Arks of Omenw: Warhammer 40K’s grimdark setting is getting even worse

Everything in Warhammer 40,000 has a bad reputation. That — along with the political satire — has always been the Point; this is a galaxy that’s just a merry-go-round of diametrically opposed factions taking turns doing war crimes, blowing planets up, and generally enduring horrors from beyond the stars feasting on innocent folk. However, the Arks of Omen book for the Arks of Evil has provided a comprehensive overview of current galaxy state post-Dark Imperium. Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game, make things even worse — in the most ridiculous, over-the-top, metal way imaginable. Angron, the Emperor’s angriest son, is on the loose — and his most recent battle was of such scope and scale that it wouldn’t look out of place in Dragon Ball Z.

Angron and Emperor

Humanity is guided by the Emperor Of Mankind in 40K. This legend, who was actually walking among his people 10,000 year ago, leads humanity. To become the very best warlord, however, he went and created approximately 20 perfect boys called the primarchs to serve as his sons and generals, each serving over their own legion of superhuman Space Marines — Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines, Sanguinius and the Blood Angels, and Lion El’Jonson and the Dark Angels, to name a few.

Unfortunately, the Emperor was also an abusive asshole, and the malicious, extradimensional forces of Chaos took advantage of the primarchs’ rough upbringings — first by scattering them across the universe, and then by getting inside their heads. In a huge war known as the Horus Heresy, half the imperium’s primarchs broke away from it (which is what makes up most of the Black Library). Humanity TechnicallyThe Emperor was victorious in the civil war. However, he now sits on a golden throne as a dead man, his enormous psychic ability and will to continue the light. Meanwhile, his sons — both loyal and traitorous — are scattered once again, some lost and others quite dead.

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Angron is the primarch for the heretical World Eaters Legion. His patron, Chaos god Khorne, has raised him to the rank of a huge daemon. If you’re not sure who Khorne is or what he stands for, I’ll point you toward his remarkably straightforward motto: “Blood for the blood god, skulls for the skull throne.” Angron, once a gladiator with a head full of dark-age tech designed to torture him and make him eternally, outrageously furious, is now a massive beast ripped straight from the cauldrons of hell.

With the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum — the Great Rift that split the Imperium in two and caused the realm of Chaos to spill ever more so out into the galaxy at large — things were already pretty bad for the Imperium of Mankind. Angron, however, has finally woken up and asked: “But what if it made matters worse?”

World Eaters are on the offensive

Because ships must pass through the Warp, 40K is dangerous for faster-than light travel. The Warp is where the Chaos Gods and their multitude of demons and eldritch horrors live, but since time and space are meaningless there, it’s also a great shortcut — just like building a nether network in Minecraft. It is the north star of voidship travel. order for Imperium ships to tell where they’re going, they use the light of the Astronomicon, the massive psychic beacon powered by the Emperor himself. It’s the north star of voidship travel. In Angron: The Ark of OmenThis article explains what happens to the comfort and light from other stars.

The Imperium Nihilus — the chunk of galaxy left farthest away from the Astronomicon and on the other side of the Cicatrix Maldictum — struggles to see the Astronomicon. The Choral Engine, a less powerful psychic lighthouse, is a perfect substitute. The problem is that the Choral Engine made screechy dial-up modem sounds that Angron didn’t like, and so he decided to smash it. Roboute Guilliman was the only loyalist primarch left and is currently acting head of Imperium. His fleet would have been supporting the Indomitus Crusade against him.

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Guilliman had to face one of his traitorous brother brothers the last time, and the Emperor came in to help. This time, the Imperium isn’t so lucky. Angron cuts his way across the battlefield, taking personal damage to Imperial warships’ deck guns. He murders so hard, with such gory enthusiasm, that he summons his patron into realspace for a brief moment — long enough to unleash a single sword stroke. It’s the climax of Angron Arks Of Omen, and Khorne’s strike through Angron destroys the Choral Engine and the entire moon around it.

The Imperial fleet in attendance was beefy: hundreds of ships full of billions of soldiers, including some of the Emperor’s finest daemon-killing Grey Knights. With additional armored allies such as the Sisters of Battle, loyalist Space Marines, and other allies, the Imperial Navy led this expedition, from the flagship, The Throne of Terra. But they still couldn’t stop Angron. Worse yet, Khorne’s overwhelming strike inflicted them with something called the Murder-Curse.

The Murder-Curse, another example of Khorne’s less-than-subtle branding, caused the fleet to go berserk and fall in on one another in a homicidal rage. It didn’t corrupt EverybodyIn the Quartus fleet. But the Imperium was so shocked by its effects, it expropriated every survivor ship. Any poor guardsman that survived the Murder-Curse becomes a heretic. Oops!

Of course, this entire battle was set up by Abaddon the Despoiler, who heads up the Chaos Space Marine legions, and the setting’s new demigod: Vashtorr the Arkifane. Vashtorr the Arkifane is a brand-new Chaos demigod, full of curiosity and invention. Abaddon: The Arks Of Omen, but he wants a bigger slice of the pie — just like Khorne. As such, he’s engineering a plot to use the Arks of Omen and Abaddon to assemble the key to his ascension to godhood. So far, it’s going pretty well for him, and we’ll see more soon since Vashtorr is the star of the third Arks of Omen book, titled Vashtorr: Arks of Omen.

Although the Arks of Omen has provided some interesting lore, big narrative advancements and some great characterizations, the Imperium remains determined. It is a world away from total apocalypse. There are two Arks of Omen books left, with one of them featuring an unidentified protagonist.

We’re also rumored to be heading toward the 10th edition of Warhammer 40K, and there’ll be even more lore to come that sets the stage. For now, though, things seem especially bleak — even for the notoriously grim darkness of this particular far future.