A CHAOS GOD Of Machines? Vashtorr EXPLAINED! | Warhammer 40k Lore

the brand new arcs of omen campaign that's currently unfolding in Warhammer 40K right now is absolutely nuts there's just so many wild things happening in this book from Abaddon raising up a fleet of Undead warships the size of moons some mysterious superweapon more powerful than anything we've encountered in the lore so far and as is tradition a brand new chaos Invasion but the most crazy thing of all is a brand new demonic antagonist that seeks to challenge the four chaos Gods becoming the fifth and eventually overpowering all of them his name is vashtor the arcophane and this guy although being brand new to the lore has made a pretty crazy impression despite how very clearly chaotic this guy looks he's a different kind of evil from what we're used to with chaos demons he's mathematically evil but who exactly is he and what is he all about what major role does he have to play Within the arcs of omen campaign and what is the nightmarish realm that he rules over known as the forge of souls well today we're going to get to the bottom of all of that and a whole lot more but first a quick shout out to this video's sponsor then we're going to dive head first into the Grim dark if you've been watching my videos for a while you know I wear the same dope t-shirts in just about every single one of them well they come from this really awesome clothing company called into the am and they're the sponsor of this week's video I can honestly say that for the price these are the best shirts I've found in a really long time they're super soft and comfortable they're around 20 longer than a normal t-shirt meaning they don't rise up every single time I lift my arms up I can't tell you how many times I've had a t-shirt that I absolutely love and after a couple of times through the wash it ends up shrinking and I basically just have to throw it away if you're like me and you've won the genetic Lottery of having a big chest long torso and short legs then you'll know exactly what I'm 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pick yourself out something awesome thanks again to into the am for sponsoring this video and with that out of the way let's get back into the Grim dark it's a commonly held truth in the Warhammer universe that the more people share in some form of collective belief or experience similar emotions on mass then the more that can begin to manifest within the warp now this is true of every emotion thought and idea generated in the minds of every sentient creature across time and space but when it comes to those inquisitive and curious Mortals the scientists inventors Artisans and tinkerers of All Sorts despite normally having the best intentions have always had the potential and unfortunately often the wherewithal to see their Ingenuity set upon dark and depraved paths the engineer who set out to better his Society is in turn made aware of new theories and systems that could be used to unleash Untold Havoc the likes of which no world had ever seen the scientist who sought to rid their planet of disease sees their morals inevitably corrupted and starts taking bribes to instead concoct ever more virulent pathogens and chemical weapons the tinkerer who designed internal systems to better the life of mankind has instead utilized their Creations to create weapons and War engines to bring death to our enemies deep within the warp the concepts of Science and Technology push down this nightmarish path meld with the Arcane and coalesce in a cancerous amalgamation these gross of collective beliefs swell and attract other similar emotions and all too often end up gaining sentience science technology engineering and Mathematics can be wielded like a weapon to bring Salvation and Enlightenment to those who wish for it or damnation to those who would seek to wield it to their own nefarious ends it is belief in the latter that saw the rise of an entity known as vashtor the arcophane the master of the Soul Forge there are many that theorize that vashtra was born out of some ancient arms race during a long forgotten Galaxy spanning conflict a war that saw both sides engineer ever more terrifying engines of unrelenting Carnage and destruction that would lay waste to entire sectors as some believe the demon can trace its Origins back to the Dark Age of Technology While others believe he may be far far older vashtor himself has manifested only seldomly throughout recorded history now many individuals that study the manifestation of warp entities such as him have never actually heard his name uttered aloud the records that correspond with his appearance only make mention of something akin to a technological demonic Boogeyman most mentions of his name that do exist are recorded and corrupted in Blasphemous scrap code or exist as Echoes recorded on distorted Vox channels every syllable of his name accompanied by a cacophony of disembodied whales and shrieks within the static now records on vashtra are incredibly rare but the ones that do exist mention that the creature's return is always heralded by cataclysmic catastrophes it's still unclear whether or not vashtor was just drawn to these conflicts out of morbid curiosity or if he was the instrument that orchestrated them so what exactly is he is he a demon Prince or some type of new chaos god well by all accounts he's neither he's something much greater than a demon Prince and claims not to owe any allegiance to any of the four ruinous Powers but on the other hand he's also not on the level of a chaos God at least not yet we as the audience are first introduced to bastard during the arcs of omen campaign his very first appearance occurs after a group of dark mechanicus Tech priests aboard the vengeful Spirit use a corrupted data tone that they had found in order to use its Supernatural powers to Aid in the ship's repairs now unbeknownst to them this was all part of vastra's plans he had intended for them to find the Tome and to hide it away from the war Master's gaze in the exact same way in which they had needless to say the ritual that the tech priests were engaged in doesn't go according to plan and ends up unleashing Havoc across the ship Abaddon is furious and is trying to find out the cause of it when he discovers their ritual site before he can punish them for their actions he receives a call over the Box telling him that something is happening deeper within the ship when he goes to investigate he sees the telltale signs of a demon emerging he's about to give the order for his Terminators to open fire but something stays his hand when vast fully emerges he ends up having a conversation with him the craziness that's been going on aboard the ship is actually vashtor doing everything he can to repair it he tells the war master that he can consider this a gift and that he hopes to form an alliance with him Abaddon doesn't trust any demon let alone this guy but the more they talk the more he begins to feel something like a kinship with him when the topic of the ruinous Powers comes up Vash door spits on their name he says he is the master of the Soul forges and owes no allegiance to any of the four Gods something that Abaddon can respect considering he's been staying off their advancements for 10 000 years Abaddon notes that there's something strange about the way vast or talks it's incredibly straightforward most of the time when demons end up speaking to Mortals their speech is a bunch of metaphors and riddles all wrapped up together it's difficult to pry true meaning apart from what they're actually saying not so with vashtor there's a cold and unrelenting logic to everything that he says he claims that as the master of the Soul forges he wanted to join the great game in Earnest he wanted to rise in power to the point where he'd be able to take his seat amongst the pantheon of other gods and to eventually surpass all of them he believed in order to do this he would have to help that a spoiler fulfill a great prophecy and Aid him in securing one of the Galaxy's greatest weapons now it's not really apparent to us as the audience exactly what kind of deal the arcophane and the war Master end up striking but it is said at one point that they deliberated behind closed doors for multiple hours and when Abaddon came back he had a crazy smirk on his face he says quote for all their prodding piety the lackeys of the corpse Emperor are greater traitors than we will ever be at least our rebellion was honest as I'm sure most of you are well aware the four ruinous Powers have carved out for themselves their own section of the realm of chaos that directly reflects their Essence and personality corn has the realm of brass and blood slamesh has the six Circles of Seduction zinch has the crystalline Labyrinth and nurgle has his plague Gardens so it stands the reason that if vashtor was going to become a fifth chaos God then he would also have a similar realm that reflects his Essence well it turns out that he he actually does and it's known as the forge of souls or the soulforge they kind of go back and forth on that in the book but what exactly is this terrible place and why is it so important the forge of souls is a mechanical hellscape located deep within the swirling formless waste of the realm of chaos it is set against a blackened Sky choked by dark oily fumes that Billow forth from its infinite forges every square inch is saturated in the pungent burning smell of forbidden mechanical sorcery everywhere you go you can hear a cacophony of wailing and tortured spirits that screech in Tempo with the Thundering of massive pistons and the grinding of ancient gears this is the realm where the Demonic Forge masters of chaos endlessly toil away binding The Souls of Mortals and demons alike into their tortured mechanical creations the legions of barely sentient nightmare creatures that are enslaved to vashtor's will continuously churn out all manner of terrifying demonic weapons it is here that the perverse Technologies and sorceries of chaos are fused with Arcane metals to create vast armories of jagged possessed blades weeping swords and the rest of the Blasphemous relics wielded by the neverborn and their mortal Champions alike it was in this hellish place that originated the construction method for demon engines and is notably where the soul Grinders are forged terrifying fusions of demonic Souls from within the warp with the engines of war that originated in the physical Universe this is a realm of sustained technoblasphemy a land of dark iron and steam of clattering cogs and pounding Pistons where infernal packs are signed in Blood and oil and the Unholy symbiosis of the physical and immaterial is made manifest the soul Forge is for the most part remain neutral in the great game supplying all four of the ruinous Powers with weapons and armaments to Aid their vast and terrible armies regardless of their allegiances any demon may approach the forge in order to enter into a pact with its Brokers the reasons vary from demon to demon but many may see it as the fastest route to achieving power seeking to utilize the undeniable might of the Soul forges in whatever Crusade they find themselves in and thus through their victories achieve the favor of their Patron deity other demons may be seeking a way to circumvent the spirit virtual bonds and lingering shame of banishment from the physical Universe by being bound into a physical body of Iron and Steel they can then once more re-enter our plane Vassar and his Brokers are more than happy to forge contracts with such individuals in exchange for an agreed upon price of mortal Souls these Souls will be reaped by the demon in question and offered to the soul forge's payment once the deal is struck the demon will be fed into the soul Forge its machine's crushing battering and ripping them apart taking their Essence and melding it with that of a war engine they'll be reborn as a Soul Grinder a Calamity engine or an infernible bar to name it a few and what regardless of the form they take the entity will unquestionably emerge more powerful and well-armed than they had been before they entered demons had approached the soul Forge with less to offer may end up paying their debts by serving a period enslaved to vashdor's will whether they serve in his armies or deep within the heart of his Forge vastore will always be able to find a use for them now here's the thing about vashtor that really sets him apart from the other gods it's not in his nature to lie or trick he doesn't want to deceive any that would enter into a contract with him he's pretty much brutally honest and pragmatic such as the nature of the mathematical pursuit of technological advancements that spawned him his contracts are explicit in their conditions conversely however it's also not in the nature of demons to take things at face value there are creatures of chaos and are thus not used to dealing with an entity that speaks so directly and literally the chaotic nature of demons causes them to see things that aren't there and derive their own meanings from these contracts which in turn ends up working against them and always leaves vasher with the most to be gained with every defeat that those bound to him end up suffering their soul debt rises even higher the self-inflicted bondage of these demons keeps them indebted to the master of the Soul forges for all time you can think of vast or like a twisted demonic mob boss that knows exactly how to get what he wants and keeps the demons foolish enough to sign a contract with him never quite able to fully pay off their interest or perhaps it's more accurate to think of him as a great and powerful arms dealer one whose inventions are so masterfully crafted that none of the four Gods would dare move against him regardless of the threat he poses they realized that if they were to do this they would end up as the only God he refuses to sell to which would put them at a significant disadvantage within the great game vastor is an ally to none but himself and his importance within the great game cannot be understated even if he isn't a chaos God that may end up changing however as his influence and power continue to rise eventually he'll reach a point where he's able to stand amongst the other four and perhaps even surpass them in power so exactly how powerful is vashtor well the fact remains that he has Legions of demons that have become indebted to him or choose to follow him willingly into battle mean that he is able to unleash bloody wars in his name and when he does choose to physically manifest he is a terrifyingly powerful monster who is able to bend reality to his will and can sore across real space amidst storms of psychic lightning he has been shown to have complete Mastery over anything mechanical electronic made of metal or just about any other material or object that does not exist in its natural state upon his first meeting with the war Master one of the first acts he commits to gain his favor is to completely heal his Flagship many of the wounds that have been inflicted on it over the countless centuries had not been able to be repaired by his Legion of tech priests and by all accounts when he had finished the vengeful Spirit was operating in its prime once again it was by vashtor's will that Abaddon and the black Legion were able to leash the mighty space holds massive amalgamations of hundreds of ships that had been lost within the warp and fused together by its chaotic energies together they were able to drag them back into real space and the dark mechanicum Forces aligned with Abaddon carved mild long warding sigils into their surface while vastor sent coiling bolts of warp energy into the captive hulks the energy burrowed inside of the ships creating a synapse-like network of Flesh metal uniting each of the mechanical systems throughout the dozens if not hundreds of ships that made up each Hulk the neural network basically brought them to life and created what were known as the arcs of omen these were monstrously powerful ships and potentially the largest and most destructive ever mentioned in any of warhammer's lore but we'll cover them in much more detail in the arcs of omen Deep dive video that I'm already hard at work on unlike his kin within the warp the nature of chaos is something that doesn't seem to have come to define the arcophane avastor is an entity of ordered and meticulous evil he is the literal embodiment of science technology engineering and Mathematics taken to their extremes and the pursuit of violence and destruction whether or not he'll end up achieving his goals of becoming a new chaos God remains to be seen but he is unquestionably one of the most powerful allies that Abaddon has been able to gain and together they pose one of the most significant threats the Imperium has ever seen at the time of this recording only book one of the arcs of omen campaign has actually been released and we're just starting to scratch the surface of what the arcophane is all about now Games Workshop has promised that he's going to be a prominent character in the lore going forward and they've already announced the next two books in the series one of which bearing his name and hopefully is going to focus specifically on the arcophane so I'll definitely be revisiting him once we know a bit more about his character I just have so many questions about this guy and the thing I'm personally most interested in is how the dark mechanic confused him for all intents and purposes if this guy manages to achieve the goal of becoming a new chaos power then it would be like a darkened version of the machine God worshiped by the mechanicus and it would be really interesting to see if an avatar of the omnisaya other than the Emperor of course managed to rise up within the warp in order to challenge him and I also think it's important to point out that it's not impossible that we would see him become a new chaos God as there's already been a precedent that's been set for this over an age of Sigmar if you don't know too much about sigmar's lore I'll keep it brief a few years back there was an event where slanesh ended up getting captured by the elves and while they were imprisoned the horned racquet the god of the skaven managed to take slanesh's throne for themselves by the time flynnesh was back in the picture the horned rat had already gained so much power that he was on the same level as the other chaos gods and thus is treated as the fifth there's also been rumors that malekith now known as malarian in age of Sigmar has also become a chaos God although the lore on this is a little bit shaky because it basically just comes from a single line in one of the books the major takeaway here is that it's not completely off the table that something similar could happen in 40K there's a lot of really interesting places that they could go with his lore and I'm super curious to hear what you guys think down in the comments what role do you think he's going to have in the storyline going forward do you think Games Workshop is foreshadowing something big with the dark mechanicum and just in general what are your thoughts on this guy do you like him hate him or are you kind of indifferent we're all experiencing this lore for the first time together as it's brand new and I want to hear all of your theories no matter how crazy they are now if you like Warhammer and you want to know more about this universe go ahead and subscribe to the channel as I have so much more I want to tell you about and I'm also working on a full deep dive of the arcs of omen book one right now and I would hate for you to miss thanks again to everybody who supports my work and if it wasn't for you guys watching these videos I wouldn't be able to do this full time so again from the bottom of my heart thank you and with all that out of the way I'll catch y'all on the next one

Channel: WesHammer

Views: 333,483

Keywords: weshammer, warhammer, warhammer 40k, warhammer lore, warhammer story, 40k lore, gamesworkshop, arks of omen, vashtorr, daemon prince, 40k chaos, chaos gods, chaos lore, slaanesh, tzeentch, khorne, nurgle, chaos space marines, abaddon, world eaters, vengful spirit, horus heresy, astartes, space marines, black legion, lore, primarchs, emperor of mankind, astra militarum, vashtorr the arkifane, dark mechanicum, daemon engines, belakor, csm lore, 40k chaos lore

Id: Cpbz7qc5VVc

Length: 17min 58sec (1078 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 17 2023