Title: The Black Templars and the Legacy of Sigismund: A Warhammer 40,000 Story
In the grim darkness of the far future, the Imperium of Man was shaken to its core. The once-grand Mars, revered as the heart of technology and manufacturing, was left in ruins. Vast machinery and irreplaceable knowledge were lost, leaving a scar that would take millennia to heal. As the Imperial transports took to the skies, fleeing the crimson world, astartes and Imperial Army vessels jostled in their haste to escape, carrying with them the spoils of war – a significant number of new power armor suits, ready for the impending war against the Traitor Legions.
The Siege of Terra, a battle enveloped in the shroud of ignorance, was a war fought against weapons of unthinkable power, against legions turned traitor by Horus. In these trying times, the words of Sigismund, the First Captain of the Legio Astartes, Imperial Fists, resonated with hope. “We were unready. We were vulnerable. We were weak. But in those first moments, our enemies gave us strength – the strength to live, to rise from the bloody fields, to march on, but not to fall,” he told the Templars at the First Gate to Terra.
Sigismund was chosen as the first Emperor’s Champion, an immense honor bestowed upon him by Rogal Dorn himself. His armor and war-gear, bearing the sacred colors of his Legion, were sanctified with blessings from the Imperial Fists Reclusiarch and were changed to black, symbolizing his direct service to the Emperor. It was in this war-torn carnage that Sigismund, the Emperor’s Champion, marched, challenging champions of chaos to single combat, and confronting anyone who dared cross his path.
When Rogal Dorn, accompanied by the Emperor and Sanguinius, boarded Horus’s flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, he left most of his Imperial Fists behind to defend the Imperial Palace. Sigismund was entrusted with leading the Imperial Ground Forces against the traitor Legions until Dorn’s return.
The Black Templars chapter, created during the Second Founding, honored Sigismund’s legacy by adopting his black and white heraldry and continuing the practice of naming an Emperor’s Champion. Sigismund himself was chosen by his primarch as the first High Marshall and Chapter Master of the newly created Black Templars Chapter.
In the year 781 of the 31st Millennium, five standard centuries after his retreat from Terra, Ezekiel Abaddon, now the Warmaster of Chaos known as Abaddon the Despoiler, returned to Imperial space at the head of a host of traitors and daemons. It was the Imperium’s first encounter with the newly renamed Black Legion, the return of a brutal and bitter enemy many had thought lost to the annals of history.
This marked the beginning of the 13 Black Crusades. Abaddon had remained within the Eye of Terror, rebuilding the Black Legion as a vengeful reflection of its former glory. When they returned to real space, the new Regents of the Imperium, the High Lords of Terra, were caught off guard, unprepared to face their wayward sons.
During this first incursion into Imperial space, Abaddon was faced by the ancient Templar King, Sigismund, the High Marshal of the Black Templars Chapter. By this time, Sigismund was a veteran of more than a thousand standard years. Age had ravaged him, yet he burned with life. Sigismund informed Abaddon that he had sought the former First Captain as Terra burned in the fires of Horus’s heresy, hunting for him day and night, always eliminating the lesser men who blocked his way.
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