Clockwise from top left: Farah Manus, Venus, Kelly Curze, Corvus Cora, Morticia, Petra, Alpharia, Omegan, Roberta Guilliman, Remilia Dorn, Furia, Khan, Miranda (bottom), Freya Russ, Faith Aurelian, Isis Lupercal, Lyra El'Jonson and WD, Angela, Victoria
Once upon a time at 4chan's traditional gaming board, /tg/, a user asked what the Primarchs from Warhammer 40,000 would be like as children. That just happens on 4chan, you see. The question was just dumb enough to capture some users' attention, however, and it took off. People then wondered what they would be like as female children. Then someone asked what they would be like as high school students. Then someone asked what would happen if they were the Primarchs' daughters instead of the Primarchs themselves. Then someone asked what they would be like if you were asking those daughters out on a date. Three years later, there are over fifty stories for the setting. Yes.
After about a year and a half, post-creation, interest tapered off in the series, as happens on the internet. However, a 4chan user by the name of Someone else., otherwise known as the Tales of the Emperasque guy, decided that the project needed revival. In conjunction with two other users named Ahriman's Aide and Darkmage. Someone else wrote a short story in the setting, named Just Another Day on Void Platform 13. Shortly thereafter, the three of them took off running and added nearly ten more stories to the setting.
A full list of the stories can be found here: https://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/Warhammer_High
This series provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: There's no doubt that all of the Primarchs love their daughters, but not all of them necessarily raise them with what could be called "proper" care...
- Angron is often portrayed as this towards Furia, especially in the darker stories. Even at his most benevolent portrayals, he still has serious anger issues and keeps lashing out for the tiniest of issues.
- Dorn is also this at times to Remilia, as while he does love her he can't seem to get it through his head that part of being a good parent is helping your kids by giving support when they have a problem, rather than making them figure it out themselves and expressing visible disappointment when they can't match to your standards.
- Alternate Universe: That's the whole point.
- The story is basically that the Emperor, in this timeline, took Eldrad's warnings about Chaos seriously, which resulted in him paying more attention to his sons, which prevented them from falling to Chaos. Once the Galaxy was conquered (with the Imperium being more open to alliances with various xeno races (though not completely, it's still the Imperium, after all)), the Emperor realized that his Primarchs would need something to do after they were done conquering the galaxy. Depending on the Writer, the Emperor either then made the daughters using the same process he used to create the Primarchs, or the Primarchs made their daughters the old-fashioned way (the second option is constantly lampshaded).
- The Beautiful Elite: The girls themselves, to an extent, though anyone who attended the school in question with them could say that most are hiding some sort of flaw.
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Morticia's a nice enough girl, but she has a cruel side to her that her family doesn't get to see much.
- Freya, the most perky and carefree-seeming of the daughters, can be downright vicious when provoked. Given that her father is Leman Russ, however, this is hardly a surprise.
- The Blacksmith: Venus, obviously, to her parents' delight. Farah as well, as you'd expect, though the third gadgeteer is not Victoria, but rather Hana.
- Blessed with Suck: So you're rich, beautiful, powerful, eternally youthful, and popular? Good for you. Every single assassin the galaxy wants to kill you to make their name, you're not genetically compatible with normal people, and you may well have an incurable genetic ailment or mutation that makes you look like a freak.
- Crapsack World: It's a hell of a lot better than in 40K, but it's still there.
- Dean Bitterman: Commissar Yarrick, the only non-Astartes bitter and badass enough to break up fights between Hana and Furia.
- Designer Babies: The female half of the cast.
- Doppelgänger: The Twins (it's capitalized).
- Evil Sounds Deep: Inverted with Vulkan and his daughter. They're probably the most approachable and grounded members of the Royal Family, except maybe Farah.
- Generation Xerox: Sort of. Some of the girls, like Isis, are basically female versions of their fathers, while others, like Farah, are completely different people.
- Grimdark: Given that it is a 40k Fanfic this is to be expected, though it is far less in evidence then canon 40k.
- Head-Tiltingly Kinky: Venus walks into an armory and asks for some ammo for her ceremonial weapons. The guard was reading something that provoked this reaction.
- High School AU: As the name would suggest. Do keep in mind that the project was originally about the Primarchs themselves, however.
- Historical In-Joke: In the original version of canon 40K, there was a character named Ollanius Pius. He was a simple guardsman who stood between Horus and the Emperor to try to stop the former from killing the later, and died horribly for his trouble. His death at Horus' hands told the Emperor that Horus was truly corrupted by Chaos, allowing the Emperor to strike the final blow and slay Horus. In this timeline? Julius Pius, son of Ollanius, is dating Isis, daughter of Horus.
- Fiery Redhead: Furia. Duh.
- Military Brat: Most of the cast.
- My Girl Is Not a Slut: Interestingly, Ben seems to hold this true for Victoria. She puts out like a broken gumball machine, yeah...but only with him. As far as he knows.
- Never a Self-Made Woman: This is true for the girls now, sure, but given time, most of them will probably grow out of it. One of the things the Emperor did was ensure that each was given what they needed to succeed without parental assistance, once they found their way in life.
- Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Most of the Imperium, following the success of the Great Crusade and the establishment of the Imperial Truth. All of the Daughters bar Faith Aurelian believe this as well to a greater or lesser degree. Some of the girls still have some elements of spirituality in their lives, but there's little actual religion to be found.
- Preacher's Kid: Faith, or so some others assume. She went through a really smug and unpleasant phase in her life, to be sure. Authors vary their take on how long she stayed there.
- Shout-Out: Loads of them. Blackadder, Red Dawn (1984), Power Rangers RPM, various Let's Plays, The Lord of the Rings ...
- Technicolor Eyes:
- Venus has glowing, solid red ones, which actually emit heat and light
- Isis' eyes are more normal, but orange.
- Miranda and Angela's eyes glow when they're using their powers.
- Urban Segregation: The city where Imperator is built...and the entire hive under it.
- Winged Humanoid: Angela. Mixes with Angelic Beauty.
Stories in this series provide examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending
- Bleeding Out has this. Yeah, the shooter's in jail, and everybody passed the tests...but Morticia still got shot, Furia's still relapsed into drugs for a while, and Kelly's still depressed.
- Trip Into Hell, for Julius at least. Ahriman may actually be better off.
- ROAD TRIP!, but only for Alex. For the other four, it's been a lot of fun, or at least educational. But poor Alex sure doesn't look like he'll ever reconcile with his passive-aggressive and abusive father.
- Celibate Hero: Julius.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Venus flips the hell out after her casual use of authority while taking her boyfriend out to dinner nearly makes him drop off the edge of the Earth, thanks to an overzealous bodyguard.
- Damaged Soul Poor, poor Remilia.
- Disappointed in You
- Vulkan drops one of these on Palozzi in Bleeding Out, though in fairness they had never actually met before.
- Isis to Cora after the volleyball game in A Day with Cora.
- Fountain of Youth: Well, Syringe of Youth.
- Friendly Address Privileges: This is toyed with. At first, it seems like the Daughters all really hate being addressed formally...but then you remember that several of them don't even HAVE last names. Venus especially tells nearly everyone she meets that doesn't actually work for her or her father to call her Venus alone. Remilia jokes about the phenomenon in ROAD TRIP!.
- Heel Realization: Kind of. In Bleeding Out, the shooter who causes the titular injury regrets not that he hurt someone, but that he hurt the specific person he hurt.
- Idealized Sex
- Whether it's explicit or not. Remember that these kids are just that: kids. They shouldn't know what they're doing.
- Averted to an extent in Venus' Burn. It's told from the man's perspective, first-person; she's injured, so he has to find a position that doesn't strain her injury. Her very high body temperature also causes them some difficulties, enough that it can postpone sexy times in later stories. The man also resorts to somewhat pornstar-like dialogue at one point, but abandons it as stupid moments later. Pretty funny from a first-person perspective.
- In Pleasant Reunion, however, by the same author, it's all idealized, and quite deliberately.
- Immortality Begins at Twenty: Well, twenty eight.
- Immortality Inducer: In some stories, this exists. Not in all of them.
- Immortal Procreation Clause: Interestingly, some of the girls are perfectly fertile. Some others, however...
- Living Forever Is Awesome: The reader will find themselves hoping so, because those girls are going NOWHERE.
- Modest Royalty: Played with a lot. Venus's formal outfit is an unbelievably expensive number, with drakescale, a gold crown, ceremonial weapons of Custudes quality, and all kinds of bling. Freya's is a simple peasant's outfit. Angela's is a ballroom dress and tiara. Overall, each Daughter is expected to wear a formal version of what their adoptive mothers wear.
- Noodle Incident
- Venus' boyfriend has had some bizarre and storied breakups with other characters in the setting before winding up with her. Not ONE has ever actually been explored.
- Alex describing his escapades with the rope and the servoskull.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Joseph Kimball-Carlin, all the way. Even Remilia shows shades of it, but only when she feels backed into a corner.
- P.O.V. Boy, Poster Girl: For most of the Meet the Primarchs stories and Venus' Burn.
- Rags to Royalty: For a few of the girls' boyfriends, at least, by the end of the last few stories. The rest of the Imperium is still pretty stratified, though not as bad as in the canon 40K, which has effectively no social movement.
- Ret-Gone: The steadfast and unbroken policy of all WHH authors is that while stories may reference each other, NO story has primacy, NO story has canon status, and EVERY author should write in the setting as if theirs was the only story in it. Essentially, every story Ret Gones the others. Obviously stories by the same author will reference each other more than others, but you needn't read Venus' Burn for ROAD TRIP! to make sense, etc.
- Road Trip Romance: ROAD TRIP!.
- Sex Equals Death: Julius breaks his vows of abstinence, and three days later the girl he broke them with is killed by a Daemon and dies in his arms.
- Shower of Angst: everal times in several different stories.
- Shower of Love: Thanks to Venus' high body temperature, this actually becomes somewhat necessary for her boyfriend in Venus' Burn.
- So Proud of You
- Gairwyn to Freya.
- Misja to Venus, kind of.
- George, eventually and with some reluctance, to his son.
- Switch To Gothic
- Freya and Venus do this a lot when they're speaking to people around them who understand Nocturnean and Juvjk. They don't like that their friends and cousins can't understand them when they use their birth languages.
- Although this backfired with a Serf talking to Freya, who actually couldn't speak Gothic, except a few words.
- Freya and Venus do this a lot when they're speaking to people around them who understand Nocturnean and Juvjk. They don't like that their friends and cousins can't understand them when they use their birth languages.
- Token Religious Teammate: Faith and Julius. In the thoroughly secular Imperium, they are the only ones who still profess belief in a higher power...well, openly, anyway.
- Two-Person Pool Party: ROAD TRIP! Then again, it was hardly a surprise.
- War Is Hell: The Seadelant War. It's implied that certain other Imperial fronts are under Ork attacks too, and the Imperium doesn't win all of them.
- You Are Not Alone: Poor Alex gets this at least three times over.
