Executioners

The Executioners are a Space Marine Chapter descended from the Imperial Fists, notable for their role as Secessionists in the Badab War. Chapter tradition credits their founding to Fafnir Rann, said to have been one of Rogal Dorn’s most ruthless captains, though the precise founding number is recorded only in the Chapter’s own chronicles. Loyal to the Imperium for most of their history, the Executioners nonetheless earned a reputation among fellow Astartes for savagery and disregard for the martial decorum of their progenitor Legion.

The Chapter is based on the twin worlds of Stygia and Aquilon, a binary system of fire and ice on the Imperium’s fringe, with its fortress-monastery, Darkenvault, built into an asteroid held between the two planets’ gravities. Despite their fearsome bearing, the Executioners follow the Codex Astartes closely, varying it in two respects: each company fields Sternguard-configured Veterans in place of a Devastator squad, and each is assigned three Chaplains, called Death Speakers, who record the dead and uphold discipline under a High Chaplain known as the Lord Speaker of the Dead. The Chapter Master holds the title High Executioner, contestable by any captain who judges him unfit. The Chapter maintains defence pacts with Bakka and Gryphonne IV.

Before the Badab War, the Executioners fought at the Invasion of Nova Sulis during the Plague of Unbelief and defended Terra alongside the Crimson Fists during the War of the Beast. A debt owed to the Astral Claws, who broke a xenos siege of Stygia-Aquilon, later drew the Executioners into the Badab War as Secessionists, though they fought apart from Lugft Huron’s other forces and refused to garrison territory or strike civilian targets. The alliance broke in 911.M41 when Astral Claws forces attacked the surrendered Salamanders vessel Pyre of Glory; the Executioners turned on their allies in the battle remembered as the Red Hour and fought thereafter as a rogue faction until withdrawing from the war in 912.M41 under escort to Nocturne.

For their part in the rebellion the Executioners were sentenced to a century-long penitent crusade, barred from taking new aspirants, while their homeworlds were held in trust by the Salamanders and their own successors. The crusade is recorded as successful, and by the Era Indomitus the Executioners returned to Stygia-Aquilon, received Primaris reinforcement from a passing crusade fleet, and saw their surviving Firstborn cross the Rubicon Primaris. The Chapter has since hunted the Red Corsairs and other successors of the Astral Claws, and is recorded among the Chapters, alongside the Mantis Warriors and Lamenters, tasked by Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman with pursuing Huron Blackheart into the Maelstrom. Confirmed successors include the Iron Champions; the Crimson Axes are recorded as lost, and the Skull Bearers’ descent remains unproven.