 Loyalty may be its own reward, but such reward in this universe of ours is oft a bitter one. The Horus Heresy tested the oaths, convictions, and beliefs of billions, sparing none from that crucial decision, emperor or warmaster. Across Imperium and Mechanicum, the choice was demanded and made, and history would never be the same again. We have an oft common view of this damnable conflict, that a legion, regiment, fleet would declare en masse for one side or another, but as students of the heresy are no doubt fully experienced in, it was far from that clean. Traders, loyalists, they emerged from all facets of galactic life, regardless of their position or role within one force or another. First death guard from the 14th legion were as confirmable a fact as traitor raven guard from the 19th, and as with the Astartes so too this was reflected within the forces of the Mechanicum of Mars, from skitarii legion to ordo reductor mejai to princeps of the god machines themselves, the titans. Loyalist titan legions and traitor titan legions were rarely as unified in belief as the most visible examples, say the legio mortis for the side of Horus, or the legio ignatum for the emperor. Maniples were often behoved to the command and convictions of their individual princeps, but in some dark cases this was wrought on the macro scale. The subjects of this record are one such example, the titan legio of sterling pedigree but a horrific ultimate fate, a testament to the terrifying power of the trail and the sinister machinations of the traitorous war master and his ilk. No then, but this is a record of the storm lords, the noble scions of one third of the triad ferrum morgulum, the titans of the legio tempestus, the history of mars in the age of strife, as to be frank the history of anywhere during that hellish epoch, is a fragmented, corrupted thing, piecemeal in what remains the result of millennia of war, devastation, and outright human meddling. It is possible that much yet remains, undiscovered in a forgotten or buried data crypt lurking beneath the red planet's redder sands. But we will, as I say so often, likely never know. One has elaborated upon the earliest confirmable histories of the Mechanica of Mars in a previous record, which Acolytes are free to produce at their leisure, but it must be reiterated here that the rise of both Mechanica and Colesia Titanica was a fundamentally symbiotic relationship during those times most trying. Whether or not the development of the battle titan, the striding god-engines of purest destructive force, was a product of the Mechanica itself, or an older steel program born of the dark age of technology, is a matter of both historical debate and religious conviction, with no conclusive evidence in either camp. It is also essentially a moot argument, as even if the bones of what made a titan possible is knowledge of an earlier time in human history, it was the Mechanica that expanded upon it and laid down the patterns and precepts that survived to this very day. Mars, in the depths of old night, was a hell-world of technology run amok, with all the evils of humanity's reckless path abroad across the radiation wastes in search of killing and blood. The Mechanica, in its infancy, was a collective of self-defense as much as it was of shared belief. Worship, the religion of the day of Mechanicus and their omnisia, was the binding element to this new movement, but the threats that were posed to its existence were a motivating force in their own right. Even aside from the rampant thinking machines, data phages, mendicant nano-plagues, there were scavengers, raiders, and techno-barbarians aplenty. For the dissolution of Mars as a civilization had been caused primarily by the utter dearth of off-world resources necessary to maintain planetary civilization, food, water, oxygen, fuel, all were in perilously short supply, and the wars over all were vicious in the extreme, regardless of the size of the actual conflicts. As the Mechanica brought more and more of the Red Planet's population under its banner, as it collected not only that which it needed to survive but lost knowledge as well, it moved quickly to pivot the learnings from the past to the development of the future, and thus the Titan legions were born. Initially three in number, the original legios of Mars were known as the triad Ferum morgulis, the legios mortus, ignatum, and tempestus. Three houses, each quite different in character, were formally founded by the Mechanicum to serve as their ultimate defenders and warriors, for they were to pilot the most devastating ground-based war machines ever devised by human minds. Traditions, cultures, and tendencies within each legio soon divided after their founding. Mortus, shadowed Mortus, became renowned throughout Mechanicum territories for the sheer destruction their god-engines would unleash, punishing a foe far past the point of capitulation into simple annihilation. Ignatum, conversely, cast itself as the fiery bearers of the machine god's word, not quite zealots of the religion Makina, but certainly its most ardent supporters and champions amongst the triad. Tempestus, it seemed, sought to walk a middle ground between these two polarities, seeking to embody the steadfastness of their role as defenders of the nascent Mechanicum and all its citizens. That being said, this was not without its challenges. As the titan legios pushed back the sigh carnivora hordes and mutant tides, carving out with shot and shell the domain of the machine god, they would claim tracks of land as their own fives, becoming woven indelibly into the quasi-feudal system of the Mechanicum's political and economic superstructure. The region under the banner of Tempestus, by a quirk of land allotments, conquest, and ancient rites, came to border that of their fellow legio, Mortus. The two forces had, over the course of their now established history, drifted apart into a spiteful rivalry, one that was now set to be further complicated by the addition of territorial disputes and access to potential sites of archaeotech caches buried in the wastelands. Eventually, accords were drawn up between the two legios, dividing their claims in the Tharsus region along a line that was known as the Tempest line. By treaty, to cross this border was to be considered an act of war against a fellow legio, and while the Tempest line would generally be considered a success, it was still breached by one side or another numerous times during its history, by Mortus far more frequently than Tempestus. While none of these incidents ever truly escalated, serving instead as saber rattling on a gigantic and disturbingly provocative manner, they would not help relations between the two legios in the least, and the rivalry between them would fester over the centuries and millennia into a bitter hatred. The coming of the Emperor of Mankind to Mars, the signing of the Treaty of Olympus between Mechanicum and Imperium, would of course irrecovably change the fate of the collegia Titanica. Drafted by rict of the treaty into the Emperor's Great Crusade, the Titans of Mars would now serve humanity abroad across the stars themselves. For Tempestus, individual maniples were seconded to Mechanicum exploratory fleets, again by permission of the treaty, as well as the occasional rogue trader Militant Flotilla, but the majority of the legio was divided wholesale amongst the fledgling expeditionary fleets, to serve alongside the forces of the legio and as a startes and the exerters imperialis. One of its largest attachments of maniples was provided to the 12th expeditionary fleet, ultimately the one to become commanded by the Primarch of the 13th Legion Astartes, Rebut Gulliman. On the campaign laterally dubbed the Long March to Ultramar, Tempestus was pivotal in many of its bitterest engagements, most notably the bloodbath of the Epsilonid Binary Cluster. This latter conflict proved pivotal in the legios' perception in popular imagination, as the master of Tempestus, Indias Cavalliero, earned the epiphet Stormlord, which soon came to be the cognomen by which the common soldier of the Imperium began to refer to the blue and silver engines of the legio as a whole. The term was considered highly appropriate. Tempestus had honed their art of planetary assault during the Crusade, including a notable tendency for placing their engines in circumstances so hostile that other legios would refuse the risk they presented. Plunging from orbit in the heaviest and most densely shielded Titan barks Mars could produce, the god machines of Tempestus were truly the wrath of the emperor made manifest. Such was the size of these conveyor ships that their sudden passage through planetary atmospheres caused cataclysmic weather disruption, resulting in storm systems planet-wide that would sometimes take months to pass, to say nothing of the devastation caused by the macro-ordinates of the Tempestus Titans once these barks-hold doors slammed open and the engines began to walk. Stormlords was not just a romantic term, the legio truly brought them in their wake and the bravery through which they waded into the torrents of fire thrown at them as they surged from the heavens won much admiration. Such bravery did of course come at a cost. Dedication to the Imperial Crusade tended to ensure one was consistently placed at the fore, whatever one's opinion on such was. Titans were not exactly in plentiful supply, for even with the hundreds of Mechanic and Forge worlds being recovered, bringing their own legios into the Imperial fold, the galaxy was a vast theater, and the god engines few in comparison to the world's humanity was aiming to conquer. Tempestus' status as a primus-grade legio, one of the largest, as well as its pedigree as one of the original triad pheromorgulum, and its willingness to engage in conflicts other princeps would shy from, pulled them across hundreds of different conflicts. Beyond that, the legio was a propaganda win for Imperial iterators, their fiery descents heralded by cast gating storm systems, a huge boon for vidreals and conversion sermons. Never mind the wonderful statement of unity between Imperium and Mechanicum, they represented. Six decades of time at the Crusade's forward lines had taken mighty tolls upon Tempestus' mannipals, including the recent loss of Victorix Magna, lead warlord of the Stormlord himself. Cavalierio, unwilling to see the Crusade bleed his legio of its entirety of strength, and wearying of the political machinations their rivals, the legio mortis, persistently engaged in to keep themselves from the riskiest of campaigns, announced the retirement to Mars, the entirety of the legio's battle-damaged engines, dividing command authority between homeward elements of Tempestus and its frontline titans, naming his subordinate princeps Maximus Carania, successor of the active legio wing. With the newly reclaimed forges of Orestes and Esteban, serving as Tempestus' forward base of supply and operation, Cavalierio was confident the repair and refit cycle for the legio's most damaged titans would allow it to return in perhaps one or two decades at full operational capacity, reasoning that the addition of yet more legios to the collegiate titanica with each new conquest would take some of the burden off the Stormlord's shoulders. It would, sadly, only serve to create a rift within the two divisions of the legio. This was not a product of actual rankor, not initially, none at this point existed. Carania was reportedly delighted to assume command, and that Cavalierio trusted his appointment was beyond question. But in spite of the fact that Tempestus' maniples had been divided before, they had at least been united in a common effort and common situation, that of conflict. Now, with one wing burning towards the legio's ancient home of Mars and another forging its destiny across the galaxy, two distinct cultures were set to emerge, influenced in part by circumstance, in part by the newly raised engine crews from Orestes and Esteban, in part from the differing command styles of Cavalierio and Carania. Little to no direct contact was held between the two, a factor both of the vagaries of astro-telepathy and galactic distance, but also a statement to the Stormlord's trust in the virtues of his voted lieutenant. As the repairs of the Martian Tempestus' forces were completed, the exigencies of the Great Crusade had shifted, and the tactical role the god-engines now found themselves in had changed to accommodate this. The Tempestus of the Red Planet now began to serve more as a heavy reserve force, deployed as needed to fronts of concern near the galactic core, rather than serving specific fleets as consistent detachments out on the front lines. Meanwhile, in the depths of the Void, the Orestian and Estebanian Tempestus continued as they had before, serving one expeditionary fleet after another, pushing forward with the heady rush of the Crusade's vanguards. Indius Cavalierio and Maximus Carania could not have differed more if they had attempted to. While both had unimpeachable records of conduct in their service to Mechanicum and Ligio, Cavalierio, as noted earlier, was utterly loath to play politics and engage in the doctrinal jockeying common amongst the senior command elements of the Caligia Titanica, a reaction perhaps to the sheer degree that the Ligio Mortis was willing to do just so. Carania, by contrast, was his opposite, a keen and subtle man who delighted in the machinations his position afforded him a hand in. Known widely to be an orthodoxite of the Mechanicum's religion, Carania nevertheless had secrets in that regard, obscuring his hidden passions with outward presenting diligence to the machine god. In actuality, he was an ardent practitioner of a curiously esoteric brand of the cult Mechanicum, known generally as teleologic Calica. While the worshippers of Mars, especially at the time of the Great Crusade, had subdivisions, faiths, and doctrines that would be considered near or total heresy by today's standard, teleologic Calica was further obtuse still, an arcanum adjacent belief that further catastrophes in the future could be predicted through numerical study of past catatlysms. By a quirk of fate, Carania's fascination with this sect would only be expanded, thanks to it being the dominant creed amongst the senior magi of Esteban III, one of Tempestus' newly-tained ward forges. These tech priests had relented, albeit with protest, to subsumption within the Mechanicum of Distant Mars, conceding with further protest to the established machine cult doctrine that the Emperor was indeed the machine god's omnisire. A public face worn to smooth over potential rifts with Terra and Mars both, Estebanian magi would only ever pay lip service to the idea, and within this, Carania saw an opportunity. Coming to them as a friend and sympathiser, he aligned himself with the Synod through shared schismatic creed, his beliefs in teleologic Calica, winning him many friends, his professed sympathy to the magi's own borderline treasonous denial of the omnisire incarnated, only helping matters. A toxic and secretive relationship and alliance emerged, occluded from the eyes of both Mars and the Storm Lord, which, in retrospect, clearly presents a turning point in the history of Tempestus. As with numerous examples during the Great Crusade, the presence of a secret sect or cabal within an organisational authority was a disease that only served to spread outward from the initial point of infection. Maximus Carania, delighting in the games and politicking that his position as Princeps, Senorus of Tempestus's active wing, and cult primogenitor of the Estebanian teleologic Calica granted to him, set about bringing other princeps under his command into the sect's fold, swaying those he deemed suitable with numerological discourses on coming catastrophes, convincing others that the legios favours in the field were the direct results of his scrying potential futures with the near divine guidance of the holy numbers. Such actions were the work of decades, as Carania was canny enough to avoid making such moves too quickly or too openly, lest his works and beliefs be revealed, and accusations of apostasy levelled against his personage. He was, sadly for both Imperium and Mechanicum, both quite successful, the vast majority of his demi legio falling under his personal charismatic and dogmatic sway. His secretive workings, however, did not escape the attentions of the agents of Horus Lupercal, the warmaster and primarch of the 16th legion, Sons of Horus. Working their way throughout the Imperium, these agents, wherever evidence of them have been discovered, were the warmaster's first foray into his treachery, their sheer reach and amount beggaring belief until one is able to fully comprehend the full scope of Horus' plans prior to their dreadful apotheosis in 005 M31. Seeking to uncover hidden cabals just like Caranias, and bringing with them honeyed words about the coming change in regime, the warmaster's agents found on Esteban III wonderfully fertile loam. Not only a forge discontented with Mechanicum orthodoxy and the stranglehold this Terran emperor had placed upon their self-expression, but a titan demi legio of similar character. If there had ever been any threat of blackmail, of wielding the teleologicalica of Caranias and the Estebanian magi against them, there is no evidence for it. In fact, it would appear that all were willing converts to the banner of the eye. Seeking that same independence from Mars, Horus had promised so very many within the Mechanicum should they pledge to his service in the coming war. It is not unknown for schisms to have occurred within individual titan legios during the great heresy. Of course, the far more common occurrence was for legios en masse to declare for emperor and warmaster, and that the collegiate titanica was riven with the same strife as the Starty's legions, the exertus, and the Mechanicum, all suffered from, is an understatement. But in a similar fashion to elements of the space marine legions bucking the overall allegiance of their legion and primark, so too did maniples of titans strike out owing to their own convictions. For example, there have been noted in official record the existence of loyalist elements of the legio furians or traitor elements of the legio honorum. In Tempestus' case, such a schism would be far less granular, amounting to nothing less than a legio split in twain. Upon Mars, the death of Innocence brought about the downfall of the Martian Tempestus wing in its near entirety. With the vast amount of the Demi legio garrisoned planet side awaiting deployment calls, Stormlord Cavalierio found himself and his god engines squarely in the middle of the apocalypse that unfolded across the red planet, in the aftermath of fabricator general Kelbor Howes breaching of the vaults of Moravec, and the corrupt automata attack on the forges of a Pluvian maximal. The legio mortis, ever the dogs of Howe, walked against the Tempest line, goading the Stormlords into open warfare. But the war would ultimately unfold around the loyalist locus of Majos Corialzet's magma city. Tempestus outnumbered and outgunned reaped a dire toll upon the death's heads, claiming many engines to their guns, including the venerable mortis titan Aquila Ignis. It was, however, not nearly enough. The cascading scrapcode unleashed by the fabricator general made large-scale coordination across loyalist elements impossible, and Majos Zet's own effort to resist the unfolding treachery ultimately could not hold back the advance of the enemy. While it is believed a few Tempestus engines were able to escape off-world, with the legion as Astartes reinforcements that arrived from Terra, the Martian wing of the legio, including Stormlord Cavalierio, perished in the red wastes of their ancient homeworld. The warmaster's agents moved quickly, informing Princepts Carania on Esteban that he was now de facto master of the legio, and in return for the boon of eliminating his superior, and in full alignment with his secretly held convictions, Carania rapidly declared for Horus, bringing the Demi legio under his command to the banner of the Great Eye. Imperial servants across the Forge world were rapidly and brutally purged by the Estebanian magi, their synod too in full thrall to Horus. After a week of fighting, apparently in full alignment with the numerological scryings of Carania, the Forge world was stripped of its remaining loyalists, a now sovereign domain within the dark realm of the warmaster. The events of the schism of Mars and the declaration of Horus' betrayal left the legio sundered. A significant amount of Tempestus' loyalists had perished in the defense of the Magma city, but Carania was not the wholesale master of a legio of traitors. Across the breath of the Imperium, isolated manapals of Tempestus engines, with loyalist Princepts, refused to bend their new legio master's beliefs and orders. It is reckoned, judging by a Mechanicum and Divisio militaris archives, that Tempestus, at the time of the Epsilonid Binary Wars conclusion, had lost approximately 30 engines of its 170 titan-strong number at the outset of the Great Crusade. The Stormlord had taken 32 with him back to Mars in various states of repair, doubling that number by the outbreak of the Great Heresy, as he seconded more damaged engines to the dry docks of Tempestus' fife, and brought other legio-princepts under the Martian Tempestus' banner as solar wardens. It is not confirmable the amount of newly built engines Princepts Carania was able to add to his wing of the legio, in the aftermath of Tempestus' division, but judging by these numbers, he was in nominal command of just over 100 god-engines at the time he declared for Horus' Lupercal, minus the manapals that held their vows to the Emperor. Of course, barring a few evacuated engines, the Martian wing of the legio perished in its entirety during the death of innocents. The bulk of the surviving engines under Carania were made up of Wardord and Reaver classes, with the forges of Estaban capable of reducing a limited quantity of the former during the course of the war. While the loyalist wings of the legio maintained their ancient and deep ties to the Night House of Taranis, remaining able to call on them as reinforcements from their new Nightworlds galaxy wide, the traitor division lacked such support during the heresy, replacing Taranis Knights that spat upon their treachery with the motley assortment of Freeblade Knights. The vulnerability this caused in traitor Tempestus' battle form was initially scoffed at by legio Princepts until the disastrous assault on Hive Ilium during the Manachian conflict, where several traitor titans of Tempestus were brought down by night suits of House Vironii, with minimal casualties. Outrage at the losses, Princepts Carania ordered for a full-scale recruitment drive, pulling in as many favors as his politicking had earned him within the Warmaster's circles to ensure that Tempestus was seconded as many Freeblades as possible from the forces of Horus. Soon, the traitor Stormlords could count on what amounted to its own household of knights, comprised entirely of mercenaries and outcasts and forming a bizarre ersatz hierarchy from their blended cultures. Of the fate of the Loyalist Tempestus engines, the conflagration unleashed by the great heresy renders a full report of their comportment next to impossible, at least for the purposes of this record, as a lack of any central command following the Martian schism had put paid to all archives of service the legio kept. The feats of the Loyalist Stormlords, big and small, survive now only in accounts of other forces, that these manifolds, bereft of leadership, attach themselves to to best serve the Emperor and the Imperium, selling their engines in their lives if necessary. A sadly all too common tale from the Age of Darkness. Until such a time, as I may weave more, Ave Imperator Gloria in Excelsis Terra. 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