Blood Angels - Chapter Recruitment: To ascertain who is worthy to join the ranks of the Blood Angels, the adolescents of the feral tribes of Baal Secundus who would be Blood Angels aspirants take part in violent games and tournaments, battling against the harsh landscape and their peers. The contests are held at the settlement of "Angel's Fall," the location of Sanguinius' landing on Baal Secundus, where a mighty statue of the primarch now observes the proceedings.Traditionally, this "Time of Challenge" is announced by heralds who visit each tribe in "flying chariots" (Thunderhawk gunships). The first trial is to reach the "Place of Challenge" by any means necessary. The contestants must make their way across the hostile rad-deserts of Baal Secundus, leaping from high cliffs with only a crude hang-glider to cross the gap with. They must avoid fire scorpions and other mutated predator species that inhabit the canyons, then climb the mountain to the Place of Challenge.This process weeds out the weakest. The hazards of the desert are many, and it takes a youth of extraordinary skill and courage to even reach the Place of Challenge. Upon arrival, gladiatorial contests are held, where they must vie for the fifty or so places that are available. Those who succeed are taken up in Sky Chariots; those who fail are left behind either to guard the place of testing until the next generation's contestants begin their competition for acceptance or to make their way back to their own tribes.The successful aspirants are taken to the Blood Angels' fortress-monastery of the Arx Angelicum on Baal itself, and are paraded before members of the Chapter, before being escorted into the Great Chapel. There they see great wonders. They look for the first time on the unmasked faces of their future brother Space Marines, and not with some consternation their sharp eye-teeth and sleekly beautiful features.It has to be said that the recruits are far form handsome at this stage. Most aspirants bear marks of their hard lives -- it is impossible for an ordinary man to dwell on those barren moons and not feel the terrible kiss of their ambient radiation. Many are marked by stigmata, most are short and stunted, their growth stifled by malnutrition. Many more will be marked by lesions and carcinomas.All the aspirants are left to observe vigil in the Great Chapel of the Chapter, before drinking from the Red Grail brought to them by the Sanguinary Priests which contains the viral catalysts that will begin the process of transformation into transhuman Astartes. Slumber soon overtakes them and the aspirants are borne by servitors to the Apothecarion where the gene-seed of Sanguinius is implanted in their recumbent bodies. From the Apothecarion the aspirants are taken to the Hall of Sarcophagi and each is placed within a mighty golden sarcophagus.Life support nodes are attached to them and for the next Terran year they are fed intravenously with a mixture of nutrients and the Blood of Sanguinius while the gene-seed does its work. Many of the aspirants die at this stage, their bodies unable to cope with the sheer metabolic strain of the physical changes that now overtake them. Those who live grow swift and true, echoing the rapid growth of their primarch. They put on an enormous amount of muscle mass and acquire the extra internal organs that mark a true Space Marine.At this time too they have strange dreams, for the gene-seed carries within it the memories of Sanguinius. Thus does the primarch's essence begin to permeate the souls of his warriors. On rare occasions, an aspirant will awaken well before the year is up, and will be forced to contemplate the claustrophobic darkness. Emerging from the sarcophagi these unfortunates are almost always afflicted with mental infirmity. Afterwards, when sleeping, and sometimes when awake, these dreams return to haunt the Blood Angels.When the aspirants finally emerge from their sarcophagi they are forever changed. They are tall, strong and superhumanly powerful. Their restructured bodies and features have taken on a beauty that echoes that of their angelic forebear. Their senses are keener, their muscles stronger than tempered steel. They are ready to begin their training as Space Marines.They are now Blood Angels neophytes, though they have only completed the first stage of becoming a full Blood Angels Astartes. There is then the typical tradition of serving in the Chapter's 10th Company as a Scout force before joining one of the other companies as a fully-fledged initiate.