Only The Truly Divine Deny Their Own Divinity (Grimdark WIP)

Hello!

A fascinating Grimdark month has begun!

As usual, the majority of the Grimdark WIPs are not on Patreon anymore.  But community members can still access the latest WIPs as mentioned in previous posts.  Just to be thorough, community members will receive an email with the access information as well.

Please leave any comments/feedback/reactions on this post like you would normally do. Thanks!

This post is going to be deep dive lore dissection of Lorgar as a character. It's pretty long so please read only if you're really interested in this sort of thing.

So before I go into one of my customary rants, I think I should establish some basic talking points. As I'm sure all Grimdark fans are aware, Lorgar has a reputation of being the most hated Primarch in the setting. That's kind of an understatement...to say he's hated is like saying Horus is kind of dead. I mean he is the last Primarch to be voted through and very reluctantly. If you've read the HH series, it's not hard to see why, the stuff he does to the loyalists, his brothers and his own followers is pretty abhorrent. Sometimes I wonder if Lorgar's narrative arcs were concocted by actual agents of Chaos. 🤔

Anyways, nothing I've ever read in the HH series has endeared me to the character. But unlike some characters that I consider permanently meme tier, I don't think Lorgar's badly written. Sure, I question a lot of narrative choices but overall his character arc is interesting and moves the heresy forward in tangible ways.

And at the end of the day, I'm glad there are characters like Lorgar in the setting because they are what makes the Horus Heresy stand out from the rest of the pack. I'd rather hate the character than be apathetic to him because apathy is the worst kind of death for any setting. Plus it will make things much more satisfying when Corax gets to give him impromptu battlefield surgery. 😈

Speaking of which, that will come sometime in the future but not this month. Every Primarch gets one month to shine and this month I'll try to acknowledge Lorgar's accomplishments before absolutely dragging him through the mud. Because even if you hate Lorgar's guts, it's hard to deny that his influence on the setting is incalculable, however unintentional that might have been. I daresay he's actually the second most influential Primarch after Horus in terms of the legacy he left behind. Because at one point, Lorgar did want to help humanity, albeit in a very warped way (that's how Magnus put it anyways).

Anyways, to start off, I think it's worth mentioning what makes Lorgar and the Word Bearers unique among the Legions. See, Lorgar is not a warlord. From a martial standpoint he's always been considered the runt of the litter with his abysmal (for a Primarch) Weapon Skill of 6.

However, the 17th Primarch and his sons do have a very OP kind of skill and that's the power of persuasion. They have the gift of gab, the mastery of oratory. In other words, they've maxed out speechcraft to 100 and can convince the most skeptical person to do really stupid things. If you've tried this in any Fallout game with a Charisma 10 character you know how broken this can get. The huge drawback with this power is that Word Bearers are susceptible to drinking each other's Kool-Aid. So if a particularly loathsome character comes along and I don't know...convinces you that you should start worshipping cosmic parasites again then everyone's up the creek without a paddle. 🤦‍♂️

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Going back to Lorgar, if I had to sum him up in one word, it would be fanatic. With all the emotional baggage that comes with that definition. His upbringing (which was admittedly awful) definitely didn't help his perspective on things. Colchis is basically Mad Max in space with the added caveat everyone is worshipping the Dark Gods in disguise. And if you're raised by Chaos worshippers while retaining them as your closest advisors, there is no way you won't be a basket case.

Interestingly, Lorgar actually rejected worship of the Dark Gods at first as he had lifelong visions of a golden figure arriving on Colchis who he believed was the one true god. He even waged holy wars against the Old Faith, ensuring everyone was a Big E worshipper even before He arrived. And when the Emperor actually did find his son, Lorgar was overcome with joy, believing he had been doing the Emperor's work all along.

And yes, Lorgar did genuinely love the Emperor or at least he loved the idea of the Emperor being the one true god. Because the 17th Legion Primarch is fundamentally a deeply spiritual character, a true believer and that spiritualism needs some sort of outlet. And while Big E told Lorgar to cut out all the worship and presumably told him what the Great Crusade was really about, that probably wouldn't sink into the mind of someone who has religious fervor ingrained into their identity. Lorgar was going to make the Emperor a god in the eyes of humanity whether He liked it or not. Yes, the phrase 'Only the truly divine deny their own divinity' is actually written in the Lectitio Divinitatus. I always remembered that phrase mostly because it was so funny to me.

But the point is Lorgar did write the the Lectitio Divinitatus and it is without doubt the most important piece of literature in the entire setting. Sure, Big Papa Smurf's book is probably discussed way more for it's contentious rules but it's actually the Lectitio Divinitatus that is far more impactful in the grand scheme of things.

To put things into perspective, the Codex Astartes is studied with varying degrees of irony by the Space Marines but that's a million at most at any given time. The Lectitio Divinatus would eventually spread and be read by the countless quadrillions of the Imperium, every passage recited and taken as gospel from the highest Lords to the lowest serfs toiling in the Hive Cities.

But again I'm flipping to the end so let's dial back to the Great Crusade. When Lorgar and the Word Bearers first started conquering worlds, it already had a very different vibe to the other Legions and most of the Imperium was giving the 17th Legion weird looks for their...unique brand of marketing.

Whereas most were trying to conquer them as quickly as possible to meet certain quotas, the 17th Legion took their time to consolidate, making sure each planet was firmly enshrined with the teachings of the Lectitio. This basically said that the Emperor was god and humanity owed all their worship to Him which was a huge contradiction to the Imperial Truth.

This did mean each world conquered was fervently loyal to the Emperor, but this conversion process was also incredibly slow. Not only were the 17th Legion lagging far behind the other Legions, they were also distorting the message of the Imperial Truth. The Lectitio Divinitatus wasn't widely circulated at this point, only confined to Word Bearer's territory but it did start leaking out into the wider Imperium like hidden notes passed around in the classrooms. This started out as pamphlets and covert sects of worship, always hidden but known to the higher ups. And at some point, Big E had had enough and decided to make an example of Lorgar and his Legion.

I'm going to skip most of the details on this event because frankly I feel there are huge narrative logic holes. But TLDR, the Smurfs evacuated Lorgar's favorite city then destroyed it. Big E forces Lorgar and the Word Bearers to kneel and tell them they should be more like the Smurfs (i.e. practical and efficient instead of superstitious and slow). Because telling Smurf haters to be more like the thing they despise is a sure fire way to get them to do just that.

Lorgar's punishment did do the job and made sure the Word Bearers would go full traitor mode. What happens next is also pretty stomach churning so I'm going to gloss over most of the details. I will say I think these scenes are actually well written but I don't think patreon will let me keep up the descriptions. Let's just say Erebus convinces Lorgar to take a pilgrimage to Cadia (yes, that Cadia), talk with some very shady characters and send his sons into the Eye of Terror for some...enlightenment. The rest as they say, is history.

I've covered the Horus Heresy events multiple times so I'll try not to repeat the parts I've mentioned already. But Lorgar was part of the Dropsite Massacre and that famous one sided fight with Corax that I've been trying to hype up.

Other major highlights include the surprise attack against the Smurfs at the Battle of Calth. While he wasn't there personally, he did do a lot of the planning and may or may not have been trolling Guilliman in Know No Fear. This eventually resulted in the Ruinstorm, a massive warp storm that prevented loyalists from communicating and reinforcing each other. He was also part of the Shadow Crusade which involved committing tons of war crimes on around 26 out of 500 worlds of Ultramar. He also personally elevated Angron to Daemon Prince during the climatic battle at Nuceria.

Finally, he tries to make a power grab for traitor leadership but Horus pummels him pretty severely and effectively kicks him out of the forces participating in the Siege of Terra. Nothing's been written about how he became a Daemon Prince but I'm pretty sure that will be covered in the Scouring at some point. Oh right, he also wrote the Book of Lorgar but for some reason that wasn't quite as big a hit as his first book.

Okay, that was a lot of ground to cover. But if you take anything away from this incredibly long post, let it be this. In a setting whose very foundations are built upon irony, Lorgar's Lectitio Divinitatus is the biggest building block of all. The Imperium (and by extension) humanity is held together by a book written by a heretic who changed sides before things really took off. The Emperor, who never wanted to be a god in the eyes of humanity is now worshipped as the only true one while His original Imperial Truth is treated as the gravest of heresies.

The Sisters and Adeptus Ministorum recite the Lectitio Divinatus' hymns and creeds on countless worlds with a zeal and fervor matched only by that most fanatical of Legions from where it originated. The Emperor Protects and all those other catchphrases? Lorgar wrote them. Chaplains and their oratory skills? Word Bearers did it first and they probably did it better than any other Legion. Everyone's been cribbing from the 17th Legion's cheat sheet for ten thousand years because hey, it works and there's never been a better solution. Faith has kept humanity together in the face of xenos, the predations of the warps, heretics and truly awful leadership. In the end, faith in the God Emperor is all they have, their only armor.

Nowadays, Guilliman has to give lip service to the idea of the God Emperor just to get anything done. It is the source of Ultra Depression for Big Papa Smurf because not only can he not get rid of the modern Imperium's fanaticism, it's fundamentally ingrained into the whole system. Lorgar would be laughing his ass off if he wasn't so busy hiding from Corax. But that faith that the Emperor tried to cast down has also massively empowered Him in ways no one truly expected and probably not in a way modern Daemon Prince Lorgar would appreciate.

So while I don't think you should look any more kindly upon Lorgar, I do think it's worth taking a step back and see how we all ended up in this mess.

Okay, this post is way too long as it is so let's move on. For visuals, if you look closely at Lorgar's warplate, it is actually intricately inlaid with his scripts from his books. It's also been said Lorgar is the Primarch whose features most closely resemble the Emperor's. But that means absolutely nothing since Big E's appearance changes more frequently than the Angry Company's prices. So I've chosen to make Lorgar look like a terrifying amalgamation of Lex Luthor, Handsome Squigward and Mr. Clean.

His weapon, Illuminarum was crafted by Ferrus because of course BL writers can't resist giving another black mark on the Gorgon's record. But if any weapon deserves to be on fire, it's the one called Illuminarum, so there you go.

By this point I can already hear the spitting, muttered curses and racking of bolters amongst the loyalist members of the community. So here's a couple of palate cleansers.

First off is my version of the Imperial Knight. As I mentioned last month, I feel like Imperial Knight players are looking for a new kind of model instead of the standard lineup. So I tried my best to make a very distinct version of this unit while making it blatantly obvious it's an Imperial version and not a Chaos one. Right now I've got a standard armament of giant power sword and plasma cannons but if I'll try to add weapon and more helmet variations throughout the month. Is there any weapon combination players really like? Please let me know!

And finally, the Raven Lord is already chomping at the bit, ready to lay the Emperor of all smackdowns. Jokes aside, I just randomly found this painter's Instagram about a week ago and all I can say is "Holy Emperor". 😲 Yes, the painter gave me permission to show these and it is the best painted version of Corax I've ever seen. 🤩💯🔥🏆👍

Grimdark WIPs for Asurmen and the Warp Spider are up next, stay tuned!