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2023/08/17 12:47:39
Subject: The Greymanes - A Ultima Founding SW Successor
The Greymanes are a Space Wolves successor chapter, raised in the midst of the Indomitus Crusade. Skilled close-quarters combatants, they place a great emphasis on their line brothers’ individual fighting prowess and skill at arms. The autochthonous traditions of their savage fief-world, New Albia, influences them as much as Fenris does the Space Wolves.
They were founded from Unnumbered Sons of the gene-line of Leman Russ who had survived the opening stages of the Indomitus Crusade. While they were keen to win the respect of their primogenitors, the founding cadre had little memory of Fenris and little love for its traditions. Much more prominent in the makeup of the burgeoning chapter’s culture were their shared experiences as Greyshields and the Codex orthodoxy imposed upon them. They thus agreed to the Kin-Pack Declaration set forth by Logan Grimnar in only the broad strokes.
Assigned to the distant Feral World of New Albia in the Ultima Segmentum, they swiftly “went native”. For some reason or another, the traditions and customs of their fief-world had a profound effect on these first Greymanes. As recruits from New Albia filled the ranks, the transformation became more pronounced. Blending the customs of that world with the Fenrisian ways of war and the dictates of the Codex Astartes produced a unique Chapter culture.
BASIC ORGANIZATION
The Greymanes are divided up into eight Fyrds, each roughly equivalent to a reinforced Company in size. Each Fyrd possesses its own, independent Armory, Librarius, and Fleet. They are not subunits, but rather self-contained warbands in their own right, with their own idiosyncratic traditions and cultures. In addition, their ways of war are reflective of disparate and diverse ways of thinking.
Fyrds contain a variable number of druht. This is a small warband of infantry roughly equivalent to the Codex squad. The Greymanes distinguish druhts by battlefield roles, as with a Codex-compliant chapter. They are as follows:
Vanguard Druhts generally consist of new recruits, under the tutelage of a full Battle-Brother. Though impetuous, the Greymanes keep a tight leash on these eager youths, rather than relegating them to assault roles as the Space Wolves do. Under the watchful eyes of their druht leaders, they learn discipline, stealth, and subtlety.
Close Support and Battleline Druhts are the realm of full Battle-Brothers. Aggression is best tempered with experience, and coordination is regarded as key to victory by any Aetheling.
Fire Support Druhts are often elder warriors of the Greymanes chapter. They have either been passed over for promotion to the Gesith or are yet to be chosen for those august ranks. The worst of the impetuousness that Russ’s gene-seed encourages in whelps is gone, replaced with a cold and honed hunter’s instinct. If the prey can be caught obliquely or wrongfooted, these elders reason, all the better.
Gesith are the Veterans of the Chapter, raised from the ranks, given special dispensation to fight wholly as they wish. Often, they will continue fighting as they were, but others might take up the roles of a Bladeguard Veteran or a Terminator.
In general, the Greymanes are as able in defense as they are in attack. When on the offensive, they prefer to fight single, decisive actions with marked shock effects. This tactic of routing the foe in one approach is termed within the chapter as the “Unswerving Sword”. When on the backfoot or fighting to hold strategic ground, however, they form up into close ranks, pelting the foe at range before charging in for hand-to-hand combat. Depending on the Fyrd, other, different strategies and tactics may be employed as well.
Greymane officers often bear titles of New Albian provenance. The Chapter Master bears the royal rank of Cyning. Rather than a Captain, the Fyrds are led by an Aetheling, who commands a retinue of veterans known as Gesith. These lieutenants often take the role of druht leaders. In the case of larger deployments, they might form druhts of their own or take up command themselves.
THE EIGHT FYRDS
The Wighthounds: Led by the Cyning, this ill-starred Fyrd contains the Kingsguard, the chapter’s Veterans. Some miasma surrounds the Wighthounds; they frequently suffer reverses and casualties are high. Though the exact origin of this remains obscure, many blame the touch of the New Albian death deity Arawn for their fate. However, the Wighthounds’ Veterans are second to none in skill at arms and they have a number of suits of Terminator armor.
Sons of Ghogmagog: The boisterous brothers of this Fyrd are distinguished by their love of heavy weaponry and armored vehicles. Their leader, Hely Oakskin, is known for his indomitable spirit, tremendous size, and preternatural strength. Unsubtle by nature, the Sons of Ghogmagog favor pounding the enemy with their firepower.
The Bordweall: The Bordweall are known for their preference for tried-and-true tactics. A large number of their druhts take the field as versatile Intercession Squads. By no means, however, are they slow to adapt. They are led by Branulf. As of this writing, the Bordweall is deployed as part of a Solblade task force.
The Scaich: A wrongfooted, blinded foe is soon to be a dead one. To this precept, hew the brothers of the Scaich - shadow-warriors without peer. Ferdiad, their Aetheling, is more a ghost than a man, rarely seen in the halls of Kamahaloth.
Sons of Vadi: Vadi is a legendary seafarer of New Albian myth, and he lends his name to this Fyrd of void warfare specialists. When doing battle planetside, the Sons of Vadi prefer to make heavy use of Stormwolf assault craft and other such aircraft.
Hounds of Wayland: Skilled technologists, the Hounds of Wayland are ever pushing the bounds of Mechanicus orthodoxy with their tinkering. Their Aetheling, Volund, is more machine than man at this point.
Ironsides: Named for the armored knights of Old Albia, the Ironsides favor the use of heavy infantry of all types over lighter assets. Terminators, Aggressors, and Centurions are all common sights within this Fyrd.
The Wake: Grim outriders and lookouts, the security of the New Albia system’s marches is left to this Fyrd. As such, they rarely leave it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Terminator Druht Leader.
Leviathan Gesith Battle Leader.
Librarian. While they have a Librarius, the Greymanes are wary of psykers within and without. Their experiences with psychic maladies, psychic traitors, and inexperienced Librarians led to a distrust of “witchery” and “maleficarum”, which is reinforced by the New Albian hatred of so-called Wycca. Librarians within the chapter are closely watched by their fellows.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2023/08/17 13:00:36
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
Worlds die to give way to strong, hardy life. Angels drink the hard-paid blood of the faithful; they take part in some holy-unholy sacrament of communion. Wolves are there - and not there. I hold them in my mind, think on these, try to comprehend their inherent paradox. And I inevitably find myself unable to hold the fullness. But still, I try.
Is this faith? Of a sort, I suppose. I believe in the in-betweens, the yeses and nos, the 'yes and...'.
Heresy, you say? You might say that, yes!
We are Vlka Fenryka; that is proof enough. My fangs lengthen, my hair grays, and my skin even now hardens, becomes leathery. Russ's tell-tale gene-marks. Yet I was born not on Fenris, but on New Albia. A violent world, but not violent in the way Fenris is. I was born Godwyn, son of Alfryd, of Riverdown. That man - or boy, as many other cultures would tell you - is dead. Laying in agony, Bullroarer arose from his corpse. We share a forename, nothing more.
I served the namesake of this chapter as one of his ten lords. Of these lords, I, Hely Oakskin, and Volund are all that remain of those august ten. Only eight Fyrds remain. Njord Greymane of Fenris fell in battle. I took his sword up and will fall, too. There is no Wolftime waiting for me. Laws of life and death forbid Leman Russ from returning to us. Yet I fight every battle as my last will be fought.
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
Gesith, the personal retinues of a Greymanes Aetheling, fill a number of roles in the Chapter's organization. One such role is to carry the Fyrd's banner - a symbol of the warrior-brotherhood that binds the members of the Fyrd. This Gesith is from the 1st Fyrd, the Wighthounds. An august but ill-starred formation roughly equivalent to the 1st Company in Codex-compliant Chapters, the Wighthounds are personally led by the Cyning. While such an arrangement of personal leadership by the supreme Chapter officer is not unusual amongst even (cf. Chapter XVIII "Salamanders") Codex-compliant chapters, it is notable.
Upon the escutcheon of the banner borne by the Gesith is the device of the Burhghest. In New Albian lore, the Burhghest is an omen of death, one of the hounds of 'Arawn'. This bears some explanation on this chronicler's part.
It should be noted that New Albians are monolatrists. That is to say, they acknowledge gods besides the Emperor, or in their parlance, Al-fodr. As such, the New Albians, and by extension, the Greymanes cannot be said to be strict monotheists. No doubt, this vexes the Ecclesiarchy, though they allow this because of the extreme isolation of the Eastern Fringe and ever-necessary Imperial syncretism. The New Albians, however, do not worship these other gods. They know better than that. Rather, they are mostly objects of terror, and if more benign, respect.
Arawn, 'Black Lord of the Underverse' (cf. Morkai, Erlking), is not respected. He is feared.
Of Arawn, we have a number of both oral and written accounts. There is the "Russ and Arawn" cycle of scopic literature, centering on a theomachy between the Wolf King and this figure, ending in the 'Death-King' bending the knee to Russ and losing his black sword, the so-called "Iron of Death". These are the oldest written texts about the subject, with manuscripts for the written versions dating to at least the Age of Apostasy. The Russ and Arawn stories are without a doubt far older in oral form.
Of whether Russ actually ever visited New Albia and whether this battle actually ever happened, the chronicler cannot say. What has passed to us in the wider Imperium from the Space Wolves - never a people to write things down, the infamous Omega Codex and other such exceptions not withstanding - tells us he disappeared two hundred and eleven years into the 31st Millennium. The Space Wolves notably, to this day, have not found a trace of him on their famous Great Hunts. Yet, here is an oral tradition of him visiting a world on the utmost edge of the known galaxy, battling an autochthonous death-god into submission.
It might be myth. It might be truth. It might be a half-remembered, older theomachy.
Nobody knows the truth of this.
Moving forwards from this disquieting revelation, Arawn is widely held to be a malicious figure. His emblems are manifold - the aforementioned black sword (which by some accounts persists in the hands of the Cynings under the name of Caladbolg, literally meaning "cut steel"), a great axe which he replaced it with, the skull of a human being, and the Wighthound or black-furred Burhghest. These are omens of death. Violent and horrific death, but not necessarily heedless, reckless, unending murder. Rather than the Blood God's rage, Arawn is said to have a "cold disdain" for mankind at large.
I have written more than enough for your edification, students. But something compels me, a foolish old man whose faith and health is failing, to reveal something.
Through all my time studying the Greymanes, both in the field and from afar, I have never seen or heard of anything resembling the 'foul mutants' the Space Wolves are held to harbor.
The so-called 'Curse of Wulfen' does not exist amongst them, or so it seems. Perhaps it is one of Magos Cawl's miracles, perfecting even the Emperor's divine work, or something unknowable, that has kept them from that particular malediction.
Another has taken its place. I leave you these scopic verses, a set of lines the Greymanes have tried to extirpate. This dates from the immediate aftermath of the so-called Winter of Woes. I, the scop who wrote this was expelled from the Greymanes' protection, to never return to New Albia - on pain of death. They do not want this to be remembered.
The Death-King's wycca dreams
gave them spoor of the Cu
Poor souls who became hounds,
they now see only that which seems!
All of them, victim of the Death-King.
He who patiently waits.
They serve not Al-fodr,
but the Guardian of the Mounds.
He who threads men's fates.
Cullain led them onwards
to ruddy war,
and kinslayer Hildebrand too.
The unfastening of their chains,
an omen of sorcerers' doom.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/10/27 17:14:57
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
I'm impressed by what I see so far. The grey and red with splashes of yellow reminds me of the paint scheme used by the Space Wolfs during the Horus Heresy. I prefer over the ice blues.
Theomachy. Now that's a cool word.
I'm also enjoying the lore you have put out and I find it well crafted. I feel like it's really capturing what fits so nicely into Imperium lore. The chaotic clashing and mixing of cultures and religious mythology feels like something out of the catholic church of the dark ages. But in space. And I enjoyed the unreliable narrator of the latest piece. That always works great in 40k. It really helps get across the loss of foundational knowledge and that chaotic clashing of histories. Very nicely written.
Ask yourself: have you rated a gallery image today?
2023/10/27 21:48:19
Subject: Re:The Greymanes - A Ultima Founding SW Successor
Mr Nobody wrote: I'm impressed by what I see so far. The grey and red with splashes of yellow reminds me of the paint scheme used by the Space Wolfs during the Horus Heresy. I prefer over the ice blues.
Theomachy. Now that's a cool word.
I'm also enjoying the lore you have put out and I find it well crafted. I feel like it's really capturing what fits so nicely into Imperium lore. The chaotic clashing and mixing of cultures and religious mythology feels like something out of the catholic church of the dark ages. But in space. And I enjoyed the unreliable narrator of the latest piece. That always works great in 40k. It really helps get across the loss of foundational knowledge and that chaotic clashing of histories. Very nicely written.
Thank you. While I myself played the "baby blues" alongside an earlier iteration | kalpa of this army, I sold them circa 2022. What you see is mostly new or expansions on prior lore, which you might find on the 40k Homebrew Wiki - whom I have since disassociated with, for private reasons. By and large, this is a personal project - but it is also something I have developed with friends over time.
Theomachy - the war of gods, yes. Greek myth does not take the dominion of Zeus and his 'royal' family for granted. They had to subdue and banish an older Titanic generation, and they fear the rise of other powers, a new generation to replace them, throughout the corpus of what has passed down to us. Indeed, mankind in the person of Hercules is needed to defeat the Gigantes, the living embodiment of the crime of the assault on Uranus by his Titan son Cronos.
This is a common theme in pre-Christian, especially pre-European mythology. cf. Tuatha De Danann vs Fomorians, the Aesir/Vanir v. the Frost Giants/Ymir, et cetera. For us Warhammer fans, its themes of chaos versus order are familiar ones. One can see it in what the Chaos Gods claim happened on Moloch, or in the defeat of the Old Ones by the Necrons.
As for the lore itself, the narrator has a name - Bede. He is a learned man, despite being born on New Albia itself, but he is a bitter one. At current, he is attached to the entourage of a Malleus inquisitor, Vreiken (a friend's character).
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
Two Terminators, one WIP, the other 'completed'. Both of these warriors are Gesith, and their war-graith is correspondingly very personal.
What follows is a description of our narrator, the exiled sage of New Albia, Bede.
Spoiler:
There was old Bede, hunched over his desk, scrawling away notes with a metallic stylus on a wax cerae. For Bede, the world of the mind was a wide, open space – its topography defined by rolling hills, mighty mountains, and deep valleys. In many ways, Vreiken observed, this mindset was the product of his upbringing – from serfdom in the Greymanes’ service to becoming one of their scops. He had to remember things, to write them down, to record. It was a compulsion, an obsession to which he was utterly bound. Truly, a born Savant – worthy of the superlative ‘Sage’.
These were not qualities looked well upon in the wider Imperium.
The works of the man were no less onerous to others.
To the Ecclesiarchy, Bede would be seen as skirting the edge of heresy with his belief in many gods besides the Emperor. Again, a product of New Albia, that frontier outpost. Bede would likely protest, to no true avail in the eyes of the witch-burners, that he did not worship these other gods. He merely acknowledged their existence!
In the case of the Greymanes, he was forbidden to return to his homeworld, for writing down the Cors Arawn. By this act, they felt he was lending power to the horrific curse of their blood. To Bede, it would be an abomination just as much to leave it unwritten.
“As I said,” he’d once said to Vreiken, “-- therein lies the paradox. To remember or not. It’s not simply a passive act. If I just repeat all the august glories of my former masters and left the Cors Arawn out, it would be a lie. Just as much as if I said they were all savages.”
She nodded; Vreiken didn’t really quite understand
Bede is, as I have said, immensely bitter about his exile. But in many ways, he is often the sanest man in a full room of fanatics, despite his upbringing, and his beliefs. He still believes in learning and truth, albeit through a blinkered lens. After all, he wouldn't be a 'good' Imperial citizen if he didn't hate the mutant, the alien, and traitor.
The story of the Greymanes is about the frontier, and the terrific (or to use a newer lexicon, terrible) effects it has on people. New Albia, and more broadly, the Eastern Fringe are one such frontier where the power of the Imperium has yet to (fully) close its iron grip. 'New' worlds offer people a sense of opportunity, and more importantly, escape from their drudgery and the ubiquitous violence of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Of course, these are people who were raised up in a system that values them solely as numbers on a page in some Terran Administratum scribe's librarium. They bring their individual and systemic problems with them, like a curse. In short, their escape from the Black Iron Prison (to lift a phrase from Dick) is doomed to fail.
Consider the Cossacks. Consider how Taras Bulba ended up. Gyre on that.
Or rather, O homo, dic mihi, ubi sunt reges, ubi sunt principes, ubi imperatores, qui fuerunt ante nos....
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
The Greymanes, seemingly, are free from the Curse of Wulfen – of the curse upon all who broke faith with Russ Elivagar, the Wolf-King. That is not to say there are no flaws that, biding their time, wormed into the hearts, minds and bodies of these men made gods. In the Cors Arawn, an altogether different, but terrible malediction presents itself. For the Greymanes, who pride themselves as individual, valiant and noble warriors of Al-fodr, it is uniquely terrible. It is the subordination of their will to another’s, and the violation of all they hold to their hearts.
[...]
The Cors Arawn is variously referred to in scopic verse as the ‘black mark’, ‘the dreams of the Death-King’, or ‘the evil eye’. Whether this is a mental malady, a trauma born of maleficarum, or gene-seed is up in the air. Some will claim it is one thing, others all three, and others still blame others. It is a useless distinction.
Those affected inevitably experience the same symptoms, no matter what their previous rank, their former personality, or the apotropaic rituals of the Greymanes.
It is inexorable.
Slowly, nobility and notions of honor gives way to the desire to kill. Then, to kill again, again and so on. Heedless of injury, of any death that might await, of any dishonor that might result, the plagued cannon themselves into a fight with wild abandon. They fight without ceasing until they or their supposed enemy is dead. None can deny the brutal courage of the hounds of Arawn.
To the Greymanes, this battle-madness is horrific. But to kill one so afflicted – it will not stand. So the Greymanes seize the hounds at great cost, bring them to their priests to fetter and bind. New armor is made for them, no longer the honored war-graith. But it is a prison for the hound, for the maleficarum, the foul wycca within the thing they called brother. At the press of a button, it will freeze the hounds - preventing them from moving. They are divided from the mass of the chapter, away from the Fyrds – into their own secluded druhts.
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
Albia's Avengers, the household Fyrd Command coterie and Gesith life-wards of Cyning Godwyn Bullroarer.
Accompanying their lord in the hunt for Ivor Pozhoj, they bore witness as he battled and defeated the Night Lord in single combat, man to man. Though they hesitated at his decision to spare the Night Lord's life, they recognized it arose from New Albia's warrior ethos.
Ivor Pozhoj is a sloppy butcher. He always has his much more articulate female serf Lyubmila Cornelia speak for him; the two are inseparable. Unlike most Night Lords, he develops his strength through discipline, strenuous physical training, and far less scrupulous technological–biochemical methods of enhancement. Extremely physically strong — but he has little technique or subtlety. He prefers not to waste time with flourish or drag out a fight, but to hit something and destroy it in one approach. In short, Pozhoj is terrifying, but artless.
Spoiler:
“Hunks of *īsen* are solid. Unchanging, seemingly, though Volund and the forge-wrights would tell you differently. But we are men. We change. Ya ken, Son of Kurze? I should kill you — every rational instinct in me is telling me to, as you trade with witchcraft. But today was a good day for me, believe or no. So you’re going to leave Mavor. Alive.”
The female serf steps between the Cyning of New Albia and his prey. “No more. We yield.”
“Good.”
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/04/15 15:58:01
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
"Do you ever smile at all, Blaculf?" Godwyn asked, mostly joking. His chief Gesith shook his head, his lips slightly curled upward. The two Greymanes locked their gazes.
"Of course not. What's there to smile about here? Al-fodr preserve us! People die en masse to xenos; xenos die en masse to us. Ad infinitum, in bella — as the sons of Guilliman would say. It's one big scrum in Mavor, here on New Albia in particular."
"Well, sometimes there's lulls in the fighting. When we aren't needed." Godwyn wryly noted.
"That's even worse! It's boring! Al-fodr made me to fight, put power in my sinews and cold anger in my voice!" Blaculf sighed exasperatedly. "If it isn't one, it's the other..." He chortled, throwing his head back slightly. "Ah, well. Solch ist beatha! Such is life! Milord, you piece of gak."
"It wouldn't be the same without you, Blaculf."
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
"I have seen the wider Imperium on occasion, outside New Albia, past the boundaries of the Mavor sub-sector. Put plainly, I prefer to stay in Mavor, unless Al-fodr calls. I have seen mills the size of mountains, venting smoke into the sky and poisoning the rivers. I've seen the wretched — so many; too many. I have chafed in the presence of the 'powerful', these men of means, not might. There is a rigidity to all their thoughts, that we Fringe-folk do not have.
They think of the alien as something that stays outside, or gets exterminated if it crosses their line of sight. There is no concept of statesmanship in the core worlds of Al-fodr. Unconditional victory is the only acceptable option to them. Wicked men, the lot of them.
Heresy? Treasonous words? Rank insubordination even, Inquisitor Heinrad? You should spend a spell here, on the borderlands, fight alongside us a day or two. Then you will realize why we have to be the way we are. We are surrounded on all sides, pressing against the darkness beyond Al-fodr's light, and you ask us to abandon our means of survival."
-Gesith Edmund Reigs, cognomen "Īsensīde".
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
The Chaplaincy of the Greymanes spend a good portion of their time memorizing the oral traditions and scopic verses of New Albia for later recital. Exhorting their sword-siblings to fight for hearth, the gods, and their chief Al-Fodr, they lead by example, from the front. Most prefer to stick to the Druhts of the Gesith, for this is where they are elevated from. Overall, they have a mix of sober analysis and fervent devotion rarely seen in the Imperium.
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
When the Greymanes wage war, like most Space Marines, they naturally prefer it to be face-to-face. However, the sheer propensity towards close combat, shock assault, deep strike attack, and decapitation strikes is notable. New inductees being first taught discipline in the Vanguard druhts prevents them from expressing the headstrong, outright battle-lust of the Vlka Fenryka. There is, however, a noted operational-strategic tendency for short, brutal campaigns marked out by assaults on large enemy concentrations or the foe's leadership. Such a strategy is termed The Fragarach — literally "The Unswerving Sword".
However to the Greymanes, conversely, war is not so much a necessary evil or seen as something done to spread the Emperor's light as it is good clean fun. This love of battle is by no means the ravening excesses of Khornate heretics, but rather a joy taken from one's skill at arms and the struggle of battle. The Greymanes sing songs, chant poetry, and laugh heartily as they slay their foes. However, curiously, they also let some select opponents retreat in good order out of respect, mercy, or simple expedience. While this might brook dissent from other Imperial forces, they are quick to close ranks and show their disapproval of acting otherwise.
-Jayne's Epitome and Index of the Adeptus Astartes, vol. 1, M42 Edition
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/04/23 15:03:25
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
