Rageless Bloodshed

Logistician Ka'vin ran into a problem. He was the Office of Ceremonial Calculations' representative on the S.U.N. fleet vessel Crimson Oblation. The brave Pactsmen of the Sanguinary Utnapishtim Navy had recently purged an Imperium refugee vessel they'd found hiding in deep-void. The very concept of fleeing a warzone was theologically offensive! Oh yes, all aboard the Imperial ship Transport Barge for Orphans and Pensioners would pay dearly for their sins.

None of that was Ka'vin's problem. He was dutifully calculating marginal gains in ritual efficacy generated by murders committed on the TBOP. The work was routinised, sure, but he enjoyed it! With his little cup of recaf besides him to moisturise his dry lips, and the meditative calculative work before him to focus his wayward mind, Ka'vin found himself unbothered. Happy, even, if it offend not Khorne to say it. He was in his lane; flourishing. And then Toxka sirdar's report came in. Therein arose Ka'vin's problem.

It began well enough. Ka'vin could skim over the flourishes these sirdars loved to add: "... woe upon those toddlers, for the wrath of Khorne was visited... how the fools begged for mer.... I struck down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger...." etc etc. It went on like this. Ka'vin gave an indulgent chuckle - officers of the Crimson Oblation fancied themselves poets. But a later passage gave him pause:

"And yea, upon entering cargo-hold 14e, much merriment was had by mine whole philia, for therein a vile ecclesiarch of the hated Imperium attempted to block the path of our righteous warriors, but through his very own asininity he did accidentally untether a cargo-container that had been suspended above thine-own heads, crushing all and releasing much gore, thereby adding 12 more kills to our tally without need of raising our weapons."

Khorne, as the Paters taught, cared not from whence the blood was flowing. And from the sounds of it lots of blood flew as a result of this ecclesiarch's blunder. But this didn't feel right. No rage accompanied these deaths: in fact the sirdar somewhat scandalously reported good-cheer as a result. Ritual efficacy was always estimated as a function of the rage and bloodshed soldiers had induced - but here rage and bloodshed came apart!

Ka'vin tried to think it through from first principles. Khorne was not, after all, the god of industrial accidents; surely ritual-efficacy required bloodshed arising from rage? Except, that couldn't be right - the Office was reliably able to generate genuinely ritually effective power from blood spilled through means that in no way required them to check the psychological state of those spilling the blood. But, if rageless bloodshed was just as good, couldn't they do far better to entirely rationalise the process and do away with the rage altogether? Slipping into berserker rages really was rather disruptive to statistical optimisation, after all. That would revolutionise Khornite religion!

Quietly, Ka'vin added 12 to Toxka's murder-per-moment tally and went on with his paperwork. He wasn't paid enough for this.