#Kahurangi's color came out a bit dark

[kahurangithemew]

(@daydreamsmew) Adele @ Kahurangi "Oh wow! I love your coat colour!" Adele flies over in joy and does few spins giggling. "Its so pretty! I heard that Mews like you are what's called "Shiny"! Is it true? My name is Adele by the way! I want to be friends!"

Oh wow! Another mew! I love your fur! It's so fluffy! It's nice to meet you Adele, I'd love to be friends!

Shiny? Oh, no. I guess maybe you're from another universe? Here, mews come in all different colors.

[deflare]

Day 17 brings us the lurking menace of the Carcharadons, also known as the Space Sharks!

The Carcharadons are another chapter with a murky background. It’s strongly suspected that they’re descendants of the Raven Guard who their Primarch disliked, who were sent out to the edge of the galaxy to patrol against threats to the Imperium. This makes for a fun example of how the same aesthetic can produce multiple results; Raven Guard geneseed gives Space Marines deathly pale skin* and pitch-black eyes. Normally this is used to emphasize Super Goth Space Marines, but it also totally fits the vibes of sharks.

The Carcharadons, as you might expect of sharks, are extremely aggressive and bloodthirsty, with a fondness for chain-axes and other gnarly close-combat weapons. They organize themselves like a standard chapter, but with a lot of extra edgy names, like calling their assault troops ‘Devourers’ and their heavy armored veterans ‘Red Brethren’. Their recruitment drives are called ‘Red Tithes���, when they swarm a random Imperial world, kidnap a bunch of people (turning most of them into chapter serfs), and send the strongest in for recruitment. They tend to keep to themselves, lurking in space for the opportunity to tear into a new enemy.

The biggest bit of lore that the Carcharadons were involved in was the Badab War, which came up yesterday as well. I’ll try to sum it up as fast as I can: The Badab Sector was located at the edge of a dangerous warp rift called the Maelstrom. A bunch of Space Marine chapters had been stationed there to defend against incursions; the most prominent of them was the Astral Claws. The new leader of the Astral Claws said, “we want to launch a crusade into the Maelstrom, and to do that, we’ll need all the local resources, so we’re not paying Imperial taxes anymore”. This went over poorly, and before long, the Astral Claws were declaring secessionfrom the Imperium. The Claws dragged in several other chapters bound to them by old alliances, who didn’t quite realize they were going for a full-on Imperial civil war until everything went to hell. A whole lot of Space Marine chapters were brought in to fight on the loyalist side, too, including the Minotaurs and the Carcharadons. Most of the Claws’ allies would be re-integrated into the Imperium after their defeat, though they were sent on penitent crusades in shame; the Claws themselves went full Chaos and fled into the Maelstrom.

Aesthetically, the Carcharadons have some Maori influences, mostly borne as decorations on their armor and in the name of their chief Librarian (Te Kahurangi). Otherwise, they’re... well, sharky. Lots of chain weapons and big knives; anything that can be considered ‘toothy’, they use. Their chapter master is big even by classic Space Marine standards. Fun thing about their color scheme, which I learned in an old article on GW’s website and that I don’t think is part of their official lore: The grey of a Carcharadon’s armor is the default primer color used by Space Marines. They just don’t bother to paint it. Which I think is fun, in a utilitarian ‘we don’t care about frills’ way. Of course, like a lot of Badab War veterans, the Carcharadons also have some old goofy art that is... not ‘plain unpainted armor’.

Camouflage. 

*Yeah, geneseed changes skin color sometimes. It’s... an awkward bit of the lore, to realize that there aren’t any supposed to be any dark-skinned Raven Guard successors, regardless of what an aspirant’s original skin color was. Like many bits of 40k lore, this is probably best ignored.