Imperium Asunder

>Iron Hearts and Knights Exemplar
Well, this will be interesting.

bump

buump

Write something senpai. Should the Illithyd be native to the webway or somewhere else? How should they interact with other factions?

It's me of course.

Why are all the groups I make purple?

Rolled 18 (1d20)

Yeah, I think I will.

I'll probably write for both the original result and this new one.

Looks like it's the Scions.

Either the Webway or they could be Warp entities like the Enslavers.

Oh, by the way, was it ever decided where Kashaln dueled Anders? Was it on Luna, toward the end of the Heresy?

Neato

I love the diamond watch shit. Is it unfinished?

Awaiting this. Will be good.

Any updates ?

I'm readying a mega update for when I have all my RL projects out of the way.

Also, should be dub the 13 Great Crusades Eternal Crusades instead, to differentiate them from THE Great Crusade? They're considered the most notable wars of a singular Crusade Eternal, much as the Hundred Years War is actually a bunch of other conflicts lumped into one big category.

Finally, yesterday I made up a dude called Severan Roth as the current Lord Regent of the Iron Hearts, ruling in Rubinek's absence. I imagine him as a grim, practical, and belligerent man, more concerned with warding his borders than furthering the wishes of the Imperium, and quietly insistent that he is merely keeping Rubinek's seat warm for his liege's eventual return. How do you guys see this figure being?

Let's give it a shot:
Valdor looked over the vox-thief report he'd just made. This was his fourth revision and he still wasn't satisfied. He could have logged every moment and fragmentary thought and still feel the report inadequate, but as it was, he'd have to trim it massively to get it off to Terra via encrypted Astropathic relay.
The problem, he supposed could all be summed up in that day on Tepectitlan, the construction of administrative buildings and record halls continuing even as the sky split and the vehicle of the gods themselves descended. As he stepped from the Stormbird behind Faustus he was struck by a sense of familiarity, like a strange tableau of the Imperial Palace on Terra rendered in stone and simple iron tools. If the Emperor was the eagle-lord with the lightning bolt, here was an odd echo, the other side of that weather cult. Facing Faustus, Valdor, and their retinues of Oathsworn and Custodes decked in Lunar silvers and Terran golds, stood the lord of Tepectitlan with his own retinue bedecked in quetzal feathers and jade, bearing the sigils of serpents, lightning, and jungle cats. Valdor had been struck by this new Primarch's presence. Not the 'post-human dread' so often spoken of by mortals, after all, Valdor had been created to stand besides his master, the Emperor. No, it was that this lord of a city of stone and mud-brick, who had recently invented iron and the astrolabe could stand and watch these newcomers with an air not of shock, but one of curiosity, as if visitors from the sky were a regular occurrence here and he wondered what service he could render these newest visitors and what news they would bring him of affairs beyond his world. More surprising were the mortals, who stood by their lord and reacted with that same calm curiosity. Valdor was amazed to see a particularly tough looking soldier clad in a quetzal mantle and wearing the head of a jaguar as a helmet sizing him up. The whole scene was preposterous.

The eternal crusade is already the single campaign the crimson warhawks have been fighting since the heresy.

And then this lord of a world barely advanced from savagery lead them past new watermills of his design to his palace, with that same simple elegance as everything else they had seen on this world.
Xun Tohilcoatl had taken the news that he was one of 19 Primarchs created by the Emperor to bind humanity together and thus must depart Tepectitlan to join his legion and campaign across the stars with that same quiet curiosity, evincing only mild surprise at the scope fo his new duties. Valdor thought that perhaps there had been a miscommunication, but then the Primarch asked about the administrative structure of the Imperium and began to issuing orders to integrate his world into the larger Imperium.
Valdor enclosed a pict capture of the Iterators and Munitorum Personnel's reaction to the cadre of palace officials Xun had assigned as their partners mostly because he thought it would give Malcador a good laugh.

But then on the Stormbird back up, the questions began. Xun began to ask what it was, how there was light inside it, what made it fly, how the ships stayed in the air, how they traveled the distances between stars so swiftly, what Faustus' role in all this was. It was the first time Valdor had ever seen Faustus smile.
And he remembered how Xun wept with joy when he saw Tepectitlan from orbit.
Faustus had tried to seal himself in his chambers to prepare for the Hrud campaign, but Xun had bombarded him with questions about Hrud phisiology, the Astartes creation process, the technologies of war and empire, and a thousand other such matters until Faustus had assigned him a selection of Mechanicum Magi and Techmarines, Genomancers, Logisticians, and experts on the social sciences to get a moment's peace.

The news that humanity was not alone in the universe did not overly surprise Xun, though it took him a while to understand that Servitors, Mechanicum Adepts, and Astartes were considered human. And that perhaps is where the real trouble started.

I dont think there has been much confusion between the Emperors great crusade and the 1-13th great crusade.

The reason it doesnt fit too well calling it the eternal crusade is that, that name implies a continuous effort and cohesion that does not exist. Most of the crusades are out of opportunity or necessity rather than motivated by space patriotism. In addition they are fought by various parties (not all crusades have the same belligerents) with their own goals and means. While yes, often they are operated by a single leader chosen from the forces this is not a matter of loyalty but of effective command.

Eternal crusade fits to what the Crimson Warhawks conduct which is a 10000 year old guerilla war. They fight together with the sole objective of weakening the Dark Imperium, killing arch traitors, and one day reclaiming the galaxy in the name of the Emperor.

Ave Imperitor!

>Xun Tohilcoatl had taken the news that he was one of 19 Primarchs created by the Emperor to bind humanity together and thus must depart Tepectitlan to join his legion and campaign across the stars with that same quiet curiosity,

Consider rephrasing. This is a big ass sentence that kind of loses meaning in the middle.

Faustus, with typical directness, had announced that the Hrud Campaign was to be one of extermination.
"Forgive me, but on Tepectitlan, wars of extermination were always a last resort, they require far more effort and the fruits of such a victory are seldom preferable to a negotiated peace. Can not we just remove their will to fight?"

"If you capture a Hrud, then you may try negotiating with it."

This choice of response proved unfortunate, as Xun either missed or, more likely, ignored the sarcasm and declared that when Faustus next took samples, he would join him and see that he took some alive.

This had caught the Oathsworn off guard, as Faustus' habit of research had been a closely guarded secret, or so he'd thought. In reality, Valdor thought to himself, it was just wild men like Sarco who never picked up on it. Faustus was not nearly so discrete as he thought himself.

And so Xun had captured a live Hrud leader and taken it for interrogation and an attempt at negotiation.
Though Valdor had been at Xun's side since he left Tepectitlan, Xun made a point of inviting Valdor to the meeting. Valdor still wasn't sure if it was a purely friendly gesture or if Xun had figured out that Valdor reported directly to the Emperor and was making a statement. Likely it was both-- Xun seemed genuinely to enjoy the company of other post-humans and valued the insight of the Custodes.
At first, Valdor had feared that they had another Kor on their hands, but Xun was far colder than Kor. Instead of a warm greeting and a declaration that he 'came in peace' as Valdor had heard Kor do so many times, Xun opened the discussion bluntly, even tactlessly.

"Why have you attacked my father's Imperium?"

"It is our migration", it said.

Xun cut it off. "My father's Imperium has recently incorporated the human worlds in this sector, and we are oathsworn to seek justice for them. If you join with us as friends, then we will seek justice for you too."

And I'm getting rather sleepy, going to go to bed, but the basic idea is that from here, Xun tells the Hrud that he'll work to make peace and keep the order like when two kingdoms were warring on his homeworld and he deposed both kings and both prospered under his aegis. "There was no Chu and there was no Han, but the people prospered".

The Hrud looks at him like he's crazy and says "no, you idiot, Hrud migrate every so often, it's Hrud nature. They stir up trouble and regenerate the galaxy by making war. It's who we are."

"So you are at the mercy of your instincts? We have a story about that== the scorpion and the frog.
Moral is that the scorpion was a weak idiot who couldn't overcome his foolish urgings and doomed himself."

The Hrud have a similar story and the moral is that you can't ignore what you are.
Hrud says something about their nature being given by their god.

Xun says that any god that constrains their development is a daemon and a burden.

Hrud says they are what they are
Then they'll die as they are.

MIND CRUSH.

Valdor is like "Crisis averted"
But then Xun broadcasts an offer of clemency to any Hrud that submits to the Imperium and behaves as a loyal human citizen would. None do, but Xun says that he's going to offer it to any Xenos. Valdor is "Good luck with that. The galaxy is full of Hrud." Xun "The ritual matters"
The nice paired climax with this is going to be Xun having a similar conversation with a recalcitrant human leader and doing the same thing before exterminatusing the planet.

Meanwhile Xun starts hangs out with Faustus and starts experimenting with ways to block the entropic field. It works, but Valdor worries because Faustus basically says "Ok, so see what we're doing right now? Never tell the mechanicum. They'd have a fit."

Valdor concludes that maybe Faustus should be allowed to return to Luna so that way he stops setting a bad example.

Oh dear gods, yes, I should do that.

Hey OG Fist guy here, meant to reply to all that stuff in the last thread but i missed it so i'll just post here. A few points i wanted to make.
>Marcus and the emperor didn't get along 100% great, they both were openly friendly but marcus being aligned so heavily with the mechanicus was a point that made the two off them nervous about each other.
>There's something of a myth around marcus being found/ meeting the mechanicus before he met the emperor
>point of contention i saw in the thread about tank marines or heavy guns infantry marines. they use both

>Yeah I'm trying to write the sequence of events that lead to the FoM becoming so ingrained with Mars that the Tech-Priests are fine with being one and the same.
>My general intent is that the FoM modify themselves to work better with machines - a marine might replace his arms to be a better devastator, a tank operator might literally wire himself into his tank, ect. >Dreadnaughts would actually be rather rare because so many marines would be little more than full-conversion cyborgs.
>Or maybe with the whole nerve damage thing Dreanaughts would be relatively common but we already have the Undying Scions for that.
>Thoughts?

Perfect! Great! You're totally on the right track, Dreadnaughts still exist in the legion but they're somewhat rare just like you said

>The sequence which led to the FoM becoming 1 in the same with mechanicus was post-heresy meeting called the council of titans.
>One of the topics was where to house the mechanicus that survived, under whose jurisdiction would they operate, who would fund them, etc etc etc.
>The Fists had always been close, and saw an opportunity to get 2 seats on the council (the Legion held a seat, and the Mechanicus held a seat).
>So they opted to offer all the aid required, do all the hardwork essentially, but gained the mechanicus under them.
>From there they have had varying degrees of separation.

Raydon as always has my back but it's important to say here that while that's very true the mechanicus and fists were already working together pretty closely beforehand, marcus spent most of his time on mars while not crusading and in fact in there when the war on terra begins.

Last thing to say is that i read all your posts and loved it, great job i can't wait to see you do more

Posting this again because why not.

WHy thank you; I was worried I was going too far off base. I know the genesis of the FoM-Mechanicus is going slowly as is their love of Tank warfare but I want to break with the whole 'Primarch develops a mode of warfare on his planet and then his legion copies it.' I liked the idea of a Primarch changing in response to the Great Crusade.
With that.
>- The first challenge for the III Legion came upon the world of Damasca; a once prosperous Hive World that had been overrun with the Ork menace. Marcus only knew vague things about the green skinned Xenos and attempted his usual methods of misdirection and bedlam spreading.
- This went poorly; lightning raids were bogged down in tides of Ork flesh and the lines of supply that Marcus so loved to target were virtually nonexistent. The end result was a near routing of the marines on the field and the Duelist-Captain of the III Legion calling Marcus a coward for using such methods. Enraged and insulted Marcus came close to striking him only to be halted by a rebuke from an Enginseer. The Tech-Priest reminded him that only a fool blames his tools for the results he brings.
- Chastised and humbled Marcus initiates a series of rapid scouting maneuvers and discovers the fractious nature of the green skinned Xenos. By setting up Imperial landing zones around the horde he draws them away from one another, each seeking to fight for himself. The ambushes cut them down and within the month the planet was safe for human habitation once more. In fact the planet is grateful enough to Marcus that they give him the remains of an STC for a Heavy Battle Tank. Marcus delivers it to his Martian Allies and he and his Legiomn bask in the acclaim.

After this successful action Marcus takes his legion back to his home system and quickly repurposes its infrastructure to suit his legion’s needs. Schools are rebuilt to accomidate a curriculum heavy in physical activity, deprivation, and mathematics. Streets are made to fit line upon line of Space Marines and the other worlds in the system are called upon to begin production of his newly discovered heavy tank. IN secret the Tech-Priests balk at this decision but the eyes of the Iron Hunter are enough to keep them quiet.
It takes Marcus nearly three years before he is happy with his system – in that time the original culture of the III Legion has been replaced with one of beleaguered administrators – the demands of rebuilding an entire system have taxed the minds of the III Legion even as their rank swell with new blood. The rangy, dusky sons of Taris Sinister are a far cry from their aristocratic, swordsman predecessors. Despite these divisions the legion thrummed with new life. It demanded action.
So it was given. The Gorgon System to the far north was closest. So Marcus cast his hunting knife in that direction and led his Legion straight into the crossfire. The Gorgon System had been at war for nearly three hundred years. It had been become a game played by far removed generals by clone soldiers in the trenches and in orbit. Marcus injected himself and his legion straight into the warring factions, attempting to target their orbital defenses and force them to the negotiating table. Instead the space station he was on was remotely detonated and he was presumed dead. In his place the Forge-General Ruiz Alahambra took overall command and began a grueling campaign towards the protected inner planets, intending to capture the isolated inner world of Medusa-Sigma.

Sorry about the formatting on the last post; I don't know what happened.

Everytime.

>Duelist-Captain of the III Legion calling Marcus a coward
Thats a paddlin'

>a rebuke from an Enginseer
Thats a paddlin'

Im really enjoying this more enlightened group of Primarchs - this theme of logisticians and strategists.

I like the foil its providing more 'simple' Primarchs who just want to do the small stuff, fighting, tactics, inspiration, and such.

Bravo team.

+++Astartes Aegis Funerus Recognized+++
+++Welcome, cleric of the Funerary Guard+++

>Opening report: Xenos Minoris: Designation: Illithyd

An alien race inhabiting the webway, the Illithyd are an enigma. No recorded sightings or evidence exists of them before 450.M39, yet their technologies and structures indicate an old race, perhaps even rivaling the Eldar in age. The Illithyd have been observed to feed on the brains of sentient for nourishment, leaving their bodies to waste. Though unconformed, it has been speculated that the Illithyd are powerful psykers, as they are capable of turning members of other races into mindless thralls in a short time span. The capture of thralls is important to Illithyd reproduction, as they insert their young, in tadpole form, into the nasal cavity and through to the brain. Once inside, the young Illithyd will consume the brain and merge with the host's nervous system. After several weeks the host's flesh will become purple and their head will mutate into a cephalapoid form.

These new Illithyds will carry on traits from their hosts. It has been observed that psykers that undergo such a metamorphosis will be a pale indigo color rather than the dark purple of the rest of the species.

The Illithyd were first observed in 450.M39 during an expeditionary crusade into Warzone Tempestus by the 3rd Vigilant Armada. At first believed to be an especially mutated group of chaos wirshippers, this theory was soon disproved when it was seen that the Illithyd destroyed any and all chaos shrines and artifacts in their territory.

>Mind Flayers
The Mind Flayers were once a chapter of the Arms of Asura traitor legion, but disappeared from Dark Imperial records in M39. Illithyd hosts wearing armor matching the description of the Mind Flayers have been spotted around Warzone Tempestus, usually close to known Eldar launch points.

+++Xenos Designation: Potentially Useful+++
+++Standing Orders: Capture if possible, destroy if necessary+++

Marcus led his troops the surface and began drawing troops from their trenches, playing elaborate calls to confuse and misdirect them while the newly dubbed ‘Foeblade’ tank reaped a horrific tally of kills. Five tanks were deployed. A world was conquered within a week. With Medusa-Sigma taken that left the heavily defended world of Medusa-Gamma and finally the divided hive world of Medusa-Alpha. Forge-General Ruiz, eager to atone for his failings led strike team into the flagship of the enemy forces and, echoing the deception of his Primarch used the Ship to get into the Orbital Base and take it.
From there it became a slaughter. With space supremacy his Marcus was able to deploy his troops anywhere on the planet with relative impunity. He dismantled the regiments fighting on the planet within a week and finally his troops were on the door of Medusa-Alpha and the far removed generals were no longer quite so confident now. The revenge of the III Legion was terrible – one in four boys were taken and forcibly inducted into the legion. Every major political or military figure was made into a legion serf and had their hands removed.
Finally the system was pacified and its goods now flowed into the armories of the III Legion. Ancient plasma weapons were handed out to the veterans of the campaign and the Gorgon-Pattern Plasma Pistol would become standard equipment for the Legion thanks to their dominion over the system.

They stood face to face. Jurgil of the Broken Blades and Ragnok of the Iron hearts. Leaders of their own battlegroups. Sworn enemies. Old friends.

"Two centuries since we last saw each other, isn't it Jurgil?" Ragnok asked in place of a greeting.

"Two hundred and seven years to be exact, Traitor", Jurgil answered.

They glared at each other, blades drawn, as bolts and plasma flew past as their troops faced each other in combat.

"Brother against brother, friend against friend... Cruel irony, this existence of ours", Ragnok said, raising his sword.

"You are no longer the friend I once knew! I will crush you, and bring bring vengeance to your befouled kind!" Jurgil roared, as a stray bolt glanced off his pauldron.

"Such hostility. You never change... Always with burning conviction, and unbending resolve", Ragnok stated, smiling.

"And you are arrogant as always, spurred on by your will to prove yourself the righteousness, or lack thereof, of your choices!" Jurgil growled.

They stared at each other for a moment before charging, locking their blades together. Sparks flew as the power fields rejected each other.

"Goodbye, friend", Ragnok whispered.

"Goodbye, brother", Jurgil answered as the duel began.

>Removed hands
Brutal

Cool.

I can imagine that a number of Medusan Marines may have betrayed Marcus during the Heresy and sold him out to Gengrat as revenge for his first campaign.

Maybe they'd later form one of the warbands of the modern Behemoth Guard.

I'm not sure how I feel about them actually joining the Behemoth Guard, but I do agree it'd be a sweet backstory for traitors Fists. The Hands of Gorgon?

After this the planet of Zodiac II was brought into compliance with the hunting squads of the Legion were used and the enemy forces, such as they were, were beaten easily. However due to the gradually worsening state of the legion they were forced to stay for nearly a year while Marcus attempted to cure the Painless Wasting. During that time they turned Zoadiac II into a paragon of industrial organization – roads criss corssed the planet, vast trains were commissioned, and everything vaguely resembling disorder was burned. In an effort to forstall the process vast augmentic limbs were ordered and constructed on the planet with the majority of the legion losing their arms overnight.
The next world conquered was the Rigant system – the power swords of the legion were almost universally discarded in favor of the noble Bolt or Plasma pistol as their new, mechanical hands robbed them of the dexterity that they once had. The legion grumbled as they brought the worlds into complance that they were less than men now. Marcus however realized that the unique nerve damage of the legion made their bodies unusually receptive to augmentic surgery as the body was less likely to reject the synthetic nerve tissue. He began experimenting with the few Dreadnaught chassis onboard and the lone few Marines who had lost all sensation.
These ‘Cerberus-Contemptor’ pattern Dreadnaughts were for their time revolutionary – the entire body was removed and the brain and nervous system were enmeshed with the machinery of the chasse resulting in a near perfect fusion with the benefits of superior armor with the cost of being more expensive. Using these now fanatically loyal marines as his honor guard Marcus and his forces took the heavily defended Forge-World of Birmingham. The vast treads of enemy tanks were stopped by vicious plasma fire and the heavy tread of Contemptor Dreadnoughts.

One idea I'm working towards is that the modern Fists of Mars are just as much from Gengrats Gene Seed as Marcus'. During the crusade Marcus was the one to help the early BG get their tanks and when Gengrat was found the two legions worked well together - Marcus' focus on splitting up the enemy and running them down worked well the the BG's love of big guns.

Another idea is to play with the idea of the Mechanicus splitting apart - the FoM is in control of one splinter faction because they took the loyalists from Mars and carried them to Forge Space.

I also want to work in the Tech-Heresy that showed up on the 1d4chan page.

Maybe the Gorgon Preservers?

The Hands of Gorgon parallels the name of the Fists of Mars. Plus, there wouldn't be much to preserve anymore.

True; maybe give them an emphasis on terror tactics and orbital warfare?

Or its that too similar to the Void Lords?

Bonus points if they remove their hands like the Fists did to their people, replacing them with bionics.

When they raid a Forgespace world, they kill everyone but the children. One in four are taken as potential recruits while the rest have their hands chopped off.

Bionics possessed by daemons!

Daemons of Hashut.

Shit dog, that's fantastic.

>modern Fists of Mars are just as much from Gengrats Gene Seed as Marcus
nope
noooope
NOPE
NOPE

I missed that the first time around. That seems like a pretty bad idea. The Fists are massive faction, one of the few loyalist to stick together as a legion. They wouldn't need to use traitor genestock.

>The Hands of Gorgon
The first new blood to enter the Fists of Mars Legion in the wake of Marcus' rise to leadership were drawn from the subjugated worlds of the Medusa system. Torn from their families and homes, many of which were put to the sword, these recruits were initiated as a form of penance on the behalf of their words, subjected to a regime of training and conditioning that would be considered harsh even by the standards of other astartes. Marines culled from the Medusan worlds were often bitter and insular as a result, and Marcus quickly realized that the actions of his Legion had given rise to something of a divide in its ranks - many original Legionnaires and recruits from Taris saw their Medusan brothers as inherently inferior and often expected them to constantly prove their worth, while the Medusans were often similarly ill disposed to their comrades, possibly in reaction to this view. Marcus was a pragmatist, however, and he could not deny the effectiveness of the Medusans. Their fervent desire to prove themselves and the deeper sense of loyalty to one another they shared made them ideal soldiers in many instances, suited for fighting in the most grim and debilitating of situations. As such, though he often wrestled with the appropriateness of the decision, Marcus continued to recruit from the Medusa System, though being careful to ensure that those drawn from these worlds remained a minority. The decision weighed heavily on the Primarch, and it is known to few that Marcus intended to repair the damage these recruitment programs had done to the cultures and people's of the Medusa System once their input into the Legion was no longer a cruel necessity, after the Great Crusade was won.

Developing their own internal legion culture, the Medusan Fists valued endurance, temperance, and unquestioning service. They made the most bloody charges and held the most exposed of positions. At some point, it became common practice in

Got more? You kind of cut off in the middle of a sentence.

primarily Medusan companies for Marines of distinction to have their hands removed and replaced with bionics, a practice echoing the brutal punishment enacted on their home worlds by their parent legion. Internal views on this ritual were mixed - in some circles it was seen as a sign of redemption and honour, representing the fact that the Marine had atoned for the sins of their ancestors. In others, it was a symbol of distinction, a reminder that they were of Marcus but not of Sinister.

Tellings of the Great Heresy highlight the betrayal of the Medusans, who were rallied in great numbers to provoke the Mechanicus schism on Mars and eventually take to the battlefield against their own brothers, but it is often forgotten that many Medusan companies remained entirely loyal. The majority, however, worked with Gengrat Vannevar to achieve Marcus' demise, united under then-Captain Golivant Karn. According to legend, Golivant himself was instrumental in Marcus' crippling at the hands of the Daemon Primarch Gengrat. As they battled, Marcus was thrown to the ground, battered and bloody, and Golivant appeared to offer his hand and help his Primarch to his feet. Instead, the traitorous captain crushed Marcus' remaining flesh-and-blood hand, dealing his unsuspecting liege a grievous injury. Though he was purportedly dealt a mortal blow in return, Golivant's grim work was done, and the wounded Marcus was overwhelmed by Gengrat. Golivant would be presumed dead for the better part of the next thousand years by loyalist scholars, until he reappeared as a Daemon Prince of an obscure god known as Hashut.

The Medusan traitor faction studies under him to this day, one of the many splinter warbands aligned to the Behemoth Guard, taking on the mantle of the Hands of Gorgon, in remembrance of a great city of the Medusa System that was levelled in its entirety long ago. The Hands are devotees of the forge god Hashut, and many consider themselves devout Asurans,

conceptualising Hashut as the prime ideal of permanence and durability. The Hands of Gorgon are less concerned with constant flux as the primary doctrine of the Behemoth Guard is, but the transmutation of lesser substances and forms into greater, more enduring ones. They see their fall to Chaos as such a process, and this love of permanence extends further than the nature of their faith. The Hands of Gorgon retain their ancient hatred of their brothers from Marcus' geneseed, and as such are one of the most prolific and commonly encountered warbands in Segmentum Tempestus, often raiding worlds claimed by the Forgespace, butchering and maiming their people in mimicry of the fall of Medusa and taking their young as future Hands of Gorgon. Their techno-sorcerous alchemies have produced an array of horrifying weapons that serve as a telling sign of their presence in a warzone. Bolter rounds consecrated with transmutational ichors petrify and gradually turn to inert iron the flesh of those they strike, and sorcerous flame weapons transform living foes into lifeless metallic statues in an instant. Their sorcerers too are practised in these arts, scouring their victims with curses of inanimate metal while granting their allies the strength and durability of tempered steel.

...

Coolio.

Mind if I tweak the discovery date to much earlier? I intended for a bunch of illithid like creatures to be running the Calixis sector during the Great Crusade and it seems silly to have two not!illithid races.

It could be that at the time people thought they were a materium species only found in that area, or maybe even a bunch of mutants, and nobody encounters them again for ages.

Also I'm toying with an 'Amaranthine Guard' for the Scions. Basically a chapter that only guards Amaranth's system and certain worlds that are key to reaching it. They rarely show their faces, are generally taller and bigger than most Astartes, seem to age slower, and other powers often accuse them of hoarding unique technology. Of, course, the reality is that they're given this stuff because Sarco knows Big E's corpse is on Amaranth and he wants the force devoted to defending it to have unique shit that potential renegades wouldn't have. Why are they seemingly a little better than most Astartes? That could be any number of things, like secret Oathsworn remnant projects, geneseed blending, or even Sarco ordering that Emps' body itself be used as a genetic template.

>Mind if I tweak the discovery date to much earlier?
Go ahead. I like it when things mesh together like that.

>Amaranthine Guard
I like that concept a lot. Perhaps they could be rolled into the Funerary Guard? They both have similar names and roles of defending the Vigil. Would they be like knockoff custodes or grey knights?

Also I just realized that I called them an enigma and then went on to explain, in detail, their reproduction habits.

Have we established who conquered the Calixis sector? If not, it could have been a joint operation between the Scions and the Arms, as per your roll.

Well okay; scrapping that.

During this battle the augmentic limbs of the legion continue to pose challenges, especially when the defenders deploy EM disruptors, forcing a young Scout named Haller Zima to launch a lightning raid against the enemy command center wearing nothing more than rags, armed with nothing more than combat knives. During this the legion began cursing their ‘Martian Fists,’ as the augmentics did not reverse the general degeneration of the nervous system and proved to be sensitive. However no other solution provided itself so Marcus instead insisted that the limbs be better shielded next time, much to the grumbling of the Enginseers.
This time the III Legion formally claimed Birmingham has a mustering world and took one in every 8 boys of age. After this point the legion’s combat doctrine evolves to focus on small groups of infantry being used as a precursor for heavy armored assaults. Scouts become common as individual Marines become focused on overcoming their deficiencies. The lack of a proper martial culture or a proper culture in the legion begins to show strain as different ships are integrated into the fleet and commands from different sides of the galaxy rub one another the wrong way.

Cool.

I imagine the Funerary Guard as being a thing independent from the chapter structure, existing as attaches to successors, and being active in that they go out into the galaxy to root out tech Heresy and keep the old lore alive. These Amaranthine Guard guys are, officially, just the chapter in charge of guarding Amaranth and its surrounding systems.

Whether they're knockoff custodes or grey knights, genetically speaking, can remain a mystery. But they're essentially doing the custodes' job because Sarco is having a ten thousand year mope about how he can't trust anyone but his own sons anymore.

Kek. Well, we all know how mindflayers reproduce, it's no big secret.

fgsfg dropped muh trip. Tablets are the work of Nurgle.

It was part of a multi sector campaign against a big xenos empire. The Second Sons, the Storm Hammers, the Negators, the Warp Raiders and the Crimson Warhawks had dudes there. There could have been others. I think it may have been before Anshul was found though.

I think the Arms and the Scions should get a defensive operation, since they both did that.

Perhaps against the resurgent Eldar Empire? They don't seem to be up to all that much - maybe the orchestrated an attempt to reclaim long lost territory.

However this simple pacification would have terrible consequences; data recovered on Ryza indicated that there was an STC fragment located on the far flung world of Accatran, a world once more overrun by Orks. However before they could get there the fleet was ambushed time and time again by the Eldar; their nimble fighter made mockeries of the cumbersome and III Legion ships while the more agile Crimson Warhawk ships easily evaded and picked apart the attacks. Marcus gratitude grows tenfold in the wake of the void conflicts and by the time they reach the Forge-World of Accatran Raydon is deeply amused to find his cargo hold swelling with the infamous ‘Foeblade’ heavy tank.
The war against the Orks on Accatran was a quick, brutal affair. Marcus’ newly formed Masters of Signal division manipulated the Orks into thinking that the legions were mustering on another planet in the system (an effort compared to getting a child to follow shadow puppets) and instigated a civil war amongst the Orks, even going so far as to sell some of them faulty Plasma weapons which would later explode. During this short campaign the III Legion earned the respect of the Crimson Warhawks; when the two legions parted ways with was mutual thanks and approval.
After this the Legion is called to Terrodyne – the Sire of the Behemoth Guard. Marcus, thanks to his discovery of the Foeblade STC was called upon to assist the Mechanized legion so he did. In his wake he left orderly, neat worlds with standard measurements and equipment. The beginnings of Forge-Space had been lain.

The Eldar only got their shit together in M39, long after the Heresy.

>Sarco is having a ten thousand year mope about how he can't trust anyone but his own sons anymore.
Sarco is in a coma, Guilliman style. He hasn't moved since after his duel with Aodhan.

Oh, I thought it was more like super paralysis, and he could still communicate at great difficulty, but not move in any meaningful way.

Sometimes the legion's psykers will be able to communicate with him, but it's quite rare and they only do it when it's absolutely necessary.

Good stuff.

I'd originally envisioned Marcus and Gengrat being at odds, but it definitely works with Nu-Marcus.
Question though-- what about the Behemoth Guard's take on the machine cult?

The BG is always at odds with AdMech so I feel that at first Marcus is the one who goes out of his way to supply them so for a while the two work well together.
However as time goes on I see Marcus and Gengrat developing a toxic Obi-Wan/Anakin relationship.
Gengrat feels that for all of Marcus' work he never makes anything new while Marcus feels that the longer Gengrat works alone the less rational he sounds.

Rolled 5 (1d20)

PROMPT:
an Illithyd infiltrator has been captured in X legion's home territory. Roll for the Legion and write how they react to this development.

>TFW I have less and less time to read these threads and are starting to lose track of what's going on

Rolled 10 (1d20)

Yo Sarco, what do the Scions think of mutation and wizard tricks pre-Heresy?

Psychic tricks are cool and all but mutations are dangerous to humanity.

I like it. I'm going to do up a pre-Gengrat Behemoth Guard campaign alongside the Judgement Bringers, probably pre-Enoch.
Then one late in the crusade after both primarchs are in, probably shortly before the heresy, idea being to provide bounds on how weird shit gets.
Then do you want to do a pair of BG FoM campaigns to look at the relationship between their primarchs?

>The Khamrul Incursion
Several years prior to the trial of Nikaea and the return of Sarco Funerus to the front lines, the Khamrul Incursion was a relatively brief conflict fought over the densely vegetated Death World of Khamrul. Though relatively sparsely populated and sporting a coating of thick jungle flora too persistent and dense to civilize, the planet possessed an abundance of sweeping mantle scars, some plummeting downward for several hundred miles. The rare minerals available for mining here made the world a prized asset despite its relatively low population, and numerous colonies populated primarily by laborers had been established at key points on the surface.

Khamrul's colonies became gravely imperiled when an flotilla of xenos mercenaries, paid for by Archon Syreus Voellech of the Kabal of the Emerald Talon, transitioned out of the Warp on the edge of its system and began ravaging the three populated worlds of it's star's orbit. Uncharacteristically, the Archon's forces were less interested in living prey than in one of Khamrul's mineral resources (which one, specifically, remains unknown), and the world's population was able to issue a scrambled Astropathic distress call upon the void, which would be soon enough received by the nearby Imperial Scions defense outpost Blackhelm.

A marginal element of the legion currently cycled out of campaigning alongside the Emperor with the majority of Funerus' sons, the Scions still made haste to intervene, sending out a call for nearby forces to assist them in ousting the xenos threat from Khamrul. It was the relatively fresh legion of the Arms of Asura that answered the request, diverting a full three battalions from their defensive stations to Khamrul, an action spurred on by the fact that, being used to mining operations in humid jungle environments, many men and women from Anshul's homeworld of Ravana had been drafted into the colonization efforts on Khamrul by the Primarch's own decision.

By the time the Arms of Asura had arrived in-system, the Scions had established a beachhead for operations in the void, using the emissions from Khamrul's volatile twin-dwarf star to prevent the full, overwhelming force of the enemy fleet from engaging them effectively. The brief void battle that followed was supremely well coordinated, the newly arrived Arms of Asura fleet splitting into small battlegroups to draw off the majority of enemy vessels, allowing the Scions to push through the severely thinned planetary picket and make landfall on Khamrul's surface. As in space, the Scions formed the initial fortifications that would allow the converging Arms of Asura forces to make full use of their later landing. The majority of Arms of Asura forces landed within the pacified zone that the Scions had quickly turned into an impromptu mesh of fortifications, including Anshul himself, while several companies equipped for harassment operations made planetfall in several key locations on both sides of Khamrul's equator. The ability of the Imperial Scions to establish a virtually impervious defensive formation from which to extend the campaign while the mobile assault companies of the Arms of Asura identified and (when able) negated key targets across the planet proved initially highly successful, though tensions would soon arise concerning the aims of the campaign and the players involved. As Anshul began to assign more of his main force to the task of harassment and precise target elimination beyond the main landing zones, concerns began to arise among the Scions that the campaign was not progressing expediently despite this, with very few solid military gains made - instead of holding ground, Anshul's sons were rescuing colonists where possible and securing resources that would otherwise have gone to waste, and while all agreed that preserving the Emperor's people and the Emperor's possessions was a goodly endeavor, it was not ousting the enemy.

Compounding this was the prevailing view that the battalions accompanying Anshul were 'green', having relatively recently been inducted into the legion from Ravana's population, and were therefore among some of the least experienced Space Marines presently in existence. Another issue were the Oculus Tertium, the sensory mutation possessed by many of these newer recruits (but not Anshul himself), most commonly appearing as a third eye situated on the forehead, the center of the collar, or the palm. Anshul himself, who rarely wore full battle armour, gave the impression of a statesman and a thinker rather than a warrior, and while his foresights were appreciated, many in the Scions' command chain noted that he seemed to spend more time in meditation than at the fore of battle.

The Arms of the Asura, conversely, found the Scions' inflexible and overly grim, and rarely approved of operations where the sons of Funerus opted to hold the line against vastly superior numbers than to cede ground and make more opportunistic strikes elsewhere. While the Arms of Asura were in the element as jungle fighters, they were significantly less inclined to battles were attrition was a concern, and their casualties were often higher than expected when they assisted the Scions in such operations. It also became an issue that, while his Marines were initially capable of outflanking and outmaneuvering the maonly Kroot and Orkish mercenaries employed by Archon Syreus, as the campaign stretched on more and more elements of the Emerald Talon began to make their presence known, especially its well-stocked gangs of mandrakes, and these foes were natural ambush-artists beyond the capability of any Astartes, perfectly adapted to the environments of Khamrul. Imperial Scions' standard response was to initiate a scorched earth policy, removing any shadows the enemy might hide in, but, ever the builder, Anshul made fervent arguments to limit these operations throughout the midsection

of the campaign, his thoughts turned toward the future of Khamrul and its ability to function as a mining colony. The planet's flora would recover from large-scale phosphex cleansing in time, but Anshul had concerns about the lasting effects of such weapons on the ability of Khamrul to be self-sustaining. The usage of phosphex and rad poisoning threatened to make the jungles even less hospitable than ever, tainting their tenacious plantlife with the invisible death of radphage and poisoning the soil with phospex elements that, while the planet could recover from, humans would find far less difficult to cope with. Khamrul's colonists could not subsist on radioactive crops.

As the campaign lengthened and casualties mounted, however, the Primarch relented, and the Imperial Scions went forward with wide-scale deforestation. Seeking to limit the damage, Anshul assembled what would be the initial inspiration for the Annihilator Choruses of his legion, using the combined psychic powers of multiple Marines working in unison to level vast tracts of jungle. These units were hastily assembled and some were not yet fully trained in the use of their abilities, often possessing only limited, minor powers on their own, and there were a great many casualties among these detachments, both due to psyker-related injuries and crucial failures to channel the power of the Warp quickly enough in the heat of the moment.

The Arms of Asura continued to function primarily as harassers, preventing the Imperial Scions from being outflanked, while their allies gradually flattened all opposition in their path, the lumbering dreadnoughts of the legion performing at full capacity in this final push.

Ultimately, victory on Khamrul was a matter of time rather than decisive action. Whatever benefits were to gained from the planet's occupation were gradually negated by the mounting costs of full scale war with the Astartes, and eventually the Emerald Talon saw fit to cut its losses and

withdraw, for the most part leaving their mercenary allies to fend for themselves. At this point, the war for Khamrul was effectively over, and the Marines became primarily concerned with protecting and re-establishing the colonies while routing those xenos forces still stranded on the Death World.

For the first time since the beginning of the campaign, the two legion's worked in perfect unison, the Scions seeing to the defense of the planet's relocating population while the Arms of Asura sought out the enemy remnants and brought the Emperor's wrath to them.

While Khamrul was saved, much of its produce was spoiled, and a reluctant Anshul was forced to divert food supplies from nearby Agri-Worlds to keep its growing population productive.

Nice. It makes me wonder what kind of impressions Anshul got of Sarco before he met him.

Prompt.

Tell us about the first time each primarch met each other primarch. A single sentence or two will suffice.

>expecting single lines from the likes of VANTH "trips and dubs not singles and nubs" VANTHsson
Ha!

I actually thought a sentence or 2 multiplied by 20 was going to be too much to ask for.

Im still struggling to come up with stuff / remember stuff.

"Which fleet did you say was incoming?" Commandant Romulus Kursk of the Judgement Bringers asked with incredulity.

"The 81st Expeditionary Fleet, sire", the aide repeated with a bow.

"But that's the XIVth Legion! Is the void finally giving up her dead?" The 81st Expeditionary fleet, which had had nearly all the Astartes assets of the XIVth legion had been missing for more than a decade.
Theories on the reasons were as numerous as the stars, but Kursk had never subscribed to the notion that they went rogue, preferring the cold comfort of the idea that they'd met with some unknown foe.
But here was a fleet, bearing their transponder codes translating into realspace. In the servitor pits, spotters worked overtime, trying to identify the ships.
Kursk watched as the data streamed across the dataslates. The first few were easy enough, the Grand Cruisers Leviathan and Blade of Ashtoret, the Gothic Class Abzu and Tehom.
But others were less clear. It was only with great difficulty that Kursk could identify the Tepellin, so changed was its profile. Other ships were entirely unidentifiable.

"We have hololithic broadcast", noted an aide.

"Make it live", Kursk ordered.

As he did so, a hazy outline appeared on the plinth, a figure clad in battered MkIII plate the color of the night sky and sea-haze. The image resolved, revealing electric blue trim and elegant filligree decorating the welds where sundered plate had been patched.
The welds were picked out in brilliant silver, as if the smith had taken pride in the repair and boasted that for all the damage, the plate was stronger now than before. The grace of the workmanship belied the lethality of the brutal spikes on the shoulderpads.
A thought struck Kursk. The lines of the plate weren't quite right and MkIII plate was a new introduction, barely in service for eight years. This was some custom make of armor.

"Kjell Maximus of the Aleph-Tzor and the XIVth responding to your call for aid," boomed a deep voice with a thick Stralayzian accent from behind a plumed helmet, the faceplate painted as a skull with a rictus grin.

"Lord Maximus, it is good to hear from you. We'd thought your fleet lost."

"Reports of our demise were greatly exagerrated. We were cut off from the Crusade by the very Waagh that threatens to overwhelm you we have spent these past fifteen years raiding for supplies and survival while harrying their rear. It is good to see another Imperial commander. Let us discuss strategy."

>another Imperial Commander
Bro i got bad news for you

Set in the early crusade-- MKIII is new.

...

This is a pretty big prompt. Maybe instead we discuss possible first contacts between each primarch.

We know
Xun / Faustus met at Xun's discovery
Warmaster / Faustus met during the siege of Luna

Do we have any other documented first meetings?

Such as

Shortcut for Enoch, probably

>(Enoch) "Huh cool I wonder if this one is going to be nice

>(80% of primarchs) "Man who's this asshole? Nerrrd!"

>(Enoch, under his breath) "Yeah... f-fuck you too then..."

>[wasting men intensifies]

Who was actually nice to Enoch? Kor? The Warmaster? Anyone else?