The 40k Lorecast - Episode 52 - The Death Guard pt 1- The origins of Mortarian and Typhus

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

On today's cast we begin our coverage of the story of the Death Guard. Namely that stories of Mortarian and Typhus. We start with the story of Mortarian’s arrival on Barbarus and the revolutio...n he leads there. Then the arrival of the Emperor and Mortarian taking control of his legion. From there we flip over to the origins of Typhus and his rise next to Mortarian. From his early days on Barbarus, to his fighting next to Mortarian, and then to the beginning of the rift between the two of them. We then close with the secret fall of Typhus to Chaos.PatreonMerchandiseDiscord Link:Our WebsiteRetro RecallKLorecastOur Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Pebl: https://hellopebl.com* Check out Pebl: https://hipebl.ai* Check out Shopify: https://shopify.com/loreAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the 40K lore cast. Welcome to the 40K lore cast. It's me, John Barzotti and Bradchester. This guy. All right. So last week, we said we were going to cover typhus, but then started writing the episode, and turns out we have to do typhus and mortarian because there's no other way to tell the story.
Starting point is 00:00:35 Let's talk about who's a huge liar because I said I wanted to do typhus and John said, no problem we're going to do typhus. And then I got an email, and it was not typhus. It was because the problem is like, we can't like just start talking about typhus and cover none of the back story of barbarous. Being true. That's why. We're not going to cover the death of the world.
Starting point is 00:00:54 We're not going to cover the death of world. But the whole beginning. But anyway, before we begin the cast, please is always like and comment. I've noticed you were all doing this. And it is objectively hilarious because I have to approve all of the comments. I'm going to tell you right now,
Starting point is 00:01:09 if you have a comment about how the audio is not good in some of the earlier ones, I do delete them. The reason why is because I'm actually, I'm paying a guy to fix it right now. So it's like wait a week. go away. But the comment for comment gods have been great.
Starting point is 00:01:22 There have been a bunch of randos you guys have written in there. I think my favorite one so far was when they're a custod cast and someone said, yeah, my imperial guard with lethal hits did not find the custodes that much of a challenge made me just gave me joy in my heart. So thank you all for doing it. The biggest thing between
Starting point is 00:01:38 lore and Tableton. Yeah. Thank you all for doing it and I will be honest with you. It helps so much. Yeah, we exploded since people started making in the comments our listener rate has gone up. Our ranking has gone up. So thank you for doing it. Please keep doing it.
Starting point is 00:01:51 Yeah. They are, again, and if the funny, I read every single one. So please leave them. I do laugh while drinking my coffee in the morning. All right. We also have a link in the show notes for our Discord. For those of you who are looking for a way to kind of interact around the lore of 40K, this is maybe one of the best places to do it.
Starting point is 00:02:09 So we encourage you, those of you who are looking to interact, looking for a place to kind of talk about lore, talk about even gaming, talk about anything, we've got it there. Even if it's just something like, hey, what literature should I read next? I read such and such. I really liked it. Anyone have anything for it? You've got people in the Discord who know this through and through.
Starting point is 00:02:27 And you also have me occasionally popping in asking the most random questions ever? Yeah, so Brad just gets bored and lonely. So he jumps into our Discord where they're like, say, question. What's your favorite flower? And tell me why. And again, because I hate everyone who doesn't do this, our Discord is free. Um, so we make no money off of it. We charge you nothing for it.
Starting point is 00:02:50 It's just a free thing that we that I think should exist. So that being said, that being said, well, I mean, the Patreon is being optional. We do have a Patreon. The other thing you guys, if you want to help us out, we do have a Patreon. You can go to it. You can link in the show notes. It helps us make better, continue to make content, but also make upgrades to the content. Basically, depending on how much you have.
Starting point is 00:03:15 help us out with Patreon. Depends on sound, video, whatever. We're looking to expand and be on more platforms. We want to engage with you. Yeah, this is a cost center, and there's limits to cost center. So if you guys could help us out a little bit, it's great. But if you don't, if you can't, I don't judge you. Just listen to the podcast and leave a happy comment.
Starting point is 00:03:35 Speaking of monies. But yeah, the last little group we do have, though, for those of you who actually are looking to play more 40K and play at a higher level, Brad is not only our co-host, but he's He's also a coach in 40K. He's got a wide range of services available, from beginners, trying to learn the game, people trying to improve the game.
Starting point is 00:03:53 Brad also does coach people to win tournaments. I should mention, when we say this, is that lots of people say they're a coach. I'm only a perennial top 10 player for the last 10 years. That hurts. Well,
Starting point is 00:04:04 he said, he said prolet them for at least the top 10 years. That's longer. It's been longer than that? I've won a tournament every year for the last 25 years. Yeah, but some of those were like seventh edition, which just... Some of those were,
Starting point is 00:04:15 We're third edition. Fine. Brad been, I've been a good player for longer than 10 years because I've got a bruisable ego. Wham, when,
Starting point is 00:04:24 when, when, I'm not very tall. And I will fucking you're on it. I like how you're upset. I said 10 years. That's just not long enough. That's not long enough praise for Brad.
Starting point is 00:04:32 I feel that I put a picture of me with a mullet and a meme. You could put a mullet. It's an amazing photo. And also, neither my wife nor I realized it was you. We both look there. That's a dude with a, dude with a mulling.
Starting point is 00:04:46 Like that's, that was our viewpoint. Mostly because the photo was taken below, so you actually look kind of tall. That was, that was another piece, it was like, it was definitely,
Starting point is 00:04:53 whoever took the photo was seated or a genuinely height challenged individual. By the way, you know who took that picture? My mom, she's wildly short. That's it. Because I look the photo,
Starting point is 00:05:04 my wife, I look the photo, like, he looks taller there. And I'm like, that's, is it him? Anyway, but off that tangent,
Starting point is 00:05:10 Brad's been a good player for more than 10 years for 20 years because he cares about this thing. Some of you listening aren't that old. Well, welcome to my life. I'm very tall. All right. But if you want help with your 40K, we can reach out to
Starting point is 00:05:23 Brad at old man, Brad, 40K at gmail.com. Make a goddamn website, Brad. Anyway, you can just go to our website and click his link. It's the 40K lorecast.com. So, all that's out of the way. Let's jump into the actual show itself. So we're
Starting point is 00:05:39 going to start. So typhus is kind of the main thing we're talking about here is typhus. And why are we talking about it? GW has a certain way they like to write characters. And as much as, I'll be honest, personally, I'm not huge into chaos on the tabletop. I have a death guard army and a thousand sons army. But whatever, that's not important.
Starting point is 00:05:59 But the reason we're doing typhus is that they write their chaos characters better than any other characters in a story. Actually, the chaos characters are better than a lot of the Imperium characters. I think the chaos characters and a lot of people are going to be mad at me for this because of loyalists. The chaos characters are written better because chaos is driven by personalities. You see that. I actually felt it was different. I thought they wrote the chaos characters better because chaos on its surface is just evil.
Starting point is 00:06:32 It's genuinely evil. And I think GW, it's easy to write a Vulcan. Vulcan's a knight and shining armor or a Lehman or a, Lehman's a little bit loopy, but it's easy to write a sanguinius. It's easy to write a good character because they're motivated by doing good. Maybe they have some stumbles along the way, but their motivation is good. To write an evil character is tough because it can turn people off. And I feel like you don't want to make the evil faceless evil.
Starting point is 00:07:01 Yeah, Drew Carrey. Well, that's the thing. You can't write a Drew Carrey. Azra. Asrable Vect. God, that name sucks. Azrable Vect, it's hard to write a lot about because he is in, he is, he is, pure evil.
Starting point is 00:07:14 But he's a amazing character. Who's the head of the Covens, Urian? That's just objectively pure evil. Urien's pure evil. However, but the thing is, is that a lot of the chaos, again, chaos no longer has great structure. They are chaos. Oh, wait a second.
Starting point is 00:07:34 So they are kind of unbound. So you need the strongest of personalities to drive these people to have a reason. for them to be together for one, but also to make them interesting because if you just go, we fight evil, it's just, that's boring to be honest.
Starting point is 00:07:53 And I think what they did well with the chaos characters is they wrote a fall. They wrote a reason behind them. So we talked about this, like, you know, Typhus was born mortal, just like, you know,
Starting point is 00:08:04 Aramon and Abidon, who we've covered before. However, I will be honest, typhus is a little bit more of the pure evil, of the whole group. Oh, he embraced it. Yeah, he didn't,
Starting point is 00:08:15 Typhus didn't fall to chaos. Bortarians not happy about everything that happened. Typhus just went, this is awesome. Yeah, Typhus is, he's closer to Erebus, I think,
Starting point is 00:08:28 than really any of the other main characters. Caius is neutral evil. I would say he's not chaotic evil. He is. I would, I'm going lawful neutral, lawful evil, actually. I think,
Starting point is 00:08:41 I think typhus was always. He's very structured. He found evil embraced it and went. That's what I'm saying. That's what I would say lawful evil. I think him and Erebus, I think are both lawful evil. I think my thinking of like neutral evil is more like, Mortarian to me is more neutral evil.
Starting point is 00:08:57 He's just, he. At this point in time, I think Mortarian is more chaotic evil because he just doesn't, he's mad at life. Yeah, when I think of chaotic. He's just lashing out of the world. To me, I think chaotic evil is, um, Angron. okay believe yeah
Starting point is 00:09:14 that was an easy one like oh look sorry if you do the box and you have the nine alignment sorry anybody that does no D&D yeah but if you do the nine boxes he's in the bottom
Starting point is 00:09:24 yeah that was the ultimate and softballing one in yeah for some sure he's barely on the chart yeah exactly I mean he's out of his goddamn mind so anyway but yeah typhus is rough
Starting point is 00:09:36 and so we're going to get into that because the truth about typhus is that he has a main motivation and that is Nergel. He wants to do everything for Nergel, and we'll get there. So the other question people might ask, when I'm listening to this,
Starting point is 00:09:48 if you're not really that in depth with the lore, is, well, why are we doing Typhus, not Mortarian? And it's just two reasons. One, there's actually more about Typhus. Mortarian took, like, almost a 10,000-year break from the game. Mortarian also doesn't want to be part of Nurgle. But that's part two. That's what I'm saying.
Starting point is 00:10:04 Part one is just Mortarian just disappeared from the lore. Typhus was like at the, after the fall at the gates, mortarian just kind of went and brooded in the eye of terror. Typhus was like, nah, I'm not done yet and went back at it. The other one, too,
Starting point is 00:10:20 is exactly the bride's point. Mortarian just, you know, he just wasn't that, he just wasn't interested in even doing anything. He's a lot like Magnus in this point, is that he was never looking to be part of this. He also made the shitty d. And I know I'm D&Ding again,
Starting point is 00:10:37 but like, he made the ultimate, Man, don't make a wish before you read the small print. He made that deal when they were stuck in the warp and has been just kind of dealing with his shitty decisions ever since. All of his decision. Mortarians are a much better character study, but the problem is just, I mean, candidly,
Starting point is 00:10:58 he got a new model in 2017. That's what made him kind of, he launched back into the lore then. But prior to that, it was really typist, because Types had a model since I think third edition. He was also the person, the least. And that's what I'm saying. Period. Whereas, so we talk about typhus.
Starting point is 00:11:13 So the reason we're going to focus on typhus is like, he's the chosen of Mergel, right? Yeah. And he also, of all the people who talked, like, Armand hates chaos. Abadon hates chaos. Typhus loves chaos. Typhus and Nergel, the note I made here is that they're like that weird married couple who'd been together for 30 years and are legitimately best friends. Like, we all see them like, why?
Starting point is 00:11:36 They're definitely wearing the sweaters where they have to be together. Yeah, like they are, they could not enjoy each other more. So that's why we're going to focus it more on typhus, because the idea here is for us to cover death guard at the same time. So after all that, let's talk about Mortarian. Yeah. Like, I don't really like Mortarian, but there's no death guard without Mortarian. Mortarian, Mortarian's actually pretty goddamn cool.
Starting point is 00:12:01 Oh, I love this story. We gave him shit, but like he has a good story arc. Oh, I love. I love the origin story of Mortarian. It just, it actually means all of more terror stories are good. You just feel kind of bad for him, which is a weird thing. Him and Magnus is that weird bit where like, you just feel bad for them. He's then having these random moments.
Starting point is 00:12:20 He's technically trying to do the right thing most of the time. But the problem, it's your play. It's the same. But I'm saying, but the problem is is that you go to key points in the story. You're playing the video game. We were just talking about games. And he chooses the evil. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:12:40 Like, that's the problem is that he's trying to do well. He's trying to do the right thing. And then you get to, hey, I'm done with act one of this particular game. You've got a big choice to make. Mortarian always makes the wrong choice. Yep. He always made the wrong choice every time. Right.
Starting point is 00:12:57 So let's dive into Mortarian. So as we've said before a while ago, is the emperor was looking to make a group of basic super beings that could help lead humanity out of the darkness and conquer the stars. he did this by making a deal with the chaos gods. I do love the fact that you always do that. He didn't make a deal. Well, he did. He made a deal that he instantly,
Starting point is 00:13:18 as he was walking out, he was like, fingers crossed, didn't really count, broz. He went into there, and so he decides just to tell them, it tells the chaos gods
Starting point is 00:13:28 to write off the debt that he has with them. It was kind of his viewpoint. He took out a loan for infinity money and went, yeah, back upsy. Yeah, bankruptcy. And as soon as the first payment came in, he went, oh, I'm never going to
Starting point is 00:13:41 pay him. Yeah, there's never going to happen. He then goes back to Tara to his super underground vault, which we've shit on enough times that he doesn't need to build a secret hidden layer in the Himalayan mountains. The Dr. Evil volcano layer? Yeah. It's just good. It is funny, though.
Starting point is 00:13:57 It was his hidden secret laboratory underneath the Himalayan Mountains, which was also under the Golden Palace. We joke about this, but every single thing he just said is 100%. Yeah, this is canon. This is canon lore in like the 10th edition codex. Like, I'm not picking, oh, in third edition,
Starting point is 00:14:15 they said one stupid thing. They've been saying this for 10 editions. So any- 30 years of lore, yes, this has happened. So anyway, so at some point, he's growing his prime marks and of that and the chaos gods go, screw you. And they grab all the prime marks
Starting point is 00:14:30 and send the different like kind of places all around the galaxy. And this feels like it's actually at random though this is the chaos gods kind of I don't think I don't think it was random I'm sorry I I don't think it was you think it was more like the trials I think it was I think
Starting point is 00:14:45 the chaos gods knew that mankind is corruptible and primarks are just as corruptible I think the prim marks tried to put every because they couldn't grab them in shit they put most of them in shitty plants that's the idea was it even we'll take you know we did
Starting point is 00:15:01 dark angels before we'll take the lion the lion should have turned a Oh, immediately. But the watchers, corrupted planet. But the watchers in the dark saved him. Yes. Lehman should have turned to chaos. Lehman's too baller to fuck.
Starting point is 00:15:16 But growing up on Fenris, he should have turned to chaos. And or died. Exactly. That's what all of these were designed as a test. And even though all but two, if ish passed, they then later, half of them fell. The goal that they had, the chaos gods had, was to so the, they saw the flaws of mortality, and this made it easier for chaos to overtake their souls. This is why we talked about Lehman and Russell, all those guys.
Starting point is 00:15:46 And the line that we wrote was chaos is like vampires. You have to invite them in. You can't, chaos can't turn you to chaos. You have to turn you to chaos. But chaos is trying to set up a situation where you will invite chaos. in. They're going to make things so shitty that you need their help. Then they can corrupt you.
Starting point is 00:16:09 Or in the case of Conrad Kurz, which apparently is his name. By the way, I'm never changing. I know I'm wrong. They don't really make you embrace chaos. You just become chaos. They don't make you invite chaos in. You just kind of just start doing it. And that's what it said.
Starting point is 00:16:29 So the prime marks, because they were, they still had, complete autonomy over their own lives, they had to turn to chaos. And so they, the chaos gods put some of these, these prime marks in horrifying areas, the situations. And I really do believe Mortarian got the worst one with Barbarus. I mean, Conrad. No, Barbarus is worse than Conrad. It's the worst planet, but however he got picked up by no one. Being the Knight Hunter as a child, You know what? We'll go back. We'll go back.
Starting point is 00:17:03 We've got to do a whole podcast of that. When we do the Night Hunter, we'll discuss us more on death, but I really do believe barbarous is in this sense. The planet is a. If you're trying to turn someone to chaos. Well, this place sucks so bad. That's more. In the sense of like the difference is, I think, let me say this way, if your goal is to say
Starting point is 00:17:23 you need to turn to chaos to be saved, barbarous. Yeah, because you need superpowers to die. Yeah. If the goal is to say isn't being chaos fun, night lord. So let's talk about barbarous. Barbarus should never have existed. Barbarus is also weird because the regular populace actually lives in the less toxic part. Yeah, but let's dive into what Barbarus is.
Starting point is 00:17:51 So Barbarus is a planet that was colonized during like the early age of technology. Which is 15,000 years. By the way, no reason. It's a toxic world. Has always been a toxic world. Yeah. The farther you go up, so, hey, I went high up in the atmosphere. What is it?
Starting point is 00:18:13 Clouds of acid and death. It's really weird. Again, unfortunately, this is where John's knowledge of physics gets annoying. Like, apparently at Barbarous, when you go up as the air becomes thinner, like it would in every planet, that's how gravity works. Somehow the toxic levels gets higher. It apparently doesn't rain to be honest. It must be, I don't know if the toxins are lighter than oxygen, but they're able to push the oxygen down.
Starting point is 00:18:36 I don't know. I don't care. We're going to move on. Yeah, move on. It's referred to as a perpetual poisonous fog. And the higher you go, the worse it is. Now, again, I want to point out, during the age of technology, mankind had better technology than they do currently.
Starting point is 00:18:52 And they currently can terraform. So they also could have made this a... This didn't have. to suck, but apparently they did. It could have been a beautiful world. Yeah. So anyway, back to what it was, there are these toxic clouds that basically sit not to anything above sea level is toxic. And the higher you go, all the Lord's lived effectively in the mountains. You didn't have to be huge mountains. It just was mountains. Well, yeah. And so we don't know exactly when, what things happened there. What we know is that the mankind that settled there kind of eaked out in existence in
Starting point is 00:19:30 these lowlands, the lower parts. But then at some point during dark age of technology, powerful psychers erupted on the planet, which is actually that lines up pretty well out of the lore. We have that time that as a dark age technology came into play, you saw psychers. When you saw psychers be prevalent amongst humanity. Exactly. And so these psychers, one of the cool abilities they had and cool and heavy air quotes here unless you look cool if you're them, shitty if you're not, is they could now survive.
Starting point is 00:20:00 in the toxic clouds. They also came down. They were effectively, and I'm using so much D&D today. Yeah. Screw it. That's fine. They came down like random magic users,
Starting point is 00:20:10 emptied their spell vaults, and then just walked back into the poison clouds and went, you can't come back after me. Also, hope you didn't like your family because I just killed them. Yeah. One note on them, too, is depending on which book you read,
Starting point is 00:20:24 they're referred to as like Zenos and not Zenos. I kind of, I read this. as they were just abhuman to a point where they were called. People can disagree with us on this, but I just think that they were abhuman because they evolved to be able to be there. And they were, I think they were probably wildly mutated because they were psychers in the era of we had no protection versus that.
Starting point is 00:20:52 And they probably were. And the truth is we're going to get to in a second, which God they were all working for. he was he he he does like himself some some yeah i mean they were all some yeah let's be honest so what these happened is super powerful psychers eventually became warlords and they began just kind of conquering the planet you say warlords i think despots well they're warlords because they would fight each other that's why i like the term the term warlord true i mean technically you're not wrong these weren't great guys no no no these were warlords and what they would do was which is actually kind of, I'm going to go with funny here, is they actually used.
Starting point is 00:21:32 Necromancy is funny because the thing was, I find this funny, because the reason why it's funny is you've got, so you've got these warlords, all right, and they're all in different mountains, effectively, and they want to kill each other because they're all just warlordss who want to conquer each other. And you've got this population of humans in the lowlands, but those humans can't go into the mountains unless you kill them and then reanimate them as what is basically a Plague Bear or Poxwalker, and then send your army of the dead. So it was just what ends up happening is these warlords are fighting each other with zombie armies.
Starting point is 00:22:05 And every time their zombie army gets like depleted, they go down to the local population, kill a bunch of them with their zombie army, raise them as new zombies and then send them off the fight. Which is a big deal because it makes, enforces the we hate these guys more. Yeah. Because you're just trying to go about your shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty. wait for it shitty life yeah and then a guy comes down and murders you and everybody else and turns you into zombies for the that's to say for the sole reason that the last time one of these guys got together
Starting point is 00:22:43 one guy said some shit to the other guy and now he's determined to kill him and now you have to suffer because one dude said he didn't like the way that that dude's shoes looked and barbarous is like this for 5,000, 10,000 years. We don't really know. That's the whole thing. For several of the times? Yeah. Eventually, when Mortarian comes into play is that Mortarian appears on Barberas, like all the prime marks do, as an infant. And so he's just a baby crying. And it appears in a field of at the end of a battle, just crying. And so one of the most powerful warlords named Nakar, Nicar, Nicar, was wandering the battle. I don't. Some of the names, like, just again,
Starting point is 00:23:25 go with Eric, and it'll be easier for me, is wandering the battlefield after his victory, and he hears the cry of a child. So he begins searching for it. When he comes upon it, he's actually about to kill it and then has a realization that this child is taking full breaths of air to cry, and no human could ever be at this altitude and do that. So he goes, well, this thing's cool. I'm going to bring it with me, and I'm going to make it my champion. him. But Nekir is pure evil. I mean, he doesn't do this and say, let me go help you out. They don't say this. He's, he would be a litch if you're talking about fantasy tropes. Oh, very much so. Yeah. This guy is pure evil, but he's extended his life. You know, he's,
Starting point is 00:24:10 this guy is just a straight lich. So what he does is, so first off, he tries to figure how powerful Mortarian is. He does name him, by the way, Mortarian, which trends. translates to child of death, which, by the way, if you go to Latin, that's actually effectively what it means. So, Mort, death, Arian, son of Ares. So again, every now and then, G.W. just decides to say, yeah, just Google translate a name for me. And then that's where we go with it. So his name translates to effectively the death son of Ares, which, by the way, is actually a cooler name than anyone else has been given. That'd be true. You're the death son of the god of war?
Starting point is 00:24:52 Yeah. He's a death son of the god of war. That's pretty badass. So anyway, neck hair. So what he does, which is just super dark, is he brings Mortarian further and further up the mountain until Mortarian can't survive anymore, then moves him down like five feet and builds a fortress right there. So Mortarian is always, Mortarian lives his entire, effectively childhood through adolescence.
Starting point is 00:25:18 Yeah. in a, I'm about to die, but I'm not quite, did you see Deadpool? He does that in the tube? Yeah. Forever, like his whole life. Now, I will say there is one positive here. This is a story of a space marine not succumbing to poison.
Starting point is 00:25:37 You so much. You know what? I read this last night, by the way. And I was debating because you skip a lot. And I didn't know if we would skip. I don't know why I thought maybe you would. No chance I'm skipping the poison joke. So Nekir does, while trying to poison Mertarian to death, begins teaching him how, like,
Starting point is 00:25:58 warfare and all this stuff. So he's teaching Mertarian battle strategy, even some of the arcane techniques that Nekir and the other ones used. Which was a huge mistake. Yeah, colossal mistake. And Nekir just couldn't be happier because his idea is that he's going to turn Martyrian effectively into his warrior slave, which he kind of does. Yes, but he also thinks, in the writings he actually thinks this.
Starting point is 00:26:24 This is said in the books and a lot of the stories. Nekir just thinks that Mertarian's going to stay loyal forever, even though he's been just goddamn, it's not even awful. He's been sinister to him his whole life. Yeah. My other complaint is like, Nekir's whole goal is just to conquer this shitty planet of barbarous. like there's a very good like the term I'm used here is Yurtle the Turtle
Starting point is 00:26:50 which I know a lot of you haven't read I have a five year old so I have where it's like you're just you should be trying to conquer the galaxy yeah exactly it's fine good thing it's actually got a little bit of no gods no masters to it by the way if you read it I know Dr. Zeus
Starting point is 00:27:05 did not mean it this way you can read it in a way that we should just kill all kings but anyway it's labor day I can be revolutionary but anyway So Moratarian, as he's being brought up, though, under Nicar, notices that, hey, you keep, like, harvesting these people in the lowlands. And...
Starting point is 00:27:26 Let's go a little bit far. But Nicar never let him go to those. This is important. He knew about them. He never saw them. Yes. He only saw the zombies. Eventually, Mortarian starts asking a bunch of questions about the people that are
Starting point is 00:27:38 being turned into zombies. And the character is also over time, too. Yeah, just tells me... It's significant amount of time. Oh, yeah. This isn't, like, a one-day thing. This is over, like, a decade. of him asking him, Nekirian's also done some super shitty stuff.
Starting point is 00:27:51 Mertarian's fighting for Nkare, but again, he's fighting with the zombies against the other warlords. And he is good at it. I mean, this is pretty badass. Well, he's a ape primar. So he is wildly good at it. Now we're going to get into another part here. Sorry, guys, I'm used to shit on GW. But the story's written that Mortarian sees some of the captured lowlanders and realizes they look.
Starting point is 00:28:16 like him. That's what it says in the book. Again, Lion Luther. Mortarian is about three meters tall, which means he's about close to 10 feet tall and weighs close to a ton. He's huge. And he sees someone who's maybe six foot and like 200 pounds. And he goes, oh, they look just like maybe. Whoa, whoa, whoa, probably way less. These guys are amazing. These people are starving to that. So he's basically seeing like, you know, a normal like human being. Like, actually would actually be a normal farmer effectively and going, wow, he looks just like me. Like, you could take three of them. But I guess they did look more than, more than the care did.
Starting point is 00:28:59 So anyway, Mortarian decides that, well, decides or realizes, pick what you want here, that he belongs to the lowland people and just escapes. Well, let's pause on this. Because he realizes that everything he's done up to this point has caused. cause the suffering of people. Yeah. And he has a legitimate moment of clarity of, oh, shit, has my entire life been me causing horrible suffering to everyone down besides me?
Starting point is 00:29:32 And he has that, oh, shit, moment of, I'm the bad guy. Oh, very much so. The other part of this sort of is kind of funny is Mortarian just breaks out of the fortress and runs down the hill. and the care just yells, hey, stop. Yeah, that was lame. It just does nothing about it. Also has no spells to stop him from going.
Starting point is 00:29:53 Yeah. Maybe he couldn't affect him. I don't know. To be fair, Mortarian technically is wildly more powerful than a care. Yeah, well, we'll get there. Physically at least. Yeah, we go. How about that?
Starting point is 00:30:07 So, Mortarian runs down the hill. And again, this writing's really good. When I talk about like chaos characters, of the writing's really good. This is the first time he smells cooked food. It's the first time he hears laughter. Can I actually tell you what I felt on this? So I kind of give it to the jungle book when he finally. You're so old. I know. Oh, you're so old. I mean, he had the bareness. You're so old. I am too old to really have strong jungle book memories. I'm just saying. I'm just saying he finally sees his people for the first time and realizes even though he's the pinnacle of human
Starting point is 00:30:55 evolution basically he sees actual regular humans for the first time and understands their plight understands it's also remember he's a primer he's a genius they're all they have oh yeah he to understand he immediately sees what's happening and disseminates everything about their life in a glance. One of my favorite parts about this, though, is as we just were discussing, that he sees these people capture, like, wow, they look just like me.
Starting point is 00:31:26 You know who didn't feel that way? The people of barbarous when they saw his terrifying ass, he is a monster in their eyes. They've never seen any being this large. He is, his also, because he's never been outside, his skin is pure pale. He is. His eyes have a hollow.
Starting point is 00:31:44 Yeah. His eyes have a hollow stare. You need to book, back that up a little bit. There's a difference between there's a pale guy. Annie, I've never had sunlight on my skin. I've also never been around people, so I just stare at them uncomfortably. Yeah. He's also trying to figure out everything about you by just terrifyingly staring at you.
Starting point is 00:32:06 So the ghost white monster is staring at you, and they're like, we should probably. weird long hair. Like how, what's our torch and pitchfork situation? Yeah, we need to do something about this. But to kind of to help Mortarian out right around the time he gets down there, a different warlord, not Nekir, attacks the village he gets to. And the villagers always just get their asses handed to them in these battles. They're zero, seven thousand.
Starting point is 00:32:34 Mortarian just grabs a basically pointed stick at this point. And murders. It kills every single zombie. The warlords runs. runs away up a mountain and does the double middle finger the top of the mountain, you can't do anything about him in toxic, and Mortarian runs up the mountain and cuts his head off. This is actually a...
Starting point is 00:32:52 It's an amazing story. We're not selling this. Read his book. Oh, this is cool as hell. The guy 100% thinks you can't come up here to do absolutely anything. A Mortarian's giant ass, and they describe it in detail as he's lumbering towards him, just kind of goes, oh, oh, no. Oh, no.
Starting point is 00:33:14 And by the, like, Mortarian chases him down. The dude doesn't stand his ground. He tries to escape. And Mortarian just runs up and kills him. So at this point, the villagers go, okay, the most terrifying thing we've ever encountered, Mortarian, we're going to keep it, though, because this is kind of fun. Because it's our guy. Yeah, this guy's with us.
Starting point is 00:33:31 And Mortarian is almost instantly elevated the Savior of Barbarus, which is the normal story of most of the primarks. They all kind of get elevated to the story of Savior. So he then takes all the teachings of Nicar and teaches them to all of the people across all of barbarous. And they start, you know, developing tactics. They start fortifying themselves against future invasions. All of a sudden, some of the, now that they're able to survive combat, they actually have enough people to actually start making warriors and they begin to go on the offensive. one such, you know, of these people was a person in my name of Cala Typhon, who will be later known as Typhus.
Starting point is 00:34:13 So just there's my little like, we're getting to Typhus guys. Foreshadowing. Yeah. So it's actually, this is cool as shit. So Moratarian then, this is where, this, this book's, all right, I actually didn't like the end. The book got a little bit lame near the end of it. But anyway, the beginning part of theitarian book is good. Just the writing got a little tired at a certain point.
Starting point is 00:34:32 They do. I'm not just a bit. Yeah, I'm going to get crap from this. Deptgart writers. It's a good book. I just, I'm going to say, I just think the beginning's better than the end. I mean, that's the case with a lot of books, though. I mean, the rise of Mortarian is more exciting. The problem is, is the anti-climatic, and we'll talk about this. Yeah, we'll get there. But this part's awesome. So he starts teaching them, so everyone, he's teaching these warriors how to fight. He's, there's, warriors are coming from other villages to come learn the ways and
Starting point is 00:34:57 go back to their villages. So what they do is they start, first off. He starts a, no. You know what? No, John. He starts. He starts. it's a global revolution, and he's not even trying to start a global world. He inspires the populace, and he's so, basically he's so influential by not even trying to be influential. And that's what I think is so inspiring. Him just doing what he does trickles down on a global scale. It's that whole. Well, the next bit we're going to do here is, what he does is, I'm going to compare it to the game civilization, so I'm just going to do it. he then starts picking off warlords.
Starting point is 00:35:38 You can't take the, let's say, I talk about civilization. You build out, you build out. And then you have to start actually, you reached a point where you can't grow your civilization anymore without conquering. And so they start solving the problem. So what he does is he starts working with a smiths
Starting point is 00:35:51 and they start designing breathing apparatus as an armor because this toxic fog, we didn't mention earlier, it's not just that it's toxic to your lungs. It's also acidic. It'll burn your skin off. So they start building armor, breathing apparatus.
Starting point is 00:36:04 so they can go in and they start killing basically up all the mountains, all the lower level warlords. And they start taking back the country. And in first, it's actually pretty easy because these warlords are, they're, it's been what? Again, 10,000 years. And they're so corrupted with power. Yeah. They have the thing that you could actually show up can't even, it doesn't even enter.
Starting point is 00:36:30 I actually don't think their fortresses actually had walls. Yeah. It probably would have just been like, yeah. My territory is marked. Like, they couldn't imagine. Or he probably had walls facing the other warlords. But if you just came up from the lowlands or, like, nothing comes from that direction. Who cares?
Starting point is 00:36:43 Like, it just wouldn't even, like, it's inconceivable that you could act, that there would be an actual threat to them from the populace. And so what happens is overtime, mortarian, just picking off one after another until there's only one warlord left. And it's Nekir. Now, Nekir does know his stuff. And he put his fortress so high up that no one can get there. absolutely no one. And so, and this is just, it will actually,
Starting point is 00:37:08 mortarian, this is a big deal because we have to give him, actually do, he's due. Because he's far enough up in the atmosphere that your armor will just melt. Yeah. You cannot get,
Starting point is 00:37:24 melt. You will, it's not a, hey, my guys were, oh, cough, cough, we couldn't quite make it. No, we tried to get up there and the first eight guys dissolved. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:37:34 in front of us running up there. And Nicar is, and Nekir is talking shit from up here, by the way. He is, Mortarian is losing his mind over this. And then, as with all of these stories, the emperor shows up. And this is, I mean, the reason I'm groaning is just the part of the book that I just felt like, and the story got away. That's, I give you this, because the fact that the emperor shows up and does emperor stuff, which is, if I would have an actual conversation,
Starting point is 00:38:04 with someone. Well, the emperor did, the emperor does this in the worst way possible and sets everything else up. We'll be right back after a quick break. In my professional life, one thing I know well is how challenging, managing a global team can be. Just the act of creating one has been an extreme challenge over the years. Because one thing you learn quickly is a difficulty of hiring global talent and how unclear those costs can be. It looks simple at first, but then the fees start to stack up. with compliance worries, contractors versus employees, and a host of other regulations. Pebble brings clarity with upfront, all-in hiring costs and enables you to hire the world. Pebble is an AI-powered human resource platform built for founders, HR leaders, and operators
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Starting point is 00:40:03 Immortarians, they're like, yeah, I just, I already did that. I've been doing this. I've been doing this for, like, last like 30 years. Like, thanks for showing up for the boss battle, jackass. Exactly. Yeah, like, hey man, thanks for not showing up for any of this. Yeah, I did. We were building stuff by scratch.
Starting point is 00:40:19 You have an entire legion of super soldiers with you. You shut up in spaceships? Yeah. I've been doing this by hitting people with clubs. Yeah. So the emperor, you know, is telling me, I'm going to salvation. I'm going to solve your problems. I'm going to actually terraform the place.
Starting point is 00:40:33 planet, which everyone should have done a while ago. He actually Stomerler doesn't. He also kind of says, like, I can fix your planet in, like, very short amount of time. Mortarian is a, what I say, Mortarian is not a fan of the emperor. Mortarian may be the only prime mark who genuinely
Starting point is 00:40:49 disliked the emperor. Oh, he hated the emperor from day. I'm actually asking, is there anyone else who hated him? No, because they were, their psychic... Curse? No, he's just crazy. He still loves him. Yeah. We'll do this when we get to the night lords.
Starting point is 00:41:04 Curz loves the emperor and hates the emperor because he thinks the emperor doesn't love him. That's what it is. Okay. I'm trying to remember that story as well. But yeah, Mortarian, I guess. Or he just hates him right now. He hates the emperor. And so Mortarian.
Starting point is 00:41:21 He took all of his glory in one. It's not even that he took his glory. He took his glory. Let's go into taking the glory. Let's go into what he does. So the emperor tells Mortarian, that just come with me and we'll go killing the care, then we can go conquer the stars.
Starting point is 00:41:35 And Mertarian effectively gives the middle finger and says, no, I'm killing my dad. You're selling this a little short because the emperor says this is like a side thing. He's like, hey, we got to get to my ship. On the way there, we'll just kill this guy because he means nothing to me off. Yeah, it'll take me a second.
Starting point is 00:41:55 I'm going to, like, it's literally, I'm a stop for gas and while doing it. You know, the pinnacle of your, life's existence. I'm going to do this as I'm going to grab that and a gatorade on the way, on the way out. And Bortaria, not super excited because he's like, this is what my whole life's building to. And the emperor's like, okay, cool, you can get some beef jerky awesome. So the emperor does the thing that he loves to do. He was like, I'll make you a deal. If you can kill the care, I'll just leave the planet. You can rule it. But if you can't, then you're going to have
Starting point is 00:42:28 to pledge fealty to me. Also, why does he do this? No one knows. It's just the worst. This is, this is setting stuff up. He's just a dick. He's just, yeah. The Epper is a wildly intelligent, wildly powerful, and half the things he does especially to his sons are just dick moves. Yeah. This is what Valdor would do. Actually, no, Valdor wouldn't even go for the psychological thing. He would have just, he's like, he's going to kill Nicarat. He would have been like, I killed Nicarre yesterday. He's walking, holding his head. Like, look, it's over now.
Starting point is 00:43:00 Also, there's a shuttle right there. Yeah, can we go? I got the, we got to go. Also, I don't care what happens. Yeah. I'm going to virus. I'm liking Valor more and more than what we joke about Valor. I'm like, they could have made him a lot funnier.
Starting point is 00:43:14 But anyway, so Mortarian just takes off and just starts to, it just runs up the hill to kill him the care. Which, by the way, again, I'm going to use the fifth D&D reference to me. Wow. He fell into the just wild blunder. Don't get into a land war in Asia. I mean, he just, you're like, oh, you ran into his trap that every person reading this went. He's definitely trapped this, right? And so Mortarian gets pretty close, actually. He gets further than ever, but his suit is just his. Oh, I'm sorry. He got close. You mean he ran into the actual suite that was a true. trap. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Go continue. I just, I did,
Starting point is 00:44:01 you said he got close. He got into the trap. Brad's right. It's just that there is one key foreshadow here that does. So two things happen. First, he, he's lying there, like, and the care just walks out there to kill him. And Mortarian hears a voice in his head, offering him a way to cheat death once and for all. It's not the emperor, though. This is Nergel. Nergel has been watching Mortarian. the whole time. And this is his chance.
Starting point is 00:44:30 And before Martyrian can respond to Nergel. Which he's going to respond with yes. Yeah. The emperor appears and just literally cuts, literally cuts the car in half. Yep. Just boom, done. He will try. He grabs Mortarian and walks back down to the village.
Starting point is 00:44:45 You know what? He Darth malls in. Yeah. Oh, that's right. That's the way that he just, boom. And just picks up Mortarian and walks back down to the village. And Mortarian is so pissed. And again, it's not what the emperor did. It's how he did it half the time because the emperor also gives no due to what just happened.
Starting point is 00:45:07 He gives no gravitous to the situation. The emperor goes, this is kind of what I thought was going to happen, kills him and just goes, grabs him and goes, all right, cool. Let's move out. So now you might feelty, right? Mortarian feels he was tricked into this. Yeah, he feels cheated. By the way, he is. To a point.
Starting point is 00:45:25 Well, also, again, you know what, I'm going to give Mortarian is due. Mortarian is MacGyvering up. Oh, yeah. Armor and gas masks and stuff. The Emperor just showed up with the best of Taryn technology, space technology. And when, weirdly enough, this works better than the shit you put together with three gumsticks and band-aids. You know, weird.
Starting point is 00:45:52 And then just kills the guy who he could have also killed. if he wasn't dying again because of the gum and the band-aids and then just doesn't acknowledge any of this shit happening. This isn't infuriang. It's the lack of complete total lack of shit giving here on the part of the emperor. Just set everything up for failure, which is exactly what ends up happening. So let's fast forward just a little bit here. So Mortarian takes control of his legion.
Starting point is 00:46:20 But when he does, he actually starts making some weird changes. So prior to Mortarian, the death guard were actually called the Dusk Raiders. Lame. Yeah. I mean, this is... You're the sunlight tequila. Yeah, it was. I mean, so there's an important piece about this.
Starting point is 00:46:42 So all the legions in the Emperor's Army remember came from Terra. So all the soldiers were born there. Once the Primark has found, this would shift. So oftentimes, the planet that the Primark came from would become the recruiting world. Not every time, but the vast majority. This has always created. And the death card is the one that calls this out the best if you read the books.
Starting point is 00:47:10 So it's, I always says, when you read the Death Guard books, then you go back to read the early Horace heresy books, all of a sudden makes a lot more sense. Because the Death Guard book calls this out better than anyone. It's a huge deal because the death, the people, the people, People from Barbaris fight in not even in the same dimension as the dust riders because, and which I do love about the death guard, the mortarians, mortarians people are ground ponderers. They're infantry. They've never had anything else.
Starting point is 00:47:42 These guys are, we're going to get the job done. We're durable. So are the dust graders. The dust graders were a heavy infantry group, but they were sneaky. They were like they would attack at dusk, which again, you've got visors. They've got visors, which we've covered before don't really work because I guess it is a night fight. So maybe the death guard are better at it, Brian.
Starting point is 00:48:04 By the way, I won't even be lured into this one because you know what pisses me off so much. So the biggest thing about this is their guys are their guys, more so than any other lead. Yeah. Most of the legions, not all. because some of them were a little bit wackier. We'll go to Conrad again, but whatever. But like this, there's never been a more visible divide. It's funny, as I was writing this, I kept thinking to myself,
Starting point is 00:48:35 and we're getting this right now. The Dusk Raiders would have made a much better match with Caliban. Yes. Mixing them with Barbarous is a mistake, and I'll explain why. The Dust Raiders actually have their roots from the Unification Wars. There's an area called Albion, which was just Europe. I don't know what GW does with this crap, but anyway, they come from one of the most kind of formidable fighting forces on the planet. So much so that, like, when the emperor tried to annex them, he actually stopped fighting them and walked over and made a truce with them.
Starting point is 00:49:09 That's how strong the Albion fighters are. So the Albans have this history of being this incredible fighting force, and they are proud of it. Like first legion evil shit. Like these guys are genuinely actually a good warriors. First Legion evil. Oh, the first legion are evil. The issue is that the dust graders, when you then get mixed them in with Mortarian, Mortarian takes these soldiers who have a family history, a borderline like warrior nobility
Starting point is 00:49:43 and just says, yeah, I don't like any of you. I'm just going to go ahead. Because he also looks at these guys as the leaders, the warlords, the rulers. Yeah. The nobility of Barbaris was only evil. That's the only thing he has to look at, you know what I mean, to compare this to. Mortarian may be the most loyal to his, to his. He is ride or die with his guys.
Starting point is 00:50:12 I'm trying to think of him versus Lehman. That's the only one I could think of who might be more loyal to his home planet. I don't know. Lehman's pretty crazy. That's my point. It's like, but that's what we're talking about. Like they are, you know, these guys are extremely. Him and Reeman, as far as his, what he
Starting point is 00:50:29 considers his family. Yeah. No. That's my point. You're either part of my family, my group. I can't stop myself from going, I'm going to live my life a quarter mile at a time. But also, what?
Starting point is 00:50:43 I'm just saying. Oh, two things. One, none of them were good. And two. and someone post this, it was a Twitter comment. They were correct. The fact they didn't name the 10th one
Starting point is 00:50:56 Fast 10 your seat belts is just a colossal mistake. Is there 10 of them? There's 10 of them. Holy shit. The 10th one was not called Fast 10 your seatbelt, which is just the ultimate miss,
Starting point is 00:51:11 which makes sense in 10 movies that were all garbage. But, but. Anyway, Mortarian, back to that begins turning his adopted legion into his own legion. So there are no more knightly actions. There's no more noble deeds. There is murder.
Starting point is 00:51:30 And there's very, very, let's do this in the best way possible. He's very good about it. He is. But he also adds something new in, which is really important for their fall. And it's a tradition called the Cups, which comes from barbarous. And in the cups, you would drink a concoction of poison and toxins to harden yourself. I do this all the time. So, we'll point this out because I'm not letting it go, Brad. The death guard organs worked. They're the only ones of all the space sprees that I'm aware of. They do drink straight up.
Starting point is 00:52:08 They're drinking straight up poison, get a little bit, you know, queasy tummy, and then they're good. Now, you know what? Just because I want to move this away from that because it pisses me out so much. Is Mortarian more evil or more pragmatic, in the beginning at least? I don't think he knows a difference. Because a lot of his original decisions are shitty decisions,
Starting point is 00:52:33 but they're also just this is the best, the one plus one, he's two. I take it better this way. I look at Mortarian and Magnus very similarly. I think Magnus knew he was talking to Zinch as he was making his deals and trying to get things. I think Mortarian was being heavily. I think, I think Nergel was in Mortarian's ear more than Mortarian realized. And Mortarian, either.
Starting point is 00:53:02 So from the beginning. Yeah. It was actually, or maybe it was just Nergel was in the ear of the people around Mortarian. You think it's just whispers? Yeah. And they were influenced. But I think it's, because the cops, this concept. of like I'm going to drink, we're going to drink poison. There's no reason to do this besides
Starting point is 00:53:17 worshipping Nurgle. Exactly. This is a ceremony. And I think what happened was Mortarian, because, you know, bad English dad is completely unaware of chaos. And I think that there were probably people in his retune who were already had given themselves to Nurgle at one point or another. And this is where the deathguard from day one are pretty bad for the populace of the planets they come to. Yeah. Mortarian gives no shit. Oh, yeah, they talk about this. When everyone else... Comoral damage is not a thing.
Starting point is 00:53:47 It's not just color about me. It's also everyone else would conquer a planet and then would stay and rebuild. Mortarian just left. And he left behind himself apocalypse. Oh, he was 80s action movie. Yeah. There was an explosion behind him. Yeah. His ships were driving away from the planet. Effectively, it was like... He was doing stuff that first legion were like, oh, was that...
Starting point is 00:54:08 Did we do that? You guys did that? Because he would just lead destruction behind him. And like, yeah, someone playing that shit up. He's like, I won. Yeah. You're like, yeah, but yeah, I said I won. Yeah, you killed everybody. Yeah. We just told you to kill five guys.
Starting point is 00:54:23 Me, I mean, I did. I killed those five guys. Those five guys are also dead. Yeah. I technically. Yeah. I follow. I'm technically correct.
Starting point is 00:54:31 The best kind of correct. Valdor should have loved Mortarian. Yeah. All right. But anyway, now let's jump to typhus. Because I know it's kind of a weird flip, but we needed all that to kind of get you to typhus. because this is where Typhus starts to really grow.
Starting point is 00:54:45 Typhus was obviously born on Barbaros, not in a good way. He's actually, this is a horrifying story. I mean, he's, he is a not. This is, look, this is Greek God stuff. Yeah. Typhus's mother was captured, raped, and impregnated by one of the warlords. So Typhus is a genetic mutant. He is a incredibly powerful psycher.
Starting point is 00:55:11 But also already very, very, very, resilient to the forces of corruption. Because... Sorry, the forces of... Because of what happened to his mother, the other villagers murdered his mother, by the way, when he was a child. Also, Dick move, man. Yeah, I don't... Whatever.
Starting point is 00:55:28 Anyway, blah. You're like, awful things happen to you. We should stab you. Well, the thing was, and the story, again, I've interpreted this a little bit differently, so sorry if this isn't quite canon. But they leave Typhus alive. if they talk about his powerful psychic powers, my guess is they were terrified of typhus.
Starting point is 00:55:46 He effectively sionically blasted everybody that was in the room. Yeah, that's the thing. So when Typhus gets upset, everything around him explodes. Yeah. Typhus is one of, this is, it's funny because in the, as we get further to the game, I actually don't think his psychic powers are that impressive. They're strong, but as a child, he's Aramon level.
Starting point is 00:56:07 Yeah, but the thing is. Actually, he's more powerful in Aramon, actually. He never gets trained, which is why in the game today, he just does mortal wounds for no reason. Yeah, what I'm going to get there is like typhus is it, when they talk about typhus as a child,
Starting point is 00:56:21 oh, it's like it's primark level, level psychic colors. But the thing is, is I think that he never just learned to harness it at all. Yeah. He can unleash a, right now,
Starting point is 00:56:32 still in the lore, typhus can unleash a wave of energy. Yeah, and just kill everything around him. He has no, he never got, training basically. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:42 That's a good point. He just does shit. Over time, Typhus does learn to manipulate the warp a little bit better. He gets some control of it. Key thing about Typhus is when Mortarian came running down the hill, Typhus was the first person he met. He was just a child, but he actually is one who brought Mortarian to the village. This is impressive, though, because it sets the stage for who Typhus is, Typhus from day one of the story, which he's not day one for typhus but he's a child typhus is not afraid of the 10 foot tall
Starting point is 00:57:17 ghost monster yeah monster it's a monster and just goes what hey man what's up let's hang out you come to the village yeah like he has nothing from the way from literally day one meeting fucking materian you know those villagers were looking at like dude what the hell like take him to the other village yeah like don't bring up this one yeah but let's be honest Typhus was the weird kid. So, yeah, that's fair enough. So anyway, Typhus eventually becomes a, he joins Martyrian's army in the war against the warlords.
Starting point is 00:57:49 He eventually rises to becoming a champion in their army, being one of Typhus, one of Martyrian's best soldiers. To the point where they actually were fighting side by side for a lot of this and became very close friends. Yep. However, this starts to become frayed with the arrival of the emperor. I mean, afraid? Yeah, I mean, but this is what we, it starts to become afraid.
Starting point is 00:58:11 It eventually becomes a nightmare between the two of them. I can't hope to say. Sorry. You went afraid. You're like, hey, man, I came over and murdered everyone you knew. That's, that's not, as we've discussed with Abidon and with Aramon, betrayal is a key part in GW writing. Typhus feels betrayed by Mortarian when he sees Mortarian bend the knee to the emperor.
Starting point is 00:58:34 And it's because Mortarian had always stood for. all people should be free. He preached. You're selling this short, and I know short. You're selling the short because of the fact that Mortarian, again, remember, he has a grassroots thing that has become a global rebellion. And it's based on the fact of rise up and throw off the shackles of these warlords. and then for Typhus, a warlord showed up, and Typhus just went, oh, I'm sorry, Mertarian went, okay, I'm going to bend the knee.
Starting point is 00:59:16 And Typhus went, dude, for him, my whole life, I have listened to you, tell me your rhetoric, which is do not bend the knee, do whatever it takes to throw off the chains of these oppresses. I may agree for this, but no gods, no masters. That was Mortarian. That's what Mortarian was teaching, which I may or may not have... I was just what to say. You have that on your arm.
Starting point is 00:59:41 I have a tattooed my arm. Anyway, well, we all have our choices. Like a lot of tattoos, we're a lot of tattooing. But this is a big thing, this is the whole, the whole purpose on Barbaros is that we are,
Starting point is 00:59:53 no one is in charge of us. We are our own people. We will rise up against it. And the emperor shows up and he's like, well, not this guy. We can all, we can all be, because his message also was all of that, but also
Starting point is 01:00:05 we will rise and fall. We don't even have to succeed. Just never bend the knee. Period. You're like, you might get killed. Okay. You will die flee. Don't bend the knee.
Starting point is 01:00:16 And Typhus just saw the emperor as another warlord telling everyone what to do. Because don't forget, when the emperor arrives, one thing we point out, he also brought the tithe with him. So the emperor doesn't arrive on barbarous and say, you guys have really had it rough. Here, let me terraform your planet.
Starting point is 01:00:31 He said I'm going to fix your planet and just, leaves. And then leaves. And then says to the planet, by the way, we just start setting food up because we have other shit to do. And they're like, hey, man, where are you going to fix this place? And he's like, maybe. It's better because no one's being turned into zombies to fight against each other. But that's about it. But they were actually on the verge to back to Moratarian's hatred of the emperor. They were on the verge of freeing themselves. All they had to do is killing the care, which they probably couldn't do, but that's a side note. It wouldn't matter because he could never go anywhere.
Starting point is 01:01:02 But the point, but they were that close to actually being able to have their planet all to themselves. And this emperor comes in and technically kills that, gives them their planet back, but then takes it over himself. Well, I mean, not even for him, it wasn't that. It wasn't even a thing. He just took the planet over. Yeah. There was never a freedom moment. It was just, we have a different overlord.
Starting point is 01:01:26 Yeah. We actually have a more powerful overlord. And so Typhus doesn't like this. Let's talk now about the fall of Typhus to chaos. So Typhus, as with all these stories, is one of the first soldiers of Barbaros to be converted to a space marine, which they do all the time.
Starting point is 01:01:43 Although I did realize after I wrote this, I was like, oh, all the times that they converted someone from a regular person to a space marines? It's supposed to be super hard, and they did it a million times. How many times did they fall to chaos? Like everything.
Starting point is 01:01:56 So maybe that was the reason they weren't, they wrote about it. And we're always like, So we have to like abduct children and shove organs and then to turn them into something. Why don't we just give the weird steroid treatment to all of them? And you know, I'm like going through like Corferon, Luther, like typhus. Oh, oh, there's a side effect. So anyway, but anyway, the thing about typhus is that this conversion for him went seamless.
Starting point is 01:02:22 And a key point about that is typhus not only does it actually go seamless for him, But he all, he becomes almost a super soldier, like Deadpool-esque. Can I, can I give my two cents to this? Go. He's wildly already. Nergel. Yeah. Like, he's, everybody knows that Mortarian, Mortarian has 43 ghosts above him, whispering,
Starting point is 01:02:52 Nergel into him. I feel that, like, Nergel went, I'm going to have your best friend be my guy. and Typhus from the beginning, even if he didn't know who was coming from? That's what I was going to say. I was going to make a corn reference here because corn would do this all the time where he would just make someone as champion, even though the person had no idea of corn existed. I don't think Typhus knew at the time.
Starting point is 01:03:13 Typhus had no idea of Nergel. But he doesn't embrace the shit out of this. Oh, yeah, because Typhus becomes this insane super soldier. He becomes resilient to check all. Yeah, there's a story of the crack grenade gets thrown at his squad. just jumps on top of the crack grenade. He got set on fire multiple times. But the cracker, here, so the crack grenade hits him.
Starting point is 01:03:36 In less than a week, he's back on the front line fighting, fully healed. Bullets, swords, clubs, they would just hit him and he just would be like, yeah, I'm good. He wouldn't be unscathed. He just wouldn't be injured. No, he, that's the thing is he would always be injured. Yeah. And he would just, can. If you did a thunderhammer to the chest at one point, it's just like, he just like,
Starting point is 01:03:56 he gets dropped. and then just gets up. But he got exploded. He's been, in these times, he's been flamed. Yeah. He got set on fire with flamers multiple times.
Starting point is 01:04:08 Where they're like, well, that sucks that typhus. His dad, he's like, we still go to charge guys. Yeah, you guys get up there.
Starting point is 01:04:14 Just give me, like, give me, I need to catch my breath. Give me three minutes. And they're like, I'm pretty sure his face melted off. And yeah. Okay, cool.
Starting point is 01:04:23 And actually, although I will see, one thing that's important about this, typhus could do this, but actually, so could most the Barbaros citizens who are being converted over. It's not most. It's the, I don't even know what to call them,
Starting point is 01:04:36 because my vernacular apparently left me, but it was basically Nergels favored, Nergels chosen, without them knowing that their Nurgles chosen. Because this is an really important thing, I think, when we talk about this, as we were talking, we were saying earlier, Mortarian begins converting the, to convert the Desk Riders to the Death Guard.
Starting point is 01:04:57 It begins filling the death card. all with the ranks of people from Barbaros. However, when we talked on the space marine process before, it's got a very high mortality rate except for the people from Barbaros, which makes sense because Barbaros is not, remember, even, they never terraformed it. So you still can only live in the lowlands. There's not a lot of people there, but they're losing like less than 50% of the people who go through the process.
Starting point is 01:05:21 Which is bananas. Yeah, which is unheard of. No one has this. And so Mortarians are able to grow it. And this is why it's because everyone from Barbaros is inherently tougher. They can just handle the toxins. They can handle all the pieces being shoved into them. Let's be honest.
Starting point is 01:05:36 Again, they are. It's nerve. It's a noble. It's totally normal. Yeah. And typhus is, but typhus is an extreme example of this because, and a big piece, this is his psychic powers. Now, another key piece that we didn't discuss, but we should do quickly, is Mortarian
Starting point is 01:05:55 hates. By the way, such a hypocrite because he has wild psychic powers now. But mortarian, and obviously this isn't exactly hard to figure out how we got from point A to point B. Oh, yeah. Who's terrorizing me my entire life? Cycers. So I detest them and I hate them. And I will not let you use them in my legion.
Starting point is 01:06:22 You will not be a cyker in my legion. He wouldn't like hunt down and kill psychers. but he were banned from using it. So typhus just suppressed his. He never used them. Although there's a cool story about this, he doesn't use them and rises to the highest rank in Mortarians' army, not using them.
Starting point is 01:06:41 So in the back of his mind, he's got that like the Incredibles where Dash is running. Like, no, not that fast. Slow down. He knows he could go even faster at all times. He could take this stuff to 11 at all, anytime. So he doesn't do it. But at this point,
Starting point is 01:06:55 point, Aribus, he doesn't like Mortarine, but he's loyal. I'm sorry. So at this point, typhus, though not liking Mortarian, is loyal to him until Brad's favorite buddy, Aribus gets involved. I hate this guy so much. It just really does hate them, by the way. These aren't real people. I know.
Starting point is 01:07:15 I'm actually mad right now. I'm physically angry while we're recording this over a fake guy. You know, like the people who, like, who would yell at the guy who played the Lannister when he would have dinner. That poor kid, like, Game of Thrones. He was fantastic as good.
Starting point is 01:07:31 He was incredible at having dinner with his family. You're like, you're an asshole. Like, it's a goddamn TV show, you weirdos. He's like, it's made up,
Starting point is 01:07:38 by the way. Yeah, it's like, I'm an actor. Thanks for thinking I'm incredible at it, but also why does the chef want to spit in my food? Like, it's not real.
Starting point is 01:07:46 But anyway, so Erebus and Typhus end up serving together on some level who gives a crap planet. No, the thing is, is that I have to
Starting point is 01:07:55 give the word bearers credit because they manipulated people that were susceptible to chaos to be in places that they could get them. We should do a cast on Aribus and namely the fact that... Can we not? Well, the only reason was, I mean, just five minutes on like, you look at Aribus and go, no, nothing he says is good. The man's literally, and if you have face tattoos, good for you, I don't mind it. He is sketchy shit.
Starting point is 01:08:25 He has, yeah, he has like evil writing written in rooms going across his entire body. And people, and people listen to him. Like, he knows something. It's like, he's like, hey, man, you have some sketchy sit. I have friends with face tattoos. Don't take spiritual advice from them. They were fantastic at isolating people that were susceptible because they knew typhus had some, he knew he had some issues with the leadership of what's going on.
Starting point is 01:08:58 So Erebus inducts Typhus into a warrior lodge. And once he joins it, he begins telling Typhus about the truths of the universe. And that, I mean, the difference is when you read the early Horace heresy books, it's all wink and a nod towards chaos. This wasn't. Arabis straight up told Typhus, you are at, best 70% of what you could be and all you have to is give yourself over to the chaos and you could be all that you could be. And I have to give the Erebus again. I hate Erebus so much, but this guy
Starting point is 01:09:35 literally saw that he had pocket aces and just went, you know what, screw it. I'm all in. Yeah. This is what's going on. Typhus went. Yeah. Go. Typhus just goes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, this sounds great. Now, all of barbarous in reality. was already part of Nergel. I mean, as we've discussed it for, Nergel isn't like the other gods who trick and then connive and stuff. Nergel just plays the long game.
Starting point is 01:10:03 I firmly believe every citizen of Marlis at one point or another. You're not wrong with you. You're going to say. Every citizen of Nergel, which is what this planet is. Exactly. Yeah, of Barberts, gave themselves to him at some point.
Starting point is 01:10:18 There is no way yet. Because every one of them praised, to not die from their planet's toxic environment. And in different levels, the warlords were obviously Nurgel psychers who were raising armies of rotting undead to kill each other. Nergel thought this planet was awesome. You know, that's what he was like, this is my, this is my favorite place. And he was just having a time of his life at it.
Starting point is 01:10:46 And so this is why you see the people and actually had an innate resistance to toxins. They can survive better. Nurgel knew eventually they were all coming over and his view, but what I'm getting at is what Nergel did was he kept giving these people better and better toxic resistance. He gave them gifts without asking for anything in return. Because he wanted a population to be hired. Because he knew that in the end, you're all going to be mine. I don't have to, you don't have the pen a devil's deal.
Starting point is 01:11:18 You don't have to do anything. I'll just win in the end. Yeah. So why, what I wrote here is, you know, why convert a few hundred thousand when you could convert a few million? Which is starting into billions. Yeah, which is the event. So that becomes Nergo's play.
Starting point is 01:11:31 So Typhus is a key part of this. And he, this is it. This is the moment where Typhus converts over. And he's now, when we say he converts over, by the way. He, no. If you haven't read the full 180. Yeah. If you haven't read the Horace Heresy books, it's him, Fulgram.
Starting point is 01:11:49 There's a few of them who hardcore, and bird over and he is all. Yeah, he puts the foot down on the pedal and goes to the floor. Yeah. And his plan is he's not doing this solo. He's bringing everyone with him. So we're going to break here because on the next cast, we're going to dive into how the death guard become the death guard of chaos.
Starting point is 01:12:16 And it's messed up. And mortarian antifist just telling himself to, to go to hell to each other. But eventually they do kind of come back around once they had to release a new model for Mortarian. And they do, but they don't. They, well, yeah, it's actually, you're right, it is getting funny because they get,
Starting point is 01:12:32 they get back together and then Typhus has to misexplain to Mortarian how much better he is at everything than Mortarian. He talks shit to a guy that could clearly cleave him in half at any moment. He can't, though, and we'll discuss that because Mortarian does try. That's true.
Starting point is 01:12:48 You're right, you're right. He's physically more powerful. He physically could cleave him in half, but unfortunately, when you're the servant of Nurgle, it doesn't really matter. So anyway, until next week, this has been John Barsati and Bradchester. This guy.

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