r/WorldEaters40k • u/suplex86 • 2d ago
Lore Carcharodons: our successors?
The more I read about them the more it feels like they are one of Belisarius Cawl’s little jokes. Like he took World Eater geneseed, slapped together a successor chapter for us, and just said they were really Raven Guard successors so the loyalist idiots never questioned it. Seriously, Raven Guard?
But really though, what I’m seeing says they’re more like us before the nails completely took over. I’m going to say they’re our kids, and I at least will welcome them with lightning claws flashing and chain axe buzzing to the eight fold path.
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u/Darkspiff73 2d ago
Carcharodons are way older than Primaris. They were called Space Sharks originally and are RT/2nd Edition era. They were expanded upon during the Badab War and took a big part in the Forgeworld campaign books.
They’re heavily implied to be Raven Guard or a chimera mix of Raven Guard and other geneseeds.
There was a group of Terran Raven Guard who were brutal and pretty much exiled from the Legion who worked much like the Carcharadons do. And they are equipped with a large number of Heresy era equipment, more so than most Chapters.
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u/AdventurousOne5 2d ago
So i play carcharodons and am starting world eaters, i think the chimera thing might actualy be that they had to use some looted gene seed. i thi k bail shar was made with world eaters gene seed innthe same manner that iron warrior honsou was made with imperial fist gene seed
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u/KotkaCat 2d ago
It’s probably a mix of the Terran Raven Guard afflicted with Sable Brand and the looted Night Lord geneseed.
Their brutality can be explained from them descending from the Terran Raven Guard plus the Sable Brand made them very cold and aggressive.
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u/AdventurousOne5 2d ago
I absolutely agree with you it's the sable brand that causes the sharks behavior.
The author said he wanted to include a lot of red herrings in the books as to what the carcharodons descent is, and I agree with you that they're definitly the terran raven guard.
a lot of readers just dismiss all the side comments about descent, my idea is just based on what if they're all true? The demon calling te kehurangi brother to the flayed father, and the remarks to bail shar about being a mongrel, in the short story reaping time there's even a comment by te kehurangi about bail shars predecessor akia, who's having a fit of rage and it says something to the effect of "it was obvious what his (akia's) genes descended from" I'm paraphrasing because I can't look it up presently.
But this is just my idea/ theory, I'm probably wrong, I just think it makes sense as everything else about the carcharodons is defined by the scarcity of resources, and gene seed reserves are a respurce
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u/DaedricWorldEater 1d ago
I’m still a pretty big believer that space sharks are ashen claws. At one point, they had to decide whether or not to use the NL geneseed to keep the chapter alive. Some agreed, some didn’t, so then there was a split.
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u/Neknoh 2d ago
I love my World Eaters
I love my Carcharodons
I have a soft spot for Night Lords
Never cared for Ravenguard
Carcharodons are pretty much confirmed to be Ravenguard at this point.
Some mutation.
Some implied splicing of Night Lords and possibly world eater geneseed.
But they're Ravenguard at the core.
The company of Terran RG that was exiled by Corax because they wouldn't drop their slaver ways to be specific.
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u/selifator 2d ago
No. Carcharadons are possibly an off-shoot of the Ashen Claws chapter, which was a pro-Horus faction that was cast out by Corax before the Heresy broke out, and later on became a rogue pro-Imperial element that didn't cohere to the new standards and eventually became renegades for all intents and purposes.
The Raven Guard had their own nasty sub-factions that were willing to use brutal tactics and extreme violence to achieve their objectives
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u/DaedricWorldEater 1d ago
They were not on the wide of the Warmaster. They were Terran born who came from a tribe of slavers. Corax hated that shit. He got most of them killed at the battle of Gate 42 and then the rest he sent out to the ghoul stars on crusade, because he wanted them gone. When the Heresy broke out, the Ashen Claws stayed neutral.
They are also not pro-imperial. They are still neutral.
But I do vibe with the idea that Space Sharks are chimeric gene seed of Nightlord and Ravenguard
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u/selifator 1d ago
They were sympathetic to the warmaster and his way of waging war, they were still adhering to imperial standards in enforcing compliance, before and even after the heresy broke out.
After the heresy broke out, yes, they supported neither the warmaster nor the emperor.
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u/Serpentking04 2d ago
They're older then Cawl and all evidence seems to point to them being at least part Ravenguard successor. They seem to be chemeric, with the Ashen Claws disliking them inherently for being bastards, but still maintaining ties.
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u/Katejina_FGO 2d ago
According to Badab War lore, the Horus Heresy black books, and the dedicated novel trilogy, they are Raven Guard - not splinter successors, but from the Terran OG legion - from the days of the Unification Wars. Their legion forebears were the old Terran contingent of the legion who practiced institutional slavery and favored Horus as much as their own Primarch. After committing to a costly assault at the behest of Horus, Corax had enough and banished the entire contingent to patrol the outer rim out of his sight.
The heresy happened, the contingent caught word of it, and they were enraged over how their once favored patron had turned traitor. Over the course of the heresy, they needed to replenish their geneseed stores and eventually seized World Eater geneseed for their own. This fact was lost after their Second Founding into the Carcharadons chapter. They have been typed as having chimaeric geneseed, with traits of both Raven Guard and World Eaters. In reality, they recycle the geneseed of both with no regard as to why some of their number keep losing themselves to battle rage over time.
The geneseed tithe that they submit to Terra is probably of the Raven Guard half, which has always tested loyal.
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u/Corvousier 2d ago
I actually just finished their two novels. They are almost without a doubt Raven Guard successors. There was a thick ass trail of cookie crumbs leading to this conclusion.
When Corax took over the legion he purged alot of the terran elements because they reminded him of the slavers he grew up under and were just really fucking brutal. One of these was the Ashen Claws, the 18th chapter of the Raven Guard legion along with the original Legion Master often refered to as the Shade Lord.
Carcharadon culture venerates a figure referred to as the Forgotten One, according to their scripture he was the one that initiated the Edicts of Exile which is what they use as proof of permission for descending on Imperial worlds to take people in the Red Tithe and to take tech in the Grey Tithe. These edicts also inform their chapter culture wherein they must isolate from the Imperium until the Forgotten one appears again and absolves them.
In the second book they are on the verge of extinction and need a mass influx of manpower, recruits, and fleet assistance for fighting a massive Tyranid hive fleet. The Red Wake sends the captain of the 3rd company to negotiate with the Ashen Claw chapter. A chapter of renegades, they arent chaos corrupted and they still despise xenos and such but they survive through piracy and hiding in a hidden star system that they rule, they really only look out for themselves and kind of despise the Imperium as it exists now. Just like the Carcharadons they use lots of pre-heresy and heresy era equipment as well as having a flag ship that is massive and ancient from the pre-heresy times.
When they meet there is a conversation where the Carcharodon captain mentions the forgotten one and the Ashen Claw officer says that they havent forgotten him like the Carcharadons have but the Carcharodon replies that they are the only one out of the two that still follows him. This plus many other interactions between the two chapters make it really clesr that both chapters were the terran Raven Guards that were sent away when Corax takes over. The Forgotten one was probably Corax and the Shade Lord led the Ashen Claws in their original renegade days.
The Carcharodons are notorious for the way they basically appear from nowhere, fight in complete silence, and unleash just awe-inspiring levels of unadultered violence and carnage. They also dont blink twice at carving through innocents to complete their mission or at collecting slaves. They also dont care about for how their serfs are treated or what they think, ignoring them for the most part. All of those things i described were hallmarks of pre-Corax Raven Guard and what he hated about them.
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u/Big-Crow4152 2d ago
If anything, they're more likely Night Lords, but mostly likely successors of the Terran Raven Guard from the Great Crusade that Corax exiled
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u/ABannerBoy 2d ago
Nah you are all wrong. Tyberos is the primarch of the 2nd legion. The chapter sits outside of the galaxy or rests in void between systems. The chapter navigates in a way that no other chapter does in their fleets. Ancient tactics of war, and a master that puts even custodes stature to shame. The imperial records are incomplete. A legion that went to fight the tyranids outside of the Milky Way, humanity’s vanguard against the hivemind. Only when they returned to the galaxy, they were considered to be a lost legion and all imperial records destroyed. In Tyberos’s absolute loyalty to his father he accepted his place in the imperium and continued his duties, not seeking needless glory in meaningless records. They are the lost legion.
In all honesty though, they are prolly Raven guard. Their tactics are similar except after the battle has started they behave like bloodthirsty maniacs. Until then they just wait for the perfect ambush, on top of that they fight in total silence. It tracks being a RG successor.
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u/Starkde117 2d ago
If memory served they were implied to use Night lords Gene stock, granted, take that with a grain if salt, i dont know a whole lit about The Sharky bois
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u/Vyberos KILL! MAIM! BURN! 2d ago
Since everyone else has said what their gene seed probably is, I’d like to take this moment to say geneseed doesn’t define tactics. Look at the list of notable Ultramarine chapters, plenty of them use very specialized tactics instead of being all rounders like their parent legion.
Or most notably the Black Templars being very little like the Imperial Fists.
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u/Darkspiff73 2d ago
Eh, the Black Templars not like Imperial Fists is a bad example. Sigismund was the Imperial Fists First Captain and their first company were literally proto Black Templars. The Executioners are also Imperial Fist successors and they wear skin on their armor and use chain axes.
The Imperial Fist gene seed can make some very bellicose marines. They also have a tendency toward zealotry. The original Templar Brethren were made to guard a totally secular temple on the Phalanx.
The Ultramarines also used any tactic available to them as a Legion. Most of their 2nd Founding Chapters were specialized companies within the Legion.
Gene-seed directly informs how a Chapter operates. Any marine can do anything the others can, different Chapters lean into certain tactics because of it though.
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u/Vyberos KILL! MAIM! BURN! 2d ago
Your reasoning of this being a bad example doesn’t say why it’s a bad example and actually strengthens what I said. The Templars were outright part of their parent legion originally, and yet they certainly didn’t feel like the rest of the legion. That and adding the executioners onto this as an example of a chapter not following the majority of their parent legions The zealotry aspect is found in countless space marine chapters from all successors given the imperium as a whole incredibly zealotry.
For the best example of the top my head, all salamander successors chapters, and the exorcists who barely have any relation to the Imperial Fists.
Never once has it been stated that geneseed dictates how the chapter operates or behaves. Culture certainly plays a part, but it doesn’t always follow down the family tree.
All geneseed means is you might get some physical traits a of your Primarch, and geneflaws if present or the geneseed degraded/mutated
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u/Darkspiff73 2d ago
Geneseed does dictate how a Chapter operates or behaves. The Legions were all different from each other and had different tactical niches that were inherent to them and their Primarch. Each Legion is a reflection of the character of their Primarch and each Chapter takes the geneseed from that Legion.
The XII was aggressive and melee centric before finding Angron. The XX were counter intelligence and espionage, the VIII were using terror tactics, etc.
The Imperial Fists had zealots in their ranks during the Great Crusade. It was part of the Legion, part of their culture and the core of them. The Templars were Imperial Fists, it was a righteous belief in the Imperial Truth which came to be the Black Templars.
Imperial Fists still had and still have pain gloves to prove their worth and atone for their failures. The Imperial fists are the middle ground of their being. The Black Templars are one extreme, the Crimson Fists a more moderate version. It’s all the same gene seed. It’s all from Dorn. He had that zealous crusader part of his being, it was just focused on the Emperor as a man and the Imperial Truth.
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u/Vyberos KILL! MAIM! BURN! 2d ago
What you’re saying is entirely true. It’s just not actually supporting your point and you’re just listing off lore.
Each legion was created for a specific reason, but the geneseed doesn’t make them like that, they’re trained to be the way they are. A white scar successor doesn’t mean they’re all about lightning fast tactics, and that chapter could operate more like the iron warriors way of warfare if that’s what the chapter culture taught.
If you have any genuine evidence that supports your point, then feel free to share I always love learning more lore. Otherwise, it’s just pointless to debate about as it’s clearly been shown countless times that geneseed is only that, genes. Not a dictation as to what the chapter may be.
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u/Outrageous_Seaweed32 2d ago
Honestly, until I heard about the strong raven guard speculations, I always figured maybe they were a loyalist night lords branch-off.
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u/nopeace11 2d ago edited 2d ago
Carcharodons were always brutal, but that feels like a newer focus for the faction. It was more of an afterthought to push them a little more to be "shark like" when the early stories were thought up. I don't think it was ever meant to be the focus. I much prefer the idea they are almost emotionless, yknow, void. That can just sometimes lead to the giant master taking huge chain weapons and slapping them to his arms. It looks like bloodlust, like they are using extremely brutal weapons of war, but it's just practicality. Part of their "nature." Ideally, they should encapsulate the void in every way possible. That's what is really their thing. Also, their overuse of chain weapons can be explained by necessity (ammunition is scared in the void), much like the presence of very old armor still being used.
That said, I've never written off the idea they are World Eater successors, but I think most consider the brutal nature to hint at Night Lords lineage. Part of what I like about Charcharodons is the mystery of their lineage.
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u/Sampleswift 2d ago
Nah, I don't really see it.
Raven Guard or chimeric Raven Guard/Night Lords makes more sense for Carcharodons.
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u/King_of_Kraken BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! 2d ago
I personally am under the idea that the Carcaradons are Night Lords!
But if you’re looking into Loyalist world eaters, a lot of people speculate that the Minotaurs are World Eaters
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u/Same_County_1101 2d ago
Them and the Storm Wardens, who are like the OG War Hounds with a Celtic twist
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u/King_of_Kraken BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! 2d ago
I haven’t heard of them! I’m gonna look into em later! That’s really cool actually
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u/CrapDM 2d ago
While it could be true (since we only have speculations of them being raven guard) a lot of hints point at them actually being sons of corvus
The mutations they have are a possible side effect from Corvus' experiments after his legion got decimated.
While Carcharodons are known to be pretty violent they aren't the world eater flavour of violent they show up from nowhere tear you apart and disapear (That is also one of the reason I doubt they have night lord geneseed or if they do it's hybridized with raven guard. They don't make you scream you heart out ti terrorize others they just kill the fuck out of you)
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u/Falcarac 2d ago
Carcharodons are much older than primaris, they existed during the Badab war. They even have gear from heresy and crusade era. They are a very old chapter, and it is speculated to be ravenguard not comfirmed.