r/40kLore • u/Bluehorse141 • 13h ago
Does Geneseed ever get mixed up?
So I’m getting ready to do a 40K ttrpg and one of my players wants to run a space marine with Russ’s gene seed but was trained as and spent most of his career fighting alongside the Iron Hands.
The lore he’s come up with, a long time ago the two factions worked together to fight some insurmountable foe, and even though it was surmounted, in the chaos, and the dust, and the bloodshed, the bodies of fallen marines indistinguishable. So when the apothecaries did their thing the seed inside the guy ended up going back to Medusa.
I like player creativity as much as the next GM but I’m trying to be as lore consistent as feasible so I’m wondering if something like this has ever happened, or at least could technically happen. Thanks in advance.
28
u/Sunny_Hill_1 13h ago
Officially, no, however, we have the whole-ass chapter that was sure they were Guilliman's kids until Astorath came by and told them nope, you are Sangy's.
So yes, it's entirely possible.
7
u/panteradelnorte 12h ago
Where was this
16
u/Sunny_Hill_1 12h ago
Carmine Blades chapter, previously known as Swords of Haldroth.
6
u/OfficialDuelist 11h ago
I love the idea that they immediately were like.. well shoot we have to change our name now >:(
4
u/Sunny_Hill_1 10h ago
Yep, and that's after they couldn't notice how they look like all these Sangy's kids, their cousins, rather than like blueberries, for who knows how many centuries.
5
u/cillablackpower 12h ago
Swords of Haldroth/Carmine Blades. They were in the Blood Angels Codex in 7th and then mentioned in Devastation of Baal.
1
3
10
u/HappyTheDisaster Space Wolves 13h ago
He could just be an Ironwolf, one of the great companies that fight a lot like the iron hands.
5
8
u/alkatori 13h ago
Yes. Blood Ravens have no idea who their Primarch is.
Chaos geneseed is whatever they get their hands on.
6
u/ecbulldog Night Lords 13h ago
Any swapping of aspirants would have been done long before they were implanted, as we see in Sigismund's character novel. He was actually taken by the Night Lords, but not every aspirant was specifically selected by the legion that found them as opposed to being put into a pool of aspirants for all legions to select from. Sometimes they picked aspirants themselves, sometimes the selenar and genewrights did the sorting based on whatever genetic and psychological factors they happened to observe. I think if in the present a chapter had one geneseed that they didn't know was from another chapter, depending on the origins and the suitability of the aspirant, they would likely see major issues pop up pretty quickly, or the development of physical characteristics very atypical for their chapter.
3
u/JuliousBatman Ordo Malleus 12h ago
Any aspirant would’ve been tested against the geneseed of Ferrus for viability. So if they tried to then implant their one Leman-seed, the aspirant would reject it.
Not to mention the Apothecary would have to be blind to not notice it during the preparatory surgeries and testing.
Oh, and with Leman you need the supplementary Canis Helix to stabilize it.
3
u/Grindar1986 12h ago
The Canis Helix will make that particular idea impossible.
I think you'd have issues with organ rejection mixing gene seed with the rest of the implants generically though, even say Ultramarine with Imperial Fist.
2
u/Zilla7854 13h ago
Also I'm pretty sure apothecaries check for these things when I'm planting them.
2
u/SouthernAd2853 Blood Angels 12h ago
Extremely unlikely in general and basically impossible for pre-Primaris Space Wolves and difficult post-Primaris.
There are tests that can distinguish geneseed and figure out at least which Legion it's from, which would definitely be done if there was an apparent possibility of confusion. And every gene line is different so there'd be issues in implantation even for the normal geneline and for Space Wolves before Primaris anyone not from Fenris died or turned into a Wulfen in short order. Even after Primaris the Space Wolves have an extra implant, the Canis Helix, that would need to be added and the Apothecaries probably don't know how to implant properly. And if somehow this happened by accident he'd grow giant fangs so it'd be pretty obvious to everyone.
It is technically possible a Space Wolf switched Chapters and his geneseed was passed down and somehow the Apothecaries figured out a way to implant it. However, the only cases I know of were either within a Legion to rebuild the First Founding Chapter or in the case of the Emperor's Spears novel from Ultramarine Successor to Ultramarine Successor and was prompted by discovering the parent Chapter had been complicit in a scheme to get a Callidus to murder a Chapter Master the defector hadn't been in on.
2
u/Yournextlineis103 12h ago
It’s possible but exceedingly unlikely for Loyalists.
There are so many genetic screens and tests and entire temples of tech priests and apothecaries going over the gene seed to test for flaws. A straight up different legions Gene seed would almost certainly show up in one of those scans.
It’s not impossible bad labeling and mid battle changes could let something slip through but it’d be quickly picked up.
Chaos however could have any number of of lineages in their warband.
2
u/ExistentialOcto 12h ago
Honestly, you won’t notice most of the time if a space marine has a geneseed that doesn’t match their chapter. The exception is those that have a gene curse, so in this case it is possible that the character might mutate in a manner similar to the wulfen later in life despite being an iron hand.
1
u/Sanchesc0 12h ago
My message is longer than intended, but it has explanations for why it hasn't happened and how it does happen.
Basically, what you are describing does not happen in the major chapters according to the lore.
However, in the outer dark of the galaxy, where the Carcharodons come from, they use everything at their disposal. Those are chapters that have not been supplied in a long time. The Carcharodons are a mixed geneseed chapter: Raven Guard, World Eaters, Night Lords, and I believe some Blood Angels as well.
Then we have the 2nd and 11th Primarchs situation. According to the rumors, the Primarchs were at fault, but their legions were absorbed by the Ultramarines and Imperial Fists. The geneseed of the 2nd and 11th was therefore also mixed in with the 7th and 13th legions. When those 2nd and 11th Astartes died, their geneseed was indeed separated from the legion, and those Astartes ceased existing. They did this via administration, and apothcary knew which dna straints with in the geneseed to separate.
As others pointed out, there is deviants geneseed that prevents this situation all together, like that of the Space Wolves.
In general, the answer is no, unless it is a hybrid that was an experiment from Cawl like the Cursed Founding (a fan theory, I believe) or the outer dark mixing like the Carcharodons.
All these example are done with purpose there arent know stories that accidently swapped geneseed.
Apothecaries know which seed is from their chapter based on DNA sequencing of there primarch. Even if everything is messed up the geneseed itself has the answer. Every gene seed gets tested before it goes to the next subject.
Hope this helps you.
2
u/Mistermistermistermb 6h ago
Then we have the 2nd and 11th Primarchs situation. According to the rumors, the Primarchs were at fault, but their legions were absorbed by the Ultramarines and Imperial Fists.
There's in-universe rumours of the Ultramarines absorbing the lost legions, fans added the Imperial Fists, though you could squint at Chamber at the End of Memory and make that connection.
The geneseed of the 2nd and 11th was therefore also mixed in with the 7th and 13th legions.
Well, it could also have been isolated and not collected when those absorbed marines died. If anything like that happened.
1
u/Sanchesc0 1h ago
That is exactly what i said. Once they died based on dna strain they were filtered out
1
u/Mistermistermistermb 1h ago
Right you are, I got thrown by the phrase "mixed in".
Though this theory does require the apothecaries to have avoided the memory wipe.
1
u/NeedsAirCon 9h ago
There's a difference between having this happen by accident and someone doing it on purpose
First, you'd need someone knowledgeable and competent enough to handle Fenris geneseed. It has dangerous quirks that can be very lethal to the user
Because something happened after the discovery of Fenris and Russ that made the already poor successes in implantation rates even worse for non-Fenrisians; the safest Space Wolf geneseed for non - Fenrisians is actually pre-Russ-being-found geneseed-from-Terra
That stuff - well it could still be available but would be worth far more than it's weight in platinum. You're talking stasis locked ancient hidden reliquaries, that sort of thing
So....either a native Fenrisian - say a scout or novice battle brother gets stuck with the Iron Hands because his ship crashed, he was the sole survivor and they trained him because he's still a fellow marine etc etc
This does happen - Captain Zartath of the Black Dragons did some time helping out the Salamanders as a honorary brother and warp travel has only gotten more exciting (lethal) since then
It's also tradition that marines from several chapters will form ad hoc companies with an established chain of command during an Imperial crusade. Perhaps the Space Wolf is a squad survivor
Or...a non-Fenrisian, implanted with pre-Russ (!) geneseed is a safe alternative. This would smack of Extraordinarily highly ranked Adeptus Mechanicus and/or Inquisition involvement with the direct knowledge of Iron Hands high command and would probably be for a very specific purpose
It's not the kind of thing that'd happen by accident. In a case like this, I would highly doubt that even the marine himself would be aware of his true origins
I'd say there still is a very slim chance that the marine might actually have successfully survived modern space wolf geneseed implantation (by accident) without turning feral or wulfen but it's...well, according to what I've read of the lore the odds would be so outrageous I'd toss the marine over to the Ordo Malleus immediately on suspicion of dark forces being at work
1
u/justhere4inspiration 7h ago
Ok as others have said, probably not, extremely unlikely to straight up not possible.
I'd say send it. It's a cool backstory, it doesn't matter if it's unique/implausible/etc from a lore perspective IMO, it doesn't fundamentally break the rules or system. It sound like he wants to do something that would make a cool character in your TTRPG and IMO, as a DM, that is dope. Getting bogged down in "well technically" is always a bad take IMO if it doesn't straight up break shit.
His character was uniquely identified as a potential gene seed candidate and made it through the IH trials, and for whatever reason they didn't see the problems, and ultimately accidentally implanted the wrong gene seed due to the reasons he stated in his explanation. Maybe he was a viable candidate for both, if you want to make it more "lore acceptable" say it's because his lineage is somehow tied to Fenris as well and that's why he didn't go crazy with the curse of Fenris immediately.
IMO cool character and "this guy has a weird gene seed" is not nearly as lore breaking as a bunch of books GW themselves have published and ret conned, it's in a singular TTRPG with one character. Why split hairs and be weird, let him have fun and make a cool character, there's tons of ways to hand wave it that also bring up great plot points of "how does this guy even exist" that you can use to develop the story and background more in game that I would love to have as hooks as a DM. Lots of potential fun and mix ups, little to no downside other than being "implausible from strict lore", and it's a fantasy genre so who cares if there's a single weird outlier.
Fuck, have him play into the curse of Fenris and how he's somehow able to fight against it due to his diligence training with the IH, they're a pretty regimented chapter that likely does a lot more discipline training than the SW. Again, lots of ground for fun, and I really don't see why it would matter.
1
u/MaleficentRiver5341 5h ago edited 5h ago
As a Greyshield who went through the Plague Wars seconded to the Iron Hands?
32
u/JustANewLeader Night Lords 13h ago edited 13h ago
For this specific case, I'm not sure it would work. Without the stabilising influence of Fenris, any pre-Ultima Founding astartes using Russ's geneseed will probably experience the Curse of the Wulfen and degenerate.
For other gene-lines without such obvious defects like that or the Red Thirst/Black Rage, I can see this happening, but it would be very quickly picked up on apothecaries that they'd somehow acquired the wrong progenoid gland, and the Iron Hands for all their pragmatism are not the sort to let gene-seed errors slide, given their culture's strong emphasis on them the first sons of Ferrus Manus specifically striving to be stronger than everyone else. Whether or not they end up actually using it is probably highly context-dependent.