Ultramarines - Chapter Recruitment: The Ultramarines recruit new Astartes from amongst the populations of all the worlds which comprise the Realm of Ultramar in the galaxy's Eastern Fringe. As the Ultramarines have long been the rulers of Ultramar, its local nobility considers having a son chosen to join the Chapter to be an honour without parallel.Adolescent aspirants who wish to join the Ultramarines are generally expected to overcome one of two different types of Trials if they hope to be chosen to become neophytes.First, the Ultramarines may expect their aspirants to pass what is known as an Exposure Trial within one of the more difficult environments to be found within the boundaries of Ultramar. Few worlds of the Imperium of Man are entirely free from adversity and these rare exceptions are either the holdings of wealthy mercantile combines or pleasure retreats for retired, high-level Imperial servants or the local sector nobility, entirely inaccessible to the vast bulk of Mankind.Most of the Emperor's subjects live on worlds that are dangerous in some manner. Long-settled planets are riven by pollution, the toxic waste of thousands of standard years of industry seeping into the very bedrock and raining from the skies in a constant downpour. Other worlds are heavily irradiated, by the processes of industry or by the effects of local celestial phenomena. Younger worlds where Mankind's dominion is not yet fully established are often host to all manner of hostile lifeforms, including predatory beasts, carnivorous plants and virulent microbes.Plenty of worlds feature environments that are inimical to life, yet due to some natural resource or the world's strategic value, Humans eke out an existence there nonetheless. Such environments range from sub-zero ice wastes, impenetrable swamps and arid deserts to exotic Death World jungles, methane sumps and hydrocarbon oceans.In an Exposure Trial, the aspirant must go out into such an environment and simply survive for a set period of time. If he is a native of such a hellish place, the aspirant will have some knowledge of how to survive, yet is shorn of all aid and divested of all but the most basic of survival equipment.Communities living in the midst of a Death World jungle, for example, rely on total and constant cooperation just to go on existing another local day and none are ever out of the sight of another. An Exposure Trial in such a place would force the aspirant to go out into the jungle alone and face the terrors of the wild with only himself to rely upon for the first time in his life. Some Exposure Trials test the aspirant's fortitude in a specific environment. Such Trials carried out in an icy waste could involve the aspirant travelling from one point to another, with countless hundreds of kilometres of trackless snow-blasted plains separating the two.Other aspirants might have to cross an entire continent of irradiated ash dunes, traverse an impassable mountain range, swim a predator-infested ocean or a hundred other such challenges. One particularly inventive variation of the Exposure Trial is one in which the aspirant is taken from his own environment and transplanted into an entirely unfamiliar one.A Feral World savage might be deposited in a hive city, for example, or a Hive Worlder in a predator-infested Death World jungle. Many Exposure Trials are impossible to complete, entailing the aspirant simply staying alive as long as possible. Those who face the impossible without faltering and who survive long past the point they should have perished are recovered by the Chapter's Apothecaries, often having succumbed but not yet died, and revived, having been judged worthy of becoming an Astartes neophyte.The Ultramarines make extensive use of the Exposure Trial. In fact, some of the warrior elite of the Realm of Ultramar are known to cast newborn infants into the wilderness in order to test their resilience.The second and less commonly employed trial for Ultramarines aspirants is the Challenge Trial. The challenge requires the aspirant to fight a duel or compete in some other manner against a full Astartes. In truth, none expect the aspirant to better a full battle-brother and his success is more often measured in the degree of his failure. Very occasionally, an aspirant does manage to beat an Astartes and when this happens it is not uncommon for the individual to go on to become a legendary hero of the Chapter.Many Challenge Trials involve a test of martial skill, with the aspirant fighting an armed duel against a battle-brother. It is usual for the aspirant to be armed and the Astartes to fight with his bare hands and probably without his power armour, yet still the aspirant has virtually no hope of victory.Most Challenge Duels end in the death of the aspirant, for even an unarmed, unarmoured Astartes is a giant compared to the young, adolescent challenger and well able to slay him with a single blow, intentionally or not. Other Challenge Trials involve contests of strength, stamina, speed, skill or mental strength.The Trial might range from the lifting of impossibly heavy loads to the imbibing of toxic substances. As with a duel, this type of Challenge Trial can often prove deadly. In both cases, however, an aspirant that has failed the Trial -- yet performed to the Chapter's satisfaction -- is rescued from the jaws of death by the Chapter's Apothecaries and judged worthy of progressing to the rank of neophyte.Ironically, though many members of the Ultramarines have been drawn from the ranks of Ultramar's powerful nobility, and such a position adds to his family's status and regard, one of the first things that becoming a neophyte will teach the new recruit is that in the Ultramarines, family birth and status are meaningless.Every battle-brother stands equal in the eyes of the Emperor and Roboute Guilliman and the only aristocracy is that forged by sacrifice and blood in service to Mankind and one's fellow Astartes.