Like Father, Like Son (Fantasy WIP) (Patreon)

Hello!

A new fantasy month is upon us! Due to the Angry Company, many Grimdark type WIPs are not shown on this post. Complete set and high resolution turntables are accessed in the normal way. Emails are sent out as well. Please leave any feedback, reactions on this post. Thanks!

So this month we cover one of the most infamous characters in the HH/40K setting (spoilers for different stories). Ahriman is both the Thousand Sons greatest champion and failure. He is also the son that resembles Magnus the most, both for his thirst for knowledge and overconfidence in his own abilities. This comic strip I found recently sums up the family dynamic pretty well. 😄

Scholars could write several books on how he keeps screwing up but let's go with the cliff notes for now. During the Great Crusade, Ahriman was Chief Librarian, First Captain and leader of the Corvidae Sorcerous Cult which specializes in divination. With all those fancy titles he was obviously Magnus' favorite son as he was far and away the most gifted psykers in the Legion. Ahriman actually had a twin brother Ohrmuzd who succumbed to the Thousand Sons Flesh Change early in both their careers. This put a terrible fear of mutation in Ahriman and a willingness to do anything to stop it from afflicting his remaining battle-brothers (heavy foreshadowing).

I've covered the Space Wolves hatred of the Thousand Sons and the Council of Nikaea several times so I'll skip most of this. But I will mention that Ahriman once tried a diplomatic approach with the Space Wolves Rune Priest Othere Wyrdmake. Ahriman shared information on the Thousand Sons' psychic disciplines in sort of Legion exchange program. This came to bite Ahriman in the ass during the Council because Othere used Ahriman's testimonies as evidence that the Thousand Sons were dangerous witches who were breaking Imperial restrictions on 'sorcerous practices'. This is one of the major grudges Thousand Sons fanbase has against the Space Wolves because of their perceived hypocrisy. Because Rune Priests accuse everyone else of being warp tainted witches while claiming their own power is 'pure' since it's drawn from their homeworld of Fenris. As with many things in the setting, this is either true or total BS depending who you ask. 😅

Ahriman never forgave Othere for this treachery and he made the Rune Priest suffer a pretty painful death during the climatic battle during the Burning of Prospero. Speaking of that event, Ahriman was basically leading the entire defense because Magnus refused to take to the field until all was lost.

Again I'll skip repeating the part where Ahriman re-assembles Magnus' shards into a Daemon Primarch. But a new tidbit of lore is that Ahriman was actually robbing the Imperial Palace Library during the Siege of Terra and could have easily killed a pretty important historical character but for whatever reason decided against it.

Post Heresy, the Thousand Sons were fully succumbing to the Flesh Change at a scary rate and it was here that Ahriman performed his greatest and most infamous act. Ahriman devised the Rubric of Ahriman, a spell that in theory should stop the Flesh Change permanently in his battle-brothers and protect them from ever manifesting again. A cabal of sorcerers lent their powers to Ahriman so he had enough power to cast the spell successfully. And the Rubric sort of worked. It did preserve the Thousand Sons who were psychically gifted but that was less than a hundred of the Legion's sorcerers. The rest who lacked psychic abilities were condemned to be hollow automatons in their Power Armor, filled with nothing but dust (hence their warcry). 🤦‍♂️

Magnus was absolutely furious at this colossal screw up and prepared to kill Ahriman. But the great troll god Tzeentch personally intervened and simply asked "Magnus, why are you trying to kill my favored tool?". Just as planned. Defeated, Magnus simply exiled Ahriman telling him something along the lines of 'Don't come back until you've accumulated all sorcerous knowledge and fixed this shit.' (honestly, I think the real reason Magnus banished Ahriman was because he reminded the Primarch too much of his own mistakes and didn't want to be reminded of them).

Anyways, Ahriman has basically been grabbing forbidden lore and trying to add patch notes to his Rubric ever since with pretty catastrophic results. He's constantly trying to raid the Eldar Black Library and getting thwarted by the Harlequins (although he got pretty close recently). But to highlight the utter futility of his quest to restore the Thousand Sons, Ahriman has managed to restore one over 10 thousand years with a lot of collateral damage. Yvraine just snaps her fingers and instantly restores a bunch of Thousands Sons. Then she throws them into the warp for Ahriman to chase down because Trazyn was on holiday from troll duty. 😄

So I am planning to do a proxy of pre and post version of Arihman as outwardly, he doesn't change too drastically beyond getting a really cool helmet (He killed a Amon, another Thousand Sons for that helmet.) Beneath the helmet...well let's just say being the Architect of Fate's favored servant comes with some serious ramifications. I also had some ideas for pre Heresy unhelmed Ahriman including a version where his namesake was taken from, Angra Mainyu the evil spirit found in Zoroastrianism. Oh and he'll get a really cool Chaos ride as well. No self respecting sorcerer walks on the battlefield. I'll also make his post heresy version more Chaos-y later this month. 👍

And at long last, Malus Darkblade gets to make his debut! So like Morathi, I know basically nothing about the character except he was possessed by a Daemon and wields the Warpsword of Khaine. Apparently, it's one of five artefacts he needs to rid himself of the Daemon but I'm sure fans know more about his situation than I do. Really like his armor though, slick Blackguard style! So I'll stick to this as much as possible. If Malus Darkblade fans have any specific requests, please let me know!

A few other updates:

Some community members have reported that they are not getting the welcome pack information/reward links. Most of the time, this seems related to email account settings that block messages from certain sites or they get moved into spam. If you are eligible for this month's items but haven't received them please PM me and I'll sort it out. Just a reminder, this information is also sent out automatically on pledge/renewal dates.

Next up is Daemon Targaryen and his Dragon Caraxes. I will also be doing a Fantasy cross promotion later this month. More information later, stay tuned!