WIP : The Iron Templars

[Astral Pathfinder]

[under construction]

During the final stages of M37, the chapter suffered serious losses and was not able to get new recruits.
The Templars were engaged on a campaign against an alliance of several worlds, in the north fringe of the galaxy. Inhabited by various spieces of Xenos, the highly dense population of these worlds housed warrior casts that provided dangerous opponents to the space marines.
They fought bravely to purge these worlds and claim them worlds of the Imperium.

His pride engaged, the chapter continued to fight regardless to casualties, and engaged more and more of his forces. It didn't took long for the full chapter to be caught into direct combat.

The war went dirty and bloody, as the Xenos used ambushes and counter-strikes, fighting in a nearly-astartes way. Finally, as the last stronghold was under siege, the remaining of the perfidious Xenos choosed to play his last card. Using unknown technology, the aliens managed to destroy their last world by corrupting its climate, tearing it apart in an outburst of cataclysms, huge tornadoes and earthquakes.
Only a handful of 1st company veterans in terminator armour survived long enough to escape into the few thunderhawks able to resist the storms and join the orbiting battle barge.

Exhausted and highly wounded, his fleet nearly destroyed and his chapter decimated, ____,the de facto new Chapter Master, understood his predecessor has gone too far, and decided to search a inhabited world to settle and recover.



Palladium is a devastated, post-apocalyptic world.
Once of the finest center of the area, the proto-hive world has been crushed into atomic fallout during M25-30.

For centuries the population survived in a dense underworld network, tunnels progressively collapsed and isolated groups from each other. Loosing knowledge and technological artifacts, they regressed to a medieval tech level and several kings raised to power.

Once they recovered the surface, people of Palladium established kingdoms, scattered through the various new landscapes the planet had to offer.

Using the huge piles of scrap left unmoved during centuries, the populations forge whatever they need.

It is also inhabited by a ferocious fauna, for only the strongest, smartest and most resilient specimen could survive such nuclear winter.

Palladium raises strong people that are able to survive a very hostile environment. They are trained to hunt, battle and forge since they are born.

Once they reached Palladium, the chapter managed to bring the bloodless battle barge onto the surface, on the desertic north pole. The dust resultant from the landing filled the skies during six weeks, showing every inhabitant that something new happened.


The Iron Templars are mainly codex-adherent, with some notables diggressions. Most flagrant is the place taken by the Mechanicum cult.

The Master of the Forge ranks similary to The Chapter Master, and every techmarine is respected as part of the brotherhood, like sergeants or even captains. This state of fact dates back when the Chapter had to rely on their Techmarines and the hordes of servitors under their command for its very survival.
At that time, the most veteran brother wasn't the Chapter Master, but the Master of the Forge, and he gave directions to all brothers to maintain and repair the old battle barge.

To keep this remembrance, the chapter ows a great importance to the Mechanicum, and this has begun to modify their behaviour towards machines of all kind.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Geneseed:  Space Marine chapters, almost without exception, are founded from one source.  The exceptions are ridiculously few, and not confirmed.  Tampering with gene seed is almost never done, and almost every time it was tried (21st Founding, and possibly the 13th) it ended almost invariably in awful failure.  In relation to an IA narrative, using the 13th or 21st seems like a crutch, and a typical novelty added to try to make a chapter seem more unique, when, in the end, it just ends up like dozens of other unique snowflake DIY chapters.

 

After all, there's no real need for your chapter, in terms of your story arc, to have two Primarchs.  You don't have to be decendents of Ferrus to be all techy.  And you don't need to be descendents of Dorn to wear sleeveless bathrobes and shuffle off your Scouts/Neophytes to be slaughtered in droves by lumping in lightly armored troops in with heavily armored ones that will invariably draw heavy fire (if you plan to use Codex: BT).  The Aurora Chapter loves it some tanks, even though there's nothing about the Ultramarines that would have suggested that.  The Mantis Warriors are descendants of the White Scars, and yet they have no special interest in bikes, speeders, or sweet mustaches.  While with some gene seeds (Blood Angels, for example because of the Black Rage), there are genetic traits that will cause certain kinds of dispositions, but those aren't present with Imperial Fists successors, or Iron Hands successors for that matter.

 

Ultimately, a Dark or Cursed Founding chapter with no single successor would probably be unlikely to take too many traints from its predecessors, simply because that mixed heritage would mean they wouldn't be terribly close with either of them, and thus unlikely to take inspiration from their methods.

The Black Templars have no listed successors. While that doesn't mean you can't use them, it's important to note the reason they don't is because they have a very rocky relationship with the AdMech and other Adeptus Terra organizations because they are loose cannons roaming around the galaxy and flipping the bird to the rules. If you want to have your chapter descended from Dorn, you'll have to put consideration into the reason why they used Black Templars instead of the Fists themselves, or another of Dorn's successors. 

 

 

Essentially, it sounds like you're trying too hard with this background fluff.  By that, I mean, you're trying to create ties for all your tabletop decisions into existing fluff, instead of coming up with something truly unique.  It's right there in the name.  Iron Templars.  Mashing Iron Hands and Black Templars together. There's really nothing wrong with the name itself, but it's very indicative of the design philosophy for your fluff.  I think your chapter would be more interesting if you chose one chapter to be descended from, and then came up with your own fluff of why they are all Iron Hands-y, or all Templar-y.  If your planet has a strong cultural identity attached to forging, that's already a far better explanation for why they do all their AdMech-y stuff than simply because they are descended from Ferrus.  If the planet has a strong cultural tie to feudal systems and a permanent medieval socio-political climate and technological level, that's a far better explanation for why they are all knightly and templar-y than simply saying it is because they are descended from the Black Templars.  Don't get caught up in the trap of thinking that every DIY chapter quirk or trait has to be explained by linking it to something that already exists in the fluff.  Part of the fun of creating a DIY should be creating something, not simply copying and pasting existing ideas together.

 

Oh, and be careful about self fluffing too much.  I heard you can go blind doing that.

[Astral Pathfinder]

Mh I see what you mean. It is true that my inspiration comes from everywhere but yeah... sometimes I just take the idea and put it in my fluff...

 

So thank you for your remarks.

 

I'll edit the previous post, to see if it is better.

[Veteran Sergeant]

I didn't mean for it to come off so negative sounding, and I apologize.  I actually like some of your background, though now that it's gone I can't recall of the top of my head. Your background world is cool, especially if you can fuse it into some kind of Mad Max/Fallout meets Seven Kingdoms.  I was just suggesting you take what you like about the Iron Hands and Black Templars, but turn it into your own.  

 

By relying too much on the fluff for the Hands and Templars, I think you were placing unnecessary limitations on yourself.  I think you can go places with your Chapter, without needing to be stuck trying to decide which part is Black Templars and which part is Iron Hands.  And that was what I was trying to get at.

[Uaronain]

I didn't mean for it to come off so negative sounding, and I apologize.  I actually like some of your background, though now that it's gone I can't recall of the top of my head. Your background world is cool, especially if you can fuse it into some kind of Mad Max/Fallout meets Seven Kingdoms.  I was just suggesting you take what you like about the Iron Hands and Black Templars, but turn it into your own.  

 

By relying too much on the fluff for the Hands and Templars, I think you were placing unnecessary limitations on yourself.  I think you can go places with your Chapter, without needing to be stuck trying to decide which part is Black Templars and which part is Iron Hands.  And that was what I was trying to get at.

 

 I agree with what he said and in fact my own chapter draws on both the IH and BT without mentioning them a whole lot. Mine look a lot more like IH but the internal ranks and structure draws on elements from the BT. I like both chapters myself but I would stick to one gene-seed ;)

 

 trust me when I say most people here want to see you complete your DIY

[Astral Pathfinder]

Veteran segeant, you were absolutely right. This was the kick I needed to create something more than glueing ideas together.

I'm currently working on that. The hardest part is to decide wich primarch to choose. But they don't even need to know, after all...

 

Dieselpunk was the main idea. I'll show you a picture of my multi-melta-guy...

 

But I came into reading a lot of guide for the diy on this forum recently so i'm going with a fresh start. Trying to do it more in the classic presentation of an IA.

 

 

Uaronain, I just can agree with you. BT and IH are very cool and mixing them is great but SV was right about not just taking the very idea etc...

 

So, as soon as I can, first post will be completed: )

[Astral Pathfinder]

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