The Beast Arises

[Perry]

And you think a primarch would settle for that? No chance

[Vesper]

A primarch is nothing.

[Mellow]

 

From Vulkan Lives:

 

 

‘This might be the only chance I get to contact you. After this, I may not be able to return. You must live, Vulkan,’ the alien told me, ‘you must live, but stand alone as a gatekeeper. You are the only one who can perform this duty. You alone are the hope.’

Wait, who said that and to whom?

[Mellow]

A primarch is nothing.

I agree, barring Magnus and probably Lorgar would be strong enough to survive in the warp. The rest don't seem to have the psychic power for much else.

 

Although Russ does have that weird howl thing which I seem to remember killing Thousand Sons just being near it. Not sure what that was all about

[DarkChaplain]

 

From Vulkan Lives:

‘This might be the only chance I get to contact you. After this, I may not be able to return. You must live, Vulkan,’ the alien told me, ‘you must live, but stand alone as a gatekeeper. You are the only one who can perform this duty. You alone are the hope.’

Wait, who said that and to whom?

 

 

Eldrad Ulthran to Vulkan

[DarkChaplain]

Horus stepped into the warp too. Russ is implied to have done the same after leaving the Fang. Its not purely a matter of psychic prowess.

[Vesper]

Horus stepped into the warp too. Russ is implied to have done the same after leaving the Fang. Its not purely a matter of psychic prowess.

Talking about the fact he "headed in direction of the Eye of Terror for his final days" or something ?

Hardly conclusive. Nothing really implied appart from his probable death.

[hopkins]

I know it's already been mentioned, but that must be a world record for product placement

 

http://robservations.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Garth-product-placement1-425x241.png

[Mellow]

I wouldn't think any of the Primarch's are still around. 10k years is a long old time! I'm unsure any of them aged as the HH only spans a few years. Barring Vulkan I guess, although it's a bit weird because surely if his whole Skeleton gets melted and evaporated it's not going to come back is it.

[DarkChaplain]

Vulkan has regenerated from that in The Unremembered Empire, lost his sanity, went hulk, got stabbed with Fulgurite, got buried, then ferried back to Nocturne and returned back to life for good at Mount Deathfire. So yeah, he does return when his body evaporates.

[Petitioner's City]

That's been happening all over with most releases across the board. Incidentally, that became most obvious with the Mechanicus releases for 40k. In some books you had authors describe horrors of tzeentch and flamers etc in terms of appearance and warpy stuff, nowadays they're usually declared by name, especially in Age of Sigmar fiction. There was a big shift in policy when GW proper took the reigns, and it leaned more towards direct product placement / marketing ever since. I wouldn't blame the author for it since it seems more like a general editorial thing.

 

Yeah I guess so - it helps to sell models :( it's just a shame, because describing a horror in terms of appearance also suggests that it might not be a horror, but something else 'unmodelled', and that's nice. Like I love the daemon descriptions in the Ahriman books, which are just like something out of an old Moorcock-accompanying illustration (or text), or even the 80s/90s style of illustration in the various old Chaos books.

[DarkChaplain]

I'm with you there, I like when it is left ambiguous enough for the reader to figure out or imagine themselves. Just saying "and then a Bloodletter appeared" is boring (another nail in AoS's coffin in my eyes). Naming products or unit types saves time and words you'd have to use describing them otherwise, but it also feels cheap and lazy at the same time.

 

Though to be fair, I think it is somewhat excusable when it comes to this scene with the forces of Mars. If anybody would know the designations of those things, it'd be the Imperium and Space Marines.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

I wouldn't think any of the Primarch's are still around. 10k years is a long old time! I'm unsure any of them aged as the HH only spans a few years. Barring Vulkan I guess, although it's a bit weird because surely if his whole Skeleton gets melted and evaporated it's not going to come back is it.

A perpetual doesn't need any part of his or her body to respawn, they're not like DE in that sense. Their respawning abilities are purely based off their souls, nothing more.

[Xisor]

On the mention of 'I'll tell Dorn' - recall there was something of a dispute as to whether Dorn or Vulkan was the last Primarch to disappear.

 

Vulkan was last recorded some thousand years after the Second Founding (IA:Salamanders?), but not much is mentioned after opposing the Second Founding.

 

Dorn was a good hundred years after the Second Founding, wasn't he? But that was a definite last sighting. Vulkan's seemed to be more of a fading.

 

In that light, Vulkan might have disappeared before Dorn. He might not be fully cognisant of Dorn's death. He might have met Veritus at some stage, but Veritus might not have told all. Perhaps not everyone even knows what actually happened - could be glossed over without a song and dance about it, Dark Angels style.

 

To that end, that conversation was evocative of exactly that sort of thinking, not that Dorn lives, but that Vulkan doesn't know he's dead. :"(

[Mellow]

 

 

I wouldn't think any of the Primarch's are still around. 10k years is a long old time! I'm unsure any of them aged as the HH only spans a few years. Barring Vulkan I guess, although it's a bit weird because surely if his whole Skeleton gets melted and evaporated it's not going to come back is it.

A perpetual doesn't need any part of his or her body to respawn, they're not like DE in that sense. Their respawning abilities are purely based off their souls, nothing more.

So their soul alone is responsible for reproducing their physical body in the event of total destruction?

 

That would be a rather useful ability.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

 

 

I wouldn't think any of the Primarch's are still around. 10k years is a long old time! I'm unsure any of them aged as the HH only spans a few years. Barring Vulkan I guess, although it's a bit weird because surely if his whole Skeleton gets melted and evaporated it's not going to come back is it.

A perpetual doesn't need any part of his or her body to respawn, they're not like DE in that sense. Their respawning abilities are purely based off their souls, nothing more.

So their soul alone is responsible for reproducing their physical body in the event of total destruction?

 

That would be a rather useful ability.

 

I guess, we don't actually know how Perpetuals do what they do, besides the fact that they just come back every time no matter what you do, barring nuking the soul/using fulgurite spears/etc. iirc Curze tried putting Vulkan in front of some starship engines or something, he just came right back anyways

[Mellow]

I get the whole Fulgurite thing and understand its concept, but it seemed to only keep Vulkan dead whilst it was stuck in his body. Once it came out he came back to life.

[DarkChaplain]

My guess is that Fulgurite kinda works like a pariah-plug. It seals away psychic abilities directly rather than just limiting their reach.

 

Did anybody even pick up on where Vulkan was? Caldera, I mean. It is the planet from Promethean Sun, with dinos and all. He named it at the end, during the Great Crusade, and vowed to protect it.

 

‘I will name this place Caldera,’ he said aloud, and vowed he would protect it with the same ferocity as Nocturne. It would not become just another compliant world, a number without a heart. Vulkan had taken much but he could give it that at least.

[JH79]

I get the whole Fulgurite thing and understand its concept, but it seemed to only keep Vulkan dead whilst it was stuck in his body. Once it came out he came back to life.

The Fulgurite hasn't come out though, it is described as still protruding from his body at the end of Deathfire. We don't know how Vulkan was resurrected, John Grammaticus, Magnus, Numeon or Mount Deathfire...maybe we'll find out in the next part of Kyme's trilogy... maybe not

[Mellow]

You're quite right. The spear tip is still stuck in him yet he still resurrects.

 

Kind of blows the whole "Fulgurite kills perpetuals" out of the water in my opinion.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

You're quite right. The spear tip is still stuck in him yet he still resurrects.

 

Kind of blows the whole "Fulgurite kills perpetuals" out of the water in my opinion.

Not really - Grammaticus had to specifically set his mind towards not permakilling Vulkan when he stabbed him, and do something with soul prep presumably that gave Vulkan his sanity back. It was written to be clear that if he chose to do so he could have killed Vulkan.

[DarkChaplain]

And didn't John also give up his own perpetuality in the process, or am I remembering that part wrong?

[helterskelter]

John did indeed give up his immortality

[DarkChaplain]

Let's just hope its for good this time. The guy can't catch a break with how often Dan has been resorting to him over the course of the series, and he had a deathwish to begin with.

[Tiger9gamer]

I don't understand the problem of calling out the mechanicus units when they do it for space marines all the time. what's the diffrence in saying "A Vanguard Alpha readies his arc pistol while a Dunecrawler advances behind him" compared to "A Tactical Seargent readies his bolt pistol while the Predator advances behind him"? Black library has been using game units and such to describe space marines for bloody years now.

No, what I had a problem with is the entire battle between the exemplars and the martians. David Anndale is the absolute last person I would have wanted to do this kind of battle. it feels like he literally skimmed the codex entries and had both sides walk in with the basic weapons. Neither side had special weapons like melta guns or Arc Rifles, or even a plasma weapon or two. The predators only had autocannons while the Dunecrawlers only had Eradication beamers. There is so much he could have described the sides using! have a skitarii soldier destroy a predator using an Arquebus while a space marine mows down infantry with a plasma cannon! Have a devastator squad reap devastation on the mechanicus ranks while skitarii's radiation rounds wear the power armor down! Something to make it more interesting rather than having the space marines rofl stomp the legions of mars.

Make it so it is an actual tragedy wear lives are lost needlessly on both sides! and for Feth's sake, mention martian heavy weapons besides the damned eradication beamers! they literally make EVERYTHING the imperium uses! Have chokepoints be guarded by Firestorm Redouts with punisher cannons, or vengence batteries with battle cannons! just last book Rob sanders described an assassin using an arc pistol from a skitarii alpha, and that was more flavorful than anything I have read in this book!

And I am only 150 pages in and I have fanboy rants. Annadale is probably my least favorite BL writer. His Overfiend series had a good book with the raven guard but the rest of it was just aweful in my oppinion. I cannot get over his writing styles, and personally if his book wasnt a part of this series then I would have skipped it.