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Agathean Domain - Sources: Codex: Imperial Guard (5th Edition), pg. 23The Horus Heresy Book Four: Conquest (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 54-63, 74-75, 90-95The Horus Heresy Book Six: Retribution (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 103-115 |
Agathon (Deathwatch) - Agathon (Deathwatch): Agathon is the Deathwatch Chapter watch master who serves as the watch commander of the watch fortress Mortguard of the northern Segmentum Ultima in the Imperium Nihilus.It was he who led a majority of Mortguard's Watch Companies into battle against the T'au Empire's Fifth Sphere Expansion and the Hivewyrm Genestealer Cult on the Shrine World of Saint's Halt during the Chalnath Expanse Campaign. |
Agathon (Deathwatch) - Chalnath Expanse Campaign Begins: For the servants of the Emperor, each new contact with beleaguered regions in the Imperium Nihilus brought fresh news of falling or fallen worlds, continuing to far outweigh any tales of heroic resistance. In the blighted Chalnath Expanse of the northern Ultima Segmentum, scores of Imperial star systems were in the throes of uprisings and civil wars, scourged by fear-mongering prophets. Into these fractures, more than one xenos ideology seeped. Since the emergence of the Cicatrix Maledictum, the nearby watch fortress of Mortguard and its surrounding watch stations had weathered not only the ferocious Warp storms that had afflicted the surrounding sectors, but surges of xenos as well. Though many aliens had been wiped out by the birth of the Great Rift, many more were driven to invading new territories after losing their own, or were scattered into the path of weakened Human worlds by raging empyric tempests. Such threatening occurrences seemed to have afflicted the Chalnath Expanse.From its own network of astroduct splicing, comm shunts and informants, Mortguard identified a growing alien influence on the Imperial systems of the Chalnath Expanse. Its exact nature was revealed by Inquisitor Jazad D'ontor. The elderly Ordo Xenos investigator sent an encrypted missive to Mortguard's watch commander, Agathon. The Inquisitor's transcripts and vid-captures showed the hand of the T'au Empire at work. After worming their way onto poverty-stricken Frontier Worlds, the T'au had openly moved against several recalcitrant systems. On some worlds, D'ontor revealed, Astra Militarum regiments attempted to hold back T'au offensives, but other regiments were embroiled in vast civil uprisings of unknown origin. D'ontor had no answers as to how or why the T'au had appeared so far to the galactic north of their primary territory in the Eastern Fringe, but made clear that this was surely only a prelude to a full-scale invasion.The old investigator had intercepted T'au delegations making for the pivotal expanse worlds of Cestis and Saint's Halt. He had lost a sizable party of Inquisitorial Acolytes in the Arrajian System, too, and believed that all three locations faced being lost. Should they fall, the T'au would spread like a stain, corrupting the Chalnath Expanse from the inside out to threaten the vulnerable worlds at the southern rim of the region. From there, a major Warp route led directly to the Segmentum Fortress at Kar Duniash. The xenos could not be allowed to threaten so vital an Imperial stronghold.In response, Watch Master Agathon led three entire Watch Companies from Mortguard to the worlds of the Chalnath Expanse. D'ontor's evidence gave suggestions of possible T'au disposition, but the Deathwatch had deeper suspicions. The T'au, they believed, were not the only aliens in the expanse. Broken reports of mutants and religious sects, not to mention D'ontor's missing retinues, all reeked to Agathon of Genestealer Cult infections -- a foe the Deathwatch of Mortguard had fought before. |
Agathon (Deathwatch) - Battle of Saint's Halt: The Chalnath Expanse Shrine World of Saint's Halt was home to billions of people. They crowded into cramped coastal cities that were squeezed between acidic seas and inland plateaux dominated by continental reliquary palaces. The Deathwatch strike cruiser Void Sentinel, upon translation into the system, found the world already under siege by the forces of the T'au Empire. Native Planetary Defence Force infantry regiments of the Saint's Tidecasters fought alongside the battle-sisters of the Order of the Blue Robe, and Astra Militarum forces from the Riatov and Pennutsk Systems that had breached the T'au orbital blockade to reach the surface.From Void Sentinel's command throne, Watch Master Agathon conducted Mortguard's global campaign against both T'au cadres and Genestealer Cult uprisings. Hive Tor Saev burned, illuminating the southern pole. At Hive Delina, the Absolutis Arch was hung with bloody Loyalist corpses as their Genestealer Cultist murderers defended the city from T'au bombardment. Vast battle lines had opened up around every major hive city; Agathon concentrated his strikes against three.At Leonis Hive, the watch master directed kill-teams to sabotage a Shield Generator protecting the T'au flank from Riatov artillery companies. To Gedronis, he dispatched waves of Storm Speeders to cut off the xenos grav-tanks attacking the Gate of the Emperor's Vengeance, hoping to allow the Adepta Sororitas trapped there to break out. Mortguard's Watch Company Quintus in its entirety smashed into the T'au offensive outside the planetary capital city, Boran Prime. In a storm of special-issue bolter ammunition, cleaving blades and psychic scourges, the T'au buckled. The Deathwatch drove them back into the claws of xenophile cultists who declared themselves to be the Hivewyrm, forcing the two breeds of xenos to turn on each other.In orbit, Deathwatch reserves awaited the ambushes Agathon knew both faithless xenos species were capable of initiating. When the next one struck, he would be ready, as the war for the Chalnath Expanse ground on. |
Age of Apostasy - Age of Apostasy: The Age of Apostasy was a second period of interstellar civil war that consumed the Imperium of Man in the early 36th Millennium. The terrible conflicts of the Age of Apostasy grew in part out of a long-running political struggle between the Administratum and the Adeptus Ministorum for dominance over the Imperium's governance.The period is usually divided into two separate major events by Imperial historitors known as the "Reign of Blood" and the "Plague of Unbelief."The struggle began when control over the Imperium's government was essentially seized by a single man, the High Lord of Terra Goge Vandire, who commanded both the Administratum and the Ecclesiarchy as Master of the Administratum and ecclesiarch and ruled the Imperium according to his own wishes instead of in accordance with the Emperor's will.Fortunately, his brutal reign eventually came to an end with the coming of the reforming preacher Sebastian Thor and his reborn Confederation of Light, a sect of the Imperial Cult based on the previous Confederation of Light's banned teachings that were once a rival to the then-orthodox theology of the Imperial Cult's most dominant sect, the Temple of the Saviour Emperor.The Confederation of Light sought to end Goge Vandire's corruption of Imperial theology and reform the faith of the Imperium in what its adherents viewed as a more moral form that embodied the Emperor's own sacrifice for Humanity.High Lord Vandire was in power for almost a standard century before finally being overthrown in the midst of the Terran Crusade and slain by his own bodyguards, the Daughters of the Emperor, who later became the Adepta Sororitas.Vandire was replaced as the Imperial ecclesiarch by Sebastian Thor, who unleashed the Imperium's second major era of reform following the Horus Heresy.The end of the Reign of Blood resulted in a major reformation of the Ecclesiarchy, the creation of the Inquisition's Ordo Hereticus to police those enemies of the Emperor who lay within the Imperium's own structures, and the creation of the Adepta Sororitas to serve as both the Ecclesiarchy's new military force and the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus.The Plague of Unbelief is considered to be part of the Age of Apostasy, although it occurred several solar decades after High Lord Goge Vandire's death and Sebastian Thor's ascension to the position of ecclesiarch. Many false prophets appeared throughout the anarchic Age of Apostasy, some little more than madmen leading rebel armies, others who were spiritual demagogues who commanded worlds and armies.The most powerful of these was the Apostate Cardinal of Gathalamor, Bucharis, whose heresies reached such proportions they became known as the "Plague of Unbelief," not to be confused with the Curse of Unbelief, a potent arcane disease spread by servants of the Chaos God Nurgle in the 41st Millennium, better known as the Zombie Plague.The Age of Apostasy is considered to be one of the bloodiest eras in the Imperium's history after the terrible civil war that was the Horus Heresy. |
Age of Apostasy - Reign of Blood: At the dawn of the 34th Millennium the Adeptus Ministorum held nigh total power over the Imperium of Man, which it used to ensure that every single subject of the Emperor of Mankind in the Imperium paid their dues, both spiritually and financially, to the duly-appointed officers of the state faith.Zeal eclipsed reason, and misrule reigned supreme. The word of the Emperor was subverted wholesale by corrupt ideologues, each struggling to usurp total control for themselves. In time, the Ministorum exercised such power that it began to dictate the policies of the Senatorum Imperialis of the High Lords of Terra. The head of the state church, the ecclesiarch, came to be viewed as speaking with the authority of the Emperor Himself, and he influenced every aspect of the governance of the Imperium.Perhaps it was inevitable that the other great bureaucracies of the Imperium should grow resentful of the Ministorum. The Adeptus Administratum in particular found its own powers greatly curtailed, for the Ministorum's tithes took precedence over its own raising of funds and resources, leaving little in the coffers to pay for the running of the Imperium.The Administratum's influence soon waned so far that the Ministorum was able to dictate policy in secular matters as well. The raising and deployment of armies, the prosecution of wars, the commitment of significant Imperial resources and the appointment of sector lords all fell under the effective control of the Ministorum.In time, other institutions began to distrust the Ministorum's power, and the Adeptus Astartes and the Adeptus Mechanicus in particular became increasingly estranged. This dark period of history in the 36th Millennium came to be known as the Age of Apostasy. |
Age of Apostasy - Seeds of Heresy: Over the course of the 35th Millennium, the Administratum managed to claw back some of its former influence, but only through a series of machinations that were ultimately to the detriment of the Imperium as a whole.By the insinuation of covert supporters into key positions of power across the Imperium, the Administratum slowly eroded its rival's power and ensured that those officials the Ministorum did succeed in placing were weak, incompetent or venal.Though this ruthlessly instigated policy regained some of the Administratum's lost power, it set in motion a series of events that would see the Imperium face its greatest catastrophe since the Horus Heresy.In an effort to reverse the decline in its fortunes, Ecclesiarch Benedin IV declared that the Ministorum's upper echelons would move from Terra to the planet of Ophelia VII, a world in the Segmentum Tempestus and one of the richest in the Imperium after Terra and Mars.Moving the operations of the Holy Synod to Ophelia VII was a vast undertaking, but the effort proved well worthwhile. Separated from the machinations of the Senatorum Imperialis by ten thousand light years, the Ministorum's power waxed anew.The Synod became a force unto itself, and freed from the interference of the other High Lords the ecclesiarch was able to raise entire armies and fleets in order to enforce the state church's newfound influence across the Imperium.These forces, known as the Frateris Templar, came to rival the conventional military armies and fleets of the Imperium, and they soon came to be greatly resented wherever they travelled.Three hundred standard years into this new age of influence and power for the Ecclesiarchy in the late 35th Millennium, Greigor XI was elected to the rank of ecclesiarch.Heralded as a deeply spiritual individual who desired only that the faithful work together as one, Greigor announced that the Holy Synod would return to its rightful home on Holy Terra, the seat of the Emperor and the heart of the Imperium.The cardinals opposed this course, not least because the Ministorum was so firmly entrenched upon Ophelia VII that a move would be a vast logistical exercise that would stretch the institution's resources to the limit.Subsequent history would prove the naysayers entirely correct, but none were able to deter Greigor from his grand undertaking. The relocation took over a solar decade to organise and carry out, and it was only possible due to a massive increase in the Ministorum's tithes.Greigor XI was ultimately discovered dead, the victim of food poisoning. The true cause of his death may never be known, but the anarchy deepened still further as the Ministorum's upper echelons continued as before, imposing more unreasonable demands on their congregations.Eventually, entire worlds buckled under the strain, their own populations starving to fund the reconstruction of the long-abandoned Ecclesiarchy palaces on Terra. |
Age of Apostasy - Age of Apostasy: As if the situation could not get any worse, the entire Imperium was soon plunged in the early 36th Millennium into even deeper despair. The incidence of Warp Storms, a phenomenon that cuts off vast swathes of the Imperium's space from interstellar travel, increased by an order of magnitude.The Warp began to seethe with roiling energies which bled forth into realspace, making travel between anything other than worlds in the same planetary system increasingly perilous.The central governance of Imperial worlds that was limited to only periodic contact at the best of times entirely collapsed. Seeing that their foes were tearing themselves apart, the myriad enemies of Humanity struck. The Traitor Legions sallied forth from the Eye of Terror, using their own blasphemous sorceries to strike planets otherwise cut off from outside aid.Orks traversed the Warp in their ramshackle space hulks, uncaring where the tides of the Empyrean regurgitated them and wreaking havoc in regions previously beyond their reach.The Drukhari used their Webway to freely navigate the galaxy, and struck wherever they desired, dragging millions of captives screaming to their infernal realm of Commorragh, to suffer tortures and degradations beyond a sane man's imagination.The entire Imperium was gripped by an apocalyptic frenzy of doom and anarchy. Countless new religious sects sprung into being, many proclaiming that the God-Emperor was enacting His final judgement upon Mankind and that the End Times were at hand.No world was untouched by the anarchy, as whole populations rose up in increasingly bizarre and extravagant acts of penance and self-flagellation. Anyone who dared attempt to reason with such doomsayers were declared Heretics, and world after world tore themselves apart in an orgy of bloodletting and violent penance. |
Age of Apostasy - Rise of High Lord Goge Vandire: Goge Vandire was the 361st Master of the Administratum, a position he had attained in the early centuries of the 36th Millennium by the ruthless application of bribes, threats and outright assassination. A strident opponent of the power of the Adeptus Ministorum, Vandire had plotted against it for many years.Shortly before his ascension to the rank of High Lord of Terra, Vandire brought about the selection of a man of his own choosing to head the Ecclesiarchy, ensuring that none could stand before his subsequent rise.The new ecclesiarch, Paulis III, was perhaps the weakest man ever to have served in that office, and soon after his ascension rumours regarding the myriad degeneracies in which he revelled began to circulate amongst the upper echelons of the Imperium's ruling bodies. As confidence in the new ecclesiarch plummeted, Goge Vandire made his move.Leading a band of his most trusted retainers, the Master of the Administratum forced entry into the Ecclesiarchal Palace, gunning down any who attempted to deny them access to Paulis' personal wing. It is said that when Vandire and his troops came upon the ecclesiarch, he was engaged in some vile debauchery that, were it known to the people, would bring eternal shame down upon the entire Imperium.Without trial or appeal, Paulis III was slain. In what amounted to a daring coup d'etat, Vandire proclaimed himself both the new ecclesiarch and Master of the Administratum, claiming control of both institutions.The next days saw the High Lord consolidate his power in a series of brutal purges of the Holy Synod. Many cardinals simply fled before Vandire's warriors could come for them, while others were defiant, mounting futile, if brave objections.These were slaughtered, to be replaced with new cardinals either so weak that they would obey Vandire's every word, or by cunning supporters who shared his own agenda. With his power base firmly established, High Lord Vandire was able to give free rein to the unfettered extremes of his ambition.Whether or not Vandire was mentally unbalanced before his rise to supreme authority, after it was achieved he plumbed new depths of insanity. The High Lord claimed that he spoke with the authority of the Emperor Himself, and that he communed with the God-Emperor during the many trance-like fugues into which he would regularly fall.Coming out of these trances, the High Lord would enter a rage, insisting that his every utterance be transcribed by the army of clerks that waited on his every word. Many of these orders defied logic, with Vandire taking violent action against whole sections of the Imperium's population. |
Age of Apostasy - Breaking Lord Phaedrus: During this time, Vandire had considerable trouble bringing the Adeptus Astra Telepathica under his control. Lord Phaedrus, the Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, was a potent psyker and as such was not swayed by Vandire's charisma or charm. Phaedrus saw through Vandire's veil of lies and deceits, and understood the corrupt High Lord's true intentions.Vandire realised that Phaedrus was using his considerable psychic abilities to stay one step ahead of him, and simply killing Phaedrus would never do, for he would just be replaced by a powerful psyker of equal potency. To remove Phaedrus required a much more cunning plan.Luring the Master of the Astra Telepathica into a trap, Vandire utilised the innate anti-psyker abilities of a Culexus Temple Assassin to nullify Phaedrus' psychic abilities. The helpless Phaedrus was then strapped into a specially prepared life-support machine, where the Culexus Assassin permanently severed Phaedrus' ability to tap into the Warp, making him incapable of using psychic powers.Such an operation would have normally killed the powerful psyker, but with the life-support system and a bribed Magos Biologis, Vandire was able to keep Phaedrus alive. Robbed of his psychic powers, Phaedrus was utterly distraught, which resulted in multiple attempts to take his own life.But Vandire was always there to thwart him, removing the blade from his hand or to loosen the noose around his neck. In the end, Phaedrus was broken and Vandire achieved his aim: control over the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.If Phaedrus did his bidding, Vandire promised that he would not disclose the loss of his psychic capabilities to his subordinates, who would have immediately replaced him, and even worse, pitied him.With his powerful position put in jeopardy, Phaedrus had little choice in the matter and acquiesced to all of Vandire's heretical demands. |
Age of Apostasy - Brides of the Emperor: Through trickery and manipulation, Vandire's grip on the Imperium increased still further when he managed to co-opt Alicia Dominica and her sisters of the newly-discovered all-female religious order known as the Daughters of the Emperor from the distant Agri-world of San Leor into his personal bodyguard, renaming them the Brides of the Emperor.Having heard of the existence of a small sect of warrior-women on San Leor dedicated to the service of the Emperor who trained themselves in the ancient arts of war as an expression of their devotion, Vandire realised they would prove to be a potent addition to his personal forces. As such he arranged for San Leor to receive a rare ecclesiarchal visit.But after the large ecclesiarchal retinue arrived on San Leor and made its way to the Daughters of the Emperor's convent, the sisters barred the ecclesiarch from entering, claiming that they did not believe that he truly served the will of the Emperor.Having expected such an insolent response from such a pious group of women in light of his reputation as a tyrant, Vandire knew exactly what to do to get them on his side.Vandire convinced the Daughters that he was personally blessed by the Emperor when he told Dominica to fire a weapon at him. The shot bounced off of the High Lord, who was secretly wearing a Conversion Field generator, though he pretended that it was the Emperor Himself who would not allow him to be harmed, earning the Daughters' absolute but naive loyalty as they had never seen such advanced technology before.He then took the Daughters as his new ecclesiarchal bodyguard and brought them back with him to Terra. From then on, the warrior women became his personal retinue of soldiers and companions, and Vandire renamed them the "Brides of the Emperor."They were trained by the best mentors in the Astra Militarum to combine their own skills with the modern weapons of war. Word of their dedication to the protection of Vandire spread throughout the Imperium. They were his constant guardians and his silent executioners, who would kill with a word from their lord.The Brides not only served as Vandire's bodyguard, but also as his servants and companions. They tasted the High Lord's food, fed him when he fell weak with illness, nursed his frail body back to health and entertained him with singing, dancing and other, more exotic, skills.For all their gaiety on occasion, the Brides of the Emperor were still hardened fighters, and when the Holy Synod of the Ecclesiarchy tried to have Vandire assassinated a few years later to rid themselves of the tyrant, the Brides went into the Synod's meeting chambers, locked the doors, and emerged a solar hour later carrying the severed heads of every cardinal present. Opposition to Vandire within the Ecclesiarchy collapsed swiftly soon after. |
Age of Apostasy - Reign of Blood: This violent repression and wanton slaughter continued for seven solar decades after Vandire's ascension to the Ecclesiarchal Palace, and provided a new name for Vandire's rule -- the "Reign of Blood." The immense resources of the Adeptus Ministorum were directed towards bloodthirsty pogroms against often imagined Heretics and the building of immense new monuments to the Emperor and Vandire.However, Vandire's insanity was always directed outwards, and though distant planets boasted kilometre-high spires and cathedrals, the Terran Ecclesiarchal Palace was allowed to fall into decay once more. Vast wings of the palace fell silent, none save the Brides of the Emperor daring to enter the presence of the High Lord, so erratic had his paranoid outbursts become.For the masses, there were only two choices. Submit utterly to the rule of High Lord Vandire, or be crushed by the Brides of the Emperor and the Frateris Templar. Those worlds not gripped by anarchy or locked within the deadly embrace of Warp Storms were entirely in Vandire's thrall, the toils of the populations directed towards his glory.Yet, in one distant corner of the galaxy, upon the once-decimated world of Dimmamar, there sparked a glimmer of hope. That hope was a man, and his name was Sebastian Thor. |
Age of Apostasy - Sebastian Thor: Sebastian Thor was a supremely humble priest of the Imperial Creed, who never courted or coveted the immense power he would one day come to wield. He was a simple preacher, but the passion and wisdom of his oratory caused the faithful of Dimmamar to flock to him from far and wide.He spoke out against the injustice of the High Lord's rule, and while most who did so would soon be ruthlessly suppressed, his supporters always protected him from the attentions of Vandire's agents.In fact, many of the assassins dispatched to deal with the bothersome backwater rabble-rouser were converted themselves, and protected him against many subsequent assassination attempts.In a rage as Thor's influence slowly grew across his world and his actions were reported to Terra, Vandire mustered a vast army of the Frateris Templar at the Clax System, and dispatched them to Dimmamar to reduce the nest of Heretics to ashes once and for all.The army never arrived, for the vessels of the fleet that carried it were torn apart as they traversed the Warp, by a Warp Storm so mighty it afflicts the region still, 4,000 Terran years later.Astropaths and others gifted with the psyker's power claim the screams of those slain in the so-called "Storm of the Emperor's Wrath" can be heard there even now.Soon, Thor had amassed a sizeable following, and people were even travelling from off-world to hear his impassioned sermons. It was then that members of the ancient and proscribed Confederation of Light, a sect of the Imperial Creed that had once opposed the Temple of the Saviour Emperor that became the established Adeptus Ministorum, came to Thor, men and women who had hidden their faith since the dark time of the First War of Faith in the 32nd Millennium.What words passed between Sebastian Thor and these hooded ambassadors may never be known, but Thor and the Confederation became as one, and those who had been so ruthlessly suppressed centuries earlier by the Ministorum were once more a force in the galaxy. |
Age of Apostasy - Terran Crusade: The Adeptus Astartes and the Adeptus Mechanicus had both become estranged from Terra during Vandire's rule, fortifying their own fiefdoms while undertaking their traditional duties as best they could.Space Marines still stood against marauding aliens and the Forge Worlds of the Mechanicus still churned out the arms and armaments needed to defend Humanity from its many enemies.Yet, both institutions did so according to their own judgement, rarely coordinating their long-term goals with those of Terra. The Mechanicus and the mighty Space Marine Chapters continued to play only a small role in the events of the Age of Apostasy. The vagaries of Warp travel made any long-distance journeys hazardous at best and impossible in some areas.Instead, the Adeptus Astartes' Chapter planets and the Forge Worlds of the Adeptus Mechanicus became fortresses amidst a sea of anarchy. These organisations were on the defensive, protecting the few star systems they could from the ravages of the Age of Apostasy and the carnage of Vandire's Reign of Blood.With news of Sebastian Thor and the spread of his mighty army of the faithful -- the Confederation of Light -- many Space Marine Chapter Masters in the Segmentum Solar and the sectors nearest to Terra in the rest of the Imperium began voicing their support for this reform movement.The Chapter Masters of the Adeptus Astartes and the fabricators of the Adeptus Mechanicus began to voice their concerns. Gastaph Hedriatix, the fabricator-general of Mars and the very highest of the servants of the Machine God, issued a demand to the Holy Synod of the Ecclesiarchy. The High Lord Vandire had to be immediately indicted and called to account for his deeds.In response, Vandire dissolved the Senatorum Imperialis, the Council of the High Lords of Terra, and ordered what forces he had left to assault those of the Adeptus Astartes and the Adeptus Mechanicus who questioned his authority. Needless to say, most of Vandire's commanders refused such a suicidal course of action, and the insane High Lord condemned these as Heretics.Finally, the fabricator-general saw that he and his allies had no choice but to depose Vandire themselves. A vast army of Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-Guard, spearheaded by four Chapters of Space Marines -- the Imperial Fists, Fire Hawks, Soul Drinkers, and Black Templars, launched themselves towards Terra to besiege the Ecclesiarchal Palace in 378.M36 in what became known as the "Terran Crusade." |
Age of Apostasy - Reign of Blood Ends: Ultimately, it was not the armies of the Space Marines and the tech-priests that brought about the doom of the High Lord Goge Vandire. It was his most trusted companions, the sisterhood of the Brides of the Emperor.Throughout the Reign of Blood, one faction had remained apart from the bloodshed and devastation of the era. Within the secure walls of the Imperial Palace, the Adeptus Custodes, the guardians of the Emperor Himself, had continued their eternal vigil over the Golden Throne.To escape the anarchy that prevailed in the wider Imperium, and to ensure the protection of the Emperor, the Custodians had cut themselves off from the outside completely. Only scraps of information passed through the sealed walls of that most sacred of places in the galaxy, and it was only when the Space Marines and the Adeptus Mechanicus moved against Vandire that the full extent of the treachery perpetrated by the Renegade High Lord became known to them.In secret meetings with the commanders of the Space Marines, the Adeptus Custodes learned of the Reign of Blood and how the Brides of the Emperor defended the traitorous High Lord. The mysterious order advised the Space Marines to continue their attack while they would do what they could.A small contingent of Custodians, led by a Centurion of the Companions, made its way into the very heart of Vandire's domain. Surfacing within the Ecclesiarchal Palace not far from Vandire's audience chamber, they were confronted by the Brides of the Emperor. Calling for a truce and a parley, the Centurion laid down his weapons and walked unarmed to meet the guardians of Vandire.For a solar hour he made an impassioned plea for the Brides to revoke their oaths, striving to convince them that they were fighting for evil, not the Emperor. However, they were not to be swayed by his arguments, and the nameless Centurion had only one option left.Leaving his warriors as hostages, the Centurion guided their leader, Alicia Dominica and her personal bodyguard of five female warriors (Arabella, Katherine, Lucia, Mina, and Silvana), into the centre of the Imperial Palace itself -- the Sanctum Imperialis, to stand before the God-Emperor upon His Golden Throne.What occurred in this most sacred of chambers is not recorded, but when the Brides of the Emperor stepped through the Ultimate Gate once more into the Outer Palace, their eyes burned with unparalleled anger and hatred.Without a word, the Centurion led them back through the dark places of the earth, this time leading them directly back to Vandire's Audience Chamber in the Ecclesiarchal Palace.Alicia Dominica spoke of the treachery of Vandire and his depraved corruption of the Ecclesiarchy, but most of all she spoke of his twisted perversion of their own order. Burning with shame and anger, they renounced the name of the Brides of the Emperor and once again became the Daughters of the Emperor.Alicia Dominica and her vengeful sisters confronted the corrupt Vandire within his own chambers. The words that she spoke during this confrontation are engraved upon the black marble of her sarcophagus:"You have committed the ultimate heresy. Not only have you turned your back on the Emperor and stepped from His light, you have profaned His name and almost destroyed everything He has striven to build. You have perverted and twisted the path He has laid for Mankind to tread. As your own decrees have stated, there can be no mercy for such a crime, no pity for such a criminal. I renounce your lordship; you walk in the darkness and cannot be allowed to live. Your sentence has been long overdue and now it is time for you to die."With this proclamation, Dominica drew her power sword and held it aloft for all to see. Vandire glanced around the assembled warriors, his brow knitted in confusion. Even at the end, the insane High Lord appeared so divorced from reality that he could scarcely comprehend Alicia's words. Shaking his head slightly, the High Lord whispered his last words, "I don't have time to die...I'm too busy!"The power sword slashed down, beheading the traitorous High Lord in one stroke. It is said that Vandire's Rosarius, which had protected him upon San Leor, now failed him, its gleaming form cleaved in two by Alicia's blow. The Reign of Blood had ended with a blade wielded by the hand of true faith. |
Age of Apostasy - Aftermath: With Vandire's death, order was restored to the Imperium. Sebastian Thor became the new ecclesiarch, and he moved to dismantle most of Vandire's "reforms" and the political power base he had used to enact his tyranny.The Confederation of Light essentially usurped the Temple of the Saviour Emperor's theology within the Adeptus Ministorum at Thor's behest.For thousand of standard years, the Imperial Cult had taught that the state church must be the dominant political organ within the Imperium, for only the church truly served the Emperor's will and was capable of making that will manifest for Humanity.Following Thor's reformation of the Ecclesiarchy, the church's focus shifted from the pursuit of a secular political agenda to one far more concerned with the pursuit of purely spiritual values.While the Ministorum remained a powerful player in Imperial politics as a result of its sheer wealth and sway over billions of believers, its doctrines now emphasized the quest for individual morality and salvation through belief in the God-Emperor rather than the acquisition of institutional power. Never again would the church so completely dominate the political direction of the Imperium.Independent High Lords of Terra were restored to all of the positions on the Senatorum Imperialis, and the Ecclesiarchy and the Administratum once more became autonomous, and highly competitive, adepta.To restore the proper role of the Adeptus Ministorum in the Imperium, Thor dismantled the fanatical legions and fleets of the Frateris Templar, and issued the Decree Passive, which held that the Ecclesiarchy could maintain "no men under arms."However, seeing that the Ministorum still had need of armed protectors who could work the will of the God-Emperor and undertake Wars of Faith when necessary, Thor soon exploited the loophole in his own decree and transformed the Daughters of the Emperor into the Adepta Sororitas' Orders Militant, who became better known in the Imperial imagination as the "Sisters of Battle."But Thor was not the only one who sought to restore balance to the Imperium's political structure. To prevent another tyrant like Vandire from ever again arising from within the Imperium's own internal power structure, two new divisions of the Inquisition were created: the Ordo Hereticus, tasked with eliminating all threats to the Emperor's will which came from within the Imperium, no matter how high up they were to be found, and the Ordo Sicarius, which was tasked with policing the Officio Assassinorum and ensuring that no Imperial Assassin would ever again get diverted from their task to serve their own or some other official's ambitions.The Sisters of Battle were named the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus, for while they shared the faith of the Ministorum, their ultimate loyalty was to the God-Emperor alone -- and the Inquisition always spoke for the Emperor.In a clash between the Ministorum and the needs of the Imperium as defined by the Ordo Hereticus, the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas always looked to the Inquisition first. |
Age of Apostasy - Early Conquests: Cardinal Bucharis controlled a small diocese of the Ecclesiarchy to the galactic southwest of Terra on a Cardinal World called Gathalamor. It was not a rich planet, and much of the population lived in poverty, but Bucharis was jealous and outraged by his peers' achievements.Bucharis vowed to build one of the biggest temples to the Emperor's glory in the galaxy. To achieve this, he enslaved the population of Gathalamor, treating them brutally, as if they were all slaves to jump at his command. Still Bucharis needed more resources and troops to meet the ever-growing need for his ambitious plans.In a radical move, he used a large group of thugs and cut-throats to conquer the nearby world of Rhanda. The planet had many rich mines producing all of the vital materials Bucharis needed to complete his designs.Also, the personal wealth of Bucharis grew from the profits made from the sale of precious ores and resources across his sector of the Imperium. Two other major players in the Plague of Unbelief were Admiral Sehalla, a flag officer of the Imperial Navy, and Colonel Gasto of the Rigellian XXVth regiment of the Astra Militarum.Bucharis met with both of them on Rhanda and they joined forces under the cardinal's command. Now, Bucharis had both naval support and real soldiers to fight for him, and he used them to carve out a small empire to the galactic west of Terra. He conquered fifty planets in seven years, using their resources to reinforce his army and continue his building plans.Bucharis' private empire was hidden from the Imperium by vast Warp Storms covering the entire region and news of Sebastian Thor's ascension to the position of ecclesiarch and the reorganisation of the Ecclesiarchy had not reached the general population. It had, however, reached Bucharis through his agents in the Ecclesiarchy.He used his control of his local portion of the Imperial Navy to make sure no news of this reached the population, as it would mean the end of his empire. He used his power to announce that the Ecclesiarchy had fallen and that it was corrupted by Traitors and Heretics. Taking after High Lord Goge Vandire, he declared himself to be the mouth of the Emperor and made himself the head of the Adeptus Ministorum in his little empire. He gave elegant speeches to the people of his world and they lapped it up, believing his words to be the Emperor-given truth.Terra was a lost cause and Gathalamor was the centre of the Imperial Cult's religion now. His speeches spread to other worlds he had not conquered and his teachings soon became dogma on many of these planets. People were taught by Bucharis to look after only themselves. Those who could not, or suffered from poverty or unemployment were less than Human and did not deserve the concern of their fellows.Bucharis' speeches were met with thunderous applause, and many people believed that this was the way humans would survive, by striving for their own selfish advancement. The weak and the poor and the undeserving would be left behind and only the strong and prosperous would survive.After these speeches, Bucharis' planets were transformed into worlds where mobs ruled and fought amongst themselves, while petty nobles used their wealth and independence to rule. Neighbors often fought and families split over the spoils from the arising chaos. The strongest, who rose to power and caught the eye of Bucharis, were rewarded with more power, and often led units of mercenaries to enforce the will of Bucharis.Those who succeeded were rewarded with lavish gifts and those who failed were punished accordingly. Even though Bucharis' empire was growing, he was hesitant of getting too close to Terra. Therefore, he forged a path directly to the galactic north, leaving a bloody trail of death and destruction in his wake.In the south, he stopped just short of the world of Bakka, fearful that Admiral Sehalla's fleet would draw more attention to the young empire.Far to the north, he gave Cadia and the Eye of Terror a wide berth, fearful of drawing the attention of the forces of Chaos and the Chaos Space Marines (although it is possible that the Warp Storms were created by some evil machination of the Gods of Chaos, in an attempt to rend the Imperium apart even further than the Age of Apostasy already had done).Eventually, Bucharis had consolidated his power over every planet he conquered and so he moved on. Three more Astra Militarum regiments joined him, and when he moved on Hydraphur, the Segmentum Pacificus battlefleet bowed down, believing Bucharis' words.Bucharis' forces were now massed, and able to strike at the heart of the Imperium, using surprise and cunning to overwhelm the enemy before they brought their superior numbers to bear. Fortunately for the Imperium of Man, Bucharis made a fatal mistake. |
Age of Apostasy - Bucharis' Mistake: Bucharis' mistake was to challenge the Space Wolves. Eventually, as the armies of Bucharis moved north, they reached into the territories protected by the Space Wolves. As almost every Space Marine Chapter does, the Space Wolves protected a small number of planets within close proximity of Fenris, their homeworld.As Bucharis' massive fleet dropped out of the Warp, it encountered a Space Wolves strike cruiser called the Claw of Russ. After a brief battle, the cruiser escaped into the Warp, although not before it destroyed a rebel Navy cruiser and transport ship. Bucharis passed this off as a chance encounter, but this arrogance was to cost him. He ordered his starships to continue, taking planet after planet, until they jumped into the fifth star system. Here they met a surprise.This system contained the world of Fenris itself, the home of the Space Wolves, and as soon as the rebel navy forces powered down their Warp drives, the Space Wolves' fleet attacked. The Space Wolves were outnumbered and out-gunned, but even this didn't stop them. They tore a hole in the rebel navy fleet before retreating to lick their wounds and begin a hit and run attack campaign.They managed to keep about two-thirds of Bucharis' fleet occupied, but his forces still managed to make a landing on Fenris. Hundreds of transport ships descended into the thick, stormy atmosphere of Fenris and several were destroyed by the storms alone, and more by the defensive laser batteries from the ground. Despite this, a landing base was established and thousands of rebel Guardsmen swarmed out onto the ice of the northern regions of the planet.Despite the poor conditions, the troops of Bucharis were enraged at the loss of so many of their compatriots and vowed to destroy the Space Wolves. Any Fenrisian captured was put to work supplying the Guardsmen and laying out makeshift roads across the glacial flats. Though they were enslaved, the Fenrisians were not to be kept down easily.Several regiments of Imperial Guardsmen were kept out of the fighting to keep the Fenrisian slaves from revolting. Bucharis had conquered most of the planet before he approached the vast polar fortress that served as the Space Wolves' fortress-monastery and was called the Fang.The rebels surrounded it and waited for more forces to be shuttled down from orbit. The Space Wolves' fleet maintained its hit-and-run tactics, destroying rebel transport ships before they managed to reach orbit. Despite this, the hills were swarming with rebel Guardsmen. Gigantic cannons bombarded The Fang and orbital ships rained fire from above. The mountains shook, creating avalanches and much destruction.Still, the defenses of The Fang remained intact. This allowed the Space Wolves to sally forth and destroy the earthworks and giant cannons of the Apostate Cardinal. Wolf Scouts were dispatched to disrupt the rebel supply lines and many cannons fell quiet due to a lack of ammunition.The hills were full of tunnels that the Blood Claws used to reach deep into the enemy army, killing with their bare fists to save ammunition. Long Fangs were even known to blow apart mountains to crush the armored columns of the enemy. Space Wolf Dreadnoughts were used to smash into the heart of marching rebel columns.All of this dragged on for solar months. Bucharis sent in suicide missions promising great wealth for the first warrior to breach the walls of The Fang. After three standard years, millions had died as the Space Wolves had countered every attempted storming of the citadel. Bucharis drew in more and more of his rebel forces until even those on far away Gathalamor were down to a quarter of their normal strength. Bucharis believed his planets to be under his total control, so he felt he could draw so many Guardsmen away from their former occupation.Fate, as it has a habit of doing, intervened again, except this time it would bring disaster for Bucharis. A vast Space Wolves force of battle barges emerged at the edge of the Fenris System. Bucharis' fleet was taken completely by surprise and the Space Wolves' fleet took no time between arriving and attacking. Nearly half of Bucharis' fleet was destroyed in the first attack and, trapped between the new arrivals and the harassing Space Wolves fleet, Admiral Sehalla ordered a retreat.The Space Wolves wasted no time in pursuit and moved directly on the relief of Fenris. The furious attack of the returning Space Wolves was vicious, and tens of thousands of rebel Guardsmen died. The attack from orbit was led by Kyrl Grimblood and the Space Wolves' reinforcements blasted the rebel Guardsmen from the mountainsides. Even those who escaped this attack eventually died in the inhospitable snowy wastes of the continent of Asaheim.They were attacked by the giant Fenrisian Wolf packs that made Fenris such a deadly planet. In all of the chaos, Bucharis managed to escape on a shuttle and met up with Admiral Sehalla, who jumped out of the Warp briefly enough to pick up the Apostate Cardinal's shuttle. Bucharis decided to leave Fenris to the Space Wolves and retreated with his northern forces to bolster his defenses and consolidate his hold over the rest of his empire. |
Age of Apostasy - The Beginning of the End: The attack on Fenris had taken a heavy toll on the rebellious Astra Militarum forces, slowing, but not stopping, the expansion of the Apostate Cardinal's other armies. His many trusted sub-commanders were moving westward, taking more and more planets.Eventually, they arrived in one star system, Chiros. Here they would be stopped. Reports came back to Bucharis of major setbacks and problems faced by his forces on Chiros. It was not a poor planet, its surface primarily covered in forests with a Human population of no more than a few million. Most of its wealth came from exporting luxury goods, furs, elixirs and narcotics. Bucharis could not understand why a planet would resist him and risk total destruction.Bucharis abandoned Fenris and, being fairly close to the homeworld of the Space Wolves himself, he ordered the rebel fleet to Gathalamor while he assessed the situation. Reports came in that, despite horrendous casualties, the Chirosians were no closer to surrender than they had been before the attack began.The commander of the rebel fleet in Chiros had restrained from the use of devastating orbital bombardments as he saw the planet as a good place for Bucharis to retire to, hoping to gain some favor by sparing it. Bucharis agreed with this idea, pleased at the foresight of his commander. He then sent three more companies of rebel Astra Militarum to aid in the conquest, certain that these forces would beat the Chirosians. Unfortunately for the rogue cardinal, it was not to be. The commander soon reported back to Bucharis of his surrender to the Chirosians. Bucharis was stunned.He knew the Astra Militarum were not elite forces like the Space Marines, but surely an entire regiment should have easily conquered such a small population. Eventually Bucharis' agents returned, bringing reports of what had happened. It appeared that the forces faced by the Astra Militarum were not just the usual small units of militia and Planetary Defence Forces brought together in times of war, but had included the entire population of the planet.Each had a hunting rifle or other weapon and spread themselves throughout the planet's surface, in the woods and jungles and hills. Millions of marksmen had wiped out wave after wave of invaders in destructive ambushes before retreating back to their hunting lodges, hidden deep in the woods.The whole planet had become a dangerous nest of guerillas. Supplies were intercepted and there was no respite. A suicide squad had run into the centre of the rebel expeditionary force's camp and detonated explosives, and after these casualties the rebel army had lost the will to fight on.After the news of the defeat spread to other worlds in the Apostate Cardinal's empire, planet after planet began a revolt. First it was the mining planet Guryan. The miners had cut down their guards and strangled others with their shackles. After Guryan came Dolsia and Vaust. It seemed that the rebellion against the Apostate Cardinal was spreading, cutting a swath through his empire straight towards Gathalamor.On Colcha, Bucharis laid a trap and managed to destroy a small fleet of his opponents that appeared around the planet. One shuttle survived however, and landed on the planet. Fredreich Khust, the overall Imperial Commander of the sector who was loyal to Bucharis, was wary of the shuttle that had landed, and so kept his Imperial Guardmen and their tanks on the planet on full alert.A year after the shuttle landed, the population of Colcha went berserk. They burnt the fields, stormed the Astra Militarum's barracks but lost three quarters of their numbers before overcoming the rebel Guardsmen. They stampeded their vast herds of gigantic gorbeasts into tank companies, crushing the war machines under a thunderous storm of house-sized animals. They dammed rivers, flooding their own homes and whole towns where Khust's men were billeted.Even the elderly and young children hurled makeshift grenades made from the local distilled fuel, setting fire to the air vents of Leman Russ Tanks and choking the crews inside. All across both continents of their world the people of Colcha stopped at nothing to rid themselves of their enslavers. Eventually, Khust's forces were overwhelmed and pushed from the planet.The populations of the planets of Lima Rogan, Troudor and many others revolted, pushing Bucharis' forces further back toward his capital world. Bucharis' coffers were emptying more rapidly than they could be filled. Many of his soldiers deserted and there was infighting and dissension even within the highest ranks of his army.Still the revolts continued, and finally, Methalor, the closest planet to Gathalamor, revolted, its principal hive city destroyed by an inferno started when the inhabitants overloaded the great city's geothermal power grid.Bucharis was worried now. He doubled the defensive cordon on his system and had all starships searched as they entered the system. After the fall of Methalor an Imperial messenger arrived at the Cardinal Palace on Gathalamor.With a defiant look and a stern voice, the messenger proclaimed himself to be the envoy of Confessor Dolan Chirosius. Confessor Dolan called for the immediate surrender of Bucharis to the Ecclesiarchy. The cardinal was ordered to resign his position, renounce his heresies and throw himself on the mercy of the Emperor.The Imperial messenger's remains were nailed to the gates of the Cardinal Palace of Gathalamor to be feasted on by rats and crows. |
Age of Apostasy - Confessor Dolan: Bucharis knew Chirosius would be coming to Gathalamor soon and the Apostate Cardinal wanted his slaves' first glimpse of their supposed saviour to be one of a man bound in chains and whipped through the streets. Soon enough, Chirosius shuttle was boarded as it neared the world and the Confessor was taken into custody, charged with various acts of heresy and treason against the Emperor by Bucharis.As Bucharis had intended, Dolan was chained and driven through the streets. Soldiers from his army whipped the Confessor with flails and hurled stones at him. They stuck hooks into his flesh and hung them with weights, driving him onwards with kicks and punches. The crowds, however, were not so impressed. There were no cheers of approval, but there were no cries of condemnation either. Dolan was dragged across the entire continent in this manner for over six months.All the while, however, his fiery stare would not diminish and he never bowed to Bucharis. Bucharis then ordered a public trial, but it was a complete sham and would only find Dolan guilty. After five solar months, the prosecution had finished and a thousand worlds waited for the results. Dolan represented himself and freely admitted to stirring up the people of all of the rebellious worlds to fight against Bucharis' rule.He used the time to appeal to the masses, although Bucharis didn't see this. It was Dolan's appeals to the masses that Bucharis allowed during the show trial that eventually led to his downfall. Bucharis had Dolan tortured for eight solar months.When at last the Confessor died, his maimed body was flung from the walls of the Cardinal Palace of Gathalamor for the scavenging dogs and birds to feast upon. Despite the horrendous torments inflicted upon his body, Dolan's face exuded a calm serenity and peace lay like an aura across his corpse.Those who saw it wept openly, even though any who exhibited such grief were themselves accused of heresy and put to death. The scavengers never had their meal: Dolan's body disappeared shortly after and was never found. |
Age of Apostasy - End of an Empire: Cardinal Bucharis' plan to shame the Confessor backfired horribly. By allowing Dolan to speak he had given him the ability to rally the masses on all of the worlds ruled by Bucharis. When Dolan's death was announced, the entire Apostate empire erupted in rebellion. The populations of a thousand worlds overthrew their cruel overseers, almost at the same time. The men, women and children were inspired by the will of the Confessor and faced their enemies' guns with bare hands.Bucharis' Cardinal Palace was stormed as traitors from within his own ranks opened the gates. Bucharis fled the palace while a small handful of loyal warriors held back the tide of doom coming his way. He used tunnels to escape the palace and ran to the spaceport, giving up all he had worked for to save his own life.Just as he was boarding a shuttle, the inhabitants overran the electric fences by piling on them to make them short-circuit. He was captured in a wave of screaming Humanity and his body was torn to pieces. The remains of his body were never recovered, but when the mass of citizens moved away, the scattered ashes of a fire was all that was left to mark the place of his death.With the Apostate Cardinal's death, the Inquisition moved swiftly to conduct a massive purge of Bucharis' empire, sending tens of thousands of those who had served Bucharis to the Emperor's justice.The High Lords of Terra soon reestablished full control over the regions of the galaxy that Bucharis had controlled while the Ecclesiarchy established thousands of Missions on the worlds of Bucharis' empire to restore the true teachings of the Imperial Cult. The Plague of Unbelief, the final symptom of the Age of Apostasy, came to a merciful end. |
Age of Apostasy - Fallen Idols: During the Reign of Blood, the worlds of the Imperium were strewn with mighty statues depicting the figure of the High Lord Goge Vandire; many so massive they towered over those of the Emperor Himself.During the reformation of the state church that followed the high lord's fall, many of these hated idols were torn down by the masses, and either broken up or dragged off to distant regions of the worlds, there to slowly erode as the vagaries of nature dictated.Many such "graveyards of fallen idols" still exist, all access to them denied to the masses as an example of the high lord's evil. These are eerie, doom-laden places, heavy with the weight of ages and haunted by the ghosts of that tragic era, where only the insane and the deluded dare trespass.Some monuments to Vandire were simply too massive to tear down, or else were incorporated into the fabric of even larger cathedrals, so that they could not be removed without recourse to destroying the entire structure. Many of these were remade in the image of other saints or of Sebastian Thor himself, turning the hated countenance of Vandire into one more deserving of the adulation of the masses.A very few were desecrated when the high lord fell, and stand to this day as a grim reminder of the danger of worshipping a mortal man over the divine godhead of the Emperor Himself. |
Age of Darkness (Anthology) - Age of Darkness (Anthology): Age of Darkness is the sixteenth volume in The Horus Heresy series of novels and is an anthology of short stories. |
Age of Darkness (Anthology) - Synopsis: After the betrayal at Isstvan V, Horus begins his campaign against the Emperor, a galaxy-wide war that can lead only to Terra. But the road to the final confrontation between father and son is a long one -- seven years filled with secrecy and silence, plans and foundations being formed across distant stars. An unknown history is about to be unveiled as light is shed on the darkest years of the Horus Heresy, and revelations will surface that will shake the Imperium to its very foundation... |
Age of Darkness (Anthology) - Contents: Age of Darkness contains the following short stories:Rules of Engagement by Graham McNeillLiar's Due by James SwallowForgotten Sons by Nick KymeThe Last Remembrancer by John FrenchRebirth by Chris WraightThe Face of Treachery by Gav Thorpe Little Horus by Dan AbnettThe Iron Within by Rob SandersSavage Weapons by Aaron Dembski-Bowden |
Age of Redemption - Age of Redemption: The Age of Redemption was an era of the broader Age of the Imperium that began roughly in ca. 010.M37 and ended in ca. 112.M38. These dates are only approximate.The Age of Redemption followed the civil conflicts of the Age of Apostasy in the 36th Millennium and was marked by a tremendous surge in religious fervour among the peoples of the Imperium of Man.This was expressed in the form of a new willingness to launch countless Imperial Crusades and other conflicts against those deemed to be the enemies of the God-Emperor.The Age of Redemption came to an end early in the 38th Millennium as the power of the Imperium began to weaken under increasing assault from Chaos and xenos enemies. This marked the start of the long period of slow decline and stagnation known as "The Waning." |
Age of Redemption - Notable Events: The Age of Redemption marked the era when the Imperium recovered from the sins of apostasy unleashed in the prior millennium in a rain of blood and tears. The Imperial Cult grew in zeal as never before.Heretic pyres burned night and day on a thousand Imperial worlds as the people of the Imperium sought to mortify their sins against the God-Emperor through the scourging of the flesh of others.Imperial Crusade after crusade was launched by the Adeptus Astartes and other Imperial military forces to recapture the lost wealth of the Imperium and push back the hordes of Chaos, Orks and other alien threats to Humanity.This religious fervour eventually peaked in an orgy of fanatical devotion to crusading in the Emperor's name and thousands of worlds were left with inadequate defences as sector fleets of the Imperial Navy, Space Marine Chapters and Astra Militarum regiments were drawn into longer and more terrible crusades spurred on by this religious fanaticism. |
Age of Redemption - Wrath of the Chaos Sun: In 010.M37 the Wrath of the Chaos Sun fell upon the Imperium when the red giant star at the heart of the Maxil Beta System exploded in an expanding cloud of Warpflame. The inhabitants of every world for hundreds of light years were either mutated beyond recognition or possessed by the denizens of the Warp.In response, the High Lords of Terra ordered the mobilisation of whatever Imperial forces were close at hand. So it is that the Grey Knights were joined by a dozen other Chapters, countless Imperial Guard regiments and the nascent Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas.The resulting battle did much to heal the remaining wounds in the Imperial body politic that had been opened by Goge Vandire's treachery during the Reign of Blood. |
Age of Redemption - Great Cull: In 020.M37, the High Lords of Terra, in their mercy, began a systematic and deadly purge within the ranks of the Adeptus Terra's bureaucracy and on many worlds across the galaxy to ensure that such a corruption of faith as occurred during the Reign of Blood could never happen again. This purge becomes known as the "Great Cull." |
Age of Redemption - Abbysal Crusade & Occlusiad War: Among the most devastating of the conflicts unleashed during the Age of Redemption were the Abyssal Crusade and the Occlusiad War.The Abyssal Crusade of 321.M37 began when Saint Basilius found thirty Space Marine Chapters wanting in their devotion to the Emperor.The guilty embarked upon a crusade into the Eye of Terror to earn their salvation and purge those Human-settled worlds stolen from Mankind by the birth of Slaanesh.The Occlusiad War of 555.M37 started when the northwestern fringe of the galaxy was ravaged by the Heretics known as the Apostles of the Blind King, rogue Tech-priests who viewed Humanity's very existence as an utter affront to the Machine God.The Apostles had uncovered wondrous artefacts from the Dark Age of Technology that made possible the transformation of ordinary stars into supernovae. The constellations of the galaxy were changed forever when the Apostles purged the outer Segmentum Obscurus of human life using these weapons.War raged for a solar decade until the Navigator Joyre Macran discovered the palace-warship of the Blind King hidden in a fold of the Warp. Escaping with this crucial intelligence, Macran guided the Imperial Navy's Emperor-class Battleship Dominus Astra to the palace's location.The Blind King was killed and the genocide ended when the Dominus Astra 's Lance batteries pierced the palace-warship's hull and without his psychically prescient leadership the Apostles were swiftly overcome and their weapons hidden away in the vaults of Mars. |
Age of Redemption - Benedictine War: The Benedictine War was a War of Faith that targeted the Benedictine Sub-sector in the 37th Millennium. It was led by the Black Templars Chapter and five Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas, though it included many other armies dedicated to the faith of the God-Emperor.During the campaign, several Aeldari worlds were captured and in the ensuing conflict two Black Templar High Marshals were slain in rapid succession.Due to these losses, the Ecclesiarch himself declared an end to the war, claiming that the Imperial forces had achieved enough in the Emperor's name.However the new High Marshal of the Black Templars Constantine continued the campaign regardless and the Black Templars alone successfully purged the remaining worlds of the sub-sector of the xenos assaulting them. |
Age of Redemption - Lost Crusade: By 754.M37, on thousands of planets, menials rebelled against their dreary drudgery with wild-eyed leaders espousing a better way of life -- a galaxy of tolerance. The movement proved especially popular amongst the youth of the Imperium, earning it the title of the "Children's Crusade."Billions of earnest pilgrims were lured to seek transport to Terra; some were waylaid by pirates, but the majority disappeared into the Warp. They became known collectively as the "Lost Crusade." |
Age of Redemption - 7th Black Crusade: The 7th Black Crusade, also remembered informally as the "Ghost War," was a Black Crusade against the forces of the Imperium led by the infamous Chaos Lord Abaddon the Despoiler and his Black Legion, launched out of the Eye of Terror in 811.M37. At this time, the forces of Chaos spewed forth from the great Warp rift past Cadia and then disappeared.This event is what earned this conflict its informal name of the Ghost War. The following years saw a game of hide-and-seek played between the forces of Chaos and the Imperium of Man which spread confusion, paranoia, disinformation and deceit across the galaxy.Raids became commonplace in far-flung areas but eventually the servants of the Dark Gods returned to the Eye of Terror, having caused enough trouble but having proven unable to significantly degrade Imperial defensive capabilities at that time. |
Age of Redemption - Heavenfall Massacres: In 956.M37 the Heavenfall Massacres unfolded. Little else is known about them in the Imperial records. |
Age of Redemption - 8th Black Crusade: In 999.M37, Abaddon the Despoiler launched the 8th Black Crusade of Chaos out of the Eye of Terror into Imperial space.During this incursion into the realms of Mankind, Abaddon completed a complex series of ritualistic massacres known as the "Skullgather" in the name of Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways.On worlds throughout the Segmentum Obscurus, Imperial citizens were slaughtered in precise numbers using esoteric rituals.Only when the Inquisition finally broke the code of damnation was the Imperium able to bring an end to the Black Legion's rampage across the segmentum in time with these mysterious attacks, but not before countless worlds had been saturated in death and Abbadon's true aim -- to gain access to the favour of Tzeentch -- had been achieved. |
Age of Redemption - Abyssal Crusade Returns: Having purged more than 400 worlds within the Eye of Terror, the survivors of the Abyssal Crusade returned to Imperial space in 112.M38.Without pausing to claim the honours due for such a successful and protracted Imperial Crusade, Chapter Master Konvak Lann of the Vorpal Swords declares the now-ancient Saint Basillius a false idol and adoration of him tantamount to betrayal of the Emperor.In less than a standard year, every known sepulchre and shrine dedicated to the false saint is destroyed. After his execution, his bones, along with countless relics, books of doctrine and thousands of living worshippers, are placed on a derelict bulk-freighter and launched directly into a nearby star. |
Age of Strife - Age of Strife: The Age of Strife, also sometimes referred to as "Old Night" based on the name for the era on Terra in older Imperial histories, is the name for the apocalyptic and highly-fragmented period of Human history that began roughly in the 25th Millennium A.D. and ended in the 30th Millennium with the birth of the Imperium of Man.It was in this time that the great Human interstellar civilisation created during the golden age of the Age of Technology collapsed into isolation, constant warfare, disease, rampant mutation, famine and a host of other terrible tragedies. These events killed tens of billions of people and pushed Humanity to the brink of extinction.According to the "official" histories of the Imperium, the precise details and dates of the Age of Strife are not known. This is due to the data having been lost over vast amounts of time, the sheer chaos of the period, and censorship by various Imperial authorities who seek to prevent the people of the Imperium from learning more about the rampant uncontrolled psykers and Daemonic Chaos incursions that afflicted many of the Human worlds of the period -- including Terra itself.It was in reaction to the horrors and loss of life that befell Humanity during the Age of Strife that the Emperor of Mankind first decided to unite all of Humanity beneath His enlightened rule, building the foundation of what eventually became the Imperium during the Unification Wars on Old Earth starting in the late 29th Millennium.It was also the sheer amount of suffering and death that defined the Age of Strife that would shape the later culture of the Imperium. These tragedies, alongside the traumas of the Horus Heresy, brought into being the Imperium's extreme intolerance towards outsiders and Human genetic difference, its people's ingrained hatred for mutants, psykers and aliens, its knee-jerk rejection of political change, and the technophobia that created an appreciation for ignorance and backwardness over the advancement of science and technology. |
Age of Strife - Dark Age of Technology: The Dark Age of Technology, also called simply the Age of Technology, is the name given to the period of Human history that immediately precedes the Age of Strife. It began in the 15th Millennium A.D. and ended in the 25th Millennium, and was marked by rapid fundamental advances in science and technology that first transformed Humanity into a true interstellar civilisation.The Dark Age of Technology saw the development of the specialised psychic mutants known as Navigators and the earliest use of the Warp for interstellar space travel and astropathic communication by Human beings. The greatest extent of Human interstellar space exploration and colonisation across the galaxy took place during this period after the development of the Warp-Drive that allowed faster-than-light space travel.Other notable developments include the first appearance of the Standard Template Construct (STC) database system and the constructs remembered in legend as the "Men of Iron," powerful, fully self-aware robots and artificial general intelligences.The Age of Technology ended in inter-Human war and anarchy, at the start of an era known as the Age of Strife, when the sudden and unexpected onset of massive Warp storms cut off interstellar travel and communications across the whole of the Human-settled galaxy.The STC systems once ubiqitous across Human space lapsed into disuse or the knowledge they contained was fragmented or lost outright. The Adeptus Mechanicus of the 41st Millennium have made finding a complete, untainted STC system their ultimate goal and are willing to go to any lengths to find even the smallest fragment of lost archeotech contained within an STC database. |
Age of Strife - Causes: During the so-called "Dark Age of Technology," Humanity had reached its technological peak. The Standard Template Construct database library, or STC, had been perfected by Human scientists and engineers to allow rapid colonisation of new worlds using the standardised designs for a common suite of advanced technologies held within it. Its invention was followed by an unprecedented expansion of Humanity throughout the galaxy.One of the reasons Humanity was so successful at conquering a large part of the galaxy during the Age of Technology was the development of the artificially intelligent and self-aware humanoid constructs known in ancient texts as the "Men of Iron." These powerful and fully autonomous labour and combat robots won many wars for Humanity, but for some reason turned against their organic masters at the end of the Age of Technology.The war against the thinking machines known as the "Cybernetic Revolt" was eventually won by Humanity, but at great cost. The damage to Human interstellar civilisation was catastrophic and shattered much of Humanity's power across the galaxy. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of Mankind's misfortunes.As Humanity became widely dispersed across the galaxy during the Age of Technology, the ancient Aeldari Empire began its decline; the great success of the advanced Aeldari species had led to decadence and hedonism on a grand scale. Within the immaterial, psychic universe of the Warp, the spiritual corruption of the Aeldari civilisation was reflected in the gestation of a new Chaos God, Slaanesh, which in turn caused massive disturbances in the Warp; parts of the galaxy became isolated by these so-called "Warp storms," making Warp travel and astro-telepathic communication impossible. This cut off many Human colony worlds from one another, including those of the Sol System.Towards the end of the Age of Technology psykers first appeared among Humanity. While persecuted on many backwards, regressive Human worlds as "witches," in enlightened and progressive societies these psykers were at first protected and accepted. Unfortunately, the intolerance shown towards psykers would later seem prescient, as many Human worlds ultimately fell during Old Night to the dominance of Daemons and other Warp entities using possessed Human psykers as gateways into the Materium. Only those worlds which had rigorously suppressed psykers ultimately survived relatively unscathed.The Age of Strife followed the Age of Technology, as Human civilisation collapsed in widespread insanity, Daemonic possession, anarchy and interstellar civil war. Terrible weapons of the golden age of technology were unleashed, devastating many Human colonies and turning once-verdant worlds such as Baal and its twin moons into irradiated desert planets. Many isolated and vulnerable Human-colonised worlds also became prey to hostile alien species, such as the Orks.In a relatively short span of time, the once galaxy-spanning Human civilisation was brought to its knees, and was forced to endure nearly five Terran millennia of anarchy, terror, tyranny, war, genocide and slavery. Other than tales of great suffering, little information has survived this dark time to be known to the men and women of the Imperium. |
Age of Strife - Terra and Mars: Old Earth, increasingly called "Terra" by its people, and the rest of the settled worlds of the Sol System were surrounded by terrible Warp storms at the start of the Age of Strife, isolating the Human homeworld for several thousand standard years from the rest of the galaxy.Control of the Sol System shifted constantly between the worlds of Terra and Mars during the first half of the Age of Strife. By the 28th Millennium almost all traces of advanced technical civilisation on Terra were long gone; instead, techno-barbarians battled one another over the scraps of the ancient Human interstellar society that remained on the world.Little information still exists about this dark time, but it is known that brutal tyrants such as Kalagann of Ursh, Cardinal Tang of the Yndonesic Bloc, and "the half-mad, half-genius" Narthan Dume of the Pan-Pacific Empire ruled during this era.Other known Terran nations of the time period include the Yndonesic Bloc, Ursh, the Urals (a centre of industry), Jermani, Gyptus, Merica, Afrik, the Terrawatt Clan and Alba. Another ethnicity mentioned in fragmented records from this time are the "Nordyc" people.Mars underwent a very different transformation. After a brief period of anarchy at the end of the Age of Technology that saw the destruction of the Red Planet's once pristine terraformed ecosystem, the Tech-priests of the ancient Mechanicum emerged victorious over the psyker mutants and rampaging artificial general intelligences or "Silica Animuses" that had claimed the surface of Mars. They slowly unified their homeworld beneath their theocratic rule in service to the beliefs of the Cult Mechanicus of the Machine God.The Tech-priests then visited Terra but were appalled by the destruction and anarchy that ruled there and saw nothing worth saving. Instead, the Martians studied the Warp and after many lifetimes learned to detect "lulls" in the raging Warp storms. At the same time the immense robotic fighting machines known as Titans were created to defend the Red Planet.For over a thousand standard years the Cult Mechanicus watched and waited. Whenever a break in the Warp storms occurred, an expedition was sent, complete with a full Titan Legion and thousands of servitors and Tech-priests. Some of these expeditions were lost in the Warp or died on faraway worlds. Others succeeded in establishing Forge Worlds -- industrial replicas of Mars and the theocratic society of the Mechanicum.Broken astropathic messages were transmitted to Mars, but it was not until the time of the Great Crusade that the Forge Worlds and Mars would be reunited. |
Age of Strife - Rise of the Emperor: Eventually, amidst the ruins of Terra, an immensely powerful Human leader and psyker known only as the Emperor of Mankind divined that the final birth of the new Chaos God Slaanesh was nearing, as well as the effect this birth would have on the turmoil afflicting the galaxy.He began to accelerate His preparations for this history-changing event. From the beginning of the Age of Strife the Emperor had no longer been content with guiding Humanity from the shadows under a myriad of different historical identities, some of them quite well-known even in the 41st Millennium. The Emperor had come to believe that if His species was to survive, He would have to take charge Himself of Humankind's destiny, openly and without subterfuge. Within His underground gene-labs beneath the Himalazian Mountains (Himalayas) in the remains of the ancient stronghold of the Sigillites, the Emperor began to experiment on the Human genetic code.Through deeds of great valour and His own personal charisma, the Emperor recruited from the techno-barbarians that wandered Terra's surface and genetically altered them, turning them into the Thunder Warriors and the other early transhuman supersoldiers who would comprise his first armies.Once He had gathered sufficient military forces, He conquered Terra and later its satellite of Luna. Even before the completion of these Unification Wars, the Emperor initiated the great project of genetic engineering necessary to create the primarchs using His own DNA as a starting template. From the primarchs' genomes and the genetic blueprints of his prior super-soldiers, the Space Marine Legions were His final creations.Upon the final birth of Slaanesh sometime in the 29th Millennium, the crippling Warp storms that had long marked the Age of Strife ended, which allowed for easier interstellar travel and astropathic communication between worlds. The Aeldari species was nearly annihilated in what they termed "the Fall" and the Aeldari Empire's hold over much of the galaxy disintegrated.In this environment, the Emperor began to carry out His plans to reunify Mankind under His rule. With the Emperor's ascension and the creation of the Imperium of Man in a political and military alliance between Terra and the ancient Mechanicum of Mars, the Age of Strife was finally ended and a new age in Human history, the Age of the Imperium, begun.This age of conquest, heroism and unity began with the Emperor's Great Crusade to reunite all the scattered worlds of Humanity beneath the rule of the Imperium. It would in turn be forever tainted and corrupted soon after its inception by the terrible tragedy of the massive interstellar civil war now known only as the Horus Heresy. |
Age of Strife - Legacy: The Age of Strife had a tremendous impact on Human civilisation. Humanity barely survived the period and the knowledge of the previous golden era was lost, much of it irrevocably; in particular, the loss of the STC system is seen as a serious setback for the technological and scientific advancement of the present-day Imperium.The Adeptus Mechanicus regards the STC as a holy artefact of the Machine God and constantly searches for remnants of STC systems. Although much lost information has been recovered by the efforts of the Mechanicus, by focussing all of its efforts on recovering knowledge from the ancient STC databases and spending little energy on basic scientific research and development, the Imperium advances at only a snail's pace technologically and in many areas has simply outright regressed. This is further compounded by the centralisation of all Human technical and scientific knowledge in the hands of the theocratic and secretive Mechanicus, preventing the dissemination of known science and technology across the galaxy that might speed up the process of innovation.Humanity as a whole became more superstitious and distrustful of advanced technology and of the unknown because of the myriad horrors perpetrated during the Age of Strife. This is a characteristic which the Imperial government goes to great lengths to encourage. In particular, the Imperium's people distrust mutants, aliens and psykers; this distrust runs so deep that the Imperium has a powerful secret police force, known collectively as the Inquisition, devoted to finding and destroying all aliens, Daemons, mutants, unsanctioned psykers and "Heretics" -- anyone deemed to be straying from the official doctrines of the Imperial Creed.Despite the general Human distrust of psykers, they still perform many critical functions for the Imperium, most notably the maintenance and powering of the Astronomican, interstellar communication and navigation, so they are often rounded up by Imperial agents and forced into service as part of the Imperial Tithe.The Adeptus Ministorum, the official state church of the Imperium, enforces a strict dogma including absolute devotion to the God-Emperor, who is treated as the embodiment of every divinity ever worshipped by Humanity's prior religions, all embodied within a single personage.In short, the authoritarian, theocratic, often harsh and unjust Imperium of Man possesses its unique cultural characteristics in large part as a continuing reaction to the great suffering and near-extinction endured by Humanity during the Age of Strife. |
Age of Technology - Age of Technology: The Age of Technology, informally often referred to as the "Dark Age of Technology," was the zenith of Humanity's scientific knowledge and technological prowess in the Milky Way Galaxy, which lasted from the 15th Millennium A.D. until the onset of the Age of Strife in the 25th Millennium.It saw the development of the first true Human interstellar civilisation and the birth of some form of stellar confederation centred on the Human homeworld of Terra. Even tens of millennia later, Mankind has not been able to equal or regain its former height of achievement attained in this era.This age occurred long before the current Age of the Imperium and knowledge of this time period is now incredibly sparse. Many "facts" about the Age of Technology are no more than legend.Although a "golden age" for Humanity in terms of scientific achievement, because of the catastrophic effects of the following Age of Strife in which so many of the technologies developed in this era were used to cause massive destruction and suffering on countless Human-settled worlds, much of Mankind has since come to regard advanced scientific knowledge as an abhorrent and dangerous commodity.It is this innate suspicion of reason and progress and their scientific fruits born of the horrific aftermath of the Age of Technology that has led Humanity in the Age of the Imperium to be so willing to embrace ignorance and superstition.The lost Age of Technology is thus considered "dark" by most of the elites in the Imperium of Man's current era because of the dangers it unleashed.This period is also considered a dark age in the minds of the faithful and the priests of the Ecclesiarchy because Mankind in the Age of Technology had come to worship science as its god, and the God-Emperor had not yet revealed Himself as the true saviour of Humanity. |
Age of Technology - Stellar Exodus: The "Stellar Exodus" is the name given by Imperial savants to the historical period that was defined by Humanity's earliest interstellar colonisation of other worlds beyond the Sol System, actually starting in many cases in the millennia before the Age of Technology officially began in the 15th Millennium AD.Humanity initially established colonies within Terra's solar system. Spacecraft were still only capable of sub-light speeds at this time. Voyages beyond the Sol System took generations and the colonies that were established by the so-called "Long March" sub-light starships were effectively isolated from each other and from Terra.These Long March vessels established many of the colonies later called Knight Worlds as they carried the designs of the combat walkers called Knights that were used by the early colonists for both defence and labour.Interstellar trade was therefore severely restricted or non-existent. This forced the individual, colonised star systems to be completely self-sufficient in all of their vital requirements (food, medicine, technology, etc.) and allowed them to develop distinctive languages and cultures. |
Age of Technology - Warp-Drive: The true start of the Age of Technology was marked by the development of the Warp-Drive and the Gellar Field sometime around the 18th Millennium A.D., allowing Human spacecraft to make short jumps through the recently discovered extradimensional realm known as the Immaterium, or "the Warp," traveling vast interstellar distances in a relatively short amount of time.Though such vessels could now jump multiple light years, the many dangers inherent in the Warp meant that journeys could still take several standard years and many vessels never arrived at their destinations at all. Slowly, through many disasters, Humanity learned to use the Warp to make faster than light journeys out of their own star system.The Warp-Drive's development greatly accelerated the Human colonisation of the Milky Way Galaxy, and for the first time allowed interstellar trade and communications between the far-flung extrasolar Human colonies and the homeworld of Mankind, Terra. Also, during this time, the first sentient alien races were encountered by Mankind's explorers and colonists. |
Age of Technology - Navigators: The second vital development of the Age of Technology was the creation of the psychic Navigator Gene by unknown parties (many Imperial savants see the Emperor's hand at work in the discovery) and the resulting birth of the mutant Navigators, mildly psychic Humans with a "third eye" of extrasensory perception who could see into the maddening currents of the Warp and navigate a course through them for Human faster-than-light starships.This allowed Human spacecraft to make longer and more accurate Warp jumps than previously possible when relying wholly upon a computer for navigation in the chaotic realm of the Immaterium.Navigator families, initially controlled by industrial and trade cartels, had become individual forces in their own right by the 19th Millennium.By the 20th Millennium, Humanity had proliferated and settled many of the countless star systems of the galaxy.It was a golden age for scientific achievement; technology provided all the answers. Thinking machines aided civilian and military production, allowing enormous labours to be accomplished at a frenetic pace. |
Age of Technology - The STC and the Emergence of Psykers: Of major importance to the era and Humanity in general during the Age of Technology was the invention of the Standard Template Construct (STC) database system. These highly advanced computer databases allowed Human colonies to maintain an advanced technological level.The STCs contained all Human scientific and technological knowledge of the era and provided the instructions required to build anything the colonists might need.As most colonists lived relatively simple lives and required only basic equipment and machines, the more advanced technology available in a full STC was rarely utilised.The resulting exploration of the galaxy brought Mankind new knowledge, wealth and arrogance. Science is said to have become Humanity's new god in this time, replacing in importance all of the previous Human religions.Perfection of the Standard Template Construct (STC) system permitted an explosion of colonisation that reached the furthest limits of the galaxy. This was the zenith of technological development and knowledge-sharing, for even the most far-flung colony had access to the entire inventory of Human invention.Humanity encountered several intelligent alien races during their expansion out into the galaxy, such as the Aeldari and the warlike Orks. With these discoveries began, in time, the first Human-xenos wars. With Mankind at the height of its power, the threat of aliens was viewed as trivial and eventually non-aggression pacts were signed between Terra, its colonies and many of the alien races.For the rest of the age, Mankind spread across the stars, becoming widely dispersed and divergent. Evidence exists of many wars, but none that threatened the stability of Human space. Amongst the surviving records are lists of xenos enemies that have long since gone extinct, along with more familiar names such as Aeldari and Orks.During this time period, interplanetary trade was established and great fleets carried goods to and from the ends of the galaxy. As planets became overpopulated, the recently invented construction mediums of plasteel, plascrete, ferrocrete and rockcrete were used to build colossal cities, which became the proto-hive cities.At this time, after the discovery of Warp-Drive allowed interstellar transportation, commerce and communications to develop, the Human colonies were politically united with Terra in some form of federated interstellar government, thus allowing the Human species to remain unified and powerful. The form and nature of this unified government remains unknown in the remaining records.It was during the Age of Technology that psykers were first scientifically verified to exist at some point in historical records towards the end of the 22nd Millennium, making a sudden appearance on almost every Human world within a relatively short span of time. It was only then that psykers were a confirmed phenomenon, after long millennia of legend, rumour and pseudoscience in which the scientific establishment simply could not prove the existence of psychic powers among Humans.It is, however, unexplained how these early Human psykers avoided the danger of daemonic possession for thousands of standard years, which would have led to the destruction of entire worlds as later happened during the Age of Strife. Whether Daemons and the Ruinous Powers were less prevalent or potent in the Warp in this time before Slaanesh's birth is unknown.Where at first the gift of the psychic mutation was limited to only a few individuals in every Human population (who often fell victim to superstitious suppression), towards the end of the Age of Technology, psykers suddenly began appearing in unusually great numbers, on every Human world.On the more progressive and technologically-advanced Human colonies, these psykers -- at least until the threat of daemonic possession became apparent -- were protected by law and allowed to develop and explore their abilities. On other, less sophisticated Human worlds, they were often killed in literal witch-hunts and anti-psyker pogroms. |
Age of Technology - Cybernetic Revolt: One of the reasons Humanity was so successful at conquering a large part of the galaxy during this era was the development of the artificially intelligent humanoid constructs now only known in fragmentary pre-Imperial records as the Men of Iron and the Men of Stone.These powerful and fully autonomous intelligent robots intended for both labour and combat won many wars for Humanity, but for some unknown reason turned against their masters at the end of the Age of Technology some time in the late 23rd Millennium and unleashed a terrible war upon the Human worlds.During this ancient conflict, remembered only as the "Cybernetic Revolt," both sides unleashed fearsome weapons of advanced technology. These included the mechanivores, massive thinking machines capable of lifting entire continents and ripping open chasms on planetary surfaces that extended down to the world's core. The mechanivores could even absorb space-time itself as a form of data.Among the other terrible weapons of mass destruction unleashed at this time were the serpentine machines called "sun-snuffers" that uncoiled into great structures in the void larger than the rings of Saturn and were designed to devour the stars themselves.And perhaps the most ubiquitous and dangerous of the weapons of this terrible war were the omniphages, swarms of intelligent, microscopic nano-machines that could consume everything across the surface of a world in only solar hours.The Cybernetic Revolt was eventually won by an alliance of galactic powers, some of whom may not have been Human, but at a terrible cost. The damage to interstellar Human society was catastrophic and shattered much of Humanity's hard-won economic strength and political unity, and lay the foundation for the later collapse caused by the onset of the Age of Strife.It is as a result of this ancient war that it is now considered one of the greatest crimes in Imperial space to develop an artificially intelligent thinking machine, an "Abominable Intelligence," or Silica Animus.The widespread fear and revulsion towards artificial general intelligence amongst the worlds of Mankind in the wake of the terrible conflict with the Men of Iron led to the development of the first servitors at the end of this period.Servitors were cybernetic servants lacking true sentience created from the bodies of condemned criminals or lobotomised, vat-grown humanoids whose bodies and brains were partially replaced with machine systems. They served a as a replacement for the labour force once provided by the Men of Iron. |
Age of Technology - End of the Golden Age: This Golden Age for Humanity would not last. Warp travel became increasingly difficult and ultimately impossible due to the great Warp Storms that convulsed the Immaterium and would herald the violent birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh and the later Fall of the Aeldari that first began in the 25th Millennium.The economy of the Human interstellar civilisation had already been damaged by the terrible wars against the Men of Iron, and the growing frequency and extent of the Warp Storms caused trade and communication between the Human colonies to collapse, restoring the isolation of Human-settled planets and star systems.Within this relative isolation Abhumans, new Human mutant subspecies like the Ogryns, Ratlings, and Squats, adapted to their environments and developed on several planets in the galaxy.In this situation, certain high population worlds like Terra that relied heavily on trade with the rest of Humanity were suddenly unable to feed their enormous populations. Hunger and starvation followed.Those Human psykers who had recently developed their powers were relatively weak and inexperienced, and at constant risk of possession by Daemons and other Warp entities after the great Warp Storms began.The sudden impossibility of Warp travel meant that the once-unified interstellar Human civilisation broke apart into completely isolated star systems and worlds. Daemonic possession, widespread insanity among the psyker population and the increasing interstellar isolation led to inter-Human conflict, utter anarchy and the regression of most Human civilisations into forms of barbarism.The 5,000 Terran years following the end of the Age of Technology are thus aptly named the Age of Strife by the scholars of the Imperium of Man. |
Age of Technology - Age of Founding: The Squats' Age of Founding corresponds to the overall Human Age of Technology. |
Age of Terra - Age of Terra: The Age of Terra, also sometimes called the "Age of Progress" in older Imperial texts, is the era of Human history between the 1st and 15th Millennia (1 - 14,999 AD).This is the era when Mankind advanced from a pre-industrial Iron Age culture to become a star-spanning Fusion Age civilisation. |
Age of Terra - History: The original reason for numbering the years from the start of this era is because it was believed to be the year of the birth of the ancient religious leader Jesus of Nazareth, which has long been forgotten by Humanity. Mankind now possesses only one religion -- a deep faith in the God-Emperor of Mankind and His Imperial Cult.During the long years of the Age of Terra, Humanity came to dominate the Earth culturally and technologically. Myriad Human civilisations came and went during this long span of now mostly lost Human history.The first three Chaos Gods -- Khorne, Tzeentch and Nurgle -- were birthed in the Immaterium in this era, all coming into existence at various points during Old Earth's European medieval period.Their emergence at this time was the result of the constant warfare, the growth of sophisticated early modern nation-states and continued outbreaks of global plagues, respectively, which marked that era and fed the final formation of the Dark Gods' consciousnesses.The Sol System was ultimately colonised once Humanity developed the necessary technology to leave the Earth's orbit in the late 2nd Millennium and the early 3rd Millennium. Mankind first colonised Mars and lived on the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune.Mars became the first planet to be terraformed by Humans when it was settled by various industrial cartels. The Red Planet soon became synonymous with technical expertise and scientific advancement, a characteristic that would mark it for many millennia to come.Advanced nuclear fusion and anti-matter propulsion technology was developed that eventually allowed Humanity to construct interstellar starships that could colonise other star systems, though the slow travel times of these vessels meant these Human colonies had to be self-sufficient to survive, as no aid could arrive from Earth in time.At the end of the period and stretching into the next era in Human history, the Age of Technology, Humanity began to colonise the stars using these sub-light spacecraft.At first only nearby star systems could be reached and the Human colonies established on them were required to survive as independent states since they were separated from Old Earth by up to ten Human generations' time of travel.Almost nothing of this period's events is known to current Imperial historitors save as myth and legend, though it is clear that the Emperor was alive and on Earth throughout this era.He is believed to have been born in the 8th Millennium B.C. in Anatolia, then disguised His true abilities and immortal Perpetual nature as He moved from identity to identity throughout Old Earth's ancient history. In every guise, He always sought to better the lot of Humanity, physically, intellectually and spiritually. |
Age of the Imperium - Age of the Imperium: The Age of the Imperium is the name given by Imperial lexographers and historitors to the period of Human history that spans the 10,000 standard years following the end of the Horus Heresy and the emergence of the Imperium of Man in its recognizable form.The precursor to the Age of the Imperium began in the 30th Millennium when the Emperor of Mankind emerged from long centuries of obscurity to unify Terra beneath His rule and end the terrible suffering and civil conflicts of the Age of Strife.The Emperor forged a political and military alliance with the Cult Mechanicus that had reunified the Forge World of Mars and together the two most populous worlds of Humanity birthed the Imperium of Man.Using the advanced technology of the ancient Mechanicum, the Emperor created the twenty Space Marine Legions of the First Founding to launch the "Great Crusade," an attempt to reunify all the Human-settled colony worlds across the Milky Way Galaxy under a single government once more.While this campaign proved largely successful in reunifying the majority of the Human race, that unity was eventually destroyed by the terrible galaxy-wide civil war known as the "Horus Heresy." Half of the Imperial armed forces, led by the Emperor's favoured son, the Warmaster Horus, were corrupted by the Dark Gods of Chaos and followed Horus into rebellion.The Traitor Legions and their allies launched themselves in an assault upon the Imperium that ultimately led to Horus' death, the Emperor's eternal internment within the Golden Throne and the dawn of a new age of technological stagnation and constant warfare.It is this terrible moment that truly marks the start of what became known as the Age of the Imperium. |
Age of the Imperium - History in the Imperium: The road the Human race has walked through history stretches long and bloody at their collective heels. Its origins are hidden by the swirling dust of aeons, its present wreathed in the flames of war and ahead the future yawns like a dark and forbidding pit.Still, Imperial historitors do what they can to preserve the truth of Humanity's journey, even if none may survive to read it.Beneath the Imperial Palace complex on Terra lie thousands of kilometres of catacombs, hushed vaults and scroll-stuffed libraries. They are protected by rune-sealed bulkheads so formidable they could endure sustained orbital bombardment.Their guardians are shadowy terrors, unsleeping, ever vigilant. So vast is their sprawl that predatory things have evolved amidst the shadows and the dust, ruling over trammelled ecosystems of pallid troglodyte vermin.The knowledge kept here under lock and key spans the great ages of Humanity. Even this ultimate repository is mouldering and much eroded by entropy's inescapable touch, yet just those fragmented records that remain would take many lifetimes to study, and contain secrets enough to blast the reader's sanity or bring the entire Imperium crashing down.It is well, perhaps, that few even know of the endless archives' existence. Fewer still are permitted beyond their doors. |
Age of the Imperium - Rise of the Emperor (ca. M29 - M30): During the Age of Strife the great Warp Storms that heralded the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh following the Fall of the Aeldari had separated Terra from its interstellar colonies and plunged all the Human civilisations across the Milky Way Galaxy into disarray, constant strife, and chaos.When the storms abated with the emergence of Slaanesh in the Warp in the late 29th Millennium, a new leader for Humanity known only as the Emperor of Mankind emerged on Terra, the ancient homeworld of Mankind. To carry out the Unification of Terra the Emperor created the first of His genetically-enhanced warriors who are known as Thunder Warriors and later the nascent Legiones Astartes, the precursors to the present-day Adeptus Astartes. Wrought to be living weapons, the Thunder Warriors were known to be physically stronger, more savage and more potent in combat than the later Astartes, though they were not as long-lived. With his legions of Thunder Warriors, the Emperor cast down the remaining tyrants of Ancient Earth -- bloody-handed warlords of the late Age of Strife-era Terra in a series of great campaigns later called the Unification Wars. Alongside this ascendancy would come a rebirth of civilisation and government with the Emperor founding an all-embracing civil administration to order and rebuild His world, a program to cleanse the Human population of centuries of genetic damage from the use of nuclear, alchemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, and concentrate such knowledge that could be salvaged from the dust of ages in newborn houses of learning and education. The unification of Terra would only be the start of His plan to revive the Human race.The Emperor then sought a negotiated alliance with the Mechanicum Parliament on the red planet of Mars. The Emperor entered a military and political alliance with the Lords of the Red Planet, known as the Treaty of Mars, which was also called the Treaty of Olympus Mons by the Mechanicum. This was the formal name given to the binding agreements that regulate the coexistence of the Imperium of Man and the Cult Mechanicus. This treaty marked the official birth of the nascent Imperium of Man in the late 30th Millennium. The Treaty of Mars granted political autonomy to the Mechanicum of Mars and its Forge Worlds scattered across the galaxy as well as an exception to the Imperial Truth so that the Cult Mechanicus' adherents could continue to practice their faith. The Imperium would provide six Houses of Navigators and Astropaths to the Mechanicum so that it could once more travel the stars to unite its far-flung empire of lost Forge Worlds and continue its sacred Quest for Knowledge across the galaxy. In exchange, the Mechanicum would supply the Imperium of Man with the weapons, starships, materiel and technicians required to initiate the Emperor's Great Crusade to reunite all of the Human-settled galaxy beneath the banner of the Imperium. To symbolise the alliance created between Terra and Mars that marked the true birth of the new Imperium, the Emperor changed His personal sigil from one of an eagle and lightning bolt, the Raptor Imperialis, to the Aquila, a two-headed eagle whose heads represented the twin foundations of the new Human interstellar government -- Terra and Mars, Imperium and Mechanicum.During Old Earth's isolation in the Age of Strife, the Emperor had for long years furthered His plans and worked to make the future Imperium possible. In preparation for the re-conquest of the galaxy He had conceived of and created the twenty Primarchs to be His transhuman agents of change and lords of war, his generals and the executors of His will -- great leaders who would conquer millions of worlds in His name. Each of these genetically-engineered superhumans would have powers and skills beyond those of any other Human -- abilities possibly rivalling those of the Emperor Himself. Furthermore, no two would be alike; each would embody a different facet of the arts of war and generalship and make it his own. Together, united with the Emperor and with the Legions at his command, they would make for a force unseen and unequalled in all creation. But the Emperor's ambitions for the Primarchs appeared to be thwarted by a cataclysmic event, the true nature and scope of which has never been revealed. The Primarchs were somehow snatched away whilst still in their gestation capsules from the Emperor's gene-laboratories deep beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains and cast in scattered disarray across the galaxy by the unified will of the Chaos Gods. But all was not lost.The Emperor had managed to keep a small sample of each Primarch's genetic material and use it to create gene-seed which was implanted into the first Terran volunteers, which genetically-enhanced these elite soldiers into the first true Space Marines. It is from these soldiers that the Emperor forged the original 20 First Founding Space Marine Legions. With his early Legiones Astartes, the Emperor first brought the Unification Wars to their successful close and then planned to unleash the Great Crusade intended to reunite all of Mankind across the galaxy beneath His benevolent rule, banishing the violence, superstition and injustice that had afficted Humanity throughout the five millennia of the Age of Strife. |
Age of the Imperium - Birth of the Astronomican (ca. M30): Following the successful conclusion of the Unification Wars, the Emperor first ordered the construction of the great psychic beacon known as the Astronomican on Terra, which would enable His forces to expand the Great Crusade to the stars beyond the Sol System. Huge numbers of Tech-priests were brought from Mars to oversee the project and the majority of the Terran population were drafted to construct the towering machine-buildings needed to support this labour. At the time the Astronomican was the single largest artifice on Terra, and the entire device was merely a focus through which the Emperor could direct His fathomless psychic energies to generate a partly self-sustaining telepathic signal through the Empyrean (although few were aware of this fact at the time). The psychic navigational beam the Astronomican generated was able to propagate through the Warp and those attuned to its unique frequencies and modulations, the Navigators, were able to use it as a beacon and pole star when plotting journeys through the Immaterium. By this beacon the Warp could be travelled by Human starships at speeds and with a margin of safety that had been unprecedented, although the risk, of course, could never be fully mitigated. The Astronomican was an incalculable boon to both the Great Crusade and the fledgling interstellar domain of Mankind that it was creating. In a similar way, the Emperor was able to shut down the Astronomican or interrupt the beam at will.Only a handful of individuals knew that the great signal was actually powered by the Emperor's psychic powers, and they lived in fear that should He be disabled or killed, the galaxy would be plunged into a new Age of Strife. Such was the Astronomican's effect that even in that distant age of the Imperium's first founding some referred to it as the Divine Light, or the Emperor's Light, often without fully realising the literal truth of those words. The sacred duty of powering the massive psychic beacon would eventually be shifted to a great choir of 10,000 Imperial Sanctioned Psykers after the Emperor was interred within the Golden Throne, heralding the birth of the Imperial Adepta that would become the Adeptus Astronomica. |
Age of the Imperium - Great Crusade (ca. 798.M30 - ca. 005.M31): The Emperor emerged from the anarchy of sundered Terra and lead the massive interstellar campaign to reunite Mankind. The Great Crusade was spearheaded by the newly formed Space Marine Legions, who were armed by the recently allied factories of Mars. Battles unnumbered were fought and the myriad Expeditionary Fleets of the Space Marines, supported by the regiments and starships of the newborn Imperial Army, proved unstoppable. Aliens and Warp creatures were driven back, planets were reclaimed and the missing Primarchs were discovered to have been scattered through the Warp to Human-settled worlds across the galaxy.The Emperor preached three great truths in His reconquest of the galaxy: genetic corruption must be sought out and eradicated as he had done on Terra; psykers were to be rooted out, kept under control, and handed over to Imperial agents for evaluation; and destructive aliens were to be rendered powerless. The Great Crusade lasted for over 200 standard years, into the early years of the 31st Millennium, and brought many long-lost star systems into the fold of the newborn Imperium of Man. Under the command of the War Council of the Emperor and His rediscovered Primarchs, vast Expeditionary Fleets comprised of the Imperial Army and the twenty Space Marine Legions fought back aliens, feral Human tribes, petty Human dictators and the Warp-tainted forces that had gained control of large portions of Human-settled space during the Age of Strife. Once a Human-settled world had been pacified, it was brought into "Imperial Compliance" by a new Imperial Planetary Governor chosen by the Emperor. Part of this process included the rooting out of any superstitious or religious beliefs of the population with a respect solely for reason and the measured advancement of science and technology, an atheistic belief system known as the Imperial Truth.It was often occupied by a unit or units of the Imperial Army that were left behind to complete the integration of the planet into the Imperium while the Expeditionary Fleet, led by Astartes, moved on to its next target. As the Primarchs took control of the Space Marine Legions that had been crafted from their gene-seed, the Great Crusade separated, moving in many directions and reaching far across the galaxy. The Emperor eventually returned to Terra following the Ullanor Crusade against the Orks, leaving the Warmaster Horus, foremost amongst the Primarchs and the most beloved son of the Emperor, to finish off the great drives of Human expansion. It is these deeds and countless battles that truly created the Imperium of Man in the minds and hearts of Humanity across the galaxy. |
Age of the Imperium - Horus Heresy: The Age of Darkness (ca. 005-014.M31): The Great Crusade ended with the nightmarish Imperial civil war known as the Horus Heresy. The Warmaster Horus, the greatest among the Primarchs and the leader of the Luna Wolves Space Marine Legion as well as the most favoured son of the Emperor, fell under the influence of the Ruinous Powers of Chaos largely as a result of his own growing jealousy and resentment towards his genetic father.In an attempt to usurp his creator and take his place as the Master of Mankind, Horus took control of a third of the entire Imperium's armed forces (including fully half of the Space Marine Legions, four Titan Legions and an untold number of formations from the Imperial Army and the Dark Mechanicum) and marched towards Terra where his forces laid siege to the Imperial Palace. It proved to be a bitter and destructive civil war that lasted for nine standard years; across space and upon many planets, brother fought brother. Immortalised by many later Imperial legends, the Battle of Terra and the Siege of the Imperial Palace marked the epic climax of the Heresy, with countless heroic actions and notorious deeds to mark the end of the founding era of the Imperium.Horus was ultimately slain aboard his own flagship, the Battle Barge Vengeful Spirit, during a daring assault by Loyalist Astartes forces led by the Emperor, but the Emperor was mortally wounded in the final battle and was forced into a state of semi-consciousness by His mortal injuries and interred within the ancient cybernetic life-support system and psychic amplifier known as the Golden Throne. The Imperium was left leaderless and at the very brink of collapse following the Heresy. |
Age of the Imperium - Great Scouring (ca. 014.M31 - Unknown Date.M31): The Great Scouring, or simply "The Scouring," was the Imperium of Man's great counteroffensive against the Traitor Legions. It began immediately after the end of the Horus Heresy following the death of the Warmaster Horus and the failure of his assault on the Imperial Palace during the Siege of Terra in 014.M31.It succeeded in driving the forces of Chaos from Imperial space into finding a refuge in the permanent Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror. Before actually being confined for all time within the life support mechanisms of the Golden Throne, the Emperor had pronounced judgment on the Traitors: He declared them Excommunicate Traitoris, and determined that they were to be driven into the Eye of Terror, which would hold them for all eternity.All records and memory of the Traitor Legions were to be expunged from the Imperial archives. Worlds such as Istvaan V and Davin would be scoured clean of all life because of their corruption by Chaos.The Traitor Legions' associated troops from the Dark Mechanicum, the Titan Legions or the Traitor regiments and starships of the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy that had turned to Chaos were to be destroyed or driven into the Eye alongside their leaders. It would be as if the Traitor Legions had never existed to sully the Imperium with their betrayal.After the death of Horus, those Traitors who had not been slain outright during the Siege of Terra fled before the vengeful wrath of the Loyalist forces. Many made good their escape into unexplored space or disappeared into the Eye of Terror or other, lesser-known Warp rifts such as the Maelstrom.Fighting continued for solar decades after the Heresy had ended before the Traitor forces were wholly destroyed or exiled into the Eye of Terror. Many Chaos-corrupted star systems were cleansed and placed under the watch of the newborn Inquisition.The Emperor's dream of a new age of enlightenment, a time when Mankind was freed from superstition and ignorance, would turn into something far different. The Great Scouring would be followed by the true start of the ten-millennia-long era known as the Age of the Imperium. |
Age of the Imperium - The Second Founding (ca. 021.M31): In the midst of the Scouring campaign, the Second Founding occurred. In order to prevent a single person from controlling as much military power as Horus had amassed and eliminate the risk of another large-scale civil war, numerous reforms were enacted at the hands of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman of the Ultramarines to reshape the Imperium of Man's political and military structure.In this way the men and women of the Imperium could face the new post-Heresy realities of an interstellar government where the Emperor was no longer capable of carrying on the day-to-day tasks of ruling the galaxy.The remaining 9 Loyalist Space Marine Legions were divided to form the far smaller 1,000-warrior organisations known as Chapters, each along with their own supporting spacecraft and planetary fiefdoms in accordance with the established dictates of Guilliman's magnum opus on military strategy and organisation, the Codex Astartes.In the wake of the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's "ascension," Guilliman had become the ruling Lord Commander of the Imperium, the first among equals among the Senatorum Imperialis that now ruled the Imperium in the silent Emperor's name.A portion of the Space Marines, now collectively known as the Adeptus Astartes, maintained their parent Legions' original names, badges and colours whilst the remaining Chapters took on new names and heraldry. The majority of these Second Founding Chapters still serve the Imperium today.The Imperial Army was divided into the land-based forces of the Astra Militarum and the space-based forces of the Imperial Navy, each with a separate chain-of-command structure and bureaucracy.Resistance from several Space Marine Legions to Guilliman's order to break up their Legions, particularly among the Imperial Fists, nearly brought the Imperium to another crisis, until the scions of Rogal Dorn suffered through the battle of the Iron Cage and Dorn relented after the V Legion was only saved by the intervention of Guilliman's Ultramarines.The Imperium suffered a great blow when Guilliman was mortally wounded at the Battle of Thessala in 121.M31 by the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim and was placed in stasis in the Temple of Correction in the fortress-monastery of the Ultramarines, the Fortress of Hera, on Macragge. It became a major pilgrimage destination for believers of the Imperial Cult over the next 10,000 years. |
Age of the Imperium - The Time of Rebirth (ca. M31 - ca. M32): During the era remembered as the Time of Rebirth the Imperium of Man slowly recovered from the Horus Heresy, economically, politically and even technologically. The myriad wars of the Great Scouring were fought in the years immediately after the end of the Horus Heresy and the death of the traitorous Warmaster.In a lengthy campaign explored above, the Imperium's forces hunted and banished the remaining Traitor Legions from the occupation of Human space. Eventually the Chaos Space Marines and the Ruinous Powers' other followers among the forces of Chaos found refuge in the massive Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror as the Emperor had planned. For a time the Imperium knew peace from the corrupted followers of the Chaos Gods.At the same time, many alien races that had been fought during the Great Crusade reappeared in Human space to take advantage of the disruptions caused by the Horus Heresy and plagued the vulnerable worlds of Man. |
Age of the Imperium - 1st Black Crusade (781.M31): In 781.M31, Abaddon the Despoiler, the Chaos Lord of the Black Legion, made his first attempt to launch a new offensive against the Imperium of Man following the Horus Heresy. He initiated the campaign known as the 1st Black Crusade, which opened with the conflict remembered as the First Battle of Cadia.The 1st Black Crusade also marked the start of the Chaos Space Marines' ten-thousand-year-long attempt to throw down the Imperium that they named the "Long War."Abaddon had made many blood pacts with the Dark Gods in the wake of Horus' defeat during the Horus Heresy. Following this deadly incursion, the Ruinous Powers granted Abaddon the means to further increase his already formidable power.After the First Battle of Cadia was won, the forces of Chaos under Abaddon's command plunged the worlds of the Segmentum Obscurus into a terrible conflict that ravaged hundreds of worlds for several solar decades.At the end of that time, on the world of Uralan in the Eye of Terror, Abaddon recovered the Daemonsword Drach'nyen after battling his way through a haunted labyrinth to the great inner chamber where the blade had languished in stasis for millennia.The howling sword contained the bound essence of an ancient and dangerous Warp entity who had once been defeated by the Emperor Himself during the Horus heresy and had the power to rend reality apart wherever the weapon strikes.After the recovery of the malefic sword, Abaddon's power swelled to inhuman proportions much like his predecessor Horus, and he was recognised by the Chaos Gods as Horus Lupercal's true successor amongst the Traitor Legions, the new Warmaster of Chaos Undivided. |
Age of the Imperium - Rise of the Adeptus Ministorum: The Emperor, always an object of veneration, only increased His following after being joined to the Golden Throne, an act remembered by his followers as His "ascension." Many Imperial cults arose over the following centuries, the majority of which were united into a larger body known as the Ecclesiarchy led by the largest cult, the Temple of the Saviour Emperor.This powerful church gained momentum and a following across the galaxy until, in the 32nd Millennium, it was granted the status of official state religion of the Imperium and the title of Adeptus Ministorum within the Adeptus Terra.It is only a few centuries later that Ecclesiarch Veneris II received a seat amongst the High Lords of Terra, and after 300 Terran years, the seat reserved for the Ecclesiarch, the church's high priest, was made permanent. The political power of the Ecclesiarchy only continues to grow as the centuries pass and the people of the Imperium's faith in the God-Emperor becomes ever more intense. |
Age of the Imperium - War of the Beast (544-546.M32): The Orks rampaged across the Imperium on a massive scale in 544.M32 during what became known as the War of the Beast. The number of greenskin attacks grew until it became the greatest Ork invasion that the galaxy had ever known to that time, eclipsing even the Ork WAAAGH! defeated by the Emperor and Horus during the Ullanor Crusade, which had earned Horus the title of Warmaster.Nothing was safe from the Orks' primal desire to conquer the galaxy and their widespread advances, including several assaults on Terra itself, were only halted when the Imperium resorted to the use of the most extreme measures, at great cost to the Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes.The Orks had developed six massive Warlords known as "The Beasts" by the Imperials, who each created six "Legions" of Orks similar to the ancient Space Marine Legions that had originally defeated them on Ullanor. These Orks were of a different sub-species than other Orks, were much more intelligent and could converse with Humans fluently in their own language.They also developed gravitic and teleportation technologies more advanced than anything the Mechanicum had on hand, including the ability to teleport planets through what the Imperials named "subspace."The Orks built so-called "Attack Moons" by using gravitic technology to pull a planet's crust and mantle into space and then reshape it into a sphere. These Attack Moons were armed with "Gravity Whips" that could destroy entire fleets of battleships with crippling gravity waves.Three great battles were fought on Ullanor, the site of the ancient Ullanor Crusade and the capital of the new, advanced Ork civilisation and their greatest temple to the Ork gods Gork and Mork, to ultimately kill the Beasts using the aid of captured Ork psykers or "Weirdboyz" and the psychic null powers of the Sisters of Silence.The first of these battles was won by Vulkan, the Perpetual Primarch of the Salamanders Legion who aided the Imperium at this time and kept reincarnating after his death.After the final conquest of the Beasts on Ullanor, the Mechanicus took over the world to strip away the Ork technologies in an attempt to learn how to teleport planets like Mars through the Warp and gain access to the Orks gravitic weapons.To keep the High Lords of Terra from knowing that they were violating Imperial doctrine to eschew any research into forbidden xenos technologies, the Tech-priests eventually teleported Ullanor into the Segmentum Solar, where it was wiped clean of Ork remains and reopened for Human colonisation with a new name -- Armageddon.It is for this reason in the 41st Millennium that the Orks continually returned to claim the planet, never realising it is actually the home of their greatest empires of old.The War of the Beast brought many structural changes to the Imperium. The Inquisition was first divided into the Ordo Xenos and the Ordo Malleus at this time, and the Deathwatch, the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Xenos, was founded to face the Orks during the conflict.The position of Lord Commander of the Imperium, first among equals among the High Lords of Terra, was finally abolished and the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes was granted a seat on the High Lords' Senatorum Imperialis.In the wake of their near-destruction during the war, the Imperial Fists Chapter, long the sentinels of the Imperial Throneworld, left Terra behind, instead committing themselves to a never-ending Imperial Crusade against the foes of Mankind using their mobile fortress-monastery, Phalanx. |
Age of the Imperium - The Beheading (546.M32): The byzantine politics of the Imperium took a calamitous turn in 546.M32 in the wake of the War of the Beast in an event remembered as The Beheading.The High Lords of Terra, the successors of the Council of Terra that had been established to administer the day-to-days affairs of the Imperium and now ruled in the Emperor's name, were slain to a man on the orders of Drakan Vangorich, the Grand Master of Assassins and veteran political manipulator.A Space Marine retribution force drawn from the Halo Brethren, Imperial Fists and Sable Swords Chapters tracked the Grand Master to an Officio Assassinorum temple. The commander of the Astartes strike force was assassinated as soon as he made planetfall, but the remaining Battle-Brothers carried out the attack without him.Inside the temple they were attacked by 100 Eversor Assassins. Only a single Space Marine survived to reach Grand Master Vangorich and end his life with a Bolter. The Imperium descended into anarchy for several years as new High Lords rose to power under the aegis of the Adeptus Astartes. |
Age of the Imperium - The Forging (ca. M32 - ca. M34): The Forging is sometimes called the "Golden Age of the Imperium" by Imperial historians because during this period the Adeptus Terra brought the most important Human-settled star systems of the galaxy that had not been reached by the Great Crusade under Imperial control and expanded the interstellar borders of the Imperium.Internal stability was gained with the establishment of astropath choirs on countless worlds, with major communications hubs established on the best-garrisoned Imperial worlds, including Armageddon, Bakka and Macragge.This allowed a reliable network of interstellar superluminal communication to function using the power of an astropath's astro-telepathy to send and receive messages across light years.This period also saw a slowing in the decline and stagnation of the Imperium's technology and the growth of the interstellar economy due to the rediscovery of a valuable Standard Template Construct (STC) database from the Dark Age of Technology in the Cana System as the Imperium expanded.Once more the Imperium repelled the forces of Chaos Renegades, Heretics and aliens alike across the galaxy and reclaimed countless lost and rebellious regions for the Human race.During this period, the Emperor, always an object of veneration, only increased His devoted following of worshippers after being joined to the Golden Throne.Many Imperial cults dedicated to the worship of the Emperor as the God of Mankind arose over the following centuries, the majority of which were united into a centralised religious body called the Temple of the Saviour Emperor.This powerful church gained momentum until, in the 32nd Millennium, it was finally granted the status of the official state religion of the Imperium and the title of Adeptus Ministorum, though it was more colloquially called the "Ecclesiarchy."It was only a few centuries later that Ecclesiarch Veneris II received a seat amongst the High Lords of Terra, and after 300 standard years, the seat reserved for the Ecclesiarch was made permanent within the ranks of the Senatorum Imperialis. |
Age of the Imperium - 2nd Black Crusade: In 597.M32, the Warmaster of Chaos, Abaddon the Despoiler, launched his 2nd Black Crusade against the Imperium of Man and initiated the 2nd Black Crusade. This time, Abaddon placed a terrible curse upon the worlds of the Belis Corona Sector, infusing them with the touch of the Warp.Meanwhile, his Black Fleet attacked the sector's Imperial shipyards, destroying dozens of Imperial Cruisers being constructed or repaired. Before the Imperium could muster its strength to fight back, the Despoiler retreated into the Eye of Terror, his works complete. |
Age of the Imperium - Restoration of the Senatorum Imperialis: In 646.M32, Agnathio, the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, united over 50 leaders from other Chapters of Space Marines and arrived upon Terra. Such a show of power and faith put an end to the squabbling for the contentious seats of the High Lords of Terra that had consumed the differing factions since The Beheading.In locked council with the mightiest of Mankind's warriors, such matters were quickly sorted out. None know exactly what was done or said, but when the Space Marines departed back to their far-scattered missions, there once again sat twelve High Lords of Terra. If there was further dissension, none dared speak it aloud. |
Age of the Imperium - Astropath Wars: In 888.M32 the Imperium was consumed by the event known as the Astropath Wars. There is no further information on this conflict available in Imperial records. |
Age of the Imperium - 3rd Black Crusade: Abaddon the Despoiler launched his 3rd Black Crusade in 909.M32, sending the Daemon Prince Tallomin against the Cadian Gate in a reckless and bloody frontal assault.The daemonic horde that followed in Tallomin's wake accounted for the destruction of millions of lives and drew in Astra Militarum regiments and Space Marine Chapters from across the Segmentum Obscurus.Eventually, warriors of the Space Wolves managed to send Tallomin howling back into the Warp.Under the cover of the attack, Abaddon led a dedicated strike force to desecrate the Shrine World of Gerstahl, breaking the ancient seal on the tomb of the Imperial Saint Gerstahl and utterly destroying his remains whilst the Imperium's attention was directed elsewhere.This was done to forestall a prophecy which claimed that the saint would rise again when the "Eye of Darkness opened for the last time" and stem the tide of the treacherous. |
Age of the Imperium - The Firestorm: In 910.M32 the event known as The Firestorm unfolded. There is no further information on this conflict available in Imperial records. |
Age of the Imperium - War of the Confessor: At some time in the 33rd Millennium, the War of the Confessor unfolded when in a particularly violent display, the Adeptus Ministorum exerted its newfound political strength in the wake of the War of the Beast. Many key Shrine Worlds were added to its holdings during this first of many Wars of Faith to come. |
Age of the Imperium - Usurs' Explorations: In 265.M33, Admiral Usurs of the Imperial Navy was cast down by the High Lords of Terra for becoming too ambitious. However, he was still too politically powerful within the Navy to be executed without initiating a costly civil war, so he was instead despatched on an Explorator mission to the intergalactic gulf beyond the Milky Way.For the following solar decade, Usurs' reports reached Terra by astropath, detailing the conquest of new star systems for the Emperor. After two decades, these reports finally ceased. Contact was never reestablished with the star systems Usurs mentioned in his reports. |
Age of the Imperium - Siege of Eternity's Gate: In 313.M33 the Siege of Eternity's Gate unfolded. |
Age of the Imperium - The Blade of Infinity: In 615.M33 the Blade of Infinity, a pre-Heresy Cruiser, emerged from the Warp, its re-entry signature suggesting that it had left realspace over 20,000 standard years before. This period predated even the Warp-Drive's invention in the Age of Technology and suggested a radical time stream disorder.Vox transmissions picked up the from the vessel suggested that the Blade of Infinity was trying to communicate some type of warning, but before much could be deciphered, the ancient starship disappeared once again into the Warp.In its wake arrived an invasion fleet of Heretic Astartes Traitor Legions, the Archenemy of the Imperium who wreaked much havoc. The Blade of Infinity reemerged from the Warp several more times in subsequent years, always as a harbinger of further incursions into Imperial space by the forces of Chaos from the Immaterium. |
Age of the Imperium - Year of the Ghosts: In 831.M33, during what became known as the "Year of the Ghosts," the honoured dead rose up in the Segmentum Solar to drive back the terrors of the Warp. |
Age of the Imperium - 4th Black Crusade: The 4th Black Crusade, also known as the "El'Phanor War," was launched into Imperial space from the Eye of Terror by Abaddon the Despoiler in 001.M34, his Black Legion besieging the great Citadel of the Kromarch.Abaddon led the charge against the adamantium gates of this famously unbreachable citadel upon the world of El'Phanor. Only one in ten of Abaddon's spearhead reached the gates before they were trapped by Heavy Bolter fire.Utilising his Daemon Sword Drach'nyen, the gates of the citadel proved harder than diamond, but they split apart like cordwood before Abaddon's dolorous blow.In an orgy of violence, the Traitor Legions and their daemonic allies fall upon the Kromarch, the Imperial Commander of El'Phanor and his kin, extinguishing their ancient line forever and weakening the defences of the Cadian Gate for future Chaos assaults. |
Age of the Imperium - The Pale Wasting: Sometime during the early years of the 34th Millennium a great threat to the Imperium arose beyond the Ghoul Stars. Even today, its true nature remains suppressed. The ravages are said to cause the extermination of a score of Space Marine Chapters and souls unnumbered.Much of the extant evidence relating to this threat has been censored or purposely destroyed by the Inquisition, but there are contradictory indications which describe the nature of the threat as both a "star-spawned plague" that swept away scores of worlds and to "Nightmare Engines" that slaughtered the populations of whole sectors. This threat is remembered only as the "Pale Wasting."A stele mounted within the Imperial Palace on Terra recognises the services of the Novamarines for their action against the Pale Wasting. This artefact praises the Chapter and credits their work for having "unmade that which cannot die." This campaign was where the Novamarines earned some of their earliest recorded battle honours.Those partial records which have been uncovered suggest that the threat was xenos in nature and that more than one Space Marine Chapter may have been completely destroyed in the course of the conflict.The Novamarines took part in the campaign to quell the threat of the Pale Wasting, and though this is one of the Chapter's earliest recorded battle honours, the Chapter's own chronicles are curiously empty of any reference to this conflict. Were it not for such prominent recognition, the incident might be completely forgotten. |
Age of the Imperium - The Howling: In 401.M34 the terrible crisis known as "The Howling" unfolded. Black Templar Space Marines ended the Catelexis Heresy by executing the Cacodominus, an alien cybernetic psyker whose formidable powers allowed it to psychically control the populace of thirteen hundred star systems.Unfortunately, the Cacodominus' death scream was amplified by the Warp and burned out the minds of a billion Human astropaths while it also distorted the beacon of the Astronomican.Millions of starships were lost in the resulting upheaval and entire Sub-sectors of the Imperium slid once more into barbarism without the dictates of the Adeptus Terra to guide them. It proves a terrible price to pay for victory. |
Age of the Imperium - The Nova Terra Interregnum (ca. M35 - M36): The Nova Terra Interregnum is also known as the "Time of the Twin Empires" and was a troubled period in Imperial history when the Imperium of Man fractured for a time into warring factions for over 900 standard years during the early 35th through the early 36th Millennium. During this period the rebellious Ur-Council of Nova Terra dismissed the authority of the High Lords of Terra and claimed separate rule over the Imperium's Segmentum Pacificus. |
Age of the Imperium - Moirae Schism: The Adeptus Mechanicus was also affected during this Interregnum by division and internal warfare brought about by doctrinal differences and competing centres of power. One of the most discordant of these conflicts was the Moirae Schism which occurred sometime in the 35th Millennium, a dogmatic battle between the Martian Orthodoxy of the standard Cult Mechanicus and a far more radical creed based upon the prophetic writings of a triad of tech-mystics from the minor Forge World of Moirae.The Moirae Schism was one of the most divisive and widespread doctrinal conflicts to afflict the Adeptus Mechanicus since the Horus Heresy. Moirae was eventually blasted into dust, but not before heretical writings from that world spread like wildfire through the domains of the Mechanicus even after Moirae was reduced to a cinder by the Fabricator-General of Mars' rectification fleet.Despite these efforts, the schism spread throughout the Cult of Mars, the Titan Legions and several Space Marine Chapters with close ties to the Adeptus Mechanicus such as the Iron Hands. Over 2,000 Terran years more of bloody internecine strife within the Mechanicus pass before the baleful doctrine is considered purged. |
Age of the Imperium - Cataclysm of Souls: After almost a millennium of low-grade civil war and political maneuvering, the "Cataclysm of Souls" in 975.M35 reunited the Imperium. In that year, the Ecclesiarchy tried to transform the Imperium into a theocracy where political differences would be submerged by usurping the power of the rest of the High Lords of Terra and uniting all Humanity beneath a new theocracy.Their efforts ended only in stirring up massive religious civil wars against the Ur-Council of Nova Terra who were denounced as Heretics who stood in defiance of the will of the God-Emperor when they rejected the Ecclesiarchy's attempts to increase its power over the state.This religious rebellion on many worlds of the Segmentum Pacificus ultimately overthrew the Ur-Council and restored the rule of the High Lords over the entirety of the Imperium's territory, though billions died in these religious wars and the power of the Ecclesiarchy had been increased throughout the Imperium to a dangerous level as a result, helping to set the stage for the events of the Age of Apostasy which followed in the 36th Millennium. |
Age of the Imperium - Hrud Rising: In 980.M35 the galaxy suffered from the onslaught of the massive "Hrud Rising." |
Age of the Imperium - Cursed 21st Founding: In 991.M35, the 21st Founding, later known as the Cursed Founding, occurred. The Cursed 21st Founding was the largest Founding of Space Marine Chapters since the Second Founding following the Horus Heresy. It had taken place in the 35th Millennium shortly before the start of the Age of Apostasy.Upon the world of Inculaba, a secret geno-lab was the site of the secret project known as "Homo Sapiens Novus," where Mechanicus Genetors attempted to perfect and remove the existing, identified deficiencies in flawed Astartes gene-seed, and ultimately begin the production of new and improved Primarch-like Space Marines.But their project was doomed to failure as the Genetors proved far less skilled in the genetic sciences than the Emperor of Mankind, and their efforts resulted in the development of seriously flawed gene-seed that was used to craft the organ implants for the new Chapters.Worse still, some of these Chapters developed unexpected genetic idiosyncrasies, mutations that strained the tolerance of the Inquisition and threatened the Chapter's survival.The most seriously afflicted Chapters suffered the wrath of the Grey Knights after they were called in by the Inquisition to expunge the threat. Some escaped this fate and fled, eventually turning Traitor and swearing themselves to Chaos. |
Age of the Imperium - War of Recovery: In 104.M36 the War of Recovery unfolded when patchy reports of technological wonders on the planets of the Mortuam Chain reach Mars. Hoping that it might be possible to recover new STC databases, the Adeptus Mechanicus launched an expedition which began an escalating war that lasted for over a standard century. Aided by the advanced weaponry they recovered, the forces of the Mechanicus freed the Human colonies of the region from xenos occupation and several first generation copies of STC databases concerning certain individual technologies were returned in triumph to Mars. |
Age of the Imperium - The Age of Apostasy (M36): Foreshadowed by the deep political divisions of the Nova Terra Interregnurn, a new age of dissent and power struggles consumed the Imperium in the 36th Millennium. Zeal eclipsed reason, and misrule reigned supreme. The word of the Emperor was subverted wholesale by corrupt ideologues, each struggling to usurp total control of the Emperor's realm for themselves.This era is known as the Age of Apostasy, a time of brutal Imperial civil war, and is considered to be one of the bloodiest times within the Imperium's history after the Horus Heresy. |
Age of the Imperium - Reign of Blood: Around 200.M36, the Age of Apostasy is marked by the "Reign of Blood", when the High Lord Goge Vandire, an insane tyrant, became both the Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum and the Master of the Adeptus Administratum through bribery, blackmail, coercion and murder.During Vandire's Reign of Blood, multiple Wars of Faith were fought as Vandire attempted to gain full control of the Imperium. The Reign of Blood lasted for 70 Terran years before a messenger delivered the news that heralded its end. On the world of Dimmamar, a man named Sebastian Thor and his reformist sect of the Imperial Cult, the Confederation of Light, denounced High Lord Vandire as a traitor to the Emperor. As an accomplished orator, Thor was able to sway billions to his cause. Eventually Vandire was besieged on Terra by several Space Marine Chapters and several Astra Militarum regiments.The Space Marines' fleet unleashed a massive orbital bombardment which caught most of the Traitors in the open. Lord Vandire was killed by his bodyguards, the Brides of the Emperor, who were convinced by the actions of the Adeptus Custodes that they had been tricked into betraying the Emperor by Vandire.In the aftermath, the Ecclesiarchy was reformed, and the Brides of the Emperor were transformed into the Adepta Sororitas, the Sisters of Battle, the armed forces of the Ecclesiarchy and the Chamber Militant of the Inquisition's new-formed Ordo Hereticus.The Ordo Hereticus was intended to root out the internal enemies of the Imperium, watch over the Ecclesiarchy and prevent the emergence of another Goge Vandire who sought to serve his own selfish ends rather than the will of the Emperor.Sebastian Thor was named the new Ecclesiarch in the wake of the Reign of Blood, and his Confederation of Light's theology replaced the old orthodoxy of the Imperial state church with its emphasis on the need for political control over the Emperor's realm. However, many of those "old believers" went underground, forming a heretical sect known as the "Temple Tendency" that would plague the frontier regions of the Imperium for millennia to come. |
Age of the Imperium - Plague of Unbelief: In 310.M36, the event known as the "Plague of Unbelief" unfolds and is also considered part of the Age of Apostasy of the 36th Millennium, although it occurred several decades after High Lord Goge Vandire's death and Sebastian Thor's ascension to the position of Ecclesiarch. Many false prophets appeared throughout the anarchic Age of Apostasy, some little more than madmen leading rebel armies, others spiritual demagogues who commanded entire worlds and sector-spanning armies.The most powerful of these was the Apostate Cardinal of Gathalamor, Bucharis, whose heresies reached such proportions they became known as the Plague of Unbelief, not to be confused with the Curse of Unbelief, a potent arcane disease spread by servants of the Chaos God Nurgle in the 41st Millennium and better known as the Zombie Plague.The Plague of Unbelief came to an end after the heroic sacrifices of the Imperial Saint known as the Great Confessor, Dolan Chirosius, who willingly martyred himself on Gathalamor. Chirosius' example proved so potent a display of faith in the Emperor that the entire population of the world rose up and cast down Bucharis, restoring Imperial rule and the orthodox faith of the God-Emperor. |
Age of the Imperium - 5th Black Crusade: Abaddon the Despoiler launched his 5th Black Crusade out of the Eye of Terror in 723.M36, one of his infamous incursions into the realms of the Imperium of Mankind. The campaign is also remembered as the "Tide of Blood," "the Scouring of Elysia," and the "Black Crusade of Doombreed." Abaddon's forces scoured the Elysia Sector, raiding hundreds of worlds and causing untold death and destruction.On the world of Tarinth, the Despoiler lured the Warhawks and Venerators Chapters of Space Marines into the ruins of the ancient Imperial city of Kasyr Lutein where he trapped them between the daemonic hordes of Khorne and the Heretic Astartes forces of the Black Legion.In a bitter last stand, both Loyalist Chapters were utterly destroyed, their skulls taken by the ancient Daemon Prince Doombreed, whose existence precedes that of the Imperium itself, to be mounted upon the mighty throne of Khorne. |
Age of the Imperium - Web of Intrigue Disaster: In 754.M36 the Imperium was struck by the "Web of Intrigue Disaster." There is no further information in Imperial records concerning this event. |
Age of the Imperium - 6th Black Crusade: The 6th Black Crusade launched out of the Eye of Terror in 901.M36 was the sixth massive incursion by the forces of Chaos into Imperial space by Abaddon the Despoiler. During this campaign, Abaddon visited his wrath upon the treacherous warband of Chaos Space Marines known as the Sons of the Eye.The Sons of the Eye were a splinter warband of the Black Legion, founded and commanded by the Chaos Lord Drecarth the Sightless, the Blind Butcher of Irridous VII. Drecarth was a former Battle-Brother of the Sons of Horus who had fought alongside Abaddon during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy that followed.Always jealous of the Primarch Horus' favour for the Despoiler, the Sons of the Eye considered Abaddon an usurper when he took command of the XVI Legion following the Slave Wars in the Eye of Terror. Abaddon aided the Sons of the Eye in an assault on the Forge World of Arkreach during the 6th Black Crusade, the Black Legion fighting side-by-side with them until the Adeptus Mechanicus defenders were finally crushed.The triumphant Abaddon then slowly killed Drecarth, impaling him with the Talon of Horus, even as the Despoiler made his victim watch every member of the Sons of the Eye bow before their new master. |
Age of the Imperium - The Hunger of the Throne: In 989.M36, as the Eye of Terror and other Warp rifts across the galaxy visibly expanded, the Tech-priests servicing the Golden Throne demanded an increase in the number of psykers needed to fuel the Emperor's growing appetite for psychic power and maintain the extant reach of the Astronomican.The Black Ships were increased in number as was the frequency of their voyages to collect their tithes of psykers from across the Imperium. According to some records, after this date, four times the number of psykers are sacrificed daily to maintain optimal levels of power to the Golden Throne and the beacon of the Astronomican. |
Age of the Imperium - The Age of Redemption (ca. 010.M37 - ca. 034.M38): The Age of Redemption marked the era when the Imperium recovered from the sins of apostasy unleashed in the prior millennium in a rain of blood and tears. The Imperial Cult grew in zeal as never before.Heretic pyres burned night and day on a thousand Imperial worlds as the people of the Imperium sought to mortify their sins against the God-Emperor through the scourging of the flesh of others.Imperial Crusade after crusade was launched by the Adeptus Astartes and other Imperial military forces to recapture the lost wealth of the Imperium and push back the hordes of Chaos, Orks and other alien threats to Humanity.This religious fervour eventually peaked in an orgy of fanatical devotion to crusading in the Emperor's name and thousands of worlds were left with inadequate defences as sector fleets of the Imperial Navy, Space Marine Chapters and Astra Militarum regiments were drawn into longer and more terrible crusades spurred on by this religious fanaticism. |
Age of the Imperium - Wrath of the Chaos Sun: In 010.M37 the Wrath of the Chaos Sun fell upon the Imperium when the red giant star at the heart of the Maxil Beta System exploded in an expanding cloud of Warpflame. The inhabitants of every world for hundreds of light years were either mutated beyond recognition or possessed by the denizens of the Warp.In response, the High Lords of Terra ordered the mobilisation of whatever Imperial forces were close at hand. So it is that the Grey Knights were joined by a dozen other Chapters, countless Imperial Guard regiments and the nascent Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas.The resulting battle did much to heal the remaining wounds in the Imperial body politic that had been opened by Goge Vandire's treachery during the Reign of Blood. |
Age of the Imperium - Great Cull: In 020.M37, the High Lords of Terra, in their mercy, began a systematic and deadly purge within the ranks of the Adeptus Terra's bureaucracy and on many worlds across the galaxy to ensure that such a corruption of faith as occurred during the Reign of Blood could never happen again. This purge becomes known as the "Great Cull." |
Age of the Imperium - Abbysal Crusade & Occlusiad War: Among the most devastating of the conflicts unleashed during the Age of Redemption were the Abyssal Crusade and the Occlusiad War.The Abyssal Crusade of 321.M37 began when Saint Basilius found thirty Space Marine Chapters wanting in their devotion to the Emperor.The guilty embarked upon a crusade into the Eye of Terror to earn their salvation and purge those Human-settled worlds stolen from Mankind by the birth of Slaanesh.The Occlusiad War of 555.M37 started when the northwestern fringe of the galaxy was ravaged by the Heretics known as the Apostles of the Blind King, rogue Tech-priests who viewed Humanity's very existence as an utter affront to the Machine God.The Apostles had uncovered wondrous artefacts from the Dark Age of Technology that made possible the transformation of ordinary stars into supernovae. The constellations of the galaxy were changed forever when the Apostles purged the outer Segmentum Obscurus of Human life using these weapons.War raged for a solar decade until the Navigator Joyre Macran discovered the palace-warship of the Blind King hidden in a fold of the Warp. Escaping with this crucial intelligence, Macran guided the Imperial Navy's Emperor-class Battleship Dominus Astra to the palace's location.The Blind King was killed and the genocide ended when the Dominus Astra 's Lance batteries pierced the palace-warship's hull and without his psychically prescient leadership the Apostles were swiftly overcome and their weapons hidden away in the vaults of Mars. |
Age of the Imperium - Benedictine War: The Benedictine War was a War of Faith that targeted the Benedictine Sub-sector in the 37th Millennium. It was led by the Black Templars Chapter and five Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas, though it included many other armies dedicated to the faith of the God-Emperor.During the campaign, several Aeldari worlds were captured and in the ensuing conflict two Black Templar High Marshals were slain in rapid succession.Due to these losses, the Ecclesiarch himself declared an end to the war, claiming that the Imperial forces had achieved enough in the Emperor's name.However the new High Marshal of the Black Templars Constantine continued the campaign regardless and the Black Templars alone successfully purged the remaining worlds of the sub-sector of the xenos assaulting them. |
Age of the Imperium - Lost Crusade: By 754.M37, on thousands of planets, menials rebelled against their dreary drudgery with wild-eyed leaders espousing a better way of life -- a galaxy of tolerance. The movement proved especially popular amongst the youth of the Imperium, earning it the title of the "Children's Crusade."Billions of earnest pilgrims were lured to seek transport to Terra; some were waylaid by pirates, but the majority disappeared into the Warp. They became known collectively as the "Lost Crusade." |
Age of the Imperium - 7th Black Crusade: The 7th Black Crusade, also remembered informally as the "Ghost War," was a Black Crusade against the forces of the Imperium led by the infamous Chaos Lord Abaddon the Despoiler and his Black Legion, launched out of the Eye of Terror in 811.M37. At this time, the forces of Chaos spewed forth from the great Warp rift past Cadia and then disappeared.This event is what earned this conflict its informal name of the Ghost War. The following years saw a game of hide-and-seek played between the forces of Chaos and the Imperium of Man which spread confusion, paranoia, disinformation and deceit across the galaxy.Raids became commonplace in far-flung areas but eventually the servants of the Dark Gods returned to the Eye of Terror, having caused enough trouble but having proven unable to significantly degrade Imperial defensive capabilities at that time. |
Age of the Imperium - Heavenfall Massacres: In 956.M37 the Heavenfall Massacres unfolded. Little else is known about them in the Imperial records. |
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