Legion of the Damned

The Legion of the Damned are a mysterious band of Space Marines, the remnants of the destroyed Fire Hawks Chapter. They were introduced in White Dwarf 99 in 1988 and occasionally were mentioned in later editions of Warhammer 40,000. Originally they could be used by an Imperial army as an allied force, and fought as a single unit. The Games Workshop website presently has a data sheet for using the Legion of the Damned in games of Apocalypse.

Overview
The Legion are afflicted by a strange Warp contagion that destroys their sanity; as it progresses their bodies decay, but they grow in supernatural strength. Each Marine is rapidly approaching the moment when he will succumb to the contagion. Combat can initiate the final stages of the disease, in which the Marine reaches a peak in power and enters a berserk state.

Organization and Combat Doctrines
The Legion has no formal organization - it fights as a single body of troops. The only tactic possible to such a formation is to steam-roll over the enemy by a steady advance.

The Legion is not a part of any Imperial force, and employs an unusual modus operandi. Apart from driving them insane, the Warp contagion heightens their psychic awareness considerably. One result of this is the way in which the Legion selects and attacks targets. These matters are left entirely to the process of divination provided by the mystic Emperor's Tarot. This Tarot is supposedly bound within the psychic will of the Emperor and is used throughout the Imperium as both a pastime and a form of true divination. It is an undeniable fact that the Legion of the Damned's attacks seem to fall in 'the right place at the right time'.

History
In the year 963.M41 the Fire Hawks were sent to the Crow's World subsector against Dark Eldar pirates. The entire Chapter fleet, including the Chapter's mobile space-fortress Raptorus Rex, made a successful Warp jump from the Piraeus System 120 light years from Crow's World. The five starships, over eight hundred Battle-Brethren, and two thousand other personnel expected to reach Crow's World within no more than 12 hours. They never arrived.

Twenty years after the event the Chapter was officially declared lost in the Warp and presumed destroyed. The great Bell of Lost Souls tolled a thousand times, and it said that the Emperor himself ordered a Black Candle to be lit in the Adeptus Chapel of Fallen Heroes.

In 986.M41 a routine Imperial Navy patrol passed through the Ork-held star system of Jakor-tal. The squadron uncovered altogether unexpected scenes of devastation. The limited facilities available to the patrol could uncover no clue to the identity of the attacking forces. The incident was noted and passed into the eternal record of the Administratum.

A rash of similar incidents within the same and adjoining sectors aroused the interest of the Inquisition but no sign of the intruders was discovered for almost a year. Then, a patrol ship in the Maran sub-sector narrowly avoided a collision with a spacecraft at the Cift jump-point. The patrol ship was entering the Cift System as the unidentified craft was leaving. Alerted by the close encounter, the patrol crew scanned the entire jump-area and discovered two long cylindrical objects within the intruder's projected flight-path. These were hauled aboard and proved to be standard space-coffins without identification markings.

The coffins were shipped back to Terra and opened by the Adeptus Mechanicus. The coffins themselves were identified as belonging to the Absolute, one of the spacecraft from the vanished Fire Hawk fleet. Inside were the armored remains of two Space Marines. The unconventional armor colors and unofficial insignia puzzled the investigators, but serial numbers tallied with equipment made by or issued to the Fire Hawks. The armored suits were expected to house members of the lost Chapter, and were carefully broken open. The bodies within were human, but further identification proved impossible due to their advanced state of decay.

Almost a year later, a besieged Imperial research station received unexpected help. The garrison had been attacked by Ork pirates. After three hours of fighting the situation looked hopeless. Then, without warning, the Orks found themselves attacked from the rear. Within half an hour, several hundred Orks had fallen to the mysterious, Power Armored figures. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the unknown warriors vanished. This time they left behind a banner - the gnarled Chapter flag of the Fire Hawks - and inscribed upon it was the High Gothic motto In dedicato imperatum ultra articulo mortis (For the Emperor beyond the point of death). As well as the banner there was a recorder and sundry other sealed items. These were shipped to Terra.

The Fire Hawks fate
From the data contained in the recorder the Administratum was able to determine exactly what had happened to the lost Chapter. Following their Warp-jump the entire fleet had been caught within a Warp storm of terrific intensity and forced to endure the attacks of powerful Warp entities. Ship after ship was destroyed. Soon only one craft remained. By a daring Warp-exit maneuver the ship burst out of Warp-space, emerging far in the galactic east, thousands of light years off-course and beyond even the psychic light of the Emperor's Astronomicon.

Survivors
The original Fire Hawks survivors numbered two hundred Battle-Brethren. All gene-seed had been lost, all initiates killed, and most of the Chapter's masters were gone. None of the ordinary human staff had survived at all. To make matters worse, the brethren had changed. This change became more obvious over the next few months. Skins began to blacken and blister, flesh began to fester and putrefy. Slowly they began to die. Within days of the transition into normal space it became obvious that the Chapter had been exposed to some form of dangerous Warp mutation or disease. It took many years to navigate a way back into the Imperium, during which time almost half the brethren succumbed to the malady. Those who remained were no longer sane. Pain and despair had driven even their hardened minds beyond the point of rationality. Doomed to agonizing deaths, they gradually became obsessed with their fate. Now they only wanted to die. But they were still Space Marines, still loyal to the Emperor and humanity. They would not die without a purpose.

So began the unstoppable war of the Legion of the Damned! The Marines elected to remove all official insignia from their armor. Instead their armor would be black, decorated by each Battle-Brother with whatever emblems of death he chose. Most Brothers employed a similar theme - skeletons, bones and skulls.

All ranks and companies were abolished, most of the Chapter's officers were already dead and the remaining warriors were too few to make up a fully functioning Chapter hierarchy. All Brothers were to be equal before death - leveled by the certainty of their assured extinction. The warriors decided to expend their lives attacking the Imperium's enemies wherever they could be found. The disease had robbed them of their sanity, but not their loyalty! 1

Special characters
Sergeant Centurius - The limited edition character model made for the Apocalypse 100 event. He carries the Animum Malorium, an ancient relic in the shape of a skull that can suck souls from its target and then resurrect a fellow Legion of the Damned member8.

Related articles

 * Fire Hawks