Black Pegasi

[Gamiel]

This is something that begun as something small where I needed a Chapter that did not really have anything really written about them for interaction with an fully fanmade Chapter for a fic in the work, and it snowballed into something bigger than just some notes, so I decided to post what have jutted down for others to comment. The base for my fanlore is the von Kaus family from the adventure Scenic Dunnsmouth to Lamentations of the Flame Princess because their coat-of-arm is a Pegasus and there existed a name-and-little-more Chapter called Black Pegasi. Since one of the plot points of Scenic Dunnsmouth involves time problems should I ad some kind of time-based problems for them or have them interacting with Ordo Chronos but I don’t have any idea how (beside making them Ordo Chronos de facto Chamber Militant but I don’t know if that’s a good idea).

 

Black Pegasi Chapter

+ an older Chapter; unknown geneseed origin or Founding, but the oldest known mention of them is from pre-6th Founding.

+ Symbol is a black Pegasus rampant on white (usually with a green frame), or on green and white.

+ Their armour has white as the main colour, the Aquila/Imperialis, the power pack, shoulder plate trim, both knee guards and both feet are green.

- horns or wing decorations on their helmets are common among higher officers

- green tabards, robes or kontusz are common

+ proud, honourable, and respectable, but their pride, honour and respectability is in many ways their armour since they have gone on bad times and maybe have some problem in their semi-near history; at the same time they are insular, secretive and conservative.

+ much of their technology/equipment is old and well maintained. Their ships are clean and somewhat lacking in ornamentation. Has a “we have not much but at least our home is clean and respectable” attitude. – lots of Mark 5 n 6 armour parts. At the same time there are parts of their fortress-monastery closed away because they are damaged and they have not the time/resources to repair them, so it’s a bit of question of showing a clean front (possibly just for themselves since they don’t have many visitors) while there are problems that they hideaway.

- Possibly is part of the reason why they use much older equipment, instead of having it locked away for special situation, is that they have not gotten much new equipment (because of reasons) and are to prideful to ask around or for help.

+ lost lots of marines in the defence of their homeworld (and possibly in earlier incidents) and their rebuilding would probably go faster if they did not constantly send out marines because of old depts, word of honour, and calls for help. Their honour and pride demand that they send brothers to them all.

+ Lingua

- Ordensmeister = Chapter-master

- Scriptor = Librarian

- Ordenspriester = chaplain

- Kompaniecaptain = captain

- Kompanien = company

- Kommandant = commander

- Fähnrich = Sergant

- Schiffsführer/Schiffsführerin = the chapter-serf who captains a void-ship

- blood-brother = battle-brother, from that they are brother that shed blood together 

- knappe = squire

+ Name (they keep their old, pre-Astartes names): Herman, Heinrich, Dietyr, Ivanovik, Johann, Bernard, Klaus, Matthias, Frank, Erik, Adolph, Niklas, Lukas, Wolfgang, Jaeger, Ulric, Frederik, Otto, Grigori,

+ returning symbols (or possibly company markings)

- A black cock vigilant

- the Pegasus constellation

- the grim reaper

- the spade [as in the card symbol]

- armour area covered in a fusilly bendwise pattern, in argent and azure.

- a panthier rampant in blue – a "panthier" (pronounced as in French), is a mixture of a dragon and a lion.

+ Looks:

- many of them have sideburns

- moustaches are not uncommon, many of them waxed and with upward pointing ends

+ suffer from a dark secret in their past, either is something long ago and only truly known to the masters of the chapter, or something that happened recent-ish (or is old but was unearthed recent-ish) and known to all who was there. In either case, those not in the know still feel a sense of guilt about something that their elders refuse to talk about and a sense of fear of being found out by others.

Possible shames:

- they are not the real Black Pegasi chapter but renegades who took over their name, colours, monastery and all, after killing the last real Black Pegasi marines or founding the remains of the chapter after its unreported last stand.

- during the Horus Heresy the marines that would become the Black Pegasi chapter sided with Horus and after the failed cue run and hide to later appear claiming to be among the loyal marines that had not been able to leave their area/get to Terra for reasons. And was believed.

- They are not the original Black Pegasi chapter, the real one was secretly exterminated by the =][= (for reasons) and the ancestors of the current Black Pegasi chapter was told to take over their name, colours and stuff to hide what had been done.

- a large group of the chapter fell to Chaos/xeno/such.

- during a very long period the Chapter scavenged other chapters arms and armour from battlefield, and even killed lone allied marines for their stuff, especially if it was better or more venerable gear. That’s part of the reason to how they have so much older equipment.

- during the recent-ish attack on their homeworld it was exposed that the chapter’s command had given it’s blessing for experimentation in forbidden arts (gene-seed-manipulation, major tech-heresy, sorcery, etc.). The lower ranks of the chapter killed the command and all other involved before destroying all evidence of what had been done. Or did they….

- they are of Traitor Legion gene-seed.

- a high genestealer infection had happened right under their nose on their own home world.

- only known to the high officers of the chapter is that 10% of all the Chapter’s gene-seed is found to be corrupt, either during the harvesting or during the implantation, making the chapter’s stock of useful gene-seed shrinking for every year.

- as they age many/all marines begin to mutate in ways that would likely make them Excommunicate Traitoris. This is only revealed to battle-brothers when they get into the age that they begin to mutate. The corpses of all older brother most be retaken from the battlefield and placed in the chapter’s guarded crypts.

- a xeno-infection had been going on, and spreading, among the brothers of the Chapter for some time before it was discovered and the infected purged.

* Any suggestions on more reasons?

 

Planet: Kaus

+ the home and recruitment world for the Black Pegasi

+ was notably damaged during a recent-ish attack on it, with tsunamis, rising oceans and damaged weather. Currently there is some weather problems with lots of rain, leading to many areas being covered in dead trees and other vegetation, killed off by water sickness. Lots of, relatively, new swampland, deltas, and lakes where there used to be forests, grassland or settlements. The planet has within the last two generations stabilized (more or less) so new swampland, lakes, or similar is not created or expanded constantly, but avalanches because of too much rain over is still common.

+ lots of swamps, wetlands, deltas and similar. Ruins of old structures can be seen sticking up from some shorelines or lakes.

+ Mostly Central European in feeling with some other areas, take a look at any of the cultures living near swampland all over Europe and in post-colonial but pre-20th-centery USA.

+ For inspiration: Universal and Hammer Horrors small European villages and towns

+ Names are Germanic or Slavic

- male example names: Herman, Heinrich, Dietyr, Ivanovik, Johann, Bernard, Klaus, Matthias, Frank, Erik, Adolph, Niklas, Lukas, Wolfgang, Jaeger, Ulric, Frederik, Otto, Grigori,

- female example names: Ludmilla, Maxine, Klara, Klaudia, Gertrude, Anastasia, Gunhild, Ulrica, Erika, Birgitta, Brunhilde, Dorothea, Maryla, Jadwiga, Brygida, Frederika,

 

 

Planet: DFD-002

A cold planet of mostly mountains and high plateaus, rising up from a cold, dark ocean.

Shows all signs of once being a cemetery world with much of the high plateaus, and parts of the other lands given over to cemeteries, graveyards, mausoleums and such. Catacombs honeycomb the near underground of most plateaus, with some of the catacombs going deep, deep into the ground.

Something happened that made people stop sending their dead there. All the official maps shows it as an restricted world and all the official sub-sector and sector papers have nothing on it before its classification as a restricted world.

Something have made the Black Pegasi to constantly keep at least ten marines on guard on the planet, maybe the same something that stopped people from sending their dead.

Spending time on the high plateaus or in the mountains invite nightmares, the natives live in the lowlands, but are still hunted by bad sleep.

Marines are as haunted by the nightmares as normal humans but their psycho-indoctrination and transhuman psycho-physiology makes them unaffected by it, at least for as long as their vigil last. Except for a few, who crack and go mad. Most of those madmen are either put down, or stripped of their armour and gear and let lose to live as mad hermits on the surface.

All who has been selected for a possible future as a Chaplain have to spend a vigil on DFD-002, to make certain that their psychic are as strong as needed.

The planet is of interest for Ordo Chrono for some reason and the Black Pegasi that stand watch send regular reports to the Ordo (or one of its members) – likely those reports go unread and unseen since the Ordo’s members all have (supposedly) vanished.

+ the natives have an overall technology of 19th century countryside, fragments of STC-technology can be found here and there.

- are armed with crossbows and backloaded one-shot guns.

- have biblical-ish names, ex. Ezekiel, Isaiah, Seth, Enoch, Enos, Irad, Kenan, Mehujael, Mahalalel, Methushael, Jared, Adah, Lamech, Zillah, Enoch, Jabal, Jubal, Tubal, Naamah, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Japheth, Iscah, Jecholiah, Merab, Atarah, Ham,

+ What is it that happened that made the planet restricted and forgotten?

- some kind of phenomenon (xeno-stuff, Dark Age of Technology tech, Warp-shenanigans, etc.) plucked out of time for millennia and put it back.

- it was found out that some radicals Ordo Chronos had been using the planet as a base, after being stopped and slain it was found that they had built some kind of aperture that was deemed to dangerous to destroy (who know what forces that would unleash) and instead it was decided that the planet would be declared in restricted and eras it from all Imperial paperwork to prevent people from finding it. Its original name changed into just a designation.

- an unknown, very large, artefact was found bennet the planet’s surface, that was deemed too dangerous to destroy (who know what forces that would unleash) and instead it was decided that the planet would be declared in restricted and eras it from all Imperial paperwork to prevent people from finding it. Its original name changed into just a designation.

- the veil between realspace and the immaterium begun to grow very thin on the planet and it was deemed that it was better to just declare it restricted and eras it from all Imperial paperwork to prevent people from finding it. Why they did not just destroy it is unknown.

* Any suggestions on more reasons?

 

 

* DFD-002 is inspiered by the Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure Death Frost Doom since it had some of the elements that fit with was already established regarding the Black Pegasi 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Gamiel

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good imagination. By your description, the Chapter culture is based on Eastern European regions the Teutonic Knights Christianized?

 

- during the Horus Heresy the marines that would become the Black Pegasi chapter sided with Horus and after the failed cue run and hide to later appear claiming to be among the loyal marines that had not been able to leave their area/get to Terra for reasons. And was believed.

- a large group of the chapter fell to Chaos/xeno/such.

 

- during a very long period the Chapter scavenged other chapters arms and armour from battlefield, and even killed lone allied marines for their stuff, especially if it was better or more venerable gear. That’s part of the reason to how they have so much older equipment.

- they are of Traitor Legion gene-seed.

Let's combine these various ideas into a coherent whole. Say the Chapter was actually a Great Crusade-era Sons of Horus unit, garrisoning a planet. When their Primarch turned traitor, the officers turned with him, but the lower-ranking Marines- who were kept ignorant of their leaders' plans, to preserve the latter's secrecy- kept faith with the Emperor, starting a Chapter war that raged until a [insert Loyalist Legion] flotilla passed near the planet. With the [Loyalist Legion's] aid, the future Pegasi executed their own traitorous officers, and began rebuilding; during the Scouring, the Loyalist Legion claimed the Black Pegasi were one of its own, shielding the latter from open retaliation, though hidden retaliation- e.g., forge worlds using various excuses to avoid giving the Black Pegasi materiel the AdMech is obligated to give a Loyalist Chapter- still occurred.

- an unknown, very large, artefact was found bennet the planet’s surface, that was deemed too dangerous to destroy (who know what forces that would unleash) and instead it was decided that the planet would be declared in restricted and eras it from all Imperial paperwork to prevent people from finding it. Its original name changed into just a designation.

 

- the veil between realspace and the immaterium begun to grow very thin on the planet and it was deemed that it was better to just declare it restricted and eras it from all Imperial paperwork to prevent people from finding it. Why they did not just destroy it is unknown.

Say the Inquisition discovered a damaged Webway gate deep underneath the planet, weakening the veil between the Materium and the Immaterium, and it's concerned any attempt to destroy the gate, will instead tear open the veil, transforming DFD-002 into a Daemon World? That the Black Pegasi garrison the planet, in exchange for certain favors from the Inquisition?

 

Nitpicks, with my emphases:

Black Pegai

There's a typo in the Chapter name.

Schiffsführer/Schiffsführerin = the chapter-serf [who] captain a void-ship

I replaced "that" with "who".

Planet: Kaus

As there's a strong Germanic vibe to this IA, I couldn't help but wonder if the Chapter planet was meant to be "Klaus", with an additional "l" in its spelling. Who or what was the planet named for?

Marines are as h[a]unted by the nightmares

You used "hunted" when "haunted" would be more appropriate.

[Gamiel]

Have added "at the same time they are insular, secretive and conservative" in green

 

Feel I need suggestions for things they are honurbound to send marines to, beside DFD-002, people have any?

 

Good imagination. By your description, the Chapter culture is based on Eastern European regions the Teutonic Knights Christianized? 

Not really. I had not the Teutonic Knights in mind when I developed their lore, only the stuff that's mentioned around the von Kaus family from the Scenic Dunnsmouth adventure - I got many of their names from that, that they are Germanic-ish, old nobility on a hard time, the winged helmet thing (one of the von Kaus had one), the whole "have a dark secret" thing. A mention about one of their buildings being Bavarian like made me quickly look up Bavaria from where I got the horned helmet, blue and white fusilly bendwise pattern, the panthier rampant in blue (all parts of Bavaria's coat-of-arm or the areas historical coat-of-arms). As part of having them Germanic-ish did I look up what the SM's rank titles are called in german (thank you german Lexicanum) and made up some of my own based on translations. 

 

 

As there's a strong Germanic vibe to this IA, I couldn't help but wonder if the Chapter planet was meant to be "Klaus", with an additional "l" in its spelling. Who or what was the planet named for?

It's Kaus, as in von Kaus from Scenic Dunnsmouth.

 

Fixed the typos you pointed out, thanks for noticing them

[Bjorn Firewalker]

- blood-brother = battle-brother, from that they are brother that shed blood together

I'm surprised you didn't use "Blutsbrüder" (the German term for "blood brother") instead.

[Gamiel]

 

- blood-brother = battle-brother, from that they are brother that shed blood together

I'm surprised you didn't use "Blutsbrüder" (the German term for "blood brother") instead.

I thought about it but decided to not to, don't remember why right now

[rookster]

Since one of the plot points of Scenic Dunnsmouth involves time problems should I ad some kind of time-based problems for them or have them interacting with Ordo Chronos but I don’t have any idea how (beside making them Ordo Chronos de facto Chamber Militant but I don’t know if that’s a good idea)

 

Given the aesthetic you are going for with the chapter with old gear and what not, and are wanting them to have a shame/linked to Ordo Chronos, could you not maybe do something along the lines of the entire chapter going to answer the call of like one of 5e black crusades or something along those lines, however when the chapter leaves the warp its like 1000 or more years later, the chapter has been deemed lost by the imperium, Ordo Chronos becomes interested because of the time issue? Edited July 11, 2021 by rookster

[Bjorn Firewalker]

 

Since one of the plot points of Scenic Dunnsmouth involves time problems should I ad some kind of time-based problems for them or have them interacting with Ordo Chronos but I don’t have any idea how (beside making them Ordo Chronos de facto Chamber Militant but I don’t know if that’s a good idea)

 

Given the aesthetic you are going for with the chapter with old gear and what not, and are wanting them to have a shame/linked to Ordo Chronos, could you not maybe do something along the lines of the entire chapter going to answer the call of like one of 5e black crusades or something along those lines, however when the chapter leaves the warp its like 1000 or more years later, the chapter has been deemed lost by the imperium, Ordo Chronos becomes interested because of the time issue?

Good imagination. Considering the Fantasy Flight Games RPG source books also state Ordo Chronos mysteriously disappeared without a trace, I wonder if we can say the reason was because the Ordo committed everything in support of the Chapter's war against [insert enemy here- maybe Necrons, so the Chapter won't be overspecialized against Chaos, rendering the Marines helpless against the Imperium's many other enemies?], and only recently returned to the Materium with the Chapter, instead of stupidly causing a time paradox and erasing themselves from existence (my impression, after reading the source books)?

[Gamiel]

 

 

Since one of the plot points of Scenic Dunnsmouth involves time problems should I ad some kind of time-based problems for them or have them interacting with Ordo Chronos but I don’t have any idea how (beside making them Ordo Chronos de facto Chamber Militant but I don’t know if that’s a good idea)

Given the aesthetic you are going for with the chapter with old gear and what not, and are wanting them to have a shame/linked to Ordo Chronos, could you not maybe do something along the lines of the entire chapter going to answer the call of like one of 5e black crusades or something along those lines, however when the chapter leaves the warp its like 1000 or more years later, the chapter has been deemed lost by the imperium, Ordo Chronos becomes interested because of the time issue?

Good imagination. Considering the Fantasy Flight Games RPG source books also state Ordo Chronos mysteriously disappeared without a trace, I wonder if we can say the reason was because the Ordo committed everything in support of the Chapter's war against [insert enemy here- maybe Necrons, so the Chapter won't be overspecialized against Chaos, rendering the Marines helpless against the Imperium's many other enemies?], and only recently returned to the Materium with the Chapter, instead of stupidly causing a time paradox and erasing themselves from existence (my impression, after reading the source books)?

Or maybe the Black Pegasi was there when what ever it was that made Ordo Chronos mysteriously disappeared without a trace, and maybe could have stopped it, or at lest tryed to stop it, but decided not to?

 

But that feel a bit to grandiose/important for what I think I'm going for with the Pegasi

Edited July 11, 2021 by Gamiel

[rookster]

 

Or maybe the Black Pegasi was there when what ever it was that made Ordo Chronos mysteriously disappeared without a trace, and maybe could have stopped it, or at lest tryed to stop it, but decided not to?

 

But that feel a bit to grandiose/important for what I think I'm going for with the Pegasi

 

yeah might be a bit too much though, I do have a thought, with combining my idea with Bjorn's. We know that Necrons have a crap ton of time bending/breaking weapons, specifically the Cryptek Orikan The Diviner is big on the time bending/seeing stuff. What if the Ordo Chronos responded to something that he was doing, lets say the awaking of a crypt world or some such and was testing some device that would mess with time. The OC request aide from closest SM chapter which happens to the be the Pegasi, they respond with full chapter deployment. battle ensues, things are going badly, OC blow up or do something to the device, OC and Pegasi, get bumped into the future by 1000 years or time locked for that long, something along those lines. in that time maybe the chapter homeword gets wrecked by xenos predation, either way chapter is listed as lost.

Edited July 12, 2021 by rookster

[Minigiant]

Good imagination. By your description, the Chapter culture is based on Eastern European regions the Teutonic Knights Christianized?

 

- during the Horus Heresy the marines that would become the Black Pegasi chapter sided with Horus and after the failed cue run and hide to later appear claiming to be among the loyal marines that had not been able to leave their area/get to Terra for reasons. And was believed.

- a large group of the chapter fell to Chaos/xeno/such.

 

- during a very long period the Chapter scavenged other chapters arms and armour from battlefield, and even killed lone allied marines for their stuff, especially if it was better or more venerable gear. That’s part of the reason to how they have so much older equipment.

- they are of Traitor Legion gene-seed.

Let's combine these various ideas into a coherent whole. Say the Chapter was actually a Great Crusade-era Sons of Horus unit, garrisoning a planet. When their Primarch turned traitor, the officers turned with him, but the lower-ranking Marines- who were kept ignorant of their leaders' plans, to preserve the latter's secrecy- kept faith with the Emperor, starting a Chapter war that raged until a [insert Loyalist Legion] flotilla passed near the planet. With the [Loyalist Legion's] aid, the future Pegasi executed their own traitorous officers, and began rebuilding; during the Scouring, the Loyalist Legion claimed the Black Pegasi were one of its own, shielding the latter from open retaliation, though hidden retaliation- e.g., forge worlds using various excuses to avoid giving the Black Pegasi materiel the AdMech is obligated to give a Loyalist Chapter- still occurred.

 

How about we take this one step further and introduce the idea of Blackshields.