Record show that brothers only started to become afflicted by the sense of despair and that their time had finally been run out after the discovery of temptations end.
Lower the battle barge had proved the chapters salvation it had also brought with it a taint from the warp .
The ship had been discovered in pristine condition it's weapons still filled with ammunition it's armories still well stocked with armor and machines. But not a soul stirred on its deck no captain sat it's chair. No crew service it's machinery. The maintenance halls echoed in silence as battle brothers from the then unnamed chapter searched its corridors looked into its living quarters and searched its data banks they found no trace of who the crew had been of where the legionaries which should have been aboard such a vessel had gone.
Given the chapters desperate need for material, for armor and for weapons to bring the fight to the enemy this ship seemed a gift from the emperor himself.
The then chapter master ordered the librarians and tech priests to immediately test every piece of equipment every circuit every weapon every round for chaos taint. Such a vessel coming from the warp with no crew could hardly have been left without some form of desicraction or canker placed upon it.
The tech marines found no corruption within the data files, or eldritch runes hidden in its construction . The librarians felt no presence nor warp energy hidden within the vessel or it's contents. It appeared everything was satisfactory that the ghost ship was just a vessel lost on the tides of the warp .
New battle brothers were armed with the power armour and weaponry.
The mechanicus delighted at receiving examples of historical significance in the form of the heresy era machinery. The vessels bounty granted the newly formed death tempters access to their manufacturuims to pay a tribute for eternity in return for the archaeological gifts contained within.
The space marines themselves took the largest legacy putting their vehicles to the test against overwhelming foes from one side of the galaxy to the next.
The legacy could not last forever and many is the the ancient artifacts perished in battle and those that remain in service are kept with revenance as a relics of the chapters former glory.
It was only after a millennia that the so called curse of the death tempterss became known. Each battle brother looked to battle to meet the glorious end to pay the emperor a debt in blood and destruction of his foes. Each death tempter must pay the ultimate price but only once the price had been paid for.
It became part of the chapter's culture. Part of the chapters mystique. They would not falter they would not run from a fight they would hit hard with ultimate destruction and if victory meant that they had to pay with their lives that was something that each death tempter was prepared to pay. But soon some brothers began to go beyond that. They felt that their time had come that this battle was when their price would be paid they started to lose discipline and forced themselves to the front of battle often askewing cover and good tactics instead rushing towards the enemy eager to slay as many as possible as their time had come.
Such brothers inevitably had worn the older marks of armor that it served on the temptations end that in some form or some way had touched the pre heresy era battle barges legacy.
The chaplains rose to the occasion and brought the brothers in their pre battle prayers to find those that had been afflicted to find those that could no longer contain themselves in the discipline state of a true iron hand successor These brothers were segregated. Their armor painted white, a death shroud. For there was no point in them wearing the dark camo of their chapter brothers they would instead be used as battering rams and berserkers unstoppable machines that lived only but to bring themselves forward.
Their helms alone remain in black for only the honoured may wear the white of a veteran. Many are given skull faced helms to meet Deaths grin with a smile of their own.
Should there be time the brothers identified would be cybernetically altered able to withstand greater levels of pain. To keep going even more than a normal space marine would do but in turn would lose a level of their humanity. Almost to the point where they were servitors.
These Brother's became known as the Dead Company.
Despite their behaviour sometimes although rarely these marines would survive their fates battle. By some.stroke of fortune or magnificent skill they would prevail.
They would not be used as normal marines. They no longer acted as Astartes. They would fall almost into a fugue state until battle raged once more and the chaplains could.exhort them to war. That they were needed once more. They would don the finest armour of the legacy. Coloured in the holy colours of the Omnishah. Burnished in red they would attack from the skies wearing death masks. Plunging into where the fighting was thickest.
They carry the title as the Tempted or the Reforged. They believe that the Emperor still has a purpose for them and thus they have been plucked from their fate to serve once more.
