Community project : Let's found a Chapter ! (Phase 3 & 4)

[Gorkimedes]

Another thought if you wanted to say the scheme was camo like the Badad war paint jobs would be to say that some members of the chapter chose to keep the scheme to honor their lost brothers, or something along that line.

[Stercus]

Right, I think we do have a couple of really decent ideas for a chapter colour scheme. The quartered scheme is a great knightly/noble warrior scheme which fits with our established tactics of a battleline advancing in unison with a cacophony of terrifying noise and firepower, before breaking apart the enemy lines and capturing the worthy foes for sacrifice. One thing that I think is essential for a chapter using tactics like this is for their armour colours to shout out "Here we are, you will not escape". The intimidation has to come from our presence, our unavoidabliity. I don't think a more muted or camouflage style scheme would fit with this battle practice: we don't want to be in the shadows, concealed from our targets... We need them to be compelled to fight back cohesively, so we can identify the warriors and leaders to give to our Primarch gods, not run into the hills before an unseen assailant.

Where I think the camo/feline colours would be excellent is in the scout company, and perhaps among sternguard squads. While we have a well established prisoner taking ethos for the Knights Panthera, we haven't really covered too well how we gather the intelligence to identify high value targets for sacrifice. How about we use the tenth company, with a small cadre of first company "handlers" clad in the colours of the cats that hunt by twilight to drop behind enemy lines and guide the battle companies to the parts of the enemy battle line most likely to yield high value targets?

[Gorkimedes]

http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2012/01/space-marines-painted-in-camo-schemes.html

 

Was looking at this tutorial for painting camo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Was messing around with metallic/metallic.

[Black Cohort]

That terminator looks awesome.

 

I still like the metallic blue/ grey best out of the colour schemes.

[Gorkimedes]

Thanks.

 

Anyone have any ideas about the homeworld?

[Tiberius Cato]

I envision the fortress monastery perched atop a rocky, snow covered crag. It overlooks a massive valley that is filled with warring tribes.

 

Edit:So in essence, a snowy rocky planet.

[Jape]

How do they go about executing their captives? Is it a Mayan blood sacrifice kind of deal? Mass beheading?

[ElectricPaladin]

How do they go about executing their captives? Is it a Mayan blood sacrifice kind of deal? Mass beheading?

 

I've always been fond of cutting out hearts and burning 'em, myself.

[Gorkimedes]

I envision the fortress monastery perched atop a rocky, snow covered crag. It overlooks a massive valley that is filled with warring tribes.

 

Edit:So in essence, a snowy rocky planet.

 

Since we've talked about them sending serfs to various worlds. Would the chapter keep grow to accommodate this administration? For example the planet starts out as this cold rocky death world but as the influence of the chapter touches more worlds would it become more developed at they need more resources to run their network of planets?

 

 

How do they go about executing their captives? Is it a Mayan blood sacrifice kind of deal? Mass beheading?

 

I imagined them as defeated enemies being corralled together and then the Space Marines parading the ones they choose for sacrifice to altars where they cut out their hearts etc.

[Jape]

 

I envision the fortress monastery perched atop a rocky, snow covered crag. It overlooks a massive valley that is filled with warring tribes.

 

Edit:So in essence, a snowy rocky planet.

 

Since we've talked about them sending serfs to various worlds. Would the chapter keep grow to accommodate this administration? For example the planet starts out as this cold rocky death world but as the influence of the chapter touches more worlds would it become more developed at they need more resources to run their network of planets?

 

I like that idea, almost has a Mongol feel to it. These terrifying warriors from a desolate planet end up becoming the centre for an informal empire of sorts purely due to their martial prowess, nessecitating a build of infrastructure on their home world even if it isn't exactly user friendly.

[Tiberius Cato]

 

 

I envision the fortress monastery perched atop a rocky, snow covered crag. It overlooks a massive valley that is filled with warring tribes.

 

Edit:So in essence, a snowy rocky planet.

Since we've talked about them sending serfs to various worlds. Would the chapter keep grow to accommodate this administration? For example the planet starts out as this cold rocky death world but as the influence of the chapter touches more worlds would it become more developed at they need more resources to run their network of planets?

 

How do they go about executing their captives? Is it a Mayan blood sacrifice kind of deal? Mass beheading?

I imagined them as defeated enemies being corralled together and then the Space Marines parading the ones they choose for sacrifice to altars where they cut out their hearts etc.

I envision the fortress growing in size as the empire grows. It starts out fairly small, but as the empire grows more wings, buildings, and such are added to facilitate larger and larger administration and to train PDF's for the various worlds. It possibly also becomes a hub for trade and commerce, attracting many rogue trades and the like. Mayhaps as time goes on xenos traders are eventually accepted and the chapter slowly allies with xenos races. Then when the chapter's empire reaches it's peak and seems infallible, a certain imperial faction catches wind and slaps the EXCOMMUNICATE TRAITORIS sticker on the chapter's file. The chapter having raised a massive empire that is now faced with conflict against those they were sworn to protect reach out to their xenos friends for aid, making alliances with the filth to ensure survival in the galaxy. In addition, their locally trained defense forces are ready to protect their empire when the time comes.

 

Or maybe that part doesn't happen at all, perhaps it's just a mad musing on my part!

 

Edit: I really should make sure I finish my thoughts...

 

As for the sacrifices, I thought them to be Aztec style and rip the hearts from captured enemies aftar parading them up temple steps to a massive blood stained altar.

[Stercus]

I think we have to be careful with the sacrificing thing. While we have established pretty much from the beginning that we have a loyal, codex compliant chapter, which operates an ethos of prisoner taking and execution, there is a real danger of it veering too far into "blood for the blood god" territory. I think realistically, a codex compliant Ultramarines successor that encountered a world where hearts were ripped out and blood spattered all over the place as a routine practise would be more inclined to launch cyclonic torpedoes than to absorb the practice into their own beliefs, whether they respected the martial spirit of the natives or not. If you mix too much of the martial spirit and extreme bloodletting it just adds milk to the khorneflakes.

I would favour using the Aztec sense of ceremony and importance to acknowledge that the enemy fought well but were ultimately defeated by the warriors of the Knights Panthera, with the blessings of the holy emperor and his Primarch host. Have the prisoners marched one by one to the great granite slab, past the carved reliefs of the Primarch pantheon as the slow drum beats. When they reach the cold top of the wind-whipped pyramid, they are held in place by two black clad terminators, and the chaplains of the ascendant Primarchs read the list of their crimes. Rebellion, treachery, the simple act of being a trustless xeno abomination. Some struggle, some accept their fate with dignity. Then the appointed executioner steps up. Usually, this would be a chaplain or officer, but it may also be a space marine that the chaplains have marked out for future potential. As the crowd fall silent and the drums still, he raises his sidearm. There is the cough-snap of a bolt pistol discharging, and the corpse is cast down a shaft into the heart of the pyramid, where it will be burnt without ceremony.

We could cut the bodies apart like a slaaneshi deviant or a depraved dark eldar, we could take heads and spill blood like a khorne bezerker, we could even devour the flesh like the degenerate kroot. We do not. We are astartes: We are better than that. We execute those we capture not to glorify some dark presence in the warp, but because it is necessary to acknowledge their defeat. Our Primarchs taught us the strength and fortitude to crush our enemies, and through their example we excell. In their name we kill those who fought with strength and ferocity. We do not kill them so much as an offering to the emperor's sons, but to acknowledge that by defeating the strong we give honour to our noble and exalted forbears. They gave us our strength, and we use that strength to bring about the vision of the emperor.

[Black Cohort]

I think Stercus has the right idea when it comes to the sacrifice part. As awesome as Aztec sacrificial rituals are, they seem very chaos for 40k.

 

And under no circumstances should the Knights Panthera have Xenos allies. Didn't kill some Eldar on sight because they were busy fighting off something worse yes, invite them back to the homeworld for afternoon tea no.

[Gorkimedes]

I agree that there shouldn't be xenos allies unless someone can come up with a borderline unreal reason why they're there.

 

If we wanted to add some stuff about the knights panthera spiraling out of hand doesn't one timeline in the 5th ed rulebook talk about how as m41 came to a close and the imperium is feeling immense amount of pressure, more and more worlds are being taken under space marine spheres of influence as other organizations fracture?

 

I suppose as time passes more and more of the chapter serfs assigned to worlds could find their worlds lacking. The chapter might take a far more authoritarian stance to its local area of space.

[Gorkimedes]

Should we start collecting stuff together or is there anything that needs further fleshing out?

[Black Cohort]

Why don't we compile stuff then see what is missing or needs more detail?

[Gorkimedes]

Been busy with classes but I'll try and put something together over the weekend if someone hasn't by then.

[Jape]

I'm not sure about shooting them, at least a beheading? Seems anticlimactic given they've been transported to the home world and led up a pyramid for public excecution. I agree, though cool Aztec style sacrifice is too much for an Ultramarine successor.

 

Maybe a Game of Thrones style "he who makes the law, swings the blade" deal? Say the captain or chaplain who over oversaw the capture (maybe chaplains have a duel role as masters of the hunt, overseeing the identification of 'worthy' targets?) brings the prisoner to the block. He tells the victim why his to be killed, a giant sword in his hands - if the captor doesn't speak Gothic, a clerk conversant in Eldar/Tau/etc translates so the captor is well aware of their 'crime' before they die. The executioner delivers the blow, the head falls into a bucket and it is carried away, dumped into the shoot. There is no glorifying it as violence but it is done in the ancient manner of the planet, by brute force rather than an 'Imperial' bolt pistol.

[Stercus]

Beheading works. I just think its important to avoid bloodletting or trophy taking.

[Gorkimedes]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture#The_52-year_cycle

Beheading, starvation, flaying, heart extraction, drowning, bludgeoning, burning, thrown off a cliff.... things really got out of hand.

Hmmpph...starvation in a cave or temple ..... an engineless ship flung towards Terra full of living captives doomed to travel in the light of the Astronomican for 100,000 years.

[Tiberius Cato]

That ritual cannablism bit is interesting... mayhaps that could be worked into the Knights Pantera's ritual? Maybe it's a requirement for ascension through the ranks, one would learn the intricacies of their enemy through consumption of his flesh. The omophagea allows marines to learn through consuming blood or flesh, and perhaps it mutates overtime to increase bloodthirst in the chapter. Not necessarily a la Blood Angels, but something similar.

[Gorkimedes]

I could see the chapter cult and a progressively worsening mutation shifting them further away from a standard model Ultramarines successor.

[Stercus]

I think the ideas of a bloodthirsty cult developing are pushing the Knights Panthera a litte far from what was set out as the initial idea of this project. While there's nothing wrong with it as a concept, we did set out to do a loyal, codex-adherent, and reasonably conventional chapter. There's always a danger with a project like this that too many eggs are put in the same basket, and unfortunately if we keep cramming eggs in here we're going to end up with a sticky mess.

It's my feeling that we don't necessarily need to give this chapter a 'tragic flaw' to make them interesting. That's been done to death with the blood angels (and beyond death, in the case of Mephiston), the cursed founding chapters and who knows how many DIY's. Why not concentrate on how the chapter relates to the imperial structures that exist without forcing the issue of conflict with them? There must be hundreds of chapters that don't come up against imperial sanction or end up at loggerheads with the inquisition.

 

Just my ten pence worth. I'm very aware that this is a collaborative project, but I think we're going to spiral into a state where we can't get any coherent feel for the Knights Panthera established because we're throwing too much stuff at them.

[Gorkimedes]

How I see them, if we're going with an early founding then the chapter comes from a time when the dream of Ultramar and a greater Imperium was still somewhat fresh. The chapters original values and beliefs would reflect this, the should still feel like Ultramarines but Ultramarines of the new world not mindless, blood thirsty monsters ( although they shouldn't shun committing atrocitites)

 

The tragedy of the chapter should be that they are not going to live up to this legacy. Like the kingdoms and rulers that followed the end of the Roman empire they can be crowned in Rome and claim to inherit the legacy but there's none of the scale or staying power. The Knights Panthera have this little conglomeration of worlds out in a corner of the galaxy no one cares about loosely held together by treaties signed on fear.

 

Like the cold dead world they come from the bureaucracy of this empire grows but is it accomplishing anything? They're trying to hold together a dead man with stitches and they have to keep adding more and more because pride and weight of history prevents them from letting go and building something better.

[ElectricPaladin]

How I see them, if we're going with an early founding then the chapter comes from a time when the dream of Ultramar and a greater Imperium was still somewhat fresh. The chapters original values and beliefs would reflect this, the should still feel like Ultramarines but Ultramarines of the new world not mindless, blood thirsty monsters ( although they shouldn't shun committing atrocitites)

 

The tragedy of the chapter should be that they are not going to live up to this legacy. Like the kingdoms and rulers that followed the end of the Roman empire they can be crowned in Rome and claim to inherit the legacy but there's none of the scale or staying power. The Knights Panthera have this little conglomeration of worlds out in a corner of the galaxy no one cares about loosely held together by treaties signed on fear.

 

Like the cold dead world they come from the bureaucracy of this empire grows but is it accomplishing anything? They're trying to hold together a dead man with stitches and they have to keep adding more and more because pride and weight of history prevents them from letting go and building something better.

 

But, to counter and compliment this, if they were willing to see their achievements on a human scale, they'd understand that they'd built something worthwhile. People in their worlds are better fed, better educated, and safer than they are in most of the Imperium. But the Knights Panthera are too arrogant, to driven by the need to equal or exceed their forebears, to understand this.