Martok's Dogs of War

[Martok]

Hi guys so here is the baseline I am starting from please pick it apart and help me make this a substantial contribution to these forums:

 

 

Codex: Martok's Dogs of War

 

Origins

 

After the Horus Heresy Roboutte Guilimann, Primarch of the Ultramarines legion set down the Codex Astartes. This tome outlined every facet of an Astartes life and most controversially the way in which Legions should be broken up to never allow one warlord to wield the power that Horus had unleashed upon the Imperium during the Heresy. Nearly every legion resisted the Codex none more so than the Space Wolves, however in the interest of keeping the peace after the tragic events of the recent civil war all the loyalist legions took up the Codex Astartes and broke their numbers down into chapters of a thousand Astartes.

 

The successor chapters of the founding legions are numerous none more so than the progeny of the Ultramarines. In contrast to these "codex" chapters the Space Wolves have only ever had one chapter founded from their gene seed. This Chapter was named the Wolf Brothers.

 

Leman Russ Primarch of the Space Wolves chose Haakon Morkai, Wolf Lord of the fourth Great Company, to lead this new chapter and gave him command over 6 of the Great Companies. For years the Wolf Brothers fought in brutal campaigns to earn themselves a reputation to rival the legion they had once served. Many actually regarded the way in which Haakon commanded the chapter as an obsession of dominance. The chapter would regularly deploy in full with the entire fleet in support. Although they had a home world it was not Fenris and the old Space Wolves could never call it home, so they found their solace trying to relive the glory days of the great crusade.

 

The decades of brutal campaigns took a heavy toll on the chapter and eventually Haakon returned to their chapter fortress to induct the blood claws which had been created and trained to replace the losses taken on campaign. The number of blood claws available was desperately short of the number needed to replace the casualties sustained during the gruelling campaign. At this Haakon went into a rage cursing all who had been left on the fortress for failing their oaths and demanded that they have the numbers to fill the chapters ranks and that they had a decade to do so.

 

Incapable of resting for a decade Haakon sent out each Great Company to find recruits from outlying worlds to swell the ranks with the finest warriors they could find as quickly as possible.

 

Eventually the decade passed and Haakon's chapter had swelled to numbers far greater than the one thousand Astartes decreed by the Codex Astartes. A great feast marking the occasion was thrown forever known as the re-birth. Wolf brothers duelled and brawled; drank and feasted. At the close of the feast the chapter boarded there battle barges and Haakon set them to the task of a new campaign to brutalise the Ork Waaaghs that had been plaguing the neighbouring star system.

 

When battle was first met with so many new Blood Claws the first clashes were brutal and bloody. Many failed recruits were sent with these first charges, these Wulfen showed the true ferocity of the Wolf but when the dust settled on the battlefields it appeared many of the new Blood claws had fallen to the Wulfen curse in their gene seed. This worrying trend continued for the entire campaign until the number of active Astartes were equal to the number of Wulfen with even two of the now 12 great companies Wolf Lords falling to the curse. This was a dark time for the Wolf Brothers and for Haakon. He ordered the hunt over and returned to their home world to try and lick their wounds.

 

The mutation of the Wolf Brothers did not end there to their dismay. By the time they had returned home the situation had become considerably worse. None of the Wolf Lords could agree on a plan to save their companies and as the situation grew more and more desperate fights broke out with some Wolf Lords blaming Haakon's foolhardy recruiting for what had happened.

 

In the end only one Wolf Lord remained. He was Martok the Bear; a veteran of the Space Wolves who led a Great Company in the burning of Prospero. With no other options left to save his brothers he used the only choice he had. His Rune Priest Varn Taek who had served alongside him engaging the Thousand Son's Pavoni claimed he had been struck by visions planted there by the thousand Son's Sorcerers. At the time he had seen it as a trick to distract him from his savage assault but he now saw it for what it was; this fate laid out before them. He had seen beasts tearing apart Astartes in a scene of relentless carnage until finally an eight pointed star sailed forth from the Astartes soothing the beasts until they became Astartes. The message now seemed so clear; the warp was the key to saving the Wolf Brothers.

 

At first Varn Taek feared that such a thing would be impossible as the Canis Helix imbedded in all progeny of Russ protects them from the power of the warp. This proved untrue as the Canis Helix had mutated so badly while the Wolf Brothers gene seed crumbled that they were no longer safe from the interests of chaos something proven when many of the chapters Rune Priests had burst from their flesh into spawns of chaos. Although this great problem posed many threats it also posed one benefit... The warp could be used to expunge the mutation from their bodies and their gene seed.

 

And so it came to pass that Martok allowed the remaining to be purged of the taint of mutation only to be stained by the warp. Varn Taek and the remaining Skalds of the Wolf brothers combined their talents of travelling the great ocean and directed the warp through their brothers. The Wulfen howled a soul chilling lament, eventually this howl subsided and waned until the wolves were silent and still and slowly but surely they returned to the form of the Astartes they once were albeit somewhat... changed.

 

From the moment he had told his Skalds to do what they must Martok had noticed a change in himself with his muscles thickening and his senses growing he feared he was falling to the Wulfen curse himself. In hindsight he realised the folly of his decision but such were the changes upon him that he did not care in the way he once would of; his soul had become something very different than it had once been.

 

With all that he had achieve in saving his fellow Wolves where all others had failed he could feel no success in what he had allowed to transpire he knew he had chosen a path which he had not understood. Regardless of whether he had chosen the right path or not he was resigned to this fate and so

 

Martok gathered his dogs and set out to find solace in the crucible of war.