Something I think is especially interesting in the Dark Eldar fluff I’ve read is that they are bringing the souls of things right to the forefront of fluff and rules.
I admit I don’t really know much about 40k background, but afaik this is quite a significant change isn’t it? I believe daemons have always had things to do with mortal souls, but that’s always been more of a background issue and never really something played up too much. With DE it’s right at the centre of things and is seen as something hugely important.
Which leads onto the obvious applications of this for CD fluff and rules…
Reading the fluff things for the huskblade and prism thing the Archon has makes me wonder about whether the CD could bind souls into weapons/armour/machines? Or design weapons that steal souls? I’ve actually got a story in one of the WoH about an axe that does exactly this (it binds the soul and kills anything that touches it).
It reminds me a lot of my Soul Reaper warmachine, that caused a lot of fluff discussions at the time we designed it about whether everything has a soul or not (as WH has undead) and what effects it should have to lose it.
Not having the DE book, can anyone who does tell me if this is only after the enemy is killed outright, it doesn’t have a weakening effect of any kind if a multi-wound model loses only a wound etc? Is it just a fluff thing?
Designing CD things based on them binding things other than daemons opens up a whole new level of awesome (and wierd). Infact although it would be copying too much, I think the DE fluff would be pretty good for CD as well.
Souls are the reflections of sentient creatures in the Warp or, in the case of Warhammer, the Realm of Chaos. It’s not new at all and, in fact, the Chaos Dwarfs’ daemon-tech has been described in terms of souls already: “soul forges”, etc.
It’s not something I ever really hear mentioned outside of Liber Chaotica. So presumably it’s not currently that important in WH fluff as it appears to now be in 40k?
Well, there’s always been casual mentions of souls and spirits. I mean, look at the entire Vampire Counts army! Since Warhammer clearly features ghosts and so on, there are certainly souls in the setting. I think though that, by implication, they are magical “reflections” of living creatures rather than the literal life essence of the person. They only seem to hang around in the presence of Dark Magic anyway. Warhammer (and 40K, for that matter) is fairly ambiguous about the existence of an afterlife in general.
Do the DE soul things actually damage the enemy in any way? That would be the problem carrying this over to CD rules, as I think the undead would be unaffected unless it was considered just a magical blast of energy (as I used in the end for my war machine).
Its in keeping with the fluff, IMO. The new DE are all about being close to the warp without being consumed by it. They have more of an interest in suffering/psychic pain as a power source, IMO, and have a sort of pact with Slaanesh. Essentially, they are fueling their own immortality with the suffering of others. I think as far as WH40k metaphysics goes, its different but familiar.
There are quite a few magic items in Warhammer that mention stealing souls or draining life or whatever already. Mostly they grant stuff like Killing Blow, or Multiple Wounds or, well, almost anything. It's just flavour text, not some unifying concept.
Thommy H
Now I remember, there was a sergant in the Legion of the Dammed 40k, a special character that has a 'hamlet' style skull. Sgt Centurius i think he was.
That was from a few ed's ago, he sucked souls from models!
in terms of soul stealing in game mechanics, the DE unit gets a boost after killing a unit (ie, a 10 man squad of marines) so the Power from Pain rule doesn’t carry perfectly across into WFB, but say getting Regeneration after dropping 20 in a combat (not same turn) might have a similar effect as power from pain, Devastating Charge after the next 20,etc.
Must say Grim the idea of a mechanic for the Chaos Dwarves similar to the Dark Eldar’s new “power from pain” does sound really in keeping. I suppose it would depend on what you do with it as to whether it’s too similar.
After all, the Dark Eldar get powered up when they wipe out entire units… perhaps the Chaos Dwarves are more choosy. They take lots of slaves, but only real champions can fuel their soul magics. What about setting up a system whereby successful kills due to challenges have some kind of knock on effect? I.e. kill an enemy unit champion in battle you get a single soul token, a hero is two, a lord 3, a special character 4 - a bit like a take on the old 40k Witchunters faith mechanic and it’s “martyrdom” system - in reverse? The more of the enemies leaders you kill, the better you are. That way you can play up the arrogance of our beloved beardy ones - only the very best enemies get used as soul fuel?
To really make it different, how about; if you go with a system like that, instead of standard magic or unit based effects, what about some kind of terrain effect? The new 8th edition terrain is great, how about an interaction there - the sorcerer’s use the souls to drag ash and magma out of the very earth to confound their enemies?
Have fun, I’ll look forward to seeing what you come up with :cheers
