Watch Fortress Erioch - Hall of Glory: The swearing of the Apocryphon Oath, the solemn undertaking by which a battle-brother of the Adeptus Astartes joins the Deathwatch to stand a single vigil of the Long Watch, is a simple affair, but one steeped in tradition.Those supplicants who are judged worthy of assuming their Long Vigil make their Apocryphon Oath and are then led into the Hall of Glory. This vast chamber deep inside Watch Fortress Erioch resembles a cathedral nave, two kilometres in length, a hundred metres wide and half a kilometre high.Its barrel-vaulted ceiling is lost in a smog of incense through which vat-grown cyber-cherubs dart and caper while below, stooped, robed attendants bonded to the watch fortress for countless generations shuffle to and fro in their endless maintenance duties.Countless ragged, battle-scarred banners line the nave, some all but transparent with age and dating back to the earliest days of the Deathwatch's mission. In solemn procession, the battle-brother is led the length of the nave of the Hall of Glory, passing by hundreds of niches set into the walls at every level, from floor to distant ceiling.Eventually, the group halts before an empty niche, and the battle-brother undergoes the transformation into a member of the Deathwatch. With great reverence, the attendants remove his left shoulder plate and the armour of that arm, and it is set upon a stand in the niche. Sometimes, the niche is set into the wall high overhead, in which case the attendants pass the armour to the cyber-cherubs, who bear it aloft on their behalf and place it in the proper position.Next, the attendants bring forth the silvered left arm and shoulder armour of the Deathwatch, and affix it with great care. Lastly, the battle-brother's armour is painted black, the colours of his own Chapter obscured until such time as his Apocryphon Oath is discharged and his Vigil is completed.The battle-brother's armour remains in the Hall of Glory so long as he is standing his Vigil, and often long after. Upon completion of his Vigil, the items of armour are restored to him in a ceremony every bit as solemn as the first.However, the Hall contains far more items than there are battle-brothers serving in the Jericho Reach. Should a battle-brother fall whilst serving the Long Watch, his Chapter is informed, yet his armour remains in the Hall of Glory until such time as that Chapter despatches another to retrieve it.Some never call for the return of the armour, preferring to honour the brother's sacrifice by leaving his armour in its place of glory. Sometimes, the Chapter in question passes from the knowledge of the Imperium. There are said to be items of armour held within the niches of the Hall of Glory belonging to Chapters not heard of in millennia, including such otherwise unheard-of names as the Carcharodons and the Flame Falcons.None can say if any of these items will ever be reclaimed, though from time to time a Black Shield might present himself at the watch fortress, serve a Vigil, and before he departs claim one such set of ancient relics.In addition to the depositing of items of armour, the Hall of Glory maintains a permanent record of each battle-brother who has served a Vigil at Watch Station Erioch. The incense-laden silence of the vast chamber is disturbed only by the cold, echoing ring of chisel on stone as the names of those who serve are carved into the very walls.This task is carried out by a body of specially-grown cyber-cherubs, a hammer grafted onto one arm and a chisel to the other, in place of hands. Any and every inch of free space in the entire hall is used to record the names and the Chapters of those Astartes who serve, creating a mesh of spidery High Gothic type covering every single surface.In recent centuries, these arcane masons have started to utilise the space overhead, carving the names, origins, and deeds of the heroes of the watch fortress into the stone vaults. Of course, most of this text is obscured by the fine fog of incense that gathers under the ceiling, but it matters not, for the names shall endure as long as Watch Fortress Erioch stands vigil over the Jericho Reach.