Conn's Minor DIYs (free for all)

[Conn Eremon]

This is a list of what I consider my “minor” DIY Chapters. Really, I created them because of how much fun I had with FFG’s Rites of Battle Chapter Creation tools. On their own, they’re not all that accurate or inclusive, but it’s a fun challenge to take those randomly rolled attributes and weave a more complete Chapter concept out of them.

Now, the purpose of these DIYs for me is to play the parts that I need extra Chapters for in my main DIYs. Allies and foes, or just additional actors on whatever stage I am building. As such, their identities are very superficial right now, just enough to provide a hook I can build off of elsewhere. That way I won’t be restricted in how I use them, and I can allow a more in-depth identity to form organically from their use. It’s the same reason why I didn’t give every Chapter a color scheme.

These DIYs have no real hold over me like my main DIYs do. They’re not “mine.” So I’d like to do an experiment with them, and open these DIY concepts for anyone to use. As I said, I will be building their identities slowly by way of how I use them in other articles and writings. But it doesn’t just have to be my use, but anyone’s use.

So once again, these DIY concepts are free to all. Not to create full articles of them, but to utilize them as extras in your own articles or fan-fiction.

I only ask that you notify me if you use any. Not to get permission, I’m giving everybody permission right now. It’s so that I can more easily collect references made by myself and others, and update this thread with their expanding character. I’ll also just do semi-regular searches for these Chapter’s names, and if I think they’re related I’ll add the references to the list. And I’ll ask if I’m not sure.

Maybe I’m just being full of myself, and nobody will want to use these DIYs that I created except for myself.

In which case, if you don’t want to use any of these DIYs, but you like the idea and want to add your own DIYs to the list for anyone to use, go for it.

The only rules are:

• Do NOT use a full, or pre-existing, DIY. Only add brand new DIYs
• Do NOT give everything away. Leave enough mystery to the DIY that someone else can fill in the blanks.
• Minimum word count is 100. Maximum word count is 250. A good average is 150.

BRASS WARDENS

The Brass Wardens made a name for themselves during the conclusion of the Yosefine Uprisings of late M37. Unlike some other Chapters born of Guilliman’s seed, the Brass Wardens showed no mercy or respite to the rebellious sectors, less concerned with bringing the worlds back into loyal productivity. In the decade following full capitulation to the Imperium’s counter-insurgency response, the Brass Wardens would maintain a continued presence, exacting punishments upon the populace as befitting such a crime in their eyes. Requests for the Chapter to move on would fall on deaf ears, or assertions of a cult perpetrator that had yet to be fully rooted out. The nature of this cult was never elaborated upon, and no true investigations were made to verify this claim, but nearly ten years after full surrender the Brass Wardens were finally satisfied.

BROTHERS OF THE INFERNO

The sons of Dorn are known for being stubborn, but the Brothers of the Inferno were a step above, and most unforgiving besides. During the Anhelika Strickening, the Brothers were granted access to experimental hover-engine designs from a local forge world as a gift for the Brothers’ earlier efforts, as well as to repair their landspeeder and similar craft in preparation for their continued participation upon the war front. However, the engines proved volatile, and many Brothers were killed due to undisclosed complications with these mechanical constructs. When this forge world came under attack itself by the Ork threat, it petitioned the Brothers of the Inferno for aid. Chapter ships did appear in orbit and land vessels planetside, but then immediately left again for the Warp. Approaching the vessels left behind, they ended up containing the experimental tech originally provided to the Chapter, and nothing else. The forge world did not survive.

DARK SENTINELS

The Dark Sentinels recruit from the roving, floating Hiveships on their home world of Harpaz, reminiscent of the nomadic clans of their Iron Hand forbearers. The Sentinels have accumulated a vast reservoir of knowledge on the subject of Mankind’s enemies, particularly on the Enemies Beyond. The Sentinels themselves show no doubt in their control over this information, using this knowledge as a terrible weapon against all who stand against them. Voices have begun to be raised in the Inquisition however, that the overbearing weight of such knowledge will prove too great a burden to bear for the Dark Sentinels, and inevitably doom them to extinction or worse, corruption.

http://i.imgur.com/yzM2E6k.png

The soft colors of the Dark Sentinels’ armor is reflective of the becalmed worldsea of their home world, with few active tidal or tectonic forces to disturb it.

DEATH TEARERS

The deadly practice of blood duels on their former home world had readily been adopted by the Death Tearers, though it introduced multiple problems. Not only were they simply unable to accept first blood challenges from the Space Wolves, but the lack of meritorious rank advancement led to difficulties in maintaining the cohesion and secrecy of their Inner Council. This practice has been on a decline for several centuries, ever since an unanticipated Ork WAAAGH! turned their feral world into a world of ghosts and dried blood. Though the Death Tearers still maintain their home base on this now dead world, their recruitment programs have cast far wider nets, lessening the cultural hold the former denizens of their home world once had.

DEVOURERS OF FATE

The Devourers of Fate got their name from their Imperial Tarot deck, which would consistently predict their own demise at the hands of terrible threats to the Imperium. These vicious sons of the Khan saw these predictions as challenges to be overcome rather than avoided. Every predicted instance of Chapter-death has been faced by the Devourers, leading to their ongoing beliefs that by meeting the enemy head one, with pride and without fear, one can overcome the very fates. Their fleets are constantly on the move, in search for vaguely predicted threats to the Imperium, secure in the knowledge of their purity.

DOOM HUNTERS

Due to the degradations in the gene-seed, suspected to be due to alterations made to gene-stock prior to their Founding, it is unclear which gene-line the Doom Hunters are descended from, though it is presumed to be of the Ultramarines. Their dedication to the Codex Astartes is without reproach, and for six thousand years the teachings of their adopted Primarch has led them from victory to victory. However, in recent years their actions aboard a crippled Craftworld have earned them the enmity of their dark kin, whose masterful traps led to the capture and disappearance of whole Companies of the Hunters.

http://i.imgur.com/fnBDasP.png

“A good captain goes down with their ship, Governor. You are as responsible for this world’s doom as any of your wayward citizens. You did not do enough.”

EMPEROR’S HANDS

So named for they bring the reach of the Emperor deep into the darkest, furthest corners of the Imperium and beyond, the Emperor’s Hands have a history of cleansing frontier regions of threats to Imperial colonization. Though often deployed against countless minor alien fiefdoms on the outskirts of the Imperium, wayward human communities have also witnessed their wrath. Should they choose resistance over assimilation, the Emperor’s Hands would swiftly advance and overwhelm them in a deliberately deployed display, intending to quell quickly their defiance before it should spread beyond their world. They have even been known to capture and imprison certain individuals, no doubt the Chapter seeing themselves as the sole representatives of Imperial law along its frontiers.

GOLDEN FALCONS

The Golden Falcons have never forgotten the devastation wrought at the world-rotting hands of Iatrus, a vile brigand of the traitor Death Guard. The Golden Falcons’ failure to contain the viruses that scoured entire systems clean of life, systems the Chapter was sworn to defend, or to bring the elusive plague lord to task for his deeds, has haunted them ever since. Wherever news of Iatrus’s return spreads, the Golden Falcons are short behind, eager to destroy the monster in Marine form. The Golden Falcons have even hunted this beast into the very depths of the Warp, though always their prey slips away, their astropathic guides saying the distance between them while within the Warp being more of time than space. Toward the close of the 41^st millennium, the Golden Falcons came closest to their enemy. Iatrus and his warband had invaded a Mechanicus Biologis facility, slaughtering all inside and loading Exterminatus-grade warheads filled with experimental biological concoctions strikingly similar in composition to the weapons used by Iatrus all those years before. The Golden Falcons would exact terrible retribution upon them at this time, crippling or destroying many of Iatrus’ warships and much of his warband. Before Iatrus escaped into the Warp, he communicated his bile and hatred for the Golden Falcons, promising them that the first victims of his new weapon would be their very home. The Golden Falcons were unable to trace his path through the Warp, and have not seen him since.

LORDS OF RUIN

The ebon warriors of the Lords of Ruin are renowned for their willpower and steadfast nature. While they are conscious and careful of collateral damage while fighting on Imperial worlds or amongst its people, the alien breeds that plague the Imperium receive no such treatment. The meaning behind their name becomes evident when such foes as xenos make themselves available to the Lords of Ruin, their proficiency in close combat purgation protocols nearly unrivalled. Their dedication and zealotry to such pursuits is commendable. Space Marines of this Chapter even seek out the Ecclesiarchy for the blessings on their war gear, often master-crafted itself due to the superb skill of the Chapter’s Forge and its workers.

http://i.imgur.com/tLTBD1S.png

“Fire is clean and fair. It will purify even as it brings ruin. It separates the heretic and the alien from the just. We are all of us burned men.”

MAILED TALONS

Atmospheric plates are an uncommon sight on Imperial worlds. Impressive feats of engineering and proof of Humanity’s dominance over the natural world, these immense structures range from weapons platforms to residential, from island to continental sized. The home world of the Mailed Talons has four such plates, slowly traversing the skies. Long ago, long before the Chapter was founded or Imperium came to St. Uvral, there were dozens, the planet below captured in near perpetual night as these overlapping structures eclipsed the sun and the moon alike. Now, the planet is a graveyard of shattered plates, their fall and impact obliterating nearly all life, on or off the plates. The only worthwhile human life on St. Uvral exists on its last remaining Hive plates, but life still exists in the wastelands below. The horrors of adapted life and a landscape scarred by failing gravitic fields make for suitable training grounds, the primary rite of recruitment for the Mailed Talons being mere survival.

MILLENNIAL DESTROYERS

The Millennial Destroyers had an enemy that plagued them in their earliest days, forming the first true threat against the Chapter. It was their triumph over this foe that had given the Chapter its lasting name. That triumph was total however; no information remains as to the nature of that threat and therefore the meaning behind this name has long been lost to all but the Chapter itself. Since then, in the three thousand years of their existence they have adeptly upheld the honor of the Emperor and his domain, as their brother Chapters slowly degenerate into madness. It is only a matter of time before the Angel’s Curse affects the Millennial Destroyers as well.

http://i.imgur.com/x4EJTdN.png

9^th Company Captain Nicoli Viciander of the Millennial Destroyers, c. 832.M41

Awarded the Badge of Saviors posthumously by Militarum General Dufri, the Space Marine commander’s sacrifice directly leading to the survival and withdrawal of nearly 14 million Imperial Guardsmen. The Chapter has never formally accepted the commendation.

NIGHT MARAUDERS

Created in the 26^th Founding from Ultramarines stock, the Night Marauders were something of an experiment, an alteration from the norm, and, some might say, a repeat of past mistakes. A reactionary force sent with the ongoing order of finding all who had dared step from the God-Emperor’s light, and bring everlasting ruin upon them as an example for all to see, the Night Marauders quickly gained a terrible reputation out on the galactic eastern edge. Though more often than not the Chapter was engaged in more traditional zones of battle, they would readily abandon xenos extermination pogroms upon word of secession. They had few friends among their brother Chapters, the Ultramarines and other Successors finding their purpose distasteful and a matter of shame rather than pride. Even the sons of the Lion were ill disposed to the Night Marauders, often finding each other at odds over the handling of revolutionary spirits. For the past century, the Chapter has been almost entirely focused upon the xenos race of Tau, and the traitorous human worlds that had accepted them.

OBSIDIAN KNIGHTS

In volcanic-hardened armor worn by generations of demi-god heroes with the will to shape the galaxy, these Knights of the Emperor have brought the blade of retribution down upon many the necks of heretics and aliens alike. Their presence on their home world has had a civilizing effect, many of its jungles cleared away as immense stone and iron edifices were raised, its tribal peoples trading tools and weapons of wood and bone for steel, their hunter lifestyle for an agrarian society. This transition took time, but only a fraction of that of a more natural progression. The speed did not allow their people’s culture to adapt, and so much of it remained. Rather than the slow shift and supplanting of the beliefs and traditions of a hunter-gatherer society until little remained, a fusion occurred between the feudal, agrarian way of life the Knights had forged and the feral tribes that were improperly adapted. Within time, this fusion would seep into the Chapter itself through its recruits, until the Chapter became a reflection of the world they had created.

SILVER LIONS

The Lions were an ancient people of Chogoris, its willful young proving more than adequate recruits to the White Scars Legion. The Brotherhood of the Silver Lions, as such scions called themselves, their brilliant white armor oiled to a reflective sheen. The sons of the Khan have always valued freedom over all, and the Lions were no different. When the Brotherhood was freed from the Legion, so too were its people from the world that was no longer their own. The Silver Lions never took another world, remaining fleet-based for the next ten thousand years; its ships crewed by the descendants of their own people, from whom they continue to recruit exclusively. The Silver Lions have a long, storied history of swift ferocity, the Lions flashing past their enemies in a blur of bright silver and crimson blood.

http://i.imgur.com/GkGYlWN.png

The Silver Lions look still much as they did during the Age of the Emperor, their white armor cleaned to a bright sheen. Indeed, since the outline of a resplendent lion may be easily overlooked, especially over a distance, it is the reflective quality of their armor that most distinguishes them from their White Scar brothers, who also retain their Legion colors.

STEEL BLOOD

One of the ever-dwindling ranks of Chapters formed in the Cursed Founding, the chimeric Chapter offsets the burgeoning errors in the IX gene-line with an internalized obsession with the mechanical augmentation of their biological form. The intent to overcome these genetic flaws was hypothetical at best, and proved wholly inadequate in practice. As Marines of the Steel Blood Chapter begin to feel the onset of the curse, they begin to feel equally overwhelmed with a need to replace their organic parts, and they will often not wait to go through proper channels before beginning self-mutilation. One has only to look at one of the more prolific bionic enhancements, the eyes. More often than not, their faces will bear terrible scars, evidence of how their eyes were torn from their sockets in mad reaction to the visions that plagued their souls.

THUNDER LORDS

The Thunder Lords likely appear in many records, such as those held by the Mechanicus, and will likely be remembered for many centuries or longer by those who had known the Thunder Lords, or at least of them and their work. The Chapter was as mighty and honorable as any other, and certainly, there will be those who will remember that. However, they appear only by their Chapter name, on the list read aloud in the council chambers of the High Lords. Only their name was given, giving no evidence of their glory or their history. Just a name, on a list of a dozen more, to show how dangerous the Tyranid threat has so terribly become. The Bell of Lost Souls rang thrice for each.

THUNDER WINGS

They who walk in the skins of the dead, they are called, by the tribes of their world. A myth with some truth to it, of mortal men stolen in the night, their skins worn tight by the angels who fly on wings of thunder. A truth, of sorts, though one still born of ignorance, the angel within bearing still the soul of the man. This ignorance becomes tradition, the morbid successor of the Raven creating a cult of death, as the recruits must symbolically die by their own hands, to become the angel of death that takes their body, the living embodiment of the Emperor’s will.

http://www.freespiritgallery.ca/Images/npr-16t.jpg

The bright turquoise stones and thick, predominantly red, black and white colored artwork that covers each Marine in unique, individual patterns such as the the above rendition of the Imperial Aquila and Emperor, makes them far from ordinary or plain looking, in spite of their otherwise grey, unpainted ceramite armor.

WAR GUARD

The gold-limned sentinels of the Kozsach Wastes have for thousands of years maintained and cultivated a highly visible persona of angelic heroism and power, while keeping their more true selves hidden away. Countless battles and wars have been waged behind the public eye, their inherent savage bloodthirst remaining unseen, while planetary and imperial dignitaries are hosted by giants armored in precious jewels and metals. The duplicity of it disturbs the War Guard, but it is necessary to hide the darkness within. It is not without its price however. Those who do witness their flaws in action are purged, if able, and made to keep quiet, if not, with whatever atrocities witnessed covered in a manner to redirect blame or enquiry away from the Chapter. There are those who do not, those who survive and spread the tale. No one has yet to believe them. No one would dare, under the watchful eyes of the golden masks of angels.

[Kelborn]

Quite impressive work!

With which tool did you use to create your Marines? They look quite awesome and very individual.

[Conn Eremon]

If you mean the painter images, they're from a Russian fan-made program I was introduced to in this B&C thread.

 

If you mean the book I mentioned, it can be found here.

 

And thanks. :)

[Akuro Adennyciia]

Some of these are Sweet. The Silver lions and Dark Sentinels are particularly outstanding. Really, you covered a lot of bases with this list, so I can't think of anything you haven't already done better atm. Thanks for the link to the painter as well