The Black Legion

[Vesper]

 

If they make Sigismund a dreadnaught it's the dumbest idea they've had since... well the last time they tried something avant garde with the Templars.

Why? Nothing signifies a greater undying sacrifice that ensures your crusade will never end than a dreadnaught.

 

 

In fact, something does. Actual sacrifice.

[Arkangilos]

Well I mean, if he wanted to die then this would be the actual sacrifice. If you want to die and you do die, what exactly are you sacrificing?

 

Going into a dreadnaught means you won't know peace for far longer.

 

It's a way to give up the end in order to continue your duty. Taking on a dreadnaught is sacrificing even your death for the cause.

[Sete]

Don't mind vesper. He just wants loyalist blood.

[Vesper]

I just want good characters.

 

Sigismund sleeping in a dread for thousands of years isn't worthy of him. He is the guy that would actually sacrifice his life for what he stands for. He is a traumatized veteran of the time he, his father, his god were betrayed. At the time of the first Black Crusade, he is a relic of that time most people already forgot. He is the only sentinel guarding what was supposed to be the grave of traitors because he is obsessed by them and what they did. And he stood against the storm, knowing he would probably fall, just for a shot at that single soul he wanted to face at Terra : Abaddon. And he dies. Because he is the past. Because it is his dignity, his legacy. More important than any of his past duels won on Terra, that is the moment that will cement his message and how he will be remembered.

 

That's way better than "I want him in a dreadnought because I don't want him to die, because I don't like to lose".

[Arkangilos]

lol I never said he shouldn't die, I asked why it would be so bad if they put him in a dreadnaught.

[Marshal Rohr]

Why?

 

http://m.imgur.com/gallery/XgwVTN1

[Vesper]

lol I never said he shouldn't die, I asked why it would be so bad if they put him in a dreadnaught.

I was replying to Sete's complains.

 

And the dread treatment is like the perpetual one. It is a way to not kill characters. It can be done right, but it would really lessen Sigismund.

[Arkangilos]

Ah, to both replies :p

[Kelborn]

No please no Dread for Sigi.

 

That would nearly ruin his arc.

 

"Yo, honored Sigismund Dread!"

 

"The Emperor..."

 

"Yeah, yeah... no get up! We got some Traitors to kill."

 

"Let the wrath of the Empero-!"

 

"Yeah, sure.."

 

He needs a really awesome, meaningful and glorious death.

[Sete]

As I said before just random thoughts.

Vesper as a point. And I'm just ignoring Marshall cause he is just baiting.

[Petitioner's City]

 

ehm...what is the Worf effect? oO

 

btw I finally got a copy of ToH!

My GW store got one left and I discovered it today. ^^

 

So now I'll be able to catch up with you. *har har har*

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWorfEffect

 

Essentially, it goes thusly: you have a character whom is an established badass, i.e. Worf or Wolverine. However, you want to introduce a new foe who is supposed to be very threatening and dangerous. How do? Why not have him beat up Worf! After all, Worf is awesome, and so someone who can beat him up is also awesome and dangerous. Which is fine, in isolation. The Worf Effect refers to when this becomes a standard plot choice in the series, and it gets to the point where you barely, if ever, see the Worf-analogue do anything badass: he's just there to get beat up to introduce the new bad-ass of the month. So you get this sort of cognitive dissonance with the character, where we are always told they are mighty warriors, but never shown it. Indeed, we are shown quite the opposite.

 

That being said, ADB is like the best writer BL have, and I'm sure Sigismund's death will be appropriately mighty. I suspect he defeats Abaddon in single combat and is then slain by Khayon/Abaddon's bodyguards in order to save the newly minted (relatively) Lord of the Black Legion. I still hope for my "Sig/Sev Surfin' (storm)Bird extravaganza" but, as the eight-balls say, "outlook not good."

 

 

But Worf is still awesome, despite being beat up so much on TNG. DS9 redeemed him, and treklit since too :D 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51CTpvCKMZ8

 

But Sigismund has never had a Worf effect depiction before - in fact, I'm not sure any major character in 40k lit has. Perhaps it's just the generic victims of the big bad - all the random entire worlds and the idea of 'space marines' (best of the best) consumed by the latest alien/chaos invasion that is equivalent to the Worf effect. 

[Phoebus]

"Third of the Ezekarion"

I prefer "Abaddoir," myself.

 

*drumroll*

[b1soul]

Just a quick random thought.

If Sigismund goes into a Dreadnaught, would he be the oldest space marine alive? I reckon he is older than Bjorn.

The diff between Sig and Bjorn would be something like the diff between High Marshal Helbrecht and Ragnar

[Kelborn]

Currently reading ToH and ADB did it again.

I'm emphasizing with traitors.

 

At first, there was Talos, then there was Argel Tal and now Khayon. Those three are great characters and I'm missing comparable ones on the loyalists side.

 

Though I love Chris's work, it's still not the same. Until now I haven't read a book of loyalists that grapped me in that way.

 

Oh wait... There was the Emperors gift. ;P

[bluntblade]

Currently reading ToH and ADB did it again.

I'm emphasizing with traitors.

At first, there was Talos, then there was Argel Tal and now Khayon. Those three are great characters and I'm missing comparable ones on the loyalists side.

Though I love Chris's work, it's still not the same. Until now I haven't read a book of loyalists that grapped me in that way.

Oh wait... There was the Emperors gift. ;P

I'd say Shiban and Loken did that for me. Actually one of the strongest things about PoH in my opinion is that Shiban's change is plausible enough to be really quite saddening

[Sulemain]

I do hope the female inquisitor at the end gets her own philosophical licks against Iskandar regarding what he's done and how he justifies himself. Because regardless of what he thinks he's doing, Iskandar is still seeking to doom humanity to hell.

[Vesper]

Oh, I bet he has a ten thousand years old answer to that.

[A D-B]

Oh, I bet he has a ten thousand years old answer to that.

 

"I'm bad... and that's good.

I will never be good, and that's not bad.

There's no one I'd rather be...

...than me."

 

-- Wreck-It Ralph and maybe Khayon, too.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

Oh, I bet he has a ten thousand years old answer to that.

"I'm bad... and that's good.

I will never be good, and that's not bad.

There's no one I'd rather be...

...than me."

 

-- Wreck-It Ralph and maybe Khayon, too.

*tears up*

You're a good guy, Ralph.

[HeritorA]

 

Oh, I bet he has a ten thousand years old answer to that.

 

"I'm bad... and that's good.

I will never be good, and that's not bad.

There's no one I'd rather be...

...than me."

 

-- Wreck-It Ralph and maybe Khayon, too.

 

What A D-B said. Right to the point as usual ;)

 

Knight King = Sigismund.

Worf effect claims yet another victim.

 

Sigismund cuts off Abaddon's arms and takes his place as Lord of the Black Legion. He also steals Khayon's dark eldar girlfriend and then surfs off into the Eye of Terror atop a Stormbird while Sevatar leans casually on a chainglaive next to him.  

 

http://m.memegen.com/jxbews.jpg

 

That was brilliant. You should be a co-writer :)

[A D-B]

 

Hey guys,

For those of you who don't follow ADB's facebook and stuff, he has started writing the second book of the Black Legion series : The Black Legion. The evil dude is teasing us with stuff like the fight between Abaddon and Sigismund or the taking of the Black. The book is supposed to cover the actual foundation of the Black Legion, the end of the Legion War, the first Black Crusade with awesome stuff like the Triumph at Uralan, the recovery of Drach'nyen...

How super exciting is that ?

 

It's about... some of those things. Most of them. In bits and bobs. Hard to explain. If I had to give a tagline summary, it's about the finding of Drach'nyen during the First Black Crusade. That's the plot. 

 

Mere months later, even my own synopsis is out of date. 

 

The main challenge with the opening trilogy I've found is that in addition to detailing how Chaos Marines work, how the warp works, what the Eye is like, and everything else in terms of metaphysics, going from "a warband" to "The Black Legion in the First Black Crusade" could be several books on its own. There's the eternal dilemma of Getting To The Good Stuff at the risk of moving past the irrelevant origins (and having people complain that too much was skipped), or focusing on the interesting roots and showing how it all began at the risk of taking ages to get to the famous stuff.

[bluntblade]

As I'm currently sketching out the alt-Heresy counterpart to the BL, I'm interested to see how all this develops. And just generally excited

[Taliesin]

 

 

Hey guys,

For those of you who don't follow ADB's facebook and stuff, he has started writing the second book of the Black Legion series : The Black Legion. The evil dude is teasing us with stuff like the fight between Abaddon and Sigismund or the taking of the Black. The book is supposed to cover the actual foundation of the Black Legion, the end of the Legion War, the first Black Crusade with awesome stuff like the Triumph at Uralan, the recovery of Drach'nyen...

How super exciting is that ?

 

It's about... some of those things. Most of them. In bits and bobs. Hard to explain. If I had to give a tagline summary, it's about the finding of Drach'nyen during the First Black Crusade. That's the plot. 

 

Mere months later, even my own synopsis is out of date. 

 

The main challenge with the opening trilogy I've found is that in addition to detailing how Chaos Marines work, how the warp works, what the Eye is like, and everything else in terms of metaphysics, going from "a warband" to "The Black Legion in the First Black Crusade" could be several books on its own. There's the eternal dilemma of Getting To The Good Stuff at the risk of moving past the irrelevant origins (and having people complain that too much was skipped), or focusing on the interesting roots and showing how it all began at the risk of taking ages to get to the famous stuff.

 

 

I can totally understand this dilemma a writer would have. You want to do the good background, cover the major bases, develop the story.

And the risk is that this takes up so many pages that you're not getting to the big dramatic "payoffs" which people also want.

 

Obviously you need a mix of both. You need the landmark "events" but you also need background and story development in order to make the events more powerful. And you are probably dealing with a page count/word count limit that impacts all of this, though I guess you have some freedom there.

 

But no one can figure this out better than you of course. Generally speaking people tend to like both the way you provide background and development, as well as your showing of major events.

 

It reminds me a bit of how George RR Martin and how he would keep broadening the scope of his story and include more and more POV characters, with the result being that the plot development came to a grinding halt. He fell so in love with his own story and characters he forgot to go anywhere. Hopefully that will be remedied in book 6.

[A D-B]

 

 

 

Hey guys,

For those of you who don't follow ADB's facebook and stuff, he has started writing the second book of the Black Legion series : The Black Legion. The evil dude is teasing us with stuff like the fight between Abaddon and Sigismund or the taking of the Black. The book is supposed to cover the actual foundation of the Black Legion, the end of the Legion War, the first Black Crusade with awesome stuff like the Triumph at Uralan, the recovery of Drach'nyen...

How super exciting is that ?

 

It's about... some of those things. Most of them. In bits and bobs. Hard to explain. If I had to give a tagline summary, it's about the finding of Drach'nyen during the First Black Crusade. That's the plot. 

 

Mere months later, even my own synopsis is out of date. 

 

The main challenge with the opening trilogy I've found is that in addition to detailing how Chaos Marines work, how the warp works, what the Eye is like, and everything else in terms of metaphysics, going from "a warband" to "The Black Legion in the First Black Crusade" could be several books on its own. There's the eternal dilemma of Getting To The Good Stuff at the risk of moving past the irrelevant origins (and having people complain that too much was skipped), or focusing on the interesting roots and showing how it all began at the risk of taking ages to get to the famous stuff.

 

 

I can totally understand this dilemma a writer would have. You want to do the good background, cover the major bases, develop the story.

And the risk is that this takes up so many pages that you're not getting to the big dramatic "payoffs" which people also want.

 

Obviously you need a mix of both. You need the landmark "events" but you also need background and story development in order to make the events more powerful. And you are probably dealing with a page count/word count limit that impacts all of this, though I guess you have some freedom there.

 

I genuinely appreciate the understanding, Tal.

[Vesper]

To be fair with you, you're dealing with an intimidating task, touching stuff that has been barely touched at best and having to explain important things that had never been explained before. And I can see the dilemma. But I suppose (even though I could be super wrong, I try to relate but I'm not in your skin) it's also part of the radness of writing this series. It's probably among of the most ambitious ones with so many things to uncover, to explain, with a decent part of freedom.

 

But finding an overall balance sure isn't easy. I was surprised you chose to cover the actual foundation of the Black Legion, along with the curbstomping of the warbands and the First Black Crusade in the same book but I'm confident the narration can allow it without too much trouble (well, from my point of view).