Derwyn and the Black Watch
By author Lucarionape
The Twentieth Primarch: Derwyn
Name:
Derwyn of Caledonia. He is sometimes called the Black Prince, but never by himself and his Legion, who deem it too grandiose. Also called the Lord of Mud—which started as an insult to the Primarch of a Legion of combat engineers, accused of more scrambling in the dirt than fighting as warriors, but was adopted by the men of his Legion as a badge of pride. The sobriquet he himself prefers—seldom used except by his own Legion—is "the Oathsworn".
Appearance:
Short for a Primarch. When out of his armour he has a crop of crimson and emerald hair that grows rapidly. If it is long, it is often tied in braids to keep it out of his eyes.
Talents and Personality:
Derwyn is a master of deep defence and how to break the enemy in a slow constant manner. As a person he generally keeps quiet, only talking with his superiors and his command staff if he can help it.
Derwyn was the first Primarch to be found off Terra, a point of quiet pride to the Primarch who would never boast it. His loyalty is unshakable and to question your oaths in his presence is a sure-fire way to see that the Talons of the Emperor have you and those you have been in contact with to be watched if not executed… if Derwyn does not remove your head or another vital part of your biology first. No task is too great or too small for the Oathsworn to see it done.
Homeworld:
Caledonia, a world of cliffs and mountains, and part of a Solar Ring fortress star-system. It is inhabited by humans of above-average height who are of pale demeanour and sport crimson or emerald hair, their eyes often being the inverse colour to their hair. Sharing the planet with them are an abundance of thick woolly animals, notably a species of large four-legged beasts with horns and orange hair that covers the animal all over, and the nearly universally present hounds and cats found on most human colony worlds. Not is all well, however. From the depths of the fortresses lost to the Black Watch, mechanical monsters still rise. Most are terribly damaged but some are more operational than others.
Caledonia is found to the immediate galactic northeast of Terra. It was placed there—as the collective memory of the planet recounts—to act as one of the fortified gates to the human homeworld during the Golden Age of Technology. It is evident to any who make an observation of the system that a great battle took place in the distant past. Those who care to ask may hear the stories of the populace which say that they are the remnants of the ancient garrison of their fortress homes, the remnants of the old fortifications. Further listening would tell any visitor that even now the inhabitants of Caledonia believe that their only purpose is to serve in the defence of the Throneworld.
Psychic potential:
The Primarch has no discernible psychic abilities and reacts in no discernible way to Blanks, but psykers do manifest in the Legion, just at much-reduced rates.
Background:
The Primarch's landing on Caledonia after the scattering was an unobserved event, arriving during heavy storms. He was only noticed years after the fact, when an element of Clan Fraser came upon the Primarch as he was in the process of preparing his meal of beef. Believing this to be a sign, the clan took in the young Primarch, who would in turn revitalise the clan, raising them high from a clan suffering from an abundance of predators and hostile machines in their grazing lands. He also provided them with the technological knowhow they needed to maintain the military equipment that the clan needed to keep its status as a clan of the Watch.
Now carrying the name of Derwyn, the Primarch showed the clan how he had managed to protect his herd of lost cattle, making use of many circles of traps around the clan's territory, before showing them the most efficient way by which to kill the predators. He rapidly ascended the ranks of the clan, adopting its traditions just as the clan had adopted him. Though not unique among the clans of Caledonia, the clans of the Watch were definitely fanatics in what they considered their duty, and they maintained their watches with ironclad certainty—an unquestioning vigil born from the belief that their service and loyalty to Terra, the mythical homeworld of mankind, would never falter. In their conviction, these men and woman would often throw themselves armed only with polearms or primitive las-weapons at the terrors that their ancestors had fought with the miracles of the Golden Age. Only the much-reduced nature of their enemies and their ironclad certitude of service beyond requirement or doubt allowed them to keep the worst enemies in the bunkers and forts dug deep into the crust and mountains.
In one of these expeditions to ensure that nothing had breached the stasis-sealed deep vaults of the Golden Age of Technology, Derwyn discovered a ruptured vault door. The Primarch never shared what exactly was in that vault room. All that is known is that the Primarch left that series of rooms covered in wounds, wearing a plaid, and sporting a polearm. Known only to himself and later the Emperor and his confidants, Derwyn had recovered his weapon from the hands of a Golden Age officer who had been surrounded by destroyed assault platforms. The garrison commander had fallen wearing his mark of rank, the plaid, and his prized possession: an experimental weapon. Known among the clans as "the implement that directs talent" and to Imperial scholars as Gáe Bulg, this polearm has been observed to morph from a spear to a glaive to a javelin and any other polearm with nary a thought from the user. Always in the form of greatest need, it has killed enemies of the Throneworld be they close or far from the Primarch. Perhaps the spear's greatest strength, though, is that within is a highly precise teleporter, allowing the spear to teleport back to the wielder after it is thrown or lost or even act as a beacon for any who are directly linked to it. Others even whisper of having witnessed the weapon curve at the enemy, its very cuts leaving the enemy's wounds chilled and the swinging arcs leaving a chill in the air.
This was not the last time the Twentieth Primarch led expeditions below the surface to ensure that the great and terrible weapons of the ancients would not see the light of day without Terra's explicit orders.
One thing is for sure. Caledonia and its many great and terrible secrets stand entirely ready to heed the commands of Terra in this new age of conquest and enlightenment, with more and more of the fortresses' many weapons and means of stopping an enemy from passing them being reactivated with each passing day. Its people's hearts and minds are filled with one phrase: "Let what be, come. Here is a place no almighty can drive us from."
The XX Legion: the Black Watch
Name:
The XX Legion, the Black Watch, renamed from being known simply as the Twentieth.
Insignia and Appearance:
Most detachments of the XX Legion have a black base coat on their Power Armour, with a tartan overlay in places to denote unit. Honoured detachments may have cause for a green or purple tartan. The most honoured, the personal guards to the Primarch, have a light grey field with red and dark green stripes crisscrossing.
The Legion's Colour Detachment carries two flags. One is an Imperial Aquila and the other is a flag with a blue background with a golden laurel wreathing a second wreath made of thistles and golden flowers. Within this final wreath is the Legion name circling the Imperium's double-headed eagle. It is noticeable that the greatest victories of the Legion are woven into the flag. Those who are close with the standard bearers also see a symbol of a man holding a cross at the base of the inner wreath. Rumour has also spread of Space Marines carrying out terrible duties, clad in pure black, the only symbol discernible on their armour the wreath and cross bearer.
Gene-seed Status:
Stable. A notable side effect from becoming a Space Marine of the XX Legion is that the Space Marines somehow become firmer in mind. This effect is so strong that even their Dreadnoughts have yet to display the signs of mental degradation characteristic of their situation.
Astartes of the Black Watch are also roughly the same size and stature as their Primarch, making it hard to discern one from the other if the Primarch is not using Gáe Bulg. This is compounded by the fact that a supermajority of the Legion sports the red and jade-toned hair and orange eye colour of their Primarch.
Legionary Assets:
—A Gloriana-class battleship, the Dreadnought. She is a relatively small starship, for one of that mighty class, but she makes up for it in armour and landing capabilities. Armed with some of the less common Lance and plasma batteries, and equipped with superheavy vehicle maintenance bays with the possibility of even creating some tanks and walkers, the Dreadnought is capable of standing off from a battle while sniping her enemies and taking a few hits while coming into to land her infantry and vehicular forces. Her greatest downside is by far the lack of torpedoes. Instead she relies on transport aerospacecraft and a larger and more powerful series of teleportariums when she is engaged in offensive boarding actions.
—Assorted Dreadnoughts, both traditional and advanced prototypes.
—Heavy infantry Power Armour. Put simply, a variant of the Mark I with moderate armour upgrades at the expense of mobility, with the understanding that the Legion is interested in further such advances.
—Unusually many Legion gun batteries. This is just a massing of artillery assets, exchanged for light armour capabilities, of which the XX Legion has little.
Legion Organisation:
The Legion is organised into companies. Whereas, in Legions based on the Principia Belicosa, a company is of 100 Space Marines, companies of the Black Watch are of 800 frontline battle-brothers and 200 Neophytes. This is rooted in the Legion's history: the few available survivors of Siege of Vimy who could be presented to their Primarch when he met them and the emergency draft of Neophytes they had with them. The Black Watch grew back to greater numbers, recovering from the tragic losses they took there, over the passing of time.
The Legion has at its disposal fo… [clearance codes detected, scanning, scanning… codes accepted] five different combat detachments.
An initiate in the Black Watch will start his career in a dedicated training detachment, these units are then attached to either an Artillery park or a Sapper unit. An Artillery park (the sum total of all artillery batteries deployed in the warzone) is only required to do one thing: rain death and destruction on the enemy. It is here that the Space Marines learn how to degrade an enemy fortification and destroy the enemy from afar. After the Artillery park's job has proceeded to an acceptable point, the Sappers ply their trade. Advancing on the enemy, a Sapper Company is expected to root out the last of the enemy or ensure that the Artillery is able to finish the job without interruption. It is from this need for the greater survivability that the third and fourth company specialisations amongst the Black Watch evolved. Dragoon companies, named after the ancient mounted infantry of a forgotten empire, are the concentration of every armoured element the Legion has available, from tanks to scout vehicles. Dragoon units consequently have the greatest inherent mobility and mobile firepower to the Legion, though [see excoriation for more details about commonality] they are the spear of the Legion. If the Dragoons are the Legion's spear, then the AVIEs (armoured vehicle Imperial engineers) are the hammers. Taking their name from the Black Watch's heavy infantry assault companies, the AVIEs deploy in the heaviest armour available to any Space Marine: Tactical Dreadnought Armour, commonly known as Terminator armour.
Special units:
[The final and most secret of the Legion detachments is the Excoriation unit. It has been rumoured that black-armoured Space Marines with little to identify them have been sighted crushing instances of rebellion against the Imperium. These rumours, if anything, understate the realities of the situation. At any one time, up to 30% of the Black Watch are assigned to Excoriation duties. Each detachment is heavily armed and armoured with the Legion's superheavy units, be they the rare massive tanks the Legion has been pulling from the deep vaults or more nefarious designs. Each detachment is composed of multiple veteran companies and overseen by the Legion's attached elements of the Oblivion Knights, ensuring the over-enthusiasm of the Legion as a whole. That may be a limiting factor for how far they will go to excise treason.]
There does exist further specialisation, notably the abundance of Tech-Marines and Medicae detachments.
The Reivers—A unique position, Reiver units are very rarely present in numbers larger than a squad, and yet they are a turning point in every Black Watch offensive. The Reivers have been trained to employ cameleoline cloaks and close-range weapons, notably Power Field weapons. A Reiver will then infiltrate the enemy position, identifying emplacements and notifying the Artillery park of priority targets. He then either exfiltrates or goes on a rampage, killing everyone in one complex before moving to another, some even hijacking the intercom systems to play unexpected music.
Psyker-fighting squads—The final, extremely rare, unit is a psyker-fighting squad. Composed of the attached Oblivion Knights these units often preside as a pseudo command unit over large Black Watch formations, stopping them from completing the suicidal offensives the Legion was already known for during the short time the Legion existed without their Primarch.
The Silent Watch—Not part of the Black Watch yet often close to it, the Silent Watch is an advisory body of Oblivion Knights detached from the Anathema Psykana to oversee the XX on the orders of the Emperor, so as to act as his voice and restrain the XX from repeating acts such as Vimy. They have been gifted preferential status by the XX, who view them as pseudo-daughters of the Emperor as well as his voice.
Expertise and Combat Doctrine:
The XX Legion prefer to use slow grinding siege warfare, both on the defensive and offensive. They have not, however, abandoned the massive, armoured punch which they have a talent for directing at the weakest part of the enemy position, moving large numbers of tanks and heavy infantry under the cover of long- and short-duration artillery bombardments.
Legion Weaknesses:
The XX Legion are often dispersed across massive swathes of the galaxy, deployed not only as garrison forces but oversight for engineering efforts. This [combined with the lack of speed inherent to the maintenance of the secrecy of the duty of Excoriation] does not allow the XX to deploy force against a peer enemy with any semblance of alacrity. Furthermore, when not constrained by the edict of the Emperor—which itself is often forgotten about when members of the household are not present to enforce it—the XX is very much willing to accept massive casualties, albeit proportional to those the enemy take at their hands.
Beliefs and Practices:
The XX are sworn to the Emperor in the same manner as their Primarch. They are all fanatically loyal to the Emperor and anything he says, which does in some ways make them take the harder road. When not engaged in combat [or Excoriation duties] the Legion deploys itself as engineers wherever they may be. With the assistance of the Mechanicum, thus can the XX Legion say that it is they who have built the most out of any Legion.
Recruitment and Discipline:
The Legion mainly draws recruits from Caledonia or other worlds where they have spent time on, these being worlds that they have had to invest in and then reconstruct. For the XX Legion has the odd idea (one that has made them no small number of friends) that they are responsible for the defence and maintenance of what they view as the Emperor's domain. It is thus not impossible to see a unit from the XX Legion overseeing the fortification of Imperial worlds, or even just simple construction of civilian infrastructure in the heartland of the Imperium. This makes a census of the Legion difficult, almost by design. The Legion has, through certain deals with the Mechanicum and the War Council of the Imperium, managed to gather a large amount of siege artillery and Dreadnought chassis, to the point that some question where all of the war materiel of the Legion is being kept. The downside of this is that the Legion often has a deficit in frontline troops and must put its recruits on the frontline in artillery batteries. To be fair, the recruits are always deployed in full armour behind the heavy assets of the Legion but that does not stop them from suffering.
The Neophytes of the Legion are deployed into special units that are deployed behind heavier units so as to protect them but also to allow them to deploy them into combat to fill the frontlines. These double strength squads of 30 Neophytes and 10 full Space Marines wear full combat armour when near the front, even when they have not completed the gene-seed implantation, in the hope that it may save more than it kills. They are often armed with long-range support weapons or protective shields.
The XX Legion has no outstanding issues of discipline except for one: they have what some could consider too much of it. Their suicidal devotion can lead them to crushing opposition on and off the battlefield where it may have been better to fall back and regroup.
Characters of Interest:
Rhys Breathnach—The first Space Marine of the XX Legion to be entombed within a Dreadnought. Rhys rose to fame within the Legion as a junior sapper when he defended his position long after his fellows had died, and, after having expended all possible ammunition available to him, he charged the invading xenos with his combat knife drawn. He was later found among the corpses of his enemies, in critical condition. He is currently entombed within a venerable Deredo-pattern Dreadnought after having pushed his previous chassis (a Contemptor-pattern Dreadnought) to its limits in a similar situation to that which threw him to fame within his Legion.
Brianan Donovani—A veteran sapper who commands the 13th Combat Detachment. He is renowned for his ability to fortify nigh any position with minimal troops and also build effective and long-lasting roads during his advance.
Cormag Hyland—An AVIE specialist. Cormag is one of the oldest living members of the XX Legion. The rolls have him listed as a member of the first wave of recruits, though Cormag was sent to Mars as a potential Tech-Marine, where he would go on to be inducted into the cult. He is currently deployed as a member of the 1st Excoriation Company.
Battle-cry:
The Legion prefers to practise war to the sound of music or guns. They have few recorded war cries:
"Crush the ridge!"
"Next wave!"
"Ready, ready, up!"
Legionary History:
—The Siege of Vimy
Vimy, located to the immediate galactic north of Terra, was a hellhole planet. That was no exaggeration. The planet was part of an apparent series of fortifications that had surrounded Terra since the Golden Age of Technology. It was a shame that most had been invested in over time by the ancient monsters that had toppled mankind into the Age of Strife, leaving only one or two of these bastions intact—generally to the north but speculation pointed to another having been left alone to the galactic east. The issue was found in the fact that Vimy had been occupied by a human-xenos survivor coalition. Well, 'coalition' may be generous. It was a caste system that defined the more numerous humans being a military or construction caste. This was repugnant to the XX Legion. They had tried to communicate with the so-called "Glorious Coalition" to see if they would open a dialogue, but this was met with derision and demands of fealty from the XX, that they break their vows to the Emperor. There was only possible response to this: death.
And so it was that in 672.M30 the XX Legion began their investment of Vimy. Almost immediately the system was filled with the war-fleet of the XX. They had marshalled all of their forces, for anything less would be an insult to their liege. Strike Cruiser squadron after Strike Cruiser squadron jumped out of the Warp into the system, followed by the fleet's heavier elements and their escorts mere days later. It would be noted that the System Defence Fleet employed by the "Glorious Coalition" was large, but that was it. Their starships could not outshoot the smallest of the XX fleet elements, and could only damage an Imperial warship through ramming, requiring them to form dense columns in the hopes of allowing the ships to the centre of the formation to reach the elements of the XX. While ships would be lost, most notably a Strike Cruiser, none of the landing ships (jokingly referred to as LSTs) were touched.
The XX Legion cruised through the star-system, crushing all of the orbital platforms and terrestrial bodies that had been converted into bastions for the central citadel of Vimy-1, a planet dotted in elevated plateaus that have been patched up, with visible differences in the ancient and more modern parts of the plateau fortresses. It was on the great plains to the south of the major fortresses where the XX began their assaults, landing their Thunderhawks and assorted armed landers to little opposition and constructing what would later be called LZ Arras. The plan called for the first wave of Sappers to construct fortifications that would be built towards the nearest enemy forts, where they would be expanded to surround the citadels on the plateaus. Within very little time the plains of Vimy were covered in the corpses of unsuspecting Sappers and the remains of the spoiling attacks launched upon the XX. Though losses were suffered, they barely slowed down the XX Legion, who took the deaths of their comrades on the chin and carried on. Within months of the landing, a third of the fortresses had been purged of their occupants after the pinpoint artillery strikes on the identified reconstructions of the ancient fortresses allowed for multiple breaches. After a year of conflict, multiple orbital bombardments had squashed all but a final fortress and its circular ring of defensive fortresses. This would become the killing grounds of the XX. In the fights before, they had suffered minimal casualties, miraculously minimising losses due to progressive artillery bombardments, pinpoint bombardments on reconstructions of fortress walls, and armoured mobile reserves that crushed any spoiling attacks against any Glorious Coalition assaults.
The Citadel's outer walls had been barely touched by the ancient destruction of Vimy. The reconstructed parts of the wall were covered by the ancient walls. It required a year and multiple attempts to exploit the breaches before the Astartes managed to break through the outer walls. More attempts and four months to secure the breaches which would be directly assaulted by monstrous beings, later discovered to be manipulated humans changed by their masters' xenotech. It got to the point that the attacking waves would be charging over the dead and wounded in an attempt to prove their ability and that they were worthy of their oaths to the Emperor. It was so extreme that a request for Custodes oversight was submitted by the Legion Colour Squad—a request that brought the offensive to the attention of Malcador the Sigillite, who notified the lord of the Imperium himself that something was needed. When the news that the Emperor himself was on his way, the XX resorted to wave assaults under their own artillery and orbital fire in an attempt to present the planet as conquered to the Emperor before his arrival. It would be a Reiver squad that would breach the inner Citadel, two weeks after the Emperor had declared his intent to arrive after finishing with his deal, mere hours before the arrival of the Emperor's starship within the system. Upon his arrival, the Emperor called a halt on the assault. He was answered by a proud Legion Colour Guard presenting him with the report that an Imperial Aquila-covered flag was flying over the Citadel's Inner Walls.
The Emperor's planetfall was met by the surviving Colour Guards of the XX Legion, each bearing the battle scars on their Mark II armour and even ad hoc reinforced armour that, when questioned on, was declared by the men of the XX to be the "Vimy pattern Mk II assault armour". Further questioning revealed that of the 40,000 Space Marines first deployed to the planet, 39,203 Space Marines of the XX Legion had fallen in securing the planet. The Colour Guards even went so far as to present the dead's colours by attaching them to the survivors' Dreadnought chassis to the Emperor, requesting that he personally oversee their burial services within LZ Arras. The fact that the honoured dead had died in his name was not enough to stop him from berating them for throwing their lives away so needlessly.
The obituary was not recorded by any external representatives. Only the XX Legion and the Custodes have records of the Emperor's speech. But it is noticeable that the XX have not repeated such assaults without cause. What is known is that the war-cries "Crush the ridge" and "Next wave" have become some of the rarest battle-cries from the XX. Those cries are only heard when the XX is becoming what people "machinelike" and abandoning their senses of morals, to the point that they stop getting in front of or minding for their recruits and auxiliaries—instead, nearly running over one and other to close the distance and crush the Emperor's enemies.
It is notable that the Emperor did publish an open order to all forces, known as the Vimy Decree, that he was to be contacted immediately in the case that one of the ancient Solar Circle fortress systems was to be discovered and that no assault was to be undertaken without his presence. His chastisement would not end there. The master of mankind ordered the XX Legion to follow near his personal fleet. This was to the point that, when Expeditionary Fleet 20-Delta-Phi discovered Caledonia and immediately complied with the Vimy Decree, it took mere hours from receiving the call for the Emperor to arrive, for he was already so close. It was within an hour of his arrival that the Emperor met his twentieth-born son for the first time—the first of his scattered children to be found.