Ebony Dragons

The Ebony Dragons are a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter created during an Unknown Founding and from uncertain lineage, although it was sometime before M36. During the latter years of M36, the Chapter's homeworld of Charterous was engulfed by a massive warp storm and was eventually swallowed whole and pulled into the Immaterium. Declared lost, it was believed that the Ebony Dragons had disappeared for all time. But during the closing years of M41, with the destruction of Cadia and the formation of the galaxy spanning warp phenomena known as the Great Rift, the long lost world of Charterous was vomited back into reality. But the Ebony Dragons' long sojourn in the warp had transformed the battle-brothers of the Chapter, granting them powerful psychic abilities.

However, there was no celebration or welcome from their fellow Adeptus Astartes Chapters, who treated the Ebony Dragons with open suspicion and hostility, for it was believed that no Space Marine Chapter could remain untouched by the predations of Chaos for so many millennia. Despite the aspersions and acrimony displayed towards them, the Chapter continues to fight on against the hordes of daemons, chaos cultists and the myriad of enemies of Mankind that assails the Imperium on all fronts.

Chapter History
The Chapter's history begins with nothing - both figuratively and literally. For all members of the chapter, as well as their homeworld's people, had somehow had their memories erased after an unknown event that had left the planet trapped in the Warp. Within all the archives of various Imperial libraries, existing Adeptus Mechanicus data, as well as any tomb or data-slate, nothing could shed any light on who or what was responsible for what happened to the planet and its occupants. Though there is little official information, extant records indicate that sometime during the latter years of M36, the Ebony Dragons' Chapter homeworld of Charterous was engulfed by a massive warp storm that swallowed their planet and eventually pulled it out of reality and into the hellish realm of the Immaterium. After the storm cleared, it was noted by Imperial investigators that both Charterous and their protectors had disappeared. The Ebony Dragons were declared 'Lost to the Warp' and the Bell of Lost Souls on Terra was rung in solemn tribute to the fallen Chapter.

Soon after this incident occurred, the Chapter quickly remembered their sworn duties and set about doing them. When panic amongst the general population began brewing the Ebony Dragons' Chapter Master and Chief Librarian took it upon themselves to oversee the ruling of the planetary government, just as supervisors, and to keep an eye on the ruling hierarchy to ensure that they did not fall to the corrupting influence of Chaos. Regrettably, the Chapter was forced to periodically perform routine security sweeps over portions of the population and purge those who had fallen to extreme mutation or possession.

After spending some time in the warp, from what they perceived to have been only two centuries, due to the vagaries of the warp and extreme time-displacement, in realspace, they had been missing for 5,000 years. It was only when Cadia fell to the Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade in the closing years of M41, and the formation of the Great Rift, that the Ebony Dragons and their homeworld was brought back into realspace. During their extended period spent in the Immaterium, Astartes of the Chapter had evolved to become entirely psychic. All squads had developed a telepathic gestalt awareness of each other. In battle, their heightened perceptions became a shield of awareness to dangers to each Battle-Brother, and upon their super-human reflexes, which enabled them to dodge danger. To assist their abilities, the Techmarines have removed the upper arm armour under the pauldrons and cuisses (thigh armour) and a general reduction of plating to increase their movement speed and flexibility.

Although the Chapter's time in the warp has been rough and the current Chapter Master, Helios Mephiston, knows the chapter has broke the Codex Astartes in several areas, most of all in the total number of battle-brothers, who now number in the area of 1,500 strong and has opted to stay quiet of this fact. Due to their homeworld's proximity to the Great Rift and his apprehensive to commit his full force to the assistance to the Imperium, at all times, Helios keeps a strong number of Astartes on the homeworld. This is in case the planet is dragged back to the warp or any threats emerge from the Great Rift to threaten the Chapter's homeworld.

Chapter Homeworld
After being trapped inside the warp for several millennia, the Ebony Dragons' homeworld has become very much a shadow of its former self. Ancient records about this planet indicates that it was once a mountainous world with great lakes that spanned across many of the continents, but has now become a world of roiling acidic water. Most of the mountains have been reduced to chipped and cracked teeth and some removed from the surface by the near endless war against daemons and warbands. What animal life remained on the planet was mostly birds and lizard-like birds which have now become feral and predatory, attacking anyone foolish enough to enter their territory where they dwell. These fell creatures are often culled by the Chapter as they are seen as a challenge for Aspirants to kill such beasts only with melee weapons.

Despite being trapped in the warp the planet was forced to become its own supplier of food, weapons and ammunition, and as such, the most arid and flat northern hemisphere has been designated for food production. They only produce the simplest of vegetables within the greatly expanded walls of Hive Dominion with some livestock closely vaulted within the center of the hive spires. In the southwestern part of the planet, it has been given up to the Adeptus Mechanicus remnants to mine and manufacture while the greatest standing mountainous region became a half-forge world area where all ammunition, armour and weaponry under the control of Hive Dictaus.

To the western hemisphere the capital of the planet, Hive Theisius, in which houses a large standing of Astra Militarum forces and a few training areas. It is mainly dominated by a fractured space elevator of which it's base is in the heart of the hive. This is the capital's housing and communal areas for the hierarchy given space around which for a rarity of a hive has a expense for the emplacement of weaponry facing in all directions from the center as a last survival point of the hive and its inhabitants.

Chapter Recruitment
Recruitment may be seemed by others to be lax and relaxed by other chapters, but it is to keep a smaller part of the more human emotions of caring and humour. The recruiting Aspirants are always formed in squads to eventually pass and become full-fledged battle-brothers as a squad, therefore, keeping hold and a strong connection with their psychic gestalt connection and brotherhood. Their training strongly focuses on melee combat and overall speed of engagement to be swift and always to keep a third eye on their brothers.

Gene-Seed
No one known what Primarch's gene-seed was utilised in the creation of the Ebony Dragons. Due to their long sojourn into the Immaterium, the formation of the Great Rift and the neverending conflicts that continues to assail the Imperium on all fronts, opportunities to study their organs and genetic material has been exceedingly rare. It has been noted that the local populous of their homeworld of Charterous, from which the Chapter recruits from, have no common phenotype. However, it has been noted that they do posses a common physical mutation. The physiology and genomes of the people that lived within the planet's few remaining hive cities are, for the most part, mostly identical to that of the average baseline human, with the exception that the planet's people possess jet-black pupils. In the case of the Ebony Dragons Astartes, this blackness spreads to the entire eye until it consists entirely of their pupil, with a brilliant purplish hue whenever they utilise their psyker abilities.

Another noticeable trait that the Astartes of the Chapter have developed during their time in the Warp, is that they seem to possess latent psychic power which serves to increase their already fearsome capabilities as transhuman warriors to preternatural levels. More often, the battle-brothers of the Chapter seem to use them innately rather than by direct will. Their powers make them different as an Astartes as well, especially in battle, making them appear to run faster, kill quicker and tire more slowly than their foes. This prescient foresight grants them a sort of 'sixth sense', allowing them to determine an enemy's attack, before they can strike, enabling them to warn their battle-brothers of dangers before they materialise.

The Ebony Dragons have also seemingly developed a gestalt consciousness amongst them when they take to the field of battle. This 'hive mind' mentality, combined with their innate precognitive abilities, is amplified by the presence of additional squads, enabling them to fight in tandem and in perfect unity, as they take care of their objectives with remarkable economy of both action and communication.

Chapter Beliefs
The Chapter strongly seeks what has happened to their planet prior to the entrapment in the warp but holds a stronger sense to guard the Imperium. with the limit to the chapters fleet long range crusades are difficult and taxing to the resources and fuel but due to the problem is also a benefit the chapter general always seems to stay on planets that needed there assistance longer most chapters and assist in the rebuilding and policing providing training for local defence forces and astra militarum until the company captain deems the planet capable of standing itself and not under threat by pirates and internal strife.

Chapter Fleet
The fleet of the Ebony Dragons is almost non-existent with clearly much of it wrecked on the surface of their Chapter homeworld. With minimal resources to restore them and with the recent translation back into realspace, it was an extreme push to obtain even some of their voidcraft in which to battle the various xenos and heretics that continuously to assail their homeworld. Due to their lack of void-capable vessels, it was seen fit to by the Astartes that they needed a stronger and larger ship. In order to accomplish this task, their Chapter's techmarines set to remodeling the stricken strike cruiser, Dragon's Ire, which was previously described as salvage, much to the disgust of the Adeptus Mechanicus present on the planet for disturbing the natural design and order of the strike cruiser's original design.

Instead of a simple salvage expedition, the Chapter instead, turned this mission into a complete retrofit operation. They began by enlarging the prow launch bays and added additional bombardment cannons from another stricken vessel, upgrading the belly and deck armour from vertical attacks which fattened the aft section. They also added personal chambers for additional crew as a cowling over the rear thrusters, in short, transforming the strike cruiser into a 'dwarf battle-barge' in appearance, without a typical battle-barge's natural firepower and survivability. They then set about making some functional wreck transports to complete the fleet, which is almost constantly in need of repair. They Chapter is forced to maintain their rag-tag fleet until additional vessels can be provided by outside factors, for they are stuck with this cobbled-together fleet of transports and one highly-modified strike cruiser.

Chapter Relics
The Ebony Dragons do possess some chapter relics, but these are few and far in between. Many of these relics pre-date the Chapter's creation and were more than likely gifted to them by their genetic forebears, but unfortunately, this knowledge has been lost due to the incident that saw their world subsumed by the Warp and the Chapter's loss of their collective memories. The local Adeptus Mechanicus have few resources to work to forge such formidable weapons, and so, these master-crafted are extremely rare. The Ebony Dragons are known to possess the following relics:


 * Dragon's Roar of Fire - This relic consists of a master-crafted combination chainfist/bolter, who's bolt rounds have reduced mass reaction explosives but additional volatile fuel which cause the target to be ignited in cleansing promethium. (Chapter Masters only)


 * Titan Fang - A master-crafted, serrated force-axe that feeds on the wielder's psychic energies to produce its power field. The more hatred for the enemy a warriors feels causes the teeth of the force-axe to bite further and deeper, but due to the serration of the blade it does tend to get stuck in their opponent's flesh, which requires it to be violently wrenched out, causing more damage. Also, this weapon possesses and rare and precious in-built teleporter in the pommel that enables it to return to it's wielder grasp after it is thrown or dropped. (Chapter Masters only)


 * Dragon's Jewel - This artificer-wrought suit of power armour is a sacred relic that is only worn by the Chapter Master himself or his appointed champion, and it only worn in the most dire situations as ii is the only relic armour that was not worn upon awareness of when the Chapter emerged from their stasis and not used. This relic battle-plate possesses a heavily-modified power pack and powered joints with the assistance of small thrusters on the pack, making Dragon's Jewel capable of attaining immense speed in a strait line. This relic armour also possesses a modified powerpack powers and a sophisticated high-capacity Iron Halo. Within the records of the Chapter's forgemasters, it is said this relic artefact was taken from parts of a notable Imperial Knight's thermal cannon (time date and place of occurrence is deleted), but in all other aspects is little different to normal power armour.


 * Glare - A master-crafted lascannon of unknown metal compositions and structure, this artificer-wrought weapon baffles the most gifted tech-priests and forgemasters. When dating this weapon, it hearkens back to the Dark Age of Technology, before the coming of the Emperor. As such, the Adeptus Mechanicus adepts wish to take the weapon from the Astartes for themselves, in order study and dismantle it in order to learn it's secrets, but its potency is often required by the Ebony Dragons to use against the foes. Glare fires a larger-than average beam, and for those unfortunates that are caught in the weapon's area of effect that lasts for several minutes, the deadly corona of psychic energy burns out the victim's mind, reducing it to a gelatinous jelly.


 * Keen - A master-crafted stalker pattern bolter with an attached suppressor and higher-than-normal magnification scope. The deadly rounds that are fired from this weapon possess a deadly sabot miniaturised warhead. Upon leaving the barrel, these rounds' rocket propellant only takes the round halfway to the target, and after a separation of the outer jacket, the adamantite rod of the round can penetrate the thickest armour plate, but at reduced damage. Upon the first recorded use of Keen, the battle-brother successfully fired the weapon at his chosen target, but his instincts told him that he had missed. However, the adamantine rod penetrated the Chaos Marine's head with ease, killing him instantly just as he remarked to his fellow heretics, "My weapon is keen to hit our foes, brothers!"


 * TOG - Upon awakening to find the Chapter trapped within the warp, this predator battle tank returned to the fortress-monastery with crippling damage a month after the awakening, with only it's left track functional and it's right road wheels riding the ground to dust with effort and the front-right suspension and crew compartment completely crushed by an unknown impact and thousands of penetrating hits riddling its hull. The Chapter's techmarines found all the tank's crew dead inside and the word ' TOG ' scratched deeply in the vehicle's rear hatch. They quickly realised the machine spirit of the tank had driven itself back home despite the immense damage it had sustained. Feeling awed by the machine spirit's grit and determination, the tank has been completely reforged many times, with a new addition made by every forgemaster as it stands. TOG is a bastion of armour and determination with over two layers of additional ablative armour added on most the tank's surfaces. The weapons are the standard predator autocannons, that in itself, has been upgraded several times and blessed with enhanced ammunition and two sponson-mounted lascannons and the commander's hatch has a mounted storm bolter. The most recent upgrade by the forgemaster was the removal of the ablative armour on the bustle of the turret and the attachment of two mechadendrites so TOG can perform basic self-repair in the field upon itself, and as such, TOG, with all his numerous upgrades and additions, has as much staying power as a typical land raider and is very loved and respected by all the battle-brothers of the Chapter.

Chapter Colours
The Ebony Dragons Chapter primarily wear jet-black coloured power armour with deep purple on the insets of both armorials. When worn, the Aquila or Imperialis on the chest guard is silver in colour. Due to their long sojourn in the warp, the Chapter had little access to sufficient resources to newer marks or upgraded power armour. On the few rare occasions when the Chapter has been observed by other Imperial forces, the Ebony Dragons have been observed to wear armour obviously field-modified in a variety of ways, sometimes simply to keep it functioning due to the isolated conditions in which they were forced to operate for so long, but often to improve its performance in some manner. They also make extensive use of prototype and sub-pattern wargear and battle-plate of unknown origins and manufacture.

Such modifications are not authorised by Codex Astartes battle-doctrine and are often in flagrant contradiction of the laws of Adeptus Mechanicus' Machine Cult's proscribed dogma and teachings. The Chapter's Techmarines often strip back reactor casings, re-route power couplings and often forego components such as gauntlets, motive stabilisers, vambraces, pauldrons or helms. The wearer of such modified battle-plate is afforded a combination of power and dexterity not provided by standard patterns, albeit at the expense of some protection against heavy weapons fire.

Many Astartes of the Chapter have been observed to taking to the practice the their homeworld's hive gang-derived traditions of decapitating defeated enemy champions and displaying the flensed, bleached skull as a personal trophies. They have also been observed to wear bits of metal or some other object taken from worthy foes and hung upon their armour like primitive fetishes.

The white coloured squad specialty icon (Tactical, Assault, Devastator & Veteran) stenciled on the right armourial indicates the battlefield role of an individual battle-brother. It is not known how the Chapter indicates squad or company designation, but due to the Chapter's seemingly gestalt consciousness, the battle-brothers' seem to possess an innate sense of which squad and company each battle-brother belongs to, without the need for a visual queue.

Chapter Badge
The Ebony Dragons Chapter badge is a jet-black coloured, stylised winged dragon, it's wings displayed and elevated, and cast alight in purifying flame, centered upon a field of deep purple.

Chapter Relations
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Allies
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World Eaters
The first time the Ebony Dragons encountered these fanatical, blood-crazed berserkers was shortly after their home world's long sojourn into the Warp. After the lost planet was finally disgorged back into realspace, it was attacked by a large warband of World Eaters Heretic Astartes that emerged from the Great Rift, to attack the unsuspecting and unprepared Chapter homeworld of the Ebony Dragons. Though they appeared weak and ripe for the taking, this was merely a ruse to a casual observer. The fight was long and hard, but the Ebony Dragons were well-prepared for a Chaos invasion, having had to defend themselves against endless attacks by the various Forces of Chaos, as well as Daemons, while trapped within the Immaterium. Though thousands of innocents were slaughtered during the blood-soaked carnage enacted by the Khorne Berserkers, the ferocity and savagery of the Ebony Dragons, combined with the superb stratagems of coordinated assaults with the planet's resident Astra Militarum and PDF regiments, were able to cut off the large warband, into smaller, more manageable pockets of resistance. The Heretic Astartes were then taken apart piecemeal by the Imperial forces.

Notable Quotes
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By the Ebony Dragons
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