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"All of creation suffers, young ones. Only in accepting our own mortality can we make a difference. Only in bearing the burden of our failures can we find the strength to go on. Only in detachment from glory, or honour, or jealousy... from life itself can we hope to spare others from grief. We are Doom Eagles. And we are dead already."

Librarian Secundus Thryn of the Doom Eagles

The Doom Eagles is a Loyalist Space Marines Chapter and a Second Founding Successor Chapter of the Ultramarines. The homeworld of the Doom Eagles is Gathis II. Atop the Ghostmountain, their world's largest peak, sits their mighty fortress-monastery, the Eyrie.

They emphasise the use of stealth tactics and speed in combat. At a basic level, all Doom Eagles ultimately accept the inevitability of their own deaths in the service of the Emperor of Mankind.

They embrace the freedom this offers them to fight all the harder in the Emperor's name. This is the root of their courage and their unshakable resolution and determination to stand in the face of even the greatest odds.

As such, the Space Marines of this Chapter are almost impossible to deter from doing their duty, but they are a dour, grim and depressive lot, albeit staunchly loyal to the Emperor and the Imperium.

The Doom Eagles is a notoriously pious, grim and aloof Chapter of Astartes. However, unlike the Ultramarines, their use of Dreadnoughts is more extensive, fitting with their belief that they are fighting while already dead.

They are expert proponents of spearhead attacks by massed jump troops and supporting gunships; the Doom Eagles' standard tactics involve a series of swift and crushing blows that may cost them dearly in lives, but always leave the enemy shattered.

Chapter History

"Brother Septival: So you have hope for the future of the Imperium after all.
Sergeant Aquila: Hope is but the first step on the road to disappointment, Brother. You can fight for hope if you wish. I will fight to bring honour to the dead.
"

— Conversation between Sergeant Aquila and Brother Septival during the Battle of Calth
Doom Eagles Battle-Brother

Doom Eagles Chapter Colour Scheme as displayed by a Firstborn Space Marine.

The Doom Eagles were one of the Chapters directly created by Primarch Roboute Guilliman from his own Space Marine Legion during the Second Founding, and as such have the honour of being counted amongst the so-called "Primogenitors" of the Ultramarines.

This august group includes some of the most well-known and celebrated Chapters ever to have fought in Humanity's name, sharing as they do the genetic inheritance and many of the traditions of the Ultramarines themselves.

As he created the Chapter, the primarch appointed Captain Tulian Aquila, of the 24th Chapter (the Exitium), as its first Chapter Master. This Chapter operated as part of the XIII Legion's strategic reserve and featured a considerably above-strength contingent of dedicated support ordnance, mobile artillery systems and munitions train.

Aquila was a Veteran Battle-Brother of the Ultramarines Legion during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras. He served as a Sergeant during the Battle of Calth, stationed alongside his company at the city of Ithraca. When the traitorous Word Bearers struck after taking control of Calth's orbital defences, only Sergeant Aquila and two other battle-brothers survived the orbital barrage.

DoomEaglesCybian

Doom Eagles Chapter Colour Scheme as displayed by Primaris Marine Brother Cybiam, 5th Squad of the 2nd Company (battleline).

The newly founded Doom Eagles quickly embraced their Chapter Master's sense of fatalism, and came to accept that death was inevitable, and that every mission performed on behalf of the Emperor must be pursued with both fervour and zeal in defence of the Imperium and its people before one's life was spent.

The Doom Eagles were granted the storm-wracked Feral World of Gathis II by the High Lords of Terra as their demesne. It is here, every thirteen Terran years, where they recruit potential Aspirants from the hardy people of the planet's primitive Human tribes.

Located in the Razorpeaks mountain range, the Doom Eagles built their fortress-monastery, the Eyrie, upon the tallest peak -- the Ghostmountain -- so named by the planet's inhabitants due to its lethal slopes and the peoples' superstitious beliefs that it was haunted by the spirits of the dead.

Service in the Jericho Reach

The Doom Eagles have seen action throughout the Jericho Reach during the Achilus Crusade, particularly in the Canis Salient. A force based around the Chapter's 3rd Company was instrumental in the conquest of the world of Wrath, breaking the stubborn defence mounted by its native people and opening the way for their complete subjugation.

During the key battle, an orbital drop directly onto the island capital of the natives' rulers, the 3rd Company's squads displayed their mastery of the jump assault to characteristic effect. Every squad of the company, whether Tactical, Assault or Devastator, donned Jump Packs in order to affect a high altitude drop some fifty kilometres away from the heavily defended drop zone.

The high altitude deployment allowed the Space Marines to confound the defenders, their Jump Packs arresting their descent while they steered themselves in at an extremely shallow angle.

By the time the assault force was over the drop zone, the defenders were unable to mount anything more than an ad hoc last stand, and the head of the resistance was severed in a single, critical battle.

Notable Campaigns

Doom Eagles Combat

Doom Eagles' in action during the 13th Black Crusade

  • Battle of Thessala (121.M31) - The Doom Eagles were present at the Battle of Thessala, where their Primarch Roboute Guilliman was mortally wounded by the Emperor's Children's Daemon Primarch Fulgrim during the Great Scouring.
  • The Torment (075.M41) - On the Hive World of Pirody, 60 Doom Eagles joined 60,000 Imperial Guardsmen of the Lammark Lancers and the Fancho Armoured Regiments on the orders of the Warmaster Getus to cleanse the world of the forces of Chaos who had conquered the eastern continent and razed its hive cities. In the course of the campaign, the Imperial forces were affected with a supernatural disease that mirrored a hemorrhagic fever, causing explosive loss of blood and hyper-aggression in those afflicted. Even the Astartes were not immune and six of their number contracted the contagion despite their Power Armour's purity seals and their transhuman immune systems. The research for a cure was led by the Apothecary of the Doom Eagles on the planet, Subjunctus Valis. Valis explained to the man who assisted him, Colonel Ferge Ebhoe of the 23rd Lammark Lancers, how the disease was spreading despite environmental conditions that should have slowed or halted it in its tracks. Later it was Ebhoe who discovered that Valis himself had been afflicted by the Nurgle-spawned plague, which had corrupted his mind and led him to produce not vaccines, but ever more virulent versions of the disease. Every attempt to innoculate the Imperial forces and civilians of Pirody had actually spread the Torment further. At the moment of his realisation, Ebhoe turned his Flamer upon the deranged Apothecary in his laboratory, causing the nearby chemicals to explode, killing the corrupted Astartes and crippling Ebhoe for the rest of his life. But Valis' death brought an end to the Torment and allowed the Imperium to reclaim Pirody. That victory cost the lives of 59,000 Guardsmen and an unknown number of civilians lost to the Torment.
  • The Awakening of Faugris (991.M41) - The Doom Eagles attacked en masse upon the theoretically Dead World of Faugris, which turned out to be a Necron Tomb World. After 16 solar weeks of invasion and bombardment the Necron legions were still boiling forth from their stasis tombs in terrifying numbers. The Doom Eagles were ultimately forced to withdraw before Imperial reinforcements could arrive to bolster their deployed strength.
  • 13th Black Crusade (999.M41) - At least 5 companies of the Doom Eagles are known to have participated in the defence of the Cadian Sector of the Segmentum Obscurus during the 13th Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler.
    • Defence of Belis Corona (999.M41) - Upon arriving at the Cadian Gate, the Doom Eagles Chapter dispatched forces to a number of warzones, notably areas that had already suffered terribly at the hands of Chaos. The largest of these detachments, under the command of Captain Luctus of the 3rd Company, was involved in operations within the Belis Corona Sub-sector, where the notoriously pious Chapter battled those who had fallen to the Curse of Unbelief. Only those without the strength of faith to resist were afflicted by the plague, and it has been noted that not a single Doom Eagles Battle-Brother was touched by its blight. The Doom Eagles had proven effective in combating the Plague Zombies infesting many worlds of the sub-sector, though, typically for the Astartes of this aloof Chapter, they had refused all offers of support in consolidating these successes.
    • Defence of Yayor (999.M41) - On the Agri-World of Yayor, contingents of the Doom Eagles also defeated the undead horrors unleashed by the Curse of Unbelief (Zombie Plague).
    • Defence of the Deliverance (Imperial Navy starship) (999.M41) - Several squads of the Doom Eagles' Terminator armoured veterans of the elite 1st Company, fought a horrific battle in the close quarters of the corridors of the Imperial Navy carrier Deliverance, whose crew had become infected by the ravaging Zombie Plague and been transformed into undead monsters.
  • Indomitus Crusade (ca. 999.M41 - 111.M42) - The Doom Eagles were among the Chapters who contributed their forces to their resurrected primarch's Indomitus Crusade after the birth of the Great Rift.

Chapter Organisation

The Doom Eagles follow the standard Chapter organisation as laid out by the Codex Astartes, though they have a special affection for the use of assault tactics that make use of Jump Pack-equipped Assault Marines.

Council of Eagles

Modelled after the Senatorum Imperialis of Terra, the Council of Eagles encompasses a commission of Doom Eagles Astartes of the highest rank who draw together on matters of import facing the Chapter.

The group offers advice to the Doom Eagles' Commander, as the Chapter Master is known, and while ultimately it is he who holds the final sanction over all commands, he is able to draw upon the knowledge and advice of all his company captains, his senior Chaplain, Apothecary, Forge Master and Librarian.

Chapter Recruitment

The Neophytes of the Doom Eagles are not chosen primarily because of their strength, their courage, the depth of their soul or their physical appearance, but on the basis that every single one of them shares a feeling of total loss, grief and desperation.

They regard themselves as already dying, just like their homeworld of Gathis II. The tests which the future Space Marines must pass are intended to illustrate to them that they have nothing to lose and that it does not matter where and when they die.

Only a very few of the Doom Eagles' Aspirants survive these tests, and only those who have recognised the fact that they are already truly dead in the Emperor's service are allowed to survive their Aspirant's Trial and join the Chapter as Neophytes.

By Imperial command, every male of 13 standard years is to be present at Table City, Gathis II's capital, upon the thirteenth day of the thirteenth lunar month of every local year. Every year is the same: the gliders will come to the various outlying villages and tribal communities to collect the youths.

And sometimes, once in every solar decade, not all of them will return. Inducted into the Imperial Navy, the rumours go, or sent as cannon fodder to fight the Orks.

Some of the people of Gathis believe that the youths are offered as a sacrifice to the Emperor's glory or any one of a thousand different possibilities, all of them rich with uncertainty and legend. Some of the natives even believe that the selected youths are sent to appease the angry mountain ghosts.

The potential Aspirants are brought to a stone building at the skyport. Once gathered, the black-robed Chapter Serfs who ferried the boys from the gliders will begin to choose. Directed by an unseen presence (a Chapter Librarian whose physical presence is hidden by a psychic veil) a hand will reach out and tap at a selected boy, and then three or four ebony figures will close in, dragging away each victim.

The boys will then be brought to a rocky plateau, somewhere amongst the colossal crags of the Razorpeak Mountains, before a cave. They will be confused and unsure of how they have arrived there. A disembodied voice will inform the selected youths that they have been chosen.

Chosen not for their strength or their courage, nor their souls or their bodies. They have been chosen because each in their way have already understood an immutable truth: they understand that they are already dead. They each share memories of disaster, loss, injury, a lifetime of exclusion and isolation.

The disembodied voice will then order them to enter the cave, where they will surely die. Despite their aching minds, the youths will enter the cave, desperate to obey the Librarian's commands. But not all the youths will succeed in this task, for some can not bear the weight of the sadness that they have experienced all their lives.

The Librarian will explain to the selected youths that millennia ago, an object had fallen from the sky amongst the Razorpeak Mountains. Its impact shattered the crust of the planet, destabilising it forever.

The world of Gathis II, like its people, was dying one second at a time. One day its core would solidify, its oceans would freeze and its people would starve. Standing within the cave, the youths will then notice the growing puddle of boiling water at their feet, now continuously rising unbidden.

Once every year, lava-flows beneath the Razorpeaks vent into the tunnels beneath the youths' feet, filling them with scalding water. Within a solar hour, the cavern, and all those above it, would be submerged. They would breathe boiling water, gagging silently as the air burnt from their lungs. The chamber has a single exit.

The youths are offered the choice of making use of it or accepting death. Either way, they have only solar minutes to live. With nothing to lose, the youths will scramble from the chamber and make their way to another cavern which is bisected by a living cobweb of mossy lichen. This web, glowing with bacterial luminescence, bears thorns, as long as the youths' fingers.

They sprout like butcher-hook talons, curved like scimitars and equally as sharp. This forest of daggers reaches from cavern wall to cavern wall, from stalactite-strewn ceiling to uneven floor. The youths have to force their way through the wall of sharp, tiny spines that lacerate flesh and split sinews.

Some of the youths will manage to liberate themselves from the web of thorns, while others will become hopelessly enmeshed. Some youths will not even try to get through, standing or sitting, impassively waiting for their doom as the boiling water bubbles ever higher.

Through chambers and caverns, the youths will continue on. Scalding water will churn from every crevice, dousing the flickering torches that light the way, one-by-one. Arriving in another large chamber, the youths will be confronted by a floor that is a gravelpit of smouldering embers, heated by the fire-red magma that cooled, sludge-like, in scattered puddles.

The Aspirants -- those who dare -- will scamper across in a flurry of yelps and explosions of sparks. Some will fall with a howl into the curdling lava, clawing at the air and shrieking until their skin chars and their lungs fill with fire. But still, those that make it through will continue to push on.

In another chamber the ground gives way to an echoing chasm lined by splintered bones. Only by leaping across, then scrabbling amid the jagged handholds of the opposite rock face, can the youths pass. The screams of those who fall, punctuated by the splintering cracks of impact, echo throughout the hollow mountain forever.

And always the water will rise, dogging at their heels, curling its tendrils, wrapping everything in a sulphurous haze. The mountain fills from the base upwards, and with every step the remaining air grows hotter and more stifling.

Those few surviving youths, their muscles protesting, will continue to pass obstacle after obstacle, forever convinced that each test will be their last. Only by accepting their own deaths can they march across the scorching coal fragments. Only by understanding that they are nothing, can they move unhurriedly past an unflickering motion-sensor.

Only by knowing that they are dying one second at a time, that they are already dead and forgotten, can they hurl themselves into the abyss, then clamber, hands and arms lacerated, to their feet. They will be surviving and no longer caring.

Passing through the final cavern the Aspirants will then enter a tunnel that twists and grows narrower, coiling slowly downwards. Palms and knees shredded, the adolescents will struggle to continue to make their way forward. The tunnel will grow steeper, walls closing-in until the youths writhe, worm-like, using only toes and elbows.

Suddenly, there will be light. Worming their way from the tunnel, the Aspirants will find no relief at the freshness of the mountain air. Those that have survived to reach this point will find themselves on a ledge, jutting from a sheer rockface on the mountainside, the ground falling away in all directions.

Directly in front of them will stand the Ghostmountain: the tallest of the Razorpeaks and the home of the Doom Eagles. Off to the side, a tangled shape at the farthest corner of the ledge, will be the shapes of canvas pulled taunt on metal frames.

These are gliders, their only means of escape from the raging gout of water that continues to boil to the surface. Buckling the harnesses around their chests, those that dare will secure themselves into the glider. They will then hurl themselves off the ledge before the water thunders from the tunnel.

Driven on by the furious gales ripping between the Razorpeak summits, the Aspirants will struggle to retain balance and altitude. Bloodied and scarred, exhausted physically and mentally, they will continue to glide towards the Ghostmountain. As the massive peak looms closer, a disembodied voice will direct them towards a craggy rockface, where they can just make out a shadowy recess above a flat ledge -- another cave.

Exhausted, the survivors will once again be confronted by the disembodied voice, which warns them that though they have survived, they shall not be relieved. For they will die yet. The Librarian will then reveal himself and tests the youths psychically to see if they are worthy.

Touching the minds of the survivors, the Librarian will examine their very souls, to see if the youths understood that their lives are worth nothing to them now. Only if they accepted their own mortality, and detached themselves from glory, or honour or jealousy from life itself, could they hope to be spared.

Those that are found worthy will be allowed to enter the cave to discover the Eyrie of the Doom Eagles. The successful Aspirants will then enter humbly and in thankful service of the Golden Throne.

But they were warned to always remember that they had not survived their day of testing. For they were now dead. Those who are found wanting will be left on the ledge of the Ghostmountain, exposed to the elements, where they will quickly die.

Deathwatch Service

While the Doom Eagles 3rd Company has long since been recalled to other warzones, a small core of its warriors remains to stand the Long Vigil with the Deathwatch in the Jericho Reach.

While each is a veteran of numerous wars, most have chosen to deploy as Assault Marines, where their mastery of the jump assault can be put to use against the myriad enemies of Mankind stalking the war-torn depths of the Jericho Reach.

Chapter Homeworld

The Doom Eagles reside on the world of Gathis II. This Feral World is home to primitive Human tribes that have some agricultural ability and who possess technology equivalent to Old Earth's early Iron Age cultures.

The tribal people of Gathis II largely live without the assistance of advanced technology with the exception of primitive gliders that they use to travel far distances, carried by the planet's notoriously strong winds and updrafts.

Tribal communities and gloomy villages dot the few areas of planetary dryland, their ramshackle dwellings clustered around one another for protection, smeared with the planet's only unique resource, which is known as chamack oil. Produced from the pulped remains of chamack weed, the viscous sludge is exported by the Administratum as a cheap but foul-smelling sealant.

Day and night the cargo gliders ferry their odoriferous loads from distant island-tribes, a whole year's harvest barely filling a single glider. Competition for access to the aquatic plantations is fierce and regularly bloody.

This feral planet has little direct political or economic interference from the Imperium and only pays the lowest grade of planetary tithes.

Constant vigilance and regular belief-modification of the population is enacted by agents of the Ecclesiarchy as a necessity, to foster belief in the God-Emperor and to monitor the native population for psykers or mutants.

The Ecclesiarchy has adapted its teachings towards the indigenous and often unique cult belief system of the Gathis people. The mortuary-cult beliefs of Gathis II reflect the Doom Eagles' beliefs that a person is already dead.

The natives believe that death is inevitable and that they themselves are dying, which is ultimately liberating, freeing one's soul from doubt.

The Ecclesiarchy priests of Gathis II preach: "Seek not escape from misery in death, for He That Is Most Mighty gathers not the Selfish Dead to His side."

Fortress-Monastery

On Gathis II the Doom Eagles built their mighty fortress-monastery, known as the Eyrie, which is located in the Razorpeaks mountain range upon the tallest peak. The earliest, most primitive tribes of Gathis II had christened it the Ghostmountain, a name not in honour of its white-grey stone, but in recognition of the many dead that haunted it, so lethal are its slopes.

Thousands of standard years later the name is, if anything, even more fitting. Slick rain, dark with the metallic scent of oceans and the tang of rotting biomass, constantly fall against the constructions men had built high up in the tallest crags. Once, before men had come from Terra to colonise this world, there had been a true peak atop the Ghostmountain, a series of serrated spires that rose high enough that they could pierce the cloud mantle.

Now a great walled citadel stands in their place, the living rock of the peak carved and formed by artisans into halls, donjons and battlements of a stark, grim aspect. At each point of the compass, a hulking tower rises, opening into the sculpted shape of a vast raptor screaming defiance at elements and enemies.

The Reclusiam

The Doom Eagles' first Chapter Master, Aquila, made it a tenet of his new Chapter that every Son of Gathis would understand the cost of hesitance, of failure -- and with it, the great guilt that came in step. He would have them see these things, know them first-hand.

And so, relics were added to the Chapter's Reclusiam; gathered by battle-brothers on pilgrimages to places of battle and failed wars, each item a piece of despair and calamity made solid and real.

Built within the Eyrie is a great octagonal tower, tallest of the citadels that reaches for the sky, deepest of those that plunges levels down into the heart-rock of the Ghostmountain. The Reclusiam is a million memorials to countless deaths across the galaxy. Entire floors are given over to relics recovered from the sites of terrible battles and brutal wars across the entire span of the Imperium.

Many are from conflicts in which the Doom Eagles had taken a direct part, but others are from atrocities so soaked in despair and fatality that warriors of the Chapter had been drawn to visit them. Many levels of the Reclusiam are such grim museums, halls reverent with shards of stone and bone, glass and steel. Armageddon, Rocene, Malvolion, Telemachus, Brodrakul and countless other war-sites, all are represented there.

And in the hallowed core, brought to the Eyrie by Aquila himself, the silver-walled chamber where pieces of shattered masonry from the Imperial Palace lay alongside a feather from the wing of Sanguinius and a shard of the Emperor's own battle armour.

It is said that those with the witch-sight can hear the ghost-screams in the tower. If that is so, if these relics can indeed contain a fraction of the pain and anguish that had enveloped them, then those without psychic abilities are glad that the great chorus of sorrow thundering silent in the air is hidden from them.

Hall of the Fallen

Within the tall citadel of the Eyrie's Reclusiam lies the Hall of the Fallen. The largest open space inside the Eyrie, the vast walls, floor and ceilings are sheathed in great tiles of polished obsidian, each the size of a Land Raider.

Hanging at right angles from complex armatures, some from floor to ceiling, others suspended at differing heights, there are free-floating panels of the same dark stone. At a distance, the glassy black panes seem clouded somehow, but as one draws closer, definition unfolds. Each panel is perfectly laser-etched into thin strips; each strip sports a half-globe of glass, behind which lies a random item.

When a Battle-Brother dies, in accordance with Chapter laws and dictates, his name is cast from the rolls. A ceremony of loss is then conducted and sanctified. The name of the dead Battle-Brother is carved in High Gothic script, etched into the black obsidian by a Servitor stoneworker, the letters lined in heavy silver. The fallen's name is carved in memoriam, by the light of the Chapter and all of Gathis.

Next to each name, inside the glass, lies a relic: a fragment of armour, an eye-lens, a Bolter shell, an honour-chain. Every artefact is something that had been touched by the dead. A piece of them, to be held in trust for as long as the Chapter exists.

Within the heart of the Ghostmountain, in the deepest levels of the Hall of the Fallen, lies the memorial of the Chapter's founder, Aquila, and beside it a cracked helmet under glass. It has no dressing, no great and ostentatious detail to set it aside from every other marker. The First Master had ordered it so, knowing that in death, all men are truly equal.

Chapter Combat Doctrine

Doom Eagles Assault Marine

Doom Eagles Assault Marines attack the foe

The Doom Eagles is a Codex Astartes-compliant Chapter, adhering to the wisdom of its primarch, yet it displays a predilection for aerial attacks using Assault Squads equipped with Jump Packs.

The Chapter's battle-brothers are especially potent in this role, taking on the aspect of the literal "angels of death", swooping down from the heavens to mete out the Emperor's justice upon the foes of Mankind.

The Chapter's focus on such tactics means that its veterans are held to be amongst the finest exponents of the jump assault in the entire Adeptus Astartes, though plenty amongst the Blood Angels and the Raven Guard Chapters would vehemently disagree.

Chapter Beliefs

As a Successor Chapter of the Ultramarines, the Doom Eagles are amongst the august group of some of the most well-known and celebrated Chapters ever to have fought in Humanity's name, sharing as they do the genetic inheritance and many of the traditions of the Ultramarines. In many ways, however, the Doom Eagles are very different to the other inheritors of Roboute Guilliman's legacy.

While the Ultramarines are noble and virtuous, each a shining exemplar of the values the Space Marines are sworn to uphold, the Doom Eagles are overtly maudlin in demeanour, the teachings of their Chapter cult very much focused on death and mourning.

Central to the Doom Eagles' traditions is the notion that each and every Battle-Brother is already dying. Many brethren appear consumed by grief, though as Space Marines they are well able to bear their affliction. The Doom Eagles suffer their maudlin nature with stoicism and dignity, channelling it via their Chapter's rites and traditions into a weapon with which to engage the enemies of Mankind.

Their belief that death is inevitable and that they themselves are dying, which is ultimately liberating, for it frees the Doom Eagles from the scant doubts that one as mighty and fearless as a Space Marine might still harbour. Only those able to overcome every shred of fear of death survive the Chapter's rites of selection, and those who do, while dark and brooding, have truly conquered death itself.

Notable Doom Eagles

  • Chapter Master Tulian Aquila - First Chapter Master of the Doom Eagles Chapter. Aquila was a Veteran Battle-Brother of the Ultramarines Legion during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras. He served as a Sergeant during the Battle of Calth, stationed alongside his company at the city of Ithraca. When the traitorous Word Bearers struck after taking control of Calth's orbital defences, only Sergeant Aquila and two other battle-brothers survived the orbital barrage. During the subsequent fighting, Aquila was moved by the sacrifice of one of his battle-brothers and came to the realisation -- even though he himself was already dead -- that he had a duty to protect the innocent and to suffer, so that they did not have to. Later on, then-Captain Aquila would go on to become the founder and first Chapter Master of the newly created Doom Eagles Chapter during the Second Founding. The Doom Eagles quickly embraced their Chapter Master's sense of fatalism and came to accept that death was inevitable. They believed that every mission performed on behalf of the Emperor must be pursued with both fervour and zeal in defence of the Imperium and its people before one's life was spent.
  • Captain Balthus - Following the end of the Indomitus Crusade, Balthus received a message from Lord Commander of the Imperium Roboute Guilliman in which he stated that he had made a mistake ten millennia before by decreasing the Realm of Ultramar's size, in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, and he now planned to make it even larger than it once was. In order to ensure this would take place, Guilliman reinstated the rank of Tetrarch and chose Balthus to be one of the new ruling Tetrarchy of Ultramar's members. Balthus accepted and was given command of the world of Protos, from where he would do whatever was necessary to expand Ultramar's western region.
  • Commander Hearon - Hearon is the current Commander (Chapter Master) of the Doom Eagles.
  • Librarian Primus Tolkca - Tolkca is the Chapter's Librarian Primus, the Chief Librarian of the Doom Eagles Chapter.
  • Librarian Thryn - Thryn is the Librarian Secundus of the Doom Eagles' Chapter and the chooser of the faithful.
  • Captain Consultus - Captain of the Doom Eagles' 3rd Company. Captain Consultus and his Company were despetched to Merron to form a garrison force.
  • Captain Luctus - Luctus was the Captain of the Doom Eagles' 3rd Company during the 13th Black Crusade.
  • Captain Dhellas - A mighty warrior, Captain Dhellas is one of the greatest of the Doom Eagles heroes of the invasion of Wrath. Despite an unprecedented tally of dead foes, he fell at the very moment of victory. Dhellas' body was returned with due reverence to his Chapter and a mighty edifice was raised in his honour upon one of the numerous small islands of the world of Wrath in the Jericho Reach.
  • Captain Torrus - Captain of the Doom Eagles' 6th Company. Captain Torrus and his squad were dispatched to investigate a dead ship of the Imperial Navy by the name of Deliverance, only to find themselves trapped on the ship when their teleportation system failed. Captain Torrus and his squad made their way through the derelict vessel to reunite with another Doom Eagles squad under command of Techmarine Callinca that had teleported elsewhere inside the massive ship, while fighting off Plague Zombies that were once the crew of the Deliverance. Torrus would eventually reunite with his fellow battle-brothers as well as find the last Human survivor of the ship, who led the Doom Eagles into the hangar bay from which they would be evacuated. From there, Torrus gave Callinca and his group a clear order to go to the higher levels and activate the hangar's generator, which would open the hangar doors. Though Callinca carried out his orders successfully, he and his Captain's squads below were ambushed by a horde of Plague Zombies. Callinca and his Battle-Brother on the upper level luckily enough, were rescued by one of their Chapter's Thunderhawk gunships. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for their Captain below. The massive number of zombies forced the Thunderhawk to leave Captain Torrus on the Deliverance. Torrus and his remaining squad waited for their evacuation for another two standard weeks, until forces of the Imperial Guard and their own Chapter came to reinforce them.
  • Sergeant Tarikus - Suhr Tarikus was a Doom Eagles Sergeant who served on the worlds of Merron and Kript under the command of Captain Consultus of the 3rd Company. While recovering from wounds aboard his company's starship, it was assaulted by the Renegade Red Corsairs. He fought valiantly, but was eventually subdued by the Chaos pirates and sold to the vile Apothecary Fabius Bile to be used in his heretical geno-experiments. Tortured and experimented upon for over two standard years, he was eventually freed along with the rest of Bile's captives by the Astartes of the Blood Angels Chapter and was returned to his homeworld of Gathis II. There he underwent extreme trials of purity to test his physical, mental, and spiritual well-being before being declared free from Chaos taint, and was reunited with survivors from his original squad and returned to fully active status.
  • Sergeant Zurus - Brother Zurus was Tarikus' replacement, acting as the Sergeant for his squad until he returned from captivity from the world of Dynikas V, two Terran years later.
  • Techmarine Callinca - Callinca served as a leader of a splinter group of the Doom Eagles' 6th Company while aboard the dead ship of Deliverance.
  • Apothecary Makindlus - Makindlus served under Captain Torrus of the Doom Eagles' 6th Company while aboard the dead ship of Deliverance.
  • Apothecary Petius - Petius served under Sergeant Tarikus on the world of Merron before his abduction by the Red Corsairs. He later followed Zurus for two years.
  • Apothecary Subjunctus Valis - Valis was the Apothecary of the company of Doom Eagles sent to the Hive World of Pirody in 075.M41. During the course of that campaign against the armies of Chaos, Valis was corrupted by a Nurgle-spawned plague known as the Torment. The disease altered his mind so that instead of developing vaccines for the contagion in his laboratory, he actually used his knowledge to replicate ever more virulent strains of the Torment which were then injected into his fellow Astartes, Imperial Guardsmen and the civilians of Pirody as vaccines. Valis was slain by Colonel Ferge Ebhoe of the 23rd Lammark Lancers, who discovered his infection and unleashed his Flamer upon the corrupted Apothecary in his own lab. The resulting explosion of the nearby chemicals killed Valis and ended the spread of the Torment.
  • Keilor - Doom Eagles' Battle-Brother who sacrificed himself by initiating an explosion in the midst of a Genestealer Cult whilst seconded to the Deathwatch.
  • Korica - Battle-Brother who served on the world of Merron under Captain Consultus.
  • Mykilus - Battle-Brother who served on the world of Merron under Captain Consultus.
  • Vega - Vega was a Doom Eagles Astartes who joined the earliest iteration of the Deathwatch during the War of the Beast in the mid-32nd Millennium.

Chapter Fleet

  • Doombearer (Battle Barge) - Doombearer was part of the Chapter's taskforce commanded by Chapter Master Hearon that took part in the defence of the Cadian Gate during the 13th Black Crusade.
  • Baptism of Fire (Strike Cruiser) - Baptism of Fire was part of the Chapter's taskforce commanded by Chapter Master Hearon that took part in the defense of the Cadian Gate during the 13th Black Crusade.
  • Emperor's Storm (Strike Cruiser) - Emperor's Storm was part of the Chapter's taskforce commanded by Chapter Master Hearon that took part in the defense of the Cadian Gate during the 13th Black Crusade.
  • Herald of Battle (Strike Cruiser) - Herald of Battle was part of the Chapter's taskforce commanded by Chapter Master Hearon that took part in the defense of the Cadian Gate during the 13th Black Crusade.

Chapter Relics

Shroud of Yrnax

Shroud of Yrnax

  • Shroud of Yrnax - This Astartes back banner is made from the remnants of a campaign standard from a joint effort by the Doom Eagles and the Deathwatch to put down a xenos-worshipping cult that had taken over the world of Yrnax. The cult's mad fanaticism meant the world was only reclaimed when every last inhabitant had been gunned down. The banner, torn and damaged in a desperate attack in the latter stages of the campaign, stands as a potent symbol of the lengths to which the Adeptus Astartes must sometimes go, and the grim prices that must be paid. The banner is a powerful spur to Astartes morale whenever it is used by a Space Marine officer of either the Doom Eagles or the Deathwatch.

Chapter Appearance

Chapter Colours

The Doom Eagles primarily wear metallic silver power armour. The Aquila or Imperialis on the chest guard is red.

The red squad tactical specialty symbol -- battleline, close support, fire support, Veteran or command -- is indicated on the right shoulder guard.

A black Low Gothic numeral is stenciled in the centre of the squad specialty symbol, which indicates squad number.

The colour of the right knee plate displays the company number in accordance with the Codex Astartes -- i.e. white (1st Company), yellow (2nd Company), red (3rd Company), green (4th Company), etc.

A black Low Gothic numeral inscribed in the centre of the right knee plate further identifies the company an individual Battle-Brother belongs to.

Chapter Badge

The Doom Eagles' Chapter badge is a stylised ebon Aquila, its wings displayed and elevated, with its dual-heads replaced with the grim visage of a large white skull, centred on a field of silver.

Sources

  • Adeptus Astartes: Successor Chapters (Limited Release Booklet), pg. 35
  • Codex Supplement: Ultramarines (8th Edition), pg. 24
  • Codex: Space Marines (6th Edition), pg. 141
  • Codex: Space Marines (5th Edition), pg. 30
  • Codex: Space Marines (4th Edition), pg. 73
  • Codex: Space Marines (3rd Edition), pg. 22
  • Codex: Eye of Terror (3rd Edition), pg. 16
  • Codex: Ultramarines (2nd Edition), pg. 43
  • Dark Imperium (Novel) by Guy Haley, Chs. 1-4, 20
  • Deathwatch: Honour the Chapter (RPG), pp. 109, 133
  • Imperial Armour Volume Two - Space Marines and Forces of the Inquisition, pg. 190
  • Insignium Astartes - The Uniforms & Regalia of the Space Marines by Alan Merrett, pg. 59
  • Pestilence (Short Story) by Dan Abnett (Reprinted in Magos (Novel) by Dan Abnett)
  • The Horus Heresy - Book Five: Tempest (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 52
  • Warhammer 40,000 Planetstrike (5th Edition), pg. 57
  • The Last Son of Dorn (Novel) by David Guymer, Ch. 5
  • Black Tide (Novel) by James Swallow
  • Crucible of War (Anthology), "On Mournful Wings" (Story) by Simon Spurrier
  • Legends of the Space Marines (Anthology), "The Returned" (Story) by James Swallow
  • Tranzia Rebellion (Audio Drama) by C.Z. Dunn
  • Crimson Night (Short Story) by James Swallow
  • Angels of Death: Vigil (Short Story) by James Swallow
  • Plague Ship (Short Story) by Jim Alexander
  • On Mournful Wings (Short Story) by Simon Spurrier
  • The Returned (Short Story) by James Swallow
  • Flames of Damnation (Comic Anthology)
  • How to Paint Space Marines, pg. 84
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