IA - Blackshields, Legion traitors and similar

[Kelborn]

Scions/ WoL for an Asteroid belt City spread across several ones, based on the nine cities of Braavos, etc.?

 

Crimson Lions for House Arryn?

 

Unfortunately are Greyjoy and the Iron Isles already blocked by the Drowned. Theirs is the best article in The World of Ice and Fire.

[bluntblade]

I'm already looking to do that for Sermeza to be honest, and the Katorz holdfast is similar too.

[Beren]

Pasting some name suggestions from Discord:

 

Kelborn-

Arcane Sons

Ashborn

The Tithe

Scythes of Mehambre

 

Calius-

Warriors of Blood

"Bastard Sons of a Bastard Legion"

 

Beren-

Blood of the Void

 

 

[bluntblade]

Added some more context to the Blackshields and I'm debating where this should go - Recantation or Expansion/Subjugation? Leaning toward the latter, as we're going to have a little Blackshield force in Attrition.

 

The Splintered and Black

  From the earliest days of the Insurrection, there were forces caught between loyalties, whose actions give the lie to the simplistic view that often colours the war. They were those who found themselves bereft of command and, in some cases, broken in mind and spirit by the treachery committed against them or by their masters. 

 

  While some of these splintered forces would return swiftly to service, engage in a campaign of savage reprisals or simply vanish, others would take a darker and bloodier path. Despite the official denials, it seems now that in every Loyalist Legion there were factions - sometimes entire companies or even larger bodies - which turned traitor. The reasons for such acts, posited and confirmed, are many. In some cases it seems that a corrupted warrior lodge was at the root, or Insurrectionist voices found the ear of a command cadre or other faction within the unit. Sometimes they found grievances and ambitions to play on, but the troubling possibility exists that some believed Icarion had the greater claim on their fealty, in a dark reflection of those sons of traitor Primarchs who cleaved to the Throne.

 

  This, then, may provide the truth behind tales of vessels in the livery of the Scions Hospitalier with the four-pointed star upon their flanks, preying on Loyalist ships in the Ralequir Abyss. Similar rumours surface a few years later with the Battle of Arl'yeth, where Astartes in the long-defunct panoply of the Steel Guard were also recorded, and the evidence was similarly suppressed. Still more troubling, and more fiercely disputed, are the images retrieved from the ruins of Syedel, which appear to show a Great Company of the Iron Bears laying waste the planet’s cities and massacring its people, apparently in support of an Eagle Warriors offensive. We have also a handful of documented instances of hybridised forces, including a company amongst the Great Slaughter at Beta Garmon in the merged colours of the Void Eagles and Berserkers of Uran. 

 

  These notorious cases serve to illustrate the murk and complexity of allegiances during the Insurrection, being merely the best-documented instances with many more known only through conjecture and the most fragmentary sources. As for the “true” Blackshields, those who obliterated their old colours and fought under entirely new banners, few can speak with any certainty of their allegiances. 

 

  As for what became of these orphaned warriors, little indeed is certain. The new masters of the Imperium are scarcely given to leniency, and many advocate that the sons of a turncoat be put to death, no matter their own allegiances. Purity of heart and deed is no guarantee against impure blood, these voices declare. In a few cases that sentence is known to have been meted out - although these purges have not always been successful. Some fled into the dark, and their allegiances can only be guessed at now.

 

  A great many Blackshield forces were of course swallowed up by the carnage of the Insurrection or the Scouring, or the depredations of resurgent alien powers. But there are others who, it is suspected have sought sanctuary alongside the Loyal Legions. Respected as brothers in spirit if not in blood, if the stories hold true, these Blackshields were absorbed and given anonymity. The great change worked upon the armies of the Space Marines may serve to bury the truth still deeper, even as it frees the sons of Insurrectionists and Suzerains to fight for the Imperial cause under their own banners again.