My Brother,
I am sorry for the delay in my letters. We have been under attack by renegades lately and the secret of our fortress monastery must be defended at all costs. So I neither had a chance to write you nor to continue on my research. Currently I can only continue to explain the ways of our Chapter to you. Today I want to give you an insight in the culture and believes of my chapter and my people. I got used to say “my people” although I’m neither born to a woman of the Thousand Fists, nor have I been raised within the fleet.
Like many other, I was recruited on an imperial world protected by the Thousand Fists. I was born to a minor aristocratian family on Campus Gloria, the central Planet of the Green Belt. The Thousand Fists maintain an Fortress and a warrior school there, and although it was my wish to become a doctor, I was talented enough to enter the warrior school and become a Fist myself. And although the culture of the Thousand Fists fascinated my since my childhood, I only adepted it. But after three hundred years among the Fists, I can truly say, that I am part of this Chapter. It’s ways are my ways and it’s people are my people.
If you want to really understand the heritage of my chapter and my people, you have to go back to the way the Tribes lived back on our long lost homeworld. Like I mentioned in my first letter, my people were hunters, which live with and by the gigantic herds of (sometimes also gigantic) wild animals. We were nomads, always traveling the land and following the herds. Many tribes lived in tents that were easily build up and down again. But some tribes, especially those within the warm and hot regions, lived under the open Sky all year. No animals were tameable and even if they were, I don’t think that my people would have come up with the idea of taming them back then. Animals were sacred to us, brothers and sisters, a source of live and a source of death. We killed them and we were killed by them, but we would have never force them into submission, as we never force our brothers and sisters into submission. If one of us, want’s others to follow him and his will, he has to earn the respect by deeds worthy of authority. That’s how my people still handle things and thats also how we came to handle our chapter. But the beasts of Campus Acutarii never new anything about respect and submission, they just lived, and killed each other, and we lived, killed and died among them.
As I already mentioned animals were of great relevance to us, both practically and spiritually. When a boy or girl is on the verge of becoming a man or a woman (or something else, but I’ll tell you later about that), he or she goes on a spiritual quest to find a spiritual companion. This if often an animal, either real or from the vast mythology of animals, that my people have. Today we are not completely sure which animals really lived and which just lived in the stories we tell each other for millennia. Some times the companion may turn out to be something else than a animal, an ancestor, the emperor or our primarch, but most often it is an animal. The spiritual quest itself can also have many different forms: Meditation or another ceremony of Endurance and often Pain. Sometimes it’s a deed or an effort for the community or the chapter, like the crafting of a masterpiece or the writing of a book. Quite often it’s a hunt or a situation in which the initiate is being hunted and has to defend himself.
No matter how the quest looks like, the result is almost always the same: The initiate find his spiritual companion. Or is found by the companion – it’s most often hard to tell the difference. The companions helps to young man or woman to better understand his- or herself, to focus her character, to value his strength and to accept his weaknesses. The companion becomes a part of the initiates name in one way or the other and many astartes of my chapter bear their companion in their personal heraldry and warpaint.
This releation of course doesn’t stop at the personal level. Many manifest forms of our community and chapter choose a companion. Whole families and tribes are dedicated to a single companions, as are ships of our fleet, the companies and brotherhoods of our chapter and even single squads may have their own companion. But it has not always been like this: When the Chapter was founded, many astartes left our culture and heritage behind adopted the culture of the Imperial Fists and the many teachings of the Codex Astartes. Amazingly enough … the seed to our deviation from our progenitor Chapter and the Codex was planted even before our chapter was founded: Those few of us, who were chosen by Dorn himself to become Imperial Fists and fought at the Imperial Palace on holy Terra against the Traitors always spoke with great esteem of the White Scars and the way they took pride and strength from the tribal culture of Mundus Planus.
Still it seems important to notice that we neither believe in our companions as being real deities, nor do we follow the Ecclisiarchy when they say the emperor is a god. We know that the emperor is a living man, the father of our Primarch and our companions are just helpful devices, we came up with. But we learned during the millennia, that they really help to focus and grow – as individuals, as tribes and groups and as a community.
As being Hunters is still an important part of our common identity, we kept the tradition to collect trophies and craft bracelet, necklaces and all kinds of trinkets from the prey, we bring down. Many of my brothers and sisters proudly clad themselves in furs and feathers. The Astartes of my chapter honour this tradition also and many powerarmours are richly decorated as well as painted with tribal markings and war paint. Many Squads and Brotherhoods carry the skulls of foes on their bannerpoles. Those traditions also date back to the time, when my people still lived on Campus Actuarii. We do have a rich culture of painting our skin for several important occasions. When more then one tribe gathers, most people wear a tribal marking either on the arms or legs, that marks them being a member of a certain type. Additionally there are special markings, that are worn to identify the role of it’s bearer within the tribe, like shaman, chieftain, warrior, healer or young blood. These Markings are most often painted in the face or on the shaved head. And those markings are not permanently as the roles of it’s bearer changes and people can even change their tribe. Additionally, when a member of the tribe performs great deeds for his people and becomes known to other tribes, he or she earns the right to wear an own, individual warpaint. This is of course especially true for the Astartes of our chapter, so that many space marines have a unique patterns painted on their helmets.
Only allow me to add so much to this report: Most of what I have written above is true for most of my people. But it is not for all. We recruit new Astartes, Navy-Personal and Chapter Servants from nearly all worlds of the Imperium, that come across our way. Many of those people adept our culture over the time. But some also stick to their own cultures and believes, or even influence us. So don’t be to suprised to find a church of the ecclisiarchy on board of our ships next to a tribal shrine, or a laurel on the helmet of a revered terminator armour hanged with furs and decorated with tusks and skulls.
But you surely have already noticed that. So I won’t bother you anymore on with these details. Instead I have exciting news to report: We have been ordered to clear the newly discovered Space Hulk Tempest of Souls. The first reports were very promising and I’ll keep you informed on any successful capture of new specimen.
May the Emperor protect your ways,
Lucas Lacertil
Continue the story with Letter No. 5 – Military Organisation and Combat Doctrine now …
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