Adeptus Ridiculous - Cypher: The Fallen Angel Who Walked to the Golden Throne | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://shop.orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousFor over 10,000 years, the Dark Angels have relentlessly hunted a mysterious figure known only as Lord Cypher. A Fallen Angel who has played both saboteur and savior, he haunts his former brothers while carrying the Lion's unbroken blade on his back—a weapon he never draws. In this episode, Bricky, DK, and The Amber King dive deep into the grimdark origins of Caliban. We explore the primordial, monster-infested death world; the rise of The Order; and the intertwined destinies of Zahariel, Sar Luther, and Lion El'Jonson. From the treacherous secrets of the Horus Heresy to Cypher's shocking arrival at the Siege of Terra and his eventual journey to the very steps of the Emperor's Golden Throne, we attempt to unravel the Imperium's greatest enigma.Support the show

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamante's happy belated Fourth of July. Live to you from July 6th. Live from, anyway, that's, that's, anyway. We have the Amber King here. Bricky is also here. And I was supposed to let them introduce themselves and didn't. Whatever.

Hi, guys. Wow. Wow. Yeah, wow. So a very, a very strong start where it's like, you completely swap the two of us. You know, it's just, it's just, it's just. It's one of those mornings. Can we point out this is like how many hundreds of episodes in?

I have no defense. It is just one of those mornings. Honestly, it's post 4th July. You know, all the festivities that you either did or did not partake in, etc. Yeah. Yeah. No one near me lost any fingers. Yeah.

As far as I know, nobody around me blew off a limb or anything like that. had fireworks going off. But thankfully, I didn't hear any, you know, screams. Wow. Thank God for that. So wholesome. You know. Pugh!

Ah! My thumb! I didn't hear any of that. So, you know. How are you, Hal? Are you Amber King? That's all right. I'm doing good, man.

It's good to be back. It's been a little while since I had done Aderick. I think it was Cedar Terror, wasn't it? Where I, um... I think so. I almost blew my brain out by the amount of, like, I said, nine novels or something was flowing through my corpse by the end of that. We literally ascended. So that was a good time.

And I thought to myself, let's do that again. So I've decided to bring another topic that I think people are really, really going to enjoy. Is there any other parts talked about before we get into it? Do you have anything like the merch or anything like that? Well, normally we've been doing this thing where we're kind of like delaying that part and we kind of talk about news and stuff, new things that have been dropping.

I'm probably the first five to ten minutes, give or take. And so besides that, I mean, it's just Has there been much? There's a new ultramarine again, right? Yeah, right today. Oh, my God. There's no way. Is there really?

It's like a parody. One of the victories guard, isn't it? Yeah. Okay, I mean, he does. he does have that shit on, I will say. Yeah, he has a victor's guard. That looks awesome. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. Well, who the fuck is this guy? He was like, I think I read it earlier or something about like, he's just a, he was a neophyte with Calgar or just like Calgar's friend as a shy, hopefully puts there. Oh, so we. Something we do with Calgar. Gotcha. So we can't release Calgar again.

So we have to release Calgar's buddy. Yeah, Calgar's best friend. Yeah. Calgar adjacent. I mean, he does look really cool, though. I mean, he do have it on. I mean, the Calgar minis and stuff always look good. I mean, the new Victress Guard look good.

But, damn. It is a bit witness me, isn't it? It's a little, it does have a little bit of, like, damn, we really did release another ultramarine. It's not even like a new miniature painted as an ultramarine. It is an ultramarine. Is there ever a good time to release an ultramarine? Marine, though. I mean, yes.

You know what? I will say yes, because they released all of those other captains of the other legions, the new, the new White Scars guy, the Ravenguard guy, and the updated Captain Lysander. And then they, like, redid the Vitrix Guard. And the new Vitrix Guard actually look peak as hell. So I will give them that. And then they ruined the game for like, like six months.

But whatever. That's pretty cool. Yeah. starving over here for other space marine players. We're literally starving. But God forbid, Ultramarines get more. Love that they redid the Vittricks guard. It's a shame they ruined the game for six months.

They really were overpowered as hell. They were so strong. But anyway, I don't know as much besides that. They revealed some pricing for some of those new starter kits. And they're actually not terrible. I mean, nothing is good nowadays. But like, I don't know. I kind of expected every paint to cost the same.

And actually a lot of the paints were like not as expensive as I thought, I think. Or maybe I'm just horribly out of touch. I think it's not as terrible as I thought it was. But maybe I'm wrong. I haven't bought paints in a while. I don't even know what the pricing on them is anymore or like what's good and what's bad for like Citadel anyway. Was it six months ago, D.K., you said you were painting your thousand sons. How's that come along since I've been longer than six months since.

I've painted, I feel like it has been a solid like two years since I worked on my thousand sons. So pretty great. Coming right along. Should be done anything now. You know what? You know what? He who paint the first mini.

Howl, what are you working on? I've finished my thousand sons painting all of them. I don't know how. It's actually done. And there's not, there's no heraldry. there's no there's nothing left to do. I feel like I'm twiddling my thumbs like some kind of asshole. Like it just,

I have no pile of shame guys and I feel like shameful for saying that because I just going to start fights with people. No, no, that's great. Did you do official colors or did you have a custom color scheme for your chapter? Good old classic. Classic blue. Blue and gold trim. Yeah.

Yep. I did it. I made it worse for myself. I painted the whole pot of retributer armor. Yeah, we had to down that before you start. But I did it with like a dull gold. And then I went over the trim again with another gold to like hit the edges. I'm,

it's masochistic like the amount I've painted that army. But God, it feels like, I'd say people who don't like play the miniatures, I don't have like, you know, armies or anything like that. Having finished it, like it's hundreds of hours worth of work in like to, you know,

to fully paint a goddamn chaos army. It is so sad. satisfying to finish the, you know what I mean? Like you, it's like an actual accomplishment and I feel really, really good about it. Hell yeah. Well, good. It's, it is definitely a task with all that trim, but good to hear it. And, uh, well, with that being said, now we can get into the rest of the stuff.

Yeah. Uh, you know, do you want to shout at the Patreon stuff, D.K? I think I would love to. Hey, listeners, have you been enjoying the podcast? Maybe you want to support us monetarily? head over to patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous where you get access to the discord, blooms if they happen, $15 tier gets you access to all of our posters in digital form. They're great, the red thirst poster, real chef's kiss, Patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous.

How's the merch coming, Bricky? It's good. We actually started a little bit early, so a lot of the card sleeves have already gone out, at least for those who only ordered the card sleeves, the production. on the actual clothing is on its way. But so far, pretty good. I've gotten some really good feedback from some of the people who are big, like, magic fans and stuff like that. There's some great feedback on, like, the packaging and also, like, the style for it all.

And so we're going to slowly make some adjustments in packaging as well as maybe the next time we run one of these, we'll try to run it more mat style. Maybe with like a box to ship it in, you know, just make it some, alluring a little bit, because this is something new. And so I really, really do appreciate the feedback from all the folks. And it's been good. If you want to check some of that out or you want to get the, the new fancy fancy new material premium hoodie and possum's,

I eat rock creature. You can check that all out in the description at Orcan 8 and give it a look to see the adric section. And yeah. Also, hey, how's it going? I'm good. Is everyone, you guys don't know what the topic is. You might not remember, but I forget. I genuinely forget.

Yes. If there's, if there's any other order of business, I could, we could delve straight on into this glorious piece we're doing today. Is that's all right? Yeah. What do you think about five hours today? Yeah. Maybe that and your first, if your first born is here by the time we're finished, that will also be required as part of the, you know, the ritual to finish this. Ah, so we're talking about two Harri today.

That's crazy. No, that's just Warhammer fans. I'm going to get laid. We are going to be here forever. That's crazy, dude. Bro is going to regret getting laid. I swear. I swear I can fix her.

But today is a, I'm super excited about this topic. And if people are listening, they may appreciate the amount of like mental stress it took to work out some of the law for this one. And I hope you, listeners, do enjoy this episode.

because today we are talking about Seifer. Seifer, the mysterious figure of the dark angels. Right, Cypher. Currently extremely good on the tabletop as well, by the way. Has been for the last, like, year. I have his model. He is a sexy boy.

I've heard his name, but like I don't remember anything about him at all. It's because I've purposely avoided talking about him because I knew I wouldn't be. able to get it right. I didn't even remember he was a dark angel. I was like Cypher. Like is this, I don't know. Is this a book?

Or is he? Who knows? Well, yeah, we'll see. But I'm going to try my best to you guys to deliver some of the cool law about this character because it's a kind of unsolved mystery within the Warhammer universe. And it's law that expands between 30K all the way up to 40K. and we're going to delve into the mystery that is Cypher. I see, before we get into it, I'm going to ask you guys a question because

Cypher, as you probably may, as of the listeners who are unfamiliar and for those who don't know, it is not someone's name, it is kind of a code name, it's a secret identity. And so, D.K. and Bricky, if you had to have a code name, what would your code name be? Like, what do you think someone, or, you know, what, you know, one that you would find interesting or maybe even hilarious, you know. Oh, you first, D.K. I, I, I, give me some time on this one. What's your code name?

Let him cook. Code name for me? Oh, man. I, I, I don't, I will, my code name would probably lunkhead. Do you want? It's just, there's just a big lunk of nothing up there, man. It's just a, it's just a big brick sloshing around. It's just, no, man.

It's just, mm-mm. Wow. Bro's, bro's his own biggest fan, clearly. People gotta know when they're dealing with me, yeah, man. Codename Lunk. Ouch, oh man. Bricky, what do you think would be your code name? I mean, it depends.

I like, like, how, because on one hand, brick is very simple and it works out quite well considering that Bricky is, of course, not my real name. But I also, I also kind of want to do one of those names where, like, It's actually something really silly or small or weak looking, but it's considered endearing, kind of like Mool-A-Dib, you know? Did she be like Pipsqueak? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, Pipsqueak would be fantastic. On a shirt immediately. Or like some kind of like little mouse, you know, some small little pygmy mouse or something like that. I think Pipsqueak works for that. Or maybe we've just translated into something else. We get done watching Dune? I actually, I did recently. We'll rewatch Dune, yes.

Fair, fair. That's why I was like, Mool-A-Dib is great. That's a super cool one. You know what? Honestly, Pipsqueak is the kind of name that I feel like I would get if I was a fucking fighter jet pilot. It's just demeaning enough. Oh, yeah. It's just demeaning enough and funny enough, considering that I'm like rather, rather tall.

And so that would be, it'd be quite humorous. I think mine would be, um, Wally. because it's very obviously British and it's an insult you'd only hear in the UK really. So then I was, yeah, I would have to swear on Adrig?

You'd like swear? I just said fuck like twice. Oh yeah, sorry. Well, there's something really, like there's a cultural experience about being called a fucking Wally.

Like, I don't know any other country that has that level of like, it's like, it's like dip shit, but not like it's just, I don't know what it really means. I didn't know that was an insult. I was like, oh, the Disney movie, it's Wally, right?

No, this is with a Y at the end. This is, this is different. I was like, what's so bad about being the cute little robot? Well, it's that kind of morning, y'all. It really, it really do be that kind of morning. Well, me, Lunkhead, Pipsweek, and Wally are about to engage in some truly secretive stuff here. And I'm going to get serious now because we're going to, as much as it's been like, this is all fun.

It's about to be not fun. So I'm going to begin this story. For us or for you. For me and the audience. You know, grip yourself on the sofa or the, you know, bed and get ready for this one. This one begins in a chamber. A spiral pattern is cut into the floor. A blade is held to the neck of a young boy.

as robed and hidden figures circle him. His child's name is Zahariel El Zurias, which will be very important for this episode. And of the many voices that are interrogating him, he only really recognises one. This is someone who he has briefly met before. It is a voice of an old man, one whose true name is known to no living being. He is the Lord Seifer. The other voices that surround him, they ask him about knightly traditions. They ask him of tactics.

They question him on philosophy. They ask questions at the same time, sometimes to confuse him. Sometimes they just insult him. There is a third voice, who Zahariel will later suspect, belongs to a man named Zahar Luther. And this person continues to insult him. Now, Bricky, I have a quote, if you would, uh, happily read it out. This is the conclusion of this ritual that happened here.

He will bring shame to our order, the third voice said. He will be an embarrassment to us. He is useless. It is better to kill him here and now than take the risk that he may one day destroy us. He should have been drowned at birth like a tainted child. God. Who far, said the first voice, the one that held the knife against us. Hario's throat. You play your part, brother, but this is too far. The young man before us has done nothing to earn such disdain. You treat him too harshly. He has proved he is worthy to train further among us. He is worthy, said Lord Seifer. Was the first voice Luther? Luther? It mentions it as a

third voice, but that the first person is most likely Luther, but it never explicitly tells you within the novel. That looter guy is kind of a shitter. Yeah, yeah, kind of, just a little bit. That's a little bit. But to young, to young Zahariel, he has no idea who is really surrounding him in the darkness and basically has his life in their hands. The man with the first voice removes the knife and steps back.

The figures then begin to lower their hoods, all except the elderly figure known as Lord Seifer. Zahariol looks up into the smiling faces of Zal Luther and the lion. Zahariol is overjoyed because now he is the newest member of the order. And that is the opening we need for this long context about the figure named Lord Seifer. It's a bit of a weird one, but I promise you, for those listening in the episode, there's going to be a lot of law in certain sections. we were like, how does this play into Lord Seifer? And then towards the end, all the different strands will eventually collect into one big mystery.

And I'm going to lay that out now because we're going to have some cooler parts here. But as I said, we're mentioning the episode as like Seifer. We keep mentioning Seifer. What, you know, it's fair to ask who is the Lord Seifer. And just very briefly, in 40K, it's essentially this mysterious figure who is a dark angel, but he is considered a fallen angel. So he's part of, well, what was part of, an Astairets of the First Legion, infamous, you know, Lionel Johnson, the Dark Angels. We all, you know, at this time it's black and red armor, not the green, the 40K. But this figure

of Cypher, he has haunted the Dark Angels for over 10,000 years. And at times he's played saboteur, assassin, manipulator. He's led the various chapters of the unforgiven to death and disaster. And yet, on the other hand, he has, you know, led them into essentially heroics. He had saved some lives at times. He's aided in forces, against forces of Xenos and chaos. So for 10,000 years, the dark angels have, and all of their successors who, you know, are in the know, the inner circle, they have chased this infamous fallen angel and his capture

is the highest priority for all those who know the truth and the shame of the First Legion. So this is where we like, that's Seifer. Seifer, he's like a cool character who, you never see his face truly. He has that blade on the back of his armour, which is, I'll go more to that later. He wields two pistols, one plasma, one bolt. And, you know, it's the mystery of Seifer is a, kind of continuing thing along like 40K timelines. So we actually have to go all the way back to,

God forbid, the horror's heresy. And I'm going to drag people through this by their ankles. Oh, boy. Here we go again. I know. I know. If House here, we got to go to the horace heresy at some point, right? I know.

But this is where the mystery begins. And we're going to begin on a planet called Caliban. Now, the best way to actually describe Caliban is probably, in the words of the Calabomites themselves. So, D.K., I have a quote for you if you would be able to read this for me. Why'd you say it like that? Would I be able to? Yeah, right?

I mean, listen, it's code name, listen, it's code name Lunkhead. He's like, look, brother, with what you, with what you call yourself, I don't know, you might. Anyway, Caliban was a world of forests, except for a few places given over to settlement or agriculture. The entire planet was covered in primordial, shadow-hunted, woodland. Caliban is the domain of monsters. The four is team with predators, not to mention all manner of other hazards. Caliban is a death world. There isn't much here, and there isn't much here that is not capable of killing a man one way or another. Carnivorous animals, poisonous flowers, venomous insects, the creatures of this world only know one law,

and that is kill or be killed. What a fun. What a fun. Big weird warped beasts. Yes. Caliban is a infamous world within Warhammer. It is known it's a world of knightly orders. They have a mix of which interesting is like they have a mix of medieval weapons and then also proto power armour. So they actually have like chain swords and bolt pistols and other things but then they literally wear like actual armour and then like

helmets and other stuff. So it's a weird mix of like, I guess it's essentially what Warhammer boils down to where it's a weird transition between traditions and then actual, you know, useful technology. Many of these infamous nightly orders they are filled with men of noble birth, you know, you know, the lardidars, wherever they are, the rich, the powerful, all except one that calls themselves the order. And they are considered one of the more newer, I say in quotes, newer, because they are still like centuries old. but they are the newer kid on the block. This order, it stands aside from the other ones

because your background means nothing to the audio or to absolutely nothing to them. It means nothing. It is a completely meritocratic based order. The only charge is to train the best and to hunt the great beasts that roam the deadly forests of Caliban, which as we probably established, maybe in the excerpt part there,

It's just a shithole. It's a forest shithole. I'll be honest. There's no nice way to put it. It is bad and you will get eaten. Which I guess I'll ask you guys before we get any further. Which Primark do you guys think has the worst home world? Because this one, Caliban ranks up there, like, pretty bad.

I definitely don't think it's Caliban. No. I mean, Angron does have it pretty bad. I feel like Mortarians' Death World isn't great. Because if you go high and up up, high and high up enough, it's just poisonous death that'll kill even a primark. So maybe. Are we talking bad for the primark as in like they had their terrible treatment? Are we talking about how bad the world is?

Maybe it's how bad the world is. Barbaros, I think, I think D.K's right. Barbaros is pretty up there. Yeah. Nostromo is pretty. Tramo is pretty up there. Yeah. Different reasons, but also up there.

It's not like Nistramo is a dangerous planet. It's just the people on it became like needing of the night hauntar, right? Because it's just dark on Nistramo. I mean, it's a, it's a hive planet. Like I'm sure there's a horrifying life and stuff like that. But most of the problems of Nostromo are the gangs and things. Yeah, it's the people, not necessarily the environment. Was deliverance bad or that was just similar reasons, right?

like it was just the slavers and stuff. Corax grew up in a prison moon, which is like, it's not Tet. Lysseus. Deliverance is, I think, what's called after they deliver it from the enslaved. But that's just a prison moon. And Eovar, I think is the main planet below. And that's just like a forge world slash tech guild world. So not the worst.

I probably would go Barbaros then. I'm trying to think of another one but I can't put my mind on it I would probably go with Barbaros yeah because that's just it's just like the poison planet like the giant creatures are bad but like that's just the poison planet

yeah the interesting enough though like there's a short story in some of the heresy books where the lion meets curse again like during the middle of the horrid heresy and actually says to curse I initially thought you was my closest brother because only you and I grew up alone essentially and surrounded by monsters. So there's a bit of a, there's a bit of a link, at least the lion believes there to be

between him and objectively the worst human who has ever lived. But to speak of this character that we are delving into, the Lord Seifer, we will mostly be viewing this through the eyes of Zahariel, who's kind of the main character of the Dark Angels books in the Horace heresy novels. And Zahariel's a little, we meet him quite young. I think he's named 12 or 14 or something stupid, but he's a chipper fellow. He has this cousin named Nemiel, and ironically, they're like cousins, but they actually, they come from like noble birth and they want to join this order that is, you know, just essentially them being, you know, meritocratic. So it means nothing on their background. They also look like twins almost, even though they're cousins. And they are very

close friends, but they are also very competitive, and I want Nemiel to be punched in the face on site immediately. He's so annoying. Oh my God. He just wants the worst for Sahari or like Loki. He's like, you know, like your biggest haters. But

basically, Zahriel and Nemiel, they are in the section of recruits that. They pass this initial trial to enter the order. And to do this, they had to stand outside of the walls of the fortress, which is called Alderuk, which is like again it's his own topic we'd have enough time to go into it but it's the fortress of the order

and their first trial was to stand outside the entire night was they could not move so they're right next to the forest edge and they can hear all the terrifying beasts like next of them so they have to just sit there and it's like a testing your nerve kind of trial over the years these these two like they're quite competent these two and they begin to grow up they meet this figure eventually he was called Lord Seifer. And this is a figure who is at many times he's always hooded. He sometimes wears a silver mask as his badge of office, which is a really important detail to remember for later on.

And one night, Wenzahil, is called to walk the spiral pattern, which is like a very cool topic in itself where the spiral is essentially their version of their like combat doctrine, Like they walk the spiral. So basically they always guard themselves and they continuously move in light circles. It's a very important part of their culture on Caliban. And he's brought to walk the spiral and do the martial practices. And he speaks to the Lord Seifer.

And this is where we learn in the novels that at this time, the man appointed to the role of Lord Seifer is essentially one who's in charge of the customs and the traditions of the order. So he ensures that the order's like rituals, like all of their tradition, he oversees it. He's not like a spiritual leader, like a priest. He's more of a kind of, it's his own weird hybrid role. And he also acts as an advisor for those who lead the order. And he, I think most importantly as well, he's trusted with the order's secrets.

So once again, dark angels, secrets, it's really shouting it down your neck, this like whole thing. They really go quite hard on that. This is what they do. Yep, yep, yep. And he's also known as the master of mysteries, the keeper of truth, the lord of keys. And when a, we learn that when a member is of the order is chosen to be Lord Seifer, they completely discard their previous identity and they just become the figure who is called Cypher. They are only known as Cypher.

And that's essentially like a bit of background about like how it's building. up. So there is currently, there's no Imperium of Man, but there is a world called Caliban, and there is a Lord Seifer in the Order. Now, for some, like, greater context at the time, because this will move the story on, because I need to keep this one moving, because we have so much to cover. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And basically, on Caliban, the order, and there are other knightly orders, they've all allied together under the, well, what will be known as the primark, the lion. He has created this Grand Crusade. He has Zarl Luther, which means to be, means like Sir Luther. So Luther, who's like, you know, his best boy, he is at the right-hand

side of the lion and this great crusade is to cleanse all of the beasts from Caliban. And it's something which is ambitious and has not been thought of so far. And it's like the, the task is seemingly impossible. And the, at this point, the, it's very unclear because it makes it, it tells us like the order doesn't have a leader at this time. So I don't know if they died or like they haven't elected one for a while, but the Lord Seifer, who is an old man, he tells Zahariel, it will probably be the lion because he's just, you know, he's amazing. Loreal, his hair flows so gracefully. He's, you know, look at those chiseled abs, those cum gutters. Wow. Yes, that's exactly what Lord Seifah said. I was not expecting you to drop cum gutters this episode,

but here we are. All right. Cool, cool, cool, cool. It's ad rig. You got to go hard. You got to go hard. Yeah, I only use that when I want to freak out and make people double take. So nicely done. Good use of the word. Yep, yep, it words. Yeah, yeah. So as the whole is like growing up, wait, he's a, he's like a kind of, he's a very naive character. But he's interesting.

And he is tutored under, will be in the order, legendary masters ones named Master Ramiel, master Amardis and, of course, the Lord Seifer. and Zahariel, he has like some interactions with the lion as well, like him and the lion have like a kind of camaraderie. And because the lion sees Zahariel and his cousin as like the new generation who will inherit Caliban after they've finished their not so in quotes great crusade. Now, you know, you can see there's a bit, there's a lot of boring. But the order at this point, there's a slight issue. they are having tension with another knightly order called the Knights of Lupus who they live in a section called the North Wilds which is funny enough in the

north and it's the wild land there thanks GW um they've subtle the subtlety is making my head hurt the Knights of Lupus had killed a few of the orders knights who have encroached upon their land and they've worked out that this is with the last like great beasts not like normal animals, like the great beast of Caliban, they're in the North Wilds. So it seems like there's going to be an inevitable conflict. Zahariel notices that the lion, and in part he thinks Luther may have actually essentially set up this conflict to happen anyway. So, you know, I mean, to actually

finish the Great Crusade there. So Zahariol's like, that's interesting. He's very political. Master Amardis, who is one of Zahariol's teachers, he's also like, he's seen as a legend. Like he's like the guy. And he was have like a little shine for Zahariol who Zahriol showed his bravery when he was young. And Amardis like kind of took him under his wing. Amardis returns from an expedition in the North Wilds. And his like horse and him has like a gouging wound through it. He is dying. And before the Lord Seifer himself, Zahariel makes a blood oath to avenge Amardis. And this actually upsets the very elderly Lord Seifer. He's quite dismayed at this because, speaking straight out of fact, it's a death sentence because they kind of know what Zahariol's

going to go face in the North Wild. They think it's a really dangerous beast. So Zahariol, being a complete idiot, he gets all his gear on. He's taken his oath, so he has to do it by himself, and he ventures into the North Wilds. But when he is approaching, he enters this forest and he feels there's something really, really wrong with it. And he encounters these, like, so, yeah, so he's in this forest, Saharail, and his ultimate goal is to obtain, like, some kind of vengeance here. But then his, like, his inner core, his, like, person starts to shake because he's, like, something is wrong with this forest, something's really wrong.

And then from the corner of his eye, what I get to? Can I interrupt? Can I add for real quick? Can I just say how, because so you had me on a bit ago, for the Night Lord trilogy for your show. And can I just say how much the name Zahariol bugs me? Because it sounds a lot like Zahal, which is a character. Oh, Zoh Zahal.

Yeah. And it also sounds like Varyl from the... It's just like a Nightloor thing. It's Zahariol. Like, it's just the two of them combined. This whole time I've been thinking of asking like, have we talked about Sahariel before? Because his name just sounds so familiar.

Like it's just been like clawing at the back of my brain. And I think that might be it. I think that might be what my brain's doing too, is it's conflating those night lord names. He's one of the more like forgotten members of the kind of like Dark Angels law. Again, because he's mostly a horrorsy character. So it's hard for people who haven't read the Dark Angel novels. to like know of him but it's weird because he's so important to like parts of the other law

that what happens in the horace heresy yeah so as I was saying like sahariel he's he's gone this blood oath to avenge um his you know fallen master he's entered in the knights of lupus's north wilds it's very dangerous but interestingly he's in this terrifying part of the forest and at the corner of his eye he sees these small human-like row figures and they project an aura that makes it very, very clear that they are not human. And then this is where they start to whisper to him. Bricky, I have a quote here for what the mysterious figures say to Zahariel. Okay.

He carries the taint within him. Better to kill him now, it whispered. Zahariel's hands slipped towards his sword at the threat, but a ghostly touch upon his thoughts warned him against such a hostile action. You waste your efforts, Zahariol of the order. You cannot harm us with the weapons of this realm. These woods are corrupt and no good can come of humans being here. Corrupt? Corrupted by what? said Zahariol. No such things are not, wait. No, such things are not for humans to know. I don't understand, said Zahariel. We are members of a brotherhood, much like yourself, a cabal dedicated to thwarting the most ancient evil.

What evil? asked Saharia. You mean the great beasts? No, they are but a symptom of a greater ill. I will not name this evil. Suffice to say, it is the bane of your race and will one day consume you. Yes, Sahariel has actually met a bit of a mythological phenomenon on Caliban. He has met, he has met the watchers in the dark and they're like act as a group and they like whisper it directly into his mind like and they also when they say they sense the taint in him you'll understand in a minute because when and when zaharil has his encounter he he doesn't he's not you know he's a knight you know he's like i think he's still a teenager but he's brave and he says you know i'm a knight i'll do the right thing i vow to fight against this great evil as all night should do

So eventually these watchers in the dark, they leave him, but they guide him to a less corrupted part of the forest so his, like, spirit doesn't break. Except it's not necessarily safe in another sense, because Zahariel gets attacked by the namesake of one of the primarks, the Calabaritanite lion. And when we say lion, it's like a lion, but scaly and has like spikes. And it's like a lion, but way worse and way bigger. is by far the most dangerous creature on Caliban and Zahariel's like horse gets chomped in half, he takes wounds and as he's at the edge of death Zahariel awakens that corruption they talked about

he awakens his latent psychic abilities and his one is very particular because it allows him to slow down his perception and to like see through people and objects and he looks through the lion's physiology and he shoots it in the heart and it like falls on top of him but he you know he lived zahariol killed a calibanite lion which is the only other one said to have been killed was by lionel johnson who got his name from it and that said that basically almost killed him that fight so it's a pretty big deal

so harial returns to alderook the fortress monastery of the order and he is a hero there's a cool part a cool scene where the lion luther ramele and his master and cypher they like they all like toss him in the air as they're having a feast and they're all like smiling and he literally says like because he's like a teenage boy and he's just like I just won my like first boxing match or something and he declares it as like this is literally the best day of my life so he's having a good time and after this this this next scene here like is the real point of contention for what sets up the mystery of cypher because the as we were talking about earlier the the the one night that's the one night that's the one night that's the one night that's the one night that's the one night the order that was like fighting against, you know, the order, the one that was not letting them attack the North Wilds, the Knights of Lupus, they, it's all out war now. So Zahariol, his cousin Nemiel, they joined the order's siege against their sort of fortress monastery, like, you know, their fortress. And the order is like way superior. They have way more numbers. They have better men. They have, you know, they're allied in other parts of different orders. So, you know, they're going to

a win and they like use cannons and stuff they bust down the walls and this is where they find out not only the knights of lupers throwing themselves at them with like sort of fever they have captured beasts of the forests and they have unleashed them against the order so they're like oh my god this is the ultimate heresy here the good old a side note the lion the actual primark he saves the day he like runs in the middle and like cuts down loads of the beasts and It's a horror. There's like all cheering. And this is like the first time he actually sees like jealousy on Luther's face because

Luther had literally led the assault. And then, you know, the lion came in and saved the day. So he was pretty upset with him there. Zario and Nemiel. Yeah. Like he's said there's a, there's a problem here. And it all, again, I'm touching on that point later. Zaria and Nemiel, they actually confront the master of the fortress whose name is Sartana.

He's the master of the Knights of Lupus. And he says to like the young, you know, order knights, the beasts were their purpose. And one day, because of the lion, Caliban will be destroyed. The two, when they, and he basically shoots himself in the face. He's like, I'm not getting into satisfaction. Oh, cool. Oh, all right. Ominous premonition leaves, shoot self in face.

Nice. Great. This is where the contention comes, though. Because when they confronted Master Sartana, he was in this library. and Zareil and his cousin like Nemiel, they get a pretty bad sense from the tomes around them. You know, I'm not going to lie, it's probably chaos related,

because obviously he was helping capture the beasts and possibly making more. And in a weird turn of events, the orders newly declared master Lionel Johnson, he orders, not publicly, but kind of in secret, to bring these tombs back to Alderich. I was going to ask you guys, why do you think the lion saved these dark tomes rather than destroy them?

Because even Zahariel, when he sees him, he can sense their evil. And it makes him feel a bit weird that the lion saves it. So I'm wondering, why do you guys think the lion didn't destroy these chaos tomes? And why has he brought them back to his home base? You know, honestly, it's hysterical that Chai says that, because I actually somewhat agree. with that initial assumption. Because because it's not awful. Because the young version of the lion is a huge prick.

Oh, yeah. He's awful. But enough of a prick to like take essentially chaos tainted tomes, like dark tomes, even though it's very clear that they're evil. Like there's being an asshole and then it's being an idiot. Less so much of that, I would almost describe it as hubris. I think he's being hubristic, not necessarily that he's being the, I think he's just like, yeah, that wouldn't work on me.

I'm too good at this or something along those lines. Right. Like, I know these tomes are evil and dark, but like, I'm him. Obviously, I can handle it and I can use this to get stronger. Kind of, maybe. Maybe not necessarily used to get stronger, but like, I just don't necessarily think that he's going to be all like, I don't know, spooked about that. It's a, it's a weirdly unanswered question. A lot of people who write the Lion Boots, which, thank you, GW, seems to be a different.

an author every single time, but it's, it's left to the, it's left to the reader. Oh, yeah. Was that, was that sarcasm from you, sir? That's just my natural accent as well. Oh, my apologies. Yeah. It's getting really excited about, about the win yesterday, huh? Yeah.

The, a lot of the, um, actions of the lion are kind of left to the reader to surmise why he's done certain things. and I'd say in the wake of this, you know, this grand victory, the order is crushed the last of the beasts on Caliban, they've destroyed the, you know, the tainted order. In the wake of this, the figure known as Lord Seifer retires. He leaves Alderuk never to be seen again, and we learn next the lion will pick a new Lord Seifer. Now, when Zahriel and his like cousin are talking about it? Because basically the old Lord Seyth goes off from the forest and they're like, yeah, we'll never see him again. They, most of them suspect it will be the trainer of recruits, Master Ramiel, who throughout most of the novels, Zahariol and the others, like, he's quite strict, but a lot of people like him and he's very wise. Like, even the lion still, you know, listens to him.

Except when they arrive back in Alderick, they're going to prepare like this grand celebration, they meet this new younger Lord Seifah. and Zahariel has no idea who it is because Master Rameel is still there. So we just left this point going, okay, there's a new Lord Cypher. Who is it? Nobody knows. I'm going to try and help work this out.

So speeding through a lot of horror's heresy events, basically, the Imperium arrives upon Caliban, Zahariol, Nemiel, they're still young enough to be turned into Astati's, so they do. Surprisingly, also this new Lord Seifer, who again, we have no idea who this is. And during like the first campaign of the

Dark Angels, Zahariel and Zah Luthor, they are sent back to Caliban because they essentially nearly failed the lion and nearly let him die in his first campaign in the Great Crusade. And what appears to be over 50 years, Zah Luthor operates the recruitment of the Legion with this interestingly, mysterious Lord Seifer advising him at his side. We don't know if the Lord Seifer was supposed to remain on Caliban or he was sent back as well. We are not really sure. We get some clues during the early, like, Horacee-Heresy Caliban storyline, because it's like two story lines whenever you read the Dark Angels book, like, very books. There is, like, when the horrors heresy, like, is about to happen, there's a slight issue on Caliban. It's been 50 years.

and the Imperiums like, you know, bulldozed much of the forest and, like, created like the proto-hive cities, you know, gentrifying it. Got to love it. There's a slight issue of a rebellion sparks out upon a Primark homeworld. You know, Caliban, like,

seems to rise and revolt against Luther and the Dark Angels. I'm sorry, I have to go back a little bit. The idea of the imperial gentrification is such a funny way to describe. What usually happens then? completely industrializing and bulldozing the entire planet. It's just referring to that as the same thing as like renaming Caesar Chavez Road in L.A. It's a funny concept. Yeah, they really ruined the beauty of that world.

And yeah, over the- Apperium way. Yeah. I was saying, you are right. It's just the way you see. It's just the way it was described. It's very funny. Yeah.

So over the course of this like rebellion, that happens on Caliban, Sahariel, he ends up joining, like, forces with other, like, basically discarded dark angels from the Great Crusade. One of them is called Astellan, who's a bigger, who's kind of infamous, he's actually a Terran. And there's a weird part, like, he's one of the earlier members of, like, the entire Legion. And he was like, you know, basically, people who displeased the lion were sent back to Caliban slowly over the Great Crusade. And when him, and Aslan, like Sahara'an and Aslan, they're fighting across Caliban. They end up finding these massive, like, corrupted worms growing within the core of Caliban itself. And they actually

discover that this is the result of, like, weird, they call them cultists. So we don't know if they're chaos, like, quite yet, but they're cultists. And they've arrived from off-world, most likely, they call them like Terrans because they're basically not from Caliban. And this creates a massive problem because there's a rebellion happening and that's separate from the chaos like cult uprising. So Zahariel goes to meet with the rebel forces to try and join forces with them to stop the cultists from basically, you know, boring out Calabad with these weird worm creatures. This is where Zahariol discovers a very ancient Master Rameel, who's still a mortal man and other members, like the older members of the orders who couldn't be Astardis,

they're part of the rebels, which really shocked him. And this is where we learned, like, these people do not like the lion. They do not trust the Imperium at all. One of the older knights tells Zahari, like, he was injured after the siege of the Knights of Lupus. And he tells him that a few of the Knights of Lupus escaped the fall of their fortress. and that him and others, like, they hunted them down over the years, and they killed most of them except one knight of lupus was unaccounted for. And he may have joined the order and he may have joined the Legion and he became an Astardis.

This makes Zahariel believe that the current Lord Seifer, who's essentially the one thing is unaccounted for, is actually the knight of lupus. So they're thinking, wait, that's a traitor possibly who had something to do with these tomes, like, what's going on? And I was wondering, like, what do you guys think is the motivation of the lion to choose potentially this traitor knight as his lord Seifer? Why would he not choose someone who he's known for his whole life and maybe he trusts? Like, why is the knight of lupus essentially in the running or, like, you know, they strongly believe it's a knight of lupus. I mean, it's like without actually knowing who, like, anything about the night of Lupus or any like conversations they might have had or stuff they might have done with the lion. It's kind of hard to say. Because like maybe, maybe this stray night just won him over.

Like he's just, oh, he's just incredibly brave. And, oh, he told me about the crazy tomes that I got. And, you know, he might have just won the lion over. It starts to make the others believe like maybe the lion's corrupted because he spared someone who maybe has knowledge about this dark power and these tomes. And then he made him essentially his eyes and ears slash the person in charge of all the traditions of the order upon Caliban. So they're like, what the fuck is the lion thinking? Like quite frankly, they're thinking maybe the lion is doing something a bit crazy here. And it, yeah, it gets a bit weird as we go, like, further on, because, like, just, if you remember this plot line, the events of, like, the Caliban, like, weird uprising and, like, chaos cultists uprising, at least a massive conclusion, you know, surmising it really shortly, it leaves a conclusion, which happens within Luther's command chambers.

Luther, he's been reading the tomes from the Knights of Lupus, and he concludes that Caliban is permanently tainted by the war, and essentially the lion knew this, and he has silenced those who have known this over the many years since, like, you know, the Knights of Lupus, are the people who have discovered it, the lion has systematically had them killed off. Suddenly even think like the lion was actually sent to Caliban by the Emperor on purpose to conquer it. So they're feeling pretty paranoid. This is where Luther declares that the lion, he has extracted the wealth and the sons from Caliban. You know, all the sons were the legions.

And him knowing that Caliban is tainted, he knew this would be discovered one day and that Caliban would be destroyed. So the lion knew that Caliban is basically on a ticking time bomb. or the Imperium to destroy. The older rebel knights who are like in this chamber, like Zahriol, like, loadsy others are like here with Luther and they kind of like stunned to his words. One of the older like human rebel knights, he seems to confirm that everyone except him

who is like basically known of these tomes, they've been killed off. So all they've gone or they've disappeared. So everyone's going like, what is going on? Zahariel and Luther also discover a fun side note. As we talked about the gentrification earlier, all the native caliber knights, they've been mistreated by the Imperium and shoved into the lower levels of all these cities. And they've been like treated terribly. So they're thinking, oh my God, the imperial, you know, the whole, the whole picture is coming together.

The Imperium hates us. They want to destroy us. This is where it concludes with the librarian who's named Is Raphael. He's actually Zahariol's like, Terran mentor. when he first discovered Zahariel was a psycher when they came to the world. So he's kind of his friend. He attacks Luther because Luther's going to betray the Imperium. When this happens, Zahariol is using his powers and it unlocks a memory within his own mind,

which we had seen in the books that I couldn't tell you until now, which is Zahariol had actually stopped a plot to kill the emperor, which is basically to blow up his ship. But he was like just a regular night and, you know, the Imperium had arrived. and he thinks this plot may have been enacted by that missing knight of lupus, who he thinks is the Lord Seifoy. He doesn't understand what's going on. Oh. Afterwards, the emperor spoke to Zahariel.

He thanked him and then tampered with his mind, which makes Zahariel feel very violated in terms of his own. They didn't trust him enough. He'd stopped the plot. Why do they have to wipe his mind? so he's feeling a certain way about this. Is Raphael? A great night special kind of thing there.

Is Raphael? So they're thinking this lion figure, this boy has like, you know, betrayed us. He's betrayed, you know, everybody. He's made this weird Lord Seifer figure who's a traitor to our own people and possibly tried to kill the emperor. They think the lion is like crazy. What's he doing? And I should say, Lord Seifer is in the room here. is Raphael, the Terran librarian, as he's trying to topple Luther, he's basically saying, put Luther in prison, we're going to restore Imperial authority.

And this is all about to kick off. Actually, he tries to attack Luther, but Luther's taken knowledge from the tomes, like carved stuff into his armor, which like stops some of the psychic power. So he's like, ha ha, you know, so, you know, he's, Raphael's like, I need to go kill this guy. this is all going down until a shot rings out. And D.K., I have a quote for you here, which is what happens next. There was a crater in his breastplate as large as a man's palm, its edges still molten. Is Raphael swayed on his feet, his lips working as though trying to speak, then sank slowly to his knees and toppled onto his side. Zahario glanced back the way the shot had come.

Lord Seifer slowly lowered his plait. Pistol. The Lord Seifer... So you think the Lord Seifers, like, the Knight of Lupus traitor. And then he intervenes to save Luther, which makes the other ones in the room, like, question

what's going on. So they... It's a complete mystery, and it's like a mind-fucking of like, wait, is that correct? So again, like, the mystery of Lord Seifer gets even worse. This is why like this is such a horrible episode to, like, research on because it's so confusing about

What is the motivations behind him even doing that? Because he ends up protecting Luther and him alongside Luther, the dark angels on the planet of Caliban, they kind of informally secede from the Imperium. And they lead this final expedition to like cleanse these chaos worms with like Luther, Aslan and Zahariel. And essentially like it boils down to they, Zahariol's like started. to believe this knight of lupus theory could be true or it actually might be a ruse and that the figure underneath the hood that is lord cipher is someone else and now zahariol is completely lost to

what this person's motives are because you'd think it was to in some way you know be the eyes and ears for the lion and maybe protect the imperium but then they're willing to betray the imperium and secede from the imperium itself to protect luther so this is a bit of the empire of the empire and so this This is where it gets a bit like cluster fucky, essentially. Like, it basically turns the mystery completely on its head. I was going to say, this is the most dark-a-hast shit ever. I promise you. Twists and turns and secrets and is this the way it's supposed to be?

No, it's not. And, yeah, it's very dark angels. It can be almost annoyingly frustrating for people listening. Shout to Possum, by the way, who, when he read my script, he said, no notes. There was nothing to add to. the script. It was, this is unhinged. Okay, let's go. This is an unhinged level of research for this one. So essentially, is Raphael has been dealt with, quote unquote, and Caliban is, you know, Luther takes control of Caliban. They arrest some of the Imperials on the planet and they're like, you know,

we're loyal to Caliban. Imperium is not loyal to us. And I should say like many of the Terrans who were rejected by the lion. He brings, like, again, Luther's is very good at his oratory command. He's very charismatic, and he brings them to his side, and then they start to, like, alter the recruitment of all the new members of the legions. They start to, like, change their wording and change their indoctrination to be more loyal to Caliban rather than the Imperium. And again, his right hand side, Zahariel is right there, and to the left is this Lord Seifer, and they kind of have their own lead. They basically have thousands of Astartis, their own planet, and the ability to make more Astartis, so we'll see how this is going to pan out. Interesting though, when, as we get

further on the Horace heresy, they kind of learn that the Horace heresy is a thing as well, which is interesting, but they don't like two sides. And Zahariol and this Lord Seifer, they begin this kind of cold war for influence over Luther. and Zahari was trying to work out who he is because he cannot see his face. He's mostly hooded, but sometimes he's mostly hooded, but sometimes he wears his ceremonial silver mask, which is kind of seen as like a big deal for the Calibanites. If he's wearing that particular mask, because it's, you know, it's a big event. It means the Lord Seifer is here.

And again, it gets more confusing as the heresy goes on. Somehow surviving Isfam 3 and saved by Nathaniel Garrow, our boy, Garveyle Loco, but why this novel exists, I don't know why. Our boy Garville Loken and Eacton Cruz, the guy who like saves Mercedes-Ollerton on the Horace's ship, you know, the half-heard. They, as knights errant, they infiltrate Caliban for Luther.

Again, random novel. They get captured, they get interrogated by Luther, who, like, they're not necessarily, they realize, like, Luther's not a traitor, but he's not also a loyalist, because he's not loyal to Horace, but he's also not loyal to the Imperium, so it's like a weird grey area.

And they're eventually freed from the prison by Lord Seifer. He breaks them out. And interestingly, he acts on Cruz, one of the oldest, you know, lunar wolves. Everyone calls him the half-heard because he's, you know, basically he has rambles on, like, you know, you're like an old guy, just got like, yeah, yeah, old guy telling all stories.

he remarks that the Lord Seifer is an old friend from the days of the lunar wolves, quote. I don't know what we're supposed to make of that, because it completely flips a lot of it on its head. Does it imply that the Lord Seifer has not solely been on Caliban before, and actually he's a veteran of the Great Crusade? Because he acts on Cruz recognises him, but no one else seems to recognize him who was on Caliban,

you know, from his voice or other parts. they can tell. So that is a complete, another complete headbanger. But it's just going to show you like, this Lord's Cypher might be more than what meets the eye. Shout to Transformers. I don't know. Later, Transformers 2, by the way. What were they thinking? Transformers 2 is such a letdown compared to like the first one. Oh, you're talking about the Bavors? The quest for more money. Yes, the quest for more money You're talking about the Michael Bay Transformers too

Because yeah, that was a that was a disaster Transformers 1 was actually quite good Trustmothers 1 was good And I don't know why they ruined it With like that marketing Anyway, this is not a Transformers episode Good as a stretch But yeah, it was enjoyable, sure

But yeah I remember it be Well, I was like 14 I mean Transformers 1 The animated one, the newer one Oh, I heard that one was good Yeah, I love it That was good. That was good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I refuse to, I refuse to rewatch the original Bayverse one because I have fond memories of it and I don't know if I'm right. And so I don't want to undo my memories. Do you want to be to me? No, I want to rip. They will come.

Good old Optimus Prime. Too much coming for him. Sorry, later, moving on swiftly. Later on in the heresy, Zahariol, Zahariol, say. I'm going to round out this like Caliban section and then it's just like it's smooth sailing luckily from there. Zahariol in like the later, like the horror's heresy is happening. It's so far from Caliban. Zahariol goes on this expedition with this Lord Seifer and he ends up falling into this pit where the Lord Seifer basically abandons Zahariol to die. This is where Zahariol to like get himself out of it. He ventures deeper into the world of Caliban and he finds this creature called.

called the Aura Boris, which is, spoiler alert, is, it's a sentient old ones device. And it's a weird mystery. It played into like the VashTor stuff, like the keys later. So it's like if people did, you did a Vashore episode, like that, like that was one of the pieces, like the ingredients of the, um, the three different things. I do remember that. I do actually remember that. That was, uh, yes. I loved the Vash Tor stuff.

I'm still sad there hasn't been any updates. But so he finds this or a boris and when Zahariol finds it, he believes this to be like the world spirit of Caliban, which is a concept in Warhammer, like the salamanders, the space wall. They have a thing called like a world spirit, which is kind of like the essence of their world and certain psychers can tap into it. Like in the Cizier Terra, like there's a scene that a literally salamander and a space will do it together. They literally do like a Kamiami Hama together. It's really bizarre. the interesting thing is the auriboros it's locked within this psychic prison that is clearly been created by something very powerful and it's trying to break its way out you can only do it in small ways and in its attempts to break out and like spread its power it created the beasts and the worms that attacked caliban so zahariel here thinks maybe this is not you know as we learned earlier earlier, Caliban is, in quote, corrupted. So maybe this is always what Caliban has been. And Zahriel learns to essentially draw power from it. So he's able to act as a conduit for this. And he only tells a few people of its existence. And he only, boy, he especially tells the other librarians who are on

Caliban because they also create their new order that like kind of semi-worship slash, you know, like they take power from this creature. Zahariel doesn't openly confront the Lord Seifer who, you know, let him fall down a hole and left him to die. But he's cooking. He's waiting for something. He's like, I'm waiting for that guy to slip up anytime soon because that guy is, you know, he's got it in for me. This is when, like, towards the end of heresy, a group of dark angels arrive on Caliban and they've come for all the new recruits because they want them to go fight Horace to know, basically. help with the siege of terror or will be the seizure terror.

This is where we like, Zahariol picks them up. He actually learns that the lion has killed his cousin, Nemiel. The infamous scene where like the lion like back hands a dark angel's head off in like the horacee, that was Nemiel, his cousin who confronted the lion on breaking the edict of Nike. So Zahari was like, he, the lion, the primar killed my only family left. So again, it's not feeling particularly loyal at this point. For a good reason.

Anyway, I guess that doesn't matter. But this is where the conflict, this is where like a kind of buildup happens where Luther invites these call up, well, these dark angels, you know, quote unquote, to join them in like a feast, like, wish them well as they take the new recruits off to fight the heresy. Except the, it's basically a red wedding. It's a planned murder fest. And as Luther, Aslan, Zahariol, the Lord Seifer there at this feast, they place goblets down to, like, see who's, like, Zahariah and the others like read their minds to see who's more loyal to Caliban and who's more loyal to the lion. And it doesn't go so very smoothly.

It kind of erupts in a bit of a frenzy and like dark angels are killing dark angels. Here, the Lord Seifer takes his chance and he tries to kill Zahariel. And they kind of like escape the area. They lead to like a confrontation where the two are fighting. And Zaharil is using these like, he's almost like held in place because the other, the Lord Seifor seems he way stronger than him. And then Zaharil taps into this new power of the auroroboros. And he, with this vision he has of the new power, he looks at the Lord Seifer.

And this is where he sees something really, really strange. I have another quote here, Bricky. So blessedly a small one. Blessedly. Where there had been an armor-clad warrior, there stood a man garbed in a robe of bark and leaves. A tree given human form. More than a tree. A whole forest.

His hair, its spilling canopy. His muscles powered by the strength of millions of deep roots. He sees something incredible. which is almost like what is referenced to be in kind of mythology, a green man or I don't know what the names they have for it, but it's essentially like a kind of Britannic, Celtic, the kind of reference here. I'll say, before going any further, though, do you guys, it's not really a secret that Warhammer often borrows, you know, mythology from other places. Is that so? Yeah. Do you have, I wonder if you had any, like, favorite, do you have any, like, favorite inspirations or, like, references?

because I know it's like kind of dotted everywhere, but I think it's really interesting that they use that in the Calibanite scenes to be more, they lean heavily on like the Arthurian legend and, you know, the Green Man, the Celtic stuff there. I can never get over Britonia and the Lady of the Lake. I can never get over that. That was my biggest like, oh my God type of thing at the time. But that's obviously fantasy.

So what's my favorite thing that they like do obviously rip from somewhere else? like, it could be like a troll. Obi-1 Sherlock Clousseau, obviously. Of course. How could I forget? Come on. And gotta be. The man, the myth, the legend.

Oh, for sure. Sly Marbo. He's got that on. It's a, it's, I think I always appreciate like, um, the dark angels had that kind of, you know, catholic, you know, that Latin-esque kind of, you know, like scroll work and, you know, wings, angels, the kind of mythology of angels and demons, other parts. I like, I think it's very classic, but I still enjoy, you know, any dark angel, you know, the older, like, dark angel models that had, like, more, like, scroll work and other things across their

little miniatures. I always really, really enjoy that stuff. But, yeah, so Zariol sees this, like, green man. And they two begin, like, their full-on duel. And Zahua is winning. And this is when, like, kind of in like a tunnel vision sense, the, um, the watches in the dark appear. And it starts, they, when they speak to Zahariol, you know, who promised to like fight against evil, who kind of, he seems to be breaking his promise. They kind of imply that this Lord Seifer is more like a champion to them because maybe they cannot interact as directly in the material world as other. They always need like champion. That's why like maybe the lion is always, you know, helped by the watchers.

And this, this cipher, like, ends up saying his ultimate goal is to keep, like, his goal, the actual motivation is not necessarily the Imperium or being loyal to, like, you know, the lion or other things. His actual goal was to keep the Auroboros imprisoned upon Caliban, where the Watchers in the dark had brought it, who knows how long ago. So it's their fault. this enrages Zahariol because it was almost like the watchers basically brought this thing to Caliban to essentially

and then force the people who live there to be like their prisoners so he threatened us to break the Oroboros out which unless the watchers leave so they agree to like leave if he doesn't do this and they basically abandoned their power in this Lord Seifer defeated Zahariel rips the silver a mask off of this dying green man's face.

Weirdly enough, he is surprised that he recognizes who it is before killing Cypher. Seifer dies. We get no indication of who Zahariel sees. He doesn't name who he sees. It's so frustrating, but I will say there are theories. Oh, my God. There are some theories, though, because in the wake of, like, you know, You know, there are some theories like it might not have been, it might have been a previous one, like his previous master who had died long ago.

Because it may have not really actually been in the startis. I think Zahari al-Sas at one point, there's a theory like the Lord Saifahari can sense his fear. And obviously there are Astartis and they should know no fear, or not no fear like a human. So maybe it wasn't really in Astardis to begin with all along. Who knows? And it may have been a resurrected kind of like puppet toy, like a green. man. It could have been someone, it's someone who he knows,

but we never get to, it doesn't explicitly tell us who it is, which is, again, like you said, the worst cucking of all time in Warhammer. Why couldn't they tell us? Although it's the new Cipher episode of Averick, looks inside no knowledge on Cipher. At all. Yeah.

God damn. Interesting, though, the episode's not dead, I swear, because in the wake of this purge that Luther leads, he declares his grand speech, this new Calibanite loyal legion, these fallen angels, if you will. And he reveals a new figure who joins him on the balcony, a new Lord Seifer.

And Lord Seifer is Zahariel. He is the new Lord Seifor. So that's why we were talking about Zahariol for most of the episode so far. Yeah, I was going to say, I knew at some point he was going to dawn the title of Seifer, since we were talking about him so extensively. All these books are focused on him.

And also, Shai said, I mean, as literal as it seems like, Cypher is the equivalent of the Green Knight, who is a heroic-ish character in British mythology, who is an opponent of King Arthur and a man made of vegetation, who opposes King Arthur, but only to test his worthiness. And quote-unquote is the most difficult character to interpret. Yeah, it could be seen as, that way. But again, like, we start to have the

clashing vision of, like, different authors for each book. So, I don't know if one author might have wanted that. And then another author's like, no, you know him. And it's like, oh, God, dark angels. Blessedly for the, uh, listeners, this is the now, like, the final section where we, we, we're willing to like the kind of conclusion of

Cipher's story, which is, we're going to skip the head to the Cedar Terror. Uh, we did like, yeah, we did a seizure episode quite a while about, We didn't really, I mentioned Zahariel in that episode, but I think I said when we recorded that, like, it was, like, his, his stuff will make no sense until basically learn about his story. So it's the end of the heresy. Cedars terror is happening. And many of these, like, caliber night angels, they actually infiltrate a force of dark angels led by Corsewayne, who was kind of like their, you know, the lion's top guy. and they joined this like

Dark Angels force at the Siege of Terror the Dark Angels during the Seed Terror, they drop pod down to the Astronomicon, which is how it's basically their kind of, what's it like Wachtower? It's like a what's the thing as the lighthouse, that's it. It's like the warp lighthouse of the Imperium. Thanks, sir.

Thanks, Shai. And they're there to help try and relight it so that other forces can help save the throne world. Good old Tirep. Phyphus now and his death god literally are walking up the cliffs, as in like walking sideways up the cliffs with dark power. They're assailing the dark angels at this post.

And with death guard, there's like an aura of dread around them. And it's so bad during the feud of terror that courseway and the dark angels who are like mostly the Calibanite angels, they're about to break. Like their spirit is about to like, you know, they literally feel their linds, like, loombs. like losing strength and they're literally about to die as like the death guard overwhelmed them until a figure appears in the midst of them. I say, D.K., this is, I believe it is the last quote of the episode and it's a bit of a beefy one, but it's important to get this amazing scene in the siege of terror.

All right. Course Wayne gazes at the silver mask. Do not ask, says Seifer. Do not question it, your grace. have been with you all along. I stand with you now. That is all you need to know. His words echo in the ether. Sons of the first, your duty to your seneschal please, Seifer declares his voice piercing every mind on the hill slope and cliffs. He gave you an order. Kill them. Immediately he begins to met out death to all unwise enough to come across him. His sword splits open black armor like

blisters. His plasma gun torches men whole and sends their molten bodies hurtling down the cliff in pyrotic streaks. Dark angels rushed to his side like lions out of slumber. The spirit that was lacking surges back. Faith

finds its steel. It's a really cool. It's such a sick. Because you have to remember the Lord Seifer is like the spiritual heart of the Legion. And for those who remember, like, his very presence here is like, is like Caliban itself is here.

So they surge forward and they'd, like, throw themselves against the death guard. And interestingly, like, as this has been happening, like, the Lord Seypher, which is actually, we know is Zahariol. They had actually agreed to help the Imperium because they basically see Horace as like the greater threat, but they don't see themselves as imperials. and for the rest of the Cedisor they basically fend off the death guard they help relight the Astronomicon as the Lord Seifur takes a mortal wound

by Typhus in the moment that the beacon lights up and it burns him in the whole room and it sends a light so strong that it begins to allow Gilliman and his fleets and his armaders to surge into help clean up and finish the Cedia Terra

Bats the Ced of Cedore stuff over So the last we see of Lord Zahariel slash Lord Seifer, he's taken a wound. And currently in the scouring, there's no new law about what's happened immediately after that. But the next we see Cypher is during the fall of Caliban, which is where essentially the fallen is created. It's rumored that Zahariel is the one who orders the fleet to attack the lion, because only like four of them who knew like the attack code. and essentially they believe that Zahariol was the one who activated it and started the whole conflict. And it also states, as of current law, Zahariol, not Seifer, it says. It says Zahariel supposedly was killed, I think, fighting Corswayne as Caliban breaks apart.

And after this, so subrimidly, as in current law, Zahariel is dead. And we are no longer sure, once again, who is Lord Scyll? I was just about to say it looks inside Cypher episode. Oh, wait, knowledge on Cypher and now we're all back. Well, I would say heavily briefly. We're back to square one. Well, this is where we round out the episode where very briefly the 40K stuff. In 40K, it is the mysterious figure we all know and love. It is Cypher. And he is the most devious bastard in all the realms, which we say he's being hunted as the most wanted. member of the now fallen angels.

He wields a bolt pistol, one a plasma, you know, one the infamous, you know, he's the infamous two pistols, which is like his really cool look. The lion's personal blade sits upon his back and it has never been drawn or seen to be drawn by the Lord Seifer. We're not sure how he possessed it. It is perceived to be basically happened after the fault of Caliban. At times, he's actually, again, he has led dark angels to their deaths. other times he's actually turned himself into the chapter with the help of the Watchers

in the Dark, which is interesting. Once was actually to warn that the Terran Astellan, like, uh, Asterlain, like who helped Sahariel and Luther during the Horus Heresy, he had joined forces with Typhus in 40K when he had reemerged as a fallen angel and they tried to open a time rift that could bring the fallen angels basically back as a full legion and like some other weird. shenanigans, like basically fight the dark angels. It ends up being like Asriel and the others, they let time blow as it must do. And this leads the actual, like Asriel and the modern 40K dark angels in tandem with the 30K dark angels create the scattering of the fallen. So the fallen

will appear over time at random points. Some of them corrected by chaos. Some of them, you know, loyal to the Imperium and don't know what's happened. Why did they attack, you know, wide the lie attack Caliban, and other ones simply loyal to Luther. Complete mess. We next see, with a handful of other fallen angels, Seifer works in tandem with the Harlequins. They free Gilemon and the members of the Terran Crusade trying to reach terror. And weirdly enough, this is in exchange for Seifer getting an audience with the emperor.

I was not to ask you guys, why would Seifer want to meet with the emperor? Emperor. He doesn't say kill the Emperor. He says he wants an audience with the Emperor. Like, what could that possibly be? He's just a big fan. He's a big fan. Hey, man, I want to say huge fan of your work. Uh, honestly, dab me up, Brosky. I think he just wants questions answered. Could be. But what's the questions? That's like, it, it's still so like, even though I've dealt so much into it. I can't fathom what he would want to ask the emperor. Is there any chance that Seifer feels like the emperor

kind of owes him? I mean, he's not the Cypher that saved him. That was Zahariel, but like... Or is it, Sehoreal? Listen, it might be. He's like, hey, you kind of owe me. Like, not only did you, like, mind bend me and violate me, but I

saved your life. You owe me one dog. Like, you know, I don't know. It's a it's a big, again, another bloody mystery. It is so bizarre. All the Recession here. I say Shai has listed some of the crimes

or Cyphers. Spraying Nurgle plagues down. Yeah, saving Katie. Again, none of it seems to make sense. And when they actually do arrive on terror, the terror and crusades, they actually, they fight on the moon against Magnus, Cypher alongside the, you know,

custodians and other survivors and other parts, crazy scene. Gilman betrays Cypher and his fallen angels and they are locked within the imperial dungeons only for then Cypher to actually escape and he is then chased by a group of custodians and actual chapter dark angels who try and kill him

Seifer makes it all the way to the steps of the throne room and he's greeted by a custodian who over the events of that novel was like on his last moments of life he'd been critically injured and through the custodian, the emperor tells Seifer he may have an audience, but not yet. So Seifer says, I will one day get an audience. So he agrees to leave, and as he's leaving the soul system,

he is now officially being chased by the custodies as well as the dark angels. Oh man! What Seifer wants to achieve, what is the mystery of the lion's blade, is completely mistaken, again, is completely unknown. He may have a mission to return the blade to the lion, or maybe

he wishes to kill the lion. We have no idea what what Seifers' true aims are now. In fact, it's almost confusing. Like, he's even at one point, he helped bring back the corpse of one of the Dark Angels chapter masters, the one who had fallen just before Asriel.

But then he worked with the Dark Angels to help save them and the disaster from the Fulth and Angels. So the mystery of Cypher is an ongoing one. And I guess I'll finish the episode on, do you guys think it would be better to reveal the full mystery of Cypher or to leave it forever mysterious and up to fan interpretation? I'd like the mystery of who to maybe not be revealed.

Yeah. Um, like the person. But I, I would like maybe a thread of understanding of what the hell he's up to. I mean, maybe that ruins the, the magic for people. I know a lot of people really didn't like when they'd explained the terminus decree. Um, but I think that was because I, that explained that you couldn't explain that. Like it just, it just wouldn't, nothing you could have done would have worked in a way. Yeah.

I don't know. It's, it's like, it looks. I would say some of the I am of the opinion like because a lot of the people who are Dark Angels fans a lot of them are convinced it might be Coorswain who becomes Lord Seifer

I'll tell you I'll give you a table of the current theories it's either Coorswain it's either Alfarious or Omagon which I don't like that one I don't like that all no it is either Zahariol

who you know We didn't see her body. He's not Zahariol. Yeah, nobody, no kill. That's the rules. My favorite one is there's more than one cipher. I like the idea of like there could be like the, the, could be like the mantle of Lord Seifor is passed on or there's actually more than one

cipher in the universe, that it could be Corswayne and Zahariel. And that's why the actions seem so confusing because one is almost fighting one side, one is almost fighting for the other, and they are both essentially trying to be the soul of the dark angels. It could, again, either one of those could be correct or completely wrong. If it was Sahara, it would explain how, like, Seif was supposedly able to disappear all the time, because Sahara is a psycho and Coorsbane is not. But at the end of the day, Sa'ifer is just, it messes in my head. But that is everything I have on the mysterious figure that is Lord Seifer,

if people were listening and they maybe have some details that I am not aware of, please put them in the comments below. I try my best because this is a, this is a lot. You have to read many, many different horrors heresy and like 40K stuff to even think about some of this.

But that is kind of the mystery of Lord Seifer. I mean, how do you always feel at the end of that? Do you feel more confused? I was going to say, so after an hour and a half, half of learning about Cypher, we are no closer to understanding anything about Cypher. The closest that I have now is that someone named Zahariel might be Cypher.

Maybe. Yeah, maybe, perchance. There's a shot, because the body wasn't found, maybe. And there might be someone else alongside him that is also cosplaying a cypher, or he might just be dead. Yeah, we've had a great time today. Thanks, guys. That is cipher. No, it's not.

Is it? No, it's not. Is that cipher? Is it? So that's cipher. Is it, though? Least confusing Dark Games episode. Thank you, Shai.

That is true. God, it was so much easier when the emperor was like, hey, lion, go, like, kill this whole planet and don't let anyone know about it. And he was just like, yes, boss. Yeah, so much easier. But, hey, this is, again, one of the most dark angel-coded episodes ever. We've learned nothing and have a million more questions than when we started. Great. Man, Dark Angels were easier when they were just dudes being ashamed of their sexuality.

That was, that was a much easier knowledge to figure out. Hell yeah, brother. Hell yeah. I think people listening, they may need to sit down for a bit off that. You can literally feel like the smoke coming out of like the ears and everything. Thank you guys. Thank you for having me on, though. I appreciate the, uh,

the Alteam. You're not welcome. You're the lore, man. How are you supposed to teach us? Yeah. Between the siege of Tara and, and Cypher, get out.

I think even possum was like, I must, he must have lived that script and went, wow. You just went, wow, what is that? It's like, cool.

All right, I guess, man. I got nothing, brother. Thanks for having me on, though. I appreciate it.

And we can make it worse next time. How? I'll leave you to it. All right. Well, in that case, I see you. All right, Pip Squeak, Wally and Lunkhead out. Bye.