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This article, Hand of Fate, is currently under active construction. The author, Petrus Tyrannus, apologizes for the inconvenience. |
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This article, Hand of Fate, was written by Petrus Tyrannus. Please do not edit or 'acquire' this fiction without the writer's permission. |
- "Worshippers of the rotting corpse-emperor! You have been blessed anew by the promises of pleasure and pain, of bloated bliss and extatic excellence! The last great god has granted ye boons of flesh and might, of warping and twisting visages of beauty and excess. Come ye, now! Accept him in your hearts, so that ye may follow all the harder in the path of true apotheosis!"
- —Chaplain Valentus Alcane of the Hand of Fate, adressing a to be conquered world.
The Hand of Fate are a notorious warband of chaos space marines that roam the Segmentum Obscurus in search of plight and plunder through the forces of the Imperium they once served. Led by ruthless leaders, they carve a path of bloody carnage across human and xenos world alike, offering great swathes of sacrifices to their heinous patron deity in search of boons of power. For almost ten thousand years these warriors of excess and gory debauchery have now tormented the innocents of the galaxy under the guise of vengeance, and now more than ever seek to engulf their previous overlords in flame and corruption, and to bring to their knees the very returning primarchs of old.
Once a proud chapter meant to guard the gates of realspace against the horrors that spill forth from the Eye of Terror, the chapter was founded to be a bullwark against the enemies of mankind and all who oppose the Emperor's divine will. After an engagement with the vile Emperor's Children, however, in which a loathsome of accursed relics were brought to their homeworld, their destiny was sealed. From the shadows, daemonic entities of the warp plotted against their captors in secret, whispering dark truths and seducing lies to anyone willing or unwilling to hear. Soon, after no more than a few standard solar decades, mutation was rampant among their numbers, and the very character of the chapter changed, from once honorable soldiers to nothing more than glory-seeking lunatics at the very expanse of their allies. It was no time before the Ordo Hereticus declared them excomunicated.
This warband is particularly known for their mochery of imperial ways, seeing as one of the highest pleasures they can offer to their overreaching god to scorn the forces of the loyalist dogs. To achieve that end, they cling tightly to their old ways, mimicking the tenets expressed in the Codex Astartes to such an extent as to be, on occasions, confused with the very enemies they swore to hold at blade's end. This means the usually chaotic nature of a force of the ruinous powers is not seen at the Hand of Fate, several of the core military doctrines of the space marines seen in their ranks, such as divisions in roughly tactical squads and companies and even the self-imposed restriction of roughly one thousand fighting personel at any given time.
The heretics of Prismari are also known to be unusual yet fickle allies. At one day they may be seen fighting alongside a desperate Astra Militarum regiment, only to turn on them the moment the battle seems won or, worse, allert the forces of the Inquisition of their involvement in the victory, only granting another powerful force joins, albeit unwillingly, the forces of chaos. However, they are also prone to periods of seemingly madness or, like some of their chaotic allies speculate, moments of weakness and regret at their corruption by the forces of She Who Thirsts. For this reason, they will never be truly trusted by other tainted warriors of the immaterium, if such premise was ever possible, for no one save for themselves truly know their real allegiance.
Warband History
The Fall from Grace
Long ago amidst the tumultuous times of the imperial consolidation after the fabled Horus Heresy, the Imperium soon saw that such an endeavour as the Great Crusade would not only be not viable anymore, but also impossible to undertake now that their most genious strategic minds laid dead, destroyed or lost forever. With that in mind, the High Lords of Terra soon proposed the creation of stationary chapters whose sole purpose would be to guard, but not advance, strategic locations within or at the very fringes of Imperial-controlled space. These chapters would soon see deployment across a myriad of planets across the galaxy, but most famous were those garisoned to defend the very limits of realspace itself against the ever-encroaching darkness of the beyond realm known to many simply as the Warp.
One such chapter deployed to guard the terrible astronomical anomaly known as the Eye of Terror were the Albian Warriors. Created from the gene stocks of the warriors of Macragge during the distant Sixth Founding, they were given a world to rule and a fleet to patrol the northern galactic portions of the Eye, fighting, usually alone, against incursions from not only heretics from within the great wound in reality who tried to escape and cause great torment on the denizens of humanity's mighty empire, but also against weird alien species from beyond the known regions of space drawn to the weird life-shaping properties of the energies that spilled forth from that gaping maw, ready to swallow the very universe.
On one of the Chapter's earliest engagements, during the first days of the 34th Millenium, an unknown warband of the twisted Emperor's Children was harassing imperial supply vessels to and fro Errus One, the Albian Warriors' homeworld. Amassing their fleet in bulk, the chapter, led by chapter master Ferreran Epathane, went on to attack the hidden operation and restock bases of their enemies across the Sub-sector. As the battles raged across the stars, it was clear victory was on the side of the imperial forces as champion after champion of chaos fell to the mass of ceramite that were the Warriors. At battle's end, all of the heretics and their mortal cultist subjects laid dead, the walls of their profaned temples and warships plastered with the gory red substance of their innards.
As the triumphant side of the conflict, the space marines of Guilliman's fold took many relics as symbols of their victory over the traitorous forces of their brethren, as well as several of their ships, bolstering their fleet engagement capabilities to levels rivaling the most ancient of chapters in terms of their amassed firepower. Guarding their trophies at their fortress-monastery on great pillars for all of their serfs and future battle-brothers to watch in awe at the glory of old, the chapter was truly proud. And this pride, soon, would prove their undoing.