Thematic Background

In this little section I will do a bit of stage setting for anyone who is interested, though I hope any of the stories will be fun without having read this! I will break this up into explaining what it is I am trying to do with the setting in terms of themes and tone (dealt with here), what elements of the canon 40k Lore I am trying to interact with (accesible through the Lore tab to the right), and some in-universe history and information (Setting tab).

There are three core features of the 40k verse that I am trying to explore with this little piece. First is I enjoy world-building. The 40k setting is great for this! It's a classic sandbox setting. The lore gives you broad rules and elements to play with, but then there is a literal galaxy's worth of places to play around in. What is more, the authors are very explicit about the notion of canon being pretty loose in the setting. Constraints are the truest ally of creativity; broad rules, but a permission structure to play around with them, is just about the ideal scenario for someone who wants to spend their free time building castles in the sky.

So within this broad remit, and with an interest in the chaotic followers of Khorne in particular, I find myself wanting to answer questions like: what sort of ideology would a society that worships the Blood God have? How could they do things like actually maintain supply chains, given that they valorise all murder all the time? Who collects the bins, do they even care about that? (They're not Nurgle worshipers, they should!) Would they have any notion of diplomacy, how do they understand their relationship to other societies? How do they educate their young? And so on and so forth.

For a nice way of phrasing things, there's this from Black Library author Aaron Dembski-Bowden: "What does it feel like to exist within a failing, fading dystopia that exists through sheer historical inertia? What are the societies within that empire like? How are they credible, when – taken together – they form something so incredible, in every meaning of the word?" This was his description of what he asks himself when trying to write his books, what he calls his "craft". I agree, those are what interest me too! (His nigh legendary forum comment "What It's Like" is in its own way proof that he's been thinking about these things for a long time.) These are the questions that motivate me too, and if ever I get to even an appreciable fraction of his skill in exploring them I'd be delighted.

All this to say, if you're the exact kind of nerd I am this setting basically provides some organisation to what I would spend my time doing anyway. Idly wandering about town dreaming up places to be more interesting than wherever I am. May as well make something of this, and tie it in with the fun little hobby projects that constitute the mainstay of 40k for me.

(While I do play some games -- see the home page for links to battle reports I wrote up! -- that is not what I spend most of my time on. I am very much someone who enjoys the hobbying aspect more than the actual playing. I do like both. But games take so long that I really have to carve out time for them. I don't always have that time. Whereas painting and modelling is something I can do to spend quality time with my partner on evenings and weekends, and weaving narratives is, as I said, just what I do in my head all the time anyway.)

The final thing that got me into this was (again, see Home page for some links!) is that I am someone who writes short stories for fun, even having published a couple in little magazines. When I watched the generally excellent Astartes Anonymous videos on how to homebrew (maybe especially this one and this one) it got me thinking... hey, I can do this! I especially liked their advice to think about how and why your little guys would lose, what makes them vulnerable. I got to thinking about how a society like the one I envisioned would work... and what would make it fail. This website records the bits of my efforts I hope are interesting enough to share!

Another theme that I want to explore here is: being evil. I am very thoroughly on the side of 40K fans that see all the factions as evil, and the setting being a place to explore what is worst. A slight caveat to follow below, but I very much don't want to create lovable guys. Indeed what got me into Khornite forces in particular was just thinking through what I like about the setting: I am not here for subtlety, not here for nuanced moralily grey characters. Warriors dedicated to Satan in his aspect as rage and murder are thus right up my alley. Personally, I am here to have fun with the most unambiguously evil people out there.

Now, one has to do things with this if one wants an interesting story; not everyone can be a moustache twirling pantomime villain. If you just make everyone that way you risk them having no one to bounce off, and then it can get dull. But I want to keep the focus firmly on the unjustifiably wicked without much in the way of hope for redemption. So to try and balance it out I tried to envision an ideology that would let them be despicable, but often functional enough for the truly wacky character to actually stand out. The story Pater Shamatii's Sermon was my attempt to write down their general ideology and perspective in a narrative way. This gives you the basis of their society. I, er, sincerely hope it is not appealing to any of you. I envisioned these chaps as sort of fascistic utilitarians-but-for-murder; that's what I ran with.

Ok but the caveat is: I do like to get a little silly with things.

Personally the not very self-serious comedic side of 40k is basically all my favourite parts -- I love If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device, the Cain novels are probably my favourite series from the lore, and generally I adore wacky Ork hijinks. It's not that this is inconsistent with grimdark, and it's not really controversial in the fandom that this is an aspect of the world, but I inevitably tend towards the more light-hearted side of things.

What that means is that when there's a choice between genuinely horrific and more so-over-the-top-it's-funny, I am almost always going to pick the latter. I hope (you will have to be the judge!) that I none the less create characters with some pathos, and a little setting-within-this-setting that makes sense in its own internal logic. But, fair warning, this is not a place wherein I am going to try too hard to justify what's going on. Rule of cool, along with rule of funny, will typically be the order of the day.

So there you have it. I will be trying to create a setting that has its own internal logic, which answers the sort of nerdy questions that interest me in thinking about the 40k world. It is focussed aorund a group of Khorne worshiping (mostly!) mortal humans and a society they have created dedicated to that end. I will try and make it clear what they believe and value, how they arrange themselves and organise their activities given these, and what they are up to. Other than the general lore background stuff to be found in the Setting tab to your right, this will all be through narrative and story. Show don't tell and all that.

Hopefully you'll enjoy reading at least a little bit as much as I did writing. Not that I have any expectation of this, but -- if ever you find yourself wanting to create your own stories in this setting, or do any sort of art related to it, do feel free! I'm happy to link here if you'd like. Not trying to get anyone to do free labour, just making it clear I don't mean to gatekeep, and have no intent to profit. Much as Khorne would have the blood flow, I give it all freely.