Immortal Bloggers

Well, it seems we’re back on track with more pages of goodies to hand out.  Jon B. has alerted me to be ready for more editing, so don’t be surprised if another update comes again very shortly.  In a few weeks, I hope to be traveling north to help Jon K. move into his new house.  He’s been in Japan for the past two years, but he and his wife bought a home in Omaha, Nebraska and they’ll be living there for the forseeable future.  I expect that you’ll see more activity from Jon K. once he gets settled in.

In the meantime, I’ve been busy with a few Warhammer related items.  I’ll post up pics sometime when I get my Dark Angels revamped.  I can’t wait to use the new bits.  Expect me to add some lion heraldry to customize the command squad.

For those of you who don’t know about the Lexicanum, it is a rather massive repository of information about all things Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 in Wiki (think Wikipedia) format. Obviously, its a little more in depth than anything you’ll find on Warhammer on the Wikipedia.

I was in contact with the owners of the Lexicanum some time ago to request a method to help raise awareness of Lexicanum and the Ultinomicon together, namely that I wanted to create a Fan Portal so that people who might be reading Immortal Enemies and were not familiar with some or all of the concepts involved could go and look it up somewhere. The best place to do this is the Lexicanum, and while it does have a ways to go until it is completely comprehensive, it is far better than any other fluff repository on the internet. Of course, the best way to make the Lexicanum even better would be by visiting and checking it out for yourself. Wiki’s are edited by everyone, so your knowledge would be valuable.

In any case, you will notice now a pair of links to the Lexicanum and the Lexicanum Immortal Enemies Fan Portal. Now, if you need any more information on Immortal Enemies, you know the best place to look. Enjoy!

In reviewing the way that people are finding the Ultinomicon, it seems there is a sizable contingent of people who do not live in the (naturally) English-speaking world. I was contacted at some point by some people who were interested in translating some of Immortal Enemies into another language; however, they didn’t seem interested giving the whole length of the work the treatment, at least that was my understanding. Never-the-less, I am open to the idea, and if someone was looking to translate this into another language, I would put forth the leg-work required to publish it here for people to read. It does not necissarily have to be German, Spanish, or Japanese, those were just the first three that came to mind.

If you are interested in helping translate the story here into another language, please get in contact with me. I would prefer natives of other countries fluent in English just as a general rule. I think I speak for all of the editors when I say that Captain Kairo shouldn’t jump out of warp and announce to the Orks anything like is listed below.

Captain Kairo: How are you gentlemen? All your base are belong to us! You are on the way to destruction.
Kaptain Zed: What you say !!
Captain Kairo: You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha Ha Ha Ha ….

Mad Doc: Kaptain !! *
Kaptain Zed: Take off every ‘Zig’ !! You know what you doing. Move ‘Zig’. For great justice.

I have been tossing around the idea of just whom I want to have portrayed as the miscellaneous chapter in Immortal Enemies. I say miscellaneous because they will not be featured in first person perspective, and they are the only marine chapter that will appear more or less as the group acted upon rather than an active participant in the overall plot. I had originally offered the spot to Molotov’s Castigators, which I encourage you to visit among the links, just because they are rather cool, but lets say he wasn’t all that impressed with the part offered. It probably had to do something about the rather notable womping this target chapter is to take so the buck is passed to another chapter.

I am still working on what chapter I want to take this hit. I can tell you with good authority that I want it to be a second (possibly) or (more ideally a) tertiary founding… and I am still open to created chapters. That is why I created the idea for Chapter 1984, a chapter who functioned under a traditional name, but in a strange turn of event has come to function under just its founding number, as best they can calculate it. They have all but thrown off all imperial heraldry, abide strict discipline to their own combat doctrine, which originates from the Index Astartes but is not as ritualized as that index is, has gone to good efforts to reverse engineer much of their technology, and maintains the Emperor as a great man more than a God.

As pictured below, in an example that includes the chapter’s symbol, they are meant to wear a bit of hybridized armor, prefering a lot of aspects of Mk III armor, but with some of the Mk VII and Mk VIII innovations. The chapter would have a certain disdane for hand to hand combat, which is why I am thinking they might not be ideal for the portion of the story that I want to put them into, but I wanted to get other feedback, possibly suggestions, and a general understanding of what someone would think about such a fervently professional and emotionless chapter.

They would ideally probably be from the Iron Hands geneseed. Their mentality towards weakness would be similar and they would have a very strict and somewhat unique interpretation of what is acceptable behavior. While appreciated by some branches of the Inquisition, they would likely have many enemies there, given that they do not view Emperor-worship as proper behavior, though they accept it as a necissary evil in most cases.

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Should they be included?
Who should be?
Should they be expanded in some other way?
Is this a bad idea?
Et cetera…

Welcome to Immortal Bloggers!  Thanks to Jon B, you’ll now have the opportunity to delve into the thoughts of the staff of Immortal Enemies.  Whether or not this is a good thing is still up for debate. ;)  Jon B has just recently set up the beginning of Chapter 4.  I know that Jon K (and the rest of you Ork fans) are eager to see what is up between Zed’s Freebooterz and the servitor.  Have no fears, all will be told in time.  Special kudos for Jon K doing the editing for the Orks.  He’s very particular about Ork-speech and I think it has come off pretty well thus far.

So what else do we do with our time aside from wishing for the return of 2nd edition 40k?  Recently, the answer has been Warfish.  If you don’t know what it is already, and you’ve clicked the link, you’re probably still asking, “What is it?”.  Basically, it’s an invite only online application of the board game Risk.  It’s extremely addictive and is spreading through online communities like wild fire.  Jon K and I have been beating each other up in quite a few games.  So how can you join if you don’t have an invite?  Fear not, faithful readers, I have a Recruitment Network set up.  Go here and you’ll be able to set up an account (it’s free) on Warfish and pretty soon you’ll start getting invites into games with other Warfishers. 

- Dave N.

Hello, and welcome to Immortal Bloggers, the blog specifically set up to help readers of Immortal Enemies get an insight into the thoughts of the people behind its creation, from the original concepts all the way up to completed pages, and then even some insight into the things that are to come. On occasion, I may put up some concept images, as well as polls for upcoming ideas that may seem to be hard on some readers. I know the others plan on putting up some of their opinions as well as probably things related to the hobby or other related interests.

All in all, the plot-line of Immortal Enemies is already decided, there are some small things that I have a few options for. They’re more the differences in trim, the icing on the cake, rather than big changes in the plot. In that, I have a bit of a story to illustrate what I mean.

There is a certain part somewhere in Part II or III where I require a marine chapter. Which marine chapter is somewhat less important than the fact that I just need someone to fill in there. Considering I am using three or four big-name chapters already (Dark Angels, Black Templars, and Iron Hands), my initial inclination to include Space Wolves was not justifiable, and they don’t seem to have many successors with visuals that I find even remotely interesting. I have since moved on and I did settle on a suitably obscure existing chapter, which for now will remain a surprise!

I’m still open to a change, but more or less its set. I got a little distracted this week in my work on the comic, to be honest, and to the undying rage of Jon K no doubt, who wants his face. Instead of working quite as much as I should have on the comic, I took some time to think over replacing the anonymous chapter mentioned above with the Castigators, a home-brewed creation by Commissar Molotov. He had asked me originally to use the illustration found on page i-19 of Interrogator-Chaplain Innocent IV for a person in his chapter. I shot him down, in a manner of speaking, since I didn’t want to have people getting confused over the identity of who that was supposed to be. My best guess is that Immortal Enemies may have as many as 3,000 readers, but I still hope for more, and that notoriety is not profound enough that I felt comfortable letting him use that image straight-up.

Long story short, the Castigators will not appear in Immortal Enemies. Its not exactly a glamorous role that I offered Molotov, and they function mostly in another sector so… no go. Its not a real good fit for either. Still, I encourage you to visit his site. Its an awesome chapter with some nice fluff and he did walk away with a decent consolation prize.

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So again, welcome, again to Immortal Bloggers! There are plenty more thoughts to come!

-jon b.