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One of the things I enjoyed the most about older Codexes/fluff was that, now and again, they threw in a little something that would get you thinking about what you'd just read and whether you could trust it or not.

The grim darkness of the 41st millennium is a place where truth largely goes to die (at least, if you're a human or human-adjacent) and whatever the authorities are telling you, they're probably lying about. In fact, the opening scrawl of the old game Inquisitor - "EVERYTHING YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD IS A LIE" - really ranks in my top 10 little bits of flavour text in a GW game for this reason. It sets the tone so well for the kind of setting you're getting into and the things the characters you're going to interact with are prepared to do in order to survive.

It feels a little bit like this has fallen by the wayside in recent times, however. In general, it seems there's more of a turn to "sales pitch" fluff, intended to get you hyped for using your little fellas on the field of battle. I don't think that's a bad thing in and of itself - besides grotz, who likes a unit that's described as "indescribably bad, sucks immensely" by its own flavour text? - but I'd also like a more obvious return of this feeling that you were reading propaganda, at least with the Imperium/Imperium-adjacent units, so as to bring out more of that Grimdark goodness.

So I guess I'm asking - what's you guys' thoughts on this? Do you think it's a thing we need more of, or are you happy? And any favourite examples?

I much preferred the older style of much of the lore being through a lense of in-universe transcripts and notes and cogitator files. It also allowed for discrepancies between lore to be easily reconciled as one or both accounts being false.

Forge World was probably the last holdout of this style to a degree- the Horus Heresy black books were written from the perspective of an Imperial historian writing after the Heresy was over. Clearly a historian with exceptionally high security clearances, perhaps working for the nascent Inquisition.

 YeeeMako wrote:
besides grotz, who likes a unit that's described as "indescribably bad, sucks immensely" by its own flavour text?

I'm confused here, you're asking for more in-universe propaganda but also complaining about a unit description written from the point of view of an ork warboss?

 Haighus wrote:
I much preferred the older style of much of the lore being through a lense of in-universe transcripts and notes and cogitator files. It also allowed for discrepancies between lore to be easily reconciled as one or both accounts being false.

Forge World was probably the last holdout of this style to a degree- the Horus Heresy black books were written from the perspective of an Imperial historian writing after the Heresy was over. Clearly a historian with exceptionally high security clearances, perhaps working for the nascent Inquisition.

Yeah It’s a science fantasy setting not science fiction. The human empire has stagnated and survives because they have preserved the most fundamental aspects of maintaining a civilisation that was built by more advance humans through religious oppression. There is no truth because no one is capable of understanding the reality the live in.

I would have preferred it though if each codex looked through the lense of the species the codex was for. An ork and eldar narrator giving their version of the truth about galaxy changing events. Even saying that the HH from their perspective was a minor conflict between the humans as a juxtaposition of the HH being the biggest event in history

It’s a Galaxy of ignorance.

Even the oldest species are insane, fallen, shattered.

We’re told the Black Library contains knowledge undreamt of. But…does it? Who’s to truly say? Their own history is mythical, and presented as such. When your expression and passing of knowledge involves so many subtleties of intonation, stance, pose, inflection etc, how quickly does the truth erode?

Orks just….live in the moment. They like tall tales about mighty Waaaghs, but tend to live in the present.

Necrons? Who knows. I mean, we’re told there was once a command code which allowed the Silent King absolute power, included a part of biotransference. It’s well within the realms of possibility that parts of their history were excised then (Nobody will now remember that one time I call the teacher Mum!), or entirely replaced. Even the Silent King wouldn’t know if that was done to him, because of such a conspiracy’s very nature.

Even the Leagues of Votann don’t know their full history.

Tau however do seem to have solid historical records. But in Galactic terms they’re pretty much 3, so don’t count.

Our history is a mystery to most of us. India gained independence from the British empire in 1947, 2 years after then end of the 2nd world war. We learned alllllll about WW2 but not a single mention of the British empire in 14 years of education which why most people in the UK think the British empire all happened hundreds of years ago.

I’m sure the black library does contain all sort of forgotten stuff that could be of incredible value but I also expect that it’s vast and hard to search through. So if you don’t know it’s in there you aren’t going to go looking for it

Haighus wrote:I much preferred the older style of much of the lore being through a lense of in-universe transcripts and notes and cogitator files. It also allowed for discrepancies between lore to be easily reconciled as one or both accounts being false.

Forge World was probably the last holdout of this style to a degree- the Horus Heresy black books were written from the perspective of an Imperial historian writing after the Heresy was over. Clearly a historian with exceptionally high security clearances, perhaps working for the nascent Inquisition.

Yeah, those FW books really rocked, actually. Again, I love the way it lets you peek behind the curtain a bit at what someone in that universe might think of it. Is it reliable in any way, or to be taken as given? Nah, but it's such a cool little character moment and it gives real flavour to what's going on.

ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 YeeeMako wrote:
besides grotz, who likes a unit that's described as "indescribably bad, sucks immensely" by its own flavour text?

I'm confused here, you're asking for more in-universe propaganda but also complaining about a unit description written from the point of view of an ork warboss?

What's to be confused about? I get why GW hypes up their own units, basically, though the house style of these days doesn't feel so "in-universe" as it did for me before. "Besides grotz" is the joke - I like them being described as bad because they are bad, and GW's fluff text for them is funny to me. Thought that was relatively clear, but guess not.

mrFickle wrote:I would have preferred it though if each codex looked through the lense of the species the codex was for. An ork and eldar narrator giving their version of the truth about galaxy changing events. Even saying that the HH from their perspective was a minor conflict between the humans as a juxtaposition of the HH being the biggest event in history

Yeah, I think this is my favourite kind of flavour text - if done right. You could arguably say that's what the Codexes do already, to be fair, but because of the style most of it is written in, to me the fluff feels more like the Voice of the Design Studio than the musings of Farseer Oldrad the Ancient or what have you. Obviously a bit of non-in universe stuff is necessary to get over the basic description of what faction you're reading about, but a nice blend of in-universe "perspective" pieces would be great too!

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:It’s a Galaxy of ignorance.

Even the oldest species are insane, fallen, shattered.

We’re told the Black Library contains knowledge undreamt of. But…does it? Who’s to truly say? Their own history is mythical, and presented as such. When your expression and passing of knowledge involves so many subtleties of intonation, stance, pose, inflection etc, how quickly does the truth erode?

And what scope this gives for exploration, eh! For me, this is the setting's strongest asset, and when they do explore it, it's absolutely great!

They've lost a lot of the first person quotes that evoked this atmosphere.

The books and codexes were littered with great quotes that were ridiculous:

'an open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded'

'some may say 'why kill the alien?' I say, 'why not?'

etc

They've lost that part of the setting. IMO it was tied to Blanche's art quite a lot, like the two of them combined generated an atmospheric tone and feeling that you don't get anymore.

The books just look like one of innumerable rpg books. Nothing stands out anymore.

I agree. That was debated not so long ago but yes, the setting is now presented way more seriously than it was, more factually, and to my mind, it's not as good.

I like the in universe propaganda approache because it both settles a canon and actually tell you to go wild and feel in the blanks or imagine how it would truly be. As I consider 40k as firstly a sand box setting of a RPG rather than a game first and foremost, I'd prefer the old take on it by far.

I listened to the imperial armour series but never read through them unfortunately because finding them in France is simply unaffordable:.never found any under the 70 euros mark...

Yeah, it's definitely fair to say that those old first-person quotes were a really big part of what made the setting stand out. That and the little scenarios in those grey boxes the old codexes had.

That poor old fella who got court-martialled and presumably shot for accurately describing the existence and tactics of ork kommandos, for instance? Pure art, in my opinion.

A lot of Orky insights come from first person snippets. For instance, Orky thoughts on interstellar travel.

Travellin' through space is boring. Well, boring unless da hulk yer on is full of dem gene-sneakers, or a base fer da chaos lads wiv da spikes, or already has Boyz on it. Or if humie lootas come callin', that's always good fer a bit a sport. Or unless yer have a mutiny or two to pass da time, or unless strange fings start happenin', which dey usually do when yer out in da warp. One time we had some bloody great ugly fing come straight out of Weird Lugwort's 'ed! It butchered half da lads, that was pretty entertainin'. Come ter fink of it, space is a pretty good larf. And that's before yer find yerself a nice world ta crush!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
A lot of Orky insights come from first person snippets. For instance, Orky thoughts on interstellar travel.

Travellin' through space is boring. Well, boring unless da hulk yer on is full of dem gene-sneakers, or a base fer da chaos lads wiv da spikes, or already has Boyz on it. Or if humie lootas come callin', that's always good fer a bit a sport. Or unless yer have a mutiny or two to pass da time, or unless strange fings start happenin', which dey usually do when yer out in da warp. One time we had some bloody great ugly fing come straight out of Weird Lugwort's 'ed! It butchered half da lads, that was pretty entertainin'. Come ter fink of it, space is a pretty good larf. And that's before yer find yerself a nice world ta crush!

This one is particularly fantastic - and amusingly enough, also fits the bill for unreliable narration given that the ol' lad making the point clearly changes his mind halfway through his spiel. Always loved it, a very good insight into how the orks think about the setting!

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
I agree. That was debated not so long ago but yes, the setting is now presented way more seriously than it was, more factually, and to my mind, it's not as good.

I like the in universe propaganda approache because it both settles a canon and actually tell you to go wild and feel in the blanks or imagine how it would truly be. As I consider 40k as firstly a sand box setting of a RPG rather than a game first and foremost, I'd prefer the old take on it by far.

I listened to the imperial armour series but never read through them unfortunately because finding them in France is simply unaffordable:.never found any under the 70 euros mark...

It also ironically made the setting more consistent. Because you saw most things from first person view, you 1) knew what was objectively true because when it switches to an omniscient narrator, you knew it was talking about what is true from the writer's perspective, and 2) Because you see the same events and ideas from multiple points of view, it allows you to pull out the truth of the matter by what all parties more or less agreed upon.

Now because everything is laid out more matter-of-factly it's harder to discount the contradictions. Their age-old excuse (because that's what it is) of "everything is canon, not everything is true" doesn't hold water when you portray something from an objective 3rd person POV.

Agreed. And more immersive. I've repeated it a couple of times because oviously i'm some kind of broken cd, but the universe lacks xeno on xeno action, xeno points of view. That stuff that when you read about it, you put the book down with a spark going, heck yeah, what if we played a fun campaign about that bit with the pals? That's what I like from this game first and foremost.