IT: Black Razor Renegade Free Chapter

[Newtype]

Good day all.

 

Here is the newest version of the BLack Razor IA. Edited back into this first post of the thread for critique and

review.

 

So for your consideration:

 

 

 

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n212/Donnewtype/Space%20Marines/spacemarine.jpg

 

SYMBOL

The original symbol of the Black Razor does not matter now having been struck from the records and purged from history. After being declared renegade, the Chapter adopted a white skull to be placed upon their armor. Though associated with pirates and renegades, the skull had another long forgotten meaning. It was the symbol of free men who answered to no authority but God.

 

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n212/Donnewtype/Space%20Marines/ChapterSymbol.png

 

By adopting this symbol, the Chapter showed it did not fear standing before the Emperor and answering for its actions. Along with the white skull, the Chapter retained the Imperial Aquila and the Crux Terminatus. The former used to show the loyalty they still swore to the Emperor and the latter used as the symbol of skill and bravery in battle.

 

 

HISTORY

C

reated as part of the 24’Th founding, the Black Razor were chartered to re-establish the rule of law and defend Imperial worlds along the trailing edge of the Sagittarius Arm. The failed colonies, mining holds, and forgotten human worlds strung out along the edge of the galactic arm had become a lawless frontier. The isolated systems home to deserters, renegades, outlaws and cults whose activity could no longer be ignored.

 

Together with a growing number of attacks by Orks, Elder Pirates and Chaos forces as well, the situation was growing beyond the ability of the local governors to contain and was threatening shipping routes and trade lines within the interior of the stellar arm.

 

The Relictors were chosen to provide the initial Marine force and gene seed line. And it was a battle hardened Captain named Usin Bron that was expected to be chosen as the first Chapter Master. But in a controversial decision a senior Captain from the Black Councils, Hagen Marr, was chosen instead. No one knows why this was done, but it was suspected that the High Lords and the Administratum were attempting to prevent the total company independence shown by the Relictors and the other successor Chapters of the Raven Guard.

 

The Relictors and particularly Bron took this appointment of an outsider to lead them as an insult to their honor. However by 658M39 and the Desmodan Zone Excursion, Marr had proved himself a brave and capable leader now respected and honored by both Bron and the growing Chapter. When Marr lay dying after killing the Ork Warboss Uzfang Skarzod during the Insbek IV Campaign in 827M39, his last request was for Bron to continue building the Chapter in his honor.

 

Bron did so and by 061M40 had led the Black Razor to full strength. Under him were ten Battle Companies along with a space fleet that consisted of the asteroid fortress Irritus Arx, the Battle Barge Honors Crusade, eight Strike Cruisers as well as the escorts required to support them. They had also established numerous supply bases across the systems they now patrolled.

 

Many of the systems encountered by the Razor contained dead or uninhabited worlds, and in investigating those worlds the Chapter began to uncover artifacts that resembled human technology but were not of human origin. The Chapter along with the Adeptus Mechanicus determined them to be actually made by the Demiurg. While most were turned over to the Admech, some were retained by the Chapter for study. Nothing was made of this as Marine Chapters are free to pursue their own agendas, but it would be these artifacts that led to the eventual downfall of the Black Razor.

 

The Fall Begins

Usin Bron and his ship were lost in 163M40 when their Gellar Field failed in route to Novem VI. Bron’s death was one of chance. But when his successor Octavin Arcady was killed during a terror raid on the agri-world of Ibaton II in 377M40, a shocked and grieving Chapter could not know that the costly battle for vengeance would change them forever. Fighting against a Dark Eldar cabal called ‘The Heart of the Soulless Night’ the Razor engaged in a vicious game of cat and mouse along the edge of the galactic arm and even into the gulf beyond.

 

The ‘Blood Shadows’ campaign, as this period was called, would consume two Chapter Masters and almost two whole companies of battle brothers before its end. Arcady’s successor Rycus Sarayen would survive the Jensen VII assault in 429M40, only to be killed defending the Pilgrimage City of Syphos Prime in 483M40. Sarayen’s death saw the title of Chapter Master assumed by Brother Titus Malik. It was Malik who would bring about the schism between the Black Razor and the Adaptus Mechanicus.

 

Titus was a brooding veteran who had a long turbulent history of unconventional tactics and challenges to authority. Accusations of insubordination, unbecoming behavior and refusal of orders stained his service many times. But he also had an incomparable record of victories that many swore oaths defending. Underneath his unpredictable appearance was a hard and uncompromising realist who let neither rules or tradition get in the way of keeping his men alive or seeing the mission complete.

 

Titus saw his Chapter on the path to defeat and destruction. The Black Razor were fighting shadows, spread out and weakened as supply lines and resources were stretched to their limits. The Dark Eldar would appear out of the void itself and attack at random. Planets and systems were verging on mass panic and the Chapter seemed ineffective in challenging them.

 

Desperate Measures

Seeing his Chapter nearing the end of their endurance, Titus and his Council of Captains decided to utilize Demiurg technology to achieve victory in several battles. Two of the most critical engagements during this time were the Port Talstrom Hive Cleansing and the sealing off of the Sel III web portal. In the battle for Port Talstrom, the Dark Eldar used a mutagenic drug to induce psychic emergence in the underhive population. If not stopped, a critical mass would have been reached and the resulting gestalt event would then have opened a path for Chaos to consume the hive an orgy of death and destruction.

 

The loss would have crippled the commercial space docks that local systems needed to maintain supply lines. And without regular shipping, whole worlds would have suffered starvation and deprivation. Demiurg devices that detected the formation of warp portals and then force them closed, allowed Scout squads to ambush and intercept the Dark Eldar moving through the hive at will. They became the hunters, killing the depraved xenos from within the darkness that once protected them.

 

In the continent wide tunnel systems of Sel III, a permanent web way portal that opened into Commorragh itself was uncovered by miners. Devastator Squads used Demiurg cutting beams to seal tunnels and collapse storage cathedrals in order to crush the Eldar that pored through. The portal was sealed and destroyed only by collapsing the very cavern system it was built into.

 

In the end, the Chapter used Dimiurg augmented sensory systems to detect the presence of Eldar Shadow Fields and turn the tide against the pirate raiders. But more importantly, they revealed the location of the Eldar's hidden fortress. Much to the Chapter's horror, it lay right in the heart of Razor territory. Revealed at last, the finial battle of the long war could begin.

 

The Cauldron Anchorage

The greatest battle of the Chapter occurred in 663M40 in a region of space known as the Cauldron Anchorage. Malik, along with Captain Helso Keck lead the assault. In the ship-to-ship action, Malik's strike cruiser the Silent Cardinal rammed the Eldar Archon’s command ship as it maneuvered to escape. Locked together in a grizzly dance, Malik faced the Soulless Void Archon himself, while Keck led the boarding action against the citadel.

 

The final confrontation was bloody and vicious with Marine and Eldar locked in unending close quarter combat. Ships guns were used to breach sections of the alien fortress; knowing that the enhanced physiology of the Space Marines would allow them to survive such hellish bombardment better than the degenerate killers they faced. In the end Titus emerged with the severed head of the Archon and the fortress a burning hulk. But the price he paid was heavy, with over a quarter of his men and half of the forces that boarded the fortress dead.

 

Cause and Effect

When the Admech learned of what the Razor had done, they demanded Titus turn over all technology immediately, or face censure. He refused, and forcefully reminded the Admech that they had no say in how the Astartes conducted their business. Titus was no fool though and knew the tenuous position he was in; so he compromised. He turned some but not all the artefacts over. He allowed the Admech access to his ships in a move calculated to placate the Machine Priests and buy time for his own Tech Marines to study the relics still under Chapter control.

 

What he could not know was that factions within the Adeptus Mechanicus were already conspiring to betray and destroy the Chapter. Titus died in 701M40 supporting Titian Legio Honorum during the Bourn V Campaign, under circumstances that pointed to Admech involvement. He was succeeded by Helso Keck, who would spend decades trying to prove that the Admech had a traitorous hand in Titus’s death, but was never able to uncover direct evidence proving their involvement.

 

Accusations

Beginning in 747M40 with the Cartellion Sweep, Keck would emphasise a degree of autonomy and self reliance that would further strain the relationship between the Chapter and the Adaptus Mechanicus.

“The dammed machine spirit can take it up with me! Now do it!”

Mortally wounded Sergeant Jarax Zadra ordering his men to remove the power packs from the armour of himself and two others killed in a surprise attack by rebel PDF during the battle for Cranston City on Cartellion IV. Three of his men were immobilized by damaged power packs after being hit by shrapnel and the operational packs allowed them move back and regroup with their squad. When the traitor PDF moved in on the crippled Sergeant, Zadra activated the demolition charges he had concealed with him. The explosion tore through the Squads and the Leman Russ Battle Tank that was supporting them. In the chaos that followed, his men launched a counter-attack so ferocious that it stalled the rebel offensive long enough for loyalist PDF to regroup and smash the traitor force within three days.

Keck uncovered hints that the Admech were interfering with the Chapter and even attempting to bring the Inquisition in against them. But like Malik’s death before, he was unable to discover direct evidence that would prove this. His emphasis on self reliance and independence would be tested during the Chaos incursion across the Uster Provincial Cluster from 841M40-856M40 and would lead to an open confrontation between Keck and his own Master of the Forge Morrax Jeler.

“If there are no Tech-Marines, what are you going to do? What if you were cut off behind enemy lines? Every one of my men needs to know and understand the inner workings of the weapons and vehicles within the armoury of this Chapter. You must know how it works and how to maintain it under any condition. You must know how to field strip and re-align a plasma cannon coil. You must understand and be able to replace a Rhino transaxle. Can you strip the working repulsor plates from a downed speeder to get a second one operational? We are Space Marines! We do not subordinate our oaths to defend Humanity and serve the Emperor to a so called machine spirit!”

Helso Keck answering the charges of heresy levelled by senior Tech Marines and Adeptus Mechanicus Tech Priests during the attack on Whyt III as part of the Uster Provincial Pacification in 847M40.

Keck prevented open dissention by showing Jeler the evidence he had accumulated. Though all of it was circumstantial, it convinced Jeler not to move against his Chapter Master. What Keck also did was challenge Jeler directly on where his loyalties should be.

“Which one takes precedence Morrax? The oath you took to defend Humanity in the name of the Emperor or your oath to serve the Machine God?”

Helso Keck, in his finial confrontation with Master of the Forge Morrax Jeler at the conclusion of the Uster Provincial Pacification in 855M40.

Keck knew the Admech were working against him but felt they would not take unilateral action because it would be breaking one of the founding tenants of the Imperium; separation of the Astartes, Adaptus Mechanicus and the Administratum.

 

Leaders Lost

The standoff between the Black Razor and the Adaptus Mechanicus would continue. Keck would lose his life in the final stages of the Ekura III uprising in 927M40. An uprising he personally led after it was found that the Ekura Lords were corrupted by a renegade Magos of the Adaptus Mechanicus itself.

 

His successor Sarlin Rel would further deepen the rift between Marine and Machine Cult in 013M41 by invoking salvage rights under the Articles of Founding on a space hulk cleansed at great loss to the Marines that investigated it. He denied the Admech any access to it and used cyclonic warheads to break apart and destroy the hulk when Admech ships threatened to size it.

 

He would die at the hands of the Ork Warboss Dakastuf Meksog during the Oak invasion of the Keslin IX system in 166M41 and be succeded by Cordo Song. Song would first avenge the death of Rel by hunting down Maksog and killing him four years later. He would then lead the Chapter through a rare period of calm before disappearing in the warp in 427M41.

 

Song’s death however would not escape the taint of suspicion and treachery as three life pods were recovered from where his ship the Vengeance Honor was expected. One pod held the body of a Marine Brother carrying two pieces of the Chapter Masters’ personal armor. The second one contained the burned body of a Tech Priest while the third one was empty.

 

The End

In 513M41, the ninth Chapter Master, Barstron Joth ordered the Irritus Arx repositioned to Marders’ Eye. The ancient giant red star was surrounded by vast asteroid seas that represented a valuable logistical and strategic asset. The asteroid seas were thought to be the result of a rouge planet in a highly unstable elliptical orbit 39 degrees to the orbital plane. The gravitational instability caused by its passage was the suspected reason of the destruction of the planetary bodies.

Beginning of 643M41, the rouge planet began its closest approach. Long-range scans of the planet found evidence of an artificial structure buried deep into the surface. Two Frigates with Marine and Admech contingents were sent to investigate the structure and after a low orbital sweep, squads landed to investigate.

 

As the Marines were moving through the outer sections of the structure, the Frigates reported sudden energy spikes, and with drives powering up for evasive manoeuvres, one of them was destroyed by an energy blast originating from within the construct. As the Marines regrouped, robotic skeletal warriors began to emerge from hidden locations and hunt the Imperial forces down.

 

Executing a fighting withdrawal, the men escaped to the remaining Frigate in orbit, and under emergency power, they returned to the Arx. With warning signals all ready sent, the Arx had prepared to move. The stationed Strike Cruisers were deployed to attack and disrupt the construct as fleet augers picked up an even larger energy build up. The senior Admech observer, Magos Peustus Datic, advised Joth that the build up may be sufficient to damage the Arx but it could be disrupted if fire was concentrated into specific locations. Joth ordered it done, and as the stationed Strike Cruisers unleashed all their firepower into the construct, new secondary readings were detected.

 

Vast crescent shaped pylons emerged from under the dead soil, emerald power fields glowing brighter and brighter as they rose into the black sky. Just as the main drive engines on the Arx reached full power, the pylons fired. The energy unleashed crossed the gulf and punched through the void shielding with disturbing speed and ease, slicing deep into the fortress. The Irritus Arx was crippled in one nightmarish blow. With the main drive engines down and his ships unable to stop another energy build up, Joth realized the Arx would have to be sacrificed in order to give the Chapter any chance to survive. Thus he ordered the Arx to warp into the planet’s surface.

The Admech priests were frantically trying to bring systems back on line. Once the decision had been made, Joth knew that his Marines and the crew of the Arx would follow their duties to secure what parts of the fortress they were responsible for. It was one of the secret orders that every Chapter had to prepare for. Abandon the Fortress.

 

Joth entered the main control chamber to the warp engine cathedrals. He saw Datic himself standing before a vast display slab that hung down from the vague ceiling high above. He composed himself before addressing the Magos.

“Can we warp before it fires again?”

Datic turned to him. Was that panic flashing across his one human eye?

“The Machine God cries in pain and anger and you ask can we jump? The codes of rerouting, the chants of restructuralization must be finalized. We can’t even begin to plot the phase probability threads with the damage done. Mars, Metalica, Konor, they all must know of this! A random! A random…a random warp with a shallow phase translation shift made tangential to the discrete gravity plane could get us out of the system. The capture of such a construct could then be …”

Barstron’s eyes narrowed and a chilling thought emerged within him.

‘We were right. We are all expendable to the Machine God.’

 

The display and status slates showed the damage that the Arx had sustained. Joth could see the long range imaging of the xenos construct. It looked like a vast skeletal hand emerging up through the surface of the planet. Reaching out to grasp and crush another world.

‘Is that what happened to this system?’ He thought. ‘If so, then may the Emperor forgive me.’

 

His hand griped the bolt pistol and the gun interface responded to his thoughts. He clicked the gun loose of the armour holdfast on his thigh and brought it up. Barstron fired at point blank range and placed four bursts into the head and upper chest of the Magos.

As Datic flopped backward onto the floor with smoke and steam rising from the ruins of his upper body and head, Barstron calmly touched the vox gem at his neck guard and tapped it for full broadcast.

 

He turned to look at every one of the other Tech Priests and Enginseers that were now staring in both shocked horror and cold fear at what they had just witnessed him doing.

 

“At this time and place nothing else can be considered. We are all facing our time of judgement and to waiver would be dishonouring our oaths to the Emperor, Humanity, and the Imperium. We do not hesitate in the face of death. We embrace it.”

“You are to set a point emergence field on the surface of that planet. Center it on the construct. Inform me when you are ready to warp.”

He began a prayer for the dead. “Those who now stand before you, Emperor of Man, may you...”

 

In a distant secondary docking bay, Senior Apothecary Dalgine Quintos heaved a cryo-locker through the port access hatch of a Thunderhawk gunship. The engines were screaming at full power, and the Marine could feel the groaning of picketing anchors that locked the drop ship to the bay surface through his entire body. He hailed his Chapter Master.

“We may not have enough time to get everything on board, my lord. It may not...”

Joth cut him off. “May the Emperor guide you brother.”

 

The Scout Marine beside him, Estes was his name, yelled “Look!” and pointed back over his shoulder to the far bay walls. He turned and saw reality shiver, like expanding ripples in a pool of water, as what was called the tertiary phase field formed within the wrap engines and expanded to envelop the whole fortress. He grabbed the Scout by the shoulder and harshly threw him through the hatch. He jumped after him and managed to hammer the door cycle controls as he yelled, “Go!”

He felt and heard the explosive bolts release the anchors, and was then flung to the deck plating as the Thunderhawk rocketed away from the bay surface at full power.

 

“Hang on Sir” was all he heard and then, as the hold illuminators went dark and the emergency glow lights snapped on, he went deaf. The ultrasonic whine of the turbo laser discharge capacitors hitting his ears and causing pain that almost overwhelmed him. Auras danced around what he could see and he fought not to black out. ‘That was an override firing’ he managed to think.

 

Shaking his head he started to stand, but was brought back down by the deck heaving first up and then rolling right almost ninety degrees vertical. The noise of rending cermasteel and adamantium structural spars overrode the scream of the engines. He had time to see another cryo-locker come at him before it smashed him into unconscious.

“Phase potential reached.”

“Warp”

The resulting interference between warp space and real space tore the dimensional barriers apart and consumed the complex in an explosion that vaporised an area of the surface almost 6400 km in diameter. The force of the explosion cracked the planetary crust down to the molten core and blasted the dead world into an orbit that would carry it into the systems' star. Forever lost.

 

Consequences

The Admech were outraged beyond all reason, accusing the Chapter of crimes against the Machine God and of desecration and wilful destruction of Omnisiah technology. With accusations that Joth forced the Techpriests to warp into the planet, they demanded the Razor be censured. Joth’s actions would have far reaching consequences for the men that would now lead. By 696M41, it was found that the Adeptus Mechanicus were pushing the Inquisition to move against the Razor. The distrust that festered between the Admech and the Razor up until now burst into the open.

 

As impossible as the situation may have seemed, the Chapter carried on in its sworn duty to the Emperor and the Imperium. With loyalty built up within many of the local bases in their territory, the Razor tried to circumvent Admech scrutiny to obtain needed men and materials.

 

The Honours Crusade was now the Chapter’s home. Its armoured holds transformed into improvised manufacturing forges and apothecary sanctums which supplied the Chapter with a slow but steady stream of men and materials. They also started to use the Demiurg artefacts that had been kept from the Admech since the long “Blood Shadows” campaign to offset their weakened capabilities.

 

No Turning Back

Beginning in 832M41, Black Razor units began to receive distress calls from isolated systems out along the edge of the galactic arm about encounters with ravenous xeno bio-forms. These would later be identified as Tyranid infestation clusters and splinter cells. By 867M41, a strike group was organized to back track and find the possible sources of the bio-forms.

 

The group was lead by Captain Jorgen Tagg and began a long and arduous mission out along a line of barren and distant worlds to cleanse the new threat. By 907M41, Tagg and his ships were stretched far out along the galactic edge and had tracked one Tyranid thread to a system hanging on the edge of the galactic arm.

Star charts designated it only as 29C6M61-377AE, and to the shock of Tagg and his men, they discovered a Tau convoy fighting for its life against a Tyranid splinter cell. The system was far beyond even the renegade Farsight colonies, but how they got there would have to be answered later. Not asking questions, Tagg committed his men and ships to the battle against the great devourer.

 

After a long and costly fight which saw some of the cargo ships awash in blood, the Tyranids were finally destroyed. All agreed to a truce in order to regroup, but events conspired to seal the fate of Tagg and his men. The first was Tagg's refusal to kill the Tau and their human allies on the orders of Gadius Xyleon, the Admech’s Senior Magos. Instead the Captain allowed the ships and crews a chance to repair and return to Tau space.

Tagg scowled. He had requested a meeting with the Tau convoy commander regarding the decision to allow them to return, and now this.

 

The Orca drop ship had landed a hundred meters from where the Damocles and his own Rhino were positioned. The Shas’O, her Command Unit and Fire Warrior escorts then walked the distance in the open to where he had stood waiting along with three members of his Command Squad; Brother Tartel, Brother Dravik and Champion Orthon. When Xyleon's ship had appeared on the scanner slates, Tagg told the assembled warriors to prepare for 'party crashers'. A phrase he remembered from an old Trinos servant another lifetime ago.

 

Now they watched the Admech ship appear on the western horizon and grow large as it approached fast and low over the dry lake bed. It circled tightly around their position and landed 300 meters away from the Rhinos and Orca. Lunes of dust and fine stone formed, revealing the intersecting boundaries of repulsor and power fields that cushioned the landing of the Admech ship.

 

With the landing thrusters winding down, Tagg saw boarding ramps unlock and freefall to the ground, kicking up dust as they impacted the hard earth. Moments later he could not help but hear the drumming of heavy armoured boots running down those ramps as four squads of Skitarii fanned out from the ship. At a full run they advanced directly towards his group and halted only fifty meters from where they stood.

 

Tagg heard the Shas’O give the orders to have all weapons and drone systems armed and ready to deploy.

He tapped the vox gem to the monitored squad frequency.

"Damocles Novem, monitor everything you can. Brother Cron, be ready to screen us if things turn critical."

His men formed up around him and the colony Shas’O, bolters held at the ready. Orthon stood next to Tagg.

“The Emperor will be with us Captain.”

“I hope so Brother Champion. Otherwise we will fail.”

The arid wind blew dust across the hard packed earth as Xyleon and a personal guard approached. The Skitarii parted to allow their High Magos to pass through. He ‘walked’ right up to Tagg; though it was more than human limbs that propelled the Magos from the way the long crimson robes rippled.

'I wonder what parts are still human.' Tagg thought as he matched the gaze of the one human eye that was visible within the cowl that closed around the Techpriest's head. Three Marine sized close combat servitors stood back and remained focused on Tagg as Xyleon shouted at him. His vox amplified voice hissing with impatience.

"What is the treasonous excuse for failure to obey the orders of the Machine God this time Tagg? You are bound by oaths to carry out the will of the Omnisiah when asked to do so! If you do not immediately follow…”

“Shut up Xyloeon! You do not order me to do anything! If I do not give them a chance to choose their own destiny, I will be committing the gravest insult to the honor of those who fought and died here. They earned it and you will not do anything to prevent that.”

“Do not tell the Omnisiah what to do Astartes! The noose that is around your Chapter’s neck is tightening even now. I will give you one more chance Marine!”

 

Tagg stared into that one real eye of the Magos. He saw the same mad gleam that he had seen in the eyes of Chaos Marines, but there was something else though. Under that gleam was something darker. A cold and soulless being that was loyal only to itself and which viewed everything else with contempt.

“Chaos take your Omnisiah!” Tagg snarled right back at Xyleon. He had had enough of him.

“If you move against the Tau and Human ships, I will order my men to open fire on every Admech ship that is within weapons range. And if the Emperor wills it, I will make sure that you are the last one killed.”

Then without taking his eyes off Xyleon, he addressed the Tau Shas’O behind him.

“Shas Mont’au Cur’Haet, I am giving you a chance to return home. Do not waste it!”

 

‘This is it’ he thought, staring into the single human eye of the Magos.

“For the greater good.” The Shas’O said as everyone tensed, prepared to die. Xyleon took one step towards Tagg then froze.

 

A high pitch screeching suddenly broadcast itself from within the cowl of the Magos. Made up of multiple tones and pulses that cascaded up and down in intensity and frequency, there were stops and pauses that made it resemble a recorded conversation played back at high speed.

 

Tagg recognized that. It was the same speech the Tech Marines used in interrogating the machine spirits of Astartes equipment. ‘What just changed?’ He thought immediately.

“Have you confirmed it? I will return.” Xyleons vocalized in high gothic.

 

He drew himself up to his full height, which took him above Tagg’s head. The physical posturing failed to impress or intimidate Jorgen. In fact all it did was confirm that the Marines decision was right.

"You will pay for those treasonous words Astartes! This is not a show of mercy. You will answer to the Machine God!”

He pivoted and returned to his ship. In less than fifteen minutes, dust and stones were blowing past the Marines and Tau as the Admech ship lifted at full power.

“What just happened?” Brother Dodeus asked, not sure of what he had just witnessed.

“What ever it is will cost us Captain.” Orthon said gravely.

“Yes it will.” Tagg responded, feeling uneasy and for only the second time in his life uncertain.

In the outer asteroid belt, a Mechanicus ship had tracked a large unknown object on course into the inner system. Scans revealed a damaged and abandoned Demiurg Stronghold class ship. The ships of the long lost race were a prize the Admech had spent eons searching for. Scattered throughout the south and east of the galaxy, they were thought lost to history, but to now have one appear was worth the sacrifice of anything. Even a Chapter of the Astartes if need be. With the Razor weakened, spread out and unable to properly regroup, the Admech unilaterally declared them traitors and moved to seize and where necessary destroy their assets.

 

Shocked over their betrayal, Tagg lead his men in a hard fought fight against the Admech forces. With the aid of the Tau and their human auxiliaries, they managed to destroy the Mechanicus ships and kill Xyloen and his men.

Tagg knelt atop the fallen section of display slate and bulkhead. With his normal gauntlet, he turned and then removed his helmet after the neck seals disengaged from the ring lock. His white skin felt tight across his face and he looked down at the struggling upper torso of Xyleon.

 

A mechandrite tendril flailed at him and he caught it with his power fist. He wrenched back and tore the tendril free from the body of the Magos. Wire like things within the structure of the tendril stretched and then tore, trailing a fine mist of fluid.

 

Xyleon shifted to look up at the black form of the Captain with his one human eye. The artificial eyes that covered the left side of his face sparked and faded to black, a sign that his cyber-mechanical systems were shutting down. The section of bulkhead that trapped the Magos had been blown free when the Marines had breached the command deck of his ship from space.

 

It was Gadius’s augmentations that had allowed him to survive up till this point. Hatred boiled up inside of Tagg. Hatred of the Admech and what they had done.

“Why? How could you betray the oaths between the Astartes and Mars?"

The Magos stared straight into Tagg’s eyes. Even with his body shattered and crushed under the section of bulkhead, Jorgon saw the same cold soulless thing that he had seen before.

“It was… It was a logical extrapolation from all possible outcomes. With the relevant contingency measures weighed against the projected material to be lost or gained. It was determined that the recovery of a Demiurg ship was paramount above all else. The elimination of Marine elements had been considered and planned for.”

“Elimination of Marine…“Tagg stopped as he realized the ominous and terrible implications of that statement.

“It was the will of the Omnisiah that condemned you Tagg, nothing more.”

“Then I lied. Yours is only going to be the first death.”

Tagg punched down with the powerfist, crushing the head of the Magos. The energy discharge induced arching through the now dead priest and the shattered display and input slates. He slowly stood up and touched the vox gem on the collar of his armour. The power fist now clenched so tight that the servo fibres actually emitted a high pitch whine.

”This is Tagg. Try and contact anyone you can.”

As Tagg assessed their dire situation, his ships began receiving fragmented communications from other Chapter elements still in their home territories. All local bases and Marine assets had been attacked, seized, or destroyed by the Admech. Some local PDF units attempted to assist the Razor but were destroyed, while others were reminded of their loyalties by the Inquisition, which now emerged to suppress any chance of this "rebellion" spreading to the larger local populations.

 

Pursued by both Admech and Inquisitorial forces, the Marine survivors fought their way along the fringe to join up with Tagg at 29C6M61-377AE. What amounted to four Companies managed to make it to the fringe world. A garbled message from the Honours Crusade was received stating that it was repelling Admech assault troops and boarding servitors.

 

In organizing what was left of the still proud Chapter, Tagg realized what he had done and what he had turned his fellow survivors into. Those who wished to leave were allowed to. Those that remained declared themselves a Free Chapter, serving the Emperor and Humanity as they saw fit. It actually shocked Tagg that none of the surviving Marines and Chapter Auxiliary chose to leave. At the present time, the Chapter is suspected to have the equivalent of four Companies, along with their Strike Cruisers and a handful of escort frigates. The Honours Crusade is their mobile fortress with Jorgen Tagg the declared Chapter Master at this time.

 

 

 

HOME WORLD

The Razor did not have a single home world. Like other space-based chapters they lived and fought from their star ships. In addition to their space fleet, the Razor established a mobile Fortress to act as foundry, academy, temple, and sanctuary. It was christened ‘Irritus Arx’ or ‘Void Citadel’. Surveyed in 558M39 by a Scouting mission, conversion of the asteroid into a mobile fortress was started by the Adaptus Mechanicus with construction titans anchoring power cores and drive engines deep into the igneous rock. By 610M39, the Irritus Arx was finished. Its surface now filigreed with the lights of launch bays, ship berths, observation cathedrals, and defence batteries.

 

It was the location of the main repair yards for the Chapter’s space fleet. It contained the forges needed to produce the weapons, munitions, ordinance, and armour demanded by the Chapter. Apothecary chambers housed the gene seed storage vaults and implantation sanctums that turned raw recruits into space marines. Throughout its mass were the barracks, instructional halls, training ranges, storage vaults, and devotional chambers needed by the Chapter to maintain its body and soul.

 

 

 

ORGANIZATION

At their peak, the Razor commanded the battle barge ‘Honours Crusade’, ten Strike Cruisers, and the assorted escort and supply Frigates needed to support the Chapters’ operations. Like other Successor Chapters of the Raven Guard, the Black Razor was organized into ten independent Battle Companies that contained the men, arms and armour that each required. Led by a Senior Veteran Captain, each Company was contained within a Strike Fleet consisting of Strike Cruiser, Escort Frigates, and the required gunships and landing craft.

 

Support bases were established on various worlds to maintain both a presence within the local systems, and to provide labour and material support to the Battle Companies as they needed it. The main difference from other space based Chapters was that the Companies would return to the Chapter’s fortress for re-supply, rest and re-equipping on a semi-regular basis.

 

Two Companies were stationed on the Arx. Under them was the vast workforce needed to operate the mobile fortress. If the Chapter Master deployed, then the Company he deployed with was referred to as the ‘Honoured 1’st.’ At all times two Strike Cruisers and their support Frigates were stationed at the fortress, which allowed the Companies to deploy immediately when commanded too.

 

Two Companies were assigned to the battle barge Honours Crusade. In the early stages of the Chapter’s expansion, the venerable barge held the full complement of three, but over time its’ capacity was reduced to two by the installation of maintenance, manufacturing, and support facilities. It became a second mobile fortress, able to provide both direct material support during a battle as well as overpowering and devastating direct fire support from its assault guns and bombardment cannons.

 

The remaining six battle Companies were assigned to operational rotation. Scattered across many worlds and systems, they were the front line Companies. Each Captain expected to assess the capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of his men and equipment and respond to any actual or perceived threat as they saw fit.

 

 

 

COMBAT DOCTRINE

In the beginning Marr and his successor Usin Bron, struggled to balance the independent nature and will of the Companies against the Codex tenants of central command and leadership. The solution to this was a doctrine of “All should lead, all should follow.”

By rotating his men through the different Companies, as well as involving them in the duties of the larger Chapter, they would be able to take their place beside their fellow brothers when called upon, no matter what the situation or circumstances were.

“You must have absolute confidence in yours’ and your Brother’s skills of battle and of leadership. No matter where you are assigned or who you are fighting with. No matter what the situation is, you must be prepared to take on any role, any responsibility, and any duty no matter what it is. I expect no less from any one of my men.”

This doctrine lead to a flexible and fluid fighting force; be it a small detachment of Scouts led by a Senior Veteran or a Strike Force needing additional Scout and Assault Squads drawn from other Companies to act as an advanced spearhead. Marr gave his Company Captains the independence to pursue their own agendas, but also made them part of a larger distributed whole.

 

This made the Chapter better able to fight on many worlds and in many different conditions simultaneously. Scout squads were employed on a larger basis to provide the intelligence and covert surveillance needed to ensure men and equipment were not wasted needlessly on protracted and static battles. Precise attacks, hitting with overwhelming shock and ferocity where and when the enemy lest expected it, was the preferred method of the Razor.

“We’re a knife flash in the night. One brings fear. Two brings death.”

Veteran Sergeant Mortolia Rell before executing an unconventional drop pod assault that took out the pirate fleet bunkers during the Robuste Bay pacification in 954M39. He ordered two drop pods filled with explosives and then configured them to detonate by remote control. He then had his assault squads board their pods and wait as the entire peninsula was plunged into total darkness due to volcanic ash storms. Under this cover, and at the height of the storms, he launched the explosive pods first followed by his own. The two lead pods, following tracking beacons set up by concealed Scouts, screamed through the defence guns and smashed deep into the cermacrete bunkers. The bunkers were breached when Rell detonated them seconds before his own pods hit the now ruined ceilings. The assault earned him promotion to the 1’st Squad of the Company. There he would serve with distinction and earn the rank of Captain during the Sanchanta Glassing in 098M40.

Rhinos and Razorbacks were used when needed. Their transport capabilities used to exploit openings and place Marines quickly behind enemy positions. Devastator Squads, Thunderfire Cannons, Land Speeders and the Chapter's Elite Terminators took on a greater role because they could be deployed by Landing Craft, Drop Pod, Thunderhawk Gunship or Teleportation Gate. Only when there was a secured beachhead or firebase, did the Chapter deploy heavier armour and Whirlwind units.

 

 

 

RECRUITING

The polluted mining colonies, failed hive cities, forgotten agri-worlds and other isolated human enclaves of the fringe territories did not support large enough populations to allow the Razor to recruit from a single planet or system. Recruits were drawn from many different systems so as to create a large enough pool of candidates to choose from. In some instances, scouting parties with senior Marines under the Master of Training and the Chapter Apothicarium would set up challenges to test exceptional candidates in life or death situations.

 

All this was to select the few who would best survive the dangerous mental and physical trials that they would be subjected to in becoming Space Marines. Some systems did produce more acceptable candidates than others, and when they succeeded in surviving to become full Battle Brothers, they were used to create deeper ties of loyalty within the populations.

 

All recruits were taken to the Arx. This was done to begin building an identity as a Black Razor first and foremost. It also allowed the ‘Initiates’ to be exposed to the different Companies as they rotated back. As each Initiate progressed through the implantation stages, he would be put through the demanding tests, drills, and evaluations that all Chapters used to determine how successful the implantation was.

 

Like all other Astartes Chapters, the implantation stages produced success and failure. Failures sometimes resulted in death, but many lived and after extensive testing and evaluation were given the opportunity to join the Chapter Auxiliary or Household. This was the vast workforce needed to maintain the Chapter’s assets. And though they would not become full Brothers, their failure was not considered dishonourable in any way because the Chapter could not operate without them.

 

When the initiates began their ‘in theatre’ training, they were transferred from company to company as needed. This was done to develop a greater sense of duty to their brethren and Chapter, as all were brothers in arms together. No matter what system they came from, what company they were in, or fighting with, they fought as Black Razor first.

 

 

 

GENE SEED

The Black Razor looked upon their Raven Guard lineage as a symbol of honour, to be proudly venerated and maintained. Through constant random sampling and DNA checks of initiates and full brothers, the Razor maintained a high degree of stability within both the implantation organ stock and the recovered progeneroid seed bodies.

 

Those who indicated signs of genetic drift, degradation, or mutation were placed under secured watch and monitored. If the flaw proved to be unstable, they were eliminated or where applicable, converted into servitor organics to be used by the Chapter. If they were deemed stable, they were offered positions in the Chapter Auxiliary. Again, nothing was wasted.

 

 

 

BELIEFS

The Black Razor did not differ from other Codex Chapters in their view of the Emperor, the role of the Astartes and their place in the Imperium. From the beginning, the Chapter saw itself as the last line against chaos and anarchy, with a very clear demarcation between right and wrong. As they expanded and began to interact with and integrate themselves into the various local populations, drawing recruits from all manner of humanity, this black and white distinction slowly changed to a more pragmatic outlook.

 

When humanity recognized the Emperor as the Savoir he was, all were to be granted the protection of the Astartes as it is ‘our first and only duty.’ Those that turned away were dealt with in a most straightforward and uncompromising manner. They were killed as enemies of the Imperium.

 

As the ideological conflict between the Razor and the Admech grew more intense, this belief did not change. If anything the actions of the Admech strengthened their resolve and belief because they now saw the Mechanicus as a lie. Deceiving the Imperium to maintain a strangle hold on knowledge and technology for their own treacherous ends. They had to be challenged because they had betrayed their pact with the Emperor and Humanity. The Chapter saw it as simple fulfillment of their manifest purpose.

 

As for the present Free Chapter, they see themselves as still loyal. The Admech betrayed them to seize the technology they had uncovered and used to carry out their duty. And that duty has not changed despite all the adversities now before them. To do so would be breaking their oath to the Emperor, and an Astartes cannot break that oath.

 

 

 

BATTLE CRY

A battle cry was never officially documented for the Razor. There are the hymns and dedications sung and recited by all Chapters but no one universal calling emerged within the Black Razor. As the animosity between the Razor and the Admech increased, the dedication of ‘Our first and only duty’ was adopted whenever the Razor ended a briefing, assembly or prepared for combat. As a Free Chapter, they still recite 'Our fist and only duty' when preparing for combat. If any Adaptus Mechanicus are encountered, then Tagg and his men have only one thing to say. ''The Emperor will judge you in death. We will judge you now.”

 

“We will not forget. We will survive. We will fight. We will recruit amongst the forgotten worlds, the abandoned systems, and the empty corners. We will offer the chance of redemption to the untold that have been forgotten, abandoned, or worse, ignored. From the shadows we will fight the wrong that was done to us. We will not forget that our first and only duty is to defend mankind. So say we all.”

[gil galed]

1/ yes you could tenuously have marines from a different chapter but it's highly unlikely, it really comes down to reasoning, unless you have a good one i'd steer clear of it as in general marines will want to train their 'child' chapters

 

2/ 7 is fine i'd imagine, 200-350 years a chapter master is pretty good really. Perhaps a few more

 

3/ Is it the black razor's' or just black razor? because just the black razor is quite at odds with the general use of plurals in chapter names

 

~Gil :)

[ChaplainMathreyn]

You Could have "Ultramarines geneseed", that has come from the White Consuls, with the training cadre coming from the White Consuls, though... I can't imagine the Ultramarines sending out a training cadre for Each of their successors; There'd be no Ultramarines left, they'd be scattered over the universe.

 

Yeah... I pronounced it as the Black Razors... Just thought it may have been a typo or something...

[Odsox]

My Chapter uses Iron Hands geneseed but had an Ultramarines Chapter Master (rather than a cadre) as their founding father. I haven't had any negative feedback regarding that. Go for it!

 

**EDIT**

 

Also, I look at it this way - the oldest living Chapter Master is what, Dante? I figure as long as you don't state that your CM is older than him, or worse, older than Bjorn the Fell-Handed (10k, he's one seriously old dude) and unstoppable, it'll be okay. I've gone through quite a few myself. I feel it adds another human, fallible aspect to any Chapter.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

I like the idea of a "free company" style Astartes formation, selling their services to "lesser evils" like the Tau to continue the fight against the Tyranids and Traitor Legions.

 

Sort of akin to the old(?) WHFB ally rules.. Where, for example, High Elves could ally with the Empire but not Dark Elves.. In this case though it is Astartes can ally with X but only to fight Y.. If you follow.

[Wildfire]

Actually, back in 2nd there were lots of ally rules. Space Elves... erm, Eldar... could ally to Space Marines and vice versa, for instance. IG and SM could ally, Orks and IG could ally, Chaos and Daemons Worlds could ally, etc.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

Actually, back in 2nd there were lots of ally rules. Space Elves... erm, Eldar... could ally to Space Marines and vice versa, for instance. IG and SM could ally, Orks and IG could ally, Chaos and Daemons Worlds could ally, etc.

 

I vaguely remember that, there was a chart printed in WD at one point?

 

WHFB is the first that sprung to mind though!

[ChaplainMathreyn]

See... I don't think "ally" so much as manipulate... See there's just to much animosity, mistrusy and hate between the Tau, Eldar and Humanity to make an "alliance" feasible... Sure, if a Tau Commander and a Human Commander find themselves fighting a losing battle against, say the Orks, they may temporarily put asid those feelings to achieve victory... But don't forget that althought They may see the wisdom, there are hundreds of thousands fo their troops who hate the other side... Remember, xenos aren't your friends; They hate you, and you, should rightly, hate them.

 

However, the idea that a wider seeing Eldar Commander who manipulates a Human force into helping achieve the greater goals is always feasible.

[ChaplainMathreyn]

See... I don't think "ally" so much as manipulate... See there's just to much animosity, mistrusy and hate between the Tau, Eldar and Humanity to make an "alliance" feasible... Sure, if a Tau Commander and a Human Commander find themselves fighting a losing battle against, say the Orks, they may temporarily put asid those feelings to achieve victory... But don't forget that althought They may see the wisdom, there are hundreds of thousands fo their troops who hate the other side... Remember, xenos aren't your friends; They hate you, and you, should rightly, hate them.

 

However, the idea that a wider seeing Eldar Commander who manipulates a Human force into helping achieve the greater goals is always feasible.

[Grey Hunter Ydalir]

I remember that thread, I also remember being one of the ones arguing against a chapter of astartes working for the Tau and the Greater Good and I stand by that opinion still. That said, I am rather bias against the anime-inspired-communist-smurfs.

 

Having a 'free company' of marines is far more palatable and something I like a lot. It's an idea I've played with before but I am far too loyal to the Emperor to leave his service and you can't get more cliche than 'loyal renegades' so I tend to steer clear.

 

What you need to do if you really are going to persue the mercenary aspect are a couple of things.

 

One, they will be far from well supported and supplied. Loyal chapters are supported by the wider Imperium and most importantly, the Adeptus Mechanicus. Your marines would have no support structure, no regular shipments of munitions, arms or armour. They would by necessity need to make a very great enemy of the Mechanicus by raiding their shipping bound for other chapters and by proxy, make enemies of those chapters as well.

 

As such they'd need to be very, very good at evading being brought to task by the organisations they are giving grief to.

 

Secondly, to make them too chummy with Xenos, or have them pick up and use lots of different Xenos tech like some sort of intergalactic bunch of ravens collecting all the shiney things, would be a little odd. Sure they might pick up the odd piece of this or that, something they understand or something that's useful but to deviate too far would be a little... odd, I think.

 

Also the fact that they neither have the support of these other Xenos, given their natural emnity towards your marines, that taking on too much un-sustainable alien tech would be inefficient. In any case a chapter can usually, at least in a minimal amount repair and manufacture some parts for their armour and some munitions, you'd rather go for something sustainable than not in their position I'd wager.

[Newtype]

Good day all, and thanks for the comments.

 

The idea is of a chapter that broke from the strict doctrines and rules governing the relation between the AdMech and the Astartes. The chapter is stressed so badly that over time they have to learn to repair and build their own stuff. They learn 'How' the technology they use works. The AdMech naturally think they have gone to far and take matters into their own hands. The chapter looks at this as breaking the separation between the Astartes and Adaptus Mechanicus and say 'Frack you'. The AdMech in turn yell 'Traitor to the Machine God' and 'Heretic to the Omnisia', call in favours to the Inquisition, and seize all the arco-tech and STC relics they can get their mechandrite tentacles on.

 

It all goes pear shaped and you end up with a free company earning their pay in ammunition and power armour spares because the galaxy in 40k has more 'unknown' sectors than 'known' sectors.

 

The galaxy map that you have linked to Grey Hunter Ydalir is just beautiful. And I have used it to map out where my chapter has been. Thank you for that resource.

 

With that though, here is the history I have blocked out so far. This may provide answers to your questions and give you more questions to ask.

 

 

IA Black Razor: Time Line

 

500M39: Black Razor Chapter created during the 24'th Founding. Initial marine force and geed seed line is taken from the Raven Guard. Hagan Marr, a senior captain within the Black Councils (Successor chapter of the Ultra Marines) is first Chapter Master. Initial ships assigned to the chapter are the Battle Barge "Void Crusader" and two strike cruisers.

 

 

600M39: Suitable planetoid found and conversion into chapter fortress begins with AdMech construction titans anchoring drive engines into the surface. Marr begins implementing his idea of "Train to lead, but be ready to follow."

 

 

700M39: Turbatus Domus construction finished. Foundries begin construction of chapter ships.

 

 

800M39: Marr dies in battle with Chaos Lord during the Insbek Pacification. His second in command, Usin Bron, becomes chapter master and continues in his name.

 

 

900M39: Robuste Bay pacification.

 

 

000M40: Fragments of Demiurge archo-tech uncovered on several barren worlds. These are catalogued and the AdMech informed of chapter's discoveries. Sanchanta Glassing.

 

100M40: Bron lost in warp accident. Octavin Arcady named third Chapter Master.

 

 

200M40:

 

 

300M40: Arcady killed during surprise terror raid on Angelakos Agriworld. A handful of his command squad survive to pursue raiders identified as Dark Eldar. Captain Rycus Sarayen is made Chapter Master, and immediately faces raids against Imperial shipping through out the very sector the Domus is located. The pirates are part of the "Soulless Void" cabal, and the Chapter begins a campaign of vengeance that will drag on for the next 320 years and take it far along the stellar edge and out into the void itself.

 

 

400M40: More Demiurge archo-tech uncovered along a series of dead worlds on the stellar edge of the arm

 

 

500M40: The campaign against the Dark Eldar draws more and more of the chapter into the fight. Resources are stretched to the breaking point. Sarayen orders his tech marines to use Demiurge archo-tech to seize victory in several key battles.

 

 

600M40: Sarayen leads finial assault on Dark Eldar fortress. During the ship engagement, Captain Helso Dellios orders his strike cruiser to ram the Eldar command ship and fires the cruisers' guns while the ships are entangled. The Eldar ship is holed and the Pirate Lord and surviving crew fight to the last in brutal close quarter’s combat that will claim 1/3'rd of Helso's men, and almost all of Sarayen's men.

 

 

700M40: AdMech demand forfeiture of Demiurge relics. Sarayen tells the Admech they have no business in marine matters. He hands over some, but secretly orders others not yet reported to the AdMech secured. AdMech begin shadowing Razor ships. Sarayen dies under conditions that point to AdMech involvement. Helso Dellios is named fifth chapter master.

 

 

800M40: Cartellion campaign. Dellios begins to emphasize greater self reliance in the chapter's ability to build, repair, and modify, equipment in the field. "If there are no tech-marines, what are you going to do? It's not enough to know how to use a weapon; you must know how it works and how to maintain it under any conditions."

 

 

900M40: Uster Provincial Pacification. Master of the Forge Morrax Jeler confronts Dellios over the corruption of the AdMech/Astartes roles, and his blasphemy against the Machine God's holly technology. Dellios shows Jeler the links between the AdMech and Sarayens' death. He also reveals his suspicions about the surveillance of the Razor by the AdMech. He finally reminds Jeler of his oaths to defend humanity, not the Machine God.

 

 

000M40:

 

100M41: Delllios is killed in hand to hand combat with renegade governor who turned to chaos. Cordo Song named sixth Chapter Master.

 

 

200M41:

 

300M41:

 

 

400M41: Song lost to the Warp. Barstron Joth named seventh Chapter Master.

 

 

500M41: Turbatus Domus moved into resource rich, red dwarf system. Identified as 256DS, it contains asteroid fields where major planetary bodies would have once been.

 

 

600M41: Rouge planetary body orbiting 256DS found to contain xenos (Necron) construct. Domus and Joth are lost in explosion caused by warping the fortress onto the planets surface. AdMech accuse Joth of crimes against the Machine God. Because of the loss, the chapter is thrown into disarray with company captains maintaining orders and trying to regroup around planetary bases. Battle Barge Void Crusader becomes the chapter's command base. Demiurge archo-tech held by chapter is used to assist rebuilding of chapter arms and equipment.

 

 

700M41:

 

800M41: Some Razor ships receive fragmented reports of alien life forms decimating isolated installations. Strike group organized to investigate and exterminate source of life forms. Lead by senior Captain Jorgen Tagg.

 

 

900M41: Strike group tracks Tyranid fragments to Stellar System 334AE. Tau/Human colony is in desperate fight for survival. Tagg orders his men to aid the colonists. Discovery of working Demiurge stronghold makes AdMech move against Razor. Tagg orders his men to fight and destroy AdMech forces. AdMech label Razor as traitors and seize all assets.

 

Current: Chapter is a renegade free company. Aiding those they see fit to aid. At current strength, the Razor has the equivalent of four companies. Current Chapter Master Jorgen Tagg.

 

 

Until the next post.

Gundam13

[gil galed]

looks good, might I suggest however that you make the numbers more than just, 100, 200, 300, unless of course you're going for century overviews

 

~Gil :D

[Newtype]

Good day.

 

I understand what you are asking Gil Galed. The idea was to block out the main events in the chapter history so I could keep everything in order. That way I can add detail and specific dates as I write the IA.

 

I'll post what I have so for written as soon as I get a chance.

 

Till the next post.

[gil galed]

Good day.

 

I understand what you are asking Gil Galed. The idea was to block out the main events in the chapter history so I could keep everything in order. That way I can add detail and specific dates as I write the IA.

 

I'll post what I have so for written as soon as I get a chance.

 

Till the next post.

 

O ok cool, that makes sense

 

~Gil :)

[Newtype]

Good day all. Here is a first draft of the Black Razor IA. No formatting yet as I want to get the prose right. I think I have good reasoning for their actions and hope it comes across as a historical summary.

 

So for your consideration, I present the Black Razor, Renegade Marine Chapter.

 

 

INDEX ASTARTES TRAITORUS: BLACK RAZOR

 

Space based Marine Chapter.

 

SYMBOL

Currently none used.

 

 

ORIGINS

 

Created as part of the 24’Th founding, the Black Razor were chartered to enforce and impose Imperial rule along the trailing edge of the Sagittarius Arm. Long considered a frontier territory with half remembered colony worlds, mining systems, and forgotten human planets strung along the length of the outer edge of the galactic arm; the more isolated systems had become home to many and varied human renegades, outlaws and agitators to Imperial law. The more heavily inhabited systems had experienced a slow but steady increase in attacks by orks, elder pirates, and chaos forces as well. These enemies along with the geography of the territory would produce challenges that would shape the combat doctrines of the chapter through out their history.

 

The scattering of inhabited systems and worlds along the trailing edge of the Sagittarius Arm meant that the chapter had to operate over vast distances and be self reliant in all aspects of operations. Battle companies had to be able to react to any threat that they encountered, as well as operate independently for long periods of time. With those considerations in mind, the gene seed line was drawn from the Raven Guard while the initial officer cadre was chosen from the Ultramarines successor chapters. Though controversial, it was thought that the presence of a strong centralized command element would balance the Raven Guard’s recognized structural trait of company independence, which had emerged in their successor chapters.

 

 

HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION

 

Loyalist Period:

At their peek, the Razor commanded the battle barge ‘Void Crusader’, ten strike cruisers, the assorted escort and supply frigates needed to support the chapters’ star ships as well as the mobile planetoid fortress ‘Turbatus Domus’. The Domus was the ‘heart and soul’ of the chapter. It was the location of the main repair yards for the chapter’s space fleet. It contained the manufacturing forges needed to produce the weapons, munitions, ordinance, and armour needed by the chapter. Apothecary chambers housed the gene seed storage vaults and implantation sanctums that turned raw recruits into space marines. Through out its mass were the barracks, instructional halls, training ranges, storage vaults, and devotional chambers needed by the chapter to maintain its body and soul.

 

Like the Raven Guard, the Black Razor battle companies operated independently from each other. Deployed on an ‘Operational Rotation’, each company operated from a fleet consisting of a strike cruiser and escort frigates. The battle company was a self-contained entity; with the scouts, troops, fast attack, elite, and heavy support units that it needed. As the chapter grew and consolidated their positions within systems, support bases were established to maintain both a presence with the local populations, and to provide support to the battle companies as they needed it. Unlike the Raven Guard though, the companies would return to the Turbatus Domus for re-supply, rest, and re-equipping. Before the loss of the Domus and Chapter Master Barstron Joth, the Razors’ force organization was as follows:

 

Two companies were assigned to the Tubatus Domus. These acted as the teachers, instructors, and drill sergeants responsible for training all recruits. Under them was the vast workforce needed to operate the mobile fortress. If the Chapter Master deployed, then the company he deployed with was referred to as the ‘Honoured 1’st.’ At all times two strike cruisers and their support frigates were stationed at the fortress which allowed the companies to deploy if commanded too.

 

Two companies were assigned to the Battle Barge Void Crusader. Normally able to carry three marine companies, the Void Crusader had its’ troop capacity reduced to two by the installation of maintenance, manufacturing, and support bays. In this way it became a mobile support base as well, able to provide direct material support during a battle, and when called upon, provide overpowering and devastating direct fire support from its assault guns and bombardment cannons.

 

The remaining six battle companies were assigned to operational rotation. Scattered across many worlds and systems, they were the front line companies. Each Captain expected to assess the capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of their men and equipment and respond accordingly to any actual or perceived threat as they saw fit to.

 

From the beginning Marr and his successor Usin Bron, struggled to balance the independent nature and will of the companies against the Codex tenants of central command and leadership. This brought about a doctrine of ‘All should lead, and all should follow.’

 

It was a realization by Marr that with the companies spread out over such a vast territory, the ability to command and obey had to be instilled equally into every one of his men. By exposing his marines’ to every aspect of chapter operations, they would be better able to step up and take the place of their brother marine if called upon. No matter what the situation and circumstances were at the time.

 

“You must have absolute confidence in yours’ and your brother marine’s skills of battle, skills of leadership. No matter where you are assigned or who you are fighting with. No matter what the situation is, you must be ready to take command, to take the place of your brother in arms. I expect this of every one of my men.”

 

In addition to this doctrine, the geography of the territory played two important roles in shaping the organization and behaviour of the chapter during their loyalist period.

 

The first was recruiting. There was no one best planet to recruit from for the Black Razor. Recruits were drawn from as many of the local systems as possible so as to create a large enough pool from which the chapter could select the few who could best survive the stringent and dangerous initiation rites. This was part of the reason why local bases where established, as it created deeper ties of loyalty into the local populations if more qualified candidates were recruited. As an initiate rose in rank and experience, he would be transferred from company to company as needed. This was done to enforce a greater sense of duty to their brethren and the chapter, as all were brothers in arms together. No matter what system they came from, what company they where in, or fighting with, they fought as Black Razor first and only.

 

The second was tactics. With the territory spread out as it was; the companies could find themselves operating over many worlds and in many different conditions simultaneously. Wasting men and equipment in protracted and static battles was dangerous. Like their Raven Guard brethren, the Razor’s tactics become one of observation and then striking decisively. Hitting with unexpected shock and fury, where and when the enemy lest expected it.

 

“We’re a knife flashing twice in the night. The first brings fear. The second brings death.”

Veteran Sergeant Mortolia Rell before executing an unconventional drop pod assault that took out the pirate fleet bunkers during the Robuste Bay pacification in 941M40. He ordered two drop pods filled with explosives and then configured them to detonate by remote control. He then had his assault squads board their drop pods and wait as the entire peninsula was plunged into total darkness due to volcanic ash storms. Under this cover, and at the height of the storms, he launched the explosive pods first followed by his own assault pods. The two lead pods screamed through the defence guns and smashed deep into the cermacrete bunkers. The bunkers were breached when Rell detonated them by remote only seconds before his own pods hit the still crumbling walls. The assault earned him promotion to the 1’ST Squad of the Company. There he would serve with distinction and earn the rank of Captain during the Sanchanta Glassing.

 

Heavy armour was used, but support weapons that could move with or be carried with the marines were favoured more. Devastator squads and the chapters’ Terminators took on a greater role along with the use of drop pod assaults and Thunderhawk gunship strikes.

 

Together, these factors also contributed over time to the Black Razor becoming more independent and self sufficient in maintaining their fighting forces and space assets. Normally, the maintenance and repairs by a chapter and their tech marines were accepted by the AM because of the covenants and oaths that the two groups have sworn too. The AM supplied the Adeptus Astartes with their weapons, arms, and armour and the Astartes maintained them in adherence with the doctrines and tenants of the Machine God.

 

During the first half of the Razor’s history the relation between the AM and themselves were considered normal and this can be seen during the period of 900M39 to 500M40, where the Razor began to uncover examples of Demiurge arco-tech. Studied by the chapter tech priests, they were handed over to the AM when requested. Two events in the chapter’s history would change this relation however. The first one poisoned it with suspicion and distrust. The second one broke it completely with charges of murder, tech-hearsay, and crimes against the Machine God.

 

 

THE FALL BEGINS

 

Fighting Shadows:

When Chapter Master Octavin Arcady was killed during a terror raid on the agriworld of Angelakos, the shocked and enraged chapter could not know that the long and costly campaign for vengeance would change their chapter forever. Fighting against Dark Eldar pirates called the “Soulless Void”, the Razor from 342M40 to 694M40, engaged in a vicious and bloody game of cat and mouse across the edge of the galactic arm and even venturing into the starless void beyond.

 

The chapter found itself spread out and weakened as supply lines were stretched beyond their limits. Attacks that seemed to come from the shadows and occur almost at random pushed planets and systems to the point of panic. During this period the chapter uncovered more Demiurge arco-tech as well as some Eldar artifacts. This may have provided some clues as to what the Dark Eldar were after, but the chapter could not pause to ponder this as honour, vengeance, and survival were now at stake.

 

At the height of the campaign Rycus Sarayen and some of his captains decided to utilize certain pieces of Demiurge arco-tech they had uncovered to achieve victory at several key battles. In fact it was a Demiurge device which detected objects sitting below the real/warp space threshold that provided the location of the Dark Eldar Citadel. Much too their shock and horror, it lay right in the heart of Razor space. It then took Imperial Navy mines configured to disrupt warp space, to force the citadel back into real space. There the finial act could begin.

 

The Cauldron Anchorage:

The greatest battle of the chapter was during the finial assault against the Dark Eldar fortress located in what was called the Cauldron Anchorage. Chapter Master Rycus Sarayen and two senior captains, Helso Dellios and Helqus Krasyn, lead their companies in the attack. During the ship-to-ship action, Sarayen, in the strike cruiser Silent Cardinal, rammed the Eldar Archon’s command ship as it attempted to escape. With the ships locked together, he ordered his gun batteries to open fire. The Eldar ship was gutted stem to stern and his own ship heavily damaged, but it trapped the Pirate Archon onboard with Sarayen, while his two captains lead their combined companies in a boarding action against the fortress. The finial confrontation was bloody and vicious as Sarayen lead his men in brutal close quarter action. In the end Sarayen had the head of the Eldar Archon but at the price of over half of his men and almost half of the two companies that boarded the fortress.

 

Action and Reaction:

The consequences of what Sarayen and his captains did to win were felt soon after. When the AM learned of what the Razor had done, they demanded all technology be turned over immediately, along with the marine personnel that came into contact with it. One senior AM Magos, Galvatius Titus, took it upon himself to carry out the AM demand, and ordered his Skitarii to seize the Razor transport they were escorting. Veteran sergeant Berross Gann warned the Magos that the AM had no authority onboard his ship and that his orders were to return the device back to the Void Crusader and he would carry them out at all cost. The boarding action and firefight cost Gann five men, and left the AM ship drifting as dead wreckage. Beyond that incident, Sarayen remained steadfast in his refusal, and reminded the AM that they had no say in how the Astartes conducted their business. They would get their relics when the Razor dictated.

 

Sarayen and his senior commanders knew the position they had put themselves in. Secretly he ordered some of the recovered artefacts to be secured and studied only by the chapter’s most trusted brothers. Other relics he turned over to the AM as a means to keep them out of his way. But he was no fool, and knew that over time the AM would secretly shadow the chapter for any opportunity to capture Demiurge or other technology. They may also have begun plans for far worse.

 

Sarayen died under suspicious circumstances, and his successor Helso Dellios spent decades trying to prove that the AM had a traitorous hand in Sarayen’s death. But he could never uncover the ‘smoking bolter’ that explicitly proved their involvement. Beginning in 808M41 with the Cartellion Anomaly, and continuing beyond his death in 158M41 during the Ekura III Purification, Dellios emphasized self-reliance and independence in the chapter’s skills to repair and build their own weapons and armour. It was not enough to have the tech-marines and their AM advisers do the repairs and maintenance that the chapter demanded. Dellios wanted his own men to be able to repair, service, and maintain their own equipment.

 

"If there are no tech-marines, what are you going to do? What if you were cut off behind enemy lines with out support? I need every one of my men to know and understand the inner workings of every weapon and vehicle within the armoury of this chapter. You must know how it works and how to maintain it under any conditions. You must know how to re-align a plasma cannon field coil. You must understand and be able to replace a Rhino transaxle. If your speeder is down, can you strip the working anti-grav lift plates to get a second one operational? You are Space Marines! You do not subordinate your oaths to defend humanity and serve the Emperor to a so called machine spirit. You demand the machine spirit do what you want it to do.”

Helso Dellios, in a confrontation with his men in 858M40 aboard the Void Crusader.

 

 

“The dammed machine spirit can take it up with me! Now do it!”

Mortally wounded Sergeant Jarax Zadra ordering his men to remove the power packs from the armour of himself and two others killed in a surprise attack by Chaos Marines, during the early days of the Uster Provincial Pacification. Two of his men were immobilized by damaged power packs after being hit by shrapnel and the operational packs allowed them move back and regroup with their squad. When the chaos marines moved in on the crippled Sergeant, Zadra detonated the grenades he had ordered placed around him. The explosion caught the chaos marines by surprise and gave the Black Razor squad the chance to launch a counter-attack. The delaying action allowed the planetary PDF with Razor support, to regroup and launch a counter offensive that won the day.

 

 

The Final Straw:

The darkest time for the chapter was the loss of the Turbatus Domus itself. In 513M41, surveys of an ancient red star showed that the asteroid belts orbiting it contained vast resource potential. A rouge planet, in a highly elliptical orbit, 23 degrees to the orbital disk, was responsible for the destruction of the systems’ planetary bodies which created the asteroid belts. The seventh chapter master, Barstron Joth, decided to move the Domus into the system because it’s valuable strategic position. At the beginning of 643M41, the rouge planet began its closest approach. Long range auger scans of the planet found evidence of an artificial structure buried deep into the planet surface. Two ships with marine and AM contingents were sent to investigate the structure. After a low orbital sweep, the ships landed and explorer units began to investigate the construct.

 

As the marines were moving into the outer areas of the construct, it came alive with eldritch power fields, and as warning signals were sent, one of the orbiting ships was destroyed by an energy blast. Robotic warriors emerged from hidden tombs and began to hunt down the Marine and AM forces. Executing a fighting withdrawal, the men succeeded in escaping to the remaining ship in orbit. Under full drive power they managed to return to the Domus. With emergency signals all ready sent, the Domus prepared itself to shift location. The stationed strike cruisers were launched to attack and disrupt the construct as fleet sensors picked up a new energy build up.

 

The senior AM Magos, Peustus Datic, advised Marr that the build up may be sufficient to damage the Domus but by his readings there should be sufficient time for the strike cruisers to delay the build up if fire was concentrated into several specific locations. Joth ordered his ships to do that and as they unloaded all their firepower into the construct, new secondary readings were detected building up around the perimeter. Armoured domes emerged from the ground and began to cycle slowly open. Revealed within were the black cyclopean spheres of warp gate generators. Just as the main drive engines on the Domus reached full power, the gates unleashed a vast null energy beam that targeted where the planetoid would be in the time it took to cross the gulf. It punched through the void shielding with disturbing ease and sliced deep into the Domus with a sickening finality. Amid the cacophony of a damaged fortress, Joth knew with clarity that he and the Domus were now doomed. With clarity of thought, he knew there was only one course of action available that could have a chance against the construct.

 

The AM priests were frantically trying to bring systems back on line. Without needing to give orders, Joth knew that his marines and the crew of the Domus would efficiently follow their duties to try and secure what parts of the chapter, ship, and crew they had been tasked to do so. It was one of the secret orders that every chapter master had to prepare for. Abandon the fortress.

 

Joth entered the vast main control chamber to the warp engine cathedrals. He saw Datic himself standing before a vast display slab that hung down from the vague ceiling high above. He tuned out the background cacophony around him before addressing the Magos.

“Can we warp before it fires again?”

Datic turned to him. Was that panic flashing across his one human eye?

 

“The machine god cries in pain and anger and you ask can we jump! The codes of rerouting, the chants of restructuralization must be finalized. We can’t even begin to plot the phase probability threads with the damage done. Mars, Metalica, Konor, they all must know of this! A random! A random…A random warp with a shallow phase transition slope could get us out of the system. The capture of such constructs could then be …”

 

Barstron heard the last piece and coldly thought, ‘We were right. We are all expendable to the Machine God.’

 

The display and system status slates showed the damage that the Domus had sustained. Joth could see the long range imaging of the Necron construct. It looked like a vast skeletal hand punching up through the surface of the planet. Reaching out to grasp and crush another system.

 

‘Is that what happened here?’ he silently asked.

‘If that is so, then I have no choice.’ His hand griped the bolt pistol and the gun interface responded to his thoughts. He set the bolts to alternate impact and proximity detonation as he clicked the gun loose of the armour holdfast on his thigh and brought it up. Barstron fired his pistol at point blank range and placed three bursts of two rounds each into the head and upper chest of the Magos. As Datic dropped to the floor, he calmly touched the vox gem at his neck guard and tapped it for full broadcast.

 

He turned to look at every one of the other Tech Priests and Enginseers that were now staring in both shocked horror and cold fear at what they had just witnessed him doing.

 

“At this time and place nothing else can be considered. We are all facing our time of judgement and to waiver would be dishonouring our oaths to the Emperor, Humanity, and the Imperium. We do not hesitate in the face of death. We embrace it.”

“You are to set an emergence point field on the surface of that planet. Center it on the construct. Inform me when you are ready to warp.”

 

He closed his eyes and began a prayer of the dead. “Those who now stand before you, Emperor of Man, may you...”

 

In a distant secondary docking bay, Senior Apothecary Dalgine Quintos heaved a cryolocker through the port crew hatch of a Thunderhawk. The engines were screaming at full power, and the marine could feel the groaning of holdfasts locking the drop ship to the bay surface through his entire body. He hailed his Chapter Master.

“We may not have enough time to get everything onboard, my lord. It may not...”

Joth cut him off. “May the Emperor guide you brother.”

 

The Scout Marine beside him, Estes was his name, yelled “Look!” and pointed back over his shoulder to the far bay walls. He turned and saw a momentary shiver to reality, like ripples in a pool of water, as what was called the tertiary phase field formed within the wrap engines and expanded to envelop the whole fortress. He grabbed the scout by the shoulder and harshly threw him through the hatch. He leaped after him and managed to hammer the door cycle controls as he screamed, “Go!”

He felt and heard the explosive release bolts, and then was flung to the deck plating as the Thunderhawk rocketed away from the bay surface at full power.

 

“Hang on Sir” was what he heard and then as the hold illuminators went dark and the emergency glow lights snapped on, he went deaf. The ultrasonic whine of the turbo laser discharge capacitors hitting his ears and causing auras around what he saw.

 

‘That was an override firing’ he managed to think. Shaking his head he tried to stand but was brought back down by the deck first heaving up and then rolling right almost ninety degrees vertical. The scream of rending cermasteel and adamantium structural spars overrode the scream of the engines. He had time to see another cryolocker come at him before it smashed into him and knock him unconscious.

 

“Phase potential reached. Ready Master Joth”

“Warp”

 

To destroy the construct, Chapter Master Barstron Joth ordered the fortress to warp onto the planet’s surface. The resulting gravitational/warp field interference tore apart the energy /matter interphase and consumed the complex in an explosion that vaporised an area of the surface almost 6400 km in diameter. The force of the explosion cracked the planetary crust and shifted the orbit of the dead world into one that would carry it into the red giant. Forever lost.

 

The recriminations and accusations that arose from the loss of the Domus were beyond pale. The AM were outraged. With accusations that Joth had forced the AM Techpriests to warp into the planet, there where angry and open demands for the Razor to be censured and made to pay for the unacceptable loss of irreplaceable and holy equipment. Some elements within the AM emerged to condemn the loss of untold technological knowledge. The consequences of Joth’s actions would have far reaching consequences for the Razor and the men that would now lead them.

 

The loss was a body blow to the chapter and threw the remaining companies into disarray and confusion. A council of the surviving captains rallied the ships and resources of the chapter around local planetary bases where possible. The Void Crusader was made the chapter’s new command base, but how could the chapter rebuild after this loss? The AM were accusing the chapter of crimes against the Machine God and desecration and wilful destruction of Admech holy technology. By 694M41, it was realized the AM were now involving the Inquisition, and pushing it to declare against the Razor. The resentment between the AM and chapter grew to open distrust. One junior captain, Jorgen Tagg, voiced a suspicion that the AM would work against their rebuilding.

 

“The AM is questioning our own tech-marines as well as, I suspect, interfering with our supply lines. How long will it be before they act as their own inquisition and begin some sort of purge in order to maintain their ‘Machine Spirit’ purity?”

"Or for that matter seize our ‘discoveries’ and eliminate us to keep their knowledge secret.”

Tagg and the other surviving captains rallied their men and equipment around the local bases, and carried on as impossible as the odds may have seemed. The chapter began relying on local production and supply, and where the loyalty built up over time was used to keep the AM at bay. They also utilized even more of the Demiurge archo-tech that had been kept from the AM since Rycus Sarayen and the long terrible campaign against the Dark Eldar.

 

“We carry on in the name of the Emperor, but we are honouring more brothers at their funerals’ rather than at their return for rest. And if using some of the Demiurge secrets saves one of my men, then condemn me for caring about my duty to the Emperor and Humanity first; rather than the dammed Machine god and its blighted priests.”

Beginning in 853M41, some of the companies began to receive distress calls from isolated systems out along the edge of the galactic arm about encounters with ravenous xenos bio-forms. These were later identified as Tyranid infestation clusters and splinter cells. By 888M41, a strike group was organized to back track and find the possible source of the bio-forms. Lead by a now senior captain Tagg, he began an arduous and difficult mission out along a line of barren and distant worlds to investigate and cleanse the new threat. By 927M41, Tagg and his ships were stretched out far along the galactic edge and had tracked the Tyranid source back to a system hanging on the very edge of the galactic arm. Star charts designated it as 377AE, and to the shock of Tagg and his men, they discovered a Human/Tau colony fleet fighting for its life against a Tyranid bio-cluster.

 

The system was far beyond even the renegade Farsight colonies, but how they got there would have to be answered much later. Not asking any questions, Tagg committed his men and ships to the battle against the great devourer. After a long and costly fight which saw some of the colony ships awash in blood, the Tyranids were finally destroyed.

 

Everyone was exhausted and spent. All sides agreed to pause and work together to regroup and rebuild. Seeing an opportunity to obtain Tau technology, the AM put immense pressure on Tagg to cleanse the Tau and their traitorous human allies. He refused. Two events sealed the Razor to their fate of renegade and traitor. The first was the decision by the Razor to let the colony return to Tau space.

 

"To turn our backs on those who died with us, without giving them a fighting chance or the ability to choose what their destiny will be, would be the gravest insult to the honour of those who fought and died. They earned it. And you will not do anything to prevent that”

 

“Do not presume to tell the Omnisiah what to do Astartes! The noose that is now around your chapter’s neck is being tightened even now. Consider your words again Marine.”

 

Tagg stared into the augmented eyes of the Magos. He saw the same mad gleam that he had seen in the eyes of Chaos Marines. He also saw something else. A cold and soulless logic that was loyal only to itself. ‘Chaos take him and his Omnisiah.’ Tagg thought.

 

“If you do what you are threatening to do Magos, then I will use your own mechandrite tentacles to beat the life out of what remains of your human body under those robes.”

 

Tagg addressing Gadius Xyleons in front of the colony leaders aboard his strike cruiser Honour’s Shield.

 

The second event was the discovery in system of an abandoned Demiurg factory stronghold. The AM knew of Demiurg forge ships and factory strongholds scattered throughout the south and east areas of the galaxy. Most were thought lost to history, and to now be able to obtain a nearly complete stronghold was worth the sacrifice of anything. Even a chapter of the Adaptus Astartes if need be. With the chapter weakened, spread out, and unable to properly regroup, the AM declared the Razor traitors and moved to seize and if necessary destroy all Razor assets. The AM Technomagos that was with Tagg on 377AE turned his servitors and Skiitarii on the shocked Razor.

 

Technomagos Gadius Xyleons:

“A logical extrapolation from all possible outcomes. With the relevant contingency measures weighed against the projected material to be lost or gained. It was determined that if Demiurg assets were recoverable, then the elimination of the Marine elements were to be planed for.”

 

“It is the will of the Machine God that condemns you Tagg, nothing else.”

 

“Then I am going to have to keep my promise to you then Xyleons.”

 

Enraged over this betrayal of one of the pillars of the Imperium, Tagg lead the marines in a counter assault on the AM forces in system. With the aid of the Tau and human colonists, they destroyed the AM ships and executed Xyloens and his men.

 

As Tagg assessed his situation, he began receiving fragmented communications from other chapter units still in their home territory. All local bases and marine assets were being seized or destroyed by the AM. Some local PDF units attempted to assist the Razor but were destroyed by the AM. Survivors fought their way along the fringe to join up with Tagg at 377AE. Parts of what amounted to two companies managed to make it to the fringe world.

 

In organizing what was left of a still proud chapter, Tagg realized what he had done and what he had committed his fellow survivors to. He also realized there would be no future at all unless the chapter somehow retained the ability to recruit and initiate men into full Space Marines.

 

“Our Battle Barge is our only hope. With out it we are condemned to a slow degeneration into nothing more than pirates, mercenary’s, and perhaps worse.”

 

“There are some brothers who say we are ‘perhaps worse’ already.”

 

“And if there was even a hint of that behind my actions, you would have cut me down long ago my old and wise Chaplin.”

 

“Yes I know Tagg. And that is partially why I will lead a group of battle brothers back to the Void Crusader and try to gain control of it if I can.”

 

Voroll Tarkin rose from the campaign stool and unclipped the Crozius Arcanum from his equipment webbing. He placed it heavily upon the chart desk in front of Tagg.

 

“From this point onward I have no need of this.”

 

He then turned and strode to the far wall of the chamber. Raising his arm he removed the large and heavy Relic blade from its place of honour on the weapon dais.

 

He studied the heavy crystal blade with his head curiously cocked to one side and then thumbed the activation crystal. The room seemed to ripple, blur almost, as the phase field emitter within the sword energized and pushed reality away from the blade in all directions. The energized blade glowed with a harsh turquoise radiance, and without turning to face Tagg, Voroll said in a neutral tone:

 

“But remember what that mace stands for Tagg. Because even though I am following you down the road of damnation in the eyes of the Imperium, I think your heart and soul are still pure, and you will not betray your oaths to humanity.”

 

Voroll moved towards the chamber entrance but paused before leaving.

 

“I also know where you are going to take our now renegade ‘Chapter’ Tagg. Be careful in dealing with them.”

[Ace Debonair]

I think I should tell you what you have here is a story, not an IT.

 

An IA, or in this case IT, should be a broad, sweeping overview of the chapter, rather than an intricate, long and detailed story.

There is, however, another part of the forum given over for stories, and I'm sure your writing will be more appreciated there.

 

If you want to make an IT, take a look in the Librarium for other IAs and ITs to get a feel for what sort of content is required.

 

I'm not trying to discourage you, but I thought I'd better let you know before you finish the whole tale. :D

[Newtype]

Good day all.

I have started to break down my initial IA 'story' into the different subject blocks. Here is a very incomplete start for now. As I work more things out I will post them as edits.

For your consideration:

I

n our darkest times, we used the knowledge we uncovered to carry out our duty to defend mankind in the name of the Emperor. For this, we were branded traitors by the Adeptus Mechanicus and cast out. We learned the Omnisiah is a lie; for we saw what resides behind the eyes of the Machine God, and it cared nothing for humanity. The oaths that were made between the Adpetus Mechanicus and us were meaningless and empty. They were made out of ignorance and fear, and we will fear nothing.

SYMBOL

The original symbol of the chapter was an orange halo with a three armed cross overlaid. This was a stylized representation of the brightest star seen from the system where Hagen Marr found the planetoid that would become the Turbatus Domus. This was considered a great portent as it appeared directly in line to where, Deliverance, the home world of their Raven Guard progenitor chapter would be. However after the fall of the Chapter and being declared traitor, it was found to be a darker and crueler symbol. It was the bloated red giant where the Turbatus Domus was lost, along with so much else.

The Razor struck this symbol from their armour and only use two icons now. The Imperial Aquila reminds them of the loyalty they still swear to the Emperor. And the Crux Terminatus is used as a symbol of veteran leadership and long honed skill and bravery.

ORIGINS

C

reated as part of the 24’Th founding, the Black Razor were chartered to re-establish the rule of law and defend Imperial systems along the trailing edge of the Sagittarius Arm. Long considered a lawless frontier, with failed colony worlds, mining holds, and forgotten human systems strung out along the length of the outer edge of the galactic arm; the isolated and often ignored systems had become home to increasingly dangerous deserters, renegades, outlaws and cults. The more heavily inhabited systems had also seen a slow but steady increase in attacks by orks, elder pirates, and chaos forces as well.

The Relictors were chosen to provide the initial marine force and gene seed line. But in a very controversial decision, Hagen Marr from the Black Councils, an Ultramarine successor Chapter, was chosen to be the first Chapter Master. Why this was done, only the Lords of Terra knew, but there were rumours that it was in an attempt to somehow prevent the total company independence shown by the Relictors and all successor Chapters of the Raven Guard.

This challenge to the honour of the Relictors by appointing an outsider to lead them was overcome by the intense but pragmatic Marr. He knew that he would have to earn a degree of loyalty and trust beyond even the Astartes codes of honour and duty. And by 666M39 and the Desmodan Zone Excursion, he had proved himself a capable leader, now respected and honoured by a growing Chapter. His successor, Usin Bron continued Marr’s efforts after he died in mortal combat with a Chaos lord during the Insbek Pacification in 827M39. By 313M40, the Chapter had reached ten full companies and had established numerous small bases across the territories it moved through. It had also over the previous four centuries uncovered a small number of xeno-tech artifacts that were traced back to the Demiurg. These discoveries would prove to be the Chapter’s undoing.

The Fall Begins

When Chapter Master Octavin Arcady was killed during a terror raid on the agri-world of Angelakos in 313M40, the shocked and enraged Chapter could not know that the long and costly campaign for vengeance would change their chapter forever. Fighting against Dark Eldar pirates called the “Soulless Void”, the Razor from 342M40 to 694M40, engaged in a vicious and bloody game of cat and mouse across the edge of the galactic arm and even venturing into the starless void beyond.

The Chapter, under Rycus Sarayen, found itself spread out and weakened as supply lines were stretched beyond their limits. Attacks that seemed to come from the shadows and occur almost at random pushed planets and systems to the point of panic. During this period the Chapter uncovered more Demiurg arco-tech as well as some Eldar artifacts. This may have what the Dark Eldar where after, but the chapter could not pause, as survival were now at stake.

Nearing the breaking point, Sarayen and some of his captains decided to utilize certain pieces of Demiurg arco-tech they had uncovered to achieve victory in several desperate battles. It was in fact a Demiurg device which detected objects sitting below the real/warp space threshold that provided the location of the Dark Eldar Citadel. Much too their horror, it lay right in the heart of Razor space. It then took Imperial Navy mines configured to disrupt warp space, to force the Citadel back into real space. There the finial act could begin.

The Cauldron Anchorage

The greatest battle of the chapter was located in what was called the Cauldron Anchorage. Chapter Master Sarayen and two senior captains, Helso Dellios and Helqus Krasyn, lead their forces in the attack. In the ship-to-ship action, Sarayen, in the strike cruiser Silent Cardinal, rammed the Eldar Archon’s command ship as it attempted to escape. With the ships locked together, he ordered his gun batteries to open fire. The Eldar ship was gutted stem to stern and his own ship heavily damaged, but it trapped the Pirate Archon on board with Sarayen, while his two Captains lead their forces in a boarding action against the Citadel. The finial confrontation was bloody and vicious with unforgiving close quarter action. But in the end, Sarayen had the head of the Eldar Archon but at the price of over half of his men and almost a quarter of the forces that boarded the Citadel.

Cause and Effect

The consequences of what Sarayen and his captains did were felt immediately. When the AM learned of what the Razor had done, they demanded all technology be turned over immediately, along with the marine personnel that had ordered it used.

Confrontation

"If there are no tech-marines, what are you going to do? What if you were cut off behind enemy lines with out support? I need every one of my men to know and understand the inner workings of every weapon and vehicle within the armoury of this Chapter. You must know how it works and how to maintain it under any conditions. You must know how to field strip and re-align a plasma cannon coil. You must understand and be able to replace a Rhino transaxle. If your speeder is down, can you strip the working anti-grav lift plates to get a second one operational? You area Space Marines! You do not subordinate your oaths to defend humanity and serve the Emperor to a so called machine spirit. You demand the machine spirit do what you want it to do.”

Helso Dellios, during the confrontation with his men and Master of the Forge Morrax Jeler in 914M40 during the Uster Provincial Pacification.

“The dammed machine spirit can take it up with me! Now do it!”

Mortally wounded Sergeant Jarax Zadra ordering his men to remove the power packs from the armour of himself and two others killed in a surprise attack by Chaos Marines, during the early days of the Uster Provincial Pacification. Two of his men were immobilized by damaged power packs after being hit by shrapnel and the operational packs allowed them move back and regroup with their squad. When the chaos marines moved in on the crippled Sergeant, Zadra detonated the grenades he had ordered placed around him. The explosion caught the chaos marines by surprise and gave the Black Razor squad the chance to launch a counter-attack. The delaying action allowed the planetary PDF with Razor support, to regroup and launch a counter offensive that won the day.

One senior AM Magos, Galvatius Titus, took it upon himself to carry out the AM demand, and ordered his Skitarii to seize the Razor transport they were escorting. Veteran sergeant Berross Gann warned the Magos that the AM had no authority on board his ship and that his orders were to return the device back to the Void Crusader and he would carry them out at all cost. The boarding action and firefight cost Gann five men, and left the AM ship drifting as dead wreckage. Even with that incident, Sarayen remained steadfast in his refusal, and reminded the AM that they had no say in how the Astartes conducted their business. They would get their relics when the Razor dictated.

Sarayen and his senior commanders knew the position they were in. Secretly he ordered some of the recovered artefacts to be secured and studied only by the Chapter’s most trusted brothers. Other relics he turned over to the AM as a means to keep them out of his way, but he was no fool. Over time the AM would shadow the chapter for any opportunity to capture Demiurge or other arco-tech relics. They may also have begun plans for far worse.

Sarayen died in 701M40 under circumstances that pointed to AM involvement. His successor Helso Dellios spent decades trying to prove that the AM had a traitorous hand in Sarayen’s death, but he could never uncover the ‘smoking bolter’ that explicitly proved their involvement. Beginning in 833M40 with the Cartellion Anomaly, and continuing beyond his death in 066M41 during the Ekura III Purification, Dellios emphasized self-reliance and independence in the Chapter’s skills to repair and build their own weapons and armour. It was not enough to have the tech-marines and their AM advisers do the repairs and maintenance that the chapter demanded. Dellios wanted all his men to be able to repair, service, and maintain their equipment.

Moment of Clarity

The AM priests were frantically trying to bring systems back on line. Without needing to give orders, Joth knew that his marines and the crew of the Domus would efficiently follow their duties to try and secure what parts of the chapter, ship, and crew they had been tasked to do so. It was one of the secret orders that every chapter master had to prepare for. Abandon the fortress.

Joth entered the vast main control chamber to the warp engine cathedrals. He saw Datic himself standing before a vast display slab that hung down from the vague ceiling high above. He tuned out the background cacophony around him before addressing the Magos.

“Can we warp before it fires again?”

Datic turned to him. Was that panic flashing across his one human eye?

“The machine god cries in pain and anger and you ask can we jump! The codes of rerouting, the chants of restructuralization must be finalized. We can’t even begin to plot the phase probability threads with the damage done. Mars, Metalica, Konor, they all must know of this! A random! A random…A random warp with a shallow phase transition slope could get us out of the system. The capture of such constructs could then be …”

Barstron heard the last piece and coldly thought, ‘We were right. We are all expendable to the Machine God.’

The display and system status slates showed the damage that the Domus had sustained. Joth could see the long range imaging of the xenos construct. It looked like a vast skeletal hand punching up through the surface of the planet. Reaching out to grasp and crush another system.

‘Is that what happened here?’ he silently asked.

‘If that is so, then I have no choice.’ His hand griped the bolt pistol and the gun interface responded to his thoughts. He set the bolts to alternate impact and proximity detonation as he clicked the gun loose of the armour holdfast on his thigh and brought it up. Barstron fired his pistol at point blank range and placed three bursts of two rounds each into the head and upper chest of the Magos. As Datic dropped to the floor, he calmly touched the vox gem at his neck guard and tapped it for full broadcast.

He turned to look at every one of the other Tech Priests and Enginseers that were now staring in both shocked horror and cold fear at what they had just witnessed him doing.

“At this time and place nothing else can be considered. We are all facing our time of judgement and to waiver would be dishonouring our oaths to the Emperor, Humanity, and the Imperium. We do not hesitate in the face of death. We embrace it.”

“You are to set an emergence point field on the surface of that planet. Center it on the construct. Inform me when you are ready to warp.”

He closed his eyes and began a prayer of the dead. “Those who now stand before you, Emperor of Man, may you...”

In a distant secondary docking bay, Senior Apothecary Dalgine Quintos heaved a cryolocker through the port crew hatch of a Thunderhawk. The engines were screaming at full power, and the marine could feel the groaning of hold-fasts locking the drop ship to the bay surface through his entire body. He hailed his Chapter Master.

“We may not have enough time to get everything on board, my lord. It may not...”

Joth cut him off. “May the Emperor guide you brother.”

The Scout Marine beside him, Estes was his name, yelled “Look!” and pointed back over his shoulder to the far bay walls. He turned and saw a momentary shiver to reality, like ripples in a pool of water, as what was called the tertiary phase field formed within the wrap engines and expanded to envelop the whole fortress. He grabbed the scout by the shoulder and harshly threw him through the hatch. He leaped after him and managed to hammer the door cycle controls as he screamed, “Go!”

He felt and heard the explosive release bolts, and then was flung to the deck plating as the Thunderhawk rocketed away from the bay surface at full power.

“Hang on Sir” was what he heard and then as the hold illuminators went dark and the emergency glow lights snapped on, he went deaf. The ultrasonic whine of the turbo laser discharge capacitors hitting his ears and causing auras around what he saw.

‘That was an override firing’ he managed to think. Shaking his head he tried to stand but was brought back down by the deck first heaving up and then rolling right almost ninety degrees vertical. The scream of rending cermasteel and adamantium structural spars overrode the scream of the engines. He had time to see another cryolocker come at him before it smashed into him and knock him unconscious.

“Phase potential reached. Ready Master Joth”

“Warp”

In 513M41, surveys of an ancient red star showed that the asteroid belts orbiting it contained vast resource potential. A rouge planet, in a highly elliptical orbit, 23 degrees to the orbital disk, was responsible for the destruction of the systems’ planetary bodies which created the asteroid belts. The seventh Chapter Master, Barstron Joth, decided to move the Domus into the system because it’s valuable strategic position. At the beginning of 643M41, the rouge planet began its closest approach. Long range auger scans of the planet found evidence of an artificial structure buried deep into the planet surface. Two ships with Marine and AM contingents were sent to investigate the structure. After a low orbital sweep, the ships landed and units moved in to investigate the construct.

As the Marines were moving into the outer areas of the construct, it came alive with eldritch power fields, and as warning signals were sent, one of the orbiting ships was destroyed by an energy blast. Robotic warriors emerged from hidden tombs and began to hunt down the Marine and AM forces. Executing a fighting withdrawal, the men escaped to the remaining ship in orbit. Under emergency drive power they managed to return to the Domus. With warning signals all ready sent, the Domus had prepared itself to shift location. The stationed strike cruisers were launched to attack and disrupt the construct as fleet augers picked up a larger energy build up.

The senior AM Magos, Peustus Datic, advised Joth that the build up may be sufficient to damage the Domus but by his readings there should be sufficient time for the strike cruisers to delay it, if fire was concentrated into specific locations. Joth ordered his ships to do that and as they unloaded all their firepower into the construct, new secondary readings were detected. Armoured domes emerged from the ground and began to cycle slowly open. Revealed within were the black cyclopean spheres of warp gate generators. Just as the main drive engines on the Domus reached full power, the gates unleashed a vast null energy beam that targeted where the planetoid would be in the time it took to cross the gulf. It punched through the void shielding with disturbing ease and sliced deep into the Domus with a sickening finality. Amid the cacophony of the damaged fortress, Joth saw that he and the Domus were doomed. With clarity of thought, he knew only one course of action available that could have a chance against the construct.

To destroy the construct, Chapter Master Barstron Joth ordered the fortress to warp into the planet’s surface. The resulting gravitational/warp field interference tore apart the energy /matter interphase barriers and consumed the complex in an explosion that vaporised an area of the surface almost 6400 km in diameter. The force of the explosion cracked the planetary crust and shifted the orbit of the dead world into one that would carry it into the red giant. Forever lost.

The recriminations and accusations were beyond pale. The AM were outraged. With accusations that Joth had forced the AM Techpriests to warp into the planet, there where now open demands for the Razor to be censured and made to pay for the unacceptable loss of irreplaceable and holy equipment. Some elements within the AM emerged to condemn the loss of untold technological knowledge. Joth’s actions would have far reaching consequences for the Razor and the men that would now lead them.

The loss was the finial blow to the Chapter, throwing the remaining companies into disarray and confusion. A council of the surviving Captains rallied the ships and resources of the Chapter around local planetary bases where possible. The Void Crusader was made the chapter’s new command base, but how could the Chapter rebuild after this loss? The AM were accusing the chapter of crimes against the Machine God and desecration and wilful destruction of Omnisiah technology. By 694M41, it was realized the AM were now involving the Inquisition, and pushing it to declare against the Razor. The resentment between the AM and chapter grew to open distrust. One junior captain, Jorgen Tagg, voiced a suspicion that the AM would work against their rebuilding.

Carrying on as impossible as the odds may have seemed, the Chapter began relying on local production and supply, where the loyalty built up over time could be used to keep the AM at bay. They also utilized even more of the Demiurge arco-tech that had been kept from the AM since the long campaign against the Dark Eldar

Beginning in 853M41, some of the companies began to receive distress calls from isolated systems out along the edge of the galactic arm about encounters with ravenous xeno bio-forms. These were later identified as Tyranid infestation clusters and splinter cells. By 888M41, a strike group was organized to back track and find the possible source of the bio-forms. Lead by a now senior captain Tagg, he began an arduous and difficult mission out along a line of barren and distant worlds to investigate and cleanse the new threat. By 927M41, Tagg and his ships were stretched out far along the galactic edge and had tracked the Tyranid source back to a system hanging on the edge of the galactic arm. Star charts designated it as 377AE, and to the shock of Tagg and his men, they discovered a Human/Tau colony fleet fighting for its life against a Tyranid bio-cluster.

The system was far beyond even the renegade Farsight colonies, but how they got there would have to be answered later. Not asking questions, Tagg committed his men and ships to the battle against the great devourer. After a long and costly fight which saw some of the colony ships awash in blood, the Tyranids were finally destroyed.

Everyone was exhausted and spent, and all sides agreed to pause and work together to regroup. Two events then sealed the fate of Tagg and his men. The first was the AM ordering Tagg to cleanse the colonists in order to obtain Tau technology. Tagg refused. Instead he allowed the colonists to attempt a return to Tau space.

The second event was the discovery of an abandoned Demiurg factory stronghold in system. The AM knew of Demiurg forge ships and factory strongholds scattered throughout the south and east of the galaxy. Most were thought lost to history, but to obtain a nearly complete stronghold was worth the sacrifice of anything. Even a Chapter of the Adaptus Astartes if need be. With the Chapter weakened, spread out, and unable to properly regroup, the AM declared the Razor traitors and moved to seize and where necessary destroy all Razor assets.

Enraged over the betrayal of one of the pillars of the Imperium, Tagg lead the Marines in a counter assault on the AM forces in system. With the aid of the Tau and human colonists, they destroyed the AM ships and executed Xyloens and his men.

As the Razor assessed the situation, they began receiving fragmented communications from other Chapter units still in their home territories. All local bases and Marine assets were being seized or destroyed by the AM. Some local PDF units attempted to assist the Razor but were destroyed as well. Survivors fought their way along the fringe to join up with Tagg at 377AE. Parts of what amounted to three companies managed to make it to the fringe world.

In organizing what was left of a still proud Chapter, Tagg realized what he had done and what he had committed his fellow survivors to. Those who wished to were allowed to leave, he would not stop them. Those that remained declared themselves a Free Chapter,

serving the Emperor and humanity where they saw fit. Currently the Razor has the equivalent of four companies with Jorgen Tagg as Chapter Master.

HOME WORLD

The Razor did not have a home world. Like other space-based chapters they established and constructed a mobile Fortress Monastery, which acted as foundry, academy, temple, and sanctuary. It was christened ‘Turbatus Domus’ or ‘Restless Home’.

The Domus became the ‘heart’ of the chapter. Surveyed in 558M39 by a Scouting mission, conversion of the planetoid into a fortress monastery was started by the Adaptus Mechanicus with construction titans anchoring power cores and drive engines deep into the igneous rock. By 610M39, the Turbatus Domus was finished. Its surface now filigreed with the lights of launch bays, ship berths, observation cathedrals, and defense batteries.

It was the location of the main repair yards for the chapter’s space fleet. It contained the forges needed to produce the weapons, munitions, ordinance, and armour demanded by the Chapter. Apothecary chambers housed the gene seed storage vaults and implantation sanctums that turned raw recruits into space marines. Through out its mass were the barracks, instructional halls, training ranges, storage vaults, and devotional chambers needed by the chapter to maintain its body and soul.

ORGANIZATION

At their peek, the Razor commanded the battle barge ‘Void Crusader’, ten strike cruisers, and the assorted escort and supply frigates needed to support the Chapters’ star ships. Like the other Chapters descended from the Raven Guard, the Black Razor was organized into ten independent battle companies that contained the men, arms, and armour that each one required. Lead by a senior Veteran Captain the company was contained with in a strike fleet consisting of strike cruiser, escort frigates, and the required Thunderhawk gunships and landing craft.

Support bases were established on various worlds to maintain both a presence with in the local populations, and to provide labour and material support to the battle companies as they needed it. The main difference from other space based Chapters was that the companies would return to the Chapter’s Fortress Monastery for re-supply, rest, and re-equipping on a semi-regular basis.

At any time two companies were stationed on the Turbatus Domus. Under them was the vast workforce needed to operate the mobile fortress. If the Chapter Master deployed, then the company he deployed with was referred to as the ‘Honored 1’st.’ And at all times two strike cruisers and their support frigates were stationed at the fortress which allowed the companies to deploy when commanded too.

Two companies were assigned to the Battle Barge Void Crusader. In the early stages of the Chapter’s expansion, the venerable barge held the full compliment of three, but over time the Void Crusader had its’ capacity reduced to two by the installation of maintenance, manufacturing, and support bays. It became a second operational base, able to provide direct material support during a battle, and when called upon, overpowering and devastating direct fire support from its assault guns and bombardment cannons.

The remaining six battle companies were assigned to operational rotation. Scattered across many worlds and systems, they were the front line companies. With each Captain expected to assess the capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of their men and equipment and respond to any actual or perceived threat as they saw fit.

RECRUITING

The failed hive cities, polluted mining colonies, forgotten agri worlds, and other isolated human enclaves did not support large enough populations to allow the Razor to recruit from a single planet or system. Recruits were drawn from many different systems so as to create a large enough pool of candidates to choose the best from. In some instances, scouting teams with senior Marines under the Master of Training and the Chapter Apothicarium, would set up challenges to test possible candidates in life or death situations.

All this was to select the few who would best survive the dangerous mental and physical trials that they would be subjected to in becoming Space Marines. Some systems did produce more acceptable candidates than others, and when they succeeded in surviving to become full Battle Brothers, they were used to create deeper ties of loyalty with in the population.

CUSTOMS

All Chapters have their training customs. One custom of the Razor was to have the initiates, from the first moment stepping onto the Domus, carry a ‘drill bolter’ which was used to enforce the intimate relation between Marine and weapon. Another custom was to use live ammunition at all stages of training. This was done to weed out both the foolish and the arrogant because both behaviors would get them killed. It also conditioned the starting initiates to the very bloody and violent life they were beginning.

All recruits were taken to the Domus. This was done to begin building an identity as a Black Razor first and foremost. It also allowed the ‘Initiates’ to be exposed to the different Companies as they rotated back. As each initiate progressed through the implantation stages, he would be put through the demanding tests, drills, and evaluations that all chapters used to determine how successful implantation was.

Like any other Astartes Chapters, the implantation stages produced success and failure. Failures usually resulted in death, but some lived and after extensive testing and evaluation were given the opportunity to join the Chapter Auxiliary or Household. This was the vast workforce needed to maintain the Chapter’s assets. All were valued members of the Chapter as their failure was not considered dishonourable in any way.

When the initiates began their ‘in theatre’ training, they were transferred from company to company as needed. This was done to develop a greater sense of duty to their brethren and chapter, as all were brothers in arms together. No matter what system they came from, what company they where in, or fighting with, they fought as Black Razor first.

GENE SEED

Despite the known deficiencies and mutations with in the Raven Guard, the Razor took their genetic lineage as a symbol of honour, and viewed it as a noble heritage to be proudly maintained. Through constant random sampling and DNA checks of initiates and full brothers, the Razor were able to maintain a high degree of stability with in both the implantation organ stock, and the recovered progeneroid seed bodies. Those who indicated signs of genetic drift, degradation, or mutation were placed under secured watch and monitored. If the flaw proved to be unstable, they were eliminated or were applicable, converted into servitor organics to be used throughout chapter operations. If they were deemed stable, they were offered positions in the Chapter Auxiliary. Again, nothing was wasted.

BELIEFS

The Black Razor did not differ significantly from codex chapters in their view of the Emperor, the role of the Astartes, and their place in the Imperium. From the beginning, the chapter saw itself as the last line against chaos and anarchy, with a very clear demarcation between right and wrong. As they expanded and began to interact and integrate themselves into the various local populations, drawing recruits from all manner of humanity, this black and white distinction slowly changed to a some what pragmatic outlook. As long as humanity recognized the Emperor as the Savior he was, all were to be granted the protection of the Astartes as it is ‘our first and only duty.’ Those that turned away or misrepresented the Emperor with other icons were dealt with in a straightforward and uncompromising manner. They were killed as enemies of the Imperium.

As the ideological conflict between the Razor and the AM grew more intense, this belief did not change. If anything the actions of the AM strengthened their resolve and belief because they saw the AM now as a lie. Deceiving the Imperium to maintain a strangle hold on knowledge and technology for their own dark treasonous ends. They had to be confronted because they had betrayed their own oaths to the Emperor and humanity. The Black Razor simply viewed this as fulfilling their manifest purpose.

As of the present surviving free chapter, they see themselves as still loyal. The AM betrayed them to seize the technology they had uncovered and used to carry out their duty. And that duty has not changed despite all the adversities now before them. To do so would be breaking the oath made to the Emperor. And the Astartes cannot break that oath.

“We will not forget. We will survive. We will fight. We will recruit amongst the forgotten worlds, the abandoned systems, and the empty corners. We will offer the chance of redemption to the untold that have been forgotten, abandoned, or worse, ignored. From the shadows we will fight the wrong that was done to us. We will not forget that our first and only duty is to defend mankind. So say we all.”

COMBAT DOCTRINE

BATTLE CRY

A battle cry was never officially documented for the Razor. There are the hymns and dedications sung and recited by the chapter but no one universal calling emerged. As the animosity between the Razor and the AM increased, the dedication of ‘Our first and only duty’ was adopted whenever the Razor ended a briefing, assembly, or prepared for combat. Now as a free chapter, the only words they have in combat are reserved for the AM. For them they remind them of the betrayal with ‘This is to fulfil that promise’

[Captain Juan Juarez]

troops, fast attack, elite, and heavy support units that it needed. All this was contained within a strike fleet consisting of strike cruiser, escort frigates, and the attached Thunderhawk gunships and landing craft.

 

Don't refernce the Codex names.. Assault Troopers don't call themselves Fast Attack, Devastators don't call themselves Heavy Support.

[Newtype]

Just edited. I added to Recruiting and Gene Seed. Also tweaked Organization and Symbol.

 

C&C wanted.

[Newtype]

Ok. I have edited the main post to add Origins, and I have tried my hand at formatting. I have covered all the major areas with the exception of Combat Doctrines, which I am working on.

 

Until the next edit.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

You need to edit your actual IA into the first post; I speak for most Liberites when I say that we almost certainly won't wade through alot of text to find you IA in the middle of a thread.

[Midas]

I like it! alot!

[Newtype]

Good day everyone.

 

I have edited the IA to the first post of the thread, and have added Combat Doctrine as well as some dialog. I think I have everything covered, but would like it critiqued.

 

Until the next post.

[Newtype]

Edits made to the first post.

 

Please enjoy.

[Vash113]

I haven't read the whole thing yet but it is... long. Anyway one point of contention I did notice was this:

 

Nearing the breaking point, Sarayen and some of his Captains chose to utilize certain pieces of Demiurg arco-tech they had uncovered to achieve victory in several desperate battles. It was in fact a Demiurg device which detected objects sitting below the real/warp space barrier that provided the location of the Dark Eldar Citadel. Much to their horror, it lay right in the heart of Razor space. It took Imperial Navy mines configured to disrupt warp space, to force the Citadel back into real space where the finial act could begin.

 

It should be noted that the Eldar and Dark Eldar do not have warp capable craft or space stations. Both groups travel the webway, which is an archeotech pathway built within the warp. However entering and exiting the webway is done very differently from normal warp travel. Only a handful of individuals have ever managed to enter the webway, on purpose or otherwise. One of those is Ahriman of the Thousand Sons who has had the better part of 10,000 years to figure it out. So really there would be no way to force the Dark Eldar out of the webway if they were really hiding there.

 

However the Dark Eldar in particular imploy a great many concealing technologies. Shadow fields, mimic engines and so on and so forth, that allow them to either be invisible to the sensors and even visual detection of other races, or can even allow them to take on the aspect of something else such as an Imperial or Eldar ship or I suppose you could even stretch it to have them mimicing an asteroid or piece of starship wreckage or something of the sort.

 

So while blowing the Dark Eldar out of the webway is not really pheasable, you could change it to a fortress protected by a Shadow Field that the Demiurg technology allows you're chapter to locate and attack.