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The Imperial Records, an extensive compendium documenting over 40,000 years of human history across the galaxy, embody a complex narrative of knowledge preservation amidst censorship and loss. This study delves into the multifaceted nature of these records, which oscillate between being apocryphal, incomplete, censored, or heretical, yet stand as the primary source of historical knowledge …
The experience of imprisonment is an experience of powerlessness. Prisoners get to control almost nothing about their lives. Many turn to creative pastimes as a way to escape, to pass the time and to reassert control over a part of their lives. Prisoners may build with matchsticks, write or draw. When I was a prisoner …
Abstract “Everything is Canon” or so goes the meme which exploded through the Warhammer 40,000 online community in mid April 2024. In reaction to the ostensibly new revelation of female Custodes in the 10th Edition a proportion of 40K fans declared this news as “heretical” and a betrayal of the fandom. In response Games Workshop …
One would expect the Horus Heresy series to only expand on background information already available in Warhammer 40,000 rulebooks and codices to create fully-fledged novels. With the first novel ‘Horus Rising’ (written by Dan Abnett and published in 2006), however, the authors began already to add new aspects to the background story. For example, they …
This case study reflects advising a Warhammer Alliance club at a private Northern California Middle School and the observations of American middle schoolers. From collaborative storytelling, low risk/high rewards probability models, and the exploration of 41st Millennium “Grimdark” themes of Theocracy, Imperialism, and Xenophobia while promoting 21st century SEL skills of Inclusivity and Peer relations, …
A major theme in the bestselling book series The Horus Heresy is fatherhood. The inciting incident of the series is the abandonment of Horus Lupercal by his father The Emperor, and many of the primarchs struggle with their positions as gene-fathers to the adeptus astartes, as well as to the various father figures in their …
The Imperium of Man is an explicitly eugenic state, pursing its obsessive campaign of purifying humanity at all costs. Both those with conventional disabilities and the crip-coded psykers and mutants are routinely either purged from the gene pool or are “cured” through super-science that erase disability as an identity category, including via the elimination of …
For many fans of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, John Blanche needs no introduction. He simply is Warhammer. His work has inspired thousands, if not millions of hobbyists across the globe in a career that spanned decades, and has literally shaped a whole genre of art and literature, known as Grimdark. In this keynote John joins …
Catachans and Tyranids are two of Warhammer 40K’s most identifiable factions. But what is it like to write them? Using the example of her debut novel, Deathworlder, Black Library author Victoria Hayward shares her creative process to writing these iconic factions, her approach to writing Warhammer 40K, character development, world-building and writing the first full …