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Name: Shadow Guard
Founding: Thirteenth Founding
Chapter Master: Liam Kane
Homeworld: Arkham, Miskathon Sector, Segmentum Obscurus
Fortress-Monastery: Ambras Fortress
Main colours: Black, grey
Battle Cry: "Infligimus ex Tenebris"



OVERVIEW

"Some say that those who fight monsters inevitably become that which they hate. Let us be monsters, then, and give our enemies something truly terrifying to fear."
- Liam Kane, Chapter Master

Specializing in urban warfare, the Shadow Guard of Arkham are a chapter devoted to causing death and destruction to the enemies of the Imperium through whatever means available. Their ruthlessness, bloodlust and (rumored) instability is checked only by their fierce discipline and loyalty to the God-Emperor and the citizens of the Imperium. Recruits are exclusively drawn from among the hive orphans of Arkham.

TACTICS

“If it can draw breath, it may scream. If it can bleed, it can be killed. If it can speak, it can beg for mercy. Explore all possibilities.”
- Shadow Guard proverb

As the Shadow Guard often operates with limited backup and manpower, the typical strategy of the Guard is to use ranged units like Scouts and Tactical Squads, backed up by heavy tanks and protected by Rhino transports. When faced by insurmountable odds, it is not uncommon for the Shadow Guard to retreat to regroup, or even to use assassinations and guerilla tactics to demoralize their enemies and compensate for their numerical inferiority. While this has proven effective, the Shadow Guard has gained a reputation for cowardice, weakness and dishonor among more martial Space Marine Chapters, where “acting like a Shadow Marine” is considered a mortal insult. It has also earned them the enmity of many Ultramarine successor Chapters, as the Codex Astartes dictates a more direct form of combat for full Battle Brothers. Given the aggressiveness and brutality of the Shadow Guard, honor duels between the Guard and their detractors are common when their presence is not needed elsewhere.

TRAINING AND TRADITIONS

“The most exhilarating thing in life is to be shot at to no effect.”
- Tomas Riddler, Captain of the 3rd Company, on his battle with the Tau

Shadow Marines do not train in the manner of Ultramarines or even Space Wolves; they rarely spend time at the fortress monastery of Ambras, preferring instead to hone their skills by hunting the hive gangs of Arkham. This vigilante-like behavior trains recruits to think three dimensionally in an urban environment and work with limited resources in a hostile battlefield. They have adopted the practice of "marking," or ritually carving tally marks on their armor for particularly memorable or difficult kills, and it is often possible to distinguish the veterans from the grunts by counting the tally marks on their gauntlets, pauldrons, greaves and breastplates. This practice has not endeared them to the Adeptus Mechanicus, which views such practices as sacrilegious.

The traditional colors of a Shadow Marine are black, dark gray and white, symbolic of the grim darkness of Arkham's atmosphere. Additionally, camouflage patterns have proven popular in the Shadow Guard, and it is not uncommon for Marines to paint their armor to blend into their surroundings. The colors of the Company are never marked on the pauldron rims or knee pads; instead, the Marines paint their Company colors on the jagged grooves of their helmets just under their eyes, where they are slightly less likely to draw the attention of their enemies.

Some Marine units have special traditions:

Units in Terminator armor mark their company colors on their gauntlets.

Sternguard Veterans paint skulls on their helmets.

Assault Marines almost exclusively wear Corvus-pattern helmets, and mark their company colors on their chests.

Tactical Marines wear variants of the Aquila-pattern helmets, with the vox caster set under the chin rather than on the faceplate. Additionally, their breastplates lack the Aquila, although some choose to paint on a white substitute for the Imperium's symbol.

HISTORY

“There is no greater glory than to kill in the name of the Emperor. Kill with the flamer, for it purges the sins of His enemies. Kill with the bolter, for its roar is glorious to His ears. Kill with the sniper rifle, so His enemies may fear His touch from far away. And above all else, kill with joy in your heart, and His name on your lips.”
- Uriel Ward, Chaplain of the 2nd Company

Since the Shadow Guard's inception in late M35, they have served with distinction in thousands of battles across the galaxy, from the Seventh Black Crusade to the Zeist Campaign. During the latter campaign, Companies Three, Five and Six were separated from the main forces by a “shadow” in the Warp, and could not be recalled. Although they have been officially declared Missing in Action, the mysterious attacks against Tau-held worlds lend credence to the theory that the rogue Companies are pursuing the campaign in their own manner, against the express wishes of the Administratum. The remaining Companies (with the exception of Companies One and Two) have pulled back to the Segmentum Obscurus, where they have joined the defense against the Thirteenth Black Crusade.

Companies One and Two have been tasked with hunting down Markus Veidt, a former Shadow Guard Librarian who turned to Chaos after uncovering corrupt knowledge in a forgotten vault on Tenebor in 744 M41. Veidt stole the Battle Barge “Joy of Slaughter,” disengaged the ship's Geller shield and took it into the Warp with the entire Seventh Company. When they were next seen in 746 M41, Veidt and the Seventh had been transformed into twisted and gibbering monstrosities, their dark armor warped and melted into obscene shapes pleasing only to Veidt's perverse mind. Now calling himself Arlecchino, Veidt led his “Tatterdemalions” in an orgy of slaughter, decimating the Sixth Company and utterly massacring the Ninth before disappearing into the Warp again. Since then, the Tatterdemalions have stalked the Segmentum Obscurus, devouring outlying worlds and terrorizing the trade routes. Chapter Master Liam Kane has sworn to personally kill Arlecchino and free the tortured souls of the Tatterdemalions, but his former friend has proven more elusive than he expected.

Chapter Master Liam Kane – Counts As Kor'sarro Khan
2nd Chaplain Uriel Ward – Counts as Ortan Cassius
3rd Captain Tomas Riddler – Counts as Kayvaan Shrike
10th Sergeant Jack Eddows – Counts as Torias Telion

Pretty good.
Maybe add 1 or 2 notable battles?

TIMELINE

Late M35 – The Shadow, a Space Marine of unknown Chapter lineage, founds and leads the Chapter for a short time. After establishing its laws, customs and traditions, the Shadow disappears. It is rumored that the Shadow was a member of one of the Founding Legions or even one of the Lost Legions, although this is dismissed as juvenile fantasy by the wise.

811 M37 – The Seventh Black Crusade begins. The Shadow Guard begins combat operations on over a dozen worlds near the Eye of Terror, distinguishing themselves as skilled fighters in urban environments.

631 M38 – The Scouring of Hexenrach. As a favor to a high ranking member of the Ecclesiarchy, the Guard deploys to the penal world of Hexenrach, near the Eye of Terror, to support an isolated convent of Sisters of Battle in the quelling of a prison uprising. During combat, however, the Librarian Scarrus Corbo notices the repugnant marks of Nurgle on the heretics' tattered uniforms, and after delving into the mind of one traitor, he discovers that the heretics had found a hidden stockpile of virus bombs, toxic gasses and corrosive contagions in a crypt under the penal colony, which they sought to release in the name of Nurgle. In an even sicker twist of fate, the former prisoners intended to board the Guard's Battle Barge Lex Ferenda to use it to spread the “gifts” of Nurgle to other stars in the cluster. While Corbo and the Sisters of Battle were unable to prevent the diseases of Nurgle from infecting and killing the prisoners on the planet's surface, the Guard fought a valiant delaying action against the cultists of Nurgle as the Sisters of Battle salvaged everything possible from their Convent and the penal colony. Despite heavy losses, Corbo and the Sisters of Battle managed to retrieve valuable, if dangerous, Chaos texts from the corpses of the dead cultists, along with several invaluable prisoners who had yet to be interrogated. The Guard and the Sisters of Battle boarded the Lex Ferenda with their spoils and requested that Exterminatus be invoked on the planet. After handing over the Chaos texts and prisoners to Inquisitor Lukas Ghast, the Lex Ferenda annihilated Hexenrach with cyclonic torpedoes.

343 M41 – The Battle of Tera Delablo. Konrad the Scarred, Chapter Master, suppresses an uprising in the underground Flowing Stone Hive of Tera Delablo, a Hive World in the far reaches of the Segmentum Obscurus known for its inhospitable red surface and tectonic instability. In the leadership of the uprising, Konrad discovers the taint of Chaos, and soon realizes that the uprising was merely the precursor to a far more dangerous threat: the revolutionaries sought to deliberately turn the uprising into a bloody war of sacrifice that would awaken the ancient Xeno god that slumbered at the heart of the planet. Worse yet, there were cells elsewhere on the underground planet, each with connections to death cults on other worlds. Lacking the will to declare an Exterminatus but with few other options, Konrad, his personal retinue and a squad of Terminators descend into the fiery depths of Tera Delablo to confront the threat, and discover that the cultists were indeed correct; a vast machine god of silvery metal did slumber beneath the surface, and was unconsciously affecting the minds of the populace above. Despite the Tech-Marines' objections, and the heavy resistance of the machine-god's robotic warriors, Konrad and the Terminators set charges around the machine god's vital systems and destroyed them. Without the direct control of the machine-god, the uprising failed and the strange robotic servants fell lifeless to the ground.

700 M41 – Current Chapter Master Liam Kane's first Ritual of Shadows. The previous Chapter Master, Konrad the Scarred, takes Kane, Markus Veidt and twelve other Marines on an expedition to destroy the Ecce Mortis Angelorum, a massive Space Hulk that threatens to destroy Arkham. Discovering Chaos Space Marines and Daemons, all but Kane and Veidt are slain in combat, but not before Kane set the charges at the heart of the Hulk. Kane and Veidt escape with the body of Konrad the Scarred, his sword Shadowbrand, and the head of the Daemon Prince that led the Chaos Space Marines. After a lengthy trial, the Grey Council declares Kane the new Chapter Master.

744 M41 – The Battle of Tenebor. Markus Veidt, Chapter Librarian, discovers forbidden knowledge in a vault on Tenebor during a battle with the Night Lords. Breaking from the rest of the Chapter forces and taking the entire Seventh Company with him, Veidt took the Battle Barge Joy of Slaughter through the Warp without the protection of a Geller shield. Despite this, the Shadow Guard routs the Night Lords and delivers their slaves to the Inquisition for interrogation. Liam Kane orders his men to find Veidt.

746 M41 – The Valkov Massacre. Veidt and the Seventh Company return over the planet Valkov - just as the Sixth and Ninth Companies are making repairs after a costly victory against a splinter of Hive Fleet Tiamat. Horrifically mutated by the energies of the Warp, the laughing, gibbering slaves of Markus Veidt take their former brothers by surprise, killing almost all of the Ninth Company and almost one in ten of the Sixth. The Sixth Company manage to hold their ground long enough for help to arrive from Valkov's PDF, but by then it is too late: Veidt and his “Tatterdemalions” disappear again. Liam Kane swears vengeance.

811 M41 – The Tastris Massacre. Veidt, now calling himself Arlecchino, returns to cull the civilized world of Tastris, where his Tatterdemalions utterly destroy the Planetary Defense Force and begins a hundred-day pillage that kills all of the planet's six billion civilians and strips it of atmosphere. While the mounds of garishly painted skulls and desecrated skeletons speak for the ferocity and barbarity of the attack, Arlecchino recorded the debauchery and left a copy of the recording atop the highest pile of skulls with a note reading: “SMILE.” To this date, Liam Kane has refused to let any other member of the Shadow Guard view the recording. Arlecchino disappears.

853 M41 – The Battle of Hesperia. Arlecchino leads a culling of the forest moon Hesperia, where the peaceful natives are easy prey for his Tatterdemalions. He is caught off guard, however, by the veteran scout Jack Eddows, who, along with elements of the Tenth Company, turns the tranquil forests into a killing field of sniper fire and guerilla attacks. Arlecchino is forced to retreat back to the Joy of Slaughter with no spoils, sullen that his fun had been spoiled.

999 M41 – The Zeist Campaigns begin. The Shadow Guard joins forces with the Ultramarines, Crimson Fists, Night Watch, Sable Swords and many other Chapters against the Tau. The combined forces win many victories, but cannot gain the Administratum's approval for a deeper push into Tau territory. When ordered to return to the Segmentum Obscurus, the Battle Barge Stercus Accidit ignited its warp drive and vanished – possibly as the result of a major and fatal malfunction, or as a deliberate act of disobedience against the Ultramarine commander, whom Captain Tomas Riddler was known to personally despise. In either case, the three Companies aboard the Stercus Accidit disappeared, and are officially listed as missing in action. While Chapter Master Liam Kane appears to reject theories that Riddler disobeyed a direct order from a superior, he has not admitted the possibility that Riddler might be dead, either.

999 M41 – The Thirteenth Black Crusade begins. The remaining Companies are called to Cadia, where they fight against Abaddon the Despoiler's troops. Acting on the prophetic nightmares common to Shadow Marines, Liam Kane and Uriel Ward set a trap for Arlecchino on the civilized planet of Ariel. There they hope to confront their former friend and force him to answer for his crimes.

GENE SEED MUTATIONS

The gene-seed of the Shadow Guard has remained remarkably pure over the millennia, as there are few visible mutations to be found in the average Shadow Marine. Shadow Marines tend to be tall and slender, with dark black eyes and pale skin – although this might have more to do with the perpetual night of Arkham rather than any flaws within their gene-seed. Like other Chapters founded during the Thirteenth Founding, it is unknown what Chapter contributed its gene-seed to create the Shadow Guard.

One notable trait of the Shadow Guard, beside their fanatical obsession with justice “as it should be,” is their propensity for prophetic dreams and nightmares, as well as their higher number of Librarians. These intense nightmares come on without warning and can last for hours, during which time the Marine is subjected to dark and disturbing visions of the future. Although there is no indication that these bursts of insight are the result of meddling from the Ruinous Powers, their usefulness in battle against the enemies of the Imperium has not spared them from intense scrutiny from the Ordo Hereticus.

Throughout the lengthy history of the Shadow Guard, it had been a source of great pride that not a single Shadow Marine had fallen to Chaos, even during the lengthy Ghost War in which Marines spent decades on planets heavily tainted by the Ruinous Powers. The abrupt and incredibly violent turning of Markus Veidt shattered the aura of incorruptibility the Shadow Guard enjoyed, and has caused many veterans to doubt their purity. What good is it to defend the people of the Imperium if you cannot trust yourself?

CHAPTER ORGANIZATION
"We help the helpless. Not because the Chapter Master asks us to, for he knows that we shall regardless of his orders. Not because we gain something from it, for whenever we leave a city we've defended we receive only jeers and taunts in payment for their salvation. Not even because the Codex Astartes orders us to protect humanity like the gods of old, for we obey that tome only out of political necessity. No, we help the helpless for one single reason: It is the right thing to do. That suffices."
- Captain Su Gordon

The Shadow Guard adheres to the Codex Astartes, but diverts from its teachings in a few notable ways.

Due to the Chapter's predilection towards so-called “suicide missions” where resupply and reinforcement are impossible, every Captain is expected to be able to operate in complete isolation. Additionally, Captains are expected to perform their duties regardless of external circumstances, which includes direct orders from non-Chapter superiors. A Captain will pursue his assignment with dogged perseverance until his objective has either been completed or his entire Company is dead.

While this determination might result in a high number of casualties in other Chapters, Shadow Guard commanders have adopted a practical view on warfare out of necessity; with few reinforcements and limited resources, a Captain must often focus on alternative ways to accomplish an objective without bringing direct force to bear. It is this practicality that has given rise to the Shadow Guard's extensive use of guerilla and psychological warfare, which its Captains see as less wasteful and more effective means of accomplishing an objective. Indeed, Shadow Guard commanders take an almost perverse glee in inflicting fear into the hearts of their enemies, enjoying the irony of fighting terror with terror. The crucified or mutilated bodies of their foes are often the only indication that the Shadow Guard had fought at a certain battle. When forced into an outright confrontation with an enemy, the Guard will field quick-moving vehicles like Land Speeders and bikes, backed up by heavy fire support from Predator battle tanks and supplemented by sniper fire and tactical squads.

Another notable trait of the Shadow Guard is their “humanitarianism” - the Guard is especially quick to defend civilians. A strange preoccupation with justice and the law “as it should be” often leads them to adopt defensive positions in Hives and cities, where they believe they can better protect the civilians under their care. When asked why they so often protect those who are easily replaced, a Shadow Marine often shrugs and replies that there is no point in killing the enemies of the humanity if one does not intend to protect humans. This warm feeling is rarely returned by those the Guard protects; the Guard's treatment of its enemies often makes them seem nearly as monstrous as those they fight.


Company Disposition

Like all Codex Astartes-compliant Space Marine Chapters, the Shadow Guard is organized into ten Companies of 100 Space Marines each when at full strength. The current Company Captains are:

1st Company: Kristoff Morrison
2nd Company: Vesper Nolan
3rd Company: Tomas Riddler
4th Company: Azrael Keathon
5th Company: Lucius Drake
6th Company: Su Gordon
7th Company: Luis Bale (A thrall of Chaos)
8th Company: Friedrich Grayson
9th Company: Silence
10th Company: Jack Eddows

CHAPTER FLEET

2 Battle Barges *
Stercus Accidit
Lex Ferenda
* There were previously three Battle Barges; however, Markus Veidt stole the Joy of Slaughter.
10 Strike Cruisers
See No Evil
Cataclysm
Reckoning
Heart of Ice
Dreams in Darkness
Terror in the Sky
Vendetta
Olympus' Fire
Gray Ghost
Dark Prophecy