Grimdank vocabulary
Sep 2024—Silly words from silly books
In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there is only... onierolysis? phrontistery? maematemesis?
I've nearly finished book number 63 in the Horus Heresy series, a plot line from the Warhammer 40,000 universe. They're a special set of books for me. Silly, in their way, but I find the core storyline compelling. It's a tragedy in the grandest sense. We know what the universe is like in the grim, dark future of the 41st millennium - how did it all go so wrong? The year 30,000 begins a long, dark descent into Chaos with a pantheon of characters that puts the Greeks to shame.
But, it's Warhammer. It's so over-the-top. Coming from the tabletop miniatures game, there's a heavy focus on action and fighting. I spent a good portion of the 63 books skimming through detailed fight sequences with strong creative writing homework vibes.
The word choice is so silly I started highlighting the best ones. They fall into 3 categories:
- technically correct, but archaic or domain-specific
- impeller, ecorche
- thesaurus replacement for an overused or boring word
- ichor, vitae (blood)
- sci-fi words
- plasteel, auramite
(And note, this is a non-exhaustive list from ONE BOOK)
- eitoc
- impeller
- onierolysis
- phrontistery
- ecorche
- swingeing
- ambit
- bleeding liquidised axioms and gusting phlogistonic sparks
- nous
- isochronal
- precatory
- phantasmata
- fyceline
- necrodermis
- auramite
- electro-flambeaux
- plasteel
- torquetum
- spavined
- materia
- azif
- chaogenous
- cogitators
- cellular-patterning wafers
- gene-cooking
- biomechanical phage
- putrescine
- ephemerides
- formicates
- neurosynergetic
- bio-structor
- autogenous
- cachectic
- carious
- plastek
- algid
- tenebrous
- acroamatical
- caesura
- nidor
- crepuscular
- scrimshawed
- imposts
- metanoia
- osmogenesia
- propinquity
- fulgent
- entelechy
- vatic
- mantic
- vastation
- daedal
- ylem
- hsbd-iryt
- hierophants
- malison
- theandric
- asterism
- maematemesis
- casuistry
- seriatim
- haemaquartz
- syncretic
- pyramidion
What a list. I love them all. I leave you with with paragraph, which I think captures the ridiculousness quite well:
His company, diminishing in number, is suddenly forested by gnarled trunks of glistening meat that erupt from the fleshy floor. Like trees carved from carrion, they writhe branch-limbs that spit hellflame. The trunks, twice his height, sway in some unfelt wind, like marine anemones undulating in the current of the abyssal darkness. Their skirts billow like gills, and the fungus-flesh of their columns glitter with gelatinous scabs of frogspawn eyes that slide and froth across cauls of fat. The flame squirting from their swaying limbs melts auramite, and roasts men whole. Constantin tries to sever their limbs before they can belch flame. Some tree-things rupture and explode, others topple and collapse. The fire within them spills out and flows like pyrophoric fluid, conjuring little mocking sprites of Constantin and his men made of flame, which dance and crackle around their feet. Struck or stamped out, the pink flames shatter into coals of blue fire that eat at their sabatons and greaves, and gnaw them away like phosphor. He smashes the flesh-trees as they rear up, barging them with his pauldrons, toppling them with his spear haft, and tearing them with his blade-tip.
For the Emperor!