Adeptus Ridiculous - RAVEN GUARD: VICTORUS AUT MORTIS | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Raven Guard were the XIX Legion of the original Space Marine Legions. Their Primarch is Corvus Corax . Their homeworld is Deliverance (originally named Lycaeus), a moon which orbits the Hive World Kiavahr. The Legion was devastated at the outbreak of the Horus Heresy and survived only by the most desperate of measures.The Raven Guard specialize in guerrilla warfare, moving behind enemy lines with unrivaled stealth and striking with precise application of force.Support the show

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamanty's. His name is Bricky. And, oh, boy, I'm pretty sure it's the Ravenguard. Watch me be wrong. But before I am, if you enjoy today's episode and you want to maybe support the podcast, heading over to patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get access to the bloopers if they happen, the Discord, the $15 tier will get you access to all of our posters in Sweet H. fashion and yeah it's a great time. Patreon.com slash adeptus

ridiculous. Bricky, tell them about all you need to tell them about. We'll do. If you would like to check out the awesome Halloween merchandise you can go to Orchidate.com link in the description. It is all kinds of awesome stuff and it's only around until

the end of October except for the hat and the little lord those will stick around but all of the awesome glow and the dark stuff, the sweatpants hoodies and zip-ups all are available until the end of October. So snag those while you can. Also, if you'd like, we are having a massive sale on the objective mats. The wonderful packs of objective mats as well, they are going to be 50% off for the foreseeable future.

It is a huge discount if you want to get yourself some more objective mats, either just for fun, for friends, for your local gaming group, or for yourself. Check them out. All of them in the description. You can find them in the Matt section on the main website. And then Reed Eisenhorn. Pretty baller coasters, too, if you don't care about the tabletop. True.

There's some big coasters, but you can always use it for like a jug or something. Yeah, or just a big-ass coaster for your coffee. Or just that. Yeah. All right. So check it all out. Link in the description. D.K.

Yes, sir. What could it be? What could it be? I don't know. I don't know. Do you have a quote? No. Brick, do you have a quote for me?

Not really. You just make up a quote so I can say Ravenguard and be right for a change? My name is Guy. I think it's the Ravenguard, Bricky. I'm going to take a wild guess and say today's episode is the Ravenguard. I'm absolutely shook. I cannot believe he got it. Incredible. That was a great quote, Ricky, by the way.

A part of me was hoping you'd just be like, yeah, the quote for today is, Caw Caw, Nevermore. I am Guy, 19th Legion. Here I am. Guy of the 19th Legion. Look at my emo swoosh. My emo swoosh. Swoosh.

Yeah, so Ravengard. So last week was Corvus, Corax. And now we're doing Ravengard. you know, it's a fun one. I think before back in the day, I kind of preferred the Primark episodes over the Legion episodes, but I think I've swapped.

I think I've been enjoying the Legion episodes more than the Primark episodes as of lately because it's nice to see how they've changed over time from their initial inception. I imagine for this episode, too, it's probably more enjoyable because Corvus Corex didn't have a lot of lore, right? There's, you know, there's not a whole lot to him. Like, he's still cool.

And all this stuff with, you know, being mutated into demon bird is cool. But there wasn't a whole lot. And I imagine with the actual faction, there's a lot more to go off of, you know? Well, I mean, as shy puts very eloquently, quote, you assholes still manage to run your mouths for over an hour. Yeah, cry about it. Why don't you? Dancing lizard Giff. There you go.

My man. I love that. I love that gift. It's like my favorite meme to throw around now. Ravenguard is interesting, though, because I don't think they have the same detriment. They haven't changed a lot from their heresy counterparts. Oh. There is still changed, but it's not so much.

It's really not as much. I must say I find them to be still interesting and it's a lot more about what they represent like when we talked about the iron hands

it was this really interesting world about how they are going and debilitating doing this much more like all iron flesh's weakness and Theris Manus would be so upset with them yeah and how they got ahead of themselves and the

don't and then I can't help myself And then there's, of course, the other variant, which would be, like the Dark Angels that went just full on into this hyper schizophrenic paranoia about everything and everyone. And how the Blood Angels changed, right? They got a little bit of a change after the heresy. A smidge. A smidge.

A little, 80-bitty change for those blangles, you know, just a tiny little insignificant, you know. Just a little change. Just a little change It wasn't a big change Just a little change It was a very big change It was the biggest change Also if we ever do a chaos

Thing we should do just a little change And have like little zinch guy Oh that's a good one I like a lord of change Yeah it'd be good But the Raven Guard are less of a faction That really had a whole bunch of differences From their upbringing to the end

And I think that kind of goes their fall is like different. They have a different kind of fall in a different kind of way. There's the gene seed problem which is one, but I think it's like a social dilemma. Oh wow, really. The emo faction has a social dilemma.

Not what I meant. Never saw it. I never saw it coming. Cue the persona 5 music. Oh, yeah, I got that reference. I get that reference. Well done. Nepiagetko.

Yeah, okay. That's a good one. So, the Raven Guard, as we have discussed already, they are the 19th Legion, their homeworld, deliverance, fortress monastery, the Ravens Spire. Current chapter master is Kay Van Shrike with his cool hair. And it's Jetpack. That's my boy. That's your boy.

That's the guy. I keep forgetting his name. And every time I have to be like, hey, Bricky Bricky, who's the guy with the jetpack and the emo swoosh that I like so much? It's him! That's good old K. Van Shrike. Battle Cry is Victoris Atmortis, which is victory or death. Nothing too overly fancy-pancy about it.

But it's fun to talk about a lot of the Ravengard's culture, because I think that is one of their biggest things that gives them a whole lot of intrigue more than anything. Okay. And, oh yeah, there's also emo shrike, but with a helmet on, so he's less emo looking. Hey, he still looks really great. He does look really great. Look, all you got to do to get me on board with your faction is have gigantic, cool-looking jetpack, and I am in. And the Ravenguard have that in spades. So the good old Ravenguard are still not one of the largest, one of the largest chapters.

after getting ground-pounded into the dirt during Istvan 5 and then suffering horrible issues with their gene seat afterwards. I was going to say any space rain faction that managed to get away from the drop site massacre is probably not going to have massive numbers and are probably not in a great spot afterwards. While true, other factions, I think,

got a little bit larger than them. I would imagine the salamanders are at a higher strength than the Ravenguard currently are. Oh, that's right, the salamanders were there, weren't they? Yeah, there were quite a few people who got their ass beat. I keep forgetting the salamanders were there. Salamanders were there.

I don't know how you could forget that, but... Yeah, I don't either. For some reason, never dawns on me that the salamanders were there. Salamanders, ravengard, and an iron hands were the... Wait, I'm missing one, aren't I? I feel like you are. Although I guess the Iron Hands got okay numbers afterwards, didn't they? They kind of regrouped from the Dropside Massacre pretty well, and I guess so did the Salamanders.

Am I forgetting one, or are those the three main faction, factions that got bodied? I think those were the main three. Hmm. Are those actual, like, figures for the... Joy Toy Toy is a company that makes, like, yeah, they make actual, like, figures, right? Oh yeah, those are like big. They've been making a lot of Warhammer like larger scale marine figures and stuff. Those are dope.

Yeah, they're pretty cool. Anyway, so the Ravenguard, when you think of the Ravenguard, when you think of the general vibe of the Ravengar, the thought should mainly be the uprising kind of thing. Obviously there's the stealth and everything, but you should generally think about tearing down the oppressors. you know, freeing the, the slaves, that kind of thing.

That's their general gists. And I think it's a good way to, to put them is like, emo salamanders. Ravengard are, like, surprisingly cool with humans. Okay.

They actually give a shit. Now, they're a bit, um, they're a bit curt with how they speak. Uh, they don't necessarily have to the point. Very direct, few words, but they are mostly really about, like, they're pretty cool with humans.

They give a crap about the general humans. They're just a little different in how they give a crap about them. Right, right. They, which I think leads us to the humor and, like, the downfall of the Ravenguard is that, in a sense, they serve the Imperium, which is basically just the slavers from deliverance. Yeah, I was going to say it's the same problem that the salamanders have where it's like, yeah, we care about you until Biggie tells us that we need to, you know, exterminate as your planet. Right. There's this interesting kind of contradiction that you can accept where the Raven Guard made their name by revolting against their slave lords and becoming their own group only to then assimilate to themselves into the Imperium for new slave lords. Yeah, just the slave lord that, you know, gave their chain a little more slack.

But still, they're basically in servitude. But for the most part, like Corvus was really, the two prime marks he was the closest with was actually Gilman and Russ. For different interesting reasons. Gilliman and him were actually surprisingly close for the tactical and how many times they trained. And then there was also Russ, which to him was. kind of like the other side of the coin. Oh yeah, where he's very stealthy and whatever Lehman Russ

is like, he's a battering ram. There's nothing stealth about him. He is just going in. But also like how they view themselves in combat as well. This kind of like feeling of themselves. Like it's weird. So as a Ravenguard person, there is often a lot of times

where you feel like your, like it saw self-doubt which I guess kind of maybe goes into the emo memes. Yeah, probably. I was about to say that's a little on the nose, isn't it, for the emo swoosh guys? All, everyone else, everyone else loves the run in blazing. And like, get the glory and all that kind of jazz.

And so not running in blazing is kind of, it makes them feel like, like, it's, how do I describe this? It's like telling a kid who's like, it's okay, Timmy. You're allowed to go be stealthy. There's nothing wrong with that. That's totally fine. Right. And Timmy just wants to run in screaming at the top of his lungs, flailing his arms around. Timmy is Mr. Ravenguard guy, and he wants to be stealthy and sneaky and fun.

But he like, sometimes they feel bad about it. Like it's not what they're supposed to be doing. But that kind of got to re-fix that in their mind. Oh, wait. So the Ravenguard feel bad about being stealthy because that's just kind of not the way space marines are supposed to be? Too, too broad, encompassing.

Like, they sometimes feel that way. Oh, okay. It's not like it's something that's constantly clawing at the back of their mind. It's just sometimes they feel that way. Sometimes they have this self-doubt that space marines aren't supposed to be this type of person. Right, right. accepting the path in the Ravenguard really kind of comes down to working that mentality out.

Which speaking of, let's start from the bottom. Let's talk about their recruitment. Started from the bottom. Now we're here. Well, now we're here. Dies on his fun. Ouch. Dang.

I was just trying to make a quirky pop culture reference. Then you had to make it depressing. I don't need to hear pop culture references from boomers. Whoa. Hey. Whoa. Whoa. Not that old, but still.

Whoa. So, aspirants are considered to receive the gene seat of their chapter after coming through with a couple of tests. They obviously go through the usual backbreaking, ridiculous training that all space marines go through. Harse training on the, like, force domes on the moon of deliverance and Kievar. horribly lethal conditions, little food, water, sleep. And their main thing is to evade and kill the monsters and mutants that are on Kyovar and the moon. Okay.

Typical, typical space marine initiation. Sure. Yep, sounds about right. Just with a more stealth-based approach. Yeah, yeah. There is a really interesting thing called the trial of justice to see if they are fit to uphold the ideal of Corvus himself, where they are strapped to a chair, in total darkness and are examined by a librarian and given questions by chaplains.

Now, all the questions are related to things like courage, loyalty, freedom, justice, and hypothetical scenarios, moral dilemmas, and they're forced to give solutions. But the thing is, there is no right answer. Just varying shades of gray? No, not that. More so, if you attempt to lie and be dishonest, to make your answers seem better, the librarian will read your mind and know what you're doing,

and then you will immediately on the spot be made into a servitor. Oh, wow. That's okay. That's pretty hardcore. So if you're going into this test, don't lie at all, period. Like, you'd just be 100% honest, because if you try any sort of shenanigans, you are, you immediately get turned into a servitor.

Is that what you said? An attempted dishonesty has one killed and made into a servitor. Yeesh. The idea is not that your answers are more morally correct than others. It's the fact that you are not lying. And so if you say, we should rescue the civilians because that's the right thing to do, you better not be fluffing it up for your resume. You better actually goddamn mean it.

Yeah. Shush. Well, I mean, that's one way to make sure that you get, you know, People that are indeed loyal and fit the bill, because sheesh, you literally can't get anything else. I mean, Space Marine inductions are all absolutely insane. This one is just a little bit more of a trial of the mind. There is, of course, the physical trials. There's one where you have to go 200 miles in lethal territory in three days with no food

and not be spotted by a native predator. So go fast, go far, and be stealthy. Although, I guess, honestly, as far as space marine trials go, being honest isn't the worst thing that they could throw at you. It's just like, yeah, you just got to be honest. Just don't lie to me. Don't fluff yourself. That's not that bad, actually.

It's just, you know, don't lie. It's really more about the judgment of character. Sure, yeah. And, I mean, but after that, then you get thrown. into a 200-mile sprint with avoiding predators. So it's not like it's going to be a cakewalk after. The after part seems way worse. They just, oh, hey, tell the truth is pretty easy when the next thing is, yeah, by the way,

get here in three days, don't get seen by anything, or you die. And after that, once you get done with all that stuff, you get put as a Space Marine Scout, 10th company, which is always where the new aspirants go. And they have a bit more scouts than normal because they're the Ravengarb. but after that they you know a few more years of service with the 10th company get a new name and then uh or and then you join the raven garden you know good stuff hooray you're part of the raven garden now some of the ravengard uh have this really interesting cultural tradition now it's all based about ravens because ravens are actually a native to the oh i think it's native to keivar yeah the forest of kiev of our. Wait a minute, Bricky. Are you telling me that the Ravenguard have cultural symbolism with a raven?

It's the fact that there are ravens that exist on the planet, D.K., in a non-Earth-like planet, you shitter. I'm just clarifying. That's all. I'm not saying one way or another. I'm just clarifying. I'm just making sure I understood the information. in the assignment.

Belief, smack this man's nuts. I'm, yeah, dude, I can't wait for you to check out the space wolves episode. You're going to be shocked. Oh, yeah, I bet. You're going to lose your goddamn mind. Wolves in space? Nay, good sir. Nay.

So the Ravenguard, some of their cultural stuff, as they are Battle Brothers, has them, of course, as rather grim and brood. They're very blunt, relatively direct, and don't often smile because they're just grim and brooding. Yeah, wouldn't that be the case for, like, most space marines? They're kind of just very serious, very kind of, you know, grim brooding, we have a job to the emperor, you know? Well, I guess it's more like, how do I, like, so, so space Marines naturally are that way in general. this is like a cut above I think of I'm thinking of someone like a brooding nature

I think of someone like I don't know like like an imperial fist or maybe like an iron warrior someone who's just kind of bitter but their bitter is not necessarily malicious it's just it's like a storm cloud is always over their head sometimes they have little quips and stuff

but they're more about like the strong mysterious type So, like, you know, their history is liberators of slaves, you know? Yeah, that's fair. They're probably not going to be yucking it up too much. Space Marines on duty will not be joking around. People forget that they do take that armor off and have time where they hang out. True.

Like in all of the books we've read. Usually if there's a space marine, there's a moment. I mean, even like the chaos space reigns have moments where they, you know, yuck it. up with each other, you know, and yeah, they're, I was about to unironically say they're human after all, and I was like, mm, maybe not. Well, one fun thing about them, though, is like when they are hanging out, they're one of the few marine chapters that actually created their own version of alcohol. Ooh. Because alcohol can't affect a space marine because they're too strong. Yeah, but space too quickly, right? Right. But space will.

made themselves a horribly poisonous like me that gets them drunk. Oh yeah, I remember that, yeah, yeah. But the Ravenguard made themselves a wine. And so I want you to think about like two pale-ass Ravenguard enjoying wine in like a dark room with a fireplace,

never more, like, you know, and ground post-style. And they made a red wine too, right? It's a very like almost blood red wine, I bet. I mean, you know, them and Sanguania's got to have something in common. Oh, yeah, sure. Why do they have to have something in common? Oh, because blood, that was the joke.

No. Okay. Nope. But they actually develop themselves a specific form of sign language called Korspeak. It is taught to all members of the Ravenguard, and it is to make sure they don't risk themselves to be detected through using the Vox or speaking. Yeah, I was about to say that that makes so much sense, because they're all about being stealthy. So of course they'd make up their own silent sign language so that it's easier for them to avoid detection. That's cool.

I like that. And it's a way they speak a lot in like a cultural significance. So I can see them drinking wine and talking in sign language basically. It makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Oh, that's cool. I like that.

That's very fitting for them. So there are a couple interesting other side bits of their culture. There's the thing called the Rights of Shadow. It is basically sign language for traditional questions and answers in complete silence to separate one from other battle. But other battle brothers, my goodness, I apologize. Yum, love eating words. Well, speaking of... I do it all the time.

Speaking of good eating, there is a cool thing called Corvia that they do, which I think is actually a really fun little tradition. it's basically like a meditation or a spirit quest you know for us we meditate by I mean we have apps for we'd sit in silence we you know who knows what it is I don't think I've ever meditated or even tried I have it's shockingly hard yeah I was gonna say because like it's very easy to just like sit in silence

and be like oh yes I'm meditating but I never reached that like that sort of Zen state where you're like actually and you know, never, never, never done it, never really, you know. It's difficult to, I think, just keep quiet for such a long, I mean, it's not even a long period time, probably like 10 minutes. Especially when you're such a blowhard like me, it's really hard to just be quiet for like half an hour of silence, what?

Well, I think it's also because when you're doing, we're so overstimulated right now with media that just, what's the Boberna thing? everything everywhere all of the time anything and everything all of the time there we go haven't seen it sorry it's it's all right it's a good song anyway so of course

with Ravenguard and the space marines in general their spiritual quest is not a walk in the park it's hunting and so there are the tiny little ravens that are native to the forests of Kievar and so the point of the aspirant is to sneak

up on the bird physically and then grab it with their bare hands and snap its neck. Oh, wow. All right. So, I mean, well, the snapping the neck part is part of the tradition because then you might notice in a lot of the images of Ravengar, but they often have little raven head skulls on their body. Almost as like little totems and stuff. I did not notice that before. that sounds a little...

I gotta be honest, that sounds a little deranged. But hey, it's 40K. That's the point. They're space marines. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, being stealthy enough to sneak up on, like, a raven is pretty stealthy, though. So that's an appropriate little fate for them, I suppose. I feel like you don't have to snap the poor bird's neck, but yeah, that's...

Whatever. Think about what meditation is for a person who only knows war. I guess that's true. I guess, you know, meditation for a space marine. Oh, I caught a bird. I just gave it its big break. So that's their, I mean, it takes months to really properly train for this thing. Because you have to sneak up on a bird, you, the space marine.

Yeah, the big hulking space marine, yeah. And then you need to grab the bird with your hands. It's very difficult. Oh, yeah. But they wear these little totems around their neck and stuff in battle, these little Corvia totems. And if any of their battle brothers die, they'll often try to get the totem and then go return to Kievvar and bury the skull in the soil. Oh, yeah, as a last memorial, sure.

And it's interesting, too, because they kind of, they do have like a return to Earth vibe with a lot of their stuff. If a raven guard is killed, they will often be stripped of. all of their equipment, trappings, and the corvia itself, have their gene seed harvested and just left, and have the local carrion birds just feed on them. Oh, hey, that actually makes sense that they would want the local carrion birds to, like, feed on them, because they're like the, you know, the bird symbolism and, you know, return to the earth the way you came and, you know, feed the ravens.

And that's kind of cool. I don't hate that. It's a, Shai says it's a real life burial style called Sky Burial. You just kind of let them decompose in the elements. Oh, okay. Sure. Return to the earth. Feed the earth.

Feed the local populace. And sure. Yeah. It's a whole thing. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense for the Ravenguard, too. Mix up for all those ravens they killed. Yeah.

They'll feed some more birds that way. Yeah. So there is. an interesting thing with their gene seed. So the Ravengard's gene seed is not particularly stable.

What a surprise in 40K, unstable gene seed. There's is a little bit reminiscent of the Blood Angels one. Like the Black Rage. Not that bad, but it's called

the Sable Brandt. S-A-B-L-E. Oh, okay. It is a form of like battle madness, which is a cold blood determination to fight with no regard for self-preservation, coupled with the inability to separate the whispers of the dead from the words of the living. So one of the issues that they have with Ravengarb is that sometimes you can kind of hear the whispers of the dead. You can just hear like the slight like,

Oh, yeah, that's enough to make a man crazy. And so this, they can, you know, push it out, but the Sable brand makes it so you just cannot discern the difference between the dead and the living. And it does give them the night lords of jet black eyes when they're going through it. Oh, well, so hey, at least you know, at least it's very obvious when it's happening. Wait, wait, wait. So can they always hear the whispers of the dead? Okay, so the whispers of the dead is like a, it's a little hard to specify

because obviously if you're hearing the whispers of the dead, that generally means that you're probably hearing like their soul or the psychic leftover presence from their dead soul. Sure. Warp attuned, that kind of jazz. Yeah, yeah, some warp shenanigans because that's where the dead go, blah, blah, yeah, yeah. as far as I know

they can but it's a bit of like a whispers of the dead is a hard thing to describe because it's not like your walk it's what's the the Balders Gate thing where you can like talk to animals oh yeah yeah well there's also talk to the dead but you can literally only ask a corpse five questions

and then it disappears and you can't you can't ever talk to it again right it's not that kind of thing it's not like you're commuting. I think it's just the... We've been playing Dark Tide a bit lately. You know how the demon host speaks? Yes, I do.

Try to avoid it. Imagine that, but like half the amount in quieter. Like a little bit of like a buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, that kind of crap. I just didn't realize that they could like hear it at all, right? And then once they get affected by the Sable brand, it's just like, it's ever present. And it's like, yeah, that's a real voice, all right. And they kind of can't figure out that that's a dead person. They just get it confused with, like, actual voices.

Yeah, that's the problem with when the Sable brand goes full stop. Right, is they stop realizing that that's the dead. And they're just like, yep, that's the voice. It's telling me to kill shit. I better go do it. They just can't discern the difference between the two, between the living and the dead. Yeah, I just didn't realize they could hear the dead period. but the effects are

the effects are well you say here the dead period it's more like a feeling like the blood angels have have their issue of like the black rage is kind of getting at them the red thirst is getting at them but they can be like all right push it down

you know like I feel it I feel it but I'm good I feel it but I'm good this is like I can't both are loud but it is not permanent its effects are not permanent

but it is pretty present for those who suffer from it, more commonly. But in a pretty cool method, Corvus has decided to try to find a way to control it. And he developed something called the Trifold Path of Shadows. Ooh, fancy. I like it. It is a very, very interesting teaching.

It's now tri-fold, three-pronged, like a short trident or a three-bladed lightning claw. And do you remember what we talked about Eldar when we talked about the Phoenix Lords and how you could join like a certain temple depending on how you were as a person, like the striking scorpions or the howling branches? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is kind of like that. You pick one of the paths of shadows to force your genes seen and lots of something to like a certain purpose. Oh, cool. I did not realize this was a thing. It's, so there's, I don't know why you would. We haven't talked about it yet. Well, I don't know. It seems like a pretty big deal for the Ravenguard. And, you know, usually when it's that big of a deal, people will talk about it.

And I'll at least hear, you know, a little something, something about it. But like, I didn't realize there were like subsets like this for, for the Ravenguard. It's cool. I like it. Oh, the first path is the shadow of ambush. Second is stealth and third is vigilance. You pick one of them and you master that path. And through that, you bring the possibility of victory. Mastery of two rendered triumph likely. And all three means that the foes defeat is all but inevitable. That was his whole teachings.

Okay. Cool. So it's good to be able to get this kind of like, like pick a path, stick to it. So, you know, ambush tactics, stealth tactics, or vigilance, which is more like spying for the most part. They all seem like they kind of go hand in hand. Like, if you're good at one of them, you're probably going to be good at the other two. Probably why you can master all three paths. Yeah, I was going to say at some point, surely you got a, like, and that's probably like the ideal, right, is that at some point you do go down every path.

Because it's like, once you're good at stealthing, well, you're going to be really good at ambushing. Or honestly, you should probably go down the vigilance path first because that's, you know, anyway. But yeah, cool. So mastering all three is really, is really helpful and obviously good for everyone. But you know, there's a question that people always ask about the raven guard and stuff. How are they so stealthy with wearing mark whatever giant armor? And those, and those just ever so quiet jump packs, eh? I mean, those look like they're so silent, you know?

So that is a, that is a. is an interesting thing where it's two parts. GW does do their best to try to explain it and try to rationalize it the best they can. And on the other hand, you have to say, like, so someone asked me a question when I was streaming Dark Tide there, like, how are the rejects not just horribly sick after every engagement? And the answer is always, because a video game has to happen. Yeah, because the story has to advance somehow. All right.

There has to be some suspension of disbelief. There has to be some like, yeah, just roll with it. Does it make sense? No, but look, we just got to move forward, eh? And so they do their best. For the most part, what they do is something called wraith slipping. Oh. Rath slipping is a combination of both the mind and a martial art.

What is it the ninjas call it? Is it ninjutsu? Or something? Sure. Well, it's like a martial art of being a ninja. So it's not just about how you move and conceal yourself and where you go and having a light step. But it's also about muffling your armor's sound. Things like, things like gels or packing material, even cloth and stuff, to muffle the servo movements of the armor.

Oh, so, okay, that's, that's, that's, I, I like that explanation for like how the big armor is so stealthy. Like they're putting noise dampening stuff on, on all the parts that make too much noise, and they've learned how to like move properly so that even in big clunky armor, they don't make too much noise. I like that. You know, that's all right. It is more of like a martial art more than anything. Like, that is. Shy. All right.

I'm sorry. You have to use the, if, look, if you... Please use that. Please put that. I don't know who you have to credit or who we have to pay or if we have to pay anyone, but that has to go in. It's, it's porn. It's just porn.

Well, yeah, that, those, those two lovely looking ladies, certainly, but, you know, not in front of my salad. It's, it's great. It's really funny for that method, but it is, you think of it more. more like martial art train. Like obviously they're wearing jet black armor, so that helps a lot. Dude, that depends where you are. It's not going to help on like Mars.

Yeah, but if it's night. I suppose. It helps if it's night. Yeah. There's a lot of the martial art stuff, the dampening of the servos, the quieting of their power packs. You know, there was also that flyer we mentioned, the whisper, or there was like the whisper cutter, which air drops like 10 Marines in total silas using gravity stuff. Oh yeah, it's just the all black

Thunderhawk, right? Right. So that kind of stuff is still there. But then you can actually get to the even higher level of stealth, which is what the things that are done by what are called Shadow Masters, which are a really high ranking version of the, well, like, maybe captains, but regardless of called Shadow Masters. They're battle brothers, but they specifically have a little bit.

bit of the Primark's ability to shadow walk, that effect on the mental, uh, the mental effect on mortals' minds. Mm-hmm. So it's really, it's really good to be able to kind of trick the mortal mind into just not thinking they're really there at a smaller degree like Corvus could when he was going around with the slaves on deliverance. Yeah, where he could stand right in front of them and they wouldn't even know that he was there.

Uh, to the, which, I don't know, maybe you're going to get to this, but are there any psychers in the Ravenguard and can they do any sort of like besides just the the upper echelon captains and can they do any sort of mine trickery or is this like the only instance just these upper captain guards said like yep you don't think I'm here I'm not the droids you're looking for and they just Jedi mine them oh absolutely there are psychers and not and and they absolutely do that kind of stuff the other option for the psychers is yes being even sneakier. Shrouting,

shrouding people and all kinds of fancy fancy psychic stuff. There's even one for, I think it's the Raptors chapter, which is literally just a psychic ability

to make them snipe better. Hell yeah, brother. Why not? Yeah, I mean, we love sniping. They love sniping.

And so it's just some really good far-sight ability, not tower-related, that is, to just... Hmm. I see what you did there.

Hey, you know, I do my best. But yeah, you can, it's just lots of stealth stuff, shrouding their bodies in all kinds of fancy, fancy stealth abilities, all that kind of jazz. Like, yeah, is 100% one of those main things that the librarians often utilize. I was going to say that might have been the better way to explain how they could be stealthy in power armor is just like, oh yeah, every Ravenguard just has a little bit of innate psychers. that just makes them able to kind of shroud themselves with a warp nonsense or whatever. Instead of just like, yeah, I put foam dampeners on my massive power armor. It's a both. They're trained like ninjas.

They move like ninjas, but at the same time, they also have all of this extra, all these extra bits and bobbles. Not to mention, most space marines have a tincty bit of their Primark's ability, but like in its own way. True. And so you can imagine that even if, despite how hilarious those pictures are, you can maybe have, like a mortal might see something out of the corner of its eye and he should have detected you, but maybe your tiny little gene seed thing.

Oh, yeah, the little bit that you got from Corvus is kicking in and you're just out of their river. Must have been the winds. Yeah, yeah. Although I do like the idea of just like a, a, uh, a, a. Ravenguard in their downtime, just kind of tinkering with their armor and just screwing it a little differently and just building it a little different for silence. I kind of like that idea too. So that actually makes a good, speaking of tinkering of armor, it's an interesting thing to note because a lot of the, like Corvus, for example, and when you think of a lot of the chapters that had, that care about humans a bit more than normal, the Primarks that do, they normally had some

kind of figure kind of helping them. So for example, like Vulcan had his adoptive father. Gilliman had both of his adoptive parents. And for Corvus, he had, I mean, you could almost call it a sister,

but it's like a really close female friend. Growing up in the slave era. Okay. Did we talk about that last episode at all? Not really. Again, he doesn't have a really extremely in-depth book on his childhood.

Yeah, yeah, sure. But for the most part, he had this, we'll go with sister, it's easier. He had this kind of like sister growing up, and she was one of the ones that really helped teach him, like caring for other people as she was immortal, and he obviously grew up really, really. It didn't work for Percharab, because I'm pretty sure he strangled his sister to death,

but, you know. Yeah, that sounds about right, actually, yeah. But, you know, all that aside, it worked for him very well because it was teaching him the importance of the mortals and keeping her, oh, before, yeah, I knew what her last name was. I didn't know her first name. Her name was. Nasty Ephrenia? I think it's Afrinia or a frenia. Afrenia sounds better. Natsuri Afrenia. That's, yeah, let's go with effrania. I like the way that rolls off the tongue. But she, much like the alpha lesion, she was one of the people. who really got into utilizing spies

and kind of like espionage a little bit. Humans are pretty important in the Ravenguard because whereas Alpha Legion like to destabilize a government and then come in and make it rain snakes or something like that. Yeah. I still love that. That's a canon story. The Ravenguard do it in the opposite way

where they have the humans there to try to help lead uprisings against bad people, and then that makes the Ravenguard's job better and easier. Ah, I mean, that does seem like something they'd want to do, given how they started. So really, the Ravenguard are like if the Alpha Legion were loyalist and not douchebags. They're like the mix of the stealthy chapters for both the chaos people. They're Alpha Legion and Nightlords together, but good. Which is a hell of a thing to say.

That is a hell of a mix. And, you know, it's a good, it's a good mix because they work out properly. But it's like, what if we used our military destabilization to stop horrible oppressors as opposed to, you know, breaking the Imperium down and then stealing all their psykers and making them brain snakes? Yeah, Shai brings up a good point It ain't hard to be good compared to the night lords That's really not a difficult box to check You know, it's like, oh yeah, we're the good version of the guys that just Senselessly slaughter everything

And only fight things that are weaker than them and wear your skin And it's probably one of the reasons why the Ravenguard Aren't like a wash with serfs You know They don't really have just a constant volume of menial slaves because they kind of give a shit. Like I said, they're kind of like emo salamanders. They care.

And not only do they care, but humans are a tactical advantage. It's really hard to be a spy when you're a space marine in the group. Also, those minis are so cool. Oh, my God. You really like your bird jet pack, don't you? I really, really do. I don't know if I don't know if I, I don't know if I. I'm going to start shopping at Hot Topic now or anything,

but God, those are so sick. I, I am shocked that you, uh, that you, that you enjoy these so much. Yeah, those are so cool. Aye, aye, y, aye. I, you've got a lot of, you got a really big fan for, for black with, like, wings.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the exact same thing when we were talking about the, the, the Dark Angels Raven wing, and the bikes that have the... Oh, yeah, it was the exact same, yeah. D.K.'s got a type. I do. I have a type, and it is very clear, although I have unironically shot that Hot Topic before,

so maybe this all fits. I've bought some of Hot Topic, too, but I just don't do it a lot. Oh, well, yeah, well, still. Because Hot Topic sucks. Yeah, but it fit the meme, man. It fit the meme. Chat never, ever work at Hot Topic.

They are going to scream at you to sell credit cards, and they will lower your hours, if you don't sell enough credit cards. Yeah, shopping at Hot Topic? Totally fine. I would not recommend trying to be employed there. Even in the most ideal of circumstances, that does not seem like it would be a very fun job.

Although it's retail, so when would it be? I know like nine people who have worked a Hot Topic, and they all say management is horrendous. Like, some of the worst. Believe it. I do not doubt it. Anyway. Yeah.

Off topic, rant aside. Anyway, well, I mean, you know, Hot topic. It's on, it's on topic. Hot topic, on topic. Bang,

Bing, bam. Really just. So, of course, the Ravengarb operate with their smaller numbers

but since they operate in such a more stealth-like manner, they don't really need as many numbers to get a lot of jobs done instead of just throwing men at the problem.

They're, you know, a small strike teams can, you know, this turn off life support to stabilize a reactor, remove a void shield,

all kinds of various options to really kind of be in the back and cause the issues that they're trying to cause. But outside of that, there are some fun little relics that they have that we always like to talk about in these various things. Relics, yeah. I was going to say it also kind of suits them that they can have fewer space marines, like, do the job

because their numbers aren't big. because they got their numbers they got kind of messed up in the drop site massacre so it's probably better that they can do important missions with you know fewer space marines because they don't have a lot to spare do they not as many as the other chapters

though granted it has been 10,000 years but I don't think they've recruited as fast as of the others fair enough like for example there is something called X Tenebris which is a master worked bolter with an elaborate and effective blast cowl that makes its shots all but completely silent. Apparently, it's a bolter with a with a silencer, eh?

I mean, basically, but a super silencer to where it literally makes no noise. It would have to be a super silencer. It's attached to a bolter. Like, a musseling that thing. That's got to be like a frigging trash can. and size silencer. Or, what's the, what's the Simpsons image with the guy who has the Loudner?

It's like a big funnel. Oh, yeah. I know Shy knows the clip. I remember that. Yeah, yeah. But originally, it was actually utilized. It was, sorry, rumored. It was meant to be forged by Korax himself

as a gift for Kurs. But then the Horace heresy happens. So now it was given to other people. Oh, you're right, Chey. You can't see the silencers on those minis. And they just, oh, they look normal. Yeah. You got to think that it's a 40K version of a silencer,

so must be pretty good. That's true. Fair enough. Yeah, I guess all their relics are probably going to be stealth-based, aren't they? Because that's their thing. There is the Raven Helm, which is, this kind of goes along with their stealthy vibe,

is these kind of various relics from the chapter. It shrouds its wearer in a flickering halo of dark that distorts their outlie and confounds the most sophisticated enemy sensors. So when combined with the general like martial arts talents of the Ravengarb, enemies just don't even know if they even saw the person or just a weird shadow. Okay. Yep. Very helpful.

Although, how did, how did that helmet get made exactly? Just because I'm like, I'm like, if you can make one of those, surely you can make enough for a squad. And if you can make enough for a squadron, you can make enough to outfit the whole raven guard at him. And that's going to help everybody. D.K. I know. It doesn't work like that. I know.

They lost the STC. They don't can't manufacture it. You remember it? We're the STC for this relic that would really help all of us out. How did we misplace it? Ah, darn. There's only one left. Sorry, guys.

I'm sorry. You're right. How foolish of me. You say that. But, like, there are a million situations in which they fight. found a relic from ages past but don't know how to recreate it. That's like half of the fancy, like half or if not more of the fancy relics that everyone has in 40K is an old dark age technology thing they found, but don't know how to reproduce.

Fair enough. Man, the dark age is like, I know it's been said before, but technology back then was so wild. Like, no wonder the imperial was so apt to. Absolutely. You know, where Lehman Russes were, what, just construction vehicles or something? The Bainblades were light scout tanks. That's crazy. The Dark Age technology was like necron deep sci-fi.

Like just the ability to control the universe. It's such an insane degree. And it's why STCs are so frightening. I mean, I don't think they actually got to Necron levels, but it was, they're still pretty nasty. Yeah, they're very nasty So there's a couple other things There is the Panopinopoly P-A-N-O-P-L-Y

Panoply Sure, sounds right to me Panoply of the Raven Lord It said that Korox carried a number of personal weapons Which he made for fighting a deadly opponent In personal combat And these are artificer-crafted lightning talons That shred armors with ease

And it had also an energized whip, a symbol of the overthrow of the tyrannical powers that held him captive, which can be lashed out or used to ensnare with blinding speed. Nice, nice, talons and whips. Cool, cool. Always fun. In more ways than one. There is also a pair of lightning claws known as Swift Strike and Murder, of course.

I like how one is, ah, yes, this is Swift Strike, and this one, this is murder. This one does the murder. And this one strikes swiftly. This one, it's a pretty swift strike. Murder. Murder. Murder. Welcome to murder.

They should both be called murder. There's also a whole bunch of random other things that are just really stealthy versions of regular marine things. Like, this is a jump pack that utilizes weird old lost gravidic technology and makes zero noise. Oh, well, that's helpful. That's very helpful for a jump pack. There's all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, then you go into like the Ravenguard ships. And of course, they all have exactly what you'd expect.

There's Shadow of the Emperor. Plutonian share. Ravens Valor. Second Shadow. Shadow strike. Steadfast. Fearless. Triumph.

Like classic. Classic stuff. On the nose names for, for the Ravenguard, for the spacemines. Yeah. Yep. And then you have all the shadow captains that go along with the Ravenguard. But if, if you, if I leave you with. anything involving the Ravenguard is that they get their edgy emo vibes, mostly because of their

kind of brooding, grim mentality and mindset. But they're not, they're not like nihilistic assholes that just do awful things because they're awful. Yeah. Well, I mean, they, they, it doesn't sound like they do awful things, period. Like, they're just, they're, they're, they're space marines that want to help and want to be stealthy. Wait, is it actually canon that Corvus hated poetry? Really? Why? They didn't want him to seem too much like an Edgar Allan Poe reference.

They were just like, poetry would never. Was the Nevermore too much or too little? Yeah, the Nevermore, they were like, maybe that was a little on the nose, guys. We better rein this thing. That's funny. But honestly, after what I've learned this episode, it feels like the sort of, oh, look at how black and shroudy and emo we are. I feel like that just comes from them wanting to be stealthy. Like, they're just shrouded in darkness, shrouded in silence.

They just want to be stealthy. That's why they're so emo. It doesn't necessarily feel like they're extra broody or extra more emo. It just, yeah, we want to be stealthy. So we we shroud ourselves in the shadows. Well, there's also the, it's like they themselves are not the kind of group that would walk around grunting and being like an anime character. It's more the fact that they are shrouded in incomplete black, wear the skulls of ravens around their body, do lots of stealth tactics, have a guy who said never more and looks like that, and so on. Would you like to read this caption about poetry from Shai?

Sure. His mentors on Lysias had taught him of poetry, of rhyme and meter, and cadence, but he had never quite been able to see the appeal. Poems reminded him too much of the work songs the prisoners had invented to keep up their spirits, while they had hewn with pick and laser drill at the unforgiving stone of the penal colony. Ah, so poems reminded him too much of slaver songs. chain game music and stuff. Yeah, exactly.

That makes sense though. That's a, yeah, that's all very fair. I believe that. That's fair. But for the most part, all of the, the edgy emo vibes of the Ravenguard come from the things around the Ravenguard. For the most part, besides them being a bit more grim and dark than the others, they still speak like normal space marines.

They still do normal space marine things. but ironically to go against they're quite the opposite of nihilistic they are all about the uprisings and treating humans with a ton of respect getting tearing ravengard tearing down oppressors tearing down slavers

they are a kind group that don't look it good for them also now that the episode is over and I see this picture is that that's Corvus right Yeah, that's Mr. Corvus. Mr. Corvus. Yeah, now I'm just like, wow, look at all those raven skulls on him.

I'm just like, there's a raven skull, there's a raven skull. Another one, another one. And yeah, now I see all the skulls hanging around him. Shai says people will demand a ravenguard vehicle and character episode Bricky. We will do it later. Okay, don't riot. Well, I'm sure we'll have more vehicle-based stuff because they have all these fancy, fancy vehicle-type things they got going on with all their wacky

wacky stealth technology and then they got a couple cool characters as well. They don't have as many cool characters as some other chapters but they got a few. Yeah, I am absolutely down for more Ravengard stuff. I would love to see how they make a tank silent.

Remember when remember when the world eaters had land raiders flying in the sky on trails of fire like magical pony by that one dude, the Lord Invictatus.

I'm just thinking, I'm just thinking of like, all right, time for the silent drop. And they just like throw a bunch of tanks 18 style out of their Thunderhawks. Yep. It just works.

It just works. It just works. It's just silent. All right. Well, there's a little, there's a little bit of Ravenguard. Let's see if they can be.

I like the Ravenguard. And their minis are so, cool. I like it. I like it a lot. Here's an image of a real-life tank silencer. No fucking way. There's no way that's real. That has to be photoshopped. I should call him. I was about to say it's so foul. It's ridiculous. I should call him. Shut up. I should call him.

All right. Let's leave on the penis. Yeah, definitely.