Rylanor - History: The IIIrd Legion was created alongside its brother Space Marine Legions during the latter phases of the Unification Wars on Terra, with many of its finest warriors drawn from the courts and blood vassal populations of Europa, the techno-barbarian polity of Terra occupying much of the old continent of Europe.In later decades, other Terran dynasties followed the example of Europa, filling the ranks of the IIIrd Legion with the flower of Terran youth who seemed well-matched with the aristocratic blood of its Initiates, forming a martial brotherhood whose ancestry in war stretched back into the lost ages of Human history.Rylanor hailed from this first, Terran generation of the Emperor's Children. Rylanor had the singular honour of fighting beside the Emperor of Mankind during the Unification Wars, with the battle honours Roma and Thule etched into his armour.His history was the history of the IIIrd Legion, and he had been the first to carry the Palatine Aquila standard into battle alongside his newfound primarch. When he fell grievously wounded in battle against the Aeldari, his salvation was internment in a Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought of his Legion.Rylanor became the Emperor's Children's Ancient of Rites, presiding over the IIIrd Legion's Ceremonials of Induction aboard the IIIrd Legion's capital ship Andronius, as well as lending his might to the line of battle for many solar decades until the treachery of the Warmaster Horus tore his Legion apart from within.When the atrocity on Isstvan III came, Rylanor's unshakeable loyalty to the Emperor marked him for death in his primarch's eyes and he was assigned to the first wave assault, but instead survived the first murderous blow of betrayal.While serving aboard the Andronius, Tenth Captain Saul Tarvitz had discovered something amiss in the changing character of his Legion. Though he had the honour of leading the speartip of the initial Imperial assault upon Isstvan III, he made an unusual request of Ancient Rylanor, and expressed his desire to remain aboard the Andronius to function as Lord Commander Eidolon's senior staff officer.Tarvitz was supicious of Eidolon's motives, for it was highly irregular for one of Fulgrim's favoured Lord Commanders not to take part in the speartip. Eidolon normally never passed up the opportunity to flaunt his martial prowess and for him to appoint another in his stead was unheard of. Though an unusual request, Rylanor honoured Tarvitz's desire and took the captain's place in the assault.Once the Warmaster revealed his treacherous intentions and the fighting began in earnest, Rylanor soon became a priority target for the Traitors, his power dooming scores of his former Battle-Brothers to their deaths wherever he fought, while his mere presence became a rallying cry for those loyal Emperor's Children battling it out to the bitter end.To the Loyalists on Isstvan III, Rylanor was a living icon of the Legion's glory and the perfection and righteousness of their loyalty to the Emperor. Reported destroyed by the Traitors several times during the fighting, Rylanor, increasingly damaged, somehow managed to endure for much of the fighting on Isstvan III, but his final fate long remained unknown.