Every battle brother within the Adeptus Astartes has been transformed into something more than
human.
Implanted with an ancient gene-seed, they become stronger, faster, beyond the touch
of plague or any natural disease.
They can suffer wounds that might shred a normal man to pieces, only to rise and fight
once more.
Clad in ancient power armor and wielding the most effective weapons known to man, there
are few beings in the galaxy who can endure the wrath of but a single Space Marine.
It was inevitable then, that when entire armies were mobilized from such warriors, they became
the most impressive and renowned forces in the galaxy.
Of the original 20 Space Marine Legions raised by the Emperor of Mankind, all have become
famous or infamous in their own right.
Although exemplary in every form of warfare, each became devoted to a specific craft or
style of battle.
It was for this reason that when nearly half the Space Marines Legions turned traitor and
the Imperium of Man was split asunder, there was but a single, obvious choice for which
must defend the capital of the Emperor’s greatest work.
When the traitors who served the ruinous powers descended upon the walls of the Imperial Palace,
they found the bulwarks, bastions and trenches guarded by the finest of mankind’s defenders:
The Imperial Fists.
Every Space Marine Legion was shaped not only from the will and intellect of the Emperor,
but the character of their respective Primarch.
Genetically engineered, transhuman sons of the Emperor, the Primarchs were intended to
lead a great reconquest of man’s lost dominions both on Earth and across the galaxy.
Each was instead scattered across the warp by the machinations of the ruinous powers
before they reached maturity, a desperate attempt by the Gods of Chaos to subvert the
Emperor’s plans.
While the Primarchs themselves were lost to him, the Emperor preserved genetic templates,
and from these he created the first Space Marines.
While mere shadows of their Primarchs, they were still magnificent warriors, more than
capable of subduing the tyrants who had drowned Terra in madness and petty ambition.
It was from the Gene Seed of the Primarch who would become known as Rogal Dorn that
the 7th Legion was created.
While many of the other Legions recruited only from a particular source or territory,
the 7th was raised from the whole of Terra.
Only those with the greatest capacity for endurance in both mind and body survived their
transformation, for the process used to activate their Primarch’s gene seed was particularly
excruciating.
Campaigns against the Cities of the Crystal Sea, the Witchery of the Wind Caller Clans,
and countless other techno-barbarian tribes imparted on the 7th Legion a particular method
of warfare.
To the 7th, mere victory was not enough.
Armies could be defeated, strongholds torn down, beliefs broken, but still a conquered
territory might one day revolt against the Emperor.
To truly conquer, that which was taken must be held in perpetuity.
In the wake of the 7th Legion’s advance, first on Earth and later across a multitude
of worlds, there arose mighty fortresses and new dominions.
The 7th Legion’s Space Marines were equal parts warrior, engineer and castellan.
They brought not only victory, but newly ordered realms within which, the Emperor’s dream
of a united humanity could flourish.
These early conquests were described by onlookers as if “the hand of the Emperor had descended
and gripped with an unbreakable fist”.
This description of service done by the 7th Legion was embraced by the Emperor himself,
naming them the “Imperial Fists” by personal decree.
Exactly how the lost Primarch of the Imperial Fists lived his early years while his legion
fought on Earth has long since been lost in myth.
Yet it was clear that the Imperial Fists inclination towards order and structure originated in
part with Rogal Dorn.
Unyielding, idealistic and honest at times to a fault, Dorn had raised the icy world
of Inwit to the capital of an interstellar empire.
When the Emperor’s Great Crusade to reconquer the galaxy first reached Dorn’s adoptive
home, the Primarch Reunited with his father at the helm of an enormous starship known
as the Phalanx.
Immediately recognizing his father, Rogal Dorn knelt in fealty, bestowing to the Emperor
not only his loyalty, but vassalage of the star spanning society he had established.
In turn the Primarch was gifted the Legion created with his own genetic material, and
the Phalanx transformed into the mobile fortress-monastery of the 7th Space Marine Legion.
Within the Great Crusade, the Imperial Fists achieved innumerable triumphs.
Rogal Dorn in particular was said to possess the finest military mind of any of his brother
Primarchs: ordered and disciplined, yet still inclined to flashes of zeal and inspiration.
The 7th Legion became the masters of siegecraft, whether on the attack or defense.
Even the Warmaster Horus, first and most favored among the Emperor’s sons, remarked that
if he were to besiege a fortress designed by Dorn and held by the 7th Legion, the battle
would become a never-ending stalemate.
When Horus turned against the Emperor and embraced the temptations of the Gods of Chaos,
the Imperial Fists we’re already on their way to Terra.
The Legion had been named the Emperor’s personal guard, and Dorn was in the midst
of completing the Imperial Palace.
His designs would be put to the ultimate test as the Traitor Legions descended on the Solar
System, intent on destroying the Emperor and the Imperium along with it.
The Imperial Fists conducted a masterful defense against impossible odds, making the traitors
pay for every inch taken from the outer perimeter of the Pluto Defense Sphere, to the Forges
of Mars, and eventually, to the holy ground of Terra itself.
Together with their loyalist brothers in the Blood Angels and White Scars Legions, the
Imperial Fists put up a fanatical defense within the Palace.
But with the collapse of the capital’s still unfinished defenses seemingly inevitable,
Dorn and several companies of his finest warriors joined the Emperor in a counter-attack on
Horus’ flagship, the “Vengeful Spirit”.
The final confrontation between the Emperor and his fallen son echoed into eternity and
sent shockwaves across the Warp.
It fell to Dorn to discover the body of his fallen Emperor, and the corpse of his brother
Primarch Sanguinius.
With Horus dead, the traitors scattered, and the Emperor’s shattered body entombed within
the Golden Throne, Rogal Dorn sought vengeance across all the fallen worlds of the galaxy.
The Imperial Fists hunted down the remnants of the Traitor Legions, part of a merciless
campaign known as the Great Scouring.
Seeking to atone for their failure to protect the Emperor, the Legion besieged a Chaos stronghold
known as the “Iron Cage”.
This was a hateful construct of endless fortresses and trenches defended by the Iron Warriors,
a traitor legion that had always claimed to be the 7th’s equal in the art of siegecraft.
Only through the intervention of the Ultramarines were the Imperial Fists spared a war of attrition
that would have ruined them.
When he returned to Terra, Dorn was furious to discover that his Legion was to be split
into smaller formations, part of a new Imperial reformation known as the Codex Astartes.
With the spectre of another great rebellion looming over the shattered Imperium, many
thought the Space Marines Legions too powerful.
They were to be broken down into Chapters of no more than a 1000 warriors, a move supported
by many of the surviving loyal Primarchs.
Dorn was initially not among them, only relenting when he realized his self-imposed quest for
vengeance had blinded him to wisdom.
From the Imperial Fists, the 7th Space Marine Legion, there arose the Black Templars, Iron
Knights, Crimson Fists, Hammers of Dorn, and dozens of other Successor Chapters.
Rogal Dorn, now master of the Imperial Fists Chapter, embraced all aspects of the Codex
Astartes, retraining his battle-brothers to its every dictate.
It was in the first Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler that the Imperial Fist’s lost
their Primarch.
In a fate that echoed that of his father, Rogal Dorn was last seen onboard a traitor
battleship, leading a desperate attack on its command deck.
All that was recovered of his body was a single fist, returned to the Phalanx where it remains
still.
The Hand of Dorn has been the Chapters' holiest icon, a reminder of the sacrifice and commitment
necessary for the Imperium to endure.
For ten thousand years the Imperial Fists have been the Imperium’s most stalwart defenders.
Entirely fleet-based, they have eschewed a traditional chapter-homeworld in favor of
the Phalanx.
It is from here that the Chapter Master and his command staff oversee the 10 Companies,
and the auxiliary and support units that currently comprise the Imperial Fists.
Additional formations include the Imperial Fist’s space fleet, which can muster numerous
strike cruisers, battle barges, and starforts.
During the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy, the fleet of the 7th Legion was amongst the
largest in the Imperium, and the lineage of that great armada can still be felt.
While always on the move, the Chapter maintains a network of Fortress Chapels on a variety
of planets across the Imperium.
These are typically garrisoned by veterans wounded so grievously, that they are no longer
able to fight at their full effectiveness.
It is from these bastions that the chapter seeks out potential initiates, holding tournaments,
or even instigating conflicts among the local population to determine who might be worthy.
Rogal Dorn famously said that he wanted “recruits, not vassals” and so, these Fortress Chapels
exert no political right over the worlds they occupy, nor make any demands of its people.
Like most Chapters, the Imperial Fists embrace combined arms in flexible, balanced battlegroups,
each capable of matching a variety of threats.
While they do not purposely seek out any specific battleground over any other, the Chapter is
uniquely suited to the art of the siege.
They are utterly immovable in the defense and able to pinpoint weaknesses and apply
relentless pressure when on the attack.
This single-mindedness has on many occasions however, led to far greater casualties, with
the Imperial Fists suffering losses other Chapters would never accept.
This has sustained the Chapter’s legendary reputation, but in multiple instances, has
nearly driven the Chapter to extinction, most notably during the War of the Beast.
In many ways, the entire Chapter is still driven by the memory of their defense of the
Imperial Palace during the Siege of Terra.
Their martial culture is defined by the epic struggle between Order and Disorder, embracing
ritual and ceremony.
Even in battle they are driven and focused, dedicated to fastidiousness and a meticulous
attention to detail.
This has materialized in the Chapter’s near obsession with scrimshawing, the carving of
intricate details and patterns into bone.
The Hand of Dorn itself has been scrimshawed with the heraldry of every subsequent Chapter
Master, and many brothers wear the scrimshawed bones of fallen comrades.
They are also uniquely devoted to the “Pain-Glove”, a steel framework that leaves its wearer in
complete agony.
New recruits might be forced to wear the Pain Glove as a punishment, while veterans employ
it as a form of meditation.
Through these activities, the Imperial Fists have honed their unequalled spiritual and
mental endurance.
Such qualities are needed in the defenders of the Imperium now more than ever before.
With the fall of Cadia, an incursion by demonic forces on the soil of Holy Terra itself and
the galaxy torn asunder, there is little doubt that mankind had entered the Time of Ending.
It is a moment that Rogal Dorn must have known might come, for even as the ashes of the Horus
Heresy still fell across the galaxy, he laid down the foundations for a secret order.
In the event that the very existence of the Imperium of Man was threatened, if Holy Terra
were attacked or even occupied, then the Codex Astartes was to be cast aside.
By the command of their long vanished Primarch, the Successor Chapters of the Imperial Fists
would reunite, and the 7th Legion reformed.
In doing so, they would bring the might of an entire Space Marine legion unseen for millennia
against any who might imperil Mankind’s dominance over the galaxy.
“The Last Wall” as this command is known, has only been activated once before, and the
time may finally be right, for the order to be given once again.