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so I've been working on my Stone Sentinels' initiation test and I wanted to know what you opinions are. I'm trying to come up with a test for strength and endurance in a little bit of a labouring style.

Is this good, needs more, needs less?

Those that are chosen by the sentinel's must pass another test. In the mountainous wilderness of Castellum, their are slopes dotted with old, abandoned mines; this is where the next group of initiates are left to survive. The air is thin from the high altitude, which means fires burn weak and cannot be depended for survival. That leaves the tunnels as the form of shelter and more importantly, protection. Away from the cities, the night is long and still holds sway and many creatures hide under her cloak of darkness. The initiates must use what tools that are abandoned to not only protect themselves, but to break rock to fortify and seal up the walls. Those that cannot fight will die, those who cannot labour will die, those who cannot endure will die. Those that have endured the night, the beasts and the cold when the Sentinels return may begin training as a space marine.

The rest of their information: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/397301.page

What do you think is a cool initiation?

Wow... have you just started Codex:Minecraft Marines? Do they need to hide in the mines from zombies? On topic I think its a good idea. Does it fit the background better for them to have to work together to survive or are you going for a more loner/self sufficient vibe?

I like the mine survival initiation.

As far as another initiation goes you could also have a test of endurance. Since it seems like your motto is "Endure till the end."

Each initiate must stand atop a stone pillar holding above their heads a massive boulder. The pillars of course are in the middle of a desert where the intense heat of the day will burn their skin, the chilling cold of the night will rattle their bones and where the whipping sand tears at their flesh.

This position must be held for (insert crazy amount of time) before they will be allowed to either swap their stone for a larger one, or continue in a squatting position. the test will then repeat.

 Flinty wrote:
Wow... have you just started Codex:Minecraft Marines? Do they need to hide in the mines from zombies? On topic I think its a good idea. Does it fit the background better for them to have to work together to survive or are you going for a more loner/self sufficient vibe?

Definitely teamwork; if you're caught alone in the dark, you'll get snatched up.

I like the idea for these tests. It's different from the tournament-style contests many marine chapters engage in, while still testing endurance and resourcefulness.

I still haven't really thought about the equivalent methods for my marine chapter. I'll have to give it some thought.

I like the character of your chapter, but I'll talk about that more in your DIY thread.

 Mr Nobody wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Wow... have you just started Codex:Minecraft Marines? Do they need to hide in the mines from zombies? On topic I think its a good idea. Does it fit the background better for them to have to work together to survive or are you going for a more loner/self sufficient vibe?

Definitely teamwork; if you're caught alone in the dark, you'll get snatched up.

Neat. So do they get assigned into training squads by the chapter, or do they need to organise themselves? Is this also anout identifying keaders or is it more about learning to work together and take orders, egardless of who you might get stuck with?

An initiate is a Space Marine in training.

An aspirant would be a better term for a potential Space Marine.



By the fluff, since the implantation process begins between 8 and 14, we're talking about kids who are 6-12 years old, and more realistically on the younger end of that scale since it would make more sense to start early rather than late.

Keep that in mind when you're trying to figure out what would be realistic. It's a bunch of little kids trying to accomplish these tasks.

Neat initiation though i would much rather see them try to survive hunger game style (still haven't seen it though)

seems more grim dark.

The survival style initiation process is good. I think that it would offer your marines a sense of pride and accomplishment. If the planet is extremely dangerous then that sense of accomplishment would be even greater. However, having only to survive one night doesn't seem to be very difficult in my opinion. If the initiates have gone through a decent amount of training and modification, make this a serious test. The are almost marines (or scouts more like) and as such they would need to use their training to survive for over a month or more. Just my 2 cents.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
An initiate is a Space Marine in training.

An aspirant would be a better term for a potential Space Marine.



By the fluff, since the implantation process begins between 8 and 14, we're talking about kids who are 6-12 years old, and more realistically on the younger end of that scale since it would make more sense to start early rather than late.

Keep that in mind when you're trying to figure out what would be realistic. It's a bunch of little kids trying to accomplish these tasks.

An initiate is a black templar space marine.
Also, many chapters will recruit from teenage to grown men.

Desubot wrote:Neat initiation though i would much rather see them try to survive hunger game style (still haven't seen it though)

seems more grim dark.

You don't have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun the other kid.

Orkitron5000 wrote:The survival style initiation process is good. I think that it would offer your marines a sense of pride and accomplishment. If the planet is extremely dangerous then that sense of accomplishment would be even greater. However, having only to survive one night doesn't seem to be very difficult in my opinion. If the initiates have gone through a decent amount of training and modification, make this a serious test. The are almost marines (or scouts more like) and as such they would need to use their training to survive for over a month or more. Just my 2 cents.

I meant for it to be longer, maybe a few weeks or a month. I'll go back and make that more clear.

Nobody, it looks like a great concept. I wish the person who posted the Minecraft bit hadn't, as it's stuck in my head now, the only thing disengaging it, would be my logical processing.

As for your initiation, as I stated, it's a great trial for aspirants to be tested in full with. I read your fluff, sometimes, Marines choose aspirants, after a conflict.

Why not incorporate that into the fluff as well? Two trials that your chapter uses, this and another, involving the marine that chose him.

Of course, you'd have to make it different from the whole Black Templar bit.

Icculus wrote:
Also, many chapters will recruit from teenage to grown men.

No they don't.

Let me introduce you to one of the oldest pieces of the Space Marine canon that has never been retconned:




I know some of the Space Wolves novels seem like they contradict this, but that's just because they're poorly written, lol.

 Stormsung wrote:
Nobody, it looks like a great concept. I wish the person who posted the Minecraft bit hadn't, as it's stuck in my head now, the only thing disengaging it, would be my logical processing.

As for your initiation, as I stated, it's a great trial for aspirants to be tested in full with. I read your fluff, sometimes, Marines choose aspirants, after a conflict.

Why not incorporate that into the fluff as well? Two trials that your chapter uses, this and another, involving the marine that chose him.

Of course, you'd have to make it different from the whole Black Templar bit.

The idea of having a test with the marine that discovered the recruit sounds interesting, I'll try and think of something.

@Veteran Sergeant. You bring up a good point, maybe a little less digging and walling and a little more fighting. Maybe they recruit really big kids.

You know what else might be fun to come up with. A promotional test. Of course scouts have to prove themselves on the field, but when the time comes, they have to prove themselves in an ancient tradition to be able to earn their power armor. This way you can involve some tests that would revolve around fully grown men, and these could of course be much tougher.

I really love the background and the chapter as a whole btw.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:By the fluff, since the implantation process begins between 8 and 14, we're talking about kids who are 6-12 years old, and more realistically on the younger end of that scale since it would make more sense to start early rather than late.

Keep that in mind when you're trying to figure out what would be realistic. It's a bunch of little kids trying to accomplish these tasks.

You are forgetting where Space Marines get their recruits from, they raise recruits on hostile worlds where humans are stronger and more self reliant. As most Chapter World human populations know about their Marine masters, either literally or through religious interpretations and when recruitments take place it will be very likely that boys are prepared from birth for this (having a son selected would be a great honour).

It is safe to say that an 8 year old boy on one of these worlds would be able to gut you before you even got your first swing in. Also look at the real world for a second, we already have young child soldiers fighting in the Congo and other hell holes rigt now.

"Safe to say". I'd love to see the 8 year old who could "gut me before I even got my first swing in".

Eight year olds are eight year olds. I mean, they might be feral, and more capable than some coddled suburban kid. But they're still going to be like 60 pounds and not fully developed mentally or physically. You read too many comic books and watch too many movies, lol.

And you're vastly overestimating these child soldiers in the Congo. Please do some real research into the topic before you use them as an analogy. Not only is it horrendously inaccurate, it's almost offensive given how utterly tragic their real life story is. These aren't highly trained, elite shock trooper children. They're brainwashed and drugged up cannon fodder.

Get the book, Deathwatch: Rites of Battle.
It provides many good examples of how to write up a chapter and its recuriting.

For Example my Wanderers, recruits are assembled and put into a squad and are educated, taught how to use weapons, they are given genseed quite early. So the basic thing to get in the chapter is teamwork, survive on a deathworld, show intelligence and have morals. Basically thats it..
While the Storm Crusaders, have its initiation with physical challenge of going through the jungles of Drancoris which harbor extremely deadly animals, and bring back the head of a dangerous animal.

Well Cadia train their kids from they are 13 as organized soldiers (if they can't fieldstrip a lasgun they are laughing-stocks at the age of ten). Child soldiers have been used much historically. VietCong used teenagers against the US and South Vietnam (LTTE of the Tamils used child soldiers who could be highly proficient). But an eight year old slaying a grown man in a fair fight is pushing it. But add two to three years and proper training with a weapon and you might get your ass handed to you.

The biological enhancements that turn a man into a space marine make him a physical threat. I like the idea of a chapter recruiting the best and brightest minds of the population to become part of the chapter. Even if they are not the brawniest of the population they can become the greatest warriors because they have the mental acuity to master diverse methods of warfare.

orz192 wrote:
The biological enhancements that turn a man into a space marine make him a physical threat. I like the idea of a chapter recruiting the best and brightest minds of the population to become part of the chapter. Even if they are not the brawniest of the population they can become the greatest warriors because they have the mental acuity to master diverse methods of warfare.

Intelligence usually triumphs over brute strength.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
"Safe to say". I'd love to see the 8 year old who could "gut me before I even got my first swing in".

Eight year olds are eight year olds. I mean, they might be feral, and more capable than some coddled suburban kid. But they're still going to be like 60 pounds and not fully developed mentally or physically. You read too many comic books and watch too many movies, lol.

Missing the fact that they live by 'the strongest survive' on worlds 100 times more dangerous than ours and would have had evolved to suit that, also the fact that wieght has little to do with deadliness.

A child ona feral world would not be physically similar to an suburban child, they would be stronger and more capable due to the fact that all their ancestors had to be capable to survive to have children, over the thousands of years this has gone on, the humans would be stronger on these worlds than on others.

Add to the fact that they will most likely be trained for the trials before hand and be trained in combat means that yes they probably could kill grown men not of their race.

 BluntmanDC wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
"Safe to say". I'd love to see the 8 year old who could "gut me before I even got my first swing in".

Eight year olds are eight year olds. I mean, they might be feral, and more capable than some coddled suburban kid. But they're still going to be like 60 pounds and not fully developed mentally or physically. You read too many comic books and watch too many movies, lol.

Missing the fact that they live by 'the strongest survive' on worlds 100 times more dangerous than ours and would have had evolved to suit that, also the fact that wieght has little to do with deadliness.

A child ona feral world would not be physically similar to an suburban child, they would be stronger and more capable due to the fact that all their ancestors had to be capable to survive to have children, over the thousands of years this has gone on, the humans would be stronger on these worlds than on others.

Add to the fact that they will most likely be trained for the trials before hand and be trained in combat means that yes they probably could kill grown men not of their race.

Hahaha, now I'm envisioning Veteran Sergeant trying to do what the Uplifting Primer recommend for guardsmen in handling Gretchins with a Feral kid. And sort of failing miserably as he is to his surprise gutted. Hahaha.

 BluntmanDC wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
"Safe to say". I'd love to see the 8 year old who could "gut me before I even got my first swing in".

Eight year olds are eight year olds. I mean, they might be feral, and more capable than some coddled suburban kid. But they're still going to be like 60 pounds and not fully developed mentally or physically. You read too many comic books and watch too many movies, lol.

Missing the fact that they live by 'the strongest survive' on worlds 100 times more dangerous than ours and would have had evolved to suit that, also the fact that wieght has little to do with deadliness.

A child ona feral world would not be physically similar to an suburban child, they would be stronger and more capable due to the fact that all their ancestors had to be capable to survive to have children, over the thousands of years this has gone on, the humans would be stronger on these worlds than on others.

Add to the fact that they will most likely be trained for the trials before hand and be trained in combat means that yes they probably could kill grown men not of their race.

I think you're ignoring the effectthat nutrition makes to human development. On a feral world the inhabitants will be unlikely to be eating as well as inhabitants of almost any other world type. A feral child might be tough and wiry, but they may still not be as strong as a Corn Fed McBuff from an agricultural world who gets proper balanced meals and is still out all day doing serious hard labour.

 Asherian Command wrote:

orz192 wrote:
The biological enhancements that turn a man into a space marine make him a physical threat. I like the idea of a chapter recruiting the best and brightest minds of the population to become part of the chapter. Even if they are not the brawniest of the population they can become the greatest warriors because they have the mental acuity to master diverse methods of warfare.

Intelligence usually triumphs over brute strength.

Despite some people's overactive imaginations, this is ultimately the correct answer.

It doesn't matter what kind of kid you recruit. Chapters recruit from feral worlds, and death worlds, and such out of tradition and superstition. However, the process of geneseed implantation and all of the surgery turns everyone into a seven and a half foot tall, seven hundred pound murder machine. It really won't matter if you recruit the scrawny kid, or the stocky kid. And the recruits go through years of training and indoctrination, so it doesn't really make much difference whether you take the most disciplined military school recruit, or the most feral tribal child. You just want a kid that is biologically compatible with the gene seed, and free of taint or mutation. The chapter is going to build a Space Marine out of him.

So you can make up pretty much any recruitment process you want so long as you keep the "Probably 8-12 years old" in mind. The 2 year buffer assumes that a chapter will do at least some pre-screening, testing, etc to ensure the recruit is physically and mentally sound before they risk stuffing gene seen in them. But the recruitment process is irrelevant. It's part of the "grimdark" of 40K. If Space Marine chapters burn through dozens, if not hundreds of children to find one good one, that makes them seem more grimdark, lol. When, in truth, they could probably just take blood samples and do basic aptitude tests. Taking the smartest children is a far better recipe for success than taking the toughest.

The act of adding organs itself strains the limit of the person. And simple aptitude-testing doesn't do diddy when it comes to knowing the potential of the person. They likely mess with the brain as well to increase the intelligence. Remember when Corax sped up the recruitment-rate? He created monsters, sold the future of his legion in order to field enough soldiers to defeat the Horus Heresy. That's what happens if you try to rush it. Plus Chaos is patient with their temptations, it might take hundred of years to break down the resolve of a Space Marine compared to mere decades to break the resolve of mere humans. And that's far from the only threat out there.

Quite aside from the implant process and everything else I do like the "barricade the mines and survive the night" test. Your marine recruits will learn to work with their future Battle Brothers, which in the end is what a Space Marine is about.

Any individual Marine can be a terrible enemy but he's still just one Marine. When he's surrounded by his nine squadmates and the other nine squads of his Company he is the Emperor's Judgement.

 Flinty wrote:

 BluntmanDC wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
"Safe to say". I'd love to see the 8 year old who could "gut me before I even got my first swing in".

Eight year olds are eight year olds. I mean, they might be feral, and more capable than some coddled suburban kid. But they're still going to be like 60 pounds and not fully developed mentally or physically. You read too many comic books and watch too many movies, lol.

Missing the fact that they live by 'the strongest survive' on worlds 100 times more dangerous than ours and would have had evolved to suit that, also the fact that wieght has little to do with deadliness.

A child ona feral world would not be physically similar to an suburban child, they would be stronger and more capable due to the fact that all their ancestors had to be capable to survive to have children, over the thousands of years this has gone on, the humans would be stronger on these worlds than on others.

Add to the fact that they will most likely be trained for the trials before hand and be trained in combat means that yes they probably could kill grown men not of their race.

I think you're ignoring the effectthat nutrition makes to human development. On a feral world the inhabitants will be unlikely to be eating as well as inhabitants of almost any other world type. A feral child might be tough and wiry, but they may still not be as strong as a Corn Fed McBuff from an agricultural world who gets proper balanced meals and is still out all day doing serious hard labour.

Actually this is not really true, it is more likely that feral world populations will have diets similar to early humans, what the human body is designed for. McBuff is a very bad example as:

A. Corn is one of the worst ever food stuffs in human history, based on nutritional content and negative effects on the human body (the reason it is grown is because it is easy to mass produce.)
B. McBuff would prodably be less agile with lower endurance, this would lead to them becoming one of the targets for the mega monsters on the hunt.
C. Agriworlds do not give an accurate representation, most humans in the IoM are fed on food blocks in pretty bad conditions, as long as birth rates are high on a hive world governors really don't need to keep people well fed and healthy because their will always be someone to replace them.
D. You are suggesting this would be a fair fight between a NFL player and a Feral World child, that is not what i was saying. I was saying that these children would have skills with even the simplest tools and trapping/hunting techniques combined with a naturally stronger build and vastly different cultural upbringings that would mean against a normal adult the child would win.

An expert on biology, nutrition, evolution, hand to hand combat, and African small wars.


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