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This article, Dark Ravens, was written by FairchildRedux. Please do not edit or 'acquire' this fiction without the writer's permission. |
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This article, Dark Ravens, is currently under active construction. The author, FairchildRedux, apologizes for the inconvenience. |
- "They wear the Raven because they are the heralds of ends; relentless in their duty until it claims themselves, inexorable as the ever-consuming stone around us."
- — Baroness Abigail of House Baumer
The Dark Ravens are a successor chapter of the Dark Angels and part of the Unforgiven. They were created during the 23rd "Sentinel" Founding to reinforce the formerly isolated solar system Murmur sometime around M38.
Instead of mirroring the chapter structure of their progenitor, the Dark Ravens are more Codex compliant than other Unforgiven, with one exception: a 1st Company structure similiar to the Deathwing, and Veterans are sometimes permanently seconded to other companies so they can share their experience and secretly search for evidence of the Fallen while obscuring that mission from their battle-brothers.
Chapter History[]
Dark Ravens Firstborn Battle-Brother of the 5th Company, 4th Battleline Squad.
The Dark Ravens were founded during the 23rd "Sentinel" Founding to reinforce the solar system of Murmur. Imperial charts had long treated Murmur IV as a dying world: habitable but steadily petrifying, its surface choked by a slow stone-sickness born of some long-forgotten war. For generations the system remained isolated, passed over by explorers who recorded only a pale and desolate world and moved on.
That changed after the territorial upheavals of the Age of Apostasy and the catastrophic losses that followed the cursed 21st Founding. Shifts in frontier lines and the sudden strategic importance of nearby systems revealed Murmur as a lynchpin whose stability mattered to Imperial logistics and defence. A newly created Space Marine chapter was dispatched to reinforce the system and assess the threat; when the Chapter reached Murmur IV they found the planet paradoxically alive and dying, its flora growing fast even as it petrified, small rivers of water still running through the forests, and settlements carved from living root and stone.
The Chapter Master at the time, Baldur Lok, drawn by the world’s strange resilience and the disciplined culture of its people, decided to do more than merely garrison the system. They declared Murmur IV their home and recruiting world. In tribute to the planet’s culture, they named themselves "Dark Ravens" in honor of the native bird, which is feared as a herald of death. Just like they are.
Chapter Home World[]
- "This world breathes with defiance. Its people, long abandoned by the Imperium, have endured millennia of death and petrification. Their resilience is their honor, and it shall become ours. We claim this planet as our home, and they shall be forgotten nevermore."
- — Chapter Master Baldur Lok, upon arriving at the Murmur-System
Departmento Cartographicae pict-file of Murmur IV
The Dark Ravens inhabit the planet Murmur IV, a feudal world inside the Murmur-System located in Segmentum Ultima dominated by vast petrified forests that block out the sun, with small rivers winding through the stone-like vegetation. Murmur’s flora grows rapidly and petrifies in turn as a result of an ancient weapon from a forgotten war, forcing the natives to cull the forests to avoid being buried under stone.
The planet also possesses a volatile core that emits massive amounts of raw energy, absorbed by its immense root system. These roots isolate the energy from the rest of the world while fueling the vegetation’s boundless growth.
Generations of living on Murmur IV with a barely visible sun have turned the skin of its people a pale shade and given them large black eyes with a barely visible white sclera. Most inhabitants belong to a knightly house, ranging from the lowest peasant farmers who toil on the mineral-rich soil, to gardeners and stonemasons who manage the rampant growth of the flora, to the knights who wage war for resources, protection, and glory, to the matriarchs and patriarchs who lead them.
Those countless houses wage constant skirmishes, plots, and alliances against one another for scarce resources. Every season many houses rise and fall in a continual shift of power.
The Undergrowth[]
The Undergrowth is a vast underground of forgotten ruins overgrown with roots, labyrinths of petrified thornvines, and volcanic activity that powers the planet’s vegetation. Only the dregs of society live here: the exiled and the remnants of broken houses. They survive without resources, trying to subsist on roots and water that trickles down, always in danger from predators and the raw energies rising from the planet’s core.
Murmur Raven[]
Murmur is also home to the "Murmur Raven", a white, psychically active raven subspecies native to the homeworld. The Murmur Raven senses when someone is about to die and waits in the vicinity to feed on the soon-to-be corpse. This peculiarity led to the raven being seen as a herald of death and a whole flock as a great disaster. It is taboo for any mortal knight or house to take the raven as a heraldic charge. The raven became the symbol of the Dark Ravens because they, too, are heralds of death.
Fortress-Monastery[]
The Ravenstone is a vast Gothic cathedral whose outer façade is built from the planet’s stone and petrified wood; its spires pierce the fossil canopy. It was raised inside a great clearing where the natives of Murmur had long ago discovered a circle of stone debris unlike any found elsewhere on the planet. When the arriving Astartes investigated those stones, they discovered the fragments originated from Caliban and had been carried through time and distance by the Warp at the moment of that world’s breaking, a providence the Dark Ravens interpreted as fate. Those shards were later incorporated into the chapter’s relics.
Because of the aura of death that surrounds the fortress-monastery, Murmur Ravens habitually nest in its spires.
Chapter Organisation[]
The Dark Ravens organise themselves more closely in accordance with the Codex Astartes than other Unforgiven Chapters, yet they still maintain a formation similar to the Deathwing, known as the Knights of the Raven. They do not possess a Ravenwing formation, and their 2nd Company adheres fully to the Codex Astartes instead.
Order of the Shroud[]
Like the Dark Angels, the Unforgiven also maintain a clandestine group that holds knowledge of the Fallen and of the true events surrounding the Fall of Caliban. Within the Dark Ravens, their Inner Circle is called the Order of the Shroud.
Specialist Units & Formations[]
- Knights of the Raven
Order of Battle[]
| Chapter Command | |||
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| Order of the Shroud | Reclusium | Librarius | |
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| Other Departments | |||
| Armourium | Fleet Command | Apothecarion | Logisticiam |
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Companies[]
The dispositions and commanders of the Dark Ravens Chapter's companies:
| Veteran Company | Battle Companies | |||
| 1st Company | 2nd Company | 3rd Company | 4th Company | 5th Company |
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| Reserve Companies | Scout Company | |||
| 6th Company | 7th Company | 8th Company | 9th Company | 10th Company |
 
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Chapter Culture & Beliefs[]
The Dark Ravens offer praise to the God‑Emperor, but they do not revere him as a deity in the same way the people of Murmur IV do.
Like many Chapters with a homeworld, the Dark Ravens have absorbed and preserved long‑standing rituals and superstitions from Murmur IV. They carve charms from petrified wood and stone, observe strict chivalric rites, and bind themselves by solemn oaths that echo the planet’s feudal codes. The Murmur Raven is taboo to mortals across the planet, yet the Astartes, regarded as demigods by many, incorporate the bird’s feathers and skulls into their heraldry and ritual paraphernalia, treating these tokens as both omen and emblem.
Perhaps due to the planet’s dim light, the relentless struggle against petrification, and the distrust bred by their Secretive Nature, many Dark Ravens carry a deep, persistent melancholy. They answer this with art: song, poetry, and crafted liturgies woven into daily life and ceremony. These practices are not mere consolation; they are disciplines of remembrance, and in their artistry they sometimes rival the aesthetic traditions of their cousins, the Blood Angels and their successors.
Although the Chapter was raised to garrison the Murmur system and reinforce neighbouring star systems when required, the hunt for the Fallen is regarded as the Dark Ravens’ paramount duty. They will reprioritise operations to pursue this mission, even when doing so strains alliances or places other objectives at risk. This single‑mindedness is both their strength and their burden.
Chapter Recruitment[]
The Dark Ravens recruit exclusively from their chapter world, Murmur IV, a planet whose harsh environment and feudal traditions forge resilient warriors. From birth, the people of Murmur are steeped in a culture of conflict, survival, and honor, and it is within this crucible that the chapter identifies its future aspirants.
Many recruits emerge from the endless skirmishes between rival knightly houses, or from among those who prove their valor by slaying the beasts that prowl Murmur’s forests, whether in pursuit of glory or out of dire necessity.
Each generation, the chapter presides over a grand tournament in which the strongest and most cunning youths contend in trials of arms, endurance, and strategy. In these contests, recruitment is not decided by victory or defeat alone; rather, it is the manner in which one triumphs or falters within the greater design of the tournament that reveals true worthiness.
Chapter Gene-Seed[]
There are no known aberrations in the Dark Ravens' gene-seed.
Secretive Nature[]
Like their progenitor, the Dark Ravens are secretive about their hunt for the Fallen, even going so far as to use Company Veterans to spy among the lower ranks. This practice helps conceal and obscure evidence of their traitorous forebears and any signs of heresy.
Combat Doctrine[]
The Dark Ravens seldom commit to full-scale engagements, preferring instead to unravel their enemies through calculated disruption and relentless skirmishes. Shaped by the culture of Murmur IV, their recruits possess an innate ability to sense the rhythm of smaller battlefields and anticipate how they will evolve, a talent further sharpened by the Chapter’s rigorous indoctrination.
On the battlefield, the Dark Ravens combine heavy armour assaults, precision strikes, and sabotage operations to break apart and isolate enemy formations. Once cohesion is lost, they seize control of the chaos, pressing the advantage through squad-level maneuvers or sudden flanking strikes. The 1st Company’s Terminators employ deep strikes via teleportation to descend upon the foe’s vulnerable flanks, methodically eroding resistance until the enemy collapses.
The Chapter’s doctrine is not one of brute force but of patient dismemberment, turning every engagement into a slow death.
Notable Members[]
- Chapter Master Ariel Dornheim - Ariel is the current Chapter Master of the Dark Ravens
- Veteran Sergeant Malphas - Malphas is the leader of his squad of Company Veterans, seconded to the 5th Company. It's his duty to benefit his battle-brothers within the company with his experience, even as he secretly searches for evidence of the Fallen, concealing their existence from those not initiated into the Inner Circle.
Chapter Fleet[]
The Dark Ravens were known to possesses the following vessels as part of their Chapter fleet:
- Unyielding Herald (Battle Barge)
- Immortal Duty (Battle Barge)
- Tombstone (Avenger-class Grand Cruiser)
- Stone Eternal (Strike Cruiser)
- Verdant Crown (Strike Cruiser)
- Raven Sword (Vanguard-class Light Cruiser)
- Remnant (Vanguard-class Light Cruiser])
Chapter Relics[]
- Stoneshroud - When the chapter first built their Fortress-Monastery inside the ancient clearing, they found peculiar rock debris not native to the world that radiated esoteric energies and seemed to shift in and out of reality. Upon inspection, the stone proved to be a remnant of the Destruction of Caliban that was fatefully guided through time and space to be found by the Dark Ravens. The chapter’s Techmarines and Librarians inlaid the stones into Storm Shields; when activated, the rocks energyfield extends over the shield’s wielder, blurring his features, making him harder to target and interfering with targeting auspex.
Chapter Appearance[]
Chapter Colours[]
The Dark Ravens primarily wear black power armour reminiscent of the original colours worn by their progenitors, the ancient Dark Angels Legion, during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras. The Aquila or Imperialis affixed to their plastrons (chest guards) are white in colour.
A white squad specialty symbol stencilled on the right shoulder pauldron inset indicates a Battle-Brother's assigned combat role (Fire Support, Close Support, Battleline, Veteran or Command). A small black Roman numeral centered on the squad specialty symbol indicates squad assignment. In the Dark Ravens, the brothers of the Battle and Reserve Companies wear their company markings on their left knee plates, in contrast to the practice of most other Unforgiven.
The Veterans of the 1st Company wear bone-white Terminator armour like their progenitors in the Deathwing, while retaining the chapter’s standard pauldrons. The robes worn by those Dark Ravens Veteran Marines who are members of the chapter’s Inner Circle are dark green, the colour of the now-extinct forests of their progenitor’s former homeworld, and mark their shame for the actions of the Fallen during the Fall of Caliban. Veterans transferred to other companies repaint their armour black but keep their helmets bone-white.
Chapter Badge[]
The Dark Ravens chapter badge is a large stylised white raven, its wings displayed and expanded. This central symbol is centered on a field of dark green.
