The universe of Warhammer 40K is a cornerstone of science fiction, the most popular games-best-miniatures/”>miniature wargame in the world. It is a massively expanded story with several hundred books fleshing out the places, people, and conflicts among its stars. While fans know about the huge range of creatures and characters, for outsiders, the focus on armored Space Marines takes center stage, leaving no room for the more interesting and fun pieces of lore.
However, due partly to the range of fiction created for the game in codices and Black Library novels, fans and players have a treasure trove of weird and wild lore to sink their teeth into. Here are the 7 strangest pieces of interesting lore across all of the 40K universe.
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7 Mother Gullet
Shape Shifting Assassin
The Imperium of Man is best known for the many Space Marines in various colors and kinds, but the cast of combatants is much larger. A secretive part of the Imperium is called the Officio Assassinorum, which is made up of a few different temples that train assassins in distinct methods of infiltration and termination. One such sect, the Callidus Temple, trains assassins to use a substance called polymorphine that allows them to shapeshift into any humanoid shape imaginable.
In one tale of these lethal attackers, an assassin discovered that a traitorous governor was very attached to his son, and so she used polymorphine to disguise herself as his nanny to get close to the child. She proceeded to swallow the child whole, using her ability to change form to hold the child inside her as she left. She came to be known as Mother Gullet for this stunt, bringing the cutthroat horrors of the Imperium’s tactics into focus.
6 Warlord Grizgutz
Time Travel Waaagh!
The Orks in Warhammer 40K are a brutal race with some, frankly, hilarious lore. Their language is loud and primitive, and they savor killing and destruction above all else. Each Ork contributes to a powerful WAAAGH!, which is a psychic field that surrounds Orks and lets them know who to follow and usually leads to war on a terrifying scale. These wars are usually led by a Warlord. Grizguts was one notable Warlord who was leading his own WAAAGH!
Grizguts used warp travel and found himself traveling back in time to see himself going into the warp again, causing a loop. However, Grizguts saw his past self wielding his precious gun and killed himself to be able to wield two of the firearms. Due to the chaotic nature of time travel, the WAAAGH fell apart, but interestingly, Grizguts did not die as a result and went on to wield both guns in future combat.
5 Oliensis
Planet Of Excess
In the Eye of Terror, where real space overlaps with the warp, countless planets are devoted to the Chaos gods. One such planet, Oliensis, was the target of a Chapter of Space Marines during a crusade. The Space Marines landed and fought their way through Slaaneshi worshipers, who indulged in greed, excess, and hedonism.
However, after defeating their foes, the Space Marines realized that the planet itself was simply a mammoth, morbidly obese man curled up in space, and they had been fighting within the man’s pores. The man had been completely given over to excess in the name of Slaanesh and the greed that the Chaos god encourages. When the Planet awoke and ate the Space Marines, they were forced into cannibalism within the creature and emerged as corrupted Slaanesh worshipers themselves.
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4 Space Marine Cannibalism
A Grisly Genetic Quirk
The Space Marines are the result of extreme genetic modification that leaves them stronger, smarter, and void of compassion. 19 gene-seed organs are grafted into a Space Marine, and perhaps the most disgusting of all of these is the Omophagea — also known as the Remembrancer. Initially devised to help with survival on inhospitable planets, the Remembrancer is activated when a Space Marine eats flesh. It gives the Space Marine the memories of the creature that it ate. If a Space Marine lands on a planet, and they are unsure how to navigate it, they can consume an animal and learn about threats, places of safety, and areas to avoid.
However, the Remembrancer is overdeveloped in some Chapters of Space Marines, leading to ritualistic flesh-eating or blood-drinking to enhance combat prowess. The Blood Angels, for example, feed the blood and bodies of fallen soldiers to new recruits to rapidly get Marines ready for the battlefield by passing on experience. For many outside the hobby, Space Marines can appear bland and without personality, but the Remembrancer opens up a lot of possibilities and poses a multitude of ethical questions about the power-armor-clad soldiers.
3 The First Inquisitor
A Name That Comes To Define The Inquisition
In the days before 40K had taken its final name, the game was titled games/”>Rogue Trader. The lore back then was a bit clunky; the focus was more on establishing cool things, and these things would all eventually have to be explained as the setting began to interconnect and take itself much more seriously. The Imperium of Man has always been the most stern of the factions, but the first-ever named Inquisitor is a perfect example of the sense of humor present in this early world-building.
The Inquisitors are responsible for weeding out any heresy from among the ranks of the Imperium and are often the subject of jokes in the 40K community. Every Inquisitor since the game began has been known as a bumbling do-gooder, and this all stems from the first name of an Inquisitor that was revealed. Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau makes the tropes that he is parodying immediately painfully clear, and the references to a wise jedi, a hyper-intelligent detective, and an absent-minded investigator make the modern tone of The Inquisition seem worlds apart from its origins.
2 Ork Belief
Red Wuns Go Fasta
The Orks are a warlike people who are often just as zealous as the Space Marines that they battle. However, Ork belief has an incredible power. When engineers take apart Ork guns, they find mechanisms that could never work, weapons that should never have fired but worked just as intended when in the hands of an Ork. This is due to an oddity within the Warhammer universe — when enough Orks believe in something, it becomes truth in real space.
The most popular realization of this ability is in the colors of their weapons and vehicles. Red things “go fasta,” blue is lucky and provides protection, and yellow bombs blow up bigger. Without really understanding how camouflage works, Orks believe that camo makes them hard to spot, regardless of whether it matches their surroundings. When enough Orks believe that their Warlord is the strongest Greenskin, he will become bigger and stronger as a result. If the Orks were more organized, this psychic ability would be apocalyptic, but instead, it is just another joke for the Warhammer community to indulge in.
1 Flayed Ones
Immortal Mechanics Driven Mad
One of the most cryptic races in the Warhammer 40K Universe, the Necrons are an evil race of immortal robots who have mathematical magics, mindless mechanisms, and an unfortunate knack for losing their minds as part of their great sleep. A Star God, destroyed by the Necrons, inflicted a curse on a metal race that manifested as a virus, spreading through the living metal that makes up a Necron. Those infected with the Flayer Virus have a taste for flesh and blood.
The Necrons keep the skin of their victims all over themselves. They even try to eat the gore, but it cannot make it past their metal faces, and so they remain stained with the blood of those they have slaughtered. The machines think that by covering themselves in skin, they may be able to return to their original bodies; the Necrons were not always the robotic creatures that they are at present; they gave up their bodies for the eternal metal. Many theories state that eventually, all Necrons will become flayers as they realize what they lost in transferring themselves to steel.
Warhammer 40K
- Created by
- Rick Priestley
- Creation Year
- 1987
#Strangest #Lore #Warhammer #40K
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