IA: Grail Dragons

[Northstar]

So, I was screwing around with the chapter name generator, and found a name that I thought would be awesome to right up an IA for, so here it is, I present you, the Grail Dragons.

 

 

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IA Chapter: Grail Dragons

 

Home System: Theta-99

 

Located in the galactic western regions of the Halo stars, Theta-99 is a relatively quiet system, made up of nine planets, four of which are habitable. Established populations are located on three of the four planets, the last being a death-class world.

 

Home World: Thraxis

 

Thraxis is a planet ruled by monastic tradition. A governmental barony was established by the Order of the Sacred Lotus. When the Order was later razed, much of the Barony was plunged into civil war. The 4th company of the Cadian 6th Later dropped planetside, and was caught in amongst the civil war. Contact was finally lost when the imperial cruiser was destroyed via orbital defense cannons. Finally, the planet was brought to order under the might of the veteran task force of the Salamanders. Summarily given custodial power over the planet, the space marines were granted the right to create a new chapter within the halo stars, and to monitor much of the sector.

 

Today, the chapter presides as the main body of governorship over the planet. The monastic tradition has returned, with the body of faith being referred to simply as “the Lady”. The Grail Dragons each rule as the head of a noble house, with each holding power over a baron as the housecarl of their house. These houses are fractal in comparison to the Grail Dragons, as has been the case for long before imperial presence had been made upon Thraxis. While every Barony is on it's own, a secular house, these houses fall under much larger noble families, casting themselves as a subsequent royalty on Thraxis. Once the Grail Dragons had taken control of the planet, these royal families relinquished much of their power over to the chapter, estabilshing the chapter as the prominent ruling body of Thraxis. However, vestiges of the greater royal families exist, presevering within the differing companies within the Grail Dragons.

 

Geneseed: Salamanders Chapter, 23rd founding

 

The Grail Dragons were first documented as a 23rd founding chapter, made up first and foremeost by a cadre of veterans that stood as members of the original first company. After losing contact with an order of the sororitas in the halo stars, a detachment of the Cadian 6th was sent to investigate the signal loss. When contact was lost with them as well, a task force from the Salamanders 4th company was sent to investigate the matter, and bring whatever threat lay there to rest. After heavy fighting, the task force eventually proved successful, and was granted by the highlords of terra from then on to begin forming a new chapter out within the Halo Stars.

 

While most of the geneseed from the salamanders is relatively stable, an unfortunate mishap in cultivating Black Carapaces for new marines, the marines became afflicted with a mutation that causes skin malformation, which appears to the observer as a Grail Dragon being covered in scales. This same mutation also causes complete hair loss, although this is significantly minor to the malformation of the skin. Generally, the skin reddens and becomes hard, with thicker scales blackening in color. As marines age, Black scales become much more prevalent, as cells break off of the Black Carapace and build up in the dermal tissues of the marine.

 

Badge: Red Crux Templar with Black border foreground, purple background.

 

History:

 

Originally members of the Salamanders Chapter, the Grail Dragons were given custodial power over the colonies within the system of Theta-99. Stationed far for the heaviest fighting, the Grail Dragons see quite a bit less combat than most other chapters. That is not to say they see no combat in their sector of the galaxy however. During the Gothic War, Alpha Legionnaires found their way into the Halo Stars, and after a long and bitter fight, with heavy losses on both sides, the Alpha Legion escaped with the Grail Dragons’ most treasured artifact. After rebuilding their forces, nearly the entire chapter ventured on a crusade to take back their artifact, plunging straight into the eye of terror to regain the lost relic. However, most of those that went on the crusade died, leaving only a handful of marines to bring the relic back to its resting place. Later on, when the traitor Tau, commander Farsight made home in the Halo Stars, the two forces clashed again, although eventually ending with Farsight being pushed out of the system. When the Tyranid threat descended upon the galaxy, cruisers from the Grail Dragons harried the Hive fleets, and fought fiercely on planets they descended upon, however, by the time The First hive fleets entered the Ultramar system, the Grail Dragons had sustained too many losses to support the Ultramarines, and had returned to their home system to find splinter fleets Invading systems near to theirs. After still more fighting, They had eventually cleansed the threat of the splinter fleets from the surrounding systems with the aid of the Thraxian common guard.

 

Fortress Monastery, Temple of Silence: The Temple of Silence has been used by the Grail Dragons ever since their landing upon Thraxis. Built originally by the Order of the Sacred Lotus, the Temple is a massive structure inset into a mountainside deep within the mountains of Thraxis. Of note, is the Temples main enterance, which stretches out into a shallow lake that rests undisturbed by even the faintest of breezes, and is the location where many of the marines meditate on any number of things. While the structure of the Temple has been updated since the Grail Dragons' official annexation, much of the ancient archetecture remains untouched, with only landing bays and the Chapter's forge built into the Temple. Located deep within the confines of the Temple, The Lady also partakes residence, eternally scrying for any danger to the imperium from either within, or without.

 

Combat Doctrine:

 

Although the Grail Dragons keep a large amount of flamers, they by no means use the greater amount of them. Commonly, Nobles of Thraxis capture and keep deadly bipedal reptilians as pets, some will even ride the beasts into combat. This is not merely by coincidence, however, as the system does not have a forgeworld, and the nearest forgeworld is some distance away, the Grail Dragons have to make limited use of their personal forges to not only supply themselves, but also to help sustain the military forces of the common guard. The beasts are however quite fast, despite their reptilian physique, and with an evolutionary trait, have a fluted vent in their snouts that allows them to fire a jet of highly caustic liquid at an alarming distance. One step further, each new Chapter Master climbs into the Thraxian Highlands in search of one of the powerful and deadly Thraxian Wyrms. While fully untamable, and extremely deadly, these creatures can make tremendous allies to a Chapter Master, and should one be willing to allow him to mount it, the pair are unmatchable in combat.

 

Organization:

 

As a non-codex chapter, the Grail Dragons are broken up into 12 companies of roughly 100 marines each. While the deviation in the number of companies is against the codex astartes, it is of great importance, as the Grail Dragons typically take heavy losses in any engagement they are in. The chapter as a whole has very limited access to a large variety of weaponry available to most chapters as well. Due to their limited amount of resources and only the Forge Master himself to preside over any equipment being produced or maintained, very little is actually created by the chapter as far as armored support is concerned. That is not to say that they do not have armor, quite typically in fact they make use of a very limited amount of STCs, gathered from very usually rogue Inquisitors that may happen upon their bastion, and try and annex them to his or her cause. It is quite usually these individuals that learn first-hand the terrible nature of a Thraxian Wyrm’s hunger.

 

The ruling body of the Grail Dragon’s in known as the Brethren court. Like the most ancient of ancient tales, the Brethren Court are an assembly of the Grail Dragons finest warriors, whom make the most important decisions of the Chapter together. The Brethren Court is led by a Master auspiciously given the title of “The Dragon” Who during the rights of becoming the leader of the chapter relinquishes his given name, taking the title itself as his name. The current incarnation of The Dragon is approximately 1000 years old.

 

Each Marine is a Noble of a house within Thraxis, providing a ruling body over a portion of the world's civilisation. Under that marine, presides a housecarl, and while the Marine is a champion of the house, he is bound by honour to never take a spouse, and so the housecarl serves as the progenitor of the family names of the Noble houses. Each Housecarl in turn is the commander of a body of soldiers, known as a common guard. These men are usually conscripted soldiers of the non-noble families. Under rare circumstance, one of these lowborne families may rise to become a noble house, if a current noble house is unable to produce a sufficient heir to follow in the steps of their brethren champion. In this way, Each marine is, from initiation, prepared to lead men into battle, and while many baronies exist under this rule, there are many more that still resist the rule of the Grail Dragons, and border skirmishes often take place between diffrent houses. Unfortunately, such disputes are not above the law placed by the Grail Dragons, in the belief that such skirmishes breeds a stronger fighter. While these skirmishes are not stopped, they are contained, and unless protocol of battle is maintained, the threat of having Astartes intervention is not a wanted scenario.

 

Beliefs:

 

Nominally, the primary belief of the Grail Dragons is in their Lady. The Lady is the last remaining Sororita of the Sacred Lotus, and, in quite rare form, an Auger of the Emperor. This powerful psyker sees much of the comings and goings of the galaxy, and is quite well aware of the dangers the Warp represents. On occasion, members of the Ordos Mallues will come to seek the Lady’s consul, and on more than one occasion, the Lady has been known to observe the heresy at the hearts of the Ordos Inquisitors that make their way to Thraxis. It is because of this that Inquisitors are very wary approaching the system, as She when she knows of their coming, The Dragon is the next person on the planet to know of their coming. Two incursions from chaos have also been thwarted due to her power, and due to the strength embued to her through the emperor, many of the marines view her as a living saint. Beyond her is the most valued relic the Grail Dragon’s possess, the Grail of Tears. Twice has this relic been lost to Chaos Incursion, both times by the Grail Dragon’s most hated of nemesis, the Alpha Legion. Thus far, the relic is lost, and is in need of reclamation and purification from the taint of the arch-traitors.

 

 

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Like I said, this was for fun, though I may actually like building these guys. Was possibly thinking th Codex: SPace Wolves would work well for them, though I am not sure how prevelent flamers are for them.

[Wings of Fury]

sound quite like non renegade Dragon warriors from the salie books which is cool. you could use th sw codex but add a Vulkan hestan from the sm codex so all meltas and flamers become twin linked. thats what i'd do anyway

[Northstar]

That might work for one of the brethren court, but as The Dragon rides a Wyrm, it would not neccisarily work for the leader.

 

Of note, were I to build these, the Drakes and Wyrms would be the cold ones and a carnosaur from the fantasy model ranges (dark elves and lizardment respectively)

[Andrew J]

I like your execution of the idea. It has been done before pretty often but yours is well thought out and doesnt sound too OTT fantasy.

[Northstar]

see... as I continue putting random bits together in my head on this, I am becoming more and more fascinated with the idea of actually modelling this... More so a little bit than even modelling the Angels of Apostasy... And this random offshoot of an idea actually makes the generic Space marines less well... bland to me as well... which was my main issue with the Mourning Knights

 

I'll be continuing to think more on these guys probably(as I probably won't be able to shake the idea for a little bit)... Any c&c is welcome if you all have any thoughts...

 

also @ AndrewJ: yeah, I thought hard on how NOT to go too OTT with it. Generally, when I bring random elements like giant lizards into an idea such as this, I think on how this realistically would work. If the SW codex works well for my intentions, the more OTT of the entries for the drakes in particular will be edited(so as they are simply fast lizards, as opposed to being able to spit acids(which was put in place to rationalise using them as stand in attack bikes should I use the C:SM)). Realistically, since these are simply the wildlife of the planet, I look at how these creatures would need to ecologically balance out as a kind of alpha predator of the planet.

 

When I look at the Thraxian Drakes, I see them as being a kind of pack animal, hunting down larger herbivorous creatures many times their own size, this pack mentality would work well as a kind of mount for the space marines, lacking the normal attack bikes that most chapters would have. This is opposed to how a Thraxian Wyrm acts, being much larger, more akin to something like a bear, they are solitary hunters, keeping to the highlands, although not so high up into the mountains as to not be able to find prey.

 

If the SW codex does work well for my intention, there is another fantasy model that would work very well as a stand in for fenrisian wolves as well, that being the razordons(alternatively, I could also simply use the fenrisian wolf models as well, as I would think mammals would do well on a forested "feral" world such as Thraxis as well)

 

 

EDIT: wow... after downloading the SW codex, it's kinda scary how well that works for 90% of how I would like to build this army, should I decide to build it....

[Andrew J]

Yeah I think it could be done well as long as you stick to the grimdark side of things, more along the lines of dangerous predators and not garishly colored fantastical creatures.

 

What colors were you thinking for the chapter? I could see a dark color like navy blue or dark grey. I would stay away from green if you dont want to get too close to the sallies.

[Northstar]

Was thinking a dark grey, possibly drybrushed with boltgun metal, trimmed black a deep purple for any tabards and such.

 

 

EDIT:: Apparently my computer's distaste for using this website is paramount in the SM painter... else I would show you what I envision for these guys... As it stands though, the SM Painter is unusable to me

[Andrew J]

Something like this?

I like it. Would you do robes for everyone or just important guys?

[Northstar]

was figuring vetrans and up...