ADB on the new Black Templar fluff

[Medjugorje]

it wishful thinking - sorry.

[Kizzdougs]

I read the AMA and I was pleased to see AD-B sticking with his excellent depiction of the Templars in Helsreach (without being dismissive of other interpretations).

 

I love the 'unreliable narrator' aspect of the Warhammer settings, but I'm less enamoured with the 'unreliable author' nature of a vast IP covered by a wide array of different writers. This might seem like a bit of a weird distinction. I like it when 'in-universe' characters have conflicting and flawed perspectives of their universe and the events that they experience. This is fantastic and adds to the setting/experience. I'm not so fond of authors contradicting each other without the explicit/implied bias of an 'in-universe' character to explain those contradictions. It seems careless or disrespectful on the contradicting authors part. I completely understand that they Black Library/studio authors can't read everything that's written about each and every faction, but the shift from the Helsreach Templars to the Templars in the latest Space Marine Codex is jarring and todays rulebooks/codexes don't benefit from the explicit 'unreliable narrator' perspective to explain away such discrepancies.

 

I'm not a fan of the 'whatever-ness' of the setting, but that's the official policy, so that's what we have to play with.

 

No doubt AD-B is a pro and takes these things in his stride, but I was disappointed/annoyed (wrongly or rightly) on his behalf when I read the post-Helsreach fluff.

[Closet Skeleton]

Most chapters know the Imperial Truth, but still take action against heretical elements of the populace who do not follow the creed.

 

No Chapter maintains the Great Crusade Imperial truth, they have their own traditions that exist in constant development from the various foundings.

 

Also there is no Imperial Creed, the Adeptus Ministorum is syncretic. Every planetary culture has its own understanding of the Emperor's divine nature and the Adeptus Ministorum just manage the system and purge the elements they don't like. But they don't purge heretics to enforce orthodoxy, they must be taking a divide and conquer approach where they tolerate some divergent beliefs in order to get allies to attack the actual (or merely potential) chaos cults. Every actual cultural institution eventually learns that enforced orthodoxy doesn't work and just leads to endless violence, hence the development of secularism (which the state atheist of the Imperial Truth is not a form of) or other forms of toleration like syncretism or just limited tenants of orthodoxy that give individuals wriggle room for a variety of expressions.

 

The Imperium is an oppressive regime so it can't be the 'tolerant' form of syncretism so for me the most logical interpretation is the divide and rule approach. Totalitarianism is always a kind of fiction, the state can't actually enforce its will because it needs supporters and those supporters will want concessions. Similarly absolute monarchs aren't actually able to do what ever they want because they're limited by needing to maintain their position.

 

I find these discussions hard to follow because most fans just don't have the understanding of how religious cultures work to make arguments for a believable setting to those who have studied such things.

 

 

No doubt AD-B is a pro and takes these things in his stride, but I was disappointed/annoyed (wrongly or rightly) on his behalf when I read the post-Helsreach fluff.

 

I've never read Helsreach and got into Black Templars before it was published because I wanted a loyalist army that was an actual expression of how monstrous the Imperium was supposed to be, unlike the Ultramarines who are characterized in opposition to the order that they hypocritically defend.

 

For me the Black Templars will always be the violent hateful scumbags they were in third edition, I don't need an author to come along and give their characterization depth and nuance. Am I a hypocrite for wanting 40k to have some 2d characters while also ranting about believable settings needing cultural depth? Who cares about personal hypocrisy when you have ZEAL.

 

Sure in theory the Black Templars could be crusaders for atheism, but I just find it ridiculous that crusading atheists wouldn't have rebelled against the Theocratic Imperium. The Black Templars are incredibly intolerant but they work alongside a Theocratic state, that makes them theocrats by association.

Edited December 19, 2017 by Closet Skeleton

[Medjugorje]

I was reading in the lexicanum as I saw that GW had changed the fluff about the relationship between Templars and Crimson Fists.

 

In the old Codex there was a story were both chapters stand close. (I didnt read the BEAST Storyline) ... in M32 they used to have an extremly bad relationship. Can someone clear it up?

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I think what you have to remember about the Ultramarines is that Ultramar isn't really as Grimdark as the rest of the Imperium. So what they know of the Imperium, from the eyes of the citizens they were as children, is more positive. Probably much more like what the Imperium was supposed to be before the Heresy fouled things up. So I don't see them as being hypocritically opposed to what they would be used to.

[Aegir_Einarsson]

Btw. How Templars approach the fact that Emperor is Also a psyker?.

[Ciler]

Denial

[Sword Brother Adelard]

We categorise him separately as he's not a human with psychic powers, he's a deity itself.

 

We handle psykers weirdly. For instance I'm pretty convinced that the Emperor's Champions are latent psykers themselves. It explains why we a) don't have any latent psykers develop in the chapter and b ) why Champions are so badass, despite being essentially regular troops with cool stuff. (In one book the Crusade's champion was a Neophyte.)

 

Think about it, on the eve of battle all of the lads have a good meditation sesh, one receives visions from the Emperor and is suddenly blessed with preternatural abilities and visions of their own death. It's more than simple religious fervour. They are the Emperor's own avatars.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Brother Adelard

[+Chaplain Matthias+]

Yeah I've always thought that the emperor's champions were latent psykers. I dont think they're conscious of it. And if they are, maybe it's why they suicidally dive headfirst into duels they probably won't win.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Absolutely, I don't think it crosses their minds at all. 

 

It does make me wonder how though we ever had a Librarius at all. Because we've always had Champions, so if all our latent psykers died in holy glory, how did they ever recruit in the first place? 

 

Actually, now I think about it, perhaps that is why we don't have a Librarius, what if all the original BT librarians were former Imperial Fists, they died out because no new psykers were recruited, and all of the Chapter's latent psykers become Champions and died.

[Firepower]

Urge to paddle...rising

[Scribe]

Urge to paddle...rising

 

I thought I was alone...there heresy I'm seeing is strong.

[Marshal Rohr]

This is the consequence of loose canon. Psyker Emperor's Champions

[Kastor Krieg]

This is the consequence of loose canon. Psyker Emperor's Champions

This is the consequence of Brother Adelard's right to do whatever he wants with the assembly, painting and fluff of his Templar army. You have no say over his dudesmen. If his ECs are latent psykers and that's the expression of the Emperor granted talent, that it is.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

This is the consequence of loose canon. Psyker Emperor's Champions

This is the consequence of Brother Adelard's right to do whatever he wants with the assembly, painting and fluff of his Templar army. You have no say over his dudesmen. If his ECs are latent psykers and that's the expression of the Emperor granted talent, that it is.

 

 

Step off, Kastor. It's a joke between me and Scribe. We don't need your condescension. You're not a mod, stop policing other people. 

[Firepower]

Btw. How Templars approach the fact that Emperor is Also a psyker?.

 

Well, current fluff is that they only hate naughty psykers...I won't get drawn into that debate again.  Dead horses and all.

 

Previously, it was a matter of zeal and what you might call cognitive dissonance, or more basically hypocrisy, and yet not entirely without substance either.  The Emperor was just a man, but a psyker, but the only pure, truly incorruptible psyker and leader of the Imperium of Man.  He is not the same as the rest of humanity, where psykers strong and weak are all weaknesses in the defense of mankind, as doors through which corruption could flow freely through and cause incalculable harm. 

 

They were impure because they drew power from the very well of impurity, and could be claimed by it at any moment.  The Emperor, by contrast, cuts a light through the warp, and is immune to corruption.  The latter is the same reasoning behind the Templars being able to ally with Grey Knights, as they are the only psykers beyond the Emperor himself to have a flawless record in withstanding corruption by the Warp.

 

As an aside, the Templars' lack of a Librarirus is rooted in the Edict of Nikaea (or was until the rewrite turned it into a mystery, because reasons), where the Emperor also commanded the Legions to close their Librariuses, also hypocritically, but with what became abundantly evident good reason.

 

So while it is in one sense hypocritical, it can also be easily reasoned.  It was a matter of nuance and complications, where people could have flawed ideals, hypocrisy was the foundation of the Imperium, and heroic paragons of all that is good and just were nonexistent.  Subtlety is being uprooted from 40k fluff in recent years, outside of Black Library.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Firepower

[Scribe]

Rohr, I got you brother.

[totgeboren]

From a 'higher' point of view, making the BT religious does make a certain amount of sense. We already have the poster boys-in-blue being strictly atheist, the other monks-in-space (DA) being atheist, and all in all almost all SM are atheist in the setting. It's probably easier for new customers to understand the thematic difference between the BT and the DA if they have markedly different beliefs. Even among veteran players, the theological stance of the BT was often a bit unclear.

 

It also opens up for natural allies and enemies with the various organizations of the Imperium. The BT would be friendly to the Ecclesiarcy, while the UM would look upon them with disdain for instance.

 

However, almost everyone who already owns a BT army will have gotten them because they enjoyed their background. I can really relate with my WB, who were all about Chaos Undivided, and then suddenly CU was no more. poof. The core of the background behind my chosen faction was changed, and I did not enjoy that in the least.

 

It's the same thing here.
 

On the other hand, I often got the impression that many BT players were sort of after a 'SM Ecclesiarcy force' anyway, and the atheism component of the lore was really just there for them to make sense with the old Imperial Truth. Perhaps the core of the theme of the BT isn't really affected all that much by this retcon? 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I love good natured debate. If we had strict canon we couldn't have this fun! The Latent Psyker theory is just that, a theory to explain why Champions are so good and why we never have latent psykers develop, (Unless we do and burn them at stakes in secret? THAT would be Grimdark)

 

Anywho, what confuses me about the edict of Nikaea theory is why we would have ever had a Librarius at all. Our creation postdates the edict, so Sigismund would have had no reason to take any IF librarians with him when he left the Legion.

 

I think the original fluff had to evolve. It had a basic flaw: we were apparently a crusading fleet based chapter who hated all psykers, when it is psykers who make fleet based crusading possible? It was a little one dimensional. (I just imagine a load of very resentful Templars gritting their teeth every time they ask to go somewhere new.)

 

What made me change to Templars wasn't the fluff about their faith or their hatred of psykers, none of that was particularly a focus of Codex Armageddon Templars, (I never took that vow anyway) it was the fact they were more individual than other chapters. We were brawly knights off on a space jolly. no codex Astartes, no librarians and no artillery. In a sea of third edition blandness, they were interesting; they still are.

[Aegir_Einarsson]

So firepower If i understand you correct. BT knows that Emperor was/is a Man not a god. Right? I'm a bit confused. I thought about about write some fluff for my crusade, it i don't know Which way i should go. For blind, unbreakable faith that Emperor is a god, or for cynical guys that know the truth that Emperor is not a god, but They fight to defend the humanity because it is they're duty, And They know that They were created for This reason. Where i can find history And fluff?

4ed codex, helsreach, lexicanum Where i'm lurking often.?

[Sword Brother Adelard]

The key lines from ADB on the Emperor's divinity are in the adjunct to Helsreach: Blood and Fire.

 

The divinity stuff stems from Haley's later works. Like Eternal Crusader.

[Marshal Rohr]

In the older lore it wasn’t that the Templars actively ‘hated’ their Navigators and Astropaths. The Navigators and Astropaths had to take a Vow of Penitence for their mutation. The same way in the old church Women had to repent for the Sins of Eve or Jewish merchants would pay lip service to being ‘sinful’ just so they could do business in religious Muslim or Catholic cities.

 

I wrote a piece of fanfic for the old librarius about how Navigators and Astropaths would essentially live cloistered lives of leisure aboard Templar ships, where they were not allowed to interact with anyone except a serf caste that would ritually purify themselves before and after interacting with the mutants. It felt suitably grimdark, appropriate tonthe setting, it was well received andjust goes to show that a little bit of thought goes a long way in making things that seem irreconcilable work together really well.

[Aegir_Einarsson]

Ok. That some starkingu point.

Grey knights Ok i understand.

What about inquisition? Some of them are Also psykers.

I've read that during geonide crusade bonds between BT And Inq were strong, but i thought about relations in general

[Marshal Rohr]

That’s going to vary from Inquisitor to Inquisitor. The old Templars were only allowed to ally with Grey Knights, but that was before the ally chart mechanism became a thing. The Templars would probably have varying reactions to a psychic Inquisitor based on the overall sentiments of the Crusade in question. Some may be hardline, others might not. The Inquisitor may not reveal they are a Psyker at all and the Templars would have no way of knowing.

 

As for general relations with the Inquisition, that was relative to each individual crusade in the old lore because the chapter is not a unified body. Two crusades may not even know the other exists. So Marshal X might be so independently minded he disdains working under the Imperial Seal, while Marshal Y thinks it’s the burden of Templars to help the Ordo Xenos purge an alien colony.

[Xisor]

I've not closely followed all the ins and outs of the Templars, but an old buddy of mine got into the hobby at the same time - I went Salamanders and he leaned Templars - so I've always had a fondness for them (though not *quite* a passion).

 

Given what's written, and my ignorance of it is it possible that the Templars' faith *is* distinct from the Ecclessiarchy?

 

That is: their creed and culture and beliefs are actually ferociously distinct. Think: ostensibly the three Abrahamic world religions are ostensibly all of the same belief in the Primacy of (One) God - but we see they are quite at odds in many ways.

 

In that way, the Templars' Creed could be an Imperial Creed, but quite autonomous and divergent from the exact scriptures of almost all Ecclessiarchy-sanctioned creeds. To the point that it's not one of the Emperor-as-Sun/Death/Whatevs cults that can be incorporated - but is a genuine point of doctrinal friction and fracture?

 

It's a room in which to accommodate things. Hell, their creed might be the Imperial Truth's honest legacy (like they are ostensibly Dorn's), albeit after 10,000 years of revision and adaptation...

 

It's a thought, at least. :)