WIP The Steel Drakes

[jad4400]

Its been awhile since I posted, I was working on a marine chapter a couple years back, but real life got in the way. I decided to come back and finally try and finish the fluff I started way back when. You can see my old post here!

 

***TL;DR*** I was inspired by the stories about the various monastic communities in the Sengoku Jidai to try and make a marine chapter based around large monastic groupings. Since Marines already have a large fortress monastery, I wanted to make a chapter that would have several monastic complexes scattered around the sector they're stationed in. I was also intrigued by how well Salamander beliefs and training gelled with the Iron Hands despite the two chapters history of animosity and wanted to create a chapter that fused some of those beliefs. Most of the ideas for the chapter relied on the 1d4chan generator and me working backwards to fill in the lore to make it gel.

 

Rolls I made for my chapter in the generator

Reason for Founding: 3- Strategic Prognostication
Founding Era: 13- 34th Millennium
Progenitor Chapter: 95- Iron Hands
Gene-Seed Purity: 8- Altered Stock-3- Mutated Catalepsean Node
Chapter Demeanour : 5- Scions of Mars
Figure of Legend: 79-Company Captain (22 Ork Bane)-TBD
Homeworld: 15-Hive world (67 wasteland) 7( distant Rule)
Chapter Organization: 9-Unique organization (56 - No Devastator), (42- Rare Weaponry)
Combat Doctrine: 8- Siege combat doctrine
What form do the Chapters' beliefs take: 91- Steel over Flesh
Chapter Strength: 6- Strength Nominal
Friends: (28) another Chapter (Salamanders), (41) Adeptus Mechanicus, (98) Rogue Trader Dynasty, (81) Inquisition
Enemies: (30) Orks, (87) Chaos Band, (81) Chaos Band, (39) Eldar

 
 
 
**Chapter Name**: Steel Drakes (Formerly the Steel Redeemers).
 
 
 
**Motto/Warcry** Current: (Mind and machine unite!). Former: (Purge the Flesh!)
 
**Founding:** Seventh
 
**Successors of:** Iron Hands
 
**Primarch:** Ferrus Manus

 

History of the Chapter:

 
**History:** The Steel Drakes were founded as the Steel Redeemers in M34 during the Seventh Founding. Created based on the mysterious and dire predictions of the Emperor's Tarot, the Redeemers along with the other chapters created during the seventh founding were made to counter these unseen and distant threats facing the Imperium. Using the genetic stock of the Iron Hands to create the Redeemers, Mechanicus genetors were shocked to find a flaw in the first generations of marines, the Catalepsean Node had changed from its baseline, not enough to render the stock irredeemable, but in the eyes of the Iron Hands, inferior to their own baseline genetics. Because of the node's changes, the Redeemers could go long periods of time without sleep, but at random times would fall into deep comas lasting hours, days, weeks or even years, creating a deadly weakness for the warriors on the field. Disgusted by this, the Iron Hands opted to send only a handful of newly trained marines to help lead and bring up the new chapter, many of them initiates who'd failed to impress their leaders, or marines who'd fallen out of favor with the chapter master. Wishing to live up to their progenitor chapter, the new group of marines took the name Steel Redeemers, to reflect their wish to live up to the ideals of the Primarch and Founders. In turn they also embraced a fanatical devotion to replacing their limbs with bionics as part of their initiation ritual. This was partially in an attempt to emulate the practices of their forebears , and also so that their Iron Fathers could use remote interfaces to move incapacitated marines from the field using their bionics.

During an intense period of warfare in their sector when it was cut off by a warpstorm, the chapter was almost destroyed when a traitorous warband known as the Corsairs of Damnation arrived above the chapters homeworld of Kenshiro in a space hulk packed with warships. Using an Eldar device to disable the bionic implants of the marines, the Corsair's initial attack left the Redeemers unable to move or fight save for a hundred and fifty initiates and fighters who had either not yet completed the initiation process and replaced all four of their limbs or were already held up in the fortress monastery's Apothecary healing from earlier skirmishes. The rest of the chapter was slaughtered, laying helpless in their fortifications or on the field, unable to move their now useless limbs, which also failed to respond to commands from any surviving Iron Fathers. Desperate, the survivors sent out a call to aid to any nearby Imperial Forces, who unbeknownst to the Redeemers, were also locked in a fight with the Corsairs, which had splintered (to the consternation of their Chaos Lord) and were moving in several long tendrils throughout the area, spreading destruction and havoc in their wake. Help would come from the most unlikely of sources.

Months earlier, Forgefather Vulkan Bra'kall and a small contingent of Salamander warriors had passed by the Redeemers monastery on their quest to locate one of their primarchs lost artifacts. Inheriting their progenitors disdain for the children of Vulkan, the Redeemer's chapter master had been cold, rebuffing the forgefather's offer to meet and instead gave them a pathetic offering of supplies to send them on their way. Yet in the Redeemers darkest hour, Bra'kall and his warriors were the first to answer the call. Emerging above Kenshiro on the strike cruiser Hammerforge, Bra'kall and his ship smashed through a pair of Chaos frigates before launching to the world below to assist in relieving the siege of the monastery. Carving through the ranks of traitors hounding the gate the Redeemers mountain fortress, Bra'kall and the Salamanders managed to break the hold of Chaos around the fortress after three days of intense fighting, yet the Salamander's librarian had intercepted the frantic messages of the forces of Chaos, the invasion fleets had been beaten back at multiple points around the sectors, the scattered forces were retreating, yet planned to rendezvous above Kenshiro, and eliminate the marines, before fully retreating.  Wasting little time, Brak'all ordered one last load of supplies from his cruiser before sending it to meet with Imperial forces, and set about the task of preparing for the next siege. For week, he and his Salamanders would work tirelessly to help due surviving Redeemers, repairing fortifications, crafting more weapons and ammunition and tending to the injured, never taunting them or holding their mistreatment of the group over them. As the Chaos fleet gathered above, he would rally the survivors with a famous speech, now carved into the walls of the Kenshio Monastery:

 

"The clouds of darkness gather above, ready to snuff the light of the Emperor mightiest. Brothers, today we are all one, not Salamander or Redeemers, not a son of Ferrus Manus or Vulkan, but instead all devoted sons of the Emperor. Should this be my grave I could not ask for a finer group to be by my side at the end. Let not our flaws or petty disputes be what defines us, but instead our deeds and our devotion to our brothers on the field. Let us make the traitors bleed for every step they take, let us make them pay onehundredfold for every brother they have taken from us with their foul war. Let them know the true might of the Emperor and his champions, that even battered, on the ground, thought broken, we can still rise higher than them and their twisted masters!"

 

 

For half a year the Redeemers and the Salamanders held, the Chaos fleet's  orbital bombardment was unable to break through the monastery's defenses, instead only serving to further devastate what was left of Kenshiro. Multiple times the fleet would disgorge and assortment of foul warriors and warp spawn, only to have them beaten back by the monastery defenders. The warpstorm that gathered around the planet being the only thing to hold back the tide of Imperial reinforcements. Yet even that couldn't stop one captain. Seven  times, the rogue trader Marquez ibn Von Helvick used a modified fast freighter outfitted with his family's ancestral warp sextant to navigate the storms and break through the blockade to deliver vitally needed supplies to the space marines, form ammunition and weapons, to vehicles and even a chance of murder servitors. Each times, he broke the blockade, Von Helvick was able to chart more of the storms and eventually discovered a safe channel through the tumult. From this small gap the Imperial fleet, lead by the Hammerforge, was able to enter Kenshio orbit and do battle with the Chaos fleet. For three days the sky filled with fireballs and rains of adamantium and steel as ships slammed into one another and plummeted to their doom in the gravity well below. On the fourth day, the chaos warband broke and fled back to the recesses of space. The siege was finally over.

In the aftermath, the situation was grim for the Redeemers. Being reduced to so few in number and with their senior-most marines slain, extinction looked to be a real possibility, not helped by the Iron Hand's refusal to send aid or or new marines to bolster the chapter until it could rebuild. In this dark hour it was once again the Salamanders who gave aid. Vulkan Bra'kall ordered a grand shipment of supplies from Nocturne and several members of his expedition, including a chaplain, offered to remain with the Redeemers to help them train and rebuild. Though it would be a process that could take centuries, these Salamanders were unwilling to leave fellow battlebrothers to face such an ignominious end. After this display of comradely, the Redeemers survivors declared that in the face of their progenitors abandonment of their chapter, and with the Salamanders help in rebuilding, their chapter was no longer in need of "redemption" in the eyes of their progenitors, instead they were newly forged in battle and tempered by the great drakes of Nocturne. From this they formally changed their names to the Steel Drakes and began to rebuild.

By the 41st millennium the chapter had rebuilt its strength, and thanks to several forge worlds nearby and the Salamander predilection of forging equipment, the chapter is very well armed and equipped.

 
 
**Allegiance and Homeworld:**

 

The home world of the Steel Drakes is the feral world of Kenshiro. A formerly prosperous hive world, the civilization of Kenshiro was destroyed in a vicious war which devastated the planet. A radioactive wasteland of ruined hives and mutated dangerous creatures, survival is a daily battle. From this desperate scavenging people the Steel Drakes recruit the toughest survivors as initiates in their order. Annually the tribes will send several of their children on a planetary pilgrimage to the distant mountaintop fortress monastery of the chapter. Crossing radioactive deserts, frozen plains, rotted out hive spires inhabited by the mutated animals and former inhabitants from thousands of years ago, many pilgrims perish on the journey. The survivors must climb the one hundred thousand steps up the tallest mountain to reach the gates of the fortress and then must survive a fortnight outside the frozen gates before being allowed admission. In addition, smaller monasteries scattered across the sector receive children from families who wish to see their progeny admitted to the ranks of the Emperor's finest. The strongest of those children are placed in stasis pods and sent to Kenshiro once a decade to survive and make the pilgrimage across the planet. By necessity, due the multitudes of crashed Chaos wrecks and weakened points in the fabric of reality from the siege and warpstorm, the Inquisition maintains a small but formal presence on the world.

**Chapter Beliefs:** 

 

Being descended from the Iron Hands, the beliefs of the Steel Drakes follow many of the beliefs of their founders, in particular the reverence for the strength of steel over flesh. However, after the near destruction of their chapter via the disabling of their bionics and their rescue by as Salamander descended chapter, the Steel Drakes adopted many tenants of the Promethean Cult, in particular the ideas of self-reliance, meditation to overcome mental foibles and the practice of forging equipment.  Marines pursue ascetic lifestyles, evermore than the average chapter, a hold over trait from the Iron Hands and their disdain for the flesh. The anger that tends to be inherent in Iron Hands and their descendants is present in the Drakes, but they seek to temper their emotions with meditation and forging. In battle, the stubbornness common in both Iron Hands and Salamanders is seen as marines will doggedly hold positions under relentless assault, or will march with cold mechanical efficiency to complete their objectives. 

**Organization:**

The Steel Drakes are a loyalist chapter, though like their progenitor are strongly codex divergent with an intense adherence to the the strength of steel over flesh, though their interpretation of such doctrine has its self diverged from their progenitors. Like the Iron Hands, they are not ruled by a chapter master, but rather a council of clans, though unlike the Iron Hands, they maintain only five clans as opposed to ten, due to consolidation measures taken to help offset random incapacitation's due to their Catalepsean Nodes. In practice this leads to each clan fielding two companies, one to act as an active company for deployments and patrols within the Itano sector and one to act as a reserve standing guard at their fortress, maintaining the perimeter and training neophytes. The active company is typically comprised of a cadre of veteran warriors overseeing the younger members of the clan, while the reserve company typically holds a higher number of more experienced marines. Thanks to close ties with the Mechanicus and the Von Helvick family, the Drakes are able to enjoy the use of smaller transportation spacecraft to ferry members and supplies around the sector to responded the needs of the active company.
 
The overriding focus for the Steel Drakes is a need for redundancy thanks to their gene seed flaw. Each clan has roughly two hundred marines one hundred in the active company and one hundred in the reserve. New initiates to the clans are used as scouts and after being fully trained are assigned to assault marine roles. Given the Catalepsean Node deficiency in the Drakes, the assault squads faces the greatest risk if they become incapacitated. To mitigate risks, assault squads make heavy use of chain glaives as their main weapon, while utilizing a a ballistic mechadendrite to augment their combat capabilities. Its said that veteran members of the Kenshiro Monastery, which tend to comprise the seniormost marines have the ability to utilize two mechadendrite in battle as assault troops. In addition, as a departure from the Codex Asartes, assault company soldiers typically comprise of the seniormost members of a clan who have the most training to not only fill holes created by the incapacitation of one of their own, but to also protect any brother who might be claimed by the sleep in the heat of battle.
Tactical squads are follow a traditional ten man formation who have a mix of small and heavy weaponry. Utility mechadendrite's are used to haul heavier pieces of war equipment and to  to allow each marine to help conduct field repairs on equipment. Heavy weapons typically reserved for use in devastator squads are instead split between the tactical companies and the scout neophytes, with the scouts taking responsibility for longer ranged equipment such as las cannons and missiles launchers while the tactical companies will carry the heavy bolters, melta weapons and other closer and medium ranged weapons. These heavy weapon wielding members of the tactical squads will typically be the newer battle brothers, fleshly minted from the scouts. While the Drakes try to pursue flexibility, it is an acknowledged irony that the foregoing of the traditional Devastator squad created a strategic inflexibility in the Chapter. However, by maximizing their numbers of tactical marines, the Dragons are able to field a higher number of more versatile units who can in turn punch above their weight. In addition, by dispersing heavier equipment among the companies, it allows for fewer points of failure should a marine fall to the deep sleep, especially since it typically falls to the less experienced marines to carry to the heavy weapons, so should he fall, his more experienced brothers can fill his place.
 
Leading each clan is lead a pair of Iron Captains, one to lead the active company and one to lead the reserve. Steel Drake custom dictates the reserve company captain typically be the elder of the two leaders who receives more deference as his actions are the ones responsible for the long term custodianship of comatose marines, as well as the training of the clans neophytes and equipment maintenance. It is from the reserve company that marines will be pulled from squads to replace holes in the active company created by casualties and from marines who succumb to the slumber.
While overall this structure gives the Drakes a high degree of redundancy and tactical flexibility, it has come with significant drawbacks. The Drakes field few specialized units such as land speeder squadrons or bike squads, partially due to an unwillingness to dedicate too many units in the active and reserve companies to such roles and also out of a concern that should the Deep Sleep overtake a vehicles pilot, the machine spirit of the vehicle or his fellow brothers might not be able to stop the fast moving vehicle in enough time to prevent disaster. In addition, the company lost most of their dreadnought frames in the Siege of Kenshiro and the marines interred in the few remaining units are still vulnerable to the Deep Sleep, resulting in rare deployments of their dreadnoughts. The chapter is well supplied with Rhinos and their variant patterns though thanks to their friendly relations with the nearby forgeworlds. This has allowed the company to focus on their niche as effective defensive units and shock attack infantry.

 
**Training:**

Training and advancement is an esoteric mix of training, forging and mysticism. After an applicant is screened and admitted he spends a year training with the marines and other trainees in the monastery after the great Kenshiro pilgrimage. After the year has passed he is placed in a great workshop and order to create some kind of tool to demonstrate his abilities. These have ranged for knives, swords, crude guns to metal statues and carts. The object is then judged by a conclave of marines in the monastery. If it is accepted, the applicant is then implanted with the first phase of implants and sent to one of the five clans for further training. The neophyte will spend the next ten years receiving training and input from the five clans. At the end of the tenth year, the initiate is returned to Kenshiro where he must forge his first Mechadendrite. Often a small utility arm with several tools, this first bionic will serve the marine well as he learns the nuances of equipment maintenance and artificing. After his Mechadendrite is deemed sufficient, the neophyte attends a selecting, where representatives from the five clans will select the neophytes who'll join their clan for the remainders of their lives. After the near destruction of their chapter, the Steel Drakes have forgone the elective amputation of limb for bionics, instead preferring to utilize mechadendrites. However, many still opt to replace one of their eyes with a bionic replacement, both as a homage to their past progenitors in the Iron Hands and as a way to further demonstrate the synthesis of machine and man.
 
After their time in the scout squad is complete, the marine must once again forge another Mechadendrite to add to their first. Demanding higher quality than before, only once the second attachment is completed is the marine allowed to join the clan tactical squad. This second Mechadendrite is usually some kind of servo arm, capable of hauling a heavy bolter or large missile launcher or las cannons. Some however opt to further refine their utility mechadendrite, adding additional tools and functions to better help augment their squad. In the tactical squad, the new marine will spend several years carrying heavy war gear for the squad to use in a quasi-devastator role, but often will fight with a  normal bolters as well. After years in this role, the marine will forge one more Mechadendrite, either a newer utility arm or a ballistic arm depending on their assignment. It is only after the third Mechadendrite is forged that the marine is considered a full-fledged brother in the clan.
 
Further advancement in the clan is dependent on further rituals and training in the squad. While each marine is fully capable of maintaining and manufacturing the equipment needed for the squad, techmarine training allows for more advance fabrication and creation to occur. Marines selected for such training are allowed to embark on the Red Pilgrimage, a centennial journey where one hundred marines from the clans will board a strike cruiser and go to Mars for additional training. After their training on Mars, the marines will spend several decades on crusade before returning home. From these veterans, each clans techmarines are drawn from. In addition, these marines will have forged an additional Mechadendrite suited for their roles, often using both a utility and a combat mechadendrite. From the one hundred who embark on the journey, a few will be selected to work among the genetors of Mars, refining their knowledge and skills to work as apothecaries among the Steel Dragons. The primary tasks of the apothecary apart from caring for the wounded are to also monitor the Steel Dragons entombed in the medical wards of their monasteries in instances of the Deep Sleep taking hold for the long term. Their training among the genetors is also crucial to help monitor their own gene seed to ensure no furthers flaws develop within the new generation of marines.  

Like the Iron Hands, the Steel Drakes also forego the use of chaplains and instead make use of Iron Fathers for their technical works and ministrations. To become an Iron Father, the marine must have already completed the Red Pilgrimage. Receiving permission from his clan, the marine will forge a fifth Mechadendrite, unrivaled by any of the four he's already made and then embark on a decades long journey. First the aspirant will make a pilgrimage to Nocturne to meet the Salamanders and learn finer nuances of the Promethean Cult. From there he will meditate on the cult's teachings while applying all he known of the machine cult and of the beliefs of Ferrus Manus. From Nocturne the marine must journey through the Imperium, surviving conflict and strife along the way. With the flaws in their Catalepsean Nodes, this journey is incredibly perilous for the solitary marine. Often these itinerant wanderers will join Inquisitorial bands and assist in rooting out heresy and other threats to the Imperium. Such skills prove useful if the marine survives and returns to his clan, not only has the marine learned more of the deeper mysteries of the Promethean Cult and the Iron Hand's own native beliefs, they'll also have the skills necessary to sniff out heresy within and outside the chapter should it appear.
The most important duty for the Iron Fathers however, is the ministration of Marines who've fallen to the Deep Sleep. Often should a marine be overcome, often it will be the Iron Father with his servo arm who will pluck the unfortunate brother from the field and bring him to relative safety. Unless he is one of the lucky ones who awaken minutes or hours from his slumber, following the battle the Father will intern the marine in a specialized life support pod and perform the proper ministration to his brother in the hopes of bringing him back to his fellows. Once his task is complete, he will turn the pod over the clan apothecaries who will then place it within a fortified bunker in the clan's monastery. Here the Iron Father's of the reserve company will perform daily patrols of the chamber and administer rites and perform meditations over their slumbering brothers, and should one awake, will be the first to greet him and welcome him home. These bunkers are the most fortified positions in all five monasteries, should the walls of their fortress ever be breached, every Steel Dragon will lay down his life before he allows one of his slumbering brothers to be slain before they have the chance to rise and meet their proper end in battle against the Imperiums foes.

 
**Allies:**

 

Unlike their progenitors, the Steel Drakes maintain a friendly relationship with the Salamanders, holding onto the memory of the sacrifices of Vulkan Bra'kall's band of warriors. With the presence of three advance forge worlds in their home sector of Itano, and their Iron Hands heritage, the chapter also maintains close ties with the Adeptus Mechanicus, the centennial journey to Mars is always welcomed fondly on the red planet and all three forge worlds of Sector Itano have several facilities ready for use by the marines if they need rapid supply replenishment. To maintain friendly relations, the marines will often send these forge worlds the earlier mechadendrites forged by the marines in their training. While small in number, the symbolic return of technology to the Mechanicus often pleases the magos of the worlds.  The chapter also maintains friendly relations with Von Helvik rogue trader family, as both enjoy close relationships with the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the chapter still honors Marquez ibn Von Helvick for the times he risked life and limb to run the Chaos blockade and lead the Imperial fleet to their liberation.
While initially rocky, over the millennium the Drakes and their world's Inquisitors have come to have a good formal working relationship, helped further by the assistance the chapters Iron Fathers have lent to inquisitorial bands across the galaxy while on their pilgrimages. In fact, while their gene seed's history and  their chapter's unorthodox beliefs and practices have made a few in the Inquisition leery of the Drakes, the marines are actually the unknowing beneficiaries of informal support from a number of Conclaves and cells, many of whom have had their one or more of them members assisted by an Iron Father at some point throughout the millennium.

 
**Enemies:**

 

Having spent thousands of years fighting the Orks of Blud Choppas Choppa, the Steel Drakes maintain a fierce determination to root out and destroy the greenskin menace that threatens their sector. However, the Steel Drakes maintain a special hatred for the Eldar of Craftworld Fari, for it was by their interference that he vile forces of Chaos were allowed to gain access to the artifact which nearly destroyed their chapter. In addition the Eldar mount periodic and violent raids across the sector. In particular though, the various heretical warbands which attack the sector too are hunted without mercy by the Drakes, who have pledged to find and eliminate every member of the Corsairs of Damnation who nearly destroyed their chapter thousands of years ago. The task is somewhat difficult as the warband fractured in two, with some of the force dedicating itself to Slaneesh and renaming themselves the Singers of the Ascension. Having stolen a battleship from the Corsairs, both groups are targeted by the Drakes, who seek to end all who hunted them so long ago.

 
 
Appearance: http://imgur.com/0FooHwd
 
I wanted to see if this looked alright, I wanted the chapter to be realistic for the established rules and lore of the 40k universe, but I don't want to accidentally make them a bunch of mary sues or going full weeb. I still have to flesh out more details from the history of the chapter such as their conflict with the orks and some of their figures form chapter legend, but I wanted to get the feel for the chapter down first. Thanks!