Grave Stalkers

Grave Stalkers armorial with Legion iconography

Grave Stalkers Legion colour scheme

Appearing as wraiths of Old Night, this small legion of Pariahs use fear as their chosen weapon. Numbering the smallest of all legions due to unstable gene-seed, the **Grave Stalkers** make up for their lack of numbers by destroying the enemy's morale long before the battle is joined. Atrocities cling to the Grave Stalkers as they prosecute compliance as both soldier and civilian soon feel the knives of the XVth skinning them as a warning to others. At the head of this isolated army stoops K'awil the Soulless. Spurned by the Imperium due to the unnatural aura possessed by the Primarch and his sons, K'awil fought from the shadow of the grave before he was persuaded by Icarion to side with the Stormlord.

## **Origins and History**

For decades the Grave Stalkers were the silent scalpel of the Great Crusade, sent in to achieve through stealth what would be too costly to attempt through sheer force of arms. They became renowned for their ability to subjugate worlds with numbers far fewer than other Legions could bring to bear. K'awil was also known for his ruthless and unique approach to battle. All Primarchs know about the effective use of the enemy’s psychology to gain advantage during war, but K’awil seemed to have an especially honed sense of what would break his foes. Time and again, he and his legion would shatter a world's morale so completely that they would surrender wholeheartedly to the expedition fleets that followed. These worlds were noted to be especially compliant, but several Governors made mention of local superstitions that all seem to bear a remarkable resemblance to one another. Stories of ghosts and spirits that strike from the darkness leaving only a single petrified survivor to spread the word of their coming.

The legion’s self-reliance was as much a matter of their biology as it was of their preferred tactics, and as they were also a legion of Pariahs. Few were able to stay close to so many with the Pariah gene; early Crusade records show that attached Imperial Army units suffered from crippling morale issues in combat zones where Grave Stalkers were also involved. As the Crusade progressed, their abilities became more pronounced, and they became even more isolated from the Crusade’s ideals. It is this isolation that is considered the primary reason for their fall during the Insurrection as they had no ties to those that were to protect from the ravages of Chaos, and Icarion was ever silver tongued and persuasive.

### **Origins: Phantoms and Spectres**

While for many legions, the Unification Wars is the murkiest era of their history, for the Grave Stalkers, the Unification Wars is the era in their history about which outsiders know the most with every battle of the Great Crusade being recorded in meticulous detail. The reason for this is that the XVth are not prone to making records of their own campaigns, and they frequently campaign on their own, out of necessity, while any records their enemies might make of them are often lost following compliance (many suspect them to be deliberately destroyed, although none can fathom why).

The XVth legion was founded in the late days of the Great Crusade, after much of Terra was already under the Emperor’s rule. The XVth were drawn from the savage denizens of Hy Brasil’s deep jungles, groups of tribes who had defended their lands for generations by the simple expedient of making their enemies too terrified to invade. While the warriors of these lands were not as numerous as their counterparts in Albyon or Ursh, they were experts in psychological warfare, willing to use any weakness to their maximum advantage. Strong, fit and utterly ruthless, they were ideal recruits for the Legiones Astartes.

However, despite there being no shortage of recruits, when the XVth took to the field for the first time against the Perutic mountain clans, they numbered barely 200 Space Marines. This was because of the XVth’s gene-seed being dangerously unstable and killing many of the recruits within a matter of days. This lack of numbers and seeming inability to replace losses quickly meant that for the XVth to engage their enemies in standard warfare would have been an act of insanity, a suicide mission.

So it was that the XVth legion engaged the mountain clans in psychological warfare, launching hit and run raids and after each one, leaving enemies crucified to the mountainside or left out in the snow with their skin stripped from their bodies. Even their own appearance contributed to the image of savage apparitions come to drag their enemies souls to hell, for within a few weeks, all of the proto XVth’s eyes had darkened until they became black pools and their skin’s colour faded, leaving them a ghostly white. In order to exploit this effect to its full, the XVth often went into battle without a helm and painted their faces to resemble skulls or faces that had been flensed of skin, turning them into the embodiment of the daemons of old Earth.

Within weeks, their foes were fleeing at imagined sounds or flashes of light in the night and had ceased to venture outside of their cities. However, as the weeks dragged on and turned into months, foraging parties were sent out to try and retrieve food for the starving defenders. Not a single one returned. After four months, the last of the Perutic cities threw open its gates to the XVth and found that they had been subdued by less than 200 Space Marines. It was in these early days that the XVth was given its nickname, as one Perutic monarch reportedly said ”Why must we haunted by these terrible wraiths?” once he had become too terrified to even venture outside of his chambers. From then on, the XVth were called the Wraiths by their fellow legions and those Imperial Army units who served alongside them in the early years of the Great Crusade.

### **Isolation**

As the Great Crusade spread across the stars, the Wraiths were often used as scouts or an advanced guard (as they were on Luna, when a five man squad of the XVth was sent to reconnoitre the landing zones of Luna’s surface), gathering intelligence on enemy positions prior to another larger Legion’s arrival, or being used to spread terror and panic amongst the Imperium’s enemies to weaken resistance and, hopefully, trigger a surrender without a major campaign needing to take place. However, this role is mentioned in few chronicles of the Great Crusade for there was little glory and little recognition in these tasks, necessary as they were. It is thought by some that it was now that the seed for the XVth’s later corruption was planted as the Space Marines of the XVth died unrecognised and unlauded (indeed, the XVth was the only legion to have not won a single battle honour upon leaving the Oortius Cloud), leading to a bitterness within the legion that only grew with every victory of theirs that went unacknowledged by the humans they were created to defend.

However, there was another reason for the Wraiths to specialize in roles that placed them well in advance of the main Imperial campaigns other than their particular field of expertise. The first was that, in spite of the recovery of Luna’s gene vaults, the XVth remained small, growing slowly and, in the early years of the Great Crusade, rarely rising above 2000 strong. This lack of numbers rendered them near useless in large scale warfare, lacking the numbers to do any serious damage by themselves and lacking the staying power to protect points of strategic importance effectively. While in another legion, these weaknesses may have been compensated for by a larger number of Imperial Army attached regiments, this was not advisable in the case of the XVth . In the years immediately after the Great Crusade left Terra, Imperial strategists noticed a frequent and regular drop in morale and effectiveness of any Imperial Army units in the same expedition as the Wraiths. The likely cause of this was the same as the likely cause of the instability that plagued the XVth’s gene-seed: the pariah gene. While the XVth were in no way unique amongst the legions in their possession of this gene, they had a particular strain of the gene which spread fear and unease in the wake of the XVth. While this enhanced the terror they caused on the battlefield, it was undirected and so a liability to their own side. Because of this, the XVth were unable to function as a normal legion, lacking the numbers to operate independently yet at the same time being a significant source of unease for unaugmented humans. So it was that the XVth was used for reconnaissance and sowing terror amongst the enemies of the Emperor, roles which kept them out of contact with the Imperial Army and yet also utilised their skills to the best possible effect. However, then, on an unnamed world, he was found. The XVth had finally found their primarch.

### **K'awil Pakal**

While many of his brothers have entire epics written about the deeds they accomplished on their homeworlds, very little is known about the early years of K'awil, or even the world on which he was discovered. While it was supposedly located in the Segmentum Solar, all other information about the world has been lost or, more likely, destroyed at the behest of K'awil himself. Some believe that he even destroyed the world itself for some slight or other. However, much of what is said about K'awil's homeworld is speculation and rumour and is, therefore, not worthy of being recorded.

As one of the Primarchs, K'awil was scattered across the galaxy by the vagaries of the Warp. While it’s unknown what world the young K'awil landed upon, what is certain is that he was never adopted by a family as many of his brothers were, rather he was simply left to fend for himself the second he emerged from his pod. It's entirely possible that it’s for this reason K'awil obliterated all traces of his homeworld and possibly the world itself, as punishment on the inhabitants of that world or as an attempt to bury his years roaming the wilds as consequence of this abandonment. What is more certain is that it was this time on his own that led K'awil to become the reserved and shadowy figure he is today, used to keeping his own council and unused to the bonds of brotherhood he might otherwise share with the other primarchs. Yet when the Emperor came to K'awil's homeworld, the young primarch immediately saw that, with this man lay his destiny and so needed little persuading to abandon his lonely life on his homeworld and join the Emperor in the Great Crusade. So it was that K'awil was united with his sons of the XVth, the Wraiths, then numbering 3,000 Space Marines, and given their command.

### **The Reaping**

Amongst the closed ranks of the XVth, the time immediately following K'awil Pakal's discovery is known as the Reaping. The reason for this is the first decision taken by K'awil in his role as primarch of the Wraiths (who he re-named to be Grave Stalkers). Seeing the pitiful number of recruits who survived the implantation process that would turn them into Space Marines, K'awil judged that drastic measures were needed to save his sons from a slow and inevitable decline that could only end in the extinction of their blood line. Using his rapidly learnt knowledge of the complicated bio tech that had gone into the creation of the gene-seed of the Legiones Astartes, K'awil decided that his the instability of his legions gene-seed stemmed from the very thing that made them invaluable: the pariah gene. He thought that the pariah gene caused a gradual degradation of the Grave Stalkers’ gene-seed, a process that was caused by exposure to the climate outside of the body of a live Space Marine. So, in order to put the prevent such degradation from occurring, K'awil decreed that gene-seed of the dead was not to be harvested and, instead, the gene-seed was to be harvested from still living Grave Stalkers which, while condemning the individuals in question to a long, drawn out death, he believed would halt, or at least slow the degradation of the gene-seed. So it was that K'awil's command was that every Grave Stalker be forced to partake in a ballot, drawing stones from a jar. A white stone and the space marine would continue to serve the Emperor and the Imperium. A black stone and they would become one of the first to have his gene-seed removed. Of the 3000 Grave Stalkers, 1,300 drew black stones, almost half the legion. It was then, when K'awil condemned almost half of his own sons to death that the legion learnt that they were the sons of a truly merciless man.

However, instead of rebelling against this knowledge, the Grave Stalkers embraced it and made K’awil’s nature their own. Soon, the process by which a living Grave Stalker's gene-seed was removed from his body became a standard fact of life to the Space Marines of the XVth, who viewed it not as the brutal and callous act other legions saw it as but as a measure of their dedication to their Primarch and to the Imperium. Slowly, the Grave Stalkers numbers began to rise and they were able to campaign independently, although their tally of compliances would never match those legions whose numbers far exceeded those of the XVth. However, the compliances the Grave Stalkers did achieve were usually fairly bloodless because, as ever, the main weapon the Grave Stalkers excelled at using was not the bolter or the chain axe but fear which they used as a doctor might use a scalpel, with their Primarch appearing to have an innate knowledge of exactly where an when to use terror to break their enemies and when the foe would hold and would need to be finished with conventional weapons. Yet, while extremely effective, the Grave Stalkers use of fear and their pariah gene as their principal weapons lead to them becoming fiercely independent and highly suspicious of any stranger, meaning that, despite their Primarch’s discovery, co operation with other Imperial forces remained rare and their deeds remained unlauded and unrecognised.

Nowhere was this perceived independence from the Imperium epitomized like the XVth legion’s seizure of the world of Lasaris Prime. A large forge world that was brought into compliance by the Grave Stalkers immediately after their Primarch's discovery, the Grave Stalkers claimed Lasaris for themselves, forbidding any member of the Adeptus Mechanicus from setting foot on the world. While Lasaris provided the Grave Stalkers with enough armour and ammunition to equip their entire legion, the damage done to the XVth’s relations with the Mechanicum was irreparable and the Grave Stalkers were forced to depend solely upon Lasaris for their equipment, leading to them lacking many vehicles in the way of heavy armour or large void faring vessels.

As the Great Crusade progressed and the Grave Stalkers continued to carve their own path across the galaxy, they became ever more detached from the Imperium at large and ever more reserved, beginning to believe themselves isolated and without allies (and in this they were not far wrong, for they were not highly regarded amongst their brother legions either), leading to them being suspicious to the point of hostility to any outsiders, further exacerbating their isolation. However, then, shortly after the Qarith triumph, they were approached by Icarion the Stormborn. While at the time it seemed inconsequential, this visit would be a turning point in the history of the XVth.

### **Corruption**

When the Stormborn came to the Grave Stalkers seeking to recruit them to his rebellious cause, he found the task to be more difficult than he had expected. The reason for this was the immense hostility of K'awil and his sons to any from outside of their own number and the mental wall they had built between themselves and outsiders. However, Icarion persevered and even fought alongside the Grave Stalkers for several years, gradually earning their trust, until he finally put to them his proposal to join him. This was a proposal the Grave Stalkers quickly accepted, for they had long gone unrecognised by the people they bled for and held nothing but contempt for the civilians who had taken over the governance of the Imperium, for the XVth believed them to be untrustworthy in the extreme. When compared to Icarion, who had fought alongside them, bled alongside them and lauded their deeds, praising the bloodless manor in which they brought worlds into compliance, the choice was simple. They pledged themselves, now 10,000 strong, to the Stormborn's cause.

In the following decades, the Grave Stalkers began to slow down their conquest of worlds and build their numbers, creating hundreds of reapers, held in stasis for the inevitable day when the Stormborn declared his rebellion against Terra and the XVth was obliged to rise with him. However, their alliance with the Stormborn brought unlooked for benefits, such as the healing of the rift, or at least part of it, between the Grave Stalkers and the Mechanicus, who now began to supply the Grave Stalkers with equipment the Grave Stalkers had had to do without for decades, such as new suits of armour, mainly Mk. IV, and new patterns of ammunition. On each of these suits, the helm was crafted into a masterfully made skull, a nod to the legion’s name. Yet these specialised helms also served another purpose other than terror and to honour the XVth. Each of them had been created at the behest of the Stormborn and they dampened the XVth’s pariah powers, allowing them to serve in conjunction with other forces for limited amounts of time (although this was still rare due to the Grave Stalkers being unaccustomed to serving in any company save their own).

So it was that when the order came from the Stormborn, the Grave Stalkers readied their chainblades and loaded their bolters without hesitation and prepared to do battle with their fellow legions, for the Stormborn had offered them what the Emperor never had. Recognition, of their deeds and of how they had aided the other legions and their contribution to the Great Crusade, so long overlooked by scriveners and Remembrancers. However, the Stormborn also offered a reprieve from the instability that plagued their gene-seed, help in finding the root of this instability and eradicating it whilst maintaining the pariah gene. Thus, when the Stormborn called, the Grave Stalkers readied their weaponry and prepared to cast off their ties of loyalty to the Imperium. It was a decision that would change them forever.

### **The Legacies of Kabyieb**

While not the world upon which their Primarch was found, Kabyieb is the de facto homeworld of the Grave Stalkers legion and the world from which they draw many of their recruits. Brought into compliance by the XVth three short years after the discovery of their Primarch, the Grave Stalkers were quick to claim the world as their own. The principal reason for this seems to have been the peculiar evolutionary path taken by the population which has made them more compatible with XVth legion gene-seed. Geneticists have never succeeded in understanding why, the only fact known about it is that with Kabyieban neophytes the success rates of gene-seed implantation rise above 5% (normal success rates with XVth legion gene-seed are around 2% or 3%).

However, this higher success rate is not the only reason for the XVth to take Kabyieb as their principal recruitment ground. The climate of Kabyieb is harsh and unforgiving, forging its people into tough warriors and indefatigable hunters, with especially acute sense. This is most likely due to their world being one covered in forests whose trees grow so tall that they block out any rays of the sun and prevent them from reaching the lower reaches of the world, with plant life only kept alive by the heat that rises up from cracks in Kabyieb’s surface. Shrouded in near total blackness, these lower reaches are utterly inhospitable to human life, meaning that almost all of the human inhabitants of Kabyieb live in the upper levels of the trees, where the branches are wide enough for ten men to walk abreast on them and the tree trunks thick enough to support entire villages.

Amongst the tree tops, the inhabitants of Kabyieb fight, hunt and raid, eking out a living for themselves as best they can, only venturing out during what passes for night in the tree tops, hiding from the giant terror birds who also make their nests amongst the tree tops of Kabyieb. When they can, the humans of Kabyieb steal eggs from the terror birds or hunt down the youngsters, but for the most part they are forced to hide from them, watching, waiting for a weakness to occur and then pouncing in the dark, For at night, it’s the humans who rule Kabyieb’s tree tops.

The humans of Kabyieb are naturally quick limbed and rangy individuals and their environment has shaped them to be ever alert, their whipcord fast bodies ready to break into action at any moment. These quick reactions mean that Kabyieb would likely have been claimed by one of the Assassinorum temples. As it is, an even more deadly predator haunts Kabyieb than the terror birds, for this is the home of the Grave Stalkers and they have made it their own.

## **Legion Organisation and Structure**

Ever the smallest of the Legions Astartes, the XVth legion, their size and methods ensured a markedly different structure to the usual strata of squad, company, battalion and chapter. Instead, while they retained the use of squads, their companies evolved into an interconnecting series of mutually supportive warrior "Societies". Warriors were assigned to one of these according to the talents they displayed during their trials. Once assigned, they would hone these skills both extensively and exclusively. The number, size and composition of the units drawn together for any given task varied immensely, and so neither K'ail nor the Legion Masters who went before him saw any reason to retain such restrictive bodies as companies. While each of these Societies is reliant on the others for support on the battlefield, as no one Society can carry the day with its expertise alone, they are also proud of their own martial art, passed down from master to neophyte, with each generation of a society learning and expanding upon the battle prowess of the last.

The largest of these Societies are the *Tlamani*, the closest thing to tactical marines the Grave Stalkers possessed. It is they who form the backbone of most XVth Legion Expeditionary forces, whether supporting their more specialised comrades or spreading death and fear alone. The masters of using the bolter and humble combat blade, the *Tlamani* are masters of none yet adaptable on the battlefield and able to fulfil a variety of roles. However, the environment in which the *Tlamani* are most at home is in the shadows, either as scouts or stalking an enemy and preparing to make a kill under the dim light of a moon.

The *Papaloti* are the heavy weapons and tech specialists. They combine a number of destructive disciplines, integrating heavy support and armour units as they sought to perfect the art of sowing terror through raw firepower. While the *Papaloti*'s primary role is to provide the other Societies with support from heavy weapons, they are also trained to pilot the XVth's limited pool of armour and maintain the more complicated items within the XVth's armoury, and this is what they do outside of a warzone, making them indispensable to the legion as a whole, for without their constant ministrations much of the XVth's most complicated and destructive weaponry would fall into disrepair, drastically reducing the XVth's firepower. The *Papaloti* also count the Legion's handful of Consul Praevians among them, applying their skills through the lethal automata gradually accumulated by the Legion. These individuals typically honed their skills both commanding tank columns and through the use of the Tarantula and Rapier guns commonly fielded by the Legions. Naturally they showed particular expertise in deploying them to confuse the enemy as their fellows moved to strike.

Due to their technological bent, the *Papaloti* overlapped considerably with the *Winich'amkak*, the society of techmarines and Mechanicum priests who served under the Legion’s banner. They continually toiled to refine the Legion's armoury to suit its tactics, fashioning devices designed to induce terror as often as they did simple weapons. Much of their time was given over to the creation and maintenance of servitors, for these were required to perform almost every task for which another Legion might call upon mortals. As such, they again shared members with the Blood Hands, the apothecaries and Mago Biologis personnel.

The third of the XVth's Societies are the *Otomi*. These are the most hot-blooded of the sons of Kabyieb, never more at home than when in the chaos of melee combat, with blood splashing across their armour. The *Otomi* represented the most bloody-minded Grave Stalkers, the ones whose thirst for killing was least tempered by caution. They tolerated the prolonged wait for action only when the promised reward was savage violence. Consequently their wargear was roughly equivalent to those of assault marines, including jump packs when shocking force was deemed more useful than stealth. They were those warriors to whom the occasional wielding of Destroyer weapons was entrusted, and it seems that they birthed the Legion's custom of wearing the remains of their victims. With a reputation for being trouble makers and as hot headed as the XVth get, it's amongst the *Otomi* that those Grave Stalkers who wield rad and grenades are often found. Often, the *Otomi* would have been labelled dangerous psychopaths if they hadn't been recruited into the XVth, and they are the most prone to taking grisly trophies such as cloaks of human skin or skulls to hang on their belts amongst the Grave Stalkers.

Two smaller societies exist, set above the three major societies, and membership of these was only open to those who had proven themselves worthy. The first are the *Qweksticati*, the smallest, comprising the Legion's honour guards and champions. "Champions" may be a somewhat misleading title in this case; they usually functioned more as solitary killers, stalking a single objective. Some serve as the vexilla bearers on formal occasions - rarely if ever did the Legion carry them into battle. Their ranks were filled with Astartes who had demonstrated their worth as warriors but were deemed unsuitable for positions of command.

Their counterparts were the *Cuachikeh*, the Grave Stalkers most able troops, expected to have mastered all forms of warfare and to excel in all theatres of war, meaning that what little time these old warriors have between wars is often spent in training. However, their armaments were more varied than this description might suggest; their purpose meant excelling in all the XVth's methods, continuously honing their skills outside of battle. Often marked for command posts, they formed the core of any Legion task force, and as such had the pick of wargear from the Legion’s forges. A small number even adopted the use of Terminator armour, the only Grave Stalkers to use it aside from the most distinguished *Otomi*. Admission into either of these groups is extremely rare and as a consequence they are the two smallest Societies.

While movement between these societies is rare, with Grave Stalkers being encouraged to hone their skills in a particular area rather than attempt to master everything, it is still possible. However, once a Grave Stalker is accepted into the legion’s elite, he may never leave it save through death in battle. This elite comprises of the Blacksouls, the Blood Hands and Reapers.

### **Command Hierarchy**

Within the ranks of the XVth, K'awil's word was law, likewise the authority of warleaders over their subordinates was absolute. Disobedience or failure was utterly unacceptable in a Legion whose victories demanded precision and caution, and for whom defeat could turn swiftly to disaster. Thus, despite their small size, the Grave Stalkers observed an elaborate system of seniority among their officers. There was little uniformity beyond the rank of captain and above that, K'uhul, which took the place of Chapter Master within the Legion. Instead, an officer's titles marked him out, carrying weight with his brothers that outsiders might fail to heed.

Neither the Primarch nor his lieutenants hesitated to carry out the direst penalties if one of their underlings failed a task or overstepped his remit. The unfortunate in question might be forced to undergo Ha'kun Ch'am or, if his failures were more egregious, he might be found murdered in his quarters, his gene-seed already extracted. Other officers would simply find themselves cast back into obscurity when the Primarch lost his immediate use for them. This they accepted with a bitter sort of equanimity, knowing that their lives were of no value beyond their utility, no matter what rank they held. At no time could they lose sight of just what kind of master they served.

The most senior of the Legion's officers formed the *Chun'ka*, who served at the Primarch's behest. Their mandate was to aid him in managing the Legion, though only a few held anything close to a permanent position. Several of the members at any one time were Dreadnoughts, for they gave more than their lives, deferring the release of death that they might serve the rise of their Legion. This was not done at the request of any Legionary, when gene-seed was held so precious, but only at the command of the Primarch himself. Members who were whole of body might come from any echelon, as the word of K'awil was the only deciding factor in their elevation. All were united, however, by the knowledge that K'awil's favour could be withdrawn as readily as it came, and they were liable to lose much more than position.

### **Specialist Units & Formations**

* **Blacksouls** - The Blacksouls are the most powerful of the XVth's pariahs, grouped into specialized units and deployed only after careful consideration. Such individuals are known to be grim and fatalistic, only speaking when they must, otherwise remaining silent as the grave into which they will eventually be interred. Kept isolated from their brothers and training in secluded quarters and barracks, the exact capabilities and training of these pariahs is unknown to any outside this exclusive brotherhood and the Blacksouls speak of it to no one. While whispers of dark rituals and transgressive devices cannot be substantiated, we know that the process amplified personality traits already entrenched in the Legion. Blacksouls, when conversation proved necessary, revealed themselves to be grim and fatalistic even by XVth Legion standards.

* **Blood Hands** - Blood Hands are the apothecaries of the XVth, charged with keeping the Grave Stalkers fighting through wounds that would kill ordinary men. However, their true purpose is far darker and is rarely spoken of outside of the Grave Stalkers: the rite of Ha'kun Ch'am. The name given to the elaborate operation whereby the gene-seed is removed from a still living Grave Stalker, this is a bloody rite designed to ensure that the gene-seed suffers as little degradation as possible. While this is a death warrant for the Space Marine whose gene-seed has been removed, it is deemed to be worth the sacrifice for the good of the legion and the legions numbers have only increased since the rite was introduced.

* **Reapers** - The Reapers themselves are those Space Marines who survive the Rite of Ha'kun Ch'am. Deemed to be already dead by their comrades, the Reapers are recorded as having been killed in action by the Blood Hand’s before they undergo Ha'kun Ch'am. Placed in stasis between battles, the Reapers are dead men walking, not quite dead yet no longer truly amongst the living. Wielding a pair of blades they hand crafted prior to Ha'kun Ch'am, the Reapers charged into battle with nothing left to lose and a glorious death to gain, seeking to die surrounded by enemy corpses and tasting blood one last time.

* **Chun'ka** - The final step in the hierarchy of the XVth are the *Chun'ka*, the council of advisers hand picked by the primarch to aid him in managing and guiding the legions. To be appointed to the Council is a rare and singular honour but not one to be taken lightly, for service on the council continues after death, as many of its members are interred in dreadnought chassis at K'awil's command (the only way a Grave Stalker will be interred) so that they can continue to serve from beyond the mortal plane. Truly, it is said that while a Reaper gives his life, a member of the Council gives his soul. However, appointment to this august body is not limited to those of high rank. Any Space Marine of the XVth may be elevated to the Council regardless of rank, all they have to have done is caught the primarch's eye in one manner or another. Yet the primarch's favour can be withdrawn as quickly as it is extended and in these cases, the Space Marine's body will be found broken and their armour rent in their chambers, their cause of death known to every Grave Stalker and a brutal reminder of who their father is and of who they are, for the Grave Stalkers are death's servants and when he tires of them, their lives cease to have any value.

### **War Disposition**

Icarion's treatment of the Legion before and after the Day of Revelation suggest that he intended to use them for the quelling of unrest on his borders. As such they would be expanded to a force capable of operating in several parts, and also capable of surviving engagements with whatever Loyalists might remain. It is debatable whether Icarion intended for this to be the Legion's last period of infamy while he used the good names of the Lightning Bearers, Halcyon Wardens and Godslayers to claim the moral high ground, or whether he was insincere in his promises to K'awil.

His beneficence would not be enough to alter the Grave Stalkers' status as the smallest Legion, but we can confidently estimate that they grew by at least a quarter between the Qarith Triumph and the Day of Revelation, putting them at 40,000 battle-brothers. This process ensured a steady increase in the Reapers, who seem to have numbered roughly 10,000 at Kataii, and whose concealed existence was to prove especially costly to the Iron Bears. Ever-resourceful and diligently assisted by the magos of Lasaris Prime, they recycled any failed aspirants into automata and combat servitors. To all intents and purposes, the Taghmata Lasaris were K'awil's armies as much as the Novadeka were Kozja Darzales'. These far outnumbered their masters, and claimed many VIth Legion lives as the fighting raged aboard the ships of both sides.

It seems that Lasaris Prime became a refuge for outcast cults and individuals within the Mechanicum, for the machines they fielded often deviated wildly from standard designs. Such things were whispered of before Kataii, but never proven until they were unleashed upon the Iron Bears. Pict-capture and personal testimony from the battle tells of insectile automata armed with a vicious and esoteric variety of weapons. These proved able to navigate the interior of voidships at prodigious speed, unleashing bloody violence on the defenders. The servitors crafted from would-be Legionaries were sanctified with particularly fine armour and their forms too were fiendishly inventive, their makers seeking to exploit whatever strength the implantation process had given them. In open battle the Grave Stalkers used such machines to compensate for their lack of manpower, or deployed them as a diversion from the Legionaries’ attacks.

Of note, but absent from the Kataii system, were the Knights bound to Lasaris, some of the most ill-treated of their kind but immensely potent regardless, and able to withstand proximity to the Grave Stalkers. It is theorised that their own mental trauma and the wrathful machine spirits of their mounts conspired to blot out any such discomfort when the pilot was ensconced. K'awil took pains not to compromise them in the conquest of Lasaris Prime, and was watchful for vulnerable Houses and scions who might be acquired for his Mechanicum allies. The XVth custom of haunting imagery and grisly decorations was applied to the Knights, and they would be used to terrify populations into submission after the Day of Revelation.

Jetbikes and grav-speeders were fielded in considerable force by the Grave Stalkers, as these favoured their tendency towards sudden ambushes. These were also notable as they represented a rare instance of the Grave Stalkers personally using their vehicles. Much of the Legion’s vehicular arsenal was operated by servitors; a Legionary was far too valuable to put to use in this manner, and mortal crews incapacitated at close quarters with multiple Grave Stalkers. By this stage, the only baseline mortals aboard the Legion’s own fleet were usually the Astropaths, Navigators and their servants, occupying sections of their ships where the Grave Stalkers rarely intruded.

After K'awil's rediscovery, small numbers of Solar Auxilia vessels were requisitioned to supplement his fleets, and later on Icarion worked to ensure that captured ships from human cultures often found their way into XVth Legion hands. It has been noted that a number of Forge Worlds gifted battle barges and cruisers to the Grave Stalkers, which went some way towards undoing their long-standing deficiencies in the void. While this effort again was limited in its success, it enabled the Grave Stalkers to enter the crucible with confidence and prosper in the bloody years that followed.

## **Notable Campaigns**

The Grave Stalkers' battle records, as far as they exist, tell of clandestine operations which could suddenly become a tide of slaughter, scattering enemy soldiers in terror. These were far more subtle than the caricature of hide and seek which often overshadows the truth of how they worked. The Grave Stalkers devised strategies which worked in effect as elaborate acts of psychological torture upon their foes. These became only more consummate once K'awil assumed command, yet some of their operations demonstrate his capacity to wage other kinds of war, and the dark ambition with which he steered his Legion.

### **The Harrowing of Lasaris Prime**

**The Dark Wonders
of Lasaris Prime**

Lasaris Prime's fabricators had pursued many esoteric technologies during their defiance of Mars, knowing that they would in time have to resist military efforts to bring them to heel. As a result the Grave Stalkers claimed exclusive access to several quite singular STC patterns when they overran the world. Oathed to equip a single, idiosyncratic Legion, Lasaris Prime’s forges would specialise further over the years, giving rise to wargear unlike that used by any other Legion.

Many of these were armour modifications, trialled using automata before they were applied to the Legion's own suits; successful test models of automata often found themselves integrated into the Taghmata that served with the XVth. Overwhelmingly these designs were geared towards making a Legionary more agile and his movements stealthier, whilst sacrificing protection to a degree that even the Dune Serpents balked at. The Wraith pattern that eventually resulted was completed with lenses formed from photo-reactive crystals, providing night vision that went beyond anything else available to the Space Marines. Accordingly it was handed to the most skilled infiltrators and assassins, bolstering their already remarkable potency.

Grav-plate technology was also heavily concentrated within the XVth. While not capable of the blistering speeds afforded by the celebrated "Land" plates recovered from beneath Mars, they proved much quieter. Tanks fitted with them were still considerably faster and more manoeuvrable than their tracked counterparts, and of course, it is far harder to track a vehicle which leaves no trace of its passage. It was because of this that the Grave Stalkers tolerated the volatile machine spirits that came with these plates. The designs were also replicated in smaller versions with the Legion’s squads of bikes and speeders.

The most prominent grav-vehicle fielded by the Grave Stalkers, however, was the Jocasta tank. While it boasted remarkable speed, its track record was patchy enough that even among the comparatively few grav-tanks in the Legions, the Jocasta was rare. The Grave Stalkers, however, seem to have favoured it over the Predator and even Sicaran tanks. As so often with this Legion, we are limited to conjecture, but battlefield reports and tests conducted on destroyed XVth Legion vehicles - not one was ever taken intact - it seems likely that the technology available on Lasaris gave it a reliability it lacked elsewhere. That may well have been enough for a Legion with such an idiosyncratic approach to warfare.

Lasaris Prime. The name is one writ large in the annals of the XVth legion. A maor forge world, Lasaris Prime was the first campaign in which the Grave Stalkers fought alongside their newly discovered primarch, K'awil Pakal. It was also the graveyard of nearly 1,000 of the old Terrans, veterans of decades experience, and thereby, the death of the old legion and the birth of the new.

The stage was set for the battle of Lasaris Prime with the discovery of K'awil Pakal and the adopting of Kabyieb as a homeworld by the grim XVth. However, while Kabyieb was a world of hardy and grim people, ideal recruits for the XVth, recruitment could not begin until the apothecaries of the XVth had the gene-seed to implant into their bodies. It was then that K'awil made the decision that would most heavily influence his legion in the years to come. He decreed that gene-seed could not be harvested from the dead, for that would expose it to the risk of impurities caused by the decomposition of the body and so further destabilise the Grave Stalker’s already dangerously unstable gene-seed. To reduce the risk of impurities, the primarch decreed that the gene-seed implanted into the new recruits must be harvested from the living, specifically from the pariahs of the legion, those who K'awil deemed his "purest" sons.

In order to select the first 1,000 to undergo this procedure, K'awil forced all of his pariah sons to partake in a lottery, each of them drawing a stone from a jar. If they drew a white stone, they would continue to serve. If they drew a black stone, then they would have their gene-seed removed and become dead men walking. Of the 2,000 pariahs of the XVth, 1,300 drew a black stone and were subjected to the apothecaries knives in what would later become a highly ritualised process. However, of these only around 1,000 survived, each aware that from now on he was neither truly living nor truly dead. He was simply another soul in death's waiting room.

It was these Astartes, already dying but not yet dead, who would be in the vanguard of the XVth's first battle alongside their primarch. Led by K'awil Pakal in person and with nothing left to lose, it was these Astartes who were the first to tear their way into realspace aboard their small, fast ships. Their target was Lasaris Prime's moon, turned into an enormous defence platform by the world's inhabitants. Their objective was to neutralise this defence platform and pave the way for the rest of their legion to assault the surface of Lasaris Prime. Arming themselves for what most assumed would be their final battle, the Grave Stalkers rushed into the jaws of their enemies fire, heedless of the danger. In this charge towards the moon, many Grave Stalkers vessels were destroyed, their shields overcome and their crew either blown out of existence or left to freeze or suffocate in the void. Through this, the Grave Stalkers lost nearly 200 Astartes before they had even engaged the enemy in combat.

However, while many Grave Stalkers were killed in the void, many more survived to reach the target and landed inside the defence platform. Dying, the Grave Stalkers charged into the ranks of their foes. However, no sooner had they begun to scythe down their foes than they vanished into the shadows of the defence platform, stalking through the shadows until they struck in some other place. However, as the days drew on and the Grave Stalkers grew weaker, their bodies gradually failing without their gene-seed, their attacks grew more savage and more frequent as the dying warriors of the XVth sought to die an honourable death in battle rather than gradually fading away to nothing.

The ultimate example of these suicidal assaults was the attack made by squad XV-12 on the generatorums which provided the power for the defence station's lascannons. Fighting their way through the guards, the Grave Stalkers planted their bombs on the generatorum. However, knowing that death was coming for them, they didn’t leave as their enemies expected. Instead, they held their positions, fighting off all enemy assaults until the explosives detonated, atomising both the warriors of the XVth and their foes.

Eventually, the Grave Stalkers annihilated all resistance aboard the defence platform. With the skies above Lasaris cleared, the remaining elements of the XVth, including the new recruits from Kabyieb (created using the gene-seed of the Grave Stalkers who had died on board the defence platform) were able to take positions above the world of Lasaris, prepared for to launch an assault on the world. However, such measures wouldn’t be needed. With their defence platform captured, the Lasarians surrendered.

Of the warriors who boarded the defence platform, barely a dozen had survived. However, there was little grief amongst the ranks of the XVth for these astartes had been dead to their brothers from the minute their gene-seed had been removed. Yet, in recognition of the enormous death dealt by the dying Astartes on the defence platform, they became known as the Reapers, spectres of death who would herald the end for their foes. Armoured in Wraith armour (a pattern unique to Lasaris Prime, whose blue prints have never been acquired by any other forge world or legion and are jealously guarded by Lasaris' tech-priests, even from their brethren of the Mechanicum), the Grave Stalkers had now truly earned their name.

### **The Doom of Craftworld Laia**

Of the dozens of campaigns prosecuted by the XVth legion, very few exemplify their favoured hit and run tactics as the destruction of Craftworld Laia. It also exemplifies the advantages afforded by the pariah gene, the very reason why the Emperor included it in the Grave Stalkers gene code. Yet it also showed the brutality which the XVth was capable of.

As the Grave Stalkers fought their way across the galaxy at the forefront of the Great Crusade, on many occasions they encountered Eldar of Craftworld Laia, often arriving in system just as the Eldar were departing, after having attacked the world in question for some unfathomable reasons. Eventually, K’awil Pakal decided to hunt down and destroy these xenos once and for all. So it was that over the world of Myro, the Grave Stalker laid a trap for the Eldar.

Sure enough, within a matter of days, the Eldar arrived in orbit over Myro, their Farseers unable to foresee what events would come to pass over the world (most likely due to the high concentration of pariahs). However, as the Eldar entered into orbit over Myro, the void around them suddenly lit up with vessels of the XVth legion.

The Primarch K’awil Pakal had studied the attacks made by Craftworld Laia and, where others would only see a random scattering of locations, K’awil saw a pattern emerge. Using this pattern, he had predicted, correctly, that the Eldar’s next target would be the world of Myro. So, he made an order to ambush the xenos, whose powers of foresight made such a thing impossible under normal circumstances. Positioning his fleet in orbit around Myro, the primarch then commanded that all ships be placed on stealth protocols, shutting down all but the most essential functions, making the ships impossible for scanners to detect, while the pariah’s on board each vessel made it impossible for a psyker to detect. For days, the Grave Stalkers had lain in wait and now, they were unleashed.

While Craftworld Laia was trapped by the vessels of the XVth, the Grave Stalkers still appeared outmatched and out-gunned. In a conventional void engagement, the Grave Stalkers would have been outmatched and most likely destroyed. However, a conventional void engagement was not what K’awil had planned. Instead, the vessels of the XVth would speed in to attack the Craftworld, fire several volleys and then fall back before the Craftworld had a chance to engage them properly. While each of these attacks did little damage to the Craftworld, over several hours the damage gradually wore down the Craftworld, gradually bleeding it dry and slowly killing it. However, as the Craftworld died, Farseer Uyad and his retinue fled the dying ship to the surface of Myro, only to be pursued by K’awil and his Reapers.

When they reached the surface, the hunt began. For three days, K’awil and his Reapers pursued Uyad through the swamps of Myro. However, on the night of the third day, Uyad and his retinue were caught by the Reapers and the Primarch of the XVth. All of Uyad’s retinue were slaughtered, as their people had been slaughtered in the heavens above Myro but not Uyad. He was captured and brought back into orbit by K’awil. Here, it’s rumoured the primarch sentenced the Farseer to undergo the blood eagle, an agonizing punishment where the victims rib cage and lungs are opened so that they resemble the folded wings of an eagle. Such is the fate of those enemies of the Imperium who fall into the hands of the Grave Stalkers.

### **The Conquest of Innos**

One of the most mysterious campaigns in the XVth ’s legion’s history is the conquest of Innos. However, if anything, this is the greatest praise that could be given to the XVth in regards to the Innos campaign, for their intention had never been to launch a campaign that was clearly visible and destructive in the way that many campaigns waged by the legions are. Instead, they had intended to invade the world of Innos and subdue it with as little bloodshed as possible, making sure that the world’s infrastructure remained intact.

The reason for this was that Innos was an important mining and industrial world, vital for supporting the Imperium’s offensive in the north east of the galaxy, which was being spearheaded by the Grave Stalkers and Berserkers of Uran. Without Innos' mining adamantium and drilling promethium, this offensive would quickly slow, possibly even grind to a halt, as the legions would run out of resources with which to wage war. So it was that when Innos rebelled, the Grave Stalkers objective was to recover the world with as little destruction of the world’s infrastructure as possible, re-taking it in nearly fully functioning order. However, they also needed to ensure that Innos would never again be defensible enough to even consider rebellion.

The first step that the XVth took in this campaign, was the neutralisation of the orbital stations above Innos. Little is known about how they did so, but we do know that the Innosian orbital stations were taken completely by surprise and were easily captured by the XVth, who then proceeded to destroy them by initiating the stations’ self destruct mechanisms. The common theory as to how they accomplished this is that they used a technique known as ”Ghost Ships”, where the vessels enter the warp and the de-activate all but the most vital systems, rendering them essentially lifeless on scanners. However, the calculations required to ensure that these ships will then exit the warp close enough to the planet to achieve maximum surprise are vastly complicated, impossible for any commander other than a primarch. It is thought that, using ghost ships, the Grave Stalkers entered into orbit above the world and were able to storm the orbital stations before they realised they had an enemy who was attacking them. Additionally, the silent, swift and stealthy nature of the attack meant that the people of Innos were unaware that an enemy had arrived in orbit above them and so, to them, it appeared as though their orbital stations had just vanished.

The next step in the Grave Stalkers campaign to re-take Innos was an assault on facilities like generatorums upon which the Innosi relied for their light amongst the cramped spaces of the Innos’ hives. These assaults were all done swiftly and silently, leaving no trace of who had attacked them save for piles of corpses that had once been the generatorum’s workers, whose body parts had been left scattered around the ruins of the generatorum, whose essential features had been destroyed. While the Innosi rapidly got to work repairing them, every work party sent to the generatorum’s was killed, their throats slit. Finally, after several such work parties were killed in this way, the Innosi ceased trying to repair the generatorum’s and simply left the hives shrouded in darkness save for what little light could be scavenged through glow globes.

With the hives now in permanent darkness, the third stage of the Grave Stalkers strategy was put into action. They began a ruthless campaign of terror across the world, leaving the bodies of lower hivers flayed and crucified outside of their homes and hanging high hivers from their tower’s by their own entrails. Sometimes, they even inflicted the blood eagle upon the nobles of Innos, so that they were found alive with their lungs spread out across their back, still desperately trying to take in oxygen, and they had to be mercy killed. It was in this stage that the Innosi finally understood that there was a foreign invader amongst them, slaughtering them in the hive’s perpetual night. While at first they placed faith in their armed forces who began to patrol the streets, when these platoons were found impaled on pieces of plasteel gantry, the Innosi ceased to exit their homes but even there, they were killed. It seemed nobody was safe from these daemons.
It was now, with paranoia and fear reaching fever pitch amongst the Innosi that K’awil Pakal appeared before the governor of Innos, offering to cease his astartes’ campaign of terror if the governor would only surrender, which he willingly did. However, when he did, K’awil stated that he was now subject to Imperial justice. The governor was found crucified on one of the highest spires of the hive. K’awil Pakal then declared the re-instatement of Imperial justice and protection on the world. Innos rapidly became one of the most productive worlds in the Imperium.

### **The Qarith War**

A small force of Grave Stalkers under Ajaway entered the Qarith War at its midpoint, focusing their energies on ambushes and stealth operations which bled the strength of several Qarith fleets and weakened them for the larger battles of the campaign. However the Grave Stalkers were largely overlooked in the celebrations which followed, deepening their bitterness still more.

## Notable Grave Stalkers

* **K'awil Pakal** - Known as 'The Soulless' amongst his fellow Primarchs, K'awil was the gene-sire and senior commander of the Grave Stalkers Legion. Hardened by a life of persecution, K'awil was already taciturn and insular when he was discovered. Meeting his brother Primarchs did little to improve his opinions on humanity, for they showed all of the myriad personalities of the people he had known on Kabyieb. It was only amongst his sons that K'awil found any respite, for they knew as he that humans would always commit the worst offence against their own. Under his influence, the XVth Legion began to exhibit greater strength and numbers of Pariahs. Whilst this allowed the XVth to operate more independently, it also led to them becoming further separated from their brother Legions and from the goals of the Great Crusade. It has been theorised that the Pariah gene may have been the cause of the downfall of the XVth, which, given the times that followed, is perhaps one of the greatest of tragedies.
* **Ajaway** - Foremost of the K'uhuls who commanded under the Primarch, Ajaway also held the darkest legend as the master of the elite Wraiths. He would also become notorious for the control he exerted over the Reapers, as these abominations were unveiled to the Galaxy.
* **Vukaba** - A seasoned K'uhul when the Insurrection began, Vukaba was not present at Kataii; instead he was ordered to the Madrigal Sphere with the intention of conducting subjugation campaigns against the expected new order. As the situation became clear, he was reassigned to Susanoo Empyon's fleet for the Battle of Ysta.
* **Tzirakan** - K'uhul Tzirakan assumed his rank in the wake of K'awil's Lot, his predecessor drawing a black stone and thus consigning himself to a Reaper’s fate. Nonetheless Tzirakan would prove a capable commander. Playing a significant role in the Legion's attack on Lasaris, he demonstrated a keen understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of various Mechanicum units. This foreshadowed the skill with which he would later command them, notably on Alkibium against the Qarith.
* **Ancient Manick'chu'ul** - Known as the 'Eldest' and 'The Entombed Councillor', Manick'chu'ul was amongst the most ancient of revenants that served upon the Council of *Chun'ka*, managing to maintain the favour of the Primarch far longer than any oter in living memory. Entombed within the shell of a Dreadnought, Manick'chu'ul continued to serve his gene-sire long after his mortal wounding. Serving as his Primarch's Equerry, the Eldest rarely spoke when the Council was in session, but when he did, even K'awil heeded his wise words.
* **Xtaabay** - Xtaabay was a deadly operative of the Grave Stalkers Legion, counted as one of the most formidable snipers and superbly skilled assassins amongst the Legiones Astartes. Even before the Insurrection, rumour abounded of Xtaabay's deadly skill-at-arms and fieldcraft. Some whispered that he even rivaled the deadly marksmen of Clade Vindicare in his ability to insinuate himself deep behind enemy lines and deliver the killing shot, taking out high-ranking commanders and rebellious planetary governors. His legend was such, that much of his exploits and kill-counts couldn't be definitively verified until well after the Insurrection was over.

## **Legion Fleet**

### **Blades of the Dark**

As with many aspects of the XVth's organization, it's fleet is not organized along standard legion lines, a situation forced on them by their isolation and their small numbers that they have adapted and turned into an advantage instead of a flaw. Consisting mainly of light cruisers and frigates, the Grave Stalkers fleet is highly unsuited to standard void warfare, lacking the endurance to engage their enemies in a protracted struggle. Instead, the XVth's fleet has often been likened to a dagger, ready to be driven into an artery or vein, as opposed to the broad sword of other legions’ fleets.

The reason for this lack of heavier class ships is two fold. The first is that the Grave Stalkers limited numbers mean that such ships would be undermanned and easy to board. The second is due to the Grave Stalkers bad relations with Mars. Without access to shipyards large enough to produce or repair such large vessels, they quickly fell out of favour within the XVth. Instead, they used a large number of smaller vessels and the tech priests of Lasaris modified these to have far greater firepower than ships of a similar size in other legions. While this made the ships unstable, it also made them ideal for striking and then fading away into the black depths of space once they had struck. Because of this, despite its small size, the XVth’s fleet struck well above its weight and was often used to gather intelligence prior to a military campaign or to harass the enemy before battle.

### **Notable Vessels**

* **The *Dark Sovereign***
* **The *Blood Will Tell*** - this dreaded ship lay under the command of K'uhul Vukaba

## **Gallery**

Grave Stalkers Legion iconographyGrave Stalkers Legion colour scheme