Executioners: 3rd Founding or 2nd Founding?

[lansalt]

For the record, the Executioners are confirmed IF 2nd founding sucessors. Fafnir Rann, their founder, is a character in the Horus Heresy novels and FW Black Books (Just like Alexis Polux and the Crimson Fists or Sigismund and the Templars).

 

EDIT: Ah, I misunderstood the issue. It's a IF sucessor but it's listed as 3rd founding instead of 2nd. I think a simple explanation is probably the most valid: 3rd founding happened when Dorn was still around, so Fafnir Rann stood by Dorn's side until the second chance to make his own chapter happened.

 

+ Brother Tyler Edit +

 

Note that this discussion was a side discussion that was split from the On the Legions, Chapters, Successors, and Terminology discussion.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Brother Tyler
Explanation for split from other discussion

[jaxom]

For the record, the Executioners are confirmed IF 2nd founding sucessors. Fafnir Rann, their founder, is a character in the Horus Heresy novels and FW Black Books (Just like Alexis Polux and the Crimson Fists or Sigismund and the Templars).

 

EDIT: Ah, I misunderstood the issue. It's a IF sucessor but it's listed as 3rd founding instead of 2nd. I think a simple explanation is probably the most valid: 3rd founding happened when Dorn was still around, so Fafnir Rann stood by Dorn's side until the second chance to make his own chapter happened.

 

Where's the confirmation that Rann was the founder? Asking because curious and I had assumed that the Executioners were founded with assault cadre sensibilities, not necessarily by him.

[lansalt]

 

For the record, the Executioners are confirmed IF 2nd founding sucessors. Fafnir Rann, their founder, is a character in the Horus Heresy novels and FW Black Books (Just like Alexis Polux and the Crimson Fists or Sigismund and the Templars).

 

EDIT: Ah, I misunderstood the issue. It's a IF sucessor but it's listed as 3rd founding instead of 2nd. I think a simple explanation is probably the most valid: 3rd founding happened when Dorn was still around, so Fafnir Rann stood by Dorn's side until the second chance to make his own chapter happened.

 

Where's the confirmation that Rann was the founder? Asking because curious and I had assumed that the Executioners were founded with assault cadre sensibilities, not necessarily by him.

 

It was stated in the IA10 Badab War part 2 book, in the section about the Executioners. When the Heresy books came they made him a character of the stories and now finally he's got a model.

[jaxom]

Neat, I know what I need to read later, thank you!

[MegaVolt87]

I think the Executioners are going to be retconed as a second founding chapter due to the presence of Rhan as a model in the HH character series. A scouring spin off that introduces the first chapter masters like Rhan, Siggy and Pollux could happen. There is no way the executioners stay a 3rd founding chapter with Rhan now a presence. 

[Brother Tyler]

There was older lore about the 3rd Founding taking place a thousand years (I think) after the 2nd Founding. I'm not sure where that lore came from - it may have been conjecture on the part of fans. Under that construct, I would agree with the Executioners being retconned to a 2nd Founding in order to make the idea of Fafnir Rann as the first Chapter Master believable.

 

More recent lore, probably the short story The Aegidan Oath by L J Goulding, has indicated that the 3rd Founding was initiated at the request of Rogal Dorn "centuries" (instead of a millennium) after the Great Heresy.

 

The believability of Fafnir Rann's leadership really depends upon the timing of the 3rd Founding and other circumstances. Even if the 3rd Founding took place too long after the 2nd Founding to make Rann's continued existence unbelievable (or less believable), GW can always invoke Warp shenanigans, such as was done with Darnath Lysander, who disappeared for over a millennium. Or Rann could have been in stasis or in hibernation induced by the Sus-an membrane. Or maybe he was just very old.

 

Or the lore could be retconned so that Rann wasn't the actual initial Chapter Master in person, but was a spiritual inspiration for a later Founding Chapter. This would be similar to how the Sons of Orar, who are thought to be a later Founding Successor of the III Legion, took the name of a great Crusade/Heresy-era Captain. In the case of the Executioners, it may be that fuzzy interpretation and dogma have confused the issue.

 

Games Workshop has already retconned the old "firm" lore about the 2nd Founding. Where previous editions used the Apocrypha of Skaros, the earliest known copy of the Codex Astartes (more likely a commentary on it, I think) as the authoritative source for Chapters created in the 2nd Founding, GW has backtracked on that with additional 2nd Founding Chapters not named in that document. These include the Fists Exemplar (though their redaction is later explained in the War of the Beast) and the Excoriators, both created from the VII Legion.

[jaxom]

“The Aegiden Oath” pretty firmly establishes that HH veterans are still around for the third founding. Sigismund was alive for the first Black Crusade. I don’t think it’s a stretch that Rann simply lived.