IA: Brazen Bulls

[Brother Aramos]

hey guys,

I'm working on my DIY chaos chapter, and my creative juices just aren't flowing. So I'm posting what I've got here to see if anyone has some ideas of where I could go from here as far as what I need to add (IE the names of all the captains, and some bios on VIPs). If anyone has any ideas I'd really like to hear them. Anyways here It is:

 

Index Astartes

 

The Brazen Bulls Chaos Space Marines Chapter

Origins

The Brazen Bulls were once a chapter fanatically loyal to the Imperium, even towing a giant bronze bull to roast heretics in around with them. That all changed when they discovered among an apostate’s library a tome which would change their fate forever. The book was an ancient copy of on the Philosophy of Imperial Truth that claimed to have been written by the Emperor himself. At first they didn’t know what to do with it. It was clearly heretical, but could it have been written by the God-Emperor’s hand? if so they couldn’t burn it, that would be heresy as well. it was taken to the chapter’s scriveners for authentication. The book was found to be written by the Emperor himself, and specifically disobeyed his worship. Later they would say that book opened their eyes to the truth of the Imperium: that it was built on a lie, a lie designed to keep its people in chains of servitude and devotion to a false god.

They fell into despair, their god was false, they served a corrupt system, what were they to do now? Then a stranger came to them wearing the power armor of a space marine. He called himself the Lord of Sorrow, and he spoke at length to them of how the imperium had become corrupt, and that humanity needed to start fresh. In the depths of their despair they listened intently, and then the Lord of Sorrow made his ultimatum: follow him and his gods of chaos, and cast down the imperium and their false god, in order for mankind to know freedom once more.

 

Home World

when the chapter turned to Chaos they realized they could not remain on their current home world, it was too close to Terra for them to survive long. they needed to find a safe base of operations to mount their crusade from. They found it in the nearby gates of fire warp storm. Taking their supplies and serfs in secret they transported the entire chapter to a world they dubbed New Freedom in the center of one of the storms. After the ascension of once chapter master then the first Lord of Sorrow to demonhood the planet became a full-fledged demon world as he shaped it into a chaotic mockery of Holy Terra, just as lavish and grand, but with all markings devoted to the emperor replaced with the symbols of chaos. Above the planet corrupted servitors and tech-priests labor to build the massive ships and machines the chapter requires. Meanwhile below masses of the apostate go about lives devoted to spreading the will of chaos, and maintaining the Brazen Bull’s empire within the gates of fire.

 

Combat Doctrine

the Brazen Bulls believe that it only makes sense to free a people who actually want to be free, after all you can take the chains off the slave, but if the slave doesn’t wish to be free he will always be a slave. Thus the Brazen Bulls strive to incite revolution against the Imperium and assist those already in progress. These two goals are represented in the two major task forces within the chapter: Task Force Subvertus, and Task Force Purgatis, both with very different styles of fighting.

Task Force Subvertus

Subvertus is the special forces of the chapter. They are the former first company of the chapter, as well as support cultists and dark mechanicus. Their overall goal is to incite rebellion in imperial worlds through covert means. Thus they prefer to not use their terminator armor in favor of lighter power armor. They are infiltrators, having set of stages they go through to gauge how close to revolution the planet is. They are listed below:

Stage 1: establish base of operations

Stage 2: recruit cult members

Stage 3: subvert media to broadcast our message

Stage 4: eliminate leaders of opposition, leading to change in leadership

Stage 5: commit terroristic activities; blame them on new leaders using subverted media

Stage 6: present selves as solution to problems, cult membership swells

Stage 7: engage open rebellion, summon purgatis

Task Force Purgatis

Purgatis is the supreme military arm of the chapter, specializing in take and hold operations. Once a planet is in rebellion subvertus advises the rebels to “look to the skies for their salvation” and coming on screaming red-hot thunderhawk gunships and landing craft comes Purgatis. Their preferred terrain for fighting is in cities and hives reminiscent of their former home of Gurdis Prime, where they were born and raised. Once a planet is secured, purgatis prepares defences for the imminent imperial response. In the meantime Subvertus converts more of the populace to chaos, before evacuating the followers of chaos back to the gates of fire to be resettled to protect them from imperial reprisal. Purgatis is the last to leave a hot zone after every chaos convert has been evacuated, and casualties are often high. Multiple times elements of purgatis have been forced to make last stands to protect their retreating chaotic brethren, both astates and human. Even though they are made up of what in a codex chapter would be called the battle companies, the elite of Purgatis are trained in the use of terminator armor as it is better suited to their tactical objectives of holding the line.

 

Organization

the Brazen Bulls are organized along codex lines on a company level. Each company possesses around one hundred battle brothers, plus support personnel. On a larger scale they diverge from their Ultramarine roots and possess more companies than is allowed by the codex (currently around 17 with five of those being scout companies). This is due to a wave of recruitment since the chapter went renegade and they hope one day to have the numbers of one of the legions of old to begin their crusade on terra and chop the head off the snake of the imperium.

Each of the companies are led by a lord, and each of the task forces are led by the senior lord of the companies that make up the task force. Below are the current command staff of the chapter and the names of the forces they command:

Chapter Command Staff

Chapter Master: The Lord of Sorrow (also commander of the 2nd company, and official leader of Task Force Purgatis)

Chief Sorcerer: Master Sorcerer Boplemos (also commander of Task Force Subvertis and the first company)

Master of the Unholy: Dark Evangelist Simonious

Master of the Demon Forges: Magos Abominus (a non Astates, nature: tech priest)

Master of the apothecium: Selnara Quickpaw (a non Astates, nature: abhuman)

Master of the fleet: Admiral Hannibal (a non Astates, nature: human)

Company Commanders

Captain of the 1st company “the silent blade”: Master Sorcerer Boplemos (also leader of Task Force Subvertis and Chief Sorcerer)

Captain of the 2nd company “sorrow’s own”: Lord Edgerus (when the Lord of Sorrow is not commanding, lieutenant leader of Task Force Purgatis)

Captain of the 3rd company “the liberators”: Lord Watonius

Captain of the 4th company “the Astral Bulls”: Lord Tauros

Captain of the 5th company “the instructors of chaos”: Lord Ricius

Captain of the 6th company:

Captain of the 7th company:

Captain of the 8th company:

Captain of the 9th company:

Captain of the 10th company:

Captain of the 11th company:

Captain of the 12th company:

Captain of the 13th company:

Master of scouts: Lord Halfcock (oversees all scout companies)

 

Beliefs

the Brazen Bulls believe that Chaos is the way forward for the oppressed masses of the Imperium, and they seek to spread its message to anyone who will listen. They show actual care for the cultists under their command, after all they are the future of humanity, and their future source of recruits. (still needs to be expanded upon.)

 

Gene-seed

the primary Gene-seed of the Brazen Bulls is of Ultramarines stock, that was the original source of the Bulls Gene-seed. Ultramarine Gene-seed is still preferred over other sources, however with the need to rapidly recruit new members the chapter had to use what Gene-seed it can get. Often Adeptus Mechanicus tithes of Gene-seed will be plundered by the Bulls as they pass close to the gates of fire. This has led to a number of members possessing varyingly different Gene-seed, however those of Blood Angels and Space Wolves origin are never used due to certain undesirable side effects. The Gene-seed vaults of the chapter are watched over by a gifted heritek felinoid named Selnara Quickpaw. Her work on stabilizing and preserving the Gene-seed from corruption by the warp storm has allowed the chapter to re-use the original Gene-seed again and again without fear of corruption. Her recent works have allowed certain mutations to be added to a specific Gene-seed, however she can’t take away any that were already there like the Curse of the Wulfen or the Red thirst and Black Rage.

 

Battle-cry

“Behold, your liberation is upon you!”

 

Dramatis Personae

the Lord of Sorrow

Homeworld: multiple (the current one is from Gidon Secondus)

Species: Mutant (functionally a space marine)

Identifying features: unnatural green eye color, third eye on forehead, thick brown hair

Bio: to the Imperium the lord of sorrow should not be alive, he’s been confirmed dead almost two dozen times. And yet he continues to appear leading the forces of the Brazen Bulls. It is not possible that the Lord of Sorrow is a title used by multiple individuals, as their appearance doesn’t change and every time he is captured he remembers his last interrogation.

The truth is that the Lord of Sorrow is multiple people, and a single individual at the same time. The Lord of Sorrow is a family line of cloned sons, possessing a shared genetic memory. When a Lord of Sorrow takes his place in the chapter his first act is to create and nurture a clone of himself, before sending the baby off to be hidden from the imperium. Inside the child is the genetic memories of every Lord of Sorrow, hidden in the subconscious until it is time. When a lord of sorrow dies, the psychic link between the origin and the clone triggers the activation of the genetic memories and the rapid mutation of the clone’s body into an exact copy of the Lords of Sorrow. He then finds a way to take his place at the head of the Brazen Bulls, and start the cycle all over again.

 

Selnara Quickpaw

Homeworld: Carlos McConnell

Species: Felinid

Identifying features: black fur covering body, cat ears and nose

Bio: To say that felinids are attracted to shiny objects would be an understatement, but since an early age Selnara has had a particularly violent urge to possess shiny objects. She would often steal pieces of technology from the local tech priests, and in time the felinid’s overactive curiosity drove her to try to figure out how her precious shinnies worked. She taught herself how to work with technology from disassembling the shinnies and putting them back together. Then she heard there were better shinnies out beyond the sky, and she dreamed of having them. When she could stand it no longer she stowed away on a tithe boat to make her way out into the galaxy.

As fate would have it the boat was also carrying the tithes of Gene-seed from several space marine chapters, making it a target for the Brazen Bulls. When the Bulls attacked Selnara was disguised as a tech priest in the Gene-seed vault, and they demanded that she open the stasis field surrounding the Gene-seed. After a few trial and error attempts Magos Abominus who was accompanying the astates noticed the girl’s innate skill with technology, and after getting the field opened by an actual tech priest he took the young abhuman under his wing. He taught her the innovation that had him declared a heritek, and even the greatest of mechanicus sins: how to reverse engineer technology.

While her background was in mechanical technology, Selnara took an interest in genetics and mutation early on. She explained that she wanted to know the roots of her people and why and how they came to be. after the death of the previous Master of the Apothicarium and the ascension of the new Lord of Sorrow Selnara was chosen to replace him due to her work on guarding Gene-seed against the perils of the warp storm where the Bulls make their home. Recently the Lord of Sorrow has been making frequent visits to Selnara’s office. This is not unusual in and of itself, the Lords of Sorrow often pay frequent visits to the apothicarium, but she has also been making trips to see him in his private quarters. Some whisper that he had fallen ill with some terrible sickness, others that he is plotting some grand plan involving the felinid’s work, but no one is certain.

In battle Selnara leads squads of cultists, often searching for something to steal. Casualties are often heavy, but each new vehicle or technology reverse engineered and added to the Bull’s arsenal is one step closer to ultimate victory, and an acceptable loss.

[Ace Debonair]

it was taken to the chapter’s scriveners for authentication. The book was found to be written by the Emperor himself, and specifically disobeyed his worship. Later they would say that book opened their eyes to the truth of the Imperium: that it was built on a lie, a lie designed to keep its people in chains of servitude and devotion to a false god.

They fell into despair, their god was false, they served a corrupt system, what were they to do now?

 

Just a quick point but by and large Space Marines don't worship the Emperor as a God.

Most Space Marines think of him as the pinnacle of humanity, rather than a divine being.

 

It's not impossible to have your Chapter deviate into seeing the big E as divine, but it might be worth either adding that in or thinking up another reason thoes words would cause them to turn. :)

[Brother Aramos]

Hmm, good point. The only problem is I need them to turn before being excommunicated to explain how they were able to move their entire infastructure to their new base. Wait a second, what if that was the birth of purgatis? They made a last stand after being declared traitors to buy the others time to evacuate? The lord of sorrow could be the original chapter master who found a way to cheat death after each last stand. Maybe they ticked off an inquisitor for some reason and were excomunicated out of spite? Then they turned to chaos to survive. I'm liking it, I'm liking it.

 

EDIT: just saw a video of my cat casing a lazer pointer. Now i've got an idea for Miss quickpaw (curious kleptomaniac catgirl captures enemy tech and reverse engineers it. Say that five times fast.)

 

EDIT AGAIN: added the bio on Quickpaw, Lord of Sorrow is next.