A Question about Sons of Medusa iconography

[Durus]

I recently looked into Sons of Medusa as an alternate - non black - paint scheme.

 

Anyway. while I was reading up on them I noticed some inconsistencies.

 

What I know so far is that the Moirae Schism got it's name from the Moerae of greek mythology. The three Fates.

Two of the three War Clans are aptly named after these figures as well, Atropos and Lachesis.

The third War Clan Mageara however seems to have been named after Megaera, who is one of the three Furies.

 

That seemed odd to me and I was wondering if anybody knew if there is a background reason for that?

 

 

Aside from that my investigation so far into the three War Clans in terms of iconography also revealed some interesting contradictions.

 

War Clan Mageara

The old school, all green except for the white helmet and badge scheme.

 

The Clan symbol is a front facing snake as per the image in the 6th edition Space Marine codex.

 

War Clan Atropos

The scheme from Imperial Armor 10, the second Badab War book (This book has all schemes, even the Mageara variant with black trims).

Green main color, black trims, white helmet and the chapter badge is black and the negative space is filled white.

 

The Clan symbol is identical to the Iron Hand Clan Atraxii. This had me confused. Is there a story to that?

 

War Clan Lachesis

I couldn't find any further information about these guys, except that IA10 says they use silver-steel in their heraldry.

Which I imagine means they paint the chapter badge silver instead of white.

 

Is there any further info on the Clan or does anybody have an idea what their symbol might be?

 

 

In summary I have three big questions

• Why the inconsistency in naming the War Clans?
• Why are the Atraxii and Atropos symbols identical?
• And what does Lachesis' symbol look like?

[N1SB]

I [Liked] your post because of your excellent research.  I hadn't noticed those details until now.

 

I have no insight on this issue and any comment I'd make would only be conjecture, probably the same speculations you have (i.e. Clotho as a clan name didn't sound grimdark enough).  Sorry about that, but replying to show appreciation for finding those details, will read up to buff up my own knowledge on this.

 

Also, very, very good call choosing a non-black colour scheme.  To this day I regret choosing the classic black scheme.

[Brother Captain Firelupus]

I to like the sons of medusa, they seem like a great chapter. As to why they did not use the third fates name, who can say. But keep going, i look forward to see how you go with this.

[Vel'Cona]

So the missing fate is Clotho?  Hmm, not sure why this wasn't used for the background material for SoM.  It's possible they just really liked the name Mageara instead, either that or perhaps the idea of a "jealous" or "envious" War Clan (Mageara's claim to fame) appealed to the popular image of the SoM as covetous scavengers.

 

In either case, it would be interesting to do an original SoM War Clan for Clotho as something of a "hidden" organization within the Chapter, though why this should exist would need to be explained in some detail.  :)

[N1SB]

In either case, it would be interesting to do an original SoM War Clan for Clotho as something of a "hidden" organization within the Chapter, though why this should exist would need to be explained in some detail.

That is awesome. Clotho, who spins the threads of life...a very apt name for those who try to engineer events from behind the scenes.

[Tyriks]

It's also worth pointing out that many elements of Greek mythology were fluid from generation to generation, so it's possible they were working from a source that swapped or conflated the two (either mistakenly or not).  This is more likely if the fluff surrounding them predates things like wikipedia which tends to make it seem more static than it was (for example, it presents Loki flatly as the son of Farbauti and Laufey, though many older rune poems list him as son or brother to Odin or with completely different heritage altogether).  So it might be that Magaera at least appeared to them to be the third fate instead of Clothos.  This seems plausible since the Furies frequently carried out a lot of what Clothos ordained.  

[jokaero weaponsmith]

Beautiful done research, I don't think that there is much anybody could really add to your post as it would all be conjecture.

You may just become the go to guy for the sons.

As to why the last clan is not Clotho is most likely its wasn't grim dark enough that said the clan names are based on medusa clans, it could be that there was a Clotho clan so there were the three fates.

But they were wiped out long before Ferrus got to medusa by inter clan fighting and had been forgotten or past into lengend as a warning of been weak.

Clan Mageara could possibly be based off of Magara again just conjecture

[Ascanius]

I suspect it comes down to "Clotho doesn't sound very cool," with the excuse that people in 30,000 years' time won't exactly remember the details of Greek mythology correctly.

 

I've sort of done my variant 30K Iron Hands in a Lachesis-inspired scheme, dark green armour with silver-steel details, but they're not really supposed to be directly connected to the Sons of Medusa.

 

Still, that's more or less how I'd do Clan Lachesis in 40K: green armour with silver-steel helmets, shoulder trim, and chapter badge.

 

The very poorly painted Sons of Medusa I re-entered the hobby with a few years ago were supposed to be from Mageara.

[Vel'Cona]

The very poorly painted Sons of Medusa I re-entered the hobby with a few years ago were supposed to be from Mageara.

Eh, I think they're fine! Not to mention the improvements you've made on your 30k army clearly show your evolution in painting technique. :)

I'm actually really hoping someone runs with this "Clotho Warclan" concept going forward . . .

[Ascanius]

Thanks very much for the kind words. :)

 

On another forum I frequent, there's a poster who has a very cool, if different, idea for the Sons of Medusa - that Clan Lachesis existed in the Horus Heresy era and absorbed a contingent of loyalist Sons of Horus, which introduced both green into their heraldry and warrior-lodge mysticism into their culture, and that's why they ended up getting caught up in the Moirae schism.

[Ascanius]

I was asked in PM but if anyone else is interested:

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?749856-40k-is-Going-Nuts&p=20519919#post20519919

 

You'll need to scroll through, or search for "Lachesis" - it's a general 40K chat thread, not a WIP.