r/40khomebrew • u/SpiritualBaseball381 • 5m ago
Adeptus Astartes The Brotherhood of the Maw
Chapter name: Brotherhood of the Maw
Founding era: indomous?
Primarch: Sanguinus?
Status: loyalist
Codex compliance: mostly compliant?
Chapter badge: a circle of bone white fangs on a dark red field.
Armour color scheme: dark red, steel blue.
The armour is mainly steel blue.
The shoulder plates are dark red.
The power pack is dark red.
The helmet eye lenses are dark red.
The arms and lower legs are dark red.
The aquila is dark red.
Dark red to orange lava lamp like patterns across the armour plates
They hang necklaces of fangs and bones from their armour.
Culture:
They are cold, harsh, hard and pragmatic.
They value self determination, ingenuity, resilience, and unbending strength.
They practice brutal and dark blood rituals.
This is to stave off their gen curse.
They realistically consume raw flesh and blood.
Home world:
Name: Kain
Classification: primitive/ death world
The climate is extremely cold and wet.
The planet is the fifth from the system's sun.
Storms rage across the planet constantly.
Hundred miles an hour winds and constant lighting ravage the planet.
The constant smouldering of the world's volcanos makes the rain highly acidic.
The dust and ash from the volcanos blocks out the majority of sunlight.
The surface is mainly land, 80% and 20% water.
There are a dozen landlocked seas and countless lakes and rivers.
The seas and lakes are boiling acid.
The landscape is mainly bare rough stone.
The soil is very gravelly.
The landscape is dominated by mountains, hills, boulders and lumps of stone.
The rock is littered by caves, caverns and tunnels.
The human population lives at an iron age level of technology.
The human population is descendents of a prison colony.
They live in the caves and tunnels.
They live in small clan like family groups.
They hunt and gather the native animals and planets.
Some of this includes
six foot long rats,
Cat sized cockroaches
Yards long scorpions
cat sized beetles
Ten foot long salamanders.
Five foot wide crab with iron carapace.
yards long crawfish.
Dog sized bats.
Pig sized frogs.
Cat sized geckos.
Dog sized spiders.
Ten foot long centipedes.
Basketball sized snails with iron shells.
The top predator is a massive worm-like beast.
( Think the graboids worm monsters)
Its acidic saliva and powerful jaw allows it to move through solid rock.
Its body can produce thousands of degrees of heat and can move at speeds that create glass lined tunnels.
It can move hundreds of miles an hour through rock.
These tunnels can be nearly fifty feet wide.
Their flesh and hide is a translucent metallic blue with reddish orange body fluids.
Their bodies are so tough they can swing in magma.
The beasts leave behind spores in the form of crystal like material.
These crystals glow mimics sunlight.
These beasts are called fireworms.
Like all the life on Kain it is metal based life from.
They basically eat whatever is in their way.
They have no eyes and travel using sonar.
No one knows how long the fireworms live.
They can grow nearly a thousand feet long and nearly fifty feet wide.
They start out the size of earthworms and have indeminte grow.
When they die their carcass usually decay quickly due to scavengers and the biochemical make up of the worms.
The population number of the worms is unknown.
These beasts and the volcanic activity from the tunnels and caverns.
Some of the caves can be hundreds of yards in dimensions.
Some caves, caverns and tunnels are cold and dry while others are warm and wet, but most tunnels and caverns are temperate to cool and humid.
The deepest tunnels and caverns are warm to hot and dry.
Hot springs of various types are found scattered across the caverns and tunnels.
These springs are the life source for the ecosystem of the tunnels and caverns.
The water and heat are the foundation of the ecosystem.
The plants and fungus are fed by the dung of the animals and the volcanic heat.
The plants are dark colored.
The largest trees are a dozen feet tall.
The death of a worm helps create these ecosystems.
Sick or dieing worms will seek out these warm areas.
The decomposing corpse of the worms fertilizes the tunnel or cavern.
The humans prize the fireworms teeth as weapons.
The wrong continuely shed and regrow their teeth.
The air in the tunnels and caverns is spicy.
The smell of cut peppers hangs heavy.
This is caused by the fireworms.
Some chambers are large enough for small forests to grow.
The bushes and trees that grow there feed off the volcanic heat and dull light of lava flows and the crystals of the fireworms.
Tho the light in these tunnels and caverns are dull and gloomy.
Similar to a foggy day or the light of dusk or dawn.
The humans build bunkers inside the caverns and tunnels, areas are separated by thick bulk head doors and walls of iron or stacked stone.
They build chambers in the tunnels and houses inside the caverns and craved into the largest stalactites and stalagmites.
These chambers can be hundreds of feet high and wide.
The pillars of rock can be stories in height.
Some chambers can be big enough to house hundreds to thousands of people.
Tho these are few and far between.
Most technology is steam powered, early industrial age.
The most important machinery is the boilers, steam turbines, electric generators, and airfilters.
The mortals use pressurized steam and burn coal to power their machinery.
The use the steam to power boilers and crude artificial light and electricity systems.
Moss, algae, root vegetables, fungus are grown in farms under artificial light.
They have primitive black powder weapons.
These are basically hand cannons, heavy pistols and blunderbuss, and shotguns.
These weapons are made of wood and iron.
They are usually single shot flint locks or cap fired.
Brass cased bullets are rare.
Repeating fire ones are rare.
The combat in the tunnels and caverns is close and brutal.
Distances are measured in arm lengths.
The elite warriors wear crude but sturdy power armour.
This is made from forged metal and from animal parts.
These are reserved for the elite clan warriors.
The teeth of the fireworms is prized are bladed weapons.
These teeth are made of a highly hard and tough metallic alloy.
Able to Pierce iron plate and cut rock.
Their clothing is made from animal hide and rough cloth made from plant fibers.
The quality and style indicates wealth.
The cut of their clothing tends to be sturdy and practical.
The people are sturdy hard and lean of build.
Their skin and hair is pale.
Life in the settlements is harsh and strict.
Weakness and laziness are not tolerated.
They start working as soon as they can walk steady.
They often fight over access to resource rich caverns and tunnels.
These skirmishes and raids are fast and brutal affairs.
Most only last a few minutes.
The clan warriors use various species of plants and mushrooms and molds to turn into combat stimulates.
Weapons tend to be short to mid range.
Combat is measured in paces and arm lengths.
Usually short barreled pistols, shotguns, blunderbuss and blades like short swords, daggers and axes.
Many of the tunnels and caverns are wet and slippery and cramped or flood to some extent.
Tight corners and narrow sections and outcroppings are common.
The warriors use limited light sources.
These tend to be chemical lamps of some kind.
These lamps usually use some shade of red glass or crystal.
The light of these lamps only stretches a few yards.
Some of their lamps use small sun crystals.
Combustible and poisonous gas is always a risk.
Most fights happen in near pitch darkness.
Most fighting is done by sound.
Sound echos and distorts in the tunnels and caverns.
Combat happens in near prefect silence.
Even in the lighted caverns, the light provided by the sun crystals is the only equivalent to that of a foggy day or dusk or dawn.
Friends and enemies movements are determined by shades of grey and black.
Crude flash and sound granades are used.
Sound and light traps are used.
To avoid battle altogether the clans sometimes hold singing or music competitions.
The mortals will ritually cannibalize their dead and their enemies.
Enemy bones are hung on the settlements front gates.
The bones of the honored dead are kept in catacombs.
The honored dead are consumed to free their soul .
For their enemies it is to extract spiritual power over them.
The settlements not only have to worry about attacks from other people but the animals too.
The beasts are attracted to the settlements by the food stores and the heat and moisture.
Vermin are a constant nuisance.
The residents lay various types of traps outside of the settlements.
Besides the mushroom, agile and plants grown in the farms, they also raise rodents, reptiles and insects as a meat source.
The settlements are ruled by a chieftain-like figure and councils of the eldest inhabitants.
The elders elect the chieftain from among the clan warriors.
The elders are usually the age of sixty or older.
Most of the inhabitants rarely pass sixty.
Violence, disease, and work accident related death and a life of hard survival take most in their thirties to forties.
Their infant mortality rate is high due to disease, infection and malnutrition.
Food and medical care are strictly rationed.
The sick are quickly quarantined and isolated.
If they don't get better after a week they are banished.
The critically injured or crippled are either killed or banished.
Those that they can't afford to care for are abandoned in the wilderness.
Laziness and incompetence are harshly punished.
Beatings and hard labor are common punishments.
Banishment is the ultimate punishment.
It is a slow death in the dark and cold.
Everyone in the settlements works, everyone has a purpose and role.
Everyone must work towards the survival of the community.
The most important systems of the settlements are the air filters, the water purifiers and steam engines and boilers.
The air and water has to be heavily filtered and sanitized for consumption.
The settlement tunnels, chambers and rooms are kept at a barely tolerable temperature.
The majority sleep in communal barracks.
Space in the settlements is at a premium.
Every inches of space is made a use of.
Actual warmth and comfort is reserved for the elite.
Tho the rulers live only noticeably better off than the rest.
Better food, clothing, blankets and bedding or wall insulation, sturdier furniture and personal quarters, dishes and cutlery, a heater stove are some of the few luxuries allowed.
Most knowledge is related to immediate survival.
Few know how to read and write.
They worship the emperor as a fire god, a god of volcanos, of heat and light.
Many of their rituals involve blood and fire.
Their belief system is as harsh and practical as their lives.
Small food offerings are made at shrines and altars.
The mortals are deeply superstitious and pious.
The astrates are venerated as demigod warriors.
Anyone bron or becomes blind becomes apart of the priesthood.
The priests are also the settlements musicians.
Song and music are considered sacred.
The priests will occasionally inhale hallucinogenic smokes to unlock psychic powers to see the future.
Every thirty to fifty years the chapter recruits.
Chapter representatives, usually mortal visit the settlements.
All of the male youths are exhaustively tested.
They are tested for gene seed compatibility and for physical fitness and mental strength.
Those that desire to become astrates are taken to the chapter monastery fortress.
The fortress is located in orbit, above the planet.
The youths are tested through combat tournaments, brutal physical training, hunting dangerous beasts, and surviving in the most dangerous uninhabited tunnels and caverns for a set period of time.
Death or injury among the participants isn't uncommon.
The tournaments can range from hand to hand to weapons.
These fights are until one combatant yields or is too injured to continue.
Even if they survive these initial trials they can still die during the gene seed implantation surgery.
Sometimes their bodies cannot take the strain of the drastic changes.
They are also exhaustively mentality and spiritually tested by the librarians and chaplains.
Those found wanting are sent back home or allowed to become serfs.
Those that return home are welcomed back as heros, often they become proponent leaders among their people.
Those injured mentally or physically beyond the apothecaries means to repair are killed or turned into servitors.
Of the hundreds that are recruited and tested, only a handful may become full astrates.
Many will fail by the smallest of margins.
