Nathaniel Garro - Great Crusade: Battle-Captain Garro was a seasoned Astartes Veteran of multiple campaigns of Imperial Compliance who had fought besides the Astartes of several other Legions and formed bonds with a select few amongst them. He knew Captain Garviel Loken of the Luna Wolves from when the Death Guard fought alongside them during the Krypt Campaign against the Orks. Garro was also close friends with Captain Saul Tarvitz of the Emperor's Children. The two Astartes shared a close bond as "honour brothers." There were few individuals outside the Death Guard that Garro would ever have given the distinction of being called "brother," but Tarvitz was one of them.Tarvitz had earned Garro's friendship during the Preaixor Campaign and proven to him that for all the reputation of Fulgrim's Astartes as overconfident peacocks, there were warriors amongst the ranks of the Emperor's Children that embodied the ideals of the Imperium. In recognition of their bond, the two Astartes had a small eagle carved into their power armour's ceramite by knifepoint, a sign of the battle debt they owed one another. When the two clasped each other's wrists their vambraces would form the sign of the Imperial Aquila.Towards the end of the Great Crusade, Battle-Captain Garro earned high accolades during the Jorgall Persecution, for his actions against those psychically powerful xenos when he fought alongside a cadre from the Sisters of Silence. He was singled out by his Primarch Mortarion, who offered Garro the rare opportunity to share a celebratory drink with him. It was said that there was no toxin too strong, no poison so powerful and no contagion of such lethality that a Death Guard could not resist it.The Death Guard were known to harden themselves through stringent training regimens as neophyte Astartes, willingly exposing themselves to chemical agents, contaminants, deadly viral strains and venoms of a thousand different shades. They could resist them all.From a set of bowls was mixed and poured dark liquids into a pair of ornate goblets. The senses of the chosen Astartes often rebelled against the odour of the toxins, their implanted Neuroglottis and Preomnor organs rebelling at the mere smell of the poisonous brew; but to refuse the cup would be seen as weakness. The poured distillate often contained a potent mixture of agent magenta nerve bane, some variety of sword beetle venom, and other, less identifiable compounds.The cups were Mortarion's, and in each battle where the Death Lord took the field in person, he would select a warrior in the aftermath and share with that man a draught of poison. They would drink and they would live, cementing the unbreakable strength of the Legion they embodied.Mortarion knew Garro frowned upon such traditions as the cups, but he explained to him that honours and citations were sometimes necessary. Warriors must know that they are valued. Praise from one's peers must be given when the moment is right. Without it, even the most steadfast warrior will eventually feel unvalued. Mortarion talked to Garro privately after their drink, trying to gauge the battle-captain and figure out where his loyalties truly lay. The primarch wanted to ensure that Garro would be loyal to him and the cause of the Traitors when the Warmaster Horus launched his campaign to usurp the Emperor and topple the corrupt Imperium.Mortarion also wanted to know why the battle-captain eschewed membership in the warrior lodge that had been established within their Legion, a custom that had spread from the Luna Wolves to many of the other Astartes formations. Garro felt that as Astartes, they had been set on a path by the Master of Mankind, tasked to regather the lost fragments of Humanity into the fold of the Imperium, to illuminate the lost, castigate the fallen and the invader.They could only do so if they possessed truth on their side. If they did not do this openly then he had doubt that the XIVth Legion would eventually expunge the fallacies of gods and deities, for they could not bring the secular Imperial Truth to bear if any of it was hidden, even in the smallest part. Only the Emperor could show the way forward. Garro felt that these lodges, though they had their worth, were ultimately predicated upon secrecy and the act of concealment, and he would take no part in it.Though disappointed by Garro's point of view, Mortarion still hoped to turn Garro to the Traitors' cause. He appointed the battle-captain as his equerry, taking him to an important conclave aboard the Warmaster's flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, to discuss the upcoming campaign in the Isstvan System. The primarch still hoped to sway Garro's loyalty towards the Warmaster's cause -- a cause now his own.