Adeptus Ridiculous - The Plague Wars Have Begun | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

NEW MERCH: https://shop.orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculoushttps://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculous00:00 Dk can't do an intro01:10 Shilling merch09:45 The EpisodeGuilliman is back, but the Imperium is a mess, and his Ultra-Depression is kicking in full force. In this episode, we kick off our three-part series on the Dark Imperium books, diving into the massive conflict that brings the Avenging Son face-to-face with his brother Mortarion: The Plague Wars.​Ultramar is struggling under the weight of Chaos rot, and Mortarion is aiming to choke the realm with disease. We explore the tragic and horrific transformation of the hospital world of Iax into a literal breeding ground for Nurgle's decay, and see how Guilliman plans to hold his territory together by reforming the Tetrarchy to make the 500 Worlds stronger.​Plus, we break down Guilliman's confusing new reality in M41. From dealing with the fanatical Ecclesiarchy and his new Militant-Apostolic Mathieu, to navigating a deadly Legends of the Hidden Temple style obstacle course just to talk to a 100% definitely-not-sentient VTuber version of Belisarius Cawl.Support the show

You're not going to say hello to Craig anymore, Kyria? Jesus. I've hard switched out to just being abusive to him. I don't really know why, but I have. And I'm sticking to me. What the fuck? Look at his cute little face. What's wrong with you, Kyria?

I'm pretty sure I told him to get the fuck out the last acceptable losses we did. Oh. Yeah, what? Okay, it's going to be bad that you're going to be so rude to Craig today because today's a very important day for Craig. All right. Are we all ready?

I don't know. I'm ready. I'm ready. All right. All right. Welcome everyone to another episode of the... Jesus, you cursed me. I knew one of these days I was going to say acceptable losses at the start of this.

Anyway, welcome everyone to another... You mother fuck. I was like, I'm not going to say anything because it'll throw him off again. There we go. All right. All right.

All right. All right. Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamantis, his name is Bricky. And, oh, look, Karioth is back. But before we get into all that, if you enjoyed today's episode, maybe you want to support us monetarily, heading over the Patreon at 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 just the most beautiful digital form you've ever seen. you should check it out. Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous. Bricky, what's up? It's me. It's Bricky. I got good news for good news, everyone. It's a suppository. It is a merch day today, baby. We have a brand new merch drop for Adeptis Ridiculous. And it's a biggie. It's a biggie. It's a biggie. It's a big one. The, uh, I got to, I got to share off all the big stuff. So I've showed some of you already. Some of you, the Kyrioth, D.K.

All of you, I've shown awesome shy, etc. I've shown you some of this stuff, but it is time to launch the brand new giant merch drop for AdRick. First things first, we have the clothes. Of course, you have the new AdRick band tea, the one with the galaxy map on it. It's on a nice, heavyweight mineral wash shirt, often wrong. often wrong, but never in doubt. A very, very enjoyable catchphrase. So accurate, dude.

I love it. You've got the old school black tea with the car kind of like diagram. Back when they would do things for like Chevys and stuff like that. But this time you've got the scratchette version of it, which I think absolutely rocks. It does. A big thing we are bringing back. and permanently keeping the little guys shirts and hoodies again. The original little guys from the old little blood, the lords, the siege, the inquisner, everything from there is all coming back.

And it will be a permanent addition as well as the old school objective markers that we launched as well a bit ago. But all of that's out. But most importantly, we have the brand new. Emperor's slate set. That's a big, heavy word. Do you remember in good old, I think it was flesh and steel. They had slates, that was their currency.

Mm-hmm. Well, we have our own pack. You know what? Actually, hold on. Where's my camera? I can show us off the camera. Absolutely gorgeous. Let me find, let me find my camera.

I got to turn my camera on. Okay, can everyone, hold on. Can you all see me? Can everyone see me? Oh my God, it's, all right. It's Bricky from the internet. Oh, my God, it's Bricky from Bricky from Twitch. combe from Twitch.

We got, we got, we got, we got the slates. We got, we got the box in the box. Oh, we got the, oh no, Kiriath. Oh, crap, you're sinking, Kiryoth. Hold on. Let him sink. fixed. There they are.

There's some. So originally, so they all obviously have the Adrick, um, coin background here. But then the front, that's me. Uh, they all have their own little, little stick to them all. Uh, and they're all based off of the emperor's taro. Well, so there's various types of, um, of emperor's terror, right? And so, uh, if I'm not, like, they all have their own, uh, their own variances. And so like I have, I'm the lantern.

Yes. So there is the lantern, which I believe is kind of like a shepherd of knowledge or something of that nature. Hence like, you know, original podcast teaching, lost child, D.K., I don't even remember, remember that one. I think it was just funny. It just fits so well. Absolutely. Krioth, you, sir, are the silver door, which I think, I forget what that one was specifically, but I thought it was pretty cool. Shy is death.

There is any of you on that one. Yep, that is right on the money. But they also have a Roman numeral on each of these that are related to your favorite legion. So mine says eight, because nylords, you've got 15 for 1,000 sons, shy has Alpha Legion and Kirioth. I don't know why he keeps thinking. You have, if I'm not mistaken, it is, what was this? 17, which is word bears. Yeah, you got it.

Yeah, yeah. But then, so there's 500 of these. And we're going to write in silver sharpie on the inside, which one you get, if it's like one out of 500 or like three out of 500 or whatever. And that'll be each kit. So there's exactly 500 of these sets. However, we purchased an additional 250 of each coin. But we also got some special coins because we have individually wrapped singles if you want the single.

I wanted to take a little bit of a key out of evil, evil gambling and do a little bit of gambah. So should you buy the singles in the blind bag, it's totally random of who you get, there's 250 of all of us, so a thousand silvers, but there's also 250 of our main man possum. Which is revelation, of course, which is their car. They are, if I'm not mistaken, they are the Ninth Legion, which is D.K. Don't remember. It's Blood Angels. Yeah, okay. And literally just blanked.

But you have a chance to get the special possum golden coin in that. There's 250 of him. And then lastly, the most rare of them all, the craziest of them all. Craig. Craig. Craig. There's only 100. There's only 100

Craig coins. There's a thousand individual silvers, 250 possums, and 100 crags. Damn, he put the SSR in there. Crazy. They put the damn Craig.

I don't know if we can make a small compilation of all of the times we've said hi to Craig after this so that people can ask who the fuck Craig is. That might be. and actually why the disapproval towards me turning abusive towards Craig. I cannot see whether it was abusive to Craig, man.

Yeah, what the hell? We were making special Craig coins. What wrong with you, Kyrieff? Also, that when you did the coin flip, that was a satisfying sound. Oh, yeah, I forgot. We got to make the sound effects. We got to make the sound effects.

I thought that was the sound effect. You were going to. Also, they, They're light enough where they kind of sound like money in your hands. Yeah. You can do that satisfying poker chip stuff. And then if you put them down on the table, I mean, it's great. It's great stuff.

Anyway, 500 of the main sets available. Then there's a bunch of singles. And if you do the singles, you have a chance to get the possum or Craig coin as well, as well as the new shirts. the old school little guys and objective markers are all back. Check it out. Link in the description. Hopefully we had a QR code during that whole segment. Sorry it took so long, but it was really fun.

And I've been working on this for a really long time. So, yay. What a big day for merch. That's so hype. Let's fucking go. It's a big day for merch, baby. That's a great day for merch. Let's go.

All right. Now I spend like 10 minutes shilling. Curia. If you want to just take us to play one, Yeah, let's do it. Let's go straight in with the quote, although if you don't get it, D.K., you'll be in trouble. I think it's Plague Wars, Kierreath? Yeah, yeah. Do we skip the quote? We know what it is. Well, say the quote anyway, because it might be a cool quote.

It is, you know what, it is quite a good quote. You know, I'll give you the quote, but we'll blast through it. You're not a man until you've been checked and triple-cleensed trooper. Until then, you're a vector of infection that endangers this whole world. Now, keep your friend on control or we'll have to give him the ultimate sanction. We're here for Gilliman's mercy, said Varen's. The medicare laughed behind his mask. Mercy's in short supply. Dump your kit and proceed to decontamination.

Nice. It's actually quite a good quote. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm glad we didn't skip that. Dump your kit and proceed to decontamination is pretty good. Mm-hmm. Also, just, I mean, yeah, like, oh, oh, no. one single flood spore can destroy a species type shit.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, COVID-2020 stop shy. No. It's too much. There's too much like real-life parallel stuff with what we're writing at the moment across multiple vectors. So I'm going to ignore that and not go straight into despair. Okay.

At the end of 7th edition in 2017, the Gathering Storm Books resulted in the destruction. of Cadia and the return of the Primark, Rabutee Gilliman, whose first name, I Still Get Wrong. His leading of the Indobbuses Crusade in those books would be his reintroduction to the tabletop, but when it comes to the firm return to the law Black Library-wise, the Dark Imperium books would serve as his proper reintroduction. But you can't just bring back a major character without giving them a major conflict to settle. The overarching conflict of the Dark Imperium series would be the Plague Wars and would pit Gilemon against the forces of his brother Mortarian as he tried to choke an already struggling Ultramar with rot and disease.

I've forgotten how actually kind of neat the book covers are for this series. I mean, it's very sort of, you know, Imperial Saint slash Savior, but hey, he's come back. He deserves a bit of cover time. The Dark Imperium cover is really sick with that flaming. I mean, the first book has the Flaming Emperor Sword too, but like, I don't know, something about the pose, the stance, the dark background. Love that one. It's a very, uh, a very, uh, a very, like, that, that is a space marine cover. As far as space marine covers go, that is a space marine cover.

That one's cool. God, the Dark Imperial Godblay one with Mortarian is very, very cool. Yeah. Yep. Anytime you can see Mortarian, it's a good time. Also, the shit. size of the lad never disappoints. Just look at the scale. So good. So we just talked about the 500 World's Initiative in the previous episode, but this is where it truly got its grounding, as the

battles of the Plague Wars would bring the Imperium to its knees once more, and an avenging sun would have to keep it from the brink. So for this three-episode series, we're going to cover all three of the Dark Imperium books, one per episode, so that we can fully tell the story of the Plague Wars. And I just want to, before we get into this, this trilogy across a trilogy of episodes. We have to give slight extra props to Possum for this one because this is a little bit earlier than normal and I know from talking to Possum the other day

that they were up until 3 o'clock in the morning rereading this book to prepare for this recording. So Possum's been down the mines and much though Possum yearns for the minds, sometimes those minds can get pretty dark. So thank you, Possum. Before we get in... It's the best.

Before we get in, the elephant in the room is saying, address me, so here goes. The first two of these books were retconed when the third book came out. God, I love Games Workshop. The biggest change being the timeline. Yeah, it's one of those things that is kind of funny, where you write a series

to reintroduce a major character, and then when the third book comes out, alter the first two. like incredible planning love it so the third book like completely nullifies the first two and just makes them

pointless no so that the third book builds on the first two but the first two were changed for a very specific reason at least which is that

initially the events of the books took place 112 years after Gilliman woke up but this was shaved down by 100 years for the sake of not slingshoting too far ahead in the timeline right out of the gate. Other changes were made too, including some changes to characters, terminology and a few revised passages here and there. So these episodes will, of course, cover the most up-to-date versions of these stories. But the fact they went into this trilogy and then by the third book went, we shouldn't have gone 112 years ahead, let's take it back by 100.

I like it because it's very GW. It's very kind of, okay, we've got to change this. I was going to say, I was going to say, like, damn, they really decided to be all, like, normally if they do recons, normally it isn't a book that came out like 10 years ago or less. So that's pretty goofy. They're getting, they're getting bold with it. Bold with the changes, apparently. Entire Black Library novels. Quick, alter it now.

So, to start with, we've got, oh dear, G-Man is back and the Battle of Rawcast. Some of the subtitles for the script are, there's a wild mix, I'll put it that way. We've talked about it numerous times, so we don't really have to do it again. Gileman was killed at the hands of Fulgium, and then he came back. The galaxy he left was fractured, and the galaxy he returned to was shattered. By the time we get to him standing on the bridge of his ship, he's already been made Lord Regent of the Imperium, and he's seen firsthand through the Terran crusade the extent of what has become of that Imperium. Many things weigh heavily on his shoulders, and this is where D.K. would normally

point out that he has ultra-depression. Yeah, it sure is, because he does. I mean, you know, if you woke up to what he woke up to, you'd have it too. Oh, 100%. And his ultra-depression comes in two forms. Of course, the most external is like the state of things in general. In his final days, he had worked hard to hold the Imperium together and keep some sort of order as everything fell apart. And now that he's back, he can see the decay of 10,000 years, and it is barely a shadow of itself. Sure, he's been sending supplies, reunifying worlds, and working on the implementation of new things, including the Primaries Project, but it doesn't change the volume of the Imperium's state. The second and more

internal part of his ultra-depression is more heavily based on something more personal to him, his sons. For 10,000 years of war, rot, and decay, Gilliman helplessly sat in stasis and was not there when his ultramarines needed him most. This feels like something he believes he can fix in some way, but he needs time to suss it out. Also, that kind of sucks that like he wakes up and he's like, oh no, I wasn't there for my son since like the ultramarine's biggest shame is, oh shit, we weren't there for Tara. And now he's got like a double dose of fuck, I wasn't there when I was needed the most again.

And then he wakes up to what everything is going on right now. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure he feels pretty guilty for, he's like, damn, Horace might as well have won at this point. Every part of what he was attempting to build sort of just fell apart whilst he was unable to help. That's, that's a rough, that is a rough Monday. You know?

It's a rough Monday. It's a rough Monday, but also, like, big, huge W. Arabis. Because it works. Yeah. Like, like, it works. It's like, I'm making the ruin storm to stop all this, uh, all the ultramarines from getting here and stuff also battle of health.

It completely worked. We didn't win. Well, I guess maybe, I don't know. The emperor's dead sort of. I did it's weird. But Horace is too. So I guess they didn't win. They didn't win.

But like, damn, did they kind of get there? Yeah. I feel like Erebus always feels like he's won no matter what the outcome is. He's just that sort of. That's true. He is just kind of that sort of knobhead, isn't he? Bobby G wakes up and there's just a secretary somewhere that's like, looks like somebody's got a case of the Monday.

Executed straight away. Great, great facts, shut the fuck up. Despite all of this, though, he keeps a brave face on and the action that he's currently engaged in, particularly in the pit of rawcast, which is in the star system of 108 slash calipus 9, sees him focused heavily on combat, in the hopes that some victories might be invigorating for his sons, because currently Ultramar is in a bit of a state.

Though Gilliman might not be close to Ultramar, Ultramar is close to him, and the state of Ultramar has been pretty miserable since the opening of the rift. North of Ultramar lies the Scourge Stars, a diseased empire that is controlled by the forces of Nurgel, that is slowly expanding. The extent of this expansion isn't quite known yet by Gilliman, because he's got a battle to win first. The Battle of Raucos itself pits him against the chaos fleets of the word bearers,

and funnily enough, the fight against them comes fairly easy to Gilliman because of his prowess and military tact, and quite frankly the battle is almost child's play for him. But there is a fairly significant reason for this as well, which is that the forces are not unified. Gilliman's mind is pretty fresh coming back from 10,000 years prior, so he remembers how the forces his brothers commanded would engage before even and during the heresy.

Now, in the modern era, Gilliman sees fairly clearly that the traitor forces are not unified and are fighting almost independently, whereas his ability to guide the forces of the Imperium to an overwhelming victory not only invigorates those involved in the fight, but also Gilliman himself. And he makes a vow that no effigies to the dark guards will remain standing as long as he's around. But there are some systems that are feeling the real weight of chaos, particularly Ultramar.

I really like the idea of him going into this fight going, okay, well, if I remember, if I remember back, word barriers could be pretty, pretty sound tactically, and they've got their allies with that, oh, oh, the two of them are not communicating whatsoever. Right. That makes things easy. Sure. There's just a bunch of barbarians running at you as hard as they can. No communication, just completely scattered. The typical balancing force, right? Where it's like, oh, if they were unified, they'd take over the galaxy. Well, they're not. Like how the orcs were ever unified, they take over the galaxy, but they're not. If all the Necrons woke up and they were unified,

they'd take over the galaxy, but they're not. Yeah, thank God for the Necron spending five thousand years for a court case keeps us all alive. Or just a theater play. There's also the added thing with the word bearers of, if the word bearers omnibus is anything to go by, constant infighting, vying for power and assassination attempts. Like, that's got to make a big difference to any sort of progress you make. It's like, oh, how's the, how's the, uh, how's the conquering of that system going?

Well, we haven't really conquered anything, but two dark apostles have killed each other. which means that I'm now in charge. And this is my protege who also seems to be hungry for power, but we'll ignore that right now. Like, it feels like there's a lot of that with the word bearers. Or just chaos in general, right? Like, there's not a whole lot of chaos factions where that doesn't happen. That's true.

The irony, too, in the fact that, in the fact that even with all of that kind of stuff, it's almost identical to the Imperium. Oh, look, a whole bunch of religious zealots fighting for power and assassinating each other. No, that would never happen with humans. The Imperium is a united front. How dare you? No, wait.

It's a united affront to my patience. Wow. Actually, I think I actually have one of those. Hold on. Yeah, you do. Yeah. Damn, all right. Oh, dear, you've got a minus two from Shai, though. That's rough. That's rough to see it.

That is rough. I'll never recover. That's a neutral rating from everybody else. It's fine. Perfectly balanced. So Ultramar is, as mentioned before, feeding the impact of the expansion of the rot, and systems have been repurposed to provide medical support. One of the planets of these systems is Iax, a once beautiful world that's been converted into a planet-sized hospital.

Those who encounter and combat the horrors of Nurgle are sent there in order to be quarantined and decontaminated before returning back to the freight. And yes, that is correct, decontaminated. Traditionally, you'd think that anyone that's been impacted by this stuff would be straight up killed, but there is a key difference here, and it's outlined fairly explicitly. So here you go, D.K. Upon lax, the lesser sick recuperated alongside the injured. Some of the diseases unleashed into Ultramar could be treated under median range quarantine

conditions with standard medicines. Others required specialist care, up to and including Adeptus Ministerome approved exorcisms. Those suffering from the more aggressive, spiritually corrupting illnesses were held in specially commissioned stations in orbit. As few as possible were euthanized, if they could be helped, they were. This is what was said in Ultramar was the difference between Roebute Gellemans and the Emperor's Mercies, and the Belize. And the Belize beleaguered people of that realm took heart in their Lord's concern for their well-being. Well, isn't that, well, nice? Yeah.

I feel like for the Imperium, that's pretty nice. Is it? Instead of just shooting them? Surely. Well, I mean, again, that's the difference between Gilliman and Biggie's mercies, right? That's, as it says in the quote, you know, it's kind of nice that someone actually cares to maybe help and cure us instead of just, you know, putting a bullet in the back of my head. They're not going full gray night is the thing.

They're, you know, seeing whether you can be cured first, which, I mean, it sounds like progress, but it shouldn't be. In the Imperium, that's big progress. Yeah. That's a step above United States Medicare. That's, no, that's too real shy. You can't hit us with that. For your information, shy, the United States and the British Medicare have the same quality. We just pay for it.

I hate it here. This is awful. This is just awful. It's okay here. Down here it ain't as bad. Yeah. Nurgle's stench only arrives after I eat Taco Bell around here. I'm selling when you go to Nando's in the UK as well.

So, you know, it works out the same. no matter where you are. So a group of folks seeking out the mercy of the returned Primark include a member of the Ultramar Auxiliary, named Tullius Varenz and his buddy Bolus. They got impacted by what they encountered while in combat, and Bolus in particular is having a very bad time, to the point where he is actively fighting against the Mediqai that are offering support.

Varen's vouches for him and talks about how Bolus saved his life and that he'll take care of him while they quarantine. Despite also seeing action, Varen's got off relatively unscathed. Sure, there's like flies and stuff, but he didn't get as raw of a mental deal as his buddy, or so he thought. In his time there, Varynx and the other soldiers

have quite a few things in common. The fighting that they all experienced, despite being in various corners of Ultramar, all feel similar, and they all seem to be experiencing the same nightmares. Foreshadowing is a literary device. Yep, that's not great. It, don't worry, it'll get worse.

Varing tries to talk about his experiences in more detail, but the thought of going over it again strikes him with fear. He can hardly carry this weight to begin with without reliving those battles, battles where things would strike with very small forces and vanish into the mists. Now, we're going to move gears slightly here into the grey shields, because there is an important thing to note about all the stuff happening at the behest of Gilleman, and some of that is the presence of the Primaris Marines, specifically the unnumbered sons

who refer to themselves as the Grey Shields. As we've talked about before, Cole spends an eternity creating Primaris Marines and Gilliman utilised them as a dedicated force during the Crusade. Gilliman would have them fight in mixed units so that they could learn from one another as opposed to being reliant on something more insular. The hope was to not repeat the issues that had existed

between the various chapters in the past. Now, one of these earliest Primaris Marines was Decimus, Androninus, androdi, oh my God, and, androdinus. I, look, I've not tried to say that out loud until now. Yeah, Androdinus, yeah. It's too close to multiple words that already exist and my brain couldn't pass. Yeah, brain wants to say androgynous, Andromeda. Yeah, that's a tough one. So Decimus, that, Felix.

So lazy, terrible. How early is Mr. Felix, you may ask? Well, he's been in and out of cryosleep and has been experimented on since around M31. So that guy is old as hell. Mm-hmm. And they've just been poking and prodding him? Great.

Yeah, but you know, you've got to get it right before you send a bunch of slightly stronger space marines out into the world. Felix is taking on for the team. Also, doing a very good job during the modern day, and his prowess resulted in him becoming a captain of the unnumbered sons. Gilliman took a very special interest in Felix due to his adaptive nature and would end up selecting him to become his equerry. A decision that would make him a bit uncomfortable considering the, you know,

countless other non-primus Marines that have been in the ultramarine ranks for centuries that he felt might be more deserving than him. But he stuck with it and tried his best. And, you know, we'll get back to him later, but he's doing all right, he's fine. Yeah, I said I'm sure it was fun to be called Frankenstein Monster. Yeah.

I'm sure that was just a gas, dude. Yep, for sure. It's time to wake up again? Oh, no. Please. Put me back to sleep, please. Kill me, kill me, kill me, kill me. Stick me back in the tube and just don't touch me ever again. At this point, Gillerman in between battles, is struggling to really grasp everything he missed while he was in stasis. His downtime is seen him picking up time after time to learn about events that have happened,

but even in these moments he struggles to find solace. The text he reads are clearly altered versions of whatever truth may have occurred. In particular, he reads about the chronosrife, a conflict between about five quote-unquote non-heretical branches of the Ordochronos and a few quote-unquote heretical branches, all fighting for centuries on what the correct date is. Love that. So good.

You know someone got assassinated for that. Oh, 100%. Multiple people got assassinated. By his own measure, even these accounts are completely incorrect, and there is likely a thousand-year discrepancy between what year it is and what everyone thinks the year is. A thousand years is mental. Like, that is, it's so long.

So you're off by just a couple of years, right? Um, yeah, just a couple. A thousand. It could be worse. Really? How? Yeah, another zero at the end of it. It could be way worse.

Oh, yeah, speaking of how unified humanity is, then murdering each other over the fucking calendar. I imagine applying that to to your standard every day. you accidentally say it's Monday not Tuesday because you got confused and someone knives you for it. That, but on a

organizational scale is actually terrified. I don't know, man. People got pretty spicy over the world. The world is going to end. The mine calendar said so. No, that's shite. In London, how dare you? How dare you?

It's two gift for slandering Craig Carrioth. No, it's true. It's true. The fallout has already started. In his own words, no wonder everyone is so fanatical. If these people are at each other's throats for the calendar, then how the hell is Gilman supposed to really grasp the more complex nonsense in the Imperium, especially with how freely people call others heretics? He needs to get a bit better at learning the ins and outs of this, and a certain priest caught his attention.

Now, this is a man by the name of Matthew, spelt, interestingly, who has a bit more of a humble, oh, pardon me, sorry, who has a bit more of a humble attitude to him than others, and he is Gilliman's pick for the new militant apostolic for this reason. He serves the will of the Emperor, like the other priests out there, but there's something more vulnerable and reasonable about him, and conversations with him allow Gilliman to see the way the ecclesiarchy influences the Imperium, while also allowing him to really centre himself

and understand how the weight of the Imperium feels that much heavier because of this influence. These conversations are a combination of theology and general curiosity, as Gilliman is having trouble really grasping how to go about everything in a way that doesn't completely shatter the Imperium he's attempting to hold together. But Matthew is a bit taken aback by the promotion here. He doesn't really feel worthy of this opportunity, and he feels like he's nothing more than a man speaking about what he truly believes in,

which of course, as is traditional in storytelling, means he's the perfect man for the job. Just an honest bloke having a nice conversation, the peasant elevated to talk to the Lord, that sort of thing. Classic. In the midst of all this, Gilliman speaks to him candidly about writing something new in a reorganizational sense,

the Codex Imperialis, something like the Codex Astartis, but for the Imperial citizens. He asks Matthew to help him, And Matthew agrees to assist by writing a more pointed sermon for an upcoming victory celebration for the Battle of Raucos, something that needed to be glorious. A triumph, something as mighty as the triumph of Eleanor, which, as we all know, always leads to good stuff. Nothing bad ever happens after a massive victory parade, does it? No, of course not.

Possum, a celebration and better- Call call. Nice. Call a call to call. Calling call. Just don't have interest. Did those two words simply sound exactly the same when I said them? Or was it possible to distinguish which was which?

Calling and call? Yeah, calling. Call and call. I've just done it. No, no, no. Call and call sound the same. They both sound like call. That's the point. That's not an accent thing.

call, call to call, call, calling call. For some reason, I always felt like call was more of an or, not an R sound. But maybe I'm just, maybe that's just my pronunciation. You stress the W a little bit, so it's call. Yeah. Instead of call. The downside. Yeah, call instead of call.

Yeah, it's basically, I don't think you guys get this. It's the same. It is the same. I'm trying to, I'm trying to help Keriath out here, man. Yeah, it's right. Just leave me out. Leave me out of the size. All right, that's it. We're removing the gold possum coin from the blind bag.

It's Craig only now. We're in full Craig mode. Oh, dear. Okay. The former battlefield has been turned into the staging ground for this triumph. Here, Gillerman speaks with Captain Felix and Uriel Ventris, a meeting that was long overdue and felt like a warm family reunion. But Ventris would bring news about another potential family reunion.

He confirms with Gilliman that the resurgence of chaos and Ultramal is the direct result of the presence of Mortarian. He seems to be consolidating forces, and this consolidation is making the presence of chaos in Ultramar worse. Gilliman takes the blame for this, and he believes that the only reason that Ultramar is facing such terror is because of his actions before he died. Look, at this point, someone get Gilliman some therapy, all right? So like 10,000 years ago, come on. You can't be holding on to the guilt for that long. That's genuinely, that's genuinely bad.

Who in the hell is going to give therapy to a primark? Does the, do we think the Imperium even has therapy? I'm going to guess, no. They might, but it might just be an echo chamber of sermons on full blast. And there's your therapy, idiot. Also, poor Uriel Ventress, man, survives the demon Kilbasa. And now it's like, congratulations. Now you can fight the death guard and Nergel.

It's like, oh, God, could you guys just send me on like, can you guys just send me to kill a corrupt planetary governor or something? Like, what is this? There's no glory in that. There's no glory in behind some random fat noble. Feels good. Get back in the birthing chamber, Uriel. whether it's nerglings or people.

Back in the birthing chamber. The title of his official autobiography, back in the birthing chamber, the life story of your real ventrists. Put that on the shirt. Back in the birthing chamber. That is not what you could wear to family gatherings. That would be a risky maneuver.

So the removal of power of the space marines and the breaking of the 500 worlds had an impact, and Gilliman believes that this knocking of the dominoes is his fault. Ventris gives a pep talk to his pops and tells him that even if there were mistakes, the ultramarines remained strong. Before they can hug it out, Gilliman gets word that Belisarius called wants to chat with him,

which means that Gillerman needs to go into the depths of McCrag's honour to do so. Now, if you've forgotten about this or didn't even know about it, there's such a thing as Call inferior and the too long I was about to ask if they were using the little AI

version of Gilliman because that's what Carl goes to like if he's like oh man oh go ahead go ahead it's definitely

it's definitely not AI right Cole says not AI it is not even remotely close but yeah that's the thing call goes of he's like, I need to see how Gilliman might react to my bullshit.

Let me go ask the thing, right? So just to get there, just to get to Call Inferior, Gilliman has to go through a fucked up life or death episode of Legends of the Hidden Temple, or for me and any of the UK people listening, the Crystal Maze, in order to speak with a 100% not sentient V-Tuber version of Call, in a room that smells like a combination of oil, spoiled milk, and blood.

I mean, wow, that really is a V-Tuber room. It really, it really is just that scene of, of Peter, where he goes to, like, 1,400 locked doors

and, like, various mechanisms to go, like, to a porno magazine or something. It's just that. Yeah. But with added heresy, which is what we all want when trying to find a decent magazine.

No. So, don't worry, it's not AI. This isn't AI at all? No, no, sir. It's fine. Call said so, right? We're all on the same page.

Good. Gilliman and Cole chat for a bit before Gilliman kind of points out the obvious, which is that this feels a bit like heresy. I don't know what gave him that impression. The whole setup

is horrific and it genuinely gives Gilliman a sense of dread. as if he's staring directly at the true underbelly of the Imperium itself. Call basically says, hey, sometimes the use of that stuff is for the benefit of humanity, so chill the fuck out. Gilliman does not really like this response, but it's also not the worst thing that he's heard since he was revived.

What is kind of frustrating is all the times that Call inferior keeps asking Gilliman to appoint him to fabricate a general. That seems pretty honest. par. Yeah. Also, I love how Gileman's like, man, this seems really heretical. Everything here seems heretical. Boy, man, this seems like high heresy.

And then the back of it is like, well, still not as bad as what's going on in the Imperium, I guess. All right, I'll roll with it. Like, what? Jesus. You've seen so much messed up stuff since you woke up that you look at something that is objectively bad and go, you know what? Could be worse.

Yeah, could be worse. I'm just going to leave it. You've got picky battles in this particular Imperium, and this one simply isn't worth it. Poor lad, he's going through it, Gillerman. He really is. He gives call the benefit of the doubt for the Primaris project, but basically tells him to stop asking about the fabricator position,

which, again, justified, I think. Anyway, back to the surface where the party can kick off. Everyone is having a great time. Matthew's speech about you and unification was a hit, ticking all the boxes about the strength of the Imperium and all that stuff. But deep down, Matthew knows that humanity is far from being out of the woods at this rate. Now it's time for Gilliman to take the stage. He declares the first phase of the Indomitus Crusade as being complete after 12 years, and that the Imperium needed to be reinforced now. He disperses

the unnumbered sons of Primaris Marines and the crowd cheers. Gilman takes on a new mission, though. He needs to return home to McCrack and he needs to stop his brother's dreams from becoming a nightmare for all of Ultramar. Now, I don't want to foreshadow too much here, but this is simply titled this section,

seven. Just the number seven. Gotcha. Just seven. Just seven. Was there a six before? There was not. Single, solitary, seven. Hmm. No, no, don't, don't.

drum no no no we at all no sold it you can't you can't do the drum beat for that you can we all said no I actually found a lot of a lot of new things on this on this soundboard as of recently like like for example

DK get out of the vehicle step out of the vehicle decay we've got 30 lasguns surrounding you we know you've got son that smut you've got nothing on me copper This will be really funny for about two weeks

and it'll get really old. Well, speaking of nightmares. Thanks, man. Most apt bit of predictive script writing the possums ever done there. Speaking of nightmares, Varian's is dealing with them constantly. He is vividly remembering the conflict that he faced on Espandor. The battles they had against the rotting zombies escalated on the surface

when these abominations were reinforced by plague marines. Varians faced almost inevitable death at the hands of one of these monstrosities until his friend Bolus came to his aid and killed it. No joke, Bolus is a bit of a chad here because he jams his gun up under the helm of the plague marine. Here's it grown and says, so you can be hurt good before pulling the trigger and blowing its head off. What a legend.

That's pretty good. The body of the plague marine would fall on Bolus and it would take Varenz and a few other men to lift the body up and free their hero. Varynz would waken a cold sweat but very far from his hospital bed. He was in a marsh and the cries of his friend Bolus would make him

rush deeper into said marsh. He would find Bolus staring deep into the water and they would soon be joined by other soldiers. Five other soldiers, to be exact. Meaning that there were seven of them. They're a lovely, lovely bit again.

A lovely bit of foreshadowing. We like it. The atmosphere would become tense. Oh dear. Every time I hear seven, I'm going to consider playing that. Also, still one of the best Death Guard artworks

of all time, by the way. It's insane. Agreed. Agreed, yeah. Also, imagine. I love how all. the weird cables coming out of a stomach look like intestines when they're just like various marine cables, very cool.

Yeah. Also, imagine a dead plague marine falling on you and just oozing all over you with blood and pus and everything else that, like, is on a plague marine because their guts are probably hanging out and, well, I, hmm, I might imagine they be quite heavy. Oh, yeah, I imagine to be like a wall falling on you. I was going to go the other way. I was thinking with the amount of rot and disease and stuff, like would they maybe be surprisingly light

because of how much is like sloughed off and gone? I would assume super heavy because of all the extra flesh and all of the bloating and all of the disease. I would imagine they'd get a lot heavier, right? Oh, dear. See, I always assumed that like, that like they were just, just, like the volume is the same, but the mass is higher.

Hmm. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Mind you, also, some of them have some insane growths on them. So actually, yeah, they probably would be heavier. Like, those terminators that have got huge, like, I don't even know what they are, like bone growing out of their backs. So they're, oh, yeah, the weird, like, yeah, the weird, like giant bone protrusions.

I never really know what those are. They almost kind of look like, like hives. It almost looked like a wasp structure. Maybe I was thinking of typhus. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And his hives, yeah. I think you're right.

Yeah, they're like, busting out of their space marine armor. So the atmosphere would become tense, and it would be clear that it was too late. The rock that they had experienced on Espindor followed them all to IACs, and the plague God would use them as conduits to continue his campaign.

Bugs would crawl. from their mouths and the senses of Varence would fade. The pain would bother him no longer. Instead, he would giggle at it. Here we go, Bricky. Something for you. Oh boy. The thing that had been Varen's opened,

wait, that had been Vairns, opened a single eye on a blighted world. With warp-borne sight, he perceived a viscous deadlock net of befouled spiritual power, linking him and the six dead soldiers, stretching from their maggoty hearts out into the stars. Questing tendrils extended themselves further over lax as he watched. All of the seven chosen were marked by Nergel in their own way. By obvious trauma, minor scratcher, unnoticed wound,

Varen's own mark had been a flybite. Dismissed in a moment. How bountiful his new lord was. The thing was pleased at the honor. And the last of Varen's died under, its pleasure. One, two, three,

four, five, six, seven. The plague bearer counted the approaching shapes,

coasting through the hellish sky, and awaited its masters. So I'd start counting. I was like,

he's gonna fucking do it. It's, it didn't take two weeks. It's already old. Yeah,

it's already old. At this point, plague arcs would circle the planet and nerglings would swarm to the surface. The once quiet hospital world would quickly become a breeding ground for decay. Eager to lead the rot across the planet is Septicus 7, a great unclean one, who is ready to claim this world in the name of Nurgle. Less than enthused is another

great unclean one by the name of Coogath the Plaguefather, who believes that this place isn't really worthy to be claimed by Nurgle in the traditional sense. This world was a hospital after all, and the hospital's goal is to reject the gifts of the grandfather. To him, this world needs to be completely rotted beyond recognition. Now at this point, we see the endurance. A once glorious flagship stood firmly as the flagship of Mortarian centuries beforehand, but now floats as a manifestation of decay itself. Mortarian walks through the fetid corridors of the ship, and the suffocating fumes invigorate him. And at the heart of his ship is his personal sanctuary. He He summons Cougath and Typhus and outlines a plan.

He's well aware of the return of Gilliman, and he also knows that Gilliman is on his way back to Ultramar. He outlines a very exhaustive plan to accomplish this bit of vengeance, and Typhus is a bit bitchy about it. Like, why do we even have to draw this out? Just brute force. Let's just go in. Nothing more, nothing less. Mortarian is not really a big fan of backsass, and Typhus is straight up doing. a bit of insubordination here on the bridge.

Cougath is just standing there like a kid who is invited over to a sleepover and is witnessing his friend fight with his parents and just opts to side with Mortarian's idea. I do like how in sort, like, Typhus has got no time for Mortarian shit. Isn't that the whole relationship, though? Like, do Typhus and Mortarian ever really fully agree? Like, their whole, the reason their death guard under Nergel is because Typhus went rogue.

and they've just kind of spent, like, their whole existence just bickering like a married couple, right? They never really agree. They're always, like, at each other's throats. Yeah, they just do not get on. They don't get on. And I think a big chunk of it is down to, yeah, it's the turning over of the Death Guard to Nogel by Typhus, the fact that Mortarian didn't want that to happen. But then even after it did happen, Typhus, I think, I can't remember which it might actually be.

in this series, but I'm sure at some point there's a thing where Typhus is like, like, you ungrateful, bitch. Like, come on. Look what I gave us. Come on. I should be Primark. That sort of attitude, where it's like, I clearly, clearly I did the right thing. So what the hell is your problem? Kind of kind of attitude towards it. Is Mortarian the one that ends up going and like pouting on a planet all by himself and they can't figure out what happened to him and like typhus and a few others have to go and kind of like bitch slap him back into action or something oh that was ang run okay sorry got my got my chaos

primarks mixed up thank you shy mortaring is a bit strong but i get what you mean mortarian spends a significant amount of time torturing is is like adoptive father or at least his soul you're like hunts his adoptive dad's soul down captures it and then torment it for a long, long time. Like people talk about Perchaabu being bitter. Mortarion is up there. He's well up there. This is what happens when you kill Steele, Biggie.

Jesus. I was one away from my chopper gunner and he had to take it from me. Mm-hmm. It's a bitch move, Biggie. So the plan that Mortarian has relies off the premise that he truly does have the upper hand against Gilleman. He wished to poison the whole of Ultramar to truly demoralize and crush his brother's morale fully before finally unleashing something that can actually kill him.

But the only way to do this would be to draw it out, fatiguing his brother and forcing him to stay in a vulnerable spot as attrition sets in. He had some special things concocted for this, and he was ready to fully strike. For the first time in centuries, Mortarian himself would fully commit himself to the front lines of battle in the hopes of killing Gilliman. Now, we're going to take a quick step back. At the end of the whole celebration thing, Gilliman would announce the disbandment and dispersal

of the unnumbered suns across the galaxy. The person who would fully break this news to the other grey shields would be Felix. Felix is having a lot of trouble with this because not only does he have to break up the unified grey shields to their respective chapters, but he also knows he's not going anywhere personally. In a move that actually breaks the rules of the Codex hostilities written by Gilliman himself, Socket Leandross, Felix was appointed as the 11th captain of the Ultramarines, a position that genuinely concerns him. But he believes deep down that this might be because of Gilliman's desire to hold onto the distant past, and the true age of Felix is a direct connection to the time before the heresy. He stresses to the grey shields that the colour of their armour doesn't matter, and the bonds they've

formed while fighting side by side is something that will always remain strong. Bonds that need to strengthen in order to keep the Imperium together in one piece. You really get the feeling that Felix was basically here for a protracted firefight followed by a bit of stabbing and now has roughly the weight of the entire galaxy on his shoulders. He's really been plunged in, like, a bit out of his depth, hasn't he? Yeah, straight into the fire, right? Speaking of a lack of unification, things have been a bit tight on the planet of McCrack, as members of the population, including young male soldiers in the Ultramar Auxilia, known as the

Juventia, are rioting. Because of the battles in the sector, food rationing has become strict and terrorist cells have been popping up. One of these cells has stormed the Museo Illycrius Museum and has threatened to blow up the planet with a biological weapon, and they'll unleash it if rationing doesn't stop. feed us or we'll kill everyone is quite the maneuver, but sure. I mean, it's okay. I would prefer food

killing everyone. Yeah. They probably also figure like, you know, the rationing will probably kill everybody anyway. Well, all the normies anyway, so fuck it, why not? If the bargaining gets us a little extra food, great. We were probably going to die anyway,

so, yeah. Yeah. It was their belief that the rationing was causing more harm than good to the war effort, as people would be less likely to support the planet military-wise if they were starving. Marnius Calgar took this very personally. He said he would handle this situation himself

because he could not ignore such a threat at the centre of Ultramar. He also had a pretty sizable hunch that the actions of Mortarian had had some sway over this. But the thing that really bothered him was how poorly executed the whole thing was. they were soldiers of Ultramar. Surely they could do a better revolution than this. Oh my God.

No, this is not a joke. Calgar sorely disappointed in your revolution. Should have done it better and more organized. Yep. Here you go, D.K. It's a little bit of a longer one, but he's not happy. All right. This is not their fault.

I look forward to making an example of their leaders. said Julio. It disappoints me that our countrymen should put on such a poor showing, said Calgar. No matter their age and whether they are opposed to us or not, when this is over, call the local Juventia troop masters to the capital. They will all be screened thoroughly, my lord, said nay. For betrayal, yes, said Calgar, but I want them all reeducated or replaced. This uprising is shamefully executed.

The Juventia syllabus needs revision, more drill, less history. The Juventia are the last line of defense from McCrack, and the first place we go to for recruits. How could they stop Ork with this debacle? They are supposed to be young warriors. Fuck you, Calca. There's extreme, I'm not mad, I'm disappointed. Pointed, yeah. Your uprising is cringe, yeah.

You're uprising as cringe. This revolution would be, as you can imagine, squashed violently. Those that were involved that were young, that's, you know, recanted, would be sent to a penal station and re-educated. And if they did a good job, they'd be promoted into the ranks of a penal battalion. Those young soldiers who refused would be publicly turned into servitors. Oh, nice. Jesus Christ. God damn.

And Ashby. That's something they do? public servitorization? Yep. Yep. Fuck me. Jesus. You got to let them know. It's not acceptable. If you're going to do a revolution, do it properly, or this is what happens. All right. Sick, bro.

As for the adult rebels, they would all be executed, a move that would cut Calgard deep. The loss of anyone at a time of war was a real bad thing in his eyes, but it had to be done to set an example. Great news though, Gilliman is finally here and he wants to have a little chat with Calgar himself. So Gilliman, now on McCrag, would convene a meeting in the Fortress of Herr this meeting would include Ultramarines, dignitaries, military leaders and planetary governors around Ultramar that were still unified.

It's not clear if the Girl Boss Planetary Governor from the 500 World's book who drove the Bainblade was here or not. The Possum has confessed to me. making a tragic error because they failed to mention a very important thing about that planetary governor, which is her name. You see, the name of the governor was Adrica Gallo. Adrica. Wait, no shit. Adric.

Hey, coincidence. Let's go. That's, wait, can you continue to type the name out for me? Yeah, it's, it is Adrica Gallo. Oh, my God, it literally is. Oh, man. Wait, this is a sign. everyone, let's hang D.K.

How is this a son? I don't... Because it's the gallows, baby. Well, um, I don't, I don't like this anymore. Let's publicly servitorize D.K.

Who's with me? Wait, it doesn't say, it doesn't say Adrica, D.K. To the gallows. It could be you. Let's go ahead. Let's go ahead and flip the possum coin.

Heads, we servitorize D.K. Tails, we servitorize. Bricky. Wait. It's heads. We servitorize D.K. It's a rigged coin. I couldn't see it. I was going to suggest we put Craig into DK. That's a good idea. We monotasked D.K. as a servitor to record our conversations like Craig does. I don't think any of this is a good idea. I think we should get back to the episode and see all talk of such foolishness. Craig, what are your thoughts on this? He's in favor. It's not fair.

This is a biased coin toss. We can't actually see the results. Does that matter? Shit. You'll get what you deserve. All right, moving on. Oh, no. You made me cough.

Right. You've killed Kiryov. Oh, no. All right, Kyriath. Put down your kit. Head to decontamination. Yeah, I'll go. I'm going to go.

Sorry. So, Gilliman speaks briefly with Calgar beforehand and states that it's his belief that the threat faced by Ultramar means that fortification is imperative. They need to take care of this swiftly and efficiently, and he knows exactly what needs to be done. Though not directly related to the meeting itself, the interactions between Calgar and Gillerman are slightly strange because Calgar can't get over the fact that it seems like Gillerman is sort of ignoring the significance of the things he has and his general actions. In particular, Gilliman's old throne on McCrague is a very sacred relic in the eyes of the ultramarines, and Gelleman just kind of sits in it like it's a chair, which actually gets under Calgar's skin. So Calgar is like, it's been the habit of many chaptermasters to meditate in the museum vaults looking for inspiration from the things that had known to touch, that had known the touch of their genocire.

To the primark, the throne was just another piece of furniture, a possession reclaimed, as Ultramal was. He used it unthinkingly. Even now he was back, his casual attitude towards these ancient relics, even though they were his, offended something in Calgar. But to be fair, Calgar also thinks it's a ridiculous notion. Yeah, rebutte bro, it's a fucking chair. How dare you? It is a relic that we use for proper meditation. Meditations that I think are stupid. and dumb and ritualistically unworthy, but damn it, it's more than a chair. All right, how dare you drink from this tankard? It's my fucking

tankard, mate. He's got my name on it. It was a birthday present. Shut up. It's fine. It would be in this council where Gilliman would speak about Ultramar. He would acknowledge how it was still standing, despite the horrors of the last 10,000 years, but it was not

as strong as it once was, and it could be stronger. In fact, it had to be stronger. 500 worlds stronger. He would announce that the tetrarchy would be reformed so that segments of Ultramar space could be ruled effectively, positions that would be filled not by rank, but by merit, and that there would be a process to return the strength of Ultramar to what it once was. In fact, the good boy Felix would be promoted as one of the Tetrarchs, a promotion he yet again was very shocked by. At this point, almost begging Gilliman to stop giving him stronger of battles.

The ultramarines like this quite a bit. Other chapters might think this was too much, but the ultramar's daddy taught them not to be ashamed of their Ultramar, especially since it's such a good size and all. Yeah, see there. The representatives there did not think their daddy taught them well. In fact, they were pretty pissed off with the whole endeavour. Some had been families loyal to Ultramar for millennia

and now felt like they were being undermined by the return of space marine leadership to the area. They felt like they were being slighted, and they felt that this was a direct strike against their goodwill for so long. Gilliman tried very hard to gain favour and state that this wasn't the case, and that ultimately the idea of a fully reunified Ultramar would set a good example to the rest of the Imperium. In his eyes, more privately, Gilliman always felt that he was a master of his own domain, and that he was able to work better with what he already knew. His belief was that if Ultramar was strong and a beacon of hope for the Imperium, that other sectors would fall into line easily. Also, I, you know that that video is going around again, Bricky,

and I know it's going around again because I got recommended it literally two days ago. So, so I happened. Okay, it's not, okay, let's listen. It's very simple, okay, like, it's very, very simple. My last video was the High Guard one and the title of it is I'm sorry, but I need to talk about high guard or whatever, right? And so the original video of me reenacting the, oh shit, I'm sorry, sorry for what gay pornography video is titled, I'm sorry. And since that first video ended up kind of breaking containment going out to the wider world for better or worse, this other one is getting recommended because of the same start of it. You're probably asking me why I made that video because I was like 21.

And gatchy shit posting is like awesome. I can recite like five of them off the top of my head. Password, out with it. Oral Cumshot. Yeah, Oral Come Shot, yeah, that fits. Like, what do you want from me, man? You don't get to choose what quotes stay in your brain over the last two decades. So true.

I'm not going to argue with that at all. But that does go some way to explaining it. I was just like, why? First of all, eight years ago, fine. But why now? I told you because the video, the title is similar. Oh, yeah, it makes, now it explained it, it makes total sense. To me, video breaking made a long time ago, shite.

Yeah, now I've explained it that it makes total sense, but me two days ago didn't realize that and was just like, I don't know what's happening to my front page. I don't know what's going on. But that does, that does answer the question. I feel somewhat less scared. my own recommendations now, so that's good. Good, good.

Does it mean we need to link shy? We really don't need a link shy. You know, I don't know. That looks like Adricka Gallals was really for, Bricky, after all. The choice was made far in advance.

This is your public servitorization, Bricky. Craig, am I going to the gallows? Oh, I? I'm not. Yay. Okay. We heard the coin drop, brother. I mean, you know they're good quality coins because every time Brickie's dropped one,

which has been a lot, it sounded really solid. We know the coins are good quality and Bricky is clumsy as fun. I've got my moments, all right? This is just a long, drawn-out way for me to show off the coins. Chill the coin. You too could be dropping knees if you head over to shop. You head on over to the link in the description. Get yourself your own coins.

You two can clumsily fumble our coin. Okay. All right. Sorry, shy. He was not going to be around for all of this. He had work that needed to be done more directly and mostly involved striking directly at the heart of his brother Mortarian.

before he could do a full-fledged invasion of Ultramar's space instead of the random bits of damage that he'd done more recently. And a good way to show resilience would be to strike as a world that was already lost, Espandor, the same world that Mr. Tullius Varen's would face off against Plague Marines directly. Gilliman's spear of Espandor would make its way to the planet, and the fighting would be brutal. On the surface, the space marines would be led by Felix, because of course. And here Felix feels the weight of his leadership as he pushes through the rot and gore toward the war pensions in the city of Espandor Taito. The mud is littered with bodies and Felix feeds the need to avenge them.

Here you go, Bricky. Let's see here. There were many dead there decaying into the mud sea. Their flesh becoming part of it. All were mortal human soldiery. The diseases of the enemy spread hit baseline humans hard. Felix found himself struggling through a reef of bones. Liquidified flesh clung to his armor.

He sealed his breathing grill against the stench and kept his eyes forward. As Spendoria, Tertio, have been occupied by the enemy for months. Liberating it would repay these dead souls for their sacrifice in protecting it. Keep your eyes forward. Look at what is to come, he told himself. The past is dead. The present, nearly so. only in the future is their life.

I'm not a bad matter. But I imagine that as looking like that one dark tide stage where you're literally in like the trenches and you're going across the like the little craters with all the like dead soldiers in it and stuff. It's immediately what I pictured for this quote. That's a decent level as well. I like that one. Oh yeah, it's a great level.

It's a very 40K battlefield. Yes. So despite the terror on the battlefield, the momentum keeps up and Gilliman joining them on the battlefield gives Felix and the other men a sense of hope in a time where it is hard to come by. In time they would reach the Cathedral Magnifica. In this desecrated temple lies some chaos artefact fuckery

that Mortarian is using to bring hell onto the planet and the system and it's Gilliman's hope that the Emperor's sword would crush it permanently. Entering the desecrated cathedral, Gilliman and his men are joined by the militant apostolic Matthew. Gilliman would tell him he's not safe in this place, but he would say that he is not afraid, because Gilliman is not afraid. Faulty logic, but we love a brave lad.

Gilman tells him that he's not afraid because he's a prime arc, and Matthew responds saying that his faith protects him in the same way. Matthew remarks on the hatred in the chapel and its desecration, and Gilliman would say that hatred lies in the hearts of all men, and that the presence of these heretics are, as a result of the emperor, lying about the true nature of the warp. He would stress that Matthew will not convince him of the Emperor's divinity, but Matthew would retort and state that Gelleman acknowledges that his father had the power of a God.

Does that not make him one whether he believed himself to be one or not? Wasn't his communion with his father, on terror, a divine revelation? I bet Gelleman was like, it's like talking to bloody Lorgar again. It's been 10,000 years and we're still having this argument, and he's not even here. I hate this. I just imagine Gilliman with just a seismic eye roll. Like, he's just rolling his eyes out of his fucking skull listening to this guy.

It is literally the conversation before Monarchia, isn't it? It is actually the whole, like, yeah, but he is a god. Oh, for fuck's sake, shut up. Stop it. And he was right all along. Yeah. Gilliman would scowl and state that this was not to be discussed right now. The artifact needed to be destroyed and it had to be done immediately.

Unfortunately, the attempted destruction would activate Mortarian's trap card and would spawn a draconic demon by the name of Karimar, self-proclaimed fifth favorite servant of Nurgle. Self-proclaimed fifth. At least he knows where he's at, you know? at least he knows where he stands. He's a top five or that's something to be proud of, right? You may, he didn't quite make podium, but top five, that's a big deal.

Do you know who I am? I'm top five. Oh, you're top five? Like two or two or three? You what? Well, I'm fifth, but I'm top five. It's like, brother, there's only five of you. It feels like Karamar needs a bit of

more extra self-confidence going on. The creature would attack the lines of space marines without much interference, but when it was hit by the sword carried by Gilman, it would scream. Gilliman would tell him that it was a sword of the emperor himself, a sword that has killed thousands of demons before, and will add another to its tally today. The demon would hiss and say that this was impossible,

yelling that it could not be killed because it was death incarnate. Gilliman would say there are many that claim that name I have killed them all he would strike at the demon and after a fairly quick battle he would banish it freeing the planet from the grasp of Nurgle Matthew would run up to It turns out top five wasn't enough Matthew would run up to Gilliman

with tears in his eyes to which Gilliman would pretty much say how the fuck are you still hear the priest would say that it was the love of the emperor that kept him alive and he could feel the emperor's love for humanity all around him. He asked Gilemon one question. Does the Emperor love us, my lord? Do not say I am wrong. Rebutte thinks to himself that the Emperor loves no one and cannot afford affection. In his eyes, he did not love his sons and he did not love men, but he does love mankind. He reflects on his adoptive father, Connor, and wonders if he had not died before the Emperor arrived, whether or not he would

have abandoned Ultramar as quickly as his brothers abandoned their adoptive families. He knew the answer and it shamed him. And we have one last quote, which I believe is you, D.K. It's a junkie one. Sorry about that. Oh, Jesus. I'm apologizing. I didn't write this. All right. All right. He understood. He knew what his father wanted to achieve and why. Facing things like Quaramar Mar brought it home to him time and again. Knowing what opposed mankind made him see the utility of lies. Could Gilliman honestly say he loved all the men who called themselves his sons? He barely knew them, especially now, calls blasphemous hordes in particular. They too were a means to an end. He and his father

had that in common. The mantle of rulership was weighty and molded the man that bore it. I never wanted to be a tyrant, thought the primark. Perhaps my father did not wish to be so either. History has roles for us that cannot be denied. We are but pieces on the board of eternity. My lord, said Matthew, into the primark silence. Please tell me, does the emperor love us? We are so much more like you than you ever intended, thought Gilliman. You gave too much of yourself to us, without realizing in your arrogance, you made yourself a father in truth.

We are your sons in every way. Did you see that? The emperor loves us all. Lied, Rabutee Gilliman. I do enjoy that. That it's, that they specifically use the moniker, the, um, phrase of lied. Yeah. Yeah.

He knows. It's rough. Mm-hmm. But it also, it's also great for Gilliman because, like, wow, Gilman actually does care. Like, he's, he's not going to, he's not going to break the false facade. He's going to let him believe. Yeah. Having to come to the, the sort of realization of, oh, yeah, everyone's having to lie about this.

And if I don't, things will get so much worse. Yeah. Oh, poor lad. So he would regain composure and say that Mertarian's base was either here or on another world based off of the data he'd compiled. Obviously, Mortarian's base was not here. So it was Gilliman's belief that Mortarian was on the planet of Parmino, and he was to make his way there to make sure his brother saw the truth. With these words, Gilliman would leave the cathedral alone. his soul laden with sorrow.

And that's the end of the first book. Yay! That's about what you'd expect from a story centered around Gilliman, though, right? Wow, an hour and 20, we're really speeding through it. Something that I remember from these books, it's been a while since I've read them. Plague Wars, like, Dark Imperium, specifically of the first one. There's a decent amount of, like, shootery stuff going on.

But there's also, if I remember correctly, there are some really fun bits of, like, battle stuff where things are specifically named. Because it's right on the start of the Primaris line and stuff, you've got things like Felix looked over, and there was an aggressor with Flamstorm Gauntlets approach, like that sort of thing. Ah, yes. The twice-dead King Rain issue, where it's like, and a hex-marked destroyer with six separate and medic annihilators walked into the room.

These are the new toys that have just come out type thing. Yeah, there's a bit of that going on. There is a bit of that going on. They also, like very specifically mentioned, the overlord drop ship, which there still hasn't been a model for, which was just notable at the time as being. oh does this mean they're going to release a new sort of thunderhawk type big old Ford World model no the answer is simply no but you can now purchase at gamesworkshop dot com yes you can now or if you want something with a bit more heft and weight to it that is more heavily embossed you can also pick up the new coins for adapt is ridiculous Ah.

500 sets as well as singles that are random possums. Should they go do that? They should. Hey, you caught and flipped it. Let's go. Let's give a hand to Bricky. One set for every world in Ultramar. It's almost like it was planned that way.

500 sets. 500 sets, 500 worlds. The parallels are just, I mean, it's just telling you to go and buy one, isn't it? Yeah, well, now you have to go get a set, yeah. 500 cigarettes. Cigarettes. Five hundred funny coins. They do look so sick, though.

No, they do. I am very, very happy. I'm very happy with how they came up, very happy about it. But, um, good old, man, that guard are cool. We really need to read Lords of Silence. I hear it is just, just fantastic. Well, next book club after the next shark book? Maybe.

I'm told like, hey, you want to get into Deathguard? You read Lords of Silence. It's like the first heretic word bearer kind of thing. And so I just, I keep feeling like we got to get around to that at some point because it really do be pretty, pretty cool. Well, I guess we know what the next book club is going. going to be on after the silly shark boys. Well, after we sell 500 funny coins.

There's also the new artwork. That's true. Anyway, we did it. Plague wars. Yippee. Murder. That's absolutely stinks of Patreon content right at the end there, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah.

And about 10 minutes ago, it's all right. We got some of that. Buy the coins. Buy the little guys stuff. Buy the new merchandise clothes. coins, everything in between. Get your slates here, baby. And also, make sure that you check us out for next week when we do Plague Wars episode

two. Woo! Yeah. You mother, I was about to say, that'll do. I was a son of a bitch. I was just saying nothing until that happened.