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Is there any defining ethnic traits in Space Marine Chapters? I see that White Scars look rather Mongoloid and the Space Wolves look Caucasian but what about the other chapters?

Of course, this is the far future, and the races have all mixed and traits are all over the place, but there are some outstanding traits like the ones mentioned above.

Would there be any more? How about the Primarchs? And can we say we can assign a nationality to them?

Nationality is a rather outdated concept in an empire of a million star systems.

There are various regiments, and chapters which follow specific nations during specific periods.
Some just follow the general theme of a period rather than a specific nation.

There's a lot of ways to think about this, but it's likely that a lot of racial characteristics would have slowly disappeared over 40K years without any evolutionary drive to sustain them, and the level of mixing that would have occurred.

Tech level has a lot of to with this too. Even on the hottest, harshest desert planets, most colonizers would have had the clothing and shelter technology to suppress most evolutionary impetus to develop darker skin. Feral worlds might be a different story though, if they've been feral a long enough time. Remember, human evolution took much, much longer than the 38,000 year gap between now and .

But it's your game. Do whatever you please. I imagine that most armies in 40K are made of of pasty white guys because, well, have you ever looked at a picture of the 40K design team?

I think a lot of people have the instinct to paint their troops like themselves. Much like how you tend to play similar characters in an RPG that allows you to change your looks.

Remember, human evolution took much, much longer than the 38,000 year gap between now and

Theres theories out there to the effect that evolution actually happens much faster than you'd think. In addition to a slow gradual change, you get very rapid shifts punctuating long periods of relative stability.

I think a lot of people have the instinct to paint their troops like themselves. Much like how you tend to play similar characters in an RPG that allows you to change your looks.

I always, always play a black man if possible in games and gak. God knows why because I'm as pale as you can get. My IG are probably going to be brown skinned as well ~ but at least this time I tell myself it's because I have brown paint but no 'skin' coloured paint

Well there are going to be people who choose absolute opposites from themselves...
That's actually not uncommon.

well, remember some space marines recruit from their own chapter worlds, and depending on the planet it will ultimately reflect its original colonizers. I think most planets will have a distinct cultural or racial flair to them if they were reclaimed planets during the crusade. This would be due to their thousands of years of isolation. Let's say, if a planet was founded by a large group of people hailing originally from mongolia/russia region they would obviously have the greatest majority on said planet when colonized, Now, fast forward a few thousand years with very little new genes and you will have homogenized that entire planet to have some sort of asian racial features. Now if a chapter, such as the White Scars, exclusively recruits from that planet, then almost all of their marines will have asian features. I imagine the planets that have the most intergalactic trade and the more recently colonized planets will have a huge variety of races on them, as they have not had a chance to intermingle and homogenized, and of course, the greater traveling groups, like on Terra, will have been completely homogenized to have a little bit of every racial feature (what that may look like, I have no idea, I would just assume its not GWs ultra white interpretation)

Every world will have formed its own distinct ethnicity(s) over the 20,000 years since they were first settled. Especially if they don't get a lot of off world travelers like most marine recruiting planets would.

And since most chapters recruit from only one or two planets they will inevitably reflect the physical traits of the inhabitants, combined with the traits the geneseed gives them.


Skin color will be an odd variable because the marine body can alter the level of melanin in their skin fairly rapidly to counter increased solar radiation exposure. So if a marine chapter has many deployments in areas with lots of solar radiation they may have a darker skin color than they would have naturally.

The geneseed of chapters can also make certain changes to a chapters physical appearance. The Raven Guard geneseed makes them extremely pale and causes their hair and eyes darken considerably. I also think the Carcharodons exhibit strange alterations in their appearance. I think their skin goes geryish and their eyes go completely black. There are probably more but they are ones i can think of off the top of my head.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Skin color will be an odd variable because the marine body can alter the level of melanin in their skin fairly rapidly to counter increased solar radiation exposure. So if a marine chapter has many deployments in areas with lots of solar radiation they may have a darker skin color than they would have naturally.

Only if they expect to get out of their armour

The Slamanders Chapter of thr Space Marines skin was very dark in color due to there volcanic world and so were some of the Catachacan models.

If a chapter is fleet based it will generally recruit from many different worlds. The only thing you need to have to be recruited is the right genes to become a Astartes. Colour doesn't come into it, so many chapters could be quite diverse.

The Salamanders are ebon-skinned. As in, blacker than the blackest black times infinity. They're not a Chapter of what we would consider blacks in the 21st century. They're, literally, black. With red eyes.

Their black skin is also as a result of a geneseed mutation and its reaction to the radiation on Nocturne. The native population is actually white, paler than the most reclusive nerd.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Salamanders are ebon-skinned. As in, blacker than the blackest black times infinity. They're not a Chapter of what we would consider blacks in the 21st century. They're, literally, black. With red eyes.

Amusingly enough, they were originally black, like African. At some point I guess GW was worried about issues of ethnicity, and changed them to be literally black. Seems kinda silly to worry about.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The Salamanders are ebon-skinned. As in, blacker than the blackest black times infinity. They're not a Chapter of what we would consider blacks in the 21st century. They're, literally, black. With red eyes.

Amusingly enough, they were originally black, like African. At some point I guess GW was worried about issues of ethnicity, and changed them to be literally black. Seems kinda silly to worry about.

Allegedly Rick Priestly originally intended them to be BLACK, but the Eavy Metal department misinterpreted it as African and the recent 'retcon' was to return things to the way they were originally meant to be.

LOL. Because GW is this gigantic impersonal operation, and somehow the idea went from concept to publication without Rick looking at the early models and saying "Wait..."

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
LOL. Because GW is this gigantic impersonal operation, and somehow the idea went from concept to publication without Rick looking at the early models and saying "Wait..."

Pretty much GW's Standard Operating Procedure.

Don't forget this was during the era when GW decided that all Orcs/Orks are always green.

Then someone pointed out the Citadel Colour range contained a paint named Orc Brown..

I always liked salamanders being black dudes, but being black black is pretty bad-ass too.

I don't have many unhelmeted marines in my ultramarine orce, and any who are are white, but that is more due to a lack on brown paints than anything.

The fluff doesn't tend to mention ethnicity, but many chapters have geneseed deficiancys which alter thier appearence. Salamanders are super black, while Raven Guard become almost pure white over time.

Just paint them as you like, (although marine scout heads look like white dudes on steroids, imo), the bald marine sgt heads work just as well as black guys, or any other colour for that matter.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Salamanders are ebon-skinned. As in, blacker than the blackest black times infinity. They're not a Chapter of what we would consider blacks in the 21st century. They're, literally, black. With red eyes.

That is a relatively recent development.

Read Index Astartes. They didn't suffer from some fething "genetic defect" that gave them ebon skin and red eyes.

They were just black guys, lol.

I know they started out as black dudes, but that's not where we're at now, is it?

Pretty much what everyone else has said. In a universe covered in violent aliens eating planets and daemons wanting to eat your soul worrying about ethnicity isn't really a thing. A human is a human. Now, economic status is something else entirely.

As for the ethnicity of Space Marine chapters as has been stated the geneseed pretty well determines that. What starts out as a recruit usually bares little resemblance to the finished product. They take on many of the physical and personality traits of their founding primarch.

Isn't is kinda random? Like the Crimson Fists seem to be a bit hispanic if you guess from the names.

Kinda.

Personally, I don't care if people give their SM some ethnic traits, as we understand them here in M3. If you want Asian SM, Black SM, Bolivian SM... go right ahead. It's a big galaxy and there's a whole lotta different kinds of humans.

Humanity has changed a lot in the last 38,000 year.

There weren't any white folk 38,000 years ago.
'Ethnic diversity' has happened in this time.
To say there wouldn't be any further blending in another 38,000 years hence is at best shortsighted and at worst, wrong.

There wasn't any WRITTEN language. There were spoken languages, but nothing laid down and codified because the mainly nomadic cultures didn't need it.

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Isn't is kinda random? Like the Crimson Fists seem to be a bit hispanic if you guess from the names.

Well, there are two ways to answer that:
1. The original colonists of Rynn's World were all of primarily Hispanic descent. Thus even if they are now no longer completely Hispanic the last names remain.
2. Games Workshop wanted to make them Hispanic. The same way the Grey Knights are all members of the Spanish Inquisition and the Ultramarines are Romans.

White scars are Crimean, not mogoloid.

One of th things about 40k is that race is a xenobiological thing. Humans are simply humans. Humans with black skin are still humans.

Have black SM. just don't put any emphasis on it and for god's sake don't pretend that you're better than anyone else because some of your toy soldiers have brown skin.

Also Hun =\= Mongol.

I think Crimea was settled by either the Huns or the Mongols. Or one of the other many nomadic tribes from the Asian steppes who had a very similar culture.

The White Scars were meant to evoke the imagery and feel of nomadic horse warriors of the Mongolian, Hun, Tatar, etc persuasion.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I think Crimea was settled by either the Huns or the Mongols. Or one of the other many nomadic tribes from the Asian steppes who had a very similar culture.

The White Scars were meant to evoke the imagery and feel of nomadic horse warriors of the Mongolian, Hun, Tatar, etc persuasion.

Crimea is basically step people.

The only reason gengis khan is called khan is because that is how western history remembers him as a khan. This tenuous link is the only from the white scars to the Mongols.

Scars like raids with extreme prejudice. Neither the Huns nor the Mongols fought raids. They fought full blown wars. The fact that the steppe encourages horse mounted warfare is irrelevant.

Crimeans were a settled nomadic people who were into skirmishes rather than wars.