The Red Dragons WIP

[Barbatos]

Founding: Unknown
Reason for Founding: Created to serve as a Vanguard force for crusades and large scale invasions.
Parent Chapter: Salamanders
Homeworld: Antioch
Fortress Monastery: The Black Palace
Speciality: Terminators, close-combat assault, flame weaponry.
Colors: Grey, red and gold
Chapter Symbol: A red or white dragon 
Battlecry: Fear the Dragon!
 
Origin

The Red Dragons were founded at an unknown time by the Lords of Terra to serve as a vanguard for crusading forces in the Segmentum Obscurus. They were created from the gene-seed of the Salamanders, a legion known to be ideal Space Marines with legendary constitution and willpower. But this new chapter were not to mirror their parent chapter and be stoic defenders of mankind, no, they were to be the barbed tip at the spearhead of the Imperium's conquests. Resourceful, independent, ruthless and a force of sheer destruction. Their priority was to go into battle ahead of the invasion force and destroy the enemies defences, caring little in the way of collateral.

The leader of this new force was picked from the Salamanders 1st Company, a marine named Mo'akn Hassan. Mo'akn accepted this prestigious role as Chapter Master with pride and with a small battle company they set off to their new world, Antioch. They found Antioch a turbulent and unpredictable world with diverse biomes ranging from fertile plainlands and tundras to scorching black deserts and violent volcanoes. They set to work creating the Red Dragons without rest. Their arms and armour were repainted, marines were sired and fortifications built. Things were going as planned according to Mo'akn but he knew little of the real reason they were given this planet as a home. The Red Dragons were often warned at length by the planets natives who feared the marines, though they were civilised they were yet to master gunpowder and steam technology. Whenever envoys were sent to the native cities and castles they were turned away by arrows and cries of mercy, what little contact they had were from a clan of rugged dark-skinned hunters who lived in the black deserts. They explained to the Red Dragons that the world below the surface was home to great serpents, beasts who would rise to the surface when the volcanoes bled fire to feed and nest. The hunters told the Red Dragons to seek sanctuary before the next Red Sky dawned as no one had ever slew these great beasts. Mo'akn headed the warning but told the hunters that his men would stand and fight to protect the people rather than hide away and cower.

 

 

The Red Dragons awaited the next Red Sky and though they were few in number they prepared. Mo'akn oversaw the construction of a great fortification atop a great mountain located in the black desert lands of Antioch, where the dark-skinned hunters told the astartes that the most dangerous of the serpents resided. The fortifications were built facing in towards the mountain where the entirety of The Red Dragons were out in force, gun batteries and tanks had their sights trained on a cave mouth from where the serpents would emerge. The hunters stood by the Red Dragons side to face the serpents, since their ancestors first walked on Antioch they lived in fear of the beasts and thousands fell victim to the wrath of fire and claw. The men were ready and the mountain shook with volcanic wrath.

The Red Dragons were all but obliterated that day. Mo'akn had always assumed their quarry were no different from the Salamanders on Nocturne the likes of which he had slew before in his trials to become an astartes. How wrong he was. The serpents were in fact larger and more deadly than the noble beasts of Nocturne. They were akin to the fire-breathing lizards of ancient Terran legend and the namesake of Mo'akn's chapter... Dragons.

The dragons had not poured out of the cave mouth but in fact they ripped through the mountain-side, rupturing the earth and causing a flood of lava to pour from the wounded stone. The Red Dragons slew many of the creatures but it did little to dent their numbers. They surrounded their prey and blotted out the red skies with their huge wings. They burnt the fortifications to a crisp, melting the Red Dragons and feasting on their burnt carcasses. Of the two-hundred marines who stood against the dragons, only forty-nine escaped. The Red Dragons and the hunters took refuge in the cave-mouth,managing to steer a battered rhino to block up the entrance. The survivors burned with rage as they listened to the chaos ensuing outside. Two days past before the roars of the beasts died down and the Red Dragons unblocked the entrance and left their refuge. The sky was red and the fires still blazed, charred remains and melted fortifications littered the mountain top and the survivors fell silent at the carnage. The remaining Red Dragons buried what they could and gathered the ashes, they found Mo'akn alive and cowering beneath a wrecked Land Raider. He had lost his will and was screaming like a madman about fire and purity, proclaiming himself as Vulkan reborn. The Red Dragons gave him a merciful death, but his memory was to be stricken from the history of the chapter for his failing as a leader. After a day of mourning the astartes had the hunters tell them all they knew of the fire breathing threat.

The hunters explained that the Serpents would migrate across Antioch, hunting for their young and gathering materials for new nests. They spoke of how the serpents originally only killed to live and they were as much a part of Antioch as the native populace, but in recent decades their numbers had swelled and the beasts grew more aggressive, attacking cities and humans for food and even turning on one another. They were slowly becoming a threat to Antioch and if their numbers were allowed to swell, they would burn the world and leave nothing left. The Red Dragons deduced that to survive they would need to destroy these underground nests and then learn to slay the adults in an effective way.

Active command was given to Bellus a dark-skinned native Antiochan who was once a huntsman. Bellus told his brothers that he had always known of the threat of these beasts and several times tried to warn Mo'akn, but each time he was silenced by the Chapter Master. It came to everyone's attention that Mo'akn was a vain commander who refused the advice and warning of his peers, he had endangered the survival of the Chapter and recklessly deployed the entire chapter strength to fight an enemy they knew nothing about. The Red Dragons lamented Mo'akn's memory and proclaimed him a coward and fool. After denouncing their former leader the Red Dragons were resolved and each survivor volunteered himself to Bellus, on their mission of vengeance. Bellus picked nine of his most trusted warriors and gave each man a canister full of their comrades ashes. The chapters surviving Chaplain was among the nine and he blessed the canisters, anointing them with holy primers of the Emperor and making each of their company take an oath of vengeance or death. There would be no returning in defeat, the threat of the Dragons of Antioch had to be dealt with, not just for the survival of the Red Dragons but for all life on Antioch.

 

Bellus and his company made their way through the cave, vengeance in their hearts and the fallen at their sides.

 

 

 

The Red Dragons descended further into the mountain, the bubbling and searing heat was indication enough that they were getting closer to their prey. The ground hissed beneath them with every step and their power armour was working hard to keep the marines alive. The journey was interrupted by many smaller variants of dragon, each more fierce than the last. The beasts fought with desperate ferocity and cost the marines a few wounds, one had lost his arm to a barrel-like dragon hiding among the other dead creatures. After hours of navigating the tunnels and fighting tooth and nail, the ten brothers had made it to the inner sanctum. It was a great pit with lava-falls and precious gemstones decorating the ever descending abyss below them. The space had been emptied by the smaller flying dragons and Bellus told his company that the brood mothers would always stay behind to defend the nest, larger and more wrathful than the others. 

 

The plan was to lure out the brood mothers and slay all but one. The mothers influence, but do not control, the smaller males and females through psychic waves. without a brood mother a "murder" of dragons would lack leadership and go rogue. Earlier the hunters and Bellus theorised that by slaying all but one brood mother, the population of the dragons would be contained and end their planet-wide cull of the native populace. Bellus ordered two brothers equipped with jump packs to plant charges on the roof of the chamber and provide over-watch, three devastators ordnance took the middle levels to provide the brunt of the firepower. Bellus and the remaining four to take on the brood-mothers wherever they may appear. It was not long before the dragons emerged.

 

 

 

Three of the monsters burst from the walls at separate intervals, they were however at a disadvantage as none of them could take flight and resorted to climbing the walls and spewing flames. The Red Dragons plan was executed flawlessly. The devastators shot at the walls the beasts clung to, halting their ascent. As they fell from the walls the charges were detonated collapsing the ceiling and burying the beasts below. Bellus and his remaining brothers descended upon the trapped brood mothers with wrathful vengeance. They cracked open the thick hide of their heads and crushed their skulls,ending the lives of the brood mothers with brutal perfection. As planned they left a single one alive and took trophies from the ones they slew.

 

The Red Dragons returned to the surface and found the others awaiting their return. Without a moments rest Bellus ordered his men to fortify the mountain, both within and without. They would not suffer the threat of the dragons below to go unchecked and would stand as the planets defence against their numbers. The following decade saw a great palace erected atop the mountain and gun batteries around the base of the mountain. The dragons had returned to the mountain a year after the palaces completion and their numbers were severely depleted. Bellus had closed off the great chamber they had nested in and controlled their hunting seasons and numbers with strict care. The recruitment trials were limited to the scattered hunter tribes in the black deserts, as a way to honour the first hunters who had aided the Red Dragons. Bellus was named Bellus Rex, meaning Bellus the Dragon in the native tongue of the hunters, a title all chapter masters would take upon their promotion.

 

The Red Dragons returned to suitable chapter strength and were deployed across the stars in later campaigns, however currently Antioch has received attention from various Xenos races and pirates seeking to poach the various dragons across the planet.

 

 

 
Homeworld
Antioch is a large planet located in the far north of the Segmentum Obscurus. It is a planet covered mostly in grassy plains and arctic tundra around the northern equator. Around 30% of Antioch's surface is black desert and home to numerous volcanic ranges. There are oceans and forests a plenty and the planet is rich in natural resources.

 

The Red Dragons reside in the centre of the black desert atop an ancient mountain fortress known as the Black Palace. The desert is an odd picture, despite the apocalyptic scenery of dead trees, lakes of lava and dragons the desert air is no different from the rest of Antioch, save the harsh humidity in the summer seasons. The deserts are home to various tribes of dark-skinned humans known as Ottshar. They are a larger more hardy breed than the smaller pale-faced Antiochans. The Ottshar are an old people who dwell in volcanic caves and ancient ruins of Antioch's past, hunting the many draconic species of the black desert for food and materials. They are prime examples of human beings and stand almost as tall as an astartes when fully grown. They survive on a diet of meat, fungi and roots and harvest water from subterranean caves beneath their dwellings. Ottshar are the sole source of Red Dragon recruitment and to become a Rex'ottshan or "Dragon Hunter" is the greatest honour for them.

 

The more fertile continents are inhabited by the Antiochans, pale-skinned humans who reside in high castles and stone cities throughout Antioch. They utilise gunpowder technology and are not unlike ancient renaissance Europa. They are a destructive and xenophobic people who constantly fight over territory and resources. The Red Dragons often step in to stop the Antiochans violent advances into the black deserts, but will let them kill one another so long as they do not walk the black sands.

 

Antioch's defining feature is its Draconid wildlife. The majority of native fauna is Draconid with diverse variants that appear to be too alien to be of the same classification. Not all dragons are harmful to human life and some are used as pack animals, livestock and hunting companions. The most famous example are Draconis Purpura otherwise known as Du'tar Rex or Red Dragons in low gothic. Draconis Purpura is the apex species on Antioch, a hive creature that works under a single female brood mother. They spend years underground in complex lava networks and tunnels, surfacing every four/five years when the volcanoes bleed and the earth moves to hunt. They used to be a planetary threat until the Red Dragons controlled their numbers and now they live mutually beneath the Black Palace.

 

 

Fortress Monastery
The Black Palace is a vast fortress made of volcanic rock and metal

 

 

Chapter Organization
 
 
Notable Campaigns
 
 
Recruitment

 
Combat Doctrine
 
 
Chapter Beliefs
 
 
Chapter Colors & Apperance

[Sir Perfluous]

If I might recommend something quickly, I'd avoid writing in white - it looks invisible when viewed on the mobile version of the site, and you have to highlight it all if you want to read it.
 

Homeworld: Antioch

They'd better have a Holy Hand Grenade as a chapter relic.

[Lysimachus]

Good start!

 

If I'm being honest the name sounds a little bit generic, but to be fair there's not actually anything wrong with it, fits well enough in the conventions of naming Chapters and It's better than something stupidly longwinded or pseudo-Latin-y. :P

 

They certainly sound pretty agressive which is cool, perhaps to expand think about whether they're full on assault specialists (jump packs and stuff) or maybe armoured assault (LRs, etc), maybe void boarding actions? Or it might be you want to stick to a more balanced composition and bring in more character in their personality.

 

Speaking of which, what are they like? Knightly, monk-ly crusader types (possible given the Homeworld name) or more savage? Defenders of humanity or cold killers? What do they believe in? Things like this really make a Chapter interesting!

 

Just a point on the Unknown stuff, it feels a little unlikely that they know exactly what their purpose is but don't have any idea where they came from or who they are? Sometimes a bit of mystery is cool, but sometimes it doesn't really add anything. Unless you have something specific planned, I'd just pick a Founding and a gene line (if not a parent Chapter). At the current unfleshed-out stage, pretty much any of the loyalist Legions would work, though given the name and preference for flamers the Salamanders could be a simple solution that don't have any particular fluff hooks that require extra work to fit into the IA (e.g. the Blood Angels curse).

[Doctor Perils]

Looks like a good start. I think you mean "Lords of Terra" and not "Lords of Terror" (that sounds more like a Night Lords warband).

 

Whenever you create a Space Marine chapter, I recommend going over to the Space Marine Painter to give people a better idea of the colour scheme and it helps to identify a chapter more easily :)

[Barbatos]

Thanks for all the feedback so far guys, appreciate it.

@Sir Perfluous, Thanks for the headsup!

@LySiMachus, really good point there especially about fluff hooks helped a lot.

@Lord T, yeah i'm still not fully decided on a paint scheme, going for what'll be easiest to paint. And yes spell-checker was on and changed some of the Terra's.