The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up

It is well known that the Ritual of Becoming can result in certain traits becoming near universal among a Knight House. The spirits of their ancestors instill a trait in the next generation, who in turn further strengthen it and pass it on to their descendants. Many Knight Houses are known for their fury, their honor, or their valor. House Morgan of Secundus is known above all for its pragmatism.

House Morgan is a deeply strange vassal house on the Secundus world of Camlann. They rule a modest barony from their capital of Carnwennan. To them their duty to their people outweighs any petty concerns such as honor or glory. They will think nothing of quitting the field, striking from ambush,being relegated to less glorious duties or even surrendering to the Tau should the situation become dire. This has resulted in the House having a rather mixed reputation. On one hand they are seen by many as craven and underhanded, but at the same time they are also seen as immensely dependable. "No worse ally on the field of honor, no better ally on the campaign" is the typical feeling of most other Houses. Their mixed reputation is made worse by a few high profile members falling to Chaos over the centuries.

Among the more distasteful practices of the House is the strong encouragement of its members to have as many children as possible, legitimate or otherwise. This has led to an informal arrangement where commoners agree to provide a child to the House in exchange for a stipend. Typically such bastards are adopted fully into the House at birth, and have only loose ties to their commoner parent, though exceptions do occur. This practice has led to them having far more knight pilots than a House of their size would typically possess. As such, they tend to favor cheaper knight patterns, relying on numbers and teamwork to compensate for the individual weakness of their knights.

In terms of governance, they are notably above average in terms of administrative skill. This is primarily due to another practice considered distasteful. They actively train and recruit commoners into the bureaucracy, and will claim those who excel as being long lost bastards, moving them formally into the House. They will of course not be expected to pilot a knight, but will be given a high administrative position. This political fiction allows them to draw upon a far larger pool for administrative work. While the head of the House is always a knight pilot, it is not uncommon for them to cede the majority of the day to day administrative work to these adopted serfs. Their primary source of income is mostly mining, both on and off world.
It has long been rumored that House Morgan survived an ancient purge by cutting a deal with the Inquisition. While this rumor has not been proven one way or another, in the modern day they are known to work closely with the Frumentarii*, providing assistance when overwhelming firepower is needed, and allegedly allowing them to operate out of their holdings. While this has not helped their reputation, it has at least assured some that they are being watched.

Since the fall of the Imperium the house has found its ancient strategy of spending as much time abroad as possible infeasible, and has adopted a strategy of seeking to sink as far into the background as they feasibly can. This is something the never ending tide of changes brought about by Camlann's absorption by Imperium Secundus has helped immensely with. To those that pay attention to the house, the skill they have shown in always being in the middle of the pack when it comes to adopting new changes or taking advantage of loosened restrictions is impressive. Though in some cases changes were rolled out with suspicious quickness and smoothness. More than one historian has noticed their adoption of tau derived enhancements was completed with suspicious speed.

In war Morgan has a somewhat distasteful willingness to take full advantage of the Cyhtheria Conventions, especially the Convention of Honor ironically enough. When in command, Morgan forces are extremely willing to both give and take surrenders, and have been known to allow tau forces to withdraw from battle. Worse is the rather controversial practice of sanguis enim sanguis. Where House Morgan commanders will offer to surrender their parole without a fight, in exchange for the tau commander paroling an approximately equal number forces they could have felled, or pausing an advance for how long they could have stalled them for. In one now legendary case, upon hearing of a brewing Waaagh, a Morgan commander offered to parole his entire force in exchange for an attacking tau general to do the same, a deal that is ultimately credited with both saving the world they were fighting over, and greatly reducing the impact of the Waaagh. Ironically, their tendency for this has made their forces more likely to be deployed to the Tau front, as their tendency to be paroled rather than destroyed is seen as desirable by the local chapters** This tendency has resulted in one of the few forces that actually respects House Morgan to be the Tau Empire, creating a bizarre situation where their enemies often think higher of them than their allies.

Worries about defectors from House Morgan however have been thoroughly put to rest. Over the centuries there have been over a dozen defections from House Morgan to the Tau Empire, and every last one of them was a double agent. It has reached the point of near parody, to the point where no Morgan defector will be accepted under any circumstances. This has resulted in a near ritual deeply insincere offer of defection made by House Morgan officers upon surrender. Some have muttered that the repeated use of such a ploy hints at a worry of genuine defection, a perhaps not entirely unwarranted thought.

While many of their compatriots sneer at what they see as base cowardice against the Tau, this is largely offset by an impeccable service record against both orks and Chaos, with House Morgan often dying in droves to protect more strategically valuable forces. The sharp contrast combined with the willingness for many chapters to vouch for their effectiveness, and the house's stringent efforts to avoid both political entanglements and any overly desirable assets, has allowed the house to survive as something of an open dirty secret. Many houses sneer at them, but few houses would consider the effort to truly undo them worthwhile, until quite suddenly that was no longer the case.

Morgan had long funded itself though mines, studiously avoiding truly valuable substances such as gold or adamantium, they contend themselves with the mining of baser metals such as iron and silver. Few other houses considered the additional overhead needed to shape such base ore into valuable products worth the hassle. This lack of interest had allowed them to become one of the largest producers of silver in their sector. However, silvers status as a lesser metal was one of many things to change when the Empire of Ashes gifted Secundus with knowledge. Among the plethora of technology was a smattering of warplore, including silver's ability to resist taint. Overnight, silver became one of the most valuable metals in Secundus.

It was an utter disaster for the house. Quite suddenly they found themselves the target of every ambitious house with too much glory and not enough wealth. It had not even been a week before murmurings started about how it was obscene to leave so valuable a resource in the hands of so craven a house. Worse still, the revelation came shortly after the battle of the vault of honor***, and their support among the astartes chapters was at a low ebb. For the last decade they have barely survived by calling in every favor they had carefully hoarded over the centuries, and desperately attempting to leverage their wealth into political connections.

While they so far have kept their heads above water, their future remains uncertain as they desperately seek out a new strategy to survive their sudden wealth. While the house is martailly stronger than ever, their political situation is likely untenable. Baring a chance to prove themselves within the next few decades, it is nearly certain that this ancient house will at last be undone by its own pragmatism.


*The intelligence apparatus of Secundus
** the Maeval guard and Oberic legion
*** the vault of honor was a deeply holy site in a distant sector, where both local chapters interred their greatest heroes. It also briefly housed an orkish warlord who found his foes refusal to bombard it so amusing he made a point of leaving it unfortified. A decision that allowed a Morgan maniple to reduce it to rubble in a controversial, if effective decapitation strike.

@Durin, I finally finished these guys up. if the tau thing needs toning down let me know.

Many thanks to andres110 and doomed wombat for helping with the many rewrites and editing.