Blood Ravens
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Blood Ravens | |
|---|---|
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| Primarch | Second Founding Chapter |
| Battlecry | Knowledge is power, Guard it well. |
| Colours | Red and Parchment |
The Blood Ravens are a chapter of Space Marines first featured in the computer game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and its two expansions. The Blood Ravens prize information greatly, but ironically know little of their earliest centuries of service. The Chapter also has a high concentration of powerful Librarians.
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[edit] History
The Blood Ravens have been a part of the Imperium's defences for several thousand years. One of the goals they have aside from protecting the Imperium is as the Protectors of Hidden Knowledge, as revealed in the Dark Crusade expansion. However, the details of the Chapter's origins are completely unknown even to themselves, including their originating Primarch (calling him instead the Unknown Primarch), Space Marine Legion and gene-seed. Due to this they venerate the Emperor and the Great Father, Azariah Vidya, above all. Blood Ravens have a slight mutation in their Catalepsean Node which means that they have perfect recall but never dream; the potential damage to the marine's sanity from these two combined effects worries some outside the Chapter. The current shape of the Chapter has been influenced primarily by the Marine known as the "Great Father", Azariah Vidya.
The Blood Ravens have a reputation of being legendary scholars among the Adeptus Astartes, their battle cry of ‘knowledge is power, guard it well’ is not just a saying, but a true and fevered belief. Their reputation is also as impressive among the ranks of the Inquisition (who distribute research material and information to their chapter that ordinarily would never make it outside of the Inquisition), and several pure research orders in the Adepta Sororitas (who will often ‘loan’ a sister for collaboration in a research project).
This is unusual to say the least as the Inquisition rarely trusts even sub branches within its own organization to this extent and the traditional friction between the Astartes and Ecclesiarchy makes joint research of this type an uncommon occurrence. Indeed, the Blood Ravens appear to have better than usual relationships with a great many of the Imperium's various power structures (such the Inquisition, Guard, Ecclesiarchy…) in contrast to other Space Marine chapters, who have at various times engaged in millennia long feuds.
[edit] Azariah Vidya
Azariah Vidya (who later became known as the Great Father) was the Master of the Chapter Librarium during a terrible campaign in the Gothic sector, in which the Blood Ravens had taken terrible losses against a series of rebellions. During this campaign, the Chapter Master and the Master of Sanctity were both killed in a trap, and it seemed that the Blood Ravens were finished.
Azariah was reputed to be a fiercely intelligent warrior, as well as burdened with the skill of the psyker. He spent much time studying the movements and reactions of the enemy, using the Imperial Guard and the remnants of his Chapter in a series of feinted attacks. Using this information, as well as his tremendous psychic powers, he then launched a series of raids against seemingly empty areas, that turned out to be important staging areas of the Chaos cultists or supplies.
For his skill in crushing the rebellion, Azariah was promoted to the office of Chapter Master, while retaining his previous position. He led a program of healing and rebuilding, without which the Chapter would have long ago been destroyed.
[edit] Organization
The Blood Ravens are reputed for following the Codex Astartes in spirit, if not by the letter. The Chapter's forces are set up with the standard Companies, although the squad mix within these Companies is known to vary.
The Blood Ravens are also known for the large number of Librarian psykers within the Chapter, many of which are second in power and skill only to the Grey Knights. In fact within the 1st Company of the Blood Ravens there are 2 squads that are composed entirely of librarians, which deal mainly with arcane and demonic threats to the imperium. How such vast numbers of psychically-talented Marines come to be is unknown, but it is believed to be based on a combination of the Chapter's reverence for the Father Librarian and their recruitment processes.
Within the Chapter, an organization known as the Ordos Psykana exists, made up of only Librarians. They maintain psychic beacons on the Chapters battlebarges, first placed there by Azariah Vidya himself. The reason for these beacons has been lost to the Chapter, but apparently, they are a type of infinity circuit, designed as a sort of weapon against the Necron. It is also used in a ritual which calls back the soul of a dead Blood Ravens Librarian before his remains are put to rest. The Psykana also maintains armouries filled with force weapons, many of which were procured from the Eldar, and some were given willingly, speaking of a long relationship between the Eldar and Blood Ravens.
This combination of in depth knowledge of Chaos, high number of psykers, advanced force weapons stores and so on arguably makes the chapter second only to the elite Grey Knights in both skill and power in terms of anti daemon tasking. In the video game Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, a small task force of the Grey Knights was in fact attached to the Blood Ravens by the inquisition, for reasons unknown but probably to do with the chaos related mysteries revealed partially in the game.
[edit] Homeworld
The Blood Ravens have no official homeworld. Instead, their Fortress-Monastery is situated onboard the Battle Barge Omnis Arcanum, which is also home to their Librarium Sanctorum, which is reputed to be the largest repository of knowledge in the Imperium. The rest of the chapter serves onboard the fleet of Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges.
[edit] Recruitment
As the Blood Ravens have no homeworld, they are forced to draw on a series of worlds for a supply of new recruits. One of the more popular recruiting worlds was Cyrene, prior to the planet being declared a target for Exterminatus by the then Brother Captain Gabriel Angelos. Another was the world Rahe's Paradise, prior to being subjected to an Exterminatus due to the presence of an awakened legion of Necron riddling the planet. The Blood Ravens have also been known to draw recruits from other parts of the Imperium not normally used by other marine chapters, such as the Scholastica Psykana with whom they hold an agreement to be allowed to recruit a certain number of psykers as potential Librarians. This is likely at least one of the reasons for their statistically high number of librarians.
[edit] Battlecry
In the Index Astartes article (White Dwarf, 2004), the battlecry is: "Knowledge is power, guard it well!"
In the official Dawn of War novel (Goto, 2004), the Blood Ravens battlecry is: "For the Great Father and the Emperor!"
[edit] Combat Doctrine
The Blood Ravens believe in studying the enemy and predicting their reactions to a variety of situations, before using this information to utterly wipe out the enemy. This approach to warfare draws criticism from several other Chapters, but the same cannot be said when the Blood Ravens finally decide to launch into combat.
In battle, the Marines of the Chapter will systematically destroy enemy units with utter ruthlessness and precision. They will never vary in their battleplan, and never have any reason to, as the precognitive abilities of the Chapter's Librarians will already have been employed to discover every possibility and account for it.
[edit] Primogenitor Chapter
It is possible that the Blood Ravens are a loyalist splinter from the Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marine Legion, and although there is evidence to support this (high regard for knowledge, the high number of Librarians in the chapter and the fact that the chapter wears similar colors to the Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons) there has still been no formal acceptance or denial of this theory by Games Workshop. In Dawn of War: Tempest, upon meeting the Prodigal Sons of Ahriman, Librarian Rhamah of the Ninth Company (who is suffering from amnesia) is accepted as a fellow son of Magnus by the Thousand Sons (whether this is completely true or an elaborate ruse by Ahriman is never confirmed). However, the book about the Chapter's Unfounding shown to Rhamah in the Arcadian Librarium, Ahriman's knowledge of Vidya and the many references to the similarities between the two suggest there could be truth behind it.
In the PC game Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade, the Blood Ravens under Captain Davian Thule are sent to the planet Kronus to purge the world and protect the secrets the Blood Ravens believe are key to the Chapter's past. However, depending on who the player is while defeating the Blood Raven stronghold, or winning the game with the Blood Ravens, the narrator suggests that the sacred relics on Kronus could possibly be a link to a dark origin. If played as the forces of Chaos, there are several hints that the chapter are loyalists splintered from the Word Bearers. This hints however could also be used to argue for the Thousand Sons theory. The narrator also states that (when victorious as the Blood Ravens), that after the Dark Crusade, it would be the darkest time for the chapter.
[edit] Notable Blood Ravens
[edit] Gabriel Angelos
During the events of the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War video game, Brother-Captain Gabriel Angelos is the commander of the Blood Ravens' 3rd Company, the Commander of the Watch, and the main character of the game.
Like many of the Blood Ravens, Gabriel was born on the planet of Cyrene, where the Chapter often drew recruits from among the planet's defence force. Gabriel was an accomplished leader of his peers before he even entered his teen years, and passed the Blood Trials set by the Blood Raven Chaplains.
Many years later, with an entire company of Blood Ravens under his command, Gabriel returned to Cyrene, to preside over the Blood Trials and recruit new members into the Chapter. But Gabriel found something very wrong during the trials, the seed of Chaos among the competitors, and cut them short. He quickly returned to his strike cruiser, and sent a coded signal out of the system. Within months of the signal, ships of the Imperial Inquisition and Navy appeared over Cyrene and carried out an Exterminatus, bombarding the planet for a week straight until nothing on the planet remained alive. All records of the incident, and Gabriel's message to the Inquisition, have been sealed, but Gabriel himself carries the guilt of his actions with him to this day, particularly during the battles on the planet Tartarus. A seemingly ordinary action against an Ork invasion quickly became complicated with the appearance of Imperial Inquisitor Mordecai Toth, who inexplicably demanded that the Blood Ravens leave the planet immediately. A Warp Storm was coming, and would engulf Tartarus in a few days. Against Toth's counsel, Angelos continued investigating the planet, after discovering evidence of Eldar and Chaos forces on the planet. He quickly finds himself battling the Eldar of the Biel-Tan craftworld, led by Farseer Macha, and the forces of the Alpha Legion, one of the Blood Ravens' greatest foes.
He allies briefly with an Eldar strike force, but ends up releasing a Daemon that the Maledictum held inside. After confronting the daemon, he vows to destroy it.
Shortly after (in the events chronicled in Dawn Of War: Ascension (Goto, 2005)) he travels to the world of Rahe's Paradise, where he attempts to conduct the Blood Trials. At first all seems routine (save for Gabriels premonitions of an Eldar invasion), but soon after the discovery of an ancient Eldar/Imperial tablet, all hell breaks loose. Eldar Rangers conduct multiple hit-and-run attacks focusing exclusively on the psykers of the chapter and the potential psykers among the Trial aspirants, and the Gabriel meets with Farseer Macha once more. She reveals that they killed the psykers to prevent the breaking of Lsantril's Shield; A device that gave the illusion of a large Eldar psychic presence on the planet. This would prevent the awakening of the Necrons hidden under the surface of the planet, as they would slumber as long as they believed that their ancient foes dominated the galaxy still. All is not lost, however, until a space battle destroys the Spirit Pool of the Dark Reaper aspect, the psychic scream of the lost souls shattering Lsantril's Shield and awakening the Necrons. Gabriel orders the destruction of the planet, and leaves for the threatened planet of Lorn V with the surviving aspirants.
When he arrives at Lorn V, he makes contact with the single Eldar survivor of the battle, the Farseer Taldeer, who has been asking for him since teleporting to the Litany of Fury battlebarge. Ignoring accusations of heresy levelled against him by Captain Ulantis of the Ninth Company, she convinces Angelos to allow her to take him and a small squad of Blood Ravens to a rip in the webway, made by the Librarian Rhamah during a battle in Dawn Of War: Ascension, in an attempt to reach the world of law, Arcadia, and find the last Blade of Vaul to use against the waking Necron. On the planet, he is given the blade by the Eldar Harlequins following a battle with the Prodigal Sons of Ahriman and Ahriman himself, which he gives to Macha upon returning to Lorn V. With the last Blade of Vaul, Macha destroys the Necrons completely, but is not heard from or seen afterwards. Gabriel then continues his command of Captain of the Watch and meets the newly transformed Quirus Ckrius, whom the Blood Ravens recruited from Tartarus.
In the Dawn of War novel series, especially that of "Dawn of War: Ascension" and "Dawn of War: Tempest," Gabriel seems to have a mysterious bond with the Eldar of Biel-Tan, particularly that of Farseer Macha. Despite the condemnation and even threats from his fellow commanders, the Inquisition, Adepta Sororitas, and even his own friend Isador Akios, Gabriel was stubborn in his attempts to assist the Eldar and Macha. The Harlequins of Arcadia refer to him as "Gabriel of the Hidden Heart," and that he is seen as a symbol of hope for the Eldar in the form of a human.
In the UK edition of White Dwarf (issue 305), Gabriel Angelos is referred to as being the Chapter Master of the Blood Ravens. However, the game, novels, and publications of the same article in other regions' White Dwarves indicate that Angelos is a Brother-Captain and Force Commander.
[edit] Davian Thule
Brother-Captain Thule is the leader of the Space Marine deployment, consisting of three Blood Ravens companies (1st, 2nd and 4th Companies), sent to Kronus in the Dark Crusade, but despite sharing the same ship (Litany of Fury) Captain Gabriel Angelos, commander of the 3rd company remains nowhere to be seen. When he arrived on the planet, he sent a message to Governor-Militant Alexander to evacuate all civilians and Imperial Guard personnel as to allow the Blood Ravens to begin their purge of the planet. However, Alexander refused, and now the Blood Ravens must fight the other soldiers of the Imperium. Thule regrets having to kill his fellow brothers-in-arms, but orders are orders - Kronus must be purged. At this time, not much is known of him other than being part of the Blood Ravens. Thule is armed with a standard-issue Chainsword and Bolt Pistol at the beginning of the campaign, and when fully upgraded carries a daemonhammer and meltagun, as well as wearing heavily ornate artificier armour, with a backpack-mounted teleporter.
When the Blood Ravens finish off the other six races in Dark Crusade, they collect their spoils of war and preserve some of the Chapters' secrets on the planet. The Inquisition arrives to question their actions, but the commanding officers manage to finagle their way through the interrogations by claiming they were just 'following orders' from their Chapter Master. The narrator then states that the darkest time for the Chapter begins after they complete their Dark Crusade. The survivors of the shattered 1st Kronus Regiment bear a deep hatred for the Blood Ravens, even though Thule arranges safe transport for the Guardsmen who actually fought against his Marines, and Thule and the Blood Ravens Chaplain honour the dead body of Governor-Militant Alexander for following his orders so fervently. They also, however, execute every one of the soldiers of the Kronus 1st Regiment 5th Company for their rebellion against the rest of the Regiment.
Should another race successfully capture the Blood Raven Stronghold in North Vandea, it shows Captain Thule lying on the ground (dying), as one marine orders an apothecary to take Thule back into the taskforce Battle Barge to retrieve his gene-seed, before he calls down an orbital strike on the location, effectively destroying the remaining marines and the soldiers of the invading army unfortunate enough to be there at the time.
[edit] Brother Captain Hyrcleon
The Captain of the Fifth Company, he was only mentioned in How to Paint Space Marines.
[edit] Colours and Iconography
The Blood Ravens of the 1st, 2nd and 4th Companies wear dark red armour with brown-black trim, green eye lenses and bone/parchment coloured shoulder armour. The 3rd Company wear slightly lighter coloured armour and have green eye lenses. The Chapter symbol is a silhouetted raven in flight, as seen from above, incorporated with a stylized drop of blood within.
[edit] References
- (August 2004) "Index Astartes – Blood Ravens". White Dwarf: North American Edition (295). ISSN 0265-8712.
- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War computer game and associated materials.
- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade computer game and associated materials.
- Goto, Cassern (2004). Dawn of War. Nottingham: Black Library. ISBN 1-84416-152-8.
- Goto, Cassern (2005). Dawn of War: Ascension. Nottingham: Black Library. ISBN 1-84416-285-0.
- Goto, Cassern (2006). Dawn of War: Tempest. Nottingham: Black Library. ISBN 1-84416-399-7.
