Abilities of GEoM

[IronStar]

Long time ago i participated in an IoM vs GE debate(i really don t want to touch the whole subject cause i quited that debate for a good reason and there already were several vs debates connected with this on SD.net) and there was one(among all the pile of bullshit this debate was doomed to turn into) very good question about 40k that i really didn t think about- GEoM is said to be so godlike and super powerfull, the most powerfull psyker in 40k but what how did his abilities actually manifest? I tried to find it out but nor fluff, nor lexicanum or books that i read mention his actual powers(must convince that i am not very familiar with HH novels where this stuff can be).

Only two times i ve seen smth- the notion that he could creat LY wide warpstorms and that he once stopped time in a galaxy for a moment but those are without sources.

[Simon_Jester]

His powers were seldom made explicit, simply because the real answer to your question is "How powerful is he? More so than anyone else in his setting, by a huge margin of superiority." With the possible exception of the Chaos gods, anyway.

It might actually be easier to start with "what are truly, deeply, impressively high-end psykers and sorcerors capable of in 40k?" Because that at least establishes a baseline for what the God-Emperor is more capable than.

[Lord Revan]

As Simon stated there's next to no explicit info on the powers of the Emperor (I wouldn't be surprised if it was a company directive at Games Workshop, the same way they're not allowed to give clear info on the fate of the 2nd and 11th Legions of the Adeptus Astrades), closes thing to solid number is that we know that the Emperor was able to power the Astronomican by himself.

[NecronLord]

The only directly depicted scene of the Emperor using his powers (as a man):

N.B. this is a transcript from an old White Dwarf, and there's some transcription errors here (know instead of knows, for instance).

The Emperor stands transfixed, trying to force frozen words from his tongue. In the end he can only wisper; "Why?"

Mad laughter rings out. "Why? You ask me why? Have all those millennia tought you nothing? Weak fool, your timidity prevented you from binding the forces of Chaos. You shied away from the ultimate power. I have bound it to my will and will lead humanity into a new age. I, Horus, Master Of Chaos."

The Emperor looks at his former friend and shakes his head. He sees the trap that has ensnared Horus. "No man can master Chaos," he says quietly. "You have deluded yourself. You are the servant not the master."

A look of rage transfigures the Warmaster. He stretches out a hand and a bolt of force leaps forth. The Emperor screams as agony wracks his body. "Feel the true nature of my power then tell me I am deluded," roars Horus, in the voice of an angry god.

Beads of sweat stand out on the Emperor's forehead, he steels himself against the pain. "You are deluded," he says.

Once again Horus gestures and lances of pure poison sear through the Emperor's veins. "I let you come here, old friend, so that you could witness my triumph. Kneel before me and I will spare you. Acknowledge the new master of mankind."

Desperately the Emperor summons his power and lashes out. Lightning flicker between the combatants. The stench of ozone fills the air. The Emperor leaps forward, sword raised. Weapons clash as the battle is joined on every level: physical, spiritual, psychic.

Bolts of force flicker as mortal gods clash, balancing the fate of the galaxy on every blow. Runesword and lightning claw ring against each other with a sound like thunder. Energies potent enough to level planets are unleashed.

A backhand buffet from Horus knocks the Emperor through a stone bulkhead. The counterstroke tears a supporting column out of the ceiling as the Warmaster ducks.

In the warp the Emperor hears the Chaos Powers howl as they feed their pawn more power. The Lord of Humanity stands alone against their massed might and knows that he is losing. Somehow he cannot bring his full force to bear on the Warmaster. Horus shows no such restraint.

A lightning claw cuts the Emperor's armour as if it were cloth, sheers through flesh and bone. The Emperor ripostes with a psychic stroke intended to disrupt the Warmaster's nervous system. Horus laughs as he deflects it.

His claws take the Emperor across the throat, opening windpipe and jugular. Another blow severs the tendons of his wrist, causing the sword to drop from nerveless fingers.

Insane laughter echoes round the chamber. Horus breaks several ribs with an almost playful punch. A surge of energy seers the Emperor's face, melting the flesh till it runs, bursting an eyeball, sets the hair alight. The Emperor stifles a whimper, wonders how he can be losing. Blackness threatens to engulf him.

Horus grasps his wrist, splintering bones. Blood pumps from the Emperor's throat. Horus lifts his foe above his head and brings him down across his knee, breaking his spine.

For a second the Emperor knows only darkness then a flare of agony brings him back to consciousness as Horus rips his arm from its socket. The Warmaster howls with bestial triumph.

Suddenly the battering stops. Through his good eye the Emperor sees a solitary Terminator has entered the room. The marine charges toward the Warmaster, stormbolter blazing. Horus looks at him and laughs. For a moment he stands triumphant, allowing the marine to see what he has done to his Emperor.

The Emperor know what is going to happen next, sees the gloating triumph on Horus' face. There is no trace of his friend left there. There is only a daemon driven by insane destructive fury.

Horus turns his burning gaze on the Terminator and the marine's flesh flakes away to reveal his skeleton then even that is gone, reduced to dust.

The Emperor sees the trap that has been set for him. He has been restraining himself, trying not to hurt one who has been as a son to him. Now he sees that there is no trace of his trusted comrade left. He knows that he must stop this semblance of his former friend and avenge the fallen Terminator. He must strike one deadly blow. He will get no other chance.

He gathers every particle of his power, focuses it into a mighty bolt of pure force, more coherent than a laser, more destructive than an exploding sun. He aims it at Horus, a lance of power destined for the madman's heart. Horus senses the upsurge of energy and turns to face the Emperor, a look of horror on his face.

The Emperor lets fly. It strikes the Warmaster. Horus screams as destruction rains down on him, twisting and writhing in titanic agony. He strives frantically to counter the Emperor's deathblow but his struggles become ever more feeble as the lethal energies play over him.

Driven by all the force of his rage and pain and hatred the Emperor wills Horus's death. He senses the forces of Chaos retreat, disengaging themselves from their pawn. As they do so sanity returns to the Warmaster. The Emperor sees realisation of the atrocities he has commited flicker across Horus' face. Tears glisten there.

Horus is free but the Emperor knows he himself is dieing and that the Powers Of Chaos may once again posses the Warmaster and he will not be there to stop them. He cannot take that risk. Horus must die. Yet for a second, looking into his old friends face, he hesitates, unable to do the deed. Then he thinks of the slaughter that still goes on outside, may go on forever. Resolve hardens within him.

He forces all mercy and all compassion from his mind, empties it of all knowledge of friendship and comaraderie and love. His eyes lock with Horus and see understanding there. Then with full cold knowledge of what he is doing the Emperor destroys the Warmaster.

What I find notable beyond the 'supernova' and 'planet levelling' psychic power, is that things like power fists, strongly and skillfully used no doubt, actually injure and could even have killed him. Certainly the mortal wounds come from the beating, and needless to say the beating is not using stellar levels of power.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It's significant that the Emperor was only losing when Horus was backed by all four Chaos Gods acting in unison. And when the Emperor finally cuts loose with all he has, even that unified front can't stop him. Basically, the Emperor is on a par with the combined Chaos Gods.

Incidentally, that scene was way better when it was Ollanius Pius the lone Guardsman rather than a terminator.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, Ollanius Pius is awesome.

Anyway, the Emperor is a psychic, but he's a psychic with a vaguely human physical body, not Superman. He may have some degree of supernatural durability, and probably can manage some kind of force field to protect himself under some conditions, but if you cut him with a reasonably sharp object, or shoot him with a firearm, he will probably bleed.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

A more important question than the OP is: why do people care? The Emperor is there to be the background of the setting along with the rest of the gods and the warp, and he's not supposed to be a character anyway. His entire purpose is to take the galaxy's longest shit and have stuff happen in his name and this cannot be stressed enough. Even in HH he's only there so we can see how he got mounted on the toilet, assuming the final duel is written before the fans die of old age.

No, seriously: what drives people to debate about that asshole? Eisenhorn and Ravenor are both better representatives of psykers and far more quantifiable, nevermind their books are actually going somewhere instead of everyone shouting "c'mon, we know how this ends". Why not quantify them?

[Bedlam]

Long time ago i participated in an IoM vs GE debate(i really don t want to touch the whole subject cause i quited that debate for a good reason and there already were several vs debates connected with this on SD.net) and there was one(among all the pile of bullshit this debate was doomed to turn into) very good question about 40k that i really didn t think about- GEoM is said to be so godlike and super powerfull, the most powerfull psyker in 40k but what how did his abilities actually manifest? I tried to find it out but nor fluff, nor lexicanum or books that i read mention his actual powers(must convince that i am not very familiar with HH novels where this stuff can be).

Only two times i ve seen smth- the notion that he could creat LY wide warpstorms and that he once stopped time in a galaxy for a moment but those are without sources.

The stopping time thing is from the old Ian Watson book Inquisitor and it's not clear if its the whole galaxy, it might only be earth or even just the throne room. The same section suggests that he is either a gestalt or massively schitsophrenic, the former would fit with the background given to him in the Lost and Damned book from about the same time period.

[Ahriman238]

The Emperor is, of course, the most special and powerful human being who ever lived. His sons, lesser men that they were, inspired most who saw them to reflexively take a kneeling/groveling position. He was intelligent, the master of lost technologies of the Dark Age. Immortal, with millennia of experience in all manner of war and subterfuge. Physically, he and Vulkan once competed to hold an anvil over their heads the longest, and the contest was declared a draw after eight hours with no end in sight. He was able to fight on after losing an arm, an eye, having his throat slashed and several broken limbs, and only whimpering one throughout.

Psychically, he was easily the most powerful human psyker to have ever lived, and some living psykers can open portals to orbit or tear Titans in two with TK. On Monarchia, he forced the entire World Bearers Legion (40,000 power armored Astartes) to kneel before him with either TK or mind control, but I'm leaning towards TK. He has healed flesh and machine both with a touch. Oh, and when the runner up for most powerful psyker took his place on the Throne for just a few hours, it killed him.

[NecronLord]

Long time ago i participated in an IoM vs GE debate(i really don t want to touch the whole subject cause i quited that debate for a good reason and there already were several vs debates connected with this on SD.net) and there was one(among all the pile of bullshit this debate was doomed to turn into) very good question about 40k that i really didn t think about- GEoM is said to be so godlike and super powerfull, the most powerfull psyker in 40k but what how did his abilities actually manifest? I tried to find it out but nor fluff, nor lexicanum or books that i read mention his actual powers(must convince that i am not very familiar with HH novels where this stuff can be).

Only two times i ve seen smth- the notion that he could creat LY wide warpstorms and that he once stopped time in a galaxy for a moment but those are without sources.

The stopping time thing is from the old Ian Watson book Inquisitor and it's not clear if its the whole galaxy, it might only be earth or even just the throne room. The same section suggests that he is either a gestalt or massively schitsophrenic, the former would fit with the background given to him in the Lost and Damned book from about the same time period.

Nah, Jaq wonders if time has stopped for the whole galaxy or something but the Emperor puts him right:

"HEAR THIS, JAQ DRACO: ONLY TINY PORTIONS OF US CAN HEED YOU, OTHERWISE WE NEGLECT OUR IMPERIUM, OF WHICH OUR SCRUTINY MUST NOT FALTER FOR AN INSTANT. FOR TIME DOES NOT HALT EVERYWHERE WITHIN THE REALM OF MAN. INDEED TIME ONLY HALTS FOR YOU."

[IronStar]

As Simon stated there's next to no explicit info on the powers of the Emperor (I wouldn't be surprised if it was a company directive at Games Workshop

And lack of manifestations of his powers is quite logical- GEoM was strong advocate of atheism and one of his goals was for a humanity to get rid of religions and beliefs at all and he was kinda pissed of when ppl began to worship to him as a god, so destroying entire fleets and armies by just looking at them and doing other stuff was not good for his goals.

No, seriously: what drives people to debate about that asshole? Eisenhorn and Ravenor are both better representatives of psykers and far more quantifiable

Cause in that debate(damn, in other debates on other sites too mostly) most 40k fans were too lazy to research deeper their(and mine) favorite universe an SW universe so they could say nothing more than "Emperor will come an ruin you all, he is soooooo loooong omnipotent and powerfull. Smt like this.

s that things like power fists, strongly and skillfully used no doubt, actually injure and could even have killed him.

It is probably about his flesh and armour only- but i think that to get there one needs to break through his pshychic barrier smth more is needed- probably thats why chaos gods were pumping Horus with their energy

He was able to fight on after losing an arm, an eye, having his throat slashed and several broken limbs, and only whimpering one throughout.

Maybe it is not connected with his psyker abilities cause his body was probably modified.

some living psykers can open portals to orbit or tear Titans in two with TK

And thats interesting too- cause the whole titan killing thing was mentione only in WH40k rulebook- yes, psykers are capable of cool stuff but i really don t know any example of psyker tearing apart titan or starship.

"HEAR THIS, JAQ DRACO: ONLY TINY PORTIONS OF US CAN HEED YOU, OTHERWISE WE NEGLECT OUR IMPERIUM, OF WHICH OUR SCRUTINY MUST NOT FALTER FOR AN INSTANT. FOR TIME DOES NOT HALT EVERYWHERE WITHIN THE REALM OF MAN. INDEED TIME ONLY HALTS FOR YOU."

So did he actually stop time or what? And as i see, even if he did- only in throne room.

[Eternal_Freedom]

He was able to fight on after losing an arm, an eye, having his throat slashed and several broken limbs, and only whimpering one throughout.

Maybe it is not connected with his psyker abilities cause his body was probably modified.

Well, he is stated to be the genetic father of the Primarchs, and they in turn formed the basis of the Space Marines, who thanks to their various implants and enhancements can survive some pretty horrible injuries. It stands to reason he would be similarly enhanced, but more so. Plus, his being a Perpetual/Immortal might have something to do with it.

[Boeing 757]

What I find notable beyond the 'supernova' and 'planet levelling' psychic power, is that things like power fists, strongly and skillfully used no doubt, actually injure and could even have killed him. Certainly the mortal wounds come from the beating, and needless to say the beating is not using stellar levels of power.

Something tells me that the blows from ordinary weapons like power-fists and the like during that fight were psychically amplified to a high degree....

[Simon_Jester]

There's at least some precedent there; Leman Russ supposedly survived a power fist to the face (from the Emperor). Though the Emperor wasn't actually trying to kill Russ, so who knows; the 'power field' or whatever associated with the power fist may have been set to 'concuss' rather than 'rip apart tanks.'

Anyhow. The evidence suggests that the Primarchs (and by extension the God-Emperor) are physically tough enough that to be confident of putting them down you need a credible antitank weapon, so I guess the Emperor is a bit more like Superman than I'd thought. Although I honestly wonder what would happen, physically, if he were attacked with a normal knife or firearm and didn't have superb power armor or force fields protecting him.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Cause in that debate(damn, in other debates on other sites too mostly) most 40k fans were too lazy to research deeper their(and mine) favorite universe an SW universe so they could say nothing more than "Emperor will come an ruin you all, he is soooooo loooong omnipotent and powerfull. Smt like this.

This would make "most 40k fans" dumb as rocks, I think, because Emps is completely useless in any sort of VS. Except perhaps the "who has the biggest religious fanatics" one, but that's not very common.

Although I honestly wonder what would happen, physically, if he were attacked with a normal knife or firearm and didn't have superb power armor or force fields protecting him.

He's lived so long (early fluff says he was born sometime in 8000BC) that it has almost certainly happened. My guess is that he would heal himself, since it is stuff that psykers can do in 40k.

[Simon_Jester]

Cause in that debate(damn, in other debates on other sites too mostly) most 40k fans were too lazy to research deeper their(and mine) favorite universe an SW universe so they could say nothing more than "Emperor will come an ruin you all, he is soooooo loooong omnipotent and powerfull. Smt like this.

This would make "most 40k fans" dumb as rocks, I think, because Emps is completely useless in any sort of VS. Except perhaps the "who has the biggest religious fanatics" one, but that's not very common.

[Raises eyebrow]

Why 'useless?' The life support?

[Black Admiral]

Anyhow. The evidence suggests that the Primarchs (and by extension the God-Emperor) are physically tough enough that to be confident of putting them down you need a credible antitank weapon,

That's a fair assessment, although it depends on the Primarch. For example, in Raven's Flight Corax pretty much walks off a pair of lascannon blasts to the chest (while hurt, he wasn't even close to disabled, considering the beating to death of the Predator tank that shot him), whereas in The Unremembered Empire a bolter-armed squad of Alpha Legionnaires nearly succeed in killing Guilliman.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

This would make "most 40k fans" dumb as rocks, I think, because Emps is completely useless in any sort of VS. Except perhaps the "who has the biggest religious fanatics" one, but that's not very common.

[Raises eyebrow]

Why 'useless?' The life support?

Broader than that. The Emperor is not an active part of any story of the 40k universe; you can't compare him to Palpatine, say, who is a central character in SW. Emps is a piece of background in 40k. If you specify that you talk about the HH era, then there might be a point as he actually does things then. But counting on him in any debate about the 41st mil. era is nonsense.

[Elheru Aran]

Anyhow. The evidence suggests that the Primarchs (and by extension the God-Emperor) are physically tough enough that to be confident of putting them down you need a credible antitank weapon,

That's a fair assessment, although it depends on the Primarch. For example, in Raven's Flight Corax pretty much walks off a pair of lascannon blasts to the chest (while hurt, he wasn't even close to disabled, considering the beating to death of the Predator tank that shot him), whereas in The Unremembered Empire a bolter-armed squad of Alpha Legionnaires nearly succeed in killing Guilliman.

The answer for this is obviously for someone to go through all the 40K reference material and compile a list of all Primarch injuries. Connor? Calling Connor Macleod!

Seriously though, we do see Primarchs survive some pretty crazy stuff. Angron gets straight up stomped by a Warhound Titan, and it seems to injure him badly enough that while he manages to lift it back up off his body, he's weak enough afterwards that Lorgar has to come to his defense. Lorgar in turn gets almost killed by another Titan blasting him at close range... after he deflects the first barrage.

The fight with Horus is pretty obviously exceptional as both are wielding some serious psychic oomph. It says something-- unquantifiable but impressive-- that the Emperor survived against the combined power of the four Chaos Gods, plus Horus who is no slouch himself.

As far as inconsistent portrayals of the Primarchs go... aren't some differences between them creditable to their powers being at least partly psychic in origin rather than simple brute strength? I postulate that their resilience may be partly linked to their morale. Take Horus on the moon of Davin; he is brought low by what he realizes about Eugan Temba's treachery before Temba sticks him with the anathame. Corax, on the other hand-- isn't the incident during the massacre on Istvaan 4?-- is pretty thoroughly pissed off, so he's got that going for him.

Of course my memory is hazy lately...

Broader than that. The Emperor is not an active part of any story of the 40k universe; you can't compare him to Palpatine, say, who is a central character in SW. Emps is a piece of background in 40k. If you specify that you talk about the HH era, then there might be a point as he actually does things then. But counting on him in any debate about the 41st mil. era is nonsense.

You have to look at it from both angles. The OP didn't specify the Emperor's powers in which era, he's just asking for examples of these powers. We do have data on things that the Emperor does directly both in 30K and 40K.

Granted in 40K he's not going to do much in person, but there are still incidents where he manifests power directly (Storm of the Emperor's Wrath, for one).

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Of course there are, but they are in the background of the universe, we can't quantify them, and they seem to happen based on author's fiat so we don't have a guide on where he would intervene and where he wouldn't. So the issue becomes "he works in mysterious ways" and you cannot have a debate like that.

[Simon_Jester]

Anyhow. The evidence suggests that the Primarchs (and by extension the God-Emperor) are physically tough enough that to be confident of putting them down you need a credible antitank weapon,

That's a fair assessment, although it depends on the Primarch. For example, in Raven's Flight Corax pretty much walks off a pair of lascannon blasts to the chest (while hurt, he wasn't even close to disabled, considering the beating to death of the Predator tank that shot him)...

Armor may matter in that case.

whereas in The Unremembered Empire a bolter-armed squad of Alpha Legionnaires nearly succeed in killing Guilliman.

Was Guilliman armored up at the time? Probably.

It may have to do with the number of weapons involved, or the number of hits. 1000 bullets hitting a tank will not do as much damage as one RPG round. 1000 bullets fired into an infantry company will almost certainly do more damage than one RPG round. It may be that a Primarch could survive a single RPG round (whether because of physical durability, or more likely because they have unconscious psychic resistance that projects defense and durability to block a single attack)... without being able to survive being shot with 1000 bullets.

Broader than that. The Emperor is not an active part of any story of the 40k universe; you can't compare him to Palpatine, say, who is a central character in SW. Emps is a piece of background in 40k. If you specify that you talk about the HH era, then there might be a point as he actually does things then. But counting on him in any debate about the 41st mil. era is nonsense.

Agreed. The most we might see the Emperor do in a 40k versus is, say, conjure up a warp storm to close off the Great Crossover Wormhole permitting travel to another universe, if it looks like the Imperium is losing.

Or to shield Imperial citizens (partially) from some sort of subtle psychic attack that might otherwise subvert/control them. Or maybe nudge some Imperial figures into being in the right place to react semi-intelligently to a crisis, and even that is very far from certain to happen.

Those are things that it's actually precedented for the Emperor to do when the Imperium as a whole is threatened in 40k. But having the Emperor walk around having psionic armwrestling matches and blowing up giant robots with his brain is not so probable.

[The Grim Squeaker]

whereas in The Unremembered Empire a bolter-armed squad of Alpha Legionnaires nearly succeed in killing Guilliman.

Was Guilliman armored up at the time? Probably.

Unarmored and unarmed.
(And he still killed them). But it's a VERY low showing for a primarch, even if we do know that the combat abilities of different primarchs varies immensely. (Conrad Kurze for example. Or Lorgar, even after his áscension' still stating that he'd be no match for Magnus).

[Simon_Jester]

Hm.

Bear in mind that a bolter is basically an automatic grenade launcher, and being hit by one bolter round would be almost certain death for an unaugmented human, or very likely death for a heavily augmented Space Marine. And it seems likely, granted I don't know anything about the scene, that even a primarch's agility and tactical nous would not stop them from getting hit multiple times if surprised and caught unarmed by a squad of superhuman killers with automatic weapons.

Honestly, unless we've seen other primarchs get riddled with grenade rounds while unarmored and make a better showing, I'd say that Guilliman's actions are reasonable and simply serve to illustrate one of the limits of primarch physiology- they're not actually invulnerable, and something as powerful as a bolter round can penetrate their passive defense (physical toughness, passive psychic reinforcement, whatever). So they can be seriously injured by such weapons, especially with multiple shooters pumping rounds at them.

I suspect the Emperor would be similarly susceptible- assuming you catch him out of power armor.

[Black Admiral]

whereas in The Unremembered Empire a bolter-armed squad of Alpha Legionnaires nearly succeed in killing Guilliman.

Was Guilliman armored up at the time? Probably.

Unarmored and unarmed.
(And he still killed them). But it's a VERY low showing for a primarch, even if we do know that the combat abilities of different primarchs varies immensely. (Conrad Kurze for example. Or Lorgar, even after his áscension' still stating that he'd be no match for Magnus).

Actually, Guilliman was armoured at the time, although likely not in full battle-gear.

Honestly, unless we've seen other primarchs get riddled with grenade rounds while unarmored and make a better showing, I'd say that Guilliman's actions are reasonable and simply serve to illustrate one of the limits of primarch physiology- they're not actually invulnerable, and something as powerful as a bolter round can penetrate their passive defense (physical toughness, passive psychic reinforcement, whatever). So they can be seriously injured by such weapons, especially with multiple shooters pumping rounds at them.

Well, again referencing Raven's Flight, Corax only starts considering bolter rounds a threat (after his armour's been badly damaged by the aforesaid lascannon blasts, described as reducing the breastplate to "a semi-molten slurry") when forty or so ("four squads of Iron Warriors") Iron Warriors are firing on him at once - and even then, not much of one, as after taking a missile hit to the pauldron (which doesn't do much more than knock him to one knee for a moment), Corax promptly wades into the Iron Warriors and starts slaughtering them in various ways (ripping a sergeant's arm off and ramming his own chainblade into his neck, throwing a Predator sponson at them, punching an armed frag grenade into one's chest, etc.).

In fact, I think I've got the relevant bits of Corax laying down major destruction on Iron Warriors typed up somewhere, if they'd be useful.

[Ahriman238]

Although I honestly wonder what would happen, physically, if he were attacked with a normal knife or firearm and didn't have superb power armor or force fields protecting him.

A Custodes tried it in Tales of Heresy, as part of their blood games (where Custodes play red team and wargame as assassins to test Palace Security and find the holes better.)

His weapons was ready: a Nei Monggol punch-dagger, sharpened to a refined keenness of edge that no genestock knife grinder could have matched. The blade was laced with catastrophically lethal nematode venom distilled and refined from qash resin.

Enough to slay a demigod? He believed so. Enough to finish a blood game, certainly.