Hektor Heresy: The Narrativity Edition

>Talk about what you're writing
Still grinding away at the Heresy. Latest installment is Imperial Army related. As always, spot the references in 1d4chan.org/wiki/Hektor_Heresy#The_Supply_Battles:_Zhuko_V

>project stuff you've read recently
I had a look at the Entombed not so long ago and was disturbed by the lack of detail. There's nothing wrong with the concept but they definitely need development.

Also following Josman's continued adventures in the world of rules at 1d4chan.org/wiki/User:Josman. Most of the project is an attempt to codify some vague ideas, so it's quite helpful to have someone approaching the Legions from a numerical perspective.

The pre-heresy history of the Eternal Zealots has now been mapped out and cleansed of copypasta at 1d4chan.org/wiki/Eternal_Zealots#History_of_the_Eternal_Zealots

Please feel free to take a look and give me your feedback on anything within the History. Especially you, Snek.

Next up, everything else, from legion culture to specialist troops.

He's a short guy

This is great news. I will have a proper read and feed back sometime in the next twelve hours.

>Suggested thread topic: Talk about what you're writing and project stuff you've read recently
What I'm working on: Legion "codex" building, as always. Now finished with the rough drafts of the Heralds of Hektor, War Scribes, Black Augurs, Thunder Kings (though in retrospect I think they deserve a third Rite of War), and as of last night, the Silver Cataphracts, Sons of Fire, and Eternal Zealots. When I get home tonight I'll get my page updated with my progress so far, then work on the Steel Marshals and Void Angels a bit.

As for the "talk about it" bit, while codex building my main objective is to keep each army consistantly balanced relative to the other armies, and to a lesser extent, to keep things balanced relative to canon 30k armies.

What this means in practical terms is that I need to make sure each model's point cost stays closely tied to its intrinsic value (its actual worth on the battlefield). Although admittedly I do have to throw that out every now and then to reflect the quirks of the 30k "meta" (the theoretical metagame would be almost entirely comprised of heavy infantry and vehicles, so anything that deals well with them is more valuable).

Generally speaking I go about doing by finding a baseline within whatever catagory I'm working with (weapons, armor, etc), and calculating an object's value relative to that baseline.

Rites of War and legion bonuses are a little trickier and alot harder to calculate because they don't have a points cost, so with them the idea is to keep them consistent across the legions, so that no one legion's bonus rules offer a more valuable effect thanany other within the context of the legion's tactics.

>what have you been reading
Pretty much every single legion's "doctrine and tactics" section, and I'm constantly looking through the rulebooks for the game.

While we're on the subject of the Steel Marshals, may I suggest we re-use the old Scions of Europa legion symbol for them? The Marshals and the Lions are currently the only two without their own symbol I believe, and it seems to fit their theme pretty well.

Hey just jumping in.

Not much of a fa/tg/uy myself but eager lurker of 1d4chan and I must say I love what you guys do with the Hektor Heresy.
In the idea of bringing "my guys" I wanted to know what you'd think of my humble idea :

Some inquisitor of the ordo xeno, the feeble old guy kind that use it to appear harmless. Think of Hiro of Avatar but more in a Just as planned manner and not badass fighter at all.
By his contact with Xeno (maybe eldars), get to have a pretty good idea of what happened during the heresy.
Ends up leading a personal vendetta against the Astartes whom he held responsible for the state of decay of the imperium.
Apart the heresy itself, he sees them as the formidable weapons they are but feels like they have gotten dangerously out of control (when they are not simply falling to chaos)
and think of them as flayed in a whole. But more than destroying them he aim to weaken them in order to bring them back on Terra's control.
Of course he never come close to success but manage to cause the quasi (total ?) destruction of a chapter.

The inquisitor thinks he's doing what's good for the imperium.
Xenos (eldars ?) think they are playing him.
Imperials who now about him think he is a total nutjob.

What ya think ?

>successor chapter ofc

>Just jumping in.
Welcome! Always happy to see new contributors.

>inquisitor idea
Did you know that in canon there's anentire ordo minoris of inquisitors doing that? It's called (quite creatively) he ordo astartes. I like your idea though. At what time did you imagine he'd be active?

>xeno
This is where I decide to be a dick about grammar. The words Xenos and Eldar are both singular and plural. One alien: a xenos. Many aliens: xenos. One space elf: an eldar. Many space elves: eldar.

Also just as a fun fact, xenos isn't pronounced like "xeno + s" where it sounds like a pluralized english word. The correct pronounciation would be zee-nos, where the "os" sound is like the os in dose, as in "a dose of medicine." Whether you think that's moronic fuckery on GW's part or not is up to you.

Also just fyi, things are usually pretty dead during the day because most of us are working. Things pick up at night.

Assuming this asset belongs to us and we can freely repurpose it, i second this motion. The fact that some legions don't have a sigil bugs the crap out of my as I build legion lists.

Thanks for your welcoming.

>ordo astartes
Well if I have read about them I forget and it was absolutely not on my mind

>xenos and eldar
Second thing I learn today. In my defense, GW France seems to think eldar can be pluralized. For the xenos, I have no excuse.

>At what time did you imagine he'd be active?
Tough question. I'm still trying to figure out the post-HH timeline, since the 1d4chan page ends with M31. It should be way after the sundering of the Legiones, when the chapters are well established.
Right after some major disaster involving astartes I guess (Badab style) and long enough after the heresy for the simple citizen not to know about it.
For I like the idea in wich the old man, being originally an adept, spent a major part of his career trying to "rediscover" the heresy more than acting. With the help of xenos.
The general challenge is to make an old man who may never have fired a gun or a mind bullet badass in a scholar way.
And it seems to me a good way to create contrast than to oppose him to some of the most powerfull warriors of the galaxy.
But for now I'm trying to flesh out the old man and his retinue.

"Of course, Chaplain, I have no doubt that you are well more versed in the Creed than me and obviously a much more able defender of the Imperium.
Yet, please tell me. Who bettrayed our Lord Emperor ? Who put the whole galaxy at war with itself ? Who burned thousands of His worlds, slautered billions of His humble citizen ?
And finally, who dared raise hands on His sacred person ?
Was it the eldar ? The orks maybe ? No, it was no xenos. For as I recall, it was no others than our Lord's own sons."
>Lord Inquisitor Ossenio Marenci

>Things pick up at night
Sadly, it is already night on my poor planet

>Sadly, it is already night on my poor planet
It'll work out. We've got people from all over the planet involved with the project. Peak hours tend to be 8pm - midnight central time, but I often end up staying up till the early hours of the morning. You just kind of have to work with people as you can find them. Leaving IRC open in the background on your desktop is good for that.

I'm fairly sure that image was uploaded under "can probably get away with it use" rather than "fair use", so it would be best to just let it lie with the Scions.

This should work well. He'll need some rough and tumble henchmen to do his fighting for him, but an Inquisitor's main asset is his "Inquisitive Nature".

>I'm still trying to figure out the post-HH timeline
You probably know about as much as the rest of us. The latest event after the Heresy is the 1d4chan.org/wiki/Second_Vetrovnak_Incursion and I have some idea of what happens up to then. After that, the timeline hasn't been sketched out.

>I like the idea in wich the old man, being originally an adept, spent a major part of his career trying to "rediscover" the heresy more than acting.
Just an observation (not something that you need to change), but it sounds a bit like he read too much Gaspard Lumey...

>With the help of xenos.
Or maybe not enough!

Yo, Snek, I wanna make a character from your primarch's homeworld for the legion list. Assuming that's cool with you, give me a proper snekxenos name.

Also, what would the rank names for your snek auxiliaries be? Right now I've got
>Minoris < Majoris < Primus

Hi.

Not used Veeky Forums at all before, but read (some) of the Hektor Heresy on 1d4chan, and was hoping someone could give some advice on a successor chapter idea I came up with:

>The Blades in the Dark
>Summary: Second Founding, emphasis on stealth and disruption. As a result, armour is painted to be broken shapes, so that in the dark, or at a distance, you can't tell that it's a Space Marine.
>Chapter History: Fought in Waagh Beast, hitting behind Ork lines; forced to stand and fight when Orks reach their Homeworld. Is now a Fleet based Chapter. Generally endeavour to fight Chaos, Tau, Eldar, etc. Species that have the capacity to feel fear, and psychological warfare.
>Notable Members: Presumably the founder, but I don't know where to start with naming, because I don't know which legion to found them from.
>Chapter Combat Doctrine: Stealth and terror tactics. Behind enemy lines, or hitting them in Guerrilla Warfare stealthy crap.
>Chapter Beliefs: The Imperium is going to fall, as it is stretched too thin, and cannot hold. But they will make them bleed, on every world they take.
>Chapter Homeworld: Fleet Based as of Waagh! The Beast
>Chapter Appearance: Armour painted to avoid obvious space marine shapes, and dark greys/browns/greens dependent on terrain. Also: Beakies, because stealth.

So
A) Would this be a decent chapter?
B) What legion would it best come from?

>Summary: Second Founding, emphasis on stealth and disruption. As a result, armour is painted to be broken shapes, so that in the dark, or at a distance, you can't tell that it's a Space Marine.
I like it.

>Fought in Waagh Beast
Not entirely sure we have one of those in our AU.

>Would this be a decent chapter?
I believe so.

>What legion would it best come from?
Their tactics sound like Iron Rangers, but I could see them being void angel or scale bearer successors.

Waagh Beast was referred to on the Infernals page, so I assumed you had it, or at least an analogue.

Regardless, the basic kernel of it, that an Ork Waagh defeated them when they fought on level footing, still holds.

I think Void Angels fits better than Scale Bearers, because they aren't really fast attacking, though I suppose when deployed in the field, rather than behind enemy lines, they would need some way of not getting pinned in large scale pitched battles, so they would need some mobility

To be honest I think the best fit for parent chapter would be the Iron Rangers, but you'd have to talk with Sneaky about that.

Aren't they traitor?

Makes the succession a little awkward.

Also, how can I talk to Sneaky?

*Being successors, not succession.

They are, yes, but seeing as how every canon traitor legion has a loyalist "successor chapter", it's hardly without precedent to have a band of loyalists left over from a traitor legion.

"Loyalist Traitors" tends to come across as snowflakey, even by 40k's standards.

There are several Chapters *implied* to be descended from Traitors, but I don't think any of them are *officially* that, which is an important distinction.

Personally, I'd steer clear of such things. But if you feel that there's a compelling story there beyond "well MY guys are just that special", give it a try.

>"Loyalist Traitors" tends to come across as snowflakey, even by 40k's standards.
I've never really understood the hate for loyalist factions of traitor legions. People always say they're snowflakes and mary sues, but the way I see it, they're less snowflakey than their parent legions. While their bros are all getting edgy and rebellious and talking about how much it sucks that they have to work for grandaddy emps, and how "we should rebel, guys!" whereas the loyalists among them are like, "Or maybe we could quit being edgelords and do our job."

>There are several Chapters *implied* to be descended from Traitors, but I don't think any of them are *officially* that, which is an important distinction.
Oh don't be that guy. Yeah it's never been canonically confirmed, but when it comes to some of them, like the Iron Snakes, the Silver Skulls, the Blood Ravens, there're sitting there going, "NO ONE KNOWS where these guys' geneseed comes from, but say, don't they remind you of a traitor legion? *wink wink nudge nudge*"

>Oh don't be that guy.
Just sayin'.

More often than not, it tends to be an inflammatory subject, and I tend to dislike things that lead so easily to divisiveness. I don't see Loyalist Traitors adding much to the story.

That's all I'm getting at.

Fair enough, I just don't want to cut off the possibility, although your concerns are valid. That's why I asked him to get ahold of sneaky before moving forward.

I think this is a pretty good idea and I owe you an apology for confusion on the wiki. There are many pages that have fallen behind more recent development and the Infernals are one of them. We were looking at WAAAGH! The Beast a while back but kinda cooled on the idea as Black Library started codifying it. However, the replacement "devastating invasion" might suit your background even better:

1d4chan.org/wiki/Second_Vetrovnak_Incursion

I could see the Blades being a Chapter cut off on the far side of Ultima and deciding to adopt some of the tactics of the invader during their period of isolation. Does that sound about right?

Regarding the parent Legion, the Void Angels will work. As the main sire Legion, hey have heaps of history to justify just about any weird Successor someone might want to write. Give them a veteran of the Al-Sherar Sector War (probably tucked up in a Dreadnought by the time of the Vetrovnak, but maybe not) to reteach the Guerrilla tactics that Lumey/Diallo/Antonelle used in the Jolof Campaign and you're golden.

Alternatively, the Eyes of the Emperor are pretty sneaky.

OK. Reading this now. There needs to be an introductory paragraph for their history before you break into the individual sections. At a minimum, this text is needed to pad the page out and avoid the dreaded double-header. But you can also use it to prep the reader on the themes that the history focuses on.

>Flariad
Looks good.

>Emerald Doom
The way that this section has been broken up into so many paragraphs is a bit distracting. 1,2,3 should all be one paragraph (dealing with the Legion's purpose), 4,5,6 should be the next paragraph (explaining the name) and I'd be tempted to put everything but the last line into a one more paragraph (explaining their crisis), or otherwise put 7,8 into a bridging paragraph and unify 9,10,11. This is a general issue throughout the piece but it's very clear here.

They could also do with some more bullet-point Notable Campaigns, as this section covers a century of warfare.

>The Healer of Lazarus
I know what you mean when you write "The Lazarites of Lazarus were a reptilian species of xenos, a race that was..." but to the uninitiated it might seem that "xenos" are a race. The context makes it clear that the Lazarites are alien creatures and inhabit the planet Lazarus, so just lead in with "The reptilian Lazarites were making rapid technological and social progress."

The first thematic point I have any issue with is describing Aubrey with "a mind as sharp as a razor". The idiom probably lets the Primarch down - he's quite a lot more insightful than almost every person who has ever been described that way. (And please, take the other side of the coin here: everything else up to this point strikes true!)

>A Legion Restored
I feel like shorter sentences would better convey a sense of urgency that leads to using alien technology.

>The Zealots and the Victory
Some of the stylistic issues noted above, but mainly good. The text should probably say that Aubrey and Gaspard lobby the Emperor for the Edict.

>The Crusade
This is a bit short. Rather than extending it, you should probably look at taking some of the material here and using it elsewhere on the page. Hober Isaacs could be mentioned under the Legion's allies, while most of the rest could serve as an extended introduction to the Lazarus Rebellion (probably under a different heading). As a general observation, you've got 8 subheadings under the History section before getting into the Heresy. I can see that leading to the Contents becoming an unsightly barrier rather than a functional introduction to the content. See if you can get it down to three or four main headings. If you want to break things up for the reader after that, just use bold-text sub-headings (i.e. '''Heading''' rather than "===Heading===" on the wiki) that won't show up in the contents to frame your ideas.

>The Lazarus Rebellion
Pretty good. The sentences on Aubrey challenging Gaspard are a bit clunky. Try imagining the scene in your mind and explaining it to the reader as it unfolds. Aubrey is grief-stricken and offers Gandr to Gaspard to fight an honour duel. Then the Void Angel refuses and emphasises his point by breaking the blade and kicking its pieces back to Aubrey. My mind's eye sees Aubrey falling to his knees to regard broken Gandr as a symbol of his broken life, but you might imagine it differently.

>Pax
The term "Xeno Bellicus" is an unnecessary neologism. The Imperium has "Xenos Horrificus" for utterly intolerable aliens.

Is Corvin Prozt commanding the fleets of the Eternal Zealots, or just EF71? I know why he's a Captain, but he really should be higher-ranked if he's the Equerry. (You could explain this away as part of the general disgrace and dismemberment of the Legion, though - there's no more senior officer available to serve as Aubrey's second.)

>Pax (cont.)
It's a bit pointless to have Aubrey not in command for one paragraph. Maybe have Prozt take up all the day to day running of the Fleet as EF71 carries out the War Council's orders, so that when Aubrey starts to get his groove back you only need to say that it's under his command.

"private vox-codes" makes it sound like Pax is impersonating specific individuals. Maybe the codes are just "secure"?

"compliance fleet" - arrgh! There are Expedition Fleets (great big smashy things) and Compliance Groups (less big mopping up things). Technically there's no sharp line between them but we should at least keep the terms distinct!

The paragraph in which the Prime is introduced has a quirky line. "The Prime spoke of his RACE the Hezeyar, a psychically gifted RACE" (emphasis mine) "that once ruled the stars now being claimed by humanity." The second part of the sentence is ambiguous and maybe it's meant to be that way but lets not forget about the Eldar Empire. (I guess the Prime could be lying.)

There are also some run-on sentences in this section that could do with being broken up.

>In general
This is really quite good and it's great to finally look at the history of the Zealots. (As opposed to - well, we all know what was there before.) Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the look through Lumey, appreciate it.

>Then the Void Angel refuses and emphasises his point by breaking the blade and kicking its pieces back to Aubrey. My mind's eye sees Aubrey falling to his knees to regard broken Gandr as a symbol of his broken life,

YES, MAKE HIM SUFFER!

Hey Mech, random question. Would Arelex be grumpy with Roman over Werkerde?

Yeah, that could work, thanks.

Looks good.

>A WORLD OF TANKS

WHO DID THIS?

I regret nothing.

To my brother, Lord of the Winged Victory and Glory of Ciban,

I am greatly heartened to hear of your continued success against the enemies of our Imperium in your posting. Under your able guidance, my sons have been presented with an invaluable opportunity to wash away the tang of failure, and you have my gratitude for that.

I personally wish that I could have better news to give you regarding the ongoing situation in the Imperium. Brother has turned against brother, and to our greatest sorrow, blood has been shed. I am not entirely blameless in this affair; my sons too have gone to war against those who we once called allies. Still, with every needless death, with every lost world, our father’s dream of a glorious Imperium of Man fades by tiniest fraction.

Gaspard, how will the Imperium of the future remember us? Will we be known as the generals and marshalls of promised victory? Or will we be tyrants who suffocated under the weight of our responsibility? I have spent much time contemplating how the situation has deteriorated to its current state, and the blame has to lie on our failings as the sons of the Emperor. As the cherished primarchs of the Legiones Astartes, was it not our responsibility to protect and serve the Imperium?

- Excerpt from a letter written to Gaspard Lumey from Aubrey the Grey, date unknown

Imperial authorities remain divided on the contents of the letter, as well as it's authenticity.

It has been argued that the letter showcases regret, or perhaps a change of heart in the traitorous primarch as the fighting in the Heresy reached its peak. An opposing argument stands that it was a calculated deception on Aubrey' part, hoping to sway his skeptical brother over to the machinations of Chaos.

There remains a third theory, that the letter was not from Aubrey but is rather a fabrication. This raises more questions, regarding the true author, as well as their intentions for making this letter known.

bump

So yeah, just wondering if it's too late for me.

You might have to give me a little more context than that.

Check the Werkerde page, the Forgeworld has a version of the faith with Mecha Satan.

Just wondering if I should quit while I'm ahead. I won't be able to get work done until next week.

If you're looking for a "grant me a way to gracefully abandon my claims" I can give it to you. Otherwise, I'd say you're free to continue working (or talking about working anyway) for as long as you choose.

Well, you can either set a fixed date so that people know what to expect, or continue in an informal manner in which case nothing can be guaranteed, it all depends on how much has already been written at the time of your completion.

Yo Arelex, I know you mentioned that some of your Maestros Ferrorum merge with their tanks in a dreadnought like fashion. What would you think about creating a special character that's like that? Basically a superheavy tank in the LoW slot that has a name and a backstory and shit, plus a bunch of upgrades for a hefty pricetag?

I think it would be a shame not to integrate that idea into the codex beyond the basic Mastro Ferrorum.

The reason you're not getting a definite answer is because you're the only one who knows enough to make the decision.

Even with regard to rewrites, where basically you'd just be affecting the line I'm charting out for the Heresy, I can't give you a definite answer. I don't mind rewriting in principle, but at the moment I have no idea what you would want me to rewrite. I don't know if you're going to include a proposal for how to amend the Heresy storyline for what's being removed and how to accommodate what you're adding. If you don't address it in what you're proposing, you're basically saying that it's too hard and someone else should do it.

gay

Nothing gay about the effeminate, white-haired primarch writing sappy letters to the brother who broke his sword. He's probably just thinking about thrusting his sword into Gaspard's back in retaliation.

I had to chew on this for a while, but on the balance I don't particularly like it. The idea behind the "Julius Caesar" letter was to hint at what might have been going on without spelling it out to the reader. By putting a full disclosure letter on Aubrey's page you're undermining that.

I'm legitimately surprised someone actually thought that through.

Hmm fair enough, time to find another pen pal for Aubrey. I want that ambiguity over whether he regrets his actions damnit.

You don't think that's implied by the comparison with Brutus?

Well that's on Gaspard's page. I want something for Aubrey, something more concrete besides an implication.

The traditional time to show regret is once nothing can be changed. Maybe you could express that ambiguity in the form of his daemon world?

I was thinking of an eulogy for Tiran. A speech to showcase Aubrey's oratory skills. Still, the daemon world idea is worth considering.

I'll begin working on the 15th. That's when my last test is. I'll give myself until the 23rd to be done. I am now redoubled in motivation. Nothing like passive aggressive anonymous haters to really get the blood flowing.

All this talk about literary heretics makes me want to write up a remembrancer character. Some old bitter Hemmingway type who recognizes the necessity of the Great Crusade, but refuses to glorify and celebrate it the way other remembrancers do and keeps getting in trouble because of it.

For the chapter I want to make, can I make up a Space Marine to found it, from the Void Angels?

Of course!

Okay, thanks

Is there a specific naming convention for Void Angel's?

Their names are fairly cosmopolitan. The general rule is that if a French flag flew over a part of Earth, names from that area are appropriate.

Seems good to me.

Arelex wouldn't worry too much over it, since the Emperor weighed in on the matter.

>Seems good to me.
Got anything in mind, or should I write him up myself?

I'll leave it up to you. If you've got a good idea, go for it. If not, I'll write him up.

Cool. I'll get on it if I have time to work on legion lists tomorrow.

Where would I go to make a Beakie Space Marine of my chapter

If you're looking to make the designs, try the Space Marine Painter at Bolter and Chainsword. Alternatively, there's a semi-dodgy Russian generator that can be used as well if you dig around.