The Black Dragons are truly NOT Codex Compliant
After re-reading Death of Antagonis noticed a lot of things, especially in terms of the number of members that were apart of the 2nd Company and organization.
We all know the Codex Astartes standard for Marines for a company is 100, not counting specialist. Without spoilers there are several times in the story that the number of members of the 2nd company are mentioned. These were usually broken down by saying the number of total marines or number of squads at the present battle or area. This happened several times and during certain events of the story and the numbers fluctuate due to circumstance. But if you were to tally up all those numbers when they are mentioned, they were well over 100 marines.
Throughout the story, Codex compliancy is a huge plot point, its even stated several times that the Black Dragons were not a Codex Chapter. That had me thinking do they actually go pass the 100 Marines per company standard or is this just an error on the writer? Another thing to note, very similarly but a lot different from Blood Angels. The Black Dragons house a secret unit in each company, known as The Blessed which are an unknown number of Marines, whose Gene seed have turned them into living monsters/dragons and they are sedated away from the chapter until needed. If you count that unit they’re already well over 100.
Some last things to note in terms of organization. They do not have lieutenants, that rank is switched with 1st Sergeant from what we seen so far. Chaplains are highly revered and can even take command of companies becoming de-facto Captains like Darrigg. Black Dragons Librarians do not wear the Codex blue like other chapters. Their Librarians wear black armor, like seen in Tribute to Flesh with Epistolary Rothnove.
All of this just makes me wonder, The inquisition always tries to find them guilty of heresy or treachery, yet they haven’t once hit them for going against the Codex.