Sons of the Morningstar

### **Observed Strategic Tendencies**

Deepstrike Assaults, Combined arms Warfare, Blitzkrieg Stratagems and Shock Tactics.

### **Battle cry**

"The Light of the Morninstar guide us!"
"We are the swords of the Dawn!"

### **Allegiance**

Imperium of Man
(Fedelitas Tenebrae)

The XVII Legion, which came to be known as the **Sons of the Morningstar**, was one of the original 20 Space Marine Legions created by the Emperor of Mankind to secure the glorious destiny of mankind. The primarch of the XVII Legion is Lucius Aurelius, a brilliant strategist even by Primarch standards. Lucius's appearance is striking, as he nearly matches the appearance of his father, the Emperor of Mankind, with the only distinctions being his pale snow white complexion and golden eyes.

## Legion History

### Founding

Like every other Legion the Sons of the Morningstar originated on Terra, not seeing much combat except fighting alongside a few of their gene-cousins, the Sons of the Morningstar saw their time to shine in the Conquest of Sol first utilizing their shock tactics to it's truest and adopting such as their modicum, defeating their assigned enemies with ruthless and quick efficiency.

### The Great Crusade

The Sons of the Morningstar had stayed very standardized throughout the Great Crusade with the only differences being their unique take on shock-and-awe tactics and their heavy usage of deep strike. The standard strategy of the Legion before their Primarch could have any influence on them was the simple hammer and anvil tactic, though this was simple for Astartes not so much so for standard humans. Upon reunification with his Legion Lucius Aurelius redefined their very being introduced a complex system of command perfectly balancing the efficiency of squad and platoon tactics with large army stratagems. Lucius revolutionized the Legion's old strategies and tactics adding new takes on them, this increased the efficiency of the legion's Shock and Awe tactics far more and even revolutionized their deep strike strategies.

#### Disposition

The Sons of the Morningstar are a very Elite group of Astartes, preferring to be a small Legion to keep a grip on how skilled those that get into their Legion are, the Legion has incredibly harsh entrance tests surpassing the deadliness of that of other legions. The Legion overall prefers to follow the stoic philosophy and take everything in stride prefering to handle things calmly with ruthless efficiency though this does not stop the Legion from conducting diplomacy preferring a world to submit through diplomatic means every time over that of other means.

## Legion Organisation

The Legion consisted of 80,000 Astartes led by the Primarch and his second in Command known as the Dominus Praefectus the Legion was then arranged into 8 Sub-Legions each consisting of 10,000 men each led by a Legate making up Lucius's top Command staff, afterwards each division was arranged in a total of 10 Tagmatas each consisting of 1,000 men led by a Praefect, Chorots were half a Tagmata led by a Primus-Pilus and had 5 Centuries consisting of 100 men each, they were lead by a Centurion, finally a Century was broken into 3 Octo each led by a Optio 2 consisting of 40 men being battle Octo and 1 consisting of 20 men being a support Octo after that Octo were split into Decums 10 men each led by a Decanus and Quinque 5 men each led by a Quinctus. On top of this Battalions and above also consisted of Staff officers who would advice and handle the logistics of the man leading a formation. Centuriess also have an array of Techmarines, Apothecaries, and Librarians usually only one Apothecary and Techmarine per Octo and one Librarian per Century. The Primarch's Honourguard are known as the Dawnbreakers a very elite Century of Terminator Marines.

## Legion Gene-Seed

The Legion's appearance is beautiful by the standards of humans and even astartes taking after their Primarch both in his flaws and more so in his strengths, the closer genetic connection causes the Legionaries to be taller, stronger and more intelligent than their gene-cousins.

### Primarch's Curse: Malevolent Mind

Sadly the XVII Legion suffers from a flaw known as the 'Malevolent Mind' that corrupts Legionaries over time turning them into dangerous and sadistic psychopaths. This flaw could potentially lead to the destruction of the legion if found out.

## Trivia

This article is authored by Primarch Lucius Aurelius and transcribed here, for your view pleasure, by Algrim Whitefang.