Adeptus Ridiculous - THE ELDRITCH HORROR OF THE GHOUL STARS | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Ghoul Stars, also known as the Ghost Stars, is a mysterious region of space that is a part of the Halo Stars located beyond the furthest reaches of known space, northeast of the Segmentum Ultima beyond the Eastern Fringe.This vast tract of relatively unexplored Wilderness Space was once home to a number of Human-inhabited worlds. However, some ancient threat is believed to have been responsible for the destruction of these worlds, which accounts for the large number of Dead Worlds found within the region.Support the show

everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamante's. His name is Bricky, and you know why you're here. But before we get into that, if you enjoyed today's episode and you want to support the podcast, heading over to patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get access to the Discord, bloopers if they happen, $15 tier gets you access to all of our posters in Krispy, Digital, HD format. It's great. You can get the, uh, copyright free or adjacent, Yavrain, that's not Yavrain, but this is a maid, you should get it, it's great. I don't know exactly how to say that. A maid? It's a dino waitress. Huh. Yeah, I guess she is, you know, hey, Shai, can we make a, like, legally distinct Yvrain cat girl maid for the next poster by any chance? No, these words are in the

Bible. I don't know. Have you looked? Check out our much at Orchidate.com. Link in the description. make sure to pick up any of the final bits of the sunset and the shame sale. You have only June and that's all gone. And the goal is that we get rid of a lot of the old stuff and maybe we do some cool refresh and life is life. Good stuff. Life is life. I like it. And if you're a fan of Warhammer Fantasy, also please support us on Patreon because we're making a new logo, a background, and music for the new show, please support.

Yay! Ooh, let's go. Gaming. So, today's episode. Why do you got to put emphasis on the pee like that? Episode. Episode. Today's episode.

Bladder control problems in the 40th millennium? Man, I piss so much on stream. I'm always leaving to pee. I don't know why. That's such a weird segue. You'd start talking about pee. It's just so weird. Then it went apiece out.

It's like, oh, bladder control problems in the 40th millennium. I pee so much on stream! And it's just kind of, we've gone off the rails real quick here today. All right. Well, it's a little hard to go back on the rails when there's no rails, in fact, there. Because, because today we're talking about something a little less tangible, a little more speculative. A little more, you should do something with this game's workshop. It's a great spot.

We should have more stuff involving this. It's also a very highly requested topic that said it doesn't have a lot on it, but it is highly requested. We're talking about something known as the ghoul stars. The ghoul stars. The ghoul stars. I have heard of this. Well, I've heard the name. And obviously when I hear gool stars, I immediately'll think of like, maybe this should have been a Halloween episode because like ghouls and who spooky scary and, you know, stuff like that.

So anxious to hear about these ghoul stars or this ghoul star place, I guess. Is it a star that is? Anyway, why don't you tell me what it is, Bricky? Well, I would if you stop speaking. Well, excuse me for speaking on a podcast. Well, excuse me, sir. For having massive... Oh, crap.

How's Homer Simpson say it? Excuse me for having massive character flaws that I don't work on. Anyway, that's the map. Shai has posted. You will notice that the red are the breaks in reality due to the warp rift. As you can see, the Eye of Terror is the top light left, and then it blew up and then smacked the galaxy in half because that's what happened after the fall of Acadia. Yep.

Sick, Chick's Maledictum, right? Yep, all the issues happen in there. You have on, this is actually a great map shy. Everything on the left, you have the Imperium Synctus, which is, as you can see, there's Terra and Mars and all the good stuff. And then you've got the spot that is all cut off from the light of the Astronomicon for the most part, and things are going really, really bad, which is the Imperium Nihilus. You will notice on the top left, you'll have things like the Halo stars and the, I feel like

this map should be shown to every 40K player so they can just like. understand a bit more of the geographics. But if you'll look on the top right, you will see way in the back the ghoul stars. But yes, top right, you'll see

the ghoul stars. And the ghoul stars are a area of space that's just, oh, I don't know, a bit shit. As opposed to all the other dark spots on the map.

This one is. particularly bad, I assume? Like, it's real, like, yeesh. Yeah, it's, um, oh yeah, Shia's got, yeah, you, you can read this if you'd like. Cool Stars is Warhammer's Bermuda. The Bermuda Triangle doesn't exist. It's a hoax.

Sorry. Uh, cool stars is Warhamers and Bermuda Triangle. It's a place on the very edges of the galaxy where whole worlds go missing on a regular unknown, on a regular, uh, unknown Zenos wage war so horrible. They are secret even from the Inquisition and the only Space Marine chapter to keep it in

Shek has seen so much horror and destruction, their entire identity is associated with death. Yikes. Okay. Yeah, it's, I mean, Bermuda Triangle basically is the best way to describe it. It's a place where things constantly go missing. But though, I guess unlike our version of the Bermuda Triangle, there's actually real reasons to not go there as opposed to just like speculation. Yeah, yeah. Well, this is also 40K.

So with warp chicanery and everything, it is entirely possible that you will just get sucked into the warp and demons will eat you and you'll just get spit out on the other side of the galaxy. So I mean, the warp rift right up there by the ghoul stars is called the demons maw, which is, you know, pretty similar. But also another very important thing to understand with the ghoul stars is that it is just about outside of the emperor's light. So like if you look at bottom left-hand corner, you can see Terra and Mars. The ghoul stars are basically the farthest away spot on the map. And that's where like the light of the Astronomicon to help you navigate is, I mean, not only is it the Imperial Nihilus cutting, like been cut off. Like it's, it's, it's faint. It's so hard to travel.

Yeah. Yeah. So you really, like, even if you get out there, you're kind of stranded. and there's no. That, yeah, you probably don't want to go out there. I mean, we're operating on knowledge from pre-Folocadia. So, like, yeah, this was really hard to see before the Cicadrix Maledictum. And so now it's basically impossible.

Impossible, yeah. What reason would you have to go to the Gould Stars other than, well, let's just see? Or maybe, like, maybe they think Abidon is stationed there or something. Like, why even risk it? Okay, so it says it was so shit there before the fall of Katie, I don't think it could possibly get worse. I've heard that term before. And I know normally what follows after that statement is normally things getting worse. But I mean, if anything, if the lie of the Astronomicon was hard to see over there and the ghoul stars, it's basically impossible now because of the giant warp rift.

At least that's how I would assume. Yeah. So, regardless though. good old ghoul stars basically what goes on over there is very whispered about in a sense often it's referred to like just massive kinds of warp anomalies crazy weird alien species that fight over there it's kind of just the no-go zone and so there have been despite it being a no-no zone kind of a couple stories that go along with with it and talk a little bit about the ghoul stars.

One of them, and arguably the one that has the most discussion about it, was an old crusade that happened way back when. This was, I think it was actually just called the Gool Stars Crusade. I think it was literally just called that. And, you know, I got to test your 40K knowledge a little bit. Who is the Space Marine chapter? chapter that is the most likely to go on a crusade

um crusade I'd probably say like the Grey Knights damn we're not doing it shy we're not doing it he's not he's not holding it it's the Black Temple Oh no no I was about to say it

I was about to say it you heard me I was about to say it You don't get to have points you were wrong Yeah yeah but then I was going to change it to Black Temple? I was saying it. Right? As you... I just forgot about them. Try, slap him.

All right. So, the ghoul Stars crusade was the first ever crusade ran by High Marshall Hellbrecht. It is new rank, basically. And the whole idea was to go out there and chart out the ghoul starves and finally vanquish a particular alien race over there that was known as the Cyther Fiends. Oh, Pokemon? Not quite. It's those weird dudes right there. I mean, it looks kind of like a human Scyther, but not green and not.

Okay, no, there's nothing else. Isn't Scyther a snake? No, Scyther is like a, I want to say like a buff preying mantis almost. It's like green and has the Scyth arms. Don't worry about it. I never Pokemon, I'm sorry. I was going to say, I would not expect you to know, so it is nothing I'm going to hold against you. So they're a weird Xenos race that, like, just inhabited the Gould Stars for the most part.

I don't really need to describe their physical appearance too much. They're spinly. They got a lot, like, you know, weird faces. They're all elongated, kind of inhuman, but they're still like bipeds. Yeah. They got reverse jointed legs. Yeah, actually. They look pretty cool, actually.

In that picture, Shai posted, they look pretty cool. Did they look neat? Yeah, they look like they'd fit in real well in, like, a horror game, like a horror first-person shooter. they kind of remind me of like a necromorph in a way but like an alien version. I imagine like necromorphs in dead space. They have like the big mouth, the long limbs. It's just like a more normal version of it. Anyway, I mean, not a whole lot is there about the Scyther fiends.

The coolest thing about them were the little, oh, shy beat me to the discs. There's the little discs that they had, which would like shatter and reform into crystals and then slash throw to the victims. kind of reform. So they had these like really neat crystalline like weaponry.

I always kind of imagine them a little similar to what's, what's the name of Michael Rooker's character in Guardians of the galaxy with the

Oh, Yandu? Yeah, with like the arrow. I imagine the crystals. Yeah, I imagine they break apart and they kind of like go out and they go

and they reform. Oh yeah, and they have like a trail of light behind them or something. Oh, that'd be great. Love that imagery.

I know that they're actually they take place in the book, The Eternal Crusader, I believe it's a small little novella. Or maybe it's in the Hellbrecht book, but there's some short stories chatting about them for the most part. The Cyther Fiends lived in the ghoul stars and often were on this planet known as 9-836-18 grave core. Kind of centered. Yeah, kind of centered by like a gas giant, basically. Okay.

It's actually kind of funny because, you know, out of all of the Space Marine chapter, Well, there are some other ones that are a lot less happy to do what they do. But the Black Templars are arguably the most... Oh, how do I say it? I was going to say petulant. And that is true. I thought you were going to say genocidal, but all right. Also true.

I was going to say genocidal works, right? Like, for them? Quick to anger. It's hard to describe. But long story short. When the Black Templars went out and murdered as many of these Cyther fiends as they possibly could, they actually got some help from another chapter known as the Death Spectres. We'll talk about the Death Spectres in a moment.

But they're like, hey, go invade this planet, this Gashchon, his grave core planets. That's where all of these darn Scyther fiends are at. Black Templars arrived and found it empty, which made them really mad, because there wasn't any aliens to kill. Oh no, there's no Zenos to kill. My day is ruined. My day is absolutely ruined because they had already fled the planet. So out of just pure anger, they attempt to blow the planet up via exterminatus, and it just doesn't work.

Wow. And like the gas giant just refuses to die. And then even more angry at this, they decide to firebomb the atmosphere instead with their armada, which took a really long time and then it didn't work either as the planet's surface just changed back to its normal color and then they took their toys and went home

Wow, that's so petty on every level like oh, boo, there's nothing to kill here well let's just destroy the planet Boo, we can't destroy it Let's fire bomb the atmosphere Oh, fun, I guess we'll go home Like God, that's so petty What the-

These are the Imperials for one it's Templars for two. But it genuinely, like, you know, in a movie when someone gets really mad, they punch something and it hurts their hand. So then they punch something else and it like, they are, they like miss and they fall over. And then they just like get really embarrassed and walk away. I usually stop after I punch something. And I'm like, ow!

I usually stop after it. It's like, all right. Let's cut our losses here and just go home. Ooh, life is hot. Life and the world is decently dense. and it hurts the hand. Punching is not an easy thing to do. Also, how did exterminatus fail?

Like, how did they try to exterminatus this thing? Or does it not really say? Is it just like a passing line? I'm sure it's in the novella. I haven't read the Eternal Crusader. But for the most part, the Cyther fiends are just a really wacky zinos. And basically, after they left this planet,

like the bail before they came to destroy it, once the Templars left, the sithrophines just kind of came back and they're just like well all right we're chilling okay so scythorphines are smart or they just have really good instinct? Three things

smart instinct and technology they're weird and crypted and just generally strange the high marshal was pulled back to go fight the war of Armageddon I believe because gaskell Throcka had come back

and it was like crap The orcs are back, so he got pulled away. Yeah, that's a big deal. Yep. But there's not much on the Scyther Fiends besides their little picture, and they're a weird, Zenos. That rogue traitor, the guy that we know with the cool monocle, he found one of them in the Blackstone Fortress and all that kind of stuff. They're usually able to evade their extermination often because of their fancy tech. But as Shaii posts him, the Death Specter's chapter mainly just kind of try to quarantine them in their worlds. like we can't kill them all, but we'll get close, you know?

We can at least contain them so they don't go causing any trouble for us. Okay. Yeah, and it's really weird because their planets are creepy. They're just, they call them nightmare oceans and monolithic, like glass-style alien spires. Like, imagine, you know, the wave and interstellar. I never saw Interstellar, actually. Really? Yeah, never saw it.

I mean, it's a good film, I would recommend. That's the, he time travels, right? And then he's like, that's where that meme where he's like banging on the wall as he's watching himself make a mistake comes from. That's all I know about interstellar is that, is that meme pick everybody keeps making. You don't know about the wave? I don't know about the wave. It's like the most intense scene in the whole goddamn movie. All right, it's fine.

He's got Owen something in it, right? Okay, no, Matthew McConaughey. Wow, wow. But also, no, it doesn't have Owen Wilson in it. It's Matthew McConaughey. They're like the same person. Who cares? No, one of them is all right, all right, all right.

And the other one is, wow. Not even close. They do both have their own little sake. Holy, all right, it's fine. Whatever. We're moving on. Basically, it's a creepy, like tons of, like, giant terrifying oceans and crystal spires. But for the most part, the Death Specters keep it quarantine.

Because the Death Specter's chapter are an old Ravenguard successor. Ooh, okay. Now they, their main founder, and thank you, Shai, for some of the extra little bits on this one, is from, yeah, their symbol is really cool, too. It's like a skull and two sides. Oh, wow. They're so hot topic, it hurts. Let's go. They are real.

Oh, dude, just you wait until you hear the lore. So their founder is a guy named Carcatus. he brought them to a planet called occludus. Eclutus is a fortuit. No, sentinel world. Is a sentinel world outside the ghoul stars. So imagine it kind of like Cadia, where Cadia stopped a bunch of crap from coming out of the Aetor.

Occludis keeps a bunch of crap from coming out of the ghoul stars. Okay. So I said, no, Brickie. It's a cemetery world because death. Oh. Oh. Oh, Pishnaw. Wait a minute.

Am I thinking of Orisk? Is Orisk the one? Oh, Orisk is the Sentinel World. Oh, crap. Orisk is the Sentinel World. Accludis. 40K. Home into Death Specters, Fortress Monastery.

They do call it a cemetery world. Oh, my God. They're... They're ultra hot top. Oh my God. Let's go. Do they wear band t-shirts, too? Well, okay, so their war cry is fear not death.

We embody it in his name. Battle Brothers and the Battle Brothers will respond, we fear not death for we are death incarnate because they are the death spec. No, it gets so much worse. So basically, the main founder received a vision from the emperor, which directed him. him to a secret cave underneath the world containing an artifact, a Xenos artifact, called the Shariaks.

Basically, every successive chapter master of the Death Specters takes their place on the Shariaks, the throne of glass, and will not step down until they are dead. Oh, all right. Sounds normal. The Shariaks gives power to the Death Specters, and that's vital to maintain their watch over the ghoul stars as the cost of draining the Chapter Master's life. But particularly, the death specters, during your initiation, you are required to minimum die twice. What?

You have to, during, as an aspirin, you are required to be injected with lethal toxins and then revived. You must slip away into actual death and then be revived. Oh. that is that is that is quite the um it's quite the hazing ritual um it's quite the initiation uh to get in you just you got to die lethal injection you die and then god i sure hope we revive you and nothing goes wrong guess you weren't a good aspirin because you're dead uh that that seems a little extreme but okay okay oh oh dude the line after this is even funnier further deaths may be required if you want to

rise in the ranks. Oh, of course. Love that. Rise in the ranks, you've got to die a bunch of times. You gotta die more if you want to be stronger. How do they revive you

exactly? Like, what, what do they, like, the 40K version of paddles? Okay. So you die and then they just you? It's not like an antidote. They just, I'm sure.

I'm sure there's the thing. It doesn't matter. It should, but okay, it's 40K, it doesn't matter. You're right. The logistics don't matter. I guess. All right, cool. Let's go.

So, oh, yes, that's right. Here, you can read that. During these death rituals, aspirants, even non-psycher ones, experience being dragged into the Black River and assailed by its currents and must resist it or drown and face oblivion. Oh, boy, these guys. Oh, boy.

All right. Okay. All right. All right. Listen, it is a time. Death specters are officially charged. Right, right. Here is with protecting the Imperium

from the Hordes of the Gould stars. But it does not extend to the local humans whom a chapter mostly regards as breeding material to produce more aspirants. Oh, no. They are perfectly willing to let the human worlds die as saving them is not really a huge benefit to the imperial, but you will make sure to take the citizens regardless because they need to refill their ranks.

Oh, boy. Yeah. Whenever 40K and the word breeding is involved, there's a good chance it doesn't end well for anybody. The phrase breeding has just been ruined by the internet in general. I remember when I played Dongan Rompah two and one of the guys was like the ultimate breeder. And just because he has like a bunch of hamsters. Oh, yep, yep. That's the ninja-looking guy.

Yeah. Gundam Tanaka, my beloved. Gundam Tanaka! I am shocked that you've played Dogan Rompah. I got paid. Ah, gotcha. Fair. Fair enough.

All right, it makes sense. All right, moving along. Anywho, ghoul stars. So there were a couple other interesting things that happened to the ghoul stars. There was something called the Pale Wasting, which is a really weird conflict that had a large amount of chapters, particularly the Nova Marines, which are a version of the Ultramarines. out of the 12 chapters, 11 of them all died or disappeared without a trace. Oh, great story.

Love to hear that. Love that. Love that for my boys. No, I mean, unironically, though, the Nova Marines are a group that's weird in the sense that they don't worship the emperor as a god, but they basically worship the Codex Astardis as a Bible. And often will go to war against other chapters. that stray too far from the Codex of Staris. They're like the worst version of that dickhead from Space Marine one. Okay, gotcha.

Nova Marines are a success of the Ultramarines, right? Not Google Stars bound, but they are one of the 12 chapters that participate in the pale wasting and survived. At first, they seem to be your average blueberries from the second founding. However, they're a bit weird. I mentioned this before. Codexistartis, huge fan of this kind of thing. Yep, yep, yep. They really do enjoy fighting Zenos, where it turns.

turns them into like ravaging monsters and like all of that funny like roman nobility just goes out the window like they see an a they see like an elder or a human with ears slightly too long and they start like losing their shit oh like i kind i kind of like that i i kind of like because again one of the things i hate about the ultramines is they're just so milk toast right they're just so like is there anything wrong with them no is there anything really great about them Not really. But like stuff like this where it's like, oh, yeah, we're so perfect. We're so perfect.

We worship the Codex of Stardis and it's like, Zenos! And they just go into like a rampage that they can't even control. That's like an interesting little like quirk. That's like an interesting little flaw that they've got. Like I want more of that for ultramarines. I want interesting little quirks. That is a thing that kind of is humorous because you think about the general logistics in the imperial.

I'm like, well, you're fighting off these enemies. crazy chaos enemies. Why don't you just ally yourself with the Eldar? And sometimes they do. These guys don't. These guys are like, I'm going to kill all the Eldar first and then I'll deal with the chaos. Yeah. So the Nova Marines are probably none too happy with Gilliman's new wife, right? I don't think they'd know. It was supposed to be a joke that just made you mad. I know. Yeah, well, you try. I was really, I was hoping for a reaction so badly. Maybe I should have said maybe they're not happy. with Gileman's new pregnant Eldar wife. Maybe that would have done it, but I don't know. Minus two.

Yeah, it's a minus two. I'll take that. I'll hold the L. It's fine. And you can hold the minus two as well. Yeah, that's fine. Anyway, moving along. So there was the pale wasting campaign,

which is kind of part of that whole weirdness of the ghoul stars where like 12 chapters go in, one comes out. Mm-hmm. You know? Sheesh. And they talk about all of the, the weird and strange threats that were in the pale waste.

It's kind of, I would argue the pale wasting is the main thing that gives the ghoul stars its concept. It kind of gives it its, its feel. Yeah, that is a lot of dead space marines, though. Like, that is, Shai said that is 11,000 space marines that died. That is a ton. Well, I guess, of course it is, because 11 chapters died. You're 1,000 deep each. Anyway, that is a crazy amount.

Well, yeah, it's 11 chapters. Yeah, obviously. It's mainly more about the weirdness of it all. Like, here's a fun thing that Shire wrote here. Inquisitorial investigation is discovered that much of the extant evidence relating to this threat has been censored or purposely destroyed, which is inquisitorial. But there are contradictory indications which describe the nature of the threat as both a star-spawned plague that swept up. away scores of worlds and as nightmare engines slaughtering whole sectors, they would kind of go through the ghoul stars and they'd find like human worlds and they're just dead. There's just

nothing on them. Oh, fun. Completely dead. And like, if I'm not mistaken, it's a lot. It's like, it's like a lot of dead human worlds because I'm assuming these were probably from way back when as well because, you know, when you had all humanity blowing across the galaxy and colonizing and stuff. A lot of, yeah, a lot of the general inquisitorial concepts and dialogue is contradictory. It's like, it's censorship. Purposely vague. Purposely vague. And when 11 of the 12 chapters die, you don't really quite know why, because they also don't, didn't recover their, like, bodies?

Oh, wow. Nova Marines, the only surviving members that have no records. They have no records on it. They have no records, and they're not talking about what happened or, like, what they saw or anything. And Shai said they take no honors for it. Which is crazy.

Wow. An ultramarine saying no to honors? Yeah, like, it must have been real bad in there. Also, I cannot imagine how awful it must have been to be a human on a world anywhere near the ghoul stars. Like even before the cicatrix maledictum does its funky little cracking, uh, it was probably shitty to be out there. But once that thing cracks

open, it's like, oh, great. We are in the farthest reaches of space. We are in the dark space. There is a maw of, of warp right next to us. This sucks. This is, oh, it must, ugh, that is a bad roll of the dice. I mean, it's, it's just a general. one of those situations where the less you know about it and the more kind of careful they go with it, the more fun it becomes. A

neato, a needo kind of aspect to it as well is that, oh was it, was it the death specters? Or was it shy? Which group was the ones that fought the Tyrannids? Oh, I think it was Oras that got attacked, yeah.

Because the main thing about Oresk in the Frontier World section of Oresk, because this is the what I mentioned before, it's like the Sentinel world kind of blocks out a large portion of the ghoul stars. Yeah. But the weird thing was that they got

attacked by Tyrannids. However, the tyrannids had come through the ghoul stars to get to this area because it was one of the tendrils, one of the high fleets, right? Right, right. And when they arrived, the tyrannids were completely screwed up.

They were disoriented, twisted, like, like, seemed almost like insane. Completely, completely fucked up. Like the tyranids had no proper strategy. It's like the hive mind itself was just being, was having its own mental problems. Oh, that's not good.

And it's like, okay. So the ghoul stars even affects the tyranids. That's kind of the question is like, okay, well, the tyranids made their way through the ghoul stars, and the tyrannids left the ghoul stars with PTSD. Like, what does that mean, you know? Nothing good for anybody. It's like, why? Why did that happen?

Yeah. It is kind of cool that there's just this mysterious madness zone in 40K that like nobody knows about. The Nova Marines won't talk about it. Even the tyranids are not immune to it. I wonder what happened if the orcs went through it. I mean, they'd have a, they'd have a crump and good time. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Or maybe it would just be a big boring zone for them. Or are true.

It's kind of tough to determine because on one hand, there's a little bit of like, oh, who knows what could be in here. But there's also the, what are the craziest things we know of so, like so far? Like what are the most wild possibilities of things that can affect an entire area of space? I mean, I would, I would assume it's some crazy chaos nonsense, some crazy warp shenanigans. There's some crazy, sure, there's that's, there's Zenos races that are weird. Unknown Zenos race, sure. Remnants of some Katan. Oh, sure, like a, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Some old ones nonsense. It is called the ghoul stars after all. I was going to ask, how did it get its name? How did it get that? Because it was called the ghoul stars before the Eye of Terror open, right? So how did it get that name? I have no idea. It's just the ghoul stars.

It's just the ghoul stars. It's just the ghoul stars. It's such a cool sounding name that I was like, surely there's got to be like some cool little story about how it came to be the ghoul stars. Shai says she doesn't believe it is warp related. I feel like there's a little bit of warp just because the demons maw is so close to. it. But, but like, I wouldn't argue, I wouldn't say it has like the weirdness that happened in our last episode where you fly into the eye of terror and you see the giant

obese, uh, Sleeneci man, demon world, right? Yeah. Like, there's always like a little bit of a weirdness, you know, the warp can kind of like inflict. Um, but I think it's just, it's kind of neat that like maybe the planets themselves can be weird alien species. Like, like, what about like an alien race that just, like, it's just kind of, it's kind of neat that just, it's just, it's decided to I don't know it just became alive in circumstances

that just don't make any sense like a nebula you know that would be weird yeah it also seems like it would be the

perfect play if you were gonna do like a horror series or a horror game or something horror related in 40K putting someone

right smack dab in the middle of the ghoul stars would be a great place for it because there's just who knows you could be anything

and you're stuck in the ghoul star somehow and there's that whatever you wanted there's also as shy put the Nova Marines saying thing is called unmaking what cannot die and star spawn plague our references to Cthulhu

which could either be it could be one or two things it could either be ooh this could be a fun thing of like a warp entity that's not the chaos god that's being weird or it could be GW just kind of being cheeky

Yeah, could be. Or it could also, it could genuinely be like, I mean, you know, it's not unheard of to have like a crazy psychos. I mean, the hurried, like a just time. True, true. You know, God knows what it could be. Yeah, it could just be weird Zenos that they haven't fleshed out. One interesting part, and the part that's often the most pointed out when it comes to the ghoul stars is the tomb world of Drazak. Oh, there's a tomb world in there.

So you should know this very well because this is actually not much of something I can teach you about because we know too much about this already. The ancient bone kingdom tomb world of Drazak is the ancient Necron kingdom of the Flayed ones. Oh. Which has the Necron overlord known as Valgoal. Ah. But if you may remember our whole situation in. in the twice dead king books. Spoiler alert for those.

Yeah. Is that we end the second book on Drazak. Am, Oltix ends up becoming the flayed one king. Oh, I did not real. And that's all within the ghoul stars? Do you remember when they were like going in that, what was the name of the weird wind that they would like travel through?

Oh, yeah, it was like the, the ghost wind, I remember. Yeah, I was going to say. it was something like the death wind or the zombie wind or the, yeah, the ghost wind, sure. The idea of this area is that it's, before Twice Dead King, this was Valguel, Necron Overlord, who apparently has kept his mind away from the maddening delusions of the flayed ones and leads the flayed ones into various raids to feast upon living things and then return back to the world of Drazac, the bone kingdom.

But now we know that in a fun, you know, twist is that in twice did King Rain, whether due to the ghost wind or however the reasoning was, they ended up on Drazak, which was totally empty. And then Oltix's dynasty, in fact, had a, you know, the Landegore cursed, the idea that the only, the only Caton to ever truly die cursed the necrons with the flare virus, which was. put together in the book as much more of a panic attack? Yeah. The whole, I have no mouth, but I must scream. And then sort of cover for that, you just like, well, let's get some skin. Let's put on the skin. Yeah.

And so I think the ghost win, or the idea of that concept was that that was the general creation of Drazac and Valgool. It was like almost a time paradox where, you know, they know of Valgoal, they know of the Flayed One Bone King. But when they get there, no one's there. And it turns out that to become a good leader, Oltics takes up the mantle of Valgoal and his people, you know, with their disease. So it's pretty fascinating. But they're in the, the ghoul stars.

And so, like Shai says here, there is. the planet of Sandrin, which would constantly be raided by the Flade 1 necrons to, you know, steal them away, kill the population. Sure. But eventually, they just decided to like, you know, go whole hog. Man, it sure does suck to be in the ghoul stars. If whatever's in the ghoul stars doesn't get you, oh, by the way, the flayed ones are here, raiding planets looking for skin too.

Man, you don't want to be in the ghoul stars. You do not want to be here. Get out. Get out. It's a lot of shit. Yeah, you don't want to be here. And then the death specters, because as we've discussed before, don't much care for the actual planet. And they care a lot more about the human life to repopulate their species or their chapter.

So they were like, yo, dude, wouldn't it be cool if we saved all the people we needed for more aspirants? and then just left the planet to die. Oh, yeah, hooray. Wow, we're such good space marines. Yay. Oh, man, this sucks. Actually, I'm sorry. I said that incorrectly.

Yeah, they didn't leave it to die. They blew it up. My bad. Of course. Of course they did. So literally they took every person that was capable of breeding a new aspirin. I'm sorry to use the breeding word again.

And then they just exterminated out as the planet and just killed everybody else because, L-O-L, why not? why let the flayed ones have a new spot. Oh, that sucks. I guess that's kind of like the same mentality of like, well, sorry, guys, you're in the path of the tyrannid swarm and we want to starve the tyrannid. So, bye, bye. I mean, well, not even that really.

These are the flayed ones. I'm pretty sure they just didn't want to deal with it. Oh, so it's even worse. All right. Okay, cool, cool, cool. So what we've learned today is the ghoul star sucks on just every level possible. And if it's not the flayed ones,

it's whatever crazy, maybe chaos, maybe Cthulhu, maybe Caton, weirdness. I don't even think it's maybe. I don't even think it's maybe. I think it's all. All the above. Great, great.

D.K. Shy has a story she would like you to read. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Let me hear it. It is called desperation. Desperation was a world in the Katesh system on border of the ghoul stars in the frontiers of imperial space. A stronghold of the night lords during the horse heresy until its destruction in 011.m3. During that battle, Ash and Clause renounced Imperium, told Ultramarines to beat it and leave, allowing night lords to take over a major hive city. Nightlords started celebrating, but Ultramarines in orbit just shrugged and exterminated the night lords on the ground, who kind of forgot about the whole orbital bombardment thing and consequently all died.

That story sucks. After the heresy, desperation was repopulated. In 272.m.39, a desperation got to... that invaded by demons, but was saved by the dark Eldar homunculi coven known as the Children of Bone. The Children of Bone devastated the planet and subjected its populace to unspeakable horrors. Years later, when Imperial ships entered its orbit, it found the populace had become heretical beyond salvation, worshipping the children of bone over the Emperor. When the Imperium attempted to reestablish its rule on the world, they were beaten

back by tenacious PDF, more fearful of the dark Eldar's wrath than that of the Imperium. Once again, Imperial Forces Armate shrugged and bombed the entire planet into dust. Yum. Love, love, love that. Love that. Love that. Gotta love the Imperium. Oh, yeah.

They're so great. They're just so cool. Holy. Children of Bone is pretty funny. There's been a lot of bone motifs going on in the ghoul stars. got to be honest. Yeah, there is. A lot of undead, a lot of zombie motifs, a lot of, you know,

the Ravengard chapter where you got to die to get revived and die again. You got the bone children of the bone coven here. There is a lot of bone reference. There's a lot of bone reference. Undead, scout and stuff, yeah. A lot of bone reference and not just a lot of bone, but like a lot of bone, a lot of death, a lot of all the kind of stuff that's just generally like, hey, this, this sucks and is normally a place you don't want to be him. Yeah. And it's unfortunate that we don't get a few more

stories in the Gould Stars overall, but at the same time, I feel like much like with the Alpha Legion, if you spend too much time explaining it, you lose a little bit of that, uh, you lose a little bit of that enjoyment. Yeah, the not knowing is kind of the mystique and the intrigue and what makes it so interesting. It's like the boogeyman. The monster you can't see is the worst one, because then your imagination just goes crazy and does all the work for you. I mean, like, rogue traders and stuff might sometimes go check out that area and naturally not have a very good time. Yeah, and never come back. Right. I have all kinds of issues in that way. But, you know, there are like, there are things to gather and rogue traders are that way. You know what I find really

funny. What's that? Okay. You know what I watched recently? What did you watch? I watched the SpongeBob movie. Of course

you did. I should have been able to pick that one immediately. How in the hell are you going to somehow connect the SpongeBob movie to the Gould Stars? All right, all right.

You're getting a sea in acting. I am not acting, my friend. I am genuinely a little befuddled right now, but go off. You would know if you watch the SpongeBob movie. I will not. I got a feeling of what the answer is going to be. Okay. In the SpongeBob movie, there's a, the whole point of the movie is that they have to go get Poseidon's crown

that has been taken away to Shell City, the crazy, spooky place guarded by a killer Cyclops. And the whole point is it's like Patrick and Spongeo on an adventure to go do all those kinds of things. But in particular, once they go past the county line, it's like all kinds of crazy horrors. It's like a, there's like a giant pub that they, that they go to that's like full of nothing but like gangsters and stuff. And then after that is a huge trench filled with all of the horrifying creatures of the deep.

like anglerfish style things and like all of the organisms on the bottom of the of the ocean. And it's, I'm not going to lie, it's kind of cool. And it's very unexplored. And I don't know if they've explored it much in the future SpongeBob. It's not that I would watch them because I don't much care for the future SpongeBob. But it was kind of neat. And they left a lot to be to be interpreted. And it's a fun concept.

And the idea that maybe, who knows, maybe our our our owl. Cat Games makers might throw a little a little DLC expedition into the Gould Stars, you know? That would be cool. That would be cool. So you're suggesting that the Gould Stars is comparable to Shell City? Yes. Okay. Just making sure I'm on the same page here. Just making sure we all understand the references that are being made. That's all. Not judging

at all. Ever. Wouldn't do that. You know, just making sure that I get what your toss in my way. Mad at you. I don't understand. What are you mad at? I'm just confirming the information that I have heard today. Very upset with you. Anywho.

Cool stars. They're a fun little side bit. It's the cool Bermuda Triangle bits of 40K. There's a lot of fun to it all. It's not like the craziest thing out there in terms, well, it is the craziest stuff out there. But like there's not a lot known, but it's a fun thing to like, hey, If you want to write a horror novel, you have some fan fiction you want to go with, throw them out there. It definitely seems like it is just a treasure trove of untapped potential.

Shy, what is that? Buy wireless device, look inside flesh. Yeah, what, what, what? I mean, that's, that, I mean, that is that not what just a servitor is? I mean, sure, sure, sure. But yeah, the, it seems like it. it's just like a treasure trove of just like you can do anything you

want with the ghoul stars. It seems like whatever you want to do you can do it in there. It would be the perfect place to write like any number of black library books. It could be pretty good. I'd say I could add a lot and so get

on that random fan fiction writers. And GW. Do something with it, GW? Do anything with it. Yeah, this is cool idea number six million 955 that you refuse to do anything with. Hell yes. Well, yeah, no, that's true.

But keep it, but keep it neat. Keep it different. Yeah, yeah, don't just do it to do it. Let's put some hoodspa in it, you know? We need more ultramarines fighting chaos books, D.K. Oh. You know, okay, I will give them a little bit of credit. In the last like four years, I feel like there's been fewer just like generic space marine fighting people books.

I think there's been a bit more variety. And what's the trilogy that Uriel Ventras is in? Is it just literally like the Ultramarine trilogy or something? Apparently that's very good. And, you know, he struggles. He's the Ultramarines omnibus. Yeah, he struggles. So, you know, they're not the perfect little blueberries they once were.

So I'm okay. It's nice to see someone struggle. Yeah, especially when they've been such perfect poster boys forever. Me when I'm a Drukari Coven. It's nice to see people suffer. All right. Well, a little bit of Gull Stars. We'll probably get onto a bit more of a more tangible shenanigan style thing heading up next time.

A little bit more some more giggles. A little bit more. Oh, this is a Kiroth episode. Never mind. I don't got to worry about it. Oh, yeah, you don't have to worry about anything. Also, by the time we see you next, happy birthday, Bricky. Oh, that's stupid.

What do you mean that stupid? It's my last year of my 20s. I got one year left before I turned and crumbled to dust. Me genuinely wishing you a happy birthday because we won't see you again until the next time when your birthday's path. Okay, next time I won't be nice. All right, fine. Oh, okay. Congratulations.

Happy one year closer to death, Ricky. So the normal?