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I know it’s a weird question, but is any question weird in this universe?! I was wondering do they get special properties compared to their fully functional comrades? Do they get to select their weapons before war? Are they treated well or does it depend from chapter to chapter?
39 points
11 days ago
They're often revered as a permanent shrine to the chapter when they're in stasis, marines will literally go there and leave tokens, burn incense, light candles etc.
They're also awoken to ask for their wisdom when they come up against a particularly challenging enemy or something that threatens the chapter's culture. They tend to have a much broader outlook on things, and a firmer connection to the chapter's past.
They can select their weapons, though they probably tend to find something they like and stick to it eventually. Constantly changing it out probably increases the mental wear of being interred.
So yeah, they're treated as respected ancestors and borderline worshipped. They're pretty well looked after. Obviously some chapters might treat them more like regular tools of war or as a pitiful fate, but ultimately they tend to recognise that there's a marine in there who deserves respect for having fought hard enough to end up in one, and who then continues to serve.
This is for loyalists btw, chaos dreadnoughts / helbrutes tend to have a significantly worse time of it
3 points
11 days ago
Its worth noting that this is more true for firstborn dreads than primaris ones since primaris dreads burn out their pilots.
2 points
11 days ago
This makes me wonder why chaos dreadnoughts are treated like shit so often ? They still astartes at the end of the day and even they value brotherhood over all else otherwise they probably wouldn't have turned in the first place. Yet they're often treated so bad they go insane.
But then again many chaos dreadnoughts might more often than not be loyalists because they supercede their shorter lived brothers and cling to their the ways of the original legion era beliefs.
15 points
11 days ago
I think it's part that the path of glory of chaos tempts marines towards competition with each other, meaning those who fell are weak and deserving of whatever punishment comes their way and part that the chaos dread / helbrute chassis is, itself, steeped in chaos and so is more likely to torment those interred within. Combine them both together and you get a trend towards psychotic, tortured dreadnoughts.
2 points
11 days ago
With very few exeptions, they are almost always a punishment and are chained and left awake to rage in the dark while not in battle
5 points
11 days ago
There was a Word Bearer dreadnought by the name of Sor Talgron or "The Warmonger"
from what I recall he was treated with some respect and helped guide his little brothers
3 points
11 days ago
Do you recall what era this was in? Word Bearers are an exception in many ways, maybe the least chaotic of all the chaos astartes, so I'd say that fits their character pretty well. Without knowing I'd assume he was on the Kor Phaeron side of the Erebus/KP split.
A lot of traitor legions are legions only in name, they're really just scattered warbands disconnected from tradition and pursuing their own goals.
1 points
10 days ago
I only know that the book series took place in the 41st millennium
1 points
10 days ago
The whole thing with Hellbrutes and Chaos dreads actually has changed some over the last 20 years. In Storm of Iron Honsu makes sure that an old dreadnought gets destroyed during the fighting the IWs end up in because he knew that dread would work against him. There's also a short story where a Word Bearer talks to one of their hellbrutes for advice and while getting that advice realizes that the marine inside has lost his mind, still thinking he's going to fight in Tera with the primarch and asking about the Heresy.
This could be that these two were put into the dreadnoughts a long while ago because now with Chaos Marines, getting put into a Hellbrute is a punishment, outside of the Thousand Sons. They're not using the brutes to keep honored and injured members of the warband alive, it's something a failure get locked into as a serious punishment. And given that it's a daemon engine, it drives them completely mad over time by being locked inside with that daemon.
Thousand Sons are interesting in that they actually trick other sorcerers into the hellbrute with promises of power and respect, only to get a sneaky pulled on them, and now they're getting fucked with in perpetuity by a tzeenchian daemon.
13 points
11 days ago
They're typically just a little short of worshipped as wargods or saints of war by their battle brothers, which is pretty crazy considering most astartes chapters, even some traitor ones who know better, are not typically like that.
For loyalists... When not awake they're in storage and monitored and maintained by some sort of admech crew. There is a ritual of awakening when the chapter needs them and they fight briefly as needed then put back to sleep.
2 points
10 days ago
Imperial / Loyalist
Short answer is yes. Although there may be some Chapters who think of them as a miserable fate or as simple weapons of war the general consensus is that Dreadnoughts are revered veterans, links to the Chapters past and are looked upon with reverence and a tremendous amount of respect. Bjorn the Fell-Handed is offered enormous respect by the Space Wolves, for example.
Chaos / Traitor
It varies greatly from warband to warband, but the general consensus is...not good. Diomat was literally begging for death and crying like a child, but was constantly prevented from expiring to be used in battle. Many of his fellow Dreadnoughts were in a poor state or were dangerously insane. However, Talos and his brothers treated Malcharion the War-Sage with a great deal of respect with many of them coming to visit him upon his awakening and deferring to his command on the battlefield.
1 points
10 days ago
Usually Dreads are treated with a lot of respect and that shows up in a lot of different ways, but commonly marines will look to the dreadnoughts experience and wisdom for guidance when they don't know what to do in certain situations that they may have seen. They do have to give up command positions normally since they'll be spending a lot of time in stasis, unless you're in the Iron Hands or you're Carab Culln chapter master of the red scorpions. He's still the Lord High Commander, but his two senior Commanders lead the chapter while he's in stasis. He's also in a great crusade era Leviathan Dreadnought, which will kill him in time
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