The Lords Penitent Homebrew

[Hasttorr]

Founding

• Founding: Unacknowledged (believed to splinter from VIIIth Legion at Isstvan V).

• Primarch: Konrad Curze.

• Gene-seed: VIII Legion (Night Lords lineage, under Mechanicus oversight).

• Chapter Master: High Count Malchior Veynar.

• Fortress Monastery: The Nightfort.

• Homeworld: Nostramorth.

• Chapter Symbol: A bone skull bound in chains, black wings spread.

 

Origins

The Lords Penitent came about during the Horus Heresy, at the Drop Site Massacre on Isstvan V. When the traitors turned on the loyalists, the VIIIth joined the slaughter. The warrior who would later become the first High Count, Malchior Veynar, followed his brothers at first, killing loyalists, hunting them through the ash-choked canyons. He told himself they’d been betrayed, that the Emperor deserved this.

But as he fought, he saw the truth. Horus wasn’t a saviour. Horus was the one damning them. Curze had fallen fully to madness. It didn’t matter what Nostramo suffered, it didn’t matter if the Emperor had abandoned them. Their oath still stood. Duty was duty. Horus was the traitor, not the Throne.

At Isstvan V he and a fraction of his brothers turned their blades on their kin, siding with the Salamanders in the chaos. They scraped the old markings from their armour, carving in black skulls and wings, a mark of penance. They fought like they always did — from the shadows, striking terror — but this time it was against heretics. That was when they stopped being Night Lords and became something else. The Lords Penitent. The Salamanders, though wary, marked their actions and never forgot that these few had turned the night against Horus’ horde.

 

Homeworld: Nostramorth

Nostramorth is a storm-wracked world of near-perpetual night. The skies are thick with black clouds and constant lightning storms, its seas poisoned, its mountains cracked open like old wounds. It is a place of shadow, fitting for sons of Curze who still serve the Emperor.

The people live under strict law. Crime is punished swiftly and publicly: thieves nailed to gates, murderers impaled, heretics flayed. It is brutal, but it keeps order, and the people accept it as part of life. They pray to the Emperor as the Eternal Judge, believing His light shines even through the storm-choked skies.

Recruitment is just as harsh. Families sometimes offer their children willingly, walking them to the fortress gates and leaving them as offerings. The Lords Penitent also take orphans or those touched by crime. To be chosen is terrifying but seen as an honour — to live in penance, to serve the Judge Eternal.

 

Fortress Monastery: The Nightfort

The Nightfort is carved into a cliff-face above a poisoned sea. Towers stab into the sky like broken teeth, chained statues hang from the walls, and lightning lashes its spires. It was once a Great Crusade staging ground of the VIIIth Legion, abandoned after the Heresy, and reclaimed by the Lords Penitent as their home.

Inside, the halls are lined with trophies — broken armour and bones of traitor Night Lords, but also xenos corpses. In the deepest vault lies their most infamous trophy: the charred, mutilated carcass of a Tyranid Norn Queen, chained upright as if still on display.

In the Hall of Penance, captured traitors are given one choice: repent and die by the blade, or refuse and be executed as an example. Their armour, blackened and chained, is mounted on the walls as a warning.

On the outer walls, the bodies of criminals are displayed — impaled, hanged, nailed. The fortress is more than a home. It is a message carved in stone and blood.

 

Leadership

The Lords Penitent are ruled by High Count Malchior Veynar, their founder, who has led them since Isstvan. He has not aged in ten thousand years, pale-skinned with black eyes and sharpened teeth. Some whisper he is a Perpetual, cursed to endure. Others claim the Emperor Himself wills him to live as judge eternal. He wears a trench coat over his armour, sometimes a dark red cape, and fights with twin power claws and ancient bolt pistols.

Captured traitor Night Lords are brought before him. If they beg forgiveness, he grants them a swift death. If they refuse, he executes them as examples, their corpses displayed as warnings.

Beneath him are the Counts, each leading a “Cell of Penance.” Chaplains serve as Confessors, Librarians as Justiciars, Apothecaries as Mortifiers, Sergeants as Scourge-Brothers, and Veterans as Wardens. Rivalries exist between Counts, but Malchior’s presence keeps the Chapter united.

 

Combat Doctrine

The Lords Penitent fight with shadows and fear. They strike from the dark, leave corpses on display, then vanish again. To them, terror is a weapon as sharp as any blade.

Their greatest obsession is the hunting of traitor Night Lords. Every kill is another step toward redemption. Captured traitors are given one chance to repent. Those who refuse are executed and displayed, their armour chained on the fortress walls.

They also wage constant war against the T’au Empire. Against the T’au their methods thrive — auxiliaries desert when their commanders are impaled, Fire Warriors falter when their leaders are flayed.

Long-ranged ambushes and guerrilla strikes are their favoured style, ending in sudden, brutal close-range assaults. They are executioners, not generals.

 

Beliefs

They see the Emperor as the Eternal Judge. His will is law, His light pierces even the darkest storm.

Curze is still respected as their father. They understand why he fell, but they know he chose heresy, and for that he is damned. They fight in his shadow, but not in his name.

Rituals of confession and oath-taking are part of Chapter life. They also practice an older, darker method — consuming the flesh of slain foes. They claim it grants them fragments of memory and instinct. Whether true or not, it terrifies those who witness it.

Civilians are the Emperor’s flock. They are protected, but kept in line. Justice is public and brutal. A thief might hang at the gate, a murderer impaled, a heretic burned alive. The people live in fear, but also faith.

The Lords Penitents also have a belief that they must Hunt the Eighth legion, to either have them repent and realise that they have false loyalty like the High Count once did all those years ago or be exterminated. This is one of their major flaws.

The Lords Penitent are never free of their father’s shadow. To them, hunting their traitor kin is more than duty — it’s an obsession. More than once they have abandoned campaigns to pursue a Night Lords warband, even when it cost Imperial lives.

One such case was the Cleansing of Ceryx. The Penitent were ordered to aid an Imperial Guard regiment against the Orks, but when word spread that a splinter of the VIIIth had been sighted nearby, High Count Veynar diverted half his Chapter to the hunt.

The Guard line broke, Ceryx burned, but the Lords returned with flayed traitor corpses nailed to their gunships. To them, that was victory enough.

 

Gene-seed

The Lords Penitent carry the VIIIth Legion’s curse. They suffer nightmares, paranoia, visions of doom. Some claim prophecy, others call it madness.

Their eyes are black, like pools of midnight, a mutation that grants them night vision and adds to their monstrous reputation.

Every brother must serve a century in the Deathwatch. It is both penance and proof of loyalty. Many die on alien worlds, their gene-seed harvested by the Mechanicus and returned to Nostramorth. Progenoids are implanted into vat-slaves, growing new warriors from sacrifice and service. Every Lord Penitent is born of death.

A notable flaw of their gene seed are terrible visions, that have caused operations to go sideways. Notably the Sorrow Reach campaign, a Justiciar foresaw the enemy falling into an ambush if they pressed forward. Trusting his vision, the Counts threw their strength into the assault. Instead of heretics, they found an empty valley, mined and waiting. Hundreds of brothers were torn apart in the blast, whole Cells annihilated. Since then, the Penitent know their visions are not always divine warnings but can be false echoes, tricks of their tainted blood. Yet still they trust them, because they cannot help but believe.

 

Rebirth

When Guilliman revealed the Primaris project to the Imperium, most Chapters were granted reinforcements. For the Lords Penitent, it was different. The Inquisition and Mechanicus demanded proof that they could be trusted with such gifts.

The surviving original brothers — those who had walked from Isstvan into ten thousand years of War — were offered the surgery first. It was not presented as a reward, but as a test. The operation was invasive and brutal, and many of them did not survive it. Those who did became something new — taller, stronger, yet still scarred by their cursed bloodline.

High Count Malchior Veynar himself underwent the procedure. His Perpetual nature twisted the results, the new organs meshing with his old form in ways the Mechanicus could not explain. Some whisper that the surgery made him even harder to kill, though whether that is blessing or curse no one dares say.

To the Lords Penitent, becoming Primaris is not glory. It is penance. The ritual of implantation is performed in the Hall of Penance, before the chained corpses of traitors. Candidates kneel in confession before the Confessors, swear oaths to the Emperor as Eternal Judge, and are cut open on stone altars to receive their new organs. Those who rise again are welcomed as reborn Wardens of the Chapter. Those who die are displayed with honour, martyrs to the cause of loyalty.

 

Notable Campaigns

• Isstvan V (Drop Site Massacre): The moment of their creation, siding with the Salamanders and turning their blades against Horus’ horde.

• The Ashen Dusk Crusade: Against the T’au. Entire auxiliary regiments deserted after their officers were found flayed and impaled.

• The Weeping Fortress: A traitor Night Lords stronghold was purged. Thousands of corpses were nailed to its walls. Their armour now hangs in the Hall of Penance.

• The Vigil of Ke’lshan: Joint Deathwatch action. Even hardened xenos remembered the night raids of the Penitent with dread.

 

Relations with the Imperium

• Inquisition: Tolerates them, but never trusts them. Keeps them close for observation.

• Ecclesiarchy: Uneasy. Their penance rituals border on heresy, but their faith is iron.

• Other Chapters: Most distrust them. Raven Guard and Carcharodons see them as kin. Salamanders, though cautious, respect their stand at Isstvan.

• Imperial Guard: Terrified of them, yet grateful when spared. To mortals, they are both saviours and executioners.

 

Codex Appendix

Founding: Unacknowledged (Isstvan loyalist splinter of VIIIth Legion).

Chapter Master: High Count Malchior Veynar.

Homeworld: Nostramorth.

Fortress: The Nightfort.

Combat Doctrine: Guerrilla strikes, executions, terror.

Battle-cry: “Ave omnes, iudex aeterne!”

Organisation:

• High Count (Chapter Master)

• Counts (Captains)

• Confessors (Chaplains)

• Justiciars (Librarians)

• Mortifiers (Apothecaries)

• veterans.

• Sergeants.

 

 

Side Note.

 

Overall im happy with my Chapter. Proud of what ive done so far, i plan to add more eventually, more lore, rank insignias, create a picture of their look and chapter mark, assuming i can make a decent looking one.

 

 

[Brother Tyler]

It's always interesting to see loyalist Chapters descended from the traitor legions.

 

The one thing that stands out to me as problematic (unless there's a solid explanation) is the Chapter's homeworld: Nostramorth. The name itself is clearly derived from the Night Lords Legion's homeworld of Nostrama. Added to that are the similarities in the level of crime and the gloomy atmosphere. The likelihood of this being a coincidence is extremely low, so I'm inclined to think that it was a deliberate choice - that the Penitent Legion specifically sought a world that was reminiscent of their destroyed homeworld and then re-named their prize after that world. That being the case, some level of explanation, even if only very brief, should be included in the article to head off questions and comments about the similarities.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing the Chapter's color scheme and other icons.

[Hasttorr]

17 minutes ago, Brother Tyler said:

It's always interesting to see loyalist Chapters descended from the traitor legions.

 

The one thing that stands out to me as problematic (unless there's a solid explanation) is the Chapter's homeworld: Nostramorth. The name itself is clearly derived from the Night Lords Legion's homeworld of Nostrama. Added to that are the similarities in the level of crime and the gloomy atmosphere. The likelihood of this being a coincidence is extremely low, so I'm inclined to think that it was a deliberate choice - that the Penitent Legion specifically sought a world that was reminiscent of their destroyed homeworld and then re-named their prize after that world. That being the case, some level of explanation, even if only very brief, should be included in the article to head off questions and comments about the similarities.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing the Chapter's color scheme and other icons.

That is something i forgot to add, my logic originally was the High Count wanted to more or less feel like he was home again, specifically found a planet like it and well you get it. Might have to think of a better explanation but hey, its my first Homebrew. Got alot to flush out. Any ideas feel free to send em.