Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Is there a good place to go read the backgrounds for people's custom SM chapters? Every so often people post their backgrounds in posts, but I haven't found a consolidated location.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Pav

Generally, you would find those in the 40k Fluff For Nutters section of the board (though most of the threads in that section are either legitimate questions about existing fluff, or pointless threads about "You know you ___ too much when ___", for whatever reason).

There's not really a dedicated custom fluff section, but that's about as close as you're gonna get.

Some people have fluff on wip threads like i do do on mine (the link is in my sig, i love shameless thread promotion!)

There are only three custom SM chapter backgrounds:
-lost in the Warp
-one of the missing Legions
-both

lord_blackfang wrote:There are only three custom SM chapter backgrounds:
-lost in the Warp
-one of the missing Legions
-both

boobmarines

stonefox wrote:boobmarines

qft

All joking aside, most custom marine chapters backgrounds are at best interesting only to the owner, and at worst painfully awful.

that said, I think the posters here can rise above cliche and write something interesting about their chapters. I'd love to read others, and I can write and post mine. Maybe start a dedicated thread in Fluff for nutters?

Polonius wrote:All joking aside, most custom marine chapters backgrounds are at best interesting only to the owner, and at worst painfully awful.

that said, I think the posters here can rise above cliche and write something interesting about their chapters. I'd love to read others, and I can write and post mine. Maybe start a dedicated thread in Fluff for nutters?

I used to have the admittedly odd hobby of trying to teach remedial fluff writing on GW's forums. It was an interesting diversion: I'd reply to a post, politely list some of the worst offenses (Sometimes it basically went, "OK, being a bunch of psychopaths is interesting, but being a bunch of secretly dark and brooding psycopaths is stepping on the Dark Angel's turf.") and offer suggestions to tone them down... If I was really in the mood, I'd even suggest rules or list themes for them. One of my guidelines is that adding too many 'interesting bits' (It's one of the lost chapters! they're like the Legion of the Damned, but moreso! They're actually the Emperor's Jewish cousins! They take an association with some sort of real or imagined critter to obnoxious excesses!) could actually make the army less interesting.

it was surprisingly fun. One of the worst was someone, admittedly probably half or a third my age, who wanted his Spams to basically be Aquaman... Gills, undersea theme, talk to fish, yadda yadda. I think I helped clean this up a bit so they, at least, didn't have a battlebarge that was completely flooded... Dropped some of the more extreme bits like the gills, suggested modeling all vehicles as amphibious as a signature conversion.

It was a bit odd that it was almost always Space Marine players looking to bring out horrible backgrounds. I'm not sure of the cause. Some might be the sheer popularity of the power-armored baldies. I do know that the IG backgrounds that occasionally got posted tended to be much less

I'm sure everyone and his mother has visited at one time or another, but one of my favourite custom chapter backgrounds is Kenton Kilgore's Fighting Tigers of Veda. They incorporate the Hindu mythology theme (and boobmarines) in an effective mish mash of fluff. You can see it here.

I'd actually recommend exploring the whole site, it was one of two web areas that seriously got me back into the 40K fold (dakka being the other). I'm not affiliated with the site in any way. Though I'm a little sad that it seems to be on hiatus right now.

Polonius wrote:All joking aside, most custom marine chapters backgrounds are at best interesting only to the owner, and at worst painfully awful.

that said, I think the posters here can rise above cliche and write something interesting about their chapters. I'd love to read others, and I can write and post mine. Maybe start a dedicated thread in Fluff for nutters?

You're talking about fan fiction in general.

I still haven't decided what it would take to make someone interested in fan fiction/custom
Space Marine Chapters/My 4th edition DnD character. There's the very obvious requirement
of needing it to be well written. But how do you present it so that people will care?

In a tournament setting, what gets you to actually read someone's report?

chaplaingrabthar wrote:I'm sure everyone and his mother has visited at one time or another, but one of my favourite custom chapter backgrounds is Kenton Kilgore's Fighting Tigers of Veda. They incorporate the Hindu mythology theme (and boobmarines) in an effective mish mash of fluff. You can see it here.

I'd actually recommend exploring the whole site, it was one of two web areas that seriously got me back into the 40K fold (dakka being the other). I'm not affiliated with the site in any way. Though I'm a little sad that it seems to be on hiatus right now.

Oh man, that site is incredible! I've read through the whole thing, and it's still a great gallery of a really well done custom chapter.

malfred wrote:
You're talking about fan fiction in general.

Not just fan fiction, but usually it's Mary-Sue type fan fiction, the worst and most fan fictiony of them all!

I still haven't decided what it would take to make someone interested in fan fiction/custom
Space Marine Chapters/My 4th edition DnD character. There's the very obvious requirement
of needing it to be well written. But how do you present it so that people will care?

In a tournament setting, what gets you to actually read someone's report?

I remember at my first local gaming con, there was a guy wearing a shirt that just said "Don't tell me about your character." I thought he was a bit of a tool, until I got trapped at a paint and take table for 45 minutes next to another guy that gave me an in depth analysis of his Gnomish Cleric. I wanted to buy one of those shirts after that.

I think that for DIY chapters you need to prepare the old elevator pitch: basically the 30 second explanation of what your chapter is, and why it's interesting. Most people will be satisfied with that, but some will want more, and if it's a good short punch, most people won't be too bored. For example:

"My Chapter are the Star Owls. They use Ultramarines geneseed and recruit from more aristocratic and trained martial societies on number of systems. They prize knowledge and wisdom more so than most chapters, and so tend to commonly seconded to inquisitorial missions. Their advanced tactics allow them to coordinate mechanized assaults and counterattacks, and they frequently divide into combat squads for added flexibility. To maximize this, they tend to utilize more tactical squads over the more specialized Devastator, Assault, or Veteran squads. Their extensive training and experience gives them a reputation for competency, but the fear of losing fully trained brothers causes them to shirk mission that can lead to high casualty rates."

OK, I'll bite:

My Warband is a Black Templar Crusade Company which has spent the last few centuries on unbroken Great Crusade. They are hyper-Puritan, molded by fiery Chaplain-Commander "Sohru". Due to nearly-continuous combat service, they are Veteran-heavy and highly-specialist, and now use discovered Dark Age technology to augment in with power where they lack in numbers. Their most recent campaign is notable for eradicating the entire planetary population of Vastan VI in the Emperor's name to cleanse the slight taint of Chaos discovered there. Subsequent to the purge of Vastan VI, the Templars adopted their Commander's personal heraldry, repainting their armor in white.

JohnHwangDD wrote:OK, I'll bite:

My Warband is a Black Templar Crusade Company which has spent the last few centuries on unbroken Great Crusade. They are hyper-Puritan, molded by their fiery Chaplain-Commander "Sohru". Due to nearly-continuous combat service, they are Veteran-heavy and highly-specialist, and now use discovered Dark Age technology to augment in with power where they lack in numbers. Their most recent campaign is notable for eradicating the entire planetary population of Vastan VI in the Emperor's name to cleanse the slight taint of Chaos discovered there. Subsequent to the purge of Vastan VI, the Templars adopted their Commander's personal heraldry, repainting their armor in white.

See, that's good. It's short, it's to the point. It explains why the army fights the way it does, not just says "we fight like X." It explains a notable accomplishment, and even explains the paint scheme.

My Space Marine Chapter is the Great Unassembled Wolves. The GUW are
still trapped in their sliding fortress cells.

Yay, a gold star!

So single sentence does it best?

I think a small paragraph is better for most people.

The 5-second pitch is good, but you need to work at it. Also, it's hard for many people to boil their entire army concept down that tightly. Besides, it's not like you only have 5 seconds in front of a Producer to get his attention. But as an overall guiding concept, it's not a bad exercise.

The 30-second paragraph is usually better because it allows players to give a bit more detail without overwhelming the reader in tedium.

malfred wrote:So single sentence does it best?

Not best, but if you can't explain your concept in a single sentence, it's probably unfocused. Mine is "The Star Owls are a wisdom loving chapter that use advanced tactics and generalist, mechanized forces to achieve success."

Balance wrote:One of the worst was someone, admittedly probably half or a third my age, who wanted his Spams to basically be Aquaman... Gills, undersea theme, talk to fish, yadda yadda. I think I helped clean this up a bit so they, at least, didn't have a battlebarge that was completely flooded... Dropped some of the more extreme bits like the gills, suggested modeling all vehicles as amphibious as a signature conversion.

Actually, I might have kept the gills - they're a minor mutation analogous to the Pups elongated canines.

Though "Waterworld meets 40k" is not exactly the most inspiring as a concept, one could always do worse...

Polonius wrote:"My Chapter are the Star Owls. They use Ultramarines geneseed and recruit from more aristocratic and trained martial societies on number of systems. They prize knowledge and wisdom more so than most chapters, and so tend to commonly seconded to inquisitorial missions. Their advanced tactics allow them to coordinate mechanized assaults and counterattacks, and they frequently divide into combat squads for added flexibility. To maximize this, they tend to utilize more tactical squads over the more specialized Devastator, Assault, or Veteran squads. Their extensive training and experience gives them a reputation for competency, but the fear of losing fully trained brothers causes them to shirk mission that can lead to high casualty rates."

I'd rate this pretty well, were I, uh,... rating things.

It fits the setting well.
Not too over-the-top.
They're not portrayed as flawless, despite being elite of elite (as all SM should be).
Some things would lead to army list creation ideas (focus on mechanized and tactical squads).
Short and to the point.

Sounds great to me.If this was the intro to a web site with more detail about the chapter I'd probably look into it.

I haven't actually written any fluff yet, but my marines are a custom chapter. I'm calling them the penitent legion. I essentially reasoned that the marines fit well with Frank Herberts Sardaukar, and wanted my chapter to be raised from a prison planet/death world. I like the idea of a fiercely loyal fighting force raised from the offspring of banished heretics and criminals, paying for the crimes of their ancestors with their service.

I think more people should write up backgrounds of armies that aren't exceptionally "cool." The guys spending all their time patrolling a quiet sector or a reserve group who are spending time furthering their education before being called to active duty. That sort of stuff is pretty rare when everyone wants their guys to be the dudes who kill tons of aliens and stuff.

Take my Tau dudes for example: They hang out in some backwater planet from one of those Tau expansion explosions playing cards all day. On some days they get visited by a manta from a core world with care packages full of baked goods and delicious meats their moms made for them.

wiggles wrote:wanted my chapter to be raised from a prison planet/death world. I like the idea of a fiercely loyal fighting force raised from the offspring of banished heretics and criminals, paying for the crimes of their ancestors with their service.

So, basically, Australia?

I had fun writing the fluff of for my marine chapter, but it was all a joke to me.

My short synopsis (the polite way to describe your chapter) My chapter was a group of reject marines stemmed from less-than desirable derivation of Fulgrim's geneseed called The Emperor's Other Children.

You can read more here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/205036.page