Homebrew chapter: Sons of Zulor

[TheEmperorsPride]

Please remember this is an early WIP and also my first Homebrew chapter/ Story.  Feel free to correct any mistakes you can find as English isn't my native language.

If you find anything that goes against the Lore say it and I will correct it.

Greetings. 

 

Sons of Zulor

 

Home planet: Zulor

Recruit planet: Zulor

Gene seed progenitor: Ultramarines, Pure geneseed

Founding: 14th

Current Chapter Master: Kosan Dinizulu

Battlecry: Slay the enemies of Zulor

 

Description of Zulor:
Zulor is a feudal planet comprised of a large continent surrounded by oceans. The outer area of the continent is covered in dense jungles, housing a lot of Orks, while in the middle there is a scorching desert. The people live between these areas on the big plains of Zulor. The planet is home to a lot of large and dangerous animals, the most famous of which is the Zulorian Panther. The Zulorian people live in small agricultural tribes or nomadic groups. There is constant infighting between the different tribes of Zulor and because of this the population is only slowly growing. 

 

History of the Chapter:

 

Founded during the 14th founding, they are a Successor Chapter of the Ultramarines. Founded with the purpose of guarding an area in the southern fringe of the galaxy that was only recently rediscovered after a Warpstorm finally disapeared after 1000 years. Small explorator ships were sent to investigate the effects of the Warpstorm on the sector and what they found was a little frightening. Only one of the original 7 planets were still inhabited. That was the planet Zulor III, a big planet with one massive continent in the middle of the ocean. Upon closer inspection, the People on the planet didn't seem to have any signs of Chaos corruption so it was safe to re- integrate into the Imperium. When they landed on the planet the people that they made contact with greeted them like gods. The tribe accepted theit old Imperium belief and started spreading it to the neighbouring tribes by force, getting help from the imperium who sent two tanks comapnies, until the whole planet knew of the Emperor. When this was finally done they discovered a huge Library in a temple once dedicated towards the Emperor. This Library contained a huge amount of old documents including some that contained inforamtion about the creation of the Imperium. This alone was reason enough to protect the planet and the system. At the same time the Adeptus Mechanicus established an outpost on the recource rich moon called Afror. With the lack of Imperial planets in the sector to protect Zulor the High Lords of Terra called for a Successor Chapter to be based there. At the same time the 14th founding was being prepared so they ordered to station one on Zulor III. When the gene seed was ready to be tested all the recruits were taken from Zulor III. The first recruits that survived the implantations soon hold a contest for the title of Chapter Master. The one who came back with the hide of a Zulorian Panther could call themselves Chapter Master. The winner was the son of the most powerful Chieftain. He named himself Thadeus Dominus to pay honour to their Parent Chapter by naming himself with a name that could be found inside the Ultramrine Chapter.

 

The newly found Chapter, known as the Sons of Zulor, soon started making contact with the Zulorians to inspect potential recruits. The new recruits soon started talking about a occurence that they called 'the Wanderers'. They said they were the souls of the people that died on the other six planets, saying they sometimes see ''creatures that look like skeletons'' stalking the desert and plains after dark. The Sons of Zulor called for an Iquisitor to further investigate this. After an examination of the planet the Inquisitor discovered nothing so he decided to investegate the rest of the system. He found what he was looking for on Zulor VII. It was a Tomb World, home to a Necron Dynasty that had only reawakended recently. The Inquisitor tried to get away but it was already too late. A Necron Doom Scythe shot down the explorer vessel. Being discovered the Necron decided to attack the Imperial worlds in their range. Their first target was Zulor III.

 

 

The First Necron Conflict:

The Necron attacked without warning and killed everything in their path. The newly found Capter didn't have the numbers to hold back the Necron for much longer and they fought, what seemed like, a already lost battle. During these first couple of months the Chapter suffered heavy casualties trying to defend their homeworld. It was the Adeptus Mechanicus of Afror that saved the Space Marines. They deployed 3 Skitarii legions and very heavy warmachines to try and destroy the Necron. Slowly the Necron got driven back. When all of the Necron on Zulor III were destroyed the Sons of Zulor and the Adeptus Mechanicus went aboard their ships and went to Zulor VII to destroy these Necron once and for all. The Adeptus Mechanicus sent their Skitarii to establish a beachhead. They succeeded and inmediately started attacking outwards. Eventually the Space Marines landed and started setting up a defensive perimeter. On the 4th day their attack started. Pushing outwards with enormous fury. Their troop transports played a big role in the succes they had. Being able to cover great distances fastly was incredibly useful against the Necron who were very slow. When they eventually drove the Necron back to the entrance of their Tomb the fighting got heavier. The battle had lasted 8 months already at this point and the Necrons only got driven back to their Tomb. The Tomb was way bigger than they thought and a gruesome underground battle started that would determine the faith of the Necron and Space Marine chapter alike. When the throneroom of the Tomb, were the main power generator stood, was finally discovered Chapter Master Thadeus Dominus of the Sons of Zulor came up with a plan. He would distract the Necron Overlord long enough so that the Mechanicum could plant a bomb at the Power generator. When the power generator blew up it would disable the teleportation of the Necron. This way they could kill them foregood. In the battle that ensued the Space Marines suffered heavy casualties. It didn't take Thadeus long to find the Overlord, who stood upon a rock overlooking the battle for the Throne Room. When Thadeus challenged him for a duel it didn't say anything. It just stared at Thadeus while slowly moving towards him. The battle that followed is described in the Chapters records as a battle between giants. The Overlord struck first , cutting through Thadeus's leg armor, with his scythe. Thadeus responded on this by slamming his Power Hammer in the Overlords face. The Overlord didn't seem to feel any pain and inmediately struck Thadeus in his chest, cutting through one of his hearts and lungs. This significantly weakened Thadeus who was now bleeding uncontrollably and had problems with breathing. The third strike from the Overlord followed inmediately after the second hit. This time it struck him in his lower abdomen leaving behind a huge wound. Thadeus could just spare enough energy to hit the Overlord one more time, hitting it on its chest revealing the Necrons mimic of a heart, before collapsing on the ground. While he lay there, barely alive, the Overlord spoke to him with an old gothic accent; ''You fool, challenging Ptheop, slayer of worlds, thinking a mere mortal could kill me''. At that moment the sound of an explosion rang through the Throne room. The Overlord tried to see what caused the explosion and shocked he saw where it came from. The power generator had exploded and the rest of the Tomb was now collapsing all around it. Thadeus used the confusion of the Overlord, driving a knife into the 'heart' of the Overlord while saying: ''you can't kill what isn't alive'' after which he died from his many wounds. The Overlord stood there, full of disbelief, before it too collapsed without teleporting away. After this the rest of the Necron were beaten farely quick. The war had lasted 13 months before the last Necron was killed. The First Necron Conflict was over but at a heavy price. The Sons of Zulor had suffered heavy casualties as well as their Chapter Master. It would take a few years before the Chapter was on full strenght again. The Adeptus Mechanicus only had 2 of their original 5 Skitarii Legions left over and many of their warmachines also died. This conflict was the start of a long lasting friendship between the Adeptus Mechanicus of Afror and the Sons of Zulor. It also set apart the Sons of Zulor as experts in warfare against Necron and they would be called upon plenty of times to defeat Necron threats.

 

First encounter with Chaos:

They finally defeated the Necron but at a high cost. They sufferd a lot of casualties and lost their Chapter Master. They chose the Captain of the 1st Company to become the Chapter Master. He decided to honor the Ultramarines and named himself Julius Scelus. He brought the Sons of Zulor back to their original strength and even managed to get some new wargear from the Adeptus Mechanicus of Afror. Included in this was a Thunderhawk Gunship that he named The Vulture. The Chapter wasn't involved in any wars for a long period until they were called upon again. A Chaos warband was terrorizing a neighbouring sector and they needed the help of the Sons of Zulor. Julius immediately readied the Chapter for war and left for the sector that was under threat. They arrived on the capital world of the sector and they got informed by the lord of that planet. The Chaos warband was pretty big and had some heavy weaponry at their disposal. Eye witnesses said that they saw some Daemons accompanying the Warband too. A hunt started for the Warband that would take a long time to complete. The Sons of Zulor chased the Warband across the entire system until they finally caught it. The Warband was battling a heavy fortified city that Guardsmen were trying to hold. The Sons of Zulor arrived just too late. The Warband managed to break through the walls and were massacring the population. When the Sons of Zulor saw this they immediately started attacking the Chaos Warband. The battle that followed saw the remaing Guardsmen fighting side by side with the Sons of Zulor. The leader of the Warband was a mighty Chaos Sorcerer. The battle was incedibly bloody with casualties on both sides rising with every second. The battle started to tilt in the Loyalists favour when a Hellbrute attacked a Venerable Dreadnought of the Sons of Zulor in close combat. The mutated tentacles of the Hellbrute penetrated the armor with ease and started pulling cables out of the Dreadnought. The dreadnought grabbed the Hellbrutes arm with his Power Fist and ripped it from its body. After that the Dreadnought destroyed the Hellbrute by blasting its face with his Assault Cannon. When the Hellbrute fell down the Loyalists got a morale boost and started pushing towards the Traitors. Space Marines fought their Traitorous kin, Guardsmen gunned down hundreds of Cultists and Julius Scelus even challenged the Chaos Sorcerer. The Chaos Sorcerer saw that he had lost and started panicking. In his panic he lost sight of Julius. Julius however still had the Sorcerer in his sight and started advancing towards him. As soon as Julius was close enough he swung his Sword and slew the Sorcerer. With their leader dead many Cultists started fleeing but without effect, they immediately got shot in their back. The last resistance were the devoted Chaos Space Marines. When the last Traoitor fell the Guardsmen started cheering and praying to the Emperor. They payed huge homage towards the Sons of Zulor who saved them from a terrible death. What nobody knew was that Julius picked up a book that the Chaos Sorcerer was holding befor he slew him. 

 

Damnation of Julius:
Soon after the Sons of Zulor were back on Zulor the Chaos taint began to corrupt Julius. He started skipping his prayers to the Emperor and spent more and more time alone in his chambers and the chapter library. The Chief- Librarian and his best friend Mapoza Mlungisi decided to visit him and ask him whats going on. As soon as he walked into the room he could sense the Warp power coming from the book Julius took from the Chaos Sorcerers body. This could explain the disturbance in his mind. When he asked about the book, Julius got really angry and sent Mapoza away. Mapoza feared that the Book was of Chaos origins and that it had tainted Julius' soul. He decided to sent one of the Chapters Chaplains to investigate this further. Two days later the Chaplain was found dead in the lowest part of the Chapters Monastery. Upon closer inspection the Apothecaries said he was killed by a big explosion caused by Psykik abilities. Mapoza now knew for certain that Julius had fallen to the powers of Chaos. One evening he called together the entirety of the Chapter to expose Julius of his turn to the Chaotic powers, but what he didn't know was that Julius had been converting many Astartes to the Chaotic powers as well. As soon as Mapoza anounced the treachery of Julius, Julius started a uprising with his fallen brothers and the magnitude of this uprising came to show. Some Chaplains that fell to Chaos had spread the belief of Chaos towards some tribes of Zulor and Julius himself had convinced a few techpriests of Afror to support him. He told them that they could make whatever they wanted and wouldn't feel the wrath of the Great Omissiah if they followed the Chaos Gods. And so the system was plunged into a state of war. The Chaos Tribes attacked with such a rage that the other Tribes were afraid to fight them. The local Imperial Guard regiments were overrun very quickly. Around one third of the Sons of Zulor followed Julius and fought at the forefront of the assault. The Traitorous Astartes were accompanied by some horrifying Dark Mechanicum machines. At first the surprise element of the attack seemed to doom the Sons of Zulor and they were suffering huge amount of losses. Then Kosan Dinizulu, the brother of Julius, stepped forwards and organized a defensive position around their Fortress Monastery in the middle of the desert. Kosan was filled with hatred towards his brother for betraying the Emperor and his Battlebrothers. The people of Zulor sought shelter inside of the Monastery, but the brave men that were trained in Tribal Guerila warfare stayed behind in the Jungle and attacked the Traitors without mercy. This was making the set up of a well organized Traitorous Attack harder to execute. A couple of days and a few reckless Traitorous assaults later, Imperial Reinforcements arrived in the form of some Astra Militarum armoured squadrons and Mechanicum warmachines from Afror. Kosan decided to counter attack and organized a well planned attack. Aircraft were to bomb the area controlled by Julius and his traitors. After this the tanks would move up close behind them would come the Astartes infantry mixed in with the Imperial Guardsmen and local Tribal warriors. The original push was very effective because the Traitors hadn't set up a good defense. Countless Chaos Cultists were slain and even some Traitor Astartes were killed. When the first push was coming to a stalemate the Imperial forces set up a new defensive postition and plan the next attack. The next day a huge Traitor attack was launched. All across the Imperial lines monstrous Mechanicus creations were spotted. These things killed a lot of Imperial Infantry and Tanks alike. The battle took 6 hours and in the end had turned into a gruesome trench war. Cultist bands roamed the trenches and viciously attacked everything they came across. They only were stopped when the Astartes sweeped the trenches with flamethrowers killing many Cultists and even some loyalist troops left there. This was the last attack the Traitors executed. After this battle the rest of the Traitors were easily defeated but no Traitor Astartes were seen. After a few more days of fighting the Imperials reached the Jungles were they discovered that Julius had built a blasphemous fort in the shape of a eight pointed star that was called the Fort of Blood. 

 

Assault on the Fort of Blood:

They decided to take the fortress by force and started planning an assault. The first stage of the assault was to bring down a huge section of the wall. This was achieved by a prolonged bombardement of the wall by Vindicator tanks and Leman Russ Demolisher tanks. When the wall came down the Imperial Guardsmen were sent in to try and establish a defensive perimeter. This ofcourse resulted in many dead Guardsmen and Cultists. When it became obvious that this wouldn't work, Kosan Dinizulu decided to personally lead his 1st, 2nd and 3rd Companies into battle. The Assault marines and Vanguard veterans would jump- assault the main courtyard to distract the enemy so that the ground troops had an easier time going through the breach in the wall. The Tactical squads would be reinforced by Sternguard Veterans and Dreadnoughts. The Assault contingent came crashing down upon an unsuspecting foe and killed a lot of enemies before they finally realized what was going on. This proved to be an excellent distraction as the Ground contingent could move through the breach without much resistance. The Ground contingent made their way to the Assault contingent and linked up, creating a big make shift defensive position. The only real problem they had was that there still were Cultists on the wall shooting down on them. Kosan had the Assault troops Jump on the walls and slaughter the Cultists positioned there. When almost the entire courtyard was captured by the Sons of Zulor the gates leading towards the forts bastion opened. What came out of the gate explained why they hadn't seen many Traitorous Marines this entire time. A Traitorous assault force entered the courtyard comprising of Traitorous Marines augmented by the Powers of the Warp. Some had tentacles for arms and others had their weapons grown into their flesh. It was a horrible sight and the Imperial Troops fell their stomachs turning. The Traitorous Marines were extremely powerful and killed many Astartes before dying themselves. It was however only a lighning attack and as soon as they killed some Astartes they immediately retreated back to the basion. With the whole courtyard secured the Vindicators moved in and started blasting the Bastion gates open. Suddenly the ground started shaking and the whole bastion came crashing down. When the dust cleared the Imperials saw what happened: Julius secretly constructed a crude looking space ship. The Lighning attack by the Traitor Astartes was probably to delay the Imperial forces so that the space ship could be started up. The Imperials immediately launched a small probe to follow the Traitor space ship. According to the probe the ship landed on Zulor II.

 

Massacre on Zulor II

The Imperials planned a planetary assault that would see the companies of the Sons of Zulor massacred. Julius had transformed the entire planet in a giant minefield.

Edited March 23, 2018 by TheEmperorsPride

[Dosjetka]

Welcome to the B&C and, more specifically, the Liber Astartes! :tu:

 

Before I comment on the content of your first post, I would like to recommend that you read the Guide fo DIYing by @Ferrata and @Octavulg's Octaguide (if you haven't done so already). These should give you a fairly solid foundation on which you can then start creating your Chapter(s).

 

Now, with that out of the way, let me offer you some feedback.

 

 

Sons of Zulor

I thought they were known as the Sabled Knights? If there was a name change in their history I suggest you explain it within your Chapter history as usually a Chapter does not change name without a very good reason. Also, what is "Sabled" supposed to mean?

 

 

The tribe accepted the Imperium belief and started spreading it to the neighbouring tribes until the whole planet knew of the Emperor.

I am curious to know how the spreading of this new belief system was achieved. You mention in the planetary description that the various Zulor (Zulorian?) tribes are constantly fighting against each other so I assume spreading a completely new belief system is not an easy thing to do and would most likely be done by force.

 

With the lack of Imperial planets in the sector to protect Zulor the High Lords of Terra called for a Successor Chapter to be based there.

But why would the High Lords of Terra decide to create a whole new Space Marine Chapter (which takes an incredible amount of resources and time to create and maintain) to defend what is essentially an empty system? What is the strategic worth of this area that would warrant the permanent presence of a Space Marine Chapter?

 

 

The Ultramarines responded inmediately  by sending a small fleet to guard the planet until their Successor Chapter was ready to split off.

I very much doubt the Ultramarines would station a portion of their fleet, no matter how small, in an empty system for two years when they have plenty of other conflicts that require their attention. Also, the creation of a Space Marine Chapter takes much longer than that as the following quote explains:

 

"The creation of a new Chapter is known as a Founding, and it does not happen overnight. Each Chapter is created from the gene-seed of an existing donor Chapter. After the Scouring, Roboute Guilliman tasked the Adeptus Terra with setting up and maintaining a genetic bank to procure and store tithes of gene-seed, which would in turn provide the gene-seed for all future Chapters. To prevent cross-contamination, the genetic stock of each legion was isolated while those of Traitor Legions were put into stasis lock. By taking direct control of these genetic tithes, the Adeptus Terra now could ultimately control the Space Marines as they had the power to destroy or create Space Marine armies at will.^[4]

When creating a chapter, the zygote is implanted in a human test-slave who spends his entire life in a static experimental capsule, immobile and serving as nothing but a medium which from two progenoids will develop. When the progenoids are developed, they are extracted from original test-slave and then implanted into another two test-slaves, producing four progenoids, and so on. It takes 55 years of reproduction to create a healthy set of 1,000 organs. These must be sanctioned officially by the Master of the Adeptus Mechanicus and then by the High Lords of Terra, speaking for the Emperor, who alone can give permission for the creation of a new Chapter."

- Lexicanum, article on Space Marine Chapters

 

 

Without calling for backup his crew blasted open the door to reveal a Necron statis Tomb.

Again, I find it very unlikely to find a Necron Tomb under the surface of the Chapter's homeworld, in addition to having Orks on the surface. Why not have this Tomb threatening the young Chapter from a neighbouring system to make the whole scenario more plausible?

 

 

Almost the entire 1st company died. It was the only full strenght company that the Sabled Knights had.

It is very unlikely that the Chapter's 1st Company, the fighting formation that is made up entirely of Chapter Veterans, would be the only full-strength Company because how could they have so many Veterans while being an almost-new Chapter? Also, being Veterans, they are much more experienced and so it is highly unlikely that the entire Company would get wiped out unless their was some very strong odds piled up against them.

 

 

The Necron didn't seem to die and every time one was shot it teleported away to re- emerge at the heart of the Tomb.

Making Necrons even more immortal than they already are is not very original, in my opinion.

 

---

 

All in all you have gotten off to a decent start but there are a number of elements that contradict the current fluff (another term for "lore") and break the plausibility of this Chapter existing. I recommend introducing more structure in your article: as it is now, the "wall of text" you have does not look very appealing to a potential reader.

 

Anyway, I hope you don't find my feedback too discouraging and I look forward to seeing more! :tu:

[TheEmperorsPride]

Welcome to the B&C and, more specifically, the Liber Astartes!

 

Before I comment on the content of your first post, I would like to recommend that you read the Guide fo DIYing by @Ferrata and @Octavulg's Octaguide (if you haven't done so already). These should give you a fairly solid foundation on which you can then start creating your Chapter(s).

 

Now, with that out of the way, let me offer you some feedback.

 

 

Sons of Zulor

I thought they were known as the Sabled Knights? If there was a name change in their history I suggest you explain it within your Chapter history as usually a Chapter does not change name without a very good reason. Also, what is "Sabled" supposed to mean?

 

 

The tribe accepted the Imperium belief and started spreading it to the neighbouring tribes until the whole planet knew of the Emperor.

I am curious to know how the spreading of this new belief system was achieved. You mention in the planetary description that the various Zulor (Zulorian?) tribes are constantly fighting against each other so I assume spreading a completely new belief system is not an easy thing to do and would most likely be done by force.

 

With the lack of Imperial planets in the sector to protect Zulor the High Lords of Terra called for a Successor Chapter to be based there.

But why would the High Lords of Terra decide to create a whole new Space Marine Chapter (which takes an incredible amount of resources and time to create and maintain) to defend what is essentially an empty system? What is the strategic worth of this area that would warrant the permanent presence of a Space Marine Chapter?

 

 

The Ultramarines responded inmediately  by sending a small fleet to guard the planet until their Successor Chapter was ready to split off.

I very much doubt the Ultramarines would station a portion of their fleet, no matter how small, in an empty system for two years when they have plenty of other conflicts that require their attention. Also, the creation of a Space Marine Chapter takes much longer than that as the following quote explains:

 

"The creation of a new Chapter is known as a Founding, and it does not happen overnight. Each Chapter is created from the gene-seed of an existing donor Chapter. After the Scouring, Roboute Guilliman tasked the Adeptus Terra with setting up and maintaining a genetic bank to procure and store tithes of gene-seed, which would in turn provide the gene-seed for all future Chapters. To prevent cross-contamination, the genetic stock of each legion was isolated while those of Traitor Legions were put into stasis lock. By taking direct control of these genetic tithes, the Adeptus Terra now could ultimately control the Space Marines as they had the power to destroy or create Space Marine armies at will.^[4]

When creating a chapter, the zygote is implanted in a human test-slave who spends his entire life in a static experimental capsule, immobile and serving as nothing but a medium which from two progenoids will develop. When the progenoids are developed, they are extracted from original test-slave and then implanted into another two test-slaves, producing four progenoids, and so on. It takes 55 years of reproduction to create a healthy set of 1,000 organs. These must be sanctioned officially by the Master of the Adeptus Mechanicus and then by the High Lords of Terra, speaking for the Emperor, who alone can give permission for the creation of a new Chapter."

- Lexicanum, article on Space Marine Chapters

 

 

Without calling for backup his crew blasted open the door to reveal a Necron statis Tomb.

Again, I find it very unlikely to find a Necron Tomb under the surface of the Chapter's homeworld, in addition to having Orks on the surface. Why not have this Tomb threatening the young Chapter from a neighbouring system to make the whole scenario more plausible?

 

 

Almost the entire 1st company died. It was the only full strenght company that the Sabled Knights had.

It is very unlikely that the Chapter's 1st Company, the fighting formation that is made up entirely of Chapter Veterans, would be the only full-strength Company because how could they have so many Veterans while being an almost-new Chapter? Also, being Veterans, they are much more experienced and so it is highly unlikely that the entire Company would get wiped out unless their was some very strong odds piled up against them.

 

 

The Necron didn't seem to die and every time one was shot it teleported away to re- emerge at the heart of the Tomb.

Making Necrons even more immortal than they already are is not very original, in my opinion.

 

---

 

All in all you have gotten off to a decent start but there are a number of elements that contradict the current fluff (another term for "lore") and break the plausibility of this Chapter existing. I recommend introducing more structure in your article: as it is now, the "wall of text" you have does not look very appealing to a potential reader.

 

Anyway, I hope you don't find my feedback too discouraging and I look forward to seeing more!

Thanks for responding :) 

There a few of your comments I want to respond to:

On your comment about the name: I wanted to give them a good reason to change their name but I guess thats a bit wierd so I will change that.

 

Also I see now that I didn't do enough research about the founding of successor chapters and I did ignore some thing that I really need to work out better.

 

I did see that it was a big wall of text but when I was finished writing this it was very late and I was tired so I decided to organise this better another time.

[Dosjetka]

Take your time with re-working your initial draft and I look forward to seeing the result. :tu:

[TheEmperorsPride]

Take your time with re-working your initial draft and I look forward to seeing the result.

I have rewritten the main points you adressed and hoped you could tell me if its better now and if there is still anything you would change :)

[Octavulg]

You have 3200-odd words in about seven paragraphs. That's...not a good ratio. I'd strongly recommend breaking it up a little more to make it more readable.

[Beta galactosidase]

When they are called sons of zulor, I expect there to be some slanting reference to a keymaster, or Cerberus hounds, or a sort of puffy white statue in maritime attire.

 

Certainly it's not required or something to be slathered on with a trowel. However a small amount of lampshading is very key watchmaker writing.