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They are the Green Templar: hunters of forbidden relics, executioners of knowledge, and the hammer that keeps the Dark Age of Technology buried forever. Successors of the Salamanders, they strike where the Imperium dares not tread, leaving nothing alive that could betray what they hunt. FINAL COGITATOR ENTRY OF CAPTAIN SÉBASTIEN YORKE: They came aboard without ceremony. No warning chime. No challenge from the augur decks. One moment the Gloria Invictus drifted on idle in Imperial voidspace, her holds full and her ledgers clean. The next, the boarding alarms screamed like dying things. Green armor. Not Salamanders green—colder, somehow. Bone-white pauldrons marked with a templar cross. Two chapters merged into one impossible purpose. I could only guess who these Green Templar really were. I invoked my Warrant. “I am a Rogue Trader—Sébastien Yorke—of the Imperium,” I said, forcing steel into my voice. “By the authority of the High Lords of Terra—” They did not answer. They advanced, deck by deck, methodical, unhurried. Not butchers. Not raiders. Auditors. Sealing bulkheads, marking crates, tagging cogitator cores with red sigils that pulsed once and went dark. My armsmen fired. Some died screaming in fire that clung to flesh and armor alike. Others vanished under bolter fire so precise it felt personal. No warnings. No demands. Only collection. They found the vaults. I followed them, flanked by my Seneschal and what remained of my honor guard, shouting words like talismans: Warrant. Sanction. Cold Trade. I told them the artifacts were catalogued, secured, studied under Mechanicus charter. I told them I had saved worlds with the technologies they now sealed away. A warrior turned toward me. His helm lenses burned like coals. “You have saved nothing,” he said. That was the only sentence any of them spoke. They brought the seized relics to the docking bay—xenos engines wrapped in null-shrouds, crystalline cogitators older than the Imperium, weapons that hummed with sleeping suns. My life’s work. My legacy. And then Vulkan He’stan arrived. I recognized him at once. You don’t trade the stars for three centuries without learning the faces of legends. The Forgefather walked among my cargo in silence, the Primarch's Spear mag-locked at his side, his gauntlet brushing dust from devices that had cost me entire systems to acquire. Hope flared in my chest. Fool that I was. “Lord,” I said. “You see—this is sanctioned. This is lawful. This knowledge—” He stopped before a device I had never dared activate. He studied it for a long moment. Then he shook his head. Just once. No condemnation. No command. He turned and left my ship. I understood. The Green Templar waited until his vessel cleared the hangar before they began the purge. They did not destroy the artifacts first. They destroyed the records. My ledgers burned. My cogitator banks were slagged. Servitors dismantled into wet meat and scrap. I was seized, restrained, pulse-bound—not by mercy, but by necessity. The Apothecary moved among the wounded, scanning every survivor, preparing his tools. He would ensure no trace of forbidden knowledge survived. When he finally approached, I would've sworn I saw the disgust through his helmet as he recognized what was buried within me—the source of my long life. For the briefest of moments he studied it—buried, ancient, alien. The narthecium unfolded. Pressure. Heat. A wet shock. Gone. Four hundred years collapsed in seconds. The Apothecary crushed it in his gauntlet. Strength drained. Vision dimmed. The last thing I saw: green armor moving past me, methodical, unconcerned, as the charges finished counting down on the remaining vaults. I had thought the technology kept me alive. I was wrong. It only postponed the moment I became unacceptable. ☆☆☆ PERSONAL LOG: SEREN KORRAN, SALAMANDERS STORMRAVEN PILOT — DAY 47, ALPHA RIM PATROL I did not look at the ship as it burned. Hands steady on the Stormraven controls, the engine hum drowned out the void-detonations behind us. Auspex returns flared and died as Sébastien Yorke’s vessel came apart, compartment by compartment, exactly as planned. The Forgefather stood behind me, silent. I knew—everyone in the forge-clans knew—that he despised the Green Templar. Not for zeal, but for certainty. They were a tool he would never claim, only point toward the rim and loose like a blade. Because they were the best. No one hunted forbidden tech more thoroughly. No one left questions. I had seen the cargo. Xenos engines bound in prayer-chains. Devices whose light bent the air. Knowledge that could have fed worlds, healed atmospheres, ended wars I had already fought. Vulkan He’stan inspected only what he must. Human craft. Provenance traced. Lineage confirmed. Anything born of alien thought he did not touch. Anything that might have helped all mankind—destroyed. That was the limit of his mercy. The Promethean Creed teaches fire tempers. That what survives is stronger. I had repeated those words a thousand times on Nocturne. But there was no tempering here. Only selection. Only annihilation. As we cleared the blast radius, the ship’s death registered on my displays. A brief flare. Wreckage scattered. Then nothing. No life signs. No records. I said nothing. That is my shame. The Forgefather remained silent behind me, a presence like cooled steel. He had done what he could. The rest, he left to monsters. ☆☆☆ AFTER-ACTION RECORD: GT-RIM-4471 Subject: Void-vessel Gloria Invictus — Cold Trade contamination confirmed. Disposition: All artifacts, records, and biological carriers purged. Vessel expunged. No recoverable legacy remains. ☆☆☆ Somewhere in the void, as my life faded and the Green Templar disappeared into the dark, I thought I heard a whisper of my name—but no one would ever speak it again.

THE RETURN OF THE GREEN KNIGHT The strike cruiser Verdant Oath did not sound a welcoming chime. The Thunderhawk settled into its cradle amid drifting vapor and cooling metal. From its hold emerged a lone figure clad in black ceramite. Brother Martin bore the sigil of the Deathwatch upon his pauldron. The Inquisitorial mark still clung to his armor, dull and intrusive, like a scar that refused to fade. No honor guard awaited him. Marshal Calder stood at the foot of the embarkation ramp, hands clasped behind his back. To one side waited Brother-Artificer Verdug, his servo-arm locked in repose. A pace behind them stood Codicier Lucan, hood drawn low, presence folded inward like a sheathed blade. Calder inclined his head. ‘Your vigil is ended.’ Brother Martin knelt. ‘It ended early, My Lord,’ Martin said. Not defensively. Precisely. ‘As intended,’ Calder replied The black of his armor was not revered aboard the Verdant Oath. It was residue. A foreign layer to be removed. They led him into the Armorum Sanctum. Cog-etched arches rose overhead. Incense hung heavy in the air, sharp with solvents and sanctified oils. The rites of return began. The black paint was burned away. Chemical agents hissed as Deathwatch livery dissolved down to bare adamantium. Serfs worked in silence. No hymns were sung. No litanies spoken. Only the steady rhythm of cleansing. As the green was reapplied, Codicier Lucan circled Martin slowly. His eyes never lingered on the armor. They searched deeper. ‘You refused three direct taskings,’ Lucan said, eyes unfocused. ‘Not requests. Orders.’ ‘I did,’ Martin replied. ‘Specify,’ Calder said. ‘The Deathwatch required maintenance of xenos-derived weapon systems,’ Martin said. ‘Calibration. Sanctification. Instruction.’ Verdug’s optics brightened faintly. ‘I refused,’ Martin continued. ‘Each time, I cited Martian doctrine and Imperial law. Each time, I offered sanctioned alternatives.’ ‘And?’ Calder asked. ‘They recorded my refusals,’ Martin said. ‘They judged me obstructive. Ideologically inflexible. A liability to operational cohesion.’ Calder’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. 'They I was released to my parent chapter under writ,’ Martin finished. Calder inclined his head once. ‘Exactly as hoped.’ Lucan stopped pacing. ‘There has been interference,’ Lucan said at last. Calder did not turn. ‘Explain.’ ‘The Ordo Xenos attempted a surgical purge,’ Lucan replied. ‘Memory excision. Observation anchors. They were thorough.’ Verdug’s optics flared softly. ‘And successful?’ Lucan paused. ‘Incomplete.’ At a gesture from Verdug, servitors drew back a shrouded reliquary. Runes flared as seals disengaged, one by one. Beneath lay an ancient device of brass and blackened steel, its surface etched with sigils older than the Chapter. ‘Sanctioned by Holy Terra,’ Verdug intoned. ‘Recovered during the Third Scouring of Helican Reach.’ Lucan’s voice lowered. ‘Rumors claim the Ordos Hereticus uses such devices to unmask witches. To reconstruct lies stripped from the mind.’ Calder turned at last. ‘Then use it.’ Brother Martin was seated before the device. Cables interfaced with his cranial ports. The machine stirred, not with noise, but with intent. Lucan reached into the warp. The device responded. Fragments surfaced—gaps where memory had been cut away, cauterized with cold precision. The machine probed those absences, not restoring what was taken, but mapping what should have been there. Runes ignited across the chamber walls. Star charts unfolded, incomplete at first—then sharpening. Worlds returned from omission – bled back into focus. Vaults hidden by silence. Listening posts. Quarantine reliquaries hidden beneath layers of denial. Lucan exhaled slowly. ‘Nineteen,’ he said. ‘Recovered from absence,’ Verdug confirmed. ‘The rest are too degraded.’ Calder stepped forward, studying the burning points of light. ‘Nineteen worlds touched by xenos treachery,’ he said, ‘Nineteen worlds, hidden not by ignorance, but by intent.’ ‘Some confirmed,’ Martin said, his voice steady despite the lingering ache behind his eyes. ‘Some merely watched.’ Lucan’s gaze hardened. ‘Watched is enough.’ ‘Then no longer,’ Calder said. He turned to Verdug. ‘Inform the Blade.’ The words carried weight. The War Council would convene. Routes would be charted. Oaths renewed. Weapons sanctified. Calder faced Martin once more. ‘Your vigil ended early because it needed to,’ he said. ‘You were sent back because you exposed their weakness. They lack faith in humanity.' Martin bowed his head. ‘You return to us without stain,’ the Marshal said. ‘Go and rejoin your brothers.' Outside the Armorum Sanctum, klaxons began to sound—not alarms, but summons. The Verdant Oath altered course. A Crusade had been declared. It was a good day for the Green Templars. And the alien would not endure it.

I've picked out a color scheme I like, thought out most of the various markings for ranks. Black kneepad for basic troopers, gold for Sergeant/Veterans/Lieutenant/Captain Blue for Librarian Red for Tech-Priests White for Apothecarion The rest of the Armour will match the rest of the army. I never liked the specialists looking radically different from the rest of the force. These guys keep it simple. They already have gold pauldrons. Assuming Citadel paints (they are the easiest to acquire), how should I paint the Green Templar? Black primer with Castellan Green or Caliban Green? Or perhaps Grey with a Contrast Paint? I have no clue, and watching endless YouTube videos just adds to the confusion.