Editing Excoriators (section)

==Another interpretation==
First and foremost let me say this, when Space Marines are the primary characters in the piece it is not a good idea to write them as the utterly stoic fearless killing machines that the rest of galaxy sees them as. Why? Because internal conflict is one of the greatest hallmarks of fiction; without internal conflict, the characters are two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs meandering about the setting. The Excoriators carefully skirt this line; they have internal conflict to spare, and none of it is arbitrary or stilted. Their ''real'' problem is they risk coming across as two-dimensional cut-outs ''anyway'' because 90% of them can't move past "grouchy" and "cynical" for their character traits, and because they insist on chasing their stolen Chapter Standard to a planet they already know it isn't on.

Ah, but writing them as cold-hearted killing machines with barely any resemblance to humans would enable a writer to use the people around them and their enemies as the plot-driving conflicts of character. The gouges in the ground that guide the flow or the river that is Astartes.

Now let's move on to what makes the Excoriators [[awesome]]:

They, like most Chapters descended from [[Rogal Dorn]], put an enormous amount of emphasis on endurance, perhaps even more so than that of other Imperial Fist descendants. For example, when their power armor is damaged they will only repair it to the point of restoring functionality. Superficial things like scrapes, pitting, dents, and things like that are ignored. So while other marines ([[Pretty Marines]]) will spend hours making sure their armor looks just perfect, Excoriators show up looking like the maw of the warp just spat them out. Do you want to scare your enemy? Show them that you've ''already'' weathered everything they could potentially throw at you. Their champion, by his own admission, won the [[Feast of Blades]] not simply because he was a superior swordsman or duelist, but was also due to the Black Templar and Imperial Fist champions with whom he was dueling simultaneously [[Combat roles|underestimated the sheer amount of damage Kersh could soak up and still fight]] like a son of Dorn.

They also have massive adamantium balls. Like, even by Space Marine standards. Once they're done whining about the [[Alpha Legion]], they grab their bolters and face down a blood crusade, knowing full well that they're going to die, without any hesitation or further dissent. There are only 50 marines on the planet (and about 3000 Sisters of Battle), and the crusade has somewhere around 50 ''ships''. One scout gets his <strike>legs</strike> (it was his ''pelvis'') eaten by a daemon, yet demands to be on the battlefield three days later. Even their serfs get in on the action loading autocannons and shooting laspistols. There's also a [[Techmarine]] that is constantly followed by his ''pet'' [[Thunderfire Cannon]] that spends part of the battle going off on a search and destroy mission, by itself, through the streets and unloads a metric fuckton of ordnance, point blank, [[awesome|into a bloodthirster.]]

Also while the Excoriators are unusual in their denial of the Emperor as a god (common for Astartes, though), ''Legion of the Damned'' heavily suggests that the Excoriators may have come around to the divinity of the Emperor since it was the plea for assistance that was sent directly to the Imperial Palace on Terra that seemed to preempt the arrival of their ghostly saviors. Of course, it's far more likely that the Excoriators will simply figure it was because the Emperor is, you know, a super-powered psyker who is probably always paying attention to calls for help from his Astartes. Truly, "the Emperor Protects".

{{Template:Marines-Official}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Imperial]][[Category:Space Marines]]