Editing Story:The Shape Of The Nightmare To Come 50k section07

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=Section 07: The Crusade of Insanity: The Templars on the Rampage=
The Templars, easily the most pious of the Adeptus Astartes-- second only to the Red Hunters in their religious fervour-- became something far worse as their Imperium fell into factionalised and monstrous realms, petty kingdoms and protectorates. Always distrustful of degenerate Navigators and Astropaths, the Templars seemed justified in their hatred as the fall of the Astronomicon drove these psykers into destruction.

Across the galaxy, the Templars, at a stroke, were hacked into hundreds of separate crusades. Again, this affected the fanatics little as they were always a divided chapter, and all that changed was that they were forced to remain divided. The psychological effect upon the Templars following this calamity was far more profound. The various smaller crusades, devoid of their central mission, simply resorted to what they always did: they fought, in the name of the Emperor and Dorn. 

They suicidally attacked worlds and petty Imperiums regardless of alliances or real/imagined heresies. This gained them no friends as they attacked whoever they could. These isolated crusader forces were, for the most part, ambushed, overwhelmed, or otherwise destroyed by vengeful and cruel local power magnates. However, the largest force of Templars, one thousand strong, cut a bloody swathe against their foes. This was the central Templar fleet, led by High Marshal Dorstros from his flagship the Eternal Crusader.  

The Templars travelled from world to world, desperately seeking righteousness. What they saw on every world sickened them. Heresy, laxity and impiety were rife as every human world and Imperium sought to follow their own destinies amongst the callous stars. The grand ideals of the Imperium were forgotten by all-- save, of course, the Templars. The more they saw, the more their own insane ideologies seemed to make sense, and the more warped their world view became. Dorstros moved from world to world, travelling by short warp jumps in an increasingly un-mappable galaxy. His Templars would offer two options to human colonies: re-convert to the Imperial faith, or be totally destroyed. To xenos, no option was given, and they were massacred wherever the Templars found them. 

The Black Templars invaded world after world, recruiting those insane or desperate enough and putting the rest to the flame and the sword. Cities were torched or cleansed by nuclear fire. Sword Brethren and wild-eyed initiates moved amongst the fearful enemy, singing delirious hymns, all the while crying with glee as they maimed and crushed and burned in the Emperor's name. As they moved slowly across the already war-torn and brutalised galaxy, the zealous and insane detritus of human society-- gibbering priests, flagellating cultists and rogue clergy-- attached themselves to the Templars' rapidly expanding rag-tag fleet. As more and more religious fanatics merged with the fleets, chanting their devotional hymns throughout, the Templars began to move more and more to believing the Emperor was indeed God made manifest, and the loss of the Astronomicon was merely the final sign, the rallying call of the Templars. They were to purge the galaxy clean, and only then in His mercy could the Emperor return. 

Some of the Sisters of Battle stranded on remote worlds were incorporated into this crusade, and found themselves caught up in the self-perpetuating religious psychosis the rest of the Crusade found itself in. Hundreds of rogue marines from various free companies tagged alongside the rambling, murderous Crusade, along with plenty of former pirates and rogues and their attendant private armies. While openly they gibbered praises to the Emperor like everyone else in the crusade, these malcontents and deceitful mercenaries and murderers all secretly knew why they fought: just for the sheer murderous joy of it, the simple fact that they could. Some Marines were even traitors who just used the religious motives of the Crusade to justify joining in; for instance, it was noted that several marines within the crusade may have in fact been Night Lord Chaos Space Marines (though this couldn't be confirmed) fighting with the Templars simply because the two forces had similar motives in mind: destruction and fear. 

The Crusade swelled to almost two thousand Astartes and millions of raving human fanatics and semi-elite soldiery as well as thousands of vessels. It was the second greatest concentration of Marines in the galaxy during this period. Despite this, the Crusade could never reunite the Imperium or bring order to the relentless anarchy, because the Templars had believed their own rhetoric. They were not on a Crusade of redemption, but one of punishment and pain. They blundered from system to system near-aimlessly, attacking and brutalising whoever they came across. Planets were ransacked, their people put to death or simply beaten until they could fight no more. This relentless process of murder and prayer would have continued indefinitely, one would assume, as the Templars' Crusade grew in numbers every time a world was ransacked. This was to change when they encountered, high in the galactic North, the Eastern Chaos Imperium led by the legendary Huron Blackheart.
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