Is this a feasible chapter idea? Warning: heavy-handed fluff

[Roma]

Since Nightrawen seems to be taking a break, I thought I might risk a quick foray into the Liber, on the basis of extreme necessity brothers! 

I wanted a cool fluff for a chapter of space marines I am running with Grey Knight rules.

The following fluff idea must take into account the fact that I am running an army of psyker marines, that are wearing loyalist armour (Dark Vengeance models).

 

The conclusion I came up with? Blood Raven separatists! Reading their fluff I was particularly caught out by a few factors:

-Unusual high number of psykers and a tendency to search for and capture knowledge and relics

-Neophytes usually develop psychic powers after gene seed implantation

-All this hints strongly at thousand sons

-They are crazy about finding out their parent chapter

-Their chapter symbol is a raven, this will come into play with my own chapter insignia (by necessity, the dark angel wing)

 

Unless you can quote it by heart, I recommend you read the fluff for blood ravens on the 40k wikia before giving me any advice, lots of very important little hints there. From now on, I am taking the liberty of assuming a lot suggestions and hints are true GW fluff, and tampering with an official chapter's history.

....................................

 

So what do you this of this chapter idea?

The Librarium of the chapter uncover clues about the possible whereabouts of secreted inquisitorial documents. In their quest for knowledge about the chapter's history, the Blood Ravens finally stumble upon a priceless relic: Surviving records of the Blood Raven's history purge, known as the un-founding. The Blood Ravens are revealed to be descended from the gene seed of the traitor Magnus, and his Thousand Sons.

 

The news is brought to the chapter master/chief librarian hybrid. In a heated debate, it is demanded by many of the chapter's figureheads that this knowledge be forever kept secret from the rank and file of the chapter, and the Imperium as a whole.

 

A tome allegedly penned by Azariah Vidya himself called the Apocrypha of the Un-Founding postulates that the Blood Ravens are a Chapter dear to the soul of the Emperor Himself, and that their history was hidden by agents close to the Throne, to keep them secret from the Emperor's other sons but not from the Blood Ravens themselves. The Apocrypha argues that searching for these lost answers is not heretical as long as the knowledge is kept within the Chapter itself.

 

Many of the Librarium heatedly argue that to keep this knowledge secret would betray the trust the Blood Raven battle brothers, the legacy of Azariah and the credos of the Blood Ravens itself. They reveal the knowledge to the chapter, ending in their imprisonment and trial. They are branded heretics and due to be executed. Before the sentence is carried out, a number of the chapters brothers, all to psykers of varying level, are visited by horrific visions (could be magnus, eh?) of the imperium in flames, the destruction of the golden throne and the emperor reduced to dust (basically the result of thousands of years of stagnation, dogma, chaos and alien attacks).

 

The marines (up to a hundred I'm guessing), escape with the condemned figureheads, wargear, relics,chapter specialists and gene-seed. They set up a chapter that only recruits psykers, has a number of insanely powerful sorcerers.Their exact motives I am still unsure about, time for bed. They could however, be acting as renegades, an unofficial chapter, or maybe even impersonating a long dead chapter (and not revealed by the Blood Ravens for very obvious reasons). How moderately feasible do you guys find this so far?

 

Next up we will have to discuss the stability of their gene-seed. I am guessing it is fine, since the Blood Raven's suffer no mutation. This could be because they are'nt affected by Magnus' fall to chaos (it is hinted the mutations t-sons suffered was because Magnus accidentally drew the attention of Tzeench), or some kind of legacy of the rubric of Ahriman?

[Lord Marshal Ragnrok]

well given the idea of an all psykers chapter - you have a problem across the board. no existing chapter develops ALL psykers except the GK.  even the BR do not have ALL psykers and are on the brink of extinction. it is also unusually unlikely that they had an successors or splinter factions which did fall in with Gabriel or Kyras in the recent civil war.  so if your make this even remotely believable, i suggest picking another chapter and working up a very unusual and strong geneseed flaw/mutation.  you might want to look into the Exorcists for a better fit.

[Gorkimedes]

Maybe they have librarians supported by a large number of regular human psyker thralls? If you're going for the Thousand Sons / Prospero vibe.

[Demus Ragnok]

You do realize that when his name is typed NightrawenII hears it echo through the warp!

 

That aside, getting too close to anything official always makes IAs more difficult than they already are.  

[Roma]

Could they simply not hide their psychic abilities as a majority from the inquisition? If not, I have no problem with them simply being a rebel warband not acting for chaos.

 

In this case it is simply a matter of them recruiting only individuals with hints of psychic potential. Not necesseraly easy, but I don't think it is impossible.

 

You do realize that when his name is typed NightrawenII hears it echo through the warp!

 

That aside, getting too close to anything official always makes IAs more difficult than they already are.

In this case, funilly enough, I think basing them on the existing BR actually makes it easier.

[Gripharius]

Maybe "tampering" with the Blood Ravens Chapter makes it "easier" to you, but I think it adds another layer of problems when it comes to feasibility.  The mystery of the Blood Raven's lineage is part of the canon, so solving the mystery changes canon.  But I think you can do what you want to do without involving the BRs at all.

 

I'd suggest that you skip the Blood Ravens, and start with a new Chapter with BR geneseed.  Have the new Chapter become obsessed with finding who the BR's parent is, so they know who they are descended from.  Then they can find the Aprocrypha or whatever, and decide that they come from Magnus.  So your new Chapter believes the Blood Ravens, and hence they themselves, are descended from Magnus, but you don't have to make the Blood Ravens believe that as well.

 

The BRs may or may not believe the Aprocypha, but that  doesn't matter to your new Chapter.  Or if you want your new Chapter to be in conflict with the BRs, you can say the BRs reject the Aprocyrpha, which leads to lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth between the two Chapters and they refuse to ever play nice with each other again.

 

As for the large number of psykers in the Chapter, I'd suggest you make it a Cursed Founding Chapter.  Maybe the AdMech tried to develop geneseed that would amplify psychic talents, or awaken latent psychic abilities, using Blood Raven geneseed.

 

Make the Chapter's curse that its geneseed only takes hold in people with at least some minimum level of psyhic ability.  The Chapter perpetually has low numbers because of the difficulty in finding people with psychic talent or latent psychic ability that are also suitable for geneseed implantation.  The AdMech's tinkering makes it easier, but not so much easier that they can ever reach significant size.

 

I'd think it would be really, really, really, really, really, really difficult for a full Chapter made entirely of psykers to escape notice.  I think they'd practically glow in the dark, no matter how hard they tried to hide it.

 

If fact, considering the whole Thousand Sons deal, a Chapter full of psykers is probably exactly the kind of the thing the Inquisition keeps an eye out for -- I'd bet its pretty high on the Checklist of Top 100 Really Bad Things to Be Wary Of  in Inquisitor Training 101.  That's why I'd keep the Chapter as small as possible.

[Messor]

Are you referring to a particular brand of AdMech tinkering, Griph, or something that would be specific to this Chapter? That would still beg the question of why the AdMech would facilitate something that the Inquisition does not want to happen. It could be part of the plot, but that would need to involve just a select group of AdMech adepts.

[Roma]

@Gripharius: Your suggestions of a BR successor chapter strikes me as simply adding a long and boring step between one and two.

Not to say your idea is bad, but it does'nt really inspire me/its not what im going for, but of course thanks for the suggestion.

 

I understand how somone might have a problem with the whole BR thing, but the fact is they are supposed to be a chapter with a very long history, and little of it is known. There is plenty of room and furnishings already in place for a cool chapter to arise out of a cool chapter.

 

Perhaps if I liberally peppered the fluff with hints that the document might have been false? Perhaps this was a plot of something/someone to destabalise the chapter? Wether or not the blood ravens are truly descendants of Magnus or not is almost irrelevant, all I need is for at least 30 or so of the chapter's members to BELIEVE they are, the unique characteristics of BR gene seed will do the rest.

..........

Assuming I go with everything roughly as I planned, I can't make them loyalist (at least, official loyalists) in any way really. Hence 2 important questions that came to my attention:

 

1. Would it be reasonable to think that there were 30 (3 percent) psychic marines in the blood ravens chapter in the first place? Even if that would be the vast majority. This would have to include at least 1 powerful librarian, apothacary and techmarine obviously.

 

2. D'oh, ditto. Ah yes I remember now! Assuming the blood ravens do not sell these guys out for obvious reasons, how likely is it that they can act as a low-key fleet (or maybe even 1 ship), fighting for the imperium pretending to be company of a chapter, and staying the hell away from Inquisitors/other marines.

 

Ater all, if you are in a war I doubt you would refuse aid of marines wearing imperial armour. After the battles are over they can make a quick departure.

 

Could librarians aid in this method? I.e concealing their psychic signature (they are very stong librarians after all), and using artefacts and sorcery though of as heretical with their more liberal views, such teleportation through the warp into/out of combat zones and concealment of their ships?

[Gorkimedes]

What came to mind.

 

-I could see a more radical chapter staying low key by constantly moving around. Astropaths aren't always reliable and sending information by ship is probably fairly slow. If a chapter were to spend short amounts of time in a sector before moving on it would be difficult ( but not impossible) to build a case against them. Although then you have to tackle the question of how are they getting supplies.

 

-Sorcery is a dangerous path. I would imagine they'd be actively concerned about corruption. Could spiral out of control very quickly leading to extremely radical practices. How do they guard against corruption / possession? etc.

[Roma]

-Although then you have to tackle the question of how do they get supplies?.

Good question. If anyone has ideas on this that would be good. Perhaps they made pacts with a less careful forgeworld under imminent attack and no time to go through imperial reinforcement beuracracies, and have since intergrated/threatened them at gunpoint? Mercenary psyker marines...I like that. Shouldn't take more than 1 FW to supply some 50+ marines.

 

Also do those factory ships some chapters have produce all the essentials? Maybe they made a getaway on one of those? I really like the idea of that.

-Sorcery is a dangerous path. I would imagine they'd be actively concerned about corruption. Could spiral out of control very quickly leading to extremely radical practices. How do they guard against corruption / possession? etc.

But corruption is half the fun! The BR had a major corruption through kyras, and their prinary recruitment world was subject to exterminatus due to psyker sickness of some kind.

 

I like the idea of tension between brothers that are more conservative, and those willing to explore all the dangerous possibilities of sorcery. After all, there are interesting parallels to thousand sons there. "Our founding chapter did it", "oh yeah look where that got them!".

Still though, with such a small number of marines (many of which can open your mind like a can of beans), complete fall to chaos should be very rare, especially if they somehow heard what happened to the blood ravens.

 

As for actual mutation, of that I am unsure. Thousand sons suffered a lot from it, as did the soul drinkers. However in both cases I think this is because they actually were both tricked into making an allegiance with chaos. Simply being renegade and using sorcery should'nt cause mutation on its own, as far as I am aware.

 

P.s this caused another thought. 30 or so marines are'nt going to be taking over a battle barge, unless one was somehow left mostly undefended. I am going to have to up the ante here to the best part of a company unless someone can help me out here (this would mean that some of the progenators were not psychic).

 

Either that, or have them leave epacefully like the sons of medusa/iron hands. In which case they would be far easier to throw as loyalists.

 

P.p.s actually if there was a captain amongs them, he could have simply ordered nonbelievers to make planetfall in combat, and ditched them taking along his loyals, crew and supplies.

 

It has guilt, it has droptsite massacre parralels, I like it I like it!

[Gripharius]

Are you referring to a particular brand of AdMech tinkering, Griph, or something that would be specific to this Chapter? That would still beg the question of why the AdMech would facilitate something that the Inquisition does not want to happen. It could be part of the plot, but that would need to involve just a select group of AdMech adepts.

 

I just meant the type of tinkering the AdMech did during the Cursed Founding that resulted in the Black Dragons, Blood Gorgons, Flame Falcons, etc.  That's why I suggested the Chapter be a Cursed Founding Chapter.

 

But apparently the point is moot anyway.

[Ace Debonair]

Hmm. The only problem I can see is the whole 'Blood Ravens suddenly believe they are descended from Magnus for the duration of this IA' angle.

'Cause right now that's not what the Blood Ravens believe, no matter how much sense it might make or how well-written your suggestion.

Having them suddenly believe they are definitely Magnus' heirs for the duration of your IA is not a sensible idea, simply because they don't particularly believe it in any other material, so they'd have to change their minds back to uncertainty for whatever reason.

It'd be like the Imperial Fists painting their armour pastel blue for the duration of an IA - it simply just doesn't fit with the established story so far.

Gripharius already covered what my solution would be - the successor Chapter route.

A small, heavily psychic Chapter works alright as an idea, but deciding to rewrite official stuff like what the Blood Ravens believe about their ancestry is always a tricky thing to do without causing as many problems as it solves.

[Roma]

I believe it is more or less figured out.

 

0.a Blood Ravens campaign somewhere between azariah vidya's reign and the betrayal of azariah kyras. Even though I read kyras to be vidya's apprentice and succesor as chapter master, the dude was lost in the warp for 1000 years so I think that gives me enough time.

 

1.during the campaign, The BR find what they are looking for, with consequences they never expected. An account of the battle for prospero written by a thousand son sorcerer, detailing essentially the events of the black library books, where magnus sends away a few companies in an attempt to save them. One of these is called corvicae (a bird family the raven belongs to).

 

2.Most of them put lots of two and two's together, causing a schism in the leadership of the chapter. A number of the librarians reveal the truth to the chapter as a whole, and are subsequently branded as traitors and imprisoned by the puritan majority, and awaiting trial. The upper echeleons of the chapter and in a panic and frenzied debate, while simultaneously fighting a war.

 

3.The captain of the first company suddenly develops psychic potential and suffers horrible, prophetic dreams. He keeps these revelations a secret and consults one of those traitor librarians imprisoned on his ship, an old friend and counsel. He assures him what is happening was meant to be.

 

4.during planetfall, the captain and his turned company members (spotted by the efforts of the traitor librarians) leave orbit forever. The rest of the company is left stranded planetside clueless of the meaning of the transpired events, and bereft of transport, wargear, some 40 battle brothers (including such specialists as techmarines, apothacaries and librarians) and most crippling of all, the latest harvest of company gene seed.

 

5.strange reports reach the inquisition regarding battle sightings of a previously unheard of seemingly loyalist chapter, the ardent sons. These seem innacurate or confused, spanning star systems across the breath of imperial space with abnormaly short times between one report and the next. Investigations are considered by those of the Inquisition currently looking into the sudden return of the mysterious charcharodons, and seemingly similar reports of "legion of the damned".

[Roma]

@ace I am afraid you ninja'd me. Regarding your post: I think 40 percent or so of marines believing such evidence and the guidance of their librarians' prophecies (on which BR traditionally rely in all regards) isn't implausible.

 

If all those legions betrayed the living emperor out of feelings planted by two traitors, I do not see why a chapter:

-obsessed with the search for knowledge

-specifically regarding their founding

-that commonly pursue the search of aforementioned knowledge/relics at expense of wider imperial goals

-that has a high number of psykers/aka is suspectible to the corruption of chaos, or prophecy...

 

Cannot abandon their chapter out of a mixture of feelings of betrayal from their figureheads, and desire for further knowledge as thaught by their (seemingly borderline heretical) historical chapter master Vidya.

 

Not to mention the simple charisma of their immediate, closer leaders and brothers that was all that was neccesary to cause the horus heresy. Other examples include the soul drinkers/ avenging sons/ the sons of medusa.

 

I am not rewriting the Blood Raven history, I'm just writing between the lines ;)

[Ace Debonair]

Well, put like that, fair enough.

It's probably still going to be a tricky Chapter to write, all the same, so good luck.

[Roma]

Cheers. If anyone else had criticizms or insights on mundane things I might have missed, such as logstics and so on, let me know. I'm happy with the way it turned out, thanks for your input everyone.

 

P.s it might be best to choose a diffirent company. It might be a bit harsh to deny the BR their best and brightest...

 

Maybe the 5th? Known as ''the fated', I could play a bit with that.

[Gripharius]

I was really trying to bite my tongue on this because I know it will look like spoiled grapes from me, but I just think its funny that you're thanking people for input and acting like this was a collaborative effort when, from what I can tell, you really didn't take any suggestions from anyone and you basically just blew through any criticism as meaningless.

 

You are free to do what you want, I'm not objecting to that. Rewrite the whole history of the Blood Ravens if you want, I'm really not going to lose any sleep over it.  It's your IA, do what you like.

 

It just gave me to the lulz to read your "thanks for the input" and "glad with the way it turned out" when you just pitched your idea, sloughed off the people who actually answered your "is this feasbile?" question, and then just revised your own ideas your own way.  I mean, why come here and ask if its feasible if you really don't care if anyone else thinks its feasible or not?

 

The Liber should be divided into two sub-forums, with the first being the "hey, look at my cool idea and tell me how cool it is" forum where you go to have your idea showered with praise regardless of whether it meshes with anything even remotely canon in the grimdark.

 

The other can be for the sadomasochists who really want to endure the comment and criticism and fit their Chapter into the grimdark without rewriting the canon.

 

And to be entirely honest, I'd probably only post my stuff in the first forum, lol.

[Roma]

I was really trying to bite my tongue on this because I know it will look like spoiled grapes from me, but I just think its funny that you're thanking people for input and acting like this was a collaborative effort when, from what I can tell, you really didn't take any suggestions from anyone and you basically just blew through any criticism as meaningless.

 

You are free to do what you want, I'm not objecting to that. Rewrite the whole history of the Blood Ravens if you want, I'm really not going to lose any sleep over it. It's your IA, do what you like.

 

It just gave me to the lulz to read your "thanks for the input" and "glad with the way it turned out" when you just pitched your idea, sloughed off the people who actually answered your "is this feasbile?" question, and then just revised your own ideas your own way. I mean, why come here and ask if its feasible if you really don't care if anyone else thinks its feasible or not?

 

The Liber should be divided into two sub-forums, with the first being the "hey, look at my cool idea and tell me how cool it is" forum where you go to have your idea showered with praise regardless of whether it meshes with anything even remotely canon in the grimdark.

 

The other can be for the sadomasochists who really want to endure the comment and criticism and fit their Chapter into the grimdark without rewriting the canon.

 

And to be entirely honest, I'd probably only post my stuff in the first forum, lol.

To answer you direct questions:

I said thanks for the input because it is polite, it was there, and I am glad it was there.

I said I was happy with the way it turned out because I am.

 

I asked if it is a feasible idea, I got answers. Maybe I didn't agree with them and wasn't convinced by your arguments (simply because, even though people here generally like to be conservative what I suggested is very much plausible as far as I am concerned.) I did not receive a barrage of "Impossible, impossible, no that wouldnt happen because at that time x was happening", which is good enough for me.

 

To answer you final question, it was a communal effort, read the posts (again?). I wouldn't normally bother returning to a "completed thread", but I wanted to make it clear to you and everyone that answered that their advice is appreciated. I do not see what exactly your gripe is, apart from the fact that I disregarded most criticisms. I disregarded them because they are your opinion, but do convince me there is actually a problem with what I have written. I did ask for opinions, but that doesn't mean I have to live by them if they didn't convince me.

[thevoodooman]

How about a psychic commune? They actively seek out people from all walks of life with the vaguest hint of psychic ability. Some pass initiation and become battle brothers, some don't but are used in other capacities, trading, civilian militia, pilots, chefs, all the boring logistics no one ever thinks of. Supplies covered, allied imperial guard or traitor guard to represent it and as for the all psychic bit perhaps their training, gene seed etc changes their psychic powers to the aegis. For flavour use a chaplain as the their shepherd so he and his followers go around shooting the dangerous ones, like a psychic astorath the grim?