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So, I'm making this thread because I'm genuinely not sure what to make of this, and would like some input.
Currently, I'm not sure if the ratings for certain 40k characters reflect their true power, but I'm also not sure we should upgrade them. Basically, I've been finding certain feats which would likely scale to certain characters and are drastically higher than what they're rated as currently, but I'm not sure how exactly they should be applied.
Before, I mentioned this feat, but initially wrote it off since we didn't know how many daemons it was caused by.
"By the Dying Light (477.M39) - Daemonic servants of Tzeentch created Warp rifts inside each of the twin suns of Haark. Soon, the leering faces upon the stars drove the entire population of the system insane, but the Daemons' incessant bickering triggered a duel-nova event. With the fate of the system now measured in hours, the Black Consuls Chapter sent in Strike Force Ultra Varnor to recover sacred relics from the time of their founding. Captain Varnor and his brothers braved both Daemons and madmen in the burning cities of Haark to collect the relics, narrowly escaping into the void only moments before the stars died spectacularly."
As I said, we have no idea how many daemons caused these two suns to explode, but there are two important things to remember. This first is that this is caused by daemons who are not even important enough to be named or specified to be greater daemons. In fact, "incessant bickering" seems to imply lesser daemons like Pink Horrors, who are almost always depicted as gibbering and bickering amongst each other, whereas Tzeentch's greater daemons are always portrayed as maniacal, calculating, and cruel. It seems heavily against their nature to bicker against each other. Granted, it was likely done by a lot of Horrors, but this still depicts what is likely lesser daemons blowing up suns on accident. The second important thing to remember is that this was done in realspace/the material universe, which is where daemons are immeasurably weakened.
However, this is not the only feat of this level. This happens in the Eye of Terror novel from 1999, which was recently republished in Black Library's The Book of the Lion anthology only three years ago, so it is very much canon. This is what happens to Calliden while flying through the Eye of Terror. Breaking it into a few parts because this is a long one.
"A planetary system loomed up. He slowed further and steered close to take a good look at it. Its sun was huge, except that it was not what he would normally think of as a sun. It was not spherical but a flat disc, in colour a brilliant shimmering green. There were at least twenty different planets, each a different colour- mauve, russet, lemon yellow, magenta- but they were not arranged as planets normally are. Instead of being roughly in the same plane, their orbits criss-crossed at all angles, linke the electrons of an atom, and sometimes more than one planet shared the same orbit. Then something appeared which caused Calliden to sit stock-still with shock. A figure was flying through the system, and it was bigger than the planets themselves, bigger than the disc-shaped green sun. A vaguely humanoid figure but crimson-furred, with a ferociously fanged, dog-like head, eyes glaring like pits of blood from beneath jutting horns, the head topped by great angled horns plus a twisted unicorn horn jutting from the crown. The creature was flying by, flapping great membranous wings which put a dozen planets in shadow with each pass. It wore brief, ornately worked armour down to the waist, glinting red and black, close-fitting except at the shoulders whch were protected by raised and extravagently worked pieces. The curve-bladed battle-axe it carried in one hand, holding the haft loosely as it flew, was bronze-black and vaster than any weapon should be. A supernatural energy seemed to flow and crackle through the unbelievable apparition, making it more solid-seeming, more real, than any natural creature.
...Now something happened which confused Calliden at first. The apparition seemed to be retreating. Too late, he realized that it in fact was approaching, but diminishing in size at the same time.
The daemon seemed angry. It flew alongside the Wandering Star, no more than twenty times the size of the spacecraft now, glancing at it sidelong with its smouldering eyes, wings beating majestically.
...Calliden shrieked and pulled on the controls as the warp entity, in a sudden rage, swung round and lashed out with the battle-axe, itself larger than the starship. The Wandering Star jinked aside, narrowly missing being crushed by the blow, then sped off. The daemon did not follow. The spaceship was too minute to be worth the bother, no more significant than a gnat. When last he looked Calliden saw the immense Chaos creature, system-sized again, taking his frustration out on one of the circling coloured worlds, batting it sidewise with the flat of the battle-axe, and sending the broken pieces hurtling into the disc-shaped sun.
For the very first time the navigator felt that now he truly understood what it was that the divine Emperor was striving to protect the human race from.
Briefly he wondered if the smashed planet had had a human population."
In summary, here's what happens. While piloting through the Eye of Terror, Calliden runs into a greater daemon (which is clearly a Bloodthirster by description), which is literally the size of a solar system. While observing it, the Bloodthirster approaches him, its nature as a being of Warp energy and the conditions in the Eye of Terror allowing it to shrink to a size which allows it to properly observe Calliden's ship. Terrified, Calliden immediately pilots the ship away, and instead of following, the daemon decides to return to its prior size, taking out its constant anger by smashing one of the planets to pieces.
Now here's the important stuff. This is done by a Bloodthirster while within the Eye of Terror. While Daemons are less restricted in the Eye than in realspace, they are still restricted, but that is a bit beside the point. The reason this is important is because many more powerful Champions of Chaos often fight daemons within the Eye of Terror. Here's a little snippet of info about Kharn, for instance.
"Since Skalathrax, Khârn has become the unstoppable and bloody avatar of Khorne. He hunted through the Eye of Terror, slaughtering any worthy enough to be killed in Khorne's name. One of the famous battles at this time was his fighting with Zarghan Ironfist. However Kharn has taken countless lives and while Human skulls are the most desireable he is known to have slain every almost every kind of xenos and daemon."
So yes, it is heavily suggested Kharn fights enemies like this while within the Eye of Terror, and he isn't even the strongest of Chaos' champions, at the moment. That would be Abaddon.
As I said before, more powerful daemons aren't exactly pushovers in realspace, either. Here's Velthinar, a Warp-entity who is sub-greater daemon level, sucking the energy from red giant to power himself up. Again, while restricted in realspace.
"Lightning crackled around it in every colour. The red giant star dulled as Velthinar drew off its light, surrounding itself in the star's fire so that every edge and tip of its armoured form glowed painfully bright. White-hot and trailing flame lightning like a comet, Velthinar accelerated, arrowing straight for the Endeavour of Will, shining with enough power to punch through the star fort and rip out its innards."
Of course, as I already mentioned that is from a character who is sub-greater daemon level, and significant Champions of Chaos like Kharn and Ahriman are above regular greater daemons.
Here we have Ahriman fighting against an absurdly powerful Eldar Shadowseer, fighting off strikes that were stated to have been able to fell even a bloodthirster.
"The eldar warlock's eldritch fashions were crafted from pure confusion and his every step quaked with disintegrated reality. The length of the Shadowseer's leaf-shaped witchblade sang at Ahriman, forcing the Thousand Sons sorcerer back. Ahriman barely got his Black Staff in front of the devastating sword sweeps. Immaterial energies spilled from both weapons as the psykers clashed, forcing Ahriman further back. The archway bulkhead crashed back down at the Shadowseer's mental insistence and the metal of the Impossible Fortress's walls melted and dribbled down across the seals, fusing the door shut and trapping the sorcerer in the pancratitaph with his enemies.
With Ahriman's power and attention directed very much on his unwelcome visitor, Czevak's levitating body dropped to the deck. From his perspective on the floor the inquisitor watched witchblade and force staff smash, both physically and immaterially. Where they did, the fabric of reality tore. The disciplined grace and furiosity of the Shadowseer's assault would have carved a bloodthirster of Khorne in two. Ahriman was more than pure wanton destruction, however. The Thousand Sons sorcerer was not only an ancient and devastating warrior, he was one of the most talented psykers in the galaxy. More important than either of these facts was the torrent of unbound ambition surging through the sorcerer's veins. He was the impossible made incarnate."
Then we have Kharn destroying the essence of a greater daemon of Slaanesh attempting to mind control him and suck out his life force. He's also carved up a Lord of Change before, but I can't find the exact quote/conversation due to being from an audio book.
"Once more, visions of an eternity of corrupt pleasure danced in Khârn's mind. Once more he saw himself indulging in every excess. The daemon promised him every ecstasy imaginable and it was well within its power to grant such pleasures. He knew it would be a simple thing for him to triumph on its behalf. All he had to do was step outside and announce that he had destroyed the Heart of Desire. He was Khârn. He would be believed, and after that it would be a simple matter to lure the Khorne worshipers to ecstatic service or joyful destruction. And did they not deserve it? Already he was known as the Betrayer, when all he had done was be more loyal to his god than the spineless weaklings he had slaughtered. And with that the daemon's voice fell silent and the visions stopped, as if the thing in the throne had realized its mistake, but too late.
For Khârn was loyal to Khorne and there was only room for that one thing within his savage heart. He had betrayed and killed his comrades in the World Eaters because they had not remained true to Khorne's ideals and would have fled from the field of battle without either conquering or being destroyed. The reminder gave him strength. He turned and looked back at the room. The reek of blood and dismembered bodies filled his nostrils like perfume. He remembered the joy of the combat. The thrill of overcoming his former comrades. He looked out on a room filled with corpses and a floor carpeted with blood. He was the only living thing here and he had made it so. He realized that, compared to this pleasure, this sense of conquest and victory, what the daemon offered was only a pale shadow. Khârn turned and brought Gorechild smashing down upon the foul throne. His axe howled thirstily as it drank deep of the ancient and corrupt soul imprisoned within."
The problem is that with all this information, I am unsure of how to process it and properly apply and scale it to certain characters. Any help would be greatly appreciated, as many times properly gauging series as expansive as this can be difficult.
In short: pls halp
Currently, I'm not sure if the ratings for certain 40k characters reflect their true power, but I'm also not sure we should upgrade them. Basically, I've been finding certain feats which would likely scale to certain characters and are drastically higher than what they're rated as currently, but I'm not sure how exactly they should be applied.
Before, I mentioned this feat, but initially wrote it off since we didn't know how many daemons it was caused by.
"By the Dying Light (477.M39) - Daemonic servants of Tzeentch created Warp rifts inside each of the twin suns of Haark. Soon, the leering faces upon the stars drove the entire population of the system insane, but the Daemons' incessant bickering triggered a duel-nova event. With the fate of the system now measured in hours, the Black Consuls Chapter sent in Strike Force Ultra Varnor to recover sacred relics from the time of their founding. Captain Varnor and his brothers braved both Daemons and madmen in the burning cities of Haark to collect the relics, narrowly escaping into the void only moments before the stars died spectacularly."
As I said, we have no idea how many daemons caused these two suns to explode, but there are two important things to remember. This first is that this is caused by daemons who are not even important enough to be named or specified to be greater daemons. In fact, "incessant bickering" seems to imply lesser daemons like Pink Horrors, who are almost always depicted as gibbering and bickering amongst each other, whereas Tzeentch's greater daemons are always portrayed as maniacal, calculating, and cruel. It seems heavily against their nature to bicker against each other. Granted, it was likely done by a lot of Horrors, but this still depicts what is likely lesser daemons blowing up suns on accident. The second important thing to remember is that this was done in realspace/the material universe, which is where daemons are immeasurably weakened.
However, this is not the only feat of this level. This happens in the Eye of Terror novel from 1999, which was recently republished in Black Library's The Book of the Lion anthology only three years ago, so it is very much canon. This is what happens to Calliden while flying through the Eye of Terror. Breaking it into a few parts because this is a long one.
"A planetary system loomed up. He slowed further and steered close to take a good look at it. Its sun was huge, except that it was not what he would normally think of as a sun. It was not spherical but a flat disc, in colour a brilliant shimmering green. There were at least twenty different planets, each a different colour- mauve, russet, lemon yellow, magenta- but they were not arranged as planets normally are. Instead of being roughly in the same plane, their orbits criss-crossed at all angles, linke the electrons of an atom, and sometimes more than one planet shared the same orbit. Then something appeared which caused Calliden to sit stock-still with shock. A figure was flying through the system, and it was bigger than the planets themselves, bigger than the disc-shaped green sun. A vaguely humanoid figure but crimson-furred, with a ferociously fanged, dog-like head, eyes glaring like pits of blood from beneath jutting horns, the head topped by great angled horns plus a twisted unicorn horn jutting from the crown. The creature was flying by, flapping great membranous wings which put a dozen planets in shadow with each pass. It wore brief, ornately worked armour down to the waist, glinting red and black, close-fitting except at the shoulders whch were protected by raised and extravagently worked pieces. The curve-bladed battle-axe it carried in one hand, holding the haft loosely as it flew, was bronze-black and vaster than any weapon should be. A supernatural energy seemed to flow and crackle through the unbelievable apparition, making it more solid-seeming, more real, than any natural creature.
...Now something happened which confused Calliden at first. The apparition seemed to be retreating. Too late, he realized that it in fact was approaching, but diminishing in size at the same time.
The daemon seemed angry. It flew alongside the Wandering Star, no more than twenty times the size of the spacecraft now, glancing at it sidelong with its smouldering eyes, wings beating majestically.
...Calliden shrieked and pulled on the controls as the warp entity, in a sudden rage, swung round and lashed out with the battle-axe, itself larger than the starship. The Wandering Star jinked aside, narrowly missing being crushed by the blow, then sped off. The daemon did not follow. The spaceship was too minute to be worth the bother, no more significant than a gnat. When last he looked Calliden saw the immense Chaos creature, system-sized again, taking his frustration out on one of the circling coloured worlds, batting it sidewise with the flat of the battle-axe, and sending the broken pieces hurtling into the disc-shaped sun.
For the very first time the navigator felt that now he truly understood what it was that the divine Emperor was striving to protect the human race from.
Briefly he wondered if the smashed planet had had a human population."
In summary, here's what happens. While piloting through the Eye of Terror, Calliden runs into a greater daemon (which is clearly a Bloodthirster by description), which is literally the size of a solar system. While observing it, the Bloodthirster approaches him, its nature as a being of Warp energy and the conditions in the Eye of Terror allowing it to shrink to a size which allows it to properly observe Calliden's ship. Terrified, Calliden immediately pilots the ship away, and instead of following, the daemon decides to return to its prior size, taking out its constant anger by smashing one of the planets to pieces.
Now here's the important stuff. This is done by a Bloodthirster while within the Eye of Terror. While Daemons are less restricted in the Eye than in realspace, they are still restricted, but that is a bit beside the point. The reason this is important is because many more powerful Champions of Chaos often fight daemons within the Eye of Terror. Here's a little snippet of info about Kharn, for instance.
"Since Skalathrax, Khârn has become the unstoppable and bloody avatar of Khorne. He hunted through the Eye of Terror, slaughtering any worthy enough to be killed in Khorne's name. One of the famous battles at this time was his fighting with Zarghan Ironfist. However Kharn has taken countless lives and while Human skulls are the most desireable he is known to have slain every almost every kind of xenos and daemon."
So yes, it is heavily suggested Kharn fights enemies like this while within the Eye of Terror, and he isn't even the strongest of Chaos' champions, at the moment. That would be Abaddon.
As I said before, more powerful daemons aren't exactly pushovers in realspace, either. Here's Velthinar, a Warp-entity who is sub-greater daemon level, sucking the energy from red giant to power himself up. Again, while restricted in realspace.
"Lightning crackled around it in every colour. The red giant star dulled as Velthinar drew off its light, surrounding itself in the star's fire so that every edge and tip of its armoured form glowed painfully bright. White-hot and trailing flame lightning like a comet, Velthinar accelerated, arrowing straight for the Endeavour of Will, shining with enough power to punch through the star fort and rip out its innards."
Of course, as I already mentioned that is from a character who is sub-greater daemon level, and significant Champions of Chaos like Kharn and Ahriman are above regular greater daemons.
Here we have Ahriman fighting against an absurdly powerful Eldar Shadowseer, fighting off strikes that were stated to have been able to fell even a bloodthirster.
"The eldar warlock's eldritch fashions were crafted from pure confusion and his every step quaked with disintegrated reality. The length of the Shadowseer's leaf-shaped witchblade sang at Ahriman, forcing the Thousand Sons sorcerer back. Ahriman barely got his Black Staff in front of the devastating sword sweeps. Immaterial energies spilled from both weapons as the psykers clashed, forcing Ahriman further back. The archway bulkhead crashed back down at the Shadowseer's mental insistence and the metal of the Impossible Fortress's walls melted and dribbled down across the seals, fusing the door shut and trapping the sorcerer in the pancratitaph with his enemies.
With Ahriman's power and attention directed very much on his unwelcome visitor, Czevak's levitating body dropped to the deck. From his perspective on the floor the inquisitor watched witchblade and force staff smash, both physically and immaterially. Where they did, the fabric of reality tore. The disciplined grace and furiosity of the Shadowseer's assault would have carved a bloodthirster of Khorne in two. Ahriman was more than pure wanton destruction, however. The Thousand Sons sorcerer was not only an ancient and devastating warrior, he was one of the most talented psykers in the galaxy. More important than either of these facts was the torrent of unbound ambition surging through the sorcerer's veins. He was the impossible made incarnate."
Then we have Kharn destroying the essence of a greater daemon of Slaanesh attempting to mind control him and suck out his life force. He's also carved up a Lord of Change before, but I can't find the exact quote/conversation due to being from an audio book.
"Once more, visions of an eternity of corrupt pleasure danced in Khârn's mind. Once more he saw himself indulging in every excess. The daemon promised him every ecstasy imaginable and it was well within its power to grant such pleasures. He knew it would be a simple thing for him to triumph on its behalf. All he had to do was step outside and announce that he had destroyed the Heart of Desire. He was Khârn. He would be believed, and after that it would be a simple matter to lure the Khorne worshipers to ecstatic service or joyful destruction. And did they not deserve it? Already he was known as the Betrayer, when all he had done was be more loyal to his god than the spineless weaklings he had slaughtered. And with that the daemon's voice fell silent and the visions stopped, as if the thing in the throne had realized its mistake, but too late.
For Khârn was loyal to Khorne and there was only room for that one thing within his savage heart. He had betrayed and killed his comrades in the World Eaters because they had not remained true to Khorne's ideals and would have fled from the field of battle without either conquering or being destroyed. The reminder gave him strength. He turned and looked back at the room. The reek of blood and dismembered bodies filled his nostrils like perfume. He remembered the joy of the combat. The thrill of overcoming his former comrades. He looked out on a room filled with corpses and a floor carpeted with blood. He was the only living thing here and he had made it so. He realized that, compared to this pleasure, this sense of conquest and victory, what the daemon offered was only a pale shadow. Khârn turned and brought Gorechild smashing down upon the foul throne. His axe howled thirstily as it drank deep of the ancient and corrupt soul imprisoned within."
The problem is that with all this information, I am unsure of how to process it and properly apply and scale it to certain characters. Any help would be greatly appreciated, as many times properly gauging series as expansive as this can be difficult.
In short: pls halp
Also Azzy, i still need them prop points for that. I legit read all of it. Just like your blogs for the UT and Mythos verses. ^^
