Editing Sand Keepers (section)

=Culture=
They are fierce, and zealous, undying followers of the Emperor and His Will. This is due to their Primarch's close ties to prophecy and divination.  The legion as a whole believes heavily in fate and destiny.  To them the emperor is the shepherd that will guide humanity to its ultimate destiny. In their minds only the Emperor in all his glory and the ideals he represents are truly immortal, and that it is the ultimate fate of all else to eventually perish.

==Notable Domains==

===Sarianidi===

This Feral World was pacified in 826.M30 by an expedition led by Darius Cyaxares himself.  The fierce and warlike horsemen of Sarianidi succumbed without a fight, seeing the Sand Keepers as superior beings come to uplift them to the heavens.  When the Astartes announced their intention to only take a small tithe of Sarianidi's youth each year, there was little objection.  These recruits, gathered into the 8th Chapter, take naturally to hit-and-run tactics.

===Simurgh===

Graced by Darius Cyaxares during his youth and reformed under the enlightened rule of the Primarch's disciple, Ashpenaz the Golden, the Hive World Simurgh is the most important of the Sand Keepers' recruiting worlds.  Three of the Sand Keepers' Chapters would draw their strength from the multitudes of Simurgh.

The world is ruled by descendants of Darius Cyaxares' adoptive mother, Bithia.  For centuries, this line has invested the rule of Simurgh in their daughters, naming a "Successor" or ''Califa'' from among the girls of Bithia's blood.

===The Death World Kumul===
{{Infobox 40k Planet
|name= Kumul
|bgcolor=black
|fgcolor=white
|image=[[File:Desert planet j1.jpg|200px]]
|class= Death World/Space Marine Chapter Homeworld
|orbdist= 0.94AU ± 0.13AU
|gravity= 1.03G
|temp= Warm and arid
|pop= no civilian population
|governor=
|system= Kumul System
|sector=
|subsector=
|segmentum= Ultima Segmentum
}}
Although they drew their manpower from a wide range of worlds, the Sand Keepers trained all of their neophytes on the Death World Kumul.  If this inhospitable planet was barren of life, its arid heat would still make human life difficult.  But it is plagued by horrific predators, including the feared '''olgoi-khorkhoi''', a gigantic acid-spewing worm-like creature.

The world was the last that Darius Cyaxares visited before he took command of the Legion.  Few were privy to what had drawn the Primarch to this desolate place, but his actions were above question.  For a whole season, Darius lived in the wastes of Kumul, purifying his spirit before undertaking his Father's sacred charge.  This period of solitude and deprivation is echoed in the training of the Neophytes of the Legion.  After passing the Aspirant Trial, every Neophyte is brought to Kumul to be implanted with the gene-seed and trained according to the standards of the Sand Keepers.  Thus, this terrible world is the answer to one of the great riddles of the sons of Darius.  Although they draw men from a wide variety of worlds and allow these warriors to retain something of their homelands' identities, all go through training together on Kumul and must learn to co-operate with their battle brothers, regardless of origin.  Neophytes make this lesson a part of them or perish.


'''Notable places'''

The only man-made sights on Kumul are the works of the Sand Keepers.  Successful aspirants first meet the elegant lines of the '''Khiruhton''' spaceport, which perfectly marries a symbolic gateway form with its function as a landing pad.  Those who survive the march to the squat fortress, '''Inshushinak''' are sometimes awed by the scale of the building, but rarely marvel at its external appearance.  However, the interior is a masterpiece of architecture.  Great halls, carved from the living rock, are carefully lit to produce a daunting atmosphere.  This hallowed place is the heart of the Legion, housing the genetic repositories that ensure the Sand Keepers' survival.  Neophytes struck down with ''The Mark of Darius'' are escorted to the bowels of Inshushinak, never to emerge.  

Farming on Kumul is extraordinarily difficult, but the Sand Keepers impose this onerous task on their recruits in the belief that a dose of humble work gives a finer temper to a warrior's spirit than a purely martial education.  Neophyte companies are seasoned in fortified farming communities on the flanks of the '''Anshan''' range.  Each commune is presided over by a Recruit Captain, usually a veteran of the Sand Keepers' wars, with senior Neophytes appointed Recruit Sergeants and tasked with supervising their juniors.  For all the efforts of these youths, their survival is only possible thanks to the '''Springs of Darius''', Kumul's sole source of freshwater.  It is a matter of some contention whether the Primarch created or merely discovered the springs.

One of the last tasks of the successful neophyte on Kumul is to dig himself a '''Karaan''' (rock dwelling) in the volcanic rock of '''Mount Zohhāk'''.  Here he must endure the passing of a full season, nourishing himself by hunting the great predators of the Death World and learning discipline in solitude.  After the disappearance of Darius Cyaxares, an occasional recruit would report that they had been saved by the intervention of the Old Man of the Desert, but none have verified these tales.  Whether the Neophyte dies or survives to join the Legion, his Karaan is destined to be his memorial.  The Sand Keepers go to great pains to inter their fallen in the graves they have wrought with their own hands.  '''Ashtur''', the empty Karaan of Darius Cyaxares, is a centre of veneration.

==Notable Members==

'''Sasian Terca'''

''Leader of the Eighteenth Squad of the Sacred Band, First Executor of the Primarch's Will''

Born on Terra at roughly the time the Emperor began his conquest.  Sasian Terca was the son of Obaius the Savage, a sadistic warlord who reigned over Sud'Nuk Hive.  When the Emperor demanded Obaius' submission, the tyrant proposed talks and a banquet.  In a monstrous ploy to shame the lord of mankind, Sasian's elder brother was slain, his flesh cooked and served before the Emperor.  Obaius' cruel game was immediately seen through and repaid with swift and deadly justice.  Barely knowing and never mourning his vile sire, Sasian grew up as a ward of the Emperor and was brought up alongside the orphaned children of the Emperor's fallen bodyguards.  Excelling under the fine tuition afforded him in the Imperial Palace, Sasian Terca was an obvious choice for the Adeptus Astartes.

As a youth he was inducted into the Sacred Band of Hektor Cincinnatus and came to know and love the First of the Primarchs.  During the fierce campaigns of the '''Pacification of the Merican Hives''', Sasian led the Eighteenth Squad, showing a calm resolve in the face of the death.  He had drilled his men extensively in the use of the crude firearms of the period and only the marksmen of the [[Eyes of the Emperor|Nineteenth Squad]] were more accurate.  The success of Sasian Terca's men proved that the Nineteenth Squad's genetics were not merely theoretically valid, but battleworthy.  Sasian and his fellows took command of the new cohorts of the Eighteenth ''Legion''.

Unlike the other men who led in trust for a lost Primarch, Sasian Terca refused to be acknowledged as lord of the Legion, instead styling himself as Executor of the Primarch's Will.  The unshakeable belief that their genefather was out among the stars was widely held among the Nineteenth.  Sasian's bravery and skill at arms would be demonstrated by victories in the '''Acrypso Compliance''', the '''Pacification of Oltroth Beta''' and in many lesser battles.  Yet his fate was to die in 820.M30, struck down by the '''Sorceress Queen of Hezuno'''.  Sasian Terca's last words reported words were, ''"Our father awaits."''


'''Aurus and Diatus Moelia'''

''The Twins, Executors of the Primarch's Will''

It is unusual to see birth brothers among the Adeptus Astartes, even more so for twins to be inducted.  Yet Aurus and Diatus Moelia were far from ordinary.  Like all of the Terran-born recruits to the Eighteenth Legion, the Moelia brothers had begun their lives as part of a tyrant's household.  Their maternal uncle, Koac Moelia, was the chief bodyguard to the Lord Minister of Maniketra Hive.  Koac was cruel and controlling of his family, keeping the boys' mother as his maidservant and forbidding her contact with the outside world.  Their father remains unknown, for the twins were only a few weeks old when the Thunder Warriors overran Maniketra.  Though their mother disappeared in the chaos of the conquest. Aurus and Diatus would be adopted as wards of the Emperor as a sign of his redeeming mercy.  Their strength and intelligence, even at a young age, saw them recruited into the Space Marine programme and won them places in the '''Sacred Band''' as members of Sasian Terca's Squad XVIII.

Blooded in the [[Unification Wars (Hektor Heresy)|Unification Wars]], the Twins assumed command of new cohorts of the Eighteenth Legion, and would jointly succeed Sasian Terca when he fell in battle at Hezuno.  Their leadership of the Crimson Hawks would last for just three years, but the long hoped for rediscovery of [[Darius Cyaxares]] took place in that blessed time.  The brothers Moelia first met their genefather in 853.M30 on the occasion of transferring command of the Legion to him.  Darius took them aside after the formalities to assure the Twins that they would continue to exercise operational commands and that he hoped to rely on them to carry the newly-dubbed '''Sand Keepers''' forward through the Great Crusade.  He added, more solemnly, that he had foreseen that only one of the twins would live for much longer.  The Primarch advised Aurus and Diatus not to struggle against fate but instead to cherish the time they had left together.

Duty would restrict the Twins' ability to follow Darius Cyaxares' advice, but they were glad to reunited in 854.M30, when Diatus Moelia visited the Legion's new base on '''Kumul'''.  Here, his brother Aurus was supervising the construction of the Sand Keepers' facilities for training new recruits from Simurgh and the Legion's other tributary fiefs.  Tragedy struck when Diatus mockingly jumped the perimeter wall and was fatally wounded by a defence turret.  As he lay dying in his shocked brother's arms, Diatus whispered, ''"None can escape their fate!"'' - words that would go on to become the battlecry of the Sand Keepers.