Also, just had a look on the old forums and uncovered these tidbits..

Code13

According to the Calxis Sector Encyclopedia on the Dark Heresy site, Lycosidae is home to a/the Legio Venator Fortress. (Titan Legion)

NerdKing

+ from the published material so far (and the official word on the old BI forum) the only Astartes presence in the sector is the abandoned Templars base and two Iron Hands dreadnaughts who gaurd a shine on one of the shine worlds (Drusus perhaps? I don't recall off hand)
+ Chapters related to the Inquisition could turn up (there's a Deathwatch veteran in the second adventure in "Purge the Unclean") but the don't have a permanent home there
+ Fleet based chapters could always "pass through". Not necessarily "canon" but not beyond the realms of imagination

Lynata

According to the books, the "most elite and dedicated troops in the Calixis Sector" are 50 Adepta Sororitas Sisters of Battle under leadership of Palatine Rhiannon, who are accommodated in a lesser Order Famulous' abbey on Iocanthus. (page 302 of the Core Rulebook)

Nash

If you want you want is simply to have SMs from a chapter who have "a reason" to be in the Calixis Sector, then one of the 4 which participated to the Angevine Crusade would be the best shots (see the Dark Heresy Timeline pdf)... So, Black Templars, Sons of Medusa, Tigers Argent and Charnel Guard are the most likely to have "something to do" in the Calixis Sector

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffgforums/posts/list/6726.page

Ikkaan said:

I already knew that he existed (we decided to see what would happen if he fought one of our group, not pretty) but not the chapter he came from.

A space marine chapter wouldn't even have to be a crusading chapter to be in the Calixis sector or even in a neighbouring sector, as each Chapter covers a vast area of space that includes many sectors and they aren't bound to any region in specific so if needs must they can go anywhere. Space marine ships are constantly on patrol in the galaxy and can turn up at will. I would be surprised if at least one chapter didn't send a ship through the sector occationally (by occationally take that as once every 3-25years depending on proximity) to patrol.

A new chapter makes most sense to appear in the Calixis sector because none of the current ones are close enought and tbh there is enough written about their exploits. Since we have no other information we can assume there is a good chance the the Hammers of Retribution are from this area of space (although its not a guarentee).

Of course one of the problems with Calixis being next door to the arse end of nowhere is that there isn't going to be much in the way of space marine traffic to begin with.

Kaihlik

In answer to the original question, four chapters helped conquer the region of space which later became the Calixis sector: the Black Templars, Tigers Argent, Sons of Medusa and the Charnel Guard.

The Black Templars are well described in the canon, and retain a tiny presence in the sector (two dreadnoughts guarding a shrine.)

The Tigers Argent and the Charnel Guard are, as far as I am aware, only mentioned in the Dark Heresy Timeline document, which I think is now in the FFG Calixis Sector resource page. Don't know anything about them, but they DO have cool names, particularly the Charnel Guard!

I seem to recall that the Sons of Medusa may also have taken part in the Badab War, but I could be wrong. Lexicanum would be able to tell you.

Where are these resource pages?

Letrii said:

Last that I heard they where on the old format for this site...I think that they were just ported over from BI. But since the new update for this site not many of the links the the DH page should have actaully work. If you ask maybe one of the kind GMs that like to troll this fourm could shoot you an e mail about them. I would myself yet sadly I don't have the info saved

Letrii said:

at the end of the last post i made is THIS link: www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffgforums/posts/list/6726.page

Somebody wish to elaborate on "successor chapter"?

I don't know much about the space marines, and most I've picked up is from the Horus Heresy and there they still operate in legions.

Here's the timeline, which sets out which chapters were involved in the conquest of the Calixis sector:-

http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/dark-heresy/pdf/timeline.pdf

If they were involved, that suggests that they they're relatively local, but no more than that. I should also point out that the Calixis sector isn't a million miles away (er...actually it probably is, thinking about it, I mean "not that far away relatively") from the Eye of Terror, so the chapters guarding that may also crop up in the Calixis sector.

I get the impression that the Calixis sector was designed to be a relatively peaceful sector with very few massive wars going on - there's only a handful of proper wars going on (Gelmiro, Tranc etc), so there's little in the sector of immediate interest to a Space Marine chapter.

If your chronicle is dealing with the dead bodies of a space marine chapter, it might be an idea to skim through the timeline and look for major conflicts in the last few centuries that might have tempted the Space Marines to get involved: how about the Malagrisian Tech Heresy 45 years ago, the second siege of Vaxanide 312 years ago, the first siege of Vaxanide 803 years ago, or the war of brass 1076 years ago?

Lightbringer2009 said:

I was kinda thinking a bit farther back in time. Something that wouldn't be remembered as having Space Marine involvement in it. Or an event that had less than pristine records kept for it. The adept in my group adores his lore skills and does everything he can to route out every last background detail from any environment I put them in. I wouldn't want him to be able to come to the conclusion that there are space marines involved before even stepping foot on the planet.

On a different note, does anyone have any idea of how a group of acolytes would get on and off of a planet that has a field around it preventing the majority of non-primitive devices from working? I'd prefer to not have them end up like the space marines. The only thing I could think of was a space elevator run by a series of cranks and water wheels down on the surface, but that just seems kinda silly when I picture it.

Maybe the field is localized, say 50 mile radius?

Darth Smeg said:

Sure, i'll start right with the basics incase you dont know anything about space marines. A chapter is what the legions became after the HH, they normally consist of roughly 1000 space marines (over that if you include all the techmarines and vehicle crews and whatnot) they were created so that if one went renegade then they wouldn't pose the same sort of threat to the Imperium as the legions did. Their organisation is layed down buy that big prick in blue Robute Guilliman the Ultramarines Primarch. The first founding chapters are the 9 origional loyalist legions.

The sucessor chapters are chapters created from the geneseed of the orgional 9 loyalist legions (I say 9 but there is no longer any Space Wolf successors) except from the second founding chapters which were created from the excess when the legions split down into chapters so there is as many as 23 Ultramarine second foundings as they were the largest legion at the time.

Basically how it works is that if the High Lords decide they need new chapters they order a new founding which will involve the creation of however many chapters they need, what they do is they use that geneseed that is sent by all marine chapters to mars to check for purity and they implant it into live subjects held in pods. From each subject they get 2 sets of geneseed so from one pure sample of geneseed they get 2 then 4 then 8 and so forth until they have over 1000. They get the aspitants from somewhere train them up to space marines equip them with some ships, armour, guns and send them off to where they are needed.

That is how you get sucessor chapters. An Ultramarines sucessor is one that uses geneseed that origionated from the Ultramarines, as such if they are aware of their origins they may venerate the Primarch of their origional legion. Due to the number of Ultramarines successors origionally and due to some of the first founding chapters no longer being used for the creation of new chapters (I think that they no longer use Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Dark Angels geneseed) the Ultramarines geneseed currently make up around 70% of the current chapters.

I think I got carried away there but that should give and Space marine novices a good idea of how it works, feel free to correct any mistakes I may have made.

Kaihlik

Letrii said:

I was actually thinking the reverse, where there's holes in the field that would allow ships to pass through. The locals would see these holes as areas of great magic. Where a shaman's walking stick can strike down enemies with a flash of light. Of course none of the locals realize that the shaman's walking stick is just a lasgun.

jareddm said:

There's a few ways I reckon you could do that.

1, Like you said there’s holes in the field, and a shuttle sits in one of the holes hidden.

2, The field only stops electric devices like a sort of constant EM field so a primitive rocket ship that's fully mechanical is their nice n hazardous escape. Down side to that though is SP weapons would work killing your plot i'm guessing.

3, The ol' abandoned Eldar Webway portal trick which could lead nicely somewhere random for your next adventure

jareddm said:

Hmmm.... OK, what about the Angevin crusade itself? This was the crusade which led to the conquest of the entire sector, 2,750 or so years ago. 4 entire chapters took part, they travelled and fought across the entire legth of the sector...who knows where Marine bodies might end up? I suppose the drawback from your point of view is that your adept might predict marine involvement, as it was the largest deployment of marines in the entire history of the sector, and would be well documented.

If you want to throw a real curveball, you could create some NEW background for the sector. Looking at Alan Bligh's timeline, the Haarlock Rogue Trader family were the original explorers of the sector. It is not unknown for Space Marine chapters to send small units to fight alongside large rogue trader fleets. You could have your own unique chapter, with a small unit attached to Soloman Haarlock's "Great Voyage" waaaay back in 36, 723, over 4,000 years before the current timeline.

Dark Angels travel everywhere, so its really easy to put them in a story as long as they are looking for one of the Fallen.

Legion of the Damned just show up anywhere aswell, but they are very mysterious and wouldnt have any real interaction with PCs.

The wolfblade from Space Wolves also act as bodyguards for Navigators, so they also can be anywhere at any time.

But really, if you can find a reason for a chapter to be somewhere, they can be. In one of the blood Angels books they had an army on a crusade to find a spear owned by Sanguinnius.

Kaihlik said:

You are pretty much right, but the Space Wolves refused to split, but arent that big anyway, because of all the fighting they did in the Heresy.

The Dark Angels were all but wiped out anyway, but have a few successors. They just keep very secretive, but there is nothing inherently wrong with their geneseed (except that half their forces were turned >.>)

And Blood Angels lose alot of marines to the Red Thirst, and whole companies have been wiped out by it, so there tends to be less successor chapters because of it (The black rage/red thirst are actually a secret, if anyone outside the blood angels knew about it the blood angels would be wiped out)

Plus Ultramarines were sent away from the main fighting during the heresy, so they were at near full strength when most other legions were decimated (Imperial Fists and Blood Angels on Earth, the Istavaan attack, etc, Dark Angels turning on themselves etc)

I know I just sort of glossed over that because I thought my post was overly long. And I was just talking about chapters that are no longer used to create new successors although they may have been used in the past.

Space Wolves did technically split and the Wolf Brothers were formed but I think they all died from genetic breakdown very quickly or something and the Space Wolves have never been used since. Also what fighting they came in at the end with the Dark Angels after the siege was broken. They just never were that numerous becuase of their unorthodox method of recruiting which has a lower chance of sucess with anything but the strongest recruits and they also have a much higher mortality rate among new recruits (Blood Claws are combat troops compared to scouts which usually take up ranged supporting rolls).

The reason that Dark Angels geneseed is no longer used is meant to be a mystery. IIRC the High Lords just ruled at some point that they would no longer be used to create new chapters.

Blood Angels obviously have the Red Thirst which was not known about in the origional foundings as it had yet to manifest itself fully so in those early foundings Blood Angel sucessors were created.

The number of marines a chapter has does not make a difference when creating a new chapter as they are all created from a single sample of geneseed apart from the First and Second foundings. The reason the Ultramarines have the most sucessor chapters is because they split off into the most chapters to begin with so when new ones where created it was more likely Ultramarine geneseed would be selected as it is also some of the most pure.

The Ultramarines were the biggest chapter before the fighting as they had I think it was 9 planets to recruit from and were pretty much untouched by the Heresy as Horus had maneuvered them out to the Eastern fringe when he launched his attack.

For completeness in case anyone who doesn't know the Imperial Fists were severely depleted alongside the Blood Angels on Terra during the siege. The Salamanders and Raven Guard were decimated at the drop site massicars on Istvann V. The first company of Iron Hands and their Primarch also died in that. The Dark Angels and the Space Wolves were far off fighting when the Heresy unfolded and were held up till the end where they arrived to chace of the traitor. That leaves White Scars who I cant really remember about but I think they may have been on Terra as well.

Kaihlik

I want to toss an idea out there. Indeed the Grey Knights and Deathwatch would never, ever allow a brother to go unretrieved on anything short of a demon world.

That doesn't mean that they haven't sent someone to retrieve them, but because of how thin they are spread out across the sector it may take them quite a while to be able to mount a rescue effort. It is possible that they're requested assistance from the Inquisition in securing their dead Brothers until they manage to be able to mount the retrieval. This is doubly true is the dead Brothers were on a mission for the Inquisition and the Inquisition had a very large stake in retrieving whatever was on the downed Thunderhawk.

In fact if the Thunderhawk was carrying something the Inquisition wanted and was very interested in (say something on the Black Star), it is quite possible that the =][= would send its own group of people in to get whatever was on the Thunderhawk, which in turn would upset the Space Marines sent to retrieve said Thunderhawk.

Do you follow your Inquisitors instructions, or do you piss off a squad of Space Marines sent in to retrieve their brethren?

Xathess Wolfe said:

This was actually one of my original ideas when trying to decide on what chapter the Thunderhawk would belong to. It would certainly be interesting if the acolytes were originally sent in to put down a group of heretics performing experiments on the space marine corpses, only to find out that the reason the marines where there in the first place was to find the item that is causing the planet-wide "Curse of the Omnissiah." It's all starting to come full circle...

The space marine's mission only existed at the highest levels of secrecy, considering the item in question is of xenos origin and if word were to spread that the marine's planned to make use of it, the entire chapter could come under scrutiny. That's why no rescue was made for the marines. If there was any attempt, an inquisitorial investigation would be made.

This is why as soon as word spreads of heretics on the planet, the chapter (I've decided to use the Relicators as I type this) knows the inquisition will be comming, and that they have to beat them to the Thunderhawk in order to remove the evidence that would incriminate them.

Sorry if alot of my posts seem to just be run-on rants. I tend to just throw as many ideas out as I can and then piece them together after.

For a different spin, why not consider a chaos spacemarine ship having crashed. The corrupted geneseed could be used by the forces on the planet to insert into new abominations. This kind of takes the space marines out of the equation but still allows you to utilize that storyline. Also, it would explain why the forces of chaos never attempted to retrieve the geneseed. They have no issues leaving their dead behind. They don't harvest geneseed to the best of my knowledge.

You can still incorporate the inquisition and grey knights by having them investigating the crashed ship. The heroes come upon a battle where the inquisitor and the grey knights he was in charge of, while having crushed most of the opposition are all but wiped out themselves.

As they enter the scene, the last remaining gray knight of his squad is falling back, injured while being attacked by the heretical forces on the ground. The heroes come to the gray knights rescue by overwhelming the remaining heretics and forcing them to retreat.

The remainder of your story unfolds from there.

Relictors are a good choice in my opinion because they were on a 100 year long penitent crusade before they were executed for using Daemon weapons to fight chaos. They all fought on Armageddon during the third war but other than that timeline restriction there isn't much to keep them tied down to one place and iirc DH is set before that anyway. It means the GM can add interesting reasons as to why they are there. The fact that they will kill anyone in their way means that the PC's will have to be careful as to how they go about their job.

Anyway I think it is a good choice of chapter.

Kaihlik

Considering that the Dark Angels are in the "neighborhood", so to speak. You could have a Fallen apothecary whose completely deranged doing the experimentation. Dark Angels scouts could be closing in on his operation and interfere with the acolytes operation, possibly sabotaging it or planting false evidence to throw them off the trail while they close the noose around the Fallen One.

Plenty of opportunity for subtefuge and combat, and depending on the skill levels of the acolytes, they'd have a good idea how tough the opposition is. And of course, the unanswered question, who were those Space Marines and why were the trying to capture that apothecary?

Z