In the Grim Darkness of the Deepest Sleeps there is Only War

[Evil Eye]

So, has anyone here ever had a 40K based dream? And if so, how did it proceed? This is the thread to talk about weird dreams you've had that took place in the 41ist millennium, be they pleasant dreams or horrendous nightmares.

 

I had one recently that was simultaneously completely mental yet also made a great deal of sense.

 

So, the Space Marines (as in, ALL the Space Marines) had been called to Holy Terra by Guilliman himself. This was set some time in the "future" of 40K, ahead of official GW canon. Guilliman announced that all the Space Marines that could be upgraded to Primaris Space Marines had been, and the remaining "regular" Astartes were unable to be converted for some reason. He then declared the older Astartes to be "obsolete" and ordered the Primaris Marines to cull their older brothers. Most of the old Marines were cut down, but a handful (including, IIRC, a Primaris or two who refused to go along with this insane plan) escaped. Appalled by the spilling of anointed Astartes blood on Holy Terra of all places, and judging the Primarch to be a traitor of the worst kind, the handful of survivors hatched a plan to put a stop to Guilliman's madness.

 

They retreated into the Imperial Palace, dodging guards and inquisitorial agents, guided by a mysterious apparition and successfully freeing a captured Marine (why he was captured as opposed to just being slain I don't know, it was a dream after all). They then, through the help of an ancient Inquisitor, discovered and accessed an unmarked part of the Palace- a sanctum deep beneath, containing the most breathtaking discovery of all.

 

For in this sanctum were the suspended forms of loyal Space Marines from all twenty original Legions, from the days of the Heresy- including loyal members of the Legions that sided with Horus, and a few members of the two missing Legions.

It made sense to reinforce with this ancient coterie of loyal Astartes. However, power to this area was sporadic, so only small amounts could be "defrosted" at a time. They decided to unseal the tombs of the 7 members of the Second Legion- the "Lionguard".

 

To the heroes' absolute shock (and this is when it became clear the dream was going off the rails) the Lionguard were all women. They revealed that the "Only men can be Space Marines" thing was mostly a load of rubbish...mostly. The gene-seed did work with women, but implantation was far more difficult than with male subjects, survival rates were lower and large amounts of the Legion died prematurely due to disease and mutation as a result of improper zygote bonding, thus further plans for female Astartes were scrapped. However, the Lionguard knew something they believed would bring Guilliman to his knees, but first they had to recover their Primarch.

 

Unfortunately, at this point I woke up and so the wisdom of the Lionguard was lost forever.

 

Anyway, that's my adventure in the Astral Plane (worthy of writing into a piece of fiction IMO, albeit with some heavy editing to remove the stupider, more dream-like bits). What are yours?

[Knight of the Raven]

EDIT: Realized that my post toed the line far too much in spite of trying my best to make it as tame and non-descriptive as possible, so I deleted it. So instead, I'll just say I don't recall any dream related to what this forum covers, but that I'd like any that I may have to be accurately described with "only in death does disco end."

Edited December 14, 2017 by Knight of the Raven

[Urriak Urruk]

EDIT: Realized that my post toed the line far too much in spite of trying my best to make it as tame and non-descriptive as possible, so I deleted it. So instead, I'll just say I don't recall any dream related to what this forum covers, but that I'd like any that I may have to be accurately described with "only in death does disco end."

 

I missed your original post, so I can only imagine your dream was something like this;

 

[Mileposter]

... I would totally wear that as a tshirt.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

@Urriak: Awesome
​@Pentharian...honestly, I would too

 

 

The only dream I remember/wrote down afterwards to date was rather short, and not completely 40k related, but mostly at the end. I'll transcribe here, cleaned up a little to make a tad more sense.

 

I was an Astartes of indeterminate chapter or legion. My company was getting ready to deploy, and the scuttlebutt that followed every army had indicated that the commander had secured the aid of not one but two Reaver titans from a nearby legio. I could not entirely fathom why, as I had assumed we were deploying to the same place we had previously to complete another objective much like the first. In this I was mistaken, though not dismayed at all. After all, as an Astartes, I relished new wars, enemies, and combat locales. At some point one of the princeps handed me a blackmail list, which was an odd thing to give an Astartes. Then I woke up.

Short, sweet, and odd. My subconscious isn't very normal but it sure is creative!

[Master Commander Ajax]

I know I have dreamt of 40K (I usually paint till 03.00-06.00 in the morning right before I go to bed) but frustratingly I scarcely remember any details. I'm very jealous of your ability to recall yours so vividly! 

[Iron Father Ferrum]

. . . not that I can discuss here, no.

[Knight of the Raven]

I guess my comment that I never got Warhammer-related dreams was considered tempting by fate, because I got one. Though if the price to pay for this is to remain awake for over 48 hours while throwing up awfully regularly, it's just not worth it, even if Captain Extremedes had gotten himself involved.

So the dream starts with a sentence rolling in one of those scrolling ad panels, at the top of a building all of glass and steel. It claims that the galaxy would have been better if Horus had been a hot chick who solved all her problems through talking about feelings and stuff rather than being a vaguely male-looking monstrosity bludgeoning his way across the Milky Way in the name of the Great Crusade.

A promising start, I'm sure we can all agree.

Screen scrolls down to show an actual ad panel, mentioning that the update to a very popular clopfic broke all box office records. For those blessed souls who don't know, 'clop' is brony slang for all and any pornography related to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

That's already more in line with the nightmares I usually have to deal with, and I don't think I need to say that's when the dread starts settling in.

Fade to the inside of some building. People whom my dreaming brain considers to be important Legion/Chapter masters are busy faffing about in front of the TV, stuffing themselves with potato chips as they fight over the remote.

I'm apparently some kind of boss for some space marine organization or the other too, because I'm in the same lounging room and I'm not exactly happy with being the only professional one in the entire building. Someone rings at the door and I open, and the guy sent by the highers-up to get reports of our 'progress' isn't particularly content either.

Cut to a group of space marines. Some blue marines in both Indomitus and Maximus/Primaris armor who're either Ultramarines or Crimson Fists, the rest only register as 'light grey power-armored marines' in my brain. They're not happy with their bosses being deadbeat losers either and I'm apparently in charge of all of them since my esteemed peers are fighting over whether to watch Oprah or Dora the Explorer.

One of them laments that being badly used like they are tends to lead to dead presidents. He sounds way more depressive that a space marine has any right to be.

So, MLP porn, dubious TV shows and presidents. Guess our planet found itself in the far future and got folded into the Imperium at some point.

The scene goes to some Adeptus Mechanicus place, and I find out I'm not even a space marine myself, and I for some reason decided to go visit the local temple of toaster worship wearing nothing but gym clothes.

Incidentally, I look damn good. Oh yeah.

So the local toasterlord is an Ottoman. Not an Ottoman in space, we're talking about a real, pre-WWI soldier, at least to my brain, with a kepi and a weird mustache. I ask him something, and his only reply is to laugh evilly and say that this entire outpost/factory/whatever nobody cares has decided to turn on the Emperor.

A bloodletter bleeds into existence behind me. Things are not looking good for me, but then a trio of Red Scorpions just happen. I probably ask them for help, cue a zoom on their sergeant's marx X helmet.

"I can't let you do that, Dave."

So turns out the three stooges are also traitors. I can only assume I somehow won or escaped because the scene goes to the next one. Seeing just how serious this dream has been so far, I guess I turned tail as the Red Scorpions and the bloodletter decided to dance the waltz together.

So the traitorous AM boss is snoring in his bed, at least until I jump high in the air above him and then some kind of wrestling move from hell happens. Not a single sound is made during the whole thing, which is a good thing because mr. toasterlord is sleeping in the guards' barracks for some reason, and those same guards are white-and-blue World Eaters terminators. Maybe Red Butchers.

Unfortunately, one of the terminators rolls over in his comically small bed and falls face-first on the floor, which wakes him up. Being a World Eater, he's not exactly silent. Zoom in on his angry, iron-toothed snarl of unhappy. Then the other terminators wake up.

Flash forward to the future, where the traitor toasterlord whines at some techpriests who look like actual techpriests. I'm guessing these two were in charge of the security in their factory, because the boss is yelling that their choice to go explore the Warp allowed me to reach him not once, but twice.

One of the techpriests scathingly replies that his rebellion would have gone belly up either way and that they'll all die to Abbadon some day, so whatever, man.

So I wake up with the knowledge that my sacrifice averted disaster... somehow.

 

Oh, and the relief that my dream didn't go fifty ways of 'oh god what's wrong with your subconscious?' on me unlike usual, too. I know which is more valuable to me.

[Volt]

I once dreamed that I had gotten ten boxes of Deathwing Termiantors and 2 Venerable Dreadnoughts mailed to me. The dream was so detailed that I was even signing the date and time with the UPS deliveryman and going through the unboxing and washing of the sprues. Then I woke up and realized I didn't have a single box of Deathwing to my name.

[Trevak Dal]

It was sort of a cross between the cinematic Titanfall 2 trailer, where I was a regular soldier fighting against the Imperium on a (presumably) Tau allied world, I see one of my squadmates explode from Bolter fire, and I shout "CONTACT!" And return fire with my ar15. The wall I run to starts to explode out, and I feel the ground :cussing shaking and the sound of the scariest chainsaw roaring, when something drops in front of me and opens fire.

 

I switch my magazine out for a fresh one, not sure how I'm alive, and see that Commander Farsights battlesuit is what jumped in front of me.

 

"take your militia to that ridge and hold, and you will find...more suitable weapons and armor"

 

Then he takes off in a blur of movement.

[Lord Abaia]

In the only 40k (well 30k) dream I remember ever having I was an Iron Warriors legionary. It was sometime after Istvaan V and for some reason me and my legionary friend we're tasked with tuning up Forgebreaker for Perturabo. And for some reason this was massively complicated. Apparently the disrupter field wasn't generated by the hammer head, it was generated near the handle and projected up to the head. And apparently Ferrus Manus had longer arms than Perturabo and that meant we had to shorten the handle and bring the projector field back in to the head's new position.

 

Anyway it was a huge pain to do this, because of the way it was designed, and Perturabo was mad it was taking so long, and he would periodically come in and tell us how incompetent we were and how he was probably going to kill us if we didn't hurry up. And when he was gone me and my friend would mock Fulgrim for his impractical design like 7-foot-tall ceramite clad Statler and Waldorf.

[Ishagu]

Some gems in here.

 

Oddly, despite having 40k on my mind most days I don't recall ever dreaming about it :-/

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

I have spent an entire day on more than one occasion, reading books, playing games, assembling, and painting yet I cannot recall ever remembering a Warhammer 40k/Horus Heresy dream when I woke up.

[Mazer Rackham]

I'll uh...leave this here.  Don't Judge me...!

 

DISCLAIMER: This is a virtually blow-by-blow account.  The only difference from the experience is that it is couched in narrative language to assist reading and extrapolation of concept - other than that, everything experienced is exactly as written (and yes - I suffer from this kind of thing a lot - not always 40K related)

 

The Mazer Rackham Design Studio Presents:

 

The Best Nightmare I Ever Had.

 

It started as an advert in a travel magazine.  A small island that did weekend breaks for those that liked the outdoors.  Hiking, mountain climbing, forest walks, that kind of thing.  I booked and went.  I can't swim hugely well and I hate water-related activities, but for some reason I chartered a boat and I sailed out there.

 

I moored up at the quayside and a rep from the organisation met me and handed me my tourist pack.  I followed him to the "Wilderness Lodge" which was basically a tourist centre decked out with park ranger hats to buy and shirts and little metal badges.  It reminded me of a scout camp.  Several activity leaders were dawdling about and they even had a small mechanical ranger-clothed bear with a magnifying glass.  I was led to a reception counter and registered.  As it had been a long trip, I went to my room immediately to get changed and shower down.

 

That evening all the guests had a communal meal in the main canteen.  The evening passed without incident and that night I slept well.  In the morning, I awoke and dressed for the outdoors.  I went to reception again and booked onto a solo walk/trek - a route through deep pine forests that was well signed and steady, although challenging enough to wear me out.  I packed for a day's trip and headed out.  It was a clear, bright, late morning and although nothing was amiss, I saw no-one else and the forests were quiet.

 

The walk took me several hours and by evening I was some distance from the hotel/leisure centre when I saw the column of smoke through the trees.  I hurried, but it took me some time to reach the complex.  In the amber light of sunset I saw that horror was waiting for my return.

Several bodies lay on the paths around the buildings.  Smoke billowed from an upstairs room, through shattered windows.  Arcs of arterial blood slashed across grass, concrete, walls and gravel.  As I continued my approach, more cautious now, I could make out that some of the people had been mutilated - as if hacked by a madman.  Chunks of torn, bloody flesh dotted the place.  My senses drank in the scene, every detail so crisp as to cut glass.  Then the smells hit me, wafting to me on cooling evening breeze.

 

The stench of burning meat - a smell so wrong it could only be the seared, burnt remains of human meat - and then blood.  The sickly, salty tang of lots of blood.

I had no choice, my only way of escape or hope to contact the authorities was inside the complex.  A sense of dread began to build, infesting my heart and the pit of my stomach and the hairs of my arms and nape  rose on end.  I was fully alert - no detail escaped me, lights smashed by objects, chips and cuts in the fabric of the walls, holes punched through plaster - and inside, deeper inside - carnage.  Butcher work.

 

I was mute at first.  Then I tried phones, tried light switches - nothing.  No continuous power to the buildings, as light blinked on and off.  Wrongness covered the darkness like a shroud.  It was terrifyingly claustrophobic, hot, heavy.  I searched the complex looking for survivors, lifting blocks of masonry and other rubble with ease.  It was on the way to my boat anyway, it was the least I could do.  I began to call out - and as I did so, more details became apparent - the chops/cuts and gouges in the wall had a disturbing similarity.  They were no further than four to five feet above ground level.  There were no children at the hotel.  I check body after body, but the result is the same - all dead.

 

Out there in the darkness a terrible cry.  Not a screech, but not a wail.  It was the sound of something hungry, something angry.  Something getting closer.

 

I finally reach a dorm room that had its door barred shut.  I push the door open, at the same time shoving an upturned steel framed bed aside that had barred it.  The occupants of the room had fared no better.  Whatever had killed them had broken in through from the room above.  A light still flickered, bathing the scene in an eerie, sporadic glow.  Then a growl.

 

I turn and what I see is evil.  I meet its eyes first and see a depth that cannot be guessed, a void dropping away into darkness no light escapes.  The eyes do not shine, they are just pits in a hideous face, with distended lower eyelids, drooping obscenely onto cheeks.  A realisation strikes me in a hammer blow.  This is the small mechanical bear from the visitor centre, but now it is nothing so comical or humorous.  The hair on its body is blackened and burnt, but it is not fur.  The creature is wearing the scalps of its victims.  Underneath this, it's pelt is now made of sharp needles, that rustle with a metallic rasp as it heaves breaths that were never meant for lungs.

 

The bear - as it was - is matted with blood and plaster dust.  It opens its mouth and lets out a growl of hateful hunger and it's maw opens, spilling forth the damning heat of the furnace light of Hell.  In place of teeth, there are razor blades, each coated in equal measure with chewed, bloody flesh and steaming saliva that drips down its chin and burns holes in the floor - but the teeth, face, aspect of the thing exists as if it were designed by someone who didn't exactly know what these things were meant to be in the first place.  In the depths of my soul I know that to merely see this thing is blasphemy against any laws of nature, physics or religion.

 

All this and worse, in its right paw, clogged to the hilt with gore and stains of every human body fluid is a huge, wickedly sharp, 14 inches long kitchen knife.

 

Knowledge fills my head.  The edge is laser sharpened, the blade stands 3 inches in the belly, tapering to the diamond hard tip.  For dramatic flair, the edge gleams dully where it can, but it is half real-half not.  I know this knife will cut anything, anywhere at any time and possibly all three at once.  Terror is shaking my very bones.

 

Dread now constricts my chest as I watch this murderous demon approach. Each step heaves it closer and it is in no rush - we both know it's over.

 

For some unknown reason, I cannot - do not, back away.  It sniffs the air and seems to notice.  It stops - uncertain.  More knowledge this time as I look around the room.  The light becomes distorted slightly, as if seen through a glass bowl.  I can hear my own breathing and it is calm, despite the feelings roiling in my chest.  Suddenly, I realise I am wearing a helmet - and if I'm wearing  a helmet...

 

The mood breaks instantly, like a light being switched on.  It's normal business now and a rising sense of relief and deliverance flood me, almost punishing in intensity.

 

Targeting reticules appear as if by magic, locking onto the apparition.  The helm begins to filter the sepulchral darkness and switches into Preysense.  Readouts play across my visor, telling me the metallurgical composition of the target, weight, height, density of the material it is covered with.

The science is as formidable as the supernatural.  It has fibre cable muscles, heavy steel limbs and in it beats a mockery of a heart, pipes, wires, metal, pumping no fluid that is known to man.  Whatever inhabits this marionette, it was not conceived by any being of reason.  The data keeps spooling.  I notice that my visor has determined the typical strength based on the physical manifestation as 3021.23 units.  I know this is roughly 6 times stronger than an average human male at 517.63 units.

 

These calculations take milliseconds.  Time, suddenly moving so quickly against me now turns to water, then treacle.  My senses are so highly tuned that I can almost see the vibrations of the air around the beast.  More knowledge.  My visor performs a comparison and threat assessment. 

 

My Strength:  7064.12 units.

 

Triumph erupts on my face and my hands meet in front of me, knuckles cracking into palm in a warrior salute.  I am astonished - my arms and hands are armoured and gauntleted.

 

I realise I'm an idiot.  Of course I'm wearing armour.  Battle armour.  The beloved ceramite and plasteel of wonderful Adeptus Astartes warplate.

 

It is glorious, gleaming, defiant yellow.

 

Of course it is.

 

My foe lurches at me, the knife cutting like a laser through the darkness.  My arm shoots out, grasps the hand and the wrist and planting my massive, booted right foot on the chest of the demon, I heave with everything I have got - and trust me, at this point - that's quite a bit.

 

In a shower of sparks, dark bloody ropes of vein and sinew - accompanied by a strange thick liquid, and a horrendous scream that shatters all the glass in every window, bulb, mirror and door, bar my visor - the deadly arm rips free and is now in my hands.  My armoured suit tells me it is stupendously heavy, but I wield it like a foam baseball bat.

 

I get an idea.

 

I brutally and savagely beat the horror with its own arm - crashing it down on head, limbs, anywhere its other arm does not defend.  I kick it as hard as I can in the stomach and fend off claws that tear through my steel shell with a keening cry like chalk on a blackboard, or nails on glass.

I stomp-kick the thing hard behind the left knee and it goes down.  I smash my left fist into the side of its head like a pile driver demolishing a golf ball and it flies through a brick and mortar wall, ending up in a heap.

 

Defiance tears from my throat in a bellow that shakes the room and gives more power to the bludgeon I now possess, the unholy maul beats down the beast without mercy or remorse and all I can hear above the dying screams of an immortal nightmare is the grunt and heaving of my own breath and heart.  I keep going until the form that had terrified me is reduced to mangled and twisted ruin.  I do not stop - not even then. The light of its spirit finally gives out with a gasp and a faint stink of brimstone reaches me through my helmet filters.

 

I go outside when I have calmed down and try to find my boat.  It is nowhere to be seen.

 

Realism starts seeping back in.  In the morning a police patrol boat has reached the island, with a contingent of doctors.  I am standing waiting to meet them.  I am not armed or armoured.  I explain to them some of what happened, but they do not believe me, thinking I am the culprit.  CCTV footage saves me.  It indexes me leaving the complex and not returning until dark.  Although images from inside are fuzzy, there is sufficient audio salvaged that satisfies them to at least believe my accounts of the atrocities.  I am told I will be watched, not to leave the country, but generally I am free to go.

Just before I am woken up to start the day, the police launch a manhunt for another guest they did not find amongst the dead.

 

Maybe I'll meet him in my dreams.

[Semper Fortis]

Whoa! How do you follow a post like that?? Dude, that was some dream.

 

Me, decades ago I remember I had a dream about playing. There was something wrong with the dice. More recently I vaguely recall having a dream/nightmare about painting a mini that wouldn't stay painted. That's the extent of my 40k related dreams.

[Jarl Caldersson]

I never have had a dream, or really any dreams, until after this post last night.

 

I dreamed I was this person walking in some sort of urban housing. It was too calm and well designed to be in 40k so I can only imagine it was Dark Age of Technology. I never saw my persons face but I had this gut feeling that I was diseased by something made by Nurgle. I walked around and there were these huge vehicles painted white with flashing orange emergency lights. They just filled me with dread as they started spreading this foam everywhere telling people to stay inside.

 

Like a maze I attempted to escape the city and as if a sixth sense I felt others like me, diseased that is. One in particular ran out of her house despite her parents attempting to hold her back. I could feel her emotions and spirit and what I imagine as her soul. As she entered the foam she had this instinctual urge to get out of it. She began to walk nearby me and as she did I could feel the rainbow colored spirit turn to a greyish-green is the best way to describe it.

 

We finally escaped the city and we came upon this disposal area where it looks like the city had attempted to get rid of whatever was causing this plague. I saw this baby-like objects covered in various fluids, remembering how I loved them when I was a kid and that is how I was inflicted. I saw burning heaps of other objects such as animals, oozes, food etc. Knowing that these were other ways Nurgle had spread his disease.

 

 

Then I was kicked in the face by my kid and woke up. Since then I don't think I will be doing Death Guard stuff before bed. It was weird feeling and probably how those that are affected by Nurgle feel like. I knew I was not well nor those around me. I didn't feel true happiness. Yet I was happy that there others like me around. Meanwhile something drew us toward it for some unknown reason. I felt as though once there I would be truly happy, knowing it was all a false sense of happiness. Empty happiness. A false hope, yet the opportunity that it might exist drew me onward.

 

The dream was so realistic I could feel as though this was a DAoT planet that was on it's downfall. Nurgle had chosen it to test his plagues. They attempted everything they could. Nightly cleaning via those foam vehicles and burning everything unnatural. Yet it was inevitable it would fall to Nurgle. I could actually see it be Barbarus and that I was being controlled what could be the first necromancer's of that planet. Yet I do not know.

Edited December 25, 2017 by Caldersson