The Raiders of Asaheim

[Morik]

Hi guys,

 

I just wanted to share some of the fluff i'm working on for my great company, and ask for your opinion and suggestions and to see if its believable to the SW lore. im trying to downplay the whole wolf thing and focus more on the viking aspect with a bit of pirate thrown into it,

 

My great company for witch im considering the name "the raiders of Asaheim" is led by "Morik Bane Jarl of the raiders of Asaheim and captain of the Void Ranger", this would be my first question would the tittle of captain be appropriate for a SW?  not captain of the great company but of the ship (void ranger). what other title might i use?

 

My fluff which is still WIP is that my great company travels the void in search of weapons, armour and vehicles returning every 5-10 year to fenris bringing it back for the whole chapter, the other jarls are happy to let packs of their blood claws eager for adventure and unhappy GH and LF join the company in exchange for some of the "spoils", which sometimes are found on space hulks or old abandoned battlefields and sometimes are acquired from unwilling "donors".

 

this would be my second question, do you guys have any sugestions who these "donors might be"? while i do want to have the whole raiding and taking by force of the gear be apart of the fluff i know that raiding other loyal chapter is a quick way to get branded a traitor, the logical choice would be to raid chaos marines, but i dont know how the rest of the chapter would feel about my company turning up with a couple hundred suits of chaos marine Power Armour and saying "just wash them paint them and they are like new!" i know alot of marines would refuse to wear such suits and use such weapons, is reconsecrating the gear a thing, maybe the priesthood blesses them and they can use them, or what do you guys suggest?

 

Any other suggestions of how and from who the gear is taken would be appreciated

 

thx!

[Vash113]

 

Hi guys,

 

I just wanted to share some of the fluff i'm working on for my great company, and ask for your opinion and suggestions and to see if its believable to the SW lore. im trying to downplay the whole wolf thing and focus more on the viking aspect with a bit of pirate thrown into it,

 

My great company for witch im considering the name "the raiders of Asaheim" is led by "Morik Bane Jarl of the raiders of Asaheim and captain of the Void Ranger", this would be my first question would the tittle of captain be appropriate for a SW?  not captain of the great company but of the ship (void ranger). what other title might i use?

 

My fluff which is still WIP is that my great company travels the void in search of weapons, armour and vehicles returning every 5-10 year to fenris bringing it back for the whole chapter, the other jarls are happy to let packs of their blood claws eager for adventure and unhappy GH and LF join the company in exchange for some of the "spoils", which sometimes are found on space hulks or old abandoned battlefields and sometimes are acquired from unwilling "donors".

 

this would be my second question, do you guys have any sugestions who these "donors might be"? while i do want to have the whole raiding and taking by force of the gear be apart of the fluff i know that raiding other loyal chapter is a quick way to get branded a traitor, the logical choice would be to raid chaos marines, but i dont know how the rest of the chapter would feel about my company turning up with a couple hundred suits of chaos marine Power Armour and saying "just wash them paint them and they are like new!" i know alot of marines would refuse to wear such suits and use such weapons, is reconsecrating the gear a thing, maybe the priesthood blesses them and they can use them, or what do you guys suggest?

 

Any other suggestions of how and from who the gear is taken would be appreciated

 

thx!

 

 

Not the most fluffy route to take with your company. Taking the equipment of others is something the Space Wolves do, ships, weapons, tokens etc. Grimnar's axe is a reforged chaos weapon. Even so it is still not a particularly common or widely approved practice, the taking of Logan's flagship led to considerable strain between the chapter and the Imperial Navy and Logan's axe has hardly made the Inquisition or the Ecclessiarchy happy. Only the 13th Company regularly repurpose chaos items. 

 

While some things could be salvaged much of the wargear used by the forces of chaos would be far too tainted or twisted to be used. A lot of chaos wargear is infused with warp essence, a fusion of flesh and metal, many chaos marines can no longer remove their armor, many don't use standard ammunition with their weapons, some of their weapons spit warp fire or bullets infused with daemonic essence.

 

Rogue warbands that have yet to become fully twisted by the powers of chaos would be the most likely target, for their wargear and equipment would be far less likely to be so heavily tainted or corrupt and much might well be old or customized Imperial wargear the chapter can simply retake and repurpose.

 

Other sources for material could be worlds lost to xenos threats, abandoned for one reason or another, cut off by warp storms, derelict vessels lost in the warp, Space Hulks being the largest such vessels, old battlefields, both on the ground or in the void, many wars having left huge expanses of wrecked vessels numbering in their hundreds, if not thousands, with raging plasma fires, unstable warp anomalies caused by exploding warp engines, still active mines and torpedoes who missed their targets but are still very much live and ready to explode, as well as other pirates and raiders.

 

There are also many kinds of pirates, smugglers, renegades, rebels and other unsavory factions operating on the fringes of the Imperium, trading with xenos and providing vital means of communication and supply amongst the Imperium's most far-flung outposts with or without authorization from the High Lords, the most unsavory of these would be ripe targets to capture and salvage.

 

All things considered though few items that could be taken apart from vessels or archaeotech would be particularly valuable or important to the chapter. Unlike the Marines Malevolent and other chapters with few opportunities for supply and few resources the Space Wolves have an ample armory, a considerable number of Iron Priests and solid routes of supply and treaties of support, alliance and provision from numerous worlds and factions around the Fenris System, Garm among them. Weapons, munitions and war-machines are not in short supply for the chapter, particularly when you consider that the resources of the Fang and the assets and allies the wolves can call upon once supplied a Legion numbering in the tens of thousands and now all of that is turned to the arming and provisioning of a few thousand.

 

You might want to consider a somewhat different approach. A policy sometimes undertaken by chapters or elements of a chapter is to join an exploratory fleet from the Mechanicus or a Rogue Trader house. The chapter provides warriors and sometimes ships to provide military support to the expedition in exchange for lucrative supply, transportation or trade agreements with whatever faction is undertaking the expedition. One such mission detailed in the Space Marine Battles book Death of Integrity involved two chapters cleansing a Space Hulk for the Mechanicus in exchange for a single strike cruiser to be built and delivered to the chapters involved. The Marines Errant chapter in the Forge World Badab War books were detailed as having assisted exploratory expeditions undertaken by the Rogue Trader House Ecale and as a result gained significant void warfare experience and powerful political connections. While the Space Wolves don't have much need for ships or alliances a group of wolves assisting an exploration mission could do so in exchange for archaeotech weapons or equipment, or the right to take their pick of any technology or relics discovered by the expedition to be returned to the chapter as a whole upon the completion of each expedition. Many of these exploration missions go beyond the current boundaries of the Imperium, discovering worlds unreached by even the Great Crusade where ancient caches of archaeotech can be found, such technology and relics would be things the chapter could otherwise not easily acquire and would be worth pursuing.

[NightHowler]

I love it. I say go with "hunting down and bringin to justice recent traitors" for your source of "donors". As for how fluffy or unfluffy it may or may not be, I wouldn't be overly concerned with that. Think of fluff more as "guidelines" than actual rules. As long as your not altering the story behind named characters/locations, you're still in the green zone in my opinion. My great company doesn't fit the standard great company mold either. Rebeling against the codex is part of what first drew me in to the Space Wolves to begin with.

[MaveriK]

what about corrupt governors/generals ruling a planet or outpost? your wolves go in, kick ass while giving authority the finger taking from the rich and corrupt while giving back to the people...

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

I kinda went with a renegade approach as well. I sorta went all noblebright making my Company Defenders of Humanity (all of it that are untainted by chaos, including those that fraternize with Xenos). I made my company veterans of the First war of Armageddon, who stood with Logan Grimnar in mooning the Inquisition. I made my Jarl hate the Inquisition, and see many of the Imperial institutions as havens for the corrupt (I couldn't help myself, I'm a red-blooded, democracy loving, free-market capitalist, American, I love the idea of a free and open society, and would have the Imperium be an idealized republic). I have made my Great Company such that they respect martial prowess and honourable conduct, above all other things. To them it doesn't matter if your ancestors allied with Xenos in order to survive, you are human, you haven't fallen to chaos, and are therefore redeemable, and should not be killed. Likewise, if you have resisted the call of chaos when it stared you in the face, and threatened to violate your sanity, you can be redeemed, and should not be killed. If you have actively fought chaos, and shown courage and resolve human or xeno, you should be praised and defended, for you clearly have an unbreakable, iron will. If you make good on your word, even something small, you will be held in esteem. If you attempt to right your wrongs, you'll be well regarded. 

 

So, I made my Great Company's fluff reflect my values, more than the imperium's. I wanted to reflect the noble savage sort of image the space wolves have, and isn't really explored that well. All we ever really see of the Space Wolves is them beating face against the Imperium's enemies. We have a few examples of them defending humanity, but I really wanted to explore the rift between the Space wolves and the Imperial Institutions like the Inquisition, and I think, the ecclesiarchy. Russ never saw eye to eye with the emperor, and really did not care for him IIRC, so why should his descendants? 

 

The point I'm trying to make is, don't let the established fluff constrain you too much, use it as guidelines, and just craft your lore so that its deviations are reasonably explained, and consistent with the established fluff. Even if it's like mine, where I have Space Wolves, that'll work with Tau, Necrons, and Eldar, to fight off nastier threats, like the tyranids, Dark Eldar, Orks, Chaos, and other Necrons. I kind of fluffed all my factions out so that they're all a little bit on their own program. Farsight Enclaves Tau, that have Isolated themselves from the ethereals and adhere to a more liberal interpretation of the greater good (i.e. cooperate with anyone that doesn't open fire immediately). A noble Necron dynasty that could care less about getting fleshy bodies, and has many nobles and will trade with anyone that has something to offer (I envision my Tau providing earth caste technicians to help maintain the canopteks and tomb world machinery). My Space Wolves are just around to keep things from crunching or om nom nomming the humans that live there. All of them coexist, in some semblance of peace. This whole mess is also darn close to Ultramar, home to one of my secondary favourites, the Ultramarines (Captain Titus from Space Marine is one of my favourite characters). 

 

The reason I did this is because I played in a campaign in which I could use all three of my armies. I just had to have a good reason why they'd all be on friendly terms. So that's what I came up with. So like I said, guidelines. I hope this gave you some ideas on how to craft your lore so that it's consistent, but still exactly what you want.