#props to rowscara qsy and the lore guides from astartes anonymous for inspiring me to dust off this old lore and give it a refresh

[acornminiatureslog]

The lore of the Hounds of Terra space marine chapter, an ultima founding chapter of unusual providence, skirting the edge of imperial tolerance as they scrape out an existence on the eastern fringe in the imperium nhilus.

Based out of the heavily modified and heavily damaged Vengeance class grand cruiser, Remembrance of Hetzen, with a haggard attendant fleet, the Hounds are a fleet based chapter of uncertain heritage. When the great rift spread across the stars, the minor manufacturing world of Hetzen Four fell under siege by the traitors of the Red Corsairs. The planet's saving grace was that it was home to one of Archmagos Belisarius Cawl's primaris vaults. Once it was clear that any allied forces wouldn't make it to the planet before the chaos warfleet would arrive, supervising Magos Ven Rho-3 made the decision to rouse the suspended marines and prepare their wargear for the coming siege.

Over the course of the next thirty years of war, great tragedy resulted in the death of almost all of the original greyshields and the prime geneseed stocks, a strikeforce from the nearby Twilight Hawks chapter joined the war, harrassing the Red Corsair fleet in orbit, and, most critically, Magos Ven Rho-3 retrieved a supply of previously rejected geneseed to replenish astartes losses during the siege. The bearers of this geneseed were refered to as "hounds" by the other primaris during the siege. The faulty geneseed results in an overactive Larraman's organ, a damaged Sus-an membrane, an overactive Betcher's gland, and most notably, this geneseed has a 100% rejection rate in male subjects, with successful implantation only being recorded in female aspirants.

Finally, an element of the Indomitus crusade arrived in-system, turning the tide of the war in space, and chasing off the chaos fleet. After the last of the traitor forces planetside were mopped up, the various commanders active through the siege of Hetzen were called to report aboard the Armageddon battlecruiser Lady of Damnation. After several days, and the judgement of an Ordo Astartes Inquisitor among the crusade force, the surviving greyshields were sent to join other ultima founding chapters, and hounds were officially formed into the space marine chapter the Hounds of Terra, under now-chapter master Resia Avidon. The surviving elements of the Twilight Hawks strikeforce were made into the first company of the Hounds of Terra after they were informed that in their absence, their home world had fallen to chaos and the rest of their chapter was reported to have died fighting the incursion. Captain Tetys also saw folding his forces into the Hound's chapter as just recompense for his failings that nearly wiped out the original greyshields and necessitated the creation of the Hounds early in the siege. Also folded into the fledgling chapter, Magos Ven Rho-3 was tasked with overseeing the continued health of the Hound's geneseed and the training of the chapter's apothecarium in the procedures he had developed.

The new chapter retained the ships originally brought by the Twilight hawks, as well as several transports provided by the crusade, but their fleet was severely lacking in warships. After collecting as much of the surviving populace of the siege as they could fit, the fleet headed for a third line imperial navy reserve fleet yard known to Magos Ven Rho-3. It was at this facility that the chapter recovered and began refurbishment of the grand cruiser the chapter uses as their fortress monastery to this day, as well as a handful of other, smaller warships and heavy transports. After recovering what they could from the leavings in the fleet yard, the chapter set out to further bolster their manpower and secure use of active shipyard facilities to finish refits and deeper repairs on several ships in their patchwork fleet.

At the Cypra Zenith system, the chapter impressed personnel from some of the larger fisheries and mining stations while also aiding the Governor in rooting out and dispatching a subversive movement before it could become the bed of a chaos cult. After this, they moved on to nearby forgeworld of Potassiar. The tech priests of Potassiar allowed the chapter to repair the worst of their mainenance issues, but argued that further refits could not be overseen due to the pressing responsibilities that the planet had to complete for its own purposes. This eventually led to a deal being struck, in which Captain Tetys would immediately set out with a strikeforce to aid a mechanicus recovery team seeking to take advantage of the space hulk Intolerable Sloth's most recent appearance within a nearby system's gravity well. This action would secure the initial refit of Remembrance of Hetzen, before the rest of the chapter would be tasked with recovering several relics previously entrusted to the knight house of Ebo, which had been out of contact with the forgeworld for over a decade. Once the chapter had returned with the relics, the forgeworld would conduct full refits of the chapter's strike cruisers.

Tetys' strikeforce, consisting of the chapter's terminators and most of its gravis marines, faced no significant issues clearing the infestation of greenskins from the parts of the hulk requested by the mechanicus expedition. Within a few months, the strikeforce had established enough of a perimeter ahead of the mechanicus' reclamation efforts to free up some of their forces for their own exploration. It was in this capacity that the marines uncovered an ancient cache of relic astartes equipment buried in the half collapsed cargo bay, including suits of relic cataphracti terminator armor, and relic dreadnought components, all marked in unfamiliar heraldry. Knowing what a difference this wargear could make to the chapter, Tetys ordered the wargear that could be salvaged to be loaded aboard their strike cruiser and quietly repainted in the Hounds of Terra's colors.

Meanwhile, Avidon's mission to Scathora IV, the home of House Ebo, revealed a world covered in windstorms and noxious ash, the ruins of cities dotted with craters from fierce fighting. Locating and relieving the scant handful of House Ebo survivors, the Hounds of Terra joined the superheavy war machines in their fight against the chaos marines that had so ravaged their home, the Bleeding Eyes warband of the Thousand Sons. With the Hounds being able to provide a way off world to the knights, the sole goal of the campaign became securing and extracting any Ebo holdouts, as well as any equipment and relics they could. This became especially paramount as the Bleeding eyes began to field tainted knights raised from the fallen machines of House Ebo. The campaign eventually concluded after five years of skirmishing, with a deep strike into the heart of enemy territory to break into the forgotten vaults of House Ebo hidden within the ancient tombs of the kings of the house. Within the tombs were many relics yet untainted, including the last of the relics the Hounds were to recover for the mechanicus of Potassiar, a relic Porphyrion Knight, last used by the first High King of Scathora. The Hounds of Terra suffered greatly in this assault, losing nearly two whole reserve companies when the back line was assaulted by a host of demons summoned by the chaos sorcerers, but they were able to extract themselves and their allies with the lion's share of the tomb vault's contents.

As Chapter Master Avidon and the majority of the chapter's fleet returned to Potassiar, Captain Tetys was still aboard the Intolerable Sloth. Once the fleet reached orbit, Magos Ven Rho-3 as well as Engineseer Ebax van Harv of House Ebo were sent to oversee the loading of new systems and hardware onto the Remembrance of Hetzen for later installation, while Avidon and High Queen Rayna Ebo, along with their honor guards, traveled down to the planet's surface with the promised relics to report to the Magos council of Potassiar and finalize the arrangements for both their forces. Unfortunately, the techpriests of Potassiar had struck another deal, in secret, with the Blight Hawks chaos warband of Nurgle, the survivors of the chaos assault on the Twilight Hawk's homeworld, now fallen to the worship of the dark gods. Once the magos council had confirmed the handover of the relics, the Chapter Master and High Queen were set upon by an ambush. At the end of the day, the chapter master was mortally wounded, the fleet was limping, losses amongst the company elements onboard the Remembrance of Hetzen were heavy, but the chapter had survived, and sent word to Tetys, who in a rage, launched a surprise attack on the Potassiar recovery expedition, crippling their engines, and seizing a sizable portion of their work before fleeing the system to rendezvous with the rest of the chapter.

In the aftermath of Potassiar, the Hounds of Terra did what they could to rebuild after their losses. Chapter Master Avidon was interred in a dreadnought sarcophagus, and Captain Olympia was promoted to Chapter Master, and sergeant Zaporozia was promoted to captain of the third company. The chapter kept the bulk of its fleet out of combat for the next few decades, sending out smaller detachments, often including elements of House Ebo, to aid the imperium and secure necessary resources. The tech marines and attached techpriests focused on repairing what thy could, and installing the upgrades and systems that weren't sabotaged. This greatly aided the chapter, providing them with forge and medicae facilities aboard the Remembrance of Hetzen to allow for the complete training of new marines without needing to utilize as many resources or planetside facilities. no matter how far out of the way they went though, the Blight Hawks would eventually find them, leading to consistent skirmishes both in the void and on barren worlds as the Hounds of Terra were gathering raw materials or running their scouts through extra field training.

As their numbers began to recover, there was a growing sense of frustration throughout the chapter, with many of the marines wishing they would stop running and truly fight the Blight Hawks. After nearly sixty years, a mutiny was waged on one of the chapter's strike cruisers over this issue, resulting in a brief battle before the traitors absconded, leaving the chapter down a company, and the master of the forge dead in their wake. These traitors went on to assemble a larger warband under the sway of Slaanesh known as the Heralds of Excess.

Smarting from this insult and failing, the chapter has been pursuing the Heralds, as well as the Blight Hawks, ever since. In this crusade, they have become more taciturn and their behavior has likely cost them allies they would otherwise have made when enacting joint campaigns against these foes. The ties they forged with House Ebo have been truly tested by this rudeness, but the bonds they forged, as well as the Herald’s use of the very Porphyrion knight once used by their king, has kept that particular alliance strong. Aaaand that's the state of the lore for my space marines! After writing this up, I'm fully intending to redesign the paint scheme I did for these guys and eventually, redo some of my models, while trying to strip and repaint others. This all is actually a lot of summarization for me, and I intend to write out focus posts on things like the chapter's geneseed flaws, culture, methods of war, individual ships, and particular named characters. Eventually, I would also like to commission art of these guys, though as with the redoing large parts of my minis for them, that's going to have to wait until I get a job and decent income again. Feel free to give me a shout if you wanna know anything about my lovely marines!