Iron Hands - Iron Council: The organisational structure of the Iron Hands also changed upon their return to Medusa after the Drop Site Massacre. Without Ferrus Manus, it was decided that no single warrior should ever permanently lead the Iron Hands. Instead, the Iron Captains and the most revered warriors of the Xth Legion formed the "Iron Council," also sometimes called the "Great Clan Council" or just the "Clan Council." Those who sat on the council became known as the "Iron Fathers," and that body has guided the Iron Hands ever since.The Chapter drew much of its organisation from the political structure of the mortal clans of Medusa. Each of the 10 clan companies of the Chapter is a single entity, possessing its own command hierarchy, Veterans, beliefs and clan traditions. One warrior of each clan company is nominated to represent their peers at the Iron Council. The Iron Hands have never had a Chapter Master and are instead led by an elected member of the Iron Council, who is chosen by the collective vote of the most senior and respected members of each clan company.The Iron Hands view collective leadership by the Iron Council as a strength, for no individual can lead the Chapter astray like they have seen happen all too often to other members of the Adeptus Astartes. It is common for members of the council to be ancient and revered Dreadnoughts who have long been free of their frail mortal flesh.When the fires of the Horus Heresy had ebbed and Roboute Guilliman revealed his great work, the Codex Astartes, the Iron Council saw that adopting its wisdom was the only logical course. Whilst some fought against the breaking of the Space Marine Legions into Chapters, the Iron Hands refused to show weakness, and despite their reduced numbers, still managed to found three Successor Chapters.In the centuries following the Second Founding, the Iron Hands cut a deadly swathe through any and all who opposed them, methodically destroying enemy armies and alien empires. As the Terran centuries turned into millennia, however, the Chapter grew ever more reclusive and hostile to outside interference. The one exception to this was the Chapter's continuing close alliance with the Adeptus Mechanicus.When it was first convened in the wake of Ferrus Manus' death, the Iron Council chose as their venue a mighty armoured vault deep below the surface of Medusa. The site was large enough to accommodate their number, as well as being exceptionally defensible. The Chapter could not, after all, risk further harm befalling those who would lead it. They have met in this same chamber, known now as the "Eye of Medusa," ever since.The Iron Council must always number precisely forty-one Iron Fathers, one for each of the planet's infamous Iron Peaks. Each representative is required to possess sufficient neural augmetics that they can communicate using binary cant and noospheric data-blurts, plugging themselves into their towering iron thrones with spinal plugs and cranial taps.Though this allows huge amounts of debate to take place in a short space of time -- not to mention private communications and secret deals beyond counting -- all motions and decrees must be read out loud in old Medusan amidst great ceremony and inscribed onto tablets of ironglass in the sight of all. Voting is conducted by delegates dropping ingots into pneumo-tubes in the arms of their thrones. A silver ingot indicates the voting party is in agreement with the motion proposed, while a bronze ingot indicates the opposite.All such votes are anonymous, the ingots falling from shrouded dispensers into their tubes and being swept into the centre of the chamber, where they fall like metal rain onto the device known as the Scales of Logic. Only in such a vote can the Iron Council appoint a single Iron Father as their Chapter's war leader, and then never for more than one standard year at a time -- though the same Iron Father may have his appointment re-ratified in the following year.