Emperor's Nightmare

This chapter symbol, dubbed "owlglass", is the currently (02/07/11) accepted version, but may change at some point. Note: The body of the owl is that of an hourglass combined with the infinity symbol.

The Emperor's Nightmare Chapter is what happens when a fa/tg/uy with the Chapter Creation tables from Rites of Battle calls for people to roll the dice. Hilarity ensues, but the outcome is awesome as fuck. Basically, insomniac narcoleptic Raven Guard successors that battle chaos awake and asleep.

After much arguing (and in order to address the issue of how they can be stealthy while doing their the shock and awe/pride in the colors thing), it was decided to split the color schemes into two distinct subgroups now known as Battlegroup Primus ("The Dawn", shock and awe tactics) and Battlegroup Secundus ("The Dusk", stealth and black ops). Colors can be found in the gallery below.

Fluffy bits

Founded in the 39th Millennium, on the Hive World of Icelus as a successor Chapter to the vaunted Raven Guard. They have taken to parent chapter's talent for stealth in the duty to the Emperor. Oddly enough, their gene seed bears a strange Catalepsean Node mutation that causes long bouts of sleeplessness alternating with long coma-like rests. This mutation would almost be unremarkable except for the chapter's close connection to the Scholastica Psykana. It is said that the Marines continue to fight on even in their long rests battling the machinations of the Warp alongside the Psykana. Some Marines even awaken to claim to have fought side by side with the Emperor himself. These claims have attracted the attention of certain members of the Inquisition, and not always for the better...

Their Chapter Master, a former Raven Guard captain who got his own chapter after single-handedly slaying a Tzeentchian daemon prince, is dreadnoughted at the Fortress Monastery of Betten-Burgen and cannot be roused from his slumber. The Wake, a council of senior marines (not necessarily captains, as it cannot be guaranteed that they will be awake at any given time) governs the chapter's day to day activities. The August Dreamwalkers In Iron aka Venerable Dreadnoughts are said to be fighting chaos in their dreams, aided by chapter librarians as well as Scholastica psykers and diviner serfs.

The Emperor's Nightmare are greatly respected on their homeworld. Purple and yellow are the regal colors of Icelus, and only the planetary governor and the noble families closest to the court may wear clothes with those colors. On festive occasions, the hives fly great banners of purple and gold, and a procession on Emperor's day is always accompanied by a few Nightmare Marines from Primus Company. This has led to the color purple being named "Astarte" in local dialect and, when the inhabitants refer to the stars, it is 'gleaming yellow on a curtain of deep purple'. The colors have become a metaphor for space, and the universe itself. They are also used to dress the PDF. The members are mostly just paraded around in their funny regal hats with purple feathers but they're also trained to the highest standard possible and overseen by members of the Emperor's Nightmares themselves.

Organization

Chapter Master Randolphus: First and only Chapter Master. Entombed within a dreadnought but his mind has been stolen by Tzeentchian sorcery.

The Wake: The council of viziers that commands the chapter until such time as Randolphus' mind can be returned to him. It is nominally comprised of the two Lord Adjutants, the Chief Apothecary, Master of Sanctity, Chief Librarian, Master of the Forge and five of the Night Owls Venerable Dreadnoughts for a total of 11 voting members. However, meetings at full strength are so rare as to be worthy of note in the annals, since such a gathering is dependent upon all visiers being awake at the same time. Usually, Resting viziers are substituted for by trusted associates, though it has on occassion come to pass that so many viziers and associates were resting at the same time that marines further down the chain of command (though usually still of veteran rank) were called upon to fill the seats.

Apothecaries: In addition to their normal duties they are primarily charged with keeping as many members of the chapter's circadian rhythms stable as possible. They must be able to recognize the signs of the Sleeplessness early on. The five or six Apothecary dreadnoughts in the chapter work in pairs to herd units of the Sleepless brothers into battle and carry heavy duty sedatives to subdue them should they turn on their own.
Chaplains: Considering the chapter the chaplains are actually pretty normal. They are responsible for carrying the chapter's relics into battle and for maintaining the Nightmares' ties to their homeworld and traditions. Unsurprisingly the light of the Astronomicon features heavily in their dogma.
Techmarines: In addition to normal duties they are tasked, for the chapter's safety, to halfway deconstruct each Waking Dead Dreadnought between battles. (These are stripped of their weaponry and power sources and are trapped within the calm, night-like blackness of the sarcophagus.)

The Battlegroups Primus and Secundus: The Emperor's Nightmare divide their strength into two battlegroups of similar structure but wildly different doctrine. Both consist of four companies organized after Codex patterns, though of more than standard strength. This deviation from the codex is accounted for by the practice of not counting Resting marines, though nominally active members of their company, against the company limit imposed by the Codex. Two company captains, one from each battlegroup, are elected Lord Adjutant, and serve to represent battlegroups in the Wake.; Battlegroup Primus is the chapter's mighty fist and exemplifies the shock and awe tactics the chapter uses to great effect.; Battlegroup Secundus stands in stark contrast to Primus in that it follows a doctrine of stealth rather than shock. In this, the heritage of the Raven Guard doctrine can be seen as "breeding true".; Because any given marine might spontaniously fall asleep with only a minute or so's notice, every marine must be fully trained to cover for any of his battle brothers. Even to the point of knowing how to land the Thunderhawk and doing some basic combat maneuvers with it. The techmarines might even instruct their brothers in matters they otherwise wouldn't, like a rotating cast of aprentices maintaining the dreadnoughts. Additionally each marine takes care of his own wargear. Every single squad is technically a tactical squad, who occasionally or even somewhat frequently don jump packs.

Scout company: Nominally separate from either battlegroup, the chapter's scouts field along Secundus deployments more often than Primus.

Veteran company: Called "Night Owls", the veteran company is independent from the larger battlegroups, even though it is comprised of marines originally hailing from either. It is the organizational home of the chapter's dreadnoughts, of which there is currently a pool of fifty eight chassis, all but two of which are inhabited. Dreadnought chassis are most often perminantly seconded to companies of Battlegroup Primus where they are repainted with company colours and organized into squads bearing codex approved devastator markings. The very oldest of the dreadnoughts remaining among the Night Owls often have spent so much time battling the forces of chaos awake as well as asleep that their prowess is no longer limited to either the Emyprean or the real world; these "August Dreamwalkers" possess great psychic potential and are greatly revered, not only for their age and valor.

Sleepless: Not included in the official roster are the Sleepless, those marines who are completely unable to sleep and have been driven insane. These warriors are not uncommon, but once their inability to find rest at all is realized by the Chapter, they are considered dead, stricken from the chapter's list of serving marines, with a scout promoted in their place. (Of course the apothecaries and chaplains keep an unofficial tally of how many Sleepless there are.) These tragic souls are organized into their own special assault squads and released ahead of the main battlegroup, so that in death they might find their well-deserved rest. Sleepless are overseen by pairs of August Dreamwalkers in Iron, operating in tandem. In the event one of the dreadnoughts falls into slumber, the other can remain active. These overseers are also outfitted with outsized narthecum as their close-combat weapons, possibly granting some sort of poison effect as they deliver crippling doses of power tranquilizers and depressants. These are the only thing that can sedate the Sleepless, and only enough to pacify.

Dreadnoughts

There are four basic groups of dreadnoughts in the Emperor's Nightmare.

The first and foremost are the August Dreamwalkers in Iron: Librarian dreadnoughts, Warp Guides and storytellers.
Second are the other specialist dreadnoughts: a few Chaplain and Techmarine dreadnoughts, but mostly Apothecary dreadnoughts who carry out comparable duties for the Sleepless as the Blood Angels Chaplains do for their Death Company. They have specially made nartheciums that deliver usually-lethal doses of powerful sedatives and they care for their Sleepless brothers with the care and tenderness of a reverend scattering ashes on a grave.
Third are the fire support dreadnoughts, fullfilling the tactical role of devastators in other chapters. There are at least a few rifleman dreadnoughts per company, and a pool of other dreadnoughts at the command of each Lord Adjutant. The fire support dreadnoughts are actually being permanantly seconded to individual companies, and bear codex devastator squad markings and numbers as if they were part of that company. The hero inside is from that company and the dreadnought is only part of the Night Owls in the sense that this is where the sarcophagus came from.
Last are the Waking Dead. The Sleepless dreadnoughts. The node decay can overtake a Marine at any point in his life, and these tortured souls not only have to cope with the horrors of hyperawareness and fluidity, they have to do it through infrared autosenses, sound amplification devices and enhanced hydraulics. They see and experience a reality others cannot even begin to imagine. They are by far the most dangerous weapon the chapter has at its disposal but their insane, unpredictable intelligence, lost grasp on reality and obscene combat skill make them an extreme safety and security risk to the entire chapter. More than one strike cruiser has been destroyed entirely by a Sleepless dreadnought using their flawless knowledge from counting every rivet of the ship to evade recapture while slaughtering what it was convinced were vile traitors from the Word Bearers legion trying to take over the engine room...

Some of these Dreadnoughts are known as Stealthnoughts. Found in Secundus Companies, they excel at hiding from enemies' sight, using their incredible perception to work out where the opponent is not looking and simply stand there. Thanks to stummers, chassis modifications and the machinations of the Techmarines, they are silent as the grave and disturbingly agile.

Glossary

Dreamers: Nightmares with psychic potential. Not powerful enough to become librarians, but they have a degree of warp sensitivity and are trained by the librarians and psykana to better control their lucid dreams and more clearly understand the portents and prophecies they dream. When lucid dreaming they may explore the warp in a manner not dissimilar to astral projection.
Dreamwalkers: These are the dreamers who are astrally projecting themselves into the warp. The August Dreamwalkers in Iron are the librarian dreadnoughts that act as dream guides when exploring the warp, even moreso than normal librarians do. They spend whole centuries asleep and roaming the warp with their minds before being woken again and called to battle once more.
Librarians: Shepherds, guiding the dreamers. Loremasters and scryers. They project their minds into the immaterium to safeguard their dreamer brothers and to act as messengers between the real world and minds dreaming in the warp.
Lucid Dreams: These are simply dreams you can control. (The visions of the future, the prophecies that the dreamers sometimes get, are almost entirely OUT of the dreamer's control and just get forced into their mind for them to experience whether they want to or not.)
Rest: Battle brothers who are unable to sleep may still rest by meditating with their blindfolds. This, along with drug supplements from the apothecaries, keeps the marines surprisingly healthy.
Sleep: The circadian rhythms of the Nightmares are extremely strange. The exact length of time in the cycle is difficult to predict but most healthy nightmares average about one month of active duty followed by one month of a coma like sleep. They may dream, and may recieve prophetic visions occasionally, but for the most part it is a fugue and there is little brain activity.
Sleepers: A catch-all term for any Nightmare that is not awake.
Watchers: Wakened marines, preferably ones who have just woken who are unlikely to fall asleep again any time soon. They stand guard over their sleeper and dreamer brothers. Think of them as an honour guard for everyone currently in a coma for whatever reason. Some watchers hide amongst the sleepers and pretend to be asleep themselves while others guard doors and so on. Any marine, pretty much regardless of rank, may be called upon to perform the duties of a watcher at one time or another.

Crunchy bits

Chapter History: 39th Millenium Founding
Chapter Progenitor: Raven Guard
Chapter Purpose: Standing
Chapter Demeanour: "See, But Don't be Seen."
Stat Bonuses: +5 Perception, +5 Intelligence
Gene-Seed Purity: Mostly Pure
Gene-Seed Deficiency: Mutated Catalepsean Node leading to greatly skewed circadian rhythm (weeks or months of insomnia followed by nigh comatose sleep)
Chapter Flaw: Pride in the Colours
Organization: Slight deviation from Codex, mostly organizational. Company strength is set at more than standard to ensure combat readiness even when 30-50% percent of a given company are Resting at a given time.
Combat Doctrine: Shock and Awe. Bombardment by battlebarge followed by large-scale drop-pod and Thunderhawk deployment
Restriction: Cannot be Devastator. Ranged fire support outside of specially equipped Tactical squads is entirely given over to Dreadnoughts and vehicles.
Special Equipment: Totem (see Trappings)
Chapter Belief: Honor the Ancestors. These include exemplars such as the Chapter Master, the August Dreamwalkers and similar veterans.
Chapter Founding Father: Chapter Master Randolphus, a Raven Guard captain who slew the Tzeentchian Daemon Prince Khaliman
Chapter Strength: Nominal (by Chapter standards, slightly above by Codex standards, see fluff on Battlegroups)
Chapter Homeworld: Hive, Wasteland
Chapter Rule: By Stewardship. The ruling hive elites are put in place by and report directly to the Wake, but little effort is made to shape policy beyond what is necessary to meet the chapter's need for supplies and recruits.
Chapter Friendship: Scholastica Psykana, providing much-needed support for the marines' fitful sleep-battles in the Empyrean
Chapter Enemy: Khaliman, the very same Daemon Prince of Tzeentch slain in M39 by then- Raptors 4th Company Captain Randolphus. Following this mighty deed Randolphus' broken body was entombed within the mighty iron sarcophagus of a dreadnought and seconded to the newly created Nightmares to be their first leader. After serving the Emperor in this fashion for many centuries one of the powerful minions of Khaliman sought revenge for its master and stole away Randolphus' mind with foul Tzeentchian sorcery. The Nightmare continues to hunt down Khaliman's minions in hopes of one day restoring their founding father to his rightful glory.
Chapter Battlecry: "NO REST, NO REMORSE, NO RETREAT!" (standard); "TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO DREAM!" (battle cry of the Sleepless)

Advance Table: Behold our Wrath

Intimidate 100 xp
- Intimidate +10 100 xp
  - Intimidate +20 100 xp
Interrogation 100 xp
- Interrogation +10 100 xp
  - Interrogation +20 100 xp
Iron Jaw 300 xp
Duty Unto Death 700 xp
Crushing Blow 500 xp
Double Team 100 xp

Solo & Squad Mode Abilities

Secrets of Fluidity (Chapter Solo Ability): In lesser men, the long periods of insomnia and sleep deprivation would induce madness within a few days, and even a Marine can only go on for so long. But for a Nightmare, the time between Rests can easily stretch on for more than a month, and the abnormal activity of the Catalepsean Node that keeps him awake during this time also provides him with reflexes well beyond the norm.; While in Solo Mode, the Battle Brother is considered to have the Lightning Reflexes Talent.; At Rank 3, the battle brother receives a +10 to all Dodge tests.; At Rank 5, the battle brother is considered to have the Rapid Reaction Talent.; At Rank 7, once per game session the battle brother may automatically pass any one Agility based test. (For purposes of opposed rolls they are considered to have rolled a 01.)

Oath of Vengeance (Chapter Squad Attack Pattern): Action: Free Cost: 1 Sustained: No; When any member of the Kill-team suffers Damage the Character receives a +4 bonus to damage rolls against the attacker.; At rank 5 this ability may be sustained.

Courage Under Fire (Chapter Squad Defensive Pattern): Action: Free Cost: 0 Sustained: No; The battle brother inspires those under his command to press on in the face of danger. When this ability is used the battle brother and any within support range of him may immediately recover from being pinned.; At rank 4, those under the effect of this ability may also make a Half-move as a free action.

Chapter Trappings

Totemic Charm

Blindfold of the Ebon Sight

The marine may don his blindfold (helmet must be removed) and place himself in a meditative state, doing so will allow him to reduce his battle fatigue by 1 point every 30 mins. While in this state marine suffers a -20 to perception tests.

Book of Reveries

Once per gaming session the marine my make a hard difficulty (-10 or -20 by GM ruling) intelligence role to gain any insight into overcoming his current foe. Each degree of success grants additional info although any such knowledge will be in the form of dreams and portents.

Dreamcatcher

The Dreamcatcher is a personal charm woven by the battle brother himself and used to both as protection and focus during sleep. Each marines dreamcatcher is individual and reflects his current self view, there are 3 broad types the Dreamcatcher can take;

Dreamcatcher of Great Portent: +3 to Tactics (Any)

Dreamcatcher of the Vigilant Ancestor: +3 to Dodge

Dreamcatcher of Subtle Insights: +3 to Awareness

The marine may reweave his Dreamcatcher however doing so requires at least a day of private meditation and supplication. A marine can only reweave his Dreamcatcher after;

A harrowing mission were by he returns with less than half the fate points he began it with.

A fellow battle brother was slain during the mission (even if the marine eventually becomes a dreadnought)

He increase Rank

Tabletop

For tabletop, it has been pointed out that Blood Angels are a good codex, what with the Death Company standing in for the Nightmare's raging, wide awake assault troops, the Librarian Dreads as counts-as for the August Dreamwalkers In Iron, and fast vehicles that mirror the twitch reflexes of Nightmare marines in their Waking cycle.

Gallery

This metallic quartered scheme is the generally accepted livery of Battlegroup Primus.
The non-metallic rendition of the Battlegroup Primus scheme.
The original baseline scheme for Battlegroup Secundus. Unto this, appropriate camoflage is applied.
Another proposal for the Primus color scheme. Has been considered too stark, and the inverse trim seems to ruffle people's jimmies.
Proposal of a stealthy scheme for Secundus.
Livery scheme for Battlegroup Secundus
Secundus proposal.
Secundus Marine.
Icelus Dreadnought Concept.

Icelus Dreadnought Concept.