So what do we know about the oft-mentioned Adranti and their heresy?

There are some tantalizing hints about the Adranti people contained in the adventures from Purge the Unclean:

1.) There were a human civilization not connected to the Imperium of Man, that probably got lost during the Age of Strife.

2.) According to the official timeline ( http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/dark-heresy/pdf/timeline.pdf ), the Adranti people were eradicated by the Adeptus Mechanicus: "In recognition of their invaluable assistance and heavy losses in the purging of the taint of the Adrantians, as well as their service to the Crusade in decades past, Drusus grants the Lathe system to be the sole domain of the Adeptus Mechanicus in perpetuity, and ratifies their claims to several other worlds and rights of free and unchecked passage through the stars the Crusade has conquered."

3.) The "Xenos" artifacts from Illumination and Rejoice for You Are True were, in fact, of Adrantian manufacture. The first artifact could somehow interrupt psychic abilities, while the second one was an auspex / scanner used to find potential psykers.

4.) They are connected to the Serrated Query. The Faceless One is probably of Adrantian origin?

5.) There is an Adrantis sub-sector (containing the Adrantis Nebula) in the Calixis Sector. It is described with a single sentence: "This subsector of the Calixis Sector is the home Magos Genetus Halix Redole, a famous researcher dedicated to eradicating Adranti genetic corruption."

So, what else do we know about the Adrantians?

PS I copied this question from another forum. Thanks to Deathstalker for summarizing what we know.

The Laughing God said:

My feeling is that abit of a reach. The faceless one is known as Eloeholth - Master Architect Palidius the silversmith. He came from a world of great architects but that doesnt make him Adranti (although it doesnt rule it out either). My feeling is that Elhoeholth started the Serrated Query to further his own (probably unfathomable) ends and Adranti technology represents something he would like to get hold of, and given his specailist expertise, he would be one of the few people to be able to use it.

There are some interesting items concentrating on the work of Magos Genetror Redoles research into some elements of Adranti genetic science and his research into planet Spectoris (page 155 tIH) and some worrying connections to it (page 205 tIH)

Other unconnected items include the planet Morwen VI, a planet stripped of life in the ASdrantian phase of the Angevin Crusade, and now the target of soem possibley heretical inter4est by various groups involved the Hipocrasian Agglomeration (page 139 tIH).

There is also the Aegis data fragment (page 114 tIH). Which is probably a piece of quite powerful Adtranti tech.

My feeling......and therre are no facts to back up this is the the Adranti were a psychically highly advanced human civilization with a gift for psychic/tech manipulation. With "the faceless ones" supposed abilities the upper echelons of the inquisition should be very concerned about the possibility of what a being called a "star forger" could do with psychic-tech machinery.

With quotes such as "aquainted with runes and the space outside, breaker of angles...crafter of crystalline dreams, vast his vision, sweeping his song" (page 140 PtU) I think theres human being out there with some very worrying power at his finger tips. Although to call him human would be erroneous, considering if he is still alive he will probably be over 10,000 years old...

worrying thoughts indeed..

And... if the Faceless One, even as the mithical figure that is in the Serrated Query, doesnt have any in common with the Adrianti?

I mean: if the Inquisition is right, and the FO is only a tilte or just a boogieman, maybe we are confused and see only one menace when in fact there are two adversaries. The SQ could have adquired the adrianti artifacts thru the Beast House or the Cold Trade, and so could be that they are nothing more than a criminal plot with a fantastic fake background.

I´ts interesting to think about that. Are they trying to hide their mundane origins? Are they really the oldest human organization in the whole galaxy? Is Eloheloth real? He/She/It ´s still alive? Do the Adrianti anything to do with that?

And speaking of the Adrianti. Are they still alive? Do the Mechanicum knows or hide something? What is the adrianti gene-heresy? Can they be living with us and we dont realize it? Does Kamus belong to them? It´s their final revenge? If it´s a warp artifact, are/were the adrianti tainted by chaos?

Maybe there are too many questions that mislead our research... Are we asking the right questions?

I dont know.

And I like it that way !

By my reading, and this may be a bit skewed, but alot of the images evoked in the scrap recovered by the Tech-Priest somewhere in PTU reminded me of the Iron Warriors. But, even if that were true, there's hardly any evidence to back it up. Eloeholth in my mind is a Sorceror of a bygone age (of a certain type, Archaeomancy?) who has, for many millenia, been manipulating the Serrated Query to some unknown end.

It does state that the Serrated Query comes into being just after or just before the end of the Horus Heresy, which might lend credence to the notion that Eloeholth is perhaps an ancient Astartes. Given that the Iron Warriors held a middleground on Chaos worship, this might also explain the tolerance of that religious tradition amongst their ranks. After all, even if the Dark Gods are fickle masters, the power they can unleash is next to nothing in the galaxy. Who better to manipulate such forces than a practiced magus of the dark arts? I'm attempting to discern a connection between the Serrated Query's symbol and the Iron Warriors, but I falter to do so.

So it's just a thought, another possibility.

Shad said:

No its a good point. There is a good chance that he was astartes, however given his proximity to Magnus its probably more like Thousand sons. This makes me pretty sure that if anyone knew who Eloeholth was/is it would be Ahriman.

Ordo Hydra said:

If he was Astartes and lived in the or near Eye of Terror, he could have survived for 10,000 years without issue. Based on reading 40k codexes from 3rd and 4th edition Chaos, those same marines that were in the Horus Heresy and fled are some of the same ones in existence today. Anyone living in the warp or close proximity has an immensely slowed aging process.

I've not read the trilogy yet since I'm a player and I'm unsure if I'll experience it, but it is possible in the 40k setting for someone to be roughly 10,000 years old if they live a majority of their time in the presence of the warp.

Eloheloth is most definitely real (Harlequin sources trump human source in accuracy) and, according to the fragments found, he would be a marine of the Thousand Sons (The Space Wolves having destroyed their planet, hence why you hear about wolves, their Primarch is Magnus, and they've as of recently been very active in the webway, thereby making it very likely that one of their number would run into a Harlequin). As for what he did in a previous life... there were Tech-Priests in the form of Tech-Marines back in the Horus Heresy days and the Thousand Sons were known for their love of sorcery and warp craft. Two and two put together makes four, he's a Techie (not to be confused with Trekkie) who specializes in things that manipulate the warp.

As for how the Serrated Query is connected with the Adranti... I'd say they're connected in the way the Microsoft is connected to all the companies whose technologies they've "procured" over the years. The Query simply steals technology from the Adranit, reverse engineers it, then uses it (you'll find in the bible of all Alien Life, Xenology, that reverse engineering alien technology, stamping an Imperial Eagle on it, and mass producing it is a *VERY* common thing, much more so than any Imperial would ever guess).

As for the main topic, the Adranti, and where they are now... anybody else here think that the Cthulu-esque Creatures of the Deep who utilize psychic corruption upon Spectoris, a world designed by the Adranti to be aggressive towards anything that isn't native life (or at least can pretend to be native life) might at least be a few mutated remenants of them? Or that the world of Woe, which shares the same exact description, might perhaps contain a few life forms such as that?

Also, the twisting of Space isn't as impressive as you'd think. Keep in mind that warp craft just deals with manipulating higher dimensions (i.e. levels of visual complexity that are unseen to our eyes seeing as how we live/perceive only three of said dimensions). The Necrons have an equally good understanding of it, seeing as how they've been capable of manipulating the higher dimensional geometries to block out "the warp". Humanity once had a good understanding, seeing as how we have Pentagrammic Wards and Navigators (who can percieve in higher dimensions with their third eye).

It's not so much that Astartes from the days of the Heresy age more slowly, they are actually Immortal.

A surviving Traitor Legionnaire from the Horus Heresy does not age (it's mentioned in the Horus Heresy series novels), but a vast majority of the Chaos Marines as we know them are relatively new recruits. They age and die like Space Marines do, although they still live to many centuries old. However, even a recruit like this can live to be several thousands of years old if they spend a great deal of time in or around the Eye, but not because it slows their aging process, but because time is distorted there. They might go in during the 34th millenium, and exit a year later, to find that several hundreds of years have passed.

The Baron said:

He can't be a Marine as he is noted as a teacher of Magnus, whose teaching took place before the Crusade arrived to Prospero. So he is/was a human from the original Sorcerer ruling caste of Prospero. He pledged his soul to Chaos when Thousand Sons did, and so was magically warped and rejuvenated.

I find it an unusual and refreshing change that a big bad isn't just a spiky Marine but rather someone interesting.

Oh, and Marines during the Great Crusade weren't immortal. They thought they were immortal, because the oldest ones were created 300 years earlier, while the maximum age of Marines is said to be around 400-500. So none have aged enough. Opinion =/= truth. Hell, the one who said it, Saul Tarvitz or whoever that was, was described as wrinkled and grey haired. If they were immortal, they couldn't be aging as they'd soon turn into Benjamin Buttons. Besides, how can Blood Angels have extended lifespans if all Marines are immortal? They are more immortal?

Idaan said:

Ah, but he can be a Teacher of Magnus. Look at how Luther taught the Lion, whats-his-face taught Gulliman, and the Tyrant taught Mortarion. Also remember from the Index Astrates that Magnus was taught by the Sorcerers and eventually he surpassed all his previous masters, them becoming his students.

If you mean he can't be a marine (::EDIT:: which re-looking at your original post you did, sorry about that! Blame it on the fact I'm learning SQL right now), then remember how in the case of ever Primarch their best human followers (Luther and the Ravenwing being prime examples here, though there are more examples in those Primarchs whose homeworlds weren't destroyed/are known) were turned into marines. Thus it is entirely possible and not a bit unreasonable. You bring up a good point that he might simply be someone heavily mutated by the swearing off of souls, so I'd have to look into this a wee bit more, albeit if I remember correctly the person who fought the Harlequin was dressed like a Space Marine at the very least. That and who knows what effect the Rubric of Ahriman would have on the mutated, yet non-marine followers of the Thousand Sons

That said, marines live far longer than 400-500 years, I believe that, that's their life expectancy though (remember life expectancy and life span are two very different things). Dante, a current marine (and therefore his geneseed is horribly watered down from its genominc strands being divided in half between the progenoid glands) is 1,200+ years and still going strong if I remember correctly. As for how long they can ultimately live... nobody knows seeing as how they tend to get killed off in combat relatively quickly. The ability of the warp to allow people to enter stasis, move backwards/forwards through time, and the like doesn't exactly help this process either, making it impossible to use Chaos Marines as a base point (not even ones like the Alpha Legion and Night Lords who stayed out of the warp, seeing as how both are reported to use warp-magicks and the like, which could have all sorts of strange effects). There's also the other question of if rejuvenant treatments would work on Marines. The 3 of the 4 original Inquisitor (Moriana being a special case) lived for around 3 or 4 thousand years without ever resorting to warp sorcery. Enough said.

The connection between Adranti, Spectoris and Woe intrigues me. Maybe those worlds are engineered to resent the presence of any non-Adranti (hence: Imperials) on their surface.

The Baron said:

Three to five centuries is the stated average lifespan of a Space Marine. Commander Dante is a poor example of Space Marine lifespan, as he's noted as being an example of exceptional longevity in a Chapter noted for its unusually long-lived Marines.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Forgive me for disagree with you N0-1, but I believe that marines can live longer than that, seeing as how most Chapter Masters are approach a millennia of age and, as stated before, most marines get killed off before/during/after hitting the big 5-0-0. I remember there being something in Space Marine (the Ian Watson novel) about honorable euthenasia (as opposed to honorable discharge), though it was never specified exactly how old you had to be to earn it... I will look that up later.

The Laughing God said:

Very interesting, they're not the Adranti, but epically-large guardian beasts... reminds me of the Maiden Worlds and their capacity to come alive and actively attack an invading force, except not on so much of a grand scale (i.e. On both of said planet it's the flora and fauna that resist invaders as opposed to the very ground).

It kind of makes you wonder how many "safe" worlds there really are in the Calaxian Sector. If you think about it, there are the sub-sectors/planets that have been touched by the Tyrant Star (such as Dusk, which was formerly St. Astrid's Fall, Sinophia Magna, Zillerman's World, etc.), the planets that have been corrupted by the Adranti (Woe, Spectoris, and possibly others), the entire Hazaroth Abyss is under attack by the Slaught Empire, the eastern edge is close enough to the Eye of Terror that I'm surprised no traitor legionnaires have arrived on the scene with the Assault upon the Cadian Gate and all, and the western area has had the Tyrant Star mow through it/is right next to the Halo Zone (oh yes, and if you notice the Fedrid beast is in reality a Lictor, meaning that a Tyranid Hive Fleet is on the verge of hitting that area with all its horror).

Kind of makes you wonder if Tattered Fates is going to be the metaphorical straw that breaks the camel's back in some way.

little off topic

The Baron said:

i dont agree with this, yes the data fragment detailing the purging of the Tanis system, in which St Astrid's is a moon, was found on dusk,

but by the star map Dusk is in the malfian sub sector, St Astrid's is almost on the other side in hazeroth

so the question there is how did a lander craft(designation and origin unknown) get across the sector?

You're right Malkith! And apparently better at reading Star Maps than I am, I didn't see that thing at all... well spotted!

Time to load up the big, big map of the Sector and see how this adjusts my findings (the shape of the appearance of the Tyrant Star I believe hints at a pattern and what have you that's centered around Scintilla, though Scintilla lies directly in the center of the sector so that should be no surprise). You've got to kind of wonder though if perhaps Dusk was hit by the Tyrant Star at some point in history. It does bear all of the signs.

Interestingly enough, St. Astrid's Fall's moon is named Sekhmet ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekhmet ), which certainly bears a resemblance to Tyrant Star's name's deity and what have you.

By the way, for those interest, the Adrantus (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrantus ). A group of people who took the works of a single man that studied all manner of biological things and other scientific pursuits, and wrote commentary on it. If this is FFG's inspiration, the question now becomes who their Scholar-Savior/Saint is...

::EDIT::

Interestingly enough, if Dusk is added to the map, then we have every single subsector except the Marakayn Marches hit by the Tyrant star. More interestingly, if you look at the *known* areas the Tyrant Star has hit (i.e. Those on the timeline.pdf), then you'll find that it definitely has a triangular pattern to its movements and the like, all of which circles around the Adrantis Nebula. What does that mean? Your guess is as good as mine, but begin wild speculation anyway lol.

The Baron said:

It should be remembered that the background has moved on quite a bit since the old Ian Watson novels, and thus their validity is more a matter of personal preference than anything else. Though I can't find a direct source online at the moment, I've seen it pointed out a number of times in official sources (including possibly the old Codex: Angels of Death, which remains one of the best sources of Blood Angels and Dark Angels background) that the Blood Angels are particularly long-lived even by Space Marine standards, and while Chapter Masters tend to endure longer than most of their brethren (not all - consider that Logan Grimnar is not the oldest living Space Wolf - Ulrik the Slayer is, having been the Wolf Priest who recruited Grimnar in the first place), that's likely as much because greater resources are put towards their continued survival as because of some ephemeral pseudo-immortality.

Ah, found it...

From the official Codex: Blood Angels armylist that was published in White Dwarf in June and July 2007, and available for download at the GW website here :

"Physically, the Blood Angels are among the longest lived of all Space Marines. One of the peculiarities of the Flaw is that it vastly increases the lifespan of those who survive. Thus, it is not uncommon for Blood Angels to live for a thousand years. Indeed, the current Commander of the Chapter, Dante, was born nearly 1,100 years ago. These vastly extended lifespans allow the Blood Angels to perfect their techniques in art as well as in war."

The Baron said:

Imperial Governors and Inquisitors and all kind of bigwigs also live much longer than regular Imperials. Rejuvenat treatments and all kinds of healing available tend to elongate lifespan.

Also, older fluff mentions old Marines who have outilved their usefullness on battlefield being moved to Chapter Staff to still serve as advisors, sages and teachers. Much more sensible than the current "Every Marine dies heroically and senselessly on top of a mound made of enemy's corpses" stuff.

The Baron said:

what do you mean? The deity of the Star?? Or of the name Komus?

The Baron said:

Well it is almost too easy to be true so I don't think it is but I'll say it anyway .. the Faceless One?

Aye, Komus ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komus ).

The Faceless One their patron saint? If it wasn't for the fact that they're pre-Imperium...

Maybe a Clue: On the Macharian Crusade, the Imperial forces reached a planet of human hyper advanced. The have wonderful technologies and the Imperial couldn`t defeat it. They redirected a comet to wipe out. The name of the planet was: Adrantis Five

CodenameXXIII said:

Possibly-interesting fact: the original version of the Calixis Sector, long before the book was released, was placed within Segmentum Pacificus, and was part of a region conquered during the Macharian Crusade. While many of the surface details (such as about 75% of the names of places and NPCs) changed significantly, traces of that original Calixis Sector still linger...

In my game, I like to really highlight the evil of human nature most apparent in the Imperium's leadership. So when I read about the Adranti, I looked at all that was presented to us through the hateful, mistrusting eye's of the faithful.

My main inspiration was the Advent from the PC game Sins of a Solar Empire. The situation in the game is almost directly parallel to what happened in the Calixas Sector. Basically the Trader Coalition was formed following a series of terrible wars and the subsequent dark age that followed. Their goal was to unite humanity under the mutual prosperity only interstellar free trade could create. Successful in their endeavors, what little resistance they did encounter was destroyed by TC's advanced marketing and flexible mandate. However, when they came to a small desert world orbiting a lonely red dwarf. What they found disgusted them. The inhabitants of that world had thrown aside their humanity. Using gene engineering, chemical therapy, and deviant cranial implants they achieved a group consensus. They had achieved universal peace. Such a thing would have no place in the newly minted Trade Order. They had to be expelled, and so they where. Forcibly evacuated from their world, there was no resistance. The spirit of these people, though, would be forever marred by this injustice. Thus there was wrath.

As you can see, it often the Imperium's own intolerance that creates their enemies. In SoaSE, the advent returned to TO to wage war and force their consensus on the rest of humanity. A similar situation might occure with the Adranti in the Calixas Sector. They might use memitics and subtle psychic domination to influence entire planetary populations to join the Unity. They might even have support among those Inquisitors that see psykers as the future.

My personal goal though is show my player's what the Emperor's future looks like in the Adranti. This conflict of faith would be delicious. Who is the really the heretic? Do I truly follow the Emperor's word or am I merely the pawn of more mortal men and women?

The Baron said:

Perhaps, but Grand Archivist Etibulus Mortanr, Archmagos Lexicanus, Keeper of the Vault Dissembling tells us in his transmission to Caidin at the end of PtU that "...teachers Magnus had many, surpass them all save one, did the Cyclops: Eloeholth Palidius, Silversmiht of Prospero, sweeping his song..."

I find it unlikely that the unsurpassed teacher would have become a space marine. However I agree with the earlier poster who suggested that Ahriman is likely to be well informed about him. Our group began formenting plans to travel to the Planet of Sorcerers inside the Eye of Terror to chat with him. We have yet to come up with a way to do so unlikely to result in our death. Thus stalls our plan.

I'm fairly sure that most of the printed knowledge has been summarised. I can't really add to this discussion, other than to suggest how the Adranti are used in my own game.

I envisage an empire created by Eloeholth whom I decided was the Emperor's son...offspring of his with a mortal woman. Essentially, Eloeholth was the first sensei. Gifted a great portion of his fathers power, he established himself as a mighty seer and craftsman...almost a court wizard to the master of mankind. He took upon himself the burden of training the more mystically inclined Primarchs in the crafts of magic and warp manipulation. He also foresaw Horus' betrayal and fled the boundries of human space with his own people to start afresh somewhere apart from the Imperium. He came to the Calixis sector...a place of ancient dread and aided the Eldar in strengthening the wards which held reality together in the nascent sector...especially against the insidious threat of Komus. Eventually he built a small human empire, enlightened in the ways of the warp, technologically advanced and largely peaceful. In time, Eloeholth approached apotheosis with his father and began to largely retreat from the affairs of his people. They became extremely cosmopolitan, open to alien's living within their empire and being mostly democratic. They were ultimately annhilated during the relentless push of the Angevin Crusade. Only Eloeholth's last piece of great craftsmanship, an actual Dyson Sphere survived, hidden by superior tech and warp craft. In modern times, the Serrated Query is the Adranti guerilla army, trying to bring Calixis down by acts of terror and conspiracy. The remaining Adranti people have become perhaps corrupt, now entertaining alliances with the Dark Eldar (to whom they grant their prisoners). The Adranti Senate appeals for guidance from Eloeholth who now sleeps seemingly permanently in the reverie of Apotheosis.

Now feel free to tear this to pieces (in a canonical sense). I don't think there's anything too glaring...maybe there's something here that can add to theories regarding the Adranti? And yes, I like the Sensei. No ragging on them.

I have just a few more questions to add:

1.Is there any information on the original location pf Prospero?

2. Why should the SQ not tolerate Warp-worshipers in their mids when Eloeholth himself has dedicated his soul to the warp ?

3.And even if Eloeholth was transformed in a SM, would a spell from a pupil (arimarn) of Magnus effect him ?

4.Do you think its possible that the Tyrant Star is kinda last revenge from the Adranti and/or Eloeholth ?

5. Do Eloeholth title's doesn't sound a bit Eldar-ish ? Which leads for me to the question:

5a. Did Magnus and his legion had contact with Xenos for knowledges sake ?