Brotherhood of the Phoenix - History: In the early years of the Emperor's Great Crusade to reconquer the galaxy and reunite the disparate worlds of Humanity under one ruler, there was a great disaster that would leave a terrible mark upon the early decades of the IIIrd Legion's existence.This was the catastrophic loss of nearly the entire gene-seed stock of the Emperor's Children in an accident while transferring the gene-seed stocks and then a terrible pathogen known as "the Phage" that nearly wiped out what remained. At the same time, the disease killed many of the Legion's Astartes.Coming within a solar year of their great moment of triumph fighting at the Emperor's side at Proxima where they helped to put down an insurrection against Imperial rule and saved the Emperor's life, this disaster was to prove a turning point that was to forever alter the IIIrd Legion's future.When Fulgrim was finally rediscovered upon the Mining World of Chemos and reunited with the IIIrd Legion, the Space Marine Legion raised from his genetic inheritance, he found not a resplendent host like that of his brother primarchs', but a mere 200 battle-brothers.It was thus necessary for Fulgrim and his warriors to be integrated into the ranks of another Legion until such time as their numbers were sufficiently restored for them to take to battle on their own.The Legion to which Fulgrim and his warriors were assigned was the XVIth Legion, the Luna Wolves, the Legion of Horus, the most favoured son and preeminent warrior amongst all the primarchs.When the Emperor's Children had fought alongside the Luna Wolves early after the rediscovery of their Primarch Fulgrim, they had formed great bonds of friendship with the warriors of Horus, and in the times between the fighting, a few loose tongues amonst the warriors of the XVIth Legion had spoken to their brothers in the IIIrd Legion of the existence of their warrior lodge.The warrior lodges were a conceit that had been instituted in the Luna Wolves and other Legions following the pacification during the Great Crusade of the Feral World of Davin. Though that pre-industrial world had fallen easily to the Imperial Compliance campaign waged against it, Horus had been greatly impressed by the warrior spirit and honour of the Human tribes who called it home.At the recommendation of Lorgar, the primarch of the Word Bearers Legion, Horus had allowed a warrior lodge similar to the warrior lodges to which many Davinite warriors belonged to spring up within the Luna Wolves. Horus could not know that that Lorgar had already turned to the service of Chaos, and that Davin was home to a large contingent of Chaos Cultists.Lorgar hoped to use the establishment of warrior lodges in all of the Space Marine Legions as the primary vector by which those Legions might be corrupted to the service of the Ruinous Powers.The Luna Wolves' lodge was, in theory, open to any warrior who desired to be a member, an informal place of lively debate where rank held no sway and an Astartes could speak his mind freely without fear of reprisals. Eventually a few Astartes from the Emperor's Children were permitted to attend one such meeting, a pleasant evening of honourable camaraderie under the titular leadership of the Lodge Master Serghar Targost.Some enjoyed the meeting, despite the clandestine nature and theatrics of it, but some remained uncomfortable with the informality and mingling of the ranks. In the traditionally hierarchical Emperor's Children Legion, only warriors of officer rank could join the similar confraternity which was soon created within the IIIrd Legion.Eventually, over the course of several solar decades, the Emperor's Children's ranks were swelled by new Astartes who had been recruited from both Terra and Fulgrim's homeworld of Chemos, where the IIIrd Legion had established its fortress-monastery at the old factory-fortress of Callax.When the Emperor's Children were judged to have reached an appropriate size, Fulgrim was given command of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade and set off on his own course of conquest, returning dozens of Human-settled worlds to the rule of the Emperor. Among them was the advanced Xenos World of Laeran, where Fulgrim's fate would be sealed.