Purity wardens

Purity Wardens
Battle Cry	"In His Name!"
Founding	Middle M33
Successors of	Ultramarines
Successor Chapters	None
Chapter Master	Rex Dolor
Primarch	Roboute Guilliman
Homeworld	Mare Aeternam
Strength	Unknown (claimed to be 1000-1200)
Allegiance	Imperium
Colours	Ocean Grey-Blue, White helmets, Blued Steel

The Purity Wardens are another product of fat/tg/uys playing around with the Chapter Creation tables from Rites of Battle. It is an attempt to create a more realistic traitor-hunting chapter, warts and all.

Home World

Mare Aeternam is a small cold hive world almost fully covered with water. Inhabitants try to overcome the lack of ground under their feet and intolerable frost by hiding in tremendously high tower-cities and floating settlements. This paradoxical mixture of liquid water and extremely low temperatures (which rarely rises higher than 20 degree below zero) is explained by the abnormal saltiness of the local oceans. The amount of fossil fuels is too insignificant to discuss; in order to maintain life in the megalopolises, solar and wind power plants are used, which are unbelievably effective in planetary conditions of constant wind and a thin and almost nonexistent ozone layer. Hives even have quite specific mushroom-like shapes that provide the best placement for the power plants. The planet is uninhabited except for humans and Terran bacteria which were brought by the first colonists as the source of food and oxygen.

Such severe conditions force the inhabitants to be maximally cruel and pragmatic; constant lack of space and overcrowding lead to a merciless, Spartan system where sick and useless citizens are forcibly euthanized. Family institutions are replaced by a government system which monitors every step of a child's development and eliminates every unworthy in order to make the best, most loyal specialists ever. It's a brutal but effective solution for problems which usually plague hive worlds: the genetic health, productivity and viability of the nation improve every generation; there are no declassified groups and as a result no place for chaos/genestealer cults to get a foothold (we think); and the military system has very little stagnation as aging officers are regularly replaced.

Furthermore the level of crime in the cities is also extremely low due to constant surveillance both on the streets and in residences. Despite these grim conditions the residents are happy to live here; constant propaganda since birth means they tend not to consider other forms of governance.

Chapter Organisation

Recruitment

People from Mare Aeternam are great material for Space Marine transformation as they are toughened by the planetary environment and are totally confident in their own strength and abilities; they know that for every child who has made it to adulthood, about 10 were deselected by the government, ensuring that those who remain are the greatest sons of their ancestors. The best of the best get the right to take part into the Recruits' Tournament. Every generation in every city the apothecarium - the symbol of humanity's power – comes to declare the beginning of the tournament. The top hundred winners leave their planet and never came back. The Space Marines take the teenagers to the orbiting battle-command barge Conquer of Palace where the hellish trials of recruitment commence. Survivors-- less than 10% from all challengers-- become members of a final gladiatorial tournament; only those fortunate enough to survive have are allowed to undergo the transformation to a Space Marine.

Chapter divergence

During the millennia the chapter ended up in many fratricidal wars, causing serious losses, until by 37M the chapter reckoned only 200 brothers. It was a dark time for the Wardens; the full chapter was on the verge of extinction, but the grandmaster had a solution. First he decided to reject rigid Ultramarine dogma and form an assault company from the remaining marines, which became a future model for chapter organization. Furthermore, he got rid of the scout system in order to maximize the number of heavily armored soldiers that carrying heavy and special weapons for maximum offensive advantage against Traitor Marines. Purity Wardens often have numerical advantage against their enemies because of the low rate of Chaos corruption.

There was still a question of recovery of the chapter's previous strength. In order to overcome it the Grandmaster made a deal with the Adeptus Mechanicus: for the next millennium the full chapter was under the command of the lord-priest Bellum Patronum, without any right to reject his orders. In exchange he provided the technology which is now always used to create new Warden chapters; using it allowed the chapter was able to create 1000 zygotes in 50 years. This allowed the chapter to produce 50-100 new marines with every new generation of the settlers of its home world. In the current timeline the chapter consists of 9 assault companies, but its strength is actually unknown due to high casualties and turnover in the Ultima sector.

Battle brotherhoods

During the final steps of the Recruits' Tournament the future Marines form associations that become the foundation for the battle brotherhoods – the smallest combat unit of the chapter. The purpose of this brotherhood is to for the marines to become as one, the unit more than just a sum of its parts.

Eventually the marines completely reject their weak and pathetic emotions and individual desires in order to serve the main goal – extermination of the Emperors enemies without remorse, mercy or compassion, as cold and pragmatic as the winds of their home world.

Praetorium

Many battle brotherhoods start to lose cohesion due to the high casualty rates of the Purity Wardens. As the survivors are often the most experienced and mighty warriors of their chapter, they earn the honor to become a part of a Praetorium (some kind of analogue to a typical first company), gaining access to a wide variety of improvements such as being issued improved or specialist weaponry, or becoming a chaplain after some sufficiently dangerous ritual. The most glorious among all can even try to become the private security of the Chapter Master.

Chapter aim

The proud sons of Guillemans's geneseed, the Purity Wardens are successors of the 7th foundation and were created as inner arbiters of Ultramarine successor chapters, as even the most pure fall to the temptations of the dark side.