Inspiration for the Order
Entry posted by Company Master Holden in General
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Inspiration for the Order
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The Order of the Broken Arrow (hereafter known as the Broken Arrow) is the core concept and organizing principle behind my M41 Dark Angels collection. It is entirely a homebrew concept, though I should emphasize that it is founded upon established Dark Angels lore to date as I understand it. It is very likely that as the return of The Lion and expansion of the Dark Angels Primaris marines are explored in greater detail by the Black Library and future codexes, much of what I write and do here won’t line up. The upcoming Lazarus: Enmity’s Edge will also be pertinent to my project, as the core of the Broken Arrow resides in the 5th Company and relies on Lazarus’s status as the “Keeper of the Unseen Ritual” as a major plot point. Still, one can only work with the materials to hand, to date. Besides, a little bit of mismatching, obfuscation, and fuzziness works for a Dark Angels project!
The inspiration for the Broken Arrow springs primarily from The Horus Heresy Book Nine: Crusade and Lion el’Jonson: Lord of the First, both set in M30. At the risk of oversimplifying the incredible lore of Crusade, the Dark Angels of M30 made use of “orders” that existed outside of established Legion organization. These orders were formed of individuals who possessed the knowledge and lore necessary to combat a particular threat. Members of an order carried out their assigned duties in whatever combat or command role they occupied within the Legion until they were needed, at which point the order gathered together to address the situation. Allegiance to an order was not openly declared, but members generally wore identifiers proclaiming their membership to those initiated in the order’s mysteries and arcana. These identifiers could be symbols, trinkets, or even the application of colors in a specific pattern on an armor plate or piece of clothing. The end result of the order system was an invisible infrastructure dispersed throughout the Legion equipped to deal with threats or enemies with targeted expertise, affording the First unparalleled tactically flexibility.
David Guymer’s Lord of the First explores what this order system looked like in practice. I won’t spoil anything here, but it is a good read for those looking to understand how the Dark Angels legion works. Though I should note that despite it being part of the Primarch series, The Lion ends up getting very little screen time.
Before moving on to M41, another important source of inspiration to explore is the artwork presented in Crusade. The sheer variety of colors and panoply, each accompanied with its own secret and deeper meaning, captured my imagination. The Star Burners, a specialist squad of Hellbasters serving in the 5th Company, owed their unique markings to pictures in Crusade.
So all of this is fine and good, but at the end of the day, all of these inspirations are specific to the Dark Angels Legion, which itself was a product of a discrete time, place, and context. Simply importing everything directly into an M41 setting unaltered, in my personal opinion, undoes and ignores the lore of ten thousand plus years. The Dark Angels were profoundly changed after the breaking of Caliban, the trauma of losing their genefather (temporarily, I should say), and the suffocating, omnipresent weight of guilt and shame that accompanied the spread of the Fallen and codification of The Hunt. It is only natural following these revelations that the Unforgiven adapt to a new reality, one far divorced from that in M30. After all, the Dark Angels only got to spend roughly 168 years with The Lion from his discovery in 846.M30 to the sundering of Caliban in 15.M31. The Legion itself had only been operating as a fighting force for roughly 314 years (Palace Coup in 700.M30 to 15.M31). In short, what I am trying to get at is that the Dark Angels spent a comparatively short amount of time as the Angels of Death and First Legion and that though these ancient years are the foundation of the modern Unforgiven, it is not believable that their exact heraldry, organization, and customs would survive intact to M41.
The question then became, how do I incorporate these elements into a modern Dark Angel army? The Lion had not yet returned when I started this collection, so I could not rely on the whole “the Primarch returned and changed everything, so that is that.” It was the 9th Edition Codex Supplement: Dark Angels that answered my question. It noted that 5th Company Master Lazarus was also the Keeper of the Unseen Ritual. This made him responsible for collating the ancient knowledge of Caliban’s ancient orders, and noted that those who possessed such knowledge of the orders were generally Inner Circle [1]. Suddenly it made sense how I could bring the M30 elements I enjoyed into my collection.
Lazarus, through diligent study, had unlocked some of the ancient mysteries, lores, heraldry, order, divisions, and customs of the First Legion. Armed with this knowledge, he used his own 5th Company as a way to apply what he learned. However, his understanding of the ancient past is incomplete. Data stacks may indicate that applying bone color to certain pieces of armor was an honor, but not elaborate on what exactly that honor signified. The Inner Circle also made sure to scrutinize and drip feed Lazarus only that information which they wanted him to know, though of course some things slipped through the cracks. In the end, I had a premise that allowed me to continue collecting and fielding what we understand as modern Dark Angels while also incorporating elements of the past, distorted as it were by an incomplete understanding and deliberate redaction.
With the framework in place, the next steps were to develop the lore for an order within the 5th Company, and develop unique iconography and heraldry for other special units. This of course will be the subject of another rambling blog post.
Thanks again for reading, and of course let me know what you think below!
- Company Master Holden
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[1] Located on page eight of the supplement. As someone who purchased the Dark Vengeance box set when it was brand new, I was disappointed to see that Balthazar had been killed off in such a flippant manner. That said, the Psychic Awakening series and recent Codexes have made Lazarus a more interesting character than he was before. I am hoping Emnity's Edge will continue the character development.
Edited by Company Master Holden
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