The Death Tempters
Chapter history
The original orders to form the Death Tempters from the Iron Hands geneseed have been lost to time or possibly deliberately destroyed. From what records remain say that the Chapter was formed on the basis of improved recruitment to create “better” marines. It was believed that many potentially better more loyal aspirants fell in initiation tests due to misfortune rather than failure. The chapters recruitment process takes aspirants at a young age that are genetically screened as able to take geneseed. These come from a number of Scholla progem. The youths have their memories altered and begin indoctrination in Imperial faith and loyalty. Basic combat training begins as soon as possible.
This all takes place on the Chapters homeworld. A once thriving Hive world it was mysteriously depopulated and the remaining citizens were placed under the command of the newly formed chapter. They serve as serfs feeding and arming the chapter, providing security for the rest of the planet and serving in the fleet. The planets former biggest hive that sprawled across half a continent has been converted into the Death Chapter’s training ground. The Labyrinth.
It’s unknown how many decades of work it has taken to convert the spires and tunnels of the hive into an intense training ground for war on multiple planet locals. Aspirants are led by their instructors from one environment to the next. Passing through the Labyrinth is a trial in of itself. Instructors pick off the poor recruits with ambushes and traps using autonomous machines and servitors. To enter the Labyrinth alone is certain doom.
The Death Tempters are taught that they are already dead. The worst has happened and they must prove themselves worthy of their place at Emperor’s side. Only by facing the most brutal tests in defence of mankind can they do so.
Every Death Tempter looks for a Good Death. Performing their duty until the end. Its hard for an outsiders to sometimes comprehend that the Tempter must cheat such a death constantly as their as duty never ends. Only a fool dies quickly for no gain and the Chapter does not tolerate fools.
The only other known fact of the founding is that the Death Tempters are scions of the Iron Hands. Their initial instruction was from brothers of the founding chapter and their geneseed is a direct decendant from Ferrus Manus.
Death Tempters almost have the opposite strategic logic to the Iron Hands. They will fight where their martial prowess makes the most difference. Thousands of doomed battles have been turned as the Death Tempters fire down in their drop pods onto the field and scourge the enemy from Imperial lines. But they rarely stay in a campaign. Their job is to turn the tide. Once they have done so they move to the next battlefield. In this they say is the lesser of their roles. The primary of which is the hunting, investigation and destruction of the massive space hulks on behalf of the Inquisition. Their training in the Labyrinth is designed to create close combat specialists. Their extra suits of terminator armour that let’s them field more than a standard chapter is geared to these investigations and recovery of relics of the past, strange xenos artifacts that are handed to the inquisition and the Mechanicus. Their cyborg enhancements let them interact with the ships on a level no other geneseed progeny would allow.
As such they are constantly travelling the galaxy looking into siting of the hulks. They only answer the summons to a campaign.
Recruitment
Recruitment is from a pool of genetically screened infants placed in training from a young age to become Death Tempters. Housed inside “the Labyrinth” aspirant Space Marines must journey to “The tower”. If their skill determination and faith bring them to their destination they will be inducted into the 10th company and complete their gene seed implantation and induction.
Scouts are sent to the chapter’s strike cruisers as replacement s as soon as they are considered ready. Their host company then adopts them and finishes their rise as a full member of the chapter.
Chapter Organisation and Strike cruiser companies.
The Chapter only has one battle barge “Death’s Temptation” houses the chapter master’s retinue and 2nd Company. All other companies are housed in one of the their 3 strike cruisers. The 3rd in labyrinths End, the 4th in duty until Death and the 5th in Temptation Vanquished.
Each ship belongs to its battle line company. The reserve companies are spread amongst these ships and the Labyrinths tower. The first company likewise is split to provide support to each element.
One ship in rotation with its company will provide security for their home system. Should a company be destroyed the Chapter will organise its replacement from the reserve companies in the Tower and deploy fresh recruits to increase their numbers.
3rd company for example is quartered in its strike cruiser with elements of the 1st, 6th, 7th 8th 9th and 10th companies. Once aboard the reserves are considered part of 3rd and their officers and troops are under the command of the company commander.
In theory this makes the Death Tempter companies close to 250 marines strong. Elements of each battle line company are rotated home to serve in the reserve companies in the Tower to act as training cadre. This makes the actual number of marines in company closer to 200.
Death Tempters also assume HQ elements to be supernumerary to the company total. If numbers allow each Captain will have a cadre of veterans of the company along with their junior officers and support structure of Techmarines Apothecaries, Chaplains and Librarians. Each battle line company has a senior Techmarine known as the Iron Father. A heritage from their Iron Hands parentage. These fathers are the commander's chief advisor and no conclave of the chapter command would leave them behind.
The scout company is considered exempt from the 100 marine limitation. The Primarch’s return and subsequent confirmation that the 10th company should hold 100 vanguard primaris marines holds this to be true. The scouts have yet to earn their power armour and are not as survivable. A good quantity must be maintained for battlefield replacements. As such the cruiser will hold as many scouts as are available. The vanguard marines serve with the battle line company engaged in ground combat. Although under the overall command of the battle line company the 10th is often deployed separately to serve as Infiltratators and the pointed tip of the chapter’s spear.
The 1st company are considered to also be supernumerary. Gaining entry to the veteran company requires the individual to have shown true devotion to duty, courage under fire skill with his weapons and leadership. Even amongst space marine standards promotion to the first company in Death Tempters is rare. Unlike other chapters though veterans of the line companies may wear Tactical dreadnought armour if the occasion requires it. Their role as boarders means that the terminator armour is at the spearhead of their attack. Each company has a boarding commander. A junior captain from the first company and is joined by a Chaplain. Their task is to command the boarding forces allowing the Senior captain to maintain effective command of the ship and the rest of the company.
In ground assault their roles are reversed with the boarding commander held in reserve and deployed with the veterans to turn the tide or secure key victories.
Having been disinherited by their patron and divorced from
their parent chapter the chapter that would become the Death Tempters were
forced back on their own resources and that of their homeworld planet.
The former Hiveworld
had been brutised from the formation of the Labyrinth and its remaining
factories could hardly sustain the resupply needs of the chapter. Particularly
in its need for more complex war-machines and armour types.
Nevertheless the
Chapter began its new mission and swept the void for space hulks and incursions
seeking to find their good Death. Slowly the Chapter was winnowed. Its better
units falling foul and with nothing to replace them.
It was when it seemed
that the chapter would die and only a single company remained that a mighty
hulk was sighted falling from the warp and heading towards an occupied moon of
the Mechanicam.
The Death Tempters
deployed and boarded the vessel. Inside they found no foul demons or monstrous Xenos
infection but empty corridor after empty corridor. The hulk was an amalgamation
several imperial ships. The smaller vessels had been smashed into un
recognisable chunks wedged into the armoured flanks of two massive craft. The
first was a pre-hersey battlebarge and the second was a auxilia transport craft.
The Barge was filled with equipment and material to outfit a legion cohort.
Ammunition and war machines sat idle in their racks. Even Relic Dreadnoughts
and Land raiders sat empty in their vaults waiting to be awoken.
Knowing that the
treasure trove they had found could be the salvation of their chapter. The
Chapter master ordered their last remaining Strike cruiser to attempt to place the
hulk into a stable orbit around the moon.
The Cruiser had no
choice but to crush its forward section into the hulk and drive it away from
the moon.
The Dominus of the
factorium saw this as an act of selfless action by the Astartes to save the production
facilities.
With the Hulk now stable
the Death Tempters invited the Mechanicam to review their find. The Dominus
determined that the Auxillia ship contained holy manufacturing technology to
produce Astartes equipment in addition to the old armour and war machines. The
news was controlled as there was concern that the unusual nature of the find
with just the equipment that the Chapter needed was a trick of the Dark Gods
and would befoul the Emperors Angel and turn them to Chaos.
Intricate and
demanding mechanical tests and Empiric rituals where conducted on every part
that was salvaged and nothing foul could be found on the machinery.
The Chapter master and
the Dominus stuck an agreement that the Chapter would take the war machines and
armour claiming them as a gift from the Emperor for them to complete their
mission and protect the Imperium.
The Dominus would take
the manufacturing ship and land it upon the moon and set to work supplying the
chapter.
After many decades of
hard work the Battle Barge was separated from the hulk. It was reconditioned as
best as the local mechanicam tech priests and tech marines of the chapter could
do. This vessel became the chapter’s flag ship.
Likewise the
companies Strike Cruiser was rescued and repaired.
The legacy of this
decision seems to have been the mark of the Death Tempters attitude to Death. What
had once been a thirst to prove that they were better than their peers and that
they would prove themselves with a victory against the odds slowly turned into
a mantra of Doom. That their fate was inevitable and that Death must be courted
and excepted. In the annuals of the Chapter’s Chaplains they recorded this
emotion flooding through the Astartes once they began using and serving aboard
the repaired ship. There are throries that the vessel was indeed corrupted and
that the chapter had been cursed by using the gift from the Warp. Initially they were
still sons of Ferrus Manus and such illogical misgivings are not to be tempered
unless with solid evidence and fact. But over the years the Death's Curse began to afflict more and more Battle Brother's
Still deep in their
hearts once a marine of the Death Tempters becomes fully converted into an
Astartes they feel a pull in their souls to sacrifice themselves for the good
of the Chapter. To walk into the fire and draw the ire of the enemy. Some have
visons of the last moments of their Primarch marching into the traitor hordes
looking to strike down the Phoenician in vengeance for the betrayal.
Although how the
chapter had come into possession of the Battle Barge has been kept a secret
from the wider Imperium it has been impossible to hide the chapters good
fortune. Other Chapters have questioned how a junior successor chapter and one whose
founding was wiped from the records has come to have so many relic war machines
and the means to repair them, and some even claim, to make more.
