 The Mounted Warrior has ever been at the forefront of human warfare since our species first learned how to tame and equip what beasts were available to better serve our armies. Over the millennia, this has evolved. Mounted combatants were a staple of the internecine conflicts of terror during the Age of Strife, be their charges mechanical or mutant. But even before the nuclear and chemical fires consumed the homeworld, out in the stars, greater beasts wrought of man's own hand were serving the soldiery of our species to advance our manifest destiny and protect those who could not protect themselves. Bearers of the ancient chivalric tradition, the steed of these warriors were technological, not biological, their weapons more devastating than any simple lance, their armor impenetrable compared to even the finest steel rainment. Know then that this is a record of the operational capacities, strategic disposition, and hierarchy of the questorus imperialis, the imperial knights. A knight, in the most basic terms, is a bipedal weapons platform of roughly human shape, piloted by a single individual whose cockpit is contained within the upper torso. Weapons are typically mounted upon each arm, in combinations favouring either long-ranged artillery-esque cannons or close combat-oriented chain blades and powered energy fists, or some combination of the two. Depending upon the mark, a knight may also choose to mount weaponry upon the carapace of the suit. Initially, the suits were designed per standard template construct fashion to be as versatile as possible. The weaponry is modular, and could be swapped out for a variety of tools for mundane tasks, such as bulk cargo lifting, mining, and logging, only to be replaced when the predatory local xenoforms return to menace the colonizers. These practical concerns have long since been displaced by the knight's role as a purely military machine, but if one were to remove the adamantium sheet armour, one would discover an endoskeleton bearing all the hallmarks of millennia-old STC design. Similar in fashion to the god-engines of the Colesia and later adeptus titanicus. Knight armour is piloted not by simple controls, but through direct bearing to machine neural interface. Since the reunion of houses with the wider species, the control platform has been dubbed the Throne Mechanicum, as a mark of respect by the houses for the Mechanicum's role in bringing many of them back from the brink of losing their suits to the simple passage of time. Upon the throne, umbilical interface cords are attached to the pilot's own implanted neural sockets, linked directly to their cerebrum and cerebellum. Such a direct interface allows the noble to move the suit as if it were an extension of their own body, and inload sensory data from the knight's ospex arrays as if their own eyes and own ears were a hundredfold more sensitive than baseline humans. Knights, owing to their size and the directness of the connection shared between suit and pilot, are far more maneuverable and responsive than a tyson-class engine, moving with a light grace unmatched by any save-the-eldari engine-equivalent machines. The trade-off is naturally in the realms of firepower and protection, as titans have destructive potentials far outstripping a knight, but it remains true that a knight armor is the single most destructive weapon a single human can control alone. The majority of a house's suits will be held in a single hangar or building, usually dubbed with the name of reverence akin to sanctuary, or a close synonym, to invest as much reverence for the importance of the armor within the structure and the house. On the most ancient of knight worlds, the hangar is generally constructed from the remnants of the original colony ship that brought the inhabitants to that planet, its impossibly ancient superstructure, an ever-present reminder of the role the knights of the world have played throughout its history. It is here that the rituals of investiture are conducted, for nobles bonding with the throne mechanic. This procedure is far from simple or easy. Dubbed on most knight worlds the ritual of becoming, or again a similar verb, the imprinting process takes anywhere from 8 to 20 hours, and is undertaken when a child of the house reaches an appropriate age. For many, it is similar to an adolescent coming-of-age ritual present in many human cultures throughout the Imperium, although of much greater significance and incalculably more risk. Over a tenth of all those who submit to the throne simply die of fatal aneurysms brought upon by the bonding with such ancient neurological technology, degraded, as it no doubt is, from millennia of similar rituals. Quite more suffer permanent or irreparable brain damage. However, should it be successful, the procedure has fascinating neurogenic effects upon the pilot. First, dominant personality traits are markedly heightened. Bellicose pilots become extremely belligerent in nature, while reserved nobles become far more taciturn and aloof, and so on. Additionally, and likely a facet of the original STC design, the throne mechanicum imprints upon its subjects strong positive associations with concepts deemed coherent with the ancient concepts of chivalry, such as honor, duty, fealty, hierarchy, and familial loyalty. While this has been the subject of much debate, the dominant theory amongst the mechanicus, and indeed the one that this chronicler believes holds the most veracity, is that the imprinting is a failsafe of sorts, to ensure that the original bonded pilots do not go themselves mad with the power their suits confer, and utilize them to violently subjugate or even simply murder those original colonists they were sworn to protect. That this effect has been at the center of the descent of the nightly houses into neo-feudal regimes galaxy-wide is certain, but considering the alternatives, one must use as to whether this is not the best possible outcome. The means through which the night houses interact with the various armed bodies of the Imperium are as complicated as their own social hierarchies, but conform to certain broad standards. Functionally speaking, the households have been embedded within the complex feudal makeup of the adeptus mechanicus since the time of the great crusade, when the Martian Mechanicum asserted as much control as possible over the affairs of the newly reclaimed night worlds. The military assistance of the knights was negotiated in exchange for resources, technology, and knowledge from the Mechanicum. Crucially, this was undertaken on a house-by-house basis, as distinct from, say, the imperial navy, chartist captains, astro-militarum, or even the adeptus mechanicus themselves, the questorus imperialis have no central political body of any kind to represent them to the Imperium as a whole. The various households are too different, too diverse, and too ancient to accede to anything resembling such an organization. While subservient, in the strictest sense to the Mechanicus, the relationship is one born of millennia-old treaties innumerable, and continued based on a combination of practical needs and concepts of fealty and honor the knights hold so dear. In much the same way as the various arch-maji of a forge world will contribute their assets to the Mechanicus tagmata or macro-clade, the knights of the forge's dependent night worlds will, too, answer a call to muster. They are honor-bound to provide the number of knights the Mechanicus or the adeptus Titanicus requests, and only fail to do so under the most extreme of circumstances. On that note, since the days of the great crusade, knight households have commonly been deployed in battle to assist the god-machines of the titan legions, as it is in engine-scale warfare that they are deemed most effective. In titan combat, knights are employed in a variety of forms in keeping with their adaptable suit chassis and styles of combat. They can serve as fire support for the larger weaver and warlord classes, operate independently, or in coherent formations with warhounds, as scouts or flank protection, or, indeed, focus on the ground infantry and armor elements of an enemy army, taking out forces deemed below the attention of, say, a warlord-class titan. The knight pilots relish the chance to fight alongside the legios, seeing it as the ultimate form of combat, and vying with each other for the greatest amount of engine kills, the most gallant of charges, the most honourable of defences. Competition for inclusion in these detachments is, itself, extraordinarily fierce, as they provide not only the opportunity to earn honorifics and glory for the household, but also to escape the crushing boredom and petty politicking of courtly life for years or even decades at a time. For a titan legion or Mechanicus macroclade, the permanent assignment of a knight detachment to their service is a matter of simple pragmatism. For the knights of that detachment, it is a greatest reward imaginable, and one they immediately rush to display icons and imagery redolent of their new commanders upon the heraldry of their suits. This heraldry is an incredibly important facet of the culture of the questorus imperialis. Complex and intricate, the iconography displayed upon knight armor is the product of millennia of history, telling the stories of battles fought and won, kills made, oaths taken and fulfilled, honors won, and vengeance is sated. In much the same way as the quadrupedal mounts of ancient warriors were symbols of status, so too is a knight chassis, a mark of the extraordinary abilities and lineage of their pilots, difficult to maintain and costly to operate, but devastatingly effective and vital to human supremacy. As such, while all houses have broadly speaking shared colours, each suit and each pilot will have a livery vastly different from each other, since in this, as with all things concerning them, the pilots compete with each other for who can display the grandest and most intricate heraldry. Since the reunification of the houses with greater humanity, there have been some commonalities upon the length of the galaxy, as the banners of either imperial-aligned or mechanicus-aligned houses are broadly similar in Mien, usually formed around the imperial eagle or cog-mechanicum respectively. Knights who serve with the same titan legio or imperial crusade for an extended period will inevitably work something of their parent forces iconography into their own, as too will knights who earn campaign accolades or badges. There are, however, some noble pilots of the Imperium who owe allegiance to no house, no family, and who have taken their honour across the stars to live lives as knights mendicant, known popularly as freeblades. Whether through voluntary removal, sheer lust for war, desire for glory, or through maliciousness, treachery, or social inability, these knights walk their paths alone, bereft of house and hearth. It is a tradition as old as the Imperium, for as soon as night houses were able to leave their worlds, there were some amongst them who either desired or were forced to leave the confines of the family. In the era of the great crusade there was no shortage of campaigns and operations desperate for the aid of the knights, and indeed, that tradition continues into our own dark millennium should come as no surprise. It is, however, a monumental decision for a noble to remove themselves from their house, as in doing so, they surrender all bonds of birth, kin, and home, and all access to any and all resources their houses can provide them. It could be some great personal tragedy, the death of a kinsman in battle, perhaps, that causes a pilot to believe themselves culpable and in need of atonement, or fills them with the desire to enact vengeance upon the universe that has so wronged them. It could be a personal oath of such import that the pilot no longer feels able to commit himself fully to their duty from within the confines of their house, with their fealty to such an oath even overpowering their deep sense of familial loyalty. Or, indeed, there are simply those who lust for war-making and whose hatred for the stifling confines of household politics have led to them escaping to the stars with their knight armor, to fight for the armies of the emperor, unbeholden to the whims of their liege lord. As with all things regarding the mental state of the knight pilot, such intense feelings can likely be attributed to the psychological effects of bonding with the throne-mechanicum, as the device, known to exacerbate dominant traits within a pilot, can additionally affect how they respond emotionally to different events or situations. There are, additionally, knights whose demeanor or personal lives, or actions, have led to them being forcibly expelled from their houses. While these slights are rarely enough to earn them the title ex-communicat traitoris, the complex social hierarchies of the questoris familia will sometimes demand honor be satisfied only through the excision of the noble from the family at large, and their expulsion to the stars to serve penance for their actions. Should a pilot choose or be sentenced to the life of a freeblade, their every record is redacted from the histories of their houses, leaving in some cases gaping holes in family chronicles and manifests. They truly sever any and all ties that they may have had to their former lives, changing the livery of their engines in the same way they change their very names, shucking an old identity in favor of a new self-defined one. The means through which they live their lives are many and varied. While some retain access to personal finances and resources, such as, say, their own starship, or so Christians loyal to their master above their household, others trod a path far lonelier, bartering passage on bulk freight haulers, selling services mundane or otherwise to earn coin for food and maintenance of their suits. Some freeblades spend their lives rarely strained far from local forge worlds for fear of irreparable damage to their suits, while others will roam the galaxy on their personal conveyors, their own fortunes allowing them to choose where to fight based upon whim or prospect of glory. If there is one thing a freeblade can be assured of, however, it is a lonely death. In this way, they are tragic figures, removed from kith and kin, dying alone under an unfamiliar sky to rest in alien soil. A nice mendicant that falls in battle has no one to recover them, and often will simply rest where they stand, their armor left to rust in the centuries that follow, for none remain who remember their history. In some cases, suits may be recovered, the skeletons of their pilots still interred within the throne mechanicum to serve as shrines for the imperial cult, manifest examples of the power of the God Emperor, and the fealty with which his subjects so unflinchingly serve him with. In exceptionally rare circumstances, a freeblade serving penance may see their atonement fulfilled, and elect to return to their household. While law demands all of the questor's familiar acknowledge and honor the desire of one of their own to choose the life of a mendicant, there is no such law that bids them to be welcomed anew. It is, as ever, down to the head of the house to decide upon the subject, to weigh the virtues of the returned versus their transgressions and to decide upon the honor satisfied. Those that manage this most arduous of tasks avoid the lonely death of their fellows, coming to rest, as with all of their ancestors, in the ghosted manifold of the throne mechanicum, shades of their bellicose spirits to be preserved for as long as the throne may yet live. Appended to this record will follow an account of the many and diverse knight-armor marks in use throughout imperial history. Students may request the ident code for this record upon its release from the logo's archives. Until such a time, Ave Imperator, Gloria in Excelsis Terra. And if you're looking to keep in touch with the channel, get regular updates, you can follow me on Twitter, at ButstuffKaiju, or check us out on Discord, a link will be in the description and on the channel page.