IL X - Obsidian Guard

[TrajantheGreat]

This is the thread for one of our new legions, the Obsidian Guard! I am making this thread for the actual creator.

 

Obsidian Guard

 

Numeration: The Xth Legion

 

Primogenitor: Lukas Keath

 

Cognomen (Prior): None

 

Observed Strategic Tendencies: Offensive Siege Warfare with a preference for Flamers, Shock Assault Generalists (Pre-Primarch)

 

Noteworthy Domains: Feuerstadt (Homeworld), The Feuerreich

Allegiance: Fidelitas Totalis

 

Symbol and Colours: A Blazing Inferno; Black and Grey with Bronze trim

 

The Obsidian Guard are the 10th Legion of the Legiones Astartes, descended from the Primarch Lukas Keath, and specialists in siege warfare. Surprising, or unsurprising depending on your point of view, for their specialty the Obsidian Guard they find a common kinship with the mortal forces that fight beside them in the mud and blood of the trenches they often occupy. The Obsidian Guard take a methodical, calculating approach to their craft, drowning the enemy fortresses with infernus and phosphex shells before advancing into the bombed out husk behind massed formations of Breachers. 

 

Culturally the Guard adhere to a code of honor that prizes duty, honor, and loyalty, and welcoming punishment should either of those be compromised. The most common punishment for crimes such as that in the Guard is a holdover from Feuerstadt’s ancient past, walking barefoot over shards of obsidian. Through the pain, fire, and ash their sins are purged. 

When the Primarchs were scattered Lukas Keath, father of the Obsidian Guard, landed on the volcanic death world of Feuerstadt. The people of Feuerstadt were relatively primitive by the standards of the Imperium, at a post-industrial level of technology, and organized themselves into a smattering of city states based in the dormant husks of long dead volcanoes. Over the millennia of the Age of Strife these settlements grew in population and the scale of their defenses until each was a veritable fortress-city. These cities often found themselves in conflict with each, waging wars over vital mineral resources and the few patches of agricultural land that is both suitable for cultivation and safe from the almost daily firestorms that rage across the planet. Lukas’s pod impacted on the outskirts of the city of Sturmhafen, and he was brought before the Council of Oligarchs who ruled there so they could decide what to do with him. In the end the decision was made to raise him in their customs, as to who would be responsible for said raising the duty fell on the shoulders of Wolfrich Keath. Wolfrich gave this child from the stars the name Lukas and treated him as the son he had never had, given his wife had died young and he had never remarried. Lukas received the finest education available, groomed from a young age to one day assume his adopted father’s post and govern the people of Sturmhafen. This idyllic childhood was interrupted when Lukas was sixteen by the news that the city of Sturm Halten had been destroyed by their rival, Feuerlandung, and now the refugees were on their way to Sturmhafen pursued by the vanguard of the victorious Feuerlanders. In a very close vote the Oligarchs arrived at the decision to welcome the survivors and give battle to the Feuerlanders if they objected. By now Lukas had surpassed any of his contemporaries in every field, be it science, oratory, combat prowess, or strategy. So it was that he was made privy to the preparations for the near inevitable siege. 

 

Lukas was at the city’s arsenal, taking inventory of the artillery shells and overseeing the dispersion of ammunition caches, when a deafening explosion echoed across the city. Faster than any truck or tank could take him Lukas sprinted towards the rising column of smoke, towards the Oligarchs’ palace. The scene was worse than he had expected, bodies and rubble strewn about with fires sporadically burning here and there. Beneath the shattered dome in the council chambers Lukas found his father, who was mortally wounded by the blast. The exchange that was had between the two is unknown, as Lukas has never spoken of the details to anyone. Suffice it to say the result was that the teenaged Primarch was placed in command of the whole city’s defense. He rallied the citizens and military alike at the state funeral for the Oligarchs, declaring that he would never let the city fall, that those responsible would pay the price, and he would see Feuerlandung in ashes for this cowardice. 

 

When the enemy reached the outskirts of the city they were greeted by an artillery barrage so precise that no computer on the planet was capable of calculating it, Lukas’s handiwork. In the long range duel that followed between the besiegers and the defenders the Feuerlanders found themselves always on the losing side despite their numerically superior heavy guns. Whenever they brought up a battery it was knocked out by counterfire after a single salvo. Eventually the patience of the Feuerlanders grew thin and they launched a final desperate assault to overwhelm the presumably beleaguered garrison. In minutes they lost hundreds to inhumanly accurate artillery fire. Once past the killing fields outside of Sturmhafen the Feuerlanders were met by heavy stubber positions embedded in the rockface and minefields. Then the counterattack hit them. To say the besieging army melted in the face of Lukas’s sally would be an understatement. 

 

In the aftermath of this heroic victory Lukas sent messages to the other cities, calling for a grand coalition to be assembled to bring the planet under one control and end the incessant wars. His offer was politely declined. He left a skeleton force to man Sturmhafen’s heavy guns and then lead the rest out on a crusade to conquer the cities that refused to bend the knee. Within fire years his ragtag army of a few hundred had swelled to a hundred thousand and he was lord all but one of the great city states, Feuerlandung. They had never recovered from their defeat and had no hope of victory. So Lukas’s army, dubbed the Obsidian Guard for the vast plains of volcanic glass that were located along the rivers of lava, erected their siege works and deployed their artillery batteries. Over the course of six months the city was systematically demolished, burnt to ash by high explosive shells. 

 

At the center of the husk that was once a thriving urban population center Lukas planted the battle standard of the Obsidian Guard, to signify the end of his war. Amidst the smoke and ruins a stranger approached Lukas, who demanded the stranger’s identity. In reply the figure cast off his cloak and revealed himself to be the Emperor of Mankind, Lukas’s true father. He had observed Lukas from the time he had won his great victory five and a half years before, through the first triumph to this last one. Now was the time for Lukas to return to the world of humanity’s birth and take command of his legion. 

 

While on Terra Lukas’s psychic powers manifested under the tutelage of his father, and he refined his tactics and martial skill alongside the Custodes. For a time Lukas fought with his father and the Tenth Legion, renamed the Obsidian Guard in honor of his forces from Feuerstadt.

 

[TrajantheGreat]

“When you listen to the Remembrancers’ tales of the Legiones Astartes you get the picture of statuesque, divine angels. But that illusion was shattered the moment I laid eyes on the Obsidian Guard. Their armor was pitted, scorched, and dented in places, their bearing ominous and mournful, and they lacked wings. They are not the Emperor’s Angels, they are His dogs of war and I’m glad they’re on our side. An angel wouldn’t have deigned to sully themselves to dig sap trenches alongside us. An angel wouldn’t have walked through a shell crater to pull me out from beneath a pile of rubble. I owe nothing to angels, I owe everything to the Obsidian Guard.”
- Tiberius Scaro, 2541st Solar Auxilia Cohort

[TrajantheGreat]

Primarch of the Tenth Legion, Prince of the Imperium, Lord of the Fuerreich, Titan of Feuerstadt, Champion of the People, the Flamebearer; Lukas Keath is these things and many more. As with all of the Emperor’s sons he is a gifted warrior, strategist, diplomat, and general but what sets him apart from his brothers are his psychic abilities and technological acumen. After reuniting with his father Lukas became a steadfast believer in the Imperial Truth taking up the torch of the Great Crusade with gusto.

[TrajantheGreat]

Leopold Erlach

 

A member of the Obsidian Hand and one of the few Terran-born Legionaries still serving in the Obsidian Guard by the time of the Emperor‘s disappearance. Leopold was an extraordinarily powerful psyker, second only to a few within the Legions, with the ability to immolate entire formations of enemy troops, slag whole columns of armoured vehicles, or quite literally move a small mountain. He was a veteran of over a hundred battles with his first taking place during the closing years of the Unification Wars on Terra. Throughout the Great Crusade he served with distinction, both on the battlefield and off of it, eventually earning a place in the Obsidian Hand. When the Emperor disappeared, Alexandros was named Imperial Regent, and the Obsequarius was formed Lukas hand-picked Leopold to send to join this organization ignorant of the dark fate that awaited him. Like his fellows Leopold was imprisoned by the Amber King for being a spy and was brought before the Black Stars’ Chief Librarian for interrogation and indoctrination. However, Leopold did not submit to this attempted subversion, enduring days of excruciating torture both psychic and physical before finally succumbing to his wounds. His final words were inaudible due to the extent of the damage to his body but the message seared through the minds of his captors as a burning brand to mark their treachery.
 

[TrajantheGreat]

Obsidian Guard Breacher Marine

Obsidian Guard armorial with legion iconography

[TrajantheGreat]

Obsidian Guard Praetor by Antus