Brotherhood of the Megalith

Brotherhood of the Megalith

Battle Cry	Deep, awe-inspiring growls thought to be the name of each singular marine
Number	Unknown
Founding	Unknown
Successors of	Blood Angels
Successor Chapters	None
Chapter Master	Quogh-Haab
Primarch	Sanguinius
Homeworld	Kaneq
Strength	1000
Allegiance	Imperium
Colours	Blue-Grey and Pale Yellow

The Brotherhood of the Megalith are another product of fat/tg/uys playing around with the Chapter Creation tables from Rites of Battle. After a lot of dice rolling, the results came in; a Blood Angels successor chapter that, due to the extreme isolation of their frozen feral world, have embraced the feral culture of their world. In other words, Caveman Marines!

Fluffy Bits

Short summary:

-Amongst the first successors of the Blood Angels, but no imperial authority has managed to successfully keep record of their foundation date.

-Based in a fortress-monastery called The Megalith, a colossal tower emerging from a glacier, most likely the only accessible part of a gigantic complex built by a now extinct civilization. Their base world is a nameless, eternally frozen world entirely devoid of life, located in the same system as Kaneq, their primary recruiting world.

-Even though most of the chapter's forces come from Kaneq, they occasionally recruit from other worlds. The Captain Ishmaël of the scout company, for instance, one of the oldest figures of the chapter, does not hail from Kaneq, but most likely from Baal itself.

-The chaplains often watch the inter-tribes battles of the natives from afar, selecting potential recruits amongst the youngest warriors. Because of this, they are respected and feared by the primitive peoples, who see them as mythological characters and sometimes create epics based off their deeds.

-They completely lack librarians, and psykers are extremely rare in the population of Kaneq, even though nobody knows the actual reason of this phenomenon, the chapter has adapted to it.

-The chapter does not in consequence have a Librarium, and has to rely on low-orbit astropathic beacons to send and receive messages

-The Brotherhood's chaplains are called the Angakut (Angakok singular) and combine their usual functions with those of librarians. They are exclusively recruited amongst the natives of Kaneq, in the families of the local Angakut who shaped and influenced the chapter's traditions. The Chapter's Angakut are believed by their subordinates to be able to predict the future, despite not being psykers.

-Resulting from an early attempt at curing the Black Rage and the Red Thirst, their transformation protocol does not involve blood transfusion, but surgery, organ-transplantation and hypnotherapy. In order to activate the development of these implants, they do however have to consume the Blood of Sanguinius, traditionally injected in the meat of a wild beast that their initiation required them to hunt down, feed upon, protect from competitors and carrion-eaters, and eventually bring back to an Angakok, so that they can consume its frozen, blood-infused flesh during a feast.

-In spite of this endeavour, the Curse has not been cured at all. Worse, the marines burdened by the Black Rage devolve into a beast-like state and undergo minor physical transformations, such as their eyelids and lips falling off, or their bones suddenly growing. They sometimes develop fangs and claws. These creatures are called the Wendigowak (Wendigo singular) and are left to wander freely on Kaneq, seemingly able to live during several years before dying from their mutation. They are rarely able to use firearms or to communicate, and are dreaded by the natives, who erect stone totems to ward them off. As the Brothers' hypno-conditioning ingrains them with a subconscious repulsion towards these specific totems, the Wendigowak do in fact very rarely attack human settlements, and are never hunted in return. When needed, the Chapter's Angakut gather them and guide them into battle, which requires luring them with large preys, chaining them up and sedating them. Even then, the Angakut are the only individuals able to effectively control a Wendigo. Before a battle, each Wendigo is authorized to eat the corpse of deceased native heroes and to wear their flayed skin over their armor, as well as their engraved bones. They are known to perform cannibalism and other acts of brutality upon their enemies.

-Each marine is given a ritual name composed of a single syllab, when he becomes a true Brother of the Megalith. They refer to each other by their usual name, and only use their sacred name during important rituals. Their battlecry also consists of each marine shouting his own ritual name in a powerful, guttural growl.

-The chapter doesn't have a sanguinary guard, but its Vanguard Veterans occasionally have a similar role, and are called the Dawnriders. They are recognizable to their archaic backpack, similar to a pre-heresy Raptor jump pack , sculpted in the shape of a pterosaur's wings.

-All marines wear pelts and bones over their armor, which is often made of local minerals similar to ceramite and engraved or painted with ritual markings. Similarly, high-ranking officers often have a short stone totem or slab on top of their backpack instead of a banner.

-They do in fact consider certain types of stone as sacred, and use them to craft weapons or armors because of their specific properties. Hence the quite widespread use of large stone powerclubs and power-axes. They even consider the Megalith as a material equivalent of the Emperor, and some of the oldest Brothers often claim to hear His Voice when left alone in the Megalith.

-Their beliefs, perhaps motivated by the natives' reminiscence of their cultural regression, is mostly based around successive transgressions, and a quest for personal evolution. They consider that, given their population's primitive state, it is their duty as servants of the Emperor to overcome it, to become more than men, and ultimately more than marines by ascending to godhood and communing with the Emperor, which is why the curse of the Wendigo is considered a dishonor that has to be transformed into a mystic trance through the consumption of the sanctified flesh of heroes. Incorporating and mastering one's environment into oneself is in fact a means for them to evolve on an individual scale. For instance: extracting stone, sculpting it, carving it, and weaponizing it, wearing the remains of a powerful beast, inhabiting a hostile stone fortress and converting it into a base of operations, absorbing and developing Astartes organs, and covering one's own body with tattoos and scarifications. All of these practices are based on the idea of manipulating and transforming elements to eventually incorporate them and refine themselves. Such beliefs are often ignored by rival chapters that mock the Brothers' culture, while other ones, such as the Salamanders, value their customs and philosophy. So far, the chapter never had to deal with the Inquisition, and has only recorded a few exceptional cases of heresy from marines corrupted by Tzeentch or even Hashut.

Crunchy Bits

Chapter History: Unknown Founding
Chapter Progenitor: Blood Angels
Chapter Purpose: Standing Force
Gene Seed Purity: A New Generation
Chapter Demeanor: Suffer Not the Alien to Live
Stat Bonuses: +2 Wounds and +5 to any characteristic
Figure of legend: Battle brother of the 7th Company, First Squad
Deed of legend: He led his Chapter in glorious battles throughout the galaxy, slaying many of the enemy's champions. In the end, he was killed by an Assassin on the field of battle. Because of this, the Chapter harbors hatred towards the Officio Assassinorum.
Codex Chapter: Unique organisation
Chapter Restrictions: Lacks Librarians
Chapter Special Equipment: Preferred fighting style
Chapter Homeworld: Kaneq, a Feral Ice World
Chapter Rule: Distant
Chapter Friendship: Mortifactors
Chapter Enemy: Specific Chaos Daemon
Combat Doctrine: Terror tactics
Chapter Belief: Esoteric Beliefs
Chapter Status: Nominal
Chapter Advance: Knowledge is Power