IMPERIAL DEMONS: The Ultimate Guide | Warhammer 40K Lore

happy hey you guys not you zombie I'll take it from here good police work officer Nancy [Music] [Music] the existence of demons or demons if you're annoying in Warhammer is something that makes the setting particularly unique when compared to similar ones now it should be noted there are similarities with demons in other settings like fantasy or of course you know actual religion in that demons are generally evil and aligned with a Dark Realm that is antithetical to the well-being of humans and generally sentient life though it should be noted there are some big differences namely the nature of demons as entities of the warp because in Warhammer demons are not like Fallen Angels or the denizens of hell they're more likely psychic manifestations created by the whims of their chosen dark God or by emotions and feelings within the warp itself self they are purely psychic manifestations though that one commonality has to be established demons are evil unless they aren't now you've read the title of the video so let's get into it I'm gonna be talking about demons of the Imperium which is a theory many people have had for quite some time now now throughout all of this I need to stress that one distinction is being very important demons are created as a portion of their chosen God's Essence and at the will and behest of their God that's something that needs to be kept in mind throughout this entire video now demons themselves particularly the very powerful ones are capable of expressing a level of agency and initiative in regard to how they do things or how they perpetrate the will of their God but one thing remains unchanged demons are perpetrating the will of their God because it is in their inherent nature the only real exception to this being ones that have been forcefully bound either as a demon host or as a demon engine now the emperor has very much been Gathering Power Within the the warp as the worship of him has increased over the Millennia this much is obvious and as such it shouldn't really come as a huge shock that demons are beginning to form Imperial demons this phenomena has actually had its roots all the way back to the heresy I think you guys know what I'm talking about but I will get into it just for the sake of posterity however it has really ramped up especially in the later stages of m41 before the scouring of the Galaxy with the opening of The Great Rift now first and foremost what comes to mind when people talk about demons of the Imperium is of course the Legion of the Damned so that's the natural starting point for this video now for those who don't know the Legion of the Damned are wraith-like ethereal Space Marines almost ghost Space Marines who are known to appear when situations are most dire and when they are most needed in order to help the emperor's faithful they appear claddin dark armor and decorated with bone haloned in fire sweeping through the battlefield as damn near Unstoppable automata think of almost like the rubric Marines of the Thousand Suns it's kind of like that they just go forward and rarely speak if at all they do have a connection to the warp and appear out of Rifts in the warp that open up when they are most needed it's almost become a joke that the last surviving Guardsmen in some sort of regiment that's fighting chaos Space Marines should be kept Alive by the enemy because if they try to kill the last Guardsmen the Legion of the Damned will just show up some really notable engagements involving the Legion of the Damned are the resurrection of rebute Gilman when he was on his way to Terra they showed up a few times to Aid him in fact they actually went head to head against Magnus and his forces and they also showed up during the devastation of ball to Aid none other than Lord Commander Dante himself and his brothers in the defense of the blood angels home planet led by none other than the sanguinor and believe you me I will get into that later that's a phrase you might be hearing quite a bit over the course of this video and they also showed up during the arcs of omen attacking some of the titular arcs that were tearing their way across the Galaxy sometimes arcs would be found with just blue flame and wreckage around and it's a very heavy implication that that's the Legion of the Damned because we do see in the devastation of ball the ammunition fired by the Legion of the Damned is uncanny and comprised of blue flame it's like warp fire this ethereal presence the fact that their bodies just crumble to Ash whenever they're defeated and The Uncanny ability for them to make everyone who sees them suddenly forget about them very shortly after they leave leads me to believe and a lot of others to believe that they are effectively Demons of them Emperor they have this ethereal presence they make people forget it's like a weird demonic effect because demonic effect does affect your brain like when you come into contact with a demon it messes you up as well as the fact that they show up to help the emperor's loyal servants in their hours of need right when they are needed this is actually a factor of commonality between Imperial demons that I'm sorry to say it again will be touched on later in this video now despite the fact that the first appearances of the Legion of the Damned happen around the 900s of m41 we find their earliest Roots all the way back during the Horus heresy namely during the war within the web way when the emperor himself took to the field of battle to Aid his custodian survivors in repelling the demons that were nearly overwhelming them trying to get through the breach in the Imperial web way and take Terra when the emperor takes to the field himself he raises his burning sword and then in a wave of psychic energy brings it down summoning fire apparitions of the Betrayed dead of istvan and Ferris Manus himself leading the charge to beat back the demons who are in complete disarray at the emperor's presence it's one of those really stand out moments from the Horus heresy that everyone remembers and people have picked over and re-examined many times a lot of people believe that because of this the Legion of the Damned are the Betrayed dead of istvan and are led to this day by the wraith-like ghost of Ferris Manus but that's not necessarily true in my opinion you see the whole thing with the Legion of the Damned is that they are a very modern thing while the previous one from the war in the web way to my mind was like a preview and artificially created Legion of the Damned or Proto Legion of the Damned I should say in comparison to the more naturally occurring one we would see around 10 000 years later as weird as it is to use those terms in this context but I feel like you guys know what I mean the Legion of the Damned now it just kind of happens on their own because of the emperor's power and influence in the warp while that one was made deliberately as an attack and did not last long it was there for like a moment it should also be noted that outside of this one instance during the heresy we never see that Ferris Manus legionary of the Damned again for all the times they've appeared on the battlefield he's never showed up leading them yet now personally I think it would be awesome to have him come back because we have gotten sanguineous back in a way with the sanguinor and like the aspects of Dante and mephistan or anything like that that's the only singular time it gets mentioned so I do not believe Ferris Manus is actually part of the Legion of the Damned I believe his Spirit was just sort of channeled for that one instance in a way but again I don't think it's him so where does the Legion of the Damned come from in their current iteration the thing about Imperial demons is they are very very rarely there's one exception purely of the warp you see the emperor's nature means he is inherently tied to the Physical Realm now I don't think we know for sure if they can be actually killed or are just banished when they're defeated but the fact is they do go down pretty easily from what you'd expect and again the reason for that is because they have their origins in the Physical Realm and are inherently tied to it because of the emperor's nature he was a physical being and a lot of his power comes from the fact that he is physically on the throne and once walked the Earth as a mortal Conquering the Galaxy as such there has been one prevailing Theory regarding the physical origins of the current Legion of the Damned even amongst those who don't really view them as Demons of the Imperium that being they are the remnants of a chapter called the firehawks now you see the firehawks were a loyalist chapter that was active and very effective during the badab war wherein they fought against Renegade chapters such as the lamenters and the Mantis Warriors and of course the astral Clause led by Luft Huron who had secretly Fallen to chaos and was actively rebelling to secede from the Imperium because as the jokes go he refused to pay taxes now the firehawks themselves were actually the first loyalist chapter to commit to the badab war and were fighting on the front for most of the early years and taking really heavy losses as they did falling all the way down to 22 chapter strength that's huge they were really in it and part of the reason they were so effective is because they were using the raptorus Rex their Fortress Monastery a star for it mind you like the Phalanx obviously not as big as the Phalanx but still pretty comparable they were gifted that after their Homeworld was destroyed by traitors during the age of apostasy when they fought for the Imperium against gosh vandyer the reason I say all this is to illustrate just how loyal these guys were this is like the loyalist loyalist they're Paragons of what a Space Marine chapter ought to be selfless determined ready to risk it all for the emperor's Vision because only in death does duty end unless it keeps going even a little more after because for all their contributions to the badab or in the age of apostasy what the firehawks are truly known for is their mysterious disappearance wherein their Fortress Monastery would be lost in the warp on their way to a different system to fight Dark Eldar pirates in the 960s of m41 20 years later in the 980s they would be declared officially lost and the bell of lost souls would toll a thousand times and allegedly the emperor himself would order a black candle lit in their honor and it is in fact known that these lost firehawks are the origin for the current Legion of the Damned even the Legion of the Damned itself is seen to have used the raptorus Rex their Fortress Monastery star fort in one of their campaigns now some people take this to mean that oh well the Legion of the Damned are not demons they're just the firehawks who have been touched by the warp and mutated in a way well even though Luton himself believes that I'm not so sure I believe that the Legion of the Damned are demons and the sacrifice of the intensely loyal and faithful firehawks chapter was the sacrifice needed to manifest them and bring them about you have to remember when it comes to demons and the powers in The Warp sacrifices a big thing it took several several human sacrifices to create the ruined storm after the battle of kalth there was a mass cult sacrifice that's what helped things really get into motion and help to manifest demons on the planet in such large numbers now this is not dissimilar from what happens in people's faith in the emperor remember the sisters of battle suffering is our prayer the blood of Martyrs is a big thing in this sort of thing while the firehawks to my mind were the raw material and the Catalyst and basis for the Legion of the Damned I do believe these are demons demons of the Imperium from the sacrifice of loyal Imperial Space Marines this is further corroborated by the fact that not all legionaries of the Damned are of those firehawks the biggest and best example being of course Remus ventanus the savior of cow that's right a marine from the heresy era now what happened was when the ultramarine urial Ventress confronted the iron Warriors warsmith hansu ventanus and his men emerged from their tombs dressed in black and bone armor and beat back the iron Warriors who were out in numbering the ultramarines now then Thomas for his part still had his green cloak of office with him and would actually speak to Uriel Ventress telling him the name of the Demon Lord Makar and giving him a Shard of Erebus that ponsu had been trying to retrieve and Destroy after this they just disappear Ventress looks back and they're just gone this is another thing that helps me believe that they're demons because of that ability to exist and have effects across time and space in a way this weird temporal connection is further hinted at in the short Audio Drama called perdition's Flame which you might have heard about when people started talking about Warhammer horror as a sub-genre now in it two Imperial Guard soldiers one who had retreated from a zombie attack and was therefore arrested and probably going to be sent to a Pina Legion and the other one who is watching over his cells and the other cells aboard their ship were beset by zombies zombies of nurgle that started rampaging across the ship now before the zombies broke out on the ship there had been an issue this man in his prison had consistently heard some sort of muttering across the cells of out out out out and he didn't know what it was he's like hey can you please shut up the person in the cell next to me to which the woman guarding him responded there is no one in any of the cells around you you're clearly losing your mind but later when he is released from his cells by her to help fight the zombies because they need all the help they can get they're being overrun they fall back to the personal chambers of The Inquisitor on board and I just realized reading back now the fact that I have the flu is really starting to show so I am sorry about that guys uh nurgle is clearly trying to silence the truth about the Demons of the Imperium uh don't let Big Nerd pull the wool over your eyes guys well in her Chambers they find Allah large machine with a lot of ticking clocks similar to the ones that are covering her dress and she's wired into the thing from some neural implant we find out this woman is actually a part of the ordochronos which deals with things like time travel and other temporal anomalies so when they cut her out of the machine she freaks out and has a meltdown but eventually when the zombies breach the room what comes out of the machine but a legionary of the Damned wreathed in Fire and black armor it says the word out over and over again that's what he was hearing in his head throughout the ship now upon seeing it the Guardsman who was jailing him loses her mind more or less she goes manic but in a positive quote-unquote kind of way because she says to him oh my God that thing it's fighting for us it's a blessing it's it's great it's magnificent and he's like what are you talking about we have to get out of here and she says to him I never truly believed before but I believe now there are things in the warp that fight against us and they are terrible but there are things that fight for us and they are far more terrible still before effectively rushing into combat behind the thing and presumably dying in the fire he for his part gets into a savior pod and jettisons towards the nearest planet and while he's flying away he sees the entire ship explode in a fireball and here's the massive echoing of the word out he then goes on to crash land on a planet that is just Frozen and completely empty with no way to contact the outside world and devolves into madness recounting the story of what happened on that ship over and over again before it slips from his memory with the final lines in the story being him talking to us the narrator who actually has never existed and has only been a figment of his imagination and saying a tail yes I did promise you a story a grand one if only I could remember what it was before trailing off into insane laughter and that's how it ends see this makes it pretty clear they are entities of the warp and even if you do believe oh it's just the firehawks that have been mutated by contact with the warp itself what other word fits than demon like their mortal Space Marines that clearly have been transformed into demons their nature the fact they show up when they're needed like on the Phalanx during the end of the 13th Black Crusade and other such factors like how they mess with people's memories just is too much for me to possibly deny it now continuing on with this vein of that which was once physical or Mortal becoming a demon of the emperor let's move on to the next really big example that a lot of people talk about that being living Saints now a living saint is someone who through Power of faith has often achieved some kind of martyrdom and then being resurrected by the power of the emperor they often appear golden and resplendent and their presence on the battlefield inspires everyone around them coupled of course with their immense abilities they're incredibly rare and there is actually a misconception that they only tend to come from the ranks of the adeptus sororitas or the ministorum that's not true members of the astrum militarum have also achieved this Ascension though it is rarer one example being Saint dresses who was the leader of a crusade but was betrayed by people who were jealous of him the other members of The Command Staff because he had gotten favor from the high Lords of Terra though he would return and lead the anjuven Crusades now in my research it seems clear that there's two factors that come into consideration when someone ascends to living sainthood that being didn't of action and the faith in them that people held that's the factor here service to their Patron deity in this case the Emperor as opposed to like corn or chaos undivided even this is why in my mind they're effectively demon princes of the emperor now a demon Prince for those who may not remember is someone who was once a mortal being but has now ascended to demonhood their basis is not in the Mortal realm now the thing with demons of the emperor is they do often have as I've said their basis in reality but legionaries of the Damned have sort of just been changed or were the Catalyst to become demons as opposed to living Saints who have ascended through a great Act of sorts rather than just their sacrifice it was their martyrdom they have often been martyred in some way and were being cheered on by many many people up until they died Celestine was greatly revered as a sister repentia and Saint dresses was the leader of an entire Crusade who was hailed As A Savior by people before even he died it also should be considered the powers that living Saints have do seem very demonic okay I should specify when I say demonic I mean Supernatural and of the warp in a way that you would expect a demon to kind of have in accordance with their followers because when you just say demonic that kinda accomplishes a certain image but some of the powers they have are an aura of invulnerability around those in their immediate vicinity the power to motivate many of them can actually fly and who has wings but a fair few demon princes like Azariah kairis and even balacor now I have here an excerpt from the harusian wars series which was an inquisition Center Trilogy by John French dealing with a heretical sect of inquisitors called horusians and I mean really heretical in it an Abbott named ayakto balls in battle and is bleeding out having defended essentially a church of the emperor now this is martyrdom he died defending a place of worship and despite having never been a particularly Pious man he was kind of one of those people who gets into faith not because he's a non-believer but because he wants to sort of machinate and climb the rung he does believe but he had his own personal motives maybe not the most Pious person or someone you would expect to ascend but it was because people around him had faith in him and looked to him and because of what he died doing that he ascends to living sainthood In this passage we see his Ascension how exactly it happens and this passage is so poignant I've used it once before in my old video The Emperor's realm of chaos I use this passage as an example of of what the emperor's realm of chaos would look like and to summarize it's basically a desolate City full of dust and splinters of bone similar to what we see that I now know as being the quote-unquote city of dust from the beckwin trilogy that Dan Abnet has been working on and there's a lot of big stuff going on there but we will get to that later because there's more Imperial demons possibly who are there as well now I'm gonna play my old recording of the excerpt because I'm sick and on my last legs and I've been really pressed for time because of my family as of late and I'm gonna be pressed for time tomorrow too so I hope you forgive me for recycling this and a little other excerpt that I'm gonna play later but here it is the dust rolled through the dream great billowing walls of gray dust it was there in every breath their gritting eyes when they blinked the dreamer coughed and a galaxy of burning Stars exploded through him he staggered and fell to his knees sharp Stones ground beneath him edges and points dug into his skin he reached down and picked up a handful of stones and lifted them up so they were in front of his eyes he blinked and the dust flowed and sucked into his eyes then it cleared and he saw they were not stones in his hands they were bones broken and dry he gave a muffled cry as he dropped them and it was about to rise when the dust cloud peeled back in front of him a land lay before him no not a land a city but a city like nothing he had ever seen or dreamed towers and battlements and domes Rose like mountain ranges statues as tall as Cathedral spiers reached up to the shrouded Sky the dust wind blew through the Avenues and peeled over the faces of the statues and battlements help he turned at the voice a man sat on a stone chair three Paces behind him the chair was plain and gray it surfaced pitted by the wind the man that sat on it wore gray the fabric was so worn that it seemed as though the dust had settled in a thin skin on top of his wasted Flesh and Bones there were wounds In the Flesh too scabbed and blackened gashes that wept slow tears of pus all right help the throne man said again shifting his head shivering with fatigue I began the dreamer I who are you what are you this is a dream isn't it coughed the figure on the throne it can't go on I what can't go on what are you talking about he asked but the wasted figure only shook its head then he laughed and somewhere behind the curtain of dust a growl of Thunder answered why am I even speaking you're just asleep Phantom this is a dream and somewhere his words faltered he blinked pain and panic flashing through his eyes I am dying iyopto said softly I'm bleeding out on the floor of a chapel he laughed again but the sound was low and cold and the Thunder did not answer all that time all those years climbing in the rank and maneuvering for power and this is the end I was reaching for a fever dream on the edge of the Abyss I said the figure in the stone chair and raised its hand the city around the moaned as the wind pulled the dust of powdered bones through the streets his head jerked around the figure in the stone chair was looking at him gay steady eyes clear in its wasted face it held out its hand skeletal fingers opened the figure twitched and for an instant a octo felt as though its pain had whipped through him too he gasped and staggered falling to his knees black voids of pain and fatigue and endless screaming nightmare opened in him night Eternal and dark and laughing and he was alone alone as the dark and cold closed in growling like wolves hungry for meat in Winter and he could hear the Rattle and hiss of them and beneath their breath as they licked the air and he felt the weakness in his limbs as he rose to beat them back then the pain fled and the dream was of the Dead City once more why he said at last and the wind snatched the word away then on other people other people dying other people who are better other the wind was Rising dust had swallowed the city somewhere in the distance Beyond this dream his heart was beating the last of his blood he looked up trying to breathe trying to stay alive the figure on the throne was a fading blur its hands still held out [Music] it said once again he wanted to cry he wanted to shout he wanted to do anything but reach out to that hand and he heard a question rise in him the last question that he thought would come to his lips quill he coughed will it means something please hey octo laughed one last time and reached up to take the prophet hand now one thing about this is that people have pointed out the inconsistency when it comes to this Ascension to living sainthood you see aacto here sees the emperor for I think what he more accurately is an ailing struggling man on a throne alone in the desolate City but ephril Stern when she becomes a living Saint sees the emperor resplendent powerful and golden telling her be my sword and do my will this I think is down to the individual perceptions of the person in question toward the emperor iacto is a much more cynical person and not a really fervent fanatical believer he sees the emperor in a more realistic and in my mind true to life way in pain on the throne barely hanging on as an old man this is closer to how the emperor actually appears in the war as we see throughout the siege of Terra like in the books mortis and the end and the death old in the desert sitting under a tree and absolutely parched he's a pragmatic person but that doesn't change the fact that he's doing good this is also reflected in how he accepts sainthood he's reluctant hesitant and wants to know it will mean something Stern on the other hand is a far more fanatical believer and sees the emperor how she perceives him just perfect and Incredibly powerful that's kind of how gods are they will present themselves the way you want to see them the powers of nurgle will have different interpretations depending on who's exposed to them and how they see it some people will view it as death and destruction and entropy incarnate others will view it as the Wellspring of Life New Life some will view it as freedom freedom from freedom from the need to be so ordered and stiff and the freedom to just be While others will see it as a new ordering of life itself it all does come down to personal perception it would stand to reason that the emperor being a God now would be no different it should also be known that when a demon Prince is defeated they're banished into the warp and have to wait a certain amount of time it depends to come back into the material plane we also see this with Saints like Celestine because she when she is killed has to effectively fight her way up to a pillar of Bones and dead bodies her own bones and dead bodies mind you and reconstitute bits of her memory and past and herself before she can return to the Mortal realm now for a lot of demon princes they're banished for like a thousand years so it's a lot easier for living Saints to come back than it is for demon princes to return to the Mortal realm but living Saints do also appear to be quite a bit weaker than your average demon Prince so I think it is a bit of give and take here there's also very very few examples of living Saints in the earlier stages of the Galaxy I think one of the earliest ones is from before the Imperial cult was a thing and that was like a rare example most of them have come about in like M40 or m41 doesn't it just kind of piss you off it feels like nothing has happened in most of Galactic history like almost everything you read about in books occurs in that span of late m41 during or right before the Black Crusade the 13th Black Crusade that is we know very little about everything else that happens like there's the heresy the scouring the war of the beast in M32 the age of apostasy and M36 and then like basically nothing for almost 5 000 years the badab war the 13th Black Crusade fall of kadia turn to the primarks all the stuff that happens in like dead Sun black sky with Uriel Ventress just so much stuff just happens in this one thousand year period or less and there's like nothing before then I really wish GW would flesh that out more living Saints also are very capable of pursuing their own goals whatever that may be obviously they're gonna be in line with the will of the emperor but say dresses for example will continue to lead a specific military Crusade while Celestine can do things like Ally herself briefly with the alpha Legion in Shroud of night or help revive rebute Gilman by having to trust azino it's kind of like how demon princes like bellacor can pursue their own agendas bellicor turned on vashtor during the arcs of omen series wherein he sabotaged his invasion of the rock effectively putting him in his place now the reason for this is in line with what chaos is fundamentally even though bellicor can pursue his own designs he's still doing so within the parameters of chaos because the act of betrayal is something that empowers chaos itself even though it might seem self-sabotaging for bellicore to do that for the grand scheme of total chaos Victory it is still in line with chaos from a theological perspective the act of betraying gives power to chaos we can see this even in the betrayalic health between a word Bearer and an ultramarine when he tells them hey you know we met these people and they believed that betrayal itself had power not just tactical power but Power itself before he you know shoots him in the [ __ ] head that is kind of contrary to living Saints where loyalty and Faith Empower them and are a through line in their actions this all circling back of course to my video and theory about the potential gods of order and anti and I just want to take a moment to say this I am so grateful for the support on that video you guys it is at the time of recording officially my third most viewed video ever and I am floored with the amount of support and enthusiasm that video got you guys are awesome now one thing I did say was that the next time I brought up anti-warp I would give it a better name than just anti-warp and I took to you the audience to see what you guys had to say some of the really good options were anathem which is a play on anathema which is what the forces of chaos called the emperor weft which is the opposite of warp in terms of weaving like when you do weaving they'll tell you about warp and weft so that one fits really nicely and logos which was suggested by a friend of mine because that's a Biblical thing it means the word of God because in the beginning God saw nothing but chaos and disorder and then spoke creation into it that being logos sort of that word of creation which I think does kind of fit in a way I also saw a lot of people pitch the term calling it The straighten which honestly I find kind of hilarious and I kind of want to do but all things considered I think the term weft is probably the best one it may sound a little bit silly but I think it just fits the best especially with that nature of anti-warp or weft in this case being the opposite of warp now getting back on track here let's talk about another form of Imperial demon one that is up for a bit of debate but one that I'm confident in that doesn't fit into a lot of the previously established rules in that it is not solely a person on the surface it could seem different in that hey that doesn't really feel like a demon but when you start to think about it I think the dots do connect and of course I'm talking about machine spirits now I actually did do a little segment about this for a collaboration video with my friend Arthur bones 40K on his channel go check that out if you haven't but getting to it here I think I can go into a little more depth for those who don't know the advanced systems of a lot of Imperial Tech contain both mechanical and biological components to a degree so that does actually make Warhammer one of the few biopunk settings out there just an interesting tidbit and because of that inclusion machine Spirits exist they are these sort of will or even just Vibe of the machine itself now this is why it's so important to appease machine Spirits with things like ritual and prayer and reverence because if you don't they might just decide to not work or become unreliable it's a mix of proper actual maintenance and appeasing that incorporeal machine spirit and it makes sense that these things would exist if belief in something can manifest entities into the warp then it would stand to reason that the cult mechanicus which is a galactic religion and spans over like 15 000 years at minimum there would be an effect in the warp it would be illogical for there not to be so this belief has manifested in machine Spirits smaller bits of Hardware have machine Spirits yes but it's more like a living Vibe this is kind of in the way that the smallest entities in the warp are bleating wisps of emotion sentience a physical feeling that exists and then is briefly gone they feel them swirling around them when they're in the warp those who are attuned to the warps currents I mean like chaos Space Marines but the larger you get with these things the more potent powerful and independent those machine Spirits become it must be noted these machine Spirits are not capable of self-improvement or growing per se they're fixed to what they are kind of like how a lot of demons and entities purely of the warp are fixed to what they are and their status as demons they can't really move up or improve themselves this is what really creates the difference between artificial intelligence or abominable intelligence in the Imperium and a machine Spirit you can also see a trend wherein the not just biggest but machines people have the most faith in are the ones with a really prominent machine spirits and that go on to do some insane stuff yeah your Bolter is going to be reliable and it has a machine Spirit but it's not going to be the one you're really preying on or focusing on however oftentimes Vehicles you ride in are the ones you're going to have a strong connection with in the same way you might refer to your car as she or old girl or something like that an amazing example of this is none other than rin's might something you've probably heard of rinse might was a land Raider of the Crimson fists Space Marine chapter now this chapter already had reduced numbers after a lot of grueling crusading but when their home planet of rin's world was attacked by Orcs they were pretty screwed mainly because one of their defense missiles actually misfired blew back and hit the Fortress Monastery dealing considerable losses to The Defenders still alive although help would come in a very unexpected form one of the land Raiders near the blast would be launched by the explosion and after it landed have its machine Spirit quote unquote awaken now people say that rin's might was only following the last directive it knew which was to fight the Orcs but I don't think so I genuinely believe the demon within rin's might sprung into action at this development it was angered at the state of things and took matters into its own hands the reason I believe this is because not only did rin's might go about stalking the battlefield for several days breaking up any large groups of Orcs that began to mass but it also after its ammunition was done and it saw the orc War Boss ahead of it charged headlong into the mass ramming any Orcs that could get in its way in a suicidal charge while blasting hymns from its speakers that's not normal directive that's not carrying out the last known orders that's vindictiveness that is an act of defiance a conscious expression of feeling and emotion that sort of thing is what occurs in a demonic entity something with a presence in the warp and that is born of emotions like a duty and the desire to avenge one's Fallen comrades that is something a soldier on a suicidal defiant last charge would do but not a machine just following its quote-unquote programming it's very clear there is something more there's a real heart and soul to the machine and this isn't the only time we see this sort of thing another really famous example is that of the playing called the indomitable Spirit a lightning assault plane now during the Sabbat War this plane is captured by the blood pact who are traitor Guardsmen pledged to corn and one of their pilots basically tortures the access codes out of the pilot of the indomitable spirit and takes to the sky in it himself and while gloating about how he broke the plane and how it's his and how awesome he is and all that the plane takes control and crashes itself you guys are going to want to just hear this for yourselves you're not him you're right hammock says as he triggers the air brake cutting his speed in two and sending Pharaoh's lightning roaring past him damn you Pharaoh Roars over the Vox Arcane bastard she yaws and rolls hammock matches her effortlessly afterburner's bellowing oh he cut his eyes from him he boxes to Pharaoh his fingers and toes I cut him until he gave up every one of his secrets and then I took his tongue his teeth Pharaoh bleeds her own speed and throws her lightning into a spiraling dive hammock follows her the world turning around him in a blue black blur I took his legacy he tells her this machine I bloodied it broke it just as I did ever trass his words find their Mark they have Barrel cursing angry grieving careless enough to fall momentarily into the red heart of his firing Arc hammock smiles widely so much for your throne he voxes and fires the last cannons full charge the triggers click and the lightning bucks but there's no flash no damage no smoke nothing what hammock grasps he pulls the trigger again but the weapons are unresponsive Dead Ahead Pharaoh pulls out of her dive hammock tries to match her but the flight controls a lock in his hands immovable then more systems flicker out one by one augers heading into cater fuel measure interior lights everything but Vox that last part is the really important bit because this machine doesn't just follow orders as you would think by maybe stopping him from firing on what it might recognize as friendly aircraft or Allied Pilots it spikes him it literally gives him the Finger by keeping Vox opened while shutting off everything else and careening towards the ocean it literally steers itself down towards the water all the while keeping the Vox bead open with the Allied Imperial pilot pharaoh so this guy can hear himself being [ __ ] talked all the way down to Davey Jones [ __ ] Locker you can bloody us Barrow says she positions herself beside him hanging off his right wing just as she did before you can take our eyes our teeth our tongues but there is one thing you will never take never break hammock cannot help it he has to ask as the lightning Thunders down towards the steel gray Waters of the Eastern reach what he asks our spirit literally just like rin's might blaring hymns from its speakers as it made its final suicidal charge towards the orc War Boss this is an act of Spite and Defiance that you cannot get without some measure of sentience or higher function or a spirit or emotion there is very clearly something more to this than just following orders or some kind of organic quasi-spiritual component another big example of this is the castellan robot called encarnadine which was part of the word Bears Legion back in the early stages of the heresy well actually right before the heresy and at the very end of the great Crusade yes this robot followed orders in the way you would expect an imperial robot to do but the Warriors of the word bearers had a special reference for this machine because of how well it had performed in combat before considering it an honorary Legionnaire and even present it with oath papers and Oaths of moment before battle and when incarnadine was going to fight off some custodians in the first real Act of rebellion of the word bearers it attacked and said for the legion these things don't really speak outside of words like compliance or negative but it cried out for the legion before fighting a bunch of custodians to the death that is again proof of sort of a real sense of will a sense of presence and a sense of conscience now this kind of makes sense because of the amount of faith and reverence this specific robot was afforded by the legionnaires that's also why something like a land Raider like rinse might would be capable of such powerful actions because of how much the Space Marines revered these machines especially their Tech Marines and Space Marines are pretty important to the god emperor in the warp they have I think a leg up over mortal humans that's why rin's might and incarnadine bought so hard now and carnadine is a bit of a different story because again the emperor was still alive and walking around I think it was more like a minor spurt you know a bit of a rare sort of Black Swan event something that could showcase what would happen later on down the line I think a reason for this is because the cult mechanicus had existed long before then and these marines had a lot of reverence from carnadine but still I think you guys can see where I'm coming from and all of this isn't even mentioning Titans and Imperial Knights which are in my mind probably the most interesting example because of how uniquely their machine Spirits work in conjunction to their pilots now it has to be stated it takes a lot of training to be able to Pilot a knight or a Titan and oftentimes those who do pilot them M have first worked on smaller jobs as aids to an actual princess or Titan pilot or night pilot and if I'm being completely honest the word pilot really does not do it justice because when you look into the exact going-ons and procedure and general I guess consequences of piloting one of these machines it really does seem more like demonic possession in a way but in a more voluntary sort of manner in a more symbiotic way you see the pilots of knights and Titans have neural implants that let them wire their brains directly into the machines They Ride oh so it's just a neural implant you might think pretty simple for sci-fi well not exactly because it goes deeper than that the machine Spirit personality of the Titan or Knight also imprints itself on the pilot to a degree instilling feelings of nobility obligation and and respect for hierarchy as well as other feelings such as stubbornness or aggression kind of like what we see with ships like the indomitable Spirit or rin's might but this goes both ways because it is more symbiotic you see the personality and spirit of the pilot will be imprinted on the night and exaggerated within it which is how the knights sort of gain some of their traits and furthermore even after that Noble is long gone because these machines often do Outlast their pilots by orders of generation these aspects of Personality will remain forming an almost Gestalt sort of spirit to the machine itself if anything it's more like taming a horse really like when this first happens and a noble first becomes a pilot they go through something called a ritual of becoming and in that they are strapped into the machine and left there for a full night their purpose being to imprint themselves on the machine spirit and effectively tame it it's almost like riding a stallion for the first time where you need to hang on for dear life as it tries to Buck you off and then when it feels that it can't and it's exhausted you will have earned that horse's respect and yeah some Knights do either just go insane or die in the process if you read about someone's mind being invaded by a demon or demonic possession in Warhammer it really can kind of be like this with people having to fight and wrestle with the creature inside them as they both jockey for influence and try to take control of the body where it's kind of the opposite here where they have to combine and coexist and honestly I think this is best exemplified in the book master of mankind from the Horus heresy wherein we get the perspectives of not just night Pilots but the knights and Titans themselves and we see their their personality and personal motivations because there is a warlord Titan who knowing that there are passages within the web way that lead towards Mars keeps thinking home home home because at this time they were exiled from Mars because they had lost the Martian Civil War in the wake of the heresy so she was feeling homesick but was determined to be more focused on her Mission and keep fighting in the web way and even determined to die properly thinking you know what fighting here in this web way against this kind of enemy in the midst of The Emperor's great work and making sure my sibling Titans can Retreat I couldn't think of a better way to go and then just throwing itself into combat and then furthermore when it wins an improbable fight sending out a victory cry and its recordings in an attempt not to be saved but to be remembered to have this deed written down in the annals so that it did not die in vain so that it was heard in its final magnum opus and when it sees one of its sibling Titans it tries to contact it saying hey it's too late for me but maybe you can save my pilot there's a real relationship and understanding there and the Titan itself has its own desires the pilot at this point was completely unconscious and everyone else inside the Titan was dead but it was just moving of its own volition through its own force of will and expressing its own personality we also see the feeling of betrayal when it is shot by its sibling and falls into a deep Chasm dead because that Titan had been possessed by drachnian the spirit of the first murder even though the pilot is basically out of commission this machine is still having thoughts feelings and expressing intent again something we see with rin's might in a way but even further because it has palpable audible Thoughts with their own words behind them like sibling and home and Victor three now up until this point all the examples I've discussed have their basis in physical reality in some way or another be it something that once was physical something that had a physical sacrifice or something that still is physical in the sense of the machine but there is one very interesting example that we get of non-physical Imperial demons entities purely of the warp that are of the emperor those of you more well-versed in my videos would know exactly what I'm about to talk about that being the manifestations from the light of the astronomicon that appear within the eye of Terror to those chaos Space Marines who live in the eye of Terror they can physically sense the astronomicon and see it it is a giant burning beam of psychic energy that scorches any demon worlds it touches and even the ones that are not completely bleached of Life are still exposed to its power if they're too close this area of exposure to them is called fire tide and in the fire tide those planets that are caught in this backwash are besieged by fiery manifestations of warp energy coming from the astronomicon things that look like Space Marines men women not Legion of the Damned mind you not those kind of apparitions as far as we know just fiery apparitions wild and untamed and very brief but still capable of inflicting destruction on any never born in the area or Space Marines that get too close now people say oh those are just psychic manifestations just little scraps of power given form well what is a demon other than just that maybe they're not that powerful and maybe they don't have much staying power or intender motivation behind them but that's because purely psychic Demons of the emperor would be weak because he is a young God now another funny thing to mention is that the Emperor at this time where the book Black Legion where these manifestations appear in the only book mind you is set less than 750 years after the heresy the Imperial cult wasn't even the religion of the Imperium yet but one thing that needs to be remembered is that time works very very differently in the eye of Terror in the warp time is almost a moot point because the Marines had believed only a couple years had passed they were shocked to learn that it had been centuries this coupled with the emperor's already immense psychic might is why I believe these fiery manifestations can appear as well as what I interpret as effectively a greater demon of the emperor while living Saints are like demon princes and the Legion of the Damned are regular demons this entity that appears in Black Legion called imperios is to my mind a greater demon based on how it conducts itself and how it appears see when they are passing through fire tide the ship of these chaos Space Marines is boarded by an entity that they turn to see sitting in the command Throne it appears as a quote-unquote solar priest old and withered but it speaks to them in eloquent gentle tones it introduces itself as imperious the spirit of the astronomicon and it bids them to turn back from their Quest because it tells them that they will end up being the death of the Imperium it asks them when you looked up at the stars as children is this what you wanted for yourselves to be the Destroyers to bring it all crumbling down and of course they don't listen they end up shooting the thing much to the Chagrin of some of the members who actually wanted to capture it and bind it but when it's shot it moans in pain doubles Ford decomposes and crumbles into dust right on the spot but the Demonic Familiar of one of the Marines a thousand Sun sorcerer named iskandar Keon tells him you know that thing isn't dead right we'll see it again so it hasn't been killed it's just been banished kind of like any other greater demon now unlike other greater demons this thing is not overly aggressive save or overly hostile it speaks eloquently it's very forthright in its dealings and it has a level of prescience because again the emperor is sort of opposite to the other forces of chaos however one thing that needs to be noted is this thing is banished very easily it only takes a few bolt shots because even though it can exist across space and time this is gonna get weird here just so just bear with me it exists across space and time because demons can exist across space and time we see the demon born of the very first murder The Rock Nayan appearing for the first time and taking its first steps after its formation in the 31st Millennium just in time to face the emperor in battle and be wounded by him even though it does lose see demons don't really show up when they're created they more so show up where they ought to be they appear where they should be whether or not they're successful in what they do is a different story because there is no past or future in the warp only the infinite now and that's why this demon is so weak because the emperor is not yet powerful enough in his mortal form to truly create a very powerful greater demon that power will exist across the entire timeline all at once kind of like how if you select an audio track and then raise the volume of it while it is playing it won't just raise the volume of that portion of song you're listening to it'll raise the entire volume of the track including what has already played and what is yet to play the reason I'm so concerned about this event is because of who has written it normally you would see something like this and say oh that's just a weird thing an author put in appearing in one book and never again but it's because it's a fairly recent Aaron Dempsey Bowden book that I actually put so much weight onto it because he's one of the mainline GW author when someone like he or John French or Dan Abnet write something you can probably take it as being not just random having some sort of bearing on the lore like whichever authors are the ones who are entrusted in writing the siege of Terra or the bulk of the siege of Terra those are the ones who you can really assume GW has the most faith in either lore-wise or writing wise and so yeah Dan Abnet and Bowden do fit that bill really well admittedly though if I'm being honest part of me feels like we won't see something like that again because it's been replaced by visions of the actual Emperor nowadays in the lore like in books like Lion Son of the forest we see the emperor himself appearing as a withered old man much like imperius and speaking sort of cryptically to people like how he talks to the lion in The Lion's dreams sort of warning him and I suppose it kind of makes sense especially considering how imperious is definitely the outlier when talking about Imperial demons because it doesn't have that truly physical component that everything else has now speaking of these physical components I want to talk about something that might seem like it fits the bill but actually doesn't in my opinion that being corvus corax because you see after the horse heresy corvus korax would descend into the eye of Terror to hunt down the traitor Legions namely the word Bears first and foremost he would eventually catch up with lorgar after around 10 000 years this would happen with korax as a shadowy Apparition that none of the word Bears could properly defend themselves against or even knew what it was massacring and menacing the Marines on the planet of sakaris the word Bear's new Homeworld in the eye of Terror them being perplexed on why they couldn't stop the thing with their demonic Wards and lorgar would eventually intervene telling him Show Yourself brother you don't need to take that form with me and this entity which had been either Smoky shadowy dripping black Shadows or white wisps of smoke or even a horde of murderous crows that could rip apart Marines yes cliche and awesome as that is it would eventually coalesce into the normal form of corvus corax he and lorgar would then do battle in which lorgar would be beaten but would escape with his Marines with korak saying through the portal they had escaped in run all you want lorgar I have your scent now and I will not stop hunting you logar would then go back into meditation now quick aside here we know for a fact logar is out of meditation and has returned to the Galaxy at large leading a war of Faith against the Imperium in the wake of the opening of The Great Rift converting more and more people to the worship of chaos with his legionaries so I believe korax is not far behind and will be one of the next primarks reintroduced alongside jagatai Khan however though I don't believe korax fits the bill of of being a demon Westheimer actually recently released a video about this same topic and I more or less agree the primarks were always beings of the warp sure and always all had some kind of warp abilities even if they tried to deny any psychic connection they all had this kind of power this is mostly just a development and evolution of korax's power due to all those years he's been active unlike say Gilman or the lion and is similar to the Lion's new power of forest walking that we see in the book Lion Son of the forest despite this though I really don't think he constitutes demon material because he doesn't seem to have fundamentally changed like some of the demon primarks have with their apotheosis this feels inherently different to me and I don't really think there ever could be a quote-unquote demon Primark of the emperor because how the loyalist primarks are perceived by the general public is in line with how they are worshiped and how they were more or less in a physical sense there's statues of the loyalist primarks they're celebrated and revered as they were so if they were to ascend or change in some way that would sort of break the faith people have in them it would take them actually further away from their Patron deity instead of closer like with fulgrim becoming that debauched snake thing or angron becoming the Red Demon there is however one big exception to this and I think you know what it is that being the sanguinor I'm gonna level with you guys my knowledge of the sanguinor and the entire blood angels Legion aside from the basics like the black rage is nearly non-existent I don't think I've read a single book featuring the blood angels in fours I'm sorry but from what I know about the sanguinor is that during the Horus heresy when Gilman formed Imperium secundus the second successor Imperium in the galactic North when they believed Tara had already fallen and the emperor was dead sanguinius was declared the new emperor but he couldn't appear in public because of the fear of assassination so one of his sanguinary guard was selected to secretly basically like without his identity ever publicly being known serve as sanguinius's equery with a white hot mask of sanguinius's face pressed over his so he would always ever just have the identity of the sanguinor and he would eventually be thrust into the warp to save his Primark and his Legion from a demon Prince of chaos undivided sacrificing himself with sanguineous seeing the sanguinor transform into some sort of gold and Powerful being as he fell away into the War I do believe it is that old blood Angel who effectively became a living saint but for the blood Angels chapter specifically nowadays he shows up in battle to assist the blood angels when it's like their Darkest Hour like it's a Against All Odds battle and they really need help and he helps them win like he seems kind of like Celestine or any other living Saint in that regard but he does seem to be a hell of a lot more powerful simply put Celestine loses fairly often she gets killed almost every single time and has to claw her way back the sanguinor doesn't lose he just vanishes when the fighting is gone leaving others to wonder if he's just a legend or if he's real people who see him say he's real but a lot of blood angels actually don't think he's real and think he's just a legend I think a lot of this power comes from that connection to sanguineous and the belief that could entail because sanguineous is probably one of the most celebrated primarks amongst his brothers he's the central figure behind the imperium's biggest holiday sanguinala which is effectively like Christmas and I think that does help to sort of empower the sanguinor and anything blood angels related a bit at least it's why the sanguinor is as strong as it is and again it did have that physical component that was martyred all the way back during the heresy and again as we know the warp does not operate on normal time rules if the demon born of the first murder can be born in M31 for the war in the web way yeah I think time is not really that much of a factor here I think it's similar with the sanguinor now it's commonly mistaken by some people that the sanguinor is the spirit of sanguinous returned or that it somehow is sanguineous in some way that's not particularly true in my opinion and there's also this whole thing where he's the embodiment of a good Angel who fights the black angel from old bomb mythology and it's it's honestly a bit of a headache to wrap my head around I just really don't know enough about it to fully go in on this video and I've had this video on the back burner for a long time I've been picking at it for weeks so I think it's probably a good place to stop here I can't really think of any other good Imperial demon examples and I think I've made my point for now I don't want to burden you guys with a like an hour and a half or like a two hour long video so we will call it a day here this to my knowledge is the full extent of Imperial demons or what can seem very likely to be Imperial demons or be interpreted as Imperial demons in the lore of Warhammer 40 000 I think it's a very interesting concept and one I think we will get more of but some people actually really don't like the idea they think it's cheap they think it's just not what the setting was originally like they think it's too much of a deviation but what do you guys think how do you feel about Imperial demons do you think I'm right about some things here do you think I'm wrong about others is your thinking maybe more in line with people like Luton 09 who believes that the Legion of the Damned are not Imperial demons let me know how you guys feel about this if you like it at all where you possibly want it to go I really want to hear the comments on this one but until then I will see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Live! From The Black Library

Views: 59,563

Keywords: warhammer40k, 40klore, imperiumofman, horusheresy, spacemarine, the emperor, Majorkill, Adeptus Ridiculous, Chapter Master Valrak, Valrak, luetin09

Id: jHO2JGp9SLs

Length: 67min 27sec (4047 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 19 2023