[Grand Master Raziel]

Name of Chapter
the Night Angels

Chapter Derived from
the Dark Angels

Chapter Advantages/Disadvantages
Expeditionary/raiding forces have the following:
Advantages: See But Don't Be Seen, Cleanse and Purify
Disadvantage: Flesh Over Steel

Full battle formations have the following:
Advantage: Cleanse and Purify
Disadvantage: Death Before Dishonour

Fluff
The Night Angels are a chapter with a long history. Created early in M33 in the wake of concerns (later proved groundless) regarding the stability of Ultramarines geneseed, Dark Angels geneseed was used to create the new chapter. The first chapter master, Safriel, was a Dark Angel who had earned much renown on the battlefield, but who the Inner Circle of the Dark Angels judged incapable of accepting the crushing burdens of that chapter’s secrets. When the time came to create the core of the new chapter, Safriel was chosen to be the new chapter’s first master. In this way, Safriel was given the honor and responsibility his battlefield prowess had earned without burdening his soul with the Dark Angel’s crushing secrets. Originally dubbed the Azure Hawks, the new chapter gained its current name as a result of a series of events that occurred in its first millennium of existence.

In the middle of the 33rd millennium, a large force of Night Lords, led by Lord Balaam, assaulted an inquisitorial stronghold where large stores of ancient data were housed. The Night Lords laid waste to the planet and made off with untold amounts of valuable data. The Ordo Malleus organized a response to this outrage, but as the Grey Knights were unavailable, requested help from the Adeptus Astartes. Their call was answered by the Azure Hawks. Chapter Master Raguel saw an opportunity to establish bonds with the Inquisition, and put the whole chapter at the disposal of the inquisitor lord leading the reprisal force.

The combined force pursued the Night Lords warband across half the galaxy, dogging their heels as they pursued some agenda of their own, seemingly seeking something. Finally, on the far fringe of the galaxy, orbiting a star dubbed Athena, the pursuit concluded with battle. The bulk of the Chaos forces assaulted the system’s inhabited planet, Athena Prime. However, the chapter’s chief librarian, Israfil ascertained that this was a diversionary attack, and that the real goal of the Chaos lord was in the rings of the system’s largest gas giant, Athena Delta. In response, the Azure Hawks split their force. Elements of the first and second companies, under the command of the Librarian Israfil and the commander of the first company, commander Sariel, went to intercept the Chaos lord in the rings of Athena Delta with the inquisitors, while the chapter master took the rest of the chapter to Athena Prime.

The smaller force of Space Marines caught up with the Chaos lord at the objective he had been seeking, a continent-sized moon that housed an ancient base. The fighting over this prize was fierce and bloody, but in the end the Azure Hawks prevailed. They found an extraordinary trove of data and technology, apparently from the Age of Expansion. The moon housed an ancient city, human built but devoid of any signs of inhabitation. They also found great warp engines and space drives, complete but never fired. Finally, most unusually, they found evidence that the base had been used by the Imperium to house something very strange – a young girl, kept in stasis. The Night Lords had overwhelmed the small contingent of defenders, but had been unable to penetrate the chamber where the girl’s stasis chamber was kept before being driven off.

Meanwhile, Chapter Master Raguel took the bulk of his chapter to confront the Night Lords on Athena Prime. The population of Athena Prime had reached an industrialized culture, but lacked the technology to face the Night Lords on its own. Furthermore, the Chaos forces had begun their campaign of psychological warfare by the time the Azure Hawks arrived. However, their arrival fulfilled an ancient prophecy - that the Father of Mankind would send his angels to deliver the population from their darkest night. The arrival of the Space Marines bolstered the population’s will to resist, and the Night Lords found themselves facing stout resistance led by Space Marines, rather than the cowed, terrified populaces that they were accustomed to. Experiencing defeats on several fronts, the Night Lords withdrew to strongpoints, only to be attacked by squads of Azure Hawks who had infiltrated the locations and lay in wait. The Azure Hawks kept the Night Lords confused, afraid, and on the defensive, and virtually annihilated them piecemeal, a pitiful few managing to flee their righteous wrath, though Chapter Master Raguel fell in the final battle. His body shattered, he was placed within the armored sarcophagus of a dreadnought.

After the withdrawal of the surviving Night Lords, the planet’s grateful populace overwhelmingly referred to the Space Marines as the Angels of the Night. The chapter recruited from the planet to make good their losses, and claimed domain over it, inevitably taking on the name that the populace bestowed upon them – the Night Angels. Using Athena Prime as a starting point, the expanded outward, bringing the Emperor’s grace to the surrounding sector. The Night Angels were as meticulous in civil affairs as they were in battlefield planning, seeing the strategic value in establishing each planet as a strong bastion of the Imperium. They would coordinate the reconstruction of each planet so that it could contribute to the next campaign. Athena Prime was an example of this forward-thinking. The planet’s ecosystem was shattered by the Night Lords’ assault, so the Night Angels directed the inhabitants to build underground cities and farms. They did so, expanding over the millennia, saving and recovering most of the species of flora and fauna that had inhabited the surface, constructing vast underground gardens, arboretums, and preserves that are the wonder of the sector. The planet’s industrial capacity was also recovered and improved upon, so that the planet could provide arms, and as the population recovered, it was able to begin providing Imperial Guard regiments to assist in the campaigns in the sector.

The Night Angels took the ancient base as their own, igniting the drives, making it their fortress-monastery and giving it its name – Angels’ Keep. Who the girl in the center of Angels’ Keep is was a mystery, but the inquisitor lord who had led the expedition swore the Night Angels to keep the secret and watch and defend her chamber while he delved into the mystery. She resides in a chamber attached to devices that bear similarities to the apparatus of the Golden Throne, but without any external means of opening her sarcophagus. Also, rather than keeping the girl in complete stasis, she has matured physically at an infinitesimal rate, so that over the millennia, she has reached adulthood. This has led the chapter’s librarians and allies within the inquisition to conclude that the girl herself has control over her chamber, and will emerge when she is ready. Consequently, the chapter always maintains a company-strength guard over the sarcophagus, both to guard it against external attack, and to guard against the possibility that the girl is some sort of threat. The chapter’s inquisitorial allies also participate in this watch. This has resulted in a close relationship between the Night Angels and certain elements of the Inquisition. The Night Angels have kept their oath for over seven millennia, guarding the secret of Angel’s Keep from all intruders. This has led them to be standoffish with some elements of the Inquisition, but with other elements, particularly in the Ordo Malleus, they have a bond of trust reinforced by a tradition of cooperation thousands of years old.

An interesting aspect of Angel’s Keep is that it is the only known mobile fortress-monastery with a self-sustaining civilian population. The installation was built with vast amounts of living quarters, far more than one chapter of the Adeptus Astartes could possibly need, leading some to speculate that it had originally been intended to be some kind of colonial transport. Intitially, these living quarters remained empty, but in M35 the chapter used Angel’s Keep to evacuate the population of an agri-world in the path of a Tyranid Hive Fleet. Some millions of the refugees petitioned to remain upon Angel’s Keep, a request which the chapter granted. The population grew naturally, occasionally being added to by other refugees or families invited by the chapter to reside on the facility. Now, some hundreds of millions of people live and work on Angel’s Keep. The civilian population lives in awe and admiration of their Space Marine benefactors, and assists with the defense of the facility with the equivalent of PDF regiments, and even provides a small trickle of regiments to the Imperial Guard.

Balaam, though defeated, did not fall in the fighting, nor did he accept his plans being thwarted by the Adeptus Astartes. Over the millennia, he has attempted to take Angel’s Keep over and over again. The chapter’s masters assume that he knows of the existence of Hope, and believes that she is crucial to some infernal bid for power he is attempting. Over time, this has inevitably led to a deep-seated hatred mutual hatred between the Night Lords legion and the Night Angels chapter, as Balaam has orchestrated attacks by the Night Lords upon the Night Angels’ holdings throughout the millennia, with the Night Angels constantly resisting and thwarting their efforts.