Liberation of Lor'dra

The Liberation of Lor'dra was an early campaign conducted by the Penitent Knights Space Marine Chapter in the Segmentum Obscurus. While conducting routine security patrols they came upon the isolated world of Lor'dra that had been settled during the Dark Age of Technology and lost during the Age of Strife. Re-discovered by the Chapter, they Penitent Knights decided to settled the feral and inhospitable world as their own, as the harsh conditions and deadly wildlife made the citizens of this world a hard and worthy stock for potential future Astartes.

History
"As we disembarked from our Thunderhawk, bolters and blades raised, even in our infancy, our fury saturated the ground with the blood of mindless beasts."

- Knight-Captain Balder Karn of the Order of the Gryphon, commenting on the Liberation

Highlord Lithandros, the first Chapter Master of the Penitent Knights, was among the small number of Chapter Masters that eschewed the Codex Astartes. Thusly, he structured the Knights not into Companies, but Orders. These Orders fulfilled the same purpose of a Company, but instead focussed on specific facets of combat and war, to be deployed alongside at least one other Order to achieve maximum effectiveness. The Orders were to be commanded by a Knight-Captain, chief amongst the brothers of his Order for prowess and a tactical mind.

Shortly after the Knights had amassed a sizable force of Astartes, Highlord Lithandros led the Chapter on a patrol through Imperial space in the Segmentum Obscurus. Eventually, the Chapter encountered a planet that was lost during the Age of Strife, and from their scans, still held human life. Descending onto the world to save the native humans of the planet of Lor'dra from an eminent doom at the hands of indigenous wildlife. These beasts were highly specialized and deadly, challenging opponents even for the Astartes of the Penitent Knights.

Lithandros pondered the fate of the humans he had saved, deciding to instead of bringing them into the Imperium as a civilized world, would make the planet the homeworld of the Penitent Knights, and to spare the populace from the rigors of Imperial life. Soon after, the nigh-impenetrable Fortress-Monastery of Galadhor was constructed and a massive city of the feudal humans shortly after surrounding the new home of the Knights. As to acquire the best source of recruits for the Chapter, Lithandros ordered groups of the humans to venture across the harsh and often desolate lands of Lor’dra and endure hardships likely to produce strong and promising candidates to become Astartes.

The 7th Order, the Order of the Crow, was led by Knight-Captain Daedelus during the settlement of Lor'dra. Daedelus was always eager for war, infuriated by Lithandros’ sympathy for the pitiful and lowly humans that were to be the Chapter’s new serf. Over the years following the construction of Galadhor, Daedelus and the Order of the Crow began to act against Lithandros’ wishes, often abandoning their posts in the local Aegimius System to engage in warfare with their boltguns. The Scholars of the Chapter have guessed that Daedelus discovered the shadowed origination of the Chapter's gene-seed and this led to his downfall, but it is only a rumor.