IA: The Iron Hounds

[Octavulg]

Something like this would work:

 

...With Loyalist fleets converging from multiple directions, the refugee fleet of the 49th escaped into the Halo Zone, eventually disappearing into an unstable warp anomaly known as the Utgaard Phenomenon.

 

The 49th wandered in the Eye, reluctant to take part in the feuds of their former comrades. This was not the higher cause which they had followed - unity had been replaced by discord and disharmony. The Gods of Chaos now seemed petty and evil, riven by factions and concerned only with their fleeting whims. The 49th explored the Eye, disgusted by the various daemon planets which gave twisted form to the twisted intelligences of the Warp. They sought out the greatest sages of Chaos, and were always disappointed by the shortsightedness and mindless zealotry which underlay the mystics' philosophies.

 

It was not a sage that gave them new purpose. The Eye of Terror lies at the heart of what was once the Eldar Empire, and it was on one of those worlds that the 49th found their purpose. In the ghost-haunted ruins of a Crone World, they found a library of the Eldar. Reading it explained the reason for their discontent with their new masters - the gods of Chaos were not the only gods. The way of Chaos was not the only way.

 

Over the next several years, the 49th sought out the renegades of the Eldar, seeking to confirm what they had read. Though the aliens often fled from them, or fought them, the 49th eventually found the information they sought - the knowledge of the War in Heaven, of how the Chaos Gods came to rise to their current power. And if the Chaos gods were not the only gods, the 49th had no need to follow them.

 

During the 7th Black Crusade the 49th emerged from the Eye of Terror as the warband known as the “Iron Hounds,” and wearing distinctive colours under the command of a Warsmith known as Jarl Bolverk....

 

And then you get into philosophy in more detail later on.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Something like this would work:

 

...With Loyalist fleets converging from multiple directions, the refugee fleet of the 49th escaped into the Halo Zone, eventually disappearing into an unstable warp anomaly known as the Utgaard Phenomenon.

 

The 49th wandered in the Eye, reluctant to take part in the feuds of their former comrades. This was not the higher cause which they had followed - unity had been replaced by discord and disharmony. The Gods of Chaos now seemed petty and evil, riven by factions and concerned only with their fleeting whims. The 49th explored the Eye, disgusted by the various daemon planets which gave twisted form to the twisted intelligences of the Warp. They sought out the greatest sages of Chaos, and were always disappointed by the shortsightedness and mindless zealotry which underlay the mystics' philosophies.

 

It was not a sage that gave them new purpose. The Eye of Terror lies at the heart of what was once the Eldar Empire, and it was on one of those worlds that the 49th found their purpose. In the ghost-haunted ruins of a Crone World, they found a library of the Eldar. Reading it explained the reason for their discontent with their new masters - the gods of Chaos were not the only gods. The way of Chaos was not the only way.

 

Over the next several years, the 49th sought out the renegades of the Eldar, seeking to confirm what they had read. Though the aliens often fled from them, or fought them, the 49th eventually found the information they sought - the knowledge of the War in Heaven, of how the Chaos Gods came to rise to their current power. And if the Chaos gods were not the only gods, the 49th had no need to follow them.

 

During the 7th Black Crusade the 49th emerged from the Eye of Terror as the warband known as the “Iron Hounds,” and wearing distinctive colours under the command of a Warsmith known as Jarl Bolverk....

 

And then you get into philosophy in more detail later on.

 

That is brilliant, I like it!

[Aegnor]

Just read this for the first time. Really like the current version - they are certainly interesting and distinct. I think the cynicism regarding both sides of the Long War fits very well with them as Iron Warriors.

 

Also, on a note of dissent, I quite liked the speech contractions and... blunter/earthier tone of some of your quotes. Fits with what came across of their character - these guys are not given to niceties or to gilding the lily about who and what they are. Not every Marine will sound like an Ultramarine or Darth Vader.

[Octavulg]

That is brilliant, I like it!

Great! I'd strongly recommend taking out the nineteen different occasions where I use the same word four or five times, though.

 

I feel like I want a bit of expansion in different areas, but I'm not sure exactly where. I shall ponder.

[Warsmith Aznable]

It's been a while since I've added anything significant to this, but today I did a couple of things I've been thinking about lately.

 

1. I changed The Child of Calamity to be a space hulk instead of a super battleship. Things got so large that I felt like a super special SDF-1 style battleship was stretching the setting unnecessarily, and I thought that a space hulk was a better fit thematically.

 

2. I added the bit about the chaplain-like priests and how they're sort of like a cross between zen masters and evil thesis sponsors. In my WIP thread I made a group of Icon bearers based on the idea of Dark Apostles having junior members who could be attached to squads to make them Fearless, so I wanted to work them into the fluff of the warband. A loyalist chaplain may preach bombastic sermons and bother battle-brothers about adherence to the Codex Astartes, but mine force the Iron Hounds to submit their work for peer review and enforce harsh deadlines. Truly, much more brutal. Because Chaos Marines warrior poets is a bit Mary Sue, I felt that I needed to grimdark it up a bit. "Brother Ulric, you have been missing meditation and you didn't submit your portfolio to the proctor. Do you have anything you'd like to confess, or do I need to march you down to the Apothecarion and let them have a look at you? Show me your hands! Is that webbing between your fingers? What have you been up to? Well, at the very least you'll be getting bionic hands, but the 10,000 Gods of Humanity help you if you're hiding anything else under your robes. Let's go, then. Try to run off into the Forbidden Decks, need I remind you, and this plasma gun will put holes into your spine before you take your fourth step."

[Warsmith Aznable]

My meddling with my IA is endless.

 

Today I rewrote some of the sections to simplify it. The origins section removed details about the 49th's actions between the Great Crusade and Scouring, removing specifics but adding only the idea that they were one of the Primarch's places to put unorthodox legionnaires. The explicit descriptions of how the Eldar factored into the new nature of the warband was changed to hints by omission, with the last appearance of the original grand company taking place after a battle on a Crone World against Ulthwé and Iybraesil forces. All talk about grand company culture originating before this event was excised in favor of explicitly stating that the new Warsmith moulded the warband culture deliberately after the fact. The Iron Hounds are today known only as a renegade space marines chapter, with their ties to the Iron Warriors being obvious only to expert observers (from an Imperial point of view.)

 

I still like Octavulg's section on how my weird thing came to be, but felt that in the long run it was too much information in one place. I am still using it as the explanation for what happened, only not presenting the full details to keep the IA short. I'd like to include those details later in a different format, as I like the idea.

 

One of these days I'm going to be finished tweaking this thing...