greetings to all. the 4 story arch long campaign I am running is gonna be using the tyrant star a lot. so I am curious to what theories people have come up with. My own theory is incredibly longwinded and I probably have been over-thinking it so if you spot any major holes in the logic let me know.

My idea is that the tyrant star is one of a few phenomena found across the halo stars and the koronus expanse. If you look at the processional of the damned and concanid you can spot quite a few similarities. Also in the short story Nightfall in "heroes of the space marines" one of the main elements is "the black sun" that drives the planet of sarastus into madness and decay. Anyway, the tyrant star is a gestalt form of an alien species that sought to find a way to survive the harvests of the necrontyr and the enslaver plague that swept across the galaxy millions of years ago. Using both the warp and technology, they collected their psychic presences and became a new entity that exists neither in the material universe or the warp. I call them the Archaona. This alien race had left clues as to how other races could do the same when genocide threatens them. The halo devices along with granting immortality also show visions of alien vistas and other things so I decided that the halo devices have formulas, schematics and other things inside them that can show the process to create Archaona. Looking at the Yu'vath, I theorize that they are another race that found out how to transform their race into an Archaona to escape destruction oduring the Angevin crusade. Anyway there is my theory and it makes sense to me anyway.

Any other theories?

I've mused over some vague ideas of making it an eldar craftworld that flew a little too close something it shouldn't have and ended up full of a few billion possessed eldar, wraithbone circuits to the point its a real mess of psychic energy. Probably has a small war raging through it between the big-4 and maybe some of the endemic Calixis daemonic entities fighting over souls for fun and profit.

I've always seen it as being akin to Ramsey Campbell's Ghroth , a terrible harbinger drifting through the Warp singing a soul-rending song of change and corruption, drawn to the stars in realspace and enfolding them in its dark embrace for a time - feeding while its emanations produce chaos and madness on the worlds which fall beneath its shadow, leaving ruin in its wake as it fades back into the Immaterium.

For me, its the collective emanations of each of the Four Powers given form through some unholy union - Blood, Desire, Change and Decay, set loose in the Warp - still young when measured in the lifetimes of stars, but growing...

I like your theories, and I've heard a few that make connections with the C'tan that seem to make the most sense. If I use one it will probably be one of those. I've done a lot of research into the Tyrant Star, trying to put together the fragments of clues we've been given. And this is a thread that I hope leads to more theories and answers. I just had an idea pop into my head just now after browsing through the old "Realms of Chaos" books. I was reading up on the eye of terror, which is, in galactic terms, right next door. The eye of terror contains worlds so utterly strange and twisted by the warp. Some would radiate pure hatred (perfect for khorne worshippers) Some would be made entirely of flesh. Now I figure many of these planets have to have stars equally as strange. Maybe a black star...which radiates pure madness. Some how it has migrated spacially into the Calixis Sector but retains its warp instability which is why it only appears in reality from time to time....hmmm....

Maybe its all of these things and none of them at the same time. Gotta love The Warp....

One of my favorite theories is that it is the 'embryonic' form of the next - soon to be born - Chaos god.

Another is that it is the psychic 'waste-disposal system' of the Emperor's consciousness in the warp. It's how his consciousness purges all of the corruption and insanity of being aware of, and channeling through the warp for 10 thousand years. And yes, that would make it the Emprah's psychic A-hole.

Sister Cat said:

I had a somewhat similar idea, but instead of an embryonic Chaos god I've treated it as a primordial Chaos god that the original three conspired to imprison within the Materium because it was TOO destructive and actually posed a threat to all life in the universe (not a good thing for entities that feed off the emotions of sentient beings).

Mithras said:

You might be getting too close ;-)

As for my Tyrant Star, I've played with the idea of it being a ghost solar system. In sci-fi, ghost planets has been done, so, seeing as how this is 40k, it's gotta take things to the next level and have a ghost solar system! However, that didn't feel quite right to me so I abandoned it. What exactly it is, I haven't yet decided and most likely will not. I think I, even in my game, prefer the mystery to the answer. However, I have narrowed down what it could be, or at least the air and feel I want from it, most of which isn't really based on anything concrete that has been set down by FFG. It's all just personal preferences and what has evolved in my game.

First, it is most definitely warpy and tied to the avatar of madness, The King in Rags and Tatters. This is primarily due to the first couplet of the poem by Robert W Chambers which opens his book of short stories, the King in Yellow (which latter inspired Lovecraft and friends which latter inspired a whole gaggle of game writters). The second stanza:

Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies,
But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa.

This was influenced a bit more by John Tynes' treatment of The King in Yellow and Hestar in Delta Green: Countdown. I took his vision of Carcossa which was strongly influenced by Chambers and ran with it. I ended up with, in my Calixis sector, the King in Rags and Tatters and his Radiant Court sitting at the center of the mist shrouded and nightmarish dream-like haunted city of Carcossa which, in turn, sits beneath a deathly white sky dotted through with black stars in which a terrible black sun has perpetually just set. This fact is instinctively known by any who dream, read, or have a vision of Carcossa as well as an incredible fear and dread of it inevitably rising again and ending the forever night that Carcossa exists in. During a visitation of the Tyrant Star, it doesn't so much appear in that star system as that star system, planet, town, or just a single individual starts to go to it. There's a slight breakdown of reality, place, and distance, and for a short while, a location is superimposed with Carcossa becoming that lost and damned place. The sky will bleach white and the sun will burn with the darkest black. The streets will shift and change, the buildings becoming that of the lost city, and at the center of it all, on the worst appearances, sits the King in Rags and Tatters, the Final King, harbinger of madness, ender of empires.

The Dispayres (DH pg 325) are also linked to this baleful harbinger of planetary madness and death. They tend to begin showing up before the star it self appears. It most definitely dose not always show up when they show up but they always show up before it appears. Likewise, hapless fools who look upon it's light have, in many cases, been twisted and turned into dispayres themselves.

The Umbra (from xenology) are likewise linked to the Tyrant Star and have been known to congregate in systems where it has, is, or will appear. This has led many a strange conspirator In the Know to collect this strange creatures believing them to be shards of the Tyrant Star, that which still lingers. The Umbra's controll over shadow as well as their form of black orbs only fules this suspision and belief (whether true or not, I have yet to decide) that they can summon it forth with the assistance of the Umbra

It is ancient (by Imperial standards) and its light was captured and used by the Yu'Vath in the creation of their Star Forts and in their weaponry. They, likewise, worshiped it as a god and were capable of sacrificing planets to it in worship. Certain terrible and heretical text dealing with the Yu'Vath's Bail Childer also draw parallels between one of their most powerful sorcerer-kings and the King in Rags and Tatters though I've never made a definite connection nor identified exactly who/what the KiRaT is leaving it open for the KiRaT to be an ascended sorcerer of the Yu'Vath, the harbinger of their doom, a god they asspired to, a prisoner or victem of their empire, or some mixture of those. Likewise, during their war with the Sloutgh (not cannon, but in my Calaxis sector, the two empires came to blows long before Solomon stumbled upon the cursed tract of space that would be the Calixis sector), they used the Tyrant Star to forever lock a key Slougth planet away, bathing it in the star's black light and sealing it in the warp denying the Slougth, who could not even comprehend the existence of the Warp, their most terrible of weapons insuring Yu'vathian victory in the war. The Sloutgh are still trying to get their sacred planet and terrible undefined and unnamed weapon back through the use of humans.

While it's all a bit nebulous and a touch scattered, that's what the Tyrant Star has been, so far, in my game, though I do hope it can inspire some ideas for other's versions of the star. As for the hard and definable truth of it, I don't think I will ever come up with an answer for that. No one in the setting will ever figure it out and if they did, I don't think it will change much. I will simply continue defining it and using it by the rules that I've established for it to date. It will always be the Great MacGuffin and stage backing but never a main character in the stories I run. It seems to suit the star best and anything more seems to take away from it more then adding to it.

SPOILER ALERT!

And what about the connection between the Tyrant Star and Erasmus Haarlock? Is the dark traveller the herald of the black star?

The Laughing God said:

SPOILERS AND ALL!!!!!!!!

Cannon-wise, I'm fairly certain he is. From the other threads, it's apparent that he'll summon forth the Tyrant Star if he returns at the end of DS. I might have that wrong as I don't have the book, but that seems to be gist of most of the postings on the matter. Erasmus being the Dark Traveler and being it's herald really doesn't require it to be of any specific origin, though. It could still be just about anything, as long as it's something he could summon up through his crazy machines and break time with, or some such.

Atheosis said:

Nice.

So it's appearances, then, could be the primordial attempting to break free of its prison, or more likely - to my mind - weaknesses in the prison itself, which finally give way to the primordial's constant attempts to break free. Hmmm ... food for thought.

Sister Cat said:

Yeah my thoughts were that the bonds were slowly beginning to breakdown. One particular idea I had was this god would actually feed off the psychic energy of death itself, the agony/ecstasy/fear cocktail of the moment of life's termination. In other words a kind of Chaos God of Death. The fact that death is ever more and more widespread througout the galaxy could possibly be the reason the bonds are weakening. Obviously such an entity would pose a significant threat to all the Chaos Powers, and as far as I can reason would have no sense of self-preservation, unlike its siblings, for an entity born from the psychic energy of death would ultimately seek it's own destruction as well. Just some ideas I've had anyway...

Atheosis said:

Cool. So, if you will excuse the D&D analogy, a 40K version of Tharizdun. A being so terrible and destructive/ self -destructive that even the other Ruinous Powers can't allow it to act freely, but lacking the power to kill it outright, they instead lock it away in some secret extra-dimensional prison.

That might explain why its appearances, at least in some sources, are supposed to herald/prophesy the doom of the galaxy.

Sister Cat said:

I suppose that's a fair analogy. I had to look up Tharizdun though as I never played in the Greyhawk setting. And yes that's precisely why the Tyrant Star is connected with prophesies of doom, at least under this pretense.

Graver said:

That's not strictly true. The Tyrant Star does play a part in Erasmus' journey though.

InfinityDoctor said:

Possible SPOILER; be forewarned:

I seem to recall a blurb somewhere in Dead Stars about the last vestiges Erasmus's humanity and/or soul being scoured away when, or just prior to, his passage into/through Komus. It's possible the Dark Traveler is not really Erasmus, but a warp entity which needed a host to pass beyond its prison and bring Komus fully into the material world so that the end could begin.

Perhaps the whole of the universe, both material and immaterial, is the being's prison and the only way for it to be free is to destroy everything.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

SPOILER STOP READING!! SPOILER STOP READING!!

Still here?

"..that's where he went and that's where he reckons to return from. Only what'll walk back wearing his face, not even I knows."

If you read "The Final Truth" sidebar on p.7 and "Shadow Play" on p.51 though, things will be a little clearer. What comes back is indeed no longer quite Erasmus Haarlock, but its not the Tyrant Star either.

In the campaign that I'm running I envisioned the Tyrant Star as a monsterously huge and tainted Space Hulk with thousands of vessels stuck together in the Warp and Warmaster Horus' battle barge The Vengeful Spirit in the middle, where its core should be.

After the loyalists evacuated it, it was sucked into the massive Warp Storm that echoed the Chaos Gods' dissapointment and anger in the real universe, and for millenia appearing at random places throughout the Imperium, and every so often in the Calixis Sector. The massive residual psychic forces lingering from the battle between the Emperor and Horus bring madness and discord to whatever star system it briefly appears in, before it drifts back into the Warp.

Warmaster_Horus said:

Oh that Horus, everything has to be about him doesn't it... been like than ever since he was a kid...

Actually, one theory we've all forgotten (and I only remembered cos I happened to be skimming through "Purge The Unclean") is that the Star may indeed have its roots in the Horus Heresy. It may in fact be an artifact of Eloeholth The Silversmith, the so-called "Star Forger" of Prospero, who tutored Magnus The Red. Check out the communique between Archmagos Mortarn and Lord Caidin in the appendices....

InfinityDoctor said:

Eloeholth. Now why does that name sound familiar? .........

Wait. Does this 'Silversmith' have any other titles or alias'? There is something tickling the back of my mind, but I can't seem to put a name to it. And the only copy of PtU I have access to is a friend's. Dang! And the other reference I'm thinking of is also out of PtU, IIRC.

Sister Cat said:

It is quite possible that the Tyrant Star was wrought by the Silversmith to take revenge on the Empire for the destruction of Prospero. And maybe Haarlock found a way not to control the Tyrant Star, but maybe 'just' to predict its movements or attract it, thereby becoming its Herald!

The Laughing God said:

Wait. Wasn't Eloeholth the true "secret" name of the Faceless One, the ultimate leader of the Serrated Query? The one that just hearing his name spoken would cause men to go mad? I'm almost certain that is the same name. Whoa ... and he tutored Magnus in sorcery?!? Yikes!

Sister Cat said:

Wait. Wasn't Eloeholth the true "secret" name of the Faceless One, the ultimate leader of the Serrated Query? The one that just hearing his name spoken would cause men to go mad? I'm almost certain that is the same name. Whoa ... and he tutored Magnus in sorcery?!? Yikes!

Actually, hearing his name spoken isn't the problem - learning of it is the difficult part. So carefully has Eloeholth Pallidus wrought the shroud of secrecy around his identity that few can retain the knowledge if it is merely told... so an Inquisitor seeking the truth, after collecting a hundred Eldar soulstones in payment, is granted the information in the form of a performance by a troupe of Harlequins. The masque is forever burned into his memory, and he spends his later years locked in a sound-proof cell attended by specially-deafened servitors, utterly insane and humming that alien tune incessantly.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Thanks for the clarification, N0-1. But the "Yikes!" still stands. I mean, he tutored Magnus the Red?!?

And by the end of PtU, we had really annoyed the Serrated Query. It seems we only had an inkling of how bad our lives were about to become.