Help! New Chapter Background?

[A Gentleman's Coup]

Hello brothers!  I've recently begun creating my own homebrew chapter, the Bell Keeper Covenant (Covenant of the Bell?, Bell Keepers?, I dunno).  I have the paint scheme (basically a pre heresy Death Guard rip off, I love the scheme) and chapter symbol down, but I'm having some trouble with lore and background.  I've got a Betrayal at Calth box kitbashed and ready to go, but little story to go on.  I will probably be using Black Templar rules as I like the crusader squads.  How should I go forward with the lore?  Does anybody have any suggestions?  (I could post pictures of the models if that would help.)  Thanks!

[sal of manders]

my first question is why the name?  It's sort of an odd one, at least for 40K.  A name like that sounds like it would be referencing something about the chapter, which might give you some inspiration.  

[A Gentleman's Coup]

The name takes inspiration from a covenant in Dark Souls 2.  I originally had the chapter guarding a shrine world with a massive relic bell.  The chaplains would quote a character from the game by asking initiates if they wished to guard the bell, therefore joining the chapter and coming to guard the ring of worlds surrounding the shrine world.

[DJMoose]

Maybe their concept has something to do with the tolling of the Bell of Lost Souls or something similar.

 

Covenant of the Bell sounds cool...if a little heretical sounding.  Custodians of the Bell sounds neat, but could potentially be confusing with the Custodes.

 

If a tolling bell has something to do with the Chapter's history and initiation rites, what does a bell signify?  I am assuming it has something to do with their reverence of the Emperor?

 

Just jotting down some ideas I had at the moment.

[Laughingman]

Might be worth looking into  historic titles for bell ringers or bygone styles of bells, for example "the brothers carillon" rolls off the tongue better in my opinion. Though I would caution will the bell analogy because the bell is associated with the Nurgle. After all the ringing of bells in the middle ages was used to warn people that someone with severe sickness was coming by.

Edited July 20, 2017 by Laughingman

[A Gentleman's Coup]

Maybe the bell tolling could symbolize the launching of a new crusade for the chapter like how the ringing of the bell told Macbeth to kill Duncan in Macbeth.  The bell could otherwise be a symbol of connection with the emperor as bells often symbolize the expansion of consciousness and connection to a deity.  It could be a psychic link, or somehow connected to astropaths or psychers?

[sal of manders]

Maybe the bell tolling could symbolize the launching of a new crusade for the chapter like how the ringing of the bell told Macbeth to kill Duncan in Macbeth.  The bell could otherwise be a symbol of connection with the emperor as bells often symbolize the expansion of consciousness and connection to a deity.  It could be a psychic link, or somehow connected to astropaths or psychers?

 

hmmm.... bell with psychic connections?  Better not ring it then, it might turn the population into crazy ratfolk or something   Maybe there's a warprift in the area, or the bell is some Necron Pylon ancient mysterious device that keeps the warp from opening up in the area that the locals refer to as a bell (maybe due to appearance or a sound it makes sometimes).  Maybe the marines even built their chapter monastery around it. Or it's a location where something happened, like the imperium making landfall amidst a less developed populace, and they built a shrine there.  

 

Your source material makes it sound like their homeworld, or recruiting worlds anyway, ought to be a medieval sort of world, one where the church (of the emperor, of course) is the dominating political power, and the Marines are more mysterious if not mythical figures in the eyes of the local populous. Recruits might 'mysteriously vanish' presumably kidnapped by space marines taken by otherworldly forces, or ceremonially recruited to join the great 'war in the heavens' that the locals may be uncertain is actually taking place.  Part of the question here is do the locals KNOW the space marines are there, or are they "just a legend".

Edited July 20, 2017 by sal of manders