[Brother Lucian]

40K: Forgebane - The Battle For Blackstone - Bell of Lost Souls

We’ve got a closer look at exactly why Belisarius Cawl is going after Blackstone direct from Forgebane!

Forgebane is on the way and we’ve got

. We’ve been digging through the contents to find out what the heck is going on and, while GW alluded to what sparked the conflict, we’ve got the full story from Forgebane:

“…The Pariah Stone, a physical incarnation of the null gene…” No wonder the Imperium wants this stuff! And I have a feeling Cawl is correct about the Blackstone being much like a ferrite metal that can be polarized…mostly because GW pretty much confirmed it. At the same time I’m wondering how the Necrons knew about it and why they wanted to harvest it for their own uses…

This joining piece of lore is also interesting. Necrons have anti-Chaos protocols?! Heck ya they do! They hate the immeterium almost as much as the Old Ones apparently. They were the ones that used the Blackstone to shut Chaos away as they were the ones that created the Cadian Pylons to begin with. Perhaps Chaos has always been their enemy and these upstart races are just getting in their way!

---------------------------------------------------

Muchly intriguing stuff. So Blackstone wasn't entirely pulled out of thin air as I heard some friends think, or even arguing it was just raw necrodermis. But it does give much context to Abbadon's actions, as well his capture of the Blackstone fortresses.

It stands to reason that the ancient eldar used the positively charged Blackstone fortresses to combat the the warp dampening tech of the necrons during the War in Heaven. Which makes me wonder, did the use of the fortresses weaken the fabric of reality so badly that it helped giving rise to the chaos gods? It must have, with the mentioned necro anti-chaos protocols above. Clearly they thought that the Old Ones and their spawnraces' reckless use of the warp could have truly disastrous consequences, and might have spawned the idea of their great work to seal the materium from the warp.

 

[Serpion5]

Drawing on older lore here, the Blackstone Fortresses were built by the Eldar, who called them Talismans of Vaul. If the material that drives these weapons exists in another state and can be weaponized in various ways, then it stands to reason that whoever holds it would be a pretty big deal.

It seems pretty apparent what GW's play is here. Even with the return of Guilleman and no matter how well Imperial races play on the tabletop, from a lore perspective they are still very very much on the losing side of the survival game. The fact that the necrons want humanity alive may be their saving grace, as now there is a macguffin in play that could put Chaos back in their hole, and new individuals with the knowledge, means and potential to become an even bigger threat.


I must say, GW have done a rather impressive job of continuing the greater timeline of 40k. There is progress, regression, hope and hopelessness in all the right places.