A D-B

trident [trahyd-nt] noun a three-pronged instrument or weapon. Roman History . a three-pronged spear used by a retiarius in gladiatorial combats. Classical Mythology . the three-pronged spear forming a characteristic attribute of the sea god Poseidon, or Neptune. -- Dictionary.com Trident From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search For other uses, see Trident (disambiguation). Poseidon's trident A trident /ˈtraɪdənt/ is a three-pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm. The trident is the weapon of Poseidon, or Neptune, the god of the sea in classical mythology. In Hindu mythology it is the weapon of Shiva, known as trishula (Sanskrit for "triple-spear"). -- Wikipedia Because it's a three-pointed spear Curse you for being faster than me.

Can I just say, when I got the email about them getting rules, it was quite an unexpected tick on the Bucket List.

In a nutshell (if that is indeed possible) what is it about chaos that you agree on? That's not possible. It's more that we understand what Chaos is and how it works, and we don't disagree in the way the other quote suggested. Lol I thought it would be a tall order to explain something like that in a nutshell! Still I am very intrigued by yours and Chris' understanding of how chaos works but... If that requires a detailed essay then I expect many fraters would rather you spent the time working in your next book :-) Nah, it's all in the sourcebooks, and our novels (Khayon explains a lot of it bluntly), and my posts, and generally accepted, well-known stuff.

In a nutshell (if that is indeed possible) what is it about chaos that you agree on? That's not possible. It's more that we understand what Chaos is and how it works, and we don't disagree in the way the other quote suggested.

For the record, it's not what I think, necessarily, just what several of my characters have thought. But bear in mind the Legions I've written about after the Heresy: the two that have every reason to hate their primarchs most. The defining existence of the Black Legion, after all, is "The Primarchs screwed up, we'll take it from here." Me and Chris, unsurprisingly, agree on Chaos 100%. (Most of the authors I interact with a lot and/or am close with tend share the same opinions on the lore.) We talk about the lore a bunch, especially Chaos, and Lords of Silence even has a mention of it in the preface, pertaining to Abaddon. I absolutely loved this book, start to finish.

Right? AD-B, always a tease. That wasn't my intention, for the record-- and I'll say no more on this after this post-- but after various chats with peeps behind the curtain, I'm pretty certain the third book will be happening, now. That should hopefully dispel a bit of the accidental teasing. (Okay, I'm going now. PEACE.)

I try to approach this generously, but I can't help but think anyone thinking Khayon is "Mary Sue"-ish is either operating from misconceptions about the setting, or just not thinking things through clearly. (Although let's not rule out unclear writing. Heh.) I mean, yes, he makes Magnus kneel... somehow. How do you really think that will happen, though? There's literally no way he can just out-cast Magnus the Red, so it's obviously not that. So people using this as an example of him being overpowered always sort of surprise me, since... I mean, being a Daemon Primarch isn't good thing. It's not a promotion. The Path to Glory doesn't actually end in Glory... I mean, people understand that, by and large. They don't in the setting, but readers usually do. No one can say with a straight face that Chaos characters are completely right and aren't massively deluded. Khayon included. (Khayon arguably more than most; several characters spend significant time telling him he's deluded about X and Y, even as he's telling them they're deluded about A and B.) Daemon Primarchs are the Genie in Aladdin: "PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER... itty bitty living space." It comes with huge drawbacks-- That's why it's a tragedy, it's why their stories are deceptions and tragedies. By the time they realise what they've walked into, it's too late. It's why Chaos needs mortal champions. It's why Abaddon is Warmaster of Chaos. So it's not a case of "But primarchs are the bestest" and that's that. They have staggeringly vast spiritual and metaphysical weaknesses, because becoming a Daemon Prince doesn't just mean you get better at everything, The End. And, well, to even wonder how one might humiliate a primarch is to forget the vaaaaassssst resources the Black Legion commands compared to the other Legions. Sometimes I get confused as to why the question is "How does Abaddon/Khayon/the Black Legion do X?" Well, because they can. They can, and no one else could. That's the point. Not because "ADB wants them to be the best." I couldn't care less who's "the best". It's just because this is who they are and what they do. But Khayon, specifically: Firstly, yes, he's one of the most powerful Chaos Space Marines in the setting. That's not because I sat there and thought "Oh, I'll make him great because lol." It's because, well, that's what one of the most powerful warlords in the most powerful Legion would be. If he was anything but that, it wouldn't be true to the setting or a character in that role. He has armies... just like every Black Legion warlord, except his are significantly smaller than most others. He's a pre-eminent sorcerer, because Abaddon famously has some of the most powerful sorcerers serving him, and it's alluded that Khayon may or may not be one of those famous ones operating under his own name instead. Secondly, he never really achieves anything that isn't comparable to other characters in his position-- and often significantly less. What he achieves at the end of Talon for example, with sorcery and a warship, could have been done with a tractor beam or... heck, just a ship with its engines on, on a suicide run. Instead, Khayon does it to get a finer sense of control on the situation, and to do so, he can't move for half a year, has to be guarded at all times, has to be fed and given water like an invalid... and is weak for months afterwards. Look at a lot of the world-breaking sorcery unleashed by famous Chaos Marine sorcerers elsewhere, and you're honestly telling me that it's a big deal he guides an empty spaceship around for a while, at the cost of being an invalid for six months? That's a pretty massive downside. If that strikes you as impossible or unrealistically powerful-- especially in the Eye of Terror-- the issue isn't the event itself, it's, well, your perception of the setting. Is it a big deal? Yeah, kinda? But that's the point. These are the warlords of the Black Legion, foreseen by Abaddon as the potential future leaders of the Black Crusades. Even as Abaddon's assassin, look how many times he fails with Daravek due to... certain circumstances. Look at the effort and meticulous preparation that goes into his assassination attempt. He doesn't waltz into the palace and start lol-killing everyone because he's such a badass. He spends a year infiltrating minds slowly, inch by inch, and so on. He despises prophecy, which bites him the butt several times. He certainly can't predict what happens to Ahsur-Kai, when Ashur-Kai clicks almost at once. He loses ground against Moriana, who is one of Abaddon's faves. It goes on and on. Thirdly, the fact he has esoteric bodyguards and a powerful weapon isn't a massive deal. It's not unique to him. It's not "I am the only one with these weird slaves." It's 'This is an example of the kinds of weird slaves Chaos Warlords have'. Khayon downplays Nefertari and co. consistently, citing how she'd last half a second on the battlefield, and how other Chaos big cheeses have equally weird champions. There was cool stuff in Ye Olde Lore about warbands having really wacky champions, and Khayon is just one example of that. (Telemachon and Vortigern are obviously hands-on and do it themselves, but I'm really looking forward to showing Amurael's warband champion in the next novel. Amurael has a very weird but understandable one, based on some old lore chats.) Fourthly, look at what Khayon is actually good at, sorcery-wise. He's a daemonologist. That's his expertise. Something practically unseen pre-Heresy, but increasingly common in the Legions post-Heresy during their exile in the Eye. In many ways, that makes him the archetypal Chaos Sorcerer-- not a D&D mage in his own right, throwing fireballs on Ahriman's level, but a summoner par excellence. That's his speciality. He's good at other stuff too, but that's his speciality. So of course there's a lot of detail about the daemons he binds, and of course they're powerful. I'm not saying these guys aren't big deals and don't do some serious stuff. They are, and they do. If they didn't, it would be laughable-- These are the characters leading the largest Chaos Legion and at the vanguard of the biggest incursions into the Imperium. That's the point. But this is one of those cases where it's not a particularly well considered criticism (which the words "Mary Sue" are often a great indicator of anyway) to say Khayon is overpowered, or whatever. Like... Think it through, honestly. Half the time I'm worried he's not massacring whole planets and turning them into Daemon Worlds, which is what a lot of these kinds of characters would actually be doing on their levels of power and influence.

(Also, DepthCharge, I'm not saying you're wrong, exactly. I'm just saying you're half-wrong and butting up against a much bigger rightness. I do appreciate you taking the time to discuss this with me.)

I think the Mentor Officer should escape the outcast role because of his station (I’m assuming you mean the Mentor’s chapter correct?) as a liaison. No, you're assuming he will avoid it because he should. He won't escape it among certain people because it's easy to apply false logic after the fact. He's from a Chapter with weird tech that occupy a unique role; it doesn't matter if he's the blandest, most average member of his faction and rank, he will get singled out by people looking to single him out and make a pattern. That's what poor criticism does. It's famous among authors knowing what kinds of reviews aren't all that useful. I've written 13 novels. Fewer than 50% of them have the outcast-as-lead trope, which is staggeringly less than a lot of other BL novels and sci-fi and fantasy in general, but you're still deigning to criticise me for doing it "every book". Do you see what I mean? It's often not about what's actually in the books, it's about what people bring to them and look for. Plus, it's also not easy to see, sometimes, to see the border between what makes a character unique and interesting, and what makes them unrealistically stand out. One person's Kvothe is another person's Drizzt. One person's nuanced character is another person's Mary Sue. Sevatar on the other hand is an outcast character like Drizzt, which is very much the point. I loathe characters like that, and Sevatar's arc-- which he's about 30% of the way through-- is my desire to redeem that kind of character over time. This is the part I already dealt with comprehensively in the earlier links. It isn't about how I handle them, and this is the part where the misunderstanding arises. It doesn't matter what personality, role, or narrative function female characters have-- several of those you've labelled with "mouthy woman in power" are entirely different, react entirely differently to the protagonist, have entirely different agendas and perspectives and behaviours, have moments of craven fear as often as "mouthy" defiance (and in some cases more often, or have zero "mouthy" moments at all), and so on. There's honestly no way to make this clearer. Like I said, it's not seeing a pattern, it's twisting the information to make a pattern: Annika doesn't trust Hyperion and betrays him. Zarha likes Grimaldus immensely for his backbone, and comes to deeply respect him. Octavia is valued as a kidnapped trophy until she's abused by Talos and flees him. Cyrene is saved by Argel Tal and becomes maternal to him, giving her life for his cause. Lotara cringes in fear before Angron and barely even talks much to Khârn, with no actual deep interaction with the protagonists, but has a no-nonsense job to do despite her emotions. It goes on an on. They're women. Some of them are in power or valuable, like various males in the same positions in the same books: Annika and the Lord Inquisitor; Zarha and Andrej and Cyria Tyro and the General; Octavia and Septimus and Nonus, etc. None of them act the same. None of them say similar things to the protagonists or express the same feelings or serve the same narrative role. This conversation wouldn't even be happening with the male characters (it never has, and never does). That's not to say you're sexist or whatever, it's just that female characters stand out far more easily, and it's easier for the human brain to go "Pattern", even if there isn't one. The human mind famously and constantly sees patterns in things where there aren't any. Really, I think I've said enough on this, and the links cover it in insane detail, including the vast differences between characters you're labelling as exactly the same, so I'm bowing out, as it's going nowhere.

Part of the issue there is that they're not "strong female leads". For almost every one of those women, there's a male human character either closer to the protagonist, or more crucial to the story, or even other female characters. And every single one of those females is completely different in personality, narrative role, and relationship to the protagonist. Even some of the ones you're listing there; Octavia? She gets the same (or less) screen time than Septimus, and isn't closer to Talos than Septimus is, but it's Octavia that gets considered the lead. People say it about Zarha and Grimaldus, ignoring that Andrej has almost exactly the same role and screen time with Grimaldus. It's not that there's a pattern (or rather, it's butting up against a real, different trope and looks like a pattern without thinking about it). It's that we notice women way, way more easily in these novels. (Eventually, we won't.) Of course we don't think we do. No one realises their own bias, and people ferociously resist the notion of it. As for outcasts, we covered that in the old thread, too. 50% of my novels have the 'outcast' you're talking about, the other 50% don't, and have characters that are basic examples of their rank in their respective factions. I usually worry I play it too safely and don't do enough outcast protagonists, which is what 90% of sci-fi and fantasy seems to be. The current one is "just a Mentor officer", f'rex. He hangs out with "some Spears". But people who are looking for a pattern will see one, wait and see. ("This guy is from a super-special Chapter with cool tech, what a Mary Sue." Siiiiiiigh.) All the links before cover it well enough, so I don't want to retread old ground repeating myself. They're very, very detailed. I have the advantage of not going by gut feeling, in this. I've mentioned it to my test reading circle, my editors, and my lore checkers, and they - like me - see why it's a meme, but that doesn't make it accurate. I was going to change the narrator of SPEAR to a male, just to avoid this nonsense. But then it's an unrealistic dudefest (and I want to have Khayon have an apprentice soon, so I need to avoid heavy male human / Marine interactions because I want to delve into that with Khayon.) (Oh, and two of the thralls in SPEAR OF THE EMPEROR are female, but you watch this conversation emerge again because the narrator is female. It won't matter if she despises the main Space Marine character or thinks he's great; if she does nothing at all compared to the others or does absolutely everything; she'll still get singled out as part of a pattern.)

Yup I’ve got no problem with that and he does a good job not shoehorning or forcefeeding us that material. Thousand Sons having Iranian influence and Word Bearers have middle eastern themes makes sense. It’s just seeing the same character in a different shirt pop up in each novel is a bit tiring. His new side project has a strong female lead with another tanky male character. The Emperor’s spears will predictably have...you guessed it, a strong female character and an Astartes companion They do say you will find patterns in anything, so it could just be me being loony as usual. I wrote out a list of commonalities between ADB’s cast before, but he took it the wrong way. At least he is genial and tries to talk to his critics - one particular BL writer (not ADB) just blocks people on Twitter when his material and worldview is challenged Sometimes I wonder if ADB just wants to write himself and his wife into his novels lol. I can’t fault him for that, I have a hard time not wanting to write myself into my fanfap. It’s a fun universe, so I can’t blame anyone for wanting to roleplay into their own stories! That would be really weird. Also, it's the opposite of that. If something is too close to real life, I change it. Altani, the young girl in The Long Night, was male, but I'd just had a son before writing it, so she got changed to female. I wanted to avoid any stupid "AD-B just had a son" stuff. I didn't disagree with your list, by the way, because I couldn't see the pattern. It was because it was the wrong pattern. And that isn't counting the male characters, to whom several of my protagonists have interacted with more, or been closer to. But they never get the same complaints, because people don't notice it when it's with males. You're always going to get a fair chunk of Chaos/Space Marine interaction with human/non-Marine characters. That's a pattern. That's not "lazy writing", that's what I'm interested in writing, and a significant factor in the setting. But the "female best friend" thing is nonsense, which is why I objected to it-- and why I shot it down in such detail. It sounds credible, until you actually look into it. Then it vanishes, under any analysis at all. Many of those female characters aren't even the closest human character to the Marine protagonists. Other, male characters are. But the males get ignored to reinforce the misleading point. For anyone curious, with a great many thousands of words on explanation and analysis: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/338425-the-black-legion/?p=4850527 http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/338425-the-black-legion/?p=4850533 http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/338425-the-black-legion/?p=4850903 http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/296283-chaotic-thoughts-after-reading-talon-of-horus-spoiler-alert/?p=3825637 (post #43; it won't link cleanly for some fun reason.) And you've got to remember, chief, you're setting down a very, very narrow set of limitations here. Because, as I said before: The protagonist of my current novel has three human thralls, whom he interacts with extensively and realistically, because the theme of the novel is what it's like to be a human around Space Marines-- something I've touched on from the Marine POV but never focused on in terms of a human's POV before. It would be odd if at least one of those thralls wasn't female. And if there's only one, she's going to be accused of being "the female best friend", no matter what her relationship to the Marine is. So, what's the answer there? The limitations set on this stuff by people that don't really think it through means literally anything but a 100% dudefest will be taken as reinforcing their point. You cant win unless you present the setting unrealistically for several books in a row, acting scared of nonsensical criticism. Yes, there are patterns. And if you're bored of Marine/human interaction and find it repetitive, I'm fine with that. I think there should be way more of it, and I'm interested in writing it from a variety of angles and perspectives. I'll never argue with someone who's sick of seeing it, because it's their call. But there are ways to highlight patterns without falling into dangerous and inaccurate meme territory.

I wonder, was there a deliberate move to change these numbers? Perhaps to allow for the Legions to suffer enormous losses and still be credible threats 10,000 years later? Also, is there any reliable source for Legion numbers? Forge World is a reliable source, as are all of the novels from The First Heretic onward, excluding Prospero Burns (which was written pre-TFH, but delayed). It's also worth considering that it's in no way a new change. The 2007 Chaos Codex... The ancient HH art books and the old Sabretooth card game, etc... So the figures were rolled out well over a decade over now, in multiple sources, but the early HH novels had very little continuity oversight. In one of the planning meetings for TFH, I asked about getting consistent Legion numbers, which is part of why the HH series suddenly starts adhering to the canonical figures around that time.

Always worth remembering that A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns were using the old, much smaller Legion numbers that Tales of Heresy, the 5th Edition Chaos Codex, and later HH novels avoided. (And some earlier HH novels, too.) So they're not reliable sources for Legion numbers.

A guide to weathering.