Leagues of Votann Initial 1st April 2022 reveal, new lore & articles discussion

[lansalt]

The Cthonian reference is yet another reason for the Leagues to be in the Imperium's list of things they want to kill as soon it's possible. They must have been isolated for a long time to escape the Imperium's attention for 10000 years.

[TheVoidDragon]

35 minutes ago, Lord Marshal said:

"Who are the Guilds?"

 

Plenty of interesting stuff in that article, and that artwork is just great! A little bit of that grimdark that people were saying was missing there with Guilds caring about profit above all else.

 

[phandaal]

Even if the Imperium did know the Leagues existed, it is not like the Imperium could stop the Leagues from trading with whomever the Leagues choose.

We do not know if all trade takes place unimpeded, but in the 40k galaxy different races all tend to do exactly what they are powerful enough to do.

[Lord Marshal]

Rogue Traders are permitted to trade with Xenos, so long as they're on the frontier of Imperial space. It's not a stretch that they'd 'tolerate' the League doing it insofar as they're allies, not technically a part of the Imperium (even if they seethe about that).

[Orange Knight]

Rogue Traders do indeed trade, but their warrant does not allow them to bolster the Imperium's enemies to the point where they threatened the Imperium itself.

[phandaal]

27 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

Rogue Traders do indeed trade, but their warrant does not allow them to bolster the Imperium's enemies to the point where they threatened the Imperium itself.

The point is the Imperium cannot control what the Leagues do. There is no "allow" or "not allow." If the Imperium could control the Leagues, there would be no Leagues. It would all just be The Imperium.

[Slave to Darkness]

3 hours ago, phandaal said:

The point is the Imperium cannot control what the Leagues do. There is no "allow" or "not allow." If the Imperium could control the Leagues, there would be no Leagues. It would all just be The Imperium.

Cant control what you dont know exists. 

[phandaal]

53 minutes ago, Slave to Darkness said:

Cant control what you dont know exists. 

Even when the Imperium knew about the Squats, they could not control them. The Squat empire has always been too powerful to be controlled or destroyed by the Imperium.

Asking why the Imperium allows Squats to trade with Xenos is just a strange way of looking at things. The Imperium is not a galactic hall monitor.

[Slave to Darkness]

32 minutes ago, phandaal said:

Even when the Imperium knew about the Squats, they could not control them. The Squat empire has always been too powerful to be controlled or destroyed by the Imperium.

Asking why the Imperium allows Squats to trade with Xenos is just a strange way of looking at things. The Imperium is not a galactic hall monitor.

Imperium cant even sort its own problems out, hell theres some giant blue dude who thinks hes in charge just because he has his dads sword. 

[Orange Knight]

There is no way that the Votann would be able to keep the secret of the AI cores from the Imperium.

The Inquisition would capture some Votann and torture them physically or psychically until they knew the secret.

The question remains, if they are only now being rediscovered, should they join/rejoin the Imperium or not. Highly productive, resource rich society with advanced STC-like technology. Guilliman might show an interest.

There's a lot of potential lore to explore, and I hope they do.

[roryokane]

1 hour ago, Slave to Darkness said:

Imperium cant even sort its own problems out, hell theres some giant blue dude who thinks hes in charge just because he has his dads sword. 

Cadaverous sods lying on thrones distributing swords is no basis for a system of government...!

[phandaal]

1 hour ago, Orange Knight said:

There is no way that the Votann would be able to keep the secret of the AI cores from the Imperium.

The Inquisition would capture some Votann and torture them physically or psychically until they knew the secret.

Inquisitors barely even share things with each other, much less with the entire million-planet Imperial bureaucracy.

Even if they did try to share it, there is a good chance their information would get lost in the Warp, or stuck in a filing cabinet for several thousand years. Or maybe whoever gets the information keeps it a secret for themselves and dies trying to recover the STC themselves. Or the Mechanicus gets wind of it and assassinates the Inquisitor so they can have it for themselves. Et cetera, ad nauseam.

The 40k universe is not a neat and tidy place where secrets get shot around the galaxy and back before breakfast.

[quasistellar]

I feel like some folks only read the blurbs in codexes when it comes to lore. The galaxy is vast and the imperium is HIGHLY dysfunctional.

[Felix Antipodes]

GW appears to really putting some thought into this new/old faction.  Cannot wait for their codex release and where they go from here with the full release.

[Orange Knight]

8 hours ago, phandaal said:

Inquisitors barely even share things with each other, much less with the entire million-planet Imperial bureaucracy.

Even if they did try to share it, there is a good chance their information would get lost in the Warp, or stuck in a filing cabinet for several thousand years. Or maybe whoever gets the information keeps it a secret for themselves and dies trying to recover the STC themselves. Or the Mechanicus gets wind of it and assassinates the Inquisitor so they can have it for themselves. Et cetera, ad nauseam.

The 40k universe is not a neat and tidy place where secrets get shot around the galaxy and back before breakfast.

Vital information on a non Imperial faction like this would not be kept secret.

And it won't have to be am Inquisitor either who discovers the information. 

The fact is that all members of the Votann know the secret of their AI cores, and at some point some Psyker, Mechanicus priest, member of the Logos Historica, etc will discover the truth.

Whilst the general Imperium is very ignorant, there are people within it who do know a lot about things that happen beyond it's borders.

[TheVoidDragon]

One of the other articles said that all Kin would sacrifice themselves to protect the Votann, and with how fractured and disjointed the Imperium is even if someone did find out I can't really see it being something where the truth wouldn't got lost in all that.

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by TheVoidDragon

[phandaal]

2 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

Vital information on a non Imperial faction like this would not be kept secret.

Sure it would. People keeping vital information secret is a fundamental aspect of the 40k setting. 

2 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

The fact is that all members of the Votann know the secret of their AI cores, and at some point some Psyker, Mechanicus priest, member of the Logos Historica, etc will discover the truth.

They might, yes. Someone finding this out does not guarantee anything else will happen, nor does it guarantee a unified response to the Leagues across the Imperium.

There certainly is a lot of lore potential with the Leagues, and we would all like to see more of it. Hopefully it is done in a way that actually fits within the setting.

[Orange Knight]

In recent 40k novels, high ranking Imperium officers such as Space Marine Captains are shown to have extensive knowledge of things that exist outside of the Imperium, such as Necron C'tan and their power, the way the Tau function, etc,  even if they haven't been mentioned to have run into them directly. 

Clearly important information is known by key figures.

It's hard to imagine how information like this would be kept from someone like Belisarius Cawl, for example. 

 

Now, I'm not suggesting that there might not be something in place to protect the Votann secrets from the more zealous elements within the Imperium, and there might even be some agreed-upon pacts.

I'm just saying that I hope they explore these ideas. The Votann are, after all, a set of lost human colonies and the Imperium would have great interest in them and their technologies. There is potential for great stories and drama.

[Handsome Fred]

What do you think about the Chtonian thing? A hint for a future book for squat for hh?

[Slave to Darkness]

21 minutes ago, Handsome Fred said:

What do you think about the Chtonian thing? A hint for a future book for squat for hh?

Well in 1st edition Squats did fight on both sides, so hopefully, fingers crossed and all that. 

[ArielRSA]

I think it's just a reference to Cthonic as in the underworld gods. Votann have a common ancient origin with the Imperium so could have maintained similar references

[Petitioner's City]

So the launch box must be soon, as the Loremasters for the leagues is up this week:

That could mean hopefully the next two weeks, based on past Loremasters before releases (like ash wastes)?

[Halandaar]

49 minutes ago, Petitioner's City said:

So the launch box must be soon, as the Loremasters for the leagues is up this week:

That could mean hopefully the next two weeks, based on past Loremasters before releases (like ash wastes)?

The releases for the next two weeks are already known: it's AoS Arcane Cataclysm this weekend 40K Daemons and CSM leftovers next weekend.

Besides, they haven't even announced a Launch Box/Army Set for Leagues yet, and while I do think it's inevitable that there will be one, GW doesn't just drop major products within a couple of weeks of announcing them, we all know they like to hype stuff up for a good while first. I think the absolute earliest we could see a Votann Army Set is late September, and that's assuming they reveal it within the next week or so.

[HolyPestilience]

I guess they will reveal the launch box at nova open next week and the release will be -as others already said- in September 

[Petitioner's City]

Sorry wasn't clear, didn't mean release, I meant the Sunday preview of the next week's preorders. I don't think there's been a loremaster further out than a few weeks though from its associated release. I think ash wastes was one key example, where it went up twoish weeks (either a week and a half or two weeks and a half) before the release was announced for the next weekend. Announced next next weekend (4th) for pre-order from the next weekend, for one or two weeks til in shops release?  

But GW have dropped "major" products without much or any notice - that underground Warcry box is one example, but there were others. In contrast the leagues have had a lot of build up (far more than either Lumineth or BTs, and really more than the SoB too) - we just need to see the box and codex, the expectation (and saleability) is present already.