Grey Hunter Ydalir

Sometimes, sometimes the fever dream... well, isn't a dream.

I love the Knights Hospitaller, they've always espoused a military ideal I've found myself attached to. While I haven't ever delved as highly into the history of the order as I have with other subjects, let's just say that any time I am able to in any historical game play as or utilize the Hospitallers, I most certainly do. Emphasis mine, I feel like this needs to be condensed, rejigged or punctuated differently, as it stands it feels like one big sentence that repeats itself, even though technically it doesn't. That just stood out to me on first reading.

It seems do depend on the founding and/or the Chapter. Some seems to be created with a name, colour and homeworld already decided, while others are just a number and are told to go out crusading, or to find a planet that would be fitting as their recruitment and homeworld, and along the line they decide on a name and a colour based on what they experience Fair enough. It just seems strange to not even have so much as a colour, symbol and/or callsign to go with. Otherwise they'd be relatively hard to identify and track, as well as attribute victories and credit to for their actions taken.

Well, this is unusual for you! Doesn't a Chapter get named and coloured before they're formally deployed? Or have I fallen behind or missed something? If they're still 18th founding, they're definitely not any of Girlyman's greyshields. Forgive me but do you mean Shattered? This is great. However, does it bring them into conflict with anyone? That's always the thing I'm interested in. While this is awesome, the Dark Eldar prefer not to engage a hard target if they can avoid it and the Astartes are one of the few forces in the galaxy that can give back what they get when fighting the dark kin. Would the Kabal seek easier territory? Would it make more sense for the Champions to be tracking them as they keep moving their preying grounds? Thematically I prefer your story but I thought I'd offer a logical alternative. The only other thing I'd say would be to point out how the Kabal now has a bit of a b***r for the champions. Would the Kabal leave them 'messages'?

I'm unsurprisingly with Ace on this one, I'll just quote "just because you can, does not mean that you should." While you can make the argument that the Imperium 'could' make use of them, what benefit does blue skin bring, besides a very obvious mutation to a very religiously charged, racially inflexible culture like that is present in the Imperium? They'd do no thing a regular human couldn't, and if they were too far beyond the template it might be problematic for integration with Geneseed. Even for the Salamanders who's radiation explanation is being thrown around, it's the geneseed that reacts with the radiation, not the human donor. Are they strong like Ogryns? No. Are they quick and dextrous like the Ratlings? Also no. It's not that it's not possible, it's more that hanging your hat on this and making it a front and center part of your IA is incredibly thin ice to walk on, as it supports nothing. To me this resembles the over-use of PC leanings that are absolute rubbish born out of social-constructionists. This has nothing to do with anything other than what fits the setting and what works as a true part of the defining character of a chapter. Pale skin doesn't make the Raven Guard or Charcharadons who they are, it's a tiny bit of visual diversity that sets them apart from their cousins, taking it away would not detract anything from the chapter's character, so how much is it truly worth? Other than as a narrative framing device for their descriptions in stories, nothing at all. You could say they had a blue 'tint' or 'hue' to their otherwise generic human skin tones which may or may not be exaggerated by the geneseed when it's implanted, but to say your recruits all look like the Blue Man Group I think in 40k is going too far, personally. Just how many calls for their eradication would they get just because they resemble the Tau? Sorry Lord Marshal, to derail your thread again, but I had to comment on this specifically. As an aside, I really like the colour scheme you've gone with. :tu:

I'll re-iterate, I dislike overt mentions of anything. I will say definitively in my opinion geneseed mixing and lost legion links are, if desired, best kept in the background and used as 'spice' to help the overall flavour of the chapter. It's seasoning that shouldn't replace a part of the main meal, which is something a lot of people tend to miss. I'm with Lunkhead here. Using the Deathwatch angle is great for showing personality and character, and how they interact with the character of other chapters, not so much for physical objects. Their service is essentially black operations, so any artifacts or objects would fall under the possession of the Inquisition, and I don't think they'd be swayed by something as inconsequential as proximity to a chapter homeworld get in the way of their mandate and to argue with the Inquisition over the actions of their chamber militant, especially when the chapters that are signed on to donate brethren also sign off on all the conditions required. I don't think they have a leg to stand on here, to be honest. It'd be down to a generous Inquisitor Lord signing something over to the chapter, though I don't know why they would, when it would benefit them more to simply keep them for use by the Inquisition/Deathwatch, and have no negative consequences at all, especially if a member of the chapter was on that particular Kill Team, they'd be sworn to silence just by their terms of service. If you want to throw around artifacts, keep the Inquisition out of it, unless you need to have conflict for some reason, but realize that it's walking on a knife-edge. Just look at the Celestial Lions, or even the reborn Primaris Soul Drinkers for an example, as well as the implied destroyed chapters that have broken their oaths of silence of the Deathwatch. Other than the maces since you know my opinion on relics from the Deathwatch, great concept. A small story like that can stand on it's own outside of the IA, or be a part of it, or just have a section of it used in the IA. It's up to you, but it's a good idea. And that's all I have for now, as I've got to get back to work. Sorry for the short reply, but I'll see if I can come back to this later and pick up where I left off.

Ok Let's take a look. I think that's a good idea to exemplify how they interact with other chapters. If they act like Thrawn did when he was in the Imperial Military proper, it'd be an interesting point of friction. You could even have their unique mutations be commented on by other more 'puritan' Astartes members negatively, but that entirely depends on whether you want to include that kind of commentary in your work. Other than that a cultural example is great. Due to the nature of the Deathwatch and it's role, it'd be hard to have this kind of work be front and center when talking about the chapter, especially when the Deathwatch members are sworn to secrecy - which is slightly idiotic as an aside, considering the nature of the Astartes and their role in 40k - when returning to their chapters. You'd end up telling a Deathwatch story that had a member of your chapter in it, as opposed to the story of your chapter with a sidebar or commentary on one of it's brethren's time in the Deathwatch. Right out of the gate I'll state I'm not a fan of mixed geneseed. Things like this were traditionally only done during, for example, the cursed founding and most of those chapters met with unfortunate ends. It's heretical in the extreme outside of sanctioned events like that as well. Narratively speaking, it's got to be specifically tied to the makeup of the story of the chapter, like how the Soul Drinkers story is for a large part dominated by them not being who they thought they were, and the narrative springing from there. In any other respect it never feels necessary and in most cases simply feels like it's 'rule of cool', to try and make something unique without actually writing them to be so, relying on the crutch of something like 'mixed geneseed' or 'lost in the warp' or simply 'dark secrets', rather than actually writing something compelling. Don't get the cart before the horse. Write something that you think is a compelling story and see what springs from building that road, rather than dropping down a bunch of pretty statues and writing your way around them, forcing people to look at the statues rather than enjoying the drive on your road, if that makes sense. This also applies to the 'azure chimeras' which naming wise, feels a little bit on the nose, as well as the second legion links. It'd be better to have something like that subtly implied in passing, but never stated anywhere if you were going to do it. If it were me, I'd also cloak it in suspicions around the Alpha Legion. On this I'd ask Ace Debonair for some tidbits of advice, considering his Knights Oracular are back and are Alpha Legion Infiltrators Alpha Legion hunting specialists. This falls into the same camp as above. You're getting attached to particular individual golden bricks and expecting them to form key structural components of the wall that is your chapter, when they'd just crush under expansion. I'll explain. I think having a set of ideas for unique parts of the chapter are fine, but should be far, far less specific. Instead of this mini-story about a fellblade, just have one word "Archeotech" and leave it at that. When you begin writing any story, you should typically start with broad strokes. It's fine to have a concept in your head for it, but start developing that idea as broadly as possible. Example: I want to write a story about one of my Astartes. I begin with; a man is born, he lives, he dies. That's your basic beginning, middle and end. A story has to have those elements and while an IA is not a narrative story per-se, I view it as being the 'story' of your chapter. It covers their beginnings, how they're founded. Their middle years, their trials, tribulations and how they have been formed by these experiences. Finally their 'end' which is where you write your conclusion as to the character and state of the chapter and where they're poised to go as of the 'current' in stasis moment of the 40k timeline. As I develop his story I flesh it out with each successive pass. I'll add his name, his tribe or birthplace. Then briefly mention the trials he suffered to become an Astartes before moving on to his early career, before finally heading to his death, or where the story will leave him. If you keep developing that character long enough, you can pull a moment, battle, campaign, crisis or whatever you want from his life and you will have everything you need to write a story about it. You have his character, what challenges he's overcome and how that defines him. This is how video game, movie and narrative franchise 'bibles' are developed as well, even if some of those are more a collection of ideas and development from multiple authors along the way. Any time you dive too deep into hyper-specifics, you're getting the aforementioned cart before the horse. Your chapter is founded. Your chapter overcomes challenges put before them and it defines their character, and culture. Your chapter and it's status at the end of the current 40k timeline, including consequences of their actions and character set up before. Not sure about the crescents, I'd need to know more about the event, but Necron ships tend to be croissant sorry, crescent shaped in nature and I find it odd that a chapter would adopt the symbol of a xenos race they're fighting, even if it is just in ship aesthetics, unless the crescent existed in their symbology before hand. That said, a cataclysmic event based around the Necrons is really cool and fitting right in with current 40k lore. I'm not sure, you have to be extremely careful how you do this. Older and first or second founding chapters can get away with something similar, but their inherited equipment and infrastructure is far different to a newer chapters. You also need to think about the logistics of it. The larger the manufacturing presence you have, the more bodies you need to run it as well as materials needed to pump out production. Secondly, given the relatively low number of Astartes in a chapter, even with Guillimans new reforms, and the again relatively low attrition rate of Astartes in battle (think of the fact that most tactical marines are a hundred years old at least, as well as being the chapters backbone of fighting men), 'large' manufacturing facilities are fairly redundant. Astartes chapters need to have a measure of self-sufficiency, this is true. Let's compare this to the real world, while I know the scale is different and operationally things change because of that, but stick with me here. A special forces group will have armorers in tow, but they won't have any local gun-manufacturing as part of the unit, or even division as a whole. They will have some extremely capable and knowledgeable members, but not all of them know their weapons as well as you might think, despite them being very proficient with them. (Hell, Larry Vickers despite being as knowledgeable as he is has made a couple of asinine statements before regarding some firearms that he's been raked over the coals for, despite being a former Delta operator.) Given how small a unit is, they need to be provided with the ability to repair and refit their weapons and keep them working. Where an Astartes chapter differs is in scale, since they also have to maintain working operation of powered armour, small arms, void-craft, atmospheric craft, transports and landers, tanks and so on and so forth. This means their operation of scale for the good operation of all of their assets naturally increases and to take a link out of their logistical nightmare of a supply chain, being able to manufacture on a limited scale greatly offsets some of this dependence upon the Mechanicus. But just how much do you need to manufacture for your two to three-thousand strong special forces division? I know this is a bit of a rant, so my apologies for that, it's just I see this pop up a lot in 40k lore and fan projects like IA's. On the other side of the coin, I'd perhaps frame it as a Great Crusade era Astartes forge ship, and it's ability to manufacture is perhaps more efficient than modern forges, the alloys are stronger, the forging and milling tools more precise. It allows gear to be maintained to a higher standard than is possible with modern forges, but also gets you out of being a mary-sue with an ability to create your own GC era super-heavy tanks for your chapter out of the blue. I'd stay away from this. I personally don't see it happening on a few levels. Again you're delving into hyper-specifics, but that aside I think all suits of Gorgon armour are unique to the Iron Hands themselves, extremely closely guarded as a secret, considering a lot of what the Iron Hands have done/are doing is tech-heresy in the extreme. To round it out, it's not known so far as I'm aware if there are any suits left, since the majority of the suits were deployed with the Avernii Clan, which were wiped out at the Dropsite Massacre, though I could be wrong as Iron Hands lore isn't my strong-suit. Also, do you really want to make your chapter unique by taking something that's unique to another chapter? On top of that the Chiss as far as I'm aware aren't huge proponents of cyborgs or heavy use of cybernetics. Unless you're as talented and capable as Ace (most aren't, I'm certainly not, much as I might try), I'd stick to fleshing and rounding out this chapter first before jumping into anything else, as you'll end up doing both chapters a disservice when things inevitably change on both ends and it becomes a mess. By all means keep the idea around and even work on it a little as an overall concept, but wait till this one has some concrete foundations before you jump ship, at least in my opinion.

Agreed. Your easiest replacements - other than fudging the dates to change the timeline - are the Night Lords and Alpha Legion, as well as non-astartes chaos-aligned pirates and renegades if you wanted to keep the overall enemy theming the same. If you could replace them with xenos, Druchii are everyone's first pick because they're an easy villain to use, but the Orks would be a more protracted, consistent threat over time. This is really easy to do, I do it a lot. Your homeworld in a lot of ways defines your chapter. However, Horrible is absolutely right, it's good not to get too hooked on it. I'd leave it alone now and bulk up some of the other subsections of the piece before going back to it. Remember, as human beings we're not just a reflection of our parents genes or what they taught us at home, but made up Or alternatively write out everything, everything you can bring to the homeworld down to the finest detail. Then arrange it like an essay, look for what has to go in the first and then the last paragraph at least in intent. Firstly what introduces you to the homeworld and sets it up, then following that what you need to know as the conclusion of the essay. In this regard you can cut out huge chunks and make it much more streamlined. Also, read it back to yourself out loud. That's where you'll find you start to cotton on to where you're falling down for the audience. Finally, just stick the draft for the homeworld in a drawer and start again. A first draft is usually rough enough to get your main ideas down. Starting fresh with the same core ideas and themes at heart can work really well, though all these options depend on the writer and what he/she finds easiest.

On top of what Bjorn said, which is quite right, remember a lot of chapters will simply choose to take the most capable of potential child aspirants, who will get mind wiped before proper training. The nuances of how much of their life is wiped, how deep they go etc are left up to the author, as well as how they perform it. So far as I'm aware it's a physical-science, not psyker based, though the same action can be performed by significantly skilled Librarians or likewise skilled and stable human psykers. I've read of some chapters that screen each successful recruit with invasive mental and psychological investigation by Librarian, which is another kettle of fish yet again. You have options, but it's more about what will fit in best with what you want your chapters warriors to be in terms of personality, how they act and what their potential flaws are. As an aside, the Luna Wolves (later Sons of Horus then of course, Black Legion) recruited from ganger populations, As do the Imperial Fists from Necromunda (though I don't think it's exclusively gangers, so far as I remember), and then the Imperial Guard recruit plenty of gangers, such as the (again) Necromundan Spiders, who so far as we are told are actually quite an effective regiment. Anyway, the choices are definitely yours and there's plenty of room to 'make it yours' as it were.

I actually really like the new colour scheme, I think the red and grey was pretty much the Flesh Tearers, a bit too much of a close match. The blue could have worked but it needed work. The ice-like colour is awesome and works really well with the subtle pops of accessories, and things like the red eyes. Do you have any ideas for company/veteran/unit markings? I think they need a little 'something' in terms of colour to differentiate them, even if it's fairly minor.

Mate, you don't at all. Pragmatic and factual but not snarky, the fact that people can't tell the difference these days and are very reactionary to anything that isn't sugar coated is the real issue at hand. You're fine, I appreciate the candor to be honest. Great, from what I read (admittedly skim read, apologies) it's solid. Totally, I get that. I try to take a more realistic bent with my chapters as well. Practically speaking, they should never shine, they should not be in bright colours, have massively obvious ranking and unit markings and when not caught up in a moment where your disbelief is suspended due to good writing and all the 40k tropes fitting together as they should, it can be irritating. Well, glad to know that I'm not going totally crackers yet. It's hard to be functional when your does what it wants, and brings up all the things you'd rather not see or hear ever again. Everything else just becomes so fractured. But we do what we can and soldier on, right? Activity is therapy, so the Gym is my therapy as is this. It's great to be able to bend your mind to a pursuit that both makes you think but at the same time isn't tied to an event or person. I'm not trying to be maudlin, but I want to clearly get across that I'm not necessarily trying to tear your work down either, providing critique (even when wrong! ) is something that I enjoy the process of. I hope I didn't come across too blunt or critical myself, as I've been accused of being overly harsh or blunt in the past and I was a little concerned I'd done that here too. Text is sometimes a bit too much of a blank slate to interpret.

Well, consider me educated. Yep, I am satisfied and it's looking good overall, honestly. Ok that seems solid, though perhaps link that for the reader somehow? There's something about flat out stating something that has been alluded to in other source material that throws me off when reading it. Ok, I understood the change in tactics through necessity for survival and I understand the difference between the various tiers of special forces. My point is more to the entrenched nature and mindset of Astartes which is famous and infamous in equal measure for their implacable nature, which can count doubly so for some of the Terran born original Astartes. I'm more questioning the process of the change in mindset. More so, describe for us as readers a moment of change or clarity for those in command of the chapter. That makes sense. I totally didn't even clock your common sense thought of military paints. I think I've been so conditioned by GW artwork and some model representations of high shine or almost glossy Astartes paintwork that I automatically assigned that to your chapter as well. Fair enough, I must have missed that myself so my bad. That said, perhaps having a better explanation for anyone who hasn't read that particular piece of lore (as I must not have, though I swear....) so that even people unfamiliar with some finer points of the background can get a good understanding. This actually counts for everything. It's not necessarily lowering the level of the writing, but making anything that could be missed or misinterpreted accessible to the reader. Think of Star Trek technobabble. It can sound convincing, especially to a layman, but it never loses the audience in hyper specific terminology to the point that they have to pick up a physics book to understand what the characters are talking about. I think looking back, I definitely missed a couple of points and misconstrued some of what you were saying, that's my bad, I think my grasp on the fluff isn't as 'current' as it used to be. That said, there's an old phrase "if one person says it, five people are thinking it" and while it mostly applies to customer service industries, it also applies to written content too. I don't say this to pass the buck for my own mistakes back to the author, they're on me, I'm saying it because sometimes it can help to take a step back and perhaps see if there's a better way to illustrate your point or the information you're trying to get across. I hope that all makes sense, insomnia has been getting to me the last week so I feel like I'm going to pieces a little in my ability to be makie sense of what I'm trying to get across, it all feels a bit fragmented. So hopefully, hopefully I came across coherently!

It is! A great bastion of words that would make Rogal Dorn proud. But it's good to have it all condensed in one spot. I'd advise changing the first post to the same, or adding it so that anyone brand new to the thread can be quickly brought up to date, if you haven't already. I'll break down the Overview as I can see it and provide constructive criticism for things I notice as being problematic to my mind. Is there evidence of Corax exiling any of his sons, Terran or not? I only ask as, again, so far as I was aware the Legion stayed whole under Corax, with the Terran marines being mostly wiped out under Horus' command of a fortress assault, the "Battle of Gate 42" during the Great Crusade. Something Corax never forgave Horus for, to put it lightly. The Terran born marines more willing to follow Horus' orders due to them having been part of the original forces attached to the Luna Wolves, being more bloodthirsty in general as well as being members of Erebus' lodges. Inadvertently purging the Raven Guard of most of the potentially traitor marines on the upside, but on the downside making them one of the smallest legions, who never recovered numerically. I suppose you could have them as a group attached to another task force at the outskirts of the Imperium, unable to return to their Legion or Terra during the Heresy for 'reasons', having them show up later, though it does throw into question their loyalties quite dramatically, being both Terran born as well as what some would point to convenient timing of their return. This would make for interesting tension for your chapter though. So how did they fight on their original campaign, refuse to adopt their gene-fathers reform, before all of a sudden deciding that his way was best? I know you say it's due to resupply issues but it still seems a bit flip-floppy to me. Yes necessity drives all but perhaps describe their losses and that same necessity and how it affected them, forcing them to change as much as opening their eyes to adapting themselves. You have to remember, this was hard for the Terran remnants of the legion who were directly under Corax, to say nothing of a group of marines who were away from his eyes and teachings. So, their armour never gets cleaned? Never has any basic maintenance done on it? The machine spirits imperial technology are infamously fickle if not cared for properly and to me this simply seems like a lack of maintenance. Ash also doesn't stick like you seem to imply, it can stain fabric but even on people it gets washed off without too much trouble. It can be washed off with rain, mud, gore, blasts of air, impact, anything that a marine would encounter in his daily grind. Now if you had said their cloaks and field coverings (field camo kits for what I'd assume Astartes must use, considering how big of a silhouette they posses, as well as hiding something painted in stark black and white which stands out like a sore thumb, they are Raven Guard after all) would eventually get stained, I'd say that works. The grey stain could be likened to their psychological transformation, perhaps viscerally represented by their berserkers, who straddle the line between their older, bloodthirsty Terran nature and their loyal adoption of Corax' teachings. So, what is this Ash Blindness? How does it affect the genetically superior Astartes, for whom even toxic, acidic and even vacuum environments don't cause damage to their eyes? How come it hasn't affected any other legion or chapter who have burned plenty of worlds in their wake, the World Eaters for example, or even the Death Guard for their deployments to atmospherically harsh combat zones? I think it might be better to twist it as a minor genetic abnormality within the Terran-RG gene-stock that they've been forced to work with for so long. Perhaps inadequate long term storage for their gene-seed given their fairly remote posting and lack of routine supply? This screams a little too much of wedging your guys into established history. As it stands it's a fairly well documented time, given the novels, as well as the Primarch having not only his own Ultramarine personal guard, for a good while he also had a pack of Space Wolves as an honour guard. It just seems a bit too on the nose. If you wanted to keep it, I'd advise perhaps them performing the same function for diplomatic messages or demands from the Primarch when sending his own boys in blue might seem a little too strong or on the nose, while still projecting the strength implied from the Legions Astartes. Also put a space between Storm and Crows, seeing it jammed together looks strange when reading it multiple times in a paragraph.

I know I'm not a great example of doing this myself, but it's kind of hard to scroll through all the pages in the thread to reply to things, or find out what's currently in or out of the draft. I know you have a link here but updating the first post of the thread is the easiest way to keep people appraised. I almost replied to old content a couple of times because I forgot what page I was on, getting engrossed in the discussion and then wanting to add my two cents, like I almost jumped on the 'taking adults' and fenris discussions at the start like a dog with a bone but realized I was too early in the venture before reading further. I like the ideas you've got, though I can't add much else beyond echoing what Bjorn has had to say so far. I'll admit I'm very time poor at best, so having a concise place to gather it all together helps me (and others) help you. That said, I like the idea of Nordic themed raven guard and I'd definitely like to see more.