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The Shriven - Early History: Khassedur had long been the Chapter homeworld of the Space Marines known as the Brazen Drakes.Noble and selfless defenders of Humanity, the Brazen Drakes had fought in the Emperor's name for over five thousand standard years.
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The Shriven - Chapter's Rebellion: Soon after the opening of the Great Rift in the Era Indomitus, there was a sudden proliferation of supernatural phenomena across the galaxy that was known as the "Psychic Awakening."This included the strengthening of psychic powers among those who had already possessed them and the emergence of such dangerous abilities among those who had once not been considered psykers.During this period, many of the Brazen Drakes' Astartes began to spontaneously exhibit uncontrolled and potentially dangerous psychic powers.At first, Chapter Master Argento Corian agreed with his most trusted officers to take aside those Space Marines "touched by the taint," and personally executed each one of them with his Lightning Claw in rites of purification to hide what was believed to be Chaos corruption from the wider Imperium.However, the psychological stress of having to kill his own battle-brothers slowly ate away at him from within, until in the midst of a campaign against the forces of Chaos' Lost and the Damned he finally refused to end Brother Kier's life, an Astartes from Captain Cathal's company who had defended himself from a berserker Ogryn by suddenly unleashing psychic flames.He told his inner circle that the Brazen Drakes had fought for many Terran years for the Imperium and if they were to be condemned as Heretics simply for the uncontrolled emergence of psychic powers, which he had no doubt would afflict all of them in time, then Corian was determined that the Chapter would fight only for itself from now on.Corian convinced the rest of his inner circle to rebel openly and purge those among their brethren who resisted their decision.Accounts of the brutal civil war that followed could fill a volume in their own right: how Corian renamed himself "the Enlightener" of his faithful disciples; how their conflict with their Loyalist former brethren spiralled out to consume three entire Imperial star systems; how at last the Brazen Drakes were defeated by the Torchbearer task force charged with delivering Primaris Marine gene-tech and reinforcements to these once-loyal Space Marines.
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The Shriven - Greyshields' Rebellion: At an unknown point during the Indomitus Crusade, a Torchbearer fleet was sent out from the crusade with a complement of two Greyshield Primaris Space Marines companies and detachments of Adeptus Custodes and Sisters of Silence commanded by Captain Gerion, Shield-Captain Tyvar and Knight-Centura Dessima, respectively.The Torchbearers' goal was to reach the Brazen Drakes' homeworld of Khassedur and convince the Brazen Drakes' Chapter Master to accept the Primaris Marine reinforcements and the gift of Belisarius Cawl's Primaris upgrade technology.After long solar months of toil and trial, blazing battlefields and ferocious Warp Storms, the fleet arrived at its destination and discovered the planet had been ravaged by war -- and the Brazen Drakes had already been damned as Hereticus Diabolus Extremis by an Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus.Immediately upon learning the news of the Brazen Drakes' decision to turn Renegade, Shield-Captain Tyvar ordered that the Greyshield Primaris Marines who were intended to join the Brazen Drakes be designated as Traitors and captured.Shocked by what he perceived as the sudden and unexpected betrayal of the Custodians when the Primaris Marines had as yet done nothing wrong, Captain Gerion tried to argue in defence of his brothers, who had fought faithfully for the Emperor up to that point.But Tyvar rejected this appeal, believing that the taint already present in the Brazen Drakes' gene-seed was now obviously present in their Primaris brethren. Instead, the Custodian requested that Gerion order his warriors to disarm themselves and accept that as the bearers of flawed gene-seed their very existence had now made them a danger to the Imperium.In that tense moment, one of Gerion's Astartes present on the bridge of the warship Lux-Imperatus raised his voice in protest, and was executed at once by Tyvar with his Guardian Spear.Gerion responded by opening fire upon Tyvar and ordering all of his Primaris Greyshields to seize the Torchbearer fleet, claiming that they were the ones who had been betrayed by the Custodians.A fight broke out on the bridge between the Primaris Marines and the agents of the Emperor, which ended with the death of Gerion and approximately ten of the Greyshields. In the wake of the Greyshields' rebellion, Tyvar proclaimed his intention to not rest until every Brazen Drakes Space Marine, old or new, lay dead.From Khassedur, Argento Corian, the so-called Enlightener, and the ragged remains of his Brazen Drakes Astartes fled final retribution. They made for the Nachmund Gauntlet and the perception of safety offered by the lawless wilds beyond in the Dark Imperium where the light of the Astronomican did not shine.In their wake, the Torchbearer fleet -- commanded by Adeptus Custodes Shield-Captain Atal Tyvar -- destroyed the Primaris gene-tech they had brought with them and executed the handful of surviving Brazen Drakes Greyshields, lest the taint of their Chapter's heresy run through their veins.Tyvar then vowed that he and his fleet would hunt the Enlightener to the ends of the galaxy, and set off in furious pursuit. Little did they suspect that news of the Brazen Drakes' treachery had made it back to Terra by secret channels, and that another Imperial force was mobilising elite assets to track Corian down and slay him...
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The Shriven - War of the Spider: The foul Heretic Astartes fleshshaper Fabius Bile's path converged with that of the Enlightener Argento Corian by chance, deep within the war-torn expanse of the Cadian Gate. The Primogenitor was ever a master opportunist and soon turned happenstance to his advantage.Bile was labouring in service to a grand new scheme, one he had conceived of even as the galaxy writhed with the opening of the Great Rift. Speculation was rife throughout the Eye of Terror and beyond as to what the Spider might be planning: another attempt at cloning or creating his own primarch; the fashioning of some dread new altered army; development of a weapon that could lay low Roboute Guilliman or indeed any other similarly godlike being.Bile himself had revealed nothing of his schemes, even to his closest lieutenants, but he moved with a purpose through the mayhem and horror of the Imperium Nihilus.That purpose had first manifested in the theft of a mighty arcane artefact that had originally been bestowed upon the Death Guard by none other than the Great Unclean One Rotigus himself. Named the Ark Cornucontagious, this gruesome gift of Nurgle seethed with a Warp malady that triggered catastrophic and uncontrolled bodily regeneration in its victims.To the unnatural physiognomies of the Death Guard this was a boon, for the Ark's foul emissions allowed them to heal battle damage faster than their foes could inflict it. To any other being, however, the Chaos relic's effect was a monstrous blight that soon reduced even the mightiest warrior to a heaving mound of diseased flesh and ruptured, blubbery innards.What uses Bile could have for such a perilous and revolting Chaos artefact was a secret he kept to himself. Regardless, at the head of a ragtag alliance of Renegade Chaos Space Marine warbands he had braved the perils of the newly conquered Nurglite Scourge Stars and successfully made off with the Ark, safely swathing it within a potent stasis field.That campaign had cost Bile all but a handful of his followers, however. Now he fled back towards the Eye of Terror, through the roiling Warp Storms of the Imperium Nihilus, with Typhus of the Death Guard himself at his heels.Bile could not flee directly back to his lair in the Eye of Terror lest he bring the wrath of the Death Guard down upon it. He needed fresh allies who could help him dissuade his pursuers before he made good his escape. Fate, or perhaps the Dark Gods, sent him the Enlightener.Argento Corian had not been idle since reaching War Zone Cadia. He had claimed the tainted Fortress World of Dessah for his base and had reforged the Brazen Drakes into a Heretic Astartes warband calling themselves "the Shriven," who now fought under the colours of Abaddon the Despoiler's Black Legion.Yet Corian had caught wind of the vengeful Imperial pursuit even now bearing down upon him. Thus, even as Bile saw in the Shriven an army he could turn against his pursuers, so they believed that with the Primogenitor's gifts they would be strong enough to crush the Imperial agents coming for their heads.It was a diabolical alliance of mutual mistrust, and one that Bile soon turned to his twisted advantage.
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The Shriven - Ambush on Limaxis: The poisonous light of a mutant star painted the brutish towers and redoubts of Dessah as Fabius Bile and Argento Corian cemented their alliance. Bile co-opted a sprawling suite of bio-warded vaults within which to continue his great works.He concealed the Ark Cornucontagious behind runic locks and servitor guns, then set his acolytes to work augmenting an initial wave of the Shriven's warriors. The Enlightener, it seemed, had lost none of the strategic cunning or charisma from his days as a Loyalist Chapter Master.Bile saw evidence of not only a prodigious private army of Heretic Astartes serving at Corian's whim, but also hordes of Chaos Cultists, mutants and rogue psykers as well as a menacing complement of Traitor warships that prowled the void beyond Dessah's orbital envelope.Bile knew he could do much with such resources, but time was of the essence. Even as he worked upon Corian's bio-augmentations in person, the Spider urged his new employer to swift action against the approaching threats.Though he was initially fixated upon his Imperial pursuers, the Enlightener soon grasped the true scale of the more immediate peril represented by Typhus' Death Guard. He might have been expected to fly into a rage when he realised the size of the army that pursued his new ally. He did not.The elixirs Bile had injected him with had made Corian stronger, but had also plunged the hooks of addiction and dependency into his soul. Coupled with certain subtle but invasive augmentations the Spider had wrought within his nervous system, the Enlightener was now Fabius Bile's creature whether he wished it or no.Warp auguries by Corian's slave-sorcerers suggested that Typhus' flagship, the dreaded Terminus Est, was but days from exiting the Warp above Dessah. Worse, the omens told of a fleet of plague ships sailing in his polluted wake, all of them packed to the gunwales with the diseased worshippers of Nurgle.If Typhus' force was allowed to attack the Shriven in such strength then the fight might well go ill for Bile and his new allies. Even if they prevailed against the Traveller, the Shriven would be decimated, left powerless to stop the Imperial retribution forces also drawing closer by the day.A preemptive strike was required, to bleed Typhus' forces so badly that their attack would stall, or be called off altogether. The Enlightener suggested the world of Limaxis. Though Dessah shared its local space with a handful of gas giants and radiation-bathed hellscapes, Limaxis was the only nominally habitable planet that now lay between Typhus and his quarry.In the wake of whatever catastrophe destroyed its cities, Limaxis' oceans had risen to swallow all but one of its landmasses. This region, now known only as the "Drowning Wastes," had become a swampy morass from which rose the rusting cadavers of dead hive cities and long-abandoned Imperial fortifications.Such terrain was hardly the ideal theatre in which to face the relentless Death Guard or their corrupting plagues, but with their strategic options limited, Bile and Corian elected to proceed.Moving fast, the Enlightener mobilised almost half of his military assets. He and Bile led a formidable force into the void towards Limaxis, accompanied by the first batch of grotesquely altered Shriven -- known as the "Terata" -- and augmented with certain arcane technologies that Bile had accumulated over his long years.Their plan was set. The Spider was determined to drive Typhus from his trail, and cared little for what this would cost his allies.As the enemy pounded his warriors with harassing fire and probed for weaknesses, Typhus used the powers of a slave-sorcerer to contact his plague ship captains in orbit. What he learned gave the Death Guard fresh heart; successfully reforming their line, the plague ships Filthmonger, Vermian Curse and Leper’s Blood had driven the Shriven cruisers back, mauling both the Hand of Darkness and the Bloodied Talon in the process. Typhus’ captains requested permission to press their attack and smash the smaller Shriven fleet, but the Traveller refused.Instead he had the least damaged of his ships form a blockade to hold the Shriven spacecraft at bay. Meanwhile, the Moribund and the Rancid Blade settled low in Limaxis' atmosphere and unleashed carefully targeted creeping bombardments.As lance beams and plague bombs screamed down from on high, the outermost Shriven support elements suddenly found themselves in the midst of a devastating firestorm. Herded inwards by the encircling fire patterns, Bile and his forces found themselves caught between ruinous detonations to their rear and the thundering guns of the Death Guard to the fore.Worse was to follow as fresh waves of Death Guard made planetfall amidst storms of fire to the north, southeast and southwest of the crash site. From their lowered ramps issued wave upon wave of plague-ridden Poxwalkers.The grinning, groaning zombies spilled from their landing craft like vomit and encircled the Black Legion forces with the horrible inevitability of a wasting sickness. It appeared that the ambushers were now caught in their own barbed web.The Limaxis offensive had never been intended as a fight to the death, however, and Bile and Corian had their contingencies in place. Vox signals flashed northwards to where three of the Brazen Drakes' Renegade Thunderhawks and an ancient Emperor's Children Stormbird waited amidst the shadows of a rusting Imperial hangar. Not for nothing had Bile conditioned his slave clones to bring his captured Death Guard ship, the Wretch, down where they had.Tangled screens of foliage burned away as the four heavy gunships burst from concealment with a scream of powerful engines. Blitzing the Death Guard's northernmost landing site as they went, the aircraft made for the looming hulk of a drowned habblock that had been designated as the Black Legion extraction site.Led by Corian and the last of Bile's first wave of Terata, the Spider's surviving forces cut a bloody path through the groaning Poxwalkers to reach the slumped hab-stack. Transhuman warriors were dragged down and buried by mounds of grinning neverdead, their armour peeled off them bit by bit, their eye-lenses smashed out and questing fingers thrust into the gelid orbs beneath.Yet with Bile's augmented warriors rending, hacking and bludgeoning at the fore, and Corian's psychic blasts reducing swathes of Poxwalkers to ash, the Black Legion reached their objective. Bile himself led the push up the hab-stack's tilted, creeper-hung stairways and was the first to reach the lowered boarding ramp of his relic Stormbird.
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The Shriven - Battle of Bairsten Prime: In the days following their triumphal return from Limaxis, the Shriven moved with even greater confidence. They had outmanoeuvred and -- to their minds -- outfought Typhus himself. Having seen how ferociously the Terata fought, they were able to gloss over the horrors of the warriors' demise, and Bile found himself with no shortage of willing test subjects for his surgeries.Warbands of Shriven took to the Warp aboard swift frigates, returning with more luckless "raw materials" for his elixirs and experiments. The Spider worked busily day and night.But Argento Corian was less than delighted with Bile's successes. The Enlightener was sharply conscious that, day by day, his authority was being undermined.With Bile's compounds running through his veins, he could not bring himself to act against the parasite he had invited into his fortress. He could, however, remind his followers who their true master was. This he resolved to do.Auguries and daemonic whispers revealed that the Imperial retribution force was now only a handful of short Warp jumps away. Corian's seers told him that his enemies had halted in the Belis Corona System and were currently in orbit over the world of Bairsten Prime.Corian announced that he would not cower and wait for his enemies to beard him in his lair. Instead he mustered all but the most essential garrison forces and took ship at once for the Belis Corona System.Bile accompanied him at the head of his latest batch of altered warriors, yet he had little interest in supporting what he saw as the Enlightener's posturing. Instead, Bile had his own agenda upon Bairsten Prime...Shield-Captain Tyvar had led his Torchbearers through the war-torn Nachmund Gauntlet, through the fringes of War Zone Vigilus and on into the very rim of the Eye of Terror. He and his comrades had remained strong, their purpose unwavering, but their road had been perilous indeed.Even with a full cadre of Silent Sisters scattered across their craft, each Warp jump through the storms of the Imperium Nihilus had been hellish. They had faced hostile forces time and again. They had suffered losses.Now, with their quarry close at hand and the moment of truth almost upon them, Shield-Captain Tyvar had elected to rearm and repair his surviving forces before running his prey to ground.Tyvar's hopes of refitting at the Imperial naval docks of Belis Corona were dashed; that mighty fortress was beset by myriad foes, and what resources it had were required to keep its own fleets operational.Instead, Tyvar's task force settled into high orbit above Bairsten Prime in the hopes that the tech-magi who ran its famed duralium mines could be prevailed upon to effect repairs.In fact, the Torchbearers found a world abandoned and fallen into ruin. What catastrophe had overtaken Bairsten Prime was unclear, but repeating warnings cycled across every vox frequency, beseeching all to avoid this cursed world in the Omnissiah's name.Tyvar was in no mood to heed such ghostly deterrents, however; not when auspex confirmed vast quantities of refined duralium languishing in rusted silos within a complex signified as Refinery XVI.Leaving his own tech-adepts to make what repairs they could upon his warships, the shield-captain led his forces to the surface. They dove through its furious electrical storms to claim the resources they required.Such was the Imperial disposition when the Enlightener and his fleet tore their way from the Warp into the Belis Corona System. Swift and powerful though they were, the Imperial warships were in the midst of repairs. Heavy shuttles plied the void between their warships and the surface refinery.Presented with the sudden threat of an advancing Black Legion fleet, Shield-Captain Tyvar's ships could do little more than fend off the Heretic ships with battery fire and do what they could to protect the vulnerable ore shuttles.The Enlightener had little interest in the Imperial ships, however; his quarry lay on the planet below, for he had sworn before all his warriors that he would slay Atal Tyvar in single combat. The enemy's fleet could be dealt with later, once the warriors they transported had been slain.On Corian's orders, flights of armoured gunships and combat landers flurried from the embarkation decks of his cruisers. Escorted by flights of Black Legion Heldrakes, they swept down upon Bairsten’s equatorial mining plains and the isolated life-signs around Refinery XVI.The leading Shriven dropships were met by ferocious anti-aircraft fire. Tyvar had awoken the servitor crews of the refinery's Icarus air defence turrets; now the weapons tracked and span, barrels thumping as they fired clouds of flak shells up at the descending craft.Heldrakes pinwheeled away trailing flames and wing fragments. A heavy lander detonated, raining wreckage and blazing bodies down upon the refinery. It was Fabius Bile himself who gave the order for the Shriven to redirect their assault, sending their dropships swooping away towards the small industrial spaceport a kilometre to the south.Three such ports serviced the complex; solid, utilitarian assemblages of landing pads and outbuildings, all connected to the refinery by mag-rails set atop high rocky causeways. Shield-Captain Tyvar had set squads of Custodians to defend each of them.As the Shriven craft swept down one after another upon the southern port, however, it rapidly became clear that the odds were impossible, even for warriors of the Adeptus Custodes. Shrugging off hammering volleys of fire from the dropships, the Custodians fell back with their Guardian Spears blazing, and fled along the causeway.Corian and his Shriven were right on their heels. Bile, for his part, hung back, marshalling a sizeable force of Terata before following more cautiously in the Enlightener's wake. His approach proved prudent as, halfway along the causeway, a band of Vertus Praetors struck. They had streaked in low, using the rocky bulk of the causeway to mask their approach.Now they reared suddenly into view amidst the howl of powerful engines and subjected the Shriven to a punishing salvo of missiles. As they did, the retreating Custodes turned and let fly. Explosions tore Heretic Astartes apart. A Shriven Predator detonated with a fiery roar, chunks of its wreckage spinning away ablaze.The Enlightener's furious oaths echoed across the lightning-lashed plains. The air quivered with empyric tension before the altered sorcerer unleashed a furious storm of psychic energies into the causeway.Even the vaunted aegis of the Emperor was not enough to stop this explosion of raw force, which hurled three of the Custodians from the causeway and sent two Dawneagle Jetbikes spinning away to explode on the hard bedrock below.Again the surviving Imperial forces fell back and again the Shriven gave chase. Again Bile hung back amidst the bulk of the assault force, watching with detached interest as Corian and his Chosen warriors reached the railhead in the shadow of the refinery's towers.Here the Imperial forces struck again, bolters and flamers roaring as squads of Null-Maidens sprung an ambush of their own. Even Bile recoiled at the null-aura that the Silent Sisters projected, while Corian -- front and centre in the Renegade battle line -- howled in agony at the sudden stifling of his empyric senses.The attack might have faltered there and then, but Bile hissed orders of his own. Altered warriors and flesh-twisted Heretic Astartes Bikers bulled their way to the fore with Bile in their midst and hurled themselves at the outnumbered foe.At the same time the surviving Heldrakes swept back in, their draconic shadows criss-crossing the engagement area as Warpflames belched from their maws.Once more the Imperial forces fell back in good order, leaving their fallen blazing or bolt-riddled in their wake. This time the Enlightener halted; he had successfully claimed a beachhead upon the rocky plateau that housed the refinery proper, but only thanks to Bile's quick thinking. Conscious that his control was slipping, and perhaps his sanity with it, the Enlightener fought to think clearly and strategise.Snapping out orders, he broke his surviving warriors into several smaller warbands, each supported by Obliterators and Daemon Engines, each led in by squads in Rhino APCs who could watch for further traps as the Shriven pushed forward. Auspex showed the majority of the foe gathered around the macro-silos at the refinery's heart, and so the Shriven pushed that way through the tangle of rusted machinery, creaking cranes and abandoned structures.Bile, however, split his small force off from the main advance. Corian was only too happy to see him go, ordering only that Bile should stay out of his way. The Spider, for his part, was also pleased, for here was a rare chance to harvest fine specimens for his great work.He vanished into the gloomy alleys between the refinery's towering buildings, taking with him several squads of his most heavily altered followers as well as a gaggle of gibbering acolytes clad in rubberised surgical gear.Again the Imperial forces struck at the Shriven, and again. Now, though, the Heretic Astartes met them with disciplined fire and vicious counterassaults that saw even the Adeptus Custodes driven back. At last Corian led the way into the refinery's central processing yard amidst blizzards of psychic fire. There the Shriven met the main strength of the Imperial force and, had their master been in his right mind, they might have rethought their assault.Shield-Captain Tyvar had gathered a formidable force of Custodians and Null-Maidens around him, Venerable Contemptor Dreadnoughts and even Land Raiders rumbling up in support. Yet Bile's twisted surgery had done terrible things to the Enlightener, and to many of his followers.Unable to restrain their psychotic battle-lust, they hurled themselves into a maniacal charge and battle was joined. As the fighting raged, none noticed the dark figure that crouched amidst the rusting walkways of a macro-silo high above. The figure stayed still as death, a long and deadly-looking rifle cradled in its hands.Only now that he had his harvest did the Spider turn and lead the last of his altered warriors back to Corian's aid. He arrived in time to see the Shriven hard-pressed and teetering upon the brink of collapse. The Enlightener himself, however, was hanging suspended in a corona of witchfire, eyes blazing and hands outstretched as he drove Shield-Captain Tyvar to his knees.It was then that the echoing crack of the high-powered sniper rifle wielded by a Vindicare Assassin cut through the din of battle. Argento Corian jerked in mid-air. Blood puffed from the side of his skull. His fires blinked out in a heartbeat and his body crashed heavily to the ground.The battle ended in that moment. In the rout that followed, only the martial might of the Shriven allowed them to execute a fighting retreat to their drop craft. Amidst the mayhem and bloodshed, Bile's Terata bore the twitching body of Argento Corian from the field. Bile led them, gunning down the few Loyalists who barred his path and smiling all the while.
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The Shriven - Battle of Dessah: The Shriven seers wailed of not one but two foes drawing closer with every passing solar hour. In desperation, some amongst the warband beseeched Fabius Bile to aid them, while others muttered darkly that the Spider had already done more than enough.For his part, Bile was satisfied with events. He had not predicted Corian's fall upon Bairsten Prime and had some grave suspicions about its authors, but he had been quick to capitalise upon this unexpected boon. Bile had made great strides behind the sealed doors of his laboratory. Now he sought to make good his escape.Bile gathered the Shriven within the Enlightener's grand throne room on Dessah and addressed them. He spoke of his desire to see these invaders crushed, both the filth-ridden Death Guard and the presumptuous corpse-worshippers. He could do it, he said, but not without the complete loyalty of the remaining Shriven. This was at last too much for Argento Corian's surviving Chosen.Tempers flared as they accused the rest of their warband of being duped. They called Bile an opportunist ghoul, cursed the day he had come to Dessah, and laid the Enlightener's death firmly at Bile’s feet. At this, the Spider merely smiled and signalled his surgeon-acolytes to unveil his latest masterpiece.Argento Corian was much changed. The parts of his brain not destroyed by the round passing through his skull had been scooped out by Bile's Chirurgeon. The altered golem that stalked into the throne room was the Enlightener in name only.Bulging red eyes stared from a face riven with stitch marks, scarified runes and wires. His armour strained to contain his muscle-bulked physique. Pipes and tubes gurgled with weird fluids, flushing them through Corian's armour and body alike.Unbridled psychic potential crackled around the Enlightener, though with his skull emptied of its contents all but Fabius Bile wondered how such a thing could be.Incensed, those loyal to Corian's former incarnation went for their blades. The Enlightener annihilated them with beams of psychic fire. Bile asked again for the loyalty of the Shriven, and this time, standing over the blackened and mangled remains of their former comrades, they agreed to a warrior.Bile planned to augment every remaining Shriven Chaos Space Marine. He ordered all defenders concentrated within Dessah's Primary Bastion, which was partially built into a towering mountain. He commanded that the outer defences be demolished and laced with booby traps, ensuring his enemies would have to come at him through a lethal killing zone.When the foe attacked, the Enlightener and the Shriven were to stand firm in the fortress' defence, drawing the foe in and pinning them before the walls. Only then would Bile unleash his master stroke. A flight of modified Heldrakes would belch neurotoxin fumes over the battle.Bile assured his followers this would leave them untouched while driving the Death Guard and Imperial warriors into a murderous frenzy. With their enemies lost to madness and tearing one another apart, Bile and the remaining Shriven could flee aboard a swift frigate and slip away into the Warp.The surviving Shriven warships attempted to use Bile's night shields to ambush the Death Guard again. This time Typhus was ready. He had spread tracker entities across his fleet and given each of them the Warp-scent of the Shriven. Thus, even as the Black Legion cruisers pounced, they found gun batteries primed and pointed right at them. Explosive carnage filled Dessah's orbital envelope.Wreckage rained down as flaming meteors through the planet's atmosphere. When the Battle Barge Drake Rampant attempted a desperate and horribly misjudged boarding assault against the Terminus Est, the battle swung in Typhus' favour.Soon enough the rusting, plague-riddled hulk of the Drake Rampant was tumbling away while Death Guard landers swept down upon the Primary Bastion.As one, the Heldrakes swept from their perches atop the mountain's peak. They screamed down upon the warriors battling furiously in the breach.The Enlightener was hammering the enemy hordes with one psychic blast after another, his Shriven laying down fusillades of fire as the last of their tanks fired again and again.Still the Death Guard pressed forward, Poxwalkers in their hundreds clambering over their own fallen to totter into the fight. The undead buried the altered warriors with their numbers while Plague Marines raked the Black Legion lines with fire.Further back, out amongst the ruins, the Imperial forces were cutting a gory swathe towards the breach, but their momentum was slowing in the face of the relentless servants of Nurgle.Now it was time to trigger yet more anarchy and bloodshed. One at a time the Heldrakes opened their jaws wide and, as they swooped low over the battle, breathed roiling clouds of mauve gasses across the combatants. Bile had possessed neither time nor inclination to tailor his toxins to his foes, but he had ample data concerning the altered biochemistry of his augmented Shriven.Thus, as the clouds drifted down and flowed into rebreathers and open mouths, it was the Enlightener and his warriors who were driven to new heights of berserk fury, not their foes.One last betrayal of his ill-fated allies by Fabius Bile; one last trick to ensure that they kept his pursuers busy long enough to cover his escape.
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The Shriven - Execution Force Retaliation: At some point after Argento Corian led the Brazen Drakes into their betrayal of the Imperium, the High Lords of Terra ordered the deployment of an Officio Assassinorum Execution Force, codenamed "Execution Force Retaliation," to eliminate the Renegade Chapter Master Argento Corian.The agents located their target on the world of Dessah and deployed at once to hunt him down.Corian survived the attack and the Renegade Brazen Drakes later joined the Black Legion as a new warband of Heretic Astartes that became known as the Shriven.As the Enlightener and his berserk warriors struck at the Death Guard, they had torn and blasted so many foes that mountains of dead lay all around them. Yet their numbers too were dwindling. It was now that the Execution Force despatched to Dessah struck, determined to finish the job they had nearly completed at Bairsten Prime.First came a rifle round, fired from atop a ruined spire. The Enlightener's head snapped up and he obliterated the bullet in mid-air with a psychic blast. The empyric bolt roared on, back up the shot's trajectory to impact with killing force. Amidst the explosion a ruined, black-clad figure tumbled blazing to its death.Next came the Callidus Assassin, morphing into her true form as she suddenly emerged from amidst the Enlightener's shocked cultists. Her neural shredder howled as she blasted first one Shriven Terata, then another and another. Flipping over a fourth, the Callidus swept her phase sword around to decapitate the altered warrior, then drove the blade into the Enlightener's chest.The sorcerer roared with pain then blasted the lithe assassin backwards into a mound of corpses with another psychic pulse. Yet his bellow of triumph became a howl of agony as a beam of raw darkness hit him, banishing his psychic powers in an instant.The Enlightener looked up to see the eerie figure of a Culexus Assassin flickering towards him. Before the sorcerer could regather his powers the skull-masked figure of an Eversor Assassin tore through a knot of Terata like an artillery shell and ploughed into him.The frenzied assassin tore madly at the Enlightener. One hand was blown off by a bolt round from the Eversor's Executioner Pistol before the Assassin's hypodermic talons sunk deep into the Enlightener's face.One eye punctured, flesh blackening with toxins, the altered sorcerer grabbed his assailant by the throat, lifted him high and snapped the Assassin's neck with raw psychokinetic force.The Enlightener enjoyed a moment of triumph before the Eversor's blood chemistry went into critical meltdown and his body exploded with the force of a demolition charge. As the dust settled, the ruptured corpse of the Enlightener golem finally twitched its last. With his death, the Shriven effectively ceased to exist as a functional Chaos Space Marine warband.
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The Shriven - Warband Beliefs: The nature of the original Chapter cult that defined the Brazen Drakes is unknown, although they were a Chapter once known for their strength of will and resolute spirit.Upon Chapter Master Argento Corian's rebellion, the Brazen Drakes became convinced that they didn't deserve to die due to the development of their unexpected psychic powers, nor for what they came to see as the hollow, corrupt ideology of the Imperium.Instead, under Corians' command, they believed that they had a right to fight for their own destiny and to become the masters of their own future.Among the Greyshield Primaris Marines assigned to the Brazen Drakes, Captain Gerion violently protested Shield-Captain Tyvar's accusation of heresy, as he still considered himself a loyal servant of the Emperor, and he likewise refused to condemn his Primaris battle-brothers just because they had been assigned to a Firstborn Chapter that had turned against the Emperor before their arrival.It is not known how the majority of the Greyshield Primaris Space Marines assigned to the Brazen Drakes reacted to the news of the execution of Gerion at Tyvar's hands, but at least half a dozen of these warriors came to defend him on the bridge of the Lux-Imperatus.
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The Shriven - Notable Brazen Drakes/Shriven: Chaos Lord Argento Corian, "the Enlightener" (KIA) - Also known as Corian the Enlightener, Argento Corian was the Chaos Lord of The Shriven and the last Chapter Master of the Brazen Drakes. It was he who led the rebellion of the original Firstborn forces of the Chapter against the Imperium. Corian possessed psychic abilities and was heavily augmented by the work of his untrustworthy ally Fabius Bile, and found himself increasingly addicted to Bile's various stimulants and alchemical drugs, which led to a slow loss of control over his warband. Corian was effectively slain by a Vindicare Assassin on Bairsten Prime when he was shot through the head, but Bile resurrected him using his Warp-alchemy as a vile Chaos sorcerer-golem. Corian was finally killed by an Eversor Assassin during the Death Guard assault on Dessah, who took the Chaos Lord's life by detonating his body with explosive chemicals.Chapter Master Kaslyn - Kaslyn was the last Loyalist Chapter Master of the Brazen Drakes before their turn to Chaos and Corian's direct predecessor in the position.Captain Cathal - Cathal is the captain of an unknown company of the Brazen Drakes. He supported Corian's decision to rebel against the Imperium to save his battle-brothers.Captain Gerion (KIA) - Gerion was the Primaris Captain of one of the two Greyshield companies sent by the Indomitus Crusade's Torchbearer fleet to reinforce the Firstborn Brazen Drakes Chapter. He refused to turn himself and his warriors in to Shield-Captain Tyvar and called upon them to resist and seize control of the Torchbearer fleet. He was executed by Tyvar soon after for this act of treason.Brother Kier - Kier was a battle-brother of Captain Cathal's company. He manifested spontaneous psychic powers, but was saved from execution for this mutation by Argento Corian's rebellion against the Imperium.
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The Shriven - Warband Colours: The Brazen Drakes' Chapter colours are not recorded in current Imperial records.As The Shriven, the warband adopted the standard colours of the Black Legion, black and gold.
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The Shriven - Warband Badge: The Brazen Drakes' Chapter badge is not recorded in current Imperial records.As The Shriven, the warband used the standard heretical iconography of the Black Legion.
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The Sigillite (Audio Drama) - The Sigillite (Audio Drama): The Sigillite is the twelth audio drama for the Horus Heresy Series that was not originally released as part of an anthology or other release. The Sigillite was published online in March 2013 by the Black Library as an audio CD. The audio drama was later republished in prose format as an e-book in January 2016 as part of the Tales of the Knights Errant week. The Sigillite was also published as part of The Silent War main series anthology novel.
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The Sigillite (Audio Drama) - Official Synopsis: The galaxy is divided, but while his armies prepare for battle the Emperor Himself remains curiously absent. In His place stands Malcador -- legendary Sigillite, First Lord of Terra and regent to the throne -- now arguably the single most powerful man in the Imperium. Imperial Army officer Khalid Hassan reports back to the Imperial Palace after a disastrous secret mission into the wastelands of Gyptus, but soon learns an awful truth about the destiny of mankind. Where do Malcador's true loyalties lie?
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The Silent War (Anthology) - The Silent War (Anthology): The Silent War is the thirty-seventh volume in the Horus Heresy series of novels. The Silent War contains 13 short stories and a single novella length story.
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The Silent War (Anthology) - Synopsis: Anthology of tales about the secret missions that underpin the entire Horus Heresy series.While loyalist and traitor forces clash on a thousand battlefields across the galaxy, a very different kind of war is being fought in the shadows. Rogal Dorn and his Legion prepare to defend the Sol System against the armies of Warmaster Horus, even as Malcador the Sigillite charges his many agents and spies with missions of the utmost secrecy. The future of the Imperium is being shaped by unseen hands... This Horus Heresy anthology contains fourteen stories by some of Black Library's top authors, including James Swallow, Chris Wraight, John French, Anthony Reynolds and many more.
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The Silent War (Anthology) - Contents: The Silent War includes the following 14 stories:The Watcher by C.Z. DunnChild of Night, Grey Angel, and Templar by John FrenchThe Gates of Terra by Nick KymeLuna Mendex, and Wolf Hunt by Graham McNeillThe Purge (Novella) by Anthony ReynoldsArmy of One, and Distant Echoes of Old Night by Rob SandersGhosts Speak Not, Lost Sons, and Patience by James SwallowThe Sigillite by Chris Wraight
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The Soul, Severed (Audio Drama) - The Soul, Severed (Audio Drama): The Soul, Severed is the fortieth audio drama for The Horus Heresy series that was not originally released as part of an anthology or other release. The Soul, Severed was first released as an audio drama in December 2016 as part of the Black Library's 2016 Advent Calendar, on day 9.
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The Soul, Severed (Audio Drama) - Official Synopsis: As Lord Commander Primus, Eidolon leads the Emperor's Children in the absence of his Primarch -- who even knows where the Daemon Prince Fulgrim resides, now? But a challenge from within the Legion forces Eidolon to confront one of his rivals, the ambitious Archorian, a capable officer and tactician who would see the Legion returned to glory. Dissent is unacceptable. It is time for the Kakophoni to be set against their erstwhile brethren.
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The Tainted - The Tainted: The Tainted are a large warband or vectorium of Chaos Space Marines drawn from the Death Guard Traitor Legion who are dedicated to the Chaos God Nurgle in his aspects as the god of despair and the Mortifier of the Flesh.The Tainted supplement their numbers on the battlefield with a large number of disease-ridden Chaos Spawn called "Plague Spawn," mutated Plague Ogryns and other horribly mutated beasts who are collectively known as the "Rotted Circus." The most powerful of these beasts was a massive Chaos Spawn riddled with Grandfather Nurgle's plagues who was named "Jibberjaw."The Tainted were one of the 11 Chaos Space Marine warbands to participate in the Siege of Vraks, seeking to aid the forces of Chaos in the defence of the Imperial Armoury World of Vraks that they had seized from the rule of the Emperor under the leadership of the Apostate Cardinal-Astra Xaphan.Since that war Ordo Malleus researchers believe the secrets of creating Plague Ogryns have been refined further by The Tainted, deep within the Eye of Terror, and they now trade these vile beasts among the servants of the Lord of Decay in return for fresh subjects on which to practice their twisted fleshcraft.
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The Tainted - Notable Campaigns: Siege of Vraks (813.M41-830.M41) - The Tainted were one of the Chaos Space Marine warbands that answered the call of the Chaos Lord Arkos the Faithless of the Alpha Legion to support the defence of the forces of Chaos entrenched on the Armoury World of Vraks from the assault of the Imperium. After the Siege of Vraks ended with the fall of that benighted world to Imperial forces after a horrifically costly military campaign in 830.M41, The Tainted fled off-world. After their arrival on Vraks during that long conflict, The Tainted's Chaos Champions began to sway the members of the Vraksian Traitor Militia to the worship of Nurgle. The most powerful of these converts were the Apostate Cardinal-Astra Xaphan's chief aide Deacon Mamon, who had long been a devotee of Chaos Undivided, and several of the members of the elite cadre of Vraksian officers called the Disciples of Xaphan. Mamon, who was ultimately elevated to become a Daemon Prince of Nurgle because of his success as the architect of the fall of Xaphan to Chaos and the damage wrought on the Imperium by the Siege of Vraks, would fight alongside The Tainted until the end of the siege. After the end of the campaign, Mamon and the remaining Chaos Space Marines of The Tainted fled off-world. During the terrible years of the siege, The Tainted often released their Rotted Circus upon the Imperial forces assaulting the Chaotic lines, and used their mastery of sorcery to mutate many of the Ogryns who fought for the Traitor Militia, creating the first mutants known as Plague Ogryns.
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The Tainted - Notable Warband Members: Mamon, Arch-Corruptor of Vraks - Mamon was the principle agent provocateur behind the uprisings against the Imperium on Vraks Prime which eventually initiated the Siege of Vraks. He was a corrupted Imperial deacon who found favour within the Apostate Cardinal-Astra Xaphan's staff. It was Deacon Mamon who first sowed the seeds of corruption and turned the inexperienced cardinal's religious ambitions against the Imperium. It was he who brought the Alpha Legion warband of Arkos the Faithless to the planet. This has been taken as evidence that the deacon may have already been an Alpha Legion sleeper agent, and that Vraks was his (and Arkos') intended target all along. Eventually the war turned against the ambitions of Mamon and Arkos, as Lord Zhufor of the large Khornate warband known as the Skulltakers led a bloody coup against the Apostate Cardinal to place the Chaos forces under the indirect control of Zhufor's own master, Abaddon the Despoiler. Hunted by Zhufor's bodyguard, Mamon was lucky to escape with his life. Seeking refuge with the Nurglite warband of Chaos Space Marines known as The Tainted, Mamon offered himself to Grandfather Nurgle. The Plague God granted the corrupted deacon the "gift" of Daemonhood for all he had accomplished on Vraks, granting him the exalted rank of Daemon Prince of Nurgle. Mamon was soon possessed by the potent spirit of a Great Unclean One. Transformed into a corpulent, festering Daemon Prince of Nurgle, Mamon was unleashed upon Vraks, to turn the Imperial Armoury World into a new Plague Planet dedicated to Nurgle. In his new, horribly bloated form, Mamon fought alongside The Tainted until the end of the campaign when he and The Tainted escaped off-world after its fall to the Imperial forces. Since then his whereabouts and those of The Tainted remain unknown.
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The Tainted - Warband Colours: The Chaos Space Marines of The Tainted are all members of the Death Guard Traitor Legion, which means their power armour is often defined by the decayed greens, browns, and beiges preferred by those devotees of Nurgle.Many, if not all, of the corrupted Heretic Astartes of The Tainted are Plague Marines.
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The Tainted - Warband Badge: The Tainted make use of a badge that is a geometrical variation of the standard tripartite Mark of Nurgle, centred on a field of various decayed greens, browns, and beiges depending on the condition of the individual.
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The Tainted - Sources: Imperial Armour - Apocalypse II, pp. 66-67; 74-75Imperial Armour Volume Seven - The Siege of Vraks - Part Three, pp. 142, 159, 170, 186Imperial Armour Volume Thirteen - War Machines of the Lost & The Damned by Andy Hoare with additional material by Alan Bligh & Neil Wylie, pg. 30
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The Tenebrae - The Tenebrae: The Tenebrae are a warband of Chaos Space Marines of unknown origin, Founding and allegiance.Very little is known about the Tenebrae in current Imperial records other than that they fell to the service of Chaos in the centuries following the end of the Horus Heresy and that they are the rare band of Heretic Astartes that still maintains several Fellblades in active service.
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The Tenebrae - Warband History: The earliest surviving records of the Heretic Astartes force known as the Tenebrae name them as the hand behind the infamous "Hour of Shadow," which plunged the Hive World of Lorin Alpha into murder and madness in 118.M33, and whose anniversary is still marked by sorrowful mourning seven millennia later.These records, culled from the archives of the Black Wings Chapter whose own Chapter Master was slain there, speak of the Tenebrae as already hated and reviled before this atrocity, but frustratingly the Inquisitorial eye of the present day offers no further leads to trace their origins further back in time.The Tenebrae appear again and again, scattered through history, at the Luxor Drift Genocide, the Fall of Yun, the Plague of Madness and the Kharthah-Iconoclasm, right up to their most recent sighting during the Orpheus Crisis of 998.M41.Always they appear during times of terror and discord, always their presence is a herald of suffering and the nightmarish distortion of reality as a wave of suicidal despair and insanity going before them like a baleful shadow.Their dusk-purple armour bears little to indicate their true allegiance or origin, and their company is fled from even by others devoted to the Ruinous Powers less they become infected by whatever dark malignance has swallowed the Tenebrae and made them its own.Where they go, light is consumed by darkness, a darkness which hungers for life and whispers blasphemies to eat at the sanity of the most righteous man. So insidious is this attack upon the will and the soul that when the Tenebrae attack in full force, for theirs is also the full panoply of war known to the fallen Adeptus Astartes, including many ancient relics of battle and daemon-tainted engines.Little resistance can be offered against their onslaught and Fortress-Worlds and bastions thought secure against the might of armies fall in mere hours of dark butchery.
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The Tenebrae - Notable Campaigns: The Hour of Shadow (118.M33) - After the Chapter Master of the Black Wings is murdered during the world of Lorin Alpha's Hour of Shadow, the Chapter chases a band of Tenebrae Heretic Astartes into the Veiled Region. Three standard centuries later, a single damaged Astartes Strike Cruiser returns bearing only a handful of survivors. They will speak with none save the agents of the Inquisition's Ordo Malleus and swear an oath of vendetta against The Tenebrae.The Death of the Witching Moon (013.M41) - The Forge Moon of Keziah, in the strategically vital Agathon System, fell into an unnatural eclipse when its population is driven to murder and madness in an endless night of horror. The dread forces of The Tenebrae and the Company of Misery reign as dark kings amid the nightmare, and the baleful light of the "Witching Moon" that Keziah has become spreads calamity and Warp-tainted phenomena wherever it now falls, threatening the entire star system. The first Imperial attacks by the Astra Militarum, squadrons from Battlefleet Ultima and the Inquisition are hurled back in tatters by the madness of the black light and the Warp-fuelled savagery of the defenders. It is only by the unexpected arrival of the Charnel Guard Chapter, accompanied by a sacred band from the Adepta Sororitas' Order of the Black Sepulchre bearing the holy relic known as the Book of Tears before them, that the imminent loss of tens of billions of lives on Agathon Prime is prevented, and the insanity-inducing radiance of the Witching Moon is held back. The Charnel Guard lead a fresh assault as further Adeptus Astartes forces, including the Iron Hands, Storm Lords and Angels Porphyr, and Adeptus Mechanicus reinforcements arrive, fighting a brutal battle of tank and gunship clashes across the soaring metal canyons which crease the moon's surface and chamber-by-chamber Zone Mortalis actions to purge Keziah of the shadow that has befallen it. The Traitor Marines inflict fearful losses on their besiegers before they are driven into the deeper darkness of the Warp. In the wake of their retreat, all life is purged from Keziah before it is given back to the hands of the Machine Cult for tech-exorcism and eventual reclamation.
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The Tenebrae - Warband Colours: The warband colours of the Tenebrae are dusk-purple.
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The Tenebrae - Warband Badge: The warband badge of the Tenebrae is unknown in current Imperial records.
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The Test of Faith (Short Story) - The Test of Faith (Short Story): The Test of Faith by Thomas Parrott is a Warhammer 40,000 short story published in 2019 and collected in the anthology Nexus & Other Stories.
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The Test of Faith (Short Story) - Synopsis: To be a Dark Angel is to be honoured as the Ist Legion of Space Marines created by the God-Emperor of Mankind. While this secretive Chapter bears an unsettling mien, with its warriors shrouded in myth and insinuation, the sons of the Lion know no fear, for these grim Angels of Death will never accept defeat.In The Test of Faith, Thomas Parrott explores the strained relationship between the Dark Angels and their new Primaris brethren in a tale of brutal battle and shocking betrayal.
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The Third Wise Man (Short Story) - The Third Wise Man (Short Story): The Third Wise ManIron SnakesDan AbnettNik VincentThe Third Wise ManBlack Library
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The Third Wise Man (Short Story) - Synopsis: The senior officers of the Iron Snakes unite in judgement of one of their number. As his victories and failures are weighed up, his fate will be decided.
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The Thirteenth Wolf (Audio Drama) - The Thirteenth Wolf (Audio Drama): The Thirteenth Wolf is the thirty-eighth audio drama for The Horus Heresy series that was not originally released as part of an anthology or other release. The Thirteenth Wolf was first released as an audio drama in November 2016. The title has since been released as part of The Burden of Loyalty main series anthology.
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The Thirteenth Wolf (Audio Drama) - Official Synopsis: For more than two hundred years, the armies of the Emperor of Mankind fought to reconquer the galaxy -- led by the superhuman Primarchs, the Space Marine Legions brought countless worlds back under the rule of ancient Terra. Now Horus, once honoured Warmaster and favoured son of the Emperor, has been corrupted by the whispered promises of Chaos. At his command the Imperium is torn apart by a terrible and bloody civil war, the likes of which the galaxy has never seen... At the Emperor's command were the Wolves of Russ unleashed, but it is by the will of Horus alone that Prospero now burns. The VI Legion has stormed the world of Magnus the Red, with venerable warriors of the Thirteenth Great Company always to be found where the fighting is at its most bloody, seeking to write their own names into the sagas of Fenris. But the Thousand Sons are far from defeated, and their foul sorcery may yet be the doom of all, deep within the maddening heart of the Portal Maze.
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The Tizcan Host - The Tizcan Host: The Tizcan Host is a thrallband of Heretic Astartes of the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion. The Tizcan Host is known for its shared delusion. Every one of its sorcerers believes he passed from mortality entirely at the time of the casting of the Rubric of Ahriman, and that he has been reborn as an avenging angel.The host still believes it has but one duty -- to rain the righteous fire of the Crimson King Magnus the Red upon the Imperium that once dared cast him out. Though they pretend to superior, otherworldly goodness, the Tizcan Host is perhaps the most warlike thrallband of all.The mortal followers of the Tizcan Host are known as the "Choir of Eagles." This is a term that dates back to the Great Crusade, when sweet music echoed through every Thousand Sons processional. The harsh squawks and cries of their current mutant Beastmen followers, the Tzaangors, are a grotesque mockery of the songstrels that came before, yet they still wear the same colours as their predecessors.
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The Tizcan Host - Warband Colours: The Tizcan Host thrallband's colours are azure trimmed in gold. Members of this thrallband often wear the colour white, which was associated in the culture of lost Prospero with purity and soundness of spirit. These are claims that grow more dubious with every passing Terran year, for that sacred white has been stained red with blood countless times over the millennia. The Tizcan Host are also known to incorporate aquamarine, the colours of the enlightened seer.The Rubricae of this thrallband, known as the "Seraphya," stand in silence as the icons of their masters are scorched into their armour and tabards before each battle. The sorcerers of the Tizcan Host tell themselves the uncanny stillness of the Rubricae is because of their vow of secrecy and their stoic demeanour, but the truth is far more disturbing.
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The Tizcan Host - Warband Badge: The Tizcan Host thrallband's symbol is a yellow sigil of the Cult of Magic -- known as the "Horned Crown" -- that is a reference to the circlet worn by the ancient Prosperine deity known as the King of All Angels.
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The Tizcan Host - Sources: Codex Heretic Astartes - Thousand Sons (8th Edition), pg. 21War Zone: Fenris - Wrath of Magnus (7th Edition), pp. 128-129
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The Traveller (Anthology Short Story) - The Traveller (Anthology Short Story): The Traveller is a short story published in The Horus Heresy series that was originally part of an anthology. The Traveller was first published as part of the Mark of Calth main series anthology in April 2013. The cover image used is that of Mark of Calth, as The Traveller has yet to be published separately.
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The Traveller (Anthology Short Story) - Synopsis: A survivor of the Word Bearers' initial surprise attack on the orbital defences of Calth finds that he may not be alone.
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The Unburdened - The Unburdened: The Unburdened is a novella in the Horus Heresy Series, released as a Black Library hardback. The Unburdened is part of a duology, the other being The Honoured, and both were released together in a limited-edition box-set called Betrayal at Calth. Both books are also available as non-limited hardbacks, paperbacks, ebooks, and as audiobooks (MP3).
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The Unburdened - Synopsis: Long considering themselves persecuted by the rest of the Imperium, the apostles of the XVII Legion have courted sedition, betrayal and even open heresy for decades. But for Kurtha Sedd of the Third Hand Chapter, the Word Bearers' assault on Calth has proven...troubling. Drawn into the haunted shadows of the planet's underworld, the Chaplain and his devout brethren must now put aside all other concerns and continue to wage war against the Ultramarines, no matter the ultimate cost.
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The Underworld War (Anthology Short Story) - The Underworld War (Anthology Short Story): The Underworld War is a short story published in The Horus Heresy series that was originally part of an anthology. The Underworld War was first published as part of the Mark of Calth main series anthology in April 2013. The cover image used is that of Mark of Calth, as The Underworld War has yet to be published separately.
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The Underworld War (Anthology Short Story) - Synopsis: Seven standard years after the Battle of Calth, a war weary Vakrah Jal, Kaurtal, journeys to the blasted surface of Calth and remembers his rebirth at the hands of Argel Tal.
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The Unnamed - The Unnamed: The Unnamed are a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter and a successor of the Dark Angels, created solely from Primaris Space Marines during the Ultima Founding of ca. 999.M41.
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The Unnamed - Chapter History: When the senior elements of the Unnamed learned from Supreme Grand Master Azrael of the Dark Angels' secrets, they felt the weight of their genetic ancestors' guilt heavily on their shoulders.They refused to a take a name for their Chapter, deeming themselves unworthy, and refused to take a homeworld, determined that they would never cease to ply the stars until the blight of the Fallen were eradicated from the galaxy forever.
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The Unnamed - Chapter Colours: The Unnamed primarily wear yellow power armour with the exception of their helm's faceplate, which is black. Their armourial trim is orange. The Aquila or Imperialis worn on the chest plate is also orange.The black squad tactical specialty symbol -- battleline, fire support, close support, Veteran or command -- is indicated on the right shoulder pauldron. A white High Gothic numeral prominently displayed upon it indicates a battle-brother's assigned squad.The left shoulder pauldron displays the Chapter's iconography.It is unknown how the Chapter indicates a battle-brother's company assignment.
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The Unnamed - Chapter Badge: The Unnamed' Chapter badge consists of a black feathered quill centred upon a field of yellow.
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The Unremembered Empire - The Unremembered Empire: The Unremembered Empire is the twenty-seventh volume in the Horus Heresy series of novels.
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The Unremembered Empire - Synopsis: The unthinkable has happened -- Terra has fallen to the Traitor forces of the Warmaster Horus! Nothing else could explain the sudden disappearance of the Astronomican's guiding light at the heart of the Imperium, or so Roboute Guilliman would believe.Ever the pragmatist, he has drawn all his forces to Ultramar and begun construction of the new empire known as the Imperium Secundus. Even with many of his primarch brothers at his side, he still faces war from without and intrigue from within -- with the best of intentions, were the full truth to be known it would likely damn them all as Traitors for all eternity.
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The Unspeaking - The Unspeaking: The Unspeaking was a chapter of the Word Bearers Traitor Legion that took part in the notorious Calth Atrocity during the opening years of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium. This chapter was under the command of the so-called "Crimson Apostle" Zardu Layak and his Ashen Circle destroyer units, who were charged with enacting some of the worst civilian massacres of the opening solar hours of the battle.Both the Unspeaking and the Graven Star Chapters were known to have largely retreated from the planet's surface during the final solar hours of the battle, and would go on to further infamy in the Shadow Crusade.
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The Unspeaking - History: The chapter of the Word Bearers Legion that came to be known as "the Unspeaking" was once known as the "Ochre Gate." Its fate was tied to its master, the Dark Apostle known as Zardu Layak, a former officer of the Ashen Circle. A devout destroyer of all that pertained to false superstition and errant creed, he oversaw the burning of a hundred temples and countless tomes of lies in the Emperor's service.But following the Word Bearers' brutal censure on Monarchia at the hands of the Emperor and the Ultramarines, Layak became soulsick and lost. Following Primarch Lorgar's pilgrimage into the Eye of Terror to commune with the Primordial Annihilator, Layak fervently converted to Erebus' and Lorgar's new teachings.But even this did not fill the terrible void within him. So it was that when he began to receive visions in which he believed his primarch spoke to him directly, he kept it concealed from others. These visions instructed him to reconsider his work, not to burn the books and lore he encountered, but to read them, covet them, to search in them for the hidden truths that the Emperor had not wished His sons to know.Soon the former Ashen Circle warrior named himself from the Book of Lorgar as Zardu Layak, "Eater of Wisdom," but who came to be known more swiftly by his Legion as the "Crimson Apostle" for his fiery raiment and the scalding blood in which he daubed his armour.Assigned to the chapter of the Ochre Gate as its Dark Apostle by Erebus, who sought to channel his fervour in service to the Chaos Gods, Zardu Layak quickly proved more than a mere voice of the First Chaplain of the Word Bearers. Soon the chapter began to seek missions of its own, away from its parent Legion for long stretches, and each time it returned it was further changed.Like a cancer, Zardu Layak had embedded himself deeper into its carcass, so that after a time, the Ochre Gate was no more and now the chapter of the Unspeaking stood in its place, with Zardu Layak its de facto master.Though Kor Phaeron was disquieted by the Crimson Apostle's growing power, much of which he would keep hidden until the battle on Calth, Lorgar pronounced himself pleased by Zardu Layak and his devotion to the word of the Primordial Truth, assigning the Unspeaking and their master to command a key assault at Calth during the Battle of Ithraca, though so changed had they become by their devotion to Chaos and the "gifts" of the Warp that complete concealment was needed for them until the hour came to strike.
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The Value of Fear (Short Story) - The Value of Fear (Short Story): The Value of Fear is the twenty-first short story published in the Horus Heresy Series that was not originally part of an anthology novel. The Value of Fear was the twenty-second item released as part of the Black Library's 2014 Advent Calender. It is also now included in the Corax anthology novel.
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The Value of Fear (Short Story) - Synopsis: The Raven Guard under Corax continue to gather all leaderless Loyalists to their banner, determined to take the fight to Horus and his Heretics. In the industrial nightmare of the underhive, the XIX Legion receive a lesson in terror tactics from the most unlikely of allies –- the Night Lords...
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The Voice (Anthology Short Story) - The Voice (Anthology Short Story): The Voice is an anthology short story published in The Horus Heresy series that was originally part of an anthology novel. The Voice was first published as part of the Tales of Heresy main series anthology in April 2009. The cover image used is that of the unabridged audiobook version The Voice which was released in November 2015.
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The Voice (Anthology Short Story) - Synopsis: The Black Ships are a mysterious and fearful sight -- unmarked vessels that scour the distant reaches of the galaxy, ever watchful for latent psykers and witchbreeds for the monolithic Adeptus Astra Telepathica. When one such ship, the Validus, is found drifting unpowered in the nightmare realm of the Warp, it falls to the Sisters of Silence to uncover the reason behind it. As pariahs capable of blocking even the most potent psychic energy, Amendera Kendel and young Leilani Mollitas ready themselves for the worst...
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The Waning - The Waning: The Waning was a relatively undefined era of the Age of the Imperium that lasted from early in the 38th Millennium until ca. 744.M41.It was characterised by a slow degradation of the Imperium's stability, power and peace as new Chaos and xenos threats assaulted the Emperor's worlds.With the Imperium's military forces in every branch utterly exhausted by the continuous Imperial Crusades of the prior Age of Redemption, star system after star system fell to Ork invasion, Chaos insurgence, xenos infestation or sheer rebellion.It came to an end with the start of the greatest period of turmoil and strife in Imperial history since the Horus Heresy, known as the Time of Ending.
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The Waning - Notable Events: Anarchy throughout many sectors of the Imperium was rife during a dark period in Imperial history that is now called "the Waning."Ever more star systems were turned over by the Administratum to direct rule by Space Marine Chapters to preserve stability as only the Astartes possessed the inviolable military strength required to restore Imperial control in the more lawless regions of the galaxy.To combat the spreading anarchy, the Adeptus Terra imposed ever-stricter rules, doling out ever-harsher punishments. Portents of doom were both incessant and relentless. The prescient foretold of great ripples in the Warp, like a swell in the water disturbed by some colossal but unseen menace.
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The Waning - 9th Black Crusade: The 9th Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler and his Black Legion launched out of the Eye of Terror in 537.M38. Intending to bring about the demise of the naval fortress of Cancephalus, Abaddon led his forces against the heaving populations of the nearby world of Antecanis.The seventeen-standard-year-long war that ensued robbed both Antecanis and Cancephalus of their most precious resource -- manpower. Without the fleets of Cancephalus to stop him, Abaddon was able to ravage the rest of the sector at will , and his Sorcerers were free to conduct the rituals required to weaken the walls of reality in that region of space with impunity.
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The Waning - Grim Harvest: During the "Grim Harvest" in 666.M38, a great armada of misshapen space hulks drifted out of the Warp near Terra. Some of the twisted and fused starships could still be identified as transports carrying pilgrims from the Lost Crusade.The Lost Crusade had begun in 754.M37, when, 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 had been especially popular amongst the youth of the Imperium, earning it the title of "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."The Inquisition worked feverishly to cover up the Grim Harvest fleet's existence and its cargo of mutant and daemon-possessed abominations.
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The Waning - 10th Black Crusade: The 10th Black Crusade, also known as the "Conflict of Helica," was a joint campaign of the forces of Chaos that was led by Abaddon the Despoiler and the Daemon Primarch Perturabo of the Iron Warriors Traitor Legion. Launched out of the Eye of Terror in 001.M39, both the Black Legion and the Iron Warriors struck against the Helica Sector.While the Black Legion attacked the capital world of the sector, the Hive World of Thracian Primaris, the Iron Warriors focused their own assault against Medusa, the homeworld of the Loyalist Iron Hands Chapter, to fulfil an old blood debt. In a series of bitter sieges, the Iron Warriors assaulted the Medusa System's worlds and pushed the Iron Hands to the brink of destruction.Only when the Loyalist Chapter received heavy Imperial reinforcements did Abaddon and the Iron Warriors retreat back to the Eye of Terror, taking with them valuable information about the world of Medusa and its defences to be used at a later and more opportune time.
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The Waning - Mausolean Cataclysm: In 103.M39 the Mausolean Cataclysm struck the Imperium.
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The Waning - Redemption Crusades: In 131.M39, the so-called "Redemption Crusades" began. In each of the segmentums of the Imperium a great hero emerged. Like unto the Primarchs of old were these warriors, and the combined efforts of their Imperial Crusades push back the borders of the Imperium further than they have been for nearly 500 standard years.And then, 50 Terran years later, the five heroes vanished without a trace, spurring Ecclesiarch Inovian III to declare them Imperial Saints returned to the Emperor's side.
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The Waning - 11th Black Crusade: In 301.M39, Abaddon the Despoiler launched his 11th Black Crusade, also remembered as the "Doom of Relorria," out of the Eye of Terror. In an attempt to break through the cordon of Warp Storms surrounding the Eye into Imperial space, he employed a captured daemon to navigate for his Black Fleet.The effort proved fruitless, and instead the daemon warped the Black Legion's Black Fleet directly into the path of the Orks of WAAAGH! Murgor. In the ruins of the Cardinal World of Relorria, the Black Legion brought the Orks to battle, Bolter rounds and Chainswords tearing into the green-skinned xenos.After solar months of bloody warfare, Abaddon decided to leave Relorria to its fate and the Black Legion returned to the nightmare realm of the Eye of Terror -- but not before the Warmaster of Chaos filled the holds of his Black Fleet with a multitude of captured Ork Weirdboyz.In conjunction with a coven of his most powerful Sorcerers, he used the volatile psychic energies of the Greenskin abductees in a daemonic hybridisation ritual that weakened the fabric of reality across the Relorrian System, part of a wider plan to find ways to break down the barriers between the Immaterium and realspace and so aid Chaos' assault on the Imperium.
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The Waning - Gothic War (12th Black Crusade): In 139.M41, the 12th Black Crusade, better known as the "Gothic War," was a vast campaign launched by Abaddon that engulfed the Gothic Sector of the Segmentum Obscurus after that sector was cut off from Imperial reinforcements and communications by a series of massive Warp Storms produced by the will of the Ruinous Powers.It consisted of hundreds of planetary invasions and naval battles spanning the time period 139.M41 - 160.M41 and only ended when Abaddon and his Chaos Space Marines, Renegade Chapters, daemonic hosts and rebellious Chaos Cults were forced to retreat into the Immaterium with the arrival of Imperial reinforcements as the Warp Storms that had provided cover for their invasion finally dissipated just as mysteriously as they had begun.On the Imperial side, dozens of Space Marine Chapters, nearly 100 Astra Militarum regiments and the better part of three Titan Legions took part, along with every naval vessel the Battlefleet Obscurus could muster.The conflict saw the destruction of several planets and four of the six irreplaceable ancient alien artefacts known as the Blackstone Fortresses as well as the deaths of millions, if not billions, of Imperial citizens.Most significantly, the events of the Gothic War revealed the true nature and purpose of the ancient spaceborne alien artefacts known to the Imperium as the Blackstone Fortresses, which had been created by the Old Ones to be used against the Necrons and were capable of destabilising stars and destroying entire solar systems.Most importantly, Abaddon and the forces of Chaos were able to escape back into the Eye of Terror with two of the Blackstone Fortresses, their future purpose unknown.
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The Waning - Macharian Crusade and Heresy: This period saw the Macharian Conquests (also called the Macharian Crusade) of 392-399.M41 during which Lord Commander Solar Macharius, the Lord of the Segmentum Solar, mustered the greatest human army the galaxy had seen since the Great Crusade.In only seven standard years, Macharius reconquered a thousand worlds on the western reaches of the Imperium and his glory carried him into the darkest sectors, places where the Emperor's light had never been known.Upon his death, the whole Imperium wept for the lost commander, but Macharius' conquered territories soon collapsed into rivalry and civil war. The Macharian Heresy, as this time is now known, lasted for seventy standard years and was only ended through the combined efforts of one hundred Space Marine Chapters.
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The Waning - Tears of the Emperor: In 500.M41, in an event known as the Tears of the Emperor, the Imperium was swept by visions of the Emperor's tears.From backwards Feral Worlds to the most densely populated Hive Worlds, a million versions of the same story are told by holy men, street agitators, shamans, priests, and mystics. Primitives point to storm-filled skies, claiming that the drops falling from them are the tears of their mighty god.Upon Ecclesiarchy Cardinal Worlds, Arch-Deacons to lowly pilgrims claim to have seen statues of the divine Emperor shed tears. Chapter Masters and hive city urchins alike have visions of the Emperor stirring upon His throne, tears running from His empty sockets.Although the dreams take myriad forms, all know that the Emperor weeps not for Himself, but for the plight of Humanity.
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The Warmaster (Novel) - The Warmaster (Novel): The WarmasterGaunt's GhostsDan Abnett
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The Warmaster (Novel) - Synopsis: After the success of their desperate mission to Salvation's Reach, Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First-and-Only race to the strategically vital Forge World of Urdesh, besieged by the brutal armies of Anarch Sek. However, there may be more at stake than just a planet. The Imperial forces have made an attempt to divide and conquer their enemy, but with Warmaster Macaroth himself commanding the Urdesh campaign, it is possible that the Archenemy assault has a different purpose -- to decapitate the Imperial command structure with a single blow. Has the Warmaster allowed himself to become an unwitting target? And can Gaunt's Ghosts possibly defend him against the assembled killers and war machines of Chaos?
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The Watcher (Audio Drama) - The Watcher (Audio Drama): The Watcher is the twenty-eighth audio drama for the The Horus Heresy series that was not originally released as part of an anthology or other release. The Watcher was published in December 2014 by the Black Library as part of the Black Library's 2014 Advent Calendar, on day 24. The title was later published in prose format as part of "The Horus Heresy Quick Reads Subscription" week on February 26th 2016, and again as part of The Silent War main series anthology novel.
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The Watcher (Audio Drama) - Official Synopsis: A shuttle returns to the Sol System bearing the sole survivor of a Traitor attack -- however, delirious and so close to death, his tale remains untold. Ison of the Knights-Errant, formerly a Librarian of his Legion, delves into the mind of the warrior, and the truth of it will chill him to the core...
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The Wolf of Ash and Fire (Short Story) - The Wolf of Ash and Fire (Short Story): The Wolf of Ash and Fire is the fourteenth short story published in the Horus Heresy that was not originally part of an anthology novel. The Wolf of Ash and Fire was originally released as a free exclusive e-book with every copy of Macragge's Honour. It is also now included in the Eye of Terra anthology novel. The Wolf of Ash and Fire is one of only a handful of short stories that has its own artwork, which is used as the cover for the Eye of Terra anthology.
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The Wolf of Ash and Fire (Short Story) - Synopsis: Horus Lupercal, ever the favoured son of the Emperor of Mankind, stands ready to lead his Legion against the Ork-held planetoid of Gorro. After nearly two centuries of warfare in the name of the Great Crusade, the many victories of the Luna Wolves have become the stuff of legend. Still, nothing could prepare them for the singular honour of fighting alongside the Emperor Himself once more...
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Themiskon Point - Themiskon Point: Themiskon PointDead WorldJericho ReachPart of the Canis Salient of the Achilus Crusade, the planet is currently contested between the forces of the Imperium and the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Dagon.
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Themiskon Point - History: The servants of the Adeptus Mechanicus believe that Themiskon Point once harboured a rich and diverse ecosystem, for the substrata of its surface are rich in organic fuels. For eons, Themiskon Point must have been host to planet-wide forests, yet today, no trace of life remains on the planet.As far as most records indicate, this has been the case since the earliest days of the Imperium's presence in the Jericho Reach, though a few scattered writings suggest that the transformation to its present state took place at around the time of the Great Crusade.Other crumbling archives suggest that the world was host to an advanced alien civilisation which destroyed itself in the face of Human conquest, submitting to the fires of planetary devastation rather than allowing a single Human to set foot upon their world.A mystery at least as great as the world's past is to be found in its present, for the world has come under the dominion of a host of Tyranid vanguard organisms. Countless Lictors stalk the bleak, cratered surface, as if seeking a prey they know must surely exist but they cannot locate.Several theories have been put forward to explain this phenomenon, including the notion that some trace of the original masters of Themiskon Point might still exist, perhaps waiting out the millennia far below the surface of their world until the day when Mankind recedes and they can reclaim and reseed their once paradisiacal world.The forces of the Imperium rarely have cause to enter the inner reaches of the Themiskon System, for although it lies at the terminus of a well established stable Warp conduit, there are no worlds of any importance to the Imperium beyond it.To date, the Imperium has yet to commit to cleansing the world of the Tyranid presence, but the Watch Fortress Erioch's Chamber of Vigilance has debated the matter on three separate occasions and a Deathwatch reconnaissance mission is likely to be launched in the near future.
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Theodora von Valancius - Theodora von Valancius: Theodora von Valancius, formally Theodora von Valancius Massimo af Scarus, was a Rogue Trader and the leader of House von Valancius, one of the three largest Rogue Trader dynasties operating in the Koronus Expanse of the Segmentum Obscurus, and the mistress of the interstellar trade empire her house maintained there.After many solar decades in command of the dynasty, Theodora was assassinated while in her quarters during a Warp incursion on her flagship, and the leadership of her dynasty passed to a distantly-related heir she had met only scant solar hours before her death. That heir would go on to shape not ony the destiny and fortunes of House von Valancius, but of the Koronus Expanse itself.
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Theodora von Valancius - History: It is a rare breed of Human in the 41st Millennium who dares to leave the confines of Imperial space and brave the still-uncharted void of the galaxy. Unwavering courage, devious cunning, even outright recklessness -- all of these traits and more help ensure the survival and prosperity of those who are granted a Warrant of Trade and vested with a mission to roam the unknown depths of the void in search of profit and plunder. They are Rogue Traders, unique individuals empowered by the Emperor's authority to serve Humanity in the most unorthodox way possible -- by crossing the boundaries of the Imperium and committing deeds otherwise considered heretical.Lord Captain Theodora von Valancius Massimo af Scarus is a hard woman -- anyone who stands at the helm of an ancient Rogue Trader dynasty for as long as she has is either broken or steeled by the experience. Theodora owns a voidship crewed by thousands of loyal servants, reigns over a vast conglomerate of worlds that bring her immense wealth, and vies for supremacy with the other Rogue Traders operating in the Koronus Expanse -- a competition unequaled in its ruthlessness. Yet the lord captain has always yearned for more, and so she ventures into the deepest and darkest parts of the Koronus Expanse, leaving trading and affairs of governance to her subordinates.But sometimes the Rogue Trader's endeavors bring more trouble than expected -- after all, there are nightmares between the stars better left undisturbed. Theodora's aura is as illustrious as ever -- she and her air of authority bow even the most willful heads, and her power sends fear into the hearts of her enemies. Yet those closest to her have noticed strange changes -- a tinge of worry in the curve of her lips, a ghost of uncertainty in her steely gaze. Unknown to others, time after time Theodora's thoughts sink into what's to come -- the grim future that will snuff out her shining star and give way to the next Rogue Trader of House von Valancius whose fate is still undetermined.Theodora long maintained the von Valancius empire with the aid of her house's Seneschal, Abelard Werserian, who has held the position for solar decades and has always been Theodora's loyal right hand. They first met during a joint operation between Navis Imperialis and Rogue Trader forces. At that time, Theodora was an eccentric, wayward Rogue Trader, while Werserian was a diligent and imperious first officer on a Navis Imperialis cruiser. Despite being as different as night and day in terms of their personalities, they learned to appreciate and respect each other and when the operation was done, recognising his value, Theodora exercised the right given in her Warrant of Trade to commandeer Imperial personnel as she wished and she claimed Werserian as House von Valancius' new Seneschal.To rise above the droves of enterprising Rogue Traders spread throughout the Koronus Expanse and lay claim to a fraction of the unimaginable wealth that lies therein takes a unique calibre of person. Whence they must be bold and ruthless in their business acumen, as well as capable of enforcing their claim through strength of arms. Yet also possess a quality that allows them to best see what would provide the most to their people.They must be someone like Theodora von Valancius, the former Lord Captain of the von Valancius dynasty.Like her two foremost competitors for control of the Koronus Expanse, Incendia Bastaal-Chorda and Calligos Winterscale, Theodora von Valancius was possessed of ambition and drive. She rose to prominence on the interstellar stage with her dynamic aplomb and ruthless pursuit of endeavors to enrich her dynasty. One in which she built with her own two hands alongside her longest, staunchest supporters. Thus building an empire that, while small, could turn out no small end of profit with the likes of Janus, the Agri-world that was the von Valancius realm's bread basket, and the industrial powerhouse that was Kiava Gamma.Her quick rise to prominence in the Koronus Expanse marked her squarely as a rival to the likes of giants Calligos Winterscale and Incendia Bastaal-Chorda. But while the latter of those two have more definitive successors to their lineage when their time comes to an end, Theodora does not. So wrapped up in her dynasty's continued success and playing politics with grand organisations like the Ecclesiarchy, the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Navis Imperialis, she has had little time to secure someone capable of filling her shoes. And given the nature of her occupation, that may well prove her dynasty's downfall.At least until she found two new prospective candidates distantly related to the von Valancius line, individuals of great potential who may well be able to carry the torch when the time comes. One of which would become the new Lord Captain of House von Valancius upon Theodora's unexpected death.
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Theodora von Valancius - Wargear: Power SwordRelic Bolt PistolAugmetic Eye
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Theratryx - Theratryx: The Theratryx are a species of sleek, reptilian bipeds native to the Feral World of Aurum in the Jericho Reach. Aurans use them as mounts and beasts of burden.However, much like the Aurans themselves, you can take the beast out of the wild, but you cannot take the wild out of the beast. Powerful talons and scales make them able combatants, whilst their charge is strong enough to knock over even a fully armoured Space Marine.So strong is a given Theratryx that they can even be ridden by the same Astartes. This strength can be seen in their fleetness of foot, their every step silent despite their bulk.
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There Is Only War (Anthology) - There Is Only War (Anthology): There Is Only War is a 2013 anthology edited by Christian Dunn, Nick Kyme, and Lindsey Priestley.
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There Is Only War (Anthology) - Synopsis: Across Mankind's Imperium, battle rages. From the lowly troopers of the Imperial Guard to the elite Space Marines, Humanity's defenders are ever beset by threats. Alien races encroach on the edges of Mankind's realm, bringing worlds to ruin with blade, gun, and claw. On countless worlds, mutated servants of the Dark Gods seek to do their masters' bidding and bring ruin to all that the Emperor sacrificed Himself to build. And in the nightmare realm of the Eye of Terror, the Arch-traitors who tore the Imperium apart ten millennia ago still lurk, plotting their revenge...Contains the following short stories:One Hate by Aaron Dembski-BowdenKraken by Chris WraightThe Iron Without by Graham McNeillDeus Ex Mechanicus by Andy ChambersPestilence by Dan AbnettTorment by Anthony ReynoldsCold Trade by Andy HoareThe Relic by Jonathan GreenFaces by Matthew FarrerBeneath the Flesh by Andy SmillieEven Unto Death by Mike LeeOrphans of the Kraken by Richard WilliamsBlack Dawn by C. L. WernerUnforgiven by Graham McNeillShadow Knight by Aaron Dembski-BowdenSurvivor by Steve ParkerEmperor's Deliverance by Nick KymeThe Last Detail by Paul KearneyMaster Imus's Transgression by Dan AbnettThe Long Games at Carcharias by Rob SandersHelion Rain by George MannEchoes of the Tomb by Sandy MitchellVoidsong by Henry ZouWe Are One by John FrenchBitter End by S. P. CawkwellApostle's Creed by Graham McNeillMistress Baeda's Gift by Braden CampbellFlesh by Chris WraightTwelve Wolves by Ben CounterSuffer Not the Unclean to Live by Gav ThorpeThe Lives of Ferag Lion-Wolf by Barrington J. BayleySnares and Delusions by Matthew FarrerGate of Souls by Mike LeeThe Wrath of Khârn by William KingThe Returned by James SwallowA Good Man by Sandy MitchellHell Night by Nick KymeAt Gaius Point by Aaron Dembski-BowdenMidnight on the Street of Knives by Andy ChambersThe Carrion Anthem by David AnnandalePlaying Patience by Dan Abnett
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Therion Cohort - Therion Cohort: The original Therion Cohort was an illustrious regiment of the Imperial Army, one that has had the honour of fighting alongside the Emperor of Mankind Himself during the 30th Millennium. Attached first to the 376th and then to the 27th Expeditionary Fleets under the Raven Guard Space Marine Legion and the command of the Primarch Corvus Corax, the Therion Cohort were sacrificed in a diversionary attack on the forces of the rebellious Warmaster Horus Lupercal to allow the extraction of what remained of the Raven Guard Legion in the wake of the Drop Site Massacre.The reconstituted and severely augmented Therion Cohort would then honour their oath of servitude and allegiance to the Emperor and officially declare for the Golden Throne.Like their tutelary Legion, the Therion Cohorts decided not to sit idle but to seek out the enemy and confront them, coordinating all of their actions with the Raven Guard during the fierce fights of the Horus Heresy. Despite their name, there is no tangible proof that the Therion Cohort followed the pattern of the Solar Auxilia or were a part of that formation of the Imperial Army.
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Therion Cohort - Regimental History: The Therion Cohort numbers perhaps amongst the most famous regiments of the Imperial Army, its name being honoured in the same proportion as the Lucifer Blacks or Malcador's Chosen. The Therions have become a byword for discipline and faith in the Imperial cause, even having gained the selective honour of fighting alongside the Emperor of Mankind Himself. Attached first to the 376th Expeditionary Fleet, this most distinguished unit of the Imperial Army would go on to serve the Great Crusade alongside the 27th Expeditionary Fleet.Fighting alongside the Raven Guard Legion, the Therion Cohort and the XIX Legion formed lasting bonds of honour and assistance, fighting together in such notorious Compliances as the initial Isstvan III Compliance some ten standard years before the events of the Horus Heresy. The cohort's history has always been one of selfless sacrifice. As the Raven Guard was trapped on the surface of Isstvan V during the Drop Site Massacre, it was thanks to the efforts of its [raefactor, Marcus Valerius, that a successful rescue mission could be mounted.Truly miraculous, the timing of the Therions' intervention saved the remaining Raven Guard from being slaughtered by the World Eaters. Corvus Corax was saved, ensuring that at least one of the Loyalist primarchs had survived the Drop Site Massacre. To ensure that the Raven Guard would live to fight another day, the Therion Cohort did not hesitate to sacrifice itself to give the XIXth Legion's Commander Branne the opportunity to save his primarch.With the cohort and its attending fleet entirely destroyed, the sole survivors, Praefactor Valerius and his manservant Pelon, accompanied the Raven Guard to Terra and petitioned the Council of Terra for the permission to raise a new cohort. With this new augmented Therion Cohort, Marcus Valerius would prosecute the war against those who had sided with the Warmaster Horus.
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Therion Cohort - Notable Campaigns: Isstvan III Compliance (994.M30) - As part of the 27th Expeditionary Fleet, the Therion Cohort participated in the Compliance action of the world of Isstvan III. The local Istvaanians had a highly powerful, advanced and disciplined army to call upon, numbering even renegade psykers known as Warsingers that were so powerful that they even kept in check the might of the Emperor's Legiones Astartes. Under the command of Corvus Corax, the Istvaanians were ultimately crushed at the Redarth Valley, the primarch having called upon the 800 companies of Raven Guard Space Marines that comprised the XIXth Legion as well as their allies from the Therion Cohort and heavy assault cadres drawn from both the Legio Victorum and the Legio Adamantus to secure this Imperial victory. In a great ceremony during which a selected delegation of Istvaanians publicly surrendered before the Primarch, Corax formally acknowledged the role of the Therions in this battle.Raven's Flight (005.M31) - Having been left behind on Deliverance by the XIXth Legion before their departure for Istvaan V, the Therion Cohort followed the steps of the Raven Guard into the Isstvan System. At the initiative of Marcus Valerius, the Therion Cohort's praefactor who had been plagued by prophetic dreams, the Therion Cohort and the Raven Guard's reserve company under Commander Branne disregarded their respective orders and decided to rush to their primarch's aid. However in order for the Avenger to approach Isstvan V covertly, the Therion Cohort had to be sacrificed in a diversionary attack, which marked the end of the original cohort.Siege of the Perfect Fortress (Unknown Date, ca. 007.M31) - Located on the world of Narsis, the so-called "Perfect Fortress" had been erected by the IIIrdLegion, the Emperor's Children, during the Great Crusade. As its name indicates, the Perfect Fortress was a military base, but also a hive city harbouring many millions of inhabitants where elegant buildings and colonnades hid both administrative buildings as well as tanks and weapons depots, and where ornate balustrades revealed themselves as redoubt and every balcony was a perfect firing position on pre-planned kill-zones. Taking the Perfect Fortress would be an arduous task, a task which in truth lay beyond the capabilities of the severely depleted Raven Guard to take alone. It was then fortunate that shortly after the Kiavahrian Uprising, the ranks of the XIXth Legion were swelled by the reconstituted and vastly expanded Therion Cohort. Under the command of their newly-appointed vice-caesari, Marcus Valerius, the Therion Cohort would then take the brunt of the assault. Corax, however, asked for a heavy sacrifice from the Therion Cohort: to land far away from the Perfect Fortress and march on it while weathering its considerable fire power. For three long solar days, the Therion Cohort assailed the Perfect Fortress before their losses forced them to retreat. This was all the enemy commander, Captain Luthris, had been waiting for, as the Emperor's Children were already positionned to counter-attack. Conducting an organised retreat while being pursued, and in many places massacred by the Emperor's Children, only stands as a further testament as to the Therions' spirit and discipline, as through the sacrifice of thousands of their number, the Therion Cohort achieved their mission: to draw the enemy out. As the Raven Guard finally showed themselves and descended upon the surprised sons of Fulgrim, the Emperor's Children were swiftly defeated and the so-called "Perfect Fortress" fell within the day. This highly symbolic action would not only mark a severe defeat of the traitorous IIIrdLegion, but also heralded the return of both the Therion Cohorts and the XIXth Legion to the front lines of the war against the Warmaster Horus.Reconquest of Euesa (Unknown Date, ca. 009.010.M31) - Located in the Vandreggan Sector, the world of Euesa was the latest target in a series of attacks led by the joined forces of the Raven Guard and the Therion Cohort. A first attack on its capital city, designated as Milivan, had failed and the Therions had lost more than seventeen hundred troops in this rushed attack. However, the campaign plan dictated that Milivan and its orbital batteries be silenced within the next eighteen hours in order to allow the Raven Guard to conduct a lightning attack on the fortified complex where the planet's rulers had taken refuge. By the time of the Euesa campaign, the Therion Cohort formed the core of an Imperial battlegroup, consisting of the Therion Cohort, the Capricon 13th Suppression Regiment and its heavy tanks and the men and women of the Lothor Pioneer Corps. The army was supported by several Titan maniples drawn from the Legio Vindictus as well, all heeding the words of one man: Marcus Valerius. With preparations for a renewed assault well on its way, Valerius was again troubled by prophetic dreams, showing him in the clutches of a hydra. Acting upon these dreams, but not daring to mention them to anyone save for his manservant, Marcus Valerius withdrew several companies of Therions, the Capitol Imperialis super-heavy tank Iron General and two Battle Titans to act as reserve. These he placed under the command of his younger brother, Antonius. While the other officers had some misgivings towards this, as it would considerably weaken their strength for the main attack, Marcus Valerius insisted upon taking precautionary measures in case the army's flank was unexpectedly threatened. This proved to be the case as traitorous Imperial Army regiments approached the army's rear using recovered Raven Guard ident-tags. Forewarned by his dreams, Marcus Valerius ordered his brother to engage the enemy which was promptly wiped out. Milivan was taken within the morning and the true Raven Guard conducted the final attack unimpeded.
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Therion Cohort - Regimental Homeworld: Therion is a highly populous world within the Segmentum Solar located some solar weeks of Warp-travel from sacred Terra itself. Therion had maintained both a high degree of technology and urbanisation during the dark times known as Old Night. Therion is a world of sophistication, tradition and etiquette; an old world by all accounts as it is believed to have been colonised in Mankind's distant past.For eighty generations, the Therions ruled themselves before peacefully accepting Imperial Compliance and joining the growing ranks of the Imperium. In exchange, Therion was allowed to maintain much of its traditions, although conservative hardliners still missed the day where time was measured by the old Therion Calendar, roughly equivalent to 2.8 Terran standard years. Therion was ruled by a highly organised and stratified military aristocracy.To the eyes of a Terran scholar the culture of Therion would seem oddly familiar as it included many elements drawing back to the ancient Romani-people of Old Earth, Therion's Imperial Commander even claiming the title of "Caesari."As with most military aristocracies, the title of planetary ruler is hereditary and has remained with the Valerius family for many centuries. Each nobleman is required to serve a time in the Therion's military, which special consideration given to the off-world regiments collectively known as the Therion Cohort.
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Therion Cohort - Regimental Structure: For most of its operational history, the Therion Cohort has operated alongside the XIX thLegion of the Emperor's Legiones Astartes; first as part of the 27th and then of the 376th Expeditionary Fleet. Whilst it is widely known that the Therion Cohort has been granted the rare privilege of fighting alongside the Emperor of Mankind, records as to its organisational pattern in these early years of the Great Crusade have been entirely lost. What is known is that the the Therion Cohort, which fought alongside the Raven Guard Legion during the latter part of the Great Crusade and the years of civil war, mostly operated as a single heavy infantry regiment.The Therion Cohort is known to have used the now commonplace Sentinel walker for scouting and patrolling missions, but its true strength resided in its plethoric ranks: spearheaded by Raven Guard strike squads and usually supported by heavier units such as the Titans of the Legio Vindictus, the Therions were mostly required to take to the field en masse and crush or draw out the enemy with its numbers. The Therion Cohort was well-known for its discipline even under the direst of circumstances and their tenacity in the face of the enemy has always been justly famed.The basic organisational unit of the Therions was always the company, a unit of a hundred troops which were banded together into larger battalions of two thousand which were commonly designated as "phalanxes." Each phalanx was commanded by an officer known as a "praefactor," which was the highest rank within the Therion Cohort until the time of the Warmaster Horus' rebellion. This may well indicate that indeed the original cohort was a mere two-thousand strong infantry regiment, but records indicate that by the time of the Isstvan III Compliance, the cohort's numbers easily reached into the tens of thousands.Historically, the Therion Cohort exclusively consisted of volunteers, which stands as a testament to the Therion's discipline and loyalty to the Golden Throne. Indeed such was the demand within Therion's population that for years on end, Therion's ruling caesari had to refuse the enrollment of many volunteers.As the civil war soon engulfed the Imperium and the Therion Cohort was sacrificed to save what remained of the Raven Guard Legion, the Therion Cohort was founded anew on its homeworld. More akin now to an entire battlegroup than to a single, if oversized, regiment, this third incarnation of the Therion Cohort -- which nevertheless kept its original name -- would distinguish itself even more than its predecessors.
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Therion Cohort - Notable Therion Cohort Personnel: Caesari Valentinus Valerius - Valentinus Valerius was a proud member of the Valerius family, the planetary rulers of Therion and the youngest caesari to have ever been elected. Father to both Marcus and Antonius Valerius, Valentinus was only in his late fifties when the Warmaster Horus turned against the Imperium. Short of build and fair of hair, Valentinus was a competent and beloved leader, a former praefactor of the Therion Cohort and an experienced officer. Valentinus had fought in a great many battles of the Great Crusade, both alongside the Raven Guard and the Emperor of Mankind Himself. These battles had however left their mark on him -- he had lost one leg, half of his hand and one of his ears to the enemy, all of which required augmetic replacement. Wishing nothing more than to return to the battlefield, the pressing matters of ruling Therion and the insistence of his wife kept him from waging war alongside his sons.Sub-Caesari Marcus Valerius - Oldest son of Therion's ruling caesari, Marcus Valerius was, however, not the caesari's first child, yet as first male and eventual heir to the title of caesari, Marcus always had to follow in his father's footsteps. As Valentinus Valerius before him, Marcus would lead the planet's most honoured regiment, the Therion Cohort, to fight amongst the stars and in the Emperor's name. Drilled and prepared for this task since birth, Marcus Valerius was directly promoted to commanding officer of the Therion Cohort with the grade of a praefactor of the Imperial Army. Although it is unclear when this change of leadership occurred, Marcus saw much action alongside the Raven Guard Legion until the dire events which have since entered history known as the Drop Site Massacre. Although Imperial Army units would take to the black sands of Isstvan V and Valerius and his Therions volunteered to do so, the primarch of the XIXth Legion flatly refused -- in a war between Astartes, his argument went, a mere mortal Human would simply be swept aside. Ordered to remain on Deliverance, the Raven Guard's headquarters moon orbiting their homeworld, the Therion Cohort would rest, reequip and wait for news of what everybody expected to be a swift Imperial victory. As the solar weeks extended into months, Marcus Valerius began to be plagued by dreadful and recurring nightmares. The images these nightmares carried with them were all laden with impending doom -- a burning horizon and a blood-covered raven brought low. The recurring nature of these dreams which for a lack of a better word seemed prophetic bore heavy on Marcus' mind. Unable to stand it any longer, Marcus entrusted his visions to his manservant, Pelon, a man of trust who was oath bound to keep his master's secrets at all costs. Valerius then took his doubts to Commander Branne, the commanding officer of the garrison company of the Raven Guard that Corvus Corax had ordered to remain on Deliverance as a precautionary measure. Infuriated by what he considered was Marcus' lack of faith in the Emperor's finest warriors, Commander Branne refused to take any action or even join the punitive expedition over astropathic choir to confirm the Raven Guard's current status. Yet, the dreams still continued to visit Marcus Valerius each and every night, and still no news of the expected victory came down through the communication channels. Confronting Commander Branne with his dreams, Marcus narrowly missed being executed for witchcraft, but his words had awoken Branne's own doubts. Still the Raven Guard warrior refused to go against his primarch's order. Instead, Branne used his full authority as Regent of Deliverance to get the Therion Cohort and Valerius to stay put. However the situation could not last. With still no news of the XIXth Legion's fate, Marcus Valerius single-handedly decided that the Therion Cohort should mobilise. If Branne would not move to aid his primarch, the Therion would. At the last possible moment, after a tense stand-off where Branne threatened to blast the cohort's ships from Deliverance's sky if they did not heed his words, Marcus Valerius took to the vox and convinced Branne to join them. He would take full and sole responsibility for the violation of their orders and would resign from his command if his actions proved unnecessary. However, as events came to pass, Marcus Valerius' prophetic dreams were correct. Far from winning the battle against Horus and the three Legions he had gathered around him, the Raven Guard, Iron Hands and Salamanders Legions had been betrayed by their brothers and almost completely annihilated in the Drop Site Massacre. The remaining Raven Guard, now numbering less than 3,000 warriors, were being mercilessly hunted down by the World Eaters, and had been prolonging their dire fate for nearly ninety solar days, but their time was measured. Commander Branne and Praefactor Marcus Valerius arrived just in the nick of time to extract the Raven Guard, who were gathered for a final, if ultimately futile, last stand against Angron's blood-maddened hordes. As the Therion Cohort's supporting aircraft held back the World Eaters, Legion Thunderhawks and Storm Eagles extracted the primarch and the rest of the survivors, but to reach the planet unheralded Marcus had to sacrifice his entire flotilla in a diversionary attack on Isstvan III. None of the Therions survived except for Marcus Valerius and his manservant Pelon, who Commander Branne had ordered transferred to his own battle barge, the Avenger. Resolved to continue the fight, Marcus Valerius would travel back to Therion and raise a new, augmented Therion Cohort which he would then command throughout the rest of the Horus Heresy.Praefactor Antonius Valerius - Second son of Valentinus Valerius and younger brother of Marcus Valerius, Antonius Valerius was an important figure within the Therion Cohort. Taller than his father and his brother, Antonius' face radiated confidence, an ability that had not been diminished by the gunshot wound that crossed his right cheek. Ascending to the rank of praefactor of the Therion Cohort following his brother's nomination as vice-caesari of Therion under their father, Antonius proved to be a sound tactician and a good warrior, quickly becoming a figure of inspiration for his troops. Serving under his brother did not seem to bother him, as the two siblings working in tandem would help to gain much honour as they were both covered in glory during the bloody battles of the Horus Heresy.Praefactor Magellius (KIA) - Magellius was the commander of the Therion Cohort's 2nd Phalanx during the Siege of the Perfect Fortress. He was slain by the Emperor's Children during the Siege of the Perfect Fortress on Narsis.Praefactor Tigurian (KIA) - Commander of the Therion's 3rd Phalanx during the Siege of the Perfect Fortress on Narsis. He was slain in the Emperor's Children-led counter-attack.Tribune Calorium - Assigned as Marcus Valerius' aide in the wake of the second foundation of the Therion Cohort, Tribune Calorium was Valrius' designated communication specialist, keeping the vice-caesari appraised of the overall situation and relaying his orders to distant parts of the battlefield. As stoic as every Therion-born, Tribune Calorium stood ever at Valerius' side, but was not above firing his own weapon or retrieving a lasgun in order to join the fight. Tribune Calorium was wounded during the Siege of the Perfect Fortress on Narsis.Vice-Tribune Callista - Callista was a tactical advisor and a member of Marcus Valerius' entourage on Narsis. She was believed slain in the fierce counter-attack during the Siege of the Perfect Fortress.Sub-Tribune Pelon - Manservant and aide to Marcus Valerius, Pelon swiftly learned to mind his place amongst the echelons of Therion's high aristocracy -- a privilege considering his own humble origins. Having accompanied Marcus Valerius since his tenure with the Therion Cohort, Pelon accomplished the every-day mundane tasks required by his master and maintained many contacts within the expeditionary fleets and the Imperial Army's black market to ensure his master lacked for nothing. Driver, dry-cleaner, secretary and cook for the praefactor, Pelon and Marcus had attained some kind of friendship, the praefactor occasionally asking for his manservant's advice and opinion. Pelon became the true confident of his master when Marcus Valerius began to have his prophetic visions of the Raven Giard's doom on Isstvan V. As Pelon was a convert to the cult of the Lectitio Divinitatus, he would introduce his master to its teachings of Emperor-worship, confirming the praetorian's beliefs that the Emperor was sending him these visions. Pelon's enduring loyalty allowed him to be rewarded with the title of sub-tribune in the Therion Cohort, an extraordinary feat for a man of such humble origin as Pelon.
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Therion Cohort - Notable Wargear: The initial Therion Cohort was a single regiment of the Imperial Army, however with the outbreak of the galactic civil war known as the Horus Heresy, the reconstituted Therion Cohort was more akin to an Imperial battlegroup in size.Following the Therion's and Raven Guard's first victories, other Loyalist Imperial Army troops soon rallied around the cohort, warranting Marcus Valerius' promotion to vice-caesari of Therion, under the rule of his father. With the progressive increase in manpower and materiel, the Therion Cohort was soon able to field sizeable war-engines.Contemptuous - The Contemptuous was a Capitol Imperialis, a super-heavy command vehicle used as his headquarters by Vice-Caesari Marcus Valerius during the assault on Milivan, the capital city of the world of Euesa. Commanding from the front-lines as he prefered, Marcus Valerius ordered the Contemptuous to attack the city's main defence -- a so-called "lightning shield" which had already repelled one of the Therion Cohort's assaults, overwhelming its generators through the firepower of its Behemoth Cannon. Taking fire from an enemy Warlord-class Battle Titan, the Contemptuous' shields held long enough for allied Titans of the Legio Vindictus to destroy it. The origins of the Contemptuous and its twin -- the Iron General -- remain mysterious as it is unclear under what circumstances and indeed when the Therion Cohort acquired these powerful engines of war.Iron General - The Iron General is the second Capitol Imperialis in service to the Therion Cohort. Usually commanded by Antonius Valerius, brother to the Vice-Caesari Marcus Valerius, the Iron General was kept in reserve during the assault on Milivan, thus ensuring the full destruction of an enemy force that had threatened the army's flank and succeeded in approaching through the falsification of the allied Raven Guard's identification-tags.
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Therion Cohort - Therion Appearance: Records on the appearance of the Therion Cohort are fragmentary at best, and few detailed accounts have survived the eons between the 30th Millennium and the 41st Millennium. It would appear that the Therions favoured a combination of gold and red, both colours being extensively represented on its banners.The officers such as Praefactor Marcus Valerius commonly wore a red sash as part of their uniform and as a mark of their rank. In fact, at the time of the Great Crusade, wearing the red sash of the Therion nobility without being entitled to do so constituted the sole capital crime still enacted on Therion.Flak-vest and other pieces of armour seemed to have been golden as a matter of tradition, whilst bodyguards to the Therion nobility were rather issued with golden and heavily decorated suits of Carapace Armor. These same bodyguards have also been noted to wear white trousers, which must have made for quite a sight on the battlefield.As a regiment of long-standing and noble history and proud martial traditions, it is quite probable that the Therion Cohort entirely eschewed the use of camouflage techniques as some Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes still do in the 41st Millennium.
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Thermal Cannon - Thermal Cannon: The Thermal Cannon is a large Melta Weapon carried by the combat walkers of the Imperial Knights and Chaos Knights. The Thermal Cannon strikes fear into even the mightiest of foes, for such a weapon is capable of immolating everything in a wide radius.The hissing blasts from a Thermal Cannon can melt through a fortress wall or turn a battle tank into a pile of bubbling slag. Against infantry, entire hordes can be reduced to smouldering ruin.There is no armour that offers any proof against the Thermal Cannon's super-heated shots, which become even more effective at close range. The Thermal Cannon is the main weapon of the Knight Errant and a secondary weapon for the Knight Crusader.
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Thermal Cannon - Variants: Due to the sheer diversity of Knight Worlds and Forge Worlds in the Imperium there exist a multitude of minor variants of the Thermal Cannon, each different from the last in a number of distinct ways. The known variants include:Standard Thermal Cannon - The most common type of Thermal Cannon, this variant features two barrels and is similar in appearance to that of a Multi-Melta or a Flamestorm Cannon.Inverted Thermal Cannon - An uncommon variant, this pattern features two barrels like the standard version, but in a side-by-side configuration.Snub-barrelled Thermal Cannon - This uncommon variant features a single short barrel.Single-barrelled Thermal Cannon - This uncommon variant features a single barrel that is similar in appearance to that of an oversized Meltagun.
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Thermal Cannon - Sources: Codex: Imperial Knights (7th Edition), pp. 16, 21, 24, 29-30, 115Warhammer 40,000: Index - Chaos (8th Edition), pg. 109Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade (Video Game)
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Thermal Lance - Thermal Lance: A Thermal Lance is a rare Imperial thermal ray weapon similar in function to a standard Multi-Melta and nearly as large. It fires a more accurate and directed heat beam using a much longer barrel with a more powerful added directional containment field to reduce the beam's dispersal rate and increase its accuracy, at the cost of lowered damage to the target.
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Thermal Lance - Notable Variants: Mars Pattern Thermal Lance - The Mars pattern is the most common variant of the otherwise rare Thermal Lance found in use by the military forces of the Imperium.
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Thermal Spear - Thermal Spear: The Thermal Spear is a large Melta Weapon carried by the combat walkers of the Imperial Knights, particularly the smallest class of Knights known as Knights Armiger. A Thermal Spear levels a lance-like beam of superheated directed energy that can reduce a rockcrete bunker wall to a pool of bubbling lava.
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Thexians - Thexians: The Thexians, also called the Thexian Elite, are a bimorphic xenos species hailing from the heavily iron oxidised worlds known as the Bloodmoons of Thex Prime, and rule a polity called the Thexian Trade Empire.These worlds are located to the galactic northeast of the Ghoul Stars and represent 15% of the total worlds that comprise the Thexian Trade Empire.The Thexians are said to be few in number but strong in influence -- these vile aliens are known to be masters of manipulation and have worked themselves into integral positions in the Borlac, Loxatl and Nicassar civilisations.Though Thexians are famously persuasive, when guile is not enough their unleashed battle form is quite horrifying to behold. It is believed that the Thexians may have been the alien threat that assaulted the worlds of the Imperium in the late 34th Millennium during what was later chronicled as the "Pale Wasting."
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Thexians - History: Of the dark and terrible times known to later historitors as the Nova Terra Interregnum, when the Imperium fractured into warrior factions during the late 34th Millennium, there exist in what records remain from this era scattered and veiled references to a great threat arising from the Ghoul Stars known as the "Pale Wasting."Much of the extant evidence relating to this threat has been censored or purposely destroyed, 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 as "nightmare engines" slaughtering the Human populations of whole sectors.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 xenos threat briefly mentioned in Imperial historical records might be the Thexian Elite of the Thexian Trade Empire.Eleven Space Marine Chapters were lost in the final battles of what must have been a truly apocalyptic struggle. The chronicles of many Chapters noted in other sources to have taken part in this campaign are curiously empty of any reference to this conflict, and it is quite possible that this ancient threat may also account for the unusually large number of formerly Human-inhabited Dead Worlds in the region.In response to the events of the Pale Wasting, the Imperium initiated the 13th Founding of the Adeptus Astartes. The Death Spectres are one of two known Chapters to have been created during this unusual Founding. Following their creation, the Death Spectres were stationed beyond the frontiers of the Imperium and charged by the High Lords of Terra to maintain a constant vigil to ensure that the inhabitants of the Ghoul Stars never again threatened the galaxy as they had in the Pale Wasting.The nature of the threat could not be overstated enough, and the containment of such a species as the Thexians was worthy of the attention of an entire Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes.
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Theyn - Theyn: Theyn is the title given to a squad leader of the Leagues of Votann's Hearthkyn soldiers of the line.Those Kin soldiers of the line who show sufficient aptitude are given additional training in order to wield specialist heavy weaponry -- such as L7 Missile Launchers or EtaCarn Plasma Beamers -- or to serve their comrades as scanner operators and communications officers.If a Kin shows particular drive and aptitude toward leadership and command, they will be nominated by their superiors or comrades to be promoted to the rank of "theyn" -- which roughly translates to squad leader. This is a great honour and responsibility both, which most theyns strive to live up to.Leading between 10 and 20 Hearthkyn Warriors into battle, theyns communicate with their squad with the aid of cybernetic implants given to them for command and control purposes -- relaying strategic instructions from the commanders of their Oathband or Kinhost to their squads.Theyns who truly excel at war may be selected to become members of the Leagues' elite Einhyr formations, or else to ascend to the rank of "kâhl." Treading one of these paths does not preclude following the other at a later date, and some Kin have even belonged to both elite warrior circles at once. Most commonly, however, the kâhls stand apart as war leaders and generals, while the warriors of the Einhyr fulfil roles such as elite strike troops, bodyguards, voidship boarding parties and the like.
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