Heralds of the Storm

"Honor our fathers, protect the innocent and meek, demolish and burn those that would oppose the Emperor's subjects. These are the tenants of our righteous calling, and they are our creed! Glory for the Emperor, and honor to his servants!"

- Lord Crusader Galadan addressing the victorious 1st Company after routing an army of Chaos Marines (457.M38)

The Valiant Scions are a 25th Founding Successor Chapter of the honored Penitent Knights Chapter. Created during the 40th Millennium, the Valiant Scions proudly adhere to the near chivalric culture of their forebear Chapter, adopting many of the customs, strategies, and beliefs. Like the Knights, the Scions fervently believe in the value of civilian life and will gladly endure many hardships to secure their safety. Because of this, or perhaps the reason for it, the two Chapters have maintained a very close relationship, the Scions seeing the Knights as their noble fathers. However, differing from their parent Chapter, the Valiant Scions are mostly a crusading Chapter, roaming the Imperium for foes to slay, though sometimes taking periods of time to defend their parent Chapter's system to rebuild their ranks. But while the Penitent Knights care surprisingly little for their mysterious origins, the Scions have made it their mission to seek the answer to the origination of their gene-seed.

The Coming of the Scions (312.M40)
Following their exemplary and heroic actions during a campaign against a Chaos worshiping insectoid xenos race known as the Vya, the Penitent Knights Chapter was given the honor of siring a new Successor Chapter, that being the Valiant Scions. The Knights were heavily involved with the beginnings of the new Chapter, devoting an entire Order, or Company, to ensure that the young Astartes would receive the best training they could, even so far as to grant the Feudal World of Ostrava for the Scions to found and build their Chapter. Soon after the Scions were considered ready for action they left the Aegimius System to patrol around the Gothic Sector for Crusades to join, eager to prove themselves.

The Crucible (314.M40)
After two Terran years of light engagement with roaming bands of xenos races, the young Valiant Scions Chapter found itself engaged in a much more serious war. As Chaos had begun to gain momentum in Segmentum Obscurus, and a warband of Black Legion marines crossed the path of the Valiant Scions. The loyalist Astartes found the Chaos Marines upon an unnamed Death World, where the Chapter Master, or Lord Crusader, as their culture dictates, ordered the Chapter's fleet engage the traitor warships while three of the Orders (Companies) brought battle to the Black Legion Warband on the surface of the Death World. The relatively young Astartes faced traitors with far more experience, and though few in number, fought as fiercely as could be expected. The Warlord of this Warband then used some strange technology to trap the Orders of the Scions upon the Death World for weeks by making the planet's atmosphere extremely hazardous to prevent the use of aerial vehicles, subjecting them to arduous trials and ambushes. However, the Lord Crusader, Cadlaine, freed his brothers by slaying the Warlord and destroying the weather device. The Scions look back on this event as their first true trial.

Lord Crusader Cadlaine, after returning with the survivors of the encounter, deemed that the Chapter's brothers needed to be more ready for such battles, and thus, aboard the Chapter's immense Battle Barge, the "Anvil of Valor," a grand arena was fashioned to host a constant tourney of squad-based fights between the Scions or against captured xenos beast races. Cadlaine named this tournament, the Crucible. Using non-lethal weaponry against brothers, the Scions would be a constantly sharpened blade, always improving their skills between glorious battles in the Emperor's name, or to bring pride to both the Scions and their progenitor Chapter.