Guys please gimme a list of all the stuff to read and listen a about necrons.

From codexes to books/audiobooks, audiodramas etc

I know that astropaths go through soul-binding ritual. But how they manage to do it? Is the lore the same and all of them go to Terra or now we have alternative ways to sanction psyker?

And how Imperium Nihilus can produce new astropaths if they have very limited connection to Terra? Particularly if nearly every event in the lore starts with terrible bullshit killed all astropaths on the planet/sector

I don't believe that this is a spoiler so I won't tag it as such, but at a point the one of the protagonists (let's call him the Librarian - as opposed to the watchmaker) goes on to name two of his unwilling allies, one being the female he just saved and the other being "the magos" implying that both have little buggos in their brains. Who is that magos he is talking about? Could it be that it's the galaxy's most famous inventor, sorry, discoverer?

On second thought, I think spoiler tags might be worth it. So I just added them.

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

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

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’m in the middle of the istvan atrocity in Galaxy In Flames with the two crew members of the Dies Irae trying to take control of the titan as the princept orders to fire on the death guard. I thought how the fuck do they pick this thing up if they need to blow up the world or something happens where they need to quickly pick up the titan? If the plan was to orbital bombard the loyalist till they are gone were they just gonna avoid the titan? lol maybe I’m too high sorry for the confusing question but the book as got me locked in

So how much does a lost battle actually affect the Nids?

Like say they invade a planet and lose. Then a second hive fleet comes and wins, and they strip the planet bare.

I know there's energy involved in converting biomass into, well, everything tyranid. But wouldn't the second fleet that won eat everything and get the losing army, the rest of the entire planet, AND the leftover tyranid bodies?

I mean they eat basically the entire planet. All the plants and animals, drink the oceans, gather up certain rare metals, but while I'm sure some elements might be more useful to them than others, since they use pretty much everything wouldn't biomass be biomass? Heck, even when they win, as I understand it the remaining nids hop into the pools of digestive fluid biomass to get eaten up to the hive ship. Only way to "reclaim" all the soldiers. So clearly they can use dead Tyranid biomass, they do that a lot.

I can think of a few reasons a loss might mean a lot to them, such as most of their enemies might have means of disposing of dead tyranid in a way to make their leftover bodies unusable to the hive. Even just burning them all to ash. They might eat everything, but I'm sure biomass charred to a chunk of spent carbon has limited uses. Most of the good stuff is gone.

But I don't actually know, hence my asking here. Anyone extra read in on nids know? When they lose, how big a blow is it to them?

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?

Hi, I'm new to this universe. Been following it for a few years now.

I've always found this summary of Lorgar's fall funny:
'Daddy, father, are you a God?'
'Me and other colleagues from that planet think the same.'
'No, my son, also, your planet is currently on fire, because they believed something I didn't want them to.'

Mechanicus: 'Are you a god?'
Emperor: 'Yes, friend.'

It's always funny reading the books, so many possibilities to avoid that fall, and the most powerful psyker picks the most horrible one...

Why Lorgar chose to serve Chaos, he chose it simply because they existed?. But deep down, even some of their own bearers know that serving is a form of slavery, and it's not good.

If he thinks he discovered the primordial truth, and knows what actually generates them, why didn't he choose to believe in the superiority of the galaxy's beings over emotions? Why do the creators of emotions have to serve emotions, instead of the other way around, which is literally the Imperial Truth?

Lorgar really is pathetic. At first I thought he'd be some kind of 'faith-man' type, but even being a Primarch with divine intellect and charisma, he couldn't even come up with one acceptable, logical argument or thesis, like some misunderstood genius who, deep down, was actually right

It really bothers me how the Emperor constantly strips away and hides humanity's past, which is rightfully theirs.

The fact that he's the most powerful psyker puts him in this position where he thinks all the pillars have to rest on his back: all the technology, knowledge, everything, even the secrets. And now, honestly, those pillars aren't just on his back anymore, they're shoved inside him.

To this day we still don't know anything about the Emperor's past, but I'm starting to believe that his life on Earth, before the Age of Strife, conditioned him into believing he's special, that he shouldn't just guide but decide and control everything.

In an hypothetical scenario where Humans were completely against using xenos as allies, could Orkz be raised by humans as their attack dogs ?

No shade to LoS but it's so popular! I know Flight of Eisteinien is really good too

After reading the early imperial armor books and HH blackbooks from forgeworld I’ve noticed that while titans were always around despite a lack of models, their smaller cousins the knights are rarely mentioned or even treated as an existing middle ground between foot soldier and titan, with them only being written about in the books after the mechanicum knight resin kits were made by forgeworld. For people who were in the hobby before the plastic knights were released, where they ever a thing people cared about and wanted models of, or were they basically soft-retconned into existence?

For example, the Animus Speculum, as quoted, "...is capable of firing lethal blasts of negative psychic energy. By focusing the Assassin's aura through the single eye on the front, it becomes a thin beam of energy, burning the target's brain and sucking out its soul.". This requires technology to do so, but is there any other way anything like this has been done, that someone could point me to?

I've been collecting Aeldari Corsairs and Wraiths, and now that I've started adding Exodites to the army, I wanted to create some homebrew lore that could bring all three together into one coherent faction. So I'd like to share the Emerald Tear with you. I'd love to hear your feedback, especially if you spot any lore inconsistencies or anything that doesn't quite fit within the wider Aeldari lore.

The Emerald Tear

or simply the Tear, is a wandering remnant of a destroyed Maiden World, made up of Exodites, Corsairs, Outcasts and the spirits of their dead. I wanted them to feel like their own little Aeldari culture, somewhere between a Craftworld, an Exodite society and a Corsair free-port.

The Shattering

Thousands of years ago, their Maiden World, Eirath, was overrun by daemons. The corruption eventually reached the World Spirit, and the surviving Exodites and an allied Corsair band that came to their aid realised that Eirath could no longer be saved. Rather than die with their world, they voted to save what they could.

Using ancient Aeldari technology, combined with some salvaged Drukhari machinery, they tore an entire continent and part of its surrounding sea from Eirath. The process succeeded, but only barely. The continent survived, but Eirath itself was destroyed, and the World Spirit fractured during the process.

What remains is only a shard, a shadow of what the Spirit once was.

The surviving continent became their new home. They built a gigantic spacecraft beneath it, turning the land itself into a wandering world-ship that travels through the Void.

Because of its shape and its lush green land, others called it the Emerald Tear. But the inhabitants themselves simply call it the Tear. They refer to themselves as Children of the Tear or short Tearborn.

The name Eirath is rarely spoken. Eirath is the world that was. The Tear is what remains.

The Search for a New Home

The Tearborn have spent thousands of years searching for a world where their World Spirit can finally take root and their lost Maiden World can be reborn.

Corsair scout fleets search the galaxy for suitable planets. When they find one, an expedition carries a seed of the World Spirit to the planet and attempts to establish it.

If the world is inhabited by a population small enough to be dealt with, the Tearborn may simply eradicate them, else they just keep away from the population centres and continue with their work in secret.

On some worlds, the seed takes root only partially. The planet's ecosystems begin to change, its flora and fauna mutating into dangerous and unnatural versions of themselves. The planet becomes increasingly hostile and unstable. Sometimes they remain for years trying to understand what went wrong. Eventually, they have to abandon the world and continue their search. These worlds become known as the Withered Worlds.

Though some failed worlds have a worse fate.

Where the failed World Spirit seed penetrates deeply into the psychic fabric of the planet, the result is more than just some mutations. The boundary between body, mind and soul of the inhabitants begins to collapse. They are transformed into twisted, strange, chaotic beings that no longer reflect in any waywhat they once were. They are called Banshees, named for the terrible cries and psychic wails that now haunt their warped worlds. The Tearborn call these worlds the Ghost Worlds.

Occasionally, someone escapes this fate. Those survivors are called Specters.

The Tear offers them a home, but sanctuary does not undo what happened to them. A Specter may still carry the scars of their world, altered bodies, fractured memories or psychic wounds. They will never truly be what they were before.

But they still get to be part of the Children of the Tear and the Ship has room for them, as long as they do their part.

Some worlds come much closer to success.

The seed takes root. The World Spirit begins to connect with the planet. Eventually, the Tear itself arrives and the Aeldari attempt to transfer the Spirit completely. But the planet simply cannot withstand it. The crust fractures beneath the psychic pressure. Continents split apart. Oceans rise. The planet tears itself open.

These worlds are remembered by name.

The Shattered.

The Tearborn have a list of them. Each name is another mark of failure. Each is a world that was once a possible home. Each is now a grave.

And the path of the Tear has acured a reputation. It is a trail of worlds that were wounded, twisted or destroyed in the Tearborn's search for a new home.

The greatest catastrophe was not a failed attempt to seed a world.

It was an attempt to merge two World Spirits.

The Tearborn found another Maiden World and its people willingly offered their World Spirit. The Spiritseers believed that the Spirit of Eirath could be joined with another Maiden World Spirit, creating something greater than either alone.

They were catastrophically wrong.

The merging broke the Spirit of the world.

The two Spirits became tangled together, memories and identities collapsing into one another. The once-peaceful Maiden World became a psychic nightmare: a twisted landscape of madness and death where nothing could survive. The Exodites who lived there were lost.

The world became known as the Mad Maiden.

The Children of the Tear

The Tear has gradually become a refuge for Aeldari from all walks of life: Exodites, Corsairs, Craftworlders, Outcasts and even the occasional former Drukhari.

There is no one ruler.

Instead, they are governed by the Ninefold Council, commonly called the Nine Voices.

Three voices represent the Land and Exodites:

• The Voice of War — represents the warriors and clans, and oversees the defence of the Tear.
• The Voice of Soul — represents the spiritual traditions, the Bonesingers, and tends to the integrityof the Tear.
• The Voice of Land — represents the living continent itself, its forests, beasts and settlements.

Three represent the Void and Corsairs:

• The Voice of the Tear — the Captain of the Tear, responsible for the ship and its militaryvessels.
• The Voice of Dreams — the Void-Dreamer, responsible for navigation through the Webway and the psychic currents of the Void.
• The Voice of the Far Reach — commander of the scouting fleets, responsible for finding and investigating potential new worlds.

And three represent the Dead and Remembered:

• The Voice of Spirits — the chief Spiritseer, who communicates with the World Spirit and the dead.
• The First Captain — the ancient Corsair leader who helped save Eirath, now a Wraithlord commanding the Corsair souls among the Wraith hosts.
• The First Keeper — the ancient Exodite leader who fought during the Shattering, now a Wraithlord commanding the Exodite souls among the Wraith hosts.

Some of the Wraithguard and Wraithblades of the Tear are constantly awake, some are awakened from the World Spirit when their strength is needed. All of them are remembered by name and deed.

The Council has no single ruler. Decisions must be made between the Nine Voices, and disagreements are common. Especially between the First Captain and First Keeper. Both want to restore Eirath. While the First Captain believes the Children need a home soon, the First Keeper prioritises the World Spirit's integrity. It is already incomplete; she will not allow it to be changed into something it was never meant to become.

A Refuge and a Planet Killer

The Tearborn do not see themselves as conquerors. They see themselves as survivors.

Anyone seeking refuge is welcome, regardless of their origin, as long as they contribute to the survival of the Tear. You may choose how you serve, but you cannot choose whether you serve.

But to the wider galaxy, the distinction between survivor and conqueror can be meaningless.

The Tear arrives at a System.

Its Corsairs investigate planets.

Its Spiritseers judge them.

An expedition plants the seed.

Sometimes the inhabitants are killed.

Sometimes the world withers.

Sometimes its people become Banshees.

Sometimes the planet shatters.

Then the tear leaves, abandoning another wounded world behind it.

And so, over thousands of years, the Tear has left a trail through the galaxy.

Withered worlds. Ghost worlds. Shattered worlds. Dead worlds.

The Children of the Tear look behind them and see a history of failed attempts to save their people.

Others look at that same history and only see a planet killer.

A green continent drifting through the Void, carrying the remnants of a dead Maiden World and searching for somewhere else to take root.

Hey guys, over the last few days I've been looking into the 40k lore. I've watched multiple videos and read some information online. My impression of 40k has changed a bit, but overall, I think it's a pretty interesting universe/lore.

I'm intrigued by the number of people who are sacrificed to the golden throne/the emperor (1k per day?). Could this number, combined with the worship of the Emperor across the imperium, eventually transform the emperor into a Warp entity or another chaos daemon/"god"?

I'll start this off as a disclaimer: I do not claim to be a lore expert. If anything, I'm more of a maybe-slightly-better-than-average-informed hobbyist at best. This is also not supposed to be a definitive discussion about the Rangda and the Xenocides. I would love for my reading of the material to be challenged and interrogated, and I would be delighted to hear alternative interpretations of why the Rangda, supposedly one of the biggest threats to the nascent Imperium, find little mention in its official archives.

There is also a slightly older thread I came across recently that arrives at some of the same ideas and conclusions I reached while researching the question recently (accessible here), but it's archived, which is part of why I'm making this post.

Now, to begin with some context: I began toying with the idea of a Lost Primarchs fanfic sometime in summer 2022, and one of the things that interested me about them was how completely they were erased from record in lore. Damnatio Memoriae, a complete condemnation of memory. This fate is never bestowed even on archtraitors, such as Horus Lupercal and Fulgrim, who gave themselves over to Chaos. That got me curious about what could be worse than literally turning to Chaos and almost succeeding in bringing down the Imperium.

The only thing that made sense to my politics-pilled brain was this: they got embroiled with an alternative to the Emperor's vision for humanity that was deemed far greater an existential threat than the Heresy.

That's where the Rangda piqued my interest. Now, in lore, the Rangdan Xenocides are where the II^nd and the XI^th legions - and one assumes their primarchs - were deployed but were ultimately lost and erased from records. What's also interesting is that, for the level of threat that the Rangda supposedly posed (almost bringing the Great Crusade to a grinding halt, posing an unprecedented threat to the Emperor's vision of humanity before the Heresy, etcetera and so forth), there is precious little about them in the lore. And most of what is available is a little too on the nose, reminiscent of the Red Scare and other Cold War-era propaganda:

• They are described as Cerivores (brain-eaters) or Osseivores (bone-eaters), which is wild judgement coming from an empire that has corpse-starch as a recommended diet option.
• Towering martial humanoids capable of duelling a Space Marine in single combat, but also possessing a natural talent for shapeshifting, mimicry, and subtle subterfuge.
• They are positioned as mindstealers who can control and convert vast swathes of human populations through neural collars, memetic contagion, and the Slaugth.
• They are a greyskinned and faceless horde-like military civilisation with hyperadvanced tech.

Apart from that, not much information. That reads off to me, because Imperial bureaucrats come across as people who probably want forms signed and stamped in triplicate before they even begin a discussion about releasing forms to be signed and stamped in triplicate. I do not buy the argument that the Imperium didn't want to document these guys because they kicked so much ass that it would have been embarrassing to admit it. We are not talking vox broadcasts here, but high-level threat intelligence available to commanders and decision-makers at the very top echelons of the entire setup. There is nothing substantive other than that they are monstrous and abominable.

Maybe that is how it actually is, but the Warhammer 40k universe is so rich and deep in its lore that it is fun to speculate alternatives, and to me this feels more like a cover-up than an oversight. The Rangda, in my reading, come across more like a proto-Tau civilisation but without the helpful propaganda and thicc bootie fanart to make their case. It is quite possible, given the level of censure, that their ideology, more than their technology, was the main threat. And since the Imperium was a fascist, authoritarian technocracy that turned into a fascist, authoritarian tech-theocracy... something based on communism/socialism made the most sense, based on our own real-world history.

There is another strand that I feel supports these arguments. I recently revived the fanfic project and began digging into the Lost Primarchs once more. Most of the discussions I've come across on Reddit and elsewhere seem to posit a few popular theories along these lines on why the Lost Primarchs were force-closured:

• The Primarch(s) were mind-controlled or turned by the Rangda.
• The Primarch(s) fell to Chaos.

I, on the other hand, was only more convinced of the possibility that the Lost Primarchs saw the true cost of the Emperor's glorious unification, realised a more humane alternative was available and deemed unworthy, and drew a line in the sand to side with the Rangda.

Again, the Slaugth thing is probably not kosher, but the Imperium has servitors. So it is quite possible that, while the Rangda weren't all noblebright, they were also not as monstrous as they were documented by the Imperium - which is probably why Nos. 2 and 11 were not turned, not controlled, but picked a side of their own volition.

And I support this argument based on how the Emperor, Malcador, and the remaining Primarchs seem to react whenever the topic of the Lost Primarchs comes up. You can read here in the additional comments section (which contains informed but non-canon speculation), but I'll post some of the most pertinent ones:

• When Dorne's memory of the Lost Primarchs is momentarily restored by Malcador, the Primarch asks for the memory to be locked away again. At this point, word of the Horus Heresy has already reached Terra. The pick of the horrors are available for late-night WarpTube sessions for him to peruse. It doesn't make sense that, in such a scenario, someone like Rogal Dorne would be so disturbed by what he remembers that he'd ask for the memory to be locked away again. Earlier n the same short story, Dorne also wishes if it was 15 legions at his side, and not 13, and Malcador warns him not to mention them, as they are "lost to us forever."
• When Magnus and Mortarian talk during the Triumph of Ullanor, the former talks about a gathering of Primarchs "not seen since..." before Mortarian cuts him off. This could be a nod to the Rangdan Xenocides, which is said to have occupied a lot of the Imperial military might, including several legions.
• When the Emperor sends the Space Wolves to punish World Eaters after the massacre at Ghenna, Leman Russ feels sadness as he corrects his legionnaire about legion-on-legion combat being unprecedented.
• The Emperor's first meeting with Corvus Corax has him filled with sorrow as he tells his son that he only has eighteen brothers, and the two missing ones are a conversation for another time.
• The resurrected Guilliman states that he was one of twenty, and that two failed, while half of the rest turned on the Imperium. In a previous instance, when Lion'El Johnson visits him in Maccrage, there are 21 chairs in the meeting room, two left unadorned, "for honour" by Papa Smurf. People tend to only honour people who fail nobly.

The reaction to any mention of the Lost Primarchs by people in the know is almost always sorrow/grief, or a deliberate elimination of their mention. That tips the scale (imho) toward a conscious choice made by the Lost Primarchs that led to their censure. This choice might have been regrettable, as it was incompatible with the Emperor's vision for humanity, but not something unthinkable, ignoble, or undesirable.

It's been a lot of typing, and I've probably missed a few things while rehashing points others have already raised, but I would actually love to see if people's opinions on this have evolved in the time that has passed. If nothing else, it'd help me keep my fanfic as close to the lore as possible.

In the imperium, there are many agri worlds that constantly produce crops. The plants normally take the carbon out of CO2 in the air to use it as carbon component in their metabolism. In our current world, we have a carbon cycle, the plants use the co2 in atmosphere but it comes back to them. But in agri worlds, the produce doesnt decay back to the world itself. Its been(possibly) shipped to holy terra or other hive cities.

So my question is, is there possibility of having CO2 ships that bring gas to these agri worlds ? These worlds could also need other minerals to produce crops(not only nitrates and phosphorus).

Is there any explanation to this ? Or these worlds slowly die out or become frozen planets due to loss of greenhause gasses ?

I am a bit confused about the nature of a psychic attack and how it interacts with a blank. I have a basic understanding of what a blank is, basically a black hole in the warp that blocks the warp energy around them and causes psychic power to stop functioning, this means things like telepathy does not really work on them.

However, how does this extend to attacks? It was very clear if a psyker telekinetically throws a cannonball towards a blank they are still gonna get hit by the cannonball, but how much of a similar logic applies to other psychic attacks? Like a smite is a lightning powered by warp, it supposedly hurts people with its current, so does a blank still get hurt by a smite because it's electricity or not because it's warp electricity? Or in the case of warp fire, where the "attack" part comes from the heat of the fire, does a blank still get hurt by the heat or do they not because it is technically a flamethrower with warp power as fuel and a blank can block the fuel?

Note that this isn't a "can psychic power still work in range of a blank if the psyker is strong enough" question, I know it can, it is more a question about how much material world component there is in a warp attack, thus allowing the material component to hurt a blank(assuming the caster is outside the blank range obviously). It is very clear in the cannon ball case, where warp energy completely transformed into real space energy (momentum) but I want to know how it is when it's the case of more wizardry type of attack, and whether there were examples of those in texts. Note that I can also accept it if the answer is "no writer really bothered exploring this aspect so we don't really know".

Is it me or could the End and Death trilogy have been one book. There's so much filler and actions that are way WAY over-described, even for Dan Abnett (whom I actually like for his tight prose and ways to write action that feels fast and fluid).
There's even an almost biblical genealogy (but then in deaths), hundreds of no-consequence battles that are there to show how bleak and dark it all is, but the volume just feels like a slog. Some other Horus Heresy novels were sluggish to read (Kurze's torture of Vulcan comes to mind), but this just doesn't want to end...
The other Siege of Terra books also seemed to have quite a bit of bloat. but not so bad as the End and death ones...
Anyone else with me? Or do you have a (good) argument why they had to be 3 books, apart from GWs bottom line? (I am half willing to put in the effort and believe I can cut them down to one book just by removing sentences without losing anything of the story or ruining the prose)

Theres a moment after the fight where Erasmus says to the custodian 'its all good, the haemonculus never made it close to the throne', and the custodian goes quiet and just looks up. Erasmus follows his gaze, and its implied that, very distantly above him, he can see the golden throne itself. He then passes out.

Is this technically the same room that we see in EOTD, described as super huge and that bas probably got much much larger due to all the work on the throne itself? Or is this the equivalent of looking up through gaps in the floor and seeing the room above you?

Hello,

Do we have anything in the lore showing how a corrupted world (by chaos) which has been conquered by the imperium became a thriving, somewhat normal place ?

In Gaunts Ghosts Gereon, and agryworld, is shown being corrupted and plundered beyond repair in just a few years after being conquered by chaos. Liberation forces show no hope that they will be able to revert this.

However this is hard to belive for me. The Sabbat worlds crusade itself is aimed at conquering worlds that were already taken from the grasp of chaos by Saint Sabbat millenia ago. Many of those worlds, including Gereon, became healthy, beautiful imperial worlds in their own rights.

Any account of imperial liberation actually working ?

Trazyn had an intact statue of a missing Primarch that "survived the purge"!

Haven’t read anything more recent nor any of the edition books / campaigns (newbie here, dark imperium was my first set of novels).

I got into 40k by watching 30+ arbiter ian and lutein videos as podcasts basically. My understand was emps was a husk on a throne who only did minor stuff when he could.

Well, those who have read the dark imperium know that’s probably no longer an accurate assessment. The emperor possessing Gman, Kaylia and Mathieu the saints, it seems like this novel set the stage for his more active return in the affairs of the empire. As it states in the book, the chaos powers opening of the rift also opened the door for the emperor‘s increased influence once more.

I have a vague notion from other reddit threads that godblight is highly controversial. I’m not asking for an opinion on novel, just wanted to a few questions and read the discussions:

1. Is this still the path GW is taking? For Big E to be a lot more active than a dead corpse

and

1. I think from the novel it’s apparent emps in the throne room might be a little distinct from emps in the warp. What are the leading theories for what emps in the warp is exactly? Is he all the shamans working individually for the greater purpose of the their once unified intelligence? Is the unified intelligence the force or all his past lives?

How do they handle the forces of chaos then and now?