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So for this one, I'm looking for actual background references, rather than outright fan theories.

And it's pretty straight forward. We know from the Horus Heresy series that not insubstantial elements of the Traitor Legions remained loyal - either surviving/escaping Istvaan, or being garrison forces that never really got caught up in their brother's madness.

Now there was never enough to be repackaged into Legions - but post Second Founding, it's entirely possible they had numbers to be formed into chapters of their own.

But is their evidence, implied or implicit that such a thing happened? If memory serves, the Imperium has, at least once, dipped into non-Loyalist gene seed to help bolster numbers (and I think that might've been Guilliman ordering it?)

Remember, I'm not looking for outright fan theories - but ones built upon referenced, canonical background.

As far as I'm aware, there is no "actual background references" for the simple reason that we haven't gotten to that point yet.

I think it's been mentioned that quite a few became part of Garro's whole schtick though.

The only thing I can think to reference is the Blood Ravens book trilogy that was written to coincidence with the Dawn of War games. One book that had a whole lot of Ahriman talking in it seemed to imply that the Blood Ravens gene seed is actually from the Thousand Sons. That was a pretty loose implication though and no where near solid.

Paramar - IWs who hadn't even heard of their Legion's duplicity ended up fight the Alpha Legion. Barabas Dantioch was another Loyalist Iron Warrior.

There's also Arvida of the Thousand Sons, who joins (but leaves?) the White Scars.

There's a whole host of other individuals - Knights Errant etc.

As for chapters...
Blood Ravens - Thousand Sons
Iron Snakes - Alpha Legion (Extremely tenuous)
Silver Skulls - Iron Warriors
Minotaurs - Iron Warriors
Sons of Antaeus - Death Guard
Doom Eagles - Emperor's Children
Red Scorpions - Emperor's Children

I think Carcharadons were recently confirmed as descended from a Raven Guard Terran nomad predator fleet, rather than World Eaters or Night Lords.

Can you give citations for the Chapter/Legion relationships?

Silver Skulls I should be able to dig into, as I know the author!

 ChazSexington wrote:


I think Carcharadons were recently confirmed as descended from a Raven Guard Terran nomad predator fleet, rather than World Eaters or Night Lords.

Nah, its more they heavily hinted at it. But not its also hinted that they are descended from all three, or at least the RG and the NL.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:


I think Carcharadons were recently confirmed as descended from a Raven Guard Terran nomad predator fleet, rather than World Eaters or Night Lords.

Nah, its more they heavily hinted at it. But not its also hinted that they are descended from all three, or at least the RG and the NL.

The recent Carcharadons novel Red Harvest seems to confirm that they were a RG successor

There were also some implications in the same novel that they were from the Night Lords, and their extreme aggression and rage hinted at World Eaters.

The implication that it was because Corax disapproved of their methods came from the FW Horus Heresy.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
There were also some implications in the same novel that they were from the Night Lords, and their extreme aggression and rage hinted at World Eaters.

The implication that it was because Corax disapproved of their methods came from the FW Horus Heresy.

I'l have to re-read it again then (incidentally I should have said Red Tithe not Red Harvest).

Magister wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
There were also some implications in the same novel that they were from the Night Lords, and their extreme aggression and rage hinted at World Eaters.

The implication that it was because Corax disapproved of their methods came from the FW Horus Heresy.

I'l have to re-read it again then (incidentally I should have said Red Tithe not Red Harvest).

Its a good choice to reread anyway. Also the author purposefully is continuing to keep their origins in the dark.

The historian of the FW books points out that, theretically, it's possible that some loyalist elements of traitor legions survived the heresy and went on to become Space Marine chapters afterwards. However, even if that happened, they would have expunged all records of their primarch because no self-respecting space marine chapter would want the stain on their honor of being associated with a traitor primarch (also shown by how loyalist elements during the heresy disowned their traitor fathers and removed their legion livery in many cases)

He brings up the Doom Eagles as an example, where the Emperor's Children had a unit known as the Doom Eagles who remained loyal, and may have possibly survived the heresy, went on to become the Doom Eagles space marine chapter, and expunged their relation to Fulgrim from the records. However, he admits this is speculation and in the end, there's no way to prove it (obviously, what with the records being expunged and all).

It's implied or indicated in several places that the Adeptus Mechanicus is capable of finding similarities in gene seed to try to track down a chapter's original primarch, but their methods can never be 100% conclusive.

A lot of the marines from the Tratior legions that were still loyal also went of Crusades into the Eye of Terror to take revenge on the Traitors as penance for being of said legions