Malign Portents

[Burf]

3 hours ago, Edgecoc said:

Those Slaanesh Eldar get mentioned in the new Daemon Codex, so sounds like a 40k Cult of Slaanesh is definitely happening in the future. Hopefully this mean AoS is gonna get some Slaanesh elves as well. The old cult was my favourite army back in Fantasy, would really like to see how GW does official models for them as their own faction.

Slaanesh Eldar is the single dumbest thing I've ever heard, not because it couldn't happen, but because it's totally redundant. Dark Eldar do all the exact same stuff Slaanesh-y eldar would do except for much more compelling (and tragic) reasons than the 'we'z evol and stuffs lol' chaos does. What a pointless addition that would be.

And on the Sigmar side, as far as I can tell there's no evidence that Morathi or her shadow aelves are even associated with Chaos anymore. It also seems a bit silly for a character like Morathi to be willing to keep playing second fiddle to anyone, even a Chaos god, now that she doesn't have to.

[Envyus]

1 hour ago, Burf said:

 except for much more compelling (and tragic) reasons 

Not really they are literally ****** because they want to be ******. They did not want to give up their horrible lifestyle so they decided to offer the suffering and souls of others in their place. 

[DantePQ]

In recent fluff Malerion/Malekith isn't evil back in older WFB editions he was 100% cruel and evil but ET turned him into some kind of anti-hero. Sure he is still cruel but his sole mission was to save his people and that very Eldar-like. I guess he doesn;'t care about Sigmar unless it fits his agenda and that's cool, he is much more interesting character now then he was in older fluff. 

The same goes with Teclis he did what needed to be done and gave them a shot at surviving ET the end justifed the means for him to save his people as well. And that's what they have in common (along with Tyrion) doesn't matter if they are more good (Tyrion, Teclis) or bad (Malerion) they care only about their people, that's more interesting that dumb very good vs very bad (DE vs HE) now they are more like Wood Elves or Eldar.  

[Burf]

1 hour ago, Envyus said:

Not really they are literally ****** because they want to be ******. They did not want to give up their horrible lifestyle so they decided to offer the suffering and souls of others in their place. 

They're responsible for creating the situation they're in, to be sure. That doesn't change the fact that they slowly wither away into nothing as Slaanesh consumes their souls unless they inflict suffering on others. Even if they wanted to stop, they couldn't. Even then, the older they get the more suffering they need to sustain themselves, if their need outpaces their wealth they get swallowed up. It doesn't make them sympathetic, just tragic.

Which is still way more interesting than Chaos's 'for teh evulz'

[Ollie Grimwood]

It’s beem several thousand years, in which time Malkieth became Phoenix king, witnessed the destruction of everything he’d ever know, awoke/arrived in a completely different plane of existence, ascended to godhood,  changed his name and forged and new Empire. Possibly  his outlook may have changed a little.  Also Dark Elves wanted to rule the World and enslave everyone they didn’t want to kill them all or destroy the world  

Also the Grand Alliances represent ideological standpoints as to the nature of existence not moralistic standpoints such as good and evil which represent personal motivations and depend largely on ones perspective on a  situation. 

[Bloodmaster]

2 hours ago, Envyus said:

Not really they are literally ****** because they want to be ******

Its more a "have to" then a "want to". Its either getting eaten by Slaanesh or leading a highly restricted, boring live, neglecting every notion of fun and joy.... As for Slaanesh elves/Eldar, done right they might over some interesting concepts both model and story wise. Worshipping the deity, that one birthed and that brought ones own downfall upon the whole civilisation - nice. Especially, if GW doesn't sell it as tragic fate, as with the Dark Eldar, but a voluntary bargain.

[Kaleb Daark]

11 hours ago, Envyus said:

Malekith was true heir in that the end times retconned he was a worthy chosen heir who washed out at the last minute. Even if he was meant to be King as someone else said the people who choose someone else over him were totally right to do so. As Malekith was the most horrible type of monster who ruined almost everything for the elves. 

Malekith was not intrested in Light or Dark correct. He was interested in power and being pretty much the most evil ****** possible. His big plan was to destroy the Vortex and drain it's power into himself. Doing so would allow the forces of Chaos to come into the world in earnest. (And as a side effect in the End Times free Sigmar)

When Teclis turned Traitor and made Malekith king and all of his horrible actions were forgiven for some reason, he was still an ******.

 

Malekith totally knew. A good chunk of the fluff was about how he knew, but tolerated it. Though he did not tolerate it from anyone else.

And Indeed Good and Evil are different to Order and Chaos. I would put Malekith in the middle there in relation to Order and Chaos. 

But for the big factions of this game the Forces of Order are the good guys, and the Forces of Chaos are the main bad guys. However I would not put Malekith with ether of them. Likely him and his Shadow beings and Morathi will be their own thing, Similar to Death and Destruction. 

 

I stand corrected, 

[Edgecoc]

10 hours ago, Burf said:

Slaanesh Eldar is the single dumbest thing I've ever heard, not because it couldn't happen, but because it's totally redundant. Dark Eldar 

And on the Sigmar side, as far as I can tell there's no evidence that Morathi or her shadow aelves are even associated with Chaos anymore. It also seems a bit silly for a character like Morathi to be willing to keep playing second fiddle to anyone, even a Chaos god, now that she doesn't have to.

Unless Morathi usurps Slaanesh, then she is second to none.

[Twitch of Izalith]

Why I think the voice in "The Visitor" is Morathi:

• I sooooo want it to be Morathi - I have terrible taste in women and she reminds me of 2 of my last 3 girlfriends 
• Seriously though, If I was going to get a voice actor for Morathi - I would be happy with that one.
• The video ends on the Crescent Moon like its significant in some way - Cresents feature on the Mistweaver Saih, Loads of older dark elf standards AND on Slaanesh's sigil.
• She says "My children" and the only familial reference we have in a faction is the Daughters of Khaine.
• The "pray they dont take you alive" comment hints at a level of cruelty that doesn't really have an established precedent with Neferata.

This is all for fun of course - I don't really know anything. Or do I?....... 

 

 

[Rhivan]

10 hours ago, Envyus said:

Not really they are literally ****** because they want to be ******. They did not want to give up their horrible lifestyle so they decided to offer the suffering and souls of others in their place. 

That would be absolutely 100% true for the ones who started the debacle when Slaanesh was birthed in 40k. What about literally every other Dark Eldar that was born between then, and the current timeline of 40k? Sins of the father much there? 

 

Yes I know you'll bring up that they still do it and they could "stop". Problem is that if they stop a Chaos God gets their soul. So they really can't stop without basically saying "You know I really don't care about my existence or soul anymore". Not to mention they are born into this with a culture that normalizes that from birth. Most people don't think of the moral consequences of what we put animals through to eat meat and what those animals go through, or don't care. They just want meat. Imagine that combined with religious connotations of if you don't do this you are #$%^%$.  I don't know about you but that'd motivate me just a little bit to do things I would previously think awful. I like not having my soul consumed.

[Yeled]

2 hours ago, Edgecoc said:

Unless Morathi usurps Slaanesh, then she is second to none.

You know, we've heard so much about Morathi secretly worshiping Slaanesh in the End Times that it occurred to me that you could capture that nuance in the mechanics of the game by giving a Shadow Aelf faction led by Morathi keywords for both Order and Slaanesh. They couldn't be part of a mixed Chaos army because they are technically on the side of Order, but if you ran Slaanesh you could include them in the list.

That would be an interesting innovation that would be completely unique in AoS.

[Richelieu]

I would be ecstatic if Morathi and Malerion were somehow involved, but I won't hold my breath.  When I started AoS I used my old WHFB dark elves metal stuff but then abandoned it for Stormcast after I got tired of waiting for support.   I like my golden boys, but I'll always have a soft spot for dark elves. 

[Elmir]

2 hours ago, Twitch of Izalith said:

 

• The "pray they dont take you alive" comment hints at a level of cruelty that doesn't really have an established precedent with Neferata.

 

You should read the realmgate wars: Lord of Undeath. The description of Nulahmia even has entire central walkways in her city of impaled heads, tortured bodies, flayed corpses etc etc. Steps she took to keep her population under the thumb of sheer terror to stop them giving in to Chaos...  Neferata is the most cruelest of the three Mortarchs. 

But I do agree that it could be Morathi just as well. But discounting Neferate on the count of her not being cruel in the lore, is a big mistake. 

[Envyus]

1 hour ago, Yeled said:

You know, we've heard so much about Morathi secretly worshiping Slaanesh in the End Times 

This was not in the end times. It was an open secret in Dark Elf Culture that she did long before End Times.

 

2 hours ago, Rhivan said:

Yes I know you'll bring up that they still do it and they could "stop". Problem is that if they stop a Chaos God gets their soul. So they really can't stop without basically saying "You know I really don't care about my existence or soul anymore". Not to mention they are born into this with a culture that normalizes that from birth. Most people don't think of the moral consequences of what we put animals through to eat meat and what those animals go through, or don't care. They just want meat. Imagine that combined with religious connotations of if you don't do this you are #$%^%$.  I don't know about you but that'd motivate me just a little bit to do things I would previously think awful. I like not having my soul consumed.

The Ynnari and Craftworlds exist.  And Dark Eldar have gone and joined both without having their souls eaten in the past (Vice Versa as well.) 

This is not tragic because they do have other choices that are not their souls getting eaten. And nothing can ever justify or be made tragic about the Homuncului Covens

[BURF1]

1 hour ago, Elmir said:

You should read the realmgate wars: Lord of Undeath. The description of Nulahmia even has entire central walkways in her city of impaled heads, tortured bodies, flayed corpses etc etc. Steps she took to keep her population under the thumb of sheer terror to stop them giving in to Chaos...  Neferata is the most cruelest of the three Mortarchs. 

But I do agree that it could be Morathi just as well. But discounting Neferate on the count of her not being cruel in the lore, is a big mistake. 

I do think it's funny that it being a female voice took most of the mystery out of this. It's either Neferata, Morathi, or someone new. If it had been a male voice we'd have 100 options just within Death.

[BURF1]

1 minute ago, Envyus said:

This was not in the end times. It was an open secret in Dark Elf Culture that she did long before End Times.

 

The Ynnari and Craftworlds exist.  And Dark Eldar have gone and joined both without having their souls eaten in the past (Vice Versa as well.) 

This is not tragic because they do have other choices that are not their souls getting eaten. And nothing can ever justify or be made tragic about the Homuncului Covens

The Craftworlds were only an option pre-fall. It's too late now, it's only successfully happened once in the fluff since. It's gone the other way though, far more often. The Ynnari are an option but they can't know it'll be any better for them than what they're doing now. We get the priviledge of an omnipotent viewpoint here. And no one was ever arguing 'justified' or 'feel bad for them'. They're evil pieces of garbage that do evil stuff and have spent so long either unwilling or unable to find a way out that even the ones that might want to have 'roll the dice that these guys who are full to the top of souls aren't actually out to feed me to Slaanesh.' As their primary option.

It's the same story as the rest of 40k, bullheaded/evil/selfish idiots doubling down on doing dumb/evil ****** because they've regressed to the point where they genuinely don't see any other option. The whole setting is basically the allegory of the long spoons: In hell the people are unable to lift food to their mouths using such unwieldy cutlery, and are starving. In heaven, the diners feed one another across the table and are sated. 

At the end day though, they're still functionally identical in behavior, but far more interesting than, Slaanesh Eldar who have even more basic motivations.

[Twitch of Izalith]

@Elmir thats a fair comment. I think its more synonymous with the Dark Elves though. 

Neferata is certainly the more obvious call

 

[Rhivan]

5 hours ago, Envyus said:

The Ynnari and Craftworlds exist.  And Dark Eldar have gone and joined both without having their souls eaten in the past (Vice Versa as well.) 

This is not tragic because they do have other choices that are not their souls getting eaten. And nothing can ever justify or be made tragic about the Homuncului Covens

Yeah they do exist. But they exist as a bunch of religious zealots to a god eldar created (bad track record already) that Vect and the Haemonculi are hunting down ruthlessly. (Ala I join and I'm going to be hunted down and killed, with no actual promises of it turning out well) and joining something that is radically different from anything they've ever known, or done, and would probably be akin to someone joining the amish (I know exodites exist but still) (Also Craftworlders are known to kill Dark eldar and vice versa so trust would be difficult to earn for a dark eldar going to them, not to mention it being hard to defect)

 

I'm not justifying the covens. I said that MOST dark eldar don't what they see as a choice to get out of getting omm nommed. 

[HorticulusTGA]

Gross new story ! https://malignportents.com/stories/page/2/ 

[Teuchter]

Spoiler

 

Any thoughts about the unnamed pale women in today's story?

A woman dressed in black and purple robes was trying to pull the handcart from the soldier’s grasp. Though her skin was corpse pale, she was clearly strong and showed no sign of illness

 

Thoughts?

[Gorks Pokin' Finger]

Nice to see a story on a mortal follower of Nagash. I tried to imagine the worshiper as a Warrior Priest in Death attire: pale flesh with purple markings on her face, with a sickle instead of a hammer hidden underneath her robes.  I expect they will play some role in Josh Reynolds upcoming book Soul Wars

[RuneBrush]

Oh yes!

Spoiler

So amethyst wizard not (colour of magic and sickle).  I'm thinking a new cult of morr but with Nagash this time.

 

[WarbossKurgan]

My thoughts:

Spoiler

Vampress.

 

[Riluo]

Vampire for sure. But now I am wondering if she is feeding to kill or feeding to turn. Either way they serve Nagash so win win.

 

[Bloodmaster]

16 minutes ago, Riluo said:

if she is feeding to kill or feeding to turn

 Why not both, depending on the victim