The fact that it ’s somehow assume until 2019 for Games Workshop to attempt to bring the rich , ridiculous fiction of its grimdark Warhammer 40,000 universe to live - action is peculiar enough . ThatGregor Eisenhornis the face of that long - awaited pushing , even more so . Need a quick misstep to the Black Library to sweep up on him ? We ’ve convey you covered .
Games Workshop ’s tabletop universe is filled with all sorts of over the top alien slipstream and malevolent military group . It take position in a far - future setting where humanity stands on the brink of annihilation , as the dwindling empire found by its immortal emperor eons prior is slowly picked apart by exotic encroachment , chaotic corruption , and all sort of other nasty thing you ’d require from a world that helped christen the term “ grimdark ” in the first place .
https://gizmodo.com/the-creator-of-man-in-the-high-castle-is-bring-warhamme-1836457904
Eisenhorn, agent of the Ordo Xenos, in his “younger” days.Image: Games Workshop
In the years since 40 K rolled onto the tabletop panorama in the late eighties , Games Workshop has expatiate the world of Warhammer across not just the actual tabletop plot and its infinite spinoffs , but in all sorts of link - in fable , from the rulebook “ codexes , ” to articles in its monthly magazine White Dwarf , to yes , the aforesaid Black Library , the society ’s book publishing subdivision that has been churning out novels set in the universe ( and its fantasy sibling place setting , antecedently cognize simply as Warhammer , now known after a 2015 reboot as Warhammer : Age of Sigmar ) since 1997 .
It is at Black Library rather than on the meticulously - flocked battlefields of the miniatures biz that we actually met Gregor Eisenhorn , who ’s since get going on to not just asterisk in his own series of book and short stories , but actually become one of Black Library ’s most darling characters — and yes , make it on over to the tabletop secret plan with his own special miniature , release as a solemnisation of the Black Library ’s workplace last year . But if you ’re unfamiliar , to first understand just who Eisenhorn is , you also need to do it about the general land of humanity in 40 K ’s populace .
No, He’s Not a Space Marine!
You might , with fair judgement and only a passing familiarity with 40 K , make the assumption that Eisenhorn is a Space Marine , the eponymous tycoon - armour - clad warrior faction that are often a focal breaker point of storytelling in the 41st millennium . After all , he ’s a man , contend for the Imperium of Man — that ’s what those prominent fella in the brightly colored armour withchainsaw swordsand gunman the size of a pocket-sized hatchback do , right ? Well , yes , but there ’s also much , much more to the human force of 40 K than the Space Marines . They are , of course , a braggy part of it — they’re the most beloved and comprehended faction of Games Workshop ’s tabletop universe for a reason — but all sorts of factions fight in humankind ’s name in 40K.
https://gizmodo.com/warhammer-40k-space-marine-pits-thousands-of-orks-agai-5840913
Welcome to the Imperium of Man. It Sucks.
What is there to the Imperium beyond the Space Marines , you ask ? There are really a short ton of dissimilar military factions , which make sense in a cosmos that ’s about ceaseless war , as the waning range of Humankind is interlace in a battle between the forces of chaos and the xeno hordes of other junto looking to set up their dominance across the galaxy . It ’s a pretty rotten situation for everyone involve , which is kind of 40 super C ’s entire affair , but for humanity ? specially so . After all , they ’re stuck in a nightmarish , very fascist guild of enforced fanaticism and fealty to a long - give-up the ghost God - Emperor , a straw of a being maintained in a constant half - life-time by everyday human ritual killing in the hundreds of thou just to keep him blend in as the religious nominal head of humanity ’s fight for survival over several millennium . It’sa lot .
But from an administrative view , on the fields of fight — of which there are many , everywhere , all the time — beyond the genetically enhanced superhuman Space Marines ( also referred to as the Adeptus Astartes in Warhammer ’s “ mellow Gothic , ” aka “ Convoluted Space Latin ” language ) , we ’ve got these main factions :
The Astra Militarum , formerly recognize asthe Imperial Guard , the rank and file “ normal ” soldiers of the Imperium that fundamentally live to be fed into the interminable pith grinder of warfare .
The younger Eisenhorn, in tabletop miniature form.Image: Games Workshop
The Imperial Navy , the interstellar fleet who fly about in what are essentially giant shank - cross cathedral cities .
Above the Space Marines , there ’s the Adeptus Custodes , the personal bodyguard of the Emperor .
The Adeptus Mechanicus , which oversees everything from loom mecha like the Imperial Knights , to the technical school - priests and locomotive engineer that fuel mankind ’s technological advancements through religion in their own Emperor - adjacent god , the Omnissiah .
Now these? These are Space Marines.Image: Games Workshop
The Adepta Sororitas , best known as the Sisters of Battle , the all - female warrior cult that combinescopious total of studded leatherand power armor with unwavering spiritual ardor .
Beyond that , each planet in the Imperium has its own defense forces and more administrative enforcer , like the Adeptus Arbites — the judge , jury , and executioner of the state police , basically . And in the shadow of all those , there are the secret arms of the Imperium : the Officio Assassinorum , home to spy and other umbrageous , very murderous operatives of the Emperor , and , at long last , the Inquisition . That is where Eisenhorn and his pals arrive in .
Welcome to the Inquisition. It Also Sucks.
As we ’ve established , the man of 40 K ’s hereafter is a society very high on its faith . They do n’t call him the God - Emperor for nothing ! So induce an ever - present , privy - but - not - really - secret Inquisition running around frighten the bejesus out of everyone in the name of trueness and human sinlessness is n’t precisely that surprising .
As we ’ve also establish , the Imperium loves itself a compartmentalized series of cabal and sub - cabal , so try not to be too dismayed that the Inquistion itself operates out of three primary branches , or Ordos . First up , there ’s the Ordo Malleus , which protects world from the scourge of the daemonic forces of Chaos . They go about trace for cultists and practician of heretical arts like summoning daemonspawn , purging any unorthodoxy they find with foolhardy abandon . Servant of Chaos ? Good , you deserve a bit of purging . Innocent ? Well , hump that you ’re going to a better place in the Emperor ’s name , trusted handmaid of the Imperium ! ( See , differentiate you this fellowship sucks . )
After that comes the Ordo Xenos , which is the same sort of thing but for the influence of alien factions , rather than Chaos . There are myriad foreign club in 40k — the ancient space elf of the Eldar , the insectoid beehive fleet of the Tyranids , the caste warrior of the Tau Empire , the intergalactic football game hooligans that are the Space Orks , and so on — all gun to pass over out manhood once and for all . Sometimes , undertake to do so think sowing the seeds of fealty or rottenness among humans , so it ’s within Ordo Xenos ’ remission to fight back against that influence , and alien forces in oecumenical . They even commandeer their own special chapter of the Space Marines , the Deathwatch , to do so !
Agents of the most pious Ordo in the Inquisition, Ordo Hereticus.Image: Games Workshop
Then we have the Ordo Hereticus , also roll in the hay as the Witch Hunters . They are your form of catch - all , Swiss Army tongue of hole-and-corner police . Ordo Hereticus ’ remit covers the wonderfully vague conception of protect humanity from itself — rebellious elements , rogue psykers , factor - experimenting mutants , heretics , factual witches , you name it , Hereticus hunts it .
Enter Eisenhorn
So , after all that , we can get down to the question you actually want to ask : Who is Gregor Eisenhorn ?
As you may have pegged from the layers of linguistic context you just waded through , Eisenhorn is , an Inquistor — specifically , he ’s one of the Inquistors of Ordo Xenos — first introduced in a 2001 ’s trilogy of 40 K novel by Dan Abnett . That name may be more intimate to you as the Marvel Comics writer , alongside creative person Andy Lanning , behind the rebooted version of the Guardians of the Galaxy squad that was translated into the wildly popular movies , but before all that , Abnett wrote , andcontinues to write , loads of books under the Black Libary banner . But from his small beginnings in Abnett ’s all-encompassing writing calling in the 40 honey oil universe , Eisenhorn grew to be one of the most popular characters in the Black Library ’s cavalcade of novel stars . He ’s also , as with the vast legal age of characters in this universe , acomically over the top badass .
https://gizmodo.com/the-15-most-ridiculous-badasses-from-warhammer-40k-1720388310
Eisenhorn in various centuries of his career as an Inquisitor.Image: Games Workshop
Both a Psyker himself — chiefly using his telepathic gifts to pervade his vocalization with the mightiness to make hoi polloi adopt his orders — and implanted with cybernetic augments , Eisenhorn is actually C of years old despite look like a man in his fifty or 60s . He and his suite of agents essentially roam about the Imperium and the cosmos at large being edgy James Bonds , rout out corruption , saving the daylight , and occasionally being distinguish for heresy themselves a few times in the process , only to be proved righteous . A puritan in his other age , Eisenhorn slowly but sure enough began dabbling in the tool of his enemies , alien and daemonic likewise , to further his ability ( hence some of those awkward moments of being announce heretical and whatnot ) . He did so specifically after becoming obsessed with defeating a daemonhost called Cherubael , which is belike going to form the arc any possible TV show about him choose .
longsighted storey kept brusk and with the mildest of spoilers : Eisenhorn becomes increasingly heterodox in his quest to shoot down Cherubael , quarter the wrath of his confrere in the Inquisition and eventually teams up with — and is cheat on by , because of course of instruction — a heretic named Pontius Glaw to seal off Cherubael away and bind him to Eisenhorn ’s will . He then goes fully rogue in the process of play vengeance upon Glaw ( who , at some point , lead from being a individual pin down in a boxwood to a wild , tongue - cover machine man … 40 K , everyone ! ) . After being fundamentally curse from the Inquistion , Eisenhorn fly into the grim black of the cosmos , fading into legend and mythos , until he on occasion pops up where you ’d least expect it .
The fact that Games Workshop is n’t taking the easy way out — well , “ easy ” in that such an endeavor would cost an amount of money to do justice that would make even the late seasons of Game of Thrones flush — by having its first potential raid into springy - activity with its most iconic of franchises not be a narrative of Space Marines infinitely gunning down exotic drove is an interesting one . Because at last , while that is indeed emblematical of what 40 K is — it ’s a tabletop game about wave dice to resolve just how much your Incredibly Edgy Space Dude / Ork / Monster / Chaotic Demonspawnroyally smash upyour opponent ’s Incredibly Edgy Space Dude / Ork / Monster / Chaotic Demonspawn — the grim dark-skinned future of the forty-first millennium is so much more than that .
https://gizmodo.com/this-warhammer-40-000-animated-short-series-is-unbeliev-1794935716
By entrap this show around Eisenhorn — a man who goes around maintaining the fuck up pecking order of the social club around him doing repellent deed in the name of excise threat conceive of and real from it — this TV series has an opportunity to peel back the layers of over the top giddiness that does indeed make 40 K so much bizarrely indulgent playfulness , but also often masks the challenging moral complexity around its world in the process . All that absurdity is corking , but the chance to do something unexpected , more intimate , and spectacular with this populace is a bold one .
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BooksGames WorkshopSci - FiWarhammer 40k
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