Desolation Lords

"Tell me brothers, when Horus and his ilk decided to turn their back on the Emperor, did we sit by and allow them? No! We struck back, and we fought them to the last! I don’t know about you, but that is what I intend to do again!"

- Legion Master Nathaniel Garro

The Desolation Lords was a Space Marine Legion created in the Second Founding. It was comprised of loyalist members of the Death Guard Legion, whose loyal service during the Heresy expunged them of guilt over the actions of their treasonous brethren. They are one of the oldest Legions in Imperial service, and have always stood steadfast at the Emperor’s side, through the darkest hours of the Imperium.

Founding
It is improper to tell of the history of the Desolation Lords without first telling of how they came to be. When Horus Lupercal, the Warmaster and Arch Traitor, revealed his hand and entered open revolt against the Imperium, he did it in the Istvaan system, purging the Loyalist elements of his first Traitor legions with virus bombs on Istvaan III. One of the people who escaped this bombing was Death Guard Captain Nathaniel Garro. Who, commanding the frigate Eisenstein, was not on the planet’s surface when the bombs fell. Assassins had been sent after Garro, but these Astartes failed in their task and Garro managed to take control of the ship. As the ship fled the system, the Battle Barge Terminus Est engaged it in an effort to stop its flight. These efforts were not entirely in vain as the ship did slip into the Warp, but it was crippled. The following treacherous journey through the immaterium was incredibly perilous, and it was only by the best effort and skill of everyone onboard that they survived, but they did, attracting the attention of the Imperial Fists and returning to the Solar System to warn the Imperium of Horus’ treachery.

They were held for some time on Luna out of fear that they may harbor traitorous intent, but they were exonerated. The survivors, 70 Death Guard Legionnaires, went on in Imperial service, with many assumedly joining Garro in the Knights Errant, the private Astartes force of Malcador the Sigillite. Garro served loyally throughout the Heresy, living to see its end alongside many of his initial Legionnaires. However, many more Loyalist Death Guard had by that point been recovered, either hiding away in the most hostile environments they could find, or on the outskirts of the Imperium, far from their treacherous Primarch’s influence. Eventually, when it was decided that the Second Founding would be conducted to replace the Traitor Legions, it was decided that, after careful screening of each and every individual, a Legion would be founded of Mortarion’s lineage, and there was no question as to who would lead them. So, Nathaniel Garro underwent the procedure to turn him into a Legion Master, and the Desolation Lords were born. They were offered as a homeworld the planet of Venenum, a world within Segmentum Solar that had a Northern hemisphere ravaged by toxic gas storms, but a relatively peaceful Southern hemisphere.

Second Great Crusade
As soon as they were situated on Venenum, the Desolation Lords began to fight in the Second Great Crusade, bringing the Emperor’s Light to the Galaxy. They first set out to secure the Throneworld by waging war in Segmentum Solar. In the slow, grinding wars that the various Imperialis Auxilia had become bogged down in, the Desolation Lords thrived, breaking every bastion and carrying every field they came across.