Adeptus Ridiculous - OCCULT ARTIFACTS AND DAEMON WEAPONS | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousHumans desire power, be it power over themselves, their fellow men, or the world around them. The Ruinous Powers exploit this desire with Dark Pacts and unnatural gifts. Sorcerers, in turn, seek to increase their capacity for warp-craft by creating items designed to draw upon the power of the warp directly, without the need for extended rituals. Some go a step further, calling forth servants of Chaos and binding them into physical cages to create daemonic weapons of great and terrible power.Occult artifacts come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from rings engraved with esoteric symbols to great malefic engines designed to channel warp energies for often unguessable (but certainly malevolent) purposes. But no matter their appearance, these items reek of the malignant forces contained within and must be handled with great care. As it is often said, all power corrupts, and the power of the warp is both vast and subtle, more than willing to lead anyone foolish enough to think they can master it down the road to his own self-wrought ruin. Still, there are those who try, often with results as destructive as they are spectacular.The Ordos Malleus seeks to either destroy (if possible) or seal away occult artefacts when it encounters them. Possession of such an artefact is taken to indicate complicity with Chaos and will result in sundry execution. Some Inquisitors, however, feel the best way to fight the forces of Chaos is to try and beat them at their own game; these Radicals seek to master occult artefacts (even daemon weapons) for their own use. While effective, this is a dangerous path to tread, for direct association with the powers of the warp will change a man, and never for the better.Support the show

this podcast. My name is D.K. Diamante's. His name is Bricky. And as usual, you know why you're here. And if you enjoyed today's episode and maybe, oh, I don't know, you want to support the podcast, head over to patreon.com slash adeptus Ridiculous or you can get access to the Discord, bloopers if they happen. $15 tier gets you access to all of our posters in crispy HD digital form. You can, I believe, follow for free and you can start a free trial. And it will cost you a credit card. It won't cost you a credit card. you'll just need a credit card number, Patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous for all of your adeptus ridiculous needs. Bricky, how's life?

You know, life is all right. We're doing our usual type of thing. Hell yeah. Nothing too crazy is going on right now. You know, we're living it. We're living life. Things are going on. We're living a dream.

You know, we're starting Galaxy in Flames, getting that book club going, you know, working on that. We're out here selling merch at Orchidate.com. Check it out. We're selling dice and hoodies and posters. There's a lot of things going on. That all sounds great. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what's not, you know what's not great? The warp. Yeah. Not bad. All right. Yeah. Let's go.

I mean, that's pretty true. What else is not great? Um, chaos, Abadon, Angron in general. matter what time period you find him, you know. True, true. Black holes.

That's also true. A vacuum. Vacuum definitely sucks, but vacuum can also blow. That's true. That is extremely true. She's gone from suck to blow. I am so glad you got that. Thank you.

I mean, that's not, it's whatever. Anyway, so today we have an episode on things that suck. Oh, no. Things that are not good, which I'm sure... Are we going to talk about your warp suckhole theory again? No, but I was very proud of that theory. It's pretty good, actually. I'm like, it's okay.

No, it's pretty good. But, you know, what's more important than any of the warp suckhole theory is the things that come from it. But not always, sometimes. There are things in the warp that are a little bit scary? Are you familiar with scary things, yeah? Oh, yes, yes, especially in 40K. It is, there's a premium on scary, oof stuff. Yep.

So what are your thoughts on, quote, wrought by my hand, bathed in my blood, bound to my will, by these ways that I forge a fetish meant to draw forth the infinite energies beyond our reality. Simple as it may appear to be, it is my gateway to understanding. Oh, this seems like some chaos. shenanigans. You're pretty close. Yep, yep. And as soon as I heard like, oh, the fetish thing, I was like, oh, maybe it's Slanesh, but then it's like, ooh, but it's bound by

my blood. And I was like, ooh, maybe it's corn, too. Maybe it's like a world. Well, I mean, or it could just be some crazy dark magic warp shenanigans. Kind of sounds a little like dark Eldari, too. It's not, it's definitely chaos related. It is not dark Eldari. That just throws me.

Oh yeah. I think you fantasy pilled. Instead of saying Drew Kari, it's just like, oh yeah, they're the dark elves. And it's like, ah. Well, I only hear like dark Eldar two, but like dark Eldari is, we're really kind of, kind of splitting hairs here. I know, right. Um, yeah. That's true.

It's also Drucci in fantasy. because Drushy Violets. I remember that specifically because of the paint. That's true. That's true. I kept calling them dark elves and I did not call them Druchy much. Anyway, I guess my guess would probably be a Slanesh-related thing because I feel like we've done corn-related stuff recently-ish.

So I am going to go with some serious chaos slanesh-vise. I... Slaneh vibes. Yeah. Yes. What a phrase. I mean, it's certainly chaos, no doubt. But no, no, no.

Do you remember back when we said we are going to do a dark Mechanicus episode and we were, or what we did? And then we were like, damn, there's some really funny weapons here and some horrifying creations. This could like fill out a whole episode. Oh, is that what we're doing today? A whole episode. We are talking about weird... Crap, weird random things in 40K, either from the Dark Mechanicus and their various hair attacks or weird occult artifacts and other bizarre items such as those.

Okay, I am happy to be wrong, because this sounds like it is going to be a Bussin episode. Bussin? Yeah. You're the oldest one out of all of us. Yeah. Bus and? Busson. Yeah, yeah. Hey, I picked that up from from the YouTube's.

I was watching shorts on if a guy freshly out of prison thought that food was busing or disgusting. Damn, that's, that's awful. That's that's actually, that's awful. Okay, lovely. Hey, he's a great creator. Boston makes me feel good. Anyway, so one of the things, as I was going through this, the couple of, uh, like, well, I guess they're PDFs, but books or whatever, were from the various areas of the dark heresy, which dark heresy is, it's super illegally obtained, by the way, dark heresy is the like rogue traitor rulebook type tabletop RPG 40K thing, right?

Remember when we did that whole thing on various psychic powers? Yeah. It's those, like, books. and in them they have a couple of interesting sections on different types of things in the dark mechanicum. One of the ones was the, what we talked about before, things like the logicians, they have the different kinds of factions that go on. Not to mention that all of these books are rife with some of the old school John Blanche artwork, which is just, it's just so good. It's so peak. It's a style that it's not my favorite.

favorite style. I like the newer, like super hyper gritty. But I will always have massive respect for the OG John Blanche stuff. It is, it really, it turned the setting into what it is. He paved the way. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. But with that being said, there is a whole chapter on things like the forbidden sciences and occult artifacts. And one of the of things you may remember before we start this episode, I was asking shy about a contest thing because after reading a large amount of these occult artifacts that they have, they're basically magical items, but they're magical items with drawbacks. And I find the ones specifically in the dark heresy stuff to be really, really cool. And I was thinking about the concept of holding a contest for our viewers on who can make the coolest, uh, artifact. Who can make the coolest like cursed artifact?

Because they, they all follow a similar thing. It's like, hey, here's this cool thing that gives you stuff. But if you use the cool thing, it gives you stuff for too long, something, things go bad. And then there's issues, you know. Ooh, I like that. I like that idea. That's good. That's good.

That's good. make some really cursed weird stuff. I like it. Yeah, like, you know what, for example, let's, let's start with one. Let's start with one. Okay, okay, let's go. The lens of seeing. So, uh, the lens of seeing is, oh, glasses?

A monocle more so. Okay. A far seer. Yeah, hey, boom. Um, I was gonna say, we're starting off coozy crazy here, boys. This is, this is some insane wild shenan. We've got glasses. Glasses. Well, well, I guess more, more particularly glass.

Glass. Glass. One glass. The lens of seeing. It is a simple monocle, often worn by the aristocracy, of course, and it is made of just the most fine crystal. It is beautiful, and the frame of it is gold wire with little symbols and sigils with a nice little bit of chains so it can be attached to your clothes. You know, it's a classic monocle. It appears to be very benign. However, when it was found often by the radical inquisitor, a guy named Emel Amud, a mud, whatever, he actually was able to use it to decipher tomes in the possession of cultists of chaos because he was able to decipher it in whatever script they were writing it in, whatever chaotic, weird script. Oh, okay. So it's a lens that just auto translates basically anything.

Pretty much. It is a pure translator of anything, including things like demonic script. And so eventually he was driven to madness from the secrets. And so when he was going to attack a group of cultists, he realized there were 10 times the amount of cult is there and he was then killed, but the lens was never found. And so as it proliferates its way around in the galaxy, the lens of seeing is a tempestuous item.

So, for example, in the actual game, in like the tabletop RPG variant, what it does is it allows you, you activate it by doing like an ace call it invocation test. And when you can do it, you can make sense of any text, regardless of origin or your understanding. Any single language, demonic and chaotic script,

ciphers, encryptions, codes, Xenos tongue does not matter. You, sir, can read it. Okay. However, every time, yeah, sorry, sorry,

you're going to hear a lot of, however, in this episode. Yeah. But every time you use, sorry, I smacked my hand on, my desk.

It sounded wonderful. That sounded like it really felt great. That was not my favorite. Nope. While it's pretty cool, every time you use it, you gain a singular insanity point. Now, if I'm a mistake, it goes to like 100. I don't fully remember, but I think from the last episode, we talked about it. It was like, I think a hundred's the max where you're like clinically insane and you have to

be removed from the game. Yeah. And, you know, you keep that total. But you also keep it like. separate from the other ones. Because when you get 10 insanity points from the lens, you need to make like a trauma test. And if you fail, you know,

it doesn't really matter much on the actual mental trauma, but it just kind of reflects how much control the lens has over the player. Oh, okay, okay. So like, it sounds like it's, I mean, it sounds like it's like, oh yeah, the lens lets you read anything, but it's more what you, you read that's making you crazy,

not necessarily the lens? Like if you read demonic tomes and stuff, it's like, well, no, no, it's the lens. Because, it is specifically, like, no matter what you transfer with, or no matter what you translate

with it, even if it's just like a completely benign, totally safe, like, I don't know, exudite something or another. Yes, it's not about, it's still going to make you crazy. It's not about what you read. It's the fact that you're reading.

Oh, okay. It sounded like it was like, oh, yeah, he read a demonic text and he was like, ah, demonic text that's making me crazy. Let me attack the cult. Got you. Okay. So it's just, as long as you use it, it's going to make you go out of your mind. So as long as you keep using it.

Eventually, you will refuse to be without the lens. If you reach 40 insanity points, you will double check all written documents with the lens for secret meanings and messages. If you reach 60 and Sandy points, you will only ever read documents with the lens. And if you reach 80 in Sandy points, you cannot read anything without the lens.

And then in addition, after you reach 60 plus and sanity points, the lens itself will start to completely alter what you are reading and subtly change words and sentences depending on how, much the DM wants to cause it to happen. Oh.

All right. That's cool. So the lens just starts to take over. It's an obsession artifact. You start to freak out. You read with the lens. You then can only read with the lens. And then the lens starts changing up what it says on you.

Because artifacts are funny. Oh, that's, that's cool that the lens will literally change what the tech says. what it's showing you. Are there any... I was about to ask, are there any instances of like the lens changing text

on someone and then them doing some like crazy traitor thing because like, well, well, the paper said to blah, but,

but, and it's like, no, it doesn't. You're crazy. Well, the original inquisitor that died was met with 10 times

the amount of cultists than the lens told him there would be. Oh, oh, okay. But, I thought,

I thought you just meant he went to attack a bunch of cultists that he shouldn't have because he saw a demonic tome and it was just like, oh, shoot, there are more of these guys than I thought, okay, got you, got you. Yeah, I know. I mean, well, the lens told him there would probably be like a hundred,

but in reality there was a thousand. The lens lied to him. Oh, okay, got you. Okay. And then, yeah, like, this is one of the fun things about, I mean, this is what it tells the GM often to do, as shy quote him, show it in, show the item in action, show all awesome it is, tempt your players to use it,

explain how awesome it is and how powerful it is. And then when they use it as a crutch for a while, bring out the drawbacks and make them suffer. So you don't initially lead with the fact that like, oh yeah, this is a cursed artifact. It's just like, hey guys, look, it's a lens that translates everything. Don't you want to use it? It's so great. You'll never have to make any sort of skill checks for text again.

And then they just start using it over and over again. It's like, by the way, lens is making you crazy. I mean, you know, there's always the possibility that someone on your team has a fancy bit of like, arcane knowledge and maybe can like test the lens. Um, you know, obviously you don't want them to be suspicious of it, but there is, you know, you, it's a, you know, it's a, you know, it's a, you know, your job is to give them the tools and, and also give them the downsides. True.

True. True. Um, cool. There is another one called the bone flute. Oh, great. So the bone flute. is made from a human femur, and it plays music

that is specifically, not particularly the most lovely music. It's a little strange and bizarre. It's, as the person who made it said, a way to play the music of the cosmos. And

you know, like, it's unknown if he succeeded because he committed self-chermin. And soon after, in fact, he commutes self-chermin. Really well, considering that his dismembered body was scattered around his quarters. But. Oh.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's, that, okay, sure. Yeah, that's, oh, okay. So, um, you know, it's considered a bit unlucky. That's one way to put it. Sure. And so when you play the flute, you need to do a performer test, a musician test. To create a piece of music, the warp will find appealing. And what listeners here will be very different, obviously.

But if you do it, you can then play the bone flute. And while you're doing that, you project a 50 meter range where mechanical devices will completely cease to function. Weapons will jam, feel able to fire, chain swords and power weapons won't activate. Times will be off. Aspects will have weird readings. it'll just completely go haywire with everything. Oh, so very, very handy tool to have.

And it sounds like the downside is, well, if you play a tune, the warp doesn't like, the warp does what the warp does. Well, uh, not quite. So, uh, a little bit, but at least in game, um, you will play the music and all the usual stuff.

Uh, but then, The moment you keep playing based on your willpower tests, but if you stop playing for any reason, a role is made on the psychic phenomenon table, for the warp makes this displeasure known for having its music interrupted. Ah, okay.

Chai and DK, please make a role of Rale ID 100 from the psychic phenomenon table. This silence offends Lanesh. I was going to say, It sounds very It sounds very slinish-coated with the... Oh, how dare you stop the music? We need, we need noise, we need something, we need stimuli, you know?

Also, did you actually want us to roll a D-100? Yes. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. D-100. Absolutely. All right. Roll a D-100 die.

I got this. Roll. You have stopped playing the bone flute. Uh, stop. 54. You, sir, D.K. Are affected by warp ghosts. Ghostly apparitions fill the air within 3D 10 meters around the cyccer,

flying about and howling in pain for a few brief moments. Everyone in the radius, except for the psycher, must attest, again, a fear rating of one. And Shyrollay 61, which is Banshee Howl. A shrill keening rings out across the immediate area, shattering glass and forcing every mortal creature able to hear it to pass a challenging toughness test or be deafened for 1D10 rounds. Wow, that's fun.

I know. Wow, that, that sucks. So just keep playing the flute. Yep, just keep playing the flute. It's a simple one. Yeah, yeah. All right. The next funny one here we have is the forge of nightmares.

Okay. All right. This sounds like a bad one to use no matter which way you roll it. But all right, let's hear about the forge of nightmares. So the forge of nightmares is a massive biomechanical structure that is full of oily black lattice support structures, braces, and the outer shell of it is barely constrained against the inner bulging, ready, fleshy mass that expands and contracts at a regular rate like a giant beating heart. it is four greater and lesser furnaces that are all two to three meters in height while the central one is over ten meters tall and even when it is like supposed to be not you know on the furnaces all draw in air through a giant vent uncomfortably like a human respirating oh boy now in these distil in these vents with openings that resemble gigantic distemes distended mouths. This holds the terrifying demon engine of sorts forge that the Ordomalius considers such a threat

that a full operation will need to be used against it because this forge can cause an overwhelming chaos presence and take over the planet. Oh, okay. Yep, that's bad. Definitely need to get rid of that. That's no good. Not a great thing. But, D.K., you, sir, you're a chaos cold.

Right? You love chaos. I sure do. Let's go. Leah, let's go. War be praised. I love you. Hell, yes. Fantastic to hear. So, let's say you want to turn on the forge of nightmares. You really want to get this shit, roll him. So what does every chaos ritual need? Uh, human sacrifices. He's done it again, baby. Let's go. What else does a good chaos ritual need than the blood of the innocent and a human sacrifice? Let's go. Let's go. So the forge will consume souls as you feed them into the furnace itself, appearing to then swallow the victim and then shudder out blood and other unnameable fluids from its orifices as it eats the soul. Now, you, if you are a sorcerer, can attempt a ritual to fully activate the fore. which is a very hard minus 30. They do like a 100 test in these. So it's like a minus 30 with every eight sacrifices after the initial test, reducing the difficulty by five. So if you are at negative 30,

if you can find yourself a lovely, whatever six times eight is, was that 42? Yeah, sure. 48, 48. Yeah, sure. Yeah, 48. It's somewhere in there.

Somewhere in there. You will be back to a zero and then more. Now, once activated, though, once you begin to start it up, great things will occur, you know. It will pour out of horrifying shrieks and howls from its vents, begin to break down the barrier between the warp and the real world, and a full-scale psychic warp storm will begin to rage above you. Showering you with flesh and blood, lightning will strike. as it says here, not in bolts, but in sheets. Spirits will walk freely. Devices will suffer from a myriad of problems,

failing outright, and the week will go hopelessly mad. Nice. Nice. Yeah, as soon as you're like, oh, yeah, a bunch of nice stuff happens, I'm like, yeah, nice for the chaos cultists, not for anybody else. Nice for anybody in the war, but those Imperium guys probably think it sucks. Also, how big was this thing again? Like, this thing is massive.

This central stack is about 10 meters tall. What's that in Merkin? In Merkin, it's about 32 feet. Okay, so it's a big boy. It's a three-story tall, like, you know, it's a big boy. Yeah, I was going to say, this isn't something you're really lugging around in your backpack and you're taking from planet to planet. This is kind of on one planet and you're kind of like, it's staying there.

Yes, it is on the planet there and now, and it is not, like, it's not moving. But this, I imagine in a campaign is either a use to your main objective is a stock. it or your main objective is to turn it on. Yeah, definitely. And then that happens. Boss activated the forge of nightmares. Array! Hooray!

Array! The next one we have in the occult artifacts is the Lebelis Appello, or the Book of Names. This is a small book, barely larger than the Imperial Infantriman's uplifting primer, as I'm sure you're wear of. Of course, of course. And its cover is made of wooden plates and human skin. Okay, yeah, 40K, that tracks. So it's, it kind of looks like the Necronomicon. All right, that's, that's fine. He's even got a little tongue. Oh, it does have a little tongue, doesn't it? But the brass lock on the side is also made to look like the eight-point star of chaos. And the pages are made of a very fine vellum to kind of dress through.

each of it, as you as you sift through all the pages, but this book in particularly is a guide to the true names of demons, as well as how to divine them through examination of astronomical phenomena. You are using astronomy to divine the true nature of demons with a bookmark tongue in the inside of the book. But that is a super important book then, because you know a demon's true name, you, you, you, you, perma death them, right? Like, if you speak their true, you, that's a permadeath. So, hey, I don't care if that bookmark is a tongue. Hey, if you're in the Imperium, you want that book, right? You need that book. I must have that book. I actually don't know if you permadeth a demon by its true name,

but you can banish them really well. Oh, okay. I thought, I thought, I thought that was why they kept their name so secret because, like, they can permadeth me if they know it. You actually might be right. I'm not quite sure. The only time I ever really hear much about a demon's true names is gray knights. They're basically the only folks that I really know about that really go hard into the true names of demons. And I mean, and like parts of the Inquisition and stuff, no doubt.

Yeah. However, a true name of a demon is not just about banishment. when you think about it, what else could you do if you knew with the true name of a demon? Well, I guess you could probably summon them, couldn't you? Exactly. So this book in the Dark Heresy Tabletop Game is to summon demons. I'm sure the GM would give you the option to do it for the opposite. But you get a plus 30 bonus to Forbidden Lord Demon Test as,

soon as he knows the demon's true name by using a large amount of scholastic lore in astromancy. And reading from the book cover to cover will give you a bonus to your forbidden lore, but also will slowly corrupt your soul.

As it should, that's fair. I thought the droplet was going to be, well, congratulations. You summoned a demon idiot. I feel like this is definitely one of those Like, hey, congratulations. You summoned a demon. Yay.

Yeah, now there's the demon. We never said we'd give you control of the demon. But now, hey, you brought the demon here. Good job. Deal with it. That or just a general level of like, hey, you got the demon. And because you got the demon, you can just like, maybe he's your buddy now. Maybe he likes you.

Maybe you guys are friends. of necessity. Yeah, yeah. Oh, Shai said hilariously, demon primark should technically count as demons with true names, since they have true names given by the emperor, not the names they got on the planets. So I want to imagine making my players summon fucking Mortarian. I mean, or Angron. That would be pretty funny.

I imagine Mortarian would just say no. I get the feeling that a demon has to, like, want to be summoned sometimes. Submortarians like, I'm busy. You imagine you summon Angron and he just rips your arms off and beats you to death with him. I feel like he wouldn't even do that. I feel like he would just like hit you once in the head with his fist and like turned you into a pancake. Just turn you into mulch. Yeah.

And just like just crush you. So that's the live less appello. There's a couple. There's another one that's like the mech spider, which is basically just like a spider fashioned off of a human head. that acts as like a surveillance thing for chaos, but it's not like the most interesting. One that I find really funny is the, and I quote,

the glory of the emperor and the light of dawn. The glory of the emperor and the light of dawn, huh? The glory of the emperor and the light of dawn. Wow. I mean, that just sounds like some Imperium nonsense. That doesn't even sound like

some cool dark mechanic I'm dark anything. Bricky, what is this thing? This is probably the most slanesh-coded thing I've ever read. So let's go. The glory of the emperor in the light of Dom is a blasphemous abstract painting, showing the god emperor greeting the rising sun over Holy Terra. It is surreal and unsettling, as it is mainly painted in shades of yellow, gold,

blue, and white, which is actually more zinchean colored, but this just makes me... Actually, it could be pretty zinchean coated, now that I think about it. But regardless, when you look at it, it almost feels as if the painting is looking back at the viewer when viewed for a long length of time. If you were to examine it closely, you would notice it is composed of thousands of human shapes wrought out of solid silver. Each of the tiny human figures is perfect in every single detail, entwined about one another in positions of either ecstasy or anguish. That's right. That's why I thought it was a Sinesh coated because ecstasy or anguish. I was like, I wonder why. Oh, yeah, now I remember.

Definitely slanesh coded. And so the painting also has a couple other weird traits, such as the painting is always warm to the touch. The figures that make up the frame slowly move and twist, orbiting the painting itself, and the colors that make up the painting gradually shift and creep over ever so slowly across. the canvas. Oh, freaky. However, while it is unnerving, the painting is basically just, it just exists. It is not malicious unless it is applied with a thin layer of new varnish. It is a thin line of black crust where the canvas meets the frame, which reveals

that the varnish is, in fact, human blood. Of course it is. All right. Yep, there it is. There it is. I was like, you know, yeah, it's a creepy painting, but, you know, what's, what's the big deal about that? You varnish it in blood, of course you do.

As you do with painting, sure. As you do. So, if you have the glory of the emperor in the light of Dom, you can apply a thin layer of blood to the painting, followed by an invocation test. This will, if you do it properly, as you must, it must be fresh human blood. if it's not human or if it is thinned in any way, it will automatically fail and you must, ooh, wait, hold on, this is a table I'm not familiar with.

Contempt of the warp table. Ooh. And of course, as, as, you know, it has to be fresh. You can't have old human blood or, you know, anything. It's got to be fresh. Fresh. Oh, darn. I don't, ooh, I don't know but the contempt of the warp table.

However, it looks like it's another table that basically is like, you're basically not making fun of, but you're being rude to the demons. Oh. You want to roll? The warp is upset with you. I'm trying to find the contempt of the warp table. Ah, here it is. Yeah, let's roll it. How about you to roll it?

D100 again? D100. All right. I got 80. 87 struck down. The character is blasted with the raw energies of the warp and takes 2D10 energy damage by weapon quality. The fouly seething energies fill the character

and he gains 1D10 corruption points. Oh, cool. For shy, she is ignored. Silence and stillness greet the heretics efforts. He has failed, but he has survived unscathed. Eh, could be worse. Yes, it could be. Contempted of the warp can have modifiers.

And if you roll a 121 plus, you are devour. Reality is sundered as the heretic is sucked screaming to the warp or devolved into a mindless puddle of twisted flesh. The character is worse than dead. Oh, wow. Can I imagine all that because you're just like, no, I'll use some Zeno. blood. Great stuff. That's pretty good.

But let's say you don't mess with that too much. And you instead properly utilize the glory in the emperor and the light of Dom. By adding the blood on it, its visage will change and contort into a face. Or the semblance of a face in which once awakened, the painting will then answer any questions asked. Oh, is it, and there's, there's no sort of trickery. It will answer any question.

It'll tell you the answer. There's no. That is up to the DM. Ah, okay, okay. Wow, this is kind of zingch coated too, isn't it? Yeah, that's all, that's a lot more zingch coded right there. It's a little bit of both, honestly. Mm-hmm.

But it is just, it's very funny. That is. That is quite the painting. It doesn't seem like it's worth it to mess with the painting, to be honest with you. Like, maybe you get your question answered. Maybe you don't. But it's like, there's a lot that could go wrong too. Like, I don't know if that's one of those ones.

That'd be just cool to hang up in your room, right? Like, I would just like to have the twisting frame and the crazy visage of the, you know, just hang that up. Don't varnish it, though. Or does anything happen if you don't varnish it after a certain amount of time? Like, does it go crazy on? you or something? No, it appears to be completely benign. Well, not benign. It looks horrifying and it's moving, but like, sure. You know, it seems to be mostly fine. Uh, all right. Also, yeah, like, come on. Yeah, exactly. Like, it is not considered a heretical artifact by the Imperium because there's no

way chaos could ever corrupt the visage of the emperor. All right. All right, Imperium. Okay. No way. No chance. Ain't no shot, brother. No shot. So this is kind of what I was talking about, where I think that we should absolutely hold a contest for demonic artifact or not necessarily demot but occult artifacts with our viewers because I'm just thinking about all the possibilities of like, hey, here's this fun little benign artifact that and here's the drawbacks and here's how to activate it. And like the whole thing, it would be a great review option. I would agree. I think I think that is a solid, solid idea. So, onwards and forwards, going from there, these are most of the occult items that are at least present in this little, it's a codex rulebook, I guess, whatever book?

Yeah. There are, of course, demon weapons, but you know what about a demon weapon planet. It's a weapon with a demon in it, you know? Sure, sure, sure. It's the classic type stuff there. But then there's the more Classic Ad mech or dark mech items

And some of those Can get pretty goofy For example You have the Colophian Cy engine Which I know Shai is very excited to talk about Oh is that the Did we talk about that last time?

The Brain Box? Oh, we did talk about the brain box Oh shit. Oh, my bad. I didn't realize Yeah, we mentioned it briefly towards, I think, the end of the episode where it's just, it's a psycher brain. It gets poked and prodded until the brain is real mad and then does psycher stuff at you?

I mean, does psycher stuff is maybe a bit misleading, but. Yeah, broad strokes. I know, but yeah. But yes, it does do psycher stuff. That is very true. So the, the, the Kolofian Cy engine is a special barely controlled dread weapon that is used by the old archer Shmegos, I think her name was like Kolof, or Kallof, so it's the Klofian

Syngum. Yeah. It houses, cyker brains and is goaded with a long and needle-like prod, like, like gun thing that is

warm with the hand, that fires out just the powers of the warp. It shoots warp energy like a gun. Lovely. It is extremely lovely. And what it is, is this, this hair attack decided that in order to eliminate the very annoying human element in her

psycher resources, she decided that she would have her coven make vats of giant pulsing cyker brains. All of the other flesh cut away from their bodies and their minds within afflicted by a form of blind insanity. Hmm. Uh, yeah, that sucks for the psychers. Boy, it's never good to be a psycher. So would you, do you think those psychers, would you call those psychers still, quote unquote, alive?

Well, what is living truly? Right. And what is a soul? Right. Because I'm just like, brother, I hope they're actually dead because, oh. Well, they're definitely not dead because their brains are alive and they're in a gun and they're screaming insanity. True. So they're definitely alive.

That being said, yeah, they basically just stripped them of everything of their body and just use the brain. And so now you have your like gun, psycher brain device and D.K. and shy. Please roll a D100 to see what happens when you fire this weapon. All right. Let's get it. 57. 57. One target suffers 3D10 plus 10 energy damage as warp lightning arcs from the director's wand.

This is the most common option as it is basically the classic blast shot. Okay. For Shy, everything in a 10 meter, oh, so this is 36, everything in a 10 meter sphere about the target is engulfed in which fire and suffers 2D10 plus 5 energy damage. Unfortunately for you, shy, you need to now. roll on the psychic phenomenon table as you have done some shenanigans. Some witch fire shenanigans. What's the best thing that could happen? I will tell you if you rolled a hundred.

I will, I will tell him on. 56. Shy, you are getting warp ghosts as well. You have set everything in fire and now screaming apparitions are flying around. Very on brand for her. If you do 71, it is the exact same thing. as what she just got, but no psychic phenomena.

Ah, okay. Now, there are some hilarious ones. D.K., let's say you roll a one. Mm-hmm. Okay? Or a one to three. The sci engine... The sci engine ruptures

under the strain of the tortured brains and the tortured brains within expire in a giant psychic death scream. D.K., please roll on the psychic phenomenon table three times. for me. Oh, three times? Three times, please. Oh, all right. First one is 85. Okay, roll the second. Second one. I got an 85 again. Okay. Roll the third. 40. 40. Okay, we'll do the 40 first. 40. Unnatural decay. All plant life within 3D 10 meters of the cycle withers and dies. That's a little rough. That sucks. However, uh, 85.

is Perils of the Warp and you rolled it twice. Can you please roll an additional D-100 for me for your first Perils of the Warp? Oh, no. Twice, please. 45. 45 and 8. Okay, 45 is Warp Whispers. The voices of demons fill the air

within 4D10 mirrors the Cyker, whispering terrible and shocking truths. Everyone in the area, including the Cyker, must take a willpower test, or gain a corruption points equals the damage. You also will suffer an additional amount of willpower damage. The other one is warp berm. A violent burst of energy from the warp smashes into the Cyker's mind and then sending him reeling.

And, you know, you are stunned for a ton of rounds. Oh, okay. Well, hey, I thought it'd be a lot worse than that. But, you know, again, could it be worse? Absolutely. I wanted you to roll a 100 because that one is annihilation. Oh, it's just straight up. you're dead just yeah so you guys fired this this weapon uh well certainly you fired it three times

um but i the third one didn't really count because i told you to make a one uh but basically yeah one guy gets hit with a psychic energy damage and just disintegrates uh shy turns him into fire and now there are ghost screaming around you turned everything into fire again without ghost screaming around but immediately afterwards uh you are seared You are immediately seared by the voices of demons in the air and blasted in the brain so hard you are knocked out. Ah, boy. Things can get really out of hand in this game, huh? If everybody is like using them.

That's right. I'm sorry. And all the plants are dead. Yeah. Well, this is set in 40K. Who, where are their plants anymore these days, right? Everything is corrupted and it's, it's fine. Fine.

That's true. Plan things, not a big deal. That's true. The next one we have here is the apostatic matrix. Ooh. The apostatic matrix. It is,

also you ruined your brain gun. All the cyber brains exploded. So that's not good. Sorry. The apostatic matrix is a, it looks like a walking stick. It's like a club. Of course,

It is a club covered in interesting words and runes and artifacts and a million little worrying gears and tiny items underneath because this is very much an ad mech item. The apostatic matrix is a very bizarre weapon where whenever you strike the opponent with it, it will literally remove a part of their soul. it will destroy the entire root of your faith. Wow. This is one of those rule of cool. I'm not even going to try to pretend like I understand. Even in the world of 40K, it doesn't make any sense.

You are hit with it. And it finds the part of your brain that is entirely about faith. And it kills it. Whoa. That's, it doesn't, It doesn't kill your soul. It doesn't like remove your soul, but it kills your faith.

It kills that part of your soul. It reaches in to the very mechanisms of the soul and quote, pouring toxins and pain upon the roots of faith and burning away memories of worship with agonizing darts of electro essence. I'm sure it made sense to some people. Wow. So, all right. That's that is, that is quite the stick. That is so, so essentially that's the atheist making rod. I was, I actually have that on my notes.

I literally had like, it's the, it's like the fedora walking stick. It's the, it's the, this is, this is what those damn liberals want. They, they're going to start beating people with the atheism stick. This is the future they want. Next thing you know, they're going to bring out the gay prongs. It's too topical, man. It's too topical, man. It's too topical, man.

It's literally the atheism stick. Yeah. Now, granted, of course, getting rid of that part is particularly interesting because the instant anguish is awful. But the main horror of it is that the first. like the quote, flower of faith in the God emperor withers and dies.

So loyal imperial citizens will in their mind basically be removed from the emperor's light. You are in a sense, I mean, to them in their brain, you have immediately killed

their way to heaven. Like you, you've completely killed their acceptance into heaven. So this walking stick, big deal. Like, you don't want this thing falling into the wrong hands. Ironically, this Luger will send Christian to hell. Ironically, it's actually been occasionally used by the Imperials because killing the faith center also can mean killing any and all devotion to the dark power.

isn't the warp. Ooh. So has it, is there any record of it being used against, like, maybe there was an inquisitor that used to be really great, and as inquisitors have been known to do, they follow the chaos, they want power, has one ever been just like, wham? And then like, oh, shit, I don't like chaos at all.

That's right, damn. And then they kind of were accepted again? Not quite. Part of it was written that said, some radicals have found the apostatic matrix to be a potent addition to the interrogation chamber and take great pleasure in setting the tool of the arch enemy upon blackened heretic souls. The strongest devotees of the ruinous powers are given to babbling despair under it. So it's more so used to remove your faith in the dark gods.

Right. It's more to just torture the heretics. Yes. You can also, yes, you can also use the stick as just a stick. the killing with kindness ability, which is just smacking them without like causing any issues. Okay. I like, I like this. I like the, I like the atheism stick.

I like all the different options it has and all the weird shenanigans it can do. This is my favorite one of the day. I'm sorry. This one's pretty funny. There's also a thing called the Vore weapons. Yes, it's spelled that. way.

It is not what you think it is. I vaguely remember this because I made a horrible Warframe reference and yep, yep, yep, yep. I mean, it's basically just like a biogenetically engineered worm type thing, which is an assassin's tool. It's a spiky, gross ass assassins tool made from heredic stuff, Zenos material, etc. And basically it's a thin worm-like creature, less than a hand in length with a ton of hard spines. I can leap across a room and employ the hooks and spines and, you know, basically just be really

fast and aggressive and eat its way through your flesh and murder you. Numnums. It just gets on once it bites you. That's it. That's the end. Yeah. It's sure. So literally it is just an assassin's worm.

They throw it. It finds its target. Tom. I mean, pretty much. Yeah. It arrives, it eats, and then it just done. I mean, it is literally like a quick assassin weapon. And it won't work against things like armor, but, you know, flesh, obviously.

Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, that's pretty cool. This one was particularly funny. And it's one of the few final occult items that we have. Because there are a lot of dark mech creatures. There's things like the, oh, what is it called? It's like the bronze malefact, I think, is its name. Oh, goodness, gracious.

What is it? Bronze Malefax. Oh, I'm so good. Hey, look at you. Let me go. Let's go. Look at you. Let's go.

There are a lot of weird things. Like, the bronze malefact is a gigantic, demonic creature of bronze with a million limbs and stabby bits. But this is, like, actually a profile. This has strength, toughness, health. Like, this is a thing that you fight. Um, you've also got the dreaming dead of hive Gloriana, the false men of Nomen Rine, the logai, logai demons, etc.

There's a lot of those things. Mm-hmm. Okay. A lot of demons. Cool, cool, cool. This is in, uh, you know how in D&D they have like the creature book of all the crazy creatures? Oh, yeah, yeah.

This is basically that. It's the dark heresy creature is anathema. Okay. Cool. So it's its own, like, fun little, little dood out of like, oh, hey, here's the Zeno's beasts. Here's the death world beasts, etc. Do you have a specific beast in there that's like, just seems a little different, a little kookier, a little crazier, a little crazier. Honestly, they're all kooky and crazy.

The bronze Malfact is like the one that I think kind of illustrates the dark, uh, the dark mechanicum the most. Because if you look at it, it's just a gigantic thing of limbs in a horrifying, bronze beast. Yeah, that definitely seems like very dark mech. Like, yeah, it is just an amalgamation of bronze limbs. It is, it is a ton of weird crap. Um, but one of the fun ones I thought was kind of neat was Madani's music box. Oh.

So it's a music box, you know, uh, this item is about the size of a thick data slate. And it has a ton of gears and levers inside of it that were very, very, quickly when you start operating its crank. Now, it says that it only ever plays one piece of music. Nuella's lament to the fallen of Juno. No one knows who Nuella was or who the fallen of Juno were. That doesn't matter.

But it is a sad song, and those who listen to it will become entirely enraptured, ignoring everything else, and just swaying to the tune. Oh. Now, that's, that's pretty handy. Oh, it's great. It's nice and lovely.

When the tune ends, all listeners will fall to the ground as their skin erupts with lesions and scars. Completely driven mad without it. All of these people suffering would thrash uncontrollably pleading to hear the music once again, where they would, like, entire hablocks in cities would go into massive frenzies, ripping everything apart in a frantic desire to recapture the song. recordings will not satisfy Neither will broadcasts Only the box itself Will satiate these completely Madden stricken souls

Holy shit I was about to say that's like Me after I get a song stuck in my head But damn Does it also give you Cold Sores all across the body All across my body Yep it's like oh my God what was that song

I gotta hear it again Blow up into hives Holy shit That's crazy Oh shai is a fun one You want to read this one DK? I would love to Mekronid armor

Discovered in the ruins of Molas This unique set of armor Has sparked much debate amongst the Ordos Zenos As to whether this device is truly an alien In its own right A parasite of sort Or simply a device employed by its alien creators resembling not so much as a pool of liquid metal.

The device responds to external stimulation, although is resistant to Ospec scans. When the metal comes into contact with human skin, it begins to coalesce, slithering over the skin to form a protective sheath, much like armor. The metal is cooled to the touch and responds to attacks by becoming momentarily super dense,

deflecting impacts or energy blasts across its surface. Using Mekronid armor does have its downsides, however. So long as the wearer remains conscious, the armor remains protective. As soon as the wearer loses consciousness, however, the parasite armor attempts to slither inside the wearer, either consuming or taking control of him from within, long enough to find a new host. Either way, it is often fatal for the wearer.

If the wear of the armor loses consciousness, he must make an immediate will-power test. Failure indicates that the armor is trying to crawl within him, suffocating him at a rate of one D10 damage per round, ignoring armor or toughness bonuses. Death indicates that the armor has taken control of the victim, crudely manipulating his body into doing its bidding, normally hunting down another unwitting target. Let's go. The armor has a mind of its own. Yeah, love that. It's like, oh, you lost conscience? Let me just slip inside you and...

The armor wears you. Yeah, the armor is absolutely wearing you. Kelmore Hall would absolutely adore this. Kelmore Hall would have a great time. Don't fall asleep wearing the armor. Don't fall asleep wearing the armor. This is what I think is really fun about these kinds of cursed artifacts, is that the GM has all the right to not just be mean.

You know, we were talking about the painting earlier. Yeah. If I was the GM of that and someone decided to actually go through a heretical type of deal and start that painting up, I would totally 100% tell them the truth. Ah, because they went through it and it's like, hey, you know what? Give it to them. I would let their own paranoia and fear be their own downfall. I would 100% just tell them the truth. And then...

That's true because they'd have no way of knowing whether what you told them was the truth or... And it'll just let them freak out about it. It just feels so much more fun that way. Just a pure, a pure bit of shenanigans. Okay. It depends on the question. No, that's true. Depends on the question.

Depends how important that question is to the story. Shy, that's a good time. You would tell the 100% the truth, but the nether. next time it needs a little bit more blood, then a little bit more blood. Ah, that's true. The varnish cost a little bit more each time. Okay, okay.

And eventually, every time you screw it up, you actually get a contempt of the warp roll too. So I think more will happen. Like, um, the contempt of the warp is interesting because one through 50 is ignored. And then the other one is, it's kind of funny.

It's mocked. So, so, okay. So the, the highest possible, thing from zero or from one to 80 is ignored or mocked. Mocked is funny because it's literally howls of demonic laughter fill the air and the

character's worst secrets and shames are thrown in mockery and you gain corruption points. And then you took struck down, which is genuinely getting smacked. But the big ones occur from 91 up, which is assailed. A minor demon is summoned to kill him. And you got to deal with that. Okay. And then after that is possessed by a demon. And then after that is devoured, where you just get destroyed.

Mm-hmm. So it's a- You got to deal with the consequences of your actions. It's really fun. I really love that. I got to get into this. I got to be honest. It's just like, man, this sounds like it'd be a whole lot of fun to play.

It'd be really easy to get everybody killed on accident. But man, there's something. so much to it and there's so many like weird items and and crazy rules that like this actually sounds like it'd be a lot of fun to play it really does and and i feel like i mean i was talking to to zoran a bit and he's a very big pathfinder guy and i've never played pathfinder uh and you know i always compare everything to d and d because it's the thing that everyone knows the most sure and it's easy to describe um but i was thinking about that for pathfinder and apparently it's really good. It's far more balanced. It's way less like long to, to like, uh, the battles

will take as long. It's, it's a lot more smooth in a lot of ways. But, um, I wonder how good the rogue traitor and like dark heresy versions are because I, I would like to play this. I really would. Yeah. It, it sounds, it sounds kind of kooky, crazy fun. It sounds very goofy. But in all the, in all the good ways. Yeah, I was going to say in all the right ways with like the living armor and, and all these crazy artifacts and it does, it does sound like it might be a good time. I might need to look into it a little bit more.

But yeah, I mean, this has been mainly occult artifacts, I suppose, a little bit, maybe a little bit less than the dark mech. But most of these things were made by dark mech dudes. So it kind of goes back and forth for the most part.

But yeah, no, it's really, really fun. I really want to do that contest. Maybe we'll talk with our Discord and shout with some folks about it because I, the top 10

best artifacts made by our viewers sounds very fun. I like that. I like that. And we have a lot of very creative fans. I bet we'd get some nonsensical, crazy gold goodness. I think so.

Anyway, that's the fun stuff there. That's the occult artifacts. and some dark mech stuff. Uh, shy, anything to add? I'm feeling pretty, I'm feeling pretty, uh, jazzed. Where can I get one of them atheists sticks? Who are you going to use it on? Hmm.

I don't know, I'll figure something out. Uh, you know, there's, we're not wanting for targets. Sure. Me, me, me entering Rome with the atheism stick, staring down the pope. You've arched your last bishop, bitch. Funny you should ask, I just got plain tickets to the Vatican. Me holding the atheism stick.

It's like, where you go with? It's like, oh, nowhere pulls up two tickets to the Vatican. Epic. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, end of episode.