Daemonculaba

[Phunting]

So, like anyone writing the background to their Chaos warband, I eventually have to answer that awkward question, 'where to CSM babies come from?'

I've read 'Dead Sky, Black Sun', and the Iron Warriors anthology up to and including 'Iron Warrior', and some spoilers from the former are below. I'm interested in the Daemonculaba process, and was wondering if anyone had some opinions on it. There seem several elements that appear questionable with it.

As I understand the process, Space Marines are rendered down and fed into the Daemonculaba. They absorb the geneseed through this. Simultaneously an adolescent is physically placed in the Daemonculaba's womb, it absorbs the geneseed and a short while later (seems to have taken hours or at most a couple of days for the Newborn) a fully grown CSM is then removed. For some bizarre reason it has lost all its skin, so it is then clothed in the skin of specially bred fat people. A significant proportion come out badly mutated and are disposed of.

We then have two examples of this process, with the following properties:

The Newborn
Stronger than a normal SM
Ability to regenerate
Innate connection to the warp
Memories and physical appearance of geneseed donor
Claims to be constantly in pain

The Unfleshed
Stronger than a normal SM
Mutation abundant
No other apparent abilities/features

I have the following questions/ thoughts:

1. I see no reason to assume that the Daemonculaba system was unique to Honsu's IW. They were not particularly devoted to research, hence it seems likely to me that this is a technique that could be used by other warbands too, with an attached Dark Mechanicus contingent. Are there any similar methods described elsewhere?

2. The process is set up like a mass production line, yet the Newborn is the only successful product we ever see of the process. Where are all the others? Do they have the same properties as the Newborn? Or is he a special case. If so, why is this?

3. Is it necessary to render down the entire SM for the geneseed? Ventris seems to have been fed to the process without any noticeable side effects. In which case what is the point of rendering them down? Surely it would be more productive to use the Ventris method? You'd probably be left with the progenoid as well so could use this to create more SMs in the normal way too.

4. Do CSM created in this way have geneseed of a specific legion? Are they more of a gestalt mix of all various legions rendered down and fed to them?

Any opinions/ information welcome. I've read neither 'The Killing Ground' nor 'The Chapter's Due' (though I intend to read the latter), so unaware of any further information as to the properties of either the Unfleshed or Newborn from them.

[agurus1]

Isn't Honsu himself a inheritor of the process? He is made from Imperial Fist geneseed.

[Phunting]

Possibly. But there's no real indication of that. He certainly doesn't appear to have been unfleshed, nor does he display any other properties. I took it that he was the result of more conventional use of a mix of IW and IF geneseed, which would imply that Daemonculaba aren't the only way that the warband has used to create new CSMs.

[agurus1]

well I assume that IW can still do it the old fashioned way, just like any other Legion or Loyalist Chapter, but the Daemonculaba was a faster, albeit brutal and less successful method. However if they have tons of genetic material and innumerable young boys to feed to the process it could in theory by more successful in terms of quantity of useful recruits produced over time.