Lucius the Eternally Confusing

[LSM]

I've written about Lucius in the past, and for awhile have had in mind a thread detailing our greatest champion's history and evolution (and the issues therein). I was waiting to see what the updated 10th edition Codex lore and rules would do with him, however, and so now (book in hand) here we go.

 

One feeling that I commonly run into in the Warhammer community - and even in the Emperor's Children community - is that Lucius the Eternal "sucks" as a character. He's a joke, and a bad one; a self-proclaimed perfect swordsman who dies constantly. So common is this opinion that I don't think it can be discounted as "well, that's just like, your opinion, man". There must be some sort of legitimate problem, and to flush that out I think it's necessary to fully explore his history.

 

//

 

Lucius the Eternal was created for the 2002 Codex (though his model would not release until 2006, during the The Fall of Medusa V campaign). The nascent Lucius was a bit different than the one we've come to know. A veteran Lord Commander with centuries of experience, who had become a twisted sadomasochist devoted to the melee even pre-Heresy - carving deep grooves into his flesh to link the myriad scars picked up in battle. When slain in gladiatorial combat, Lucius' "agonising death was an experience of transcendent pleasure" and Slaanesh contrived to allow him to possess his killer(s) so that he might continue to pursue such experiences. Ten millennia later, he is a sadistic slaughterer who seeks out further deadly combats, getting "endless satisfaction" from tormenting the souls of those who have killed him and subsequently been trapped in his cacophonic Armour of Shrieking Souls.

 

While an excellent fighter, this was (at the time) primarily down to his gimmicks. His Combat Drug Dispenser providing boons (including increasing his already-above-average Strength of 5), his psychic power Fueled By Pain allowing him to (essentially) rebound attacks, and the disrupting effects of his sentient Lash of Torment, Warp Scream, Aura of Acquiescence, and Armour of Shrieking Souls (which also provided a ranged attack). His Weapon Skill was a rather average 5 (the same as Ahriman and Typhus, and less than Abaddon's 6 and Khârn's 7), so he wasn't what anyone would consider 'technically masterful'. He did have a rule called Martial Pride, which decreased his number of attacks against poorly skilled enemies, and increased them against better ones, though - representing how killing chaff is boring but tough enemies are fun.

 

//

 

The next big step in his development is the publishing, in 2006, of the first few books of the Horus Heresy series. They feature him pre-Heresy, though now as a far more junior Captain with a 'perfect visage', a charmingly hilarious overabundance of petty pride, and an obsession with duelling (which was added to the Emperor's Children at large). The lore also subsequently changes to be that he began cutting himself as an act of mad vanity (after having his nose broken by a sucker punch during a duel), rather than as a masochistic act.

 

The 2007 Codex copy/pastes his original lore without change, but does boost his Weapon Skill (to 7, matching Khârn's) while decreasing his Strength to 4 and removing his Combat Drugs. He is de-psyker'd, Fueled By Pain's effect being folded into the Armour of Shrieking Souls.

 

The 2012 Codex kept most of the rules the same, but updated his fluff to better match the novels. The two major changes that I'd like to highlight, though, are: his obsession with "being a perfect swordsman" is put in, and his finding death to be a transcendent pleasure is removed. (Though it does continue to say that he welcomes death with as much passion as he inflicts it, it doesn't say why he welcomes death.)

 

2012 is also a big year for Lucius in fiction, as he is the protagonist of the short story The Reflection, Crack'd and a notable presence in its follow-up Angel Exterminatus. In both of these, author Graham McNeill adroitly knits together Lucius' two core concepts: the perfect swordsman, and the ultimate sadomasochist.

 

"He was as close to being the perfect swordsman as it was possible to be, possessing the ideal balance between attack and defence, flawless footwork and a pathological need to feel pain.

“Such was the weakness of most opponents, they feared to feel pain.

“Lucius had no such fear...

"...as much as he liked to believe himself to be unbeatable, he knew that was not the case. There was no such thing as an unbeatable warrior, there would always be someone faster or stronger or luckier, but instead of fearing to meet such an opponent, Lucius ached for it.”

 

 

“A jolt of uncertainty flooded Lucius at the thought that the warrior had a chance of besting him. He laughed, giddy at having finally met a worthy foe, his every nerve surging at the idea of defeat, even if the possibility was so remote as to be next to impossible. That such a possibility existed at all was reason enough to revel in it.

“'You wounded me,' he said, amazed and thrilled at the same time..."

 

Lucius aspires to be a perfect swordsman, but like the Emperor's Children in general, Lucius is a madman. To an average person, a "flawless victory" would be a duel in which one dispatches their opponent without getting so much as touched. But Lucius is a masochist, Lucius craves pain. A true perfect duel is one in which he's run ragged, tossed about, penetrated and bled, and if pushed over the edge into a little death itself, well that's the sweetest pleasure of all.

 

//

 

Over the next two codexes (2017, 2022) his rules and lore blurbs would (roughly) stay similar. Solid melee profile with bonuses against good enemies, some disruption effects, his ranged sonic attack, and wound rebounding (which becomes an in-game resurrection in the 10th Index).

 

Ian St. Martin added the 40k short stories In Wolves Clothing (2016) and Lucius: Pride and Fall (2017 - the rather fun "steps on a landmine" one), and the novel Lucius: The Faultless Blade (2017). The shorts keep the sadomasochistic bent (while Lucius has his chest caved in he howls "in joyful pain" while his armour's souls are "moaning in concert with their gaoler", and while having his flesh burned and blood forced from his orifices his one thought is, "It was glorious."), while the novel adds a new bent: the possibility that the souls in his armour could rise up against him, forcing him to guard against them possessing their possessor.

 

Unfortunately, I think a lot more people read the codexes and the first handful of 'Heresy novels than McNeill and St. Martin's later offerings. So, despite there existing lore of this 'perfectly sadomasochistic swordsman', this has meant that the general version that people get exposed to is:

• An insanely vain and proud obsessive, who primarily cares about being a perfect swordsman.
• Who dies a lot.
• Who wears armour made up of the howling souls of those who've killed him, which disrupts his opponents.
• Who wields a sword and a sentient daemon whip, which disrupts his opponents.

 

And at a quick glance, that... well doesn't quite make sense. If one doesn't take time to properly explain Lucius' warped sense of perfection, then it doesn't make sense for a 'perfect swordsman' to be so focussed on screwing with his opponents, nor for one of his core gimmicks to be dying. There is a version of Lucius out there where "to die" is an exciting sort of victory in itself, where the only defeat is boredom. But if that's going to be the character, it needs to be hammered home repeatedly, otherwise... it just seems like he's a loser.

 

It's not the fault of readers if they see 'perfect swordsman' and assume the general definition of that term.

 

//

 

So: what does he look like in 10th?

 

Well, rules wise he has great melee stats (with his sword and lash acting similar to strike and sweep profiles; where I personally would have gone for a profile that went hard into elites and then struggled with chaff, but... he's good). He's gained a 5+ FNP (I assume to represent his Combat Drug Dispenser, which is nice to see a return of). His 'A Challenger Worthy of Skill' is a good representation of how he classically perks up for the big fights, as is his Duellist's Hubris (Fights First when not Leading a unit - the preening brat). 

 

Sadly, his Armour of Shrieking Souls no longer provides a ranged attack (as it did from 3rd until now) nor does it have any sort of wound rebounding (4th to 9th) or resurrection (10th Index - though honestly I didn't really like this, so I don't mind it not sticking around). Maybe the 4++ can be attributed to it, but they kind of just hand out invulnerable saves to everybody these days. (There is a bit of lore on his weapons, titled 'With Shriek, Lash and Blade' that goes into his armour's offensive capabilities, so glass half full: at least him being loud is still in the fluff.)

 

Continuing on the lore note... well, there's some more conflict.

 

The main section notes that pre-Heresy he was set apart from his fellow officers by the heights of his skill with the blade, and he began taking pleasure only from testing that skill against the greatest of champions. He carries the scars of his duels with pride and carves his flesh to link them. Happily, the lore here returns the line about his first death being a "transcendent pleasure" - something that I (as I'm sure you can tell) find very important.

 

As I read that, I thrilled. But then... they add a bunch of new lore: no one knows how or why he possesses his killers, though it's assumed that Slaanesh won't let him meet his end "in anything less than a divinely extravagant manner" and that he worms his way into them via their sense of satisfaction. His warriors have to mention his deaths out of earshot (he's enraged by them in general), and each time he returns it wears away at both his sanity and his pride. He looses memories, slowly hollowing him out, and leaving him unaware of swathes of his lifetimes. And no matter how painful his possession was for his killer, it's nothing compared to the blow to Lucius knowing that he failed and was bested - cursed to forever be denied the chance of a rematch and the opportunity to prove his superiority.

 

Gone are the mentions of the "endless gratification" that tormenting the souls in his armour brings him, and gone is the mentions of him welcoming death with as much passion as he inflicts it.

 

//

 

It's strange... they are close to re-writing him into a new, compelling version. (Admittedly, as a fan of his original self, it's not one I'd prefer. But I think it's one that I'd like if I was being exposed to the character for the first time.) A mad swordsman, cruelly cursed to be tormented by his constant failures. A loser, a joke; on purpose. I love a lot of characters who are losers - they're often a lot of fun.

 

But then why put back in that line about him finding his death a transcendent pleasure? And... in both In Wolves Clothing and the Hammer & Bolter episode Eternal (where, whilst cut-in-half-real-bad, he breaths out the word "Rapture...") he very purposefully uses his death and possession to infiltrate enemy strongholds. In Lucius: Pride and Fall he re-emerges pretty ticked off, but because of the embarrassment at having stepped on a land mine, and he's exasperated at the notion of possessing some scrub who actually took pride in his pointless, boring factory work. These are (relatively) recent stories (especially with Lucius: The Faultless Blade getting a fancy special edition reprint to go along with the launch box).

 

Which is to say... I guess they've made an effort to sort him out, but I don't think they quite nailed it. And while it's an interesting take (that a character who has dying as one of his core concepts hates dying) I'm not sure this is a great change for two reasons:

1. It doesn't line up with a bunch of his other material.
2. I don't think those sort of joke/loser characters are very popular.

 

Now... when someone posts that they don't like Lucius because he has one job and he sucks at it, I have to just... acknowledge that that's true. No more posts explaining the importance of his sadomasochism and love of dying, because now he officially rages at his deaths. While... still finding them a pleasure?

 

I don't know. 

 

Edited March 22 by LSM

[Rain]

A few things:

 

(1.) First and foremost, GW lore can be inconsistent. It’s written by multiple people of differing talent, tastes (in characters), and interpretations of past lore.

 

(2.) Reddit is full of idiots who mostly only read wikis and each other’s posts which acts as a game of telephone creating ideas with little to no support. This is how “Teeth of Khorne” came about. A lot of these players play Imperial armies, and being largely children/teens, they tend to actually see the lore through the lens of their faction, so Chaos factions/characters are called “losers” because they are the opposing faction.
 

They also say that Angron is a “loser” because he didn’t conquer his home planet. They think of the lore in terms of if “their guy” can beat up “your guy.” Reddit is where nuance goes to die.

 

(3.) I don’t really think the lore is contradictory. For Lucius, the perfect duel is to toy with his opponent, show off, maybe get a new scar, but still win, because he’s that good. So, the sadomasochism still plays a role, but his vanity demands that he win. So, when he loses, it wounds his pride despite the rapture of death itself. It’s like having a whole carton ice cream. It may feel good doing it, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t bad about it afterward. This kind of apparent contradiction is a major theme of Chaos.

 

The goals of Chaos followers often do not align with the goals of the Chaos Gods, insofar as the Gods have goals, as such. Slaanesh feeds on Lucius’s pain, his pleasure at thrill of death, but also on his humiliation and self-hatred at living out the rest of eternity without the chance of a rematch. It all feeds Slaanesh, whether Lucius wants it or not, and, it anything, it makes Lucius a more well rounded character.

[Sume]

Interesting take.  I remember the 3rd edition version of Lucius and it has sort of been the lore I taken too.

 

I also started to play in 3rd and 6th warhammer fantasy.  Were using named characters was considered taboo or power gaming.  Yet, there was always that one guy arguing it was for fluff reasons.  Everyone knows the power gamer I am talking  about here. them show up all the time.  I am not sure if having characters like the primarchs and even lucius is best for the overall health of the game. Then I can also understand the desire to want to use them.  They do provide a lot of good fun. 

[LSM]

11 hours ago, Rain said:

(3.) I don’t really think the lore is contradictory. For Lucius, the perfect duel is to toy with his opponent, show off, maybe get a new scar, but still win, because he’s that good. So, the sadomasochism still plays a role, but his vanity demands that he win. So, when he loses, it wounds his pride despite the rapture of death itself. It’s like having a whole carton ice cream. It may feel good doing it, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t bad about it afterward. This kind of apparent contradiction is a major theme of Chaos.

 

 

//

 

Seriously though, I do think this is a bit of an issue. 

 

This is a wargame, and Codex writers have about half a page to get across a character's mien. In a novel you can play things a bit more between the lines, y'know: have characters talk constantly about perfection and nobility while being a total gong-show, and trusting your readers to get the joke. But in a Codex you need to just come out and say: "They perceive a perfection and nobility in themselves that, in truth, has long since vanished, smothered under warp-tainted excess and blinkered obsession." Otherwise, you get people who think they're actually noble perfectionists.

 

Likewise, if Lucius is now a sadomasochist that loves pain and longs for death, while conflictingly being too vain to accept anything other than victory... that needs to just be said. Yes, it's unsubtle, yes it lacks depth. But the writers only have five paragraphs in which to talk about him (plus two for his weapons). 

 

I don't think one should blame the people who only glance at a character for coming away with a misunderstanding of them, if their fluff is sprinkled about and obscured, such that it requires thought and discussion to come to an understanding of it.

[Indy Techwisp]

I'm not too well versed in Lucius the Eternal lore, but I do like how they've confirmed how his resurrection works for stuff that can't show pride in it.
The main example being that if he dies to a Necron Warrior then he would resurrect in the Cryptex or Lord/Overlord who was controlling that warrior.
(I would assume this also holds true for Lucius dying to a T'au Drone.)

[Rain]

The resurrection was always hand waved and shouldn’t be thought of as a hard “rule.” Lucius gets killed by Nykona Marysuekyn in the Heresy novels but Batman (but cooler that Batman since he can like, totally turn invisible) doesn’t turn into Lucius, Lucius just resurrects spontaneously. Because consequences don’t apply to Sharrowkyn. Khorne, I hate that character.

 

This was actually a retcon from his original lore, which saw his first death at the hands of Cyrius, another Lord Commander of the EC in a gladiatorial fight, and Cyrius did turn into Lucius.

[LSM]

1 hour ago, Indy Techwisp said:

I'm not too well versed in Lucius the Eternal lore, but I do like how they've confirmed how his resurrection works for stuff that can't show pride in it.
The main example being that if he dies to a Necron Warrior then he would resurrect in the Cryptex or Lord/Overlord who was controlling that warrior.
(I would assume this also holds true for Lucius dying to a T'au Drone.)

 

Lucius: Pride and Fall is a pretty short and fun story that highlights this. It switches back and forth between Lucius leading his warband against AdMech forces, and some random devout (loving father) munition factory worker. This second perspective shows how brutal and awful being a citizen of the Imperium is, and how despite it all the man's religious fervour is his centre - he knows he's doing the Emperor's work, and he's damn proud of being a tiny cog in the Imperial war machine.

 

Which then, of course, he starts getting sick and delirious, as Lucius slowly takes possession of him; and eventually the Lucius plotline reveals itself to be a flashback, culminating in his hoof accidentally clomping down onto a landmine and *boom*. Teeeeeeeechnically I guess the guy could be said to have killed Lucius, but it's a pretty funny stretch, and Lucius wonders how many of his warband he's going to have to kill to make sure that they never speak of this again. 

[Gree]

17 hours ago, LSM said:

I've written about Lucius in the past, and for awhile have had in mind a thread detailing our greatest champion's history and evolution (and the issues therein). I was waiting to see what the updated 10th edition Codex lore and rules would do with him, however, and so now (book in hand) here we go.

 

One feeling that I commonly run into in the Warhammer community - and even in the Emperor's Children community - is that Lucius the Eternal "sucks" as a character. He's a joke, and a bad one; a self-proclaimed perfect swordsman who dies constantly. So common is this opinion that I don't think it can be discounted as "well, that's just like, your opinion, man". There must be some sort of legitimate problem, and to flush that out I think it's necessary to fully explore his history.

 

 

 

Much of the problem is resurrective immortality as a superpower, it inherently removes alot of dramatic tension. There is a reason why St. Martin had Lucius's immortality start to go haywire in his novel, to introduce a bit of dramatic tension. We might have seen that elaborated more in following books if Faultless Blade had got a sequel. (Given St. Martin has left BL that seems to be unlikely now. A part of me wonders if Lucius's novel did not sell well.)

 

It might have been intended as a form of ultimate sadomasochism, but I had always thought it made him look inferior to his peers. A multitude of Chaos warlords and champions have survived and prospered over the Long War without having that infinite revival ability. Even Khârn only got revived once. It's easy to meme Lucius as a loser when his superpower revolves around him repeatedly losing and dying. It gives the impression that he is only a threat due to that hax immortality.

 

I suppose that for a time, it did not help that Lucius was a rather mediocre character on the tabletop, often outclassed by better beatstick characters. It was only recently that he got really nasty CC rules in the 10th edition book.

 

 

[LSM]

16 hours ago, Gree said:

Much of the problem is resurrective immortality as a superpower, it inherently removes alot of dramatic tension. There is a reason why St. Martin had Lucius's immortality start to go haywire in his novel, to introduce a bit of dramatic tension. We might have seen that elaborated more in following books if Faultless Blade had got a sequel. (Given St. Martin has left BL that seems to be unlikely now. A part of me wonders if Lucius's novel did not sell well.)

 

It might have been intended as a form of ultimate sadomasochism, but I had always thought it made him look inferior to his peers. A multitude of Chaos warlords and champions have survived and prospered over the Long War without having that infinite revival ability. Even Khârn only got revived once. It's easy to meme Lucius as a loser when his superpower revolves around him repeatedly losing and dying. It gives the impression that he is only a threat due to that hax immortality.

 

Superpowers in general can remove dramatic tension. This comes up a lot with Superman as a character, for example - there's just so much of the normal storytelling stuff that you can't do with the character. But... Superman can produce good stories; and the type of stories that no other character (archetype) can. Writers just need to use an entirely different bag of tricks.

 

Personally, I feel like "adding drama" to Lucius is the wrong tack. It makes him more traditionally interesting, while chipping away at his uniqueness. It's harder to write a character who's not afraid of dying - who pursues it for himself with as much passion as he does for inflicting it upon his enemies. It's harder because it's such a rare concept, and I suppose it's a rare concept because its harder.

 

A lot of Superman writers (and basically every Wonder Woman writer) will get on the character and try to change things, or reinvent things, to make them more dramatic. Usually, I wish they had worked with the character as they were to find their inherent drama. And if a writer can't, if the character doesn't click with them, if they are unable to find anything in the character that speaks to them... maybe someone else should be on the book.

 

St. Martin added the "hmmm... are the souls rebelling? Should I worry about them taking me over?" Which isn't a bad plotline for a couple books (would that they had been written) but I think just overcomplicates things at the Codex level. (And as Lucius is a character who is already not really coherent at a glance, adding more general complexity is, I think, unadvised.)

 

//

 

The way that I think about it... the way most people seem to want the character to exist ('actually perfect swordsman'), he should not have "possesses his killers" powers.

 

But Lucius was created as "The Eternal". It's a core concept of the character - predating the additional 'perfect swordsman' motifs - so it can't be removed, only made sense of. (Or, it could be removed, but at that point you should just chuck everything in the bin - Lash, Shrieking, Drugs - and come back with a totally new Champion.)

 

I saw it as there being two routes to take:

• Overtly stress (per the original) that Lucius is an extreme sadomasochist for whom dying in glorious combat is the ultimate thrill. Defeating the mightiest of opponents is victory, death at their hands is also victory, only boredom is defeat.
• Make Lucius afraid of dying (without being afraid of staying dead).

The problem with the second is... he historically dies a lot - and has died a lot. That's part of his core gimmick, it's what he's named after. If you make him afraid of dying, if you make it a negative thing for him, then... he's a failure. He's a loser. He set out to do a thing, and instead he died. (Over and over.)

 

Which is potentially interesting! Making the resurrection a curse, as in the 10th edition Codex; an eternal embarrassment, a constant shameful reminder of how not a 'perfect swordsman' he is. Making Lucius' entire existence be Slaanesh's humiliation kink is a novel direction to take a character.

 

(I'm not sure how popular a direction it will be, broadly. He's now the Wile E. Coyote of the 40k universe, and I don't think the majority of 40k fans are into it in the same way that watchers of looney toons are.)

 

//

 

Batman seems to be widely more popular than Superman, probably because his lack of (overt) superpowers means that writers have a lot more elbow room to tell cool stories with him. But I wouldn't want Superman to be a Batman - there's already a Batman that's a Batman. I like Superman for the stories that you can't tell with Batman (rare though they may be).

[Rain]

All of the “big 4” Chaos champions, save maybe Typhus, are being played by their god. Khârn craved empathy and camaraderie from his gene father, and brotherhood among his Legion, and ended up not only with Angron being a mindless rage-demon but with himself as the Betrayer that shattered his Legion and is hated by many of them.

 

Ahriman wanted to save his Legion from the flesh change, only to damn the vast majority of them to mindless unlife, and has been chasing his tail for 10,000 years trying to undo it. He denies Tzeentch’s control over his fate, all the while unwittingly playing into Tzeentch’s designs.

 

Similarly, while Lucius enjoys the sensations of death, he feels shame and humiliation at losing, to Slaanesh’s great delight. It really is like a kink, but one that the person is also ashamed of, and feels bad about after. In Lucius’s case, it’s an extreme shame to the point of borderline insanity. It’s not contradictory in the sense that it doesn’t make sense, there are really people like that out there.

[HeadlessCross]

21 hours ago, Gree said:

 

 

 

 

I suppose that for a time, it did not help that Lucius was a rather mediocre character on the tabletop, often outclassed by better beatstick characters. It was only recently that he got really nasty CC rules in the 10th edition book.

 

 

It's pretty amazing that Lucius has only started to mildly function in more recent rulesets simply because of how AP has worked since 8th. The "All Or Nothing" from 3rd to 7th made AP3 undesirable. 

[LSM]

9 hours ago, Rain said:

...Similarly, while Lucius enjoys the sensations of death, he feels shame and humiliation at losing, to Slaanesh’s great delight. It really is like a kink, but one that the person is also ashamed of, and feels bad about after. In Lucius’s case, it’s an extreme shame to the point of borderline insanity. It’s not contradictory in the sense that it doesn’t make sense, there are really people like that out there.

 

See... I really love that take.

 

But the Codex doesn't state that plainly - all the pieces fit, but... if that's the official line on Lucius, it needs to actually be said.

 

• The Death Guard codexes tell us that Typhus is beloved by Nurgle for playing the key part in damning his Legion, that he was honoured with becoming the Host of the Destroyer Hive, that he was disgusted with Mortarion's sentimentality and largely operates on his own - heralding misery across the galaxy.
• The Thousand Sons codexes tell us that Ahriman weaved his Rubric to stop the Flesh Change, it tells us that with "all-too-Tzeentchian irony" he only made things worse and was cast out by Magnus, and it tells us that with absolute conviction he believes that he can still perfect it, and pursues such ends (damn the costs).
• The World Eaters codex tells us that Khârn is Khorne's preeminent butcher, "seemingly slain on countless occasions" only to reappear and continue letting blood for the Blood God, believing that his Legion should not resist their inclination to berserk slaughter - to the point where he infamously fell about his fellows at Skalathrax, shattering the World Eaters and earning the name Betrayer - despite having a calm and noble bearing between such slaughtering ("a soul conflicted").
• The Emperor's Children codex tells us that Lucius is a seemingly immortal swordsman of outrageous skill and egregious ego, who takes pleasure from testing himself against great champions, who associated pain with victory and carved deep grooves into his flesh with pride, who found death to be a transcendent pleasure... and is now host to a curse which resurrects him in an infuriatingly embarrassing way - shamefully wrapped for all time in those who were more skilled than him, losing his memory and giving in to insane rages to avoid introspection, shielding his pride with contempt for every other sentient being.

Typhus, as noted, is a bit of the odd one out, in that he got exactly what he wanted. Ahriman is Tzeentch's plaything, but he refuses to lose hope that he can be the master of his own fate and correct what he ill-worked. Khârn thinks existence a nightmare, but it's one that he's accepted and embraced.

 

Lucius... the first bits bring up his pleasure in pride and pain, and make claims about supreme skill. The second bits are all about how constantly humiliated he is, (implicitly) about how lacking his skill actually is.

 

It's possible to connect the dots, as you so readily show. I think those lines really need to be in the Codex.

 

If he dies a lot, not because he's a failure, but because he toys with his enemies, because he tries stupidly excessive things for his own entertainment ("I'm going to duel him left-handed... is only way I can be satisfied. If I use my right... over too quickly"), because he enjoys getting stabbed, because on-the-edge (where he could die) is the only place worth living, and all those "safe" duellists afraid of pain are weak cowards who will never truly better themselves as he does... that needs to be said. Not left for folks to reason out.

 

(Also: I think "is getting hollowed out by his constant deaths and has forgotten many of his lifetimes" is at odds with "used his many lifetimes to raise his skills to almost supernatural levels".)

 

//

 

6 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

It's pretty amazing that Lucius has only started to mildly function in more recent rulesets simply because of how AP has worked since 8th. The "All Or Nothing" from 3rd to 7th made AP3 undesirable. 

 

Power Swords ignored Armour Saves in 3rd and 4th. I'm not sure when melee weapons gained an AP stat - 5th or 6th, I assume? (I was out of the hobby at that point.)

 

Edited Monday at 12:21 AM by LSM

[EmprahsStrongestGuardsman]

I've thought about this a little, I always wondered how you could actually kill him.

Like, even if he committed suicide then whoever is responsible for that psychological event could be held as his 'killer' and possessed. Eg, someone confines him and gives him that as the only way out, or drives him to a mental collapse some other way, dunno.

It would have to be something like he set off a landslide on a mountain somewhere with his doom siren and buried himself, on accident. Even then, Slaanesh would still probably stuff inside the nearest mortal anyway.

[Gree]

8 hours ago, LSM said:

 

The way that I think about it... the way most people seem to want the character to exist ('actually perfect swordsman'), he should not have "possesses his killers" powers.

 

But Lucius was created as "The Eternal". It's a core concept of the character - predating the additional 'perfect swordsman' motifs - so it can't be removed, only made sense of. (Or, it could be removed, but at that point you should just chuck everything in the bin - Lash, Shrieking, Drugs - and come back with a totally new Champion.)

 

If I had to rework Lucius, his immortality would be much more.......limited so to speak. I would have made it so that Lucius has only ever been resurrected six times, each time as another step on Slaanesh's Path of Glory. 

 

''Over the long millennia, Lucius the Eternal has been revived from death six times by She Who Thirsts. Each time as a reward for a particularly agonizing show of excess. Six times has Lucius entertained the Dark Prince with a delightful show of depravity, not hesitating to offer up his very life in the pursuit of unspeakable pleasures. Some whisper that Lucius's next death will be his last, as Slaanesh is a fickle patron indeed. Others say that true immortality as a daemon awaits him, or that debased spawndom will be his fate. Or perhaps the Dark Prince has some other, stranger destiny for Lucius. The only thing that is certain is that Lucius has been driven to greater extremes with his revival, exploring the new forms of insane hedonism.''

 

Or something like that. Each revival a culmination of new extremes. Each revival part of his damnation.

 

 

Edited Sunday at 10:07 PM by Gree

[BitsHammer]

Just wanted to note that Lucius' scars are likely the idea of a dueling scar (something nobility who fence tend to fancy as a badge of honor) turned up to 11. 

[LSM]

35 minutes ago, BitsHammer said:

Just wanted to note that Lucius' scars are likely the idea of a dueling scar (something nobility who fence tend to fancy as a badge of honor) turned up to 11. 

 

When he was created he wasn't a notable duellist; the Legion with the (early 2000s) Horus Heresy history of such (including proudly bearing their duelling scars, in the German/Austrian fashion) were the Imperial Fists.

 

The Horus Heresy book series and other later sources definitely turned them into such a reference, but I'm not sure that's what his scars were created to be. (As opposed to cutting/self-harm imagery.)

[BitsHammer]

7 hours ago, LSM said:

 

When he was created he wasn't a notable duellist; the Legion with the (early 2000s) Horus Heresy history of such (including proudly bearing their duelling scars, in the German/Austrian fashion) were the Imperial Fists.

 

The Horus Heresy book series and other later sources definitely turned them into such a reference, but I'm not sure that's what his scars were created to be. (As opposed to cutting/self-harm imagery.)

I understand he wasn't *created* that way, but with him largely working on retroactive continuity that's what comes to mind when I see his scarred face now. Especially since the EC started as an Aristocrats joke being originally sourced from nobility and falling to depravity the way they did.

[Lord_Caerolion]

The way I interpret him is that he’s the ultimate junkie, whose tolerance has gone too high. Every other Slaaneshi, once warp-drugs and other Slaaneshi “treats” become too mundane, can experience at least one truly climactic act - they can die. 
However, for Lucius, even THAT is denied to him now. Stabbed? Done. Exploded? Done. Eaten? Done. Decapitated? Done. 
 

He’s just wandering the galaxy, searching for ANYTHING new after 10,000 years of ennui that literally even death cannot dissipate.