In the grim darkness of the far future human society will be saturated by....skulls? The preachers have skulls on their lecterns, robes and bibles. Massive icons of skulls are intertwined in the glorious renderings of the god-emperor. The mechanicus' symbol is a cog and a skull. Flying skulls of beloved servants or famous warriors flit and hover among the masses. I'd venture to guess that everyday people even have skulls imprinted or sculpted on a variety of personal effects from door knobs to silverware. Orks and chaos use the skulls of fallen foes as decorative trophies.

In most other fiction those who adorne themselves with skulls are the bad guys since skulls generally symbolize death. What do you all believe is the significance of the skull in 40k imagery? Death? Inescapable doom? The waning of humanity? Grimdark?

Is it merely a motif or is there a deeper meaning to it all?

Exoviper said:

I guess it´s the emperor, dead, rotting on his throne and all.

The skull is a religious symbol in Imperium and is used predominantly by religious organizations: Ecclesiarchy symbol is skull and the same motif is then copied into Inquisition, Adepta Sororitas and Adeptus Astartes. So maybe it is symbol of Emperor and his ultimate sacrifice?

Its not very much unlike the fact that hundreds of millions of christians in modern earth wear an image of torture/execution-instrument as a symbol of ultimate sacrifice of their messiah.

It's the result of a plot to reduce the number of skulls Khorne can get for his throne

Or the Emperor of Man actually *is* Khorne on his Throne of Skulls.

The skulls in the universe of waehammer 40k are linked with the use of the skulls in the spanish christian religion during the reconquista and the expansion of the spanish Inquisition. Lots if even not all religious place (like cathedral, church and shrines) are decorated with skulls and bones. It was a arsh time with pityless master, a place with no freedom for tyh epeople and a great time of war and fear.... Quite like the universe of W 40k.

Maybe am i wrong, but I don't think so.

The skulls have many symbologies attached to them; the first and most obvious is death: The Emperor demands sacrifice from all his servants, whether in the form of menial labour or actually giving up their lives in His holy crusades. Another one is that they are human skulls, not Eldar or Ork ones, and they are thus emblematic of Humanity as a whole, what binds everyone in the Imperium "under the skin" as it were; this is why the Mechanicus Skull is half-metal - they are not quite as human as everyone else.

Of course, there's also the direct association with the Emperor mentioned previously, which leads on to another one: Servo-skulls; adepts who serve dutifully and well are honoured with having their skulls turned into servo-skulls post mortem so that they may continue to serve in death as the Emperor does.

Practically, also, the Imperium has a lot of skulls and bones lying around after most battles and the majority burial practice appears to be interment in catacombs, possibly after the flesh has been mechanically recovered for recycling, where no-one can see them and there are no grave markers - I imagine more than a few folks might wish to have their family member's skulls displayed in the local temple as a more visible memorial than a name in a book.

Finally, of course, there is the fact that the stuff we see is generally a modern artist's impression of the Imperium At War and not necessarily wholly accurate, being based on John Blanche's original pieces, which contain more skulls than is really healthy....

Exoviper said:

I think previous responses have covered the significanse of skulls in the 40k setting, but I just wanted to throw in another perspective about the "adorning themselves with skulls".

I've been playing pen and paper RPGs for a while and its always been common understanding among the group I play with that skulls dont mean "bad guy". We've always felt that armor could be adorned with skulls, images symbolizing death, etc. but it's on your armor out of personal preference and (maybe most importantly) to put that bit of fear into your enemies, to show them "I am the death of you". Whether you are "lawful" or " chaotic" , "good" or "evil" our characters have always had those symbols specifically on their armor. Of course that all comes down to personal preference, world setting and background, etc.

What part of Grimdark don't you understand. It's almost like GW's calling card, it's not just the Imperium. For fun lets list all the organisations or groups that are symbolised by skulls in 40k.

• SM Chaplins
• Several space marine chapters: Silver Skulls, Legion of the Damned etc as well as just using it in general.
• Temple Assassins
• Khorne the bloodgod (and boy does he like skulls)
• Nurgle
• The Deathskulls Ork clan (but the Ork skull is common symbol in any clan)
• Pretty much the Entire Imperial Guard
• The Necrons (they are skulls)
• The Adeptus Mechanicus (floating skulls and parts of there symbol)
• Eldar Dark Reaper Aspect warriors

Almost every race has a some group or other associated with skulls if, IF they don't just it commonly anyway.

Well, from the standpoint of the Imperium, You can consider the skull as a bit of an homage to the fallen. The whole culture is drenched in the sense of sacrifice for the greater good of the Imperium, whole planets are tithed for huge regiments of imperial guard who are killed by the millions, everyone is expected to give their life willingly and gladly for the God-Emperor, thousands are sacrificed each day to keep the Emperor alive, etc etc.

You could say that death is an integral part of Imperial culture. A small comparisson with western culture is that in some parts of Europe you have immense boneyards under churches and in catacombs, to remember the mass killings that happened near those locations. Some gothic churches and cathedrals are adorned with them, while others are decorated with gargoyles, daemons and dragons. So basically grim iconography is not that foreign to most people of western culture, 40K just crancks it up a notch.

I vote grimdark.

I played a fun game once. It was called "Count the skulls on the cover of Rogue Trader." And (no lie) I eventually got bored and gave up.

It's because it's grimdark. They wanted to try and convey grimdark on the minis, since they felt they were too cheery. Someone had seen the bone cathedrals of central Europe once and thought adding lots of skulls would up the grimdark levels.

Plus, look at it from the military aspect. Skulls are just intimidating.

A.) It's GRIMDARK! if you don't understand this concept, you need to in order to understand Warhammer (40k and WHF)

B.) It's symbolic, for it's both the culture which is obsessed with honor and death to everything that isn't liked by the Imperium and the fact that you are amongst billion billions. It's also a symbol of the greatest resource available to the Imperium which is man himself, skull motif is there to reassure that even in death you serve. Service, honor, and the greater good for Humanity above life itself.

Human skulls are a symbol of humanity.

Skull sell.

Mr_Rose said:

As a master of... nameology, I give you "momento mori."

Kage

keltheos said:

Yes, yes they do.

darkrose50 said:

I second that skull!

L

Kage2020 said:

A "moment to die" or a remebrance (memEnto mori)?

L

The in universe reason is that they are a symbol both of humanity and death. Only with specialized knowledge can one tell gender or ethnicity from a skull, but one can tell a human from animal or an Ork. It's a symbol of species wide unity and power.

The out of universe reason is afformentioned presence in medieval religious art and because they are cool.

The Mechanicus Skull / Cog represents the action of removing the emotional part of your brain and replacing it with an artificial logic engine.

It's called the Rite of Pure Thought.

40K is rampant with symbology... let's not forget the Imperial Eagle (Aquila) that also adorns just about every Imperium building, tank, armor, etc.

The skull is the symbol of the undying/dead Emperor on his Golden Throne. However, perhaps it is an even earlier symbol, say the symbol of pure human struggle from the struggle against the machines. I would say a little but of both.

I have to vote with the side of GrimDark: www.grimdark.com/

Face Eater said:

I'm very fond of the Chaplins myself. I think their films are hilarious.