Leman Russ, Wolf King of Fenris, has wandered the Chaos-ruled hell of the Warp for ten-thousand years, pursuing a goal he doesn't fully understand. After ten-millenia of slaughtering daemons and facing every horror imaginable, and many that were not, the Primarch of the Space Wolves finds himself in the most unexpected place...
...a peaceful, tranquil field, devoid of Chaos taint.
Leman soon comes to meet the rulers of this seemingly idyllic world: a peaceful, friendly gardener named Nurgle, and his brother, the honorable but stern knight Khorne.
After initial confusion, a fading vision from his father the Emperor warns Leman to trust these figures, and to find "the tree" and retrieve "the fruit." Leman must now traverse this strange garden-world, and pass four trials posed by its gods, even as he wonders at their connection to the Ruinous Powers.
A Wolf in the Garden is a Warhammer 40,000 Fan Fic exploring the idea of the oft-hinted at but rarely seen positive aspects of the Chaos Gods. It can be read here
, here, and here.
A Wolf in the Garden provides examples of:
- Adaptational Heroism: The 'Veil Gods', being that they're literally the 'good' aspects of their Chaos counterparts, are FAR more benevolent and caring than the 'Big Four' of 40K have ever been in canon.
- Adaptational Villainy: The Chaos Gods themselves. In canon, though they rarely come up, they do have positive concepts and emotions attached to them as well: honour for Khorne, resilience and determination for Nurgle; hope for Tzeentch and love for Slannesh. Here, they completely lack those sides to them since they've actively purged those aspects from themselves and imprisoned them behind The Veil, consequently being FAR more vile and depraved.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: Inasmuch as gender identity has meaning to a god, Khorne, Nurgle, and Tzeentch are all plainly masculine. Slaanesh, however, is implied by Admu to be genderfluid, presenting sometimes as female and sometimes as male, but has thus far always appeared as female in this story, and instructed Admu to refer to her as "Auntie" for simplicity's sake.
- Bash Sisters: Ulthanesh and Grizkha, the two greatest warriors in Khorne's realm, and a deadly duo to boot. The only ones who ever beat either in one of the frequent tournaments is the other; when working together, they manage to push Leman to his absolute limit, with the Primarch of the Space Wolves only just achieving victory.
- Berserk Button: Chaos rapidly becomes one for Admu once she learns of it; hearing cultists and Traitor Marines invoke the names of her beloved family as they commit acts that are perversions of everything they stand for is enough to send her into a blind rage, as Typhus found out the hard way.
- Big Damn Heroes: When Leman and Admu are waylaid by a daemon of Tzeentch, Cegorach saves them and sends them off to the material plane.
- Big "WHAT?!": Mortarion's reaction upon learning the news of Admu and Leman defeating Typhus and destroying part of the Death Guard flagship.
- Broken Bird: While the other three gods have been completely severed from their Chaos counterparts, Slaanesh still shares a direct psychic link with She Who Thirsts, and is forced to witness the atrocities she commits and hear the screams of her victims. Slaanesh was only able to save a fraction of Eldar souls before being cleaved off and sealed behind the Veil as well, and feels immense guilt for that failure. She now takes on all the negative emotions and trauma of the Eldar under her care so they aren't forced to constantly re-live their soul-rape at the Prince of Pleasure's hands... because she does it for them.
- Caring Gardener: The version of Nurgle within the Veil is this, preferring to spend his days caring for his forest and its animals with the help of his children, no plague or rot in sight.
- Contagious A.I.: Tzeentch's simulations start to go off the rails when he inadvertently brings up a simulation of the day the Emperor trapped the Void Dragon on Mars... and the Void Dragon-copy becomes self aware and starts spreading throughout Tzeentch's computer system.
- Cool Versus Awesome: Leman possessed by the World Spirit of Fenris, versus Khorne, who is holding absolutely nothing back.
- Cute Giant: Admu is an adorable, optimistic young farm girl... who towers head and shoulders over Leman. Leman who is a Primarch.
- Dramatic Irony:
- When Nurgle tells the story of how Admu was born, it's clear neither he nor Leman have any idea who the tortured, sickly woman who mysteriously appeared in his forest one day was. To readers, it's blatantly obvious that Admu's mother is Isha, who somehow temporarily slipped through the Veil from Chaos!Nurgle's garden.
- Khorne makes several references to "Revelation" and even refers to Leman as "Son of Revelation." As Leman never knew his father as anything other than the Emperor, he's unaware that this was one of his many names, and the fact that this version of Khorne knows it carries several big implications.
- Emotion Bomb: Slaanesh's trial is forcing Leman to walk through a hallway, where each step exposes him to a different vision, each with very intense emotions attached. In order: he experiences the despair and heartbreak of Lorgar and the Word Bearers when the Emperor rejected them at Monarchia; the fear and misery of Mortarion and the Death Guard when they were suffering from Nurgle's Rot; the pain Angron felt when the Butcher's Nails were implanted; and many, many more.
- Forgot About His Powers: During the group's time on Vigilus, Leman finds himself needing to rescue a woman from a cell. He spends several moments searching for a key before it occurs to him that he can rip the bars off without even a little effort.
Word of God is that Leman spent so long in the Warp and then the Veil, wherein most of the denizens he encountered were as strong if not stronger than a Primarch, that once he returns to the Matterium he occasionally forgets how much more powerful than everyone else he is here. - Expy: One of the warriors in Khorne's realm is an ancient, devoutly Christian human warrior named "Balian."
- Gender Flip: In canon, Ulthanesh is a hero from Aeldari mythology, and is referred to as being male. When Leman meets Ulthanesh amongst the other dead warriors in Khorne's realm, she's female. Given that Eldar mythology is notably fragmented and self-contradicting even in canon, however, this isn't a particularly big leap.
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Genius Bonus:- Khorne says that the "fruit" Leman is seeking is found in the "Halls of Hesperides." The Hesperides, in Greek mythology, is a group of nymphs said to guard a grove of golden apples. Sources also vary on whether there are three of them, or four, much like the gods themselves went from a trio to a quartet when Slaanesh came into existence.
- It's revealed that Admu's name is short for "Tadmushtum." In Babylonian mythology, Tadmushtum is the name of one of the many children of the god Nergal.
- Gilded Cage: The world within the veil is an unquestionable paradise, though parts of it can be dangerous (apparently Orks occasionally get in somehow, for instance); pretty much every soul there lives blissful, flawless lives under the watch of the gods, who themselves are each free to craft their realms to their own personal definition of paradise. However, at the end of the day, they're still trapped behind the Veil, and forced to live with the knowledge of what their Chaos counterparts are doing to the galaxy beyond.
- God Is Good: Yes, these ones really are!
- Good Counterpart: All the gods of the world Leman enters are essentially the "good" parts of the four Chaos gods that were cast off and imprisoned by them shortly before Old Night. Thus Nurgle is a kindly and paternal nature god tending to his groves with his children; Slaanesh is a loving, motherly patron of the arts; Khorne is an honorable and noble warrior; and Tzeentch is a goofy, scatterbrained tech-geek. To say that they're unhappy with what they're counterparts have been getting up to is an understatement.
- He Who Must Not Be Named: In an odd example, Slaanesh has forbidden her own name to be spoken within the walls of her city, preferring to be referred to as "The Patroness." It's later revealed that any reminder of the Fall can cause the Eldar souls there to relive their torture at Chaos!Slaanesh's hands, as seen when one of them recognizes Admu as a daughter of Isha.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Leman Russ and Admu to the Imperium of Man after Admu is mistaken for a Chaos daemon while defending an Imperial world from a corrupt Inquisitor and Leman himself gets spotted and identified protecting Admu in turn from said Inquisitor's forces, resulting in the Imperium believing Leman to have turned traitor like the other Traitor Primarchs.
- Holodeck Malfunction: Tzeentch's trial takes place in what amounts to a holodeck designed to put Leman through various "simulations" of war to test his intellect. Unfortunately he a) didn't expect his niece Admu to be there, and b) never actually thought to test what happens if someone dies in the simulation, and he can't turn it off once it starts, so Leman and Admu have to be very careful. However, things don't really go off the rails until it tries to simulate the day the Emperor trapped the Void Dragon... and the Dragon-replica becomes self-aware.
- The Ingenue: Admu, the daughter of Nurgle and Isha, is a very sweet, optimistic, and almost painfully naive young woman. Most of her naivety comes from having grown up in the idyllic, perfect garden world her father and uncles and aunt created, and deliberately sheltering her from any knowledge of Chaos or daemons. She loses some of the naivety when her uncle Tzeentch's "simulations" show her more of the outside world and Chaos in particular, but surprisingly keeps most of her optimism.
- Little Bit Beastly: Nurgle's children look largely human, bar certain animal traits. Admu, for instance, has deer antlers and a fox-tail... and is taller than Leman by several feet.
- Magic Versus Science: While Chaos Tzeentch is the god of sorcerers and magic, this Tzeentch appears to be a god of technology and science.
- Mythology Gag: Tzeentch's simulations put Leman and Admu into the bodies and roles of various warriors from the present 40k galaxy. The third one, however, isn't one he programmed in... a Vindicare Assassin and an Eldar Farseer.Tzeentch: Vindicare assassin… Aeldari farseer… Eversor… Grey Knights… what? They do WHAT!? By the spheres of the heavens, Slaanesh, if I catch you breaking into my computer one more time, I will TURN YOU INTO A SLANN!
- Physical God: The gods within the Veil are much more corporeal than their Chaos counterparts, due to them concentrating all their power into one form, rather than spreading it across the galaxy. This does, however, come with the drawback that they can't create their own daemon-equivalents to help them, since daemons are essentially just pieces of a god's power they've split off from themselves.
- Admu, as the daughter of Nurgle and Isha, is a full-blown god herself, and eventually follows Leman into the Materium.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Admu kills a Chaos cultist in Tzeentch's simulation, leading to this:Cultist: Y… you damnable… ignorant… corpse-slave… My gods will
Admu: You know nothing of the gods, disgusting wretch. - The Prophecy: It's apparently long been known that a "Challenger" would come seeking the fruit, and the gods (sans Nurgle) have prepared their trials well in advance for him to prove his worthiness. It's heavily implied that this was a pre-existing arrangement with the Emperor.
- Sealed Good in a Can: The Veil, what separates this realm from the rest of the Warp, and keeps the good-gods from getting out. While they've made it into a virtual paradise for everyone within, Khorne outright refers to it as a prison, as it keeps them from interfering with their Chaos-corrupted counterparts. Khorne and Tzeentch have been preparing for the day they get out.
- Spirit Advisor: As his quest goes on, Leman begins receiving visions and advice from a mysterious spirit wolf that claims to have known his father. It's all but stated that this is the World Spirit of Fenris.
- Stepford Smiler: Slaanesh presents herself as a mildly hedonistic patron of the arts and loving guardian of the Eldar souls under her care. Beneath the exterior, however, she feels intense pain and sorrow at the atrocities committed by her Chaos counterpart, and guilt that she could only save a tiny fraction of Eldar souls from its gullet. She took on the pain and suffering of those souls she did rescue to spare them from the memory, but constantly experiences that burden. Even Leman is impressed by her strength and compassion.
- Stronger Than They Look: Immense height aside, Admu looks like a normal young farm girl, and not someone you'd expect to be that strong. Yet she effortlessly carries immense logs that even Leman struggles to lift, and throws Grizhka, one of Khorne's champions who is undefeated and nearly beat Leman, so hard it knocks her unconscious. While holding back. The fact that she's the daughter of Nurgle and Isha, and therefore a full-blown Warp-god like them (even if she doesn't know it) probably explains it.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Slaanesh has tried using her connection with her Chaos counterpart to attack or even harm it, but it just laughs every time. Presumably, Chaos!Slaanesh enjoys whatever she tries to do.
- War God: Khorne, of course. Rather than embodying slaughter and rage, however, this version of Khorne embodies valor and martial honor. His domain is filled with the souls of the noblest and most honorable warriors ever to live, from all species, who constantly hone their skills in duels. Unlike Chaos!Khorne, he's also not stupid enough to despise ranged weaponry, and includes snipers and marksmen in his definition of "warriors."
- Warrior Heaven: Khorne's realm is an afterlife for the greatest and most noble warriors from galactic history, from every race, including Eldar and humans. There they spend their time under Khorne's tutelage, further honing their skills and competing in grand tournaments. However, there haven't been any new souls in a very, very long time, not since before Chaos took over and created the Veil; consequently, they have no idea how bad things in the galaxy have gotten. It's also made clear that Khorne is training them as an army to defeat his Chaos-counterpart when the Veil finally comes down.
