Jade Legion

Jade Legion armorial with legion iconography

Jade Legion Legionary.

The **Jade Legion** is the IX Legion of the Legiones Astartes of the Imperium, founded by the Emperor to serve as Mankind's greatest heroes in their Great Crusade across the stars. Their Primarch is Atrokyraz. Renowned for their psychic master and use of shock assault and terror tactics, despite their small size, the Jade Legion quickly garnered a reputation as a foreboding and ruthless legion who zealously annihilated the myriad of enemies that would dare oppose Mankind's manifest destiny as the true inheritors of the galaxy.

## Legion History

### Founding

Jade legion were first created from the gene-seed of their primarch after the loss of Primarchs in the Genetic Lab of Luna. Their Primarch’s unique Powers of the warp were inherited to some extent by the legion itself, a power to bend the barrier between the warp and the material space to blur the line and access the Powers of empyrean easily. The legion is made up entirely of Psykers.

### Reunion

When they met their Primarch, Atrokyraz, on the world of Rarenth, the legion was endowed with powerful artifacts Atrokyraz had forged and stolen over the decades of his wars across the planet's surface, with creatures of the warp trapped within their strange artifacts not in any way similar to normal chaos sorcerers. Despite pledging allegiance to his father eagerly, he was less than thrilled at being told that he was a mere general, whereas on his World he was a philosopher, a king, a god, a powerful authority whose voice was listened to.

### The Great Crusade

Prior to reunifying with their Primarch the IX Legion aided the Emperor's Great Crusade as enforcers and shock troopers, their psychic might crushing any foe that the Imperial Army could not break, and their dreadful powers keeping any world they were garrisoned in obedient out of fear. The legion's numbers were few, and they were seldom deployed for prolonged warfare because of it. Their gene-seed was expensive to produce and keep safe due to drawing the warp close to itself, and required being implanted on psykers only which made it even harder to find recruits. Overall only 20,000 were created, divided into 40 units of 500 marines called Cabals, which are led by Cabalites.

The low numbers are easily made up by the Jade Legion, an entire legion's worth of soldiers that are composed of psycho-reactive materials and possessed by Warp Constructs. These entities are not daemons, and are akin to artificial intelligence made out of warp energy, controlled by the Alchemists' legionaries. Though it is also possible to produce these Jade Constructs out of souls of people as well.

Now the Jade Legion serve the Great Crusade without any secondary motives, not one that is told outsiders anyways, but they do tend to stick around after conquering the planets of mankind to assert the authority of the Imperium, leaving many worlds both in awe and fear of the Ninth Legion.

## Legion Gene-Seed

### Primarch's Curse: Soulthirst

The Jade Legion recruits solely amongst the population of psychic mutants, as normal humans introduced to their gene-seed often ends up being consumed by the augmentations meant to strengthen them. However, when a psyker successfully becomes implanted with the gene-seed the ability to feed on the immaterial presence and soul of those around them becomes an ability - almost a necessity. It is not unheard of for the Jade Legion to utilise this inherent ability to subdue wayward planets, consuming the very souls of the rebels that would deny the authority of the Imperium or the Legion. As a result of their vampiric powers, both active and passive, daemons of the Warp tend to stay away from a psyker at the peak of their might, otherwise they might just be consumed as sustenance for the sorcerer's æthereal being.

## Trivia

This article was originally authored by Overlad, and transcribed here, for your viewing pleasure, by Algrim Whitefang.