Origins

The precise age of the Hungry Ghosts has been lost to time. They were definitely not active before Nustanpahani was settled in M33, and were definitely firmly established on their homeworld by late M39. In late M33 and M34, many sectors near Nustanpahani had problems with Ork WAAAAAGH!s, rebellions, and Chaos cults, and little astartes support was available to combat them. This suggests that the Hungry Ghosts were put in place in this area as a standing force in case another such series of problems occurred, but as records have been lost it is impossible to know for sure. Given their significant deviation from their parent chapter, they are also speculated to be part of the Cursed 21st Founding (in M36), but no data to support this exists.

Homeworld

Nustanpahani was a lush jungle world before Imperial settlement, with bountiful food stocks and comparatively little dangers to humanity among its native life. It was considered for development into an Agri-World, but was instead made a site of a Hive World due to the jungles being able to sustain the early stages of Hive development without imports and there being excessive complications with the standard process of conversion to Agri-World. The Hive spires dot the jungle, piercing it in a loosely-spread web which allows each to clear-cut a large arc around it each season to use as food and industrial materials. Some time between its fifth century and third millennium, records unclear, its sector was decided to be the home for a new astartes chapter, and the Hungry Ghosts took the world as their recruiting population and the planet's most prominent mountain range for their fortress-monastery, which is situated midway between two large peaks, very near the planet's blisteringly-hot equator.

They recruit by two methods. Firstly, they periodically sweep the underhives of Nustanpahani for promising gangers to press into service. Secondly, when Hungry Ghost apothecaries arrive at a hive to sweep the underhives, any boy of appropriate age may present himself for the Rite of Endurance. Those who do are brought to the gates of the monastery and left there for three full days, in the full heat of the sun. Those who remain upright and within sight of the gate for that entire time are checked for compatibility and become initiates or future chapter serfs. Those who fail are killed (if they did not already die of heatstroke) and returned to their families for honorable burial.

Combat Doctrine

Three things define the Hungry Ghosts's approach to war. First, awareness: the Ghosts consider it absolutely vital to catalog all information possible about the battlespace, enemy, and circumstances, above and beyond its direct usefulness in waging war. Second, mobility: the Ghosts consider it critical that they be capable of striking at their enemies from any vector, which requires the ability to redeploy rapidly, particularly by Thunderhawk and Terrax Drill. Third, total commitment: the Ghosts believe flinching from the duty to destroy the enemies of the Emperor for any reason, even to protect your own life or the lives of your comrades, is weakness and sin and will be repaid by failure and loss.

To support their principle of attack from all vectors, the Hungry Ghosts Techmarines have developed a variant Thunderhawk Transporter, called the Gualangit pattern, which has its bulkheads and doors arranged to transport Terrax Drills in such a way as to allow them to be deployed from the air, dropping from the hold with drills active and burrowing into the ground on contact, where they disappear as quickly as possible and prepare to emerge elsewhere. This design has the drawback of requiring additional space and time to take off, so if a Thunderhark Gualangit lands during a battle it will be grounded for the duration. Therefore, except in unusual circumstances only jump pack units, Terrax Drills, and Land Speeders embark in Gualangit-Pattern Thunderhawks, and standard Thunderhawks are still commonly used for other troops. (The Terrax Drills are also modified to make the aerial deployment practical, but these are minor modifications only, easily applied and easily reversed, and not considered to make them a new pattern.)

The Ghosts do not field Devastator squads or Centurions; these are highly visible and have minimal mobility, which is counter to their philosophy, and Devastators additionally do not commit to the battle as much as the Ghosts, and the Sable Brand they regard as holy, consider proper. Instead, they field three companies' worth of Scouts, of which the 10th Company holds recruits, the 9th Company has veteran Scouts with heavier weaponry, and the remainder are split among the Battle Companies as Devastators would normally be. The heavy weapons in the veteran Scouts are chosen primarily for their range; lascannons, missile launchers, and heavy bolters with Kraken rounds are the usual choices, with plasma cannons and grav-cannons rare but occasionally fielded. The chapter has access to a steady supply of Kraken bolter rounds for unclear reasons, which their veteran scouts use often, and other veterans use less often. These scouts spread across the companies both scout for their companies and provide mobile fire support.

Organization

Other than their steadfast refusal to field Devastator squads (or, in the Primaris era, any Fire Support squads besides Vanguard Eliminators), the Ghosts adhere fairly closely to the codex. Scouts who receive the Black Carapace are shifted to the heavier weapons of the 9th Company, then progress through Assault and vehicles deployment to Battleline as usual. As with many chapters, the titles vary; the Chapter Master is known as the Crowspeaker, chief Apothecary as Master of Tendi (living souls), chief Chaplain as Master of Begu (dead souls), and chief Techmarine as Master of Jinujung (guardian spirits). The company captains are all formally styled 'Lord'. They are, in order: 1st, Lord Rampart; 2nd, Lord Justicar; 3rd, Lord Fleet; 4th, Lord Traversal; 5th, Lord Assessment; 6th, Lord Outrider; 7th, Lord Siege; 8th, Lord Commitment; 9th, Lord Reconaissance; and 10th, Lord Instructor.

The Crowspeaker of the Hungry Ghosts received word of Primaris marines and Lord Commander Guilliman's amendments to the Codex Astartes with trepidation, like many codex-deviant chapters. On reading the pieces of the treatise outlining Vanguard squads, however, his reaction changed to ferocious glee; the chapter has readily adopted the Vanguard squads, reorganizing much of their "veteran scout" squads to function along Vanguard lines, and has accepted Primaris into their ranks without reservations. It looks clear that within a century they will have traded their three companies worth of scouts for three companies, or even more, of Vanguard Infiltrators and Eliminators. (Vanguard Suppressors, like Devastators, Centurions, and the other varieties of "Fire Support Squads", remain entirely discarded.) To date, all their Primaris forces are Vanguards, but after the initial experimental crossings of the Rubicon Primaris in other chapters, many of the Hungry Ghosts have volunteered to undertake the transition without provocation; they consider this an upgrade which the philosophy of total commitment requires they risk in order to better serve the Emperor. The second captain of the 10th prescribed by the revised Codex Astartes, the "Master of Reconaissance", has been combined with the 9th Company captain whose role already matched it. They currently plan to, as the ranks of their Primaris brothers expand, divide the 9th Company into one hundred Eliminator brothers under Lord Reconaissance and one hundred Infiltrator brothers under a new captain with the title Lord Shadow.

Beliefs

The core of the chapter cult of the Hungry Ghosts is the Sable Brand. An affliction inherited from the Raven Guard, where the Ravens structure their habits of mind and body to keep the Brand away, the Ghosts embrace it, and design their methods of battle under the assumption that many, even most, of their brothers will be in its grip during battle. Those "Ash-Blind" in the grip of the Sable Brand exhibit no self-preservation instinct, which gives rise to a belief of their cult that flinching from the duty to destroy the enemies of the Emperor, even to protect your own life or the lives of your comrades, is weakness and sin and will be repaid by failure, loss, haunting by the spirits of the outraged dead, and ultimately damnation if not atoned for. But this must be moderated, and so the culture and cult of the Ghosts instill a strong drive not to waste the Emperor's resources by spending his great coins which are astartes lives frivolously. This is successful; the Ghosts do not sacrifice themselves for trivial gains, because an astartes is expensive to replace and so only large gains are worth the cost.

One of the other properties of the Sable Brand is to hear the whispers of the dead, friendly and enemy, and have difficulty distinguishing them from the living. While the cold fury which overwhelms self-preservation comes and goes, in the Hungry Ghosts most find that once the Brand has touched a brother, the voices of the dead never truly recede. In keeping with their principle of maximum awareness, these whispers are not ignored, but treated as one data source among many which can inform them and their brothers about the enemy and the situation. This does prove quite fruitful on occasion; the Librarians of the chapter can reliably gain information they have no other way of learning from the voices of the dead, and even line brothers with no detectable psychic talent have learned things from the whispers of the dead which altered whole wars.

These whispers of the dead bleed into most other aspects of the chapter's beliefs. They are a brotherhood suffused in death, both dealing it out and receiving it in turn. Brothers believe that their gene-seed 'ancestors' are foremost among the spirits they hear when they feel the Brand, and that they will themselves whisper to those who are implanted with their geneseed in the future. When they fight alongside mortal men, they preach the gospel of dealing holy death, and in sectors they have waged mighty campaigns in, Imperial Creed Assassin Cults arise and spread. An early Crowspeaker of the chapter, Tuah Teja, led the chapter on a crusade to put down a large rebellion and bring the sector affected back into the Imperial fold. Not only did they succeed with flying colors in that enterprise, his conduct and fiery rhetoric instilled the loyal populace with a fervent belief in the Emperor and the need to slay his enemies. This created one of the largest Death Cults in the Imperium, substantially increased volunteerism for Imperial Guard regiments, and inspired the Ecclesiarchy to gift Crowspeaker Teja with a master-crafted Rosarius to mark him as an honorary Chaplain. The rosarius has remained in the chapter ever since and is called "His Undying Voice"; it is held by the Chapter Master or Master of Begu (chief Chaplain), to be worn by himself or entrusted to a distinguished Captain or Chaplain whenever they take the field. The Death Cult, too, has remained with the chapter; they are called the Enfolding Wings and teach that all men are already dead, living only by the sufferance of the Emperor who has sent them back into the stars to bring His enemies to destruction and return them to His grasp, where all souls go. Besides providing ready allies for the chapter when operating within the Imperium, many families born into the Enfolding Wings choose to make a pilgrimage to Nustanpahani and offer themselves as chapter serfs.

Their dedication and total commitment make the Hungry Ghosts unrelenting in battle, for the most part. If an enemy escapes them, either they have lost track of it (doubtful), or they are permitting it to retreat so that they can follow it back to its fellows to exterminate them as well. This tactic is far more effective against xenos, daemons, and enemies who are not aware they are in the battlespace, however, since their dedication and skill are well-known to renegades and traitor astartes - as well as to the local Craftworld Eldar - and so those enemies rarely fall for the illusion that they have escaped.

Geneseed

In The magoi of Mars attempted to weed out the melanchromic organ's deficiencies from the Raven Guard gene-line, but overcompensated. Hungry Ghosts grow very dark in eyes, skin, hair, and even the nails of the extremities. Like their ancestor chapter, their mucranoid is nonfunctional and they rarely bother to implant it at all. Another flaw inherited from the Raven Guard is the mark of the Sable Brand. The Branded - also called the Ash-Blind - fight with determination, ferocity, disregard of injury, and total lack of self-preservation. This malady is widespread among the Hungry Ghosts, with even Scouts being affected on occasion. Unlike the Raven Guard, who follow the primarch's Trifold Path of Shadow - Ambush, Stealth, and Vigilance - to keep the Brand at bay, the Ghosts embrace it, and shape their philosophy of war around it. Those who have never felt the Brand in their first century of duty are regarded with some suspicion by the remainder of the chapter, and often join the Techmarines to escape their reputation.

Battlecry

"You shall join us in death!"

Crunch

The Hungry Ghosts are Raven Guard successors with the Chapter Tactics Stealthy and Long-Range Marksmen. Hungry Ghost warlords cannot have the Shadowmaster or Echo of the Ravenspire Warlord traits, but can have these:

Total Commitment This warlord refuses to retreat, even against overwhelming odds, until the enemy is destroyed. This Warlord cannot Fall Back. When resolving an attack against this Warlord, halve any damage inflicted (rounding up).

Join Me In Death This warlord reacts to enemy cowardice in the blink of an eye, punishing them with a risky strike he can see they will not punish.

When an enemy unit (other than a unit that contains a model with a minimum Move characteristic) within 1" of this Warlord is chosen to Fall Back, make a Melee attack roll. If it hits, inflict one mortal wound on the unit Falling Back; if the hit roll is 6 , instead inflict D3 mortal wounds.