The 'Errant Custodians' and the 'Soul Drinkers'

[Blint The Wolf]

Hey all,

My idea for a Primaris Chapter and incorporating them into my soul drinkers chapter... Let me know what you think (including my ideas of the soul drinkers predecessor chapter). See my notes at the end.

 

After Guilliman announced to the Imperium his intentions of distributing Primaris marines across the galaxy and the Blood Angels had recalled all of their successor chapters to aid in the fight against the rising chaos threat, Guilliman was contacted by the chapter master of the Imperial Fists who claimed to have a small detachment of Soul Drinkers that he had sent to the galactic far-east to explore and bring a few troublesome worlds to enlightenment. The request was made to resupply these few Soul Drinkers with Primaris support. Gulliman flat-out refused to use the tainted Soul Drinker geneseed to create more marines. But, needing every man in the fight against the rising Chaos threat, he recalled the Soul Drinkers to support the Blood Angels. For in the process of creating the primaris Marines, Bellisarius Cawl had discovered that the Soul Drinkers were, in-fact a successor chapter of the Blood Angels. The signs were there, the cup of the Soul Drinkers sigil, the consumption of the enemy's brains after battle, the unorthodox chapter organisation.

The Soul Drinkers were ordered to rendezvous with a Blood Angels Chaplain on the moon of a planet just outside the combat zone. This was fortunate as a mental sickness had begun to take hold of the chapter causing almost half of their brothers to act strangely, overly blood thirsty on the battlefield and easily irritated off it. They had managed to keep this secret from the Imperial Fists.

They meet with the Chaplain who explains that the affliction is the black rage that affects most blood angels successor chapters. he goes through the process of establishing the death company within the soul drinkers.

The chaplain is not alone. With him is a newly founded chapter of Primaris Marines: The Errant Custodians. Their Armour a pale Grey with dark green trim (undecided) and their sigil the three-headed dog; Cerberus.

The Errant Custodians are a new chapter, developed from the geneseed of the grey knights and tasked with fighting alongside and watching over ex-comunicat traitoris chapters who claim to remain loyal to the emperor. As with the Grey Knights, each squad must be capable of acting as an independent unit as they are to spread across the galaxy and act as supervisors and battle-brothers to the few loyal members of traitor chapters. There are no captains among the Errant Custodians and each squad sergeant has a vote at the table of the 'Council Custodae.' The acting captain of the Soul Drinkers is told that he too has a seat at the council. After each battle, the council selects a sergeant to become Battle-Commander to lead the next engagement.

This is because the absent Chapter Master of the Errant Custodians insists on maintaining the rank of Captain. His name is Garviel Loken. Also known as "Cerberus."

The Errant Custodians are one of 8 new grey knights successor chapters, each with their own special task to perform outside of the grey knights' purview. Each named for and commanded by one of the founding space marine captains of the errant knights and thus, the creators of the grey knights.

 

I know there are a few die-hard Grey Knights fans and a few people won't like the idea of any soul drinkers surviving but let me know if anything is off.

I like to build my fluff off other stories rather than starting from scratch.

 

My thoughts on Garviel Loken, the grey knights and successor chapters...

I figured that Loken probably wouldn't have stayed with the Grey Knights long after their emergence from the warp otherwise he would have turned up in the fluff of their history more.

One thought is that Loken is off doing whatever he is doing and that the Errant Custodians probably haven't even met him.

Another thought is that he might travel from one posting of the Errant Custodians to the next. Seeing as he'd be pretty old by now (even though Astartes are essentially immortal), I might make it so he has been made a redemptor dreadnought. - thoughts?

 

My thoughts on the Soul Drinker survivors.

I thought that maybe one soul drinkers ship might have been lost in the warp long ago and returned after the events on the Phalanx. The fists might choose to kind of banish them to the outskirts of the galaxy where they can do some good but won't attract the attention of the inquisition.

The blood angels succession is something that I thought was coming in the books. And I think it might work well with the threat to Baal.

[Halandaar]

Some thoughts;

• Being declared Excommunicate Traitoris is the very highest official rebuke you can receive from the Imperium and amounts to exile on pain of death, with death the strongly preferred outcome. You get outlier situations like the Soul Drinkers fighting alongside the Fists following their excommunication, but that was allowed because in the circumstances of that battle it amounted to the same thing; a death sentence. 
• Considering the above, why would this remnant of a renegade force not simply be exterminated upon it's discovery anyway, given it's official designation as traitors? It would seem to rely on their being discovered by the Imperial Fists specifically, who would be the only chapter with any degree of sympathy. For that to happen, you have to consider the possibility of a single ship appearing out of the warp in a galaxy of untold millions of stars, being found by a group of individuals that would not even fill a football pitch. The odds are beyond comprehension, so you have to engineer it in a way that doesn't look contrived.
• Assuming the above can be answered, how (and perhaps more importantly, why) would the Imperial Fists choose to allow them to live, and keep the survival of members of the Soul Drinkers secret up until the Indomitus Crusade? You've stated that it might be to avoid the attention of in Inquisition, but what purpose does it serve the Fists to allow the remnants of an excommunicate chapter to continue at all, at risk to their reputation and perhaps even raising questions about their own loyalty?
• If you were Guilliman, who lived through the Heresy and awoke in a time where Chaos is on the rise again, and you discover that a first-founding chapter is harbouring traitors with direct links to Chaos, how do you react to that? I suspect it's not by saying "good job, redeploy them to Baal". He would need an extreme amount of convincing, not only that they were not a massive liability, but also that the people vouching for them are not corrupt in turn. Even if you take the pragmatic stance of "every hand is required", there are other things to consider. Does he need to rebuke or discipline the Imperial Fists? Does he continue the endeavour to keep the whole thing secret? 
• Because of the first point, a Chapter whose job is to babysit traitor chapters is not consistent with the lore of the setting. There is only one thing you do to such chapters, and that is destroy them, with flame and blade and bolter. You could probably come up with a fully considered explanation of why this very particular force is allowed to return to the Emperor's service, with guidance from a loyal Chapter, but I think making it seem like a regular occurrence (and indeed the Errant Custodian's entire purpose) fails to consider the long established paranoia and hatred of heretics rampant within both the Astartes and the Imperium at large. It just doesn't feel natural.

 

Now with all that said, I do like the base premise of the still-loyal splinter faction, it's just a matter of how you make it work in a setting where there is no forgiveness for traitors. The Soul Drinkers actually being Blood Angel successors does make a degree of sense as well; i'm interested to see future developments

[Blint The Wolf]

Thanks for your thoughts! Got me rethinking my approach. I really appreciate Your comments and it all makes sense.

I'm thinking that maybe the Errant Custodians could have been just another primaris chapter and maybe they have stumbled upon this soul drinkers detachment themselves. Maybe the soul drinkers escaped the warp inside the gravity well of a planet and so they crash land on a world where the Custodians are already battling Chaos. The cuwtodians are losing but the drinkers flank the heretics and together they exterminate the enemy along with some warp-gateway on the planet (the reason that they were able to escape the warp)? The primaris marines, being fairly new on the block don't know anything of the soul drinkers heresy and so they assume (based on their actions) these veterans are loyal. Later on, when trying to reunite these drinkers with the rest of their chapter, they might discover the truth and deliver them to Loken, who has sway with the inquisition for obvious reasons and the survivors are permitted to keep fighting for the imperium as long as they are accompanied by the Custodians. :D much better I think.

[Halandaar]

I'd agree, that seems a good degree more plausible and allows the survival of the Soul Drinkers to be tied to their own actions rather than the whim of the Imperial Fists.