Harlequins who act out stories of the Horus Heresy?

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I had an interesting idea. What if there was a Harlequin troupe which, rather than warning of the dangers of the Great Enemy from the perspective of the Aeldari, they acted examples from the history of the Imperium, such as the fall of Magnus the Red and the Horus Heresy in general? Could be interesting, I think.

 

Edit: Weird key command that I somehow triggered accidentally, had to finish up the post.

[Slips]

It could but one wonders:

 

How would they know of the Fall of Magnus and other even-for-the-Imperium Obscure stuff that remained relatively unknown?

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

Well, the Aeldari as a whole are relative masters of psychic powers, especially divination if you're talking about Asuryani. I think it's somewhat plausible that at least a small group of Harlequins would have come across this information due to plausible "because magic" reasons.

[N1SB]

This is an outstanding idea, it's so good, thanks for sharing it.

 

And great question about obscure events.  In the case of stuff like the Fall of Magnus, it happens that example relates to the Eldar webway and how the Emperor was trying to tap into it in his major project.  The Eldar might not know the full details, but they might have heard Magnus's psychic scream up and down their own intact webway, disappearing towards the inactive gate on the mon-keigh homeworld, sensed the Daemons breaking through, then noticed Prospero got ganked a little later.  It's well possible they put 2 and 2 together even before "because space elf magic", that's why I love this.

 

So it's a great question because it's the Eldar perspective of the Horus Heresy, based on their limited information, and what they think is important to them.

 

This is such a great idea because the Primarchs themselves have clear motifs that can be represented as Harlequin costumes.  Ferrus Manus's player would have metal gloves (and probably the 1st you remove from the table, I play Shattered Xth, this is not a joke at the expense of Iron Hands).  Magnus the Red is red and has one eye.  And there's 2 identically costumed Harlequins playing Alpharius.  Etc.

 

This is such a great modeling project.  Really thankful for this, much appreciated.

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

Heh. Happy to find out I've come up with an actually decent idea for once. Of course, now I have to grab a few of the Harlequin packs and do it myself. Since it's 6 to a pack, I'd say... 3, maybe 4 if I wanted to model Emps and the major players who weren't Primarchs (Ahriman, Typhus, Abaddon, etc).

[N1SB]

That's another great point, because what the Eldar and Harlequins may consider the most major players may not be what humans consider.  It's their re-telling.

 

There are clearly people that are fundamentally important even in their version of history:

 

The Emperor

Horus Lupercal

 

Then there are those the Eldar are disproportionately interested in, because it relates to them:

 

Fulgrim, because he and his Legion are most closely aligned with their adversary, Slaanesh

Ahriman, like you mentioned, because he's always trying to get in their Black Library

 

Furthermore, just as we have to consider that they may not know things that humans do, we have to consider what they do know that humans don't, like:

 

The Lost Primarchs, II and XI

 

Yeah, I normally wouldn't even mention the Lost Primarchs, because it just opens up a Pandora's Box.  However, with your idea, having them represented by Harlequins...who act as a buffer or foil between us...we don't really open that box; instead, the Harlequins do, and they don't tell us what's inside, they only tell each other.  All we would see is that they existed in some way, but that's already a known issue.  Moreover, the Eldar were always said to be keepers of forbidden knowledge, but over the editions more and more information about them has been revealed, to the point they lost that quality, that mystique.  Having them represented by Harlequins, perhaps something as simple as just having them marked as II and XI, would be really impactful.

 

+++

 

Sidenote, I'm thinking of making a Death Jester character that represents the Mechanicum/Mechanicus.  They already have the half-skull motif, and a big gun, plus in Master of Mankind they had a strange role in the webway.

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I might just run this as an army list. At minimum, there would be two Troupe Masters (Emps and Horus) and two Troupes of Harlequins (10 Loyalist Primarchs (Sanguinius, Rogal, Vulkan, Ferrus, Omegon, the Lion, Jaghatai, Leman, Giiiiirlyman, Corax) and 9 Traitors (Fulgrim, Perturabo, Curze, Angron, Mortarion, Magnus, Lorgar, Alpharius)) as well as a third Troupe with the First Captains of each Legion (such as Ahriman, Typhus, etc.) Maybe some Troupes based on influential, individual Legions to beef up the list or something?

[RolandTHTG]

As a suggestion, I think the 'role' of the Lost Primarchs should go the Solitaire, to mirror them as "The Lost". 

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

The Solitaire is, as far as I know, one of only two Harlequin types who necessarily play a certain role (Slaanesh). I'll be having the Primarchs as a whole be regular Players and Horus and Emps being Troupe Masters, at minimum.