Corax- Book 40

[hopkins]

In answer to b1soul's questions:

 

 

Oh and there's a Tyranid thing early on in Weregeld which is just weird and silly. It comes out of nowhere, goes away just as quickly, and has absolutely nothing to do with the story at all. It's so out of place I feel pretty sure it only went in on editorial mandate. I didn't mind the little bit at the end of Pharos, but here it's just bizarre.

 

 

which scene is that? alarm bells have been sounded

[Tymell]

 

Early on some of the RG board a Night Lords strikr cruiser, but when they get to the bridge they find Ultramarine and Dark Angel corpses. They hear a voice on the vox hissing "It devours..." and the corpses lurch upright. They all have fleshy, organic tethers connecting them to the ship stations. Then they hear growling from the speakers and see the impression of a monstrous face on the main screen.

 

"Agapito was filled with an impression of something unnatural, something immensely powerful coming closer, like the bow wave of a huge ship coming to a quayside. A leviathan surfacing."

 

They set fire to the place and teleport out.

 

 

And that's it. Comes out of nowhere, never referenced or memtioned after.

[hopkins]

ah right, i assumed that was daemons, ie "the warp did it"

[b1soul]

 

Early on some of the RG board a Night Lords strikr cruiser, but when they get to the bridge they find Ultramarine and Dark Angel corpses

 

Any explanation for why

 

 

DA and UM are aboard a NL ship? Just a boarding action near Imperium Secundus? Sotha or Pharos involved?

 

[Tymell]

ah right, i assumed that was daemons, ie "the warp did it"

That is also possible, I could be wrong. It was

 

 

the mention of "it devours", the organic nature of the tendrils and the "leviathan surfacing" reference that made me think it's Tyranids.

 

 

If it is daemons, then I retract my point there (though it's still fairly jarring how it comes in and the never gets mentioned again. Big lipped warp-gator moment? :p

 

 

 

Early on some of the RG board a Night Lords strikr cruiser, but when they get to the bridge they find Ultramarine and Dark Angel corpses

 

Any explanation for why

 

DA and UM are aboard a NL ship? Just a boarding action near Imperium Secundus? Sotha or Pharos involved?

None given (that I recall).

 

 

Agapito wonders about it, but then they get interrupted by the vox hissing and the corpses getting up, and it never comes up again.

 

[Augustus]

@b1soul

 

It seems that the Raven Guard really haven't seen much of the Night Lords after Istvaan and are surprised to see them in force. Odds are they are fleeing Ultramar and are headed to Terra as per the "orders" of Sevatar.

 

[HeritorA]

In answer to b1soul's questions:

 

 

Sometime between Path and Siege, yes. Russ has left Terra and chronological references seem to place this in 31,011/12. However, there's no detail on exactly what brought the Wolves into this position, it's very much left open for some other story to cover (Corax asks what happened and Russ just says "Nothing that matters now"). Corax does talk about his doubts to Russ, but Russ is near dead at the time, and Russ later gets up and speaks briefly to Corax and his Jarls, but collapses again before he says much.

 

Navar Hef is a lieutenant of the Raptors, one of the ones who degenerates, seen in Deliverance Lost and some of the stories since. In Weregeld we see him descending further both mentally and physically, ended up wanting death to end it.

 

 

To elaborate on the epilogue a bit:

 

We see Hef now completely degenerated physically, though still on some level recognising Corax and taking comfort from him. Corax, now believing the primarchs, astartes, Raptors, all of it to be warp-tainted, kills Hef, clearly distraught by it. Put me in mind of the ending of The Fly, or certain scenes from the sequel.

 

 

My thoughts in a spoiler-free nutshell: Weregeld has some good ideas and more potential than the previous RG novellas, but doesn't explore them fully and ends up feeling rushed.

 

EDIT - More detailed feedback:

 

I've been okay with Gav Thorpe's Raven Guard HH stuff, though not a big fan. Deliverance Lost had it's flaws but I liked it, more than most people I gather, Soulforge and Ravenlord were okay but kind of bland, and as a whole Gav's portrayal of the Raven Guard wasn't a truly bad one, but lacked some of the culture and identity that other authors have given to the legions.

 

Weregeld is, in a way, the best of the RG novellas because it actually does come to the issues I think work best here: Corax's doubts and concerns, the Raptors, the tragedy of their story, but it's also a bit too little too late. These plot points were present in Soulforge and Ravenlord but never at the forefront, and as a result they now feel rushed and crammed in. The ending in particular is very sudden, and some of the plot developments could have done with significantly more page time to progress and be explored. You can see from the afterword that Gav has some solid ideas on Corax and his character, but he just doesn't spend enough time exploring them properly.

 

I think Weregeld has the meatiest ideas of the three novellas, and in that sense it's the most enjoyable, but it also feels weaker precisely because you can see that potential but it doesn't get used fully. If they'd scrapped Soulforge and Ravenlord and made Weregeld a full novel, or perhaps more accurately just expand the themes of Weregeld into those other two more, we'd have a much more solid entry.

 

Oh and there's a Tyranid thing early on in Weregeld which is just weird and silly. It comes out of nowhere, goes away just as quickly, and has absolutely nothing to do with the story at all. It's so out of place I feel pretty sure it only went in on editorial mandate. I didn't mind the little bit at the end of Pharos, but here it's just bizarre.

 

Exactly! Everything that should have been done to Corax!

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

 

I thought they were referring to the Warp, not the Nids.

as if this purchase didnt suck enough, ramming the Nids in is painfully bad

 

[Tymell]

Laurie Goulding has confirmed over on twitter that it's not a

Nids reference

. It's still a strange scene, but not what it first seemed.

[IronDrake28]

Laurie Goulding has confirmed over on twitter that it's not a

Nids reference

. It's still a strange scene, but not what it first seemed.

 

Tyranids connecting the dead bodies to the ship itself and raising them doesn't seem very...Tyranid-y.

 

[Tymell]

The scene doesn't feel overtly chaos-y either, which is part of why it feels so odd.

[Jareddm]

Personally, I prefer that it doesn't feel overtly chaos. Too often chaos is represented in very cookie cutter ways such that every TT model can be easily identified. This feels more like the much more flexible approach to chaos found in Abnett books and Dark Heresy.

[Kilofix]

Yeah, some parts felt unnecessary and out of place. But anyway on to a question about the ending:

 

 

Did Corax really think Hef was Chaos or Warp tainted?

 

I mean, I can understand putting Hef down at that point because he was no longer "functional" as a Space Marine, and probably even dangerous, but I always felt that he was still loyal and never really Chaos or Warp tainted (just biologically messed up).

 

Thoughts?

 

[DarkChaplain]

Didn't Deliverance Lost make it clear back then that the Alpha Legion added some warp substance to the genestock? As in, taking a clean sample for themselves and tainting the rest irrevocably, and giving the tainted stuff to Fabius while keeping the good stuff?

 

I'm currently still re-reading DL and haven't reached the experiments parts yet, but I seem to recall something like that.

[mc warhammer]

as a slight side step, sparked by the alpha legion has the clean gene stock sample, was the al able to produce space marines in greater numbers due to the presence of two primarchs?

[Augustus]

Didn't Deliverance Lost make it clear back then that the Alpha Legion added some warp substance to the genestock? As in, taking a clean sample for themselves and tainting the rest irrevocably, and giving the tainted stuff to Fabius while keeping the good stuff?

 

I'm currently still re-reading DL and haven't reached the experiments parts yet, but I seem to recall something like that.

 

Exactly that. They are given some "demon blood" which was how the bad mechanicus described it. They were like..say what now? Blood? And the bad mechanicus dude was like blood, warp miasma..tomato tomato.  

[Petitioner's City]

So I was just reading on Lexicanum about Balsar Kurthuri 

 

Can anyone go into more detail about the following, how well it matches the novella and the reasons behind... 

 

 

 

 

Corax's decision

 

 

Balsar Kurthuri was a Librarian in the Raven Guard Legion during the Great Crusade, until the Edict of Nikaea; when he was then forced to become a Legionary. He would later take part in the Horus Heresy and was one of the few of his Legion to survive the Dropsite Massacre. Afterwards, Balsar was chosen to become his depleted Legion's Chief Librarian when his Primarch Corax reinstated the Raven Guard's Librarius. However in the later years of the Horus Heresy, Balsar's standing within the Legion would change once more; after a meeting with his fellow Librarian Fara Tek. Fara had just rendezvoused with his Legion, where it was gathering in the Rosario System, and shared with Balsar a psychic message he had received before he had rejoined them. Though the message was not clear, Balsar gathered from it that the Primarch Leman Russ' life was in danger, but little else. He could not tell Balsar where the message had come from, though he had been able to receive another message from a nearby Space WolvesStrike Cruiser; that was being attacked by the Word Bearers and needed aid. Balsar immediately brought this information to Corax, who dispatched Captain Agapito Nev, and the Battle BargeProvidence, to save the Space Wolves Strike Cruiser. Agapito succeeded in doing so and brought the Strike Cruiser's commander, Rathvin[1a], to meet with Corax. The Space Wolf proceeded to inform the Raven Guard's Primarch, that Leman Russ was indeed in danger, as his Legion had been cornered on the world Yarant Three by Horus' forces, which heavily outnumbered them. Rathvin would leave shortly afterwards, to join his his Legion in battle, and Corax quickly gathered his commanders and informed them the Raven Guard were going to Yarant Three to aid the Space Wolves. Balsar was shocked however, when his Primarch informed him that he would not be joining them and that he had also been stripped of his title of Chief Librarian; as Corax had once again disbanded the Raven Guard's Librarius. For reasons unknown to Balsar, Corax had grown deeply mistrustful of psykers and wanted his former Librarians to be immediately separated from his Legion and sent away to Terra. Though Balsar was eventually able to convince his Primarch, to let his fellow psychic brethren remain with the Legion, as long as they did not use their powers, the former Chief Librarian's fate was sealed. Corax commanded him to depart for Terra at once and told Balsar that when he arrived there, he was to present himself to Malcador the Sigillite, who would decide what would become of him.[1b]

Source

• 1: Weregeld (Novella), Corax (Anthology)
  • 1a: Chapter 2
  • 1b: Chapter 3

 

 

 

[drooling blood]

Screw Corax, Screw Thorpe for trying to pinch the BAs bit.

As long as I dont have to read Thorpes writing ever again, huzzah.

Though happy time for SWs are coming. Apparently hes doing something for you.

Im sorry.

 

Corax took the edict seriously. But those that saved him had a vision. It was something he didnt know how to deal with, so he palmdem off to someone else. He more or less said theres a furnace march into it,  If you were part of the flock. He didnt like how some wulufs got killed, so he no longer trusted the dudes.

He realised that with out pskyers, hed be dead. Should be dead. But some guy had the feeling so he sold a whole planets worth of soldiers, that bailed him out, straight down the river to quiet his mind and plans.

 

Corax is a POS. As usual with Thorpe, Hes about a 5th away from dun dun dun.

[veterannoob]

Loved. The intro and Weregeld. Draws you in and I do appreciate wrapping up so many tiny things from his previous novellas I had forgotten about. Was expecting a different ending though. Particularly a specific word. ;)

[Pariah32]

I enjoyed it for the most part. I just wished they had released the other story of Russ before this.

 

My guess would be a limited edition novella. I wouldn't be surprised if Graham Mcneil is writing it.

[DarkChaplain]

I'm assuming Chris Wraight will be doing the Russ book post-Path of Heaven. All Graham did in Vengeful Spirit was feature Russ and making his intentions to leave again clear, but the story of Russ post-Prospero was mostly handled by Wraight (Scars, Wolf Claw, Wolf King, Path of Heaven).

McNeill's got his hands full with other stuff and Magnus (didn't he at some point say that The Crimson King would have a follow-up too?)

[gogmagog]

I found the book sad [ poor Valerius]

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

Poor everybody

 

Gav turned Corax into a whiny teenager.

If I was just getting into the HH, I def wouldn't pick up the RG again. Now I just won't use my primarch

[DarkChaplain]

I don't think Gav had much to do with that (and I don't agree with the assessment in the first place). Corax has always been somewhat melodramatic. He locked himself inside his tower out of guilt and begged for forgiveness for a YEAR and then left with a Nevermore out of shame for what he has done.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

Yea, he did that after the Heresy. After the fight ended and the recovery began.

 

Have you read Weregeld?

He was literally there to die.

He thinks he's so unclean that he and the Space Marines deserve death.

It's ridiculous