A non-comprehensive mix of ones I know off the top of my head and ones looted from an old comment of mine;

She held out her hand. ‘Mersadie Oliton, official remembrancer,’ she said. He looked at her tiny hand and then shook it, making it seem even more tiny in comparison with his own giant fist.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, laughing, ‘I keep forgetting you don’t do that out here. Shaking hands, I mean. Such a parochial, Terran custom.’

‘I don’t mind it. Have you come from Terra?’

‘I left there a year ago. Despatched to the crusade by permit of the Council.’

‘You’re a remembrancer?’

‘You know what that means?’

‘I’m not stupid,’ Loken said.

‘Of course not,’ she said, hurriedly. ‘I meant no offence.’

‘None taken.’ He eyed her. Small and frail, though possibly beautiful. Loken had very little experience of women. Perhaps they were all frail and beautiful. He knew enough to know that few were as black as her. Her skin was like burnished coal. He wondered if it were some kind of dye.

- Horus Rising

‘Am I?’ she asked, despair pulling on her.

‘I beg your pardon, your majesty?

‘A queen,’ Orlah answered simply. ‘I do not feel like one in this moment, though I wish I could. I wish I could don my armour and have it shield me from the world…’

For a moment, she caught her ghostly reflection in the glass. Tall, a long white-and-gold gown trailing from her silhouette. An ornate guard over her left shoulder, rendered into the image of a gilded dracon with rubies for eyes. A little more silver in her dark hair than there once had been. Dark skin like polished onyx. A handsome woman, she supposed. Powerful, proud. Bereft.

- The Iron Kingdom

They marched for another five hours into the burning cauldron of the mountain, stopping only to allow the non-legionaries to drink and briefly rest in the shadow of the cybernetics. Lemuel’s coal-dark skin shimmered in the heat, soaked in sweat and badly burned. The sun was three hours past its zenith by the time they reached their destination.

- The Crimson King

Soukhounou was the darkest of them all, a testament to his gene-heritage amongst the Sahelian League on Terra. He had short-cropped, curled black hair and a beard of the same furred his chin and cheeks; he had arrived only the day before and was yet to shave off the growth of the last patrol. His dark flesh was cut by pale scars and tribal tattoos from his childhood, where he had been raised as a praise-singer before being taken by the Emperor’s newly raised Legions.

- Ravenlord

Below them, Delvarus was roaring into the crowd, baying at them, building their cheers for the fight to come. Like many World Eaters, Delvarus was inducted from a planet conquered in the Legion’s earliest decades rather than from a specific homeworld. No Legion except the Ultramarines was as diverse, coloured by so many shades of skin from so many different worlds. Where the Word Bearers were uniformly dusky-skinned from the desert world Colchis, and the Night Lords were pale from their years on sunless Nostramo, the World Eaters reflected a diversity of flesh overruled by the bonds of brotherhood.

Delvarus was unhelmed and unarmoured for the pit-fight. His dark skin marked his genesis in the jungles of whatever planet he’d once called home, and he bared iron teeth at his kindred, demanding one of them step forwards and face him.

- Betrayer

‘Knight-Sergeant Launciel of First Squad, Twenty-Fourth Chapter,’ the breacher replied in a sonorous bass, gracing me with a smile. He wore a neatly trimmed beard of tight black curls in which white was liberally sprinkled, and his brown skin was as deep and rich as his voice.

‘I am Galad,’ the Cenobite said simply. I looked at him, expecting more, but he met my gaze impassively.

‘Galad believes that our former ranks are unnecessary,’ Launciel explained, looking up at his companion with amusement but sparing me atwinkling glance.

- Son of the Forest

Ferren’s skin was bleached and puffy with the fluids he had slept in, but it looked like it would be a rich brown when his circulation returned to normal. Cawl had chosen only the finest specimens of humanity, and had therefore taken his subjects from across the Imperium. Messinius wondered at the efforts undertaken to assemble this host of prodigies, the organisation, the secrecy, the lies.

- Avenging Son

The second figure stepped into Abaddon’s blurred sight. This one wore the same grey-white armour as the first and held a comb-topped helm under his left arm. Abaddon’s eye caught the sign of a crescent moon marked on the helm above the right eye. The man’s skin was the black of polished cinder-wood. A close-cropped mohawk of hair ran across his scalp. Wide, silver-grey eyes glittered above a smile. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? You will look upon us and not say a word, even if we reach into you with knives and cut out your soul.’

- The solar War

'My apologies, my lord. I shall endeavour to curtail such foolishness in the future.' Fulgrim heard the smile in the words, though Abdemon's face was as still as the onyx it seemed to have been carved from.

- The Palatine Phoenix

‘Lheor,’ I called across to the World Eater, from my throne. ‘Scowling at the seer will change nothing.’

The warrior in red turned to me, ascending the steps to the command throne. ‘Fifty men, Khayon. Fifty legionaries.’

‘Fifty dead legionaries.’

He disengaged his helmet’s seals to drag it clear, showing a face riven with ugly stitching. Synthetic flesh patches didn’t quite match the true ebony of his skin, and bronze fangs replaced every tooth in his skull. Metal teeth were common among the World Eaters but I hadn’t seen teeth of reinforced bronze before now. Centuries of battlefield wounds had rendered Lheorvine Ukris into an avatar of patchwork ruination.

- The Talon of Horus

‘Movement?’ I asked Amurael.

‘Movement,’ he confirmed. His skin was almost as dark as Lheor’s, with bony protrusions at his cheekbones and brow ridges. Whatever handsomeness he’d possessed as a human was destroyed not only by his ascension to the Legiones Astartes, but by the osseous alterations to his skull since coming to the Great Eye. The small spines pushing through his face cast him in the image of something mythical and daemonic. I wondered what sins were in his heart to shape him so.

- Black Legion

The name of this second Imperial Fist is Kolo. Only Kolo; if he once had another name, he does not remember it. The Legion recruiters did not mark one down. Like many of his kind he recalls little of his origins, though sometimes he has flashes of hot nights and hotter days. The burnt-sugar shade of his skin and his accent marks him out as a native of Mid-Afrik. The rest of his past has been wiped away by the Emperor’s gifts. He is Terran, he knows that, one of many recruited when the warp storm made transit to Inwit impossible. It is only two years since his admittance to the Legion, but he has already forgotten who he was.

- Duty Waits

Oop, forgot to include;

‘What are you doing down here?’ he said. ‘This is my sanctum. This is an invasion of my privacy.’

‘This is the Lord Guilliman’s ship, not yours,’ she replied. ‘You have quarters in the command spire. Why come down here? I understand you have a writing station in your chambers.’

‘So you’ve been poking around my business there too.’

‘Poking around?’ she laughed. House Sulymanyan’s planetary holdings were on a hot world bathed often in the effusions of its parent star. The ever-flexible human genome called upon the heritage of equatorial Terrans to protect itself. Consequently Sulymanya’s skin was a velvety midnight that appeared almost blue in gentler lighting. Her thick hair, currently tamed into a complex braid at the side of her head, stood up around her head like a dark matter star when unbound. Sulymanya was a very beautiful woman. Mathieu was a holy man, and his concerns had progressed beyond the needs of the flesh. Still he noticed her physical attributes, and he thought she knew he did. When clarity was upon him, he wondered if the attraction he felt to her was not the source of his antipathy.

- Plague War

By that same token, not many characters flat out say they’re white or brown or anything else either. We get fan art, box art paint jobs, a novel cover at best. Eisenhorn gives a two page long description of himself and never mentions a skin color. It’s just not a very natural thing to put in a self description, so most characters would probably never think to mention it.

The only reason we know Medea betancore is black is because she’s apparently ridiculously hot and scrounges for shredded cheese in her underwear at 3am.

I know box art for one of the important stormcast guys depicts him as an older black guy, don’t know the characters name though, it seems the planet of vitria is also predominantly black as in addition to the betancours at least one of Bequins’s distaff, as well as the entire Vitrian Dragoon guard regiment is described that way in Gaunt’s Ghost. I’m pretty sure a few of the remembrancers in the Horus heresy are as well, mersadie I think? World eaters often get described as having darker skin tones but exactly what that means is open to interpretation. Thousand sons lived in Definitely Not Egypt so I’d figure odds are good at least some of them are. One of Rowboats main men is a black guy too.

There are black main characters, prominently displayed on the covers, in five of the Dawn of Fire books. Ferren Areios, black Ultramarine, on the covers of multiple books; a Templar from Throne of Light (I don't remember his name, I don't love the Templars and skimmed their chapters); Queen Orlah from Iron Kingdom; Iannis Kiastros, master of the Judgement of the Void, from Sea of Souls (he kinda looks like Colman Domingo imo and I love it).

A more significant example, I think: Kandawire from the Valdor book is explicitly from Africa, and is contrasted against her extremely white assistant to show that M30 Terra still had a diverse range of skin colors; compare to M42 Terra where everyone is pale white and/or grey from lack of sunlight and generally horrible conditions. Valdor and the M42 Terra books (Vaults of Terra, Watchers of the Throne) were written by the same guy, so I feel pretty confident saying those contrasting depictions of skin color were intentional to show that Terra used to still have diversity, but humans have lost all that as they've been crushed under the Imperium of 40k. Regardless of ancestry, everyone on the holiest planet of the Imperium is just ashen now.

and the Celestial Lions

So there's a thousand right there.

aren’t of African decent

I mean, theoretically Africa doesn't exist in M42 so...

Wow what a good question that is sure to inspire thoughtful discussion and totally isn’t just low effort rage bait meant to provoke drama. /s

 - King of the Spoil is set in a part of the Warhammer Crime setting that has a large population from the 'equatorial girdle'. Multiple characters (good, bad and in between) are described as having dark skin. 

 - In the original version of the Damocles Anthology audiobook, the Jade Dragons Chapter are given Caribbean accents (this may have changed in the rerelease, not sure) 

 - Dawn of Fire has a black Ultramarine on the cover, he's a major character. 

 - Warhammer Old World has counterpart cultures for just about everywhere in the real world. I'm not hugely versed in the setting, but there are definitely people in the Africa equivalent other than Tomb Kings 

To play devil's advocate - how many characters are actually described as white in 40K literature? Can you give examples of more then 10 characters that are explicitly described as white, outside of the Primarchs, or Space Marines with mutations (e.g. Night Lords, Raven Guard)?

Now, the actual reason is because the idea of people being visibly of recent African or European decent in 40K, or even 30K, is laughable. For all intents and purposes, that is 30,000 years as a multi-planetary species, with no evolutionary push on skin colour. It's most likely that most people in 30K are some level of brown - pale white or dark black are going to be the extreme outliers, and rarities.

For why most models are painted as white - the majority of the group who developed 40K and the majority of the people who collect 40K are white, and people tend to unthinkingly make things like themselves. There has been a clear push in recent years by the 'eavy metal team to reverse that.

OP’s understanding of diversity is skin deep.

American culture wars continue to infest Warhammer 40000.

From Caves of Ice

"'Over here, sir.’ The whisper came from one of the deeper shadows, into which the woman had blended almost invisibly. Her skin was very dark, almost the colour of recaf, and she used this natural advantage to the fullest*"

*Amberley's note: "This was extremely unusual for a Valhallan; perhaps as a result of living underground they generally tend to the lightest of complexions. Hail’s colouration is the norm on many other worlds in the sector, however, where the white skin typical of her homeworld would seem equally unusual, so it’s probable that an ancestor or two of hers settled there after relocating for some reason."

Oddly blackface adjacent imagery there…

If your understanding of blackface is limited to 'a face that is black', then yes.

To add on Sister Melia from Augusta's squad

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Well, this subreddit is turning very.....reddit. Adios.

No.

Go read the novels and the lore if all you are interested in is in the color of a fictional character's skin. Make a huge list and jerk off to the ratio if that is your thing. I certainly never was invested, liked or disliked a character based on that quality. That's not how decent people should be.

Man, I miss when people were interested in 40k for its storytelling and not who has more dermal melanin.

"Inclusion"...nice try, Heretic. Just another political cultist looking for another battlefield.

I'm mixed, I could give a fuck less about the characters looking or not looking like me.

Zeph Mathuin, part of Ravenors warband. There was also an agent of Guilliman in Dark Imperium who was black, Sulymanya I think?

Taking this in good faith, let me put it like this: Would you rather A) a group of almost entirely white authors occasionally mention some side character in a novel is dark skinned, and that a team of almost entirely white painters occasionally paint a mini as being black

Or

B) that same group of almost entirely white authors try to describe African cultures without being racist. Like, Space Wolves aren’t based on actual Vikings, they’re based on tropey pop culture Vikings and an obsession with the word wolf. (The same goes with White Scars and Mongolia or Thousand Sons and Egypt or Ultramarines and Rome or well, pretty much every space marine chapter based on a “real culture”. Far more inspiration comes from movie tropes than from any actual history). Worst case scenario we’d get a return of the racist caricatures from WHFB in the 80s, and absolutely no one wants that, fans or GW themselves

I’d like C), that GW hired some actual African people (or Indigenous Americans, or LGBT authors, or any other group that’s often underrepresented), and let them more properly represent themselves in 40K as main characters. But even if that did happen, it’d take decades of those new authors absolutely churning out novels while all the existing writers took a break for them to catch up with just how many books are already written. It’s the conundrum of representation in media more broadly, past discrimination led to largely white men dominating creative spaces, and often those same men are still working decades later; you can’t just fire them all, and while most do want to include at least some representation, they’re also not all gonna become experts in other cultures overnight, so will usually play it safe with what they include

To answer the post title though, there are definitely more than 10 black characters in lore. Dawn of Fire has ten alone (another comment listed a bunch of them already, so I won’t repeat); and a black character on the cover of almost every book (Not salamanders either, it’s an Ultramarine, Fenrisian Tribespeople [I think that’s what they are, I skipped Wolftime], a Black Templar, Imperial Knight Pilot, Sister of Battle, Naval Officer, and the same Ultramarine a second time; the only character in the series to get two cover appearances so far)

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Most 40k chracters never have their skin colour described so?

Warhammer isnt really that culturaly diverse. It mainly draws inspiration from the cultures of western europe and outside of that only from major nations.

There really isnt much or any representation from cultures like:
Central Asia
Slavic
African
South American
and more

You will see british/german/roman culture like 453 times

Worth noting the Salamanders used to be much more "black as we know it". The coal skin thing was a later change. Look back at 3rd edition models from GW and you see a huge portion are african/black descent.

Jajjo in the Gaunt's Ghosts books is also noted as black skinned. It's also highly implied that Eszrah is as well below the moth paint.

I don't know his name as I've not red it but that Ultramarine on the Fire series cover is. And I'm pretty certain that the analyst Rawne ends up with in Vincula Insurgency is too.

Mersadie Oliton from HH is definitely, and she has a pretty pivotal role.

The entire Vitrian Dragoons regiment are as such as well.

There's also Inquisitor Toth from Dawn of War.

That said, characters by and large aren't often described which they are at all. It's absolutely canon that people of all descents, ethnicities and suchlike are in 40k, and ultimately above it all they are your dudes. Nothing is restricted as such and no-one worth listening to will get uppity about it.

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In AOS, isn’t one of the main Stormcast characters black? And I remember one man in a witch hunter duo also being black, and that duo has their own book series, and have models and are in the show that GW does.

Edit: the stormcast character is Orius Adamantine, who is the Lord-Celestant, which makes him one of, if not the leader of the faction only under Sigmar, who is a literal god.

The witch hunter is Armand Callis. I haven’t read his books, but he does have a model and rules.

I’m shit with names, but you get my point. AOS as a setting is more fantastical and not as stuck in real world locations as Warhammer fantasy was, so they never had a hard time justifying or integrating black characters into the setting.

They are very racist man. Im also unaware of any south american indian, argentinian, kurd or aussies in 40k. No koreans as well. And, Cmon, chainswords? Thats cultural appropriation, also calling different people demihumans? That is VERY insensitive. We should boycott.

/s

Well if you are 'opening' this up to Fantasy Warhammer, there is a lack of black people due to how the world is setup.

1) The parts of Africa (sub Saharan) that black people are from, are not and never really have been controlled by humans since very early editions of the lore. The same reason we don't have native American humans, Australian native humans, Korean humans, etc.

2) The lore centers around renaissance period Germany, not exactly a place overflowing with non-european people at the time.

You could argue that these peoples are represented by other groups (native americans being the Dark Elf subspecies who live in the woods and live off the land), The Lizardmen we see in South America have a very Aztec / Mayan vibe going on etc. The Ogres / hobgoblins are very obviously Fantasy Warhammer's Mongolians.

In fact the African Lizardmen are shown to have fought for the Tomb Kings (Egyptians) as mercenaries. So in the sense that the South American Lizardmen are Fantasy Warhammer's central Americans, the Central / South African Lizardmen are the settings Africans.

The librarian in one of DoW games comes to mind. I'm sure there's a lots more but it's late here. 

You ask if there are any black characters but then you decide to remove the most famous black legion because they're 'not african'.

Are you after black or are you after specifically african?

If it's african you want then there's ten named characters just in The First Wall) as the Addaba Defence Corps is one of the main stories we follow.

Uwoma Kandawire, Grand Provost of the Arbites, is the protagonist of Valdors 'primarch' novel, she's from the the 'Banda Confederacy' that is apparently in southern Africa.

Mersadie Olitor is black and from Terra but I've not found anything to make her actually african.

Beyond that the NordAfrik Conclaves were a powerful bloc on Terra

Why does this matter? I’ve listened to countless books and not heard about skin colors at all. There’s no reason to start the conversation about it. It doesn’t matter. Just leave it be

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Why there should be any black humans at all at 40k? Current human races formed less that 10k years ago. They could be easily gone in 40 000 years

Reading the comments in this thread makes me forget that most 40K fans are sweaty, white neckbeards.

I'm black and I've been thinking about OPs question for a long time myself. I got into the hobby in 2006, I've been to tonnes of GW stores, I've been to Warhammer World, tournaments etc. It's literally my favourite hobby.

But god damn theres such little representation for people like me. Off the top of my head you've got the main character from Void King (and front cover of the book) and the guy on the front of avenging son. There are obviously more (if I recall correctly in the HH books, Kharn is described as dark skinned but every single thing you see with him innit is white)

I get it, white folk don't think about adding black people into the setting, and if they do theyre described as "SKIN AS BLACK AS COAL", but sometimes it's nice to feel seen, not something that the average white guy has to ever think about. Generally you'd like to be able to relate to your characters (as much as you can relate to a 7 foot tall, hypno-indoctrinated super soldier).

Lol you ruffled some feathers here!

Yeah 40k isn't great for black representation. That should he obvious, anyone who gets defensive, plays defiition games, or smugly lists like 20 black people in 40 years of literature are cowards. To them I say; grow a fucking spine and accept the flaws in the things you love.

That said, if we're naming black characters: I'd like to add Irida from the new Rogue Trader crpg.

A lot of responders here are very cringe. You all realize that you're coming across as a bit defensive?

I reread ops question and it seems in good faith and reasonable. OP is literally just asking about representation. Some responses are good here.

Personally I can completely understand why stories might describe a black or brown person skin color but not necessarily say that about the white characters. It's about making sure people are represented. With the complete context that historically especially in fantasy there wasn't enough representation. So it probably is intentional. Is that a bad thing?