Vultur's page

Is that all there is? Will I be left alone, my brothers dead, picking at their corpses, the taste of my brothers oily blood in my mouth, looking unto war unending…

For the Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes, whose lives become extended over centuries, whose countless battles and conquests extend through and past the ages, whose lives as regular humans are expunged after being raised to the rank of a brother in the Astartes, time seems to dilate and become irrelevant. Years and centuries pass. Brothers fall and others are raised in their place, a constant waxing and waning of strength that so markedly categorizes the life of the Raptors chapter. The Raptors have faced more than their share of hardship in their time, having first lost too many when still a part of the Raven Guard chapter during the Horus Heresy and again after their fortress monastery was inadvertently destroyed during one of Abandon’s Black Crusades. Seemingly disappearing for two millennia and presumed dead, the Raptors returned in M39, restored in strength and again waging war against humanity’s enemies.

Decades grind away into centuries and in it Brother Serlar Vultur continues grimly in the determination to accomplish his duty to the Emperor and the Imperium. Vultur, who like the rest of his brothers had his memories of his past life long since washed away, recalls fondly his days as a recruit as if these were the years of his childhood. The Raptors’ doctrines of tactical malleability, stealth-work and espionage were ground early on into Vultur’s memories and, as expectant, hopeful and ambitious as he was at that age, Vultur made sure to embody his training and live up to the example of his forbearers. Brother Vultur, one of a legion of stealth experts, stood out for his quiet competence and taciturn mien. An excellent marksman and gifted in stealth work, Vultur eventually grew to a position of leadership as a sergeant in the Raptors 10th company. Sergeant Vultur became famous for his unyielding stare and his quiet voice that never before yelled or screamed in fury. Cold, calculating, yet strangely protective of his squadmates, Brother Vultur was recognized for his prowess and was soon enough promoted. His time finished as a neophyte, Vultur moved on through the ranks, gaining full status as a Space Marine and moving on to fight in battles unceasing.

Participating in more campaigns than he could count, Brother Vultur ground out more than a century diligently facing off against humanity’s enemies, yet, at the end of a particularly grueling and costly series of engagements, requested reassignment as a veteran sergeant training and working with the scouting elements of the 10th company. Though competent as all Astartes as a tactical marine, whose tactics too reflected much of the Raptors’ idiom, Serlar Vultur had preferred the silence of stealth-craft and missed the familiar feel of a needle sniper in his hands. But more than anything, beneath his competence with the work of the scouts, Vultur desired anything that could remind him of his time as a neophyte. Optimism, ambition, eagerness, those were the characteristics of his brothers in the 10th company, but with every engagement since his promotion the weight of his chapters pathologically grim acceptance of fate wore more and more the edges of his sanity. Vultur, above all, desired to see a purpose to endless war, to find once more the merits of heroism and an end to robotic war craft.

For more than three decades Vultur worked alongside the neophytes of the 10th company, teaching them, honing their skills. The recruits that served under him eventually gave him the nickname, “old ironface,” and although his face would never betray a lick of emotion, Brother Vultur felt the greatest amount of pride for his pupils. Many perished, for such was the way of war, and although each death brought to mind the great burden they all faced as Space Marines of the Raptors chapter, Vultur pressed on in the hopes that his guardianship might allow his neophytes the abilities to survive and thrive in the hostile galaxy at the tail-end of the 41st millennium.

That was until the ill-fated assault on the heretical forces of the Severan Dominate in the Spineward front of the Calixis Sector on the planet Aesop Primary. Dug in to a nigh-impregnable stronghold and sitting on a captured munitorum stockpile, the mission was considered a high priority. Elements of the Astra Militarum, along with several chapters of Astartes, including the Raptors chapter were sent in to liberate the Dominate stronghold. From the moment the Imperium’s combined forces began the assault, the fighting was intense. Bogged down, the fighting became a slog through blood-infested trenches and sickly hostile jungle. According to Raptors’ combat protocol, the 10th company was sent ahead of the main force to scout the immediate area and sabotage enemy armor battalions and defensive emplacements. Vultur’s squad was one such that was sent ahead on a mission to cause discord and interrupt supply lines deep into enemy territory.

Although more often than not regular power armor was rarely used on scouting missions, the fighting had become so intense and casualties were often high enough that veteran sergeants such as Brother Vultur were sent in using their full power armor instead of their scout-issue carapace. Vultur and his squad trekked through mile upon mile of pestilent jungle, resting nary a moment for, as reports told them, the Dominate forces were said to have hired xenos mercenaries, the excellent and stealthy Dark Eldar. Approaching their mission site, unwilling to compromise his squad’s cover with his overlarge armor, Vultur sent his squad to an overlooking hill, using himself as a distraction to draw out the enemy and open them up to a fusillade of fire from his waiting scouts. It was a maneuver they had performed many times before and would have been executed perfectly had the enemy already been waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Vultur entered into the camp and immediately began drawing the enemy into fierce combat when he heard over his vox-link the bloody cries of his squad butchered on the hill-top. Stuck in the midst of an enemy emplacement, armed only with bolt pistol and combat knife, and knowing too the fate of his beloved squad, Vultur seemed to lose all sense. He flew into a blind and maddened rage, massacring his way through the enemy towards the hill-top where he knew his squad was already lost. Blood clouded the air, raining droplets that flew into Vultur’s eyes and mouth, bathing him in it. Vultur reached the top of the rise, blood dripping off his armor, to find his squad butchered like animals, skewered into trees, bisected at the waist, heads piled on stakes. Unthinking, Vultur set off in pursuit of his brother’s killers, tracking through the jungle for days and presumed dead by chapter command. He found the Dark Eldar, a witch cult preening and cleaning their blades. Vultur had never relished killing, viewing war as a necessary duty and a means to an end, yet with uncalculated and barbarian fury, Vultur flew into his enemy with reckless abandon. He butchered the Dark Eldar just as they butchered his squad.

Drenched in blood, the same blood that still marks his armor to this day, Vultur made his way back to his chapter’s headquarters and was confined in a cell on the Astartes Battle Barge, “Death Among Us.” For weeks he sat there, unspeaking and unmoving, until a chaplain came to fetch him. The captain of the 10th company was not pleased by the loss of his entire squad, and was even more displeased by the failure of Vultur’s mission, yet, seeing the look in Vultur’s piercing eyes, now filled with a horrible anger, decided that as a form of punishment, Vultur would go on to serve a term with the Deathwatch. It was a course that perhaps saved Vultur from conducting himself in a penitent crusade against the Imperium’s enemies, alone, which would surely have been the death of him. Vultur has since calmed down, reverting back to his taciturn and analytical self, yet the blood on his armor still serves as a constant reminder to what he has lost, and what he yet may lose.

Acrobatics, Awareness, Ciphers (Chapter Runes), Climb, Command, Dodge, Common Lore (Adeptus Astartes, Deathwatch, Imperium, War), Concealment, Drive (Ground Vehicles), Forbidden Lore (Xenos), Intimidate, Literacy, Navigation (Surface), Scholastic Lore (Codex Astartes), Silent Move (+10), Speak Langauge (High Gothic, Low Gothic), Tactics (Recon and Stealth), Tracking,

Ambidextrous, Astartes Weapons Training, Bulging Biceps, Heightened Senses (Hearing, Sight), Killing Striek, Nerves of Steel, Quick Draw, Resistance (Psychic Powers), True Grit, Unarmed Master, Deathwatch Training

Astartes Bolter with fire selector, Two clips of Stalker Rounds, Astartes Bolt Pistol, 3 Astartes Frag grenades, 3 Astartes Krak grenades, Astartes Combat Knife, 1 Astartes Stun Grenade, Raven Shotgun with fire selector (First Founding), Demolition Charge,

Repair cement, Chapter Trapping, Stalker Flares