Editing Nobledark Imperium Imperial Forces (section)

===Current Chapters===
====The Minotaurs====
The Minotaurs are something of a boogeyman among Space Marines. They are a group that make even battle-hardened Astartes quiver, and are spoken of in hushed tones. The reason for this fear and paranoia is rather simple: The Minotaurs are Space Marines that hunt Space Marines.

The first recorded instance of a Space Marine considering tactics against other Space Marines was the Ultramarine Aeonid Thiel. During the Great Crusade, Thiel was dragged before Guilliman by his fellow Ultramarines for teaching the marines under his command tactics for fighting other Space Marines, which they saw as a sign of treachery. Guilliman asked whether this was true, and upon being told it was, asked Thiel to explain himself. Thiel said that as Ultramarines it was the duty of the legionnaires to be prepared for any possible eventuality. Although the idea of Astartes becoming traitors to the Imperium was an uncomfortable one that did not mean it was impossible, nor that Astartes could not be unwillingly brainwashed into turning on their battle brothers like they had during the Rangdan Xenocides. After hearing Thiel’s explanation, Guilliman asked the two Ultramarines who had brought Thiel to him to leave the room, and then congratulated Thiel for his ingenuity. He was willing to entertain possibilities no one else could or wanted to consider, and just because people didn't like the implications of such a scenario did not invalidate the utility of any such contingency plans. The Space Marines were created by the Imperium to be their finest warriors in the reconquest of the stars, and who is to say another, more hostile human empire could not have had a similar idea. Thiel would be rewarded for his ingenuity — though for obvious reasons not at that very moment. Thiel would finally be validated and his actions recognized during the War of the Beast, where the actions of Luther and his Fallen showed the idea that a Space Marine could turn traitor to be a frightening reality.

The Minotaurs were originally founded by a War Hound named Leon Kravidos, shortly after the Age of Apostasy, as a chapter dedicated to fighting against the Fallen. Kravidos knew that in order to fight other Space Marines his men would have to be at the very peak of their potential. Therefore, he created a downright gruelling training regimen by Space Marine standards, designed to make his men prepared for anything. Despite his job, Kravidos was actually well respected among the Astartes, and was deeply mourned when he died in battle. For thousands of years after that, the Minotaurs were rather unnotable among the Space Marine chapters. Their job of hunting down fallen Space Marines was well known, but they were seen as people just doing their jobs as opposed to someone to be feared. That is, until the latest Chapter Master of the Minotaurs, Asterion Moloc, took control of the chapter in 200.M41, after the death of his predecessor in the Badab War.

In contrast to many in the Imperium who spend much of their time in pursuit of a particular foe, such as Inquisitor Boaz Kryptman and the tyranids, Asterion Moloc does not feel a festering hatred for his enemy. Instead, he seems to take the attitude of a big game hunter hunting the most dangerous game. He seems to take a perverse joy in hounding his targets to the ends of their endurance before delivering the final blow. He spends hours reviewing all known records and tactics of his quarry, so that he knows every possible move his prey can make before even they do. He does this even for chapters that have not been assigned as his targets yet.

For obvious reasons, most Space Marines are uncomfortable with the Minotaurs, considering them to be, in the words of one Astartes scout who wished to remain anonymous, “team-killing frag-heads”. Indeed, the Minotaurs in recent years have been known to be a bit too eager in their desire to fight Space Marines, sometimes flying off the handle at an innocent chapter at the urging of some particularly radical or puritan Inquisitor. About the only people who feel comfortable around the Minotaurs are the Sisters of Battle, who often cooperate with the Minotaurs in operations involving the Fallen.

==== The Dragon Lords ====

The history of the Dragon Lords dates back to the founding of Praetoria, in the days of the post-Beast rebuilding. It was deemed that the military side of the endeavour would require the substantial presence and use of Space Marines to remove some of the more fearsome and prepared horrors that had moved in during the intervening years. As Primarch Vulkan was the overall commander in bringing the worlds of Wilderness Space back to the light of civilization, it was understandable when one of his newly minted chapters set up a way station alongside the more entrepreneurial efforts of the Gredbrittonic founding families.

The head of the space marines in this endeavour was Commander Xiaphas Jurr of the Afrique League, a former Chaplain. Commander Jurr never let the change in position from preacher of the Promethean faith to overall commander interfere with his missionary work and vice versa, and Praetoria's growth into a mostly Promethean world is largely his doing. This was not without practical merit, as the forces raised from Praetoria all held a faith in common, even as the years went on, and were all the closer for it. It has been speculated that the noble feuds of later years would undoubtedly have bloomed into minor wars without this vague sense of brotherhood.

As Praetoria grew from a minor service stop into a nation, the waystation he commanded likewise grew, such that in time it was declared a Chapter in its own right with Jurr as its commander — a rank he wore well. He and his newly designated Dragon Lords were now distinct from the rest of the Prometheans, as although he had been influencing the world he commanded, so too had it been influencing him.

As the population of Praetoria grew, the Dragon Lords soon found that they could recruit from the planet exclusively even with the introduction of the Tithe. Before the tithe, the military of Praetoria was predominantly composed of the house militias and private military companies of the nobility, with only the Red Coats — the mostly ceremonial soldiers of the Parliamentary Herald — representing the planet as a whole. At the time, the Red Coats were seen as a token force of no real concern and the butt of many jokes due to their lack of real experience and attachment to a figurehead rather than anyone with any real power.

This changed when the Imperial Army demanded its due. They didn't want soldiers loyal to any one city or lord in contest with their comrades of the same world. They wanted soldiers loyal to the Imperium representing their world as a unified whole. The imposition of a standard uniform was seen as a way to gently erode those mental barriers; they were one and all Praetorian. The distinctive green and black colour scheme of the Dragon Lords was surrendered not long after, coincidentally a few days after the death of Xiaphas Jurr, to their current red and ivory as a show of solidarity with the common soldier.

By this time, native-born Gernebern of Auchmouth — a progeny who rose fast but died a mere few centuries later — had taken command of the Space Marines and was the source of many reforms within the chapter. It was deemed prudent to have the chapter integrate even more closely with the common soldiery, splitting the companies up into squads and placing them on long term loan to the — at the time — 90 regiments of the Praetorian Guard as specialist squads. All but one company was split in such a manner, and the remaining company was to remain whole to guard their homeworld at all times.

Despite all the upheavals and political manoeuvrings — which could fill a very dry library in their own right — the contributions that Praetoria has made to the conquest, rebuilding, and protection of the wilderness worlds and beyond are often overlooked. Indeed, it was to this noble endeavour that Commander Jurr sacrificed himself. Were it not for the diligence, vigilance and sacrifices of the red coated Praetorians, the Orks, marauders, and worse would have just swept right back in, and the fates of those that called these places home would have been, at best, pitiable.

==== The Mortifactors ====
The Mortificators are a brother chapter to the Ultramarines, both being founded by veterans of the War of The Beast from Legion XIII in the days of The Rebuilding. The head of the force sent out that formed the core of the original Mortificators was commanded by the esteemed but eccentric — some would say slightly bonkers — Sasebo Tezuka. Tezuka was originally a child of the strange land of Strayllya on Old Earth, and had begun his military career in the earliest days of the Great Crusade. He was an accomplished man who commanded the respect of his men despite his oddness. One of these oddities was a seeming over-reliance on signs and portents that he used to make his decisions even though he himself was no psyker, and although he did employ them he didn’t use them for divination. Though he relied on what was essentially random chance, Tezuka seldom went irretrievably astray and more often than not followed a correct path. In more recent times people have wondered if the King of Clowns had anything to do with the roll of those bones, but no answer that any could understand has been forthcoming.
 
With the breakup of the XIII Legion, Captain — now Chapter Master — Tezuka was free to follow the omens as his cards and bones would show him and by a roundabout means, thirty years of wandering brought him to the world of Posul. If Posul was meant to be some sort of Promised Land it was not one given from any god that cared for its followers; Posul was dreary and dark, and by some fluke of topography and atmospheric composition it was eternally shrouded in a permanent and extremely heavy overcast lit only by two small, dim suns. It was a world of extremely dark nights and extremely dim days — and it was not unclaimed.
 
A hardy breed of man survived on that world, pale and slight of build with big dark eyes. They were primitive in those days, having in the time since man’s apex devolved to something that resembled Mesolithic era humanity. It was assumed at the time that their fall from grace, so complete as it was, was solely a result of an environment that was best and most politely described as very bleak. The plant life was typically sparse, with dark purple leaves to maximize the available energy from the dim suns, and the whole world had the general feeling of a deep-sea vent ecosystem on dry land.
 
Although that bleakness was almost certainly a contributing factor, it was not the whole story. The Posuli could fairly be described as the Death Cult of the Death Cults. They followed the faiths of the Deorum Mortuus Est, or at least adhered to the teachings of those who had slain their gods. Master Tezuka and his followers, dictated by omens to settle on this world, learned the stories of the eldest of the eldest priests and, backed up by their own findings in the Verboten Lands held by all tribes in inviolate sacrosanctity for time beyond mind, came to a startling conclusion: the natives — though not now — had once been worshipers of Chaos.
 
Their gods had been very real and walked among them awful and powerful, ordering great temples be built to them and demanding holocaust and sacrifice to feed them. Over the long years they had brought the Posuli low, to the point of being naught but cattle to the slaughter of unworthy butcher gods, until one day men led by the “dream-walkers” rose up, and were not struck down but instead did strike back with a righteous fire. Estimates by the off-worlders put the date of the uprising at approximately two centuries prior to the Posuli's discovery by the wider Imperium. The locals had no calendars and so none could know for sure, but it seemed that the gods of Posul were overthrown on or around the day of The Raid of the Mansion.
 
But the Posuli were by then a thoroughly broken people. Presumably their ancestors had been of the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion, stranded here in the early days of the Age of Strife, and presumably they did retain some measure of civility for some time, but if that is true none of that civility survived. The locals had nothing that they remembered of greatness, nothing to aspire to and no notion of lasting joy. They carried on much as they had, with cannibalistic rituals and constant wars of tribal slaughter. Tribal warriors would war and the victors would kill all of the men-folk and children and take the women as their own, and they would try to hold what land they could claim of the fallen’s holdings until displaced or the tribe split through internal unrest and warred upon once-kin.
 
It was into this savagery that Chapter Master Sasebo Tezuka of Legion XIII descended. His first interaction with a local was when a boy — barely old enough to grow his first chin hairs — stabbed him in the gut with a stone tipped spear. Sasebo had approached the nearest tribe unarmoured and unarmed, wearing a simple coarse jute robe with only a brother-psyker at his side, to show peaceful intent and appear as unthreatening as an Astartes can. The spear tip cut into his skin and stopped at the black carapace. The lad received a backhander that knocked several of his teeth out; it was extremely easy to follow him back to his tribe.
 
Some worlds welcome the Imperium as returning brothers from the stars. Some worlds react poorly to Imperial attempts to uplift them. Few were as reluctant as the Posuli, who by then had no notion of anything greater than a tribe and no understanding of any social order more complex than "the strong rule and the weak are food". Generally, the Imperium tries to keep as much of the substance of a culture as possible in its uplifting. Master Sasebo couldn’t really see much worth keeping, and as the days passed the other teams that had investigated other tribes reported much of the same. It was a long and bloody road to remake the Posuli into any sort of real society, and Master Tezuka had fallen to the unknowable things of The Harrowing long before then.
 
In the end the people of Posul were brought, reluctant every step of the way, into the light of civilization. Although their world could never be tamed it was made better than awful, and it was possible to live there rather than just be sentenced. In the end the Posuli were taken to the stars again and became a part of the Imperium, if only a minor part. The people of Posul were found, despite being classed as abhuman Nightsiders, to be compatible with the Astartes Mk III MP gene-seed, and in the intervening years were made worthy of it. In time they raised regiments of their own to aid the Imperium that had taken then from the dirt. But it could not be said that they did not affect the chapter as it uplifted them, especially once the Mortifactors started to recruit from Posul.
 
The cannibalistic rituals were replaced with haemovorous rituals, and human sacrifices exchanged with deep drug-induced comatose vision seeking. The Mortifactors adopted both of these rituals. Thus, down the long march of years, while the chapter had amended the beliefs of the locals for their own betterment, the Mortifactors had also ended up adopting these beliefs and took up the scriptures of the Dead Gods. As such, the Mortificators were never seen as desirable allies. They were unpleasantly weird and typically possessed a grim disposition. But they were valued and so were their people. It was not to last.
 
In the year 997M39 the Leviathan fell upon Posul. There was no hope of saving the world. All those dusty temples where man had slain their gods, all those strange tribes and wandering soothsayers, all the victories of the Imperium to make men out of monsters, all of those works of art carved into pale stone and lit pink and deep red by the dim red suns, were all washed away in a tide of chitin that were in turn washed away in nuclear fire. Basilica Mortis, the great star fort of the Mortificators, had managed to remain hidden by strange Eldar trickery, and in its vaulted halls were held the last hopes of that world. As many of the keepers of the stories and children to tell those stories to were kept as safe as could be in the hidden Astartes stronghold. On the surface of Posul, the men, women, and Space Marines of that grim, dark world gave their lives to draw the Hive to them, to trick the Hive into believing that it was winning. Lord Magyar ordered the atomics released at the last possible moment, transforming the time when hope should have been turned to despair instead into righteous wrath and retribution, and for a moment he beheld his home in sunlight before the fire consumed him. 

And it was beautiful.
 
Posul is now a dead world, as perhaps is fitting. It is unlikely that the Adeptus Biologis will agree to terraform it in this age, as even in the old days it was never a particularly worthy candidate for such an endeavour. And as for the remnants of the Posuli and the Mortificators? They endure, barely. Hearing of their plight their distant kin in the Ultramarines petitioned the Imperium to grant them refuge, and they were granted a place on the basis that so few people would likely cause little disruption to any adoptive planet. The Mortificators requested long ruined Calth to settle upon and try and make a home. The people of Calth were initially unenthusiastic about the idea, to say the least, as their caverns and hollows were precious to them. When they learned that the Posuli wished to live in the wastelands of the surface, where none had dwelt since the devastation ten thousand years past, they were considerably more amenable. The Posuli, for their part, said that they could cover their eyes in the day and sleep and in the night, and sometimes they could pretend that they were home once more.
 
The Mortificators will rebuild. Death has not claimed them yet.

==== The Black Legion ====

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The Void Wolves are Astartes primarily used as boarding/anti-boarding specialists throughout the Great Crusade and 1st Black Crusade. The majority of the pre-split Void Wolves Astartes ended up in this chapter. They call the worlds of the Cadian Gate their home, and recruit from these and nearby systems. The Void Wolves still operate much as the Legion of old, in that they are massively represented in the boarding parties of the Navy assets in the Cadian sector, but with the emphasis put more on garrison duty.

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'''Lord Commander Corpulax was previous Lord Commander of Black Legion'''

Corpulax was born on Cadia in the year 446M41, and like all Cadians was inducted into the military and raised to be a good little soldier. It wasn't long into his adolescence that his physical prowess was recognized. As such, he was genetically screened and earmarked for the Black Legion. He trained well and hard as a Neophyte and learned deeply of the chapter's venerable lore. In his 15th year, he started to undergo the surgical alterations and augmentations that would turn him from human to Astartes.

His career as a Space Marine was noteworthy in his reliability. He was a very by-the-book soldier, who would have been overlooked for any measure of excellence were it not for his ability to exemplify everything the chapter's battle doctrines exalted. He was, in every way, the very model of a Cadian Space Marine. By age 176 he was a sergeant, by 239 he was a Marshal, and by 301 he was Lord Commander. And it was a role he excelled at — for the brief time that he held that rank, at least. In the year 775M41, a mere 28 years into his command, the Apostles of Contagion launched a sustained attack on the agri-world of Phagir. Phagir was one of the worlds that supplied the Cadian Gate with food. Presumably their goal — or at least the goal of their masters — was to inconvenience the Gate Worlds, as were they to succeed the Gate Worlds would have to import all foodstuffs.

The Apostles of Contagion launched a sustained campaign in their defensive style of land holding and attrition, supplemented by extensive biological warfare. In the end it was deemed an untenable theater by the Adeptus Biologis order stationed on the planet; they couldn't make cures as fast as the Apostles could make ails. The Cadian forces were instrumental in the evacuation of Phagir as the Zombie Virus finally took hold and the dead shambled across the blighted fields to add the living to their ranks.

The Black Legion held the line at the capital's spaceport until the last moment - to get just one more shuttle off of the planet. In the final stages of the withdrawal it became clear that Lord Commander Corpulax was infected with the Zombie Virus, for which there was no cure save a clean death. Wracked in pain and wroth with righteous fury, Corpulax spent his last moments sprinting towards a techno-abomination of rust and rotted flesh merged together into what might once have been a Baneblade. Its burning wreckage was his funeral pyre as the IEDs he had strapped to himself detonated.

By his sacrifice one more shuttle, containing nearly 2,000 civilians and the last of his brothers on the surface, made it safely off the launch pad. The planet was subsequently bathed in nuclear fire; it was lost but it would not be damned.

'''Lord Commander Zagthean the Broken'''

Zagthean was the son of a long-term "soup stirrer" of the algae vats and a sister of the Convent of Alabaster Maidens. Civilian jobs on Cadia are typically — though not always — given to individuals disqualified from front line service for reasons of either health or competence. As good 'ol Zaganath had been doing that job from age 12 to age 62, it can be safely assumed that he was given the job for being pretty useless at proper soldiering. This was not to say that he wasn't a dutiful man; he died in a Chaos raid with a Cadian weapon in his hands and Cadian honor in his heart, and he didn't go down quietly nor alone. Matylda was sister of the Alabaster Maidens, a widespread order with convents on several dozen worlds in the Cadian Sector that specialized in offering healthcare to the underclasses. On Cadia, they offered healthcare to the more broken veterans.

Despite his humble beginnings, Zagthean has proven a savage warrior — more of Angron's ilk than Horus'. He has charged into battles no man or Astartes should ever have hoped to walk out of, and has not only done so but done so victorious. Even in his earliest days he was dauntless, and he set into every task and training exercise put before him with an almost alarming ferocity. After his genetic screening there was no question of him being looked over for Space Marine augmentation, and the fire in his heart was not diminished even slightly by the alterations; if anything with fewer physical constraints he approached the status of truly unstoppable.

His will is adamantium and among his chapter his word is law. To the Lord Castellan's annoyance he insists on leading from the front; in the thick of the carnage, the blood and the thunder flowing past him. Roaring with laughter and wroth joy, all mortals who have stood against him have known one simple truth: they have come here to die and their gods — from the greatest to the least — have all abandoned them.

He is relatively young for a man of his rank, but he has lived hard and built up an impressive record. But the price of living so hard is that he has seen death many times, and they have danced ever closer. He has been broken down and rebuilt, torn apart and stitched back whole, burned, healed, cut, stitched, glued, grafted, and lashed back together. What's left is almost poured over, rather than connected to, an ever increasing number of cybernetics. He may have fallen many times, but he is still alive. He does not march, he charges; he wills Death to find him, to hold him one last time so that he may beseech her "let me take these bastards out with me". And always Death has returned him.

As the 13th Black Crusade descends upon Cadia, it may be that his wish could be granted. He may die, but he will take whole armies down with him.

'''Ygethmor the Trickster, Head of the Black Legion Battle Psykers'''

Of Old Earth stock and a resilient psychic of pristine physique, Ygethmor was initially destined for the Grey Knights. Though the tests of genetic compatibility showed positive, the artificial organs of the MK III S gene-seed would not take root in his flesh. Unwilling to just toss such a promising neophyte aside for such paltry reasons as a biological fluke, the Grey Knights ordered him to be tested with the MK III MP variant of the gene-seed. The MP variant did take and Ygethmor was posted to the Cadian Gate — typically they would have sent him to the Exorcists but he lacked their "straightforward" attitude to problem-solving. Steeped in ancient daemon lore learned in the halls of Titan and with a Nemesis Blade as a parting gift, Ygethmor has proven to be a boon to the Black Legion like no other.

He is fond of ambushes, illusions, misdirection and what he affectionately likes to refer to as "pranks". He is formidable in a straight-up and honest fight — if he has no option to make a dishonest one. He has no notions of fair play and considers the idea of "fair play" synonymous with "not trying". It is this underhanded attitude towards warfare that has won him the approval of the Lord Castellan (and few others). That and a well-refined and caustic sense of humour.

Despite his detractors, of which he has cultivated a great many, Ygethmor's effectiveness can not be denied. He is not the most powerful psychic among the Astartes — not by a great margin — but like his martial strength he makes the most of what he has. As he would say, "a stiletto atwixt the sternum is as good as a broadsword to the bonce".

'''Devram Korda, Marshal of the 1st Cohort'''

At approximately 230 years of age Marshal Devram Korda is on the younger end of the Black Legion's Marshals, but he is far from unaccomplished. His rank was attained in the Liberation of Sarora, an intense war on the hiveworld Sarora to depose the warband known as the Children of Torment; a nasty group of Crone Worlders with faux marines stitched together from the bodies of their victims and animated with lesser daemons. As the most senior surviving officer left after a particularly nasty assault, Davram was given temporary command over his brothers. This was made permanent at the conclusion of the campaign, when contact was re-established with Lord Castellan Jakren Stein and the rest of the Cadian 509th.

The things he saw on Sarora, the things he had to do for the sake of pity, still haunt him. He is a grim figure, with no sense of humour or good cheer. Just a seething, well-controlled, and bottomless grudge.

'''Marshal Araghast the Pillar, Marshal of the 2nd Cohort'''

Abnormally large for a Space Marine and phenomenally strong besides, Marshal Araghast lugs around a lascannon with the same ease as an experienced guardsman lugs around a Lasgun. His aim is exemplary, and for a creature so big he can move surprisingly fast. In his oversized suit of armour Araghast can withstand a punishing amount of fire and remains standing, carefully and calmly placing laser beams in the most inconvenient places. He rose to prominence in the Aurelia debacle that almost saw a world lost to the warp. He was the pillar of certainty around which the rescue forces rallied.

He has a calm and measured manner and an unflappable temperament, and remains — or can at least give the impression of remaining — relaxed in even the most bizarre and awful circumstances.

'''Xorphas Firestarter, Marshal of the 3rd Cohort'''

Xorphas is very good at pyrotechnics and incendiaries of all kinds, and possesses a fascination with fire that borders on the unhealthy. This has, however, made him and his Cohort extremely good at dealing with orks and Nurglites in particular, and anything else that resents being set on fire in general. He is also a low level psychic, though despite the rumours he is not a pyrokine. His "gifts", if one can call them that, manifested only after he attained the position of Marshal, and by then he was too far along the chain of command for it to be worth the effort and disruption of reassigning him to the Battle Psykers. He was given extensive instruction by the head Librarian so that he would be considered safe, but little in how to hone what he actually does have — which is not very much if truth be told. He has very good gut instincts that can be mistaken for inhuman reflexes (even by Astartes standards), an uncanny ability to determine if someone is lying, and some modest telekinetic ability.

He is a reserved and calm individual, meticulous and methodical in his approach to all things — be it war or mundane chores. Until you give him a box of matches and you can see the flickering flames reflected in his eyes.

'''Drecarth the Sightless, Marshal of the 4th Cohort'''

A veteran of the 12the Black Crusade who spent half the invasion stranded in the lower tunnels, hunted by Crone Worlders with knives for fingers. Those knives had cost him his eyes, but he cost them much more. Those tunnels were pitch black, but he was blind anyway. As such, although the Crones could see to some degree in total darkness, Drecarth could hear perfectly well and thus eschewed the corrupted Eldars' handicapped sight for a clear, inhuman hearing. Drecarth had yet another advantage, as those tunnels had been his playground as a child; they weren't just tunnels, they were home. The hunt quickly turned inside out, and the Chaos Eldar came to the realization that he wasn't trapped with them, they were trapped with him. When he returned to the light he was reborn, and his star was ascendant.

With two black orbs of technology replacing his ruined eyes and an unhealthily pale visage, Marshal Drecarth looks like a spectre from the old stories; some unhappy undead returned to get even. He has moulded his company into one of quiet killers, stalkers, and hunters, as he had been in the time of his epiphany. It is suspected that he is part of the secretive Cadian Death Faith, as it was prevalent in his patch of tunnels when he was young, but nothing can be proven. All that is known is that he is sober, diligent, humble, and quiet. All traits he tries to instil in his brothers.

'''Amalaxis Deamonslayer, Marshal of the 5th Cohort'''

Amalaxis is as close to a Chaplain as you can get without actually being one. He is a strong, almost fanatical, believer in the old Cadian tree gods. He offers prayers and devotion to them on the eve of battle, before setting forth on campaign, when another invasion is expected, and when it is peaceful because on Cadia — you have to be thankful for respite. Most of his Cohort are also adherents of his faith — the reason he was chosen as Marshal of the 5th Cohort — and to them he is a figure of great reverence. Some say he was a tree spirit in a stillborn child, like in the old stories of before war.

His method of warfare is very much in favour of the aggressive advance. Ideally after the first attack there should be no possibility of a retaliation. There must be something to his faith, as the hymns he roars as he charges into battle have daemons clutching their bleeding ears.

'''Valicar "the Graven" Hyne, Marshal of the 6th Cohort'''

Unlike Marshal Drecarth, Marshal Valicar Hyne makes no secret of his adherence to the Death Faith. Why should he? Why should he have to skulk in the dark and hide? This candidness has not won him many friends in the faith, all of whom agree that discretion has served them well since the Age of Strife. The rest of the Chapter just think he's a bit eccentric and the baseline Cadians just assume all augmented are a bit loopy — assuming they haven't actually met a Space Marine before.

Despite the implications of his religion, he is a bombastic man who loves the simple pleasures in life; pretty women, good food, and fine ale. Also jetpacks and air assaults. If the battle can be met hurling out of a speeding aircraft, it is a good day for Marshal Valicar. It is suspected that most of the 6th Cohort follow him out of morbid fascination.

'''Verzekh the Siege Engine, Marshal of the 7th Cohort'''

Verzekh has the distinction of being the only member of the Marshals to retain rank whilst interred in a Dreadnaught. Most Dreadnaughts become sleepy as a result of the painkillers and mechanisms that keep them in their half-life — not a good trait in a leader. Not so with old Verzekh. Whether by some incorrect implementation of his sarcophagus or a deviation in his brain, Verzekh has not slept in over 1,800 years and so far seems to be suffering no ill effects. Attempts to duplicate this miracle in others have had no notable success.

He is armed with two power claws with under-slung Meltas, with which he has obliterated the defenses of hundreds of bunkers and fortifications and uncountable tanks. His personality since his internment has actually improved, if the historical records are anything to go off of, now having a very pleasant and cheerful disposition. Verzekh puts this down to the painkillers. His favored method of warfare is the slow and unstoppable advance.

'''Kor Megron "Corpsemaker", Marshal of the 8th Cohort'''

Many times repaired and cybernetically patched up — though not the extent of the Lord Commander — Marshal of the 8th Cohort Kor Megron is a fan of going fast and going hard. Bikes, land speeders, jet packs, and anything else that can deliver high velocity death are his bread and butter. Standing still, he claims, makes you a target in a way that no additional fire power will compensate for. The rest of his chapter call him slightly manic. He calls them worse. In war — as in life — there is the target. You get target fast, find another target, get other target, repeat until target exhaustion or death. There is no stop, there is no slowing, until the job is done. To stop invites death.

The Cohort that he has assembled are all, like himself, lay-technicians. They need to be able to perform basic rituals of repair to their vehicles at a moment's notice. To lose the momentum is to invite failure. Possibly exacerbating these traits is his knowledge that he is indeed dying; some poison of Dark Eldar design — half-real and half-not — flickers through his veins. He has maybe a few years at most left. If the intent of this poison was supposed to debilitate him with despair or fear, it has failed. If anything, it's made him far more dangerous in the time he has left.

'''Troskzer The Elder, Marshal of the 9th Cohort.'''

Older than some of the younger dreadnaughts, Marshal Troskzer is old even by the standards of near-immortals. Given the time distorting effects of warp travel and the amount of time he has travelled through said warp, Troskzer isn't sure exactly how old he is. He was born in the year 998M40, but he could be as "young" as 850. That said, Space Marine biology and rejuvenant treatments can only take you so far, and he is approaching exactly as far as they can take him. What Troskzer has lost in strength and speed he has made up for in experience and animal cunning. He is without peer when it comes to the use of landscape and natural resources as a means of gaining an advantage. He can plan ambushes almost as well as the Lord Castellan, and his ability to smell weakness is bordering on the unnatural. If you have a place where you are vulnerable he will find it and he will hurt you. He is patient and will fuck up your day at the most inopportune time. This, combined with an inhuman ability to comprehend not just his battlefield but an entire planetary campaign, makes him far more dangerous off the field of battle than on it. But he is a Space Marine, he will not be shamed by staying where it is safe.

Despite his seniority — and to his relief — he was never considered for the job of Lord Commander. A Lord Commander has to have a sense of diplomacy and people skills. Troskzer has neither. He's a cantankerous, introverted, belligerent arsehole overly fond of sarcasm and seems to be staying alive just because it pisses people off.

'''Starkzahn, Marshal of the 10th Cohort.'''

Saviour of Darristen and ███████ █████████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ █████████ ██████ ████████████ █████ ████. Known to have spent near thirty years in the Deathwatch and a further twenty five in the personal employ of a particular Inquisitor, neither of which he will talk about. It is suspected that he has travelled and fought as far as the Eastern Fringe — or at the very least near it — as he is well versed in the teaching of Aun'Va, though it is unlikely that he will be able to convince his countrymen of the virtues of the Greater Good.

His method of waging war is a combination of movement and fire, be it in the form of artillery or tactical squads that looks oddly familiar to anyone who has seen warfare in the Damocles Gulf.

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