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Dorn Crusade

668 views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  Bob Dole 
#1 · (Edited)
I’ve been thinking of ways to expand my Black Templars army into a more generic force. Simply smiling politely and using a codex list with my BT models works fine, but I want to add some visual cues as well. To this end, I thought of combining models from the various successors to Dorn’s legion, namely the Black Templars, Imperial Fists, and possibly Crimson Fists if I can somehow tie in the extra color. I’m on self imposed (and girlfriend enforced) ban on purchasing new Space Marine models for awhile… so I’m going to take the time to build up some nice fluff for these guys.

At this point I have yet to fill out any details on the fluff and still probably need to work on the outline a bit. I wanted to post the outline that I have so far and see if anyone has any constructive criticisms or suggestions. Many things (such as Inquisitor Bob) are really just placeholder names. I’m probably taking some fairly large artistic license with some of the items in here. I’m perfectly okay with this, but feel free to let me know where the spots are.

The outline, grouped roughly by timeline:

- Inquisitor Bob is attempting to increase her personal sphere of influence.
- Inquisitor Bob finds a convenient xenos/psyker/heretic scapegoat.
- Inquisitor Bob requisitions the aid of the space marines in question.

- The newly formed crusade is sent on its mission.
- The crusade succeeds easily.
- Inquisitor Bob creates evidence suggesting that the successors to Dorn have been plotting to reunite and rebuild the original legion.

- Inquisitor Bob presents her evidence and succeeds in having the crusade excommunicated. The parent chapters are put under suspicion.

- The parent chapters are split internally, some wish to support their brothers and others wish to support the findings of the inquisition.

- Under stress, those who wish to support their brothers split from their chapters and join with those exiled. The Black Templars form the backbone of this new renegade chapter as they have the most experience functioning in a vagabond existence.


The two biggest issues I see with this are having the evidence believed and then having the renegade marines survive. As far as the inquisition is concerned, I intend on keeping it as simple human greed and ambition as much as possible. Regarding keeping the marines alive, the renegade marines may be receiving the protection of some Chaos god unknowingly. At present, they still behave as they have always. However, outside of the protection of the Emperor, they will slowly become corrupted. The Chaos solution is fairly likely, as I like the story that I can work with it. Inquisitor Bob drops out of things after the beginning... I'll probably fix that at some point, but that's something for after I get the marines worked out.

EDIT: I realized I missed a rather important bit in one of my sentences. It makes a fair deal more sense now.
 
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#2 ·
Inquisitor Bob? She? We have a pronoun issue.

You've already picked out the two major problems. I'll just address the first;it's unlikely that Inquisitor Bob(ette) has the influence to excommunicate a Space Marine Chapter just by saying "They be evil, yaar." Either make her someone with more influence - the Inquisitor Lord for a sub-sector or sector, or someone with considerable reputation related to their field work - or make it easier for her case to be accepted by making the chapter (or crusade, or whatever) have previous evidence set against them. They massacred the populace of this-and-that without proper proof, they didn't send a geneseed sample for analysis at such-and-such a date, they repeatedly disobeyed the commands of Inquistor Joe Blogs, etc etc. Either buff up her reputation or tarnish theirs.

Think of it like this; if an Inquisitor claimed the White Consuls were plotting to disobey the Imperium, he or she would be run out of court. If that same Inqusitor claimed that the Flesh Tearers were worshipping Khorne, there would be a serious inquiry. And the Inquisitor would probably win. Because the Flesh Tearers are just weird.
 
#3 ·
You just had large portions of the Bt's, CF's and IF's be excommunictaed...then you had even more of them split from the chapter and join the excommunicates. I can see how this can be a good and fun idea and all...but you picked the three worst chapters in the imperium to do it with. First off you picked chapters who have no such history documented. These chapters are GW property and its best to let GW do the writing as far as they are concerned. Furthermore if the High lord of the Inquisition said that the BT's and IF's had detachments that needed to be excommunicated they still wouldn't do it, were talking about SM purity at its peak. There would be an inuiry that would lead to the claims being discounted and the High lord being fired.

So that leaves us with one possibility. That the BT's/IF's/CF's are actually planning to get back together. Not only is that ridiculous for these three chapters but again its writing in history that is completely contradictory to what GW has written. I realize teh IF legion had to be persuaded to split but its been 10k years and all teh chapters are quite happy where they are.



So basically...use some nameless, self-created chapters for this, not GW created ones. And if you do, don't use chapters that have spent the last ten thousand years crusading against evil and then just woke up one day and decided "geez, I've had it all wrong."
 
#4 ·
I think he was referring to select portions of those Chapters, Sabe, not the entire legion. A Crusade is where the forces of a bunch of IF successor chapters bind together. So if an Inquisitor says the Crusade is planning heresy, it's not the same as damning their donor chapters.

I think.
 
#5 ·
I understand that, i tried to make note of that in the opening lines of my post, however its still inciting that 10%+(a company) of these chapters is being excommunicated. Excommunicating one member of such pious chapters is something that would be hard to do, but excommunicating a company?! The evidence would have to be so irrefutable its silly. And even if he did somehow make it so they did its still incredibly unfluffy to say that well established GW chapters such as the BT's and IF's would lose a hundred marines one day because those very marines, against all their traning and history, suddenly decided to say to heck with the imperials.

Like I said, the whole idea of theses specific commiting this specific action is very un-fluffy. Maybe if the chapter was already one known to break the rules or known for being rather unpious...but not the BT/IF/CF's....well....maybe the BT's, cause they already have numbers issues, but not the other two.
 
#6 ·
I admit I'm taking some rather large liberties with the standard background to do this. Then again, keeping someone alive for 10,000 years by draining the brain juice out of thousands of psychics every day is a touch... silly and over the top too. The BT/IF/CFs -are- some fairly devout marines, and having some of them turn away would be a huge shock and disruption to the Imperium. I imagine Horus was considered to be a pretty damn loyal guy back in the day too. I'm simply suggesting that some of the space marines feel more loyal to their brothers than the emperor. It's perhaps humanizing them a little bit, but it's more fun that way. Anyways, enough of going on the defensive, let's be constructive. :)


Regarding evidence:

I'm thinking I may just have to do a bit of hand waving at this point. I plan on dusting the appropriate inquisitors with plenty of corruption. I tend to view the imperium as being rather corrupt (not evil... not sided with Chaos... simple god fearing, flag waving corruption) to begin with, so I'm okay with this.

Would it be less painful to swallow if...
I could possibly extend the period of 'evidence' gathering to a longer period than just this one crusade. I could leave it undefined for now, and simply have the crusade be the climax of that particular. Would this make it a little less painful to swallow? The crusade and the accusation of heresy are pretty much essential, but I can be flexible with the details. :)

Regarding the specific chapters:

The Black Templars are a bit of a must, as a large part of the motivation for this fluff is to make me feel a little less dirty about using BT models in non-BT armies. Fortunately, they're already on a little bit of thin ice (like pretty much every chapter that has it's own rules.) The previous issue of Black Gobbo even had a scenario where the BTs are being assaulted by the Inquisition.

The Imperial and Crimson Fists aren't necessary. I prefer to use 'real' chapters personally, but I can use successor chapters to replace them easily enough. Would replacing the IF/CF sections with successor chapters not tie people's underpants in quite as many knots?

Thanks for the comments.
 
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