| rdfs:comment | - But that too had changed. When the Emperor’s sons, the great Primarchs, had been sundered from his side and scattered across the galaxy, the Dusk Raiders joined their brother Space Marine Legions and the Master of Mankind in the Great Crusade that began the Age of the Imperium. Garro had been there as the Emperor crossed the galaxy in search of his lost sons – Sanguinius, Ferrus Manus, Roboute Guilliman, Magnus the Red and all the rest. With each reunion, the Lord of Mankind gave his sons the command of the Astartes forces that had been created in their image. When at last the Emperor came to Barbarus and discovered the gaunt warrior foundling named Mortarion who lead its oppressed people, he knew he had located the Primarch of the XIVth Legion.
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| abstract | - But that too had changed. When the Emperor’s sons, the great Primarchs, had been sundered from his side and scattered across the galaxy, the Dusk Raiders joined their brother Space Marine Legions and the Master of Mankind in the Great Crusade that began the Age of the Imperium. Garro had been there as the Emperor crossed the galaxy in search of his lost sons – Sanguinius, Ferrus Manus, Roboute Guilliman, Magnus the Red and all the rest. With each reunion, the Lord of Mankind gave his sons the command of the Astartes forces that had been created in their image. When at last the Emperor came to Barbarus and discovered the gaunt warrior foundling named Mortarion who lead its oppressed people, he knew he had located the Primarch of the XIVth Legion. On the day of Mortarion's coronation as Primarch, a good majority of the XIVth Legion had been of Garro’s stock, men born on Terra or within the confines of the Sol System, but slowly that number had dwindled, and as new recruits joined the Death Guard's fold they came only from Barbarus. But by the last days of the Great Crusade in the early 31st Millennium, only a comparative handful of Terrans remained in the Legion. In his darkest moments, Garro imagined a time when there would be none of his kinsmen left amongst the XIVth, and with their deaths the traditions of the old Dusk Raiders would finally fade away. He feared that moment, for when it came to pass he knew that something of the Legion’s noble character would die as well. His refusal to relinquish these old Terran traditions and "high-handed" leadership caused a rift between himself and some of the Barbarus-born captains of the Legion, who often referred to the staunch and reserved Battle-Captain as "Straight-Arrow Garro". Many of the newer Astartes inducted from Barbarus felt that before their Primarch had brought new blood to their Legion, there were many rituals and habits that served only to hold the Death Guard back. Yet the old ways of the XIVth Legion were fading, and there were few among the senior Battle-Brothers of the Death Guard who deigned to keep the careworn traditions of the Legion alive. The slow shifting of mood had begun in the months following the Emperor’s decision to retire to Terra from the Great Crusade after the conclusion of the great offensive against the Orks during the Ullanor Crusade, whereupon he had bestowed the rank of Warmaster upon Horus, the Primarch of the Luna Wolves Legion. The Emperor further compounded this rift by his refusal to recognise the growing fraternity of the warrior lodges within the Legions, despite being offered membership on multiple occasions. The Death Guard differed from many of their brother Legions in the manner of their command structure and rank system. Tradition had it that the XIVth Legion should never number more than 7 great companies, although those divisions held far more men than those of other Astartes cohorts like the Space Wolves or the Blood Angels; and whilst many Legions had the tradition of giving the honorific of "First Captain" to the commanding officer of the elite 1st Company, the Death Guard also held two more privileged titles, to be bestowed upon the leaders of the 2nd and 7th Great Companies, respectively. Thus, although they held no actual seniority over one another, Captain Ignatius Grulgor of the 2nd Great Company could carry the rank of "Commander" if he so wished, just as Garro, as Captain of the 7th Great Company, was known as "Battle-Captain." Garro’s particular honorific dated back to the Wars of Unification, to a moment when the mark of distinction had been handed to a XIVth Legion officer of the 7th Great Company by the Emperor himself. Garro was proud to bear the honourific centuries later.
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