Blood Ravens

Overview
The Blood Ravens are a chapter of Space Marines that prize information greatly, but ironically know little of their earliest centuries of service. Their Chapter also has a high concentration of powerful Librarians.

This chapter was specifically created for the PC game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and has since appeared as a "Chapter of Legend" in the Chapter Traits section of 4th Edition's Codex: Space Marines.

Homeworld
The Blood Ravens have no official homeworld, Instead, their Fortress-Monastery is situated onboard a Battle Barge known as Omnis Arcanum, which is also home to their Librarium Sanctorum. The rest of the chapter serves onboard the fleet of Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges.

According to Dawn Of War 2, Most of the Blood Raven's recruits come from the planet Calderis in subsector Aurelia. They also used to recruit from the nearby world of Meridian, but none of the recruit passed the Blood Trials. Thaddeus is the first Space Marine to come from Meridian in several centuries, having been recruited from the street gangs he lead by Captain Davian Thule. It is repeatedly said that the loss of Calderis would cripple and eventually kill the Blood Ravens Chapter, and the defense of subsector Aurelia is considered important enough to mobilize the Blood Raven 3rd and 4th Company.

The 3rd Company of the Blood Ravens commonly sought new recruits from the planet of Cyrene (also in subsector Aurelia) until Captain Gabriel Angelos had it destroyed with an Exterminatus. The true purpose for this has never been told outright, but it merely hinted at in the game Dawn of War and the novel of the same name by CS Goto. According to the novel, taints of Chaos had been found in the planet's population.

Azariah Vidya
Azariah was the Master of the Chapter Librarium during a terrible campaign in the Gothic sector, in which the Blood Ravens had taken terrible losses against a series of rebellions. During this campaign, the Chapter Master and the Master of Sanctity were both killed in a trap, and it seemed that the Blood Ravens were finished.

Azariah spent much time studying the movements and reactions of the enemy, using the Imperial Guard and his own depleted Battle Brothers, in a series of feinted attacks. Using this information, as well as his tremendous psychic powers, he then launched a series of raids against seemingly empty areas, that turned out to be important staging areas of the Chaos cultists or supplies. For his skill in crushing the rebellion, Azariah was promoted to the office of Chapter Master, as well as his previous position. He is now enshrined in the chapter's history as the Great Father.

Gabriel Angelos
Brother-Captain Gabriel Angelos is the present commander of the Blood Ravens' 3rd Company.

Like many of the Blood Ravens, Gabriel was born on the planet of Cyrene, where the Chapter often draws recruits from among the planet's defense force. Gabriel was an accomplished leader of his peers before he even entered his teen years, and passed the Blood Trials set by the Blood Raven Chaplains.

Many years later, with an entire company of Blood Ravens under his command, Gabriel returned to Cyrene, to preside over the Blood Trials and recruit new members into the Chapter. But Gabriel found something very wrong during the trials, and cut them short. He quickly returned to his strike cruiser, and sent a coded signal out of the system. Within hours of the signal, ships of the Imperial Inquisition and Navy appeared over Cyrene, bombarding it for a week straight until nothing on the planet remained alive. All records of the incident, and Gabriel's message to the Inquisition, have been sealed, but Gabriel himself carries the guilt of his actions with him to this day, particularly during the battles on the planet Tartarus.

Gabriel Angelos is the main character of the game Dawn of War.

Librarian Isador Akios
Brother-Librarian Isador Akios was the present Librarian of the Blood Ravens 3rd Company, and a secondary character in Dawn of War.

Much like Captain Angelos, Isador was born and raised on Cyrene, and became a Blood Raven around the same time as Gabriel. Isador met Gabriel during the blood trials, when they were both aspirants. They fought back to back and reaped a toll so bloody the trials were bought to an end early. Although his homeworld was destroyed, Isador did not blame Gabriel for his actions on Cyrene, since it had to be done. While the Blood Ravens 3rd company was on the doomed planet of Tartarus, Isador slowly succumbed to the powers of Chaos, tempted by the traitorous Sorcerer of the Alpha Legion named Sindri Myr, telling him of the "Key", and tempting him to use it. When Inquisitor Mordecai Toth arrived, he detected a Chaotic taint and came up with the assumption that it originated in Gabriel. Because of this, they were blinded to Isador's corruption and thus could not stop Isador before he finally seized the Maledictum and turned to Chaos, bringing Gabriel's trust in his old friend crumbling to the ground.

Isador was killed in a duel between himself and Gabriel, and Gabriel used his death as an example of the fate of Space Marines who fell to Chaos. Isador was armed with a Force Weapon and Bolt Pistol. He was able to be upgraded with a Plasma Pistol later on in the campaign.

Davian Thule
Davian Thule is the current captain of the 4th Company of Blood Ravens. He is the main character of the space marines in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade.

He was raised on Cyrene, but born on Tartarus. On Kronus, he commands the 1st, 4th and 5th Companies. He is there protecting ancient chapter knowledge. He eliminates all opposition on Kronus in order to safeguard secrets about the Blood Ravens, even fellow Imperial forces - the Imperial Guard. After the events on Kronus he is questioned by Inquisitor Mordecai Toth, but Toth finds no concrete evidence that his actions were heretical. After Kronus is taken by the Blood Ravens, Thule supposedly destroyed ancient relics of the chapter's history beneath the Fortress Monastery. It is unknown if this knowledge links the Blood Ravens with some Chaos legion, but now it is gone forever. He is usually armed with the Alexandrian Blade and Bolt Pistol. He did in fact win the Dark Crusade, and will appear in Dawn of War 2.

In Dawn of War 2, Davian Thule is mortally wounded by a Tyranid Warrior, though he can be cured by the player. When cured, he is ressurected as a Dreadnought

Colors and Iconography
The Blood Ravens wear dark red armour with black trim and tan shoulder armour. Their symbol is a silhouetted raven in flight as seen from above, incorporated with a stylized drop of blood within.

Because of their name and symbol, it has been theorized that they are a successor chapter of either the Blood Angels or Raven Guard, but this has been denied by Games Workshop.

Hinted Connections to the Word Bearers Chaos Marines
During the campaign in Dark Crusade, should one choose to play as the Chaos Space Marines, they will eventually come head to head with the Blood Ravens. The banter of the commanders suggests that Blood Raven's history may not be as clean as they once thought, but this is may just be a Chaos ploy to wind up the Blood Ravens by claiming to be their "brothers".

Possible Connection to the Thousand Sons Legion
It has been speculated that the Blood Ravens may be descended from the Thousand Sons legion due to their high number of psykers within the chapter and their desire to gather and protect all forms of knowledge. This has been strongly hinted at by C.S. Goto in the Dawn Of War novels, and would also explain why the Word Bearers Legion refer to them as Brothers in Dark Crusade.

In the Black Library book Dawn of War: Ascension, it is revealed that the ancestors of the Blood Ravens built a recruiting world on top of an ancient outpost during the Heresy, with the help of the Eldar. The two factions worked in unison, using magic and psychic wards to lock the Necron force lying beneath the sands in psychic stasis. The Heresy Era Marines were then tasked with protecting this outpost by the Eldar, to seal in the Necron threat, but they mysteriously abandoned it. It was left unrecorded in Imperial logs until the Blood Ravens rediscovered it. The Eldar mistook the Blood Ravens for being one and the same as the Heresy Era Marines, as they too wore similar red armor (either Thousand Sons or Blood Angels).

The psychic lock the Marines placed on the Necrons shows that the Marines could not have been Blood Angels, and the Thousand Sons already share a bond with the Blood Ravens for their strong psychic powers.

Possible Connection to the two lost Primarchs
In the Dawn of War series of games and books it is unknown who the founder of the Blood Ravens Chapter is. The two lost Primarchs were II and XI; the only information Games Workshop has ever released that directly addresses them can be found in False Gods and The Lightning Tower (both by Dan Abnett). In the Black Library Horus Heresy novel series, Horus, in a Chaos-induced dream sequence, apparently goes back in time and sees the cracked incubation capsule of Primarch XI before the Primarchs are scattered to the Warp (the effect this has on the Primarch is inconclusive). Before that happens, he puts his hand on XI's capsule and feels "the untapped glories that might have lain ahead for what grew within, but knowing that they would never come to pass". This probably rules out XI as the Blood Raven's Primach, but with there is little to no information on what happened to II.

There is a moment in the audio book The Lightning Tower (Dan Abnett). As Primarch Rogal Dorn is constructing the defenses of the Imperial Palace (in preparation for an oncoming attack by the traitor Marines), he comes across a corridor showing statues of all twenty Primarchs. The audio book states that "an accident befell them that may somehow be a precursor of what happened to Horus". In the novel Mechanicum it is described that "They are lost to us forever"

During Dawn Of War 2, banter between Blood Ravens Thaddeus, Cyrus, Tarkus and Avitus mentions that Davian Thule found some recordings relating to the founding of the Chapter on Kronus. He was the only one to have seen them, and destroyed them immediately after. Tarkus notes this as being a turnpoint marking a significant change in the Captain's personality, now grimmer and more distant. One could guess that whatever recording Thule found established the Blood Ravens as being related to one of the traitor legions. Later in the game, Avitus mentions that the facts the Blood Ravens have forgotten the name of their Primarch could not be an accident, it had to be done on purpose to hide "a terrible truth".

Possible Connections to the Black Legion
Several events and earned items in "Dawn of War 2" suggest a connection to the Black Legion chapter of Chaos Space Marines, although the nature of this connection is never revealed.

The two handed thunder hammer "Dorn's Retribution" states that "... a Blood Ravens strike cruiser broke from the main Imperial fleet to engage and destroy a vessel of the Black Legion before returning to the line. Any reasoning for such a bold action was never reported."

One of the random loading screens, entitled "Davian Thule and Kasr Sonnen" speaks of actions of Davian Thule and 4th company just before the Kronus Campaign. The company was deployed to Cadia to fight against "a large incursion by the traitor legions." Thule was able to rout a "massive column" of Iron Warriors, but was ordered to withdraw immediately when word was received that the Black Legion was en route to support the Iron Warriors. Thule initially ignored the order, but relented when the Blood Ravens Chapter Master threatened to relieve him of his command.[[Category:B]]