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My girlfriend has been thinking much about the Blood Ravens with the imminent release of Dawn of War 2 Retribution upon us, and so she's been considering this deeply. She has found a good deal of hints and signs that seem to indicate the Blood Ravens' unknown Primarch is in fact Horus himself. This lends itself well with how deeply routed their relationship is with the warp and chaos, and particularly the Black Legion. She's the one that's come up with the theory though, so that's about all I can recall from it.

What do you guys think? Do the pieces fit? Do you think we'll ever know?

I think there was another thread on this a while ago and everyone said it is almost definately Mangus the red.

As much as i hate it, it probably is Mr Magnus the Red.
They won't say so but they'll hint at it a lot.

A few of the BL books have hinted it to be magnus.

As people have said, Magnus. Large amounts of psychers, them obsessively searching for knowledge...there's all sorts of references.

۞ Jack ۞ wrote:A few of the BL books have hinted it to be magnus.

No, they haven't.

People have made the assumption that certain innocuous phrases are "OMG MAGNUS IS THE PRIMARCH!".

The closest that it makes sense is the fact that one of the Cults within the Thousand Sons is referred to as 'Corvidae', which really isn't that big of a deal in the end since it refers to a Cult which is particularly gifted in the area of farseeing/divination.

Which, incidentally, a lot of mythology tied to Ravens tends towards being related to their presence foretelling something--or even, in the case of the Tower of London, the destruction of something if the Ravens ever flee.

Kanluwen wrote:

۞ Jack ۞ wrote:A few of the BL books have hinted it to be magnus.

No, they haven't.

People have made the assumption that certain innocuous phrases are "OMG MAGNUS IS THE PRIMARCH!".

The closest that it makes sense is the fact that one of the Cults within the Thousand Sons is referred to as 'Corvidae', which really isn't that big of a deal in the end since it refers to a Cult which is particularly gifted in the area of farseeing/divination.

Which, incidentally, a lot of mythology tied to Ravens tends towards being related to their presence foretelling something--or even, in the case of the Tower of London, the destruction of something if the Ravens ever flee.

A Thousand sons did pretty much state it, so you sir have been disproved

I poured through my copy of "A Thousand Sons" today. It does not say anything that jumps out of the page at me and says "MAGNUS IS THE FATHER OF THE BLOOD RAVENS!".

All it says is a statement to the effect of 'Ravens, forged in blood.', going on to state something about how they shall 'have tragedy at every turn'.

Guess what happened shortly after the events of this book?

The Istvaan Dropsite Massacres.

What happened after that event?

Corax attempted to 'forge' new Raven Guard, from his own blood. That resulted in the 'Abominations' that he later killed himself.

For all we know their primarch could be Roboute Guilliman. What, they have a strong Librarium you say? Well, so have the Silver Skulls and the Howling Gryphons, both Ultramarines successors.
Their obsession with knowledge is most likely a character trait which can be traced back to Azariah Vidya, whose analytical mind and careful study of the enemy saved the chapter from certain extinction.
The Raven is a universal symbol of knowledge and not specific to the Thousand Sons or the Raven Guard.
Even the chapter's secrecy isn't unique. Sure, it is almost certain that they, or at least some of them, have something to hide. But to conclude that they are some missing or loyal 1k sons chapter is pretty far fetched.

It's far fetched in a way that makes it sound almost true...
I don't want them to be Thousand Sons successors but it would be one the less ridiculous things for them to be.

purplefood wrote:It's far fetched in a way that makes it sound almost true...
I don't want them to be Thousand Sons successors but it would be one the less ridiculous things for them to be.

could be worse, they could always be alpha legion sucessors.... always remember there is a 99% chance that an army you face is really an alpha legion army in disguise. there is an equal chance your own army is one as well

Because the black legion doesn't like the Blood Ravens doesn't mean they have the same primarch. There could be dozens of different reasons to explain the feud between them. As stated before, GW publications rather tend to point Magnus as their primarch, although this is just fan-speculation, not an official statement.

MAAAGNUSSS! Yeah, I think magnus is the blood raven primarch, but thats just me.

Of course the Black Legion hate the Blood Ravens and vice versa - one is a loyalist Chapter and the other is the Legion of the arch-traitor Horus Lupercal...

Personally I wonder if the Blood Ravens are the barely-acceptable offspring of Corax, the ones he wasn't forced to destroy after his failed re-founding of the Raven Guard. Hence their higher than usual level of Librarians and psykers. There's no real evidence for this, but it is fact. (Brass Eye reference for you there...)

AFAWK it might be the Emperor to
But to be honest, something strange is happening with them. The prof is Thule, when he has seen the inner things on the chapter and relics on Kronus, he became quite scared. BR Primarch is definitely gone to Chaos, but witch one we do not know.

I really hope that it is Magnus. Maybe finally the Thousand Sons will get some lovin' in a new Codex.

As I said in a previous thread about this subject, there are many hints in A Thousand Sons about them being descendants of Magnus. I'll list those that i remember:

Red armour, like pre-heresy Thousand Sons
Seeking knowledge
Large numbers of psykers
The prophecy mentioned above

I think that they are members of Thousand Sons that entered stasis before they reached Magnus to avoid succumbing to physical corruption. It's not clarified wether these marines were afflicted and waiting to be cured or merely trying to avoid the effect. Due to Rubrik of Ahriman, all Thousand Sons would be free of mutation, I think this applies to those in stasis.(Doesn't exactly make sense. It could be explained through Magnus changing the destiny of his legion to prevent mutations, and those later would be specific gifts rather than a universal effect,)

Later, someone would have freed the lost sons from stasis. They had missed the time of Primarchs, having never met any. I think it would be logical that they would seek all knowledge about HH and their own past, which had been deleted in the aftermath of Heresy.
This is my theory about Blood Ravens. Anyone agree?

No there's not "many hints".

There's one hint, and even then it's so vague that it can be be related to anything.

It's effectively worded like a prophecy from psychics today. Make it as vague as possible and it can be applied to pretty much every event.

Due to Rubrik of Ahriman, all Thousand Sons would be free of mutation, I think this applies to those in stasis.(Doesn't exactly make sense. It could be explained through Magnus changing the destiny of his Legion to prevent mutation, and those later would be specific gifts rather than a universal effect,)

You know what the Rubric of Ahriman did, right?

There's a reason the tagline for 'A Thousand Sons' is 'All is dust'. The Rubric effectively cured the mutations...by destroying their bodies. Many of the Sorcerers are now the only ones who retain a physical body, while the rest are just the 'souls' of the Astartes trapped within the armor.

I know that, I merely wondered if the effect of the spell ,which, iirc is to free all Thousand Sons of mutation forever (by reducing all but the most powerful psykers to dust within their armor by accident) would apply to those not present on the Planet of Sorcerers. As I said in the post, it doesn't exactly make sense. However, I feel that them being from 1kSons gene-seed makes more sense than others.

I don't belive they're decended from Magnus. There's no mention of any of the Blood Ravens suffering form the flesh change is there?


They have lots of psykers because they recruit people who are psychic in the first place. The Gene-seed doesn't make and difference.

There are some similiar references. Corvidae is the name of a cult in the Thousand sons and also the family which Crows, Rooks and Ravens (as well as others).

There was the one bit I cant remember it exactly from the Thousand Sons novel where mangnus (i think) sees the statue of the raven that has survived the assualt by the Space Wolves.

I just think people are seeing patterns where there are none.

Kallimakus wrote:I know that, I merely wondered if the effect of the spell ,which, iirc is to free all Thousand Sons of mutation forever (by reducing all but the most powerful psykers to dust within their armor by accident) would apply to those not present on the Planet of Sorcerers. As I said in the post, it doesn't exactly make sense. However, I feel that them being from 1kSons gene-seed makes more sense than others.

The thing to remember is that while the Thousand Sons make a 'kind of sense'--there's no mutations in the Blood Ravens.

They also have large portions of the Chapter which do not have any kind of psychic talent. The Thousand Sons had noone lacking psychic talent. Which kinda shoots that theory right in the head

I think GW might be intentionally pointing us in the wrong direction by making everyone think it's Magnus. Watch it be Space Wolves.

Well remember that a Primarch for the later chapters can also mean just the marine that they got their genes from.

Didn't Orar have a chapter from his gene seed?

Maybe it's not Magnus per-say,Rather a first generation Thousand Son Libraian or Captain that was made their Primarch.

Melkhiordarkblade wrote:Well remember that a Primarch for the later chapters can also mean just the marine that they got their genes from.

Didn't Orar have a chapter from his gene seed?

Maybe it's not Magnus per-say,Rather a first generation Thousand Son Libraian or Captain that was made their Primarch.

Orar was simply a great leader.
The chapter honours him as their spiritual leader and founder rather than their actual primarch.
Gene-seed (afaik) was only created from the primarchs and possibly the Emperor if certain sources are to be believed.

Melkhiordarkblade wrote:Well remember that a Primarch for the later chapters can also mean just the marine that they got their genes from.

Didn't Orar have a chapter from his gene seed?

Maybe it's not Magnus per-say,Rather a first generation Thousand Son Libraian or Captain that was made their Primarch.

Then that means the Blood Ravens were somehow founded before the Horus Heresy began and the Codex Astartes was laid down.

So basically: it cannot, in any way shape or form be the Thousand Sons without some absurd amount of retconning or a Deus Ex Machina on GW's part.

Well, all chapters are descended from the 20 Primarchs. GW used to use the term Primarch to note a Chapter Master, but that stopped a long time ago. Eisenhorn talks about contacting the White Consuls Primarch to tell him of the bravery of his battle brothers. But, like I said, there are no Primarchs other than the original 20. Sigismund is not the Primarch of the Black Templars, Rogal Dorn is.

I think people are definitely blowing a couple of vague references to ravens as die hard proof. It's not. I have to say I'm leaning towards what the OP is theorizing. The Chapter Master of the Blood Ravens always pulls the Blood Ravens out of a battle with the Black Legion.

CajunMan wrote:Well, all chapters are descended from the 20 Primarchs. GW used to use the term Primarch to note a Chapter Master, but that stopped a long time ago. Eisenhorn talks about contacting the White Consuls Primarch to tell him of the bravery of his battle brothers. But, like I said, there are no Primarchs other than the original 20. Sigismund is not the Primarch of the Black Templars, Rogal Dorn is.

I think people are definitely blowing a couple of vague references to ravens as die hard proof. It's not. I have to say I'm leaning towards what the OP is theorizing. The Chapter Master of the Blood Ravens always pulls the Blood Ravens out of a battle with the Black Legion.

To think that it's indicative of some kind of link between Horus and the Blood Ravens is, again, quite silly.

Why?

Because it has the same issue as the Thousand Sons theory. There's no way that the gene-seed of a Traitor Legion was used to found a Chapter post-Heresy.

And there was no new Foundings during the Heresy proper, so...

Yea, that's true. I forgot about that part, lol. Like I said, watch it be Space Wolves

Can't be without, again, severe retconning. There have been attempts to found 'Successors' to the Space Wolves--and they always end up, literally, going hairy.

Yea I know. I was joking.