Lamenters - Chapter History: The Lamenters were raised during the "Cursed" 21st Founding of Space Marine Chapters in the early 36th Millennium. The matter of the "curse" pertaining to the exact nature of this Founding has long since become shrouded in secrecy and myth.The various dark ends that have befallen many of this Founding's Chapters have entered the lore of the Inquisition and the Adeptus Astartes alike. Many consider those Chapters created under the auspices of the "Cursed Founding" as tainted from their very creation.The Lamenters are believed to have been created from the Blood Angels' gene-seed, genetically modified by the Adeptus Mechanicus' Tech-priests on Mars to remove the effects of the Blood Angels genetic flaws known as the Black Rage and Red Thirst.However, the Astartes of the Lamenters Chapter are noted to suffer from a kind of mental melancholy, although it is unclear if this is due to some unexpected flaw in their gene-seed or if it is simply the result of the unfortunate events that have repeatedly befallen the Chapter.Although the Chapter numbered among its brethren those few Astartes descended from Sanguinius to be spared an ultimate devolution into something no longer human or sane, the mark of the Flaw was still upon the Lamenters in the eyes of their fellow Space Marines, many of whom chose to shun the Chapter, regardless of its undoubted loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind and His Imperium and its noble efforts in the defence of its people.During the early 37th Millennium, matters worsened for the Imperium as corrupted Astartes of the 21st Founding and other dissident forces rose up against the rule of the Emperor in a series of bloody wars and purges.The Lamenters chose to depart to the Imperium's fringes rather than risk internecine conflict with their fellow Astartes of the 21st Founding. They used their mobility as a fleet-based Chapter to crusade against the enemy without, rather than become ensnared in the quagmire of civil conflicts within the Imperium.For the next millennium and a half, the Lamenters would remain on a continuous Imperial Crusade, conducting many campaigns against the various xenos species that plagued Mankind across the western reaches of the galaxy. Often the Chapter was recorded as intervening to aid isolated Imperial worlds under threat. Despite their enviable record of honourable victories and valiant defence of the Imperium's far-flung domains, the spectre of misfortune seemed to dog them at every turn.Dark rumours began to grow and surround them as time and again the Chapter suffered from bitter reversals and dark turns of fate. Even when they were recalled into the interior of the Imperium along with a number of other crusading Chapters by the High Lords of Terra in the 39th Millennium to help deal with the rising threat of incursions from the Eye of Terror, many Imperial Commanders and other Space Marine Chapters continued to view them with suspicion.The Lamenters' reputation often worked against them, but rarely with such consequences as during the Chaos attack on the Hive World of Corillia during the 9th Black Crusade. The superstition-bound Mortifactors Chapter refused to fight alongside the Lamenters, abandoning the planet rather than serving beside them.The Lamenters were unwilling to desert the Corillian population, holding out alone against the warbands of the Black Legion for six solar weeks, suffering horrendous losses until the Ultramarines and White Scars led a battle group that broke through the Chaos Warfleet's blockade to relieve Corillia.The Lamenters Chapter had been reduced to barely two hundred surviving Astartes by the time they were relieved by their fellow Space Marines. The Lamenters were deemed lost when their fleet disappeared into a Warp Storm soon afterwards, only to reappear more than a standard century later on the edge of the Segmentum Solar having slowly battled their way back from the outer void.Once again, the Lamenters returned to full strength after slowly rebuilding their fleet and Chapter ranks. They now operated as a crusade force near the galactic core, and were soon requested by the High Lords of Terra to form part of the defences of the sorely pressed Maelstrom Zone in 587.M41 as one of the Chapters that served as Maelstrom Warders.Their duties were to patrol the wide expanse of the desolate wastes of the Maelstrom's western zones, responding to and neutralising Chaos and piratical threats as they were encountered, a duty the Chapter took to with great fervour.During this time the Lamenters became close allies with the Astral Claws who held the strategic command of the Maelstrom Zone, and fought alongside them in many of their greatest battles. The Astral Claws Chapter, under its last Chapter Master, Lufgt Huron, offered the Lamenters a degree of honour and respect they had seldom received before from their fellow Astartes, as well as war materiel with which to build and maintain the Chapter's strength.It would be this friendship the Lamenters were so unaccustomed to and the ties of blood spilt in battle alongside the Astral Claws that would ultimately prove to be the Chapter's undoing.