Blood Ravens

The Blood Ravens are a Loyalist Chapter of Space Marines that prize information greatly, but ironically know little about their own origins or the earliest centuries of their service to the Emperor. This Chapter also has an unusually high concentration of powerful Librarians. The Blood Ravens 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 the Warhammer 40,000 4th Edition's Codex: Space Marines. The Blood Ravens Chapter possesses far more psykers than the other Space Marine Chapters. It is unknown if this is due to the nature of the Chapter's gene-seed, but it is not an uncommon thought among the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus that there may be some taint on the Blood Raven gene-seed. It is said in hushed tones among the Blood Ravens that there is a special squad made up of only Librarians that works secretly within the Chapter.

Homeworld
It was initially implied that the Blood Ravens came from the world of Cyrene, as it was the only planet known to have any Blood Raven activity when they were first introduced into the Warhammer 40,000 universe. However, in truth, they have no official homeworld. Instead, their fortress-monastery is situated onboard the battle barge Omnis Arcanum, which is also home to their Librarium Sanctorum. The rest of the Chapter serves onboard the fleet of strike cruisers and other battle barges that were assigned to the Blood Ravens long ago when the Chapter was founded.

Most of the Blood Ravens' new recruits come from the desert planet Calderis, of the sub-sector Aurelia. The Chapter also used to recruit from the nearby hive world of Meridian, but none of the recruits passed the Blood Trials to become Blood Ravens neophytes. Thaddeus is the first Space Marine to come from Meridian in several centuries, having been recruited from the hiver street gangs he lead there by Captain Davian Thule. It is repeatedly said that the loss of Calderis would cripple and eventually kill the Blood Ravens Chapter as they had no other way to recruit neophytes, and the defense of sub-sector Aurelia from the Tyranids is considered important enough to mobilize both the Blood Raven 3rd and 4th Companies.

The 3rd Company of the Blood Ravens commonly sought new recruits from the planet of Cyrene (also in sub-sector Aurelia) until Captain Gabriel Angelos had it destroyed with an Exterminatus order. The true purpose for this has never been told outright, but is merely hinted at in the PC game Dawn of War and the novel of the same name by CS Goto. According to the novel, the taint of Chaos had been found in the planet's population, a taint so terrible that only an Exterminatus order could prevent the contagion from spreading to other Imperial worlds.

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 putting down a series of Chaos-inspired rebellions against the Imperium. 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 continuing to hold his previous position. He is now enshrined in the Chapter's history as the Great Father.

It is implied in the game Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, that his appentice and successor as Master of the Librarium, Kyras, succumbed to the taint of Chaos during his time on the derelict Space Hulk, Judgement of Carrion. It is also implied that several members of the Blood Ravens Honor Guard also succumbed. This again has not been confirmed by Games Workshop, but re-inforces theories put forth that the Blood Ravens have close connections to the Traitor Legions of Chaos.

Gabriel Angelos
Captain Gabriel Angelos is the present commander of the Blood Ravens' 3rd Company and the Blood Ravens' Commander of the Watch. Like many of the Blood Ravens, Gabriel was born on the planet of Cyrene, where the Chapter often drew recruits from among the planetary defense forces. 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 star system. Within hours of the signal being sent, ships of the Imperial Inquisition and the the Imperial Navy appeared over Cyrene, bombarding it for a week straight with cyclonic torpedoes until nothing on the planet remained alive. All records of the incident, and Gabriel's astropathic message to the Inquisition, have been sealed, but Gabriel himself carries the guilt of his actions with him to this day, particularly during the Chapter's 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 Librarian of the Blood Ravens' 3rd Company and was a secondary character in the PC game 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 among the Space Marines and came up with the assumption that it originated in Gabriel. Because of this, the Blood Ravens 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 was the former Captain of the 4th Company of the Blood Ravens. He was the main character of the Space Marines faction in the PC game Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. He was raised on Cyrene, but born on Tartarus. On Kronus, he commands the Blood Ravens' 1st, 2nd and 4th Companies. He was there protecting ancient Chapter knowledge. He eliminates all opposition on Kronus in order to safeguard secrets about the Blood Ravens, and even fought against fellow Imperial forces - the Imperial Guard. After the events on Kronus he was questioned by Inquisitor Mordecai Toth for his attack against other Imperial soldiers, but Toth found no concrete evidence that his actions were heretical. After Kronus was taken by the Blood Ravens, Thule supposedly destroyed the ancient relics of the Chapter's history beneath the fortress-monastery. It is unknown if this knowledge links the Blood Ravens with some Chaos Space Marine Legion like the Thousand Sons, but now it is gone forever. He is usually armed with Alexian's Blade and a Bolt Pistol. He did in fact win the Dark Crusade, and also appears as a character in Dawn of War II. In Dawn of War II, Davian Thule, Captain of the 4th Company, is mortally wounded by a Tyranid Warrior, although he is cured by the actions of the Blood Ravens' Aurelian sub-sector Force Commander and is ultimately resurrected as a Space Marine Dreadnought.

Reclusiarch Mikelus
Reclusiarch Mikelus was a Blood Ravens Chaplain who served under Captain Davian Thule's forces consisting of the 1st, 2nd and 4th companies during the Kronus Campaign. He carried the faith of the Emperor into battle, inspiring his fellow Space Marines to fight with a ferocity uncommon even among the ranks of the Adeptus Astartes. He was killed when battling the Necron Lord with Captain Thule, the latter of which commended Mikelus with the honor of killing the Necron Lord (even though Mikelus had already perished before).

Senior Librarian Epistolary Anteas
Epistolary Anteas is a Senior Librarian of the Blood Ravens Chapter tasked with aiding Brother-Captain Davian Thule's purge of the planet Kronus.

Apothecary Gordian
Gordian served under Davin Thule as his personal Apothecary during the Dark Crusade on Kronus. Later, during Dawn of War II he serves aboard the strike cruiser Armageddon as the Blood Ravens' Apothecary in the Aurelia sub-sector. Gordian was responsible for putting Captain Davian Thule in stasis, after he was attacked and poisoned by a Tyranid Warrior on Calderis. When the Blood Ravens acquired the toxin to counteract the poison, with the help of Techmarine Martellus he placed Thule into a Dreadnought allowing the legendary Captain to fight again. During the final battle with the Tyranids, he is lost aboard the Armageddon above Typhon.

Brother-Captain Indrick Boreale
Brother-Captain Indrick Boreale is the Force Commander of the Blood Ravens sent to the Kaurava system. Having studied under Gabriel Angelos, Boreale leads no less than five Blood Raven companies into battle, and favors a tactic called "Steel Rain": he keeps entire companies in reserve on his Battle Barge, who are ready to be deployed by drop pod in a moment's notice. This allows him to take land quickly and put pressure on his enemies. As a result, he does not make much use of static defensive structures like turrets. During the Kaurava Conflict, he was forced to battle against fellow Imperial forces like Sisters of Battle and the 252nd Conservator Regiment of the Imperial Guard due to conflicting interest and each of them acting on their own (such as Canoness Selina Agna's purgation crusade on the Kaurava System).

In Dawn of War II, Cyrus revealed that Blood Raven's Kaurava campaign was a disaster, with many marines including most of Cyrus' scouts and Indrick Boreale himself being killed. This critical blow left the chapter largely undermanned. Boreale, however does have brief mentions in the game in the form of certain Wargear, most specifically an Iron Halo that was intended to be presented to him upon his victory at Kaurava.

The Force Commander of Sub-Sector Aurelia
The Force Commander is the Blood Ravens character representing the player in Dawn of War II. His name is chosen by the player, but he does not speak and is only referred to as "Commander" by the others, though his name is given as Aramus in the novel. The Commander is relatively young for his rank, promoted by the Chapter Master, Azariah Kyras, despite resistance from the rest of the Chapter and the fact that they have never met in person. As a result, he must both prove himself to Angelos, Thule and his Veterans - many of whom were veterans of the earlier Kronus and Kaurava Campaigns - and serve as an example to the new Blood Ravens recruits.

Tactical Sergeant Tarkus
Tarkus is a Tactical Marine Sergeant in the Blood Ravens 4th Company. He is a veteran with centuries of experience in warfare, and is an expert tactician as well as a rock-solid second-in-command. Amongst his Tactical Marines, Tarkus is renowned for his confidence and steely demeanour in battle. Tarkus was awarded Terminator Honours for his involvement in the assault on the Necron Catacombs of Kronus during the Dark Crusade, where he and his squad repelled waves after waves of Necron forces to buy Captain Davian Thule time to plant the bomb that would end the Necron threat to the planet. Tarkus is stated to have lost one of his hands killing a Necron Tomb Spider when out of ammunition by holding a live grenade in a weak point near the Tomb Spider's head. In Dawn of War II, Tarkus once again serves alongside Captain Davian Thule in his defence of the Aurelia sub-sector. Tarkus left the command of the Blood Ravens Force Commander of Aurelia sub-sector on the world of Meridian to investigate the reason behind recent Ork appearances at Angel Gate. He rejoined the Force Commander's trrops while they were planet-side, searching for the force of Eldar that attacked the vulnerable Angel Gate.The Eldar planned to overload the Forge's reactor to devastate Meridian and stall the splinter Tyranid Hive Fleet from reaching the Craftworld of Ulthwe.

Scout Sergeant Cyrus
Cyrus is a veteran Scout Sergeant in the Blood Ravens Tenth Company who has dedicated himself to training the Chapter's initiates and scouts, as well as honing them into full-fledged Space Marines. Even amongst his own Chapter, Cyrus is a man of few words, and has a fearsome reputation. His methods, while highly unpopular amongst the Battle Brothers, have earned them countless victories, most notably during the Genestealer outbreak on Victoria Primus. It is revealed part-way through the campaign that he has fought the Tyranids before, during his time in the Deathwatch. He also fought in the Kaurava campaign under Brother-Captain Indrick Boreale, and reveals that the campaign gone horribly wrong for the Blood Ravens. He declares the said campaign as "a huge mistake," vowing not to speak of the Kaurava system again. Though contrary to information posted within this article (See Techmarine Martellus) other experience has lead to the identity of the traitor to be Cyrus himself during the "Chaos Rising" campaign for the expansion to "Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II". This is indicative of multiple storyline paths that can be taken throughout the campaign. (untrue: the traitor reveals to be the one which has the most high 'corruption' indicator so you choose who the traitor will be)

Devastator Sergeant Avitus
Avitus is a Devastator Marine Sergeant in the Blood Ravens' 4th Company. He fought alongside Captain Davian Thule in the Dark Crusade on Kronus and slew the Chaos Witch Morgana. He also distinguished himself during the assault on the Imperial Guard stronghold of Victory Bay. It was also in this battle that Avitus lost many of his squadmates, which forever changed Avitus and prompted his vision of Imperial Guardsmen as traitors and weaklings. He is renowned for his unmatched hatred for the enemy, which many regard as his greatest weapon. In Dawn of War II, Avitus once again serves alongside Captain Davian Thule in his defence of the Aurelian sub-sector.

Assault Sergeant Thaddeus
Thaddeus is an Assault Marine Sergeant in the Blood Ravens 4th Company. He was a native undercity gang leader on the Hive-World Meridian before his personal recruitment into the Blood Ravens by Captain Davian Thule. He has a reputation as a brash and idealistic brawler; and made his name battling Feral Orks on Calderis and Typhon Primaris.

Librarian Jonah Orion
Jonah Orion has served under Gabriel Angelos since the aftermath of the Tartarus campaign. Once a protégé of Isador Akios -- who fell to Chaos on Tartarus -- Jonah was subject to suspicion, but the support of Captain Angelos and of Chapter Master Kyras soon put those doubts to rest. During the Tyranid invasion, he was one of the psykers tasked with battling the mighty Hive Mind as Captain Angelos made for sub-sector Aurelia. Of the dozen Librarians, Navigators and Astropaths accompanying Angelos, only Jonah survived. Although still bearing the scars of his ordeal in the Warp, Jonah has served with honour over the last year. His psychic abilities have allowed Blood Ravens to root out several leftover pockets of Tyranid infestation.

Techmarine Martellus
A Techmarine aboard the Blood Ravens' Strike Cruiser Armageddon. Martellus served under the Force Commander throughout the Tyranid invasion in Dawn of War II. During the climactic battle, Martellus was aboard a Thunderhawk gunship supporting the Space Marines on the ground. The Tyranid horde eventually overwhelmed the gunship. Thought to have died during Dawn of War II, Martellus returns in Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, only to be exposed as a traitor during the attack of the Chaos Space Marines' Black Legion on that sub-sector. Martellus is ultimately killed on Aurelia, a planet which was frozen by a Warp Storm and thus pulled into Warpspace centuries ago, only to return a year after the Tyranid outbreak from the original Dawn of War II campaign. If the player's force commander and squads all remain pure, Martellus is proven to be the traitor possessing Blood Raven communications codes used to send false distress signals in order to lure the Force Commander and his veterans onto Aurelia's surface where the heretics of the Imperial Guard, House Vandis and the forces of the Black Legion were waiting for them.

Chapter Colours
The Blood Ravens wear dark red Power Armour with weathered cream shoulder plates trimmed in black.

Chapter Badge
The Blood Ravens' Chapter badge is a silhouetted raven in flight as seen from above, incorporated with a stylized drop of blood within. Because of their name and badge, it was once theorized that the Blood Ravens were a Successor Chapter of either the Blood Angels or the Raven Guard, but both of these suppositions have been denied by Games Workshop. It now seems far more likely that the Blood Ravens may be descended from a pre-Horus Heresy group of Astartes from the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion who remained loyal to the Emperor of Mankind.

Possible Connection to the Thousand Sons Legion
The Blood Ravens' dark secret may be that they have descended not from one of the Loyalist First Founding Chapters but from the Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines Legion, as before the Horus Heresy the Thousand Sons may have copied and modified their gene-seed and left the new, altered genetic material on Mars for the Adeptus Mechanicus' Tech-priests to create new Space Marine Chapters. This would mean that the Blood Ravens Chapter is not a Successor Chapter but is technically still one of the First Founding Chapters, though with a dark and tainted past.

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 Necron outpost during the Horus Heresy, with the help of the Eldar. The two races worked in unison, using Eldar sorcery and psychic wards to lock the Necron force lying beneath the sands in psychic stasis. The Horus Heresy-era Space 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 Space Marines, as they too wore similar red Power Armour, which was also the color of the pre-Heresy Thousand Sons Astartes' Power Armour.

The psychic lock the Space Marines placed on the Necrons shows that the Astartes of that time could not have already been Blood Angels, and the Thousand Sons already share a bond with the Blood Ravens because both groups of Space Marines were defined by the development of unusually strong psychic powers among their Battle-Brothers.

In the novel Battle for the Abyss, a Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marine shouts "Knowledge is Power!" as a battle cry, suggesting a connection to the Blood Ravens.

In the novel A Thousand Sons by Graham McNeill a vision is seen by the Thousand Sons Librarian Ahriman describing a future image of blood and a raven, and a remembrancer psyker attached to the Thousand Sons has a vision of "...The Ravens, I see them too! The lost sons and a Raven of Blood. They cry out for salvation and knowledge, but it is denied!" (p. 430) This may imply that the Blood Ravens are descended from the Thousand Sons' gene-seed. At the same time, one of the four cults that comprised the pre-Heresy Thousand Sons Legion was called the Corvidae (the Latin name for ravens and crows), and whose symbol was a black raven's head.

Possible Connection to the two Lost Primarchs
In the Dawn of War series of computer games and books it is unknown who the founder of the Blood Ravens Chapter is. The two lost Primarchs were numbers 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 (by Graham McNeill and Dan Abnett, respectively). 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 Primarch XI as the Blood Raven's founding Primach. There is little to no information on what happened to Primarch II.

There is a moment in the audio book of the The Lightning Tower (Dan Abnett). As Primarch Rogal Dorn is constructing the defenses of the Imperial Palace (in preparation for the incoming attack by the Traitor Marines), he comes across a corridor showing statues of all twenty Primarchs, including the two missing ones. 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 said that the two Primarchs are "lost to us forever."

Since the Blood Ravens do not know from where their geneseed came, they refer to their Primarch as the "Unknown Primarch". Based on Davian Thule's speech if North Vandea is invaded, the Blood Ravens feel a spiritual connection to their Primarch, even if they do not know his identity.

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 turning point marking a significant change in the Captain's personality, now grimmer and more distant than he once was. 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 the fact that the Blood Ravens have forgotten the name of their Primarch and this could not have been an accident, it had to be done on purpose to hide "a terrible truth".