My Games

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Soft Warhammer 40K


A world like Warhammer 40K except where the lore doesn't implicitly justify the Imperium.

I realize this is a somewhat contentious topic; I'm not judging anyone for liking WH40K- while I am no lore expert I do enjoy the setting, but I believe it is important to at least acknowledge or confront this, in much the same way that one must as far as I'm concerned confront the xenophobia of Lovecraft and how that is largely inextricably linked to his works, no matter if you still appreciate the work in itself in the end. 

Anyway, right now we're just taking that as a given and exploring the worldbuilding implications. If you disagree with the premise that's fine, but just roll with it so we can have fun worldbuilding.

At risk of alienating even more people, I asked on my server if anyone could generate art of Warhammer 40K meets Hieronymus Bosch and Jack Kirby, and Peakrill obliged with some wonderful pieces, to help bring this to life. Do I think these are as good as, or as close to the ideal of what I'm looking for, as what a human artist could make? Probably not. But I was never going to commission an artist to make these anyway.


If The Imperium is almost like a dark ages post apocalyptic take on the post Roman empire world, this would be more like a post post apocalyptic take, something closer to the more modern understanding of history or at least my understanding, that while in some ways it was a period of loss of knowledge and infrastructure, in other ways they were more progressive and functioning reasonably well just on a smaller scale. In this world, it would be like Star Trek almost, like magical philosopher explorers, encountering all the craziness out in the universe with technology they only barely understand, wonders and reminders of what they can one day become.

The space orks are like rowdy punks in some cases, or psychedelic social anarchists, the Eldar are a little uptight but they'll take you out for a good meal and even if it's just to show off just take the lunch ya know? The tyrranid are an invasive species that need to be dealt with by social environmental institutions, like Space Rangers of galactic parks and recreation.


Oh and Chaos are just space Nazis of course.

Rather than looking like a mix of grimey industry and dark fantasy, it would be whimsical and Weird and Wonderful, like Hieronymos Bosch. Eh and throw Jack Kirby in there too. Decidedly not Moebius I think that would actually be too obvious and take away from it.

In the same way that I want for instance the tyrranid to still be a threat, but the way they confront that threat is profoundly different, and I think dealing with fascism and hate and violence is still something they should have to confront and I like the play on "Law and Order" types actually just creating Chaos, that the dichotomy of Order and Chaos is often just a fabrication or means of weaponization.

7 comments:

  1. I left this comment on my last blog post because I had a bad cold and was in a sickness-induced fugue-like state, but here it is re-commented for the appropriate post:

    > We had a more involved conversation about it on the server, some alternative ideas about Chaos in particular, with maybe the fascistic faction just being one of many, but this was the original writeup.

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  2. The moral debate on wh40k is exclusive to the USA (like many other absurd debates, by the way). I hope that ideology does not sully the dark future where there is only war.

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  3. When it comes to A.I. art, I recently read three comics by Steve Coulson, Last Summer, The Exodus, The Lesson, the comics are reasonably good fun, but leaps in quality in art from each issue are startling!

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  4. My personal favourite way to avoid implying the Imperium is justified is the Tau doing things the straightforwardly good way and succeeding... I'm not sure making the Imperium (and most other factions) *actual* good guys makes much sense as a "fix" for this issue?

    But also, simultaneously, politics and theory aside, this sounds really awesome and I love the aesthetic.

    I'd probably include some "semi-domesticated" Tyranids, just to complete the "everything in this universe can potentially be friendly" vibe and because riding multicoloured dragons is cool. Maybe you could tie that into the genestealers, examples of these cosmic wolves adopting humans into their pack & vice versa.

    There are a bunch of ways you could take the Necrons, but I feel like the most *aesthetically* fitting one for this Bosch-y Medieval Weird bright vibe is to frame them as gardener-saints, living reliquaries of a lost religion, who sow and prune (rather than merely harvest) life.

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    1. That's a fair point about how the Imperium maybe shouldn't be totally good, and I also really like this Tau idea. I wanted to make a suggestion about the Tau but tbh I'm not sufficiently familiar with them, like I know in the abstract, but haven't read any books with them or anything. The domestic tyrranid is also cool! I was thinking of them like an environmental problem, but the idea of them as wildlife that could be tamed or domesticated makes sense as well. I also wasn't sure what to do with Nekrons, but I like that idea as well!

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  5. I really like the idea of medieval explorers going to space and perceiving it through their lens. Like think of Blemyes and all the other weird stuff we see in medieval marginalia and then apply that to actual aliens. They would see the universe as being stranger that it already is

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    1. Ya that's along the lines of what I'm thinking, or one version of it, like a Medieval Star Trek haha

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