Is GW getting too specific with lore?(spoiler warning)

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Ok first off I'm posting from my phone so I don't know how or if i even can do a spoiler bar here so if you don't want anything from darkness in the blood spoiled I will post a SPOILER WARNING before getting to that part.

 

One of the thing I always liked about the game and lore was how there was very little actually known even to those 'in the know'.

However it seems like GW is trying to firm up the lore a bit, how much I'm not sure, but Robot Girlyman sending historians around to document everything about every system and what not sends that signal, but the revelation from darkness in the blood really sends me that vibe

 

SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING

 

So if what Wolf Lord Rho says is correct DitB reveals the Sanguinor as Azkellon the first Sanguinor.

Personally I would have been just fine never having a definite answer as to who or what the Sanguinor is, and making him a 10k year old marine that's a mystery to all of the sons of sanguinius just opens up even more questions and plot holes...like does he have his own ship? If so he obviously has his own crew....where do they come from?

How was he able to fly via jump pack through a demon storm created by ka'bandha when actual aircraft weren't able to make it through?

 

END OF SPOILERS

 

 

So do you guys see where I'm coming from and agree with my assessment, if so how do you feel about it?

Edited November 14, 2020 by Brother Tyler

[BluejayJunior]

I don't remember anything in Darkness in the Blood about Azkellon being the Sanguinor. 

[Morovir]

It says nothing of the sort. Azkaellon isn't even mentioned. What it actually says is

 

"He was once a man, like you. Into him has poured all the nobility of your kin for one hundred centuries. See how powerful he is."

 

That's all it says on the origins of the Sanguinor.

Edited November 14, 2020 by Morovir

[m0nolith]

The origin of the Sanguinor is already covered in a Heresy short story, and no, its not Azkellon.

[Noserenda]

The origin of the Sanguinor is already covered in a Heresy short story, and no, its not Azkellon.

Which short story? I dont recall that coming up so far but there are so many random  release or gatekept short stories and such i may have missed it!

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Well then Rho lied to me and I feel triggered

Did the herasy books cover the origin of THE Sanguinor or of the sanguinor?

[Dizzyeye01]

You'll want to read Ruinstorm by David Annandale. It all but confirms the origins of the Sanguinor.

[Brother Tyler]

While the spoiler in the OP is specific to the Blood Angels (and I was tempted to move it into the Blood Angels forum for that reason), it's a general lore question, so I'm moving this to Amicus Aedes.

 

+EDIT+

 

And after reading the entire topic...

 

Now that the "spoiler" in the OP has been demonstrated to be based on a false assumption, it's probably best to focus on the gist of the general question - How do you feel about GW resolving issues that were previously more mysterious?

 

For my part, I'll point out that we don't necessarily know that this is the case.

 

For example, the Legion of the Damned were once known to be the survivors of the Firehawks Chapter. That was during the 1st edition of the game. This aspect of their lore was omitted from the 3rd through 5th editions. In 6th edition, however, the lore was changed so that was just one of several possible origins and their true origin is no longer certain.

 

There will be many cases where small bits of lore are expanded upon, and occasionally revised or the plot moved forward (e.g., the return of Roboute Guilliman, Luther's escape from the Rock, etc.).

 

So I suppose the real issue is for the OP to prove the premise - that GW is providing resolutions to sufficient lore in a way that demonstrates a deliberate effort to create more certainty in the lore [at the expense of an older state where much was a mystery].

Edited November 14, 2020 by Brother Tyler

[Lucerne]

"Knowing" the identity of a daemonic entity isn't an issue. I have more issues with the BL Heresy being "definitive" takes on the characters and FW at least does damage control.

[Corswain]

Yes, I do think GW are getting too specific with a lot of their lore but I do think that that's what the majority of their fans want. I don't neccessarily agree or want it, but I do understand why GW is getting like that.

 

Best example for me is the Lost Legions - How many threads do you see of people scouring and analysing any tiny scrap or clue to find an answer. Some of that is just hypothetical (which is fine and can be a lot of fun) but a lot seems to be driven by a genuine desire to know the answer. 

Just a big note on this - definitely  not looking to start another discussion on this. Just using an example to demonstrate my opinion.

 

The Sanguinor and Cypher are other good examples.

[Rik Lightstar]

I always work on the basis that fluff like this is from unreliable narrators. It's what they believe to be true, and there are some bits of evidence to support their views, but very few of them have anything approaching a full picture.

 

"So what I told you was true, from a certain point of view"

 

Rik

[ThePenitentOne]

I second the thoughts on the unreliable narrator.

 

I'll go one further: you have to disconnect the novels from the game. Novels say a lot of stuff that is just pure crap. I mean, it's exciting... It's a good read. But it means nothing. The game came first. Without the game, there would be no novels. Therefore if the novels contradict something that is in the game, the novels are just plain wrong. There are many examples of this. I get into debates about this stuff on Dakka all the time.

 

Novels describe marines as being faster than sisters. They aren't- movement stats are equal, therefore the novels are wrong.

An alpha class psyker, in the novels is something that could take out an army. In the rules, they know an extra power and get an extra deny. Therefore the novels are wrong.

 

When I use the word fluff, I'm refering to the background material in the rule books- it tends to be more consistent with the game.

 

Some day, I hope to be worthy enough to write for the Black Library. When I do, every single battle that I write will be played on the table top first, and nothing that is impossible on the table will ever happen in one of my books. I wish all BL writers held themselves to that standard.

 

Now this is not to hate on the novels- I've read a fair number, and I've enjoyed almost all of them. But I have to separate them from the game, and the game ALWAYS takes priority.

[Brother Tyler]

I second the thoughts on the unreliable narrator.

 

I'll go one further: you have to disconnect the novels from the game. Novels say a lot of stuff that is just pure crap. I mean, it's exciting... It's a good read. But it means nothing. The game came first. Without the game, there would be no novels. Therefore if the novels contradict something that is in the game, the novels are just plain wrong. There are many examples of this. I get into debates about this stuff on Dakka all the time.

 

Novels describe marines as being faster than sisters. They aren't- movement stats are equal, therefore the novels are wrong.

An alpha class psyker, in the novels is something that could take out an army. In the rules, they know an extra power and get an extra deny. Therefore the novels are wrong.

 

When I use the word fluff, I'm refering to the background material in the rule books- it tends to be more consistent with the game.

 

Some day, I hope to be worthy enough to write for the Black Library. When I do, every single battle that I write will be played on the table top first, and nothing that is impossible on the table will ever happen in one of my books. I wish all BL writers held themselves to that standard.

 

Now this is not to hate on the novels- I've read a fair number, and I've enjoyed almost all of them. But I have to separate them from the game, and the game ALWAYS takes priority.

You're talking about something different - whether or not the lore is accurate to the rules.

 

The discussion here is about whether or not GW setting what were previously mysteries as definite facts is appealing to members.

[Gederas]

Some day, I hope to be worthy enough to write for the Black Library. When I do, every single battle that I write will be played on the table top first, and nothing that is impossible on the table will ever happen in one of my books. I wish all BL writers held themselves to that standard.

So.... You want to be a worse Gav Thorpe then?

 

Just saying, you wouldn't write for Black Library if you wrote like that. Black Library books are fiction set in the setting, not the Tabletop Game. Black Library is for cool stories in the setting of Warhammer 40,000. Not glorified battle reports.

Edited November 15, 2020 by Gederas

[ThePenitentOne]

 

Some day, I hope to be worthy enough to write for the Black Library. When I do, every single battle that I write will be played on the table top first, and nothing that is impossible on the table will ever happen in one of my books. I wish all BL writers held themselves to that standard.

So.... You want to be a worse Gav Thorpe then?

 

Just saying, you wouldn't write for Black Library if you wrote like that. Black Library books are fiction set in the setting, not the Tabletop Game. Black Library is for cool stories in the setting of Warhammer 40,000. Not glorified battle reports.

 

 

Fair enough. I never claimed to be a great writer.

 

But I would suggest that if what you do on the table top doesn't feel heroic enough to make a good story, you might consider adding a bit of background to the battles you fight. The stories aren't actually about the battles- they are about the connective tissue between battles. That's why I Crusade.

[Rogue]

I think that, when it comes to lore (or fluff), 'too much' is a strange line to tread.

 

When I first got into 40k back when it was Rogue Trader and most of my reading came from White Dwarf, one of the best things about it was the mystery. Who was Horus? What was his heresy? Why were two legions scrubbed out of the lists when the traitors still remained? That sort of thing.

 

And here's the problem. I want to know the answers, and I don't want to know the answers. Part of the fun of the mysteries is that they tantalise - they offer possibilities and speculation. It's like the run-up to Christmas when the parcels are under the tree - wondering and anticipating is exciting.

 

But a tease loses its allure if it lasts too long. Eventually the presents have to be opened. Which is great, but it marks the end - once we know that the secret is, we can never un-know it; we can never go back to the excitement of wondering.

 

And that's the rub. We world-build by hinting and suggesting, but eventually we're caught between frustration at not knowing, and the disappointment of losing the mystery to an answer that didn't live up to our imagination.

 

For me, I prefer the mystery, and don't feel that every corner of the setting needs to laid out in forensic detail. Others will disagree, and that's fine. But once the genie is out of the bottle, we can never go back, and I miss that.

[Mostwanted]

I second the thoughts on the unreliable narrator.

 

I'll go one further: you have to disconnect the novels from the game. Novels say a lot of stuff that is just pure crap. I mean, it's exciting... It's a good read. But it means nothing. The game came first. Without the game, there would be no novels. Therefore if the novels contradict something that is in the game, the novels are just plain wrong. There are many examples of this. I get into debates about this stuff on Dakka all the time.

 

Novels describe marines as being faster than sisters. They aren't- movement stats are equal, therefore the novels are wrong.

An alpha class psyker, in the novels is something that could take out an army. In the rules, they know an extra power and get an extra deny. Therefore the novels are wrong.

 

When I use the word fluff, I'm refering to the background material in the rule books- it tends to be more consistent with the game.

 

Some day, I hope to be worthy enough to write for the Black Library. When I do, every single battle that I write will be played on the table top first, and nothing that is impossible on the table will ever happen in one of my books. I wish all BL writers held themselves to that standard.

 

Now this is not to hate on the novels- I've read a fair number, and I've enjoyed almost all of them. But I have to separate them from the game, and the game ALWAYS takes priority.

I know this is going off topic from what the OP has posted but I personally quite strongly disagree with what you are saying.

 

I get that you want the books to be accurate to how the games play on the table top. However for me, this would strongly limit the shere scale and power of things in the universe and undermine the grandure of the setting. Yes some psykers are unimaginably powerful but that wouldn't work on the table top. It wouldn't be fun to play a game where one model wipes out an army straight away. But it's great to read in a book and show the immense powers that exist in the setting.

 

Things have to be toned down on the tabletop to try to keep the game competitive and balanced.

 

I wouldn't want to read a book where everything is toned down. I want to read about things that are hard to comprehend because of how grand and powerful they are.

 

Each to their own.

[gorg_graggel]

I'm in the demystify everything camp. As has been pointed out, a mystery is only good for so long. The thing is that mystery is a device to get things going. If you keep beating a dead horse, you're just a bad writer not brave enough to explore new avenues, because you think people might not like it and stop buying your stuff. And therin lies the 'problem' with, say, GW's stuff. Everything they do is somehow connected to selling something, so they try to pander to all kinds of consumers at the same time.

 

It's similar with movies or video games or any medium really. Do one thing well and don't spread yourself too thinly, because the result will be just as thin. I also don't like the whole 'no spoilers culture', though that might be a result of me being a cynic about how good the stories people write are. I have been disappointed too many times to actually give a damn about not knowing some stuff. If the execution is good, the story won't matter that much (too me). It is a nice bonus if it's actually good. By that logic the other way around is obviously just as possible, but as said, there has been too much disappointment for me to be hopeful for that. It requires a much better writer to have a good story than it requires coordination to have good execution. The latter being more quantifyable and thus more predictable and easier to, well, execute.

 

The issue is of course much more complex than that, but I can't be assed to strain my tiny ineloquent and non-native speaking brain to convey my thoughts more convincingly. ;)

[Antarius]

I think that, when it comes to lore (or fluff), 'too much' is a strange line to tread.

When I first got into 40k back when it was Rogue Trader and most of my reading came from White Dwarf, one of the best things about it was the mystery. Who was Horus? What was his heresy? Why were two legions scrubbed out of the lists when the traitors still remained? That sort of thing.

And here's the problem. I want to know the answers, and I don't want to know the answers. Part of the fun of the mysteries is that they tantalise - they offer possibilities and speculation. It's like the run-up to Christmas when the parcels are under the tree - wondering and anticipating is exciting.

But a tease loses its allure if it lasts too long. Eventually the presents have to be opened. Which is great, but it marks the end - once we know that the secret is, we can never un-know it; we can never go back to the excitement of wondering.

And that's the rub. We world-build by hinting and suggesting, but eventually we're caught between frustration at not knowing, and the disappointment of losing the mystery to an answer that didn't live up to our imagination.

For me, I prefer the mystery, and don't feel that every corner of the setting needs to laid out in forensic detail. Others will disagree, and that's fine. But once the genie is out of the bottle, we can never go back, and I miss that.

I very much agree.

 

One of the very difficult needles to thread, when it comes to world-building and making a setting feel both real and "epic" (for lack of a better term) is how much to expand upon all the little hints and references in a story/stories that point to a larger universe or the setting's past. In essence, you need to have the feeling that there is something "behind the veil" and vague references tend to create tantalizing mysteries, but otoh, if you overdo it, readers get fed up with never getting the mysteries revealed.

Still, I'm sort of in the "keep it vague" camp, but that's just personal preference.

 

Some examples from other settings would be the reference in the original Star Wars movie that Ben Kenobi fought alongside Luke's father in the clone wars. That really piqued my interest and imagination, but when I actually go to SEE the clone wars I felt pretty let down, as it just couldn't live up to what I'd imagined. Or how a name like "The Witch King of Angmar" in LotR sounds super awesome and makes you wonder what happened in the setting's past, but actually reading "The Silmarillion" and getting everybody's family tree fleshed out? No thanks. To me that would just spoil the awesome feeling that there's *something* behind the veil and that it's probably super cool and mysterious.

Edited November 15, 2020 by Antarius

[Grey Hunter Ydalir]

 

 

Some day, I hope to be worthy enough to write for the Black Library. When I do, every single battle that I write will be played on the table top first, and nothing that is impossible on the table will ever happen in one of my books. I wish all BL writers held themselves to that standard.

So.... You want to be a worse Gav Thorpe then?

 

Just saying, you wouldn't write for Black Library if you wrote like that. Black Library books are fiction set in the setting, not the Tabletop Game. Black Library is for cool stories in the setting of Warhammer 40,000. Not glorified battle reports.

 

 

Fair enough. I never claimed to be a great writer.

 

But I would suggest that if what you do on the table top doesn't feel heroic enough to make a good story, you might consider adding a bit of background to the battles you fight. The stories aren't actually about the battles- they are about the connective tissue between battles. That's why I Crusade.

 

 

 

I disagree, completely, it depends on the tale you're trying to tell. The 'connective tissue' as you call it can be just as, if not more important than the pieces it connects, as without it the tale falls apart. It also depends on the story you're writing. You can write a story about a battle, easily, and have it be the main focus. There's more to war than just the thought processes of a few generals. The plight and suffering of the fighting men can be told as a huge part of the story, at that point the 'connective tissue' is the main focus of the story.

 

Look at the Battle of Thermopalye, while it is a 'connective piece' in the larger entry into the geo-politics of the region at that time, it's a major event on it's own. The battle itself that takes place over multiple days has entries devoted to the actions taken by the men as recorded by Herodotus.

 

To take it to another medium, you look at movies like Blackhawk Down or Gladiator. While you can argue the action is just connecting one scene and character to another, in Blackhawk Down especially, it's telling the story of a whole, wider conflict, of which the battle is part of that. In Gladiator the action is of direct consequence to the story as the fight is the 'conversation' between the characters, the outcome of which dictates the path of the characters within it, the Arena is it's own character to a point.

 

 

Also, don't put down your own ability. You may not be great now, but it takes time, practice and failure. You have to fail, to get it wrong and mess it up in order to learn how to do better.

 

 

In terms of the overall GW trend towards specifics, I think it's a balance from them. They haven't clarified everything, there's still plenty of mystery to the setting, but they have had to make a move. They obviously felt the story needed to progress somewhat. What we have to do now is wait and see how far they go, and what the new status quo is going to be going forward.

 

Hell, look at the Chronostrife crisis in the new lore, as Guilliman attempts to pin down exactly how much time has passed, and what happened where and when in Imperial History, which many may not know is incredibly important. If you want an informative video you can listen to on this, look at Leutin's video specifically on the Chronostrife, it's his latest upload on his YouTube channel. It throws the entirety of Imperial history into flux and severely into question on it's veracity in every aspect, you can't get more unreliable in your narrator than that.

[gripschi]

I think GW doing it right atm. Yes some mystery like the heresy are more or less properly expalined yet, but even now some questions remain unsolved.

 

One for me nice part of more tales, you have more points to start working on your stuff.

 

And i like the Primaris a lot, they arent the new Super Warriors, the lore state that they had huge losses on the beging of the Indomitus Cruasade due to only training and not real fight yet.

 

As Brother Grey say, the Chrono Strife is a huge problem. Even Robute was not able to properly resolve it. he simply use the Indomitus Crusade as new Year 0 if i remeber correct. We talk over about 2000 Years + or - after all.

[Volt]

The issue with mystery and revealing the mystery is that you need to actually be a highly competent writer capable of crafting grand tales. The primary problem GW suffers from is that the Black Library isn't that, so when we actually see the mysterious Primarchs or such ilk stomping about... it's woefully disappointing and author ineptitude just makes the character look like a blundering idiot and not some highly cultured genius level intellect. Thus every time GW decides to tear down the veil and expose the man behind the curtain, it's the diminutive Wizard of Oz, hardly an Agamemnon.

[MegaVolt87]

I honestly can't tell anymore if GW/BL values the journey or the destination in their storytelling, it seems like they can't weave both together effectively. I don't know if its always been this way or something I just noticed because old. 

[Scribe]

To the OP: Yes, probably, in all the worst ways.

[Evil Eye]

I definitely feel there has been a bit of an excess of "Rip the veil away, explain everything" in recent years- but even before 8th Edition. I'd argue it started with the HH game. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of awesome stuff that came from the Age of Darkness ruleset, but by its very nature, it took an era of time in the 40K universe which was poorly-understood and borderline mythical, and laid it all bare, stating "This is exactly what happened" (albeit somewhat softened by the ever-useful caveat of "Everything is canon, nothing is true"). IMO at least, when the Horus Heresy was so long ago that the numbers of (loyal) people who remember it can be counted on one hand and what little information existed on it was wreathed in the foggy miasma of ancient history, it worked far better. The Horus Heresy novels for a long time never revealed too much, and the occasional contradictions between books added to the "But what ACTUALLY happened?" factor. Of course, when you have to have concrete rules for the Legions of this era and the demi-gods that lead them, a lot of demystification has to happen pretty much as a necessity. That's not to say that it's exclusively the game's fault, oh no. I seem to recall a lot of the newer books have thrown in some rather ridiculous elements (Vulkan being a Perpetual, whatever the hell was going on with the Cabal when half the point of Alpharius and Omegon is that NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEIR GOAL IS), and the inter-author contradictions seem to have escalated from "possibly intentional efforts to keep the mystery of the era" to "authors battling out to make their interpretation of the lore the "canon" one".

 

As for modern 40K, whilst there's a lot I don't like about the new fluff, there's also a lot I do like, at least in theory. I actually don't hate the idea of Primarchs returning provided they exercise some restraint. The daemon Primarchs I'd argue have been long overdue a return- Angron has been active in the fluff for years now after all. I'd rather they didn't bring back any more loyalist Primarchs- or at least if they do, I hope they bring back like, one or two at most and do so in an interesting way. I actually think Guilliman's return sucks more in execution than in concept, and I thought the whole "hates what has become of his father's Imperium" element was a pretty nifty one, if poorly explored.