 How can one even begin to comprehend the military virtues of those so utterly removed from our own levels of simple existence? A colleague once snapped this at me, and I divulged to him the subject of this particular record. He considered it a futile endeavor, for even should I gain access to the prescribed archives, my simple baseline homo sapien mind, would simply be unable to process the intentions of those that are nigh unto gods themselves. Does that, however, mean a humble chronicler imperialist should not even attempt to do so? Well, let this effort stand as one's answer. No then, that this is a record of the organizational structure, tactical doctrine and wartime disposition of the emperor's own, his 10,000, the legio custodies. To the outside observer, the custodies are effectively impenetrable to even the most diligent scrutiny. Most of what is known outside the imperial household itself, even amongst the highest ranks of the officio militaris and the senatorium imperialis, is based off conjecture, inference, and hearsay. Only by special dispensation of the household, access to sequestered archives, and through assidious interviews, can information held within this record be known. To those of us peering in with curious eyes, the rituals, structure, details, and even titles of the 10,000 appear impossibly Byzantine, which is the direct result of them being answerable to none but the master of mankind, even in his current state. They have no need to accommodate us mortals, as their calling is always so much higher than any feeble petition we may make of them. The first, and perhaps most marked sign of this, is their very names. Outwardly, each custodian presents a given name that is usually drawn from a compound of an ancient Terran ruler or mythological figure. Consider, if you will, the legendary names of Constantine Valdor, Ra Indemian, and Diocletian Chorus. Between them, they bear the likeness of ancient Romanii tyrants and a forgotten god of the Gyptus. Why this convention is both accepted and seemingly encouraged is beyond us, perhaps being a facet of the emperor's humor or irony on the part of the custodians themselves, given their role and status. Their true names are long forgotten, obliterated during their rebirth into the demigods they are to become. One fact of Custody's legend is their accumulation of names throughout their lives, granted in recognition of great deeds or victories. Never revealed to those beyond their order, these names are said to be inscribed upon the insides of their armor, and a Custody's never ceases earning them until the moment of his death. By the outbreak of the heresy, Captain General Valdor is known to have possessed 962 names. Valdor is perhaps the most famous example of the head of the legio, the Captain General. At the top of the custodians' chain of command, he is essentially the emperor's ultimate bodyguard and most trusted military advisor, the golden right hand of the Lord of Lightning. By virtue of this, the Captain General is technically able to command the Primarchs, the emperor's own sons, and Valdor is known to have done so on occasion, notably being in nominal command of the Battle of Prospero. Below him is the Tribunate, the fluctuating amount of tribunes, usually around 10 in number, that are roughly analogous to the chapter masters within an Astartes legion, while below them are the remaining two official ranks, prefects and shield captains. The differences between these two are slight, with the former being more a reward for veterans in service, while the latter a distinction of implied active field command with particular responsibilities within a detachment or formation. This all being said, the legio custodies do not abide to the chain of command in the matter of any other military formation within the Imperium. They are more akin to a warrior caste than a regiment, as one of the 10,000 is more formidably equipped to fulfill any number of battlefield roles than any other combatant in human history. Depending on what exigencies are placed upon them, and how they feel best inclined to prosecute their objectives, the custodies may fall into one of the legios broadly defined formations, each unique, each with its own clear purpose. The majority of the legios' martial strength at any given time is the Haikonatoi, which outsiders most commonly see as the baseline custodies. While the term rank and file seems ludicrous to apply to a formation such as the 10,000, it is perhaps the best equivalence at one's disposal. The Haikonatoi take to the field of battle a raid as one might picture a custodies in the works of art that adorn so much of Imperial terra, clad in golden oramite armor and wielding their signature guardian spears, power weapons with Terran boaters built into the haft. Others employ the brutal sentinel warblades should they prefer force over finesse. The basic unit of these formations are referred to as sadalities, although, as with all to do with the structure of the legio, these are not the squads of the legionnaires' astartes by any means. Whereas astartes operate as tightly knit compacts of understanding and shared brotherhood, each custodies is a legion unto himself, an immortal being so utterly beyond the human baseline that even astartes pale in comparison. He fights alone for that is what is expected of him. Each and every member of the legio knows that one day he may be the sole body between an enemy and the emperor of mankind, and should that hour come he will be able to rely on none save himself. This ethos permeates how all of the ten thousand conduct themselves in battle. Sodalities do not engage the enemy with the tight discipline of astartes, but rather as individuals, albeit individuals with peerless battlefield comprehension and almost precognitive skills of coordination with their fellow custodies. They should never be thought of as pursuing individual agendas at the cost of one another, each simply chooses the manner in which he fights according to his own individual talents and skills, rather than, say, a group of tactical astartes fulfilling the exact same battlefield role within a squad. In this way, no two custodies ever fight on the battlefield in a similar manner, and yet their cohesion as a sodality in their persecution of the enemy is utterly peerless. There are few enemies that the High Kanatoi cannot defeat, but, despite their supreme battlefield adaptability and confidence, the legio is not so self-assured as to believe themselves suited for every single battlefield task. Siege warfare, high-intensity zone-mortalis operations, or attritional warfare all provide the legio with a worrisome possibility of casualties, and for beings as precious as the custodies, all possible steps must be taken to avoid this. This will generally mean they avoid the types of operations mentioned above, as they would be, admittedly, a terrible waste of their skills and resources, leaving the destruction of enemy fortresses or foot-slugging infantry advances to astartes. That being said, the Ten Thousand retains the ability to deploy heavy shock troops should it require them, and these counter-assault forces are known as the Tharanatoi. The custodies of these sodalities take to the field as either heavily armored Aquilon terminators clad in the finest, most heavily modified tactical dreadnought plate in the Imperium, or in Sagittarum guard fireteams. The former are optimized for close-quarter engagements, as their terminator plate renders them nearly invulnerable, and will often be equipped for assault operations to annihilate the enemy. The latter are arrayed for longer-range engagements, bearing dark age of technology and drastic weapons. Proscribed by the Emperor himself, these disintegration weapons are born only by the legio, for only the finest warriors of the Imperium can handle the sheer destructive potential of such ancient firearms. The Catafractoi embody the legio's essentially paramilitary writ. They are the pilots of the Ten Thousand's gunships, interceptors, and grav tanks, as well as forming the body of the legio's jet-bike outriders. The custodies have never been front-line soldiers the astartes are. Instead, they are a highly specialized formation intended to be deployed only by the order of the Emperor himself, and because of this, only under the most dire of circumstances. In order to fulfill their stated battlefield role as a rapid strike force, the legio has granted the use of the most sophisticated armor and aircraft in the Imperium. Vehicles seem quite literally nowhere else, for none are deemed worthy for their use outside of the Ten Thousand. Speed and mobility are paramant, as the sodalities must be ferried to the part of the battle their unique skills are needed the most. The vehicles of the Catafractoi embody this, sleek grav attack ground armor and sleeker steel aircraft that are capable of speeds and maneuvers far outclassing any other vehicles of their tonnage in the Imperium, yet in some cases are more armored and always in possession of a far greater destructive potential. The material cost of maintaining and manufacturing these craft is phenomenal, but for the Ten Thousand, no price is too high if it allows them to fulfill their duty all the better. Of the least certainty, even perhaps amongst the archives granted to one for the remit of this record, is the operational purview of the Ephoroi. Custodies tasked with the intelligence operations of the legio. Just quite what their responsibilities were and are, likely are intentionally vague, as with any covert organization, but what is clear is that the Ephoroi conducted high level intelligence gathering and processing, utilizing the full scope of the resources at their disposal, which is to say the resources of the entire Imperium itself. That the legio, ostensibly a paramilitary formation, had a dedicated intelligence divisio may surprise some, but it should be borne ever in one's mind that whatever their martial capabilities, the Ten Thousand exists purely to protect the body of the Emperor himself. As such, they must be aware of any and all threats to him and be able to predict, anticipate, deduce and plan for any and all possible eventualities. They are known to share close operational details with the clades of the officio assassinorum and utilized human agents when required. Infiltration of Imperial nobility was common, often again through their mortal agents, but the Ephoroi themselves were well versed in the politics, traditions and histories of all Imperial houses of note. Custodies' minds possess idetic memories and those of the Ephoroi turned these to the service of knowing all and seeing all. It was they who were the organizers of the blood games to test Imperial household defenses, corroborating their own intelligence gatherings with findings from the games to defeat threats before they even arose. The final subdivision within the legio was also its smallest. The moritoi were singular in being formed entirely of the legio's honored fallen. Custodies whose immortal bodies had been damaged to the point of near death, requiring them to be interred within the life-sustaining dreadnought chassis. The first Custodian to fall in the history of the legio was Sagittaris, one of the Emperor's first thirty companions interred within the Ur-Golim class chassis designed to allow Thunder Warriors of the Unification Wars to fight after death. Sagittaris was the first of the moritoi whose capabilities continuously advanced with the progress of Imperial technology. By the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, the moritoi were entirely composed of Contemptor dreadnought chassis, either the Contemptor Achilles or heavier Contemptor Galatas marks, both capable of wielding weaponry far more arcane and destructive than there are Startes contemporaries. Though small in number, the moritoi represented a staggeringly powerful force at arms, combining centuries of martial skill and experience with the most phenomenally powerful weaponry and equipment, the Mechanicum, and indeed the Emperor himself could devise for them. When death and treachery came to the Istvan system, the legio custodies counted within its number approximately 10,000 members for which it was so colloquially named. The Battle of Prospero that had immediately preceded the true outbreak of the heresy had depleted this number somewhat, although not nearly to the extent that the coming conflict would. The vast majority of the legio's strength was concentrated upon Terra to protect the Imperial Palace, though various sodalities were spread out throughout the galaxy on various missions of high import. Five of the High Kinatoi, for instance, led by Custodian Aquilon, had been seconded to the 17th Legion Word Bearers in the aftermath of that Legion's humbling on Monarchia, but were ultimately betrayed and killed by the Legion's monstrous Gal Vorbach. It has been remarked upon, albeit quietly, by numerous historians that the legio custodies, despite representing an incredibly powerful military force, did not in any way stray from the homeworld during the entire span of the war. While doubtless, coordinating with Rogald Dorne, the 7th Primarch and Praetorian of Terra in the defense of the solar volume, that they did not take up arms until the Battle of Terra itself seems inconceivable to some. Your humble servant has, in the sequestered archives, found scant mentions of a darker war, a hidden war of terrible battles occluded from the sight of the species through their dread import alone. A full record of this conflict may not be possible, but it would be remiss of me not to attempt it. Let its tidings, however, wait upon the advent of another day.