Chapter Battle Prayer

[Antaro Torias]

I have had an idea to include a prayer spoken before battle into my Index Astartes: Barbary Lions rather than the normally used battle-cry.

 

All Father, who art enthroned,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy empire come.

Thy will be done.

in space as it is on Terra.

Give us this day your protection,

as we punish those who heresy against us,

and lead us not into Chaotic temptations.

Deliver us from evil,

for thine is the empire,

the power, and the glory,

for all time.

Amen.

 

The initiated among you will have realised that it is based on the Lord's Prayer, if anyone has any ideas for changes then feel free to recommend them.

 

Comments and criticism encouraged.

[Leonaides]

Honestly, I'd say no. Overtly religious, possily even excessively so.

 

You might find better work to abse from in old war poetry, some of the more pro-war WW1 stuff for instance.

 

For example, and with a bit of alteration:

 

I have a Rendezvous with Death

by Alan Seeger

 

We have a rendezvous with Death

At some disputed barricade.

It may be he shall take my hand

And lead me into his dark land

And close my eyes and quench my breath

It may be I shall pass him still.

I have a rendezvous with Death

On some scarred slope of battered hill,

At midnight in some flaming town,

And I to my pledged word am true,

I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Emperor be praised.

[Dorns Padawan]

Antaro Torias: Dude like the idea but in a constructively critical manner, as Leonaides said, it is rather religious. I think even the Black Templars as zealous as they are would have trouble trying to get away with a prayer like that! Also I have now sat here for a few minutes to see if I could suggest anything a little less religious but I think Leonaides is actually right, look to some war based poety.

[Antaro Torias]

Hi everyone, I have read the replies above and realised that you are right, it is a little too religious. As I had not envisioned my chapter to be even close to as zealous as the Black Templars I did a little google search to see if I could find any war poetry.

 

First I looked at Second World War poetry but that seemed a little too sad in the way it portrayed warfare. As I see space marines keenly entering a battlefield I didn't think that those poems fitted the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

 

Second I looked at First World War poetry and while these were in much the same vein as the Second World War poems, I was put off by the length of some of them.

 

I found another web-site with a collection of poems that have been written without a specific war in mind and adapted one called Children in the Darkness by Henry M Bechtold which caught my eye. The poem was apparently inspired by a section of a news report that the author saw while in Saigon. Although the poet actually served in the Vietnam War, I didn't think that the poem was particularly focused on that confrontation.

 

Enough of an introduction, what do you think of this.

 

We are the children in the darkness

We have seen the light

We are the children in the darkness

The Codex taught to fight

 

Data-slates and holos will not be

To this crusade there is no key

From us, they cannot flee

And we children are not free

 

If this war consumes my brothers

Their bodies and their souls

Will their life and blood be poured

Down some endless holes

 

Back into the darkness

From which there is no flight

Back into the darkness

Where we shine our light

 

Comments and Criticisms encouraged.

[Leonaides]

much better in my opinion... But i'd still recommend having a good look at early ww1 stuff- has to be early, as the mid-late period stuff is, as you've noticed, almost totally against war and emphasising the bad points. But i do like that one you've found. Remember to give a reference to the original author tho...