WD 361 -- A Thounsand Sons // Blood Ravens

[MightyOrang]

page 13 description of McNeill's forthcoming A Thousand Sons notes that the chapter is split ... and that one faction is the 'enigmatic Corvidae'.

According to Wikipedia:

Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs and nutcrackers.[1][2] The common English name used is corvids (more technically) or the crow family (more informally), and there are over 120 species. The genus Corvus, including the crows and ravens, makes up over a third of the entire family.



Soooo ... we know the Blood Ravens aren't a spin off of the Ravenguard and we know they follow the 'unknown Primarch' ... and we know their origins as a 'traitor' legion spin off are hinted at ... and we know they have a lot of librarians ...

So is this the book that gives us the origins of the Blood Ravens?

Ok ... back to the Snowpocalypse here on the East Coast.

[Ordo]

wow. i never thought of that. thats really clever, and the fated fifth company

[Madness]

Well it was hinted at for a while tbh. Specially considering the emphasis on librarians and with them losing a librarian to chaos in the first dow.

It's still not written in stone tho.

[Vindur]

Also the Captain of the first company that Magnus sent to terra to warn the emperor that got lost in the warp suspiciously has the same name as the first chapter master of the Blood Ravens

[Marshal2Crusaders]

Great! Now even GW is violating the rules of DIY-ing. The influx of loyalist traitor chapters will be insane....

[Drew da Destroya]

You were already getting Loyalist-traitors thanks to Legion. Don't go giving Alpharius Omegon's thunder to the Thousand Ravens!

[fuzzbuket]

sound cool

would this be cool in chaos rising or other DOW all but 1 libby is wiped out and calls on his pre hersy loyalist company to kill the enemy:D

[david5th]

It's hinted in Dawn Of War tempest in a confrontation with Ahirman and a Blood Ravens Librarian.

[sangrail777]

Wow, thats cool. hadn't been paying much attention to the Blood Ravens fluff but this all makes sense. Question though what was the First chapter Masters name?

[Bikeninja]

What is this fated fifth company and where can I read some the fluff for this? I think I have the Blood Ravens novels but I only have DOW II. Sounds pretty cool. I just want read the coolness for my self.

[MightyOrang]

The DOW omnibus has the meat of the pre-history, if memory serves ... i've read too many Black Library books and it's all starting to overlap now ...

[odmiller]

The Blood Ravens novels are thick with the hints about the Thousand Sons. Tons. Although some people refused to believe, mostly because the idea is "heresy", the novels all but spelled it out. It's nice to see the tie even more officially established though.

[david5th]

Character in A Thousand Sons who can see the future mention " Ravens of Blood " .

[Dark_Templar]

Wow, sounds interesting.

Although I have trouble becoming interested in video-game marines, it sounds like these ties could make for a good story, and possibly get me over my bias.

[Kesher]

page 13 description of McNeill's forthcoming A Thousand Sons notes that the chapter is split ... and that one faction is the 'enigmatic Corvidae'.

According to Wikipedia:

Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs and nutcrackers.[1][2] The common English name used is corvids (more technically) or the crow family (more informally), and there are over 120 species. The genus Corvus, including the crows and ravens, makes up over a third of the entire family.



Soooo ... we know the Blood Ravens aren't a spin off of the Ravenguard and we know they follow the 'unknown Primarch' ... and we know their origins as a 'traitor' legion spin off are hinted at ... and we know they have a lot of librarians ...

So is this the book that gives us the origins of the Blood Ravens?

Ok ... back to the Snowpocalypse here on the East Coast.

Now that is some serious detective work.

[odmiller]

Now that is some serious detective work.

Here's a summary of the background before A Thousand Sons. I got tired of arguing in threads so saved it!

Serious SPOILERS below!!!!!

Blood Raven origins - Spoilers from DoW books included
________________________________________
After reading the Dawn of War series, specifically the last 2, it seems that all signs are pointing to the Blood Ravens being Thousand Sons successors. Now this has often been postulated and discarded as impossible, but the last two books almost hit you over the head the supporting evidence.

As a general recap:

- Blood Ravens have a very high number of Librarians
- Blood Ravens are continually thirsting for knowledge, to the point that it's come many times to the Inquisition's notice
- Blood Ravens don't know their Primarch, just their Father Librarian
- Their history has been purposefully obscured
- One squad/company disappeared into the Eye of Terror, led by their Librarian, in search of knowledge

Revealed in Ascension
- Blood Ravens in the far past built a recruiting world outpost on top of an earlier marine outpost
- This earlier marine outpost was built during the time of the Heresy. It was built by marines in Red Armor (T Sons, Blood Angels, or word bearers?).
- These marines were able to work with the Eldar to set magic and psychic wards to lock a Necron force in Psychic Stasis
- These Heresy Era marines were tasked by the Eldar with guarding this galaxy wide threat, but they mysteriously left abandoned the planet and it was never recorded again in Imperial records until the Blood Ravens took it back over
- Finally, the Eldar still remember working with the Heresy Era marines, and mistake the Blood Ravens as being one and the same

Revealed in the Tempest
- The Blood Ravens can field entire squads of Librarians and even have a secret inner circle of Librarians sort of like the DA Deathwing, who hold knowledge not spread throughout the rest of the Chapter
- The Blood Ravens resent the Imperial Fists, and even have a secret tome written about the un-founding, explaining how those Founding chapters aren't necessarily all they're cracked up to be
- The Blood Ravens Father Librarian Vidya was known to Arhiman of the Thousand Sons
- Arhiman hints that the Blood Ravens Librarians' bear the same color as the T-Sons as more than a coincidence, it's based on the Rubric of Arhiman
- Ahriman is intimately familiar with the details of the founding of the Blood Ravens, but doesn't explain how
- Ahriman of the Thousand Sons, the Eldar and the Harlequins, and the Blood Ravens of old and their Father Librarian are all very linked in the ancient times

So, here's my theory based on all this circumstantial evidence...

1) The Thousand Sons were the marines working with the Eldar to secure the Necron during the Heresy. This never came to notice in the rest of the Imperium either because of the start of the Heresy, or because they kept it secret. This is why these "red marines" would leave their responsibilities to guard one of the greatest threats in the universe....they were fighting the rest of the Imperium and were driven into the eye.

2) The Blood Ravens were founded before or during the Heresy by a Senior Librarian of the Thousand Sons. Whether he (Father Vidya) split from the Thousand Sons before over the ends and means in the pursuit of knowledge, or the split did not occur until the Heresy is unknown. It could be that they were a splinter known to be loyal by the powers that be and were allowed to found a new Chapter, or it could be that they had already separated themselves.

3) Father Vidya had many of the same studious, searching tendencies as his old Legion, but while the T Sons turned down the evil road in anger and to cure the Rubric, his searches of knowledge remained benign.

4) He worked again with the Eldar to craft another powerful anti-Necron weapon, stored in the Blood Raven's battle barge and to lock the Necron in another place in the galaxy.

5) Although his passion for research and the rituals were maintained, Vidya's actual knowledge were gradually buried over time, but unlike all the other Chapters, their origins were deliberately obscured, for obvious reasons.


This is what we knew/thought before the HH Novel. A Thousand Sons has lots of confirming points of evidence. Again SPOILERS below!!!

1) The Corvidae (Ahriman belongs to this Cult) are obviously named for Ravens, but additionally, its members actually have Ravens' Heads emblazoned on their shoulder pads. They are also the Guardians of the great Library.

2) The Possessed Remembrancer glimpses the future of Prospero "...the lost sons and a Raven of Blood. They cry out for Salvation and Knowledge but it is denied?..."

3) Before the Wolves arrive for the seige, 4 Thousand Sons battle barges and their attendant Squadrons of strike cruisers are sent off by Magnus in different directions so they cannot interfere in the Seige. They have special sealed orders for their Captains to open once they have arrived at their destinations. We never learn the the orders, or who was on them.

Sooo, The Blood Ravens novels had been pretty heavy handedly pointing at the relationship, but A Thousand Sons makes it clear. The Blood Ravens are the decendents of the Thousand Sons.

[Kieranator K82]

On that note about the Red Marines, the Word Bearers can be ruled out, as they wore black armour before they fled to the Eye of Terror. And the Blood Angels are highly unlikely to be the Legion that the Blood Ravens are from as the Ravens do not suffer from the Black Rage.

All in all, that leaves only the Thousand Sons.

[Ordo]

well if anyone has read the thousand sons book. it says near the end a raven covered in blood, and the corvidae wich is a ult of the thousand sons has a ravens head with a blood drop on there armor.

[aNomaly]

That's an interesting idea, but I don't buy it.

The Corvidae were the diviners of the future within the Thousand Sons, and Ahriman was their leader. Is it likely that the "bloody raven" was a portent of their own demise?

How would the Blood Ravens have come about?
The Thousand Sons were on Prospero, then went straight to the eye, and then Ahriman's rubric was cast.
Would some Imperial with the invasion force have actually saved the geneseed from fallen Sons??

[pgarfunkle]

Well there could have been a chapter or 2's worth of marines on the ships sent away from prospero by magnus before the battle. However I guess we'll have to wait for the next book to find out what happened to them.

[trackanddice]

Thanks everyone that have put up reasons, thories ect. I have played Blood Ravens since the first Dawn of War game and never quite had a clue where they came from. Now thinking maybe i have a thing about the not so whiter than white chapters since the other army i play is Dark Angels. Maybe i should just go whole hog and start a Chaos Marine army.

Although on a side note, in the Dawn of War games wasn't there wargear called the hammer of Dorn and the Baal something? Which would point towards Imperial Fists and Blood Angels (Been a while since i played now) Was that just dodgy non GW staff writing fluff or something more?

[Melissia]

Read the background for those pieces of equipment. They aren't necessarilly actually indicative of the Blood Ravens being linked to those chapters.

In fact, several chapters actually hate the Blood Ravens for some of the wargear they have. IIRC there was a power axe which had fluff describing how it was named in homage to Russ, but the Space Wolves did not take kindly to it.

[trackanddice]

Thanks.

And it's good to know the chapter you play is gonna be as popular as me at a party!

[BlackKnight15624]

Just to bring up another point: If the Blood Ravens are the descendants of the Thousand Sons, then why do they not suffer from the Flesh Change? It was implied in A Thousand Sons that the warp entity that Magnus entreated allowed the flesh change to affect the remaining Thousand Sons during the Siege. Going by this, it would be logical to follow that any Thousand Sons off-planet (vis-a-vis the Blood Ravens) would start suffering form the Flesh Change once Magnus' treaty was up.

[david5th]

In Blood Ravens - The Dawn Of War Omnibus there is a short story called ' The Trials Of Isador ' set inbetween the orignal DOW and Ascension. Basically Gabriel is given Isadors journal of the events on Tartarus by Prathios which had kept for safe keeping after Isadors death.

In it Isador mentions Librarian Prothius and his study of the Fall of Magnus and Prospero and how this is similar to Cyrene. Isador also claims that Azariah Vidya like Magnus should be a the Model for the Blood Ravens and not The Emperor who he considered to be weak willed.

There is more but cannot go through all of it but another piece of the puzzle it seems.

[Forhekset]

Dunno if it's been mentioned but from playing the games, Davian Thule discovered some information on Kronus so impactful that it shattered his faith in the chapter - he destroyed it and never told a soul what it was, and it affected him greatly whatever it was.

Presumably it was evidence of their origins.

[Forhekset]

On that note about the Red Marines, the Word Bearers can be ruled out, as they wore black armour before they fled to the Eye of Terror.

They had painted their armour red during the Heresy, at least leading up to the Battle of Calth. Or so says Ben Counter's terrible novel.

[Melissia]

Dunno if it's been mentioned but from playing the games, Davian Thule discovered some information on Kronus so impactful that it shattered his faith in the chapter - he destroyed it and never told a soul what it was, and it affected him greatly whatever it was.

Presumably it was evidence of their origins.

Mmhmm. Some things you are better off not knowing...

[Sparda]

Having the Blood Raven's primarch be Magnus would be pretty cool, GW having one of the main SM chapters not knowing there own primarch does seem odd so I'm guessing something big is going to happen to them probably after a new DoW game and before there new codex.

[Forhekset]

They will never have a codex - they're Relic's little plaything. Granted some things they've done for the games have been very interesting but most of it happens to be trite. It's annoying having to pick and choose which things I'd like to have be true... a small unit of marines figuring out how to destroy an entire splinter fleet using absurd methods? I don't think so. A loyalist Thousand Sons successor chapter? Awesome.

[MagosImperator]

Melissia has a point, read the wargear descriptions.

The Blood Ravens name their relics after other Chapters as an act of deception. They try to confuse everyone who wants to know their origins.

The Blood Ravens must have someting dark in their history.

They are either loyalist Thousand Sons :
-Almost everything points this way, but than, how did they avoid the flesh change?

They can also be a Chapter of the Cursed founding.

Their gene-seed is stable and pure except the fact that they can't sleep, and every BR has perfect recall.
Which is a moderate advantage.

However they do seem to have a lot of strange relics.
Custodes Wargear and the Forgebraker (hammer of Fulgrim) are the weirdest.


Using bioweapons to defeat a Splinter fleet is actually an Inquisition idea, and it comes from the second Ultramarine books.
It is logical that other Chapters, especially the Blood Ravens who arrived to help the Ultras near Tharsis, would use the same idea.

By the way, the nameless Commander beating up the Avatar twice is so cool that they deserve a codex. The Commander could be called 'Anonimus" . Or " Corvus Sanguis".


Spoilers Chaos Rising:

They have nothing to do with the Black Legion except that the current Chapter Master, Kyras, has fallen to Chaos.

If you complete CR on Pure, the Commander will be the 4th Company captain, and the "Agent of Purification withing the Chapter" .
So most likely the next campaign will have you and your team going up against Kyras.