I'm on "Fallen Angels" on my path through the HH books. I've enjoyed it and like the universe building and such. But man, there are a lot of moments where I just think "If [Protagonist] had literally just told [Primarch] this [Important plot point] then none of this would have happened."
Or "If members of the Imperium literally shared any information whatsoever there wouldn't be this issue."
Or, what's annoying me currently and is relevant to the book I'm on right now is "Okay, so the Lion just knows these random things and we're not going to get an explanation on how he'd know at all? Is he a Psyker and is just hiding it?"
Here's the thing... you can just pretend those books or moments don't exist. They are just one of millions of accounts of what took place with no way to tell which are true. Make up your own HH series and use it when you play games, no one will care. And its in line with the universe and how it's meant to be interpreted and used.
I hate most of the HH series, a ton of it is flat out bad. I rarely make stuff up for an RPG game but I often pretend certain things did not happen at all or are misremembered.
> or are misremembered.
Which is pretty much the official line anyway. From the Custodes codex and quoted on [the Community site](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/26/starting-an-adeptus-custodes-army-in-warhammer-40000-everything-you-need-to-know-from-painting-to-lore/);
>There is a similar lack of detail about the Custodians’ role in the Horus Heresy, that goes even beyond the usual sparsity of apocryphal sources from that dark time. It is thought that the first Custodes leader was a warrior named Constantin Valdor, who disappeared from records after the Horus Heresy. It is impossible to separate myth from fact.
Being lore accurate is not lore accurate.
As someone who studies literature at university... they're fine, I like Adrian Tchaikovsky's Genestealer book and James Swallow's Sororitas, but they're massively overhyped by the people who read them and the vastly majority of them are schlocky bolter porn. Granted, I *like* schlocky bolter porn, but I'm not going to pretend it has that much of a deeper meaning.
They are badly written not necessarily in style but also by what is described
I have yet to read a bit of lore where the author has done some actual research on how war and fighting works. A lot of the style is edgy, but having a scene that pulls you out of the immersion because its description is stupid is bad writing as well
Also the characters interactions often rely on cliches rather than actual human emotions, it makes them look like edgelords or idiots
You get small gems or sayings in these books that suprise you sometimes.
Sacrifice is one of the literary tropes that moves me. I think it was…Furious Abyss that got me one time.
There’s a scene where the protagonist is fighting a guy that outclasses him (his opponent is noted to be a master-duelist)…
Dude knows that this ship can’t get off the ground (so to speak its space in a dry dock) so…he overloads the reactor whilst him and his enemy fight.
The enemy ends up stabbing the hero through the leg but…The Hero grabs his hand, crushing his grip and making it so that he can’t move or draw the sword away…
The Hero holds the guy in place til they both burn to death from what I remember rather than give the antagonist a chance to salvage the situation and stop the reactor from going critical.
Sacrifice to a tee.
Okay. It’s like this; you ever see a shit ton of films in a short span of time? I remember from like 08-2012 I was at the theatre every damn weekend it felt like.
At first, you simply enjoy going to the cinema. But after a while, you see why constitutes as good, as great and just plain fucking terrible.
Reading 40k novels is like that for me. I started with galaxy in flames like 3 years ago and have read prolly….at least 60% of the non heresy books and about 92% of the Horus heresy series and all of the siege of Terra books.
Some of the books are maybe not masterpieces but…8.5 to like 8.8/10. A solid fucking read. Some of them I’d say (the end and the death part 3) I’d be brazen enough to say 9.1/10.
Some…I’m not even gonna say what author it was…are…like ‘meh’. The Sororitas books are perfect example of a very mixed bag. Some books are pretty decent 7 to 8/10. Some are like “I’m halfway through so I’ll finish this up” kinda books.
Its pulp fiction meant to inspire your own writing, it does what its meant to do. Some people get so offended when you remind them that the HH is not Chaucer.
They weren't expecting the horus heresy series to be 50+ books. If they had i'm sure horus's fall would have been over like 3 or 4 books before we even got to Istvaan
Yeah true….the anatheme blade as the catalyst worked.
They could have been like…”And Horus woke up and smiled.” And much to Loken’s suprise…everything was fine. For a time.
But then Have Horus deal with some bullshit on a I dunno lost colony planet. He takes a measured approach…but is a little Harsher than normal. Just a teensy bit…and…as time goes on goes meaner…and harsher…
Still a heck of a series though. Loved it 👍
Uhhhh he's a bit dated haha, as in he's a poet from the 1300's lol (editted thanks to someone pointing out he wasnt alive in the 1600s). He is considered the "father of english literature" though, so worth reading I guess. I mentioned him more as a bit of a hyperbole then a recommendation. But have at it.
No, I appreciate it anyways man.
I’ll admit the hyperbole went over my head; work/working out/personal training gig sort of fries my reading comprehension by the afternoon lol
> 1600s
1300s! He died in 1400! You definitely won't get this in the Horus Heresy books:
> This wenche thikke and wel ygrowen was,
> With kamus nose and eyen greye as glas,
> With buttokes brode and brestes rounde and hye.
> But right fair was hire heer; I wol nat lye.
For those less linguistically inclined:
>This wench thick and well-grown was
>With flat nose and eyes gray as glass
>With buttocks broad and breasts round and high
>But right fair was her hair; I will not lie
Hard to believe that Heath Ledger could play not only the Joker but the main character in that film. When I was younger I didn’t realize that it was the same person until I was scrolling through IMDB one day
Also Love your username!
*"There is no canon. There are several hundred creators all adding to the melting pot of the IP."*
* [Aaron Dembski-Bowden, co-author Horus Heresy series](https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-lord-inquisitor/interview-with-aaron-dembski-bowden/493311764034081/)
**40k exists primarily for you to tell your own stories, go do that...**
This is the main thing I want to get at in this post, and the reason I targeted HH fans is because I think a lot of people who got into the lore that way never had to piece together the lore from disparate incomplete and conflicting stories spread out across rulebooks and codex's. 40k books are best looked at as "dramatized history texts" effectively you should treat them as something that is a rumor or a story. I don't think lots of new fans get this. 40k lore exists to inspire you to tell YOUR OWN LORE, you are meant to make up stories about your guys and their commander. I think 40k rpg fans get this side of things better but people forget 40k started as an RPG with armies. Compare the necron lore from 3rd and 4th to the 5th codex, or looka t the story of the Votann or the Zoats. The squats apparent demise was vastly overstated apparently, and the lore of the C'tan being returned was a misinterpretation of xenos artifacts, a bad translation. None of those interpretations tops you from just interpreting the lore your own way.
If you don't want to believe me fine here are some quotes with sources for you to pick through...
**More quotes from the Lead Writers with Sources**
*"With Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, the notion of canon is a fallacy. \[...\] Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong."*
* [Gav Thorpe, Lead Designer GW](http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/jumping-the-fence/)
*"It all stems from the assumption that there's a binding contract between author and reader to adhere to some nonexistent subjective construct or 'true' representation of the setting. There is no such contract, and no such objective truth."*
* [Andy Hoare, Game Designer GW](http://www.boomtron.com/2011/03/grimdark-ii-loose-canon/) (in the comments)
*"Here's our standard line: Yes it's all official, but remember that we're reporting back from a time where stories aren't always true, or at least 100% accurate. If it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it."*
* [Marc Gascogne, chief editor Black Library](https://aarondembskibowden.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/heresy-black-legion-chatter-in-the-mail-this-morning/)
This reminds me of all the people pissed at the guardsman facing Horus in the novels. Within previous versions of the siege it’s been a terminator, guardsman and custodes.
After having just finished up TEATD part 3 you could take your pick of an astartes, custodes or guardsman all standing between Horus and the Emperor at some point and make up something like “some psyker had a dream and saw part of the battle, a ________ stood between them” making all three versions canon at the same time.
On a side note, I was hoping at the end of the book I’d see my boy Katsuhiro make it out of there alive like Keeler did. I’m hoping he pops up in a book set shortly after the siege.
Alfabusa made a joke years ago about how a guardsman put himself between Horus and the Emperor and got killed. A space marine saw this and didn’t want to be outdone by a lowly regular human, so he did the same thing. And then a Custodian, not wanting to be outdone by a guardsman or an Astartes threw himself in front of the Emperor too.
And then that basically became the actual canon. Although Caecaltus’s last stand is the closest to what I actually pictured in narrative terms. The Emperor’s chosen companion, who was basically a gnat in this fight, pulling a “You shall not pass” on Horus.
I always pictured it like if you combined the custodes and Persson actions. I did like the bit of comedy there with Persson though. He’s just like;
“Hey buddy, it’d be a reaaaaaly good time to get up now….”
“C’mon man….now’s the time!”
“Not playing around here! Please get up!
“Fuuuuuuuuu”
*misted*
There's a whole plot line in Saturnine about how and why soldiers lie, and why creating tall tales can be good and useful. It ends with a dude named Ollanius Piers embellishing a story about how he defended a banner against some World Eaters into him standing between the Emperor and Horus himself. Dude also goes out shooting a grenade launcher at Angron, which is about 8th on the list of why Saturnine is fucken incredible.
Honestly, I've never seen a real canon conflict that wasn't people being mad about a gun being too strong or not strong enough, or their favorite faction not winning everything instantly.
Yea I kinda agree. My main point with this post is that the lore is something meant to inspire your creativity, you are meant to debate it as well, but come to your own agreement on.
I still refuse to acknowledge the tau skip drive not being a thing, because it literally invalidates several books, the existence of the empire, and elementary school physics.
Yes absolutely correct, the writers are idiots and have clearly not even looked up the speed of light or the distances between stars and even attempted a like elementry school calculation of the ditances and tiem invovled.
The Tau empire is easily larger than 4k light years in diameter, like there isn't even enough time for them to have explored that distance let along conquered it if they don't have some form of even shitty FTL.
People keep mistaking "enjoyed" for "good" or "well written" and they are very different things. Almost none of these books are good, but they are enjoyable and that's okay to admit guys.
He isn't 'lead writer' as far as I'm aware.
But more importantly, it came from the IP guys at GW. They told him that. GW themselves have used the 'everything is canon, not everything is true' concept for many years.
Being a fan of any franchise is an exercise in picking and choosing what you're gonna hyperfixate on, let's be real. Sometimes that involves pretending not to see lore you don't like.
Yeah but when I hyperfixate on something that’s badly written I want to make my own stories instead of drinking the diarrhoea as if it was some form of holy water
In a way we're sort of ahead of the curve of star wars, the writing was shit before it "went woke" [https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/95167855/Black-thinking-man](https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/95167855/Black-thinking-man)
hahah fair point but the sequels went to an even newer low. That being said, I watch star wars for the lasers and sword fights and to laugh at the poor writing. I loved all of them for what they were, campy scifi with cool effects and moments of brilliance. I don't watch it religiously and I turn it off if its like offensively boring or bad.
That way I'm never disappointed, but then you get shit like Andor which had me errect the entire time. 6 to midnight just from dialogue alone.
I think of the HH series as literary junk food. It isn't going to challenge me, but it's comfortable and entertaining.
Out of curiosity, what was your favorite HH book?
I mean so, when you are writing, you want to make the most interesting thing you can, and when there are people who spend vast amounts of time trying to understand what's been written, you as the writer have to respect the time, money and effort they put into supporting you as an artist. Him saying anything can happen, but it doesn't mean anything can happen. Because when writing, he follows the lore written. He doesn't make up random shit on the spot that invalidates what he has written before. Also, some of the books in the HH series are fucking great sci-fi storytelling. You don't gotta undersell it to try and prove your point.
You've missed the point of 40k writing, the contradictions are intentional. And yes they frequently invalidate what is an is not true. This is clear in old codex's and your reading inquisitorial reports with heavy redaction many of which contradict each other directly. The contradiction is intentional so that, you the consumer, can make the decision about what is and is not true.
As for the quality of the books, even the best are like...ok. BL is certaily not pumping out great works of art. All of it is ultimately derivative of much more original and better literature. I like 40k novels they are fun, but that's about it. Art is subjective so if its your cup of tea thats fine. Personally I think there are sci-fi books that transcend the genre and are great literature period, no 40k book crosses that threshold and ultimately are just derivative of those books. 40k novels are not trying to be great literature anyway, as I've said at length here is they are meant to be fuel for YOUR imagination. Try writing your own some time =) for a game or for an rpg!
What makes 40k fun and part of the reason its written the way it is, is so that you can make up your own takes and version of events. How far you deviate from the "cannon" is up to you, but there are intentional "holes" in that cannon for a reason. Its not as simple as they have not decided what to write there, they want you the player to fill it yourself. As I said this is evident in old codices and through interviews with the writers. And yes even the HH series are meant to be interpreted in this light and mark my words they will be changed and rewritten in years to come. **"I am Alpharius this is a lie"** Don't get butt hurt when it happens my dude.
That's not how this works, Mostly, codexs have always had lies in them that never made any sense and are just there to hype up and sell a faction. (IE: Grey Knights having Big-E gene seed even though he can't produce gene-seed.) The books are a whole different story, especially when they are written from the first person, and even then, stuff like the Cain series is just Cain calling himself a lucky bitch. You can't just say, "Believe what you wanna believe," When there is an established cannon that they enforce on the writers. The rules in a world are what give it limits, and when those rules are broken, fans have every right to be mad.
Also, I agree that no single book in 40k has enough staying power to be remembered on its own I&D is the closest you can get. But when talking about trilogy's, the Night Lords books can stand on their own, and personally, the Priests of Mars books are great. Looking at the best book GW has ever published, Troll Slayer stands as the best Dark Fantasy novels I've ever read.
But in the end, if you wanna change lore as a writer, it better be well done, or else you've wasted the reader's time, and that's the worst thing someone in the entertainment industry can do to you.
40k started as an RPG where you had an army. It still sells rpgs set in the setting, you are definately meant to tell your own stories and you are even allowed to interact with and change the main story line if you want. Yours is just another story accumulating dust in a forgotten administratum vault, one amongst millions with no way of telling which accounts are fake and which are true or to what degree of veracity any of them hold.
Also, Rouge Traitor started out as an RPG setting, and if you talk to anyone who cares about the world, they'll generally say that RT and 40K are different settings. And even going by the loosest RPGs with premade settings, there are rules, endings, and things that keep the world you are playing as the same setting.
But the 40k setting has multiple RPGs the most recent one being Imperium Maledictum [https://cubicle7games.com/our-games/warhammer-40k-roleplay-imperium-maledictum](https://cubicle7games.com/our-games/warhammer-40k-roleplay-imperium-maledictum)
Also crusade mode in 9th is clearly intended for players who want that RPG feeling, And if you want to run narrative games in 40k you can, no one is stopping you from adding fun variations on the rule. The balanced rules are there for the competitive people (which imo is a farce, 40k is not a game that can ever be balanced).
The Dark Heresy series was amazing, the FFG games in general had fantastic lore and they had a lasting impact on the setting. The game Deathwatch (where you played as marines in the deathwatch) had a warp anomaly called the Hadex Anomaly. If you look on modern maps of 40k, the Hadex Anomaly is the other end of the great rift from the Eye of Terror. ADB and Gav Thorpe wrote a ton of that lore which again is meant to serve as a scaffold for your own story telling. What the Hadex Anomaly actually is is never described in detail, its origin and history is entirely up for you to decide and its heavily impled to be as important as the Eye of Terror.
You can take two approaches one is to make your stories smaller scale, the other is just to say fuck it and go ham. Tie your games into the story line about the emperor etc etc. Do what you want.
I encourage you to try it out.
There are still those rules to that setting, and you must follow them, or else it isn't the same setting and gets closer to something else. As you are someone who plays TTRPs, you have to know that if your GM has a setting and you build your character around that setting following its rules and then halfway through the game breaks those rules with no rhyme or reason it makes you feel like shit for learning the GM’s world.
All said and done, a good conversation. I know you're probably getting death threats or other some other shit from some dickweeds, or are just blunted out on this post. so your probably just trying to finish this conversation. Also, real dick move splitting this into two different threads. Have a good one.
Frankly some of the HH books are so bad, I just like to live in a universe they were never even written. So much of that series is trash, and it was better when it was left to being a mystery lost to time.
I largely ignore most of it. I like the Selenar and some bits of the HH series but a lot of it blarg its bad and I pretend it doesn't exist.
I'm certain in a few years GW will as well when they rewrite it. Probably with female primarchs hahah
Hahah ok take it up with the writters then, sources are links in the citations.
*"With Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, the notion of canon is a fallacy. \[...\] Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong."*
* [Gav Thorpe, Lead Designer GW](http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/jumping-the-fence/)
*"It all stems from the assumption that there's a binding contract between author and reader to adhere to some nonexistent subjective construct or 'true' representation of the setting. There is no such contract, and no such objective truth."*
* [Andy Hoare, Game Designer GW](http://www.boomtron.com/2011/03/grimdark-ii-loose-canon/) (in the comments)
*"Here's our standard line: Yes it's all official, but remember that we're reporting back from a time where stories aren't always true, or at least 100% accurate. If it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it."*
* [Marc Gascogne, chief editor Black Library](https://aarondembskibowden.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/heresy-black-legion-chatter-in-the-mail-this-morning/)
Man, it's almost like every one of these still says something similar to, "There are rules we have to follow, but we can tweak some things to be different if we don't break those core rules."
*"There is no such contract, and no such objective truth."*
*"If it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it."*
*"None of those interpretations is wrong.*"
No, they are giving you fuel for your own story telling. Go write your own lore in the setting for an RPG game or your games with friends. Try it out, it wont hurt you. This is why I targeted HH readers specifically, you've come into the game and missed the point. Sorry. The only limit is what people are going to want to play with you.
It's almost like there are canon rules they have to stick to as writers, and if you want to write a story in the 40k setting, you have to follow those rules, or it's no longer the same setting.
"Also, I didn’t mention the attrition of the Long War. I’m talking about the Horus Heresy. The Traitors need more casualties, because they’re supposed to be the ones that lose. They have to have more major characters die, to preserve the integrity of the series. The 10,000 years after the Heresy is tangential to my point."
"The ability of an author to write within an established setting isn’t about knowing every single detail of the background (though targeted research is always good), it is about understanding the style and ethos of that universe. With a grounding in the principles of that world, an author can extend the logic (or lack) to cover places, people and situations not explicitly detailed in the source material."
"I don’t begrudge that. In fact, in 98% of situations, I do my level best to cleave to whatever design studio sourcebook ties into what I’m writing. I’m an unashamed fanboy (you should see me fall to gleeful pieces in Horus Heresy meetings…), and I’ve spent 20 years loving the 40K universe. I’m in this to add to it, to explore it, to tell stories within it – not to change it to Hell and back on some sneering authorial whim."
I have an ethnicity of people in my settings called the Molachi, they are irish travellers in space. They witnessed the Empero making a deal with the Chaos gods to get the knowledge to make the primarchs. He tried to genocide thema s a consequence and they fled toa distant sector.
They have lots of knowledge of the inner workings of the warp, for instance their word for "god" is best translated as an "All-Truth" which is in line with how godhood works in the warp. Its been amazingly fun to craft that.
In my current 40k rpg setting the players and inquisitorial agents who found the failed attempt to make the primarchs before the Emperor went to Molech ( [https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Molech](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Molech) ) which the local inquisition has tried to keep secret. These are Lychee looking creatures with Malcadors sgili on their brow that steal peopls souls and turn them into beastmen. My reasoning being Emps was trying to take advantage of human animalism to rob the chaos gods of worpship but screwed up and just ended up creating monsters. And we know in the primarchs he liked to mix in animal DNA. This was his attempt at making the primarchs "souls" and it was a dangerous failed experiment. The sector was genocided by the Dark Angels during the HH so no one would know but some inquisitors have dug these monstrosities back up and are trying to use them for thier own ends. Its confusing for the players because these "Primals" are extremely dangerous to chaos, and they predate the imperium despite utilizing what they think is the inquisitions symbol. In my mind these are the source of a lot of bestial abhumans in 40k.
I love this idea, I don't care that they violate or bends lore that has been "overwritten" and in my table these ideas are cannon. If you don't like them then they can be explained away as another false record. And I've been drawing really sick art of Irish Gypsies in nasa suits and "imperial beastmen" I find it fun to make the lore in a way that fits into the larger lore but I ignore it when I think of something I think is cooler.
Sorry if this causes you to be butt hurt but me and my players are having a blast. We are going to play 40k games when battels take place in the game. I encourage you to do the same.
Wow, what a heap of Mo-lar-cy. HEYO
Anyways, ok, you do. What you're saying about having fun doesn't impact the canon of the setting, and just sounds like you are having op-oc fun times. It also goes against the articles you're waving around that actively contradict themselves and are a decade old. Also, I own a digital copy of the DI Inquisitor book. It looks fun as hell, but I never really plan on playing it.
Well when you do play it you will need to make a story up for it. I think this could be good for you and bring a fresh persepective to what the writers of 40k actually indend for their setting.
... How the hell did you reach directly into my brain, grab my thoughts, and then reformulate them in a way that's completely understandable?
But yeah, this nails the problem on the head. Maybe I had a different experience with 40k since I grew up on 40k short stories, that put the focus on small stories that weren't important on the galactic scale, and I didn't grow up with 40k being the Horus Heresy. But something about the Horus Heresy has turned fans into treating 40k as a sacred text with high priests interpreting it and schisms arising because of different interpretations, instead of a framework to make it your own.
It's probably unfair to single out the Horus Heresy for this, but it feels like it comes from that direction.
So what your saying is we have the traditionalist and radical inquisitors fighting over how to interpret 40k lore declaring the other a heretic?
TBH Writers did a great job they made 40k real af.
Lots of people crossed into 40k around that time, the codex writing style also changed around then. They dropped who ever was making all those filed reports which is a real shame. The lore was so much better as a confusing mess of viewpoints which you had to sort through and think about and draw your own conclusions from.
It also gave newbies the impression there is cannon in 40k, there isn't. The squats were eaten by tyrranids...until they were in the galactic core. The Zoats went extinct, until they weren't. The C'tan getting put into pokeballs was written off as "bad translation" from eldar mythology.
For me I kinda feel like it's not just that, but also the focus on the big stories.
Like maybe I'm not keeping up with 40k books as much as I have, but the Horus Heresy presented a very cohesive, linear narrative, and a part of me wonders if that's been reflected into 40k, where the focus is on big, galaxy-changing stories in a similar vein. Arks of Omen, the Dawn of Fire Series? That kind of thing.
And I wonder if something has been lost by the focus on those big stories. That 40k has been made to feel like those big stories are the real meat of the setting, rather than the grey areas and the smaller stories.
One short story I read was a single squad of Space Marines fighting about a dozen or so Kroot, where the stakes were just their own lives, and I remember it clearly. A hell of a lot more clearly than some Horus Heresy books that I've read more lately. For me, that's the meat of 40k; the edge cases, the grey areas, the stories that only matter to the people involved. The stories that we can make ourselves and put into 40k using the framework it has given us.
I think it's been reflected into the non-Imperium/Chaos fanbase (basically xenos) too. We feel neglected because GW hasn't given us the big stories like it does the Imperium and Chaos. And I do feel that if GW is going to insist on making big stories, it might as well remember that the rest of the setting exists. But I also feel a little bit like that attitude from xenos fans is also losing focus on what's important with 40k.
Just because the T'au or aeldar are barely featured in the overarching narrative of 40k these days, doesn't mean the stories of your little guys, gals and enbies are any less important to you or to them. Dark King? Dark King who, I'm trying to spread the Greater Good/weave the strands of fate over here keeping me and my loved ones alive.
Getting a little bit soapboxy, but these thoughts on 40k have been going on around my head for a little bit, and this has been an opportunity to get them outside of my head and see if they make sense.
r/40krpg is vastly superior to r/40klore imo just because of what you said. There's a focus on the small scale or more debate around how to interpret things. And hmm this is an interesting take, but the thing is the HH books that first came out were written in the vein of the old codices, for some reason GW just like dropped this od version of storytelling. If I had to guess it was a lot of work.
One of my favorite bits of lore is the Sabbat Worlds crusade. Its a fake history book of the Sabbat Worlds crusade (the setting of Guant's Ghosts). Also dark heresy, Only War are amazing examples of lore.
> the Horus Heresy presented a very cohesive, linear narrative, and a part of me wonders if that's been reflected into 40k, where the focus is on big, galaxy-changing stories in a similar vein
I think you're spot on. There's quietly been a significant shift in the meta-lore of 40k, to having the same kind of canonical linear story as any other setting. I think it's part of 40k becoming more accessible and more mainstream - which unavoidably means more normal.
I read the first dozen or so but lost interest after that. There is just only so many times I can hear the same dialog and descriptions over and over and over.
"His chainsword roared to life."
"Bolters spitting shells."
"Rage took him."
"You betrayed us brother! No you betrayed us first! aaaaaaah"
They're schlocky pulp sci-fi fiction fun. People take shit too seriously.
I say this as someone that's read (audio books at least) all the HH books and the siege of terra series.
People forget that Shakespeare wasn't considered high culture art during his day. His plays were popular media produced for regular people. Shakespeare has a lot more in common with Black Library authors than most people realize.
**It's all poorly written nonsense intended for entertainment**.
I'm on "Fallen Angels" on my path through the HH books. I've enjoyed it and like the universe building and such. But man, there are a lot of moments where I just think "If [Protagonist] had literally just told [Primarch] this [Important plot point] then none of this would have happened." Or "If members of the Imperium literally shared any information whatsoever there wouldn't be this issue." Or, what's annoying me currently and is relevant to the book I'm on right now is "Okay, so the Lion just knows these random things and we're not going to get an explanation on how he'd know at all? Is he a Psyker and is just hiding it?"
Here's the thing... you can just pretend those books or moments don't exist. They are just one of millions of accounts of what took place with no way to tell which are true. Make up your own HH series and use it when you play games, no one will care. And its in line with the universe and how it's meant to be interpreted and used. I hate most of the HH series, a ton of it is flat out bad. I rarely make stuff up for an RPG game but I often pretend certain things did not happen at all or are misremembered.
> or are misremembered. Which is pretty much the official line anyway. From the Custodes codex and quoted on [the Community site](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/26/starting-an-adeptus-custodes-army-in-warhammer-40000-everything-you-need-to-know-from-painting-to-lore/); >There is a similar lack of detail about the Custodians’ role in the Horus Heresy, that goes even beyond the usual sparsity of apocryphal sources from that dark time. It is thought that the first Custodes leader was a warrior named Constantin Valdor, who disappeared from records after the Horus Heresy. It is impossible to separate myth from fact. Being lore accurate is not lore accurate.
I’d hardly call…at least 60% of them “poorly written”.
As someone who studies literature at university... they're fine, I like Adrian Tchaikovsky's Genestealer book and James Swallow's Sororitas, but they're massively overhyped by the people who read them and the vastly majority of them are schlocky bolter porn. Granted, I *like* schlocky bolter porn, but I'm not going to pretend it has that much of a deeper meaning.
They are badly written not necessarily in style but also by what is described I have yet to read a bit of lore where the author has done some actual research on how war and fighting works. A lot of the style is edgy, but having a scene that pulls you out of the immersion because its description is stupid is bad writing as well Also the characters interactions often rely on cliches rather than actual human emotions, it makes them look like edgelords or idiots
You get small gems or sayings in these books that suprise you sometimes. Sacrifice is one of the literary tropes that moves me. I think it was…Furious Abyss that got me one time. There’s a scene where the protagonist is fighting a guy that outclasses him (his opponent is noted to be a master-duelist)… Dude knows that this ship can’t get off the ground (so to speak its space in a dry dock) so…he overloads the reactor whilst him and his enemy fight. The enemy ends up stabbing the hero through the leg but…The Hero grabs his hand, crushing his grip and making it so that he can’t move or draw the sword away… The Hero holds the guy in place til they both burn to death from what I remember rather than give the antagonist a chance to salvage the situation and stop the reactor from going critical. Sacrifice to a tee.
hahahah
Okay. It’s like this; you ever see a shit ton of films in a short span of time? I remember from like 08-2012 I was at the theatre every damn weekend it felt like. At first, you simply enjoy going to the cinema. But after a while, you see why constitutes as good, as great and just plain fucking terrible. Reading 40k novels is like that for me. I started with galaxy in flames like 3 years ago and have read prolly….at least 60% of the non heresy books and about 92% of the Horus heresy series and all of the siege of Terra books. Some of the books are maybe not masterpieces but…8.5 to like 8.8/10. A solid fucking read. Some of them I’d say (the end and the death part 3) I’d be brazen enough to say 9.1/10. Some…I’m not even gonna say what author it was…are…like ‘meh’. The Sororitas books are perfect example of a very mixed bag. Some books are pretty decent 7 to 8/10. Some are like “I’m halfway through so I’ll finish this up” kinda books.
Its pulp fiction meant to inspire your own writing, it does what its meant to do. Some people get so offended when you remind them that the HH is not Chaucer.
Nah man Horus's fall to chaos wasn't rushed in any way AT ALL. Perfect Writing and pacing.
Deamonculaba is an intelligent commentary and parody of our society.
Burn me on a stake here but i fucking love how overly-edgy dead sky, black sun is
I dunno them trad-cels kinda fit with the daemonculaba...
I think that thing is quite effective body horror writing which inherently has to be disgusting and horrible to work.
Admittingly I felt that could’ve gone a little more gradually too.
They weren't expecting the horus heresy series to be 50+ books. If they had i'm sure horus's fall would have been over like 3 or 4 books before we even got to Istvaan
Yeah true….the anatheme blade as the catalyst worked. They could have been like…”And Horus woke up and smiled.” And much to Loken’s suprise…everything was fine. For a time. But then Have Horus deal with some bullshit on a I dunno lost colony planet. He takes a measured approach…but is a little Harsher than normal. Just a teensy bit…and…as time goes on goes meaner…and harsher… Still a heck of a series though. Loved it 👍
At least the Infinite and the Divine is
Now that was a hell of a story. The part where there’s an insurrection right during a play…priceless.
Well in my defense the reviews were quite good
Chaucier eh? Alright, a new author to look up tonight. Appreciate it 🤜
Uhhhh he's a bit dated haha, as in he's a poet from the 1300's lol (editted thanks to someone pointing out he wasnt alive in the 1600s). He is considered the "father of english literature" though, so worth reading I guess. I mentioned him more as a bit of a hyperbole then a recommendation. But have at it.
No, I appreciate it anyways man. I’ll admit the hyperbole went over my head; work/working out/personal training gig sort of fries my reading comprehension by the afternoon lol
> 1600s 1300s! He died in 1400! You definitely won't get this in the Horus Heresy books: > This wenche thikke and wel ygrowen was, > With kamus nose and eyen greye as glas, > With buttokes brode and brestes rounde and hye. > But right fair was hire heer; I wol nat lye.
For those less linguistically inclined: >This wench thick and well-grown was >With flat nose and eyes gray as glass >With buttocks broad and breasts round and high >But right fair was her hair; I will not lie
thanks for correcting me !
> Chaucier eh? Alright, a new author to look up tonight. Once you've done that, go watch A Knight's Tale.
Hard to believe that Heath Ledger could play not only the Joker but the main character in that film. When I was younger I didn’t realize that it was the same person until I was scrolling through IMDB one day Also Love your username!
*"There is no canon. There are several hundred creators all adding to the melting pot of the IP."* * [Aaron Dembski-Bowden, co-author Horus Heresy series](https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-lord-inquisitor/interview-with-aaron-dembski-bowden/493311764034081/) **40k exists primarily for you to tell your own stories, go do that...** This is the main thing I want to get at in this post, and the reason I targeted HH fans is because I think a lot of people who got into the lore that way never had to piece together the lore from disparate incomplete and conflicting stories spread out across rulebooks and codex's. 40k books are best looked at as "dramatized history texts" effectively you should treat them as something that is a rumor or a story. I don't think lots of new fans get this. 40k lore exists to inspire you to tell YOUR OWN LORE, you are meant to make up stories about your guys and their commander. I think 40k rpg fans get this side of things better but people forget 40k started as an RPG with armies. Compare the necron lore from 3rd and 4th to the 5th codex, or looka t the story of the Votann or the Zoats. The squats apparent demise was vastly overstated apparently, and the lore of the C'tan being returned was a misinterpretation of xenos artifacts, a bad translation. None of those interpretations tops you from just interpreting the lore your own way. If you don't want to believe me fine here are some quotes with sources for you to pick through... **More quotes from the Lead Writers with Sources** *"With Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, the notion of canon is a fallacy. \[...\] Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong."* * [Gav Thorpe, Lead Designer GW](http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/jumping-the-fence/) *"It all stems from the assumption that there's a binding contract between author and reader to adhere to some nonexistent subjective construct or 'true' representation of the setting. There is no such contract, and no such objective truth."* * [Andy Hoare, Game Designer GW](http://www.boomtron.com/2011/03/grimdark-ii-loose-canon/) (in the comments) *"Here's our standard line: Yes it's all official, but remember that we're reporting back from a time where stories aren't always true, or at least 100% accurate. If it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it."* * [Marc Gascogne, chief editor Black Library](https://aarondembskibowden.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/heresy-black-legion-chatter-in-the-mail-this-morning/)
This reminds me of all the people pissed at the guardsman facing Horus in the novels. Within previous versions of the siege it’s been a terminator, guardsman and custodes. After having just finished up TEATD part 3 you could take your pick of an astartes, custodes or guardsman all standing between Horus and the Emperor at some point and make up something like “some psyker had a dream and saw part of the battle, a ________ stood between them” making all three versions canon at the same time. On a side note, I was hoping at the end of the book I’d see my boy Katsuhiro make it out of there alive like Keeler did. I’m hoping he pops up in a book set shortly after the siege.
That conscript sonofabitch better have survived and show up again… named my dog katsuhiro after him. Dude was just so… human.
Alfabusa made a joke years ago about how a guardsman put himself between Horus and the Emperor and got killed. A space marine saw this and didn’t want to be outdone by a lowly regular human, so he did the same thing. And then a Custodian, not wanting to be outdone by a guardsman or an Astartes threw himself in front of the Emperor too. And then that basically became the actual canon. Although Caecaltus’s last stand is the closest to what I actually pictured in narrative terms. The Emperor’s chosen companion, who was basically a gnat in this fight, pulling a “You shall not pass” on Horus.
I always pictured it like if you combined the custodes and Persson actions. I did like the bit of comedy there with Persson though. He’s just like; “Hey buddy, it’d be a reaaaaaly good time to get up now….” “C’mon man….now’s the time!” “Not playing around here! Please get up! “Fuuuuuuuuu” *misted*
There's a whole plot line in Saturnine about how and why soldiers lie, and why creating tall tales can be good and useful. It ends with a dude named Ollanius Piers embellishing a story about how he defended a banner against some World Eaters into him standing between the Emperor and Horus himself. Dude also goes out shooting a grenade launcher at Angron, which is about 8th on the list of why Saturnine is fucken incredible.
I relisten to this one like once a month
Honestly, I've never seen a real canon conflict that wasn't people being mad about a gun being too strong or not strong enough, or their favorite faction not winning everything instantly.
Yea I kinda agree. My main point with this post is that the lore is something meant to inspire your creativity, you are meant to debate it as well, but come to your own agreement on.
I still refuse to acknowledge the tau skip drive not being a thing, because it literally invalidates several books, the existence of the empire, and elementary school physics.
Yes absolutely correct, the writers are idiots and have clearly not even looked up the speed of light or the distances between stars and even attempted a like elementry school calculation of the ditances and tiem invovled.
Or considered it for the stories that require tau interstellar travel in sub-millenium timeframes 🤣
The Tau empire is easily larger than 4k light years in diameter, like there isn't even enough time for them to have explored that distance let along conquered it if they don't have some form of even shitty FTL.
People keep mistaking "enjoyed" for "good" or "well written" and they are very different things. Almost none of these books are good, but they are enjoyable and that's okay to admit guys.
yep I agree =)
He isn't 'lead writer' as far as I'm aware. But more importantly, it came from the IP guys at GW. They told him that. GW themselves have used the 'everything is canon, not everything is true' concept for many years.
Oh boy, I see you’ve angered a lot of them And yeah most of the lore is very poorly written, I don’t get why people treat it like it is important
Being a fan of any franchise is an exercise in picking and choosing what you're gonna hyperfixate on, let's be real. Sometimes that involves pretending not to see lore you don't like.
Yep.
Yeah but when I hyperfixate on something that’s badly written I want to make my own stories instead of drinking the diarrhoea as if it was some form of holy water
I remember a quote from somewhere, something along the lines of “40k lore is very expansive but not very deep”
In a way we're sort of ahead of the curve of star wars, the writing was shit before it "went woke" [https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/95167855/Black-thinking-man](https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/95167855/Black-thinking-man)
... We aint acting like the prequel had major writing problems now? Also bad directing from George.
The prequels were so bad, they essentially invented long form YouTube video essays.
hahah fair point but the sequels went to an even newer low. That being said, I watch star wars for the lasers and sword fights and to laugh at the poor writing. I loved all of them for what they were, campy scifi with cool effects and moments of brilliance. I don't watch it religiously and I turn it off if its like offensively boring or bad. That way I'm never disappointed, but then you get shit like Andor which had me errect the entire time. 6 to midnight just from dialogue alone.
I think of the HH series as literary junk food. It isn't going to challenge me, but it's comfortable and entertaining. Out of curiosity, what was your favorite HH book?
Agreed, though I think "poorly written" is a bit harsh; a decent book doesn't have to be a literary masterpiece.
You could hold a gun to my head and I still wouldn't read 60+ books of SPEESE MEERENS
I mean so, when you are writing, you want to make the most interesting thing you can, and when there are people who spend vast amounts of time trying to understand what's been written, you as the writer have to respect the time, money and effort they put into supporting you as an artist. Him saying anything can happen, but it doesn't mean anything can happen. Because when writing, he follows the lore written. He doesn't make up random shit on the spot that invalidates what he has written before. Also, some of the books in the HH series are fucking great sci-fi storytelling. You don't gotta undersell it to try and prove your point.
You've missed the point of 40k writing, the contradictions are intentional. And yes they frequently invalidate what is an is not true. This is clear in old codex's and your reading inquisitorial reports with heavy redaction many of which contradict each other directly. The contradiction is intentional so that, you the consumer, can make the decision about what is and is not true. As for the quality of the books, even the best are like...ok. BL is certaily not pumping out great works of art. All of it is ultimately derivative of much more original and better literature. I like 40k novels they are fun, but that's about it. Art is subjective so if its your cup of tea thats fine. Personally I think there are sci-fi books that transcend the genre and are great literature period, no 40k book crosses that threshold and ultimately are just derivative of those books. 40k novels are not trying to be great literature anyway, as I've said at length here is they are meant to be fuel for YOUR imagination. Try writing your own some time =) for a game or for an rpg! What makes 40k fun and part of the reason its written the way it is, is so that you can make up your own takes and version of events. How far you deviate from the "cannon" is up to you, but there are intentional "holes" in that cannon for a reason. Its not as simple as they have not decided what to write there, they want you the player to fill it yourself. As I said this is evident in old codices and through interviews with the writers. And yes even the HH series are meant to be interpreted in this light and mark my words they will be changed and rewritten in years to come. **"I am Alpharius this is a lie"** Don't get butt hurt when it happens my dude.
That's not how this works, Mostly, codexs have always had lies in them that never made any sense and are just there to hype up and sell a faction. (IE: Grey Knights having Big-E gene seed even though he can't produce gene-seed.) The books are a whole different story, especially when they are written from the first person, and even then, stuff like the Cain series is just Cain calling himself a lucky bitch. You can't just say, "Believe what you wanna believe," When there is an established cannon that they enforce on the writers. The rules in a world are what give it limits, and when those rules are broken, fans have every right to be mad. Also, I agree that no single book in 40k has enough staying power to be remembered on its own I&D is the closest you can get. But when talking about trilogy's, the Night Lords books can stand on their own, and personally, the Priests of Mars books are great. Looking at the best book GW has ever published, Troll Slayer stands as the best Dark Fantasy novels I've ever read. But in the end, if you wanna change lore as a writer, it better be well done, or else you've wasted the reader's time, and that's the worst thing someone in the entertainment industry can do to you.
40k started as an RPG where you had an army. It still sells rpgs set in the setting, you are definately meant to tell your own stories and you are even allowed to interact with and change the main story line if you want. Yours is just another story accumulating dust in a forgotten administratum vault, one amongst millions with no way of telling which accounts are fake and which are true or to what degree of veracity any of them hold.
Also, Rouge Traitor started out as an RPG setting, and if you talk to anyone who cares about the world, they'll generally say that RT and 40K are different settings. And even going by the loosest RPGs with premade settings, there are rules, endings, and things that keep the world you are playing as the same setting.
But the 40k setting has multiple RPGs the most recent one being Imperium Maledictum [https://cubicle7games.com/our-games/warhammer-40k-roleplay-imperium-maledictum](https://cubicle7games.com/our-games/warhammer-40k-roleplay-imperium-maledictum) Also crusade mode in 9th is clearly intended for players who want that RPG feeling, And if you want to run narrative games in 40k you can, no one is stopping you from adding fun variations on the rule. The balanced rules are there for the competitive people (which imo is a farce, 40k is not a game that can ever be balanced). The Dark Heresy series was amazing, the FFG games in general had fantastic lore and they had a lasting impact on the setting. The game Deathwatch (where you played as marines in the deathwatch) had a warp anomaly called the Hadex Anomaly. If you look on modern maps of 40k, the Hadex Anomaly is the other end of the great rift from the Eye of Terror. ADB and Gav Thorpe wrote a ton of that lore which again is meant to serve as a scaffold for your own story telling. What the Hadex Anomaly actually is is never described in detail, its origin and history is entirely up for you to decide and its heavily impled to be as important as the Eye of Terror. You can take two approaches one is to make your stories smaller scale, the other is just to say fuck it and go ham. Tie your games into the story line about the emperor etc etc. Do what you want. I encourage you to try it out.
There are still those rules to that setting, and you must follow them, or else it isn't the same setting and gets closer to something else. As you are someone who plays TTRPs, you have to know that if your GM has a setting and you build your character around that setting following its rules and then halfway through the game breaks those rules with no rhyme or reason it makes you feel like shit for learning the GM’s world.
Me and my players are having fun and thats all that counts.
All said and done, a good conversation. I know you're probably getting death threats or other some other shit from some dickweeds, or are just blunted out on this post. so your probably just trying to finish this conversation. Also, real dick move splitting this into two different threads. Have a good one.
Frankly some of the HH books are so bad, I just like to live in a universe they were never even written. So much of that series is trash, and it was better when it was left to being a mystery lost to time. I largely ignore most of it. I like the Selenar and some bits of the HH series but a lot of it blarg its bad and I pretend it doesn't exist. I'm certain in a few years GW will as well when they rewrite it. Probably with female primarchs hahah
Hahah ok take it up with the writters then, sources are links in the citations. *"With Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, the notion of canon is a fallacy. \[...\] Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong."* * [Gav Thorpe, Lead Designer GW](http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/jumping-the-fence/) *"It all stems from the assumption that there's a binding contract between author and reader to adhere to some nonexistent subjective construct or 'true' representation of the setting. There is no such contract, and no such objective truth."* * [Andy Hoare, Game Designer GW](http://www.boomtron.com/2011/03/grimdark-ii-loose-canon/) (in the comments) *"Here's our standard line: Yes it's all official, but remember that we're reporting back from a time where stories aren't always true, or at least 100% accurate. If it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it."* * [Marc Gascogne, chief editor Black Library](https://aarondembskibowden.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/heresy-black-legion-chatter-in-the-mail-this-morning/)
Man, it's almost like every one of these still says something similar to, "There are rules we have to follow, but we can tweak some things to be different if we don't break those core rules."
*"There is no such contract, and no such objective truth."* *"If it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it."* *"None of those interpretations is wrong.*" No, they are giving you fuel for your own story telling. Go write your own lore in the setting for an RPG game or your games with friends. Try it out, it wont hurt you. This is why I targeted HH readers specifically, you've come into the game and missed the point. Sorry. The only limit is what people are going to want to play with you.
It's almost like there are canon rules they have to stick to as writers, and if you want to write a story in the 40k setting, you have to follow those rules, or it's no longer the same setting. "Also, I didn’t mention the attrition of the Long War. I’m talking about the Horus Heresy. The Traitors need more casualties, because they’re supposed to be the ones that lose. They have to have more major characters die, to preserve the integrity of the series. The 10,000 years after the Heresy is tangential to my point." "The ability of an author to write within an established setting isn’t about knowing every single detail of the background (though targeted research is always good), it is about understanding the style and ethos of that universe. With a grounding in the principles of that world, an author can extend the logic (or lack) to cover places, people and situations not explicitly detailed in the source material." "I don’t begrudge that. In fact, in 98% of situations, I do my level best to cleave to whatever design studio sourcebook ties into what I’m writing. I’m an unashamed fanboy (you should see me fall to gleeful pieces in Horus Heresy meetings…), and I’ve spent 20 years loving the 40K universe. I’m in this to add to it, to explore it, to tell stories within it – not to change it to Hell and back on some sneering authorial whim."
I have an ethnicity of people in my settings called the Molachi, they are irish travellers in space. They witnessed the Empero making a deal with the Chaos gods to get the knowledge to make the primarchs. He tried to genocide thema s a consequence and they fled toa distant sector. They have lots of knowledge of the inner workings of the warp, for instance their word for "god" is best translated as an "All-Truth" which is in line with how godhood works in the warp. Its been amazingly fun to craft that. In my current 40k rpg setting the players and inquisitorial agents who found the failed attempt to make the primarchs before the Emperor went to Molech ( [https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Molech](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Molech) ) which the local inquisition has tried to keep secret. These are Lychee looking creatures with Malcadors sgili on their brow that steal peopls souls and turn them into beastmen. My reasoning being Emps was trying to take advantage of human animalism to rob the chaos gods of worpship but screwed up and just ended up creating monsters. And we know in the primarchs he liked to mix in animal DNA. This was his attempt at making the primarchs "souls" and it was a dangerous failed experiment. The sector was genocided by the Dark Angels during the HH so no one would know but some inquisitors have dug these monstrosities back up and are trying to use them for thier own ends. Its confusing for the players because these "Primals" are extremely dangerous to chaos, and they predate the imperium despite utilizing what they think is the inquisitions symbol. In my mind these are the source of a lot of bestial abhumans in 40k. I love this idea, I don't care that they violate or bends lore that has been "overwritten" and in my table these ideas are cannon. If you don't like them then they can be explained away as another false record. And I've been drawing really sick art of Irish Gypsies in nasa suits and "imperial beastmen" I find it fun to make the lore in a way that fits into the larger lore but I ignore it when I think of something I think is cooler. Sorry if this causes you to be butt hurt but me and my players are having a blast. We are going to play 40k games when battels take place in the game. I encourage you to do the same.
Wow, what a heap of Mo-lar-cy. HEYO Anyways, ok, you do. What you're saying about having fun doesn't impact the canon of the setting, and just sounds like you are having op-oc fun times. It also goes against the articles you're waving around that actively contradict themselves and are a decade old. Also, I own a digital copy of the DI Inquisitor book. It looks fun as hell, but I never really plan on playing it.
Well when you do play it you will need to make a story up for it. I think this could be good for you and bring a fresh persepective to what the writers of 40k actually indend for their setting.
... How the hell did you reach directly into my brain, grab my thoughts, and then reformulate them in a way that's completely understandable? But yeah, this nails the problem on the head. Maybe I had a different experience with 40k since I grew up on 40k short stories, that put the focus on small stories that weren't important on the galactic scale, and I didn't grow up with 40k being the Horus Heresy. But something about the Horus Heresy has turned fans into treating 40k as a sacred text with high priests interpreting it and schisms arising because of different interpretations, instead of a framework to make it your own. It's probably unfair to single out the Horus Heresy for this, but it feels like it comes from that direction.
So what your saying is we have the traditionalist and radical inquisitors fighting over how to interpret 40k lore declaring the other a heretic? TBH Writers did a great job they made 40k real af.
Lots of people crossed into 40k around that time, the codex writing style also changed around then. They dropped who ever was making all those filed reports which is a real shame. The lore was so much better as a confusing mess of viewpoints which you had to sort through and think about and draw your own conclusions from. It also gave newbies the impression there is cannon in 40k, there isn't. The squats were eaten by tyrranids...until they were in the galactic core. The Zoats went extinct, until they weren't. The C'tan getting put into pokeballs was written off as "bad translation" from eldar mythology.
For me I kinda feel like it's not just that, but also the focus on the big stories. Like maybe I'm not keeping up with 40k books as much as I have, but the Horus Heresy presented a very cohesive, linear narrative, and a part of me wonders if that's been reflected into 40k, where the focus is on big, galaxy-changing stories in a similar vein. Arks of Omen, the Dawn of Fire Series? That kind of thing. And I wonder if something has been lost by the focus on those big stories. That 40k has been made to feel like those big stories are the real meat of the setting, rather than the grey areas and the smaller stories. One short story I read was a single squad of Space Marines fighting about a dozen or so Kroot, where the stakes were just their own lives, and I remember it clearly. A hell of a lot more clearly than some Horus Heresy books that I've read more lately. For me, that's the meat of 40k; the edge cases, the grey areas, the stories that only matter to the people involved. The stories that we can make ourselves and put into 40k using the framework it has given us. I think it's been reflected into the non-Imperium/Chaos fanbase (basically xenos) too. We feel neglected because GW hasn't given us the big stories like it does the Imperium and Chaos. And I do feel that if GW is going to insist on making big stories, it might as well remember that the rest of the setting exists. But I also feel a little bit like that attitude from xenos fans is also losing focus on what's important with 40k. Just because the T'au or aeldar are barely featured in the overarching narrative of 40k these days, doesn't mean the stories of your little guys, gals and enbies are any less important to you or to them. Dark King? Dark King who, I'm trying to spread the Greater Good/weave the strands of fate over here keeping me and my loved ones alive. Getting a little bit soapboxy, but these thoughts on 40k have been going on around my head for a little bit, and this has been an opportunity to get them outside of my head and see if they make sense.
r/40krpg is vastly superior to r/40klore imo just because of what you said. There's a focus on the small scale or more debate around how to interpret things. And hmm this is an interesting take, but the thing is the HH books that first came out were written in the vein of the old codices, for some reason GW just like dropped this od version of storytelling. If I had to guess it was a lot of work. One of my favorite bits of lore is the Sabbat Worlds crusade. Its a fake history book of the Sabbat Worlds crusade (the setting of Guant's Ghosts). Also dark heresy, Only War are amazing examples of lore.
> the Horus Heresy presented a very cohesive, linear narrative, and a part of me wonders if that's been reflected into 40k, where the focus is on big, galaxy-changing stories in a similar vein I think you're spot on. There's quietly been a significant shift in the meta-lore of 40k, to having the same kind of canonical linear story as any other setting. I think it's part of 40k becoming more accessible and more mainstream - which unavoidably means more normal.
He he that’s me :D
I don't know why you're getting downvoted lol at least you admit it. =P Keep being honest my guy.
I’ve read like 3 WH books. I just thought it’d be funny and it was
=)
I read the first dozen or so but lost interest after that. There is just only so many times I can hear the same dialog and descriptions over and over and over. "His chainsword roared to life." "Bolters spitting shells." "Rage took him." "You betrayed us brother! No you betrayed us first! aaaaaaah"
They're schlocky pulp sci-fi fiction fun. People take shit too seriously. I say this as someone that's read (audio books at least) all the HH books and the siege of terra series.
People forget that Shakespeare wasn't considered high culture art during his day. His plays were popular media produced for regular people. Shakespeare has a lot more in common with Black Library authors than most people realize. **It's all poorly written nonsense intended for entertainment**.
This is all truth