Adeptus Ridiculous - LION EL'JONSON: ALL HAIL THE COMING OF THE DESTROYER | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

 https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculous https://www.adeptusridiculous.com/ https://twitter.com/AdRidiculous https://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculous Lion El'Jonson, also known as The Lion and The First, is the Primarch of the Dark Angels. He was scattered along with the other Primarchs to the far corners of the galaxy. He finally came to rest on the world Caliban, a beautiful but blighted world tainted by Chaos due to its proximity to the Eye of Terror. Lion El'Jonson was renowned for a level of strategic brilliance and martial prowess that was rivaled perhaps only by Horus, but was distrusted by his brother Primarchs for his secretive and taciturn nature. The Chaos emissary to Lorgar called him the Duelist. Support the show

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamanty's. My co-host is Bricky, and he's going to be telling us about, I assume I know what he's going to be telling us about. But before we figure that out, if you enjoyed today's episode, heading over to the Patreon. Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get access to our Discord, bloopers if they happen. We're still trying to get that $20,000 goal on Patreon, because it's a bigon.

If that happens, I will be manning. the episode for Warhammer Fantasy. Try and get Bricky converted. Just one episode, just one. Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous. Bricky, tell them about that. Other stuff. Other stuff. See, there's some really good other stuff. We're going to be finishing up Master of Mankind real quick so you make sure you get that done. But more importantly, we have new merch, ding, ding, ding, sign the alarm bell, ring the gong, activate the bat symbol. there is new merch and it is the first ever drop of sweatpants. Yo, let's go. We have not done sweats before. I just got all the stuff for it,

all of the important tech to get them printed. And we're going to start off, you know, rather less is more. Get a good old pair of both gray as well as black sweatpants with the great Adrick logo on it. It's got like puffed up. Like you can kind of feel it. It's like the, it's like a, it's like a puff design type of thing.

Oh. It feels really, really good on the sweatpants. And I also kind of want to like, I don't know, word of mouth. It's a little difficult. The sweatpants are really, really nice. So for the first week from today, Wednesday till the next episode, they will be all 10% off to celebrate the launch. to start with and also to get into the hands of as many of you as we can. So you can be like, oh, damn, this is nice.

And you could tell your friends. So sweatpants, AdRick sweatpants available now. New merch, ding, ding, 10% off for a week in the description, Orchidate.com. I need to buy me a pair. And actually, I think you'd probably, if you keep wearing that I'm a tank hoodie as much as you do, you're probably never going to take these sweatpants off. Oh, gee whiz, I, okay, one, never say that again.

Oh, that's right. Oh, yeah, you know, you're right. And two, yeah, I've worn these sweatpants for like, every day for the past, like, week, the various colors and stuff. And I'm like, all right. Thrilled with them. I need to stop. I need to wash these.

Oh, you haven't been washing them? You just gave them the... No, I had, like, I had, like, three pairs of things. test out sizes and stuff. Okay. It's fine. Don't worry Wink. Wink. Don't worry about it. Same pair for flies are humming around.

It's fine, guys. I'm just testing and it's like, Brick, you smell like raw sewage mixed with puke. What am I, a baseball player with like five million superstitions? That's just sports people in general. That is true. That's any sports person.

Yeah. All right, Bricky, what are we doing? I think I know what we're doing, but I'm not... You could have, you could have thrown me a curve ball. You know, you know what... Yeah, we're doing the lion, aren't we? We're doing the lion. We have to do the lion.

We have to do the lion. We have to do the lion, yeah. The new Arks of Omen book comes out later this week. So today will be the lion, and the next week will be the Arks of Omen book. on the lion. Oh, I didn't realize the Arks of Omen Book was coming out that soon. I thought there was still a little time before that came out. Nope, it is next up.

Hell yeah. So, we need to naturally discuss the lion. And, of course, like with every prime arc discussion, it is giving me crippling anxiety because these episodes will always be looked at with the most scrucible eye, because no matter how many times Warhammer fans say

they're tired of space marines, they get, oh boy, really salty if you don't do a primark right. Yep, yep. Welcome to another episode of Greater Expectations. You chose the wrong channel. Of course, we have to start with a quote, though. Of all the primarks, save perhaps Mortarian, Lyon L. Johnson stands apart.

Partially this is due to his taciturn nature. A brooding silence hangs over him at all times. Yet there is something more, something buried beneath his noble exterior. Perhaps this is the result of his upbringing, growing to maturity alone in the monster-ridden forests of Calabam. Even at a council of war, the lion moves like an apex predator. He is always watching, always planning, always hunting. He unnerves even his brothers. by Malcador the Sigelite.

So one might say he's an apex legend. Mozambique here. I don't know any apex legend references, because I'm terrible at B.Rs. Yeah, I know. So the lion, much like with the prior Primarks, I've found it to be a much better way to recount the deeds of them to a certain extent, particularly during the Horacee and the Great Crusade, there are like 9,000 battles that occur.

But the more important thing is to get you to understand the lion, to understand the important, like how the lion operates and what he's like. To get what the lion is all about makes more, it's a better understanding of who he is. Okay, okay. So as we all know, all the gestation pods grabbed, thrown into the warp. Yated by chaos.

His pod landed on the feudal death world of Caliban, located rather close to the eye of terror. Now, Calabam had its surface covered by immense forests. It was a giant forest world, and it was inhabited by monstrous beasts mutated. by the touch of chaos after the birth of Slanesh, hence its location to the eye of terror. Yeah. Lovely place for a baby to show up. Oh, yeah. Like, this is a death world.

It is a death world. It is classified as a death world. It is basically gigantic forest teeming with now chaos roided up monsters. Mm-hmm. A bunch of dinosaurs took chaos trend, and now they're goblins. It's interesting because usually it, it, it's, feels like if one of the gestation boards lands on a death world,

that primark usually falls the chaos, don't they? Usually? Isn't that how it goes? Mortarian was on one. Curse wasn't. Angron wasn't. Pretrabo wasn't. Alfarious definitely wasn't. I guess of the ones I've heard of, I just assume that like death world usually means

I'm turning on amps Mortarian definitely But the rest Not so much No I don't think so But the lion Yeah his was a death world But his was a death world

Because of giant apex Chaos beasts out in the world So He survived in the forests alone Living as a wild man He basically was Tarzan Okay And if you had to

Basically Tarzan on a death world jungle. Okay, okay. He was basically murder Hobo Tarzan. He grew up much like Kerr's in the sense that he was alone and had no father figure

or parentals or anything. The difference was is that Kerr's eight children and rats and things to survive in an awful, awful hive world. He was literally in the jungle, the mighty jungle,

the lion sleeps tonight. Oh, wow. That's pretty on the nose. I like it. Yes. He lived in Tarzan. Okay. So Caliban was a post-age-of-Strife-era world, which, of course, the age of strife is Bertha Slenesh, warp-rift, messing everything up.

Yeah, everybody gets disconnected. Everybody's kind of just on their own, separated from Tara. So Caliban had many knightly orders of old warrior aristocrats. These were people there to defend from the monsters in these massive fortress monasteries. The knights maintained a couple aspects of the old technology, such as like old school bolt pistols and simple kind of power armor. But they were also really just pre-industrial. So they still were riding on horseback and things of that nature. They had some good tech, but they were not a very industrialized era.

They had giant castles guarded by knights with old school night aristocracy. Oh, so they were just kind of like medieval era nights guarding their medieval castle. But they had like bolt pistols and stuff. Yeah, it's knights of the round table. They're one of the main group of the Dark Angels is the inner circle. And they have names like Azrael, Ezekiel, Belial, Samuel, you know. Okay. I can see why the Dark Angel would be so popular then, because that's, I feel like that's such a popular aesthetic that if you really lean into it,

you're going to have a lot of like medieval night medieval times fans. I mean, Space Marines in general are 40K. Or like, like, sci-fi knights, you know? Sure. But, like, the, if you wanted to play as the sci-fi knights based on knights, even more so, these are the ones. The sci-fi space marines that are based on, like, the knights of the roundtable and Arthur and stuff like that, then it's like, oh, okay. I get why these guys are so popular now. Right.

It's the honestly a lot of the space marines in general are based pretty heavily on the dark angels because they were they are the first legion, right? Oh, I guess I didn't realize that. They were the first? Well, they were the first to be found, so to speak, but they are, their legion number is one. They are the first legion. Oh. You know, the eighth is night lords, the fourth is the iron warriors, etc. They are the first.

Oh, I was unaware of that. Number one, the dark angels, the first one. Look at you. Look at you. So they, the knights, that is. They represent the most prominent organization on Caliban, known as the Order. And the lion was eventually found in a deep forest so deep where the trees above, basically blot out the sun for the most part, the thick,

forest canopy and in there led some of the most dangerous creatures on Calabam. And it was here he spent his youth. It's a hell of a training ground. I mean, if you're going to grow up to be a primark, that's one way to train yourself before you, you know, yeah. It wasn't quite sure how long he was down here. We assume maybe not more than 10 years, but he's a primark, so God knows how he grew up like that.

Yeah. But he spent basically his entire childhood in these woods. Wow. On a scale of one to Catechin, how brutal are these jungles that he's in? I think Catechin is worse. But I think it's simply the fact that, I think Catechin is worse, but Catechin has, like, actual industrial, imperial guard stuff. These are dudes on horseback. So life is rough

It's really rough Still very bad But for a different reason Yes very bad But like They're both They're still both called death Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah

The plants aren't trying To take over his brain I guess A leaf doesn't fall in his head And brainwash him Gotcha So eventually he met with a group Of the order knights And among these knights

Was their hailing champion a man named Luther. Oh. And during one of the expeditions, a hunting expeditions, they went and found him and kind of cornered him back to a tree, this feral man out somehow in the middle of these forests. A lot of the knights wanted to kill him because he's like, this is very dangerous.

But Luther decided to go against that and instead attempt to take him in. And that's what he did He brought him into the order And taught him Him and the elders taught him English Well, not English, to speak basically Yeah, high Gothic Yeah, low Gothic

He never Because he had never spoken before then Naturally Yeah, because he was Tarzan basically Yeah So, taught him to speak, talk him all kind of stuff But of those years he spent in the forest He would never recount

He would never talk about it. And if I'm not mistaken, never has. Huh. Wow. I mean, not like he doesn't remember it. I'm just assuming it was so savage that he's just like, nope, uh-uh. Fuck that. I'm forgetting that as soon as possible.

He doesn't want to talk about it. Eat my ass. I'm not reliving that ever again in any way, shape, or form. Mm-mm. Screw you. So he was named by Luther, Lion L. Johnson, which is meaning lion, son of. of the forest in the dialect, which the Calibanite dialect is low Gothic.

So he was assimilated into the group of the order, basically. And among the order, he was taught human ways, speak, understand culture, so on. And as we all know, primark's learn incredibly fast. He picked it all up really quick, classic, yada, yada, yada. Yeah, yeah, he's a primark. We get it. He rose really quick through the ranks And of course he was a fierce Fierce

And that is actually him You see right there As whoa Yeah As grand master of the order Whoa that armor is so dope That's so much cooler than all the armor I've ever seen him in

Because usually it's just like that That other picture shy posted With like the The white kind of robe With the green trim and everything And it's like oh that's fine That's cool But that shit, that's like barbarian armor.

And I, ooh, that's so much better. I mean, his new armor. His armor, his chest is a lion. It's a lion face. Oh, but he is the lion. Exactly. It's, oh, man, I really like that. Damn it.

Well, he doesn't get to keep it, so it sucks. It's bullshit. So, leading to the greatest heights, he eventually him and Luther called upon this grand crusade, the extermination of the great, beasts of Caliban so that this people may live in peace and without fear. Okay. And this took, this was 10 years of this crusade.

Each victory against the beast brought in new recruits as they put each beast's head on a pike plated around the walls of their fortresses. And warriors of the order started to care a hell of a lot more about, a hell of a lot more than just survival. They had a reason to fight. And this was great, but did come with a bit of a price, which was the Caliban Knights had a very harsh code of conduct, code of honor. And now all the aristocracy of the knights ranks were being swelled with kind of regular

folk. And they weren't really happy about that. They wouldn't really speak out against the lion, but the traditions of Caliban were kind of being disseminated. Right. And this kind of weighed a bit hard on Luther. Luther was his brother, his protege, not really a father of their figure, but more of an equal. And Luther was the greatest man in all of Calabam. And he was their strongest champion, one of their best scholars, just.

the best of everyone, and now all he does is play second fiddle to the lion. You know, I'm getting a whole lot of red flags right about now. This is just the red flag after red flag after red flag. Luther is dying and or betraying the lion, isn't he? I don't skip to the fun part, now do we? No, no, no, please, please. I'll put down my red flags that I'm waving on mass, like an air traffic controller, and we'll get to it. But the thing about the Lyme is that often he would help lead these crusades himself.

He was always in battle, always unafraid to speak his mind. He's like an unwavering gaze, whereas someone like Dorn, because the hardest part is like when you say quiet and brooding, you think of Dorn often, right? But Dorn is blunt and a bit more simple in his stuff. The lion is like, he kind of sits there surveying everything like an apex predator. He acts like a top predator the whole time. He always has like eyes darting around or looking like dead into your soul, just kind of weighing everything up. And he just won't speak. So he's just sort of methodically planning and not really brooding or anything.

He's just always, he's always on the ready. He's always on the ready. The lion is Doom Guy. Ah, okay. The lion is basically Doom Guy. I do not know who I am. I do not know where I am. All I know is I must kill.

The lion is a feral apex predator. taught to live as a man. And underneath all of that armor and underneath all of that, of that beautiful hair is a feral murderer. He is all about killing. So he's, so like when he broods, he's more like a snake just waiting to strike. Like it's kind of coiling and it's just ready to just. Without mercy, without fear. There was a night order called the knights of,

oh, I'm trying to remember their name, Lupus. And they rebelled against the new order that the lion was going with. They even started training some of the beasts to use against him. And with this, he hunted them down to every last man. Every single person, they entered the castle, killed the beasts, and went through the castle into every chamber, into every lock, into every hidden passage, and slaughtered every single one of them. You'd hear of none of this. I mean, that lion is efficient, if nothing else.

That is, you know, like, ooh, boy. Lion's job is to kill. Yeah, so you really don't want to be on the lion's bad side. Because you're probably not going to be there for long. It sounds like... Ten years of crusading against these beasts. Ten years of fighting. The order became so powerful.

They had their final full crusade as it was long and bloody. Hundreds of men dead for each nest of monsters put to the torch. And many grew super tired of the endless slaughter except for the lion. Mercy has no place. in war. To leave the task unfinished with any foe alive would be to waste the lives spent in pursuit. The end, the only end allowed is total annihilation by any means necessary. They would ambush where the beast came to feed, poison the pools where they drank,

set ablaze the forest to have them run. Anyone who was frightened by the power and skill of the lion or went against his order were killed to the last man. Okay, so the lion is Captain Genocide. He's actually really good at the genocide, yeah. Yeah, he's really good at it. I was going to say, that sounds like he just kills to the last person, regardless. He's Captain Genocide. His forte is just genocidal death cult.

So there's an interesting discussion between the lion Russ, right? Russ was often referred to as, was you referred to the Emperor's Executioner? Oh, you're the one that knows all the lore. I don't know all the lore. I'm actually a bit... Does anybody. I'm actually a little bit behind on my Russ lore, but I think they were called the Emperor's Executioners. but they felt like often sometimes more of like a big threat.

It's like you point to Lehman Russ over here and he's the gigantic wolf snarling his fucking teeth and like don't screw with me or this is going to happen. But the lion is who you send when you want nobody to return. Like the lion is if the wolves are the executioners, the lion is the exterminator. All right, all right, lion. So the lion is indeed just a savage. Well, I don't know if savage is the right word, but...

Well, he's... He likes his job. Yes, but he takes in a lot of the aspects of old knights. The difference is that he was one of those people who never much liked fanfare or accolades or any of the faintiness of it. He has a lot of pride The issue is that sometimes it's like Oh the lion doesn't care about frivolous things

Like pride and in glory But he's also like a knight So he kind of does sometimes Yeah It kind of depends on how he's written I think I was gonna say if you're if you're dark angels And your whole Motee is a lot of medieval knights

Then I mean to some degree You're gonna care about accolades and titles and stuff like that. Sometimes. He cares less about the actual fanciness of it. I think he cares more about the actions of what he does. Yeah. When Horace became Warmaster, I don't believe he even showed up.

He was like, I'm too busy, and then he destroyed another world. Yeah, I'm too busy genociding another planet, please. Would you like to read this quote here? Sure. Shai put a quote in the chat. It says he would be the cold and inevitable destroyer. The doom that once Unleash could not be recalled, subverted or delayed. Taught by the black depths of the forest of Caliban, the value of cold, ruthless tenacity.

Lionel Johnson was the first of all the primarks, war distilled into its rawest and most fundamental essence. Death that walked like a man. the galaxy would be forever changed by his return. Ooh. Boy, yo. I like to think that the lion is often a lot like, the most like the emperor, in my opinion. I think that of any, of any primark, the one who is the closest to the emperor is the lion. Extremely cold, extremely methodical.

the ends will always justify the means no matter how disgusting and savage those means might be. Yeah, no matter the cost, the ends always justify the means. Yeah, that's... Oh, boy, I did not realize how... I don't know if I want to say important lion is

or how much his returning is like, whoa, that's a big deal because he is like, he is scorched earth. So with that, I want you to take a look at his new mini and see if you kind of get it. See if I kind of get it. I mean, yeah, I've seen his new mini. It is very dope as he's walking along a skeleton. I think it's a fallen piece of tapestry.

But like, you think of the lion now. His duty as the exterminator, the end. end of a planet and the actual like no, well, there will be no rest until every enemy of humanity is dead. And to enjoy accolades and fanfare and titles and medals before them is a waste of time. And you see him look like a dark souls boss, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That determination like, Gilliman is here. I'm on. I'm here to like lead a group. And the line is, I'm going to kill you. I mean, Lion, he's waking up and he has plenty to do, because there are enemies of humanity everywhere. It is just, I mean, it's going to be an all-you-can-eat buffet for Mr. Lyon, for Mr. L. Johnson. There's a great quote by him that goes, the measure of true glory is not to give battle in the bright noon of war

surrounded by brave comrades upon the field of victory, but to valiantly fight on alone in the darkness, with no hope of aid or even remembrance, and to spit defiance in midnight's eye. Wow, what a badass. He's an interesting, he's certainly interesting guy. To him, honor and glory comes from the, the amount of races he's genocided.

Yeah. Ah, boy, that's, yeah, he's, that's, oh, boy. He's, he's, I would not want to, I would not want to see Lionel Johnson coming at me as an opponent, though. Like, that's, I don't want any part of that. I would run as far as I could. It probably wouldn't even matter, because he's Captain Genocide. He'd find me wherever I went.

That's, that's kind of the vibe is that the lion is the, the, the, the point at a problem and have it be done. He's the end all, be all. It's like, all right. Once he's there, it's like, you might as well give up. And even if you do give him, it doesn't matter because he'll kill you anyway. Yeah, he'll find you. And he went down every hidden passage in that castle and killed everything.

And then when he returned after doing that, heaps and heaps of praise was thrown upon him by the members of the order. Oh, I'm sure he loved that. Well, the particular, Luther was very happy with him, but competed with him often for honor and victory as equals. Now, he had eclipsed him so far past. He rules all of Caliban. And while Luther is happy for him, he's got a twinge of jealousy. Luther was the greatest man Caliban would have ever seen, and he was born in the same. same time as the lion.

Oh man. That is unfortunate. The greatest man on the planet, that's not a primark. So after this came the arrival of the emperor. He brought in 500 members of the Astari's down from his spacecraft. The lion dueled the first captain of this and found his, his, uh, his, uh, his, uh, his, entire, I guess, Astardis Legion to be respect, took their measure, gained respect. And they, if you don't tell, they have kind of a black power armor in the pre-heresy photos.

You know, I'm actually not sure. I've seen too many pre-heresy dark angels pictures. I've seen the post-heresy ones where they got like the flowing white robes and everything and it's kind of green. Pre-Heresy has a bit of a black color. Often it's described as a green so dark it's mistaken as black. But it's basically black and red. That's kind of cool, actually. A green, so dark that's mistaken for black.

I like that. Yeah. And so based on old Calibanite myth, it was, and the angels of darkness descended on pinions of fire and light, the great and terrible dark angels, an old fable. Hence the name the Dark Angels The Dark Angels Yeah, ooh, I like that

That's a hell of a descriptor That's a hell of way to describe your faction So with this came The slow degradation Of the Knights of Caliban And Caliban in its own right There was a lot of indecision among the ranks But at this point

Space Marines were not individual knights They were not houses and all that stuff. They were unity, full unity as brothers. So all of the knights of Caliban had to be disseminated under one banner. Breaking away the tradition that they had. Caliban itself was also in need of recruits for the Imperial Army. And within an unimaginable amount of time, like super quickly, the entire Forest World of Caliban was retrofitted into fact.

factories and production mines, from a lush green world of castles to refineries, mines, and workshops. Oh, that's unfortunate. It is. That sucks. Well, I mean, it was a death world. So, you know, if some world has to be, you know, torn down and turned into an industrial war zone, there's worse. You know, now it's at least not a death jungle. It is not a death world anymore in that sense.

Mm-hmm. That's good. but good in that sense, but he already exterminated most of the beasts anyway. That's true. They were genociding the beast left and right, so yeah. So then began the process to create a start eat. Gene seemed for some,

but some who were a little bit too old would not be able to get the gene seed and were needed to be modified, biology, grafting, all kinds of invasive surgeries like that. They did the same thing to Corferon, Lorgar's abusive father Yeah, he's the worst

Luther also got this treatment of being kind of buffed up in that way but not at the height of the starties So now Luther is surrounded by men That were his squires and lower level knights Now far stronger than he could ever be Because they were full starties now I was gonna say that is just gotta add

a, that's gotta be such a bitter pill for him to swallow because he was already getting jealous of the lion and then it's like, oh, by the way, not only are you not as strong as the lion, now you're not as strong as the squires and the people that you used to dominate. And ooh, that's gotta be just a knife twisting in his side and just, ugh.

It keeps building. It just doesn't get better for old Luther, or does it? So other prime arcs often saw the lion as dower, always in a dark mood and couldn't care at all about the opinions of others. Wow, they thought Captain Genocide was Dower, huh? No way. I'm enjoying the fact that he's Captain Genocide. He is absolutely Captain Genocide.

I mean, look at that, look at that face. Look at that jawline. Like, you can see it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But to him, the war against monsters did not end on Caliban. His job was simple to kill. The enemies of humanity must die. Yep, I mean, like we said, what else would you use him for? We've dubbed him Captain Genocide. What else are you going to have him do?

Point him at a problem and solve it. You know, I've always told you that the lion is kind of, of an asshole. Uh, yes. You kind of getting it now a little bit? Yeah, I'm definitely getting it now. Yeah, I, whoe, good, yeah, okay. And you understand why he was also like, oh, no, Curz is on your homeward, Gilman.

I'm going to nuke it. You what? I totally get that now. That is so on brand for the lion. It is just, yeah, I totally understand now. Um, so he took out and grabbed his sons and brought them into the fold to bring in his entire dark angels together because they were out fighting other wars and stuff. Yeah. And in a few short years, he gathered like a hundred thousand warriors and led them to this stronghold on, uh, Grimeyer, I think is what's called, basically where they all originally convened.

And with that, he dueled with the champions of the councils of the masters. and after the final duel, an hour-long duel, he accepted the title of Grandmaster of the First Legion, the six wings of hexagrammaton, and the high preceptor of the Order Militant. The idea is that he wanted to consolidate every single major position in the Legion to then consolidate it under a single banner and assimilate it.

Okay. The wings of the hexagrammaton is something we'll talk about in the Darkest. Angels dedicated episode, but you'll often hear about things called the Raven Wing and the death wing. There are six wings of his warfare, basically. Oh, okay. Don't the biblically accurate angels have six wings?

If that's true, then, wow, that's something I never thought of. Yeah, sure. I might be wrong. I might just be thinking of some dumb thing I saw in an anime or something once, so don't quote me on that. Well, if you're going to kill God, anime is the way to do it. JRP's are the way to do it. If you want to kill God, you go play yourself some like Xeno gears or something because you are on a trip. But the different wings, like Raven Wing are black armored, really fast speeders and jet bikes. The Death Wing are bone colored, like the

inner circle, the ones that know the most. That kind of stuff. Chai, was I right? That's a picture of a biblically accurate angel, the sort of nightmare fuel of eyes and burning circles. He got six wings. I was right. He was right. Oh, my God. It does happen.

So he swore an oath. We are the angels of darkness. For us, there is no peace. No end, but war and death. We shall not walk in the golden halls of. mankind's future, but stand resolute in the shadows beyond. While we yet draw breath, this Imperium will not fall, and we will not know defeat. For I pledge every warrior, every drop of blood in the Legion, in the name of victory, no matter the cost.

Wow. Man, the dark angels are so extra, in a good way. But wow, they are so... And they just, oh, I would not. Now I'm just like, man, like, it's never great when you have to face off against, like, space marines. But I'm just like, man, I would really not want to face off against the Dark Angels. No part of me would want to see the Dark Angels coming at me in, like, a war scenario. It just seems like the worst.

Like you are you're dead Yeah he was I don't know It's um He's got this definite kind of thing where the dark angels Are supposed to be like The pure ones for the emperor like pure cause Pure of mind

Always always there and fiercely loyal Which is why they're the ones you can call behind Or call on in the back and often have that weird Kind of KGB vibes of them See, there's an interesting thing about the lion. There's a book excerpt that says he was always been guarded with his humors. Those few who knew him took it as a, like mistakenly believed it to be like that of his character, brother Dorn. But that was to mistake circumspection for abduracy and aloofness for indifference.

He demanded much and gave but little. Yet in his hearts, he loved all of his sons as both the love. Lord and a father. His pride in their deeds was surpassed only by the demand he placed on those deeds being exceeded. He had overseen the extermination of countless billions. Such was his duty, his special place within the pantheon of warlike avatars who served their father's ambitions. And though he took no joy from it, nor did he question its justice. His brothers thought him unquestionably ruthless and they were right. They believe that he would expend

any resource, even the lies of his own sons, to prosecute the Imperium's wars, and they were right. They said that he had not shed a single tear at such losses, even at the annihilation of the Rangda had seen his legion's strength struck in half. And again, they were right.

They thought these as criticisms. But they were not They were not Oof During that whole thing I was just like man Corn would love the lion I don't know

I think he's a little too secretive for that Maybe Maybe He's certainly Also yeah I don't I believe he doesn't take any joy in the murder It's more the Oh

Okay See he's not like Angron having fun Got you got you got you got you That's fair. That's fair. So with the rest of this comes a couple of key moments. There's a, like I said, a million battles in the heresying alike. But the one that's the most important I want to discuss is Sarash. So Sorosch was a major fight during the Great Crusade that had them dealing with a very specific group of secretly chaos worshipping people called the Soroshi.

They were originally going to be imperial compliant, but ended up with. realizing that the Imperium wanted to be atheist. And they believe that to be an expression of pure evil and their anti-religious stance to be terrible. Yet without knowing, they were actually worshipping chaos gods. They met with the lion, their leader, and they renounced the lion and said, you are terrible and awful. And the emperor is a creature of falsehood in which naturally the lion took the man and was

like, enjoy being in multiple pieces. I was going to say, of all the things, like he, he, that guy knows who the lion is too, right? Like, they're not unaware of what the lion does and what the dark angels do, right? How in God's name would you say that to? What did you think was going to happen? It was more of a...

He's kept in genocide! It was more of a, like, spin-in-your-face kind of reason. I think he knew it was going to happen to him. Oh, he knew he knew he was going to die. He knew it was going to get cut into, like, 87 billion pieces, and okay. He assumed so. I probably, yeah.

He was on the, he was on the Lions flagship. Okay. Not to mention, oh yeah, that's right. The Lions flagship is called the Invincible Reason.

Very fitting. Very, very fitting. Uh-huh. Okay. So what was interesting is that Luther and another librarian were in the M-parkation deck. And Luther decided to investigate

the shuttle. that he came in on. And when he came back from the shuttle, his face was white. And he told the librarian and everyone else to leave. Uh-oh. And eventually,

upon more investigation, the second the librarian guy came back and poked his son was terribly wrong. And Luther had found out that inside it

was actually an atomic weapon, like a nuke. Oh, that's no good. And so the Soroshi were intent on assassinating the entire Dark Angels hierarchy, including the Primark. Oh. The librarian was asking, why the hell did he not tell of this earlier? And Luther was thinking to himself, I could just say nothing. I could just leave.

And if I just left, it would be me at the head. Yep. Oh no, so Luther was trying to betray. He was just going to whatever. I'll just leave it. Let him die. Let him get nuked. Oh, man.

Well, he changed his mind. He had these thoughts in his head and he was like, oh, God, no, no, no, no, no. This is, what am I doing? What am I thinking? Like, this is not worth any of this. And so eventually he came around and jettisoned the nuke into space. Oh, okay. But the cracks are forming in the,

armor. The cracks are forming. He was thinking about it. The cracks are forming heavily. He was considering it, had his hand over the trigger, and just kind of said, no, this isn't who I am. This is wrong. It's not who you are yet. And in response, so this is one part I wasn't quite sure about if the lion found out about this and the next action he had was in response, or if this was just the next thing he did in general, which added to the problem. I'm not sure which one it is. But after that, Luther and a large contingent of Astardis were sent back to Caliban to oversee recruitment of new Astardis.

Okay. They were in dire need of new recruits and experienced warriors were needed to speed of the training process. Okay. Okay, okay. Well, this in reality was, was basically exile. I was going to say, it's kind of like maybe the lion either knew about what happened, had his own little suspicions, and he was like, I need, I need to get Luther as far,

whatever me as possible. Like, I need to get him away from, like, important ship and me, because I don't trust this, I don't trust this guy. Like, he's, he's showing some cracks. And it didn't make much sense, too, because if the Dark Angels so badly needed warriors, why are they taking warriors off the front line? Training people is for seers and elderly warriors, you know? Yeah, you don't take one of your top lieutenants, you'd be like, oh, yeah, go go back home and train soldiers. It's like, that seems like a waste, right?

Pretty much. And so that's why the intentions of it became kind of clear. Mm-hmm. So this began a brooding distrust and hatred from Luther and the people who had been sent out into exile. Just in time for a certain heresy by a man named Horace. Okay. Okay, Luther. All right. All right. So the main thing, the gambit that Horace had to play was the fact that the Dark Angels and the lion in particular would never be swimming.

Oh, no. He was not going. No way, no how. Yeah, probably not. Probably not. But Luther. Oh, no, no, no. Nothing with the Luther thing.

Oh, okay. It was more just, okay, the dark angels are enormous. They have a gigantic overall contingency of people. So, Lorgar, you and Angron are going to beat the show, out of Gileman and go to Calth and do all these kinds of stuff. And I'm going to send a Lyme to the

fringes of space to do campaigns far away from everything. Good call. Good call, Horace. That's, that's smart, smart. And then at that point is somewhere around the time when Horace eventually revealed himself as traitor, along with the Death Guard, world eaters. Word bearers? Yeah. I forget the... It was a certain amount. Then there was the ones that revealed themselves as traitor on Isfant.

Yeah. Gotcha. So, humorously, during this big fight way back out there, he actually met with Perciarabo to discuss about the traitorous issues going on. Yeah. And during this fight dealing with some of the people in the fringes of space, he had actually lion had gained a bunch of siege weaponry from the whole thing and they were discussing deliberations of what's the most important type of thing and they had a discussion and it goes excellent

Johnson said in that case they made a good agreement in that case you're welcome to take possession of the ordnest siege guns at your convenience on one condition of course the Primark raised a thin eyebrow oh and Johnson gave his guest a sly grin you must promise me they'll be put to good use on Istvon. Perjurabo, Primark of the Iron Warriors, smiled. His eyes gleaming like polished iron. Oh, yes, he said.

Of that, you may be assured. Nice. Very, very on brand for line. I like that. That is a, that is a funny. Obviously. It's, it's, it fits the character and it's actually pretty hilarious, yeah. It's uh, because Isvon 5 dropside massacre was the attempt to destroy Horace.

And of course, that's what they turned, they realized it turned traitor and destroy so many of the legions. And so stop shooting, says the, uh, says the word bearers. You're hitting our troops. No, I don't think I will. Have faith, word bearer. We're all bleeding today. Click. Boom.

Gotta love the Iron Warriors. Mm-hmm. Love them. So we talked a bit about this in prior Primark episodes. After this, the lion, Gilliman, and Sanguineus are kind of cut off from the wider Imperium due to the ruin storm created by Arabis and Lorgar, the giant warp storm blocking travel. They create an imperial secundus, a secondary imperial imperial in the time with Sanguinius as acting emperor. And during this time, the Dark Angels absolutely bawdy.

the night lords, just slaughter them wholesale. Because if there's one thing night lords are good at, it's losing. Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean, to be fair, though, it sounds like against the dark angels, not too many people would have a chance. Like, that sounds like one of those factions where, like, if you're trying to 1v1 them, it's not really a 1v1,

you're probably going to get body. It doesn't matter if you're a night lord. Maybe the Ultramarines just because, you know, they always have to win, but... Yeah, but the Thramus Crusade was the thing. And the Night Lords got just annihilated by the Dark Angels, as they were also mainly there to try to stop the lion, you know, from dealing with everything. The two of them actually, Kerr's and the lion tried to parlay a little bit to discuss what's going on and everything. and the Curse almost kills him

shockingly enough Wow really Mm-hmm He almost strangles him to death Whoa During their fight Which I mean The man can see the future

So that certainly Gives him a bit of a A bit of a tactical advantage Yeah a bit of an edge Sure, that's fair Yeah So as he was about to kill him With that

A Dark Angel's honor guardsman rammed his sword through Kurz's back to get him off of him. Should have seen that coming, Curz. Should have, but he was, you know, he's all so crazy. He is, that is out of his mind, batched insane, yep.

And so for the next three months came a point where after Curz was healed, him, Savitar, and his Atrementar Terminators boarded the invincible reason, which, and started slaughtering the dark angels, resulting in the death of all but only 12 of the Terminator's C-

C-Cat-R-Berr- of the Night Lord's Terminators, that is, because again, they're great at losing. Yeah. Savitar being captured and imprisoned and Kerr is fleeing Lionel Johnson and playing Among Us for the next multiple months.

Oh, that's when the Among Us game starts. Gotcha. Okay. Yes. He was evading the lion on his own flagship for months. wreaking terror in the vents and attacking the mortal crew.

He's venting. He was. He eventually escaped with Savatar and the various other night lords and made his way down to McCrug, if I'm not mistaken. And then that's where the, oh my God, I'm going to nuke the nuke crews.

Please don't. No, just let me do it. It's fine. I've genocided smaller planets. Don't worry about it. And so then you had the trial of Conrad Kurz, which we talked about the sanguineous episode a lot.

That whole schick, you know, he gets exiled from the Imperial Secundus because of this whole thing. He comes back and he's like, wait, don't kill Kurz because if Kerr's is alive, then that means, and he says that the emperor sent an assassin to kill him,

that means the emperor is still alive. And, etc., etc. That, you know, all lots of 40 million books were in on this stuff, but The important stuff arrives after this, which is the lion arrives at the siege of Terra too late. The emperor has been mortally wounded and placed on the golden throne.

Horace is dead. Sanguineas is dead. The traitors are being routed, et cetera, so on. Yep. And Lionel Johnson then completely wracked with grief at his inability to prevent the fall of the emperor, to Caliban and is immediately bombarded from the surface. Jeez.

All righty. Oh, no. Poor lion. I mean, because seeing what happened on Terra's got to be just the biggest disappointing failure of his life. Everything he stands for, he failed to do. And then he comes back and just, oh, no. Oh.

It was also a very unglorious way. He wasn't able to get there because he failed in battle. He wasn't able to get there because he was delayed, kept at bay, and then cut off by a giant warp storm. There's no justice in losing because you couldn't even make it to the finish line. It's really demoralizing for someone like him.

Yeah, he got a DNF in that race. That's unfortunate. So when he had returned to Caliban and the planet's orbital offenses started firing upon him, he had found out that Luther with the council had decided to go along with Horace to betray the Imperium and secede from the emperor and the lion, all the while under the corruption of chaos. Yeah, that's that's what I was afraid of. Oh no Chaos corrupted Luther

Yeah Which Was there a specific chaos Or is it just chaos in general Corrupted him because just Okay Yeah With that

You know Furious with this The lion then began Bombarding Caliban from orbit Blowing the damn place To smetherines And arriving down To fight Luther

While still bombarding the planet Mind you He went down to the planet wall. Just not where he's at. Okay. Gotcha. I was like, wow. That is, he takes his genocide very seriously.

Luther now was a chaos champion, fully elevated to the strength of a primark through the gifts of the chaos gods, much like Horace. Yeah. I mean, smart move by chaos because, you know, if you pump him up with chaos juice, there's a chance you get rid of the line. It is. And then they have a final massive battle. Luther and the Lion had their final duel. Caliban was under siege and fire with the planet heaving and cracking. And the duel ended with Luther launching with the power of all of his chaos juice, a massive psychic attack that mortally wounded Lionel Johnson and pretty much knocked him out. Oh. Right after that, he had lost the grip that chaos had on his body.

Oh, no. Luther just started going completely mad, unwilling to fight any more, mad ramblings, confusion, all this kind of stuff. And the powers of chaos that had buffed him were furious that once again,

another one of their pawns had failed to, kill the emperor's chosen. The idea is that the veil of deceit had been removed from his eyes. And the enraged chaos gods then sent a warp storm over to this planet

that was already heaving under the strain in which then it cracked and broke and shattered into itty-bitty little pieces with the monastery the order was in and he was on

breaking apart into a giant chunk and all of the heretical dark angels that had joined Luther, including the lion himself, were sucked into the warp. Oh, boy, that's no good. Shortly afterwards, the lion was spit back out of the warp in a complete coma. The warp just spitting back out? Yeah, it had like a hairball, you know? Look that Harry's guy, you know?

He's in his little coma, a sleep-ed-y-sleep, and he's grabbed by the various members of the Dark Angels who now have their floating fortress known as the Rock, the piece of Caliban that was detached during the destruction of the planet and now serves as their moving base, which we had as our main spot in the Vashdor book. Which actually turns out pretty good for them, because it's real hard to find. It is. You know, until Vashdor makes a Macuffin that can find it. Oh, yeah.

Vastor's whole thing is MacGuffin's. It kind of is, yeah. So all of those dark angels that were grabbed and thrown into the warp were then spit out in tons of various places throughout the galaxy. And these will be known as the fallen. Oh, okay. And- Gotcha. Finding the fallen is the dark angel. number one goal currently.

Find those filthy traitors. Because no one's allowed to know the shame of any part of their legion turning chaos. These are the Dark Angels. These are the Emperor's Executioners, right? Or exterminators, sorry. That is a massive point of shame. And so the Dark Angels, if you've heard plenty of memes about them being traitors or... I have indeed.

I get it now. Well, anytime the Dark Kings are brought up, it's like, oh, the fallen, I've never turned traitor. We're loyal. We're the good ones, yeah. Even I've heard those memes, yeah. Because they're not traitor, but they don't want anyone to know that they ever had anyone fall. Yeah. And so the lengths they go to keep that a secret, the things they do, the people they kill, the torture they inflict, all to keep.

that lie away and to find any of the fallen is massive, it's paramount. That is the number one goal of the dark angels. Ah, I always like that comic right there. Yeah, brother, I have fallen. Might you assist me up? Brother? Brother? Brother?

I just tripped. So. That's a great one, yeah. With that, way down. Deep in the rock lies a stasis cell. In this cell combined with, uh, fuck, meters of thick rock creep, warning, ruins and everything, lies Luther, the arch traitor. Currently, a babbling, crazed mess. Oh, Luther survived all this?

Luther's alive. Oh, I did not know that. And he's in this little prison and he's just in there Just babbling his brains out nonsensically? Yes, he is down there deep in the in the bowels of the rock Kept in this field and often only ever seen by two people. The Watchers in the Dark, or the group of the Watchers in the Dark. Yeah.

And the Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels, which in this point would be Azrael, because he has a sword called the Sword of secrets, which is a special relic that is used to access the cell. They go in there sometimes to get information from him where the fallen might be in his traitorous ramblings. How would he know where the fallen are? He doesn't have like a direct link with them.

I mean, I don't know. He was chaos corrupted. Who knows? But point being is that he would often have just these diluted. frightening rambling, specifically about how the lion is coming back. The lion will return. The lion will wake up and he will absolve me of my sins. Oh.

He will be back and he will save me. Oh, man. I kind of feel bad for Luther. Luther's betrayal was one of the less selfishly awful ones, compared to like typhus, for example? Yeah. Well, just because Luther had just, it seems like the whole time,

he's just kind of, he's getting these little pinpricks over and over again. He's like, oh, I'm kind of jealous of the lion. And it's like, oh, well, that sucks. But I'll still be loyal to the lion. It's like, oh, I could nuke the lion, but I'm not going to do it because, oh, no, I'm better than that. Then he gets sent away.

And it's like, oh, by the way, all these space marines are stronger than you now and you still can't add up to, And then he, in chaos, and he was just a babbling man. I feel bad for Luther. Is that like, is that a hot take to feel like sympathy for Luther? Um, it depends. If Dark Angel players want to be very dark angel-y, they'll be like, how dare you?

On the other hand, you know, as far as like reasons to betray Wendt, Luther's wasn't the worst. Yeah. The lion is not what I would call the most likable. guy, especially not when you are playing second fiddle to him the whole time, he's getting all these accolades and he doesn't even give a shit?

Yeah, and he probably doesn't really, he's probably not one for showering you with praise either, I would assume. No, no. He would, he does not care. No, no, no, no, no. But, yes,

he, you know, the veil of deceit removed from his face, he was very upset much much like that moment of clarity that Horace apparently had before he died Oh God, got you. It's kind of the

abyssion, but at this point he's a babbling mess. But the rock was sieged far before Vastor arrived. And despite the fact that this rock

with a demon prince at its head, siege their overall, you know, place, they left just as swiftly as they had arrived. Not realizing

that the attack was most likely a diversion as Asriel went back down to the stasis pods and found that Luther was missing. Oh, no. Luther is out there somewhere. So at that point,

the lion being put to nap time by Luther's attack in the warped shenanigans sleeps on the rock deep down below the area of all the stuff, etc. and, well, we know he's awake now. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

He's gotten a bit of a bit older in his time. Yeah, he's got a bitch and mustache now. Who's that person everyone says he looks like? Is it someone from Game of Thrones? There's not really anyone from Game of Thrones that he looks like. I don't remember. But though he does have the Emperor's Shield indeed. He does?

Yes, the Emperor Shield. Oh, cool. I'm assuming that gives some absolutely red, ridiculous amount of protection. Oh no, he looks like, um... It doesn't. Oh, the oldest Lannister. Um, he gets, he gets shot with an arrow while he's on the shitter by it, uh, um...

Oh, I can't remember his name. Ah, whatever. Not important. Anyway. Yeah, not important. Point being is that, uh, yes, he looks very, very cool. He looks very cool. He's a bit older.

It's, uh, interesting to see where, where it's all gonna go. Yeah. Oh, there's another picture of him I just found. Hey, oh, look at that. He looks good. I like the other one better. I like his mini better. Something about his face in that one I do not like.

Like the armor looks great, sword, great. Something about the face don't like it. And whatever. Point being is that there's more art and that's all I care about. Oh, yeah, sure. More art's always good. Yeah. It's just nice to see him up and about.

And, you know, that's that right. There is good old, um, the lion. The lion, Captain Genocide strikes again. Captain Genocide strikes again. I like in that artwork how just blindingly brilliant his sword is. Mm-hmm. He's got some great head options too, yeah. Whoa, those are such cool head options.

Also, man, wings. Good. Holy, those are some wings on his helmet. it. Mm-hmm. Wow. I like the hooded without, like the, the, where he's got the hood, but you can see his face. And he looks very sort of like, oh, yeah, I did just wake up.

I'm very mysterious. And, yeah, he's got quite the vibe. Oh, hell yeah. I, uh, I, I think he's, yeah, he's darn cool. The, that's, that for the most part is understanding the line and what he's all about. I have a much better understanding of the lion And now I have a much better understanding of the Dark Angels memes And yeah

Now I totally get what he was like oh yeah Curzes down there just nuke it Just just It doesn't matter who else is down there Just kill it's hard to tell Tarzan to use subtlety Tarzan please use your brain He just wants to unga bunga He just wants that unga bunga DPS

man. He just wants to murder. Is that a, oh, is that a picture of, uh, Angron fighting the lion? Yeah, that's, uh, that's, which is probably coming up, right? Yeah. I can't wait to see Angron, an excellent character, absolutely get destroyed by him. Because the, because Angron can come back every eight days and the lion can't. And, and, like, with lion just waking. up, you have to make the lion look like a god.

He has to look so just unstoppably invincible that yet Angron is about to get absolutely destroyed. It wouldn't surprise me if they put him on a two times X respawn time because

of how badly he's about to get bodied. Yeah, that's the unfortunate part. And you can't kill Vashtar, Yeah, like, you can't have Lion just go up and be like, hey, Vastro, it's... Well, you can't kill Vastor in general. He's a... Well, in general, sure.

Yeah, but, like, you can't just have Vashor already be clowned on, and it's just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be interesting if he, when he comes back and tries to kill Angron and then, like, oh, well, damn it. I mean, he'll have a lot of fun waiting for the respawn timer. Lion seems like the type that would spawn camp Angron Just for the hell of it Spawn? How exactly do you spawn camp Angron?

He kill him a few times like Oh, where does he spawn? And he's just like triangulating where Angron's gonna spawn? He's like, aha! There! And he just spawn camps and just waits two weeks, kills him again. Oh, God damn it. That's that. Hell yeah.

That was fun. The lion is there. I have tried my best to explain the lion, there aren't a whole lot of the lion moments. There aren't, well, I mean, there are plenty, but like, not this episode. It's just to understand the lion. Get your foot in the door. And then once your foot's in the door, the rest of you watching this, you may enjoy the

47,000 page articles about him. And then, you know what, you can get deeper into it. I'm proud of you. Yeah. You go find out. I am so excited for next week now, too, because, you know, Because now that I know about the lion, it's like, ooh, I want to see what happens when he wakes up. I'm jazz, dude.

I'm really curious how he's going to act, because the way he is in heresy times is a monster. So who knows what he's going to be like now. Oh, I'm so excited. Hell yeah. All right. Take us home, forest man. Sure. I don't know.

I don't know how to. I don't know.