The 8th Founding of Space Marine Chapters occurred at an unknown time in the mid-34th Millennium, undertaken before the dark times of the Nova Terra Interregnum, when the Imperium of Man was split into twin interstellar empires.
Few records remain surrounding this Founding, but one of the earliest extant likely to pertain to one of the Chapters founded during this period may mention the Mantis Warriors. This fragment can be found in the Libris Gloriana -- a seven hundred and seventy-seven volume treatise on the state of Imperial power commissioned for the ascension of High Lord Gogol after the Nova Terra Interregnum in 093.M36.
It mentions in bombastic terms a Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes that is a "...warrior legion of the Mantis (or "prophecy," the language is unclear) "of the 8th Founding of "... the line of the great Khan, by his sons the Marauders." The text goes on to praise their successes in combating the Traitors of the Eye of Terror, as well as crushing alien threats, and speaks of them as operating far from home but fails to name their Chapter homeworld or state the star system in which it is to be found.
Another Chapter believed to have been founded during this time is the Angels Revenant Chapter. Noble, if aloof by reputation even for the warriors of the Adeptus Astartes, this Chapter of the 8th Founding, and of the proud lineage of the Ultramarines, had spent much of its long history on crusade throughout the western Imperium. After its glorious role in the Orphean War of Faith, the Angels Revenant was given home at Libethra within the Orpheus Sector of the Segmentum Tempestus.
As stern supporters of the Ecclesiarchy and the Imperial Creed, the bounty of the Orphean branch of the Adeptus Ministorum was given freely to the construction of the Chapter's fortress-monastery, while the hardy inhabitants of the Feral World of Patara formed the basis of new generations of neophytes for the Chapter.
While completely autonomous of sector authority they serve as protectors, guarding the pilgrimage routes of the Cold Veil, while their Chapter starships tirelessly plied the borders of the Hesod Nebula and the Barren Stars, hunting down and slaughtering xenos corsairs and marauders that had long made these trackless regions their lair.
Of the final fate of the Angels Revenant Space Marine Chapter, little can be said for sure. Such scattered and fragmentary evidence as has been uncovered about their final hour suggest unsurprisingly that they fought to the last against overwhelming forces that were unleashed against them.
The Libethra System was found littered with the radiation-ghosts of deadly void combat and spreading clouds of micro-wreckage. Furthermore, the ancient hull of at least one of the vast Necron Tomb Ships that were later sighted above the world of Amarah during the Orphean War held fresh scars consistent with the unique signature of Space Marine bombardment cannon strikes at extreme close range.
Indeed it may be the case that such was the resistance the Angels Revenant put up that the Necron invaders resorted to breaking through Libethra's crust and unleashing the planet's molten core to seal their fate conclusively.
When news of the Chapter's martyrdom reached the Synod Tempestus of the Ecclesiarchy, a segmentum-wide day of requiem was decreed, the bells of a thousand worlds tolling to mark their passing. It is now thought that no more than a few hundred Angels Revenant, far from the Orpheus Sector on crusade, perhaps survive.
Select 8th Founding Chapters[]
| Angels Revenant | Ultramarines | Roboute Guilliman | Libethra (Destroyed) | Noble if aloof by reputation even for the warriors of the Adeptus Astartes, this Chapter of the 8th Founding, and of the proud lineage of the Ultramarines, spent much of its long history on crusade throughout the western Imperium, in the Segmentum Tempestus. The minor colony world of Libethra, upon which Saint Marduk had shown his favour, was converted to a Shrine World of the Ecclesiarchy and given over to the Angels Revenant as their domain, which until that time had been a Fleet-based Chapter. |
| Mantis Warriors (Unconfirmed) | White Scars | Jaghatai Khan | Various worlds in the Endymion Cluster; Tranquility III (primary training world before the Badab War); now Fleet-Based Chapter | In the year 587.M41 the Mantis Warriors and their charges within the Endymion Cluster were incorporated within the newly formed alliance of Space Marine Chapters known as the Maelstrom Warders. With this change in status came, for the first time, an alliance of long-standing with two powerful and very different Chapters in culture and outlook, the Astral Claws and the Lamenters. |
Sources[]
- Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two, pg. 64
- Imperial Armour Volume Twelve - The Fall of Orpheus, pp. 17-18, 21-23, 32-33
- Reverie (Novel) by Peter Fehervari, Ch. 19