A note from the Warhammer 40k Wiki :

"When struck with a mutational "gift" from the Ruinous Powers, most Iron Warriors simply cut off the mutated appendage, if possible, and replace it with a mechanical one."

It leaves me wondering how this would be handled in game. Say Duros, an Iron Warrior gains a Slayer Limb as a gift and is unimpressed. He chops the limb off. Is this represented simply by removal of the gift and the necessity to acquire a bionic? Or would Duros have to burn Infamy as per the GM kit rules also? Or would something else be involved?

I'm not currently playing an Iron Warrior but personally, I'm inclined towards a slight infamy drop. Any thoughts?

I have made the following assumption in my response: the gift would be beneficial to the character in a game mechanic form, but would not be consistent with the character from a roleplay perspective. Given this, I would allow the PC to chop the mutation but gain corruption as from a failing instead of an Infamy burn.

However, this is based on my own PC group. I have not allowed my PCs to gain Infamy near as fast as other groups that I have read on these forums.

I would let an Iron Warriors Space Marine do this for free (providing that they succeed on the aquisition of the bionic). This is to me a strong part of the iron warriors fluff - who fell to chaos only due to bad luck rather than any desire to fall. They've always struck me as being a non-chaotic traitor legion.

They mutate because they're sat in the eye of terror - not because they worship.

On the other hand I would insist on them doing this, that is, if you play an iron warrior in my game, and you mutate, whether it's good or bad, you cut it off and get a bionic instead.

I probably wouldn't go as far as forcing any Iron Warrior PC to cut away any mutations. But other Iron Warriors NPCs might have a lower opinion of one of their kind who accepts mutation.

Rapier said:

As far as I see it, the Iron Warriors use Chaos as a tool, rather than an object of constant worship.

Tom Cruise said:

Any Chaos worshiper might believes that, but they would all be wrong in the end.

Very valid point, but in terms of their actions, you'll rarely see a warband of Iron Warriors constructing a shrine to a god, or anything of the sort. They only tend to use Chaos as a tool, even if behind the scenes Chaos is affecting them more than they realise.

I haven't read the novels you're refering to. I was providing my take on the Iron Warriors as they were presented some time ago.

My understanding was that Horus, Fulgrim, Angron and Lorgar fell to chaos intentionally - that is, turning their back on what the emperorer represented, for their own glory.

Mortarion, Perturbo and Alpharius Omegon were influenced by Horus and (in the case of the first two) fell in a momemnt of weakness/hubris (fear of plague, fear of inadequecy). Alphaios didn't know any other Primach's besides Horus I believe, and was influenced by the Xenos rather than chaos.

Magnus and Konrad were betrayed by the Emperor who denied their chosen tactics (sorcery and fear). Magnus even didn't fall to chaos until he faced extinction for his legion due to the manipulatons of Horus.

So of the legions I generally consider Iron Hands, Alpha Legion and Night Hunters to be far less chaos tainted. (The Death guard and thousand sons that were cast out from Magnus's sight fell more into the laps of the chaos gods. Although I personally think Magnus himself is not a true chaos worshiper).

In the case of the last 4 (discounting Alpharius) it's quite possible that the Empereror's lack of compasion is the cause of their fall, not any kind of demonic worship (although Mortarion certaintly went on to embrace Nurgle later).

Excuse the double post but it won't let me edit.

To be clear: I accept that all 9 traitor legions do have chaos taint (mutations, use of demons), however idealogically some have it significantly more than others, and in the case of the Iron hands, they only use demon engines (not actual demons), and they use bionics to overcome the failing flesh that they accrue becuase of their location in the eye of terror,

I personally believe if the Iron Warriors Legion were strong enough to leave the eye of terror and survive they would do this and would be more of a succesionist threat rather than a chaos one. I believe this was born out by the last iron hands chaos space marines chapter rules in the wargame. (They had acess to imperial guard tanks and no demons, including no obliterators and no posssesed chaos space marines).

Rapier said:

The following is based on my own interpretation of the setting;

One small nitpick. Fulgrim did not "fall", he was posessed by the Laer Blade's inhabiting Daemon after he killed Ferrus Manus. In a moment of serious regret over the horrendous atrocity he had commited the weakness he showed allowed the Daemon of the Laer to take him.

It is surmised (by some) that Fulgrim is a vertiable prisoner inside his own flesh. Locked away in the recesses of his own tormented mind.

Did his own hand seal his fate? Yes. But he did not fully "turn his back" he took the side of one brother over another and in a moment of weakness slew his closest brother. That broke his will and left him vulnerable.

The Laer Blade's Daemon now rules Fulgrim's flesh. Fulgrim alas, does not.

Now Lorgar (first to fall); Angron (bound to fall since he never forgave the Emperor for the chance to die with his fellow Gladiators); and Mortarion (who never forgave the Emperor for doing what he could not on his homeworld and defeating his adopted father the Wardlord) are the ones I consider the truly fallen by choice in addition to the obvious Horus.

Lorgar, Horus, Mortarion and Angron are the ones I consider the fallen by choice.

Alexis

*smiles*

Cailieg said:

That is not exactly correct… Keep reading those books!

*****THe rest may containt spoilers i will try to keep them to a min!*** and a lot of typos

Let me preface the rest of the post with this. I am part of a podcast that enjoys a lot of support from Black library. I intend to be interviewing Graham mcneil soon so if any one has any questions for the guy that has written the Iron warrior books let me know (minus the siege of Castelleax). Any way I’ve had the pleasure and sadly the free time to read every book black library has published. I am like a scholar of totally useless history! Seriously its kind of sad in a way, but as long as BL keeps sending me prerelease books I have no complaints! I am a shameless iron warrior fanatic so I might be biased here.

First off if you are looking for Iron warriors fluff Skip the Trilogy and go straight to Angel exterminatus! Oh my god! This book was a freaking godsend for Iron warrior fans. It is allso one of the few books I will suggest the audio version of because Perturabo sounds just like he should! I didn't like the trilogy when I read it, but this book is so **** good it makes those books good! Explains every thing from how they are organized to really framing out there out look on mutations and the “gifts” of chaos. It worth noting that even pre-heresy the warriors were very prone to back stabbing and glory hogging. Really remind of roman politicians. I am trying to not spoil it any, But as to the primarchs and there reasons in a nut shell

Horus=daddy separation issues

Angron= is a psycho path

Fulgrim= is a pompous self adsorbed ass no excuses for him.

Magnus= Really REALLY REALLY MESSED UP mankinds best hope. Its far more then him delving into sorcery (Again angel exterminatus covers this a bit to)

Logar= A massive pansy, though after Aurellian, which is hard to find since it was a limited release so Spoiler alert* Logar knocks Fulgrim out, and makes Horus piss his pants. Then goes on a Steve erwin trip through the warp. They so need to release this book.

Alpharius= Is Alpharius who the hell knows if what we read is true

Cruz= Trying to prove a point

Perturabo= Has watched his legion fight every meat grinder, and had the glory stolen from him in every battle. Again I am avoiding spoilers but after angel, you walk away with two things 1. Rogal dorn is in fact a massive Jerk and perturabo is like the forgotten Genius child. 3. Fulgrim is not really all that good at dueling. I would class him in there with Magnus as not really worshiping chaos, at least at the start

Back on topic! I am not so sure I would give them the same corruption as if they had failed. The Warriors tend to view reliance on the gods as being a huge weakness as we have seen in several of the books. Its not to say that Iron warriors don't fall to one pantheon or the other. In the Trilogy Kruger is a great example of this. Yet, they still more or less despise mutation. For my own game I wouldn't penalize a player who was role playing this aspect of the Iron warriors. Some of these mutations translate well into cybernetics, since the orgin of the obliterater virus was more then likely the Iron warriors. Others like extra arms and such not so much. Just keep in mind that they are giving up the advantages of the mutations as well. Again a big part of there out look is there first impression of what the emperors children have become, and its not pretty.

Alexis, like I said keep reading, cause its not that clear cut and actually again angel exterm will give you a more clear view. Esp if you don't want to read all the short stories.Put it this way, I question if he was even possessed when he killed his brother after reading Angel. Couldn't dislike him more

As it seems relevant to the original topic, this is an excert from the tome of fate about one of the major powers in the screaming vortex:

"Portions of the Magos’ body remain biological, kept by his own preference. However, these biological portions are often renewed or switched out with vat-cloned tissue so that the Magos may personally study the results of new and interesting mutations."

Take that how you want. Personally I would not penalize players for seeking to overcome weaknesses, or unwanted changes to thier character. Consider instead making it a minor quest to resolve. They cant just find someone selling bionics on the streetcorner and able to install them instantly after all. If I were the GM involved, I would make them work for the bionic replacements, for the person to do the work (unless one of the PCs were capable of it, and willing) as I felt appropriate, but not otherwise penalize them.

Personally I frown on finding more reasons to hand out corruption or costing infamy, especially if it is because the player is acting in character in his actions. The rules have enough ways to hit them that way, without needing to add more. The exception I would make to this is if the "gift" was specifically given from a known source, and it's removal might cause offense to that source. This would be handled through play though, not by adding corruption or removing infamy, or any other random additions or subtractions.

As to the primarch Discussion:

Horus= fell to fear of mortality. His fall was however planned and manipulated, he was just weak enough to fall for it all. He should never have been warmaster. None of the Primarchs should have been.

Magnus= Fell because he thought he knew better than the emperor, leaving him vulnerable to the mechanations of chaos. Without that vulnerability, He may have stood with the emporer and the legions of chaos may have been uterly defeated.

Cruz= Fell because the emperor intended him to fall (my opinion) He was the scapegoat the emporer intended to "save" people from as a further consolidation of mankind. If he had co-operated with the emperor rather than turning on him, he likely would have survived to continue serving his emperor. However he also hated his own legion almost as much as he hated his own father, and with the exception of a few individuals, couldn't have cared less if they all burned… hence his (rather selfish) suicide by assassin.

Alpharius= Fell because he didn't trust the emperor to know what he was talking about when he said "kill the alien" I mean seriously he is the very example of why the emperor wanted zero xenos influence on mankind. In my opinion hes fall was an incredibly stupid choice on his part.

Fulgrim= Fell to his own arrogance. He believed himself invulnerable and is now the puppet flesh of a deamon weapon. Reading the rules of a deamon weapon… well it is a deamon that was overcome and unwillingly bound into a chunk of metal. Seriously fulgim is the pupet of an inanimate object… talk about failure.

Lorgar= Fell because the emporer did not kill him like any inquisitor would have when they first met. He really should have been put down then. In my opinion this was the moment of weakness on the emperor's part. "Oops sorry galaxy, my bad," says the emperor, after his son engineers the begining of the horus heresy. Of course personally I believe the emporer intended for it all to happen (see below for why) and that is why lorgar was allowed to live.

Perterabo= Fell because he was to slow to ever claim victory before someone else came in and stole it from him. And then he whined about it. Seriously wastes time. (my opinon, possibly exaggerated) He may have had a point in that others were stealing his victorys, but really you can only wait patiently for so long for soneone to finish something before you go help them just so things move on.

Angron= Fell because he is a raging psycopathic lunatic that the emporer should never have put in charge of anything, ever. In my opinion, this would be another moment of weakness on the emperor's part.

In my opinion ALL the primarcs were like children. They just happen to be born more powerful than any man alive, but they NEVER faced a crucible, a passage to adulthood, they were never truly challenged until the horus heresy. Some stepped up, others fell. Happens in real life too, just not on a 40k scale hehe.

I believe that the primarcs were intended to turn anyway, at least some of them. I believe that the emperor intentionally provided his empire with an eternal enemy that he can use to hold his empire together indefinitely. Without chaos's intervention, the empire would have fallen apart under it's own weight far worse than it's current state, and far sooner too. But chaos gives the diverse population of the imperium something to band together against, thereby holding them together where they otherwise would have collapsed.

Mostly forgone fact: The Emperor is a major dush bag… Comquering, destroying, annexing…

He started it all.

40k Is the dush bag right wing geek extrem world. If you don;t follow me you die!

There ain't anyone nice in the fluff… Especially not The Empra!

In response to Cryhavok:

First and foremost, I'm not trying to offensive in any way, I'm just looking to both express my beliefs and convey my own knowledge on the subject.

No Inquisitor in their right mind would have killed Lorgar at that fist meeting. You're forgetting that the Inquisition sees the Emperor as a religious figure, just like Lorgar. That was Lorgar's biggest failing, he needed something to have faith in. He was reliant upon it. So when the Emperor denied his Godhood and made the entirety of the Word Bearers' Legion kneel by force despite their spreading of His glory , Lorgar was disillusioned and found something new to worship, something that would accept his praise and his efforts. The Chaos Gods. In my opinion the grand majority of this started because the Emporer denied the religion surrounding him that bloomed into being anyways.

As for the conclusion that no Primarch should have been Warmaster, that's just kinda silly. The Emperor expected proffesional, concerted military efforts as opposed to the unease and squabbling that pervaded the crusading legions. He made the slight mistake of forgetting that as Superhuman as his sons were, they were nonetheless his sons. Picking one out of all the others to make the decisions smacks of favoritism to a son, where to a militaristic mind it's a decision that had to be made. Even King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, who sat in a circle with no one at the head of the table in an effort to symbolize equality, King Arthur was the inevitable decider. All militaristic organizations need a head.
The Emperor's work back on Terra was FAR too important to be left alone. It was worth leaving the Crusade for in the first place , his brainchild and his own little pet project Manifest Destiny for humanity, and he just up and left. It was huge. Read Thousand Sons and you'll get some idea of the scope. I give no spoilers.

Also, every single one of the Primarchs had their crucible of sorts. Mortarion led a revolt his pseudo-father who was the tyrannical warlord of a toxic planet. Lorgar lead a holy war against those that didn't believe in his visions of the Emperor's coming. Curze was Batman, and eliminated ALL crime from his PLANET. Leman Russ grew up as a viking, and the Crimson King mastered every psychic power available to him on prospero and started creating more, he became a planetary leader with all of the responsibilities that that entails.

Also, as to Magnus' fall. Magnus did undoubtedly go against the Emperor's word, but let's be fair about this. The World Eaters have their berserk fury, the Word Bearers have their faith. The Emperor's Children have their quest for perfection and the Space Wolves have their controlled ferocity. Without their Psychic fury, what sets the Thousand Sons apart aside from the ravages of mutation set upon them? Should they have lost their psyker abilities they may still have been Astartes with all that that entails but they would have been robbed of their niche. As juvenile as that sounds, it's pretty important. They would lose their purpose. And so they rebelled. But that's still not why Magnus fell. Remember that thing I mentioned earlier, about how the Emperor left the Crusade for the sake of working on a more important project, something more important than the expansion of humanity? Yeah, Magnus royally ****** that up. Then during the burning of Prospero he sat in his tower mumbling to himself while the Vlka Fenryka ravaged Tizca. Eventually he couldn't take the deaths of his sons any longer and so he fled to the warp. He tried to take the judgement upon himself but he couldn't bear to watch his sons die. That's a paternal instinct that I don't think could've been avoided. Should the Emperor have brought Magnus into this project of his from the beginning, everything of the sort could have been avoided. (I am a huge Magnus the Red fan.)

As for him choosing to subject humanity to the ravages of the Xenos filth and the Daemonic scum….I have to think you're dead wrong. At the point he's at, where he can control the entirety of Terra with no issues unlike any empire could have ever done or kept up and he's done it for hundreds of years. You just impose the same policies on a galactic scale. It makes no sense for him to turn brother on brother in an effort to stabilize anything. There's Xenos and expansion for that. To split your forces down the middle is a detrimental move no matter how you spin it.

Elgrun said:

I don't mean any offense either, I just like freindly arguments about this subject

Elgrun said:

And The emperor, who started a crusade to eradicate such unfounded religions amongst other reasons, who is one of the most powerful psykers ever, did not forsee this betrayal? Lorgar started as a "Heretic" from the religion of Reason, and defied the emperor with his every breath. He was not capable of bending his thoughts around a concept to make it into what he needed. Had he pursued reason with religious zeal, he probably would have been fine.

Elgrun said:

I will admit, I have not read that book. My premise about no primarch being the warmaster was not intended to make the assumption that the emperor stay and lead. More along the lines of someone like Malcador, who was in his own right immensly powerful be put in charge.

Elgrun said:

Yes those were crusibles… on our scale. However each of the primachs was capable of tearing a human warrior apart with his own hands without any difficulty AS A CHILD. By the time these genetically-engineered-warriors-designed-to-conquor-the-universe primarchs were full grown adults, I don't think there was anything left but another primarch to provide a suitable crusible with which to challenge them. Thier behavior and attitudes in the books I have read (my opinion) supports this by making them seem like spoiled children rather often, whenever they are faced with a TRUE crucible. My opinion was that the first TRUE crucible any primarch faced was by Lorgar, losing his religion to the emporer's command, and he failed it. The second was horus when he was struck down… and he failed it. One of the things that I noted to myself when I read several of the books was that all the primarchs had certain individual traits, but they were magnified to huge proportions and where those traits were concerned they had little control over themselves, something they share with children everywhere.

Elgrun said:

Never read that book so my perspective does not include that. My assertion is from the idea that psykers and sorcery are seperate things (ala dark heresy) The emperor did not forbid psykers, infact his other legions even had librarians at that time (if I remember correctly). Magnus was forbidden from sorcery, and had he followed this edict the psykic might of his legion would have remained immensely impressive. His defiance of that is what cost him. If your take on the universe does not differentiate psyker from sorcery then I agree my assertion would be wrong. He also failed his TRUE crucible. That being said, my first model was a thousand sons sorceror, they have always been my favorite, although I like Ahriman more than Magnus.

Elgrun said:

I will admit this is purely based on what I feel like believing the emporer was like and is not based on anything in the lore at all . I think NONE of the major powers are anything but evil in 40k and you will only find good people and heros at the individual levels. So Following that I think the emperor was pretty freaking evil, that he did nothing out of benevolence, and that mankind is still following his plan for human ascension… and that in the end he will win. I also believe that the emperor is a pantheon on his own and is equal to the pantheon of the four chaos gods, but individually each chaos god is not a match for him. But again, nothing in the lore proves either way on this (as his true motivations could never be known today) and this is based on my own fancy.

As for the primarchs turning theory of mine, the idea was that it was intended far down the road… after the galaxy had been clensed of all that xenos filth and other threats. Not every plan works exactly as intended though, and the emperor fell prey to this. The Chaos Gods, knowing that this was set up to happen took advantage of the opening lorgar gave them and engineered this to happen before time. Again, just my own fanciful musings though, not based on anything in the lore.

Minor nitpick Lorgar was not the first to fall, that "honor" fell to Erebus who poisoned the mind of his Primarch. It was Erebus who planned for Horus to be wounded so that he too would be open to the lure of Chaos.

The warrior lodges of the Emperor's Children really started their fall to Chaos. Angron was the easiest to manipulate, the easiest to get to fall. Though I feel bad for Fulgrim, it was hinted at a while ago that should Fulgrim ever break free of control he would all but destroy his legion and then would return to Terra to seek the Emperor's judgement.

The Emperor wanted Magnus' help to power the Golden Throne, that was to be his destiny that would have elevated mankind to what Magnus thought they could be. So very ironic that his own actions would later stop that from happening.

Mortarion and his legion were caught in the Warp and dying of a plague even their physiologies could not overcome. Seeing no other choice he pledges himself and his legion to the service of Nurgle.

It is hinted at that the Alpha Legion "Fell" to gather intell on the others that would one day fall to Chaos and at a later point in time reveal their true loyalty to the Emperor and help bring about justice to those who fell.

The Night Haunter was the monster the Emperor needed him to be, wanted him to be. Of all the Primarchs he perhaps staid the truest to the Emperor's goal and intent for his legion. His downfall came from the visions he received and no matter what he did his fate was sealed from the moment the Emperor first touched him on the shoulder. Of all the Primarchs that fell the Night Haunter is one of my favorites.

And at last Purterabo and the Iron Warriors. He was a genius when it came to a long war and siege mentality. But GW needed a counter-part for a loyalist legion. I see no good reason why he feel.

World Eaters - Blood Angels

Iron Warriors - Imperial Fists

Black Legion - Ultramarines

Alpha Legion - Dark Angels

Thousand Sons - ???

Emperor's Children - ???

Death Guard - Iron Hands

Night Lords - Raven Guard

Word Bearers - ???

TheHeavenlyLily said:

I would have said the World Eaters' counterpart would be the Space Wolves, not the Blood Angels. Space Wolves are based on Vikings, the people who invented the word "berserker", and they seem to love smashing heads almost as much as any Khornate. Or Ork.

Blood Angels are more a counterpart for the Emperor's Children; both Fulgrim and Sanguinius were very pretty (and both modern Blood Angels and Emperor's Children place great value on beauty as a result) and both legions/chapters are artistically minded when outside of combat. Blood Angels only really get Khorne-y when in the throes of the Black Rage, whereas Space Wolves are fight-happy all the time.

I don't really think the Thousand Sons or Word Bearers have a loyalist counterpart, nor do the White Scars and Salamanders have a traitor counterpart either. The Iron Warriors seem to have the "Blacksmith" role taken by Chaos, whereas the "Speed freak" role is either the Emperor's Children (again) or the Night Lords. Meanwhile, the real religious zealots on the Imperial side seem to be the Black Templars, but they're not a founding chapter so they don't count.

World Eaters - Blood Angels--- agreed

Iron Warriors - Imperial Fists--- agreed

Black Legion - Ultramarines--- agreed

Alpha Legion - Raven Gaurd--- Both preffer infiltration as their method of war.

Thousand Sons - Space Wolves--- Not due to being the same, but counterparts due to being opposite sides of the same coin, which is why they despised each other so much even before the heresy

Emperor's Children - Iron Hands--- Both believe that they are not good enough as is and seek other means of improvement/perfection, one through bionics, the other through less wholesome means.

Death Guard - Salamanders--- The salamanders most defining trait is their stoicism in the face of, well, everything.

Night Lords - White Scars--- both favor lightnign fast attacks, where the raven gaurd prefers infiltration.

Word Bearers - Dark Angels--- Those who seek to corrupt all things, and those whose greatest desire is for redemption are closer to each other than they might think.

That is the way I have always seen it anyway