Sherlock Holmes Inspired Chapter

[Minigiant]

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Chapter Database
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Hounds of Baskeron
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http://i655.photobucket.com/albums/uu274/Minigiant/4892161f-96d9-4054-8a31-8c11d737f502_zpsxvoktrcs.png

Chapter Aspects
Little is known of the origins of the Hounds of Baskeron except that they were part of the 26th founding with the purpose of being deployed to defend one of the many vulnerable Imperial fronts. Over the course of their short existence even less has come to be known of this chapter, what has been observed is that the Hounds of Baskeron do not strictly follow the Codex Astartes.

The Hounds of Baskerons believe that their results justify their means and if they cannot defend the Imperium within the confines of the codex, then they will go outside the codex to achieve their aims. This is aided by the fact as a chapter; they do not specialize in any one form of warfare and as such maintain an even balance across all disciplines. In battle prior to engagement the hounds bombard the enemy with fear inducing gas so when they make contact their enemies see madmen with heads of a dog frothing at the mouths. They have sown many a fear into Xenos and Heretic a like. Competition is unusually high within this chapter and sergeants and captains are often called to break up unruly fights between brothers who are attempting to climb the pecking order. In many occasions this infighting is actively encouraged, resolve their issues and grievances out of battle to perform as a well-coordinated fighting machine on it. After every campaign every hound involved partakes in a ritual known simply to an outsider as ‘the pit’. In the pit every hound places their dog tags into a single fallen brothers helmet, any brother may pull out the dog tags of another disregarding unit, company and rank and they will face them in the ring for single hand to hand combat. Ursus Kaanan has been called out a few times and challenged only once and has never lost in the pit.

 

Homeworld   
The Abbey, the Hounds of Baskeron’s fortress monastery is a large battle-station in orbit around Baskeron. Recruits are drawn solely from Baskeron, a small feudal world characterised by its moorland, inhabited by primitive humans with no knowledge of the Imperium. Once every cycle of the Abbey around Baskeron, the chapter’s apothecaries will lead small teams onto the surface to covertly genetically test the male infants, those that are deemed as potential future brothers are taken away back to the Abbey. Because these recruits will have had no experience with their parent culture, the Chapter is all these recruits will know. The unfortunate local inhabitants that stumble upon this are quickly dealt with as the damage of them knowing of the truth, is greater than the death of one person. However there are those that witness but do not understand and as such the local inhabitants live in fear of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin that steals children and butchers all those that lay eyes upon it.

Colours
The standard Hounds of Baskeron colour scheme combines ash black armour with a grey chest eagle and shoulder pad trim. The left shoulder pad is the chapter symbol on a red background. Sergeant helmets are also grey.

Notable Brothers
Commander Ursus Kaanan: Current and only Chapter Master of the Hounds of Baskeron. In their short history, Ursus Kaanan has made a name for himself. Other Chapter Masters have referred to Kaanan as a savage and brute because he has often attacked other chapter’s commanders who have dishonoured or insulted him.
Brother Stapleton: Chaplain of the Hounds of Baskeron.
Brother Holmes: Librarian of the Hounds of Baskeron.
Brother Seldon: Ironclad Dreadnought of the Hounds of Baskeron. Rumours suggest that Seldon was not originally a Hound but what is known now is that his loyalty is unquestioned
Brother Mortimor: Ironclad Dreadnought of the Hounds of Baskeron.

Notable Events
849.M41: In combination with the Fire Hawks Chapter, successfully purged the remnants of CLASSIFIED through numerous drop pod assaults
878.M41: Called to assist the Star Phantoms chapter on Berethein in combating the Hrud migration
905.M41: Assisted in the capture of the Dark Eldar Kabal of the Scarred’s Archon, Etherin , blockading the Kabals only escape route for the White Scars to deliver the final blow
949.M41: Refused entry to the Feast of Blades on the grounds of not being children of dorn (This has yet to be confirmed or denied)

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Authorisation code: ******
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999.M41: Hounds of Baskeron except the request of Inquisitor Alexei de'Ossmann to assist in combating the Tau Empire on the former Imperial planet Narva
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[Olis]

Welcome to the Liber, brother. 

 

The major physical divergent from the codex is that all fully sworn battle brothers wear dog shaped helmets. 

 

It's late, so for now I'll just point out one thing: A good thing to try to do with an IA article is not to tell, but show. Not that I mean produce pictures for everything, no. What I mean is to talk about how and why the Chapter does things. Why do they wear dogs-head helms? Do they craft them themselves? If so, is it a right of passage? If not, is it deemed an honour to be gifted one? Does absolutely every marine have to have one or is it a personal affectation? Explore the character of the Chapter instead of telling the reader specific details distinct from other details. :wink:

[Quixus]

Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau will hunt them down.

Seriously though, it sounds interesting.

Why is the parent chapter and their Primarch unknown? Does that add anything?

There don't seem to be any notable engagements that the Hounds did on their own. Is that intentional?

[Dosjetka]

However there are those that witness but do not understand and as such the local inhabitants live in fear of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin that steals children and butchers all those that lay eyes upon it.

[...] Other Chapter Masters have referred to Conan as a savage and brute because he has often attacked other chapter’s commanders who have dishonoured or insulted him.

Brother Stapleton: [...]

Brother Holmes: [...]

Brother Seldon: [...]

Brother Mortimor: [...]

While I like the theme you're going with, I think you're trying too hard for people to understand the reference that inspired the Chapter. The parts I've quoted above are, in my opinion, the most guilty of this. Instead of going for a straight-up Holmes-inspired Chapter, try and create a blend of different references and ideas to make something more original and interesting. Also, Conan? I thought his name was Ursus Kaanan? ;)

 

Also, for the love of the Emperor, please stop using "Hounds of Baskeron" every time you mention the Chapter. Space Marines, Astartes, Hounds, Chapter are all terms that you can use to diversify the words in your text. Repetition becomes rather tedious after a while.

[Minigiant]

Thank you everyone, seems that my chapter has got some attention

Welcome to the Liber, brother.

The major physical divergent from the codex is that all fully sworn battle brothers wear dog shaped helmets.

It's late, so for now I'll just point out one thing: A good thing to try to do with an IA article is not to tell, but show. Not that I mean produce pictures for everything, no. What I mean is to talk about how and why the Chapter does things. Why do they wear dogs-head helms? Do they craft them themselves? If so, is it a right of passage? If not, is it deemed an honour to be gifted one? Does absolutely every marine have to have one or is it a personal affectation? Explore the character of the Chapter instead of telling the reader specific details distinct from other details.

I can promise I did try and show it, my Photoshopping skills are just not good enough, otherwise I would have left that line out. I do think I tried to navigate this issue and maintain their air of mysteriousness by discussing how little is known of them accept what can be observed

Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau will hunt them down.

Seriously though, it sounds interesting.

Why is the parent chapter and their Primarch unknown? Does that add anything?

There don't seem to be any notable engagements that the Hounds did on their own. Is that intentional?

The Unknown parent chapter is purely down to game play. I want to be able to freely choose my chapter tactics

While the Hounds will have conducted engagements by themselves, the ones shown are the 'big' engagements and it was my thinking that a relatively young chapter would not have the capacity to conduct these easily, lack of 'relics' etc. On the other hand they are a 26th founding, the only other known canon chapter are the mentor legion and I thought maybe that could be the 26th's "thing" in the sense that they augment/support other chapters

However there are those that witness but do not understand and as such the local inhabitants live in fear of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin that steals children and butchers all those that lay eyes upon it.

[...] Other Chapter Masters have referred to Conan as a savage and brute because he has often attacked other chapter’s commanders who have dishonoured or insulted him.
Brother Stapleton: [...]
Brother Holmes: [...]
Brother Seldon: [...]
Brother Mortimor: [...]

While I like the theme you're going with, I think you're trying too hard for people to understand the reference that inspired the Chapter. The parts I've quoted above are, in my opinion, the most guilty of this. Instead of going for a straight-up Holmes-inspired Chapter, try and create a blend of different references and ideas to make something more original and interesting. Also, Conan? I thought his name was Ursus Kaanan?

Also, for the love of the Emperor, please stop using "Hounds of Baskeron" every time you mention the Chapter. Space Marines, Astartes, Hounds, Chapter are all terms that you can use to diversify the words in your text. Repetition becomes rather tedious after a while.

While I can understand what you mean about the names I would defend the first part about the superstitious inhabitants fearing a hound. If anything it is that and the chapters name that create the reference. 99% of people wont have read the book so wont really understand the names

Oops Conan was an oversight, I used that name as a place holder while I wrote the rest and before I came up with Ursus Kaanan. Ursus implying bear, Arthur means bear. Kaanan is an archaic looking Conan. Arthur Conan is the author. (I had some help with that one)

Noted on repetition

[Sir Perfluous]

I couldn't not reply to a thread that had this title. I honestly had no idea from what area of Holmesness you could draw inspiration before I clicked, but weirdly this doesn't look like an insane idea!

 

I like the fluff so far, especially the stuperstitions of the locals and the Chapter's secretive nature. If I may make a suggestion, though,, it could be a good idea to have the chapter specialise in fear tactics. You already have a couple of examples of the fear surrounding the Hounds, but why not make it bigger. The Hound in the original story was pretty scary (especially if you were ten and lived near the woods), and if you drew some inspiration from the Sherlock TV series you could have quite a source-material-friendly trait there. Hell, you might even have them use entirely ripped-off fear gas to spread terror amongst the enemy.

 

The Hounds motif and helms could also be explained by these tactics. In much the same way as Batman chose a bat to sow fear in the hearts of criminals, so your Marines could have chosen mad hounds to sow fear in the hearts of heretics. If a group of baying madmen wreathed in fear gas came charging out of the night with frothing dog faces, I for one would be pretty damn terrified.

 

Just my two pence.

[Minigiant]

I couldn't not reply to a thread that had this title. I honestly had no idea from what area of Holmesness you could draw inspiration before I clicked, but weirdly this doesn't look like an insane idea!

I like the fluff so far, especially the stuperstitions of the locals and the Chapter's secretive nature. If I may make a suggestion, though,, it could be a good idea to have the chapter specialise in fear tactics. You already have a couple of examples of the fear surrounding the Hounds, but why not make it bigger. The Hound in the original story was pretty scary (especially if you were ten and lived near the woods), and if you drew some inspiration from the Sherlock TV series you could have quite a source-material-friendly trait there. Hell, you might even have them use entirely ripped-off fear gas to spread terror amongst the enemy.

The Hounds motif and helms could also be explained by these tactics. In much the same way as Batman chose a bat to sow fear in the hearts of criminals, so your Marines could have chosen mad hounds to sow fear in the hearts of heretics. If a group of baying madmen wreathed in fear gas came charging out of the night with frothing dog faces, I for one would be pretty damn terrified.

Just my two pence.

Thank you so much, how did I not think of something like that, it is brilliant. Also your suggestions solves my problem with something Olis said:

Welcome to the Liber, brother.

The major physical divergent from the codex is that all fully sworn battle brothers wear dog shaped helmets.

It's late, so for now I'll just point out one thing: A good thing to try to do with an IA article is not to tell, but show. Not that I mean produce pictures for everything, no. What I mean is to talk about how and why the Chapter does things. Why do they wear dogs-head helms? Do they craft them themselves? If so, is it a right of passage? If not, is it deemed an honour to be gifted one? Does absolutely every marine have to have one or is it a personal affectation? Explore the character of the Chapter instead of telling the reader specific details distinct from other details.

So with the help of you two I have rewritten the Chapter Aspect section, hope you like:

Chapter Aspects

Little is known of the origins of the Hounds of Baskeron except that they were part of the 26th founding with the purpose of being deployed to defend one of the many vulnerable Imperial fronts. Over the course of their short existence even less has come to be known of this chapter, what has been observed is that the Hounds of Baskeron do not strictly follow the Codex Astartes.

The Hounds of Baskerons believe that their results justify their means and if they cannot defend the Imperium within the confines of the codex, then they will go outside the codex to achieve their aims. This is aided by the fact as a chapter; they do not specialize in any one form of warfare and as such maintain an even balance across all disciplines. In battle prior to engagement the hounds bombard the enemy with fear inducing gas so when they make contact their enemies see madmen with heads of a dog frothing at the mouths. They have sown many a fear into Xenos and Heretic a like. Competition is unusually high within this chapter and sergeants and captains are often called to break up unruly fights between brothers who are attempting to climb the pecking order. In many occasions this infighting is actively encouraged, resolve their issues and grievances out of battle to perform as a well-coordinated fighting machine on it. After every campaign every hound involved partakes in a ritual known simply to an outsider as ‘the pit’. In the pit every hound places their dog tags into a single fallen brothers helmet, any brother may pull out the dog tags of another disregarding unit, company and rank and they will face them in the ring for single hand to hand combat. Ursus Kaanan has been called out a few times and challenged only once and has never lost in the pit.

[Sir Perfluous]

I couldn't not reply to a thread that had this title. I honestly had no idea from what area of Holmesness you could draw inspiration before I clicked, but weirdly this doesn't look like an insane idea!

I like the fluff so far, especially the stuperstitions of the locals and the Chapter's secretive nature. If I may make a suggestion, though,, it could be a good idea to have the chapter specialise in fear tactics. You already have a couple of examples of the fear surrounding the Hounds, but why not make it bigger. The Hound in the original story was pretty scary (especially if you were ten and lived near the woods), and if you drew some inspiration from the Sherlock TV series you could have quite a source-material-friendly trait there. Hell, you might even have them use entirely ripped-off fear gas to spread terror amongst the enemy.

The Hounds motif and helms could also be explained by these tactics. In much the same way as Batman chose a bat to sow fear in the hearts of criminals, so your Marines could have chosen mad hounds to sow fear in the hearts of heretics. If a group of baying madmen wreathed in fear gas came charging out of the night with frothing dog faces, I for one would be pretty damn terrified.

Just my two pence.

Thank you so much, how did I not think of something like that, it is brilliant.

I have my moments.

Glad you like it. The added stuff looks interesting. I shall peruse it and return in the due course of time with judgement.

[Nomus Sardauk]

The Hounds motif and helms could also be explained by these tactics. In much the same way as Batman chose a bat to sow fear in the hearts of criminals, so your Marines could have chosen mad hounds to sow fear in the hearts of heretics. If a group of baying madmen wreathed in fear gas came charging out of the night with frothing dog faces, I for one would be pretty damn terrified.

 

Just my two pence.

Ha, I inagine interrogating captives for intel would be similar to this...

http://i.imgur.com/Wrsg5Oz.jpg

[Minigiant]

Still working on my 3D designed shoulder pad with chapter symbol, I have however found an answer to my hound helm

 

http://www.shapeways.com/product/C8KA4C7WT/wolf-helms-x5?li=search-results-6&optionId=2477576

 

I thought I would share in case any SW players are interested

[CYGNUS]

Please allow me to compliment you upon cooking up a rather interesting Chapter from a series of in-joke References, in the finest traditions of WARHAMMER.

[Minigiant]

Please allow me to compliment you upon cooking up a rather interesting Chapter from a series of in-joke References, in the finest traditions of WARHAMMER.

Thank you

What else could I add or expand the background? Need areas

What about any of the following

Organisation

Beliefs

Any others? Any ideas of your own?

[Olis]

How about:

 

Battle Doctrine? 

Battle Cry?

Notable battles?

[Grey Hunter Ydalir]

Take a look at one of the illustrious IA's submitted to the Librarium. The Castigators for instance, or Rainbow Warriors. There are more than a few that almost set the standard for a well-written and laid out IA.

 

Take a leaf from the book of the successful, it can't hurt to look!

[TDF]

I've got to say, this was much better than I expected from reading the topic title. I was expecting a chapter of wannabe inquisitors, but this is much more realistic of a space marine chapter. A few comments:

...what has been observed is that the Hounds of Baskeron do not strictly follow the Codex Astartes.

The Hounds of Baskerons believe that their results justify their means and if they cannot defend the Imperium within the confines of the codex, then they will go outside the codex to achieve their aims. This is aided by the fact as a chapter; they do not specialize in any one form of warfare and as such maintain an even balance across all disciplines.

In what aspects do they not follow the codex? A flexible approach to warfare is exactly what the codex sets out to accomplish.

In battle prior to engagement the hounds bombard the enemy with fear inducing gas so when they make contact their enemies see madmen with heads of a dog frothing at the mouths. They have sown many a fear into Xenos and Heretic a like.

Where do they get this gas from and why don't more Imperial institutions use it? Is it forbidden Dark Age/xenos weaponry? Is it one particularly compound that somehow affects multiple species, or do the Hounds have to use a different gas for each foe they face? Are their apothecaries particularly good at dissecting xenos corpses and synthesising chemicals that will induce fear reactions, and if so how did they get this expertise? Do they work closely with Magos Biologis? What happens when the Hounds go up against enemies like the necrons or tyranids who won't be affected by the fear gases? Do they work around it or have the reliance on fear gases left them sloppy?

As far as the homeworld and recruitment goes, how does an eight-foot tall superhuman warrior covertly sample the DNA of a baby? Why don't they just swoop in, non-fatally subdue all the adults, and then carry out the DNA tests? Why go to all the effort of trying to hide? They have nothing to fear from the feudal world inhabitants and the rest of the Imperium doesn't care how a space marine chapter runs its homeworld.

[Grey Hunter Ydalir]

 99% of people wont have read the book so wont really understand the names

 

 

I'll object to this, actually. I will ashamedly admit that I haven't read the book. However, Sherlock Holmes as an intellectual property is incredibly widespread these days. Sherlock, Elementary, etc. They all draw from the traditional material and even for me these references are too on the nose.

 

The most well designed chapters (ie anything not designed GW, despite some of them being my favorites), are those which take a theme and let it influence every aspect of the character of the chapter as a whole, without becoming a caricature of the material it's drawing from.

 

In battle prior to engagement the hounds bombard the enemy with fear inducing gas so when they make contact their enemies see madmen with heads of a dog frothing at the mouths. They have sown many a fear into Xenos and Heretic a like.

 

 

I feel perhaps, if the chapter is drawing on the terror tactics of the Night Lords, then this would be an admirable sticking point/flaw for other Imperial organizations or other Astartes chapters to come into conflict with them on. Which could be an interesting point.

 

However, how does the gas work? One of a few reasons the various armed forces of the day here on earth stopped using gas as a regular tool of warfare is it being entirely dependent on the weather conditions, while being generally unpredictable in coverage and effectiveness. It's a terror weapon, it's only real use on the battlefield is as a lethal agent, otherwise you've got your own troops and allies at risk to it, and having it be non lethal only leads to increasing amounts of your own manpower being tied up to subdue - lethally or otherwise - the incapacitated enemy. Better to just drop a lethal gas and mop up the survivors and those mauled by one of our most horrific implements of war than tie up your troops with prisoner/madman shooting duties.

 

I'd also believe that your enemies would be terrified enough already by a seven foot tall angry walking tank with glowing eyes that is almost unstoppable to begin with. Even adding the dog helms is a stretch. With the latter I'd do what other chapters do. Leave it to the Honour Guard / Sargents and Officers in general to wear these special helms.

 

As an aside, is the gas tailored to predispose it's victims to seeing the ghostly hounds, or are you only using this to increasingly justify the use of the dog-shaped helms? If it is the latter I'd take a long, hard look at why you're trying to shoe-horn this in so badly, because it feels a little forced right now friend.