Dark Angels

The Dark Angels are considered amongst the most powerful and secretive of the Loyalist Space Marine Chapters. They were the Ist Legion of the original 20 Space Marine Legions to be created during the First Founding of the 30th Millennium. Though they claim complete allegiance and service to the Emperor of Mankind, their actions and secret goals at times seem at odds with that professed loyalty, as the Dark Angels strive above all other things to atone for an ancient crime of betrayal committed over 10,000 standard years ago against the trust of the Emperor during the time of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy.

The Dark Angels stand first amongst the Space Marine Chapters, as they have done since their very inception as the Ist Legion. They are a proud Chapter, with traditions and rituals that date back to the earliest days of the Imperium of Man. The origins of the Dark Angels Chapter remain shrouded in mystery. Few Imperial records of its beginnings still exist, nor are there many mentions of the part it played in the Emperor's Great Crusade during the early 31st Millennium. Most references in the histories of the Imperium to its deeds during the accursed times of the Horus Heresy have actually been expunged. Yet a legend persists that at one point the Dark Angels teetered on the very brink of heresy and that an act of the most terrible betrayal dishonoured all of the Ist Legion's feats of valour, leaving an enduring stain upon all of its Successor Chapters' honour. Such is their shame that from that time onwards, the Dark Angels and their Unforgiven Successors strive for absolution from the sins of millennia past.

The Dark Angels' terrible secret is this: during the Horus Heresy, some of the brethren were turned to the side of Chaos. The Renegades were defeated in a battle that destroyed the Dark Angels’ Legion homeworld, Caliban, but many of the Traitor Dark Angels survived to be cast through space and time by the direct intervention of the Chaos Gods. These survivors are known to those few Dark Angels granted knowledge of their existence as The Fallen Angels or just The Fallen. In the eyes of the Chapter’s leaders, there is only one way that the Chapter can ever atone for its shame, restoring its honour and trust in the eyes of the Emperor -- all of the Fallen must be found and either made to repent their ancient sin, or slain.

This story of treachery and betrayal is the Dark Angels’ hidden shame, and their secret mission to destroy all of the Fallen is now their only hope of salvation. No one knows of this other than the Dark Angels, their Successor Chapters and, perhaps, the Emperor himself, interred within his Golden Throne.