Eternal Zealots

"In the name of the Gods! Before all species, go forth and enlighten! Let none be spared the truth of the Primordial!"

Aubrey, speaking out to his Legion moments before descending on Terra.

Eternal Zealots
Battle Cry	"Lazarus Lives!" "For the Dark Gods!"
Number	XVI
Founding	First Founding
Primarch	Aubrey Vokrii-Kendov
Homeworld	Lazerus(Purged)
Strength	120,000
Specialty	Close Combat, Chaos Undivided
Allegiance	Chaos Undivided

This page details people, events, and organisations from The /tg/ Heresy, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe.

Summary of Legion XVI

Numeration: The XVIth Legion

Primogenator: Aubrey the Grey (also known as "The Surgeon")

Cognomen (Prior): The Emerald Doom

Observed Strategic Tendencies: Close Combat, Strategic Strikes, Tactical Decapitation, Planetary Pacification.

Noteworthy Domains: The Lazerus System (Primary), Tithe Rights to five systems in tributary fiefdom.

Alliegence: Traitoris Maximus

"The enemy has a collection of tumorous growths in their head. It is not their fault. We shall take but a moment to cure them of their cancerous leadership."

Legion Grand Mentor Zachery Irisus, M.30

Proud, passionate, and self-righteous, the Eternal Zealots fought with barely matched enthusiasm during the Great Crusade. Their tolerance and acceptance of Xenos assistance painted them with scorn by their fellow humans, despite them spreading their healing hands and their scientific philosophies of the Imperial Truth across the Imperium. Leading ultimately to their censure when the Xenos they so ardently crusaded for betrayed them. The Legion's Primarch Aubrey, dismayed at the response of humanity towards the actions of only a few was easy to deceive by Uriel Starikov. Now the Legion pledges themselves to the four Dark Gods of Chaos, having special sects dedicated to exemplifying their worship on the battlefield.

History of the Eternal Zealots

The XVIth Squad of the Sacred Band

Varus/Lazarus Tithonus, The Soul Drinker(Champion of the Eternal Zealots)

Galle Nacht, The Everlasting(Champion of the Eternal Zealots)

The Emerald Doom

Upon the creation of the XVI Legion, they were blessed with the name Sixteenth, born with a chainsword in one hand and a bolt pistol in the other.

the Sixteenth had a task set unto it by the Emperor himself: to destroy all idols and houses of false faith, to be the sharp edge that would wipe out all opposition to the Imperial Truth.

They took to this task with a zealousness that unnerved their friends and terrified their foes, being called barbarians and madmen.

Time and again they struck like a furious wind, seeking out the people, places and items which spoke of the power of sorcery, false gods and the irrational and destroying them. While the other squads of the Scared Bands fought their fights to defeat foes and take ground, the Sixteenth Squad fought to destroy false belief and usher in the light of the Emperor’s truth, the only truth. It was they who demolished the mighty heads of the ancient God-Kings of Merica from the Black Mountains of Merica, they who destroyed the House of the Wind Talkers and who burned the fanes of the Emperyite, every time showing the inhabitants what it meant to oppose the new truth the Emperor was determined to bring forth.

It was during the earliest conquests beyond Sol in those stars whose light could be clearly seen from the skies of Terra that the Legion earned its first name. The Sixteenth, at the time barely three thousand Astartes strong, was unleashed upon the Theocrats of Campeche. The Astartes lacked the numbers to make a full scale assault upon all the temple-cities, and so they painted their armour green to better blend into the dense jungles, and struck at temple after temple, burning each to ashes and slaughtering the guards before fading back into the foliage.

The terrified locals began to refer to them as ‘the Emerald Doom’, after an ancient myth of their world, and the Legion soon took to referring themselves as such during their increasingly bloody assaults as they slowly tightened the noose.

After six months the the largest Temple City was stormed and sacked and the planet was finally pacified, The Legion departed, but kept the name they had earned on that world, and from then on they were known as the Emerald Doom. The Legion was granted a right of tithe for Campeche and many thousands of Campechians would end up serving within the Legion in the years to come.

The Legion moved from conquest to conquest, primarily engaged in the destruction of religiously motivated human empires, though countless Xeno races were also ground under by their fury.

Though they were never close to their brother legions or highly respected by them, their task was a vital one and they gained numerous battle honours the equal of any other front-line Legion. The Emperor Himself commanded them on several occasions against foes that He decreed were deserving of destruction, and they were closely aligned with the Emperor and his own views on the future of the Imperium.

As brother Legion after brother Legion were reunited with their Primarchs, some wondered if the Primarch of the Emerald Doom had been lost, for they remained fatherless long after almost all their fellows had found their gene-sires. The Legion did not seem to take notice. They had a task appointed unto them by the hand of the Emperor, and Primarch or no they would fulfil it.

However this coincided with a sudden degradation in the Gene-Seed of the Emerald Doom, which set the legion on a slow slide towards destruction. Cancerous growths within the Progenoid Glands made over half of them unusable. Though they continued to fight despite the ailments which beset them, every battle casualty was now difficult if not impossible to replace, and in a single campaign against the Ethernarchs of Unova a full quarter of the Legion was lost, with almost no way to recover those casualties.

The Legion’s aggressive drive against the foes of the Emperor was dooming them, and fears were voiced that the Legion would soon die. However finally, as the Legions reached the most distant shores of the Galaxy, on a lone world near the very edge of known space, a discovery was made that would change everything. It would save the Legion but ultimately spell the doom of the Emperor’s dream, the dream the Emerald Doom had fought so long for.

Their doctor was found.

The Healing Warrior of Lazarus

Lazarus was an unremarkable world. Countless others like it existed all across the Imperium.

It was a developing civilised world not that unlike Terra in the days when it still had green lands, blue oceans and a clear sky. It had a settled populace and links to other worlds across the stars. However there was one key and massive difference in those worlds. Lazarus had been settled by a Xenos Race, the Tarellians.

It was on this world that the infant Aubrey had landed, and surprisingly he had not been killed out of hand, but rather brought up within this alien environment. He had come to manhood learning both the ways of the Healer and the warrior, fighting with his ‘brothers’ against Ork Pirates and Eldar raiders, duelling with those with whom he had disagreements and healing the sick and wounded. He rose through the ranks of the Xenos, putting down several rebellions against him in the process. For a long time he assumed himself alone and unique within the Galaxy. Events were to prove that wrong.

When Lazarus was found by the 219th Expeditionary Fleet in mid-901, halfway through the Great Crusade, plans were laid to take the world, slaughter the Xenos and then open it up to human colonisation as had happened thousands of times before. However when the first ships landed and the 499th Solar Auxilia Cohort landed they found themselves facing an army of Tarellians led by a massive, unmistakably human figure, who led a charge which routed the human invaders. In the wake of this orders were sent out inquiring what to do next.

Aubrey meanwhile was in turmoil. He’d finally found ones like him, and they were his enemies. He did not know what to do, or what this meant, but he was determined to stand with the people who had given him a home and a purpose, even if that meant fighting those beings from the stars who looked like him.

After several months a massive Warfleet entered the system bearing the Icon of the Warriors of Dawn and led by the Bucephalus itself, the mighty flagship of Hektor, the first Primarch and beloved of the Emperor. He had heard the news and guessed correctly that it was a Primarch, one of his lost Brothers who was on this world.

Sending a message to those below, he along with a chosen squad of the Heliotaroi, his bodyguards and a company of the Emerald Doom that had been supporting the Warriors in the northern Ultima Marches landed on the planet before the awed Aubrey. Though Aubrey couldn’t speak Gothic, he understood the link between him and Hektor and knew that finally he was no longer alone. Hektor took Aubrey under his wing, mentoring him in the ways of the Imperium and preparing him for the next step. Several months later, another fleet emerged over Lazarus, this one led by a massive barge greater than any other ship in the Imperium.

It was the Imperator Somnium, a void-born colossus of gold and marble.

The flagship of the Emperor Himself.

The Emperor met his son and debated him, seeking to see whether his time among the Xenos had corrupted him or not. Aubrey astutely belayed that supposition, showing affirm grasp of Imperial Methods, the Imperial Truth and the Emperor’s plans for humanity. But on the position of Xenos within that Aubrey wouldn’t budge. The Tarellians were just as much his people as the humans, and he would not abandon them. Following the advice of Hektor, the Emperor granted a dispensation for the Tarellians of Lazarus, that they were to be allowed all the freedoms of humans within the Imperium, so long as they remained quarantined within the Lazarus Sector. With that decided, Aubrey was granted the command of the Sixteenth Legion based on his Gene-Seed.

The Legion was mustered on Lazarus, though it could only muster a mere five thousand Astartes, a mere fraction of its former strength.

Seeing the battered but unbowed remnants of his Legion before him moved Aubrey, and he vowed that he would restore them. He spoke proudly of their battle honours and the task the Emperor had set them.

‘We are the Emperor’s Zealots, proudly bearing His message, and if we have to wage war eternally to spread it, then so be it.’

With that, the Emerald Doom was no more and the Legion became the Eternal Zealots.

Now that they were reunited with their Primarch, they could create new gene-seed using Aubrey's genome as a template. But that alone would not be enough to stop the decline.

At this time Aubrey met with the surviving leaders of his Legion, though they disapproved of their Primarch’s links with Xenos. Aubrey challenged the Legion Master to a Duel over this, which he won handily.

Upon this he instituted several changes, most notably massively expanding the apothecarion to better prevent gene-seed issues in the future, as well as instituting a ‘mentor’ ranked Consul to ensure the natural zealotry of his legion was directed in the proper way.

So after the future plans of organisation was laid out, Aubrey began an exhaustive effort to find and cure the flaws in his Legion’s Gene-Seed. After a long process using all his skills merged with the new knowledge he had gained from the Genewrights of Luna and the Magis Biologis of the Mechanicum, Aubrey finally corrected the flaw.

Now his Legion began a massive recruitment drive from Terra, Campeche and the hundreds of other worlds brought into compliance when the Legion was the Emerald Doom.

The Ram and Serpent

It was long ago that Kranios, Primarch of the Horns of Ruin and Aubrey traded blows over words said on a burning and ruined battlefield.

Since that day all those millennia ago a hatred formed between the legions.

The Eternal Zealots angry at the words spoken by Kranios who mocked their fallen Xeno Brethren who died on Lazarus.

The Horns of Ruin humiliated by Aubrey striking down Kranios and ordering their legion off planet with the threat of ending their Primarchs life.

The hate between the Primarchs was not simply adopted, but taken to heart between the legions for their own reasons. The hatred continuing to grow even after standing side by side in the great heresy.

Whenever the two legions should meet on the field of battle two champions are selected from their ranks. These champions will engage in one on one combat until the other is dead, there is no other way. Most of these fights are interrupted, usually by means of cheating. When the fights are broken it turns into a bloody massacre between small groups of their legions, usually until a higher up steps in.

Should a foe come between the Horns of Ruin and Eternal Zealots, they will be utterly crushed with such might and aggression than one could have ever seen, wishing to come closer to the challenge itself.

Legion Doctrine

As the Legion expanded beyond the early years of the Great Crusade a tendency towards close combat and fast attack developed within them. With that favouring of close combat came a level of zealotry, becoming almost barbaric and suicidal in the face of the enemy, fuelled by increased adrenal glands.

With Aubrey's guidance, many became trained in the ways of medicine and his surgical mentality, however the men had multiple problems. Tumours within the men were rampant, their abuse of their own above-astartes healing capability. Their also enhanced adrenal glands sent the men into psychotic rages, even so far as to sending eight of the ten sacred band members charging to their own doom.

He came to them, a broken band of barbaric zealots and turned them into warriors of medical knowledge and strict technique, he made the Eternal Zealots, a reflection that would never die to their own zealotry.

Culture

When asked by the Primarch why they marched to their dooms so often, it was often that the men would reply; "For the Imperial Truth and all it's glory".

Aubrey had indeed studied the Imperial Truth and saw it was a gift that all of man should benefit from, but not in the method of deliverance it was given, The Zealots henceforth were deemed the keepers of the Imperial Truth and it's prophets, as opposed to it's wildly shaking fist.

Many worlds were subject to their education, Astartes known as "Mentors" overseeing the spread of the Imperial Truth, as well as mentoring their own properly.

On the worlds they came to conquer the Eternal Zealots would stay on its surface teaching science, medicine, and repairing the damage they had caused to the planet after the war was over.

This endeared many worlds to them, giving them many tithes of warriors and made it easier to sow the seeds of corruption.

Combat

Unlike other close quarter centric legions, the Zealots would not throw themselves at the enemy blindly or commit to costly and dangerous assaults. Zealotry tempered with reason was the motto of the Legion.

Aubrey used his Zealots' ferocity into more elaborate forms of waging war. The people of the worlds he fought usually didn't want to oppose the Imperium, but were forced to do so.

Eliminating the corrupt or misguided heads of these states allowed the Legion to peacefully occupy the rest of the world as army after army surrendered.

"The patient is not at fault for the disease. Kill it, not the one you are caring for."

(Primarch Aubrey Vokrii-Kendov, On his surgical tactics)

This tactic grew and grew as they faced myriad horrors along the Great Crusade. Their focused wrath came down upon the foolish Corsair Captains and blithering Orkish Warbosses, who, once dead, saw the rest of their cobbled together forces crumble in moments.

The Auxiliary

The Zealots desired to be the epitome of fair tolerance to all castes and Xenos alike, they used a Xenos Auxiliary which served with distinction, starting with the Tarellians of Lazarus.

The lizard creatures were set the responsibilities of covering the advancing melee focused Astartes with ranged support and seeking out the enemies weak spot using their scouting prowess.

Because of their tolerance, the Zealots were always second guessed and reviled by the Imperial Army and other Legions.

Legion Organisation

"Our Brothers from the Emerald Doom are indeed deadly, but the way they are dying out, I might just steal their men for myself and put them to use."

(Primarch Kranios of the Horns of Ruin legion, On the Emerald Doom and their dwindling numbers)

After the arrival of the Primarch many things changed within the legion. Beforehand the legion had become a hoard, similar of that to the Orks, as the Sacred Band members fell one by one, it soon became common place that a Commander would take commander of multiple Chapters.

The Sacred Band of the Eternal Zealots had indeed believed only they had the skill to command such forces but it became clear that the Emerald Doom had become little more than barbarians loosed upon the stars, pillaging and lamenting their inevitably short lives.

Upon being introduced to his Legion Aubrey had sought the advice of his brother Hektor and with him assembled men he deemed able to commander and lead. It took an entire decade of recruiting and organisation until the Zealots set out, forty thousand strong upon the universe.

The Eternal Zealots had become similar in organisation to many of their brother legions, Chapters maintained very individual traditions. The Zealots begun emblasoning their chapters heraldry on the robes they wore. Standard bearers were not used within the legion, as they all carry the pride of their chapter on their robes.

Medicae

Aubrey found himself overworked alongside the apothecaries when dealing with the rampant mutation of the legion, he questioned Galle Nacht and Varus Tithonus how the legion was still operating, only to be given a pair of mumbled replies.

He couldn't just assign apothecaries to every squad, it would be a ridiculous waste of time and resources, he could however do the next best thing and had all marines above the rank of Sergeant to be trained in basic medicae, soon become the pride of their legion.

Specialist Ranks

Mentors

"Hark! Let no superstition cloud your mind brothers, their curses mean nothing! For we are the bringers of clarity and the enemy of ignorance! Show them the truths that they deny themselves!"

Legion Grand Mentor Zachery Irisus, upon meeting the Necron worshippers of Vermillion II

A form of Proto-Chaplain in some ways.

These "Preachers" taught naught about deities and commandments, only of science and culture, as was needed to spread the word of the Imperial Truth.

Mentors garnered many responsibilities in and out of war time.

They were charged with education process on conquered planets, showing the masses the importance of science and shirking the binds that superstition and deities cause upon society.

They were also charged with the rallying of troops and reigning in zealotry when needed, a focusing point of the legions power within combat.

Great speeches and writ would be expected from a Mentor, if they could not inspire the troops under their command to greatness or convince the populous under their care then they had no place as a guardian of the future Imperium.

With the rank of Mentor also came the perk of better wargear, so that they may continue serving to their fullest on the battlefield.

A Mentors badge of office came in the form of a one handed Thunder Hammer, although not as powerful as it's elder sibling, it served many Mentors well as not only a weapon but a metaphor.

"In my left hand I carry my gun, to cut down those whom seek to bend the malleable thing that is the mind of the meek. In my right hand I carry my Hammer, so that I may forge greatness from the spirits of the meek, the will to follow the Truth."

Legion Grand Mentor Zachariah Irisus, M30

Mentors wore black, green gilded hooded robes over their armour to signify their positions as Mentors. In an almost mocking twist, many have said that these robes gave the Mentors an almost priestly appearance, something that had never ceased to amuse the supposed "Priests of Atheism."

Post-Heresy

The righteous fury delivered in concentrated, directed strikes faded out from the combat philosophy of the Eternal Zealots as they began their slow descent into the clutches of Chaos. Healing began to not matter as the lust to keep on the offensive drove them.

The Zealots now operate in divided strike forces of a hundred or so Astartes surrounded by cultist and xenos auxiliary which can range from three hundred to a couple thousand followers. This, along with their Primarchs long absence, prior to his ascension, led to the Zealots no longer operating as a full legion.

The Great Divide

Upon retreating from Terra, the Eternal Zealots made for the Cyfecti homeworld, so close to the Eye. Seeing the other Legions run for the eye, Aubrey knew that this world would soon be over-run by the Imperial forces seeking to lock them away. Aubrey had his two most trusted commanders, Galle Nacht and Lazarus Tithonus watch over half of the legion within the Eye, while he took the other half to the Galatic East to sow more heresy into the hearts of men.

As the Eternal Zealots gained more followers, Xenos and Humans alike, Their Primarch had begun to scatter them into small warband strike forces, seeking to cause as much damage to important Imperial worlds and forever hunting the Knights of Justice and all their successors.

When the Slave wars had subsided, the Eternal Zealots emerged, in a similarly fragmented state, however, All Zealot forces returned eventually back to the Eye, bringing the skulls of Knights of Justice successor Chapter Masters, Captains and any heroes of the Chapter to the Hall of Skulls, the Legion Fortess on the former home world of the Cyfecti, sucked into the Eye of Terror.

Aubrey continued to work very close with his legion until M37 when he went searching for Roman Albrecht within the warp.

Without Aubrey the Legion soon scattered into it's current state, hundreds of warband strike forces still seeking their Primarchs goal to remove the cancer from the Imperium of Man.

The Artisans of the Prince

It was the Apothecaries that were numerous in number of the Eternal Zealots, their core of healers and dedicated transports becoming mobile hospitals for the marines and Imperial Army in battle. It was they who approached Slaanesh's domain, whether they knew it or not.

The doctors had long become twisted in their chaotic days; their healing ways were broken, and instead they turned their hospitals into places of torture and pain. Slaanesh gifted these men with visions, and as such, they sought the path of the debaucherous prince.

They found that as they tortured their victims they found pleasure, so they turned their once practical medicines into sources of even more pleasure. Their Rhino Apothecarium was transformed, voxs mounted to the outside of the transport becoming a source of morale and fear as men would hear the screams of their foes or allies respectively.

So, Slaanesh gifted these men of medicae the speed in which to carry out their tasks, snatching up men from the battlefield to throw into the pain machines, but also to spark life in their brothers with stimulants and drugs forged by the artisans themselves.

The Emerald Death

Legion Bikers always found themselves put in the shadows by the Zealots "unique" Lazarian Pattern armour, the fusing of Astartes and steed always numbered them as "second best", especially after the Cults were born. Assault Marines of the Zealots also found themselves out of place, the Tarellian Auxiliary had also handled the vertical side of combat in urban areas and were thus called in less, although useful they felt they could be so much more.

Father Nurgle had heard the Zealots despair, they prayed to the gods to give them gifts like the others.

They at first thought it a curse as Father Nurgle bloated their bodies and numbed them, it was only until the Assault Marines realised how much more they had become, the heavy hitting Assault Marines no longer feared death as they struck at their enemies before the rest of their brothers. The Bikers weight was still supported by their bikers and made their high speed flanking assaults much safer, toxins applied to their weapons ensured that no victim of their manoeuvres would survive, but yet something was missing.

The cult soon built something of true beauty in Father Nurgles eyes. After much anointing of unholy toxins and technical manipulation, their legion jump-packs and assault bikes were altered, the exhausts of the machines would instead spew out fumes of plague and toxin, spreading nurgles gifts as they moved across the battlefield.

Legion Equipment

Men of Note

Varus Tithonus, The Soul Drinker

Varus Tithonus, the sixth of the ten sacred band members.

Varus was primarily the commander of the second chapter until "The Betrayal" in which he was promoted to first chapter commander after Commander Abram Bateen died protecting their Primarch.

During his deployment to Vermillion II he made contact with an Eldar Farseer who in turn, warned him and showed him the horrors that were the Necrons, after they were awoken prematurely from their slumber.

After Lazarus was destroyed, Varus changed his name to Lazarus. "So long as I live, Lazarus shall never die."

His inspiring words would go on to inspire the first chapter and their war cry; "Lazarus Lives"

Galle Nacht, The Everlasting

Galle Nacht, the fourth of the tend sacred band members. Galle is the first of any of the Zealots first commander to ever retire the position without the cause of death. He soon took the position of Chief Apothecary and protected the Primarch tirelessly.

Galle's brute strength tactics, while effective, soon lost their effectiveness as the legion adapted upon Aubreys arrival, it was at this realisation that Galle stepped down and allowed Commander Abram of the third to take the honourable position.