Corvin Severax

Corvin Severax serves as the Raven Guard Space Marine Chapter's current Chapter Master. As the Chapter's commander, Corvin Severax's honorific, the "Lord of Shadows", is well founded. Seldom is the enigmatic commander seen -- even by the Space Marines of his own Chapter -- yet his authority is absolute. Despite his covert style of leadership, Severax fights as a consummate predator in battle. The Lord of Shadows strikes with the speed and ferocity of a thunderbolt, his form a blur of motion as he carves his foes to bloody ruin without hesitation or remorse before disappearing into the shadows once more.

Damocles Gulf Crusade
Little is known of the mysterious and shadowy Chapter Master of the Raven Guard, save for his exploits during the Damocles Gulf Crusade upon the Imperial world of Agrellan. Towards the end of the Tau Empire's Second Sphere Expansion, a breakthrough was made when, after many failed attempts, the Air Caste successfully navigated a safe route across the Damocles Gulf. The Tau immediately began colonising this ripe new source of worlds and, in doing so, made first contact with the Imperium of Man. Water Caste emissaries moved to integrate themselves within the worlds on the periphery of Imperial space, negotiating trade deals and spreading the message of the Greater Good to those long oppressed beneath the yoke of Imperial rule. Despite many of these worlds remaining mistrustful of the silver-tongued aliens in their midst, other planet's rebelled, openly declaring for the Tau Empire. The Imperium's response, though slow in gathering pace, was far more brutal than the Tau could ever have predicted. Thus was the Damocles Gulf Crusade launched to purge the xenos threat -- a mighty counter-attack that tore through the newly colonised Tau worlds like a juggernaut. Led by Space Marines from a dozen Chapters, the Imperial forces routed the Tau and drove them back across the Damocles Gulf. However, after a long and bloody retribution campaign upon the sept world of Dal'yth, the Imperium's momentum was spent and they were forced to disengage and return across the Damocles Gulf to combat the approaching Tyranid Hive Fleet Behemoth.

Storm Clouds Gather
Even as the conquest of the planets beyond the Damocles Gulf continued in earnest, ambassadors from the Water Caste continued to make impressive gains on the diplomatic front, swaying hearts and minds of disenfranchised populations and resentful Planetary Governors. Many of these worlds wasted not time in rejoining the Tau Empire, just as they had done during the Second Sphere Expansion. However, as Astropathic warnings and pleas for military aid gradually began to circulate around the Imperial worlds of the sub-sector, the persuasive methods of the Water Caste became increasingly ineffective. When they attempted to sway the Knight World of Voltoris to their cause, they were rebuffed by Patriarch Tybalt of House Terryn, who banished them from Voltoris under pain of death. His House would opposed the impudent xenos of the Tau Empire should they ever threaten the sovereignty of a world that belonged to the Emperor -- a vow that cost the Tau dearly in the ensuing months.

The gravity of the Tau expansion was not lost on the Imperial commanders of the Lithesh Sector. Indeed, it was becoming increasingly evident that the xenos forces were far greater in both number and strength than they had been during the Second Sphere Expansion two centuries earlier. Slowly, inexorably, the Imperium began to gather its armies in response to the Tau threat, though it would still take time before a force large enough to counter the alien advance could be fully mustered. With memories of the overwhelming victories won at the outset of the Damocles Crusade fresh in their minds, the Imperium's commanders grossly underestimated the Tau. Their arrogance only served to leave the Emperor's armies further at the mercy of the consummate Tau Commander Shadowsun's finely honed military strategies. With the Imperium's defenders having retreated to their most heavily defended worlds, protocols of engagement would normally have called for the Tau expeditionary force to circumnavigate the populous Hive World of Agrellan and concentrate on the more vulnerable planets beyond. However, the Dovar System's proximity to an impassable region of the Damocles Gulf meant that it was all but impossible for the Tau armada to gain access to it without passing through Agrellan's orbit. The hive world had to fall.

Third Sphere Expansion
Into this crucible of hostility swept the Tau, their fearless Commander the first to set foot on Agrellan's surface. Shadowsun, ever the patient huntress, sought to test her enemies rather than waste the lives of her brave warriors in a bloody assault on the imposing defences. Orbital scans had revealed the presence of a small force of the Imperium's deadly White Scars Space Marines, under the command of Captain Kor'sarro Khan, alongside a number of Imperial Knights of House Terryn. Though the White Scars caused great harm to the Tau infrastructure with their lightning raids, more often than not, they were unwittingly drawn towards the battlefields of Shadowsun's choosing. Khan and his fellow White Scars were nearly cut off in a carefully executed Tau ambush, and would have been annihilated were it not for the timely arrival of a Land Speeder Stormbringer Squadron which was able to punch and escape route through the encircling Tau army.

Far from sitting idle and waiting for the White Scars to make their next move, Shadowsun had been working with Aun'Va, preparing to unleash her boldest action yet of the Third Sphere Expansion. In order to prevent the war on Agrellan from descending into a grinding stalemate, she intended to marshall her forces and launch a carefully orchestrated, simultaneous attack against every hive city on the planet. To combat the Imperial Knights, the attack on Agrellan Prime would be spreaheaded by the latest breakthrough in Earth Caste technology -- the XV104 Riptide Battlesuit. If Shadowsun's ambitious stratagem worked, Agrellan would fall in a single day.