Where did The Wulven Come from?

I am asked regularly where the name Wulvenkraft comes from ... so here you go.

The Wulver

The Wulver is a fascinating figure from Scottish folklore, particularly associated with the Orkney Islands. Unlike the fearsome, monstrous werewolves of popular myth, the Wulver is a benevolent and somewhat more enigmatic creature, often depicted as a human-wolf hybrid.

Traditionally, the Wulver is said to have a wolf's head and human-like body, or sometimes a full wolf's form with the ability to walk on two legs. However, what sets the Wulver apart is its helpful nature. Rather than terrorizing villages or hunting people, it is known for its acts of kindness and protection, particularly toward the human population.

One of the most popular legends about the Wulver is that it would leave fish on the windowsills of poor families in the Orkneys, providing food for those in need. It’s believed that the Wulver was often seen in remote parts of the islands, silently watching over the people. Despite its somewhat eerie appearance, it was considered a guardian figure, showing a deep sense of care for the well-being of others.

The Wulver is a unique symbol of the blending of humanity and nature, and its lore ties into the broader themes of Scottish folklore, where creatures often serve dual roles as both protectors and reminders of the untamed wilderness. The Wulver is a bit of an unsung hero in the realm of mythical creatures—definitely not one you’d want to mess with & not one you'd want to be on the bad side of!

That being said ...

The Wulven: A Chapter Forsaken

The Forsaken

Before they were the Wulven, before the people of Tain named them for the ancient shadow that stalked the highlands, they knew themselves by another name: The Forsaken. It was not a title they chose, but one they embraced out of bitter truth. They had been abandoned—left to rot on a dying world, left to perish against the green tide, left without the banners of the Imperium to guide them.

But they did not perish. They fought.

Like the warriors of old, like the clans of Terra’s distant past who stood against the tide of invasion, they took their fury and their grief and forged them into steel. They fought not as the Imperium would have them fight, not as the Space Wolves had taught them, but as warriors who knew they had no reinforcements, no support, and no retreat. They fought as those who had been given no choice but to win or die.

It was not war as the Codex dictated. It was war as necessity dictated. And it was war that made them legend.

The Fall of Tain

Tain was never a world of great wealth. It was not a hive world, nor a forge world, nor a world of strategic value to the Imperium’s grand designs. It was a world of mountains and lochs, of vast forests and hard-won croplands, a world where the people carved their existence from the earth itself. And when the Orks came, it was a world that bled.

The Forsaken—though they did not yet know themselves by that name—had been sent as part of a larger force to defend Tain against the encroaching xenos. It was meant to be a standard campaign: deploy, engage, drive the greenskins back. But the Orks did not come as a mere raiding party. They came in a tide of steel and fire, in numbers beyond reason, beyond counting. The war that was meant to be brief became a slaughter.

The call for retreat came from high command. The Imperium does not waste resources on lost causes.

The Astartes prepared for evacuation. But not all could leave.

Those too deep behind enemy lines, those too wounded to reach the extraction zones, those who refused to abandon the people of Tain—all were left behind.

Cailean Raithen, a veteran sergeant of the Space Wolves, made the choice that would define them. He and those who stood with him would not flee. They would not abandon the world they had sworn to defend, even if the Imperium had abandoned them.

They made their last stand in the ruins of Tain’s capital city, against the vast Ork warbands that swarmed the streets. It should have been their end.

But it was only the beginning.

The War That Never Ended.

The Forsaken did not die.

They fought on, retreating into the wilds, into the mountains and forests where the Orks' numbers counted for less. They fought like the clans of old, striking from the shadows, hitting supply lines, burning convoys, cutting down warbosses before slipping away into the night. They had no supply chains, no resupply drops, no armorers to replace their weapons. What they needed, they took from the enemy.

Their bolters were reforged from salvaged parts, their armor patched with Ork plating and scavenged ceramite. Because their armor, weapons, dreadnoughts, and vehicles were pieced together from the remains of many different chapters, they initially repainted everything a neutral Uniform Grey to strip away the fragmented past. But as their new identity was forged, they adopted Blood Red as their chapter color, signifying their fight for survival.

However, not all marines embraced this change. Many of the older warriors, particularly those who had been high-ranking officers in their previous chapters, refused to let go of their origins entirely. They were allowed to keep their pauldrons in their original colors if they wished, a mark of respect for the past. Over time, this practice extended to entire companies—those led by these veteran marines often bore the insignia and colors of their old chapters alongside the Wulven red, creating a unique patchwork of identity across the chapter.

The humans of Tain—once mere civilians, now warriors in their own right—became their allies, their kin. They sheltered them, fed them, fought beside them. The Forsaken taught them the ways of war, and in return, the people of Tain showed them the ways of the land.

They did not fight as Astartes anymore. They fought as survivors. They fought as hunters. They fought like the Highland warriors of old, striking where the enemy was weakest, vanishing before retribution could fall.

The Vision

It was in this time of war, in the deepest, darkest days of the Forsaken’s struggle, that Domnall Veyran saw the vision.

Once an Iron Hand, Domnall had long since cast aside the rigid doctrines of his former Chapter. He had seen what blind adherence to the Codex had wrought—the Imperium had abandoned them, the machine of war had deemed them unworthy of further investment. Only through adaptation, through survival, could they endure.

One night, as he stood upon a crag overlooking the valley below, where the lights of an Ork encampment burned in the darkness, he saw something else in the night—a figure, tall and cloaked in mist, its armor ancient and battle-worn. Great wings spread from its back, and in its hand, it held a sword not of steel, but of fire.

It did not speak. But he knew what it demanded.

Rebuild.

And so they did.

The Making of the Wulven

The Forsaken were no longer Forsaken. They had no Chapter. They had no world but Tain, no master but the mission they had given themselves.

But among the people of Tain, there was an old legend. A story of the Wulver, the shadow that watched from the mountains, that left food for the starving, that never asked for thanks, only to see that the people lived.

The Forsaken took the name. They took it not as a boast, but as a promise.

Their weapons were not relics of lost glories—they were tools of war, forged in the fires of necessity. Every blade, every bolter, every piece of armor bore the scars of its making, reforged from the wreckage of a war that never ended. Every warrior learned to craft, to mend, to rebuild. To wield a weapon among the Wulven was to understand its weight, to know its history, to speak the names of those who had carried it before.

The Wulven vowed that they would never leave a brother behind, not even in death. The dead were honored and revered, and some were interred into dreadnought sarcophagi, similar to the Space Wolves’ tradition of maintaining character-driven dreadnoughts.

The Wulven revere their Dreadnoughts, as many of those interred were present during the evacuation. They are treated as priests, speaking the words of Domnall Veyran, their founder. Many of the Wulven knew him personally and carry his teachings forward.

They did not march in formation. They did not fight as the Codex dictated. They fought as warriors of the land, striking from hidden tunnels, moving through the mountains and forests like ghosts.

They took no tithes. They claimed no banners. They fought not for the Imperium, not for glory, but for the people of Tain, for those who had no one else to fight for them.

The Wulven recruit from the people of Tain. Aspirants, usually between 18-25 years old, face grueling mental and physical trials based on Wulven combat doctrines. Upon passing, they are assigned to a company within the Chapter, and the gene-seed they receive is determined by the origins of that company's leader.

The Wulven vowed not fight alongside or against other Space Marines unless absolutely necessary. They remember what it was to be abandoned and will not turn their weapons against those who could have once been their kin.

The Imperium no longer considers the Wulven as Space Marines; to the Imperium, they are long dead. But the Wulven plan for the future. Once they have the parts to construct a ship, they will explore and expand beyond Tain—though it will always remain their home.

No hunger forgotten.

It was their oath. It was their creed.

The Council of the Fallen

With no centralized command, leadership fell to the highest-ranking Marines from the original chapters left on Tain. They formed The Council of the Fallen, a ruling body that ensured no one Marine’s traditions would dominate over the others. Each member represented not only their chapter’s legacy but also the hard-won survival of the Wulven.

Yet, with time, fractures emerged. Some marines still clung to the memory of the Emperor. Ultramarines among them built hidden temples where they worshiped in secret. Others, like the former Blood Angels, took darker paths, drinking the blood of fallen brothers in grim remembrance. The Wulven tolerated these rites so long as they did not weaken the chapter, recognizing that faith—whatever form it took—was often all that kept them from breaking entirely.

The Wulven had vowed to never leave a brother behind. Even in death, they would not be forsaken.

The Wulven are no longer lost.

They are no longer Forsaken.

They are the hunters in the dark, the ghosts of Tain, the ones who watch, who fight, who endure.

They are the Wulven.