Lightkeepers' Vault

## Lightkeepers

Lightkeepers armorial with Chapter iconography.

Lightkeepers Battle-Brother.

The Lightkeepers are a Space Marine Chapter that specialises in retrieving long-lost knowledge and artifacts. They also produced and were offered many master-crafted weapons, armours and vehicules. Thus, they accumulated a long list of relics through their 7.500 years of activity.

Most of these are stached in the Chapter Armoury, deep inside the **Pharos**. This is the Chapter's Fortress-Monastery, a kilometres-high spire overlooking the tallest hive-city of the Chapter homeworld Lighthouse.

While the Lightkeepers' Armoury may seem a bit more extensive than most Chapters, due to their tendency to collect more artifacts, it looks like any other Astartes Armoury to outsiders. But under the glistering halls of the Pharos lies a secret complex where unspeakable horrors are locked down, called "the Dark Vault".

## Weapons

* ***Burning Truth*** - The most precious relic of the Chapter. A flaming master-crafted power-sword, whose hilt evokes a torch. On one face of its blade can be read "VERITAS", which means "truth" in High-Gothic. The other face presents a text of several paragraphs in a long-forgotten language. The other This terrific weapon can only be wielded by the Chapter Master of the Lightkeepers. It inspires hope in the heart of the rightous, and brings a scorching death to the foes of Humanity.

* ***Abyssal Pistol*** - A special grav-pistol designed after the Horus Heresy to kill Chaos Space Marines. Some witnesses saw this so-called mere pistol crush Chaos Terminators in one shot. The legend says that when someone is hit by this pistol, they can suddenly feel the weight of ten cubic kilometers of water upon them.

* ***Bass Axe*** - A two-handed master-crafted power axe shaped like a music instrument. Each side of its main body is honed in a devastating blade. This weapon has been crafted by the Order of the Ceramite Symphony. The battle-sisters offered it to the Lightkeepers as a token of friendship between the two factions.

* **Blazing Spirit** - A unique crozium arcanum, wielded only by the chaplain of the 1st company. Its striking end is shaped as a spiked skull. When activated, flames engulf the skull.

* ***Bloodied Fist*** - A once white power fist so covered by blood it now appears completely red. It gained its legendary status when Sergeant of the Lightkeepers used it during an insurrection in the Ereb-Assou sector. The Sergeant and his squad one day got caught in a trap and found themselves encircled by thousands of traitors, with no option to leave the place nor be reinforced. The Astartes fought valiantly for days, relying on their melee weapons when their ammo ran out. But the weight of enemies submerged them, and they fell one by one. When help finally came, everything was over. The rescue team found the bodies of their brothers one after the other, each surrounded by hundreds of dead traitors. They discovered the Sergeant last, at the top of a pile of carcasses and covered by fallen enemies. Only his power fist emerged from the macabre pile, still pointed to the sky as a sign of defiance. The Techmarines of the Chapter decided not to clean the blood covering the whole weapon, as a reminder of this tragic event.

* ***Club of Chastity*** - The heretic's bane, especially those who worship Slaanesh. Four mysterious characters can be read around its shaft, just under the striking head: "B-O-N-K". No one has been able to decypher their meaning yet.

* ***Emperor's Will*** - A master-crafted golden boltgun. It is said that this weapon strenghten the link between the wielder and the Emperor Himself.

* ***Escalibor*** - The best one-handed power sword the Lightkeepers ever owned. It inflicts wounds larger than the blade itself. Its damages are comparable to that of the best relic blades in the Imperium. This weapon is only wielded by the Chapter Champion.

* ***Executioner*** - A one-of-a-kind bolt pistol of large calibre. When wielding it, an Astartes can feel himself becoming judge, jury and executioner. This pistol has taken the lives of many important characters blinded by their hubris.

* ***Galbasverd*** - A unique relic blade shaped as a flamberge greatsword. When its energy field is activated, lightning bolts emerge form the blade. Each time this sword hits a solid object, it emits a deafening thunder-like boom, scarring the enemies around.

* ***Glorious*** - A master-crafted thunder hammer to fight mega-battles every day.

* ***Hephaistos*** - A special thunder hammer used by Lightkeeper techmarines in battle as well as within the Chapter's Armoury. This weapon is said to have slain at least one hundred of each kind of Lightkeepers' foes: rebels, Orks, daemons, traitor space marines, Aeldari, and more recently Tyranids, Necrons and T'au. With these essences infused in it, the hammer can help to forge better wargear against those enemies.

* ***Honor of Crucible*** - An exceptionnal Omnissian power axe, crafter by the techno-priests of the forge world Crucible. They later offered this precious relic to the Lightkeepers, as a thank for saving the planet.

* ***Mordant*** - A Thunder Edge Pattern Chainsword, which is an ancient pattern Chainsword utilised by the warriors of the Legiones Astartes during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras. This pattern of Chainsword's origins may lie even further back in History, and was most likely utilised by the Thunder Warriors during the Wars of Unification on Terra. This particuliar example whispers echos of massacres perpetrated by its ancient wielders.

* ***Phantom Blade*** - An ancient sword able to slice any known material. In the hands of a well-trained Astartes, an attack with perfect edge alinement always results in a clean, rectiline cut, perfect at the molecular level. It is not yet understood how this weapons works. As the world on which the weapon have been found latter proved to be a Necron Tomb world, the main hypothesis is that a masterful smith on that planet managed to hybridize human and Necron technology to forge this marvelous weapon. If this is true, there would be no trace however to indicate if that person knew what he or she was doing.

* ***Rising Fury*** - A unique Bolt Pistol said to have been fabricated by the Blood Raven's master artificer Isaak Jordanos who engraved prayers of rage and zeal along its barrel. This relic has been recently stealed by a Lightkeepers squad from the very armourium of the Blood Ravens, during an infiltration training. Before leaving, the perpetrators replaced the real relic by a faux with an small inscription claiming the robbery. To this day, the owners do not have noticed the trickery. Until the Blood Ravens claim back the pistol, the Lightkeepers secure it in their own armourium with the explicite interdiction to use it. The thiefs also placed a counting device beside the relic, incrementing by one each passing day.

* ***Spear of Rusting Blood*** - A warp-infused spear. It appears as a square rod of rusted iron, twisted many times along its long axis, with a viciously sharp point at one end. Even in the hands of a space marine, far more massive than a mortal human, the Spear looks big. It is way heavier than a regular iron rod. It instantly absorbs all the blood of anyone it wounds, which activates its full power. When it is fed, it looks like dark iron covered in blood. Not a single red drop falls from it, as if the Spear wants to keep for itself all the life it just took. This weapon have been instrumentale in three consecutive banishments of Ghalan'Kzar, a bloodthirster impervious to any other form of damage.

* ***Suns of Gawain*** - Three devices that can replace the normal handle of a power or force weapon. They contain an auxiliary energy field projector and a battery, making each strike even more devastating. The pommel at the extremity of each handle is shaped like a sun, in honour of the three main solar systems of the Gawain sub-sector, Lighthouse, Crucible and Gallica. These relics where masterfully crafted at the end of the Age of Strife, when the three faction wanted to celebrate their alliance.

* ***Sunwrath Pistol*** - Belisarius Cawl gifted a score of these Plasma Pistols to Roboute Guilliman at the start of the Indomitus Crusade, who in turn bequeathed them to warriors who displayed particular valour in the face of the enemy. So he bestowed one of such weapons to the Lightkeepers. Constructed with superior venting coils and with an inner barrel of a mysterious heat-conducting crystal, these plasma pistols can be fired repeatedly without overheating.

* ***Talon of the Falcon*** - A unique lightning claw with only one double-edge blade.

* ***Velvet Glove*** - A power fist of ancient design. This one can be adapted to either regular power armour or terminator armour. Only the most stubborn of Astartes can use this weapon, as it tests the very will of the user. Many Captains and even some Chapter Masters of the Lightkeepers have wielded this weapons. As the saying goes, "*an iron hand in a velvet glove*".

## Armours and Clothes

* ***Ashen Rebirth*** - Sidon Herodotus' tacticus mark X gravis armour, since his ascension as a primaris marine.

* ***Phoenician Armour*** - Sidon Herodotus' tactical dreadnought (terminator) armour, before his ascension as a primaris marine.

* ***Bastion Armour*** - Tyre Ctesias' current armour, since his ascension as a primaris marine.

* ***Aetherial Shadow*** - An omni-spectre cloaking mantle. The current captain of the 10th company wears it above his phobos armour, allowing him to become nearly undetectable.

* ***Black Crown*** - A special psychic hood weared by the Lightkeepers Chief Librarian. This artifact doubles the range at which the wearer can deny enemy Warp powers.

* ***Helm of Terror*** - A silver skull-shaped helmet, worn by the Master of Sanctity. The wearer can trigger the helmet to make it engulf itself in flames, which direly affect enemy morale.

* **10 Cataphracii and 10 Tartaros terminator armours**

## Dreadnoughts

"*We used to be more numerous. Those you call "relics". During its youth, our Chapter counted twice its current number of old dreadnought patterns. But eternal war progressivly took its toll on us. Now, my brothers lie on alien planets, their bodies unclaimed and out of reach. [long silence] I miss them dearly.*"
— Korinthos Xenophon, Lightkeeper relic Contemptor Dreadnought and oldest member of the Lightkeepers
The Lightkeepers always counted old patterns of Dreadnoughts, which became considered as relics through the millenia: Contemptor, Deredeo and Leviathan patterns. They are honorary members of the 1st Company, but only the Golden Council or the Chapter Master can authorize to wake up these venerable heroes from their slumber.

The Chapter used to have more of these ancient dreadnought chassis, but many were lost in dire circumstances. As the Lightkeepers could not repair their utterly destroyed carcasses or sometimes even retrieve them, their number slowly dwindled. The fallen's weapons are now part of the survivrors' armoury.

The Chapter managed to replace its losses with Castraferrum chassis. But while Castraferrum Dreadnought are formidable in their own right, they lack the unstoppable might of Contemptor or Deredeo ones, not to mention Leviathan Dreadnoughts who can almost compete with Imperial Knights.

* **1 Contemptor Dreadnought** - Korinthos Xenophon, oldest Lightkeeper.

* **1 Leviathan Dreadnought**

* **1 Deredeo Dreadnought**

## Vehicles

* **Storm Eagle gunships**

* **Fire Raptor gunships**

## Other Relic Types

* ***Horn of Gallica*** - Also called *Fog-Breaker*. An ancient, intricately ornated horn crafted on the planet Gallica for the imperial knights of House Liger. This treasured relic from the Age of Strife was given by the knights to the Lightkeepers at the end of M34, when the Chapter saved the biosphere of the House's new planet, Lighthouse II, after a terrible Ork WAAAGH! led to its devastation. The horn is equiped with a blowing system releasing compressed air from capsules, in order to be usable by the Astartes even when they wear their helmet.

* ***Lantern of the Imperium*** - A lantern producing a cold, white light. Psykers percieve its light even through opaque matter and view it as dark, ominious and unsettling.

* ***Last Light*** - The Lightkeepers' Chapter banner. It represent the Pharos topped by a giant torch (the same as in the Chapter's badge).

* ***Torch of Rage*** - A back pack-mounted torch bearing an intensly red flame. The light it produces paints everything around with a bloody colour. Lightkeepers present in the redden area tend to fight with even more aggressivity.

* ***Wisdom of the Lightbringer*** - A ancient tome of knowledge, so old it even predates the Chapter. It notably contains descriptions of spells usable by Lightkeeper librarians. They sometime carry copies of the relic with them in battle.

## The Dark Vault

The Lightkeepers' most secret and dangerous acquisitions are stocked in the Dark Vault. It constistes of a main complex deep under the Pharos and annexes out of Lighthouse. These annexes house abominations that would present too much of a risk for Lighthouse should their containment be breached.

The unnumberable chambers of the Dark Vault contain mass-destruction weapons, world-ending pathogenes, artifacts defying the laws of physics, incomprehensible relics from the Dark Age, abominable intelligence, colossal monsters, forbidden xenos technologies...

If the Inquisition or the Adeptus Mechanicus were aware of the full extent of the Dark Vault, they would surely require to get control over its content, to have it for themselves or to destroy it. This could even lead to prosecutions agains the Lightkeepers for heresy.

## Trivia

The following (hopefully fun / interesting) facts are listed by order of addition to the Lightkeepers project.

* "Escalibor" is an old French name for Excalibur, that weapon having been wielded by Sir Gawain in some arthurian stories.

* "The Suns of Gawain" are a reference to the link between Sir Gawain and the sun in his stories.

* "Mordant" means "bitting" in French.

* "Glorious" is a reference to the band Gloryhammer.

* "Galbasverd" is a made-up name meaning "big sword" in the Ancient Language from of Christopher Paolini's novel cycle The Inheritance.

* The Bass Axe is a reference to Adventure Time.

* The Club of Chastity is a reference to the "Go to the horny jail" meme.