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Are they successor chapters or is it still right that there are loads of new chapters founded with primaris astartes and don’t have any understanding of their gene heritage? I’m doing a custom chapter and want a bit of cannon to help me along with my head cannon.

I think I’ve even heard suggestions that there might be some created using gene seed from all the original 18 primarchs????? Or is that just community cannon?

mrFickle wrote:
Are they successor chapters or is it still right that there are loads of new chapters founded with primaris astartes and don’t have any understanding of their gene heritage? I’m doing a custom chapter and want a bit of cannon to help me along with my head cannon.

I think I’ve even heard suggestions that there might be some created using gene seed from all the original 18 primarchs????? Or is that just community cannon?

In the Dark Imperium novel Cawl asks Guilliman whether he's allowed to use geneseed of not just the loyalist primarchs. Guilliman declines the request. That's what's canon.

People then theorized due to the shady nature of Cawl whether he used traitor geneseed nevertheless without telling Bobby. But as far as I know there's no fluff to support it (yet? I've seen talk about traitor Primaris in Arks of Omen but haven't read it myself).

Any Chapter that isn't the continuation of one of the Legions is a Successor Chapter.

The Ultima Founding was made up of Chapters entirely formed of Primaris Marines.

There was speculation that some Primaris Chapters were descended from non-Loyalist sources but that idea was extrapolated from a Cawl quote where Guilliman forbids any Chapter to be made using non-Loyalist geneseed. Cawl responds by saying the science was sound and that it was just the Traitor Primarchs and their followers that were flawed.
Cawl being Cawl and having direct access to all the Primarchs genetic profiles means that it is technically a possibility.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
(yet? I've seen talk about traitor Primaris in Arks of Omen but haven't read it myself).

Not traitors, per se. The events in Arks of Omen resulted in a massive wave of insanity that affected everyone involved except the Sisters of Silence, Grey Knights, and Custodes. It drove those affected into a battle hungry madness but the internet doing what it does decided that meant they all turned to Chaos(they didn't).

Eh, it's something that is opened up by the event.

 Gert wrote:
There was speculation that some Primaris Chapters were descended from non-Loyalist sources but that idea was extrapolated from a Cawl quote where Guilliman forbids any Chapter to be made using non-Loyalist geneseed. Cawl responds by saying the science was sound and that it was just the Traitor Primarchs and their followers that were flawed.
Cawl being Cawl and having direct access to all the Primarchs genetic profiles means that it is technically a possibility.

And there are a few Primaris-only Chapters whose colour schemes are suspiciously close to those employed by the original Legions, before they turned Traitor.

mrFickle wrote:
Are they successor chapters or is it still right that there are loads of new chapters founded with primaris astartes and don’t have any understanding of their gene heritage? I’m doing a custom chapter and want a bit of cannon to help me along with my head cannon.

I think I’ve even heard suggestions that there might be some created using gene seed from all the original 18 primarchs????? Or is that just community cannon?

They are Successors to <SOMETHING> this doesn't mean they're carbon copy successors or that anyone still knows what they are Successors of - they can be DIY Divergent. I suppose technically you'd know what they are successors of because they started as Grey Shields with their Gene Sire Legion/Chapter shoulder pad - but with the nature/nurture debate, as well as multiple facets of each Primarch a successor can still be as different as the Imperial Fists and the Black Templar.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Gert wrote:
There was speculation that some Primaris Chapters were descended from non-Loyalist sources but that idea was extrapolated from a Cawl quote where Guilliman forbids any Chapter to be made using non-Loyalist geneseed. Cawl responds by saying the science was sound and that it was just the Traitor Primarchs and their followers that were flawed.
Cawl being Cawl and having direct access to all the Primarchs genetic profiles means that it is technically a possibility.

And there are a few Primaris-only Chapters whose colour schemes are suspiciously close to those employed by the original Legions, before they turned Traitor.

Interesting, like who?

Sons of the Phoenix for example.

So should I ask the question the other way round, do any of the newly founded primaris chapters have any idea of their gene heritage and count themselves as successors.

Do they care about such things?

I recall an Ultimas founding chapter of space wolves successors, they where aware of their heritage. One if the characters was rather upset not to meet the space wolves chapter and never seeing Fenris.

I would guess that all new founded chapters are aware of their gen line and at least some of the traditions that go with it

mrFickle wrote:
So should I ask the question the other way round, do any of the newly founded primaris chapters have any idea of their gene heritage and count themselves as successors.

Do they care about such things?

They are always Successors, regardless of their knowledge of their Founding Chapter. Only the original 9 Loyalist Legions can be non-Successors.

As for newly founded Chapters, lineage is still often important to many but not all. This was sometimes only down to individual squads or even individual Astartes, such as in the novel The Wolftime where a Space Wolf Greyshield seeks out copies of Fenrisian lore books and histories to learn about his Chapter culture, while other times entire Chapters sought answers to their origins.
Some took to their Founder's teachings and creed, such as the Covenant of Fire eagerly adopting the Promethean Cult, while others all but ignored them, such as the Prime Absolvers who don't believe in bearing the shame of the Fallen as an Unforgiven Chapter.
The Ultima Founding Chapters are as varied as any other Founding, keeping the tradition of homebrew Chapters being an entirely blank slate.

 Gert wrote:
Any Chapter that isn't the continuation of one of the Legions is a Successor Chapter.

The Ultima Founding was made up of Chapters entirely formed of Primaris Marines.

There was speculation that some Primaris Chapters were descended from non-Loyalist sources but that idea was extrapolated from a Cawl quote where Guilliman forbids any Chapter to be made using non-Loyalist geneseed. Cawl responds by saying the science was sound and that it was just the Traitor Primarchs and their followers that were flawed.
Cawl being Cawl and having direct access to all the Primarchs genetic profiles means that it is technically a possibility.

There was a short story in White Dwarf where the Torchbearers brought Primaris Marines and gene-seed to the Blood Ravens, who are widely suspected to be Thousand Sons descendants.

mrFickle wrote:
Are they successor chapters or is it still right that there are loads of new chapters founded with primaris astartes and don’t have any understanding of their gene heritage? I’m doing a custom chapter and want a bit of cannon to help me along with my head cannon.

I think I’ve even heard suggestions that there might be some created using gene seed from all the original 18 primarchs????? Or is that just community cannon?

there are only 9 chapters that are not successor chapters. Even if they don’t know their lineage or origin they’re still successor chapters.

I find it doubtful there are any new primaris chapters with unknown lineages.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
There was a short story in White Dwarf where the Torchbearers brought Primaris Marines and gene-seed to the Blood Ravens, who are widely suspected to be Thousand Sons descendants.

That theory was largely based off of two things. The first was a vision had by a Psyker in A Thousand Sons where "Ravens of blood" are mentioned. The other was a HH short story where a Loyalist Tson who was thought to maybe become a Blood Raven. However, that Tson became Janus, the first Grand Master of the Grey Knights.
That the Chapter has in the past had a single individual take the roles of Chapter Master and Chief Librarian however this was only after their Chapter command had been decimated by the Alpha Legion in its earliest years.
They do have a strong Librarius but so do other Chapters.
It's an interesting fan theory but one that doesn't hold much weight anymore IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
I find it doubtful there are any new primaris chapters with unknown lineages.

Chapters might have just been defrosted and sent off into the void with nothing but a "Good luck" from Papa Cawl. Or they could have it hidden from them. Heck the Soul Drinkers got refounded and still don't know if they're really Sons of Dorn or not.

Cawl made at least one chapter that does not know which primarch(s)’ gene seed it has. He made an entire chapter of primaris soul drinkers, none of whom have ever met a firstborn soul drinker as far as anyone knows, and the original chapter didn’t know their gene seed anyway.

If a player wanted to build a chapter that is the same age as the ultima founding, they could do the same thing. Make up a firstborn chapter that is destroyed before the ultima founding and then re-founded by cawl.

There are chapters with unknown or mixed gene seed who were given the technology to derive the new primaris organs from their existing firstborn sets, but not given any actual primaris organs, so it’s not necessary for cawl to have known the soul drinkers’ primarch.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
Are they successor chapters or is it still right that there are loads of new chapters founded with primaris astartes and don’t have any understanding of their gene heritage? I’m doing a custom chapter and want a bit of cannon to help me along with my head cannon.

I think I’ve even heard suggestions that there might be some created using gene seed from all the original 18 primarchs????? Or is that just community cannon?

In the Dark Imperium novel Cawl asks Guilliman whether he's allowed to use geneseed of not just the loyalist primarchs. Guilliman declines the request. That's what's canon.

People then theorized due to the shady nature of Cawl whether he used traitor geneseed nevertheless without telling Bobby. But as far as I know there's no fluff to support it (yet? I've seen talk about traitor Primaris in Arks of Omen but haven't read it myself).

It is very deliberately written fluff that allows the player base to both have and not have traitor legion successors as per personal preference. And GW can still come in later to confirm things either way.

Brickfix wrote:
I recall an Ultimas founding chapter of space wolves successors, they where aware of their heritage. One if the characters was rather upset not to meet the space wolves chapter and never seeing Fenris.

I would guess that all new founded chapters are aware of their gen line and at least some of the traditions that go with it

That wasn't uncommon for plot points. There was a UM Geneseed Primaris dude who was well and truly insulted he wasn't "good enough" to be a UM Battle brother and he got shunted off to (I think) the Nova Marines and he was fairly put out by that.

 Gert wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
There was a short story in White Dwarf where the Torchbearers brought Primaris Marines and gene-seed to the Blood Ravens, who are widely suspected to be Thousand Sons descendants.

That theory was largely based off of two things.

More from Dawn of War: Ascension and Tempest, where Ahriman practically turns to the camera and says 'Blood Ravens are Thousand Sons'...

pelicaniforce wrote:
Cawl made at least one chapter that does not know which primarch(s)’ gene seed it has. He made an entire chapter of primaris soul drinkers, none of whom have ever met a firstborn soul drinker as far as anyone knows, and the original chapter didn’t know their gene seed anyway.

If a player wanted to build a chapter that is the same age as the ultima founding, they could do the same thing. Make up a firstborn chapter that is destroyed before the ultima founding and then re-founded by cawl.

There are chapters with unknown or mixed gene seed who were given the technology to derive the new primaris organs from their existing firstborn sets, but not given any actual primaris organs, so it’s not necessary for cawl to have known the soul drinkers’ primarch.

It’s been a while since I read the soul drinkers omnibus but didn’t that all start with them trying to recover a relic left to them by their primarch, rogal dorn? Some sort of antimatter spear

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Gert wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
There was a short story in White Dwarf where the Torchbearers brought Primaris Marines and gene-seed to the Blood Ravens, who are widely suspected to be Thousand Sons descendants.

That theory was largely based off of two things.

More from Dawn of War: Ascension and Tempest, where Ahriman practically turns to the camera and says 'Blood Ravens are Thousand Sons'...

I also recall reading that their flagship has a tower of sorts where they confine battle brothers who succumb to something that isn't explicitly called the Flesh Change, but is basically the Flesh Change.

It’s been a while since I read the soul drinkers omnibus but didn’t that all start with them trying to recover a relic left to them by their primarch,

That is what the soul drinkers and some other chapters believe at the time, yes. Later they all believe something else.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
More from Dawn of War: Ascension and Tempest, where Ahriman practically turns to the camera and says 'Blood Ravens are Thousand Sons'...

Isn't that the series where Lelith Hesperax is a Slaaneshi worshipper who lives in the Eye of Terror, Terminators leap through the air, and small children destroy a Falcon tank with rocks?
Also, Ahriman isn't exactly a super trustworthy source of info, and IIRC he specifically needed an amnesiac Blood Raven Librarian to do something for him.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
I also recall reading that their flagship has a tower of sorts where they confine battle brothers who succumb to something that isn't explicitly called the Flesh Change, but is basically the Flesh Change.

It does have a super library where the Chapter records everything it can to prevent another massive loss of knowledge similar to their early years. Haven't ever seen anything to do with any sort of Flesh Change similarity.
Are you thinking about the Tower of the Lost on Baal where the Blood Angels put those who succumb to the Red Thirst and Black Rage?

a_typical_hero wrote:
Sons of the Phoenix for example.

SotP are a dumb meme. The only "evidence" they are not successors of the IF is fanon stating they are too different to IF... while being near copy-paste of Black Templars. Gee, BT must be traitor successors then too, eh?

mrFickle wrote:
So should I ask the question the other way round, do any of the newly founded primaris chapters have any idea of their gene heritage and count themselves as successors.

Do they care about such things?

Some do. Some don't. As always, it depends.

I like that one Salamander successor chapter that took one look at ISIS-like Promethean creed and decided 'screw this, we're outta here'. And when Salamanders sent chaplain to forcibly convert them to it anyway he 'mysteriously' disappeared

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
There was a short story in White Dwarf where the Torchbearers brought Primaris Marines and gene-seed to the Blood Ravens, who are widely suspected to be Thousand Sons descendants.

Eh, no. This old fanon too (which some BL authors absolutely hate, BTW, and would declare it wrong if they could in a heartbeat).

I personally like competing theory saying they are loyalist Word Bearers (which fits much better, too), but there are multiple other possibilities.

 Irbis wrote:
SotP are a dumb meme. The only "evidence" they are not successors of the IF is fanon stating they are too different to IF... while being near copy-paste of Black Templars. Gee, BT must be traitor successors then too, eh?

You are free to strawman and have an opinion, even if it is wrong.

In light of the conversation prior, Sons of the Phoenix is exactly the kind of chapter mrFickle is asking for.
The color scheme, the name and the chapter symbol are all pointing to Emperor's Children.

Given there is next to no fluff about them yet, saying they are "near copy-paste Black Templars" is as much of your own fanon injected into them, as the EC theory.

a_typical_hero wrote:
You are free to strawman and have an opinion, even if it is wrong.

Stop projecting and look in the mirror.

In light of the conversation prior, Sons of the Phoenix is exactly the kind of chapter mrFickle is asking for.
The color scheme, the name and the chapter symbol are all pointing to Emperor's Children.

Nice strawman. Pity it's completely and laughably wrong, by standards of lore from all editions.

Using this dumb logic, Black Templars must be successor of Dark Angels, since both have black armor, knightly theme and name, like crusading, swords, honor duels, hoods, etc, etc-- Oh wait

Not only this, but you're doubly wrong because SotP have wrong colors for EC (white armor), wrong name (referencing Phoenix, not Phoenicia like Fulgrim - and if GW really wanted to make them closet successors, they would call them Sons of Tyre or something), and wrong symbol (greek helmet and star that has gakall to do with EC), not to mention their demeanor is the exact opposite of anything EC ever did, but that is really just the final straw.

Given there is next to no fluff about them yet, saying they are "near copy-paste Black Templars" is as much of your own fanon injected into them, as the EC theory.

Except there is, their introductory blurb. Which you'd knew if you had any clue on the subject.

 Gert wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
More from Dawn of War: Ascension and Tempest, where Ahriman practically turns to the camera and says 'Blood Ravens are Thousand Sons'...

Isn't that the series where Lelith Hesperax is a Slaaneshi worshipper who lives in the Eye of Terror, Terminators leap through the air, and small children destroy a Falcon tank with rocks?
Also, Ahriman isn't exactly a super trustworthy source of info, and IIRC he specifically needed an amnesiac Blood Raven Librarian to do something for him.

Isn't Horus Heresy the series with Marines who surf on the outside of fighter craft, a guy who can resurrect from being atomised, and the Big Bad turned evil because of a magic sword? *shrug*

Besides which, the summersaulting Terminator and killing grav tanks with sticks are memes which don't happen. (haven't read the book with Lelith).

 Gert wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
I also recall reading that their flagship has a tower of sorts where they confine battle brothers who succumb to something that isn't explicitly called the Flesh Change, but is basically the Flesh Change.

It does have a super library where the Chapter records everything it can to prevent another massive loss of knowledge similar to their early years. Haven't ever seen anything to do with any sort of Flesh Change similarity.
Are you thinking about the Tower of the Lost on Baal where the Blood Angels put those who succumb to the Red Thirst and Black Rage?

Sounds like a reference to the Blood Ravens' Librarium Sanitorium from Index Astartes: Knowledge is Power, which is '...filled with the mad souls who have proven too weak to complete the final transformation into a Librarian. Here, these unfortunates are put to final use by the chapter before being ritually executed...'.

a_typical_hero wrote:
In light of the conversation prior, Sons of the Phoenix is exactly the kind of chapter mrFickle is asking for.
The color scheme, the name and the chapter symbol are all pointing to Emperor's Children.

Given there is next to no fluff about them yet, saying they are "near copy-paste Black Templars" is as much of your own fanon injected into them, as the EC theory.

That is untrue. On page 68 of the 9th Ed Marine Codex, the Sons of the Phoenix are identified as an Imperial Fists Successor Chapter and they are described as follows:

So they have been confirmed as a Successor of the Fists and they have had their background expanded.
Yeah, the thread is there as a possibility but it's almost entirely down to the name and a little bit the colour scheme.

 Irbis wrote:
I like that one Salamander successor chapter that took one look at ISIS-like Promethean creed and decided 'screw this, we're outta here'. And when Salamanders sent chaplain to forcibly convert them to it anyway he 'mysteriously' disappeared

That's not quite how it went.
The Black Vipers were identified as a Successor Chapter of the Salamanders, at which point the Salamanders sent a Chaplain to teach them the ways of the Promethean Cult. This Chaplain disappeared while the Vipers themselves actively shun contact with other Imperial forces. However, they are often found to be present in warzones where agents of Belisarius Cawl are also operating.

I thought salamanders chose not to have successors. We’re the black vipers created without their consultation because cawl had access to their gene stock

Cawl made Chapters from all the Loyalist Primarchs because he doesn't care about culture or sentiment.
And it's not that the Salamanders never had Successors past the Second Founding, it's that none were ever officially confirmed apart from the Black Dragons and even then that was only recent.