Ophidium Gulf Crusade - History: Not all crusades of the Black Templars are vast undertakings -- some comprise the warriors aboard but a single vessel. One such crusade was led in 998.M41 by Castellan Raimer, master of the strike cruiser Ophidium Gulf, and survivor of the ill-fated Garon Crusade. Raimer led his 90 Astartes warriors on crusade deep into a largely unexplored tract of Wilderness Space in the treacherous Veiled Region of the galactic south's Segmentum Tempestus.The outlying worlds of the one populated system they discovered were home to a fledgling empire of primitive aliens who lived in great cities of gold and gave homage to a being they knew only as the "Voice of the Emperor." Curious to know what manner of being this was, Raimer destroyed their temples before leading his warriors onwards.As the crusade continued, they found that many of the worlds they discovered had already been visited by destruction greater than they themselves had already unleashed.The Ophidium Gulf was a fast warship and as it drew close to the core planets, the strike cruiser's sensorium detected a small fleet of vessels breaking orbit with another devastated world. Augurs determined that these ships were Space Marine vessels, and belonged to no less a Chapter than the Dark Angels. Raimer and the master of the Dark Angels fleet exchanged convoluted greetings in High Gothic and the Black Templars offered to fight alongside the illustrious First Founding Chapter in the capture of the aliens' leader. Only very reluctantly did the Dark Angels accept the Black Templars' aid.The final battle of the Ophidium Gulf Crusade was fought through the gold-paved precincts of the temple of the Voice of the Emperor, the last refuge of a mysterious individual who had somehow swayed an entire alien empire into becoming his own personal fiefdom. Such blasphemies could not be allowed to stand and, together with warriors from the Dark Angels who were already prosecuting the attack on the system, Castellan Raimer's Sword Brethren led the Black Templars in the attack on the alien leader's Golden Palace.While the Dark Angels destroyed the alien army from afar with deadly accurate fire from their Devastator Squads, the Sword Brethren, led by the Emperor's Champion Korbinian, stormed the main gate of the palace after they had been destroyed by a Multi-melta blast from a Land Raider Crusader. The aliens' technology was advanced and terrifying, their warriors able to slip invisibly through the battlefield and their weapons able to easily defeat the Space Marines' formidable protection with strange, multi-phasic beams. Though numbering less than a hundred Astartes, the Black Templars pushed on through the deadly fire, eventually breaching a vast, domed chamber in the heart of the palace, though it seemed to Korbinian that they had been allowed to reach this place.In the centre of the chamber sat a curious figure, one clad in black power armour without livery or panopoly like that of a fellow Space Marine. As the Black Templars entered, the figure rose and it was clear to all that he was indeed a Space Marine by his size and bearing. Despite a sword sheathed across his back and twin pistols belted at his side, the warrior made no attack and merely smiled as though he had been pleasantly surprised, saying, "You are not the lapdogs of the Lion...how curious."Since the figure was a Space Marine, Korbinian stayed his hand and relayed news of his discovery to Castellan Raimer, who bade him link up that they might return the prisoner to him for questioning. Raimer chained the prisoner in the Ophidian Gulf's most secure vault. But this was a decision Raimer soon had cause to regret when the Dark Angels discovered what had happened.No sooner had the strange Space Marine been imprisoned on Raimer's ship than the commander of the Dark Angels demanded that the prisoner be handed over to them. Raimer refused at first, but when ordnance sensoria warned him that the Dark Angels fleet was powering up their weapons, he knew that he had no choice but to comply for his lone strike cruiser was no match for the Dark Angels' entire fleet. Reluctantly Raimer handed the prisoner over and, without another word, the Dark Angels broke orbit and departed the system.The ultimate fate of the Ophidum Gulf remains a mystery for, after a single communication en route to the system's Mandeville Point, Castellan Raimer has not yet made contact with any of the Chapter keeps of the Black Templars. High Marshal Helbrecht now has grave suspicions as to what may have happened to his fellow Black Templars at the hands of their fellow Astartes...Helbrecht's suspicions were correct, for while the ultimate fate of the Ophidium Gulf remains unknown to the Black Templars, the Adeptus Mechanicus was fully aware of what took place after Raimer's last communique. It lists "the destruction of the Ophidium Gulf by the Dark Angels" among its repository of logs of thousands of boarding actions ranging from mass assaults on capital ships to the grappling actions of burning gunboats.This information, alongside similar assaults upon other starships such as the World Eaters' attack upon the Circe and the capture of the Dovenius Spear by the Ultramarines 1st Company, was accessed in the form of combat memes by the Skitarii Magos Dahan aboard the Ark Mechanicus Speranza while seeking to formulate a response to the boarding of that ship by constructs under the control of the Heretek Archmagos Telok.