Void Marshals: Codex Chapter Summary

[feuer_faust]

Howdy, folks. I've gotten out of the Death Guard business, and decided not to continue with my older Brotherhood of the Sun. It was fun, but not something I am in the head space for. What I am in the head space for is some rootin' tootin' bolter shootin' space marines.
 
I read a bit of the Octoguide, then the part about not doing an IA. Fair enough, I will start small and work my way up. This CCS covers the Void Marshal's methods of war, where they are from, and how they recruit. This is the distillation of tons of ideas floating around my head, and certainly is not sacred. I didn't even include why their armor is yellow: during their founding, an administratum scribe pointed out that yellow is the least-used color for new chapters, and they have had trillions of gallons of yellow paint slowly agitating in massive drums since the Great Crusade. Thus, each Void Marshal's armor is covered in artifact paint that is older than their chapter.
 
Silliness aside, I hope this is a solid start, I am open to things I might want to include, expand upon, or cut. I don't have a chapter symbol yet! I felt a six-pointed star is too on-the-nose. The transfer sheet has a "campaign badge" that is a skull in a yellow circle, which is interesting as a base, maybe. Making a chapter is hard work!
 
Void Marshals
On the outskirts of the galaxy, a beleaguered Imperial Navy was stretched thin safeguarding a stable junction of warp routes. Seeing the need for decisive aid, a new chapter of Space Marines was commissioned to tip the scales. A century later, the wrap lanes are still under constant attack by pirate forces, but now the Void Marshals have arrived in force. Their role is more proactive than mere defense, specializing in close-quarters assaults on space hulks and strongholds to strike at and destroy enemy leadership. The Void Marshals are descended from Rogal Dorn's legacy, and persecute their foes with matchless tenacity and zeal.
 
Nearby the warp routes is the planet Carbine, a frontier world rich in minerals, oils, and dirt. Hard-bitten, diligent workers make their livings mining, prospecting, or guarding massive land trains that haul entire populations from one prospect to another. Most violence comes from the constant raids from pirate and bandit forces of all description, be they human, ork, or eldar. The world is littered with ancient colony ships from man's first great expansion into the stars, and these archaeotech-rich hulks always draw a flood of adventuring types when uncovered.
 
The local populace makes perfect aspirants, each one a product of a tough, frontier life where self-reliance is tempered with the need to look after one's community as a whole. Every decade the Void Marshals send about a dozen drop pods to the surface of Carbine, often in remote and dangerous valleys or mountainsides. Each drop pod is programmed to defend itself, but any who can outwit and survive the pod's defenses and get inside are collected to begin their ascension.

 

"Necessum iustitiae." Battle cry of the Void Marshals
 

 

Edit 1: Added battle cry.

Edited April 8, 2020 by feuer_faust

[Fenrykus]

I like the "Aspirant Trial" you have. Maybe throw something in there where these specific drop pods are less outright lethal than the typical Deathstorm drop pods. Afterall, the intent of the Chapter isn't to kill those Aspirants who aren't cut out for becoming Astartes; they do need Chapter serfs and the like. 

[feuer_faust]

I like the "Aspirant Trial" you have. Maybe throw something in there where these specific drop pods are less outright lethal than the typical Deathstorm drop pods. Afterall, the intent of the Chapter isn't to kill those Aspirants who aren't cut out for becoming Astartes; they do need Chapter serfs and the like. 

 

Thanks for the feedback. As you've guessed, the actual process is a bit more nuanced than the summary allows for. Most drop pods that have armaments are simply storm bolters set to single-fire: enough to kill the unwary, but not insurmountable. Other drops pods might have logic puzzles, a timing mechanism, or any other arcane trials devised by techmarines, librarians, or chaplains to test ingenuity, faith, discipline in duress, et cetera. In thinking of notable characters, the current Master of the Fleets deciphered the pattern by which the drop pods were deployed in his fay: he simply waited and got the jump on the drop after it landed. Such a calculating mind makes him perfect to coordinate the fleet. And yeah, though who scrub out, are too old to be true aspirants, or otherwise don't quite make the cut can still find service as chapter serfs.

 

Speaking of fleets, I am trying to figure out where to work this in: despite having a homeworld, the Void Marshals have an expansive fleet of pursuit craft. They spend as much time in their own subsector as they do in adjoining or further subsectors. Their quarries often go to extreme lengths to flee the Emperor's justice, and as such one can encounter kill teams or full detachments of Void Marshals virtually anywhere, if only for the brief period of time it takes for them to execute their duties.

[Brother Lunkhead]

Nice work here Brother feuer. I'm a suckers for westerns and the old west feel really hits the mark.

 

One the subject of fleets, in keeping with the theme, squadrons of Hunter destroyers neatly fit the bill for pursuit craft. A squad of ten marines in a fast attack craft armed with a mix of anti-ship torpedoes and boarding torpedoes would make for a right proper posse.

[Fenrykus]

Brother Lunkhead's idea is superb. To expand on it, you could do something similar to the Black Templars' Crusade Fleets, but on a smaller scale. Each Company Commander could command a fleet, led by a Strike Cruiser, and each given somewhat limited autonomy to pursue their objectives.

[Brother Lunkhead]

Good point Brother Fenrykus. One or two squadrons of Hunter destroyers attached to a Strike Cruiser would make for a very flexible Battle Company Strike Fleet.

 

A Strike Cruiser could act as the logistical hub for far ranging multiple smaller missions, or as the heavy hitter for a larger campaign.

 

I will point out that such fleet formations will probably cause consternation with the Imperial Navy and Inquisition..... so be it.

[feuer_faust]

Thanks, Brother Lunkhead and Fenrykus. My knowledge of 40k is pretty dim when it comes to naval things, so the extra information is very helpful. I wanted them to have a homeworld, but essentially they are a fleet-bound chapter at the end of the day.

[Brother Lunkhead]

Always away on business and never home, heh?

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Every decade the Void Marshals send about a dozen drop pods to the surface of Carbine, often in remote and dangerous valleys or mountainsides. Each drop pod is programmed to defend itself, but any who can outwit and survive the pod's defenses and get inside are collected to begin their ascension.

I take issue with this test, because a drop pod is immobile once it lands, rendering itself a mere inconvenience for those it's meant to test- one potential recruits can easily avoid. A better test would be for unarmed drop pods to deploy combat servitors aesthetically modified to resemble chupacabra or other monsters, armed with flamers and/or close combat weapons ONLY, equipped with video cameras (or whatever the devices are called in M40) and transmitters so the Chapter's officers may monitor how the test is going. These "chupacabras" are programmed to launch terror attacks on human settlements, but to ignore women and small children (the Chapter doesn't want to depopulate its own planet, depriving itself of potential recruits); those who demonstrate the courage, strength, speed, skill, and intelligence to defeat the "chupacabras" can be easily identified (thanks to the combat servitors' cameras and transmitters) for the Chaplains to retrieve for training, with the Marine recruits' families honored and compensated for making these youths worthy of joining the Chapter.

"Necessum iustitiae." Battle cry of the Void Marshals

What does it mean? "Necessary justice"?

[Brother Lunkhead]

I like Brother Bjorn's idea of the deployable combat survitors. However, I would modify it to deploying drop pods and aspirants to isolated areas. Inflicting casualties and damage to settlements will only be a negative for the Chapter. Edited April 12, 2020 by Brother Lunkhead

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I like Brother Bjorn's idea of the deployable combat survitors. However, I would modify it to deploying drop pods and aspirants to isolated areas. Inflicting casualties and damage to settlements will only be a negative for the Chapter.

Good idea! Take Space Marines who just received gene-seed, put them in drop pods whose weapons were replaced with noisemakers (to "ring the dinner bell" for death world beasts), send the drop pods to isolated areas, and see who can make it back to the Chapter's fortress-monastery, as a Void Marshals version of the Space Wolves' "Ultimate Test." The rank of "corporal" automatically goes to those who demonstrate promising leadership skills, by leading more than half of his fellow drop pod passengers back (the new Marines are tested in squads, to encourage them to cooperate).

Edited April 12, 2020 by Brother Lunkhead

[feuer_faust]

Hey, it's been a minute. As an essential worker, my free time remains as limited as always.

 

The motto is supposed to translate as "Inevitable Justice." Now, I admit I fell into the latin trap. I'm open to ideas that get the theme of the Void Marshals being inescapable hunters of outlaws across.

 

For the tests: I reckon they probably have a battery of tests they rotate. Sometimes it's a creepy, monstrous servitor. Other times it's a scout sergeant with no weaponry, a spool of wire, and a roll of duct tape. While decimating their own people is bad, I imagine sometimes it might get out of hand or simply handwaved as necessity to cultivate the toughest people (given that 40k is over the top when it comes to grimdark).

 

Still drawing a blank on the chapter symbol. I am half-considering using a stylized sheriff's star at this point.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

For the tests: I reckon they probably have a battery of tests they rotate. Sometimes it's a creepy, monstrous servitor. Other times it's a scout sergeant with no weaponry, a spool of wire, and a roll of duct tape. While decimating their own people is bad, I imagine sometimes it might get out of hand or simply handwaved as necessity to cultivate the toughest people (given that 40k is over the top when it comes to grimdark).

Good idea. Diversifying the type of tests potential recruits undergo, should also diversify their thinking, allowing them to adapt to and counter a variety of enemies.

Still drawing a blank on the chapter symbol. I am half-considering using a stylized sheriff's star at this point.

I once suggested a skull with a star branded in its forehead, and to explain why a Chapter would adopt it, suggested the Chapter planet's people would punish criminals by branding stars in the criminals' foreheads. (The other IA writer ultimately chose a winged horse as a Chapter symbol.)

[feuer_faust]

I like it, Bjorn. Works with their theme, and sounds like something Imperials would do. I think I may do the US Marshal star (5 points), as it'll be less fuzzy when it is small... and a little less problematic than branding people with 6-pointed stars. Edited June 23, 2020 by feuer_faust

[feuer_faust]

On further thinking, the star brand and servitor-tude likely awaits criminals captured alive. This is party of what allows the Void Marshals' autonomy: a veritable army of low-maintenance servitors enacting eternal penance.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

On further thinking, the star brand and servitor-tude likely awaits criminals captured alive. This is party of what allows the Void Marshals' autonomy: a veritable army of low-maintenance servitors enacting eternal penance.

Good idea, though an exception should be made for a lot of Chaos worshipers and all Genestealer cultists, whose corruption may be invisible to human senses. In both cases, the criminals are literal time bombs, serving as psychic beacons to draw Daemons (in a Chaos worshiper's case) and Tyranid Hive fleets (in a Genestealer's case) to their position.

 

In short, kill the Chaos and Genestealer cultists, and incinerate the bodies- unless you intend to pull a Kryptman and dump the Genestealer cultists on a Chaos-held world, i.e., use one enemy of the Imperium against another.