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Space Marine Chaplains are cool, we can't argue this, but I can't help but feel that they're under explored. The 40k wiki has a bit more information on them than Lexicanum http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Chaplain
But there are some things I want to know; for example, the Chaplains in training, are they just rank and file marines, would they be part of the old Reclusiam command squad, or a squad sergeant? If one would be a sergeant, how would his helmet look, black, red, striped?
And what about Chaplain promotion? Are veteran Chaplains promoted to look after the 1st company, or is an especially pious veteran promoted to Chaplain?
My final question is quite specific, it concerns Chaplain Cassius. What would his helmet look like? A normal skull, a Mk. IV helmet, or would he be THAT anti-nid he'd wear a Gaunt skull?

Cheers in advance guys, and lets open this up in a general conversation about those black clad part animals.

In response to your first question I always was told that before becoming a Chaplain they were just marines who showed great trust in the emperor and so on.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Chaplain has got some really interesting information on Chaplains, especially the "Becoming a Chaplain" part.

Chaplains are drawn from the ranks of the Chapter, although only those Space Marines who have earned both Merit and Devout badges are considered for a Chaplaincy. These awards may be displayed as actual badges, or for example as diagonal stripes painted across the right shoulder plate. As a first step, a Space Marine is singled out to aid the Chaplain of his company as a Novice (or sometimes Initiate; the terms are almost interchangeable in each Chapter).

I'm not sure how many different ranks of Chaplains there are or how they're split between companies, but in general it seems like the Master of Sanctity and the Reclusiarch tend to the spiritual needs of their entire chapter, with regular Chaplains joining and caring for individual companies.

Since this is a general Chaplain thread I'd like to ask if anyone happens to know any books where Chaplains play a large part. I've already read Helsreach which is really good and I've heard that Ben Counter's Grey Knights series also have a Chaplain as a somewhat major character.

The Salamander books have some parts of it told by a chaplains point of view.

 b-man wrote:
The Salamander books have some parts of it told by a chaplains point of view.

Sounds good. I will look into getting those books, thanks!

Don't ever trust 40k wikia. It considers fanfiction canon.

Yeah Walrus speaks the truth. I wouldn't trust anything that the 40k wiki says unless i could verify it somewhere else.

As for becoming a Chaplain, I've always imagined that marines who do nothing but pray in the off time and who chant the battle hymns the loudest and who are good at inspiring their brothers might get tapped on the shoulder and told to go see the Master of sanctity about furthering their abilities.

While I get that 40k wiki takes the 'wiki' part to extremes it is nice to have more than one paragraph on some topics ala lexicanum.

Somewhat topical: The only character from the movie "Ultramarines" that I actually liked was the chaplain.

MarsNZ wrote:
While I get that 40k wiki takes the 'wiki' part to extremes it is nice to have more than one paragraph on some topics ala lexicanum.

Having more then one paragraph isn't any good when its not even remotely canon.

MarsNZ wrote:
Somewhat topical: The only character from the movie "Ultramarines" that I actually liked was the chaplain.

Thats because he was voiced by the amazing John Hurt.

My understanding of chaplains on this.

There are a total of 10 chaplains per chapter, (more in BA but lets no go into that)
normally 1 chaplain is assigned to a company.
Of the 10 chaplains there is 1 head chaplain that is in charge of all the other chaplains
Since they are ranked as an HQ my assumption would be that they have rank over every member in the company they are assigned to and answers only to the captain for that company.

 Snrub wrote:
As for becoming a Chaplain, I've always imagined that marines who do nothing but pray in the off time and who chant the battle hymns the loudest and who are good at inspiring their brothers might get tapped on the shoulder and told to go see the Master of sanctity about furthering their abilities.

That sounds like most of the BT chapter to me

Yes competition to become a Chaplain the the Black Templars is fierce!

 Fervor wrote:
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Chaplain has got some really interesting information on Chaplains, especially the "Becoming a Chaplain" part.

Chaplains are drawn from the ranks of the Chapter, although only those Space Marines who have earned both Merit and Devout badges are considered for a Chaplaincy. These awards may be displayed as actual badges, or for example as diagonal stripes painted across the right shoulder plate. As a first step, a Space Marine is singled out to aid the Chaplain of his company as a Novice (or sometimes Initiate; the terms are almost interchangeable in each Chapter).

I'm not sure how many different ranks of Chaplains there are or how they're split between companies, but in general it seems like the Master of Sanctity and the Reclusiarch tend to the spiritual needs of their entire chapter, with regular Chaplains joining and caring for individual companies.

Since this is a general Chaplain thread I'd like to ask if anyone happens to know any books where Chaplains play a large part. I've already read Helsreach which is really good and I've heard that Ben Counter's Grey Knights series also have a Chaplain as a somewhat major character.

Angels of Darkness and the Purging of Kadillus follow chaplins from DA chapter.

and as far as i can tell DA's have quite a few Chaplins in there companies...

Perhaps this might be of interest - it's a straight copypaste out of the Index Astartes article on Chaplains that GW published a "few" years back in White Dwarf: http://redelf.narod.ru/w40k/ia/w40k_ia_smc.html

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Don't ever trust 40k wikia. It considers fanfiction canon.

Technically, this would not be wrong.
The nonexistence of a singular "truth" for the setting means that anything goes, and it does not matter much whether it results out of a GW codex, some novel, or the mind of a gamer. It is left to us to decide which source we wish to follow, but there is no such thing as an official hierarchy.

 Lynata wrote:
Perhaps this might be of interest - it's a straight copypaste out of the Index Astartes article on Chaplains that GW published a "few" years back in White Dwarf: http://redelf.narod.ru/w40k/ia/w40k_ia_smc.html

Good read, thank you!

 Lynata wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Don't ever trust 40k wikia. It considers fanfiction canon.

Technically, this would not be wrong.
The nonexistence of a singular "truth" for the setting means that anything goes, and it does not matter much whether it results out of a GW codex, some novel, or the mind of a gamer. It is left to us to decide which source we wish to follow, but there is no such thing as an official hierarchy.

The entire point of having a wiki is that you're not supposed to make stuff up. Calling it a wiki while still accepting fanfiction claiming that the Emperor is a platypus defeats the purpouse of having the wiki in the first place.

The Emperor is a platypus? I knew we shouldn't have trusted him!

(but the point is 2nd by me)

In the Heresy Dark Angel books, there is a character who's name escapes me who goes on to become a chaplain.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:The entire point of having a wiki is that you're not supposed to make stuff up. Calling it a wiki while still accepting fanfiction claiming that the Emperor is a platypus defeats the purpouse of having the wiki in the first place.

I know what you mean, but at the same point I could make that argument against Lexicanum for its editor-driven mixing and matching of random sources, completely discarding the notion that many of them are not meant to fit together. At this point, the merger itself becomes "fan-fiction", as the respective author takes it upon himself to decide how to resolve potential conflicts, what to include and what to dismiss.

What would be an accurate approach would be a wiki that, rather than trying to throw everything into a single coherent text, lists the information on a topic as separate sections, so that the reader himself may choose what to adopt and what to discard. Unfortunately, we do not have such a wiki yet.
Some articles on Lexicanum have a "canon conflict" section, but just about every 2nd article should have one when you compare the actual sources, not to mention the many things still missing there.

Don't get me wrong, I still like Lexicanum for actually listing sources in the first place. It's a great place to start your research, but I still recommend reading the stuff for yourself rather than just swallowing how some editor thought it would fit together.

Apologies for the off-topic "rant".

 Lynata wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I still like Lexicanum for actually listing sources in the first place. It's a great place to start your research, but I still recommend reading the stuff for yourself rather than just swallowing how some editor thought it would fit together.

This is a good rule of thumb for everything really, even this site. Don't believe it? Don't. Look it up yourself.