Space Wolf

"War Within. War Without. War Unending. That is how we live, little brother. That is who we are."

—Bulveye

Space Wolf is a series of Warhammer 40,000 novels, centered on Ragnar Blackmane, a member of Space Wolves, a feral, but surprisingly nice, chapter of Space Marines living on the Death World of Fenris. Vikings IN SPACE with a wolf motif.

Works include Space Wolf, Ragnar's Claw, and Grey Hunter, all in The Space Wolf Omnibus (aka Space Wolf: The First Omnibus), and Wolf Blade by William King, and Sons of Fenris and Wolf's Honour by Lee Lightner (collected in Space Wolf: The Second Omnibus).

Not to be confused with Spice and Wolf.

Also check out the character sheet.

Tropes used in Space Wolf include:

• All Trolls Are Different
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us
• Almost-Dead Guy
• Animated Armor
• Arranged Marriage
• Artifact of Doom
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Ragnar specializes in this even by Space Wolf standards. He is able to beat opponents that are more skilled than him by attacking himself when a sane person would have been blocking.
• Awesome McCoolname: Pretty much required.
• Badass Beard/Beard of Barbarism: A proud Space Wolf tradition.
• Back from the Dead
• Back-to-Back Badasses
• Bad Dreams
• Bait and Switch Gunshot
• The Beautiful Elite
• Big Badass Wolf
• Big Guy Fatality Syndrome
• Blade on a Stick
• Blood From the Mouth
• Blood Magic
• Blue Blood
• Book Dumb
• Bottled Heroic Resolve
• Bring News Back
• Cain and Abel
• Career-Building Blunder
• The Cavalry
• The Chains of Commanding
• Challenging the Chief: Killing the leader of a Fenrisian wolf pack means that the pack will follow the Space Marine.
• Cold-Blooded Torture
• Conveniently an Orphan
• Converse with the Unconscious
• Cool Gate
• Cool Sword: Ragnar's frostblade.
• The Corruption
• Cowardly Lion
• Death World: The parts of Fenris that aren't completely frozen alternate between frozen and undergoing volcanic eruptions. The krakens in the sea can reach up to miles in size, the Fenrisian wolves are some of the most dangerous predators in the galaxy, and there are things the locals call trolls wandering around. And the Space Wolves love every minute of it.
• Constantly Curious
• Deadpan Snarker: Sven
• Deadly Decadent Court
• Death of a Thousand Cuts
• Divided We Fall
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!
• Dreaming of Things to Come
• Driven to Suicide
• Duel to the Death: Invoked in Grey Hunters
• The Dulcinea Effect: Invoked in Wolfblade
• Dying Alone
• Dying as Yourself

• Enemy Mine: Between Ragnar and Strybjorn.
• Evil Is Deathly Cold
• Exact Words
• Eyes of Gold
• Famed in Story
• Fearless Fool
• Feed the Mole
• Field Promotion
• Fire-Forged Friends: Sven and Ragnar. Strybjorn and Ragnar arguably.
• Framing Device: The first and last chapter of each book shows Ragnar as a Wolf Lord remembering his time as a Blood Claw.
• A Friend in Need
• Friend or Foe
• Garden of Evil
• Genius Loci
• Geo Effects
• Ghost Ship
• Glory Hound: This is part of the Space Wolves beliefs.
• Good Old Ways
• Good Shepherd
• Greater Need Than Mine
• Green-Eyed Monster
• Hard Head
• Haunted Headquarters
• High Turnover Rate: In Grey Hunter Ragnar narrates that the rate of attrition among the Blood Claws is horrible. And this is intentional.
• Hostage Situation
• I Am Spartacus
• I Can Still Fight
• I Cannot Self-Terminate
• I Gave My Word
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: One of Ragnar's fellow Blood Claws blows his own head off while cleaning his bolt pistol.
• Inevitable Waterfall
• In Harm's Way
• Insert Grenade Here: Ragnar in the prologue to Ragnar's Claw.
• Interservice Rivalry (Inquistion vs. Space Wolves.)
  • And the Dark Angels.
• In the Back
• It Was a Gift
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold
• Leave Him to Me
• Lightning Reveal
• Made a Slave
• The Magnificent
• The Medic: Wolf Priests are partially this.
• The Men First
• The Mole
• Moral Myopia
• Mordor
• More Hero Than Thou
• My God, What Have I Done? Ragnar destroys the Spear of Russ to close a warp gate in Gray Hunter.
• My Greatest Second Chance
• New Meat
• Noble Savage: Part of the Space Wolves hat.
• No One Gets Left Behind
• The Nose Knows
• Ominous Fog
• Only the Chosen May Wield
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Being initiated into the Space Wolves involves turning into one. The ones who go on to join are those who manage to fight off the madness and turn back into "ordinary" Space Marines again, and they probably won't ever transform again. Probably...
• The Power of Friendship
• Prophecies Are Always Right -- invoked. There is a major argument on if it is possible to prevent a prophesy, or if that would just prove the prophesy false.
• Reassigned to Antarctica
• Refuge in Audacity
• Revenge
• Sealed Evil in a Can
• Sergeant Rock: Ragnar's second pack leader, Sergeant Hakon, is this with shades of Drill Sergeant Nasty.
• Shout-Out: In Ragnar's Claw, Sven says "The sleeper has bloody well awoken" after Ragnar recovers from an injury.
• Shrouded in Myth
• So Proud of You
• Storming the Castle
• Stout Strength
• Succession Crisis
• Take My Hand
• Talking in Your Dreams
• Tastes Like Friendship
• Technicolor Fire
• They Have the Scent
• Think Nothing of It
• To Absent Friends
• Traitor Shot
• Trial of the Mystical Jury
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Sven and Ragnar. Ragnar and the rest of the Wolfblade.
  • Really, the Space Wolves have no other type of friend but the Vitriolic type.
• Was Once a Man
• We Need a Distraction
• We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?
• Whole-Episode Flashback
• Wicked Cultured
• With Due Respect
• Wretched Hive
• Xanatos Gambit
• You Are in Command Now
• You Are Not Alone
• You Shall Not Pass
• You Would Do the Same For Me
• Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb