Fire Lords

The Fire Lords is a Codex Astartes-compliant Loyalist Space Marine Chapter of unknown genetic lineage. Its Founding date has not been officially established.

The Fire Lords, as their name suggests, take to the battlefield bearing a plethora of Flamer weapons. Preceding their fiery assaults with barrages of incendiary missiles, they hurl themselves at the charred, bewildered foe even before the flames have had a chance to gutter out.

The Fire Lords' homeworld is the volcanic planet of Mundus Pyra, a world far out in the Eastern Fringe, and they are known for the strange flame-craft they use in Chapter rituals, which many find reminiscent of the rituals of the Salamanders.

Chapter History

History does not record which Founding gave rise to the Fire Lords, nor whether the Chapter was specifically named for its favoured battle tactics. There is no definite information on what Chapter's gene-seed was used in the Fire Lords' creation. There are several theories on the subject, though it is generally believed by most scholars of the Administratum that the Imperial Fists are the true source of the Fire Lords' gene-seed.

This possible genetic origin is reinforced by their presence at the 816^th Feast of Blades, which all the Successor Chapters of the Imperial Fists vow to participate in once every standard century on a specific planet.

As their name might suggest, the Fire Lords are known for their utilisation of all manner of incendiary weapons, from hand-held Flamer units all the way up to Firestorm bombardment charges delivered from low orbit.

Notable Campaigns

• Hell's Last Duke (931.M38) - The space hulk Hell's Last Duke ploughed into the surface of Bereguel Tertia, causing an extinction-level event. Many of the world's most valuable dignitaries saved themselves by taking to underground bunkers as the conglomerate nightmare of the space hulk burned through the atmosphere. Though they believed themselves to have escaped the worst of the disaster, the dignitaries soon learned otherwise when the Renegade Space Marines of The Purge emerged from the heart of the hulk and began to hunt them down. The Space Marines of the Fire Lords Chapter received the dignitaries' distress call and diverted their crusade to make planetfall upon Bereguel. Their Centurion Siegebreaker Cohorts bore holes into the rockcrete of the hulk, leading a massed assault right into the dark chamber that served as its bridge. A close-quarters battle broke out, and though the Fire Lords lost several of their Centurions in the process, the grisly death of the Chaos Space Marine Chaos Lord Doluthec ensured the Heretic Astartes warband was left leaderless and eventually defeated.

• Siege of Kantarel (Unknown Date.M41) - At an unknown date, the Fire Lords battled the Orks in the Siege of Kantarel alongside the 9th Company of the Raven Guard and the 293rd Regiment of the Tallarn Desert Raiders.

• Blood Star Campaign (748.M41) - A massive Daemonic incursion into the Scarus Sector was heralded by the star Ares turning an ominous blood red. The Fire Lords, Relictors and Rainbow Warriors eventually halted the invasion but took grievous casualties, including the loss of all three Chapter Masters. The Imperium grieved for three of its mightiest heroes.

• Dissolution of Burr (831.M41) - The Necron Overlord Janzikh of Phall launched an invasion of the binary worlds of Burr. Burr Major was the first planet to fall, thanks to the recklessness on the part of its remaining defenders, but soon both worlds were firmly under the Necrons' control. The dissolution furnaces roared day and night, and when Captain D'Estev and the Fire Lords 5^th Company finally arrived, all they could do was destroy Janzikh in retaliation for his dark deeds and the genocidal slaughter of the Burr System's countless millions.

• Krandor Rebellion (853.M41) - The Krandor Rebellion escalated when Alpha Legion forces arrived and the Planetary Defence Forces of Krandor crumbled. The Fire Lords, Imperial Fists, and Revilers launched a counterattack to secure vital Imperial artefacts before an Exterminatus action was declared.

• Vaxhallian Genocide (926.M41) - The Chaos Space Marine warband known as The Purge chose the verdant Imperial world of Vaxhallia as their next victim. The planet's surface was soon riddled with consumptive disease and crippling famine. Over the course of a single solar month, The Purge engineered the destruction of no fewer than fourteen billion Imperial citizens. This atrocity did not long go unnoticed; Vaxhallia had served as an astropathic relay hub and a fortress-planet, vital to the defence of the Herakles System. As a result, when the Imperium finally responded, it did so in grand style. The entire Hammers of Dorn, Fire Lords and Crimson Fists Chapters initiated the planetstrike, reinforced by twelve battle-groups of Cadian Shock Troopers and the Imperial Knights of House Raven. Soon Vaxhallia was a roiling caldera of war that drew in forces from across the sector. Vaxhallia's fate grew yet more dire when the plague ship Terminus Est arrived in orbit, disgorging hundreds of Plague Marines and countless millions of Plague Zombies onto the planet's surface. The Champion of Nurgle Typhus led this fresh assault and, with each solar day that passed, more of the Cadians succumbed to the Zombie Plague -- soon the Space Marines and Knights found themselves fighting alone against a tide of Traitors and walking dead. When a second Imperial battlefleet arrived, its commander deemed the world irretrievably lost and began preparations to evacuate the survivors and commence Exterminatus.

• Grissen Campaign (Late 900s.M41) - Due to a clerical error in the Imperium's labyrinthine bureaucracy, the once-prosperous world of Grissen had essentially gone unnoticed by the Adeptus Administratum for Terran millennia. A mid-level functionary discovered that the planetary tithes were now some 8,000 standard years overdue. An Astra Militarum regiment was immediately raised to bring the Emperor's law back to Grissen. When the regiment found itself overwhelmed by the sheer ferocity of the rebel warriors they found on the surface of the planet, they requested support. A task force from the Fire Lords Chapter, under the command of Captain Jaric Phoros, joined the fray. At first the Space Marines made little progress. The natives were so entrenched that even the most devastating incendiary orbital bombardments made scant impact on their positions. Nonetheless, the Imperial decree was that Grissen should be brought back into the fold. Grissen would prove an excellent recruiting ground for the Astra Militarum, and so Phoros held back from ordering an all-out Exterminatus. Biting back his mounting frustration, Phoros directed his Techmarines to construct a weapon that would win the war. Within a solar week of the first Land Raider modifications that ultimately created the Land Raider Redeemer variant, the Fire Lords took Grissen's capital city. Within a solar month, the largest planetary faction was suing for peace and Grissen was part of the Imperium once more. The rituals of modification were disseminated to other Chapters with close ties to the Fire Lords, and soon the Land Raider Redeemer was recognised throughout the Adeptus Astartes as an official variant of the Land Raider Crusader rather than a new design in its own right, avoiding the problem of needing official recognition for its use by the Adeptus Mechanicus, and it soon entered the canon of war machines of the Adeptus Astartes.

• Assault on Beroghast (963.M41) - When WAAAGH! Snappaklaw descended upon the Ice World of Beroghast, the 2^nd Brotherhood of the Grey Knights assaulted the Ork horde. A series of decisive strikes left the WAAAGH! cut off from its supply lines and the final Imperial blow against the Greenskins was delivered on the banks of the River Gandor, where the Ork Warlord Snappaklaw himself was slain. Three solar days later, the Fire Lords Chapter, under the command of their newly-promoted Chapter Master Jaric Phoros, arrived on Beroghast to discover the Orks in full retreat and the primitive locals bubbling over with tales about their "Steel Saviours".

• Scouring of Bellicas (990.M41) - The Fire Lords Chapter descended on the Tomb World of Bellicas and proceeded to exterminate the Necron menace and avenge the destruction of the Emperor's Swords Chapter.

• 13th Black Crusade (ca. 999.M41) - During Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade, the Fire Lords and Doom Legion came to the aid of the 4th Cadian Army on the besieged Fortress World of Kasr Sonnen. Despite this aid, Imperial projections showed the defenders would be overwhelmed by the attacking Alpha Legion forces in 2-3 solar days without further reinforcements.

• War of Beasts (Unknown Date.M42) - The Fire Lords despatched 2 companies to aid the Imperial defence of the strategic world of Vigilus from xenos and Chaos forces.

• Second Relief of Mordian (Iron Crusade) (Unknown Date.M42) - As Imperial forces withdrew from the Stygius Sector during the Invasion of the Stygius Sector, the Iron Hands refused to retreat and instead gathered on Mordian, itself under siege from Chaos forces. Alongside a mere dozen or so regiments of the Mordian Iron Guard, the Iron Hands sought to reforge themselves and purge the weakness they had displayed earlier in the campaign. During the siege the Iron Hands were joined by allies enraged by the defeatism of the Imperial forces, among them the Brazen Claws, Fire Lords, Silver Skulls, Sons of Medusa, and Iron Lords in what became known as the "Iron Crusade." They arrived on Mordian to find the planet terrorised by a Night Lords warband under the command of Ahrak Deathshriek and his Raptor hordes. Deathshriek planned to use the terror his Heretic Astartes created in the Mordian population to power a Chaos ritual that would plunge the entire world into the Warp. The Iron Hands and their allies struck with customary bluntness, emerging without warning from the Warp and engaging the Traitor fleet in orbit and launching a Drop Pod assault on Mordian's capital. Clan Avernii under Iron Captain Caanok Var led the charge and Deathshriek drove his Chaos Cultists into the Iron Hands' guns. One by one, the remaining Iron Hands Clan Companies joined the battle and Deathshriek was wounded in single combat by Var. Even as the Iron Hands' drop zone came under fresh assault from the Benedictian Guard and the Cult of the Whispered Word, Renegade warlords from across the sector united in their realisation that the Iron Hands could be wholly destroyed. With the Loyalist assault faltering, Deathshriek claimed victory as he led his fleet against the Iron Hands in space, outnumbering their warships three to one. It was at this point that the Iron Hands Successor Chapters arrived. Deathshriek's armada was caught in disarray by the Loyalist reinforcements and crushed. The newly-arrived Loyalist warships rained obliteration below on the Mordian populace. The orbital bombardment seemed indiscriminate, but nothing could have been further from the truth. The tactical doctrine known as "Hammer and the Storm" had been pursued planetside as well as in the trackless void, the Iron Hands' assault calculated to stir the Renegades and Traitors into reckless deeds. What had seemed a faltering Loyalist advance had merely paused while the Iron Hands Techmarines laboured to erect void shields and reinforce the capital city's surviving bunkers. Thus the Iron Hands and those portions of the Mordian populace they deemed worthy of survival endured the orbital firestorm. Their foes, caught in the open and drunk on the prospect of their imminent victory, were not so fortunate. In a little over one solar hour's bombardment, the Chaos hold on Mordian was broken for the second time. Eventually other Imperial reinforcements arrived from Cypra Mundi and the Iron Crusade was able to not only push the Chaos forces off Mordian, but to counterattack Chaos garrisons on nearby worlds. The Iron Hands' governing Iron Council then unleashed a second phase of the campaign, with a plan to scour the surviving worlds of the Mordian System of their Chaos presence and wrest the refineries and orbital shipyards of the neighbouring Kharvos System from Chaos. At present, the campaign is ongoing.

• Octarius War (Unknown Date.M42) - The Fire Lords participated in the Octarius War against the Orks of the Ork Empire of Octarius and the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Leviathan.

Deathwatch Service

Several battle-brothers of the Fire Lords Chapter are recorded as having taken the Apocryphon Oath and stood a Vigil of the Long Watch in the Jericho Reach.

All have displayed the Chapter's characteristic zeal for unleashing the flames of divine judgement upon the numerous enemies of Mankind that lurk in the dark void of the region. Many have utilised weapons crafted for them by the master artisans of their parent Chapter. Devastators often carry Heavy Flamers or Multi-Meltas into battle, while Tactical Marines favour Combi-flamers and -meltas.

Even when mission parameters make the use of such weapons less relevant, it has been observed that Fire Lords battle-brothers often carry secondary or back-up weapons that utilise flame or heat. Incendiary grenades, Flame Pistols and even Jokaero Digital Meltas have all been carried into battle by such battle-brothers, and used to strike down the enemies of the Humanity.

Chapter Combat Doctrine

The Fire Lords precede assaults with a barrage of incendiary missiles, and hurl themselves at the charred foe before the flames have burnt themselves out. The Fire Lords prefer planetary assaults and following their incendiary orbital bombardment they unleash Thunderfire Cannons and Land Raider Redeemers. For mopping-up exercises, the Chapter deploys Tactical Squads in Drop Pod assaults.

Another unusual practice of the Chapter is for individual Fire Lords to have their teeth replaced with shards of razor-sharp stone, each with the appearance of a primitive arrowhead or spear tip. When they bite down, their clenched jaws spark, igniting their promethium-swilled breath. They can then send a gout of flame into an enemy's face when engaged in close combat.

Land Raider Redeemer

In the wake of the Grissen Campaign, Captain Phoros disseminated his new Land Raider design's schematics. Having always been possessed of a sardonic frame of mind, he named the new Land Raider pattern "Prometheus" after a god from an ancient Terran legend who brought fire to men.

He changed the official designation to Land Raider Redeemer only upon learning that the name was already taken by a Land Raider variant developed by the Salamanders.

Nonetheless, the original Land Raider Redeemer still serves in the Fire Lord's 2^nd Company, the name Prometheus resplendent on its flanks and honoured in the Chapter's histories.

Chapter Beliefs

The Fire Lords' renowned flamecraft and warrior creed is highly reminiscent of the Salamanders Chapter. The Chapter rites of the Fire Lords call for a battle-brother to render himself up to the fires of judgement at key stages in his service.

Ordinarily such trials would be set and overseen by the Chapter's Chaplains, but battle-brothers standing the Long Watch must ensure their adherence to the rites according to their own counsel. Whatever form it takes, the battle-brother must ensure he undergoes some especially trying experience and that he emerges from it a better warrior.

The Fire Lords have taken part in the Feast of Blades, a traditional competition that is held centennially to foster the bonds of brotherhood and maintain relations between the various Imperial Fists Successor Chapters, though the Fire Lords are not confirmed as true scions of Rogal Dorn's bloodline. This traditional contest helps to strengthen these bonds of fraternal friendship and to temper them through vigorous competition.

Another curious practice of the Fire Lords is the Chapter's penchant for ritualistic tattoos. Most Fire Lords Astartes are walking illustrations -- every part of their bodies has been inked to represent the swirling inferno they wish to bring to their foes. Their flesh usually displays illustrations curled with flame and fury, while the blackened dome of their skulls are made to appear spiky and soot-smeared, like the burned stubble of Agri-world fields.

Notable Fire Lords

• Chapter Master Jaric Phoros - Jaris Phoros has been the Chapter Master of the Fire Lords since 963.M41 and saw his first action as the new leader of the Chapter during the cleanup of the Ork WAAAGH! Snappaklaw on the Ice World of Beroghast in that same year.

• Captain D'Estev - D'Estev was the captain of the Fire Lords 5^th Company who destroyed the Necron Overlord Janzikh of Phall as retaliation for the Dissolution of Burr.

• Brother Kamar - Kamar was a Fire Lords battle-brother of the 5th Company, 5th Squad.

Chapter Relics

• Descent into the Flames - This suit of Artificer Armour is patterned along the principles of standard Mark VI Corvus Pattern Power Armour, but its masterful craftsmanship sacrifices none of its protection for the mobility characteristic of Corvus Armour. A double-bonded ceramite coating provides further defence against heat-based attacks, and the wearers of this armour are typically seen descending on a Jump Pack directly behind the incendiary bombardments the Fire Lords favour at the start of their planetary assaults.

Chapter Appearance

Chapter Colours

The Fire Lords predominately wear red power armour. The Aquila or Imperialis on the chest guard, the helm, greaves, and vambraces are yellow.

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

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

Company is determined by the colour of the pauldron trim, according to the dictates of the Codex Astartes -- i.e. white (1st Company), yellow (2nd Company), red (3rd Company), green (4th Company), etc.

Chapter badge

The Fire Lords' Chapter badge is a black clenched fist with yellow flame emanating from it, centred upon a field of red.

Canon Conflict

In Chapter 3 of the Legion of the Damned novel by Rob Sanders, it is revealed that the Fire Lords are likely Imperial Fists successors because of their participation in the Feast of Blades.

However, in the revised 8th Edition Codex: Space Marines, the Fire Lords are once more listed as a Chapter born of an unknown founder.

Sources

• Adeptus Astartes: Successor Chapters (Limited Release Booklet), pg. 45
• Codex Adeptus Astartes - Space Marines (8th Edition), pg. 58
• Codex: Grey Knights (5th Edition), pg. 16
• Codex: Necrons (5th Edition), pg. 26
• Codex: Space Marines (5th Edition), pp. 27, 30, 49, 83
• Codex: Space Marines (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), pp. 18-19, 45, 67, 73, 88
• Codex: Space Marines (8th Edition) (Revised Codex), pg. 58
• Codex Supplement: Iron Hands (8th Edition), pp. 32-33
• Codex Supplement: Raven Guard (8th Edition), pg. 20
• Dataslate: Centurion Siegebreaker Cohort (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), pg. 7
• Deathwatch: Honour the Chapter (RPG), pp. 116, 127
• Gathering Storm - Part I - Fall of Cadia (7th Edition), pg. 63
• How to Paint Space Marines (2004), pg. 88
• Imperial Armour Volume Two - War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes (Second Edition), pg. 31
• Imperium Nihilus - Vigilus Defiant (8th Edition), pg. 79
• Legion of the Damned (Novel) by Rob Sanders, pg. 69
• Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (7th Edition), pg. 43
• War Zone Octarius - Book 1: Rising Tide, pp. 30-31