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I've been tinkering with a homebrew Marine chapter for a few years now, adding to the fluff here and there which is mainly influenced in part by the models I've bought.

I know the command structures of a Space Marine Chapter generally consists of:

Chapter Master

- Armoury
- Apothecarion
- Librarius
- Reclusiam

Then each company gets an Apothecary, Librarian, Chaplain etc.

For my Chapter I don't want to use Chaplains really, I'd prefer the Chapter to be more interested in scholarly pursuits and learning. So, I'd have the Librarians essentially fulfilling a dual role of Chapter Mentors/Traditional Psyckers.

The idea I had was that the Chapter believe totally in the Emperor as their overall Commander but very much like how a modern solider would potentially view a ruling Monarch or Head of State rather than as a religious deity. To that end, they value the science of the Golden Throne for example and the psychic arts as they are to an extent learned skills but they don't put a huge amount of stock in religion.

My thinking is there would be a Chaplain present within the Chapter to cater for the sort of link back to the Emperor from a ceremonial perspective but not from the Codex description.

Anyway that's more just a selection of random musings, what I want to know and would to discuss is:

- Is there a precedent for this?
- Would it be considered the height of heresy?
- Is it too "Great Crusade" in nature (Imperial Truth vs. 40K God-Emperor)
- Is this, ultimately, a load of old rubbish?

Precedent
There is arguably precedent for Marines having 'scholarly pursuits' with the way the Ultramarines are well-versed in governorship of their fiefs/regions.

Heresy
Most definitely so. But the Ecclessiarchy has always had a bee in its bonnet over the lack Emperor-worship in many Chapters. Chapters like the Black Templars that worship the Emperor as a God, rather than deify him as the embodiment of what mankind should aspire to, are the exception not the rule.

'Great Crusade'
As above, most Chapters don't worship the Emperor as a literal God. But your Chapter would certainly have to keep their very secular views private if they expect tolerance, let alone assistance, from their brethren.
It might be said that pioneering scientific advancement and the like is too naive for the grim realities of the 40th millennium. I'd personally tweak your Chapters ideology so that they are doing their best to preserve knowledge and places of learning/research in the Imperium, rather than encouraging it.

Rubbish
Your biggest problem is that one of the roles of a Chaplain is to weed out corruption on an individual level, leaving your guys very susceptible to the influence of the ruinous powers. And before you say Librarians, that's exactly where the chaotic touch is most likely to start.
There should be something in place to counter this.

At the end of the day though? Your guys dude, come up with whatever you like. Good to see you putting thought into it.

Space Wolves effectively do something similar - they don't have Chaplains, and their Apothecaries take on the duties of both Librarians and Chaplains (other than the psychic ones, of course).

Interesting, thanks very much for your responses

I must admit my knowledge of the role of the Chaplains and the position the chapters took in relation to the worship of the Emperor was quite off.

Think I'll try and model something to fill the role the Chaplains normally fulfil from a rooting out heresy perspective as you say Humble Guardsman there should be something in there to ensure that's covered.

Maybe something like an internal Chapter Inquisition (not in the literal 40k sense) or maybe a sort of a mechanism for internally policing it. Main reason I'm not wanting Chaplains if I'm honest is more the miniatures than anything so it'll work quite nicely

 foostick wrote:
Main reason I'm not wanting Chaplains if I'm honest is more the miniatures than anything so it'll work quite nicely

Well then, just don't bring Chaplains to the battlefield. While the stereotypical Chaplain leads from the front yours could be more of the scholarly type that stay back from the fighting. They can still look out for corruption, bless battlegear and exhort their battle-brothers to great deeds.

And perhaps your Chapter also has too few of them to go around - it's simply hard to find recruits with the right qualities.

Your Apothecaries could do the keeping-the-chapter-pure duties.

Yeah very few chapters actually worship the old empie, chaplains are there to make sure corruption doesn't spread

Having the apothecarions fulfill this dual role seems reasonable to me, also opens up for some really unique looking models

You could essentially have "atheist Chaplains" who are purely there for the psychological well-being of their Chapter, watching for Chaos corruption without the religious overtones. The other thing is that you don't need to use the official miniature if you don't want to; paint/convert a guy differently to your other Marines, give him some kind of mace, and say "this is my Chaplain". Or not. The Chaplains in your Chapter could be tank commanders or bike sergeants, if you really wanted. Just as the Space Wolves and other Chapters play around with the duties of their Apothecaries, Techmarines, Librarians, Captains, Chaplains, etc, you can too.

Chaplains adhere to the Chapter Cult anyway, not to the Imperial Creed. As mentioned, most Space Marines do not worship the Emperor as a god.
The role of a chaplain is different from Chapter to Chapter, so you can make it whatever you like. You could even abandon the Codex Astartes and leave out Chaplains entirely like the Space Wolves or Iron Hands. Just make sure there is someone else who watches for corruption (like the Wolf Priests in the SW or Iron Fathers in the IH)

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Space Wolves effectively do something similar - they don't have Chaplains, and their Apothecaries take on the duties of both Librarians and Chaplains (other than the psychic ones, of course).

To be fair, I think it'd be more accurate to say their Chaplains take on additional duties, Wolf Priests have always functioned largely as a Chaplain equivalent, just like Rune Priests largely function as Librarian equivalents.

I would argue that Apothecary is a far, far larger role in the general scheme of things than Chaplain - a Chaplain has to turn a good speech and provide a sympathetic ear and good advice. An Apothecary is not only responsible for battlefield aid and progenoid recovery, he's also responsible for selecting initiates, both overseeing and participating in the implantation process, maintaining and monitoring Marines' pseudoadult health and working with the techmarines to attach augmetics. It's a massive full-time job and the fact that most chapters only have maybe three apothecaries is an absolute joke.

Where'd you get the fluff for "most Chapters only have 3 apothecaries"? Blood Angels have at least 2 Apothecaries per Company.


Also, a BA Successor Chapter would totally work, as Sanguinary Priests sort of double as Chaplains. It's always kind of irritated me that they still have Chaplains when Sanguinary Priests are their primary religious leaders and maintain the Marines' psychological health.

Thanks for all the input so far, really interesting stuff. Really don't know why I had it in my head that the chapters worshiped the Emperor as a God. Think I've just had a temporary brain lapse

I like the idea of having the Apothecary take on some of the traditional Chaplain duties, could give some really interesting possibilities.

Thanks again!

Most of the Space Marine novels seem to act like all Space Marines are insane zealots of the God-Emperor. In all the codices, however, they're insane zealots of the man-Emperor.

 dusara217 wrote:
Where'd you get the fluff for "most Chapters only have 3 apothecaries"? Blood Angels have at least 2 Apothecaries per Company.


Also, a BA Successor Chapter would totally work, as Sanguinary Priests sort of double as Chaplains. It's always kind of irritated me that they still have Chaplains when Sanguinary Priests are their primary religious leaders and maintain the Marines' psychological health.

Blood Angels still look to Chaplains for spiritual guidance/psychological well-being, and the Chaplains are the ones who are vigilant for signs of the Black Rage. The Sanguinary Priests just serve a more spiritual role than other chapters due to their knowledge of the Red Thirst and the power of their blood. Sanguinary Priests did not replace Chaplains in the Blood Angels chapter, they both actually fulfill larger roles than in most chapters.

Why don't you have a chapter that has a Reclusiam, and a chaplain per company as per the codex astartes to not attract suspision, but have it so that they are miss trusted due to the natural pragmatism of the chapter, borderline civil wars have nearly started in the chapter at times with the chaplains attempting to take control of a company due to their views that the captains are heretical for their views, even consulting and scheming with the Ecclessiarchy to enforce their views. Shadow wars have happened at times, with certain members on both sides being assassinated.

This means that the chaplains are usually withdrawn from the grand scheme of the chapter, still maintaining the role of the mental well being of the standard marines, but not in a position to wield strategic power. In battle situations they are used 'liberally' tending to be thrown into the breach by the captains as a throwaway commodity.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I would argue that Apothecary is a far, far larger role in the general scheme of things than Chaplain - a Chaplain has to turn a good speech and provide a sympathetic ear and good advice. An Apothecary is not only responsible for battlefield aid and progenoid recovery, he's also responsible for selecting initiates, both overseeing and participating in the implantation process, maintaining and monitoring Marines' pseudoadult health and working with the techmarines to attach augmetics. It's a massive full-time job and the fact that most chapters only have maybe three apothecaries is an absolute joke.

Right and I won't disagree with that, but the Apothecary aspect of the Wolf Priest has always been presented as a secondary function in terms of how people see the Wolf Priest. They've never been built into the army the way Apothecaries have in SM armies, are not shown as carrying Nartheciums, and they've always filled the same tabletop and story roles of a Chaplain.

The position of Chaplain is extremely critical and is an absolute must in every Chapter, attending to the spiritual and mental health of a posthuman killing machine is extremely important lest said posthuman killing machine decides to turn on its masters. The Chaplains watch all, everybody from the lowly Scout to the almighty Chapter Master to ensure their piety. It's a system of checks and balances to ensure the Chapter isn't corrupted to Chaos, and there's a reason why Chapters turn from the Emperor a lot less than they did during the days of Legions.

There's at least 35 studio Chapters that venerate the Emperor as a divine being. It's not particularly uncommon amongst Third and later Founding Chapters.

This makes sense, of course, because the people in those Chapters grew up in Imperial society, surrounded by the influence of the Ecclesiarchy.

 Wyzilla wrote:


The position of Chaplain is extremely critical and is an absolute must in every Chapter, attending to the spiritual and mental health of a posthuman killing machine is extremely important lest said posthuman killing machine decides to turn on its masters. The Chaplains watch all, everybody from the lowly Scout to the almighty Chapter Master to ensure their piety. It's a system of checks and balances to ensure the Chapter isn't corrupted to Chaos, and there's a reason why Chapters turn from the Emperor a lot less than they did during the days of Legions.

I agree with this, I think where I'm looking at it from is to have a division within the Chapter that basically polices themselves that isn't identified as a Chaplain. I was thinking of more of an internal security type affair that would be essentially counts as Chaplains.

Think there'd be more aligned to the Inquisition though than the Ecclessiarchy potentially.

Don't know, this all stems realistically from the models and general concept of the Chaplains leaving me a bit cold. I want to keep what I'm doing consistent with established fluff and background so that's the main reason I'm trying to find something that works in the context of the setting.

It's a tough one to balance - totally agree they fulfil a function that can't be ignored in a Loyalist chapter, I just don't care for them!

Chaplains aren't really aligned with the ecclesiarchy. They're given the Rosarius as a kind of symbolic "we trust you to do the thing" gesture, but unlike Techmarines and the AdMech, there's no cross-training going on. A Chaplain's loyalty is only to the chapter.

Hypothetically, if a Space Marine Chapter were to exterminate it's reclusiarchy, how exactly would the Inquisition react? How would the Inquisition even have any idea that they didn't have any more Chaplains? Like has been previously stated, the Chaplains could just have a more scholarly role than in most Chapters, and therefore not be on the battlefield very often. If the Inquisition weren't to find out, then it would be perfectly plausible for said Chapter to just have Apothecaries take over the role of safeguarding the Space Marines' psyches along with their bodies.

The Inquisition aren't too happy with the idea of Chaplains anyway - only Inquisitors can be trusted to safeguard the spiritual purity of Imperial subjects, and wasn't this whole 'chapter cult' thing what caused the Heresy in the first place?

Eh, I would think the Ecclesiarchy is more interested in the "spiritual purity" thing than the Inquisition is. The Inquisition just roots out the impure, in whatever form it may take.

I was speaking from the Inquisition's point of view. As far as they're concerned, the Ecclesiarchy are a bunch of heretics-in-waiting growing fat off the Imperium.

 foostick wrote:
For my Chapter I don't want to use Chaplains really, I'd prefer the Chapter to be more interested in scholarly pursuits and learning. So, I'd have the Librarians essentially fulfilling a dual role of Chapter Mentors/Traditional Psyckers.

The idea I had was that the Chapter believe totally in the Emperor as their overall Commander but very much like how a modern solider would potentially view a ruling Monarch or Head of State rather than as a religious deity. To that end, they value the science of the Golden Throne for example and the psychic arts as they are to an extent learned skills but they don't put a huge amount of stock in religion.

Something I'd like to point out from a real-life perspective is that this idea that religion is a counter to the sciences and learning is actually a very modern concept. In the Middle Ages, it was the church who founded universities and devoted themselves to the study of the world around them - the Renaissance and Enlightenment weren't the result of atheism, perhaps the other way round being more true.

And on that note, perhaps academic dress (or graduation robes as we call it today) could provide a nice inspiration for your theme.