Space Marines - Space Marine Recruitment: Each Chapter of Space Marines has its own methods of recruiting young warriors to fill its ranks. Many are based on a single homeworld and recruit solely from that populace, setting trials and tests for prospective candidates to weed out all but the strongest and the most faithful.These worlds are often technologically backward with strong militaristic societies, where male children who show potential are pushed harder and harder, that they may one day have a chance to join the ranks of the Space Marines, who are often known to such peoples as "star warriors," "sky knights," or similar names.Because Feral Worlds are rough, primitive, and untamed, their inhabitants invariably provide excellent recruits. For true aggression and nigh-psychotic killer-instinct, however, few recruits can best the murderous city-scum that roam the darkest pits of the Imperium's many Hive Worlds.Driven to extremes of violence by the pressures of Hive World living, these merciless killers are usually ignored by the authorities. They make ideal Space Marine recruits, and whole gangs of city-scum are sometimes hunted down and made to undergo the Trials. Some recruits are drawn from the more Civilised Worlds of the Imperium, but not very many.Those planets used by the Space Marines as recruiting worlds are observed closely by the Chapter's Apothecaries and Chaplains. The population's genetic purity must be maintained, in order to conserve those qualities that serve the Space Marines' purposes best.Their spiritual health is also maintained, to ensure that no trace of the influence of the Ruinous Powers becomes manifest. Such observations are in general carried out from a distance, and it is rare for the society to have any direct contact with, or knowledge of, the Space Marines, or in many cases even of the Imperium.The Chapter's officers might visit the culture once a generation and will be the subject of myth and legend. These mighty warriors from beyond the stars are figures of awe, and their word is law. The nature of the trials set by the outsiders vary enormously, but all are so arduous that only a handful pass them.Those who fail may be lucky to even survive, for many trials take the form of ritual combat, the hunting of a great beast, or the performance of incredibly dangerous feats of strength and bravery. At the conclusion of the trials, those few aspirants that have been deemed worthy are taken away, invariably never to see their people again.It is always a great honour for a family to have a son chosen by the Space Marines, even for societies with little conception of the greater galaxy beyond their world. The Space Wolves are an example of this. The Wolf Priests of the Space Wolves scour the warring tribes of their homeworld Fenris for their strongest and bravest youths, while the Ultramarines traditionally draw their candidates from the elite training barracks of a whole group of planetary systems known collectively as Ultramar, the realm of the Ultramarines.Other Chapters have no single homeworld and travel the galaxy in gigantic fleets of battleships, recruiting either from a regular series of worlds or from the war zones to which they are assigned. The Black Templars are one such example of a fleet-based Chapter, as are the Dark Angels.Once accepted, the young aspirants become neophytes and begin their regimen of training and biological enhancement. Each Chapter has its own traditions regarding the initiation of the recruit into its legends and secrets.This process often runs parallel to the bio-genetic treatments the neophyte must undergo. As the physical transformation proceeds, spiritual change also occurs. Both are tempered by ongoing experience on the field of battle and the rituals in which the neophyte must participate. The nature of such rites varies enormously from one Chapter to the next.Some are solemn affairs recalling the sacrifice the Emperor made for Humanity. Others are raucous celebrations drawing on the culture and nature of the Chapter's homeworld. Still more are bloody and barbaric involving ritual bloodletting, scarification, or amputation. All are vital to the arcane workings of the Chapter, and his participation is a prerequisite of the neophyte's acceptance by his would-be brothers-in-arms. Such are the rigours of the training that many do not survive.Whether he is crippled upon the battlefield, or found spiritually wanting during a particularly exacting ritual, a neophyte may find himself cast out, his future with the Chapter curtailed. In some instances, the neophyte may transgress one of the many articles of Chapter law, and injury at war may prove preferable to the punishment.Many possible fates await those who fall by the wayside in this manner. Most are mind-scrubbed and become Chapter Serfs—manservants and menials. The less fortunate are transformed into living, cybernetic Servitors—mindless biomechanical automatons who exist only to assist the Chapter's Techmarines in the operation of heavy and frequently dangerous machinery.A very rare few may yet rise to positions of relative power within the Chapter's feudal household, yet even the highest-ranked factotum is but a lowly, nameless servant in the eyes of the full battle-brothers.The worlds that the Space Marines recruit from often have a wide range of legends regarding the Adeptus Astartes. As many of the communities in question are primitive or barbaric, the people regard the Space Marines as otherworldy figures, "angels of death" who arrive once in a generation to test them and carry away their strongest sons.On more advanced worlds, the people will have more of an understanding of who and what the Adeptus Astartes are and regard the success of an aspirant as an honour to the entire community. On some worlds, the knowledge that a distant ancestor was recruited into the Astartes is as good as a patent of nobility and portraits of the legendary hero adorn the walls and prayers are said to him as if he were a saint of the Imperial Cult in times of need.