Shotgun as a solid all range weapon.
**'''Kantrael Pattern:''' The third combat shotgun variant goes all in on close range power, featuring a wider spread and higher damage to blow through hordes with a dragon's breath cartridge on alt-fire when you feel like a bit of Burn is called for. Make sure to queue up the DOOM music when using it.

*'''Autopistol:''' Effectively a VZ61 Skorpion submachine gun with low damage but a very high rate of fire. Has surprisingly low recoil compared to equivalent weapons in other FPS games, so don't be afraid to use it at medium to longish range. That's right, 40K redeemed the Klobb! Just be warned that it's not the best against armor. Like most other guns, it has a flashlight for its special attack and it shares the laspistol's ability to fire while sprinting. Well suited for melee focused players who can spray a crowd of enemies to kill a few and suppress the rest while closing the distance. Psykinetics will also appreciate its massive fire rate allowing them to proc their random Brain Bursts with ease.

*'''Stub revolver:''' Available to the human classes. Is surprisingly accurate and does good damage, use it like a designated marksman rifle to snipe at long range and quickly burst down specials. Count your shots, the reload animation is painfully slow since it has your character manually pushing rounds into the chamber one at a time instead of using a speed loader, <s>despite there being a visible speed loader mechanism when reloading.</s> (the ability to take one doesn't magically tether one to the gun). On the flipside, partial reloads are accurate, your character will only empty the spent chambers, and you can interrupt reloading to fire or aim down the sights at any time so long as there's one round in it.

*'''Force staff:''' Psyker only. Doesn't use ammo, but does increase your perils meter, though just like when holding the Brain Burst, you can "reload" to quell the peril. Most versions come with a mediocre energy bolt primary attack and a wimpy special attack that has you physically prodding enemies with your magic stick which is like punching or slapping people, but less funny. The secondary attacks are the ones that really set them apart from each other.
** '''Trauma Staff:''' Everyone's First Staff. A copy paste of Sienna's conflagration staff from vermintide that allows you to cause warpfire to geyser out of the ground but this time 'round you get to nuke whatever entity is at the center of your explosion on top of the AoE and DoT effects. Bit difficult and dangerous to use, it racks up perils of the warp like crazy. Generally abandoned for the other staves in higher difficulties in the early patches, though later patches made it viable again. Now it's one of the best general staves, especially for single target, with the ability to stagger nearly everything while dealing massive damage to the central target. It can also technically headshot, but good luck getting that to happen with the ground-circle reticule.
** '''Surge Staff:''' The Stun Support Staff. Makes you into Emperor Palpatine with medium to short ranged force lightning that damages and stuns enemies. Has a hard cap of how many enemies it can target at a time, you'll need to wade into melee or rely on allies to help deal with hordes. The lightning is good for stunning special enemies and will hurl dreg tox bombers backwards so they won't blow up in your face. It also has deals more damage on heavier armor, meaning flak and carapace enemies will get shocked to death surprisingly quickly.
** '''Voidstrike Staff:''' The Headshot Staff. Shoots explosive warp fireballs that deals great AOE damage and sends mobs reeling. Has a faster cast rate and more fire and forget capability than the trauma staff. Use quickcharged fireballs to kill faraway enemies, they have perfect accuracy as opposed to the primary attack that can have a significant RNG deviation from your reticle location. Also the best staff for headshotting. Line up a horde in front of you and you've got decapitation bowling, with the satisfying sound of their heads being popped by a psychic warp ball. Use the Transfer Peril blessing that reduces peril upon headshot and watch your peril never reach critical.
** '''Purgation Staff:''' The Horde Clearing Staff. Psychic flamethrower stick for BBQing hordes in warp flames. Can also use it to farm warp tokens with a lvl 30 feat. This staff replaces the primary attack with another flamethrower attack, so make sure one of your teammates is specced to kill snipers. Or just use your Brain Burst. Like the flamer, the primary fire seems pretty underwhelming but it is useful at staggering elites and small groups of chaff, and is fairly peril efficient for it.

*'''[[Boltgun#Imperial_Boltgun|Boltgun]]:''' A fucking powerful gun that obliterates anything it aimed at. Single shots will turn basic enemies into ludicrous gibs, it fucking explodes groups as bolter rounds logically would, and magdumping will have a similar effect on elites and bosses. Its drawbacks are slow reload speed, slow weapon swap time, massive recoil, only having 15 shots per magazine and fairly middling ammo economy. Fires automatically when fired from the hip but only single-shot with sights, [[Fail|probably so your reject doesn't break their own nose with it]]. It might be the best vidya presentation of the weapon, more so [[Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine|than]] [[Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior|these]] [[Necromunda#Necromunda:_Hired_Gun|games]].

*'''[[Flamer]]:''' Zealot only. Good for causing trash mobs to panic and do the burny dance. Main drawbacks are a slow swap in speed and limited effectiveness against special enemies, especially mutants and poxbursters. This said, even the primary fire cough is good for causing individual elites to stagger, along with small groups. The weapon also actually has some pretty respectable boss damage since it causes stacks on additional damage-over-time to targets hit every time the weapon uses up ammo to fire. One notable glitch/exploit, using the zealot's chastise the wicked ability will cause flamer burn stacks to count as critical hits and ignore damage reduction from armor. Take advantage of it to quickly melt crushers and maulers that would otherwise only take chip damage from getting set on fire.

*'''[[Plasma Gun]]:''' Our lovely blaster cannon made for Veteran only. Suffers from a low ammo pool, an incredibly long reload time, and a heat gauge; On first impression it can feel a lot like a worse Boltgun, but in true Imperial Plasma Weapon fashion the Plasma Gun is a temperamental weapon that rewards skilled Heat management with ludicrous damage from Overcharged shots that makes short work of even the toughest enemies with the extra benefit of piercing through basically everything, be it enemies or cover. Reloading automatically cools the weapon to 0, and the special vents heat directly in to your face, draining a bit of health to reduce the heat. Attempting to fire normally at extremely high heat will automatically vent some heat first. Firing an Overcharged shot at 100% heat will cause the weapon to explode. You will want to pair it with a good chaff killing melee weapon because you are going to be using it a lot in your cooling downtime.

*'''Thumper Shotgun:''' Exclusive to the Ogryn, it's essentially a larger M79 that fires 20kg shotgun shells. It can only hold one round before reloading, but that one round is all you need to turn an entire mob into chunky salsa. Enemies that survive the blast are usually knocked on their back where you can easily crump em before they can get up. Has a pistol-whip secondary attack that sadly doesn't do much damage but can make for a substitute for pushing if your stamina is low and you're careful to kite away from melee attacks.
** If you played the closed beta this is actual name of the Kickback shotgun, editors found the true name on playdarktide.com

*'''[[Ripper Gun]]:''' An Ogryn auto-shotgun. If you thought the Kickback turned crowds into paste, wait till you use this thing. Its standard fire is a three-round burst and holding right click turns it into a fully-automatic pellet hose that also tightens spread. Only bosses are going to survive a volley from this thing. However, it ''does'' run out of ammo fast if you try to shoot it as often as possible, so stick to saving it for vital situations (like when Ragers amongst a horde are oncoming) - maybe the Imperium was right about those burst limiters. Speaking of which, you can fire single shots with the MK5 variant by forward sprinting right after firing the first round of a three round burst. It takes practice, but allows you to better conserve ammo on higher difficulties. Lastly, ripper guns have a bayonet stab special attack which can reduce enemy armor on hit if you find one with the right RNG perk.

*'''Thumper Grenade Launcher:''' Still just for Ogryns, instead fires grenades like the actual M79 break-action launcher tended to be used for. Good area-of-effect and dishes out some pain when impacting a target directly (unfortunate basic enemies will be gibbed like with the Thumper Shotgun), but has a timed fuse making it clearly better against large groups than high-value targets. Has the same pistol-whip swings for its special attack as its shotgun brother. The grenade round itself smacking off of a special's face can often kill it alone before the round explodes, making this a hilarious weapon. Weirdly enough the orks also have [[Shootas'an Dakkas#Thump Gun | a similarly-named and functioning weapon]].

*'''Grenadier Gauntlet:''' The lovechild of a breaching ram and a grenade launcher, which Ogryns can carry by simply strapping it to a forearm. Predictably, punches the crap out of enemies with its primary function button and can fire explosives after right-clicking, as well a special attack [[Awesome|where the Ogryn punches someone and then fires a grenade into them at point blank range]]. Somewhat contrary to expectations and probably to differentiate it from Thumper grenades, the impact grenades it fires have a fairly poor blast radius making not terribly effective against groups of enemies (you'll only see it kill multiple enemies at once when fired into the ''really'' numerous ambush hordes) or enemies camping in cover and instead is more useful for burning down specials or elites. You can combo it with feats that give you toughness or bleed enemies on heavy attack since its punches count as heavy attacks.

*'''[[Heavy Stubber]]:''' Ogryn only, and the description for it declares that Ogryns love their [[Dakka]] as much as any elegan/tg/entleman. Has a magazine of over a hundred and still not very accurate at a distance as Ogryn weaponry tends to, but when you can fire over a hundred shots at a sniveller you'll get them eventually anyway. Fires fully-automatically [[Derp|(though it lets out three-round bursts with a single trigger pull like the Ripper Gun despite having two barrels, for some reason)]], a grip can be pulled out to brace the gun for fully-automatic fire just like the Ripper Gun, and can be swung (at a fairly slow rate, even Ogryns have limits) with the special attack button. In practice, it's basically a bigger-but-more-cumbersome Ripper Gun with a larger magazine for longer sustained fire but less DPS caused in a smaller sort of timeframe for burning down important Specials and Elites as quickly...but it'll kill many of those things in one magazine if the Ogryn has the space to do so. The model looks to be about half of the quad-heavy stubber configuration of the [[Sabre Weapons Battery]].

===Melee Weapons===

*'''Combat Blade:''' Its animations are heavily focused on quick stabs, so take it if you want a fast, high DPS, low range melee weapon like Kerillians dual daggers in Vermintide. Has a lunging heavy attack that can be charged while sprinting, which gives it significantly more mobility than other melee weapons. Its special attack is a staggering jab which causes the next attack to be basically an instant heavy (it does slightly less damage than a true heavy attack and also strangely [[Fail|replaces the damage caused by it to that even if you fully charge up the next attack like a true heavy]], forcing you to cancel it with blocking if you don't want that). Comes with absolutely beautifully animated flourishes in first-person as your character returns the knife to the idle position, and they change depending on when you end your combo. Worth trying out for that alone. Will need a coherent blessing build for it to do anything against Crushers at higher difficulties, but it's possible.

*'''Combat Axe:''' It's an axe, what's there to say other than its heavy attack is easily one of the better ones and does a decent job of chopping though armor, though maulers are still a pain, especially when's there more than one. Not very good at cutting a crowd to pieces (seriously, it can cut through like two enemies at max...and those enemies won't be flak-armoured) but it does the job well enough when each headshot will kill one enemy in that crowd, and if you're aiming for single target heavy armor it does the job well. Its horizontal-slash push-attacks are an option to hit multiple enemies at once, and you can get the Brutal Momentum perk if you want it to clear through hordes faster.

*'''Tactical Axe''': Axe, but tacticool. Ok, actually, this one attacks much faster than the combat axe but accordingly does less damage though still useful against armour. A bit of an in-between of the combat blade and the combat axe. Getting the Brutal Momentum Blessing for it turns it into a veritable horde clearer while also making it a fine single-target option, making it one of the best weapons in the game... If you can bless it right.

*'''Catachan Devil's Claw Sword:''' According to [[Catachan Jungle Fighters|Catachans]], it's a knife. According to everyone else, it's a bloody sword. As mentioned above its built for precision strikes aimed towards a heretic's neck, preferably decapitating them. Its special attack is a parry that allows you to conserve stamina for pushing/blocking when being swarmed by trash enemies. Be aware that heavier attacks will cause parries to consume stamina and enemies like plague ogryns will do significant damage to you even if you successfully parry their attacks.

*'''Chainsword:''' Wouldn't be a 40k game without one. The light attacks aren't as good for clearing hordes as the shovel, but it's better for taking out bosses and special enemies ([[Rape|or just that one poxwalker which looked at you funny]]) with its revved up special attack which will do massive damage and stagger effectively as having a fucking chainsword saw through you should, but the time it takes for you standing there driving the chainsword through them leaves you vulnerable (so accordingly, you can also turn the high RPM mode off). Take note that headshots and heavy attacks cause more damage even for the revved up attacks (unless you're running it into a Mauler's head, avoid headshotting him with this).

*'''Chainaxe:''' Handles fairly similarly to the chainsword, except that it's slightly slower due to its light attacks sticking to enemies for a split second on hit to grind them for a bit of extra damage.

*'''Shovel:''' Veteran exclusive and all veterans start with one as their stock melee weapon. Perfect for roleplaying as a [[Death Korps of Krieg|Krieger]], it has good damage and can smack multiple heretics at a time. Its light attacks use the blade for good single target kills, while the heavy attacks use massive sweeping blows from the flat that can stagger more enemies. It focuses more on cleaving though a horde than the Night Fang which rewards more precise head severing strikes. However, it's pretty close to useless against carapace armour without perks.

*'''Power Sword:''' Veteran exclusive. Similar yet distinct to the chainsword, the key thing about it is that its special attack button will instead energize the blade and cause it to cut through anyone like butter as expected of a power sword for a few hits, with its duration lasting shorter from hitting armoured enemies. This'll get the fucking job done against literally anything in range whilst energized. Generally considered overpowered, as it takes slightly less time to activate the charge than most similar charged / revved weapons, yet the charge lasts for multiple hits. To appease the screeches coming from a few dozen (at most) users on their forums and/or Reddit, Fatshark has nerfed it so it no longer has infinite cleave while powered up, but you can sorta turn it back into a lightsaber by finding a sword with the brutal momentum perk. Look for one with the power cycler trait, it'll maybe double the amount of energized swings you can do before needing to charge it up again, which has effectively nerfed the powersword's most appealing characteristic: fun. The patch this and other similarly overbearing nerfs rode in on, has suspiciously coincided with a gradual downturn in the game's player count, who for some strange reason seem less concerned with chasing some subjective, ever-nebulous "game balance", than with having fun. Who knew? Between the nerfs, the frankly CRIMINAL levels of RNG, and the general lack of new content... Well, suffice it to say that Darktide has seen better days.

*'''Heavy Sword:''' Zealot Exclusive. A middling melee weapon that specializes in (you guessed it) sweeping heavy attacks. Seriously though, if you actually want to use this thing, ''never'' just left-click with it, [[Fail|its light attacks will take ages just to kill basic trash enemies.]] Usually skipped for the catachan sword or chain weapons, though a later patch buffed it to be more competitive.

*'''Power Maul:''' Zealot Exclusive. When charged up, it'll hit the first target for a good amount of damage (not charged-Thunder-Hammer-tier of course, but still high) and cause a small amount of damage but also basically stagger everything else nearby the first target.

*'''Eviscerator Chainsword:''' Zealot Exclusive. Giant FUCK OFF chainsword with a revved up heavy strike, it provides less mobility compared to the chsinsword or some shit but who gives a fuck about that when [[Berserk|it can cut two foes in half with one swing with its crazy good cleave]]. The push attacks and the first attack of its heavy attack combo are both horizontal sweeps that you'll want to spam for crowd control. A must-have weapon for female Zealot to cosplay as [[Sisters Repentia]].

*'''[[Power Weapons|Power Hammer]]:''' Zealot Exclusive. Like the eviscerator, its heavy attacks are wide anti-horde sweeps, while it's light attacks are head crushing overhead swings. The special attack powers up the hammer for a single high damage, high recovery energized strike. Can delete crushers when combined with the guaranteed critical hit from chastise the wicked and even bosses if you take advantage of the level 30 perk that lets you use chastise the wicked twice.

*'''Dueling Sword:''' Psyker exclusive. Looks like a pirate cutlass with a moveset more like a rapier. Has great range + great speed, but limited armor piercing and a relatively narrow cleave arc. Its special attack is a quick thrusting jab. Take it if you want to dodge dance enemies and bosses, it has a dodge cooldown bonus that does not show up in the unit stats.
** '''Mk2''': The generalist sword, with upward swipes for its light attacks, and a thrust/swipe combo for its heavies. Not very good.
** '''Mk4''': The horde sword, with rapid downward swipes that can hit weakpoints for its lights, and precise thrusts for its heavies.
** '''Mk5''': The single target sword. Two swipes and a downward slash for its lights, and powerful downward slashes for the heavies. Makes you feel like slamming your sword down on enemy heads.

*'''[[Force Weapons|Force Sword]]:''' Psyker Exclusive, a sword that can channel warp power. Spectacularly fast and lethal especially at high peril, and if you don't like that you can also quell peril while holding it just like with the Force Staff. Though the Power Hammer and the Ogryn's weapons hit harder with individual hits the Force Sword is probably the best overall melee weapon so far, the ludicrous speed allowing it to both butcher hordes and take down the big bastards. If the RNG smiles upon your perk rolls, it can even block ranged attacks with the Deflectorperk. The special attack costs a bunch of peril to imbue the blade with the warp and makes it headbang the next foe it hits, ignoring any defenses in the process (like the chainsword, headshotting and heavy attacking matters to improve the damage of the warp-charged attack) though it takes some time and leaves you vulnerable from other targets. It also replaces the generic weapon push with an increased AOE force push, while the push attack that follows increases peril in exchange for a single target stagger that can stun even the most heavily armored and resistant bastards (seriously, you will see Crushers lose their footing). You can also use this push attack to maintain high peril if you like using the feat that increases your attack power with peril.
** '''Obscurus Mk2 Blaze Force Sword''': The balanced Force Sword and the initial one on release. Workable, but far outclassed by the specialized Force Swords.
** '''Deimos Mk4 Blaze Force Sword''': The single target Force Sword, but still usable for crowds. Its thrust attacks do ludicrous damage, and its slash attacks can reasonably deal with crowds. Sadly, it makes the special attack useless because it barely adds any damage.
** '''Illisi Mk5 Blaze Force Sword''': The horde clearing Force Sword. Plays similarly to the Power Sword, but with the fun of peril management. You can only make one warp-charged force strike, but you can repeatedly charge your sword to stack up Peril. Stack up Peril-Based damage multipliers, (blessings, Warp Unleashed etc.) [[Slaanesh|rub that thing over and over]] and watch it cleave through the zombies even without the force charge.

*'''Ogryn Cleaver:''' A knife scaled up to Ogryn size, but it would be akin to an [[Ork]] [[choppa]] in anyone else's hands, which is why it's exclusive to the big boys. Is the fastest Ogryn melee weapon and has similar armor penetration as the humie combat axe thanks to the Ogryn's brute strength. The special attack is a quick uppercut to stagger things which unfortunately has very little effect on higher difficulties.

*'''Ogryn Club:''' Slower than the knife, but better at staggering hordes since its heavy attacks are all horizontal sweeps. Its special attack is [[Lulz|pimpslapping]], mostly similar to pushing in effect though it doesn't cost stamina and does at least a small amount of damage.

*'''Ogryn Latrine Shovel:''' Normal shovels are for digging trenches, these are for digging TOILETS. Ew. Fit for an Ogryn because they could probably break a normal one by using them to pick their teeth or something. Like the club, it specializes in clearing mobs with horizontal sweep attacks, though the advantage of Ogryn might makes it cause more damage, especially against armor. Special attack is the Ogryn uppercut.

*'''Ogryn Power Maul:''' Bafflingly shown off in the Ogryn's class trailer but not present at launch. Has a good mix of vertical light attacks for bashing in elite skulls and horizontal heavy swings to sweep hordes. Just like Warrior Priest's flail and shield back in VT2, continuing to spam light attacks after your first combo or a push attack will turn the Ogryn's combo into wild swings that are perfect for clearing hordes. The special attack powers up the maul similar to the thunder hammer except it makes all enemies in an AOE kiss the ground instead of disintegrating single targets - seriously, basically only bosses can't be staggered by this thing's special attack and it can force groups of Ragers to sit down while they get bonked to death one by one.

*'''Ogryn Slab Shield:''' Comes with a maul that's mostly used for sideways-aimed swings aside from its push attack that strikes downward. Can block gunfire unlike other melee weapons at the cost of some stamina (which is pretty handy since groups of lasmen at Malice difficulty and up will [[Rape]] even unprotected Ogryns caught out of cover). Emperor said you shall be the cover! The shield can also be used to bludgeon enemies to death with its heavy attacks or deployed with the special attack button so the Ogryn cannot move or turn while its active but also cannot lose stamina from blocking (stamina regeneration however will still be momentarily paused after blocking). About the only weapon that can save a teammate that blundered into the open [[Anal Circumference|with three snipers looking at them]] if an ally revives that teammate behind the Ogryn's shield. It is notably more apt at creating a "Tank" playstyle than any of the shield weapons were in VT2 but there is a lot of debate on how useful that is, as you can arguably just collect aggro by walking up to things and whacking them, best defense being a good offense and whatnot. Be prepared to face a lot of ridicule from metagamers if you want to be the "Tank".

==Other Characters==
*'''Inquisitor Grendyl:''' The big cheese in charge of the ship. Only appears to the player via a hologram that oscillates between various male/female voices and appearances. In theory, he/she's supposed to be the one you're reporting to while cleaning up the Hive.
* '''Shipmistress Brahms''': A former [[Rogue Trader]] currently serving the Inquisition, she runs the Mourningstar. Notably narrates and appears in the intro cinematic. [[Media:BrahmsMom.jpg|Seriously]] [[Media:DarktideMom.png|looks]] like Mom from Futurama if she was in 40K. Got mistaken for being the Inquisitor before the game released. Dialogue throughout the game indicates that she doesn't like her ship being used to house convicts and stage a defense of the planet, which is fair, considering you're floating right above a Nurglite Chaos invasion.
*'''Interrogator Rannick:''' One of Gryndel's Interrogators. Mostly just hands out missions sometimes and acts smart. Also narrator of the reveal trailer. Seems to be cosplaying Zorg from The Fifth Element. While in the lobby, you can actually see him on a balcony above the entrance if you look up, watching you and your fellow rejects, it’s safe to say he probably up there to enjoy the entertainment of rejects stampeding and causing a riot to get to the armory whenever the weapons change. To him, this is peak hour-by-hour entertainment.
* '''Sergeant Major Morrow:''' Think of him as the Mission Control from [[/v/|Deep Rock Galactic]] or Lohner from [[vermintide]]. Now with the power of Vox technology (bless the [[Omnissiah]]!), he will constantly be providing mission details for the players team in a sarcastic tone. Frequently assumed to be voiced by Kruber's VA, but actually Harry Myers voices Morrow. His original regiment is the [[Armageddon Steel Legion]] from the SECOND war for Armageddon. He was apparently the sole survivor of a warp accident and the Inquisitor rescued him. One of the veteran random dialogues states he served with Yarrick in Hades Hive, another that he fought in the [[Badab War]]. Zealot class also mentions that Morrow fought at the Battle of Macragge and is rewarded by [[Ortan Cassius]], a full 250+ years before the events of the game - they even repeat rumors that he was the one who gave [[Carnifex|Old One-Eye]] the reason for its name. He's also probably survived fighting on a world just before it got [[Exterminatus]]ed during the "Xanatros Purgation" which also saw three Mordian regiments annihilated in the battle against [[Genestealers]]. The PCs debate whether he's been sent forward in time during a warp jump that got bad or he's just lucky enough to get the good rejuvenat treatments that give long life.
* ''' Tech-Priestess Hadron Omega 7-7: ''' Runs the Mourningstar's Fabrication Shrine, allowing you to upgrade and tweak your wargear using Plasteel and Diamantium found on missions. Sometimes does the briefing and is the one who warns you when the data-interrogator starts to fuck up and you have to fix it, filled to the brim with sass and been angry for nearly 392.1736 Terran cycles or so, calls the player and the squad varlets and rightfully thinks the players are a bunch of idiots who may not be completely useless. [[Slaanesh|Far too many fans have expressed how they're totally into this.]]
* '''Flight Lieutenant Masozi:''' The [[Valkyrie]] pilot. A sassy black woman. The squads accuse her of cheating at cards and somehow even the Tarot, with the more reckless characters constantly complaining about losing credits to her, and others trying to be a better cheater than her (they never succeed). Sometimes briefs missions.
* '''Sefoni:''' The narrator for the tutorial. You can find her stuffed in a tube aboard the Mourningstar if you want to replay the tutorial or visit a simulated firing range. Noticeably friendlier towards psyker PCs than blunts, especially ogryns.
* '''Explicator Zola:''' The character who recruits the PC as an inquisitorial pawn after their prison ship is boarded in the prologue. She loses her squad in a firefight and nearly dies but the PC saves her, and she decides to let them serve the Emperor once again. An Atoma native, is in the short story “Loyalty’s Price” where a psyker is interrogating another psyker before executing the victim of said interrogation, though it was probably for the poor bastard's own good. Sometimes briefs missions like Omega and Morrow. Being a local, she serves as a local guide for the rejects by providing useful information on parts of the Atoma they've traveled to.
* '''Captain Wolfer:''' Traitor captain in the cell next to the PC in the prologue, before his heretical buddies break him out. Probably will play a role in any actual story that comes out after initial release.
* '''Sire Melk''': Aka "Sir Darius Melk, Thrice Decorated for Bravery by Lord Dolmar Martialis, Holder of the Endless March, and Warden of the Crux Mortem." Long title? Deal with it. A former fighter that would very much like to get back to fighting but instead has to deal with you poor souls, he handles weekly missions, and will reward you with special markers that you can exchange for high rarity weapons. He changes his personality depending on class and personality: Likes Professional Vets and Savant Psykers because they know their place, does not like Judge Zealots for their arrogance, for example. Notably, voiced by Bardin's VA.
* '''"Commodore" Alice Hallowette''': The NPC who runs the much maligned microtransactions shop. Note the quotations, there's no way in hell a flag officer of the Imperial Navy is going to be selling clothing to convicts on a rogue trader vessel. Constantly teases the player characters and everyone. Your PCs on the missions complain about her high prices, [[RAGE|which is a very interesting complaint to make about a microtransaction-based cosmetics shop]].
* '''Medicae Servitors''': Responsible for healing you on a mission. Unlike the usual servitor lobotomized into a mindless husk, likely because they used to be criminals and convicts just like you, these poor bastards are VERY aware that they're nothing more than mutilated bodies attached to a medical station and beg for the sweet release of death, or on a sadder note, will ask you to be their friend or to take them with you. Interestingly, their male VA is Lohner's and their female VA is Olesya's from Vermintide.
*'''[[That Guy]]''': The focus of the "plot" in the initial release, a traitor causing havoc in the Mourningstar. A random nameless NPC with no voice lines who's unceremoniously shot once you reach level 30. You can actually spot them in earlier cutscenes if you've got a keen eye.

==Missions==
There are currently 7 mission types in the game, each with different overall objectives:
*'''Strike''': A more generic mission type with varying objectives, though you're generally clearing out a heretic force.
*'''Assasination''': You're being sent out to off a Traitor Guard captain and anyone that gets in the way of that, as well as [[Awesome|listen to the coolest musical track of the game]].
*'''Raid''': Channel your inner [[Blood Ravens|bloody magpie]] and steal something from the Nurglites. Protip: Bring an Ogryn since these more often than not involve carrying something.
*'''Disruption''': Fuck with the enemy by sabotaging part of their operations.
*'''Espionage''': Complete some task involving information - falsified or otherwise.
*'''Investigation''': Gather data using Auspexes and a Servo-Skull and bolt before you get killed.
*'''Repair''': Fix something before it fails catastrophically.

==Stages==
===Strike===
*'''Smelter Complex HL-17-36''': This facility's smelting has been shut down by heretic scum occupying it, and it's your job to rectify that. Protip: you can push members of the final horde off the final area's main platform and into the molten metal below instead of wasting ammo fighting them - especially useful if you're trying to get a certain Psyker Psykinetic penance.
*'''Silo Cluser 18-66/a''': The Traitors have tainted a water supply node using daemonic Corruptors. You're being sent in to purify it so the Hive's water is (relatively) safe to drink again.
*'''Enclavum Barross''': An important strategic point known as Aegis Station has fallen into Nurglite hands. You're to clear it out and hold it for long enough for the elite forces to arrive and fully secure it.

===Assasination===
*'''Chasm Station HL-16-11''': A Traitor Captain is traveling by train. Naturally, you're sent out to [[Internet Troll|troll]] him by rerouting the train and offing him when he arrives at the nearby station you sent him to.
*'''Magistrati Oubliette TM8-707''': A Traitor Captain is holed up in an Enforcer Station that has fallen to the enemy. You're doing a reverse-jailbreak to kill his ass.

===Raid===
*'''Consignment Yard HL-17-36''': Capture and hold a heretic supply train so reinforcements can move in and seize its cargo.
*'''Chasm Logistratum''': Grendyl's elite forces are running low on special ammunition, so your Reject is killing two birds with one stone by stealing it from the Nurglites.
*'''Excise Vault Spireside-13''': The heretics have procured a new strain of Nurgle's [[AIDS|Blessings]], so you're snatching samples for analysis. Supposedly so a cure can be made, but since this is the Inquisition that might not be the case.
===Disruption===
*'''Relay Station TRS-150''': A heretical signal meant to corrupt those who tune in is being broadcast. Your job is to terminate it and have the station broadcast Imperial propaganda once more.
*'''Refinery Delta-17''': Traitors are creating a corruptive pathogen using repurposed fuel refinery equipment. Sabotage the effort by bursting the vats.
===Espionage===
*'''Vigil Station Oblivium''': Purposefully spread misinformation in the Nurglite ranks by planting false intel.
*'''Comms-Plex 154/2f''': Send a warzone report out-of-system (presumably by contacting a nearby Astropath Choir to discretely relay the report) using a communication dish. Why can't they just use the Mourningstar's own astropathic choir? Well, you can thank [[That Guy|the Traitor]] for that.

===Investigation===
*'''Hab Dreyko''': A new plague has been released in the Hive, so you're scanning its residue (and a giant tree of gross) to gather data on it. And then bolting before the traitors kill you for snooping. Notably has the longest evac sequence of any of the missions currently, meaning it's entirely possible for you to choke after completing the main objective. Be prepared to fight your way to [[Meme|the choppa]].

===Repair===
*'''Power Matrix HL-17-36''': A [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Russ]] manufactorum has been sabotaged, so you're re-stabilizing its power source using coolant rods before it melts down.

==Enemies==

* '''Poxwalkers/Groaners:''' Civilians of Atoma Hive who were infected by Moebian Sixth's pox gas. They are the trash mob, Skavenslave/Common Infected equivalents, in that they come in hordes with the purpose of tarpitting the players. Befitting lore, [[Grimdark|they can be heard periodically begging for help or crying over being forced to observe their body act completely outside of their control whilst out of combat, not just that laughing like their brain has been reprogrammed to not be able to scream or cry, imagine you there reading this being trapped inside a body your unable to control well in an unholy amount of pain, all the while something inside your head is making your screams come out as laughter]].
** '''Poxburster:''' Suicide bomber. Kill him from afar as soon as possible since its explosion can also corrupt players. Can be detected by the beeping sounds from their bomb. An Ogryn charge or a Zealot rush can knock them down without blowing them up, useful if you're in the detonation radius and can't get away. Alternately, if you're ballsy, pushing them will stagger them even while they toss themselves at you and give you an opportunity to kill them at a safe range or just dodge away from their explosion...[[Fail|unless the direction you pushed them didn't provide enough space behind them]]. Be careful at all times of spawn doors on the map, as these guys can be spawned right next to you and detonate themselves before you even get a chance to defend or run away.

* '''Admonition Cultists:''' AKA The '''Dregs'''. As if their name aren't already a big give away, they are bog-standard Chaos cultists that were mostly poor Atoma underhivers. They dressed in yellow ragged robes and salvaged gasmasks. Most of their fodders are armed with lower-quality ballistic weapons and lacking proper defensive garments. To compensate for their inferiority, their specials and elites will spawn in large number, and more frequently than the Scabs'.
* '''Regular Dregs''': The mooks of the group. By virtue of having some proper equipment they're slightly harder to kill than the Poxwalkers.
*** '''Dreg Stalker''': The shooters. They start out raining down lead on you from afar with autoguns then switch to using shovels or other close combat weapons up close. Because they're infected way more than the soldiers they're harder to suppress, willing to stand out and try to shoot you more than the infected guardsmen. Despite being easy to kill, on higher difficulties they're some of the most dangerous enemies by virtue of how much damage you take from everything and the sheer numbers they spawn in.
*** '''Dreg Bruisers''': The melee focused ones. Unarmored save for their flak helmets, so depending on your weapon and build it might be better NOT to aim for the head.
** '''Dreg Shotgunner:''' The same shit as the Scab variant, except without Flak armor so they're even more suicidal.
** '''Dreg Tox Flamer:''' A lanky guy in robes carrying a flamethrower that burns green. It's hard to say whether it's supposed to be a [[Chem_Weapons#Chem-Thrower|Chem-Thrower]] or a [[Chem_Weapons#Plague_Belcher|Plague Belcher]], or if maybe the Nurglites jumped through a Warp rift to nick Warpfire Throwers from [[Clan Skryre]]. Whatever it is, it clearly has some chaos fuckery involved since the tox flamer doesn't do as much friendly fire damage as scab bombers/flamers, while also dealing more Corruption damage to you. Much like other enemy specialists, this guy loves opening up on the players while they are getting swarmed.
** '''Dreg Rager:''' The dual wielding berserker equivalents. Pumping with combat drugs on their back, they charge into melee with dual close combat weapons and start berserker swinging (albeit reuses Norscan berserker's animations from [[vermintide 2]]). They have a nasty tendency to blend in with hordes, so keep an eye out for tall shirtless cultists with lines of green glass vials stuck all over their body. Fortunately, they're not armored and die quick when focused, though staggering them gets unlikely on harder difficulties.
** '''Dreg Gunner:''' Scab Gunner but armed with [[Stubber#Heavy Stubber|Heavy Stubber]] because they are poor.

* '''Moebian Sixth Regiments''' AKA The '''Scabs'''. Its literal definition being protective crust formed by the blood of body wounds or cuts, fitting name for a Nurgle regiments. These regiments were known for being the toughest out of all Moebian regiments. However, a good grimdark dose of war trauma and a bit of Warp shenanigans later, they turned in a bunch of Nurgle worshippers. They now seek to "save" the citizens of '''Atoma''' and its sister worlds by releasing gas blessed with papa Nurgle's "truth" in the hab blocks, freeing them from the corpse Emperor's lies... They almost all wear skull-like gasmasks, although not as much as the Death Korps'. Comparing to the Dregs, they are slightly tougher due to wearing flak armor, with some specials and elites even graduating to carapace.
** '''Scab Shooters:''' Your '''''HERETICAL''''' wall of guns. Smarter than Poxwalkers. Knows how to use cover like most FPS enemies. [[Anal Circumference|Can spawn in groups of 10 or more at difficulty 3 and higher to light your ass up like a fireworks display]], forcing you to cover-hump and switch from playing 40K [[Vermintide]] to playing 40K [[/v/|Call of Duty]]. [[-4 Str|Female voices]] can occasionally be heard from the shooting variants, so the Moebian Sixth was(is?) a mixed-gender regiment.
*** '''Scab Stalker''': Subtype of the above that's supposed to be like an Ork Kommando, supposedly being melee focused, sneaking through the crowds and chopping you with an axe, while occasionally shooting you from afar. In theory. In practice, they're like more durable shooty Scabs who can melee better. Worse off, unlike the shooty guardsmen, they don't light up using the Veteran Sharpshooter's special abilities.
** '''Scab Bruisers''': The melee focused ones, and the exact opposite of the Dreg Bruisers, everything BUT their heads are covered in Flak armor, so headshots are absolutely the way to go.
** '''Scab Bomber:''' Think of them as the Globadier/Spitter of this game, but lobs firebombs to create puddles of area-denying fire. Raises the question as to why their quartermasters didn't issue them gas bombs if the Sixth was going for a pestilence themed army. For whatever reason, they don't cause as much friendly fire as the Vermintide globadiers, it's pretty common to see hordes sprinting through the flames without getting burnt to a crisp.
** '''Scab Flamer:''' Uses conventional flamers to flush players out of cover instead of the green fire flamethrowers that their Dreg Tox colleagues use. Due to programming bugs everybody thinks this guy is an abominable monstrosity instead of just some guy with a flame thrower. If everybody treated you like shit, you probably would go to Grandpa Nurgle.
** '''Scab Trapper:''' The Packmaster/Smoker of this game. More clever than her ratty or asthmatic counterparts since the Trapper uses an electrified net gun to disable players from a distance and abandons them to the mercy of her buddies right away to focus on another target. An important tip is to listen for them. Trappers announce their presence only when they spawn with a distinct laugh, but are silent when moving around. It's not as audible as mutant roaring and pox hound barking, but having advanced warning is extremely helpful to avoid getting netted - see if you can put terrain between you and the trapper as it tries to net you, or dodge to the side as she brings up the net gun to bear. Similar to the smoker in L4D, you will not be snared if you kill the trapper while her net is still in the air, so standing your ground with a heavy weapon like a bolter or ogryn grenadier gauntlet is a viable way to take her down. Can take down your entire team if you lose track of her in a chaotic enough moment, though it should be noted that freeing an ally from the net is nigh-instant, so if you're right by someone who just got netted, it's probably worth charging right in and freeing them to easily avoid damage for them.
** '''Scab Gunner:''' The Ratling Gunner of this game, but armed with a [[lasgun#Hotshot_Volley_Gun|Hotshot Volley Gun]]. They're not very accurate, but will suppress players and make it difficult, but not impossible to effectively shoot back at him. Notable for having their helmet fashioned after a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure's]] top knot pony tail.
** '''Scab Shotgunner:''' Suicidally aggressive, they move into optimal shotgun range and start dumping rounds. They can stagger the player on hit, so either attack them while they're focused on another player or make sure you're ready to dodge to a side if you're approaching them for melee. Notable for having their helmet fashioned after a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure's]] top knot pony tail.
** '''Scab Rager:''' Dual wielding berserkers similar to dreg ragers except significantly more dangerous since they're dressed head to toe in flak armor.
** '''Scab Mauler:''' Wearing [[Carapace Armour]] from the neck up, flak armor from the neck down, tough as nails, and armed with a two-handed chain-axe. Similar to Maulers from [[Vermintide 2]] in that the vast majority of weaponry is better off used for targeting anywhere aside from these guys' heads, though this isn't as visually obvious as in [[Vermintide 2]] since Darktide's Maulers still look pretty well-armoured on the rest of their body.
** '''Scab Sniper:''' This guy hangs out at a distance and blends in with vanilla traitor guardsmen until he turns on his targeting laser. His long-Las shots are very painful since they're strong enough to blast through toughness and deal HP damage with every shot. He is at his most dangerous when he has pals to [[tarpit]] players while he picks them off one by one. Take cover behind a wall or a structure if you see him scoping you out with his laser even if poxwalkers are presently about to crack your head open to get at your brains, because your teammates will be hard-pressed to get you back up on your feet while a sniper is looking in your direction. On the plus side, he dies almost instantly the moment the players start shooting back at him. The veteran's ability to highlight special enemies is invaluable in pinning this slippery bastard down though any player can highlight him by spamming the callout enemy button in the general direction of his laser sight.

* '''Mutant:''' Mutants that were enhanced with cybernetics and pumped full of experimental drugs. Inspired by the Charger from Left 4 Dead, its role is to charge at one of the players to separate them from their team, then give them a little ground pounding, followed by throwing them even further. Keep an eye on the terrain, they can incapacitate or even instantly kill players by throwing them off cliffs. It is a pretty big abomination, about the size of an Ogryn, and it is pretty fast and tanky. Funnily, it shares the Chaos Spawn's throwing animation from [[Vermintide 2]]. Liable to choose one target [[Derp|and then run past everyone else to get to them no matter how much dakka that tends to attract]], but it's understandable since the poor thing most likely doesn't have much of a mind anymore. Its charge can be dodged with good timing (look for it raising its arm), and it charging into you with a wall behind you won't give it enough space to try and pummel you - leading it to tossing you away without much done to you (hopefully) before it tries charging again. Is heard approaching from a mile away due to its non-stop [[rage|screaming]]. Do NOT try to use corners against this thing, it will make 90 degree turns and pound your ass.

* '''Pox Hound:''' A straightforward Gutter Runner/Hunter, but not as agile nor stealthy since it likes to bark and it does not fly. It sometimes comes in a squad of 2 or 3 mixed in with hordes. Its bite can corrupt players, not to mentioned it is fast and tanky so like the Pox Burster, it should be another enemy to be taken out afar ASAP. Just like the Mutants [[Derp|they will prioritize their chosen target regardless if the rest of the team is opening fire]]. UNLIKE the mutant or trapper, you will not be likely to dodge one if it lunges as the animation will just clip through whatever is in the way, and latency can be a bitch. It takes reduced damage from ranged but has very low melee resistance, so if your bud gets pounced on and you're close by, keep your bullets and start smacking the thing. Their pathing gets messed with by terrain such as corners or lampposts, so putting them between you and the dog buys you time for a proper moment to hit it. Like Gutter Runners, well-timed pushes or simply spamming fast attacks can knock them back even while they're lunging, and if you're in a tight spot absent of backup, dropping a delayed-fuze grenade by your feet (or if you're ''really'' desperate, hitting a nearby exploding barrel) will free yourself from them.
**More recent updates have introduced a variant that comes in groups (and therefore is [[RAGE|even worse]]), but thankfully these ones go down in one hit. Expect to get wiped if they manage to swarm you.

* '''Chaos Ogryn:''' The Chaos Warriors of this game, but bigger with the abnormally large body proportions of Ogryns. Their job is to [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|attract the players' attention and tank as much as possible]]. These tough dumb bastards come in three variants:
** '''Crusher:''' The offensive variant that's armored and armed with a two handed rockcrete pole. Reminiscent of the Chaos Warriors from [[Vermintide 2]] except they actually hold up your team as opposed to falling over dead in 0.8 seconds as Chaos Warriors would. Irritatingly, your characters will chew you out for hitting the armor on one...when they are completely enclosed in armor..
** '''Bulwark:''' Chaos Bullgryns, the defensive variant that's armed with a mace and a big sturdy shield, but thankfully other than the carapace armlet on his right arm, its body isn't completely armored. One could easily dodge its sloppy big attack then hit his exposed naked back with a powerful attack like a chainsaw's special. Psykers can bypass their shield with a Brain Burst, Surge Force Lightning and force sword special attacks while player ogryns can knock them on their ass with bull charge. Zealots and Vets can also use grenades to throw them off-balance, leaving them open to a charge or a well-placed headshot. As a last resort, its shield can be avoided even while they're facing you by hitting them in the middle of their attacks or dodging to their sides as their attacks begin.
** '''Reaper:''' The ranged variant that will fill the players, the air, and their allies full of lead with their big fucking [[Stubber#Heavy Stubber|Heavy Stubber]]. Think of it as a harder-hitting, meatier version of the Scab Gunner. Do care it worn some carapace armor on his body so player should always aiming them in the head.

==Bosses==
* '''Plague Ogryn:''' The first revealed randomly encountered boss of this game. Just a big rotting mutated Ogryn that wants to eat you and stuff you inside its shitty rotten intestine. Pretty much the Rat Ogre/Tank equivalent. Just like rat ogres/tanks, be careful fighting them around bottomless pits that they can punch players into. Its weak spot is its head.

* '''[[Chaos Spawn|THAT KARKING THING]]:''' Revealed in the World Intro Trailer. <s>It made its return in this game with some techno gadgets on its body and probably had the same animation as the one from [[vermintide 2]] as well.</s> Has yet to show up in the game even after launch.

* '''[[Beast of Nurgle]]:''' This huggy guy isn't too fast but it leaves a slimy snail trail of diarrhea everywhere it goes that causes damage over time and slows movement speed. It's attacks mostly consist of vomiting said diarrhea at the player. Said vomit also acts as a tracker: If you have the debuff, it'll try to eat you. Stay nice and (relatively, for a prisoner) clean, and it'll stick to its more easily avoidable melee attacks. If you're playing as an Ogryn, you can immediately make him vomit a devoured teammate by beaning him with a thrown grenade box or using the career Bull Rush ability on it. Has a big pus bubble on the back of his head which functions as his weak spot, aggressive players can run up and hit it in melee while he's locked in one of his barf animations.

* '''Traitor Captain:''' Or '''Scab Captain''' for Low Gothic speakers. They serves as the boss of assassinate missions. Many things about him such as his name and weapons are randomly generated, so you'll see him carrying either a shotgun or a plasma pistol as range weapons; a two handed maul or a two handed power sword as melee weapon. He always has Refractor Field equipped however. Do not tunnel vision on the boss because they will call in poxwalkers and traitor guard for support. Special enemies can and will spawn in the middle of the fight and you do NOT want to play wheres waldo with trappers and snipers amongst the traitor guardsmen. Ogryns can knock him down with their bull charge when his shield is down, so having one on your team for these missions is ideal. His shield decreases ranged damage, so you have to beat him down close and personal before using your guns. Try to time your stuns to hit right before he regenerates his Refractor Field so your team has extra time to beat it down while he's recovering, or better yet, have the last few hits be done solo while the rest of the team readies brain bursts, power swords, force swords, chain weapons or other high damage attacks. [[Awesome|Has an absolutely fucking]] [https://youtu.be/olqaqM21Dro?t=6619 baller boss soundtrack].

*'''[[Daemonhost]]''': Much like the Witch in Left 4 Dead, the Daemonhost doesn't attack you unless you hit it, shine a flashlight near it, or get too close to it. But if someone ''does'' end up doing any of those things (block, dodge and pray to the Emperor if this is you) it'll rise up menacingly... And do nothing. You have one more chance to leave it the fuck alone. If you don't, you asked for it. It will teleport over to the idiot who annoyed them to to fuck their shit up and will try to possess them when they're downed for an instant kill. You don't need to fight it, so your best strategy is simply to leave it alone- if you hear its whispers, keep your lights off and be very careful with your shots to make sure you don't aggro it by accident. It ''is'' possible to kill it with some heavy-duty damage sources (Brain Burst is an obvious suggestion), though probably the only way to reliably kill it on Damnation without losing a teammate's soul or two is to have an Ogryn with Slab Shield (or a psyker with the Kinetic Deflection Feat and a non-Force Sword melee weapon) to aggro it (after which it will laser focus him until either one dies) and then set down the shield to constantly block its attacks and only receive some constant corruption damage from its nearby presence rather than getting absolutely karked in a few seconds. Just like the witch, it will automatically fuck off once they've reached their desired kill count. Unlike the witch, it will go for two members of the team instead of one on Malice difficulty or higher, so have fun.

==Surviving Tertium Hive for rejects==
A general misconception is that being over-leveled for a difficulty will make you [[Grimaldus]] flattening a bunch of snotlings. While it is obvious for people who played Vermintide, players new to Fatshark's approach of co-op games might not get the hint. What will get you through the mission is not to dish out the most damage or slaughter the most heretics, it's in fact your ability to minimize the damage you take through the level and using your environment to the fullest. Here are a few tips to help you being the best heretic crusher there is on Atoma Prime. Source: "Trust me, I'm an enginseer".

*'''General tips:'''
**'''Stick together or die alone:''' Especially true since there is a whole mechanic of health (and passives) that encourage you lot to stick together, you'll even find out that some specials cannot do shit against you as a group (looking at you pox hound). You'll need stabby mates to hold the line and the shooty ones to clear the specials or other shooties.
**'''If you see them coming, they will die:''' Choose carefully where you receive an oncoming onslaught- stay away from holes in the ceiling or automatic doors. You might want to see what is coming at you and kill it before it sees you. Also helps if you have cover and a chokepoint.
**'''Look everywhere for supplies:''' Some of you may have noticed that 'nades, well supplied ranged weapons and medipacks can make the difference between getting away with the [[valkyrie]] or [[Fail|seeing yourself in some weird ass nurglite goo]]. You may break the "stick together or die alone" to this end, just remember to regroup when the [[poxwalkers]] come, a nasty special pops up or you encounter a large group of heretics. This goes double if you're hunting for scriptures or grimoires that spawn randomly around the level.
***'''Know when NOT to look for supplies''': On higher difficulties especially, staying in an area for too long is just invitation to getting swarmed. If you aren't hurting for ammo and health, it's better to just hoof it and get to where you need to be ASAP.
**'''Make sure the coast is clear:''' As you advance through the difficulties, basic shooting enemies become a greater and greater threat with them doing more damage and being more prevalent in the game's many shadowy corners - the only way to avoid them making you embarrassingly dead from being shot in the back after you decided to advance is to make ''sure'' they are all dead. And even then, they can spawn ambiently to suddenly fuck up your shit or be obscured by shadowy corners, so constant vigilance is your only warning system.
**'''Blocking is bonkers, being pushy gets your way, but dodging is important too:''' Blocking is a pretty reliable tool for avoiding melee damage as long as you have stamina, pushing can give you even more control over hordes by briefly staggering even more enemies than it would take your stamina to block their attacks or give you the space to slip by enemies surrounding you, but the truly best way to not have pointy or sharp objects in places you don't want them to be is to not be there. Disabling specials can be avoided with good timing by dodging right before their attacks land. Renegade guards'/cultists' guns will briefly flash before they fire, so you can even dodge gunfire if you're quick on your feet. You can also avoid bullets while sliding. Unfortunately, it'll take practice. Regardless, using all three of these defensive tools for melee in between each other is the way to go - dodging too often one after the other will causes your dodges to barely move at all without a short break from dodging, blocking many enemies at once will drain all of your stamina, and pushing alone isn't going to work very well against heavier enemies (especially if they're already attacking)...and attacking in between is important too, since stamina regeneration is paused by dodging.
** '''A good defense button for your best offense:''' Just like in [[Vermintide]], blocking completely resets your attacks' chain which for certain weapons with distinct swing patterns can be extremely useful for certain situations - like the Catachan Night Fang which does two diagonal swings that are good for hitting multiple horde enemies and then a downswing which most certainly is ''not'', so you should stick with the first two attacks and block after them to cancel your chain back into them if you've got a lot of basic enemies in front of you. This is still useful even for weapons where its attack pattern is very similar (like the shovel's heavy attacks which are just swings right-to-left and then vice-versa), since it can help you land your attacks more effectively on weaker enemies in a large horde with heavily-armored elites mixed into it by turning your camera and dodging to the right of the elites.
**'''Know your gear:''' Especially on higher difficulties, you better be acquainted with your wargear's moveset and how to get to the important attacks. Weapons like the dueling sword and combat blade do very low damage but slash and stab ridiculously fast, deal bonus damage to weakspots and, very importantly, can dodge far and often to make sure your sorry ass isn't mashed into a pulp. Some weapons need you to use your special button to make full use of them, such as power and chain weapons. Push attacks come out when you hold the attack button after pushing, and they often do the opposite of what a weapon is good it (IE, a horde-clearing sword might get a headsniping overhead) to give it some leeway. Whether they're good for clearing hordes or singling out the Elites, Specials and Bosses, you better know what you're dealing with. The released game comes with Attack Breakdowns for every single weapon, showing which attack and, in turn, each weapon, is good for singles and which are good for hordes.
***'''Pick your weapons carefully:''' Related to this, barring some fairly specific builds and depending on class, you'll usually want to have one weapon that can deal with hordes and one weapon that can deal with elites. The Psyker and Sharpshooter will always have some fairly reliable means of killing Elites quickly so you'll usually want a chaff killer to accompany them. The same principle applies for the others. Several Melee weapons will be able to do both effectively but naturally rely on you being at close range.
**** Bear in mind that you can only actively regain toughness via melee kills and chaff is the most common source of that, so you will usually want your melee weapon have some chaff-killing capability.
**'''Watch your back:''' While it'd be great if your entire team were able to constantly overwatch each other at all times and moments, you're generally just a bunch of geeks on a computer that will <s>probably</s>definitely get distracted by the many things that can go wrong during a mission. Even worse, just like in Vermintide, [[Derp|enemies can spawn out of the ether without warning right behind you]]. Therefore, the only 100% reliable method for making sure that you never get hit from behind is to check behind you with your own eyes - spare a glance behind yourself sometimes and listen closely if you prefer to have a chance of blocking the stabs that will be aimed at you.
**'''Use cover:''' While it may sound like "thank you, Captain Obvious"-tier advice, you may remember that someone paid a bunch of dudes to put and design those debris, concrete slabs, crates, and barrels in the middle of the fucking path. Darktide is still a first-person shooter and requires you to occasionally have a shooty phase while using cover. This tip is mostly for people not familiar with this genre, Vermintide players being used to just dodging around an open space whenever there's no specials and fighting opponents who typically can't hurt them if they're not up close, or simply believing that having cosmetic flak armor makes you bulletproof.
***'''Consider your height''': Sadly, that height slider isn't just for show. If you're tall enough, you won't be able to take cover behind smaller objects, but as a consolation you might be able to shoot over them (little relief when you're being pelted by bolts and bullets, but it's something). Ogryn are sadly fucked in this regard no matter what.
**'''Safety first, reviving that guy after:''' Getting hit interrupts revives unless you're an Ogryn. Don't attempt a revive until the area is clear. Zealot stun grenades (or even Veteran frag grenades, if you throw enough of them), the Ogryn's bull charge, and psyker knockdown can help you get a quick + sneaky revive without killing everyone around you. This does not apply to teammates snared by trappers. Untangling them is much faster than a revive and their healthbar will be greatly depleted if a handful of poxwalkers beat on them while they're lying on the ground.
**'''Chop the shooty ones, shoot the choppy ones:''' As is often the case in 40k proper, enemies that are good at being shooty do poorly when they're locked in melee, while choppy heretics can't shoot worth shit and may not even have guns. Most importantly, the moment you get close enough, enemies with multiple weapons will take a fatal moment to switch up, an opening you can easily exploit. Use this to your advantage.
**'''Use your team to help you:''' This is especially useful when being targeted by elites. Since most of the time they will focus on only one teammate, it's best to tag them, then block/dodge/take cover and wait for your buddies to take care of the heretic.
**'''Spam that tag button:''' The tag button works on special enemies hiding in darkness, in fog, or inside a mob of lesser enemies. Spam that button to pick them out for you and your teammates. Make sure to rebind it to a more convenient key or button if you must.
**'''Engaging patrols or groups of heretics:''' Basic rule: '''elites die first'''. Composition and placement of those groups can result in multiple approaches: force them into melee if they are more shooty with a zealot rush/stun grenade or an ogryn charge, especially a good call if you can flank them. You can also have your veteran or psyker taking the most problematics out with a well placed grenade, volley fire snipe or brainburst. Or go Call of Duty style to soften up the nasties and take down the choppy ones from a relatively safe distance.
***'''Kill the squishies:''' Another good rule-of-thumb in most cases is to kill the enemies that you will certainly kill faster. Bosses may be scary, but the player being attacked by them can focus on dodging and kiting them to take practically no damage from them. Crushers and Maulers are spooky, but the same rule applies. Gunners, Flamers, Pox Hounds and the like however can all still cause damage and disable your team while being harder to keep away from entirely ''but'' will be killed far quicker than the aforementioned enemies, removing their ability to harm you further and giving the team more space to hopefully end the tougher doodz without them doing too much damage to the team. A horde of basic enemies can usually be killed far faster than a boss will...and the team will kill the boss a lot faster when they aren't constantly turning around to the poxwalkers poking their backs. While proper resource allocation can allow you to occasionally ignore this rule (there's not much reason for a psyker to start head exploding a Gunner when the entire fucking rest of the team is already shooting at them, after all), it's a generally-safe procedure to follow. Don't get distracted by the enemy's distraction carnifexes!
***'''Clear the lines of fire:''' Players may not actually be able to cause friendly-fire damage to each other despite their avatars' verbal complaints, but getting in the way of your teammates preventing them from shooting at specials or elites still wastes their time and even their ammo. If you're one of the closer players to a priority target, consider crouching to ensure your allies will be able to shoot at them too. If you're sticking with your melee weapon when priority targets are about, try going toward terrain (and then going backwards if also necessary) so allies behind you can stick toward the middle of an area and easily shoot at priority targets on either side (this also simplifies things for you unless the terrain is also a door, since you can be sure enemies can't approach you from the terrain).
**'''Those barrels ain't for show:''' Maps are littered with explosive barrels and hanging land mines you can shoot to clear out enemies. Obviously, you also want to make sure you're not standing too close to them yourself, since the enemy's shots can set them off too! They're color-coded too: Yellow for vanilla explosions, red for flame bombs that will coat the ground in fire.
**'''[[Team Fortress 2|Professionals have standards]]:''' Remember to protect [[this guy]], who is willing to give up the purging for 10 seconds and use the auspex scanner or debugging the data interrogator. If you are [[this guy]], you deserve your own [[Leman Russ Battle Tank]].
**'''It's not fleeing, it's a strategic retrograde advance:''' Don't hesitate to retreat to a safer position to take cover in order to regenerate your toughness or force heretics to attack you through a chokepoint. Better yet, if you can area transfer while a horde is coming, just do it and leave those screaming sickos behind.
**'''Miniboss encounters:''' "How" and "where", those are the two questions that you must ask yourself when fighting one. For where, a big open area to facilitate your dodges, clear of enemies and without any pit, unless you want to visit Tertium's Under-Underhive. As to how, if you are targeted by the creature, focus on dodging, blocking and looking out to not be blocked by objects. In the other case, kill all others enemies first, then focus on the bastard. This will get easier when you get an idea of how their attack pattern works. Also works with the heretic captains.
***'''Do not shoot the [[Daemonhost]]:''' Seriously, they'll probably just eat the souls of one or two of your teammates if you try. Like Witches from Left 4 Dead, they are better off avoided, but they are far harder to kill than Witches. Unless you're achievement hunting, in which case, try not to get everyone killed, yeah?
**** Sometimes, by dint of game induced randomness, a Daemonhost will be directly in the way of your party. In those circumstances, clear the immediate area of enemies and do your best to slip by it as quick as you can. Daemonhosts give you two chances to avoid them (pissing them off the first time will make them levitate, the second time will give you a bad day), so just have the party beat feet past it before it gets mad. Otherwise, sic the best dodger / blocker on the host and pray to the Emperor that your team doesn't get wiped. If you're REALLY unlucky, you may be faced with two of them at once (though this seems to only occur on the higher difficulties, thankfully). In that case, you're just screwed.
**'''Don't killsteal a Psykers Brainburst target (usually..):''' Because Psykers need to actively kill targets with brainbursts to get their Warp Charge passives (with accompanying feat bonuses), most psykers will keep their charges topped off by bursting chaff. Let them do it. On a more casual front, really try not to kill a target being brain bursted in general ; it's a waste of the psykers time and just means they built up heat for nothing. THIS SAID, some targets that need multiple brainbursts are worth dealing the extra damage to (Mutants, Ogryns, other elites on harder difficulties etc) or when something needs killing really quickly.
** '''The little things add up:''' There is a tendency to look at certain weapons and write them off if they don't reliable kill all chaff in one hit. Flamers and Staves tend to get hit with this, along with some other melee weapons. The useful things about these weapons / attacks is that they will frequently set up your team mates for much easier kills ; either by weakening them or staggering them.
** '''Corners for Pox Hounds, Walls for Mutants''': These two are the exact opposite in how they work. Pox Hounds are TERRIBLE around corners, meaning that if they can't jump an object they'll waste time clumsily going around it, leading to an easy kill. Mutants on the other hand can take 90 degree angles to bum rush your ass and pound it to the ground, so do NOT dodge into an object it can turn around. On the other hand, getting trapped by a Pox Hound without anywhere to dodge into is a recipe for disaster, while Mutants will harmlessly throw you away if they have no space to pound you. [[Rage|Assuming there are no instant death bottomless pits, of course]]...
*'''Veteran:'''
** '''Clean up the ranged chaff:''' On higher difficulties, as enemy damage becomes higher, your job as the vet changes from sniping elites to killing everything that tries to shoot at you. With your increased ammo count and increased ranged/weakspot damage, you are the most reliable member of the party for killing ranged foes. Focus on dealing with them while your team protects you from melee hordes.
** '''Deal with the campers:''' The Veteran is the most well equipped for denying Scab Snipers from getting shots off, due to the combination of Focus Fire and having the best ranged weapons in the game. If one gets marked for death (or you spot one using Focus Fire's highlight or the naked eye), drop whatever you're doing and eliminate him if possible.
** '''Two’s company, three’s a crowd:''' Veterans scale very poorly with other veterans. You need a lot of ammunition to function and work best when someone else is distracting the melee enemies so you can line up your shots. When putting a team together, try not to have more than two veterans. If you do end up with more than that, seriously consider bringing a basic lasgun or autogun to maximize your ammo pool.
** '''Sharing is caring:''' Just because you are the most ranged-focused class doesn't mean you are the only guy with a gun. Generally speaking, you shouldn't pick up an ammo box if you have more than two full clips worth of ammo in your bag, nor should you pick up a grenade box if you still have more than two.
*'''Zealot:'''
** '''Stuns for the clutch:''' The Zealot Stun Grenade is one of the best CCs in the game, and thus should be saved for very bad situations. You CAN use it to soften up hordes, but their utility for having to GTFO of a bad situation or clutch a revive can't be ignored.
** '''Don't be a masochist:''' Just like in Vermintide 2, try not to get damaged on purpose just for your attack buff. It's a side effect of bad moves, NOT your main playstyle. That extra attack won't be worth shit if you go down in one or two hits.
**'''You can be a crit class''': Zealot's class ability makes his next melee a crit. Combine this with effects that activate on critical hits, stack critical hits on high-speed weapons like a combat blade, and you've got yourself a crit-fishing priest.
** '''Charge to safety:''' Your class ability can be used for more than just getting into melee. The rush forward can be used as an emergency dodge, and the instant toughness regeneration makes it useful even if you’re already in melee with the enemy. Additionally, unlike the veteran and ogryn powers yours doesn’t unequip/swap your weapon, so you can quickly zip to cover with a bolter or other slow-equipping gun.
*'''Psyker:'''
** '''You are a tank with Kinetic Deflection:''' Kinetic Deflection exchanges block stamina for blocking with Peril instead. Now you have 100% of Peril to work with instead of a few bars, and managed well you have far more defensive play than any other class. With Force Sword Deflector, now you can block hails of bullets. With a non-Force weapon which passively quells ridiculously fast, you can reliably substitute for a shieldgryn for tanking a Daemonhost.
** '''You're a delicate flower without Kinetic Deflection:''' Psykers are the weakest class in the game, with less health even than the veteran. Unless you have the specific tanking build in mind, you want to avoid charging into the fray recklessly.
** '''Flow like water:''' Building off the previous point, damage mitigation is key for playing a psyker. If you don't have Kinetic Deflection, your best tool is dodging. You can dodge whilst channeling your brain burst or quelling your perils, so be sure to keep moving if the enemy gets too close.
** '''Be a team player:''' Just because you don't need ammo or grenades doesn't mean your team doesn't. Tag any big ammo bags or grenade boxes you see, and be ready to cover your teammates if they need to scrounge for supplies.
**'''Your ult has incredible utility''': You can use Psykinetic's Wrath for more than just quelling peril in overheat. You can pre-stagger a horde, free a teammate being chewed on by a Pox Hound from far away, continue your Brain Burst offensives by quelling and more.
** '''Know how to use your Peril''': There are generally two extremes you want your peril, low or high. Low peril means you can spam a lot before you have to quell. Keeping it high however can give you massive buffs depending on your feat and blessing setup. Living on the edge at 100% is perfectly viable if you want a high-risk, high-reward playstyle.
*'''Ogryn:'''
** '''You are the best support in the game:''' Between your tankiness, your unstoppable revives, charges like Foot Knight Kruber and your ability to carry things without any move speed loss, you have more utility than the other classes. Use these advantages well.
** '''The more the merrier:''' Ogryns tend to get significantly more powerful when working with other ogryns. Two ogryns together are a force to be reckoned with, while three are all but unstoppable. Having an all ogryn team is [[meme|hilarious]] (especially seeing all four guys try to cram into the valkyrie in the loading screen), you won't have any good way of dealing with long range enemies like snipers (unless you're really ''REALLY'' good with your grenades).
** '''Be aware of your size and position:''' Because of your... girth... Ogryns really have to watch where they stand. Cover is hard to come by when you're taller than most everything even when you crouch, and your back can take friendly fire as much as your face gets melted by enemy fire.
** '''Clear the hordes:''' Ogryns have some of the best crowd control in the game, from the humble bully club to the twinlinked Heavy Stubber. As such, you're right up there with the Zealot's Flamer and the Psyker's Purgation Staff in bringing the hurt to large mobs of enemies. That plus being more tanky than the punies means standing between your allies and a horde is actually a sound move.
** '''Think before you shoot:''' Ogryn guns tend to have very high damage but low ammo, slow reloads, and poor accuracy. Make sure every shot (or every burst of shots with the heavy stubber) is targeting an enemy that's actually worth shooting. Every ogryn gun in the game so far has a melee special attack: use that to clear out the chaff if you don't want to switch to your melee weapon.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]