High Marshal Helbrecht

High Marshal Helbrecht is the current High Marshal of the Black Templars, a Space Marine Chapter descended from the Imperial Fists. The Chapter keeps no single home world. The office was first held by Sigismund. Helbrecht was born in the underhives of Piety, a hive world in the Drusus Marches of the Calixis Sector, in Segmentum Obscurus, which is a birth world and not a home world of the Chapter. Unknown to him, Custodes of the Aquilan Shield under Grateion Artabane watched him there until the Black Templars recruited him.

Campaigns early in his service, of which the Vinculus Crusade is named only as an example, brought him notice as he rose from neophyte. He is not recorded as having commanded the Vinculus Crusade. On Cephian IV, in a year not recorded, he killed a vampire that ruled the world and was made a Sword Brother. When Marshal Daidin was later killed, Helbrecht was elected marshal in his place. Where Daidin died is not recorded. In 989.M41, after High Marshal Kordhel was killed by a Chaos champion, the Marshals unanimously chose Helbrecht as High Marshal, and he received the Sword of the High Marshals.

He then led a crusade against the Cythor Fiends in the Ghoul Stars, also called the Ghost Stars. Eight years were spent on the outlying systems. One account says the Fiends’ homeworlds were found empty; another says the crusade reached the alien homeworld and found the core systems empty. No planet is named in those accounts. A further account names the gas giant 9836-18 Grave Core as the former Cythor capital and the eighteenth world taken in the crusade; Helbrecht’s force found it empty, destroyed the orbital platforms, failed to destroy the planet, and set its atmosphere on fire. A request for aid from Armageddon cut the crusade short. In the Third War for Armageddon, which that war’s chronology dates from 998.M41, he commanded the space fleet with Admiral Parol and did not fight on the surface. Reclusiarch Grimaldus, not Helbrecht, held Hive Helsreach. Helbrecht swore to pursue Ghazghkull Thraka and took Commissar Yarrick with him. At the Battle of the Haunted Gulf, a region of space rather than a world, they cornered the flagship Kill Wrecka, and Ghazghkull escaped into the warp. No coherent year is recorded for that battle.

One account dates the fall of Nimbosa to the T’au, and the destruction of the Vostroyan Firstborn IX, to 790.M41, and does not name Helbrecht. Later accounts date Commander Brightsword’s capture of Nimbosa to 993.M41. In the 993.M41 account Helbrecht survived the Koloth Gorge Massacre and, after the world was recaptured later that year, ordered a pursuit from the Chapter keep in the Hebrak Mountains. On Schrödinger VII he lost his right hand to Imotekh the Stormlord, and the Black Templars retreated. One account dates that defeat to 930.M41 and another to 999.M41. He then made a five-year crusade of penitence, whose worlds are not named, and afterwards prayed before the hand of Rogal Dorn on the Phalanx, the fortress-monastery of the Imperial Fists. The narrative of his career places a later boarding of Imotekh’s tomb ship, the Inevitable Conqueror, after that defeat. He came aboard the battle barge Sigismund while the tomb ship travelled toward Davatas. The fighting was on the ship. Imotekh escaped to an escort, and Helbrecht destroyed the ship. One account dates that boarding to 985.M41 and another to 999.M41.

While he was still hunting Ghazghkull, Roboute Guilliman visited him. No place for the meeting is recorded. Guilliman persuaded him to accept Primaris Space Marines, and he did so. He later crossed the Rubicon Primaris and became a Primaris Space Marine. As part of Indomitus Crusade Fleet Primus he led the task force that saved the forge world Sigma-Ulstari in the Octarius War, in M42, and he killed the warboss Tuskagrob Wurldkilla. He ordered other crusades in that system, but he is not recorded as having fought on Abundantia. On Hevaran, a world with no recorded segmentum, and in a year not recorded, he killed the Iron Warriors warsmith Torven Vakra. With the Emperor’s Champion Bloheim and Reclusiarch Grimaldus he recovered a shard of Dorn’s armour. A valley on Hevaran is called Golgoth in the account, and it is not the planet Golgotha. In the Season of Blood, in M42, he returned to the surface of Armageddon against a horde under the daemon primarch Angron, limited purges to the area of Hive Infernus, and joined Logan Grimnar in the assault on the Red Angel’s Gate. He remains High Marshal in the Era Indomitus.