Adeptus Ridiculous - SOUL DRINKERS: LOYALIST TRAITORS OF THE EMPEROR, ARCHITECT OF FATE | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Soul Drinkers are a Successor Chapter of the Imperial Fists, formerly considered a Renegade Chapter.The Soul Drinkers do not fit the standard template of Excommunicate Traitoris. Unlike most Renegade Space Marines, who have devoted themselves to the Chaos gods, the Soul Drinkers despise the Ruinous Powers as much if not more than they hate the Imperium that cast them out. Instead, they have developed an ideology that states that the Imperium has betrayed everything the Emperor has stood for; so they still fight the powers of chaos even though they disagree with what the Imperium now stands for. Some within the Chapter think that the Imperium should be destroyed for the good of mankind.Support the show

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamante's, Bricky's name is Bricky. And we have special guest Kiryath here because it is indeed that time of the month. But before we get into that, if you enjoy today's episode and you want to support the podcast, heading over to patreon.com slash Adeptis Ridiculous, where you can get access to the Discord, blupers if they happen. $15 tier gets you access to all of our posters in HD Digital Form. believe you can still follow on

Apple, Facebook, Google, all that stuff, and yeah, Patreon.com slash adeptist ridiculous. Bricky. Hi. Hey. If you want to check out other awesome stuff, you can read false gods.

The next episode in the Horace heresy trilogy, quadriloly, whatever. The Horacee heresy. If you would like, I would highly recommend checking out the merchandise. site orgadate.com, but I would maybe argue to, to maybe wait, just a little bit. We have some things cooking and, oh, they're cooking. We're looking at about maybe mid-October to launch these things.

So about maybe in two episodes. And so hold off for a bit because if you're going to get something, I'd prefer it if you got it all at the exact same time. And so, so just keep an ear out. The kilns are burning, stuff is cooking, you know, there's some, you know, there's stuff. It smells good. It smells good. Yeah, yeah, that is, we're smelling what's on the horizon, nothing else. We're not anything other than.

That was so loud. That was devastating. That was, oh my God. Oh, my God. I didn't realize it would be that abusive. I'm sorry. That was, that was shocking. I didn't realize it would be like that.

It wasn't even like double. the volume. It somehow broke the barrier. I don't know what happened there. I can tell that D.K. does not have a compressor on his microphone. Supposedly there's a compressor on this thing, but hey, listen, uh, go pick up the merch.

That actually, don't pick up the merch yet. Wait till the, oh, right, right, right. That actually jumps scared me. You're welcome. You're welcome, everyone. We're off to a great start. Let's go. Let's go. How you doing, Keriath? My boy. Our boy, the boy. But, you know, I'm all right.

I'm recovering from the... I just wanted to make sure everybody was awake and ready, because we're a little earlier than usual. Just want to make sure everybody's good, you know, just up the senses, you know? Just like an adrenaline injection. It's just to get you going. Yep. Exactly.

Uma Thurman. Yep. Oh, yeah. Give it a shot. Give a shot! Nice. It's a decent reference. Anywho.

Curiaoth Do tell you I have returned to the land of the living Do not worry We will not create another episode In which Like last time This will be a much

happier episode Hopefully It was You know There were some There were reactions But it's fine We'll just carry on

We'll just ignore all that We'll just It's just how opinions work You know what As far as I'm concerned, it's been leaked data mind that the game is going to be getting the beaky helmet

added. And as far as I'm concerned, that has undone any and all negative sentiment. They're making a beaky helmet and that right there is killer. Hell yeah. By itself, game of the year. Game of the year. I've changed my mind.

Ballotro, nothing. So, Kariath, what's up? What do we owe the pleasure of today's episode. Funnily enough. Boxing. Are we beatboxing? You can.

I'm not going to. You had a good intro into something there, but I I, that's more, I was going to say that's more your speed, but I don't know if that's really true. Anyway, we're going to stick, we're going to stick with the Space Marine theme, but I'm going to give you a

quote, not the game, just Space Marines in general, just narrow it down a little bit. I'm going to give you a quote and see if, see if you recognize it. See if it brings anything up in the back of your head. Okay. Okay.

When all is darkness and every way out is lined with blood and lit with the fires of battle, there is still hope. When all is darkness and every way out is lit with the fires of battle, they're... Uh, salamanders? I was thinking salamanders too, just because it sounded very honorable and like, oh, you know, no matter what happens, we're still. still gonna fight. But Shai said that was a fail, so never mind, I'm not guessing Salamanders. I didn't lock that in. That's incorrect. Shai said that was a double fail.

Ooh. We're not making it. Also lined with blood, although I'll be honest, I don't know how much that's gonna help either, but... Blood for the blood, God, we're doing world eaters. I mean, is it chaos or is it a loyalist? Here's where it gets really tricky. No. Alpha Legion. Okay, so it's renegade. It is renegade. Okay.

I didn't realize lined with blood was part of the concept. I assumed it was just like, yeah, we're backed into a corner, but so long as we can still fight, we can still win and live, you know, which is very salamanders to me. It is. I guess blood angels would be a little too on the nose and they're not renegade. Yeah, they're not renegade. That would also make a difference, yeah. Do I, do I even, I mean, I don't think I know many renegade chapters. The only one I remember back in the day was like here on Blackheart's shenanigans, but that, that's kind of different nowadays.

Yeah. Is this one of those ones that's like something that I probably would have never heard of because it's not one of the main chapters? It's just like a subchapter of something. It's like the, I don't know, the blood falconaries or something. Would it even be a chapter if they're renegade technically? I mean, they're still, yeah, they were still a chapter. They might even be a chapter now. Well, I got nothing, brother.

You know, you've stumped me, which is not a high bar, but you've stumped Bricky, which is pretty good. Renegades are some of those ones that I don't know much of because they're so rarely discussed, but this might be the most popular renegade faction. And if that's the case, then damn. Also, that quote can be attributed to like literally anything and everything. 90% of the stuff that's in Warhammer could be attributed to that quote. Almost any loyalist could be that. It's also when we get into it more complicated than I'm really giving it credit for that quote. So we're going to talk about the soul drinkers.

One of the most popular renegade chapters. Okay. I've never heard of them. Well, the vast majority of their law is contained in the novels that we've written about, them. I believe the first one was published in like 2002, so a while ago. This is older Black Library stories. This is getting on a bit. And the soul drinkers have gone through a really interesting kind of evolution over the course of their existence, where obviously started out loyalist, became renegade. and then with the appearance of Primaris,

they became loyalist for a second time, which is not generally something that tends to happen in 40K. I was going to say, I didn't think you could do that. I figured once you sort of gave in and you went to chaos and you went, you know, whatever, that that was kind of it. And the Emperor's Light would never find you again

and you would never be welcome back because you're a traitor. Okay, I'm a little. sad now because I do know about the soul drinkers. I thought they were loyalist. Sorry, Shad, that's true. They're renegade in that chaos. You're right. Sorry. That's where it gets. That's where it's get. It's like, it gets tricky, which we, which we'll get into. So technically, they are, well, were or are still, kind of. It will make more or less sense as we go on. But they are a descendant of the Imperial Fist. They were part of the second

founding, allegedly, or alternatively, depending on where you're reading in the novels. They may also have been third founding, allegedly. It's a little bit blurry as to which one it actually is. And the first thing that was really written about them in terms of date-wise, like the first things that were written were the novels that they're in, but they did, since that point, end up showing up in War of the Beast, kind of legitimizing them as an early chapter as part of the Imperial Fist, they took part in the last wall protocol. So the history of the chapter goes back a long, long way. Okay. I kind of love their logo too. Can we can we talk about what, how Dorn's successor's sons are like, he's got to calm them, you know, like, I don't know what,

I don't know what Dorn specifically has been doing that's been causing this, but between the sole drinker, well, you know what, I don't know if the sole drinkers are like totally insane or anything. I'm sure I'll find out But after the black temple Their names are the soul drinkers Like I don't think they're stable Yeah well I mean you know You could say that with like almost every one of those damn

Damn people you know like Isn't there There's like a loyalist chapter called the Exorcists It's straight It's right Demons in themselves I'm sorry I'm sorry

There's the loyalist sub faction of the blood angels Known as the flesh terrors Yeah Okay This is okay All right Yeah, but that's, that's different. That's the black raids.

That's the red, that's different. Yeah, that's different. Yeah, you say that, but at the same time, I just, I'm like seeing Dorn and I'm seeing, ah, yes, my loyal sons, the soul drinkers and the black Templars. They are perfectly mentally stable. I can be trusted with a, I can be trusted with a rifle. I mean, shy's fair, like, Paying Glove will do that to you. Like, Magic Paying Glove, tell me what to do faction probably would have some,

uh, off-kilter successors, right? magic pain glove tell me what to do it's the best way to not to think for yourself just stick your hand in and then you know go from there best way to best way to run everything I think is uh

I think that's what he's going for there um but yeah they they on wait on the wiki it says knights of dawn suspected to be imperial fist success suspected of it yeah could be I mean you never know

It's not jump to conclusions here, all right. Yeah. Who knows? Could be anything. So, yeah, when the Imperial Fists were broken up after the Horace heresy and divided into chapters, the Soul Drinkers, so it's reckoned, were formed out of the boarding specialists from the Imperial Fist. So super, like, super targeted force.

They specialized in boarding actions. They specialized in drop-pot assaults. They were all about getting in there as quickly as possible, overwhelming the enemy as fast as they could, and then getting out and just leaving a ton of destruction and dead bodies behind. Right down to the fact that their sort of motto kind of battle cry, they've got a couple. They've got for dawn, for the emperor, and for freedom, and they also have cold and fast. I'm just the way I like it. Oh yeah?

Is that true? Frostbite-looking ass? No, man. Like, you think I get any action? I'm just saying it for the lulls. Come on, spite-looking ass. Sorry, go ahead. I feel like early recording is somehow

making it more, like, derail than, like, usual. I also can't speak, which isn't helpful. So, they are, for all intents and purposes, very good, getting in, killing everybody, getting out super fast lightning assaults and extremely loyal, like very, very loyal. I cannot overstate how loyal the soul drinkers were because they have a very deep love for

the emperor, even by the standards of space marines, and they have a deep love for dawn. Dawn is like the guiding force. And a lot of what they kind of believe and a lot of what they kind of operated on was a book that was written by the philosopher's soldier and I'm going to struggle to pronounce this Dinathios that Daniaeater

You can spell it out we can try and help you Daneth Danethas Danethos The Y is really throwing me off Yeah it's the why right in the middle is kind of a pain in the butt Damn Danathos Come out again with them

White vans White vans Yeah Dane Yathos is my best bet Yeah I will ask though As curiosity It kind of seems interesting

That the soul drinkers are Like they have Luna Wolves Levels of fighting They're like Hardcore shock In and Out Which is very opposite of what Dorn is You know

Well the reckoning is that The like different aspects Of the Imperial Fist Were kind of Splinted off into different chapters Right So you've got like The most zealous nutcases

ended up under the Black Templars. The ones who were kind of more all-rounders ended up as crimson fists and the ones who were super good at boarding actions, presumably not that, I was going to say not that many of them, enough to form a chapter. But you're right,

it's definitely not like, you think in Burial Fist, you don't think super good at boarding actions, but at the same time, I guess every chapter's got to have some, or like every Legion had to have specialists that could do that. work, even if like the way that Games Workshop quite often portrays them is like, here is, here is,

you know, X chapter, here's, here's, here's, he's white scars, they all love bikes. Like in theory, that's really cool, but would they successfully, like, perpetrate wars only doing fast attack and having nothing in the way of like supporting artillery or tactical squads, etc. Like they might be known for their bikes, but they can do everything. Yes. Yeah. also it's kind of weird that like a group called the soul drinkers are known for their loyalty because that that name just doesn't inspire me to be like oh yeah they're my friends they'll always be my friends now wait now hold on there dk think about it who is the number one soul drinker out there well i mean biggie who drinks a thousand slikers like yourself i mean if you're gonna

if you're gonna be like the emperor i mean yeah i'm just saying It's true. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. They are not your friends. Well, you know. Also, not to bring it back to like the game that just came out, but is there's a, there's a purple color way in Space Marine 2 that has a chalice. Is this them?

I think you can paint yourself as the sole drinkers in Space Marine too. I think it is. Yeah. Yeah. Because I vaguely remember getting like one of the color ways and I'm pretty sure it was a chalice and like the armor set was purple. You know what? I will do some research. You guys keep going. I'll load up Space Marine 2 and I'll let you know. Continue, period. You're doing God's work, man. We've lost Bricky to another at least one hour of PVP, but we'll carry on. That's all right. I'm still here. I got you. I got you. I love grapple.

There's just going to be a, like, just a purple guy running around grappling stuff is how the research is going to go. So they do have a good reason for being called the soul drinkers. In as much as any chapter or Legion has got a good reason for being called anything that they're called. They have, they have a mutation in their gene seed, which it's the omaphagia organ. So it's the one where they like eat it and then they can absorb some of the memories of the creature they've eaten. Yeah, yeah. Kind of like the crout, right? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, well, Kruke get like DNA so they evolve. Like, I think space wolves do it a lot, right? And I guess the night lord sometimes. Space wolves will like eat their people and be like, I know where the enemy commander is. Yes. And the all father, et cetera. Yeah, it's that sort of like, you eat a bit of the thing, you get a few memories, you hopefully get some sort of like actionable information from it. The soul drinkers, the soul drinkers have a mutation in it,

where they don't just get the memories, they also get the emotions of the creature that they've eaten. So instead of it just being a case of, you know, getting a flash of maybe where a command bunker was or just a flash of a giant in purple armor about to split your hell open, they also reckoned it to like being able to see into the creature's soul, which is how they ended up with the chapter name of the soul drinkers. it became more like a

yeah so they feel all of the emotions that the the thing they just ate felt that's that's kind of a double edge sort especially in the world of Warhammer 40K like that's not necessarily a good thing

because like you get the emotions of someone that got slowly digested by a tyrannet and it's like oh great I get to feel that wonderful you're not going to get that emotion well that's true because they're melted into biomass yeah but you get the idea

You get the idea. You're very right, but you get the idea. Wait, I'm sorry, shy. That's how fantastic image. We need to Photoshop the soul drinker on the guy, and then who would be in the background? Like an ultramarine, maybe, like Gilliamen or something? Yeah, definitely. That is, that is incredible.

Oh, my God. I love that. All right, hold on. We're in Space Marine, too. Let's see here. We've got successor chapters. We have unknown founders, no soul drinkers. Oh, no.

It's the Hawk Lords. Oh, God damn, you Astardis spit on that thing. I was wondering if someone was going to go there. I was wondering, you is a mystery plant. That's kind of is an interesting plant, isn't it? Just like Horizon Zero done. Hey, so. Soul drinkers.

Oh, yeah. They've, they've like, it's become like a ceremony, like a ritual for the soul drinkers, the eating of another creature's flesh because of the additional effect it has, which is the ceremony of the chalice. So they'll put the thing in a cup,

they'll eat it out of the cup, and then have like an almost spiritual experience. I, when we decided to cover this, I may have set myself a slightly ambitious task, right? Shy, I can't remember how long ago we actually decided on, like what we were going to talk about today. But I decided that I was going to read

all of the Soul Drinkers books between then and now forgetting that it's like the first omnibus alone is like a thousand pages. And I did manage it, but I'll be honest, I don't know how much fully went in and a lot has had to be backed up by looking stuff up because it's amazing if you just like read one specific thing for long enough,

I feel like it becomes, it almost becomes like, not mush, but everything blends together. Like the timeline of things stops making sense because you've just been in it the whole time. But very early on in the first omnibus, because there's a couple of them, there is a point where a guy called Sarpedon, who becomes the chapter master at one point, he eats the flesh of a mutant to try and gain some information. and he doesn't just like see that creature's memories he has this awful feeling of being like covered in filth and being trapped and unable to escape

and feeling like not being able to feel the light of the emperor on his on his presence and it's so bad that it like sucks him in and he has to like fight his way out of that experience So very much so a double-edged sword where it's like this is a nice thing to have, but be careful because that happens. Yes, yeah. It could be helpful. It could also be a horrific, like, metaphysical experience that destroys your brain. So, bit of a double-edged sword. But they've leaned into it. Can I ask real quick, like, so when other, like, because they started off loyalist, right?

when they were like when they start like eating mutant flesh did the other chapters they're like ew like that's that's xenos flesh like you you guys are disgusting and like do they kind of look down on the soul drinkers at all for stuff like that i don't i don't know how often they like did it in front of other chapters there's definitely like a kind of a thing of only doing it because you need to do it as opposed to it being like a like an enjoyable experience it's kind of like they're having buffets of food because they're doing it for, yeah, yeah. This is going to be rough, but it should be worth it.

So we're going to do it anyway, that sort of, that sort of approach. I was not to say for the greater good, but wrong episode, right? There doesn't necessarily scream, like, well, we should name our chapter after it then. You know, it's like, well, damn, this is like tough, but I guess we got to do it. It is like, our names are soul drinkers. yeah, it's kind of on the nose, isn't it? A little bit, a little bit, yeah.

It's a bit, like, right at the front there. But, like, that's up and up to a point, that was the, that was the thing that kind of defined the soul drinkers. They have this, this extreme kind of lean towards bawling actions, rapid assaults. They have this mutation of that, of that organ. And up to a point, they were just fully loyalist

and doing what loyalists do. But there is a problem. There is a relic. And it's a very important relic for them. It's called the Soul Spear. And based on the kind of myth or history of the chapter's founding, it was given to them by Rogel Dawn during the Second Founding. It's quite like, it's very like venerated within the chapter.

The Soul Spear, according to the Soul Drinkers, is a weapon that Rogel Dorn utilized throughout the, like before the heresy, when it came to spreading out across the stars and conquering worlds, Rogal Dorn conquered a thousand worlds and hung his standard from the Soul Spear. You probably realized at this point that there's not much mention of the Soul Spear throughout any of the Horace Heresy books whatsoever, unless I've missed that somewhere. It doesn't really tend to show up.

at all. So there's an interesting sort of, an interesting like conflict there where their chapter mythology says we were given this weapon. The Solspear, by the way, is an insane weapon. It is vastly powerful. It's supposedly

something that Rogaldorn found supposedly wielded himself and he supposedly fixed it up. Essentially... A lot of supposedly is, man. Yes. There's a... There's a...

there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of, kind of obfuscated, like, missing or confused history with the soul drinkers, which like, we'll get into as we go into it. But this, this weapon, the soul spear is basically, you know, when I've heard of the, like, the void grenades. You mean the vortex grenades? Vortex grenades, sorry, yeah. It basically makes a little, a tiny little rift into the, uh, in, um, imperian. Yep, yep. Um, Imagine if you could just have one of those open indefinitely in the shape of a blade coming out of a spear, and that's what the sole spear is. Oh, okay.

So it's just like, so you stab some with it, and then, like, whatever is there just gets like yanked to the warp, sort of kind of. Or it gets absolutely screwed up for whatever reasons it be. Yeah, it absolutely ruins them. It's basically like a stable, like a stable kind of vortex warp thing. going on, and it's got a slight twist to it where only those who are descended from Rogaldorn can activate it. So massively, massively important, right? A bit of Arcano tech just discovered on a world, and then, and then, like, Rogelorn gives it. I was going to say kind of the same thing. Well, I wasn't going to say the exact same thing,

but Chai said didn't Alpharius's pale spear do the same effing thing? But I was like, man, this thing is sounding more and more like it's some sort of like Xenos artifact and they're just like, oh yeah you know, Dorn totally found it. What? No, he passed it down to a sea. Only we can use it totally. Yep. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And they just don't want to admit

that it's like some heretical Xenos like weird weapon. So if I'm if I'm mistaken, because I was thinking the same thing shy was thinking, which was the pale spear, the Sarah Sonata, I remember that one because when I read the Alfarious book, it's

It's clearly Xenos tech. I would have to argue maybe necron or old one or some like that. It doesn't do a void thing. It basically just kind of like deletes whatever it is at a molecular level. So like you slice into them and it just kind of like, it's like you took a big eraser on like Photoshop and just went, and it's gone. Dare I make the Jojo reference?

See, I was thinking that, but I didn't want to say it. Dare I? I really didn't want to say it because I will refuse. But a little bit of that. But because of it, it like turns in this weird oily smoke. Yeah, afterwards. That sounds really cool, though. It's kind of the same.

But to me, it's just kind of like the pale spear just deletes where it is, whereas this thing has like a warp portal in it and whatever. Can you imagine if you like stab someone with a soul spear and then they just like turn into a demon? You're like, oh, crap. We did it again. Shoot. It's a bit of a gambit spear.

Funny you should mention demons. That might turn out to be important later. Oh no. The Soul Spear, very important, vital to the chapter, a huge part of their history. So what happens in M40? It gets lost. Because of course it does. It's Warhammer 40K, all the best tech.

It gets lost in the warp or thrown out of a porthole or whatever. It was on the flagship of the Soul Drink is the Sanctifier, and the flagship was lost in a failed warp jump. Oh, that's the worst. It wasn't even a battle or anything. It's just, oh, dang, warp travel sure is fickle. Oh, that's, that sucks. Yeah, just gone. And for well over a thousand years, the Soul Spear was just lost. They didn't know where it was. They couldn't find it. There was just no way of knowing what had happened to it. Until, until some information reached them that the Soul Spear had been found. And it had been found on a Star Fort. and the Star Fort was being occupied by a couple of disgraced Imperium aristocrats who were harboring mutants

and they were forging their own little empire, their own little smuggling empire and the Soul Drinkers received this information that the Soul Spear was part of a collection of artifacts on this Star Fort. So naturally, naturally they went to the Star Fort, attacked it, absolutely blitzed everybody. All the mutants got annihilated, which was part of the plan. It was part of the plan of a consul who wanted to take the Stal Fort for himself, and he'd managed to leak the information about the Soul's beer

to the Soul Drinkers, so that he didn't have to get too many of his troops involved in taking the Starforce. It was just a bit of, like, maneuvering so that all the hard work was done by Space Marines, because he'd heard that they were after this relic. And once he'd sort of pulled up data on the inventory of it, it was like, oh, this is their spear. If we say it's here, they will 100% come and get this, which they did.

And then did they just... They killed all the mutants and like, here, here's your spear, bye-bye. Well, that was the plan. If they wanted to get in there, kill everybody, grab the spear, get out. Which would be standard operating procedure for them. they weren't really fussed about the rest of the Imperial fleet around there. They wanted to take their artifact back,

and the actual reasons for attacking the Star Fort for them were literally just, they have our thing, we are going to get our thing back. Unfortunately, the Adeptus Mechanicus also knew of the Soul Spear. So the Soul Drinkers, they go in, they assault the Star Fort, they kill everybody, they lose their commander to one of the Aristopians, because she uses a like a, a poisoned weapon on him, like a diggy poisoner thing, which there's, it's like an artifact weapon. It's killing him slowly.

He's not even having a warrior's death, which is extremely disappointing for him. And the whole, like, the Marines that are there are gutted that he's like, he's going out. Let's be honest, like a pussy. Even though he's had a storied history as a space marine, he got stabbed by someone who looked like a kid because he wasn't paying attention, which is the worst way to go for any space marine. But the soul drinkers especially have this like, even by the standards of space marines, it's like, you must die a warrior's death. There's a lot of like duty in duty in death, honouring death, that sort of thing. Yeah. So they do all the hard work. They get within like

spitting distance of the soul spear, at which point a admec lad called Archmajorie of Cobotov teleports in, grabs the soul's beer, and then teleports out, leaving the soul drinkers on a star fort full of corpses with no artifact. What do you see, Captain Badruck? A bunch of suckers! Is it me, or is it a very common thing that admec just show up, and a lot of times in like these stories or certain games, like, they just like, end up ruining stuff. Like just like, oh, hey, yoint. And it's like, man, such an ad me, ad me.

Like, stop touching stuff. That's not yours. Stop it. Yeah. Stop it. The quest for knowledge. I don't care. Stop touching stuff.

That's not yours. It doesn't belong to you. Get out of here. I loved in Space Marine how much they just hated dealing with the admec. Oh, they were constantly like, God, the Mechanicus, again. Yeah. Wasn't there a guy talking to Tedis? I was like, ooh, I don't know about.

you and Titus is like, yeah, but I hate the admec. I'm like, hey, hell yeah, brother. I suddenly like you a little bit more. I totally agree with you, bro. Yeah. The squad bonding over how much the admec sucks. Yeah. It's like, are you upset with us like brothers?

It's like, only if you worship the cog of Mars. It's like, oh, I share your frustration. It's so funny. I mean, that that's kind of like 95% of the time, everyone is just kind of annoyed with the ad me. They're like, oh, my God. Okay. if we didn't need your text so badly,

Admec. That's always funny. Well, funnily enough, the teleporting in, grabbing the thing and leaving, it didn't go down well. Soul drinkers were not happy about this, and this is where Saupodon comes in.

So Saupidon was previously a librarian, but his commanding officer dies and not dies a warrior's death. He is then promoted, like field promoted, to lead this force of soul drinkers. And he gives an also It is basically give us the spear back and we will forget this ever happened.

If you don't give us the spear back, things aren't going to go very well for you. And so there's this whole conversation where the actual like, the Imperium officials are like, excuse me, Arch Majos, is there any chance you could give them this goddamn spear back? Because we have a bunch of very angry space marines on the station that we need. and it's a very like delicate political position which the Archmajoras ruins completely by deploying an artillery platform from his ship to basically threaten the soul drinkers.

Just say you either leave or you get destroyed. Except it's a star fort full of like ancient fighters and shuttles and a chapter that specialises in lightning boarding actions through hostile space. So naturally, the soul drinkers decide we're not having this. Saupodon decides that they are going to go to this platform and they are going to destroy it and then leave and just show them that you don't do this to the soul drink

because their honor has been like impugned. They're not having it. So they've lost their commander. They're not in a good mood. You have their sphere. You're trying to play games with them. Not the time. Admeck, not the time.

Yeah. So they do exactly what they're intending to, which was take the artillery platform and then use the gun to fire into the Imperium Fleet to cover their escape. Now at this point, you might be thinking, that's a lot of firing on friendly forces, even if the forces aren't being that friendly. That's quite a lot of... I was going to say, once they boarded the Admec platform, I was like, this is where they go renegade, huh? Like, this is how they become a not loyalistic chapter anymore, isn't it? It's worth pointing out that there's not even a lot of them. This is two strike cruisers' worth of space marines. So they're not even representing the majority of the chapter.

They go rogue. They go properly rogue out of frustration, out of anger, out of feelings that they've been slighted, and they make their escape. They know where the soul spear is being taken. they want to go and get it back. And so they make their escape successfully. But at that point, they have gone, they've gone properly rogue. And so the fleet is sent after them.

An Inquisitor is brought in to deal with them. Because, of course, who wouldn't do that? So the Inquisitor shows up. They are trying to hide out an asteroid field. Inquisitor, Zoras shows up and sends. sends a guy in, an interrogator to talk to Saabedon and say, hey, if you surrender now, we will take you into custody and this will be done, but you will be, you know, you will be dealt with.

If you don't do as we say, you are like, you are excommunicate traitors. You're done. You're gone. Uh-huh. So Saapadon naturally offers to duel the interrogator and kills him, because, What else would you do? As you do. Wait, offers to duel him.

Did the interrogator say yes? Yeah. Oh, is he insane? The interrogator agreed to duel a soul drinker, a stardy space marine like commander? It's not even an acquitted her. It's an interrogator. He's like below. Yeah.

This is the thing. Not just a space marine, a librarian. Oh, no, it's just a space marine. Marie. A siker. Saipodon was a librarian, and then he became a, like, a librarian captain, effectively.

So not just an officer, but also a librarian at the same time. So, like... Was the interrogator just, like, really dumb? Like... Now, this is where I think maybe the age of the books has got something to do with it, where it's a kind of... The soul drinkers have got a thing set up, whereby they do

honor jewels. Like honor jewels are just a part of their like their kind of warrior culture. So if there is a disagreement between figures of authority, they will literally have a duel on the basis that the emperor and dawn will give the person who is right the strength to overcome. So Saapodon is like, okay, we duel and if I lose, there we go. Clearly, clearly we were in the wrong. And so they duel. To be fair, the interrogator does pretty well. He's got an insane sword that's like bigger than him, but it's fitted with like, um, with like little grab repulses. So it's a huge sword that he can just swing as though it weighed nothing, but it required a very specific, uh, very specific move set that Sauped on kind of learned and then, um, punched his force staff through the guy's

neck and severed his spine. So, you know, by that point, it's not, not just a case of, okay, you've attacked the admec. They did steal your thing, but you've attacked the admec. You then fired on an imperial fleet. You then ran away, and then when an inquisitor showed up, you killed the negotiator.

Yeah. At this point, at this point, you can kind of forgive Lord inquisitor Zoras for saying, you are now traitors. You are excommunicated. That's it. We're going to kill all of you, including

the rest of the chapter, even though they weren't there. Because at this point, it's well beyond, it's well beyond kind of like acceptable being upset about stuff. Yeah. I will say, I'm curious about the book, because I'm assuming this all occurs in the book. I'm curious if there was, like, in the book, like, a reasoning. Maybe you got the perspective of the interrogator and he was like, crap. Like, I got to say yes.

Like, this isn't good, but, like, I got to do it because of X, Y, and Z instead of just him being like, no, I'd win. You don't really get that much. I don't think you really get much from his perspective, from what I remember. Like, I read through it, like, last week, the first omnibus, and it was like, there's not,

there's a lot of characterization for this. You were saying, the whole omnibus? I thought you, oh, I, oh, no, I, the whole thing. If you tried to reel the whole thing, yeah, I tried to blast through the whole thing, which was not, I wouldn't recommend that.

I heard try. I heard try. I wasn't sure if you succeeded. This is the thing. I got through them all. I'm just not sure how... How much if it's stuck? Yeah. I feel like I've done the thing where you, like, you oversaturate on something and you're, like,

you start to lose bits as you keep going. It's like when you binge your new series and you just go through the whole thing in one day and then you have to watch it again after a slower pace. It's like, what happened in the first episode? I just consumed, like, 80 hours of content in, like, one sitting and it's like, uh-oh. don't remember how this started at all. Yeah, that sort of vibe. But he doesn't, I mean, the interrogator doesn't actually get that much, like, characterization.

It's very much a, this person arrives, you can tell they're important because they were sent by a Lord Inquisitor. And he's got a badass, like, archaeotech weapon that clearly is worth more than he is. And he doesn't just like, it's not like he goes up against Saupodon and it's just a done deal. it's quite close. He really, he really messes Sarpadone up quite badly considering it is a guy with a sword

versus a librarian space marine. So he's got skills. I just thought of something too. You said this was in 2002. Yeah, the first book was like 2002. Yeah, so I remember that

because 2000, the early 2000s is also when Gonskos was written. And I think back then, the concept of a space marine was just a heavily armored crazier human. Because in like Gant's Ghost, they would, in the first book,

they would enter it. Yeah, they opened up an elevator and then like seven guardsmen died to an iron warrior, but then they turned on like turbo mode on their last guns and shot him to death. And like, you know, nowadays that space marine would just like wipe away a city, right? The power scaling was very different back then for like writers. And I guess that's, that's kind of what we always talk about, right? is like depending on who the author is, the, the power and the prestige of a space marine, like, it's like a roller coaster.

Sometimes it's crazy high. Sometimes it's like, oh, yeah, it's just a heavily armored infantry guy. So, yeah. I think it's also time frame. Like, we were the night lord books, and they're definitely the newer scale in those books. Definitely. Whereas, like an Eisenhorn, you know, like he kills an emperor's children at the first book. Granted, he was distracted and there's a lot of things like that.

But it's because it's James Bond. the Emperor's Children guy was basically just odd job, right? He was just like, he was, he was the muscle. That was basically his whole point. So, yeah, I guess that makes sense. So, yeah, the first book was November 2002. So it's kind of, it's, there was still quite a bit of like black library stuff, but I feel like everything has become more cohesive as time has gone on.

And it's, like, the overall presentation of Space Marines has definitely become a lot more like, like, uniform. the more books have come out and like especially the more recent stuff it's more consistent than it than it maybe was literally over 20 years ago which is horrific and I don't like thinking

about that because I read it when it came out which is why I was like man this is very familiar but it's just not familiar enough when did this oh no oh no so yeah they have they are in a really bad situation at this point, the soul drinkers, but it's okay because the rest of the fleet,

the rest of the chapter shows up and rescues them. And when I say rescues them, I mean, basically takes them prisoner and asks politely, what is wrong with you? What do you think you're doing? The chapter master of the soul drinkers, Gorgolian, amazing name. Nice. He obviously is not a fan of what's happened. And throughout, all of this, there has been like an interesting undercurrent, right? Which I've, I've deliberately saved for, for now, because it kind of recontextualizes a lot of, a lot of, like, what they've done so far. On the Star Fort, there is a regular human dude, a guy called Issa, Yisser,

I'm going to again put his name in, however you would like to pronounce that, be my guest. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. He's a human. It's like, do your thing. Yes, sir. We will call you, yes, sir. So he was also on the Star Fort with a bunch of prisoners.

He himself was a prisoner, but he started to feel the light of the emperor and started to gather a flock around him. He started to realize that the emperor does protect after all. The interesting thing is the way that he thinks about the emperor, because he uses the term the architect of fate. And he uses that term quite a lot. And he starts to become quite,

you know, quite sort of buddy-buddy with the soul drinkers because they do get him off the Star Fort too. And he starts to get a bit of a flock of space marines himself. And they start to feel the light of the emperor. They start to feel as though the emperor is, you know, beaming down on them and giving them the strength and the ability to persecute what they believe is the correct course of action,

right up to the point where Saabedan also feels the light of the emperor and feels that the architect of fate is, you know, condoning, endorsing their actions. To the point where when it comes to deciding what to do with this section of Marines, like a good 250 or so Marines, they lost a few on the, on the battle for the artillery platform, but there's still a good number of them. He duels Gorgolian to see who's right. It's Librarian Sarbanon

versus Chapter Master Gorgolian for basically the heart and soul of the soul drinkers. Okay, well that's a bit of a fairer fight, thank God. Yes, yeah. That is more fair. And Gorgolian does very well. He does pretty good,

until Sarpadon mutates eight arachnid legs out of his waist and then rips him in half. At which point, he loses. Yeah, I thought something like that might happen. I was waiting for like the big drop of when someone mutated as they're worshipping the architect of fate and they feel the light of the emperor. It was like, it's only a matter of time before someone mutates into something insane and someone grows a tentacle or two or eight. So, yeah, yeah. That's a baller conversion menu.

Yeah, that's incredible. Oh, that's so cool. That's, I'm sorry. That just the matter of factness of how you said that gets me. Well, it's 40K, right? How else do you say it? That's just, you know, another walk in the park for 40K. No big deal.

Just architect a fate. I think he's walking on the ceiling at this point, but yeah. There are literal points where he does walk on the ceiling from that point on. Does he really? Spider- legs. It's great. So, wait. So let me get this, let me get this straight though.

Now the chapter master of the soul drinkers is a, is now a zinch, is he zinch worshipping, or is he zinch-wis-mutated or both? Well, this is the thing. He doesn't know. He doesn't know his worshipping zech. He thinks he's worshipping the emperor architect of fate. Glory be his name, right? Yeah. Beloved by all.

Oh, below by all, sorry. Yeah. He thinks it's the emperor's gift, and a lot of the chapter agree with him. weirdly, a lot of the chapter see this and go, he is blessed by the emperor. There is. It's not like a hundred percent conversion rate, obviously. There is literally a chapter war where quite a lot of them don't agree, but most of them do. Most of them actually go along with it, and they are, from that point on, they are followers of Saupidan.

And at this stage, because of all the stuff the Imperium put them through, they have convinced themselves that the Emperor is righteous. You should do the Emperor's work, but the Imperium is corrupt, and the Imperium does not serve its citizens well, because the way they were treated was terrible, and the Emperor has gifted them with these mutations, and it's not just Sarpedon. One of the guys who gets injured taking the artillery platform loses both his fans,

which is bad, and it's like, you're never going to fight again. He gets round this by ramming, like, ventilation shaft, like fan blades into his stumps and sharpening them. Oh. Because he can't take prosthetics because he regenerates too quickly. So he's mutating. He gets to the point where bullets pass clean through him

and he just regenerates instantly. There's one of the other guys. He ends up with a bunch of eyes. So he's got ridiculous, like, field of video. vision. Someone has a mutated hand so that they can wield their power axe with like two fingers and they've just got like a super like a super buff hand. That's one of the weirder mutations. I'm still not convinced on that one. But they all kind of fall into this thing of the emperor has blessed us. The Imperium is corrupt. We might be mutants, but we're mutants because the emperor

has given us these gifts. So this sounds a lot like how is about to say shy. I have that buff for, but for a entirely different reasons. Sounds very much like kind of what Heron thought, right? Where it's like, oh, yeah, the Imperium is stupid, but the emperor still love him. It's just, God, those paper pushers and those tax dealers. Obviously, this is a whole different level, but it's kind of the same idea where it's like, we love the emperor, but everything besides the emperor is just corrupt nonsense.

Yeah, it's pretty much that. They are, like, fully convinced that they are still doing his work. just not the Imperium's work. But of course, the Imperium doesn't like that because they don't like the idea of renegade Space Marine chapters

running around doing whatever they like, especially when the person leading them has got eight spider legs instead of normal legs. The whole chapter is mutating horribly the Zincian demons. Yeah. I'm not saying that the Inquisition is right

because they're very often not. But I won't lie. I'm not 100% on brand on like, I don't feel the spider legs, you know? Like, I think at some point we may have gone too far. Maybe, maybe. Just the tiniest bit.

There's definitely, like, warning signs when you've just sprouted spider legs whilst fighting your own chaptermaster. I think there's, you know, warning signs there, but, hey, Sarpedon did not agree. Was, oh, no, right, it was the, was the librarian who sprouted the legs. Yeah, Sarpedon is the librarian chapterment, yeah. doubly sense because a psycher sprouting the legs is a lot more

yeah got it yeah you'll almost argue like extra bad but that's not the way they saw it they were all on board well most a lot of them were on board all on board is not correct because otherwise there wouldn't have been an entire

chapter war where they had to kill a bunch of their own brothers but at this point you know they are fully renegade they are not part of the Imperium they are being actively hunted they have to scuttle their own fleet to avoid detection, they take up residence on a space hulk, and part of that Hulk has got a ship in it with coordinates to a specific planet, which they decide we're going to go there, because the

coordinates were being, like, hidden, or at least trying to be discovered by a chaotic presence, which they kill. So they go to this place, they go to a planet, it's ruled over by a Nurgel demon prince. They land on the planet and take a... the Nurgel demon prince which, you know, that's pretty good. That's, that's pretty,

that's, as the kids say, that's pretty poggers, yeah, sure. They also... The kids do say that, just so where. I've heard the kids say it. It's true, they do. Put on them.

They kill this Nergel demon prince, and at this point, there's something of a plot twist for them. They realize that actually it's not the emperor given the mutations after all. Funnily enough, because a Zinch demon prince called Abraxas shows up,

gives them the soul spear and goes, would you like to serve as my retinue of chaos space marines? Because it turns out it was Zinch all along, which obviously, you know, you know. And anyone reading is like, this is clearly not the emperor, and they keep talking about the architect of fate, but awesome.

And this is where they become a little bit different from a lot of the sort of downfall of different chapters because Sarpadon considers his options he looks at sort of what Abraxas is offering he takes the soul spear and murders him with it and says no we're not doing chaos we're not doing Imperium we serve the emperor both sides can go to hell which I think is

that's quite the move that's a strong move you know I was waiting for like because as soon as you're like Oh yeah, by the way, Sarpaon's sprouted legs and essentially became a mutated chaos space marine. I was like, okay, you told us that they go renegade and then they go loyalist again. What the hell? How is this mutated band of space marine soul drinkers going to go loyalist again? There is no way that all these mutated boys are going to be let back in.

Something big must be coming up and, well, it kind of, yeah, okay. there is a very significant event for the soldier-inkers that kind of leads them back to then being refounded as a primaris chapter there's there's a lot of stuff to kind of like there's a lot of stuff in the books but that's like their downfall that's how they end up as renegades as they end up being not part of the imperialium not part of chaos just their own their own like little personal army, mutated, obviously, not doing great, suffering from attrition quite badly because, you know, how do you get new aspirants? How do you get new recruits into the chapter? Those are all things that are like, they do find ways to do this. Yeah. They do end up. They're in a big gray area.

Yeah. Yeah. They do manage to, they do manage to find recruits, but they make a slight miscalculation because they recruit from other people who are not like not loyal to the Imperium who don't feel that the Imperium does a good job. So you end up with a second chapter war. There's like an entire second chapter war because some of the new recruits decide well we don't want to be beholden to the emperor either. We actually do want to be chaos because the whole thing is terrible and we want to you know we want to go over to like it's going to say the bad side. The side that Saabedon said no to. So there's like an entire second chapter war dealing with that. They also have issues where individual, individual soul drinkers,

like their mutations lend themselves too well to certain things. So the guy who was ramming stuff into the stomachs of his hands and could like just heal any wound, basically, that was, that was a marine called Telos. And Telos was like loyal to the soul drinkers. And he was like loyal to the soul drinkers. He wasn't functionally part of any squad because he didn't really pay attention to orders, because he got to the point where the only thing he really lived for was the fury of combat, which probably sounds familiar. He didn't really enjoy anything outside of murdering. So he wouldn't want to go back. He wouldn't want to give up his gifts. He is going to go full zinch, isn't he? Oh, he went full corn. He went hardcore. He went hard

core corn. Obviously, yeah, Jesus. Sorry. There was a point where they basically got stranded on a planet and some of the soul drinkers got out, others didn't. Telos was one of the ones that didn't. And he just ended up fully falling to corn and going absolutely berserk to the point where the only way that he was taken out in the end was that he was on the planet when

exterminators happened. So he either got out somehow. all that dealt with him. But they had to go back and actually do something about Telos because of how, because of just how lost he was. And they had issues with like rampant mutation where it was starting to affect Sarpadon's abilities as a librarian. So they had an apothecary that had to research how to try and stop mutations in the gene seed. They had a bad time, a real bad time where at one point they went down to like, I think it was 200 soul drinkers left total. Yeah.

And that's kind of the point at which their redemption suddenly happens. So they have all these ups and downs, all these trials and tribulations, as a renegade chapter, not beholden to chaos, not beholden to the Imperium, kind of surviving on whatever they could get their hands on, until, thanks to a slight issue with Necron's, which they showed up to help with. The Soul Drinkers helped with a, like, a war against. the necrons, and they offered to help some adeptus mechanics deal with necrons, they got captured. Now, up to this point, there's been an additional issue for the soul drinkers kind of running through a lot of it, which is they have a chaplain. I think it's the only chaplain left at the end, called Ictenos.

That chaplain's been struggling. He's been working overtime. He's been fully, like, he's been putting in the hours like you would not believe. Additionally, because every time a squad leader was lost, Marines would just turn to the chaplain and be like, we want to follow you. Like, you are the heart and soul of the chapter. You're keeping us going. This is all garbage and terrible. But, you know, the chaplain is there to keep them fighting. And so he ends up with his own little, like, his own little flock of Marines around.

him. And that turns out to be a very, very severe issue for the soldiering, as if they hadn't had enough of those, because when it comes to fighting the Necron's, they forge an alliance with the Mechanicus. The Mechanicus kind of overlooked the fact that the Soul Drinkers are both renegades and filthy mutants, and they fight alongside. It's the only way to get into this tomb world and kill a Necron lord before everything goes bad. So they kind of do this alliance as a last ditch attempt. I am a little shocked that the Mechanicus are just like,

oh yeah, of course, soul drinkers, sure, you know, you tried to absolutely destroy us before and your heretical nonsense, but yeah, sure, whatever. Like, yeah, that's, that is a weird alliance, isn't it?

It's a weird alliance. There's also the fact that when the Soul Drinkers went to leave the planet on the transports that the Admec promised, what they actually found were Imperial Fist Thunder, Hawks and a bunch of Imperial Fists, including Terminators, and first Captain Lysander. So it's, at this point, things are looking rough, you know, you've got your eight-legged

chapter master librarian there dealing with Lysander face to face. And given that they are, you know, ostensibly, they are, they are imperial fist successors. and they've been going through all sorts of like hell and high water and openly anti-imperium this whole time, they are captured. They are just taken by the imperial fist. I imagine so. As is tradition, can you guess what Sarpodon does as a response to this? So I one thing, Captain Lysander was in a book I read called Pandarax. No.

Manderax? It's very similar. The dude kind of bangs. I think he had to make like a deal with a demon because he was trapped in like a demon world or something. Or some weird crap like that. And then he came back and they like asked him a bunch of questions. And he was like, yeah, no, I'm loyal as shit.

The dude is also built like a brick shit house. So he's not the guy. Even if you've got eight legs, he's really not the guy. guy that you would recommend to tussle with, you know? Yeah. Well, it's funny you mention that because Saupodon offered him out for a duel, obviously. Oh, no. That's how they deal with the problems.

That's true. Yep. If there's an issue, you deal with a duel. And Saupodon is like, if I get beaten here, then surrender. Because clearly, really, the emperor's favor is no longer with us. And, you know, don't pick off my spider legs after I die. That's me. So he fights, he fights Lysander.

Lysander beats him, obviously. Obviously, yep. Because Sarpadon, despite being a mutant and, like, having way more strength than a space marines should have. Like in the books, a couple of times it's pointed out that he should not be as strong as he is, even for a space marine. He also, like, was fighting an Akron Lord earlier, and it wasn't going that well for him. it was only a tech marine sacrificing himself that men Saupadon survived that fight. So Lysander beats him and quickly and quite easily as well. I was going to say it probably didn't like Lysander probably didn't have too much trouble, did he?

Like he kind of just bopped him on the head with that hammer and just, you know. I'm going to need you to sit down. Thank you very much. Rolled up newspaper, best. Yeah, just whack it off. Yeah. I mean, his hammer is literally called, like, the fist of Dorn, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, it looks like it has that fist regalia, like, attaching the horn to it.

So, you heard that hammer to it, yeah. Rest in peace, his old model is pretty bad looking. Oh, yeah, it is. But that hammer looks so sick. That was great, yeah. It's the Warhammer. John Warhammer of Warhammer 40,000. All right.

Anyway, what happens then, Kiryoth? So this is, this is where we get to the redemption. section. This is where they finally, like, end up being at the point where when it comes to doing the primary stuff, the chapter's refounded. Because, and I don't know,

I'm still processing this, right? Because this is something that I hadn't actually... Really, really quick. Does Lysander, like, straight up kill Sarpodon or is Sarpodon just incapacitated? He's just... He just incapacitated. He just incapacitates him. He's got a face trial for his sins and for bringing shame on the

Imperial Fists and so on. Because it's Lysan. Sander, he's a mutant. I was like, I could see him like just straight up killing Sarpodon. But, okay. Yeah, I have to admit, I'd feel like if it was written now, then maybe he would have done. But, yeah. So this was all fresh information for me, by the way. Because whilst I'd read the omnibus, the omnibus is, I'd never read the last book. So this was all, this was all new to me.

And it was, it's bat shit, to be totally honest. It's really, it's really out there. So, the remaining soul drinkers are brought to the phalanx, and they are going to stand trial in front of the Imperial Fis, and, you know, successor chapters. There's, there's somebody people here, just to, just to make sure that the fair thing is done in there, given a proper trial,

before they're probably executed for being traitorous mucents. So, you know, there's a vested interest there for the Imperial Fist to make sure that they get this right. They want to be seen as being fair. Yeah. The trial is where it gets weird because the sole drinkers have not had dreadnoughts for a long time. But it turns out they do have one.

Do you remember quite a while ago now, I mentioned the guy whose name we couldn't pronounce, Denyathos, Danny Athos. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The one who wrote the Catechisms Marshall, which is the book that all of the soul drinkers like approaches to combat and philosophy, all of that stuff was in that book.

It turns out that even though he has been dead for a long time, he's actually not dead. He is the last soul drinker's dreadnought. Okay. Is there a specific reason he's the only one, do they just not get Dreadnought tech in the Soul Drinkers or something? Or does it matter? I don't know that that's ever fully explained. They just don't seem to have any dreads.

Whatever. Yeah. I guess it's not really, it doesn't really matter. Who cares? Whatever. Yeah. Salpidon was pretty shocked because, like, the last Soul Drinkers Dreadnort was gone, you know, hundreds of years ago.

So the fact that they're still one left. And it's their kind of, they're like most venerated warrior. Quite a shock. Yeah. This is where it gets properly mad. And I'm still processing this myself. Just to throw that out there. Okay.

Okay. All right. This must get a little... Okay. You're hyping this up. Not only is there they're like warrior, philosopher, scholar, spiritual liege still there, but in in dreadnall form. Mm-hmm. It was all part of the plan.

What the hell? What the hell? I'm sorry. Yeah, I know. It was... Deneathos. Just keep going. Denythos, when writing the Catechism's Marshall

had effectively laid the foundations and, like, ceded a cult that would produce a chapter that rebelled against the Imperium. And the chaplain, the one surviving chaplain, the one who had been keeping the chapter, chapter together was actually like following the catechism's

Marshall and was using it as a way to radicalise the soul drinkers that were coming to him for advice and for like for kind of like spiritual like nutrition during these awful times for the soul drink and with all their brothers dying and their squad leaders dying and the chaplain was there

but he was actually seeding this cult amongst the soldier drinkers. And the dreadnought, De Niothos, wanted to be on the phalanx. He was brought to the phalanx because they discovered where he was,

which was funnily enough on the Necron Tomb World that they were just fighting over. And, and he, he opened a warp gate within the phalanx to release a Braxis, the demon prince that Saabed on had killed earlier.

What? What? Why would he do that? Explain? They'd been working together this whole time. I'm sorry. It was Zinch. It was Zinch plans within plans.

It was it was it was it was. It was, it was, it was, it was, it was, and laid the foundations for the chapter to go rogue and to go to go to go against the Imperium because it was all about chaos baby and the Imperium needed to fall. And the Braxis had been sort of working with him kind of and and and, and, and, and, and there's a war game on the pharynx and. Okay, okay, so this is the climax of the novel and everything. It's like, it was all Zinche's plan. Open the gates.

Go chaos. And then I assume they have to try to stop them. Wait, so you're telling me all of this Zinch stuff from Sarpadon and all of his stuff and then following this is all just an elaborate scheme so that they could open a warp portal on the phalanx? Yes, because they wanted to use the phalanx as a mobile base for. The chaos. Which makes sense because the phalanx is like in the stage. Sure.

Right, right. I understand that the phalanx is worth it, but like chaos does understand that the phalanx has like some of the craziest space marines on it and a lot of them on it. And it is not just going to fall even if you open up a portal in the middle of it. Well, it depends on how big the portal is. And how many genius you get through? True. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

You, you, in a sense, until the portal is closed, you do have infinite demons. I guess that's true. I guess it's not going to be easy, but yeah, I guess you're right. It is, like, once you open the portal, it is infinite infantry, basically. That's true. Yeah. Okay, so that part's fine. At first, when you started saying that, I thought you were like, this was all his plan to prove their loyalty.

Yeah. Oh, no, no. I was like, what do you mean? Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too. Like, oh, yeah, this is how the soil drink. Yeah. The soil drinkers. The soul drinkers.

Sorry. Yeah, they were farmers for a while. The agricultural, those agro worlds aren't going to farm themselves, dude. But yeah, I thought it was going to be like, oh, yeah, you know, it was all just a ruse to show them all. And, oh, we're the best sons of Dorn, because look at all we've been through and we're still loyal. And look, I've got a brachshus on a leash and I just killed them again. So good to know that that wasn't the route that they went, actually. It's still kind of silly, but it's not that silly.

Yeah. It's certainly silly. I agree with that one. Very silly, yeah. So this sounds, this literally sounds like the climax. Yes. So effectively, they're given the choice again. It's like, join me or die, et cetera, et cetera.

The chaplain Aitonos, he joins. He joins the demons because this has been part of his thing the whole time. He's just been subversing the soul drinkers throughout the entirety of the books. basically, you just don't really get to see that all that much. But Saupodon and a couple of his, a couple of his, like, chosen, like the chosen few, they're Saepadon, Luko and Gravis are like, those two are like, they're very prominent kind of characters, they're very loyal to Saupodon and they're like loyal from day one, they stay there through thick and thin kind of thing.

They fight back. Saupidon uses, like, uses. the Soul Spir to carve Deniathos out of his Dreadnought and then the three

of them drag him through the warp portal before it's destroyed into the Imitarium So cool! That's a great way to use the Soul Spir

Badass. It's pretty cool. It's kind of funny too because he's obviously like some decrepit because he's in a dreadnought so he's all mush anyway.

It's just like you want to make a deal with chaos? Okay, I will take you directly to them. Let's go. You know what? Just for that scene, I am now fully on board with this weird, like, plan within plans. Like, like Shai said, it's like a 5D chest thing with Z.

Yeah. Like, now I'm okay with it just because that scene sounds so boss. Yeah. It's, it's pretty cool. It's a pretty cool end to the chapter, because the Imperial Fiss at that point are like, oh, wow, okay. Well, we brought them here because they are traitors and and heretics, but they just defended the phalanx against a demon invasion and sacrificed themselves to save everybody. So clearly, they are loyal to the point where the imperial fists then inscribed the soldier-inkers like chapter history into one of the pillars on the phalanx so that they remain remembered, which is how they ended up being part of one of the re-founded chapters when it came to, like, in the age of like the Dark Imperium,

when they started to create more chapters using Primaris Marines, that's why there is now Primaris Soul Drinkers, because ultimately, despite everything, at the end, they were 100% loyal to the emperor. They defended the phalanx. They closed the portal. They got rid of the dreadnought. Yep, fair enough.

They did the thing. So they get to come back. the only weird bits outside of just how like whiplashy that last section was when I was reading to all of these are the soul drinkers still hella mutated

well they have this is okay this is where it gets a bit confusing because so we said at the start second founding chapter right they got the soul spear great the soul spear

is only you can only activate it if you are like a son of dawn so either Imperial Fist or won the successor chapters except it's also stated that they are from the third founding in that same book and that's what this is where it starts to get a little bit funky it gets a little bit funky

because the second founding but also one of the characters is like oh my weapon has got a shard of a shard of a shed of Sigismund's sword in it which was given to us when we were created in the third founding. The Soul Spear also is only, like, you can't activate it if you're not a son of Dawn, except then it's said that only soul drinkers can activate it. But having said that, Lysander can activate it.

So, you lost, Kyriath, you lost me. You've lost me, Kiriath. We've lost the plot. We're going downhill here. I'm losing it. Yeah. This is, I mean, to be fair, it doesn't make a huge amount of sense

because it's a case of they are Sons of Dawn they were given this thing the thing can only be activated by the Sons of Dawn except then they say that only the soul drinkers can activate it but then an Imperial Fist activates it

so clearly that bit some part of it is completely untrue also they're part of the you know Imperial Fist's successor chapters except the one of the Sanguinea priest from the Angel Sanguine who were part of the

like Jewry on the the phalanx, examine the gene seed, and go, this has got, you've got nothing to do with Rogal Dawn. Rogal Dawn is not your primark. However, I don't know who your primark is because it doesn't match any of the 18 prime marks that we have. So they are, but they're also not. And the Sol Spear can only be activated by a son of dawn, except they're technically not

sons of dawn because the gene seed doesn't match. But then that doesn't matter anyway, because only they should be able to activate it. it gets very confusing. Like, it gets very weird. And it's... Ha. Ha. Ha.

Ha. Ha. It is Zinch. To be fair, I'm right. This is, like, a bunch of Zinch nonsense. And I guess this is, like, the confusion you expect when you're dealing with, you know, Zinchean plots and, and chaos nonsense. And they were kind of touched by Zinch anyway.

So I guess it wouldn't be that surprising if suddenly their gene seed had, like, sort of this weird, unknown effect to it, because they've kind of sort of been tainted a little bit, right? Yeah. It's a little bit, it kind of, I couldn't tell whether it was a case of we're building the mythology of how unreliable this is and like the kind of unreliable narrator thing of

no one knows what's going on. You know, like the soul drinkers don't know their own history. They're second founding, they might be third founding. They're from dawn. They're not from dawn. The spear can only be activated by them. Or it can be activated by any of them. which is true, no one really knows.

But there is something that might, maybe, it feels, this could be extreme like, kind of overthinking when it comes to trying to work out what's going on, because there is an additional bit of information that I've kind of come across trying to, I basically was like, what the head is going on with the soul drinkers, what have other people said about this because my brain hurts, and it feels extremely contradictory even by 40. K standards when it's like we're obfuscating for you know myth and mystery um there is a short

story called chamber at the end of memory oh cool now this is this is a big spoilery thing so note just note now that this has spoilery stuff kind of just for the horace heresy as a whole in a way i guess but specifically to do with the lost legions right so we got the two missing primarks. It stated in this short story that Dawn and Gilliman both know what happened to them and that Dorn was actually in the presence of one of those primarks. And those primarks had to be dealt with for whatever reason. It doesn't really necessarily go into that, I don't think.

But like it's a case of... It's a case of... I actually think I remember this one because I'm pretty positive Dorm, like mentioned that offhand to Malcador. And then Malcador went to Dorn and he's like, Dorn, shut it. Your mouth shut. Yeah. He was made like a tiny reference.

And then Malcador was like, hey, knock it off. Well, what it turns out they did was Gilliman and Dorn, when the lost prime marks were dealt with, something had to happen to the Marines because the Marines weren't like, those base Marines weren't necessarily corrupted or part of the same issue or whatever. And so there's little things throughout the Horace Heresy, where it's like, oh, the ultramarines are the biggest legion. And then there's little, there's like little things here and there that are like, yeah, but you know why, don't you?

Because they got all of the Marines that were part of the lost primarks. Like little references here and there just spotted about. And it's kind of not like fully confirmed, confirmed, but it's that thing of, oh, well, Dorn and Gilliman had those Marines absorbed into their chapters, into their legions, sorry. So the ultramarines got a bunch, the Imperial Fiss got a bunch, and they had their memory of it erased because they thought that was the best thing to do. And those Marines also think that they were always part of Imperial Fis and always part of ultramarines, because that's the best way to integrate them. So there is a theory that I've seen

a couple of times as I was kind of going through stuff. They're from one of the lost primarks actually. It could be that actually the soul drinkers, despite being a successor chapter of the imperial fists, were founded using gene seed from one of the lost primarks because those space marines were absorbed into the imperial fists, which would also explain why even though, even though this sanguinary priest is like, I don't know who this gene seed belongs to, but it's not any of the 18 primarks that we know about. You're still technically a son of Dorn. You're still like, it still sort of fits,

plus the new founding of the soul drinkers. From what I can see, they have the same gene seed mutation where they have the same thing. If they eat the flesh of a creature or an enemy, they get the memories. They also get the weird, like, emotion thing as well, which means that that floor is, like, continual. It's still present, even though the chapter has been refounded.

So that's kind of That could be where a lot of the weird Messy side of that comes from Yeah Yeah because when you said like their their jean seat didn't match I was like oh lost Primark but I was like wait a minute Aren't they aren't they supposed to be sons of don't yeah But yeah that makes sense that that totally could be

I kind of like that actually That's kind of a cool little like theory I like that I like that Isn't there one issue with that though, were like, was every Marine and the Soul Drinkers originally from that time frame? Did no new Marines eventually arrive? And because I'm assuming we're out of all of dead Primark Gene's scene. That's, I mean, that's, I think one of the things that makes it as confusing as it is.

Because there's also, there's like, there's loads of really weird stuff that's, that's, again, kind of designed to throw you off. In the novella that talks about Dan Danyathos, at one point is like, Oh, yeah, the space marines were made by eating the Primark's flesh or something. And it's like, that's clearly not true. We know that's not true. That's just something that some guy has said. And it's just like, it's just a statement that is false, but believed.

So, yeah, it's also things like the Soul Spear. The Soul Spear is this, you know, artifact wielded by dawn. It doesn't really get mentioned ever. it's hugely important to them but where is it where is it in like the siege of terror or whatever yeah that would be very helpful to where is it anywhere in the Horace heresy

it's just another thing of whatever happened out with their founding whether it was the second founding whether it was the third founding it's really it's really deliberately obscured like the difference between the second and the third founding thing it talks specifically

about Rogaldorn, giving them the soul spirit, etc., etc. In the same, like the same novella where it's talking about deniathos and all his stuff, there is a thing, there is a quote. Gerocious weighed his Crozius

Icarum in his hand, a very old weapon it contained a sliver of the sword once wielded by Sigismund, the Imperial Fis commander, who had become the first Black Templar, and from whose personal guard the soul drinkers had been created during the third founding. So there's just direct contradiction

to what's stated during the omnibus, like the first omnibus, and what is brought up as common soul drinkers' belief. And then there's that, which is totally different. So, yeah, it's very, it's very, like, I think deliberately confusing. I think the whole point is just,

no one knows. No one's got any idea what's going on with these. but it does fit the zinchean plot lines of being like very confusing and twisting and turning and not knowing yeah this whole thing is very zinchpilled it is it's very zinch filled it's it's it's very zingch phil it's just like who are these people where they come from ah do doesn't doesn't matter who cares where'd that cool spear go ah shut up um it's it's it's it's very weird confusing but at the same time it is i i mean I was thoroughly amused, learning about the soul drinkers. So while confusing and weird and maybe a little, I don't know if I want to say convoluted,

but it's interesting. And I liked it quite a bit. I looked quite a bit. Sorry to hit you with the accent. I like the fact that they had a Spider-Man. He's pretty cool. He's great. I like, I like, I like, I like the Salfa Don.

To be fair, the books are good. They are, they are good. They, some, like, the older ones are a bit more dated. Like, it's also written over quite a long time. Like, it's not like, it's not like it was all done in, in like, a couple of years. It didn't come out as an omnibus, right? It was like, it was like, what, four or five books over the span of years, I assume? The first book was 2002.

And then the last book outside of the novella was 2012. So there's like a decade. of these things coming out every now and then. And then the actual novella was like 2010. So yeah, the novella was a bit before the last novel. But yeah. And then there is, if you want more recent, if you want more recent for them,

there is a traitor by deed, which is like the latest book for them, which that's only in 2020, which kind of deals with, it effectively deals with them learning, of who the soul drinkers were. So you've got soul drinkers now, all primaries for Biden looking cool,

kind of finding out where their name came from and like the history of their chapter. Wow. So there are actually a lot of soul drinker books. There's six in the omnibus and there are two novellas. Yeah, like I said, there's like a thousand, like two thousand odd pages of it.

Yeah, that's good. And man, you were tasked with reading all of that. Oh, I just didn't ask me to. I just thought it would be a way to do it, but I don't know that. Not that you were forced to. Like, I'm not saying you had to. It's just, wow, that is the task. I wouldn't, I wouldn't suggest it's the optimal reading experience for any series, but I still enjoyed it. Like, they're still pretty decent books. I was going to say from like what you told us about the soul drinkers, a part of me is like, man, I, I kind of want to read them now. Like, like, it's, it's weird. It's confusing. The end is quite the.

twist. But like, you know, I dig the soul drinkers. I think that's cool. They're a fun chapter. Yeah. They've got a hell of a lot of background. Yeah. You'd expect that with like a decade's worth of novels. Cheesh. I'm all right. I'm curious. I do find it a little unfortunate at times though. You get all the books and it's like all of these old school 2000s era artworks for them. And then you've got like like the newest one, which is just a purple fucking primaris Marine. And that's it. Yeah. It's like, oh, man.

Aged a little bit. Yeah. A tainty tiny bit. But it's a wild group. I'm curious about how they're going to like, I don't know, the regalia and stuff is kind of interesting. They don't look very soldieringry. They look very emperous children more than anything. Yeah.

You know, when I saw the picture of them, I thought for sure this was going to be an episode about, I don't know, maybe like a pre-heresy emperous children or like maybe they were actually like chaos because like you showed the picture before we started talking about them and I was like, God, that's so emperous children coated because of the colors and it's like an excess goblet that you like maybe drink a lot from

and yeah. Well, next thing you know, you're going to have to do Sons of the Phoenix if we're going to have to keep going on with definitely not emperous children looking people that are loyalists. only just shatters that are purple and gold or white and purple or like any combination of those just work away through the long list of them.

Some mixture of things like that, yeah. Sons of the Phoenix look cool too, but I swear they're not emperor's children. I promise. Well, I guess I'm curious about how much the soul drinkers had like a bit of a fandom back in the day because of the older times of the novels. but it'd be a big curious thing to look at for Games Workshop like just black library novels

like the sort of law and background having an actual full on redemption arc for a renegade chapter is pretty cool I don't think it should be done all that often but it was actually very satisfying I think the soldieringers have got a really like

a really good like a really good trajectory it starts out bad It gets worse. It gets a lot worse. It ends looking like it's going to be super bad. But then just at the end, you just get that little lift, just that little chef's kiss moment of, yeah, they were right all along. I like that. It's good.

Oh, before we end, I wanted to ask Bricky and Kariath, how often does this happen where a subchapter, a chapter gets touched by chaos very obviously like Zinch? And they do something that gets them like reintegrated and allows them to still be loyalist. Is this like one of the only times, if ever? Reintegrated a few times, I'm assuming, but like in the general course of the everything, like basically not existing. Basically never. Yeah.

I would imagine it's a rarity. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure it probably numbers in like the single digits. But that in the world of 40K is like nothing. Yeah. Okay. No second chances. No.

The Imperium does not much care for, for second chances. Sure, sure. Also, they all died in their name, got reasons, yeah. Yeah, they're all spiteful assholes anyway. Just curious. Just Kyrioth. Just Kyrioth.

Yeah, every time we've said curious today, I was like, oh, hey, Kyrioth, and I was like, no, no, no, no, not quite, almost. Curious to him. I haven't come up before, to be honest. Curious. Curious episodes with Kiryoff. Mm-hmm. Hey.

I'm doing my best. nicely done it was alright yeah yeah all right anyway so are we

are we hitting that old country road yep I'll get back in the wall it's nicely padded it's fine okay we got some insulation

in there for you you're good I don't like insulation I prefer to be freezing cold the whole time keeps you fresh

all right I guess we'll see you next time then and thanks for being here and great new merch coming soon. This man hates air conditioning.