Armorial of the Novamarines.
Lucretius Corvo was the first Chapter Master of the Novamarines, a Second Founding Successor Chapter of the Ultramarines Legion.
The Novamarines' use of a quartered livery as their Chapter colours is based upon Lucretius Corvo's own personal heraldry.
History[]
"Are you not forgetting something, Captain?'
'Am I, my lord?'
'All here today have renewed their oaths to the Imperium. Will you not do the same?' asked Primarch Lion El'Jonson.
'No, my lord,' Corvo replied. There was a sound akin to a soft wind, the sound of a world gasping.
The Lion's face hardened. Sanguinius looked to his brothers.
'Are you a Traitor, then?'
Corvo drew his gladius and held it above his head. The Space Marines brought their weapons up but Roboute Guilliman stayed them with a hand.
'You ask me to renew that which needs no renewal. For the oaths of an Ultramarine are eternal. To speak them again implies a weakness inherent in them. And there is no weakness. Not in my arm, nor in my mind, nor in my word. I am an Ultramarine. I march for Macragge and for the Emperor, forevermore. As I have pledged. I need not do so again.'
'Well said, my son,' Guilliman told Captain Corvo."
- —Lucretius Corvo to the rulers of the Imperium Secundus.
Lucretius Corvo was originally a highly honoured captain of the 90th Company, 9th Chapter, of the XIII Legion.
He led his company in countless successful engagements during the Great Crusade and served as one of the Ultramarines' Champions during the vicious fighting against the apostate Word Bearers Traitor Legion on the planet Astagar during the Shadow Crusade campaign of the Horus Heresy.
In this particularly brutal six-solar-day-long battle, Corvo commanded a desperate counterattack against an enemy force many times his own unit's number. His chosen band managed to destroy a Traitor Warlord-class Titan and break the siege. As recognition for his tenacity and heroic actions, a Laurel of Defiance was to be awarded to Corvo by Primarch Roboute Guilliman himself. Though the Shadow Crusade was over and the Word Bearers and their World Eaters allies had been driven back, and peace restored to Ultramar, a new danger had arisen -- a political one.
Primarch Guilliman and his two brothers, Sanguinius and Lion El'Jonson, primarchs of the Blood Angels and Dark Angels Legions respectively, had declared the formation of a new Imperium in the absence of any communication with the wider Imperium, the Imperium Secundus, dur to the interference of the Ruinstorm after the Battle of Calth.
Captain Corvo was unsure of such an action. But he had also been honoured by the primarchs with the Laurel of Defiance for his heroism. When asked to renew his vows to the Imperium, Captain Corvo bravely stood up to Lion El'Jonson, despite facing risk of censure or much worse -- even death. Corvo boldly explained that there was no need to renew his oaths to the Imperium, as he was an Ultramarine, and was loyal both to Macragge and the Emperor, and had already made this oath when he donned the colours of the XIIIth Legion. Therefore, it was unnecessary to do so again. Impressed by his gene-son's brutal honesty and boldness, Guilliman slowly clapped his hands and expressed his approval.
Following the end of the Horus Heresy and the subsequent campaigns of the Great Scouring, Guilliman, now the Imperial Regent and lord commander of the Imperium, introduced his Codex Astartes which saw the dissolution and reorganisation of the Legiones Astartes into separate, smaller formations known as Chapters during the Second Founding.
Lucretius Corvo was chosen to lead his own Successor Chapter which he dubbed the Novamarines. Later, Chapter Master Corvo would take part in the Battle of Thessala, during which Roboute Guilliman was mortally wounded by Fulgrim, the Daemon Primarch of the Emperor's Children Traitor Legion.
Sources[]
- Imperial Armour Volume Nine - The Badab War, Part One, pp. 116-123
- Pharos (Novel) by Guy Haley
- The Laurel of Defiance (Shorty Story) by Guy Haley
- Dark Imperium (Novel) by Guy Haley