Scarlet-handed, gilded-arm: the Star Wardens

Red and Gold: the Star Wardens’ Caputmori

[//@thrones_arcane+]

In te mihi complacui

Thus read the inscription on the Caputmori, the skull-headed eagle banner that the Silver Stars gifted to the Star Wardens. ‘In you I am well pleased’. A statement typically cryptic of the Silver Stars and their leader.

Each of the Partisan Chapters was granted one of these grand standards; a mark of the covenant between the Primarch and his supporters. Each was hand-crafted, but broadly similar in design. That granted to the Star Wardens, however, was unique in being thus inscribed.

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Subjects of some of the finest poetry and literature that arose during the war, the great Caputmori granted to the eleven Partisan Chapters were also the subject of some of the fiercest fighting in the war, being borne into the most dreadful conflicts and bitterly-fought campaigns. Their presence invariably marked bloody ruin by the Partisans, as they bore and projected the Primarch’s will into Heliopolis and Morqub – and in turn were the target for the fiercest resistance and counter-attacks by the Pentarchy.

Both the great Caputmori standards (and those lesser examples granted by the Silver Stars to their human regiments and other allies), quickly became battle-scarred and important relics. Those that threatened to fall into enemy hands were quickly and viciously reclaimed. Of them all, however, the Star Wardens’ became the most storied.

***

[//Star Warden brethren of the Gilded Arm; note the Caputmori back banner device, faithfully rendered in gold. This device became immediately common amongst the Chapter upon their induction into the False Primarch's forces.+]
[//@thrones_arcane+]

[+]access_granted[+]

+spooling+

+[logdate••/••/••••]+

•Gilded Veil•Star Wardens•IV Cadre•

+status:_deceased+

•[contact report: the purpose of the Veil’s infiltration of sub-Hive Hestil III is unknown; no assets of strategic significance were located within or close to the habsector.

Forces assigned to engage the heretics were ordered to contain at all costs until reinforced:[•astrolog_ident+96620_REDTALONS•]

Destruction of enemy asset deemed •priority_avhia-primus•

Containment achieved and maintained for 87 Terran standard hours. It is believed Gilded Veil then broke containment, reached the habsector’s secondary reactor banks and overloaded them.

[Factor 3] reduction in Hive structural integrity recorded.

•estimated casualties: 21.43 million^

•sector strategic impact: delta minimal]•••

***

Brought to the Chapter by Riverhead, supposedly the Pseudolegion's First Captain, the Caputmori delivered to the Star Wardens was the focus of immediate pride and celebration, and – later – confusion, intrigue and despair amongst the voidborne Chapter.

The Star Wardens jealously regarded themselves as the true heirs of the Primarch, a belief long inculcated in the Chapter by their Chapter Master, Argo. After the initial adulation and celebration of the ceremony had passed, questions and unease quickly arose. 

To the Wardens, their Caputmori was obviously not the favoured silver of those granted to the Quardrargenta, the four Chapters who had first pledged to Volnoscere. Rather it was unmissably – unmistakeably – gold.

To the Star Wardens, Volnoscere was not merely their Commander, but a long-lost father. Questions immediately  arose amongst the ranks. Why had the Primarch not favoured them more obviously? Why had he not come personally? Why, alone of the Partisans, was the Star Wardens’ Caputmori delivered on board a void-vessel by a third party, rather than in His presence? Why was their standard the common gold of other supporters? After twenty-seven centuries years of waiting, did they not deserve more than the other Partisans? 

All Star Wardens served the Partisan cause, but within the Chapter, the curious nature of the Primarch's gift and the manner of its delivery sowed doubts. Later sources suggest Argo claimed this was deliberate; a way for Volnoscere to test and best drive the Star Wardens to demonstrate their worth – for could a Primarch be absent-minded or careless in his honours? Others acted as apologists for the Primarch; attributing the seeming diplomatic error to the Silver Stars themselves; suggesting his infallible will was diluted by having to rely on his relic Legionaries. To many amongst the Wardens, the nature of the Caputmori was one forced by the pressures of war; one not to be brooded upon, but to serve as a call to immediate arms.

***

The Gilded Arm

Those within the Star Wardens who clung to their long-held belief that the Chapter represented more to Volnoscere than his other followers wore a gilded left arm as a symbol of their faith in this belief. The Gilded Arm was the dominant faction for the majority of the War, taking the inspiration for the colours of their symbol from the golden Caputmori granted to them. Perhaps it was not the honoured Silver seemingly holy to their 'elder brethren' in the Silver Stars and the Quadrargenta; but it remained another precious metal – one that the Wardens would demonstrate represented the future for the supposed genefather. 

Others of the Gilded Arm believed it a test: that they must earn the right to a silver banner. 

Still more in the Star Wardens took the difference as marking their Chapter as a new start for the Primarch, that Volnoscere would come to join them alone once the War was finished, and the Last True Son joined his father, enthroned on Terra. These last few – the so-called Star-helms – pointed to the uniqueness of their gifted Captumori; those enigmatic words inscribed upon them by – so they claimed – the hand of the Primarch himself. 

***

Scarlet Handed

Ranged against them were the doubters; led by an arch-sceptic Chaplain. This group, which grew as the war continued and more Star Wardens grew disillusioned with the 'Primarch', instead adopted scarlet gauntlets and bracers. While they did not renounce the Primarch’s import and nature, they came to believe that Argo had been misleading them – for unknown reasons. 

[//Member of Second Cadre+]
[dan_j/@dark_isles+]

Broadly speaking, the scarlet-handed Star Wardens remained dedicated to the Partisan cause: replacing the High Lords of Terra with ‘his Last True Son’, but no longer believed themselves his favoured few. They pointed, angrily or disconsolately, to Volnoscere's continued physical absence, and – most pointedly, to their affronted views – the golden nature of the banner. It posed no mystery; it was simply the mark of an unsentimental bargain, no more worthy of comment than any other group attending the Primarch.

[//'Follow my tracer, Guardsman'+]
[//@thrones_arcane+]

The purpose, nature and meaning of the Caputmori quickly became moot, as it was almost immediately – and shamefully – lost by the Star Wardens during battle on Neo Jove. 

The Chapter pursued and retrieved it, haemorrhaging warriors to do so; determined that they would not be the first Partisans to lose a Great Standard – and as a result, this lost and divisive symbol became for a time the binding glue of the Chapter.

At once a symbol of hope, revulsion, idealism and self-delusion, the Star Wardens Caputmori would change hands twice more during the war – and eventually be the only one that remained unclaimed by the Orthodoxy…

***