New player, My Grey Knight Fluff

[Chapter666]

Hello, I am new to this forum and to grey knights. I have been reading about them alot and I have decided that I want to do a Daemon Hunters army based around a main fluff idea. I have posted a couple of army lists in the apropriate section with a fluff overview, but I wanted to give a bit more detail and ask for advice.

 

My two storylines are.

1)

A Brother-Captain with incredibly rising potential has been sensing a new Daemon, one that is building an army in secret aimed at solely wiping out the Grey Knights. Although the council of Grand Masters are highly speculative of this, they have charged the Brother-Captain with a small number of Grey Knights for him to use to gain more information and if necessary to raise a larger army to battle this new threat. As he quests across the galaxy facing off Daemons and other foes alike his psychic powers grow in number aswell, but fears his growing power is somehow linked to the Daemon he must face. As he raises to the ranks of Grand Master himself he finds himself face to face with his Nemesis, and faces the choice of losing his new psychic link in order to defeat the beast...Will he be the first Grey Knight to ever succumb to the lure of evil, or will his soul remain locked with determination to rid the Galaxy of this Chaotic stain and risk having to work his way back up the ranks.

2)

An Inquisitor is looking to save the Imperium once and for all, and thinks he has found the true solution. However his new way of thinking is currently deemed too radical for him to voice it and must look to the secrecy of the Grey Knights in order to carry out his plan. Knowing they will also kill him without a moments pause if they found out what he was using them for, the inquisitor has to use his own psychic powers to conceal his true intentions. But he needs powerful Daemons, and (un)willing hosts to complete his mission, and they Grey Knights are the perfect warriors to help him. Using a small force he starts his quest to find the right people and the right evil, all the while hidden away his secret force trains fearlessly and recruits hard to make the hammer he needs to crush his adversaries, whether some be his peers or not. The council of Grand Masters catch on to his plans, but it is too late. He has found the last Daemon he needs, and now with his army at full force, he can use his powerful Daemon hosts to fight fire with fire. But first he must face the Grey Knights with which he first found allegence. The Grey Knights are quickly reinforced and can now do what they have done in secrecy for thousands of years and save the Imperium from collapsing on itself with Chaotic resolution, but will they survive the Inquisitors last trick, by using his Daemon hosts he rips open a hole into the warp...and leaves the Grey Knights to deal with the mess.

 

I hope none of this is too far fetched (even for 40k), I have tried to use what I know at the moment and just sort of filled in certain gaps with embelishments. Please comment as you see fit and help choose one storyline to base my army around.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

My two storylines are.

1)

A Brother-Captain with incredibly rising potential has been sensing a new Daemon, one that is building an army in secret aimed at solely wiping out the Grey Knights. Although the council of Grand Masters are highly speculative of this, they have charged the Brother-Captain with a small number of Grey Knights for him to use to gain more information and if necessary to raise a larger army to battle this new threat. As he quests across the galaxy facing off Daemons and other foes alike his psychic powers grow in number aswell, but fears his growing power is somehow linked to the Daemon he must face. As he raises to the ranks of Grand Master himself he finds himself face to face with his Nemesis, and faces the choice of losing his new psychic link in order to defeat the beast...Will he be the first Grey Knight to ever succumb to the lure of evil, or will his soul remain locked with determination to rid the Galaxy of this Chaotic stain and risk having to work his way back up the ranks.

 

This is pretty much a mash-up of the Ben Counter series (specifically Justicar Alaric), and the storyline of Brother-Captain Stern. I'm not sure if you deliberately did this, but in any case it's not terribly original. It does make sense and fits with canon, it's just not anything new.

2)

An Inquisitor is looking to save the Imperium once and for all, and thinks he has found the true solution. However his new way of thinking is currently deemed too radical for him to voice it and must look to the secrecy of the Grey Knights in order to carry out his plan. Knowing they will also kill him without a moments pause if they found out what he was using them for, the inquisitor has to use his own psychic powers to conceal his true intentions. But he needs powerful Daemons, and (un)willing hosts to complete his mission, and they Grey Knights are the perfect warriors to help him. Using a small force he starts his quest to find the right people and the right evil, all the while hidden away his secret force trains fearlessly and recruits hard to make the hammer he needs to crush his adversaries, whether some be his peers or not. The council of Grand Masters catch on to his plans, but it is too late. He has found the last Daemon he needs, and now with his army at full force, he can use his powerful Daemon hosts to fight fire with fire. But first he must face the Grey Knights with which he first found allegence. The Grey Knights are quickly reinforced and can now do what they have done in secrecy for thousands of years and save the Imperium from collapsing on itself with Chaotic resolution, but will they survive the Inquisitors last trick, by using his Daemon hosts he rips open a hole into the warp...and leaves the Grey Knights to deal with the mess.

 

Again, this is a pretty standard story. There is no real intrigue, twists or anything...it's a straightfoward case of corruption, followed up by a standard battle between Grey Knights and Daemons. And, given Grey Knights are all potent psykers in their own right, they would detect the taint of Chaos on an Inquisitor and kill him. Concealing such things is extremely hard, when you are trying to lie to a Chapter of Astartes whose only purpose is to hunt down and exterminate the manifestations of Chaos. Again, this is very much within the limits of canon, but boring.

 

 

I would suggest you take some time to think over your Inquisitor/Brother-Captain as a character, and decide what his dominant personality traits are. One of the great things about the Inquisition is that GW allows a lot of leeway with the fluff. Inquisitors are each unique individuals, with their own personal agendas and missions, and co-operation is only to be found when a common enemy presents itself in force. While the Grey Knights enforce conformity to a larger extent, there is still room for differences in attitude and personality, insofar as a Grey Knight has a personality (they get mind-scrubbed when inducted and are relentlessly indoctrinated ever after). For example, Justicar Alaric is a notably intelligent and subtle Grey Knight, able to bring unorthodox methods and strategies to problems in his path. Most of his brothers are characterised, perhaps not unfairly, as rigid dogmatic types, who prefer to attack the enemy in plain view rather than purse a hidden foe.

 

After deciding how your protagonist will be characterized, you need to flesh out his adversaries. One of my persistent annoyances with much fiction, in particular action novels and movies, is cardboard-cutout baddies. The best fiction attempts to logically explain the motivations and viewpoint of the opposing faction in the story, and generate some level of sympathy for their cause. A great example is the forces of good manipulated into evil; in this case, your Inquisitor has not been corrupted and has forged a new weapon against Chaos (his Daemonhosts), but in their ignorance the Imperium seeks to crush him, using the Grey Knights. You need to make your audience as torn as the characters, in their moral convictions. On the one hand, the Inquisitor seeking a new way which might break the stalemate, but risking eternal damnation; on the other, the stalwart defenders of the Imperium, who have been positioned to be the Inquisitor's enemies by fate (or Tzeentch ;) ).

[Chapter666]

The two storylines aren't really fleshed out yet, hence the no names mentioned. I haven't read any literature of 40k so, no, it wasn't deliberate, but then to fair, not a lot is original anymore.

 

I prefer the Inquisitor fluff, but I think for a fluff AND army based agenda the pure Grey Knight fluff is the best one to go for. Taking into consideration what you have said, I will probably rewrite the whole thing and try to think of a different angle to go for and possibly even get some names up. I would like it to try and at the very least have a new take on an old storyline. But it’s hard to give a Grey Knight a personality and inner Daemons to work with when their whole basis is to not have any of that.

 

On that note however I did have a thought on an alternative storyline (apologies if this has already been done as well) But since a Grey Knight has his memory and personality erased how do they know what their personal Heraldry is when they become a Justicar? With that I thought the Brother Captain could go on a quest of self discovery where he decides to find out his roots. Although he is warned not to do this he is accompanied by a small squad of Grey Knights. This path leads him to realize his predecessors have fallen to the lure of Chaos and he has to now face them in battle. The Grey Knights who fight with him are ever alert should he decide to protect his family and alter his allegiance.

[Ambro]

I dont know whether their mind is actually erased I think they are just mentally conditioned to have immense willpower to fight of daemons with purity of purpose, also for that reason it would be unfeasable that a grey knight would suddenly decide to go trace his ancestors as they are completly devoted to destorying daemons. One way you could do it is have your character encounter an incursion in which he ends up having to destroy his original ancestors as the planet has turned heretic and maybe theyre could be an argument between the grey knight and inquistor who wants to launch an extermination on the planet wheras the grey knight thinks that tracking and destorying the heretics in question is all thats necessary. This could give you some interesting plot lines like the purity of your character being attacked by the inquisition and your own character having doubts about his course of action seeing it as weakness.

[flintlocklaser]

But since a Grey Knight has his memory and personality erased how do they know what their personal Heraldry is when they become a Justicar?

 

Their heraldry is presumably created from their deeds once they become Grey Knights. Why would the GKs care if a Justicar's great-great-great-grandfather bribed some official to become Duke of Podunk? Don't think of the heraldry as being some family coat of arms - it's a representation of the (hopefully glorious) career of a Grey Knight that led to his becoming a Justicar.

 

If you want a good example from a 'normal' marine chapter, the Black Templars codex has a whole page of banners and heraldry, explaining the battle history behind most of the elements of the designs. That's probably a pretty good example for any kind of Marine heraldry.

[Chapter666]

I dont know whether their mind is actually erased I think they are just mentally conditioned to have immense willpower to fight of daemons with purity of purpose, also for that reason it would be unfeasable that a grey knight would suddenly decide to go trace his ancestors as they are completly devoted to destorying daemons.

 

It says in the Ben Counter novel (sourced from the Lexicanum) "Upon success, the recruit also has the majority of their memories and personality erased". Maybe he is drawn to his family psychicly by means of a strong blood link. There upon he finds a planet infested with chaos and is ordered by the inquisition to begin purging the world until they arrive where upon they will destroy the planet. During the purge the Brother-Captain finds links to his Heraldry and discovers that this is his place of birth. Its at that point where he realises he can't let his planet be errased from the galaxy, he believes if he can rid the planet of chaos before the inquisition arrives he can convince them to spare it. Although he realises he will be killing his family he knows death is a far better fate than being possessed by a Daemon.

 

This story keeps the key factor of the Grey Knights alive, the determination to rid the galaxy of Daemons with unwavering resolution. But adds in differing story based elements which go against the status quo without distorting it with too much.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

The two storylines aren't really fleshed out yet, hence the no names mentioned. I haven't read any literature of 40k so, no, it wasn't deliberate, but then to fair, not a lot is original anymore.

 

Ok fair enough if you haven't read any of the novels, I just wanted to point out how similar your idea was.

 

The "it's all been done before anyway" line is a bit of a cop-out, to be honest. Yes, some themes in 40k are inescapable (you need to keep it grim and gothic, main hero needs to be a stoic male stereotype, baddies need to be hopelessly inadequate and short-sighted), but there is still a lot of variation within that formula. Just use your imagination, it's not that hard. As I said, the Inquisition is not limited in it's power or oversight; you can do a lot of things that simply wouldn't make sense for a different character (for example, Guardsman don't usually live past their first encounter with Daemons, either due to battle casualties or getting shot by the Inquisitor afterwards).

 

I prefer the Inquisitor fluff, but I think for a fluff AND army based agenda the pure Grey Knight fluff is the best one to go for. Taking into consideration what you have said, I will probably rewrite the whole thing and try to think of a different angle to go for and possibly even get some names up. I would like it to try and at the very least have a new take on an old storyline. But it’s hard to give a Grey Knight a personality and inner Daemons to work with when their whole basis is to not have any of that.

 

You really need to get 'Grey Knights' by Ben Counter then. He does a great job justifying precisely that dilemma with his central character Alaric.

 

On that note however I did have a thought on an alternative storyline (apologies if this has already been done as well) But since a Grey Knight has his memory and personality erased how do they know what their personal Heraldry is when they become a Justicar? With that I thought the Brother Captain could go on a quest of self discovery where he decides to find out his roots. Although he is warned not to do this he is accompanied by a small squad of Grey Knights. This path leads him to realize his predecessors have fallen to the lure of Chaos and he has to now face them in battle. The Grey Knights who fight with him are ever alert should he decide to protect his family and alter his allegiance.

 

That hasn't been done before, but I would caution you in following it. You have to remember that Grey Knights are always in one of three scenarios; back on Titan recovering and preparing for their next mission, in transit to a warzone, or fighting. They can't just take a 'break' and go off to explore their roots, their whole purpose and reason for being is to hunt down and destroy Daemons. Personal ties are completely severed when an Initiate is accepted, and much of their original personality and history is wiped.

 

With heraldry, it is basically a marker of the different campaigns and conflicts the Grey Knight has fought in. Somewhere (it may have been the Codex or one of the novels), white stars on a black background are used to symbolise successful boarding actions for a Grey Knight. In other cases, it might be a campaign badge awarded to the Grey Knight to commemorate his victory.

 

During the purge the Brother-Captain finds links to his Heraldry and discovers that this is his place of birth. Its at that point where he realises he can't let his planet be errased from the galaxy, he believes if he can rid the planet of chaos before the inquisition arrives he can convince them to spare it. Although he realises he will be killing his family he knows death is a far better fate than being possessed by a Daemon.

 

This story keeps the key factor of the Grey Knights alive, the determination to rid the galaxy of Daemons with unwavering resolution. But adds in differing story based elements which go against the status quo without distorting it with too much.

 

Getting there...I think maybe a better way of going about it is as follows;

 

Your Brother-Captain arrives on a world, heading a contingent of Grey Knights send to purge it. His long-lost brother/sister recognises him, and as he re-connects with his family (you can position him saving them from Flesh Hounds or cultists), it begins to threaten to break the mind-wipes and re-awaken long-dormant emotions in him. Some of the Justicars under his command begin to doubt his judgement, as the campaign drags on and the Brother-Captain refuses to conduct Exterminatus. An Inquisitor arrives on the scene and attempts to conduct Exterminatus, but the Brother-Captain executes him. The Justicars and their squads ignore his command, leaving the Brother-Captain and his loyal retinue to face down the Daemons alone, while they attempt to send an Exterminatus order to the waiting Ordo Malleus strike cruiser. You then have a race to the end, as the Brother-Captain tries to fight two battles at once.

[Chapter666]

Your Brother-Captain arrives on a world, heading a contingent of Grey Knights send to purge it. His long-lost brother/sister recognises him, and as he re-connects with his family (you can position him saving them from Flesh Hounds or cultists), it begins to threaten to break the mind-wipes and re-awaken long-dormant emotions in him. Some of the Justicars under his command begin to doubt his judgement, as the campaign drags on and the Brother-Captain refuses to conduct Exterminatus. An Inquisitor arrives on the scene and attempts to conduct Exterminatus, but the Brother-Captain executes him. The Justicars and their squads ignore his command, leaving the Brother-Captain and his loyal retinue to face down the Daemons alone, while they attempt to send an Exterminatus order to the waiting Ordo Malleus strike cruiser. You then have a race to the end, as the Brother-Captain tries to fight two battles at once.

 

I have thought about this and I do like the start, I now want to go off on another storyline that I'm hoping will fit better. (I have taen your starting lines I hope thats ok.

 

The Brother-Captain arrives on a world, heading a contingent of Grey Knights send to purge it. His long-lost brother/sister recognises him, and as he re-connects with his family (you can position him saving them from Flesh Hounds or cultists), it begins to threaten to break the mind-wipes and re-awaken long-dormant emotions in him. He discovers that an Inquisitor came before him and upon discovering his father had psychic abilities he used him to trap a Daemon inside his body after his original host body had been killed. The Brother Captain then takes his contingent and proceeds to chase the radical inquisitor across the galaxy trying to stop him from gathering more Daemonhost and free his father (through death) from his fate.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

I have thought about this and I do like the start, I now want to go off on another storyline that I'm hoping will fit better. (I have taen your starting lines I hope thats ok.

 

Yeah, thats ok man, glad I could inspire you ;)

He discovers that an Inquisitor came before him and upon discovering his father had psychic abilities he used him to trap a Daemon inside his body after his original host body had been killed. The Brother Captain then takes his contingent and proceeds to chase the radical inquisitor across the galaxy trying to stop him from gathering more Daemonhost and free his father (through death) from his fate.

 

Sounds good. It's a clever way of keeping him on the straight and narrow (puring the daemonic) but still finishing a personal mission (freeing his possessed father). I'll be interested to see how you develop this, maybe into a short story?