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I want to start a Space Marine army but I dont want them to be loyalist or chaos marines. I would like them to be a renegade chapter untouched by chaos. The way I came up with is to say they are a pre heresy legion who has reason to believe that the body of the emperor was never recovered from horus' battle barge and the true being seated on the golden throne is a greater daemon of Tzeentch. They in turn believe the imperium to be a wholly corrupt establishment and seek to take action against them at any oppurtunity.

Now im not very strong on 40K fluff so if a chapter like this is just impossible please let me know while keeping the flame to a minimum. If this does seem like a decent idea I accept any input on fleshing out the backstory. Thanks!

Well, you can have any fluff you want but your current idea does not make a lot of sense canon-wise, as far as them being a pre-heresy legion. Yes, there are two missing legions but every single hint dropped in the Horus Heresy series points to them having been purged as traitors to the last marine (or at least incorporated into the Ultramarines -- the details are really non-existent). There's no reason that you couldn't have a post-heresy chapter that had somehow become embroiled in the heresy you've described, however.

Ah ok. Im not really married to the idea of trying to make them pre heresy. I guess my question is what way makes the most sense for them fluffwise. Its really just me trying to do something new and unique while joining the fan club of Space Marines. Thanks for the feedback though Manchu, I really appreciate it!

The idea of them being a "pre heresy legion" doesn't fit the fluff unless you want to call them descendents of the 2nd or 11th legions which people won't care for (many reasons why suffice it to say that people are touchy about those legions).

Your best bet is to either make them a sort of melting pot chapter (made up of deserters from many different chapters) or to make them a 21st founding chapter.

Really they can be from any founding other than the first or second founding.

Read up on the founding here

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Founding

Right then...
To work!
Pre-heresy legion components are a touch difficult to use...
You could use a medium age chapter that goes renegade for some reason.
What generally characterises a renegade chapter is that they still believe in the Emperor but not the Imperium.
The reason could be anything from corrupted Inquisitors to zealot cardinals or even a daemon in the form of either an Inquistor or a Cardinal.

They could also go renegade simply because they disagreed with something the Imperium did (Exterminatus or the killing of a Guard regiment due to them having seen too much)

The reason differs but your chapter is renegade and believes the Imperium is corrupt. They could take refuge in several places, but it may be better to have them stay on the move or find refuge in the Halo Stars...

You also need to decide how much of your chapter got away when they went renegade. Did they go suddenly and in secret or was there a reargaurd action fighting the Imperial Navy to its last breath? If they got away in secret they will still have all of their equipment and ships. If there was a rearguard they may only have a few things and desperately need to resupply.

SkySerpent wrote:The way I came up with is to say they are a pre heresy legion who has reason to believe that the body of the emperor was never recovered from horus' battle barge and the true being seated on the golden throne is a greater daemon of Tzeentch. They in turn believe the imperium to be a wholly corrupt establishment and seek to take action against them at any oppurtunity.

Things to remember about the Lost Legions:
-Both rebelled against The Emperor
-Their Primarchs are DEEEEAAAAAAAAD
-One (possibly) fought against the Space Wolves
-Still-loyal XI legionaires where (possibly) transfered to the Ultras

~~Yzz

Yzz wrote:

SkySerpent wrote:The way I came up with is to say they are a pre heresy legion who has reason to believe that the body of the emperor was never recovered from horus' battle barge and the true being seated on the golden throne is a greater daemon of Tzeentch. They in turn believe the imperium to be a wholly corrupt establishment and seek to take action against them at any oppurtunity.

Things to remember about the Lost Legions:
-Both rebelled against The Emperor
-Their Primarchs are DEEEEAAAAAAAAD
-One (possibly) fought against the Space Wolves
-Still-loyal XI legionaires where (possibly) transfered to the Ultras

~~Yzz

Actually they are referred to as the Lost and the Corrupted (Or something like that) so it i spossible it was only 1 legion that actively fought against the Emperor, the other may simply have been lost in the Warp or never found.
It is heavily implied that Russ destroyed one of them and considering his legions purpose this is generally agreed upon.

But, yeah. Pre-hersy legions are a bad idea... not impossible just difficult to work through.

Ma55ter_fett wrote:Really they can be from any founding other than the first or second founding.

Why the taboo on the 2nd founding?

The Apocrypha of Skaros and the Apocrypha of Davio, the first one tells us that there were 23 Successor Chapters of the Ultramarines, but fails to name them, the second source is able to provide eight names of them.

I've seen on many forums that the 2nd founding is treated as being comprehensively detailed...

~~Yzz

Hey OP, you might want to pick up a copy of Henry Zou's book Blood Gorgons. That book is about a legion of renegade marines who have gotten mixed up in Chaos pretty deeply (they're basically CSM in game-terms). One aspect of their chapter history is that after being declared excommunicate traitoris, they had a pretty awful chapter war before one of their number finally brought them all together and instituted a series of new, chaos-ritual-laden chapter traditions. It's a pretty cool concept, IMO. It might mix well with the idea of a hodge-podge of renegade chapters (maybe the survivors of something like the Badab War) who have banned together and retuned all of their practices to one new tradition based on this golden throne imposter conspiracy.

I definately want them to still be loyal to the Emperor while believing that he is deceased. I do also like the idea of them being starved for supplies. The list itself that this army will be based off of is a DoA Blood Angels list with 0 tanks. Basicly I see them as having devolved to skirmish warfare and hit and run tactics.


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Also thanks for pointing out that book, Manchu. Ill definately pick it up and maybe it will give me some ideas!

An idea might be to simply have them be of the original mindset to the imperial truth. That gods and superstition is wrong and that gods indeed dont exist. This was the emperors real message and hard for his followers to accept. He firmly believed that through ignorance mankind would be guarded against the warp and that fear and faith was the enemy.

They might therefore believe that the entirely of the imperial church is an abomination (and they would be right) but suffice to say there would not be a place for them in the imperium.

SkySerpent wrote:Also thanks for pointing out that book, Manchu. Ill definately pick it up and maybe it will give me some ideas!

There are two other great CSM books (well, three now but anyhow): Storm of Iron by Graham McNeill and Soul Hunter by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. Soul Hunter is especially good for you since you enjoy the idea of supply-starvation. It helps that it's a cracking good yarn, too!


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tarnish wrote:They might therefore believe that the entirely of the imperial church is an abomination (and they would be right) but suffice to say there would not be a place for them in the imperium.

That's a pretty cool idea. I wonder how much it really differs from what the loyalist chapters already think. For example, is the Ecclesiarchy active in Ultramar?

SkySerpent wrote:I definately want them to still be loyal to the Emperor while believing that he is deceased. I do also like the idea of them being starved for supplies. The list itself that this army will be based off of is a DoA Blood Angels list with 0 tanks. Basicly I see them as having devolved to skirmish warfare and hit and run tactics.

==>Blood Angels

The chapter is a BA successor. There's a battle-brother who receives visions of Sanguinius' life. When he sees the battle on Horus' Battle-barge, it's different. Sang & The Emp enter and try to talk some sense into Horus. Horus makes no overt hostilities. Then, the traitorous Rogal Dorn, secretly in-league with Chaos, attacks The Emp and Sang. With his dying strength the Emp mortally wounds Horus. The last thing the battle-brother sees before he "dies" is Dorn carrying Horus' shattered body toward a teleportarium...

So the chapter believes that Horus sits on the Golden Throne.

~~Yzz

Pretty good! Nice one, Yzz.

Manchu wrote:There are two other great CSM books (well, three now but anyhow): Storm of Iron by Graham McNeill and Soul Hunter by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. Soul Hunter is especially good for you since you enjoy the idea of supply-starvation. It helps that it's a cracking good yarn, too!

I will definately be picking up all of these books asap

tarnish wrote:They might therefore believe that the entirely of the imperial church is an abomination (and they would be right) but suffice to say there would not be a place for them in the imperium.

Manchu wrote:That's a pretty cool idea. I wonder how much it really differs from what the loyalist chapters already think. For example, is the Ecclesiarchy active in Ultramar?

I would love more input on this line of thinking because thats exactly the feel im going for. Where they are trying to make people see that the emperor was just a man(Albeit a greatly powerful godlike man) but with the twist of the golden throne imposter conspiracy just to seperate them from normal loyalist marines and add a bit of character to them.

It might be an idea to have a small amount of discord within the chapter over whether this vision is true.
One faction believes it whereas the other doesn't. The chapter stay together because splitting up would be suicide but there is some discord among them...

SkySerpent wrote:

I would love more input on this line of thinking because thats exactly the feel im going for. Where they are trying to make people see that the emperor was just a man(Albeit a greatly powerful godlike man) but with the twist of the golden throne imposter conspiracy just to seperate them from normal loyalist marines and add a bit of character to them.

You will need to read : The First Heretic, in the Horus Heresy series. its a great read and explains the conflict between the two views.

It doesn't really tell us much about what loyalist SM think about the issue in M41, however.

IMO, the fluff is very conflicted or at least 'purposefully unclear' on these issues. Loyalist Space Marines are certainly both religious and atheistic by M41. By "religious," I don't simply mean that Space Marines aren't materialists in the sense of IRL atheists: every Space Marine is certainly aware that there is more to the universe than the material. There is 'spiritual' dimension to the universe of 40k that defies comprehensive scientific explanation by definition. Considering that, plus the basic ignorance of humanity in the GrimDark, it's no surprise that superstitions have ossified through ritualization into a number of religions.

There is a technical distinction between veneration and adoration. The greatest exemplars of the varoius godless religions that Space Marine Chapters practice are the Emperor and the Primarchs, with the Primarch and some especially notable Space Marines being the objects of a more 'intimate' sort of veneration -- like having a patron saint -- that defines the identity of the Chapter in contrast to the broader category of Emperor-venerating Space Marines. So while a Space Wolf would certainly acknowledge the greatness of the Lion, he'd never have the same sense of respect and filial affection for El'Jonson as he does with respect to Leman Russ.

In any case, the 30k views have little enough to do with the 40k ones. Except where Chaos is concerned. The Traitor Marines are all theists, at the very least on a practical level. They may not like their gods, and some of them may not like calling them gods, but there it is.