The Relictors: An Examination of the Lore

The Relictors: An Examination of the Lore

By Brother Tyler

The Relictors Chapter exploded onto the setting with the Third War for Armageddon (the second invasion of that world by the forces of Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka). Their introduction was via a brief web page at the now-defunct Third War for Armageddon website, providing information that was considerably less than what we later came to expect in the Index Astartes articles (the modern version of which hadn’t started appearing yet), but which captured the imaginations of numerous hobbyists nonetheless. If you never saw that page, here it is (sort of) for your viewing pleasure (the format isn’t quite right):

RELICTORS

 On its initial founding, this Chapter was known as the Fire Claws and fought primarily in warzones surrounding the Eye of Terror, fighting alongside companies of the Cadian Regiment. When the Emperor's Tarot revealed the existence of a badly damaged space hulk emerging from the warp near the Forge World of Stygies in Segmentum Obscurus, the Fire Claws mobilised to intercept it. The hulk, codified as the Captor of Sin, contained a renegade warband led by a Tzeentchian Chaos Champion known as the Excoriator. The Space Marine strike cruisers crippled the vessel as it entered the Stygies System and Terminator Assault Squads led by Librarian Decario and the shadowy figure of Inquisitor De Marche stormed the vessel. Realising they were doomed, the renegades made their stand in a cavern sized engine room where furious battle was joined and Decario and De Marche fought the Excoriator.

The Champion was a mighty warrior and carried a weapon forged in the heart of the Eye of Terror, a terrible Daemon sword, with the essence of a greater daemon bound within its steel. The Inquisitor hacked at the Champion with his power axe, but the unnatural armour of the Excoriator was impervious to his blows. The Chaos champion retaliated, his daemon weapon easily cutting through De Marche's armour and grievously wounding him. With one strike, the Excoriator shattered Decario's force sword and laid open his Terminator armour. Decario staggered, but struck back with his power fist, ripping the Chaos Champion's sword arm from its socket in a welter of blood.

Even mortally wounded and unarmed, the champion fought with hideous ferocity, smashing the Librarian to the ground and slaughtering four Terminators. Decario muttered a prayer to the Emperor, grabbed the nearest weapon to hand and struck out at the Champion. The Excoriator's head was chopped from his shoulders and Decario realised he had picked up the daemon sword, killing the champion with his own weapon.

Decario was filled with a sense of utter purpose as he wielded the Chaos sword, and instinctively felt that this was a weapon that could be turned against the forces of Chaos. The wounded De Marche cautioned the Librarian to put the weapon down, that only he was trained to handle such artefacts. The Librarian handed the Inquisitor the weapon and the Space Marines returned to their ship, leaving behind an Adeptus Mechanicus survey team to search the hulk for the remains of any archaeotech. De Marche explained that he also believed that such weapons could be used to fight Chaos and should not be destroyed out of hand as was current policy. With the aid of Decario, he was able to convince the Fire Claw's Chapter Master of this and under De Marche's guidance, the Fire Claws embarked on a crusade to explore the worlds around the Eye of Terror and uncover more such relics. Over the decades that followed, many such artefacts were discovered and the Fire Claws Chapter became known as the Relictors.

However, it was only a matter of time before the practice of the Relictors using Chaos weapons in battle became known to others. A cell of Inquisitors, backed up by no less than four Chapters of Space Marines and an Emperor class battleship descended upon the Relictor's fortress monastery and demanded they hand over De Marche and all recovered Chaos artefacts or be destroyed. Faced with destruction the Chapter had no choice but to obey. As penance for dealing with heretical weaponry the Chapter was despatched on a century-long penance crusade. De Marche was taken by the Inquisitors and executed as a heretic. As part of their crusade, the Chapter has deployed all ten companies to Armageddon, with a greater concentration of forces in the Equatorial Jungle, particularly in the region surrounding Angron's Monolith.

Here was a Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes that defied accepted norms, collecting and, more importantly, using the tools of Chaos against Chaos. They were one of several Chapters presented at that time that stood out as defiant (others including the Celestial Lions, who defied the Inquisition, the Exorcists, and the Marines Malevolent). How could anyone not love this Chapter?

Later, when the Eye of Terror campaign (the Thirteenth Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler) occurred, it was revealed that the Relictors participated in that worldwide campaign, which occurred almost immediately after the conclusion of the main period of the Third War for Armageddon, and that the Chapter may have been among the Astartes Praeses (or Praesus, depending upon your source) Chapters. An Index Astartes article for the Chapter was later published in White Dwarf magazine, and that article expanded upon the original lore and provided rules for using a Relictors army in Warhammer 40,000. The rules and lore in that article were largely consistent with the original lore, providing the basis for numerous hobbyists’ efforts at portraying these Adeptus Astartes anti-heroes on the tabletop.

The Extremis Diabolus story was published in issue 295 of the UK White Dwarf magazine, but didn’t appear in the counterparts for other countries. This story took place after the events of the Eye of Terror campaign and saw the Relictors declared extremis diabolus and the few survivors fleeing into the Eye of Terror. Despite this, the Relictors continued to be presented as loyalist Adeptus Astartes in other publications, with the exception of a librarian that joined an Alpha Legion warband subsequent to the Chapter’s [supposed?] excommunication.

In addition, confusion was created when the (a) Relictors Chapters was mentioned as operating in M33 in one of the editions of Codex: Chaos Space Marines. The Index Astartes article previously mentioned that the Fire Claws (the Relictors’ original Chapter name) were believed to have been “founded during the dark days of the Age of Apostasy” which occurred during M36. Assuming that date was correct, this would most likely have put the Fire Claws in the 22nd Founding since the 21st (Cursed) Founding took place prior to the Age of Apostasy, starting in late M35, and the 23rd (Sentinel) Founding took place in either late M37 or early M38. Chapters operating during M33 would be from the 7th Founding or earlier. The 6th edition Codex: Space Marines indicates that the Relictors participated in the Blood Star Campaign in 748.M41 alongside the Rainbow Warriors and Fire Lords. Similarly, the Core Rulebook for the Deathwatch roleplaying game from Fantasy Flight Games/Cubicle 7 Games indicates that the Relictors took part in the Achilus Crusade circa 7252.777.M41. These dates are sufficiently close in time to the known penitent crusade, which overlapped 999.M41, to not create confusion. The earlier period of M33, however, is far too early to be consistent with the previously known lore.

Significantly, the Eye of Terror campaign and all of its lore was revised in the 7th edition of the Warhammer 40,000 game. Where the 3rd edition version of the campaign saw the Imperium victorious, the 7th edition version was part of the larger Gathering Storm campaign and saw Chaos victorious, with the Fall of Cadia and the Fracture of Biel-Tan. For example, the Ulthwé farseer known as Eldrad Ulthran died aboard a Blackstone fortress in the original campaign, but survives at the end of the more recent campaign (though he appears to have left his craftworld and joined the Ynnari). Given that, the validity of the Extremis Diabolus is thrown into doubt.

Most importantly, though the Relictors have been given little coverage in recent editions, Codex: Space Marines shows their homeworld of Neutra on the map of other Chapter homeworlds/crusade fleets (and no [other] renegade Chapters are similarly displayed). Also, Games Workshop (or a licensee) published a poster depicting numerous Adeptus Astartes Chapters in the Era Indomitus (i.e., in Mk X Tacticus – Primaris – armour), and that poster included the Relictors (with a revised Chapter icon, removing the jawbone).  This would indicate that the (a?) Chapter is still extant under the “Relictors” name during the Era Indomitus. This might be the same Chapter, augmented by Primaris Space Marines; or it might be a new Chapter has replaced the renegades, much the same way that there is a new Soul Drinkers Chapter that has taken up the name and livery of another renegade Chapter.

Different hobbyists have different takes on the Chapter, each based on their preferences and each interesting and distinct. Each is equally valid, reconciling different aspects of the lore that Games Workshop has presented over the years and focusing on those elements that the hobbyists find compelling.

How do we reconcile the different pieces of lore, however? This is especially important in considering those elements that are in conflict – the date of the Chapter’s actual founding and whether or not they were declared extremis diabolus and became renegades.

The date conflict can be parsed into two distinct elements:

• First, was the Chapter founded in M36? Or was it extant in M33 (and possibly founded prior to that millennium)?
• Second, since the Chapter was on a century-long penance crusade in 999.M41 and was known as the “Relictors” for a (short?) period prior to that, how could they have been identified as active in M33 when they were known as the “Fire Claws” prior to taking up the “Relictors” nomenclature?

Both of those have to do with the M33/M36 disparity, but both address different aspects of that disparity.

Before proceeding further, it’s important to acknowledge several real-world possibilities:

• First, people make mistakes. It’s entirely possible that the authors of the (later) Codex: Chaos Space Marines made an error in describing the (a?) Relictors Chapter being active in M33.
• Second, Games Workshop has been known to use the unreliable narrator device. It’s possible that the Chapter described as being active in M33 wasn’t the (a?) Relictors, but was some other Chapter that was mis-identified.
• Third, Games Workshop has been known to revise lore. This article has already described how the Thirteenth Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler was revised between the 3rd edition campaign (Eye of Terror) and the 7th edition campaign (The Gathering Storm). That was a major event with galaxy-spanning consequences, so the founding date of a relatively minor Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes is trivial in comparison.

If we ignore those possibilities, however, we are left with other interesting possibilities.

One theory is that since the M36 founding is only “believed,” it’s entirely possible that the Fire Claws were founded in/prior to M33 and that the “Relictors” identification was nothing more than a misidentification of the Chapter under its original name (i.e., Codex: Chaos Space Marines should have said “Fire Claws” instead of “Relictors”). This begs the question of when the Chapter was originally created, however. In addition, one might wonder if the (first) Relictors Chapter name was even the Chapter’s original name. Perhaps they had some other name when first created (in M33 or M32) and they took up the Relictors name later. Then, with the events of the Age of Apostasy in M36, the Chapter adopted the “Fire Claws” name as a way of reinventing itself. The predilection to collect and use the tools of Chaos, then, wasn’t something new that Inquisitor De Marche and Librarian Decario convinced the Chapter Master to start – rather, it was a practice that had remained long dormant and renewing the practice was a sort of regression.

An alternate take on this is that the watershed event that led to the Fire Claws collecting Chaos relics and later taking up the Relictors nomenclature occurred much earlier than thought, with the Chapter carrying this practice out for millennia before  being confronted and forced upon a century-long penitent crusade. Under this theory, however, we then have to account for Inquisitor De Marche’s longevity for that entire period – though that’s possible with stasis and/or Warp shenanigans.

Another theory is that there was an older Chapter known as the Relictors and that the Fire Claws took up the older Chapter’s name (and perhaps their livery). Perhaps the original Relictors Chapter collected Chaos relics and the later Chapter adopted their name in homage. The fate of the older Chapter is unknown, of course, but one might surmise that they were either destroyed for their heresy (I prefer to think of them as “unorthodox practices”) or they became renegades. A derivation of this theory is that the older Chapter’s name became synonymous with the radical practice of collecting and using Chaos relics, so the “Relictors” name wasn’t necessarily chosen by the Fire Claws Chapter, but was used by others with negative connotations and they simply owned it (which would be a very defiant act on their part).

The issue of whether or not the Chapter was declared extremis diabolus also comes into question. While the lore for the Thirteenth Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler may have been rewritten, that doesn’t mean that every aspect of that lore changed. Most of the online wikis dedicated to the Warhammer 40,000 hobby favor the renegade outcome, choosing to accept the Extremis Diabolus story as continuing to be relevant. While this is a valid choice, it is by no means certain, especially given later lore and the fact that Games Workshop has never mentioned the Relictors as renegades in any rulebooks. Hobbyists that accept the renegade interpretation have considerable freedom in how they might represent their Relictors – using either Codex: Adeptus Astartes (the Relictors are just misunderstood) or Codex: Heretic Astartes (the Relictors have gone down the path of damnation).

Lastly, how do the Primaris Relictors fit into the equation? Are they a continuation of the original Chapter? Under this option, the Relictors were never declared extremis diabolus and remained loyal to the Imperium. Alternately, do the [new] Relictors serve as a replacement for the previous Chapter, with a full Chapter of the Ultima Founding to replace the renegades? Or are the presentations of Primaris Relictors and the Chapter homeworld of Neutra in the current Codex: Adeptus Astartes simply representative of some sort of mistake, either on the part of Games Workshop or some scribe within the Administratum?

Naturally, different hobbyists are going to have their preference for how they choose to interpret and represent the Relictors. Each of these is perfectly valid, and this flexibility is a great demonstration of the creativity that the hobby allows. It would be presumptuous for anyone (other than Games Workshop) to assert that any one interpretation or theory is correct and that others are wrong (though that won’t stop anyone from trying). Over the years, numerous hobbyists have presented their own version of the Relictors Chapter, and each has been distinct and exciting. My personal theories about the Relictors Chapter combine elements of the theories I’ve described above, but also take into account other considerations to create my own unique view of the Chapter.

What are your own theories about the Relictors Chapter?

Brother Tyler has been a member of the Bolter & Chainsword since 1999 and has been involved in the Warhammer 40,000 hobby since 1987. He has been a fan of the Relictors Fire Claws Chapter since first reading about them in the Third War for Armageddon campaign during the 3rd edition of the game. This article represents his own views.