Been Around the Block
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Lore for custom Iron Hands successor chapter:
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Iron Souls - Keepers of grief
"As in life, so in death."
There is a chapter that knows little glory - that seldom charges first into the fray. You may find its members guarding empty voidholms, patrolling silent battle fields, or watching over dead hives. They arrive at the end of wars, and remain long after the tides of strife has withdrawn.
These are the Iron Souls, taciturn guardians of the dead, keepers of grief, cowardly to some, diligent to others.
A first generation successor chapter of the Iron Hands; the Iron Souls were born with the death of their legion. In the desperate wake of Horus great rebellion.
The first and the last legion to bleed in defiance of the Warmaster's dream.
As the legions were disbanded and reconstituted into chapters the Iron Souls took in some of the most decimated squads of the entire war, their losses eclipsed only by the Siege of Terra itself.
The death of their primarch, their lost comrades, and the desperate fighting have forever marked the chapter.
The first principle of the chapter is the honoring of the dead. The chapter will remember the dead, hold large funeral rites in the middle of war, fight to protect sites of heroes long since gone, extoll the last stands and final moments of humanity, and build shrines and other memorials to the dead.
Their funeral rites are not limited to their fellow space marines. They will hold rites to machine spirits and imperial guardsmen, loyalists purged by imperial decree, but also laborers, slaves, even servitors.
When the amount of dead grows to large they will hold large masses over mass graves.
In some instances they have even blessed corpse-starch facilities and recycling vats. A custom that has provided plenty of scorn from other chapters, and a small measure of respect from the common clergy of the Ecclesiarchy.
Their second principle is an acceptance of their coming deaths. A carefully cultivated stoic determination seeps into the chapter, rooted in both nihilism and diligence. The result is a durable yet humble chapter, not easy prey for despair or the fear it is said no Space Marine would ever know.
This principle has shaped their preferred role within Imperial campaigns. They'll join campaigns in the middle or last stages, and remain some time after most of the battle is done. They will lend themselves to mop-up operations, partake in final purges of isolated enemies, or join in the hunt of retreating armies and fleets. They will also agree to guard duty, standing watch over empty installations or out of the way facilities, sometimes for decades a time. Sometimes in perpetuity. They will also partake in cleansing operations of loyalists - a distasteful duty more humanitarian chapters despise. While these duties may be necessary their preponderance for them has given them a reputation as vultures, or lowly drudge laborers, taking on the inglorious yet easy work of warfare.
The Iron Souls themselves would point to the risk of old conflicts flaring up, lingering corruption or missed opportunities to slay an enemy before he is able to recover. The would say that in accepting their duties they also accept their deaths.
Their third principle is that of resilient warfare. Their main doctrine is 'the mobile fortress'. When partaking in conflict the Iron Souls prefer to organize themselves into smaller strike forces of mechanized infantry. Composed of Rhinos and one or a few landraiders, supplemented with razorbacks and predators as required. Their favored infantry are the tactical, devastator, and sternguard squads, though the Iron Souls will deploy all manner of infantry if they believe it required. Mobile and durable they scour the battle field for enemies - setting up defensible positions wherever they are most needed, then dismantling them and moving on as soon as it is required.
Another favored tactic is to set up artillery positions, whirlwind batteries and thunderfire cannons, the artillery defended by Dreadnoughts - a unit the chapter holds a special reverence for - and blast the enemy from afar.
Comparable their assault tactics are scarce. When they use troops such as Assault Marines they prefer to use them defensively, having them jump in to break up a charge to give the defensive line a few more moments, or otherwise take out an already softened up foe.
They honor their apothecaries, techmarines and chaplains, and many forces will feature one of each. They employ few psykers, and those they have are mostly used to detect and counter enemy psykers.
The chapter is not codex compliant. Not only are their companies organized differently from the codex astartes, the chapter is many times over strength of codex limits. This is a necessity for the chapter in order to cover the many campaigns, battle fields, and guard positions they watch over. This necessity also becomes the main reason their divergence is accepted; so scattered is the chapter that in most campaigns there will be less of their number than more conventional chapters. Should the chapter ever wish to muster itself in its entirety it would take them well over a century.
Because of stretching themselves so thin across the galaxy the chapter employs a custom of rotating select officers and in particular chaplains as a means of maintaining the cohesion of their culture and customs. Some chaplains of the chapter will live their lives wandering across the stars - joining companies only to leave them a few years later - accompanied by only a small honor guard that itself is prone to replacement or rotation.
The chapter will accept wounded recruits from other chapters for internment in Dreadnoughts. The reasons why another chapter may call on the Iron Souls for this differ. For some it is a way to pay penitence for an ignoble defeat or personal failing. For others it's a matter of logistics; not every chapter deploy Dreadnoughts in large numbers, some deploy none.
While these outside Dreadnoughts will wear Iron Souls colors they may not wear the chapter symbol. Instead they may choose whether to wear their original heraldry on parts of their dreadnought chassis, or whether to leave the heraldry blank.
The chapter freely utilize bionics, but holds little transhumanist philosophy. Their implants is a way to increase their durability, and reinforce the work of the emperor within their bodies, not surpass it.
The main colors of the chapter is black, purple, and bone white. Supplemental colors is gold or yellow.*
Heraldry includes tears, skulls, flowers.
The dead are commonly depicted in their art, preferable still dressed in armor or uniforms. These depictions includes not only chapter marines, but marines of other chapters, sisters of battle, guardsmen, machines, funeral pyres, mass graves, or other honored dead.
Quotes about the chapter:
"The Iron Souls will honor the corpse of a mutant one day, and bind a shrine to the horizon of a long since dead world in remembrance of its cleansing the next. Do not doubt their honor, but for the sake of He Who Sits On Terra do not seek it for yourself."
"They were out of fuel, low on ammunition. They had more wounded than not and had been harried to the point of exhaustion. We had every reason to believe the time to attack was upon us. Oh master, we couldn't have known! We didn't know! Have mercy!"
"Watch dogs of the Emperor. Cowardly stains, guarding dead tombs and abandoned corners of the galaxy. Whenever you're trying to salvage some long since dead station or war remnant waste you always have to keep an eye out for these wretches. Whenever you know for sure you'll find some long abandoned treasure, there they'll be, tearing your crew into pieces. I spit on them all."
"Honor the dead!"
"We stand with the memory of mankind."
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*The entire color scheme is wip, undecided, not final. :/ :/ :/. Their chapter symbol is undecided. A metal skull is to boring. An axe is to on the nose. Maybe a flower.
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