The Chosen Few [OOC|40K]

[The Empire of Tau]

The Primarch
Name: Samael
Alias: The Mute Son
Appearance:
Personality: Samael is an extremely quiet man, a mute for the most part, unless needing to command and talk about the campaign. As a wise star that lives under the sea once said, the inner machinations of [his] mind are an enigma. For the most part, Samael does what he needs to do for the Imperium. He never really complains and when he does, it is when he sees a flaw in planning or in the campaign. Besides that, no one knows Samael on a personal level, not a friend or foe to any other Primarch.
Backstory: Samael’s story is not complex. Samael was found on a barren, living in a modified unknown spaceship hull that served as Samael’s home for however long that he was living on the planet. From there, Samael was informed of his position and purpose, accepting it without much issue. Samael was then given his legion, fleet, number. With everything set, Samael was set off to campaign from sector to sector to sector. Samael never talked with any of the other Primarchs and uses his time traveling (when not busy planning for campaigns), studying, training, or staring at the wall to watch paint dry. In terms of Samael’s track record, he is well-regarded for his aggressive and very persistent nature, especially when it comes to space-combat and his fleet of carriers that actively harass and contain enemy fleets. Samael is not involved in any politics or drama, given his mute nature - thus making him very boring in terms of history and relationships.
War Gear: N/A

Azure Rain
Numeration: 19th
Primogenitor: Samael
Noteworthy Domains: N/A (Fleet-Based Legion)
Combat Doctrine: Azure Rain is all about THE NEED FOR SPEED. 30% of Azure Legion is made of up of Legion Assault Troops, the boys with the jumpbacks, who jump from place to place at SPEEDY manner to close in witn a bolt pistol and chainsword. Given the volume of Assault Marines in Azure Rain, Assault Marines are formed into divisions that concrete at a single point in a emeny line in which they will deliver the Imperium's hammer onto its enemies. Of course, that is, if the enemy does not have AA. When and if the enemy has AA then Assault Marines serve more as an attachment to the mechanized forces of Azure Rain. The 19th Legion mechanized forces is also the mainstay of the Legion with all Marines being able to be stuffed in a Rhino or Land Raider - sent out in massive mechanized waves with tanks to aid. The 19th Legion also have MORE SPEEDY bois in the form of LAND SPEEDERS (20% of the legion) that harass the enemy lines and act as the rear guard and recon force for the Legion. In a sense, Azure Rain practices combined arms warfare with its specialized formations supporting each other - added in with the fact that the Azure Rain makes usage of its IA formations (which is also all mechanized) heavily in its assault operations.
Appearance: Blue Marines - imagine Ultramarines but without the U.
Origins and History: Azure Rain has no drama or politics involved within its history. For most of their history, the 19th Legion has been throwing themselves from sector to sector to sector to sector to the other sector of that sub-sector before going to that certain sector of that sub-sector along with cleaning up that sector before moving to the next sector. That sums up their whole history as they have been just fighting in campaign from campaign without stop. The Big E have noted that Azure Rain has a high volume of campaigns done by a newer Legion, and when a whole sector is cleared then Azure Rain gives everything to the Imperial Administration and moves on. Azure Rain also takes on requests by anyone. The Admech once asked Azure Rain to aid them in clearing out four whole sectors with a lot of forge words in, and Azure Rain happily did so in a timely manner. On another occasion, the Imperial Administration asked the Azure Rain if they could do an offensive into the rouge-human empire to clear out the pressure placed on the local sector, and the Azure Rain did so in record time. Given this, the 19th Legion is on good terms with a lot of non-space-marine factions in the Imperium.

Legion Organisation and Structure:

Legion Command Hierarchy:

Specialist Formations:
Heavy Rain : Azure Rain holds a major force (30% of the legion) of Assault Marines known as ‘Heavy Rain.’ These fuckers are fast, mobile, and are CQC experts. Heavy Rain serves multiple roles that range from massed concreted assaults on enemy lines on a single point, to heavy harassment of enemy lines, to recon and supporting mechanized forces of the 19th Legion - especially if there is a lot of enemy AA around to deny airspace for Heavy Rain troops. Heavy Rain is known throughout the Imperium is to be very aggressive in the attack as they will smash down anyone or thing in their way in lighting fast speeds. What’s more, Heavy Rain is known for their brute force style of melee that involves using their thunder hammers to crush their enemies. Heavy Rain marines are renewed for their melee combat ability - better then most melee trained and dedicated marines out there. Heavy Rain also are great anti-armor troops, able to smash and destroy most types of armor out there. These motherfuckers will swing their hammers and fucking cave in most of your body and then fly at high-speeds to their next target to do the same thing over and over and over again. Their favorite tactic is to line-up their hammers while in mid-air before they land on their enemy and cave most of the enemy's body.

Monsoon : Azure Rain has a large body of Land Speeders that are S P E E D Y. These fuckers are the recon, harassment, and rear guard force that are some of the speedest fuckers in the Imperium’s legions. Monsoon lads acts as the supporting element for both Heavy Rain and the all-mechanized forces of the 19th Legion. Not much else to say from that.

Legion Wargear: Various.
Legion Vehicles: Various.
Legion Fleet: 1 Gloriana, 6 Battle Barges, 4 Emperor-Class Battleships, 10 Dictator-Class Carriers, 24 strike cruisers, and 20 escort squadrons, Ramilies Class Star Fort.
Legion Relics: N/A

[Skaldia]

The IC goes up in less than six hours

[Skaldia]

I lied, the IC is up now.

[Ameriganastan]

The Primarch
Name: Coracus Isserec

Alias: The Desert Jester, Father Of Sands, The Laughing Conqueror

Appearance:

13 feet exactly. Shaven head. Hair is black during long campaigns when he doesn't have time. Gray eyes. Face is tanned from a life of growing up in the desert and doesn't seem to fade even years after he left. Bears a scar running from his forehead to his left cheek, a memento of the Hell-Reaver he fought to forge his blade with.

Personality: For a Primarch from such a vicious world, Coracus is jovial and lively. Always trying to make his more dour siblings laugh (To largely no avail) and frequently conversing with his Legion like they are close friends and not army and leader. One of the more civilian friendly Primarchs, always happy to visit complaint towns and cities to greet the citizenry and help boost morale among the rank and file guard. His Legion's tactics and his personality seem complete opposites, and Coracus himself admits it's hard to maintain his sunny disposition as he conducts his brutal methods across systems. But he keeps smiling anyway and reassures people once the crusade is won, it will all be worth it.

Backstory:

Whisked away by the forces of Chaos, the future Primarch of the 13th Legion was dumped on the out-of-the-way planet of Necro Solus. A world with two suns, 22 hours days and almost entirely covered in a brutal, unforgiving desert and mountains. Life on Necro Solus, like many death worlds, could be short and end brutally. If not killed in the fighting over the planet's few sources of water, then by the hellish creatures who evolved to call such a planet their home.

Coracus was a wild child during his early years. Surviving off the easier to prey on creatures of the planet like insects and the less poisonous snakes and desert rodents who populated the cave systems he slept in during the cold nights. But eventually, the youngster wandered from the isolated cave he called home, coming upon a passing caravan using the mountain pass as relatively safe travel to their next destination.

Young Coracus had never seen other people before, and his curiosity got the better of him. Sneaking down to the caravan during the night, he found his way into their food stores and decided to help himself to their food and water. Stealing of such a nature on Necro Solus was a transgression usually met with instant death as such resources were few and far between. And when the caravan guards found a filthy child poking at their supplies, he was hauled out and brought before their leader, a man named Paradine Isserec. But he could see the boy was no brazen thief. Just an ignorant wildling who was looking for food. Always a softhearted type, Paradine allowed the boy to leave with just enough supplies to survive the night and warned him to not attempt such thievery again, as even Paradine was not so merciful to forgive it a second time. Coracus took off into the night with his reward. But like a stray cat fed by a stranger, he knew there was food there. So he left his cave and followed the caravan.

Over the next few days, he trailed the clan...not very well, as he wasn't the most stealthy of urchins. Paradine let him be, as the amusing lad was a welcome respite from their normally bleak and brutal days. Such a choice would save all their lives when a beast known as a Moisture Sucker attacked the caravan. Seeing his meal ticket attacked, the boy leaped in from seemingly nowhere with a sharp rock and stabbed the beast in one of its 4 eyes. Rallied by his bravery, clan Isserec slew the Moisture Sucker together with him. Earning a bounty of meat and the drained water the creature kept inside its body. Clearly this wildling had promise. Paradine adopted the boy into the clan then and there, dubbing him Coracus, a Necro Solian term meaning 'Brave one'. Paradine taught the boy as they traveled, teaching him how to speak and fight. Over the next several years, the scraggly urchin grew into a lean but powerful lad, tempered by the sands into a fearsome protector for his tiny but prosperous clan. But the good times were soon to end. For even on Necro Solus, there were those who trampled on those smaller than themselves.

The largest body of water on Necro Solus, known as the Savior Sea (Even though it was just a particularly large lake) was hoarded by the vicious Clan Maraston. A clan which was little more than a collection of bandits and thieves who had constructed the outpost known as Maraston City around the lake. Even with the biggest source of water their's and their's alone, they continued brutalizing other outposts and clans. Come one fateful day, they happened upon Clan Isserec. Coracus fought them off easily of course. But in his overconfidence, he made a lapse. One of the bandits, an archer, was only wounded. And his last arrow found its target in Paradine's heart. The man he'd known as a father was struck down before him. Howling with fury, he reduced the archer to a red smear on the sands before his dying father called out to him. With his final words, he told his adopted son to lead Clan Isserec. Keep them safe and happy. And never lose the sense of humor that made him who he was. Coracus took his words to heart. There was a surefire way to keep them safe.

Over the next several years, whispers and rumors of a mighty warrior gathering an army drifted among the sands. Well, they weren't rumors. Coracus arrived on the steps of Maraston City 10 years after his father's murder, every clan of Necro Solus gathered at his back. Maraston City was taken within the night. And their leader was flayed alive by Coracus himself in front of his vanquished collection of thugs. Maraston City was renamed Paradine Prime, and Coracus was unanimously elected leader of this new singular and global clan. Coracus was perfectly content to watch over and guide the now relatively stable Necro Solus. But he had a destiny beyond the bounds of his adopted homeworld.

That destiny arrived when a stranger, adorned in golden armor, came to Paradine Prime and asked to meet their leader. Assuming it was an upstart bandit looking for a fight, Coracus met his biological father by strolling up, kicking sand at his feet and pointing his weapon at his throat. Of course, within a few seconds, Coracus very quickly realized this was no bandit. He'd leveled his blade at his father, The Emperor of Mankind. One very hearty apology later, and Coracus was informed of his origins. Feeling he'd done all he could for Necro Solus, Coracus accepted the offer of his father and proudly accepted his role as Primarch of the 13th Legion.

War Gear:
Desert Devil: His original blade, forged from the claw of a Necro Sollian beast known as a Hell-Reaver. Still as sharp as the day it was forged.

The Legion
Numeration: XIII (13th) Legion, The Blades of Solus

Primogenitor: Coracus Isserec

Noteworthy Domains: Necro Solus and the surrounding system.

Necro Solus: Coracus' adopted world has been largely left untouched since he left. As he feels the brutal nature shapes the best candidates for his Legion. The only large change being the construction of the Sanctum Of Sand, the Fortress Monastery of his Legion, in a mountain west of Paradine Prime.
Duo Celeste: A resource-rich Jungle World in the system.
Aqua Salvator: An icy rock on the very fringes of the system. A source of water for Necro Solus and has several monitoring posts to detect threats approaching the system.

Combat Doctrine: See The Fear In Their Eyes: Coracus loves getting up close and personal with his enemies, as growing up on a tech poor planet like Necro Solus meant blades were the common method to settle fights. He extends this doctrine to his Legion, attacking targets with huge numbers bearing fearsome chainswords and Power Claws, ripping those unfortunate enough to cross him and his Astartes to ribbons.

Appearance:

The Legion's armor was original a uniformly sand color. But with how they fight and because washing the bloodstains off was a chore, the Legion eventually recolored the arms and chest crimson. The Emperor's Scimitar bears a red mark on the right cheek of his helm, to honor the Marine who successfully cut Coracus during their meet and brawl.

Origins and History: Formerly the Terra Sabers, the rechristened Blades Of Solus and their Primarch didn't get off to a great start. Many were already displeased that the legion name, which had the rare honor of bearing Holy Terra's name, was changed to honor a remote sandpit in a backwater system. When one Astarte voiced this complaint, Coracus laughed and invited a challenge: If any Marine could defeat Coracus in a fight, he'd leave the name intact. What followed was a 4-day long brawl between him and his new Legion. Single challengers and entire groups proving incapable of felling this laughing man from some desert world. The closest any of them came was an Astarte who landed a slash across his other cheek. The Legion realized there was no beating this formidable fool, and bent knee to their Primarch. Over the next few years and numerous battles, The Blade of Solus were reshaped from a fairly standard Legion into a brutal wave of blade and claw, their arrival heeding a brutal end for the enemies of mankind.

One of their greatest victories for the Imperium was the assault on the world of Rictus Beta, a world held by a particularly large Klan of Bad Moons Orks. The Guard Regiment was close to being overrun, drowning in the endless waves of bullets. With no other Legion close enough to assist them, the Blades Of Solus were their only hope. Orks still tell stories today of 'Dat big umie and his claw Boyz' cresting a hill and announcing their presence with a scream and a charge into the waves of bullets and shells. Hoisting the head of the warboss high, Coracus laughed and delivered his most famous quote:

"Bring your lasers, your bullets, your missiles! For my blade and my bravery will never run out like your ammo! And you will see the eyes of Coracus and his Blades when he crushes your head and severs your limbs!"

Not surprisingly, Coracus and his Legion love when they get to join the Night Haunters on the battlefield. Their similar combat doctrines meshing well and forming a buzzsaw of melee warriors to shred any in their way...Coracus isn't crazy about his brother Cyprig, but he overlooks it if it means getting to crush their foes together.

Other notable campaigns:
The surrender on Chebraorus-When the Imperial Hive world of Chebraorus declared itself independent and announced it was seceding from the Imperium, The Blades of Solus were called in to quell the issue. In route to the planet, the Night Haunters were detected in the region and offered to assist. The combined threat of both Legions coming to crush them convinced the Chebraorus secessionists to surrender before either Legion made planet fall. The rebellion ended without a bullet wasted. Coracus is convinced he was the scarier of the two. Cyprig didn't seem to care either way.

Legion Organisation and Structure: Not the biggest Legion around, The Blades consist of 9 chapters, each chapter housing 900 marines and their usual masses of expendable Guard soldiers. Though not banned, Psykers are incredibly rare in the Blade of Solus. At last estimate, only 100 of the 8100 Marines in the chapter bear psychic powers.

Legion Command Hierarchy:Leader: Coracus Isserec
Emperor's Scimitar: The most elite duelist of the Legion, whose skill with blade and claw is exceeded only by Coracus himself. Often seen at his Primarch's side when he arrives on the battlefield. The current Scimitar is a man named Tarax Gadriel. A homegrown Necro Solian who has proved to be as fearsome on the battlefield as Coracus himself.
Triumvirate: His most trusted Battle Commanders who he seeks advice and strategy from.
Captain
Lieutenant
Sergeant
Battle Brother
Child Of Sand: Initiates.

Specialist Formations:

None.
Legion Wargear: Heavy ordnance when attacking more fortified settlements. Chainswords and Power Claws when the action gets close...which it often does.
Legion Vehicles: Standard. Has a large supply of Rhino troop carriers for shock and awe attacks on positions.
Legion Fleet: The flagship of the Legion, the Desert Scimitar. A rare Oberon-class Battleship found adrift in the Necro Solus system. How it came to be there or what became of the original crew is a mystery. But since it was still in working order, Coracus quickly made it into his flagship. Flanking it are 6 battle barges, 70 heavy cruisers, and 400 odd escort ships.
Legion Relics: None.

[Ormata]

The Primarch
Name: Coracus Isserec

Might I ask that you join us on Discord to talk on the finer details of the application?

[Ameriganastan]

The Primarch
Name: Coracus Isserec

Might I ask that you join us on Discord to talk on the finer details of the application?

...Is that a requirement?

[Ormata]

Might I ask that you join us on Discord to talk on the finer details of the application?

...Is that a requirement?

A request. In order to facilitate more rapid and smoother communication between OP, Co-OPs, and players. A large portion of our discussions are located on the Discord, to include planning and general lorebuilding. As such, you would be in the dark for a good portion of the game.

[Ameriganastan]

...Is that a requirement?

A request. In order to facilitate more rapid and smoother communication between OP, Co-OPs, and players. A large portion of our discussions are located on the Discord, to include planning and general lorebuilding. As such, you would be in the dark for a good portion of the game.

If it's not required, then no thanks. I'll get by fine.

[The Great Swedish Empire]

Must all characters be primarchs?

[Skaldia]

Must all characters be primarchs?

No Imperial officers of other organizations are welcome.
If you want to play such a role, merely modify the Primarch part of the App to fit what you have in mind.

[Ormata]

A request. In order to facilitate more rapid and smoother communication between OP, Co-OPs, and players. A large portion of our discussions are located on the Discord, to include planning and general lorebuilding. As such, you would be in the dark for a good portion of the game.

If it's not required, then no thanks. I'll get by fine.

Duly noted.

1. Be aware that 7th Legion is currently a WIP for another. Please choose 12th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 17th, or 18th.
2. Please add a height to the application, as well as applicable facial characteristics as the image you're using lacks those characteristics.
3. Please expand on the personality. Please include, if willing, information involving civilian interactions, Imperial Army/Navy interactions, and feelings (with regards to his jovial nature) for the use of his Legion's starvation techniques.
4. Please expand the backstory in regards to:
   1. How he survived until the age wherein he could steal. It seems like he was around eight to ten years old to perform that action. Please account for those years.
   2. Why the brazen act for stealing was met with generosity and not the loss of a hand or of life, as is common for thieves.
   3. How a sharpened rock exists on a land covered in sand.
   4. How he grew exceptionally large on an exceptionally small diet with a general lack of water.
   5. Why he laughed as he ripped a man's arm off (whether this was a product of his upbringing or of some other sort).
5. Combat Doctrine does not match with the doctrine for the Legions, which is generally to engage the enemy with overwhelming force until reduced completely. If he lacks numbers in his Legion, place state so. If this doctrine is kept, please account for the fact that he would be personally confronted by those Primarchs more directly minded and be told, in various ways, to stop messing about and actually set about the business of war. Time, in their eyes, is wasted by this doctrine.
6. Please expand on the Origins of the Legion in regards to:
   1. Feelings for the newcomer by the Legion (pleased, annoyed, confrontational)
   2. Feelings on the presumably drastic change to a new doctrine by Legion veterans and upper command officers.
   3. Notable actions by the Legion in regards to the Great Crusade and the taking of new worlds.
   4. Any interworkings with other Legions.
7. Please include a Legion manpower count.
8. Please include any Specialist Formations or state that none are present.
9. Be aware that a Gloriana-class was gifted to every Legion.
10. Please include any Legion Relics or state that none are present.

Thank you for your cooperation and continued interest.

[Ameriganastan]

If it's not required, then no thanks. I'll get by fine.

Duly noted.

1. Be aware that 7th Legion is currently a WIP for another. Please choose 12th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 17th, or 18th.
2. Please add a height to the application, as well as applicable facial characteristics as the image you're using lacks those characteristics.
3. Please expand on the personality. Please include, if willing, information involving civilian interactions, Imperial Army/Navy interactions, and feelings (with regards to his jovial nature) for the use of his Legion's starvation techniques.
4. Please expand the backstory in regards to:
   1. How he survived until the age wherein he could steal. It seems like he was around eight to ten years old to perform that action. Please account for those years.
   2. Why the brazen act for stealing was met with generosity and not the loss of a hand or of life, as is common for thieves.
   3. How a sharpened rock exists on a land covered in sand.
   4. How he grew exceptionally large on an exceptionally small diet with a general lack of water.
   5. Why he laughed as he ripped a man's arm off (whether this was a product of his upbringing or of some other sort).
5. Combat Doctrine does not match with the doctrine for the Legions, which is generally to engage the enemy with overwhelming force until reduced completely. If he lacks numbers in his Legion, place state so. If this doctrine is kept, please account for the fact that he would be personally confronted by those Primarchs more directly minded and be told, in various ways, to stop messing about and actually set about the business of war. Time, in their eyes, is wasted by this doctrine.
6. Please expand on the Origins of the Legion in regards to:
   1. Feelings for the newcomer by the Legion (pleased, annoyed, confrontational)
   2. Feelings on the presumably drastic change to a new doctrine by Legion veterans and upper command officers.
   3. Notable actions by the Legion in regards to the Great Crusade and the taking of new worlds.
   4. Any interworkings with other Legions.
7. Please include a Legion manpower count.
8. Please include any Specialist Formations or state that none are present.
9. Be aware that a Gloriana-class was gifted to every Legion.
10. Please include any Legion Relics or state that none are present.

Thank you for your cooperation and continued interest.

...Yeah, forget I applied. This is already not fun. I'm out.

[Skaldia]

-snip-

The app had promise. Shame
Hate to see you go but the door is always open!

[Ameriganastan]

-snip-

The app had promise. Shame
Hate to see you go but the door is always open!

Unless you get a co-op who doesn't needle you about every minute frigging detail of your character, that door can stay shut. Peace.

[Skaldia]

The app had promise. Shame
Hate to see you go but the door is always open!

Unless you get a co-op who doesn't needle you about every minute frigging detail of your character, that door can stay shut. Peace.

Nah, he's good.
Buh bye.

[Ameriganastan]

...Ugh, screw it. I am so bored lately since everything is getting delayed by Carona, and I need a new RP to join. There. Fixed everything you asked me to.

[Imperialisium]

The Primarch
Name: Coracus Isserec

Alias: The Desert Jester, Father Of Sands, The Laughing Conqueror

Appearance:

(Image)

13 feet exactly. Shaven head. Hair is black during long campaigns when he doesn't have time. Gray eyes. Face is tanned from a life of growing up in the desert, and doesn't seem to fade even years after he left. Bears a scar running from his forehead to his left cheek, a memento of the Hell-Reaver he fought to forge his blade with.

Personality: For a Primarch from such a vicious world, Coracus is jovial and lively. Always trying to make his more dour siblings laugh (To largely no avail) and frequently conversing with his Legion like they are close friends and not army and leader. One of the more civilian friendly Primarchs, always happy to visit complaint towns and cities to greet the citizenry and help boost morale among the rank and file guard. His Legions tactics and his personality seem complete opposites, and Coracus himself admits it's hard to maintain his sunny disposition as he conducts his brutal methods across systems. But he keeps smiling anyway and reassures people once the crusade is one, it will all be worth it.

Backstory:

Whisked away by the forces of Chaos, the future Primarch of the 13th Legion was dumped on the out-of-the-way planet of Necro Solus. A world with two suns, 22 hours days and almost entirely covered in a brutal, unforgiving desert and mountains. Life on Necro Solus, like many death worlds, could be short and end brutally. If not killed in the fighting over the planet's few sources of water, then by the hellish creatures who evolved to call such a planet their home.

Coracus was a wild child during his early years. Surviving off the easier to prey on creatures of the planet like insects and the less poisonous snakes and desert rodents who populated the cave systems he slept in during the cold nights. But eventually the youngster wandered from the isolated cave he called home, coming upon a passing caravan using the mountain pass as relatively safe travel to their next destination.

Young Coracus had never seen other people before, and his curiosity got the better of him. Sneaking down to the caravan during the night, he found his way into their food stores and decided to help himself to their food and water. Stealing of such a nature on Necro Solus was a transgression usually met with instant death as such resources were few and far between. And when the caravan guards found a filthy child poking at their supplies, he was hauled out and brought before their leader, a man named Paradine Isserec. But he could see the boy was no brazen thief. Just an ignorant wildling who was looking for food. Always a softhearted type, Paradine allowed the boy to leave with just enough supplies to survive the night and warned him to not attempt such thievery again, as even Paradine was not so merciful to forgive it a second time. Coracus took off into the night with his reward. But like a stray cat fed by a stranger, he knew there was food there. So he left his cave and followed the caravan.

Over the next few days, he trailed the clan...not very well, as he wasn't the most stealthy of urchins. Paradine let him be, as the amusing lad was a welcome respite from their normally bleak and brutal days. Such a choice would save all their lives when a beast known as a Moisture Sucker attacked the caravan. Seeing his meal ticket attacked, the boy leaped in from seemingly nowhere with a sharp rock and stabbed the beast in one of its 4 eyes. Rallied by his bravery, clan Isserec slew the Moisture Sucker together with him. Earning a bounty of meat and the drained water the creature kept inside its body. Clearly this wildling had promise. Paradine adopted the boy into the clan then and there, dubbing him Coracus, a Necro Solian term meaning 'Brave one'. Paradine taught the boy as they traveled, teaching him how to speak and fight. Over the next several years, the scraggly urchin grew into a lean but powerful lad, tempered by the sands into a fearsome protector for his tiny but prosperous clan. But the good times were soon to end. For even on Necro Solus, there were those who trampled on those smaller than themselves.

The largest body of water on Necro Solus, known as the Savior Sea (Even though it was just a particularly large lake) was hoarded by the vicious Clan Maraston. A clan which was little more than a collection of bandits and thieves who had constructed the outpost known as Maraston City around the lake. Even with the biggest source of water their's and their's alone, they continued brutalizing other outposts and clans. Come one fateful day, they happened upon Clan Isserec. Coracus fought them off easily of course. But in his overconfidence, he made a lapse. One of the bandits, an archer, was only wounded. And his last arrow found its target in Paradine's heart. The man he'd known as a father was struck down before him. Howling with fury, he reduced the archer to a red smear on the sands before his dying father called out to him. With his final words, he told his adopted son to lead Clan Isserec. Keep them safe and happy. And never lose the sense of humor that made him who he was. Coracus took his words to heart. There was a surefire way to keep them safe.

Over the next several years, whispers and rumors of a mighty warrior gathering an army drifted among the sands. Well, they weren't rumors. Coracus arrived on the steps of Maraston City 10 years after his father's murder, every clan of Necro Solus gathered at his back. Maraston City was taken within the night. And their leader was flayed alive by Coracus himself in front of his vanquished collection of thugs. Maraston City was renamed Paradine Prime, and Coracus was unanimously elected leader of this new singular and global clan. Coracus was perfectly content to watch over and guide the now relatively stable Necro Solus. But he had a destiny beyond the bounds of his adopted homeworld.

That destiny arrived when a stranger, adorned in golden armor, came to Paradine Prime and asked to meet their leader. Assuming it was an upstart bandit looking for a fight, Coracus met his biological father by strolling up, kicking sand at his feet and pointing his weapon at his throat. Of course, within a few seconds, Coracus very quickly realized this was no bandit. He'd leveled his blade at his father, The Emperor of Mankind. One very hearty apology later, and Coracus was informed of his origins. Feeling he'd done all he could for Necro Solus, Coracus accepted the offer of his father and proudly accepted his role as Primarch of the 13th Legion.

War Gear:
Desert Devil: His original blade, forged from the claw of a Necro Sollian beast known as a Hell-Reaver. Still as sharp as the day it was forged.

The Legion
Numeration: XIII (13th) Legion, The Blades of Solus

Primogenitor: Coracus Isserec

Noteworthy Domains: Necro Solus and the surrounding system.

Necro Solus: Coracus' adopted world has been largely left untouched since he left. As he feels the brutal nature shapes the best candidates for his Legion. The only large change being the construction of the Sanctum Of Sand, the Fortress Monastery of his Legion, in a mountain west of Paradine Prime.
Duo Celeste: A resource-rich Jungle World in the system.
Aqua Salvator: An icy rock on the very fringes of the system. A source of water for Necro Solus and has several monitoring posts to detect threats approaching the system.

Combat Doctrine: See The Fear In Their Eyes: Coracus loves getting up close and personal with his enemies. As growing up on a tech poor planet like Necro Solus meant blades were the common method to settle fights. His extends this doctrine to his Legion, attacking targets with huge numbers bearing fearsome chainswords and Power Claws, ripping those unfortunate enough to cross he and his Astartes to ribbons.

Appearance:

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The Legion's armor was original a uniformly sand color. But with how they fight and because washing the bloodstains off was a chore, the Legion eventually recolored the arms and chest crimson. The Emperor's Scimitar bears a red mark on the right cheek of his helm, to honor the Marine who successfully cut Coracus during their meet and brawl.

Origins and History: Formerly the Terra Sabers, the rechristened Blades Of Solus and their Primarch didn't get off to a great start. Many were already displeased that the legion name, which had the rare honor bearing Holy Terra's name, was changed to honor a remote sandpit in a backwater system. When one Astarte voiced this complaint, Coracus laughed and invited a challenge: If any Marine could defeat Coracus in a fight, he'd leave the name intact. What followed was a 4 day long brawl between he and his new Legion. Single challengers and entire groups proving incapable of felling this laughing man from some desert world. The closest any of them came was an Astarte who landed a slash across his other cheek. The Legion realized there was no beating this formidable fool, and bent knee to their Primarch. Over the next few years and numerous battles, The Blade of Solus were reshaped from a fairly standard Legion into a brutal wave of blade and claw, their arrival heeding a brutal end for the enemies of mankind.

One of their greatest victories for the Imperium was the assault on the world of Rictus Beta, a world held by a particularly large Klan of Bad Moons Orks. The Guard Regiment was close to being overrun, drowning in the endless waves of bullets. With no other Legion close enough to assist them, the Blades Of Solus were their only hope. Orks still tell stories today of 'Dat big umie and his claw Boyz' cresting a hill and announcing their presence with a scream and a charge into the waves of bullets and shells. Hoisting the head of the warboss high, Coracus laughed and delivered his most famous quote:

"Bring your lasers, your bullets, your missiles! For my blade and my bravery will never run out like your ammo! And you will see the eyes of Coracus and his Blades when he crushes your head and severs your limbs!"

Not surprisingly, Coracus and his Legion love when they get to join the Night Haunters on the battlefield. Their similar combat doctrines meshing well and forming a buzzsaw of melee warriors to shred any in their way...Coracus isn't crazy about his brother Cyprig, but he overlooks it if it means getting to crush their foes together.

Legion Organisation and Structure: Not the biggest Legion around, The Blades consist of 9 chapters, each chapter housing 900 marines and their usual masses of expendable Guard soldiers. Though not banned, Psykers are incredibly rare in the Blade of Solus. At last estimate, only 100 of the 8100 Marines in the chapter bear psychic powers.

Legion Command Hierarchy:Leader: Coracus Isserec
Emperor's Scimitar: The most elite duelist of the Legion, whose skill with blade and claw is exceeded only by Coracus himself. Often seen at his Primarch's side when he arrives on the battlefield. The current Scimitar is a man named Tarax Gadriel. A homegrown Necro Solian who has proved to be as fearsome on the battlefield as Coracus himself.
Triumvirate: His most trusted Battle Commanders who he seeks advice and strategy from.
Captain
Lieutenant
Sergeant
Battle Brother
Child Of Sand: Initiates.

Specialist Formations:

None.
Legion Wargear: Heavy ordnance when attacking more fortified settlements. Chainswords and Power Claws when the action gets close...which it often does.
Legion Vehicles: Standard. Has a large supply of Rhino troop carriers for shock and awe attacks on positions.
Legion Fleet: The flagship of the Legion, the Desert Scimitar. A rare Oberon-class Battleship found adrift in the Necro Solus system. How it came to be there or what became of the original crew is a mystery. But since it was still in working order, Coracus quickly made it into his flagship. Flanking it are 6 battle barges, 70 heavy cruisers, and 400 odd escort ships.
Legion Relics: None.

Accepted

[Skaldia]

The Primarch
Name:Sorrowsworn Morro
Alias: The Copper Prince, the Impure
Appearance:

Personality:A caustic presence in the brotherhood of Primarchs, Morro only escapes censure by his gift for waging war in the most inhospitable climates. A Primarch known for his sinister nature, is also capricious, beholden to no code but what he sees as the laws of survival. A longing for greater power and resentment at his disfigurement by a brother Primarch drove him to stray far beyond the bounds of Imperial law and morality. Behind the taciturn facade of the XVIth Legion his ambition runs rampant, leading him into gene-meddling and a hunt for tainted xenos weaponry.
Backstory:

Styx is a gas giant similar to the one where the XVIth had first proved the sheer extent of their mettle. In truth, their Primarch hails from one of this world’s satellites, named Feneos and almost as inhospitable as the world it orbits. A long orbit around Styx plunges the globe into constant twilight for most of its long year, forcing the population to subsist on arboretum-grown plants and nutrient paste. The freezing climate that ensued is just as cruel a mistress: vast underground and underwater complexes are the only inhabitable spaces on Feneos.

The people of Feneos refer to themselves as Styxians to signify their origins elsewhere, showing a degraded understanding that there was something beyond the world they know. Yet it seems they take little hope from this. A belief that they had been cast upon this merciless rock runs through their society, and they can find little answer for their misery other than to endure it. Joy is almost absent from Feneos.

There is little to savour in the landscape outside, even in the fleeting months of summer. Feneos is dominated by jagged, forbidding mountain ranges, bleak tundra and treacherous wetlands. The latter are home to ravenous amphibian predators, and worse things lurked in the depths. It is fear of these that the floating stations are mobile and heavily armed. It is only with great reluctance and no small amount of weaponry that the Styxians venture beyond their homes to harvest fish and crop seeds.

For a time, those who strayed outside or failed to properly guard their homes fell victim to even fouler predators, for the Dark Eldar had chanced upon this world and found a rich supply of misery. They did not gorge upon it, but tended it much as a farmer does his crops. It might readily be expected, therefore, that when a Primarch came to this world, he saw the suffering of his kind and took up arms against their tormentors. Such is to woefully mistake the character of Sorrowsworn Morro.

Of course, little was ever known of Morro, and much of that suppressed by order of the Primarch or his father. The clearest insights available to us are supplied by a remembrancer named Willym Koch, who vanished in the days before the start of the Ishariel Crusade. His work, the Apocrypha Hades, was recovered by agents of the Sigillite in the early years of the war, and only a few have been allowed to view it.

It is still a mystery when and where Morro's pod came to land. The first clue to his existence came when a retrieval party, seeking fresh crops, stumbled across the corpses of several predators. Some had been partially eaten, displaying human bite marks, and all had been torn apart rather than killed with guns or blades. The humans were unwilling to investigate further, for curiosity and survival were deemed incompatible on this world. Reports filtered in from other settlements, both of slain monsters and missing people, and the Styxians understood they had found something to fear as much as to inspire hope.

Three Terran years passed before Morro made contact properly, emerging as the final sun of Feneos’ cycle set. Approaching the city Phlegethon, he stalked through a portion which had been rendered uninhabitable in a leviathan attack. Detecting him by sonar, the guards reacted just as they had been taught to deal with anything that arrived without announcing itself as human and peaceful. Unfortunately for them, crude lasrifles, autoguns and flamers proved utterly insufficient. Efficiently and without remorse, Morro stormed the outer defences, taking hostages until the defenders laid down their weapons and begged for an end to the violence.

Morro's first demand was that the polity's ruler be brought before him. The cities had long since done away with hereditary rulers and instead were governed by the hardest of the grim, military men and women upon whom they had come to depend. In this case, the individual in question was a man named Nitas. Having served for two Terran decades, he had finally met his match in the Primarch. This failing was enough for Morro to declare Nitos unworthy, a crime punishable only by death. Crushing the ruler's skull, he pronounced himself lord of Plegethon.

Other titles followed, the Primarch leading soldiers through the dark, storming cities and demanding their fealty. Men did not go abroad in the times of dark, least of all with hostile intent when to compromise a city meant to risk its destruction. Morro was spoken of as a creature born of the seas, a man in whose veins flowed the blood of monsters. Like them, he could withstand the merciless seas, striking the seaborne cities from below. Either he got his surrender, or purged all who resisted along with their kin.

To better wage his wars, Morro delved into the schematics and technological lore that had resisted the Styxians' attempts to comprehend it. He had no use for anything that would ease his people’s lives, but if it would make them stronger, there he could find value. He put this strength to use, culling the predators on land and taking to the seas to hunt the great beasts. Morro would brook no challenge to his rule of the planet, and the creatures stood in his way.

With them gone, Morro could work further towards strengthening his hold. It is likely that, in his isolated youth, he had stumbled across ancient mining tunnels, for he soon deduced the purpose of the excavation machines he found among the schematics. These he ordered built, and set his subjects delving into the crust for more resources to feed his ambition. He imposed a ruthlessly utilitarian regime upon the Styxians; they were naught but a resource. None could be said to know their brooding master well, but the rumours held that he was restless, seeking broader horizons beyond the world he had found.

Certainly he tolerated no resistance. When the city of Tartanlus refused to submit, Morro used his tunneling machines to break it open. Seizing the climate control facilities, he froze the denizens into submission. Once the survivors gave in, he took them as slaves and set them to work in the mines. If the Styxians had any inclination toward art before, they certainly lacked it now, save for poetry of a singularly morbid bent.

Perhaps alone of the Primarchs, Morro coveted items of great value without apparent regard for their aesthetic or practical value. He did not adorn himself with these trinkets, but he hoarded them all the same. Koch seems to have believed it was more about depriving the Styxians and reminding them of his power over them. By his decree they knew no happiness, and they could do nothing to contest that decree.

Such transgressions, however, were nothing to the most dreadful way in which Morro used his people. Exactly when Morro first encountered the Dark Eldar is not known; early, it is thought, for Koch found accounts in which Morro scoured cities with a gun that spat cold fire and a blade of pitted bone. Regardless, he had did see them merely as foes or obstacles, and he coveted their weapons. For all the industry he fostered, he found little to rival the weapons he claimed from alien hands.

A hunting party of Dark Eldar came to Feneos, Morro was partway through his conquests. When word came of them moving toward his territory, he went to intercept them - but not to kill. Instead, in an act which would be kept secret for well over a century, Morro struck a sinister bargain with the xenos. For a cache of weaponry and an agreement that they would not trespass on his domain, he gifted them a tithe of his subjects. A Primarch sold his people into an existence of torment which could only end in death. We do not know how many times this bargain was repeated, but repeated it was, until outsiders broke the cycle.

Koch's account falters here, not from a lack of information available to him, but because elements have been excised by other hands. A few facts are preserved; a Legiones Astartes fleet tracked a Dark Eldar raiding force to the orbit of Styx, where they destroyed the alien craft. Then they turned to the moon beneath them, raking it with auspex scans which returned unusual energy signatures and primitive vox-communications. In those communications they heard references to a man, a warrior who could never be a mortal man. Deeming themselves out of their depth, they transmitted their suspicions to the nearest fleets, and those missives brought two Primarchs, one of them Icarion.

The truth was soon outed, and Morro's death prevented only by Icarion. Whispers take the place of fact at this time, although the claim is often repeated that Morro was brought before the Emperor in chains. While Morro claimed that he no longer had need of Styx and its miserable satellite, there were many who maintained that the Emperor stripped him of his fief. The truth was that Feneos could not provide the quantity of aspirants that Morro desired, and while it initially supplied the core of the Legion's strength, he quickly claimed recruitment worlds elsewhere.

We can surmise that the Emperor saw little point in educating Morro in matters of governance or politics; the lessons were strictly military. In these at least, Morro acquitted himself, and in time was granted overlordship of his Legion.

He made some efforts to ingratiate himself with his brothers, but here too his own nature would foil him. In an episode which was widely covered up, Morro cheated against Elyrian in a game of Regicide. Arguing that it proved his philosophy - that war recognised no notion of fair play, and neither should the Emperor's armies - tensions that had simmered for some time abruptly came to the boil, and two Primarchs came to blows in earnest. When it became clear that Morro was fighting not simply to win, but to maim or worse, Igneous stepped in. In the ensuing struggle, he severed Morro's forearm, a wound that even a Primarch's body would not heal entirely.

A saner man might have submitted to the attentions of the medicae present. Morro, however, stormed from the ship, spitting curses as he went. The Drowned departed almost immediately after the Copper Prince was aboard his flagship. In the hands of his apothecaries, Morro learned the limits of what his physiology could overcome. An augmetic hand was crafted by his artificers, but the injury seems to have sown especially bitter fruit in his psyche. Perhaps it was a factor in the gene-meddling to which Morro had his apothecaries devote so much of their energies.

Morro was brought to heel by Icarion a few months later, and he was sufficiently contrite that his life was again spared. However, he was to labour under Icarion's watchful eyes for a further five years, and his Legion would spend a further decade being observed by a Legio Custodes detachment led by Prefect Sareic Veron. That the watchers found nothing to concern them did nothing to banish the pall of suspicion that hung over the Primarch, and it extended to the Legion during this time. Several XVIth fleets and their leading councils found themselves at pains to ensure their good standing was not tarnished by association.

There was no such effort by the Copper Prince to rehabilitate his reputation. Approximately thirty years before the Ishariel Crusade, Morro acquired a new Emperor-class ship for his fleet. The circumstances are deeply mysterious - normally the construction of such prestigious vessels was an occasion for rejoicing among the Mechanicum, and in any case difficult to hide - and the acquisition drew condemnation from several other Legions. Morro ensured that attention was lavished upon the vessel, ensuring that like his flagship, it far outclassed most vessels of its kind. He seems to have taken a cruel delight in how this angered some of his brothers, although the reason for their disquiet remains unknown.

War Gear:
Agoniser Tendrils - At the beginning of their macabre evolution, the Tendrils were a pair of multiple-tailed and savagely bladed whips, over which Morro's implants leant him preternatural control. It epitomizes cruelty in the way that the Drukhari have made a hallmark of their weapons. Nonetheless, the Tendrils are a more potent set of weapons than perhaps any wielded by that race.
The Deeping Plate - Based on the armour fashioned for Morro on Feneos, the Deeping Plate integrates Martian power armour technology with the brute utilitarianism and archeotech that had protected Morro against the worst hazards of his homeworld. Morro is never satisfied with his raiment, and it is continuously overhauled to endure the ravages of both ocean and void.
Ferryman's Toll - It is unknown how or why Morro came to favour this style of weapon, but it was made to his specifications. Shaped like a traditional scimitar, but rather than a gentle, inwardly curving blade, the shotel curves outward, with the cutting edge on the inside of the blade. Morro can wield it with a speed that belies its size, and can easily bring down the guard of a shielded foe, each strike releasing a blast of radiant light.

The Legion
Numeration: 16th
Primogenitor:Sorrowsworn Morro
Noteworthy Domains:Few. Sorrowsworn Morro's Gas Giant homeworld of Styx and its eight satellites form much of the post-Discovery legions training grounds, but the legion frequently "harvests" or "reaps" the potential candidates from reconquered human planets.
Combat Doctrine:There are few battlegrounds as dangerous as the ones that exist beneath the waves. But there will be no escape for the enemies of the Imperium, not even the depths of an ocean. In this dangerous environment, The Drowned go to war, exterminating strange creatures that few others see. Combat is an elaborate game of cat-and-mouse, where but a single puncture in armour can spell death, even for a Space Marine. This brutal environment has shaped the Drowned and their melancholic Primarch, Morro. With few friends and distrusted by his own sons, Morro is a dark figure who treads the unthinkable paths for the sake of his own goals.

One of the Drowned's favoured styles of combat is a rapid strike, renowned even among the other Legions, in order to capitalize on the sheer shock-and-awe effect of the Astartes. However, there are few who would countenance such operations, to the extent that the Drowned refined this action in private. Not only will the Drowned unleash their full horrific capabilities, as they strike from all angles, but also will have no hesitation in throwing their allied forces at enemy lines as a distraction to allow the Drowned to seek their objectives from a foe distracted and engaged. The Drowned themselves have no hesitation in calling in danger close fire missions on engaged troops from the Imperial Militia. Such results, although effective, have often resulted in military assets being withdrawn from service alongside the Drowned – few of the superior Solar Auxilia pattern regiments or host Astartes Legions will consider fighting alongside them when the Drowned show such little care or empathy.
Appearance:

Origins and History:

Long before their dark destiny among alien waters, the XVIth Legion would be born from the sands of the Eastern Mediterranean. The initial intakes for the newly created legion would be raised from a scattering of cities across Terra, all located by those few bodies of free-standing water that remained above or below the surface. It was from these arid lands, Rabia, Gyptos, Levant, and Galatia, that the Emperor would form the core of the XVIth. These lands in particular had suffered greatly during Old Night as the wars in these regions occurred more often and were fought with greater intensity. These conflicts forged the people into a hardy race that lived and breathed war as they navigated through the hostile environment. Given the dangers of the environment, each of these tribes had developed a tradition of highly skilled scout forces to guide their armies through harm.

In many of these enclaves, water became a defensive weapon in its own right, the inhabitants withdrawing to the depths when enemies drew near and luring the invaders to their doom. The Emperor saw in their resilience and adaptability traits he would find amply useful in his chosen warriors. Thus when the XVIth began their tale in the final years of the Unification Wars it was with an unusual operation.

The target was the domain of the ancient Jialter. Its ruler, Klawford, was an inspired scientist exiled from Mars who had set his labour-machines and slaves to erecting three vast dams around his fortress, diverting dozens of rivers and swallowing up lakes to eventually control several hundred square kilometres. The Emperor was concerned that the waters themselves might be used against his armies in a conventional attack, costing him not only valuable soldiers but also much of the archeotech Klawford’s forces possessed. So when Klawford returned only a single living envoy clad in the skins of his fellows, the Emperor turned to the XVIth and bade them devise a means to strike at Klawford through his most prized assets.

The Legion, numbering roughly 2,000 at this time, deployed as individual squads into the underground channels that fed the reservoirs, using heavily modified tunnelling machines. Although contact with such vast weights of water would spell doom for many of the craft, over four-fifths of the Astartes survived to emerge into the water. They did not go unchallenged, for Klawford had created servitors of fiendish shape to guard his reservoirs, but he had woefully underestimated the power of the Space Marines and as dusk fell they rose from the water. Within nine hours of commencing their mission, the XVIth had captured each dam’s control stations, turning the surface-to-air defences on the craft sent to drive them away and destroy and dams.

Klawford's unassailable defence was revealed as a crippling weakness, but his armies remained formidable, and the Emperor's warriors died in their hundreds against his swarms of machines, augmented mutants and clone-soldiers. Dozens more were lost fending off further attempts to wreck the dams and lay waste to the lands which Klawford ruled. For the entire night, the cannon-forested tops of the dams were silhouetted by the lights of conflict. Yet when the dawn came, it illuminated the Raptora raised over Klawford’s fortress. The remaining 2,000 Legionaries received the Emperor here, and delivered into his hands the captured warlord. Little is known of Klawford's fate, but rumour has it that he and a few other Martian renegades were later delivered into Kelbor-Hal's custody, to be dealt with as the Fabricator-General saw fit.

The XVIth's losses hampered their growth, but nonetheless their resourcefulness, tenacity and stable gene-seed placed them in demand as the Emperor’s wars spread beyond Terra. With the VIth they would brave the scorching climes of Venus, and their service in the moons of Jupiter earned plaudits from their cousins. When multiple attempts to scour the dreaded Dirigiscrae from the atmosphere of Neptune with virus-bombs failed due to the world’s superlative cold, it was the XVIth who were chosen to purge these vicious and powerful xenoforms.

The XVIth approached the task with a great deal of preparation, carefully studying the information available. In the ferociously hot depths of the world, the life-eater had done its work, but the frigid cold of the main volume rendered it ineffective, and the violent atmosphere destroyed many virus-bombs before they could penetrate far enough to work. The Drowned noted this, demanding improvements to their armour and modified auspex devices to better penetrate the atmospheric interference.

Then they ordered the creation of great vessels covered in what amounted to vast scaffolds, bedecked with cannons, from which their companies would operate. These were designed to survive the gas giant’s tempestuous atmosphere and provide points from which the Legion could engage their prey. This mode of warfare, shorn of horizons and any ground in sight, would likely have overwhelmed mortal minds, but the XVIth took to it with alacrity. Striking into the depths, they would corral and drive the aliens to the surface, where they could be targeted from orbit in large enough numbers.

Nonetheless, even with the Magos Biologis' successful work in synthesising bio and chem-weapons lethal against the Dirigiscrae, and the immense power of the fleets in orbit, it was a long and gruelling campaign. Several of the vessels ran afoul of storms the size of Terran continents. As their cousins led heroic charges across the system, the XVIth were locked into a long and unforgiving campaign of extermination which took a grim toll upon them, reducing them from over ten thousand to the high hundreds. Apocryphally, Malcador is said to have looked upon the records when the campaign was done and declared, “As with its namesake, Neptune has claimed a toll of drowned men.”

The Drowned would make up the deficit from a variety of worlds as the Crusade spread to new systems, finally establishing its stability under Lord Commander Primus Hennasohn. However, this drive was not enough to enable independent campaigning such as that undertaken by several Legions, even at this early stage. Hennasohn determined that a different course was necessary if his Legion was to prosper, foregoing prestige for strength and durability. Drawing together his senior captains and Lords Commander, he made his case and with their consent, drastically altered the path of the Legion.

The XVIth would not exist as a few monolithic entities as so many of their cousins did. Instead twenty commanders, titled the Pelagic Monarchs, would each assume command of a portion, and this would be attached to another fleet. These varied extensively. Some Legions welcomed them and placed the Drowned Men on an equal footing with their own. Other segments found themselves at the core of largely Army flotillas, and several took to serving in isolation, outriders to larger forces. Records are patchy - an inevitability when dealing with the early Crusade - but it seems that the XVIth served with distinction wherever they fought.

Certainly, several Monarchs achieved victories that suggest their fleets punching well above their weight. When the 44th Fleet encountered an Ork armada heading for a nearby Imperial system, the Drowned engaged in a series of running battles to slow them. Harrying the greenskins, they bought time for the Legion they were supporting to fortify the targeted worlds. When the Orks entered the system, they were sufficiently weakened that the Legion wiped them out in just two days of fighting. In the Siege of Natoyia, the storied Five Fortresses fell to the Drowned after frustrating two other Legions' offensives.

A senior commander from an unknown Legion coined the sobriquet “Lanterns” for the XVIth in recognition of their deeds, and it was enthusiastically adopted throughout the armies of the Crusade. Everywhere, that is, but the Legion itself. The Drowned appear to have viewed it as a sop to their dignity, some feeble compensation for a Legion who were, as a matter of course, outshone by almost all their peers. In this light, the nickname became bitterly ironic, and perhaps even a cruel joke.

While the Legion did grow to the extent that, after six decades, most of their fleets could operate independently of their cousins, they could never match the rate of expansion made possible by a Primarch's mature gene-code. The observance that reunion typically brought a heightened tally of glories hardly needs repeating. So long as the Drowned lacked their gene-sire at the helm, they were consigned to the second or third rank of Legions.

Indeed, some Primarchs had little patience for these forces attached to their fleets.

Eventually, Morrow was found. But if the Drowned had expected their Primarch would gather the fleets and wage war with his entire Legion at his back, they too were disappointed. With cold calculation he deemed the current system fit for his purposes so long as his sons submitted completely to his rule. Hennasohn repeatedly petitioned him to unite the XVIth and fulfil the promise Hennasohn had made to his brothers so long ago. Morro’s response, after a decade, was to effectively exile the old Legion Master at the head of his own fleet.

The Legion's character turned still more dour; the worlds Morro deemed worthy of feeding his Legion were invariably harsh places to live, and bred men who knew no cheer. All of those who joined the Drowned showed an unbending loyalty to their Primarch, as did many of their older brothers. If this seems strange, then we must remember that the XVIth had never been a large Legion, and Morro’s tenure ended that era of stunted growth. Moreover, ill-favoured as he was, the Primarch won sufficient victories to finally draw notice to his Legion.

Koch surmised from the words of Monarchs and senior captains that Morro had not so much refused to engage with his Legion as opted to bide his time, not overtly remoulding it but ensuring that his influence seeped into its every fibre. The XVIth's plate became ocean blue-green and copper, and the custom of taking a Styxian name upon ascension became commonplace. In 919.M30, Morro summoned the overwhelming majority of the Drowned for a campaign against the abhuman Ghrend. The effect on morale, even among such a grim brotherhood as this, was electrifying. From this point on, the Drowned's “tendrils” would be fewer and larger.

Legion Organisation and Structure:
In a rare reversal of the typical evolution of Legions, the Drowned would begin the Great Crusade with an organizational system far removed from the tenets of the Prinicipia Belicosa, and it would be Sorrowsworn Morro who would bring the Drowned more in line with standard structures. Furthermore, not all of the Drowned fleets would adopt their Primarch's guidance in regards to structure, choosing to maintain traditions established at the onset of the Great Crusade.

For these tradition-bound tendril fleets, the figurative head is found in the 'Ayatollahs', or the Ayatollah of the Abyss. It is with these officers that host commanders would interact with, reviewing over tactics and strategies. Never will an Ayatollah commit to any one course of action, until he has a chance to confer with his 'staff'. On board the Ayatollah's flagship, the 'Pelagic Monarchs' convene to discuss operations and what orders the host commander intends to implement. While the Monarchs hold ranks equivalent to subordinate staff officers, in reality, it was the Monarchs who will decide what course or role the Drowned will play in an upcoming campaign. After a period of debate, the Pelagic Monarchs will vote for one course of action or another, and it then that the Ayatollah will return to the host commander to deliver the Drowned's decision.

Legion Command Hierarchy:
Primarch Sorrosworn Morro
Host Commander, Commands the Tendril Fleets, 5 Tendril Fleets of 40,000 Space Marines
Pelagic Monarchs: Command the Chapters, 5 Chapters in each Fleet of 8,000
The Psalida: The Psalida command the Kelyfos, sized 800 Marines.

Specialist Formations:
Charonic Seeker
Veteran elites who wear Tartaros Terminator armour. Specialist, ranged assassin Terminators. The Terminators of the legion use almost exclusively Tartaros Pattern, and the Charonic Seekers, are equipped with Havoc Launchers, Chainfists, and Rotor Cannons, with some using the Iliastus-Pattern Assault Cannon or Cyclone Missile Launcher. These units are intended to Deep Strike on units, and unleash a hail of firepower. They used Nuncio Vox to pinpoint the location of the target.

Malacost Hazard Squads
While the Drowned possessed an ample number of Legion Veteran Squads, their resource-sparce early years and environmental specialisation would give rise to their own variant. Forgoing some weapons typical of other Legion's veterans they instead chose those that would ensure their survival against the foes they faced in the depths of alien oceans. After the discovery of their Primarch these units would be formalized as the Malacost Hazard Squads.

Legion Wargear:

Pelagic Spear - The Pelagic Spear was one of the gifts that the legion took to the stars with. The Drowned, of all the legions, possibly appreciated the irony of all of them in using the symbol of a dead faith, and despoiling it. Sourcing from legends of ancient Terra, they took the symbol of the ancient god of the sea, and broke it over their knees, reforging the trident into the bident, mirroring that symbol of the underworld. This "warfork" not only provides a lethal powered edge for slicing through armour, but can be overcharged into an incandescent plume of corposant energy, which is capable of peeling back the armour of even the toughest of threats. These specialised weapons were granted to those of the Drowned whom Lord Commander Hennasohn chose to be his council representing the will of the XVIth Legion to their tendril fleets' hosts, these two-pronged Bidents were all once Tridents; the central tang broken off during the gifting, symbolically representing the end of superstition. That the weapon was now similar to the traditional weapon of a god of a mythological underworld was either an irony missed or paradoxically enjoyed by the Legion.
Abyssal-pattern Storm Shields - These shields were gifts from the Mechanicum Abyssii, encountered by a tendril fleet scouting for the Wardens of Light during the early days of the crusade. These immense slabs of metal were round, in the manner of the ancient Terran Hoplon shields, and contain powerful force fields.
Vigil-pattern Storm Shields - Following the treatise formally welcoming the Abyssii within the Imperium, the trade agreements made saw the war reparations provide sufficiently powerful technologies to the Drowned. One of the later improvements to the Boarding Shield provided the Legion with the Vigil Storm Shield. Providing a greater defensive field which could protect the bearer against all but the heaviest weaponry.

Legion Vehicles: Standard
Legion Fleet:

Queen of the Damned (Gloriana-class Battleship) - Sorrowsworn Morro renamed the XVIth's Gloriana from the Tidemaster when he accepted it as his flagship. Over the following years the great vessel underwent substantial modifications to serve the Copper Prince's purposes, including an expanded Apothecarion.
Horrorheart (Emperor-class Battleship) - acquired under mysterious circumstances and to no small amount of condemnation from several other Legions, the Horrorheart was a source of peculiar pride to Morro.
Neptune's Grief (Battleship)
Stygian Tide (Battleship)- Hennasohn's flagship
Nova Levante (Battleship) - the Legion's flagship prior to the construction of the Queen of the Damned
Kraken's Maw (Battleship)
Call of the Depths (Grand Cruiser) - the flagship of Yarlath Keelsplitter
Ygeth (Battlecruiser)
Chasmata Inmitus (Battleship)
Asenath (Battleship)
Osseus Herald (Grand Cruiser)
Megiddo (Cruiser)
Nova Cathargo (Battle-barge)
Atlantean Nightmare (Battle-barge)
Wall of Jericho (Battle-barge)
Degeneracy of Lusanne (Strike Cruiser)
Aegyptian (Strike Cruiser)
Jezebel's Principle (Strike Cruiser)
Hope Fails (Strike Cruiser)
Wings of Lazarus
Angelfall
Ferryman (Battleship)

Legion Relics:
Rimeshatter - Rimeshatter is a unique weapon loaded with powerful, almost lost technology, codified as Helfrost Weaponry. Although the Drowned do not declare its history, many claim that it originated not with the artificers of the XVIth.

[Drumon]

The Primarch
Name: Zahariel Nauth
Alias: Penitens/The Penitent Primarch
Appearance:

Personality:

Nauth is a hyper-focused, bordering on obsessive, thinker. Being consumed with endless perfectionism and hatred of every flaw, no matter how slight, Nauth is merciless in his discipline and unforgiving of mistakes. Despite this, he is genuinely respectful of those who meet, or much more rarely, exceed his expectations. He has a profound sense of fairness to the circumstances one is found in - but refuses to tolerate failure for what is within a person's known abilities.

Backstory:

Zahariel Nauth, the Penitent Primarch and Seventeenth Child of the Emperor, was flung from the Emperor's grasp by the Ruinous Powers, like his siblings. Through the machinations of the Warp he landed in the forgotten colony of Almatex, in the galactic North. A devout, but warring world, the arrival of the Primarch was seen by many - as a bright comet that lit up the night sky, crashing with a thunderous force not far from the capital of the dominant power of the planet.

To cope with the sudden lost connection with Terra after the nightmarish storms of the Warp, the planet, grasping for any warm comfort in dark void, turned to faith. It was not a united faith - its sudden onset, polarizing class structures, and violent outlook pushed many away from what would become known as the Church of the Holy Wrath. This faith demanded utter surrender to the will of the Lord, who had punished mankind with the Warp storms for their broken, faithless ways. As penitence, the children of the working classes had to be drafted into the Penitent Legions - men and women dedicated to the consumption of suffering as an apology for the collective weakness of mankind and tasked with the violent reprisal against those who refused to embrace the painful truth.

It was in this volatile, fragile religious background that Zahariel was thrust into. He landed a short few kilometers from a chapter of the Penitent Legion: The Lord's Vengenace. A child clearly given by the Lord himself, Zahariel was inducted into the Lord's Vengeance as a special initiate.

He spent his early years learning theology - the entirety of which he had managed to memorize by age 5. His physical and mental development was unprecedented for anyone the Penitent Legions had yet experienced, and his rapacious growing had developed a religious following. He became a master with the sword and shield - ceremonial symbols - and further excelled in modern armament combat, mastering the maintenance, development, and use of every weapon used on the planet. At his own request, he was placed in the officer corps of the Penitent Legions to lead the Dalmatian Crusade in the planetary east.

It was here he first tasted blood. Leading his brothers - and at this point, followers - of his home chapter against the infidel forced of the East, he brought cities to ruin. As his faith demanded, every failure of his own, and that of his men, was met with harsh, brutal punishment. His face, body, and mind grew the scars of continuous self-sacrifice as penitence for the failure of man to prevent the wrath inflicted upon them. Yet, for every scar, there laid a thousand broken bodies who refused to follow the wrathful faith.

His violence did not end in the East. The clergy of his church grew each day with fear. Alone, Nauth's theological writing posed a threat to the legitimacy of the Wrathful orthodoxy, but the increasingly fanatic worship of him posed a real threat to the position of the church.

Nauth was not unaware of this fear. Within a few years, the clergy that opposed found themselves branded heretics, traitors, or degenerates. Without a drop of bloodshed from his own direct actions, he lay in command of the Church and, effectively, the planet.

It was at this peak of triumph the Emperor's exploratory fleets found Almatrax - and found his Seventeenth Son. Nauth's followers were hesitant, particularly to the Emperor's Imperial Truth, which demanded state atheism and obedience to the Imperial State. Worse still, as head of the church, many feared the death of their redeemer, and the ultimate penitent.

Rather than any Imperial envoy, it turned it was Nauth himself who demanded the planet's subservience to the Imperial Truth. Man was weak, this much was true, but the penitent did not serve to beg forgiveness from any god. Penitence was meant an eternal reminder, to fear the xenos, to hate the temptation and weakness which grasped the mind of every human.

It was with this ideology that Nauth, and the planet, submitted to the will of the Imperium.

War Gear:

Mark III Iron Power Armor:

A heavily modified space marine power suit meant to adhere to Nauth's exacting specifications. Most heavily changed is the HUD system, providing impossibly complex calculation even the mind of Nauth could not conjure, and providing deep readings for instantaneous tactical decisions. The next most modified element is the pain injector - a fluid injector built into the lower abdomen, used in Nauth's penitentiary meditations that injects a medically harmless, physical painful substance that allow for self-flagellation without lasting injury. In battle, it is sometimes used as a motivator and focuser.

Penitent Judgment

A masterwork crafted bolter built from scratch by Nauth after receiving modern Imperial designs. Fires bolters at far greater velocities, speed, and accuracy than the average bolter, and is capable of extensive change in the rate of fire, altitude adjustment, and other minor combat requirements. Nauth is known a master marksmen, and it is with this rifle he strikes from afar with his men.

Memory of Pain

The remnant of the ceremonial sword first given to Nauth in his initiation to the Penitent Legions. Now effectively destroyed and remodeled from the ground up into a power sword, it drips with blood-red energy and bears the non-religous theological mantras Nauth has etched by hand.

The Legion
Numeration: XVIIth, the Seventeenth Legion
Primogenitor: Zahariel Nauth
Noteworthy Domains:

• Almatex - Civilized World, homeworld, and recruiting ground
• Armanden - Hive World, recruiting ground, auxilary recruiting ground.
• Carnom - Death World, training ground.
• Somael - Fortress World, marshalling ground.

Combat Doctrine:

Combined Arms

The Penitent's motto is order: selfless, prideless, cooperation. No segment of the legion is superior or more favored than the others. The Scouts, Devastators, Tacticals, and others have critical roles to play on the battlefield. The means of combat are seen as a lesser focus than the organized cog the legion exists as.

The legion has garnered a reputation for that reason as a well-balanced tool. Nauth's relentless pursuit of excellence and perfection is not limited to any one field of combat. Every marine, from the greenest scout to the most veteran terminator, is expected to hold himself to the highest possible expectation. The Assault marines must strive for utter perfection their attacks just as tactical marines must be crack marksmen. Cooperation with heavy fire support and Solar Auxilia is easily achieved due to the legion's humility.

Comradery

Through penitence, brotherhood is achieved. The collective trials have brought the marines extremely close together, even for a Legion. Collective pain and suffering have strengthened the bonds already formed through tireless self-sacrifice and bloodshed. A marine would not hesitate to sacrifice himself for a brother of his legion; much to the chagrin of other Legions on the shared battlefield and, as rumors say, perhaps even the Emperor himself.

The comradery and intra-legion loyalty reaches to such an extent that many eyebrows have been raised. It is doubtldlessly effective in combat, but the Emperor a marine's utmost loyalty is to the Imperium, not Nauth.
Appearance:

Origins and History:

Like their brother legions, the Penitent Sons originate from the Emperor's unification of Terra and Great Crusade into the stars. Recruited from the desolate Merican regions of Old Terra, the Sons were used by the Emperor in a wide array of worlds. It was said that, should the Emperor himself not know how to defeat a foe, it was the Penitent Sons that were sent.

The Sons garnered a reputation for utter ruthlessness in the conquest of old colonies. They did not hesitate to exterminate xenos. Worlds that surrendered promptly were gracefully spared, but worlds that were resisted were subject to decimation as punishment.

When Nauth was discovered, he looked at the Legion with disappointment. Not for their disposition; but that they could be "so much more." He ordered rigorous penitentiary exercises. Naked abandonment in death worlds; grievous, barely recoverable bodily mutilation; ritualistic scarring; surgery without anesthetic; and many more exercises to teach the marines discipline in the face of the greatest pain and agony.

This bred a contempt for failure and weakness among the marines, as well as hatred for deviation from organized plans. They had survived horrific and unspeakable rituals as a show of strength. In the eyes of the Legion, they, and their brothers, were among the strongest beings in the galaxy.

Ever since, the Legion has been used by the Emperor for extreme attrition wars, siege warfare, and campaigns on the fringes of Imperial space.
Legion Organisation and Structure:

The Legion places heavy emphasis on leadership. Brothers of the legion obey their superior officer with fanaticism and obedience. The leadership themselves were chosen those who preserved through the bleakest, most trying challenged in the trials of the initiates. At each level of command, the officer has not only garnered the necessary combat experience, but been placed through was is known as the The Sufferings.

Each suffering ranges from, for the legion, mild physical pain to truly horrific injury and pain. At the end of the scale are truly grotesque injuries. The three most commanding positions are know as "the Sufferers." They are as follows: The Sufferer of the Lash, having had every square inch of his body flayed over time; The Sufferer of the Knife, who experienced over thirty surgical procedures while awake and without anesthetics; and The Sufferer of the flame, who bathed his entire body in Prometheum flame.

Beneath the sufferers lay the Fraternals, each having suffered comparatively minor but still staggering pain. At each level down, the trial are less trying, but still painful and grotesque.

It is the adherence to the tradition of penitence that the Legion maintains a rigid hierarchy and command. Each commander is proven.

The Legion numbers a total 170,000 brothers.

Legion Command Hierarchy:

The Most Penitent: Primarch Nauth and trusted advisers
The Suffered:
Sufferer of the Lash: Domus Cadriel
Sufferer of the Knife: Raziel Volodor
Sufferer of the Flame: Sabrael Thravius
The Penitent Practioners: Consist of the Apothecary-Penitent
The Fraternals: Each lead an Order, consisting of 10,000 Marines
The Adepts: Each lead a Chapter, a subdivision of an Order consisting of a 1,000 marines
Captains: Lead companies of 100 Marines
Lieutenants: Lead platoons of 50 Marines
Seargents: Lead squads of around 10 marines

Specialist Formations:

The Flagellants

A veteran Assault Marine squad. Infamous among the legion for the pain they inflict on themselves in excess of most other brothers; they carry extremely powerful toxins that would kill a human in seconds, but on the battlefield, let these marines ignore bodily wounds and focus on the fight.

Doom Squad

Devastators known for their unstoppable onslaught and march to victory. Capable of marching through fire, artillery, and anything thrown at them. They are most well known for scorching four straight hive cities that had risen in rebellion to Penitent occupation. Knowledge of their prescence has caused worlds to surrender.

Legion Wargear: Standard assortment of wargear. Unique to the legion are the Toxin Injectors, which inject its wearers with pain-inducing toxins that nonetheless improve concentration when trained with.
Legion Vehicles: Traditional vehicles for a Legion.
Legion Fleet:

The Fortress of Penitence: A Gloriana-class battleship and the personal flagship of the primarch. It serves as a mobile base of operations for the legion and as single-handily defeated xenos fleets. While quite slow, it has weathered incredible damage and carries with an armadas worth of hangers for boarding enemy ships.
Legion Relics:

The Visionary Thrall: A blody device custome designed by Nauth after discovering an old STC of a torture device. It is the ultimate penitent inducing device, the pain and agony induced so severe of which the only known survivor is Nauth and the Sufferers. It is revered as the ulitmate test of any marine, and has as a result broken many.

[Skaldia]

Damn, this is some high quality stuff. Expect something shortly.

Going to reserve 17th if that's alright, should be up in 24 hours.

Sounds good to me.

Looking forward to what you might have in mind.
I also suggest hopping on the discord to discuss what you might have in mind and to get integrated more into the RP.

[Drumon]

Damn, this is some high quality stuff. Expect something shortly.

Going to reserve 17th if that's alright, should be up in 24 hours.

Sounds good to me.

Looking forward to what you might have in mind.
I also suggest hopping on the discord to discuss what you might have in mind and to get integrated more into the RP.

Will do, reading through the other apps to make sure a make one that doesn't cross lanes.

[Skaldia]

Timeskip Post moving the IC to the opening stages of the Ishariel Crusade Friday afternoon, Central US time.

[Drumon]

Finished app.

[Skaldia]

Finished app.

They are accepted

[Ameriganastan]

...Whoa, lot of posting while I was away.