Cursed Founding / Dark Founding Info?

[Ryltar Thamior]

Because Umbral and I have a rather pronounced form of Hobby ADHD, and a love of both truescaled marines and Inq28-styled action ... we're in the process of gearing up for a campaign based around the aforementioned Cursed Founding and Dark Founding. 

Now, we've read [and re-read, because it's hands down some of the best 40k fluff yet produced] the Index Astartes article on the Cursed Founding; as well as gone through a few of the 40kwiki and 1d4chan resources which touch upon these events ... but there's so much [deliberately] left unsaid in them. Indeed, it's difficult to find a proper list of Dark Founding chapters beyond the three or four who've been officially confirmed as such in more recent years [Exorcists, Death Specters, and Crimson Sabres] or really, anything else about them whatsoever; and whilst the Cursed Founding has rather more available on them [including a more detailed list of chapters associated iwth the Founding, and greater speculation [with more hinting] as to *why* the Founding occurred and went the way it did - attempts to "improve" the basic Astartes geneseed in certain areas and hte potential for "chimaeric" geneseeds abounding].

So I guess what I'm basically asking is ... beyond the bare-bones materials easily findable, and that comparatively ancient WD IA article [also, come to think of it, the Chapter Approved piece on fielding a Cursed Founding chapter] ... what do we know?

Has there ever been any closer-to-confirmation about the various gene-seed lineages of the chapters connected to each of these foundings? Or the likely Imperial organizations involved in making it all happen? 

Thanks in advanced [and look out for the project-log on all of this before too long :P ] 

[Cleon]

I can't say for sure if it's ever explicitly confirmed, but there's lots of hints and suggestions that the Lamenters (Blood Angel successors) are cursed founding, an experiment to re-use Blood Angels gene seed filtering out the flaw.

[Harleqvin]

I don't remember but are the minotaurs part of either of those?

I know they are supposed to be gene seed from one of the traitor legions.

[Knight of the Raven]

The pre-Forge World Minotaurs, if they're even the same as the post-Badab War ones since they had a different color scheme and chapter symbol, were indeed part of the Cursed Founding, along with chapters like the Sons of Antaeus (suspected to descend from the Death Guard due to their superpostnatural resilience), Black Dragons (suspected to be Salamanders successors) and the Lamenters (who hog all the bad luck in the entire Sons of Sanguinius; guess the Flaw deserves its name and must be overcome by its bearers and not with test tubes).

 

If the current Minotaurs are 'confirmed' to be either from Iron Warriors, World Eaters or both, it's more subtle than the Charcarodons being an exiled Predation Fleet of Terran Raven Guard legionaries.

[Ryltar Thamior]

Yeah, this is going to wind up being one of those "unexplained mysteries", isn't it. I did find interesting suggestion on the 40kWiki for the Exorcists being a Grey Knights successor chapter; although in the absence of harder material that's likely just conjecture. [the Death Specters as a Raven Guard successor seems a little more concrete, however]

Also probably of worth/note is the 'Homo Sapiens Novus' concept the genators were apparently working on for the Cursed Founding, which almost seems to be a mini-Primarch project in some regards. 

And yes, both the Lamenters and at least one of the "Minotaurs" are Cursed Founding. [Although the *other* Minotaurs whomst we're rather more directly acquainted with on grounds of their not having as OTT a colour-scheme, inter alia, may be just about anything. There certainly does seem to be ample grounds for speculation of a 'custom-created' founding in a similar manner to the 13th and 21st for the High Lords' exclusive use] 

As for the Black Dragons, it seems rather plausible for them to be Salamanders successors, on grounds that one of the novels dealing with htem has a Black Dragons scout or somesuch assimilated into the Salamanders.

However, there's also some weird stuff with regard to the Fire Hawks [who are better-known as the "Legion of the Damned" - and who according to some older theories may pretty much work out as 'Imperial Daemons']; and the Flame Falcons also [with their spontaneous 'flesh change' of a sort reminding me of a certain legion...] 

Oh, and from time to time, the official GW fluff will change to have additional chapters added to the roster of these questionable foundings - the Crimson Sabers, for instance, being added to the 13th Founding by the Crimson Slaughter supplement; and the Blood Gorgons being attached to the 21st Founding by their novel series. 

But like I say, I'm looking for any other information or hints on what went on and why...

[Harleqvin]

It is implied that the exorcists are GK successor. So most take it that they are.

To be honest they are almost better than GK as they have to be possessed and push out the Daemon before they can become a full marine to the exorcists. But that's veering off topic.

 

 

The old and new version are supposed to be the same guys, Minotaurs. To be honest, I just couldn't remember which founding, 13th or 21st, they are supposed to be. I just lapsed on the cursed or dark founding. They are cursed. Shown from at least 3rd ed chapter approved in white dwarf. I know they are supposed to be world eaters.

 

To be honest pretty much all that are supposed to be from either founding, either speculation or actually known to be, have been stated and are included in most of the places one can readily find info on them.

 

I do hope they start a little more info into these. They'd make for good stories in the new edition.

[Ryltar Thamior]

I don't know that i'd go so far as to say that the lists of chapters produced in either the 13th or the 21st founding have been largely fleshed out. I mean, the 21st Founding is specifically cited as being hte largest since the 2nd Founding [which gave rise to dozens upon dozens of chapters]; yet we only have perhaps half a dozen chapters which we can reliably tie back to the Founding in question. This obviously means a bit of a gap. Although you're right when it comes to all the detail we're likely to be given already being in general circulation :/ 

Although I'm interested in the information pertaining to the Minotaurs - was it outright stated somewhere they were supposed ot be the same, or just heavily implied? And whilst the *previous* incarnation of the chapter were obviously 'cursed' - in that they had the whole berzerk rage thing going on - this doesn't appear to be quite the same in the later iteration of the chapter [who are still very, very angry Marines, and quite formidable opponents [as one would *have* to be in order to take on a role of dedicated Marine-killers] ... but who don't seem (as far as I can tell, anyway) to manifest any obvious "curse".

I kept wondering whether these 'Marines 2.0' we're apparently slated to get were going to turn out to have someting to do wtih the projects that gave rise to the 21st Founding [except 'done right' this time] - there's certainly precedence for previous efforts at monkeying with Astartes gene-seed in various ways to produce 'better' [or more quickly grown] Marines [often with rather disastrous results, to be sure - c.f what happened with the Raven Guard and their Raptors [although, in fairness, this wasn't exactly their fault]; or Fabulous Bill and his New Men etc. - and, on a related note to that, the ill-fated efforts at the Blood Angels chapter 'cloning' their way to a swifter rebuild]. 
 

 

 

[Claws and Effect]

I like the notion of the 21st Founding including geneseed from all 18 legions.

 

It seems like something they'd do. Use geneseed from everyone and fiddle with it to attempt to rid it pf the parent legion's flaws.

[Valerian]

White Dwarf 279, Chapter Approved: Cursed Founding article is a good resource, if you haven't already read through that one.

 

V

[Doghouse]

Beyond what you have the only other possible source might be from snippets from Black Library books or the Forge World Minotaur IA book.

 

This is one of the typical intentional shrouded in mystery things that I love about 40k. It could be reworked to fit in with the 2.0 Marines but I personally would like it left so you ponder what the true purpose of this was. I like the idea of it being some botched attempt to create Primarchs myself. :D

 

I think as this came before FW did the Minotaurs they may have changed it a bit for them. I do remember a little snippet somewhere saying about how sometimes chapter names get reissued or even accidentally given to more than one chapter.