Angels Penitent - Chapter History: At some point in the Chapter's history, a strange individual, known only as the "Undying Martyr," came before the Angels Resplendent. The Undying Martyr was a mortal who had survived crossing the River Tristesse that served as the moat of the Angels Resplendent's fortress-monastery, Kanvolis. Few Space Marines could have mastered the crossing of the Tristesse, and so it was a mystery how a mortal had achieved the feat.Instead of ending the strange Human's life, the Undying Martyr was brought before Chaplain Malvoisin for interrogation. The Chaplain conversed with the stranger for nineteen solar days before proclaiming him a prophet of the God-Emperor who bore terrible new insights into the Imperial Creed.These truths were dark indeed, for he revealed that Mankind was corrupt beyond redemption and that its greatest guardians, the Adeptus Astartes, were the basest of all sinners, for they had faltered and fragmented in the war against the arch-betrayer Horus. There could be no hope of ascension into the Emperor's light, only penitence and pain for humanity's collective sins past and future. The war was already lost and the only course was to fight on in the knowledge of certain defeat.Thus began the Great Purge of the Chapter of all activities and items considered blasphemy, including many objects once crafted by the warrior-artisans of the Chapter themselves. The Great Purge swept Kanvolis clean of beauty, yet it had left the fortress filthy, just as the Martyr's words had befouled the Chapter itself.When traversing the corridors, one would trample through a mulch of rotting tapestries and pulverised statuary. The Undying Martyr had pronounced this effluvium of desecrated glories sacrosanct -- a mockery of treacherous pride.Things might have been different if the Angels Resplendent's Chapter Master Varzival Czervantes had been with his Chapter during this harrowing time, but the Knight Resplendent had been absent for many standard years, campaigning with the Chapter's elite 1st Company. There had been no word of them since the Great Purge and Chaplain Malvoisin had declared them lost, though many within the Chapter refused to believe it.The Knight Resplendent would return some day to reclaim and redeem his Chapter. In the absence of the Chapter Master, only Chief Librarian Athanazius and his Librarian brethren had spurned the Martyr's testament. Inevitably they were denounced as Heretics and soon those loyal battle-brothers who followed the will of the Chaplains obediently stormed the Librarium, driven by a hatred for their fellows that had been unmatched even in battle with xenos.Athanazius and his followers had awaited their brothers' assault, absent arms or armour, yet shielded by a contempt that brought the zealots' charge to a standstill. The attackers waited for the frigid electric tang that presaged a psychic assault, but Athanazius spoke only a single sentence: "We will rise on burning wings."This assault was comprised of only words, but they were the Chapter's credo, delivered with a conviction that drained the poison from many of the attacking battle-brothers. It might have been enough to stop the madness, but then Chaplain Malvoisin bellowed the new credo, the one revealed by the Undying Martyr: "The Emperor condemns!" The Angels Resplendent died that day and the Angels Penitent rose from their grave, shadow-bound and bitter.