Scythes of the Emperor - Chapter History: The origins of the Scythes of the Emperor (sometimes referred to as the Emperor's Scythes) hail back to the dark days of the Horus Heresy in the early years of the 31st Millennium.They were originally a part of the Ultramarines Legion's 199th "Aegida" Company, which was assigned by the Primarch Roboute Guilliman to the world of Sotha as permanent protection.The assigned Astartes took pride in their duty and later adopted the crossed scythes symbol upon their pauldron related to those they protected, the scythe-wielding agriculturalists. A ritual of clearing the area about the research site on Mount Pharos for over a standard century was the precept for the use of the scythe symbol. This simple, rural tradition, dating back over a hundred years, gave rise to the protection company's choice of icon.This world was given the classification of "restricted," due to the fact that Sotha possessed a strange pre-Imperial biotechnological device, known as the Pharos, which was located within the massive geographical landmark of Mount Pharos from which it took its name.This strange alien device was built by an unknown xenos civilisation that harnessed the psychic energy of empathy to aid navigation through the Warp, much like the Astronomican, but on a much smaller scale.It was utilised by Roboute Guilliman as a psychic beacon to attract Loyalist forces of the region that had been scattered by the Ruinstorm to the Ultramarines' homeworld of Macragge.Cut off from all travel to or communication with the Throneworld of Terra by that great Warp Storm conjured by the Word Bearers Traitor Legion during the Battle of Calth, Guilliman had created his own rump interstellar empire, the Imperium Secundus, to rally the Loyalist forces against the Traitors and maintain the ideals of the Emperor of Mankind.The Pharos would later become a source of contention between the Loyalists and Traitors when members of a Night Lords Traitor Legion splinter fleet under the command of Captain Krukesh the Pale sought to claim it from the forces of the Imperium Secundus during the Battle of Sotha.During this conflict, the Loyalist Iron Warriors Warsmith Barabas Dantioch sacrificed his own life to overload the Pharos, disabling the Night Lords fleet above Sotha and allowing the Loyalist forces to prevail.After the Horus Heresy ended, and the subsequent Second Founding occurred in 021.M31, the Space Marine Legions were sundered into smaller separate formations known as Chapters in accordance with Guilliman's Codex Astartes.Oberdeii was a Scout of the Ultramarines Aegida Company during the Night Lords' attack on Sotha. He valiantly led his squad in defence of the world, and was subsequently promoted to Reconnaissance Squad sergeant by Guilliman himself.Oberdeii was later promoted to captain of the Aegida Company, which was maintained as a phantom "Eleventh" Company of the Ultramarines on Sotha, even as Guilliman forced every other Chapter to conform to the Codex model of only ten companies.Quite aside from the secret shame of Imperium Secundus, the existence of the Aegida Company could have been seen as proof of the primarch's wilful and deliberate flouting of Imperial decree -- a decree that he and his surviving loyal brothers agreed upon only after much conflict.Oberdeii was a living, breathing reminder of what the Ultramarines considered, in their vanity, to be Guilliman's mistakes. They could not erase them from the pages of history while Oberdeii remained on Sotha, sworn to the final duty that he had been given by the primarch.As "Warden of the Pharos," Oberdeii swore an Oath of Moment, known as the "Aegidan Oath", on Guilliman's blade Gladius Incandor to protect Sotha's secrets which had been buried in the Pharos. This Oath of Moment, written in the primarch's own hand, was kept within Mount Pharos along with the skull-like iron mask of the fallen Barabas Dantioch, the first Warden of the Pharos.By the time Imperial Fists Primarch Rogal Dorn initiated the Third Founding in 001.M32, Oberdeii was the last surviving member of Aegida Company. He was not simply the reminder of a mistake -- he was the embodiment of it, and the last scrap of living proof. The time had come for the Aegida itself to be purged.In order to remove any evidence of perceived "heresy" on the part of Guilliman, as well as his complicity in defying the Codex Astartes, Ultramarines Chapter Master Tigris Decon sent a representative, Chaplain Segas, to Sotha, to offer Oberdeii a choice of reassignment to the Chapter's 5th Company or to continue his watch over the Pharos by becoming the first Chapter Master of a new "Aegida Chapter."Oberdeii was initially appalled by the fact that Rogal Dorn would initiate yet another Founding, but reluctantly consented to becoming the Chapter Master of a new Chapter, and instead chose to name this new force the "Scythes of the Emperor."To fill the new Chapter, Chaplain Segas and Brother Wenlocke, along with seventy-two Ultramarines Veterans of the Orlan Conquest, were assigned to join Oberdeii on Sotha.The newborn Scythes quickly established a fortress-monastery upon Sotha. From this base of operations, near the region of space known as the Damocles Gulf in the Segmentum Ultima, the Chapter took upon itself the duty of policing and safeguarding many of the nearby mining and manufactoria settlements.