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sister-calliope · 8 months

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Deleted Scene from Sanguinius: The Great Angel. (A shitpost):

“And what about the people, down there in the bowels of the ship? The humans? Your sons are… are… feeding off of them! And you knew! You’re allowing it! Under this - ” the remembrancer gestured to the finery, the rugs, the chandeliers, the paintings “-- this veneer of civilization, you hide monstrosity of the kind even that barbarian Russ would not countenance!”

Did Sanguinius wince at the mention of his brother? Or was that a trick of the flickering candlelight? He raised an eyebrow, but otherwise seemed unbothered.

“Would it surprise you if I told you that all involved gave consent?” the Angel asked.

“With respect, sir, I find that damn near impossible to believe.”

“Ah, but it is the truth,” Sanguinius replied. “Our campaigns leave valiant human soldiers broken, fatally wounded, with no hope of recovery. And, sometimes, the non-combatants also acquire injuries and illnesses that are not curable. Some of these volunteer for a quicker end to their suffering.”

“A quicker end?” The remembrancer asked incredulously. “Isn’t that usually a shot to the head? Not – not being eaten? Or drunk? Or…” he trailed off, making a disgusted sound. “Surely they didn’t agree to that?”

“Yes, I found it hard to believe at first as well. But, not being familiar with the…. hmmm…. quirks of humankind, it took a writer and an artist to inform me of a concept of which I had not previously been aware.”

“And what’s that?” The remembrancer asked, suspiciously.

The Angel seemed almost sheepish, his nose wrinkled in distaste, as he asked,

“Have you ever heard the term ‘monsterfucker’”?

#primarchs #sanguinius #wh30k shitpost #horus heresy #horus heresy novels #warhammer 30k #blood angels #sorrynotsorry #warhammer 40k

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waste-of-a-song · 3 months

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My favorite part of Galaxy in Flames is when Erebus shuts the fuck up and stops talking

#warhammer #warhammer 30k #horus heresy #horus heresy novels #warhammer books #galaxy in flames #erebus is a piece of shit

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crassussativum · 2 years

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I have made a grave literary mistake. Not only does Pharos come before Angels of Caliban, there's several books in between. I don't know how I missed that. I assumed, when certain events were mentioned, that because I listen to my books, I must have zoned out really badly. But no. No, somehow I skipped a bunch of books. And now I don't know whether or not to pause on Angles and go back, or just continue forward. I'm an idiot for not just taking a quick look at my reading list first.

#ooc #reading mistakes #horus heresy #horus heresy novels

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vvictuss · 7 months

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as the resident Hot Mortarion Truther, i have a sort of headcanon that his hair went from black (confirmed in The Buried Dagger) to thinner and white as the Nurgle shit progressed. At first it's thought the change is a direct result of Nurgle's effects but it's actually from the pure levels of stress he was going through. absolutely nothing to do with Chaos's physical mutations

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thegodemperorsmycopilot · 7 months

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Before all of them, Dante, Mephiston, even Sanguinious, there was this. A simple run of experiments that never ran to completion. This right here is probably what created the Blood Angels' flaw: what appears to be the simple act of someone getting pulled off their job.

If this had been run to completion, imagine the possibilities, if this was indeed for the Blood Angels.

No obsessed demons hounding them.

No need for the Sanguinary Priests.

How different they may have been.

Excerpt is from "Valdor: Birth of the Imperium".

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mactiir · 2 months

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Ones I've already read:

Space Wolf

Ahriman: Exile

HH 1-5

Betrayer (HH 30-something)

Talon of Horus

#Warhammer 40k #Warhammer 30k #horus heresy #black library #Warhammer novels #help me decide

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tagedeszorns · 4 months

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First off, I LOVE your art. I’m only tangentially in the Warhammer 40k fandom (my partner loves it, but I haven’t ever read any source material or played the game), but your passion for the characters and your amazing art makes all your posts enjoyable anyway.

Also, Marine Meat Mondays are my favorite! 😏🥵

Where would you recommend I start if I want more context for what you post?

Oh, thank you so much for your words! It's especially flattering when you can even reach people who have nothing to do with the hobby and the huge background universe (yet)!

I think the best place to start if you don't know what to expect is the first Horus Heresy book, "Horus Rising". The first few books in the series introduce you to some of the players who are still important ten thousand years later (albeit in a different form) and give you a chance to find out what interests you. And once you've found the Legion or the faction you find absolutely fascinating, you can check out the Black Library page for short stories about it. They don't cost much and you can go into even more detail and find out whether this Blorbo choice was the right one.

That's what I do when I come across a new faction that interests me. Doesn't always work, as not all parties have the same amount of reading material (as I painfully realised with my new fixation on Haemonculi! Nothing, nada! Well, almost). But it's often a good way to slowly read your way in and work your way up from the short stories to the novels. Works well with Fabius, Eidolon, the new guy Xantine or Lucius and also with the Ultramarines and to some extent the Word Bearers.

But, as I said, starting with "Horus Rising" is probably the best idea. Firstly, see if it catches you at all.

Have fun and welcome to the worst possible future!

#warhammer #horus heresy #warhammer 40k #novels #black library

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kingwithpaintedfingers · 3 months

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Every Horus Heresy Book With Death Guard in it Ever

"In this book, the loyalists face a fearsome and terrifying foe: the Death Guard!!!!!

Featuring 25 loyalist space marine characters, 5 marines from one squad of another traitor space marine legion that are helping the Death Guard, and 2! Whole! Death Guard characters."

#JUST DON'T ADVERTISE IT AS A DEATH GUARD BOOK #IS THAT TOO HARD?!#IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!#THIS IS TWO NOVELS #I AM LITERALLY REFERRING TO TWO DIFFERENT FUCKING NOVELS BY TWO DIFFERENT FUCKING AUTHORS #WHY #HORUS'S TEATS WHY #death guard #Horus Heresy #warhammer 30k

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thousandbuns · 1 year

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Oh yeah baby, it’s time for the unhinged, unscheduled and unstructured Ylthin rambles, today’s topic: loose thoughts on the overall structure of “Horus Rising” (based on my increasingly more faded memories so forgive me for any inaccuracies) and how it contrasts the first few chapters of “Flight of the Eisenstein”.

*cough*

So, in no particular order, and jumping around subjects a bit...

Remembrancers. I know you probably don’t care about them because they’re either annoying, forgettable, blatant writer self-inserts so that Graham McNeill can ogle some fictional women, or have the misfortune of competing for attention with Astartes and Primarchs, but... they are so goddamn important to the story structure, characterization and theming in “Horus Rising”. They are sheltered civilians and bohema-roleplayers fed mountains of propaganda before getting shipped off to create more propaganda about “our brave boys”... and they get reality-checked on multiple levels.

They expect glorious, refined, “peak of humanity” warriors - they get barracks filled with what’s at best scaled-up teenagers, and at worst actively hostile war machines. The Astartes typically dismiss them, avoid them, treat them as a nuisance - which is why someone like Mersadie or Ignace having direct access to Garviel Loken is such a big deal for both sides. They get to talk to a company Captain and Mournival member - and he doesn’t shun them. He’s actually a little sympathetic to them even if he doesn’t quite understand them. That sets him up to be a “good guy” type - an image that is then viciously (and forgive me for using a word so abused it’s lost all meaning) subverted, because...

Whisperheads. The Remembrancers perhaps expect the scattered strands of humanity to kneel before the majesty of the Great Crusade, then rise into a glorious new future - and then they see the reality of ruined cities filled with hostile locals and keeps lined up with mangled bodies. And remember - Luna Wolves don’t particularly revel in violence, they specialize in fast, precise assaults to decapitate the enemy. The action at Whisperheads isn’t a malicious slaughter. It’s an execution, a burst of gruesome yet detached violence, and its aftermath shocks the Remembrancers even before the supernatural gets involved. It has what may be one of my favourite moments in 40K novels - Loken calmly, yet callously dismissing a grievously injured soldier’s pleas for spiritual solace by calling them “superstition”, then mercy-killing him through a decapitation. This is our “hero”. This is a man we’ve seen cheering and fraternizing with his battle-brothers like a middle-school kid. This is a man considered to be a good leader, respected and liked by his men. This is one of the kinder, more mortal-friendly Astartes.

And then there are the others. Abaddon, who can be choleric and brash, but not a blood-addled fool or a sadist, whom we see frolicking with the rest of the Mournival and trying to ease Loken after the Whisperheads - who then gets into a vicious argument with his own Primarch, to the point of driving usually calm and fatherly Horus to throw his wine glass, command him out of the room, threaten demotion and only consider showing mercy if his First Captain comes back groveling and begging for it. All of it over Horus’ refusal to conduct a direct military action against the Interex clashing with Abaddon’s warmongering attitude and disdain for the “deviant” civilization. Torgaddon, the king of witty retorts and master of dad jokes, an “older friend” type to Loken - and yet you don’t see him fraternizing with the Remembrancers. Wish I could say something more about Aximand - but his silence and general withdrawal is also somewhat telling. You see their human side, yet they stay away from mortal humans and keep to their insular little coven of warrior-brothers instead.

“Horus Rising” succeeds at making its Astartes human-yet-dehumanized by having them interact with - or avoid - mortals, and all of it plays into the further themes - the intended nuance and tragedy across the loyalist-traitor divide. The doubt over the veracity of Imperium’s stated goal. The insidious nature of propaganda, the inherently repressive nature of this authoritarian state. The fallen idol of gold we see in 42nd millennium was standing on feet of clay from the very beginning, and the book isn’t subtle about it. Doesn’t have to be - nuance and subtlety aren’t inseparable - and shouldn’t be because the 40K fanbase is full of people like me, who need to be whacked over the head to understand something, and also people who wouldn’t get the memo even if it gave them a wedgie and stole their lunch money, like some of BL’s own writers.

I’ll spare you the extended screaming match over “False Gods” killing all nuance, assassinating half the cast (for now figuratively) and taking a massive step towards an oversimplified “good Imperium vs. evil Chaos” storyline that misses the entire goddamn point and actively makes the whole series less entertaining. I’ll also fast-forward over “Galaxy in Flames” struggling to pick up the pieces as it has to rush forward and cover a major event without having the same amount of time and word count to flesh out some of the key players in it, and deepening or firmly rooting in the problems of the previous two books as a result. We’re now at “Flight of the Eisenstein” scrambling to flesh out Death Guard the way “Horus Rising” fleshed out Luna Wolves.

And I’m just 4 chapters in, about 70 pages out of 280-ish (discounting all the superfluous marketing/publisher crap inflating the pagecount of BL novels). Things could change. I could be wrong and full of shit, and I’ll be the first to admit it if the novel somehow corrects itself on the problems I have with it right now: namely that everything is once again so goddamn flat and simplified.

Remember the nuance with which both halves of the Mournival were written? Fuck that. Grulgor is a brash dick with no redeeming qualities, Garro is a saint of a man and Typhon is Erebus Mini. Remember how the Remembrancers served to highlight that even the kindest Astartes is still a cold, uncaring war machine at the core? Fuck that, so far the only mortal character - Garro’s housecarl - is here to show you that Grulgor is a dick and Garro is a saint. The divide between diminishing ranks of “watered and fed” Terran-borns and Barbaros Legionaries whose ancestors struggled in extreme conditions - and how it feeds into some really toxic mindsets (I’m not apologising for this awful pun) across the Legion - may as well end up being another botched “good-evil” binary, and I saw enough derision towards the “lows” of society (working class deriding the margins, working-ascended-to-middle class looking down at both, big city middle class sneering at them all) to feel afraid.

I’ll give it benefit of a doubt in one area for now - remember how “Horus Rising” focused mostly on conflict against “normal” humans - not insane technobarbarians, not deranged Chaos worshipers, but conventionally acceptable “civilized” worlds, some of which proclaimed themselves to be the Sole Human Empire In The Galaxy (what could Dan Abnett mean by this, I wonder) - and only introduced a planet of “hostile xenos” as a (forgive me for using this cursed word again) subversion to once again remind you with the subtlety of a brick through the window that the Imperium’s policies are horseshit across the board? “Flight...” opens with an assault on the world-ship of distinctly inhuman xenos who go as far as to implant combat augments into their “children”, which has potential to be another stab against the Imperium and Astartes... but unless it gets elaborated upon later, it may as well end up being a footnote in the story, a cool little setpiece to introduce the characters and little more - or worse, be repurposed into yet another pro-Imperial argument without a hint of self-awareness. After all, we’re already setting up an abridged rehash of “Galaxy in Flames” so we’ll have the basis for Garro turning against his Primarch, siding with the Emperor and flying the titular ship to deliver the news of the Heresy.

A story that could easily have the same nuance and message as “Horus Rising”, but that will most likely end up being boring “good guys outsmart the bad guys” drivel.

Wake me up when Heresy remembers what does “no good guys” actually mean again.

#warhammer 40k #40k rambles #horus heresy was a mistake #100% only reading TSons/White Scars/Space Wolves novels and maybe a handful of guaranteed quality recommendations after I'm done with FotE #because I'm not wasting time on aborted plotlines and Imperial bootlicking #SWs are only there because I need context for how they are in Heresy vs. 40K's present times #so I'll probably drop off after the first few novels #Russ apologists rejoice #I'll be reading about your favourite war criminal because I care too much about my own Fenrisian baby boy #and his dynamics with the 10.000-year-old evil wizard thembo #I'm not a Magnus apologist BTW #I'm his judge-jury-executioner because I love him and TSons but boy do they also fucking suck #imagine being a pick-me girl for the Imperium of Man

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ask-valerian-40k · 7 months

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The End and the Death is actually going to murder me

why Dan why

#novels #the end and the death #wh40k #horus heresy #siege of terra

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the-sisters-library · 4 months

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Ahzek Ahriman reads books in a totally normal way. Totally normal.

From The End and the Death vol 2.

#Ahzek my dear you are supposed to read them #not drink their ink through your eyeballs #ahzek ahriman #thousand sons #horus heresy #warhammer 30k #horus heresy novels #warhammer 40k

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sister-calliope · 6 months

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May I ask you…Is Ruinstorm a fun novel? …I read Angels of Caliban, better said I tried to read Angels of Caliban and….I need some recommendations…please

Ruinstorm is dramatic - it could make a good film with the right visual effects. And we first start to see the Sanguinor become a part of the lore, and Sanguinius really starts to suffer from visions, more so than before. And of course Konrad being the delightful agent of chaos he is. But fun? More angsty if I recall. The main legions/Primarchs confront temptations, more daemons, and outsized Warp insanity. It’s an important part of the storyline for the legions and Primarchs involved but I wouldn’t use the word “fun”.

Have you read the books about Imperium Secundus that come before it & Angels of Caliban?

Because The Unremembered Empire and Pharos are two of my favorite books in the whole series. Those are necessary to understand what’s going on in Angels of Caliban & Ruinstorm. They feature Guilliman/Lion/Sanguinius versus Konrad Curze being Konrad Curze. And two lovely Astartes characters, Alexis Pollux and Barabas Dantioch, their bromance (or more, according to many fans) is really worth reading.

And they’re both fun as hell because the Primarch banter is 🔥🔥

Also, as someone who is a fan of Azkaellon, you will definitely want to read Pharos.

One other thing - I’ve mostly listened to the series on audio books because for years I had a job that required me to commute 4+ hours a day. And the way narrator Jonathan Keeble voices Sanguinius is just absolute perfection.

@dese-o thank you for the ask!! Hope this is helpful in some way!

#horus heresy #warhammer 30k #primarchs #Horus heresy novels #konrad curze #roboute guilliman #sanguinius #lion el'johnson #azkaellon

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nevesmose · 25 days

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Working on a new part of And They Were Space Roommates and I realised that I enjoy having stupid things happen to anonymous pre-heresy Emperor's Children marines because, like Krusty says, the pie in the face gag is only funny when the sap's got dignity.

#add it to my Once Per Episode list right next to Fulgrim and / or Ferrus taking turns to ignore the giant flashing IMPENDING TRAGEDY alarms #eventually I'll end up with a Horror of Tzeentch literally just handing Ferrus a physical copy of the Horus Heresy novel Fulgrim #complete with multicoloured highlights and post it notes on the important pages #and he'll just go “huh this must be about a different Fulgrim” and wander off

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crassussativum · 2 years

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I'm listening to War Without End and the short story inside, The Laurel of Defiance. There's a character, an Ultramarine, named Crassus. One can imagine why this might bring me joy. ^_^

#ooc #Warhammer 40k #warhammer 30k #horus heresy era #horus heresy novels #war without end #the laurel of defiance #ultramarines #13th legion #(i was literally half way to zoned out and heard the narrator say Crassus #and my head shot up bc thats my baby #and okay my baby is xenos filth but if he were human he'd totally be an Ultramarine #or possibly an imperial fist #shit now im gonna have to think about that

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vvictuss · 7 months

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Silence's Song

Intro for a work-in-progress fanfic inspired by a single line (included at end of post) in The Buried Dagger by my favorite WH40k author @jmswallow.

Setting is on Barbarus before Mortarion is found by the Emperor. Took some liberties with Silence's description and Barbaras’s worldbuilding, as in adding a single tree, I guess. I'm still new when it comes to lore too so apologies for any conflicting points. (also I know my writing isn't perfect, pls forgive the odd mistake and lmk so I can fix it lol)

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A glint of pale light bounced from her cold metal as Silence sang.

She was beautiful as ever, polished in blood. Well cared for, the instrument cut through Barbarus’s pestilent sky with harmonious joy, like a spring bird delighting in the sun. Ichor pooled at the edges of her steeled blade at the conclusion of fading translucent streaks, then dripped from the toe’s end with a quiet pattering, like a distant drum beat to accompany her tune.

So much more than a tool, Silence brought a crescent omen of end, whose handle was grasped firmly by her hooded maestro. The young man wielded his instrument with the reverent steadfast and command of a conductor readied at the podium. Delicate, yet sharp, precise, dictatorial. Silence’s snath curved out like a crane’s neck captured in elegant Barbarusian willow wood. Shoestring strips of paled leather wrapped her grip and stem, darkened and indented where his hands had laid day after day -- worn, sculpted by time and strength. Silence fed on the crops gleaned by the Reaper of Men with grace and obedience -- in return, he respected her service through harvesting what evil had been sown before them.

Together, they danced. There were times Mortarion entertained the thought of humming along as his deadly companion serenaded their damned enemy. Ever since he heard that beautiful noise from the villagers on Barbarus the first night spent free from Necare’s prison, no sound met his ears without being composed into song. Everything was music, when he finally learned of its existence. Wind blasting through the valley as a deep horn’s bellow, noxious fog plucking its wheat strings, percussive cracks and pops of the village’s nightly fires.

Most of all, though, he heard it with the swing of his scythe.

She was an orchestra. She was an ensemble. She was a choir to rival that of mighty cathedrals. Named Silence, yet she trilled when her chine’s blade split skin and bone as effortlessly as a knife through paper, like the smoothness of breath pushed under a woodwind’s reed.

(Quote from The Buried Dagger and more below)

The inspiration:

"'Silence' was still moving, coming around, and the Death Guard heard the air sing as the blade cut again before the guardian could register that it had already been killed."

I loved the imagery of this whole scene, so vivid and fantastical yet grounded. Easy to follow, exciting, and James Swallow's technical writing skills push me to improve. I've tried to pay attention to the way he keeps the flow going while still taking the time to set the scene and immerse the reader.

It's been less than a year since I let myself pick up writing again and I'm proud of the direction I'm headed. Obviously I have a long way to go, if anyone has critiques, please comment or shoot me a DM/ask! I'd appreciate feedback very much.

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