The Gauntlets of Ultramar

Cold Steel Ridge

At the First Battle of Macragge in 745.M41 Calgar stood with the 1st Company against the Swarmlord on Cold Steel Ridge. The Swarmlord severed both his hands with a single coordinated strike and left him for dead. The 1st Company died around him holding the ridge.

The Imperial counter-strike found Calgar still alive on the ridge floor. The Apothecary corps brought him back to Macragge in a stasis pod.

The Re-Forging

The chapter's Master of the Forge re-melted relic powerfists from the chapter's pre-Heresy armoury — weapons that had not been worn since the Crusade — and crafted from them the Gauntlets of Ultramar. Calgar woke wearing them. The chapter's response to his survival was, by long account, to vow that he would not again face the Swarmlord without proper hands.

The Swarmlord did not appear at the Devastation of Baal. The chapter considers this confirmation that the vow was heard.

My hands fell at the ridge. The chapter's hands replaced them. I have not let them down.

— Calgar, attributed Macragge

Post-Rubicon

When Calgar crossed the Rubicon Primaris in the early Indomitus Era, the gauntlets were resized to fit his new larger frame. The Master of the Forge performed the work personally. They have not since been removed.

Marneus Calgar's Personal Wargear

The Gauntlets of Ultramar are the personal power-fists wielded by Marneus Calgar, Lord of Macragge and the long-tenured Chapter Master of the Ultramarines. The Gauntlets were crafted for Calgar specifically — not inherited from a predecessor — by the Mechanicus forge-world of Ryza in 738.M41, in anticipation of the Tyranid threat that the Ultramarines' intelligence wing had identified as approaching the Ultramar sector. The Gauntlets' design specifications were drafted by the Mechanicus Magos Vespius in collaboration with Calgar's senior Techmarines.

The Gauntlets are distinctive among Imperial power-fists for their integrated paired storm bolters — a configuration the Ryza forge-world's standard production had not previously incorporated. The integration was Calgar's specific request: he wanted weapons that would allow him to maintain both close-combat and ranged-fire capability simultaneously, on the principle that a Chapter Master in active engagement should not be required to switch weapons during a battle. The integration's engineering was solved by Vespius's team in approximately three years.

Post-Rubicon Status

Calgar's crossing of the Rubicon Primaris in 002.M42 — the Mechanicus medical procedure by which a standard Astartes is upgraded to Primaris-class — modified Calgar's physiology in ways that required the Gauntlets to be further calibrated. The Gauntlets' biological-integration systems had been designed for Calgar's pre-Rubicon body; the post-Rubicon adjustment took six months of Mechanicus work. The Gauntlets' fundamental design specifications were not altered; only the calibration was.

The post-Rubicon Calgar has used the Gauntlets in seventeen documented Indomitus-era engagements, primarily as part of the Indomitus Crusade's Ultramar-region operations. The Gauntlets' performance has been, by Mechanicus quarterly evaluation, "consistent with original Vespius specifications, accounting for biological-integration adjustments." Lethea, who has remained the senior Mechanicus tech-priest responsible for the Gauntlets' maintenance, has reported that Calgar himself has, in private consultation, expressed satisfaction with the Gauntlets' continued performance. Lethea has not classified Calgar's expression as a request for further adjustments.