[IA] Reckoners

[Hasoroth]

Origins

 

WIP

 

Geneseed

 

The Reckoners hail from Guilliman’s stock although an outside observer would be hard pressed indeed to find any traces of the polished nobility of the XIII legion within this wild offshoot of the Ultramarines. Yellowed skulls and weather beaten totems adorn the combat plate of most Reckoners and indeed most would assume that the Chapter might hail from the lineage of the more savage legions.

 

Needless to say the Reckoners are kept at arms length from the intrigues of the Ultramarines and their more codex adherent offspring, but the wild sons of Gurdorum care little, seeking only to bring the enemies of the God-Emperor to heel

 

Homeworld

 

Gurdorum is a pleasant world from orbit that resembles the Terra of antiquity. Despite its idyllic features it was never settled and exploited by Imperial pioneers, largely as a result of the enormous hordes of warrior horsemen who plagued the planets settled populations (although Imperial missionaries found unexpected welcome amongst the tribes of the steppe).

 

The technological, social, and economic status of the planet has been kept stagnant through careful intervention by the Reckoners over the centuries through a deliberate campaign. It helps that ruthless would be warriors and generals are plucked away by the Chapter as soon as they show signs of burgeoning greatness preventing the tribal hordes from growing too strong and eliminating the settled populations. So too do the Reckoners interfere with the settled populations, discretely removing innovators and engineers before their inventions can overly stimy the horse warriors. As a result the population of Gurdorum has been kept in an artificial state of eternal warfare which provides for the best possible recruits for the Chapter’s purposes.

 

Codex Adherence - Battle

 

Though initially Codex adherent this brutish chapter has adopted the strategies and goals of warfare idealized by the steppe raiders of Gurdorum in recent centuries, a significant divergence from the teachings of the Chapter’s mentors received from the White Consuls and a direct result of the influx of recruits specifically selected from the homeworld of the Reckoners.

 

For all their barbarity the Reckoners rarely engage in open battle, preferring to utilize their naval assets to bombard their enemies from orbit. While some Chapters such as the White Scars have applied their traditions of mounted steppe warfare to Astartes pattern bikes the Reckoners have instead applied this tradition to Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges.

 

Typically an enemy world will be issued a warning to surrender. If they do so then naval assets of the Reckoners will stay in orbit only long enough for the ponderous fleets representing Imperial reconstruction and pacification to arrive before moving on to another world.

 

On the rare occasions that an unexpected strike force of Space Marines at the doorstep is insufficient threat to cause an opposing planet to capitulate that is when the ships of the Chapter will open fire.

 

Oceans of promethium and cascades of laser fire devastate surface-to-orbit weapons. Crack teams of Astartes personnel are dispatched to eliminate planetary defenses that require a more personal touch to destroy. Eventually after a short but violent campaign of conventional bombardment a second call for surrender is issued.

 

There are no third calls for surrender. If the target planet still refuses to acquiesce to the Reckoners then that is when exterminatus is sanctioned and entire civilizations are shattered. After exterminatus the ground elements of the Reckoners are deployed en masse to ensure the guarantee of complete destruction.

 

Critics have made the argument that this ruthless nature spawns a devilment of problems for the Chapter. How effective can Astartes who rarely see the field of combat effectively be? And the Imperium hurts already for lack of developed worlds, why allow these flea ridden barbarians to destroy entire planets? While valid criticisms it bears noting that the fleet bound nature of the Reckoners has seen the rise of some of the most ruthless and successful boarding actions this side of the Segmentum Solar. In addition the Reckoners themselves will tell you that any planet unwilling to surrender to Space Marines after complete defeat of it’s armies is clearly beyond saving and deserving only of fire.

 

Codex Adherence - Organization

 

Beyond the immediate primitive motif visible upon every Reckoner’s armor lay a variety of changes from the tenets of the Codex Astartes. The most significant change is the Chapter’s treatment of failed initiates into the Chapter.

 

Traditionally an initiate who cannot complete the trials required for ascendancy into the ranks of the Astartes can hope only for honorable service as a serf but more commonly these failures end up as servitors or in more extreme cases are executed wholesale as a warning. In contrast the Reckoners see great value in men whose bodies may not have been up to standard but whose minds may yet be of some use.

 

These men are referred to as the gu-gureshi or little brothers although the term applies more to the stature of these men as opposed to authority. While the little brothers will never enter battle clad in holy ceramite plate they can play a wide range of roles, from participating as honored advisers in the Chapter’s councils of war to being ranking naval officers indeed the Chapter’s flagship Horde is commanded by one of these men, once an initiate crippled by failure to accept the Oolitic Kydney but now known to the Reckoners as Fleetmaster Ardan.

 

This traditions represents pragmatism more than mercy. The Reckoners are loathe to squander useful men when they can still be of some use but are utterly ruthless when it comes to those who cannot be of any use whatsoever to the Chapter.

 

In addition to these changes the Chapter does not maintain the strict ten company profile of many other Chapters but instead maintains a more fluid organization structure. Broadly speaking the Chapter operates as one entity under the command of the War Council (itself a deviation from the Codex standard of a single Chapter Master) which occasionally splinters off a small portion of the Chapter’s strength as a Raid to deal with secondary objectives. On the tactical level individual members of the Chapter tend to stick together with Battle Brothers armed in the same fashion as them, but the method of procurement is powered by self reliance. Any warrior armed with anything beyond a standard boltgun and power armor has at some point stripped, looted, crafted, traded or bartered for his armament.
 

Lastly the Chapter maintains a dedicated cadre of Shamans instead of maintaining separate branches for the Librarius, Reclusiam, Apothecarium and so on. Like many of the Chapter’s branches membership is open to non Astartes members and while it is not common it is not unheard of to see the occasional tech priest or preacher conversing with gigantic fur clad barbarians on the finer details of bolt shell calibrations or ecclesiastical literature analysis.

The War Council

 

In lieu of a Chapter Master the Reckoners maintain a clique of warriors who govern the entirety of the Chapter and whose authority is complete over all but the Shamans. Unlike the fluid nature of the rest of the Chapter the War Council is always comprised of five seats, one reserved for the representative of the gur-gureshi, one for the ur-shaman, and three for those Astartes who have proven themselves to the Chapter as accomplished warriors but more importantly as intelligent strategists.

 

While internally the War Council may be divided on issues ranging from ammunition supply to recruitment policies they maintain a unified external face for the rest of the Imperium and it is a foolish warrior indeed who would challenge the dictates of the War Council.

 

The Shamans

 

The Shamans have no clearly defined rules for membership or if they do it is a closely guarded secret. What is known is that initiates with psychic ability must be entrusted to the Shamans for training, other than if the Shamans decide that you are one of them then you simply are.

 

Unlike the advisory groups of most Codex adherent Chapters the Shamans are led by one leader known as the ur-shaman. He does not need to be a psyker to lead the group (indeed the current ur lacks any psychic ability) nor does he necessarily have to be an Astartes, it is rare but not unheard of for particularly eloquent priests or techno-magi to be selected ur and to serve in that capacity. In the last few centuries of the Reckoner’s history the council of Shamans have been led once by a rescued (some would say abducted) Fabricator General, and once by a fiercely devoted common street preacher who found a particularly receptive audience amongst the warriors of the Reckoners.

 

Though the Shamans gifted with psychic ability rarely take to the field of battle when they do so it signifies a particularly terrible punishment for the enemies of man. When one Space Marine Librarian is already an awesome instrument of the Emperor’s wrath whole worlds tremble when a group of them descend to extract vengeance.

 

Chapter Beliefs

 

The shamanistic nature of the tribesmen that the Reckoners recruit from has permeated into the culture and belief system of the Chapter over time. The true depth of the Reckoners religious beliefs is staggering with thousands of spirits and tales but the most pertinent aspects of their religion lie below in a text fragment from the records of Brother Corbain, an Ecclesiastic monk who journeyed with the Reckoners on their crusade until his dead at the age of 162 (sidereal) in the year 961.M41.

 

“There was only the God-Emperor and his light banished the darkness.

 

The God-Emperor created first the universe. Second he created man. Third he created the warp.

 

He toiled hard to bring his unruly children to line, guided them as one guides sheep. Through endless work he created the Primarchs and through them the Astartes and at long last he thought his work was done for he finally had that for which him-on-earth had longed for for so long, sons.

 

But the Warp grew jealous. For countless years it watched as the God-Emperor devoted himself to man and it seethed and roiled. First it grew wroth, before shedding bitter tears and scheming to replace man as the God-Emperor’s favored.

 

The Warp attempted to supplant man but it failed, corrupting fully half of mankind instead. The God-Emperor rebuked the Warp but was struck down at the last moment by his favored son in an act of betrayal.

 

Wounded and heart broken the God-Emperor retreated to his golden throne, vowing to return only once his loyal sons have brought every single one of their fallen kin to account.”

 

Imperial Relations

 

The Reckoners have a complicated relationship with the wider Imperium and are commonly described as teetering on the fine line of iconoclasm. Thanks in large part to the culture of their homeworld the Reckoners have a strong tradition of appreciation for not only warriors but accomplished priests and engineers as well and as such maintain cordial relations with organizations ranging from the Red Priesthood of Mars and the Ecclesiarchy  

to the Imperial Guard. However the mass of humanity is comprised by simple laborers, peasants, and notaries, all roles that the steppe raiders of Gurdorum sneer at and consider subhuman. As a result the Reckoners care little for collateral damage seeing as they regard undistinguished humanity as little different from the scenery and have incurred the wrath of the Administratum as well as more humanitarian branches of the Imperium such as the Salamanders or more importantly the Ultramarines.

 

The Reckoners have a strained relation with the more Codex adherent members of their bloodline. It is whispered that the great Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines himself has written off the Reckoners as “little more than blood soaked savages”. For their part the Reckoners view their unorthodoxy as merely respectful disagreement with the tenets of their forefather and care little for the brotherhood of other Chapters.

 

Chapter Insignia

 

The Reckoners maintain few official emblems or markings. The average member of the Chapter is more likely to be adorned with inscribed wards against warp spirits or war trophies than he is to be identified by rank pins or company symbols. In addition the Reckoners have no colors beyond the slate gray of unpainted ceramite, interrupted only by colorful prayer pennants spun from silk or oaths of moment sworn on bloody palmprints. 

 

Seniority is denoted more often than not by scratched kill markings on the barrel of a bolt gun than by transverse crest and is usually earned through popular acclaim mediated by the watchful eyes of the Shamans. With seniority comes the implied privilege of adopting more formal means of identification and it is fairly common for the supported of a particular leader to imitate their lords heraldry in some fashion (for example Raghur Redhook’s men have taken to emblazoning a curved red rune upon their helmets in imitation and for the greater honor of their leader).

 

Equipment

 

Though the Reckoners favor their ships as new steeds to wage their war across the stars there are some common characteristics for their individual armaments.

 

The Chapter maintains a healthy selection of Astartes pattern attack bikes as a slightly larger population of it’s vehicle pool than other Chapters. With this being said the majority of combat that a warrior of the Reckoners sees is in the cramped confines of a voidship where bikes are not as suited for combat. To this end the Reckoners maintain a large arsenal of Tactical Dreadnought Armor more commonly known as Terminator armor or Terminator plate. While immensely rare and hard to produce the Chapter’s affections for the Mechanicus have resulted in a near unheard of three dozen suits for use by the Chapter’s best.

 

In addition the Reckoners have a Chapter wide preference for the simplicity of the boltgun, perhaps a reflection of their culture as a people of horse archers, and as such boltgun weapon systems are greatly favored alongside missile launchers and autocannons.

 

Perhaps the most common weapon though is the kilag or sabre. A nostalgic memory of the steppes these efficient weapons are often the same swords  that the warriors of the Reckoners wielded before their ascendancy into the ranks of the Astartes, reforged and improved by Imperial science in much the same way as their owners.

 

Relics and Heroes

 

Horde

The Chapter’s legendary flagship it is an extensively modified Battle Barge gifted to the Reckoners at inception. From a distance it appears almost mottled until the unsuspecting viewer approaches closer to see that in fact the ship is covered with chained together pieces of skeletons, weapons, helmets, captured banners and monuments from various foes, all with the Imperial Aquila prominently and proudly burned into each trophy. Though such things are not meant to endure the rigor of void travel for any prolonged period of time the Horde’s almost cheerful (if savage) decorations are renewed with every successful conquest.

 

Ilkhan

Once the sword of the nameless White Consul who served as the Chapter’s first Chapter Master, the Ilkhan has since been reforged in imitation of the sabres of Gudorum and blessed by every priest that the sword has had the honor of defending. Though seemingly no different from the kilags of other members of the Chapter the Ilkhan bursts into pure white flame when confronting the spirits of the Warp. The blade is ceremonially presented to the Reckoner considered to be the greatest warrior in the Chapter in times of grave conflict.

 

Memory of the Steppe

An incredibly ancient and unfamiliar pattern of Terminator Defense Armor this suit does not suffer from the lack of haste common to Terminator armor but seems to move as quickly as the steeds of old. It is considered the symbol of office of the most senior Astarte member of the War Council.

 

Qubudai Fleetfoot

Although the newest member to the War Council he is considered by many to be the de facto leader as a result of his accomplishments over the span of two centuries. He was among the youngest warriors in the Chapter’s histories to be elected to lead a Raid and currently holds the record for second most successful Raids in Chapter history. 

 

Though possessed of impressive martial ability Qubudai most valued quality has been his ability in smoothing relations with Imperial forces that would object to the more primal side of the Reckoners. Calm and urbane few would even think the soft spoken warrior to be a member of the Reckoners save for his intricate facial tattoos and scalp lock. Though fiercely independent the Reckoner’s realize the need for a degree of unity with the greater Imperium and have elected a leader fit for that purpose.

 

[Dosjetka]

Bookmarked for later reading. Looks good from what I quickly read :)

 

EDIT: Typos.

[Lysimachus]

Overall, I like it. There's only one thing that seems really off to me, it feels like there's quite a disparity between their personality/attitude and their favoured combat doctrine. You describe them as wild, barbaric, 'blood-soaked savages'. To me that suggests a force that enjoys getting it's hands dirty, yet they very rarely go into battle at all?

 

The over use of Exterminatus is a cool idea and is - sort of - barbaric, but it's more like a kind of almost civilized, educated savagery rather than feral wildness (which is the feel the rest of the article is giving off). Also, I can't see a Chapter not getting censured (or even excommunicated if they kept on doing it) by the Administratum/Inquisition/other Chapters for not going into battle, especially if they are costing the Imperium whole planets at a time, something they can't afford to lose.

 

Astartes are designed to go into battle, it's what they exist for, how did they develop this cowardly (from the point of view of the vast majority of Chapters and individual Marines) attitude? Again, especially given their ferocious nature?

 

 

 

 

As I said at the top though, the rest I really like. The idea of the flagship covered in trophies after every campaign is awesome.

 

Anyway, hope this helps!

 

Lysimachus

[Hasoroth]

Overall, I like it. There's only one thing that seems really off to me, it feels like there's quite a disparity between their personality/attitude and their favoured combat doctrine. You describe them as wild, barbaric, 'blood-soaked savages'. To me that suggests a force that enjoys getting it's hands dirty, yet they very rarely go into battle at all?

 

The over use of Exterminatus is a cool idea and is - sort of - barbaric, but it's more like a kind of almost civilized, educated savagery rather than feral wildness (which is the feel the rest of the article is giving off). Also, I can't see a Chapter not getting censured (or even excommunicated if they kept on doing it) by the Administratum/Inquisition/other Chapters for not going into battle, especially if they are costing the Imperium whole planets at a time, something they can't afford to lose.

 

Astartes are designed to go into battle, it's what they exist for, how did they develop this cowardly (from the point of view of the vast majority of Chapters and individual Marines) attitude? Again, especially given their ferocious nature?

 

 

 

 

As I said at the top though, the rest I really like. The idea of the flagship covered in trophies after every campaign is awesome.

 

Anyway, hope this helps!

 

Lysimachus

 

 

Ahh I was trying to make it sound like the first type of barbarity that you mentioned. When I add the Origins section hopefully it'll ameliorate the more "frenzied barbarian" side.

 

My main inspirations for the Reckoners were:

1) The idea of a conservative school of Imperial thought as exemplified by the mono dominants in Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy and ADB's The Emperor's Gift that explicitly supports whole scale extermination as an acceptable solution to heresy.

2) The description of Leman Russ in Abnett's Prospero Burns where it is insinuated that the Primarch is only playing at being a barbarian king, that all his savage furs and trophies are just window dressing.

3) My own personal study of Mongolian history, especially in regards to how they treated foreigners and how they approached warfare on a strategic level.

 

My justification (which will make its way into the Origins section) for why the Reckoners haven't been excommunicated yet is that whole sale exterminatus is actually very, very rare (I'm thinking that in the four thousand years of the Chapter's existence the number will be no more than two or three dozen). In addition their affectionate, almost reverent treatment of priests (Ecclesiastical or Martian) along with their admiration for competent Imperial Guardsmen as well their natural alliance with the puritan factions of the Inquisition gives the Reckoners just enough clout with the Imperium at large to barely keep the Administratum's wrath at bay. 

[Wolvar]

Sounds like a well thought out plan and a good slant on Space Marine doctrine as a whole; good luck with it. You may want to consider what role their Chapter scouts will take though; if they are a largely fleet based Chapter then are their scouts simply ground spotters for fleet strikes? Or are they deployed to take out the most heretical leaders of a world in order to facilitate compliance?

[Andurin Marvak]

To aide in conveying the savagery of their nature, I'd suggest having them be extra eager to choose targets where the boarding of orbital defense platforms/defense fleets is necessary for victory. Also, you could tie in the "basic civilians are worthless" mentality with their over-use of Exterminatus: why care about destruction when you're pretty much just burning away the trash heap?

 

Other than those recommendations, I'm liking what I'm reading so far...actually, Korpiklaani started playing in my head after I passed a certain point.