Index Astartes Amber Vipers
From the ashes of destruction the Amber Vipers rise, leaving behind a past of dishonour and shame in favour of a glorious new future. Cold and ruthless in word and deed they fall upon the enemies of man with cunning and guile. Yet in their hearts they struggle to rise above their past and may well fall short of the noble ideals they aspire towards.
Origins
In the dark days of the Noctis Aeterna confusion and anarchy reigned. Death and destruction were everywhere and none could begin to grasp the scope of the calamity that had befallen the galaxy. Many strange tales emerged from those days, rumours of impossible happenstances and mysteries galore. Buried among those tales were reports of a supposedly long-dead Chapter re-emerging, a band that was declared lost millennia earlier suddenly extant. These warriors moved in the dark reaches of the galaxy, fighting in the abandoned and forgotten corners of the Imperium and they called themselves the Amber Vipers.
In the normal state of affairs such an oddity would have drawn great scrutiny but this was the age of the Dark Imperium and there were multitudes of crisis drawing greater attention. So the Inquisition dispatched Inquisitor Vevara to investigate before turning its attention to more important matters. Vevara began a decade long chase after this elusive band but it was a most difficult pursuit. These Amber Vipers had no wish to be subjected to Inquisitorial scrutiny and moved frequently across the reaches of the galaxy, yet Vevara continued her pursuit and eventually ran them down in the Calixis Sector. What occurred there is unknown but she eventually returned with her official report.
Vevara reported that these Amber Vipers were a handful of survivors from the Angevin Crusade, lost in the Warp for two millennia. They seemed to have emerged untainted, with their loyalty intact and their purpose sound. They were small in number and badly under-equipped but were determined to rebuild and to fight the enemies of Mankind with full fervour. The Inquisition found this strange but there were far more pressing matters at hand and the Imperium could not afford to dismiss a single Chapter, so they let matters lie. But what they did not know was that Vevara's report was nothing but a thin tissue of lies. The force claiming to be the Amber Vipers was in truth nothing of the sort, they were in fact outcasts from a disgraced and treacherous Chapter: the Soul Drinkers.
When the arch-traitor Sarpedeon led the Soul Drinkers into perfidy a small band of loyalists faked their own deaths, seizing a single frigate and slipped away into the darkness between the stars. Led by an officer named Coluber they swore to track down the unsuspecting Traitors and claim vengeance. They swore to keep the spirit of their Chapter in their hearts and never let the flame go out.
Sarpedeon never knew it but his footsteps were dogged by a band of vengeful souls. They never relented in their quest, yet no matter how quickly they moved the Traitors were always one step ahead and they could not bring them to battle. They had to move alone, for any loyal Imperials would assume they too were Traitors, so their quest was a lonely one. There was little honour to be had either for Coluber's troops were oft forced to fight for their survival, pirating supply ships and looting gear from loyalists to keep their quest alive. One by one they were falling and dying and it began to look they would wither away to nothing before they could claim their revenge.
Then the worst news came, Sarpedeon had got himself killed by another's hand, robbing them of their vengeance. Many despaired at this news, demanding that they should seek an honourable death in battle but Coluber refused, for there was one last gleam of hope. A rumour had come to his ears that Sarpedeon had acquired a stash of ancient gene-tech and secreted it away in the dark corners of the galaxy. Coluber knew that this gene-tech could restore his handful of warriors, giving them the means to rebuild and he refused to let his Marines die until it was in his hands.
For decades the lonely band tracked down every possibility, exploring every corner of the galaxy where Sarpedeon could have hidden the gene-tech. Many railed against such a timid existence, but Coluber was unwavering, he had sworn to keep the flame alive and he would not be turned from his path. Eventually his faith paid off, on the primitive and feral world of Trux, Coluber found the gene-tech and it was more than he had ever hoped for. He at last had the means to rebuild in his hands and yet his hearts were heavy.
The Soul Drinkers were disgraced, they were dead and gone and Coluber was tired of arguing the point. He knew all too well that the Imperium would never allow them to return, no matter how ardently they pledged their loyalty. Faced with a bleak future Coluber made a fateful decision, he would not try to rebuild a disgraced Chapter. Instead he would start again, writing a new destiny on the blank pages of history. He faced his two dozen surviving Brothers and proclaimed that they would leave their dishonour and shame in the past. They would set off into the stars and start recruiting a new brotherhood, forging a destiny all their own, a bright and honourable future under the banner of an extinct but loyal Chapter.
The Soul Drinkers were dead, Coluber declared, henceforth his Marines would be known as the Amber Vipers.