Emeric (Castellan)
Emeric is a Black Templars Castellan of the Second Dorean Crusade, who commands the warship Dauntless Honour.[1a]
History
During the Crusade, the Templar forces suffered heavy losses, including the death of Marshal Arold. As Emeric reflected on this, the ship experienced a Gellar Field disruption which caused Daemons to possess the Astropaths. The Dauntless Honour was forced from the warp as Emeric and his Templars slew the possessed. Emeric was informed that the Navigator was comatose and the Dauntless Honour was critically damaged. He then commanded the ship to limp toward the nearby Shrine World of Tempest.[1a]
Shortly after, the Dauntless Honour received a distress call from a nearby Templar vessel, the Spiteful Blade, giving them new hope. After boarding the vessel, they discovered the crew mutilated and learned it was overrun by Daemons. The only survivor was the Neophyte Juerten; Emeric ordered the reactor of the Spiteful Blade overloaded to cleanse it by causing a massive explosion. Amongst those left behind was Juerten, who was deemed corrupted.[1b]
The Dauntless Honour was eventually able to reach Tempest, finding the main Crusade Fleet had arrived and was now under siege by Chaos forces led by the World Eaters Possessed Marine Dravek Soulrender. Emeric, who now had fewer than 40 Battle-Brothers with him, all of whom took an oath to cleanse the world of heretics.[1b]
Breaking the traitor blockade and landing on Tempest, Emeric and his forces joined a group of Frateris Militia resistance groups and established a small base at the city of Saint Ciubrus after purging it of Chaos forces. They then decided to use the world's catacombs to reach the Shrine of Saint Iglese to relieve the defenders there.[1c] At the Shrine, the Templars discovered the corrupt Priests to have simply hunkered down and not waged any kind of defence. Emeric forced those inside to action, destroying the gates and forbidding any retreat. They then marched towards the capital of Saint Ofelias, the site of the main siege by the Soulrender's army.[1d]
In the battle at Saint Ofelias, Emeric and his army arrived just as the city was about to be overrun. They were able to fight their way to the Cathedral of the Martyr as a monstrous Daemon Engine appeared. Realizing they couldn't fight it head-on, Emeric and a dozen of his remaining brothers launched a boarding operation on the machine. Taking heavy losses, Emeric used his Crusade's last Thunderhawk in a kamikaze attack, finally taking it down.[1e] The Daemon engine's destruction created a localized Warp storm which the Imperials, now led by Emeric and just four other Templars, used to try and retreat back to the Dauntless Honour.[1f]
In the final battle, Soulrender, now fully possessed by his Daemon named The Carver, attacked the Dauntless Honour. The Imperials made their last stand and all of Emeric's remaining brothers were killed. In a final act of defiance Emeric was able to kill Soulrender and banish The Carver by strangling him.[1f] The sole survivor of the Crusade, Emeric was eventually discovered by Marshal Laise, who revealed he had once been his former apprentice. The main Crusade fleet arrived and Emeric, now with a mechanical arm and leg, reflected on the sacrifice of his brothers and realised his true purpose had simply been to hold the line rather than win a decisive battle himself.[1g]
