pauldrons aren’t hollow

This explains everything.

It’s funny because I didn’t see what community this was and spent some time trying to figure out why everyone looked so grotesque, but thought, hey, it is WH40k, so it kinda tracks.

Unironically, I’m willing to accept that as head canon. Scull deformations were done by many cultures all around the world. For Emps they might be classical look, that he tried to bring back. And the other perpetuals said: “don’t try to bring cone heads back, they’re so 1000 BCE”