Crimson Consuls - Chapter Recruitment: Beneath the Slaughterhorn lay a lightless labyrinth of tunnels, cave systems and caverns that threaded their way through the pulverised rock and rust of the original hive city. Thousands of stories worth of spires and edifice had been erected on top of the ancient structures, crushing them into the bottomless network of grottoes from which the Crimson Consuls procured their most savage potential recruits. Far below the indifference of the aristocratic class and the habitat and industrial districts of the impoverished masses of the lower hive lay the gang savagery of the underhive.Below even this level of outlaws and brutal hive-gangers, lay a vast network of catacombs inhabited by feral tribes. Here, young Carcharian bodies were crafted by necessity: shaped by circumstance into small mountains of muscle and sinew. Minds were sharpened to keenness by animal instinct and souls remained empty and pure -- perfect for cult indoctrination and the teachings of Roboute Guilliman.The threats of these catacombs were very real, for even the full-fledged Battle-Brothers that ventured into the tunnels of the cave systems during recruitment sweeps maintained a healthy respect for the untamed dangers of the place. Not only would these barbarous brutes dash out their brains for the rich marrow in intruders' bones, their degenerate brothers shared their dark kingdom with Abhumans, mutants and wyrds, driven from the upper levels of the hive for the unsightly danger they posed.On the planet's surface lay Archaphrael Hive which made up a triumvirate of hive cities called the "Pale Maidens" that stood like ancient monuments to the fickle nature of Carcharias' extreme weather and fierce polar cyclones. A thousand years earlier the three cities had been devastated by a freak polar cyclone colloquially referred to by the hivers as "The Big One."The ghost hives later served as an impromptu training ground for the Crimson Consuls. The region surrounding Archaphrael Hive was referred to as the "Dry-Blind"; so-named because of the ghostly vapour created from the rime of frozen carbon dioxide that bled into the atmosphere a white swirl of blinding mist in all directions. This vapour hid the true lethality of the surface, as a maze of bottomless crevasses, fissures and fractures riddled the ice beneath. The Dry-Blind was extremely dangerous to travel over, as the crevasses were covered by a layer of soft snow that could disguise their existence. The danger of falling into the great cracks in the ice to one's death is real and ever-present.As a test of their worth and spirit, the Crimson Consuls' Scout Marines were forced to train in the harsh environment of their bleak planet, establishing and holding ambush positions within the bowels of the ghostly hive with their sniper rifles in the deep Carcharian freeze for three solar days. The Scouts would be bombarded endlessly with remembered readings from the Codex Astartes, faith instruction and training rhetoric across the open channels of the Vox.As an added challenge the Scout Marines often faced packs of fang-face shredders. These deadly creatures roamed the Dry-Blind, making the environment an even more perilous prospect. The shredders were dangerous and ravenous, having perfectly adapted to their icy environment. They possessed razor-edged talons and needle-like fangs and were able to fracture the ice shelf itself. Their bodies were carried close to the ground and were flat, enabling them to slide downhill and toboggan after their prey.