Badass Creed/Tabletop Games
- Warhammer 40,000 has dozens of these, but the Emperor speaking of the creation of the Astartes stands above all others:
They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and machines so that no foe can best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity.
They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear.
- Roboute Guilliman has a great one on the same subject:
They shall be pure of heart and strong of body, unsullied by doubt and untainted by self-aggrandizement. They will be bright stars in the firmament of battle. Angels of death whose swift wings bring extermination to the enemies of man. So it shall be for a thousand times a thousand years, unto the end of eternity and the extinction of mortal flesh.
- Also by the Emperor
None are beyond my reach. None are above my wrath.
- The Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter:
"Never Forgive! Never Forget!"
"Repent, for tomorrow you die!"
- Or the Black Templars:
"What is the terror of death?"
"That we die, our work incomplete."
"What is the joy of life?"
"To die, knowing our task is done."
- Iron Hands:
"The flesh is weak!"
- Ultramarines:
"Courage and honor!"
"To admit defeat is to blaspheme."
- From the film:
"We are STEEL! We are DOOM! We march for Macragge! And we shall know no fear!
- Someone called Chaplain Gonzago: "Bravery is stronger than Adamantium. One is the stuff of the soul-forges, the other an illusion of safety created by fools. Adamantium walls cannot keep us out! We have the courage of the Emperor! And in the Emperor's name... ATTACK!! ATTACK!! NO PRISONERS!!"
- The Soul Drinkers:
"Purity through hate. Dignity through rage. Let the fire within light the fires without."
"Cold and Fast!"
- The battle-prayer of the Grey Knights:
I am the Hammer.
I am the Hate.
I am the tip of the Spear wielded in His hands!
I am the Hammer!
I am the Hate!
I am the woes of Daemonkind!
I am the Hammer!
I am the Hate!
I am the END!
- Don't forget the Six Hundred and Sixty Six Words of the Canticles of Absolution. Including "Nothing shall escape our cleansing fire/Not daemon or spawn or renegade/For we are mankind's divine blade."
- Justicar Alaric has his way with words too:
"We do not know what our chances of survival are, so we fight as if they were zero. We do not know what we are facing, so we fight as if it was the dark gods themselves. No one will remember us now and we may never be buried beneath Titan, so we will build our own memorial here. The Chapter might lose us and the Imperium might never know we existed, but the Enemy -- the Enemy will know. The Enemy will remember. We will hurt it so badly that it will never forget us until the stars burn out and the Emperor vanquishes it at the end of time. When Chaos is dying, its last thought will be of us. That is our memorial -- carved into the heart of Chaos. We cannot lose, Grey Knights. We have already won."
- The Blood Raven Oath:
My armour is Contempt
My shield is Disgust
My sword is Hatred
In the Emperor's Name
Let none survive
- And their other chapter motto:
Knowledge is power
Guard it well
- The White Scars' Assault Hymn:
Walls of Stone, Walls of Iron,
Fall down all the same.
They may delay, but never prevent
The hail of death and pain.
- The Salamanders battle-cry:
Into the fires of battle!
Unto the anvil of war!
- The Raven Guard is quite restrained, simply stating "Vinctorus aut Mortis" as their creed (Victory or Death).
- Black Templars:
No Pity! No Remorse! No Fear!
- "None can stand in our way, for we are the Space Marines."
- We are the Space Marines! The Emperors' chosen warriors! For every one of us that falls in battle, ONE THOUSAND ENEMIES SHALL DIE!"
- Warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka got in a pretty good one, too:
"I'm da hand of Gork and Mork, dey sent me to rouse up da boyz to crush and kill 'cos da boyz forgot what dere 're for. I woz one of da boyz till da godz smashed me in da 'ead an' I 'membered dat Orks is meant to conquer and make slaves of everything they don't kill. I'm da profit of da Waaagh an' whole worlds burn in my boot prints. I'm death to anyfing dat walks, where I go nothin' stands in my way. I iz more cunnin' than a Grot an' more killy dan a Dread. I'm Warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka an' I speak wiv da word of da gods. We iz gonna stomp da 'ooniverse flat an' kill anyfing that fights back. We iz gonna do this coz' we're Orks an' we was made to fight an' win."—(Graffiti on Warlord Titan wreckage, found by Dark Angels at Westerisle, Piscina IV.)
- Legio Ignatum has a notable one:
"The enemies of man shall die. By my hand they will be broken.
- The different Temples of the Officio Assassinorum ("A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords at dawn") don't need huge paragraphs to terrify.
Dictatus Vindicare: "Exitus Actas Probat - the Outcome Justifies the Deed."
Dictatus Culexus: "That which is unknown and unseen always commands the greatest fear."
Dictatus Callidus: "To assume the shape of the accursed and deliver death from the purity within you."
Dictatus Eversor: "Fear me, for I am your apocalypse."
- Also for the Officio Assassinorum, not the creed, but still badass sounding: "Ask not for whom they seek, lest it be thyself."
- Or their motto, "Pain is an illusion of the senses, despair an illusion of the mind."
- The Inquisition. Three words: "Innocentia Nihil Probat."
- Or, for those of you who don't speak High Gothic, "Innocence Proves Nothing".
- BURN THE HERETIC! KILL THE MUTANT! PURGE THE UNCLEAN!
- Inquisitor Lord Karamazov had a particularly memorable one: "A plea of Innocence is Guilty of wasting my time! GUILTY!"
- The ordinary human mooks of the Imperial Guard also get one in Dawn of War: Winter Assault
- Also for the Officio Assassinorum, not the creed, but still badass sounding: "Ask not for whom they seek, lest it be thyself."
We die standing.
- The fluff has dozens for the Guard -
We are the Imperial Guard. We are are the Hammer of the Emperor, by the virtue of fighting wars as unforgivingly as a Hammer strike to the face.
- As of their fifth edition codex, even the most common of redshirts--the Cadian army--get their own;
"We are Cadians. We bar the gates to hell! If they are flung open, it is we who will slam them shut."
- Your foe is well equipped, well-trained, battle-hardened. He believes his gods are on his side. Let him believe what he will. We have the tanks on ours.
- To each of us falls a task. And all the Emperor requires of us Guardsmen is that we stand in line, and we die fighting. It is what we do best: we die standing.
- Your foe is well equipped, well-trained, battle-hardened. He believes his gods are on his side. Let him believe what he will. We have the tanks on ours.
- What, no love for Chaos? Here:
"This is our galaxy. Ours to corrupt. Ours to enslave. The gods will not be denied their prize."
- And here:
Hate shall be our weapon.
Impurity shall be our armor.
Immortality shall be our reward.
- Chaos in a nutshell: SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK!
- Or here:
"BLESSED BE THE AXE THAT MAIMS AND THE BLOOD IT BRINGS! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE OF KHORNE!"
- And the fan-made parody for the Slaaneshi cultists: "PORN FOR THE PORN GOD!"
- Black Legion:
"Kill for the living, Kill for the dead."
- That was their slogan even when they were the Luna Wolves.
- Iron Warriors:
"IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT!"
- Thousand Sons:
"All is dust."
"We have come for you!"
- and of course Kharn's mantra: KILL! MAIM! BURN!
- Said of, as opposed to by, the Tyranids, doubling as both a Badass Creed and scary as fuck:
They are coming! I feel them scratching inside my mind, scratching, screaming, running, so many- so, so many voices. They're coming for us - flesh, body and soul!"
To follow any path other than the Tau'va is to doom us all. Only together and with courage and discipline shall we stand victorious. Fight with fire and courage and nothing can stand against us.
- The Space Wolves Ragnar Blackmane gives one that best sums up the Chapter:
We may be few, and our enemies many, yet so long as there remains one of us still fighting, one who still rages in the name of justice and truth, then by the Allfather, the galaxy shall yet know hope.
- "For Russ and the Allfather!"
- The Eldar battlecry:
Blood runs. Anger rises. Death wakes. War calls!
- "Feel the rush of the wind against your skin and hear her cry keening in your ears. Listen to her call well, for are we not Wild Riders, the children of the storm?"
- How can you forget CREEEEEEEEEED!
- Don't forget Warhammer Fantasy - it has its moments too. From WF Battle rulebook, we have this quote by a Greater Deamon of Khorne (unfortunately, from memory, so may be incorrect): "There are countless worlds in the Void [...] But I have chosen this world to conquer, and by Khorne, I'll do so even if it takes a thousand years!"
- And, of course, Khorne's other followers- BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!
- Every one of the Pentacle Orders from Mage: The Awakening gets a Badass Creed. To whit:
- The Adamantine Arrow: "Existence Is War. Enlightenment Is Honour. Adaptability Is Strength. The Supernal Is The Self. Service Is Mastery."
- The Free Council: "Democracy seeks the truth; hierarchy fosters the Lie. Humanity is magical; human works have arcane secrets. Destroy the followers of the Lie."
- The Guardians of the Veil: "Paradoxes strengthen the Abyss as punishment answers pride. Sins for a just end grant Wisdom to the Awakened. Merit must guide the Fallen World."
- Those are just the Exoteric Tenets that other Mages are allowed to know about. Their Esoteric Tenets, the secret mottos of the Order, are significantly more frightening. To whit: All Thrones Are False Thrones, All Souls are Flawed. There Is a Secret Hierarchy of Souls. The Heiromagus Will Fulfill the Diamond Wheel
- The Mysterium: "Knowledge is power. Knowledge must be preserved. Knowledge has a price."
- The Silver Ladder: "The Awakened are one Nation. Imperium is the right of humanity. The Silver Ladder is the path to victory. The Sleepers follow."
- While the Pentacle hope to Awaken humanity to higher truth, the Seers of the Throne wish humanity to stay Sleeping while hoarding higher truths for themselves: "True Power Requires Obedience. True Power Requires Sacrifice. True Power Requires Vigilance. True Power Requires Discipline. True Power Requires Understanding. True Power Requires Courage."
- In Traveller: Interstellar Wars the Vilani "Legion of the Frontier" has the motto, "We are here to die." (Lifted shamelessly from the French Foreign Legion, see below.)
- Warhammer Fantasy Battle's Grimgor Ironhide has a pretty good one:
I'm gonna stomp em to dust. I'm gonna burn all der cities and towns. I'm gonna roast em up inna big fire. I'm gonna grind der bones and jump up an down on the rest of da bits. An den, I'm gonna get really mean.
- The Shadow Elves have the fairly restrained:
Nothing is forgotten. Nothing is forgiven.
- MOAR DAKKA! and Red Wunz Go Fasta
Back to Badass Creed.