History
The history of the force that would one day be known as the Smoke Jaguars begins in the halcyon days of the Great Crusade with one man, a Space Marine of the Raven Guard, named Sedaxus. Born on Deliverance in the last days of the Great Crusade, Sedaxus, like many people in those days, held his Primarch in reverent awe, a facet of his personality that was only amplified when he was selected for induction into the XIXth Legion.
Sedaxus proved ideal for implantation and his training was swiftly completed. Though he never excelled enough to be marked out for high rank, he was still marked down as a solid, dependable warrior and assigned to the ranks. Sedaxus went on to fight for the Raven Guard during the very last battles of the Great Crusade and was slowly carving out a name for himself but then came the horrors of the Horus Heresy, Istvaan V and the Drop Site Massacre.
Caught in the nightmare of betrayal and insanity, Sedaxus showed uncommon initiative and guile by leading a breakout from the killing zone in the first moments of the betrayal and overran an isolated Iron Warriors strong point that had been expecting only to engage a shattered and demoralised foe. Sedaxus led the assault himself and then personally held a narrow evacuation corridor open as dazed survivors filed past. The Iron Warriors reacted by swiftly redirecting their artillery to annihilate the defiant Raven Guard but by then nearly fifty Legionnaires had evacuated out into the wastes.
Sedaxus led his rag tag band of survivors into the wilderness and swiftly linked up with other surviving units of the XIXth, fighting at first merely to survive but then joining Corax in his campaign of vengeance. In the hurried reorganisation Sedaxus was made a Sergeant and together with his fellows fought in the front lines of battle, seeing the corruption of the enemy first hand, the infamous Ninety-Eight Days on Istvaan V and the miraculous deliverance by Commander Brand.
Sedaxus then followed Corax out into the stars and fought throughout the years of the Horus Heresy with his Legion. As attrition took its toll, he rose to the rank of Captain and took command of his own sub-fleet. Sedaxus' forces swiftly gained a reputation for taking revenge upon the enemy, going to great lengths to hunt down the greatest leaders of the Traitors and cut them down. However these deeds were not mad acts of rage but instead tempered by cunning and guile and it soon became just one more weapon in the arsenal of the XIXth as they fought through the darkest days, seeing the Ruinstorm and the Siege of Terra from afar, the fall of Horus and the days of the Scouring descend upon the Imperium.
Terrible were the battles of those days but Sedaxus never lost faith in his Primarch's teachings and followed him unerringly, then came the day that Corax himself summoned the Captain and told him dire news. The world of Copan XII, one of the Legion's remote recruiting worlds in Segmentum Tempestus, was under threat from an Ork Waaagh led by Warboss Hed'breka. The loss of even a minor recruiting world was unacceptable in this time of rebuilding, especially as it lay close to the Loyalist forgeworld of Alar-Median and Sedaxus was charged with leading his forces to the region to defend Copan XII until the full might of the Legion could be brought to bear.
Corax ordered that above all Imperial rule must continue unchallenged and that the enemy be hunted down.
Sedaxus wasted not a moment to gather his sub-fleet, leading them into war and launching a series of aggressive strikes on the Orks with utmost alacrity, the initial reports were promising and it seemed victory would come swiftly but then tragedy struck. Without warning one of the scattered remnants of the Ruinstorm surged back into life and engulfed the sector surrounding Copan XII in a geyser of madness and insanity.
The already wounded Imperium reeled at the power of the storm, which left dozens of worlds scoured bare of life and all contact was lost with Sedaxus' forces. The High Lords declared the entire region a lost Realm of Man but this was just one more tragedy in an age of woe and it soon became another footnote in the teetering data stacks under the Palace. As for the Raven Guard Legion they mourned their losses and recorded the names of the lost with due reverence in the rolls of honour. Then they moved on to new wars.
Yet what no one had any way of knowing was that this new Ruinstorm was but a hollow front swirling around an epicentre of dead calm, a hurricane racing around an eye in the storm. Communication and travel into and out from the epicentre was impossible yet within that dead zone it was still possible to make the shortest of Warp Jumps and so a tiny little remnant of humanity endured. Trapped within that becalmed spot were a dozen loyal worlds, the Forgeworld Alar-Median and Captain Sedaxus facing an entire Ork Waaagh with only his own forces to depend upon.
Captain Sedaxus evaluated the situation and immediately recognised that his few hundred marines could not defeat an entire Waaagh by conventional means, even with fresh recruits from Copan XII they were wildly outnumbered. Sedaxus realised that the only chance they had was to strike off the head of the beast and throw the Orks into disarray, so he set a trap.
With great cunning and guile Sedaxus allowed a small group of Ork Kommandos to learn his location and used himself as bait to draw Hed'breka into a frontal assault on Copan XII, but true to the Axioms of Corax, he was not where the enemy expected him to be. Even as the Orks launched a full invasion of Copan XII, Sedaxus led his small fleet on a stealth infiltration. Operating under the cover of Reflex shields, his ships drifted into position and then launched boarding torpedoes into Hed'breka's flagship at point blank range. Beset on all sides, the Space Marines fought their way to the bridge of the Ork warship, and though it cost them three quarters of their force, Sedaxus made it into contact with Hed'breka and cast the Warboss down in single combat.
With their Warboss dead, the Orks soon fell into infighting as lesser warlords fought for supremacy, breaking up into smaller gangs and firing upon each other even as they fled. The Orks were defeated but not destroyed and they retreated to the edge of the dead zone, claiming the most ravaged and broken of worlds where they dug in and began to expand their numbers once more, as is ever their bestial way.
Meanwhile Sedaxus' forces had been ravaged in the fighting and knew he had nowhere near enough forces to eradicate the Orks entirely but he was confident that the Ruinstorm could not last forever and decided to establish a permanent base of operations at Copan XII. Above all he remained true to his last orders: Imperial rule must continue unchallenged and the enemy must be hunted down. As new recruits were selected for training and inducted into the ranks, the small band recovered its numbers and began a campaign against the Orks. Using precise surgical raids to keep them divided and prevent one single Warboss from rising to power.
The dozen human planets realised that the Space Marines were the only force keeping the Orks from razing their worlds and so pledged material aid, most especially Alar-Median whose support was essential to keep the few hundred Astartes viable as a fighting force. As time passed inside the dead zone a microcosm of the Imperium came to be, a tiny interstellar civilisation fighting for survival and awaiting the return of the Emperors light, which soon became the local religion.
Years became decades, then decades became centuries which inevitably became millennia and for six thousand years the Space Marines fought to preserve a tiny pocket of humanity against a hostile universe. Slowly the original generation of Astartes died out, even Sedaxus falling to the blades of a rampaging Ork and the newer recruits grew up knowing nothing of Deliverance or the wider Legion. As history became legend even the name 'Raven Guard' fell into disuse, the new bloods letting their heritage sink into dusty old traditions and myth as a new culture arose and the Marines of Copan XII eventually came to identify themselves with their world's most fearsome predator: the Smoke-Jaguar.
Thus, life continued in the dead zone for six thousand years until one day, without warning or explanation, the Ruinstorm mysteriously blew out, exposing the tiny pocket empire to the wider galaxy once more.
Sensing opportunity, Rogue Traders were swift to take advantage of the change, racing to seek riches amid the ruins but they were surprised to find not the swathe of dead worlds they had expected but rather a functioning interstellar civilisation. To the peoples of those worlds this was nothing less than the fulfilment of prophecy and they jubilantly welcomed Imperial emissaries with great festivities and celebrations, the Rogue Trader's eyes glinted with avarice at the prospect of exploiting these people but there was something they were not prepared for: a fully extant and functioning Space Marine army.
The initial contact between Smoke Jaguars and Imperial emissaries was cool but the Astartes had been waiting generations for the Emperor's return and were determined to take their place amid humanity's defenders. The revelation of the state of the galaxy, not to mention the breaking of the Legions was perhaps not as shocking as one might think, none of the Smoke Jaguars had ever seen the Imperium of old and all they had to go on were distorted myths and half-remembered legends but the one memory they had preserved perfectly was that of Corax and his last orders.
For their part the High Lords were shocked and disturbed to find an unsanctioned and autonomous group of Space Marines emerging from nowhere and many potentates called for their immediate eradication while others embraced their presence. The matter was put to debate in the Senatorum Imperalis but the Smoke Jaguars' ruler, Shade-Lord Q'umarkaj, was not willing to wait for distant politicians to make a decision. Swiftly assimilating the technology, tactics and strategies common to Astartes everywhere, he led his Marines into the stars where they threw themselves into Imperial wars.
First, the Smoke Jaguars cleansed their little pocket of Orks. Then they spread out across Segmentum Tempestus, offering their aid anywhere they could, their numbers were few, yet their skills were undoubted, and they played a vital role in many dire wars. Word quickly spread of this new force and the Smoke Jaguars carved out a reputation as a fierce, if exotic, warrior band who were above all else loyal to the Emperor and unwavering in their zeal to hunt his enemies.
After two hundred years of debate, the High Lords finally made a decision. In 012.M37, special dispensation was granted to declare the Smoke Jaguars a Chapter in their own right and to take their place among the Adeptus Astartes. A gift of ships, weapons and gene-seed from the vaults of Terra was sent to Copan XII and the Smoke Jaguars, for the first time, were able to bring their numbers up to a full one thousand brothers but as great as this boon was, it paled in comparison to being accepted by their fellows. The Raven Guard and the other successors of the XIXth Legion finally welcomed the Smoke Jaguars as lost cousins and gifted them with relics and totems of great significance; most precious of all being the shards of Corax's armour, quills torn from his own jump pack on the fields of Istvaan V.
This boon was of unspeakable worth to the Smoke Jaguars for they had struggled to establish their own identity in the galaxy and to them this was more than a memento of their Primarch, it was physical proof that they deserved to stand among giants. It was irrefutable evidence that they were not just some lost cast-offs from another force but proud warriors worthy to stand as equals, with their own unique identity and culture.
Taking the shards of Corax in his hands, their Shade-Lord Q'umarkaj declared that the Smoke Jaguars would forevermore serve the Imperium and the ideals of Corax and all would know that they were as worthy as any other Chapter to fight in the name of their Primarch and the Emperor.