Martok's Dogs of War

[Martok]

Hello there Brothers,

 

I have a Chaos modelled Space Wolf army which I have just finished. I have been working on some ideas for the fluff while working on the project. Essentially the Chaos Lord (Wolf Lord) is a character named Martok. He was the commander of my first ever chaos army well over 10 yrs ago and he has ben reincarnated for this force.

 

Below are the basics:

 

- Martok's Dogs of War were once Wolf Brothers (2nd founding Space Wolves Chapter)

- When the geneseed of the Wolf Brothers started unravelling the Wolf Lords could not decide on a course of action to stave off the mutations their chapter were suffering.

- Some had ideas but none could agree.

- Wolf Lord Martok the Bear knew his Rune Priests had theories of how the warp could be used to stabilise the mutation but he knew these theories would not be countenanced by the other Wolf Lords.

- When the fleets came to purge the Wolf Brothers Martok put forth his idea and his Great Company were cast out to die in the wilderness around the chapter keep.

- As the sky began to burn with the fate of the Wolf Brothers, Martok's Rune Priests cast a gate to an outlying world within the system.

- From this outlying world they could see the home of the Wolf Brothers burn. When this passed the Rune Priests began working on the Wolves of the Great Company.

- Eventually the brothers whose Canis Helix had deformed almost utterly were saved but their souls were forfeit to the powers that saved them.

- All those whose Canis Helix was healthy had to wait until they had deformed enough that the forces of chaos could truly manipulate them.

- And so the Wolf Brothers fell from grace and became Martok's Dogs of War.

- For almost ten thousand years they have plagued the Universe gathering mercenaries under Martok's banner.

 

So that's the basics. I can flesh this out quite a bit but I wanted to give the fundamental steps so you guys can rip it apart and fix what does not work before I invest to much time writing it.

 

So please brothers I need your input.

 

- Martok13

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Personally, I'd add a line to explain WHY the Wolfbrothers' gene-seed destabilized. I know it's cliche to say, "The Thousand Sons cast a spell to make the Wolfbrothers devolve into Wulfen,"- the traitors do this in the Ragnar Blackmane novels, and I'm using it myself- but it'll make Martok's desperation justifiable, at least to himself.

- Eventually the brothers whose Canis Helix had deformed almost utterly were saved but their souls were forfeit to the powers that saved them.

- All those whose Canis Helix was healthy had to wait until they had deformed enough that the forces of chaos could truly manipulate them.

- And so the Wolf Brothers fell from grace and became Martok's Dogs of War.

I'd also switch the series of events

 

- The Wolfbrothers fell from grace, e.g., brothers who succumbed to the Curse of the Wulfen, were seen slaughtering imperial citizens. (See the Flesh Tearers.)

 

- The High Lords order the Wolfbrothers purged, AFTER they receive irrefutable evidence of this fall. This means there are MULTIPLE incidents in which the Wolfbrothers committed crimes, and each incident has AT LEAST one witnesses.

 

- There are ZERO Wolfbrothers with "healthy" a Canis Helix, just those whose deformities aren't visible yet. The Wolfbrothers turned to Chaos AS ONE. Every Marine should fall AT THE SAME TIME, not over a long period in which those whose gene-seed destabilized first, were first to turn to Chaos, while those who destabilized later, didn't turn until later.

[Martok]

@Bjorn Firewalker - Tanks for you comments they are greatly appreciated

 

Personally, I'd add a line to explain WHY the Wolfbrothers' gene-seed destabilized. I know it's cliche to say, "The Thousand Sons cast a spell to make the Wolfbrothers devolve into Wulfen,"- the traitors do this in the Ragnar Blackmane novels, and I'm using it myself- but it'll make Martok's desperation justifiable, at least to himself.

 

I was thinking this initially. I was considering that the Wolf Lords who end up commanding the Wolf Brothers were present at the burning of Prospero and this was were the curse was made. From reading the book "Prospero Burns" I remember they had BIO psychics defending a particular part of Tizca (the capital of Prospero) and I thought it could be here that the Wolf Brothers to be made planetfall.

 

After a prophecy that his body will be pulled apart by itself from one of the 1k sons before Martok mauls him Martok becomes obsessed with this and ends up researching the 1k sons flesh change and how they could have abated it.

 

I'd also switch the series of events

 

- The Wolfbrothers fell from grace, e.g., brothers who succumbed to the Curse of the Wulfen, were seen slaughtering imperial citizens. (See the Flesh Tearers.)

 

- The High Lords order the Wolfbrothers purged, AFTER they receive irrefutable evidence of this fall. This means there are MULTIPLE incidents in which the Wolfbrothers committed crimes, and each incident has AT LEAST one witnesses.

 

- There are ZERO Wolfbrothers with "healthy" a Canis Helix, just those whose deformities aren't visible yet. The Wolfbrothers turned to Chaos AS ONE. Every Marine should fall AT THE SAME TIME, not over a long period in which those whose gene-seed destabilized first, were first to turn to Chaos, while those who destabilized later, didn't turn until later.

 

I like your ideas above although there are two points i need to raise for clarity:

 

- I need to find a pretty convincing reason for the high lords to get involved as this is still a pretty crazy time for the Imperium i'm not sure how exactly the Wolf Brothers would draw enough attention to be purged unless it was as simple as sending their gene seed tithe and the Mechanicum saying "this needs to be expunged".

 

- The Canis Helix is what protects the Space Wolves from the touch of taint. Alhtough there is another thread on B+C somewhere were people got pretty heated over this subject (i.e. how did a ship full of wolves bow to huron blackheart?). My easy answer to this is the mutation created a corruption of the Canis Helix I suppose they could all be corrupted but I wanted this to be very close to the idea of the 1k sons flesh change whihc hit at random but eventually all would be consumed by it.

 

 

- Martok13

Any more comments guys I really want to get this going and the above debate is exactly what I need to get this fleshed out and go from an idea to a proof of concept.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I was thinking this initially. I was considering that the Wolf Lords who end up commanding the Wolf Brothers were present at the burning of Prospero and this was were the curse was made. From reading the book "Prospero Burns" I remember they had BIO psychics defending a particular part of Tizca (the capital of Prospero) and I thought it could be here that the Wolf Brothers to be made planetfall.

 

After a prophecy that his body will be pulled apart by itself from one of the 1k sons before Martok mauls him Martok becomes obsessed with this and ends up researching the 1k sons flesh change and how they could have abated it.

Sounds fair. FYI, the psykers in question belong to the Cult of the Pavonae- see here.

I need to find a pretty convincing reason for the high lords to get involved as this is still a pretty crazy time for the Imperium i'm not sure how exactly the Wolf Brothers would draw enough attention to be purged unless it was as simple as sending their gene seed tithe and the Mechanicum saying "this needs to be expunged".

My idea was the Wolfbrothers were caught acting like the pre-Heresy Night Lords, or the later Flesh Tearers:

 

1) The Wolfbrothers killed a wealthy and influential person- maybe a close relative of a High Lord- who they suspect is a traitor, despite having ZERO evidence to support their suspicions.

 

2) "The [Chapter] began to make more excessive examples of planets and populations starting from merely purging the small group of rebellious or heathen occupants to virus-bombing an entire planet due to the existence of a single cult. This gave them a tremendously terror inspiring reputation causing many planetary governors to immediately make good any outstanding tithes and sometimes entirely stop a rebellion at the mere rumour of [Wolfbrother] retaliation.

 

"While it may be possible that the Emperor secretly authorized these excessive examples to be made, the [Wolfbrothers] were eventually brought to task for their predations upon Imperial citizenry."

 

"2" is adapted from the Lexicanum article on pre-Heresy Night Lords, but it gets the point across.