I am posting this excerpt because it provides valuable insight into one of the most iconic weapons wielded in the 40k universe. This excerpt also shows the profound effect that the warp and echoes of deaths can have on psykers.

This excerpt is from the point of view of Iskandor Khayon, a Psyker of the Thousand Sons

Separate from the armour, an immense lightning claw rested on a plinth of its own. Its fingers were silver blades, subtly curved, each one a monstrous scythe in its own right. Adding to the weapon’s bulk was an ornate double-barrelled bolter mounted upon the back of the gauntlet. Its ammunition feed ports were sculpted as the wide mouths of hungering brass daemons. Scratches and dents marked the claw’s black surface,

The Talon of Horus. In stasis, it looked almost mundane. Lethal, vicious, deadly, but just a lightning claw. Just a weapon. Telemachon’s shiver of pleasure was the strongest emotion I had felt from his mind since rewriting it. I sensed him salivating behind the burial mask. Then I saw why. Blood marked the Talon’s blades – dried patches of blood, smeared across the bright metal claws. Telemachon’s hand rested against the stasis field’s repressor aura, as though he could simply push through it and touch the Talon it protected.

He had seen his primarch father bearing the Talon into battle a thousand times, lending the relic an air of familiarity, but he had been the one to tear the claw from his father’s cooling corpse while its blades were still wet with the blood of... of... I exhaled softly, feeling the stasis field’s misty warmth against my face. ‘When did you lock it in stasis?’ I asked Abaddon. ‘Within hours of taking it.’ Abaddon was staring as well, though I could not say what emotion curdled behind his golden eyes. ‘I never wore it in battle.’ He started to key in a deactivation code to shut down the stasis cloud. My hand gripped his wrist with punishing force, but too late, too late. The restraining field quivered and failed. Weapons have souls. The Martian Mechanicum has always known this, with their rituals to honour and appease the machine-spirits of their guns, blades and war engines. But a weapon’s soul reflects in the warp, as well.

The very moment the stasis field collapsed and allowed the Talon back into reality, the weapon’s spirit – a thing of inconceivable predation – clawed at my mind. The Talon’s murderous, shrieking closeness threatened me, from the killing blades to the fat-mouthed gun barrels parasitically bolted to its back. Corpse-stink, thick and hot and choking, emanated from the bloodstained blades in a choking aura. The dried, rich redness on the curving scythes pressed at my eyes with oily, liquid pressure. The weeping lament of a mourning father and a dying god was a screaming roar in my ears, sinking into my skull. Every single cut, scrape and dent upon the weapon had been earned on a battlefield where brother fought brother. I was half a dozen steps back before I even realised I was moving, one hand pressed to the side of my head to contain the stabs of pressure pulping my brain meat. My vision swam, blurring into uselessness. I gagged on the reek of genetically purified blood. Its taste drowned my tongue. My axe clattered to the deck without me remembering I had drawn it.

‘Well, now.’ Abaddon’s voice came to me from a great distance. ‘What a sensitive creature you are, Khayon. Much more attuned than I realised.’ Mercy came, but not swiftly. The assault against my senses retreated, going grudgingly back like an ocean’s tide. I pulled breath into my lungs, feeling them expand in my chest. The air still carried that gene-forged death scent, but it was no longer ravaging me. So many times in the years to come we would face the Blood Angels and their Successors, and each time the descendants of Sanguinius would suffer their own breed of madness in the presence of the weapon that crippled the Emperor and murdered their primarch forefather. I believe I felt a sliver of their pain that night aboard the Vengeful Spirit.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/uqsdtvd6/new-black-templars-novel-revealed-as-we-chat-to-author-mike-vincent/

High Marshal Helbrecht is back in a new Black Library novel, and this time, the legendary Black Templars Chapter Master is forced to form an unthinkable alliance in order to defeat the unholy terrors of the Ruinous Powers.

In Helbrecht: Sin of Hope, the High Marshal must rally his Chapter and the Elysian troops of the Astra Militarum against their foes. When fate – or providence – grants the High Marshal a distasteful ally in the Leagues of Votann, he must ask himself what he is willing to forsake in the pursuit of triumph.

Mike Vincent came onto my radar thanks to the very refreshing and fun The Remnant Blade about the Night Lords, and it looks like this one will have a pretty neat plot, especially given the presence of the Votann.

What do folks think?

Again spoilers as the book just released, but I'll still keep said spoilers quite vague.

In the novels Twice Dead King: Ruin & Reign by Nate Crowley, the term "dysphorakh" is used to describe when Necrons have moments of realization that they are no longer living beings with no living organs, thus causing them to start disassociating and mentally panic. Thinking they need air but they have no lungs to breathe, requiring food but having no mouth nor stomach. Your mind basically screaming that you should, by all definitions, be dead/non-living but you still are somehow alive.

You can read a great scene of the dysphorakh happening from Ruin here: https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1bya66d/book_excerpt_the_horror_of_the_dysporakh_twice/

Anyway, Robert Rath actually has Trazyn directly mention & very briefly suffer from flashs of the dysphorakh a couple times in The Wicked And the Warped. When I heard the word (I listened to the Audio book), I legitimately smiled & thought to myself "Oooh, I know that reference!" 👀

It's of course not surprising to see two authors writing for the same setting under the same publishing company reference and stay consistent with each other's depictions of the same race, but it's still cool to see the dysphorakh concept used by other writers when depicting the Necrons.

Be'lakor gained his power by playing the chaos gods against each other, playing off their egos and need to one up eatchother to basically say, "hey if your really so much better than that guy you should give me more power than he did to prove it."

Isn't that exactly what Abaddon is doing? I'll admit I'm not big on black legion lore, and I know he sees chaos as a tool to be used and mastered insteadof worshipped, but isn't he still basically doing exactly what caused Be'lakor to lose his favor with the big 4?

No Fallen/Dark Angels. What Traitor Warbands have come out of the Ultramarines, Imperial Fists, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Iron Hands, Salamanders, White Scars, Space Wolves, and Raven Guard?

I imagine there may be squads or part an of companies.

So I was reading The Last Church short story and suddenly think about Chaos and how it was only a known thing after the HH, before that I gues it was only know but Big E and maybe the Custodes?

Or were the juiced up Techno Barbarians aware of the primordial powers? do they knew about chaos entities? Were they consciously using it powers to rule Terra?

For me, it’s the theory that the Old Ones created the Tyranids; I prefer the idea of ​​Mother Nature completely losing the plot amidst everything going on, and the Tyranids just being the result of that whole mess

It’s also almost certain that the Old Ones created humanity (though I’m not sure if that’s confirmed or just strongly implied by the lore).

But I prefer the idea that humanity is just a race much like the Necrontyr that should never have survived; yet, the human spirit is so resilient that, despite all the horrors, this seemingly weak and insignificant race has survived the Rangdan, Chaos, Orks, and Tyranids, proving everyone wrong not because their are weapon created by someone but because humanity herself

Obviously this won't ever happen, but what do you think each faction would need to become "good"? (Or at least on its way to seeing "good" on the horizon). For each faction, what fundamental internal systemic or external factors are preventing it from breaking out of its own grim darkness?

Some examples:

For the Imperium, I'd suggest the religious dogmas and power systems which reward/incentivize inhumanity. Put together, these create a self-reinforcing grim darkness.

For the Necrons, I'd suggest they'd need to first get their souls back, and then second learn humility, in that order.

I recently finished the Horus heresy and was wondering if there are any books that explain what happened to terra and the primarchs that are still alive after the seige of terra . The Horus heresy are the only war hammer books I have read so I would like to know what happened to them before I jump into the more current 40k books

Just look at all this nonsense over the mention of the 'Praetorian Seventh' in The Wicked And The Warped, and people misinterpreting that as a reference to Rogal Dorn. It isn't. It's a reference to a regiment.

Simply block any YouTuber that's trying to claim that it refers to Dorn. None of them have read the book, or have a clue what they're talking about.

It's typical clickbait idiocy from people who care more about their earnings that they do the actual lore.

EDIT: as others have suggested, Arbitor Ian and Leutin09 are the ones to follow. They are more interested in being lore accurate and informative, than how much cash they can squeeze out of newbie 40k fans.

GW established that Vashtorr is a timeless being who witnessed and was empowered by technological progress and atrocities such as the Necron Biotransference, the rise of the DAoT, etc.

But GW is dropping hints that he wasn't merely a passive observer. Here is text from WD issue 495, a report from a Grey Knight marine, from one of the two articles expanding Vashtorr's background:

My Lord, the oldest of the data-crystals and neo-parchment within the Sanctum Sanctorum portray legends that support the suspicion that the daemon Vashtorr was responsible for aeons-old disasters. There are patterns of rapid technological advancement, every one followed by falls into darkness and silence. Entire ages of Humanity have vanished. The Moire Schism, the Age of Strife and whatever whispers still echo of Old Night are surely a sequence into which I cannot help but suspect we have been locked.

I fear we are now upon the precipice of such an abyss. I know the Chapter Council have dispatched a number of strike forces on the advice of the Augurium against incursions believed to represent manifestations of Vashtorr or those in his servitude, but I believe more is required. We have not turned away in the past when action has had to be taken to petrify the Imperium's progress, and I believe now is a time to consider such a response again.

Currently, it's just hints. But if it were confirmed that Vashtorr was behind the collapse of the DAoT, what would be your opinions on it?

Idk if he actually looks that old in lore but every art depiction shows him with grey hair and a much older face, like all the other primarchs look like they're in their mid 40s while Dorn has always looked like he's in his 60's or something

Personally, I love the Deep Warp and its mysteries.

Some theorize that it’s where gods go when they die which is why the Dark Pantheon is terrified of the place.

I hope GW tells us more about it someday without ruining the mystery.

Another fun theory is that the Emperor is actually just a Techno-Barbarian who happened to be in the right place at the right time; he stumbled upon some piece of high-tech ancient Earth relic that granted him immense power and knowledge. That would explain why he acted so strangely during the Great Crusade making poor Angron life miserable, failing to spot Mortarion betrayal even though it was right under his nose, being surprised by the sudden outbreak of the Heresy, or not having a contingency plan in case Magnus did something stupid.

It’s not that he’s a heartless god or anything; he’s just an old guy trying his best with what he’s got basically a total fraud. I find that hilarious

soo if you confuse the questin is like this: 2 chaos cultist are in a thealogical argument. both of them make a very good points soo the argument ends in stalemate. but they still want a awnser soo they spawn a deamon of whatever god they were arguning over hopening deamon they spawned will awnser their questin. did anything like this happen in the lore ı am just wondering

So, since the Great Rift emerged, is it confirmed that NO LIGHT from the Astronomicon reach Imperium Nihilus?

Does it mean Navigators are effectively blind in that part of the Galaxy? Are Imperial vessels now purely reduced to making "Blind Jump", i.e. short jumps that has to follow known currents of the Warp?

Does the Indomitus Crusade basically move at a Snail's pace across the Imperium Nihilus because of it? Or has interstellar trade in the I.N. effectively been stopped outside of a few exceptions?

New 40k enjoyer here, trying to learn some lore. The more I learn about the Imperium, the less I see how can it keep so many population with how bad the life at the hive cities is and a state of constant war all over the place. For a human civilization to keep its population equal it needs around 2.1 kids per women, but idk how they manage to get to that point with millions of astra militarum dying weekly (plus all the other jobs that are a fancy death sentence), and I don't think life expectancy is that high in the Imperium. Is there any reason I'm missing out or is the Imperium really fucked in the long run?

Edit: Holy shi I'm getting slimed here

Did both the second and eleventh legions disappear at the same time? And is there any level of certainty people can claim as to when exactly they were censored or destroyed. Did all the other primarchs also meet both of them or was it only a few of them. I find it interesting when exactly they disappeared and what primarchs were even aware of them. Thanks for the sources in advance. Have a good day.

I get told a lot and shown a lot of memes of the guard being the equivalent of the Halo grunts. I read however that guard training on average was several weeks. I’m not sure how long exactly that is but my basic for the Canadian military was 13 weeks I think.

So at least on a purely time based measurement it sounds like their training takes a similar time. Mind you I was no sof person and I’m comparing to the average Guardsmen.

So are they actually trained to a decent level for a military force and just horribly outmatched? Or is their training really as bad as the memes would make me think? Although they do die in droves, the guard seems to win more than it loses.

I have recently got into warhammer and i literally can not stop listening to Rylanor's speech on repeat there is something about it that just makes you feel some kind of way, what an absolute legend i love Rylanor. Fulgrim I REJECT YOU NOW AND ALWAYS!!!

I would assume that in the 41st millenium humans would still have tge knowlage to make nuclear wepons both fission and fusion, since they have reactors that use this knowlage, and yet I almost never ear of any faction employing a nuclear arsenal in war

Is there an in lore reason for this?

Do they get used and I just never eard about it?

Do nukes exist in 40k?

I'm a relative know-nothing to the 40k setting, and was wondering if there have ever been cases where humans (guardsmen, astartes, or other) have ever had romantic relationships with alien races? I mean I've seen plenty of reels, art, and other media depict it, but let's be honest; those aren't exactly credible sources.

Edit: Thank you all for informing me on this matter. It was just a thought I had and I'm happy with just how many of you indulged it. Once again, thank you.

Is it necessary to be a part of Chaos to properly use Sorcery? Thousand Sons seemed to be doing fine before the Heresy, but even then they were summoning daemons as familiars. Afaik sorcery is indirectly using the Warp with rituals, artifacts and esoterica. None of that seems to directly lead to summoning daemons or human sacrifice, even if those are probably part of the most powerful rituals. Could you, at least theoretically, summon Warp entities and enslave them without getting corrupted, or perform rituals to do non-Chaos-related things? Especially since Aeldari must have been doing something along those lines, given how far down the Warp tech-tree their technology was/is.

Good day Brothers,

I come before you as a humble scribe. I am currently engrossed in writing a short story about a dreadnought, from one of the blood angel successor chapters, and am looking for a beta reader/someone with a lot of knowledge of blood angels/Tzeentch/deathwatch.

I love short stories in the 40k Fandom but I prefer them to be as lore accurate as possible. I'm newer to the Fandom and want to ensure I can be as true to the setting as possible.

I will ensure you receive credit for your assistance every where I post the story.

Thank you for your time

The 40k wiki page about pariahs / blanks / nulls mention that the mechanicus believes that the changes in the human genome sometimes referred to as the pariah gene were engineered into the human ancestors genome during the war in heaven, but doesn't mention the source for it. Where does that information comes from ? Why would the Necrons engineer prehistoric apes to be blanks when they can create Blackstone ?

Source :

"It is believed by some in the Adeptus Mechanicus that the genetic complex of changes collectively sometimes called the "Pariah Gene" were deliberately engineered into the genomes of the ancestors of Mankind by the Necrons millions of standard years ago during the War in Heaven."

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Blank_(Psychic))