-The Black Saints-
Cursed Founding successor Chapter consisting of Blood Angels.
Organization is highly flexible, consisting primarily of close combat squads, with more veteran marines handling the Chapters heavy weapons, as well as other long range support. Each company is led by their Commander, as well as a over-seer from the Council of 13, the ruling body of the Chapter. Each Company is split into 10 men squads, each trained and honed to perform a specific task towards achieving victory.
The Chapter also abhors the use of armor, save for the rare drop pod, usually reserved for Librarians, and the ancient and venerable dreadnoughts of the chapter. So much so, much of their early training as Initiates is focused entirely upon learning methods of infiltration and advance positioning, to the point they are often a scant few kilometers from the enemy’s front line before the enemy has even sighted them.
There is however, resulting from the schism of the Chapter during what is known of the Thurix Heresy, a growing faction within the puritanical remnants of the Chapter that are adept with tanks. Indeed, the first few techmarines have begun to return to the Chapter from Mars, and within them seems to burn a fierce knowledge and pride at their rare status within their chapter.
The Chapter boasts the largest and quite possibly fiercest Chaplaincy, and some rumor this is because of the dark past that forced the Chapter onto penitent crusade, much like the other foundlings of the Cursed Founding’s. This though, would be met with fierce retaliation by any of the Chapters ‘warrior-priests’, and especially the First Chaplain Antonius, who is credited with no less than 3 miraculous events, and the only Space Marine to be recognize by the Imperial Church as a Saint.
The darkest secret of the Chapter lies in it’s greatest strength, the defeat of the twin cruses of Sanguinius’ heritage: the Black Rage and the Red Thirst. Both of these horrific inflictions seem to have entirely passed over much of the Chapter, save for their most seasoned veterans and the rare, awe-inspiring figures of power that reside in the Librarium of the Black Saints. Indeed, the Librarians bear the brunt of the curses perhaps even more cruelly than the Blood Angels themselves.
At some self-determined point, a Black Saints Librarian is required to undergo the ‘Rite of Blood’. This rite is a mysterious ritual conducted on the Chapter home world of Cordoth, and little it known about it. All that is known is that not one Librarian in all the years of the Chapter has yet to emerge from the Rite with a single shred of sanity left to him. Often, they will emerge as raving lunatics, frothing at the mouth and unleashing frightening psychic attacks as well as horrendous physical assaults, and are often left in the Chamber to rot, their howls and screams never piercing the thick, void shielded walls of their eternal prison.
Only one marine has ever even managed to emerge from the Chamber, and what emerged from it can not be said to be that which went in. Remus, Chief Librarian of the Black Saints, descended into the depths of the Chapter monastery alone to undergo the Rite. Seven days later, the Chapter Master and First Chaplin themselves descended to the Chamber, and threw open the massive obsidian and adamant doors, to reveal a site of utter carnage.
Corpses in rent armor littered the floor, and the room stank of ozone and sweat, the after-taste of warp power staining the air. Sitting huddled in the midst of the floor, armor rent, scorched, and in places completely ripped off sat a sallow skinned Remus.
In the attempt to bring him forth from the chamber, five Black Saints veterans perished, and the Monastery itself was almost destroyed, the Chamber of Rites collapsed. Days later the trio emerged from the rubble. Adonis had Remus treated by the apothecaries for several wounds, minor ones to a marine of such stature as the Chief Librarian, and then released. From the first moment his battered form emerged from underground, the Chief Librarian spoke not a word, and none has since been recorded as passing his lips.
The Chapter however, split soon after. For Remus began writing of what he had seen in the Chapter. There he had been subjected to horrific scenes of Sanguinius’ death, however the memories burned upon his mind were from the teleportation of the Blood Angel onto the Warmasters Barge, up until the point he was slain, not by Horus’, but by the Emperor. This, Remus’ writings declared, was done because Horus had beckoned Sanguinius to Chaos, and the Angel had judged his words worthy, and just as the Emperor came into the room, he had shaken Horus’ hand in compact.
The Emperor had then proceeded to destroy Sanguinius without a single word, not even knowing for sure what the handshake was for. He left the Angel bleeding and crippled, but far from dead on the floor as he began to denounce Horus and his ways. Sanguinius, knowing he was dieing, begged of his father a merciful, honorable death with his sword in his hands.
The Emperor denied him, denouncing him as warp-crazed spawn. Horus knocked the Emperor to the walls with a blow from his massive fist, and then put into Sanguinius hand his sword, and ended his brothers fading life with a merciful shot from the bolter built into his obsidian and gold armor, the eye of the terminator plate dull where once sickly luminous, almost as if in sadness. Seeing this, the Emperor turned in rage, and the epic battle began betwixt the two.
In this matter, Adonis and the First Chaplain Antonius agreed with him, having both believed their battle-brother the instant he had emerged from his cloister-room to hand over the thick sheaf of papers. For this, the Captain of the First Company, a one Constantine, denounced them and alerted the Ordos of the Inquisiton. Sensing a fratricidal war, Adonis commanded all those who had believed the Chief Librarian to him, and together they disembarked on what fleet ships that would bear them. The splinter shard of the Chapter left behind only one cryptic communiqué, detailing their self imposed Exile, and their Penitent Crusade, to prove that they were loyal to the Emperor.
For, as the communiqué stated the belief of the battle between their
Primogenitor and the Emperor was not one of heresy. They believed that the Angel was wrong in his siding with Horus and that they could win redemption for their Primarchs failing by their Crusade, to show the Imperium that they were loyal as any Ultramarine or frothing preacher. They are often seen in the company of, when they do associate with any fellows marines, the Mantis Warriors, though this has only been displayed on three occasions, and the two can hardly be seen to be allies.
The other Legion they have an affinity for is the Iron Hands, in whom they exchange their uniquely potently Chaplain corps in return for the masterful craftings of the Chapter. Each receive the benefits of the other, in that the Black Saints receive arms and armor for their Crusade, and the Iron Hands in return received blessed weapons of a surpassing power and potency.
The Iron Hands are also largely responsible for the induction of tech-marines into the ranks of the puritan portion of the Black Saints, strangely enough at Adonis' behest, who still considers himself Chapter Master of the entire Chapter, though he has discarded that title for the nomen of 'Lord Crusader' as dubbed by a respectful Black Templars marshal after seeing the marines of the Chapter in action on Thurix, where he himself granted Adonis the prized relic of the fleet, the black armor, when Adonis risked his own life to carry the body of the fallen champion back, after sending the radical Inqusitior Asireloth fleeing from the planet by destroying his daemonhost, who had slain the Emperors Champion Dreischen.
Whatever the truth of Remus’ visions, or Adonis and Antonious support, there is only one thing for certain. The Black Saints, whichever side (both of which bitterly deny the rite of the other to the Chapter Name, and relics, which ironically are mostly given to the Crusading repentant fleet) work hard to pay for transgressions, past and present.