Editing Blood Ravens (section)

==The Thousand Sons connection==
While the records of who the Blood Ravens are descended from are lost/redacted/burned, etc. The Blood Ravens have made it a mission to find out. In general, possibilities have ranged from just loyalists (such as having relics of several different chapters / legions, including a few relics from primarchs), to being a [[Traitor Legion Loyalists|loyal successor of a traitor legion]] (due to having extremely strong links to Thousand Sons). Most specifically, the strongest evidence for the Thousand Sons' progenitor legion indeed being that of the Great Crusade-era Thousand Sons' Corvidae Cult:

* Publications like the July 2019 White Dwarf often end their discussion of the progenitor of the Blood Ravens with things like "their propensity for sorcery suggests their sire was not one of the Emperor's nine loyal sons...".
* The Blood Ravens being traitor legion genestock is often hinted at, as any time the Blood Ravens' inner circle of leaders find strong evidence of their progenitor....they destroy or hide any record of their discovery, despite their normal obsession with finding/hoarding/protecting knowledge. Even when they were given the tech and geneseed for Primaris Marines, they apparently found ''something'' that they are making damn sure remains hidden from anyone outside of the chapter.
* The Blood Ravens armour painting bares similarities to the Thousand Sons' pre-Heresy colors. Near identical to the Sekhmet, the elite veterans of the Thousand Sons, who once shared leadership with the Corvidae Cult.
* The Blood Ravens' obsession with discovering / hording knowledge is a mirror of the Thousand Sons own knowledge obsession. Complete with an obsession of keeping vast libraries and archives.
* They have a massive amount of psykers, easily the most of any individual chapter. Just like the Thousand Sons had by far the most psykers of any of the original legions.
* Their recruitment practices of pulling from worlds with a larger number of psykers mirrors the same from the Thousand Sons.
* Their tactics are a mirror of the Thousand Son's Corvidae Cult. Using their psykic powers to see into the future to foresee enemy plans.
* The sigil of the Corvidae Cult being a raven's head, while the Blood Ravens use a raven as their own sigil.
* In the novel, 'Burning of Prospero', the psyker "Kallista Eris" is used by the Corvidae Cult to scry the future. Describing her visions, she says this: '"It’s too late... the Wolf is at the door and it hungers for blood. Oh, Throne... no, the blood! '''The Ravens''', I see them too. The lost sons and a '''Raven of Blood'''. They cry out for salvation and knowledge, but it is denied! A brother betrayed, a brother murdered. The worst mistake for the noblest reason! It cannot happen, but it must!"'
* In the short story, 'Rebirth', featuring Revuel Arvida (a member of the Corvidae Cult. And who would later become Janus, the first Grand Master of the [[Grey Knights]]): '"'''Knowledge is power'''," he breathed. Then he turned away from the scene, and stole quickly back into the occlusion of the ruins. As he went, the dim red light of the angry magma fires caught on his shoulder guard, exposing the serpentine star set about the black raven-head of his cult discipline."' ('''Knowledge is Power''' being the first half of the Blood Raven's own motto, and the scene drawing attention to the Corvidae Cult's Black Raven head sigil as a black raven is the Blood Raven's own sigil. This statement also hints that it may have well been Arvida himself who founded the Blood Ravens.
* Ahzek Ahriman, who was once the leader of the Corvidae Cult before the fall of the Thousand Sons, stated that he knew the Blood Ravens' former Chapter Master "Azariah Vidya" very well, and admits that both he and Vidya had copies of the "Un-Founding", a book detailing the history of the Blood Ravens. This implying that he once met Vidya, and together they discovered the Blood Raven's history.
* In the Index Astartes - Blood Ravens, the section talking of their combat doctrine alludes to how their foresight is similar to how Magistus Amon's (founder of the Corvidae Cult) warnings to Magnus inadvertently lead to the primarchs fall to Chaos.

===Founded by Janus?===
If the Blood Ravens were somehow founded by Arvida, after his transformation into Janus, then it would well explain how the Blood Ravens suffer neither the Flesh Change, nor Rubric. As Janus was created by infusing Arvida with a shard of Magnus' soul. Magnus was noted to have a stabilising effect on the Thousand Sons' gene-seed (basically stabilising the warp-fuckery that is inherent to the Tsons gene-seed). Arvida merging directly with a shard of Magnus could have easily perma-fixed not only his body but his gene-seed as well, so even gene-seed grown from his progenoid glands would not suffer the gene-flaws. However, after the merge, "Janus" claimed that he had no memory of his life as Arvida. He could have later remembered his past life, or as the Grand Master of the Grey Knights, there would be nothing stopping him from finding out. And being a shard of Magnus (and one of the Thousand Sons), finding lost knowledge would always be of interest to him. Alternatively, he may have been under orders from [[Malcador]] or the Emperor to claim as such.

The hints at Janus being the founder of the Blood Ravens is the strongest of any potential individual:
* A statement he made, without anyone around to hear him, "'Knowledge is Power'", is the first part of the Blood Raven's chapter motto.
* He was a member of the Thousand Sons' Corvidae Cult, which the Blood Ravens are as close to confirmed to be descended from as you can hope for.	
* Being the Grand Master of the Grey Knights, wiping any record of his own existence would easily explain the Blood Ravens' inability in discovering their real founder.
* Related to the above, what records of the Blood Ravens exist are redacted under the order of the Ordo Maellus, which the Grey Knights are a part of.	
* The Blood Ravens have worked alongside the Grey Knights before, and apparently have a good relationship with them as the Blood Ravens took a suit of Grey Knight armour and the GK's didn't do anything about it and in dawn of war dark crusade and soul storm the marines (the faction it self pattered after the Blood Ravens), could use a unit of Grey Knights.
* The oldest known leader of the Blood Ravens is an Astartes named Azariah Vidya, who was noted to already have extensive knowledge/experience in combating the forces of Chaos and used it to OP effect against the Alpha Legion, "Azariah Vidya" sounding similar name to "Arvida". Wouldn't be like he hasn't changed his name before, from "Ianus" to "Janus".
* Janus disappeared sometime between 546.M32 and 290.M34, as by the latter date, the Grey Knights have a new Supreme Grandmaster.