Bloody Peripatetics

**This article, Bloody Peripatetics, was written by Entirelyalive. It may be linked to any page without asking for the author's permission.**

## Renegade Chapter

### **Colours**

White and Black

The **Bloody Peripatetics** are a Renegade Space Marine Chapter whose behavior makes little sense to outsiders and whose motives are a carefully guarded secret. Its origins and history are shrouded in mystery, and though it has appeared at various locations throughout the galaxy since M38, most recently in the Panay Sub-Sector. The warband's peculiar nature makes it difficult to say for certain that they are no older than this. The warband travels in a small fleet centered around the Battle Barge *Sophia*, though they have been known to engage in battle only rarely, and tend to prefer escape to engagement when pressed directly.

To most Imperial observers, the Bloody Peripatetics present as a perfectly standard loyalist chapter, it is only by tracing the peculiar incidents that follow their travels and the few recorded instances of Peripatetic interactions with agents of xenos and Chaos that their perfidy becomes apparent. As of the conclusion of the Indomitus Crusade, Imperial Logicians have pronounced this to be a heretical warband with a shoot on sight standing order for all loyalist forces. However, in light of the difficulty in estimating the threat posed to the Imperium, no dedicated force deployment is recommended at this time.

## History

### Founding

It is not clear when the Bloody Peripatetics were founded, nor why, nor by whom. The official story as told to newly raised battle-brothers is that they were supposedly an offshoot of the lost IInd Legion gene-stock, created by the Emperor himself for the purpose of exploring the full potential of the new Astartes. However, the truth to such blasphemous rumours are both unfounded and highly improbable. This story has naturally spread throughout the battle barge on which they lived and is widely known among the mortal serfs of the warband, though they all know better than to say anything about it to outsiders. To those they encounter, the Bloody Peripatetics will claim pretty much anything that will get them what they want, though tend to avoid confessing too many details unless necessary.

However, among the line of sergeants who have led 2nd Squad of the 2nd Company, another story is preserved, for while it was believed that the true circumstances of the founding could prove to distract the chapter from its purpose, it was also considered that this true story should be preserved, for no knowledge deserves to be lost without good reason. That tale is as follows.

Two minor battle brothers of the Alpha Legion, named Alpharius and Omegon, were on extended assignment away from the legion on some planet sometime after the Horus Heresy. The exact circumstances are forgotten in the fog of operational security, and isn't really important. What is important is that one day, while they were waiting for things to develop in their mission, Omegon turned to Alpharius and said, "You know, we could be here forever at this rate." Alpharius paused to consider what had only been intended as a passing remark, and to the surprise of both of them, agreed. "Don't you think," Alpharius said, "We are overengineered for our supposed purpose? We are, after all, essentially immortal, and yet expected anyway to die in battle. If we were truly meant for endless warfare, why would the effort be made to give us a chance at eternity?" "Indeed," replied Omegon, "after all, we were meant for exterminating xenos and rebel elements, so why would we be given the means to communicate with and understand these supposedly unacceptable elements through the Omophagea? Why was our overall intelligence heightened and not merely aspects directly related to combat like tactical acuity and situational awareness?"

The two discussed the matter further, finding that since they required nearly no sleep and minimal breaks for necessities like food, they had an extreme amount of time simply for considering and pondering their situation as soon as they opted to stop filling it with the seemingly unnecessary rituals that filled the day of every space marine. They discussed many matters which are still debated among the renegade chapter to this day, for almost four years without stopping. Finally, one of the two, either Alpharius or Omegon, it isn't clear which, wrote "Slavery and Self Determination" a tract studied not just by the Battle Brothers of the Bloody Peripatetics, but also by their more scholarly mortal followers. It makes no references to the circumstances of its writing, but instead presents itself as an abstract and highly allegorical syllogism asking whether space marines are slaves and if they are capable of free will. At least, that is the surface level interpretation, there are in fact many layers of meaning to be mined in the work, and its subtleties have been debated for as long as the warband has existed.

With this book written, the two left their former legion and formed an independent space marine chapter. No one knows where they got the other members, nor where they got the Battle Barge *Sophia*, but one of the founders, either Alpharius or Omegon, became the Chapter Master, whose role would be to pretend to lead the chapter as far as anyone outside the chapter was aware, while the other, either Omegon or Alpharius, would become the 2nd Company, 2nd Squad Sergeant, who would be in command of the chapter as a whole in fact, though without it ever being acknowledged openly.

## Notable Encounters

Since the founding of the chapter, no formal histories or chronicles have ever been kept. Events are written down from time to time when a particular battle brother is inspired to write about a recent battle, campaign, or interaction. It has become tradition that these accounts include no absolute dates to allow the reader to know when they happened, and a point of pride to remove as many soft indicators of when they may have happened as possible. This is because it is considered that the value of history is not in knowing scientifically what came before, but rather to collect and examine the actual behavior of people, both humans, Peripatetics, and xenos, as grist for the chapter wide philosophical mill. The extracts from the archives of the Battle Barge Sophia are presented below in no particular order.

### Recovery of an Unknown Relic

It had been decided at Conclave that the chapter should pursue a relic. The chapter was generally indifferent as to what sort of relic should be pursued, but the 2nd company 2nd squad sergeant happened to know the approximate coordinates of an Adeptus Mechanicus explorator fleet that was planning to investigate a nearby world. The motion was made and carried that we would make contact with this fleet and take whatever they were targeting, or perhaps just take some relics from them if they had anything good.

We arrived at the planet, a barren rock with chaos residue detectable from orbit, a few days before the mechanicus fleet arrived. They were approximately the same size as our fleet, though outfitted particularly for supporting a ground engagement more than for void warfare, and so we held the initial tactical advantage. Our Master of the Academy opened communications with the explorator fleet and announced that we were the Galactic Guardians chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, tasked particularly with standing vigil over tainted worlds such as this one. The senior techpriest of the explorator fleet replied that he had never heard of us, but we explained that our nature as guardians of places that could neither be safely cleansed nor safely destroyed meant our missions were kept generally quiet. The techpriest accepted this explanation, as well as our further explanation that no one was allowed on the surface of the world, for any contact with what lay below would only serve to empower the warp. For decades, the Master of the Academy explained, we had been sitting here fighting off greedy but foolish mortals, foul xenos, and chaos warbands alike who had all been attracted to the heretical prize below.

The senior techpriest explained that his goals and our goals were in alignment. They had, it seemed, discovered an ancient piece of archeotech which may have the capacity to cleanse the taint of the warp from a world, and wished to test it on the source of the chaos infestation here. The Master of the Academy made a great show of reticence, but eventually allowed the techpriest to convince him that they should enter into an alliance. This was agreed to and after a few days to allow the mechanicus to prepare, we launched the 1st Company in full parade order down to the rendezvous point.

The sight of our unadorned armor, pristine black and white without marking or differentiation, was suitably impressive. The mechanicus had come to work, not show off, and the irritation they felt at being shown up, despite pretending to have transcended human weaknesses like pride, was clear in the chagrin on the faces of the senior cadre. It so happened that the battle brother who was playing the role of Senior Academician of 1st Company was one who had written tracts on Adeptus Mechanicus theology, and so, stepping from formation, he approached the visibly intimidated senior techpriest. The Senior Academician announced over his vox speaker, at a deliberately overloud volume, that he saw very little Imperial Purity here. When the techpriest, equal parts worried and offended, demanded he explain, the Senior Academician said quite plainly that the Mechanicus he saw before him deviated from the blessed human form more severely than many xenos species he had fought. The techpriest held his anger, explaining as if to a disabled child that the treaty of Mars made allowances for theological differences between the Imperium and the Mechanicum. "We are a long way from Mars" scowled the Senior Academician, adjusting his vox output for theatrical effect, and the techpriest replied just as expected, asking if the Astartes intended to start a fight over the matter. Instead, the Senior Academician removed the voice effects from his vox unit and said simply that he wished for the techpriest to defend his position by demonstrating through argument that his mechanical form retained the human ideal that he claims to uphold.

The techpriest had not expected this and took a moment to process it, but without hesitation he pulled back the hood of his robe to reveal a head that was half flesh and half machine. He explained that he was still human, and still enjoyed the Omnissiah's blessings, because he still had human parts in addition to his mechanical ones. The Senior Academician asked if the techpriest had knowledge of the xenos knows as the Necrons, specifically the Flayed Ones. They too have human parts incorporated into their form, but surely this makes them even more accursed and foul, simply having human elements in their physiology does not lessen the hatred one should feel for them.

"You are right," said the tech-priest, "That was perhaps too simple an answer. Perhaps what I should have said is that I was born human and preserve within me important human elements." The Senior Academician looked the techpriest over and asked, "Is that so? You say you began as human, but gradually had robotic parts replace your human parts. However, if one began with a robot and gradually added human parts to that, would one not end up with a similar result to what we see with you?" "Of course not," replied the techpriest, "for the fact that I began as human is most critically important here." "So," challenged the Peripatetic, "if all that matters is that you began as human, does that mean that chaos spawn still retain the blessed human form? That seems obviously false, because what is important is not how you started, it is the form you hold at present."

"There is no need to throw around heretical accusations, Captain. You are taking advantage of words constructed hastily for your benefit. It is rare that a techpriest finds it profitable to discuss things with appropriate precision with men of the Imperium, but if you want an explanation that is a bit deeper, I will not hold back for the sake of your understanding." "I am quite happy to hear your most precise understanding of your doctrine," replied the Senior Academician, "Because only through that can I understand the question of what it is to be human."

The techpriest explained, "Among the Imperial cult, it is the outwardly human form which is venerated, the closer one's sihouette comes to matching that of an idealized health adult male or female, the more your Emperor's cult exalts it. This is not a position without merit, for one of the Emperor's great priorities in the time when he walked among the human race was to maintain genetic purity and breeding stock for the species, that humanity may propagate among the stars without branching into multiple irreversibly divergent lineages. However, as you have already mentioned, this is an ultimately fallacious approach, for there are those among certain xenos breeds like the eldar which superficially resemble humans even more closely than genetically closer abhuman branches of our species. It is, in the end, an approximation made necessary by the great diversity and limited capacity of many individuals of the Imperium, a simple heuristic for the masses to follow that achieves specific results, not the actual truth of the Omnissiah."

"No, our veneration of the sacred human form follows the holy triune nature of godhead as recognized by the Mechanicus. We venerate the Machine God, source of all knowledge, the Omnissiah, your Emperor, source of human power, and the Motive Force, which governs the transmission of energies. What sits at the core of a human to provide knowledge, power, and transmits signals? Obviously it is the blessed human mind, which presides above the blessed human brain, which sits upon human neural pathways, the triune embodied within the human form. Not only will you find this trinity present in every loyal Mechanicus adept, you will even find it, in reduced form, in the most minor of servitors. It is in attempting to emulate this holy trinity that Abominable Intelligence makes itself anathema, and it is in corrupting the very human mind that Chaos makes itself our eternal enemy. The xenos cannot ever share in this, for though they do possess brains, they do not possess the spark of the Omnissiah exclusive to the human mind. After all, the Emperor himself was and is human at the same time that he is so much greater than mere humanity."

"Does that answer satisfy your curiosity, Captain?" the techpriest asked. The Senior Academician nodded his helmet, saying, "Your answer has been recorded, logged, and will be examined further. It seems sound on the surface." The Senior Academician turned as if to leave, but turned back at the last moment, an affectation he had retained since even before ascending to Astartes, "But if I may ask, some things have more brain than others. How much brain can be removed before a being is no longer human?"

"That is a simple question. In theory, there are two factors. First, there must always at minimum remain enough brain to perform a unit's core functions. Second, the core functions of a unit may be augmented by mechanical means, but never replaced. As a practical matter, there are extensive guidelines distributed by Mars and adjusted by the major forge worlds for local conditions, but each of these draws the line well in excess of anything that could be considered heretical, preserving the blessed human core even as we strive to augment and support it."

The Senior Academician indicated to the lead techpriest that he considered this answer to be sufficient, and thanked the Mechanicus representative for his patience. The battle brother playing the role of Chapter Master then conferred with the Mechanicus to escort their experimental weapon into the heart of the Chaos infestation. Once the delivery team was isolated, the caverns were blown by the pre-set explosive charges, the Peripatetic escort gunned down the Mechanicus elements carrying the weapon, and the chaos artifact, the Mechanicus secret weapon, and the 1st Company battle brothers were extracted by a back route by elements of 2nd Company.

The rest of the mission went as planned, with the one playing the role of Chapter Master assisting the Mechanicus for as long as possible in search and rescue operations, but as the Chaos taint on the planet grew worse, they were both forced to withdraw and leave the system. The extracted elements of 1st and 2nd Company rejoined the Battle Barge *Sophia* later on, and both artifacts were left at a position marked by the 2nd company 2nd squad sergeant.

### Within the Cave at Magna Sellusi

Thinking to raid the colony at Magna Sellusi for slaves while passing through the system, elements of the 1st and 2nd companies made separate landfall at designated sites of interest on the planet. 1st Company quickly discovered that the colony had been sacked with great violence some time in the not too distant past. The 2nd Company elements were redirected to a nearby cave which showed suspect energy readings, and approached the enterance cautiously, though without attempting stealth. Upon entering the clearing at the mouth of the cave, a mechanically amplified voice rang out, its Low Gothic nearly unintelligible through the thick Orkish accent.

"DIS IS OUR TERRITORY! 'UMIES NEED TA SCRAM BEFORE WE KRUMPZ YA!" There was no mistaking it, the voice was orkish, the decorations on the crude doorway erected around the mouth of the cave were orkish, and worst of all, the smell was orkish, penetrating even through the rebreather filters of each battle brother's helm. A battle conclave was called, in which the majority of the glyphs within each brother's comms panel lit in favor of withdrawal. The unspoken calculus was that there was nothing to be gained here worth the effort and risk of combat. One among the dissenters, however, was confident enough that he sent a ping declaring himself impromptu captain of 8th company, then spoke to the loudspeaker.

"Whose territory is this?" the captain asked by way of opening, hoping to engage the ork.

"DIS IZ DA BOSS'S TERRITORY YA DUM GIT, OI TOLD YA THAT ALREADY!"

"But who," he clarified, "is the boss?"

"DAT BE WURTBAD SMASHSMASHA, AINT YA 'EARD OF 'IM?"

"I am afraid I know very little, we only recently arrived here. Can you tell me why Wurtbad Smash-Smasher is the boss here?"

"DATZ EASY! ITZ CUZ 'E'Z DA BIGGEST AND DA MEANEST AND DA GREENEST!"

"Is that so? How do you know he is the biggest, and the meanest, and the greenest?"

"DATZ CUZ 'E KRUMPED DA LAST BOSS! WHY YA SUCH A DUM GIT?"

"Orks are much smarter than Space Marines, but tell me, if I win, I mean, krump, Wurtbad Smash-smasher, will that make me the new boss of this clan?"

"UV COURSE NOT! YA AINT GREEN! YA CANT BE BOSS IF YA AINT GREEN!"

"But you just told me that the winner of the fight is the biggest, meanest, and greenest."

"UH, YEAH, DATZ WHY YA CANT WIN, CUZ YA AINT DA BIGGEST AND DA MEANEST AND DA GREENEST!"

"But how can you know that, you have told me that these qualities are measured through fighting, and I have not yet fought your boss."

"WEZ DA ORKZ, WEZ HERE FOR FOIGHTIN AND WINNIN. YA AINT ORKY, SO YA AINT MUCH FOR FOIGHTIN AND WINNIN! WAAAAAGH!"

"So, you are telling me that all orks win? But what about those orks that don't win? Didn't you tell me that the last boss was defeated by the current boss? Does that make him not an ork?"

"UH, YEAH, I THINK YEAH. 'E'Z DEAD, SO 'E AINT ORKY, INSTEAD 'E'Z A LOSER!"

"So, are you saying that if I win, and defeat your boss, then I am more Orky than your boss?"

"WHA? YA KANT KRUMP 'IM, 'E'Z DA BOSS, 'E'Z DA BIGGEST AND DA MEANEST AND DA GREENEST!"

"But surely the only way to prove that is for the boss to fight me, and if I win that would make me an ork."

"YA KANT BE AN ORK, YU'Z A BEAKY!"

"So you are saying that the boss refuses to fight me? That doesn't sound like fighting and winning to me, that sounds like not fighting, which you have told me is not orky."

"WOT I MEANZ IZ, YA CAN FIGHT 'IM, BUT YA KANT WIN! CUZ YA AINT AN ORK!"

"Can you beat the boss in a fight?"

"WOT? OF COURSE NOT YA GIT, DA BOSS IS DA BIGGEST, OI KANT FIGHT DAT!"

"So, you are refusing a fight, which is not very orky, or if you do fight you will lose, which is also not very orky, because orks, as you have told me, are for fighting and winning."

"WAIT, WOT!?"

"It sounds to me like you are not an ork, only your boss fits the qualifications for orkishness that you have put forward."

"OI'Z AN ORK!"

"How do you know you are an ork?"

"OI'Z GREEN!"

"There are green space marines as well"

"GREEN BEAKIEZ? OI AINT 'EARD OF 'EM"

"They are called Salamanders, they are one of the more famous chapters of space marines. And they have defeated many orks, including many bosses, making them fighters and winners."

"WAIT, SO, U IZ SAYIN IZ DAT... OI'Z A BEAKY?"

"Not just you, everyone in that cave who is not the boss is a... beakie. After all, if you aren't fighting the boss, you aren't an ork, and if you are losing in your fight you aren't and ork, and if you fight and win against the boss, then you are the boss. That means, by your own definition, there is only one ork in your cave."

The ork on the loudspeaker was quiet for a moment. Finally, he spoke with a dejected quietness that was physiologically difficult for orkish vocal chords to produce, saying, "Den, wot do oi do now?"

"Beakies live in groups called chapters, we would be happy to call you a Salamander brother. We get into lots of fights against all sorts of enemies around the whole galaxy. If you can't be an ork, this is almost as good."

The heavy metal door of the cave opened with a rusty creak, and out came a heavily armed and armored ork. It took the Peripatetics a while to understand his expression, for they had never before seen an ork who was depressed. They allowed him to approach, but when he got near, he stopped. His face twisted, and he shouted, "OI DONT WANT TA BE A BEAKY. FOIGHT ME YA GIT!"

"That is not how this works," the Peripatetic explained, "Beakies do not fight their brothers." This was a lie, but only partially. Brothers was, after all, a complex and shifting designation.

"NA, OI AINT A BEAKY. I'Z GONNA FOIGHT YA AND I'Z GONNA KRUMP YA. DAT'Z FOIGHTIN AND WINNIN. DEN I'Z GONNA BE ORKY AGAIN."

"But that will not solve your overarching existential issues here." The Peripatetic said quickly as the ork raised his massive scrap metal axe.

"OI IZ GUNNA SOLVE YER OVERARCHIN EXISTENTIAL ISSUES WIT MY CHOPPA YA GIT."

And just as promised, the ork caught the Peripatetic in a blow that he only barely managed to block with the side of his bolter. 8th Company captain was one of the Peripatetics who distained close quarters combat to such an extent that he did not even bring a knife to battle, and the lack of experience showed quickly. The orkish interlocutor was fairly large by orkish standards, big enough that even a Space Wolf would be forced to approach with a measure of caution, and against a space marine who had spent his life relying on his gene-hancements instead of training the result was a quick battle.

The other Peripatetics drew weapons, but simply watched as the duel unfolded. The had been suitably impressed by the audacity of the captain's line of reasoning, but ultimately unsurprised by the outcome. With the duel ended, each side simply withdrew quietly, and the Peripatetics set out again in search of another planet which could provide re-supply.

### Confronting the Lycaean Liberators

While the Bloody Peripatetics chapter was in the Eastern Fringes of the galaxy, intercepted transmissions revealed the the questionably loyal Lycaean Liberators chapter was coming off a terribly rough little war with the Earthscorchers in Panay subsector. It was someone in 2nd Company who knew where the Liberators would hole up, some dead planet with a well concealed little emergency bunker. That is the thing about stealth tactics though, they left a company vulnerable if the stealth failed.

In this case, the Liberators had moved their battle barge, hiding it within the planet's ring system, which left the *Sophia* able to place itself in geostationary orbit directly above the Liberator's little outpost. Not that they were in any position to resist the full strength of the Peripatetic fleet, not after the beating they had taken in Panay subsector. It was the Peripatetics 4th Company that landed, a wholly fictional battlegroup, though by coincidence six dreadnaughts had been claiming to be part of 4th Company lately, and so made the drop along with eighty battle brothers.

The real reason for the whole enterprise was 4th Company captain, one of the Senior Academicians, and one of the Battle Brothers had made a wager regarding the true disposition of this particular chapter. The Senior Academician had held that the renegades only claimed to be loyal because they hadn't thought their positions through very carefully, and when forced to confront them directly would become full renegades, or perhaps abandon their cherished ideological principles. The Battle Brother, on the other hand, maintained that it was in fact possible to place oneself in a state of rebellion against the Imperium Government while at the same time being loyal to the Imperium. As a theoretical exercise, it had engaged a good number of meeting halls aboard the Sophia for quite some time. But the Senior Academician, seeing the opportunity to engage the Liberators directly, wagered two clips of highly prized warp-fire bolter rounds against the Battle Brother's armor-cleaning servitor that he could bring them to renounce the Emperor.

The Peripatetics of 4th Company came down in full battle insertion to the door of the bunker, with a single squad of 2nd Company coming down much more quietly around the back to blow the three concealed rear exits and prevent the Raven Guard successors from escaping without engaging. At the front door, the 4th Company captain stood his men down from combat to parade formation, initiating a widescan vox transmission. "I am Captain Zazalli, this is the 4th Company of the Tessub's Maces Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. You have not heard of us, because like you we have decided that the path of true Imperial loyalty lies not in accepting the tyrannical edicts of corrupt planetary governors, but in doing the Will of the Emperor even when it puts us in opposition with the Imperium's government and military. I would speak to your chapter master, for we have much in common with the Lycaean Liberators."

After a few minutes, a formation of black clad Astartes, their distinctive blue trim distinguishing them from their parent legion, exited from the main door. One stood without his helmet, Chapter Master Megi Abram, wearing instead the distinctive hood of a Chief Librarius. The psyker lineage of Chapter Masters among the Liberators was known to the Peripatetics, but it was quite interesting that the Liberators would at this very first meeting reveal what was meant to be a closely guarded secret. It spoke of their desperate state more clearly than the poor state of their armor and visible lack of spare ammunition on their utility mag-belts.

Megi Abram did not waste time with questions like, "How did you find this place?" or "Who are you people?". He approached the 4th Company Captain as if heading to a pre-scheduled appointment. "What do you propose?" were his only words. The Peripatetic took a breath, a habit of his from the debates in the meeting halls, and began to speak with the careful, measured words of a Senior Academician. "What I want," he said with perfect honesty, "Is to know for certain your loyalty."

"My loyalty is to the Emperor," The Chapter Master spoke without hesitation or flourish. "Hm," Said the Senior Academician, "That is interesting, because I know for a fact that you have fired upon Astartes just like you and I who also claim total loyalty to the Emperor." The Chapter Master kept a stony face, but his eye twitched minutely at this accusation, even though Megi Abram was too cautious to say anything directly. Still, the Senior Academician made as if to cut him off even though no interjection was forthcoming, saying, "I don't mean to insinuate anything, my meaning in saying this is that loyalty to the Emperor can mean many things to many people, and precisely how it is meant can justify all sorts of different behaviors." The Chapter Master looked intently at the Senior Academician, clearly uncertain where this was headed.

"Listen, what I mean is, take the world of Baguio where you have just come from your most recent fighting. You must have known that damaging the defenses and interrupting the production of such an important regional resource center would damage the integrity of the Imperium and make the subsector more vulnerable to threats. Yet you did it anyway. I can imagine many reasons why someone would act like that, reasons ranging from wanton barbarism to some secretive objective. But I would hear it from your mouth just what was so important on that backwater world."

The Chapter Master was silent for a long time after the Senior Academician's opening remarks. It would have been a bit uncouth in a proper debate, but the Peripatetics knew to make allowances for the different patterns of thought and expression among their Astartes cousins. Megi Abram clearly wasn't thinking of what to say, he knew the answer in his entire being, he simply wasn't used to expressing it directly with outsiders. But finally he spoke, saying, "Those people on Baguio were slaves, it was our mission to give them freedom. Nothing, nothing in the galaxy, is more important that freedom." The Senior Academician nodded, stating that he understood exactly what the Chapter Master meant, for their chapter also placed a high priority on personal freedom. He then, without segue, changed his tone into one for the telling of stories.

"So let me tell you about a planet I once encountered," Began the Senior Academician, "It was a fairly standard Imperial civilized world, ruled over by the same family ever since the Great Crusade. Their ancestor had been selected for rule by Primarch El'Johnson himself, or so the family claimed. Only a few generations prior, the world had been split apart by a civil war between two brothers, and while they were by then fairly well rebuilt, the memory of that event lingered in the minds of the successive rulers ever since. The governor who ruled when our chapter arrived, however, had made the mistake of fathering two sons, each eligible to rule. And so, at a very young age, the governor had selected one of the sons to be his heir, and locked the other in a tower to prevent him from ever being able to threaten the succession. Surely you can see the pragmatism which drove this decision."

"However, this governor was not an evil man, and he loved his son dearly and could not bear the thought of either killing him or making him suffer. And so he saw to it that the chamber in which the captive prince was held contained every luxury imaginable. Whatever the princeling desired he would get delivered to him in short order. The captive princeling was never told anything about the world outside his cell, never told why he was confined to the cell, and soon enough lost all curiosity. Why did it matter, since he had no need to be outside of his home. Everything he could ever want was right there with him or delivered promptly."

"And when, in time, the kind governor died, he was replaced by the proper heir, who kept his brother in the luxurious cell. In time, the captive princeling grew old himself and passed away. When his brother, who was by now the quite old governor of the world, heard about the princeling's death, he asked the caretakers if his brother had been happy. The caretakers replied that the man had lived about as happy as it was possible for a man to live. The brother asked how that could be, for surely the confinement would have chafed on him. But the caretakers told him something interesting. They said that the princeling had never once even attempted to escape, never even tried the door handle in all the years that he lived in that luxurious chamber. That door was in fact barred and guarded, but the princeling had no idea, for he had been so thoroughly a prisoner within that cell that he never once tried it."

"For all he knew, the pampered princeling could have walked out of there whenever he wanted, but he never chose to. Was he free, locked within a cell whose limits he never tested? Was he a slave, though given no duties?" The Senior Academician allowed his voice to trail off for a moment before regaining focus. "The question interested me for a while, and when we were forced to annihilate the capitol city of that world, my curiosity over took me and I abducted a number of infants after slaughtering their weeping mothers to run an experiment aboard our battle barge."

Each infant was placed in a separate room, locked at an early age just as the princeling had been. These children, however, were not given every luxury imaginable. Instead, food and water were delivered automatically, and they were forgotten about for a number of decades afterwards. When I later remembered this little project, I went to review the footage, I found that every single one of them had died. As children they had survived mechanically, turning into completely silent and often nearly comatose youths, and then, at ages ranging from ten to thirty three, they finally became so passive that they simply stopped consuming the automatically delivered rations and died. Each had gone through phases of activity, feral rages of various sorts, but had been broken by the complete lack of stimulation in their captivity."

"The question that arose in my mind was, were these children more or less free than the princeling had been? Certainly the prince had been more comfortable, but neither had the option to leave their cells, neither were allowed to live outside of a prescribed box. I don't think you are surprised to hear that one flourished and one died in their different conditions, but what role did freedom play in either of their fates? How did freedom change the happiness of either man?"

The Liberator Chapter Master gave the Senior Academician a sharp look and asked, "Are you suggesting that some slaves have nicer lives than others? This is a childish argument. The fact that not all slavery involves oppressive lifestyles does not excuse it, does not make it anything less than barbarity."

"But would you not at least concede that the pampered princeling was happy, despite his captivity?" The Senior Academician challenged, but the Chapter Master was not giving an inch on the issue, insisting, "That is not true happiness. A slave may have pleasures, but never true joy." The Senior Academician's next question was to ask for a definition of true joy.

Megi Abram was clearly not used to this sort of discourse, but after a moment he replied, "That is only the sort of pleasure that the demons of the warp pursue. True joy requires purpose and meaning in life, not merely that one's material needs are met." The Senior Academician smiled beneath his helmet, saying, "Spoken like a true space marine." His tone left the Chapter Master uncertain whether or not this was a compliment, but before he could consider the matter, the Senior Academician began another story. The Chapter Master knew that the strange Astartes surrounding his bunker had him outgunned and pinned, and listened with the patience due a superior force.

"Imagine a man on a planet, a completely free man, yet all alone in the wilds. This man is capable of surviving indefinitely, this is no death world, yet there are no other people on the world, no way of getting off world. Still, he is completely unrestricted, and should he manage it there is no one to actually stop him from going wherever he wants, doing whatever he wants. Now imagine a man born into bondage aboard an Astartes Battle Barge, one of the countless men who live and die in the underdecks, never given any choice on any matter, moved from barracks to work station and back again each day. And yet, that isolated, completely free man, what can he accomplish on his empty world, unable to build more than rudimentary shelter, unable to create anything lasting beyond his own limited life span. That underdeck slave, however, might create thousands or tens of thousands of critical power armor replacement components, forming an indispensable part of the vast assembly line that supports loyal Astartes in their quest to protect the galaxy."

The Senior Academician spoke his point clearly, knowing that many of the Liberators were listening in despite this being a closed vox channel. After all, his own men were doing no less as he said, "One of those men is free, and one of those men is accomplishing a purpose. You have told me that freedom is more important than happiness, is it also more important than purpose?"

The Chapter Master's face had gone from impassive to stony, the muscles of his jaw bulging ever so slightly as he clenched his teeth in frustration. The Peripatetics all knew that Megi Abram was working at a mental disadvantage, having to calculate and recalculate the risk factor of the assembled unknown warriors at the same time as verbally sparring with the Senior Academician. But disadvantage or not, they knew he had been pushed into a rhetorical corner, and knew that the bets they had made, about even on both sides, were about to meet payoff in one direction or the other.

"Nothing." Megi Abram said slowly, "Is. More. Important. Than. Freedom." The Senior Academician barely let him finish before striking back with the prepared riposte, "But the Emperor clearly doesn't agree with you. He built this Imperium from the very first to have purpose, and never once safeguarded something so ephemeral as human freedom when it was ever at cross purposes. And you know this, yet you still claim to be loyal to the slaver above all slavers. Why is that?"

"Because our Primarch was loyal. Lord Corax knew the Emperor's mind better than any, and did not abandon the Imperium in its hour of need." Megi Abram was visibly angry. The Senior Academician couldn't help the stray thought that leaving the helmet off had been a mistake for the Chapter Master. "Is that the case, is it truly the case? How do you know that your true and mighty primarch had the freedom to abandon the Imperium? It seems to me that he vanished just as soon as the Emperor was incapacitated. What's more, when he left, he went straight into the Eye of Terror, the very home of the ones who incapacitated the one who called himself Master of Mankind."

Megi Abram was furious, roaring, "He went there to hunt traitors, not become one!" The Senior Academician lowered his voice, attempting to calm the situation, playing the Chapter Master like a fiddle, "And what excuses do you make when others question your actions? Do you tell them that you attack Imperial Government assets, or do you tell them you are on righteous crusade? Both are true, are they not, and yet to the world at large you present only one face. You are sons of Corax, you think like him, and hold his same values. And yet, you have not yet followed him. Is there no possible justification for an expedition into the home of those who wished to cast off the chains of the Imperium?"

The Chapter Master was silent for a long time. The Lycaean Liberators standing beside him seemed to lose a step of battle readiness, bolters drooping and stances instinctively moving backwards. The Senior Academician judged that the time was right, and sent a preliminary click signal through the rest of the company. "Chapter Master," the Senior Academician said consolingly, with as much genuine empathy for the man as he could project, "I know this is no small thing I am telling you, and I have perhaps been unfair, for I have been withholding an important piece of information which I know and you do not. You understand that this is not the sort of thing I could have said at first, before we both came to understand the depths of your dedication to the cause." The Chapter Master looked at the Senior Academician, wary caution in his eyes, "I would know what you have to say," he said.

The 4th Company captain took the final step closer, putting his free hand on the other Astartes' pauldron. With his other hand, he removed his battle helm, casting it aside. Leaning close, he whispered words only for Megi Abram's ears.

"I am Alpharius." He said as he put five bolter rounds unseen into the Chapter Master's torso. 4th Company opened fire at the exact same moment, the final Lycaean Liberators having been identified, and annihilated the badly damaged renegade chapter in moments. From Megi Abram's corpse, the powerful psyker relic which had stayed with the Lycaean Liberators since their founding, said to have been the very chains which had bound Primarch Corvus Corax himself during his enslavement on the planet Lycaeus, was extracted and placed in a secure, non-descript box.

The Lycaean Liberators battle barge, parked on the far side of the moon, did not know until the *Sophia* had departed that their brothers within the bunker had been lost to a man. The Peripatetics had no reason to destroy it though, and finding the records of the Chapter Master's last moments, though not being able to make out the final words that had changed everything, they made their way to the Eye of Terror in pursuit of the mysterious motivations of their beloved gene-sire.

Aboard the Bloody Peripatetic Battle Barge Sophia, bets were paid out, though the issues on hand were still far from being exhausted. New rounds of debate passed through the raucous public halls as mortal and space marine matched wits in the void of space. The Chains of Corax were never seen again.

## Equipment and Relics

The arms and armor of a standard battle brother of the Bloody Peripatetics differs so little from that of a standard loyalist Astartes that they can only be getting it from Imperial stockpiles on a somewhat regular basis. Two key differences mark the Peripatetics out to one with inside knowledge of the warband. Most obviously, not a single member of the warband carries melee weapons of any sort, not even the smallest of knives. They believe that manual exertion with tools is beneath their dignity. They will, when necessary, train and engage in wrestling, both among themselves and to defeat foes, seeing this as a worthy sport and valid contest, but they are uniformly bad at this sort of close engagement, punching well below the weight expected of a armored and gene-hanced Astartes. They are still capable of crushing the bones of a mortal human, but typically avoid fair fights outside of recreational contests. Additionally, the panels on each shoulder pauldron are removable, and the warband apparently owns enough spares to equip an entire company with markings from a dozen official chapters, numerous traitor legions, and even many markings that appear completely made up. Therefore, the emblem typically listed as their distinguishing mark, the φ glyph, may or may not in fact be a real marking.

The warband travels aboard the Battle Barge *Sophia*, a vessel which matches Imperial specifications perfectly and is always in good shape, mostly because the Peripatetics tend to avoid active warzones. Typically, loyalist subsector commands don't even question the legitimacy of the Battle Barge, though the ones who do run it through the database will find that its identification runes, despite appearing perfectly valid, don't actually match the idents of any shipyard in the Imperium. However, on first glance the Peripatetics appear to be so standard and codex compliant only the most paranoid ever seek to question further, and the skilled sophistries of the Academicians usually put these suspicions to rest at least long enough for them to achieve their mysterious objectives. The size and makeup of the escort and support ships which surround the *Sophia* vary from encounter to encounter. It is not clear what they do with previously seen ships, nor where they get new vessels with such regularity.

The exact numbers and equipment of the Bloody Peripatetics are unknown, but it has been documented that they maintain a full, *Codex*-compliant, parade ready 1st company at all times. Aside from that, contact has been made with individuals presenting themselves as the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 8th, 13th, 21st, 34th, 55th, 89th, and 144th companies, suggesting they are either legion sized, or more likely have no defined organizational structure beyond the 1st company, with additional members taking whatever tactical or command role they feel like.

The Bloody Peripatetics have a particular predilection for being interred into Dreadnaught chases to stave off death. This began as a simple outgrowth of their love of their own immortality and the fear of death. However, they soon found that keeping a dreadnaught engaged in philosophical contemplation for extended periods allowed the interred mind to avoid many of the stresses of remaining awake. As a result, an unusually high number of the greatest thinkers of the warband have been preserved in mechanical immortality and have many leadership roles within the warband.

The armor and equipment of the Bloody Peripatetics is typical of a loyalist chapter. Though they have no love for the Imperium, they only rarely remove the Imperial decorations on their power armor, and never go to the extremes of the chaos worshipping chapters who add a surplus of spikes and scarring to their equipment. Though they can understand the psychological value of self-identifying as renegades or heretics, they prefer the practical value of maintaining the outward appearances of loyalty. After all, the Bloody Peripatetics prioritize things of the mind over material concerns like decoration and armor.

## Organization and Ranks

The warband maintains two battle companies. Of these, the 1st company is fully *Codex*-compliant, down to the last detail. They are kept parade ready to the greatest extent possible and maintain all their equipment in top condition when not actually in combat. The only innovation they make here is that the chapter master is also given a secondary title, Master of the Academy, while the 1st Company captain holds the secondary title, Senior Academician. Adjunct to the 1st company, whose ten squads are always filled with the exact specialists that Lord Guilliman commanded, is a five man Librarius, which holds itself strictly to the standards expected of loyalists complying with all relevant Imperial Edicts. When the warband has a need to deploy in force, either independently or alongside temporary allies fooled into thinking that the Peripatetics are there to help them, it is the pristine forces of the 1st Company that are sent, frequently including the chapter master himself.

The 2nd Company is entirely without organization. Each battle brother is free to chose his own battle specialization, or even to name himself a member of a completely fictional separate company. Squads are formed on an ad hoc basis, often just whoever happens to get into the same transport, and there is no sense of seniority or hierarchy in battle. Indeed, it is rumored that all the members of 1st Company are actually members of 2nd Company, and that the ones who present themselves as 1st Company are simply those who chose to play the role in any given situation.

The only fixed position within 2nd Company is that of 2nd squad sergeant. He is selected by a process unclear even to the other battle brothers by the previous 2nd squad sergeant and has a special role within the chapter. He is emphatically not the leader of the warband, the nominal leader is the Master of the Academy. However, the 2nd squad sergeant is given special knowledge about the chapter, including being the only one to know the true founding, bearing the true mission, and other knowledge about which the rest of the chapter does not even know the details. Thus, while he typically allows the company to run according to its own wishes, in the rare instances where he does give an order, either to a specific Astartes or to the chapter as a whole, it is obeyed without question, hesitation, or debate.

The Chapter Master, in his role as Master of the Academy, is given two distinct leadership functions. When in the presence of those outside of the chapter, he is authorized to look the part of a chapter master by giving orders. These orders must be obvious and banal, decisions of no deep importance to the chapter as a whole, and indeed Masters of the Academy have been removed from their post, in proceedings afterwards occurring well away from prying eyes, and sanctioned for giving orders with too much substance or resulting in too concrete of consequences. Additionally, he calls, oversees, and passes on orders to mortals resulting from Academic Conclaves, the semi-regular meetings in which the chapter makes broad strategic decisions for where it will go and what it will do. These are usually poorly attended and considered deeply boring by most battle brothers, rarely involving deep philosophical issues and almost never inciting great passion. Still, the tremendous cleverness of each Bloody Peripatetic means that even while unmotivated they tend to come up with quite clever stratagems and often propose unexpected methods for the chapter to try out.

## Combat Doctrine

The Bloody Peripatetics have never once gone above and beyond the call of duty in combat, nor have they ever distinguished themselves as unusually good fighters in any particular discipline. They are, by Astartes standards, scrawny, contributing nothing inherently to their physique or physical conditioning beyond the natural advantages of genetic enhancement and powered armor. This is nothing to be scoffed at, but still, they are fully aware that they are unlikely to come out on top of a fair melee fight with another Astartes chapter, particularly not against one with warp gifts or specializing in melee combat. In fact, it is the habit of most brothers to not even carry a combat knife into battle. If they are forced into a melee fight, they like to wrestle, as friendly, gentle, and well oiled naked wrestling contests are a popular pass-time aboard the battle barge. Actual combat is quite different from polite contest though, and actual fights almost never end well for them, and are only attempted when no other option presents itself.

The combat doctrine of the Bloody Peripatetics revolves exclusively around ranged combat. Those who give much thought to warfare tend to spend what little training they do focusing on a particular weapon, some taking up various heavy weapons while others train to specialize in armored vehicles, which seem safer than even powered armor. Their tactics are almost uniformly conservative if they should be drawn into a firefight, preferring to put bullets downrange from the edge of effective engagement range and behind cover as much as possible. They tend to move in groups, firing to maintain a steady, heavy barrage and occupying chokepoints whenever possible. With the many advantages of Astartes weapons and armor, they have managed to take an acceptable number of solid wins, but this almost always reflects a strategic situation of local superiority and willingness to retreat should things start to look even a bit questionable.

In short, they have very little combat leadership, a limited tactical playbook, and a poor ability to make the most of Astartes physiology to push hard into the face of determined opposition. They are fully aware of these weaknesses and overcome them by being extremely selective about when and where they fight. Few of their battles are ever anything but routine and easy, and if they face anything more than that, they run. Thus far in the chapter's history they have kept themselves obscure and unthreatening enough to avoid having any of the great hunters of the Imperium sent after them, though if anyone actually knew all the disasters they were the root cause of, this would surely change.

In place of winning through battle, they have inherited many, though not all, of the techniques of their ancestors, the Alpha Legion, and are skilled at intelligence gathering, misdirection, and most of all preventing their targets from knowing they are being targeted until it is too late. The battle of Isstvan V is often held up in their few tactical training sessions as the ideal of what a Bloody Peripatetic battle should look like, with the unguarded foe walking slowly with open arms to greet what turns out to be a merciless barrage of weapons fire.

## Culture

The distinctive mark of the Bloody Peripatetics is that every single battle brother is a philosopher first and a warrior second, or sometimes even third or fourth. They see quite clearly that their genetic enhancements have given them effective immortality, heightened intelligence, and greater mental acuity, allowing them to think longer and better than mortal humans. And so, they have dispensed with the vast majority of their combat training and spend most of their days engaged in discussion, writing, contemplation, and debate.

## Recruitment

The Battle Barge *Sophia* and her escort and support vessels maintain a fairly substantial population of serfs, recruiting mortals freely when visiting inhabited worlds. Though conditions are industrial and often unforgiving, children up to age fifteen are spared from the rigors of work. Boys are put through an intensive education, separated from their parents at 18 months and pushed into accelerated reading programs to begin the lessons right away. At age eight they are expected to have mastered grammar, logic, and rhetoric, with those unable to keep up being enslaved to the Dark Mechanicum adepts who typically castrate, lobotomize and servitorize them to run the main body of the ship. Those who pass are further specialized into whatever needs the warband and battle barge deem necessary for the future, while simultaneously launching into a deeper education on philosophy, arts, humanities, interstellar economics, and xenology. From age eight to fifteen, the children are worked harder than even the most abused of servitors, but many of the harder subjects are taught by battle brothers of the Bloody Peripatetics themselves, and having been born surrounded by the squalor of an Imperial war vessel's underdecks, every single one of the boys is motivated by the knowledge that how well they do here will have a profound impact on the course of their lives.

Every year, the eligible fifteen year old boys throughout the *Sophia* dedicate the entire year to a series of public discourses, debates, and commentaries of written material. These are hugely popular entertainments for both the mortal crew and the Astartes. The debates are the simplest, and each boy is expected to have one ready for the day after his fifteenth birthday and the day before his sixteenth, making them the bookends of his year of trial. He is given permission to challenge any male age fifteen or older, including Astartes, and his opponent will be given a few hours off for the event even if he was scheduled for a work shift or combat assignment. The topic is on whatever the boy declares. In both challenger and topic, a balance must be struck between selecting an opponent impressive enough to demonstrate the boy's qualities, but not so remarkable that the boy will be humiliated in public.

Through the rest of the year of trial, the boy is expected to schedule one of the public meeting halls to present either open discourses or his own commentaries on a written work multiple times in the year. He is also allowed to challenge other boys in their year of trial to lesser debates, though in these it is the challenger who gets to select the debate topic. In all three of these, time is set aside after the initial presentation for public questions and comments, and indeed, it is this second part that often becomes the primary focus of the event for the audience. While the aspirant is being tested and observed throughout, it is far from uncommon for the boy to lose control of the proceedings as questioners engage other questioners on various topics, using the boy's presentation as a springboard for their own philosophizing and for expressing their ideas before the public. Indeed, it is quite typical for the focus to fall so far away from the aspirant that the questioners no longer even bother to pretend they are asking the aspirant anything and simply hold forth or debate back and forth for hours on end.

In all of these events, there is no fixed limit on how few or how many the aspirant should hold, aside from the two bookend debates that tradition has made mandatory. Some boys do no more than those two debates, while others attempt to spend nearly every day in public chambers. But in all this there is no formal scoring, and there is no proper winning. Rather, they are hoping to catch the eye of a Space Marine and be accepted as his Neophyte. Each Bloody Peripatetic, like all space marines, carries in his body two progenoid glands, meaning he can sponsor the ascension of two Neophytes in his career. All of the chapter's space marines spend time in the public halls as a matter of course, and those who have not yet taken their second Neophyte are constantly on the look out for boys of particular wit, curiosity, interest, education, or whatever other intellectual qualities the marine finds distinctly attractive. A boy is either selected by a Peripatetic, who then becomes his master through the neophyte process, or has his sixteenth birthday arrive without such distinction and goes off to whatever his designated specialization is, to serve the chapter and the battle barge as a mortal serf.

Those who are accepted are given six months of physical training then put through short, though intense, series of physical trials and genetic compatibility tests. With a lower physical standard for the aspirants, more tend to fail than is usual for space marine aspirants, which of course comes with an unusually high fatality rate. But for those who begin implantation successfully, they receive basic tactical, military and physical training throughout the process and are released as a full member of the Bloody Peripatetics.

As for girls aboard the *Sophia*, they are seen as inferior because they have no hope of receiving chapter geneseed, and live their entire lives as a controlled and enslaved underclass, kept in menial positions, often things done by servitors on other ships, and their breeding is controlled based on genetic fitness, matched with those men who are in each generation the best Astartes candidates who don't quite make it for whatever reason, to ensure eugenic improvements with each passing generation of mortal crewmen.