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Hey all. I hope I posted this in the right place?

Haven't gotten into writing for a while but, I figure I could use some help with my Chapter. There are three or four fluff hurdles to overcome. These guys are a depleted chapter at roughly half strength currently, under a 200 year penitent crusade to the Halo Stars to expand into the void of space. I have long fluff posts however, I think I will start with a brainstorm and bounce ideas off the forum. I figure a humble approach will make the best fluff appear. These guys are going to basically be Scandinavians/Vikings in space. There would be a heavy focus on that and the Angels of Death theme. You know, kinda like the wolves were before their theme was expanded again and again. Anyways. The ideas are loose but, I have put a lot of thought into what I have currently. I am not trying to be lazy and have you guys do the work, just trying to have a sound board.

All of the fluff here is something I would like to use however they are all loose ideas. I'm not trying to have a special mary sue chapter. I just want to set the stage for a battle-brother against battle-brother, drawing the ire of the Inquistion. All these number tidbits are organized for you guys to debate/comment on. They are the ones that I am nervous about. That being said please don't burn me at the stake.

1.They are founded from the Executioners chapter, a chapter from the Badab war. There is precedence for this. Source. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Executioners (I believe it is in one of the IA books.) I do not own the book regarding the fluff source however, I know it is in either the first or second novel.

2.This chapter is relatively new. Founded in M.34. I want there to be enough time for their original homeworld to be lost which would result in their original beliefs to change into a twisted version of what you see now in M.41. I am thinking a minor faction, such as the Hrud or Rak'gol destroying their homeworld, though I am down for suggestions or alternatives. (They change their scheme and beliefs out of shame. A portion of the survivors go into stasis. )

2.5. Concerning the Stasis. While not entirely out of shame or to prepare for the future, the Storm Wardens' first company do go into stasis. Precedence being the infamous Nemesis incident. Source. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Storm_Wardens#The_Nemesis_Incident

3.Ideal beliefs changing, setting up the possibility for chapter tension. I would think something similar to Iron hands changing over time, I suppose. Basically they go from revering their Primarch to casting him aside and becoming more akin to the more dogmatic of chapters, worshiping the Emperor. Millenia goes by, the chapter through a series of losses (mainly the first homeworld being destroyed in M.38,) causing them to change beliefs and over time, losing knowledge of their primarch/not caring. (They go the route of the Fire Angels ideology.) This is debatable, I just want to see your reactions on this. Kinda represents the whole changing from paganism to Christianity deal in Scandinavian culture. (What can I say, seeing the whole statue of St George and the dragon during my travels kinda influenced this.)

4. The brothers in stasis come back during a time of change in the chapter. This puts the line of succession into doubt, and the belief split (the original view from the time of the chapters founding, to the current one being an issue, ((think of these guys returning to a customary Kingsmoot type scenario in which the next chapter master is chosen,)) The whole "civil war/infighting," goes across their local system until it becomes a problem/menace to the local production of war assets while simultaneously weakening both the chapter and distracting them from their duties. Both sides are claimed to be renegade by each other as the situation devolves. They go from almost above full strength to half before their actions are reviewed.

5. The chapter is reviewed by the Inquisition and deemed to be loyal but, found ultimately in the wrong. They are placed into a 100 year penitent crusade with no recruitment to go out from their location in the galaxy, into the dark fringes of space. (I would think it could be argued they are just picking up where the Space Sharks left off.) Their new Chapter Master makes a plea to the Inquisition/Inquisitor responsible for this punishment and doubles the sentence in return for the right to recruit. The chapter's crusade is now lead in junction by the Chapter Master and Inquisitor.

Of course, a lot of scandinavian folklore and tidbits I learned while in Sweden will be tossed into this but, I wanted to bounce the most dangerous concepts off you guys.

There are only 2 issues that I see with this:

1.) There doesn't seem to be a valid reason for the ENTIRE First Company to go into stasis. If you already have one in mind, you mind stating it so that it doesn't seem completely arbitrary?
2.) The entire Chapter devolving into a civil war seems unlikely. Astartes Chapters (fleet-based especially) are generally spread rather thinly, with Strike Forces all over the galaxy, so why should they risk losing their entire Chapter in one system? Why are they gathered? Most importantly, how would the Inquisition and other Imperial factions not get involved as soon as the fighting began?

Other than that, it looks pretty good.

 dusara217 wrote:
There are only 2 issues that I see with this:

1.) There doesn't seem to be a valid reason for the ENTIRE First Company to go into stasis. If you already have one in mind, you mind stating it so that it doesn't seem completely arbitrary?
2.) The entire Chapter devolving into a civil war seems unlikely. Astartes Chapters (fleet-based especially) are generally spread rather thinly, with Strike Forces all over the galaxy, so why should they risk losing their entire Chapter in one system? Why are they gathered? Most importantly, how would the Inquisition and other Imperial factions not get involved as soon as the fighting began?

Other than that, it looks pretty good.

Hey, thanks for responding. I listed that in my second reason, are you asking me to expand upon it? For instance, the Storm Warden's have already done this. This is the shakiest of my concepts, as I just need a time/culture changing device. My original concept was for one of their battle barges/cruisers have them take an emergency jump into the warp to avoid getting blown apart, (It had been an ambush on a staged distress call, basically and they were outnumbered,) as the barge's crippled escort detonated its warp drive to take out several of the attacking chaos warships, causing them to pop out much later than intended. (It would also work for the whole dragons in the sea thing that the vikings had going on.) (To be honest I don't know why I didn't originally go with this, it sounds a lot better?) The other idea on the table was them already exploring the dark of space, and after not returning they were listed as dead, only to return to the chapter. However, in between their disappearance and return, their home world was destroyed by either the Hrud or Rak'gol.

 Stormwall wrote:

2.5. Concerning the Stasis. While not entirely out of shame or to prepare for the future, the Storm Wardens' first company do go into stasis. Precedence being the infamous Nemesis incident. Source. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Storm_Wardens#The_Nemesis_Incident

That chapter is a canon chapter and their reason is their first company became tainted and instead of outright killing them they were put in stasis.

As for your second point. I figure they are midway into the galaxy, not near the center of the Imperium but, semi distant from the border. As you know, the time for the bureaucracy to move takes a lot of time. Chapters are independent and the viewpoint I was using was that the Inquisition didn't immediately involved as it seemed like a chapter dispute. Now that I think of it you are right though, the chapter even with a home world would be scattered across space. In a way that helps the fluff as the scale is toned back from my initial draft so it is isn't too OTT, and it also allows for the skirmishes to be isolated near the home world which keeps this hidden in the larger scale of things from the Inquisition until it becomes an issue.

What do you think of that? Do you have any other suggestions? Yet again, thanks for commenting on this.

Stormwall wrote:Hey, thanks for responding. I listed that in my second reason, are you asking me to expand upon it? For instance, the Storm Warden's have already done this.

It's always important to remember that the Storm Wardens are just Fantasy Flight Games' fanfic homebrew chapter too. They're sadly official, but not a great reference for fluff. FFG hit lots of the snowflake buttons when they made them, starting with an unknown founding and "mysteriousssssss geneseed".

M34 isn't really "relatively new". That's 8th Founding territory, out of 26. Not that this is a problem, but you got a few millennia to play with to lose a homeworld.

Why go into stasis? Hiding from their shame seems a pretty un-Space Mariney thing to do. Needs a better reasoning for this, otherwise it's just a plot device to facilitate your later "crisis of faith" civil war. If you want to have a divide in your chapter, just have a divide. Maybe a couple companies diverge while the chapter is split up for a while. It's a big galaxy. No reason half of it could be in another segmentum or something for a long enough period of time that there had developed two camps. Maybe the Chapter Master led one, and the Reclusiarch another. And while they were away, the Chapter Master went all Churchy on them, which of course leads to a division between him and the more dogmatic Reclusiarch still emphatic about the original Chapter Cult.

Otherwise, borrowing the ideas from the Scandinavian conversion to Christianity is an interesting bent. Especially if you intend to make them Space Marines with a Viking Theme, instead of Vikings with a Space Marine Theme like the Space Wolves have degenerated to.

Being a Successor to a non-First Founding Chapter would suggest that they are not particularly close to any of the Primarchs, since they cannot draw a direct line of descent from the Great Crusade/Heresy to the modern day.

This new Chapter would have Imperial Fist geneseed, as the Executioners are a Third-Founding IF Successor, but they have no real ties to Rogal Dorn or shared history with the Fists or Templars.

There's lots of Chapters that venerate the Emperor as a god. That's not particularly noteworthy. Somewhere in my posting history, I provided a list (some 35 studio Chapters), I'll see if I can dig that up. Most especially, if this Chapter is recruiting from worlds throughout the Imperium, then it's almost always going to encounter worlds where the Ecclesiarchy has already established a presence. Unlike, say, Fenris, which has been a Space Marine homeworld since Day 1, these other Feral Worlds (or any other world, for that matter) will have the Imperial Creed drilled into its people from the get-go. Bringing people from that world into a Chapter and then telling them that the Creed is wrong is... problematic.

 Psienesis wrote:
Being a Successor to a non-First Founding Chapter would suggest that they are not particularly close to any of the Primarchs, since they cannot draw a direct line of descent from the Great Crusade/Heresy to the modern day.

This new Chapter would have Imperial Fist geneseed, as the Executioners are a Third-Founding IF Successor, but they have no real ties to Rogal Dorn or shared history with the Fists or Templars.

All geneseed comes from somewhere, and eventually ties back to a First Founding legionnaire if you go back enough generations. Each Marine makes two Marines (barring combat losses), which means the geneseed tree branches out like any other genetic line.

As far as bringing in recruits, they're getting rounded up at 6-8 years old and psycho-indoctrinated for a decade or more. What they are before they come into the Chapter is irrelevant.

Hey all. I warn you in advance, I am going on two days of no sleep so... this may get off in a tangent. A lot of your ideas I had considered but, had tossed thinking they would be too cliche. Thank you all for weighing in so heavily, a lot of ideas are here that I didn't think of as well.

You are correct about the FFG fanfic thing. I want my chapter to be one of those things that is on Dakka that a well enough to be a standalone story that can in its own right stand as something great. There are only a few chapters/fluff/written pieces on Dakka that I can think of at the top of my head that make people think like that. That being said, the majority of the work has to be my own. The ideas here are helping me as a sound board. (I keep saying this as I don't want you all to get the wrong idea.)

Back to the FFG thing. The stasis idea was for a time conveyance. I did not think of normal travel, campaigns taking up time, nor the other suggestions listed.

I had originally brainstormed that the chapter goes through a Kingsmoot which is semi-nordic in origin when they lose chapter leadership. The strongest and most cunning has the right to rule. The line of succession with the Codex Astartes is maintained. A brother who holds the respect of his peers, high enough station, and has the characteristics of a true leader may challenge the next in line for his place. What I had planned was, was that after a failed assault against an Ork waagh! with the first company taking heavy losses including their captain, the second company captain prepares to take the mantle.

(The Kingsmoot being yet again chapter culture but, something that is mostly a custom that doesn't see much practice or use. ((IE: Like the entire royal family of Britain.)) It works much like normal chapter succession, the ranks of the laid out by the Codex Astartes dictating who gets it next as I said


All that being said, (barring almost repeating myself, I'm sorry I'm a bit tired,) if a battle brother of renown and skill challenges the ranking officer who is next in line, they fight to the death for the position. This is based loosely off the idea of Chiefs/Viking clan leaders vying for power, the Imperial Fist honor duels, and the bloody nature of the Executioners and their High Executioner (their CM.)

Basically, I had originally imagined (spoiler, this is not the actual fluff anymore,) that the CM and 1st company chapter master died, and that the Chief Librarian challenged the 2nd company Captain. It was a loose concept I quickly scratched as it has no real significance on the brothers beliefs and Librarians as a whole are shunned by their normal peers in many ways. (I had planned for the Chief Librarian's second in command to cause him to do this as he was tainted by chaos (Loki refrence,) however I believe now that the Reclusiarch is truly the way to go with this, and I would like to /not/ have chaos involvement unless I truly have to. After fighting for days, they confronted each other verbally and the chapter had a small schism that grew larger. The complexity of the situation and the tension grew larger and larger as more battle brothers returned home for this event from other, more successful deployments.

The sway of the battle brothers views were to be altered by those who returned originally from stasis/lost in warp/etc. I have decided based on all your input and thoughts that the chapter is simply scattered due to their campaigns and deployments.

As for the founding, I was worried M.34 was too early. However, upon more research it seems you all are correct in that assumption. I have done some research today and I think I have picked a better date for the founding.

Do you have guys have a good suggestion for founding I have brainstormed one below but, if there are reasons that it cannot work, please tell me. Regardless, I am thinking this chapter is just old enough to have a name for itself but, young enough to be relatively new. I believe M.38 (the Twenty Third Founding,) is the perfect founding. It allows enough time for the chapter to be created. It was when the Star Phantoms were founded according to the lexicanum. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Founding#Twenty_Third_Founding.

Digging into that chapter I discovered the Hrud destroyed their first homeworld. Meaning their migrations were active at least at the start of M.40 according to the fluff. I could play off this and state that this chapter's homeworld was also caught in it as I initially planned.

This gives enough time for the chapter to rebuild and relocate. I am thinking the chapter spanned out on various crusades to find a planet to relocate to, and once their next home world (Which I have decided to name Stenholm. Sten meaning rock, holm being a modified way of saying home. It is basically a rocky world composed of choppy greenish-blue seas and black rocks.) was chosen those companies still committed stayed and finished the job, before resupplying and going back to various campaigns.

Over time the chapter scatters out more and more to fight the Xenos threat, and their home system becomes more secure due to the presence and actions of the Astartes, and the Ecclesiarchy establishes a foothold.

To play off the current suggestion, I believe based on the current fluff that if a Chapter master was involved in current public and government affairs, that after a Millennium or two, the Imperial Creed could spread rampant.

Then if the Reclusiarch and several companies return after his death for the moot, and discover the home system and nearby garrisons have adapted the creed as their own, becoming dogmatic enforcers for the Ecclesiarchy.

I think that could become the powderkeg that I am wanting for this oncoming divide, yes.

Furthermore, the penitent crusade as I mentioned before could go into the dark of space. That could play heavily off the viking belief that at the end of the world there was Jormungand (a giant serpent,) and the "there be dragons," effect that the Halo Stars already have in the fluff. Thank you for your ideas Vet and Psi.

Uh so yeah, I'll see what you guys think and if we're hot to trot we'll move on to the next points and I will begin posting up my actual fluff write ups that I have stored. If not, then I guess there will be more discussion.

if you wanna introduce some tension into the chapter rather then look to the storm wardens and stasis etc, why not look to the Son's of Medusa? they where a sucessor to the Iron Hands founded after a major schism occured in the Mechanium that basicly caused a schism within the chapter? if they lost their original home world it could be as simple as some slight differances of opinion between the old guard and the new blood.

It defeats the purpose of making my own chapter that has Scandinavian influences from my travels, and I don't really get to choose my own unique chapter scheme by using an established chapter. It also ruins the fact that with a DIY chapter (the whole point of Codex SM IMO,) you can make your own lore tidbits. I already know the direction for this chapter. As of M.41, they are on a 200 year penitent crusade under the direct supervision of the Inquisition to head into the dark of space. In return for making a crude bargain at the cost of doubling their crusade length, changing the route, they are now jointly commanded for the duration of this crusade.

They are a scandinavian folklore/viking themed chapter. Not SW. I honestly cannot stomach SW.

I already have their paint scheme, decals, icon, etc (courtesy of my lady.) I am just working on their fluff at this point.


(If you were around in the RT era you would know what the lightning bolts were inspired from.)

I have lots of lore written, however I am ironing out the wonkiest details so it becomes professional and more importantly believable. That is why I am here, taking suggestions and getting feedback before tackling the main stretch again.

ohh I'm not saying "play the sons of medusa" but rather that you may want to look at them for some ideas.

Warpcore overload or whatever taking out ships is unlikely. Distance between ships is likely to be in the range of 100s of kms.

Now I can believe that they turned around and charged at the lead ship, detonating their warp drive before the chase ship could blow them apart, but that's just one ship destroyed.

As for chapter tension, my own chapter fluff has their origins due to a changing of ways in the chapter. The traditional faction were opposed to the new ways, things got tense, the chapter split in two to preserve the peace with the traditionalists forming a new chapter.

Okay, you want a Scandanavian theme? You want a schism in the Chapter? I've got you covered.

someone earlier brought up the Christian conversion of the Pagan Vikings, and that's a great hook to hang your hat on.

Try this: Your chapter has a homeworld, but ALSO has an extensive fleet. The homeworld is a SM world, so the Imperial Creed is mostly paid lip service (ie, the Emperor was a great man, but he was a human, not a god). The marines recruited from this world are loyal, but not pious. Then the chapter decides to go on a crusade (voluntarily, becuase it would bring them much honor, and as a young chapter they want as much honor as they can get). Half the chapter gets in ships and goes off into the far reaches to kick butt in the Emperor's name, while the other half stays on the homeworld to deal with local threats. A millenium (or more) passes...

While in space, the crusading half of the chapter is forced to replace their losses with recruits drawn from worlds that are much, much stronger in the Imperial Creed than usual. A lot of battles are fought along side Ecclesiarchy priests, and the prolonged, constant exposure begins to shift the crusading marines' attitudes away from their more secular origins and into a more sectarian outlook. They, essentially, "convert" to the state religion of the Imperium. Eventually, all the original officers who started the crusade die off and are replaced by suitable marines drawn from the newer, more religious, recruits. In time, the crusading marines become as devout as a Battle Sister convent...

Eventually, the fleet returns to the homeworld, having completed the crusade (or maybe they finished their first one and started a second because the first was so much fun... which led to a third and a fourth and... what's important is that they are back) to find that:

1) the homeworld done got blowed up, sir.
2) the half of the chapter that stayed behind on the homeworld are filthy heretics!

Why are they filthy heretics? Well, the marines who stayed closer to home also stayed closer to their "atheist" origins. To the returning marines, who have only known the Imperial Creed and the Emperor's Light for the last half-dozen centuries, these other marines seem like any other heretic that denies the Emperor's divinity. And since the only good heretic is a burning heretic, the religious marines declare war on the secular marines.

After blowing up a few things, the Inquisition catches wind of a chapter in the throes of civil war, and (fearing Chaos taint) sets out to see what's what. They quickly put a stop to the fighting and realize that both halves of the (now heavily weakened) chapter are loyal. After censuring the chapter's leadership (both halves) they demand the marines act like adults and sort their gak out, or there will be exterminatus.

So that leaves the battered remnants of the chapter, with no homeworld, struggling to rebuild, with the lingering internal grudges left over from the civil war to try to work together once more.

Does any of that help?

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Being a Successor to a non-First Founding Chapter would suggest that they are not particularly close to any of the Primarchs, since they cannot draw a direct line of descent from the Great Crusade/Heresy to the modern day.

This new Chapter would have Imperial Fist geneseed, as the Executioners are a Third-Founding IF Successor, but they have no real ties to Rogal Dorn or shared history with the Fists or Templars.

All geneseed comes from somewhere, and eventually ties back to a First Founding legionnaire if you go back enough generations. Each Marine makes two Marines (barring combat losses), which means the geneseed tree branches out like any other genetic line.

As far as bringing in recruits, they're getting rounded up at 6-8 years old and psycho-indoctrinated for a decade or more. What they are before they come into the Chapter is irrelevant.

I will address all that you have said in my next post as I have thought of an idea. I feel as if the above should be taken into consideration though. I had written my idea up but, my laptop is a piece of and if it spazzes out my chrome sometime due to the touchpad.