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Blood Ravens Chapter, who could they be descended from, who supports them from the shadows of the Imperium, and what secrets lie within their Libraria?

1) Thousand Sons - the 4th Fellowship left Prospero with the fleet before it was purged, and the Blood Ravens are a fleet-based Chapters who use Thousand Sons colors, not to mention survivors of the 4th Fellowship returning to Prospero after the Heresy were angry about Magnus' actions. One of them, Revuel Arvida, was a corvidae (symbolized by a raven), condemned Magnus as a failure and vowed to continue to fight Chaos. Note that the Blood Ravens follow corvidae traditions, using precognition to predict enemy positions and movements before striking the killing blow. Don't forget the Blood Ravens have an obsession with knowledge like the Thousand Sons, and that Kallista Eris foresaw the 'lost sons' and the 'raven of blood' before the Burning of Prospero.
2) Sons of Horus - Abaddon shows an unhealthy interest in the Blood Ravens in Dark Crusade's non-canon Chaos ending, Chaos Rising, and Retribution. Araghast calls the Blood Ravens 'brothers' in a non-sarcastic fashion (since unlike Eliphas, he doesn't seem to have a sense of humor). This is strange since traditionally, Astartes from different legions call one another 'cousins'.
3) Someone high up in the Mechanicum has blocked inquiries into the Blood Ravens gene-seed origins, which together with the Blood Ravens' obsession with knowledge has led them to join explorators often, indicates close relations with the Mechanicum.
4) The Ordo Malleus has sealed pre-M37 Blood Raven history, indicating knowledge of the Blood Ravens' past that they may be unwilling to have the Ordo Hereticus (which was established at the end of M36) poking around. This together with the fact that Blood Ravens worked with the Grey Knights in the Dark Crusade (and have perfect memories of the campaign) indicate strong connections with the Malleus, who are probably the same ones deflecting inquiries into the nature of the Librarium Sanctorum.

Oh balliox... Mate this thread is going to be set on fire once Kanluwuen comes. When he does all hope is lost...
But It is definitely not a missing legion.

What's wrong with Kanluwen? And nothing wrong with putting forward assumptions with the Blood Ravens' origins. They could be Blood Angels too, with the Black Rage suppressed by the activation of Sanguinius' own precognitive abilities.

Tadashi wrote:What's wrong with Kanluwen? And nothing wrong with putting forward assumptions with the Blood Ravens' origins. They could be Blood Angels too, with the Black Rage suppressed by the activation of Sanguinius' own precognitive abilities.

Indeed, after playing through all of the DoW and DoW 2 games I find the Blood Ravens to be my third Favorite chapter under Ultramarines and Black Templar.

Blood Ravens, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, pre-Heresy Thousand Sons, in descending order. Dislike the Space Wolves the most.

Tadashi wrote:Blood Ravens, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, pre-Heresy Thousand Sons, in descending order. Dislike the Space Wolves the most.

Dark Angels for me come in a very very close fourth for me.

Back to the OP, who do you think they're descended from? Thousand Sons, Blood Angels, Sons of Horus? Or someone else?

Tadashi wrote:Back to the OP, who do you think they're descended from? Thousand Sons, Blood Angels, Sons of Horus? Or someone else?

Going to go for a mix of Thousand Sons and Sons of Horus, I think the simple fact Abbadon places interest in them to be very telling, considering that some one of Abbadons position would not normally care.

Not to also mention the large amount of Pyskers in the Blood Angels as well, I think the fact they are descended from a "Corrupt" Chapter to be great, redemption is always fun.

Especially since a lot of loyalists from the traitor legions from the HH had their fates never revealed, and that Roboutte Guilliman is known for never wasting any advantage. He could have made an arrangement with the Inquisition about those survivors who never became Grey Knights.

Tadashi wrote:Especially since a lot of loyalists from the traitor legions from the HH had their fates never revealed, and that Roboutte Guilliman is known for never wasting any advantage. He could have made an arrangement with the Inquisition about those survivors who never became Grey Knights.

Not to mention the fact that after the HH the Imperium was scrambling to pick up the pieces, so If faced with destroying a new viable chapter that would be loyal to the Imperium that would also be able to field very powerful Psykers they would just pass it along and say yes just because they were not in a strong enough position at the time to be picking and choosing.

And this was before the Imperial Cult so even the Inquisition is more reasonable than it is now.

Tadashi wrote:And this was before the Imperial Cult so even the Inquisition is more reasonable than it is now.

I think really the Grey Knights in Dark Crusade may have been a, reward? per say. We could consider that the Blood Ravens may be a running experiment to see how well a Chapter functions long term that had "Corrupt" Gene-seed.

Gene-seed is not corrupt. It's the nature vs. nurture argument. Look at Garro, Loken and othe loyalists. They were from the traitor legions, but they ultimately became the first Grand Masters of the Grey Knights. Gene-seed could give you a predisposition to certain things: Word Bearers to faith, Thousand Sons to psychic abilities and scholarship, Iron Hands/Iron Warriors to technology, but it doesn't guarantee corruption (unless you use the ones taken from a dead traitor, and not the ones kept secure in Mechanicum vaults).

Tadashi wrote:Gene-seed is not corrupt. It's the nature vs. nurture argument. Look at Garro, Loken and othe loyalists. They were from the traitor legions, but they ultimately became the first Grand Masters of the Grey Knights. Gene-seed could give you a predisposition to certain things: Word Bearers to faith, Thousand Sons to psychic abilities and scholarship, Iron Hands/Iron Warriors to technology, but it doesn't guarantee corruption (unless you use the ones taken from a dead traitor, and not the ones kept secure in Mechanicum vaults).

Oh, sorry, I'm not to well versed on general Space Marine lore.

I personally prefer the 1k sons aproach. I find it funny that some of the worst spouters of "NO loyalists from traitor legions" overlook that several traitors were accepted by into the grey knights of all chapters, including named Sons of Horus and the Death guard.

All indicates toward Thousand Sons, high number of librarians, hints from some BL novels...but nothing of a real prof.

But they are an interesting Chapter, record sealed by Ordo Malleus, having no knowledge about their origins, Chaos renegades joke with them about "brotherhood" etc...

They could be anything: decedents from renegade Legions ( Maybe Thousands Sons, maybe Sons of Horus, maybe Death Guard or maybe mix of all of them ) or maybe a descendants from destroyed Legions II and XI that decided to break of the Ultramarines Legion after Horus Heresy and found a Chapter that resembled one of the lost two. Who knows?

We only know that Chapter history have some sort of terrible secrets that even the Inquisition is sealing it's history from others. Chapter history that worry's even the big I is not a small thing at all.

Tadashi wrote:What's wrong with Kanluwen? And nothing wrong with putting forward assumptions with the Blood Ravens' origins. They could be Blood Angels too, with the Black Rage suppressed by the activation of Sanguinius' own precognitive abilities.

Kan has the reputation for tearing down people's arguments concerning the Blood Ravens...
He has a very good point.
We simply don't know and there is no conclusive evidence either way.
Also people make these at the rate of one every month or so and they never seem to change all that much...

purplefood wrote:

Tadashi wrote:What's wrong with Kanluwen? And nothing wrong with putting forward assumptions with the Blood Ravens' origins. They could be Blood Angels too, with the Black Rage suppressed by the activation of Sanguinius' own precognitive abilities.

Kan has the reputation for tearing down people's arguments concerning the Blood Ravens...
He has a very good point.
We simply don't know and there is no conclusive evidence either way.
Also people make these at the rate of one every month or so and they never seem to change all that much...

He can try as hard as he likes. Space Marines don't go down without a fight, and it's gonna be ugly.

Tadashi wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Tadashi wrote:What's wrong with Kanluwen? And nothing wrong with putting forward assumptions with the Blood Ravens' origins. They could be Blood Angels too, with the Black Rage suppressed by the activation of Sanguinius' own precognitive abilities.

Kan has the reputation for tearing down people's arguments concerning the Blood Ravens...
He has a very good point.
We simply don't know and there is no conclusive evidence either way.
Also people make these at the rate of one every month or so and they never seem to change all that much...

He can try as hard as he likes. Space Marines don't go down without a fight, and it's gonna be ugly.

And Colonel Alexzandvar of the Firehawk 1st Armored shall back the Space Marines!

What ?

Thanks. I appreciate it.

I also support the theory that Blood Ravens originated from loyalist Thousand Sons of the Fourth Fellowship. It just makes the most sense to me. Of course, nothing's certain, but I do believe there's a lot of little clues that point towards it. Most of which have already been mentioned, heh.

One of the leaps of logic I like though is a combination from a couple of books - in A Thousand Sons, it's briefly mentioned in passing that the Sons had a fairly cordial relationship with Eldar.

Then in one of the Blood Raven books, there's that old outpost on a moon that the Ravens had reclaimed and were studying. The outpost turned out to have been a combination of Marine and Eldar construction, built cooperatively to contain a Necron tomb. Some pieces of armour that were found in the lower excavations were mentioned to be red and ivory, but the chapter markings had worn off. The main chars of course assumed it was old Blood Ravens armour, but it was also noted that it was old enough to be from before any recorded Ravens history.

The Farseer in the book also mentioned the cooperation with a Marine chapter - but seemed surprised that there was more than one group of Marines. Basically "So your group is NOT the same as the group we worked with before?" Now, I find it hard to believe that Eldar are thick enough to not have noticed that Marines had different Chapters. What I can believe though is that maybe they didn't recognise the difference between two chapters that used the same colours.

Given all that, I like to believe that the outpost was originally an Eldar/Thousand Sons cooperative project. Over time gak went down, records were lost, and the purpose of the outpost was forgotten. But the Ravens still knew about its existence - "inherited it" so to speak, and repurposed it for themselves.

Of course it's a bit of a stretch, but hey, half the fun of 40K is the fluff speculation.

Skits wrote:I also support the theory that Blood Ravens originated from loyalist Thousand Sons of the Fourth Fellowship. It just makes the most sense to me. Of course, nothing's certain, but I do believe there's a lot of little clues that point towards it. Most of which have already been mentioned, heh.

One of the leaps of logic I like though is a combination from a couple of books - in A Thousand Sons, it's briefly mentioned in passing that the Sons had a fairly cordial relationship with Eldar.

Then in one of the Blood Raven books, there's that old outpost on a moon that the Ravens had reclaimed and were studying. The outpost turned out to have been a combination of Marine and Eldar construction, built cooperatively to contain a Necron tomb. Some pieces of armour that were found in the lower excavations were mentioned to be red and ivory, but the chapter markings had worn off. The main chars of course assumed it was old Blood Ravens armour, but it was also noted that it was old enough to be from before any recorded Ravens history.

The Farseer in the book also mentioned the cooperation with a Marine chapter - but seemed surprised that there was more than one group of Marines. Basically "So your group is NOT the same as the group we worked with before?" Now, I find it hard to believe that Eldar are thick enough to not have noticed that Marines had different Chapters. What I can believe though is that maybe they didn't recognise the difference between two chapters that used the same colours.

Given all that, I like to believe that the outpost was originally an Eldar/Thousand Sons cooperative project. Over time gak went down, records were lost, and the purpose of the outpost was forgotten. But the Ravens still knew about its existence - "inherited it" so to speak, and repurposed it for themselves.

Of course it's a bit of a stretch, but hey, half the fun of 40K is the fluff speculation.

You forgot Age of Darkness: Rebirth. Sergeant Revuel Arvida said to himself "...whatever tragedy happened here was beyond Magnus' power to prevent, and so it would be folly to retain faith in his stratagems...". He also declared that he had never shared the Legion's 'excessive faith' in their Primarch, even when the Legion was whole. Basically, he was renouncing Magnus the Red, and would fight Chaos with what other survivors of the 4th Fellowship by using the Thousand Sons tactics: "...he would neither rest nor stumble...until everything that could give him an advantage and a weapon to employ...knowledge is power". The last part of the story is rich in symbolism, the raven of the corvidae lit by fire, symbolizing the Blood Ravens' "rebirth" from the ashes of the Thousand Sons, and Arvida disappearing into the shadows, symbolizing the Blood Ravens own forgotten (deliberately even, so the Blood Ravens couldn't turn back) past.

I didn't forget it, I just said that most clues had been mentioned already. I'd much rather speculate about the more elusive/grasping at straws ones, hehe.

And yeah, Rebirth is one of the biggest and most blatant clues.

I think there are serious pieces of fluff around to definately suggest a connection to the Thousand Sons Legion.
To reinforce this, is the fact that they are one of the most Psyker abundant Chapters in the Imperium and thrive on Knowledge above all else.

I have also heard reference somewhere, possibly in the Dawn of War novels to also suggest a connection to one of the missing primarchs

Hopefully we will never know for sure. The hints towards the Thousand Sons are far from subtle and obviously intentional, but the Blood Ravens' mysterious origins are one of the few interesting things about them. There's nothing wrong with keeping people guessing, or with letting the fans draw their own conclusions from the available fluff.

I recon that the Blood Raven chapter operates it's secrets much like the Dark Angels with oly a small amount of people who know the truth

The Blood Ravens connection to the Thousand Sons only makes sense if it originally had been written with that fluff in mind.

It wasn't. "Rebirth" is retroactively repairing the damage done by C.S. Goto. The Blood Raven connection is the dumbest thing that Black Library has allowed to be done, as it's not hinting at anything mysterious--it's slapping you upside the head with it.

Just out of curiosity, what "damage" was done by C.S. Goto that "Rebirth" is repairing?

Kanluwen wrote:The Blood Ravens connection to the Thousand Sons only makes sense if it originally had been written with that fluff in mind.

It wasn't. "Rebirth" is retroactively repairing the damage done by C.S. Goto. The Blood Raven connection is the dumbest thing that Black Library has allowed to be done, as it's not hinting at anything mysterious--it's slapping you upside the head with it.

Even if you ignore BL publishings, logically, the Blood Ravens could only be descended from three Legions. According to White Dwarf, the Blood Ravens have lots of Librarians, more so than would be expected from a Codex Chapter, and follow corvidae tactics. So, one: Thousand Sons and Magnus the Red. They don't suffer the flesh-change because they don't practice sorcery. Second: Blood Angels and Sanguinius, who had precognitive abilities. It's not impossible that the Red Thirst and the Black Rage are suppressed by the Sanguinius' psychic abilities. And last, the Night Lords and Conrad Kurze. Problem with that is, Kurze's visions drove him mad, which hasn't happened to the Blood Ravens.

ARe you sure about the night lords? Pyskers always receive visions of the future it just matters if they want.