Sons of the Phoenix
Sons of the Phoenix | ||
---|---|---|
Battle Cry | "From the fires of war we rise!" | |
Founding | Ultima Founding | |
Successors of | Imperial Fists (officially), hinted to be Emperor's Children | |
Successor Chapters | None | |
Chapter Master | Unknown | |
Primarch | Rogal Dorn (officially), hinted to be Fulgrim | |
Homeworld | Unknown | |
Allegiance | Imperium | |
Colours | White with purple right arm and left poleyn with gold trim, aquila, and upper poleyns |
"Oh, ye Machine Spirits! My progenoids are ruined! But what if... I were to acquire traitor geneseed and disguise it as Imperial Fists? Hohoho, delightfully daemonic, Belisarius!"
- – Belisarius Cawl, moments before Guilliman entered the room
"I-Imperial Fists successors?! With that kind of name, with that kind of color scheme, using that kind of warcry, emblazoned with that kind of chapter heraldry?!"
- – Primarch Guilliman, further questioning Cawl about the chapter's questionable details.
" Affirmitive."
- – Belisarius Cawl, trying not to get blammed by Guilliman.
The Sons of the Phoenix are a loyalist chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, created as part of the Ultima Founding. They are (supposedly) successors of the Imperial Fists. Like their cousins in the Black Templars, the Sons are always crusading, all the time, and they wear a shit-ton of relics, purity seals, and votive candles to show off their devotion to the Emperor.
Apparently, after a grueling battle, some Sons of the Phoenix were taken prisoner by a Thousand Sons warband for experiments, beating FABULOUS Bile to it.
Colors and Heraldry[edit]
The Sons of the Phoenix wear off-white power armor, apparently to display their purity. Which is funny because off-white implies stained puri-oh right. The right arm and shoulder and left knee are painted violet, and their chest insignia and shoulder trim are gold. Company markings, unit designations, and specialty insignias are all gold. The squad specialty marking is displayed on the right shoulder, and the company number is displayed as a Roman numeral on either the left knee or inside the squad marking. A smaller company specialty marking is also displayed on the left knee beside the company number.
Curiously, their sergeants and lieutenants have had their helmet markings switched around; Sons of the Phoenix lieutenants wear solid red helmets, while the sergeants wear white helmets with a red stripe.
They are traditionally modeled with many purity seals affixed to their armor, and lit candles on their backpack, and for some weird fucking reason, the vast majority of Sons of the Phoenix players fail to take wind direction into account when converting their models, resulting in candle flames that are not affected by the wind whereas the purity seals and scrolls are, or the other way around. Sometimes they go in completely opposite directions. When this is pointed out to them, they usually explode from the sheer effort required to come up with half-convincing excuses for this blatant oversight.
Chapter Badge[edit]
The chapter's badge is a black helmet next to a black star. The helmet is crested with lightning bolts, and a swept wing protrudes from the bottom.
Not At All Suspicious[edit]
The symbols, iconography, name, and color scheme bear no small similarity to pre-heresy Emperor's Children. Whether this is due to blinding coincidence or the deliberate raising of chapters with traitor legion geneseed is a secret likely known only to Cawl (Guilliman explicitly told Cawl he wasn't allowed to do it - but he has a feeling the Archmagos may have done it anyway behind his back) (also, Cawl might have done it before asking permission, and then sensibly did not ask for forgiveness). See also the fucking name: Sons of the Phoenix. Yeah. Really subtle, GW. (For those of you who don't know, the Primarch Fulgrim of the Emperors Children was also known as the Palatine Phoenix, and the Phoenician (which GW pretends means phoenix*). Read: Sons of the Phoenix=Sons of Fulgrim).
Their method of battle is also described as them like to make as much bang, boom, and flash as possible. Add in with "holy men and women" following them like groupies, and you essentially have these guys described as rock stars.
(* Note: The name Phoenician, like Latin Poenī, comes from Greek Φοίνικες (Phoínikes). The word φοῖνιξ (phoînix) meant variably "Phoenician person", "Tyrian purple, crimson" or "date palm" and is attested with all three meanings already in Omero. The mythical bird phoenix also carries the same name, but this meaning is not attested until centuries later. The word may be derived from φοινός phoinós "blood-red".)