The Laughing God said:

As far as what Haarlock is doing in the Tyrant Star (as that does seem to be what had happened to him, he was in the star, whatever that means) I thought the implication was that he was waiting for something. Something in the distant future could bring about his master plan (or more likely some perverted form of it) but even with Imperial medical technology he would not live long enough (and he wanted to avoid some of the other possibilities like Halo Devices... probably he knows what they do to people) so by staying "within" the Tyrant Star he has some way of passing by the centuries until whatever it is he is after becomes available.

As far as Immediate consequences of the release of Haarlock goes: I would say none. Part of the point of both results is that the consequences are a long distance in the future (the events seen while wandering through the Tesseract). And seeing as the default position is probably to prevent his return 9due to the build up the series presenting him as an enemy) you are probably not wanting them to be further discouraged from doing so. As far as The Inquisition is concerned: How are they to know? If the acolytes report failure then yes, maybe punishment ensues, but they are the only ones there to tell them what happens, and I doubt Haarlock immediately announces his return to the Calixisis Sector. He almost certainly disappears for a while to build up his strength and put his long established plans into action. At that point he will return as the big threat, but probably not for years, if not decades, of in game time.

borithan said:

Yes, it must be this shadowecho that drives Haarlocks insane time-manipulating devices. I also still think that the Tyrant Star that shows up during the Revel of Darkness in TF is not the real thing but merely a manifestation that should be classified as shadowecho of the real Komus. The power of the Steel Clock calls this forth.

borithan said:

I think his return would be a big bang. Don't forget he will summon old servants, sects, domainstroops to his cause. Even his ship returns! And he quite probably is able to predict, summoncontrol the Tyrant Star. I think the Calixis Sector will be reeling from the impact of Haarlock's return pretty quickly. If only for the purposes of dramatic narrative

From the Rogue Trader Koronus Expanse Chronicles:

The Legend of Kobras Aquairre
* Bearer of a Greater Warrant of Trade and also a Lord Inquisitor. Both greatly respected and greatly feared.
* Passed through Maw in 101.M41, never to return. Left a trail of dead and ravaged worlds, and his reports (believed to be only partial) form the basis for modern knowledge of the Expanse.
* Declared dead by the officials of Port Wander in 151.M41 after a decade with no reports received. Rumors claim his ships destroyed with all hands by a fleet of pale-hulled xenos ships, others that he was assassinated by members of his own crew.
* The frigate Elementis Vulpa appears in Port Wander in 201.M41, sole witness to Aquairre's fleet vanishing into the Rifts of Hecaton. Rumors spread of the dead suns and lifeless darkness of the Rifts, and that Aquairre went to his death to stop a terrible threat to all humankind.

Dead sunds? Lifeless darkness? Threat to all humankind? Sounds like Haarlock!

Just finished reading this whole monster-thread, and my head is spinning with the impact of forbidden knowledge.

Many great ideas here, but I hava started my campaign setting up The Faceless one and the Serrated Query as the baddies pulling the strings. Any advice or ideas to tie them into this whole Haarlock mess?

Would Eloeholth be opposed to Haarlocks return, or all for it? I saw arguments for both sides in this thread, but would like to see them discussed more.

Darth Smeg said:

In my campaign Eloeholth is a Thousand Son sorceror (maybe even one of the Magister Templi), who fled Prospero shortly before (or during its fall). He has a highly sophisticated strike cruiser and a few pre-Heresy Marines at his disposal. My PCs will encounter one such Marine wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/c/c6/Pre_Heresy_Thousand_Sons_Marine.jpg during Baron Hopes, whose mission is to check whether Assod Morirr really defied him and in case to take care of the tome from Shades of Twilight. I also plan to include Eloeholth himself and a few (2-3 Marines) as a competing group in Dead Stars. In my game he is opposed to Haarlock as he knows that his reappearance will bring death and destruction (as well as chaos) and because he knows that Haarlock is a power that maybe surpasses his own and he does not want to take the risk having a bigger fish in the pond...

Darth Smeg said:

Excellent idea! Eloeholth the Faceless' goal is most likely elimating psykers, future-seers and diviners to prevent them from diving his plans with the sector. Haarlock is manipulating time to create a new future too. They would most likely be rivals, I think. There's only room for one übervillain

Maybe one is a pawn in the games of the others. But Haarlock's goal is after all is said and done very understandable and very human. I doubt if a Chaos sorceror has the same motivations ...

The Laughing God said:

Just to clarify what I said previously, in my view/campaign Eloeholth is not a Chaos Sorceror. He is indeed a sorceror, but he is not dedicated to Chaos and kind of even hates the Chaos Powers (especially Tzeentch for what he did to Magnus and his legion). He is more like the Thousand Sons were before the Fall and wants to use the warp (and even maybe even unpersonified chaos in a way) for his own and maybe even mankinds benefit. Perhaps a little like the Phaenonites, but less focussed on tech; and a bit like the Logicians, but less xenophobic.

This just dawned on me ... in Tattered Fate there is this lethal brothel mistress fitted with a Halo device called the Spider Bride ...

This must refer to Haarlock, who is sometimes called 'that old spider' and the spider features prominently in his heraldry. I don't think she was his betrothed in any literal sense, but after receiving the Halo artefact as a dowry she still become the bride of the spider ... Erasmus Haarlock.

I'm not really sure I agree. The Haarlock trilogy has quite a few of these slightly odd designations for servants of the Haarlocks.

The Gilded Widow...whom judging by her own description of herself was once a person...possibly a Haarlock even.

The Widower...whatever you decide it actually is, its definitely quite unique.

The Spider Bride...a slowly mutating Halo Device implantee.

I'm sure there's one or two similar references that I'm probably forgetting about it, and the only thing they seem to have in common is that they are connected to/serve the Haarlocks and their slightly odd naming scheme. If you want to place that level of significance on the names, you could go with something like this:

The Gilded Widow...the Daughter of Haarlock. Unable to save her or preserve her in his attempts to travel to the past, he trapped her soul in the automata of the Widow. The mysterious quote from the WIdow about who she is could easily be twisted to bear this out...

The Spider Bride...unable to save his wife, Haarlock did however manage to link a Halo Device to her. She still died, but the device ressurrected her, changing her in the process and beginning the inevitable march of change as all such devices do. Although she might physically partly be his wife, Haarlock quickly realized that she was forever altered and not truly his love any longer. Unable to destroy her, he hid her away on Xicarph.

The Widower...is of course Erasmus himself. Or one version of himself. One in which time travel has so fractured his identity and physical form that only by permanently binding the Widower to the Steel Clock could Erasmus anchor his temporal echo to study it. Perhaps a product of the method of time travel used by Erasmus at the time, or perhaps truly a temporal echo that travelled back with him from his early attempts at changing the past. Tortured and warped beyond any real sentience, the Widower is now little more then an idiot savant creation with brief flashes of genius, or malicious insight as the Haarlock briefly surfaces only to quickly submerge back into the insanity of temporal destabilization.

I'm not saying the Spider Bride is or was Haarlock's beloved wife. I am sure she is not, cause Erasmus would surely not taint her with a Halo device. But in a metaphorical sense she is. Kinda like 'bride of Satan', someone bound to him, or betrothed in a dark manner.

Like your suggestions though

The Gilded Widow hints herself she is Haarlock's daughter, but I still think it makes little sense. She should have been called the Gilded Daughter or Gilded Child then. The Widower was the one who actually makes widows. In Dead Stars there is another signature Haarlock clockwork construct called the Iron Daughter. So either there is something hidden here which we have failed to unearth, in these names, or it's just the recycling of the same themes in a sloppy manner. I hope it's the first.

"So either there is something hidden here which we have failed to unearth, in these names, or it's just the recycling of the same themes in a sloppy manner. I hope it's the first. "

And I suspect its the latter =).

That said, I disagree with you about what lengths Erasmus is willing to go to. Don't get me wrong, optimally he wants to save his wife and daughter, preferably by never allowing them to come to harm.

Dead Stars reveals the fact that he has successfully travelled back in his earlier experiments, but was unable to exert any real or permanent change. Imagine the maddening frustration of such colossal effort, only to have your hopes shattered time after time. This is an angle I intend to play up in my own game to really bring home how far out Erasmus is. Eventually it drove him so far over the edge, that he made a bargain with a great warp power (the hag), for the information he needed to travel to the greatest enigma and possibly the greatest evil currently plagueing the sector.

So, compared to that, I think trying to trap his daughter's soul in a machine, or "infect" his wife with a Halo Device are easily something that Erasmus could do...after so many tries at gaining the outcome he wants, some of his attempts must be purely in the realm of "can I make ANY change at all?!?".

I suppose that's also where a GM really has to decide how much or how little the time travel aspect and resultant paradoxes come into play, and exactly which theory of time travel you ascribe to or consider valid.

For example, Dead Stars seems to indicate that the past is immutable. But how broad is that immutability? We know Erasmus could not save his wife and daughter...so some sort of Fate agency ensures that some events come to pass. But was Erasmus able to make minor changes? Did he somehow contrive to get his wife to wear a grey dress instead of black? Is such a minor change irrelevant to the vast Universe?

If the answer is no, that even the smallest detail is set in stone...this makes the Dead Stars machinery little more then a super sophisticated temporal camera. Able to recall picture perfect images of past events. Incredibly useful and amazing in its consequences for humanity...but ultimately useless to Haarlock in his quest.

In my campaign, I'm taking a different approach to time travel. Rather then a hard science or having things sharply divided into the possible and the impossible, I'm going to decide that in the WH40K universe the concept of Fate actually exists. I find that to be more in keeping with the universe. If the concept of Fate exists, then such a force generally ensures that major events (even those with no significance to man or the imperium...) must happen. It doesn't care about the details, but the general events and their impact on the future time lines must be preserved.

It also means that Erasmus' work with the Blind Tesseract established the existence of Fate (he could have just asked a Diviner =P), and also that Fate was not utterly immutable. He gained insight into the very function of Fate...something the aforementioned Diviner would probably kill for. Thus he entered the next phase: IE consulting with a great power of the Warp (namely the Hag) to find out how Fate could be cheated...to find out if such a thing was even possible.

Now, whatever you decide the Black Sun to truly be (Forgotten Apocalypse...storage chamber of Something Rilly Awfully Bad...whatever), the Hag might just know that whatever Komus is...it stands outside Fate and time...thus making it just what Erasmus, in his insane desperation, thinks he needs. Thus he plans his journey to the Tyrant Star in an attempt to discover what he needs.

Just some thoughts and plot lines I'm tossing around. I still haven't decided exactly what the Tyrant Star is but I'm leaning towards Necrons of some kind, mostly because I'd like to springboard the campaign into RT and possibly the Death Watch setting and this seems like a great meta-plot for that...

About what Komus is .. it's definitely something that deals with the manipulation of time.

I reread the passages on the Yu'Vath in the Rogue Trader core rulebook, and found several references to 'stars murdered cold', dead stars, extinguished stars. Dead Stars is not just the title of the third installment in the trilogy of Haarlock, it's also being mentioned several times by NPCs along the lines of 'the dead stars circling at our will'. When Solomon Haarlock first charted the Calyx Expanse he came across alien civilizations, and it's well known large swathes of the Sector had to be wrested from the claws of the Yu'vath.

So here's me thinking that Komus might be related to the Yu'vath as well. Maybe a Yu'vath entity, refuge, or weapon, discovered by the Haarlocks.

I wish there was more known about the Yu'vath!

Yeah I'm really looking forward to the RT Xenos supplement for that reason as well. Clearly the Yu'vath are not as dead as the Imperium would like and are biding their time somewhere in the Expanse.

But, after some consideration, I think that the Yu'vath information won't give away too much about the Tyrant Star either. Perhaps they worshipped/studied it in an attempt to master its power, and even learned how to call its presence (which could explain how the Haarlock's learned to do it...)...but after all this time I just don't see FFG publishing anything to contradict the "it can be whatever you want it to be" attitude toward the Tyrant Star.

I've been wrong before though...

I wonder if there is an official explanation for the Tyrant Star somewhere in the dark recesses of the FFG office ... they will always maintain the 'make up your own story' approach in official books, I guess, and they will probably have many ideas and possible backgrounds written down, but maybe there is one that they unofficially adopted as the truth behind Komus.

Should be on Wikileaks

I'm sure they have a Story Bible, if only to keep their own continuity.

phantomoftruth said:

I really wonder. Sometimes it feels they just recycle certain themes and nomenclature - such as Gilded Widow, Iron Daughter etc - which seems to sow as much confusion as it does explain the Haarlock 'universe'.

What has been troubling me most about the whole Legacy is the role of Silas Marr. The linkage of this obviously powerful individiual with the Legacy as a whole remains unclear. Just based on the storyline and background available, I'm as much as a loss to understand his motivations or even his final goals as my poor acolytes.

Being a GM who likes to flesh out certain aspects for himself, I came up with a theory and some new aspects to implement into the story myself.

The most important is that Silas Marr is a liar about his own role in the great scheme of the Legacy. He is very old and was already around when Erasmus Haarlock was still a young man. Therefore, I present to you my very own theory about Silas Marr:

Marr, at the time of Haarlock's rising as a strong candidate for the succession to the Haarlock Warrant, was a junior Inquisitor who had sworn allegiance to Lady Inquisitor Cassilda Cognos, who at the time had just founded the Tenebrae Collegium as a secretive order to fight seekers of dark and ancient lore about the Tyrant Star both inside and outside of the Inquisition. The Tenebrae Collegium swiftly set its gaze on the Haarlock family, whose aspiring young member Mathias Haarlock was already known to have succumbed to witchcraft and countless heresies, yet was to a degree protected by the Warrant and lots of influential allies throughot the sector.

The Collegium agreed upon destroying the Haarlock dynasty from within by provoking an internal bloodfeud that already lay dormant within the family because of the rivalries over the succession to the Warrant. Marr, being a master of intrigue even at his comparably young age, advised his colleagues to fan the flames by commanding the assasination of Erasmus Haarlock's wife and daughter while putting the blame on Mathias and Lythea Haarlock, thus turning the young Haarlock against his siblings. The assassination was therefore carried out by an Imperial Temple Assassin, not an agent of Mathias Haarlock.

The trick - much to the Collegium's displeasure - worked out far more effective than plannend. Instead of paralyzing the Haarlock familiy, the blodshed exacted by Erasmus made him mightier than any other Haarlock before. He turned to the dark arts for his revenge and the undoing of the past himself - only to become a monster far worse than the Collegium had ever feared Mathias could become. When Cognos and her allies decided to move against Erasmus, they came by far to late: Erasmus slew Cognos and set out for the Halo Stars.

However, he only learned about Marr's initial part in the events when he gained full knowledge of all things past, present and future in the Blind Tesseract. Marr, on the other hand, sat through the centuries trembling in fear of Haarlock's return, all the while trying to stop the monster he himself helped creating from coming back. Even though this is widely unknown in the Calixian Conclave, some senior members of the Collegium still knwo the truth and have sent out their agents after Marr, who literally must fear his own colleagues as well as the vengeful Rogue Trader.

What do you think of my interpretation of Marr's part in the matter?

I like it!

And if I remember correctly, Silas Marr is part of the Ordo Sicarius, which is the faction dedicated to monitoring the assassin temples. This could explain how he could command the assistance of a temple assassin. Or maybe he joined the Sicarius to keep an eye on the assassins so they will not reveal his secret role in the Haarlock bloodfeud ...

We definitely need a good tie to make Marr important in the Legacy.

I'm still not sure if Marr should be counted among the ranks of the Sicarius (as rumoured) or of the Ordo Chronos (as speculated upon here). Both 'solutions' have their own appeal to me. Membership in the Ordo Chronos would turn Haarlock into a somewhat natural enemy for Marr, while membership in the Ordo Sicarius would certainly mean a better way of ensuring the fulfillment of Marr's plans and schemes and also a higher level of protection against his many enemies inside the Conclave...

My group hasn't started Dead Stars yet, so some revelations are still to be made and might be subject to change. Yet I have already settled for a particular nasty final: Assuming that the acolytes did stop Haarlock on Dusk and prevented him from returning, they will surely visit Silas Marr afterwards. He will of course be thankful to his servants, but will also show signs of resignation and despair. The characters will soon find out why as Marr's loyal assistant who took care of him throughout hte adventures when he was coughing in cramps suddenly transforms into a Callidus Temple Assassin and walks slowly up to the old man, activating her C'tan Phase Sword with the words: "The time granted to you to correct your mistakes has finally run out, Inquisitor Marr. By the authority of your colleagues in the Calixian Conclave of the Emperor's Holy Inquisition I will perform my duty and enforce the verdict of death set upon in 766.M41. Make your peace with the God-Emperor and repent!"

Marr will perish at the hands of the same instrument he used to start it all, leaving the acolytes with hardly anyone to fully understand the importance of their deeds. He will, however, place his rosette in the hands of the most trustworthy acolyte and bid him return his symbol of authority to Lord Caidin, informing him of the last wish of a dying friend.

This is good stuff Avenger!

Marr serving the Ordo Sicarius could be his 'official' posting, while his link to the Ordo Chronos would be the stuff of rumour...

Anyone else read the text fragment on p61 (bottom) of the Daemonhunter's Handbook and felt it pertains to our most beloved of Rogue Traders, i.e. mr Haarlock?

Laughing God,

Have you ever gotten a look at the symbol that is watermarked on the Haarlock legacy books. The gimps I can make out looks like it has a number of symbols corresponding to some of the different forces operating in the Calyxis sector, like the spiral symbol that I think stands for the Slaught. I would love to get a look at it without all of the words and art over it, because it might be a good clue towards what all is interacting with the Haarlock legacy.

Salcor

Not sure I know which symbol you mean?

When you put all the Legacy books next to each other, with Dead Stars in the middle, you get a False Prophet and a Daemon Host hungrily eyeing a Chalice ...

Chalice = Calyx = Calyxis Sector. 'An ancient chalice of wickedness' as Solomon Haarlock said ...

If you look at page 11 and 15 of Tatter fates, you see the watermarked symbol in the background. It symbol with an outer circle, and inner circle and at the very center is looks like a sun. Coming out from the sun there are arrowed lines. In the area between the two concentric outer circles between each arrow are 8 symbols. On page 11 clockwise you can see 1 symbol I don't recognize (a square with 2 arrows), the symbol of Tzentch, another symbol I don;t recognize, the symbol of nurgle, and the symbol that I think represent the Slaught (the spiral). Then on page 15 clockwise from the bottom there is a symbol I don't recognize, an second unknown symbol (two triangles laid over each other.) Then the symbol of Khorne, the Slaught Symbol, and then the nurgle symbol (thus we have the entire symbol over 2 pages.) Perhaps it is all the players that are tied into the coming of the Komus, or perhaps the things that will be destroyed by it.

Salcor

*lol*

after all these hours spent studying the Haarlock mystery, I've always failed to notice the watermark symbol

It's very interesting. It makes me think of the apocryphal riddle that is expressed by the Gilded Widow and goes something like this :

at its passing the carrion lords shall be thrown down

the eye shall be snuffed out

and the hungering ones shall be torn from the outer dark

... I kind of expected those factions/entities to be the ones affected by the Herald's return. Would they correlate to the factions expressed in the watermark?