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Voss - Horus Heresy: With the outbreak of hostilities between Traitor and Loyalist forces during the galaxy-wide civil war known as the Horus Heresy, the Mechanicum was also split in half by internecine conflict. Within the ranks of the Dark Mechanicum could be found powerful elements of the Martian Priesthood, the Ordo Reductor and the Legio Cybernetica, along with many of the feared Myrmidon Destructor cults and a number of sub-cults which had operated for long Terran years on the edge of tech-heresy, all drawn together by the traitorous Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal.With them had come the support of more than half of the legions of the Legio Titanicus as well as dozens of allied Knight houses, and now Mars itself was lost to the Loyalists, while the output and military power of Forge Worlds such as Voss, Sarum, Cyclothrathe and Stygies VIII had been handed over to the Traitors.With the defeat of Horus and the subsequent Great Scouring, the Dark Mechanicum forces were cleansed from Voss, and this vital Forge World was once against brought back into the Emperor's fold, where it has continued to play an important role in the mass-production of arms and equipment for the Imperium's military forces. |
Voss - Sources: Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus (8th Edition), "Bastions of the Machine God," pg. 12Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus - Skitarii (7th Edition), "Bastions of the Machine God," pg. 17The Horus Heresy - Book Four: Conquest (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 147, 247The Horus Heresy - Book Two: Massacre (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 156The Horus Heresy - Book One: Betrayal (Forge World Series), pg. 229 |
Voss Prime - Voss Prime: Voss PrimeVossImperialForge WorldAdeptus MechanicusAge of TechnologySegmentum SolarMilky Way GalaxyGreat CrusadeVoss Prime is the closest Forge World to the Hive World of Armageddon, and supplies that strategic planet of the Segmentum Solar with much of its defenders' war-machines and materiel. Voss Prime is also home to the Legio Invigilata, a Loyalist Titan Legion also known as the "Emperor's Guard." |
Voss Prime - History: Founded during the Age of Technology, Voss Prime reconnected with Mars during one of the Warp Storm lulls of the Age of Strife. By the time the forces of the Great Crusade reached Voss Prime in the late 30th Millennium they found a thriving Forge World modelled after, and allied to, Mars.Since that bygone era, Voss Prime has continued to churn out armaments for the Imperium's armies and fleets, a record of service that cannot be matched by any save Mars itself. During the outbreak of the galaxy-wide civil war of the Horus Heresy, Voss Prime remained loyal to the Emperor and is still a vital and productive Forge World for the Imperium in the late 41st Millennium.Voss Prime's production numbers have soared thanks to their aggressive exploitation of the nearby asteroid fields -- known as the Mordon Belt -- that surround their sub-system. The asteroids have also proven an effective defence for the planet. Even the Ork fleets that rampaged for so long across the nearby Armageddon Sector could not navigate the floating debris, and the wreckage of thousands of their ramshackle voidcraft floats amidst the element-rich rocks.The daemons that swarmed out of the Warp Storms unleashed after the opening of the Great Rift, however, proved another matter. Only Voss Prime's unmatched ability to repair their Legio Cybernetica maniples and replace their Servitors allowed them to weather the successive waves of invaders. Despite the attacks, the manufactoria of Voss Prime continued to roll armoured vehicles, weapons and ammunition off their assembly lines at rates few could hope to match.Across the Imperium, Voss Pattern vehicles are much revered, although their Plasma Weapons have rightfully gained a dire reputation. Despite their vaunted output capacity, Voss Prime has less success at replicating plasma technology than other Forge Worlds. That they have not asked for aid, and that it has not been offered, is indicative of the pride and secrecy that exists even amongst the most devout of the Cult Mechanicus. |
Voss Prime - Voss Prime Iconography: The illuminated, stylised "V" of Voss Prime is borne proudly by its warriors. This icon incorporates the skull and cog of Mars, a nod towards their ultimate Cult Mechanicus masters on the Red Planet. |
Voss Prime - Voss Prime World Colours: Voss Prime's Skitarii Legion wears brass-coloured armour plates, while their robes are halved between the red rust colour of Mars and sunburst yellow. The toothed iconography which rings the hoods, sleeves and hems of their robes is reminiscent of the teeth of a cog, a symbol of sacred significance to the Tech-priests of the Cult Mechanicus. |
Voss Prime - Manufactoria Capabilities: Voss Prime produces everything from Astra Militarum infantry weapons to Imperial Navy aircraft and the mighty Battle Titans of the Collegia Titanica. The forges of Voss Prime are some of the mightiest in the Imperium, and Voss Pattern weapons and vehicles are found on many Imperial worlds and in many armies of the Emperor.Voss Prime is known to have its own patterns of Missile Launcher Pods, Rocket Pods and Autocannons which are commonly found on Imperial Navy aircraft such as the Vulture. This Forge World is also known to make its own patterns of Autopistols, such as the Mark 10 and the Mark 11. The forge-cities of Voss Prime also produce their own pattern of Hunter-Killer Missile Launchers, many of which are found on Imperial Guard, Imperial Navy, and Adeptus Astartes vehicles.Much like many other Forge Worlds in the Imperium, Voss Prime's Magi lack a a detailed understanding of plasma technology, and much to the dismay of the planet's Forge Masters many say that the manufactoria of Voss Prime display less skill in replicating items dependent upon plasma technology than many other Forge Worlds of its same size and importance. |
Voss Prime - Sources: Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus (8th Edition), pp. 12, 23, 66Dataslate: Cypher - Lord of the Fallen (6th Edition), "Cypher"The Horus Heresy Book One - Betrayal (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 229Imperial Armour Volume One - Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy, pp. 8, 251Imperial Armour Volume One: Second Edition - Imperial Guard, pg. 10Imperial Armour Volume Six - The Siege of Vraks - Part Two, pg. 148 |
Vostroya - Vostroya: Vostroya is an Imperial Industrial World in the Halo Zone of the Segmentum Obscurus, located beyond the Eye of Terror.The planet is considered an "Industrial World" by the Imperium of Man, because it does not quite meet the legally defined requirements to be considered an Adeptus Mechanicus-ruled Forge World, but it is not quite like an independently-governed Imperial Hive World either.Like all Forge Worlds, Vostroya has deep ties with the Adeptus Mechanicus, but because it is not ruled entirely by the Priesthood of Mars, it is not classified as one of their worlds.The origins of this unusual arrangement can be found in the Age of Strife, when Vostroya was the rare independent world that swore allegiance to Mars, rather than be settled by a colony of tech-priests as was the norm for almost all of the other Forge Worlds.After declaring its allegiance to the ancient Mechanicum, Vostroya quickly developed into a heavily industrialised world with the influx of Mechanicum personnel and technological knowledge.Under Imperial rule, the output of the many Vostroyan manufactoria now provide war materiel for the Emperor of Mankind's massive war machine. |
Vostroya - History: Vostroya is an industrialised world which has maintained ties with the Adeptus Mechanicus since the Age of Strife. Covered in manufactories and cityscapes, while not a Hive World, Vostroya is nonetheless heavily populated.Since it was first incorporated into the Imperium of Man during the Great Crusade, Vostroya's primary purpose has been to produce arms and ammunition for the Imperial military. In the more than 10,000 standard years since that time, life on Vostroya has remained unchanged, punctuated only by the changes of labour shifts during the endless cycle of assembly and manufacturing.During the Horus Heresy Vostroya refused to provide soldiers and supplies to the Emperor of Mankind or to the Warmaster Horus, choosing instead to wait out the conflict and preserve its population for work in the manufactoria.After the conclusion of the Heresy, in its shame at having maintained its neutrality, Vostroya swore that every first born child of the world would be sworn to the Imperium's service forever after. The world founded its own elite regiments of the Astra Militarum to take in this massive influx of recruits, who are known as the Vostroyan Firstborn.In the late 41st Millennium the details of Vostroya's past have been lost in the annals of history, obscured behind the veil of ignorance and lies that conceals the truth of the Horus Heresy from the masses. Despite the obfuscation of those times, a dim remembrance persists that the Vostroyans failed to aid the Emperor in His hour of need.It is almost certain that nobody remembers the whole truth of those events, but every Vostroyan knows that their ancestors failed to act when called upon by the Imperium.Those Astra Militarum commanders that know some hint of the truth are quick to remind any Firstborn under their command, and for the soldiers and citizens of Vostroya it is a stain on their reputation and honour that they must constantly toil to expunge. |
Vostroya - Government: Vostroya is governed by a ruling oligarchy known collectively as the Techtriarchy. The Techtriarchs comprise a council of native nobility and Adeptus Mechanicus archmagi, as well as other, more traditional, Imperial planetary nobility and officials, who collectively maintain the ruling council for Vostroya.After millennia of industrial production and unregulated pollution, the planet itself is a barren world devoid of almost any flora and fauna and is now habitable only along a broad stretch of its equatorial belt. This region is divided into 7 administrative regions or "managed zones" where all of Vostroya's hive cities are located.As on most heavily industrialised Imperial worlds, the majority of Vostroyan food is imported, as the planet has next to no agricultural facilities because of its devastated environment and ecology. Vostraya has a single moon, named Turtolsky, which is under the same administration as the planet.Most of the population of Vostroya work in the manufactoria, subjected to poor conditions and long hours to ensure that weaponry and other goods are produced in the vast quantities demanded by the Imperium.For the poorest families, their first born are provided with an opportunity to achieve something beyond the toil and frozen squalor of their homes, and for all on Vostroya, the offering of the first born to the service of the Emperor is regarded as both a duty and an honour -- Vostroyan culture places enormous importance on the repayment of their world's ancestral debt to the Imperium. |
Vostroya - Culture: Vostroyan society is deeply marked by a rigid class system, divided between the "high-born," the wealthy upper class, and the "low-born," the lower class of labourers.The low-born toil endlessly on the production lines of the Vostroyan manufactoria. Most first born children of the low-born class consider it a blessing to be drafted into the Astra Militarum as Vostroyan tradition demands, so that they may escape slaving in the manufactoria.High-born first born children serve as the officers of the Vostroyan Astra Militarum regiments, and only very rarely does a lowborn reach any rank beyond that of non-commissioned officer.In Vostroyan culture, almost all men wear a moustache, which symbolises both the attainment of mature adulthood and masculine virility. The importance of the moustache varies depending upon which region of the world a man hails from.While some Vostroyan regions accept men not sporting expertly trimmed moustaches, others, like the people of Mushka, consider a man without a moustache to be effeminate and weak.Vostroyans are a deeply religious people who hold tightly to the orthodoxies of the Imperial Creed. They are particularly devoted to Saint Nadalya, the Grey Lady, the patron saint of Vostroya in the Imperial Cult.Her sacred text, the Treatis Elatii, is a common sight in the homes of many Vostroyans and is commonly quoted from to provide wisdom in many different situations. |
Vostroya - Vostroyan Linguistic Terms: Vostroya has a very distinctive dialect of Low Gothic that is laced with terms that evolved from the Slavic languages of Old Earth, particularly the ancient language known as Russian. This would seem to indicate that Vostroya's original settlers came from this region of Mankind's homeworld or from other colony worlds whose people originated there.Ossbohk-vyar - A form of native Vostroyan unarmed combat, of which there are 37 "forms" with each successively higher number of form denoting greater mastery of the styleChevek - A derogatory term for off-worlders and non-Vostroyans that literally means "outsider". The word seems to originate from the ancient Russian word "chelovek", which means, simply, "human".Rahzvod - Rahzvod is a clear and potent alcoholic beverage very similar to vodka; there are many different varieties of Rahzvod on Vostroya linked to the world's different regions; some differ in colour due to the ingredients used.Khek - A Vostroyan swear word that can be used as a noun or as any other part of speech, as in "this khekking smog" when used as an adjectiveOhxolosvennoy (usually shortened to "Ohx") - Ohx is a thick and salty drink analogous to coffee that is made from powdered Grox meat to which preservatives and stimulants have been added; Vostroyan low-born workers depend on their Ohx to get them through double-shifts in the manufactorumTreatis Elatii - A Vostroyan sacred text written by Saint Nadalya, the Grey Lady, a saint of the Imperial Cult and the patron saint of VostroyaUshehk - This is a seven-stringed Vostroyan musical instrument that is played with a bow and is small enough to be held upright, making it similar to a Terran violin or fiddleShiny - The slang term used among the troops of the Vostroyan Firstborn regiments of the Imperial Guard for a new recruit, as in "he's a Shiny"Zadnik - Another derogatory term for a person, place or thing. Came from the Russian term for "back side", or, more colloquially, the equivalent word for the English "ass". |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Vostroyan Firstborn: The Vostroyan Firstborn is the name given to the Militarum Regimentum of the Astra Militarum that originates from the Industrial World of Vostroya located near the Halo Stars in the Segmentum Obscurus.The Vostroyan regiments have served the Emperor of Mankind for countless Terran centuries, though in truth they fight to absolve themselves of a terrible shame incurred by their ancestors over ten millennia ago when, during the dark days of the Horus Heresy, Vostroya failed in its duty to the Emperor.When the galaxy was consumed in civil war and anarchy, the Emperor commanded that worlds still loyal to the Imperium send forth troops to help defend it against the Warmaster Horus and his Traitor Legions. Vostroya refused, arguing that it could better serve the Imperium by continuing to devote all its efforts to the manufacture of weapons for the Emperor's armies in the world's great smelteries, and that to give up so much of its populace to become warriors for the Imperial Army would render it incapable of producing those weapons in sufficient quantities.The Vostroyans' refusal to provide soldiers was met with uncommon mercy by the Imperium once the Heresy had ended, and the people of Vostroya have forever after sought to atone for their mistake, promising to provide the first-born child of every Vostroyan family to the service of the Imperial Guard.Firstborn regiments are trained in the frozen, snow and ash-covered ruins of the planet's ancient cityscapes, on portions of their homeworld no longer habitable or functional, before being shipped out, once each generation, to serve the Imperium, never to return.Unusually, the Firstborn reinforce their regiments, sending new soldiers out to each one, no matter how far away it is. This ensures that the youngest Firstborn have the experience of hardened Veterans to draw upon, and means that every Vostroyan Firstborn regiment can trace its existence back to their original mustering, ten thousand standard years before.With every family -- from the highest ruling Techtriarchs of Vostroya to the lowliest menials -- required to send their first-born children to serve, familial ties within regiments are not uncommon, and many young Vostroyans have found themselves under the guardianship of distant uncles or aunts and older cousins, something that encourages a strong bond of brotherhood.Within each regiment, the officer corps is composed of those of noble birth, while the common soldiery are drawn from the worker families that make up the bulk of Vostroya's population. Their ancient pact drives them onwards, instilling them with a stubbornness, courage and fortitude rarely seen outside the Adeptus Astartes.Vostroyan regiments are most commonly line infantry, and are particularly at home in cold environments and urban areas, as these conditions best match those of their training back on Vostroya. However, Vostroyan Firstborn armoured regiments are not uncommon, turning the Vostroyans' traditional close ties with the Adeptus Mechanicus to the operation of powerful battle tanks. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Regimental History: Vostroya has always been an important industrial centre for the Human-settled galaxy, providing vital arms and munitions to the armed forces of the Imperium of Man. Vostroya's great shame has its roots in an age long past, when the Emperor of Mankind strode amongst the stars and when His empire was sundered by the Horus Heresy.As the legions of the Traitor Warmaster Horus carved a bloody trail to Terra, a petition from the Emperor requested that Vostroya raise regiments of soldiers for the Imperial Army to stand in Horus' path. Every worker that toiled in the great smelteries of Vostroya was already engaged in the immense war effort and the world's ruling Techtriarchs determined that such a sacrifice in manpower would render the production quotas unattainable. They reasoned that the people of Vostroya were better expended making guns than firing them. Reluctantly, the Techtriarchs refused the request.Their actions might have gone unremarked, for in the violence of that terrible civil war many records were destroyed. Unfortunately for the people of Vostroya, such anonymity would be denied to them. When the Heresy ended and Exactor Tributii Advocates of the Administratum began to tally up the cost, Vostroya's refusal to raise arms came to light.The Techtriarchs were called to account -- a task that the primarch of the Ultramarines, Roboute Guilliman, now the lord commander of the Imperium and Imperial Regent, oversaw personally. Faced with the ire of the Ultramarines Legion's primarch, the people of Vostroya entreated the Techtriarchs to negotiate a settlement that would allow them to make amends for their perceived disloyalty.Guilliman warned that Vostroya's penance might never end, but even when he stated the grievous terms of Vostroya's reprieve the Techtriarchs willingly accepted their chance for redemption in the Emperor's eyes. The proposal that Guilliman and the Techtriarchs agreed to was simple, but has shaped Vostroyan society ever since. To repay their debt to the Emperor, the Vostroyans have, for the last ten thousand standard years, given up the firstborn child of every family for service in the Astra Militarum. There is no exception to this penance, and even the greatest noble families must comply. Thus the regiments of the Vostroyan Firstborn were raised.Unlike other Astra Militarum regiments that are raised en masse by a single Imperial world, the already extant regiments of the Firstborn are regularly furnished with a steady influx of new recruits from their homeworld. To the Vostroyans it is a matter of pride that the regiments of the Firstborn have existed unbroken since their first creation in the early 31st Millennium.Vostroya continues to labour unceasingly to meet the production quotas of their Adeptus Mechanicus masters, but the repayment of their debt to the Emperor comes first. Attached to each of the thousands of manufactoria that blot the planet's surface is a sacred workshop, where the weapons and wargear of the Vostroyan Firstborn are produced. Every labourer on Vostroya is expected to give one solar hour in every ten to the upkeep of the Firstborn regiments. With stoic resolve, the Vostroyans steadfastly sacrifice their time. The weaponry they produce is of the finest quality, for the Firstborn are their sons and daughters, their brothers and sisters, and their only hope of redemption in the God-Emperor's eyes.Thanks to the inhospitable climate of Vostroya, their regiments are trained in the most adverse of conditions. Within the skeletal remains of collapsed manufactoria, the Firstborn learn the skills of war.Vostroya's governing committee -- the Techtriarchy -- is composed of Adeptus Mechanicus officials as well as Imperial Commanders, and as a result Vostroyan uniforms tend to incorporate red, the colour of Mars, and cyber-augmentation among the ranks is commonplace. The weapons they carry to war and mount on their vehicles are not mass-produced, but exquisitely hand-crafted by military artisans. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Spinward Front: Several regiments of the Vostroyan Firstborn currently serve within the Margin Crusade, lending their support during the recent escalation that has seen countless regiments pass from the Calixis Sector into the Halo Stars. It came as little surprise that amongst the reserves brought in from outside the Calixis Sector to defend the Periphery Sub-sector were a number of Vostroyan regiments, or that they were amongst the first to arrive.Alongside a variety of Calixian and Cadian regiments, the Vostroyans have served the longest within the Spinward Front, earning numerous victories and staving off disastrous defeats. Yet, thanks to their own traditions of reinforcement, they have remained at close to full strength for the entire conflict so far.Consequently, Lord Militant Ghanzorik has been keen to ensure that the Firstborn regiments stand alongside his own Maccabian Janissaries as the core of many defensive lines, particularly on the world of Kulth, where the battle lines shift daily. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Era Indomitus: The opening of the Great Rift and the onset of the Noctis Aeterna in the Era Indomitus has not curbed the Vostroyans' steadfast loyalty towards the Imperium. Vostroya itself, along with the majority of its regiments, are cut off from the guiding beacon of the Astronomican by the still-raging Cicatrix Maledictum within the Imperium Nihilus.However, the Vostroyans have not only defended their own territories, but have also continued sending reinforcements to other war zones -- hoping to answer the last cries for help that were heard before the Emperor's light was extinguished and all went silent.Without the Astronomican to guide them, Vostroyan Navigators must fly blind, trusting in esoteric data charts or rote memory to navigate the perilously twisting Warp paths. The majority of transports never reach their destination, either emerging far from their target or simply being devoured by the forces of the Immaterium.Despite the devastating losses this has caused the Vostroyans, they continue sending their tanks and soldiers outward into the darkness. Never again will they wait when the call to war has been sounded. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Notable Campaigns: Defence of Nimbosa (790.M41) - The 9th Vostroyan Regiment, "The Old Irascibles," defended the Imperial world of Nimbosa against the T'au Empire's effort to expand their burgeoning alien empire and annex the world. The Vostroyan regiment heroically sacrificed themselves to a man defending the factory city of Polia against the T'au Commander Brightsword. Inspired by the Vostroyans' sacrifice, the populace refused to submit to the T'au Empire and its Greater Good.Spinward Front Crusade (814.M41) - The 55th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment is currently involved in the ongoing Imperial Crusade in the Spinward Front of the Calixis Sector. They are currently deployed to the capital world of Kulth and continue to fight an ongoing campaign against the Ork forces of WAAAGH! Grimtoof and the Secessionist forces of the Severan Dominate.Kieldar Rebellion (956.M41) - The Kieldar Rebellion is utterly crushed by the combined forces of the Vostroyan, Cadian, Mordian, Loriar, Elysian, Catachan, Aegis, Tallarn, Harakoni, Neocassan, Paragon, Birmingham, Morax, Jjojos, Pintax, Athanos, K'phrani and Rassiosan Imperial Guard regiments.Disappearance of Grand-Marshal Durov (997.M41) - Grand Marshal Durov of Vostroya reports Daemonic incursions in the Finial Sector. Contact with Durov's Army Group was lost, and its whereabouts remain unknown.Fall of Karak Prime (998.M41) - Reformed after their destruction on Nimbosa, the 9th Vostroyan Regiment once again met their ultimate fate during the Fall of Karak Prime in 998.M41. They held the hive city that served as the planetary capital for eighteen standard months against the brutal onslaught of a splinter Tyranid fleet of Hive Fleet Moloch, valiantly facing the Tyranid swarm that stretched from the base of the city's walls to the distant horizon. With the onset of midwinter, and with the rapid depletion of ammunition and supplies, the 9th Vostroyan knew that they were doomed and vowed to sell their lives dearly. Only when the bulk of the Tyranid swarm had passed into the city did the regiment detonate its nucleonic stack, incinerating the hive, its defenders and an estimated 85% of the Tyranid swarm. With the coming of midwinter, the few surviving Tyranid organisms eventually starved to death and the splinter Hive Fleet was entirely defeated.Fall of Medusa V (999.M41) - The Imperial Mining World of Medusa V, located in the Ultima Segmentum, was devoured by a massive Warp Storm in 999.M41. Fortunately, the military forces of the Imperium of Man were able to evacuate the entire surviving civilian population of the planet before it was consumed. Before completing this evacuation, the world became the centre of a large military conflict between eight of the Milky Way Galaxy's major powers for control of the world, each for its own reasons in a campaign later known to Imperial savants as the Fall of Medusa V. Multiple Vostroyan Firstborn regiments, which included the 5th, 7th, 11th, 16th and 241st, answered the call to arms, and fought in the Medusa V campaign.Gates of Balcarhsa (3789.999.M41) - Lord Marshal Graf Harazahn of Vostroya rallies the forces of the Imperial Guard and assumes overall command of the Army Group deployed to Medusa V. The Lord Marshal's forces defeat the Eldar at the Gates of Balcarhsa.Liberation of Kurkaris (Unknown Date.M41) - The 22nd Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment was instrumental in the liberation of the world of Kurkaris. The 22nd is notable for being one of the very few Vostroyan regiments to make use of Rough Riders mounted cavalry squadrons (called Hussars by the Vostroyans) in order to better engage the Orks in Kurkaris' thick forests.Defence of Danik's World (Unknown Date.M41) - The 68th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment defended Danik's World from a massive Ork invasion and a planet-wide rebellion. Last known Imperial records of the regiment indicated that it had dropped to a strength of around 30 effective soldiers, all from the 5th Company. The bulk of the regiment was destroyed by the rebellious forces, both through sedition and ambush tactics. The 5th Company, which had previously been attached as a rearguard, suffered severely in their valiant attempt to make it back to Imperial lines. The commander of the 5th Company, Captain Gregorious Sebastev, was officially placed in command of the hardened survivors, shortly before the whole group was seconded to the Inquisition. The eventual fate of these survivors, and therefore the regiment itself, is currently unknown. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Regimental Homeworld: Vostroya was colonised long ago, during the Age of Technology, when Mankind first reached the stars. The homeworld of the Vostroyan Firstborn is a frigid, industrialised Hive World, though it does not bear that official designation, covered in manufactoria and towering hive city arcology cityscapes, which has maintained strong ties with the Adeptus Mechanicus since the Age of Strife.Like most Hive Worlds, it is heavily populated. Smoking chimneys belch toxic clouds of pollutants into the sky and blast furnaces fend off the bitter chill as vast workforces toil unceasingly for their Imperial masters. These smoke-clogged edifices are the only places where heat can be found, choking oases of light and warmth amidst the perpetual icy gloom. Few folk stray from their manufactoria without good reason.Vostroya is governed by the Techtriarchs, a curious committee of Adeptus Mechanicus archmagi and traditional Imperial planetary nobles, whose primary duty is to ensure that the Imperial tithes and production quotas placed upon the Vostroyans are always met.Most of the world's population work in the manufactoria, subjected to poor conditions and long hours to ensure that weaponry and other goods are produced in the vast quantities demanded by the Imperium.For the poorest families, their first-born children are provided with an opportunity to achieve something beyond the toil and frozen squalor of their homes, and for all on Vostroya, the offering of the first-born is regarded as both a duty and an honour -- their culture places enormous importance on the repayment of their ancestral debt to the Imperium of Man and the God-Emperor. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Regimental Organisation: Vostroyan Firstborn regiments are trained in the frozen, snow and ash-covered ruins of the planet's ancient cityscapes, on portions of their homeworld no longer habitable or functional, before being shipped out, once each generation, to serve the Imperium, never to return.Unusually, the Firstborn reinforce their regiments, sending new soldiers out to each one, no matter how far away it is or how difficult providing these reinforcements will prove to be. This ensures that the youngest members of the Firstborn have the experience of hardened veterans to draw upon during combat, and that every Vostroyan Firstborn regiment can trace its existence back to their original mustering, ten thousand Terran years before.With every Vostroyan family -- from the highest Techtriarchs to the lowliest menials -- required to send their first-born children to serve the Emperor, familial ties within regiments are not uncommon, and many young Vostroyans have found themselves under the guardianship of distant uncles, aunts and older cousins, something that encourages a strong bond of comradeship. Within each regiment, the officer corps is composed of those of noble birth, while the common soldiery are drawn from the Vostroyan worker families that make up the bulk of the world's population.Vostroyan regiments are most commonly line infantry, and are particularly at home in cold environments and urban areas, as these conditions best match those of their training back on Vostroya. However, the Vostroyan Firstborn's armoured regiments are not uncommon, turning the Vostroyans' traditional ties with their Techtriarchs among the Adeptus Mechanicus into the highly-skilled operation of the Astra Militarum's powerful main battle tanks. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Regimental Beliefs: Vostroyans believe that the proper ways of living are those tried and tested by the generations that have gone before. Horror, pain and death are the just rewards of curiosity, for those that look too deeply into the mysteries of the universe are all too likely to find malefic beings looking back at them.For Vostroyans, ignorance truly is bliss. The Vostroyans also reserve a deep disdain for those Astra Militarum regiments they perceive to be less devoted to the Imperial cause than themselves, although that can sometimes include a great many of their allies on the battlefield.But should the Vostroyans' respect be gained by an individual or a fellow regiment, they are comrades in the face of death and hardship that any servant of the Emperor would be proud to serve beside. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Regimental Appearance: With both the industrial capacity of Vostroya and its unusual tradition of reinforcement for existing regiments, the Vostroyan Firstborn are particularly well-equipped, clad in durable, plasteel-alloy Carapace Armour breast plates and armed with finely-wrought lasgun rifles.These are both often passed down through the generations, giving the Firstborn a baroque look, further embellished by their traditional use of red dyes and brass metalwork in their uniforms and wargear.It is traditional for Firstborn regimental officers to bear lasguns with integrated axe blades or bayonets. Vostroyan regimental standard bearers bear ancient tribal sabers and daggers, along with ritual scars on their upper torsos.With stoic resolve, the Vostroyans steadfastly sacrifice their lives to the service of the Emperor either in the manufactoria or on the battlefield. The weaponry Vostroyan workers produce is always of the finest quality, for the Firstborn guardsmen who will make use of it are their children, siblings and parents and their only hope for redemption in the Emperor's eyes.As such, hand-carved wooden stocks are expertly inlaid with precious metals and precision tooled barrels replace the utilitarian weaponry used by other Astra Militarum regiments. Every item of Vostroyan wargear is a work of art and carries the hopes of a world in its construction. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Wargear: With both the heavy industrial capacity of Vostroya and its unusual tradition of reinforcement for its existing regiments already in the field, the Vostroyans are particularly well-equipped, clad in durable, plasteel-alloy Carapace Armour unusual for standard Astra Militarum regiments and armed with finely-wrought lasrifles.These are both often passed down through the generations, giving the Firstborn a baroque look, further embellished by their traditional use of red dyes and brass metalwork in their uniforms and wargear.The following is a list of the wargear traditionally equipped by a standard Vostroyan Firstborn soldier:M36 Kantrael Pattern Lasgun - The M36 Kantrael Pattern Lasgun is one of the most ubiquitous Lasgun patterns available across the human-settled galaxy. The M36 Kantrael Pattern is a locally-produced Lasgun variant manufactured on Vostroya.4 Charge Packs - Charge Packs are powerful capacitors used almost exclusively by Imperial laser weapons. The potency of a Charge Pack varies depending on the class of the weapon. In all cases, it provides shots equal to the weapon's full clip value and can be recharged to fire the full number of shots once more.1 Vostroyan Sword - The swords wielded by the Vostroyan Firstborn can range from short dagger-like models to longer, elaborate duelling blades. The nature of the blade (single- or double-edged, curved or straight, flexible or stiff, cutting or stabbing, and so on) varies with the intent of the sword and the taste of its user. The traditional shashka is a special kind of Vostroyan sabre; a very sharp, single-edged, single-handed, and guardless sword. In appearance, the shashka is midway between a full sabre and a straight sword. It has a slightly curved blade, and can be effective at both slashing and thrusting attacks.2 Frag Grenades - These explosives use a combustible charge and special fillers of shrapnel fragments to fill a given circumference with deadly shrapnel, making this grenade a potent anti-personnel weapon. Imperial Frag Grenades are roughly the size of a clenched fist and covered with a heavily notched shell, both to increase the shrapnel produced and provide a more secure grip for throwing.2 Krak Grenades - Krak explosives contain powerful concentrated explosives that have been shaped to punch holes in armoured targets such as vehicles or bunkers. While stronger than Frag Grenades, Krak detonations do not produce a blast effect and their more focused explosion makes them less practical for use as an anti-personnel weapon.Flak Armour - The most common type of armour in the galaxy is Flak Armour, as it is standard issue to the countless millions of Imperial Guardsmen. Many layers of ablative and impact-absorbent material go into making each suit, enough to deflect or negate most low-level attacks made by small arms, shrapnel, and proximity blasts. Solid hits from high-impact weapons can generally negate the protection provided by Flak Armour, but given that it is relatively lightweight, cheap to produce, and dependable in most combat situations, many veteran Guardsmen keep using it even when offered better.Carapace Armour Breastplate - Carapace Armour is generally a sign of status and is mostly worn by Imperial officers, elite Storm Troopers and agents. Made from moulded plates of armaplas, ceramite, or other strong, light but highly resistant materials, it can cover the entire body or just selected regions of the body depending on the desired level of protection. Storm Troopers, for example, wear full-body suits of Carapace Armour, including a helmet, while most standard Astra Militarum soldiers, such as the Vostroyans, are lucky to gain access to just a simple chestplate of Carapace Armour to wear over more comfortable mesh or flakweave suits. Some bodysuits have slots designed for simple carapace plates to be inserted in, so that the overall suits can be rapidly configured for as much or as little protection as desired. Damaged plates can in this way be more easily replaced without requiring the purchase or requisition of an entirely new suit.Vostroyan Firstborn Imperial Guard UniformPoor Weather GearRucksackMicro-bead - A Micro-bead or Comm-bead is a short-range radio wave communication device worn in the ear, good for communications out to about one kilometre (depending on weather conditions and the intervening terrain). Each fits discreetly in the ear, with higher craftsmanship models being nearly undetectable in casual inspection.Respirator - A simple breathing mask that covers the nose and mouth or entire face, these offer much better protection than filtration plugs and are used by Vostroyan Firstborn guardsmen in toxic environments or during attacks by chemical or even biological weapons.Survival KitBasic ToolkitMess Kit & Water Canteen2 solar weeks' rationsBlanket & Sleep BagRechargeable Lamp Pack - Sturdy and reliable, glow-globes illuminate many an Imperial paveway and cathedral. Most portable ones are roughly the size of a clenched fist and can shine strong, yellowish light a dozen or so metres in width, lasting roughly five hours before their power pack needs recharging or replacing.Grooming KitDog TagsTreatis Elatii - A Vostroyan sacred text written by Saint Nadalya, the Grey Lady, a saint of the Imperial Cult and the patron saint of the world of Vostroya and its planetary branch of the Adeptus Ministorum.Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer - A standard-issue Imperial text that covers a vast variety of topics, this book is possessed by all members of the Imperial Guard as part of their standard-issue equipment. The Primer is a basic guide that details everything a Guardsman needs to know: principles and regulations of the Imperial Guard, issued arms, attire, apparatus and equipment, basic battlefield policy and Imperial Guard organisation and structure, elementary battlefield medical instructions, and a detailed guide on the foes of the Imperium. No Guardsman should ever be found without possession of a copy of the Uplifting Primer, for the punishment is severe. The Primer is a basic guide to life in the Imperial Guard and the tactics employed by its regiments. Even elite Imperial troops like Kasrkin often times still rely on its advice. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Infantry Regiments: 5th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment - The 5th Vostroyan Regiment was commanded by none other than Lord Marshal Graf Harazahn, the supreme commander of the Imperial forces on Medusa V during the Fall of Medusa V campaign. The regiment defended Hive Euryales against the Forces of Chaos' assault tactics before the Warp Storm known as Van Grothe's Rapidity overwhelmed the planet.7th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment - The 7th Vostroyan Regiment defended Hive Euryales on Medusa V alongside Lord Marshal Graf Harazahn and the 5th Vostroyan Regiment during the Fall of Medusa V campaign.9th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment, "The Old Irascibles" - Earning their name the "Old Irascibles" through hundreds of battles, the vaunted 9th Vostroyan Regiment served for three and a half centuries during the late 41st Millennium. The 9th Vostroyan became one of the most veteran formations in the Segmentum Obscurus, before finally meeting their match on the world of Nimbosa. Around 790.M41, the 9th Vostroyan defended the Imperial world of Nimbosa against the Tau's effort to expand their burgeoning alien empire and annex the world. The Vostroyan regiment heroically sacrificed themselves to a man defending the factory city of Polia. Inspired by the Vostroyans' sacrifice, the populace refused to submit to the Tau Empire. Reformed after their destruction on Nimbosa, the 9th Vostroyan once again met their ultimate fate during the Fall of Karak Prime in 998.M41. They held the hive city for 18 months against the brutal onslaught of a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Moloch, valiantly facing a Tyranid swarm that stretched from the base of the city's walls to the distant horizon. With the onset of midwinter, and with the rapid depletion of ammunition and supplies, the 9th Vostroyan knew that they were doomed and vowed to sell their lives dearly. Only when the bulk of the Tyranid swarm had passed into the city did the regiment detonate its nucleonic stack, incinerating the hive, its defenders and an estimated 85% of the Tyranid swarm. With the coming of midwinter, the few surviving Tyranid organisms eventually starved to death and the splinter fleet was entirely defeated.11th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment - The 11th Vostroyan Regiment served under Lord Marshal Graf Harazahn, supreme commander of the Imperial forces on Medusa V during the Fall of Medusa V campaign.16th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment - The 16th Vostroyan Regiment helped defend the world of Nimbosa from another attempt by the Tau to conquer it before the Imperial Nimbosa Crusade liberated the world in 992.M41.22nd Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment - The 22nd Vostroyan Regiment was instrumental in the liberation of the world of Kurkaris. They are notable for being one of the very few Vostroyan Regiments to make use of Rough Riders mounted cavalry squadrons (called Hussars by the Vostroyans) in order to better engage the Orks in Kurkaris' thick forests.55th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment - Like all Vostroyan Firstborn regiments, the 55th can trace its history back to the reconstruction of the Imperium after the Horus Heresy. Generations of Vostroyan men have fought, bled, and died on countless worlds across the galaxy. It is an old saying amongst their number that Vostroyan blood has been shed on every world in the Imperium, and given the illustrious history of even one Firstborn regiment, this may not be too far from the truth. The Firstborn 55th were redeployed to Fort Drusus on Kulth in the Spinward Front of the Calixis Sector about four months after the Orks claimed Avitohol, having already fought with distinction on Ashen, Oriad, and Manus Genita during the earlier years of the Spinward Front campaign. Since that time, the 55th have been relocated to another corner of Kulth every other week, holding back Ork and Severan Dominate incursions before pushing to reclaim some scrap of territory from them. This constant dance of defence and attack has become something of a routine for the 55th, and considerable quantities of scrip and luxury rations, such as lho-sticks and alcohol, have been won and lost by the rank-and-file in the weekly sweepstake, with individual squads betting over which warzone on the planet they will be deployed to next. The regiment’s officers have done little to curb this, seeing it as nothing more than a means for the men to blow off steam and raise morale between gruelling battles—bad blood between winners and losers is unlikely, due to the strong sense of brotherhood within the regiment. The regiment’s commander, Colonel Nikolai Aleksandrov, is well regarded by the other officers in his regiment, not purely because of his rank, but because he is a distant cousin of one of the ruling Techtriarchs of Vostroya, and thus an extremely important member of the nobility. The rank-and-file have little to no interest in this, and most are entirely unaware of his high status, but respect the man’s leadership and prowess -- there is little that Colonel Aleksandrov will ask of his men in battle that he will not do himself, and he is always found at the front, leading the charge or exhorting his men with bellowed warcries.68th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment - The 68th Vostroyan Regiment defended Danik's World from a massive Ork invasion and a planet-wide rebellion. Last known Imperial records of the regiment indicated that it had dropped to a strength of 28 effective soldiers, all but one of whom were from the 5th Company. The bulk of the regiment was destroyed by the rebellious forces, both through sedition and ambush tactics. The 5th Company, which had previously been attached as a rearguard, suffered severely in their valiant attempt to make it back to Imperial lines. The commander of the 5th Company, Captain Gregorious Sebastev, was officially placed in command of the hardened survivors, shortly before the whole group was seconded to the Inquisition. The eventual fate of these survivors, and therefore the regiment itself, is currently unknown.241st Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment - Nicknamed the "Legia Zaimprowizowany" or "Improvised Regiment," the 241st Vostroyan Regiment is famous for its troops' ad hoc organisation. They are well-known for adopting the fighting style of other regiments as the circumstances dictate. The commander of the regiment when it participated in the Fall of Medusa V campaign was Colonel Illyich Szradislav.1054th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment, "The Void Shrikes" - Unlike the majority of the Vostroyan regiments that specialize in siege and pitched urban warfare, the 1054th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment is dedicated to void siege assaults and void combat. This expertise was forcibly shaped several millennia ago when bureaucrats of the Departmento Munitorum selected the 1054th, on the merits of their classification as a siege regiment, for the siege of the fortified void station of the wayward Imperial system lord Korsus Lenx, even though they only had ground siege warfare experience. As a result of overlooking the inherent differences between sieges in the cold depth of space and grounded planetary assaults, the 1054th suffered massive losses, both from the poor command decisions of officers inexperienced in void combat and from equipment and weaponry ill-suited to the nature of the siege. Yet, after months of protracted conflict, the Void Shrikes -- as the 1054th had come to be known -- were victorious. The mismatched men and women of the Vostroyan 1054th had breached the void fortress, dispatched Lenx's personal devotees, and captured the maniacal system lord. Those who emerged from the gutted star fort were the best of the best the regiment had to offer. Each and every survivor stood tall having earned his place as a veteran of the Imperial Guard. From this time forward the veterans of the 1054th and the subsequent replacements their regiment received from their homeworld have served the Emperor as a dedicated void siege force. The members of the 1054th have developed an almost preternatural awareness and possess an acuity and cunning born of years of service in zero gravity environments. Their equipment has become specialized to better suit the environmental requirements. As part of their standard regimental kit, all members are issued rebreathers, and modified Flak Armour that can be made airtight for brief periods of time. While it is hardly as effective as a dedicated void suit, the modified armor is capable of keeping the wearer alive and uninjured for a few minutes in the void of space. This is typically enough time for the soldiers to breach an airlock or pass through an area that has become depressurized. Against the regiment’s doctrines, many of the regimental soldiers make further modifications to their Flak Armour to increase its effectiveness in such situations, although at the cost of their maneuverability. The regiment’s officers don’t sanction the modifications, but in spite of this many of the non-commissioned officers overlook the modifications. They recognize that the changes are generally traditions associated with platoons and companies that have served the regiment for millennia, and attempting to enforce the official doctrines could have serious consequences for overall morale. The Departmento Munitorum has rarely deployed the Void Shrikes effectively because they don’t meet the expectations of other siege infantry, leading to a broad range of assignments that were wildly inappropriate for the regiment’s expertise and training. Sometimes they completely lacked the required equipment to complete an assignment or the regiment sustained high levels of casualties. Examples have included subterranean assignments on mining worlds, missions to make aerial assaults upon an ocean world, and numerous deployments to face rebellious forge worlds. Also, the Departmento Munitorum has been incapable of providing the regiment with the necessary wargear to function effectively, making supplies a constant concern for the regiment command. Supplies are more analogous to shipments made to Imperial Navy crews, needing numerous logistical waivers to be delivered through traditional channels. Consequently, the Void Shrikes attempt to rely upon direct shipments of supplies from Vostroya whenever possible, even though these are infrequent. To compensate, the supply officers of the regiment are exceptionally active in trading equipment with their counterparts in other regiments and even aboard their Imperial Navy transport vessels. Throughout the regiment’s history, it has served on many fronts and most often on its own, in part due to its specialized nature. The practice of deploying the 1054th all but alone has continued unchanged for the majority of its history. Only when the regiment is engaged in a task that proves to exceed their grasp are they provided with the support of another regiment. After several thousand years of fighting on its own against all manner of foes, the Vostroyan 1054th has become capable of functioning in an independent fashion. Their service record is such an honour roll of glory and their assignments so far-flung that in recent centuries, the company commanders of the Void Shrikes have only rarely received their regiment’s orders in person. Communications were maintained through a network of astropaths, and it was only through the undeniable evidence of their success that the Void Shrikes were guaranteed to have received their orders at all. This independence has served as a further complication for resupply of equipment and provisions and replacement of losses by newly trained soldiers from Vostroya. Often, these replacements can take decades to reach their target regiment. In some instances, this is because the units were initially shipped to as many as four locations where the Void Shrikes had been assigned at the time of shipment. By the time the soldiers or wargear finally arrived, the 1054th had been reassigned. Further, newly trained troopers are supposed to report to the regimental commander prior to duty assignment, per standing Vostroyan protocols. With the various series of redirections, this has left some newly assigned soldiers to travel for years before finally reaching their designated post. In a few instances, due to severe losses, some longstanding companies within the 1054th had to be combined or entirely disbanded, due to a successive series of missions with high levels of casualties. In the past few centuries, the 1054th have been actively serving in the Calixis Sector and were recently assigned to assault the starfort Lycurgos, which was under control by the Severan Dominate general Frederique Constantine. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Armoured Regiments: 24th Vostroyan Heavy Armoured Regiment, "Iron Bloods" - The 24th Vostroyan Heavy Armoured Regiment consisted of less than 1,500 Guardsmen at its founding-strength. The Iron Bloods are most famous for the actions of one of their Tank Commanders. There have been countless Tank Commanders of note in the Astra Militarum's history. Astrov Yemenev of the Iron Bloods was noted for taking out the dread Biel-Tan tank ace, Vathwal Heavenlance. The Iron Bloods encountered the Fire Prism pilot on Hive World Degis, alone and cut off from his invading army. With a trio of lancing blasts the Aeldari incinerated an entire squadron of Leman Russ battle tanks while weaving deftly between the returning Imperial fire. Three more blasts saw another squadron obliterated. With his company below half-strength, Yemenev ordered the remaining gunners to lay down a wide blanket of fire on either side of the zigzagging Fire Prism. This left but a narrow channel where Heavenlance could move, through which Yemenev fired the killing blow.1635th Vostroyan Firstborn Mechanised - The 1635th is best known for its Tank Commander Alaxei Dymetrin. Among the troops of the 1635th Vostroyan Firstborn Mechanised, it is said that Dymetrin has oil running through his veins instead of blood. Dymetrin has never really embraced the lifestyle of the Astra Militarum officer, and is more comfortable in the steel belly of one of his beloved tanks than he is in the comfort of headquarters. However, after the death of his own superior officer during the Eighteenth Great War of Vostroya, Dymetrin led his regiment's Leman Russ tank squadrons with such efficacy that he broke the Ork siege plaguing his world's capital. His field promotion was quickly made an official posting, and he has been regretting it ever since. Reasoning that rank has its privileges, he has since given his orders from the command cupola of Tundra's Bite, a Baneblade super-heavy tank whose interior is covered in etchings, friezes and kill markings. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Notable Vostroyan Firstborn: Lord Marshal Graf Harazahn - Harazahn is one of the most famous commanders of the Vostroyan Firstborn, and he was was granted overall command of all Imperial military forces during the Fall of Medusa V Campaign.Lord Marshal Graf Toschenko - Lord Marshal Toschenko led the Vostroyan forces who served during the campaign against the T'au on Nimbosa.Colonel Nikolai Aleksandrov - Colonel Aleksandrov is the commander of the 55th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment, and is well-regarded by the other officers in his regiment, not purely because of his rank, but because he is a distant cousin of one of the ruling Techtriarchs of Vostroya, and thus an extremely important member of the Vostroyan nobility. The rank-and-file of the 55th have little to no interest in this, and most are entirely unaware of his high status, but respect the man's leadership and prowess—there is little that Colonel Aleksandrov will ask of his men in battle that he will not do himself, and he is always found at the front, leading the charge or exhorting his men with bellowed warcries.Colonel Maxim Kabanov - Colonel Kabanov, known as the "White Boar", served in the 68th Vostroyan Regiment, during the ill-fated campaign on Danik's World. Lieutenant Maro was his adjutant.Colonel Illyich Szradislav - Colonel Illyich Szradislav commanded the Vostroyan 241st Regiment during the Fall of Medusa V campaign. A taciturn and methodical individual, Szradislav is renowned for his practical and analytical approach to leadership, leaving the rousing speeches and battle-cries for others better suited to it. Szradislav is famous for adapting the Vostroyan 241st Regiment's tactics to suit the situation as well as for utilising the exact level of force necessary to achieve any given task. Szradislav adopted the use of Rough Riders mounted cavalry after an experience within the Segmentum Ultima during which several Armoured Fist regiments were seconded to a Rough Riders of Attila Company. The Vostroyan 241st Regiment has maintained an attachment of Rough Riders (Hussars) ever since.Captain Gregorious Sebastev - Captain Gregorious Sebastev, also known as the "Pit-Dog," served in the ill-fated 68th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment during the campaign on Danik's World. Captain Sebastev and nearly two dozen of his soldiers of the 5th Company were the sole survivors of the regiment after two crushing defeats by the Orks.Captain Grigory Kulikov - Commander of the 1054th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment's 7th Company.Lieutenant Sava Nikishin - Nikishin served in the 1054th Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Trivia: The distinctive appearance of the Vostroyan Firstborn is based on the archaic uniform worn by the Russian Streltsi early firearm infantry from the 16th to the early 18th century. |
Vostroyan Firstborn - Sources: Codex: Imperial Guard (5th Edition), pp. 18, 22Codex: Astra Militarum (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), "Regiments of Distinction - Vostroyan Firstborn"Codex: Astra Militarum (8th Edition), pp. 23, 37Only War: Core Rulebook (RPG), pp. 56-57Only War: No Surrender (RPG), pp. 13-16, 34, 54Shield of Baal: Leviathan (7th Edition) (Digital Edition), "The Hammers of Ixoi"The Fall of Medusa V (Games Workshop Campaign Booklet)Warhammer 40,000: Cities of Death (4th Edition), pp. 56-57White Dwarf 317 (US), "Index Imperialis: Firstborn Sons of Vostroya", pp. 44-53Rebel Winter (Novel) by Steve ParkerGames Workshop Vostroyan FirstborneMedusa V Wordwide Campaign (Defunct) |
Votannic Bolt Cannon - Votannic Bolt Cannon: A Votannic Bolt Cannon, also just called a Bolt Cannon, is a massive, hand-held, heavy fire support and anti-armour ballistic weapon used by the military forces of the Leagues of Votann. Variants can also be used as anti-personnel weapons mounted on armoured vehicles such as the Sagitaur ATV and the Hekaton Land Fortress. The Bolt Cannon is very similar to the Imperial Heavy Bolter.Like its Imperial counterparts, with which it shares a common technological heritage from pre-Imperial Terra through the STC databases, the Votannic Bolt Cannon fires kinetic projectiles known as "bolts" that explode on impact. The Votannic Bolt Cannon is a heavy weapon that requires two hands to lift, possesses a long range and can unleash bolts of extremely powerful explosive force whose salvos can slay hordes of enemies or penetrate thick armour plate.Kin weapons like Votannic Bolt Cannons are superior in almost every respect to those wielded by the agents of the Imperium, since the Kin employ superlative materials and methods in their construction and have no fear of further innovating on an ancient STC design. As a result, the Votannic Bolt Cannon still often has a longer range and more stopping power than any of its Imperial equivalents.Votannic Bolt Cannons are a favoured heavy weapon of the combat engineers known as Brôkhyr Thunderkyn. |
Vox-caster - Vox-caster: The Vox-caster, sometimes referred to as a Comm-link, is an Imperial radio communications transceiver that can be as small as a helmet-mounted link and as large as a massive bank of dedicated communications equipment employed at an Imperial military force's headquarters.Usually an Astra Militarum squad or platoon will have a link to their headquarters via one vox unit and smaller relays for trooper-to-trooper communications.Command units usually use a more complex version of a Vox-caster known as a "Master-vox." This communications technology can receive and transmit on multiple radio frequencies at once, making it ideal for coordinating the actions of multiple units at the same time.Command vehicles in armoured companies have a similar system, known as "improved comms," for contacting reserves or artillery support.In the absence of any form of vox communications, troopers are taught to make use of sign language during battle.The troopers of the Astra Militarum, the Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, and servants of the Inquisition have miniature Vox-casters built into the helmets of their armour.The Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus usually have Vox-casters implanted within their skulls as part of their cybernetic enhancements, a common upgrade for all the servants of the Machine God. Most of these Vox-casters are short-ranged and used only for intersquad communications. |
Vox-drone - Vox-drone: A Vox-drone is a mobile communications platform used commonly with the Imperium of Man to carry recorded messages. The Vox-drone is an oblate metal unit about the size of a citrus fruit that has an anti-gravity emitter built within it.The Vox-drone carries messages to people it is programmed to find by using a recorded pheromonal trace to track down the person for whom its message is intended. The drone can record short audio and holographic messages that will only be played for the person whose pheromonal markers match the drone's data set.Because it carries a relatively small power cell, the Vox-drone can only be used for short-range communications and is generally used within the spires of wealthy hive cities to carry personal or business-oriented messages between the members of the hive's nobility. |
Vox Master Vigdis - Vox Master Vigdis: Vox Master Vigdis, whose full name is Octavus Vigdis Surri Otta of the Toliman dynasty, is the vox master of the House von Valancius Rogue Trader dynasty's flagship. She is a voidborn of the Toliman vassal family who have been in the service of House von Valancius for generations as the vox masters, or chief communications officers, of their Rogue Trader's flagship.Vigdis is in charge of all vox communication within the von Valancius flagship and initiates all vox communications with other ships, void stations or planetary surfaces wherever the flagship goes. Vigdis immediately assumed the duty of vox master upon the demise of Vox Master Septimus, her grandfather, during the Warp incursion on the flagship that also led to the assassination of Lord Captain Theodora von Valancius.Vox Master Vigdis is good friends with the diviner Idira Tlass. After the death of Theodora von Valancius, their relationship has become more distant as both possess new responsibilties and the difficulties of dealing with the new Rogue Trader who has succeeded Theodora at the head of the dynasty.Vigdis has been heavily augmented by bionics like all in her family, which are intended to give her a direct mind-to-cogitator link with the flagship's vox systems. |
Vraesque Malidrach - Vraesque Malidrach: Vraesque Malidrach, self-styled as the "Murderprince of the Poisoned Crown," is the archon of the Drukhari Kabal of the Flayed Skull, the militarily second-strongest kabal of Commorragh. The Flayed Skull are specialists in the use of airpower and aerial attacks in carrying out their sweeping raids into realspace to claim loot and slaves from the "lesser races." |
Vraesque Malidrach - History: Archon Vraesque Malidrach of the mighty Kabal of the Flayed Skull was once a notorious, lowborn Reaver death racer. Malidrach survived over one hundred races in the laserloop of Commorragh's arena of Khad Mhetrul -- the Bitterspire -- and made a name for himself as a vicious competitor. Eventually, Vraesque the Reaver used his riches and fame to buy, bully or steal the allegiance of sufficient Kabalite followers to make himself Vraesque the archon. With this, the Kabal of the Flayed Skull was born.Since its inception, this kabal has grown at an impressive rate. In terms of sheer logistical strength, the Flayed Skull is said to be second only to Asdrubael Vect's Kabal of the Black Heart. In the Terran centuries since Vraesque first formed his kabal, its victories have far outnumbered its defeats. This is thanks in no small part to Vraesque's incredible reactions, lighting-fast tactical mind and killer instincts.The archon has never allowed the skills he learned as a Reaver to dull with disuse. Surrounding himself with similarly quick-witted lieutenants has ensured that the Kabal of the Flayed Skull never finds itself ambushed, trapped or outmanoeuvred. It does not take great imagination to see how this proves invaluable to a kabal in a city where most killing blows are struck from behind.Archon Malidrach also favours overwhelming airborne strength in battle. As such, his kabal maintains mercenary contracts with an unprecedented number of Drukhari Razorwing Jetfighter pilots and Voidraven Bomber crews. Furthermore, Malidrach puts great stock in the winged Scourges, and rarely goes to battle without at least one band of these altered and augmented Drukhari warriors in his pay. When the Kabal of the Flayed Skull launches a raid, it fills the skies with screaming flocks of death-dealers, each vying for the murderous honour of claiming first blood.The Kabal of the Flayed Skull has countless outposts and hideways scattered throughout Commorragh, from the dubious gambling dens of the Sprawlgates of Heng Khestuul, to hidden aerial platforms concealed in the Shadowcloud Abyss. However, the heart of the kabal's holdings, and the personal seat of power of Archon Malidrach himself, is the towering armoured eyrie in High Commorragh known as the "Poisoned Crown."Inaccessible by any means other than flight, the Poisoned Crown towers above its surrounding districts. Bursting from the ground around its base comes an insane network of pipes, both metallic and organic. This tentacular tangle winds its way up the outside of the spire, making it appear as though the fortress is under attack by some promethean beast.Finally, having squirmed their way up past countless weapon-blisters, torture galleries and aircraft hangars, the pipes reach the summit of the Poisoned Crown. Here, they grope skywards in a madman's idea of regal circlet. The pipes, issuing all the way from the laboratories of the Haemonculi far below, vent a constant stream of toxic fog. They wreath the crest of the kabal's lair in the vile miasma that gives the place its name; above which looms a statue of Vraesque himself.During the Era Indomitus, Malidrach suffered his first great defeat at the hands of the Slaaneshi Chaos Lord Lucius the Eternal. |
Vraesque Malidrach - Wargear: Vraesque Malidrach has been known to wear bone-white armour, all the better to display the splattered blood of his victims. |
Vraks Prime - Vraks Prime: Vraks Prime was a Departmento Munitorum Armoury World in the Vraks System of the Scarus Sector of the Segmentum Obscurus and the site of the Basilica of Saint Leonis the Blind, a saint of the Imperial Cult.The Vraks System comprised four worlds, Vraks Prime, Vraks Secundus, Vraks Tertius and the large, gravitationally-trapped asteroid Uryx, of which only Vraks Prime had been settled by the Imperium.The system was protected from astronomical anomalies like stray comets and unidentified voidcraft by the Kerak Sub-sector vigilance stations that were installed following the Bane of Antius Incursion of ca. 748.M38.Located in the Segmentum Obscurus to the galactic northwest of the Eye of Terror, Vraks' importance lay in its strategic position as a part of the Imperium's defences against incursions by Chaos-aligned forces.The planet formed part of a network of similar Armoury Worlds across the Segmentum Obscurus. Its location and facilities enabled it to quickly resupply Astra Militarum regiments committed to defend worlds close to the Eye of Terror, particularly in the Scarus Sector.Vraks was besieged by the forces of the Imperium of Man in 813.M41, after the attempted assassination of the heretical and traitorous Apostate Cardinal-Astra Xaphan by the Officio Assassinorum failed.The Astra Militarum's 88th Siege Army was raised from line regiments of the Death Korps of Krieg to undertake the siege of the world and bring the Renegade cardinal down in a campaign of attrition that the Administratum's adepts calculated would take 12 standard years to successfully conclude.At the conclusion of what actually turned out to be a 17-year-long Imperial campaign of attrition called the Siege of Vraks that required 34 regiments of the Imperial Guard to retake the planet in 830.M41, 14 million Imperial Guardsmen had been lost and Vraks Prime's entire original population of 8 million souls had been consumed in the violence or exterminated after they fell to Chaos corruption.The world was then declared Perdita by the Imperium and placed under an interdiction to cordon it off from the rest of human space as ordered by the Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Lord Hector Rex. |
Vraks Prime - History: Vraks was a barren and drab world, covered in a layer of old volcanic dust and pumice-like rock. It was first discovered and logged into Imperial records by Imperial forces during the Great Crusade at some point after the Age of Strife.Later it was explored by an expedition led by Rogue Trader Van Meer of the Van Meer Household. A supply base was established on Vraks for stockpiling Imperial military materiel for future exploratory expeditions around the rim of the Eye of Terror.Throughout its settled history, Vraks endured many raids, mainly from Renegades and pirates looking to loot military equipment from its vast stores. There were also several uprisings from among its indentured labour force, the most serious of which was suppressed by the Imperium in 4665.082.M39.As the supply base grew in size the materiel stockpiles needed protecting, and thus Vraks' use as an Armoury World began in earnest. A fortress was built to protect the stockpiles from raiding pirates or xenos. A star port facility was constructed to allow easy access for freighters and transport vessels. This facility was eventually destroyed during the siege by the Dark Angels under Supreme Grand Master Azrael in 821.M41.The Vraks star port was surrounded by an Imperial city of approximately 5 million workers. Smaller settlements were scattered across the Van Meersland Wastes. Over thousands of standard years, Vraks was transformed into a huge Imperial armoury. The spaceport was expanded to service the largest Imperial landing craft, capable of ferrying huge shipments of arms, armoured vehicles and munitions to bulk carriers waiting in orbit.Situated in the centre of the Van Meersland Wastes, Vraks primary fortress, known as "the Citadel," was the control centre of Departmento Munitorum operations on Vraks. It was a large fortress, situated atop the core of a long-dead volcano. It contained the headquarters of the Planetary Defence Forces, the Master of the local Administratum's offices, extensive archives, the Cardinal's palace and the Citadel's own garrison barracks.High security dungeons carved into the rock beneath the Citadel itself were sometimes used as a secure prison for Inquisitorial prisoners captured in the sector. Astropathic communications, the Adeptus Arbites precinct, as well as the control centre for the network of defence laser batteries were also sited there.The Citadel of Vraks also included the Basilica of St. Leonis the Blind, built by Vraks' Cardinal-Astra in the 38th Millennium to attend to the faith of the millions of indentured workers interred on Vraks and consecrated with the bones of St. Leonis, an Adeptus Ministorum Missionary of the 38th Millennia who was martyred by Heretics in the Scarus Sector. Pilgrims and penitents visiting the Shrine of St. Leonis arrived by the thousands on Vraks Prime, and were attended to by the many priests based at the Basilica of St. Leonis and the attached Cardinal's palace. |
Vraks Prime - Siege of Vraks: After Cardinal-Astra Borja of the Scarus Sector died in 804.M41 following 400 standard years of life greatly extended by the ministrations of the Adeptus Mechanicus' Magos Biologis, his successor, Cardinal-Astra Scarus Xaphan, took his place as the cardinal of the Scarus Sector.Over the course of 5 Terran years, Xaphan undertook a pilgrimage across the Scarus Sector, his new domain. He wished to see the places he would preside over, and he wished to bring a spiritual revival to the people.Where he and his entourage passed, he amassed ever more followers in a series of religious uprisings. Criminal governments and oppressive tyrannies were shattered with each world he travelled to.Whispering into his ear was the cardinal's favoured advisor, Deacon Mamon, a secret devotee of Chaos, who pushed the cardinal into believing himself to be a sacred champion of the Emperor of Mankind, who would single-handedly reignite the faith of the people of the Imperium and lead them to new heights of righteousness.After years of pilgrimage, during which he was increasingly received as a living saint by the people of his sector, Xaphan went into seclusion on the Imperial Armoury World of Vraks Prime in 809.M41, also the site of a popular Imperial Cult shrine of Saint Leonis the Blind, an Ecclesiarchy missionary who had been martyred in the 38th Millennium after having his eyes removed while spreading the word of the Imperial Creed across the less civilised worlds of the Scarus Sector.A shrine had been built to contain the saint's remains and relics, as well as a palace for the cardinal-astra of the Scarus Sector should he ever choose to make a pilgrimage to the shrine.Here, Xaphan chose his battlefield. As the cardinal had come to believe, through Deacon Mamon's careful encouragement, that corruption was eating away at the Imperium, he now saw himself as a messianic figure destined to ignite a holy war and give the faithful a chance to purge the galaxy of darkness.Believing the cardinal to be amassing far too much popularity and power, an agent of the Officio Assassinorum was sent by the Ordo Hereticus of the Inquisition to assassinate Xaphan during one of his sermons.After the failed attempt on his life by this operative, the Armoury World of Vraks erupted in full-scale rebellion against the Imperium. It wasn't long until the Citadel and the industry of the Armoury World were under Xaphan's full control.By seceding Vraks from the Imperium, Imperial forces in the sector and, in some cases, the entire segmentum, would be left without adequate resupply of arms and armour.By breaking the Imperial supply chain of which Vraks Prime was a part, forces as far removed and important as the Cadian regiments guarding the Eye of Terror would be sparsely armed, allowing a potentially major Chaos incursion or even a Black Crusade to erupt in or around the Cadian Gate.The Administratum deemed that Vraks must be returned to the Imperium's fold. By the time word reached the Imperium of the rebellion on Vraks, it was already too late. Millions of Traitors and Heretics were now dug into meticulously planned, constructed, and reinforced defences, with massive orbital lasers protecting the world's Citadel from orbital bombardment and assault.It fell on the Imperial Guardsmen of the Death Korps of Krieg, united under the umbrella of the Imperium's 88th Siege Army, to dislodge the traitorous forces of Cardinal Xaphan in what would become a grinding war of attrition that would consume millions of lives across 17 standard years of battle remembered as the Siege of Vraks. |
Vraks Prime - Geography: Vraks is considered an old planet in geological terms for the Scarus Sector, with a stable surface. Little tectonic movement has been recorded in recent Terran millennia.This geological stability, combined with some of the planet's bedrock being relatively easy to access and mine, made Vraks a good prospect for subterranean storage of volatile materials like munitions.Sulphur-rich oceans cover 55% of the planet's surface and waterways cut deep trenches into the planet's crust. It was possible for violent electrical storms to form on short notice, bringing torrential downpours that turned the sulphurous soil into sticky mud as it drained away and unleashed flash floods. These storms were initiated by the effects of high sulphur content in evaporated water on the upper troposphere.The Van Meersland Wastes were perhaps one of the most dominant geological features of the world. Extending across some five thousand barren square kilometres, outcrops of volcanic rock were the only noticeable terrain feature in the region.The world had small northern and southern polar regions that were largely unexplored. Its mountains were rugged and highly eroded. Some exposed deposits of harder igneous rocks had been quarried for construction of Vraks' worker hab-blocks.Vraks Prime's lowland regions were exposed to fierce storm erosion and criss-crossed by canyons and trenches. The Imperial population was concentrated within the lowland region around the Citadel and the Vraks star port in the Van Meersland Wastes.The population's water supply was generally supplied by deep hydro-sinks driven into the soft crust of the planet to extract subterranean stored water. This was then filtered to remove the high sulphur content before being rationed to the general worker populace.Additional water shipments were transported to Vraks Prime from the Ocean Worlds of Paeleos VIII and Gjar Alpha. |
Vraks Prime - Flora and Fauna: Vraks Prime has no extant fauna. Some algae and single cell organisms were recorded in early Imperial surveys. These are all now considered extinct. |
Vraks Prime - Vraks Society: As an Administratum facility, Vraks Prime's society was organised with the same hierarchy as the broader Adeptus Administratum on Terra. Masters, prefects, adepts, ordinates, scribes, ciphers, curators, menial and subordinate workers ran the vast bureaucracy on Vraks.The millions of Administratum Labour Corp indentured workers were guarded by Departmento Munitorum garrison troops. Vraks' also had its own Planetary Defence Force militia, organised from within the work force.There was also a substantial Ogryn population amongst the Labour Corps and a transitory population of Imperial pilgrims that visited the shrine of St. Leonis, ranging from approximately 1 to 5 million. The exact figures were unknown.Many different Astra Militarum regiments arrived for arming and equipping on the world before being transported to their next destination. Barracks were provided at the starport to house these transient Imperial troops. |
Vraks Prime - Urbanisation: The largest urban area on Vraks Prime was the sprawl of worker habitats, temporary storage facilities, hangers, repair facilities, barracks and administration buildings that had risen up around the landing areas of the star port.Although still referred to simply as the star port, it was in fact a small Imperial city of some five million workers.Other urbanised locations were the Labour Corps workers' habs scattered across the Van Meersland Wastes to house the labourers that constructed and maintained Vraks' network of storage bunkers, service roads and defences.These hab-zones contained rudimentary barracks as housing for the labourers and their Departmento Munitorum guards. |
Vraksian Traitor Militia - Vraksian Traitor Militia: The Vraksian Traitor Militia, also referred to as the Vraksian Renegade Militia, is the catch-all term applied to the Renegade military forces of the Apostate Cardinal-Astra Xaphan during the Siege of Vraks.Xaphan seized control of the Departmento Munitorum Armoury World of Vraks Prime in the Scarus Sector of the Segmentum Obscurus in 809.M41 and ultimately forced the Imperium to fight the gruelling 17-year-long Siege of Vraks (813-830.M41) to dislodge him and end his threat to the Emperor's realm. |
Vraksian Traitor Militia - Organisation: The Vraksian Traitor Militia was a formidable force, primarily due to its sheer size. Although no exact figures remain available, it was believed that the population of Vraks Prime was some 8,000,000 people and all of them now had to be considered Traitors and manpower for the Apostate Cardinal's army. Quality varied greatly in the militia, from well-trained and well-equipped troops who possessed fanatical morale to an undisciplined mob of half-trained conscripts.The best Vraksian troops were the Disciples of Xaphan. This elite cadre of troops were the Cardinal's own men, hand-picked by his Ecclesiarchal representatives for their loyalty to him, and many had prior military experience. All had sworn oaths of service to the Cardinal himself, and in return, they had the pick of Vraks Prime's plunder. The Imperium had no idea how many Disciples Xaphan had, but they would form the disciplined core of his Traitor Militia.After the Disciples of Xaphan in quality, there was the original Vraksian planetary garrison's auxilia. Due to its strategic importance, Vraks Prime had been guarded by a large force of garrison auxilia. These troops were equivalent in quality to a well-trained Planetary Defence Force (PDF), the Imperium's standard reserve forces for the regiments of the Astra Militarum.These auxilia did not have the training or equipment of regular Imperial Guardsmen, but access to the Departmento Munitorum stores on Vraks rectified any equipment deficiencies and provided vast numbers of heavy vehicles such as Leman Russ main battle tanks, Chimeras and Basilisks. The auxilia's fighting strength had been built around a backbone of veteran Imperial Guardsmen and officers drawn from disbanded regiments. Though now well-equipped, the Imperium believed it unlikely the garrison forces could do more than man a static defensive line.The Traitor Militia's next group of troops were drawn from the Vraksian labour corps. The Departmento Munitorum maintained a labour corps on Vraks Prime that was large and included many Ogryns. The labour corps was made up of indentured workers who did routine labour like constructing and repairing roads, pouring the ferrocrete for new bunkers, digging out new underground storehouses and transporting goods and equipment to and from the planet's only starport.Most were downtrodden souls with little left to hope for in life other than endless toil and sweat. As such, many had willingly joined the Apostate Cardinal's rebellion and saw fighting for him as a way to escape their miserable lives.A general dislike for the Departmento's then-Master-Prefect on Vraks had also spurred on their support for the rebellion. Many of the labourers had already received some basic military training as the labour corps had also supplied many troops for the Vraksian militia. Although only poorly trained, Vraks' militia was a truly massive force. One in four labourers either volunteered or were conscripted into the militia.Lacking any sort of heavy weapons, artillery or vehicles, they were a third line force, but their lack of equipment could be easily rectified, and once armed from the planet's considerable stores of materiel, with some additional training, they would be capable enough of joining with the auxilia to hold static defensive positions.The fourth source of manpower for the Vraksian Traitor Militia were the itinerant pilgrims and the Departmento Munitorum's own workforce of administrators and bureaucrats. These were men with no military experience, but once armed, they could hold a defensive position. Whilst many of the pilgrims on Vraks saw the Cardinal as their messiah, most had no idea who or even why they were fighting.Many volunteered for the Vraksian Frateris Militia raised by the cardinal in the belief that they would be defending the sacred Shrine of Saint Leonis the Blind against heretical forces. They had been told that the enemy were the true heretical Renegades and that they must join the Vraksian militia or see the holy place defiled. These troops were given the lowest priority in weapons and equipment drawn from the Vraksian stores.To back up these Traitor forces, Xaphan had his own troops, former Ecclesiarchy agents and preachers who moved through the ranks tracking the Apostate Cardinal's heretical religious gospel and reinforcing the militia's loyalty. Individuals from the PDF garrison auxilia, many former Imperial Guard sergeants, had been promoted to become the Vraksian militia's Enforcers.These were the troops who would enforce discipline and loyalty much like the Astra Militarum's own commissars. In combat, the Enforcers would stay behind the front lines and shoot any man who fled his post.Added to the Traitors' ranks were the dangerously insane and psychopathic, as well as those individuals who had shown signs of developing psychic abilities. Unprotected psykers were always easy prey for Warp entities, and there were several hundred such men and women in Vraks Prime's deepest underground dungeons waiting for transportation to Terra on the next Black Ship to arrive. The Cardinal believed these rogue psykers to be his own children and claimed that they relayed messages to him from the Ruinous Powers. |
Vraksian Traitor Militia - Wargear: The Vraksian Traitor Militia had a structure similar to that of most Astra Militarum armies throughout the Imperium. Manning the forward trenches were countless disorganised platoons of militiamen, armed with heavy weaponry at crucial points in the defensive lines. Supporting them were artillery in the form of Basilisk batteries, Bombards, Manticores, Medusa, and Griffon mortars.Having access to the vast Astra Militarum stores maintained on the Armoury World of Vraks, the Traitor Militia had access to a plethora of weapons and armoured vehicles. Mothballed tanks and endless underground supply depots left the Vraksians in an excellent position to fight the impending war. The average Vraksian militiaman was not especially well-armed, relying on the less popular Autogun in many cases instead of the standard Lasgun of active Imperial Guard regiments.In addition to an Autogun or Autopistol, many militiamen were armed with crude melee weapons fashioned by sharpening tools from scrap metal. Some labour corpsmen relied on mining picks and rock drills for close-quarters combat, the sort frequently experienced during the trench warfare common during the siege. These same militias generally had to fashion their own armour, crude and cumbersome as it was.Despite the inferior materials and decrease in the efficiency of the force that resulted, this makeshift armour offered protection on par with the Flak Armour issued to many Imperial troopers across the sector. The more well-equipped militia had access to every weapon an Imperial soldier might have, from plasma weapons, mortars, demolition charges, and the Flamers commonly used to storm trenches during a counterattack.The Cardinal's Champions and the Disciples of Xaphan had access to many of the more exotic items, including Plasma Pistols, sniper weapons, Power Weapons, and Power Fists as well. One universal item carried by each Renegade was a rebreather, whether unsophisticated or complex. In the harsh, sulfurous atmosphere of Vraks Prime, those without breathing equipment were guaranteed to suffer a lingering death.Supporting the eight million or so soldiers in the Vraksian militia, rows upon rows of artillery batteries had been meticulously placed to rain death on any advancing force. A common armoured unit used to defend the siege included the Leman Russ Tank, generally deployed to repel infantry assaults against the Vraksian defensive lines.Another preferred choice among many Traitor Militia commanders was the Malcador Assault Tank, used to spearhead many assaults into No Man's Land. Although of a more antiquated design, these sizeable war machines were more than able of raking infantry formations, disabling enemy armour, and laying down a curtain of explosive fire upon the Imperial attackers. |
Vraksian Traitor Militia - Vraksian Traitor Militia: Disciples of Xaphan (estimated at 50,000 troops)Garrison Auxilia (estimated at 10,000 troops)Labour Corps (formerly of the Departmento Munitorum, estimated at 1.5 million)Planetary Defence Forces (estimated at 500,000 troops)Militia (estimated at 1.5 million troops)Frateris Militia (former Pilgrims) (estimated at 250,000 troops)Other Vraksian Renegades (estimated at 1 million irregular troops) |
Vraksian Traitor Militia - Chaos Space Marines (11 Traitor Legion Warbands): World Eaters WarbandsSkulltakersThe SanctifiedBerserkers of SkallathraxDeath Guard WarbandsLords of DecayThe TaintedApostles of ContagionThe PurgeIron Warriors warbandsSteel BrethrenAlpha Legion WarbandThe Faithless (Warband of Arkos the Faithless)Black Legion WarbandBlack Brethren of AyreasNon-Aligned WarbandAdharon's Reavers |
Vraksian Traitor Militia - Other Renegade Forces: Other Heretical Forces (Estimated at 500,000 troops)Traitor Fleet AssetsAnarchy's Heart - Despoiler-class BattleshipBlood Dawn - Styx-class Heavy Cruiser Fallen Sun - Slaughter-class Cruiser Ferrum Invictus - Devastation-class CruiserGore Feasters - Iconoclast-class DestroyerDamnators - Infidel-class RaiderArmed TransportsAharon's Bane - Heavy Transport |
Vratine Armour - Vratine Armour: Vratine Armour is a special type of power armour worn by the Sisters of Silence. When a sister-aspirant takes her final oaths of duty and says the last words she will ever utter aloud in her lifetime before her voice is silenced by the Vow of Tranquility, she is given her panoply of war: the Vratine Armour -- literally "the armour of the oath."It is a sub-pattern of technologically-advanced battlegear which shares design elements with both the power armour of the ancient Legiones Astartes and the silicate-mesh of Selenite void-mail, though unlike either of those famed armours, it is not -- at least without additional gearing -- fully environmentally sealed or designed for extended operations.It does, however, provide formidable protection from ballistic impacts and directed energy weapons, and is tailored and forged uniquely to its intended wearer to allow for their complete freedom of movement and to augment their reaction speed. |
Vresh - Vresh: Vresh is a heavily urbanised Imperial world located in the Segmentum Obscurus which is the homeworld of the Astra Militarum's Vresh Grenadiers.The Grenadier regiments hail from the violence-torn tech-slums of Vresh where a strong and violent gang culture pervades its shifting worldscape of rust and metal, and its warriors quickly learn to be cunning in combat and to follow the orders of their leaders.The Flak Armour they wear is typically fashioned from metal scrap plates, which are beaten into shape to wear during the running slum battles. Once drafted into the Astra Militarum this same armour is often retained and given regimental markings, though many of the lurid gang emblems of the Grenadiers' former lives are retained on helmets and breastplates.Like some other regiments raised from the disreputable bowels of Imperial urban society where gang warfare is rife -- such as those from Necromunda, Jhal Sak III and certain elements of Armageddon's soldiery -- the Vesh Grenadiers evince a sectarian hierarchy. This makes reinforcement and integration of new troops difficult, with rival elements from their former lives liable to turn on each other when placed in the same unit.Before every muster of new Grenadiers regiments on Vresh, vicious wars break out between rival tech-slum warlords. Painted to the Departmento Munitorum as a ritual tradition by Vresh's planetary governor, in truth this violence ensures that only one Vreshian gang culture is singled out for each tithe of new regiments to the Astra Militarum, so that rivalry between the slums is not carried into the newly raised regiments, degrading their performance. |
Vresh Grenadiers - Vresh Grenadiers: The Vresh Grenadiers are a Militarum Regimentum of the Astra Militarum usually deployed to the Segmentum Obscurus and Segmentum Ultima who are particularly skilled at subterranean combat and urban superiority warfare. The Vresh Grenadiers emulate the Cadian Shock Troopers in many ways. The drilled precision and ardent resolve of lost Cadia's regiments have been emulated across countless Imperial worlds, with many Militarum Regimentos receiving training from Cadian infantry and tank officers. Cadian-derived tactics and uniforms are therefore seen upon battlefields throughout the galaxy.The Grenadier regiments themselves hail from the violence-torn tech-slums of Vresh, a world in the Segmentum Obscurus. A strong and violent gang culture pervades this shifting worldscape of rust and metal, and its warriors quickly learn to be cunning in combat and to follow the orders of their leaders.The Flak Armour they wear is typically fashioned from metal scrap plates, which are beaten into shape to wear during the running slum battles. Once drafted into the Astra Militarum this same armour is often retained and given regimental markings, though many of the lurid gang emblems of the Grenadiers' former lives are retained on helmets and breastplates.Like some other regiments raised from the disreputable bowels of Imperial urban society where gang warfare is rife -- such as those from Necromunda, Jhal Sak III and certain elements of Armageddon's soldiery -- the Vesh Grenadiers evince a sectarian hierarchy. This makes reinforcement and integration of new troops difficult, with rival elements from their former lives liable to turn on each other when placed in the same unit.Before every muster of new Grenadiers regiments on Vresh, vicious wars break out between rival tech-slum warlords. Painted to the Departmento Munitorum as a ritual tradition by Vresh's planetary governor, in truth this violence ensures that only one Vreshian gang culture is singled out for each tithe of new regiments to the Astra Militarum, so that rivalry between the slums is not carried into the newly raised regiments, degrading their performance. |
Vulcan Mega Bolter - Vulcan Mega Bolter: A Vulcan Mega Bolter is an immense, hydraulically-driven, five-barrelled, air-cooled, electrically-fired rotary Bolt Weapon. The Vulcan Mega Bolter is one of the most potent and effective anti-infantry weapons available to the Imperium, and easily carves through swathes of Heretics or xenos with mass-reactive shells larger than human skulls firing two at a time, leaving a heavy carbonised reek in the air.So large and powerful is the weapon that it must be mounted onto the massive arms of an Imperial Titan, or on the hull or turret of a Stormlord super-heavy tank -- little else could handle the ground-shaking recoil or bear the weight. This weapon is comprised of massive, dual, heavy-calibre, rotating Bolters with multiple barrels. Its staggering rate of fire makes it an ideal weapon for use against infantry, light vehicles and even small structures. |
Vulcan Mega Bolter - History: The use of Vulcan Mega Bolters on Titans dates back to before the tragic ending of the Great Crusade and so many Traitor Titan Legions also possess them within their own heretical arsenals. On their quest for destruction, they use them liberally, and to brutal effect. On the Shrine World of Gundora in the Tratoll System, corrupted Titans in possession of this weapon tore the entire 44th Cadian regiment to shreds. So relentless was the bulletstorm that some Cadian vehicles were later discovered half-buried, the pressure of the many impacts having pushed them under the sands.It was the Forge World of Lucius where the Tech-priests first experimented with mounting the Vulcan Mega Bolter, usually reserved for Titans, onto tank variants. Having long been adept at the arcane construction of god-machines, they began attempting to transfer the weapon across to other vehicles in the late 33rd Millennium. Many of the Machine Spirits reacted badly to these efforts and failed rituals led to the destruction of many tanks before relatively stable patterns were developed.As Servitors mount this weapon onto Stormlords or even Macharius "Vulcan" variants, Enginseers pour sacred unguents over the cogs to placate the volatile Machine Spirit into accepting the modifications. When all the components and rituals come together, and the violent machine successfully comes to life, it takes a particularly brave or wild crew to risk driving the unified vehicle into battle.The Renegades of the Dark Mechanicus do not possess the ritual knowledge for successful transference of the Vulcan Mega Bolter onto tanks. Therefore it is only the Chaos Titans that march to war armed with the Vulcan Mega Bolter. However, reports of defiled variants of Stormlords have been reported on Orax near the battlefront of the 13th Black Crusade. The Vulcan Mega Bolter was seen being put to treacherous use against the civilian populations and have helped disable two-thirds of the planet's manufactoria. |
Vulcan Mega Bolter - Operation: The Vulcan Mega Bolter is essentially two rotary cannons mounted together, each with multiple barrels the size of an Autocannon. The regularly blessed cogs then rotate at phenomenal speed; in the blink of an eye, two loaded barrels click into place, and another pair of shells are unleashed. It is this rapid rate of fire, combined with the explosive power of the mass-reactive shells, that makes the Vulcan Mega Bolter able to rip thick gouts out of whatever the enemy throws at them. With sophisticated navigation and target identification tools, the Vulcan Mega Bolter can be used effectively even against concealed targets.While a Titan is in combat, one crew member tends to a mag-crane in the arm that feeds the thick chains of shells in a constant flow to the weapon itself. Loaded onto the Titans using massive grav-hoppers, these chains contain enough shells to last through solar days of the most violent battles. Meanwhile, a second crew member continually evokes the Litany of Reloading and Redemption, as sanctioned by the Adeptus Mechanicus, to ensure the smooth release of ammunition and that the plentiful supply of mass-reactive shells continues to load.He pours blessed oils into the whirring mechanisms whenever the Vulcan Mega Bolter is in danger of overheating. Within super-heavy tanks, similar large bolt chains are fed into the weapon by two crew members, both of whom are tireless in their muttering of prayers and offerings of blessings. Knowledge of these specific arcane practices is restricted by the Tech-priests of Mars, which is one of the reasons the Vulcan Mega Bolter is not more widely observed on the battlefield.Whether mounted on a Titan or a Stormlord, the Vulcan Mega Bolter is used to pulp waves of troops with its withering fire, as shells shred their formations without mercy, clearing the way for the Imperium's defenders. Even small vehicles such as lightly armoured tanks are blown into jagged pieces, their metal hulls buckling under the incessant fire. The fire of Vulcan Mega Bolters has been unleashed across war-torn worlds for thousands of years by lethal Titans stalking their foes. They have shredded buildings that harboured xenos adversaries and excoriated daemon-infested hives from the surface of innumerable planets. They have carved paths through tides of greenskins stretching from horizon to horizon, and have been found to be of particular use in dealing with large swarms of Tyranids, cutting up waves of advancing Gaunts, felling hulking brutes and filling the air with shredded chitinous fragments and alien blood. |
Vulcan Mega Bolter - Deployment: So large and powerful is a Vulcan Mega Bolter that it can only be mounted on the hull of Stormlord super-heavy tanks or on the massive arms of a Titan -- little else could handle its ground-shaking recoil and immense weight. The Vulcan Mega Bolter is commonly fielded to provide cover for other Warhound-class Titans and Imperial super-heavy tanks and to ensure the suppression of enemy heavy weapon positions with a devastating storm of shot and shell.The Vulcan Mega Bolter also provides a Warhound-class Titan with unparalleled anti-infantry firepower. This weapon can also be mounted on Reaver-class Titans and even the mighty Imperator-class Titan, which carries an even larger version of this devastating weapon. |
Vulcan Mega Bolter - Source: Imperial Armour Volume Three - The Taros Campaign, pp. 251-254Warhammer 40,000: Apocalypse, pg. 125Warhammer 40,000: Apocalypse (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), pg. 363Warhammer 40,000: Munitorum - Vulcan Mega Bolters (Digital Edition)Titanicus (Novel) by Dan Abnett |
Vulkan - Vulkan: Vulkan was one of the 20 superhuman primarchs and a Perpetual created by the Emperor of Mankind from altered versions of His own DNA to lead His Great Crusade and reunite the scattered peoples of Humanity within the Imperium of Man.The XVIIIth Legion, created from Vulkan's genome and originally known as the Dragon Warriors, was re-named the Salamanders after the great fire-resistant reptiles native to his volcanic homeworld of Nocturne in memory of the legendary contest between the Emperor and Vulkan in 832.M30 that had involved slaying one of those dangerous beasts. The outcome of this contest had revealed the Emperor's identity to Vulkan and restored the primarch to the Imperium.Like his genetic father, Vulkan was a Perpetual, a rare Human mutant blessed with extraordinary, almost supernatural cellular regeneration that allowed him to be resurrected from death over and over no matter how much damage his body suffered. Vulkan was able to regenerate fully from any injury, including a death that resulted in his complete molecular disintegration. This ability was unknown to him until the Horus Heresy and his near-death from an orbital atomic strike unleashed by the Iron Warriors' fleet at the Drop Site Massacre on Isstvan V.During the Great Crusade Vulkan gained a reputation among its participants for his unusual empathy for a primarch towards average Humans as well as his extraordinary ability to craft unique and powerful items of advanced technology.Approximately a thousand standard years after the Horus Heresy, Vulkan hid 9 sacred artefacts he had created around the galaxy for the Salamanders to find, intended as a test to see if they were worthy of his leadership.He then disappeared, leaving his genetic sons with the message that whenever the Forgefather of the Salamanders had found all nine items, Vulkan would return to lead his Chapter to victory over the enemies of the Imperium in its final days of greatest need, according to the signs foreseen in the Promethean Cult's book of prophecy, the Tome of Fire.Quick Answers What is the significance of the Promethean Creed in Vulkan's life? Vulkan's life is deeply influenced by the Promethean Creed, a spiritual discipline he derived from Nocturne's stories and mythologies. This creed emphasizes self-reliance and self-sacrifice, reflecting Nocturne's cultural values. It also promotes the Circle of Fire, a belief in rebirth through fire and earth. Vulkan utilized this creed to foster unity and guide his Legion. Provided by: Fandom What role does Vulkan play in the Horus Heresy? Vulkan, during the Horus Heresy, commanded the Salamanders Legion's Pyre Guard, an elite Honour Guard. His leadership spanned three millennia, after which he embarked on an undisclosed mission. His rivalry with Mortarion, which began in the Horus Heresy, persists. Post-disappearance, he left the Tome of Fire, detailing the location of nine Chapter artefacts. Provided by: Fandom Is Vulkan still alive in the Warhammer 40K universe? Vulkan, a Perpetual mutant, has resurrected multiple times over 10,000 Terran years. After his death, his body was found and regenerated by the Ultramarines. He vanished a millennium post the Horus Heresy. The Salamanders Chapter holds the belief that Vulkan will return upon the discovery of all nine relics he dispersed across the galaxy. Provided by: Fandom What is the significance of the 'Circle of Fire' in Vulkan's belief system? In Vulkan's Promethean Creed, the Circle of Fire signifies the cycle of death and rebirth. It represents the concept that in death, individuals return to the ash, their remains bonded with the earth through fire, leading to rebirth. While some interpret this as a spiritual metaphor, others hold an unshakeable faith in the literal rebirth of Vulkan. 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Vulkan - Youth: When the primarchs were first created within the gene-laboratories hidden beneath the Himalazian Mountains on Terra, though the machinations of the Chaos Gods the gestation capsules of the nascent primarchs were scattered across the galaxy. The Promethean Opus (source of much Imperial knowledge of Vulkan) tells the tale of how one of the Emperor's superhuman children ended up on the feudal Death World of Nocturne during one of its tumultuous periods known as the "Time of Trial."Among the hardy and stoic people of Nocturne, the infant Vulkan had fallen like a blazing comet, and into the home of a "Black-Smiter," -- a metal worker by the name N'bel, in the city-settlement of Hesiod -- he had been taken as a foster child. N'bel recognised the child as the one prophesied to be a saviour by the teachings of the Promethean Cult, and named him Vulkan. Like all the primarchs, Vulkan grew very quickly, reaching full adulthood (and a size bigger and more muscular than any man on Nocturne) by the age of only three Terran years. He was also highly intelligent, able to vastly improve the already considerable metalworking skills of the famed smiths of Nocturne.Quickly, he had risen in strength and wisdom, embracing the culture which had taken him up, working in his adopted father's forge and hunting the great saurians and other beasts bestirred by the planet's fiery temper, becoming a legendary champion in his world's defence against far more dangerous foes; "Dusk Wraiths" as they were known in Nocturne. In reality, these creatures were of the most degenerate and vile class of Aeldari slavers (Drukhari), nightmarish beings to whom pain and slaughter were as meat and drink, who sought to prey periodically on the hardy people of Nocturne for their own wicked sport.The Opus tells that during Vulkan's fourth year, his town was attacked by these "Dusk Wraiths," who were on a slave-taking expedition. The people of his hometown hid, as they usually did when the decadent xenos came raiding, but Vulkan refused to hide. Armed with only a pair of blacksmith's hammers, he roused the people from hiding and drove back the assault, single-handedly slaying a hundred Drukhari warriors.As word of the battle's outcome spread, the headsmen of the seven most important settlements on the planet came to pay homage to Vulkan, swearing to forevermore crush their foes rather than hiding from them. Against this threat Vulkan became transformed, and his legend spread across his world. He was the "fire-born" -- an undefeated warrior whose superhuman strength had torn the slave-barges down from the sky and crushed the xenos in droves, and whose granite-like flesh had scorned their poisoned blades unmoved, driving the Dusk Wraiths from Nocturne. |
Vulkan - The Outlander: In celebration of the primarch's victory over the Dark Eldar in what was the year 832.M30 by the Imperial Calendar, a tournament of various contests involving tests of strength and craftsmanship common to the people of Nocturne was held. During the opening ceremonies, a stranger appeared. His skin was unusually pale, compared to the dark, swarthy complexions of the people of Nocturne, and his clothes were very strange, made of materials unfamiliar to the pre-industrial Nocturneans.The stranger asked only to be allowed to compete. The stranger claimed that he could best any man at the competitions, causing many people to laugh at the seemingly inadvertent comparison to the superhuman Vulkan. Vulkan accepted the challenge, and the stranger wagered that whoever lost the competition would swear his eternal loyalty and obedience to the victor. With a smile at such effrontery, Vulkan agreed to the outlander's terms.Lasting for eight local Nocturnean days, the contest included many tests of strength and endurance. The people of Nocturne were treated to the spectacle of two godlike beings competing against one another, utterly astonishing the mere mortals around them with their superhuman prowess. Many of the contests had to be called a draw between Vulkan and the fair-skinned stranger, for there was simply no way to determine a victor. For instance, the anvil lift, where the contestants were required to hold an anvil aloft above their heads for as long as possible, ended in a tie when the two superhuman competitors both held anvils aloft for half a day with no sign of tiring, while all the other competitors had given up after mere solar minutes.All the subsequent contests saw similar outcomes, and by the end of local day 8, Vulkan and the stranger were tied in the overall tournament. To break the tie, the elders of Nocturne decided that the winner would be determined by the test of Salamander Hunting. Both contestants were given 24 solar hours to forge a weapon, before using that weapon to hunt down and slay one of Nocturne's reptilian salamanders. Assessing that this task, impossible for any mere mortal, would be but a formality for both godlike contestants, the elders included the caveat that the contestant who brought back the largest salamander would be proclaimed victorious. |
Vulkan - The Final Trial: In the end, it came down to the final trial: Salamander-Slaying. Both men had a day and a half to forge a weapon, then go out and slay the largest salamander (a large, heat-loving reptile native to Nocturne), that they could find. Vulkan and the stranger worked all day at their forges, neither pausing to rest. As the day drew to a close, they emerged. Vulkan had forged a huge warhammer, and the stranger a keen-edged sword. They both climbed to the summit of Mount Deathfire, a massive volcano said to be the home of the largest Firedrakes, the most fearsome species of salamander, on the planet. Vulkan found his prey first, smashing its head off with a single blow from his hammer. As he carried the carcass back, the volcano unexpectedly erupted. Vulkan was nearly thrown off a cliff, but managed to grab onto the edge with one hand, stubbornly grasping the tail of his prize with the other. Vulkan held on for several hours, but his hold finally began to slip. It was at that time the stranger reappeared, carrying a salamander larger than his own. The stranger quickly threw his carcass into the lava flow, using its heat-resistant hide as a bridge to cross over and save Vulkan. Vulkan was declared the winner when they returned home since he had a salamander hide and the stranger had lost his, but Vulkan silenced the crowd. He knelt before the stranger, stating that any man who valued life over pride was worthy of his service. At that moment the stranger at last revealed himself to the Primarch His true nature as the Emperor of Mankind. Vulkan would take his rightful place as Primarch of the XVIIIth Legion and ruler of his adopted world. Vulkan's only reservation on departing Nocturne was that he would not leave its people undefended, but in this the Emperor countered that Vulkan's duty was not simply to one world but to many, worlds that knew the terror of the darkness and the feasting of alien horrors uncounted as Nocturne had, and that Nocturne itself as the homeworld of a Primarch would forever be secured by his sons, the XVIIIth Legion which bore his blood. |
Vulkan - A Legion Reforged: It is believed that Vulkan did not become unified with his own Legion for some years after his rediscovery, but instead stayed alongside the Emperor under His direct tutelage, during which time his presence was kept from the wider Imperium (although not from the other Primarchs who had been discovered to that time). During this period, Vulkan pursued with frightening speed and comprehension learning in the arts of war, history and science, displaying a ferocious intelligence, and also wisdom and compassion that were perhaps at odds with the role he had been destined to play as a general and breaker of worlds as all Primarchs were made to be. He fought at the side of the Emperor in battle -- a colossal, nameless warrior in emerald armour scaled like a dragon of ancient Terran myth -- and studied closely in the weapon-forges of Mars and with his brother-Primarch Ferrus Manus, whose discovery had gone before his own. When the time came, as much dictated by circumstance as by choice, for Vulkan to take charge of the XVIIIth Legion he did so well-prepared for the task ahead, and set about reforging them on the anvil of war.When Vulkan came to his Legion, it was in the hour of their need. The XVIIIth, led by their Lord Commander Cassian Vaughn, had become embroiled in the rear-guard defence of a cluster of colony worlds near the Taras Division against a wave of Ork marauders. With the bulk of the Legiones Astartes either engaged with the Expedition Fleets breaching space towards the Eastern Fringe or committed as reserves against the horrors of the Rangda Incursion from the Halo Stars to the Galactic North, the XVIIIth was the only Space Marine Legion able to respond to the crisis. Fighting against vast and overwhelming odds, the Legion's primary force, numbering some 19,000 Space Marines, had marshalled the local defenders and held out for nearly a standard year in a series of running battles against well over a million Ork raiders scattered across hundreds of ramshackle ships, "Rok" asteroid vessels and dozens of Space Hulks. The actions of the Legion had allowed the evacuations of three entire planetary populations to the nominal safety of the Taras System, but at a terrible cost. As the conflict progressed, they suffered the grievous wounding of their commander, while the remainder of the XVIIIth became all but trapped on the Dead World of Antaem -- a lightning-rod drawing the Orks to them for battle. Taras was far from the embattled frontier of the expanding Great Crusade, and assistance from other Legions would have been difficult to obtain, but regardless such aid was not asked for by the XVIIIth, who had determined to succeed alone or die in the attempt, knowing that by bleeding the Ork marauder fleet of its strength, countless human lives would be saved. Their Primarch, however, learning of their plight, refused to stand by and brought his plans to join them to rapid fruition.When Vulkan arrived he did not do so alone, for he brought with him 3,000 new Initiates -- the first of the Legion to be raised from Nocturne -- along with a host of new warships, war machines and arms, all fabricated to the Primarch's own exacting specifications. They fell upon the Ork marauders like a thunderbolt, and shattered the largest of the Space Hulks orbiting Antaem, Vulkan leading his warriors within, purging the vast conglomeration of wreckage and rock with fire and planting seismic charges at its heart to destroy it. Spurred on by this unexpected aid, the rest of the XVIIIth hurled themselves in renewed fury at the Orks besieging them, slaughtering and scattering the greenskinned xenos before them, heedless of their depleted munitions and manpower, leaving nothing for a reserve should they fail. Caught between this hammer and anvil of savagery that over-matched their own, the Ork horde was broken and put to flight, and the survivors were relentlessly pursued and consumed by fire.In the aftermath, the two halves of the XVIIIth Legion met and were unified upon Antaem's dead coral plains. As their saviours removed their helms and the Terran Legionaries looked upon the faces of their brothers and he that was their gene-father, they could not help but know that they were one and their Primarch had come to claim them. The survivors of the Terran XVIIIth knelt immediately, it is said, before their Primarch, but Vulkan bid them rise, saying that all his sons were equals and he was no petty king needing shows of obedience. Instead, it was he who knelt in honour of the lives they had saved and the price they had paid. Then, seeking out the mortally wounded Lord Commander Vaughn, he conferred the formal transfer of the Legion's mastery by presenting the fallen warrior with the broken Power Klaw of the Ork Warlord who had struck him down to seal the pact between him and his Legion -- they would fight for him, but he would fight for them in turn.After the battle at Antaem, Vulkan set about remaking and re-forging his Legion, keen to keep the honour, the spirit of self-sacrifice for the Imperium and bravery he found, but also determined that it should stand together and become more disciplined both in its temper and wiser in its pursuit of battle. Firstly, Vulkan was swift to gather together its disparate deployments and unify it once again as a whole, although he was careful to honour the past commitments it had made, such as the maintenance of a permanent garrison at Geryon Deep who stood guard should the Manticore ever return.With his forces brought together, Vulkan returned the XVIIIth Legion to Nocturne to where, under his auspices, a powerful stronghold, equal to any Legion fortress in the Imperium, was being constructed on Nocturne's moon of Prometheus to serve as its headquarters and armoury, just as Nocturne itself would now be the source of the majority of the Legion's fresh recruits. Here the Legion was reordered and re-armed and, most importantly, Vulkan set above giving it common purpose and common belief. In order to do this, he drew not only on that which he had learned at the side of his Emperor and from the Imperial war machine, but also on the culture and deeply-ingrained warrior and mystical traditions of Nocturne in which Vulkan had been raised. In this Vulkan was wise enough to retain and value the experience of the Terran veterans, and show them respect and hold in high esteem what they had accomplished in many ways, great and small. This was given outward sign by incorporating the XVIIIth Legion's past heraldry into that of the reformed Legion and making their foremost warriors, his Pyre Guard, praetorians; the elite body of Chapter Masters that would serve both as his Honour Guard and as paragons of the standards he would set his Legion. For the fallen first Master of the XVIIIth, Cassian Vaughn, Vulkan fashioned with his own hands a unique Dreadnought sarcophagus, the Iron Dragon, so that Vaughn could serve as Castellan and Protector of Prometheus, and the future of the Legion.The remade XVIIIth Legion would now take its name from the greatest of Nocturne's saurian predators; ancient and deadly creatures whose blood was fire and whose hides were as hard as emerald steel; the Salamanders of Nocturne. In this Vulkan's choice carried a layered meaning, for not only were Nocturnean Salamanders monsters of savage power with a great totemic significance to the native people, but as creatures they showed unflinching loyalty to their own blood and offspring, and were never more ferocious than in their defence. It was from the bleached-white skull of one such great beast -- Kasare -- that adorned the shoulder-guard of their Primarch's armour, the Legion would now take its new emblem. When the Salamanders Legion re-emerged and departed Nocturne in full force some years later, it quickly took up a place at the forefront of the Great Crusade, smashing alien empires and bringing lost worlds into compliance as part of the Imperium. Although it would never reach the high numbers of Legionary strength the likes of the Dark Angels or Iron Warriors possessed, its power and battle-prowess was undeniable, and its conduct in war was regarded as exemplary. It had been tempered and proven, retaining the fearlessness and savage spirit for which Vulkan had been renowned, but those traits were now governed and kept in check by stoicism, lack of hubris, and considered surety of action. Vulkan had brought his Legion focus, purpose and wisdom. It was now said of the Salamanders that they were neither quick to anger, nor prone to rush in blindly to battle as once they had been, but once they had decided to unleash their wrath, it was as unstoppable and terrifying as the volcanic fury of the dark world they now called home.Vulkan was able to save his genetic legacy because in them, he saw a great potential. The Emperor knew Vulkan was the perfect son to temper the XVIIIth Legion and forge it strong again. Learning discipline and patience, the Salamanders learned there is no better time to reflect than when they struck their Oaths of Moment and branded them into flesh before battle. Temperance in the face of war was not only prudent, it also saved lives. |
Vulkan - The Great Crusade: During the Great Crusade the Salamanders were attached to the 154th Expeditionary Fleet, their forces complemented by Imperial Army regiments drawn from the planet Phaeria, a Death World. They successfully brought hundreds of human-settled worlds into Imperial Compliance. One of the few notable campaigns undertaken by the Salamanders Legion during the Great Crusade was the Imperial Compliance action undertaken on the world of Caldera. Designated 154-4, known as Ibsen by its inhabitants, the Salamanders were tasked with bringing this newly discovered world into Compliance. Led by Vulkan himself, the XVIIIth Legion was joined by the Iron Hands and the Death Guard Legions, both led by their own respective Primarchs. The world was undeveloped, and largely inhospitable to human life, but possessed valuable mineral deposits. However, the Imperial forces faced stiff resistance for control of the planet from the Eldar, who had placed a garrison upon Ibsen.The Eldar forces -- including Seers, Warlocks and other combat psykers -- could not have expected to defeat one Legion of Astartes, let alone three. The mystery deepened when the semi-feral, primitive human tribes inhabiting the planet seemed more sympathetic to the Eldar, or at the very least, not welcoming to their human liberators. The Salamanders and other Imperials defeated the Eldar relatively easily as expected. After the conquest, the Salamanders learned that the Eldar had been defending a network of menhirs which served as psychic nodes and that fed into a giant arch, where the final and most brutal confrontation between the Astartes and the xenos had taken place. The arch itself had been located thanks to a mysterious Remembrancer attached to the Salamanders, with whom Vulkan had had an unsettling conversation before the battle.After the slaughter ended, Vulkan saw the Remembrancer loitering by the arch and then suddenly disappearing. Following him, Vulkan and his elite Pyre Guard descended into the chambers beneath it, through a portal at its base. There they found a crude warding ceremony taking place, conducted by the primitive human tribal priests, who were ready to sacrifice an ancient Dark Eldar witch. Finally, Vulkan realised the truth: the arch was in reality, a Webway portal (though none of the Imperials, including Vulkan, knew this at the time); Vulkan had seen a "gate" like this before, in his Nocturnean youth, when Dark Eldar repeatedly utilised such a portal to raid and pillage the planet.The Eldar had taken control of the portal by defeating their dark cousins, and in the process had freed the indigenous human population of Ibsen from the horrors of Dark Eldar raids; the Eldar had been seen by the humans as liberators. Terrified by the defeat of their liberators at the hands of the Imperium, the natives had sought to sacrifice their Dark Eldar captive to ward off the inevitable return of her race; the mysterious "Remembrancer" who was nowhere to be seen had actually been the Emperor in disguise, who must have had a great interest in the particulars of this mission since he had ordered so many resources committed to it. Vulkan ordered Ibsen and its irredeemably corrupted population cleansed by flame. He renamed the scoured, Nocturne-like Dead World that remained Caldera. The world was now ready to receive new human colonists and to be exploited for the benefit of the Imperium.Not long after the successful conclusion of this campaign, Vulkan and his Salamanders Legion participated in another joint Imperial Compliance action on the world known as Kharaatan. Designated 154-6, the Salamanders fought alongside the Primarch Konrad Curze and his Night Lords Legion as well as Mechanicum forces, the Legio Ignis Titan Legion, and several Imperial Army regiments. During this campaign Vulkan became infuriated with his brother Primarch and how his Legion brutally conducted themselves. During one notable incident, the Night Lords slaughtered the inhabitants of an entire city in order to seed fear amongst the general population. When he confronted Curze about his Legion's actions, a brief fight ensued between the two demi-gods. After the successful conclusion of this campaign, Vulkan reported Curze's conduct to both Warmaster Horus and his brother Primarch Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists Legion. This incident would later sow the seeds of animosity between Vulkan and his brother Curze, causing a rift that would further widen as the Great Crusade wore on. The events on Kharaatan would have far-reaching effects that would later play a key role in what happened to Vulkan after the tragic events of Istvaan V played out. |
Vulkan - Drop Site Massacre: The Salamanders' role during the Horus Heresy is not well known to Imperial scholars; what is for certain is that the XVIIIth Legion, along with the Iron Hands and the Raven Guard, were part of the first wave of Loyalist attackers during the Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V. After the announcement of the Warmaster Horus' treachery against the Emperor and the destruction of the four open Traitor Legions' (the Sons of Horus, Emperor's Children, Death Guard and the World Eaters) remaining Loyalists during the Battle of Istvaan III, the Emperor ordered seven full Legions of Space Marines to attack the Forces of Chaos serving his beloved son and former friend. But amongst those seven Legions, four were already secretly Traitors to the Imperium and devotees of the Ruinous Powers.Seconds after the first drop-ship pierced the cloud layer, batteries of emplaced guns erupted across metres of earthworks dug along the Urgall Depression. Flak fire filled the sky like upwards-pouring rain, chewing through wing and fuselage, detonating arrow-headed cocoons of metal and spilling their lethal payloads into the air. It barely dented the assault, and when the Imperial loyalists finally made planetfall, over forty thousand legionaries tramped out upon the scorched earth. Of their initial complement, only fifteen of the Salamanders' ships and eleven Drop Pods would not make the surface intact. Nigh-on full Legion strength would be levelled against Horus and his rebels. The Salamanders hit along the left flank, the Raven Guard the right and Ferrus Manus with his Morlocks dead centre.Black sand cratered by ordnance made for uncertain footing. As the vast armies of the three loyal Primarchs ran from the holds of ships or emerged through the dissipating pressure cloud of blooming drop-pods, several legionaries faltered and slipped. Sustained bolter fire met them upon planetfall, and hundreds amongst the first landers were cut down before any kind of beachhead could be established. Fire was met with fire, the drumming staccato of thousands of weapons discharged in unison, their muzzle flashes merging into a vast and unending roar of flame. Dense spreads of missiles whined overhead to accompany the salvo, streaking white contrails from their rockets. Sections of earthworks erupted in bright explosions that threw plumes of dirt and armoured men into the air. Las bursts lit up the swiftly following darkness, spearing through tanks and Dreadnoughts that loomed behind the foremost ranks of enemy defenders, only for return fire to spit back in reply. Flamers choked the air with smoke and the stink of burning flesh, as yet more esoteric weapons pulsed and shrieked. It was a cacophony of death, but the song had barely begun its first verse.The right flank was swollen with warriors of the XVIIIth. Salamanders teemed out of their transports, quickly coming into formation and advancing with purpose. The black sand underfoot was eclipsed from sight, as a green sea overwhelmed and overran it. Vexilliaries held aloft banners, attempting to impose some order on the emerging battalions. Methodical, dogged, the XVIIIth Legion found its shape and swarmed across the dark dunes. At the forefront of this avenging wave was Vulkan, and to his flanks the Firedrakes. Lumbering from the metal spearheads of Drop Pods, the Terminators amassed in two large battalions. They were dauntless, dominant, but not the most implacable warriors in the Salamanders' arsenal. Contemptors, striding through the smoke, laid claim to that honour. Great, towering war engines, the Dreadnoughts jerked with the savage recoil of Graviton Guns and Autocannons. Not stopping to see the carnage wreaked, they slowly tramped after the rushing companies of Legionaries in small cohorts, attack horns blaring. The discordant noise simulated the war cries of the deep drakes and was pumped through vox-emitters to boost its volume. Disgorged by Thunderhawk Transporters, Spartan Assault Tanks, Predators-Infernus and Vindicators disembarked at combat speed, tracks rolling. The battle tanks rode at the back of the line with a steep ridge behind them, anchoring the dropsite with their armoured might. Three spearheads were driven at the traitor's heart, two black and one green, all determined to bring down the fortress squatting at the summit of the Urgall Hills that overlooked the expansive depression. In seconds the shifting sand became as glass, vitrified by the heat of tens of thousands of weapons, and cracked underfoot.Vulkan ordered his sons to take the ridge line to gain higher ground. Shells pranging off his armour, the primarch took up the vanguard position, whilst his chasing Pyre Guard tried to keep pace. Behind the Pyre Guard, the stoic advance of the Pyroclasts struggled to keep up as they laid down sheets of burning promethium in front and to the flanks. The Terminator-armoured Firedrakes were also slipping back, unable to compete with the Primarch's speed, and Numeon began to see that there was a realistic danger of becoming estranged from the rest of the Legion. Adding their strength to the spearhead the Primarch was forging, the 15th Company Reconnaissance took up fresh position. Their charge line would take them in alongside the Pyre Guard, able to maintain pace where the bulkier Firedrakes and Pyroclasts could not.As if sensing that his Legion was losing him, Vulkan slowed but a fraction as the fire-blackened lip of the outermost trench drew close. Hunkered within the partially sundered defences, the Legionaries of the Death Guard brought guns to bear. The XIV Legion were hardy fighters -- the Salamanders had fought alongside them at Ibsen, but those days were gone and now allies had turned into enemies. The flame storm and the ferocity of Vulkan's attack had scattered the defenders but they were rallying quickly and now counter-attacked from three separate channels. Although the trench network was wide enough for three legionaries to stand abreast, the fighting was thick and fierce. Wilting before his charge, the defenders sensibly chose to hang back and harry the Primarch with a welter of bolter fire. Meeting it head on, the primarch shrugged off the shell damage as the brass casings broke apart against his near-inviolable armour.Across the entire Urgall Depression, hundreds of battles between Legionaries were fought. Some were company-strong, others were squads or even individuals. There was no scheme to it, just masses of warriors trying to kill one another. Most of the Loyalist troops had moved on from the dropsite and were engaging Horus’ rebels at the foot of his fortifications, but a few still occupied this beachhead. Scattered groups of traitors had spilled out as far as the dropsite but were quickly destroyed by the troops holding it. These were skirmishes, though, and nothing compared to the greater battle. As the 15th Company pressed the attack against the retreating Death Guard forces, a dirty cloud, too thick and too low to be fog, rolled down the slopes. It spilled into the myriad trench-works, funnelled by the conduits of hewn earth. And it was fast. In seconds it had cleared the no-man’s-land between the previous trench and the next bank of fortifications and was hurtling at Nemetor and his warriors. It overtook the Death Guard first, who adjusted respirators before the miasma hit as if they knew it was coming. It was a deadly gas attack.The Legion armoury was vast, and not all of its weapons were as obvious as a Bolter or as noble as a sword. There were those who wielded devices of much more insidious potency -- the slow and agonising ones, the weapons that forever scarred both the bearer and the victim. They did not discriminate and made no allowance for even the strongest armour. From the vaunted champion to the lowliest mortal, they were the great levellers and their works were terrible to behold. More than a hundred of the reconnaissance company collapsed, choking and spitting blood. Many of the 15th didn't wear battle-helms, preferring to be unencumbered for the stealth work at which they excelled. These warriors had suffered the worst. Skin sloughed away by virulent acids, ravaged by pustules and choking on vomit, eyes drowning in pus from the dirty bomb, there was almost nothing left of them but half-armoured carcasses. Dozens more were hacked apart or shot down by resurgent Death Guard attacking in the confusion.The numerically superior Death Guard had already overrun the smaller reconnaissance company and were attempting to encircle the rest of the Salamanders. Vulkan single-handedly prevented that, hitting the overlapping warriors and cutting them apart with his flaming sword. First Captain Numeon and the Pyre Guard joined him fractionally later and a dense, chaotic melee erupted. As battle continued to rage all around them, the din of the melee was pierced by savage and guttural war cries. A ruddy smog was sweeping across the battlefield, fashioned from blood-drenched mist and the smoke generated by thousands of fires. Caught in a crosswind, it slashed in from the east and brought with it the brutal challenge of a Legion that revelled in war. It was the XIIth Legion -- the World Eaters.Ash-fall from the many thousands of fires turned the sky grey. It baptised a cohort of warriors, clad to various degrees in ancient gladiatorial trappings and wielding ritual caedere weapons. They were the Rampagers, a deadly breed even amongst the Eaters of Worlds, and a throwback to Angron's incarceration as a slave-fighter. Bellowing guttural war cries, they charged ahead of a Contemptor Dreadnought to engage the Salamanders. Emerald-armoured Astartes balked at what the battle-maddened World Eaters attempted. Though there was no more than thirty men - just three squads - they charged over a hundred. Several went down to sporadic bolter fire. Some were clipped by shrapnel but kept on coming. Only those too injured to fight, unable to run because of missing limbs or critical wounds were halted. Something urgent and terrible spurred them on. Even when they were the War Hounds, their reputation in battle, particularly close-quarters, was fearsome. As the reborn World Eaters under Angron, they had become something else. Rumours abounded within the ranks, of arcane devices that manipulated the legionaries' tempers, simulacra of the ones embedded in Angron's skull by his slavers. Now that the Salamanders saw them, ignoring pain and injury, frothing with frenzy, they believed those stories to be true.As the Salamanders and World Eaters fought in bloody close-quarters, elsewhere on the slope, a much larger force of Firedrakes fought Angron's personal body guard, the Devourers, to a bloody stalemate. For once, the Lord of the Red Sands was close to his Honour Guard. Angron bellowed a challenge to his brother Primarch. Vulkan's name was heard amongst the guttural syllables of the World Eater's native tongue. Anointed in blood, partially obscured by scudding clouds of smoke and shimmering heat haze, Angron continued to bellow his challenge, this time in High Gothic, "Vulkan!" His voice was the like fall of cities, rumbling and booming across the vast battlefield. Angron jabbed down to his brother with one of the motorised Power Axes he carried. Its blade was burring, roaring for blood. "I name you high rider!"Farther down the slope, Vulkan gripped the haft of his immense warhammer Dawnbringer and went to meet his brother's challenge. But before the two Primarchs could come to blows, an arcing salvo from one of the traitor gun emplacements spear-headed a missile up into the air and all the way down until it struck part of the slope between the two Primarchs. A firestorm lit the hillside, several tonnes of incendiary ordnance expressed in the expansive bloom of conflagration. It swept outwards in a turbulent wave, bathing the lower part of the slope in heat and flame. This was nothing compared to its epicentre. Firedrakes were immolated in that blast, blown apart and burned to ash in their Terminator Armour. Though Vulkan was wreathed in flames, he stepped from the blaze unharmed. The remaining Firedrakes gathered to him, tramping over the dead where they had to. Mauled as they had been by the World Eaters, Vulkan knew that his warriors had suffered but would not stop until they were dead or the battle was over. But it was grievously attritional, and he was not ashamed to admit relief when he heard that the reinforcements coming in to make planetfall behind them. Hundreds of landers and drop-pods choked the already suffocating sky, emblazoned with the iconography of the Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, Word Bearers and Night Lords. The Primarch merely watched impassively as the manifold shuttles touched down and the loyalists took up position on the edge of the depression. Of Angron, there was no sign. The firestorm had beaten him back, it seemed, and now with the arrival of four more Legions, the Lord of the Red Sands had ordered a retreat.Both the Raven Guard and the Salamanders withdrew towards their drop site to give their recently arrived reinforcements a chance to earn glory against the Traitors. Vulkan and his brother Corax tried to persuade their fiery-tempered brother Ferrus Manus to do the same. But the Gorgon would not be dissuaded from his task. The scent of blood was in the air, and so, the Iron Hands pressed the attack against the retreating Traitor forces. Unknown to the Loyalists, the drop site had been fortified by the four secret Traitor Legions, who had been intended to form the second wave of the Imperial assault on Horus' forces. While the retreat of Horus' rebels was ragged and disorganised, the warriors of the XVIIIth and XIXth Legions fell back in good order. Tanks returned to column, rumbling slowly but steadily back down the slope. The scorched trenches emptied as legionaries filed out in vast hosts, company banners still flying. They were battered but resolute. The dead and injured came with them, dragged or borne aloft by their still standing brothers. It was a great exodus, the black and green ocean of war retreating with the tide to leave the flotsam of their slain enemy behind it.On the northern side of the Urgall Depression, a fresh sea made ready to sweep in and carry all of the mortal debris away. Across from the muster field of the Salamanders, which was little more than a laager of drop-ships, were the Iron Warriors. Armoured in steel-grey with black-and-yellow chevrons, the IVth Legion looked stark and stern. They had erected a barricade, the armoured bastions of their own landing craft alloyed together, to bolster the northern face of the slope. Great cannons were raised aloft behind it, their snouts pointing to the ash-smothered sky. A line of battle tanks sat in front, bearing the grim icon of a metal-helmeted skull. And in front of that, Iron Warriors arrayed in their cohorts, thousands strong. They held their silence and their weapons across their bodies, with no more life than automatons. Not a single Legionary about the XVIIIth stood idle. Yet the Iron Warriors, the entire muster on the northern slope, neither spoke nor moved beyond what was necessary to assemble.Not one responded to the Salamanders' hails. Only the wind kicking at their banners gave any sense of animus to the IVth Legion throng. Only when Vulkan started in the direction of his brother, Perturabo, the Lord of Iron returned the Lord of Drakes' gimlet gaze with one of his own. It was only at that moment, did Vulkan realise that they had been betrayed. More than ten thousand guns answered, the weapons of their allies turned on the Salamanders with traitorous intent, crushing the Loyalists between the hammer of Horus' forces and the anvil of the fortified drop site. Wrath drove Vulkan up the side of the hill, that and a sense of injustice. The ignoble actions of his brother primarchs had wounded Vulkan to the core, far deeper and more debilitating than any blade. Vaunted warriors all, the Pyre Guard could scarcely keep up.Battle companies followed in the wake of their lords, captains roaring the attack as thousands of green-armoured warriors chased up the slope to kill the sons of Perturabo. Withering crossfire from both the north and south faces of the Urgall Depression cut down hundreds in the first few seconds of deceit. The XVIIIth Legion were shedding warriors like a snake sheds scales. But still they drove on, determined not to back down. Tenacity was a Salamander’s greatest virtue -- that refusal to give in. Upon the plains of Istvaan V, against all of those guns, this quality almost ended the XVIIIth Legion. Only as the majority of the Salamanders crested the first ridge, did they first see the arc of fire. It trailed, long and blazing, into the darkling sky. The tongue of flame climbed and upon reaching the apex of its parabola bent back on itself into the shape of a horseshoe. Rockets screaming, it came down in the midst of the charging Salamanders and broke them apart.A savage crater was gored into the Urgall hills, like the bite of some gargantuan beast resurrected from old myth and birthed in nucleonic fire. It threw warriors skywards as if they were no more than empty suits of armour, bereft of bone and flesh. As a bell jar shatters when dropped onto rockcrete from a great height, so too did the Legion smash apart. Tanks following after their lord Primarch were flung barrel-rolling across the black sand with their hulls on fire. Those vehicles in the mouth of the blast were simply ripped apart; tracks and hatches, chunks of abused metal torn to exploded shrapnel. Legionaries spared death in the initial blast were eviscerated in the frag storm. Super-heavies crumpled like tin boxes crushed by a hammer. Crewmen boiled alive, legionaries cooked down to ash in that furnace. It went deep, right into the beating heart of the Salamanders ranks. Only by virtue of the fact that they were so far ahead were the Pyre Guard spared the worst.With immense kinetic fury, it threw them apart and smothered their armoured forms in a firestorm. An electro-magnetic pulse wiped out the Vox, a threnody of static reigning in place of certain contact. Tactical organisation became untenable. In a single devastating strike, the Lord of Iron had crippled the XVIIIth Legion, severed its head and sent its body into convulsive spasm. Retreat was the only viable strategy remaining. Droves fell back to the dropsite, trying to climb aboard ships that were surging desperately into the sky to outreach the terrible storm of betrayal below. It was not a rout, though for any force other than the Legiones Astartes it would have been, faced with such violence. Many were cut down as the traitors threaded the air with enough flak to wither an armada.Despite a heroic defence, the three Loyalist Legions who took part in the battle on Istvaan V were practically destroyed; all but a handful of Battle-Brothers fell on that fateful day and the Primarch Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands was beheaded by his former best friend and brother, Fulgrim, the Primarch of the Emperor's Children. After this sad defeat, the Salamanders, as well as the other two betrayed Space Marine Legions, were unable to perform any further tasks the Emperor had planned for them and spent the rest of the Heresy rebuilding their shattered forces. Both Vulkan and his brother Corvus Corax survived the ambush on Istvaan V. Conflicting reports by the few survivors stated that Vulkan, also gravely wounded, had to be dragged away from the fight onto a Thunderhawk gunship by three of his Pyre Guard and then managed to escape back to Nocturne. But the reality of the Salamanders' Primarch's fate proved to be far more dire. |
Vulkan - Vulkan's Imprisonment: Vulkan had survived the nuclear fire of the Iron Warriors' orbital strike, where so many of his sons did not. Finding himself surrounded by hundreds of Traitor Legionaries from both the Night Lords and the Iron Warriors, Vulkan resigned himself to his fate. Fighting valiantly, the Primarch fought to the death, but was eventually overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the enemy and was shot, stabbed and bludgeoned into unconsciousness. The Night Haunter, now inherently insane, saw the opportunity to torment his fallen brother and took the unconscious Vulkan as his prisoner. When the Salamanders' Primarch finally awoke, he found himself fettered in massive chains aboard a gaol-hulk belonging to the VIIIth Legion. Over the span of several months, the Night Haunter took sadistic pleasure in attempting to break both Vulkan's body and mind, or kill him outright. But the task proved impossible, as every time Curze thought he had succeeded in killing his brother, Vulkan's body would miraculously regenerate to its former healthy state. Vulkan had been revealed to be a "Perpetual", a being who was capable of continuous cellular regeneration and therefore was effectively immortal, much like their father, the Emperor of Mankind. Enraged, Curze took it upon himself to kill Vulkan as many times as was necessary to permanently rid himself of his intolerable presence. The Night Haunter personally beheaded the Salamanders' Primarch, ripped out his throat with a piece of cutlery, stabbed him through the chest and virtually tore him limb from limb with his own wicked claws. When these attempts failed to kill Vulkan, Curze had him eviscerated, shot at close-range by hundreds of Bolters, put into a ventilation shaft of a starship's engine and even stripped naked and thrown out of an airlock into the airless void of space. But the Night Haunter's efforts proved all for naught.Each time the Night Haunter thought he had successfully murdered his brother Primarch, Vulkan's body would continue to regenerate back to its former vigorous state, further enraging the Night Lords' Primarch. With his unnatural abilities to regenerate revealed to him, Curze attempted to make Vulkan admit that he was no less a monster than himself. Vulkan was placed through unwinnable trials to break his spirit: having to pull against chains to prevent a ceiling in another cell from crushing its innocent occupants. Being starved at a banquet table, with mortal prisoners alongside him, watching the food decay and the prisoners wither away. Being trapped in a battle-plate and being unable to control his limbs and forced to hunt captured soldiers and other captured Loyalist Astartes. To further torment his brother, the Night Haunter had Davinite sorcerer-priests use the fell powers gifted to them by the Ruinous Powers to ensnare Vulkan's mind and make him fight his brother Corax after a fictional rescue attempt. But even this form of sorcerous torture failed to break the resolute Vulkan. Fed up with his insufferable prisoner, and slaughtering the sorcerer-priests, the Night Haunter devised a final solution to his problem of ridding himself of the Salamander's presence. Vulkan's fate would be decided in a duel to the death.He offered his brother a means of escape and achieving that which he had sought for so long -- his freedom. All he had to do was navigate a labyrinth, where, at the centre of it, lay his personal warhammer, Dawnbringer. But this was no ordinary maze. At the request of Night Haunter, the Iron Warriors' Primarch Perturabo had crafted him a singular prison, unlike any other, in imitation of his own private sanctorum known as the Cavea Ferrum. This special prison was an elaborate labyrinth, whose featureless walls and strange geometric design made it all but impossible to map and therefore escape. Anyone who attempted to mentally map the labyrinth would be hopelessly knotted in turns that should have been physically impossible. Even after trying scores of times to map the labyrinth, an individual would only manage more than a handful of turns within its twisting corridors before it all stopped making sense. In addition Curze performed ambush attacks, wounding Vulkan without killing him, repeatedly. At the edge of his willpower, Vulkan had a vision of the Emperor in the visage of a Remembrancer, named Verace. The Emperor reminded his son that he would watch over all his sons when he could, and calmed Vulkan's mind, instilling within him, fresh resolve. Thus, Vulkan goaded Curze, yelling out into the cavernous labyrinth of how all the Primarchs pitied him and how he was just a child raging in the dark. Curze then opened up a path in the labyrinth to the center, where Dawnbringer rested under an energy shield.There he met the Night Haunter, and they engaged in melee combat. Though armed with a blade, Curze gave into Vulkan's taunts of his physical weakness, and attempted to engage Vulkan with his fists alone. Vulkan easily grabbed Curze and, swinging him like a hammer, broke the energy shield. With his weapon in hand, he managed to overpower his gaoler, and activate the secret personal teleporter built into the head of the finely wrought warhammer. Vulkan immediately transported halfway across the galaxy, and reappeared in the upper atmosphere of the Ultramarines Legion's homeworld of Macragge. As he fell from an impossible height, his body was burned to a crisp upon reentry. But before his mind faded into blackness, Vulkan was content that he would soon find himself whole once again, and in the care of his Ultramarine cousins. His violent orbital entry crippled his mind, due to the immense pain, making him mentally unstable.Later on, the Night Haunter, who was trapped aboard the Dark Angels flagship following a failed boarding action during the conclusion of the Thramas Crusade, would eventually make his way to the surface of Macragge, wanting to finish what he started, and finally kill Vulkan. The ensuing battle would draw in both his Primarch brothers Roboute Guilliman and Lion El'Jonson, and a Perpetual by the name of John Grammaticus. In the aftermath, the Night Haunter would be defeated, but Vulkan was apparently "slain" by Grammaticus by the command of the mysterious organization known as the Cabal. Vulkan was stabbed in the heart by Grammaticus with a piece of Fulgurite, a large natural hollow glass tube formed beneath the surface of a planet during a lightning strike -- the result of the Emperor unleashing his infinite psychic power against the Forces of Chaos millennia ago. Vulkan's fate following the battle, at that time, was unknown. |
Vulkan - Rebirth: As Macragge became the new home of Imperium Secundus, the second stellar empire of Humanity created by the Ultramarines Primarch Roboute, more and more survivors of the XVIIIth Legion made their way to the Ultramarines' home world. Convinced of their Primarch's death, the Salamanders mourned their genetic-sire's loss. The Ultramarines had entombed Vulkan in a heavily decorated casket of pure gold -- a fitting resting place for one of the Emperor's sons, or so one would think. To the Salamanders standing vigil over Vulkan's body the cold mortuary chamber in which he now rested was a far cry from the burial rituals of the Promethean Cult. For all intent and purposes the Salamanders were a broken legion, the death of their Primarch having broken their indomitable spirit. Matters however soon changed when First Captain Artellus Numeon was successfully saved by an Ultramarine strikeforce. Many were those amongst the survivors that hoped that the return of their First Captain would give a new sense of purpose to what remained of the Legion - given them purpose and direction once again. Numeon firmly believed in his Primarch's survival, having constantly espoused the phrase, "Vulkan lives!" This became Numeon's battlecry and the cornerstone of his beliefs. Yet when Numeon asked to be taken to his Primarch, he only found an empty casket -- Vulkan's body having mysteriously vanished from his "final" resting place -- which planted the seed of doubt amongst Numeon's fellow Astartes, officers and Primarchs as to Vulkan's true condition.After several city-wide search-actions had returned empty-handed, Numeon himself, found the missing Primarch's body resting in a statuary garden. None could explain how the body had been overlooked or how it had gotten there, but Rouboute Guilliman soon assumed the reason to be a malfunction of the teleportation device inside of Vulkan's warhammer, Dawnbringer, which the Primarch had been entombed with. For many of the Salmanders however, this first miracle only confirmed Numeon's faith and beliefs. Coming together, the sixty-seven surviving Salamanders formed a new brotherhood --the Pyre -- and declared their intent. They would attempt to break through the Ruinstorm to return Vulkan to Nocturne, either to be properly laid to rest or resurrected. This was the fate they had chosen for themselves and nothing -- not even Lord Guilliman's refusal to let them leave -- would keep them from it. Fortunately for the Pyre, an XVIIIth Legion ship, the Battle-Barge Charybdis, was docked in Port Hera and undergoing final repairs. With the blessings of the Primarch Sanguinius, Emperor of Imperium Secundus, and with the tacit agreement of its Lord Protector, Lion El'Jonson, and -- at last -- that of Roboute Guilliman, Vulkan's casket was transferred aboard the Charybdis.The Charybdis’ voyage to Nocturne made for a tale of epic proportions, for the Archenemy would not let the chance to retrieve the body of a Primarch go so easily. Suffice it to say that through the Salamaners' heroism, obstinance, and great sacrifices, did the Charybdis reach its destination, but it was not alone. Both the Death Guard and the Word Bearers had followed the valiant Battle Barge's course, intent on claiming the Primarch's body and the mighty weapon still lodged in his chest. In a last desperate gamble, the Charybdis sacrificed itself on the guns of its enemies to allow the twenty survivors of the Pyre, amongst them Artellus Numeon, to covertly evacuate Vulkan's casket in a Thunderhawk gunship to Nocturn's surface. This ruse de guerre was, however, only short-lived and the Thunderhawk was soon severely damaged, causing it to crash-landed along the Acerbian Plaine. Fortunately for Numeon and fellow survivors, Nocturne was not entirely defenceless, as Lord Chaplain Nomus Rhy'tan soon rushed to the small party's crash side. Retrieving the Primarch's body just in time to reach one of the Legion's new bastions, the Draconis Gate, the Salamanders defended their homeworld against the invading Death Guard forces and utterly annihilate them.With the enemy defeated and Nocturne safe, the proper ceremony was conducted to remember Vulkan's passing. The Primarch, still wearing his artificer armour and clenching Dawnbringer in his hands, was carried into the fiery heart of Nocturne's sacred mountain, Mount Deathfire. The fulgurite spear was still jutting from his chest, as no one was able to remove it. In the presence of the remaining more than 700-strong honour guard -- all that remained of the Legion as far as any of the Salamanders knew -- Vulkan was lowered into the burning caldera of the volcano. No further miracle manifested itself. Vulkan had been given over to the earth and consigned to the flame and had not risen again.To those that had witnessed the miracles around Artellus Numeon and shared the hardships of the Charybdis' voyage, deception came hardest, but even they recognised, after a few days, that the final ceremony to honor Vulkan had given them closure -- from the ashes of defeat, the XVIIIth Legion would rise again, as it had done before -- with another amongst them to lead the legion. Only one man did not believe so; Artellus Numeon, First Captain of the Legion, the former commander of the Pyre Guard, would not see his faith go unrewarded. Numeon was wracked by grief, yet his heart felt alight with faith; the First Captain resolved himself to one last sacrifice -- to trade his life in exchange for that of his Primarch's. Covertly escaping the bastion of the Draconis Gate, Numeon, stripped of armour, weapons and rank, used the dawning of the Time of Trials to mask his escape and stall any form of pursuit before he could reach Mount Deathfire. There he immolated himself in one of the mountain's fiery crevasses, unable to see his Primarch again or to know if his sacrifice had been successful: an act of pure faith. When Numeon's erstwhile companions could finally follow without endangering their companions, only three of them went to search for him -- Sergeant Barek Zytos, Blacksmiter Igen Gargo, and Legionary Abidemi. Mounting jetbikes, which were by far the swiftest way to travel the ash-plains, the trio encountered a solitary figure kneeling in the desert, obviously weak and disoriented. Rejoicing at having found their comrade and friend, the astonished trio fell to their knees in supplication, when they saw the figure turn around and rise unsteadily to his feet, a hand clutching an all-too-familiar spear tip still embedded in his chest; it was their Primarch. Vulkan lived... |
Vulkan - Aftermath: The events immediately following the end of the great galactic civil war are even more obscure in current Imperial records and perhaps known only to the taciturn masters of the Salamanders' Librarius. What is clear, however, is that when the Ultramarines' Primarch Roboute Guilliman authored the Codex Astartes during the Reformation of the Imperium after the end of the Heresy and prepared the plan to safeguard the Imperium from another civil war by breaking down each Space Marine Legion into a single Chapter comprised of only 1,000 Space Marines, Vulkan stood alongside Leman Russ of the Space Wolves and Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists in opposition to the plan. However, like the others, Vulkan eventually acquiesced rather than put the unity of the Imperium at risk once more.The XVIIIth Legion appears to have sired no immediate Successors, and it is likely that their numbers were so depleted by the events of the Istvaan V Drop Site Massacre that it was not possible to divide it into separate Chapters. Several Chapters were created much later in subsequent Foundings which might share the genetic inheritance of the Salamanders, but no evidence exists of any Second Founding Successor Chapters having been sired. The extent to which the dictates of the Codex Astartes were adhered to in the aftermath of the break-up of the old Legions varied greatly, and the Salamanders appeared to have obeyed it in some respects, while ignoring it in others. The fielding of only seven, over-strength companies is one example of this, though in other respects the present-day Salamanders Chapter is largely compliant with the dictates of Guilliman's tome. |
Vulkan - Artefacts of Vulkan: The ultimate fate of the Salamanders' primarch is a matter of much conjecture, for he disappeared many standard years after the Horus Heresy. Some sources state that Vulkan led his Chapter for three entire millennia before he departed on some mission he never declared to the Imperium at large, though scant evidence of any of his deeds throughout that age remain. The tale is made all the more mysterious by the fact that Vulkan appeared to have left behind him a text, called the Tome of Fire, within which is locked the nature and location of nine artefacts the primarch willed to his Chapter.It said that over one thousand standard years after the events of the Horus Heresy, Vulkan hid these nine artefacts around the galaxy for his Chapter to find, as a test to see if they were worthy of his leadership. Of these nine relics, five have been recovered, three of which, the Spear of Vulkan, Kesare's Mantle and the Gauntlet of the Forge, are wielded by the Chapter's cuurent Forgefather, Vulkan He'stan. Two, the Chalice of Fire and the Eye of Vulkan, remain on the Nocturnean moon of Prometheus in the Chapter's fortress-monastery, while the last four artefacts, the Engine of Woes, the Obsidian Chariot, the Unbound Flame and the Song of Entropy, have yet to be discovered.The Tome of Fire claims that only when all of these artefacts are recovered by the Forgefather of the Salamanders, as five now have been, will Vulkan judge the Salamanders sufficiently tempered to have passed the ultimate contest. Then, so the legend states, he shall return to lead the Salamanders in the final war against the enemies of Humanity in accordance with the prophecies written within the Chapter's most sacred tome. |
Vulkan - Wargear: The Draken Scale - Vulkan's Artificer Armour was a marvel of the Imperium and famed relic in its own right, and its crowning glory was the skull of the great Firedrake Kesare mounted upon the Primarch's shoulder, upon whose image the Legion's symbol was based.Dawnbringer - A warhammer of prodigious size and reputedly indestructible material construction, Dawnbringer was too great a weight for any but a Primarch to lift. Wielded by Vulkan, Dawnbringer was capable of sundering any defence set against it, from isolithic stone to the densest armour plate, and brutally crushed countless foes in the Primarch's hands. Dawnbringer also possessed unknown, formidable teleporter technology that enabled the Primarch to safely teleport over vast distances of space, even from one world to another.The Furnace's Heart - A baroquely-styled energy weapon similar to a Plasma Pistol gifted to Vulkan by Ferrus Manus, this unique weapon utilised individual charged shells to produce powerful laser-like blasts capable of cutting swathes through even heavily armoured foes. The weapon, however, was not truly favoured by Vulkan, for reasons that remained the subject of dark rumour, but the Salamanders Primarch carried the weapon into battle at Istvaan V regardless to honour his brother for the gift. |
Vulkan - Trivia: The name Vulkan is derived from the name Vulcan, the Roman God of fire, volcanoes and the forge. Vulcan is often depicted by a blacksmith's hammer. |
Vulkan - Lord of Drakes (Novella) - Vulkan - Lord of Drakes (Novella): Vulkan - Lord of Drakes is the ninth novella in the Primarchs series. |
Vulkan - Lord of Drakes (Novella) - Synopsis: As the Emperor marshals His armies to reclaim the galaxy for the glory of Mankind, one by one his Space Marine Legions are reunited with their missing Primarchs. The XVIII Legion are still waiting to find their true identity, unaware their own lord has been found. In the Taras Division, Legionaries face annihilation as they take a last, desperate stand against a monstrous Ork invasion. Meanwhile, on Nocturne, Vulkan has raised and trained a new force of warriors. Now it is the time for him to lead his sons into battle. Now it is the time for him to truly don the mantle of Primarch, not only to save one half of his Legion, but forge a new, indivisible whole. |
Vulkan He'stan - Vulkan He'stan: Vulkan He'stan serves as the current Forgefather of the Salamanders Space Marine Chapter. The hope of the Salamanders rest upon this one Space Marine. To be honoured as the Forgefather is to be tasked with an epic quest, a journey that has been handed down in turn to the greatest heroes of the Chapter since the mysterious disappearance of their beloved Primarch, Vulkan.For millennia the Forgefather of the Salamanders has led the Chapter's search across the galaxy to recover nine legendary relics, the Artefacts of Vulkan. At a simple request, the Forgefather can draw upon the full might of the Chapter -- for they would go to any length, suffer any losses, in order to find all of the missing artefacts.It is a Salamanders legend, as told in ancient tales and inferred from the sacred book of the Promethean Cult known as the Tome of Fire, that when all nine of the Relics of Vulkan are recovered and returned once more to his homeworld of Nocturne, the Primarch himself will return to lead his sons to final victory over the enemies of the Imperium. But before one can fully understand Vulkan He'stan and his quest, one must first know the tale of the Salamanders. |
Vulkan He'stan - History: The Salamanders are one of the first of the twenty Legions of Space Marines founded by the Emperor Himself. They were the XVIIIth Legion until they were reunited with their Primarch, Vulkan, upon what would become their homeworld -- the volcanic Death World of Nocturne. At that point they took the name Salamanders, in tribute to the enormous reptilian drakes that were the apex predators of that harsh planet. In the roll of the Imperium's forces, the Salamanders have earned their rightful place amongst the finest ever to have served. Time and again they have thrown themselves into the fires of war, holding their ground or pressing the assault with a fierce determination. Over their long history, there are many examples of the Salamanders withstanding terrible odds, tenaciously waging war until they alone emerge triumphant. Since the massive battles of the Unification Wars, the Salamanders have sustained 90% or more casualties over a dozen times -- bleeding themselves dry to preserve needed victory. Always, they rise again.When the original Space Marine Legions were split during the Second Founding, there was no need to break up the Salamanders. They had sustained so many losses during the fighting of the Horus Heresy that their reduced strength would not warrant such measures -- or so argued Vulkan. Soon afterwards Roboute Guilliman, the Ultramarines Primarch, laid down the standards for the Adeptus Astartes in the Codex Astartes. The Salamanders simply rebuilt to Chapter strength, rather than to the vast numbers of a full Legion.The Salamanders follow most of the guidelines prescribed by the Codex Astartes, although there are some noticeable differences. The most obvious of these are the number and size of their companies, their adherence to the Promethean Cult, and the unique Chapter rank known as the Forgefather. According to their ancient lore, their Primarch Vulkan left behind nine artefacts -- nine technological relics of incredible craftsmanship wrought by his own hand. These he left for his sons to find, and wield if they should prove worthy enough to discover them. The Primarch scattered these wonders across the galaxy, both to prevent Mankind's enemies from winning a great store of matchless artefacts and also because he knew that even the grandest prize is worth nothing if it is seized without challenge equal to its worth. Since Vulkan's mysterious disappearance, thousands of Terran years ago, the Salamanders have appointed one of their number to serve as Forgefather. |
Vulkan He'stan - The Forgefather: It is a great honour for any Salamander to be chosen as Forgefather, for the title is only given to the most heroic exemplar of the Chapter. To be so named, the Space Marine in question must be a great warrior, skilled in battle -- but this alone is not enough. The Forgefather must excel in the qualities that the Salamanders themselves esteem most highly -- self-reliance, fierce loyalty, sacrifice, uncompromising determination and tenacity. No matter the odds, a Salamander does not relent. These are the hallmarks of the Chapter and have been since the days when their Primarch first walked amongst them. The Forgefather is often chosen from a leadership position -- typically, but not always, one of the Captains of the companies. Upon becoming Forgefather, the individual renounces his old position, title and name and takes on a new role and the name of Vulkan. The Primarch of the Salamanders was named Vulkan for that was the name given to the greatest of the salamanders, the giant lizards that roam the volcanic mountains of Nocturne. It is the Forgefather's task to seek out and find the artefacts left by the Primarch –- five of which have already been found. It is his role to sacrifice the solace of brotherhood for a life lived mostly in solitude and duties yet more perilous. |
Vulkan He'stan - Vulkan He'stan: As the close of the 41st Millennium approaches, the current Forgefather of the Salamanders is Vulkan He'stan. Since his earliest days as a Scout Marine, He'stan had been a much-noted warrior. He alone of his recruiting class captured a unique beast. For his mantle he slew a mottled tri-horn, amongst the most vicious and cunning of their reptilian breed. Even teams of veteran drake-hunters might struggle to accomplish such a deed. He'stan's skills as a smith -- working his hammer upon the anvil -- were such that the master artificers stopped over his works and admired them. The sentiment was expressed in a number of ways, but all amounted to the same: truly did the blood of Vulkan himself run in the Novice.The Salamanders' fortress-monastery is not upon Nocturne itself, but instead resides upon its giant moon, Prometheus. In the halls of that edifice can still be found trophies of war brought back by He'stan from his time serving in the Battle Companies. When he was promoted to the 1st Company -- the Firedrakes –- He'stan's ability with Bolter and Flamer saved his squad more than once, his bold actions and great hardiness winning him many accolades. But it was his leadership, stamina and sheer determination that truly sealed He'stan's meteoric rise to Captain. During the Ork raids and resultant seismic activity of the awful time known as the Fire Year, it was He'stan's inspired and tireless defence that saved so many of Nocturne's citizens.He'stan had served the Salamanders with great distinction for nearly a standard century when the Pantheon Council commanded he set down his burdens as commander of the 4th Company and don the mantle of Forgefather. In solemn and proscribed ceremony, He'stan relinquished his old titles and duties and emerged out of the same flames and in the same manner as their Primarch. He would follow Vulkan's trail -- searching for details of the Primarch's lone ventures about the galaxy and for clues about the hidden relics. It would be an isolated existence, as cut off from others as Nocturne had been from the rest of Humanity. As Forgefather, He'stan would maintain his seat upon the Chapter's ruling Pantheon Council. However, his post would ensure that he was an irregular attendant at best, for his travels were to be long and perilous.In the pursuance of his quest, He'stan has walked a crooked and winding path across the galaxy. He has been guided from system to system by clues inked within the Tome of Fire. These are the texts that the Salamanders' Primarch left behind before his last and final disappearance. In them are words of wisdom and guidance for his sons, but there is more besides. Within those many volumes, secrets were revealed. Prophecies, clues and references were left for the wise to decipher. For the Salamanders know, as their Primarch taught, that the forged blade must be tested and retested, as the strongest metals are folded in upon themselves over and over again until, at last, they find their utmost strength. So did Vulkan leave behind the answers, buried in hidden sigils, disguised as not-yet-deciphered code.More than anyone in the Chapter, the Forgefather knows the Tome of Fire expertly. He, more than any other, calls upon its guidance to lead him on its trail. It is as if, across millennia and the depths of space, the will of the Primarch Vulkan still moves the warriors that bear his genetic legacy. He'stan's knowledge of the Tome of Fire and his ability to navigate its labyrinthine chapters are unrivalled. He has spent years studying its pages, committing their wordings to memory. On his long and lonely voyages, this is how He'stan spends his time -- in constant reflection, poring over each word, studying each symbol for a secret meaning. Once, perhaps, He'stan had been bold and outgoing -- now, he is more thoughtful and reflective than ever.Although alone, detached from the Salamanders' chain of command, the Forgefather can call upon his Battle-Brothers as needed and direct their actions to aid in securing any clues. To the rest of the Chapter, even those who knew him previously, the Forgefather has become a figure of legend and utmost respect. In the Forgefather, they see reflected aspects of their Primarch himself -- for the Forgefather follows in his footsteps and carries about him artefacts forged by Vulkan's own hands. Indeed, amongst He'stan's gear is equipment borne to battle by Vulkan during the Primarch's days fighting beside the Emperor at the birth of the Imperium. |
Vulkan He'stan - The Nine Artefacts of Vulkan: As the close of the 41 Millennium approaches, five of the nine hidden artefacts of Vulkan have been recovered, three of which are personally borne by Vulkan He'stan. The Forgefather is protected by Kesare's Mantle -- the legendary scaled cloak taken from the skin of a drake slain by the Primarch. In his right hand, he carries the Spear of Vulkan -- a weapon forged by Vulkan himself, its incandescent blade so powerful it can set even ceramite ablaze. He'stan's other hand is encased within the Gauntlet of the Forge, a mailed fist cunningly wrought to summon fire at need. This is the one artefact that He'stan is most proud of -- for he himself recovered it. The tale of how he took it from the Eldar Corsair, Lord Iath Bloodweaver, after defeating his warhost in battle is just one of the dozens that are now told about He'stan. |
Vulkan He'stan - The Quest of Vulkan He'stan: Vulkan He'stan devotes his every hour towards the recovery of the final four relics and the completion of the quest. It is written in the Tome of Fire that only when all nine artefacts have been recovered and returned to Nocturne will Vulkan judge the Salamanders to be sufficiently tempered; only then will he return to lead his sons to battle. Hunting for the relics is dangerous work. So far, the quest has claimed the lives of each Forgefather that came before He'stan. It seems an impossible task, for the Forgefathers have been hard at work searching for many thousands of Terran years -- but the Salamanders do not begrudge this challenge. Rather they accept it with the same stoic pragmatism with which they go about all their duties.In his searchings, He'stan has visited alien planets, the abodes of Traitors and even the Immaterium, searching that nether-realm for traces and hints of his lost Primarch. Often, clues are only revealed once such places have been scoured clean, and if the task is too large for He'stan alone, he will call for the aid of his Battle-Brothers. The Salamanders do not hesitate to bring their full might to bear at He'stan's command. They too would endure any woe and suffer any loss to retrieve the Primarch's gifts. For it was in his teachings that through hardships would come deliverance -- the tempered blade is the strongest. Thus far on He'stan's epic journey there have been more false trails, more misreadings than successes. So it has been for every Forgefather before him. Yet, piece by piece, He'stan Vulkan has built upon the knowledge and findings of his predecessors, and has further interpreted the Tome of Fire. He knows that he is on the right track and that revelations are not given, but earned.The path is not without pitfalls, and sometimes leads away from the quest itself. Whilst searching for clues in the Ultima Segmentum, He'stan ran afoul of the Arch-Arsonist of Charadon. This began what the Salamanders call the Flame Wars -- a running series of engagements that, by its conclusion, required the efforts of two full companies of Salamanders. Early on, He'stan had concluded that the trail was false, but by his actions an Ork WAAAGH! was broken, and the lives of many Imperial civilians saved. Vulkan himself would not be displeased with such a result -- indeed, it was as if that was, in itself, part of the test.Not all the wars that He'stan has been involved in have been of his own choosing. Twice now, the Necron Overlord Trazyn the Infinite has instigated attacks upon He'stan. The Necron artefact collector attempted to wrest the Spear of Vulkan from He'stan's hands for the first time in 878.M41, for he covets that technological marvel greatly, but was defeated in personal combat by the Forgefather. Indeed, it is widely guessed that Trazyn was behind the demise of several Forgefathers in the past -- although this has never been proven. In a later plot, the ancient Necron attempted to lure He'stan into a trap, during the Tochran Crusade of 943.M41, but the stalwart Forgefather thwarted his plans. |
Vulkan He'stan - Aboard the Grim Scythe: During one quest, as just an exmaple of the valour required of the Forgefather, Vulkan He'stan's path led him from a world in the midst of the Zombie Plague, through the Black Nebula and finally to the Space Hulk codenamed the Grim Scythe. He'stan had needed help in tracking the derelict Space Hulk, for it had a disturbing habit of sliding into the Warp only to reappear hundreds or thousands of light years away. Answering his call for aid came Vulkan's Wrath, a Salamanders Strike Cruiser. Aboard was half of the Salamanders 3rd Company and a supporting squad of Terminators -- enough troops to risk boarding the drifting Space Hulk. Led by He'stan, it was not long before a single Boarding Torpedo smashed through the hull. Although now aboard, they were trapped in the twisted wreckage -- hunks of metal hull and bulkhead wrapped around their reinforced tube.With a hiss and flare, the Multi-Melta ate through beams and bulkhead alike, opening a vent into the darkness beyond. Waiting only long enough for the melted metal to solidify, Vulkan He'stan was the first through. The Terminators behind were revving their Chainfists, ready to enlarge the gap so their massive frames could fit through. Although he and the Space Marines that followed him could see in the dark with their auto-senses, it was out of habit that He'stan led the way with the glowing blade of the Spear of Vulkan.The only sound was their ceramite boots echoing on the grated decking. Before long, the boarding party had broken into a long corridor stretching into darkness. They advanced cautiously, for there were signs that the Space Hulk was not empty. For one, so much Warp-contamination clung about the vessel that the Auspex gave no readings, showing only a single pulsing heartbeat, as if the hulk itself was alive. He'stan had seen too much to believe that this was happenstance or coincidence. A thick, viscous substance dripped down the walls, and disturbing gurgles of sludge-like liquid could be heard moving in the network of pipes that ran along the hall's ceiling. He'stan recalled the horrors of the Zombie Plague and he warned his comrades of his fears: Plague Marines, or at least Renegades in service to the foul Lord of Decay.He'stan was searching for the Chthonic Hammer -- a mining ship that had been lost in the Warp at about the time of Vulkan's disappearance. He had reason to believe the Primarch had spent time aboard that ship, perhaps even aiding its search for rare metals. After much tracking, the Forgefather had reason to believe that ship formed part of the conglomerate of hulls that made up this enormous Space Hulk. What else he might find, He'stan did not rightfully know...but the profusion of pestilent moulds growing on the walls gave him strong indications. He halted before a heavily sealed blastdoor. Using hand signals only, he set the squads in fire-breather formation -- a tactical deployment that led with a Heavy Flamer and kept strong fire support to the front and rear. At his signal, the Terminators stepped forward, Chainfists sending up sparks as they cut into the solid ceramite. It was, thought He'stan, the perfect place for an ambush. Soon the ancient ship was filled with the sound of Bolter fire and the sibilant hissing of Heavy Flamers. The battle of the Grim Scythe had begun...just another step in the quest to discover Vulkan's legacy, and ensure his return. |
Vulkan He'stan - Era Indomitus: In the wake of the Great Rift's birth, many believe that the devastating empyric disruption to communication and travel has rendered He'stan's quest impossible.Yet it is in this darkest hour that a fresh clue has revealed itself; an ember burning bright in the dark of the Imperium Nihilus, upon a world named Zero.An ember that hints at the location of the Artefact of Vulkan known only by the name Unbound Flame... |
Vulkan He'stan - Wargear: Artificer ArmourBolt PistolFrag GrenadesKrak Grenades |
Vulkan He'stan - Artefacts of Vulkan: Only four of Vulkan's original nine artefacts does He'stan seek -- the others have been found through the travails of previous Forgefathers. He'stan himself is already the keeper of three, including:The Spear of Vulkan - A mighty relic Power Weapon that takes the form of a huge master-crafted halberd, once wielded by Vulkan himself. The incandescent blade of this polearm can set even ceramite ablaze.Kesare's Mantle - A legendary drakescale cloak made of Adamantium-hard drake scales that was made from the near-inpenetrable hide of the infamous salamander Sho'Valla.The Gauntlet of the Forge - A master-crafted armoured gauntlet with a built-in Heavy Flamer that incorporates a set of digital weapons, whose molten rage none can endure.The other two recovered artefacts remain on the Salamanders' moon of Prometheus, for they are valuable beyond measure. One is the Forgeship Chalice of Fire, whose vast manufactoria provide the Salamanders with their weapons of war.The next is the Eye of Vulkan, a spacebound Defence Laser assembly that stands eternal vigil over the Salamander's fortress-monastery on Prometheus.Of the remaining artefacts, the Engine of Woes, the Obsidian Chariot, the Unbound Flame and the Song of Entropy, only the names are known. Their size, form and location are locked within the Tome of Fire, there to be uncovered as the Primarch's prophecies reveal themselves. |
Vulkan He'stan - Sources: Codex Adeptus Astartes - Space Marines (8th Edition), pp. 102, 138Codex: Space Marines (6th Edition), pp. 112, 194-197Codex: Space Marines (5th Edition), pg. 93Codex Supplement: Salamanders (8th Edition), pg. 36Warlords of the Dark Millennium - Vulkan He'stan, pp. 3-13, 21-27Firedrake (Novel) by Nick Kyme |
Vulkan Lives - Vulkan Lives: Vulkan Lives is the twenty-sixth volume in the Horus Heresy series of novels. |
Vulkan Lives - Synopsis: Vulkan Lives takes place in the wake of the Drop Site Massacre at Isstvan V, the survivors of the Salamanders Legion searched long and hard for their fallen primarch, but to no avail.Little did they know that while Vulkan might have wished himself dead, he lives still.As the war continues without him, all eyes turn to Ultramar and Guilliman's new empire there, and Vulkan’s sons are drawn into an insidious plot to end the Heresy by the most underhand means imaginable. |
Vultarax - Vultarax: The Vultarax, also known as the Vultarax Pattern Stratos Battle-Automata, was the principal model of flying Battle-Automata used by the armed forces of the Mechanicum throughout the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. The Vultarax is a robust, multi-role robot which is both heavily armed and remarkably swift. Its sophisticated sensory gear allows it to operate effortlessly in hostile environments and dense terrain where more conventional units would struggle considerably. Tactically versatile, the Vultarax proved itself to be the keystone of both the Taghmata Omnissiah's and Explorator Expeditions' air-support.Many Imperial savants of the late 41st Millennium have remarked upon the many similarities the Vultarax shares with the Daemon Engines later known as Blight Drones that are preferred airborne combat support units for the Death Guard Traitor Legion. Believed to be twisted perversions of the ancient Vultarax Stratos-Automata, these fly-like mechanical horrors ride the high air currents over the battlefield on droning turbines, before dropping down to slaughter the enemy with cannon fire and feed upon their seeping corpse-fluids. |
Vultarax - History: Unlike most other Battle-Automata -- and indeed some other classes of Stratos Battle-Automata -- of the Mechanicum Taghmata, which were designed with primarily humanoid or animal forms, the design of the Vultarax owed little to nature, even in the abstract, save perhaps to certain predatory creatures of the deep ocean. Instead, it was based on pre-Imperial STC templates for autonomous aerial machines and constructed around a powerful variant of the cybernetica cortex. The Vultarax was conceived during the Age of Strife on the Forge World of Anetarbraxus and later given up in tribute to Holy Mars. From the Red Planet, it quickly spread to other Forge Worlds in the solar decades after Anetarbraxus' reunification with the Imperium. By the time of the Horus Heresy, it was one of the rare testimonies to the Forge World's existence, Anetarbraxus having been reduced to molten slag during the Great Mandragoran Incursion. |
Vultarax - Armament: For a flying machine or a Battle-Automata of its size, the Vultarax is powerfully armed which as furthered its use as a rapid response unit and hunter-killer role in open battle. The Vultarax also frequently serves in scouting duties.Vultarax Arc Blaster2 Setheno Pattern Havoc Missile Launchers - The Setheno-pattern is a more sophisticated version of the more common Havoc Missile Launcher commonly mounted on Imperial vehicules. The weaponsystem derives its appellation form the Setheno data-djinn which guide each missile and which have proven themselves deadly against enemies trying to hide behind cover.2 Battle-Automata Power Blades (Optional)Flare ShieldEnhanced Targeting ArraySearchlight |
Vultarax - Adeptus Mechanicus Technical Specifications: The technical specificatrions of the Vultarax have not been made publicly available by the Adeptus Mechanicus. |
Vultarax - Sources: Codex Heretic Astartes - Death Guard (8th Edition), "Grim Origins," pg. 50The Horus Heresy - Book Seven: Inferno (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 294-295Forge World Webstore - Mechanicum Vultarax-Stratos Automata |
Vulture - Vulture: The Vulture is a gunship of the Imperial Navy's Aeronautica Imperialis that is capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). It is used to provide heavy air support for Astra Militarum ground units and the Valkyrie transport. The Vulture is very similar in appearance to the Valkyrie, but with a drastically different role on the battlefield. The Vulture is capable of carrying a large variety of weapons and is able to engage both infantry and armoured units, and is also able to effectively attack fortified enemy structures and bunkers.The Vulture is an attack gunship, and its main role is the support of Valkyrie assault carriers while in flight and while their Imperial Guard troops are disembarking. The Vulture will often stay at the drop zone after the Valkyries have left in order to provide heavy air support to the infantry on the ground. Regiments of the Imperial Guard like the Elysian Drop Troops make heavy use of Vultures as they are often deployed into hostile territory without heavy armour or artillery support.Like all Imperial aircraft, the Vulture is crewed and operated by members of the Imperial Navy's Aeronautica Imperialis, though it is always used in support of Astra Militarum ground forces. The Vulture is not used as an air superiority fighter due to its slow air speed. That is a role better left to the Aeronautica Imperialis' Lightning and Thunderbolt aerospace fighters. The Vulture, like the Valkyrie, is also unable to operate in the vacuum of space and thus cannot be used in space superiority or orbital assault actions. |
Vulture - Armament: The Vulture can be armed with a vast amount of weaponry and various upgrades and modifications. The default armament of a Vulture consists of a nose-mounted Heavy Bolter, Twin-linked Multi-Lasers, and 2 Hellstrike Missiles. The aircraft has two weapon hard-points on each of its wings, and can equip two different weapon systems which are linked to their counterpart on the opposite side of the aircraft.The inner hard-point, closest to the center of the aircraft, is capable of exchanging the Twin-linked Multi-Laser for external fuel tanks that will extend the aircraft's operational time and range. Twin-linked Lascannons can be attached for increased anti-armour firepower as well as Twin-linked Missile Launchers with either Frag or Krak warheads, Twin-linked Autocannons, or Twin-linked Rocket Pods.The outer weapon hard-point is capable of exchanging the Hellstrike Missiles for external fuel tanks, 2 Bomb Racks with up to 3 bombs each, 2 Heavy Smart Bomb Racks, with up to 3 Heavy Smart Bombs on each, 2 Missile Racks with 3 Hunter-Killer Missiles per rack, 2 Hellfury Missiles, or 2 Multiple Rocket Pods. Both wing hard-points can be used for a single Twin-linked Punisher Gatling Cannon on each wing. The Vulture can also be equipped with ejector seats, flare or chaff launchers, a more heavily armoured cockpit, a Searchlight, Extra Armour Plating, an infra-red targeting system, and illumination flares. |
Vulture - Notable Users of the Vulture: 81st Imperial Navy Tactical Wing - The 81st Tactical Wing fought against Tau forces on Dolumar IV.15th Elysian Drop Troop Regiment - The 15th Elysian used Vulture gunships during the Yarant II Campaign.64th Elysian Drop Troops Regiment - The 64th Elysian used Vulture gunships during the fifth ill-fated Ymgarl Insertion.2nd Imperial Navy Tactical Wing - The 2nd Tactical Wing made extensive use of Vultures during the Defence of Cadia in the midst of the 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41.9th Elysian Drop Troop Regiment - The 9th Elysian used Vulture gunships against the bio-forms of Hive Fleet Kraken on Veridian Prime.33rd Imperial Navy Tactical Wing - The 33rd Tactical Wing which uses Vultures was a part of the Planetary Defence Forces that defended Betalis IV.23rd Elysian Drop Troop Regiment - The 23rd Elysian used Vultures against the Tau during the Taros Campaign.226th Elysian Drop Troop Regiment - The 226th Elysian used their Vultures to great effect against the Eldar of Craftworld Mymeara on Betalis III. |
Vulture - Adeptus Mechanicus Technical Specifications: Vulture GunshipTypeAttack GunshipOperational Ceiling11,000 MetresVehicle NameVultureMax Speed1100 kilometres per hourForge World of OriginMars, Voss, Artemia, Estaban VII, Agripinaa, Phaeton, LuciusRange2000 kilometres in atmosphereKnown PatternsI - XMain ArmamentNose-Mounted Heavy BolterCrew1 Pilot, 1 Weapon OperatorSecondary Armament4 Wing Hard-pointsPowerplant1 x F200-KW4 Afterburing Vector TurbojetMain Ammunition200 RoundsWeight9.0 TonnesSecondary AmmunitionVaries by weapons equippedLength19.2 MetresArmourWingspan14.2 MetresSuperstructure75 millimetresHeight4.9 MetresHull75 millimetres |
Vulture - Sources: Imperial Armour: Apocalypse, pg. 40Imperial Armour: Apocalypse II, pg. 24Imperial Armour Volume One - Imperial Guard & Imperial Navy, pg. 249-254Imperial Armour Volume One - Imperial Guard (Second Edition), pg. 260Imperial Armour Volume Three - The Taros Campaign, pg. 279Imperial Armour Volume Eight - Raid On Kastorel-NovemImperial Armour Volume Eleven - The Doom of MymearaImperial Armour Volume Twelve - The Fall of Orpheus, pg. 207Imperial Armour Aeronautica, pg. 14-15Aeronautica Imperialis (Rulebook), pg. 22 |
Vyaniah - Vyaniah: Vyaniah is a Hive World that is located in the Khymaran Drift Sub-sector of the Badab Sector of the Segmentum Ultima. In 902.M41, just before the outbreak of the internecine Imperial conflict known as the Badab War, Vyaniah was still a heavily industrialised Frontier World and was only in the early stages of being developed into a minor Hive World.Vyaniah became the site for a major battle of the Badab War in 906.M41 between the Badab Sector's human Auxilia troops who were collectively known as the Tyrant's Legion and Loyalist Space Marine forces from the Red Scorpions, Marines Errant and Novamarines Chapters. This battle represented the Tyrant's Legion's first deployment for a major campaign against Astartes forces. |
Vyaniah - History: Colonial settlements were first established on the temperate world of Vyaniah in the late 38th Millennium, and increased with a large influx of refugees following the massacres of Isin in the Badab Sector in the early 40th Millennium. Vyaniah was officially recognised as an independent Imperial world by the Segmentum authorities in 107.M41. By 902.M41, the planet had become industrially self-sufficient, exploiting its own mineral and chemical resources to sustain its civilisation and tithing to the Administratum in return for the protection of the Imperial Navy and the import of goods and services otherwise unavailable.Vyaniah's secondary industry was based around macro-scale harvesting and the processing of plentiful lower order sea life into foodstuffs. Historically the system has been protected somewhat by its relative distance from the Maelstrom itself, and benefited from its position as the most developed world on the outer southwestern rim of the Maelstrom Zone.In 906.M41, during the internecine Imperial conflict known as the Badab War (904.M41-912.M41) that raged across the entirety of the Maelstrom Zone, the Loyalist forces under the control of Lord High Commander Verant Ortys, the Chapter Master of the Red Scorpions, conducted a series of heavy raids on the Vyaniah System, having determined it to be a target against which great pressure could be brought to bear on the Secessionists.Vyaniah was an important world and served as the gatehouse along one of the secondary Warp routes around the rim of the Maelstrom. Furthermore, its defences and planetary garrison were weaker than that to be found in the heavily reinforced Sagan System. There were further intelligence reports indicating that the Secessionist-occupied world was awash in civil unrest which might be stirred up into open revolt by a Loyalist attack.Strike forces drawn from the Red Scorpions, Marines Errant and Novamarines conducted a three-pronged attack on the Vyaniah System, the first of several such raids carried out in rapid succession. The Loyalists' goal was to damage the planet's productive capacity and orbital transhipping platforms. This would effectively weaken the Secessionists' grip on the system. Confronting the reformed and reorganised Badab Sector human Auxilia of the Tyrant's Legion in open warfare for the first time, the Loyalist Space Marines greatly underestimated them, and as a result their strike groups were largely prevented from achieving many of their goals in the first raid.Data intercepted from the Vyaniah command Vox-network revealed the price of the Tyrant's Legion resistance, with the Loyalists inflicting a greater than 178:1 kill ratio. In 906.M41, the Red Scorpion forces conducted the last of the Vyaniah raids which proved particularly bloody for the Tyrant's Legion. The Red Scorpions invaded the Caelian industrial hive with the specific goal of inflicting mass casualties on the human defenders and picking off their Astral Claws masters where found within the defenders' ranks. Despite several Loyalist attacks, the Secessionists maintained their grip on the planet, and ultimately, the system for the duration of the conflict. |
Vyaniah - Departmento Cartographicae Planetary Database: The estimated population of Vyaniah in 902.M41 was 2.5 billion human Imperial citizens.Tithe Grade: Exactus Tertius (Pending Reassessment)Climate/Geography/Biosphere: The climate of Vyaniah is temperate to cold. At the time of the Badab War, the planetary biosphere was undeveloped. Currently there is still an existing geological Ice Age. All major flora and fauna are specialised and imported from off-world. Vyaniah has large, saline, life-supporting seas, with a single primary equatorial continental mass with slowly receding icecaps. There are several heavily industrialised urban settlements, the largest of which, Caelian, is developing into a solar-type dispersed hive city structure.Governmental Type: Imperial Commander as hereditary ruler supported by Quorum of Magnates drawn from the leading industrial clan families; independent world under the Imperial Segmentum Ultima seal.Planetary Governor: Protector Jerix Sarenko, Imperial Commander, thirteenth of his line.Adepta Presence: Minor, Administratum Tithe Assay Officio, Auxiliary-class Astropathic relay tower, small Adeptus Arbites Precinct and Adeptus Ministorum missionary presence.Military: Army of Caelianis Protectorate, a standing Planetary Defence Force/Civil Enforcement Force, equivalent to a second-tier Imperial Guard army; additional Household Troops of various industrial ruling clans equivalent in quality to irregular militia. |
Vykât's Kin - Vykât's Kin: Vykât's Kin is a Kindred of the Leagues of Votann. It is an example of a Kindred that has been named after its founding Ancestor. |
Vyper - Vyper: The Vyper is a highly mobile weapon platform based on an enlarged Jetbike design. A military innovation initially pioneered by the artisans of Saim-Hann, Vypers are two-seater, anti-gravitic attack craft capable of mounting a variety of heavy weapons.It carries two Aeldari, a pilot and a gunner. The pilot and gunner are generally trained together and very rarely will a single member of the crew be changed. The pilot and gunner are almost always blood relatives.The Vyper is capable of carrying a wide variety of Aeldari heavy weapons. Although lightly armoured, the impressive speed and maneuverability of the Vyper is almost a superior defence.Vypers are often fielded in squadrons of up to three vehicles. These squadrons are capable of redeploying in seconds to target a the vulnerable area of an incoming tank, looping around an exposed flank or jinking away to escape interceptors attempting to close with them. |
Vyper - Armament: Vypers mount a fearsome array of weapons - Shuriken Cannons and Scatter Lasers to scythe down ranks of men or Orks, or Missile Launchers and Bright Lances to deal with tanks or heavy infantry. Together, Vypers have the speed and firepower to deal with any threat. |
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