ADB interview with Goonhammer

[Marshal Loss]

Fascinating read, well worth the time.

 

Link

[Sandlemad]

Good stuff. A lot of it is familiar if you've read ADB's thoughts on his blog or in other interviews but it's solid stuff. The point about "uh actually Khayon is an unreliable narrator" not being the rhetorical finishing move some folks think it is - and in fact a gateway into further nuance - is an excellent address to a tendency I've seen around the place.

 

I really like this:

 

 

Here’s an example. There are three Chapters called the Triarchy. They’re all Blood Angel Successors: the Charnel Guard, the Red Seraphs, and the Angels Numinous. They’re Alan Bligh’s, John French’s, and my own personal Chapters, respectively.

 

The Charnel Guard are the gothic and undead elements of vampirism, amped up to 11. They’re black-armoured, corpse-like, stasis-crypt-using murderers that have countless blood rituals they don’t tell anyone about. The Red Seraphs are the Renaissance and the artistry of Rome in power armour. Their armour is ornate, they try to overcome the Flaw in their gene-seed by amplifying their angelic qualities and focusing on mental and spiritual purity. And the Angels Numinous are the warlike element of mythological angels – they’re the Armies of Heaven that bled and bled and bled as they fought Satan’s Fallen Angels. They wear armour of dark bronze, have a vaguely Persian culture, and sacrifice their Death Company in battle as a blunt instrument, not as honoured brothers but as spiritual failures.

 

Three Chapters: all angels, all vampires, all just as violent and dangerous as each other, but each with specific cultural angles that make them credible and unique without making them “better” than anyone else.

 

That's cool, that's the kind of thing that only comes from a good amount of thoughtfulness about the Blood Angels and their character. Lovely that it could be done with and developed in tandem with his mates as well.

[Medjugorje]

I like the part where he explain how different Space Marine chapters are... especially how often people see that not like it is. Thats something - mostly competitive players - often communicate WRONG. If they play the Iron Hands Supplement with other CT like Master Artisan + X then they are not Iron Hands anymore.

[Jareddm]

That's cool, that's the kind of thing that only comes from a good amount of thoughtfulness about the Blood Angels and their character. Lovely that it could be done with and developed in tandem with his mates as well.

I haven't read it yet, but there's an ADB story in the June White Dwarf about these three chapters meeting.

 

Edit: I just finished reading it, and it gave me chills.  Great short story, with plenty of real world symbolism about the state of 40k in the Era Indomitus.  For me, the most thought-provoking element is the history between the three chapters.

The Red Seraphs and the Angels Numinous seem to both be successors of a dead chapter called the Blood Eagles.  But unlike regular successors, I get the feeling that the Blood Eagles literally ripped themselves into two factions, Sons of Medusa-style, that formed the two successors.  And that the Charnel Guard were responsible for acting as some sort of sponsor/mediator that gave the two new chapters legitimacy as well as keeping them from immediately going for the other's throat.

Edited July 4, 2020 by Jareddm

[Xin Ceithan]

Ugh, that just makes worrying about what happened to my WD subscription more worrisome:p

 

 

Also, two things just got added to my fanboy fantasy top ten list:

 

Full Index Astartes Article on Red Serapis, Angels Numinous and Charnel Guard. With Artwork.

 

Joining a narrative killteam campaign focused on the Black Legion.

[Noserenda]

ADB is one of those rare authors where even their interviews are super interesting, some writers just write everything well.

[drooling blood]

Query. Is James M Hewitt the same guy that did Hewligan's Haircut and Tank Girl?

Now thats showing my age.

I wonder how he felt about Abnett killing Zeraphon.

Edited July 4, 2020 by drooling blood

[b1soul]

To be fair, the Charnel Guard sounds just a wee bit more violent than the other two.

 

The Charnel Guard sounds like a revival of the Revenant flesh-eaters of the old IXth.

 

The Red Seraphs sound a bit like Dante's BA...so I'd like to learn more about what makes them truly unique.

 

The Angels Numinous sound absolutely fascinating. Like a hyper-militarised Angelic host taken from the pages of Paradise Lost or the Vertigo Lucifer comic series.

[Medjugorje]

I think thats a very narrow perspective. There are a few suc. chapters which were more evil then the FT could ever be... thats the interesting part of 40k. The Flesh Tearers like and show their brutality as strength but they dont treat humans as food like a few others do.

[b1soul]

What are you talking about?

[mc warhammer]

this is one of the in-built things about 40k i really enjoy- showing the variance and cultural drift amongst chapters who all come from the one, traceable root. throw in homeworld culture, distinct experiences, time and distance and you end up with infinite variations on the one theme (or even the parent chapter itself diverging from the 30k legion characteristics, like the iron hands did).  watching them interact was the best part of the devastation of baal books for me. adb highlighted that fascination perfectly in this interview.

Edited July 5, 2020 by mc warhammer

[b1soul]

Hope ADB does a BA successor chapter novel or features such a chapter in one of his series.

 

I get his desire to stay away from metaplot. When the sandbox is a whole galaxy and the dominant human empire consists of a million or so worlds with 10,000 years of history, a great metaplot is incredibly difficult to pull off convincingly (probably need someone like Asimov and what he did with the Foundation series) and it's not going to be every authour's cup of tea.

 

I like his focus on exploring small corners of the Imperium, which is a great way of making the Imperium feel big. I also look forward to the upcoming Dawn of Fire series, but have tempered expectations.

[plastic_slug]

I like his focus on exploring small corners of the Imperium, which is a great way of making the Imperium feel big. I also look forward to the upcoming Dawn of Fire series, but have tempered expectations.

Tempered expectations is a good thing, after the way they’ve handled the Heresy series and The Beast Arises. I guess we’ll see if Black Library has learned anything from the errors made there, but my expectations are low on that as well. 

[Indefragable]

To be fair, the Charnel Guard sounds just a wee bit more violent than the other two.

 

The Charnel Guard sounds like a revival of the Revenant flesh-eaters of the old IXth.

 

The Red Seraphs sound a bit like Dante's BA...so I'd like to learn more about what makes them truly unique.

 

The Angels Numinous sound absolutely fascinating. Like a hyper-militarised Angelic host taken from the pages of Paradise Lost or the Vertigo Lucifer comic series.

 

I think your take on the Red Seraphs is a bit of a narrow viewing as well, but it's all subjective and we each have our own interpretations so that's what makes this stuff and these friendly conversations so fun (that is not a knock on your opinion). 

 

My Take (in the "Your Dudes" sense) on the BA fits in much more with his description of the Angels Numinous. I think it's fascinating to our modern sensibilities because in our increasingly secular world, the concept of "Wrath of God" is ever more distant and harder for our collective imagination to process. The closest we can come is the end scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark or the Angel of Death from The Ten Commandments or such. 

 

Not trying to toot my own horn or anything, but it's part of why I am so obsessed with the Blood Angels overall. We have conception of Vikings, and thus Viking in Space. We have media that depicts Knights Templar, so Knights in Space is easier for us to process. But "Wrath of God" is such a tough mental image for "us," that in some ways Wrath of God in Space is almost easier to process than the core concept itself. 

 

...then throw in some form of vampirism/cannibalism and suddenly you get what makes the BA so interesting and--in my humble, personal opinion--the single most interesting part of the entire setting. 

 

ADB's comments to me reflect what makes 40k as a whole (including both 30k and 40k) so interesting, since you can have all these successor chapters that can be as one-note as you like (or not), but then when you go back and do the prequel (HH) you have to meld seemingly contradictory elements together into a cohesive and in-universe perfectly natural way. 

 

********

 

I found the interview enlightening overall. I especially liked his statements on Successor chapters and the Holy Grail of "no one is better, they're just different." In our online world of everything-is-a-peeing-contest, I think that's an important statement to remember. 

 

2/3 of all Chapters are Ultramarines successors. That's why the galaxy is so messed up. 

[bluntblade]

And that's the Song of Achilles added to my reading list.

[b1soul]

I don't think it's a "narrow viewing" as I am open to hearing what sets them apart. I'm operating purely on the few throwaway lines below:

 

The Red Seraphs are the Renaissance and the artistry of Rome in power armour. Their armour is ornate, they try to overcome the Flaw in their gene-seed by amplifying their angelic qualities and focusing on mental and spiritual purity.

 

This to me sounds not too far off from the BA. Though I'm sure ADB could make them unique in a single short story if he hasn't already.

[Marshal Rohr]

Solid interview and its awesome to get some info on the Charnel Guard and Red Seraphs after all these years. 

[DarkChaplain]

The salvation-through-artistry angle is also explored by Guy Haley's Blood Drinkers in Death of Integrity.... although they still host blood parties in intervals to quench the thirst, which they got hit with pretty badly. I seem to recall a particular scene where their Chapter Master is putting together a mosaic while struggling with withdrawal symptoms and considering options for help, but fearing the Inquisition might find out about their rituals.

 

That scene kind of stuck with me because of how well it characterized the Chapter, and in a Space Marine Battles novel, no less - and one they shared with the Novamarines, which I hope Haley will find opportunity to go back to with Dawn of Fire.

 

Honestly, I think the BAs are one of the most blessed Chapters/Legions when it comes to successor depictions. They draw on the whole spectrum of the Blood Angels throughout Black Library. Can't really say the same for most others.

[b1soul]

I wonder what ADB would have done with the original (non-handicapped) Zephon in his original draft of MoM.

 

Hope the Bringer of Sorrow still has more to contribute one way or another post-Saturnine.

[Bobss]

I have always believed ADB's best asset to the Black Library portfolio is his ability and desire to delve deep into previous editions of the game and his willingness to present multi-layered works that draw from many different eras of its lore and history. You can tell his writing room is stuffed full of crumbling codices and supplements and model catalogues and boardgames and art pieces from the 1990s and early 2000s. He might not directly reference super-old stuff as often as John French does in that Simpsons kind of way where some readers get it and some readers don't, or mention other in-house works as often as Josh Reynolds did for that shared-universe sense of goodness, or stand on the shoulders of fellow Black Library giants like Guy Haley frequently tends to do in his writing, but he loves to bring back a lot of the mood and atmosphere of times gone by in his own way and with his own take on it. Imagine if someone tried to write a series about Abaddon the Despoiler based on only the Horus Heresy novels: you would (mostly) have a raging idiot who somehow has achieved all of his codex feats. That isn't to say PAST GOOD; NOW BAD, but 40k is so old at this point that it is a real shame when so many other authors appear to use nothing more than the latest model catalogue to inspire their writings, when there is so much more a composite piece of work could achieve. ADB comes across like a historian of the Warhammer 40,000 setting and his works read as a curator's love for the topic. ''And here, on the left, we have the first-ever copy of Ian Watson's Space Marine. A very interesting piece to be sure...''

 

None of ADB's work is quite so seminal on this subject as his Black Legion series is IMO. I've read Black Legion too many times to count, and each time it transports me back in time to being a pale and pudgy kid reading the 2nd/3rd/3rdagain edition Chaos Space Marines codices. Just... the swaggering and posturing of the Traitor Legionaries brimming with violence and pride, despite the fact they are losers; the role of the post-Siege setting in how it shapes their daily lives and thoughts, similar to how World War 2 still casts its shadow over our lives as THE historical moment to end all historical moments; the terrible nature of the Eye and the warp no matter which shipdeck you inhabit or which variation of homo sapiens you are; the inter-Legion, inter-warband dealings and all of the unique customs and rituals that have popped up in the millennia or so since the Heresy. Just... all of it. It's extremely rich and excellent stuff and demonstrates why, in my opinion, the sandbox approach to tie-in fiction will always be superior to all other methods of doing it. Chaos Space Marines aren't nice guys never given their due by the evil Imperium - they are (largely) absolute bastards, and the Black Legion series pulls absolutely no punches in this regard

 

Every time ADB writes one of these giant interviews I think he really enjoys directly expressing his love for the setting (and for his job, essentially) but without being confined by the framework of a novel or a short story. To bring this full circle, when building your own Successor Chapter or Traitor Warband or Lost Legion or whatever, I think it requires a comprehensive knowledge of the setting to be able to play things straight but also change a few things up for just enough spice to be realistic. Things like 'a Word Bearers sect who really, really love to venerate Khorne' or the Steel Brethren deploying more like Iron Hands is not only interesting but also seems perfectly legitimate. I can totally imagine these guys existing and surviving and dealing and winning and losing in the Eye of Terror in between raiding the Imperium or exploring dusty Craftworlds/Tomb Worlds and the whole thing is just hnnnrrrggg

Edited July 8, 2020 by Bobss