Jona Malachias, The Abyssal Prophet

I've been planning and writing this character for a little while now, and I imagined him as a hulking, sinister monster in ornate armour and bedecked in talismans (some Imperial, some not so, like the shark teeth you can see lining one pauldron). The Carcharodons are noted as being highly religious in their own special way, and I really wanted to demonstrate this through the bits used on the model.

In relation to this, I thought about what exactly determines the Carcharodons' movement throughout the galaxy. They're referred to as being away from Imperial space and lurking in the outer darkness for thousands of years, so how do they have any idea what's going and, based on that, how do they decide on where do they plot their course? My instant thought was that this would have to be achieved by psykers. Then I thought, "how cool would it be if they literally acted through the divine word of the Emperor, as interpreted by their Librarius department"

So then we have this guy. Using the powers of divination and the Emperor's tarot, he uses his considerable psychic ability to interpret the will of the Emperor, and therefore is wholly responsible for communicating to his chapter where they need to go, and why.

Because the Carcharodons are basically described very much as ancient, mystic and religious, I see their psykers as mystics and oracles as much as I see them as codiciers and epistolaries. There's a real potential for cross of these character archetypes that makes a lot of sense to me. Of course, that's not to say that the rest of the chapter would ever seek the company of such individuals. Though they perform an ultimately important duty, psykers dabble warp magick, and and as such a viewed with equal measures of awe (in regards to their gifts) and mistrust and aversion. The warp corrupts, and to be amongst those who utilise such power is to invite corruption into one's self. Thus, in my "Carcharoverse" their Librarians spend the majority of their time keeping to themselves, tending to their duties and bearing their gifts with quiet dignity.

So with this concept in mind, I found all the bits needed to make this concept a reality, wrote James a brief, and he came back with this utterly fantastic model. Everything, from top to bottom, was how I envisioned it. He did an exceptional job.

Anyway I hope my waffling wasn't tedious and you enjoyed my wild speculations on how the Carcharodon Librarius operates. Stay tuned for more models (and invariably rants) over the coming months!