Raven Guard - The Hidden Hand of the Emperor: Looking back upon the calamitous age through which Mankind has endured, few can claim to know but a fraction of the Emperor's vision for the galaxy. Some hold that each of the great Space Marine Legions was created with a specific role in mind, and certainly this assertion is born out of the deeds and deameanour of many.The Imperial Fists were in so many ways the Emperor's loyal praetorians and champions, while the Ultramarines were His dutiful, resplendent hosts. To the XIXth Legion would fall the role of the Emperor's hidden hand, vengeful sentinels against recidivists and harrowers of those who would sooner flee than bend knee before their new master.Drawing on the demeanour of the techno-savages from which it recruited, the proto-Legion quickly demonstrated its skill at reconnaissance and target identification, and it ability to transition from inscrutable watchfulness to rapid attack in the blink of an eye.Its Legionaries waged war by infiltrating into position, studying their enemy and, when the time was right, striking from the least anticipated quarter and slaying the foe outright in a bloody, yet brief assault.Confronted with the coming of the Emperor, some of the enemies of Unification foolishly decided to stand and fight, to deny His manifest destiny. That was until the moment that the XIXth revealed themselves as the gun already raised to the target's temple without him ever seeing his would-be assassin's approach.In the face of such infiltration, most enemies capitulated. Never given to wanton cruelty, the Emperor's emissaries would avail the target of His impending doom and offer them the choice -- kneel or die. Most chose to serve but many refused, and so the XIXth Legion would be unleashed.Emerging from the shadows, they would attack without warning, their methods enabling them to engage with forces far more numerous than themselves. Bereft of leadership after a campaign of targeted assassination, most enemy armies fell apart in short order.When they did not, the XIXth Legion withdrew back into the shadows, but not in retreat. Rather, they attacked again from yet another quarter, bleeding their enemy dry and denying him any chance to counterattack, regroup or take the initiative.How many battles were won in this shadow manner throughout the last years of the Unification Wars cannot be known for certain, for so often the XIXth Legion's hand remained hidden even after the battle was won. Only much later, after the XIXth Legion united with its Primarch, would it course forth into the light, but even then the Raven Guard shunned laurels and rarely courted adulation.The similarities between the Raven Guard known to later histories of the Great Crusade and the XIXth Legion before its unification with Corax are clear, but much of the tale remains untold. It is known that the Emperor recruited the first Legionaries of the XIXth Legion from a number of Old Earth's regions, the majority drawn from the Xeric tribes of the Asiatic Dustfields.These savage yet technologically adept warrior people made constant war upon one another and against the neighbouring and much larger Yndonesic Block with relentless fury, battling ceaselessly for possession of scant natural resources.Once brought to heel by the Emperor and His Thunder Warriors, the tribes were forced to render up their firstborn sons to the Emperor's gene-forges, and upon their ascension to the nascent Legiones Astartes, these same sons were then used to ensure and enforce the continued Imperial Compliance of their fractious kin.The Xeric warriors proved well-suited to the Emperor's vision, though some observed their propensity for cruelty when ordered to attack as well as a disdainful attitude to those they considered weak. The culture of the Xeric people demanded that a vanquished enemy be watched over with a cold, all-seeing eye and any hint of recidivism crushed utterly lest the subjugated rise up in strength against the victor.The XIXth Legion inherited this mindset and when coupled with the heritage of the Legiones Astartes, it became one of its most distinctive characteristics.