Canonically literally every Space Marine (except for the Blood Angels IIRC) should have dark skin when exposed to sunlight and then (except for the Salamanders) flash to an unnatural pallor when they step inside, because one of the mutations they get is photochromic skin to protect them from getting sunburns while still ensuring they get enough vitamin D. That sounds incredibly stupid and like I just made it up but that is the actual canon from the lore, along with Space Marines eating their enemies brains to gain their knowledge and having acid spit like the xenomorph.
Warhammer 40K is a very silly franchise and the art direction does it a disservice by not leaning into it more.
Also the Emperor is from somewhere in what is now Turkey and canonically the most common language the humans speak (“Gothic”) is descended from Mandarin and is just artistically portrayed as being Latin based because “High Gothic” is supposed to scan as archaic in the way that inserting incorrect Latin into English does.
the humans speak (“Gothic”) is descended from Mandarin and is just artistically portrayed as being Latin based because “High Gothic” is supposed to scan as archaic in the way that inserting incorrect Latin into English does
According to Matt Ward and his clumsy glazing for the Grey Knights, they actually have the letters of K N I G H T stamped on their baby carriage armor.
I’ll never forget when a fucking Games Workshop puff piece writer interviewed him and asked about the whole (CW: gore)
spoiler
“Grey Knights butchering Sisters of Battle to make magical talismans out of their body parts to ostensibly ‘protect’ them from the evils of the Warp in a totally not-evil way”
thing and Matt Ward was fucking giggling during his response about how cool and epic that was.
I swear, that shit was so awful that just seeing the word “gray/grey” describing things in fiction made me pre-emptively groan in anticipation of even more “all the cool perks of evil but you can’t call this power fantasy wankjob evil, maaaaaan” edgelord writing.
I think that even got removed from canon. It wasn’t even necessary tbh the point of the grey knights is they are downright impossible to corrupt. Hell they have kaldor draigo roaming the warp for hundreds of years (although hes like a gary stu)
You have a source for Gothic being Mandarin-descended? Never heard that before, but I could see it. The imperial palace being in the himalayas would certainly put it geographically in the correct place, but I don’t remember from where he started the unification wars.
I think it’s something from an old Rogue Trader article? So it may be more a metacommentary from an old writer sort of thing, that Gothic would have been descended from Mandarin with a bunch of English vocabulary mixed in, albeit all unrecognizable after tens of thousands of years of sound changes.
Canonically literally every Space Marine (except for the Blood Angels IIRC) should have dark skin when exposed to sunlight and then (except for the Salamanders) flash to an unnatural pallor when they step inside, because one of the mutations they get is photochromic skin to protect them from getting sunburns while still ensuring they get enough vitamin D. That sounds incredibly stupid and like I just made it up but that is the actual canon from the lore, along with Space Marines eating their enemies brains to gain their knowledge and having acid spit like the xenomorph.
Warhammer 40K is a very silly franchise and the art direction does it a disservice by not leaning into it more.
Back during the Rogue Trader and 2nd edition days was when it was absolutely obvious
Noise marines killing dudes by rocking out
Harlequins dancing around in clashing loud colors
Squats
I miss the old design for Noise Marines, back when they had colorful Mohawks and wielded electric guitars.
Yeah, back when they were fine with everything being silly
I miss Doomrider’s fun tabletop rules, including the chance of wandering off on a manic whim on a specific die roll every turn.
Basically the Doctor Rockso of 40k.
Harlequins still do that though
Also the Emperor is from somewhere in what is now Turkey and canonically the most common language the humans speak (“Gothic”) is descended from Mandarin and is just artistically portrayed as being Latin based because “High Gothic” is supposed to scan as archaic in the way that inserting incorrect Latin into English does.
According to Matt Ward and his clumsy glazing for the Grey Knights, they actually have the letters of K N I G H T stamped on their baby carriage armor.
Matt Ward is such an awful writer that exposure to his prose is an actual psychic damage hazard.
I’ll never forget when a fucking Games Workshop puff piece writer interviewed him and asked about the whole (CW: gore)
spoiler
“Grey Knights butchering Sisters of Battle to make magical talismans out of their body parts to ostensibly ‘protect’ them from the evils of the Warp in a totally not-evil way”
thing and Matt Ward was fucking giggling during his response about how cool and epic that was.
I swear, that shit was so awful that just seeing the word “gray/grey” describing things in fiction made me pre-emptively groan in anticipation of even more “all the cool perks of evil but you can’t call this power fantasy wankjob evil, maaaaaan” edgelord writing.
Thats probably the only context gamers like in OP are fine with seeing women.
Matt Ward was truly a
gater at heart.
I think that even got removed from canon. It wasn’t even necessary tbh the point of the grey knights is they are downright impossible to corrupt. Hell they have kaldor draigo roaming the warp for hundreds of years (although hes like a gary stu)
That already sounds like bullshit developer-preference power fantasy to me. Matt Ward just liked to giggle at gory acts of misogyny I suppose.
You have a source for Gothic being Mandarin-descended? Never heard that before, but I could see it. The imperial palace being in the himalayas would certainly put it geographically in the correct place, but I don’t remember from where he started the unification wars.
I think it’s something from an old Rogue Trader article? So it may be more a metacommentary from an old writer sort of thing, that Gothic would have been descended from Mandarin with a bunch of English vocabulary mixed in, albeit all unrecognizable after tens of thousands of years of sound changes.
Just checked and Lexicanum has the following sentence on Low Gothic:
So close enough, but it still had to hit the 80’s racism quotient lol.