The ‘hyper-violent’ Barghesi are an alien race referred to in various old codices and rulebooks for Warhammer 40,000. Information on them is scant, and to my knowledge there is no official visual media depicting them. Last year I decided to use this as an opportunity to conceptualise the race.

I took the majority of my core inspirations from the etymology of the words associated with them, as well as the few descriptions on their nature. ‘Barghesi’ and Grendl’ could have initially been derived from ‘Barghests’ and ‘Grendel’ of Beowulf fame, both examples of old English folklore. I looked at various depictions of these creatures and their associated mythological kin. I married that with various descriptions in the Warhammer descriptions, such as ‘decentralised nervous systems’ and ‘hyper violent’.

What I ended up with was a race of space octopus-chimps the size of a large troll or ogre dressed as thought they were enemies from an id software game. So I hope you enjoy!