Index Astartes- The Knights of Dolor

[Ring-around-the-roses]

Name- Knights of Dolor

 

Geneseed- Rogal Dorn's Lineage.

 

Early History- The Trials of Gehemnanight

The Knights of Dolor had been created during the twelth founding, in reaction to a bevy of losses centred around the system of Gehemnanight. Every system around that center of Administratum power had suffered a campaign of terror and death, but the system had remained untouched. Though the tithes still flowed, it was decided that action would be taken after twelve separate campaigns to settle the area around the system had failed in their objective. Some had been defeated on the field of battle, but after every campaign, the fear would come back, and with it the death toll would once again spiral.Gehemnanight was a cornerstone of nearly a dozen systems, and so could not be simply invaded and purged like most suspect planets. So, the Chapter would settle, estabilish a base in which to crush any dissent in the planets around sector, and hopefully root out its cause. Arriving in the system, the young Chapter instituted a brutal martial regime. To an Astartes, the regime seemed a justified attempt to root out the evil that had to be plagueing the system, as well as secure a powerful start to the construction of their monolithic Chapter fortress. To the populace, it seemed that a thousand inhuman tyrants had descended to crush them with an iron fist. In a short while, the populace had stopped fearing these giants, sent by the paranoid and inhumane Imperium, and had started to resent them. Soon resentment turned into hate, and it was as the last flagstone was put into place, as the whole Chapter was gathered to celebrate, that the rebeelion started. The astropathic choir was slaughtered, the Chapter's holdings in the city attacked and looted, and the Chapter itself damaged irrepairably as their flyers were sabotaged or destroyed. The rebels had underestimated the Astartes however. As one, they attacked and slaughtered their way through a entire hive city, ten billion deaths staining their hands. In space, the Chapter fleet commited Exterminatus on every planet in the system but Gehemnanight, in a act of insane hatred killing the loyalist planet of Taurchus VII as well. The combined deaths of so many exploded into the Warp, cutting off communications and travel from the system, as well as drawing the unwelcome attention of its denizens. As the denizens fought back with weaponry looted from the Chapter houses around the city that had fallen, added to the weapons of the Arbites and PDF, who had joined the citizens in fighting the Astartes, loyal to planet instead of its harsh rulers.

 

Before long, pirates and cultists alike were breaking into the system, granted access through their foul patrons. Though they fought valiantly, the fleet could not hold them off, and was forced into the unwelcome choice of fleeing in shame, or dying in a stubborn last stand. One by one, the fleet died in battle, sacrificing themselves in insane ramming attacks or translating into the Warp mere kilometres from the enemy ships, destroying them both in the sea of the Warp. Inevitably, the forces of darkness closed in on Gehemnanight. On the planet, the Chapter had been ruthlessly crushing the populace, living up to their accusation of tyranny that had been levelled against them. It was said that the carnage unleashed against the population was so bad, that the hives had a new sky, made of the insects and animals feeding off the dead that lay in the vast new mortuaries. This didn't stop with the arrival of the traitors, if anything it got worse. The Chapter had by now lost their concepts of honour or mercy, and Chapter Master Ghehen was only a figurehead. The Chapter had flocked to the revenge-fuelled Chaplaincy, while the other offices had been increasingly weak, especially the Librarius, who futiley tried to curb the excesses of the Chapter's youngest novitiates. This was done from sound advice, as the death toll could only weaken the novitiates, allowing them to glory in their power and righteousness, without facing worthy foes. Added to this was the weakening of the walls between worlds. The Warp was pressing in, as seen by the increasing reports of rogue psykers attacking the Chapter. As the traitors landed and attacked, the battle only got worse, and soon the Apothecarian was being stretched to capacity, its supplies exhausted. As the Night Lords appeared in the outer reaches of the system, the Apothecarian was on the verge of collapse, the Chapter Master all but sealed in his rooms, the Armorium running dry of ammunition, and the Librarius suffering from the constant strain of guarding against both the Warp, ready to break through at the lightest touch, and the psychic death screams if an entire world.

 

As the Traitor Astartes landed they quickly dominated all of the warp-touched pirates and heretics on the ground by the expedient route of flaying anyone who disagreed with them. The Knights of Dolor, meanwhile, were cut off from one another and scattered around the city, each squad hunting more as a pack of killers just as terrible as the Night Lords, instead of a efficient and effective war machine. As the first Night Lord squads struck from the darkness, none were the wiser. Only the Chapter Master, locked in his rooms with nothing but his personal strategium that linked to the entire Chapter for company, saw the horror unfolding as squad after squad were killed. He recognised the signs of a planetary invasions, and one so effective that only a Astartes or a inhuman genius could carry it out. Unfortunately, the Night Lord Xehpenian Lucan combined both roles, with a mix of the inherent sadism which all Night Lords possessed. As he tried to exit his quarters however, he was blocked by two brothers clearly under the sway of the Chaplains fervour. With the speed at which his men were dying, the fires of determination and zeal finally lit anew in his eyes, quenched too long since the very first sabotage that broke his Chapter, and broke his spirit. He charged them, and as they called for help, subdued them. Running to the Librarius, he smote every brother who tried to stop him, his bare fists pounding them into a coma, but still far from death. Still, it was bare skin and flesh against ceramite power armour. By the time he had breached the inner sanctum, his arms from the elbow down were bloody stumps, his chest broken and bleeding, and his skull fractured and mishapen. Still, he staggered into the embrace of the shocked Librarium, who had sequestered themselves among the only place on the worlds capable of blocking the soul-rending death screams. Even Astartes training can prepare the soul for so much, and the sheer power that the death had provided to the denizens of the Warp had broken too many brothers upon its anvil. While the Chaplains had taken over from Ghehen, the Librarius had waged war upon itself as too many brothers fell into the corruption of the Warp. Only a handful of Librarians remained, but they had undergone trials in the shadowed halls of their supposed refuge that no living being was supposed to be exposed to, and were all the stronger for it. The group, once they had reached into Ghehen's mind and saw the tragedy the Chapter had become, and the massacre that was underway, used their powers to walk between the Warp and reality, gathering those who they knew would preserve and remember the old ways. Techmarines, Apothecaries, and Veterans alike, all were found and gathered in the Librarius. By the end day, nearly a companies worth of the 'old guard', those who had been there in the founding, had gathered. They gathered around Ghehen as he was hastily interred in a Dreadnought sarcophagus, listening as he was refused all anaesthetics. In a matter of hours he awoke, the Techmarines unable to offer explanation for this miracle. His first pronouncment was recorded as follows.

 

+++Grinding gears in the background+++

 

Veteran Sergeant Apocolos, 1st company veteran- Chapter Master, are you well?

Venerable Dreadnought Ghehen- +++wordless scream registered, in excess of servitors ability to accurately record+++

Librarian Chacian- Chapter Master, can you function? What are your orders? Do you remember anything at all?

Venerable Dreadnought Ghehen- I know pain. I remember anguish. We have a war to fight, but first, we must do the dark deed set before us"

Veteran Sergeant Apocolos, 1st company Veteran- What deed, my lord? What must we do?

Venerable Dreadnought Ghehen- Take our Chapter back. We must subdue the Chaplains, gather the squads, and heal our wounds. This is not the time to throw our lives way, it is the time to learn, to adapt, to hunt. We have treaded a dark path, but it is nothing compared to what we will do in the days before us. Lead me to the Reclusiam brothers. Ave Imperator.

 

+++recording finishes as the reply from assembled Adeptus Astartes shorts out the audio receptors of servitor XVII-Omega-Beta+++

 

The records of the following century are locked deep in the Librarius, never to be seen except for by the eyes of the highest echelons of the Chapter. Suffice to say, by trhe time the Warp settled down again, and a force sent to investigate, the Night Lords had been slaughtered, along with nearly every living thing on the planet. Still, the Chapter clung to life, recruiting from the tiny population that had grown from their Chapter serfs. Soon enough the Inquisition requested a examination of the Chapter for taint. Unusually, the Chapter laid down its arms willingly, a occurence that was seldom to be repeated again. After they had been declared as free of all taint, the Chapter had requested for the planet to be put under their rule, and repopulated. And so the Knights of Dolor, in their own eyes, had finally earned the right to stand with their brethren, and the light of the Emperor. They had paid their pound of flesh, and were ready to take their cause to the stars, and crush the xenos and heretic, daemon and mutant. They knew all too well of pain, and were keen to show what they had learned in the darkness of Gehemnanight. They were keen to teach their enemies the meaning of pain.

 

Home World-

After the Chapter was given control of Gehemnanight, they unanimously decided to rename it, as well as systematically change the planet into a form more to their liking. The planet itself was simply named Ghehen I, but has been called many things by the convicts and inter-system filth shipped in to repopulate it, most of which boil down from the different languages to simply mean 'Hell on Terra'. This is no doubt due to the Chapter's second stage in its plan for the planet, which after a decade was nearly halfway recovered. It's hive cities were bustling with life, admittedly the dregs of it, but still, careful administration and the allowance of the Chapter for the Agundar 145th regiment to settle on the planet was quickly restoring order to the chaos of the former prisoners life. As the first elected governement was instituted and martial law lifted, the Chapter fleet settled into low orbit. No doubt it was the populace's imaginings that the Chapter would settle again on the planet, having moved onto their fleet as soon as it had been sufficiently reconstructed. Instead, forbidding bulk lifters, thousands of them, settled over the planet. And, as they opened, hell was unleashed. Deadly beasts captured from hundred worlds by the Chapter's scouts, and deadly flora shipped in from as far off as Catachan. All were released to test the planet and its people. Even as this happened, lance fire from the fleet boiled the seas and shattered the mountains. When questioned, the Knights of Dolor simply replied that they needed a deathworld, not a pampered administratum palace.

 

They people survived barely, scavenging in the darkness for hundreds of years. As the first communities grew, the Chapter involved themselves once again. The hulks of ships and orbital refineries, probes and research stations alike were scattered onto the planet, wiping out many of the most advanced settlements. This time, it was nearly another thousand years, all through which the Chapter kept on throwing the detritus of a thousand battles into the planet even as they kept on taking the lawbreakers of nearly a dozen systems and depositing them onto the tortured, changed landscape of Ghehen I. As the descendants of the first settlers started raiding the newest settlers, taking advantage of their lack of coherency and understanding of the planet, the Knights of Dolor appeared, gifting the chieftains of these tribes armour and weapons, even as the Librarius transmitted the gathering into the minds of the psyker-shamans which many tribes possessed, albeit under secret surveillance. It was clear to every leader on the planet then. The strongest would prosper and earn the favour of the Emperor of the Gods warrior's, while all else would be consigned to history.

 

As the many tribes grew and prospered, living of a endless cycle of war and conflict, so did the planet. The storms of metal and orbital scrap petered out, only landing once a generation in the least inhabited areas of the planet. The people are constantly trading, but now cities have grown around the areas where the Chapter drops of the tens of thousands every decade. The planet is split into five major continents, with a number of island chains crossing the seas throughout the world. The flora and fauna have also evolved, and coupled with the extreme weather which still wracks the planet to this day, have transformed the planet into a true deathworld. The old shells of the hive now serve as a constant batleground for dozens or sometimes hundreds of warring factions, fighting over the artifacts of the past, while the plains and mountains are dominated by small, insular tribes who raid and torture seasonally, and offer no mercy.

 

The primitive tribes have also evolved. Cruelty and pain has been grafted into the very culture of the people, and it is testament to their gift with those traits that nearly all of the hardened criminals who are dropped onto the planet die in the first five years. They now dwell in warmongering city-states and small alliances and countries rise and fall every year, supported by advanced technologies scavenged from the many ancient hulks of ships and orbital stations the Chapter has thrown into the world in ages past. Others live a nomadic existence, held together through blood and bond, raiding and fighting the city states to survive. Through careful experimentation and the influencing of key events in the planets history, the Chapter has finally created a world harsh enough to provide, in their minds at least, the perfect recruits. Even amongst the warfaring people of Ghehen, their are a few tribes which have clearly been favoured by the Chapter. The most recruitment comes from the old hive of Policos VII, which has seen nearly five hundred years of constant warfare. Ever since old nourishment vats were found in the very depths of the hive, the entire area has been the starting ground, and graveyard of hundred of warlords. The heroics and cold-blooded massacres which this has produced has always given the Chapter a steady stream of recruits. This is but one area of a entire planets worth of madmen and killers, providing a steady base of recruits for the Knights of Dolor's relatively high attrition rates.

 

Combat Doctrine-

 

Organisation-

 

Beliefs-

 

Really need critique, tear me apart (i will probably, maybe, should be able to take it :) )

Will add to it over time, hopefully relatively quickly. All depends on the grace of the Emperor, have five younger siblings, two of whom have autism. Pray for me brothers. :teehee:

[Ring-around-the-roses]

Added home-world section. Will work on organisation next, or if the wall of text is too monotonous to read through, just say so and i'll crusade right on to the coding and adding of banners and such, make it all pretty for you. What do you say? :tu:

 

really don't know if i'm writing passibly or just complete garbage. Please comment! My faith in the brotherhood of loyalists is growing weaker!

[Crimson Hawk]

Brother! Fellow son of Dorn! Do not lose faith :D!

Personally, I love your fluff. It's some of the best I've seen on this forum. Although, not many of our brothers have responded because the wall 'o text is somewhat imposing. Crusade time, methinks.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

Dude, take the following with a measure of "I've helped you already.." and "I'm just about to read but the comment caught my eye.."

 

Chances are you're writing garbage, because unless you've spent months going over and over what you have it will need work. But, where there is garbage there is undiscovered treasures.

 

Now, I'll actually read..

[Captain Juan Juarez]

Ignoring the basic "Wall o' Text" problem, I give you the following:

 

The Trials

 

A Chapter is rarely, in my opinion, brough in to being for a single battle or campaign; they usually have higher targets like the Adeptus Praeses or because of simple attrition.

 

So, who are these assailants that are plaguing the systems and why don't you name them as the Chapters raison d'etre? "The Knights of Dolor are a Twelth Founding Chapter who were created to deal with increasing raids and skirmishes in the Gehemnanight System..."

 

Right now, that sounds far too much like you are going for overtly "It's a mystery!" unless that's just my cynical eyes.

 

Also, you mention about "..the young Chapter.." and "..a thousand inhuman tyrants .." and these two notions kind of clash as it seems the Trials come early in the Chapter's history; a Chapter would take many centuries- at best - to come anywhere near strength so that if the Trials are an early and defining action the Chapter should be suitably reduced in number.

 

As one, they attacked and slaughtered their way through a entire hive city, ten billion deaths staining their hands. In space, the Chapter fleet commited Exterminatus on every planet in the system but Gehemnanight, in a act of insane hatred killing the loyalist planet of Taurchus VII as well. The combined deaths of so many exploded into the Warp, cutting off communications and travel from the system, as well as drawing the unwelcome attention of its denizens. As the denizens fought back with weaponry looted from the Chapter houses around the city that had fallen, added to the weapons of the Arbites and PDF, who had joined the citizens in fighting the Astartes, loyal to planet instead of its harsh rulers.

 

That's excessive even for the Astartes; despite supposed autonomy, the Chapters still have to answer to the High Lords, who speak with His voice, and to a lesser extent to each other. Just willfully glassing a planet in a fit of pique isn't going to pass muster, let alone almost an entire system.

 

To be honest, it seems like you have the makings of a good Bolter-Porn story rather than what I consider as a classic Index Astartes. You tell the events and facts as a storyteller, rathar than as a historian or documentary-maker might - which is how I imagine a IA coming over to the reader.