Bemusements of the Bored

Damn, that’s a good title. Much better than Bemusements of the Bored, but I’m pretty sure it’s copyrighted by some dead guy. Damned dead guys, taking our titles!

Anyways.

Lately, I’ve been addicted to Warhammer 40,000. If you don’t know what Warhammer 40,000 is, it’s a strategic wargame that’s set 38,000 years in the future. Not only this, but there’s literally tonnes of backstory. Let me give you a short (long) explanation taken from The Lexicanum, a 40k wiki.

“The Warhammer 40,000 game world is most readily characterized as a gothic science-fantasy setting. The central and most popular elements of the Warhammer 40k universe are the Space Marines, futuristic versions of fantasy knights and the finest warriors of the Imperium of Mankind, a dystopian and degenerate galaxy-spanning civilization.

…This mix leads to a wholly unique fictional universe, in which every side is to some extent evil- though some are slightly less evil than others. The Imperium for example, is often presented as the “good side”, and while it may be true that there are many good people within it, as a whole it is an oppressive, xenophobic, corrupt mess which is only able to keep control of its population through the fact that being worked to the bone assembling rifles and worshipping the Emperor is slightly better than being worked to the bone and then brutally killed by Ork warlords.“

Then there’s all sorts of other nasties. There’s Chaos, beings born from another dimension, made wholly of the emotions of every sentient being in the universe, and are therefore horrendously evil and gross. There’s the Eldar, ’space-elves’ that fell from grace, creating another Chaos god in their downfall. There’s the idealistic Tau, which are just space communists (and everything bad that entails from that). There’s several other races, such as the necrotic Necrons, hoping to destroy every single molecule of life in the universe. There’s the Orks, who literally live to fight. There’s the Tyranids, bioforms that destroy entire planets to provide nutrients to keep breeding and such.

All in all, it’s amazing. You should get into it (read wikipedia articles). If not for the outrageously expensive wargaming, then for the backstory and setting stories.

Also, Happy Birthday, Andel!