Remembering Akropolis - A short writ

[DeepCandle Games]

A short story in the warhammer setting, featuring the Akropolis Knights: feel free to provide feedback or field questions down below! Thanks for reading!

Remembering Akropolis

Diogenes dipped his eyes towards the floor, the brother chaplains' sermons resonated through his voice as his eyes wandered. A space marine, being a pinnacle of scientific sculpting and rigorous training, has a mind as marvelous as the many other implants gifted to them; however this does not stop ones thoughts from wandering. This was why, yet again, the ecclesiarchs' scowl could be felt burning its' way into his back. The silence, while not abrupt was still startling and as loud as ever.

"Diogenes. Do you know about the fall of Akropolis?" came the accusing tone of his chaplain.
"I do." He responded meekly. He was as familiar with the story as he was with his chaplains brutish strength and would not provoke his discipline.
"Then, you do know WHY we remember?" Midas asked.

Diogenes lowered his vision further. Their chapter, while bearing many ill fortunes, possess a memory like a great tome. To merely forget is unknown to them. Midas paced to the lectern at the front of the room again and turned to address the few who were kneeling before him, Diogenes among them.
"We remember Akropolis, because chaos does not slumber. We remember because the Emperor does not forgive surrendering to our humanity. We remember because it was our world, the Emperors world, and in our pride we tempted the ruinous powers to take it from us. That is a lesson we can not afford to forget, brothers."
Midas heaved a deep sigh and cast his golden eyes around the room before speaking again in a softer tone. "Go about your duties brothers. Reflect on what you have remembered today."

[Jubal]

Nice start Is Akropolis a solidly baked in part of the setting? I know bits of 40K lore but mostly T'au stuff, the Space Marines were never a faction I terribly liked so I didn't feel so inspired to dig into the details there.

Brief thought: on the forum, because it doesn't space terribly well, I think it helps if there's a full line break between paras for readability?

[DeepCandle Games]

Suggestion applied!

Akropolis is the homeworld of the Knights Of Akropolis chapter I put together - basically it's all just a homebrewed location that's meant to illustrate the sort of history and culture that the chapter engages in; Their entire theme is inspired by ancient buildings and ruins; a dark sandstone armour with bronze metals and rich purples, greens and yellows in their heraldry

I didn't really have a better name for the chapter, it's one aspect I struggled with to capture their theme and keep it sounding militant at the same time so what I have now is kind of the best working improvisation - The current concept for the chapter is that at the start of the age of strife they went into stasis because everything was going perfectly before the warp storms moved into the neighbourhood; most of their chapter was slain in their stasis banks and the few that survived only did so because they managed to evacuate the planet with loyalist forces and became a ship based chapter that uses their world as a training ground

Akropolis itself is envisioned as some sort of mix between roman/greek architecture and the hanging gardens of Babylon. https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/the-hanging-gardens-of-babylon-colour-litho-english-school.jpg

[Jubal]

Ah, that makes sense - I think Akropolis works well as a name etc, it fits with the mangled pseudo-classical gubbins that tends to be a bit of a theme of WH40K.

I think the Space Marines have ended up quite hard to write well, because there are in my mind really two diametrically different ways of writing them that not so much can't as shouldn't be combined, so actually writing about new/homebrew chapters is on average a better idea, gives you more of a blank slate.

[DeepCandle Games]

A short chart of the Knights Of Akropolis and their chapter structure; Including knight commanders

[HQ]
Cataphractii Knight Commander Servius
Terminator Ecclesiarch Midas

[1] Cataphractii Squad Marcellus

> Knight Sergeant Marcellus
> Brother Apollo
> Brother Diogenes
> Brother Tacitus
> Brother Marius

[2] Cataphractii Squad Rufus

> Knight Sergeant Rufus
> Brother Claudius
> Brother Felix
> Brother Lucius
> Brother Tacitus

[Support]
[] Ironclad Dreadnought Decimus
[] Ironclad Dreadnought Brutus

The Knights Of Akropolis were almost entirely wiped out during their rude awakenening, a great number of their chapter sacrificed in order to evacuate all who survived today; In addition to their military strength as detailed above, their chapter features a great number of serfs while a small host of techmarines and apothecaries keep their ship-wide facilities maintained.

Their small number and great strife has caused them to have a proportional abundance of equipment that would otherwise be exceedingly rare among other chapters, and in considerably better condition. They are obsessed with preserving loyal imperial civilizations as a form of repentance for their own neglect in duty, and recruit from loyalist civilizations that are on the verge of being over-run. Their new recruits are tested mostly in their wisdom and learning ability, and trained martially until they are at the height of their potential - their host civilization having its' vast histories chronicled in the great library aboard The Tomb Of Enlightenment.

Their ship houses a large library containing many secrets and histories, which the inquisition and some other chapters have been eager to uncover the secrets of, in addition to an extensive reliquary doubling as an armoury that is headed by Midas. Only the knights themselves actually have access to the bridge & most of the ships' sections that house the chapters' equipment and space marines.

Due to their desire to venerate the proud history of the imperium they strive for two things personally;Firstly, to repay what they feel is their debt to the emperor for allowing his world to fall into a desolate state, and secondly to honour the emperor with their won deeds - the greatest of which are enscribed onto their most personal wargear upon their death and passed on to the next neophyte to undertake that sacred duty.

like other chapters their geneseed has deviated in a number of ways:

Firstly, it grants them a great depth of memory as well as giving their eyes a molten gold colour.

Secondly it is very rare that the gene-seed is accepted by the host body - more often than not it tends to cause the host to petrify quickly if not accepted already. While the progenoid material is still able to be recovered it is a death sentence. This seems to afflict psykers more commonly, preventing many at all from serving as a librarian. For this reason would-be librarians among this chapter simply serve as the ecclesiarch, how-ever it is so uncommon that there is never more than one in a generation.

Thirdly it seems to freeze their ageing process. While they may show slight signs of weathering over the centuries at most their skin will grow more coarse and scarred from battle and their hair may fade in lustre, but their eyes remain the same piercing gold and their health won't noticeably decay.


PS: this WAS going to be a lot shorter when I started typing it out so I apologize for the wordiness