Soul Wardens

The Soul Wardens are a Loyalist Successor Chapter of the Executioners Chapter, themselves a descendant of the vaunted Imperial Fists, created during the 22nd Founding in order to help prosecute the Great Cull.

After their admirable and zealous conduct in the Great Cull, the High Lords gifted them a mighty war fleet, and the Soul Wardens promptly set sail amongst the stars as a Crusading Chapter. The Soul Wardens have long venerated the time of the Great Crusade, and the original beliefs and mission of the Emperor. They have taken it upon themselves to uphold those tenets and to never cease in fighting to restore the Imperium to its former glory.

Although they are successors of the Executioners Chapter and long maintained close contacts with their primogenitors, after the events of the Badab War the Soul Wardens have largely broken off contact with the Executioners. Instead, they have pledged new oaths of brotherhood to the Imperial Fists as sons of Rogal Dorn, and in recent decades have fought in the Indomitus Crusade underneath the reborn Primarch Roboute Gulliman, earning many battle honors.

The Soul Wardens are currently mustering together as one chapter in order to aid Imperial forces at Sangua Terra as part of the continuing war for the Nachmund Gauntlet. The Soul Wardens recognize that if the Gauntlet were to fall then Imperium Nihlus, perhaps even the entire galaxy is lost. Each member of the chapter has taken the most solemn of oaths in front of the brothers that such an outcome will not unfold.

Chapter History
In the wake of the disastrous Reign of Blood and the Plague of Unbelief that sprung out of the Age of Apostasy, the High Lords launched the Great Cull. The Great Cull was a vast undertaking to purge the Imperium of heretics and hereteks through systematic extermination in order to restore order and their rule. In order to aid in facilitating this effort a new founding of Adeptus Astartes was raised, the 22nd in the history of the Imperium. As part of this founding, the Soul Wardens aided the forces of the High Lords in culling heretics and restoring order, destroying petty empires created by treacherous Cardinals and forcefully bringing secessionists back into the Imperial fold.

The Soul Wardens would win great renown and many battle honors during the Great Cull, with the High Lords rewarding them after its conclusion with a mighty war fleet and a host of rare and ancient wargear. Rumors persist that much of this bounty was in fact claimed by the chapter after the destruction of several Astartes chapters that had broken their vows to the Imperium. However, these rumors can only be taken as conjecture and the Soul Wardens themselves remain silent on the matter.

For the next millennia, the Soul Warden would continue their mission. Their fleet would often aid Imperial Crusades in reclaiming worlds for the Imperium or would arrive within besieged or treasonous sub-sectors, restoring stability and loyalty. The Soul Wardens would replenish their numbers from the populations of Imperials worlds they defended and brought back into compliance, their fleets hovering in the void until the region was deemed secure, at which point they would once again leave for new battlefields. Records show battle honors attributed to the Soul Wardens in many battles during this period, attached to such events as the Taninim and Bellrath Crusades, as well as actions during several Black Crusades.

In the first half of the 41st millennium, the Soul Wardens would join the seven-year-long Macharian Crusades, a massive effort to retake hundreds of worlds in the Segmentum Pacificus that had been lost during the events of the Age of Apostasy. The crusade was the largest launched since the Great Crusade and was incredibly successful. However, in the wake of the death of Lord Solar Macharius, his generals in their greed would devolve into infighting and treachery in what would become known as the Macharian Heresy. Disgusted, the Soul Wardens would play a role in quelling this heresy an

As the 41st millennium continued the Soul Wardens would partake in several crusades and battles, as well as engaging in continuing battles with two newly arise threats that would become some of the most reviled foes of the chapter, the T’au Empire and the Tyrannic Hive Fleets. The Soul Wardens would fight in both Damocles Crusades and in the Zeist Campaign against the T’au, as well as participating heavily in actions against the Tyranids, the most notable being their actions fighting Hive Fleet Kraken during the Second Tyrannic War.

As the 41st millennium ended and the formation of the Great Rift sundered the Imperium in two, the Soul Wardens became trapped within the Heimdall Sector while resupplying after continuous actions against the T’au. The Noctis Aeterna cast its shadow over the galaxy, and the Soul Wardens desperately fought in order to not just defend the Sector but to survive for what seemed like decades as time heaved in agony amidst vast and terrible warp storms. Soon, the Khornate Blood Crusade would sweep across the Region, pressing the Imperial defenders and the Soul Wardens to their limits. The Blood Crusade would recede as fast as it appeared, though false deliverance was revealed as the warp storms abated only to show the invading tendrils of Hive Fleet Kronos. Faced with an enemy they only knew too well, the Soul Wardens led Imperial forces in the battle against the Tyranid, but they would not go unaided.

The dissipation of the Noctis Aeterna presaged not just the arrival of Hive Fleet Kronos but also allowed forces from the Indomitus Crusade to reach the beleaguered Soul Wardens and other Imperial defenders. Reinforced by new Primaris marines, the Soul Wardens would assemble a mighty warhost. The resurgent Imperials would crush the tendrils of Kronos, and as Imperial relief forces flooded into the region the Soul Wardens would gather their forces and form a battlegroup that would embark to join Roboute Gulliman’s Indomitus Crusade.civil war the gains of Lord Solar Macharius were consolidated into the Imperial fold.