Latest / The Bad Moon's Orbit / Episode 10: Khorne, the God of Violence

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Episode 10: Khorne, the God of Violence · The Bad Moon's Orbit

• 0:38
  Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of The
• 0:41
  Bad Memes Orbit. I am Dalton Montgomery, your
• 0:44
  Warhammer aficionado. And I'm Darian smart and I'm
• 0:46
  pretty sure Warhammer is just a very aggressive ham sandwich.
• 0:51
  We are back again. Today.
• 0:54
  We are heading into the Age of Chaos, and appropriately, we're
• 0:59
  going to be talking about to the Chaos Gods.
• 1:01
  Today. Specifically, we're going to be
• 1:03
  talking about the first amongst the Chaos Gods who predates all
• 1:07
  others, Corn, the God of violence.
• 1:11
  But before we get into that, let's do our gameplay love
• 1:15
  segment. We remembered.
• 1:18
  I don't have a solid name for it yet, but I like gameplay love a
• 1:20
  little bit. Yeah.
• 1:22
  Yeah. Do you have any Darian?
• 1:24
  No. You should.
• 1:25
  Go first. OK, I'm actually going to talk
• 1:26
  about. I have one for next episode, so
• 1:29
  I'm not going to use that one yet.
• 1:31
  But this time I'm actually going to take a moment where we're
• 1:35
  talking about the God of violence today.
• 1:37
  I'm going to date this episode just a little bit.
• 1:39
  I have been playing the new Elden Ring DLC.
• 1:42
  I'm going to talk about a video game mechanic.
• 1:45
  For those who aren't aware of Elden Ring is a game by Hidataka
• 1:49
  Miyazaki and From Software, the creators of Dark Souls.
• 1:53
  And so it is in that tradition of Dark Souls and going back to
• 1:58
  the DLC, getting to re experience one of my favorite
• 2:00
  things the genre has ever done, which is that at any point in
• 2:03
  Dark Souls like games, you can just leave a message on the
• 2:08
  ground and that yeah. And that message will appear for
• 2:12
  all of their players who are in that area.
• 2:15
  And whereas because I'll go back and play like the main through
• 2:18
  line of Eldon Ring sometimes and I just don't even check messages
• 2:21
  because I know the game already pretty well getting into the DLC
• 2:25
  and like seeing two or three messages before the outlet of a
• 2:28
  hallway or whatever and checking them and they're like, oh, be
• 2:31
  wary of left. And then not getting caught out
• 2:33
  by an enemy. Like that is not something that
• 2:36
  the desire had to put in. They didn't have to put a big
• 2:38
  signpost that went like, oh, watch your left hand side.
• 2:42
  Yeah. It doesn't feel like the
• 2:44
  developer is trying to put on kids gloves with you.
• 2:47
  It feels like the community getting together to overcome a
• 2:50
  challenge. And that's beautiful.
• 2:52
  That's such a good design. And I'm always enough From
• 2:55
  Software. That's awesome.
• 2:56
  Yeah, that's a super cool thing. Yeah, I'm a fan.
• 3:00
  I thought of a thing. Nice.
• 3:02
  I don't know how to articulate it very well.
• 3:05
  So it'd be like the kinds of games where in it is super
• 3:11
  beneficial to have inside jokes with other players.
• 3:15
  So like Dixit, Yeah. Or Mysterium, Yeah.
• 3:20
  Games that rely on like one person is gonna give a clue that
• 3:25
  other people have to understand, but you don't necessarily want.
• 3:28
  Or like in Mysterium, you want everyone to understand the clue,
• 3:32
  but in Dixit, you don't want everyone to understand, but you
• 3:35
  do want someone at least to get it.
• 3:37
  Yeah. So that weird.
• 3:40
  It's how I once bullied a friend into listening to the adventures
• 3:45
  of the podcast because everyone else I was playing with had
• 3:48
  listened to the podcast and we were just making references.
• 3:52
  And so we were all getting lots of points.
• 3:53
  And he was not, because he would not be able to guess what the
• 3:56
  abstract thing we were talking about.
• 3:58
  No. Hard references, which is not
• 4:00
  very nice, but. It's a game.
• 4:02
  But then literally by the next day he was like, yes, I'm almost
• 4:06
  done with the first arc. I'm like.
• 4:08
  Yes, perfect. But yeah, that I don't know.
• 4:11
  Just like beyond just having the inside jokes and references to
• 4:15
  bully your one friend into joining, just that element of I
• 4:19
  know, I know you're going to get this.
• 4:22
  Like I can trust and then they don't, but someone else does.
• 4:24
  It's like OK friendship with you ended new best friend let me
• 4:29
  down loose. I I like that is an outside like
• 4:33
  meta element of the game that's nevertheless part of it and
• 4:36
  that's really interesting. 100% awesome.
• 4:40
  But yeah, talking about corn today, if you have been
• 4:44
  listening along to our previous episodes, they have been pretty
• 4:47
  structured. We tend to follow a little bit
• 4:48
  of a chronology. We're going to go a little bit
• 4:51
  more broad when we talk about the Chaos Gods.
• 4:54
  I think because the Chaos Gods a defy structure a little bit,
• 4:59
  that that's what they are. I just called corn the oldest of
• 5:03
  the Chaos Gods. We don't know if that's true.
• 5:05
  We don't. We don't know if time ever
• 5:07
  really means anything to the Chaos Gods.
• 5:09
  Who knows, right? Why would they be subjected to
• 5:11
  something as foolish as? Time, right?
• 5:13
  So mundane. Corn is often depicted as the
• 5:16
  oldest of the Chaos gods because that is the lens through which
• 5:19
  mortals tend to view him, right? Violence comes before treachery,
• 5:25
  comes before stagnation, comes before excess.
• 5:28
  Violence is an innate thing, even as simple as like the act
• 5:33
  of hunting or whatever is an act of violence.
• 5:35
  I'll say right at the top, I don't like how corn spells and
• 5:38
  lizards. I know you were waiting for it.
• 5:39
  Darien's opinion on the way the letters have been combined to
• 5:43
  make this word Don't love it. Don't like that H Don't like
• 5:47
  that K Really don't like that E there.
• 5:51
  He's got a little bit of a weird name, the the H is a running
• 5:54
  joke, and a lot of things you'll get rules for, like playing corn
• 5:58
  in the actual tabletop game where something that could be
• 6:01
  spelled with AC is spelled with AKH instead.
• 6:05
  Well, now I appreciate the consistency.
• 6:07
  Yeah. I appreciate that.
• 6:09
  Yeah, so when we talk about Corn, I've said it before, Corn
• 6:15
  is the God of violence. All of the chaos gods don't fit
• 6:18
  cleanly into being one single thing.
• 6:20
  So while violence is Corn's primary trait, he is also the
• 6:26
  God of rage. He is possibly best known as
• 6:30
  being the God of blood, as a counterpart to or as a
• 6:35
  compliment to being the God of violence, the God of skulls.
• 6:39
  And all of these things are contained within corn and also
• 6:43
  fragmentary parts of corn. Some people worship corn only as
• 6:48
  violence. Some people worship corn only as
• 6:50
  skulls. Some people worship corn only as
• 6:52
  rage. And most of the people who
• 6:55
  worship corn don't know the name corn.
• 6:59
  Yeah, it's So we're going to get into this happens through the
• 7:04
  Age of Chaos, which is part of why I said we're going to
• 7:07
  abandon chronology a little bit for this episode.
• 7:09
  We're going to get back to it. We're going to talk about how
• 7:11
  Corn, like most powerfully entered the realms and started
• 7:15
  causing stuff, but through the Age of Chaos, when Chaos gets a
• 7:19
  much more solid hold on the realms.
• 7:22
  Part of that is through the direct incursion of Chaos and
• 7:26
  Chaos worshippers, people who know Corn's true name and want
• 7:30
  to spread him and his influence. But a lot of it is through
• 7:34
  almost kind of a syncratic process where people who would
• 7:40
  not vibe with Corn's thing, the the violence in the bloodshed,
• 7:45
  instead have existing beliefs or existing traditions corrupted to
• 7:51
  be corn aligned. This happens a lot on actually
• 7:57
  Realm of Fire because actually is already a place of high
• 8:00
  passion. It's already a place of kind of
• 8:02
  spontaneity and so, and it's a place that has wide sweeping
• 8:07
  traditions of like ritual combat.
• 8:10
  Yeah, OK. And I can see how that can get
• 8:11
  corrupted. Yeah, it's something as simple
• 8:14
  as all Chaos gods have a holy number.
• 8:17
  Corns is 8. It is something as simple as.
• 8:22
  Yeah, even something as simple as, hey, you know, these ritual
• 8:25
  like combats that we hold. What if instead of 10
• 8:28
  participants, there were eight of them?
• 8:30
  Really. That's subtly.
• 8:31
  Yeah. Oh my God.
• 8:33
  Yeah. That can subtly empower corn.
• 8:36
  Absolutely. That's wild.
• 8:38
  Yes, well, like totally, because it's like the concept of the the
• 8:42
  religious belief and practices is in how it is done and that is
• 8:45
  what apparently gives it power. So even if someone doesn't who
• 8:48
  gets to make that call doesn't know that it's going to give him
• 8:50
  power, it's still it's like that thing in Good Omens.
• 8:54
  That's just like the TV show where Crowley the demon reworked
• 8:58
  how like a fucking highway was going to move around London and
• 9:00
  literally turned it into like a hell big big.
• 9:05
  Satanic symbol? Yeah.
• 9:06
  What's the the line? He has a million people
• 9:10
  contributing to something they're not even aware of in
• 9:12
  tiny ways. Just inconvenience, yeah.
• 9:18
  And it works literally personally in the fire.
• 9:20
  During your. Pocket wasn't and he has to
• 9:22
  drive through it. Yeah, I.
• 9:25
  Can't. It's so good.
• 9:27
  It's so good. The the ultimate thing that
• 9:32
  Chaos does right is corrupt. And so the idea that existing
• 9:38
  beliefs and existing practices can be hijacked by Chaos is
• 9:43
  something we're going to see across all of the Chaos gods.
• 9:46
  So rude. Absolutely.
• 9:48
  So rude. If you were invited, you don't
• 9:50
  even go here. Brass is corn's holy metal.
• 9:53
  OK, It's brass knuckles. Yeah, of course.
• 9:57
  Yeah, brass knuckles, it's a kind of complex like weapon
• 10:01
  metal, more durable than bronze, but not as hard to find as iron.
• 10:05
  And so that's kind of and it was the earliest like weapon making
• 10:08
  metal in in real human history. And so changing the ceremonial
• 10:13
  garb someone wears for ritual combat to be mostly brass or
• 10:16
  having them re force their weapons and brass, those are
• 10:19
  other ways that corn can kind of.
• 10:21
  You had iron. Yeah, this is.
• 10:24
  Weirdly specific, yeah. And then other like that can be
• 10:29
  that subtle shift. There's the, like I said, the
• 10:31
  outright worship of corn where you just know who he is and you
• 10:35
  know what his vibe is and you've decided that that is the path
• 10:38
  that you want to walk. Another thing that we're going
• 10:39
  to see come up a lot as we talk about the Chaos Gods.
• 10:42
  The in universe term for openly accepting and choosing to
• 10:48
  worship chaos is called walking the Path to Glory.
• 10:52
  Oh wow, that's some branding, right?
• 10:54
  There. Someone got paid, I hope they
• 10:56
  had a bonus for Christmas for that marketing.
• 10:58
  I'm sure, I'm sure. And it's exactly what it sounds
• 11:02
  like you. Maybe you are someone who is
• 11:05
  already esteemed as a combatant, who is known as a warrior.
• 11:10
  But you crave more. You want to be not just a great
• 11:15
  warrior, you want to be the best warrior.
• 11:17
  And so you adopt corn as your edge.
• 11:20
  You walk that path towards glory.
• 11:22
  Maybe you are the downtrodden and the destitute, where glory
• 11:25
  for you is just surviving day-to-day.
• 11:29
  That is another attribute of it. And so those are kind of the two
• 11:34
  extremes of chaos worship that we're going to see propagate
• 11:37
  through the age of chaos is people who are openly walking
• 11:39
  the path and people who are unknowingly walking the path,
• 11:42
  basically. Oh, rude.
• 11:43
  That lie didn't. Count like I.
• 11:46
  Understand why. It does count, but like, you
• 11:49
  have to rely on people unknowingly worshipping you.
• 11:51
  You just, you're just not good enough, Correct?
• 11:53
  You're just not good enough. It's like if you have to draft
• 11:55
  people to fight your war, like maybe you're not doing a good
• 11:57
  job as a government. I don't know.
• 12:00
  And there are people who I would say fall into like the middle
• 12:03
  field people who and these are when I say most people don't
• 12:07
  know Corn's name, that's where I would put probably the no the
• 12:11
  majority is definitely in unknowing worship and not just
• 12:14
  accordingly is it to all the chaos gods get pretty widespread
• 12:17
  during the age of chaos. But the middle group is also a
• 12:20
  big chunk who do not know Corn, do not necessarily really
• 12:24
  understand his domains, don't know his name, but they worship
• 12:28
  the great brass bowl. And the great Brass Bowl says
• 12:32
  train your body and physicality and wear my holy brass and go
• 12:36
  and conquer in my name. And that is kind of the middle
• 12:40
  point where you are knowingly doing this stuff, this worship.
• 12:45
  You just don't know the end. Yeah, that's.
• 12:48
  OK, yeah, no nuts. Yeah, yeah, it's very, like I
• 12:52
  said, that the ultimate thing that chaos is is corrupting.
• 12:55
  And that is both in how it is worshipped and in its end
• 12:59
  results. Because the thing about the path
• 13:02
  to glory, and we're going to see this again.
• 13:04
  Come on. I'm going to say this is
• 13:05
  probably 100 times this episode. We're going to see this come up
• 13:07
  with all the chaos gods. Corn is violence.
• 13:12
  But corn, the God is not just violence.
• 13:18
  He is only violence. Does that make sense?
• 13:22
  No, no. Yeah, I said that weird because
• 13:26
  he's. Yeah, yeah, he's he's violence.
• 13:27
  He's bloody skulls. We we talked a little bit.
• 13:32
  And this is partially my attempt to respond to something I said
• 13:34
  in the Old World episode that's more complicated.
• 13:37
  In the Old world episode, I talked about like corneas,
• 13:39
  violence. And that can be like sadism and
• 13:42
  like maliciousness, but it can also be like the knight who
• 13:46
  rides to defend his home, or the the valiant like uprising
• 13:50
  against depression. Those things can begin in corn,
• 13:54
  but that is never the end for corn.
• 13:57
  You can do violence, and violence will empower corn, but
• 14:01
  if you start to walk the path to glory, it will never end with
• 14:06
  defending your home. Oh, OK.
• 14:08
  It'll just become about the violence and not be.
• 14:10
  Yes, OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:11
  Yeah, Yeah. So I guess it's more accurate to
• 14:14
  say corn is own. It's not that corn is only
• 14:17
  violent violence. It is that eventually corn makes
• 14:21
  you only violence if you walk the path.
• 14:24
  Yeah. Corruption.
• 14:25
  Yeah. Like in the Iliad, where you can
• 14:27
  have like Hector who is engaging in violence to defend his home.
• 14:30
  And then eventually this does not happen to Hector.
• 14:33
  But if he just became like into it and like eager to go out onto
• 14:38
  the battlefield just to commit violence and not just to defend
• 14:41
  his home, then you would see like that's the.
• 14:43
  That's the switch it it's. You forget about the thing you
• 14:47
  you started. What What Actually, there's a
• 14:48
  line. You've forgotten what you
• 14:51
  started fighting for. Yeah, yes, absolutely.
• 14:53
  Korn. Korn's most.
• 14:57
  We'll call it a second most famous epitaph or not epitaph
• 15:00
  catch phrase. Then he was.
• 15:02
  Like we just epitaph. Yeah, Catcher, because epitaph
• 15:07
  is like, because the Lord of Skulls.
• 15:09
  Corn, the Lord. But Corn's most famous catch
• 15:12
  phrase is blood for the Blood God.
• 15:14
  Skulls for the Skull Throne. That's the one you've heard,
• 15:16
  even if you're not a Warhammer fan.
• 15:17
  I've never heard that. Yeah, it's everywhere.
• 15:20
  It's catchy. He did it.
• 15:22
  Yeah. He's got a good catch phrase.
• 15:24
  The second is Corn cares not from whence the blood flows,
• 15:29
  only that it does. Yeah, doesn't.
• 15:31
  Matter to him. Absolutely.
• 15:33
  And that is Corn does not care about your revolution, he does
• 15:36
  not care about your homeland, he does not care about the people
• 15:40
  that you do violence on. He only cares that the blood
• 15:44
  flows. And so that is the risk of corn
• 15:48
  is that you can end the risk of all the cascots is that you can
• 15:51
  start the path to glory for good reasons, but you can never end
• 15:56
  it for them. So you.
• 15:57
  Can hypothetically like maybe there is someone whose village
• 16:01
  is starving because it's a hard winter and they are the like
• 16:03
  lone hunter and they start to worship corn to get better at
• 16:08
  hunting so they can bring back more food.
• 16:09
  And in time, they are no longer caring about whether or not they
• 16:13
  are killing to bring home meat or just killing to wipe out a
• 16:17
  population. Eventually you would just have a
• 16:19
  person who shoots the deer and leaves them in the field because
• 16:24
  they are looking for the next deer.
• 16:26
  Doesn't worry. About making sure the population
• 16:28
  can replenish. Itself and eventually deer won't
• 16:31
  suffice anymore and they know where a bunch of people are.
• 16:35
  Yeah, Oh yeah, that got even darker than where I was going.
• 16:37
  With it, yeah. There it is.
• 16:39
  Look at. That it gets dark yeah, I'm
• 16:42
  going to mention it because people are going to yell at us
• 16:44
  in the comments if I don't, but we aren't to that point yet in
• 16:46
  the chronology that whether I want to talk in detail about it.
• 16:49
  If you've been hearing. We talk about someone who starts
• 16:51
  the path to glory for a good reason but does not end on a
• 16:55
  good reason and that intrigues you or maybe you know where I'm
• 16:57
  going with this read God Eater's Son.
• 17:02
  There is a novel called God Eater's Son that is set in Age
• 17:05
  of Sigmar and it's really good and it's about a relatable
• 17:11
  protagonists fall to corn and it's extremely good.
• 17:16
  I am confident calling it the best Warhammer book and it's
• 17:19
  certainly the best depiction of a like likable characters fall
• 17:24
  to chaos in Warhammer. We could potentially do bonus
• 17:26
  episodes one day where we actually discuss like the not
• 17:29
  right, you just tell me about elements, but like I also read
• 17:31
  it and then we talk. About I would love that God God
• 17:34
  eater son is like top of that list and Gloomspite, which is my
• 17:37
  other favorite Warhammer novel that I'm not going to say
• 17:39
  anything more about because it's not the point of this episode.
• 17:41
  Not the point of this episode, but yeah, God Eater Son 100%
• 17:44
  depicts that. But we're not going to talk
• 17:46
  about the protagonist from God Eater's Son today who falls to
• 17:48
  corn. We are.
• 17:49
  Instead, we're going to jump back in the chronology to the
• 17:51
  beginning of the Age of Chaos, end of the Age of Myth, and we
• 17:55
  are going to talk about a man named Athos Cull.
• 17:58
  OK, sure man. His name has an KH in it.
• 18:00
  Thank you for asking. Yeah, hear.
• 18:02
  It this time I did. Hear it.
• 18:05
  Also, it's unclear if his name is Cull or Cool.
• 18:09
  I want it to be. The ladder Athos.
• 18:12
  Cool, right. So Athos Cool is a warrior from
• 18:22
  the cool tribe. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's stuck now.
• 18:27
  Yeah. I did this.
• 18:34
  He's a warrior from the cool tribe during the age of myth, so
• 18:37
  he he lives through. Well, he didn't live through
• 18:40
  probably Sigmar's initial visit to actually, because yeah, I was
• 18:44
  going to say a ton of time passes over the course of the
• 18:46
  Age of Myth, but he's certainly alive in kind of the transitory
• 18:50
  period between the Age of Myth and the Age of Chaos.
• 18:53
  He is from, like I said, the cool tribe on actually, which is
• 18:58
  a pretty kind of traditional action tribe.
• 19:01
  They've benefited from Sigmar's peace.
• 19:04
  They have benefited from the technology and the plentiful
• 19:07
  food and whatnot. But we are getting close to the
• 19:10
  age of myth where that like corruption has started to seep
• 19:13
  into the world and has started to cause conflict.
• 19:15
  And the coal tribe has beef with Batar, which is a neighbouring
• 19:23
  tribe slash nation. They've kind of made the jump
• 19:26
  from the start as a regional tribe to we are going to like
• 19:29
  set up borders and we're going to get very into trade.
• 19:32
  We have contacts with Carriedron in Chaman.
• 19:35
  We are going to get very into trade and we are going to
• 19:39
  influenced by the Carriedron who invent capitalism.
• 19:43
  We are going to speed run kind of the crap end of trade
• 19:47
  practices. Yeah, it's a yeah.
• 19:52
  It's a frustrating position to be in.
• 19:55
  Athos is not just a member of the coal tribe, but he is what
• 19:59
  is known as the spear bearer of the coal tribe, which is a very
• 20:03
  high-ranking ceremonial position.
• 20:04
  He is functionally the leader of their military that they don't
• 20:07
  really have like a standing military as we'd understand it.
• 20:10
  It's just to like rally the tribes like go to war situation.
• 20:14
  And it has gone largely and used since used since Sigmar's peace
• 20:18
  like. Spread across the realm So
• 20:21
  functionally Athos is a very well decorated like prize
• 20:25
  fighter at this point. He participates in that
• 20:28
  ceremonial combat, he is incredibly good at it, and part
• 20:31
  of his ceremonial duties is literally like keeping the
• 20:34
  bridge that leads to call territory from threats
• 20:40
  relatively cushy in the Age of Sigmar's peace.
• 20:42
  Not a, not a yeah, not a bad, not a bad gig.
• 20:45
  So while he is doing that, a merchant from Qatar comes to
• 20:53
  coal territory and details are sparse, but the impression we
• 20:59
  get is that this merchant is trying to strong arm the coal
• 21:04
  tribe into paying functionally taxes for Qatar caravans going
• 21:10
  through coal lands. Yeah.
• 21:13
  That's not how that. Should work, no?
• 21:14
  It's. It's a very like double handed
• 21:18
  like skeezy, like we are going to impose a negative thing on
• 21:24
  you using kind of this presumption of oh, like you
• 21:29
  would be impeding trade if you don't do this.
• 21:30
  And also we are a large like nation of but are at this point,
• 21:34
  yeah, we're we're just going to flex a little bit and extort
• 21:38
  some Aquagoranis, which is the universal currency of the realms
• 21:42
  of this time that healing life. Water.
• 21:43
  Yeah. Healing life.
• 21:44
  Water. I remember that.
• 21:45
  Yeah, like I said, people will have their local currencies, but
• 21:47
  Aquagorandis is widespread enough at this point that people
• 21:50
  are using it as kind of a mainstay currency.
• 21:53
  Of course, of course. Why would you use?
• 21:55
  Anything. Actual healing magic water.
• 21:58
  Yeah. Can you imagine people on the
• 22:00
  other end of the microphone if you could just eat a dollar and
• 22:03
  like, feel better? Like imagine that.
• 22:09
  That's called just having health insurance.
• 22:11
  It's true. You're not wrong.
• 22:13
  So we don't know a ton about this meeting, but basically this
• 22:17
  Batari trader is trying to strong arm Athos.
• 22:21
  Athos isn't having any of it. And eventually this Batari is
• 22:23
  like, I'm not dealing with this meathead of a warrior, I'm going
• 22:26
  to go talk to somebody in charge.
• 22:27
  And he tries to force his way, like into coal lands across the
• 22:31
  bridge, and Athos kills him because yeah, yeah, things were
• 22:38
  already heated it. Wasn't.
• 22:39
  Yeah, it was a bad situation and it's Athos's literal job is to
• 22:44
  keep the keep the bridge. Yeah, can't just come in.
• 22:47
  Yeah. So in the moment, like it like
• 22:51
  if there was lawyers looking at that, OK, whatever.
• 22:54
  There's not lawyers that looking at that you killed.
• 22:57
  This is I'm sure intentionally styled after this is very much
• 23:01
  like in 300 when they kick the Persian into the big hole.
• 23:04
  Yeah, I like that. It's the.
• 23:07
  Bigger. Wealthier.
• 23:10
  Yeah, she's going to like that. Very.
• 23:12
  Much absolutely so in in the moment Athos does what he does,
• 23:16
  but he immediately is like OK, this is bad like I have I have
• 23:21
  killed a merchant from this much bigger much better arm like
• 23:27
  forming nation state and I don't trust I I've seen what has been
• 23:31
  happening to like other tribes around Batar did not just become
• 23:37
  a nation without conflict and I don't trust like the enforcement
• 23:43
  of Sigmar's peace enough to protect us like the world is the
• 23:47
  world is big and mostly that piece has existed by everyone
• 23:52
  just kind of playing nice but it's clear that is not happening
• 23:55
  anymore so Athos reports what happened and basically
• 24:00
  immediately. Yeah, you don't get capitalism
• 24:02
  without. Someone.
• 24:03
  Some way, someone, somewhere, absolutely someone's getting
• 24:09
  taken advantage of. We're going to see that as both
• 24:12
  cast groups into the world. But part of the reason cast was
• 24:14
  allowed to creep into the world is wow.
• 24:17
  Sigmar strived to create a world without those negativities that
• 24:23
  would encourage chaos to enter because people are downtrodden.
• 24:28
  He led to a world. He led to a world that values
• 24:32
  the status quo very highly. And it's almost that like
• 24:38
  orcish, like Gorkam orcish thing where the arcs are like if we
• 24:42
  let you, you would build walls around yourself until you
• 24:44
  couldn't move. And the works have been chill
• 24:47
  with Sigmar. They're part of that piece as
• 24:49
  like his beast hunters. That stagnation is part of why
• 24:53
  Chaos gets to seep in. That lets people get so high up
• 24:56
  that they start like, reaching for ambition that leads them to
• 24:59
  Chaos. Yeah, OK.
• 25:01
  Yeah. So Athos goes.
• 25:03
  He tells the tribe like, hey, this is the situation.
• 25:06
  Sorry, but sorry, not really. I am going.
• 25:09
  To. Yeah, I mean, then this is I'm
• 25:12
  cutting a lot out, but like the the guitar and the coal weren't
• 25:15
  like friendly before this. They had had run insurance in
• 25:18
  the past. And they call her very
• 25:20
  suspicious of anyone trying to become this huge hegemonic
• 25:23
  power, which fair enough. Athos says, hey, I'm going to go
• 25:28
  to all of our neighboring, like small tribes and I'm going to
• 25:31
  raise like a war party because Qatar is going to come for us
• 25:36
  and that's what we need to survive.
• 25:38
  Yeah, I he he doesn't say this because headlines aren't a thing
• 25:43
  that exists. But functionally, he says, I can
• 25:45
  see the headlines where people in their high towers on his ear
• 25:49
  go, wow, did you hear about the prosperous and mercantile nation
• 25:53
  of Qatar putting down that terrible barbarian uprising?
• 25:56
  And actually, and I don't want that to be like the narrative.
• 26:00
  I don't want that to be our future.
• 26:01
  So he does. He he sets off across their
• 26:05
  little corner of actually, he is gathering tribesmen.
• 26:09
  And while he is finding many who come to his cause willingly or
• 26:13
  kind of after the pressure of like, hey, if you think Batar's
• 26:17
  going to stop at us, like, they're absolutely not.
• 26:20
  Yeah, who's going to defend you when there's no one?
• 26:23
  Else yes, absolutely he he gets a lot of warriors to his cause
• 26:26
  but it still doesn't feel like enough.
• 26:29
  He does not think the people he is bringing to him are.
• 26:32
  Going to be able to stand, yes. OK.
• 26:35
  Yeah, no fair. And so, yeah, whatever.
• 26:39
  This is. Right.
• 26:40
  And so eventually he starts getting these messages, these
• 26:50
  whispers in his dreams. Intrusive thoughts may happen.
• 26:54
  Yeah, a little bit. He starts hearing in his dreams
• 26:59
  this voice telling him, Oh no, absolutely telling him that if
• 27:06
  he really wants to protect his people, he's going to have to do
• 27:10
  better than this. So feeding into the thing he
• 27:13
  already fears, yeah. And you're.
• 27:16
  Not telling me anything, I don't know.
• 27:18
  Voice. Yeah, it, well, it does
• 27:19
  eventually say it tells him to. I think it's called like Skull
• 27:23
  Mountain because corn. Corn is nothing if not unsubtle.
• 27:27
  You know what? Listen, you really have to lean
• 27:29
  in your brand. Yes, you have the brand.
• 27:31
  Consistency, yes. Otherwise, how many would
• 27:34
  recognize you on site? 100% So the voice tells them to
• 27:39
  go to this mountain. It says you want power, you can
• 27:43
  have it, but you got to make the journey.
• 27:45
  So Athos entrusts growing the war band to some people he
• 27:49
  trusts, and he makes the journey alone to this mountain.
• 27:53
  He, he's still cautious. Like we, we don't know basically
• 27:58
  everything we know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, basically.
• 28:00
  And basically everything we know about Athos is what I'm
• 28:02
  recounting to you now. But generally, like Athos has a
• 28:06
  wife and kid. He is.
• 28:08
  We don't again, they haven't come up yet because that is the
• 28:11
  only time they're mentioned basically is as a justification
• 28:14
  for why he's so protective of like wanting to keep stuff safe.
• 28:17
  He's. Got a wife and he's got our
• 28:18
  family. Yeah, and he's generally not and
• 28:23
  he's generally suspicious of this voice.
• 28:26
  He he doesn't know if it's like a buttari trap.
• 28:28
  So he sends himself alone. He says the reward is too great.
• 28:35
  So I have to take the gamble, but I'm not going to like risk
• 28:38
  others for it. Generally a very like I said,
• 28:41
  the the yeah, the the image we get of Athos is that he is a
• 28:45
  generally honorable, upstanding, maybe a bit overly violent, but
• 28:50
  that is. The job is but.
• 28:54
  Yeah, yeah. Generally very noble in in a
• 28:56
  different context, he would be the protagonist of a fantasy
• 29:00
  novel. His own folk.
• 29:02
  Hero. Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:03
  So Athos travels to the mountain.
• 29:05
  He summits it, overcoming the trials they're within.
• 29:09
  None of which are particularly interesting.
• 29:10
  Just manages to get to the top of this mountain.
• 29:13
  This framework is that of a folk.
• 29:15
  Hero. Yes.
• 29:16
  Absolutely. Just just just this is like blue
• 29:19
  collar dude doing his job and then all of a sudden his way of
• 29:23
  life is threatened by something he did inadvertently like people
• 29:27
  intentionally, but also has far reaching consequences because of
• 29:30
  the greed and like ambition of another far more powerful
• 29:37
  entity. So he goes around, rallies his
• 29:40
  neighbors, but knows it will be enough.
• 29:41
  So he's willing to put himself at risk for the chance of being
• 29:44
  able to protect his way of life and this culture and everything
• 29:49
  he knows. And if it wasn't a demon of
• 29:50
  chaos whispering easier, this would have worked out for him.
• 29:53
  If if he got to the top of this mountain and he found a cool
• 29:56
  sword, this would. Yeah, yeah.
• 29:59
  The old nearest waiting for him. Let's be camera.
• 30:01
  We got to keep it on brand. Is it a cool hammer?
• 30:03
  Yeah. 100% but he doesn't find a cool sword at the time of this
• 30:07
  mountain. What does he find?
• 30:08
  He finds a priest. Wait, what?
• 30:10
  Just a God. I mean, I obviously know it's
• 30:13
  not just a guy. But right, right.
• 30:14
  Shocked would you be if you get up there and there's like a guy?
• 30:19
  He finds. I think Seer is probably a more
• 30:21
  accurate This is not a person who over like religiously
• 30:25
  practices the worship of corn. This is someone who corn has
• 30:29
  like. Possessed.
• 30:31
  Yeah, take taken over the mind of.
• 30:33
  Yes, that you were dressed like a conduit for this other A. 100%
• 30:38
  OK Yeah, this seer tells Athos basically what he needs to hear
• 30:46
  to complete his fall to chaos. He says yeah, he said to
• 30:52
  convince him to put his first foot on the path because he
• 30:55
  hasn't yet, right. Yeah, he's cautious.
• 30:58
  He's looking for a cow. Yeah, absolutely.
• 31:01
  This seer looks him dead in the soul and says this is your
• 31:04
  fault. Like you did the act that
• 31:07
  brought this upon your people. There is going to be the blood
• 31:10
  of hundreds of thousands on your hands because of what you did,
• 31:15
  and now the only option left to you is whether you are willing
• 31:19
  to risk your own like sense of sanctity and sense of self to
• 31:26
  fix it. Interesting like.
• 31:28
  Full. Acknowledging is like, yeah,
• 31:31
  this is going to be a thing that you view as immoral.
• 31:35
  Are you strong enough to do this thing that you that would be
• 31:39
  that you know is wrong because it is framing here like is the
• 31:43
  only thing to fix the mistake, to do the right thing?
• 31:46
  Are you brave enough, strong enough, noble enough to bend
• 31:50
  that? Bend the rule.
• 31:53
  Through another lens, again, this is just are you willing to
• 31:56
  self sacrifice to do the right thing?
• 31:59
  But it's it's chaos. It's not self sacrifice, it is
• 32:05
  walking the path. This seer tells Athos.
• 32:10
  He tells him Corin's true name. He says there is a God who will
• 32:14
  bless you to do violence and all you have to give in return is
• 32:17
  violence. And that is a price that you
• 32:20
  will never pay back. But oh Lord will you pay it?
• 32:25
  Like oh Lord, will you people know who you are?
• 32:29
  Interesting, and not seeing other options, Athos accepts the
• 32:36
  offer. He Athos's this is not.
• 32:40
  I would argue this is not truly where Athos falls to chaos, but
• 32:43
  this is his first foot on the path.
• 32:45
  He says I'll do it, what do you need from me?
• 32:49
  And the Seer says blood for the Blood God and bestows upon Athos
• 32:54
  a new name. There's a common trope for
• 32:57
  people who walk the path as they take on a new name.
• 33:00
  They are re baptized by chaos. Functionally is the idea Athos
• 33:05
  cull becomes Corgos cull? Yeah, of course.
• 33:09
  It's got an H in it. Thank you for asking.
• 33:10
  Yeah, goodness me. So devil alliteration boy.
• 33:22
  Cargos Cull descends the mountain now.
• 33:27
  He's a comic book villain. A little bit I'm a I'm going to
• 33:31
  take this as a good opportunity to check our our visual
• 33:33
  reference because we have a picture of both Athos pre path
• 33:39
  and Corgos. The Karos gods don't have
• 33:42
  appearances. They are vast roiling magic.
• 33:49
  But Korn has a way. He likes to appear to people
• 33:51
  vast and bronze armored. Yep, Yep, I see it.
• 33:55
  Vast. Definitely yes.
• 33:56
  Yep, Korn is almost always depicted as the largest of the
• 33:59
  Chaos gods because overwhelmingness is a big part
• 34:04
  of what he is. I.
• 34:06
  See him the earlier Spartan comparison.
• 34:09
  Yeah, tracks hard. Yep, yeah, he's the spear
• 34:11
  bearer, He's the spear keeper. He's just kind of a guy.
• 34:14
  He's. Just a guy.
• 34:14
  You can tell me this was Achilles.
• 34:16
  He'd be like, yeah, for sure. Man, Yeah, 100%, 100%.
• 34:18
  And then the next picture. Yeah.
• 34:21
  What now? You're keep bringing me a Morton
• 34:25
  Joe inner. I was going to say, he's got
• 34:26
  kind of a skull helmet. He's got the big spikes on his
• 34:29
  collar, yes. Just all of a sudden he's taking
• 34:32
  up a lot of. Space.
• 34:33
  He is framed from below, always. He's got a dog there which
• 34:38
  hasn't shown up yet. But do you?
• 34:40
  Ever call it a dog? Yes.
• 34:42
  What sword you want to use? Dog.
• 34:45
  It's reptilian hellbeats, yeah. It's his personal Those are
• 34:50
  called flesh hounds, and they are demons.
• 34:52
  They. Are or are they demons Dalton?
• 34:54
  They are demon Dalton. How could force what?
• 34:58
  He also actually got rid of his fear and is now just wielding a
• 35:01
  skull axe. So axes are very corn.
• 35:05
  Most of corn's big champions wear or wield axes.
• 35:09
  It makes beheading easy. For the skulls.
• 35:12
  Yeah. Blood for the blood gone.
• 35:16
  Skulls for the skull throne. OK, so that transformation is
• 35:21
  not immediate. Like Athos doesn't just Sailor
• 35:24
  Moon into being. It's the exact same dance
• 35:31
  sequence, but everything is blood colored.
• 35:34
  No, but newly anointed Kurgos does.
• 35:37
  The plan was he would some of this mountain, his people he
• 35:41
  trusted would gather as much of the rest of the tribes as they
• 35:43
  could before then. And then they were going to meet
• 35:45
  at this big cultural event that was being held in order to as
• 35:50
  like the last kind of final rallying push.
• 35:53
  So the tribes in and around like the cultures.
• 35:56
  Right in Sigma's. Backyard, yeah, pretty much.
• 35:58
  Well, it's it's way on actually. So it's a different plane and
• 36:01
  it's kind of in the reaches of actually.
• 36:03
  So OK, a lot of yeah and like I said, Sigmar settled into this
• 36:08
  role as almost like a steward to God where he's getting real into
• 36:11
  like the civic engineering of cities on again that stagnation,
• 36:15
  right. Yeah.
• 36:16
  Where he'll he'll spend a whole day figuring out like a good
• 36:19
  like pipe laying in like a single city on Azir.
• 36:23
  Azir, right. Azir is yeah, yeah is where
• 36:26
  we're at. Yeah.
• 36:28
  So he's probably just not aware of it while it's happening.
• 36:31
  I can imagine if. He was.
• 36:32
  He would have. Been involved, right?
• 36:35
  Showed up with some attorneys to.
• 36:37
  Take care of this problem. Got some judges to bust up this
• 36:41
  monopoly. We would.
• 36:42
  Absolutely, absolutely. It's got a intimidating name,
• 36:46
  but there is a huge cultural event that happens between the
• 36:50
  cult tribe and a lot of their neighboring tribes, including
• 36:52
  the ones they're recruited from, called the Red Feast.
• 36:55
  Yeah. It's a good name.
• 36:57
  It is a it's genuinely a feast, But it is also a fighting
• 37:00
  tournament. It is, yeah.
• 37:01
  It's part of that cultural, kind of like martial combat thing
• 37:05
  that they do. And it is, again, there's like a
• 37:07
  cultural event. The tribe that wins goes away
• 37:10
  with some accolades, and then they get back together to do it
• 37:13
  next year. Very good.
• 37:15
  Show off who's the biggest, baddest, toughest?
• 37:18
  I was going to say boy with an eye that we.
• 37:20
  Got rolling up. It's like a Dionysian festival,
• 37:22
  except there's more. Yeah, exactly.
• 37:25
  I mean, genuinely. Yeah.
• 37:28
  So it's it's a Marshall challenge.
• 37:29
  It helps foster goodwill between the tribes generally because
• 37:32
  they can get there, like fighting out between each other
• 37:35
  in a controlled space. But it gets kind of subtly
• 37:39
  hijacked by Corgas and his people to be a recruitment drive
• 37:44
  as well. What did he tell them when he
• 37:47
  rolls up with a new name? He arrives to the yeah, they
• 37:53
  were already planning on turning it into kind of like a
• 37:55
  recruitment Dr. He just like shows up got a haunting air
• 37:58
  about him now because he's sworn to chaos already.
• 38:02
  One Corgo shows up the fighting has gotten a little bit out of
• 38:06
  hand. Unbeknownst to him once he
• 38:08
  starts walking the path. A genuine cornate cultist, like
• 38:12
  an actual priest of corn has like infiltrated the red feast
• 38:16
  and was where did you? Come from.
• 38:17
  He was already here if Steph with Ethel hadn't happened.
• 38:21
  He was just planning on turning the red feast into a real
• 38:23
  bloodbath. Worship corn.
• 38:26
  But he is. So if yes, he got to the top of
• 38:29
  the mountain was like, you know what, actually, I'm gonna, I'm
• 38:31
  gonna not take the deal. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
• 38:33
  try my own way. Yep, it would have just turned
• 38:36
  this into an actual fighting tournament and racked up a
• 38:41
  modicum of a body count and then spelled blood for the blood God
• 38:45
  furthered his own path to glory. Interesting, does he know what
• 38:48
  does he? Is he in on this?
• 38:50
  Specifically what Corgos is running?
• 38:52
  The priest? No, he doesn't.
• 38:53
  He doesn't know Corgos is coming, but he gets the picture
• 38:58
  when Corgos arrives. Yeah, chaos doesn't work
• 39:01
  together well, but the meager body count this person would
• 39:06
  like do in service to corn by just fucking with this
• 39:09
  tournament is nothing in comparison to what he can tell
• 39:11
  that corn or cordless will do. It just falls in line behind him
• 39:15
  rides his coattails. That man's name is Vinx.
• 39:17
  Vinx Skull Brand, by the way, because of course it is every.
• 39:22
  Listen, I love it because it's very camp, but every corn
• 39:26
  cultist does have a stupid name. Just going to.
• 39:31
  Acknowledge and just assume. Every time we say it, someone
• 39:34
  points out that's a stupid name. Vance Skullbrand falls in line
• 39:38
  as soon as Cargos shows up. He can tell that he is like
• 39:41
  bearing the mark of corn. And basically what happens is he
• 39:46
  threw a series of just like goading and putting Cargos into
• 39:52
  the fight. This like structured
• 39:55
  ritualistic, like relatively safe combat instead turns into
• 40:01
  like a free for all we very quickly become and it is
• 40:05
  contained to the actual arena, but it is just let's put 50
• 40:09
  warriors in there and have them bash it out.
• 40:11
  And that veneer of ritual like safe combat collapses almost
• 40:16
  immediately. There are.
• 40:17
  Old tribal grudges that are existing here.
• 40:20
  There are grievances, Yep, grievances that people want to
• 40:23
  get out. And as soon as the first real
• 40:25
  blood is spilled, it just goes all the way downhill from there.
• 40:30
  People fighting each other, people turning on each other.
• 40:32
  The corrupting influence of corn starts to just seep into the
• 40:38
  arena, and that rage, that desire for violence, fills
• 40:43
  combatants that otherwise might have stepped back and said no, I
• 40:46
  don't want this, and none are as incredible as cargos.
• 40:52
  I would hope not. He did just sell his soul.
• 40:55
  All of these worries, all of these warriors that they've been
• 40:57
  collecting to fight this war, just descend on this arena that
• 41:02
  the IT becomes almost like a miasmic, like mass hysteria
• 41:07
  spreads throughout the crowd. Everyone wants to get this
• 41:11
  opportunity to prove that they are the best, they are the
• 41:13
  strongest. They want to air this rage that
• 41:16
  isn't even directed at the people that they're fighting
• 41:18
  right now, but just that rage at the universe, at the betar who
• 41:21
  are put them in this situation. They just want to feel that
• 41:24
  release of it and people start dying and dying and dying not.
• 41:30
  What you want when you're trying to like, get a war party
• 41:32
  together to defend yourself against a more powerful enemy.
• 41:34
  Right, the fighting goes on for eight days.
• 41:40
  Of course it. Does.
• 41:41
  And in those eight days, the body count reaches 888 people.
• 41:50
  And as as Korgos kills the 888th warrior that has died at the Red
• 41:58
  Feast, that supreme act of bloodshed, that supreme act of
• 42:04
  violence, is finally too much for the fabric of the realm to
• 42:09
  take. Oh.
• 42:11
  And it tears, it tears soaked in the corrupting influence of corn
• 42:15
  soaked in blood and piled skulls.
• 42:18
  The sky splits and disgorges cornate demons.
• 42:24
  And if you thought this was a bad party before the.
• 42:28
  Demons show up. And in that moment, violence
• 42:34
  continues to rain. Corgos breaks off from the act
• 42:37
  of bloodletting and rallies what warriors remain despite so many
• 42:42
  being killed, others from, like, the surrounding hillside have
• 42:45
  flocked to the violence that is the corrupting influence of
• 42:48
  corn. Yeah.
• 42:49
  It's that herd mentality of just, like, being there from the
• 42:53
  fight. So however many people they had
• 42:55
  beforehand, even with their losses, they now have five times
• 42:59
  that people who've just been drawn to the glory offered by
• 43:03
  this war. And Corgos discards the Cull
• 43:08
  tribe that is no longer their identity.
• 43:11
  And he anoints them anew as he was anointed as Corgos Cull
• 43:15
  champion of corn. He anoints them anew as the Gore
• 43:20
  tide and mass converts them to the worship of corn.
• 43:26
  And just like over the course of like a month, basically from the
• 43:32
  start of this to now, a massive coronate war party is just on
• 43:38
  action. And it grows because that's what
• 43:41
  coronate war parties do like. And it is accompanied by demons.
• 43:46
  That's where we leave Cargos for a little bit.
• 43:49
  He's going to be a recurring villain all throughout the Chaos
• 43:52
  Worship does things to a person. He is around for like 600 years
• 43:58
  as far as we know, but he is going to be a recurring villain
• 44:02
  throughout the age of Chaos and on because he is the highest
• 44:07
  ranking mortal champion of corn in the setting now.
• 44:10
  Blood. For the blood God.
• 44:11
  Blood for the Blood God. But Speaking of those corn
• 44:15
  demons that burst into the realms, let's talk about those a
• 44:18
  little bit, OK? Sure do.
• 44:19
  I have a visual. Aid yeah, let's see, we have a
• 44:22
  couple. We're not going to spend a ton
• 44:23
  of time on corn demons because it's mostly just looking at how
• 44:27
  cool they are. Yeah, supposedly just like
• 44:29
  talking about how cool they are, talking about their Kirks a
• 44:31
  little bit. This.
• 44:32
  Is like a classic like this is a like a doom.
• 44:35
  Yeah, absolutely. They have the most, just like
• 44:38
  you pictured a demon. That's a demon.
• 44:40
  There he is. Yeah.
• 44:42
  Those ones are called blood letters.
• 44:43
  They are just, yeah, they are the littlest of corns demons and
• 44:48
  they do violence well, and that's the that's kind of their
• 44:53
  whole thing. We have blood letters.
• 44:57
  We have flesh hounds. So I mentioned previously, OK.
• 45:01
  This looks way more like a hound than that in the other picture.
• 45:04
  That's fair. They got kind of like the lower
• 45:06
  neck frill thing, yeah. They are look more canine, yeah.
• 45:10
  Yeah, they're corns, hunting dogs.
• 45:14
  Yeah. They something that we haven't
• 45:20
  really talked about yet. Is that Corn likes violence, He
• 45:22
  likes bloodshed, but he doesn't like cheating at either of those
• 45:27
  things. Okay, what?
• 45:28
  He doesn't need to find cheating.
• 45:30
  Ranged combat and magic. Corn despises magic.
• 45:37
  He to corn, an act of violence is a thing that you do with your
• 45:41
  hands. You are in the fray.
• 45:45
  You are drawing blood yourself. You are getting covered.
• 45:48
  In the blood that is absolutely and you are.
• 45:50
  Most importantly, you are seeing the violence happen.
• 45:53
  You are a part of that experience.
• 45:55
  You are not just knocking and firing an arrow that you don't
• 45:58
  like, You know where it lands, and you certainly are not
• 46:00
  chanting a couple words atop your tower and annihilating like
• 46:04
  a village or whatever. Bullshit.
• 46:05
  Yes, Corn despises sorcery. He sees it as an affront when
• 46:11
  sorcery or like range combat takes down like good powerful
• 46:15
  warriors. And so in both like gameplay
• 46:20
  rules and in lore, people sworn to Corn are just resistant to
• 46:23
  magic. Like even if you are just a
• 46:25
  normal fleshy human, like a wizard's fireball will just ping
• 46:29
  off of you. Not all the time.
• 46:32
  Magic is a powerful force, and corn is technically made of
• 46:34
  magic, as are all demons. But in general corn.
• 46:38
  Corn protects the truly devoted the the berserk and furious
• 46:43
  against the machinations of. Sorcery, yeah.
• 46:47
  Oh yeah? Oh there are tons of perks to
• 46:49
  worship and chaos. They're just not worth the
• 46:50
  price. Not worth it.
• 46:52
  Corn worshippers are impossibly strong, like tearing car doors
• 46:57
  off of cars, that thing that doesn't exist in the setting,
• 47:00
  but you know what I mean. Yeah.
• 47:01
  Yeah. Tearing the doors off of
• 47:02
  buildings is probably a better. Yeah, just crazy strong.
• 47:06
  But again, they're they're consumed by that need to kill,
• 47:09
  consumed by that need to harm to the point where a, a large
• 47:13
  enough carnate war band who doesn't like, have someone to
• 47:16
  fight for too long will just tear itself apart, like, burn
• 47:19
  itself into oblivion because they'll all turn on each other
• 47:22
  because they have to spill blood.
• 47:23
  It becomes a compulsion. Yeah, talking about flesh
• 47:26
  hounds. Flesh hounds are corns, hunting
• 47:27
  dogs. They, you can see that they all
• 47:30
  have little brass collars. Those protect them from magic,
• 47:33
  even more so than normal cornate demons.
• 47:37
  And they can smell Wizards, so any any cornet war band worth
• 47:44
  its salt has flesh hounds that will just like manifest
• 47:47
  alongside it to rundown Wizards that might attack the band
• 47:52
  before it gets to do it. Fuck you in particular.
• 47:54
  Yes, absolutely you don't want. To kill everyone but you
• 47:57
  specifically die first. That is why flesh hounds exist,
• 48:02
  basically. OK, cool.
• 48:05
  We have Juggernauts. Juggernauts are a weird one
• 48:08
  because we basically never see them alone.
• 48:10
  They seem to exclusively be given to the.
• 48:13
  Guy from Night on Bald Mountain. What?
• 48:16
  This is the guy from Night on Bald Mountain in Fantasia.
• 48:19
  This is Chernabog. That is not the picture I
• 48:22
  thought that was going to be. That's, that's not a Juggerna.
• 48:25
  I'll just mention Juggernauts real quick.
• 48:26
  They're they're used as mounts. They're that.
• 48:29
  Explains why you were so fucking replies when I said.
• 48:31
  Yeah, yeah. Juggernauts are just like,
• 48:34
  picture a bull and then give it dog features.
• 48:37
  That's a juggernaut. Yeah.
• 48:39
  They're not super interesting, but they're they're they're
• 48:41
  neat. They look cool.
• 48:42
  Corns answer to a horse is what if it could like, trample you to
• 48:45
  death? Yeah.
• 48:46
  What if it takes more? Space.
• 48:47
  Yes, exactly. You got it.
• 48:50
  You got the corn thing. But that yeah, the the turnabog
• 48:53
  looking dude, that is a bloodthirster.
• 48:57
  Those are the greatest of corns demons.
• 49:00
  They're the ball rug. Yeah, Yeah.
• 49:05
  This is where some of the a lot of Chaos stuff is going to like,
• 49:09
  pull from design sensibilities from way back in the Warhammer
• 49:13
  Fantasy, like the 80s and stuff like Bled thirsters are ball
• 49:17
  rocks because they're ball rocks.
• 49:20
  Yeah, because. Yeah, because it was the because
• 49:23
  this little silly little Matrix company want a big demon model
• 49:26
  and they just copied the ball rock and now they have a little
• 49:29
  bit of their own flavor. Bloodthirsters has the greatest
• 49:32
  embodiment of corn embody both the fact that they are immensely
• 49:37
  violent and they are furious. But the most reward of Corn's
• 49:40
  warriors are also tactical. It is not enough to just spill
• 49:46
  like the greatest bloodshed can be had when you are leading an
• 49:49
  army. Well, when you are driving them
• 49:52
  forward to greater and greater conquest, not just bashing,
• 49:55
  you're like idiot Barbarians against a wall.
• 49:59
  And so bloodthirsters are huge and furious and they can tear
• 50:02
  castle wall that was with their bare hands.
• 50:04
  And they are tactical geniuses. Yeah.
• 50:07
  Terrifying bloodthirsters will often manifest to lead otherwise
• 50:12
  leaderless like groups of demons or mortals.
• 50:16
  And everyone listens to a Bloodthirster because otherwise
• 50:17
  you're going to get stomped. Yeah, that's not open for
• 50:20
  negotiation. No, the mortal followers of corn
• 50:23
  are not going to spend much time on because they're mostly just
• 50:26
  crazy bloodthirsty maniacs, at least in general.
• 50:31
  Like the the kind of generic, what we would call like generic
• 50:34
  corn, like mortals are just various flavors of barbarian.
• 50:39
  You got some that are like holding chains that they spin
• 50:41
  around and you got some that have axes, but they're not super
• 50:44
  interesting on their own. So we do have some more like
• 50:47
  actual characters of corn that I would super want to talk about
• 50:51
  because that is where I think corn is.
• 50:53
  Corn sometimes gets to write it as kind of a boring chaos gun
• 50:57
  because he's he's just mad and he's just violent.
• 51:00
  And I can see that as a critique, but I do think that
• 51:04
  that provides a really interesting baseline for
• 51:06
  characters who are associated with corn, right?
• 51:09
  Like we've talked about Corgos. Corgos would be the hero of
• 51:13
  another story if it wasn't corn that he found on that mountain.
• 51:17
  And that is an interesting place to come from when talking about
• 51:22
  a villain where. And it's telling that we never
• 51:25
  hear about Corgos's wife and kid again because that stopped being
• 51:30
  his priority. Yeah, they are.
• 51:32
  They presumably either became part of the gore tide because
• 51:36
  diversity when Corn doesn't care about, like, the gender of his
• 51:41
  combatants, blood for the blood God.
• 51:44
  Yeah. So they either became part of
• 51:46
  the gore tide or they died. And that's.
• 51:49
  No, it doesn't matter because Corgos kills for Corn now.
• 51:52
  Yeah. That is his purpose.
• 51:55
  Yeah. OK, yeah, but we have some some
• 51:56
  fun. No, that's a lie.
• 51:58
  We have like 2 fun 2 fun corn characters.
• 52:02
  OK, not to not to throw shade at Scar blood wrath fans, but we
• 52:07
  have like 3 corn characters that are extremely boring because
• 52:10
  they are just mindless Barbarians.
• 52:12
  Yeah, I'm just going to talk about them now real quick.
• 52:14
  Scar blood wrath. His gimmick is that he can't die
• 52:17
  if he if Scar blood wrath is. A gimmick.
• 52:20
  Yeah, if Scar, well, Scar Blood Wrath can die, but if he dies,
• 52:25
  his soul just like becomes part of Korn again and then is
• 52:28
  returned to the realms 8 days later, which you'd think would
• 52:33
  be a really interesting, like, character vignette.
• 52:35
  Like, what does that do to a person?
• 52:37
  But he's just been a rageless, like a mindless rage monster
• 52:40
  forever. So no, he's functionally like an
• 52:44
  axe that Korn throws at people, and that's not Yeah, right he
• 52:51
  does. Yeah, he he.
• 52:53
  I mean, Nagash hates the Chaos gods a lot because they also
• 52:56
  take souls from him, while souls belong to Nagash as we know
• 53:00
  Silla Anfengrim. Anfengrim is also a mindless
• 53:05
  rage monster. The most interesting thing about
• 53:07
  him is. So the Chaos gods are associated
• 53:09
  with mutation. We see this in cornet warriors a
• 53:13
  little bit, but it's kind of a magicky thing so he doesn't do
• 53:16
  it as much. But anyone who worships cast
• 53:18
  long enough will often develop mutations that can be horns or
• 53:21
  claws or hooved feet. That is very common amongst corn
• 53:26
  worshippers because bulls are part of corns associated
• 53:29
  imagery. Yeah, if you take on too many
• 53:32
  chaos mutations, usually what happens is just the substance of
• 53:35
  your body can't take it anymore. And so you turn into what is
• 53:39
  called a Chaos Spawn, which is just a thing that could not be
• 53:44
  alive if it wasn't so suffused with Chaos.
• 53:48
  Yeah. Yep.
• 53:49
  So just a horrifying mass of flesh and limbs and mouths and
• 53:53
  eyes and teeth that cannot work. The most interesting thing about
• 53:58
  Silla Angrinfin is Anfin Groom is that he's technically a Chaos
• 54:03
  spawn. Technically, though.
• 54:05
  Yeah, but he doesn't look like 1.
• 54:08
  He doesn't look like one and he doesn't act like one and he's
• 54:11
  but he's also just a still a rageless or mindless rage
• 54:14
  monster. So it doesn't.
• 54:15
  Could be interesting, but is in fact not.
• 54:17
  Yes, correct. So that's our that's our short
• 54:19
  list of characters that could be interesting but aren't because
• 54:23
  they're just mindless rage monsters.
• 54:24
  But we have others. I'm going to talk about one of
• 54:26
  my favorites. This is our like most notable
• 54:28
  corn demon character, which I think is interesting.
• 54:32
  There's a demon named Scarbrand. OK, Yeah, I think, I think it's
• 54:37
  because it's just the one name and not like trying to do a
• 54:40
  first name surname. Yes, that is less stupid.
• 54:42
  Yeah, if he's direct. If his name was Scarbrand Blood
• 54:45
  Axe, I wouldn't take him as seriously.
• 54:47
  Yeah, but I like Scarbrand. Ganache Scarbrand.
• 54:51
  Yeah. Scarbrand yeah, Slink It's like
• 54:54
  it's straight to the point. Yeah, Scarbrand is great.
• 54:57
  Scarbrand is one of the oldest Bloodthirsters, so he's that
• 54:59
  highest tier of demon, the kind of like, rage monster,
• 55:03
  technical, tactical genius. He served corn in the old world.
• 55:07
  He served him probably before that, because by all accounts,
• 55:11
  Scarbrand is probably the oldest Bloodthirster.
• 55:14
  We don't know for sure. Time doesn't mean anything.
• 55:15
  Because I mean, don't worry. About it Scarbrand loved
• 55:19
  performing service to corn. He, he was.
• 55:22
  My I'm still on the Chernabog seeing like the demon DJ on Bald
• 55:27
  Mountains. So like he loves performing sick
• 55:30
  beats in the club. I mean probably there is a
• 55:33
  consistent through line and like the abilities of cornate demons
• 55:37
  to like roar so loud it hurts stuff so I could picture scar
• 55:42
  brand just like. Yeah.
• 55:46
  Scar Brand, like I said, we do great services to corn, shed
• 55:52
  blood, collect skulls. Scar Brand is almost certainly
• 55:55
  the number one. The the skulls for the skull
• 55:57
  throne thing isn't a metaphor. Skulls collected for corn
• 56:00
  literally are added to his seemingly infinite throne of
• 56:03
  Skulls in the Realm of Throne. Like a chair.
• 56:06
  Oh yes. Oh no.
• 56:14
  Did you think it was like throne like throwing?
• 56:16
  Oh no. So I was.
• 56:19
  Like blood for the blood God. Yeah.
• 56:22
  Skull for the skull throne. What?
• 56:25
  Yeah. I just thought I was just in my
• 56:27
  head was like, skull for the skull.
• 56:29
  Yeah. Literally just picturing that
• 56:30
  They get the skulls and then they throw the skulls and, like,
• 56:33
  that's pretty intimidating and violent.
• 56:35
  Sure. Now the catch phrase makes more.
• 56:39
  Now it actually like, you know, in my head, it wasn't like
• 56:42
  matching, like, yeah. No, for sure, absolutely.
• 56:45
  Yeah. I mean, hey, absolutely.
• 56:50
  We've just talked about a lot of people who do an an ungodly
• 56:54
  amount of violence with seemingly no intent.
• 56:57
  I absolutely picture them just grabbing skulls and throwing
• 56:59
  them completely it also. Makes more sense about why you
• 57:02
  got to use the axe. You don't want to damage the
• 57:04
  skull, you'll damage the structure integrity of the
• 57:06
  throat. You got to put them on the skull
• 57:08
  throne, yeah. Thank you.
• 57:13
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 57:16
  Yeah, yeah. Scarbrand, by all accounts, is
• 57:17
  the number one contributor to the Skull Throne.
• 57:19
  He has been serving corn forever and he's a Bloodthirster.
• 57:22
  He's very good at what he does, as is his want zinch.
• 57:26
  OK. Yeah, that guy.
• 57:28
  Yeah, God of Deception got a trickery.
• 57:30
  Got a change? God of bad names.
• 57:32
  Yep, they all. Are, but I think Nergl's got the
• 57:37
  most straightforward name, which tracks because he's the God of
• 57:39
  stagnation. You don't.
• 57:42
  Need to mix it up. Yeah, Zinch sees all this great
• 57:44
  service that Scarbrand is doing and change your voice Architect
• 57:50
  of fate. Wait, what?
• 57:51
  He gets this little. He was on headhunts.
• 57:55
  He gets this little whisper in Scarbrand's ear.
• 57:57
  Not quite like, come and serve me.
• 57:59
  I don't think that'd be like a positive relationship.
• 58:02
  They're very different styles. He put, he puts a little whisper
• 58:05
  in Scarbrand's ear and he says, why are you giving all these
• 58:10
  skulls to corn? Why are you spilling all this
• 58:13
  blood in his name? Oh.
• 58:16
  My God. What has Korn ever done this for
• 58:20
  the skull throat? This messy big.
• 58:22
  Oh my God. That is, that is all Z James.
• 58:25
  He's my favorite one now. He's so good.
• 58:28
  Like what? He's just my favorite one now.
• 58:31
  I take back everything I said about his name.
• 58:35
  I know what those letters are here.
• 58:38
  He he whispers this treachery into Scarbrand's ear.
• 58:42
  He says, I don't know why you're like second fiddle to this dude
• 58:47
  when you're the person putting all the skulls on the throne.
• 58:49
  My guy, have you ever even seen corn Terror City to the ground
• 58:54
  'cause I watched you do it on Tuesday.
• 58:56
  Like just just gets into it right?
• 59:00
  Like just tells it and Scarbrand.
• 59:02
  Drop a sick bee. Right, right.
• 59:05
  And Scarbrand starts to go. Yeah, actually.
• 59:09
  Like, I know Corn's big and powerful, but I've never seen
• 59:12
  him raise a Sadie. Yeah, yeah.
• 59:15
  Dude like is he all bark no bite?
• 59:17
  Yeah, he just sits on his big throne every day that keeps
• 59:21
  getting bigger by my efforts. And Zinch says, hey, I'm gonna
• 59:27
  let you in a secret right back here at the back of his neck.
• 59:32
  He's vulnerable there. I know that.
• 59:34
  I'm his brother. He's he's vulnerable.
• 59:36
  You can trust me. I'm his.
• 59:38
  Yeah, I know that I'm his. Brother you, you could trust me,
• 59:40
  Zinch, the God of Lies. Familiar relationship is a weird
• 59:51
  concept, and Scarborough buys it hook, line and sinker.
• 59:57
  He what man he he goes and like destroys the city.
• 1:00:00
  He brings back a haul of skulls to the Skull Throne.
• 1:00:03
  He reverently lays them at corn's feet.
• 1:00:05
  And then when he is like going to leave, he instead sneaks up
• 1:00:09
  behind the Skull throne and he takes his axes.
• 1:00:14
  He has twin axes named Carnage and Slaughter because of course
• 1:00:17
  they are just like hauls back his arm and every source I could
• 1:00:22
  find says with a blow that could decapitate a mountain range.
• 1:00:27
  Hits Korn right on the back of the neck with both axes and puts
• 1:00:33
  a single scratch in his neck. I'm.
• 1:00:36
  Sure. Yeah, he's a chaos God.
• 1:00:38
  Yeah. Why did you listen to Zinch, My
• 1:00:41
  God? Did he know it was?
• 1:00:43
  Zinch. Yeah, he wasn't.
• 1:00:45
  It wasn't just like so it wasn't like the whispering of like a
• 1:00:48
  voice. It was like he knew Zinch was
• 1:00:51
  signing his fucking text messages.
• 1:00:53
  If if Korn's dominant emotion is rage, Zinches's ambition, and
• 1:01:01
  maybe Scarbrand did believe he could Unsee corn.
• 1:01:03
  I'm sure he would, Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:01:06
  Absolutely. So he he delivers a blow.
• 1:01:08
  To be, yeah. To be fair, Scar Brand is the
• 1:01:12
  only person who has ever like knowingly damaged corn.
• 1:01:15
  He puts like a millimeter thick scar on the back of his neck.
• 1:01:19
  It's like the same little cut I've got on my inner arm from my
• 1:01:22
  kitten parkouring on the window seal.
• 1:01:26
  Like fucking. And in response, Corn grabs Scar
• 1:01:32
  Brand and he throws him a crossed reality.
• 1:01:37
  Just picture, picture like a looney tune of a person hitting
• 1:01:40
  like several walls in succession.
• 1:01:43
  But it is just like mountain range concept of time back in
• 1:01:49
  back into the realm of chaos. A tower that shouldn't exist.
• 1:01:53
  Yesteryear's last hope. Like just.
• 1:01:58
  Yeah, yeah. Just just throws him across the
• 1:02:02
  entire concept of reality. And he flies for eight straight
• 1:02:06
  days because of course he does. And when he finally comes to a
• 1:02:11
  rest on the old world, like this happened.
• 1:02:15
  This, this, this happened during the time of the old world.
• 1:02:19
  Yeah. OK, interesting.
• 1:02:20
  Interesting. I definitely thought it was
• 1:02:21
  happening now. OK, that's important.
• 1:02:23
  No, Scarman's been around for a while, and he's been a traitor
• 1:02:25
  for a while. Still around.
• 1:02:29
  Well he's traitor in the sense that he attempted his betrayal
• 1:02:34
  of corn, but Scar Brand lands on the world that was he lands on
• 1:02:37
  the the mortal realms. Normally how demons work is that
• 1:02:41
  if a demon dies, their soul goes back to the realm of chaos.
• 1:02:44
  They reform healthy and then they can come back to the
• 1:02:47
  material world. Because Scar Brands injuries
• 1:02:49
  were inflicted by corn. He can't heal.
• 1:02:54
  He can. If he dies, he'll still reform
• 1:02:56
  in the realm of chaos, but he will reform injured.
• 1:02:58
  Whoa, yeah. If you want to look at the next,
• 1:03:01
  I think it's the next picture in the the lineup.
• 1:03:04
  Oh yeah. Oh man, you look rough.
• 1:03:07
  Yep. You know what he looks like?
• 1:03:08
  He looks like Kaiju #8I. Don't know that reference.
• 1:03:12
  It's an anime. Kaiju.
• 1:03:17
  Kaiju dude's got like a Scully face and the blue.
• 1:03:19
  Eyes. Oh, I have seen that.
• 1:03:21
  I think I've seen that advertised.
• 1:03:22
  I've been watching it with DJ and Aiden and I recommend I
• 1:03:25
  enjoy it, it's fun. Hell yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:31
  Yeah, this dude is in bad shape. Yep, just tears like half of his
• 1:03:36
  face off so his skull is just exposed horns.
• 1:03:39
  Is broken off. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:41
  The most devastating injury is that his wings are broken.
• 1:03:45
  Yeah, they're just tattered and also kind of facing the wrong
• 1:03:48
  direction. That could just be the way
• 1:03:50
  they're posing the art, but like, I get.
• 1:03:52
  It Yeah, Scarbrand is the only Bloodthirster who can't fly, and
• 1:03:56
  he will never be able to fly ever again because corn broke
• 1:04:00
  his wings. You would think that that would
• 1:04:02
  be like a further like, oh, now I'm like the rebel
• 1:04:06
  Bloodthirster. No, Scarbrand put him.
• 1:04:08
  Right back in. Line Yes, Scarbrand regresses
• 1:04:10
  immediately. He is the exile, the
• 1:04:13
  bloodthirsty reality. Yeah, like what?
• 1:04:16
  There's nowhere else you go. No.
• 1:04:17
  Absolutely no. Absolutely.
• 1:04:20
  He cannot visit the the Brass Citadel, which is corns part of
• 1:04:25
  the Realm of Chaos. He cannot visit the Brass
• 1:04:27
  Citadel. He can never again stand before
• 1:04:30
  the Throne of Skulls. But he still does service Scar
• 1:04:34
  Brand is convinced that maybe if he just pushes it into 20
• 1:04:38
  billion skulls, offer to the throne, that corn will take him
• 1:04:41
  back. It's It's tragic.
• 1:04:43
  If he wasn't a horrifying rage monster.
• 1:04:45
  Yeah, like. A monster who's going to kill 20
• 1:04:48
  billion people. Right, right, but no Scar brand
• 1:04:51
  and that's where Scar Brand is still like I mean like survived
• 1:04:54
  the end of the world obviously just by being in the realm of
• 1:04:56
  chaos. And even if he had blown up with
• 1:04:58
  the old world, they just would have reformed in the realm of
• 1:05:00
  chaos and for. Him probably don't want to blow
• 1:05:02
  up on a planet. No.
• 1:05:04
  Yeah, and now that the Mortal Realms are here, like Scar Brand
• 1:05:07
  is gunning for it, he's ready to start getting back out there,
• 1:05:11
  collecting more skulls, trying to re earn the favor of corn.
• 1:05:14
  Well, but no, absolutely not. But I like Scarborough.
• 1:05:18
  He's he's a rare. Yeah, like.
• 1:05:20
  That's interesting. Characterly complex demon.
• 1:05:22
  Yeah, 100%. We got one more I want to talk
• 1:05:24
  about for this episode. Well, we got we got another that
• 1:05:27
  I'm going to mention. I'm going to mention Karanac,
• 1:05:29
  just because I think he's fun. Yeah.
• 1:05:32
  If I thought I'll. Hate the spelling.
• 1:05:34
  It's actually not that bad. KARANAK.
• 1:05:37
  Yeah. No, that's good.
• 1:05:38
  Yeah. Yeah, sounds like a Rice Krispie
• 1:05:42
  treat. Crush yeah, if flesh hounds
• 1:05:45
  broadly are corns hunting dogs. Karanak is Corns personal
• 1:05:48
  hunting dog. Yeah.
• 1:05:51
  He's got 3 heads. Yeah, he's got 3 heads, which is
• 1:05:55
  fun. He is the apex of all flesh
• 1:05:57
  hounds. They right, They listen to him
• 1:06:00
  instinctively. All the flesh hounds do.
• 1:06:02
  He technically ranks higher than most other like mortal
• 1:06:05
  worshippers of corn despite being a dog, which is very
• 1:06:09
  funny. I believe that of course the
• 1:06:11
  chaos God's gonna have like I like my dog more than any.
• 1:06:14
  Of you correct, You know that thought experiment of like would
• 1:06:16
  you take $1,000,000 if there was a snail somewhere on earth that
• 1:06:19
  was following you for the rest of your life and if it touched
• 1:06:22
  you died? No, Dalton.
• 1:06:23
  No, no. That thought experiment take
• 1:06:27
  $1,000,000. If there was a snail somewhere
• 1:06:28
  in the world that was following, if it touched you, you died.
• 1:06:30
  Yeah, I'm afraid I don't know that, but now I do.
• 1:06:36
  Well, that that hurts. How big is the snail?
• 1:06:38
  That hurts my comparison. Well, that's the thought
• 1:06:40
  experiment, right? Is like, could you consistently
• 1:06:42
  keep away from this? The snail doesn't grow tired.
• 1:06:44
  You can't trap it for any meaningful length of time.
• 1:06:47
  And if it touches you, it dies. But it is still a snail in every
• 1:06:49
  other regard. So it like travels at snail
• 1:06:51
  pace. But like, are you going to get
• 1:06:53
  too comfortable in one spot for like 10 years?
• 1:06:55
  And oh, no, the snail's caught you.
• 1:06:56
  Like, that's kind of the IT. It's a weird thought experiment.
• 1:07:00
  I don't know enough about snails, like I just live in my
• 1:07:02
  house and I'm constantly just walk walk walk and if I just
• 1:07:05
  close the door I didn't trap the snail.
• 1:07:07
  I just can't get into this room for the next 8 hours.
• 1:07:09
  Well, it might be able to come into the vents or something.
• 1:07:12
  Always trying. It's yes, it's, it's trying to
• 1:07:15
  get you and it's always going. It doesn't have to like sleep or
• 1:07:17
  anything. Nothing.
• 1:07:20
  Anyways, that's that's my. Mental health so, so taut it
• 1:07:25
  would just immediately rabble with the idea.
• 1:07:27
  But a snail is after me. Not even like an It Follows
• 1:07:31
  horror monster, just. A.
• 1:07:34
  Just a normal snail. From Turbo, a fucking DreamWorks
• 1:07:39
  snail. I was not picturing Turbo the
• 1:07:41
  snail, but I will forever now. And not him being fast, just
• 1:07:45
  what he looks like as a DreamWorks designed as snail.
• 1:07:48
  Coming to murder, I was hoping that was.
• 1:07:56
  Sorry, do you entirely, but it just it's also, you understand?
• 1:08:01
  No, it's, it's good in case our listeners don't know as well.
• 1:08:03
  Yeah. And.
• 1:08:04
  Now you do too. There's a stab that's calling
• 1:08:06
  you forever listeners. You don't even take the money.
• 1:08:07
  Just listen inside your brain. So that's kind of like Karanac,
• 1:08:12
  the corns 3 headed dog. Karanac is reserved only for
• 1:08:16
  like, those who personally offend Corn.
• 1:08:19
  So if you are, I was going to say, if you are a wizard who
• 1:08:23
  yesterday just like, obliterated a legion of cornet warriors with
• 1:08:26
  some powerful spell, maybe Corn whispers your name in Karanak's
• 1:08:30
  ear and now you get to dodge an extremely fast demonic hound for
• 1:08:35
  the rest of your life, which will probably be very short.
• 1:08:42
  Woof yeah woof indeed. The last one I wanna talk about.
• 1:08:49
  She hasn't done much in Age of Sigmar.
• 1:08:52
  I'm excited for her to do more cuz I think she's interesting.
• 1:08:55
  But we have Valkya the Bloody. The thing I said earlier about
• 1:09:01
  Skullburner, that's not his name.
• 1:09:04
  Skullburner. Scar Brand.
• 1:09:06
  Scar Brand. Yes about being Michael, if he
• 1:09:09
  had a first name it would be goofy, but on her it looks good.
• 1:09:13
  Yeah, I think it's because it's an epitaph.
• 1:09:15
  Like if she was named Valkya Bloody, I don't think that would
• 1:09:18
  be as good. But Valkya the Bloody.
• 1:09:20
  You're right, it's. The yeah, I dig it.
• 1:09:23
  And also straightforward. That's Valkya.
• 1:09:25
  What's she? What is she?
• 1:09:27
  Bloody Yeah. For sure, girl.
• 1:09:29
  Yeah. Yeah, Valkya hails from the old
• 1:09:31
  world. She is the last picture in our
• 1:09:33
  slide show. Yeah, there's another close up
• 1:09:35
  of Scar brand. If you scroll, I think you'll
• 1:09:38
  hit Silla and Scar, who we talked about earlier, the boring
• 1:09:41
  rage monsters. Yeah.
• 1:09:42
  Yeah, pretty boring, but then she's got it too.
• 1:09:44
  Yeah, right, Because he's just a fetch.
• 1:09:46
  He's. Just a He's a chaos spot, Yeah,
• 1:09:48
  but he doesn't look like 1 Karanac, I think.
• 1:09:51
  Yeah. And there's Valkya.
• 1:09:52
  Yeah. Yeah, she looks like a demonic
• 1:09:53
  Valkyrie. Yeah.
• 1:09:54
  And yeah, that's basically what she is.
• 1:09:57
  She was alive in the Old World. She was a Norsecan Chieftain in
• 1:10:01
  the Old World, the Norsecan Norsecan.
• 1:10:04
  Interesting, what was her name? Again, Valkyrie.
• 1:10:06
  Interesting. Yeah, in the Old World,
• 1:10:08
  Norsecans were the northern people, like who declined to
• 1:10:12
  join Sigmar's empire basically, and were kind of culturally
• 1:10:17
  chaos warriors in the way that we see happen in Age of during
• 1:10:21
  the Age of Chaos. Just in the Old World.
• 1:10:23
  Like the Norsekens didn't necessarily worship corn, but
• 1:10:26
  they might worship the great hunting hound who drives them to
• 1:10:29
  do similar things. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 1:10:32
  But she was a Norsekin. She was a Norsekin like tribal
• 1:10:35
  chieftess who during, like negotiations, basically another
• 1:10:41
  Norsekin Chieftain did not ask but basically demanded she be
• 1:10:46
  his bride. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:10:49
  Yeah. So.
• 1:10:52
  How? Dare right.
• 1:10:53
  So she obviously, so she obviously killed him on the spot
• 1:11:00
  because yeah, and in a supreme like act of service to corn,
• 1:11:07
  decided it was not good enough to merely behead this horrible
• 1:11:13
  dude and offer a hiscal to Corn from the comfort of her like
• 1:11:18
  Chieftain's tent. But instead that she would drag
• 1:11:22
  his body N to where the old world had just like an open gate
• 1:11:27
  to the realm of chaos to hand deliver this asshole skull to
• 1:11:31
  Corn. Personally, I'm going to.
• 1:11:35
  Deliver your skull personally to the Skull Throne.
• 1:11:39
  She doesn't make it. Yeah, Narska is inhospitable at
• 1:11:44
  the best of times, and reality starts to break down the closer
• 1:11:48
  you get to the portal to the chaos realm.
• 1:11:50
  She functionally dies of exposure like a month into her
• 1:11:54
  journey. She would have died much earlier
• 1:11:56
  than that if she wasn't driven by, like, coronate rage rather
• 1:12:01
  than just having her, like, die. Corn.
• 1:12:04
  Yeah, what a waste corn is. You can't say that corn doesn't
• 1:12:07
  see the potential. Oh absolutely.
• 1:12:09
  Corn is so impressed by her devotion and her just like rage
• 1:12:14
  at this one dude to undertake this insane task that he bestows
• 1:12:19
  upon her a privilege that we don't see often for mortals.
• 1:12:25
  I wouldn't, yeah. Yeah, so the apex of the path to
• 1:12:32
  glory, the end of the path to glory, is what is called dark
• 1:12:36
  apotheosis, and that is the excruciating, extremely
• 1:12:43
  difficult, very likely to go wrong process by which the Chaos
• 1:12:47
  gods handcraft a mortal soul into a demon one.
• 1:12:53
  Like they they turn it into a demon soul or they put it into a
• 1:12:58
  demon. Soul they turn it into a demon
• 1:13:00
  soul that's. What I figured, but I just
• 1:13:01
  wanted to make sure you know Skull Throne.
• 1:13:04
  Yes, yes, it is a psychotic level of power.
• 1:13:08
  The CAS gods are the only people who could do anything close to
• 1:13:11
  this. Because souls are generally what
• 1:13:15
  they are. It is very hard to screw with a
• 1:13:17
  soul even. It's like an atom.
• 1:13:21
  Yeah, the essence of things. Yes, Nagash.
• 1:13:24
  Even Nagash collects souls he doesn't like do stuff to him.
• 1:13:28
  But the Chaos God's taking an individual mortal soul and
• 1:13:32
  having it undergo dark apotheosis turns it into a
• 1:13:35
  demon. I like dark apotheosis.
• 1:13:37
  It's a. Good name, a good.
• 1:13:38
  Name it sounds musical, you can tell it's creepy, but also very
• 1:13:43
  impressive. Dark Apotheosis, that is a metal
• 1:13:47
  album in 2006, right? Valkya.
• 1:13:50
  So when that happens to a mortal, they always become the
• 1:13:54
  same kind of demon, kind of. OK.
• 1:13:56
  Oh. Like say like they any mortal
• 1:13:59
  this happens to regardless of what demon yes did the thing
• 1:14:03
  they all you can tell they were a mortal one.
• 1:14:05
  Yes. OK.
• 1:14:07
  Yep. A mortal that has become a demon
• 1:14:08
  is referred to as a demon Prince or a demon Princess.
• 1:14:13
  Yeah. No, we can just demon Prince.
• 1:14:15
  Right. And they've kind of dropped the
• 1:14:17
  demon Princess, like as time has gone on, which I appreciate
• 1:14:19
  because, yeah, Demon Prince is fine, yeah.
• 1:14:21
  Demon Prince, Yeah. Gender isn't really a thing when
• 1:14:24
  you're a demon anymore anyways. Yeah and demon Princess are
• 1:14:26
  extremely diverse. No2 are alike generally but that
• 1:14:30
  is just the term for immortal that has become a demon.
• 1:14:33
  Valkya becomes a demon Prince of Corn.
• 1:14:35
  Fuck yeah she does. Yeah.
• 1:14:38
  Listen, I believe in women's rights and I also believe in
• 1:14:41
  women's wrongs. She's terrible.
• 1:14:45
  We love her. Yes, also it's okay she's not
• 1:14:49
  real gay. Yep.
• 1:14:51
  I can be jazzed. She's not real.
• 1:14:55
  Her design is also great. Yeah.
• 1:14:56
  Yeah. Like for real.
• 1:14:57
  For real? Yeah.
• 1:14:59
  Yeah, Wing, big wings. She's also a spear bearer.
• 1:15:03
  Yeah, if, if, if axes or corns main things.
• 1:15:07
  Spears are his second. They're the oldest human weapon.
• 1:15:10
  Her shield supposedly appears like the face of the guy she was
• 1:15:15
  hauling to the realm of Chaos. Yeah, that's so good.
• 1:15:20
  And in the old world at least part of her duties as I I have
• 1:15:27
  like issue with the implications of the title, but is a very cool
• 1:15:30
  title. Balky's official title is the
• 1:15:32
  dread consort of corn. Sexuality is not a thing that
• 1:15:36
  the chaos God's experience. Yeah, but.
• 1:15:39
  Yeah, you wouldn't call. If this had been a dude, he
• 1:15:43
  wouldn't have called. Been called the Dread Consort.
• 1:15:45
  Right, right. It's a cool, you're right.
• 1:15:48
  It's a cool title. But it's a really.
• 1:15:49
  Cool with a weird implication. Yeah, weird.
• 1:15:52
  Implication. Yeah, like, yeah, yeah,
• 1:15:56
  definitely a vibe there. Yeah, that didn't need to be
• 1:15:59
  there in order to get Dread anything.
• 1:16:02
  Yeah, right. Dread Queen would have been I.
• 1:16:04
  Was guessing the dread Queen of corn, yeah.
• 1:16:07
  Yeah, we also like it seems like very intent to like want to
• 1:16:10
  ascribe gender. Yeah, which also I don't think
• 1:16:14
  it like we talked like Demon Princess earlier.
• 1:16:16
  That just sounds dummy. Yeah, like that just doesn't
• 1:16:20
  sound good. It sounds unnecessary when you
• 1:16:22
  already are running with Demon Prince though.
• 1:16:24
  I don't want to be like, oh dread concert and Dread Queen
• 1:16:29
  aren't good because they're inherently trying to add a
• 1:16:31
  femininity and a gendered idea to if this was a dude would not
• 1:16:35
  have gotten that. We've just been like the dread
• 1:16:36
  hand, the dread, like something like that.
• 1:16:40
  Simultaneously though, like I don't want to imply that it is
• 1:16:44
  inherently bad to want to have a figure like, embody or like
• 1:16:50
  communicate concepts about their gender or gender identity or or
• 1:16:55
  elements of or say that femininity is bad when present.
• 1:16:58
  Yeah, but it's a weird vibe. But calling her Dread concert is
• 1:17:02
  a weird vibe, yeah, and I don't care for it.
• 1:17:05
  Yeah, it speaks to a kind of. And again, it was the IT was the
• 1:17:09
  80s, Yeah. And.
• 1:17:11
  That I feel like communicates. For comparison, her kind of like
• 1:17:14
  matched pair with one of the other chaos gods.
• 1:17:16
  Like another, they're not a demon Prince but they are like
• 1:17:18
  an elevated champion. Nergal has kind of an equivalent
• 1:17:22
  named Festus, and his title is the Leech Lord, which is also
• 1:17:26
  like a title of nobility with the thing that he's known for.
• 1:17:30
  The Dread Lord of. Corn, right, Right.
• 1:17:33
  Yeah, it's, it's the consort thing.
• 1:17:34
  It's the implied. Submissive.
• 1:17:37
  That's what it is. It's the implied submissive.
• 1:17:40
  Yeah, yeah. And that is, that is an aspect
• 1:17:43
  of chaos, like, right? For sure.
• 1:17:46
  It's just we don't see it with people who aren't Valkya, right?
• 1:17:50
  That's the other problem, right? If we saw it with other figures,
• 1:17:54
  then, but it is specifically because Valkya is a woman, that
• 1:17:58
  we have this odd implication. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:02
  I think it's part of why the title has gone out of favor in
• 1:18:05
  more recent telling. Yeah, like I said, AOS.
• 1:18:08
  If AOS is anything, it's partially an opportunity to
• 1:18:11
  respond to the 80s in original Warhammer.
• 1:18:14
  And Valky is, like I said, we don't get a ton of info on Valky
• 1:18:18
  and AOS. I think they're saving her for
• 1:18:20
  like another big story. Yeah, big storyline in the
• 1:18:22
  future. We know she's around because
• 1:18:24
  she's a demon now, so she's going to be around.
• 1:18:28
  Yeah, it's like how you got, you know, OG Star Wars Princess Leia
• 1:18:33
  at the beginning of Return of the Jedi, her metal bikini and
• 1:18:37
  stuff. Long time called Slave Leia and
• 1:18:40
  more recently is canonically referred to as Hut Slayer Leia.
• 1:18:43
  That design, because it actually is like 1 less creepy and two
• 1:18:48
  actually underlines the most prominent action she took in
• 1:18:52
  that attire yeah was to murder job on his own fucking floating
• 1:18:58
  barge. Yep So yeah, Hutzlayer Leia.
• 1:19:02
  I once referred to her as Hutzlayer Leia and got it.
• 1:19:04
  He's like, oh, if you want to be like PC about it, like that's
• 1:19:06
  her fucking. Title.
• 1:19:08
  That's correct now. Cannon.
• 1:19:09
  Fuck off. The important The important word
• 1:19:12
  in politically correct is correct, Yeah.
• 1:19:15
  You're right. You're.
• 1:19:15
  Oh, yeah, I'm right. Yeah.
• 1:19:17
  Thank you for noticing. That I am.
• 1:19:18
  Right in this situation, you're so cool.
• 1:19:21
  Yeah, that's a good name. It's a good name.
• 1:19:24
  Much cooler name for anything. It's yeah, I, I, I wanted to
• 1:19:29
  mention the dread concert thing, especially when her story is
• 1:19:31
  about like her rage at yeah, yeah yeah, it's like.
• 1:19:35
  You're going to be my wife and she's like, I'm going to murder
• 1:19:37
  you and give your skull to the skull.
• 1:19:39
  Throat right, I like I said. It was the Yeah, he's very much
• 1:19:43
  not thinking of actual like just doing, viewing these things as
• 1:19:49
  not being connected when in fact they.
• 1:19:52
  Are yes 100%. Things do not exist in a vacuum,
• 1:19:56
  especially in a story. Yeah.
• 1:19:57
  And like I said, we're getting better at that, so.
• 1:20:00
  Yeah, this is This is why we are a Warhammer AOF podcast.
• 1:20:03
  Yes, Yep, I'm going to reference God Eaters son again.
• 1:20:05
  God Eaters son carries no water for like the things that the
• 1:20:12
  protagonist like rallies against.
• 1:20:14
  Like God Eater son is an anti colonialist story just to throw
• 1:20:17
  that cover off and the protagonist ends up falling to
• 1:20:20
  corn but it never takes the stance that the colonial powers
• 1:20:23
  he's fighting against are like the good guys.
• 1:20:25
  Yeah, they're they're not. Right.
• 1:20:27
  No, Yeah. I'm a villain, but that doesn't
• 1:20:29
  mean they're right. Correct.
• 1:20:30
  Yeah, it is. It is a story.
• 1:20:32
  It is. I mean it's a tragedy because
• 1:20:34
  our protagonist ends up falling into that spiral of violence.
• 1:20:39
  But again, the book is very explicit about like hey just
• 1:20:42
  because the the protagonist ends up as a bad guy doesn't mean the
• 1:20:46
  thing they were fighting against is the good guys.
• 1:20:49
  Nuance. Interesting thread to.
• 1:20:51
  You right, And you would never in the old world anyways.
• 1:20:55
  You'd never in the story about the tread consorticorn, but I
• 1:20:59
  also. I also do like on that note,
• 1:21:01
  like nothing about her design screams consort.
• 1:21:04
  Like it screams and you can like clock it as like the body shape
• 1:21:08
  and her like features do carry like traditional feminine like
• 1:21:13
  markers, but not like I said, not in a way that's like like
• 1:21:16
  not in a bad way, like in a yeah, especially her name is
• 1:21:19
  like remnant of Valkyrie, who are specifically like the female
• 1:21:23
  warriors of Odin. Like that inherent, like
• 1:21:26
  femininity, is a marker that is valuable to be communicated.
• 1:21:32
  Even back in the old world, I'm going to put a huge like token
• 1:21:35
  of credit on Warhammer. In general, I think Warhammer
• 1:21:38
  doesn't overly sexualize its female characters.
• 1:21:40
  That's so hard to do, especially.
• 1:21:41
  In the 80s, right? Especially in the 80s,
• 1:21:43
  especially in fantasy as a genre, like Jesus.
• 1:21:47
  But I don't think old, like old World Warhammer was bad about
• 1:21:50
  it. And I'd think AOS does an
• 1:21:51
  excellent job. We have so many extremely cool
• 1:21:54
  female characters that just like aren't in the story yet they're
• 1:21:57
  so excited to talk about. If you already parsed out when
• 1:22:02
  this episode is being recorded because you heard my comment
• 1:22:05
  about the Elden Ring DLC earlier, then you've probably
• 1:22:07
  seen my painting of Yindrosta on Instagram that I'm so excited to
• 1:22:13
  talk about Yindrosta so I. Was trying to get to Instagram
• 1:22:15
  because I'm sure I've already seen it.
• 1:22:16
  I follow you on Instagram. But she's the lady with the bird
• 1:22:20
  wings. I want to see her again.
• 1:22:22
  I do remember bird wings, yeah. She's so cool.
• 1:22:25
  I love you and trust. She's.
• 1:22:28
  So cool, right? Yeah.
• 1:22:30
  But yeah, Valkya in the old world, she did perform the
• 1:22:34
  service of like if there was a Corn 8 warrior who died that
• 1:22:38
  Corn particularly liked, she would like bodyguard their soul
• 1:22:42
  as it reached corn. So she yeah, she did perform
• 1:22:44
  kind of like a Valkyriel duty. She was seen as kind of a
• 1:22:48
  guardian Angel for some of the Norskin like tribes that
• 1:22:50
  worshipped corn right. The Empire's pushing N to try
• 1:22:53
  and reclaim, like, territorial lands, and the battle is lost.
• 1:22:58
  But who's that on the skyline? Odes Valky.
• 1:23:03
  Valky of the Bloody. Yeah.
• 1:23:05
  Yeah. Here we go.
• 1:23:06
  And I'm excited to see what they do with her in AOS.
• 1:23:09
  But that's what we've got for corn.
• 1:23:10
  Kind of corn. Formerly got back into the.
• 1:23:13
  Game Yes Athos now Corgos cull leading the core tide across the
• 1:23:18
  plains of Akshi similar vibe and as that is happening there are
• 1:23:30
  deeper manipulations happening elsewhere.
• 1:23:32
  He got a little bit of a preview in this episode.
• 1:23:35
  We were talking about Scar Brand, but our next episode is
• 1:23:37
  going to be about to the grand manipulator, the changer of
• 1:23:40
  ways, Zinch. My favorite sexy bitch.
• 1:23:45
  Let's run it. Is the blueberries and the
• 1:23:47
  oatmeal wild? Thing I said.
• 1:23:54
  I love it. We're going to do merch on that
• 1:23:55
  I'm. Sure.
• 1:23:57
  Fantastic. But in the meantime, thank you
• 1:23:59
  so much for joining us for another episode of The Bad Moons
• 1:24:02
  Orbit. I am Dalton Montgomery, your
• 1:24:04
  Warhammer aficionado. I'm Darian smart and I think I'm
• 1:24:06
  just hungry. Thank you so much.
• 1:24:09
  We'll talk to you again soon. Bye.