Re: [DL] WH40K Reckoners - (Potential for Spoilers)

[Brett Dixon <balance@tubas.net>]

On Thu, 7 Mar 2002, A Methylated Spirit wrote:
> I’ve been getting into some Warhammer 40K recently for
> a change and considered mixing some of the WH40K
> mythos into Deadlands. The Reckoners don’t really have
> much of a personality in Deadlands and in Hell on
> Earth the four horseman thing is a little too easy.
> Has anyone tried using the Games Workshop Chaos Gods
> to represent these beings?

Not really, but I tried mapping the Chaos Gods to the Reckoners/Horsemen
once on the 40k boards.

> We have another quartet of Gods. Khorne (death,
> violence, pain, killing). Nurgle (suffering, disease,
> stasis, putting up with things). Tzeentch (knowledge,
> change, evolution). Slaanesh (pleasure, decadence,
> sensation).
>
> Tzeentch works quite well for Mad Scientists and
> Hucksters, and Slaanesh could be used to combat the
> Blessed and Enlightened (earthly pleasures and all
> that).  Khorne is good for the gunfighters who have
> seen just too much death or even for the formerly
> innocent farm hand who desired revenge just a bit too
> much.

Tzeentch is the hard one. Death, perhaps, as death is, after all, a form
of change.

Nurgle maps pretty well to pestilence

Slaanesh gets stuck with Famine. Not a great match, but it kinda sorta
works, if you don't look too closely.

Khorne maps well to War.

> The Chaos Gods offer their servants abilities and
> powers in support of their goals along the same lines
> of earning damnation points. Starts off small with
> minor acts but can soon go completely down hill to
> full blooded acts of less than nice stuff.

This is an interesting pint, but the idea of evil beings tempting people
into eveil is a pretty universal concept.

> Even better, the Chaos Gods don’t play well with each
> other. So you could have plot within plot where the
> Posse are caught between two opposing fractions of
> evil-doers. The American Civil war could be so drawn
> out as one nefarious being is guiding one side while
> another equally nefarious being has been guiding the
> other.

I like the typical Deadlands explanation of this better. Since the
reckoners exist on fear, perpetual fear caused by the threat of invasion
takes care of one course of their four course meal o' fear.

> Harrowed can be daemon possessed beings and the
> Hunting Grounds can be the Warp without any changes in
> mechanics or mythos. I am certainly not suggesting
> bring Marines into the game or anything along those
> lines, Just giving the Reckoners more a personality.

The main thing is the 40k universe... even the backstory/cosmology
bits... is just too serious and overwrought. Deadlands is a bit
exaggerated too, at times, but in a different fashion.

> Just a thought.

It's an interesting one.