Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

=== Baalite Wheel Faith ===

The Blood Angels and the majority faith for the people of Baal is that there is a wheel of fate and that the world goes in cycles of birth and death and rebirth. Everything is bound to this cycle, the cycle continues.

Gods are as bound to the cycle as mortals, possibly more so. There is no way off of Mr Bone's Wild Ride. Your only hope is to make it to either selfishly cut all ties to everything so you can become light of soul enough to get to the middle where shit is less animate and the lack of reaction causes you to achieve a state of Nirvāṇa because nothing is bothering you.

The other way of doing things correctly is the selfless giving of your time, effort and life to making the eternal journey on the wheel less awful. The result is a better world than there should have been for the next time around.

Souls are endlessly recycled but the indifference or cruelty of the wheel strips away all things from one life as it enters the next so unless you are selfless and leave something behind to make it less shit the journey is harder and unless you record your wisdom increases in ignorance.

By good works and the preservation of knowledge the cycle is made bearable.

It is theoretically possible to remain in Nirvāṇa indefinitely if you cut every single tie to life before the moment of death and made it to the total stillness of the absolute centre of the wheel. Sadly the exact centre is by definition a single point so can only have one occupant and it is held by Death. He is not moving. He is eternal, the one constant, the ur-god.

To the Blood Angels there is not Heaven, there is not Hell, there is no Judgement after death, there is just the Wheel upon which we are all imprisoned seemingly eternally. There is, therefore, ultimate incentive to make the imprisonment as good as possible.

They follow the teachings of their ancient masters in the knowledge that somewhere out there they have been born again in ignorance. By the propagation of their teachings and the imparting of recorded wisdom they can be brought out of their ignorance again.

They do not see Saint Celestine as special merely because she is a possible reincarnation of Sanguinius. There have undoubtedly been thousands of reincarnations of good ol' Sangy down the ages. They consider her special because of the wings, they are a clear and unmistakable omen that shit is going to get real in her lifetime because the last time Sangy's soul wore wings was the founding of the Imperium.

They acknowledge that the other gods of the other faiths in the Imperium are probably real, not that this makes them special and any god claiming to be all knowing is, in their eyes, either a liar or stupid.

To the people of Baal the gods of Chaos are indeed gods. They are also abominations that are going against their purpose on the Wheel and as such need to die. And yes, gods can die, only Death reigns eternal.

Ynnead they don't know of, not yet. They would consider that it is either an aspect of the ur-god reflected in the minds of mortals like an image in a gently moving stream or they would consider it to be a god taking the image of Death. They would not take offense as imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Nightbringer they do know. Given Mephiston alone how could they not? There's imitation and then there's a sick fucking mockery. Nightbringer is a stain upon the galaxy trying to imitate something it doesn't understand to justify atrocities.

In any case Nightbringer, Ynnead and Impossible Child would not to them be the ur-god made flesh. The ur-god is already made manifest, you're standing in it.

They see Emperor Oscar as exactly what he is in that he is an artificial construct of the Dark Age. They also see him as a very enlightened heathen. Some of them think he is a god, some do not. Those that do are spared the Emperor's ire as to the Baalites the difference between gods and plebs is not so great.