Iron Skulls Custom chapter

[KnightsOfMars]

WIP 

 

- Iron Skulls –

Founding Chapter:          Iron Hands

 

Allegiance:         Imperium

 

Founding:        Twenty-Sixth Founding 738.M41

Known Descendants:    None

Chapter Master:            Unknown

Home world:    Grey keep

Fortress-Monastery:     Unknown

Colours:           Gunmetal, Black and Argent. Symbol is a metallic skull.

Specialty:         Unknown

Strength:          Approx. 150 battle-brothers after fighting off Tyranid attack on homeworld, now largely a massive silent graveyard. 

 

Battle Cry:        Usually Deathly Silent, roars of “+DIE!+ DIE!+ DIE!+” in close combat.

 

Nickname: The Knights of Mars

 

The Iron Skulls Space Marine chapter are a recently founded one (738.M41), assigned to the North East quadrant of the Ultima Segmentum.

 

Not to be confused with: the similar-sounding Silver Skulls chapter, with whose armour coloration and markings they share some similarities. The two chapters have not yet encountered each other.

 

Notable

 

This chapter is stocked with exceptionally advanced power armour, yet little in the way of heavy weapons or vehicles. This is due to events in the Chapter’s early history.

 

Knowing the dangerous area of space their new battle-brothers would be stationed to, the Iron Hands made a gift to their successor chapter – crates containing armour segments from the renowned Mark 2 "Crusade Armour" and its more heavily armoured variant the Mark 3 “Iron Armour”.

 

Similarly, the Tech-priests of Mars made a gift of parts from the from the advanced MK 8 ‘Errant’ armour design; rumour would have it in exchange for certain secret oaths and promises.

 

The Techmarines of the chapter have made Pilgrimage to Mars to study the Armour Indomitus and during this trip they made many notes. They are constantly using this information to try to recreate the Armour. 

 

As a result of all these factors, this chapter can boast some of the most enviable armour of any ‘minor’ space marine chapter.

 

The Mk 8 Helmets are highly adapted, featuring enhanced visual receptors over one eye and/or a comms antennae which helps the marines communicate better over long distances or in environments where distortion (natural or deliberate) would reduce the effectiveness of communications.

 

Whether because of their distance from Mars, their relatively new creation or a combination of the two, the chapter suffers from a lack of vehicles. 

 

History:

 

The Iron Skulls were sent to occupy a dimly-lit world on the Fringes of Imperial space, bordering the Ghoul Stars region.

Here, most days only lasted a few Terran hours, and night lasted longer than the terran norm.

Most residents usually catching about 9-ten hours sleep a night and living very simple, slow paced relaxed lifestyles. 

 

The planet was rather unique, in that it was classed by the Adeptus Administratum as a Feudal World, yet contained one of the most remote Imperial controlled Spaceports.

 

This spaceport (and the many bars, inns and alehouses surrounding it) was frequented by Imperial Naval crew, Rogue Traders, travellers, pilgrims who had become lost on their travels, a handful of Sanctioned Xenos, Ratlings, Sqats and Ogryns (who often found work as bouncers in these establishments). 

 

The world’s Imperial tithe was meagre but varied. Firstly, the world sent 25% of all the currency spent in their stores and Inns to the Imperium. This ranged from Imperial Credits to rare alien jewels, precious metals; even some forms of Xenos currency.

 

Secondly, thousands of barrels of an unique alcoholic spirit called 'Nostalgium' which (aside from the usual effects of alcohol) encourages the human brain to vividly remember events from the drinker's past. 

 

If the drinker is in a good mood, the memories awakened will be of personal victories or other happy memories. If the drinker is in a bad mood, they are plagued by memories of bad times in their life. 

 

Bartenders are careful not to give Nostalgium to those who seem depressed, as drinkers have been known to self-harm when forced to relive memories of former lovers, personal failures or griefs. 

 

Notably, even when the world became Exempted from paying tithes due to being a Astartes homeworld, the planet continued to send it anyway, such as it was. 

 

Adeptus Mechanicus

 

Greykeep was also home to a small Adeptus Mechanicus outpost.

 

The Mechanicus on GreyKeep traded their skills (repairing spacecraft, fixing glitching cogitators etc) in exchange for any Archeotech or Xenotech that Rogue Trader Captains or other travellers could provide.

 

The authorities on Mars approved this borderline-Heretek research, on the provision that after these artifacts were scanned, pict-captured, scrutinised, catalogued and disassembled, they were subsequently Incinerated (or shattered after exposure to liquid nitrogen if the objects were resistant to great heat).  

 

 

The Fall of GreyKeep

 

The good times could not last forever. After a horrifying night-time skirmish in the largest cemetary on the planet with some bizarre Xeno creatures (Tyranid Coffin crawlers protected by a Lictor) fear began to overcome the planetary population. 

 

The Iron Skulls Apothecaries discovered that the populace was victim to a gene-stealer infection, and so the Astartes had to cull thousands of citizens. This deeply affected the chapter, who had enjoyed a very close relationship with the planetary populace. After this purge, the foundations for the Hooded ones cult began within the Chapter at this time. 

 

A form of temporary grief-inspired madness gripped the chapter and all xeno influences were purged from the planet by the Astartes and local vigilante groups. Mysterious strangers at the spaceport who could not account for themselves were told to leave the planet or face immediate execution.

 

All 'friendly' xenos on the planet were killed in an orgy of violence that even extended to those who looked vaguely unusual or eccentric. 

 

A little over a month later, a small Tyranid splinter fleet landed their invasion force on the planet. All able-bodied men and women who could be spared were armed with swords, bayonets and primitive slugthrowers (ranging from designs resembling the antique blunderbuss all the way up to designs resembling 20th century machine guns) but even with the combined forces of the Adeptus Astartes, the local Adeptus Arbites and a small force of some retired IG troopers were not enough to turn back the Tyranid menace.

 

The surviving population were evacuated to a vast network of bunkers, vaults and stone dungeons beneath the Space Marine fortress in the centre of the capital city. The Astartes fought a fierce battle for several days against creatures that managed to sneak into the complex via sewer tunnels, until eventually the decision was reached to release the Life-eater virus on the planetary surface. 

A suicide squad of 100 marines travelled to the surface the next morning to wipe out any remaining invaders. By the next morning, the planetary surface was completely dead and only a thousand Imperial ctizens and 100 Astartes survived the event. The Hive fleet remnant had mercifully left orbit by this point.

 

 

 

 

 

Beliefs:

 

The Iron Skulls are completely loyal to the Imperium, but possess many heretical beliefs and have close ties to the Adeptus Mechanicus.

 

Most troubling is that they doubt the divinity of the Emperor, instead believing that he was a hero, inventor, genius, psyker and teacher. They realise that their views are unconventional and as a result do not share them with anyone but their new initiates.

They still idolise the Emperor, and they have many images and statues of the Emperor in their Fortress-Monastery.  They often spend hours gazing upon his image and consider how they can better themselves to conform to his ideal. Instead of Prayer to the Emperor, they spend the time meditating on his example.

They see the Emperor as a ‘perfect man’ worthy of emulation, but not as a god. The exception to this is the 'Hooded ones' mentioned below.

 

Their roles are currently to:

-          Lend aid to the neighbouring Death Spectres Chapter as and when required.

-          Capture Tau and other Xeno technology for the Adeptus Mechanicus to investigate.

-          Destroy the remnants of the Tyranid hive-fleet Moloch and Hive Fleet

-          Jormungandr.

-          Provide early warning of threats entering Imperial Space.

-          Keep watch over anything trying to escape from the Ghoul Stars

 

Gene-Seed

There are no noted physical flaws with the Iron Skull's gene-seed, although they share with their parent chapter a strong interest in Technology and bionics.

 

Hooded ones

 

 

 

 

The Hooded ones are a special non-codex grouping within the Iron Skulls who are obsessed with death and filled with dark thoughts (not surprising given their history). They worship the Emperor as a god of death, Judgement and rebirth, in the form of a winged, skull-faced grim reaper of myth.

 

They believe that if they serve him by killing vast numbers of enemies of the Imperium, the Emperor (who they believe is beyond life and death) will judge them worthy, allow them to sit by his side and be reborn when he himself is reborn in millennia to come. If however they fail to provide to send him enough souls, they believe that the Emperor will cast their souls into the warp, to be eaten by Daemons forever. 

 

They are close-combat experts, who wield power weapons in the shape of Scythes and wear black hoods and robes. In order to get into combat faster, they are equipped with Jump packs decorated with wings. 

 

Before they enter battle, they drink a brew of Nostalgium mixed with the blood of fallen Battle brothers. This gives them visions of the Emperor as a god of Death watching over them and commanding them to deliver souls to the Golden Throne.

 

 

 

Armour

The Iron Skulls favour earlier mark armours such as the Mark 2 "Crusade Armour" and its more heavily armoured variant, the Mark 3 "Iron Armour". Due to events early on in the chapter’s history, they possess a small number of these antique but invaluable suits. Officers of the Chapter often wear highly adapted and modified Armour resembling the latest MK 8 “Errant” armour.

To the Iron Skulls, all other marks of armour are inefficient and deeply flawed. Those who are forced to wear other marks of armour are often those who have made mistakes in battle, publicly shamed amongst their battle brothers by wearing the “inferior” armour marks. These battle brothers fight twice as hard in future to earn the right to wear their former suits.

 

_______________________________________________________________

 

C & C Welcome!

 

 

P.S. What a great co-incidence that the Prospero Burns box set contains lots of MK3 suits? This will really help me build the chapter fast!

[Jagus Kumkani]

Did you come up with all of this on your own? Your Chapter history, beliefs, etc?

 

Is this the standard as far as making a custom chapter? 

 

By the way, this chapter is awesome, colors, lore, everything.

[Vykryl]

I read B&C almost exclusively from my phone and this looks blank other than two pics and a small block of text after second pic. May want to change the white font so mobile viewers can read about your chapter without having to highlight the whole thing.

 

Do like the color scheme you've chosen.

[Guest Mordray]

I read B&C almost exclusively from my phone and this looks blank other than two pics and a small block of text after second pic. May want to change the white font so mobile viewers can read about your chapter without having to highlight the whole thing.

 

Do like the color scheme you've chosen.

It's because they played with the text color... specifically they changed the color to white from it's default automatic.

[KnightsOfMars]

Did you come up with all of this on your own? Your Chapter history, beliefs, etc?

 

Is this the standard as far as making a custom chapter? 

 

By the way, this chapter is awesome, colors, lore, everything.

 

Thanks bud, yes I came up with it on my own over many weeks.

 

My original concept was to have a chapter that got on very well with loyal populace and (for Astartes) lived a pretty 'happy' life, until tragedy struck so they began to wallow in GrimDark.  

[KnightsOfMars]

I read B&C almost exclusively from my phone and this looks blank other than two pics and a small block of text after second pic. May want to change the white font so mobile viewers can read about your chapter without having to highlight the whole thing.

 

Do like the color scheme you've chosen.

 

Amended thank you

[Vykryl]

Enjoyed reading your chapter history now that i can see it ;)

[Doctor Perils]

 

I read B&C almost exclusively from my phone and this looks blank other than two pics and a small block of text after second pic. May want to change the white font so mobile viewers can read about your chapter without having to highlight the whole thing.

 

Do like the color scheme you've chosen.

 

Amended thank you

 

Unfortunately it's quite difficult to read on the computer now :P See if you can just put it in "automatic" colour :)

 

From what I can make out, it looks very promissing. I like the chapter colours (though I'm never personnally fond of giving boots a different colour from the greaves) - I'd also add "Teal" to the chapter colours in the details section :)

 

One thing I'd be wary of is having your chapter whittled down to only 150 marines so early in their life - this could easily be the beginning of the end if they don't get substantial help from the Iron Hands, and from what I've read of canon, it rarely works in that direction.

 

In terms of armour variants, I think it would be more likely for the Iron Hands to have relic mkII and III armour, whereas the Mechanicus would have more mkVIII. In any case, you'd probably do well to find a reason for these organisations to gift such precious relics and prototypes to such a young chapter - after all, the other chapters are also going to dangerous postings (otherwise they wouldn't send a Marine chapter), but they aren't specifically mentionned as having much special armour. One example of a reason could be that the first chapter master of the Iron Skulls, a noteworthy Veteran Sergeant of the Iron Hands, was owed a great debt on behalf of the priesthood of Mars?

Another minor detail about the armour - all Space Marine Power Armour suits are incredibly precious relics of the chapter: as such, I really can't imagine the Iron hands keeping any in crates (despite being more pragmatic then some other chapters)

 

In your history section, you mainly go into details about the homeworld - try and rearange that :) Also, Chapter homeworlds are generally exempt from tithes.

 

For the beliefs section: note that Space Marine chapters are actually mostly of the same opinion as yours, in not viewing the Emperor as a god, but more an illustrious father figure (plus some more, but they still don't see him as a god) - it is in fact those chapters that do venerate him as a god that are mentionned specifically to do so (like the Black Templars)

 

I'd be happy to do some extra C&C, but the contrast of writing, combined with the glare of my computer screen mean that I'll give myself a headache if I do so just now :P Read you soon :)

[Tyriks]

My thoughts were very similar. To be so young and yet so badly hurt would make it hard to recover. Maybe you could work that in, though - maybe the High Lords are urging them to simply disband and join other chapters who need replenished, but they're adamant they can recover.

[KnightsOfMars]

Update - I have bought a set of excellent FW Iron hands MK 3 armour (5 marines) and 5 FW MK 2 marines (yet to be delivered)

 

I plan to obtain the MK 3 sprue (30 marines I believe) from Prospero burns box set and then mix and match all three sets to make 40 marines with a mix of mk2, mk3 and 'advanced' mk3 armour. I will then kitbash a Praetor and Sergeant and then buy the Iron warriors warsmith (GW Webstore exclusive) to be a techmarine/warsmith whatever they call it in 30k.