Fabius Bile Acolytes?

[Honda]

Background: I'm working on a character for a short story.

 

So, it's 40K and anything is possible.

 

However, what I was wondering is whether nor not it seems likely that Fabius had any acolytes who learned his techniques.

 

The reason I ask is that it seems like in a lot of the earlier HH books, his work was very secretive and it he was the only one performing the modifications. At some point you'd think that with a Legion sized organization, a "good" doctor/apothecary would share his insights.

 

Then again, being perfect means never having to share. :)

 

If it doesn't seem likely that he ever had any acolytes, who might have decided to go off on their own, that's fine, I'll take a different approach.

 

I was just curious what people thought about the concept.

 

Cheers,

[Slaanbull]

He has had many astartes, xenos and other things in his covens. You could read Primogenitor and/or Lucius, the Faultless Blade to meet some of his apprentices. :)

 

But obviously he keeps his cards close.

[Excessus]

I'm guessing they wouldn't be as good as him but still fairly decent at their work. Bile wouldn't manage for long without help, like a doctor without nurses...

[Leonaides]

He also clones himself...

[Antarius]

He has had many astartes, xenos and other things in his covens. You could read Primogenitor and/or Lucius, the Faultless Blade to meet some of his apprentices. :)

 

But obviously he keeps his cards close.

I think the combination of him having apprentices and keeping his secrets makes for a pretty good "story seed" for a character of one's own making; a previous apprentice who had to flee Bile's wrath because he learned more of his secrets than Bile intended - he was too good a student, if you will.

[Iron-Daemon Forge]

The classic Bloodquest comic also show the Chaos Warband having someone who'd serve Fabius Bile

[Sandlemad]

You should definitely give Josh Reynolds' Primogenitor a look, the first few chapters cover exactly what you're after. Bile surrounds himself with dozens of acolytes from all nine legions (an Iron Warrior, a Word Bearer and a World Eater feature prominently) and other chaos forces, mostly apothecaries or wannabe apothecaries. They're called the Consortium and they're somewhere between a loose warband and a scholarly circle. Lots of different research interests but they're all there to learn from Bile, even if they hate him and each other. He's sparing with his secrets but he does toss them scraps of lore to squabble over.

 

They operate out of Bile's medical base on an old Eldar crone world but yes, some of them do wander off and then come back. The main protagonist besides Bile is an EC apothecary called Oleander who did exactly that. He's not exactly welcomed with open arms when he returns, mind. One of the main characters in Ian St Martin's Lucius: the Faultless Blade is an EC apothecary, Cesare, in the same situation.

[the jeske]

It is interesting that he has so many that survive that long. Undeer optimal conditions you want to have people help you with menial or basic work, and then eliminate them before they can learn or discover anything useful themselfs.

Edited September 29, 2017 by the jeske

[Sandlemad]

It is interesting that he has so many that survive that long. Undeer optimal conditions you want to have people help you with menial or basic work, and then eliminate them before they can learn or discover anything useful themselfs.

 

Oh Bile absolutely murders them regularly. If they get too clever, if they don't laugh at his jokes, if he thinks that their organs would be useful for a new experiment... I think the turnover is pretty high but there will always be more ambitious fools in the Eye who want to study under Bile. Or think they can successfully steal his secrets.

[the jeske]

Well you wouldn't join Fabius, if you didn't think you could steal something from him in the first place. It is more or less like any research company operates nowadays.

[Honda]

I think the combination of him having apprentices and keeping his secrets makes for a pretty good "story seed" for a character of one's own making; a previous apprentice who had to flee Bile's wrath because he learned more of his secrets than Bile intended - he was too good a student, if you will.

 

 

Yes, this is along the lines of what I was thinking.

 

Also, thank you all for the tips on what other books to read for additional research.

 

Cheers,

[Calyptra]

Is the crone world in question Belial IV?

 

According to the Haemonculus Covens book, in 993.M37 Bile taught other renegades some of what the Haemonculi of the 13 Scars had taught him. Because of that unforgivable dilution of their art, the Coven of the 13 Scars visited Bile on Belial IV, killed everybody, and then surgically ensured that Bile could never speak about what he'd been taught to another living creature (whatever that means).

[the jeske]

Imagine taking a pumice to the part of the brain that is not responsible for storing this part of knowladge[and it is never one place, more like a mulitple places linked by chains], but to those parts of the brain that are responsible for recollection of past memories, and scrubing real hard ,between those and the system responsible for forming memories and thoughts in to spoken language.

This way you get a bile that can still work, still use the learned knowladge, but also a bile that gets a on the spot blow torch to the brain effect, as soon as he decides to share the knowlage with someone else. It is great, because he can't get around it by lets say writing it down when he is alone and leaving the data in a place where someone can find it.

[Calyptra]

It's an interesting bit of lore. It also says that the Coven of the 13 Scars had been watching Bile in case he screwed up in exactly this way, so it's reasonable to assume they were able to prevent any of his acolytes from escaping.

 

I've never been clear on why the Haemonculi taught him in the first place. The 13 Scars are not one of the major Covens like the Prophets of Flesh or the Hex; this bit with Fabius Bile is literally the only thing we know about them, so it's a little hard to guess. It's possible they just wanted to create a destabalizing element in realspace, but being Haemonculi, they could have just as easily seen teaching him as a form of performance art.

 

I also wonder what Bile was thinking. The Haemonculi might actually be the worst thing in 40k to have mad at you. Since they actually taught him some things, it's not like he didn't know better.

 

Bile's augmented noise marines were "granted death by masochistic ecstasy" by the Covenites, with the implication that this was a concession or mercy on their part.