Adeptus Ridiculous - THE GREY KNIGHTS: KNIGHT HARDER feat. DRAIGO & CROWE | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Grey Knights are the legendary Chapter 666 - and although nominally a Chapter of the Astartes, they are in the Chamber Militant of the Inquisition. Each member of the chapter undergoes a grueling selection process, and even once inducted, their harsh training regime is without equal. In battle, they move as an army of silver ghosts, surrounded by awe, and equipped to the teeth to deal with the worst foes that Chaos can raise to meet them.Kaldor Draigo is the 48th and current Supreme Grand Master of the Grey Knights. He wields the legendary Titansword.Support the show

this podcast, my name is D.K. Diamante's. His name is Bricky and, oh my God, Warhammer 40K. But before we get into that, if you enjoy today's episode, 100 over the Patreon. Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get access to our Discord, bloopers if they happen. You can get all those lovely HD posters at the $15 tier. So consider supporting us maybe if you like the podcast. Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous. And yeah, the next postings, might surprise you. I think Bricky is going to love it. I, no, no way.

We had a good posture in the last one, which means that we must immediately balance the scales of the universe and provide me with something horrid. The last couple have been good, I think. In a literal sense, yes. The last two have been good. Well, I don't want to spoil anything because I might have some insider information,

but, oh, I think you're going to be a big fan. I, I, hmm, what's the, what are those giant industrial-sized fans they use at Home Depot? It's a big fan. Anyway, yes, but if you want to check, in fact, actually, if you want to check out the good posters, the ones that are tasteful, you can check them both out, the last two, which is the moment of peace, guardsman one and the sister of wrath one, both available on the merch store at Orchidate.com. Also a whole bunch of awesome new merch for the Forge King stuff. A bunch of our beautiful Soul Forge boy in hoodie, shirt, and tank top variant. And we also have the I'm a Tank, I'm a Tank, I'm a Tank, I'm a Tank, I'm a Tank in a Tank Top finally available as well. Check it all out.

Merch store, Orchidate.com. Link in the description. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. I'm a tank top. I'm a tank top. All right.

I'm a chameleon. All right. I'm a comma, comma, comma, cama, chameleon. It's a good one. All right. Well, I mean, I almost kind of want to give a quote that's like just completely unrelated to the topic just to kind of screw with you. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, yeah. That's the problem, though.

Whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it. Hooray. Look at me. Look at me. Look at him. He's done it. Look at him with his thorn replica. He's truly living the life. I do indeed have a thorn replica. That is very true. I am constantly making DK make horrible financial decisions, as we both have been doing for a while in terms of making you all play Warhammer. Yes, that's true. You're the sole reason.

You're the influence that made me buy the really expensive rogue trader pre-order. With the big stature. You're the man now, dog. Anyway, so it is Grey Nights again. It is episode two of the big GK for DK. Oh, hey, look at you. Also, Shai does have a very important quote. I have come to vanquish all demons and low-quality razors in this realm.

Gray- Heights, of course. Said by Caldor Drago in the TTS series. So, anywho, gray knights, gray nights, part two, which is one of the lesser refined episodes normally. We have our more focused lore-based episode. And now we're just kind of talk about all kinds of funny things, gray nights, some of their cameras. some of their characters, their weapons, their armor, how they recruit, and some interesting stories about them, you know, so on and so forth. Yeah, I know one of them apparently lives in the warp,

which I didn't know was the thing you could do as a space marine because it's the warp and it's not a fun place. So, yeah, kind of, kind of excited to see what sort of, you know, BS plot-twisting nonsense GW has come up with for that. one. You know, in fairness, you can live in the warp if you're a chaos space marine. That's true. I guess it's unusual for a loyalist space ring to just be, let's chill in the warp, you know, unless you're, unless you're a corvus corax and yelling at Lorgar. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I thought it might be kind of fun to start with the recruitment. You know, let's literally start from the ground up. Let's

literally begin at inception. Let's build a foundation. Build a foundation for this house. Okay, well, God damn it. Okay. What? That's what we're doing. You got to start off at the ground level and then build your way up, you know? No, no, no, no, no, no.

You can't stack bricks on the dirt. Bricky, you should know that better than anyone, because bricks, you know? That is a good-looking beard you have there, sir. I too have a beard. Have you seen my beard? It is full of tiny men. Please kill them all. What?

Ah, Caldor Drago. Excellent. Why does he have a beard of tiny men? All right, all right. That's none of this. So, the Grey Knight recruitment, basically, as we all know, gray nights are super duper secretive,

super duper space marines in the super duper world. They are taking all psykers. and they, since they contain the inquisitorial rosette and seal, as they are part of the Ordo Malius, the recruitment for the Grey Knights is much worse than the regular space marines. I imagine it has to be because they're the final gift to humankind, and you can't just let anybody be one. They have a lot of very specific attributes they require. For example, the chapter has much like the custodians, eyes of the emperor, they have something known as the gatherers.

And the gatherers are great knights who, like the custodians, have reached such a great age or sustained such severe injuries that they can no longer work in part of the primary chapter. But they still have keen psychic minds, can go out and find a true aspirant or a hero amongst the rest of the downtrotted humanity. Okay. Okay. So they can't fight anymore, so they just find people. they can and bolster the ranks. And there is no specific area they cannot recruit from.

Like the seed worlds of other space marine chapters, like penal worlds, even the Sisters of Silence Black Ships, they're all open for the picking. Oh, so there's no specific planet that gives like space marine tithes to them. They just pick from wherever they want, as long as you are like a good, enough psycher and you seem like you've got the potential you too can be a gray night well i mean you too can be a gray knight is a little bit uh well we'll see how how far they get but um they can you know so long as you're a psycher and the gray nights deem you a possible aspirants they will take you okay and then the straw uh they are sent on the ships back over to titan moon of saturn

and the chamber of trials is where they will arrive and their training will begin if they live. Of course. Isn't that always the catch? And I'm assuming that if they decide someone is worthy of being a gray night, they kind of pull the the Imperium thing where it's like, yeah, we're taking them. No, it doesn't matter if that's your only son and they're literally like your breadwinner and keeping your family. We're taking them. You don't like it?

Bam! Considering the fact that the gray nights are the super secretive one, I have a good feeling that they would just take your kid in the middle of the night. Oh, true. You would just never know. And chances are they're so secretive that if you did hear them doing it, they would kill you anyway to keep it a secret. I mean, there's a good chance that the gray night gatherers don't walk around showing off their gray night gatherer armor,

but, you know, yeah. They might. So a very few choice recruits are taken back to the actual citadel on Titan. But for the most part, many of them are released out into the random desolate planes of the moon. Now, Titan was terraformed, but its atmosphere is still very thin, horribly freezing, and for the most part, inhospitable. Oh, lovely. Basically, it is not just for endurance, but also to test the mental conviction of the applicants or aspirants. When they are dropped out, some might look at the gigantic spires and citadels of Blackstone and say,

that's a pretty good thing we should go to. Yep. Others might say, oh, God, nah, I'm going to turn around and try to survive in the wilderness. And they always die. Oh, the ones that try to survive in the wilderness, they always die. They always die. Yeah, well, because it's, yeah, that's a harsh place to survive on. And it's considered to be a form, a lack of discipline.

You know, they look towards the towers and they choose else, which means they're undisciplined and willfully independent. Yeah, I was going to say, who would be sent to Titan, look around, see that it is just nigh inhospitable? and freezing and just be like, oh, look, there is some form of shelter over there. I don't know if a blackstone pyre is shelter, but it's something, and be like, nah, let me turn around and walk through, you know, the desert on a horse with no name. Like, who does that? I mean, psychers, crazy ones? Yeah, I guess.

But I feel like if you were picked by, like, a gray night gatherer to potentially be, in the chapter. Like, you got, surely you're made of stern or stuff than that. Well, that's the point. They are stern, but the sternness can either come from,

uh, being like willingly independent and not, and wanting to do your own thing or due to a sense of brotherhood. Those that see themselves above will be like, I'm strong enough to go out there and deal with it myself and they die. I guess. Anyway, those who are the smart ones will make their way to the gates.

And then when they make their way, to the gates. They're like, nice job, kid, good job. All right. Here's this bomb collar. Oh, no. Go back out there now. And go all the way back there to do a thousand

kilometer trek into the tundra of caustic crystals in the chemical haze area. Okay. All right. Very appropriate names. Okay. I can imagine what this place is like. Okay. So you go to this chemical

haze spot and you breathe in some vapors. They are given some supplies too, yes, but the bomb collar is the thing I wanted to point out the most. They hit him with the old Battle Royale. A little bit, yeah. They have to go through there and it is actually, you know, I've got to be honest, this place reminds me a lot of

dead money. The DLC for fall at New Vegas. Here's a bomb collar. Here's this weird gas that makes you go crazy and kills you. Have fun, kid. I never played the DLCs. Dead Money is one of those DLCs that's got an amazing story, but it's gameplay as dog.

Ooh. It's also fault New Vegas, so it's gameplay as dog normally, but it's like even worse. Oh, that's unfortunate. That is unfortunate. So they've got their bomb collar, they've got a few supplies, and they're going through this really caustic area. And I'm assuming the collar doesn't do well in caustic area. area maybe? Could this caustic stuff like eat at the bomb collar?

Okay, okay. Hold on. Hold on now. Shai says you got to learn to let go to this shitty gameplay. Hey, I am not, I am not saying that I don't love New Vegas. I've beaten New Vegas like 10 times. I've got, I've like, I've let go of it. It's still shitty. Damn. You ever, you ever. You ever. You ever. You ever just played fall of New Vegas on the Xbox three, six. and watches it ran at 10 goddamn frames a second,

like Mass Effect 1. It is the worst. Anyway, they go out into this area, into this horrible cold, crystalline area in which it is covered in a choking chemical dust, constant avalanches, littered with broken void ships, and roaming packs of servitors driven insane, all the way something called a Saturnine,

It's an ancient weapon of war left by the emperor, filled with the nightmares and spirits of vanquished warriors. The thing is, the aspirin has, like, really immature psychic powers, right? And the collar on their neck is keyed to explode if they lose control of their psychic potential. And while they're inhaling a whole bunch of toxic chemicals, it, like, screws up their mind and makes them hallucinated. and do all kinds of weird crap. Oh.

So I imagine a lot of them kind of, they get the Ferris Manus treatment and lose their heads a little bit. Which is hilarious, because as they walk through this landscape, they will find thousands upon thousands of headless skeletons scattered across the landscape. Ferris, is that you?

Fewer than a thousand, one in one thousand recruits return from this area. and those that do That sounds about right for 40K in terms of recruitment process. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yep. Those that do await long and more solar weeks of pain. As they, if they return and make their way over,

they are content to have survived the training and can now finally be inducted into their chapter. They get the gene seed shoved in them, The psychosurgery done. They need to pass all 666 rituals of detestation. They must, of course, have the psycher part of it. And then they, oh, God, I forgot about this part. They implant silver hexagrammatic and pentagramic wards underneath their skin to prevent

demons from contaminating them. Ow. It's pretty rough. Yeah, that doesn't sound like a happy fun time. Their mind is then wiped completely as... Well, any memory of their old lives need to be gone because any memory of it can be used against them by demons. That would be considered a weakness, sure.

You got to start from scratch. In fact, all of their names are re-given. Their name becomes just a number for a bit. But then eventually when they get a true name, It's actually often a portion of a word of power or a word of banishment. There are 666 words of banishment or words of banishment. Or I think it's words of banishment. And these are just weird, complex, syllable words, weird, creepy stuff that just by saying them makes you go a little crazy.

Wow. Okay. That's not what I would expect them to name themselves, but okay. Well, well, by naming themselves, they use like portions of words of banishment. So when they called to various others, just by calling the names of your battle brothers, it harms the demons near them. That is kind of cool. It's like, Jim, go kill this bloodthirst. So the bloodthirsts was like, ah.

Jim, no. Not Jim. Not Jim. Not if anyone please, not Jim. I'm Jim. And his name is Jim. But Jim is in there somewhere. Jim.

Slim Jim. Oh, no, that's actually the full word of power. Slim Jim is the full word. Yeah. First name snap, middle name Jim. No, mill name Slim, last name Jim. Anyway, so all of these things are all done specifically to really get the gray nights up and going into their chapter.

only about one in every one million aspirants will ever put on a suit of power armor. I mean, I guess that makes sense because it's a space marine. It should be kind of a rarity. But one in one million? They're the super space marines. That is true. They are the super duper final gift space marines. So it should be rare that you get to become one.

So, yeah, I guess. But that, God damn, it's rare. Yep. And there are, that's true, only 1,000 total gray knights, which is actually fewer than the custodians, but that's because they are a single chapter of space marines. And chapters, unless you're the Black Templars. You can only have a thousand, right?

Exactly. Exactly. You're only supposed to have a thousand. Granted, there's like 40,000 subchapters of ultramarines, but that's what keeps you down. Unless you're the Black Templars in which are like, yeah, we can only have a thousand people at current standard force unless there's a crusade going.

How many Crusades are you running Black Templars? Oh, I don't know, like 900. All of them. Is there a crusade going on? Yeah, that's us. Yeah, the Black Templars were literally, I think part of the group that was crusading against the Necrons in the, um,

in the Twysted King. Go figure. Go figure. Go figure. Go figure. They are literal crusaders. That's their thing. That's their stick.

So the gray knights have entered. Now you have become a gray knight. You are one of the thousand. Congratulations. Oh, boy. You have purity seals placed in your skin and warding in your skin. You wear like holy water infused egis armor, fancy, fancy, anti-demon metal silver armor.

You're a psycher. You know, like, words of banishment and all kinds of powerful stuff. And you fight demons, like I mentioned before. You teleport in. You shout their name, snap, slim, Jim. And then it starts losing his power. And then all kinds of shenanigans happen with your wrist-mounted storm bolter and your flaming psychic energy. First name, snap, middle name into a.

last name, Slim Jim. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, a pretty good way to describe the Grey Knights is this quote by Brother Captain Arvin Stern, which goes, There is nothing in the arcane and blasphemous arsenal of the forces of chaos that can compare to faith. With the power of faith, our weapons become shining instruments of deliverance that can

cleave the mightiest demon in Twain. With the power of faith, our minds appear as slivers of pure agony to the demon driving into the wretched forms of those who would dare stand before us. With the power of faith, our words become commands that cause the demons to cower and, cringe in terror. I could meet my enemies unarmed without a shred of fear in my chest, for I know that the emperor watches over me and guides my hand. So let them come. We shall show them what the power of faith can do. You know, if I hadn't known what today's episode was, that would have been a great quote.

That's a very sister's quote, too. Yeah, I would have assumed sisters, like, immediately. And we're like, nope, it's not sisters. I would be like, oh, great. And then everybody in the chat would be like, how come your memory is bad? Probably because your memory is bad. I mean, I'm not saying I have a top-tier memory here,

but, you know, when you're learning something new every week, some things tend to slip through the cracks. Yeah, well, you're stinky. Oh, wow. Bravo. Bravo, Bricky. Thank you. Johnny Bravo. Oh, yeah. Do the monkey. No. Whoa, mama. Whoa, mama.

But the great knights are in terms of their major organization. They have a pretty easy to understand one, which is very nice. Yeah. They are broken up into eight brotherhoods. Each brotherhood represents the nice thing. of the eight original founders of the gray knights. Oh, okay. Oh, that's a good point.

Is there a brotherhood of steel? Uh-huh. Fall out. Yep. Yep. Would you like to read the little thing shy posted here? Oh, here's another thing that tells you what life is as a gray knight. They barely use dreadnots and don't see it as honor because they suffer so much horrors

from their training during their service and to their deaths. they see peace in death as reward and loyal service. Oh. So do Grey Knights just straight up not have dreadnots or is it just? No, they have dreadnots. Oh. They have dreadnots. Though it's not like something that they, it's not like an iron hands where they love it.

It's a rarity, but it is still there. Also, I feel like dreadnots are also there to appease the Mechanicus weirdos on Damos, which is one of their like forge worlds. Yeah. So they'll use dreadnots, but they just don't use them often because it's like, oh, man, I don't want to do that to my battle brother. He wouldn't want that. Let him rest. A little bit, yeah. They also kind of like, you know, don't interme. My watch is over. Yeah. So real quick, on the tabletop, do Grey Knights ever rolled dreadnots? Or is that just like, oh, yeah, if you're Greyknites, you literally cannot table a dreadnought? No, you can take a, you can use a dreadnought. It's just, there's only one type.

It's just one type of dreadnought. The old boxy knots. Oh, got you. Okay. But anyway, the chapter is organized into eight brotherhoods as well as the main headquarters. So the chapter command is done by the Supreme Grand Master of the Grey Knights, which is currently Caldor Drago, surprisingly. He also underneath them are two. There is the Hall of Champions.

which is 98 paladins. These are Terminator Elite. You have Grey Knight Terminators to start with, but then you have the elite terminators of the Grey Knights, and these are called Paladins. And then you have 12 dreadnoughts in the Hall of Champions. So that's the most that they have. I don't have any more, actually.

Oh, wait, no, I lie. There's actually more dreadnots. There's actually a lot more dreadnots. Even though they don't like them? They don't like them, but they're still around. He still got to roll them like, okay. Each brotherhood seems to have like, let's see, one, two, three, three, five, two, two, two, one. Yeah, so like a few.

Not many, but at least one to three. Okay. And then you have the chambers of purity, which are the purifiers and the castellan, of the, of the purifiers known as Garin Crow, also known as massive gigacad, the man. Okay. Garin Crow. All right. I would expect him to be a raven guard, but okay.

Ha. There are eight, the eight brotherhoods, though, there's the swordbearers, blades of victory, ward makers, prescient brethren, preservers, rapiers, exactors, and silver blades. Those are very cool names, actually. There's not really a dorkly named faction in the bunch. You get to be cool no matter what. I think the blades of v.

victory is a little dorky, but for the most part, yeah. Yeah. They're all very, I mean, they're all very knightly, you know, which kind of makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. But for the most parts, each of these are set up in their own various important ways, like the sword bearers, the First Brotherhood is a lot of vehicles, things like rhinos, Storm Ravens, that kind of stuff.

The blades of victory are mainly vessels. that's like battle barges, strike cruisers, so um, ward makers are, well, I can give you a guess. They just might, man. They just might. It was very subtle. I wasn't sure, but I was taking a shot in the dark. I'm damn proud of you. Thanks.

I've learned a lot here. There's like the exactors are representatives to the Inquisition, the Silver Blades, command of recruits. so on and so forth. I'd like, yes, I'd like to talk about the purifiers real quick, because I like the purifiers. No, you're not allowed to talk about the purifiers. I will not allow it.

Okay, then I guess we'll just talk more about the ultramarines. Never mind. Talk about them. All right, purifiers. So the purifiers are a very special branch of the gray knights, because, you know, a space marine is really pure of mind. A gray knight is, pure of mind. But what happens if you want to be even pure?

I, I mean, you can be purer? Yes, you can become the purifier. All right, all right, cool,

cool. So a purifier is a special subset of the Grey Knights, almost never having more than 50. Really elite, small. And they are basically clad in the same look as normal great ass, but with a white helmet

instead of the silver. Being a purifier is a pretty up there like honor. It's not granted through any kind of skill like battles won or enemies killed or valor or sacrifice.

You're granted this by just simply being pure of will. Like unshakable. Hmm. To an even larger extent than normal gray knights. So it's not really something you can train for necessarily, like to become one of these purifiers. It's just kind of like, if you're inherently really strong-willed, you could maybe become one. There are some of the highest-ranking captains in the gray knights that are not purifiers.

I guess you technically could train your will. power if you tried really hard, but there's only 50 of them? Only 50 of them. All right. All right. They are entirely having these like massive amounts of forbidden knowledge. That's their whole shtick is that they,

they safe keep some of the most dark and demonic things in the Grey Knights halls. It's way down in the chambers of purity. And down there it is entirely. staffed by the purifiers, where only the grand masters of the grey eyes are allowed to enter the halls unbidden. Damn. I bet they know some crazy secrets. It says some gray-eye initiates whose curiosity leads them astray return to the chambers above following a brutal beating to reinforce the lesson that the purifiers trust not even their own battle brothers where some secrets are concerned. and some intruders do never return at all.

Oh, all right. Curiosity gets the better. Let me see what's in those secret vaults, and you just get murdered. And you just straight up that. That's, okay. Don't go in there.

Don't go in there. Are purifiers, I'm assuming in combat, they're quite good. Purifiers have a thing called cleansing flame, which is a white, hot flame that they just blow out from their bodies and murder everything with. So they pull the old, what was it, the something row with the white phosphorus?

Oh, Speckops the line? Speckups the line. Why do I think it was the row? But yeah, where they got the white phosphorus bomb and it's just, whi-h. I mean, that's a much more horrifying scene of that game. But sure, we'll go with that. Well, you said it was a white hot flame. That was the first thing that came to my mind was the white phosphorus.

Rice phosphorus is not a, it's, it's, it's, it's, never mind. It is literally like a flame that is bright white. Like they just fire from their body. Like they literally use fire to shield their souls. That's cool. But the leader of the Grey Knights Purifiers is a gentleman named Castilian Garon Crow. My, I believe my first ever miniature I have ever person. purchased in my whole life.

Darren Crow, the leader of the purifiers. Oh, man, he must be an absolute badass. If he's leading these guys, like, oh,

he's, he's a baller. Yeah, he must be. Like, you will remember him as the one who carries the black blade

of Antwer. Oh, that's some weird antweer, like, I don't know why that name sounds really stupid.

me. I mean, I'm sure it's a badass blade and it's, I'm assuming this is the one that kind of talks to him and has a demon inside of it. And yeah, that is, that's the one. So, Crow is though, he is a, like, considered to be genuinely just a flawless soul, completely immune to the temptations of chaos in such a way that is just so outlandishly powerful that he's kind of dower. and he has like no personality. He's just the guy because he can't have a personality because it'll be taken over.

That's true. If you are to be like strong of will and uncorruptible, you're kind of stuck not having a personality at all because you just have to constantly be stoic. Oh, damn, his mini looks great. His mini was just recently redone. Yeah, he's very cool. Oh, that's so, oh, that sword looks so,

So good. The sword, it says, I am the power of death incarnate. I am the sword's edge. I hungrily cut the flesh and drink deep of the bloody well beneath. Give me your body and I promise you glory. I promise you vengeance and I promise you immortality if you will only let me. What an edge lord. That sword shops at Hot Topic 100%.

So this sword came to be wielded by him after his held by a prior castelin of the purifier order. Eventually, the sword was, seeds was desire by people around him and eventually was used to cut the throat of the original owner of the sword. He eventually, through the efforts, Garen Crow was able to recover the sword. And then it tries, even now, to find purchase and possess Crow's soul. desperate for the freedom. However...

You can't do it. You can't do it? Nope. So this is an eternal burden that Crow has put upon himself. This blade is the most potent artifact the Grey Knights possess. Which is probably a pretty crazy to state

because... They hold all the secrets. The shadow keepers hold a lot too. That's the special vaults under Terra that the custodians hold. Oh, yeah, that's true. They probably would have a lot of doomsday devices under there, too. That's fair.

They might have a few worse down there, but besides them, there is, this is their biggest one. Yeah. And in fact, it's considered so powerful that it might be a hell of a lot more than just a greater, a demon prince or a greater demon in the sword. It might be like the surviving fragment of an old god. Oh. We don't know, but it's. insanity levels of powerful because people standing too close to the wielder are driven mad with the whispers and lies of the sword.

Only gray knights can resist the words, but not for long. If people spend too much time near Crow, they can feel it gnawing in their brain and they have to separate themselves from him after a period of time. Damn. Yeah, because I was going to say, before you said it wasn't like, it wasn't that. the prior leader of the purifiers succumbed to the sword. It was just the sword made everybody around him crazy and they slid his throat and they attacked him and that's how Crow had to recover the sword because everybody else killed the dude because he went nuts because the sword or everybody around him went nuts.

He finds himself assailed often by people trying to grab the sword out of his hands and he's like the un, he gets attacked more. often than normal because of this sword. Yeah. Very often, so he often has to stay like alone and he's locked in his own chambers

the whole time because if people come by, they'll talk to him for a bit maybe, but it cannot last because they can feel it gnawing at them. The sword, yeah. So he is never without the blade. He, and in fact, so much so that for a while

he used to carry it in a scabbard on his back or kept it sheathed and hung up in the wall of his personal chambers and more and more often the sword would just move when his back is turned or it would slip free of its scabbard. So he can use the full power of this sword. No. Oh, he can't.

No, so he keeps his hand on the hilt at all times, forever. Because to keep it back, but he uses the sword as simply a blade of sharpened metal. Oh, so for him, it's just, like, even though this sword is, like, one of the most powerful relics ever, he, he uses it, like, it's just a sword. Like, it's just, it's just a sharp piece of steel. He doesn't have access to any of its actual, like, powers. To do so would be to open himself up to the sword. Oh, man, I guess I figured. that he could use, like, the powers, but he's so strong of will that he, like, fights off

any sort of, like, corruption attempt. So he's got this really cool sword, and he's just swinging it around like a piece of metal. Oh, man. Yep. That's why he's a master swordsman, because he has to win with a piece of sharpened steel. Wow.

What a, I mean, I guess that is. What a Chad, right? Yeah, that is a pretty big Chad move that, like, you have this incredible, relic and it's like, no, I don't need that. I do sometimes wonder if the sword actually will use its own power, like a gone from crow, because sometimes he'll be fighting off enemies and then the Black Blade, because the Black Blade is talking to him at all times.

Constantly, yeah. It's always whispering in his head. Yeah. And in fact, he records what the sword says to hopefully glibly. some kind of, because it's often lies, but sometimes in the battlefield, the sword will, like, for example, there was a fight on something known as the, the black planet. And from there, there is a demon of corn known as skull taker, which as soon as seeing it, oh, yeah, it's obvious, right?

A corn demon. But the sword saw a skull taker and immediately started going haywire. because I guess it's a long, long rival of the Black Blade and so it was like kill him, kill him, use my power, come on, I want to murder him. Use it, use it, let me go, let me go, let me go. And so sometimes, despite there being

so many lies spoken by the sword, there are some truths said by it because it's like, okay, well, you're using the sword to kill my friends, but you're also killing like my rivals. Yeah, so awesome. Oh, is that a picture of Skulltaker, that Shai just posted? Yeah, he's like a fancy bloodthirster.

Oh, he's cool. I like him. Yeah, he's like, he takes skulls. Well, I mean, that's what corn would want him to do. But after his battle with Skull Taker, he sent him back into the warp, and then he vanished with the mocking laughter of the blade in his mind. Just like, ha, ha. What's the, what's this name in Simpsons?

the Oh, oh Ha ha ha Ha ha I forget what his name is That's entirely how I view it Yeah Nelson Nelson

Thank you Shai Thank you Thank you But yeah that That's Crow He's kind of a gig of chad So when Crow takes the battlefield

Is he more often than not Just on his own Just his own Little Strike Force Because he can't be Near the other troops It

Well he normally runs There's purifiers which are far more peer of minds. That is true, yeah. But for him, it's more just like, like, you can't, I mean, let's be honest right now. The gray knights aren't fighting with the guard anytime soon. Because if he, like, walked his ass into a regiment of guardsmen, they would all just, like, start trying to ball him. Like, give me the sword.

Give me the sword. Give me the sword. Yeah, well, that's true. I guess I didn't realize, or I didn't put two and two together. It's like, oh, yeah, they're purifiers. There's only 50 of them. because they're so pure of mind that they would be able to, yeah. Yeah, still none are as powerful enough to hold off the sword,

except for him, but, you know, they can fight with him for a bit. Yeah, yeah. It's not like he has to be on his own, like a little siege tank. Right. So other than that, there is a couple other interesting parts of the Grey Knights. I mean, I could spend a whole damn episode talking about their psychic powers. One of them is literally opening up a rift into the... the warp, which is insane.

Wow. Okay. Just like, it's called Vortex of Doom. They just like cut a little line of the fabric of reality into their enemies and then like a bunch of demons just grab them and pull them in. Oh, man. I, that's, I would love to see that animated somehow. Because that'd be like a really cool like CG effect and. Oh, speaking of, uh, of getting pulled in.

Okay. Let's talk about Supreme Grandmaster Caldor Drago. All right. I hear he's a bit of a Gary Stu. I hear he is you know. So Drago

is the issue of a bit of when the Grey Knights came out in like fifth edition, fourth edition way back when, something like around there. They were the brand new

kid on the block before Custodian were a faction, like a playable faction. And they were the... It's a bit. I mean, custodians were around. They just weren't playable. They were kind of the whole like, ooh, you like space marines? What if I gave you spacer Marines?

Spacier Marines. Super space. And it's like, they're so cool that none of them can be corrupted. And they're all psychers. And they're super secretive. And it's like, it kind of felt like schoolyard writing. You know?

Yeah. Like the, I'm playing as Iron Man. Well, I have an anti-iron man force field. Kind of that stuff. I will have an anti-iron-man field gun. Which, like, is basically what Warhammer is in general.

But, you know, um, Drago, so Drago is a little bit better now. I kind of like Drago a bit more after reading the Pandarax book with him and Azrael fighting. Um, but he,

he definitely, his roots are based in a bit of, of like space marine jerk off, jerking themselves off kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. So he is the Supreme Grand Master of the Great Ice currently. And his story began in a demon incursion of a world called Acrolem, like year 40,000, 799. Okay. He fought a demon prince known as McCar the Reborn.

And he killed him. And as it died, as it died, it's talking. him, victory is yours this day mortal, but know if you ever set foot upon this world again, you and all who follow you shall walk with damn nation for 10 millennia.

It's quite the prophecy. After this, Drago was promoted to Justa Carr, which is like sergeant, and became slowly, over the next 200 years elevated more and more with his honors. The only person with a higher honor than him was probably Janus

the original thousands and Sons guy that became the first ever Grey Knight Supreme Master. Oh, okay. So, pretty, pretty heralded. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Hold on, shy. Let me explain the lore first and then I'll take your TLDR.

Okay, I'm assuming it is a long list. If it's Caldor, it's probably, you know, a purity seal. Dregos, shit is, yeah. Anyway, 200 years later, he eventually what, oh, yeah, I've told, okay, I'm assuming the Mortarian thing is in your list, isn't it, shy? I'm, surely. Oh, yeah, I thought so.

Okay, we'll skip that part now. And we'll go, we'll return to that. So 200. We'll get that. We'll get that. All right. So 200 years. later, there was another distress beacon back at the same planet that was invaded by the demons

once again. And upon learning about this, he knew that McCar, the demon prince had been reborn after from being sent to the warp. And he was here to lay the curse upon, upon his prey or whatever. So, Drago for... It's called the reborn is because he keeps getting reborn and you can't really kill him. Well, that's what demons are. anyway.

Oh, so why's this guy called the Reborn? I don't know, because he was reborn in blood or something. Some classic demon shit. Okay. It's demon stuff. Demon stuff. Who cares? He's back. Prophecy is fulfilled. Oh, man, I got to go get him, even if it means 10,000 years of damnation.

So he forbade, forbid, whatever, all of his other great nights were coming with him. He went there alone and helped a ton of, just helped a ton. He helped firing the psychic power to burn away the rotting plague zombies of Nurgel. He helped hold back the demonic horde from the 912th regiment of the Acadian shock troops. He fought with guardsmen to help defeat his demonic foes, yada, yada, yada, yada. And at the end of the edge of the warp rifts, the two of them fought once again. And using a broken blade, he stabbed the demon directly. in his heart, sending him back

into the warp before the demon was fully banished. He wrapped his talons around Drago and pulled him in with him. Ooh, that sucks for you, buddy. And somehow, Drago did not die.

But instead, he walks around in the warp. So hardened is his mind from the deductions of the problems of chaos that he started moving around the warp and beating the ass of the demons there. Shai, would you like to post all the things that Caldor Drago has done? So he lands the final blow.

This thing's getting pulled back into the warp, pulls him in with, and now he's just kind of, I'm walking on sun, while he's just mowing down every demon in the warp. All right, Drago's achievements. One, killing a demon. Killing a demon prince in his first ever combat action, which was the M-Car guy. Okay. Two, banishing demon primark Mortarian back to the warp while carving the name of his previous supreme grandmaster into the heart of Mortarian.

What? Single-handedly holding off a demon horde for two days in real space. Killing the demon prince again with the broken sword. Yeah. Killing one of Korn's strongest bloodthursters with little to no weaponry. Okay. Taking, taking said bloodthurster's axe and reforging it into a sword for his own personal use with his mind. May I remind you that he is doing this while he is currently in the warp?

Oh, okay. Slaying Sixth of Slef's chosen demonets, setting fire to Nurgel's Garden, walking into the city of Zinche and smashing it to rubble. Oh, okay. Slaying a large number of demons while being trapped in with the warp. Traveling to another universe, Warhammer Fantasy, not a joke, and attempted to save it from destruction. And his failure to stop Warhammer Fantasy's universe from being destroyed and replaced

with Sigmar is one of his major L's to his day. Okay. He can be summoned by Chaos Cultist. unwillingly instead of a demon to return and then appearing and killing them all and then leaving back to the warp. I like that last one with those like, oh yeah, we're going to summon this cool demon

and Caldo Drago just shows up and just like bitch. Drago walks the warp's path now and demons ignore him because he's such a force of will that only the craziest of corn will even

fight him. They just leave him alone but he can't leave the warp he's trapped in there. And so he'll occasionally have to be randomly spit out into places he's needed, such as Warhammer Fantasy in the past. I don't know if this is going to be a hot take or not. But after reading all this, I kind of don't like Caldor. That's an extremely cold take.

That is the coldest take you have ever said. Oh, really? Okay, because I was worried because I wasn't sure how many. people really liked Caldor Drago or not, but all this stuff just sounds so like, it is very Gary Stu and it's very just like, oh, look how strong I am. I made a sword with my mind after doing bloodthirster and after 1v1 Immortarian and doing what Primarks can't do. And it just, all of it just seems, it almost seems more annoying than anything. It doesn't make me like him. It makes me kind of want to see him just get absolutely kicked off his pedestal.

So remember, we had a stream a bit ago where someone was mentioning one of the characters and one of the recent Siege of Tara books, some like super powerful psycher lady that helped the emperor and Malkador and stuff. I don't remember her name, but in the book she held off like four greater demons by herself or something and we all were like, that sounds stupid. Yeah. I feel like the people who really like Drago are one of two kinds of people. Well, actually, three types of people.

One would be people who just really like Grey Knights. They just like Grey Knights a lot. That's just their favorite faction. You know, they like Grey Knights. Oh, that's fair. Two, people who just really like this level of jerking themselves off. Who are like, God, he's so powerful and so cool. Look how awesome he is as he's walking in.

chaos and then shitting on the lawn of corn and then setting it aflame. They really love that self-gratification, yeah. Or people who kind of think it's funny. It's like, yeah, I love Caldwardrago. His lore is so ridiculous. It's just kind of hilarious to see, like, what's he going to do next? Like, you could play it as comedy. Right, kind of like Sly Marlboro fans.

It's one big stupid meme. Sly what now? Sly, what, you, whatever the hell. his name is. Sly mauled, bro. Yeah, he makes me mold, bro. Marbo. Marbo. Oh, I said the cigarette.

I was, I was thinking he was like Sly Marlboro man, you know. So in Emperor texts a speech, he has memed on a lot by making him still as insanely powerful, but making him turn into a complete jabbering idiot. Because he's been in the war too long.

Yeah. Okay. Well done TTS. He's just really, really wacky and weird. I like the idea that too much warp exposure has made him just a little crazy. He is a very wacky. So much like people have, like no one gave a shit about Cados Akarius in the Ultramarines. He's got ultra depression now and it's kind of funny.

But Cado Saccharius has this total meme thing on text of speech. And now people kind of give a shit. Okay. For Drago, it is not. It is now people like him as kind of the joking manner because of TTS, which I'm sure makes the people who really wank him off very upset. Oh, man, I bet it pisses them off so much. But Drago is a model I do own. I do kind of like him from a gameplay point of view.

He's kind of cool. Is he good on the tabletop? I'm assuming he's got to be absolutely rock star on the tabletop. for the Grey Knights. He is very good. He is very, very good. Yeah. He's always been pretty nasty, honestly. He's just quite the powerful

weapon. I mean, if that's his in-game lore, and that's all or not in-game, if that's his lore in 40K, his mini has to kind of be like that. Like, you can't give him this laundry list of insane achievements and have him be able to withstand

the warp and have demons ignore him and then be like, yeah, his mini sucks. No, no, he's... You can't do it. He's incredibly good. He has all kinds of power. He's just, he's very, very strong. He's drag.

It works out. Yeah, yeah. I don't like him. I'm not a huge fan of him either. I actually have kind of gone, uh, full circle, though. When I was like seven or 18 years old, I was like, oh, wow, he's so cool and stuff.

And then I kind of grew, and then I kind of grew up. I was going to say you were still mature. You know, you hit 18 and everybody has that phase, you know. And then, yeah, and then I kind of went more onto the, uh, onto the guardsman world, or I kind of preferred the exact opposite of Drago, the regular guy. And now I'm kind of back to the, to the, ah, look, he's so funny. Look at him. He's so, he's so silly.

See, now you appreciate him, not because he's like super strong, but it's like, ah, is stupid, you know, you're the, yeah, that's okay. And also his, his Pandarax book I read. He actually kind of got, he struggled a bit in the book, you know, which was nice. Yeah, it certainly wrote him as a little bit more normal, and I appreciated that. It's kind of like how I've sort of come around on the Ultramarines and don't super hate them now that they're kind of being written a little more like, hey, look, they're not unstoppable Gary Stu Maniacs that just always succeed. Exactly.

It helps out a little bit. Oh, yeah, definitely. You know, I must admit, there's actually quite a bit more Grey Knight stuff that I would like to talk about, but we are really going through the time right now. Are we going to have to do a third Grey Knights episode? There are two, actually, if anything, there's one story that is really good called The Months of Shame that I actually really wanted to do. It's a great, Grey Knights and the Inquisition versus the Space Wolves. Oh, really? Though I must admit, it's actually a bit more of a baller story for the space wolves than it is the Grey Nights.

And I might save it for the Space Wolves episode when it's time for the Space Wolves. Yeah. Wait, so, wait, the Space Wolves fight the Grey Man? Yep, yep. It's a very interesting, interesting story. I actually think it's quite cool. But I think I'm going to save it for the Space Wolves episode. because I think it paints them at a better light.

I was like, did he mean the Luna Wolves? Like, as they were about to turn traitor? Why are there two loyalists fighting each other? Dude, you've got a good point. The loyalist factions of 40K would never fight each other. That would be crazy. Oh, yeah, that's insane. That never happens.

They never disagree on anything. I couldn't imagine such a thought. I'm going to bomb the planet Gillum and you can't stop me. You must You must puff, puff, puff pass, Lion. This is the behavior that got the sanguineus killed.

And you call it Ultra Boof's Mid. Okay, there is actually We actually might need to do another Grey Nights episode. There's actually a lot more like talk about. There's the prognosticars,

which are a really fun topic as well. There's still also Revuel Arvita, the origin of of Janus that we have to do. There's also the thing called the Terminus Decree, which is a crazy thing. We might

really need to have a whole new thing going on. Honestly, I would not mind another episode on the Grey Nights. So far, they've been pretty interesting. There are a lot of fun. Yeah, I don't mind. If you want to do a third one, let's do it. Hell yeah. It won't be next episode. We'll probably do a few

other things before we do more Grey Nights. Yeah. Come back around to Grey Nights, yeah. Yeah, but it should pretty good. Okay, cool. All right. Well, in that case, I guess we'll call it right now. We'll end it for the time being. You learned about Crow, you learned about Drago,

you learned about the recruitment and just like the creations of the brotherhoods. Oh, no, it's bad. As soon as you said Caldor Drago, I had a, I had like the ultramarine instinct to immediately start booing him. I mean,

I mean, based? You were like, you learned about Calder I mean, capital, I mean capital B based? Dub, big dub? This is a boss man. This dub is so big. Oh, man, I love the boss man guy.

He's so fun. That guy's great. I love that too. In awe at the size of this dub. Love it. Had to put my phone down to learn about this dub. Yes. Hello.

Shai said this is. This is gibberish, and it's like, we'll... Oh, this is gibberish, hi? This is all we do. All right, god damn. This whole podcast is based on gibberish. What are you talking about? Fine, fine, shy.

Here, we'll end it with this. Crap, wrong one.