Atramentar

"Show your enemy mercy and he shall one day seek vengeance upon you for every petty, imagined slight. Mercy is therefore a weakness; a crime waiting to be born. Mercy I have long since expunged, both from myself and my Legion."

- The Night Haunter

The Atramentar are the elite Terminator-Armoured unit of Battle-Brothers from the Night Lords Traitor Legion's formidable 1st Company led by the infamous First Captain Jago Sevetarion.

History
During the Great Crusade no Legion of the Legiones Astartes elevated the use of fear itself as a weapon to the extent that the Night Lords Legion did. Even before the treachery of the Dropsite Massacre of Istvaan V, the Night Lords were renegade in all but name, having entirely devoted themselves to the arts of terror and murder. At the forefront of this Legion of murderers, cutthroats and torturers were the Atramentar. This elite cadre's numbers were chosen from amongst the standard ranks of the Night Lords Legion from Astartes who had been singled out and personally selected by their Primarch for their ferocity and cruelty. Each member was known by name and reputation within and without the Night Lords Legion. During the Dropsite Massacre of Istvaan V, First Captain Sevatar led his 1st Company elite to the surface, bronze chains wrapped their armour, leashing weapons to fists, as the Night Lords made ready for the coming signal. Following the first wave of attack and the bloodying of the three Loyalist Legions, the second wave of "reinforcements" eagerly awaited the withdrawing mass of Loyalists on the slopes of the Urgall Depression. As the battered Raven Guard warriors staggered towards the unified the unified Night Lords and Word Bearers force, exhausted, clutching empty Bolters and broken blades, believing their "brothers' " presence to be a reprieve, they waited in grim silence. As they voxed hails requesting medical aid and supply, the exhausted warriors of the Raven Guard and Salamanders came to within a hundred metres of their "allies". It was then that Horus revealed his perfidy and sprung his lethal trap. Inside the black alien fortress where Horus had made his lair, a lone flare shot skyward, exploding in a hellish red glow that lit the battlefield below. The fire of betrayal roared from the barrels of a thousand guns, as the second wave of Astartes revealed where their true loyalties now lay.

Thramas Crusade
Following the massacre on Istvaan V, the Warmaster sent Night Haunter and his Night Lords Legion on a campaign of genocide against the Imperial strongholds of Heroldar and Thramas in the Aegis Sub-sector of the Eastern Fringes, thus protecting Horus' flank and delaying the Dark Angels Legion from reinforcing the Loyalists. This bitterly contested campaign dragged on for nearly three standard years. At the height of this brutal campaign the Dark Angels executed a meticulously planned ambush on the Night Lords' fleet while it was in transit across the sub-sector that saw the back of the Night Lords Legion broken and their Primarch mortally wounded after having faced his brother Lion El'Jonson once again in mortal combat. Thanks to the skilled coordination and superb execution by the Lion, the Night Lords fleet was devastated, losing dozens of capital ships and approximately one-quarter of their Legion fleet to the Dark Angels' assault. Unfortunately, the remainder of the Night Lords fleet fled the Dark Angels' wrath, taking their critically wounded Primarch with them before the Lion could finally end his wretched life. This resulted in the death of all but a dozen of the Atramentar and the capture of First Captain Sevatar and the remaining survivors. Konrad Curze fled El'Jonson's wrath, evading the Dark Angels for months, stalking the shadows within the bowels of their mighty capital ship, the Invincible Reason. Somehow, the remaining Night Lords managed to affect their escape and fled into the void.

Dark Fate
Following the death of Sevatar during the epic conclusion of the Horus Heresy at the Battle of Terra, the Atramentar largely dissolved, which some, like the Apothecary Talos Valcoran, believed was due to Sevatar's successor Zso Sahaal being a non-Nostraman. Though they respected Sevatar's successor, they had no affection for him. When the Atramentar disbanded after Sevatar's death, their resistance to Zso Sahaal was born from something more than simple prejudice. Some of the 1st Company were Terrans, the oldest warriors in the VIII Legion. There was more to it than Sahaal's birth world. Being Terran, Nostraman, or born of any other world had never mattered to most of the Night Lords. They were divided because with the Primarch gone, this was every Traitor Legion's fate over time. Centuries later, when a member of the Atramentar was questioned by Mercutian, a squad member of First Claw, 10th Company, he replied that the 1st Company had dissolved mostly because they felt that no one could live up the dark reputation of their former First Captain. The Atramentar would serve no other leader after Sevatar died; he'd made them into what they were, a brotherhood that couldn't be broken any other way. Just as the members of the VIII Legion would serve no single Captain after their Primarch died. It was not their way, just as most of the Traitor Legions ultimately fragmented into hundreds of different warbands. Allegiance to Chaos ultimately bred division and fractious internecine conflict.

Notable Atrementar

 * Malek - Served as bodyguard to Vandred Anrathi, also known as The Exalted, commander of the Night Lords warband known as The Exalted.
 * Garadon - Served as bodyguard to the Chaos Lord The Exalted.
 * Vraal - Served as bodyguard to the Chaos Lord The Exalted.
 * Thorion - Served as an Atramentar commander during the Thramas Crusade during the Horus Heresy.