Funny / Embers in the Dusk

• The main Throne income for Avernus in the first years of the game? Tourism! That's right, the leaders decided that an adventure on the deadliest world in the galaxy is just what Imperium nobles need. It works, too.
  • One of the omakes has tourist reviews about Avernus. One visitor states the planet had made him a real man, so he, no longer afraid of his boss, quit and started his own company - and bangs the old boss's daughter/his secretary. Another review isn't actually from a tourist, but from a woman whose husband took his mistress to Avernus, only for neither to return. She recommends it to everyone.
• On a meta level, the salvage. The planet is hilariously rich in STC tech and blueprints. Had the GM gone by the fluff pricelist of "two worlds for a knife", Rotbart would have owned the Segmentum in a few decades; as it is, a quarter century in, he decides to place a call to Mars in order to respectfully point out that the local Adeptus Mechanicus world might soon be incapable of properly compensating him for the finds. The find which made you send that was enough to almost bankrupt those locals, and Word of God is, had the Mars response fleet arrived, you would have gotten an Imperator Titan, for starters.
• At this point, an Inquisitor Lord who used to be opposed to the whole colony idea sends a Grey Knight team to investigate if some particularly insidious Chaos corruption is behind the reports. A forum reply:
  Justicar Alarion, one year from now: We are at least 50% sure that Governor Rothbart is not a personification of our most Divine God-Emperor. We have not been able to reduce the possibility of him being a reborn/lost Primarch below 78%, however.
• At one point early on, Arbitrator Jane Oakheart discovers a Chaos cult whose goal is to convert Frederick Rotbart to the worship of the Dark Gods, and then follow him. Our Governor is so popular on Avernus that even the Chaos cultists love him. According to the QM, other cults with the same goal still tend to pop up from time to time.
• During the first Ork attack, the humans send them a transmission describing how nice and Orky a place Avernus is. It works too, with both sides being happy about it; the Orks, because they do get to have great time fighting, and the humans, because the Ork fleet heads straight for Avernus, ignoring the system shipyards.
• There are apparently in universe slash fics about Frederick and Ajax.
• Avernites are so arachnophobic that, according to Word of God, Avernite cultists will immediately attack the daemon they just summoned if it takes the form of a spider.
• Once, a forum quester asked if one of the punishments Tjapa inflicts on those that displease him is "being eternally crushed under enormous piles of paper work that must be filled out in triplicate", to which Durin replied "it is now".
• While the rolls for the "War, Blood, and Murder" interlude are mostly hidden, Durin has revealed that Arhra rolled a 88 for his joining the fight against against Khorne. Yes, really.
• There is an (apocryphal) omake series having the fic cross over with Warhammer High.
• The defence levels for the cities. There is Very Light, Light, then Medium, then Heavy, Very Heavy, Super Heavy, Incredibly Heavy, Ultra Heavy, and then... Sufficient. After that, there is Excessive. Bonus points when you realize that's synonymous with Enuff Dakka and Too Much Dakka.
• The "Negaverse" quest omakes:
  • After the Abomination Crusade was beaten back, an omake was posted describing what the reaction would have been in a thread running the quest from the enemy side.
  • During the Abomination crusade, two omakes were posted in the style of the Infantryman's Primer, describing Avernus. Considering Abomination polities are effectively a flanderized Imperium...
  • Later, a couple omakes for the Eldar remnant POV were added.
  • After the tech trade with the other polities was complete, an omake was published from the POV of a quest running Abaddon's Black Imperium. It has him assembling a fleet to destroy one of the polities due to being told that it is the weakest it is going to be in centuries. The fleet is routed completely, and everyone realizes the statement actually meant the polity is about to Take a Level in Badass. Big time.
  • A Tyranid POV omake describing how they tried to go around the Necron blockade. They worked out an alternate FTL, spent time working out some issues, then, once certain they were done, jumped to bypass... turns out it wasn't them working out the issue. The Necrons were the ones working out the proper Teleport Interdiction methods. The ambush was costly as hell, but everyone agreed the GM gave plenty of hints for them to stop in time.
• The Trust's focus on defensive warfare and the fact that they have the tech for prefabricated fortresses in their arsenal means that an enemy commander legitimately has to worry about getting outflanked by fortresses.
• The fact that Cadia, capitol of the Black Imperium, was destroyed as collateral damage while the heist team makes their getaway. That's right, the planet Abaddon cares about so much got blown up as a mere sideshow to the main story.
  • The DC for arriving safely is 75. The group rolls a 704, which gets labeled as "Embarrassing Overkill".
• That Grot, favorite punching bag of Gork and Mork, is usually overlooked due to being, well, a grot. It's still a major god, and piledrove Magnus the Red into the ground and nearly killed him during the Grand Ritual, something the Crimson King is still very pissed off about. Leman Russ refuses to stop with the mocking comments.
• In one omake, Kurnous is on Avernus with Anath Raema, tracking a criminal. When he says they should return someday, she says "It's a date", and barely dodges a vine trying to smack her, courtesy of Isha (Kurnous's wife who is on Avernus at the time). Then she walks ahead, Kurnous lets his Male Gaze stray a bit... and this time, the vine doesn't miss his chin.
• During Eldrad's overview of Segmentum Tempestus at the Third Grand Conclave, a reference is made to "the recently deceased Ork Kommando Overlord Madskar the Unkillable".
• The climax of the Grand Incursion of Doom. After years spent by the forces of Chaos grinding through the defences of Avernus, Be'lakor sees matters are getting difficult, so he uses the blood of all five Gods of Chaos, plus sacrificing an Exalted Daemon from each of them, to perform a mighty ritual that flings the planet right into the Warp. For all its protections, this is enough for the daemons to receive a massive power boost, and for the Five to start raining daemons all over the world. Then, Tzeentch and Slaanesh choose the same spot for deployment, throwing the two into a full-scale Enemy Civil War. The other three promptly join the clusterfuck, and Lady Helheim uses the chance to quietly excuse herself and go home.

  Within a day of Be'lakor's ritual ensuring that victory was theirs for the taking, Avernus was able to slip away from the war that surrounded it, none of the Gods of Chaos being able to act to stop it without the others interfering.

• The ceremony of transferring the Phase-Tigers to Eldar command:
  Eight years ago the Phase-Tigers were formerly reassigned to the Empire of Ashes until the Long Night comes to an end. There was a month-long festival before their departure, celebrating their many deeds on Avernus, both great and small, and their contribution to Avernite society right from the beginning.
  Then there was the ceremonial check to determine if they were Dark Age of Technology Suvuviors, clones, mutants, psykers, ka-wielders, evolutionary post-humans, the Emperor's mortal descendants, xenos, Eldar, Harlequins, Xenos hybrids, Avernite Wildlife, Avernite Peoples, shapeshifters, undead, daemons, deva, fey, elementals, other Warp entities, Astartes, Perpetuals, other types of immortals, Men of Iron, Men of Stone, Men of Gold, Xenos AI, People AI, Termite Inventions, other AI, bio-augmented, genetically-augmented, cybernetically-augmented, psychically-augmented, bearing daemonic gifts, divinely-blessed, bearing primal enhancements, infused with primal spirits, infused with the shards of star-gods, have their souls fused to their bodies, in possession of unknown technologies, in possession of unknown enchanted items, in possession of unknown blessed items, in possession of an archetype, bearing unusual machine-spirits, bearing an unknown fate, guided by an unknown seer, time-travellers, removed from the timeline, time clones, removed from the very concept of death, possessed, using a hive-mind, reincarnations of mighty heroes, bearers of the souls of higher beings, guided by supernatural or super-technological beings, recipients of secret resurrection by unknown parties, figments of the imagination of a population undergoing mass hysteria, not actually real, beings of pure narrative, do not exist, or anything else that anyone could think of. Once more no one found anything. It looks like either it's pure skill and luck or you missed it.
  Finally, there was supposed to be a parade to the Ynnari landing craft, a set of speeches and a grand send-off. This plan was ruined by the fact that they slipped off when the speeches were about to begin and left ahead of time.
• The fact that the Ancient One has a Grandmaster level skill in evil monologues simply by being that well-acquainted with Be'lakor. For reference, that's only a single step below Be'lakor's own Exemplar level skill.
• The first four Daemon Incursions to Avernus are known as Pink Skies, Red Skies, Golden Skies and Green Skies. Then the Trust launched an attack on a nearby Daemon World. Someone posted an omake calling it Silver Skies, so Durin decided to make it official.
• The mere idea of Vlad's bullshittery in the Black Imperium civil war. After Alpharius is killed, he pretends that a decoy was killed and he is the real Alpharius. First a Chaos Lord, but now he pretends to be a Primarch. And it works.