Editing Black Augurs (section)

=Legion History=
==The Sacred Band==

''Merica?  Ahh... such a naive and hopeful time.  I do not cling to those memories, but they are still here.  Everything I have seen in my long life is still here!  Hektor had us serve his favourite son, Hephaestion, and we were the best of the assault marines in the Sacred Band.  Do you know that Hephaestion died at his father's hands?  It runs in the family...''

- The Nightshade

===Actions During the Pacification of the Merican Hives===
During this first deployment of Space Marines the Fourteenth Squad quickly gained a reputation for both great heroism and intense petulance.

===The Original Fifteenth===
Little is left of most of the individuals that made up the Fifteenth Squad of the [[Sacred Band]]. Many of them became entirely different people after the Decimation and others died outright. 
*Original Name Stricken from Records - the Bloodseer - Lord Commander of the Solar Warriors (now Equerry to the Primarch)
*Original Name Stricken from Records - the Stormfist - Lightkeeper of the Solar Warriors (The Lightkeeper was a specialized position within the Solar warriors and pre-Decimation Black Augurs that served as a kind of spiritual leader for the legion and general teacher on the use of their weak psyker abilities. Later replaced by the Chief Librarian but dissolved by Order of the Voidwatcher during the Decimation)
*Original Name Stricken from Records - the Yratyr - Equerry to the Lord Commander of the Solar Warriors
*Raja Thyrfin (Died during the Decimation) - Master of the First Chapter
*Original Name Stricken from Records - the Kharduil - Master of the Second Chapter
*Original Name Stricken from Records - the Blade - Master of the Third Chapter
*Original Name Stricken from Records - the Nightshade - Master of the Fourth Chapter
*Khovur Sarna (Died during the Decimation) - Master of the Fifth Chapter
*Original Name Stricken from Records - The Mail - Magos of the Techmarine Convent
*Original Name Stricken from Records - the Prophet - Chief Librarian of the Legion Librarus

==The Decimation==
The former Solar Warriors were once noble, if proud, sons of the Emperor but it was not to last. Their Primarch, the Voidwatcher, was an incredibly powerful psyker and he was dissatisfied his legion did not take after him. While they were the most generally psychically gifted of any of the legions they did not possess anything akin to his focus and power upon his rediscovery. To rectify this perceived shortcoming he set began to develop an immensely powerful spell to "enhance" and "purge all the weakness" from his legion. In the first few months of crusade after the Voidwatchers discovery he held his legion back as reserve for others and spent most of his time locked in his arcane laboratories. Finally, after almost a solar year the Solar Warriors were becoming increasingly uneasy. Their Primarch refused to allow them to gain glory like their brother Astartes and was hiding himself from them. The company commanders finally agreed to confront their absentee Primarch but when they burst into his study they found him waiting over a ritual circle. The sorcery had been prepared for a almost a week but the Primarch had decided to wait so there would be eyes to bear witness. The incense was lit, the stars were in alignment, and all that needed to be done were speak the last crucial words of the incantation.  A pillar of ethereal smoke gathered above the circle, crackling with dark energies and twisting like the screaming faces of the damned. The gathered commanders stared on in awe as it began to twist and writhe like a living being, gathering speed and vigour like a horrible beast trying to escape it's confinement. It finally swirled in on itself, a black singularity of pure malice glaring down at the onlookers. The Voidwatcher spoke a single, final word and the singularity erupted. Howling wind and warp energies gushed outwards, filling the interior of the battleship. Tendrils spilled from every crack and port to seek out the other Solar Warriors ships all across the sector. At the moment the grand ritual was complete.

All the Marines of the 14th Legion immediately suffered violent and reality-defying fits as the energy coiled around them. Their bodies and minds rebelling against them as they were forcefully converted into psykers while their minds were ravaged by all the possible horrors of their future and their past. The vast majority did not survive the process. The truly weak burst into warp flame, exploded, or degenerated in primordial ooze; some devolved into psychotic beasts, were disgustingly crippled, or were reduced to gibbering useless heaps; and only a few, one in ten, survived and mastered their new found psychic ability. These lucky few became among the most powerful psykers in the Imperium. Those that survived suffered the most unimaginable horror during the sorcerous rapture. All were left mentally scoured and all the kindness, all but the basest trace of human compassion was snuffed out in an instant. Replaced with naught but the neverending goal for more power. 

This event was known as the Decimation and resulted in a reduction of the legions fighting force from just over 100,000 to less than 10,000. This forced the legion to overhaul their hierarchy as well as recruitment protocol. The were renamed the Black Augurs and that title would soon spread fear from one end of the Great Crusade to the other. What was once a beacon the Emperor's light was now a collection of the most fearsome, depraved, and completely vicious warpcrafters in the galaxy.

Some say the Voidwatcher laughed as he watched his chaotic essence be implanted in his unwitting men.

==The Great Crusade==
''"There were millions of them on those ships. The vox was choked with the screams of the crews begging for help. There was nothing we could but watch them burn as they re-entered. I have fought on a hundred worlds for the Emperor, but I have never seen such disrespect for human life. Not like that."''

After the retrieval of their Primarch and their recovery from the effects of the Decimation the Black Augurs began to come into their own on the Great Crusade. The marines began to come to terms with their new found psychic powers, many embracing it to the point of obsession and all those survivors of their great trial believing they were better for it. They learned a new philosophy under the Voidwatcher whom they would begin to revere as an enlightened being and call, at least amongst themselves, "the All-Father." Their Primarch taught them that the ultimate goal is personal achievement, no matter the cost for others. One must constantly endeavour to became better than they are, to usurp the station of all those higher than them, no other method would allow an Augur to achieve their destiny. Across the conquest of a hundred worlds the All-Father taught his sons that they must  always strive to improve their sorcerous power, similarly to their life philosophy, by any means. The lives of all non-Augurs were meaningless in the face of the individual Marine's achievement.

''' The Conquest of Elon II '''

One of the first engagements where the unsavoury character of the Legion made itself known, the Conquest of Elon II was widely rumoured about among Imperials and is frequently pointed out as one of the warnings of what was to come. 

Elon II was a peaceful and advanced industrial world, it's citizens well disciplined and highly communal. During the Augurs initial attacks they proved to be a impressively difficult people to break spirit of, even if they weren't exceptional on the battlefield. Despite  numerous losses and rearguard actions the populous of the planet staunchly refused to surrender in any amount. Cities would send vanguards of soldiers to hold the Augurs while civilians were evacuated to worlds capital city, a veritable fortress that they couldn't yet hope to besiege effectively. The Voidwatcher, both intensely frustrated by the uncharacteristic slow pace of the conquest and having now gained experience with the culture of the people, formulated a plan of action for dealing with the coming deadlock. Continuing to besiege outlying cities and forcing refugees towards the capital the Augurs seemed to be playing into the Elonians' hands. 

When the night finally came for the final siege though, the Voidwatcher sent the bulk of the Imperial forces under his command in a massed frontal assault seemingly doomed for failure. Much to the shock and horror of the Elonian high command a group of 2000 Black Augurs had dropped directly into the cities now vast refugee camps alongside a contingent of acolytes and began openly massacring unarmed men, women, and children. Forced to act decisively the commanders chose to send their elite guard that had been defending them to try and stem the bloody tide. With the high command largely unprotected the Voidwatcher and the elite Haruspex teleported directly into the military heart of Elon II. Swiftly the general and commanders were doused in warp-flame and the Elonian chain of command collapsed. The now scattering forces were crushed and the planet was brought into the Imperial fold in a fortnight. 

''' The Burning of Qesh'''

''"Would it not be wise to call upon one of your brothers more accustomed to this type of war?"''

(Attributed to a General Berk shortly before his re-assignment to frontline command during an unknown conquest)

The world of Qesh was little more than a frigid rock with virtually no natural resources to speak of and in peacetime little more than a skeleton population. It was, however, in a system that served as the only bypass around a Warp storm and so was immensely fortified. The northern mountain ranges had been fortified into a single continuous fortress, it's defensive systems and anti-orbital weapons among the most advanced encountered by the Imperium. Deemed "Unassailable" by the Imperial scouts that had first surveyed it. Many Imperial commanders had commented it would be more cost effective to simply go around it. It was a bulwark which had never been breached, but it was also in the path of the Voidwatcher's fleet.

After tentative initial skirmishes by Imperial troops and the fatalistic reports they gave the Augurs were uneasy to be told they would be assaulting it directly. The Voidwatcher was quick to explain his decision. He explained that it was time for the legion to cast off the trepidation they had for their enhanced abilities, they would need to embrace them to achieve perfection. He opened portions of his personal library for open study and allowed free use of psychic abilities in the training facilities aboard the Folly of Man for two weeks before the assault on Qesh. By the end of those weeks every Augur was practically champing at the bit to be unleashed upon the world, and unleashed they would be. 

Reports of what happened on Qesh are still sketchy, as they will likely continue to be. The Voidwatcher barred regular Imperial army troops from taking part in the battle. Scattered vox casts and pic captures give a rough outline of the battle. Black lightning swatted anti-air rockets from the sky, enormous invisible hands rent down concrete and steel, and living tides of blue flame forced men to run screaming from their bunkers. The so called "Burning of Qesh" lasted just 6 days and at the end of them not one of it's original defenders was left to draw breath. Much to chagrin of the Imperial commanders that were in charge of garrisoning the planet afterwards few of it's defensive structures were left in working orders either. 

After Qesh all Vates were mandated to keep their own libraries of arcane lore collected during the Augurs conquest. 

Across the grinding years of the the crusade the Augurs began to pick up more and more esoteric knowledge. Locked away in the libraries of a thousand conquests and among the sorcerers of people they subjugated, they found perverse, powerful, and sorcerous practices. At the spurring of their Primarch they embraced them and so the legion of psykers became the legion of sorcerers, misbegotten and feared by their fellow crusaders. As the Black Augurs delved deeper and deeper into the realm of mysticism they ventured farther and farther to the edge of the crusade to avoid the Emperor's prying eyes. They slipped farther and farther from the Imperial truth as time passed, becoming something that their brother Astartes would have held in revulsion.

==The Heresy==
The Black Augurs were one of the Emperors legions that turned traitor during the Hektor Heresy. While other legions and higher ups in the empire had long had some misgivings about the legion of sorcerers and warlocks the Black Augurs had long had suspicions they were not trusted as well as other legions. Their strange mystic rituals and unsettling arcane practices had even drawn the ire of the Emperor on occasion, especially when they used them around civilians. It was simple for Hektor to convince the Voidwatcher and his legion that some of their visions of a disgusting, stagnant, witchhunting, empire were not far off and that they would never truly be excepted into the Emperor's unified humanity. They quickly joined the forces of the renegade legions but resisted the pull of the Chaos gods. Though farther down the line in the Heresy some mentions and devotions to Tzeentch were made he was never their patron.