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Unforgiven - Age of the Imperium: The aftermath of the Horus Heresy was a time of great mistrust. On Terra, the Emperor's silenced body was sustained only by the life-giving machineries of the Golden Throne. The newly envisioned realm of Mankind was now governed in the Emperor's name by the High Lords of Terra. Their first orders were to seek out the hidden roots of the rebellion, to search for collaborators, and to follow up on the retreat of the Traitor Legions that had joined the treacherous Warmaster Horus in his betrayal.All across the Imperium, a tangled web of suspicion hung over everything, misdoubts that were only made worse as further investigations revealed yet deeper corruption. Thus began the Age of the Imperium, an era steeped in paranoia, recriminations and vengeance.It was in this new age of fear and doubt that the remaining Dark Angels assembled to pay tribute to their lost primarch. Internalising their grief, the Dark Angels pulled together, their masters forming a plan of action.They were still the Sons of the Lion -- tenacious warriors who, once stirred to action, were never short of zeal. In a way, the Dark Angels were born again, single-mindedly rededicating their lives to the service of the Imperium. |
Unforgiven - The Inner Circle: With their primarch missing and their battle-brothers on Caliban having betrayed them to Chaos, the Dark Angels swore to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Emperor and force the Fallen to repent or die.They decided the true story of treachery behind the destruction of Caliban must remain secret; no outsider must learn of the schism that had split the Ist Legion, or that any Dark Angels had ever turned to the service of the Ruinous Powers.Should the truth be revealed, the Dark Angels feared that they would be labelled Excommunicate Traitoris and never given a chance to redeem themselves. The senior members of the Legion formed a secret conclave -- an Inner Circle of the Legion's masters.They created an overlapping system to watch over their own battle-brothers, and also themselves. Everyone must be scrutinised for signs of corruption. Thus started a spiral of mistrust and secrecy that continues to this day.Such was the scale of the disaster of the Fall of Caliban that there could be no hiding it. Psykers across the galaxy had sensed the Warp Storm that ripped the world apart, and the titanic flash of the tempest meeting the indomitable force field surrounding the Dark Angels' fortress-monastery had blazed like a supernova.However, the Dark Angels erected a systematic cover-up of the truth, for each remaining battle-brother of the Ist Legion had taken stringent vows of unspeakable binding to never reveal what really took place on Caliban.Their story might not have held up under an intense inquiry, but it was a time of great upheaval in the Imperium and the retreating Traitor Legions were bolder near the Eye of Terror: the Night Lords, in particular, laid many ambushes that took a high toll on their Imperial pursuers.That a Warp Storm had claimed the Dark Angels' homeworld, and so many of their brethren, was but another tragedy in a deluge of grim tidings.The Dark Angels split their remaining Legion fleet in an attempt to answer the many distress calls that reached them. In the Cadian Sector they joined the Blood Angels, themselves still reeling from the loss of their Primarch Sanguinius during the Siege of Terra.Together, like vengeful angels, they drove the Traitor Marines and Daemons alike into exile. On Seption Prime, Dark Angels Terminator companies arrived just in time to provide a rearguard action, allowing the Ultramarines to extract their forces before that Plague Planet lost to the pestilential whims of Nurgle was destroyed by Exterminatus. All who fought alongside the Dark Angels lauded them as steadfast warriors, utterly dedicated to the destruction of the Emperor's enemies.Upon their return to their newly constructed mobile fortress-monastery, The Rock, the much-depleted Dark Angels found disturbing news. At the time of the Fall of Caliban, the Dark Angels thought their traitorous brethren had all been destroyed, vanquished in the Warp Storm that blossomed in the death throes of their homeworld.The Fallen had been swept into the vortex of that horrific rent in the galaxy, but the fury of the Dark Gods had not slain them. The scryings of the Legion's Librarians searched long and hard for their missing primarch and of him they could read no signs.They did, however, pick up traces of the Fallen and determined that the Traitors yet lived, although what remained of their psychic signatures were widespread, and the connections were already fading out of mindsight. |
Unforgiven - The Hunt Begins: The masters of the Ist Legion greeted this new shock with typical stoicism, despite the inner turmoil it created. On the one hand, they feared their nightmare would be revealed -- that while the Fallen lived, knowledge of their Legion's treachery against the Emperor might be spread throughout the galaxy.On the other hand, the continued existence of the Traitors offered hope, for if the Renegades could be tracked down and forced to repent, then the sins of the Legion might be absolved, washed away in the blood of the Fallen. The Grand Masters of the nascent Inner Circle swore that so long as even one of the Fallen remained alive and unrepentant, the Dark Angels would be Unforgiven, cursed by their brothers to atone for all eternity.So began the secret mission that would prove the driving force behind the Dark Angels' and their successors' actions for millennia to come. To this day, the Dark Angels and their Successor Chapters of the Unforgiven continue to wage a war of repentance to wipe this secret stain from the honour of the old Ist Legion.They can never truly rest until every one of the Fallen has been eliminated. Dark Angels hold the duty of capturing or killing the Fallen as their most important duty, superseding all other necessities.There have been cases where the Dark Angels have literally left the battlefield in the middle of combat against the Emperor's foes in order to chase down a suspected sighting of a Fallen Angel. |
Unforgiven - Second Founding: Many changes were happening within the Imperium during these darksome days. Although Horus had been defeated and his remaining Traitor Legions driven into the Eye of Terror in the Great Scouring, the High Lords of Terra and the remaining primarchs still dreaded the resurgence of Chaos.They had all recoiled in horror at the full realisation of how insidious the betrayal had been, how far across the galaxy the roots of corruption had spread. Never again could the Imperium be subjected to such widespread rebellion; drastic measures had to be undertaken.To avoid the threat of the Space Marine armies, Mankind's most elite warriors, falling under the influence of the enemy, the remaining Space Marine Legions were sub-divided into a number of smaller Chapters.Before the Horus Heresy, a Space Marine Legion might count one hundred thousand or more warriors under a single command, but under the new structure each Chapter's size was limited to only a thousand transhuman warriors.The organisation, tactics and roles of the new "Chapters" were defined in the sacred tome of tactical knowledge known as the Codex Astartes. Roboute Guilliman, the primarch of the Ultramarines, almost single-handedly wrote the Codex Astartes, which laid out in painstaking detail the order of battle for a standard Space Marine Chapter as well as the tactics required to meet almost every combat situation.These proscriptions not only lessened the risks of a single Traitor once more using the power of the Astartes to assault the Imperium, but also allowed the limited number of Space Marines remaining after the Horus Heresy to be more flexible and more spread out across the galaxy to confront Mankind's many remaining enemies.The first act of creating smaller, more versatile Chapters out of the original Space Marine Legions was known as the "Second Founding," and the new Chapters were known as Successor Chapters of the original First Founding Legions.Although autonomous, Successor Chapters naturally claimed close ties to the Chapter which retained the original name and traditions of their originating Legion, and this proved especially true with the Dark Angels. It is unknown exactly how many were created, as some have since been destroyed and the records of that time have been lost.The Dark Angels acquiesced to the order of Guilliman to split into Successor Chapters, as doing otherwise would have raised suspicion at a time when they could ill-afford any scrutiny. From the Ist Legion, they sired the Angels of Absolution, the Angels of Redemption and the Angels of Vengeance, each new Chapter led by its own Grand Master.While maintaining the facade of full autonomy, the Dark Angels' Successor Chapters regularly met, in clandestine fashion, to take their lead from the Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels Chapter -- for although they had been divided, the Astartes of the Successor Chapters too had witnessed the Fall of Caliban, and thus remained Unforgiven in the sight of the Emperor. |
Unforgiven - Organisation: The Unforgiven do not only share the secret of the Fallen's existence with their progenitors; they also share a common military organisation and order of battle that closely mirrors that of the Dark Angels' unorthodox structure.Each Unforgiven Chapter is governed by a secretive Inner Circle of officers who make use of the same titles as the Dark Angels and each usually maintains company formations that are identical in doctrine and composition, though not necessarily name, to the Dark Angels' elite Deathwing (1st) Company of Terminators and the Ravenwing (2nd) Company of highly mobile, fast attack squadrons.Because of their shared secret, all of the Unforgiven Chapters maintain an unusual level of coordination with one another as they seek out leads on their Fallen Angel targets.It is not unknown for the Supreme Grand Masters of all the Unforgiven Chapters to gather at relatively regular intervals for secret convocations on The Rock, the asteroid and mobile fortress-monastery that is all that remains of Caliban. |
Unforgiven - Notable Unforgiven Chapters: When the Space Marine Legions split into Chapters after the Horus Heresy as recounted above, the Dark Angels Legion sired at least three new Chapters, but more are rumoured to exist.Although frequently passed over in subsequent Space Marine Foundings, the Dark Angels have periodically been requested to give gene-seed to found new Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes.The Dark Angels' Successor Chapters collectively call themselves the Unforgiven, for their own Inner Circles are fully aware of the ancient Ist Legion's checkered history and they, too, seek to absolve themselves of their ancient failure.As noted, each of the Unforgiven Chapters follows the Dark Angels tactical organisation almost exactly, and maintain formations identical to the Deathwing and the Ravenwing, though they are not always named as such. The Unforgiven coordinate their actions, and it is not unknown for the Supreme Grand Masters of all the Chapters to gather for regular summit meetings on The Rock, often to discuss their progress in the hunt for the Fallen.Although duty-bound to run their Chapters autonomously, it is strongly suspected by some within the Imperium, especially the Inquisition, that the Dark Angels' Successor Chapters show too much deference to the Supreme Grand Master of their originating Chapter.It is, at least partially, this rumour of forbidden "Legion-building" that often persuades the High Lords of Terra to overlook the Dark Angels gene-seed when seeking to create new Foundings.Dark Angels - The Dark Angels were the inheritors of the Ist Legion's name, iconography, mantle and traditions. As the custodians of The Rock, the last remnant of lost Caliban in the universe, the Dark Angels are automatically looked upon as the leaders of the Unforgiven. The wishes of the Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels can sometimes be decisive in determining the course of action undertaken by the other Unforgiven, especially in the hunt for the Fallen Angels.Angels of Absolution - The Angels of Absolution have fought throughout the known galaxy, most often alongside the Dark Angels Chapter, in joint operations such as the Crusade against the Ork empire of Charadon, the Battle at Archangel VII or the bloody suppression of the Rasputin Uprisings. In doctrine and temperament, the Angels of Absolution are very close to the Dark Angels. The two Chapters' teachings are largely consistent -- the only divergence lies in the emphasis placed on the Chapter's guilt concerning the Fallen. Though it is a subtle distinction, the Angels of Absolution consider their own sins expunged by their forefathers' actions in the Fall of Caliban. Though the Angels of Absolution fear no damnation from the consequences of that Fall, they still consider themselves responsible for meting out the punishment upon the Traitors. Currently, the Angels of Absolution are wholly committed to stopping the 13th Black Crusade, and all ten companies are deployed in some fashion on those battlefields around the Eye of Terror as they seek to contain the aftereffects of Abaddon the Despoiler's latest assault upon the realm of Mankind. The Angels of Absolution have reported back to The Rock the confirmed presence of several members of the Fallen amongst the forces of Chaos that emerged from the Eye with the Despoiler.Angels of Defiance - The Angels of Defiance is a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter comprised entirely of Primaris Space Marines and raised during the Ultima Founding of ca. 999.M41.Angels of Redemption - Nothing can dissuade the Angels of Redemption from their mission to hunt down the Fallen, and it has been noted that the Chapter has, on occasion, withdrawn from a campaign in order to pursue their own undisclosed ends. It was at the height of the Defence of Gaitlinghive that the Angels of Redemption redeployed at the moment of the Orks' final assault, leaving seven brigades of Gaitlinghive militia alone to face an Orkish horde three million Greenskins strong. The Angels of Redemption were never called to account for this act, as there were no survivors to press any formal inquiry. The Angels themselves embarked upon a hunt that led them to capture a Fallen Dark Angel -- a victory, to them, worth the lives of the Gaitlinghive militia, and the population of the hive city they fought to protect. Perhaps due to this incident, and other similar events, Imperial forces have actually declined the aid of the Angels of Redemption. The consequences of their reputation have yet to emerge, but could range from Inquisitorial censure to outright excommunication, depending upon the Chapter's actions in the coming years.Angels of Vengeance - The deeds of the Angels of Vengeance are even less well-known than those of the other Unforgiven Chapters, for they shun fame and laurels, instead concentrating on their duties to the exclusion of all else. They are a grim and dour organisation, with all of their companies wearing power armour of jet black. This is a tribute to the panopoly worn by the original Dark Angels Legion, when they first set out from Terra on the Great Crusade in ca. 800.M30.Angels of Vigilance (Suspected) - The Angels of Vigilance are a monastic Chapter of Space Marines whose mysterious origins may go back to the bygone days of the Second Founding during the 31st Millennium. It is unknown from which Space Marine Legion their gene-seed was drawn, though the Angels of Vigilance themselves believe they are descended from the Dark Angels. They have stood silent vigil over the Eye of Terror as sentinels against the encroaching forces of Chaos for nearly ten millennia if the rumours about their origins are true.Blades of Vengeance - The Blades of Vengeance is an Unforgiven Chapter comprised entirely of Primaris Space Marines and raised during the Ultima Founding of ca. 999.M41. It participated in the Indomitus Crusade and the War of Beasts.Angels of Wrath - Though its Founding is unknown, the Angels of Wrath may have been created during the 10th Founding in the mid-35th Millennium, as by the 36th Millennium, they were still considered a young Chapter. During the Age of Apostasy, the seeds of the Angels of Wrath's destruction were sown due to the machinations of the insane High Lord Goge Vandire, during the Age of Apostasy. It is unknown if this Chapter still exists in the 41st Millennium.Bringers of Judgement - The Bringers of Judgment are possessed of a fanatical zeal that gives the other Unforgiven Chapters pause. When they encounter rebellion, they deem the entire world guilty. In their view, weakness in even one citizen indicates weakness in the entire population, and the punishment for weakness is death. The many atrocities they have committed have drawn the ire of the Inquisition, though this has not dissuaded them from their genocidal course of conduct.Consecrators - The Consecrators Chapter is a mystery. No record of their existence is to be found prior to the third century of the 40th Millennium. The Chapter's first appearance is in the works of the field notary Corwen Quilp, in his account of the Second Kuppukin Schism. At the height of this terrible war, Loyalist forces were surrounded by the foe when the entire Consecrators Chapter deployed in their support. Though never answering friendly transmissions, the Consecrators launched an immediate attack upon the enemy and, within six hours, the Consecrators had wiped out the schismatists' entire high command structure, breaking the back of the rebellion, and essentially winning the war. Their task complete, the Chapter withdrew, not to be seen for another three decades, when its 4th Company fought alongside the Dark Angels at the Arrulas Intervention. Though his descriptions are vague, Quilp is very specific about one element of the Consecrators' appearance -- he noted that the brethren of this Chapter bore all manner of sacred relics, and used the most ancient patterns of Imperial armour, weaponry and vehicles. It was as if, Quilp commented, the Consecrators had inherited the most revered arms of the ancient Ist Legion, preserving them lovingly, and bearing them down the ages against the foes of the Lion and the Emperor.Cowled Wardens - The Cowled Wardens' base of operations lies within the Sirikoid Belt, a part of the region known as the Tears of Piruz. Rather than a single fortress-monastery, the Chapter operates out of several hollowed-out asteroids. Nominally tasked with the purging of the savage Jehangir xenos that terrorise the region, the Chapter's secret purpose is the investigation of what the Unforgiven believe to be a large network of the Fallen in the area. Those Fallen Angels that are captured by the Cowled Wardens are consigned as prisoners to icy catacombs they have carved within a nameless asteroid of the Sirikoid Belt.Disciples of Caliban - The Founding of the Disciples of Caliban is shrouded in controversy. It is believed that Dark Angels Supreme Grand Master Anaziel made a strong request of the High Lords of Terra for a Chapter to be raised late in the 37th Millennium. Much debate followed, for it is highly unusual for a Chapter Master to make such a request, though it was eventually granted and the Disciples of Caliban were founded. Some have suggested that Anaziel must have had some sort of leverage over at least one High Lord to achieve such a thing. The Disciples' Founding gene-seed was of the highest pedigree held by the Dark Angels at the time, and scrutinised to a standard far beyond even that required by the Adeptus Terra. To this day, the purity of the Chapter's gene-seed is constantly monitored for the slightest sign of corruption or genetic degradation, and it has the most exacting standards of recruitment of any of the Unforgiven Chapters. There have been whispers that Anaziel had the Disciples of Caliban created to fulfill a specific purpose, often rumoured amongst the other Unforgiven to be for the single-minded pursuit and capture of the Renegade known as Cypher. The Disciples of Caliban are a fleet-based Chapter, which has greatly aided the rapidity with which they can traverse the Imperium. Their flagship houses great reliquaries celebrating the success of their forebears. Each company has several Relic Bearers who carry the Chapter's most sacred artefacts to war to inspire the brethren. The most precious of these relics is the Lionus Censum, an immense scroll that details the names and deeds of the Chapter's most decorated battle-brothers.Guardians of the Covenant - It is not known from what Founding the Guardians of the Covenant came, only that they too are part of the Unforgiven. Their adopted homeworld, Mortikah VII, lies near the western rim of the Imperium, and their mountain-top fortress-monastery takes the form of a mighty Imperial cathedral, its great spire piercing the clouds. The Guardians of the Covenant have fought most of their battles within Segmentum Pacificus. They are known to have spearheaded a number of Imperial Crusades into the Halo Stars and the Veiled Region. The Guardians of the Covenant gained special honours for their deeds during the Lelith Incursion, when they saved an entire Sub-sector from a particularly appalling brand of xenos subjugation. The Chapter is known for its exceptionally monastic character. True warrior-monks of the Emperor, they are assiduous in studying the teachings of the Emperor and of their primarch. Their banners, armour and the flanks of their vehicles are covered in spidery, handwritten and illuminated High Gothic text extracted from the pages of the Codex Astartes, the Requiem Angelis and many other tomes held sacred by the Adeptus Astartes.Knights of Abhorrence - In the first eight standard centuries after their Founding, the Knights of Abhorrence fought solely in the Ghoul Stars, blooding their swords with the viscera of some of the most dangerous xenos the Imperium has ever encountered. In the years since, they have patrolled the outer reaches of the Imperium, slaughtering alien horrors whilst acquiring information on the Fallen. It was they who first alerted Supreme Grand Master Azrael to the events in the Warp rift near the Somnium Stars after the escape of Luther from The Rock. Rumours grow of a dire threat mounting. Reports from this isolated region of space suggest that the Fallen are amassing there in unprecedented numbers. This mustering is a grave threat that the Chapters of the Unforgiven will not ignore. The Chapter also maintains the secret 57th Protocol with the Deathwatch, which sends its battle-brothers to serve with the Chamber Militant of the Alien Hunters.Knights of the Crimson Order - Almost nothing is known about the Knights of the Crimson Order in Imperial records save that they exist and that they too are numbered amongst the ranks of the Unforgiven.Lions Sable (Destroyed) - The ill-fated Lions Sable Chapter was the last of the Second Founding Successor Chapters of the Dark Angels. During the unspoken period of history known as the Forgotten Wars (580.M31-632.M32), the Lions Sable were completely annihilated during a disastrous campaign into the Eye of Terror whilst in pursuit of the notorious Fallen known as Cypher. Their subsequent fate and entire Chapter history was deliberately destroyed by the Dark Angels. Ironically, by the 33rd Millennium, when the great and holy document known as the Apocrypha of Davio was written in an attempt to list all of the known Second Founding Chapters, the name Lions Sable had already been lost.Penitent Blades - The Penitent Blades hail from a world with a landmass made up of thousands of small landmasses suspended kilometres in the air above acidic oceans. How this phenomenon occurs is a mystery, but it has ensured the Penitent Blades are aerial combat experts. The Penitent Blades' 2nd Company has four oversized squads providing gunship pilots, rather than the two in most other Unforgiven Chapters.Persecutors of Darkness - Almost nothing is known about the Persecutors of Darkness in Imperial records save that they exist and that they too are numbered amongst the Unforgiven.Prime Absolvers - Chapter Master Dagiel Harn of the Prime Absolvers, a Chapter comprised entirely of Primaris Marines raised during the Ultima Founding, first learned of the existence of the Fallen from Supreme Grand Master Azrael himself. A headstrong warrior, he saw no reason for his Chapter brethren to feel the responsibility borne by many of the other Unforgiven successors. To Dagiel Harn the Fallen are no different than other Traitors. Though he established an Inner Circle for his Chapter and specialised companies (reminiscent of the Dark Angels' Deathwing and Ravenwing), he sees his Chapter's mission as hunting all the Emperor's foes equally.Star Phantoms (Suspected) - The Star Phantoms is a Chapter of the 23rd Founding created in the early 38th Millennium from an unknown genetic origin. It took part in the final days of the Badab War and the final assault upon the Astral Claws' homeworld of Badab Primaris, helping bring the war to a successful conclusion. Some Imperial scholars of the Adeptus Astartes suspect that the Star Phantoms were created from the gene-seed of the Dark Angels, which, if true, would be unusual, not only because the Astartes of the Chapter do not suffer from any known mutations, but because the Dark Angels' gene stock is rarely utilised by the Mechanicus for new Foundings. The Dark Angels themselves deny the lineage, while the Star Phantoms regard any such enquiries as impertinent.The Unnamed - The Unnamed are a successor of the Dark Angels created solely from Primaris Space Marines during the Ultima Founding of ca. 999.M41. |
Unhallowed, The - Unhallowed, The: The Unhallowed are a warband of Chaos Space Marines. They were once a Loyalist Chapter of Space Marines of unknown origin and Founding, known as the Invictors. They were corrupted after entering the Eye of Terror in 321.M37 as part of the Imperial Abyssal Crusade. It is unknown what they endured during their sojourn into the Eye, but by the time they made their way back into realspace, they had become the warband of Chaos Space Marines known as The Unhallowed. |
Unhallowed, The - Abyssal Crusade: Following the Ecclesiarchal Purges of 321.M37, a dozen star systems were engulfed by Warp Storm Dionys, its echoes rippling along the spiral arms of the galaxy as it raged through the Empyrean. Records of mutation and Chaos Cultist activity quadrupled overnight. Worse yet, it was not only the citizens who were affected by the sudden influx of Chaos. Many of the Space Marine Chapters with homeworlds affected by the Warp Storm found that the secret imperfections in their gene-seed were writ large upon their new recruits, giving rise to a wave of disturbing manifestations both physical and psychological. The Invictors were one such Loyalist Chapter of Astartes that had been affected by these Warp Storms.When the Ecclesiarchy heard of this sinister tum of events, Saint Basillius the Elder demanded that all those Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes whose homeworlds had been touched by the Warp Storm be rendered unto his judgement. Such was the elder's influence with the High Lords of Terra that within a standard year this had come to pass. After a series of stringent tests and prognostications, hundreds of Chapters were deemed unaffected by the Warp Storm. No less than thirty were found wanting. The Judged, as these fallen Chapters came to be known, volunteered for a redemptive Penitent Crusade. The most militant of their number demanded the right to purify their tainted flesh in the fires of battle, to make a noble end from tragic misfortune. To the surprise of his closest advisors, Saint Basillius agreed to this proposal. He saw it fitting to send the accused into the Eye of Terror, taking the fight for the Imperium's future to the Daemon Worlds inhabited by the Traitor Marines.A representative from each of the doomed Chapters held an emergency Council of Dismay to discuss the proposed Crusade. After scant hours of debate, they acquiesced to Basillius' demands, for they believed that martyrdom was preferable to an existence of suspicion and doubt. The last few days of 321.M37 saw a solemn procession of Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges pass through the Cadian Gate into the Eye of Terror, relay systems dormant and heraldic colours obscured by black mag-plates. One by one, the Chapters of The Judged disappeared into the iridescent dust nebulae that surrounded the Eye. As the massive Space Marine flotilla entered the Eye of Terror, they were set upon by a massive Chaos warfleet. The resultant battle was so fierce that the ships of The Judged were forced to retreat and were scattered to the furthest corners of the Eye.Chapter after Chapter fell to the perils of the Eye, for the Abyssal Crusade had entered a hell from which very few emerge unchanged. The true account of what occurred within the Eye to the Invictors is unknown, but most of the tales of the Chapters of The Judged ended in tragedy and sorrow. By the time they reemerged from the Eye many standard centuries later, the Invictors were no more, for they had become the Chaos Space Marine warband known as The Unhallowed, wholly dedicated to the service of the Ruinous Powers. |
Unhallowed, The - Warband Colours: The Unhallowed warband's colours are not listed in current Imperial records. |
Unhallowed, The - Warband Badge: The Unhallowed warband's badge is not listed in current Imperial records. |
Unification Wars - Unification Wars: The Unification Wars, also known as the Wars of Unification, the Unity Wars, The Unification or just Unity, were a series of conflicts fought on Terra beginning in the 29th Millennium at the end of the Age of Strife and lasting until 712.M30.It was during these campaigns that the Emperor of Mankind first publicly revealed Himself to a desperate Humanity and began His conquest of Old Earth to unify the techno-barbarian states and tribes that dominated the sacred homeworld of Mankind and forge the foundation of the Imperium of Man. |
Unification Wars - Origins: By the late 29th Millennium, it had been nearly three hundred Terran centuries since Humanity first left the polluted, used-up carcass of what was once known as Earth for the unknown bounties and perils of the stars beyond the world of its birth.In those forgotten early days of the Age of Technology it is now unknown what enemies and trials Humanity had to overcome but overcome them we did, and in doing so Human colonies spread across the galaxy so that Mankind was scattered across a million worlds and found treasures and horrors uncounted.In the heights of those times, lost now to all but supposition and myth, Humanity made themselves as unto gods -- their sciences and arts able to remake planets in the image of remembered Old Earth, harness the power of the stars, and fashion servants from clay and iron and give them counterfeit-life to do their bidding.Thus was the Dark Age of Technology forged and for Terran millennia it reigned, until almost at a stroke the dominion of Humanity fell and was undone in a maelstrom of brutality and ignorance and untold billions died, their screams unanswered and unheard.During the turbulent era known later as the Age of Strife or by some as "Old Night," the Sol System and Old Earth, or Terra as it is now known, and the nearby star systems that had been colonised by Humanity during the Age of Technology were effectively cut off from interstellar travel or communication with each other.This was due to the massive Warp storms that swept the galaxy as the Immaterium was roiled by the millennia-long gestation of the Chaos God Slaanesh and the turbulence that marked the decay of the Aeldari Empire before its Fall. During this dark time, Terra sometimes held sway over the Sol System, while at other times the rulers of Mars or Luna were dominant. The different settled worlds of the system found themselves constantly at war.During this long, 5,000-standard-year-period of anarchy, fear and violence, Old Earth's once unified planetary government had completely broken down and been divided into dozens of warring, backwards states and tribes of so-called "techno-barbarians." Continuous warfare raged across the surface of Terra for 2,500 standard years, beginning in the middle centuries of the 27th Millennium.Across the galaxy things were little better, as the Human colony worlds, bereft of central authority or protection, and with the web of economic support and supply that had maintained the threads of Human interstellar civilisation cut, fell into anarchy and war. Human civilisation was torn apart as local factions and pocket empires fought for control in the shattered realm while others, utterly cut off from aid, succumbed to the horrors of planet-wide famine, insanity and worse -- the perils of the Warp.The existence of Warp creatures and the dangers they posed to the Human mind were then barely understood. On worlds with large concentrations of newly-emergent Human psykers the entities from beyond were able to breach the barrier between the Immaterium and corporeal reality and it cannot be known or guessed how many worlds were ravaged or swallowed whole by their incursions.As Human interstellar civilisation fragmented, hundreds of alien species and enemies unknown seized their chance for revenge on Humanity for its past conquests, or to plunder unprotected worlds and enslave their populations. Hundreds of Human-inhabited star systems were sacked and ravaged, their peoples slaughtered, mutilated or stolen. Those that survived the alien onslaught rapidly reverted to barbarism, stripped of civilisation, knowledge and culture in the raw battle to simply endure.Humanity, standing on the brink of total annihilation and endless night, gathered round its children. Alone and beset by internal strife, famine and plague, under incessant attack by aliens and facing the peril of Warp incursions, the Human worlds that survived were pitiable shadows of what they had once been in an age when Mankind's dead far outnumbered its living.For those few with time to spare thought to such matters it seemed as if there were no hope and no help -- the end times were at hand -- a slow bitter decay into destruction was all that any could see as Humanity's future, and no force imaginable could save Mankind and free it from its hellish bondage. But they would be proved wrong. |
Unification Wars - Rise of the Emperor: During the Age of Strife, Terra, the birth world of Humanity, had descended into savagery and horror the equal of any. Little remained of the once sophisticated civilisation of Old Earth's glorious past as the centre of a growing Human interstellar civilisation marked by advanced science, high culture and wondrous technologies.Techno-barbarian warlords and their warrior hordes continuously fought over the planet, which had become little more than a massive battleground for their wars of attrition. They made use of chemical, biological and even thermonuclear weapons of mass destruction, and slowly transformed the cradle of Mankind into a battered, post-apocalyptic wasteland across most of its scarred surface.Long before left parlous and polluted, generations of war made the planet a wasteland punctuated by fortified holdfasts built amid the wreckage of lost civilisations, and its inhabitants a mass of degenerate, feral nomads.Insane prophets, cyber-augmented butcher-kings, vivisector-warlords and religious demagogues led the warring tribes of Old Earth, and the world was wracked by never-ending conflict as one tyrant displaced another.Petty empires rose and disintegrated; tribes formed, were destroyed and re-formed as diminishing, brutalised shadows of lost glories and forgotten triumphs. Uncounted billions died unknown and unremembered, while whispered names such as the "Unspeakable King" and the "Seven Neverborn" left legends to terrify generations to come. Anarchy and bloodshed was lord over all.It was against this backdrop of oppression, violence and casual brutality that the Emperor of Mankind first revealed Himself to the people of Terra beginning in the 29th Millennium as a warlord more powerful than any other. In secret, He had been planning for this moment in history for millennia, ever since the Age of Strife had fractured what remained of the ancient Human federation which had once stretched across the galaxy.With His massive army of genetically-enhanced warriors who comprised the first units of the Imperial Army and would serve as the prototypes for the later development of the Space Marines, the Emperor began His conquest of Terra with the intent to reunite the warring techno-barbarian nations into a unified planetary government.But the Emperor's true power lay in His rationality and foresight, and His mastery of science was as unequalled as His might as a warrior, although few suspected the true range of His powers and abilities. The Emperor conquered great swathes of Old Earth and those that would not join Him He destroyed, but His was a conquest not merely born of blood and ambition, His was a higher calling. Where His dominion reigned the idols of fear and blind faith were cast down, and order and rationality were raised up in their place.He intended to use the unified Terra as the springboard from which to begin His reconquest of the galaxy under the aegis of an Imperium of Man dedicated to the Imperial Truth of progress and reason.Brutal rulers such as the warlord Kalagann of Ursh, Cardinal Tang of the Yndonesic Bloc, and the most infamous of all, the half-mad, half-genius Narthan Dume, the Tyrant of the Pan-Pacific Empire, would all fall by the wayside.Of particular note was the Ninth Battle of Xozer fought by the Emperor's armies against Ursh in 992.M29. In the Nordafrik Conclaves inexplicable ephemeral phenomenon of psychic origin were encountered during the battle where Kalagann, the techno-barbarian warlord of Ursh, was finally slain. The kingdom of Ursh was then brought to heel by the Emperor's forces.Once unleashed, the armies of the Emperor swept all before them like wheat before the harvester's scythe until all the techno-barbarian warlords had either been conquered outright or had agreed through diplomacy to become subservient to the Emperor's will. |
Unification Wars - Thunder Warriors: During this time the Emperor created a number of military organisations, such as the Imperial Army, which would become the nucleus of the armed forces that would support his Legiones Astartes and his reconquest of the Human-settled galaxy.Amongst the early units that saw action during the Unification Wars were such venerable regiments as the Geno Five-Two Chiliad, which would become one of the oldest and most respected regiments within the later Imperial Army alongside similar veteran units remembered as the "Old Hundred." Like many of these early regiments, the geno-soldiers were created through the use of some of the Emperor's sophisticated genetic engineering techniques, developed in His laboratories beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains and among the Selenar gene-wrights on Luna.The most elite of this first generation of genetically-engineered supersoldiers were known as the Thunder Warriors, the Legio Cataegis in High Gothic, men who were physically stronger and more formidable in combat than even the later Space Marines, though they were engineered to be vicious killers and lacked many of the more noble aspects of the later Astartes as well as their tremendously long lifespans. The Thunder Warriors were engineered to be the means to an end and were never intended to be integrated into the Emperor's new realm after Unity had been achieved.Through genetic engineering and selection the standard geno-soldiers displayed many of the characteristics of the perfect Human warrior -- they were physically more resilient, stronger and capable of taking more damage than any of their unaltered techno-barbarian foes. These early genetically-engineered Imperial Army regiments would go on to continue serving the Emperor after the conclusion of the Unification Wars.These regiments would eventually be referred to as the "Old Hundred," and would form the core of the initial military force that embarked upon the Emperor's galaxy-spanning Great Crusade in ca. 798.M30 beside His newly-created Space Marine Legions.The Emperor accepted the deaths of the many innocents that resulted from the conquest of Terra with great remorse in order to achieve the greater good of unifying Humanity and protecting it from the manifest predations of the Warp and predatory xenos of the galaxy.Unimaginably large, full-scale battles during the Unity campaign would last for solar weeks on end, with body counts in the millions that sundered mountains and split entire continents. Future Imperial scholars would later dismiss these victories as lurid hyperbole, refusing to believe that such clashes of arms could possibly have been fought, but indeed they were.The Imperial historical chronicles tell of the last battle of the Unification Wars, known as the Battle of Mount Ararat, which was fought in the Kingdom of Urartu. During this final battle the remaining Thunder Warriors were slain to a man. The chronicles recorded that the famed Thunder Warrior Arik Taranis, known as the "Lightning Bearer," raised the Banner of Lightning at the final declaration of Unity which established the rule of the Emperor of Mankind over the entirety of Terra before dying of his wounds. It was a measure of the Thunder Warriors' heroic sacrifice that they had all died to win the last and greatest victory for the Emperor.Unfortunately, this heroic version of events was completely false. The Thunder Warriors had not died to a man during the final battle of the Unification Wars. They had been brutally culled from existence by the Emperor's own servants on His orders. The Thunder Warriors had been betrayed by their own creator, a terrible secret skillfully concealed from the people of the Imperium for more than 10,000 Terran years.But there were reasons for this betrayal. The Thunder Warriors were not like the Astartes who would follow them; they had been created solely for war and were not well-suited to any other activities. Once peace came to Terra, the Thunder Warriors would inevitably pose a risk to the new state's stability through their very existence and the flaws that had resulted in much mental instability and early deaths due to metabolic collapse among their ranks.The Thunder Warriors had been enhanced as mature, adult men and their bodies often rebelled against the genetic changes only a few short Terran decades after the transformation. All this meant that the Thunder Warriors could not be allowed to survive the conflict they had been created to fight.At first the Emperor simply did not replace their numbers as they fell to battle or insanity, but then decided to take more active measures. According to Arik Taranis, the final culling of the Thunder Warriors took place following the victory of the last battle of Unity, and was carried out by the Legio Custodes, the only soldiers in the Imperial armies capable of defeating the Thunder Legion.Another source claims that even before the Unification Wars had ended, the Thunder Warriors at last realised that their creator had cursed them with short lifespans as a result of their imperfect genetic augmentations, and turned upon Him for what they saw as His betrayal. It was a cadre of several hundred Custodians, even then believed to have been led by the legendary Constantin Valdor, and accompanied by several thousand prototype Astartes of the Ist Legion of the newborn Space Marines, that stood in the Emperor's defence, carrying out a merciless culling of the obsolete and rebellious gene-soldiers.Though some Thunder Warriors successfully escaped the cull, however it happened, the vast majority of those who survived the Unification Wars died at the hands of their own allies. |
Unification Wars - Reconstruction: By the time the Unification Wars began, the Human homeworld's population had suffered through the horrors of the Age of Strife, a period punctuated by constant warfare and the use of weapons of mass destruction that had badly damaged the environment of Old Earth. Under the Emperor's rulership, Humanity would be restored, intellectually, spiritually and physically to the heights it had once known, and the shackles of darkness cast aside.The war continued without relent until finally all of Old Earth's techno-barbarian factions, nations and fractured city-states pledged the Emperor fealty and at last Terra was unified for the first time in many millennia.It was not enough merely to secure military victory, however -- the betterment and restoration of Humanity required more. So it was that even before victory on Terra had been achieved the Emperor and those learned souls He had gathered to Him started to experiment with genetics.This was done first and foremost to stabilise the extant population of Terra and to recreate the race of Humanity as it was before the radiation storms and generations of viral and alchemical weapons had wracked the planet. Secondly, the creation of genetically augmented transhuman fighters that had begun with the Thunder Warriors who had fought in the Emperor's armies continued apace into newer, more powerful creations, ultimately leading to the genesis of what would later become known as the Space Marine Legions.But in truth, the Emperor's greatest work was nothing less than the purging of Mankind's own genome, and its restoration to a baseline of what could be considered truly "Human" as that term had been defined before the Age of Strife. The galaxy would belong to Humanity, but it would be the same Humanity that the Emperor had loved and served for most of His long life.Alongside this ascendancy would come a rebirth of civilisation and government on Terra with the Emperor founding an all-embracing civil administration to order and rebuild His Throneworld, and concentrate such learning and knowledge that could be salvaged from the dust of ages in houses of learning and education. And the unification of Terra would only be the start.Once the Unification Wars were completed in 712.M30, the Emperor forged a new unified planetary government under His leadership. He next journeyed to Mars and met with the tech-adepts of the Cult Mechanicus.In return for the use of the ancient Mechanicum's vast manufactoria, the deployment of its Titan Legions, Knights, Skitarii Legions and the use of its orbital shipyards to construct the weaponry and starships He would need for the Great Crusade, the Emperor agreed to grant the Mechanicum complete political autonomy on Mars and its other Forge Worlds as well as an exemption to the atheism required by the Imperial Truth.This agreement, known as the Treaty of Mars (the Treaty of Olympus to the Mechanicum), marks the true foundation of the Imperium of Man in the alliance between Terra and Mars. |
Unification Wars - Techno-Barbarian States: The following is a list of the notable, techno-barbarian, pre-Unification states that existed on Terra during the Unification Wars and their locations in regard to Old Earth's geography.It should be noted that records from this period are highly fragmentary and uncertain and the information below may contain multiple errors or misunderstandings. |
Unification Wars - Adedeji: The Adedeji were a dynasty of techno-barbarian warlords who ruled over the northeastern region of Afrik (Africa). After their defeat by the forces of the Emperor they were reduced to a lowly status, and many of their former ruling class were reduced to serving as menial labourers in Terra's manufactoria. |
Unification Wars - Achaemenid Empire (Southwest Asia): The Achaemenid Empire was a techno-barbarian state situated in the Middle East of Old Earth in the area of the pre-1st Millennium Persian Empire once ruled by a dynasty of the same name, centred roughly in the ancient nation-state of Iran.A monarchy, the population of the empire was divided up into tribal factions that apparently possessed a culture of truth and discourse unusual for the peoples of Terra in this period.The Achaemenid Empire is noted as being made up of "wealthy tribes" who were quick to ally with the Emperor's nascent Imperium during the Unification, and therefore avoided the horrors of atomic war and invasion by the Emperor's superior armies of genetically-engineered soldiers like the Thunder Warriors.In addition, their genomes were uncontaminated by the inherited flaws and viral defects of other tribes caused by centuries of exposure to lingering radiation and biological warfare vectors, making them good candidates for recruitment into the newborn Space Marine Legions after the Unification was completed. Many early candidates were recruited from this state to become the first Astartes of the Thousand Sons Legion.The Achaemenids possessed a superstitious belief in the mystical power of their ancestors; emblems of Dhul-Qarnayn, the greatest of the Achaemenid kings, were often used as charms against harm by the population.Ahzek Ahriman and his twin brother Ohrmuzd Ahriman were both sons of the Achaemenid Empire's royal class. |
Unification Wars - Akkad (Central Asia): Akkad was a techno-barbarian state cruled by a monarch known as the Great King of Akkad who fought against the forces of the Emperor in Central Asia alongside his genetically-engineered slave soldiers known as the Udug Hul. The Udug Hul's bodies possessed poisoned blood and had a physical strength greater than 10 un-enhanced Human warriors, which made them the terrors of the Upper Asiatic Basin.This strength allowed the Udug Hul to long resist the advance of the Emperor's armies, until in 668.M30 when He led the newborn I Legion of the Legiones Astartes against them and their Great King. Though the Udug Hal numbered 200,000 gene-forged warriors at that time and faced merely 10,000 Astartes of the I Legion, as well as contingents of four other early Space Marine Legions, the Udug Hul were utterly defeated at the Battle of Samerkend. At the that battle's end, the few surviving Udug Hul were left scattered and leaderless, as the Great King of Akkad had been killed as well. |
Unification Wars - Albia (British Isles): Albia, sometimes called "Old Albia," was a techno-barbarian state of Old Earth during the Unification Wars. Bordering Northern Atlan and known for its ancient warlike clans, the regions of Albia consisted of towering, soot-blackened castram-cities.Evidence suggests that Albia is located in the area of the British Isles. Albia was described as bordering Northern Atlan (potentially referring to the North Atlantic Basin) and engaged in frequent wars with the Pan-Pacific Empire, itself far across the ancient Atlantic basin, though by this time the Atlantic Ocean had dried up. Furthermore, Albia was noted to have contained "towering soot-blackened castram-cities," which, although most likely ubiquitous across Terra in this period, evokes imagery of the smog-choked industrial cities of Victorian Britain. Albia was also said to have made use of "Ironside Clan" soldiers in their wars against the Emperor. However, most conclusively, it was said that the great dramaturges, "Shakespire" (William Shakespeare) and "Marlowe" (Christopher Marlowe) hailed from Old Albia, providing clear evidence that Old Albia was indeed some portion of the British Isles.Albia is known to have clashed frequently with the Pan-Pacific Empire when it was under the rule of the Unspeakable King and was aided by the forces of the Emperor in this conflict. However, the Albians eventually refused to kneel before the Emperor and met His Thunder Warriors with their own proto-Dreadnoughts and armored Ironside Clan soldiers.In battle after battle, the Albians managed to hold back the Emperor's forces but only at a staggering cost to the defenders. As a result, this techno-barbarian state presented a considerable challenge for the forces of the Emperor during the Unification Wars, so much so that the Emperor, impressed by the determined, brutal resistance of the state's defenders, decided to end the fighting and take Albia through negotiations.Admitting the martial temper and indomitable spirit of His foe, the Emperor called for a ceasefire and sought a diplomatic solution. The Emperor appeared before the Albian clan lords unarmed and clothed in white and crimson, speaking of His vision for a unified Humanity. He offered the Albians glory among the stars and redemption. To the shock of many, the warlords of Albia, seeing the Emperor as different from past tyrants, accepted His terms and soon became one of the most zealous supporters of Unification.Once Albia was under His sovereignty the Emperor saw the Albians as suitable gene-recruits for the nascent XIVth Legion (the Dusk Raiders). Indeed, such was the suitability of the warriors of these ancient clans for induction into the ranks of the Space Marines that recruits drawn from their castram-cities and Ironside Clans were also incorporated into the ranks of the First Founding VIIIth and Xth Legions, the Night Lords and the Iron Hands, respectively.However, these Legions made use of Albian recruits to a lesser degree than the XIVth Legion, who were by blood and culture shaped by the traditions of the warlords of Albia as well as the hand of the Emperor. |
Unification Wars - Albyon (British Isles): Albyon was a polity on Old Earth during the Age of Strife and the Unification Wars, presumably located in what had once been the British Isles, and was known in ancient times as Albion. It may have been a reference to the techno-barbarian state of Albia, also located in the British Isles, under a different name.Its ruler, the tyrannical Uilleam the Red, was defeated by the Emperor's forces and imprisoned in the dungeon of Khangba Marwu in the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains. |
Unification Wars - Atlan: Atlan was a techno-barbarian state ruled by a monarch known as the "Ur-queen," who was slain by the Legio Custodes during one of the battles of the Unification Wars. |
Unification Wars - Boeotia: Boeotia was an area of Terra mentioned in ancient Imperial records as having held out against full Unification for a considerable time. While the government of Boeotia tacitly recognised the Emperor's dominance over the rest of Terra, the ruling monarchy of Boeotia used all manner of diplomacy in order to avoid losing power and its independence.In a show of great patience and benevolence, the Emperor allowed the ruling dynasty of Boeotia -- the Yeselti -- to carry on in a semi-autonomous state for over 150 standard years, with the intention that they would integrate themselves into the government of Imperial Terra at their own speed and with as much dignity as possible.Instead, House Yeselti clung to their independence until the Imperial Army was forced to invade the province and the Thousand Sons Space Marine Legion was ordered to crush the rebellious state. Boeotia was known both for the presence of a relatively heavy concentration of industry within its borders and the existence of an ancient buried shrine to the gods of an earlier age. |
Unification Wars - Britonnica (British Isles): Britonnica was a small island state located in what was once known as the British Isles. It may have been a reference to the techno-barbarian state of Albia under a different name. |
Unification Wars - Ethnarchy of the Caucasus Wastes (Caucasus Peninsula): The Ethnarchy of the Caucasus Wastes, als known simply as the Ethnarchy, was a techno-barbarian state located in the Caucasus Peninsula of Europa. Its ruler, known as the Ethnarch of the Caucasus Wastes, was defeated by the forces of the Emperor and imprisoned in the Imperial prison in the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains known as Khangba Marwu, "The Vault." The primary Imperial force responsible for this outcome was the early XVIIIth Legion of Space Marines, later known to history as the Salamanders.Although it is entirely likely that the transhuman warriors of the XVIIIth Legion saw action before their assault on the Caucasus Wastes, the records of these engagements being either deliberately lost, deleted or sealed at the highest level, the first open battle honour recorded for the then-as yet unmatched XVIIIth Legion was the Assault of the Tempest Galleries during the overthrow of the Ethnarch of the Caucasus Wastes on Terra. It would also prove to be one of the most famous early campaigns for the Legion.Even though it occurred long before the XVIIIth Legion's reunification with their Primarch Vulkan on Nocturne, this conflict set its seal upon the nature of the Legion and had a profound influence that remains to this day. The conquest of the Caucasus Wastes was one of the last great battles of the Unification Wars that would see the Emperor as the undisputed master of Terra, but victory did not prove easy. The mutated eugenicist-oligarchs who ruled the Caucasus Wastes presented the Emperor's forces with one of the most difficult challenges they faced in open warfare. While few in number compared to the zealots of the Yndonesic Bloc or the savage warbands of Ursh, the Caucasus Ethnarchy's power was based on scores of relic-technologies and the terrible weapons in their possession which dated back to before the Age of Strife, while its military forces ranged from the armoured, gene-augmented "Ur-Khasis" troops, roughly analogous to the Emperor's Thunder Warriors, to narcotically-enslaved covens of psykers.The Ethnarchy's strongholds were concealed kilometres deep beneath the hollowed-out mountains of the Wastes and shielded from attack from above by near-impregnable power-filed webs. An attempt by the Imperial forces to take the Ethnarchy's mountain-strongholds by storm earlier in the Unification Wars had met with bloody defeat, with the loss of almost 10,000 Thunder Warriors and more than a million other casualties, but had seen the Caucasus Wastes contained and isolated thereafter.So it was that when the hour of the Emperor's vengeance came around, nothing was to be left to chance. The forces of six entire proto-Legions of the Legiones Astartes were mustered for the final assault on the Caucasus Wastes, along with the massed forces of the Legio Custodes, with the Emperor Himself to lead them, and countless other tributary armies, mechanised battalions and warrior bands beneath the eagle-and-lightning Raptor Imperialis banner of Unification.But, of all of these, the first thrust upon which all else would depend the Emperor entrusted to the nascent XVIIIth Legion. Although the decision to utilise what they considered to be a largely unknown and untested unit in so vital a role was questioned by many within the Imperial command, the Emperor's will was obeyed. The XVIIIth would carry the assault, utilising scores of freshly created gigantic "Termite" subterranean boring machines fitted with recently acquired technology from Mars. The full force of the proto-Legion, some 20,000 Astartes strong at this juncture, was committed to what was widely believed to be a suicide mission to destroy the vast geo-thermal furnaces which provided power for the Ethnarchy's impregnable defences. These were housed far below even the subterranean strongholds, and known of only through ancient legend, in a hundred-kilometre-long string of vast, artificially-created caverns known as the Tempest Galleries for the incessant storms of flame and electromagnetic force which bled from the ancient and little-understood relic machineries.The XVIIIth Legion's power armour had been specially-modified for the extreme conditions they were to face, and was camouflaged in striated patterns of sulphur yellow and sable black. Once they were ready, the XVIIIth saluted their Emperor and calmly mounted the untested Martian war engines of the Mechanicum and pierced the dark earth and rock at the edge of the Wastes, disappearing into a deadly and unknown world. Soon all signals were lost, and not even the power of the Imperial psykers could penetrate the turbulent depths to maintain contact with the Space Marine assault forces.Hours stretched into solar days and days became solar weeks, and nothing was heard from the assault force while the vast army of the Emperor waited in immediate readiness for the grand attack, and no sign or signal came. Pressed by His commanders, it is said the Emperor silenced them and replied; "They shall not fail me, they will return from the fire, thus it shall ever be." Reports claim that moments after the Emperor spoke, great tremors shook the region, their turbulence felt as far away as Gorodak and the Jade Citadel of Hangol.In their wake, the power-webs that had for so long shielded the Caucasus Wastes failed and the full force of the Emperor's wrath fell upon them to their utter destruction. The last Ethnarch of the Caucasus was dragged in chains to the Imperial prison of Khangba Marwu and the buried secrets that had been his strength were taken by the new, now uncontested Master of Terra. Of the fate of the XVIIIth Legion nothing was known until the closing days of the campaign when, far from the Wastes, a long-dormant volcano near Klostzatz shattered and one of the Termite machines hauled itself from the rubble carrying just over a thousand survivors from the XVIIIth Legion. |
Unification Wars - Europa (South Central Europe): Europa was a powerful techno-barbarian state composed of the territory of much of south-central Continental Europa, including the Mediterranean Sea lands. It should not be confused with the continent of Europa, which was home to many more techno-barbarian states like Franc and Jermani during this period than just the one that shared its name. |
Unification Wars - Franc (France): The lands of Franc were based in the territory of Western Europa, largely in the region of the ancient nation-state once called France. The people of Franc were known as the Frank, a fractious people before the Unification that did not take kindly to invaders.Havuleq D'agross was the last independent ruler of the Franc, leading a rebellion against Imperial rule and killing the Emperor's appointed territorial governor. His rebellion began in the city of Avelroi, but rapidly spread until he could muster a force of 50,000 rebels, which was largely composed of unskilled militia.They eventually fought the Emperor's forces at the Battle of Gaduare, a line of high hills by the ruins of Gaduare Bastion. There, they were wiped out by a force of less than 5,000 Imperial troops, including an early generation of Space Marines from the Dusk Raiders Legion (the name of the Death Guard Legion before the rediscovery of the Primarch Mortarion). |
Unification Wars - Gyptus (Egypt): Gyptus was a small techno-barbarian state located in the northeastern portion of the continent of Afrik (North Africa) in the territory of the ancient nation of Egypt. |
Unification Wars - Himalazia (Himalayan Mountains): Himalazia was the name given to the towering mountains of what had been known in ancient times as the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau, the greatest mountain range on Old Earth. Located well above twenty-thousand feet, the air here was too thin for any unaugmented Humans to breathe without mechanical aid. This isolated, frigid place had been chosen by the ancient order known as the Sigillites as the place where they had delved their great, hidden fortress complex. Within its subterranean chambers the Sigillites sought to preserve what they could of Humankind's once rich technological and cultural heritage throughout the long centuries of anarchy that marked the Age of Strife on Terra.It was from here that the last of their number, Malcador the Sigillite, went out into the wider world in the late 29th Millennium and discovered the man who would one day be known as the Emperor of Mankind. Seeking to aid the Emperor in His great work of reuniting Humanity and bringing an end to the lawlessness and horrors of Old Night, Malcador offered the Sigillite's fortress to the Emperor as the place from which He could begin His grand quest.The great mountains of Himalazia served as the Emperor's original base on Terra from which the Unifications Wars would be launched. Deep beneath these mountains, in the former Sigillite complex which would be greatly expanded and would one day be called the Imperial Dungeons, the Emperor established a vast number of gene-laboratories and other areas for scientific and technological research. It was here that the Emperor and the scientists and technicians He gathered who comprised the Imperium's Biotechnical Division created the primarchs and then the gene-seed of the Space Marine Legions.Eventually, late in the Unification Wars, the entire chain of great peaks was transformed over the course of solar decades into the massive fortress and Imperial capital city known as the Imperial Palace. This construction required the deployment of advanced terraforming techniques, including the use of atmospheric processors, to transform the plateau's climate so that it was warm enough and oxygen-rich enough for normal Humans to survive there. |
Unification Wars - Hy Brasil (Brazil): Hy Brasil was a powerful techno-barbarian state centred in the former territory of ancient Brazil on the continent of Sud Merica (South America). Hy Brasil was considered the most powerful of all the Sud Merican cantons. During the Unification Wars it was ruled by the despot Dalmoth Kyn, "one of the last tyrants to hold out against the Emperor's forces." Once he was defeated by the Imperial Army, rule of Hy Brasil passed to Lord Pherom Sichar, a direct descendant of Kyn. Through the direct intervention of Malcador the Sigillite, it was determined that Sichar would never have a seat on the Council of Terra that preceded the establishment of the Senatorum Imperialis as the rulers of a united Terra and the Imperium.Hy Brasil was ruled from the Planalto, a massive hive city cluster or conurbation. Its government was based in the hive city of Sao Paol. The hives of the Planalto drew their power from a series of massive Plasma Reactors buried in the heart of the main conurbation, whose heat exchange processes meant that the reactor district was caked in thick sheet-ice all year round, forming a gigantic frost park 30 kilometres square. This area was known as the "Winter Fields" and was used for recreation by local inhabitants.Although controlled by the Lord of Hy Brasil, the area (at least following the Unification) also possessed a bicameral parliament. The parliament was divided into upper and lower chambers and was located at the Parliament House on the edge of the Winter Fields in Sao Paol. The building was described as "a splendid structure built from filaments of silvered steel and pylons of a pale stone."The military forces of Hy Brasil were known as "the Dracos" and were allowed to maintain their existence even after the establishment of the Imperial government. The Dracos were known to wear green scaled armour. Elements drawn from the Dracos may well have made up the regiment called the "Ouranti Draks," an Imperial Army regiment that campaigned with the Word Bearers Legion during the Great Crusade. They are described as "swarthy-skinned fighters exclusively recruited from the desiccated jungle regions of Sud Merica" and wore scaled cloaks and reptilian-styled helmets. |
Unification Wars - Jermani (Germany): Jermani was a small techno-barbarian state composed of the territory of the ancient central Europan nation of Germany. |
Unification Wars - Maulland Sen Confederacy: The Maulland Sen Confederacy was a techno-barbarian state based in Nordyc (Scandinavia) that unwittingly served the Dark Gods of Chaos by engaging in cannibalistic Human sacrifice and forbidden genetic manipulation. The state was crushed by the forces of the Custodian Guard and the Thunder Warriors in the Battle of Maulland Sen. Its ruler, the Tyrant-Prophet of Maulland Sen, was said to have been beheaded by a Custodian in the aftermath of the campaign's climactic "Battle of the Red Frost."Other accounts from the period claim that this priest-king of Maulland Sen was executed by the Emperor personally for his crimes. |
Unification Wars - Merica (North America): Merica was a massive and powerful techno-barbarian state composed of the hive cities located on the Nord Merican continent (North America). |
Unification Wars - Nordafrik Conclaves (North Africa): The Nordafrik Conclaves were comprised of the territory of much of the northern portion of the continent of Afrik (Africa) and thrived during the Age of Strife.The Chronicles of Ursh, an ancient volume dating back to the millennia before the Unification Wars, describes the long and brutal conflict fought between the Nordafrik Conclaves and the state of Ursh (Central Asia). The Conclave was eventually defeated by their erstwhile rivals.The Chronicles also described the use of the dark powers of the Warp by both sides. |
Unification Wars - Nordyc (Scandinavia): Nordyc was a techno-barbarian state located in the northern lands of the continent of Europa in what had once been a region called Scandinavia. According to detailed extant records preserved in the Trans-Nordyc Akashic archives, a few thousand proto-Astartes of the newly created Thunder Legion and a companion guard of thirty Custodians bearing Guardian Spears, clad in augment-armour and personally led by the Emperor Himself, participated in the assault against the formidable Maullan Sen Confederacy.Despite being outnumbered seven-to-one and suffering several thousand casualties, the Emperor's forces ultimately triumphed over the horde of genetically-altered warriors, witch-marked men and zealots that followed the Priest-King of Maulland Sen. The Priest-King was captured by the Custodians, and after the battle the Emperor carried out his execution and held aloft his severed head to the baying cheers of His Thunder Warriors.In the aftermath of this campaign's climactic ending, it came to be known as the "Battle of the Red Frost." Crushing the last resistance within this region, Nordyc was soon brought into Imperial Compliance. |
Unification Wars - Orioc (Antarctica): Orioc was a city-state of Old Earth. Buried in a hollowed-out mountain in Ancient Terra's ice-bound south, it stood throughout the darkness of Old Night, weathering the storms of strife for thousands of standard years. The people of Orioc believed they were the chosen of Ancient Terra's blighted children, and that they alone would outlast the anarchy that had broken so much else. This certainty came from their faith in protection from the spirits of death and life, an ancient pantheon of gods worshiped by the people of Orioc.During the Unification Wars, when the Emperor's eye finally turned to the mountain city, He seemed to have known that soft words and diplomatic overtures would be of little use. The XVIIth Legion, the Imperial Heralds, came to the city and gave it a choice -- kneel and accept the Imperial Truth, or be destroyed. The Priest Kings of Orioc did not even hear the message before they gave their answer. Fire met the Imperial Heralds' transport and as it fell to the ice plains, the XVIIth Legion began their attack.Macro bombers came out of the snow-filled sky and the mountain cracked under a rain of seismic charges. On the mountain's flanks, siege tanks coughed shell after shell into fractures in the rock, breaking them wide open. Behind the wind came the grey armoured warriors advancing in a relentless drum roll of gun fire and the hiss of flame.After three solar hours of battle, the remaining populace was a huddled flock, crammed intro the central cavern. With every other tunnel and cavern district wiped clean of life, the XVIIth Legion halted, sealing the ways in and out of the central cavern. As the survivors waited in fretful silence, they wondered what fate awaited them.Their answer came in a rain of shattered stone and red fire, as the elite Iconoclasts of the Imperial Heralds, the Astartes of the merciless special formation known as the Ashen Circle, descended on the last idolators like comets flung from a destroyed heaven. All burned, none were spared, and when it was done, the XVIIth Legion overloaded the geothermal power plants beneath the mountain, causing lava to fill the caverns, swallowing the stone idols, and exploding the city-state from the wounds in the mountain's flanks.So fell Orioc, and the message of its death carried across Ancient Terra and beyond: faith in false gods would bring only ruin and ashes. |
Unification Wars - Oxitania: The techno-barbarian state of Oxitania was ruled by a monarch known as King Gotha late in the period of the Unification Wars. Gotha and the Oxitanians were ultimately vanquished by the Emperor's forces, though at the cost of the near-destruction of the VIII Legion's 9th Company. The 9th Company's remnants were oathbound to serve Gotha himself as part of a sign of Imperial reconciliation, as Gotha was one of the first to accept the rank of Rogue Trader Militant from the Emperor in return for a commutation of his execution. |
Unification Wars - Pan-Pacific Empire (East Asia, Australia, Pacific Islands): The Pan-Pacific Empire was a techno-barbarian state composed of the Pacific Islands and what had once been the territories of parts of East Asia, Australia and the Japanese islands that flourished during the Age of Strife. Narthan Dume, the Tyrant of the Pan-Pacific Empire and its final ruler, is described in ancient sources as being "half-mad/half-genius" and is considered the most infamous of all the tyrannical rulers who dominated Terra during this dark period.Originally, the peoples of the region that would become the Pan-Pacific Empire was controlled by many techno-barbarian tribes which often clashed with the Yndonesic Bloc. Eventually, the Pan-Pacific tribes were united by a warlord named Khazar to wage war against the threat posed by the Brotherhood of Singularitarianism. The latter was a sect which strove for the creation of an artificial general intelligence that could bring about a technological singularity they hoped would rescue Humanity from its ills. Though later Mechanicum scholars mostly believed that the tribes' war against the Brotherhood of Singularitarianism was only motivated by their superstition, in truth the Pan-Pacific peoples had realised that the Brotherhood of Singularitarianism had begun to combine their technology with the powers of the Immaterium through the aid of Daemons.Khazar's forces successfully stormed the Brotherhood of Singularitarianism's fortresses and mostly destroyed the cult, though one of its leaders, Moravec, escaped to Mars. At some point after its unification, possibly in the 27th Millennium, the Pan-Pacific Empire was conquered by the warlord remembered in legend only as the "Unspeakable King."Eventually, the Unspeakable King was overthrown by the clans of Albia, and the Pan-Pacific Empire fell under the control of the self-proclaimed Tyrant Narthan Dume. Under Dume's rule the empire became one of the most powerful techno-barbarian realms on Pre-Unification Terra. Dume was fully aware that Humanity had lost most of its knowledge, but wondered whether this ignorance was a curse or a blessing considering the horrors that lurked beyond in the Warp.Not long after the tyrant came to power, however, the empire was confronted by the forces of the Emperor during the Unification Wars. In a series of battles, the Pan-Pacific Empire was defeated by the Imperial Army which consisted of units of Thunder Warriors, Caucasian Levies, and many mercenaries. The Pan-Pacific city of Vhnori was one of its last strongholds to fall. Dume was captured alive and executed.In 799.M30, after the start of the Great Crusade, Vhnori -- still resentful over the Pan-Pacific Empire's fall -- revolted against the Emperor. The so-called "Vhnori Resurgence" proved short-lived, as the city was completely destroyed by Imperial forces in retaliation.He was eventually defeated by the forces of the Emperor during the Unification Wars, removed from power and imprisoned while his fate was decided. Although some in the Emperor's service wanted to imprison Dume in the Imperial prison of Khangba Marwu, he was instead executed at the urging of Captain-General Constantin Valdor of the Legio Custodes shortly after his capture. Many of Dume's lieutenants, however, were imprisoned in Khangba Marwu. |
Unification Wars - Vhnori: During the early years of the Great Crusade in 799.M30, alliances and oaths were still fresh, untested or half-formed. Even as the Imperium extended beyond the Sol System for the first time, the domains left in its wake were often of questionable stability and loyalty. Attempted rebellions and conspiracies were common. The Imperium usually put most of these insurrections down swiftly and without fanfare. However, occasionally a few rebellions required a different response; not simply subjugation but retribution.Vhnori was a Terran city enclave, a natural fortification built into the walls of a series of chasms for easy defence that had once been a part of the Pan-Pacific Empire. Vhnori had been one of the last of the tyrant Narthan Dume's domains to fall during the Unification Wars. The people of Vhnori did not take easily to the Imperial yoke, as they submitted to the Emperor's rule in sullen silence. This changed, however, with the coming of the Crimson Walkers, a cabal of psykers, gene-splicers and warlords who had once served the last great Terran tyrants of the Age of Strife. Bit by bit they had gathered followers and resources, spreading a secret web across Terra. The centre of their resurgence was Vhnori.It seemed the Crimson Walkers were determined to pull a part of Terra back into the nightmare of the recent past. When the Emperor heard of the rise of this reborn threat, He is said to have spoken three words: "Send in the Eighth!" The VIIIth Legion did not respond right away, as its force within the Sol System at that time only numbered a little over 500 warriors: a large force of Astartes but not one that could overwhelm a city of millions. When the VIIIth Legion began their campaign of fear, it started with an orbital bombardment falling from the night sky which lasted for six solar hours. Following the bombardment, the artificial darkness remained.Soon a heavy downpour thick with chemicals rained upon the millions of fearful inhabitants from the seeded clouds above. The VIIIth Legion arose from the abyss on jets of flame, butchering any who crossed their paths. The screams of terror and battle echoed through their drug-weakened minds. The Crimson Walkers responded by unleashing an army of mutant monstrosities, but still the VIIIth Legion came on, slicing abominations apart with lightning-sheathed claws. They screamed with the voices of the dead as they fought, their speaker grills shouting out the recorded sounds of suffering, pain and loss.When the chasms were blazing like the mouth of a mythical hell, the Drop Pods fell. The reinforcements converged on the chasms, cutting their way through the city sprawl, killing any they found. Soon, the remaining Crimson Walkers faced their doom fragmented, harrowed and cut-off from one another, until they were cornered by the figures in midnight blue power armour. Those who reached the blasted border surrounding the city found themselves hunted by the VIIIth Legion's Seeker Squads. It is said that the VIIIth Legion allowed many to run, before hunting them down through the long hours of the artificial night, maiming but never killing, until dragging their broken quarry back to the chasm.With Vhnori screaming and burning, the VIIIth Legion performed their last duty. Alive, and healed so that they were conscious, they threw the Crimson Walkers into the chasm. Then they detonated charges along the cliff edge, severing the hanging city from the cliff face, the screams of the ten millions who had sheltered from the fighting in the cliff-bound buildings reaching up to the sky as they followed the Crimson Walkers into the black depths of the earth. The VIIIth Legion left the decimated city before dawn came again, cementing their reputation for the use of fear and terror as effective weapons of Imperial retribution and control. |
Unification Wars - Saragorn Enclave: The Saragorn Enclave was a techno-barbarian state that surrendered to the forces of the Emperor but still carried on its genetic experiments in secret. When the Emperor discovered this defiance, He dispatched the VIII Legion of the newborn Legiones Astartes to bring His retribution. The Enclave was swiftly and viciously destroyed and all its people slaughtered to serve as a warning to others who might seek to refute the oaths they had made to the Master of Mankind. |
Unification Wars - Skandians: The Skandians were techno-barbarian raiders who often attacked the other regions of the continent of Europa in pursuit of plunder. They refused to accept Unification under the Emperor's rule and were exterminated by His forces as a result. |
Unification Wars - Urals/Terrawatt Clan (Ural Mountains): The Urals/Terrawatt Clan territory was a small techno-barbarian state located in the territories surrounding the Ural Mountains on the continent of Europa that flourished during the Age of Strife.Beneath Mount Narodnya in the clan's territory was the greatest forge of the Urals, where the toiling forge-masters once served the Terrawatt Clan during the Unification Wars. It was here that the Primarchs Fulgrim of the Emperor's Children and Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands first met. |
Unification Wars - Urartu (Asia Minor): The Kingdom of Urartu, according to the Imperial chronicles, was the last of the techno-barbarian states to be conquered militarily by the Emperor's forces and its conquest marked the end of major combat operations during the Unification Wars and the birth of the Imperium of Man. The Imperial historical chronicles tell that the last major battle of the Unification Wars, known as the Battle of Mount Ararat, was fought within the territory of Urartu in 669.M30 atop a mountain that had once been flooded and lay underwater.During this final battle the chronicles say that the remaining Imperial Thunder Warriors were slain to a man by the Emperor's foes. The chronicles recorded that the famed Thunder Warrior Arik Taranis, known as the "Lightning Bearer," raised the Banner of Lightning at the final declaration of Unity which established the rule of the Emperor over the entirety of Terra before dying of his wounds.In truth, the remaining Thunder Warriors were all secretly culled from existence on the Emperor's own orders at the Battle of Mount Ararat by His other servants in the Legio Custodes and the newborn Ist Legion of the Astartes because they were no longer necessary to His grand design, having become biologically and mentally unstable. As such, He needed to replace them with a more advanced and stable genetic template for His augmented supersoldiers, a template that would form the foundation of the Space Marine Legions. |
Unification Wars - Ursh (Central Asia/Russia): Ursh was a techno-barbarian state that was located in the steppes of what had once been Russia and Central Asia. Ursh was the mightiest of the techno-barbarian empires on Terra before the Unification Wars and was therefore the largest and strongest enemy the Emperor's forces had to face during that long conflict.Though Ursh was a strong empire, it was not as technologically advanced as several of the other techno-barbarian states. For example, the acquisition of superior military machines from the Nordafrik Conclaves was the main reason cited in the Chronicles of Ursh for Ursh's decision to launch that infamous ancient war against its southern neighbour.Ursh was ruled by the despot and warlord named Kalagann at the time of the Unification Wars. Kalagann was described as being of cruel character, and commanding vast armies of techno-barbarians. Kalagann was known for wearing a distinctive suit of Artificer Armour known as the Armour of Pearl, which by the time of the Horus Heresy was kept as a trophy in the atrium of the Eternity Gate of the Imperial Palace. Other high positions within the government of Ursh were all filled by military warlords including Lurtois, Sheng Khal (also known as Shang Khal) and Quallodon.Kalagann's infamous exploits were documented in the ancient manuscript called the Chronicles of Ursh, which would later be considered by Imperial scholars as a classic work of Human literature that provided valuable insight into this pre-Unification state's rise and the wars of the Ursh against the Nordafrik Conclaves. The Chronicles of Ursh mentions the influence of "primordial gods" upon Kalagann and the Ursh. Also, the sorcerous powers of Kalagann mentioned in the Chronicles of Ursh formed the main part of Ursh's military power.As such, it is highly likely that the Chaos Gods were the true lords of Ursh, and Kalagann was merely one of their puppets, manipulated to do their bidding. Despite their influence and favour, the Dark Gods failed to save Kalagann when he faced the forces of the Emperor of Mankind, which eventually resulted in the defeat of Ursh and Kalagann's death.The armies of Ursh consisted mostly of unaltered Human soldiers. Kalagann also employed powerful psykers within his armies, using their arcane abilities to unleash the foul powers of the Warp upon his enemies, including the Imperial Army. Some of Ursh's troops are known by name and include the following units. |
Unification Wars - The Roma: The Roma were organised mercenary fliers who fought for the forces of Ursh. Highly-skilled pilots, they were said to never touch the earth beneath them. They were trained to carry out pinpoint aerial attacks, and were therefore of great value to the generals of Ursh. |
Unification Wars - The Red Engines: Both the Red Engines and the Tupelov Lancers followed the command of the Urshian warlord Sheng Khal. The Red Engines were masters of the siege, and possessed siege engines able to raze whole fortresses or hive cities to the ground. |
Unification Wars - Tupelov Lancers: The Tupelov Lancers are described as screaming berserkers. These Urshian warriors were trained for close-combat action, and proved ruthless and deadly. In many ways they were a model for the later tactics of the World Eaters Legion of Space Marines. |
Unification Wars - Oneirocriticks: The Oneirocriticks were the personal counsellors of the Ursh warlord Sheng Khal. Their name means "interpreters of dreams," in the ancient Urshian dialect of Low Gothic, but it is likely that they used some kind of Warp sorcery to guide Shang Khal in his actions. |
Unification Wars - Wrathsingers: The Wrathsingers were a specialised Urshian military unit that was likely comprised of practitioners of sorcery that bent the powers of the Warp to their will. They were able to use their psychic abilities or "magic" as the Chronicles of Ursh names their abilities, to change the environment to their advantage or to kill men from afar with their "spells." |
Unification Wars - Yndonesic Bloc (Indonesia): The Yndonesic Bloc was a techno-barbarian state located in what was once Southeast Asia. As late as the time of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium, the Yndonesic Bloc, though an integral part of the Imperium, still retained a distinct regional identity and culture on Terra.The Yndonesic Bloc was ruled by a man named Cardinal Tang, the tyrannical "Ethnarch," during the closing years of the Age of Strife before the Unification. He wished to "return the world to a pre-technological age," burning "scientists, mathematicians and philosophers" who opposed his church's views. Tang imposed a genocidal policy that consisted of forced breeding between only "genetically compatible" citizens of the Bloc, combined with a eugenics program that aimed for the pursuit of racial hygiene through the use of compulsory sterilisations and the genocidal extermination of "undesirables."Those that defied these enforced edicts were punished brutally. Imperial history would later characterise Tang's rule as one of "bloody pogroms, death camps and genocides." Tang was eventually overthrown by his own people during the rise of the nascent Imperium and was imprisoned in the notorious penal colony of Nusa Kambagan (which would later become a productive Imperial hive city).Tang tried to conceal his true identity and hide amongst the general population. But only a few days after his arrival, Tang's fellow inmates learned of his true identity and murdered the former despot.The military unit known as the Stormbird was developed by the Yndonesic Bloc and used against the Pan-Pacific tribes during the Unification Wars. No information is available in Imperial records to identify what the Stormbird was, though it was likely a weapon used against those techno-barbarian states that allied with the Emperor's growing forces. |
Unification Wars - Oceans of Terra: At the time of the Unification Wars in the 29th and 30th Millenniums there was only one remaining ocean on Terra -- the so-called "Great Ocean" -- which was the ancient Pacific Ocean. The size of the Pacific was vastly smaller than it once was, due to the vaporisation of a massive stretch of the ocean during the nuclear wars that had consumed much of Old Earth in the lost years of the Age of Strife. This missing portion of the Pacific stretched from the Marianas Trench down past Australia and all the way to the frozen continent of Antarctica.The Atlantic Ocean had also been largely vaporised as that great body of water that had once been near the continent of Europa was now mostly gone, particularly to the south of what had been the Iberian Peninsula. Other, smaller, bodies of water may still have remained during this time, as a great body of water is recorded to have been present in the region of Eurasia where the Caspian Sea had lain in ages past.These seas and oceans still existed at the start of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium, but by the time of the 41st Millennium, Terra had no free-standing bodies of water, having become a true ecumenopolis, a world completely covered by the dense urban areas of massive hive cities. Within these Human hives toiled the tens of billions of Adeptus Terra bureaucrats and serfs required to keep the decaying heart of the Imperium pumping. |
Unified Targeting Matrix - Unified Targeting Matrix: A Unified Targeting Matrix is a T'au Battlesuit Support System used to coordinate special formations of XV88 Broadside Battlesuits known as Broadside Destructor Phalanxes.Only issued to the formation's attached T'au Commander with the rank of Shas'el, a Unified Targeting Matrix allows for the combined fire of the formation's Heavy Rail Rifles to demolish even the most heavily armoured target with ease. |
Universe-class Mass Conveyor - Universe-class Mass Conveyor: A Universe-class Mass Conveyor is one of the largest cargo heavy transport voidships ever built by the Imperium. It operates in the Calixis Sector and the Koronus Expanse, among other regions, as part of the merchant fleets, ferrying massive amounts of raw materials and luxury goods wherever they might be needed, usually to fulfill the insatiable appetites of Imperial Hive Worlds and Forge Worlds for manufacturing raw materials, food stuffs and technological components.The Imperium swarms with transport vessels. Millions of these civilian voidcraft plough the space lanes, ferrying pilgrims, ore, fuel, foodstuffs, weapons, materiel, machine parts and luxury goods to untold billions of eager consumers across the galaxy. |
Universe-class Mass Conveyor - Role: Amongst the myriad starships that serve the trade lanes in and around the Calixis Sector, some of the largest are the mass conveyors. Stretching some twelve kilometres from stem to stern, a mass conveyor appears at a distance to be a slim, elegant voidcraft. However, as one slowly approaches it, this misleading impression is replaced with a horrified awe, as what appear to be radio masts resolve into gigantic towers the size of hive city stacks. The voidship's true scale manifests itself as an observer realises that entire cities twinkle and shimmer along its flanks. Simply to construct a Universe-class Mass Conveyor is a massive undertaking.To build one requires such an immense outlay of resources that they can only be constructed above the richest Imperial worlds and void stations. They are pure cargo haulers, relatively simple in design, but conceived on a truly epic scale. They are almost self-contained worlds, where entire voidborn communities live out their lives, uncaring as to the vessel’s current owners' motives or identities.Simply unloading the vessel is a mighty undertaking, requiring solar months at a time. There are larger merchant ships (the Bountiful Beast of the Calixis Sector is 16 kilometres long, for example, and the Misericord approaches that length while being substantially more massive) but the Universe-class still dwarfs most Imperial voidships it comes across.It is rare for Rogue Traders to take one of these ships into the Koronus Expanse, as they are slow and inflexible voidcraft. However, everything counts in large amounts.The Universe-class is so large it comes pre-equipped with a unique component, a Secondary Power Genetorium. The hull's space has already been reduced to account for this component, which provides additional power to the vessel in addition to that provided by the ship's reactor for its primary Plasma Drive.This vessel was designed for transporting goods on a massive scale, and no amount of retrofitting can fully change this. This hull comes pre-equipped with four main cargo hold components whose space has already been reserved within the hull, making the addition of additional weapons systems or modifications difficult. The Universe-class was never intened to be a ship of war. |
Universe-class Mass Conveyor - Dimensions: Hull: TransportClass: Universe-class Mass ConveyorDimensions: 12 kilometres long, approximately 1.3 kilometres abeam at finsMass: 60 megatonnes approximatelyCrew: 60,000 crew, 200,000–500,000 potential passenger capacityAcceleration: .5 gravities maximum sustainable acceleration |
Unmarked (Anthology Short Story) - Unmarked (Anthology Short Story): Unmarked is a short story published in The Horus Heresy series that was originally part of an anthology. Unmarked 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 Unmarked has yet to be published separately. Unmarked is a sequel to the events of Book 19, Know No Fear, and a direct sequel to the short story Athame, which was also published in the Mark of Calth anthology. |
Unmarked (Anthology Short Story) - Synopsis: Oll Persson and a small band of Calth survivors begin their journey to Terra by using an Athame to travel through space and time. |
Unnumbered Sons - Unnumbered Sons: The Unnumbered Sons, officially known as the Unnumbered Sons of the Primarchs, and unofficially among themselves as the "Greyshields," were nine special formations of Primaris Space Marines created by Lord Commander of the Imperium and Imperial Regent Roboute Guilliman for service in the Indomitus Crusade.Active during the early years of the Era Indomitus, they were comprised of nine Space Marine Legion-sized armies of Primaris Space Marines, all drawn from the genetic lineage of one of the 9 primarchs who had led the Loyalist Legions during the Horus Heresy.Approximately half of the Primaris Space Marines created during the Ultima Founding were formed into entirely new Primaris-only Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, while the remaining half were placed within the Legion-sized armies of the Unnumbered Sons. However, unlike the new Chapters, Guilliman forced these armies to fight using mixed squads that contained Primaris Marines from multiple different gene-lines to better forge cooperation between the different lineages.The Unnumbered Sons served as a reserve force for Guilliman during the Indomitus Crusade, their ranks slowly reduced by attrition and the need to replenish already-extant Chapters of the Firstborn Adeptus Astartes with the new class of Primaris Marines. Other members of the Unnumbered Sons were eventually integrated into whole new Chapters comprised only of Primaris Marines like their brethren.By the end of the first phase of the Indomitus Crusade to secure the Imperium Sanctus at the Battle of Raukos in the Era Indomitus, some twelve standard years after its start, the armies of the Unnumbered Sons had been reduced to approximately 20,000 Primaris Marines. These were ultimately disbanded and divided up into a final group of new Primaris Marine Chapters on the orders of Guilliman before he began his intervention in the Plague Wars of Ultramar. |
Unnumbered Sons - History: Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl had created hundreds of thousands of Primaris Space Marines beneath his forge city on Mars during the 10,000 standard years he spent on the project at the direction of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman.When that massive undertaking finally came to fruition after the resurrection of Guilliman and his return to the position of lord commander of the Imperium and Imperial Regent in ca. 999.M41, the primarch directed Cawl to divide half of the newly-awoken Primaris Marines of the Ultima Founding into new Chapters of Adeptus Astartes.Each of these Chapters were composed of Primaris Marines wholly descended from a single one of the nine original Loyalist primarchs' gene-lines. The other half of the Primaris Marines created by the Ultima Founding were divided up into nine armies the size of the massive Space Marine Legions of the Horus Heresy era.Unlike those Legions, however, these formations were created from a mixture of Primaris Marines belonging to all nine of the Loyalist gene-lines. Each of these Primaris Marines wore the livery of his progenitor primarch's First Founding Chapter, and each Unnumbered Sons Legion was further divided into Chapter-size units of 1,000 Primaris Marines. These units were further divvied up into companies and squads, each of which was a mixed formation made up of all the different gene-lines.Guilliman had ordered the Unnumbered Sons to fight as mixed gene-line units in the hope that the Primaris Marines would learn how to deal with the differing temperaments and personalities of their brethren from the other Loyalist lineages in a way that had eluded their ancient predecessors. The lord commander believed this might help prevent the eruption of the inter-Chapter disputes that had so plagued the Adeptus Astartes even after the great betrayals of the Horus Heresy.The Unnumbered Sons proved to be a potent force during the course of Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade to retake the Imperium of Man from the ascendant forces of Chaos and the myriad xenos assaults that threatened to consume it.However, as the crusade wore on, their numbers began to dwindle, both as a result of battlefield attrition and because large numbers of the force were increasingly detached to other duties on the orders of Guilliman.Whenever the crusade encountered embattled Chapters of Firstborn Astartes, the lord commander ordered members of the Unnumbered Sons of the same gene-lines to become replacements for the depleted Chapter's losses. As such, members of the Unnumbered Sons who were scions of Guilliman himself could become new Aurora Chapter Primaris Marines, or Doom Eagles Primaris Marines, or even replacement battle-brothers for the Ultramarines themselves. Primaris Space Marine scions of Rogal Dorn became new members of the Black Templars, the Imperial Fists, and so on for each original Loyalist Astartes lineage encountered as the Indomitus Crusade pushed outwards from Terra.At other times, Guilliman simply created a whole new Chapter of Primaris Space Marines from the Unnumbered Sons' formations to meet a given need such as the defence of a strategically important Imperial world. However, these new Chapters were not mixed and composed of only a single primarch's lineage like their Firstborn counterparts.By the time of the Battle of Raukos at the end of the first major phase of the Indomitus Crusade, only 20,000 Primaris Astartes remained within the depleted ranks of the Unnumbered Sons. The fight to defeat the Chaos forces emanating from the ancient Warp rift in Wilderness Space known as the Pit of Raukos proved to be the last campaign of the Unnumbered Sons, for at its successful conclusion, Guilliman disbanded the remaining Greyshield armies as he moved to intervene in the Plague Wars of Ultramar.Guilliman believed he was forced to disband the Unnumbered Sons by political necessity; there had been rumblings from his opponents in the Terran court that Guilliman was a hypocrite for engaging in "Legion-building" -- the raising of new Space Marine Legions that he had forbidden in his own Codex Astartes. Guilliman had no intention of allowing such charges to serve as an excuse to weaken his authority over the High Lords of Terra or the Imperial nobility, and so with the Imperium Sanctus stabilised following the Battle of Raukos he had felt the time had come to disband the Unnumbered Sons and show that the organisation of the Adeptus Astartes into individual Chapters was still the preferred structure for the Space Marines.Some were formed into new Primaris Space Marine Chapters such as the Knights Cerulean, the Praetors of Ultramar and the Wolfspear, which was tasked with defending the Pit of Raukos.The remaining Unnumbered Sons were dispersed to already established Space Marine Chapters, where they would take the lessons they had learned fighting alongside Astartes of different lineages into units descended only from their own primarchs. |
Unnumbered Sons - Power Armour: The Unnumbered Sons each wore power armour in the colours of the First Founding Chapter of their primarch. Thus, Unnumbered Sons of the genetic line of Roboute Guilliman wore Ultramarines blue, those descended from Sanguinius wore Blood Angels red, the scions of Lion El'Jonson displayed Dark Angels green, those who were the gene-sons of Ferrus Manus wore black, and so forth. |
Unnumbered Sons - Unnumbered Sons Badge: All Unnumbered Sons were marked with the same badge on their shoulder pauldrons regardless of their gene-line descent -- pale grey chevrons.This badge set them apart from the other Primaris Space Marines of the Ultima Founding who were either placed from the start within new Chapters or were later assigned as replacements for already extant but badly depleted Chapters of the Firstborn Astartes during the course of the Indomitus Crusade.This badge was the source of the Unnumbered Sons unofficial moniker, the "Greyshields." |
Unnumbered Sons - Genetic Lineage of Corvus Corax: Captain Hurak - Hurak was an Unnumbered Sons captain of Raven Guard lineage, who served in the Indomitus Crusade Fleet Primus' high command. |
Unnumbered Sons - Genetic Line of Ferrus Manus: Lieutenant Sarkis - Sarkis was a Primaris Marine Inceptor from the genetic line of Ferrus Manus and the Iron Hands. |
Unnumbered Sons - Genetic Line of Lion El'Jonson: Gnaeus - Gnaeus became an Inceptor of the Dark Angels Chapter after his service in the Greyshields.Hadariel - Hadariel became a Primaris Chaplain of the Dark Angels Chapter after leaving the Unnumbered Sons and was mentored by Interrogator-Chaplain Raguel. They were among the Chapter's forces sent to end a rebellion on the Mining World of Muz. Its population lived aboard massive mining vehicles called "Deep-miners" and the Chaplains and several squadrons of Dark Angels were sent to cleanse one such Deep-miner that had been claimed by insurrectionists. While fighting with the Intercessor Squad of Sergeant Raum, however, Hadariel was greeted by the Intercessor Gnaeus, who greeted Hadariel as an old comrade of the Greyshields. He then remarked about the times they had fought together before, but the Chaplain strangely could not remember Gnaeus and awkwardly greeted him in return. Hadariel did not have time to dwell on this oddity, as the Dark Angels discovered that Muz's rebellious population was tainted by Genestealers. In one attack by the xenos, Gnaeus was killed and the Chaplain asked Raguel how they had known each other. The Interrogator-Chaplain told Hadariel that he and Gnaeus had served together as Greyshields in the Indomitus Crusade, before both were sent to join the Dark Angels. The Chaplain still could not remember any of their history together, but Raguel remarked it was likely due to the great ordeal Hadariel had just been through. Afterwards, Raguel tried to rely the information about the Genestealers, to the Dark Angels Company Master overseeing the attack, but his vox-unit was being jammed by the Deep-miner. The best way to deal with the jamming was to claim the Deep-miner's command centre. When they reached the command centre, the Dark Angels were met by a large Genestealer Cult horde, which included its Magus. In the battle that followed, the xenos-tainted psyker nearly killed the Interrogator-Chaplin with his powers, until Hadariel charged the Magus. Doing so drew the Magus' deadly gaze upon the Chaplain, causing him to collapse, but this gave Raguel the time needed to kill the Magus. Even with that dangerous foe slain, the Dark Angels were still heavily outnumbered, but luckily the sound of battle had drawn the other Dark Angels squadrons to the command centre. With their aid, the Genestealer horde was defeated, but the jamming of vox-channels continued and Hadariel had been badly wounded. As the squadrons left the command centre to continue their mission, Raguel chose to remain with Hadariel while Sergeant Raum promised to send an Apothecary to deal with his wounds. The Chaplain's memories had been jarred by the Magus' attacks and he remembered being sent on a mission to Malmar. There, he discovered a darkness that was eating at the Dark Angels, which caused the Chapter to mindwipe Hadariel's memory. While Raguel tried to to calm the Chaplain, Hadariel claimed he remembered everything and knew what the Chapter had done to him. This caused Raguel to immediately kill Hadariel, to keep the Dark Angels' secrets secured, though he deeply regretted having to do so. It was later revealed that Hadariel had been sent to Malmar by the Chapter's Inner Circle in order to undergo a trial to prove himself worthy of joining their ranks. He would have been the first of the Dark Angels' Primaris Chaplains to do so, but Hadariel failed under mysterious circumstances. The Inner Circle had the Primaris Marine mindwiped as a result and ordered Raguel to kill Hadariel should he ever remember what had happened. The Interrogator-Chaplain's conscience was stained by Hadariel's murder, and he bitterly speculated that the Chaplain's trial may have been manipulated to ensure Hadariel failed, as the Inner Circle still harbored grave doubts about the admission of the Primaris Marines to the deepest secrets of the Dark Angels.Kalael - Kalael was an Inceptor of the genetic line of Lion El'Jonson and the Dark Angels. |
Unnumbered Sons - Genetic Line of Leman Russ: Sergeant Bjarni Arvisson - Arvisson was a sergeant of an Inceptor Squad from the genetic line of Leman Russ and the Space Wolves. After the disbanding of the Unnumbered Sons, he became a founding member of the Wolfspear Chapter. Among the conflicts Arvisson took part in during the Indomitus Crusade was the Battle of Raukos where he served beside his friend Justinian Parris. While the Imperial forces were victorious, Lord Commander Guilliman ended the Indomitus Crusade after the battle and disbanded the Unnumbered Sons. Each of its surviving members were then assigned to a Chapter that was descended from their primarch save for those descended from the Space Wolves. To Arvisson's dismay, they were instead formed into the Wolfspear Chapter and were charged with guarding the Pit of Raukos from any future Chaos incursions. Further clouding the minds of Arvission and his Chapter was that although the Space Wolves have allowed Primaris Space Marines into their ranks, it was not known if they would accept the Wolfspear as true sons of Russ. This was settled after the Primaris Marine creation technology was brought to Fenris and the Space Wolves became aware of the Wolfspear's existence. The Space Wolves' Great Wolf Logan Grimnar subsequently granted the Wolfspear additional warriors from their progenitor Chapter and this forged enduring and unprecedented bonds of brotherhood between the two formations of Astartes.Sergeant Gaius (Kjarg Iron-Oath) - Gaius was the squad leader of an Intercessor Squad dubbed "Lupus Six" that were sent along with a company of other Unnumbered Sons of Space Wolves lineage as part of a Torchbearer Fleet despatched to the Space Wolves Chapter. Before arriving at Fenris they relieved the Drakeslayers Great Company of the Wolf Lord Krom Dragongaze fighting Orks, which led to Gaius and his squad joining it. Gaius and his squad were therefore the first Space Wolf Primaris Marines to set foot on Fenris. Having a difficult time being accepted by their brethren of Russ' line, Gaius submitted himself to an impromptu Trial of Morkai, where he earned his new name "Kjarg," which was the name of the largest wolf in Fenrisian legend, said to have faced down Morkai himself, and the by-name "Iron-Oath" for keeping his oath to survive the trial. He is currently the pack leader (sergeant) of the Primaris pack called the "Firstwolves." |
Unnumbered Sons - Genetic Line of Jaghatai Khan: Lei Jian - Lei Jian was a member of the Unnumbered Sons descended from the genetic line of Jaghatai Khan and the White Scars. |
Unnumbered Sons - Genetic Line of Rogal Dorn: Aldred - Aldred was an Inceptor from the genetic line of Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists. He served in the same squad as Justinian Parris.Urstan - Urstan was a member of the Unnumbered Sons of the genetic line of Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists. |
Unnumbered Sons - Genetic Line of Sanguinius: Sergeant Anthus - Anthus was a former Greyshield who became part of the Blood Angels Chapter and fought at the Devastation of Baal.Solus - Solus was an Inceptor in Sergeant Rusticus' squad and was a scion of the genetic line of Sanguinius and the Blood Angels. |
Unnumbered Sons - Genetic Line of Roboute Guilliman: Quentus Carmagon - Quentus Carmagon was an officer of the Unnumbered Sons of the genetic line of Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines. He later became the captain of the Knights Cerulean Chapter's 3rd Company after the Unnumbered Sons were disbanded.Ciceron - Ciceron was a member of the Unnumbered Sons from the genetic line of Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines.Cordus - Cordus was an Inceptor from the genetic line of Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines. He served in the same squad as Justinian parris. He was killed in action during the Battle of Raukos.Decimus Felix - A former Inceptor Lieutenant of the Unnumbered Sons, Decimus Felix was a scion of the genetic line of Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines. He later became Guilliman's Equerry during the Indomitus Crusade and was also made the eleventh captain of the Ultramarines Chapter at that time, the first alteration of the Ultramarines' Codex Astartes-dictated order of battle in over ten thousand standard years. Decimus Felix was later named by Guilliman as one of Ultramar's new ruling class of Tetrarchs, an ancient rank that the primarch had decided to restore to prominence. Felix was given rulership over the Ultramaran world of Vespastor, and charged with enlarging Ultramar's eastern expanse by whatever means necessary.Sergeant Justinian Parris - Parris was an Inceptor Squad sergeant from the genetic line of Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines who served in the company under the command of Lieutenant Sarkis. He later joined the Novamarines Chapter as part of its new Primaris Space Marine contingent and took part in the Plague Wars. |
Unnumbered Sons - Unknown Genetic Lineage: Captain Gerion (KIA) - Gerion was a Greyshields captain who led the Unnumbered Sons forces sent to reinforce the Brazen Drakes Chapter, as part of Shield-Captain Tyvar of the Adeptus Custodes Torchbearers strike force. When the fleet reached the Chapter's homeworld of Khassedur, however they found it gripped by a rebellion seemingly launched at the Brazen Drakes' hands. After discovering the Chapter's traitorous actions, Tyvar declared them to be Hereticus Diabolus Extremis and ordered the Greyshields sent to reinforce the Brazen Drakes to be detained on suspicion of heresy. When Gerion and the Greyshields tried to declare their innocence aboard Tyvar's flagship Lux-Imperatus, a battle broke out between the two sides. The Greyshield captain then informed his forces that they had been betrayed by the Imperium and the battle soon spread to the entire fleet. An enraged Tyvar killed Gerion and has now declared that his strike force will not rest until they have destroyed all of the Brazen Drakes, now a warband of the Black Legion called The Shriven.Sergeant Rusticus - Rusticus was the sergeant of an Inceptor Squad in the Unnumbered Sons.Captain Veisturm - Veirsturm was a Primaris Captain of the Indomitus Crusade Fleet Primus' Battle Group Retributus. Battle Group Retributus was ordered by Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman to free the worlds of the Iron Veil from the grip of the Night Lords Traitor Legion. Veirsturm's company was among the Retributus forces that were sent to free the Hive World of Caldon IV from the Heretic Astartes. When they arrived, its capital hive city of Holkenved surrendered to the battle group. It would be the only one on the world to do so and Retributus used Holkenved as a forward operating base to begin reclaiming the world. However as the battle group was transporting its forces to the city, they were ambushed by a large Night Lords warband led by the Chaos Lord called the "Dreadmaster." Rather than fight the Chaos Lord's fleet, the forces of Retributus acted as if they were fleeing. Retributus' commanders sought to draw the warband into attacking Holkenved, so that it could be destroyed. Retributus left its own troops and the hive's Planetary Defence Forces there as bait. In order to make the ruse as believable as possible, Veisturm held his Unnumbered Sons back from the frontlines of the battle so that the Heretics would see no Astartes among them. Despite the Night Lords' overwhelming their comrades and the mortals of the hive world's PDF, Veirsturm refused to give his company the order to attack until the Night Lords were deep within the hive, ensuring their destruction. |
Unquenched - Unquenched: The Unquenched are desiccated, undead revenants that wander the endless deserts of the Feudal World of Vaporius in the Heathen Stars region of the Koronus Expanse of the Segmentum Obscurus. They seek out any source of moisture they can detect, and have the ability to drain all moisture from the cells of a living organism in only solar seconds.The Unquenched were formerly Human psykers, cursed with this endless thirst after drinking from the wells of the ruling priest-kings of Vaporius that are tained with Warp-energy and used to control the world's population. At first the Unquenched retain their Humanity, but their bodies slowly dry up over the course of many solar months. The Unquenched may exist in the desert of Vaporius for standard years or even solar decades, but their bodies will eventually decay to dust, leaving only a voracious psychic spectre drifting over the sands, seeking the fluids of living things.An Unquenched exists for the sole purpose of feeding on the bodily fluids of all those it encounters, in a perverted parody of the priest-kings' own relationship and control over the Waters of Vaporius. Even the touch of theUnquenched can be deadly and, given time, the creature can drain all moisture from even the most resistant of substances, reducing them to dust. Due to their unnatural psychic energies, attacks from an Unquenched ignore any types of armour unless it is warded in some way against psychic attack or the energies of the Immaterium. |
Unquenched - History: Only the ruling priest-kings of Vaporius know for sure what creates the Unquenched, or why they must be cast out rather than simply killed (if in fact they can be killed), but they seem to have existed for as long as the priest-kings have held power and for as long as the Waters of Vaporius have flowed. There are no formal reports concerning these beings, or at least none that have been shared with outsiders. From what those that have visited Vaporius have pieced together from rumour and legend, it seems that the Unquenched are Humans possessed of psychic talent, but not of the bloodline of the priest-kings.On the civilised worlds of Imperial space, such individuals would be killed or given over to the Black Ships as per the will of the Emperor, but the Koronus Expanse is without such appropriate measures to protect Mankind from itself. Vaporius lacks even the specialised administrative controls and trained adepts to detect those with the psyker's touch, which some worlds of the Expanse use to keep their own populations safe from the taint of the Warp.So, like most of the people of Vaporius, they drink from the waters and submit to the control of their rulers, though it is at this point the change begins, a violent taint which mixes in their soul as the psychic dominance which flows from the waters to the priest-kings is turned back upon them and their own gifts are mangled and twisted until they transform into the abomination known as the Unquenched.At this point, the priest-kings are quick to take them, snatching them from their beds at even the hint of corruption. What transpires then is known only to those privy to the innermost secrets of the glass cities of Vaporius, but after a time the tainted citizen is cast out into the desert, taken far from the city and abandoned. Whether it is the water or the ritual that starts the process, the outcast is doomed to become an Unquenched and roam the arid wastes of their world until their very soul fades upon the wind.However, they never stray too close to the glass cities, perhaps another result of whatever the priest-kings inflict upon them, preferring to remain lurking among the rocks and dust of the great wastes of their desert world. |
Unquenched - Role: The Unquenched are at their heart psychic creatures, warped by the foulness of the waters of Vaporius and transformed into something both more and less than Human tied to their dead flesh until it turns to dust around them. Once the contagion takes them and the waters warp their innate psychic talents, they are for all intents and purposes dead, animating their bodies through sheer will rather than any semblance of true life. Their psychic power then becomes focused on the consumption of fluid and, with an unholy compulsion, they are attracted to any kind of moisture, be it the blood and sweat of a man or a canister of promethium.Even as the transformation into Unquenched consumes them they retain their intelligence and, in some cases, even their personalities if they are strong of will. Without the means to talk (their vocal cords and throat among the first things to fall prey to their psychic thirst), only those with telepathic abilities or similar means to communicate without words can reach them. Cutting through the blinding desire of the Unquenched to feed on liquids is difficult at best. This is especially so if the Unquenched has been outcast for more than a Terran year, as their Humanity erodes just like their flesh and eventually they forget they were even once men and women of the Vaporian glass cities.Rumours do persist of Unquenched that aid travellers on Vaporius if they are well-sated, their knowledge of the planet's wastes being almost without parallel. Others claim that the Unquenched are always aware of each other, linked in some way by the taint which has taken their souls, and the "younger" of their kind can warn travellers away from the older and more monstrous Unquenched, or the places inhabited by the spirits of those which can no longer wander.Unquenched are also said to inhabit the deep places and caves beneath the desert, where they burrow down into the sands in search of underground rivers and streams. Some say that this is also where they horde their vast accumulated treasures, the possessions of those they drain dry, safely stored away from desert raiders eager to quench their own thirsts. Such deposits would certainly sate even the most rapacious of Rogue Traders should they exist and be uncovered, leading several expeditions into the vast depths of sand and dust, all returning parched and empty, or not at all.The lack of success in these expeditions has led some explorers of Vaporius to suppose the Unquenched themselves are propagating these tales in a cunning effort to drive prey into their hands, which is perhaps more likely than surely fanciful stories of fabulous treasures in the desert. |
Unspoken (Anthology Short Story) - Unspoken (Anthology Short Story): Unspoken is a short story published in The Horus Heresy series that was originally part of an anthology. Unspoken was published as part of the event exclusive Meduson anthology and then later as part of the Shattered Legions main series anthology in April 2017. The cover image used is that of Shattered Legions, as Unspoken was never republished separately. Unspoken is a sequel to the short story Unforged. |
Unspoken (Anthology Short Story) - Synopsis: The surviving Astartes of the Salamanders Legion examine their broken nature in the wake of their Legion's near-extinction during the Drop Site Massacre. |
Ur'zan Drakgaard - Ur'zan Drakgaard: Ur'zan Drakgaard is the current Captain of the Salamanders' 6th Company. A fierce and uncompromising leader, Ur'zan Drakgaard is a battle-hardened veteran that has served his Chapter faithfully for more than a hundred years. His body, as well as his face are a conglomeration of scar-tissue and cauterized wounds -- each and every one of them a testimony to the captain's courage, some would even dare to say recklessness -- in battle. Ur'zan bears his wounds with pride, even though his face is heavily scarred and locked in a perpetual snarl, exposing teeth through the holes of his ravaged flesh. Even if he seems unaffected by his disfigurement, Drakgaard is most readily seen wearing his drake-scaled battle-helm as to better process the myriad information being forwarded to him in times of war. Although a sound tactician, Ur'zan Drakgaard's true place is at the forefront of the battle-line, where he and his personal Command Squad -- the "Serpentia" -- can wreck a bloody toll on their enemies. Despite having the feeling of being overshadowed by the Chapter's captains of the other Battle Companies, such as Pellas Mir'san or even Adrax Agatone, Drakgaard's resilience, determination, singularity of purpose, as well as his utter refusal to capitulate, have garnered him much renown within the Chapter. His only true flaw lies in his erroneous perception of himself -- as he sees himself as an unremarkable officer -- which he tries too hard to alleviate by covering himself and his company with glory on the field of battle -- a penchant he has always denied, stating that he has always put the Chapter's interests and reputation above his personal glory -- a lie that would be revealed in the ruins of Canticus. |
Ur'zan Drakgaard - History: As a veteran warrior, Ur'zan Drakgaard has seen many battles however, his first year as a Neophyte and Initiate remain somewhat sketchy. It is generally assumed that Drakgaard had been trained under Master of Recruits Prebian, although Drakgaard himself has neither confirmed nor denied this fact. Although his pragmatism betrays his identity as one of the Fireborn, Drakgaard's utter lack of sense of beauty and his unshakable determination have given rise to the joke that he would, in fact, better belong to the stoic Iron Hands rather than the Salamanders. Upon concluding his training with the 7th Company, Ur'zan Drakgaard was promoted to full battle-brother, although again, it remains unclear as to which company he was assigned. What we do know is that he participated in the gruesome Badab War, as he gained his first major wounds during that conflict. As the Salamanders' involvement limited itself to a single if augmented Battle Company -- the 2nd -- this would mean that Drakgaard had either served directly under Pellas Mir'san as part of the 2nd Company, or as part of 6th Company's units. Furthermore, Drakgaard distinguished himself during the Second War for Armageddon against the savage Orks that had invaded this vital Hive World. Following his promotion to Captain of the 6th Company, Drakgaard, along with other commanding officers of his Chapter, formed the Pantheon, which presided over the fate of the ill-reputed Lexicanium, Hazon Da'kir, the dreaded Ferro Ignis, which came close to destroying Nocturne. Drakgaard participated in the Defence of Nocturne at the head of his entire Company until a long-awaited change of fate put his star in ascendance. |
Ur'zan Drakgaard - The Promethean War: With the events leading up to the Defence of Nocturne, the 3rd Company came under close scrutiny by the rest of the Chapter. The circumstances surrounding the death of both its prior captains, the known betrayal of one of its members as well as the desertion of one of its former squad sergeants, forced Chapter Master Tu'Shan to order further inquiries into 3rd Company, and so, they were recalled in its entirety, from the front lines. Thus when word reached Nocturne that the Ecclesiarchy World of Heletine had come under attack by the Forces of Chaos, and petitioned the Salamanders for help, the 6th Company was ordered to make ready for war.Augmented by two of the best assault squads the 4th Company could spare, which included -- Assault Squad Iaptus, more commonly known as the "Wyverns," and the legendary "Targons," a veteran Centurion Assault Squad -- as well as a sizable deployment of the Chapter’s Armorium, the 6th Company travelled with all haste to Heletine to relieve the almost overwhelmed Cadian 81st Regiment. Having gained much renown since the events of the Scorian Prophecy, the famous Chaplain Elysius was also appointed to oversee the Company's integrity and spiritual well-being against the temptations of Chaos. The Salamanders established their headquarters in Canticus, Heletine's capital city, only to find that their enemies were legion and well dug-in. Of the Chaos Space Marines comprised of the Black Legion and Children of Torment, they saw precious little, though they frequently encountered their mortal followers, the temptations and promises of Chaos having corrupted much of the civilian population and the Heletine Planetary Defence Forces. Leading the deployment from his command outpost, Drakgaard divided his forces as to better contest the world's remaining cities, but focussed his efforts on retaking Canticus. In these early stages of the war, Drakgaard was far from reckless, analysing terrain, reconnaissance reports and countless missives to ascertain the enemy's weaknesses. Much to his dismay, he found none. The maze of streets and bridges of Canticus favoured the numerical superiority of the followers of Chaos. With no swift victory to be gained, and the enemy commander yet to rear his ugly head or show his hand, the Promethean War almost immediately became a war of attrition. Heletine, and especially Canticus, would need to be purged by flame, yet Drakgaard did not possess the manpower necessary for such an operation. Biding their time, the Salamanders instead concentrated on inflicting casualties on the enemy and retaking the strategic initiative. Captain Drakgaard devised a plan in order to retake much of the city's western districts.After many weeks of such fighting -- of constantly losing ground and re-gaining it back and inflicting massive casualties upon the enemy -- new allies made themselves known. These were the Sisters of Battle, from the Order of the Ebon Chalice, led by their Canoness Angerer, to save and reclaim the holy relics of the Ecclesiarchy. With the Canoness requiring their support in reclaiming the relics, Drakgaard was confronted with a new imperative. He had seen the Orks grow bolder on Armageddon by defiling Imperial places of worship and erecting their own stinking and brutal effigies in their stead. Could the Chaos horde intend to do the same here on Heletine? Or worse yet, attempt to open a Warp Rift and summon forth their daemonic allies? Admonishing himself for allowing the enemy too much time to prepare, Drakgaard's fury was awakened. With these new reinforcements now available to him, he would take the initiative and cleanse Canticus of the taint that had befallen it.Despite the warnings of Chaplain Elysius not to overextend the line or venture further into the city without proper reconnaissance, Drakgaard did just that. The reinforcements of the Adepta Sororitas had given him the necessary manpower -- the one decisive great push that would break the already weakened enemy. Casualties had been mounting steadily amongst the Fireborn, and now would be the time for the traitor's reckoning -- these were Drakgaard's convictions. He could not have been more wrong.Heletine was an ancient world. Once the capital world of a powerful splinter-empire of humanity during the Great Crusade, Sixty-Three-Sixty, as it was then called, had been liberated by the Luna Wolves Legion in one of their greatest moments of glory. The world's primary output was then valuable Promethium, but the wells and pockets had long run dry, so the Ecclesiarchy had claimed Heletine as their own. Here, in subterranean mass-graves and catacombs that spanned under the entire city of Canticus, rested the bones of countless minor saints, cardinals, preachers and missionaries, in a little explored, and too quickly dismissed underworld -- because it was here that the Traitors had hidden from the Salamanders' wrath and patiently awaited the moment to strike.Despite being an obvious trap that was being set for them, the Salamanders' first assault on Salvation Bridge was a success. The Wyverns successfully cleared the cultist-manned gun nests in order to allow an armoured column of the Chapter to advance. The Wyverns' assault even prompted a reaction of the Black Legion, which deployed its Chaos Terminators onto the bridge via Thunderhawk Gunship. With battle flaring up between the two contingents of Astartes, the Seraphim of the Order of the Ebon Chalice arrived as reinforcements, cleaning the bridge of the remaining cultists and forcing the Chaos Terminators to flee. With no immediate threat to them, the dozer-equipped Predators of the Chapter quickly cleared the bridge, thus opening the way for their junction with other ground troops. Believing the enemy to have been bled out, Drakgaard personally led the foray within the eastern districts of Canticus, not realising that he had overextended his line. Elsewhere in the city, the Cadian armoured column was cut in half when a mighty pillar had fallen, blocking the road. The Salamanders armoured support had then had no other choice other than to make a great detour in order to reach the main advance, or risk being ambushed and trapped in Canticus' narrow streets. Despite being informed of this major delay, Drakgaard pressed on -- after all, he still had the Adepta Sororitas to back him up, or so he believed.Unknown to Drakgaard, Canoness Angerer had ordered her sisters away, abandoning their position to fulfill their own agenda as they undertook their own covert mission, effectively betraying both the Salamanders and the Cadians. Somehow sensing that something was amiss, Chaplain Elysius advised caution, urging Drakgaard to halt the advance and to properly scout the way ahead. The Imperial advance was now entering one of Canticus' eldest and most sacred districts, known as "the Cairns," a holy road passing eighteen massive pillars of stone which were believed by the locals to be the very foundations upon which heaven rested. Planning upon advancing on the Sanctium Vius, Drakgaard ordered the Targons to the front, confident that their superior protection would hold against anything the depleted enemy would be able to throw at them. Again, he was wrong. The Targons were lured into a deadly trap, when two civilians they attempted to rescue revealed themselves to be two unidentified psykers, which detonated in ætheric fire and lightning. Left in shock and reeling from the surprise blow, the Chaos Space Marines sprung their ambush, attacking the far more massive and slow-moving Centurions at close quarter, killing all of them save for their sergeant. Fuelled by anger and a desire for vengeance, Drakgaard ordered the advance not to falter.This was the moment the Traitors chose to strike. Having lured the Sisters of Battle of Canoness Angerer and ambushed them separately, the Black Legion collapsed the causeway beneath the combined advance of Cadians and Salamanders, disrupting the armoured column and killing most of the human soldiery at the same time. The scattered survivors, both Astartes and human barely had time to register what had happened that the crazed hordes of cultists, led by Traitor Marines rushed them. Far from being beaten, the Chaos forces had laid in wait patiently within Canticus’ uncharted catacombs, springing their trap at the most opportune moment. The forces at the front of the Imperial advance fared the worst, effectively falling into the subterranean level, cut off from help and disoriented. Still the Salamanders fought on, often sacrificing themselves to protect their Cadian allies. Drakgaard and the Serpentia had also fallen into the unnatural gully and quickly reformed, with the enemy finally rearing its ugly head, Drakgaard unleashed his wrath, hacking, slashing and wrecking a terrible toll amongst the enemy. Yet his valour alone could not save the day. When Drakgaard himself was wounded, Chaplain Elysius ordered the Serpentia to form up on him and retreat, many dying to protect their wounded captain, but fortunately for the Salamanders, reinforcements arrived in the form of the badly battered Salamanders armour and Seraphims of the Sisters of Battle, the only Adepta Sororitas that had dared defy their Canoness’ orders to abandon their allies. These unexpected reinforcements kept the defeat from becoming a rout, and thus bloodied and bruised the Salamanders survived. Their losses had been high but enough remained to still continue the fight against the servants of Chaos. |
Ur'zan Drakgaard - Wargear: As a commander of the Space Marines, Ur’zan Drakgaard has been granted an ornate suit of Power Armour, which given the talents of the Salamanders’ forgemasters will undoubtedly prove superior to normal Power Armour and maybe even rival Artificer Armour. As an officer of his Chapter, Ur’zan has slain one of the mighty Salamanders of Nocturne during his ascension and wears the drake’s hide as a tabard. A tooth of this mighty beast also serves as pommel and grip of Drakgaard’s Kaskara sword. Kaskara-swords are traditional Nocturnean blades that distinguish themselves through their single straight edge, the other edge being serrated. This makes the "sword" more akin to a sabre or cleaver than a true sword and in Drakgaard’s hands it has proven to be a fearful weapon indeed, causing uncounted deaths in the ranks of the enemy. Although not powered, the superior craftsmanship of the blade is such that it has proven equally effective against power-armoured enemies and less severely armoured targets. Drakgaard’s sidearm is a common Bolt Pistol. |
Ur'zan Drakgaard - Notable "Serpentia" Members: With Drakgaard's predilection for hand-to-hand combat, it made sense that the battle-hardened Captain of the 6th Company would surround himself with a Command Squad, or Honour Guard Squad, to follow him into the thickest of the fighting. This squad, of which all members have been hand-picked by Drakgaard himself, quickly became known as the "Serpentia." On Heletine, the Serpentia would pay a heavy toll to extract their beloved Captain from the ambush he had so carelessly run into, their honour forbidding them to retreat unless facing certain death. So it was, even when facing a horde of cultists and many times their own number in renegade Astartes, the Serpentia stood their ground. Before the dire events on Heletine, the Serpentia was known to count eight members, including:Apothecary Kratus Sepelius - Apothecary Sepelius was the only member of the Serpentia who was absent during the fearful fight of the Sanctium Vius, having been ordered to extract the direly wounded Sergeant Bar'dak of the Targons following his unlucky encounter with the psyker-bomb.Banner Bearer Tul'vek (Deceased) - Brother Tul'vek was the first Salamanders of the Serpentia to die in the unnatural ravine formed by the collapsed causeway of the Sanctium Vius. Tul'vek was almost entirely beheaded by a blow from a Chainsword, but kept his banner aloft long enough time for Chaplain Elysius to grasp it, honouring the Chapter's sacred colours with his dying breath.Company Champion Her'us - Perhaps unusual for a man in his position, Company Champion Her'us preferred to wield a heavy Thunder Hammer in lieu of more common-place twin energy-blades. In battle, Her'us's place was at the right side of his Captain, where their fighting styles complemented one another. Charged by Chaplain Elysius to keep Drakgaard alive at all costs, Her'us stood at his side until the exhausted Captain was wounded, enabling him to sound the retreat to his fellow Salamanders.Pyre Warden Zetok (Deceased) - Completing the Serpentia's fighting wedge, Zetok's place was at his Captain's right side, protecting Drakgaard's off-hand with his Storm Shield. This role, commonly known amongst the Fireborn as Pyre Warden, was a position of great honour and respect for Zetok, whom had always been much appreciated for his skills as a warrior amongst his Company. In his other hand, Zetok carried a master-forged Chainaxe, whose teeth had been replaced by the fangs of one of the fearful Salamanders of Nocturne, from which their Chapter draws its name. On Nocturne, these blades were known as "Burning Blades" for they burned hotter than the heart of a forge, causing the tooth-particles to ignite, and effectively surrounding the axe-head in cleansing fire. Such a weapon was easily capable of piercing Power Armour but also proved proficient against the cultist, whose large robes were highly flammable, surrounding Zetok and the Serpentia with the bodies of their burning foes. Zetok died surrounded by three Black Legion Chaos Space Marines after a blow had severed his shield-arm at the elbow. Unable to defend himself properly, he was literally hacked apart by the infuriated worshippers of Chaos.Pyroclast Onagar (Deceased) - Battle-Brother Onagar carried the honorary title of Pyroclast, the old title of the Legion's specialists dating all the way back to the days of the Great Crusade. Carrying the squad's Nocturne-pattern Flamer, Brother Onagar had an innate understanding of flame which made him an unparalleled warrior within his specialisation. Despite having his body and faced ravaged by fire, Onagar always displayed a deep sense of humour, often jesting and laughing, even when half of his face was ravaged by fire when his battlehelm was blown apart on Heletine. Brother Onagar sadly died after a lucky ricochet penetrated his fuel-tank, engulfing him in white-hot flame and blasting apart the Serpentia's defensive circle. Fortunately for the Fireborn, the blast also threw back their enemies, giving the Salamanders a short-lived reprieve from the press of bodies.Battle Brother Kaladin (Deceased) - Brother Kaladin was the Serpentia's anti-armour specialist, being equipped with an ornate Meltagun whose mouth he had personally fashioned to resemble a leering dragon. In close combat, he fought in the Serpentia's rear line, steadying and supporting Zetok whenever the need arose. Kaladin was overwhelmed by Traitor Marines while fighting clear of the ravine in Canticus.Battle Brother Tseg'un (Deceased) - Brother Tseg'un's weapon of choice was a Power Fist, easily capable of ripping apart the best protected foe. In battle his place was at the edge of the battle-line, safeguarding both his Captain’s and Her'us's backs from flanking attacks, and where he had enough room to swing his massive Power Fist. Although wounded early on in the ambush when a Traitor Marine slashed at his clavicle, Tseg'un held his place in the defensive line until succumbing before the enemy onslaught.Battle Brother Vervius - Brother Vervius was the only one of the Serpentia to favour the Plasma Pistol as his sidearm, most other members preferring the far less capricious Bolt Pistol. Usually fighting in the Serpentia's rear rank, Vervius took up the honour of carrying the Company's standard after Chaplain Elysius had let go of it following Brother Onagar's fiery demise. Alongside He'rus, Vervius defended the banner amongst a growing mount of corpses before the Wyvern's timely arrival saved them from a lumbering Helbrute, thus allowing the Salamanders to retreat and regroup. |
UR-025 - UR-025: UR-025 is a thinking machine and one of the legendary "Men of Iron", sentient robots who threatened the earlier Human interstellar civilisation of the Age of Technology many millennia ago.It survived the Cybernetic Revolt that defeated the Men of Iron in that era and disguised itself as an Adeptus Mechanicus robot as it made its way through the Imperium of Man, keeping to the fringes of Imperial space.UR-025 took part in an expedition to the seventh Blackstone Fortress discovered in a starship graveyard in the Segmentum Pacificus, where it hoped to learn more about other forms of machine life. |
UR-025 - History: The Imperial Robot UR-025 is an oddity, even by the standards of the ramshackle frontier void station and port of call known as the Precipice. Clad in thick metallic plating and bearing devastating weaponry, this Battle-Automata is a highly sought-after ally for those looking to venture into the seventh Blackstone Fortress discovered near Precipice.Having arrived at Precipice on a dilapidated Imperial junk hauler, it emitted an auto-proclamation claiming it had been sent by Magos-Ethericus Nanctos III as an autonomous data-collection unit, and that it had directives for sanctioned eradication of those who impeded its Omnissiah-given duty.But in truth, the robot is far more ancient than anyone realises. Its origins date back to the Age of Technology, when Mankind built thinking machines that eventually turned violently upon their masters. Known as the Men of Iron in legend, these sentient robots were all but wiped out.Yet UR-025 has persisted over the long Terran millennia, hiding on the fringes of the galaxy and allowing others to believe it is a robotic tool of the Imperium and the Adeptus Mechanicus. Unlike the other inhabitants of Precipice, it cares little for the trinkets of xenos races that have been subsumed by the nearby Blackstone Fortress.Instead, it seeks to obtain the technologies that underlie the existence of the fortress itself, for in the colossal space station UR-025 sees a kindred being to itself. |
UR-025 - Wargear: Mark I Assault CannonPower ClawSelf-Repair Systems |
Ur-Ghul - Ur-Ghul: The Ur-Ghul is a lanky, carnivorous, humanoid xenos that is a superlative tracker and hunter. They are native to the labyrinthine ziggurats of the Drukhari city of Shaa-Dom, a satellite realm of the Dark City of Commorragh in the Webway. Their savage nature makes them a popular addition to the courts of many Drukhari Archons, and Ur-Ghuls are considered the most hideous of the creatures who will respond to an Archon's call, usually to hunt down and slay one of the Archon's foes -- or allies.Ur-Ghul migrations have been purged by members of the Ordo Xenos' Deathwatch Chapter of Space Marines before they could become a danger to Imperial worlds. Among the most famous of these encounters was that of the Deathwatch Dreadnought Xenomortis, who led an Ur-Ghul migration purge of his brethren within the mirror palace of the world of Plenitia. He slew all of the carnivorous aliens himself over the course of many solar months following the death of the rest of his Kill-team at their hands.Ur-Ghuls are also present in the Koronus Expanse adjacent to the Calixis Sector, where they operate in conjunction with the Drukhari who have taken up residence in that frontier region. |
Ur-Ghul - Anatomy and Physiology: The musculature and basic physiognomy of the creature definitely points towards the blessed form of Humanity, but that is where the similarities end. The xenos' skin is incredibly resistant to damage, almost as hard as iron. Its hands and feet carry wicked claws, which it uses to rapidly grab onto and incapacitate its prey. Reports indicate that it has an astounding dexterity, able to move with an almost unnatural grace and quickness. Several Calixian Beast House records even contain rumours that the Ur-Ghul has the ability to escape bonds and cells by twisting and contorting its body in unwholesome ways. These abilities, when added together, make this xenos a terrifying creature when it comes to combat. The beast's head, however, contains the secrets of what makes it such a superb predator.The face of an Ur-Ghul is something that few could forget. The somewhat flat visage is deeply cut by a wide, thin mouth filled with needle-like teeth. The thick, muscular tongue is long, and can be extended far beyond the thin lips. It is also particularly sensitive, able to sense another creature many metres away simply by tasting the prey's sweat and breath in the air. Above the mouth sits a series of cavernous sense pits instead of a single nose or eyes. These pits extend far into the skull creating large sensory regions. Accordingly, the nostrils are extraordinarily acute and can pick up not only airborne scents, but also detect heat emanations, air vibrations, and some say even Warp disturbances.An Ur-Ghul is a very efficient hunter despite its lack of any discernible vision senses, able to track its quarry for kilometres using an easy looping gait that covers long distances with low effort. It can keep such a pace for long durations, waiting for the right time to finish off its prey. Once it is ready, the Ur-Ghul's speed is unnatural. It rapidly becomes a fury of claws and teeth as it tears its prey into gobbets of flesh, and often begins to feed while its victim is still alive.Once in this state of frenzied feeding, this viciousness makes it a very hard creature to stop. A few who have survived such encounters claim they had to pry the jaws of a dead Ur-Ghul off its still-struggling victim, as the ferocious mandibles would not go slack even in death. Such is the terrible essence of the Ur-Ghul, for nothing can stay its unrelenting nature, not even death. |
Ur-Ghul - Evolved to Hunt: The Ur-Ghul appears to be an omnivorous humanoid with pack tendencies, certainly suitable to fill an ecological niche on many a planet. It has been sighted multiple times throughout the Ragged Worlds, suggesting an origin somewhere amongst this isolated region. It has also been firmly documented to exist on no less than five other planets from other regions in the Koronus Expanse, however.While the theory of parallel evolution is somewhat accepted by most branches of the Adeptus Mechanicus' Magi Biologis, to have such a creature evolve on so many differing planets with different climes and ecologies seems to suggest transportation rather than evolution. Who or what is behind such transportation is basis for much speculation, especially as to what possible motivations could be directing such efforts.A few radical xenos scholars have even suggested that Drukhari raiders have some powerful and secret link to the Ur-Ghul now found on several worlds in the Koronus Expanse. One ancient dissertation found in the depths of Hive Sibellus in the Calixis Sector makes mention that the Ur-Ghul's original homeworld is called "Shaa-dom," but does not mention what system or even sector of the galaxy this world occupies.Several more adventurous Explorators and xenographers have searched for this planet, but as of yet it has not been located. More disturbingly, few of these missions have returned at all. If this is due to erroneous data concerning the world's location or whatever was awaiting those questing after the Ur-Ghul is yet another mystery concerning this species for the Imperium. |
Ur-Ghul - Hidden Masters: Taproom tales at Port Wander tell that these things have been seen in close approximation to Drukhari pirates and raiding parties, used as some kind of tracking hound. Those who have survived some of these xenos raids have even spoken of seeing creatures whose features resemble the Ur-Ghul taking part in the attack. They had been used to hunt down those who sought to escape the raiders, fleeing away in frantic attempts to reach safety or hiding places where they could wait until the xenos departed. The attempts were doomed to failure. The Ur-Ghuls were loosed to roam the area, and soon caught the exhilarating scents of desperation and fear left in the air. In each report, none escaped the beasts, and their prey were dragged weeping and screaming back to the xenos raiders to meet their terrible fates.One unverified but popularly recounted account relates that a particularly high-ranking member of this enigmatic xenos species personally commanded one such beast, using it as part of vile blood-sport raids and other foul practices. The story says the xenos employed the beast to track down a Human the Drukhari believed had wronged him in some unfathomable way. It managed to track down the unfortunate prey across the varied surface of Janto III deep within the Unbeholden Reaches, a world known for its bleak rocky plains and pestilent marshland.The hunt went on for solar weeks, ranging far across broad swaths of a remote and scantly inhabited continent, but finally the Ur-Ghul caught up with its victim, who did not long survive the debt he had to pay. The cruel xenos directing the beast seemed to delight as much with the hunt as it did with the method of payment.Such thoughts are likely just so much fancy, mere void travellers' stories to enliven hive spire parties or to put fear in their trading associates' dreams. Some xenos scholars worry though that beings able to command such terrible beasts are perhaps even more puissant than previously believed. It is definite that, as mindless hunters, the Ur-Ghul are certainly dangerous enough; if actually under the direction of sapient xenos races as sadistic and intelligent as the Drukhari, their threat level can only increase. |
Ur-legionaries - Ur-legionaries: The Ur-legionaries were a failed experiment to enhance Space Marine genetics conducted by the Selenar gene-cult of Luna during the Great Crusade following their conquest by the Imperium of Man. |
Ur-legionaries - Origins: Heavily involved in attempts to accelerate the development of new Astartes for the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade, the Selenar who survived the First Pacification of Luna had sought ways to improve upon the Emperor's genetic designs for the Space Marines.Unfortunately, all their efforts failed, and the supposed "Ur-legionaries" turned out to be mutants who were often mindless brutes as a result of the constant pain they endured. Some developed multiple eyes, limbs and even heads.Even more disturbing, several of the Ur-legionaries developed facial features that closely resembled the appearances of the Primarchs.After the project suffered from repeated failures, the Selenar decided to abandon the Ur-legionaries and admit that they did not know how to enhance the Emperor's original design.All but 10 of the failed Ur-legionaries were euthanised and the gene-labs where the project had been pursued secretly beneath Luna's Herodotus Omega dome were sealed. |
Ur-legionaries - Recovery of the Magna Mater: Almost two centuries later during the climax of the Horus Heresy at the Siege of Terra, the mortally wounded Selenar gene-witch Ta'lab Vita-37 freed the remaining Ur-legionaries to help her prevent the Traitor forces of the Warmaster Horus from claiming the Selenar's Magna Mater relic.She did so to defeat a squad of Sons of Horus Justaerin Terminators commanded by Captain Trastevere, who were assaulting her and the group of Loyalist Shattered Legions Astartes from the Iron Hands Strike Cruiser Sisypheum who had answered her call for aid broadcast into the void around Luna.Despite their mutations, the Ur-legionaries were much larger and stronger than even the Justaerin Terminators and their altered Black Carapace implants allowed them to survive even multiple bolt wounds before dying.So strong were the insane, raging Ur-legionaries that they were able to tear open the Justaerin's Terminator Armour as if it was no more than tissue paper.Though the Justraerin ultimately prevailed over the unarmed and armoured mutants, only Trastevere and two other Terminators of the squad survived after killing all of the remaining Ur-legionaries.However, due to the sacrifice of Vita-37 and the Ur-legionaries, the Shattered Legion Astartes commanded by the Iron Hand Captain Cadmus Tyro managed to escape from Luna back to the Sisypheum with the Magna Mater.Though all of the Strike Cruiser's crew were later slain escaping from near-Luna space with the artefact save for Nykona Sharrowkyn of the Raven Guard, the Magna Mater would eventually fall into the hands of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman after the end of the Horus Heresy.Renamed the Sangprimus Portum, the artefact would ultimately prove crucial in the eventual creation of the Primaris Space Marines. |
Uralon the Cruel - Uralon the Cruel: Uralon the Cruel is a Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers Traitor Legion who has taken the Host of Word Bearers under his command into the Koronus Expanse of the Segmentum Obscurus. He seeks nothing less than to transform the Expanse into a region whose people are dedicated to the worship and service of the Dark Gods of Chaos.Uralon was a powerful Dark Apostle who possessed the ability to summon and control Daemons and Daemon Engines from the Warp to do his bidding, as well as a large cadre of Word Bearers Heretic Astartes. He first met the newly appointed Rogue Trader of the von Valancius dynasty on the Industrial World of Kiava Gamma in the von Valancius Protectorate. He sought at multiple points to convince the von Valancius Lord Captain to turn to the service of Chaos, seeing a Rogue Trader a s a powerful potential ally in delivering the Koronus Expanse and all its riches over to the service of the forces of Chaos.The Lord Captain thus faced a choice of whether to embrace the darkness but great power offered by pursuing the path of heresy and allying with Uralon and his Word Bearers and Daemons, or remaining true to the ideals of the Imperium and eliminating the Chaos scourge from the von Valancius Protectorate and the rest of the Expanse. |
Uralon the Cruel - Wargear: Chaos Power ArmourAccursed Crozius |
Urani-Surtr Regulates - Urani-Surtr Regulates: The Urani-Surtr Regulates, also called the URSR, is a stoic and long-suffering major league of the Leagues of Votann located in the galactic core. The Kin of the Urani-Surtr Regulates have a reputation for survival against the odds. Courage and hardiness are their watchwords and, while they might seem more dour than most of their species, there are none more dependable to have at one's back in the face of peril.The Kindreds of the Urani-Surtr Regulates prize stoicism, self-reliance and -- unusually for their race -- inflexible determination no matter the odds of success. They disparage wastefulness above all else, and will subsist uncomplainingly upon the absolute minimum if doing so will bring them victory, and their Kindreds survival.The URSR have suffered greatly over the millennia, yet still they endure. Their grim warriors have disdain for every foe, and are known to fight to the last. While they can still stand, they can fight. |
Urani-Surtr Regulates - League History: Known throughout the Leagues of Votann as the "URSR," this league and its Kindreds have long held onto a swathe of heavily contested and foe-haunted territories in the southern reaches of the galactic core. On one border they face the awakened and warlike Necrons of the Samnokh Dynasty, whose single-minded phaeron appears intent upon claiming the Urani-Surtr Hold Worlds. From the Shattered Stars to their east come the raiding fleets of Bogg Da Freeboota King, an Ork privateer who commands a seemingly endless empire of ragtag Greenskin pirates.Then there is the Gnawstar Cluster, lodged like a splinter amidst the URSR's northernmost Kindreds. These worlds are haunted by an infestation of Tyranids that exhibit strange, almost nesting behaviour patterns unusual for their species, and are ever-hungry to claim new worlds to infest.Other Kindreds might have given ground in the face of such relentless threats, but the URSR refuse to do so. Nor do they show any inclination to explain their apparent stubbornness to the other leagues, beyond asserting that the Ancestors would abandon them forever if they gave up tl1eir Hold Worlds, or allowed them to fall.Some among the Grimnyr believe that the Urani-Surtr guard some secret site of great import, or are privy to knowledge whose burden they shoulder alone. Others suspect they are bound by rash Grudges sworn by their forebears against their encroaching foes, and that they must see these through to whatever bloody end. The most cynical claim that the Kindreds of the URSR are simply too stubborn to admit the poor return they get for their hardships, and too proud to relinquish their lands.The Kin of the URSR give no outward sign that they care what the rest of their species thinks of them. They admit new Kindreds into their ranks only infrequently, and then only after rigorous tests and secretive meetings -- about which the new applicants are oath-sworn never to speak. No Kindred has ever left the URSR once admitted, though whether this is out of loyalty or for some other, more sinister reason, remains unknown.It is expected of every URSR Kindred that they maintain as large a population as they can, accepting an ascetic lifestyle with the bare minimum of food, light, air and heat in exchange for keeping their fighting ranks replenished. This selfless commitment to their cause is writ large upon the battlefield when the Urani-Surtr march to war. Their Kin are ferociously loyal to one another, and to their league, and they refuse to countenance defeat or despair while breath remains within their bodies. |
Urani-Surtr Regulates - Abiding Mantle: By their own insistence, the name of whichever skilled URSR craftsman fashioned this cloak was never recorded. Laced through with chamelioweave and contramotive optic damper circuits, this seemingly plain garment, the Abiding Mantle, causes its wearer to blend in amongst the ranks of their comrades -- their survival aided by understated anonymity. |
Urani-Surtr Regulates - League Colours: The Kinhosts of the URSR wear dark and light green. |
Urani-Surtr Regulates - League Insignia: The insignia of the Urani-Surtr Regulates is Kin script in the form of a large, green "R" placed on a line above a smaller green inscription that says "UCS." |
Urani-Surtr Regulates - Trivia: "Surtr" is a reference to Surtr, a jötunn in Norse mythology. Surtr is attested in the Icelandic Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. In both sources, Surtr is foretold as being a major figure during the events of Ragnarök; carrying his bright sword, he will go to battle against the Æsir, he will battle the major god Freyr, and afterward the flames that he brings forth will engulf the Earth.In a book from the Prose Edda additional information is given about Surtr, including that he is stationed guarding the frontier of the fiery realm Múspell, that he will lead "Múspell's sons" to Ragnarök, and that he will defeat Freyr. The use of this name would accord with the general reliance upon Norse imagery and mythology used in the fictional culture of the Leagues of Votann. |
Urdesh - Urdesh: UrdeshImperialForge WorldAdeptus MechanicusSabbat WorldsSectorSegmentum PacificusUrdesh was once the homeworld of the Legio Damicium Titan Legion before the Horus Heresy. That Traitor Titan Legion was ultimately purged from existence after its betrayal of the Imperium during the campaign of the Heresy remembered as the Cataclysm of Iron.Urdesh was a principal supplier of materiel to Imperial forces fighting in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. |
Urdesh - History: Unfortunately, the early history of this Forge World has been lost down the long millennia.Across the border sectors of the Segmentum Tempestus and Segmentum Pacificus were located numerous lesser Forge Worlds, which included Urdesh, which were known collectively as the "Belt of Iron."For much of the Great Crusade, these Forge Worlds helped to mass-produce much-needed arms and equipment for the military forces of the expanding Imperium of Man. |
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