Tripping over the beginning...

[Brother Augustine]

I am trying to create background for my own warband of Chaos Space Marines but I am hitting a road block right at the beginning. Every origin idea that I have is almost immediately thrown out because it seems too cheesy or too presumptious. I just can't seem to get the right inspiration for this warband and I'm not sure how to tackle it. The only thing I have decided is that they are led by a Chaos Lord by the name of Sarkareth and are either a renegade Chapter/Company or the bulk is made up of brothers from that Chapter/Company. I was wondering if you all would mind offering some suggestions on how to get started because I am pulling a blank. All help is greatly appreciated.

[Octavulg]

Every origin idea that I have is almost immediately thrown out because it seems too cheesy or too presumptious.

That's the classic problem with traitors.

 

You could co-opt one of the Abyssal Crusade chapters mentioned in C:CSM 6e. Or you could just not address what happened to make them turn traitor.

 

Doing it "right", though, will require some more information. What do you want your warband to be like? Figure that out and figuring out why they turned traitor will probably solve itself.

[Brother Augustine]

I know that I don't want the warband dedicated to a specific deity. While some small groups within the band might worship/be dedicated to a specific god, I prefer the whole Chaos Undivided approach. That being said, I don't really want them to be all Word Bearers-y either. While they offer tribute/prayers/souls/whatever to the Gods the only thing (if anything) they can really be said to worship is their Warlord.

 

I picture Sarkareth as this sort of self-made Warlord that gathered the shattered remnants of his chapter/company after some great cataclysm befell them and then walked them straight onto the pathway to damnation. I am currently jumping back and forth between the idea that Sarkareth is influenced or straight up possessed by a warp entity that ruled his homeworld during the Age of Strife, but was defeated during the Great Crusade by one of the Legions. The entity's host liked to "spread his royal oates" and had plenty of time to do so, the daemon having no problem with this as it let him set up potential hosts in the future. Millenia later when the world is used as the homeworld of a Space Marine Chapter, several of the host's descendants had been unknowingly recruited into the Chapter.

 

With corruption secretly in these battle-brothers very bloodstreams it was a small matter for the creature to manipulate them over time and after the as of yet undecided cataclysm these brothers form the basis of the warband under the "purest" who takes the daemon's name, Sarkareth, as his own.

[Firepower]

I can't recall possession ever working quite that way.  He sounds more like a genestealer than a demon.  Normally plots like that seem to be done in the largely externally manipulative way, Tzeentch like.  Tainted blood is watched out for with the whole gene-implantation deal, and psychic screening is a norm too.  Neither is infallible, but a mass infiltration would seem kinda odd.

 

It is an interesting idea though.  Perhaps they choose a homeworld near the Eye of Terror or a similar spillover of warp energy into the galaxy, in order to act as a bulwark against incursion.  If Sarkareth has a vendetta after being smacked around in the Great Crusade, it may be attracted  when his killer's (probably a Primarch) descendants park on the doorstep.

 

Let's suppose Sarkareth, is a sneaky devil, and leads a demon attack out from the Warp when the schism gets particularly uppity.  He brings along an army of nasty devils.  Rather than being meant to wipe out the Marines, Sarkareth wants he and his subordinates to be killed in close combat.  The smallest part of them slithers like quicksilver into mortals when killed in hand to hand, just a teeny taint.  The Marines and the indigenous population of their homeworld fight bravely, and repel the incursion, and for a while are unaware of the insidious intrusion into the bloodline.

 

Imagine what would happen when the Chapter realizes that fully half of their fraternity and their homeworld's population is blood-touched (the Blood-Touch sounds catchy to me, by the way) by the Warp, even in a tiny way.  People will turn on each other in suspicion.  Organizations that may have been set up prior to the war in order to monitor the population for Warp-touch (reasonable enough being close to a schism) will go crazy.  Society will tear itself apart from the inside.  Indiscriminate purges will unfold.  The Chapter will be the only force that can restore order, and even it is internally splintered by the news.  Paints a perfectly cataclysmic opportunity for one particularly nefarious individual to rise to supremacy, I think.

[Brother Augustine]

Oh sorry, I didn't explain very well. I was playing on the daemonic affinity ideas from the role-playing games, wherein an item that was used by, against, or in similar purpose to a daemon makes it easier to be possessed by that daemon. The idea I had there was that the fact that daemon had possessed their ancestor made their bloodline something that it was familiar with and therefore would have an affinity for. It's not a literal heavy corruption of their DNA, but that bloodline is one he is connected to in a subtler more insidious fashion. But I can also see where you are coming from too. I do like that Blood-Touch idea though...hmmmmm

 

*edit for spelling errors*

[Octavulg]

Firepower's idea sounds pretty swell.

[Firepower]

If he doesn't use it, I just might ;)

[Brother Augustine]

OK, not quite ready for the narrative description that I'd like, (Curse you words! Curse you!) but I do have a vague outline idea.

 

During the Age of Strife a powerful Daemonic entity possessed a warlord and together they ruled over the world of Nerell. While Nerell's records tell of Sarkareth the Indomitable, it is unknown whether this was the daemon or his host as during his thousand year rule Sarkareth destroyed all records preceding his rule. He ruled with an iron fist and the populace of Nerell lived in fear of his wrath.

 

Sarkareth's rule came to a sudden halt when the Emperor's Great Crusade arrived. The Raven Guard Space Marine Legion, led by Corax himself, descended on Nerell and led its people in revolt against the despot. While Sarkareth brought his daemonic power to bear, he was defeated in single combat by Corax himself. Its host destroyed, the daemon was cast back into the warp and forgotten.

 

Thousands of years later, the _____________ Space Marine Chapter was founded. Descended from Corax's line, the Chapter's founders chose the world of Nerell as its home due to its conquest by their Primarch. The Chapter was granted stewardship over the warp rift known locally as ___________, and were set to defend the citizens of the sector from alien and heretic alike. Unbeknownst to the founders, another legacy of their forefather laid waiting for them.

 

Seeing its chance for vengeance against the sons of the one who banished it, the daemon Sarkareth began its subtle manipulations of the ___________'s actions. Creating an escalating campaign of cult activity and guerilla warfare culminating in a massive daemonic incursion on Nerell itself. Sarkareth led this incursion and directed his forces in apparently suicidal tactics against the Chapter keep and other strong points across the planet. The brothers of the chapter fought valiantly and met the daemon host blade to blade wherever it appeared, never realizing the truth of Sarkareth's plan. Each time one of the daemons was destroyed, a small portion of its essence found its way into the battle brother that bested them, slipping through the marine's wounds into their bloodstream to wait. Sarkareth likewise found purchase within one brother of the chapter. A young recruit by the name of Sokar Talleus.

 

Having seemingly defeated the daemon host, the chapter set about hiding the evidence that such an incursion had happened in the first place, for fear of Inquisitorial scrutiny. The battlefields were purified and sanctified, and the populace of the world was scanned for evidence of corruption in the wake of the daemonic. What the Chapter found would destroy them; over half of the Chapter and nearly the entire population of Nerell bore evidence of daemonic taint. With a heavy heart, Chapter Master Ananias Chaeron ordered the immediate execution of the tainted in order to spare the Chapter's honor.

 

Betrayed by their Chapter Master and their brethren the "Blood-Touched" were thrown into war once more, this time against their "Pure-Blood" brothers. While the Blood-Touched outnumbered the Pure-Bloods, they lacked the war materiel possessed by their brothers. The conflicts between the two side were bloody and fierce, but it was quickly apparent which side would be victorious. It was then that the voices started.

 

Each of the Blood-Touched, Astartes and mortal alike, had within them a portion of daemonic essence. The daemons within them offered each the power to be victorious. Some realized the truth of their corruption and killed themselves, some sought to control the dark power, and some gave themselves wholly to daemonic possession, but all were damned in their own way. Sokar Talleus, the young warrior who had been chosen by Sarkareth, accepted the daemon's power and took its name as his own. Unifying the scattered bands of the Blood-Touched under his rule, Sarkareth the Ascendant took the fight to Chapter Master Chaeron within the walls of the Chapter Keep. The two battled for hours but in the end Chaeron was broken and hurled from the spires of the Keep, his body later recovered to be pressed into service within a dreadnought sarcophagaus.

 

After Chaeron's defeat the rest of the Chapter either submitted to Sarkareth or died. Boarding the Chapter's remaining vessels the newly christened _______________s laid waste to Nerell with orbital bombardment and made for the warp rift to begin new lives as reavers and foes of the Imperium.

 

Well then, that's that. What do you guys think?

[Octavulg]

It sounds cool. But the entire time, I keep wondering whether daemonic possession can work that way.

 

It might be easier to go another way. The Rogue Trader manual had an Inquisitor who had just cleansed a daemonically possessed chapter sitting at the Chapter Master's desk, tracing the patterns on it, wondering why the chapter had turned...only to be possessed by the chaotic spell he was tracing.

 

Perhaps your chapter seats adopts a lot of the imagery and regalia of Sarkareth's reign, having forgotten how godawful he was (or desiring to use his horrific reputation in the neighbouring systems). And as they use his sigils etc, they slowly become corrupted, until they're open to his possession. You get the legacy aspect in a way we know can work.

[KroSha]

I'm not sure about the blood thing either. It sounds more like a genestealer incursion. The tainted artefact might work better; it did for Fulgrim.

[Firepower]

The Blood Touched idea is a bit shaky, or at least bending the rules a bit, mainly in the way in which demons maintain their presence in the physical world. There are a couple of tricks you can use to make it more palatable though.

First, close proximity to a Warp rift, especially one that's overflowing (allowing for the incursion and major battle) may add to their strength a bit.

Second, they may be able to cling on if they exploit some weakness of character or mind in those they slither into. A very subtle form of possession- not designed to take control of the host, but merely to make them impure in the eyes of others, and in doing so causing the crisis of internecine conflict that leads to them embracing the taint.

They may also be able to exploit an adoption of imagery from the Sarkareth-era culture of their home world, worn on armor or tattoos, ignorant to their true purpose as weak spells or invitations, like Octavulg suggested.

Without some sort of secondary aid(s) like those, it will be a hard sell. But I still like it