Ultima Founding - Night Lords Successor

[DarkSeraff]

I am working on an idea for a Primaris Chapter that is based on Konrad Curze's gene seed. And I would like to get some feedback as to whether it is a good concept or not.

 

 

The basic idea is that they suffer from dark visions of the future. These visions wouldn't be anything like Curze's visions, instead they would be very vague and open to interpretation. The chapter leaders would then try to interpret these Black Dreams as they call them, in order to figure out where future battles might take place and so on.

 

The way they wage war is through guerilla tactics. Striking from the shadows and hitting their enemies where they are weakest.

 

They would also be a crusading chapter with no set home world. Instead they would use their flagship as a base in order to quickly travel where their visions take them.

 

The downside to these visions is that it slowly drives the marines towards the brink of insanity. Since the Primaris are supposed to be extremely sturdy most of them would be able to fight the insanity, but a few would be pushed over the brink, some even willingly perhaps. These marines would take the chapters guerilla tactics and use it as a weapon of terror and joyful slaughter.

 

 

Of course these Primaris Marines wouldn't be aware of their true origin. I was thinking about having them officially listed as a Blood Angels Successor.

And the fact that some of them goes on a bloody rampage would be explained through the Red Thirst.

I was also thinking that they might be able to explain their visions as a product of their Blood Angels descent, since Sanguinius also had visions of the future. But I'm not sure whether his visions are considered public knowledge or not? I need to brush up on my BA knowledge.

 

 

Armor:

I'm thinking black with a blueish hue and bone colored details. (Not the midnight blue of the night lords. Darker, more towards black.)

And some of the marines who are more affected by the curse of the Black Dreams might adorn their armor with skulls or other trophies from fallen enemies.

 

Insignia:

Not entirely sure. Maybe a skull weeping blood?

 

Name:

I always find this to be the hardest part. The most obvious would be a combo of Blood Angels and Night Lords or maybe something that more reflects their crusading life or the way they make war.

 

Night Angels? Blood Lords? Void Stalkers? Sons of the night? The Night Guard? Blood Wardens?

 

 

Another crazy idea I had is that the Marines that are driven towards insanity by the Black Dreams might also start hearing whispers, fueling their insanity. These whispers would be the voice of their dead Primarch, Konrad Curze, echoing through time and space.

But I'm not sure. Maybe that is a bit over the top.

 

 

What do you think? I appreciate all feedback.

[DarkSeraff]

A first basic idea for their color scheme and insignias.

 

[Kelborn]

I had the same idea when creating the background for the Umbral Knights.

 

One question arose back then and does now again, isn't it a bit too obvious? I mean, Guiliman forbade the usage of traitor and lost legion geneseed. He'd easily recognize their doctrine, culture, flaws, etc. We're talking about someone who cares for his men. I assume that he "knows" them all.

 

Seeing a supposedly BA successor doing the very same thing as the Night Lords and wearing a similar color scheme could be a bit too obvious.

 

I tried to solve my issues in focusing the Umbral Knights on shock and awe tactics, combined with psychological warfare behind enemy lines and giving them a different primogenitor, in this case the Dark Angels.

 

How about giving them a bone-white scheme with either black / dark grey or blood red parts for intimidating someone. Maybe with a black faceplate, aquila, etc. and blood red gloves / shoulders / entire arms?

 

I do like your idea of explaining their visions with Sanguinius' flaw, though. Why not making them an entire BA successor?

 

Just my two cents.

 

*edit*

Did something.

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[DarkSeraff]

Thanks for the reply!

 

That was my biggest concern as well, that it would be too much. But, I feel that it is a sort of delicate balance between too much for "lore purposes" and too much for "IRL purposes".

I actually want them too be a bit over the top for IRL purposes. When I place them on a game board I want my friends to go: "Hey dude... Why do they look like night lords..."

 

Another reason for wanting their armor to be that black/dark blue is simply camouflage. A chapter who operates through shadow tactics should use appropriate colors. 

(Plus I play Dark Angels with the old Space Marines and I really don't want to paint any more entirely bone colored armor)

 

As for Guilliman... (really good input btw)

I imagine that these Black Dreams wouldn't be there right from the start. But they would slowly sneak up on the chapter over the one hundred years of war. (It is 100 years right? Man, I'm still trying to get the hang of how 40k is moving forward.) So as a result they would mostly be focused on simple shadow tactics during the first years of fighting next to Guilliman. And as for the guys that have been driven insane by the dreams, they are a fairly small number. I'm thinking like 5% of the entire chapter by todays date. These marines would be isolated as a singe special unit, kinda like the Blood Angels Death Company.

I also picture the chapter to be fairly small. No more than 500 marines in total. So no more than 25 marines would be insane.

The Chapter Master would not be one of those driven insane. He would have Black Dreams, sure, and they would slowly eat away at him. But he would be able to keep a level head and keep up the chapters appearance outwards.

 

 

As far as they and everyone else knows, they are a BA successor.

It's just something about the idea that there are entire chapters based on traitor legions, without them even knowing it themselves. That idea just rubs me in all the right places.

 

 

 

 

 

I was discussing with a friend who plays Eldar, and we came up with an idea that they could be on fairly good terms with the eldar. Mutual respect or something. (We really just wanted an excuse to be able to team up against a third friend who plays Chaos.)

The idea we had is that these Marines, under Guillimans command, has fought together with Eldar on occasion. But I'm not sure if it fits, did Guilliman and the Primaris fight next to Eldar? Or was it just Yvraine who did her own solo thing without other Eldar?

(I missed the whole build up and launch for the new edition, so I'm still catching up. I recently got back into the hobby when I noticed that they were moving the lore forwards and were releasing new models.)

[High Marshal Bohemond]

There were FAR to many grey shields and primaris reliefs for existing chapters for Guilliman to know them all. Besides the Primaris were already in tubes waiting for release when Guilliman came there. It is quite possible that traitor geneseed was used before Guilliman made his declaration or even after, Cawl would not be who and where he is if he followed all the rules.

[Doctor Perils]

Hello DarkSeraff, and welcome to the Bolter and Chainsword, and welcome back to the game!

 

Regarding geneseed: with the Ultima Founding, it's easier than ever to create a loyalist successor to a traitor Legion - however, Guilliman did instruct Cawl to not let any of the traitor geneseed marines out, so I'd recommend (just as much as previously) to not state this truth outright: instead, it would be far more interesting to leave enough clues lying around for the reader to puzzle out this truth rather than run the risk of to sticking to canon interpretations.

In any case, the provenance of the geneseed of a Space Marine chapter shouldn't take too much importance, appart from if it is to take center stage in stories.

The important question you should answer first of all here is "why do you want them to be traitor successors"? What will this information add to the chapter's personality?

 

The Black Dreams is a concept with potential - however, it should probably not be made into their fail-safe weapon: even Eldrad Ulthran has trouble divining the future! You have already started taking this into account by mentioning that it is open to interpretation: to hammer this point home, I'd recommend giving an example where the chapter's interpretation of a dream was so wrong that it bought meaningful harm to the chapter (for instance the loss of 10% or more of the Chapter)

I don't know if it's wise to give these visions to the whole chapter, especially if it means most eventually go mad: after all, most Night Lords didn't have visions, why should their Primaris Successors all have them?

I also wouldn't conflate physical strength with mental fortitude: Primaris marines may well be stronger physically, but I don't believe psycho-indoctrination procedures have particularly improved with Cawl's ministrations.

I really like the concept of the Black Dreams being the whispers of their long dead Primarch - it seems suitably spooky.

 

Your proposed colour scheme seems fine. I particularly like your weeping skull :tu: If I were to make a suggestion, I'd like to see a bit more contrast in some sections of the armour, in partcular the Pauldron trim. Otherwise, you keep a nicely refined palette which is great :)

 

Regarding a name, don't hesitate to step a bit further away from the Legion names - though "Lamenters" is already taken, something along the lines of sorrow, regret or mourning could be cool.

 

 

Regarding these guy's tactics "being too close to the Night Lords", I'd actually say their normal tactics sound much closer to the Raven Guard (ie Guerilla Warfare) then the Night Lords (ie Psychological Warfare) and there are a lot of other dark-coloured chapters: I wouldn't worry about Guilliman making the connection from a Galaxy away. Even then, I imagine he would put up with them as long as they stay loyal. He may have "words" with Cawl, but that's another story.

 

 

I find the concept of a fleet-based guerilla-tactics chapter rather original: Guerilla tactics generally rely on intimate knowledge of the land, so you might find it interesting to explore how Scouts and Reivers work in your chapter. Perhaps squads of scouts are formed of neophytes that were each born in radically different environments (1 from an ice-world, 1 from a jungle world, 1 from a mountain world etc.), meaning that the squad as a whole will always have one member who knows the best survival tricks for a given situation? In any case, I think you'd do well to explore some of the more pragmatic nature of the chapter (ie, don't focus solely on the Black Dreams)

[DarkSeraff]

Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated!

 

I will definitely make the chapters origins much more open to interpretation when I write down their story. But right now I just wanna lay all cards on the table for the sake of spit-balling ideas.

 

I like the idea about misinterpreted dreams causing damage to the chapter. This would also be a great explanation as to why the chapter is fairly smaller in comparison to other chapters.

 

Regarding how many of the Marines have dreams:

I've been thinking about this, and while I do see your point, I'm not sure how to go about it. Because I don't want it to be just the psykers who has dreams. The psykers would be their most crucial tool in trying to interpret the dreams of course.

Maybe it could be random, like a toss of the dice who gets affected by the dreams or not?

 

Regarding Primaris Strength:

I think I read somewhere that the Primaris Marines are mentally stronger as well... But I could be wrong. I might just as well have misinterpreted something.

 

Interesting idea about the shoulder trim and contrast. I'm gonna have to try some different color variants.

 

I'm leaning towards something like Blood Stalkers for the chapter name. But I really like your suggestion. I'll use names like mournful and such for companies and ships.

 

I really like the idea that they would get recruits from several different kinds of environments in order to have a tactical advantage. I'm gonna keep building on that idea!