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Index Traitoris The Thornbacks Origins Barren "There is no deeper meaning, Iron Brother." Semesius interjected coldly as he examined the inner workings of his right hand. A slow smile spread on his face as he caught a glimpse of an ironical tear glistening on the inquiring marine's face, "Hm, the weak lean on meaning. Inancas showed us that. In time you will overcome it," he clenched his bionic fist, testing servos and gears, "or become just another weakness for us to remove." Among the later Chapters created during the 25th founding of the Adeptus Astartes was a successor Chapter of the Red Talons known as the White Hawks, created to crusade the fringes of Segmentum Pacificus. Though the Chapter's centuries of service were honorable, the White Hawks did not endure a millennium. Their downfall, caused from within, was rooted in the Chapter's founding. The same reading of the Emperor's tarot that called for the new Chapter made an unusual specification: the founding Chapter Master was to be the Red Talons' youngest first company veteran. A handful within the training cadre, led by one Captain Iacomas Inancas, was vehemently opposed to the tarot's appointment of Chapter Master. The marine indicated by the tarot was known as Agreus Nomios. If records are to be believed, Nomios was the youngest inductee to the Red Talons' first company. The subject largely of awe and respect turned to one of disbelief, and suspicion when the training cadre was informed, but as soldiers, and brothers, the remaining marines fell in. As the Chapter grew through the decades, there was no outward sign of disquiet, but as the decades stretched into centuries, with each passing act by the Chapter Master, the malcontent grew in certain hearts. What Nomios and his faithful brothers called adaptation and welcome change, Inancas claimed to be the trampling of their gene-fathers' traditions beneath their boots. What Inancas called the preservation of their gene-legacy, Nomios regarded as undermining authority. Even so, Inancas swayed many marines, both veteran and neophyte, with a silver tongue. What had started as little more than collective mistrust of the Chapter Master grew into a vitriolic hate shared by an ever growing following. The situation came to a head during an oratory by Nomios broadcast to the entire fleet as it made its way to a new battlezone as the fleet passed a temperate deathworld known as Direita II. Few remember what words were actually said. Some believe Nomios suggested that the traditions of their primogenitors contradicted the true wishes of the Primarch. Others justify what happened next by claiming that Nomios decried the Talons and the Iron Hands as fools with heretical beliefs. Whatever the words, the result was almost immediate, and some still say it was the plan all along. Ships loyal to Captain Inancas broke formation, and cut off communication with the rest of the fleet. Those marines loyal to Nomios that found themselves on traitor vessels were taken by surprise and quickly subdued, while on the other ships, marines under Inancas were inciting chaos with sabotage and ambushes, ensuring that their deaths would cost the loyalists dearly. Civil war erupted. Many of those that remained at the Chapter Master's side were the skilled pilots for which the White Hawks were reputed, while those that followed Inancas were more from the assault elements, favoring bloody boarding actions and personal combat. Within minutes, fleet guns had been turned on former brothers. The element of surprise gave Captain Inancas' smaller fleet time to concentrate fire on the Monastery Barge, the Black Castle, crippling its weapons and engines and setting it adrift. The battle raged for little more than a day and night above the planet. The Black Castle was soon caught in the planet's gravity, and pulled from the sky even as repairs to its engines were being completed. In the rest of the fleet, Nomios' pilots had not been able to hold back Inancas' assaults, and several loyalist ships were captured with the help of those traitors still on board, while a number of others were scuttled by the loyalists to keep them out of enemy hands. Their staggering losses notwithstanding, a strike team of Nomios' most trusted brothers, along with the Chapter Master himself, infiltrated Inancas' ship, the Void Rogue and attacked him on its bridge. Captain Inancas challenged Nomios to a duel, discarding all his weapons except a combat knife. Nomios accepted, but as the duel went on, it began to turn in the traitor Captain's favor. Raging as his own blade was knocked away, Nomios landed a punch on the soft armor beneath Inancas' raised arm and triggered hidden digital weapons, a burst lazer that all but removed Inancas' right arm. The Captain had enough time to claim Nomios an unworthy coward before his throat was slit by his own knife. Nomios and his marines abandoned the ship after locking into a crash course with the planet. Their attack, however, did not go unnoticed. Inancas had dispatched his own team before being cornered, and the bomb on Nomios' Thunderhawk detonated spectacularly as it made its escape from the Void Rogue. At that point, the scales tipped in favor of the traitors. Though they died fighting to a man, every loyalist ship was blasted into fiery rain over the plains of the planet below. The victory of the traitors, though complete, had come at a bitter cost, and marooned them with much of the Chapter's wargear and remaining gene-seed trapped on the planet's surface. At first, Direita II was hostile, as it had evolved to be, dangerous even to Space Marines. In time, though, the remaining traitors came to master it and call it home. Now under the command of Inancas' right hand, a former Captain known as Semesius the Disinherited, traitor remnants of the White Hawks have begun to grow once more. Casting aside their old identity, they now call themselves the Thornbacks, a name adopted from the planet's deadliest predators. Homeworld "This world, untainted, it is the perfect challenge of our might. It has bred strength. It will do the same for us." ~Sergeant of Recruits, Omester Direita II is a world roughly similar to ancient Terra, with geographic diversity and a multitude of accompanying climes. The White Hawks' War not only showered vast areas with debris, but several of the Chapter's ships are still buried in its surface. The Thornbacks have concentrated themselves around the remains of the Black Castle and the Void Rogue which both fell in a marshy region between a large river and the planet's single great ocean. The Thornbacks have since discovered small pockets of native humans, tribals that manage to survive on the knife's edge of life on Direita II. The planet earned its classification as a deathworld for two primary reasons. A toxic mineral laced throughout the planet's crust has rendered it undesirable for colonization. The mineral, known to natives as 'skull rock' for its coloration and recognizable deep pock markings, often releases lethal hallucinogenic dust residue into the air, making it unbreathable by any but the Space Marines until it is subdued by the rains. Due in part to this, the natives usually settle in the forests or swamps in elevated or treetop communities, where the dust is both less likely to penetrate, and too heavy to rise. The only real guarantee of safety is to avoid the surface deposits, and these areas have been avoided by the tribes for generations. The raised dwellings are also necessary to escape from the planet's dominant life, the Aoulef, a native term combining the words for pebble and man. Named for their scaly, ridged backs, the pebble men are four legged reptiles of immense size and brutal strength. With jaws up to half as long as their considerable bodies, and keen senses, Semesius' scouts have encountered these predators hunting in every environment on the planet except the barren mountains. They hunt in large family groups led by a single elder. These particularly ancient beasts are believed by the tribes to be immortal, and their distinctly more weathered hides give them their name: thorned men. These are the beasts that now serve as the traitors' name and symbol. Apparently immune to the toxic dust, and with bottomless appetites, these predators have been attributed to the disappearance of more than one careless recruit. Worse still, as the most fertile part of the planet, the swamps are host to the yearly mating migration of the pebble men. As a result, both the tribes and the traitors must also endure the yearly influx of predators. This is the greatest trial of the natives, for when the hunger of the reptiles reaches its zenith, as many as fifty of the beasts may converge on potential prey. This has taught the natives a degree of patience to rival that of the creatures themselves, as a wrong movement can endanger an entire settlement. Recruitment Induction The recruit roared in pain and defiance at the stump of his right hand, twisting away from the chained form of the snapping predator as the echoes his cry filled the chamber. The Apothecary quickly lifted the blood spattered neophyte, kicking away the still-seeking maw with a ceramite boot as he led away his charge. In the hundred years since the war with the White Hawks, the Thornbacks have cultivated a healthy gene-seed supply, largely as a result of paranoid self preservation. A portion of the surviving gene-seed was immediately given over to implantation, both to replenish the supply and to reinforce the remaining traitors. Those native tribals deemed pure enough made excellent recruits. Their knowledge of the planet's dangers was invaluable, and evolutionary mutations that had strengthened them against the lethal mineral dust resulted in marines with powerful lungs who have even influenced the Thornbacks' strategies and tactics. Unfortunately, the hazardous environment has also caused countless minor mutations among many of the natives, and for the most part the Thornbacks find them unfit for dedicated recruiting. Their preferred source is for recruits is Trinovantum, previously the hiveworld from which the White Hawks recruited. With a simple lie, the citizens of Trinovantum have never questioned the abrupt change in livery of their supposed custodians. The recruitment process includes many common Astartes tests of skill and strength, but when it comes times for recruits to receive the traditional bionic right hand replacement, the brutal nature of Semesius and his men becomes much more apparent. A number of pebblebacks, as the marines call them, are captured and blinded. Even blind pebblebacks can survive in the wild, and they hunt by simply opening their mouths while partially or fully hidden underwater, and waiting. Their mouths and tongues are highly sensitive, and at the slightest touch from a foreign object, be it a fish or a log, the powerful jaws snap shut, easily cleaving through its prey. The specimens kept by the Thornbacks are used in a ritual 'amputation' in which recruits are made to sit beside the chained beasts, and hold their hand between its open jaws. At the first drop of sweat that falls, the deed is done. Combat Doctrine Lurkers Vile The fishing village's sturdy docks had been largely destroyed in battle, the remaining one tightly held by the planet's PDF. It was their one reliable method of getting troops across the lake after the attack on the airfield. The tiny fishing port had to be held. In the still dimness of dawn, a single guardsman stood watch at the pier's end, while his compatriots huddled around a fire a hundred meters away on land. Slowly, silently, a bald head studded with metal rose from the water just outside the guardsman's field of vision, followed by broad shoulders. The Scout's hands rose just as slowly stopping about a foot above the surface. A twitch of a finger on his mechanical right sent the signal. The shot came from across the lake, taking the guardsman in the chest without a sound. He careened backwards into the Scout's waiting hands and disappeared beneath the surface. Below the water, dozens of yellow helmet optics blinked into life, moving towards the surface. Still comparatively small and with limited supplies, the Thornbacks do not involve themselves in major engagements with their enemies, but like the pebblebacks, will lie in wait and ambush vulnerable targets. Direita II neighbors one subsector with an Imperial colony, which has more than once been raided, and within a radius of only a few sectors are another colony, and an Astartes recruiting world. While all are appealing targets, the latter is the preferred victim of Thornback raids. The small size of their fleet enables a certain degree of stealth, which they use to surgically pick apart defenses and extract materiel and prisoners from their victims. This is of utmost importance to the renegades. While the obscurity of their homeworld has afforded them a good deal of security, they are all too conscious that drawing the full attention of the Imperium would be their undoing. With a combination of small numbers, and attacking isolated targets, they have been able to prosecute their grudge against the Imperium without bringing ruin on themselves. Though the Imperium has thorough documentation of the piracy plaguing the region, some of it even suggesting that rogue astartes are responsible, they still haven’t been able to pinpoint a source. More often than not, the Thornbacks will take only the few resources valuable to them, as they consider the true prize the opportunity to attack recruitment pools for loyalist forces. Under Semesius' direction more than one settlement has been razed to the ground leaving many a grieving parent, and not a single child, the precious youth whisked away to Direita II and an uncertain fate. Their preferred strategy for attacking ground targets is to make use camouflaging elements, particularly grasslands and local bodies of water. To maintain the element of surprise, landings may be made miles from targets so as to approach submerged. Scouts, especially those native to Direita II, are highly skilled at killing unseen from the water, and softening or marking targets for a Thornback assault. To further conceal their activity and movements, the renegades will often adopt the tactics and livery of loyal Astartes chapters, including the extinct White Hawks; some Thornback revel particularly in this deception, sowing dishonor and doubt among loyalists and their wards. Planetary attacks are relatively few and far between, considering the greater risk entailed, and far more often the Thornbacks simply wait for trade fleets plying the same lanes past Direita II that they once followed, and destroy or capture these. The Thornbacks maintain a marked preference for boarding actions, as the War cost them most of their armored assets, and still cripples their efforts to replenish standard supplies and even make simple power armor repairs. One venerable manufactorum ship, scuttled during the final battle of the Hawks, remains partially operational on the planet's surface. Though they haven't had any luck restoring additional systems, the Thornback carefully maintains those that do work, providing them with a steady supply of arms and ammunition. One of their most recent battle was also one of their greatest. It began as a carefully planned raid on a freshly completed orbital dock above the mining planet Magnabulum. Hoping to secure a more powerful and reliable setting to repair their ships and stage their attacks, the Thornbacks planned to seize the station before its full defenses and fleet escorts could arrive. The renegades employed every trick and tactic they had, disguising themselves as a combined force of White Hawks and Tauridae Astra, the chapter whose world the renegades sometimes raid for recruits. With the Tauridae impersonators playing the part of assigned escorts, they gained access to the station, and then subtly sabotaged control of docking bay defenses, opening the way for the larger “White Hawks” force to move in and gain a foothold. Staging a battle between the two teams, the Tauridae Thornbacks fell back deeper into the station with its other defenders, only to turn on them once inside, gaining near complete control of the station. Things were going well, until the actual defense fleet of the Imperial Navy arrived, earlier than scheduled, and with elements of the real Tauridae alongside them. Briefly the two forces clashed, but the loyalist force overwhelmingly outnumbered the renegades. Though they could hold the dogs of the Imperium at bay with the station’s defenses, they would never get away with the station, and the longer they remained, the more likely that their true identities could be exposed. Redirecting their efforts to preventing the loyalists from flanking them, a small detachment of Thornbacks penetrated deep into the station and began overloading the reactor. With a fighting retreat, the Thornbacks abandoned the orbital dock, their final escape covered by the detonation of the reactor. The field of debris remains down to the present, while the Tauridae have endured close observation from the Inquisition ever since. Though capturing the station was a failure, the results proved an unexpected boon when, scant years later, the Cicatrix Maledictum tore across the galaxy, cutting off the local loyalist forces from reliable naval repair and resupply, and leaving them exposed to more daring raids by the Thornbacks. Organization The Thornbacks very loosely maintain a loyalist Chapter organization for ground combat, with a little more than three and a half companies worth of marines to command, though the number dwindles as the years go on. Usually leadership on the battlefield is simply a continuation of leadership from a respective unit's fleet assignment. Ship 'crews' and contingents are far more strongly defined, and there is great pride among marines for their respective vessels, often with attached rivalries. Many of these associations were, and remain with, ships of the original Chapter fleet, most of which were destroyed. The most feared and respected Thornbacks were originally assigned to the Void Rogue, and though the ship will never leave the planet, those marines that truly distinguish themselves are still ceremonially inducted into its contingent. These marines now often take the lead on the Thornbacks' single working Strike Cruiser, the Cloud Gallows. Beliefs "Concern yourselves with only one thing, brothers. We must not only take and give nothing in return. We must take that which is of dearest cost to replace. Honor. Strength. Power." ~Semesius the Disinherited Semesius maintains a warped value for the purity that so concerns marines of Manus' line, believing that the truest purity is not only absent of weakness, but that which enables power. The Imperium and Adeptus Astartes appear unable to accept this 'natural truth', even the majority of the mighty Space Marines submitting to restrictive laws and imposed limits. While it is unclear if this was ever Inancas' real intent, it is preached as such. Much of the Thornbacks' beliefs revolve around the aggrandizement of Captain Inancas, and the rejection of the White Hawks, to whom is attached all the blame for the Thornbacks' situation. The Iron Brethren, similar in function to the Iron Fathers of their parent legion, teach that the Hawks were the epitome of weakness. A Chapter given power, but unable to keep it. These views are projected on the Imperium as a whole, an empire feigning unity, and losing strength because of it, a sinking ship which the Thornbacks have abandoned. Though Semisius would restrict their beliefs to simple philosophies, recruits from Direita II have such deeply embedded tribal superstitions that they almost can't function without them. As a result, most recruits, who now make use of and perpetuate the damaged gene-seed of the White Hawks, associate the gene flaw with the spirit of the dead Chapter. Gene-seed Last Drop in the Well The Iron Brother did not move, and Semesius' smile became a snarl of disgust. "If they will not be satisfied, tell them what they want to hear," It was clear he hadn't had anything particular in mind, but as he finished a sudden pensive look fell over him, and after a moment's silence he added, "Say they are the tears of the White Hawks, despairing at their failings. Their vessels are ours now, their legacy dead and ours begun. All they can do is mourn for the children of the Imperium that fall by our hand." Though the White Hawks had no flaws in their genetic material, severe damage to the gene-seed stores was sustained when the Black Castle crash landed. Much of the gene-seed was rendered useless, the loss of which was intensified by the loss of over half the Chapter. What remained has proven surprisingly resilient, though an Occulobe flaw has perpetuated to the Thornbacks as a whole, causing a yellow discoloration to the eye as well as a facial nerve degeneration that causes marines to shed tears, most frequently during combat where it is attributed to heightened adrenaline levels and the usual contorting of the face that tends to accompany battle. Some Thornbacks train themselves to be completely impassive in combat to reduce the effect. Others embrace it, intrigued by the way it can disturb and confuse outsiders who see it. Battle-cry "Our blades hunger! Give us the taste!"