Many of these wars are planned and undertaken by the Chapter itself, according to the wisdom of its current High Marshal and other highly ranked Chapter officers, but others are undertaken as a result of petitions from other institutions within the Imperium.

With the successful conclusion of a war for which a Crusade force has been raised, the various Fighting Companies within it are likely to be assigned a new mission, redeployed piecemeal to bolster other Crusades already in the field, or sometimes amalgamated into the High Marshal's household until such time as a new Crusade force is mustered.Д®ach Crusade force is raised from available Fighting Companies in order to prosecute a particular foe, purge a specific region of space or attain a definite goal. Under most circumstances, the Chapter is divided into no more than three separate Crusade forces, though during especially calamitous times the number has risen to several times more.Д¬rusade forces are such large and powerful bodies that they are usually sub-divided into tactical bodies known as Fighting Companies, analogous to a standard Codex Astartes company, and each of these is led by a Castellan. The Chapter is divided into a variable number of self-contained and highly mobile forces known as Crusades, each commanded by a Marshal, whose only superior is the High Marshal of the Chapter himself. The Black Templars are the best-known example of a Crusading Chapter in the whole Imperium their doctrines, traditions, and organisation reflect their particular approach to prosecuting the Imperium's wars. Each Crusade is directed by the will of the Marshal in command, and each is despatched by the decree of the High Marshal of the Black Templars to fulfill their prime mission to cleanse the stars. With bolt shell and Chainsword, the Black Templars convert the benighted to the light of the Master of Mankind and destroy those who refuse to welcome His truth. The Black Templars are crusaders, holy warriors battling to bring the truth and light of the Emperor to the unconquered worlds of the galaxy. The subsequent High Marshals of the Chapter have followed the example of their founder and taken the fight to the realms of the alien, the Heretic, and the witch. The ten-millennia-long Imperial Crusade of the Black Templars has seen its warriors embroiled in some of the most momentous conп¬‚icts ever to engulf the Imperium. Rather than constructing a single Chapter fortress-monastery as most Space Marine Chapters do, the Black Templars determined to establish a Chapter Keep upon each world they conquered, to keep watch for treachery, to stage future Crusades, and to recruit new Battle-Brothers. It has lasted for 10,000 standard years.Д®schewing the establishment of a Chapter homeworld, the Black Templars took to the stars in a mighty war п¬‚eet. To prove his loyalty to the Emperor, the first Chapter Master of the Black Templars, the High Marshal Sigismund, assembled a massive war п¬‚eet and began the greatest Space Marine Crusade in the history of the Imperium. One of the new Chapters born of this time was the Black Templars.

It was only when the Imperial Fists were branded Heretics that Dorn relented, allowing his beloved Legion to be subdivided into Chapters. They are not a Codex Astartes-compliant Chapter and maintain a very different Chapter structure and Chapter culture than is the norm amongst most Astartes Chapters.ДЄfter the Great Heresy, Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists, resisted the breaking up of the Space Marine Legions into smaller Chapters. Since that time, the Black Templars have been on the longest Crusade the Imperium of Man has ever known to prove their loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind. Their origin can be traced back to the Imperial Fists' defence of Terra during the Horus Heresy. The Black Templars is a Loyalist Second Founding Space Marines Chapter derived from the Imperial Fists' gene-seed and their Primarch, Rogal Dorn.

Do space marines worship the emperor