Far to the galactic north, deep within the Segmetum Obscurus, lies the Ophiuchus System. The System holds no special interest for the Imperium. Like a million other fringe systems, the Ophiuchus system is too remote to hold much strategic military importance, has no particular mineral wealth, and it's planets, whilst hospital to life, are unfit for use as agri-worlds.
The Ophiuchus system would likely disappear off all Imperial records, lost and forgotten like so many other fringe systems throughout history, were it for it's one significant attribute - the system was home to the Caeles Anguis Adeptus Astartes Chapter, in low Gothic known as the Celestial Serpents.
Hi All. It's Medge back again, kicking off a new series (yes... ANOTHER one!) focusing on the creation of a new Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes; the Celestial Serpents. For a long time (pretty much since the 8th Edition Space Marines Codex came out) I've been thinking about creating my own Space Marine Chapter.
The project has remained firmly on the back-burner with my Blood Angels Successor taking up my allocated "Space Marine" hobby time. Over the UK's Lockdown (part 2) I finally picked up the amazing Spear of the Emperor novel by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, and his portrayal of more tribal/barbarian inspired Space Marine Chapter operating in Imperial Nihilus really inspired me to revisit my "homebrew" Chapter idea.
Over the last few months I've also been reading the White Dwarf team's own journey to create a Space Marine Chapter; the Tome Keepers.
With all the inspiration and guidance provided by ADB and White Dwarf the fires of inspiration were lit, and got to research and scrawling ideas and notes on my custom Chapter.
Genesis of a Chapter - Inspiration
Creating a chapter from scratch is no easy feat, particularly is you want to cover every aspect of your Chapters history, mythology, motivations, organisation, etc etc...
White Dwarf (Issue 453) provides a great breakdown of the points to consider when making a Chapter, and I'll come on to many of those points in this blog.
To start though, you need an idea - a core concept or foundation that you can build from. Borrowing from my two pieces of inspiration, the White Dwarf Team's debated different concepts they wanted the chapter to be along with colour schemes, and allowed the process to evolve from two main ideas (as seen in WD453). ADB approached the creation of the Emperor's Spears from a different perspective. He began by identifying the Culture from which the Spear's would originate (deciding on a Celtic-theme) and began to create the Chapter's idiosyncrasies based on that. ADB also explored the Spears home-world culture in quite a bit of detail too, using this as the motivation behind the Chapters culture. His idea of "what would happen if a Space Marine home world reverted back to barbarism" defines the Spears heraldry, chapter organisation and personal interactions as much as their position within Imperium Nihilus.
Shamelessly plagiarising like all good authors (ha!) I took a similar approach to ADB, using the White Dwarf articles to help me structure the Chapter's genesis after the initial idea.
Cultural Beginnings
I'm not a huge fan of the standard Codex-complaint Chapter; they tend to be a little bland to me.
I've always been a huge fan of the Space Wolves because they're very different to Guilliman's idea of a typical Codex-compliant Space Marine; the different squad and unit markings, the 13 Great Companies instead of 10 companies, combination Chaplain/ Apothecary's, the tribal/ barbaric nature of the Chapter, etc...
Even my current collection, the Blood Angels, different in some pretty extreme ways to the normal "Codex" template (Sanguinary Guard and Death Company being the big two, but their Sanguinary Preisthood and Chaplains are also pretty different in the lore)
So I knew I wanted to go non-codex... and inspired by ADB I knew I also wanted to go for a seldom used culture as my origin.
So I starting thinking about what other ancient cultures I could I could use from history.
Most Ultramarine/ Vanilla-Marine chapters have that Greco-Roman inspiration, so that was out.
Viking (Space Wolf) and Celtic (Spears of the Emperor) were both off the table.
Feudal Chinese and Japanese space Marines were tempting, but the east-asian inspired Marines would like require lots of third-party bits, and may edge too close to the White Scars and/ or Tau aesthetic.
European Crusader? A little too Black Templars for me!
In the end I narrowed it down to two ideas; a Mesoamerica Aztec/ Mayan idea, and Egyptian.
For a loooong time I mused of creating a loyalist Egyptian-themed army, a modern twist mirroring the 30k Thousand Sons. FW has loads of conversion parts ready for the taking, and the narrative writes itself (a society dangerously close to Prospero's culture would be damn close to Inquisitorial-sanctioned Exterminatus at every moment!)
In the end I opted to go for a Aztec/ Mayan theme, reasoning that it would be a more interesting project (and one less likely to receive Exterminatus!)
Whilst the Aztecs were a lot more "civilized" than some other cultures, their heavy reliance on blood sacrifice made them very different to the other cultures of the time. They also have very distinct visual queues, colour palettes and text/ written language to draw from when making the army.
Great!!!
With a core concept locked down it was time to move on to the nitty gitty of the Chapter
What makes a Chapter?
As I've previously mentioned, White Dwarf 453 has a list of attributes to consider when making a Chapter. These are:
Chapter Name
Chapter Symbol
Primogenitor
Origins
Colour Scheme, including Unit Markings
Home World
Combat Doctrine
Beliefs
Words/ Motto
Idiosyncrasies
Whilst I'm still a little way away from finalising everything, I've certainly got a lot of these covered!
Chapter Name
I hadn't even finalised this before the authoring this blog to be honest! I knew I wanted to name them something unique, and distinctly meso-american. Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, is an iconic and well known element of Aztec culture, and the snake/ serpent motif is pretty prominent throughout the Seraphon range, making the "X Serpents" a pretty easy start.
I mused on "Jade-", "Star-" and "Sun-" Serpents for a while, before finding out the Sun Serpents are actually a pretty well documented homebrew chapter.
I settled on Star Serpents for a long time, loving the alliteration in the name, before last-minute switching to Celestial Serpents. Celestial Serpents still has the alliteration I wanted, but feels more grandiose than Star Serpents.
Chapter Symbol
Once again plagiarising like crazy... I decided I wanted the Chapter to forgo the usual chapter iconography.
Yes - they have a Chapter Symbol. Of course they do.
However, I wanted to inject more of the non-codex, pseudo-barbaric nature into the Chapter. I decided to "borrow" the Grand Companies concept from the Space Wolves, with each Grand Company having it's own unique Company Badge - I'll cover them in more detail in a future blog post.
For now though, the seldom seen Chapter Badge looks something like this...
Yes - amaze at my PowerPoint Shape tools...
Primogenitor
Easy - Unknown!
Narrative wise, the Celestial Serpents don't know, nor care, who their Gener father is. They show deference to all the First Founder chapters, with a particular reference for the Ultramarines and the Primarch-Reborn, and the Blood Angels and Dante (Regent of Imperial Nihilus), but see the Emperor as their de facto original gene-sire (and Grandfather, as it were)
Part of this belief stems from their Home World's mythos (see below), and part of this is purely from a game-perspective.
Once of the virtues of a unique/ homebrew Chapter is that it lets you draw rules from whatever source best fits your narrative, or the source that fits your preferred rule style.
I intend for each of the Companies within the Celestial Serpents to have a particular method of war, allowing me to build/ tailor the units within to work different Chapter tactics differently. It's a little gamey, but I'm hoping to work it into the narrative in way that's not totally unbelievable/ cheesy.
It's very likely, however, the first Company I build will use either custom Chapter rules or Space Wolf - focusing on a fast combat-heavy playstyle
Origins
The records of the Chapter's origins have been lost, there are record of the Celestial Serpents fighting as far back as M35. Either these records are in error, or the Chapter can date it's founding back to some time between the 4th Founding (post-War of the Beast, M32) or thr 10th Founding (M35)
Whilst I intend on this being a Primaris-only project (sorry Firstborn) the idiosyncrasies of the Chapter mean it can't be Ultima-founding. Even if we include the Pariah Nexus story arc in the chronology it's only been 150-300 years since the Ultima founding - not enough time for a new chapter to totally throw away all the Codex rules!!
Colour Scheme, including Unit Markings
Now we're on to the fun bit! Paint!
Having done a bit of research into Mesoamerican cultures, I found out that Teal (blue/ green) was a pretty important colour (artifacts like the moasic mask are classic examples), which meant Sotek Green/ Temple Guard Blue was always going to be the top choice.
Units markings were a bit trickier, but thanks to the Space Wolf codex I was able to thrash a few out. As I've said already, I'm throwing the Codex symbols in the bin and opting for more tribal patterns (similar in style to the Wolves but incorporating more Aztec symbols instead)
Home World
The home world for the Celestial Serpents is Ophiuchus Four, the fourth planet of the Ophiuchus system, known locally as Itzamma. Itzamma is a continental world, with several landmasses of varying sizes split by large Oceans. Relative to the likes of Fenris Itzamma is relatively hospitable, with several larger cities and townships spread across it's surface. The technology level of the planet, however, is very limited compared to other planets of the Imperium. With no access to a Forge World or Mechanicum support following the events of the Horus Heresy, Itzamma devolved into little more than a feudal world. Life is difficult, full of hard physical work and lacking the basic technology many in the Imperium take for granted.
Much of planets landmass is covered with dense jungle, home to all manner of carnivorous fauna and flora. Travel and trade between the cities occurs often; carts and caravans pulled by beasts of burden make the long and dangerous journeys through the jungle. These routes are fraught with danger, and a warrior contingent accompanies every journey.
Much of the planets economy thrives on the Jungle biosphere, with precious stones, meat, pelts, fruit and vegetation all harvested from the dense Jungle and its beasts. A strong warrior caste is essential to the survival of the populace, and it's warriors are great respected and rewarded.
The planet is broadly split into 13 sectors, each sector governed by a prominent family (or families) in a manner common on many feudal worlds. The dominant, or ruling, sector is determined once a generation, roughly every 20 Itzamman years, by way of a Ceremonial Conflict. Each Sector marches a 1000 strong army through the jungle to the ancestral conflict site; a colossal obsidian ziggurat temple deep within the jungle.
Once all sectors armies have arrived the parties feast and celebrate, sharing stories and bonding in a way only seen once in a generation. When the feast is over the armies return to their camps and ready themselves for war. Come sunrise horns blow and gongs ring, and for 13 days and nights the soldiers do battle - fighting to the death. At sunrise of the 14th day the survivors return to the foot of the ziggurat and take stock. The sector with the most surviving warriors is declared the victor, and word is sent to the new high king of his victory. The remaining survivors (both victor and vanquished) are never seen again, sacrificed at the alter of the great black ziggurat to the great sun god.
How and when the Celestial Serpents co-opted this ceremonial war into their recruitment strategy is a mystery. However, what is known is that every 20 years a 13000 strong army of young warrior hopefuls arrives at the gate of their Fortress Monastery, and slaughters one another for 13 days. The few dozen that survive are lead by one of the Chapters High Priests into the temple and tested for geneseed compatibility before being sent for further scrutiny.
The religion of Itzamma is a curious mix of the Imperial faith and pan-theological blasphemy. If Itzamma were located closer to the Throneworld it's inhabitants may have found themselves on the wrong end of the Ecclesiarchy, but out on the Fringe such deviancy is tolerated far more. The Itzammie people believe in the Great Sun Emperor and his Nine Divine Children (The Fanged Beast, the Night Raven, the Winged Angel, the Firedrake, the Great Builder, the Fierce Hunter, the Stalwart Warrior, the Silver Serpent and the Wise Sage,) worshipping the Sun as the Emperor made manifest. Curiously they hold great aversion to the moon, believing it to be the eye of Horic, the Sun Emperors fallen Brother. A full moon is a dark omen on Itzamma, for when Horic's eye waxes full he has the strength to unleash baleful magics on the world...
Combat Doctrine
The Celestial Serpents are a pragmatic Chapter, forced by necessity to be flexible and adaptive. Operating of the fringes of Imperial Space saw the Chapter fight numerous opportunistic piratical Xenos races, Drukahri and Orks among the most common. By necessity the Celestial Serpents range deeper into the Imperium, both to answer the call to reinforce other, more vital, systems than their own and to secure vital supplies for their own chapter. Spreading themselves thin across multiple systems and subsectors has, by necessity, forced the Chapter to adopt more flexible combat doctrines.
Rather than being split into 10 companies of 100 Space Marines, the chapter is split into 20 companies of approximately 50 Space Marines. Each company has an appointed Captain and command staff, and contains a mix of Veteran, Battleline, Close Support, Fire Support and Neophyte/ Scout elements spread across 13 different operational units (consisting of 3-5 man teams) nominally split as follows:
1 - Company Commander
2 - Honour Guard
3 - Company Command/ High Priests
4 & 5 - Battleline
6 & 7 - Close Support
8 & 9 - Fire Support
10 & 11 - Vanguard/ Scout
12 & 13 - Veterans
Each Company has it's own preferences within this organisation, moving units to fit their Captains preferred style, and the requirements of the war they fight. It is also not uncommon for two or more Companies to join forces for larger conflicts, combining different preferred combat styles to maximise the effectiveness of the Strike Force
Beliefs
The prevalence of Religion on Itzamma has definitely changed the chapter, it's Chaplains baring the title of "Priest"
The holy-men of Itzamma tend to both the spiritual and physical aspects of the population. Whilst the Chapter doesn't fully train both it's Chaplaincy and Apothecaries for both spiritual and physical healing, the two branches of the Chapter do work in closer harmony than in many other Chapters.
The Warrior Caste of Itzamma know that without their support life on the planet would cease to be. Astartes raised from this Caste broadly share this Philosophy, extending it instead to the Imperium as a whole. Given the relative autonomy the 20 different Chapters of the Celestial Serpents are afforded, and the flexibility their "demi-chapter" style organisation affords them, their Strike Forces wage war far and wide throughout the Imperium, their philosophy of protecting the masses driving them to help wherever they can.
Words/ Mottos
None yet... but let me know in the comments if you can think of any!
Idiosyncrasies
I've pretty much covered a lot of these already! Suffice to say... these are going to look a little like Primaris Space Wolves, swapping the Viking iconography for more Aztec/ Mayan icons. I'll also likely use lots of MSU 5-man and 3-man Combat squads over 10-man and 6-man full squads too, partly to justify the "20-company" system I've backed myself into! (and partly because they'll likely do well this edition)
The First Serpent
This'd be a pretty weak hobby blog post if it didn't include at least one model, so I include below the first "test" model for my Celestial Serpents; a Lieutenant from the Winged Serpent Company (likely Space Wolf Successor)
Based on the Dark Imperium Ancient, this Lieutenant has been converted with a few small Seraphon fetishes (to add some feathers and gold trinkets) to create a more Aztect vibe. It's not super overdone, but clearly very distinct from the usual Space Marine trinkets.
The sword arm is a spare from an Indomitus Assault Intercessor, converted to wield a Saurus maul. Most of the power weapons in the army will likely be replacements from Serapon kits, glaives and spears representing power weapons of different sorts.
The hope is that I can create something distinctly Space Marine, but also distinctly different; less "Space Knight-Crusader" and something a bit different.
The plan at the moment is not to plan - I'll be keeping this a slow build, low-key project. Nothing too investment heavy, and more of a labour of love rather than a power-through project. So don't expect too frequent updates... but expect some hype from me when they do come!
Until next time - stay safe and happy hobby!
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