The Dark Tusk: Brainstorming a Chaos Warband

[Wade Garrett]

All righty then. In this big ole wall of text, I shall attempt to organize some notions about the Dark Tusks Chaos Space Marines.

 

This warband appeared briefly in "Brothers of the Snake", fighting alongside a Tzeentch cult. Oddly enough, of the three described Tusks two seemed to be some sort of Plague Marine (corroded armor, weapons laced with disease) although the third's armor was "black and shiny, like an insect's shell" and wrapped in lengths of chain.

 

Almost nothing else is known about them, which leaves a great deal of room for creativity.

 

Name:

Dark Tusks

 

Colors

Black with green trim

 

Symbol:

A boars skull, surrounded in flames

 

Successors of:

Word Bearers

 

Slogans/Sayings

"We do not kneel."

"In the eyes of the Gods all are equal."

 

Homeworld:

Armenolos, a death world of swamps and bogs periodically swallowed up and spit out by raging Warpstorms. Almost all the plants, animals, and primitive tribes inhabiting it are mutated and corrupted to varying degrees.

 

Origins:

The Gilded Tusks were an honored Chapter among the Seventeenth Legion, taking their name from a constellation on their homeworld, said to resemble the tusks of a Colchisian greatboar of mythical size and ferocity, slain by a legendary hero.

 

Their Strike Cruiser "Lightning's Path" was dispatched to Calth with Lord Kor Phereon's strike force, and was gutted by the Ultramarines pursuit fleet during the retreat to the Maelstrom. The ship almost plunged to its death in the deep Warp, but at the last second the Navigator and shipmaster managed a crash landing on a seemingly normal planet that emerged from the swirling madness.

 

Those who survived the crash found it to be a singularly ruthless reprieve. The world was covered pole to pole in a stinking quagmire inhabited by deadly mutated beasts and primitive tribes who hunted them with posioned weapons that could fell even an Astartes.

To make matters worse, most of the Chapter's ranking officers and Chaplains had perished in the fighting on Calth or the flight and crash. As unaccustomed feelings of despair and futility gripped the Astartes, a member of the Gal Vorbak rallied his brothers, organizing the salvage of the technical and apothecárium decks, and even more importantly, the few copies of the Book of Lorgar they still possesed.

 

He set each surviving Word Bearer to producing his own replica of the holy text, lest the unthinkable happen and Lorgar's sons be left completely bereft of Lorgar's word. When some began to grumble that it was hardly fitting for common troopers to have such access to the holy word, he ordered every

survivor to stain their armor black and formally inducted them all into the Chaplaincy.

 

That problem solved, the stranded Marines turned to weightier matters, namely, surviving and thriving in the hellish environment they found themselves trapped in.

 

(More later)

[JusticarErictheblue]

So they're all preachers of chaos effectively, that could lead to a good looking army, black armour, robes and chains.

How did they get of the planet?

[red_knight23]

Looking good so far. I would wonder how they managed to counteract the native populous' Poisons, and how they, as Astartes, would replenish their number, because it doesn't sound like many serfs survived the crash either.  

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The fluff is well-written, so far. To answer red_knight23's questions, the surviving Apothecaries (assuming there are any) can probably find an antidote to the poisons- many poisonous animals produce antibodies for the very venom they secrete, to protect themselves in case of accidents, and there may be a way to harvest these antibodies to produce antivenom. The human inhabitants of the planet the Dark Tusks crashed upon (assuming there are any), can be used to replenish the Traitor Marines' numbers.

 

As for getting off the planet, well, here's hoping a Librarian survived the crash, and was able to psychically call other Word Bearer warbands for help.

[Wade Garrett]

The Gilded Tusk set about bringing the True Faith to their new home in their usual manner-with bolt shell and chainblade.

 

But even for 2/3rds of a Space Marine chapter, it wasn't easy. The dense swampy terrain rendered many of their preferred tactics and tools useless, the local predators were Chaos touched monsters that could threaten even a gene son of the Urizen, and Armenelos's human tribes were savagely indepedent and hardened from lifetimes of battling the beasts and each other.

 

Amid the bad news, one bright spot was found: The planet's apex predators, vicious beasts the locals called "garlocks" were for all intents and purposes an even more cunning and bloodthirsty variant of the extinct Colchisian greatboars whose tusks adorned the Chapters heraldry. Surely a favorable omen from the Powers Behind All.

 

In honor of this auspicious discovery, the Chapter badge was altered, the golden tusked hog skull given tusks more like those of the Armenelos strain, which tended to be covered in bacteria septic enough to daunt even a Marine's immune system.

 

And so the newly renamed Dark Tusks learned how to fight in their new home, and conquered the tribes one by one, aided by the fact that each group sought to use the Word Bearers against their rivals instead of joining in a common defense.

 

Conquered tribes were used to gene forge new Astartes, and along the way traditions and beliefs of the locals were added to the ways of Lorgar..among them the tribesmen's proud tradition of indepedence and fracticiousness.

 

This was compounded by each Astartes being a Chaplain, and thus capable of reading and interpreting the Book of Lorgar for himself, with no special ranks of High Priest or Dark Apostle.

 

Squads elect not only their officers, but also their spiritual leaders as well, and a certain amount of wildness and undisciplined inevitably crept into the ranks.

 

They would remain united enough to accomplish notable feats, such as capturing three Nova class frigrates belonging to their parent Legion that finally turned up to investigate the echoes their shamans and witches cast in the Warp.

 

Said frigates were part of the Host of Dark Apostle Baulkyre, who summoned the Tusk's Armagor (Chapter Master, they simply got in the habit of using the Armenlosi word for a lord who can supply his warriors with full suits of armor, very important in a culture where every weapon is posioned) to his flagship so that he could inform him that his warriors had strayed much too far from the One Path, and would need to do penitent service under a true Dark Apostle, such as Baulkyre himself, to atone.

 

Unfortunately for him, he held the Armagor in such contempt it neve occurred to him that the Tusk's ceremonial scepter of rulership might hold a teleport homer, or that his wayword brethren might still have Terminator armor and Dreadnaughts capable of using it.

 

The next Dark Apostle to come to Armenelos had held a grudge against Baulkyre for centuries, and instead of being enraged offered the Armgor an alliance of equals as a reward for ridding the galaxy of a fool.

 

And so the warband grew from masters of one planet to mercenaries and reavers feared across an entire Segmentum.

 

(Next, combat doctrine, warband cult, gene seed, etc.)

[RolandTHTG]

Definitely sounds interesting.

One typo: might still have Terminator armor and Dreadnaughts capable of using it.
should be "and Marine capable of using it"  ?