Warhammer Horus Heresy Reimagining

[mattmanganon]

So, recently, i've noticed a lot of interesting RP's pop up which are more of group writing sessions and i have to say that i think those would translate well to a reimagining of the Horus Heresy. Now, there are multiple ways that we can do this:

1) Reimagining the Horus Heresy

A number of Space Marine Legions have turned from the Emperor's Light and towards the Chaos Gods. Each member takes a legion and chooses whether they want to remain loyal or turn traitor.

2) Rewriting the Heresy

Instead of using the Space Marine Legions from continuity, we each create our own, unique Legions with unique histories and tactics.

3) Less Heresy, More Secession

Instead of the civil war being about Traitors vs Loyalists, instead, One of the Primarchs tries to make their Byzantium, a second Imperium that they rule. Several of the legions follow, several of them don't.

Curious to hear the idea's of those interested.

CS

[hider=Primarch][center][h1]Name here[/h1]
[img]Image URL here. Can just be a face.[/img]
[b]Appearance:[/b] At least a paragraph long.
[b]Psyker Status:[/b] What level, if any, what school they practice mostly ETC. If not a Psyker, just put N/A
[b]Life and Times:[/b] Doesn't HAVE to be amazingly indepth, just an overview on the most important events from their life and a basic bit of background info. This MUST contain their first meeting with The Emperor.
[b]Ideology:[/b] How does your Primarch think? What do they want to achieve in the universe? Must include what they think about Aliens and Psykers.
[b]Wargear:[/b] Every Primarch is a Demi-God. They are always armed to the teeth with the most cutting edge of weapons. What legendary weapons and armours does yours wield?
[b]Other:[/b] Anything that doesn't fit into a specific section, but bare's talking about.
[/center]
[/hider]
[hider=Legion][center][h1]Legion Name[/h1]
[img]Paint scheme. Feel free to use any picture of a space marine. bolterandchainsword.com/smpbeta.php is a great tool to make your own colour schemes.[/img][/center]
[b]Legion Number:[/b] Roman numerals, I through to XX
[b]Legion Strength:[/b] How many Marines are around
[b]Homeworld:[/b] What is their homeworld like?
[b]Favoured Legion Tactics:[/b] General overview of how the Legion does battle. Try to have at least a paragraph.
[b]Legion Leadership:[/b] Of course, the Primarch is at the top, but what specialist leadership positions are there? E.G. The Thousand Sons have the different Cults such as the Corvidae and Pyrae. Just a quick view on how the Legion's leadership is organized.
[b]Notable Legion Members:[/b] A few colourful characters that belong to the Legion.
[b]Inspirations:[/b] Every Legion is based off of SOMETHING from history or popular media. Such as the Ultramarines based on the Romans, the Space Wolves on the Vikings and the Thousand Sons and Necrons currently waging that court battle to see who gets the "Space Egyptian" moniker.
[b]Assigned Armies:[/b] During the Great Crusade, Legions rarely travelled by themselves. They would create armies from those worlds that they conquered to use as shocktroopers or line-holders. Feel free to go nuts with this.
[b]Other:[/b] Anything i have forgotten.
[/hider]

Discord Server

NPC Legions

Ovid Androgeus

Primarch

Ovid Androgeus

Appearance: Standing at almost 15 foot tall, Ovid is enormous, even by Primarch status. His armour is all encompassing, bronze and with red trimmings. His face is always hidden behind his helmet, having never been seen by anyone, except The Emperor and a chosen few allies. He has a long, flowing cape that almost looks like folded Bat Wings and horns embroidened all across his armour.
Psyker Status: N/A
Life and Times: Like all of the Primarchs, Ovid was thrown through the universe by the Chaos Gods. Although, it seemed as though Nurgle took a shine to Ovid. As a baby, his pod was discovered by Queen Pasiphae. It is said that, in his youth, Ovid was one of the most beautiful children that had ever been seen. On his homeworld, they worshipped Nurgle, the God of Nature and great protector of all. As Ovid grew, he was trained as a warrior, all weakness systematically beaten out of him. But no matter how much he was beaten, his beautiful face showed through. After his 25th birthday, he was taken and underwent a coming-of-age ritual that saw him receive the blessings of the Grandfather. During the ritual, his beautiful face was changed forever. Growing monstrous. Nurgle offered him power, unimaginable power, in return for servitude. To become general to the most powerful army ever assembled. He was tempted... Until he saw the army in question. Festering piles of ungodly monstrosities, pools of unspeakable filth, a beautiful woman caged at the foot of a cauldron...

It was then that Ovid first glimpsed upon his father... His true father... The Golden, glowing man burst into the chambers, with a swing of his sword, Ovid witnessed his mother and many of the priests turn to dust before his very eyes, along with the Grandfather being driven back. As the Emperor looked over the frightened man, he saw the face of a mutant. His first thought was to end the poor wretch's existance... But he had not found any of the other Primarchs, and it was entirely possible that he would never do so. He had not the luxury to slay his ONLY Primarch yet. His lips parted "Lo... My son... The first of many... You have been touched by an evil that you cannot comprehend. You will know this evil and you will resist it, for that will be your duty." After saying that, he teleported to his flagship with his son in tow. "Now, My son, your people have committed transgressions against all of humanity in conspiring with Daemons. They are beyond saving, as their minds will forever be tainted by the Plaguefather and there is no salvation through him." As their eyes met, Ovid knew that the fortitude of this man, his true father, was absolute.

"What must i do, my father?" The Emperor motioned to a button on the console that was glowing red.

"With but the press of a button, all life will end on thy world. The Plaguefather will lose one of his most prized possessions, I will gain absolutely nothing, and you... Time will tell." The aura of godhood surrounding the golden man penetrated all that surrounded him, as if he radiated the purest of all compassion. Without another word, Ovid pushed the button. The ships surrounding the planet bombarded it, destroying absolutely everything on the surface. Reducing the once lush planet to a hellish wasteland of fire and death.

Ovid was brought to the Emperor's armory and was fitted with a special suit of Power Armour, including a helmet that couldn't be removed, per his own request, before being taken to his legion. Previously under the command of Praetor Leonin and known as "Sons of Helas" With the arrival of the Primarch, he gave them a new name. "Grand Reapers."

With him set up as the leader of the Grand Reapers, he set himself and his men up directly under the Emperor's command, their specialist job to fight Daemons. He set about snuffing out every world that he so much as sniffed the presence of a Daemon on, the rest that he found were subjugated and their children drafted to his legions ranks. During his campaign in the Argenis Cluster, he came into contact with Nurgle once again. The Plaguefather told him that he did not blame him for his actions, that he had been seduced by another chaos god. The Plaguefather was forgiving, and to show this, he gifted the man with another mutation, against his will. A huge pair of wings burst from his back, he forced the vision of Nurgle back into the warp, but was now stuck as even more of a misshapen monstrosity. He folded his wings back and now hides them as a cape for his armour. Many successful campaigns and the deaths of millions at his hands, he has earned the nickname "The Emperor's Headsman."

Ideology: Ovid is known for his brutality and staunch, unwavering loyalty to The Emperor, teaching all around him that the Emperor is infallible. Anyone that questions The Emperor in his presence is quickly shouted down by him. He seemingly has no particular love, nor disdain for Aliens, seeing them as inconsequential, although he does love their unique, anti-daemon technologies. His views on Psykers are, however, rather positive. Those touched by The Warp have a unique ability to search it out, as well as battle it and he see's his Psykers as one of his most valuable resources. He does criticize his brothers for not using more of them. His father has a saying "Knowledge is power, hide it well" and Ovid takes this to heart. Despite looking like a giant brute, he is actually immensely intelligent, having surrounded himself with learning, even from a young age.
Wargear:
The Armour of Purity: An immense suit of Bronze Terminator-like armour with a large Helmet covering his face. The armour is hermetically sealed and grafted perfectly onto his body, it only ever comes off in the most dire of circumstances. It is made of heavy ceramite, making immensely resilient to heat and cold. It also has Digital Weapons built into eye-sockets, as well as the guantlets.
Shield of the Just: An absolutely immense Stormshield, even by Space Marine standards, measuring 7 foot in diameter. It is covered in battle scars and symbols.
Hammer of Terra: The Hammer of Terra is a Halberd, created by the Emperor's finest blacksmiths and awarded by The Emperor himself to his first son. The Axe is almost a polearm, even in his hands. His combat skills lie in defensive dueling, this allows him to exploit his opponents weaknesses from a distance.
Other: Anything that doesn't fit into a specific section, but bare's talking about.

Legion

Grand Reapers

Legion Number: III
Legion Strength:

Space Marines: 35,000 (approximately)
Solar Auxillia: 10,000,000
Special Agents: ????

Favoured Legion Tactics: The Grand Reapers have a Shock & Awe battle-plan, where, upon arrival on a planet, their first targets are the highest members of leadership, orbital bombardments, aircraft carpet bombings and drop pod assaults quickly taking every strategic point. This form of attack is brutal and devastating, because they will have spent months gathering information.

Before an assault on a planet begins, they will send their special agents to kidnap and indoctrinate members of population to relay information to them. These sleeper agents are subjected to immense gene-altering to make them far physically faster and stronger, no match for a Space Marine, but easily able to overcome an unaltered human.

In cases that these tactics cannot be employed, such as fortress worlds with no chances of infiltration, the Reapers are able to fall back on their specialist form of combat as they used as "Sons of Helas" which is Trench Warfare, marching forward in massive shield-wall formations. Their Shock & Awe tactics are used to secure a landing site, before they dig in and fortify, allowing their enemies to expend resources trying (And failing) to remove them, before beginning small, incremental pushes to spread like an infection across the planet's surface. Whilst they are dug in, they will send infiltration teams to kidnap enemy soldiers for indoctrination, much as they do with their regular tactics, who sow chaos and confusion among the ranks, allowing the Reapers to swoop in for the killing blow.
Legion Leadership:

The Legion has multiple different chains of command, but all feed into the centeral command.

The first chain is of the 3 catagories of members:
1) Spartiates - All Marines possess this rank. They are considered the "Proper" members of the Legion.
2) Perioeci - "Nearby Dwellers" These are the non-Astartes that are still very much important to the running of the Legion. The Technopriests that serve under the Techmarines, the humans that crew their vast fleet and others of that ilk.
3) Helots - The Helots are the Special Agents that, as far as everyone outside of the Legion are concerned, do not exist. They are considered to be the lowest of the low in the Legions.

As far as Leadership goes, Squads are separated into squads of 12. These squads are always grouped together in 3's, called a Enomotia, with each Enomotia is lead by a Enomotarches, who is a Corporal equivalent. 2 Enomotiai form a Pentekostys, under a Pentekonter, a Sergeant equivalent. 2 of these Pentekostys become a Iochos under a Iochagos, Major equivalent. 4 of these Iochagos form a Mora, under a Polemarchos, Lieutenant equivalent. 6 Mora's form into Megali-Etaireia, under a Kapetanios, or Captain. There are 10 Megali-Etaireia.

The last form of leadership is a the Special Agents, known as the "Tribunius" The Tribunius are a order of Psykers inside of the Grand Reapers that are tasked with bringing Helots into the fold, they specialize in telepathy and mind control abilities, as well as Biomancy to give their Helots temporary physical boosts.

Specialist Marines known simply as "The 10" These are 10 marines that have shown a specific aptitude for infiltration and indoctrination. The 10 are nameless, faceless and psykers. They go where they please and are answerable only to The Primarch. The 10 are armed with special Chameleon Cloaks, which are special devices, captured from an alien planet. They allow the wearer to change his physical appearance to any that they will. Of course, these are crude knock-offs, as such, they can only assume a form physically similar to the users. The 10 use these to disguise themselves as Marines of different Megali-Etaireia, or of different Legions altogether, when infiltrating planets under the jurisdiction of other Legions, or even to keep tabs on them.

Notable Legion Members:

The 10: 10 nameless, faceless Marines that infiltrate, indoctrinate and secure knowledge and sleeper-soldiers for the Imperium.

Cleomenes Ansarx: Ansarx is the Grand Praetor and leader of the former Sons of Helas. He is an honour-bound warrior and, notably, a detractor of their underhanded tactics. But he still serves his Primarch unwaveringly. His weapons of choice are a Power Lance and Stormshield.

Ferdinand Castellius: Chief Librarian, born on Terra and head of the Tribunus. His body, from the neck down, is covered in tattooes. He wields a Force Sword and Stormbolter.

Areus Cimmratus: Kapetanios of the first Megali-Etaireia and formerly the Second in Command of the Sons of Helas. Areus is Cleomenes' closest aid and his most trusted man. He wears a suit of Cataphractii Terminator armour, with a Power Fist and Twin-linked Autocannon.

Inspirations: NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPARTAN INQUISITION!!!
Assigned Armies:

197th Stathen Homeguard: In the Strathen System, they found a militant human civilization. They put up a good fight, but they fell, like all others do. After the subjugation of the Strathen System, they brought the Strathens into their fold as an Army. The Strathens are Mechanized specialists, making heavy use of Walkers and Super-Heavy tanks.

1st and Only Ironguard: Cybornetically enhanced humans. The Ironguard are specialist shocktroopers, who probe the battle-lines for weaknesses, before attacking in force. The Ironguard are notoriously difficult to kill.

Other: Due to Ovid's homeworld being subjected to Exterminatus, the Grand Reapers have taken Ganymede, the Moon of Jupiter in the Terran System as their homeworld, terraforming it into a fortress planet and Hiveworld. They recruit heavily from Terra and the surrounding planets to ensure maximum purity.

[Bork Lazer]

Can I make a chapter that spreads the Emperor’s words through spreading commodified and cheap human cuisine to subvert all xenos to the glory of the Emperor?

[mattmanganon]

@The Bork Lazer would this be their Primarch?


And would he so happen to fall to Slaanesh later?

[Bright_Ops]

I am completely on board with joining this. Either as a rewrite of the Heresy with custom legions or secession.

I have to admit that after reading some of the alternative heresy that have been done in the past, I did come up with an interesting idea for a chapter somewhat inspired by one of the primarchs of the Hektor Heresy and the cannon lore of Warhammer 40k.

I won't go into details here but the basic idea is for the Primarch in question to land on a world like Ibsen which has a human and Eldar population that actually gets along pretty well. Likely Exodite Eldar. The end result being a Primarch who is sympathtic to xeno's races and believes that rather then wiping out all Xenos completely, those who are willing or have proven to be able to co-exist with humans in a relationship that isn't master/slave should be given the option to not only exist, but be allowed to become apart of the Imperium.

[mattmanganon]

@Bright_Ops Ahhh, the Hektor Heresy. I remember writing in that shitshow. It was all well and good until Lumey fucked it to pieces. As Golgothos said when he left "That guy is too useful to get rid of, but FAR too much of an insufferable prick to put up with."

Also, that is a fair form of thinking, which The Emperor also subscribed to. He didn't mind leaving aliens alive, so long as they accept Humanity as the dominant species of the universe and agree to exist under the rule of the Imperium. Hence why many alien species like the Jeokero and Felinids were allowed.

[Bright_Ops]

@mattmanganon

I admit, there is another idea I've considered that I -might- run with instead. I'll wait until we start the game proper and I can work on a character sheet before I put it down in stone through.

[Bright_Ops]

Okay... I have a character set up, but while writing their story I've gotten to a point where what happens next is going to be very dependent on who exactly shows up to find my Primarch. It's one of those meetings that is going to have to be played out in order to see how it goes down at any rate, but if it's the Emperor or another Primarch is going to be very important.

[Jb]

Ah yes, reminds me of God-Emperor BC and The Grim Crusade, of which I was a part.

I shall debate on joining this, as I'm already spreading my foul taint over the forum in multiple RPs, but I'll certainly help if/when I can if nothing else.

[seriousarmour]

I would be very interested in joining this if you are still accepting newcomers

[Jamesyco]

def interested if you're still looking for people to join in.

[mattmanganon]

@Jbcool Nice to see you here

@seriousarmour@Jamesyco Of course we're still accepting. I'll throw up a CS when i next get the chance.

[Ezekiel]

Inteerrrrrrested

Although I am both spread thin and desperately without time to write atm, but a casual rp might work for me.

[mattmanganon]

Added a CS template in the first post.

[Bright_Ops]

Done.

Primarch

Micholi Vakarian

Appearance:
Micholi was once a rather handsome young man. His eyes a piecing grey, his hair a soft black and his features sharp and striking. Despite being a giant of a man possessing super human levels of strength, the way he moved with precision and care was actually reassuring and comforting to those around him.

War takes its toll however and for Micholi that toll came in the form of a toxin covered eldar blade; During a fight against a trio of skilled Eldar warriors, one of them managed to get a slash in against the right side of his face. The wound itself was jagged and cruel to begin with, the toxins on the blade quickly began to eat away at flesh and muscle. Between the toxin being designed to incapacitate via horrific pain rather than kill and the powerful healing factor all Primarchs possess the damaged was limited to the superficial, but it left a horrible scar of damaged flesh and tissue along the right side of Micholi's face.

The tattoo on Micholi's face are markings from the culture of his adoptive mother. Each colonized turian planet as their own series of markings that they tattoo on their face as a sign of where they come from and as a connection to the planet they are born on. While turians typically use face paint because their biology doesn't really allow them to ink pictures into their flesh, Micholi made his markings a part of him because he was proud of his adoptive mother and her culture and promised to never deny it.

Psyker Status:
Beta Level, favoring Divination... even if he wasn't aware he was doing it at the time. His ability to get a 'fairly good idea' of what his enemies were planning and going to do combined with his presence having something of an 'inspiring effect' on his followers helped them win battles that due to the nature of their enemy they wouldn't have otherwise seen coming or survived.

Life and Times:
To understand Micholi and the challenges he had to overcome, one must first understand the foe that he was up against.

Before the fall of Long Night and the Age of Strife, the Kirk system was settled in the Dark Age of Technology. Consisting of four habitable worlds and some asteroid belts, the star system and the cosmic bodies within said system earned their names shortly after the colony ship arrived. Navigator Kirk had fallen asleep while he was on duty and almost resulted in the colony’s premature destruction because the ship almost crashed headfirst into the planet they wished to settle. As a spiteful joke, the colonists started naming the planets around them after virtues that Kirk didn’t have and the names kind of stuck.

Of the four planets, only three of them were colonized.

Kirk's Vigilance (the original world the settlers almost crashed into and system capital) was a continental world that became a minor trade hub for humanity in the dark age of technology, mostly dealing with illegal goods due to not being along any major trade routes and having very lax cargo inspections when it came to 'trusted traders' (It was felt that the more money a trader paid towards one of many charities local to the system that the customs agents championed, the more trustworthy they were and thus the less inspections needed to be taken).

Kirk's Generosity was a prime Agri-World and it was the second to be colonized. It was even provided with a Questoris Knight Paladin named Light's Shield to protect it, the Paladin being piloted by the highly respected Goldragon family over the years.

Kirk's Integrity was the third world to be settled. A giant, barren wasteland of a planet with a barely breathable atmosphere and a complete and utter lack of life, the planet itself was found to be insanely wealthy with minerals and ores. A mining colony was quickly established, but as time went on the actual colonists and miners were replaced by convicts and criminals as the planet turned into a penal planet. Didn't need much in the way of a garrison due to the fact that the world didn't grow any food or have any animals on it, meaning that the population could be kept largely under control by the fact that food had to be shipped in.

The fourth world, Kirk's Curiosity, was never settled. It was a habitable world with a breathable atmosphere, but apart from space it didn’t really offer anything that would make colonizing the planet worth the expense. Granted it wasn’t barren of resources since there were some deposits of ore that could be mined, the flora and fauna weren’t overly dangerous and crops could be grown from the soil, but compared to the other planets in the system it was just a colder, worse version of Vigilance.

Over time numerous plans to take advantage of the planet for some purpose or another were suggested, but few of them ever really went beyond the theory stage… and those that did tended to fall when the exact figures of expected returns came up. So for almost all the time that humans were in the Kirk system, the planet only ever saw the occasional squatter in the form of a noble or criminal (sometimes the same person) hiding out or creating a hidden stockpile on a planet with no one else on it.

The Age of Strife was relatively kind to the Kirk system; It had been out of the way enough that AI units were expensive and rare, meaning that when the Men of Iron turned on their masters there weren't really enough of them in system to pose the extermination threat they did elsewhere. When psykers started to develop, the black market of Vigilance responded by capturing as many of them as possible and shipping them off elsewhere (either whole or in pieces) in the name of profit. The warp storms that made travel impossible however brought an end to the system being able to trade outwards, so instead they focused their attentions inwards to survive.

When the warp storms finally faded, the Kirk system was tentatively ruled by an Oligarchy of ‘noble’ houses made up of the descendants of important political figures and important business leaders whom had survived the turmoil over the years. However, while the fading of the warp storms brought with it opportunities, it also brought in a danger that hadn't been a factor until then; Shortly after the storms had faded, the Kabal of the Moon Blades arrived and started their opening probing operations.

Where the other noble houses of the Kirk System saw (rightfully) a threat to themselves and humanity that needed to be fought and cast back into the void from once they had come, House Cruciatu’s current head, Victor Cruciatu, saw an opportunity and a possible ally to finally swing the balance of power in a way that his forebears had only ever dreamed of. While publicly Victor and his House decried the horrors that had been wrought by the xeno’s invaders in their typical opening terror attacks to inspire as much fear into the local population as possible, privately Victor reached out to the archon leading the raiders in order to work out… an arrangement of sorts.

In exchange for not attacking the holdings of House Cruciatu, Victor was more then happy to sell out the other noble houses by revealing locations, details about their plans and defenses and in the case of his family’s ancient enemies House Goldragon, send his own agents to eliminate as many of them as possible. Accepting the relatable desire to see ones enemies cast down in ruin and seeing the value of having insider information to help limit the inherent risks that came with raiding for slaves, the Kabal was more than happy to accept this deal as was, call it a very good day for them and make plans to come back in a century or so to either do it again or (if no one was willing to play ball) loot everything of value with bonus point if they nailed it down before they dragged it kicking and screaming away.

When Victor offered a second part to the deal, the Kabal was honestly surprised by the sheer ambition of the human they were talking to… and intrigued.

Victor didn’t want the other noble houses weakened; He wanted them completely removed and House Cruciatu ascendant as the one and only rightful ruler of the Kirk system. He also had plans to extend an empire outside of the system… and in exchange for the Kabal assisting in his rise to power, as well as making themselves available as allies and trade partners going forward, he was prepared to offer them a bulk hurler worth of slaves alongside enough food and water to reasonably last the captives till they got back to the Dark City itself. Every. Single. Year.

The slaughter of the noble houses of the Kirk system that followed was swift, brutal and absolute, with all members of the families and their servants either disappearing without a trace or being found in such a way that those who encountered it were deeply scarred for the rest of their lives… with the notable exception of House Goldragon, who had some of their members actually turn up dead due to more mundane things like poison.

With all their rivals eliminated, House Cruciatu naturally rose to become the sole power in the Kirk system with Victor as its head. Also, quite naturally, there was a great deal of uproar as quite a few people made the leap in logic that the one noble house that was completely unharmed by the actions of the xenos invaders might have made some sort of arrangement to make such a thing happen. A fast majority of these people were rounded up and divided between getting on a bulk hurler, being shipped to Integrity or being the first people to be sent to colonize the newly renamed Reserve.

Formally Kirk's Curiosity, Reserve would serve an important purpose in the Cruciatu Empire. As the Empire expanded beyond the Kirk system and started conquering or raiding planets (they preferred to set up one outpost in a system and leave less fortunate inhabited worlds they came across alone so that their populations could grow between harvests), after sorting the captured slaves into a number of groups to be sent elsewhere or sold, those left over would be given some supplies, some equipment and sent to Reserve to colonize it. They would be promised to be left alone for a few years to get settled before they started to tax them.

After waiting a few years for a settlement to be established and for the slaves there to start doing things like having families... they would be raided by Cruciatu slavers. Strictly speaking, they would be raided by slavers/solders who had undergone their training (both by human and dark eldar mercenaries hired for the task from the kabal) but hadn't yet gone out on a proper raid yet. Sending them to raid a settlement on Reserve was a means of letting them get that live combat experience under ideal circumstances: They had air superiority, knew where the targets were, a rough idea of how many to expect and held a massive tech advantage with the added benefit that if something went wrong, medical attention was nearby and easy to withdraw to.

While the captives taken in these raids to be offered up as part of the tribute to the Kabal, the point was made to allow some of the population flee into the wilds. Since there wasn't really any dangerous wildlife on Reserve or threats outside of the raids (or the occasional hunt purchased by a noble from Vigilance or Dark Eldar coming to visit who wanted the thrill of hunting their own slaves), the population on the planet was slowly but surely increasing over time... ensuring that if the slaver fleets weren't going to arrive in time around the time of tribute to the Kabal, there was a reserve of slaves on hand to be offered up to be sent to the dark city.

Reserve itself was covered in the ruins of many settlements. Dozens of different construction styles, cultures and species having been placed on the planet... with their constructors only rarely coming to try and salvage something when they had to risk coming out of the wilds, terrified being the next to disappear in the raids. Humans of many different worlds and lifestyles, stable strains of mutants and abhumans created by the age of strife and even xenos whom had only recently been able to spread their own wings in what had once been the promise of a new age as the warp storms faded away... all huddled in fear together in what shelters they could find because to be alone was to disappear without anyone knowing or caring.

This is the world that Micholi's pod landed on.

Most of the somewhat skittish population of Reserve nearby didn't go to investigate the impact, fearful that it was either a trap by the Cruciatu to lure them out into the open or if it wasn't that they would soon be investigating what it was and didn't want to be caught in the open when they turned up.

Only two went to have a look. The first as a turian woman by the name of Popivia Vakarian. A woman whom had recently entered middle age for her people, she had lost her husband in the opening raid of their settlement on Reserve and had only recently watched her only child choke to death in her arms due to an illness that if they had access to even the most basic of her people's medical equipment would have been easily survivable. She didn't care if she was taken or died anymore and going to check what the impact was seemed like a good way to do either.

The second was a reptilian beastman (more of a teenage boy, but he had seen more then enough in his short life to be a man) from a desert world named Taamir. While he would have been more then happy to let whatever had impacted with the ground be left undiscovered, Popivia was apart of his herd now and when she insisted on going he couldn't in good conscience let her go out there alone... so he had gone with to help watch her back.

They didn't know what to make of the pod or it's contents at first; While the Cruciatu were learning a lot in the way of sadism and terror from their eldar masters, they could tell that the pod was not Cruciatu technology and they strongly doubted that it was one of the Eldar's devices. The fact that the pod contained what appeared to be a perfectly happy and healthy human baby boy only furthered deepened the puzzle, but quickly deducing that it probably wasn't some kind of trap or ploy from the slavers they grabbed the child and got the hell out of there before they were discovered.

Popivia adopted the small human child as her own, naming him Micholi after a mythic figure of Turian legends... but she didn't raise the child alone; Young Micholi's childhood was spent being raised by the odd assortment of people and races of his adopted mother's 'herd' as Taamir liked to call them. Most of the group was made up of humans with no two of them having originally come from the same world, but there was also a small number of mutants and abhumans as well. Popivia had been the only turian left after the tragic death of her son, but she dedicated herself fully to the task of raising her new adoptive child as well as she could under the circumstances that they had found themselves in.

Micholi grow incredibly quickly, going from a baby barely a few days old to being taller and stronger then Taamir within a span of two years. There were enough humans hanging around to point out that this wasn't normal in the slightest but... well, he could pull his own weight now without them having to babysit him so there wasn't a whole lot to complain about. Micholi adopted to the harshness of their situation incredibly well, between the daily struggle to gather enough food and water, secure shelter and remain hidden from the odd Cruciatu raiding party (or worse, the odd eldar). Occasionally they found new herds or just lone people whom joined their own band of misfits... sometimes someone just disappeared while they were out and as much as they hoped they had just gotten lost and would find a new herd to help, deep in their hearts they mourned the loss of another family member that had been taken.

At night, after they had set up camp, Micholi listened to the stories of his people. Tales of worlds and cultures that he knew existed because the living proof was literally right there in front of him, telling the story to him. Explaining their history and sharing their myths and legends... and mourning for their homes and the families that they had been stolen from, even if they never said it out loud... and as he dedicated all of these stories to memory so that if another member of his family was to disappear a part of them would live on, Micholi learned many virtues... but one of the few he knew at his core that would be able to survive on Reserve for long was hate.

He hated the Cruciatu for the things they had done, the lives they had ruined and the dark pleasure they took in committing their crimes solely because there was no one around strong enough or willing to stop them. He hated the Eldar, because as bad as the Cruciatu were they were merely students of their Eldar masters that they aspired to be like in every way they could. Worst of all, he hated the fact that there was nothing he could do to bring their reign to an end; He could literally gaze up and see the heart of their darkness itself up in the night sky, but he had no means to strike at it. Not in a way that would cause them any meaningful harm, let alone remove their blight from the universe.

For many months he pondered on the problem, coming up with hundreds, possibly thousands of different plans and strategies of how to destroy the Cruciatu empire and stop it from causing anymore harm... none of which would work. It was a dark day when he finally conceded to himself that even if he united all of Reserve under his banner, they would never be able to overcome all the advantages that the Cruciatu empire had... the biggest one which was the fact that they didn't live on Reserve and there was no way for him and his people to actually reach them on the battlefields that would matter. Without the ability to strike at the worlds were they were getting their resources from, any losses they took would be replaced in time.

The cold, hard fact of the matter was that this was not a war that Micholi could win...

But...

One night, when he was on guard duty and was gazing at the sky in deep thought... maybe he didn't have to win. Maybe the path to victory was not in victory at all... but merely the act of not losing. For the rest of the night Micholi followed this new line of thought; This new objective on which to stage a campaign and for the first time in his life he finally developed a plan that wasn't assured to fail. The odds of a successful outcome were slim at best, there would be no glory or honor to earned and chances were that all that would happen was they would all die with their actions forgotten and their names unmourned... but a slim hope was better then none at all and the chance to cause the slavers to bleed lit a fire that warmed him to his core, even on such a chilly night.

Before he tried to convince the rest of his herd, there was one woman he needed to speak to first. He waited until morning for his mother Popivia to wake up before he took her aside to speak with her in private. He told her of the plans he had, of what it would take to make them happen and his exceptions of how things would go. He told her everything, sparing no detail and making it clear he had thought the whole thing through, including all the ways that it could go wrong and acknowledging that there were things he didn't know and couldn't factor in.

She listened. Occasionally she would ask a question or have a line of inquiry because either she needed help understanding something or she wanted to make sure that she hadn't noticed something her son might have missed. His answers satisfied her. When he was finished, Popivia hugged her adopted son tightly, told him just how proud she was of him and not only gave him her blessing, but swore to do everything she could to help.

With the full support of the one person in existence that Micholi would have heeded if she had told him this was a bad idea, he moved with full confidence to speak with the rest of his herd. It took a few hours, but Micholi remembered fondly the exact moment when he saw the fear in their eyes lit up with hatred as the fear they had lived with for so long caught flame and served as fuel instead of a burden.

They sort out other groups, each one easier to convince then the last as Micholi refined his ability to speak to crowds and individuals alike. Soon he was singling out the more passionate and well spoken of his followers and grouping them together so that they could go forth and spread the message in his stead for he could not be everywhere at once and they needed every one they could get who was sick of cowering in holes and burned out ruins waiting to die or worse, be taken.

Even as the message was sent out, it would take months of work to set up the groundwork, but many hands made light work and none worked harder then Micholi himself. Equipment from the ruined settlements was looted and repurposed, actual weapons being rare but mining equipment being common enough that some small scale operations were able to get underway in secret. They mined what iron they could, created underground bunkers and hidden tunnels, started gathering stockpiles of supplies and created basic but solid metal weapons, some more exotic then others. Micholi was a quick study of how to use these weapons to the surprise of many since some of them weren't designed with humans in mind, but in the end he elected to go with a large, two handed hammer that was designed to take advantage of his larger size, strength and reach.

Micholi didn't know how he decided upon the first ambush site; He had been looking at a hand drawn map of the parts of the world they were aware of and he found himself gazing at an almost random spot before pointing at it and saying with confidence that surprised even himself 'There'. After the fact he came up with reasonable sounding excuses as to why a team of slavers would show up at that location, but to his mother he softly admitted that the moment he saw the map he just knew with absolutely certainty that the slavers would be there... and he didn't quite know why.

His gut feeling proved well justified however. A Cruciatu ship landed in the ambush site and teams of rookie slavers were unloaded before the ship took off again, the solders left on the ground taking time to check their gear and organize. They weren't expecting to be ambushed and thus they hadn't bothered to patrol the perimeter, gloating to each other about all the slaves they were going to capture from the group that was hiding out near the nearby river.

They would not get there.

The ambush wasn't perfect, but the element of total surprise at being on the receiving end of an ambush, the lack of experience of the slavers themselves and the fury of having to live in constant fear for years being unleashed carried the day. Most of the slavers were killed in the swift and brutal melee that followed, but some were taken alive. All the bodies were removed from the site and their trail was covered as much as they could in order to hide exactly what had happened... as well as the fact that they had taken prisoners and looted all of the equipment. Mainly, their weapons and com units.

The war on Reserve would carry on like this for over a decade. A ship would be sent to the planet with Micholi have a surprisingly accurate gut feeling of not just when this was happening, but where it was going to land. If it was somewhere on the planet where their insurgency hadn't quite reached yet there was little they could do, but if it was landing was somewhere they could reach the nearest cell would be contacted over their increasingly growing radio network and an ambush would be prepared. If he could get there in time, Micholi would join the ambush himself.

Most were successful, through a number didn't end as smoothly as the original did. People Micholi had trained with, spent years alongside would get injured, crippled or die. It was the nature of war that people would be maimed or killed and Micholi had known that going into it but... when he had a moment, he would take the time to reflect on what he remembered of them and if he didn't know them personally he would find those that did. Even if it was just what their name was.

Few ambushes ever truly failed. If an ambush was getting messy or appearing to go poorly they had trained to fall back and disengage to either bait them into following into another ambush or regrouping to strike again later when the opportunity presented itself because throwing lives away was not an option. However, slaver teams that had eldar mercenaries connected to them to assist in their training tended to make things go horribly wrong very quickly if Micholi wasn't there.

Despite the few tragic defeats, within the decade Micholi had managed to unite if not all the slaves on Reserve, then at least the vast majority of them... and if he or his people couldn't find them he wished them the best of luck. The range in which they could intercept the raids had increased as well, covering almost the entire planet save for the tops of its few mountains and in the middle of the large water bodies. Punching the numbers, Micholi figured that out of all the ships the Cruciatu had sent since he started his campaign, if one factored in those ships that had landed in areas where they hadn't been able to get a force in to ambush in time back during the early years, seventy eight percent of them had left Reserve empty of both slaves and slavers.

The nature of the war changed just a little under 10 years, 6 months after the ambushes started. The Cruciatu stopped sending rookies needing some live experience at raiding; Instead, they sent in one of their proper raiding fleets. Micholi's campaign was baring fruit. Denying Reserve from the Cruciatu Empire so that they couldn't use it as a training ground for those recruits finishing their basic training, alongside killing as many of said recruits as possible had the benefit of hopefully reducing the quality of the new generation of slavers being built up, but the real goal had been to force the Cruciatu to dedicate resources away from more important fronts to try and retake a world of admitting little value to them at the heart of their empire because pride and a desire not to seem politically weak would not allow a slave uprising to undermine their authority.

Where the first stage of the war had taken a decade, the second only lasted two years. The doctrine of Micholi's forces was clear on how to fight this war: Never give them a clear target. Bleed whatever forces they send down with hit and run attacks, ambushes and misdirection, don't present them with a target they can get a bombing run or an orbital bombardment off on without having to hit a sizeable chunk of their own men in the process and above all else, don't die or let them take you alive. Every day you stay alive and free to take pot shots at them is another day they're stuck here with nothing to show for it but a raising body count and a drain on resources.

For his part, Micholi did co-ordinate the efforts of his forces where he could but he had spent the decade beforehand training his forces to be flexible and decentralized to take full advantage of the kind of war they were going to be fighting as well as to preventing a single assassination spelling doom. Instead, Micholi's vital contribution to the cause was by being the only real hard counter that his forces had to the eldar contingents of the subjection force.

The Eldar had been encountered during the decade of ambushes prior, but they tended to be in very small numbers, serving as instructors towards mostly human forces. While experience had proven time and time again that the Eldar could be killed, their advanced technology, supernaturally fast speed and reflexes as well as (having learned from the captives they had taken) incredibly long lives of experience in combat and taking slaves, fighting the Eldar was still a daunting mountain of a task. Micholi was the only one who had been able to fight and kill Eldar consistently, with his presence serving to bluster those with him to fight on the level required to do so.

Combating the Eldar parts of the Cruciatu forces proved vital to the war effort, since not only were they unbelievably good at ambushing the ambushers but they also had a gift for sniffing out their hidden tunnels, storehouses and bunkers which the human elements of the Cruciatu simply couldn't match. There was one silver lining, but Micholi and his followers were never quite sure what the root cause of it was: For every squad of Eldar raiders who were eliminated, their overall presence diminished. Their numbers weren't being replaced. It was unclear if this was because there weren't that many Eldar to begin with, or if the fact that there was something that was able to kill them in droves was making the other Eldar reluctant to commit themselves to this campaign, but each Eldar death made the night that little bit safer.

Then, one day... the fighting stopped. The raider fleet in orbit disappeared and the Cruciatu stopped sending forces to Reserve altogether. Micholi and his forces would remain vigilant for months after the disappearance, paranoid that it was some sort of ploy to let their guard down or that it was merely a lull before the storm kicked off even worse then before.

No Cruciatu ship ever came back... but another ship did. One that wasn't of Cruciatu or Eldar design. At first they were suspicious of the new ship, but when Micholi gazed up at it for the first time the gut feeling that had served him so well over the years served him again. He broadcasted a message on an open channel and within the hour a shuttle landed on Reserve's soil, baring the Emperor of Mankind.

The meeting between Micholi and the Emperor was awkward at first, partly because Micholi figured pretty damn quickly that if things turned hostile that it wouldn't end well for himself or his followers, but the presence of mutants, abhumans and xenos among his followers clearly put the bodyguards whom had come with the Emperor on edge even if the man himself kept a diplomatic face up. Still, the two of them retreated into a nearby bunker prepared for such a meeting in order to talk in private.

They discussed many things together, the topics starting about things such as the war on Reserve, what the Cruciatu empire had used it for, the nature of the alliance between the Cruciatu and the Eldar (The Emperor informed his son that while the two forces had fought against him until this point, now that his own forces had pushed them back to the Kirk system the Eldar had seemingly abandoned their allies to their fate), what Micholi had hoped to achieve and the make up of the forces under his command.

This last subject resulted in a bit of a argument between the two, with the Emperor using personal experience and data from prior engagements of the Great Crusade why the presence of Xenos and mutants was problematic, while Micholi argued in favor of the residents of Reserve, as well as their counterparts on the other planets in the Kirk system and beyond. It wasn't a heated argument since both parties could at least see where the other was coming from (the Eldar proved a good common ground for the two as evidence that some xenos species were monsters that couldn't be allowed to exist) and a compromise was reached.

Since the xenos, abhumans and mutants that Micholi had united alongside his human forces seemed perfectly stable and were willing to fall under human leadership, the Emperor made the decision to give them something of a trial run, not only to see if they could continue to work alongside humans but also to test Micholi and make sure that he would be up to the task of leading his legion in the Crusade itself.

The arrangement was that the worlds of the various xenos, abhumans and mutants would not be invaded, with the xenos citizens on Reserve would undergo questioning about their cultures and peoples, with the Emperor sending his own agents (both overt and subtle) to visit the worlds their races lived on in order to inspect them and vet them for suitability into being brought into the Imperium as if they were a human world. In the case of the abhumans and mutants, those present on Reserve would undergo some medical tests in order to inspect just how stable their genetics and strains were, as well as undergo questioning about their cultures and people so that their worlds could be judged as all abhuman populations were.

Micholi himself would shadow his biological father for the rest of the campaign against the Cruciatu, but at his own request he asked not to be in a command position. He didn't have an idea of the capabilities of the Space Marine legions his father commanded or the equipment that they had access to so he reasonably admitted that he wouldn't be able to lead them effectively. Finding the request reasonable and logical the Emperor agreed, Micholi serving the role of bodyguard for this campaign so that he could learn to be a commander of a legion in his own right.

The liberation of Kirk's Generosity was a somewhat swift but bloody affair, but for the most surprising of reasons. When Imperial forces landed, the various slave race and native human population rose up in revolt against the forces of House Cruciatu; It might have been a lifetime since House Goldragon had been eliminated, but their people hadn't forgotten them. They remembered what fair and just leadership was and knew in their hearts that there was something dark and rotten at the core of House Cruciatu, but hadn't really been able to do anything about it... until now.

A far number of Cruciatu officers in charge of their forces on Kirk's Generosity that weren't directly engaging one force or the other had a choice about which enemy to engage... and many of them decided to go after the rebelling slaves and civilians. For one thing they were less armed, armored and skilled then the invading space marines by a fair margin, but many of the officers had already come to the conclusion that the war was more or less over at this point and that all they could do now was take what petty vengeance they could on those weaker then them.

A shift imperial victory, but a lot of the civilians and slaves were slaughtered by the doomed Cruciatu slavers as well as vast stretches of land that had been destroyed and poisoned.

Imperial forces didn't even need to land on Kirk's Integrity. Once the food shipments were cut off the garrison was slain to the last and those prisoners and slaves on the mining world awaited liberation, reprisal or starvation.

The last stand of Kirk's Vigilance was a brutal affair; House Cruciatu and the Cruciatu Empire was doomed and their invaders were not inclined to accept peace terms or surrender from those who had willing submitted to be the vassals of an eldar kabal at the cost of countless human lives. The Cruciatu employed ever dark trick, every piece of eldar technology they were able to barter from their now absent 'allies' and every vile and inhumane ploy they could think of in an attempt to starve off their demise, but in the end it was in vain. Kirk's Vigilance was almost completely purged of its entire population.

Almost...

A number of the slaves on Kirk's Vigilance had been so broken by their masters that they had fought with a zealous zeal to defend their owners that it would have been respectable if it wasn't so inherently tragic. Others were forced to fight or at as meat shields less out of loyalty to their masters and more because explosive collars and other such devices are a thing. Others were just plain and simply unlucky. But there were survivors!

In the ruins of House Cruciatu's final baston, the Emperor of Mankind decleared victory over the Cruciatu Empire and named Micholi lord of the Kirk system. While he would be going to Terra in order to receive a proper education in order to fulfill his role as a Primarch in the Crusade, the system would be his to do with as he wished within the bounds of Imperial Law. Micholi accepted the honor and before he left the system with the Emperor he made two public announcements system wide.

The first was as much a guideline for the temporary regent government the Emperor was putting in place to help rebuild the system after they departed for Terra as an announcement for his own people. "No more slavery. There will be no more slaves in the Kirk System."

The second was a promise. "For those who wish to stay here, I will welcome you as a citizen and all the rights that come with it. But for those of you who were taken your homes and wish to return there... please be patient. I give you my word that I will do what I can to find where your worlds are and to get you back there, but we need time to rebuild. Time to sort through the information banks where the slavers recorded what worlds they visited. Time to figure out where you originally came from and what state it is in now. So please... give us that time and be patient."

After setting up his mother as apart of the newly established House Vakarian and promising to return soon, Micholi 'Slaver bane' Vakarian departed for Terra alongside the Emperor.

Ideology:
Micholi is both rather flexible and ridged in his thinking. Give him an objective and he will see it done. Give him bonus and side objectives to go with the original and he will go to great lengths to achieve them as well. When it comes time to figure out the how to achieve these objectives, Micholi will explore all valid paths and plans until he can find one that achieves as many (if not all) objectives possible with the best long term results. He is also humble enough to acknowledge when he is not the right person for the job to get the best results or achieve the desired objectives, but if there is no time to get such a person then he will do what he can.

Micholi is both ponderous and meticulous, taking his time to understand as much of the situation as possible before taking action. He is not immune to impulse, since he had long learned to trust his gut feelings when he receives insight into opportunities that have not yet presented themselves (a manifestation of his psyker abilities into divination). He is slow to anger or emotional turmoil, but in return when something does get to him it hits him hard.

The realities of war dictate that people will die. Micholi is aware of this cold, harsh fact and regardless of his personal feelings on the matter he accepted it long ago... despite this, he still cares deeply about the lives he is responsible for. Not just for the Space Marines of his legion, but also those of Imperial Army elements and even civilians he is tasked with overseeing and protecting. He'll even extend the courtesy to the lives of enemy combatants and civilians if they have redeemable qualities but they are at war for political reasons.

When Micholi has to fight a war, how that war is fought and the tactics used will depend almost completely on whom he is fighting. If he is fighting an enemy that he deems would be a wonderful assist to the Imperium but they are fighting because they have rejected all diplomatic options, he will learn what virtues the people he is fighting value and plan a clean, honorable war while respecting those virtues and what those people value. No atrocities or mindless slaughters that could breed resentment and be a rallying cry for rebellion down the track. Ideally, in victory the Imperium will have earned a grudging respect at worst from the foe and that respect can be the foundation of loyalty.

If only portions of the enemy have redeemable qualities while others are foul and corrupt in nature, then the plan will instead focus on safe guarding those good elements while purging the filth in the same way one prunes weeds from healthy plants. In the event that there is no redeeming quality whatsoever, then the foe is to be destroyed utterly. The very foundations of their existence will be broken apart so that the roots themselves can be pulled out and burned to ash so that when fresh soil and new life is put where they once stood, there will be no trace of the old to risk corrupting the new.

Having been raised by a mixture of humans, abhumans, mutants and xenos Micholi unsurprisingly actually has a very positive opinion on alien kind and will advocate in their favor. Even if it is currently only in the trial stages, he hopes that he can convince the Emperor to relax regulations against xenos across the Imperium. That said, he is neither naive or a fool; He is well aware of the fact that there are xenos out in the universe that either cannot or should not exist alongside others, the Cruciatu Empire being a key example of the latter. For the good of not just humanity, but all living things, these creatures must be hunted down and destroyed.

Surprisingly he has very little opinion on psykers. As far as Micholi knows he's never encountered one and he is unaware of the fact that he has psyker abilities himself. Truth be told, he's only recently discovered that they are a thing. From what stories he has heard, his views on them are that they are useful, but need to be employed and used carefully. One shouldn't mess with powers one doesn't understand recklessly.

Wargear:
Unity: A two handed thunder hammer, Unity was a collaboration project between tech priests of the Cult Machanicus that were deemed heretical for both their desire to work with xeno technology and their willingness to work with xenos to do it and a team of Turian scientists and engineers.

Desiring to offer a present worthy of the master of the Kirk system for the anniversary of the destruction of the Cruciatu Empire, his adoptive mother Popivia challenged the brightest minds of the Kirk system to create a weapon he could wield to not only serve him as a weapon of war, but also as a symbol of the strength of unity between the races he had led out of slavery.

While a number of different weapons were created by different groups (which would be offered to worthy captains of the Legion in their own right), Unity was forged by a team of tech priests lead by Magos Argol and a team of Turian scientists and engineers lead by Jupius Romulnion whom had originally started working together in order to try and make sense of some of the data and information of the databanks of the Cruciatu Empire in their research into Eldar technology.

They were unable to make any insights or progress with understanding Eldar technology, by working closely with the tech priests the Turians had a moment of inspiration with their own. Eezo's ability to generate power by releasing dark energy had been figured out by the Turian people very early on, as well as it's ability to create a field that could alter weight by either increasing or decreasing it depending on if a positive or negative charge went through it.

In a conversation about some of the Eldar blades that the Cruciatu had been trying to understand the technology of, the topic of human power weapons came up. Unsurprisingly, the idea of infusing human power weapons with Eezo was raised, the idea being to make it so that while the weapon was in a passive mode the weapon would be made lighter and thus easier to carry, but at the moment of impact the weight would be increased dramatically to had more weight and thus force behind the blow.

The idea was discussed and deemed to have a lot of merit, but would require a redesign of almost all power weapons to make work due to the fact that in order to benefit from being a power weapon, it needed to be on and the field active before someone started swinging it... which would increase the weight of the weapon far to early and make it practically worthless for combat.

But there was a power weapon that this could work for perfectly. The energy field of the thunder hammer only turned on when it made contact with a target, releasing all its stored up energy at the moment of impact and creating the sound that earned it it's name. Incorporating Eezo into the thunder hammer design wasn't even that hard, since all it really took was adding a second power source to the hammer who's sole purpose was to channel the right energy at the right time... and since part of the upgrade was literally to decrease its weight to make it easier to carry and wield, making the thunder hammer a bit bigger to fit the extra components wasn't that big of a deal.

The resulting creation was the Thunder Hammer named Unity. Unity itself is almost a third the size bigger then a stock standard pattern thunder hammer, since the shaft had to be made longer and thicker so it could be properly wielded by the Primarch it was intended for, as well as the head being larger and thicker in order to account for (and protect) the two power sources within it. While one created the energy field which gave the hammer its destructive power, the second would channel a negative charge through eezo implanted in the head and shaft of the weapon to make it deceptively light and thus easy to carry and wield for fast strikes. The moment the energy field triggers, the second energy source triggers as well for the split second of impact to channel a positive charge in the head of the hammer, reversing the weight effect and increasing it dramatically to increase the force behind the impact.

The result is a weapon that can be wielded with the grace and speed of a decently made steel longsword with an impact force rival to that of a Basilisk artillery shell landing directly on the target location.

The head of the hammer is engraved to show the twin headed eagle of the Imperium of Man on the top and longer sides of the hammer, while the smaller 'ends' are engraved with the symbols of the Cult Mechanicus and Turian Hierarchy respectively.

Other:
The Eldar Kabal of the Moon Blades is a Dark Eldar kabal. As far as Micholi and those of the Kirk system know, they are the only species of Eldar in existence and are currently unaware of the differences between the Dark Eldar, the Exodite Eldar and the Craftworld Eldar.

Legion

The Night Watch

Legion Number:
II

Legion Strength:
Around 50,000 space marines.

Favoured Legion Tactics:
As a space marine legion, the Night Watch can adept to just about any battlefield situation or employ whatever tactics that are required in the name of victory for the Imperium. However, the Legion values their lives, the lives of their allies and those of civilians in general and thus the tactics they prefer to use will either be designed to safe guard as many lives as possible... or at the very least avoid throwing them away or taking them recklessly.

The Night Watch favor gurella warfare, prefering the freedom to pick and choose what battles to engage in and when while denying their foes the chance to do the same. Denying the enemy a clear target to strike at also has its benefits since it makes setting up ambushes and feints much easier while forcing their enemy to have to spread their forces out to either try and find the Night Watch or to try and defend against them everywhere they can.

The Night Watch are at their strongest when fighting at either long range or at close quarters combat and it isn't strange for them to combine the two when engaging in battle.

The sniper teams of the legion are well respected and honored by their brothers, not just for their ability to provide life saving support in the field but also for their power to change the outcome of battles and wars with a minimum loss of life. The legion's inclincation towards close combat is surprising to some, but the decision is purely tactical on their part; While there are plenty of enemies in the universe who are as fast or faster then a marine, have equal or better reflexes then one, can match or overcome them in pure strength or even be better equipped, only a few are all of them at once. Close quarters combat is where a Marine has an overwhelming advantage against all by a handful of foes.

The role that Imperial Army forces play in the Night Watch's battle plans is that of mid range support; They generally serve as a means to pin down and force enemies into cover so that the Night Watch can close into melee range or provide covering fire when they are pulling out. However, they can also serve as bait to lure enemies into ambushes and traps (Granted, the Space Marines are willing to serve this role as well, but sometimes normal troops can bait the enemy out better).

Legion Leadership:
The Night Watch have a fairly clear command structure inspired somewhat by how the (admittingly lightly regulated) Imperial Army is organized.

10 Marines make a squad and is led by a Sergent.
10 squads make a company and is lead by a Captain.
10 companies make a brigade and is lead by a Colonel.
10 brigades make a division and is lead by a General.

Currently, there are only five divisions of Night Watch legionaries in existance. Each unit of men is commanded by an officer of suitable experience and rank who reports to the officer above them.

What makes the Night Watch somewhat different from most of the Imperial Army is that they are trained to operate in a decentralized manner due to the nature of warfare they like to employ. Each part of the chain has the freedom to plan and make tactical decisions based on their rank:

A general decides a system needs to be taken and assigns a brigade to take it.
The colonel desides on the plan to take the system and assigns his companies with their objectives.
The captain devises the plans to take the objectives, as well as adding sub objectives as required and giving them to his squads.
The sergent decides how their squad can best acheive their objectives and is free to respond to the changing nature of war and the battlefield as required.

Something that the Night Watch does that they keep underwraps however is the fact that there are always two officers in each unit. Two sergents per squad, two Captains per company, ect. Before operations begin, one will be classified as the active captain and the other as the passive one; During operations, the active captain has full command with the passive one being considered a sub-ordinant. In the event that the active officer is killed, wounded or is unable to lead, the passive officer can step in immeditaly and is 'promoted' on the spot.

The reason for this is if an officer is wounded or killed in the line of duty, there is someone with the exact same training and experience with that level of command to take over near instantly. Combined with the practice of having all ranks from grunt to general not having any outward signs of rank on their armor to prevent enemy forces from singling out leadership via sight alone, it creates the illusion to outsiders that the legion is so in sync that it doesn't need leaders to direct it.

Notable Legion Members:
Captain 'Cheese Maker' Jackrum: Captain of the sixth company, forth brigade, forth division. Captain Jackrum is one of the greatest sharpshooters that the Night Watch has ever produced. He is not a man who leads from the front, instead preferring to set himself up in a position that overlooks the field of operation so as to better guide the squads under his command, but also to provide overwatch and sniper support to them directly as required.

The nickname 'Cheese Maker' is a reference to the man's patience when it comes to lining up a shot on a target. During a subjugation of a world rallied behind their religious leaders, Jackrum set himself up in a location overlooking where said leadership was going to gather for a ceremony a month before the ceremony so as to avoid the risk of being spotted moving into position by increased security closer to the day. He did not leave his position for the entire month to avoid detection... and when the time came he executed the head of the religion and the entire council below him on the hierarchy within a matter of seconds.

Colonal Wojtyla: One of the oldest marines to serve in the Night Watch (second only to the Generals themselves), Colonal Wojtyla of the fifth bridage, third division has been apart of the Great Crusade since the Imperium of Man only consisted of the parts of Terra under the command of the Emperor himself. He is also the first of the Night Watch to be encased within the confines of a Dreadnaunt.

Despite being classified as an assault tank, Colonal Wojtyla is still an effective commander who has planned and executed campaigns with his bridage with much less in the way of casulties then was originally predicted. Rumor has it that the Colonal is sloted for promotion once the second legion expands enough to have a sixth division and there is some evidence to support this.

General Nelinho: General Nelinho of the first Division is (with the expection of Primarch Micholi himself) the oldest member of the Night Watch legion. He was the first marine to be inducted into the second on Terra by the Emperor himself and has been a fixture within the Legion ever since. When the Imperium of Man and Mars were united by the Treaty of Mars, Nelinho was one of those whom volinteered to learn the secrets of the machine and spent a fair bit of the Sol campaign to take the outer systems on Mars itself, training to become one of the first tech marines.

Nelinho maintained his relationship with the Tech Priests of Mars long after his training on Mars was finished, the Mechanicus and the first division of the Night Watch working rather closely with each other over the course of the Crusade and maintaining a positive, healthy relationship with each other... a fact that has caused a great deal of strain between the first division and their Primarch.

Primarch Micholi's connections to xenos, his willingness to use their technology, the fact that he habours and shelters heretics of the Cult Mechanicus willing to research and work with alien technology and (worst of all) actively encourges the fusion of human and alien technology has resulted in a very poor relationship between the Primarch of the second legion and the tech priests of Mars. Despite his loyalty to the Night Watch, General Nelinho has made it publically clear that he intends for no xenos technology taint his division and cemented his alliance with the Cult Mechanicus.

Micholi's offering to Nelinho of the knight Light's Shield so that it could be properly repaired and a new pilot found so it could serve once again did go a ways to easing tensions between the two so that they can work together, but the two have come to an understanding that due to their conflicting beliefs that there are just some campaigns where the two of them shouldn't work together to avoid... problems.

Inspirations:
The Night Watch are inspired by freedom fighters, gurella warriors and insergents who fight for just causes with as much morality as their enemy will allow them to use.

Assigned Armies:
The kind of armies assigned to the Night Watch depend largely on the division in question. The second to fifth divisions make use of the regiments raised on the worlds they brought into the Imperium, but are also assigned armies from the Kirk system and other worlds under the second legions protection. This means that not only do they have human solders following them, but they'll also have regiments of xeno and abhuman troops as well.

The first division does not work alongside the armies that its fellow divisions do, instead marching alongside skitarii and forge world regiments provided to them by the Mechanicus.
Other: Anything i have forgotten.

[mattmanganon]

@Bright_Ops Looking good so far.

So, the big question is, do we want to go the Heresy route or the Imperial Schism route?

[seriousarmour]

Primarch

Ajax Salamus

Appearance: Ajax's face is brutish and strong, with deep set piercing blue eyes and an almost permanent scowl. The top of his head is kept perfectly shaved while his face is decorated with a well trimmed goatee. If there is anything else that truly draws the eye on his face it is his scars, several large scars cutting down over the dome of his head, and several more on his cheeks and chin bisecting his face in irregular lines. If it bothers him, he does not show it.

Ajax is a large man even by Primarch standards, his body honed to perfection by a life dedicated to little else besides battle. His chest is massive and broad, muscles standing in stark contrast straining against his stressed skin. His arms are thick with corded muscle, his legs massive and bulging with strength. Looking at him even free from his armour, there is only one word that springs to mind. Power.
Psyker Status: N/A
Life and Times: The life of Ajax was not an easy one, but who truly in this universe has an early life? No one on New Troy that is for sure, that is unless you were one of the few thousand elites ruling over of a massively overpopulated hive planet. Ajax was not one of the ruling elite. Not for a long time.

No instead he landed deep in the depths of the hive world. On New Troy life is cheap, the lower levels are dominated by gangs warring over even the most basic of resources. Cannibals. And thrill kill gangs from the higher reaches that get their rocks off slaughtering those with little hope of fighting back. Every day was a fight for your life. Even for a Primarch.

With the city planet being so overpopulated the ruling elite came up with a novel way of keeping the masses entertained while doing their part in keeping the population down. Death games. The Death games were not a singular event nor game, no they consisted of Gladiator duels, pitched mass battles with blade or bullet or both. Death Races on every vehicle imaginable. Some volunteered eyes set on an easier life full of riches and glory, most were captured and pressed into the games with no hope of every getting out alive.

Ajax was among those enslaved and pressed into the Death games. But he defied the name and refused to die. He dominated the Gladiator games, led his team to constant victory and glory in the pitched battles and achieved victories that defied reality in the death races. He saw both the best and worst of humanity on these fields of battle. And the source of what was worst on the field? It all came from above. Those that would never bloody their hands if there was any chance the blood spilling to the sand would be their own. He saw them in all of their greed, all of their cowardice,their cruelty and their hubris. There was only one true course of action. Revolt.

It started off small, a coordinated uprising of all the various death game stables. Claiming guns, vehicles, swords, knives anything they could get their hands on that would allow them to fight against their oppressors. From their it grew onto a full blown revolution with Ajax's face the symbol. A symbol that was more often than not seen leading from the front. The population of the planet was devastated in the decades long war. Those at the top press ganging those below them into service, those not press ganged or recruited rising up from the bowels of the planet. Eventually the nukes fell, but by then it was too late. Ajax had overthrown an oppressive regime and all it had cost was 75% of the planets population.

From there societal reconstruction was on the top of Ajax's priority list. It was a civilisation that was now guided to venerate the values that Ajax had come to view as the most vital during his time in the arena. Honour, glory, responsibility and the value of life not to be thrown away pointlessly. The games that he both loved and despised were remoulded into a crucible. They were no longer battles to the death but instead a venerated tradition to prove your skill and demonstrate your virtues.

Those who fought their way through the Crucible would find themselves facing Ajax himself. A man that towers over his closest rival. If they could battle him for a full minute without surrendering they would be inducted into his personal guard and serve as an example of all those around them.

It was a time of rebirth for the planet. The population now small enough to be properly supported finding out who they were in a world were survival was not the only goal. Then came the Emperor of Mankind descending into the arena like some warrior god, too bright for most to even set their eyes upon. Ajax met him on the field of honour. The Emperor lasted for far more than a minute and finally when the battle came to an end it was Ajax that was cast to the sand. It was not enough to earn his eternal service but it was a start. From there it was on the Emperor to prove that he was everything he seems to be.

Ideology: Ajax hates the pointless loss of life that is rife in the universe, he looks at the great crusade as a way to unite the universe and end pointless wars. He has a strong distaste for aliens as they stand in the way of universal unification. He has a lesser dislike of psykers as he sees them as dishonourable and lacking in the traits he values above all others. He also does not like the aberration if humanity that they seem to represent.

Wargear: Ajax's wargear is shaped entirely by the method of warfare he has adopted as his own. Shock and awe combined with guerrilla tactics against key targets and targets of opportunity.

His primary weapons are his gauntlets, mastercrafted weapons gifted to him by the finest weaponsmiths of the Empire that he now calls his home on the Emperor of Mankinds direct orders and to his precise specifications. The combined power fist, heavy storm bolter combo is a sickening combination in the close quarters he favours. The blistering rate of fire of the four separate bolter barrels more than enough to scythe down even the toughest of foes in close combat and his power fists capable of crushing even the heaviest of armour.

His Storm bolters aside from using the heavier heavy bolter round use highly specialised ammo, pressed individually by the specialist ammo crafters of his chapter for use in his heavy storm bolters and by chosen champions of the chapter as they are incredibly hard to produce in large numbers. The rounds are designed with a shaped adamantium head allowing them to penetrate through thick armour very similar to other penetration rounds. However there is a second function that makes them far deadlier. Once the round punctures through armour a secondary explosion detonates inside the shell and throws flechettes. This reaction caused heavy metal darts around the inside of lightly armoured vehicles or shred the internals of heavily armoured infantry.

Other than that he is equipped with an expertly crafted jumpjet capable of lifting his great weight through the air. However his is modified so that it produces less sound than other similar models allowing him to move without his position being immediately identified. Others of his chapter have similarly modified jumpjet however they lack the artificer quality of his own.

Other: Anything that doesn't fit into a specific section, but bare's talking about.

Legion

Legion Name

Legion Number: XIII
Legion Strength: 40,000 Adeptus Astartes supported by 2,000,000 Imperial Soldiers.
First Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes, 500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes, 100 Contemptor-Incaendius Class Dreadnoughts.
Second Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes,500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes
Third Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes,500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes
Fourth Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes,500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes
Fifth Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes,500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes
Sixth Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes,500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes
Seventh Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes,500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes
Eighth Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes,500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes
Ninth Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes,500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes
Tenth Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes,500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes
Eleventh Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes,500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes
Twelfth Battalion- 3100 Adeptus Astartes,500 Javelin Attack Speeders, 500 Assault Bikes
Thirteenth Battalion-3100 Adeptus Astartes, 1,180,000 Imperial Army in support. 500 Baneblades, 250 Hellhammers, 5000 Carnodon Main Battle tanks, 150 Land Raiders, 100 FellBlades, 50 Typhon Heavy Siege tanks, 500 Rhino Transports, 100 Deredeo Pattern Dreadnought, 100 Dreadnaughts, 100 Whirlwind Support Tanks, 5000 Basilisk Artillery Platforms, 1000 Medusa Siege Tank, 200 Predators, 10,000 Sentinal Walkers.

There is also a reserve Cadre of assorted vehicles able to be assigned to the individual Battalions as needs must. Not all battlefields can be taken to with only an assortment of light vehicles and Infantry.

Favoured Legion Tactics: The Thirteenth Legion is an odd legion in that they often win the war by participating in as few battles as possible. This does not mean however that they try to win the war with one decisive battle pitching one titanic army against the other. No quite the opposite.

The Thirteenth Legion fights using guerrilla tactics and carefully coordinated strikes designed as chaos. They heavily favour close combat and shock and awe tactics using infantry portable heavy weapons they engage quickly and without mercy using jump jets to close as swiftly as possible to the enemy giving them no time to form a proper fighting line or organise tactics against the sudden assault. They target key strategic targets vital to an ongoing war effort. They strike at water reservoirs, ration and food depots, key manufacturing areas, bridges and other vital links in the chain of the enemy supply lines.


There is an old saying that an army fights on its stomach. And the Thirteenth Legion excels in making sure that the enemy has nothing to fight on.

However this tactic works best when the enemy has something to focus on, something that requires their attention and simply cannot be ignored. And this is where the armies assigned to the 13th company come into play.

The supporting armies of the 13th company vary from those of other Space Marine chapters in one key way, in the 13th they hold the more significant portion of the heavy vehicles and support elements such as artillery. This is key to the 13th company strategy as the assigned armies deploy defence in depth with absolutely shattering firepower while employing Blitzkreig attacks at sections of the enemies front weakened by the actions of the marines behind enemy lines. Ensuring that the enemy is kept on their toes and in a constant state of turmoil. The supporting companies are lead by the 13th battalion of the 13th chapter. Notable in that they shy far away from their brothers method of battle, fielding a far larger number of heavy weapons and a very large section of the chapters total heavy armour.

The end goal of all this is a simple one. Rob the enemy of everything they need to keep fighting. Sap their morale and press them to surrender. And if it all comes down to the wire at the end? Crush them when they are at their weakest and the 13th is at its strongest.

Legion Leadership: The Legion leadership is organised in a rather standard manner however due to the military flexibility required by their manner of warfare. Each Battalion is organised into hundred man sections each lead by a Centurion who is in charge of organising those hundred men into individual sections under the command of his lieutenants. For every ten Centurions is a Millennia that coordinates between the Centurion commanders to achieve peak performance from all units. Above them is the Battalion master and then of course the Primarch himself.
Notable Legion Members:
Myrmex-Master of the First Company and the Legions Champion. Myrmex is a nearly peerless warrior outside of the primarchs themselves. He is a level headed warrior who is nevertheless savage in combat, always leading from the front and refusing to engage his men in any conflict that he himself would not leap into. He is greatly respected by the men under his command, of there is any complaint to be said of the man it is that he is too level headed coming off as cold to some under his command.

He utilises a beautifully crafted suit of terminator armour with an incorporated short ranged teleporter unit, a gauntlet mounted storm bolter and a thunder hammer to savage effect.

Antiphus-The great leader of the 13th Company. Antiphus has a singular reputation amongst his legion. He is stern, stalwart and fierce beyond measure. An incredibly hard man to please, it is known that the slightest tilt of his head in your direction is the equivalent of a crown of laurels being placed upon your head. And the stubborn proud men of the 13th would have it no other way.

His relic crafted terminator armour gives him the armour of a tank, standing next to Dreadnaughts as an equal. his Mastercrafted Autocannons scythe through Infantry and vehicles alike.

Trunnion- Trunnion is not a leader of a company, nor is he the the greatest warrior of the legion. No instead he serves as an adviser and confidant to the Primarch himself and is most often seen by his side both inside of combat and outside of it. He was one of the last survivors of the war to topple the tyrannical government alongside the primarch, and upon the Emperors coming was one of the first to be uplifted into the ranks of the Astartes to stand alongside his brother in arms once more. He is greatly loved and respected amongst the rank and file of the Astartes.

In combat he equips himself in much the same manner as the men he fights alongside utilising a jump pack, power sword and standard pattern bolter.

Inspirations: The Colosseum of Rome, The Spartacus Rebellion and select influences from the Story of Troy.
Assigned Armies: During the Great Crusade, Legions rarely travelled by themselves. They would create armies from those worlds that they conquered to use as shocktroopers or line-holders. Feel free to go nuts with this.
Other: Anything i have forgotten.

[Bright_Ops]

Almost done with creating Micholi himself! Then I have to start on the Legion.

@mattmanganon

Hmm... It's a good question. Personally I could go either way, but I suspect people would be more inclined towards Heresy.

...Maybe we should have a poll set up? Heresy, Imperial Schism or both?

[mattmanganon]

@Bright_Ops Can you actually set up a poll on RPG or would we have to use Strawpoll or something?

[Bright_Ops]

I believe a straw poll would be required.

[Jamesyco]

@mattmanganon can we use the WotC Deathwatch chapter creator rules for the baseline of the legions like the tactics/strengths/etc. If I can find the spreadsheets of the chapter creator somewhere.