The Emperor's Shadows (Yamatan: 皇帝の影 Kōtei no Kage) are a Loyalist Fourth Founding Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, created from veterans of the Black Templars in the 6th century M32 following the War of the Beast.
Chapter History[]
Yamato is a Feudal World that was rediscovered and claimed by the Black Templars shortly before the War of the Beast. When the High Lords of Terra decreed the Fourth Founding, the veteran Captain of the Templars' Seventh Company, who had been granted mastery of one of the new successor chapters, requested from Chapter Master Atle Rooijakkers to take the planet as his capital. Rooijakkers agreed, and the captain took the name Hiraku Miyagawa and made the Black Templar keep under a sacred mountain his fortress-monastery.
In the early 34th Millennium, the Emperor's Shadows assisted in putting down a rebellion. During this conflict they took an Ascension-class battleship as a prize from heretic Imperial Navy forces, and put her into service as their Battle Barge, renaming her the Musashi.
Splinter Fleet Baphomet[]
In the early 990s.M41, the chapter was forced to deploy repeatedly to combat incursions by tyranid swarms. The sector Astra Militarum's Magos Biologis at this time classified the strain's distinctive violet-shelled organisms as Baphomet, believing them to be a previously unrecorded splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Kraken, which was known to be a conglomeration of several different broods. The Astra Militarum realized that the swarm was forming up for a major offensive and made projections of its course, and Katsuo Yamahashi, Shogun of the Emperor's Shadows, ordered Shikoku and Okinawa Companies and their Strike Cruisers to join the Imperial reaction force gathering at Archon IV.
The Astra Militarum and Astartes succeeded in repelling the swarm with acceptable losses, but horror awaited them on the return home. The Chōkai diverted to check in with an outpost of the Adeptus Mechanicus studying the tyranid swarms in the Confucius System, but the three astropaths aboard found themselves unexpectedly unable to transmit upon emerging from the Immaterium. Hachirō Taniguchi-tai-i, commander of Shikoku Company, quickly realized they were within an oncoming tyranid fleet’s warp shadow, and ordered the system evacuated in advance of its arrival. When Baphomet subsequently darkened the skies over Confucius II, the impossibly outnumbered Emperor’s Shadows fought with the honour demanded by their ancient codes, and even chapter serfs and civilian volunteers took up arms in a desperate defence of the evacuation ports against the foul xenos. The Chōkai was lost covering the retreat of what voidships were available: observers recorded the Strike Cruiser engaged in a final suicidal charge against a far larger hive vessel, before their own ships escaped into the Warp.
The lives of five million Imperial citizens out of three billion inhabitants had been bought with the sacrifice of an entire company of Astartes and some sixty thousand serfs.
It was not for several more years before the Imperium finally realized that Baphomet was not a splinter at all, but rather a forerunner of an entirely new hive fleet striking from beneath the galactic plane: Leviathan.
Appearance[]
The Emperor's Shadows' color scheme is loosely based off of their progenitor chapter the Black Templars, gloss black with contrasting details in red and turquoise. The chapter badge consists of a black bonsai tree silhouetted against a red rising sun, surrounded by Japanese characters. This is customarily painted onto Yamatan leather and secured to a samurai's pauldrons by cords.
Combat Doctrine[]
Like their progenitors, the Emperor's Shadows have a reputation for fearlessly seeking out close combat. While not opposed to the use of longer-range weaponry, they typically employ shock tactics and consider swordplay a critical part of their training. They are also quite fond of melta weapons.
The chapter is Codex-compliant in overall size but operates fewer, larger companies: eight companies of approximately 120 brethren each, plus an additional element of forty brethren that acts as bodyguards to the shogun in the event he takes the field. Their Scout Marines, called shinobi, are assigned to a platoon in each company commanded by a veteran chūi (lieutenant), which the Shadows believe offers their bansho (captains) a greater degree of flexibility.
Within the confines of their honour codes, the Emperor's Shadows do like to innovate. Against the wishes of their parent chapter, they reintroduced the use of Librarians, called kannushi in the chapter after the indigenous term for "priest", on a limited basis in the 35th Millennium after a sanctioned psyker saved half a company when a daemon-hunting mission went awry.
Recruitment[]
The technological level of Yamato's inhabitants varies from Bronze Age tribes all the way up to comparatively civilized Gunpowder Age societies, who live in a stratified caste system topped by feuding warlords. Territorial wars between the daimyo of Yamato are almost constant, which provides the Emperor’s Shadows with a ready supply of shigan-sha (aspirants). Much like the Wolves of Fenris, the chapter uses its system of monitoring satellites to search for boys and young men who die distinctive and brave deaths in battle, dispatching Thunderhawks with chapter apothecaries and medicae serfs to retrieve and revive them.
Rank System[]
- Seii Taishōgun (addressed as -taisho): Chapter master, typically shortened to just "shogun". Nominal military governor of Yamato on behalf of the God-Emperor of Mankind, though in practice the chapter takes a hands-off approach.
- Bansho (-tai-i): Captain.
- Chūi: Lieutenant.
- Gunsō: Sergeant.
- Kannushi: Librarians.
- Samurai: ordinary battle-brothers.
- Shinobi: Scout Marines.
- Shigan-sha: Aspirants.
- Ashigaru: Chapter serfs, after the professional soldier caste in many parts of Yamato. Folk of Yamato who provide services to the chapter may be brought into this class, which is trained to fight at least in its own defense. Males of the ashigaru are only rarely adopted as shigan-sha for lack of opportunity to distinguish themselves in battle while still of recruitment age, but it does occasionally happen: Hachirō Taniguchi-tai-i, bansho of the lost Shikoku Company, was one such recruit.
Chapter Fleet[]
The Emperor's Shadows maintain a small but capable Chapter Fleet consisting of the following vessels:
- Musashi: The Chapter’s Battle Barge, a modified Ascension-class battleship taken as a prize in the 34th Millennium. The Kantō and Kansai Companies, considered the elite of the chapter, deploy aboard the Musashi.
- Strike Cruisers: Furutaka, Kinugasa, Ashigara, and Chōkai (currently listed as missing in action), home to respectively the Hokkaidō, Tōhoku, Chūgoku, and Shikoku Companies.
- Frigates: The final two Companies, Kyūshū and Okinawa, are split among these six ships.
- Sword-class: Shiranui, Kazagumo, Fuyutsuki, Shimakaze
- Firestorm-class: Sakura, Hatsuzakura
Notable Members[]
Hiraku Miyagawa 宮川 拓[]
Originally captain of the Black Templars' Seventh Company, his birth name, Cayden Pilkvist, is known to the Templars but not acknowledged by the Emperor's Shadows. A veteran of four centuries, he was stationed in the garrison of the chapter keep on Yamato as a young Marine and became enamored of the Feudal World's indigenous macroculture. When the Emperor's Shadows were created in the 4th Founding and he was named their chapter master, Black Templars Chapter Master Atle Rooijakkers agreed to his request to make Yamato his capital. He adopted the title of Seii Taishōgun, "greatest subjugator of barbarians", from the native language, and took the name Miyagawa Hiraku.
Katsuo Yamahashi 山橋 勝雄[]
Present shogun of the Emperor's Shadows.
Hachirō Taniguchi 谷口 八郎[]
Hachirō Taniguchi was captain of Shikoku Company in the 990s.M41, holding his flag on the Strike Cruiser Chōkai. A Techmarine, he was recruited as a shigan-sha from the chapter ashigaru rather than the indigenous Yamatans, for making critical repairs to the cruiser's reactor during a space action and sustaining a lethal dose of radiation and severe burns in the process.
After the Battle of Archon IV against Splinter Fleet Baphomet, he diverted to an Adeptus Mechanicus outpost in the Confucius System to check in, but the Strike Cruiser emerged in the warp shadow of an oncoming tyranid fleet. Taniguchi ordered the system evacuated and organized the SDF, PDF, and civilian volunteers to protect the refugee ships as they departed. His ship was last seen mounting a suicide charge against a far larger hive vessel; he and the remainder of the company are presumed to have fallen honourably in the Emperor's service.
Makoto Fujita 藤田 誠[]
An ashigaru of Shikoku Company, Fujita was born aboard the Chōkai, and like many such children, idolized the Astartes growing up, even insisting that she would become one when she grew up. Her parents did not have the heart to inform her that the geneseed was incompatible with cisgender female physiology until she was nearly ten years old. She put her efforts instead into becoming an implantation surgeon, at which duty she excelled.
She was stationed with Shikoku Company during the Archon IV mission and was presumed dead in the subsequent massacre at Confucius. Unbeknownst to the Chapter at present, she in fact managed to hide herself and several others including a wounded shinobi in a walk-in medical supply freezer when her field hospital was overrun by the tyranids. She was rescued from the surface in a daring landing by Antonin Grecic, an acolyte of the Ordo Xenos, and brought to the Hive World Narcissus IV.
Behind the scenes[]
The Emperor's Shadows were created by Games Workshop's Victoria Lamb as part of a demonstration of how to create a homebrew Space Marine chapter, with a color scheme inspired by the Black Templars. StarSword expanded on them as part of creating a backstory for a Dark Heresy player character.