The Dornian Heresy - The Bolter and Chainsword

charged with the upkeep of the
environment and for the production of
fresh food for the legion are allowed
access to the surface. The remaining
population labours endlessly in the
buried hive cities, producing the pre-
Heresy patterns of equipment and
weapons demanded by the Emperor‟s
Children. The skill of these artisans in
keeping alive knowledge of patterns
and marks used during the Great
Crusade is unparalleled even, so they
boast, by the Adepts of Mars.
Sadly, despite their best efforts, the
beauty of Chemos has faded over the
millennia. In the absence of the Lord
Fulgrim, entropy has taken a heavy toll
upon the little-understood terraforming
equipment, and catastrophic cave-ins
have scarred the once-pristine world.
In addition to the death-toll, these
disasters have caused irretrievable
losses of ancient technology. For
instance, Persuai sub-hive was
responsible for vital power generation
systems used in mark 3 Iron pattern
power armour. The catastrophic
collapse that destroyed it in late M39
has meant that ever since these suits
have incorporated non-authentic
elements cobbled together from later
marks. To this day, search-teams still
excavate the ruins of Persuai, ever-
The Chemos Curse
From orbit, Chemos was
infamously compared with the
face of “an aging courtesan, far
past her prime but gamely
applying rouge and powder to
cover her pitted, pock-marked
face.” Admiral Markovich,
received orders to patrol the
Ghoul Stars shortly after
uttering this unflattering
witticism, a tour from which his
grand cruiser and escort cadre
never returned. This has led to
an Imperial Navy superstition
that to speak ill of Chemos is
deathly bad luck, and that
anyone doing so is roundly
flogged, be they the lowliest
ship's rating or the commanding
officer.
hopeful that the lost knowledge might
one day be reclaimed.
Combat Doctrine
Marines of the Emperor‟s Children are
expected to be proficient, nay, to excel
in each and every battlefield role. This
means that a battle brother would be
expected to crew a vehicle as capably
as they would fire a heavy weapon or
fight in close combat. Although this is
sought through endless training, as it is
among the other loyal legions, the
Emperor‟s Children add a different
aspect to their regimes – the
incorporation of artistic pursuits.
The most obvious benefit of this is
their approach to close combat. Where
the World Eaters are coldly clinical
and methodical, with each member of
the force meshing together seamlessly,
the Emperor‟s Children have a fluid
grace borne of the study of dance and
poetry. They flow across the
battlefield, darting aside from blows
and bullets before sweeping past their
foes to strike three more before the first
corpse has hit the ground. Officers of
the Emperor‟s Children are renowned
for their powerful rhetorical style,
honed through intense study of the
form and function of literature, poetry
and the oratorical arts.
Their steadfast rejection of
technological developments has meant
that many vehicles commonly used by
the other legions are absent from the
armouries of the Emperor‟s Children.
For them the trusted, ancient marks of
Predator, Rhino and Land Raider are
more than sufficient. Modifications
such as the Tilvius APC or the brutish
Vindicator are looked upon as at best a
corruption of the purity of the
venerable Rhino chassis. Even smaller
variants in weapon system such as the
Predator Dominator and the Land
Raider Incinerator are shunned.
Their laborious production of older
weapons and wargear mean that the
Emperor‟s Children are the only legion
able to field appreciable numbers of
jet-bikes, which they maintain, with
some justification, are more than a
match for the slow and ungainly Land
19
Speeder. Another example of the
superiority of the legion‟s venerable
war-gear is the Raptor jump pack. The
complexity of manufacture and
maintenance of these devices became
prohibitive even for the Legionnes
Astartes. When the STC for the
simpler, but far less effective DH2
pattern jump pack was discovered,
only the Emperor‟s Children opted to
retain the older form in service. Such
rigid adherence to Fulgrim‟s pre-
Heresy vision of perfection, along with
the luxury of limitless access to the
manufacturing base of an entire planet,
is a defining feature of the combat
doctrine espoused by the Emperor‟s
Children.
Organisation
While other legions have increased in
size and adapted their command
structures over the millennia, the
Emperor's Children have defiantly
remained the same. They are composed
of thirty grand companies, the same
number that made up the legion during
the ascension of the Laer campaign.
Each grand company is led by a lord
commander, an instrument of
Fulgrim‟s will, who through his
subordinate captains directs upwards of
a thousand marines. Respect for their
superior officers is ingrained into the
psyche of the Emperor‟s Children, with
each successive rank moving closer to
Lord Fulgrim, and by extension, closer
to an unquestionable ideal.
The excessive care taken over both
gene-seed purity and the calibre of new
recruits has meant that even in the
aftermath of the Istvaan Betrayal, the
Emperor‟s Children have never
compromised their standards simply to
fill out the ranks. Similarly, given the
degree of time and effort required to
produce their venerated wargear, it is
unsurprising that they are by far the
smallest of the Emperor‟s legions.
What they lack in numbers, they say, is
more than compensated for with their
unparalleled skill. This is something
which they are all-too eager to
demonstrate to Astartes of other
legions, be it in the duelling cages, or
on the battlefield against the Emperor‟s
enemies.