Imperial Fists - Illumination's Crusaders: Rogal Dorn was possessed of a single-minded energy tempered by a reserved and stoic nature. Many have remarked on the dour and emotionless disposition of both this primarch and his Legion, but such an assessment misses much. Reserved, but terrifying in his anger, Dorn was both cautious and calculating, and capable of pursuing an end with relentless energy.While he would rarely show emotion, when he did it was capable of shaking the ground or darkening the sun. During the near-disastrous resurgence of the Xahelican breed in the Adonis Cluster, Dorn's cold rage was said to have held the battlements as much as the arms of those standing upon them.His admonishment of the reinforcements at Castoris is said to have echoed from the fire-touched sky to the still burning sea. "As swift and unforgiving as the falling edge of an axe," is how Leman Russ of the Space Wolves Legion is said to have described his brother-primarch. Dorn was also capable of brooding and letting matters eat at him beneath his stone-cast demeanour. For as much as he was a warrior of absolute loyalty, he was also a true idealist -- the reasons why he fought were as important to him as the outcome of his efforts.During the Great Crusade few ever saw this quality in Dorn, for there was little cause, though those who knew him well could perhaps see hints of it in his near-fatal confrontation with Konrad Curze of the Night Lords Legion in the Cheraut System and his brief schism with Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands Legion after one particularly brutal campaign.It is only immediately following the horrific events of the Horus Heresy, with so much lost never to be rebuilt, and blood still staining the birth of the Imperium which survived, that history could see that perhaps even in perfect loyalty there can be a flaw. At the moment that the Imperial Fists were united with Rogal Dorn, however, the shadow of eternal treachery still waited far in the future.Few integrations of primarch and Legion were as swift or as complete as that between Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists. The ideals of the Imperium, and the purpose of the Great Crusade fitted perfectly with Dorn's own outlook and native drive, and the warriors of the Imperial Fists were exemplars not only of everything that he had built in the Inwit Cluster, but everything he had dreamed of for its future.From the first moment Dorn met his gene-sons, he demanded of them everything that he would ask of himself. It is said that when he met Legion Master Matthias and Veteran contingents of the Imperial Fists he said nothing, maintaining his silence even when they had knelt and pledged him fealty. Only when he had observed them in battle did he break his silence and speak to them directly.He said that they had much to do, and more to learn. To Matthias he gave a single word of thanks for his service, and named him High Castellan of the Inwit Cluster. Such an honour was also a deep duty, for the next order he gave was to raise thirty regiments of new Imperial Fists from the Inwit System. Without waiting or looking back, Rogal Dorn and his gene-sons plunged back into the stars.Over the next sixteen solar decades, the Imperial Fists fought in the burning edge of the Great Crusade. Relentlessly they pushed from war zone to war zone, were honoured by each of their brother Legions, and rose high in the estimation of many. In their methods of war, the ways of Inwit and the echoes of the VII Legion's victories combined. They drove ever on, without pause or respite. Just as on Terra they fortified and built to secure what they conquered, but just as before they did not linger to rule their conquests.While a castellan with a household of Astartes warriors might remain to maintain their new conquest's defences, they did not administer, or draw up and enforce laws, for they understood that they were warriors of the Imperium, not its masters, and they existed to serve in war and die for its survival. What they did take from all the worlds they conquered were recruits.A famous example would be the Imperial Compliance action of Necromunda where the Imperial Fists won a major victory against the Orks on the ash wastes of that Hive World. The Hive Lords consented to recruits being drawn from their population in gratitude. A fortress-chapel was duly consecrated but the Imperial Fists were there as esteemed guests, not masters.Rogal Dorn asked no special rights on the worlds where the Imperial Fists recruited. Some primarchs, such as the increasingly mercurial Perturabo, took every opportunity to garrison a world for their Legions and claim its tithes. Dorn is famously recorded as saying, "I want recruits not vassals," and was always satisfied to keep his Legion as a military unit with none of the civil or political responsibilities that came with governing a Legion homeworld.During the Great Crusade, the Imperial Fists acted as the strategic reserve of the Emperor's forces due to their ability to rapidly redeploy to battlefields aboard Phalanx. They made use of detailed planning and as such were soon found to be supreme urban fighters and siege specialists.After several campaigns and thousands of conquered worlds being brought into the Imperium, the Emperor returned to Terra for a time to build a capital from which He could run His new empire. He took the Imperial Fists with Him, set them up as His praetorians and charged Dorn with the construction of the defences of the Imperial Palace, something that did not go unnoticed by the other primarchs.Perturabo flew into a rage upon hearing that Dorn thought the Imperial Palace would be proof against an assault by even such mighty siege-masters as the Iron Warriors and he unleashed a torrent of vitriol and accusations against his brother primarch so unfounded that the onlookers from his own Legion were dumbstruck. After this outburst was reported to Dorn, the two primarchs rarely spoke, neither Legion serving in the same campaign again. The Imperial Fists were ever at the Emperor's side and the Iron Warriors were part of Horus' vanguard.