Hi.

On page 135 of Hand of Corruption it says that the C'tan consumed the souls of the Necrontyr, while actual GW publications have had C'tan consuming the energies of sentient beings and not souls.

-3rd edition codex, pg. 26: "A sacrifice of men, but the precious souls are not consumed."

-Pg. 25: "…the deliciously focused trickles of electromagnetism leaked by the mortal bodies of the Necrontyr about them awoke a hunger in the C'tan quite unlike the one they had sated among the raging torrents of stars."

-And: "Their discarded husks would be consumed and their cold, metal forms would be free to pursue their vengeance…"

-Pg. 60: "The C'tan are energy vampires who devour the unique essence of sentient creatures."

-5th edition codex, pg. 7: "…the C'tan swarmed about the biotransference sites, drinking in the torrent of cast-off life energy…"

-And: "As Szarekh watched the C'tan feast on the life essence of his people…"

-And: "…harvesting the life force of the defenders to feed their masters."

-Chapter Approved 2004, pg. 75: "…its primary function is to beam the harvested life energy of a world to the reaper-ships in orbit."

Nothing about consuming souls, and the word soul is used plenty, so it's not like the writers just wanted to come up with a fancier way of saying "soul".

It is assumed by a lot of people I know and the local GW store that the C'tan consumed the souls of the Necrontyr for the C'tan embody all that is of the physical universe.

it's my understanding that GW does not know how to tell a story strait.

I just think that eating souls is pretty much against their background, since their roots are in the material realm. Daemons and other warp connected beings (like Dark Eldar) consume souls. Souls and star energy are very different. You don't see Dark Eldar replenish themselves by draining stars, and I'm pretty sure they could if the needed to. Warp is bad for the C'tan, it's a realm they do not understand nor control.

You'd think that after eating souls they'd register more clearly in the warp. The astronomicon is fueled by 10,000 psykers and it can be seen across 50,000 light years. The C'tan have consumed billions of people and they're not noted to have any warp presence. And if souls were their food, then powerful souls would be even better food, yet in the background they abhor all the psychic races (more psychic potential, more potent the soul) of the Old Ones and the Void-Dragon in particular was very keen on eradicating the Eldar for good. Not eating them, just destroying them.

souls are always portrayed as a bit of a funny thing, not being truly of the warp ( you have demonic energies for that), but also not of the real world either. basically a souls is whatever it needs to be : horrible power sourse, causes of sentience or bed time snack

crisaron said:

+1