Brother Dougal

Oh, I almost forgot. All credit to the amazing artist, Alexey Potorochin. Please feel free to check his stuff out, or even commission him if you want. He’s just left Russia to start a new life and could use all the help he can get. https://x.com/artistpotoq?s=20 - Twitter https://t.co/8jLXDjd15b - Artstation

https://www.reddit.com/r/ImaginaryWarhammer/s/DVfXF7BqVH (This 5mb limit on images is TRASH. TRASH, I tell you.) So here’s my newest commission, a picture of my Chief Librarian, Eztli. He is a master of biomancy which he uses to alter his appearance as seen here. Rather than simply bear a symbol of the snake that is the totem of Librarians, he chooses to show it through his very skin. Naturally, his stunning good looks often provoke a ‘strong reaction’ in mortals meeting him for the first time. To counter this (or perhaps to off-put them even further) he has a friendly, cheerful personality, always ready to offer help or advice to his fellow man. (In several Mesoamerican cultures, there are stories about shapechanging wizards called Nahual, or Nagual. Channeling different spirit animals to take on their forms, these mischievous sorcerers use their powers for good and/or evil, depending on the individual. Different communities either accepted, tolerated, or hunted nahual as well. They were the inspiration for my Librarians.)

Welp, that’s mostly resolved. I should’ve waited a little longer before calling more artists, now I’ve got 4 of them putting my name in their queues. XD We’ll see how this goes. But now that I’m having characters in the Legion drawn for the first time, I have another problem: names. Names suck. Should I just make up some faux-Nahuatl names, like how GW makes up faux-Latin ones for its characters? Those can sound funny. Or should I try to look up actual names? I might get it wrong trying to be historically accurate, unless I can reach out to an actual historian. Either way, here’s who’s coming: 1st Captain - Terran-Born, leads the Panthera. Serious guy. Works to bridge the gulf between Tlatia and her sons, even as he wonders what their future will look like. Legion Champion - Homeworld-Born, part of the Tecuani. A Jackass. Smug, self-centered jerk who ignores his brothers and only fights for the fun of it. Censured half a dozen times for insubordination before the Primarch herself intervened and put him in the Honour Guard. No one knows why, but she seems to be the only one he’s willing to listen to. Chief Librarian - Homeworld-Born. Strange. Uses biomancy to alter his appearance. Looks frightening, behaves friendly. Always good for advice. Selenar Matriarch - Terran (Lunar)-Born. Has to balance her duty to her cult with her deals with the Legion. Like everyone else, her people are changing and she doesn’t know what they’ll become. Finding a new purpose, a new future for them, is what matters most to her… for now. I need a name for the homeworld. Didn’t I come up with one? Is it written down somewhere? Gotta check my notes, be right back! What do you guys think?

Every artist I contact either doesn’t call back or has a waiting list of months! So many roadblocks! Gaaaaah. Since this is the first time I’m having the Selenar depicted, it’s got me nervous. Nervous and rethinking. Have I got the right idea for them? Will this work? Is there something I’ve missed, some problem with their role that’ll drag on the Legion? This wouldn’t be the first idea I retconned. Or discarded. Let me go over this again: The Selenar are a group of gene-witches from Luna. They were conquered by the Imperium, and forced to work for them. They helped create Space Marines, and taught Apothecaries their trade. Some of them rebelled against the Emperor, hurt the 3rd Legion, and got the whole group punished for it. That’s the general bullet points about them. It is stated that the Selenar are divided into different cults, but none are ever described in detail. We don’t know how many there were, or the nature of their differences. All we know of their beliefs is that they studied the mysteries of life and were devoted to keeping that knowledge safe. So, what do I want to do with this? The incident with the 3rd Legion fractured the Selenar cults. One leader, seeking any kind of chance for her cause, crossed paths with Tlatia. The two spoke at length. The 11th Legion had just had their own incident with Mars, and the Primarch was trying to adapt. Eventually, an offer of alliance was made: the 11th would provide this cult with shelter and transport, and the Selenar would use their knowledge for the Legion. That last part is what’s most important, and what needs the most work.

Not much to talk about while I wait for the artist. The queue is gonna be a while, though. Hmmm. Is there anything I haven’t covered? I do worry that I’m starting to repeat myself. Looking back through this thread and the old one, I see myself saying the same thing a few times over. I don’t want to keep doing that. What do you guys think? Is there anything you’d like to know about? Ask about? Maybe got a critique or two? In the meantime, quick thought about Destroyers: should they be banned from the Legion? It certainly makes sense on one hand: if the Dawn Legion reveres nature and life, then the radioactive poison of Destroyer weapons should be even more despised by them than they already are by other Legions. Maybe I should follow the example of the Salamanders in this regard? Buuuut, before I do I want to consider whether there are any good stories or angles I could take if I did include them. The last time I considered this I thought about giving them a totem (The Toad) but I couldn’t come up with anything more for them beyond that so I forgot about them for a while. It’d probably be more fitting to do without them. What reason could Tlatia have to keep them?

You’re amazing, Chaplain. Thank you. I’m just going to rework parts of one of the stories, and start working on another. Meanwhile I’ll get the artist to start working on the outfit for the Selenar. Hmmm. Do I want them to have white armor, like apothecaries normally do? White armor and blue robes? Or maybe blue armor and white robes? My standard scheme is orange and blue. Captains add green and gold for a wild and vivid look. Panthera wear blue armor with green capes. My Librarians use orange armor and blue robes to mark their status. Techmarines wear red, as standard, but have black helmets to mark the strained bond with Mars. Chaplains wear the standard black with skull helmets. Tecuani Honour Guard wear standard colors. Apothecaries… that Warhammer-Community article showed Heresy-Era Apothecaries in standard colors, with white helmets and robes. Orange and white? Is that what I want? Orange and white, Blue and white, or White and Blue? They use the Rabbit totem. Hmmm…

Hmm. I suppose if I could think of another reason for her to be an outcast I could go with a different power. A cursed ability just seemed like a great way to do that, given her inherent strengths as a Primarch. While I consider my options, I think I want to talk a bit about the Selenar. I’m considering making them the subject of the next picture I have made for the Dawn Legion. Never really settled on a design for them, though, so I’ll need a good artist to work with for that. Hmm, who should I go with? The Selenar are in an interesting situation: their work with the Dawn Legion is, to them, a temporary alliance. The splinter faction that joins the Eleventh is looking for a new place and/or purpose for their order in the growing Imperium. To that end, working with a Legion provides not only a free ride to the far reaches of the galaxy, but also an impressive amount of protection from threats both out and within. They’re not going to find that new purpose, at least not for a good long while, because of Stuff (Heresy!) but in the meantime they’ll see a lot of cool things. (One other thing. Does anyone happen to know where my old forum thread about this project went to? The first one? I’ve lost track of it and there was a story there that I wanted to try and salvage. If anyone can help, I’d really appreciate it.)

No it’s fine. Thank you for your thoughts, really. Sigh, I need more opinions. I need to sit down and discuss this with someone. Multiple someone’s. Maybe people with actual writing experience? I bet I could find some kind of chat room or facebook group or something on the internet that could help me, if I just searched enough. But one that would help me out on short notice? Or one that knows Warhammer? It seems unlikely, but I have to try. If I don’t make a decision, my Legion will remain a ‘work-in-progress’ forever.

That’s the next thing I need to go over. This is going to be complicated. Yes, originally I wanted her psychic ability to be the Pariah gene. A super-Blank. I even thought about working it into her creation as a woman: given that there are apparently enough female blanks to form an entire order, the Sisters of Silence, I thought it would make sense that the gene is more prevalent or stable among women for some reason, so the Emperor went with that option for her. But as time went by, certain issues started coming up in later stories I wanted to tell. The Pariah gene is one of the most powerful, precious resources in the galaxy, and because of that GW/Black Library gives it a fair number of serious drawbacks as well, most notably the utter revulsion normal humans feel towards them. Thus, if Tlatia were going to be the most powerful Blank in the galaxy, it would seem fitting that she suffer the most serious drawbacks of any Blank as well, yes? She should be seriously hampered, nay crippled, in any attempt to interact with anyone; Human, Animals, Astartes, her fellow Primarchs, everyone! If that is the case then leading a Legion should be damn near impossible. Interacting with your sons should be impossible. Having any kind of relationship with your family should be impossible. And I wanted Tlatia to have those relationships. Hell, the entire reason I wanted to create a female Primarch in the first place was because I wanted to see how she’d interact with the rest of this pseudo-pantheon of egotistical warlords. What kind of story could I tell with her if she was unable to speak to anyone? For a while I considered giving her a Mcguffin of sorts, to help her control her powers so she could do both. But that left a bad taste in my mouth; as I previously stated, the Pariah gene is one of the greatest powers in the 40k universe, and Tlatia would be the greatest of them all. It basically makes her immune to Chaos. She could probably cause True Death just by touching a daemon. To give her such power, and just write off any drawbacks by way of a deus ex machina? No, no that would make her a Mary Sue. I needed something better than that. Unable to think of anything for a while, I began considering giving her a different ability altogether. In the tarot I got some inspiration from, Tlatia’s card was the Fortune. From that I came up with the idea of giving her a kind of aura of good/bad luck. One she has no control over, that shifts from one pole to the other at random intervals and lasts for random periods of time. In this scenario her periods of ill fortune would be what forced her from her world’s primitive societies, but it wouldn’t be impossible to have any interaction with people. Dealing with her Legion and Humanity in general would still have difficulties, but they could be overcome with enough effort. There are some issues with this idea as well, so I haven’t made a final decision yet. If anyone has some ideas, thoughts, or criticisms about this whole thing I’d be happy to hear from you. But there is one last thing I should mention before I go. Very recently, I learned from people on Reddit who’ve read many more books than I have that there is in fact, in canon 40k books, the very kind of McGuffin device I considered making for Tlatia. There are limiter collars that Blanks can wear that suppress their anti-psychic abilities! I don’t know how to feel about this. I suppose it makes some sense in context; the Imperium has technologies to enhance and suppress psychic abilities. Culexus Assassins use weird helmets to turn their auras into some kind of beam weapon. Why not a limiter device to suppress a blank aura? But does this make it okay to give Tlatia such a device? I feel like my previous logic still stands; hand-waving your biggest issue with a simple plot device sounds like bad writing to me. I wish I could ask the actual writers of Black Library why they did that. Ah well, time to turn it over to you guys. What do you think of my dilemma? Any feedback is welcome. (P.S. There are two reasons why I want Tlatia to be an outcast in her youth. First, to make her desire and struggle with her family. Upon being put in control of her Legion, Tlatia goes out of her way to seek out her brothers and their Legions, to try and connect with the family she never dreamed she’d get to have. These encounters will not always go well. Second, to generate one of the biggest conflicts within the Legion itself. Some of Tlatia’s sons wish for the kind of glorious transformation that other Legions got when their Primarchs were found. They want their Lady to give them that, to strike out into the galaxy and lead them to glory equal to that of the Blood Angels or Luna Wolves. Tlatia’s struggles with that, with her own sons, will perhaps be the greatest trial she ever faces.)

Alright. That’s a lot to answer, and I think I’ve actually gone over some of those earlier in the thread. But that was close to a year ago, I don’t mind going over it again. I have answers to some of these questions. Others I’ve considered different ideas for, going back and forth because I can’t decide what works best for the story I want to tell. That’s something I need to figure out, because it all has to fit together in the end. Most especially her special ability. Okay, let me try to summarize this. Tlatia’s homeworld was a former hive world that was devastated by a man-made apocalypse during the events of Old Night. Nearly extinct and stripped of technology, the people of that world were reduced to hunter-gatherers as nature slowly reclaimed the planet. By the time Tlatia came there humans had advanced into numerous tribes and a few civilizations. The ruins of the old world were held in superstition, and dangerous beasts that had evolved during this age held back man’s further development. Tlatia was at first raised in one of these tribes, but when her unique ability manifested she was forced to leave, becoming an outcast. She would then spend the next stage of her life traveling her corner of the world, watching people from afar and learning about their different cultures, while also developing an affinity for the wilds and exploring some of the ruins. (What happens from then up until her discovery by the Emperor depends on what ability I settle on giving her.)

I’m thinking of redesigning the animal helmets. Make them a little more like the Space Wolves Wolf Helmets, maybe. I’m not sure. I’ll ask an artist to draw a few different designs, see if any stand out to me or not. Okay, so for the moment I’m settling on a combat doctrine based on ‘Adaptation’. Yes, it’s just a word, but I’m looking at this problem I’ve had from a different angle. For every Legion that seems to be based on an actual style of warfare (siege, stealth, speed, psychic) there are others that don’t. The Emperor’s Children describe their style as ‘Perfection’. Perfection? Perfection isn’t a form of warfare! And what about the Salamanders? They’re defined by Fire, and maybe Hammers. That’s not a recognized form of warfare either, that’s a loadout. The Dark Angels? I want my Legion to ‘fit in’ to a certain extent. I want them to adhere enough to the template set by the others that people looking at them would think ‘this could work’. But I see now that I can play a little looser with things than I have been. The Thousand Sons use an Egyptian aesthetic, but just how ‘Egyptian’ are they? Other than names and decorations, I’m not sure. Was magic a big deal to them? I don’t think so. When it comes to the Thousand Sons, how much of it matters, and how much is just style? So, my Legion uses a Mesoamerican aesthetic, their culture venerates the natural world, and they wage war using ‘Adaptation’ as a central principle. At the end of the day, there’s just one rule that matters more than any other. The Rule… of Cool. (Okay, now, about my Primarch’s powers. To be, or not to be?)

Hey guys. It’s been a while. Maybe I should apologize. Sorry for fading away like that for a while. Truth is I hit something of a creative roadblock in developing the Legion and I wound up stepping away and doing other things for a while. Even more truthfully, I still haven’t found an answer for those blocks. But I found the will to make some more stuff for them and wanted to share it with you all. What are these blocks? Well, there is a part of me that still wants to find some style of combat that differentiates them. I’ve said before that I have lots of ideas bouncing around in my head, but welding them altogether in a cohesive whole and putting a name to it is something that yet eludes me. There are some other Legions that don’t fit into one style, but they make up for it in other ways. I wish there was some documentary or transcript I could see on how GW chose and developed their starring Chapters (though I suspect the answer is it took them several years worth of development and retcons as well). Another is Legion culture. On other web sites, in other places I’ve brought them up, questions keep coming up about what they’re like outside of battle. What do they do for themselves? My biggest idea in that department is to have Tlatia impart an appreciation for the natural world in her sons, for all the forms it takes across the galaxy. That fits with their use of animal totems. Take that, then add in some love for artistic expression, for the ways Humanity celebrates life, and I think we could be on to something there. Some people keep asking if I’m going to include Aztec practices of human sacrifice. These people argue that A: Blood Sacrifice is an important part of Aztec culture and not including it would be a noticeable omission, and B: Warhammer is a grimdark universe where terrible secrets and curses are par for the course so my Legion should have something like that. I’ll admit, knowing that other Legions deal with things like the Fallen, the Wulfen, and the Black Rage makes me wonder if having some dark secret would help my Legion. On the other hand, the Lizardmen of Fantasy Warhammer don’t practice sacrifice (as far as I know) and no one seems to mind that. Nor do the Salamanders or Ultramarines have something to hide from the rest of the Imperium. It could really go either way on this. So for now I guess I’m just waiting for a good enough idea to decide which road I’ll take. After that, there’s a much simpler, vaguer matter: I’m just not really sure what else my Legion needs now. I’ve got a homeworld, I’ve got a look, I’ve got special units. I’m working on a culture. What’s left? What’s next? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s time to just sit down and write a story out. Or maybe I should come up with some actual characters for the Legion besides the Primarch. Ugh, I’ll need to think of names for them. Names suck. Anyway, here. Hope you like these pictures. If you have any thoughts you’d like to share, I’m all ears. Till next time!

Embrace the paradox.. hmmm. maybe I’m thinking too much about a defining tactic. I mean, what would you call the Salamanders combat tactics besides ‘Fire’? Eagle and Jaguar units are meant to be that way. Opposite yet complementary. Kind of like the Tau and their two combat styles, Mont’ka and Kauyon. Could I do something similar with the Dawn Legion? It might mean remaking the Eagle units from commanders to something else. I’d be okay with that if the concept as a whole worked out. But what would they be? Something opposite but complementary of my reconnaissance Jaguars…

Well I can’t go for both, that’d be overdoing it. It has to be one or the other. My mind’s leaning toward Selenar; they’re already a part of the setting, vague enough that there’s lots of room to expand on them, and I think lots of storytelling potential. A splinter group that joins the Legion in some support capacity would be interesting to see. Plus, I did my research. Like certain Asian cultures, the Aztecs saw a Rabbit in the Moon instead of a Man like Europeans did. Rabbits would link well to the animal themes I’m already using for the Legion. And from the short story ‘Sons of the Selenar’ we know that Apothecaries learn some secrets that come from the Moon, like how Techmarines are linked to Mars. So having the Selenar work with the Apothecaries makes a lot of sense. The biggest con to Selenar is the whole toxic ruckus about Female Space Marines, which I’ve got super mixed feelings on. My Primarch is Female, but the Legion is Male. That’s always how it’s been for me, and I don’t want to get caught up in a big culture war over the issue. Hmmmm… if I go with the Selenar, what would they do on the battlefield? Wulfen are units. Death Company are units. Do I want the Selenar to be a special unit? Maybe to serve as Legion Apothecaries? Would it make more sense to use them like Watchers in the Dark, or servitors, as attachments? I think of Grimaldus from the Black Templars, whose unit comes with 3 units attached, carrying relics. Perhaps a Dawn Legion Apothecary would have Selenar support figures around him, providing him with advanced tools and assistance? So much to consider.

Honestly, I’ve been avoiding that part of the story for as long as I can. Ever since reading the short story ‘The Chamber at the End of Memory’ I’ve felt like GW has really oversold the circumstances of their loss. I mean, really, something so horrific that the Primarchs themselves volunteered to be mind-wiped? Worse even than Horus’ Heresy and siblings selling their souls to literal demons? No, I’m not going to try to top that. I had an idea, a while back, of a group within her Legion being corrupted by Chaos. They would attempt to frame Tlatia for some horrific crime to get her censured by Terra so they could seize control of the Legion, but would be found out by loyal elements before the plan could come to fruition. In desperation, they triggered a temporal Warp Rift through some sorcerous means that envelops the fleet and takes the Primarch through time. That’s all I have right now though. Fairly straightforward, keeping the details vague so I can change it later on if I think of something better.