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Lore & origins
The Firedrakes are the 1st Company of the Salamanders, the Chapter's veteran company. A Codex Chapter calls its 1st Company the Veterans. The Salamanders keep that idea, but they organise the Chapter into seven companies rather than ten. Every Firedrake has served for decades, often centuries, in the battle companies before being called to the company, and every one is trained to fight in Tactical Dreadnought armour. They are the warriors the Chapter sends where the fighting is hottest and the stakes are highest.
The company takes its name from the fire-breathing salamanders of Nocturne, the volcanic Chapter world. Salamanders tradition says that a battle-brother earns his place among the Firedrakes by hunting one of these great reptiles alone in the deep places of Mount Deathfire and the other volcanoes. He then wears its scaled hide as a cloak for the rest of his life. A Firedrake's mantle is therefore both a trophy and a vow: proof that he has walked into fire and come back.
The Firedrakes also act as the honour guard of the Chapter Master, Tu'Shan, Regent of Prometheus. They hold the Chapter's most sacred duties, including watching over the relics of Vulkan and the Tome of Fire. The Tome of Fire is the Primarch's prophetic book, which drives the Salamanders' long quest for the nine artefacts Vulkan hid across the galaxy. Forgefather Vulkan He'stan leads that quest, and the Firedrakes guard what he brings home.
The name has roots in the Heresy era. Accounts of the XVIII Legion speak of Vulkan's elite drawn from the Legion's oldest veterans, fighting beside the Primarch at Isstvan V and in the bitter years that followed. The Salamanders produced very few Successor Chapters after the Second Founding, and they kept much of their old warrior culture intact. The 1st Company is one of its clearest heirs.
Appearance & wargear
A Firedrake is recognisable at a glance. His armour is the deep green of the Salamanders, usually Tactical Dreadnought plate, often worked with scale and flame motifs by the Chapter's own artisans. Over it hangs the cloak of salamander hide, its scales ranging from obsidian black to molten red. Every Salamander has jet-black skin and burning red eyes, a reaction between his gene-seed and Nocturne's radiation, and the Firedrakes are often shown unhelmed so that their faces and red eyes can be seen.
Salamanders are master smiths, and each Firedrake usually carries wargear he forged himself or inherited from a fallen brother. Their signature weapons are the thunder hammer and storm shield for close combat, and the heavy flamer for burning out the enemy. Many also carry combi-weapons, power weapons or Nocturne-wrought relic blades. Brands and honour-scars burned into the skin record each warrior's deeds, a practice shared across the Chapter.
Weapons & Vehicles
Weapons most associated with the Firedrakes on this site:
Battlefield role
On the battlefield the Firedrakes are a breakthrough and bodyguard force. They are rarely deployed as a full company. Instead, Tu'Shan or a captain takes a few squads as a retinue, or the company's veterans reinforce a battle company for a decisive action: a teleport strike onto a war-engine, a boarding action, or the defence of a refugee column. Terminator-armoured Firedrakes can walk through small-arms fire and shrug off most close-combat attacks, so they are given the hardest objectives.
The Salamanders prefer short-ranged, decisive weapons over long-range firepower, and the Firedrakes are the purest example. They close the distance, burn the enemy out of cover and then finish them with hammer blows. Commanders who fight beside them note that they do not like to give ground, and that they will hold a position to the last man if civilians are behind them.
Doctrines & Culture
Salamanders doctrine, from the Promethean Cult, treats war as the testing of metal in fire: a warrior is tempered, not broken, by hardship. The Firedrakes are its living proof. Self-reliance is central. A Firedrake is expected to keep his own wargear, repair his own armour in the field and teach the younger brothers of the battle companies when he is attached to them.
Unlike many Chapters, the Salamanders keep close ties with the human population of Nocturne, and Firedrakes spend time among the tribes and settlements of the Sanctuary Cities between campaigns. Their sense of duty to ordinary people shapes how they fight. It is why the Salamanders are known across the Imperium as a Chapter that will hold a doomed line so that civilians can escape.
Heraldry, Battle-Damage & Community Artistry
Firedrakes are a favourite subject for painters and illustrators because of their striking palette: the contrast between deep green ceramite, scaled cloaks and the orange glow of flamer pilots and molten-red eyes. Freehand flame patterns on tilting shields, drake-scale texturing on cloaks and the gleam of bronze and gold trim reward close attention.
This page is still waiting for permitted art. Independent artists whose finished, high-detail 2D Firedrakes work could be featured are welcome to get in touch through the site's Art Call or Contact page.
Notable battles & users
- Isstvan V: the XVIII Legion's veterans fought beside Vulkan in the Drop Site Massacre. Those who survived carried that memory into the Chapter's elite.
- Third War for Armageddon: Tu'Shan and his Firedrakes fought in the hive-world's burning industrial zones against Ghazghkull's Waaagh!
- The Badab War: the Salamanders joined the loyalist Chapters against the Astral Claws' secession.
- The Tome of Fire: the Firedrakes keep the Chapter's relics and the Primarch's prophecies, and they lead its quest for Vulkan's nine artefacts.
Related
Characters (2)
Vulkan · Primarch of the Salamanders
Vulkan He'stan · Forgefather of the Salamanders
Related units
Factions
SalamandersSpace Marine ChaptersAdeptus Astartes (all Chapters)