#Salamanders Lore

[two-reflections]

Salamanders Pauldrons by Company, Warhammer 40k (3rd Ed.)

[sleep-nurse]

remember null? well after lore progression and violence he regained his true self now

say hi to narrow (or, nicknamed by hana, anguria which means watermelon in italian)

lore rambling in the tags because i'm not assed to write it here

[twistofstory]

Semi-sketch ref/design practice for Salamander, one of the Scavengers protags. Her original version is an adult, in “The Scavengers” she is a teenager. At the beginning of the story, Salamander is a carefree and active dragonet who has lived all her life in the Scorpion Den and feels like a fish in water in her hometown. Sal's impulsiveness and flightiness brought a lot of trouble onto both her and her older sister Hyena's tails. But so far their family hasn't faced problems that would be beyond the capabilities of an experienced Drivewinder and Succulent. Parents haven't told the sisters about the gang and generally left their past behind them, partly at the request of aunt Motherwort, whose house the family inhabited. Three adults made their living by weaving, teaching the dragonets both the craft and basic knowledge along the way. So they lived, until Drywinder and Succulent received a letter from an old friend... Now I’m kinda dividing “Scavengers” into two parts; this design is canonical for Sal from the second chapter to the finale of the first act. 

[moodymisty]

“The lore is held together with string cheese” so true bestie I’m gonna fuck a Salamander and lore can’t stop me

If the male fans can come up with wackshit reasons (or just ignore canon) to fuck the nuns then goddammit we can get run through by a pack of Salamanders.

[two-reflections]

I feel you. This is why I usually refer to Vulkan He'stan as He'stan rather than by his ceremonial name. Which, to be fair, the Salamanders books and other Salamanders often do too! Here's an excerpt from Chapter Three of Firedrake by Nick Kyme:

He’stan felt Tu’Shan’s presence beside him, rather than saw him. The Chapter Master had a singular aura about him, a sense of the indomitable that He’stan had never felt in any other Salamander. He had been young when he’d assumed the mantle of Regent, but it was one he wore with great nobility and distinction. No two greater champions of the Chapter existed in the current decaying age of the universe. He’stan felt great pride but also profound sorrow at that revelation.

‘The ice will recede, the mountains will weep, Deathfire shall speak her rumbling refrain once more,’ He’stan said. He’d removed his battle-helm, a beautiful piece of his artificer armour rendered with saurian affectations and artistic flourishes. Underneath it, his face was sombre and grave. ‘I am the bearer of Vulkan’s Spear and I wear Kesare’s Mantle,’ he said. ‘Upon my left fist is the Gauntlet of the Forge, but it is nothing matched against our mother’s fiery heart. What is the will of a Forgefather or a Regent compared to that?’

It was at He’stan’s request that they’d come to one of the viewing galleries in Prometheus space port. The long chamber was dark, illuminated by brazier coals. The flickering light revealed the icon of the Firedrakes as they pulled the shadows away, only for it to be swallowed as the darkness reasserted itself again a few moments later.

‘Aye, we are humbled by her savage beauty, Lord He’stan.’ Tu’Shan clapped a firm hand upon the Forgefather’s shoulder.

James Workshop, we need to talk.

Why THE HELL are the Primarch and Forgemaster of the Salamanders both named Vulkan? Why is Vulkan in charge of the search for Vulkan with the Spear of Vulkan to bring Vulkan back to be Vulkan’s commander this is SO CONFUSING! WHICH VULKAN ARE WE REFERRING TO AT ANY GIVEN TIME! WHY??

(Yes I know naming people after primarchs makes sense in universe but THIS is goddamn CONFUSING)

[lastenline]

Went to my LGS to see if there were any folks playing to give me some tips on how to play. It gave me an excuse to take a pic of my army at the moment. I saw some minis I need to do some maintenance to so there is that. I’m working my way up to 2000 points. With Christmas around the corner I’m hoping for some more miniatures. I wouldn’t mind adding more eradicatiors, intercessors, and infiltrators. As far as new guys I figured I could do with some assault centurions and terminators and the means to transport them like a rhino or a gladiator. And since I’m adding more vehicles maybe a techmarine.

I wish GW will either release Captain Vulkan Hes’tan in plastic or eventually reveal the fate of the Primarch Vulkan and add him back to the chapter since they killed off several of the firstborn and replaced them with nothing. Since Roboute Guilliman and the Lion are returning I can only assume a series of books are coming where they team up and go on a mission from the God-Emperor and get the band back together. Khan, Corax and I think Russ are in the Warp as far as I know. As far as I want him alive due to his appearance in TTS, Rogal Dorn’s probably dead. I think the Iron Hands primarch was killed and the Adeptus Mechanis are doing something with his skull? Clonegrim is an exhibit in Trayzn’s collection (And I’m hoping the Emperor’s Children teaser may have something to do with but I’m not holding my breath). And Vulkan is either dead, lost, or not coming back until the Salamanders find all the relics he left behind or solve a book of riddles I think?

My grip on 40K lore is tedious so I might be wrong.

[krakenburger]

Newly done boi.

Gravis cap with jump pack inspired by graffitisoul on Twitter. Hope he sees this eventually when I get to posting it on there

[two-reflections]

Another hour wasted trying to allocate Salamander companies to Nocturne's sanctuary cities based on Nick Kyme's books and his old blog.

[two-reflections]

Yes!! Please post more about the unpopular characters you love! Seeing posts like that always makes me love them too.

I also think it's great to appreciate the less lovable loyalist characters. I live for the angst, the tragedy, the prickliness within loyalist individuals that's so much more interesting than just being moral or following imperial doctrine.

Also, sorry for hyperfixating, but this why I love my Salamanders, and why it bothers me that they get stereotyped as just being nice. So much of Nocturnean culture's humanism seems to stem from historically being preyed on by drukhari and managing the grief of living on a volatile deathworld that decimates the population every 15 years. I am SO here for that. I wouldn't like them half as much if they really were just "good boys."

Individual Salamanders are not particularly nice, they just come from a culture that focuses on collective survival and how to carry on when loved ones don't survive. Actually, a lot of them are mean and petty. Heck, they've got a guy who turned to chaos basically because his Sergeant didn't like him back. Drama.

And then my favourite guy is an ancient injured captain that nobody likes, who gets a chunk of his company and a ton of guardsmen killed out of hubris. Not the most lovable character, yet I wrote a whole story about him becoming a dreadnought because I love him so much. 😅

I think its funny that people are giving me a surprised pikachu face over liking controversial/unpopular characters.

Its literally what I have always done. It should be more shocking whenever I like a popular one by this point.

I just like flawed and broken people. They make the best stories. Life is so much more interesting when it is a bit weird and offputting.

And Warhammer is such a good franchise for this because so many characters are so beyond fucked up. I love it here.

[junesejar]

my tarnished dragon hunter slowly loosing his humanity <333

[corromon]

I made this bc I wanted to draw funky critters on twitter without getting nuked from peoples feeds.

[yourfriendphoenix]

Today I bring oc art! Tomorrow? The world may never know

[two-reflections]

OK, LET'S GOOO ✨

So, before I get to my interpretation, I'm going to post a bunch of background info about the Salamanders' recruitment strategy.

Trust me, it will make sense soon.

One source for Salamanders interacting with Nocturnean children can be found in Deathwatch First Founding (2012), on page 21:

When not engaged on operations or training for them, the Salamanders live amongst their people, and each is the headman of a smaller community of families. The people of Nocturne therefore grow up in the company of god-like warriors, to whom they themselves are related, and they aspire above all else to join their ranks and fight for the Emperor. As every Salamander practises the trade of the smith, so many take young apprentices into their service, the best of these being judged worthy to become aspirants and undertake the trials to join the Chapter as neophytes. The trials are like those fought between the Emperor and the Primarch, though no man alive could perform such mighty deeds as were seen in that epic undertaking. Nonetheless, the Salamanders are uniquely blessed by their close ties to their kith and kin, and the people uniquely honoured in turn.

Similar sections can be found in other books, but this is the most detailed descriptive quote I've found on the topic.

For a character who seems to have this background, the best model we have for an apprentice is Val'in. From Nocturne, Chapter 3:

Val’in was descended from the survivors of the 154th Expeditionary ship the Salamanders had found in the subterranean depths of Scoria. It was one amongst several other revelations, the substance of which currently resided in a vault on Prometheus. As for the boy, Ba’ken had been his rescuer after he’d guided the Salamanders through the myriad cave systems beneath Scoria’s surface. Val’in and a few others had been taken off-world and brought back to Nocturne. Unlike some, who found life on the death world too harsh to survive, Val’in had adapted well and been chosen as an aspirant.

As you can probably see, though, there is a slight conflict even within Deathwatch: First Founding when it comes to recruit selection. It speaks of an apprentice stage, but this ISN'T where children are selected to become aspirants who start undergoing organ implantion surgery and completing the trials of Vulkan. That comes later, only for those "judged worthy."

The concept of recruitment is probably mentioned in most detail on Page 259, Section "Recruitment" of the First Founding Art Book. (2023)

The rigours mered out upon potential aspirants to the Chapter are harsh, and Nocturne makes for the perfect training ground to weed out those who do not possess the inner strength and fortitude to become one of the Fireborn. Failure in these trials often means death, which might seem at odds with the tenets of the Promethean Creed that relate to the preservation of life, but the Salamanders also believe in the idea of a crucible and the tempering of initiates within it. Those who enter do so willingly, and those who perish simply return to the earth, as part of the cycle of Nocturnean death and rebirth."

Gruelling marches across ash wastes and desert plains under a burning sun are merely a foretaste of the trials ahead for any potential recruit. The native fauna also provide a staunch challenge, and tests vary from hunting to evasion. Whether trekking the Pyre Desert pursued by a pack of sa'hrk or pitted one-on-one against a leo'nid out in the vastness of the Arridian Plain, there are creatures aplenty to root out the strong amongst any cohort of aspirants. What this provides is a highly varied and changeable training regimen.

Recruitment is generally based on at least two elemental principles, the majority of these being variations of earth and fire. The trials of Burning Sands, of Bleeding Stone, and of Searing Fire and of Savage Beasts have all, during one occasion or another, been used to temper aspirant intakes.

Thing is, most of the trials this section is talking about actually happen once the boys have already been selected and have started to receive their Space Marine organs. This section has kind of mashed two things into one. It's really hard to find descriptive mentions of how they choose recruits aside from the First Founding bit I mentioned which speaks about apprentices, and it's super unclear about how their selection/judging happens.

But bring taken in and raised by the Salamanders is clearly not the only path to becoming a battle-brother. Here is Techmarine Ha'garen thinking of his own recruitment, from Forge Master, Chapter One:

Ba’birin was the son of a dealer in sa’hrk hides. His family had taken in the orphaned Ha’garen when his parents had died in the Time of Trials. The two boys had bonded. They were both apprentices to Ba’birin’s father, though Ha’garen had shown none of his foster brother’s promise as a tanner. Then they were recruited. They triumphed together. They became Scouts together.

Both Ha'garen and Ba'birin were raised in a family setting, and were training to become tanners for long enough that one of them was actually doing well at it before they were somehow recruited. This seems to be the case for a lot of other Salamander characters too: Sol Ba'ken was born to Themian hunters and lived with them until a leo'nid killed most of his family and he took revenge on it. He was obviously not 6 when this happened. Tsu'gan was a little rich boy who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he still has that attitude as a Salamander.

So, we can outline a path into the Chapter:

(Optional) Apprenticeship to a Salamander from a very young age

Some sort of selection at an older age

This begs the question, if the Salamanders have ways to select boys of around 11 to undergo the process, what is the point of this apprenticeship option?

Now we get to my theories/headcanons.

I believe a lot of the point of this apprenticeship system is less to produce battle-brothers but more a mix between an orphanage and a boarding school. Crucially, it is NOT only for potential Space Marines.

Yes, the best of the male apprentices will go on to become aspirants, and the best of the best will survive the trials and the surgeries to become Astartes. But that's also true of boys who stand out in their cities, get good grades, kill the creature that killed their families, etc.

What is special about the apprentices, though, is that kids raised by the chapter will grow up knowing both Nocturnean religion and the ways of the Salamanders better than anyone. They'll spend their childhood helping out in forges and generally seeing how things are run in the Chapter. They'll be less likely to struggle with transhuman dread, too. (Though Nocturneans seem to have much less of that anyway. Guess it wears off when you wake up to the sound of Great-Great-Great-Great Granduncle Tan'vir singing off-key while he grills up a feast for the whole neighborhood.)

These apprentices are the kids who probably grow up to become pilots, mechanics, brander-priests. When these folks choose to stay as chapter serfs, they become a loyal workforce with family-tight bonds and high job satisfaction. They also give back by looking after the next generations of apprentices. One Salamander probably can't raise a lot of kids at once, but with support from his brander-priest(s) and other serfs, a single Salamander may have up to 20 children at a time who he serves as a father-figure for.

If these kids eventually choose to leave instead of staying with the chapter, they return to their cities or tribes literate, well-fed and healthy, with strong blacksmithing skills. Adult bastion kids (or forgechildren, as I sometimes call them) would be in high demand. They would fill city councils, merchant guilds, run libraries, open factories. Even if they were once foundlings with no remaining family, people would be incentivised to take them in.

I think this apprenticeship makes sense as a strong building-block of Nocturnean culture. Seeing how useful a chapter-raised person would be to society, we have to ask:

Why would this only be limited to boys?

Simple answer: It wouldn't.

The Salamanders clearly have other ways to recruit promising boys. Chapter serfs, even brander-priests, don't need to be male. Society at large is DEFINITELY not just male.

I think women aren't only among the best blacksmiths on Nocturne. I think they must also be among the best tribal leaders, logisticians, engineers, merchants, civic officials, professors, etc. When the best boys are often scooped into the Chapter, the girls HAVE to be trained. Heck, even before the Salamanders, this was probably the case. Nocturne is such a hard place to live. Women in such a place CANNOT be idle or decorative. Survival is everyone's business.

So, yes. I absolutely support there being a ton of burly ladies running the planet. This is the reason why almost every high-ranking non-Salamander Nocturnean in my fics is female, though that's not well reflected in the current ones I have on my Ao3 because they tend to show up in my longer projects which aren't ready to be posted yet.

Also, if anyone is curious, a few of these thoughts on different backgrounds for chapter serfs and Astartes are reflected in this short story I wrote a while ago. And there will eventually be more. I will die on this hill.

Y'know, smithing is probably dominated by women on Nocturne. Think about it. The best boy apprentices would probably go into the neophyte trials, but the best girl apprentices can't. So they stay behind and keep smithing until they become masters unto themselves. Look I'm just saying Nocturne has a bunch of brawny women churning out spectacular metalwork, is that too much to ask for

[frutavel]

I've been slowly working on updating some of my furry OCs since most of these guys I haven't drawn in years now... I still have quite a few to go and I don’t know if I'll post the full pictures anywhere, but I do like how the ones I did turned up, so you guys get little treats <3

[9-444]

that frank sure is filthy guys

[escherstrange-ffxiv]

#17: Sally

From the ring of fire the Salamander grew wings, limbs, webbed talons. Glowing red scales shielded it from the flames that enveloped it, uncoiling and soaring through the air, snaking around Solomon's arm. Smoke hissed through its snout, eventually nuzzling into its summoner's shoulder.

"-And this one is Sally!"

Desh pinched the bridge of his nose. "First Topi for your topaz carbuncle, now this...we need to talk about your atrocious naming scheme."