Sons of the Night

The Sons of the Night are a Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes of unknown origin. They specialize in suppressing rebellious Imperials worlds, and are notorious for unparalleled acts of cruelty while doing so. These practices have caused a great deal of suspicion from other Imperial entities, though a thorough Inquisitorial investigation has concluded that they are indeed genuinely loyal to the Imperium despite their questionable methods.

Chapter History
As a Chapter created during the 23rd "Sentinel" Founding, the Sons of the Night were part of a massive wave of new Space Marine Chapters intended to repair the diminished power and authority of the Adeptus Astartes at the time. While most Chapters of this founding were intended to bring glory and prestige to the Astartes through acts of valor and heroism, the Sons of the Night were intended to do the exact opposite. They were meant to restore the galaxy's fear of the Emperor's Angels of Death. They achieved this by suppressing worlds that attempted to secede from the Imperium in the most brutal and horrifying ways they could manage. Whether it's flaying civilians alive, displaying the mutilated remains of their enemies, or other acts so heinous they even give the Marines Malevolent pause, nothing is beyond the sheer cruelty of the Sons of the Night.

Eventually word of these atrocities reached the Inquisition, who began a thorough investigation into claims that their barbarism was due to corruption by the Ruinous Powers. They have only recently been exonerated from these heresy charges, thanks in part to the eye-witness testimony of the then-unsanctioned-psyker Naerina. Despite being cleared by the Inquisition, the High Lords of Terra are still hesitant to actually utilize the Chapter. The Sons are only deployed as a last resort, when a rebellious world is too stubborn to surrender but has infrastructure too valuable to risk with more conventional warfare.

Notable Campaigns

 * Massacre of Zoa - Zoa's planetary governor began withholding his tithes to the Adeptus Terra, believing the world would fall beneath the notice of Imperial retribution. In response, the newly founded Sons of the Night sent a Battle Barge to "negotiate"--by purging the entire capital except for the governor's palace of all life and leaving the crucified remains of civilians throughout the streets. The governor paid his tithes, with interest, shortly thereafter.


 * Purging of Kor'von - Formerly a port world of the Imperial Navy, Kor'von was repurposed by the T'au Empire when they conquered the planet to providing ships for the Air Caste. When the Sons of the Night arrived, the T'au believed they had come to reclaim the planet for the Imperium. Instead of targeting the planet's vital infrastructure, however, they almost exclusively attacked the planet's Gue'vesa population, butchering them all in horrific ways before withdrawing. The T'au were initially perplexed by this action until they noticed a significant decrease in the willingness of other human worlds in the area to accept the Greater Good.


 * Liberation of B’yusa - A campaign that would have almost been beneath the Chapter's notice due to its ease, the Sons of the Night arrived on the world of B'yusa to crush its rebellion, only to find most of that work done for them. An Imperial loyalist resistance force led by an unsanctioned psyker named Naerina had already severely weakened the secessionist forces, requiring only a token effort on the part of the Astartes to finish off. In adherence to Imperial law, the Sons of the Night took the witch into custody, but turned her over to the nearest Inquisitor, Lord Inquisitor Remleiz of the Ordo Theoreticus, rather than executing her.

Recruitment
The Sons of the Night recruit exclusively from the population of the world of Ezaka. This planet has an extremely slow rate of rotation, similar to the world of Mordian, plunging one side of the planet in perpetual night and the other in perpetual day. With the light of Ezaka's sun scorching anything that tries to live on the day side, the entire human population is forced to live in Hive Cities on a world of eternal night, where even the wealthy in the Upper Hives never see natural light. From this harsh, dark world, the Sons of the Night choose only the most sadistic and ruthless to join their ranks, generally gangers and criminals, with the occasional serial killer thrown in for good measure.

Gene-Seed
The Sons of the Night are unusual among their fellow 23rd Founding Chapters in that their gene-seed is not drawn from one of the more famously stable lines, such as the Ultramarines or Dark Angels. While their gene-seed is functionally stable, every Astartes among their number invariable develops pale skin, black eyes, and white hair, regardless of their pre-recruitment complexion. This mutation has caused most within the Imperium to assume they are descended from the Raven Guard, though all records of their genetic history have been sealed by order of the Inquisition.

Organisation
The Sons of the Night are a Codex-Divergent Chapter, using some elements of the Codex Astartes while modifying or ignoring others.

While they previously adhered to the strictures of the Codex ' s proscribed 10-companies of 100 Marines restriction, they simply added three new Companies to accommodate their new Primaris brothers rather than fully integrating them into the rest of the Chapter. Each Company is organized as an independent force with its own Scouts, vehicles, Librarians, and other key elements of Astartes warfare. These Companies are also not numbered, instead given a suitably intimidating name. No particular Company outranks another simply by organization, authority is instead deliberately fluid and based entirely on the merit and experience of the officers involved in a particular campaign. Even the Chapter Master will defer to one of his Company Captains if that Captain is more suited to command in a given situation.

Scout squads are also not used as training assignments for new recruits. Due to the Chapter's particular use of such forces, they are instead made up of the most creative, cruel, and sadistic members of the Chapter.

The only exceptions to this are the newly created Primaris Companies. A great deal of tension exists between the Chapter's standard and Primaris Marines. The Primaris (with the notable exceptions of the Reivers and Vanguard Primaris Marines) believe the cruelty of their older brothers goes too far, while the original Marines believe the Primaris too merciful. Due to their refusal to commit the heinous atrocities of the rest of their Chapter, their Primaris Marines are instead organized into Companies specialized in dealing with particular types of foes--one for eradicating Chaos corruption, one for subjugating rebellious Forge Worlds and tech-heresy, and one for exterminating Xenos.

Veteran Companies

 * Arbitration Company
 * Vindication Company
 * Execution Company

Standard Companies

 * Decimation Company
 * Obliteration Company
 * Massacre Company
 * Impaler Company
 * Nightmare Company
 * Urbicide Company
 * Sadist Company

Primaris Companies

 * Nemesis Company
 * Omnicide Company
 * Xenocide Company

Combat Doctrine
Most deployments for the Sons of the Night simply involve crushing especially stubborn rebellions. As such rebellions are almost always ill-equipped and isolated from intergalactic supply lines, any tactical considerations tend to focus less on actual combat strategy, and more on how to make their enemies the most brutal and horrifying example of what happens to traitors possible. Even when facing a force that actually requires effort to defeat, the Sons of the Night still prefer to demoralize their enemies by any means available.

Scout, Riever, and Vanguard Primaris forces act less as reconnaissance forces and more as advance terror troops. Tactics employed by such forces include butchering enemy sentries and displaying their remains, arranging mutilated corpses to spell out messages, and kidnapping non-combatant enemy individuals for the main body of the Chapter to use as human shields. While they will still engage in common infiltrator tactics such as destroying enemy supplies and disrupting communications, they will often apply a particularly horrific twist to such activities as well, such as flooding enemy communication channels with the pre-recorded sounds of past enemies screaming, or befouling food by putting rotted and mutilated body parts in their storage units rather than simply destroying them.

When the main body of their forces deploy, they prefer to do so using methods that allow them to appear suddenly and from unexpected directions, in an effort to show their enemies that nowhere is safe from their wrath. These methods can include Terminator teleportation and Drop Pod assault, but the Sons of the Night particularly favor using Assault Marines. These Assault Marines are equipped with specialized vox emitters that project loud, howling screams that further unsettle their foes.

Due to these tactics, the High Lords of Terra consider the Sons of the Night to be a tool of last resort, only deploying them in situations where simple eradication of the Imperium's enemies isn't enough.

Deathwatch Service
Most Sons of the Night dread the thought of service within the Deathwatch, though not due to any particular disdain. While they respect the need for the Deathwatch's existence and have few qualms about answering to Inquisitors, they tend to chafe under the scrutiny of Astartes from other Chapters. They believe most outsiders to be too soft, too merciful, and unwilling to go far enough to make the enemies of Man fear the Imperium.

A notable exception to this, however, is the Xenocide Primaris Company. Given their particular specialization, this specific Company not only looks forward to Deathwatch service, but actually requires it for a Marine to be considered for any command position within the Company. For the Xenocide Company, being sent to the Deathwatch is considered a sign of being groomed for leadership. Tensions often still exist during this service, however. While the Sons of the Night Primaris Marines are significantly less cruel than their brothers within the Chapter, this is still in relative terms, so even their Primaris Marines tend to be the most ruthless members of their Kill-Teams.

Notable Members

 * Chapter Master Valmar - Chapter Master of the Sons of the Night for the last 600 years. He primarily uses a pair of lightning claws and a jump pack in battle, and keeps the skulls of enemy commanders he has personally slain hanging from chains across his artificer armour.


 * Chief Librarian Lahgi - The Chief Librarian is said to be completely emotionless, and has a callous disregard for anyone outside the Chapter. Whether this disregard came before or after his experience serving alongside other Chapters in the Deathwatch is unknown. He wields a force halberd in combat.

Chapter Colours
The Sons of the Night primarily wear power armor that is painted in a dark blue with bone-colored trim, gold iconography, and green eye lenses on their helmets. Veterans and Terminators often have their faceplates stylized into skulls, causing some outside the Chapter to occasionally mistake these veterans for Chaplains. Unlike their Chapter's spiritual brothers, these stylised faceplates aren't decorated in reverence to the Emperor's great sacrifice, but is done so in order to inspire fear and terror in their enemies.

Chapter Badge
The Sons of the Night badge consists of a white crescent moon beneath a skull on a dark blue field.

Allies

 * Ordo Theoreticus
 * Marines Malevolent
 * Minotaurs

Enemies

 * Night Lords
 * Salamanders

By the Sons of the Night
"We are not here to bring hope to humanity. We merely exist to bring fear to the Emperor's enemies."

- Chief Librarian Lahgi

About the Sons of the Night
"(coming soon)"

- (coming soon)