Index Astartes: Astral Reavers

[Ace Debonair]

“I do not care what loathsome world bore you, or how you came to my fleet. I will make a Reaver of you, or you will die trying.” - Sergeant Kaio Jukai, Astral Reavers Tenth Company

 

If you made that 'make a true Reaver of you', you could probably shift that quote to a Sergeant from one of the reserve companies; the inference then being that they're not a true Astral Reaver until they're good enough to be in a battle company. :tu:

 

In fact, that point of view is actually already subtly reinforced inside the Organisation bit, so that could work very nicely.

 

...That's pretty much all I've got for C&C, though. It's looking pretty good!

 

I also just got the name William Maze, and why he's got the quote where he's shouting. I laughed and winced at the same time. :blink:

[Donkey Kong]

Sorry, Ace, "I do not care what loathsome world bore you, or how you came to my fleet. I will make a true Reaver of you, or you will die trying." doesn't have the same flow to me. While I agree that Tenth Company is overused, I changed the Gene-Seed quote to Ninth company instead. I feel that it's more appropriate in that context.

 

I ran a Google search on William Maze to see what you were talking about. I wasn't aiming for the DUI lawyer. I based the name on the character Maze from Fable. The good Fable. The only good Fable. But, if your idea is different, I'd still love to hear it ;) .

[Ace Debonair]

I ran a Google search on William Maze to see what you were talking about. I wasn't aiming for the DUI lawyer. I based the name on the character Maze from Fable. The good Fable. The only good Fable. But, if your idea is different, I'd still love to hear it ;) .

 

Not Billy Mays, then?

 

Just when I thought South Park had finally done something for me.

[Donkey Kong]

:yes: I like your idea better.

 

Comments and criticism are still more than welcome.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

“I do not care what loathsome world bore you, or how you came to my fleet. I will make a Reaver of you, or you will die worth nothing.” - Sergeant Kaio Jukai, Astral Reavers Tenth Company

 

Mainly because lots of reading will make my eyes bleed currently, there's my version of that quote.. But kudos for still going with this KHK and when eye-bleeding is not a concern I'll peruse at length.

[Donkey Kong]

Mainly because lots of reading will make my eyes bleed currently, there's my version of that quote.. But kudos for still going with this KHK and when eye-bleeding is not a concern I'll peruse at length.

 

It's been almost two weeks. Are you eyes better yet? :lol:

[Ace Debonair]

Honestly, I can't find anything wrong with these guys.

 

Either that means it's 95% or more pure quality, or I can't see the woods for the trees anymore. :ph34r:

[Donkey Kong]

Haha, I guess we're both blind then. I ran through and made a few wording changes. It sucks that the Gene-Seed and Battlecry sections are still bare bones, but I just don't have anything more to say. Still, I'm more than welcome commentary.

[Donkey Kong]

Back to my (sea bound) roots! I've made some minor edits to the Index Astartes, so I think it reads a little better than the previous version. Aside from some minor wording edits and changing the names and some of the titles of the quoted figures, it's basically the same, so, no rush to read it again.

 

The more important addition this time around is in the beginning of the second post. I've added a brainstorm and notes section for things to add to the IA, or things that I don't know how to fit in the IA just yet, but have some influence on the Chapter (mostly heraldry stuff). These are the ideas that have got me stuck in a rut on the Chapter, and I would appreciate some outside opinion on how to work with them.

 

I'll be polishing these boys to shine for the reopening of the Librarium on the side while I focus on the Chimaeras.

 

Thanks for your help!

[Donkey Kong]

Well, that last post didn't go exactly as I'd hoped. I just started my freshman year of college a couple of weeks ago, so, unfortunately, I don't have as much time as I'd like to working on my IAs. Since it's the weekend, and I didn't have as much trouble with my essays as I'd expected, I decided to work a little on polishing my old favorite space pirates.

 

Most of the ideas I have on the table right now are in the outline in the second post. I like to keep that updated alongside the OP, so now that I got around to that Caphon sidebar and I snuck in a little line about green = hope in the Origins section, I'm dry for ideas there.

 

Otherwise, I also finally got around to picking up a copy of Know No Fear. I've made some progress in it, but textbooks have been taking up most of my time reading. I'm a nursing major, so obviously that means that most of my classes involve sociology and human studies. I can't really complain, since my courses aren't particularly demanding, but still. Aside from Anatomy and Physiology which I took last year in high school and need to spend time memorizing again, I have:

 

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology: Interesting, but I'm never going to take another class like this again. There's too much of a "holier than thou" angle on the lectures, leading me to believe that this is a study based on having your cake and eating it too, between cultural relativism and cultural ethics. Either every culture is right from their own point of view and should not be changed, or it's not, has amoral behavior, and needs to be changed for the better. Sorry Prof., you can't have it both ways! I've also been considering showing up to my 2:00 lecture in my bathrobe and sitting down in the front row right in front of him. Prof. broke his ankle, and isn't particularly mobile, so I think that an hour with me right in front of him should give him a message of sorts about my personal worldview.

 

On the other hand, I like my TA, and recitation is led by her, where we have actual discussions about actual stuff. She still talks a little about travelling to Ghana for research, but that's neither here nor there. My friend has a Food Ethics class where his TA outright told him that he was a "speciesist" that his opinion was wrong since he argued against the vegetarianism/ veganism view on eating animals.

 

Expository Writing: 5 5 page essays in a semester, with 5 drafts apiece with 4 roughs before submitting a final. I tried to AP out of this course. Twice. Unfortunately, I failed both times, and now I'm typing essays about terrible prompts that make me cringe. The worst part is that the Prof. here actually likes my essays when I know that they are complete nonsense. Either that, or high school has taught me how to bull like the best of them. However, writing 4 pages about how "Humans are redefined as Predators" as based on Caroline Fraser's "Rewilding North America," is more of an exercise in frustration than anything else. Final Essays need to be 5 pages long. I spent my senior year writing speeches on a team for a National Constitution Competition that had to end at 5 minutes or so. My school won 4th place out of 56 teams, so I think it's fair to say that I got pretty good at it. After getting it hammered into my head to be concise, dragging out essays for this long physically hurts me. It's like I have a nagging in the back of my mind of my old high school teacher lecturing me on saying things in as few words as possible, as quickly as possible, and getting in and out quickly to maximize the number of arguments I present.

 

World Mythology: I've got no complaints. This is a course that apparently gets me sociology credit, because Jewish, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse myth along with modern myth like Frankenstein (I really hate that book) will help me understand people. My class is also full of middle aged women who are back in school for fun or some nonsense lik that. But, no complaints. We have to write essays here too, but at least it's on stuff that isn't complete nonsense. At least not for me, I'm sure that other people probably wouldn't be too fond of making up a prompt about the Greek underworld or some other topic like that and writing a 2 page essay.

 

Academic and Professional Development: A 1 Credit seminar designed for nursing students to get to meet other nursing students and learn about college and time management and being responsible and all that good stuff. I've only gone once so far because I was sent to the wrong room by the college info office along with about 10 girls. As the only guy in the room, I guess it was a good ratio. I keep hearing that about college parties: Ratio. It's like some magic word that determines whether or not a party sucks. Anyway, we were hanging out for about an hour, and I'm pretty sure that the 10 of them all know my face and name at this point. A good joke or 2 (or an hour's worth, since that's how long we spent there) makes a guy (in)famous, I guess. Well, any publicity is good publicity.

 

I haven't gone to a college party yet, not really my idea of a good time. Besides, I can't drink, smoke, or participate in any other questionable activity without risking my position in the nursing school. My parents exposed me to alcohol at a young age (prepubescent), so I don't like the taste of it. I tried one of my grandmother's light cigarettes out of curiosity (early teens), and I hated it. This doesn't factor in that smoke smells terrible and makes me cough (something allergies are already giving me some trouble with). Also, years of blowing my nose too hard has weakened the walls in my nose (mid teens), and I doubt I'd be able to snort anything without giving myself a nice little nosebleed. Needless to say, I don't think I'd be particularly good at substance abuse.

 

So, yeah, I like college.

[Messor]

Well I hope you continue to like college, and also that it doesn't keep you from working on this. This IA goes right to #1 on favorites simply by merit of the Pirate theme, with bonus points for the kraken heraldry and having a Nemo. Fantastic IA, sir, I loved it and am so jealous you had this idea. There I was, content to consider a Red Corsair's army satisfactory, but you did it better and you did it loyalist. Hmmm, guidlines. I love it.

 

:D

 

-T

[Donkey Kong]

Well I hope you continue to like college, and also that it doesn't keep you from working on this.

 

Much appreciated, Messor!

 

This IA goes right to #1 on favorites simply by merit of the Pirate theme, with bonus points for the kraken heraldry and having a Nemo. Fantastic IA, sir, I loved it and am so jealous you had this idea. There I was, content to consider a Red Corsair's army satisfactory, but you did it better and you did it loyalist. Hmmm, guidlines. I love it.

 

Haha, you know, it's funny. I never thought that I would have people telling me that my IA was one of their favorites. It reminds me of when I started out by hounding Commissar Molotov about how much I loved his Castigators. I guess I had some good inspiration and a high standard to live up to. I'm still envious of Mol's 30 or 40 plus progress log, but I never really liked having old work staring me in the face while I pushed forward.

 

Honestly, this IA was like making sausage. I think I scrapped and redid the Chapter about 5 times. They went though at least as many names (starting out as no less than the Kraken Brothers). It helps that there are so many different sources of inspiration for a pirate chapter, and any time I decided to dwell on one inspiration for too long, I had someplace to turn to before problems became overbearing. At one time there was going to be an organ mortar cannon (Think Sisters of Battle Exorcist) on a land raider, poking at Davy Jones' Organ in Pirates of the Caribbean. At another point, Thussaud and the Second Company got lost in the warp, became a sort of hybrid fish crew, and Narrik took over the 11th Company, created to replace the lost and dishonored Second.

 

I'm glad that's all behind me to say the least.

 

Right now, I have that whole brainstorming log at the top of the second post so hopefully I can get some of that discussed, straightened out, and maybe even incorporated into the IA proper. I've still got no idea on how that aesthetic stuff will fit in, or if it will fit in, short of me miraculously developing some artistic talent, but hopefully I can just write some more.

 

Until then, I'll be enjoying college, working on these, and trying to figure out how the hell the Chimaeras are supposed to work.

[Messor]

Personally I thought almost all your brainstorming ideas were fantastic, with the possibly exception of the helmets. I think (based solely on my small experience with SM) that modification and decoration of armor can go pretty far, but once a helmet starts deviating from the standard you begin to find yourself in Chaos territory (I mean this purely in the sense of aesthetics. You just don't see non-standard marine helmets).

 

One of my favorite ideas of yours was the implementation of tridents and anchors. A Chaplain with an "power anchor" in lieu of a thunder hammer/Crozius sounds like the ultimate Reaver manifestation of faith.

 

Sticking to aesthetics, your explanation of the death heads' markings, as well as the additional faces confused me, though the part that considered a black dot in a white dot/circle on a black field made me think of the Watchmen character dr. manhattan(and not in the 'oh, that's cool way', but in the 'ah, that's an unfortunate resemblance' way). But I LOVE the idea of incorporating the black spot. I can't get enough of this Chapter, and I'd like to help any way you need it. Tell me first if/when you start painting 'em, I wanna be the first to see!

[Donkey Kong]

Tell me first if/when you start painting 'em, I wanna be the first to see!

 

Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to be happening anytime soon. I have a The Battle for Macragge set that came out a couple years ago and tactical squad in pieces. Beyond that, I don't have the time now and I don't have much interest in Games Workshop's miniatures. I simply don't like the heroic scale. If I were to start miniature wargaming, I'd probably start with Corvus Belli's Infinity. The miniatures are realistically proportioned, look better, armies are smaller so more attention can be paid to individuals, and, although the background isn't as available as 40k and I haven't been given the opportunity to immerse myself as deeply, it still looks interesting. The fact that I don't like Games Workshop's business practice (annual price increases, and poor quality control with FailCast (customer service helps, but just shows how overpriced they know their products are if they're willing to send out a new box for a few broken bits)) just helps fuel my reluctance. But, this is all just my opinion.

 

Miniature painting seems like a fun hobby, and I'd love to get into it once I'm a self sufficient adult with a job and money to spare. I'd also like to learn to sculpt miniatures for myself, possibly for my own version of 40k. But, this is all long into the future. Until then, I have my guilty pleasures in card games, which are arguably cheaper, less time intensive, and have relatively balanced rules which prevent fiascos like the Ward Grey Knights or the Chaos Daemons breaking Warhammer Fantasy, and writing stuff like, well, this. Hopefully I'll have taught myself how to draw worth a damn by the time I graduate at least.

 

That's also the best thing about just writing. Anything can go on paper. Once you try to actually make it, well, then you get problems. I can't see myself painting any second faces in the near future.

 

Personally I thought almost all your brainstorming ideas were fantastic, with the possibly exception of the helmets. I think (based solely on my small experience with SM) that modification and decoration of armor can go pretty far, but once a helmet starts deviating from the standard you begin to find yourself in Chaos territory (I mean this purely in the sense of aesthetics. You just don't see non-standard marine helmets).

 

Meh, it's hit and miss. Space Wolves do it. Blood Angels have their masks. Ultramarines have their eagle masks. Then there are the Imperial Daemons like Sanguinor and The Legion of the Damned. And, I know that the Legion of the Damned have a book and may or may not be rumored to be the Fire Hawks, but, I haven't read it, won't read it, and for me and my personal canon, they're daemons.

 

The Kraken Helmets are just the final step of the Changing of Faces.

 

Sticking to aesthetics, your explanation of the death heads' markings, as well as the additional faces confused me, though the part that considered a black dot in a white dot/circle on a black field made me think of the Watchmen character dr. manhattan(and not in the 'oh, that's cool way', but in the 'ah, that's an unfortunate resemblance' way). But I LOVE the idea of incorporating the black spot.

 

The dot on the forehead is a little like Dr. Manhattan, yes, but I needed something for the black spot, and just incorporating it into the heraldry didn't seem like it was enough. Thinking now, I could stick it on the chest like a great, big black pearl, but then I have to take into consideration what else would be on the chest plate, so on and so forth.

 

The ideas that I want to tackle now in order of priority:

-Keep Worlds

I plan to have worlds with "African cultures, Caribbean cultures, English cultures, Japanese cultures, Mediterranean cultures, and anywhere else I missed with social aspects related to the sea and piracy" as stated in the Second Post. I just don't have names or ideas on how they can also incorporate ideas into the Chapter's traditions.

Uft'ni already has Mediterranean and Hawaiian influences.

The bigger problem is incorporating them into the IA. Right now, all that is stated is that worlds like these exist under the Chapter's control. I don't know how well a sidebar would fit, how a sidebar would adequately portray these worlds, or if it even should. If I just list, then it's just that, a list, and nothing of particular value is gained. If it's not there, then I feel like I'm missing something. If the world exists, and has no greater influence on the Chapter, then it's a waste of space. This is a self-perpetuating problem, and I think just having the list for my own use and amusement would be the end result, possibly just ending up in the second post with a note about what cultures come from the world, any small traditions those people have that have found their way into the chapter, and a few sample names.

 

-Random tidbits in the Chapter Cult

Does The Eternal Purge need a new name?

Astral Reavers have red markings like the White Scars, what do they represent?

Astral Reavers have tribal war chants possibly before battles, and maybe even during battles if they can hack into enemy communications. Where do they come from and what do they mean?

Astral Reavers value water from the home worlds as a source of cleansing, a tradition taken from Uft'ni after the flooding. Where can this be incorporated?

Astral Reavers use Great Crusade Era Heraldry like the Emperor's Thunderbolt. Due to close ties with the Machine Cult, cogs and similar symbols may have been adopted by the Chapter at large. Black Templars don't use the Aquila because, according to Helsreach, they view themselves as the Emperor's symbol. How do Astral Reavers treat these symbols?

Sailors usually get tattoos to record their travels. How do Astral Reavers ink themselves? Remembering the Home world? Campaigns?

 

Aesthetic things are more or less settled, all that's left is incorporating them. Tridents and nets are still up in the air. I honestly just have no idea on how to make them fit. I'd like to have something like the Batarian Sentinel Submission Net. But, at the same time, I don't see why these would be used in combat. The only example I have in my mind about fighting with a trident comes from reading about Gladiators and, unfortunately, The Hunger Games. As far as I understand, it's just a spear with a defensive advantage. I have no idea who would be using it, or why they would be using it beyond home world tradition (which is more than enough of a reason for these guys, but still). I'm glad you like the anchor idea, though.

 

The best help comes from ideas, suggestions, and, most of all, questions. If I get a question, and I don't have an answer, I have to think of one. That adds to the Chapter more than anything.

[Messor]

Oh, I'm sorry to hear these won't see paint. Maybe one day when the AI is finalized I'll paint some, if you don't mind. Though come to think of it, that would also be a long time since I'm already dividing the tiny force I have between two Chapters, and planning to make a bunch of single model cross over cameos just for fun.

 

I just looked at the Infiniti range and its quite extensive. Much more detailed than I could conceivably paint XD. Since you've got the appearance aspect fairly locked down, I'll move on.

 

If you can summarize these unique keep worlds in two or three sentences, I think they would fit well under the homeworld section. They're not Uft'ni but they're still extremely important. I'd like to see them. Sadly the only thing I know about foreign piracy was the implementation of Junks by Asian corsairs. More characterization, and from more cultures can only make it better.

 

I also don't see a need to change the Eternal Purge name, because it accurately sums up exactly what it is. They're not just a tool/weapon in the imperial arsenal, they have their own purpose, to purge and to never stop purging.

 

Are you wanting to make mention of chants/war cries in combat doctrine or simply the usual IA footnote? I may have missed this in your article, but what does the leadership of the Reavers do to perpetuate cultural differences(which I assume are what give rise to these varied battle cries)? I know in other Chapters that recruit from multiple worlds, cultural variety is softened/expunged by separating brothers from the same world into different squads and companies. I hope you do incorporate them somewhow. While silent killers are cool, pirate-themed marines seem a little out of character for it.

 

The most direct application for the Chapter's belief in cleansing water would be rites, performed probably after a battle when all the dirty goes down. Once the enemy has been purged with the weapon, the pure homeworld water can purge the weapon of whats left of the enemy.

 

On enemies, some purge-the-unclean chapters purge the bejeezus out the foe. If you want to include something like the Submission Net, why not have the Reavers be a little less quick to destroy every last enemy, but capture one or two that could be used to interrogate in the interest of continuing the Purge uninterrupted. Then they walk the plank. If you're stuck with including the trident as a weapon, maybe it could serve better as the staff of the company/chapter banners. It could still serve as a desperate weapon in the hands of the standard bearer, but otherwise is only present as a symbol of the Reavers(especially if your focus is close quarters combat).

 

Now while I can see a preference for boarding actions easily enough, its hard to imagine that they could find so many enemy fleets as to make that their number one fighting style(maybe interrogations help with that?). I know that works against the theme, sorry, just a thought.