Welcome to the TTP Field Manual’s End-of-Year Special!

In these FINAL DAYS, join Joshy and Jonny as they delve into the characters of Warhammer 40,000, exploring their stories, motivations, and roles in the grim darkness of the far future. Each episode in this series unpacks the "who, what, where, why, and how" of iconic figures, making it the perfect introduction—or reintroduction—for fans old and new.

In Episode #2, we dive into the whimsical yet chaotic tales of Tzeentch’s Blue Scribes. Tasked by the god of change, P'tarix and Xirat'p scurry through dimensions collecting Tzeentch’s lost essence and recording ancient spells. Total magical mayhem occurs on both the tabletops of Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Age of Sigmar thanks to these bumbling miscreants. Tune in for an exploration of these certainly unique characters.

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TTP Field Manual is brought to you by Joshy and Jonny, best friends and gaming enthusiasts from their local group, Trust the Process Hobbies. Die-hard fans of the Warhammer universe, we use this podcast as a platform to share our passionate (and somewhat humorous) ramblings about all things Grimdark.

By day, Joshy is a therapist; by night, he's an RPG aficionado who grew up on (not-so) Final Fantasies and crafting his own Dungeons & Dragons worlds. Jonny, a hospitality manager, spends his downtime conquering more video games than Joshy can keep track of.

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Notes:

• Tzeentch's essence once shattered into shards, introducing psychic sorcery into the multiverse.
• The Blue Scribes, P'tarix and Xirat'p, are tasked with recovering Tzeentch's lost spells.
• The Blue Scribes embody a unique blend of chaos and comedic relief in Warhammer lore.
• Despite being crucial to Tzeentch's plans, the Blue Scribes are often hilariously distracted.
• They are lesser demons meant to gather knowledge without the risk of betrayal.
• Their limited intelligence leads to humorous chaos as they constantly bicker during battles.

Well, hello there.

Welcome back to the TTP Field Manual.

In our Advent calendar today, we will be discussing some lovely, interesting characters.

Or a duo of characters.

The Blue Scribes.

Joshy boy, I've got a quote for you.

You got a quote?

Love it.

Let's go.

It's.

It's.

I'm going to butcher some names here.

Let's just be honest.

I want you to say it, like with huge conviction.

You really believe what you're saying?

Oh, man.

You want me to put accents into this?

We're in trouble now.

Not so much that, but just go for the names, man.

Yeah, yeah.

Y'geth maw's flaming blizzards.

Say thee bumble headed no brain.

This calls for the vaulted transmogrification of Colchis.

Watch this.

That is Zuratip, the blue scribe to his brother Patarix.

Okay, the names actually are pretty jank.

Yeah, we're in trouble.

What was it?

Narapit?

Zeratep?

X I R A T apostrophe P.

Oh my gosh.

Welcome to demons, my friend.

Welcome to Tzeentch.

So before we can talk about the scribes themselves, we have to go back to time.

Back in time to well before even known lore.

This is all more rumours and naysay and you know, you know, lore within the lore, kind of.

But there was once a time when Tzeentch reigned above all of the warp.

He was far superior to the other three Chaos Gods, and his followers were very powerful.

The other gods, in their arrogance, had to take him down a peg.

So the three of them had to team up and join forces and basically go to war with Tzeentch 3v1.

And it was cataclysmic.

He held his own.

Oh, he held his own very well for quite a while.

But it all came to a front in the final battle when the three Chaos Gods lifted Tzeentchup as a group.

And as they were doing this, about to cast him upon the mountains of.

Of the Lost is what they're called.

Sorry, the Endless Mountains, I should say.

Tzeentch cast a spell crystallizing his thoughts and body right at the moment that he was thrown against the mountains, where he shattered into 10,000 pieces.

Thought you were gonna say 40,000.

Man, how I wish.

Each of the shards contained a small fragment of Tzeentch's essence.

A single spell or word of change.

And his power was massively weakened as these shards were scattered across every corner of time and space.

Many of the intelligent races of what is essentially a multiverse have legends suggesting that this moment introduced psychic sorcery to the realmspace.

It's kind of like an origin story for sorcery.

It's cool.

This is sounding very D and D.

Yeah, right.

Very fantasy.

Because these guys are obviously involved in fantasy as well.

Yeah, they started there.

This is where Tzeentch created Zatarx, Ziratop and Potarix.

Oh, my gosh.

Which you'll notice their names are literally just each other's names backwards.

I didn't.

Because I could not figure out how it was spelled.

Oh, man, it's.

It's a lot.

And he tasked them with going into the world and gathering every single shard lost by traveling through the many dimensions of creation and recording each one of his lost spells.

Now, before I continue, do you know what a Blue Horror is, Joshi?

I know what they look like.

I know that they split into other colour of Horrors.

I don't know if they are unique in any particular way, though.

What if I told you you don't know what they look like, you just know what some of them look like.

Oh, I've heard of this before.

It's up to individual perception, isn't it?

Yes.

The Horrors of Tzeentch are beings of magic made manifest.

They constantly change their shape and form.

Sometimes they have a material form, while others, they might just be a frantic mass of color.

Horrors can normally be said to be to have two distinct states based on the colors perceived by the naked eye, and they are pink and blue.

Pink Horrors tend to be more jovial, fun, over the top, yelling and laughing, while Blue Horrors tend to be a little more grim and gritty.

The Pinks do indeed split down in an explosive preview when killed and become two Blue Horrors, while the Blues tend to split into Brimstone Horrors, which are essentially just like small little fiery flecks of magic.

So we are talking about two of the Blue Horrors here.

The lowliest class of horror that is still recognized as a horror, and that is on purpose.

Tzeentch specifically chose Blue Horrors for this responsibility as he was very wary of his rivals and what they might do if they got their hands on all of his knowledge from the past, and also concerned about what the two people he sent to do this would do if they also knew all of this knowledge.

So he put a couple of safeguards in place just to protect himself.

With their limited intelligence and constant rivalry, these two are constantly getting distracted from their goal and also from any greater schemes they might create.

On top of that, Patarix can write spells, but he can't read them.

And Xeratip can read spells, but has no idea what they mean.

Oh, so that's the fail safe.

That's the fail safe.

These two are chaos incarnate.

So the Blue Scribes are specific horrors.

They are a specific two horrors that were created and quested out to do this and to aid them in their task, they were given a disc of Tzeentch to carry all their stuff on, you know?

Yeah.

So they are like lesser demons.

Yeah, like the lowest of lesser demons.

Yes.

But all demons have the potential for an identity.

Not really.

So he engineers these two to his own machinations and then they go forth.

Yeah.

They have to be intelligent enough to collect and gather the knowledge, but not intelligent enough to betray Tzeentch.

Yeah.

So they're a little.

They have a little bit more consciousness than what a regular Blue horror would, as most of the horrors are kind of just warp energy manifested into a physical form.

Yep.

They're kind of just emotions, whereas these guys are a little more intelligent than that.

But this ability of them only being able to read or write each creates some really silly havoc in the battlefields that they end up in.

As Zaratop can cast spells, but has no idea what spells he's casting.

So he will just start reciting spells and throwing this barrage of sorcery at anything that's near him.

And these are like the ancient spells that Tzeentch sort of lost.

Yep.

Oh, boy.

Yep.

Oh, dear.

These two scribes have seen been seen across time and space, cataloguing the secrets and blowing anything up around them that they happen to be threatened by while continually bickering amongst themselves about which spell to cast next.

Hence the quote.

That's pretty fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

If they're caught up in melee, they blame each other back and forth about whose fault it is that they're in this unfortunate circumstance while stabbing at the attacker with their quills to try and keep them away, because that's their only weapon.

But they're demons, right?

If they do get bonked, they just go back to the warp?

Essentially.

Yes.

To go further, if they do happen to best a foe in melee, they will inevitably argue about who was the more heroic of the pair.

They're literally just back and forth arguing like siblings.

It's the greatest hilariousness that you can get at the moment out of this.

But more often than not, they will just run away because they know they can't win in melee and just go find an easier fight.

So are they part of any particular, like, narrative event or Is it more just like they just exist and they are doing these things?

Their lore isn't super fleshed out.

They've kind of mentioned as like a side drop of a name here and there, but nothing super major or confirmed.

The only real spotlight we've seen in lore was during one of the video games in Total Warhammer 3, where they show up and can be requested as a mercenary unit in the game.

But for the most part, that's about all the lore that these two have.

With one final little note that luckily for all the mortal races, the pair are constantly interrupted on their quest.

Because if they ever managed to succeed, Tzeentch would rule once again as the most powerful Chaos entity in existence.

Because they are Tzeentchian themselves.

So if they record stuff, he automatically like cloud saves the knowledge, Essentially.

Yeah.

So is this something he or it put into practice specifically?

Or is this just part of the Tzeentchian essence that they just happen to be distracted all the time?

I think it's a combination of Tzeentch wanting something done without actually wanting to invest anything intelligent into it, as well as kind of just like if they did manage to succeed, the Warhammer universe is kind of screwed.

So they probably never will.

Yeah.

In terms of a model, their model is old.

It is fine cast, and it is no longer available for sale.

Oh, you could 3D print it though.

I sure have.

It is a cool model.

It's like instead of like a typical disc of Tzeentch, it's almost like a manta ray.

And they've got like their little like books and quills and scrolls and a little desk.

And they're kind of like bickering back and forth as they're writing spells.

It's a really neat, very flavorful model that I'm kind of hoping that we will get a new model when they announce whatever they're going to do with demons.

Because at the moment they have full rule support in 40k but no access to a miniature.

Could be an Age of Sigmar release.

It could be.

That is for sure.

It might come out in the Disciples of Tzeentch.

There are ways that they could release it outside of 40k, but it would be super cool.

That's not too long ago.

2012 is not as old as I was expecting.

And it's.

It's unavailable.

Yeah, completely.

But like, in.

In game, they're actually Pretty good.

They're a deep, striking, low knob, so they're a really good objective monkey that can come in in the second, third, or fourth turn.

You know, do some shenanigans where you need it.

They have a very high movement speed because they're on a disk of Tzeentch.

No combat prowess whatsoever.

They have no ranged attack.

They have a pitiful melee profile, so you kind of just want to keep them away and do their thing.

But if things do happen to get close to them, you do get their, like, sorceress barrage ability, which will just deal mortal wounds to those that come too close.

I was waiting for the superpowers and.

The ability to debuff psychic attacks.

Not that psychic is as important in this edition.

Like, it's kind of like a.

It de.

Incentivizes your opponent to get too close, which helps when they also have lone operatives.

So you need to get close to be able to even go near them.

But unfortunately, like, in terms of Lore, besides their annoying as hell names, there isn't a whole lot to go through.

Did you know this when you picked them for an episode?

No, I picked them because I think they have a cool model.

All right.

And they're a character that I had recently discovered, and I was like, hey, this could be really neat.

But, like, diving into the deep dive of, like, old Lore and what happened with Tzeentch and seeing the Chaos Gods kind of teaming up against him is super cool and unique.

It is pretty fun.

I could see the.

I could see them having just obscure lore drops in random codices across Sigmar Old World Warhammer 40K.

It could be pretty neat.

And that's very much the case.

Like, they kind of just show up here and there, aiding whoever is in favor of Tzeentch if they happen to be there.

They also have this weird shtick of like, kidnapping psykers.

Oh, okay, now you mentioned the kidnapped.

Psykers to interrogate them and take their law.

Like, they'll do whatever they need to do to get the knowledge or, you know, trade a little bit of knowledge here and there in exchange for more.

You know, it's like that.

That typical.

Going and getting stuff for their daddy.

Yeah, they're like the servant to the master.

Yes, Master.

We'll go get it.

Yeah.

But completely unhinged.

I have found their Age of Sigmar Datasheet, which they call a War Scroll.

I don't know exactly how to understand what I'm looking at, but I got a couple of things here to mention, perhaps that go On.

So the.

The Blue Scribes in Age of Sigmar are a legends data sheet that doesn't.

Do well for us.

They are a hero cavalry.

So a mounted unit that flies with what I believe is this game's version of a feel no pain 6.

They are pointed at 180 points.

Wow, that's expensive.

14 inch movement.

Two melee attacks, the sharpened quills which hits and wounds on fives.

Yep.

But the disc also has teeth and horns to fight with.

You don't get that in 40k.

They have two abilities in the hero phase, which might be the command phase.

They have the Scrolls of Sorcery when they make a spell cast.

Because in Sigmar you have sort of spells that your army selects pre battle.

Your wizard characters attempt to cast them.

But on a two plus the spell is successfully cast.

So they're almost guaranteed to cast the tzeentian spell, which is cool.

And then their second ability is Treacherous Bond which there's a blurb here which says by creating a psycho conductive link the Blue Scribes can siphon the worst of any harm that them to allies nearby.

So they have a significantly cooler profile in aos.

But I guess that partially comes down to the fact that more versed in like psychic phases and there's a bit more magic involved.

Do you want to hear how Treacherous Bond works?

Sure.

So it has a number here.

5.

I believe that's the number they have to roll when doing a casting roll which looks to be a classic 2D6.

And then you have to get the score which is five.

You have to pick a friendly unit and then you cast Treacherous Bond and then the effect until the start of your next turn.

The Blue Scribes gain a feel.

No pain of 4 up or an invulnerable save.

I'm not sure what Ward is referencing but you get the gist.

And then if you happen to make a saving throw of 1 to 3, the target takes 1 damage.

Nice.

So your.

Your friend takes the damage and you keep these guys around for spell casting.

They seem pretty cool.

Too bad they're legends.

Legends really hurts.

Yeah.

I thought I'd pop them in there for an alternative look at the Blue Scribes.

Just because Sigmar.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't know enough about Sigmar to be honest, to be able to really judge how they perform in game.

I don't know how they perform in game, but a lot of the terminology just seems to be a different colour, you know.

But that's the Blue Scribes.

Is it?

Yeah, that's it.

That's the Blue Scribes?

Just a quick little lore bite.

Are you more of a fan of them now that you've researched them?

Oh, totally.

They're so fun.

They're really fun.

I love silly, fun little lore in such a serious game.

They're a quirky little duo, yo.

Yeah.

Out for themselves only.

That is all we have for today.

We will see you next time with our next advent release.

Oh, stay tuned.