I have 3 concepts that I had originally planned on entering back at "Heroes of the Space Marines". Unfortunately Uni overtook me and now I need advice, dear friends. Which should I expand?

RECAP: I only had one reply, which doesn't really tell me that much. Come on, people! Help me out now!

"Death Guard"

Ten thousand years. For ten thousand years they had endured beyond the sight of the withered Corpse God. For ten millennia of unholy war they had fought and bled for the dream of Horus and the glory of the Gods, fuelled by the glorious blessings of Papa Nurgle. Lucian clenched his hand about the grip of his bolter, atrophied muscle contracting with a satisfying lack of pain. He had lived free of pain and death for so long, ever since the Death Guard had been chosen, ever since his brothers had been blessed so. Now he repaid the jovial generosity of his patron with the blood of his foes, granted others the chance to taste the purity of corruption, to sup of the very fount of necrosis.

They pushed through the foliage of this new world now, Kosse III, a wretched scab of a world, overgrown and run wild. He watched as nature itself recoiled from their presence, the scent around them grown cloying with the stench of decay, leaves wilting, trees weeping sap. They knew as well as any that death had come to their world.

“Forward” His voice was a low hiss, choked by phlegm and mucus, contorted by his own defiled flesh. His armour, once brilliant with purity, had been stained these long years; pus, blood, smeared with his own filth. He had ceased to countenance shame, these were marks of his devotion, symbols of Grandfather’s affection for him! How could he turn his back upon such divine love? How could he dare declare that it shamed him! He felt his fists tighten again, one clasped about the long bony handle of his blade, its surface running with limitless putrescence. The Long War had cleansed him of pain, but that did not mean that hate had ceased to find purchase in his heart, boiling over into his sluggish blood.

The vegetation parted with their slowly stoic advance, the boom of bolters echoing through the silence as they spotted their prey. Cloaked with camouflage, leaves clinging to their flesh, the Guardsmen spun about with surprise, only to be met by horror. Some fell backwards, struggling to escape as rusted projectiles flew freely about them, watching these vast corrupted figures stride forth, leviathans from the jungle depths, half-cloaked by mist. These were their legends cast down, dark mirrors of their heroic childhood stories. Space Marines, the Adeptus Astartes, hideous and heretical…

“By the Throne!” One hissed through clenched teeth, surpressing the urge to vomit as he turned his lasgun upon them.

"Emperor's Children"

“Children of the Emperor! Death to his foes!”

Anton snarled with jubilant glee to howl such a conceit, to feel the hatred he had harboured for millennia purged in the killing instant. Every warrior on the battlefield would have heard it, the speakers and amplifiers wired into his armour making his every word as the shrill roar of the Dark Prince himself! Loyalist and Traitor would cower to know his words, to hear the pronouncements of his wrath and his yearnings…

Had he not slaughtered innocents within the Habs of Terra itself? Stood shoulder to shoulder with his battle brothers at Istvaan V as countless had died beneath the guns of those they would call friend, always with the sirens song within his heart, urging him onward, to greater, grander heights? This would be the moment his warriors rose up from the faceless tide left in Fulgrim’s wake, and clawed their way to divinity

Closing his fists tight around the handles of his weapon and spinning, Anton slammed a bladed edge into the screaming face of a Guardsman. Had humanity grown so weak? So small and without ambition or flavour? He pulled hard at both trigger and string, spinning as he unleashed a flurry of sonic death against those who encircled him, his laughter booming across the fray. When they bowed to him, when they worshipped under the banners of excess and rutted like dogs for his amusement…When they feasted on their own kin and gladly offered themselves for debasement and death, then they would know how mankind should be! Conquerers! Sensualists setting the very galaxy aflame with the undulating symphony of their own lust!

He snarled, cursing them for being so weak, hating them for being so unenlightened. “Come, little beings! Come and see how a true warrior fights! Come and see what your Emperor would deny you!”

"Word Bearers"


He was naked. Within his sanctum, nestled deep in the heart of the Incendiary Logic, the ship which carried both his Host and his message across the stars, he stood. His form was tall, taller than any mortal man could hope to achieve, muscle rippling with unknowable power, flesh marked with the scars of war and the daily scourgings, rites of purity that spoke to the very heart of his shame. Remiel, Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers, held out his arms as the metallic limbs of the chirugeon-daemon enclosed him. He felt quills tipped with the bones of Imperial saints piercing his flesh, his body pulsed with ruinous intensity as the ink, blood crushed from the hearts of cardinals, invaded his debased flesh.

For ten thousand years he had killed in the name of his dark Pantheon, serving the limitless powers of the Warp. How could the countless billions of mankind bend knee to a dead god, a ruined seer entombed and silent forever, when the true Gods whispered at every turn? He had failed them, true enough, but this day he would redeem himself. He would bring the wrath of the Gods down upon the faithless, crush the idolaters beneath his boots, in the name of hallowed Lorgar he had sworn it.

Remiel hissed again, his lips parted as he let the mechanical embrace do their fell work, carving new runic patterns along the path of spine, intoning a litany of shame beside those that spoke of 10,000 years of glorious adulation before the Gods.