[40k] Wolf's Honor

[Academia Nut]

Actually, I think it is stated in the first or second Space Wolves book that the wolves mix a special toxin into their beer that temporarily nullifies their ability process alcohol for the explicit purpose of making sure that they can get drunk. For the wolves it is also considered something of a fate worse than death to not be able to drink, and after one guy lost a bet and had to swear off beer for the rest of his life I think that the chapter passed an unwritten rule not to do that again as the poor bastard went down in history as the most depressed Space Wolf ever.

This has potentially terrifying implications should the 13th Company ever get their hands on beer again. Either they will go wild on a killing spree that will leave the Chaos gods without followers, or they will mellow out considerably and lose some of their fighting prowess as they are no longer perpetually pissed off about the lack of beer. Probably a fifty-fifty chance either way.

[andrewgpaul]

That snippet first appeared in a White Dwarf battle report; a Space Wolf drinking contest is won by the first Marine to drink so much he passes out. IIRC, the pre-battle story has a (hungover) Ragnar chastise a Blood Claw for moaning too loudly.

IIRC, the Space Wolves use beer to begin the modification process to become a Marine; the acolytes down a whole keg, the beer in which is laced with the drugs to begin the enhancement process.

[Academia Nut]

Not exactly. They drink from a chalice which contains the Space Wolf geneseed, the Canis Helix, or at least that was how it was shown in the first book. It would seem that like the Blood Angels, the Space Wolves have a very different method of making their marines, as instead of growing the organs externally and implanting them into the recruits, they grow them in their recruits. The fact that both these chapters are noted for having problems with their geneseed may have to do with these practices, probably because they've forgotten how exactly the technology works.

[andrewgpaul]

I was going on (possibly faulty) memory from the 2nd edition Codex: Space Wolves. There was certainly large quantities of beer (and meat) involved; to provide the relevant nutrients, if nothing else. It's possible Bill changed things in the time between writing that and the first Space Wolf novel. Or I'm just wrong.

[Dartzap]

The Black Library just put up the first chapter of Battle For The Abyss and it does have a comment about Space Wolf ale...

Ta da - spoilers, obviously.

[andrewgpaul]

I wonder; do different battlefleets use the same name to refer to different classes of ship, or is the Heresy-era Lunar-class a different design from the later class shown in Battlefleet Gothic?

[Connor MacLeod]

Actually, I think it is stated in the first or second Space Wolves book that the wolves mix a special toxin into their beer that temporarily nullifies their ability process alcohol for the explicit purpose of making sure that they can get drunk. For the wolves it is also considered something of a fate worse than death to not be able to drink, and after one guy lost a bet and had to swear off beer for the rest of his life I think that the chapter passed an unwritten rule not to do that again as the poor bastard went down in history as the most depressed Space Wolf ever.

This has potentially terrifying implications should the 13th Company ever get their hands on beer again. Either they will go wild on a killing spree that will leave the Chaos gods without followers, or they will mellow out considerably and lose some of their fighting prowess as they are no longer perpetually pissed off about the lack of beer. Probably a fifty-fifty chance either way.

They mentioned the herb in the third space wolves novel. Ran across it j ust as I was reading it the other day.

[Connor MacLeod]

I wonder; do different battlefleets use the same name to refer to different classes of ship, or is the Heresy-era Lunar-class a different design from the later class shown in Battlefleet Gothic?

Well, to be blunt, there probably is alot of variation between different classes, simply because the different shipyards and forge worlds may build or repair or upgrade them. Especially rebuilds or refits of destroyed hulks.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yeah, the Space Wolves don't seem to have a problem with the idea of Russ getting knocked on his ass by the Emperor, because the Emperor is just that badass. As to the range that the spear was thrown, it would have to have been a ridiculously long range for a thrown weapon to have gone. I suppose the best explanation would be that he threw it from the Fang and it fell into a crevasse or something like that, but four days is still a long time when you consider that since it was an important artefact that was a gift from the Emperor, they probably devoted a considerably amount of resources to finding it again. With aerial transport, scanners, and even psychic divination on their side, Russ must have really lost it for it to have taken that long.

It could be a case of Chinese whispers.

It might by that if they asked Bjorn the fel handed about it he could tell them that he remembers that day and it took them 30 mins to find it mostly because wolf Guard Bob got longtitute and Latitude mixed up but over the years it became an hour then 2 hours then a day and so on.

Actually its probably not. The context of the story is such that the 13th Company are basically dismissing alot of the rumors and mythology surrounding the spear. Basically alot of the Space Wolves up to this point believed it was some big and important artifact to Russ and meant alot to him - then comes along the 13th Company saying "He hated the damn thing and could never keep track of it."

I kinda like this partticular subset of the story because it does emphasize the idea that some beliefs about Primarchs may or may not neccesarily be true.

[Sidewinder]

Just finished the book. I liked it-- it deals with the struggle within a man or woman's soul better than a lot of books that pile bullshit ideals upon bullshit ideals. (I'm looking at you, Arthur C. Clarke-- being dead does NOT change my opinion of your stories.)

The book mentioned that Ragnar actually wounded Magnus the Red when he threw the Spear of Russ at the Thousand Sons Primarch at the end of 'Grey Hunter', suggesting that the future Wolf Lord was stronger than anyone could foresee, that the Spear was an incredibly powerful weapon, or both.

[Academia Nut]

It was probably mostly the weapon and the fact that both times it was pointed at Magnus and the time it was actually used to wound him it was the focus at the centre of a ritual drawing on massive amounts of warp energy, plus there is the fact that in 40k it seems that as objects get older they pick up warp energy, especially if they are at the centre of some sort of belief. So the wound was probably less physical and more a massive amount of psychic backlash against Magnus as all the energy he had built up in the spear was released into him as the ritual broke down.