The Timeline of Knights Vigilant

**ORIGNS** c. M32: The first recorded instance of Knights Syndicate activity in the Galaxy. The chapter is presumably a successor of Robute Guilliman’s Legion and are categorised as a penitent chapter in service to the High Lords of Terra.

**HISTORY** M32 – M39: The Knights Syndicate serve with honour in the Imperium and swell with recruits from multiple chapters. During this time, company culture becomes more individual, and the overall structure of the Knights becomes nearly unrecognisable from a traditional chapter. At some point, Impartiallus Crabbus is elevated to the office of Grand Marshal.

**SCHISM OF KNIGHTS** M39: A schism takes place within the Knights Syndicate chapter, and as a result are reorganised into the Knights Vigilant. Their culture and heraldry is much changed after this event.

**WAAAGH OGLUG** 654.M40: The 3rd Company engage the Orks in defence of a stranded Astra Militarum regiment.

**DEFENCE OF GRAUIS** 998.M41: The 5th Company are relegated to the defence of Grauis II, where they encounter an unknown warband of Chaos.

**DEVASTATION OF THE 4TH** 999.M41: Many years after the schism, 4th Company reels from the losses of their shadow war with their erstwhile Marshal. In their final conflict, 8th Company intervenes, attempting to apprehend the traitor, but in doing so disrupt the operations of the 4th, allowing the traitor to escape.

**PURIFICATION MASSACRE** 022.M42: The First Marshal of the Chapter at the time, Pudis Vardzkan, incensed by the perceived corruption on a world conquered by the 7th Company, attacks it and destroys it utterly. The move angers the 7th Marshal. Grand Marshal Crabbus and Vardzkan would engage in a duel over this incident, which lasted over forty hours. The details were never unveiled, but Vardzkan was not censured for his actions.

**VANISHING** 023.M42: Serbaniou Eduard, the Hero of 1st company, reports to 4th Company that nearly half the remaining battle brothers, alongside the captain and marshal have vanished. The remaining members of 4th company are left panicked and confused, fearing their leaderless state would disband them, but Grand Marshal Crabbus himself eases their fears, electing a new marshal, Arkerond, who would go on to reforge 4th company into the mightiest it had been in over seven hundred years. The details of the disappearance are never revealed to the company, and it is rumoured that only Arkerond, Crabbus and Serbaniou are privy to this dangerous information.

**GREAT HUNT** 024.M42: 4th Company engages in their annual Hunt of the Shadows, where the astartes of the 4th Company are bid steal themselves from sight, and hunted relentlessly by the psychic pursuers of the weaver ranks. 6th Marshal Sergey is invited to partake in the simulation as a fugitive, and is pursued by none other than the 4th Company Captain Burna himself. Upon discovering this, and knowing that conventional stealth tactics will never overcome the psychic scrutiny of 4th Company command, Sergey opts for an unconventional strategy, boarding the Verum Imperatorem, the famed strike cruiser of 4th Company, where he is able to procure the gear of a Blade, the hunter designation of the company. With their agreed time allocation running short, Burna and his men desperately follow clues leading to Sergey, hiding behind their own front doors. Having found and traced the missing armour, Burna confronts the wearer at knife-point, only for Sergey to reveal his face after the expiration of the timer. The two, mutually impressed by the skills of the other, agree to host the Hunt of Shadows together in future.

**ASHES OF VICTORY** 025.M42: The 3rd Company was embroiled in a war against renegades, Tyranids and Orks on Urao IV. The 3rd engaged and destroyed the Renegades and Tyranids with minimal losses. However a sudden Ork attack threw the Company off guard and forced them on the defensive. Despite fierce fighting, the Orks slowly drove the 3rd back to their base. The 3rd would’ve been wiped out had it not been for the timely intervention of an allied Reaver Titan which broke the Greenskins and allowed the 3rd Company to strike back. Alas, this was a pyrrhic victory as the 3rd Company sustained 84 per cent casualties; 253 out of 300, with only 47 survivors. As a result, the 3rd Company has been forced to retire from active duty until they return to full Company size.

**CHAKAT CRUSADE** 030.M42: In a zealous drive to recruit new battle brothers, the 3rd Company fight along the Wolves of Retribution and the Mordekaisers against a mysterious xenos race known as as the Chakat. This conflict was eventually resolved in Exterminatus.

**SUCCESSION** 044.M42: Grand Marshal Crabbus is murdered by Pudis Vardzkan, who succeeds him as Grand Marshal. His relationship with the High Lords, as well of the other members of the Chapter becomes increasingly strained. To offset this, over the following decades, the Knights Vigilant are plunged into a series of brutal and pyrrhic conflicts, which bleed them dry.

**FALSE RESPONSE** 045.M42: The 1st company, call for the aid of the nearby 5th Company fleet, only for the call to be answered by Drukhari raiders bearing mock-heraldry of the 5th. First Lieutenant [REDACTED] is able to array his enemies against each other, achieving an impossible victory.

**YEAR OF THE CRUCIBLE** 049.M42: A handful of marines of the veteran First Company confront their Marshal, Serbanoiu Eduard aboard their strike cruiser, Contempt of Steel. The events of the confrontation are left undisclosed, but saw the death of one of the marines, and the severe beating and demotion of the other. For the next five months, the entire company is subjected to a torturous training regimen including regular beatings, live fire combat training against the most elite unit in the company, the Carnificibus Squad and repeated lengthy engagements with Aeldari forces operating nearby. By the end of the year, the Company is reforged in blood and the survivors earn the moniker "Warmachines of Contempt."

**DISCOVERY OF KORDAR** 091.M42: The Discovery of Kordar by the Imperial Expedition Fleets of late marked the first time the planet would meet the Imperium, and thus civil war would erupt in 93.M42 over the new rulers and leaders of old. However, during this war, the then Corporal Ekaterina Tullaris would prove her worth as a warrior of the Imperium in leading a mass uprising in a prison camp of the Separatists. It would be after this civil war, in 96.M42, that she would be integrated into Knights Vigilant 2nd Company, rising to the rank of Colonel and leading the 2nd Imperial Guard Auxiliary of 2nd Company.

**RISE OF ARCUM** 115-117M.42: Magos Domina Arcum, a mysterious Techpriest, joins her fleet with that of the Knights Vigilant. Many have forgotten when or why Arcum was accepted into Knights Vigilant, but it is recorded that her Mechanicus Cruiser 'Gate Dragon' emerged from a Webway rift in Krieg orbit with severe damage and trauma to the hull. This was only the second time it's existence was ever recorded on Imperial Records, the first being its construction on Metallica. The Knights Vigilant Chapter's 7th Company were summoned to deal with the presumed threat of the unknown upon the mysterious vessel. The records end there. However, it is heavily speculated that Arcum was among if not the leader of the surviving Techpriests upon the vessel.

**INDUCTION** 116.M42: The Sisters of Battle order known as the First of Azzarah are drafted into the Knights Vigilant after their exemplary service alongside the 6th Company.

**RED WAVE OF OMECUS III** 121.M42: A warp storm erupts in Ulitma Segmentum, disgorging a chaos fleet with power enough to conquer the local sub-sector. A distress signal from the now besieged Demeter Sector is intercepted by 1st Company, who race to the system to act as a vanguard for the rest of the chapter. Upon arrival, however, the Marshal of First Company, Serbanoiu Eduard, realises that any further delay would spell doom for the defenders. The veterans engage the heretics, now identified as Red Corsairs within the planet's principal Hive City, pushing the aggressors back and allowing the PDF to fortify the entry points. Following this critical engagement, the invasion force is left leaderless, and soon diminishes to isolated holdouts across the planet's surface, vulnerable against the reinvigorated defenders. Despite the victory, neither the Chaos Lord nor his body is found amongst the dead, leading to concerns of a second invasion.

**OVERTHROW** 123.M42: The brutal reign of Pudis Vardzkan is finally brought to an abrupt end, when Anthonius of the 8th Company assassinates him, succeeding him as the Grand Marshal of the Knights Vigilant. At this time, the 3rd Company is ceded to the Inquisition, and its new commander, Royalus Gratus, begins his plots in earnest.

**PREPARATIONS** 127.M42: In an effort to combat the Tau forces on Ravilsa, Magos Domina Venos Arcum brings all her resources under her command to finish her terrifying Project 'Dogmatis Engine' before the Tau forces can plunder the arcane technology from under Imperial soil.

**METALLICA INCIDENT** 128.M42: Crabbus II from the Obsidian Squad investigates a distress call from forgeworld Metallica. It is however, simulcast across the Eastern Fringes of the galaxy, where Magos Domina Venos Arcum enacts a campaign of intense violence against Aedlari Corsairs interfering with her efforts to quarantine the rising Tau threat in the region. Begrudgingly, Arcum relents and travels on a cutter of her own design to Metallica. The two convene, meeting for the first time, and eventually agree to accompany one another once planetside, where they are tasked with traversing the labyrinthine under-passages of the forge world to deactivate several Death Guard automated drillers, set to release chemical weapons into the underbelly of the forgeworld. Much schemata is salvaged, along with several data cores and logicae engines. Crabbus insists that the contents be returned to the Shattering Sun at once, but is called away by his Marshal, with orders to rendezvous with the rest of Obsidian Squad in Segmentum Solar. Entrusting the salvaged materials to Arcum, who swears to return them in his stead, Crabbus embarks on his cutter. Though parting on amicable terms, there is an unspoken air of uneasiness to their alliance. Later, Arcum takes the artefacts to the Gate Dragon for analysis, denying Crabbus' request.

**BATTLE OF THE SHATTERING SUN** 131.M42: The Star Fortress of the Knights Vigilant, the Shattering Sun, is engaged in a deadly campaign of void warfare against a large Ork force. Left unabated, the myriad vessels of the unidentified fleet threaten to breach Segmentum Solar. Despite the immense power afforded by the Shattering Sun and its accompanying vessels, the Imperials are soon overwhelmed. Grand Marshal Anthonius orders a daring manoeuvre to eliminate the Ork capital ship. The gambit is a success, and the Orks are driven off, but teleport swarms of Tyranids aboard the Star Fortress in hopes of covering their retreat. Unprepared for the cunning tactic, the crew of adeptus astartes and their human auxiliaries are caught flat footed, prompting many sectors of the spacefaring monolith to retreat to fortified cordons. It is not long before the swarm breaches the gardens preceding the Chambers of the Marshals along one of the tallest spires on the fortress. Anthonius gathers his most veteran marines, First Marshal Serbanoiu Eduard and his Captain, Gregorius Kran to lead the charge to push back the tide of monsters. Despite the deftly coordinated counterattacks, the Star Fortress takes three days to clear and is badly damaged. Several sectors are bereft of power or capable serfs, and many vital passageways around the vessel are collapsed. Able to make a single warp translation, the Shattering Sun travels to the Sol system, the first time it has returned there since the time of Grand Marshal Crabbus. Vulnerable, the Shattering Sun limps towards Mars, enlisting repair and reconstruction crews from the Adeptus Mechanicus. Most disconcertingly, one of the clean-up operations unearths the corpse of an Aeldari seer that had been crushed by a collapsed archway. Anthonius, now concerned that he had been goaded into a trap, recalls several veteran operatives from their respective theaters of war, intent on setting them on the trail of the xenos and discovering their purpose.

**DOGMATIS ENGINE TRIAL RUN** 132.M42: Arcum and Crabbus convene on the Gate Dragon and the artefacts Arcum took are recovered, however Arcum eludes to a special weapons program conducted by her own authority, and asks Crabbus to take part as an assistant in testing the weaponry she foretells will destroy the Tau rebel forces in the Raliss System. He reluctantly agrees. The pair attempt to pilot the powerful Dogmatis Engine Titan Arcum had constructed only for it to end in horrific disaster. Crabbus was afflicted with a terrible ailment unknown to Arcum while the mind-link was active, and thus is rendered comatose and incapacitated, Arcum rushes him to the Shattering Sun on the Gate Dragon's life support systems. She is put before the first Marshal Court in the history of Knights Vigilant and is found guilty of the incapacitation of Lord Crabbus, her punishment being restriction of her work.

**SEARCH FOR THE FLAW** 133.M42: The Marshals are sent on different missions by the Grand Marshal and the 1st Marshal. One such mission was undertaken by Marshal Pig Bimpin of the 2nd. Due to his blood being that of Dorn, the same as Crabbus, he was sent to Terra, the very home of the Imperial Fists who would undoubtedly know best of his affliction. With the help of the Grand Lorekeeper Archimedes, he found their Successor Chapters. It was only with the help of one of the Fists that they were pinpoint to a mysterious chapter that had their names scrubbed from record. Their struggles would at last, after weeks of constantly going through old pages, find success as a book known as the "Exorcism of Dreams" delivered them a form of remedy as well as confirming the illness was a form of geneflaw incredibly rare in the Dorn Geneseed. Intense, unending pain for months with chants and litanies sung in the background to ward off the fiends of the warp when the mind is weak.

**AELDARI HUNT** 134.M42: The 6th company vessel Reverence of Victory, the 1st Company vessel Contempt of Steel and the Mechanicus cruiser Gate Dragon rendezvous within the Segmentum Pacificus where the attack of the Orks, Tyranids and possibly Eldar occurred. Upon the two Astartes vessels are the 1st Marshal Serbaniou, 6th Marshal Umbra, 6th Lorekeeper Sarathiel, 6th Lieutenant Lenin and 1st Brother Captain Medicae Gregorius forming a command squad for the duration of the expedition. Grand Lorekeeper Archimedes of the 1st Company was also called upon to act as an ambassadorial instrument between Knights Vigilant and the Techpriesthood of Stygies VIII, standing aboard the Contempt of Steel. With the 6th Marshal aboard the Reverence of Victory is the 2nd Auxiliary Commander Tullaris and a sizeable number of her elite stealth-troopers. Accidentally, or perhaps intentionally, Arcum mentions her knowledge of a Webway Gate upon the nearby moon of Vulcanis III in the Stygian System. A place she is evidently reluctant to return to for mysterious reasons, as she has refused to speak any more of the system and has locked herself within the expanses of her personal quarters unless she is required for an emergency. With the second trial run of the Dogmatis Engine being a complete success, the stage is set for Knights Vigilant to begin the hunt. However the jump to Vulcanis III ended in disaster, when the Reverence of Victory managed to translate into realspace, the Gate Dragon and the Dogmatis Engine were left behind. Fragmented astropathic messages were received by the Reverence of Victory notifying the Gate Dragon's Navigator had experienced serious health complications but the message was suddenly cut short. Now, with Arcum, her Dogmatis Engine and her crew suspected trapped and likely soon to be destroyed, the Reverence of Victory is left in orbit of Vulcanis III to re-evaluate its options.

**GREAT MUTILATION** 140.M42: When Royalus Gratus took power, he turned the 3rd Company into an element of the Inquisition, specifically, an element of the Ordo Hereticus. Though this did not raise any alarms initially, some among the Lords of the Fifth Company, particularly Kiridus Dionysios and Impartialus Crabbus, were suspicious of this new Marshal. As more and more power was given to the Astartes of 3rd and its warriors showed gross insubordination towards the word of the Grand Marshal and Chapter, it became clear to the Lords that action had to be taken swiftly and mercilessly. The 3rd Company attempted to forcibly take control of the Chapter, eradicating all those who would oppose the, quote, "destiny the Inquisition had written for them." During the fighting, Kiridus was injured beyond repair by a Melta bomb. Eventually, the traitorous Marshal is struck down with a decisive blow from Anthonius' hammer, bringing an end to the conflict. Though the 3rd Company strike in full, they do little damage to the Chapter as their rebellion is quickly suppressed and defeated. Now, their ship lies a wreck, shot apart at the maddened orders of the dying 3rd Lord, and returns to Terra for repairs.

**AID TO BARILA II** 143.M42: The Contempt of Steel exits the Warp with a dead navigator several sectors away from their destination into sub-sector Barila which is caught in the flames of civil war with cults and besieged by raiders left unchecked by the sector's navy. 1st company answers the calls of aid of Archduke Clement Ferzoan, acting ruler of Barila II, capital Hive World in the system besieged by a giant Ork horde seeking to destroy the Imperial Knight household of Hiperion. The company drops into the battlefield but they arrive too late as only one Imperial Knight is left standing, the battle hardened veteran Christoff Benjamin. With the united force of the Archdukes forces, 1st company and the Imperial Knight the Orks are slaughtered and left leaderless after a daring charge spearheaded by Christoff. In the aftermath the Knight swears an oath of loyalty to the Marshal of 1st company to take his vengeance upon the Ork filth plaguing the Imperium and the Archduke gifts the company a navigator and repairs for their aid allowing them to leave the world and return on their course.

**SIEGE OF MERIUM** 189.M42: A small vessel arrives within the Sol system, heavily damaged from warp travel and with few supplies and is successful in transmitting the news. The Grand Marshal Anthonius, 3rd Marshal Taris, 7th Marshal Skywalker and their respective forces are ordered by the High Lord's to reinforce the 1st company. In a month's time the chapter's forces arrived with a large imperial guard force to land on the planet. After a brutal landing spearheaded by the Grand Marshal the garrison, led by the 1st Company Captain Gregorius and Tullaris, charge out and begin to grind away at the tyranids. Victory seemed assured as the Tyranid numbers began to thin out thanks to the efforts of the 1st Marshal in the void gaining superiority and bombarding large clusters of enemies and the ground forces, however the xenos wouldn't give up easily. As a terrible blizzard began to hit the main frontline a Lictor Alpha ambushed the Grand Marshal and Grego, leading to wounding Anthonius terribly. At that moment the morale of the imperial forces plummeted and the lines began to crumble, especially more so since air or orbital support wasn't available due to the weather. Skywalker took charge of the forces as Grego extracted the Grand Marshal away for emergency treatment and reformed the line and pushed hard, ultimately exterminating the Tyranids. The victory was bitter as the Grand Marshal was placed inside a dreadnought and several battle brothers died. The High Lord's order the 1st Company Marshal Serbanoiu to become the new Grand Marshal, who in turn ordered Skywalker, who greatly impressed him with his actions, to become the 1st Company Marshal despite the fact that Gregorius was the Captain.