Rolled 72 (1d100)

>>68364766
ok. We should start the spice AFTER the first rolls though

Pls be not chaos aligned, I like rebels who aren't chaos worshippers

Rolled 94 (1d100)

The chapter went renegade not for their own gain, but because they became disillusioned with the Imperium as it is, reverting to the Imperial Truth, seeing it as the Emperor's true will and their purpose as Astartes.

Rolled 69 (1d100)

>>68364777
>unknown or successor
rerolling per instructions

>>68364792
>>68364777
>double reroll
..Unknown?

>>68364777
>>68364790
Both seem to agree on being true renegade rather than Chaos followers at least

>>68364806
If I may, I did roll Raven Guard with my post, we could go with that?

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>>68364790
>Raven Guard

>>68364777
>>68364792
Double rerolls. Hmm.

We've got RG stamped on the tin, but in reality no one has any clue what we actually are as genetic sampling has no matches to anything in the Imperium.

Give me another 1d100 for the time of their Founding!

>>68364851
>>68364847
I think RG is fine honestly, as the one who rolled reroll

RG are cool, not a normal result, and have a murky history that could lend itself to unknown successors

Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>68364851
The Chapter are ostensibly Ravenguard, but membership is chimeric, and it seems their gene seed reserves are collected from a variety of other sources, either scavenged or provided from defunct or destroyed chapters

>>68364851
dice+1d100

They have a tendency to take as many trophies from their kills as they can.

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>>68364893
>>68364851
>cursed founding

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>>68364893
>Cursed Founding
Well, that could explain it.

It might've been more surprising if we'd stayed loyal as RG's coming out of the Cursed 21st. Bad luck is common amongst such chapters, and they're almost always pretty weird.

1d100 for the cause of our turning Renegade, and we can either reroll the Chaosy ones if you guys like, or fudge them so we split the chapter between the Chaos side and the 'normal' side or something.

Rolled 16 (1d100)

>>68364944
Having reverted to the Imperial Truth, the chapter actively destroys holy texts and symbols of faith, and nurses a particularly deep hatred of the Word Bearers.

>>68364969
OOOHH SHIT

>Eternally Loyal: Secret commands from high-ranking Imperial Lords demanded this chapter's secession from the Imperium, whether for unspecified reasons or for a particular mission.

>>68364973
Perhaps Guilliman is not so tolerant of the Imperial Cult as he says? Or would that be too high up on the chain?

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>>68364973
Now we're getting interesting.

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>>68364969
>Eternally Loyal
We were following orders when we turned away from the Imperium. Some in the chapter may not know the exact reasons, but those in the know understand we have allies in high places who still haven't swallowed the Ecclesiarchy's dogma and instead follow the Imperial Truth.

This is starting to heat up, now give me a d20 to see if we have any Mutations!

Rolled 18 (1d20)

>>68365011

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>>68365020
>Significant Mutation
Our boys ain't right, I tell ya hwat. We all manifest at least one significant mutation, let alone whatever we inherited from our progenitors.

1d10 to see what our Mutation is!

Rolled 7 (1d20)

>>68365011
The chapter still wears Raven Guard colors to better blend in and keep people from getting suspicious of them, though they will slap on a coat of WB red for when they destroy holy places.

Rolled 1 (1d10)

>>68365070

>>68365071
>cannibals

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>>68365092
>Hyper-stimulated Omophagea
The Omophagea lets us learn and experience by devouring the enemy, and ours constantly hungers for more. Some of our rituals and ceremonies involve eating living flesh, perhaps to partake in the knowledge stored within, perhaps simply to sate our appetites. Either way, it's quite the unsavoury sight for any witnessing mortals.

Give me a d10 for our chapter's Flaw, and don't forgot to chip in with some ideas of your own when you're rolling!

Rolled 6 (1d10)

>>68365205

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>>68365216
>>68365205
>steal everything not nailed down
>eat the dead

Fuck Ravens, we are CROWS

Rolled 7 (1d10)

>>68365205
We have a particular preference to consume the flesh of traitors who fell o Chaos, all the better to understand our enemy.
A further representation of this is that when a mortal who has earned the respect of the chapter or a battle brother dies, their flesh is consumed by the whole chapter, that their memory may live on in the the rest of the chapter.

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>>68365216
>Kleptomania
Proper resupplies are few and far between, so it's only logical we take what we need to keep ourselves afloat. Yes that includes those trinkets and baubles, and why of course we must take some of your serfs as well, and throw in some extra cadavers as well while you're at it.

>>68365234
>Eye to Eye
We can't pick the dead from afar, so we prefer to close distance until we can see the whites of their eyes.

Up next is our Figure of Legend, so give me a d100 to see who he was!

Rolled 58 (1d100)

>>68365297

>>68365297

Could work for Raven Guard successors thematically. Their ideal battle is one where the first time the enemy actually sees them is when they're eyeball to eyeball. And, killing with melee weapons generally makes for a much nicer carcass to butcher later than a boltgun. With one of those, all the really choice cuts on the torso are either going to be shredded or contaminated by the guts.

>>68365357
>tfw sneaky beakies pop up, kill people, eat the bodies mid battle
we kroot now

>>68365315
Librarian

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>>68365357
I kind of like the idea that they favour quick, clean kills as much as possible, not because of a tactical decision, but because they want to preserve the meat as much as they can.

>>68365315
>Librarian
Our greatest champion was a psyker, typically distrusted for their weird ways, but through some great deed they will be remembered through our chapter's history in flesh for all time.

But what was this Deed? Roll d100 to find out!

Rolled 10 (1d100)

>>68365377

Imagine being a guardsman pressed heavily then having a 7 foot tall monster appear out of nowhere, kill a bunch of people, and eating. AS you recover from the shock, you notice your squads heavy bolter is gone and your boots are missing.

Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>68365414

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>>68365430
>>68365447
>Bane of Orks
Our Librarian was feared by even the Green Tide, eradicating them wherever he found them. Though he was responsible for devastating entire swathes of one particular Waaagh!, there are few things that can truly strike fear into the thick skull of an Ork. Steak and grilled mushrooms.

Perhaps someone has an idea of a more fitting victory our Librarian could have achieved over the Orks, for simple killing is quite the norm amongst space marines.

Now we are on to our base of operations, the place we strike out and carry out the secret orders given to us from high command. Roll a d10 for our home sector!

Rolled 6 (1d10)

>>68365483
this is getting weird, I like it

Maybe he tore the arm off a Warboss and ate it

>>68365529
He used his psychic might to force the Warboss to slit his own throat in front of his boyz and held them frozen as they forced the orks to watch as he and his fellow marines consumed the Warboss.
That sounds properly terrifying.

Rolled 2 (1d10)

>>68365483

>>68365483

Maybe he gained the ability to sense the currents of Waagh! energy. So he was able to unerringly hunt down, kill, (and eat) prospective warbosses before they could get off the ground.

With a handful of marines and a frigate, over the course of 10 years they more or less dismantled a major orc held sector of space, allowing imperial forces to sweep aside the leaderless hordes now largely reverted to savagery.

There may have been some feedback however, as the librarian incorporated purple into the chapter color scheme. Not able to quite articulate why, beyond feeling like it would help somehow.

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>>68365553
>eaten alive in front of his boyz
Jesus Christ how horrifying.

>>68365529
>Abandoned sector
A string of worlds abandoned to their fates by the Imperium at large, we have moved in as their guardians and keepers, largely unopposed by what few Imperial officials still remain. Perhaps sacrificed in the face of the gathering Waaagh! to consolidate naval forces elsewhere, we have safeguarded this sector against all threats so far, even if we must fight against our Imperial kin to do so.

But how do we rule our sector isolated from the Imperium? Roll another d10 if you please!

Rolled 8 (1d10)

>>68365666
STORM CROWS STORM CROWS

>>68365653
i like this oned

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>>68365678
>Hiding
We keep our presence unknown for the most part, intervening when necessary, picking over the scant trading routes for carrion, but staying in the shadows and keeping our identities unclear so as to protect the sector through ignorance of our existence. We have shown ourselves on occasion, but what few uncertain rumours spread are little more than that.

Now we come to the meat of the chapter, so to speak, with our combat doctrine! A d10 will decide how we do battle.

Rolled 5 (1d10)

>>68365678

Appropriate. And maybe that's why we were ordered out. "Okay, you're cursed founding and really good at killing orcs. There's a sector menaced by orcs. Rather than having you all put down right now, why don't you fuck off and try and keep the sector safe." The particular high lord disagreed with the decision to abandon the sector. The chapter will either protect it, or, should they actually go full cursed founding, provide a justification to retake it.

>>68365790
now THIS is a weird one

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>>68365790
>Auxiliaries
Oh my. This definitely breaks several of the Codex Astartes' proscriptions. Mixing forces to cover the gaps in the chapter's doctrine, we deploy our own personal army of mortal troops alongside us when we commit to battle, most likely selected and trained by specialists within the chapter and imparting some measure of our own culture onto them. I'll leave the degree to which they utilise their mortal forces up to you guys, whether they're simple retainers to support their space marine masters, or a true legion of soldiers to fight in our stead.

How much of us do our auxiliaries mirror? Without the implanted organs to protect them, eating the dead could be unwise for a regular mortal, though wisdom is not always so common.

We have our fighting style, but how do we act on a grand scale? Roll d100 for our Operating Procedure!

>>68365797

Maybe they have their own Ghurkas/SAS types tagging along.

Or they serve as a scout/infiltration force for an army they organize to do the mop up once the enemy leadership has been destroyed.

Rolled 89 (1d100)

>>68365888

Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>68365888

Could be that our auxiliaries don't so much want to eat the dead as see being eaten by a space marine after you've been killed in battle is their equivalent of a posthumous promotion.

Presumably we tend to eat the most dangerous enemies, so it could be seen as a mark of respect.

>>68365912
>>68365932

I like seekers better. Maybe the reason the high lord wanted to keep the sector in house is because of something left behind. Something lost there. Rumours of a weapon or information or just something of great value. Perhaps enough to cleans the taint of the cursed founding from the chapter. Perhaps enough to drag them all screaming into the fires of hell.

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>>68365932
Being interred into the chapter's living history via their flesh as a final reward, how morbid. I like it!

>>68365912
>Seekers
We search for something on behalf of our 'benefactor', perhaps something of great important to a secular Imperium, something that could not be allowed into the hands of the Ecclesiarchy or even our brother chapters. Or perhaps something to damn us entirely instead. Whatever it is we seek, it is truly difficult to find, and we utilise some of our secret networks to collect any lead or clue to help us.

But looking inwards again, there is something missing from our ranks. Roll d100 for a specialist we cannot or do not field anymore!

Rolled 24 (1d100)

>>68366013

I'd like to add "[something] Crows" would be fitting for our nature. With the whole carrion eaters and scavengers thing.

guys, there is an [REDACTED] in the chapter, influencing the combat doctrine and philosophy of the chapter. think about it

>renegade chapter that remains loyal
>follow the imperial truth
>really, really hates Chaos
>stealthy
>uses mortals to shore up the holes in space marine combat

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>>68366042
>No Assault Marines
Well that's unusual, considering we fight Eye to Eye yet field no dedicated assault squads. Perhaps our mortal auxiliaries take up that duty instead, or perhaps we simply eschew the time-honoured headlong charge and save our blades for the ceremonial mercy strike instead.

First our Assault Marines go missing, and now some equipment too! We no longer have the material to field some specific wargear, d100 to divine what it is.

>>68366119

Cursed founding. Who knows what they were putting into the mix. And you forgot:

>May not even actually know what the fuck is going on.

Rolled 33 (1d100)

>>68366135

Could be that they were sacrificed for stealth. Strapping two turbo-jets to an astartes and having him fly across the battlefield is many things, but it is not sneaky.

Rolled 95 (1d100)

>>68366135
>>68366145
Makes sense considering our situation.

>>68366145
>>68366135
Assault squads are loud. We utilize stealth to reach close quarters and butcher the enemy with sword and claw one by one. Launching into the air and spraying bolter fire is very much so the antithesis of stealth.

>>68366145
>>68366150
So it's MacGyver our weapons or grow them? How would the second work? A additional progenoid at the base of the spine that when removed instead of growing holy gene-seed grows weapons?

>>68366159

I think that's one table ahead. We're either missing Thunderhawks or Powered and Chain Melee weaponry. No powered and chain melee weapons could work with the stealth theme as well.

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>>68366145
>No Powered and Chain Melee weaponry
This fits with the 'sacrificed for stealth' reasoning, taking up only silent, mundane steel instead of whirring chainblades and humming powerswords. Simple blades don't damage the meat as much when the time comes to feast, or char it, or rend it to gibbets, but they also lack the raw stopping power against heavier foes. Still, a power armoured superhuman wielding a two metre long hunk of metal is no less fearsome than one carrying a chainsword.

>>68366150
>No Thunderhawks
Without the mainstay aerial transport of the Space Marines, we have to rely on smaller, weaker, but quieter craft to get us where we need to go, sometimes letting us infiltrate under civilian codes to hide in plain sight.

You guys can choose either or both, but I favour taking both.

Now that we've catalogued what we DON'T have, we can decide what we DO have! Another d100 for our special equipment!

>>68366221
Cmon mutation.

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Rolled 80 (1d100)

>>68366227
>>68366221
Also putting forward potential color scheme.

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>>68366233
>Specialty Void-Ships
Remember boys. We do it fast, low, and be gone before anyone's the wiser.

>>68366252

I like it. Where the hell we're getting esoteric spacecraft is also something that can add some mystery.

And "Void crows" maybe?

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>>68366233
>Specialty Void-Ships
With ancient, treasured designs from the heyday of the Imperial Truth - and earlier - our fleets in orbit are more than the match for any haphazard Ork croozers, pirate makeshifts, or even any Imperial Navy forces who dare to return. Stealthier, deadlier, though perhaps not as audacious with their interior design or as outwardly durable, our ships serve us well in our search for the Truth.

Our forces are almost entirely indexed, but our numbers still remain to be seen. Roll d10 to determine how many of us there are.

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Rolled 2 (1d10)

>>68366281
>>68366281
I like Void Crows. Maybe we found an ancient station with ancient designs from the Golden Age and Dark Age.

Rolled 6 (1d10)

>>68366302
Maybe what we seek is original documentation detailing the Imperial Truth, or maybe a database rumored to have been compiled by the Emperor himself, his internal monologue during the Great Crusade. Something truly mythic that would ruin the Ecclisiarchy if it became common knowledge

>>68366321
>A written copy of the Imperial Truth by the Emperor with several files containing his thoughts on the crusade and possibly details regarding the creation of the space marines.
Now that's something worth dying for. No wonder a High Lord would keep it under wraps.

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>>68366314
>Under Strength
Split between holding a Waaagh! at bay, evading Imperial forces, dispatching seekers out to the far reaches of the sector and beyond, and struggling to supply both ourselves and the mortals under our command, we are stretched thin and can only field about half our chapter at any given time. More losses could see us into danger, but we still have enough marines to perform our mission.

I'll just skip the Goals & Motivations table, and move straight onto the final table. Roll 2d100 to decide who our Allies and Enemies are!

Rolled 2 (1d100)

>>68366381
We have two enemies clearly. But perhaps this second non-ork one we believe is in possession of the artifact we seek.

>>68366314
>>68366281
thirding void crows, works well with >>68366233
As does auxiliaries with >>68366381

We have specialized void craft - maybe we avoid chain and power weapons and thunderhawks because 1. We cannot launch thunderhawks from our specialty crafts, and 2. Thunderhawks and Power Weapons and Astartes chain weapons SCREAM *space marines* and we're operating operators operating operationally.

We conceal the fact that there are even Space Marines INVOLVED (hiding) using proxies, and avoid the use of obvious specialty weapons that are indicative of space marines.

>>68366407
>Fellow Rogue Astartes/Rogue Humans (I.E: Severan Dominate, Space Pirates)

Absolutely fucking perfect for our auxilliaries. We operate with Space Pirate allies

>>68366407
>Rogue Humans (I.E: Severan Dominate, Space Pirates)
a bunch of imperial truthers who rebelled against the emperor?

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How would recruitment work?
1. Find a worthy Void Pirate.
2. Put him through a test of bravery.
3. Put him through a test of resilience.
4. Put him through a test of ingenuity.
5. The most vital test, the test of loyalty.
6. Have [Redacted] give him a rundown of our mission and its importance.

>>68366413
Imagine the reaction speed of an Astartes pilot in ships designed for stealth and speed.

>>68366447
>How would recruitment work?
hey you lived, you join these pirates for life or we kill and eat you

>>68366462
I mean Astartes recruitment.

>>68366475
the marines take anyone of recruitment age or younger I guess they happen to come across who seems valid. Not exactly many KIDS to be found as pirates

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Goodnight guys, don't let the Thread die.

>>68366488
I mean, we could always press gang pirates into being our auxiliaries.
Being eaten and entered into the chapter's living memory is a reward though.

we still need one last d100 for enemies

ENEMIES! WE NEED ENEMIES.

Rolled 72 (1d100)

>>68366488
nah man, they recruit from their own fleet and crew. stealth is the operative word here, so keeping everything in house is best. the auxiliaries often intermix and fraternize between the different ships of the void fleet, and the Apothocaries maintain an additional vigil on the crew of the ships, keeping tabs on the general health and keeping an eye out for any children that would pass the strict genetic requirements. they might even practice selective breeding, and the ships cycle crew across several different ships. there is a running bet among the apothocaries on who can get the best stock over a generation

>>68366512

>>68366540
>Eugenics fleet.
The Emperor would be proud indeed.

>>68366540
>Inquisitor Agent
A clear agent of the Ecclesiarchy. What would be more damaging then the Imperial Truth.

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>>68364766
So just to try and quickly collect it all:
>We're the Void Crows, ostensibly Raven Guard descendants from the Cursed 21st Founding currently sitting at about half-strength. We follow the Imperial Truth and went renegade under secret orders from a high-ranking Imperial Lord to search for an artefact from the early days of the Great Crusade which could be used to overturn the Ecclesiarchy.

>We have a hyperactive Omophagea and habitually eat the dead (and sometimes the still living). We prefer to fight at close quarters where we can easily reach the fallen bodies of our enemies, so we can pick them clean of loot and meat.

>Our figure of legend was a Librarian who was able to use his psychic abilities to hunt down Ork Warbosses and eradicate them before they could assemble a true Waagh! around them, often devouring them alive.

>We call an entire sector abandoned by the Imperium our stomping grounds, staying under the radar and keeping our presence largely unknown within and without.

>We use human auxiliaries to supplement our forces. We have quicker, stealthier voidships from ancient times. We do not field Assault Marines or Thunderhawks, and we do not use Chain or Power weapons.

>Our allies are a faction of rogue humans, and our enemy is a particularly puritanical and religious Inquisitor trying to disrupt our mission.

And now I must also sleep, but I hope to come back to the thread tomorrow and see it still alive. A lot of really interesting possibilities here I think with our little cannibalistic atheist sneaky beaky birdie boys.

>>68366252
Well, we're descended from Raven Guard... Reflex Shields, anyone?

>>68366663
A Reflex Shield is a modified version of the Imperium's void shield technology used by the Raven Guard to hide their ships from the enemy. Essentially a void shield in reverse, a reflex shield is calibrated to a higher tolerance and redirected inwards so that all matter and energy generated by the ship is displaced into the Warp. This effectively makes Raven Guard ships with active reflex shields immune to all forms of detection, as even visible light reflected off ship's hull is displaced, and due to low power requirements the reflex shields can be maintained indefinitely. When activated a Raven Guard ship will appear to shimmer briefly before going completely invisible to both the naked eye and scanners.[1]

One serious downside to the use of reflex shields is that they significantly reduce a ship's sensor capabilities, essentially making them half-blind. Unlike traditional void shields they also provide no protection against attacks, and it can take several minutes for the void shield generators to switch between the two modes. In addition reflex shields have a relatively low energy threshold above which they will no longer work. At most a ship's reactors can only run at half-power and still remain invisible.[1]
neat

>>68366770
Yeah, that sounds about right for these guys. Stealth and discretion above all else.
>>68366355
That's better, let's go with this. Maybe it has details about the Primarch project? Imagine it becoming common knowledge that primarchs are basically greater daemons of the Emperor.

>>68367829
what if they were:

>tasked by a highlord to find these records due to their noted ability at discretion
>they actually succeeded the madmen, but read the damn thing and found out the truth about the Emperors and the Primarchs
>have gone rogue now, and are Seeking... what? Archaeotech? Any remaining ancient imperial caches? Maybe something mysterious referenced in the intel package they picked up, like the deleted encounter between The Emperor and the Chaos Gods
>they are pursued by an Inquisitor; who either believes them heretics, wants the data cache for themselves, or wants to cover up the truth. Or all three.

>>68368098
All they ever wanted was the truth

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>>68368098
>>68367829
>>68368181

>eschew power weapons and chain weapons, possibly for a variety of reasons. Maybe they cannibalize the field generators of all the power weapons they recover to maintain the Reflex shields of their specialty void-craft. As for Chain Swords, they're loud, unsubtle, and the use kind of screams "Space Marine". Same for Thunderhawks.
>Much of the time, their enemies won't even realize they're facing Space Marines, as they conceal themselves until the last moment - using fleet of renegades and pirate auxilliaries as a primary engagement force while they perform high value operations, or use their stealth ships to cut the enemy apart
>they do not leave survivors - they are given a choice, join the fleet or die. Those who choose death will be swiftly and cleanly executed, those who choose to join the crew are screened by the chapters librarians psychically as well as the chaplains. Anyone bearing taint, malice, or treason is spaced. The reasonably trustworthy are kept and pressed into service.
>enemy officers, engineers, and others who may have important intel are eaten. Gene memory absorption is transient and vague, so if they want to learn anything important or specific the librarians will assist by psychically gleaning - both from any prisoners before the feast, and from the brothers after.
>this technique was pioneered and used to great effect by the chapter hero, who utilized it to glean valuable intel from the Nobz and Bosses of an Ork Waagh so they could systematically take apart the horde through covert strikes that left the Orks believing they were fighting flesh eating ghosts

dont make em chaos, make em renegade defenders of the helpless and downtrodden and sometimes mercs for hire. kinda like seven ronin\ the a team\ diamond dogs.

>>68368304
>Rarely take to the open battlefield unless dire.
>Marines spend most of their time in their ancient and modified ships completely hidden from the outside in fast.
>Rumors abound in the sector of a fleet composed of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, people all living together and protected by sleek "ghost" fighters with inhuman skill.

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So how do you think these guys would handle the 42nd millennium.

Would Guilliman be told about them? Would they receive reinforcements covertly or have to steal the tech?

>Primaris
Presumably they'd like them. For them they'd just be a straight upgrade and fresh stock of marines to replenish their strength. Bonus some of the Primaris are from just after the HH and fellow Imperial Truthers.

>>68370281
honestly, they're probably too isolated (and in too deep) to have any contact with the Imperium or know whats going on

If they did figure out what was happening, would they try to get to Guilliman to give him whatever it is that they found? Abandoning their prior sector, gathering their fleets, and making for Terra?

>>68370385
>inb4 completely isolated from Great Rift.

>>68370403
>>68370385
I mean, the fact the Cicatrix has cut off a full half of the Imperium is a pretty big plot point yeah

This could fulfill their "Seeker" motive though - they want to return the data cache to Gucchi Mane

>>68370475
>Be Void Crows
>Defend ancient artifact of the Emperor's own design, slowly building up fleet and numbers after the disastrous campaign to retrieve this object.
>Kill and eat Chaos and Orks on the regular. Drop in unseen, rip their heads off and eat them one by one.
>Garbled message from Terra comes in, can't make heads or tails of it
>HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE EYE OF TERROR
>BOOK IT TO TERRA ASAP GOTTA GET THIS SHIT SECURE FUCK FUCK FUCK

Bam. Now the Void Crows are in a bit of a shitstorm. They're probably on the edge of the Cicatrix, and they NEED to lock this shit down, but of course, their name has been scrubbed from all records and they are presumed dead.

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>>68370556
>Be me a Void Crow.
>Cursed founding chapter.
>Fug.
>Spend thousands of years searching for ancient writings of the Emperor.
>Space Hulks, forgotten worlds, Necron Tombs, warp storms, and giant pirate fleets we've seen it all in our search.
>Find ancient space station with lost ship STCs and use it as base.
>Lose marine after marine in our search.
>Get a massive fleet of millions of followers all that've been selectively bred to be the best they can be.
>Finally find what we where looking for.
>MFW the galaxy suddenly goatsed itself and we're cut off from Terra.

>>68371242
>>Get a massive fleet of millions of followers
so like 2 imperial ships?

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>>68371242
>Be Void Crow
>Cursed Founding
>Fug
>Spend millennia carving our way through cramped and lethal environments. Can't even fire a boltgun most of the time, resort to bare hands and fucking swords
>Lose half the fucking chapter because of htis
>Find ancient writings of the Emperor at last
>Read them, convert to the Imperial Truth
>Excommunicated
>Fuck
>Ork WAAAGH in area
>Doublefuck
>Lost even more Marines, Librarian eventually fucking eats the Orks
>Decide to rebuild, scouring the stars as an invisible fleet who barges into pirate ships with stealthy breaching craft, then slaughter everyone in CQC. Steal ships and painfully cobble them together while taking recruits from the hostages and crew
>Finally back up to half strength
>THE FUCKING WARP EXPLODES WE CAN'T SEE THE ASTRONOMICON
>MFW We're stuck on the other side of a giant warp storm
>MFW we're super heretics to the Imperium
>MFW we need to go through literal fucking Hell to get an actual goddamn Heresy into Terra in order to save mankind in accordance with the Emperor's plans.

>>68366770

They could use their librarians as pilots and commanders of stealth ships. That'd solve some of the issues with being blinded. And for a chapter as obsessed with searching as this one, you really don't want the people keeping your chapter's history in a position to get killed by a lucky shot from a big zzappa.

Auxiliary Petty Officer Hathan of the Void Crows attack frigate Silence Eternal gripped the controls of his gunnery console too tightly. He tried to calm himself. This was the easy part. They were running silent, so there was nothing on the screen but static and the odd blip the cogitators tried, and usually failed to resolve. Some people said that this was the worst part, running blind, being guided in by the marines. He had never understood that. He had been on the deck with a Librarian-Pilot at work. Having been in the presence of that controlled power and competence, he had never again felt tense during silent running.

The blips were beginning to resolve themselves. Targeting data was coming in from command. The agonizing moment was coming soon. The attack, that terrible eternity standing naked in space before the enemy. The sudden impact of the engines going full power. Targeting and firing, targeting and firing, wondering when the enemy would answer. The sickening seconds trickling past, waiting for the engineers to bring the void shields online. Thinking it that they could not possibly have failed to get their firing solutions by now. It was only a moment of time before some answering lance strike. Knowing all he could do was keep to his console, keep firing, and hope.

>>68371420
that could be part of their archaeotech ships. A Pysker helm that allows the pysker to act as CNC

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So how bad is their Omophagea mutation? I assume it must be pretty bad considering they're a cursed founding chapter that drew enough attention to get sent on such a mission. Like do they just lose control sometimes when exposed to gore?

>Void Pirate's feel when he watches the Void Crow go berserk and just fucking eat little Jimmy.

>>68371585
>Hyper-stimulated Omophagea - Eat the enemy!
It specifically links the page for the Flesh Tearers.

Come to think of it, this might be WHY our boys don't use power weapons or chain weapons. They avoid close combat because they might lose themselves to the desire to rip and eat flesh. I'd play it as a battle rage that's sort of like a black-rage lite driven by their hyped up metabolisms that leave them hungry for FRESH MEAT all the time, they eschew close combat in order to keep control of themselves and continue operating operationally.

Venerable Corvos was silent, feeling out with his power, feeling the Warp turn and roll around the Ork Krooza ahead. Here was their potential Warboss, a mission they had done ten thousand times. Slip in quietly, slip out quietly with one dead Ork. Targeting was solid, the clunky Ork ship charging ahead towards the nearby world of Rencius VIII in a straight line. The Librarian nodded once, and spoke to the officer aboard.
"Fire the boarding craft, one at the engines, one at the cockpit, these co-ordinates," the ancient Astartes said from within his sarcophagus. Even the dreadnoughts of the Chapter had been altered slightly to allow for feeding, a tiny chute hidden behind a thick armor plate allowing for meat to be poured into the battered near corpse of the Astartes within. But that was irrelevant. The Librarians mostly stayed aboard the ships.

The torpedoes fired, filled with Void Crows, each carefully preparing for the inevitable breach. The larger craft floated in behind the Krooza, firing its deadly payload. The greenskins aboard didn't even notice the impact...

From the attack frigate Ex Nihilo, Lux, Venerable Corvos spoke the chapter's battle cry, in keeping with tradition, modified through pragmatism

"From the void we come."

>>68371731
>The Omophagea, also called the Remembrancer, is the 8th of the 19 genetically-engineered gene-seed organs that are implanted into a Space Marine Neophyte to produce a new superhuman Astartes. The Omophagea is implanted into the spinal cord and then wired into the central nervous system so that it is directly attached to the cerebral cortex and to the stomach. While situated in the spinal cord, the Remembrancer is actually part of the brain, consisting of four nerve bundles connecting the spine and the stomach wall.

>It allows the Astartes to gain part of an individual person's or creature's memory by eating its flesh. This special organ is implanted between the thoracid vertebrae and the stomach wall and is designed to absorb genetic information and any DNA, RNA or protein sequences related to experience or memory. This implant thus allows a Space Marine to literally "learn by eating." The Omophagea transmits the gained information to the Astartes' brain in biochemical form as a set of memories or experiences.

>This enables the Space Marine to gain information, in a survival or tactical sense, simply by eating an animal indigenous to an alien world and then experiencing some of what that creature did before its death.

>It is the presence of this organ that is responsible for the various flesh-eating and blood-drinking rituals for which certain Space Marine Chapters are famous, as well as giving names to Chapters such as the Blood Drinkers and Flesh Tearers. Over time, mutations in this implant's gene-seed have given some Chapters an unnatural craving for blood or flesh.

The Hyper-Stimulated Omophaegea may also be why their ability to eat their enemies and gain information is so strong, since in normal circumstances it's temporary and 'instinctive' information, not battle intelligence.

>>68371748
Actually, I think maybe the Dreadnoughts shouldn't be able to eat meat. And that just makes them even more pissed off. They feel hungry all the time

>>68371748
So the concept is simple. The Void Crows are, due to the grievous casualties they suffered in the retrieval of the Emperor's writings (probably fighting the Word Bearers for them), a primarily fleet based chapter. They launch boarding torpedoes and essentially devour the crew alive. If the ship is functional it is then more or less cannibalized over the course of decades, slowly constructing new ships and repairing old ones with the debris. If not it is kept nearby for the sake of distracting the enemy, making them think that an attack had come and gone before they slip in, taking advantage of the expended ammunition and tired crew to devour their foes.

>>68371785
An eternally hungry Dreadnought might be unable to think or focus, and since it'd probably be mostly Librarians who get shelled (since you can't easily fit a Dreadnought into the narrow corridors of most spacecraft). Focus would be essential so basically putting a chute into the Dread in order to feed them with information would be a reasonable and intelligent thing to do.

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>>68371785
>>68371806
Now I'm just imagining a Dreadnought ripping and tearing and so tired of not being able to taste flesh it just rips its front off and starts biting at people.

>>68371916
See, that's impractical. Just stick a meat chute in the chassis (make it so that it can be accessed with specialized equipment only to avoid it being a weakness) and then basically beat the heretic/xeno/captive with a hammer and shove the pulped remnants into the meat chute for the Dread to chew on.

>>68371985
>>68371806
They probably get fed a protein mixture via gut tubes, but dreadnoughts already get that

They probably do grind up enemies to make said protein paste though

>>68372008
IT'S JUST NOT THE SAME! - Some Dreadnought probably.

>>68372008
So there is a giant blender aboard their ships which they shove captives and corpses into in order to make corpse soup for the dreadnoughts?
Makes sense. I think the Crows would mostly use bladed weapons and focus on the limbs in combat, trying to keep people if not alive, reasonably 'intact' for consumption.

The marines will also eat their own dead.

>>68372046
they specifically don't use chainswords or power swords per rolls. I think they avoid melee combat when possible to maintain focus

>>68372113
Nope. >>68365234
>>68365297

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>>68372153
Welp.

>>68371748
>"From the void we come."
I support it.

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Try and imagine how these guys must fight once they have to leave their ships.

Attacking from the darkness out of nowhere, all as one. Armed with nothing but swords, axes, crozius, power fist, claws, and their bare fucking hands. Each moment of battle the air filling more with the scent of blood and flesh driving them harder. Every second the battle turns from a well organized fight to a feral brawl of a feeding frenzy where there is no friend or foe, other then gene-brother, just flesh.

Every Ork thinks they're gangster till they're tackled by five rabid Void Crows that start eating them alive.

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>>68372408
they don't use power weapons.

They probably have wicked sharp combat blades though, remember space marine "combat knives" are mono-molecular edged and never dull and are the size of shortswords

So you have these spooky niggas coming out of the dark at you with guns and knives shanking and filleting dudes

>>68372408
Nah, it's even worse than that. One by one your comrades disappear until you're all alone, then ten bloody mouthed Astartes leap out of fucking nowhere, hack off your arms and legs, and then eat you alive while a Librarian prevents you from even screaming.

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Nice, I'm back and the thread's still chugging! We've got some good ideas flowing, I like the name and motto especially. But what do they look like under the armour? They're labelled as Raven Guard but that's uncertain at best, so what minor physical quirks, general temperaments, naming conventions and even accents would they have? What traits would evoke "carrion eater" if you were unfortunate to see one without their armour?

>>68372587
A Void Crow prefers hand to hand combat due to supply difficulties in getting bolter shells, etc, as well as more easy access to the bodies to eat. Because of this, they primarily use either their hands, combat knives, or the occasional larger, specially made monomolecular sword.

Getting attacked by Void crows would basically just have a massive chunk of the enemy's forces straight up disappear, and every time, more and more forces vanish, leaving nothing
but faint bloodstains behind, before a hulking, near invisible figure drops down towards the commander, impales it cleanly with some form of trident, and carries the still screaming body past his brothers, who hack off his limbs. They then eat the leader alive, return to the battlefield, and take literally anything either edible or useful before vanishing.

>Some Void Crows have made limited contact with the Tyranid Hive Mind and are desperately trying to counter the Tyranids in space as well, aware that if they land, the world is gone.

>>68372675
The typical Void Crow ghastly pale, and very short and thin for Astartes. They have larger mouths than average and large eyes to see better in the dark.

The average Void Crow is extremely quiet, mostly speaking to each other through sign language. They are a patient Chapter, who, if forced to fight on the ground, will carefully study their surroundings and spring ambushes, and are horrifying whirlwinds of death aboard spacecraft.

In keeping with Chapter tradition, a battle brother on the ground will NOT actually yell their warcry. Upon the initiation of combat, the eldest Librarian (who often guides the ships) will utter it upon the bridge of their spacecraft.

As for names, I dunno, I'm thinking some kind of Russian or maybe Polish naming styles.

>>68372675
>What traits would evoke "carrion eater" if you were unfortunate to see one without their armour?
sharp teeth, fangs.

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>>68372675
>>68372751
Put fangs on the helmets.

Also they're space sharks/night lords but in space more.

>>68372731
Continued.
The colors of the Void Crows are a deep, dark grey in most situations, but they are fond of camouflage. Their insignia is a black crow holding a sword in one talon, and a skull in the other. A marine who can eat a great foe in single combat will often add bloodstains to the beak of said crow as a rite of passion.

In the void, they fight by launching Reflex shielded boarding torpedoes from their Reflex shielded ships, guided by the Captain-Librarian of their ship. Upon contact with the enemy ship, it magnetically attaches before a melta charge blasts through the outer hull, before a chute opens up to start venting the atmosphere. The Void Crows then slip inside the ship and the torpedo is left behind under guard. If the Crows are to lose a fight, they will retreat and goad their foes to pursue them, oftentimes using heavily studied captured enemy ships as staging grounds, heading towards these ships and 'dropping' their camouflage, opening with a torrent of fire to disable the weapons and engines of their enemies. From there, they wait and slaughter all attempted boarding crews.

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Tried the color scheme from >>68366233 in chapter generator will try >>68368304 and >>68372847 next.

I feel like we might be overemphasizing the "eating" thing, they can't literally eat enemies DURING combat (though they may want to). They have helmets and shit on for one. But they will do it immediately AFTER combat probably, ala Kroot

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>>68372933
Well they're a Cursed Founding chapter there should be a big emphasis on their mutation. But you're right. This ironically made me recall the old canned Chapter Master game with it's eat the enemy after battle mutation.

Color scheme for >>68368304

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>>68372933
Maybe we could butcher one or two as a horrific live demonstration, but yes the actual feasting of the crows should probably be held til after the battle, both for thematic reasons as crows, and for the practical reasons stated.

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Color scheme for >>68372847

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>>68372731
>As for names, I dunno, I'm thinking some kind of Russian or maybe Polish naming styles.
Nepali

>>68372587
What power weapons?

>>68373101
Yes. Nepali. They also have wicked knives. They ritually hack the arms and legs off of their foes and then devour their helpless foes once the battle is over.

Let's recap
>Cursed Founding
>Raven Guard successors
>Are technically renegade. Were sent out to isolate something written by the Emperor
>Large mouths and eyes. Barely speak, eat thei dead, friend or foe. Communicate exclusively in sign language
>Specialize in infiltration, void combat, and being sneaky
>They converted to the Imperial Truth once they read the Emperor's writings.
>They lost most of their chapter retrieving this literature, narrowly saving it from falling into the hands of the Word Bearers.
>In reconstruction, they terrorized pirates and defended their sector from Orks, taking hostages into their ships and pairing them up to make children who are genetically compatible, which are taken from birth.
>The loyal ones who cannot be Astartes become aides and soldiers.
>The Void Crows use very simple weaponry, oftentimes nothing more than a sword and a knife. Ranged, power, and chain weapons are rare.
>Their librarians pilot their ships, using their abilities to feel out the enemy. They fire stealthy boarding torpedoes from their nearly invisible ships, and butcher whatever is inside their target, before they take the ship and either add it to their massive fleet, or tear it up for resources.
>They do not utter their warcry in combat. Their commander does so a safe distance away. If they have to truly reveal themselves, then and only then will a typical Marine utter the words "From the void we come!"

>>68373234
>Barely speak
>Communicate exclusively in sign language

>>68373234
Also Word Bearers? Our enemy is a die-hard Inquisitor. He probably discovered what we were trying to do and brought a small army to stop us but failed.

>>68373321
>Communicate among themselves exclusively in sign language
>Only speak when they are speaking to someone that cannot understand their signs. Speak at barely a whisper.

>>68373357
>Kill an Inquisitor and his Retinue to save the Imperial Truth from the Ecclesiarchy. Are considered renegade because of this.

>Due to repeated exposure to the Emperor's own musings on the Imperial Truth and the Warp, Void Crows almost never fall to Chaos. Instead of a daily prayer, the Void Crows, on days without combat, read copies of this document and muse upon the Emperor's thoughts.

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>>68373400
Kek.

Instead of daily prayers it's daily philosophy.

>>68373560
You sure we aren't secretly a Word Bearer successor?

>>68373560
Just imagine a bunch of weirdly pale people sitting around a book and waving in sign language at each other in total silence.

For two hours a day.

>>68373613
...are we pre-heresy word bearers mixed with alpha legion and some raven guard?

>>68373640
Sounds heavenly.

the chapter salute should be two fingers touched to the temple, to mime tipping a fedora

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>>68373640
I forgot about that. Imagine having to debate entirely in sign language.

>>68373672
Cursed Founding so it's entirely possible some Word Bearer got in there.

>>68373756
The Serfs would know the Sign language, but just imagine being a recently rescued hostage from pirates. You walk over towards a large, open chamber and bunch of extremely pale people in heavy armor are waving their hands at each other in total silence.

>>68373640
Weirdly pale people with huge mouths

>>68373866
There's also what looks like a pirate strapped to the table and they are occasionally eating chunks of him. There is also a giant blender hooked up to several dozen tubes, each tube leading into a squat, armored figure.

Do the Dreadnoughts have proper fingers to sign or do they speak?

>>68373979
They probably don't need to eat when in stasis. And it's probably a countdown till it can no longer satisfy their craving for real flesh. Hell Bjorn complains he can't feel the warm splash of blood.

>>68374104
It wouldn't be the warm splash of blood, it'd be every so often the nutrient tube squirts out mashed captive into the Dreadnought during stasis to ensure that there is no hunger. From the Dread's perspective, it'd be like going to bed hungry and waking up full (and also full of intel).

Dead Marines are often brought back to the ship and fed to the Dreads in order to catch them up, or to initiates to give them a bit more ability.

>>68373979
Unless Dreadnoughts have a secondary sign language, specially developed for their weird hands.

>>68374140
But could such pulp truly satisfy their hunger?

>>68374308
It'd be better than nothing.

>>68374361
So no.

>>68371785
I absolutely hate that my mind works like this, but that description of the Rememberancer suggests that it's just as possible to gain intel by eating hair or toenail clippings. Now I can't stop thinking of a chapter of Spook Marines who spend their time sorting through dumps and eating feasts of high-value bio-garbage. They would be gross as fuck, but possibly the best informed individuals in the Galaxy. Need to know someone's secrets? Then get your hands on the Lord High Commander's liposuction leftovers and cut a deal with the Rat Lords.

>>68371985
Let's have fun with it and just say that the top of the Dread is basically a shredder. As enemies are killed/wounded they're chucked into the hopper. Any burger the Dread doesn't eat is shot out of a pipe for other Marines to snack on (or for a terror weapon). All this practicality is ruining the grimdark.

>>68374831
That's too easy to jam. You can have practical and grimdark at the same time.

I mean we're writing a bunch of cannibalistic superhuman psychopaths who appear in the dead of night, chop people to pieces, and then eat their still warm bodies before vanishing by morning.

That's pretty grimdark. Them using a blender to give food to those among them who can't chew, them rescuing hostages (to use to breed superior Astartes candidates), etc... isn't terrible.

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I'm imagining their Apothecarion is either split, or partially merged with their Chaplaincy to some degree, what with their carrion tendencies. Specialists called Fleshers rarely partake in battle themselves, instead watching the field for high priority targets and making judgements based on knowledge gleaned from the dead. They walk through fights with their retinue to find fallen captains, lieutenants, specialist operators, comms officers and couriers who could hold crucial information to the battle ahead, eating what they need and ensuring enough survives of the bodies to be spread amongst his brothers.

>>68374831
>Top of the dread has a weird toothed hopper built into it
>Human auxiliaries piff the leftover dead into it
>The godawful sounds of grinding that follows is a weapon in its own

>>68374973
Due to the Void Crows's radical deviance from both the Codex and the Cult of the Savior Emperor, there are no such things as Chaplains. The closest they have are the Corpsewalkers, a branch of their Apothecarion. These marines are responsible for sorting through the dead and preparing them for consumption. Corpses that are worthless are handed over to the Grinder Dreadnoughts. The slow whir of their blades, and the wet noises that are made as these Grinders turn the corpses into easy to ration sludge would haunt the nightmares of any who manage to survive and flee from the Void Crows.

The Corpsewalkers also comfort the friendly dying, oftentimes hastening their death by quickly severing the brainstem of the subject. They are finally also responsible for harvesting the gene-seed and interring those deemed worthy into Dreadnought hulls.

Corpsewalkers also spend some of the most time studying what the Chapter calls The Emperor's Light, a document penned by the Emperor just before, or during the Heresy, trying to dissuade people from worshiping Him. This document is filled with the Emperor's thoughts on the Warp (which obviously would have been edited out if ever published), and has been copied multiple times. Particularly devout Crows will even carve the entire text into their flesh, letting it scar into their Emperor's words.

>>68375096
>Carve the Imperial Truth into their skin.
Yeah some Word Bearer definitely got in here.

>>68375096
Cont: A brief chapter history and overview
>Founded during the Cursed Founding, from Raven Guard
>Are thin, short, pale Marines with pitch black eyes and a mutated Omnophagia.
>Were sent out and eventually isolated a secret work of the Emperor's own making, preemptively designed to stop a cult from forming around him
>Some Inquisitor caught word of this and moved to seize or destroy the document, concerned that the Emperor's lack of 'divinity' would cause the Imperium to crumble
>The Void Crows managed to slay the Inquisitor and his retinue, but quietly vanished from the Imperium. They are still loyal and a few of high rank know what they have done, but to destroy the Emperor's own words would be a greater heresy than to kill an Inquisitor.
>Shortly after this, they fell upon an Ork world, taking grievous casualties. Their Head Librarian made a name for himself by eating their Warboss alive.
>After this, the chapter consolidated and took the the void, perfecting their stealthy breaching of spacecraft, killing pirates and rescuing hostages.
>They then carefully gene-scanned these hostages and encouraged proper breeding for more Astartes recruits.
>As a result, the Chapter has managed to bounce back rather quickly from losing much of itself, but due to both their focus on stealth and their casualties they lack a lot of equipment. They most often fight with their monomolecular blades, disarming their foes before immobilizing them, to eat them later.
>They continued to salvage and commandeer both ships and equipment over thousands of years
>The Cicatrix opened up and as it happened, the Crows were isolated from Terra. They resolved to make their way back to Terra and to finally spread the Emperor's Truth

>>68375156
Some. Their descent from the Raven Guard is clear from their appearance.

>>68364766
Magnus & his boys should be Renegade fite me

>>68375156
Imagine them running into some Word Bearers and the WB realize just what is carved into the flesh of the Void Crows. I can already hear the screeching.

>>68375543
Would that hurt them physically and emotionally or just emotionally?
That's hilarious. Part Word Bearers literally covering themselves in the Emperor's words which were more or less "shut the fuck up Lorgar I'm not a God" getting NICE AND CLOSE to the Word Bearers.

>>68365932
Thats not very imperial truthy

>>68375651
Not really. "It's a mark of honor to be worthy enough for the Astartes to consume me" or is weird but not outright violating the Imperial Truth (what we know of it anyway).

>The librarians help satisfy/alleviate the hunger for flesh by sharing the memory and sensation of eating foes. If someone starts to pop off in battle, they just beam that shit in there. They pass around and share the sensation when people aboard ship get restless.
>The marines can always tell the difference, because the absorption of information is integral to the process, and the info is familiar, outdated, or missing.
>The baseline auxilaries take pains not to be touched by the edge of the transmissions- there are a few things more disturbing than feeling the psychic hunger of a trans human monster and then feeling it sated.

>>68375517
Who will take Tzeentchian bad boys position then?

So they are ostacized for being a cursed chapter (patched together from other cursed chapter bits) bit they are good at killing orks, and then they get sent to a dissolving sector to kill orks and find data caches. Then the librarian kills, just, all the orks, and they find the cache and read it, relearning the imperial truth. A few thoughts-

>They would have to purge their chaplains. How did that go?
>Being a composition of many parts in their body from the get-go probably made it easy to accept the cannibalism- with all the divergent gene seed they started with, accepting other flesh is a natural next step.
>For the story to flow right, their being sent to the sector and the orks' attack can't be a coincidence- I suggest that the people of the sector, fleeing, came across a system of spaceborne archaeotech caches, and when word made it to the Inquisition, the then-space-based chapter was sent in. They wound up colonizing the cahes and adopting the refugees that had taken shelter there while they weren't making guerilla strikes against the orks. These refugees were the start of their auxilaries and pirate allies.

>>68376055
>How are the chaplains purged?
Well, considering they aren't stupid, it'd be fairly easy to just... give them the book. It'd kinda be hard to continue believing in the Imperial Cult when the Emperor Himself wrote a journal/musing about his condition and the Warp that very clearly lays out that He is not divine and finds such treatment exhausting. Perhaps he wrote it after Lorgar rebelled, but had to abandon it as the Heresy really unfolded.

>>68376234
You think they would accept it? First go?

>>68373756
>debate gets heated
>hands moving faster and faster, still in complete silence
>suddenly, middle fingers are raised and chairs get thrown around

>>68376292
Well it is literally written by the Emperor, maybe they begrudgingly stayed neutral about the whole thing and slowly joined rest of the chapter, there's idea of some Word Bearer being thrown into their geneseed so maybe that's why they took the Imperial Truth with such gusto

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>>68376234
Anon I think you forget just how fanatical some people can be. Some Chaplains are literally Erebus/Lorgar levels fanatic.
>>68376292
This is probably how it would have gone.
>

>>68376306
kek

>>68376292
No but it'd be pretty hard to keep denying it after, you know, the fact that it's literally the Emperor's word gets hammered in their heads.

>>68376306
Jesus, seeing a bunch of Void Crows get into an argument would be hilarious. Sign language faster than a mortal can follow, then a bunch of rude hand gestures.

>>68376401
"Brother Chaplain, are you implying that Emperor is wrong?"
Well I...uhh...uhhhhh...

>>68376401
>>68376427
Brother-Chaplain: "Are you implying the Emperor would truly write such heresy? It is to late for you all. These false teachings have tainted your mind. Repent now and you will be spared."

>>68376427
>>68376466
"Are you implying that a heretic would be able to perfectly impersonate the Emperor, Brother Chaplain?"
The marine signed in one hand, slowly raising his middle finger with the other.

>>68376513
"I did not know you spoke with the God-Emperor regularly and could tell when someone was impersonating him brother."
The Brother Chaplain finished by raising his finger as well and slowly sliding his hand towards his weapon.

>>68376625
"So you are telling me that these texts, these texts written in golden paper are not Emperors?"
Captain says accusingly pointing at the chaplain

>>68376625
>>68376661
In the books where the protagonist was an astartes lady, the signature of the emperor had psychic power, and was anathema to the warp. The work could be tested that way. That would be a cool story.

>>68376706
OH FUCK. NOT ASTARTES. ARBITES.

>>68376661
"It's a common material. Anyone could have made it."
Shrugged the Chaplain dismissively. Who in actuality would've killed this marine at this point cause fanatics are not for being calm or reasonable when their beliefs are questioned.

>>68368181
But could they handle it?

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>>68371358
>>68371242
>>68370556
Kek

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>>68376868
Wrong pic
>Void Crows: Pic related

+++ Datum Retrieval // Transcribed Debriefing #83-E

++ Librarium-Station Erasmus // Tetracept-Oscar-Fifty-Nine // Presiding Questioner: Interrogator de Calazan // Restricted BYORDEROF Interrogator de Calazan
++ Transcriptor Marked // Scrivener Vyce Ptelomic
++ Cipher Denied
++ Cipher Denied
++ Cipher Denied // Garrison Alerted // Please Remain Stationary
++ Cipher Denied
++ Cipher Denied
++ Cipher Denied // Entering Lockdown
++ Bio-Imprint Accepted // Lockdown Lifted // Welcome, Garrison-Commander Wencsieslas
++ Thought for the day: Even a man who has nothing can still offer his life.

+++ COMMENCE

Q: State your name and affiliation.
I: [indistinct]
Q: Louder.
I: I was once called Xenophon, as registered in the birth-rolls of Kirtipur. I am a servant of the Emperor of Mankind.
Q: I note that you do not call Him the God-Emperor. This is part of your cult's doctrine?
I: It is not a cult.
Q: You were last seen a part of an extra-Imperial armed forces when we retrieved you from among the defeated greenskins, unconscious.
I: [silence]
Q: Understand, Xenophon, we aren't here as your enemies. We just want to know where you and your men received your training.
I: The legion? I wouldn't call them extra-Imperial with a hyphenation attached. Perhaps extra Imperial.
Q: You are loyal to the Imperium?
I: We are all loyal to the Imperium. We merely deny the falsehood perpetrated by the seventeenth son of the Emperor.
Q: The God-Emperor.
I: He is not a god. A superlative human being, but-
Q: Next question. Who were those soldiers that came to your aid?
I: Ah, yes. The soldiers that came when your people abandoned us to the Tide. They are the reason you are here. The reason I was dragged all the way to this place under lock and key. All... this, cannot be explained, otherwise. So much trouble for a simple old man.
Q: Answer the question.

>>68376923

I: They are the angels of death. Warriors who call the Emperor their grandsire, children of gene-fathers of an elder and wiser time. A time of the Truth.
Q: You are aware that the so-called Imperial Truth is primus-grade heresy and will result in the destruction of your kin to the seventh generation.
I: I am aware that the Imperium turned away from us. Oh, they talked. The vaunted Church, with the despicable Urbanous pontificating all the while through the pict-feeders even as he was airlifted straight to an awaiting voidship when the green things came. "Stay faithful to the God-Emperor! Pick up your scythes and pitchforks and battle against the enemies of Mankind! Rejoice, for you have become holy soldiers in defence of His dominion!" [chuckle] The man had a mouth, he did.
Q: The prefect's ship never arrived in the designated rendesvouz point.
I: And never will, I fear. Someone tampered with the gellar field generators before she translated into Warp.
Q: Your cult claims responsibility to this?
I: It would be a sin against those aboard if I did not admit it. Yes, we were responsible for that.
Q: Why? You're clearly a well-educated man. A highborn, above all the concerns of the common man. Why throw your lot with the underhivers and stay when you could have joined the fugitive fleet?
I: Because, Questioner, I understand the Truth. That it was never supposed to be that way. Upper-hivers. Lower-hivers. Wretched lives beneath, fantastic wealth above. No. We were meant to be unified in a brotherhood of humanity. A shared dream in which our race would spread across the stars.
Q: The Imperium rules the galaxy.
I: A false Imperium that rules on the basis of a fiction. That the Emperor is a god.
Q: The God-Emperor, may He forgive you for your sins, is the only God.
I: And that is where you lie. This is one of your kind's libraries, isn't it? An archive, dedicated to forbidden lore.
Q: Let's return to the previous question. Who are these renegade warriors?

>>68376949

I: Those who remained loyal to the Truth.
Q: Further attempts to obfuscate or muddle in the face of a direct answer-
I: You know, don't you? That your entire organisation, the entire Cult - it is based on a lie. A lie that the Emperor himself sought to erase. There must have been records. Historitors and Remembrancers. The centuries of the Emperor's own words and thoughts spread across the galaxy. The devastation of Monarchia. Why have we forgotten it?
Q: We are done here. Given your rank and stature, my master thought it would be only politic to offer you the courtesy of suicide. What? [Indistinct mumble from commbead] Whose ships?
[Station shakes, distant warning klaxons audible]
I: This is a little flashier than they usually like to be. Still, I suppose I can't fault their impatience. This place is such a treasure trove of information.
Q: Impossible. You were checked for any sort of beacons.
I: I don't claim to understand how witchcraft works. Oh, don't be ridiculous. Pointing your gun at me now won't change anything. If I could have killed you, do you not think I would have done so as the alarm started sounding? I am not the witch, merely the bewitched.
Q: You won't walk out of this alive. The entire station will burn before we let our inmates loose.
I: This was never about me or you. It was about the knowledge held within this station, and many others like it.
Q: No time for an honourable suicide now. I am sorry.
I: So am I. You were more polite than I expected from your like.
[Sound of laspistol]
Q: May He upon the Golden Throne excise you of your sins in the realm unending.
[Entry opens, closes]
I: ...All we ever wanted was the Truth.

+++ END

>>68376047
alpharius might as well

>>68376984

++ADNOTAMEUNTUM // Designate BYORDEROF Interrogator de Calazan
The station is under attack, but I fear so many others will be similarly preyed upon in the coming months by the same renegade Astartes forces of unknown strength composition. I must

++ ADNOTAMEUNTUM // Designate BYORDEROF Garrison-Commander Wencsieslas
We honour the willing sacrifice of Aquilifer Xenophon that made this raid possible. May the Emperor embrace his soul as he makes the journey to that which comes after.

The Emperor protects.

+++ TERMINUS Request denied // Insufficient Clearance
+++ TERMINUS Request denied // Insufficient Clearance // Unauthorised deletion maymaymaymaymay
+++ TERMINUS Request BYORDEROF Interrogator de Calazan // Affirmed

>>68374161
They have LED signs to type what they speak

Maybe the Omophaegea thing is because the Geneators wanted to improve the ability to gain better memories from enemies?

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>>68376997
>>68376984
>>68376949
>>68376923
Nice

>>68372881
>>68372987
>>68373039
So thoughts on color schemes?

>>68376923
>>68376949
>>68376984
>>68376997
Very good.

>>68376984
I like it!

>>68377556
>>68372987
The straight purple with black accents is nice, gives them an understated stealthy vibe. Also, crow feathers kind of have that sheen to them where they look a little bluey purpley depending on the light, so I think it fits well enough. And purple is always so underused.

>>68373039
This one is also good, I love the colour of the shoulders and eyes against the dark. Quite striking. I'm split down the middle between both of them, so we'll need more thoughts.

>>68373039
I came up with >>68372881 but am partial to >>68373039 That scheme just invokes some kind of subtle awe.

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>>68377824
Gotta agree with>>68373039. Maybe it's the turquoise on the shoulders, you don't see that color often

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Space Marine painter version.

+++Datum Retrieval // Incident 01408-VC
+++Bio-Imprint Accepted // Welcome, Garrison-Commander Wencsielas
[Sounds of bolter fire]
[Brother Captain Garrus screams]
"By the God Emperor! Where are they coming fro-"
[Crunching sounds. Screams.]
[Human voices. Unaugmented]
"W-what are you doing!? What is that?!"
[Voice, barely a whisper]
"The truth, Mislead One. We will show you the truth"
[Initial human recognized as Menial Jeremiah]
"I won't let you!"
[Quiet voice]
"The Sons of the Emperor know his word better than you"
+++

>>68378037
Just imagine fighting in the flickering lights of a damaged voidship. The engines are down and emergency power is cut in several places. A quiet gurgle is all the warning you get before the corpse of a guardsman drops, and the shoulders of a massive figure are barely detectable in the light.

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Not sure bout this one. Might look better to do the shoulder instead of the crux.

I'll let my post # decide.

>>68378147
I don't think the Void Crows would have many Terminators. They aren't sneaky. Those few that exist, though, would be veterans and only brought to bear fighting through heavily defended ships, using their knives to cripple and their fists and feet to kill.

>>68378201
Same
>>68378037
So does everyone want to go with the black/turquoise?

What is the name of their Librarian and current Chapter Master? What are their ranks even called, anyway?

Also, how did they determine that the Emperor's Truth was a genuine artifact of the Emperor? I think that the Astropaths felt a deep connection with it, as they are soulbound to the Emperor, and the Navigators felt it radiated something similar to the Astronomican, just on a far, far lesser scale.

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>>68378201
>MFW we're being hunted by some unseen menace that's disabled our ships engines and power supply.
>MFW Jeremy's running in the front and gets fucking decked with the force of a freight train by a shadow.

>>68378334
>Librarian
Jarael
>CM
Tiberius/Julius

>>68378364
I was thinking we'd use Slavic type names like someone suggested earlier. Also writefagging the meeting between captain of the 3rd company upon finding the document and one of the chaplains.

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>>68378336
MFW The atmosphere was flooded with sleeping gas
MFW we wake up in a cage while massive shadowy figures gesture at each other
MFW one of them steps up and brandishes a golden book at us
MFW it tells us that the foundation for the Ecclesiarchy was literally written by a heretic
MFW they tell us the Emperor isn't a god, and never wanted to be called one
MFW it makes sense.
MFW We then have blood drawn from our arms
MFW we are then sorted into cages and told to 'breed'

What the fuck just happened.

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>>68378400
>YFW you're put in a cage with just dudes

>>68378390
"Jarael, what you are presenting me with is heresy. You should be killed where you stand" The chaplain signed, an incredulous look on his face.
"No. The Ecclesiarchy are the heretics." The Jarael signed, "What we found is the Emperor's own word. I feel it, the light within it. The power. The Astropaths say they feel it, the Navigators say it feels like the Astronomicon.
"You are insane, Jarael" The Chaplain signed "where are the others? What have they to say?"
The Jarael shook his head.
"Chaplain, they have already converted. They agree. You are the last in the company to convert. Read this document. It is too precise and has too much information to not have been made by the Emperor's hand"
The chaplain stared at the hastily scribbled booklet, taking it reluctantly. He retreated to the chapel and began to read...

Do we have a wiki page on these guys yet?

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>>68378467
Nope
>>68378445
Good
>>68378430
>MFW it was just a mistake
>Get paired with the ship Stacey
>After a bit we start
>She's a virgin
>She's been lying the whole time
>Feel glad/disappointed

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>Be born, taught sign language and a dialect nobody speaks.
>Look up to the giant, wise people in black armor. Notice they always read a book at a certain time, get curious
>Find their book
>Read it. It affirms what I've been taught by them, but also has a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense and is somewhat painful to look at.
>Get seen reading their book
>Prepare for death
>Instead get blood drawn
>Undergo grueling tests of strength. Pass because the armored figures want me to.
>Become Brother Zerephon of the Void Crows.
>All because I found a book.
>MFW

>>68378693
>Read it. It affirms what I've been taught by them, but also has a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense and is somewhat painful to look at.
Sounds literally like confirmation bias/self fulfilling prophecy type deal

But still funny about it all happening 'cause a book

Would it be possible to request some assistance fleshing out some R&H?

>>68378728
R&H? What's that?
Here's something though
>Due to their void focus and guardianship of the Emperor's Truth, the Void Crows almost never fragment. They stay aboard their great ship to engineer better breeding stock for future generations, deliberating over the Emperor's word, and salvaging and combining captured vessels. Their primary vessel is called the Voidspire, and is constantly being rebuilt and expanded, growing ever larger and more majestic. It is constructed and shielded in such a way that it is almost impossible to see even without the Reflex shields up.

If ever brought to open combat, the Voidspire is a dreadfully fast and agile craft (for something of its size) capable of absorbing massive amounts of punishment and capable of cracking open most ships due to the sheer amount of salvaged and scavenged firepower covering the great vessel.

>>68378809
Renegades and Heretics, it’s a renegade guard regiment I’ve been trying to hammer out.

>>68378853
Are they part of the Crows? Also, the auxiliaries of the Crows would be some of the deadliest non-augmented humans in the universe, since they would be trained by Astartes and wield Astartes-grade blades. They'd wield Crow 'combat knives' as great swords, and would be batshit balls to the wall devoted.

>>68378873
Many are trained in stealth/guerilla wafare. Saboteur training is standard, can turn anything into a bomb.

They also act as spies and are the eyes and ears of the fleet on the ground weaseling out info

The Crows know full well they wouldn't be even half as effective without the mortals under their protection, or is it the other way around?

>>68378939
Considering that the Crows literally raise everyone to be an Astartes if at all possible, and breed children for that exact purpose, there really wouldn't be much of a difference, ideologically, between Astartes and unaugmented Crows. Stealing from >>68376949: "We were meant to be unified in a brotherhood of humanity. A shared dream in which our race would spread across the stars."

While the Astartes are undoubtedly superior, they respect and care for the mortal auxiliaries, who can blend in with anyone and go anywhere a mortal can be.

Their culture make the Crows some of the most fair and noble Space Marines there are, as well as the most pragmatic. All recruits are right there and already are entering training, are secured, and secret. Trying to take the Crows on would be a nightmare due to their extreme concentration of force and focus on stealth and ambush tactics.

Even worse would be getting into a fight with them in space. Decoy craft filled with explosives to lure boarding parties in, then detonate them once their hapless prey are within, and near invisible craft dropping in and launching waves of fire into the engines and weapons of the attackers.

What about small/strike craft? Fighters/bombers is what I mean, we know they use boarding craft that are stealthy, I can see stealth bombers for the ability to destroy things unseen
>>68378979
That's sorta what I meant

>>68379077
Stealth bombers and missiles so fast that they quite simply blow straight into the target before they're detected. You'd only hear the sounds of their Space to Ground munitions AFTER they leveled the structure they were aimed at.

>>68379266
>Literal Stealth MOABs.Bunker busters/Earthquake bombs

Watch Captain Tacleos of the Deathwatch looked upon the newest recruit with confusion. His heraldry was from a Chapter he had never seen before, and the marine was almost utterly silent at all times, responding to vocal responses with a quick wave of the hand, or in rare cases, a quiet, hoarse whisper. Of special note, during the prayers, that this Marine would retrieve a small book and read it intently, waving his hands about and humming quietly instead of proper prayer. Stranger still, this silent Marine refused almost any weapon offered to him, using instead a massive blade he had acquired from his home Chapter. On rare occasions this marine would take a shield as well.
"Brother Iklian," Tacleos said, "you have been noted by the Chaplains for deviancy of faith."

The Marine stood there in silence, moving his hands about for a moment, before clenching them into fists and taking a breath out.
"We honor the Emperor in a way few others do, Watch Captain," he said in a whisper, barely audible, "but we are devout and follow His teachings. His dream of a humanity free of the xeno, free of the warp, and free of the traitor. His dream of mankind standing, hand to hand, over the corpses of those who seek to destroy them. His hope of saving mankind from death, as only He could do," the Marine whispered in reverence, "and praise be unto Him for that."

Tacleos looked at the strange marine, and his pauldron, noticing the intricate design of a crow with a sword in one talon, a skull in another, the beak flecked with blood.
"Just one more question, Brother," Tacleos said, and the Marine nodded.
"Of course, Captain," the Marine said.

"Where is your Chapter based?"

"From the void we come, Captain," The marine said, placing two fingers to his temple and walking away.

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>>68380050
>Deathwatch
Welp time for me to break out the Honor the Chapter book to check the skill choices for anyone who wants to play a Void Crow.

>>68380082
The Crows have infiltrated the Deathwatch.
So they're probably part Raven Guard, part Alpha Legion, and part Word Bearer, apparently.

Someone archive this thread, I'm going to sleep now and want to see how this evolves come morning.

>>68380101
Probably not Alpha Legion.

We seem to have agreed they're smaller and weaker then normal Astartes. But the Alpha Legion were absolute units and paragons in every way.

>>68380082
Fuck I meant Rites of Battle.

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>>68380050
>crow with a sword in one talon, a skull in another, the beak flecked with blood.
Nice Heraldry idea. Easiest would be like a Crow with a blood drop?

Best ones I see for characteristic modifier are.

>The warrior-scholars from this Chapter have often noticed clues that their more zealous comrades have missed. Space Marines of this Chapter gain +5 Perception and +5 Intelligence.

>Members of this Chapter are famed far and wide for both their skill with the blade as well as their leadership under fire. Space Marines of this Chapter gain +5 Weapon Skill and +5 Fellowship.

For Squad defense I'm thinking.
>Knowledge is Power
Action: Half Action, Cost: 3, Sustained: Yes. With knowledge of secret and forbidden lore, the Space Marines of this
Chapter are able to more easily avoid sorcery and witchcraft. While under the effect of this ability, the Battle-Brother
and any within Support Range of him receive a +10 bonus to any Tests made to resist the effects of a psychic power
(this can include attempts to Dodge). At Rank 4, this bonus increases to +20.

>>68380239
>>68380082
Also going to get drunk now. Finish looking at abilities tomorrow or someone else can try.

Really like the Void Crows. Godspeed anons.

Gonna archive this just to be safe.

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So do our marine just wear regular armor? Do they adorn it with any special decorations or anything? Any special symbols?

>>68381501
Good question. I'd say they prefer to keep ornamentation low, or just regulate the stuff that clinks/etc. that'd attract too much attention

>>68381542
Yeah turning your marines into walking museums would just create noise and eye catching trinkets which would prove counter intuitive.

Since someone brought up we probably wouldn't use many Terminators in the field what would Dreadnoughts do? Stay in the main fleet as some sort of homeguard? Did we maybe find a contemptor earlier?

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>>68380210
A crow holding just a sword maybe? Wings up or down? You'd be hard pressed to fit a sword, skull, and blood into a small badge without muddying the details, though it'd be fine as a banner or large scale herald - maybe the crow sitting on a skull with a sword/s crossed behind the skull.

>>68381501
You could go with the typical feather motif, though now that I think about it, feathers don't seem to feature a lot outside of Tzeentchian fellows. I'm imagining them with black feather ruffles beneath cloaks and shawls, and everyone just wonders where they're finding real birds to pluck.

And while we're on armour, what is their casualwear like? And do the auxiliaries wear similar clothes to the Void Crows, or are they distinct?

>>68381619
I imagine most of the fleet wears darker colors such as purple, black, grey, maybe higher ups like captains wear turquoise clothes and wear capes of black feathers to stand out.

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>>68381619
Just gotta know where to look

>>68381811
I really wanna steal this not gonna lie.

>>68381822
It's not theft... it's inspiration ;)

>Be Void Crow Brther
>Julia the Vox operator is sweet talking the lone watchman on the station
>Watchmen is young and likely doesn't see much action, making this even easier for a skilled talker like her
>Once my Squad is on board we beging the purge
>After a half hour the deed is done, record time for our Demi Company
>Squad Beta has acquired 'recruits'
>One's the Watchman
>All in all a good day

>>68381885
*Be Void Crow Brother Sergeant
Messed that up

>>68381618

They might have a surprising number of them, what with their constant scavenging of tech.

A special formation of Dreadnoughts could serve as the last ditch forces of the chapter. The oldest, toughest, and most experienced troops who are often not used in battle. Sort of like the Triarii of the manipular system in Rome.

There's a great video from Historia Civilis where he talks about the Roman army and mentions a saying "It's come to the Triarii" meaning "Things are going badly and this is the last thing we can do" AND "It's time for the adults to step in and sort things out."

That's the model in my head for how the chapter views it's dreadnoughts. "Awaken the dreadnoughts" are words that they do not sign. They are spoken out loud when things are going very very badly. It is an admission of error, almost a shameful admission, but it is a statement of defiance. Stealth is being abandoned and the chapter is unleashing absolute hell.

And if you're an enemy kitted out to fight a mobile enemy relying on stealth, a half dozen dreadnoughts hammering down in drop pods and opening up with assault cannons and flamers is probably NOT something you're prepared for.

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Thank you anons. These are one of the few bastions of creativity on /tg/ thank you and I'll see you all tomorrow.

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>>68378145
Spooky.

>>68381915
I quite like that, with their ancients being basically the last word when things go awry. It'd have quite the strange effect on their dreadnaughts' psyche - even more so than your typical chapter, save for maybe the Blood Angels - going from quiet, hungry operators to starving boxes of rage used only in desperation.

>>68383014
>spoopy.

>>68383014
>>68381915
>>68380050
Right now anons I'm imagining we reserve our voices for few occasions, they can't understand us, we've failed in some way, or something very important has happened, etc.

>>68381915
>>68383014
And that's when the terminators come out too? Or is their a more gradual slope of intensity?

Once they abandon stealth, their hunger would kick into high gear- that would heighten the emotional effect of having to break out the dreadnoughts.

I imagine them being in a constant state of tension with their hunger, with their baser nature. Bring in beast imagery, with the idea being that they are riding the beast (c.f. tiger) because its power is theirs, but they have to never let it get the reins. I suggest heraldry incorporate chains on the crow's mouth, or a muzzle or something. It would go well with their reluctance to verbally speak.

>>68381915
Pict-lights flickered across displays as the holo-configure of the battle sphere floated above them, a dim colorful glow in the absolute black of the Last Whispers command room. The ancient vessel, sleek and so un-imperial in design, was a living relic - a piece of archaeotech from a time before mankind was ruled by superstition and fear. It hovered in space above the small moon where far away, tiny pinpricks of light flared upon the surface indicating the explosion of munitions and orbital artillery impacts. The pirates were better dug in than expected, and the chapters auxilliaries were having difficulty dislodging them, even with battle brother teams having been dispatched to critical locations to ensure the destruction of enemy infrastructure and command.

It seemed that the core of the enemy were renegades like themselves - a small imperial naval flotilla had had gone rogue and staked out on their own. Their own forces were well trained, but better suited to naval engagements and ambushes, and the enemy had cleverly re-purposed naval weapons and bulwarks to build permanent fortifications upon this moon - a barbed hook to tear out the throat of any predator foolish enough to take the bait.

The room was silent except for the clicking of instruments and the soft hum of machinery. Battle brethren signed to each other when they needed to communicate, their large dark eyes able to see perfectly in the near total darkness, and each of them rigged to the CNC by their black carapace, thick cables running from terminals to the ports originally meant to rig power armor implanted in their bodies. In the overseers seat above it all was the Libram, rigged to a massive command throne that connected his psychic brain to the ships own sensors and divulged his awareness across the vessels CNC, down into the command crew who organized and relayed information to the troops below. His eyes were closed, his large tooth filled maw tightened in concentration.

>>68383157
It's a little more complicated but I really like that. Right now they seem mary sueish.
>Guys they've got super advance fighters.
>Masters of stealth and rumored fear of the sector.
>Followers of the truth of the Emperor.
>Some contemptors with special modifications.
What they got against them.
>They sometimes eat the people.
I still support the earlier claim we should put emphasis on that with their hunger being a constant struggle.

Maybe make recruits look like >>68378037 and veterans like >>68381811 .

>>68383193
KINO

>>68383193
Runes flashed and died upon the display, casualties on either side vanishing from the field and being tallied among the dead. Progress had stalled, and the enemy may soon be able to effect repairs on the infrastructure the marine forward teams had knocked out, bringing the big guns and lances online. The Librams eyes opened slowly, yellow and red-rimmed, glittering eerily in the soft lights of the displays.

"Awaken the ancients," came his whisper, cutting across the silent room like a deafening shout.

For a moment, everything was somehow even more silent, and there was absolute stillness. Then, a flurry of motion and clicks as hand-signs went about and data-terminals were activated. Permission to lift the prohibition had been granted. Tactical runes on the holo-display flared and changed orientation as battle brothers, previously operating silent, sprang into action. Hundreds of miles below, an orgy of death began as the enemy suddenly found monsters of ceramite and fury among them, ripping and tearing flesh with razor sharp teeth and mono-molecular edged knives. Deep within the vessels darkened holds, tech-priests began their rites, and a subtle whine echoed throughout the vessel that grew into an ominous growl as the chapters most aged veterans, engines of death kept eternally alive within the bulky slabs of a dreadnoughts sarcophagus, began to awaken. Bays lurched open, and handfuls of drop-pods began to fire from the underbelly of the Last Whisper, ferrying dread cargo to critical locations on the moon below.

And in a flurry of dark wings, the Murder descended.

>>68376055
>>68376234
Don't space marines(especially first founding chapters) already routinely assert that the emperor isn't a god?

>>68378145
Void Crows sound more and more like Night Lords...

>>68383289
I thought of that, but 1. these are cursed founding (and if anyone's going to turn to prayer, it's people in trouble like that) and 2. if we say they got sent in to find this archaeotech and such, AND they are Cursed Founding, the Inquisition won't have sent them if they ALSO didn't believe the Emperor was divine.

>>68383954
>the Inquisition won't have sent them if they ALSO didn't believe the Emperor was divine.
I would imagine that the Inquisition has to make do with whatever chapter(or chapters) is nearby and doesn't necessarily get much choice.

>>68378390
If you are referring to my writefagging, the garrison-commander was not intended to be a Crow. Rather, he would have been the head of security within the Librarium, killed during the assault and "used" for his biosignature to unlock the dataviewer in lieu of an acceptable Cipher.

Interrogator de Calazan, on the other hand, was possibly consumed in order to get the required cipher to delete the entry - and thus remove additional mentions of a renegade Astartes group hostile to the Inquisition from its databanks.

Bumping before work.

>>68383234
What they have against them
>They're cannibals who devour literally everything, bloodstained monsters in the darkness
>Due to their extreme isolation, even communication with them is bizarre and difficult
>They are heavily mutated and physically strange with massive fanged mouths and oversized eyes.
>Among Astartes they are some of the smallest and thinnest, looking ghastly and malnourished compared to the others.

>>68381915
I always considered them keeping their Dreads and Termies in for the defense of their own craft nine times out of ten. Their spacecraft would be absolute ambush hellholes.

Would their dreadnoughts be faster to better get into CQC or would they be among the few ranged units the Crows have?

Listen guys I'm having misgivings:

>Comparatively weak space marines
>No power weapons
>No noisy weapons (ranged is out)

They either need some silenced ranged weapons, or to be bulkier for combat, or something- what kind of force equalizer can they have?

>>68383014
>Last Word
Good name for them actually

>>68386412
Stalker Bolters? Hacking ship/station systems?

I can see snipers in more open environments

But really they choose where and when they can win fights, they likely carry ranged weapons just in case

>>68383234

The down side to their way of fighting is that it is fragile. Every now and again they run into the 40K equivalent of that Serbian guy who cobbled together a way to shoot down a stealth fighter out of obsolete Soviet hardware.

Could be why they have a lot of dreadnaughts. When their missions go bad, they go very very bad indeed. I agree that they'd be very easy to turn into sues; but that's an issue with any space marine chapter that isn't the Lamenters really.

>>68385821

I suspect the dreadnoughts would have more standard equipment. You can't really make a stealth Dread after all. That's why they're the last ditch option.

>>68383014
>>68383157

It makes sense. Realizing that you will never taste again, you will never be able to fight with your brothers, silently and from the shadows, realizing that you failed. You were seen, engaged, and nearly killed by an enemy you failed to dispatch.

Then you try to speak. And you realize, the dreadnought's arms are incapable of capturing the sign language of the Void Crows. You will never again speak to your brothers as an equal, you must bark at them like they were outsiders. The sensors are clumsy compared to the old eyes. You will never see through the shadows.

"If I woke up looking like that I would just run towards the nearest living thing and kill it"

Waking up in a Dreadnought is horrific for one of these guys. Like to the point where I would say they are never woken up after being interred alone, there are always a couple others on hand to talk to the new dread. To keep their desire to kill everything focused properly outward.

>>68386412
Stealth, speed, and pack tactics. They lure enemies into ambushes or shred them in space where their physical deficiencies aren't relevant.

Remember, they're weak and thin for an ASTARTES, and they're probably a fair bit faster to compensate. Against the vast majority of forces, they will tear through their foes extremely quickly.

>>68387077
Good ideas on the Dreads. Pretty nightmarish due to their culture

>>68387077
Ancient Garo woke, for the first time in centuries. To his left, Ancient Rask stirred, and to his right, Ancient Pilum. No dreadnought of the Crows ever woke alone, for none but a fellow Iron Crow could ever feel their pain. Never again to speak in the elegant signs of the Crow, only speaking through crude, noise loudspeakers. Never again to feed, to sate the Hunger, to feel fresh information and blood rush through himself. He and his would only be called on in emergencies, to fight like barbarians, to be SEEN, to be HEARD.

But the worst part of all, about being an Iron Crow, of being a damned, clumsy, hulking monster, was that it was HIS fault. He was seen. He was heard. And then, even worse, it was by his own failings that he was wounded to the point of Interment, and by his failure alone to protect the Imperial Truth.

He plodded over to his drop pod with the others and prepared his weapons. Noisy, crude, without finesse. There were Astartes who considered becoming a Dreadnought an honor.

Ancient Garo would never understand them.

(I don't think we ever established a naming convention for the Crows, so if this gets a d4chan entry, feel free to change the names later)

(Here's a bit more writefaggotry, from the other side)
Captain Calypso knew he was running out of time. He knew he shouldn't have taken this route to take up prisoners and equipment, the last ship that went through this sector never came back. But no, he thought it was just old and the Gellar field failed.

If only it was the Gellar field, he cried, then he would be already dead. But instead, the engines failed, and then the power failed. No engineer reported back.

Then a deafening blare shook him off of his feet, and in the distance, in a hallway, a monster emerged. Standing nearly three times his height and made of armor, the front of it covered in ghoulish images of a bloodstained bird wrapped in chains, sitting atop a mountain of skulls. It moved too quickly, but Calypso ran anyway. The guards behind him barely had time to scream before a wet crunch signaled their demise at the fists of the monster. Calypso ran faster, fear granting him speed and endurance beyond what he thought possible, but it wasn't enough. The thing caught up to him, and the last thing he felt was a razor sharp spear going through his chest.

Ancient Garo smashed the corpse of the human against the wall in rage, sliding it off of his spear arm and stamping on it with his feet, his melta arm sitting unused for the moment. It would never be enough. No matter how many ships he cleared out, no matter how many he converted or killed, the shame would last forever.

+++
Message - Inquisitor Hadex to Lord Inquisitor Abel
-Subject: Disappearances near Sixtum VII
Greetings, Lord Inquisitor. It has come to my attention, and undoubtedly to yours as well, that the area near Sixtum VII has had many vessels 'lost in the warp'. Further investigation reveals that this is in fact not the case. My craft, the Emperor's Truth, touched down upon Sixtum VII-IV, an Agri world, the last known communications from which were desperate pleas for help from an Ork warband. This area is in the heart of the area where ships were lost and we (our retinue) sought out the reason for this. Perhaps some form of sorcery was performed, that was our leading belief.

What we found was far worse.

The planet was entirely empty and barren, but unlike a Tyranid invasion, there were signs of biomass, mostly small plants and animals. We investigated further, finding the landing point of the Orks, or at least, what we believed to be. Only a crater remained. The buildings of the Hives were empty, but as we worked our way up from the Lower to the Upper hive, we started to notice signs of combat. What appeared to be lasfire peppered the lower regions, as the defenders of the Upper hive were forced further and further back. At the peak, there was a massive stain of blood, that had clearly been there for quite some time, but the rooms themselves were barren. The bloodstain was shaped, carefully, into the insignia of a great bird, but it had decayed to the point where we could not exactly isolate what it was supposed to be in particular.

CONCLUSION: The disappearance of many stations, ships, and people in this area is not a coincidence. Someone or something is taking these resources for an as of yet unseen purpose. In this area, the prime suspect are rogue Astartes.

See attached document: Datum Retrieval Debriefing #83-E, Librarium-Station Erasmus, Interrogator de Calazan.
(CONTD)

>>68387575
In conclusion, Lord Abel, I suspect that these rogue cultists of the "Imperial Truth" are responsible for these disappearances. What seems to have happened is that the Underhive rose up, stirred by their rhetoric of an Emperor who believes them equal to the Nobles, and slew the nobility before absconding with this organization.

I designate these heretics an extreme threat to all shipping in the area. Until they are rooted out, the area around Sixtum VII should be forbidden for all unescorted craft.

++Thought for the day: Heresy is Treason to the Emperor.

>>68387358
>>68387441
>>68387575
>>68387612
Great work. At work so no writing for now

>Garro and another Iron Crow are in the DW and meet another Dread
>He won't shut up about the honor of being a Dread
>Of course he's an Iron Hand

>>68387575

I don't see them wiping out a hive world. They're renegades following the imperial truth. So slaughtering billions seems a bit much. An inquisitorial outpost? Or some other finger of the Imperium in the abandoned sector that's getting a little too close for the chapter's comfort. That I can see just up and going away. None of the nearby worlds reported anything when questioned.

"It is rare to see the servants of the Imperium here. We were left to our own devices long ago. While we of course wish to render all possible serivce, we are unable to assist with your inquiries as to the fate of your Ordo's outpost. We have heard only the silence of the void from that region of space Inquisitor."

>>68387759
Not wiping out. Converting. Notice the lack of corpses or blood in the underhive. Also it was described as part of an Agri world, so it'd be more like a main city rather than a proper Hive.

>>68387759
+++ Datum Retrieval//Transcribed Interrogation #335-G
++Colensos-VI//Presiding Questioner: Adept Doon//Restricted BYORDEROF Inquisitor Hadex
//Bio signature recognized, Welcome Inquisitor Hadex
++Thought for the day: To doubt is to blaspheme
++Begin
Q: Citizen, state your name and occupation
I: [Muffled]
Q: Citizen, state your name and occupation, louder.
I: "Trevor Taal. Communications transcriber"
Q: Citizen, you have been questioned due to failure to transcribe any reports from Glacius Station for the past seven years. A less intelligent Inquisitor may have already sentenced you to death
Q: There were no transmissions from that station in the past seven years
I: What?
Q: There were no transmissions received from that station in the past seven years.
I: What was the last transmission sent?
Q: An update on station status
I: What was the situation?
Q: The commander-
I: The Inquisitor,
Q: The Inquisitor stated there was dire need of-
I: Failure to report a request for reinforcements-
Q: A dire need of amasec aboard the station.
I: A-amasec?
Q: Yes. Our last transmission was a request for amasec. The shipment went through and the station did not respond afterwards.
I: Have you considered the shipment was tainted or otherwise dangerous?
Q: That is not my duty
I: What is your duty?
Q: The transcription of transmissions and nothing more.
I: There were reports of an Ork invasion around this time. Did this station fall to the Orks?
Q: No. The Orks were handled by the Angels/
I: The Angels?
Q: The Angels. They descended from the heavens and slayed the Orks, before returning to the stars.
I: Describe them
Q: They are taller than an average man, but no wider. They move with a speed I cannot follow, and move in utter silence. They wear a dark grey armor and slaughtered the Orks without fear or error.
Q: Astartes?
I: I have heard that term. I know not what it means.
Q: The Space Marines.
I: The Angels do not speak to us. They merely kill the xeno.
Q: Any heraldry?

File: I_IZ_ALFARIUZ.png (138 KB, 402x245)

138 KB PNG

WOZ GUD, ME FELLOW UMIES?
somebody mind summarizing this thread in a couple of lines, so I don't need to read the whole god damn thing to contribute?

>>68388014
I: Yes.
Q: Describe it.
I: A great, black bird, holding a sword, with chains around the beak
Q: That does not match any Astartes chapter I know.
I: I tell you the truth.
Q: How do they fight?
I: The Orks were advancing, before fire ripped through their lines. Only after their burning did we hear a deafening roar. Many low flying craft descended, shooting down Ork aircraft and strafing the hordes.
Q: Go on.
I: Then the hordes were thinned and split by this bombardment. Once there were only a few thousand, the figures, the Angels emerged from the ground nearby, and engaged in hand-to hand combat, harrying their rear and sides. Anytime the Ork turned to fight one, another would stab him in the back, severing limbs.
Q: How many were there?
I: I do not know. One hundred or higher.
Q: How much higher?
I: Some reported nearly seven hundred landing.
Q: Seven hundred astartes?
I: Seven hundred Angels, yes.
Q: What happened afterwards?
I: The Angels descended upon the battlefield and took up all the corpses and slain, before leaving.
Q: Thank you.
[Laspistol fires]
+++RECORD ENDS.

>>68388066
Cannibal Sneaky Mute Marines Find Writings From The Emperor On How He Isn't A God And How It's Brought Them Trouble

>>68388066
The Void Crows are a renegade chapter of Space Marines known for their extreme stealth, refusal to speak, and mastery of void combat and ambushes. They were a part of the Cursed Founding and although it is believed they are descended from the Raven Guard, their geneseed is chimeric and quite possibly tainted by Word Bearer stock.
They were sent out to fight Orks but along the way stumbled across an ancient stash of archeotech, but even more importantly, an abandoned document by the Emperor on the Imperial Truth, written at some time either during or before the Heresy to try and dissuade a cult from forming around him. They converted to the Imperial Truth and were excommunicated and declared traitors, but they still maintain that they are loyal to the Imperium, and a few higher ups still know they are both active and technically loyal.
They operate as a single group, never spreading out, keeping close to their ancient ship, the Voidspire, which is constantly being expanded and upgraded with salvaged materials and crew from their journeys. They are extremely cannibalistic, eating the dead of any race, including their own.

Some have infiltrated the Deathwatch.

>>68387737
Venerable Donovan of the Imperial Fists looked at the two new Dreadnoughts, noticing their unusual weapons and heraldry. Both stood near each other, 'whispering', or approximating a whisper as best a Dreadnought could, and moving their arms about. They were mostly dark grey, with a black raven holding a sword with chains around the beak emblazoned on their fronts. Both Dreadnoughts were similarly equipped with a long, sword like appendage replacing the right hand, quite capable of either stabbing or slashing motions, but the left hands differed. One seemed to have a multi-melta and combi-bolter fused together, while the other wielded a massive drill and shoulder mounted carbine of some sort.
Donovan approached the two, curious
"GREETINGS, BROTHERS," Donovan
boomed, and received a small motion of the hand, before one dreadnought slumped a bit and turned.
"Greetings, brother," it whispered. cleaning off its weaponry.
"I HAVE NOT SEEN EITHER OF YOU BEFORE. TELL ME OF WHERE YOU HAIL FROM."
The first Dreadnought spoke again.
"I am Venerable Garo," it said, the speakers quietly muffled, "we hail from the Crows."
"YOU HAVE A MAGNIFICENTLY DECORATED SARCOPHAGUS, BROTHER GARO. INTERNMENT MUST BE QUITE AN HONOR AMONG THE CROWS"
"It is not," the other Dreadnought said, "it is an eternal mark of our failure."
"HOW SO, BROTHER?"
Garo spoke once more.
"We are silent, we speak with our hands, we move unseen and unheard. We are the night, and we, more than almost any other Marine, feed upon the dead. We are denied this as Interred. We are forced to always remember our failure... for each and every one of us Interred has committed the greatest error a Crow can make. We were seen, and engaged, AND wounded." Garo grumbled, "Venerable Kilas here is new and will not speak yet. He will need his time."
"I FEEL AS THOUGH I WOULD HAVE NOTICED YOU BEFORE, BROTHER GARO."

>>68388458
Garo remained silent for a time.
"We transfer in and out of the Deathwatch. A marine is selected at random and serves for a time, before returning to our Chapter and sharing our knowledge."
"AH." Venerable Donovan boomed, awkwardly looking at the two Dreadnoughts, wondering what to say. Garo spoke first.
"It is good to see at least you accepted your failure," he said, and Donovan took a step back.
"FAILURE? I HELD THE LINE FOR TEN DAYS AND TEN NIGHTS AGAINST THE HORDES OF THE TYRANIDS! ALONE I FOUGHT, AND ALONE I SLAYED WAVE AFTER WAVE OF THE BEASTS. I HELD OUT LONG ENOUGH FOR REINFORCEMENT, BUT I WAS TOO WOUNDED TO BE PATCHED UP, AND WAS PLACED IN HERE AS A MARK OF RESPECT."
Garo raised his sword arm.
"We of the Crows would have never let them land. We would never leave a Marine alone. We would never hold one position to the death. My end was far more shameful than even that. I was seen by a Heretic Astartes, and though I slayed him with the help of Venerable Rask and Venerable Pilum, we were all too wounded from his sorcery to recover. The Corpsewalkers interred us, and we woke at once."
"CORPSEWALKER?" Donovan boomed
"Yes," Garo said, "Corpsewalker. We are a small chapter, and our Apothecarian and Chaplain duties are mixed, held by the Corpsewalkers. They isolate the dead from the dying, and Inter or consume near dead Marines such as myself. None doubt their wisdom, and none can test their resolve."
Donovan dipped his hull a bit, approximating a nod.
"I SEE, BROTHER. THIS DEVIATES FROM THE CODEX ASTARTES."
"Necessity has forced us to, Brother Donovan. Necessity has forced us all to do horrible things."

And with that, Garo and Kilas walked away.

Donovan noted how silently they moved.

Is the thread in autosage?

>>68376997

+++ Datum Retrieval // Intercepted Inquisitorial Transmission #4

++ Ramilies-class Starfort Designate Marcion-Synopate // Primocept-Beta-Fourty-Three // RESTRICTED
++ Retrieval Marked // Lexservitor Mediate // Astropathic Captor Marked // Frater Astrotechnicus Atulya
++ Cipher Accepted // BYORDEROF Chapter Master Venkata
++ There is no honour in war.
++ Resource // Data Materia 27-44-ut16 // CLEAR

Lord Melifax,

Blessings of the Most High upon the Golden Throne. As per your august instructions, I have been looking into the disappearances noted in the Avestan sub-sector. Your far-sighted suspicions, as ever, was right.

Your Lordship has met Interrogator de Calazan before. A fine young man, you told me that evening, certain to go far in our business. I sent him to look into the incidents of disappearing hive populations. The last I heard from him was two weeks ago, communicating that he would head to Librarium-Station Erasmus to make use of the holding facility therein and question a new captive.

He has not contacted since. Not just that, but the entire Librarium Erasmus does not respond to our hails via the astropathic choir aboard the [i]Penitent Flagellant[/i]. I unfortunately did not have the chance to look into the matter personally before the Ork Waaagh swallowed the local area, but I know your Lordship will agree with me that he was far too intelligent a man to be caught in the slow Orkish tide. The cause of his presumed death must be due to your Lordship's speculated void-based force.

I remain convinced that it is the Dark Eldar again. It fits their modus operandi, and the lack of wanton carnage in each location makes it clear this is no work of the Great Enemy. I would like to, with your Lordship's permission, establish dialogue with our allies in the Ordo Xenos to further investigate their tracks.

Ever yours,
Inquisitor de Vryes

>>68389207

++ TERMINUS // Lexservitor Relinquish
++ Without the Emperor, there is nothing.
+++ Resource // Data Materia 27-44-ut16 // CLOSE

>>68388149
>>68388340
hm.
so... essentially the coolest chapter of all times.
They're the Raven Guard 2.0
and even with WB taint, they spread the Imperial Truth. it's useful to have some ubah-charisma guys in there.
I'm gonna screenshot and save that shit when complete.

P.S. has there ever been an event of Flesh Tearers or Blood Angels that were cured from the Red Thirst?

>>68390282
No. The Lamentors were thought to be cured but it manifested later. Primaris are cured of the Black Rage but thirst even harder.

>>68390835
The Crows are not exactly saddled with the Thirst or Rage, though. They have what seems to have been coined "the Hunger", an intense desire to consume flesh of any kind, but it is something that can actually be controlled, to a limited extent. I wrote somewhere that the Crows will salvage corpses and grind them into paste to make easy to ration amounts of liquid.

Trying to writefag the meeting between the Marine who recovered the text and a chaplain. What I got so far.
--------------------
Brother Chaplain Nikolai Antov sat motionless resting on a knee as he prostrated himself before the altar of the God-Emperor. His head held low in reverence he recited the ancient prayers of his forefathers in his head. Nothing disturbed his prays, even the dust laid still.

Suddenly from behind he heard the slow and methodical steps of ceramite against hull. ‘A brother come to disturb me at this hour?’ He thought. Rising with a soft whirring of servos he turned to meet this late visitor. Soon the steps grew louder, uncaring for any pretenses of stealth. A striking turquoise took shape from the shadows slowly revealing a figure much larger then a man, even for their diminutive size among astartes. As the brother emerged from the shadowed depths of the hall Brother Chaplain Nikolai could make out just who this visitor was.

His armor was plain, indiscernible from that of any other brother except for two features. The black skull of command against his right pauldron and the intricate carving in the chest of his armor. The carving was a work of art carved by deft hands depicting a crow muzzled by chains, below it a battle raging, feathers shedding to be replaced by razors that threatened to release the feral beast contained and muzzled for the safety of those below.

The Chaplain raised his hands in greeting and signed the words, with a pace that would’ve been hard to follow for a normal human. ‘Greetings, Captain Casimir. What brings you to the shrine of his radiance the God-Emperor?’

>>68390903
that sounds like a ridicolously sane approach to the issue, given the situation.
I'm gonna try to work something out for consumption rituals that would go relatively okay with Imperial Truth, or at least "something the Manly Man-Emperor may forgive".

>>68391468
>ridicolously sane approach
Nothing wrong with that, I agree with the other anon. Besides we're truthers not religious folk having religious rituals about it would just be weird.

>>68391468
The Void Crows are not insane, they are entirely rational and capable of thought. They developed their own combat style and doctrine, integrated human auxiliaries into their fleet and combat, and have survived isolated from the Imperium, slowly increasing their fleet size, and massively overhauling their archeotech salvaged craft, chief among them their home craft, the Voidspire.

Chucking corpses into the grinder in order to ration things easily is an entirely rational thing to do. By homogenizing the corpses, equal nutrient density can be achieved in the mixture, which can then be measured by either volume or weight and distributed.

>>68390835
I always thought that should be reversed

"Tell me, oh honored one, of your Internment," the neophyte said, and Ancient Garo sighed, through his specially muffled speakers. The neophyte stepped back, having spent quite some time with other Dreadnoughts in the Deathwatch, and most of them seemed to react differently. The silence of this one only made him more interested.
"I will," Garo grumbled, "before my Internment, I was a member of a group. Brother Rask, Brother Pilum, and Brother Sergei, we all operated similarly, not unlike a Deathwatch kill team. Our entire Chapter acts as one, moves as one. Never more than an hour away from any Marine. We, that being our kill team, descended upon a desolate moon, the center of a disgusting ritual. Our foe was another Astartes, as twisted and old as he was powerful and cunning," Garo said, and the neophyte nodded.
"Yes, that happens often. The heretic, the internal enemy is the deadliest,' the neophyte said, and Garo dipped his hull.
"We, being a team of four, swept through the central point of his wicked fortress, while more of us followed behind, infiltrating and breaching their walls in a variety of places. There would be no escape. We reached the central sanctum of this heretic, and..."
Garo paused, and started to remember.

>>68391990
Garo's arms went limp as he remembered breathing fresh air, and moving not through servos and motors, but through his own limbs, under his own power and will. To feel the wind, and those tiny, little things.
To feel the glee of sliding his knife into the throat of an unsuspecting pirate captain from behind, the rush of eating the separated corpses deposited by the Corpsewalkers, the feeling of community of signing over the Truth with his brothers. It was all gone.

But he remembered the acrid stink of the heretical compound, the quiet gurgles of the guards, and how that heretic astartes turned, holding a staff covered in blasphemous symbols of Chaos in one hand, and a bolt pistol in the other, as Garo, Pilum, Rask, and Sergei approached. He remembered.

The heretic sneered widely, his grin cutting through his many demented tattoos.
"The Corpse Emperor must truly be weak," he chuckled, "to send such excuses of Astartes after me. Look at you, you warped wretches. How tiny, how frail you are," he sneered, stepping forwards.

The Crows said nothing in return, signing to each other in a blur of motion, before they drew their blades in unison, charging forwards. Before Garo could even react, Sergei was seized by a spectral hand, then dashed into the ground. Rask was hit in the chest by a bolt of warp energy and staggered, while Pilum took a bolt to the arm, breaking it with a sickening crunch. But the Crows rallied, standing up as Garo ducked past a beam of reddish light, dodged a kick, and drove his knife into the sorcerer lord's knee. He moved to retrieve it, but the heretic repulsed him with a wave of force, slamming him into Sergei, while Rask and Pilum circled around the heretic, blades drawn.

"Such weakness!" The heretic roared, ripping the blade out of his leg and snapping it over his knee, hurling the fragments at Sergei with his sorcery, piercing his armor, "Miserable wretches of the failing Imperium, do you not see how the Warp truly works?"
(CONTD)

>>68392146
Garo and Sergei staggered to their feet, and then lunged towards the traitor in an instant, while Rask and Pilum charged his rear. But the nearly demonic Marine was prepared, and stepped forwards, lunging his staff into Sergei's chest. With a blast of crackling energy, Sergei died, remaining silent as any good Crow would. His blackened husk of a corpse hit the ground with a dull thud, before Garo seized his fallen brother's blade and sliced the heretic's staff in half, releasing an explosion of power that sent him flying into a wall hard enough to fracture his helmet and break some of his ribs. Pilum and Rask were in an equally dreadful position as their foe casually fired his bolt pistol at them multiple times, hitting them in the chest, arms, and knees. Rask's left pauldron broke, while Pilum's already damaged arm was maimed beyond repair by a few bolts, before the heretic's gun clicked empty. But as soon as that happened, he drew a whirring chainsword from his hip, as well as a plasma pistol, and dove back into the fray.
"Blessed are the gods of Chaos!" He laughed, "thank you for sending me this gift! With their blood I shall finally claim my Apotheosis!"
Pilum charged at the Sorcerer and slammed his head into the heretic's, staggering him long enough for Rask to slice into his shoulder with his blade. The heretic responded by hacking into Pilum's other arm with his chainsword, activating it and sending viscera flying, before kicking away Rask, quickly overwhelming Pilum with a flurry of slashes, leaving him unconscious, without limbs, and burned on the ground. By this time, Garo had stumbled to his feet, and charged once more at the Heretic, slashing his hand off at the wrist, before kicking out the traitor Astartes's knee. The heretic roared in pain, driving his plasma pistol to Garo's stomach and overcharging it, causing a massive explosion.

>>68392282
The next thing Garo remembered was waking up with blurry eyes, seeing Corpsewalker Viktor standing over him, the body of Sergei, and the still living, horribly burnt and maimed bodies of Rask and Pilum sitting next to him, the heretic's skull split open, Rask's blade having carved through his skull, getting stuck into his torso.

Internment is the only time that a Crow will scream. Not in pain, but in grief.

Garo sighed and shook his hull, while the neophyte stared.
"Ancient Garo? Ancient Garo, are you there?" He asked, and Garo grunted.
"And in the fight, the heretic died, but so did we."

>>68391468
There are no rituals to consumption. It is accepted as a necessity of being an Astartes, nothing more than a different type of nutrient.