I haven't read any of the Warhammer 40,000 novels or anything. I got my baptism by fire into this world by joining a Dark Heresy campaign. I've been writing up narratives of our gaming sessions, and filling in some blanks in between, as fan fiction on deviantART. What I don't know is what sort of curse words would be used in game. The only one that has been exclaimed by one of the NPCs is "Emperor's Throne!" But I'm sure there's got to be more than that, or the expression would get tired quickly. I'd like to replace some of the modern expletives used by some of our PCs with phrases that would be more in-character. Our Arbitrator is particularly fond of the f-word.

The Battlestar Galactica: "Frak" or "Frakking" has seen a lot of use in campaigns I've been a part of, and I think I've seen it in some black library publications as well.

The thing is that most curses are very bound by the users homeworld. For instance, many of the Guardsmen in Gaunt's Ghosts use the word "Feth" or "Fething" as a curseword, and once an Inquisitor even mistook this word for a euphemism for sex. But the thing is that "Feth" was a treegod from their homeworld's mythology.

So the only common cursewords that people from different homeworlds would have, should probably be about the Emperor or the Golden Throne to some degree (or some of the notable arch-villians in Imperial history like Horus or Abaddon).

But otherwise it should be something commonly used on that characters home world. My best tip is reading up on some info about the particular home world, or invent your own aspects of that world's culture and then invent plausible cursewords from that.

Thrones 'n Bones!

In [to] th' Eye [with subject]!

Haarlock Balls!

Skatt

Skett

There are what I can remember on the top of my head

Emperor's Throne

Emperor's Ballls

Vandire's Arse

Vandire's Teeth

Frag / Fragging

Frig / Frigging

By the Warp

By the Blasted Eye (by Cadians mostly)

**** / Dammit

Horus / Abbadon

**** (and other "Mundane" Ones like the "oh so dreaded F-word")

there excists many more but most of them are either planet-bound to a greater or lesser decree. Also some of those above might be combined differently (Emperor's Arse, Vandire's Balls, Horus' Teeth).

Awesome. I can definitely use these.

For Thrones Sake

Ninker

Nink

Ninking

What on Terra were you thinking?

Go play Calculus or something (said to a techprist in our group)

Coghead (to techpriests)

Coggy

Cogger

Velvetears said:

"Cogfrakker"

Varnias Tybalt said:

Humpin' Cogfrakker?

If you haven't seen it, though if you are playing DH/RT you probably have, the TV show Firefly and corresponding movie Serenity took an interesting approach to profanity. Whenever someone went off, it was in Chinese. Seeing as that foul mouthed Feral World Guardsman that everyone seems to have in their group doesn't speak Low Gothic as his first language the same could be done. Of course, it's great fun when he get's wild eyed and redfaced spouting the foulest profanity he can muster and no one can understand a **** thing he says.

Keck (and its' derivative gerunds and other compounds)

[Name of Saint]'s [body Part] (and of course Emperor's Holy [body Part]) are easy curse formulae.

Another fun one is borrowing curses from Arabian Nights and similar sources (Haroun and the Sea of Stories, for example), as classical arabic has some absolutely wonderful curses, especially when translated.

In the idiom of Firefly/Serenity, the RPG developed for that actually had a glossary of all the chinese used on the show (and in the film), written in a very awkward phonetic style, but it does let you curse "motherless goat of all motherless goats" and "explosive diarrhoea of an elephant" (both of them lines by Wash, iirc).

Velvetears said:

I met a really nice Dutch girl called Nienke in Vietnam the other week. I must admit, I thought of this swear word...

Tetragon Tanebrae said:

Haven't met this word in any W40k book. So there's no ground to refer to this word here

egalor said:

I have, that was why i listed it

But please do not ask me to find it i have over 44 books and 6 omnibuses to look through.

The Psyker in my group always used to refer to the Tech Priest as a half-breed lol.

Tetragon Tanebrae said:

You have, really? Wow, I'll take your word then. It is interesting, though. I always thought that all GW products could be legally marketed to minors. In this regard, I'm not sure how that corresponds to the usage of profane words.

I believe I could sue the hell outta GW, to avenge the poor Dark Reign

egalor said:

The 40k world has been around far longer than GW has been a multi-national PR-concentious company. Some of the old RT-era books from the 80s had loads of themes that is very unsuitable for parents of minors. (In addition to the whole "killing people" thing that seems just fine to hand out to 12 year olds. I've always wondered what sort of parent wants their kids to know more about guns than about having sex.)

I always RP in swedish, but I'll try to describe our general points.

We use a few expressions based on bodily byproducts, and mythological beings and places. These are more or less common in swedish, some of them were in common use a century ago.

We generally try to avoid or convert to emperorbelief anything that is based on christianity or indeed any other RL-religion. Fun fact: there is an ancient swedish curse/expression that translates to "twilight of the gods" or possibly "evening of the gods" often shortened to "twilight". This refers to the apocalypse in the ancient norse/scandinavian mythology when the gods will die and the world restart. It is fascinating that it is still commonly understood after a milennium of christianity.

We generally don't use the derogatories concerning sex or breeding, but that's probably because our players don't feel there is a strong negative value to associated with mixing sex and money, having been conceived or birthed outside of a marriage or not giving in to the heterosexual propaganda.

Genitals are associated mostly with positive situations for our player group, so our we rarely use them to describe unfavourable conditions. They are however common as curses in most Swedes vocabulary.

On a side note: One of our players is a diehard spacewolves fan to the degree that he yells "For Russ!!!" or breaks out howling when his character charges stuff. It might not be quite in character, but he screams the exact same things when doing reenactment viking fighting with metal weapons (and it sort of matches his wild red beard), so we think it's quite allright :-)

egalor said:

Books are excused from most kinds of conventional censorship that television and video games suffer from. Something about books (in general) being considered as more "high cultured" and written words (like newspapers) and so censorship of the written word is sort of frowned upon in many countries even by the censorship agencies for some reason (pretty hypocritical I know, but that's how it is).

That's why authors can often get away with writing about really graphic violence, sex and profanity without getting caught up in too many lawsuits. Although it does happen from time to time, I can't recall any particular case were a fiction writer have lost a lawsuit that was about censorship issues. Mostly they lose lawsuits because they have been found guilty of slandering a real world person or plagiarised someone elses material, not because of written profanity or in-depth descriptions of violence or sex.

One of the most remarkable curses I´ve encountered during DH playing are "cogbitch" (fellow guardsman´s invective towards Churgeon from Edge of Darkness) and "What in the name of the St. Drusus thrice-blessed balls are you going to do with that frakking cooker?" (shocked reaction one combat before two acolytes tried to retrieve their collegues from captivite during technoarcane illusial ball of upspire nobility... with twinlinked plasmagun)

"Frak" and it´s varieties (gak, fragg, ...) are very, very popular.

Mellon said:

You make it sound like eight year olds shouldn't read Chaos Child.

The [religious figure]'s [optional adjective] [body part] pattern turns up in a few places. "Vandire's balls" and "sainted Helena's holy teats" (only usable post Hive Fleet Kraken) have turned up, "Emperor's medula oblongata" is only fit for parody.

Pilfing from other sci-fi or dystopian settings is also a fine tradition, much used throughout 40K. Nadsat or Mega City One slang would both be ripe for pilfing.

Darth Fanboy said:

Read my sentence again, I've Bolded the important part ;-) My experience is that parents are usually very overprotective and underestimating of their kids. I think people (no matter if they are kids or adults) should attempt to read whatever they can lay their hands on. If it is much too advanced in themes, language or storytelling tecniques they will just grow bored and let it be. If the text is just a bit more advanced they will probably develop reading skills from it.

For the record: I'd rather my kids be inspired to swear than to kill. So I find the censoring of foul language pretty unnecessary, if not even hypocritical, in a setting like 40k where war is such a huge theme and so much glorification of violence goes on. Same applies time twenty for sex vs killing.

I like you pattern of curses. I feel like making a table looking a bit like the "roll a name"-table :-)

from france

again just a quick answered because i am still overwelmed by my work. if you can find matrix the secon part just watch what the merovangian said. sometimes just changing language can bring you a lot of curses. and belive french as the merovangian said is especially good for cursing. i will be please to translate them even if some can't be trasnlated just like that.

for examples "se sortir les doigts du cul" (remove your finger from your arse) means do something rather than stay idlle and complain. "avoir le cul borde de nouille" (to have someone arses recover with noodle) meaning a extroardinary stroke of luck like killing a deamon with a swiss army knife. "il a pas inventé l'eau chaude" (he didn't invented hot water) withch mean someone particulary stupide. all this canno't be translated so i f you ask i will try to give you a correct translation and explaining it.

I love so many of these. I now have a veritable arsenal of Imperial curses I can use in my narratives. May the Emperor favor you all for your help.

I have to say that the dedication to in character profanity in these RPing groups is commendable.

When the going gets rough in my group the PC's come out with some decidely 21st century profantity.

Oh [male chicken] being the most widely used......

In Legion I believe Fug was used was a profanity.

One thing that crosses my mind is that many of you noted "Horus" as a curse word. As far as I remember, the fluff text in the books tended to "[CLASSIFY]" every mentioning of the warmaster´s name.

Anyway, cursing in the style of "by [insertSaintName]" seems to be alright. The fluff text for the cleric in the core rules have him cursing "by the Sigilit and the Sigil" or some other line.

I would suggest cursing along the lines of "twice-damned" or "thrice-damned", shortend to "THRICE!" in a pinch (which makes another good substitute for the F-word...at least in English).

One of my groups just got started with "in-game language" and still offends each other with "you [adjective] grox!".

"Emporer forsaken (subject/object)" should go as well for something/someone useless/undersireable.

"You/this (negated virtue) (cursename)" could be good as well, since the society is very religional and accused lack of a virtue could be harming indeed
"You honourless scumbag" "You braveless basterd" "you shameless piece of filth!" "you faithless freethinker!"

In at least some parts of the Imperium, Horus seems to be the Lucifer of Imperial religion, often abstracted as a serpent or a twisted Imperial eagle warped by the Dark Gods. Actual historical infomation is short, but the name still lingers.