Flayed Ones are an Existential NIGHTMARE

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Music used:
The Caretaker - A1 - Just a burning Memory
OMORI OST - 044 - Where we used to play
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/ arthurbones1

[@TheMythicalHaastsEagle]

Live long enough and you'll go "full Eldar", never go "full Eldar"

[@mekelwander6551]

GW staff: "Flayed Kings sounds like an awesome model to release." GW: "Is that the name of an obscure Space Marine chapter?" GW staff: "No...? They're Necrons." GW: "Oh... Denied. Now remove the new storm lords from the online shop."

[@blakeoarmboy]

I love how Trayzn’s immune to the curse since his purpose is essentially impossible. To chart and record all of history make the greatest museum. History will out live all sentient things and there’s also the history of the past undocumented he still needs to document. The solution to immortality is to never be able to complete your dreams which is sad I love it.

[@doomfan8603]

it's about the journey... *THE GREAT JOURNEY AWAITS*

[@somerton4383]

​@@doomfan8603 *Halo theme plays*

[@jesserains9958]

Guardsman Edgar your skin is hanging off of your bones.

[@SRTifiable]

Give me solar radiation. In water. More.

[@user-ss1ox6rw3q]

😃 is this better?

[@blackc1479]

[@speetza6265]

“There is an acknowledgment that if they have no purpose, they will go insane." At last, the Dark Souls of 40k

[@rays5073]

Hence Trazyns infinite collecting to keep busy

[@goingblargh]

_”Give us your flesh. We demand it.”_

[@Ratman36]

"Give-Give warpstones man things now-now!!"

[@HTWW]

Yeah, but they wouldn't promise us a new world, though. Way unfair.

[@creed8712]

@@Ratman36”take-take the man things Jordan-Jordan’s”

[@trenchmouse2438]

Ah yes, The Second Renaissance. *Proceeds to annihilate the last major human city

[@bluequiltedness]

Err: "Hand over your flesh and a new world awaits you. We demand it."

[@cogboy3587]

A cool bit of lore is that there is a Chaos Knight who absolutely loves to tear its victims apart and to display the mangled corpses from its armour, to the point its pretty much just covered in gore, skin and meat almost constantly. Interestingly, this has caused a group of Flayed Ones to constantly follow it around the battlefield as the Knight continues to butcher and slaughter, seeming to not notice the group of murder robots it has gathered who follow in its wake like its an avatar of the flayer virus.

[@satch5471]

Oh thats cool, whats the name of the chaos knight? Or a place to read more about it ?

[@riceboi9535]

Twice Drad King: Ruin has it in the story. Funnily enough, the necron characters think its a Seraptek Heavy Construct due to the size of it​@@satch5471

[@josefstalin9678]

He is their primarch

[@cmanmonkeydog]

@@satch5471 Death Sabre

[@TheOther19]

​​​@@satch5471 The Twice-Dead King: Ruin. About 3/4 of the way through the book. Knight isn't named, at least I don't remember if it does

[@theodorehodbor5080]

Ngl I feel like the Necrons are one of the best examples in general fiction for how true immortality would be a genuine curse. Literally almost every Necron you encounter that isn't just completely insane or senile sounds absolutely fucking *miserable.*

[@DiscoKevin69420]

Trazyn seems to be having a good time

[@LexYeen]

​@@DiscoKevin69420homie did say "almost every Necron"

[@spnked9516]

​@@DiscoKevin69420a big part of the Infinite and the Divine revolves around Trayzn's musing that immortals don't measure things so much in time as they do in action or purpose. He outright states that immortality is a curse if you're not passionate/obsessed with something, and most "people" simply can't muster that much feeling or dedicated to something.

[@Crouza]

@@DiscoKevin69420 Trazyn is insane, it's why he seems like he's having a good time. He's a hoarder with a compulsion to collect random crap to the point that even Trazyn himself sometimes finds himself confused why he even wants to collect a certain item or person in the first place.

[@lordgod9958]

The death mark in twice dead king also seemed to be rather enjoying himself by trolling his new king lol

[@fablion6324]

i like how the flayer virus heavily implies that necron warriors still have their contiousness inside them, its just being heeeevily supressed by the controll protocolls placed on them

[@utes5532]

It's also hinted at in the Twice Dead King books at one point, where Oltyx wonders if the warriors still have their consciousness. It's just that no one has cared to ask one.

[@fablion6324]

@@utes5532 imagine if an overlord just said "at ease" to a unit of wariors

[@secutorprimus]

A couple of additions: - In respect to fully slaying a C'tan, one of the reasons it is *so* difficult to do is because they're entrenched within the laws of material reality itself. Canonically, the Necron purging of the C'tan broke *causality itself*, and left a permanent stain on objects and individuals involved (including the Flayer curse) - The Flayer curse is heavily associated with a concept known as the Dysphorakh. In essence, it is the logical result of what happens when you copy a biological brain 1:1 into a synthetic body; the subconscious bits that keep you alive (breathing, pumping blood, needing *food*) can begin to panic. A Necron can go mad if they're left to confront this for too long, as the animalistic remnants of what they were override the rational parts of their mind. - Something that does appear to help in staving off this dysphorakh is distraction from old memories. Even more effective seems to be the *loss* of memory... but if that's the case, is it any wonder Destroyers are so common? A thinking machine that only knows peace through destruction and the following silence?

[@khorneflakes4446]

I like the fact that the flayed ones are capable of mimicing voices to lure people. Shows they aren't just mindless ghouls but possess a sadistic intelligence.

[@lordgod9958]

They can plan ambushes and in TDK one of them even makes the shhh gesture to Ultyx when he's hiding from a group of retreating space marines Before leading the pack to viscerally tear said marines to literal shreds

[@_underscore_6970]

Twice Dead King is an amazing book, right behind Infinite and the Divine for me, Flayed Ones play such a huge part in it, and it sets for an interesting backdrop between the drama and action. also fun fact: There is a Chaos Knight that has gone around killing so much, that it’s grown a layer of flesh and gore, and while it had a cult following it around, they got slaughtered by Flayed Ones who noticed him, and saw him as an avatar of their god, so now they just follow him where he goes

[@josefstalin9678]

That chaos knight is their primarch now

[@philiphockenbury6563]

Oh the metal boys are cold. They need your skin. Give it. Come on. Give it.

[@vokkera6995]

The thing that terrifies me about the idea of immortality is the scaling of time in memory. When you’re thousands of years old, you probably barely remember when anything happened because everything feels like it happened just the other day, with generations worth of memories flashing past at any attempt to think back. People are just blips in your perspective, being gone in what feels like minutes. That would certainly drive one to madness.

[@cinderheart2720]

There's a flayer king in the Mechanicus video game! He's one of the bosses.

[@stingray2223]

yeah! his fight was HORRIFYING the endless flayed ones crawling from the depths, the winding path up, to the mad king Ubjao

[@boanoah6362]

One thing about necrons that is amazing is their sense of time, they can not only control how fast or slow the perceive it to pass but also take years at a time on trivial things because time has no meaning. So imagine you're a necron, you decide to settle down for a bit to get some paperwork done after saying bye to your friend for a little bit... 100 years later you get up to stretch your legs a little and oops, your friend you just saw 'a while ago' is now nailing hunks of meat to his skull and screaming into the endless void. In our terms that was a couple hours tops.

[@GuyerTown]

The Caretaker Everywhere At The End Of Time music in the background is what i imagine is playing at all times in nurgles land

[@grimreminder5038]

"What if it's not a virus, maybe I felt nostalgic." - Flayed One's internal monolog probably

[@darnokx9277]

"Horrors, for once not manmade" ... well, parts of them is manmade... man made cloak, so to speak.

[@WhenGoatsWentBaa]

Few notes on things For the flayer kings, they do still exist, but there's only known to be two, one of which is probably a myth (those being Valgul (the myth) and Oltyx) Second thing, Llanugor was actually killed by several dynasties including the Ithikan dynasty (which is why they're so affected by the flayer curse) Third thing, the pocket dimension has been elaborated on. It's a dimension considered to be beneath the intersticial dimension the Necrons use to communicate, teleport and resurrect. It's basically entirely empty with only the flayers actually being capable of navigating it properly. Even when Necron ships travelled there, they had immense trouble actually making their way through it with no easy way to guide themselves. Think that's everything, most of this was from Twice Dead King Reign and Ruin, the two books go incredibly in depth into the flayed ones. Great video Arthur! Have a great day if you read this!

[@jimmcphearson7252]

The dysphorak that turns necrons into flayed ones is the most interesting part of the concept. It is a slip of the mind that leads to a spiraling panic. Before battle one day, your lord orders you to march upon the enemy. You have done this millions of times, the first still being when you were still of flesh and blood. You vaguely recall it and take a breath before marching. But no breath enters your lungs. You can't open your mouth. Your brain craves oxygen it hasn't had in millions of years. Your body that isn't there cries out in every way at once. So you desperately try to take the body of the enemy. Their lungs, their face, their flesh

[@jimmcphearson7252]

As an aside, I had a similar experience on a bad shroom trip. Will definitely go lower on my dose next time. Felt like if I acknowledged the dread that it would consume my entire body

[@utes5532]

Yeah, the Twice Dead King books are really cool and do a good job of humanizing the Necrons. Lysikor my beloved

[@jimmcphearson7252]

@@utes5532 The real MVP is Denet shaking off his madness long enough to summon the monoliths.

[@utes5532]

@@jimmcphearson7252 Only for it to do sweet fuck-all Still loved that moment though

[@Diomedes_XXII]

We got your back, homie.

[@alastor8091]

Literally!

[@LordCrate-du8zm]

Flesh Eater Courts: _"Mood kindred?"_

[@GhostofGaunt4949]

I legit just got my hands on some Flayed Ones, and I am turning them into a Cadian Command Squad, with Steve as the officer.

[@botpenn4672]

"Officer, your men are unarmed!" "'Sir,' If this one may interject... these warriors are equipped with two arms each." "Don't start acting wise with me, Officer. Go fetch some lasguns and get in position! The heretics will be upon us any minute now." "This one understands." "...There's something wrong with that lot..."

[@Turnil321]

The hardest part of being an immortal is not dying of boredom.

[@docomalleyd4279]

Flayed ones that still can think for themselves?! *Internal screaming intensifies* Ya see, that's the stuff that makes me so happy that I subbed to your channel Arthur, you give us the good stuff while you get to nerd out a bit. Thanks for posting this and making me smile at a truly horrifying concept. 😁

[@penman870]

The flayed ones where my introduction into warhammer

[@OldTexasRed]

welp that's one hell of an introduction xD

[@psychetitan3529]

Better touch on Valgul and twice dead king when you cover the ghoul stars. Absolutely amazing books and lore

[@ryanexsus]

The descriptions of the "Eaters" in Twice Dead King made my skin crawl. I like how they showed that it slowly degrades the Necron mind over a long period of time. Their insatiable hunger that can never truly be filled.

[@jackmakinson-sanders7279]

Nice Ellison nod! Also, great work in general. As is the usual with you, your content is super dope.

[@Turnil321]

There is a flayer king in the mechanicus game.

[@jacks633]

'We goin' to Flayer city bay-BEEEEEEEEY' killed me. Fr tho, got into Necrons after seeing all those awesome little green rods on a GW table years ago. Loved them even more playing Dark Crusade. First time summoning 'Flayed ones' and watching these zombie robots erupt from the ground?! Immediate new favourite unit in the game.

[@DeathBy_Chair]

Heavily recommend the Twice Dead King books as they bring Flayed Ones to the forefront and are the main reason I too almost made a Necron Army. The Flayed Ones are such an awesome concept I really hope to see a Flayed King model come out one day

[@richardnorton3453]

The best treatment of the Flayed Ones that I have run across. Excellent content!

[@robertwilder4953]

I needed this... just to get through the day... thank you.

[@fluffly3606]

I want the Flayer's concept to be "confirmed" as incomprehensible on a fundamental level _because_ it was completely erased from reality by the destruction of the Flayer. The idea that there was something fundamental to reality (and by extension, life!) that was erased and the closest thing we have to it is "flaying" is sublimely horrifying in precisely the way that my neurospicy brain finds oddly pleasant

[@uniball5667]

Literally just wipe your memories every once in awhile. "Damn I wish skydiving was still fun. I know! I'll just remove those memories and it will be like new!" Sure, it's still pretty horrifying, buy at least you won't go insane from boredom.

[@xvrebellion]

You'd like the twice dead king ruin book. It ratchets up the existential horror of being a necron plus flayed ones become a pretty big point in the story

[@riokollivier]

Loved the video! Looking forward to your next AoS video.

[@Sephiroth36977]

As a Star Wars fan this reminds me of Darth Nihilus. Not so much the physical attempts to eat but just this unknowable ancient force of the universe that exists as a cosmic *negative* to all life. I need more Necron lore, I've only read The Infinite and the Divine as a break from the seemingly neverending Gareth Armstrong Horus Heresy audiobooks. The Flayed Ones were briefly featured but like everything else it was entirely new to me. Thank you Arthur for this video about the *spooky scary skeletons sending shivers down my spine!*

[@dr.stronk9857]

Yeah if I didn’t already have tyranids, thousand sons, ravenguard, and soon the night lords killteam, I’d want to make a necron flayer dynasty, they’re just really cool and spooky

[@topcat59]

The flayed one kind of sound like starved robotic werewolves that could never satisfied their endless hunger.🐱

[@JordantheBarbarian]

Whatever you do, don't stop uploading. Your videos itch my brain in a way that a lot of content creators fail to do. Keep it up King 💪

[@woundedzilla1517]

I really like the twice dead king books that HEVELY imply the titular twice dead king is in fact that specific flyer king in the pocket dimension

[@redmammoth8759]

More flayed one or more works would be awesome but you do you Mr. Bones

[@TheXenomorphwarrior]

I’d love for you to cover hive fleet Tiamet and to hear some of your theories on what the hell they’re protecting.

[@michaelschroeder7953]

also the flayed ones were kinda like my intro to 40k. at a party, this one guy who was on some stuff that made him quite chatty, was showing me artwork of them and i listened to his 3 hour monologue about my question, “what is 40k?” and boy oh boy i opened up the floodgates

[@ortiznikko]

I'd love to hear more about the necrons from your perspective

[@Geebees93]

Interesting. My shipment of 4 boxes of Flayed Ones just came in today and you drop this video on the very same day? Very amusing, Arthur... Coincidence? I think not!

[@bruhmcdeez9788]

I never really knew anything about flayed ones until now. Neat video.

[@sockmonkeyjg]

I love your content friend The only feedback is don't be afraid to do more nightlord or chaos horror concepts I think the choas is where the big views are

[@masonevanson2995]

I love that people just look at em as "oh, robot zombies" but no it's literally a robot wendigo curse. That's... fucking horrifying. A planet, full of wendigos. Nope nope nope

[@lonekirin905]

I've seen a comic where a Flayed One is a Cadian Guardsmen, a Tyranid is a Catachan Jungle fighter and an Ork is an Ultramarine

[@giominus7402]

This reminds me of the Knight that killed so many Nids it couldn't stop killing and became some weird roaming beast that Flayed ones follow around now cause of the gore.

[@Mistheart101]

I know you use music from The Caretaker in a lot of your videos, but *man* it's fitting for this one in particular.

[@Zossel]

If you havent done it read the twice dead king books. They explore the flayed once pretty heavely. And yes please more flayed ones content

[@ausgreen3761]

More Flayed Ones videos please! These poor guys are criminally under represented.

[@samhack7249]

Guys this is Steve our new guardsman.

[@michaelschroeder7953]

as an addict in recovery, all bad roads tend to root because of boredom. heavily feel the intro of this video

[@mlgfails2727]

Would be interesting to see how chaos reacts to the flayed ones or in general how they feel about the fallen Catan and a possible resurgence of them one day

[@The1Zubatman]

In the Mechanicus game there is a boss fight against a Necron noble that is affected by the flayed ones disease and it sounds similar to the flayed king you mentioned. I'm nit sure though Mechanicus was one of the first Warhammer things I ever interacted with and it's been some time.

[@jameskilts555]

Necrons being my main army, the two concepts that have always held my attention have been the flayer virus and the destroyer cult. I hope to see an amalgamation of the two someday, even though they are somewhat contrary to one another. I might make it a goal of mine to make a destroyer cult themed army, part of me is wanting to wait till we hopefully get a resculpt of the common lokhust destroyer and maybe destroyer lord....

[@robertfancyman3873]

The Twice-Dead King books really sold me on the concept of the Flayed Ones, but I'm definitely not having them be a major thing in my homebrew dynasty. It's one of the worst fates in 40k and I don't want my little dudes to suffer that.

[@overdog1574]

In the mechanicus game, there’s a flayed one lord, lord ubjao, and he probably has the sickest flayed one design I’ve ever seen

[@kerbal666]

2 LL's sounds like a hiss first, place the tip of your tongue along the gum line behind your front teeth as if you were about to pronounce the letter L. Then, while keeping your tongue firmly in place, blow a constant stream of air out of the two sides of your mouth.

[@Baconlazer]

As I am collecting Necrons from the magazine Warhammer Imperium, I will carry out your dreams of a whole army of Flayed Kings then ❤

[@mehqahto-and-his-uncanny-u4695]

At this point meqahto hasn’t seen a bones video mentioning nightlords

[@mrbreeze3954]

I know you use this background music on every video but in this one... In this one it hits different

[@Psyc0Fox]

If you love flayers, read Twice Dead King: Ruin and Reign. Beyond being amazing books, they go into so much detail on the flayer curse.

[@iam_sriracha2400]

Ah yes, the “peel people like fruit” bots

[@mr.expunged6040]

I like the flayed ones, very interesting concept, very cool/horrifying to look at, and that pocket dimension of theirs is the reason why they are one of the absolute last things I want to run into in 40k.

[@15DEAN1995]

After the twice dead king books I found it very interesting how necrons communicate/show there personalities when they become flayers. With certain characters it's as if their freed from their previous restraints and can truly be who they are. Yes they're mad, they want to consume flesh which they cannot and wear it to imitate skin they no longer possess. The normal soldiers seem to be more free as flayers than they ever were before. When compared to the destroyers the flayers seem far more reasonable and yes that feels like a stretch. Anytime a destroyer is shown in a book they are like a force of nature they cannot be satisfied until they have destroyed every molecule of life until nothing remains. The flayers by comparison look pretty good.

[@yoshi3665]

you are great Arthur!

[@GRIMBB]

Lets gooo new mr.bones!!

[@SerKawlin]

My high monarch, the viscount of Krastellan requests a video of House Hawkshroud

[@recycledfelines]

Ok tldr, but YES to the loving the real horrors in our world! So I run a neonal kitten rescue and cat graveyard here on the Oregon coast, a bonus because the place looks like Silent Hill 70% of the year. I see the worst of the worst cases. I love my job. I love helping with the horrors these animals are faced with. Pain and suffering, death and ritual. It's all filled with so much grief, and I feel like I have the best job in the world. A lot of people say that they could not do our job because they could not see a kitten go through suffrage like that, and oh yeah, dying kittens are absolutely gut wrenching. But I'm so lucky and so honored to be here to help, or to just guide them home. Anyway, I get loving horror in a loving way. I just think if people turned the Rubik's cube that they are holding, and look at it from a different angle, they will see beauty in the things that they fear. Death is not the worst thing that could happen to them, being with the dying is such an honor, yes that there is pain and suffering, but you can be for others to help. And that is beautiful " The way is lit, the path is clear, we require only the strength to follow it "

[@aidenpopour594]

The Twice Dead King series is about what it's like to become a flayer

[@aidenpopour594]

It's described as a form of dysphoria. The engram of all your body's needs, not just hunger. It's a screaming feeling that you haven't breathed, slept, drank, or eaten for millions of years. It's only ever quieted by covering yourself in flesh and acting as if you were still alive

[@SnowySabreToothedLeopard]

I now know why you are named Arthur BONES! and now Author Curze

[@zerkil6304]

You know how in warhammer fantasy the dwarfs had a slayer sub-culture, it would be cool if the flayed ones got something similar so you could do a flayed one theme army

[@SeaOfGrey]

You should read Dead Men Walking. A necron tomb world gets woken and you're following average people. The DKOK gets called in to fight but the flayed ones in it give me anxiety, I love it so much!

[@franciscadigan3876]

Flayed ones are awesome! And not talked about too much. There's also not much about what happens to different types of Necrons when they get infected, they mostly seem Necron-warrior-esque. Well, this is why I've been working on homebrew rules for A Flayer Cult Kill Team for a while!

[@paulhumphreys919]

You missed out the really old lore that states that flayed one were necrons that didn't completely shut down during the great sleep. These necrons had to stand, completely conscious, for millions of years and it drove them mad.

[@bathsaltshero]

so c'tan of hunger. this explains corpse starch

[@jackofn0trades29]

If you were interested in flayed ones and their actual origin. Along with a description and story within their pocket dimension, the ghost wind. Then I would heavily recommend the Twice dead king Books.

[@brianburke5570]

oh mr. bones the servo skull. i didnt get that. ive been wondering for ages

[@pigeonman6434]

Reading the Twice Dead King right after the Infinte and Divine was a whiplash and a half

[@Skulgar321]

Necrons have two sides. Goofy and 'I have no mouth and I must scream'

[@shaunbrender]

I love this channel.

[@josefstalin9678]

I know the odds of getting one are practically nonexistant but I would love an official GW model of Valgul. Easily one of my favorite characters in 40k despite how little is written about him (I mean, so little that he's really more of a concept than a proper character but I dont care because he's awesome)

[@oddity]

I like it when creators make one for themselves.

[@legionclown2656]

There is a chaos dreadblade knight who went insane and draped itself in skin and the flayed ones showed up and just kind of follow it around

[@NightLordShadow]

The Flayed Ones are so awesome

[@UntoldHistoryAnimations]

The Fact the Twice Dead King books are not mentioned once hurts my soul

[@Zoshnell]

I hired a flayer once for my butcher counter. 1 out of 10 he was very sloppy with his cuts, but his customer service skills were great, I got 0 complaints about him.

[@paulellington1505]

A flayer king shows up in the book fall of Damnos. And he is a trip. I think dude ends up getting an Ultramarine's skin before the end. I recommend giving it a read. Or listen

[@EmonWBKstudios]

There is nothing more horrifying than that moment when you lose any sense of purpose or meaning, that moment when you can only think ahead of the next few moments as you realize you are little more than prey to some uncaring, hungry THING.

[@dogf421]

these are the type of things that would make the most battle hardened individual go "wtf are these and why are they the way that they are?"

[@mrtortoise3766]

You know it is possible that whatever the flayer’s domain was, was utterly obliterated as a concept and that’s why it seems kind of odd because we cannot comprehend what it was that it did, so if the deathbringer was utterly destroyed not only would death cease but the concept of death would become incomprehensible

[@ThisIsYourGodNow]

In the twice dead king they go to the flayed ones dimensions and it's a sub layer of reality where there's just straight up nothing there

[@BeefyGreek]

My favourite flayer origin 100% had to be that they were stuck conscious while in stasis, 100 million years of sleep paralysis will make you wear Private Kevin as a coat in no time…

[@svahn1]

If you like the idea of the Flayed Ones, PLEASE go read/listen to Twice Dead King. I don't want to say much about the plot since it would ruin things, but the flayer curse is discussed a lot, especially in the second book. It's a fantastic story and it discusses many fascinating concepts involving the Necron psyche. Seriously, don't look up anything about it, just read it or get the audiobook. You wont regret it.