Chapter: Shadowed Suns

Shadowed Suns

Chapter Summary
Founding: Unknown
Chapter World: Fleet-based
Fortress Monastery: None
Capital Ship: The Aten, vanguard cruiser
Gene-Seed: Unknown
Predecessor: Unknown
Chapter Master: Akil Amari

History:
Little is known of the Shadowed Suns’ history, or of the Chapter itself; any records or memory of their predecessors and gene-seed origin have been lost to time and tragedy. The Shadowed Suns were separated from the Imperium in general centuries ago due to a freak warp storm whilst the bulk of the Chapter was in transit. They were scattered and hurled deep into uncharted space far from Imperial borders. Only recently have some battered remnants managed to find their way back into Imperial-controlled sectors and regain contact with sections of the Imperium.

Time and circumstance have whittled away at their numbers during their scattering and long journey back to Imperial space. Only a fraction of the Chapter now remains; every remaining battle brother is precious, and they will do whatever they can to preserve each one as they struggle to regain some holdings and rebuild their Chapter.

Gene-seed
Progenitor: Unknown
Gene-stock Purity: Pure, with a greater tendency towards granting/boosting psychic powers.
Chapter Demeanour: Studious

Chapter Flaw: We Stand Alone - after being separated from the Imperium for so long, the Shadowed Suns and their supporting mortal crews have become very self-sufficient and independent. They are incredibly wary, mistrustful, and suspicious of outsiders, and are hesitant to reveal too much about themselves to anyone else. They are reluctant to put their trust into anyone outside the chapter, and will do so only after extensive intelligence-gathering and interaction.

Primarch’s Curse: Hubris. As a Chapter that values knowledge so highly, the Shadowed Suns have an unfortunate tendency to assume that they know best in any given situation. This can lead them to coming across as arrogant and prideful, especially in situations when they don't know as much as they think they do.

They are aware of this particular failing of theirs, and do their best not to succumb to it. They are not always successful at reining in their own pride and hubris, however.

Aptitudes: Willpower & Knowledge

Characteristic Modifiers: +5 Willpower and +5 Intelligence

Founding Fathers: Chief Librarian. This hero was lost in a warp accident, yet the remnants of the chapter have cause to believe that he lives still and may one day return to them in glory. The Shadowed Suns only refer to him as ‘the Great Librarian’, never by name.

Home World: Fleet-based. Currently comprises three ships - the Aten, a Vanguard Cruiser, and its two accompanying escort Destroyers, the Amosis and the Almasi. The Destroyers are not always with the Aten though; instead, they are usually deployed together on a separate mission.

Organisation: Unique organisation. Given their depleted numbers, it is almost impossible for the Shadowed Suns to adhere to overall codex organisation. Their squads are put together on a deployment-by-deployment basis from the remaining battle-brothers that seem best suited to the task at hand. They also tend to deploy individual battle-brothers on solo missions, or alongside squads from allied Chapters.

They have a unique method of organising their numerous psykers, however. They are grouped into five separate disciplines, depending on their strongest area of psychic expertise. Each discipline has its own symbol, displayed on the pauldron within the centre of the Chapter's badge of the eclipsed sun.

• Athenaean: These psykers specialise in mental communication and other psychic powers of the mind - short- and long-range telepathy, thought reading, memory and emotion manipulation, and other such skills. Their symbol is a stylised owl head.
  
  
• Corvidae: Those of the Corvidae discipline are the seers of the Shadowed Suns, gifted with precognition of varying degrees. They help to lead and guide their chapter with their foresight, whether it be short-term flashes in the middle of a battle, or long-term visions of the future. Their symbol is a black raven head.
  
  
• Pavoni: Both healers and death-dealers. Pavoni specialise in biomancy - they are able to manipulate body chemistry and biology in a variety of ways. They can accelerate healing, cure ailments, and boost physical abilities. On the flip side, they can channel their own bioelectric energy into devastating lightning attacks, or boil the blood in an opponent's veins, or drain an enemy's life force. Their symbol is a bright, colourful feather.
  
  
• Pyrae: The psykers of this particular discipline are pyromancers, able to create, manipulate, and control flame and fire, to devastating effect. Many Pyrae are also capable of technomancy, able to control machines with their minds. Their symbol is a scarlet phoenix.
  
  
• Raptorae: The hammer and shield of the Shadowed Suns. Raptorae are the telekinetics, capable of lifting, moving, or throwing objects with their mind, projecting blows of sheer force, or erecting barriers of pure will to shield and protect their brethren. Their symbol is a swooping bird of prey.
  

Combat Doctrine: Know Thy Enemy. Whenever possible, the Shadowed Suns study their enemy beforehand, learning all they can about their strengths, weaknesses, strategies and tactics. This often involves scouting and infiltration missions, carried out by neophyte scouts under the command of, and usually directly led by, the surviving Scout Master. Once sufficient data has been obtained and analysed, plans and contingencies are then carefully laid out, assisted by the unique skills of foresight from the Librarians within the chapter.

When it comes to combat itself, the Shadowed Suns prefer ranged combat, directed and supported by their Librarians and their various psychic abilities, and prioritising targets of importance. They prefer to minimise collateral damage and preserve items of interest, especially such things as libraries and other depositories of knowledge, so that they can study their contents later.

Solo Mode Ability: One particular characteristic stands out prominently - Willpower.
Rank 1: Re-roll failed Willpower tests.
Rank 4: +10 to Willpower tests.
Rank 8: +1 bonus degree of success on Willpower tests.

Squad Mode Abilities:
Attack Pattern: Psychic Conclave
Action: Half Action
Cost: 2
Sustained: Yes
Effect: The Librarians within the Battle-Brother’s squad may choose to confer psychic powers with a range of “Self” to those within Support Range. In all respects the Battle-Brother chosen by the Librarian becomes the recipient for the psychic power and benefits from all of its effects. The Librarian must choose at the start of each of his Turns to continue conferring the power on the Battle-Brother, shift it to another Battle-Brother or use it himself. In all other respects, the power remains the same and is activated and sustained as normal by the Librarian. More than one Librarian can benefit from the effects of the Psychic Conclave provided they are part of the same squad and in Support Range, and multiple powers can be conferred onto the same Battle-Brother.
Improvement: At Rank 4, activating the power becomes a Free Action. At Rank 7, psychic powers conferred on other Battle-Brothers do not count for that Round against the number of powers a Librarian is sustaining and thus do not reduce the Psy Rating of other powers.

Defensive Stance: Knowledge is Power
Action: Half Action
Cost: 3
Sustained: Yes
Effect: With knowledge of secret and forbidden lore, the Space Marines of this Chapter are able to more easily avoid sorcery and witchcraft. While under the effect of this ability, the Battle-Brother and any within Support Range of him receive a +10 bonus to any Tests made to resist the effects of a psychic power (this can include attempts to Dodge).
Improvement: At Rank 4, this bonus increases to +20.

Special Equipment:
Modified Weaponry - Force Glaives. A combination of staff and sword, where the glaive blade, instead of being at the end of the haft, goes down one side along half the length of the weapon haft. Because of their size, these particular weapons are usually only wielded by Terminators or Bikers, though some regular battle brothers choose to wield them as well.

Mark 4 Armour/weapons.

Chapter Trappings: Librarium Texts. +3 to Psyniscience

Beliefs: To Serve Mankind - The Shadowed Suns have not forgotten their roots within mortal mankind. Whilst they acknowledge the overall superiority of the Adeptus Astartes, they also respect the strength and tenacity of mankind, and they do not forget that without humanity, there would be no Imperium to serve and protect. Moreover, they wish to educate mankind to the best of their abilities, for the benefit of the Imperium in general.

Chapter Status: Endangered. The Shadowed Suns are currently critically under-strength, and most of their efforts are directed towards preserving and rebuilding their Chapter.

Chapter Friends: Battlefleet Tiberius, Chryos, the Knights Tempest Space Marine chapter.

Chapter Enemies: Chaos in all its forms, especially daemons.

Heraldry: A stylised eclipsed sun in white on a deep crimson background.

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Livery: Deep crimson, trimmed in white or gold depending on rank.

Bio: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Summary:
A Corvidae psyker with Terminator honors, Akil's foresight manifests itself either as very short-term, in-combat foresight, or long-term visions of the future. He has very little control over these long-term visions, however - he cannot have them at will, unlike most other Corvidae, and they usually only manifest as dreams. He also has some skill in wielding powers from the other disciplines, mostly the more offensive abilities, though he prefers to be subtle about their use.

Akil is very intelligent, calm and level-headed, and he believes in brains over brawn. He prefers to fight from a distance, relying on his psychic powers more than his ranged or melee weapons. However, he is still proficient with not only bolter or bolt pistol and his force glaive or force staff, but also with power fists, chain fists, and lightning claws.

He is currently acting as the Chapter Master for the Shadowed Suns, and he is incredibly protective of both his battle-brothers and his chapter's mortal support crew. His highest priority is the safety of the Aten, its two accompanying destroyers, and everybody aboard them. While he's willing to ally with and work alongside some of the various Imperial forces within the Chryos system, he is constantly aware of the vulnerabilities of his Chapter, and so he is very wary about what information he shares. His trust, and the trust of his whole Chapter, is incredibly difficult to earn.

Bio: Zuberi & Jabari

Zuberi and Jabari are twins, both of them powerful Athenaeans, capable of communicating telepathically with their battle-brothers over long distances, and between each other across entire systems. Although they are twins, they look almost nothing alike - the only similarity in appearance is their blue eyes.

Zuberi is massive even for a Space Marine, standing over a head taller than most Astartes, and the Terminator armour he usually wears makes him look even larger. Outside of the chapter, he is most often seen with Akil Amari, acting as his honour escort and bodyguard. His skills with telepathy allow him to easily skim the thoughts of most other people within his range, without being detected. This lets him pick up lies and deceptions alongside any other useful thoughts, and then pass anything pertinent on to Akil. He's also incredibly observant in general, and he is a vital source of information and intelligence for Akil when they're dealing with any of the myriad forces outside of the Chapter. However, though Zuberi is usually in constant telepathic communication with Akil, he rarely ever says anything out loud while around outsiders, playing up his assumed role of big, dumb, strong brute muscle, only there to protect his chapter master from physical threats.

Zuberi is generally laid-back, amiable, very slow to anger and quick to calm again. He's unshakably loyal to and protective of his battle-brothers, and though he may be slow to anger, he's still incredibly swift to respond with calculated violence towards anything he perceives as a threat to their safety. His weapon of choice is a massive force warmaul, which he wields as easily as a mortal man might wield a walking stick. He also carries a combi-melta, usually mag-locked to the back of his Terminator armour. Though his main psychic focus is with the Athenaean, he's still capable of wielding several skills of the Raptorae, including strong kine shields and powerful telekinetic strikes.

Jabari is, by comparison, much smaller and more lithely built than his twin. Though Jabari also has Terminator honours, he is most often in his scout armour. Jabari is just as observant and talented in the various telepathic skills as his brother, and he uses them in similar ways. However, he's rarely with his chapter master - instead, Jabari's role is more of a scout and infiltrator, the lone, hidden source of information far behind the scenes. He's incredibly skilled in stealth and silent movement, and he's able to use his telepathic abilities to subtly deflect peoples' attention away from himself, allowing him to more easily pass by unnoticed. He is also capable of wielding some of the skills of the Pavoni; this includes the ability to alter his own appearance, which helps him disguise himself to infiltrate areas of interest and gather information. It also includes the ability to, where necessary, quietly and subtly incapacitate or kill individuals who he needs out of the way, without leaving any trace of the cause.

When he's not out on his own solo missions, Jabari acts as the chapter's Scout Master. He directs much of the training of the chapter's initiates and scouts - not just in the various methods of combat, but also in the more subtle skills of stealth, infiltration, and intelligence-gathering. He tends to be stern, focused, and implacable, detached and stand-offish, a cold blade compared to his twin's warmer geniality. Jabari is an experienced sniper, and also well-versed in bladework, especially with his force sword and combat knife. If Jabari needs to don his Terminator armour, his usual loadout is a force glaive and twin-linked bolter.

When the twins take to the battlefield together, they are a devastating combination. Their telepathy allows them to coordinate flawlessly even as they pre-empt the enemy's every move; Zuberi acts as the largest, most obvious threat, while Jabari uses his stealth and subtlety to slip by the enemy's guard and strike an exposed, undefended flank.

Their telepathic link does, however, have a potent drawback - if one of the twins is struck suddenly and unexpectedly, the other often suffers the same effect through telepathic feedback, at least temporarily. It's entirely possible to take down both twins at once with a single solid hit. Fortunately, this hasn't happened often, and they do their best to guard against it happening again.

Very nice, a good read.
Love how Jabari has the mental equivalent of an Elven Cloak from LoTR.

I also like how "Their telepathic link does, however, have a potent drawback - if one of the twins is struck suddenly and unexpectedly, the other often suffers the same effect through telepathic feedback, at least temporarily. It's entirely possible to take down both twins at once with a single solid hit." makes them vulnerable.
Good balance to how fearsome they are combined.

Leaves room for some excellent story moments.

Hee, thank you! Hehe, I think of it more as a Someone Else's Problem field, but Elven cloak works too! XD

And yeah, I like to include vulnerabilities and drawbacks! Characters with no weaknesses are pretty dull and boring, imo. That particular vulnerability made a lot of sense to me, too, since their link is so strong - especially when they're actively maintaining it on the battlefield.

I hate to think of what would happen to one if the other is ever killed... D8

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