Sepulchre of Heroes has a self-proclaimed unhealthy fascination with the one true Daemon King Malal. Check out their latest 40k conspiracy theory, on why Tyranids started as Daemons.
For the uninitiated or those of you who want a fun review, I highly encourage you to check out this previous post. It covers a lot of the major aspects of Malal, and It’s quasi-continued existence in 40k.
And for those of you on the fence still, I’ve got good news, we’ve kept our tin foil hats on and have more fluff connections for you.
Tyranids of Malice?
Remember these guys?
Well turns out the original designed Tyranid models were slated for Daemons of Malal. They wanted something different then what the other four were, so they went goofy ass space ant…..
But in reality, they’re operating just as Malal intended. Ravenous destruction which in the end will burn itself out after everything has been consumed. This also circles back to the nature of chaos existence itself. There can’t be an imagery-dream-monster if nothing’s left to dream. Malal in fluff right before his removal was actually kicked out of the warp for general tomfoolery. To that end, he was going to be the great unseen force behind the Hive Fleets.
When Malal was removed they dropped that plot thread, and just made the Tryaind source something mysterious.
Tyranids don’t have an identity or a sense of self, they are a mindless biological program running a logic program of KEEP EATING. Even the special characters that exist are all actual copies of specific evolutionary dead ends, that are immediately deleted upon completion of a given task they are re-produced for.
GW has yet to ever bring up the true origins of the Tyranids. So unless they do, MALAL, it’s Malal.
The Shadow of Malice
Currently, outside of the possibility of Be’lakor, there are no stated Daemons of Malal running around. Or are there?
Fun fact, for a split second GW made Mandrakes Daemons.
More recently, Kheradruakh was able to break the barrier to the shadow realm during the events of the Gathering Storm 2. When Ynnead awoke a chaos rift happened inside Commorragh and Daemons were flooding in from everywhere. This was right about the time they started giving them more fluff. Mostly through the concept of a shadow realm, a place they’re able to phase in and out of reality from. This is a very daemony kind of thing to do.
Kheradruakh found the last skull for his weird skull room. Upon its completion, the barrier to the shadow realm fell, enveloping Commorragh in shadow, and thousands of enraged Mandrakes murdered all the Daemons
Curiously, while the events of Ynnead are still referenced in the new Dark Eldar codex, Kheradruakh and the Mandrakes accomplishment are oddly not…..
Fuff rewrite or Cover-UP?
Also, why else wouldn’t they be able to follow the Daemon God Ynnead. Coven units don’t because they are flat out opposed to the concept of their own death. The Avatar of Khaine is you know, the AVATAR of Khaine. Mandrakes don’t, because they already follow the one true Daemon God Malal.
The Voice of Malice?
There is one other weird thing that happened in the new Dark Eldar fluff that stood out for me.
A complicated Vect plot to “die” at the hands of Mandrakes and “destroy” every DE means Vect was able to revive himself. He then somehow crashed his own wake to kill all his rivals. Without any outside connection it just seems like some weird mafia-competition-wipe-out ruse, you know that old chestnut.
Or is it….
I propose the idea that maybe it was wasn’t a ruse. He was killed by the Mandrakes and I believe them to be true agents of Malal. All the Haemonclus revival methods were destroyed because they wanted to expose Vect to true death. Since Commoragh is still affected by the “Shadowrealm” this exposes Vect to Malal, the same way Yyraine was exposed to Ynnead.
Vect has become the conduit for Malal!!!!!
I might not be right, but until GW decides to do something about the crippling lack of interesting DE HQ options/models, I don’t think I’m wrong.
About the Author: Gothmog
