Space Wolves Sucessor

[Uberlord Gendo]

I know that Space Wolves successors are like Salamander sucessors, but rarer, but this is 40k and anything can happen.

 

What do you all think of a Space Wolves successor being attempted during the 21st founding?

Due to the instability off Fenris, the Curse of the Wolfen is a constant problem, as well as other issues with the gene seed.  In particular, the omnophagia is not working properly, requiring the consumption of the intended target while still alive.  It has also bled over into psychological oddities.  When recalling things found by eating brains, the Marine relives and acts out the memories, culminating with violent seizures when the enemy died.

 

The thing is that doing this repeatedly can cause personality disassociation, so battle brothers carry totems into battle to remember who they are.

Stylistically they attack from ambush, the wolf as the creature prowling the forest at night, whose eyes you can see glowing, whose howls you can hear over the hills.  They are what causes your hair to stand up on the back of your neck, playing upon all the instincts in any speices that has ever been prey.  When they finally strike, they do so with feral ferocity, appearing more as beasts than as the Angels of the Emperor.

They don't fight like this because they're simply using fear as a tactic in the way that the Night Lords do.  They're Marines, and so they get that terror is a potent weapon, but for them, their fighting style is a relfection of their psychology.

They fight like the wolf in all its terrible unseen presence because that is what they see within.

Because of the Wolfen instability and the difficulty with holding on to a sense of self, every battle brother has a snarling wolf within.  For them, the battle is not simply with the enemy, but with the self.  The wolf is a powerful tool, but if they loose control, even for a moment, it threatens to break out, devour the sun and moon, and drench the world in blood.  For this reason, they use totems, martial arts, and meditation to attempt to channel the beast within.

So it is that battle brothers 'ride the wolf' in battle, they let ferocity of the predator flow through them and around them, but use the strict discipline of form and ritual to keep it from consuming them.  Thus though they may tear out their enemies' beating hearts with their bare hands, it is part of the form and the rage of the beast is seen from a detached perspective.

If the battle brother eats the heart and savors the taste, transformation into a beast is not far off.

If they feel fear, it is not that they shall fall in battle, but that they will forget who they are, and return in body, but not in soul.  That's why they keep relics of the glorious dead, so that no mattter what happens, some shred of their humanity will be carried on.

 

I like it as it keeps takes into account the problems with Space Wolves gene seed, and it results in an interesting psychological struggle for the Marines, though the whole struggle against blood madness strikes me as a very Blood Angely thing, so I suppose to distinguish it, the Wolfen Curse might be a more temporary thing.  They occasionally go berserk and werewolfy, and while they may recover after the battle, there is always the chance that the wolf will consume them and you'll have a marine with no mind.

Of course, they have a lot of the good traits of the Space Wolves as well, the valour and honour, the skeptical attitude towards authority, their appreciation for human life and I imagine them being fairly Norse.

 

Thinking of calling them ________ Draugrinn.

 

 

(If you recognize this, /tg/ was goofing around with the chapter creation charts and came up with an interesting result.  I participated, but things are slow and it looks like the thread may sage.  In any event, I dig the idea and have put up my variant here.)

[Frater Cornelius]

I think the 21st is the ONLY way a SW successor could happen, because a. the canon forbids it and b. angry nackbeards will come and devour your soul. The thing is, the canis helix is damn unstable, however I fail to see why only Fenrisians can make it work. Possibly some genetic trick happening there? Who knows. Anyway, a successor has been attempted but failed. How it failed, well, here opinions start to differ. Some say is was the canis helix going mad. However, I read somewhere that they were lost in the webway or something.

Still, here are some tips if you are absolutely set on making something SW related:

1. make the background very vague and let the primarch be officially unknown, but with subtle hints that is could in fact be SW. Since nothing is confirmed, it would be an interesting way of pokering

2. lost company. some dudes got lost/out on lunch break. then either came back and act independently but still get new recruits from fenris. you still need to be SW, just an old company

3. they got exiled and now either dying a slow tragic death trying to survive. maybe they even enter a pact with a daemon to fix their seed. but at what price?

4. 21st founding. again, make it vague since the cursed founding is like fight club, you don't talk about it. but subtle hints as to who was the gene-sire. some wolfy mutations? increased manliness?

In the end, your dudes, your story. Just be prepared to stand your ground, like Russ would wantes you to

[Prefect Apollyon]

As above, I think the 21st is the only way you can justify a SW successor. Even then, all records of their Primarch's identity should by "conveniently" lost by the Administratum, as the fluff makes it clear that SW Gene-Seed is "never" used. The 21st Founding is the only option for a SW successor.

 

Being a 21st Founding, everything can't be hunky-dory either. There has to be something seriously wrong with the Chapter.  

[Frater Cornelius]

Well the seriously wrong department is already covered, no? Rampant wulfen-ish mutations and feral marines sounds pretty serious to me.

[Uberlord Gendo]

Thanks, I'll see about subtling up the origin, though the whole Wolfing out thing may well be hard to mistake.  Perhaps they put two and two together and contacted the Space Wolves?  That would also explain why the inquisition stays off their back.

[Frater Cornelius]

There are over 1k Chapters out there all active in different parts of the galaxy. Many do not even know about the others. Administratorum is also a gigantic mess. Records get lost, confused and pushed back. They are not as semi-omnipotent as we are as readers. So once someone gets a bit wulfy, they are not going to run to the SW at the first chance they get. I am sure there are more Chapters out there craving blood and suffer furry mutations.

[Uberlord Gendo]

Fair enough, though I'd assume all Space Marines are aware of the first founding chapters, and though Blood Angels keeps their curse under wraps really well, I'd assume that they'd also know that Space Wolves have no known successors and the apothecary would probably guess that it is due to Gene Seed.

 

Would actually be rather interesting if they served along side some Blood Angel successors, noted the similarity in the symptoms and ended up thinking that they were descended from Blood Angels, or at least borrowing heavily from them for methodology in treatment, particularly if some things helped and some just made it worse.  (Like if they met the Flesh Tearers)

I suppose the best way to figure that out is to look at how both curses work.

[Uberlord Gendo]

On a related note, any ideas for names?  I'd like it to be Norse and on the more sinister end.  Iron Draugarnir, Wolves Revenant, Ulfr Draugnna.  Perhaps a Chapter Master called Sigurd Ulfrmyndi, a Librarian called Hrafnar Njalsonnar, that sort of thing.

 

Because of shamanic practices on their homeworld, and perhaps due to the theory that they are seeing a form of Sanguinus' fight, they respond to their curse by harnessing the wolf.  As a result they deviate from the codex, not so much because they think their system is better than the codex, but because they hope their changes will help them better harness the wolf within.

They use a lot more stealth tactics so as to set up ambushes where they brutally eliminate the enemy, shying away from siege actions, instead preferring to handle those by using a strike cruiser to shell the entrenced position from orbit and place artillery positions around the foe.  These sites are left apperantley unguarded.  Mostly their there to show that the wolves are watching and lower enemy morale.  If the positions are targeted, the artillery is either moved, or it is used as a site for an ambush. Either way, the siege cordon is simply a tool to keep the enemy in place while the wolves destroy infrastructure.

This is only possible because of the large number of flyers used.

The chapter avoids standard whirlwinds in general, preferring thunderfire cannons and aerial artillery due to their quicker deployment, but will occasionally use guard artillery as bait.  They've also shown a fondness for Scorpius Pattern Whirlwinds simply due to their overwhelming damage output, often hiding them in camo and keeping them hidden until they can release a devastating surprise salvo.

Razorbacks are preferred over Rhinos due to the greater firepower and as such the standard unit is the demi-squad.  These work in pairs, the wolf and the shadow.

Whenever forces can be deployed from their air, they are, a habit picked up from the Blood Angels.

 These tactics work great against many enemies, but they are poorly suited to some situations, such as massive Tyranid swarms or Daemonic incursions.  In these situations, they fight according to codex tactics, but loses are often higher than another chapter's would have been, not due to a lack of prowess, but due to battle brothers falling to bestial rage.

Quite simply, the prolonged high intensity slaughter, surrounded by foes without end and tasked to slay until there is only a corpse covered field is too much for many and before long, they become drunk on the blood.

One notorious incident saw the loss of nearly a full company whilst fighting a Khornate Warband, the Crimson Revels, feared for their ecstatic slaughter.  The Draugar slew the berzerkers and their cultists to a man.  Horrifically, half the loses were not due to wounds, but due to madness.

 

Similarly, though Geatagardr has been purged of Tyranids for over a decade, there are still rumours amongst the populace that strange and horrible creatures roam the woods.  Chapter records record several squads as having been lost on that world, but while at least partial corpses have been found for most squads, no trace of squad Grendel has ever been found.

 

 

 

They do a lot of funky things with the chapter cult, meditation, martial arts, and relic keeping being key points.

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

There are Space Wolf Successor Chapters?  I had no idea.

[Frater Cornelius]

There are Space Wolf Successor Chapters?  I had no idea.

 

There aren't. None that we know of. It has been traditionally the Chapter without successors in 40k.. and for good reasons, cuz everyone wants viking ancestors :D

 

As for the Name? Go nuts. Get yourself a norse/english dictionary and get your words. Alternatively, do what I did and get an overdose of viking/folk/powermetal while playing Skyrim.

 

But, let me ask you this. Why going through the trouble and doing SW? I mean, you can just say the origin is unknown and introduce your own mythos, independent of any Chapters out there, with only slight hints that is could be SW, but could be WS for all we know (what I did). You can do your Viking SW theme but add your own touch. Or just name some generic Primarch and forget about him right after, if it doesn't matter to you. This will make your life easier and gives you a bit more creative freedom.

[Uberlord Gendo]

Not really, I was mostly resing it from a thread on /tg/ and since we'd used the tables to gen the basic stats, I'd just kept the Space Wolves, seeing little reason to change it.

 

Given that it's 21st and the Wolf theme works rather well, they'll probably be Space Wolf based, but only the Magi know just what strange blend of gene seeds they used.

I think for these guys, though, their roots do matter for them, because they hope that in figuring it out, they can solve their problems.  If that's the case, it might be fun to make them of traitor gene seed and while they have no clear idea, they're beginning to find that the only answers they're getting are unsavoury.

[blackoption]

You might have resistance to the wolf connection.  Simply... it is almost too obvious in my book.  I like the shamastic and Norse vibe you have going with them.  But to keep the wolf totem is to invite obvious (and often harsh) criticism.  Perhaps they have a different Totem: like a bear.  Or perhaps each company has its own totem. Wolves for one company, Bears for another, Panthers, ect.

 

While I think the idea of them believe they have a different primarch (at least publicly) has merit... the trick is going to be in writing a believable back story on how they go from Angels to which ever totem you choose. Perhaps a lost chapter of the Blood Angels were known as the Blood Wolves (even if a Khornite band uses that term now...)

 

Just my two cents

[Uberlord Gendo]

Yeah, I see what you're saying.  Really it is almost unfortunate that there are the Space Wolves, as there aren't many creatures with quite the cultural associations of the Wolf.  The problem with some things like bears is that they're not predatory enough.  Though jaguars would work rather nicely.  A bit Aztecy, but that's not always a bad thing.  I do also like the different totems by company.

I agree about the totem switching.  It will probably be a divergent BA sucessor chapter.  Perhaps it is even part of the Administratum's plan, the experiment being designed to see if Blood Angel methods could be used to solve Space Wolves problems.

Either way likely the closest you'll get to Space Wolves in the fluff is the tendency to go all werewolfy and some norse stuff.  Mostly because Old Norse is an exceptionally bad ass sounding language.

On the tabletop.... huh... Perhaps Blood Angels?  I could also see Raven Guard for the outflanking Razorbacks.  Drop pod based Space Wolves?

[blackoption]

Well, rules and fluff are often independent questions.  What is your play style?  Are you looking at doing a common tactic or are you willing to try something more estoic?

 

If Norse style warriors are your inspiration... perhaps you should consider playing codex marines with either Executioners, Carachdons, or Minotaurs chapter tactics.  All are brutal close combat chapters and I think their FW rules are in keeping with their fluff.

[Uberlord Gendo]

Truth be told, the Norse is mostly because I'm taking Old Norse and really like the language as well as the concept of fate that they have.  And Odin.  Odin is a gender bending wwarrior knowledge god with epistemic limits which makes a great pairing and commentary on Geothe's Faust, a half-mad knowledge god of even the unpleasant things!  (SO COOL)  

Odin is sort of like a Grim Dark Athena with more shamanism thrown in, hope and despair turn to defiance of a fate beyond your control.  And yet, due to the Norse views on such matters, it isn't totally out of your control.  Death comes, but you can face it on your terms.

So what these guys do is more that they'll die bravely and speak Old Norse, and seek after knowledge no matter the cost, even the things better ignored.

So in that regard, a Norse inflected cursed chapter is awesome, but they're not Norse, so much as Odinic.

 

I personally tend to like high mobility forces and as I've mentioned earlier, but not really expanded upon, these guys seem to go for ambush tactics.

Due to the curse, a lot of the things in the Codex aren't so viable for them, so they tend not to follow it.  When ever they can, they try to use psych-ops, air power, orbital strikes, anything to split their foes into isolated groups that they can then pounce upon and destroy utterly, sort of the same way a pack of wolves surrounds their prey herd, fakes them out so they think there are more of them than there actually are and getting them to split up.  If they are about to be overwhelmed, they tend to withdraw.

I suppose this means that they rely heavily on sabotage operations and the like.  They probably also set traps for the enemy vanguard, things like beacons to call in things like air strikes or orbital bombardment, and terminator squads.  They also likely leave mines and other explosive devices.  In such cases, they might lie in wait not too far off to cut down the bewildered survivors with bolter fire.

Now this won't always work, as you can't always choose your battle ground.  Against a horde of Orkz, they'd tend to attack on the flanks or in the rear, striking brutally, before vanishing.  Since extended CC brings out the beast, they prefer to use an armored/aerial assault.

When they have to defend a point, they will, but in general they prefer to make their enemy come to them.

I think a vehicle heavy Carcharodons list would work well, but I'd been hoping to use allies.

I'd also been thinking of Raptors tactics, for the outflanking (to simulate an ambush), and their heavy fire (for the idea of attacking from prepared positions with gratuitous amounts of dakka.

The BA option had been considered because they'd have the possibility of Red Thirst and Black Rage, and the fact that the vehicles are fast.

I also liked the EC Maru Sakra rite of war in Massacre v1.  Its basically an armored spearhead with a group designated to outflank at a prearranged time, but the rest of EC seems a bit off.

(Huh, I imagine they'd love any sicarians they can get their hands on.)

 

To justify the vehicles, I'll fluff them as being best buddies with a forge world they keep safe, probably also keeps the Inquisition friendly, too, which would help, as their way of war requires good intel and I figure the Inquisition would be only too happy to get that; happy enough to overlook an alternative force organization methodology, though this probably only works on radical inquisitors, which is cool, as my Inquisitor leans radical.  (The guy is Ordo Xenos and has spent enough time out there to realize that not all Xenos are terrible and some can even be worked with.  Probably has an odd relationship with a Tau Water Caste diplomat, constantly playing the other, the sort of opposition founded on a deep respect and a begrudging sort of friendship.  Orkz just get shot, but Zandrenkh and some of the other Nemesors (but not all) are amenable to cooperation. [idea being they both hate chaos and nids, and some Necrons are perfectly happy to accept subject races.  Some may even accept that submission to their will may be in the years to come.]  Point is, Xenos Inquisitor, a bit colder than a Xenos Hybris, but not a monodominant.)  Wow, that was a tangent.

[blackoption]

It sounds like you have plenty of material and ideas creating this chapter, but need to decide on what approach you are doing. If it were my project, I'd either ground myself using Black Templar or Executioners chapter tactics. Now, just because you use those chapter tactics doesn't mean that they have to be completely codex either.  It is up to you to determine how codex, or unorthodox, your chapter is with which ever rule basis you choose.

 

If I remember correctly, one of Odin's symbols or totems was the crow.  While "Blood Crows" would be awfully close to the Blood ravens... perhaps the Ice Crows would work?  It would be a suitable nod to the Norse god if I am right.  Perhaps the Chapter Master's title is Odin...  little things along those lines are what will flavor your chapter.

 

Just my two cents.

[Uberlord Gendo]

Thanks, I think I'll write it all up and then decide.

 

Yeah, Odin had a pair of ravens (hrafn--don't know if Norse distinguishes ravens and crows) and a pair of wolves.  And an eight-legged horse.  I really like the images associated with Magpies, but I don't think they sound quite right in English.  (I'm familiar with them from China, where they're everywhere with their fantastic plumage.)  

Funny you should suggest that, actually, as Odin seems to be a contrated form of Odrinn.  Odr is the nominative form of od (or is it ord?), cognate to the Middle English wood, or mad/raging.  In is the nominative article.  So Odin is literally 'The raging [one]'.  I  think I may use that as a title for the head of some organization, either Chapter Master, Libby, or if there's a Death Company equivalent.

 

I'm thinking of calling them  Munnum Draugarinn, which is roughly The Draugar of the Mind/Memory, with Draugar being an Old Norse equivalent of a revanant/vampire-- Muninn of which Munum is the genitive form) is the name of one of Odin's Ravens. 

hough I imagine the Old Norse might be a bit off putting for the viewer, so I might give them an English Name/High Gothic name... actually, would it make more sense for their Old Norse name to be a Low Gothic name from the local langage, or their High Gothic name, with the English being Low Gothic for all of us to understand?

I suppose the question is inherently is our In-universe perspective that of someone like the God Emperor, with full command of High Gothic or are we in M41 and our english is comparable to a Low Gothic tongue?

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

Usually the fancy-pants name is the High Gothic, while the one that actually sounds like real words is Low Gothic.

 

For example, the Space Marine Chapter known in High Gothic as the Carcharodon Astra are known in plain old Low Gothic as the Space Sharks.

[blackoption]

Agreed with Cepinari.

 

If Low gothic (or at least one of the dialects of low gothic) is English, than High Gothic would be the equivalent of Latin.  So  Munnum Draugarinn would be the High Gothic name, a low gothic equivalent might be "Death Ravens" or "Draugar Crows" or something of the like.

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

Death Ravens.  Go with Death Ravens.  I know it's similar to Blood Ravens but trust me it'll go over a lot better than Draugar Crows would.

 

Though I do find myself wondering how you'll handle your crow-loving Space Marines deal with being Space Werewolves, since it causes a bit of stylistic dissonance.

[Uberlord Gendo]

Yeah, I like Death Ravens myself.

It could be an unfortunate nickname?  Sort of like how Vylka Fenryka became Space Wolves?

Maybe there are predatory raptors on the planet and that's actually what they're talking about, but mistranslations caused the name to stick, when something more akin to Death Velociraptors would have been more precise? ...Because raptors are very wolfy... except the feathers, bipedalism, and opposable thumbs...  and the lack of howling...

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

Yeah, I like Death Ravens myself.

It could be an unfortunate nickname?  Sort of like how Vylka Fenryka became Space Wolves?

Maybe there are predatory raptors on the planet and that's actually what they're talking about, but mistranslations caused the name to stick, when something more akin to Death Velociraptors would have been more precise? ...Because raptors are very wolfy... except the feathers, bipedalism, and opposable thumbs...  and the lack of howling...

 

How do you know they didn't howl?  Were you there?

[Uberlord Gendo]

....That makes them about 10 times more terrifying/awesome.

 

 

 

And would give me an excuse to make Space Marines riding dinosaurs.

[blackoption]

....That makes them about 10 times more terrifying/awesome.

 

 

 

And would give me an excuse to make Space Marines riding dinosaurs.

 

....... My mind just exploded.... wow

[Kristoff]

There are Space Wolf Successor Chapters? I had no idea.

There aren't. None that we know of. It has been traditionally the Chapter without successors in 40k.. and for good reasons, cuz everyone wants viking ancestors

There was one. Second Founding. Wolf Brothers. It REALLY didn't end well.

Yeah, I like Death Ravens myself.

It could be an unfortunate nickname? Sort of like how Vylka Fenryka became Space Wolves?

Maybe there are predatory raptors on the planet and that's actually what they're talking about, but mistranslations caused the name to stick, when something more akin to Death Velociraptors would have been more precise? ...Because raptors are very wolfy... except the feathers, bipedalism, and opposable thumbs... and the lack of howling...

Raptors are birds of prey. The saurians called raptors where given the name after their bird-like attributes.

As mentioned, the Raven is a totem animal of Odin as he used two, Huginn and Muninn, to watch over the world and act as messengers. Of course, he apparently had a pair of Wolves, too. It would be amusing if someone in the Mechanicum got the idea to stabilize the Space Wolves Canix Helix with some of the Raven Guard geneseed, with the troubles of the 21st Founding happening after that.