Adeptus Ridiculous - ARKS OF OMEN: THE LION | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousSupport the show

to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous Podcast. My name is D.K. Diamantis. His name is Bricky. We're going to learn all about 40K and how horrible the world is. But before we do, if you enjoy today's episode, head over to the Patreon. Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous and consider supporting maybe one of your favorite Warhammer 40K podcast. You get access to the Discord, uh, bloopers if they happen.

Uh, the $15 tier, uh, gets you access to all of the HD posters, Which, by the bye, Bricky, did you know? Fun fact, we have a new one. So I didn't know that we do... Oh, that's actually pretty good. This is like easily my favorite, I think, poster. Like, it is just really good. It kind of sort of reminds me,

it gives me a darkest dungeon vibe. I was thinking of that exact same thing. I was thinking of the Vestal from Darkest Dungeon. It's really, really good. Hallestay killed this one. I mean, they kill all of them, but this one is just nice. I genuinely was expecting like a thick thighs Vash store or something because we're so into that thing with the big lantern eyes.

But I'm so okay with this. It's timely, it's solid. It can now be purchased probably at the merch store. So check that out along with the new sweatpants. But besides the great new merch, also, Assassanorm Kingmaker is our book. Go read it. Ooh.

Ooh. I was really excited to get started, and it's so far quite good. Nice. Thank God. I was a little worried. After Master of Man count, I was like, please be good, please be good, please be good. So, stretch her legs, stretch your arms. Stretch it out, get a nice stretch going, chat. Flair them, lats.

all the goodness all the greatness are you ready DK you know what the topic is today do I is this has the lion book come out is that what we're doing today? Yes okay cool I wasn't sure because I was like wait

does the lion book come out like this week or did it come out last week or is it next week? I wasn't sure I wasn't sure the lion book is out the arcs of Omen, well, technically two lion books are out. The Arks of Omen Lion book is out, but there is also Lion, the Lion, son of the forest, which is a new book about the lion that has also come out. Is that the one with that really cool, like, green hardback, like limited edition cover? Because I think I saw that on Twitter, and God, that book,

just aesthetically anyway, looks great. I, uh, actually, I don't know, but you, You might be right. It has the, the main cover is the one where it has the tiny, the tiny head that you don't like. Oh. Well, we might be thinking of different things then,

but that's okay. Cool, he's got two books that came out though. Yes. That's poggers, right? Yeah, Lion's Son of the Forest is the newest book.

Kind of consider whether we should be reading that one instead, but I didn't know exactly when it's released state was. Yeah, or even on Audible or, yeah. I think it just now got on the Audible like, like two days ago.

Oh. Okay, got you, got you. But yeah, Lion's Son of the Forest is in a sense kind of a prequel. Oh, wow, that is a really good looking. Oh, there it is.

That's so cool. That's the one. Oh, man. I love that. So, oh, that's great. Oh, sorry. That's actually a really good excerpt from the back there. I failed my father.

I fear I also fail my brothers. I do not wish to fail my sons. Oh, nice cool. Nice suit. Nice, too. But this seems to be kind of a prequel to the Lion Arks of Omen itself. And it should note that I don't want to spoil much of the actual Sons of the Forest book, even though I did need to do a little bit of research on it to fill in a few gaps for the Arks of Omen book.

Just some things about what the lion's been up to, not specific stuff, but what he's been up to more so than anything. sure sure but um this i do believe is the last arc of omen book oh no it's over oh man it is over i believe until 10th edition comes out damn i've been loving the arcs of omen so much i was kind of hoping it was just going to have like a horacey run where there'd be like 47 of them and i would love all of them that would be kind of fun but i'm assuming this is prepping us for the big shenanigans happening in 10th oh man Okay, fine.

It's good enough. All good things must come to an end, right? Isn't that the last episode of TNG, All Good Things? I think it's also a quote from Shakespeare, but yes, it was also the name of the last two episodes of Star Trek. I know that it's been, Harry. Sure you did, Bricky. Sure you did. That's why you immediately went to Star Trek. I just like. You're a TNG fan. I am. I am actually a TNG fan.

Big fan. Hate Picard. The new series anyway, the Paramount one is... Yeah, it looks trash. It's terrible. Anyway, um, so in the beginning of this book

is the classic little flavor text they like to throw out. Uh-huh. It's a bit long like the other ones, but here it goes. That's what she said. Nah. Long slumbered the lion

in tragedy's wake. Far wandered his sleep. mind, following strange paths through the aborial mists of a shadowed world, even as slowly, so slowly, his broken body healed. Monstrous and otherworldly were the things he hunted through shadowed ghost glades, while beyond his crypt the stars wheeled and the sands of time world upon hurricane winds. The Lyme slept on. Darkness deepened between the stars. Tragedyled upon tragedy. Hope became the opiate of fools, and even such heroes as Lion L. Johnson dwindled into whispered myth. Then light, then wakefulness, then striding tall, purposeful, armored, blade in hand, cowled, and watchful.

The mind dislocated from its old truths, even as the body burned with fresh vitality and the hearts beat with the cold resolution of vengeance. parting veils of silvered shadow through the ghosts of Caliban slain forests, the lion walked abroad in the galaxy once more for loyalty for the hunt for the emperor. Ooh, that, that's a great opening. It's a very good opening.

I, uh, I, what was it? Hope was the opiate of the heroes? Hope is, was the opiate of the heroes? Hope is the opiate of the fools. Of the fools. That's fair. That's even better. Oh, that's great. Oh, that's great. I love that. So we're already off to a bang with this arcs of moment book. Oh, this whole book is a banger.

Oh, hell. Yeah, let's go. This might be one of my favorites. So the five books we've had so far have been Abidon, Angron, Vastor, Farsight, and not a lion. Abidon was great because it introduced us to Vastor, and we learned. playing about him. Angron was great because we had a massive chaos dub. Huge dumb. Vashdor. I originally was a little

lukewarm on but I think I've kind of come around to it because Belichor is like just such a petulant dick. And it was a lot of fun. And you also get the Unmaker Canon, right? Yep, you get the AI and stuff and it was just really enjoyable. Farsight was all right. It was a little bit of a side

story. But it was still fun enough. Yeah, it's crazy. that so far to me, Farsight has been the worst one of the Arks of Omen, and that was still phenomenal. It was still really good. Yeah.

So the lion, though, the lion, so the lions come back, and he's awake, and he's actually been out and about already. The idea is that the Sons of the Forest book is his out and aboutness in the beginning. Oh, so he wakes up at, like, the beginning of Sons in the Forest,

or Sons of the Force, and then he just goes around and starts, like, wrangling his dark guys? Or, like, how does that go? Dark angels, you mean? What did I say? I guess I just said dark guys. Listen, the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, so some stuff is going to get said that doesn't make sense. Just wait for the caffeine to kick him. All right, Jesus.

So, the, yeah, he's been up and about for a bit. and this part, the book opens with him a little bit farther back, a little bit farther after he's already been out and about. And when the lion wakes up, what do you think he would do? Like, he's woken up, he sees the galaxy. Because all the things that you want, like him talking to Gilliman, all that shit is apparently in the book. Oh, all of it?

Like all the stuff we're kind of curious about, like, how does you feel about the galaxy? what, you know, what's going on here, etc., etc. That's apparently all in the Sons of the Forest book. Oh, well, great. So you're not going to get any of that here. But what do you think the lion's been up to? I think he's been angrily killing a lot of people.

You're half right. Oh. So the lion has a new power that I, don't quite understand. Okay. It's called Forest Walk. And one of his sons, in the beginning of this book, was dueling him. And they were, him and a few of his sons were dueling him, you know, keeping him sharp and stuff.

And the lion and him like kind of locked eyes for a while before saying something. And as they did that, his son, like, feel the spectral nature. of Caliban's forests kind of reethed around him almost like tendrils of mist and green around the lion and he felt the heavy heaving breath

of one of Caliban's monsters on the back of his neck before it kind of like snapped away and so the lion has been able to kind of teleport now by walking through the corporeal dead forests of once Caliban. He just kind of like

walks through a portal of forest. That's weird. It's a little bizarre. Yeah, so he makes a portal that's basically the dead ghost forest of Caliban and he walks through it and then he can teleport

anywhere or is there a limitation on it? or I don't, that sounds confusing. It's a little bizarre. It might be explained in the book more because at the moment it isn't explained in the Arks of Omen one. Okay. But it's basically just,

and actually it's an ability he has in game called Forest Walk where he just can like go wherever he wants. Yeah. But it is that kind of weirdness. And Shai, if you want to read that, Shai makes a good point. Shai says, well, he got warped with

Caliban, which also got thrown into the warp, so maybe Caliban Forest are now partially in the warp, and he can enter them and use it as warp travel. It's a partly possible situation. That's fair. I hadn't thought about that. That's, yeah, that could be. I've sent you, or I placed, or they are currently at the moment uploading, some little photos from the book.

They show off the kind of Caliban forests a little bit, and they're pretty awful looking. not going to lie. Well, Caliban's forest were no joke, right? Like, they were teeming with awful beasts that the dark angels

and, um, the lion had to like completely terminate, right? Because it was just so awful. It was just, we got to clear their shit out. Yeah.

I mean, we'd say that reminds you like bloodborne when the guy's like, foul beasts away, away. Um, but yeah, like the,

you know, there's, you can see the soul. there. I apologize, the light is a little bit. Ah, that's fine. Yeah. But in the second one, you can kind of see a little bit of like the tendrils of the forest and all the ghost of... Yeah, like roots of the tree.

And it's, it all looks very sort of haunted forest and Halloween type of vibe. So the lion has been using that to teleport around the place. And he's been looking for his sons. Naturally. but he's specifically been looking for his fallen sons. Oh, of course he would look for the fallen. That's probably his priority is to find all the fallen and make sure they are dealt with.

I guess he's probably also specifically looking for Luther. Like he's probably pretty hard after Luther after everything that happened. I'm not sure about Luther, but you say dealt with. He's not doing that. He's forgiving them. Oh. Captain Genocide is forgiving the fallen? He is going about finding the fallen.

If the fallen he finds are worshipping or tainted by chaos, he puts the knife in their throat. Of course, because they've been tainted by chaos, sure. But if they're not, he holds his hand out and offers them a second chance. Huh Wow He is finding and reincorporating the fallen that do not follow chaos back into his group And he is calling them the risen

I genuinely did not expect that When you said he was hunting the fallen I was like, okay, they're all going to die It doesn't matter what their excuses, it doesn't matter what they're doing this the lion he is gonna cut off their heads and and and and and use them as an example to hear that he's actually forgiving them and reintegrating them into the dark angels is is kind of what and like shy i just said congratulations dark angels you spent 10,000 years doing shit your dad didn't want you to do dork angels dorks yes so he is actually uh it's apparently in the book he's going around and finding these pirates or various people that have not turned to chaos as fallen and he's bringing them back to fight with him and they're called the risen and the redeemed and it's he's uh dueling with these reintegrated fallen in the beginning of this book boars and they're they're also just like

great i love these guys they are they have so much personality unlike other kind of Marines. They're like 30K Marines over the course of 10,000 years. So apparently they're all like mini John Wicks. Really? Because they've been hunted and hounded for 10,000 years, but they're, they've all, but they never went to chaos. So they're kind of like, kind of sly. You know, one of the one of the main guys got in Boers and Boers has this big old eye patch over his eye. And in the text, it's who, like, Boers, was always called one eye, yet always saw true. Whose strike was sudden, singular, unstoppable, whose oath was to liege, but not to realm. It was like they're all these kinds of just, they're basically chaos space marines in the sense of they've had 10,000 years of battle-hardened war.

But they're like on their own. They're kind of like lone soldiers. and you'll like this, they're still clad in the black and red armor of the old school days. Oh, let's go! They have immediately risen above. Risen above.

All of the other dark angels in my eyes, let's go. Although I guess it's fair. If they've been like avoiding and been able to avoid the dark angels all this time, they kind of have to be badass. Not only have they been avoiding the dark angels, they haven't been corrupted by chaos,

and they've been thriving and surviving. I mean, they kind of have to be like, like you said, many John Wicks. Otherwise, they would have been found and tortured and or murdered by now. Yep. And also, Shai makes a good point. GW stopped using rules for the fallen because the fallen are now not just chaos there.

Some of them, they just probably integrate themselves already into chaos, or they are these guys, the risen. How are Dark Angels fans, taking that because like for the long we all know the meme right oh brother I've fallen and I can't right like how are Dork Angel's fans taking this

well I mean Dork Angel fans aren't allowed to complain about anything because they got a prime mark back so they can suck my dick oh well actually that's fair I hadn't thought that's a fair trade yeah yeah fair enough that being said it's more so I think it's

the fact that like yeah not all fallen were chaos people. And if the lion's going to redeem anyone, it's going to be the fallen that didn't, you know, like, go that direction. They'd go to chaos and, yeah, sure. What's this, D.K. in football terms, it's like you ain't allowed to bitch after your team for five years after winning the Super Bowl. Oh, well, that, yeah, that's fair. Like the goddamn chiefs.

God, anyway, sorry. So the lion has his risen, and they're all dueling and sparring on the flagship. I mean, a flagship, but the main ship of Commander Dante of the Blood Angels. And they're making their way out to, you know, they're talking a little bit. The, it's kind of nice because the lion, I forgot that the lion actually has like a little bit of humor. He's like a dry wit, very dry stern humor like a knight would have. Mm-hmm.

So there's a little bit of back and forth. The fallen are very much like, oh yeah, no, we trust you. dad, but we don't trust any of those guys. And he's like, what, you think they're not going to do what I say? And he's like, that's not the problem. That's not the issue we're worried about it. They know they'll do what you say, but it's not that easy. Also, how does the lion feel about the Dark Angels when he wakes up?

Because they've obviously become a lot more paranoid and a lot more untrusting of everybody around them. Does the general mindset of the Dark Angels change when the Primark wakes up? Well, so the Dark Angels don't realize he's awake yet. At least not the main

contingent of the Dark Angels. Okay, gotcha. I guess I figured they knew because, you know, the rock is empty now. There's a meme. Well, the rock is not empty. It's full people. Well, he's just not there anymore. Oh, he's just not there, yeah.

Yeah. I think somebody would have been like, hey, nobody's sleeping in these chambers anymore. I guess there's nobody guarding them per se either. There's a, there's like a meme I saw that was the part from Pulp Fiction. And it's like, the lion, using forest walk, appearing on an imperial world. Citizen, I am Lionel Johnson, primark are the dark angel, son of the emperor. What world is this? Some random imperial citizen went for a hike.

What? They speak English and what? What? Say what again. So he's out there sparring with his group heading over to regroup with his old sons at the Rock after he has gathered some of his risen fallen And let's be clear, it's not many

Like they only listed six in this book Okay, so it's not like every fallen has been reintegrated It's just these, okay, gotcha So he's got, and if you're a little curious about how he feels Here's a quote, Nothing now remains of the realm my father wrought Whatever light we spread between the stars has guttered and died, and in its place stretches darkness without end. Our enemies move freely through this galaxy of shadows and believe themselves always to be hunters, never pray.

That is their mistake. I will teach them to fear the darkness in which they dwell, and to dread the shadows they believe their allies, for there is no greater terror hunting the Stygian void than the Lion of Caliban. That's the lion I remember. That's the lion. There's the lion I was looking for. Damn. So if we remember from the end of the Vash Store book, or I think it was the Vash Store book,

all of the Chaos Space Marines were implanted with some kind of Vashdor warpness and all blurted out the location of where Vashdor was going. Yeah. And so now, despite the fact that they kind of know it's a trap, the Dark Angels recuperated their losses and decided to make their way out all the way to wherever this area is.

And this area is called the idolatross system. Or idolatross. Kind of reminds me the what's the Salarian, the Dalatras. Oh yeah, the Dalitras. That was the Salarian home world.

No, no, that was their like a main prime minister lady. man, I let the council die 10 times out of 10 in Mass Effect 1. Yeah, they were awful. 10 times out of 10. Ah, yes, Vastor. I thought we had dismissed that claim.

Anyway, so out here, way in this area, in the idolatross system, there lies Vastor's challenge. And the Dark Angels were attempting to use their psychers to kind of get a little bit of foresight, because that's what they always do. try to see it in the future, see what they might be awaiting at them. And as

the dark angels were doing this, they had this like kind of mirror with them to help you use the psychic powers. Yeah. And the image of themselves in the mirror crack and shattered as bits of glass flew towards them like, you know, at pretty high speeds. Yeah, that seems like a bad omen.

And also burned in two blazing lantern eyes. Oh, yeah, that's a bad omen. That's not what you want to see. So the idea is that they think to themselves, there is some form of treachery afoot, some form of thing, and it's going to take the form of themselves in some way.

Oh, boy. Oh, not again. Not again. Not again. But despite that all, they head on out, and they make their way to the idolatross system by this nebula of things called the, Somnium stars.

And in there was a huge Bail fleet and the Ark of Omen the Netherworld Blade. Ooh, cool name. I like it. In this Netherworld Blade came all kinds of stuff. Giant dark Mechanicum Battle barges.

Huge, dark vast star-based ships that had tendrils coming out of them, ships with maws of teeth and eyes and all kinds of stuff and by it was this great part of an open rift over to the warp kind of thing like kind of like a you know a galaxy split in half so like a little pocket of that around there and because of that there were just these these nightmarish things like they had such crazy descriptions it was um uh holes bloated and transmuted by flesh or flame wreathed crystals arm with snaking tendrils and maws. There was one that was,

it was a gigantic crystalline pyramid with bat wings. Oh, wow. Oh, I mean, they are, there's a, what was it, a warp portal riff thing right there? So all manner of nightmarish chaos bullspit is probably pouring out of that thing. And you have Vashdor doing Vashtor thing.

So, I mean, yeah, it seems fitting that it should be just a nightmare. I mean, they're firing out like all kinds of stuff, buffed up warp lightning, parasite missiles, etc. Ew, parasite missiles. Yeah. Ew. It was nasty. But to start off the Dark Angels just, they have three quarters of the Dark Angels right here. That includes their successor chapters.

Like three quarters. of the First Legion are here. And despite the insanity of the demon firepower and them losing, you know, still a decent amount of ships, the Dark Angels fought them up. Well, I mean, rightfully so, if it's three quarters of the Dark Angels, I guess they really should kind of own a pocket of chaos. Yes, it's, I mean, it's a... quite a lot. But they did the damage in, but yes, the dark angels hit a massive dub.

Okay, cool. Good for them. Good for them. Massive dubs all around. And they were able to break through the Netherworld Blade Ark of Omen. And despite the fact that it took a goddamn long time, it broke apart. And despite suffering casualties, this big old Vastor fleet was broken down and destroyed. Yeah, a common space marine dub. But with that, they press deeper into this idle trost system with all of their engines moving quicker.

It's like the unforgiven will not rest while this challenge goes unanswered. Moving more and more as the bail fleet rushed away the surviving members of the chaos fleet. And then some weird stuff started happening. Oh boy. I love it. when Warhammer does weird stuff.

The tech marines aboard the rock started noticing a warp resonance, weird harmonic shuttering in the stations, a physical feeling of like anger and nightmarish like dislocation all throughout the rock. And as word spread, it was like this crawling sense of dread, an invisible threat that was not there.

Some weird aura and disquiet from whatever device Vastor had fast. waved out in the idol tross system. Mm-hmm. So as they moved through, they checked out their extreme, long-range vids, uh, visual things, vid screens, vid screens.

Mm-hmm. And this is what they saw. Okay. Oh. Uh-oh. That, my friend, what is a, is the surface of a planet.

Oh. They look far down at a massive thing in the system. A giant demonic world. Wow. Is a Vastor-made demon world, a part-industrial, part-organic hellscape of cogs and flesh, turning pistons and oil of cultists, blazing industry, and the demonic masses that churned throughout. Wow, that is, that, that, that is a nightmare planet indeed.

That is a nightmare chaos planet if I've ever seen one. Through the long range scanners and various types of material that the dark angels had on the rock, they noticed coastlines, urban sprawls, the oceans, the forests, and they were all an exact match for Caliban. Oh, I was about to say when I saw the forest part, I was like, is this like, is this like, did Vashtore grab, like, pieces of Caliban to make his demon world? Not just pieces, like, this is Caliban. Oh, so he literally, like, took the, the pieces of Warp Caliban and, and, uh, what a... What a jerk.

Oh yeah. What other? Cope see the mold Unforgiven. I have rebuilt your world and depicted you as the soy jack. Oh man. That's,

oh, that sucks. That sucks for the dark angels. And they must immediately know it when they look, right? They must just be like, oh, God. Yep, Asrael checked it. That's how he was able to find out

because these coastlines exactly match. These forests. population exactly match. And he seeds. Oh, I'm sure. I am sure.

All of them must just start seething like mad to see their like corrupted homeworld just chaos ridden. Like that's got to be the worst thing you could do to, well, to any

chapter I guess, really, right? Well, it's not just that, but think about it. Caliban and what happened to Calabane is supposed to be a secret. The Dark Angels don't want anyone to know. So not only are they being taunted, but Bass Store is basically like, hey, I know you cheated on your wife.

I'm standing all the way over the here with the text messages on the phone. Neer, Neer, Neener, I'm going to send it. I'm going to send it. He's got the receipts. He kept the receipts. Not only did he read. rebuild the whole thing, but he's now using it to blackmail you.

Oh, man. Vashtore, you son of a... Damn. So naturally, the dark angels are like, oh my God. Yeah. I am full speed ahead. Right into a trap, I assume, right? Well, I mean, maybe. but before that we actually get a flashback

Abidon and the vengeful spirit and stuff are all there waiting in this area behind the demon world for the dark angels and it flashes back to when him in Vastor spoke in that room alone in the vengeful spirit the first time they talked that we never got to hear

and Vashtor, this is a little confusing and it's mainly because Vashtar speaks weird he speaks like a demon. He's not necessarily in riddles, he just talks funny. I thought Vashtar kind of spoke plainly and didn't like to do like riddles and he was just very upfront and just direct.

Not like that. Like he doesn't speak in false tongues. He isn't lying to you, but he just, because he's a demon, he just talks weird. Oh, okay. Like, he just, like, his manner, for example, um, uh, where is it? Um, he says, like, you seek the mechanism by which true victory assured be, is this not true?

You know, it's just like, it's just like a weird way to mix your message. It sounds like Yoda. It's, he says, look, seek the truth you do. Um, but anywho, uh, it's actually really cool the idea that the two of them walked in this chamber and as Vashdor speaks all of the Vox emitters and stuff around the room speak with his voice even including the one in Abidon's throat Oh creepy

So you know the part in Mass Effect 3 when the Racknice spoke through all the dead Krogan? Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so like that It's like that but with mechanisms and so it's like a bunch of static overlaid and stuff like all blaring at the same time Very cool I like that So they're speaking. And he says,

Vashtar says, long before the four bears of your race squirmed midst primordial ooze, a war there was between entities you would think gods. Abidon says, I know of the great game and the gods that play it. And Vastor waves the object and asylum. Different gods these were. Pantheons bound to the realm of mortal things that had wrought to their own. divinity. On one side they were

who were named the old ones. On the other, the parasite gods of void and star. Foror they raised across the void. Dread powers they unleashed such even that they with their mantles of omnipotence comprehended

not. Fire they yoked, never believing it would burn them. Okay, okay, okay. Long and long rage their conflict. Heavy was its price. One after one they toppled and lesser minds crawled in their wake. Craven, desperate. They saw not the power of their vanished master's devices, but only the terror of what such technologies had rot. That which they could not break apart or unmake the fearful sealed away in realms neither empiric nor corporeal. The vault they locked. The key. they suddened. Mm-hmm.

So. Yes, Shai. Even I, a warhammer newbie is like, okay, this is the war in heaven, right? Yes, this is the war in heaven. Because I guess if you're in the 40th millennium, you don't know anything about that. How could you, right? A little, that may if you're new, sure. But yeah, this is the old ones in the Caton's War.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I mean, like, yeah, as an Imperium, like, like space marine, you couldn't possibly know about that unless you, I don't know, interrogated an Eldar or a Necron that knew about it. And they were like, oh, hey, let me tell you a story. Yeah, only the Eldar and Necrons would know. Yeah.

So this is news to Abidon. He's like, excuse what? No, Abidon knows about, or maybe he doesn't know about this, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't think he's, well, I think he's plenty interrogated the Eldar, but maybe he, maybe Avedon doesn't even know about the war in heaven just because it's not important to him. I guess that's true. He probably has interrogated his fair share of the altar. So good old Vastor basically says that the vault is hidden from his sight. But if we were to fashion these key, the key would then lead them to the lock.

Three were the worlds to which those ancient servants bound the crucial mechanisms of the key, hoping forever to imprison them. One world has long since rotted, and plague heart was unleashed. Key Fragment 1, plague heart. Another became empty and desolate, and with all its jailers long dem and turned to dust, the Tuchoka escaped, for it desired, needed, to be used. And the third world,

to whose essence the Oroboros was bound. The third was shattered by a betrayal most gratifying and that world's name, great to spoiler, was Calabam. Oh, okay.

Okay. So, bound within the Sea of Souls fracturing through Calabam, they have gathered two of the three. They have gathered the plague heart, the aurboros, and now to fashion the key required from Caliban, they needed to grab all of the

various bits and pieces that were spread across the warp due to the warp storm that ripped Caliban asunder. Okay, so they didn't put Caliban back together because they're petty jerks that wanted to just make the Dark Angels mad. They needed that last piece of the key. They needed that. Last Piece of the key. They needed that last artifact. Well, one could argue they did it for both reasons. I guess pissing off the Dark Angels was a nice little bonus, right? A little bit. So it's a little hard to follow, but long story short, it's a three-part key.

And a lot of the seemingly unimportant artifacts, like a big stone mason pillar and that dark talon jet fighter with the crystals in it, all were just yanked away from Caliban at the time. And because of that, they are being brought back together into this remaked version of Calabam. The Plague Heart, the Oroboros, and finally what he needs is the Tuchoka engine.

And this Tachoka engine is currently aboard the Rock. Hence his attempt to take it in the Vastro episode. Gotcha, gotcha. What this does will create something known as the dissonance engine, whose power is to bore through the space between the Imperium and the Corporial which is, aka the Webway. Oh boy, that's, yeah, I guess that's kind of a big deal.

It says one of the great tunneling engines it once was, now a thing of gouging and ruins shall I make of it. Like a worm that is a god shall it chew through the spaces between until at last it finds the lock into which it fits. So the idea is that this is some old one weapon that might, it may not a weapon, but a device that is either allows them to translate into and out of the webway at will or was one of the devices that helped practically forge and create the webway. Okay, that's a big deal.

That is, boy, I'm sure the Imperium does not want them to have that. Yeah, that would be bad. And apparently somewhere in this webway, as he mentioned, he is currently crafting the key, which allows him to bore into the webway to find the vault in which it fits. So he's apparently believing that the vault is somewhere probably in the webway. What it is, we don't know yet. Spooky.

Spooky, spooky. Spooky, spooky. So the key he's looking for is an old one device. But the thing that should also be maybe noted is the Tuchala, or Tuchoka engine. The Tuchotcha, Tuchotcha, good God. Tachanka, for Tuchanka. I thought it was the Tuchanka for a while, but it's still. It's spelled like this.

Oh, to Cholcha. To Chulcha. And it looks like this. Whoa. It is a weird, wacky-ass thing. Yeah, that is weird. That is strange. And it is currently on the rock.

And the whole thing with the Tultz engine is, this is a Macuffin, but it is a ludicrously powerful Mcuffin that cannot exist in 40K or also to ruin the entire universe. Okay. Very rarely is there a weapon that strong? It's like, oh, 40K, can't even have it here.

It's like, oh. So, oh, I'm assuming this is an old dark age of technology weapon, but not 100% sure. Even could be an old 1-1, no idea. But if we're talking about the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy, fucking necrons, right, obviously. Oh, 100%.

Yeah. This was actually utilized a long time ago in another Dark Angel's book. I don't quite remember the name of the book. But basically, there is the battle for the Caliban system. Asriel is alive, so this is far past the heresy.

He has the ability to do this thing because they are getting overwhelmed three to one. And his secret is by combining these three engines, he essentially creates this engine, the Tchokcha engine, whatever.

It's almost like a genie. Really? That lets him go extremely easily through the web through the warp. It's fast,

powerful, excellent warp travel, precise, safe, quick, all kinds of stuff. Oh, that's huge in 40K.

That's massive. It's massive at any time, but whatever, yeah. What it does is it actually, actually creates like a temporal loop.

Oh. Okay. It's hard to describe, but it's almost like a loop into time. It's time travel machine, practically. Oh, so this isn't just warp travel. This is a go anywhere at any time, literally. Machine? Sort of, or it needs to.

use temporal travel as a way to do it properly. It's very confusing. I hope that one of the chatters will be able to explain it a little bit better for me because it's very tough to describe. But long story short, it's a monkey's paw. Asrael used it. And the temporal loop tore into the past, into 30K. And that giant spacehole was actually, by using the Tuchala engine,

that space hole was the reason why Caliban was broken up. part and everyone was scattered. Oh. He indirectly caused the flinging of the fallen, the destruction of Caliban by the use of the Dutralla engine 10,000 years in the future. Oh, wow. Tuchalca, whatever. That's a, that's a, yeah, the Tuchanga, so it's, so it's, so it's, so it's

Israel's fault that all that happened. It's all Israel's fault because he used this engine. He meddled with dark age tech or whatever the goddamn hell it is. Does any, does Asriel ever tell anyone that? I imagine he doesn't because if he did, they'd be like, yeah, that's some heresy, but it's time for you to die. I don't even know if he realizes what he has done. Oh, okay.

So even he doesn't quite know that he's the reason that, okay, gotcha. But of course, these engines, these powerful things basically break the universe in 40K. We have time travel and crap all the time, but it's never a thing you could use. It's the war. Fuck your crap. You didn't do it on purpose. Yeah. And since so much of the setting

has already been established, it's a whole thing. So Vashdor wants this bitch. Oh yeah, I'm sure he does. Because it's the final piece of his key. Mm-hmm. Okay. So going from there,

after all that explanation through, the rest of the damn stuff goes pretty crazy. The dark angels arrive, and then out of, a portal from in one of like the stars kinds of things that was hidden in a warp portal or whatever out comes abidon and the entire vengeful spirit and black fleet and then they start ganking the dark angels and start to beat the shit out of them yeah they got they they fell into the trap didn't they the planet has a million defenses on its surface firing out upon them um there's lots

of like resonant energies on the planet that they're trying to get rid of to try to destroy the planets and cause all kinds of problems. So they're landing on the planet to try to break down all the chaos, corruption, and find what's keeping it alive. Asrael lands on the planet, goes through, starts blasting stuff. And they're like, oh, we're fighting to the biggest sign of the energies. Punch, punch, punch, stab. We found the biggest sign of the energies.

Why is it an eight-pronged brass circle? Oh, my God, it's Angron. Oh, no. Imagine fighting all that way. only to find Angron. Angron comes back from his respawn timer and he's like,

what's up, dark angels? I am so angry to be alive again. I'm going to kill you. I am so angry that I'm here again. Die. All the while Vastor is out there with Abadon smirking. Come they to witness

the glories of this, my world, my engine, my wormwood. That's what he calls the new Calabam. With wrath and with blades and with fire they come, thinking to destroy that whose infinite grandeur they can never understand.

Yet all mortals are but cogs in the machines I craft. So come they now to turn and to spark, to spin and strain and burn as their purpose dictates, for in the final accounting they are all but implements of my will. Bash Store, the Archiphan. Ooh. Bastard's got that smug sense of superiority now, but... Oh, he do. I imagine that's about to get torn down by a certain lionel.

Well, Angron starts busting ass, beating on people. And eventually comes Dante, resolving in the system with a giant fleet of blood angels. Let's go. And via this announcement, they he states that the lion primark of the first legion is aboard his ship oh boy dun dun dun dun and the dark angels have quiet vox for almost a full minute and they're just I bet and then as soon as that minute ends they all just start screaming questions I'm surprised didn't just start with just scream

screaming questions and you're a liar dante shut up and you know just very accusatory uh yelling yeah well it's not just that it's the fact that the lion is here and in they're also like oh my god the line like dad's like the blackmail thing like dad's here he's gonna find out what we've been doing oh my god caliban is here look at what caliban looks like yeah i oh that's true i didn't i didn't I didn't think of that. But yeah, they, well, yeah.

Also, even bigger difficulties is, oh my God, the blood angels are here with the dad. Oh, my God. They see Caliban. Oh, that's right.

The blood angels would see Caliban and, oh, no, our secrets out. They are very, oh, I didn't even think of that. Yeah.

So a lot of the rest of this book is fighting. Dante flies down with a bunch of bloodings. angels. He tries to fight Angron. Angron immediately hits him and makes him do the Peter Griffin falling over

meme. Just like blast him with like a sword and Dante gets knocked unconscious. As well he should. It's Angron for God's sake. So yeah. That tracks. It's kind of sad. Commander Dante just like arrives and immediately gets hit. And then

just like gets knocked out. I'm like, oh, okay. It is Angron. I mean if anybody is going to do that to Dante, it has to be someone like Angron. But for all of this, the more exciting, interesting part is, as Angron is about to do a killing blow upon Dante, reeds of forest, kind of swell in this area, and the lion steps out in between, along with his six risen, fallen. The risen and the redeemed, right?

The risen and the reigned, right? The risen and the redeemed. And Asriel's first thought was, oh my God, it's the lion. We might survive this. And then a second thought was, why are the people with him look so much like the fallen?

Gee, I wonder why that is. So after that, it's the big duel. It's like four phing pages of goddamn Angron versus the lion. It's the longest fight ever. I mean, it's primark v primark basically i mean granted angron is chaos juice but still it is primark on primark action it has to be an epic duel right the real thing that's keeping the lion alive during this entire

exchange is the shield of the emperor basically whenever someone smacks the shield of the emperor it absorbs the blow and blasts it back into your face with like a like a concussive explosion oh so that's the perfect thing to have against angron then yeah he like blocks the blow and goes like blam. Yeah, and since Angron's probably using like all of his strength, that's going to get blasted back at him as quite a blast. Holy shit.

So the real thing keeping him alive really is the shield. Yeah. The sword is super good, but it's the shield. So, so this isn't Angron totally getting like absolutely bodied and outclass. It's more like Angron is still really, really strong

but oh my God, thank God, he's got the shield of the emperor, otherwise he'd be toast? I mean, I think maybe a little bit. I mean, he's obviously one of the best duelists out there, but this is juicy Angeron. Yeah. The shield is just the thing that is constantly shown as being the thing that's keeping him up

because he's like going for swipes and stabs with the sword and then blocking Angron's 40 million attacks by going bong. And don't get me wrong. Angron's getting hits in. Yeah. So even if you're a diehard, Angron fan. This isn't like, oh yeah, he just, you know, gets immediately bodied. Like, your boy still puts up a hell of a fight, which I'm assuming he obviously loses because, duh. So it's not like Angron gets like embarrassed and humiliated and just totally dunked on. He's still giving the lion all he can handle. Oh, the lion is like broken, bloodied, and dented by the end of this. 100. Okay, good, good. Andron's got a great quote here, which is lovely, is in all caps, which. is um you are nothing but a skull to be cast before the blood god's throne you are meat to

uh to be bled for his glory now fight me and die so i can get on with butchering your miserable sons holy shit that's a great angron quote he barely even recognizes the lion he's like oh it's the lion i don't give a shit yeah shy i think he's angry yeah good good call well it's Angron, of course. He's always angry, but damn, that is the most Angron quote ever. I just love the fact that he is like, get on with it. I need to kill your sons. One of the more enjoyable parts of this book is when they're fighting a bunch of like great unclean ones, like Nergalites and stuff. And one of the risen walks up behind Azrael and puts his hand on his shoulder. and Asriel nearly punches him in the face

in pure disgust. It literally says here, deep and visceral suspicion still seethed in Asriel's breast. Cop and seetheed, Copenceath, copencee. And the risen says, duty is its own reward, Supreme Grandmaster.

He reminded us, he expects no less of you. Okay, okay. Although I imagine the risen and redeemed Would be able to give Asriel a nice little fight if they're you know Their dueling partner is Lion Oh these dudes are are badasses one of them is like they're hardcore right One of them like dual wields bolt pistols and like kills chaos space marines all the time with them

He like perfectly he's like the what's that dude from X-Men that's like a really good shot zero I think is his name? Dead shot? No X-Men the is it zero the other? I don't know Kind of like that. You know, it's like firing perfectly between like neck joints and leg joints and shit. Like, it's pretty cool.

Nice. But anyway, the Angron fight ends with them like tumbling through all kinds of crap for four pages, falling down, beating each of like punch, punch. Like the four minute episodes of Family Guy, when he fights the chicken, it's just. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just that. It just never ends. Okay. Good, good, good, good, as well it should be.

But at the end, he gets the upper hand by using Angron's extreme rage against him. As Angron flings himself in, he drops to a knee and angles his sword up and stabs Angron through the chest and out the nape of his neck. And then he climbs on top of Angron's breastplate, grabs the shield, and slams it into his nose and severes his head. Oh, he decapitates Angron? And then Angron blows up. Oh, man.

Because he gets sent back to the war. But yeah, he actually blows up. He's like, ah, bloof. Okay, cool, cool. I mean, it sucks, but we all knew that was going to happen. We all knew that the line was going to get one up on Angron, and Angron was going to get dunked on. And, yeah.

So it's no surprise. I mean, if anything, the duel was good. I'm not giving it enough credit because it's four pages long. I'm just happy that Angron wasn't made out to be like a total bitch Because that's what I was afraid was going to happen was Lionel was going to show up And they were going to make the lion look like an untouchable badass And he was just going to roast Angron and Angron wasn't going to stand a chance So I'm just glad that it was it was like this really like

Just heated duel and the lion came close to dying and he's all beaten and battered So that's that's fine I'm good with that No, it's it's pretty good It's as far as what he did, he certainly threw his own. Yeah. But during this main fight between Angron and him, Vastor is upon his Ark of Omen, the Orick Myriad, as it is getting beaten to shit by the Dark Angels and the Blood Angels.

But during this time, there are people running around, screaming, figuring on what to do, the bridge is dying, and he is just quietly pulling open, schematics pretty much like demonic routes and adjustments and cables and all kinds of things and he's going with this

massive like gigabrain brain blast what's what's the exact Galaphanacus meme from the hangover with all the numbers on it going into his face oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I know all that kind of stuff and through that a tiny cog and a little whirl

ends into the the a prison cell of the Tuchalka engine. And it looks at it and says, Be no more the captive of frightened primitives. Serve your function. Let me reunite you at last with the plague heart and the aurboros. The thing in the chamber spoke a single word through lips dry and tattered as parchment.

Yes. And with that, it circled the engine. And he disappeared. Oh boy And that's how it ends And that's the last Arks of Omen book Oh no Oh no

Something else happens Okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay So the demon world starts to shudder It starts to royal And it move and everyone's like We gotta get out of here Oh really in that in that voice exactly We gotta get out here

Game over man Game over Game over All right. So they all end up extracting. And the final pages are Inquisitor, Inquisitor Cotias, which is an inquisitor with a cool eagle guy, looking at a picked feed from something sent to him.

And what it was was the demon world glowing bright and brighter and brighter and brighter until eventually it started to fold in on itself. And right next to it, a gigantic whirlpool portal opens up and the demon world sinks into it, followed by Abandon and the entire fleet. So Caliban gets sucked into the warp again. Nope. Caliban gets sent into the webway. Oh, oh, okay. I guess they call it Wormwood, right?

that's what Vashtar calls new Caliban, yeah. No, the ending is him activating the key. Oh boy. And then sending the whole world, including Abadon, the avengeful spirit ship, and all the other fleet that survived into this Webway kind of old one tech device and disappearing.

And Cotia's being like, this makes no sense. The Webway is, the Eldar's domain, why haven't they done anything? They have all these kinds of seers. They can see the future. They have these witches. They haven't, why aren't they here? They helped us with the 13th Black Crusade.

Why aren't they doing this? This is like their main source of travel. What is going on? Well, I assume they can't see it because it's a weird time device. So they're probably outside the vision of the far seers, maybe they went into the past. Maybe they win... They're in the crazy webway, right?

So I get why the elder aren't doing shit, I think. Well, the LAR can see the future. That's how they saw everything in the Third Nightlord's book. So it's like, if they're going to get this fancy, fancy thing that can screw around with the webway, why aren't they doing anything? It's true. Yeah.

That's the question. And then it ends. Okay, okay. And this is the last arcs of Omen book, really? Mm-hmm. So some really crazy stuff is going to happen in 10th, if that's how they're leaving it hanging until the next big update. Chaos wins, but they get a primark in the end of it.

Yeah. Chaos wins, but at least the lion's awake. Yep. They have completed the key. The key is done. Vastor has achieved his goal. He has what he wants, and now he needs to search for the vault or whatever. every he's trying to find. So Chaos really got the big W. Like, even though the Imperium got a Primark back, in the end, they lost.

I mean, depends. You know, like, they got what they, I guess, yeah, Chaos got what they wanted. I guess it really comes down to what he's going to do with it. Yeah. And I guess it depends what's in that vault, right? Now that he has all the pieces, he needs to find the vault, open the door,

and all that, right? Yeah, he has the key. Now what the hell the plan is, I have no idea. Ooh, spooky. So do you have any, any inkling of what it might be since it's probably going to be the big reveal for the next edition? Any, any inkling at all?

Any, any... I don't know. You have a game theory? I don't know. It's, at this point, I mean, it's old one tech, yeah. So God knows. what it's going to be. You know, like the necrons have the celestial ory,

which is just a giant star map that lets you blow up stars. Yeah, that's, yeah. Yeah. So, so, and yeah, Shai makes a great point. The old ones made the Eldar and the orcs. Like, they could create graces of people. I forgot that they did that.

Yeah, the war in heaven is the most catastrophically destructive thing ever to happen. you know the the caton eight stars for god's sake well that yeah that's true and so he's got some kind of thing and so everyone else most likely most likely eldar and the rest were like we can't destroy this so we're going to hide it we're going to scatter it we're going to get rid of it and vashdor has the key to whatever the hell he wants from it yeah and who yeah whatever is whatever whatever it ends up being is not going to be great for the Imperium. It's,

it's going to be a nightmare. And I, oh, I, I, I, I hope it is a great nightmare, too.

It's a little confusing. Or do you think it's going to be like, an entity? I don't really know. It's really confusing to me, because, like, the Tuchotcha engine doesn't quite make a lot of sense.

And having a time travel device, kind of sort of, or like a, like a monkey's paw that is like, okay, we can do what you need, but it screws up with time. That's what I was thinking, shy. I was thinking it might be a vault that actually has an old one or like a, like all of the shards of a Khatan.

Well, it shouldn't be the shards, because shards of the katan are captured and enslaved. Or, well, it's just like a full line. Yeah, just like a full living, a full, alive version of it, or as alive as one could be in a vault like that. A living caton is like a thousand shards or something. Because just one of them would make an... That's a huge power shift because it's like you have a literal star god at your beckon... Well, assuming you can control it. But that's like...

That's the new superpower in the galaxy if you have an old one, right? Like, how do you fight that? I don't... I mean, you really don't. Yeah. You just kind of get... Well, yeah, the Necron have been able to trick them into submission, right? And, like, turn them into, yeah. Yeah, but that was old Necron power.

That was pre-sleep. Yeah, now that they're all sleeping and they don't have that full force, it's good luck, Chuck. Yeah, that's the biggest issue is that we don't actually know what they can do because most of their stuff is broken and crappy. So it's like, yeah. Yeah. And so far the ones we've seen in, like, Necron books, it's like, yeah, that was a shard that you dealt with. You managed to deal with one little itty-bitty piece of that star god. Like, mm-hmm.

Anyway. A little bit of old nostalgia for what they're doing. It's like, oh, look, they're back. Welcome. Oh, no. It's the Caton. Now they're serving. Can you imagine a chaos?

Chaos Catan. Chaos Catan. Ooh. That would be... That might be the worst thing for the Imperium, is if Chaos actually got control of an old one. They got control of a Catan. Ooh.

It'd be pretty awful. Yep. Yep. Yep. All right. Well, that's the Arks of Omen. Damn, that's... I quite enjoy that.

And I like the mystery that it has left us. A lot of theorizing. speculation, a lot of intrigue, a lot of lion. I like it. The arcs of omen were so good. I'm sad that they're done. I want more. I mean, hopefully the 10th edition lore will give us a little bit of everything.

Mm-hmm. I, uh, I don't know, I'd hope so. Yeah. I mean, it's been, like I said, the arcs of omen have been great. All of them were really good. That, that the worst one we read was Farsight is like, wow. Or I guess the worst one you read. I didn't read any of them.

I just heard about it secondhand from you. But yeah, that Farsite was the worst one is wild because that one was still phenomenal. Good old, it's making Abidon likable. Vastor is the greatest bit of Chaos dub. Mm-hmm. It's interesting that they're getting as, it's funny, every time Chaos gets a dub,

a Primark returns. Fall Acadia, Gilamon, arcs of Omen, the lion. Yep. Yep. But this time, it really seems like chaos came out way ahead, even though a primark came back. The universe needs a good villain. And for the while, there's villains plenty.

But the necrons are too busy fighting each other. The tower are too small. Dukary are also too small. Eldar are dying. Tyrannids are just hungry. Tyrannids can't be made as a good villain in a sense because they're, you know, the bugs. And orcs, same kind of issue. Yep, they're just dumb.

So if you want a genuine, like, villainous force, it's got to be chaos and they need a big enough boy, do it. And despite the fact that Vashdor is not a huge boy, he's still the boy. Yep, he still is. And he's got Abidon too. And Abidon is slowly being lifted up past the sort of like, oh, you're just the Imperium's whipping boy for a good story where the hero wins. And he's being lifted up to that, like, true, like, I'm a genuine threat. now. I'm not just the sort of

bitch boy that I used to be. So that's, I like it. I like where Arks of Omen has taken us. All right. Well, to everyone... Take us home, man. Oh, I don't have anything to take us home with. A car?

Vroom.