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Netsurfer733 wrote:Just saw a clip that could illustrate my point all the more...but I'd love to see what you all say about it, anyway. What could this mean?

http://youtu.be/cSJuY3hFQww

...I just was hoping folks would comment on what Abaddon was saying here? As in, the Blood Ravens not only being his brothers, but of his own flesh??? How he pretty much 'owns' them or what not? No one thinks that or any of the other things that he said in DoW2 point to Horus???

That game dialogue just sounds like Abaddon is angry that a rival is attempting to sacrifice an entire chapter without his approval. The chapter just happens to be the Blood Ravens because that's the default chapter used in the games.

It sounds like the sacrifice of the Blood Ravens to Khorne would give this rival a chance to become Warmaster, which is Abaddon's title. This is about a rival trying to take over (usurp) Abaddon's job of leading the chaos armies, something which Abaddon is rightly angry about.

The body and soul comment was made because Abaddon sees it as his right to decide when chapters like the Blood Ravens are destroyed or sacrificed to the gods. He's saying that their fate is his alone to decide as he is Warmaster, not this Kyras person.

Hmmm...well, you might be right, anyway! I'm still going to wait for DoW3 for the final word (hopefully), lol.

I just created a post about their founding (spoilers below)



In the book Age of Darkness, one of the short Stories is Rebirth. To sum it up, A Squad of thousand sons was destroyed except for one trooper, who, blessed with the ability to see into the future/being Corvaede (sp?) saw his future was to reunite all the remnants of the Legion into a new, psyker heavy, Space Marine chapter fighting for the Emperor. The Corvaede's chapter symbol is a Black Raven, and their pre-heresy armor was the same color red. So, fluff wise, it was proved that they were Thousand Sons.

And like I said in your thread, it's not.

The Corvidae's 'Chapter Symbol' is a black raven skull.

What are these counter-arguments against Blood Ravens being a Thousand Sons offshoot? Granted, the ravings from Prospero Burns(I think it was), while giving pause for consideration weren't concrete evidence, but in regard to Age of Darkness(my two cents)



While nothing is definite until GW out right says it, in terms of fluff, I think there are reasons to believe the Blood Ravens are indeed a Thousand Sons offshoot.

At first i thought it was the EoM, but then I decided that's a ridiculous notion.

Kanluwen wrote:And like I said in your thread, it's not.

The Corvidae's 'Chapter Symbol' is a black raven skull.

From p15 of 'A Thousand Sons'

Sobek’s right shoulder-guard was stamped with a golden scarab, while the left bore the serpentine star icon of the Thousand Sons. In the centre of the star was a black raven’s head, smaller than the scarab, yet subtly given more relevance thanks to its positioning within the Legion’s symbol. This was the symbol of theCorvidae

Later on [p26] it mentions that Ahriman's cult of the Corvidae was at its lowest ebb and that the abilities of its members were lessened as the other cults gained closer ties to the immaterium. This could be suggested as a reason why the Blood Ravens are not all obvious psykers, because the psykic ability of the Thousand Sons was in part tied up with their relation to their primarch and in part with their dabbling in arcane knowledge which brought them into contact with the ruinous powers. As the Blood Ravens do not engage in such obvious heresies, they are not prone to the same problems as their possible forebears and also as obvious, they have no contact with a psykic being as powerful as Magnus the Red.

People seem to be really passionate about this subject so thought I'd stick my 2 pence worth in here.

From what has been said from every source, when put together it points at the Thousand Sons being the legion the Blood Ravens get their gene seed from and hence why the records of them before a certain date have had to be destroyed.

Now before the passionate flaming of "No they're not!" comes in as sorry but some peoples debunking seems to be verging on rage the idea is even suggested I'll provide some stuff that points to this.

Firstly the occurance of higher than normal numbers of librarians and the chapters overall desire to record everything and inquisitiveness.
While this may stem from not knowing their chapters origins it is an example of Thousand Sons tendancies.

Next the C.S Goto stuff, which as it's Black Library stands as 40k background.
The whole thing in Tempest is the best example imo with Ahriman explaining to the librarian he knows Vidya, the origins of the founding etc in hints.

Now we come to the newer stuff.

As has been revealed there were some Thousand Sons not pulled into the warp suggesting it was just those present on Prospero which were transported, either by design or simply because they couldn't be with that planet as the centre of the effect.
since a successor chapter does not keep the original heraldry it can be assumed the heraldry is either new eg: Black Templar heraldry compared to their founding chapter the Imperial fist, or it is taken from elements in part or whole from the founding chapter. Examples of each would be the Crimson Fists recolouring from Imperial Fists and the DA/BA successors who have elements of their parent chapters heraldry in their design. with the BT heraldry coming from the captain who was made chapter master then also a new chapter masters heraldry could be used.
So a surviving TS captain from the Corvidae might be inspired to use a Raven type basis, possibly with the blood drop as remembrance of the Prospero massacre. Sheer theory but it's one no one has mentioned for the symbol of the Blood Ravens unless I missed it.

Next the psyker the TS pretty much kill to know what is coming. She cries out about the "Ravens of Blood" (not got the book to hand so can't quote entire line but it is to do with the future of the legion).

Now the gene seed problem. Here there can be only theory as explanations.
1) The gene seed of the surviving TS who the Emperor realised were pawns of the chaos gods schemes was somehow purified enough to deal with the flesh change. Why would he do this? Why would anyone let a loyal Death Guard, Emperors Children or Son of Horus live? There is/was/will be a use for them perhaps. He did after all come to realise Magnus was right, Horus was coming to kick his ass in the name of chaos after he sent Russ to bring Mugnus back, it was the manipulations of others that led Russ to try to wipe out the Legion.
2) Hybrid gene seed perhaps. There has been veiled references to gene seed stocks being tested upon etc and crossed to see if stable seed can be brought about without the flaws of the parent chapters/legions. It was suggested the 13th founding used some gene seed from the Legions which fell to chaos maybe why Fabius was so interested in getting his hands on it.
3) Design of the "Warp Entity"? Maybe Tzeentch has further use for these marines further down the line.
4) Mutation. Can't see any founding Legions with spikes coming out their extremities anywhere... Gene seed has been known to mutate with odd consequences.
5) We're being handed red fish in order for THQ to have a continuing franchise where the BR are centre peice in this quest and these hints are here just for the excitement of "but a traitor legion still serves the Emprah!". still with the inquisition being founded on loyalists from the traitor legions it would fit.

I don't think that the two deleted legions will have had an influence as war with one of them is mentioned between Magnus and Lorgar in the First Heretic in their discussion. With the suggestion that marines who possibly stayed loyal in insurrection, or were stable enough in gene seed after a mass mutation or something were taken into the Ultramarine chapter it shows that with space marine resources being valuable the Imperium isn't just going to throw them away if they are "salvagable"

All in all take into consideration that the heraldry of the captains order could be the basis for the BR heraldry not an exact copy and GW/BL/ the conspiritors in the BR inquisition are leading us towards the TS being their founding legion.

What is your source regarding the possible use of traitor gene-seed during the 13th Founding?

Seem to remember it done in secret and hinted at in writings about it, either late RT/2nd ed and expanded on with the index astartes article. The last I'm not 100% on, so feel free to check on it and let me know. As I a) don't have all the old white dwarves I used to and b) wouldn't sit and go through everything with a fine tooth comb just to argue on the internet as my time is precious to me if anyone can check the cursed founding and say either way, tis cool

Vermillion wrote:Seem to remember it done in secret and hinted at in writings about it, either late RT/2nd ed and expanded on with the index astartes article. The last I'm not 100% on, so feel free to check on it and let me know. As I a) don't have all the old white dwarves I used to and b) wouldn't sit and go through everything with a fine tooth comb just to argue on the internet as my time is precious to me if anyone can check the cursed founding and say either way, tis cool

You may be thinking of the 21st Founding...
The 13th was the Dark Founding IIRC...

Meh always did get em a bit mixed up

....What about Raven Guard?

A - They have a Raven Head as their symbol so that is the same.

B - Corax killed the mutants yes?. But what if those who had the minor mutations (e.g psyker) then maybe Corax scattered them to the warp to fend for themselves. But they kept the Raven insignia but painted their armour Red and bone.


OR if you Read the visions of Heresy book it shows all the legions but their is one chapter that is classed as 'classified' maybe these are the Blood Ravens who where given a gene-seed from maybe the emperor or a Unknown Primarch

They can't be the Raven Guard either, KnightOfTheRaven.

The reason being that they don't, just like they don't for any other known and stable gene-seed, exhibit any of the flaws. With Raven Guard and their Successors(Raptors Chapter, most notably) they exhibit the same marble white skin and jet-black hair with their eyes going all black as the Astartes ages.

Matt070 wrote:I'm kinda inclined to go with one of the previous ideas that it could be Corax, some of the ones that he didnt destroy, if there were any.

Only other speculation is that they are from one of the missing primarchs, easiest explanation too as GW probably didnt think that much into the fluff when the Blood Ravens were first thought up.

But i definately agree that they are not from Horus or Magnus.

Weren't the marines of those Legions rolled up with the Ultramarines after one or both of the Primarchs were executed?

Omegus wrote:

Matt070 wrote:I'm kinda inclined to go with one of the previous ideas that it could be Corax, some of the ones that he didnt destroy, if there were any.

Only other speculation is that they are from one of the missing primarchs, easiest explanation too as GW probably didnt think that much into the fluff when the Blood Ravens were first thought up.

But i definately agree that they are not from Horus or Magnus.

Weren't the marines of those Legions rolled up with the Ultramarines after one or both of the Primarchs were executed?

Long story short: we don't know. There's vague hints at it in the HH books, where a Word Bearer makes the accusation that the Ultramarines are only so large because they took in the leftovers from those Legions.

Fair enough.

On a different train of thought, were the Thousand Sons still engaging in the practice of sending lower-ranking members of their Legion to study with other Legions when the sanction of the sixth was declared? If so, any of those guys could be the root of the new Ravens. It could even be that the loyalist Primarchs (or just Russ) arranged this as a form of redemption after discovering they were fooled by Horus and Magnus was loyal after all.

It looks like they weren't, because the Council of Nikea pretty much desanctioned psykers--which was the main reason why the Thousand Sons were 'studying' with the other Legions. They were seemingly trying to prove the importance of the Librarium to the Legions.

Yes, but it seems no one actually cared about the prohibition on librarians. Plus, things happened at a frantic pace afterwards, so the other Legions may have not had the time/resources/inclination to provide these single Astartes a warp-capable ship. Or perhaps they did send them home, but with the vagaries of warp travel they arrived way after the sacking of Prospero.

In the 21st Founding geneseed was tampered with and essentially all the traitor legions had another successor founded. Look more into the Badab War and you'll see that there's loyalist chapter that matches everyone of the traitor legions. Its only argued so much about the Blood Ravens being TSons because of all the attention they got after fact. I mean there's far less people arguing that the Sons of Anateus aren't Death Guard.


Also isn't either Abnett or McNeill quoted at GamesDay saying something to the effect of "people still don't think they're related? I thought i made it super obvious."

I think you all might be missing the obvious here. I think they dont know who thier primarch is because they acctually have two primarchs. corax and sanguinius. loo at thier chapter symbol its a mix of those two chapters

DutchKillsRambo wrote:In the 21st Founding geneseed was tampered with and essentially all the traitor legions had another successor founded. Look more into the Badab War and you'll see that there's loyalist chapter that matches everyone of the traitor legions. Its only argued so much about the Blood Ravens being TSons because of all the attention they got after fact. I mean there's far less people arguing that the Sons of Anateus aren't Death Guard.

It's only argued about because there's no real solid ties. There's hints and vagueries, and GW has basically said they're not going to say one way or the other.

Also isn't either Abnett or McNeill quoted at GamesDay saying something to the effect of "people still don't think they're related? I thought i made it super obvious."

It was C.S. Goto that said it.

So yeah. That's pretty much a worthless quote.

Was it Goto? If so I rescind my comment lol

DutchKillsRambo wrote:Was it Goto? If so I rescind my comment lol

he is a black library author

Bishop99 wrote:
he was a black library hack

Fixed.

Whatever you think about Goto's writing, and I agree with you, he didn't present that concept without signoff from GW. Knowing that theory is out there, Black Library authors continue to add fuel to the fire with their T Sons Heresy stories. The hints are not accidental, but they're also just hints, and they leave some barriers still unresolved.

Does that mean that T Sons are for sure related to the Blood Ravens? No. Is it a (strong) possibility GW wants out there? Yes.

Assuming Chris Wraight continues to have well received work, we'll probably see the return of Arvida at some point, and that might give us that final step towards confirmation.

I really think you're overestimating the concept involvement that GW had when Goto was there.

You really do notice a change in the way canon has been maintained since Goto no longer works there.

And I think you're overestimating the amount of freedom one freelancer can have on the IP. It's true he made mistakes and took liberties. However, basic story cncepts were still signed off on even if the details weren't.

Just like you, I read the BL forum posts back in the day, and saw the fallout from his Deathwatch stuff. There's been a much tighter editorial attempt to make sure writers understand and stay true to the 40k details.

All that being said, we can all agree that Goto was trying to make a connection in his work. As pointed out, he actuallly came out and said it.

Given that current GW authors know this, and so does the editorial team, the hints in the Heresy novels are interesting. They certainly do nothing to break the connection, and can certainly be read as links.

Does that mean there's a definite link between the Blood Ravens and the T Sons? No. But does it mean that GW at least wants you to think there could be? Pretty much.

Don't forget, the author who wrote the Chapter Approved for the Blood Ravens is none other than G. McNeill. If anyone was familiar with what his hints in Thousand Sons could point to, it was him. I'm of the opinion that Mr. McNeill imagines a tie there too.

Has anyone ever thought about the missing primarchs?

It could be one of them.