Knights of Malfeas

[Master Of Malfeasance X]

On the hive world of Onesimus in the Apollinaris subsector, a deacon named Philemon published his interpretation of the message the Emperor hid for all of his subjects deep within the Imperial Creed. A message that every man and woman should work to master his or her life-craft and be the best at that craft that a person could be.

 

The local arm of the Ecclesiarchy liked this and gave the deacon his fifteen minutes of fame, promoting him to Monseignor and allowing him his own daily voxcast. In time, people began to listen, and efficiency improved. Onesimus prospered for over a decade before everything went to hell. Philemon's message slowly changed to one of upward mobility and the idea that achievement should determine the standing of a person in society did not sit at all well with the entrenched aristocracy of Onesimus, and soon, the diocese of Apollinaris stormed Philemon's apartments only to find that he had been spirited away.

 

That year, massive riots and strikes broke out in all of the systems surrounding Onesimus, and even as far as the distant Phaedra stars. An organization had sprung up around Philemon that kept him moving, whilst giving him time to write pamphlets about how the Imperium should be run. These, in turn, were delivered by the freighter-load to the planets in the Apollinaris sub.

 

By this time, the Ecclesiarch himself had become involved and intended to use Philemon as an example to the other diocese in Segmentum Pacificus of what might happen if their pet creeds ever stepped out of line. The apollinaris Schism might simply have died out as Ecclesiarchal and Inquisitorial forces descended en masse on the subsector that had not known war in centuries, but for the intervention of the Angels Praenuntius Astartes chapter. Apollinaris hosted a string of death worlds from which the chapter recruited and Onesimus itself had strong ties to the chapter.

 

Chapter master Radovan Altarian sent his first company commander, a 200 year veteran named Charosian along with a strike force of just over a hundred battle brothers on the Strike Cruiser, Ultima Ratio Regnum to mediate the situation and make sure the whole subsector wasn't bathed in fire for the transgressions of a few. In Radovan's eyes, this new creed was more in keeping with the way the astartes do business anyway.

 

The talks ground on for months. The rebels accused the ecclesiarchy of putting people in black bags, of kidnapping children, and of killing innocent Imperial citizens. The diocese countered that the people in question were all interfering with the right of the Ecclesiarch to dictate the Imperial creed. Charosian was frustrated that no progress was taking place, but in the mean time, order had begun to return to the subsector and tithing to the munitorium returned to normal. Things fell apart when the Commander received word from his Librarian Zaidreth Assadourian, The Fell Chronicler. Aboard the Annabel Lee, a destroyer patrolling the rim of the Onesimus system, one escort ship spotted an unscheduled convoy of non-military ships. Hailing the convoy, the Librarian reported that many of those reported kidnapped by the rebels were being tortured and interrogated by Inquisitorial and Ecclesiarchal personnel. He went on to report that many of those captured were women and children. Charosian ordered Zaidreth to free them, and upon doing so, found out that many such convoys had been raiding the subsector for suspected collaborators in the schism. Black liveried sisters of battle dragging people out of their homes in black bags, combatants, their wives and children.

 

Enraged, Charosian and his retinue of terminators teleported into the meeting hall and confronted Cardinal Lymond, leader of the Ecclesiarchal indoctrination force as well as Canoness Marianna Ilaria . While his lieutenant restrained the canoness, Charosian personally beat the truth out of the Cardinal in front of the sector government, the rebel leadership and a live pict-feed to the Ecclesiarch himself on Ophelia IV. The diocese thus collapsed, Charosian ruled in front of all that even if the Imperial creed practiced in Apollinaris sub was a moral threat, then the strong-arm tactics and black bag politics of Lymond and Ilaria were far worse, and that the matter was closed. Anyone who thought otherwise could take it up with the Angels Praenuntius.

 

Needless to say, when Charosian returned, Radovan was livid at his flagrant committment of the support of the chapter to what was almost certainly going to be an Ecclesiarchal crusade. In shame, Charosian took Zaidreth, and whomever of the original 100 battle brothers wanted to go and 'stole' the Ultima Ratio. In reality, Radovan could not bring himself to stop his own friend from doing what was obviously the right thing, especially since Charosian's action had saved the whole chapter. When the Inquisitorial investigation arrived, Radovan could only shrug and say that the 'damned traitor had escaped' and promised his unflagging efforts to find the rebels.

 

Charosian himself fled through the warp and now spends his days helping dissident Imperial factions who try to make a difference for the better. His activities place him in high demand with petty lords who wish to break away from the Imperium and these activities bankroll his efforts to liberate the Apollinaris sub. He reports the movements of traitor marines and xenos to Radovan who, in turn, gives him the information necessary to prop up governments and institutions that Radovan himself cannot be publicly seen to support.

 

Sadly, as with all good ideas in 40k, it would appear that the Knights of Malfeas have gone native. It has been many years since Charosian has tried to communicate and reports have filtered back that he has begun using forces and units that are most definitely demonic in nature. Radovan has yet to decide whether he will attempt to hunt down his old friend, but in the mean time, the Apollinaris subsector prepares for war.

 

What do you think? The army's emblem is a chess knight in bleached bone. No model is sporting horns or trophies except Charosian himself, and I use banners to represent the mark of chaos glory for the troops themselves.

 

Is it believable?

[Drudge Dreadnought]

I like it a lot! Stay away from cult troops and defilers though.

[sexiest_hero]

I like it. I'd like your protaganist return to save his chaper from the Inq or something.

[Drudge Dreadnought]

Thought about it some more, and while i still like it, it doesn't explain a fall to chaos. So far you've got the reason they go renegade, but maybe add another bit for why they go Chaos as well? Or are you using no marks or chaosy stuff?

[Master Of Malfeasance X]

I use marks of chaos undivided to represent the fact that they aren't completely selfish blackguards and just use the icon bearers with banners showing the knight symbol. I have a heavily converted defiler (low slung scorpion) that I figured was a custom dreadnought built to make the force less threatening to nearby chaos warbands. Other than that, the one really hard to explain thing that I use is obliterators. I'm currently using terminators bristling with weapons, but any suggestions as to how I might incorporate the defiler and oblits better would be welcome.

 

The only other things I could think of

the librarian has gift of chaos and lash of submission (I'm playing him like a telepath who can command people. He can either do it en masse by moving squads, or he can subvert the mind of one person at a time, but his control is imperfect (spawn stats).

 

the captain has a mark of nurgle and plaguebringer (relic cloak and sword)

[the jeske]

lash , oblits and defilers and its not a chaos force I loled so hard a lord with a mark too . jesus talk about a fluffy force . Any demons in it ?

[Master Of Malfeasance X]

Why is it unreasonable that a lash-like power couldn't be used by loyalists? The defiler is just as hard to justify as a dreadnought that randomly goes crazy that's supposed to be a loyalist one. I didn't think the mark would be a big deal in place of an adamantine mantle (which I now can't get). Perhaps I should add an entry where the knights start going native, so it would be more like a chaos warband that had just started down the path to damnation. Yeah.

[the jeske]

to get a chaos mark you have to be fully and totally dediced to a chaos god [or gods in the case of undivided] . its not a light thing . but yeah techniclly you could build a csm army with BA rules or and tell they are just less spiky then normal .

 

lash is a slanesh only power , its not warp time [kin to the veil sm have now ] or some other psychic power that boosts the sorcs stats. it formlly screams chaos and again sorc has to be marked to get it .

 

if you want a non chaotic reneged force use the codex sm.

If you want to use lash , defilers , oblits etc dont say your playing with a non chaos lists , because it weak .

[Master Of Malfeasance X]

Good call, I think I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too. I have edited the fluff to take this into account. Thank you for all your input; I don't know what I was thinking.

[Cmndr Sarpedon]

Don't let J bully you! 40K is what you want it to be. Lash is a fine power for loyalists, but Oblits.... thats abit too Chaosy for people who still follow the basics of the Emperor

[Master Of Malfeasance X]

I don't normally let anyone bully me who isn't right (check my other posts), but in this case, after careful deliberation, Jeske is right. I can't field obliterators and a defiler and still expect to call my army even remotely loyalist (though I do refuse to paint or model my chaos lord all jacked up by a mark of nurgle).

 

Besides, the idea of a tragic fight between my two favorite models has begun to grow on me.

[jamjar]

you could just ramp up the aggression on the fluff, make em fall completely and become the lost company etc, if you want to use all the gooey bits its the best way to go rather than going counts as crazy to get all the bits in.

 

on the previous post aren't marks just the easy gifts to get. A completely dedicated troop is a cultist who personify the god and a marked just a worshipper? thats how i always thought of it.

[Master Of Malfeasance X]

Chapter fluff update:

 

I was re-reading Deathstalker by Simon R. Green and I had to pause at the description of Mistworld. Now, I probably shouldn't be drawing inspiration from a space opera parody, but how cool would that be? A planet stuck in the deeps of segmentum Pacificus, on the very brink of the Astronomican surrounded by a nebula (or binary star/warp storm/other space obstacle) so dense that larger (capital) ships can't even pass through it, preventing any sort of Imperial invasion. Subsequently, the two habitable worlds in the system's life belt are home to all manner of Imperial dissidents, outlaws, xenos traders and chaos worshippers. A place so horridly violent that even inquisitors don't dare appear publicly.

 

However, violence is all well and good, but trade and commerce benefit everyone. Trade requires regulation, regulation requires regulators. It's the perfect kind of dystopian world that has Chaos Marines for it's police/military. It also makes a very fertile recruiting ground for new marines. The Knights of Malfeas maintain a garrison on each planet that can rapidly respond to any major infraction and spends the rest of its time selling violence across the segmentum.

 

The system will be called Malfeas (not to be confused with Malfi in the calixis sector) and the rules will be as follows:

-No Daemons. Period.

-No Genestealers. Period.

-No violence that disrupts large scale commerce (left deliberately ambiguous)

-No standing armies (left deliberately ambiguous)

 

Beyond that, I'm seeing a mishmash of equatorial jungles that fight back, tiny tree settlements, agri-cities between the tropics, and pseudo-hives on the poles. No capital ships, so on/offworld traffic is always at a crawl.

 

Much like its police force, Malfeas is a Casablanca for people/aliens who just want to be left alone.

 

C&C welcome

[Drudge Dreadnought]

I like it.