Flayed Ones are an Existential NIGHTMARE 

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

Guardsman Edgar your skin is hanging off of your bones.

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.

_”Give us your flesh. We demand it.”_

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

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.

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."

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.*

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

We got your back, homie.

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!

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

Flesh Eater Courts: _"Mood kindred?"_

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

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.

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

The flayed ones where my introduction into warhammer

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. 😁

There is a flayer king in the mechanicus game.

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

'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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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!*

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 💪

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

Guys this is Steve our new guardsman.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

3:57 Nuh uh (comes up with Necron Tom Bombadil)

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

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

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

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

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.

Ah yes, the “peel people like fruit” bots

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

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

Lets gooo new mr.bones!!

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!

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

so c'tan of hunger. this explains corpse starch

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.

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

The Flayed Ones are so awesome

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

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

I like it when creators make one for themselves.

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

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

so, Eventually all the necrons will.succumb and become flayers......

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....

I love this channel.

you are great Arthur!

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I like how Warhammer 40k : Mechanicous portrayed a Flayer King.

Please talk about the ghoul stars and the planet of Drazak! Val'gul is one of the characters mentioned in Necron lore that I desperately want a model for, especially given that (If I remember reading the older codex's correctly) while his entire planet is consumed by the flayer virus... He isn't. He's not mutated, he has no hunger, he is completely sane; and I cannot remember if this is Fanon or if it is actually in the codex, but if I remember right the reason he's sane is because he was cursed to be immune to the virus by the Flayer god himself, as a special "fuck you in particular".

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.

The twice dead king series kinda introduced a flayer king

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!

I believe Oltyx from the Twice Dead King books is a Flayer King, so they do still exist in modern lore.

Love how the Twice Dead king series dealt with the flayed ones...i recomend those 2 books

Can't believe you didn't mention the Flayer Knight Cult

Arthur would probably be blasted by the Flood

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!

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 "

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

Always liked the concept and models, but current ones are such a pain to assemble.

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