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Battleship - Ork Battleships: The Orks do not have any classes of true battleship per se, but there are some individual ships that rival "true" battleships in size and firepower.Ork Battleships |
Battleship - T'au: Gal'leath (Explorer)-class BattleshipOr'es El'leath (Custodian)-class Carrier |
Battleship - Allies: Demiurg Stronghold-class Commerce VesselDemiurg Bastion-class Commerce VesselKroot Warsphere |
Battleship - Tyranid Battleships: Hive Ship |
Battlewagon - Battlewagon: A Battlewagon is a catch-all term used for any type of Ork assault tank and heavy armoured troop transport. The term Battlewagon seems to refer overall to a category of large Ork armoured vehicles. A Battlewagon can be wheeled, tracked or a combination of the two and is used in many battlefield roles. It always carries a large complement of weapons.Sometimes these armaments are just Big Shootas, while on other vehicles they are large Killkannons. Battlewagons possess thick armour plating, multiple turrets and death rollers or rams. They also carry mobs of Ork Boyz, either internally or clinging onto its many handholds.Ork Battlewagons rumble to war on a collection of tracks, tyres and massive spiked rollers. Whether lumbering gun-fortresses, bright red speedsters or gaudy rust buckets smeared with Ork glyphs, Battlewagons are massive slabs of motorised junk built to carry big mobs of Greenskins into battle. No matter a Battlewagon's individual peculiarities, all fulfil the essential role of an armoured attack vehicle for Ork forces.A solid wedge of these mighty vehicles can provide a warband with a (somewhat rusty) mailed fist that can be driven down the throat of the enemy. With gunz booming and Deff Rollas coated in mud and gore, Ork Battlewagons carve a path of bloody ruin through the foe while their Ork passengers blaze away at the dazed survivors, bellowing "WAAAGH!" at the top of their lungs. |
Battlewagon - Variants: Ork Battlewagons are as diverse in construction and weapons complement as the Greenskins who create them. A Battlewagon always possesses a heavy chassis, sometimes salvaged from other suitable vehicles such as the Imperium's tanks or heavy armoured transports. Others will be custom-built vehicles created from scratch by an Ork Mek and his assistants.Like other Ork vehicles a Battlewagon continues to be kustomised and grows to become an ever larger contraption as its owners add more weapons, extra fighting gantries and new engines, until a Battlewagon has grown into a true Battle Fortress. A Battle Fortress is a massive Battlewagon, expanded to the size and armament capacity of an Imperial Guard super-heavy tank. Such vehicles are favorite mounts for the most powerful of Ork Warbosses.There is no such thing as a standard Battlewagon, and there exist many named sub-types among the Ork forces. Titles such as Lungbursta, Gobsmasha, Krusha, Bonecruncha, Gorespeeda and Dakkawagon are used by the Orks to describe each kustomised Battlewagon's specific role. The Lungbursta and Gobsmasha are armed with large, noisy kannons whilst the Krusha is outfitted with a spiked death-rolla on the front and drives into the heart of the enemy, steamrolling over enemy infantry. The Gorespeeda is a popular vehicle with Speed Freeks and Evil Sunz, maximising its transport capacity to deliver mobs of Boyz into the thick of the fighting.A Battlewagon armed with a Supa-Kannon sacrifices all its other weaponry to mount this huge artillery piece. Most often this weapon is nothing more sophisticated than a looted Imperial Earthshaker Cannon. Among the Ork klanz, the Goffs and Evil Sunz dislike the very idea of artillery and rarely make use of a Supa-Kannon, preferring weapons that allow them to more directly enter the fray. For their part, the Bad Moons, Blood Axes and Deathskulls greatly enjoy the sheer power of artillery pieces and have been known to unleash the power of a Supa-Kannon upon the foe.Some Meks kustomise a Battlewagon chassis to carry a large Lifta-Droppa. In addition to its use moving heavy machinery about, demolishing buildings and clearing scrap, the Lifta-Droppa makes use of an unknown tractor-beam technology to pick up and move objects around the environment with anti-gravitic ease. Battlewagons outfitted with a Lifta-Droppa are known as Liftwagons. The Lifta-Droppa is powered by an "atom-smasha" reactor, which Meks take great glee in overloading, often with spectacular and deadly results. |
Battlewagon - Wargear: Killkannon - The Killkannon is usually mounted on Battlewagon turrets. What these guns lack in accuracy and range, they more than compensate for in explosive punch and sheer, deafening noise.Kannon - A Kannon is a large-bore artillery piece, a crude but effective weapon that fires anti-tank shells or fused fragmentation rounds.Lobba - Lobbas are large, noisy mortars that are typically mounted onto Battlewagons.Zzap Gun - Zzap Guns fire unstable bolts of lightning. They have the potential to punch through the hull of even the heaviest enemy vehicle amid crackling showers of sparks, but have a tendency to overload and electrocute the operating gunner. |
Battlewagon - Optional Wargear: ‘Ard Case - An armoured roof increases a wagon’s survivability...a bit.Deff Rolla - A deff rolla is a great spiked roller that brings the colossal weight of the Battlewagon to bear on anything in its way.Grabbin' Klaw - Mounted on a pivoting crane arm and controlled by a number of kunnin' levers, a grabbin' klaw latches on to enemy tanks to prevent them 'runnin' away'.Red Paint Job - Orks believe that a vehicle painted red can outstrip a similar vehicle that isn't. As odd as it may seem, they're not wrong.Reinforced Ram - A vehicle fitted with such a blunt but effective ram can plough through wreckage, walls and enemy vehicles with equal ease.Stikkbomb Chukka - A stikkbomb chukka is a crude mechanism that lobs volleys of stikkbombs into the midst of the foe.Wreckin' Ball - Orks love demolition almost as much as they love war. The spiked wreckin' balls they mount on their vehicles fulfil both desires at once. |
Battlewagon - Notable Battlewagon Formations: Blitz Brigade - An Ork Blitz Brigade is a motorized formation comprising a large number of Battlewagons, and was a common sight on the dust-choked battlefields of Armageddon. Often the first warning the enemy will have of its approach is the distant rumble of numerous tank engines, followed swiftly by the Orks' opening salvoes. Moments later, the Blitz Brigade will be upon the foe, its Battlewagons ramming or smashing aside anything in their path, crushing defenders and defences alike beneath their massive bulk. The initial waves are sometimes laden with Boyz, eager to get into the fight at the earliest possible opportunity, but the role of a Blitz Brigade is primarily to destroy, not to deploy. Even without holds full of passengers, the sudden, devastating assault of a Blitz Brigade has broken many an enemy battle line wide open. |
Battlewagon - Ordo Xenos Departmento Analyticus Techncial Specifications: Technical InformationDesignation:BattlewagonVehicle Codename:N/AVehicle Type:Assault Tank/Heavy Troop TransportCrew:Twenty Ork Boyz; If mounting a Killcannon, it may only carry twelveEstimated Weight:55 tonnes unladen (approx.)Length:10 metres (approx.)Width:6.5 metres (approx.)Height:4.5 metres (approx.)Estimated Max Speed:60 kph on road, 45 kph off roadMain Armament:Low velocity heavy gun (85mm) equipped with explosive shells, multiple Xenos pattern light autocannon (ref "Big Shoota")Secondary Armament:VariesTraverse & Elevation:VariesAmmunition:(Main Gun) 20 rounds (Approx.)Armour Type:Superstructural 20 mm-110 mm plating improvised ablativesTechnical InformationDesignation:Battlewagon (Supa-Kannon)Vehicle Codename:N/AVehicle Type:Self-Propelled GunCrew:Driver/multiple gunners (Varies)Estimated Weight:62 tonnes unladen (approx.)Length:10 metres (approx.)Width:6.5 metres (approx.)Height:5.5 metres (approx.)Estimated Max Speed:40 kphMain Armament:Heavy high velocity long-barrelled field artillery piece mounted for direct fire and bombardment.Secondary Armament:Varies by modification.Traverse & Elevation:120/+60 (Main Gun)Ammunition:(Main Gun) 30 rounds (Approx.)Armour Type:Superstructural 20 mm-110 mm plating improvised ablatives |
Battlewagon - Sources: Codex: Orks (7th Edition), pp. 35, 59, 68, 82, 175-176Codex: Orks (4th Edition), pg. 102‘Ere We Go: Orks in Warhammer 40,000 (1st Edition), pp. 71, 75Imperial Armour II - Ork, Eldar & Dark Eldar Vehicles for Warhammer 40,000, pg. 28Imperial Armour Volume Eight - Raid on Kastorel-Novem, pp. 157-159, 161-162The Red WAAAGH! - A Codex: Orks Supplement (7th Edition), pp. 88-90,Waaagh! Ghazghkull - A Codex: Orks Supplement (7th Edition), pp. 12-13, 16-17, 19-20, 30, 67, 69, 80, 84, 142-144White Dwarf Magazine 128 (UK), "Warhammer 40,000 - New Rules for Vehicles in Warhammer 40,000: Warhammer 40,000 Vehicles," by Rick Priestley, pg. 36Forge World - Ork Battlewagon with Supa-Kannon |
Bayonet - Bayonet: A Bayonet is a long Combat Knife or blade usually attached below the barrel of a ranged weapon to aid the user in close combat. The blade usually has one cutting edge and doubles as a combat knife when detached from the underslung attachement of the barrel. The Imperial Combat Bayonet is used exclusively by the Imperial Guard, although both the Space Marines and the Sisters of Battle have been known to make use of bayonets as well.Orks have also been known to make use of bayonet-like attachements they call "Stabby Bitz", but they are less of a standardised tool and more of a personal modification to the individual's weapon. Necron Gauss Weapons also commonly mount large blades underneath their muzzles similar to the classical Bayonet. |
Be'lakor - Be'lakor: Be'lakor, also called the "Dark Master" and the "First-Damned," is the first Daemon Prince ever raised up from mortality by the combined will of the Ruinous Powers. Ancient beyond imagining, Be'lakor was the very first of his kind. Granted his dark apotheosis by the combined will of the Chaos Gods as Chaos Undivided, he was given a portion of each of their power. Be'lakor's fate has ever been influenced by the endless struggle between the gods, as he is beholden to each of the Dark Gods equally.At first, Be'lakor used the jealousy of the Ruinous Powers to gain their favours, never completely swearing his allegiance to any one of them. For a time, the gods fought over Be'lakor as children might squabble over a favoured toy. However, they soon realised the folly of combining their might into a single vessel, as Be'lakor proved nearly uncontrollable.They soon began to raise up new Daemon Princes, each god choosing only Chaos Champions that would be loyal to them, and them alone. Be'lakor remained the strongest of the Daemon Princes, though his might was diminished as the gods spread their power among their other servants. Nevertheless, Be'lakor remains a master of shadows, moving behind the veil of history to exert the will of the Chaos Gods upon the universe.In battle, Be'lakor strikes with his mighty claws and wields the Blade of Shadows, a massive sword that shifts in and out of focus, slipping from shape to shadow. As the weapon blinks between solidity and mere silhouette it slices through armour, scale, flesh or ferrocrete with ease. Whether the blade is a part of the Daemon itself, or perhaps an ancient gift bestowed upon him by the Dark Gods that Be'lakor somehow retained in spite of his fall from favour, none can truly say.Be'lakor flickers across the battlefield like smoke and shadow given form. His is an ominous and foreboding presence, a formless terror in the minds of men that saps resolve and spawns unreasoning panic. This terrible entity takes great pleasure in manipulating others to their eventual ruin, insinuating and manipulating from amid veils of secrecy and shadow. Only when the moment is right does Be'lakor manifest his true and terrible form, striking down his enemies with the Blade of Shadows even as he rakes claws of psychic energy through the meat of their minds.The most powerful and greatest of all Daemon Princes, Be'lakor has ruled as a demigod over galactic empires beyond count. He is a being of infinite cunning and absolute cruelty who destroys all that he touches, and jealously covets the favour of the Ruinous Powers. All these qualities make Be'lakor a capricious being, whose only constants are the malice with which he destroys those who oppose him, and his endless jealousy towards those who successfully court the favour of the Gods of Chaos. |
Be'lakor - Ancient Evil: The origins of Be'lakor are spoken of only as legends and rumour; tales torn from the tongues of captive Daemons or forbidden lore recorded on ancient crypt walls. Crude pictographs found in the caves of dry, dead worlds or primitive statues hidden in the sunken depths of Death World oceans speak to Be'lakor's immortal reign within the galaxy.Scholars have been driven mad looking for hints of the Daemon Prince's presence woven into the history of the universe, always lurking in the shadows behind the rise and expansion of the mortal races. Even the secretive Grey Knights Chapter of Space Marines, created by the Emperor to combat the daemonic forces of the Warp, know little of Be'lakor's true history, only conflicting lies and impossible fabrications.Legends tell of Be'lakor ruling over mortal empires since the dawn of time, the Daemon Prince conquering a world and subjugating its people, forcing them to worship him as a god. When the race would fall into decline, ruined by Be'lakor's greed and malevolence, the Daemon Prince would move on, finding a new burgeoning sentient species to be his playthings. Several times, the Daemon Prince is said to have been the lord of sector-spanning stellar empires, a dark, Daemon-god ruling over a thousand worlds and billions of loyal followers.Relics and the ruins of Dead Worlds still exist that suggest there may be some truth to these legends; whether their source was Be'lakor or not is more difficult to say. The Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-Magos Kyber has spent his life piecing together the history of Be'lakor in his exploration of the galactic wilderness, hunting down ancient relics of the Dark Age of Technology.Following the faint trail left by Be'lakor's passage through history, Magos Kyber has found winged statues carved from the fossilised bones of psykers, crumbling scrolls of human skin that show thousands of tiny figures bowing down before a dark winged shape and stygian horn-fragments sealed in sacred caskets. Unaware of Be'lakor's true nature, Kyber has become convinced that all these objects are linked to one alien overlord, an ancient creature that has existed for millions of Terran years in various guises and is behind countless vile deeds.Unknown to Kyber, he is being manipulated by Be'lakor. The Daemon Prince placed the first clues to his existence in Kyber's path, leading the Magos to the ruins of a world he once ruled. From this seed of curiosity, Kyber has discovered new star systems, planets and ruined empires long forgotten by Be'lakor.While the Daemon Prince helps Kyber from the shadows, the Magos gathers up the hidden and forgotten legacy Be'lakor has left behind, ultimately returning to the Daemon Prince his lost objects of power, while also erasing his existence from history. |
Be'lakor - Herald of the End Times: Like a petulant firstborn son, Be'lakor has always had a bitter jealousy toward anything or anyone that wins the favour of the Dark Gods. For millennia, the Daemon Prince undermined the plots and schemes of the daemonic and mortal servants of Chaos. However, what Be'lakor mistook for free will, and a measure of revenge against those that have usurped his power, was merely the Great Game between the Chaos Gods.When the Daemon Prince brought down a Champion of Nurgle, invariably he was doing Tzeentch's bidding, and while laying a warrior of the Blood God low he was fulfilling the will of Slaanesh. Be'lakor remains blind to these manipulations of the Chaos Gods. His own thirst for power and the pleasure of proving his mastery over rival Champions of Chaos seems enough to make him forget the sorcerous tethers the Dark Gods continually try to wind tightly around his neck.In more recent times, rumours say Be'lakor has begun shadowing a new Champion of the Dark Gods: the Warmaster of Chaos, Abaddon the Despoiler. Supposedly, the Daemon Prince has spent centuries watching over him and influencing events as they ebb and flow around Abaddon, knowing on some level that their fates were bound. During each of Abaddon's Black Crusades, the Master of Shadows has been lurking in the background.During the 3rd Black Crusade, legends say that it was Be'lakor who manipulated the Daemon Prince Tallomin into aiding the Despoiler and ultimately assaulting Cadia. Be'lakor was also reputed to be the one who told Abaddon of the treachery of Drecarth the Sightless, leading to the destruction of the Sons of the Eye during the 6th Black Crusade.In both instances, Be'lakor's actions seem to have aided Abaddon's rise to power, though closer examination exposes possible darker motives at work. Though Tallomin exacted a terrible toll upon the armies of Cadia, he did so at the cost of numerous Black Legion warbands, much to Abaddon's ire, while Drecarth the Sightless could in time have proven a powerful ally for the Despoiler, had not Be'lakor fanned the embers of vengeance burning in Abaddon's heart.Hidden behind a veil of secrets and lies, it is impossible to know for sure if Be'lakor is doing the bidding of the Chaos Gods or working against them. However, his plots and plans have ultimately been instrumental in Abaddon's ascendance to power. As the End Times hurtle towards their terrible conclusion, Be'lakor once again stands in Abaddon's shadow. As the Warmaster of Chaos embarked upon his 13th Black Crusade against the Imperium, the Daemon Prince marched with him.With hatred and jealousy guiding his hand, the Daemon Prince worked his way close to the Warmaster of Chaos, earning a place in Abaddon's inner circle and making him believe he is the herald of the Ruinous Powers. Be'lakor is surely plotting against Abaddon in some way, seeking to undermine the victory intended for the Warmaster of Chaos by the Dark Gods and claim the power and glory of conquest for himself. Where and when this treachery will reveal itself is known only to Be'lakor himself. |
Be'lakor - From the Ashes to the Fire: As the 13th Black Crusade unfolded in 999.M41, the Iron Warriors Warsmith Shon'tu and the Daemon Prince Be'lakor, united in their desire to see Abaddon's Black Crusade upstaged, launched an attack on Terra itself. Emerging from a Warp rift that appeared in the centre of the Imperial Fists Chapter's flagship Phalanx, the unholy allies aimed to corrupt that mighty vessel to their purposes and use it to bombard the Emperor's Imperial Palace.The newly-reformed Imperial Fists 3rd Company, under the command of recently promoted Captain Garadon, fought with a determination that belied their inexperience, and the accessways and halls of the great starship were soon choked with the broken corpses of myriad Daemons in what became known as the Battle of the Phalanx.Ultimately, Garadon delayed the daemonic incursion long enough for Phalanx to rouse its engines and enter the Warp, thus ending the immediate threat to Terra. The mighty vessel hurtled through the Immaterium, and neither side proved able to contact their allies in realspace. Garadon and his company gathered beneath the Banner of Staganda's tattered folds for one last effort, and Phalanx 's lower decks were consumed with raging fire as the spectral warriors of the Legion of the Damned suddenly joined the battle.Taking their arrival as a sign that victory might yet be theirs, the 3rd Company counter-attacked, and retook control of the mobile star fortress. Afterwards, they brought Phalanx through the Warp to aid in the defence of Cadia, including mortally wounding the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity. Despite all their efforts, that crucial Fortress World still fell to the Despoiler. However, Phalanx escaped the fall and helped Cadia's survivors flee the destruction of their world. |
Be'lakor - Era Indomitus: Ever the opportunist, Be'lakor has been sighted fighting alongside the Daemon legions of each of the Chaos Gods since the opening of the Great Rift in ca. 999.M41 and the start of the Era Indomitus.He has pledged aid to several Renegade Space Marine Chapters and Heretic Astartes warbands, even fighting in the company of Abaddon the Despoiler and his Black Legion once more. Exactly what his winding plots seek to achieve is, like so much about the shadowy Daemon Prince, unknown. |
Be'lakor - Charadon Campaign: During the Indomitus Crusade, Be'lakor became aware of the Nurglite Chaos Lord Typhus' invasion of the Charadon System and launched an invasion into that system as well with his personal union of several daemonic legions and Chaos Space Marine warbands known as the Disciples of Be'lakor. Allying with the Word Bearers Traitor Legion, Be'lakor began his own assault upon the Charadon Sector.During the Charadon Campaign of the Era Indomitus, while the bulk of House Raven's forces were away, Be'lakor succeeded in corrupting much of the House Raven garrison force remaining behind on their Knight World of Kolossi through the use of Sacristans under his sway to corrupt the Thrones Mechanicum of certain Knights. The Daemon Prince and his Disciples of Be'lakor launched an assault upon the world and managed to conquer it with the aid of the corrupted House Raven Knights.The Dark Master then used his sorcerous abilities to steal away the entire world of Kolossi through the Warp to a new location in the Imperium Nihilus. The Dark Master reshaped Kolossi into a shadowy Fallen Knight World he renamed Korvosi and transformed the corrupted House Raven Knights into the Chaos Knights of House Korvax, an Infernal house of the Dark Mechanicum.Since the fall of their homeworld, House Raven has pledged to fight on as a crusading house. |
Be'lakor - Wargear: Blade of Shadows - Be'lakor wields a unique etherblade, its ghostly form in eternal transience between shape and shadow; solidarity and silhouette. Mastery of this weapon enables Be'lakor to scythe through armour, scale, flesh and bone without resistance, its essence changing in an instant from formless shadow to murderous edge at its master's whim.Malefic Talons |
Beast House - Beast House: The Beast House is an interstellar criminal syndicate that deals in the trade of exotic xenos creatures and holds bloody arena combats between them for the entertainment of its clients. It is active in the Calixis Sector of the Segmentum Obscurus and is a target for eradication by the Ordo Xenos of the Inquisition.In the shadowy entertainment zones on the edge of underhives from Scintilla to Solomon and beyond in the Calixis Sector, the name "Beast House" is synonymous with extreme blood sports, arena combats, and the xenos-creature trade. Likewise, many jaded sons and daughters of the wealthy great houses also know the term through wicked and scandalous tales of hunts and monstrous things forbidden by the restrictions of Imperial law -- all provided for discerning clients at enormous expense.Stories and rumours about the Beast House have been doing the rounds, high and low, for so long most believe that the name itself is little more than a traditional effectation for those who deal in the blood sport trade. The popular belief held by most is that if an original Beast House once existed, it is now long gone and that others have long since sought to cash in on the legend to further their own reputations. This is a view shared by many local enforcer groups, most criminal groups, and until relatively recently by the Adeptus Arbites and the Ordo Xenos. However, recently several incidents have come to light casting a far darker pall over the Beast House and its secrets.The Ordo Xenos and the Calixis Sector Arbites are slowly recognising that there is a dark thread connecting those who run the blood arenas and those who deal in xenos beasts. In the last few solar decades, encounters and reports of dangerous and proscribed xenos-predators appearing in illegal arenas or the hands of depraved recidivists have steadily increased in the sector's core worlds and on Scintilla in particular.Subsequent investigations into these occurrences pointed time after time to the so-called Beast House. Further investigation also turned up rashes of disappearances among the poor and the underclass in the areas where a particular Beast House was said to exist, rumoured links to smuggling rings, murder for hire, strange sightings of creatures, and other peculiarities.Yet nothing was concrete enough to show an overarching threat. It was only when Inquisitor Layvan and his retinue disappeared while investigating the Beast House on Fenksworld that the full attention of the Ordo Xenos came to bear on the organisation, and it has not liked what it has begun to uncover.Currently, Inquisition-backed elements are conducting a widespread series of covert investigations into the Beast Houses on several worlds, but they have met with little success in penetrating its higher echelons. However, alarm at their discoveries to date is spreading due to the Beast House's links to many of the wealthy houses and criminal gangs across the Golgenna Reach and Markayan Marches sub-sectors and the suspicion that extreme and dangerous alien corruption lies at the Beast House's heart.In direct response to ongoing events and with characteristic subtlety, the Ordo Xenos is doing its best to uncover the full extent of this xeno-crime before it takes overt and decisive action, rather than attempting a premature strike risking the Beast House's fragmenting and scattering only to resurface latter. This strategy, while sound and based on past experience, is not without the wider risk that the alien corruption may spread further before it is checked and thus is the cause of some contention within the Holy Ordos. |
Beast House - Origins: Humanity hates and fears the alien. For Terran millennia this attitude has been taught and ingrained in each successive generation. Indeed, the very word "xenos" conjures up deep-seated feelings of horror and revulsion within the heart of the average Imperial citizen. However, there is a flip side to this ingrained loathing, a terrified fascination with the alien, and in the dark sub-levels of blood sport arenas and fighting pits, this dreadful attraction is played out for those that can afford the spectacle.In its most common form, such bloody entertainment and the arenas that provide it are quite legal. Bull thornox battle to the death in Iocanthos barter-kraals, and carnosaurs rampage against teams of Human gladiators upon Scintilla's many Red Circuses nightly. Yet, removed from the garish lights of such public entertainment, the rich and the jaded, not to mention the lowest of the low, crave more desperate, darker, and forbidden pleasures. Their preferred games feature unwilling fighters, innocents stalked for sport, and creatures so vile and dangerous that the Imperial authority forbids their use on pain of death. Within the Calixis Sector, the most widespread and powerful network of such illicit arenas have but a single, whispered name -- the Beast House.As long as there has been a Calixis Sector, it seems as if there has been a Beast House. It is not in any true sense a cult, rather it is closer to a criminal network. However, behind this façade worse things lurk than can be found at the heart of any narco-gang or underhive clan. So insidious has the Beast House become that the name and the role of this secretive organisation has become ingrained upon the psyche of Calixian civilisation -- the Beast House and the horrors it secretly contains go unobserved and unlooked for, hiding almost in plain sight.While local enforcers may raid an unlicensed arena linked to the group here or the Adeptus Arbites may break up a xenos-creature smuggling ring there, the Beast House goes on undiminished. Indeed, it is actually strengthened by the removal of those in its employ "weakenough" to fall foul of the authorities.Today there are Beast Houses on many worlds, but few realise just how far the Beast House has spread through the criminal underbelly of the Golgenna Reach sub-sector and how far its tendrils stretch into the dim stars beyond the Calixis Sector. The Beast House is more than a set of physical locations, a trade, or even a loose guild of hunters and dealers in proscribed creatures.The hidden truth is that the Beast House is a criminal empire that spans many worlds and is founded on blood and pandering to the very worst aspects of Human nature. Centuries old, it maintains its shroud of secrecy by working through layers of intermediaries and local agents, and it is growing stronger standard year by standard year. It hides many dark secrets the Inquisition is only just beginning to suspect, and for some in the Ordo Xenos, the realisation is dawning that they may have let a serpent of alien-tainted corruption coil around the very heart of the Calixis Sector. |
Beast House - Blood Sports and Fighting Arenas in the Imperium: Aside from more sedate or spiritually worthy pleasures, the common Imperial citizen, particularly if they live in the crowded and heavily regulated societies found on most Hive Worlds, favours their public entertainments in the form of visceral and often violent spectacle. Fighting contests, from simple bare-knuckle brawls and displays of martial skill right up to the rare extreme of prisoners condemnedto battle as augmetic gladiators, are all popular in the low hives. Meanwhile, attending duelling schools, sponsoring champions for battle, and hunting dangerous prey are all common pastimes of the elite.Beast shows and games at the circus or carnivora are somewhat rarer than the more mundane Human fighting attractions. However, they are a long-standing tradition on some worlds whose own hazardous life-forms make for suitable opponents, or whose wealth allows such beasts to be imported from afar. In the Calixis Sector, Hive Sibellus on Scintilla has by far the greatest number of such arenas, as the hive city's position as capital and trade nexus for the Calixis Sector has long afforded it the ability to pack its circuses with a bewildering variety of beasts and creatures from across the sector.But without doubt, the pale pits of Hive Volg on Fenksworld have the undisputed crowning reputation as the most horrific, dragging up "things" from the polluted depths below to fight against Human combatants.Despite public demand for ever more exotic and ferocious battles, certain xenos creatures are forbidden or have their trafficking proscribed by Imperial Law. Some are simply judged too alien or too dangerous for public exposure, while others represent a threat that goes far beyond that of a mere loosed beast should they escape.This proscription, of course, does not prevent the desire to see such terrors for those willing to flout the law, and in the underhives and black markets of many worlds, all kinds of forbidden creatures and deadly games can be enjoyed by those with the money and stomach to do so. |
Beast House - Fenskworld Xeno Conspiracy: Fenksworld has long been a breeding ground for cults and conspiracies, many of which have been known to spread out into the wider sector, and the notorious independence of its rulers has much to do with this. One collection of conspiracy tales persisted for solar decades about a shadowy group based in the dilapidated sections of Hive Nova Castillia's industrial underbelly, devoting themselves to obtaining illegal xenos specimens for the purposes of study and experimentation.This rogue cabal of xenophiles and Heretics persisted on the edge of the Inquisition's attention until three standard years ago when a junior Ordo Xenos Inquisitor called Layvan and his retinue undertook a close investigation of the circumstantial evidence.Layvan quickly discovered the group was little more than a front for a darker conspiracy. His last communiqué alleged that the conspiracy used a hidden facility somewhere in Nova Castillia to breed and augment a variety of vile alien and mutated creatures, which were then transhipped through the busy orbital port and out across the sector to various Beast Houses on other worlds.Shortly afterward, Layvan and his entire retinue disappeared, and despite the sudden and direct action by the Holy Ordos and a full Adeptus Arbites-backed operation to seek out and purge the suspected xenophile presence, no trace of Layvan or the xeno-lab was ever found.A standard year later, a raid on a Heretek workshop on the distant Hive World of Solomon recovered a damaged data-slate. Ordos officials reconstructed the dying and confused testimony of Layvan's savant Acolyte Urisa from the slate.The recordings contained on the slate show scenes of some hidden industrial centre given over to xenos flesh-craft, where Urisa alleges that hundreds had died in blasphemous experiments and that monstrous things walked. Clearly suffering from shock and blood loss, Urisa's testimony was garbled and rambling, but he clearly named the Beast House as the secret power behind the conspiracy. |
Beast House - Organisation: The Beast House operates to supply, store, and in some cases, even modify or breed alien creatures for use in arena-circuses and blood sport operations in the Imperial criminal underworld. It has also been known to provide beasts to private owners, including Chaos Cults and Hereteks, for their own dark ends.The Beast House is adept at acquiring all manner of xenos beasts, including intelligent creatures, as well as any xenos technology they use so that they will prove fitting opponents in the fighting pits the Beast House runs called "Red Cages." For a sizable sum, an individual can commission the Beast House to acquire a specific creature. For an even greater sum, the individual can keep the alien afterwards. These fees are justified by the Beast House's discretion, as well as its unfailing ability to deliver goods as promised in pristine condition.How the Beast House acquires live aliens is a closely guarded mystery, but its network must surely extend to proscribed xenos cultures. The Beast House is able to obtain a live example of almost any alien species, as well as many forms of alien technology, especially their melee weaponry. For its services and goods, the Beast House requires either an extortionate sum of money, the patronage of a powerful individual, a large number of slaves for the Red Cages, a rare and exquisite specimen to fight in the Red Cages, or some other despicable form of payment.There is a great deal of money to be made from this illegal trade, and in order to do so, the Beast House acts to control the supply chain, running the whole operation from initial capture of the creatures to their distribution. Furthermore, the Beast House sometimes acts as the secret owner or backer of the venues that host its creatures, often taking a hand in incidental activities such as gambling and criminality that surround these places.The Beast House protects itself by making extensive use of local intermediaries on the worlds where it operates and maintaining progressive layers of secrecy about its true size and what it can supply. This secrecy means that many of those who work for it don't know the full truth and that parts of the group and its assets can be "cut loose" if faced with sanction by local law enforcement, or when infiltrated by outsiders, with little danger to the other parts of the organisation or its true masters, the "beast slavers."Just how many true members of the Beast House are privy to its inner workings remains unknown to the Inquisition, but probably there are no more than a few hundred in total scattered across the Golgenna Reach and the Markyan Marches sub-sectors of the Calixis Sector, and perhaps that many again operating to acquire savage livestock on numerous far-flung worlds and roving hunting ships.Of these, those who lead the organisation and hold the power of life and death over their fellows and their creatures are fewer still. This last group consists of the most secretive and dangerous members of the Beast House. They are the beast slavers, hunt masters, and flesh-crafters who are the true driving force behind the organisation. However, all report to a single mysterious authority who's power and mastery over the Beast House is without question, a man known as Solkarn Senk. |
Beast House - Outer Circle: The outer circle of the Beast House is made up of hired muscle, local criminal groups, and contacts developed through bribery and coercion to serve the Beast House's interests, acting as a legitimate cover (such as licensed arena or trader operations), keeping it safe from the authorities, or simply buying its services. Made up of largely ignorant intermediaries or individuals bribed or scared enough to keep their suspicions to themselves, the Beast House at this level appears to be no more or less than a criminal enterprise dealing in xenoscreatures and illegal blood sports with extensive off-world contacts.Such intermediaries may work for the Beast House without ever knowing they have done so. Others looking to enhance their reputation (and wealth) may well pick up numerous, often contradictory, rumours and dark tales that they are more than happy to spread. Of these hirelings and go-betweens, only those who show the uncommon bloodlust and particular talents the organisation favours will be chosen by the Beast House to be drawn further into its ranks. |
Beast House - Inner Circle: The Beast House's inner circle is made up of those who directly control outward activities, primarily the capture and trade of illegal and proscribed aliens. Secretly they also control its hidden lairs and beast-pits, and assassination, torture, narco-dealing (particularly combat drugs), mass-murder, and slavery are sidelines many also indulge in.They are uniformly psychopathic, cruel, and callous individuals, selected for their brutality and skill. Rightly feared by those they deal with, a reek of darkness and a lurking feral madness hangs about them that even hardened recidivists are wary of. Consequently, few local criminals and gang leaders will cross them.Those who have direct dealings with the Beast House's inner circle may quickly develop grave misgivings about doing so despite the potential rewards. Conversely, for some, the first inklings of the horrific truth of what the Beast House is are a lure rather than a warning sign, and they soon fall into the depths of what the Beast House has to offer. |
Beast House - Darker Activities: Very few know or dare suspect what lies at the Beast House's dark heart, and the Inquisition has never been able to glean anything more than a few scattered after-action reports by shocked Adeptus Arbites strike teams. Therefore, the Holy Ordos have not yet come to realise just how dangerous or powerful the Beast House is.Behind the scenes, the Beast House is steeped in blood and unimaginable savagery. Aside from trafficking in forbidden creatures, Solkarn Senk's true disciples conduct their own awful games and bloody entertainments, as well as creating utterly illegal fleshworks to satiate their lust for violence and sport. These include capturing alien beasts so terrible their mere presence threatens thousands of lives, fabricating murder gholams from living victims, and creating "forced" mutants and other transgenic blasphemies to serve their sick needs for spectacle and the hunt.Senk's inner circle are the true Beast House, and each one is a monster easily as terrible and deserving of death as any pure alien threat. Should this dark truth be fully uncovered, the Holy Ordos will be forced to strike immediately and resolutely to destroy the Beast House, but such is the widespread infiltration of Senk's followers into the underworlds and dark recesses of the Golgenna Reach sub-sector of the Calixis Sector that they are more than likely to survive to work their evils again. |
Beast House - Behind the Mask: The Beast House focuses on the xenos elements of the beasts it uses and the evil and corrupt men and women who are involved in running it. The evil of the beast slavers is best expressed as an unrestrained bloodlust and the love of the hunt gone mad, with such attendant evils as slavery and the torture of lesser creatures for sport.The danger the Inquisition and Imperial law sees in this is not simply the crimes of those involved but also the myriad possible dangers presented by the xenos creatures themselves, both known and unknown. At the secret heart of the Beast House, this menace has gone so far as to enter the realms of the truly horrific, with hideous experiments and insane games where innocents are killed for nothing more than sport. It is also possible that at the Beast House's heart lies a connection to an intelligent xenos enemy of Humanity or to Chaos or some other Daemonic presence. |
Beast House - Calixian Conflict with the Adeptus Arbites: Only in the last few standard years have the Adeptus Arbites made the chilling realisation that their prosecution of the Beast House in the Calixis Sector is far from the success they had thought. Full-scale Arbitrator assaults have broken the Beast House's operations with two major raids on Malfi and a string of successes across the Adrantis Nebula sub-sector, but Detective-Intelligencers at the Great Precinct level are now piecing together clues that imply that the Beast House is not reeling from these setbacks, or even ignoring them, but actively benefiting from them by using such prosecutions to prune their less-capable cells. The syndicate's backbone operations and leaders, as far as the Detectives can tell, have remained entirely quarantined from the Arbites' efforts.The response to this was a second wave of rigorously-planned raids on the Beast House's walls of secrecy, conducted by task forces of surveillors and personators organised across the Pendulum and Stave High Precincts of Malfi with astonishingly little of the usual politicking and territorial feuds. The operations were catastrophic failures, with entire teams of field detectives vanishing with no intelligence to show for it, and traps and ambushes being laid for the Arbitrator squads who attempted to scour their sites of operations for clues or bodies. Since then the Beast House investigators have been on notice that Detective-Commander Doyenko is taking a particular interest in their progress, and are feverishly working to vindicate themselves.With infiltration proving such a costly and fruitless approach, the Arbites are switching tacks and exploiting a defining weakness of the Beast House: its constant need for exotic and vicious animals. The thinking is simple: force the Beast House into visibility by choking the trade in combat creatures down to so small a fraction of itself that no hunting and transportation operations can escape scrutiny.Arbites ships are staging rolling interdictions of Fedrid and its cousin Death Worlds, seeding the system with spy stations. Quarantine edicts at space docks across the Calixis Sector are being tightened, and ships whose routes have even brushed a Death World, or one noted for dangerous fauna, are liable to be scoured by teams of Verispex Adepts. A small detachment of the bravest and most capable cyber-mastiff handlers is currently in special training at the sector capital world of Scintilla, working with customised dogs whose sensory arrays have been built specifically to hunt down the Beast House's cages.The backlash against the operation has already begun. The beast trade is small, but its market is elite, and the sector's bluebloods have been listening to the complaints of their procurers and passing them on with interest to their Imperial governors. The backbone of the operation, the fleet interdiction, needs far more ships than the Adeptus Arbites Precinct fleet can afford to give it and despite its best efforts its coverage is patchy.The task force has had to resort to placing Chartist vessels under Adeptus Arbites commissions to assist with the interdiction, much to their chagrin. The Arbitrator detectives are trying to make a virtue of this necessity by setting careful watches on these privateers, watching for evidence of Beast House collusion or infiltration. |
Beast of Nurgle - Beast of Nurgle: The Beast of Nurgle, also called a "Slime Hound," and "Nurgle's Lapdog," is a Daemonic Beast in the service of the Plague God Nurgle that is truly a horror on the battlefield.It has the soft, sticky and mottled body of a pallid slug, webbed feet that flap uselessly, a face of writhing green tentacles, and a whip-tail growth that bursts from its back and which wags constantly from side to side.The essence of mindless decay and horrid rot given putrid flesh, Beasts of Nurgle exemplify the Plaguelord's endless enthusiasm and excitement for forces of life and death. Thus, a Beast delights in discovering new things and making (to its very simple mind) new friends.When brought into realspace they act almost akin to a curious and inquisitive pet, investigating anything and everything in sight, and spreading illness and rot wherever they go. |
Beast of Nurgle - Role: Immense slug-like monstrosities, Beasts of Nurgle crawl across the ground on their bellies, weakly propelled by clawed flippers, leaving a layer of stinking slime in their wake.While slow, the Beast is implacable in its advance, undeterred by all but the most fearsome of weapons, as relentless as the decay it embodies. Each is a nightmarish conglomeration of parts, with a lengthy neck holding a wide-eyed face of almost blissful idiocy.The gaping tooth-filled mouth houses a lolling tongue dripping with putrid saliva. Clusters of writhing tubes sprout from the Beast's neck and back, each one spewing forth swarms of buzzing flies, clouds of vomit-inducing gases, flesh-eating fluids capable of finding gaps in even the most secure of armour, or other foul gifts.The Beast of Nurgle is no less deadly than it is ugly, for its touch causes paralysis and its slimy secretions rot everything they cover. The very proximity of a Beast is sufficient to kill small animals and plants, and even larger creatures may age and decay perceptibly in its presence. Indeed, the Beast is the very embodiment of the universe's mindless decay.Despite its fearsome appearance and deadly attributes, the Beast is an affectionate creature that behaves in all respects exactly like an over-friendly and easily excited puppy. It craves attention, greeting newcomers by slobbering all over them with its slimy tentacles.Once they get thoroughly worked up they can rarely (if ever) contain themselves and leave little piles of acrid slime in their wake. All this attention is not a problem to other creatures and servants of Nurgle, but tends to kill mortals fairly rapidly.Unlike most Daemons, a Beast kills not with rending claws and ripping teeth, but with a strange form of kindness. Victims are caressed, petted, and stroked with the Daemon's multiple tentacles, while the long tongue delivers slobbery and slimy licks.In very short order, the victim is sickened, infected, dissolved, and then crushed, ground under the Beast’s vast bulk. The Beast, for its part, feels a touch of sadness at the inability of its now-dead friend to join in on the merriment, but quickly forgets about him as something (or someone) new attracts its attention.Once the Beast's new friend stops moving, its interest quickly shifts to another target, and in this way the creature excitedly and lovingly poisons and kills just about everything it touches. As the Beast has only the most rudimentary sense of intelligence it never anticipates the result of its boisterous behaviour, and registers only a slight sense of disappointment as each new friend goes still and boring. |
Beast of Nurgle - Battle Tactics: When they manifest in battle alongside the Heretic Astartes of the Death Guard Traitor Legion, Beasts of Nurgle are cynically exploited as line-breaking units. The Death Guard have little time for the Beasts' attentions, and no more desire than most to be crushed under their galumphing weight.Thus they herd the Beasts toward the enemy as best they can, often baiting the creatures with speeding tanks -- which they delight in chasing -- or bands of hapless Chaos Cultists. Should the Beasts be torn apart by heavy fire, those shells are at least not falling upon valuable Death Guard warriors. If the Beasts of Nurgle successfully punch a hole in the enemy lines, Mortarion's sons waste no time in exploiting their advantage.A prime example of the destructive power of a Beast of Nurgle can be found on the Agri-world of Gabali III in Winterscale's Realm in the Koronus Expanse. There the province of Gevaudan suffered hundreds of casualties as a Beast wandered about the farm fields, destroying crops, herd animals, and buildings.Seemingly unstoppable, it took the combined efforts of Enforcers and local planetary militia units to finally destroy the Daemon. Even after death, however, its presence lingered, as crops grew sickly and many fields had to be torched to the bedrock to remove the diseased corruption.Another example was when the Death Guard used Beasts of Nurgle at the Third Battle for Tarran's Pass. When the Scourge Stars arose, Death Guard vectoriums launched strikes against nearby worlds, ensuring that no enemy was in a position to disrupt Mortarion's muster for the invasion of Ultramar in the Plague Wars to come.On the planet of Daxar, the Apostles of Contagion met stiff resistance from an Astra Militarum force built around the 56th Cadian Heavy Infantry. Though the Death Guard drove the Cadians back from the defences of Haldyon City before harrying them across the sulphur deserts beyond, at the mouth of Tarran's Pass the Imperial Guard dug in and resisted all conventional attacks.Conscious that his enemies were mustering their reserves for a concerted counterstrike, and that the will remained upon Daxar to disrupt Mortarion's plans, Death Guard Lord Thelugh Poxmaw commanded that a mighty summoning ritual be performed. As dark clouds spiralled overhead and the moons crawled backwards in the sky, several hundred Beasts of Nurgle were conjured into being and sent gambolling towards the Imperial defence lines.Dozens were blown apart by Cadian fire, dozens more hacked and blasted apart at close range, but the remaining Beasts ploughed on regardless, and the depleted Death Guard followed in their wake. With the barricades smashed, the pass ran red with Imperial blood, and Daxar fell soon after. |
Beast of Nurgle - Rot Fly Origins: Though few know the truth, the putrid Daemonic creatures known as Rot Flies are, in fact, metamorphosed forms of Beasts of Nurgle who have given in to spite and despair.Over thousands of Terran years, even the simple joy of Beasts of Nurgle can be soured by their playmates' unwillingness. A seed of discontentment takes hold within some, a canker of bitterness and disillusionment that grows with every fresh rejection. Should such a doubting Beast be slain and banished back to the Garden of Nurgle in the Realm of Chaos, it will slump into the muck and filth with a resigned sigh and give in to its misery and despair.Eventually they are cocooned by a cloud of Nurgle's fattest Daemon flies, and when they finally emerge, a bloated Rot Fly rips its way free, fully formed and driven by all the hate and cruelty that soured the Beast of Nurgle's simple heart.These Daemonic insects act as aerial mounts for high-ranking Plaguebearers known as Plague Drones. |
Beast of Nurgle - Sources: Codex: Chaos Daemons (4th Edition), pg. 38Codex: Chaos Daemons (6th Edition), pg. 48Codex Heretic Astartes - Death Guard (8th Edition), pp. 54-55, 83Rogue Trader: Koronus Bestiary (RPG), pg. 118Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (Video Game) (Image) |
Beastmen - Beastmen: Note: This article discusses material that was once considered canon but whose canonicity is now questionable.Beastmen (sing. Beastman) (Homo sapiens variatus) are Abhumans descended from baseline Human stock who combine the physical appearances of Humans and certain Terran animals, usually ungulates like goats or rams.Beastmen do not necessarily look alike, and different animal traits can manifest themselves in each individual, but apart from this form of phenotypical variation they are a genetically stable Human subspecies, and are considered to be a form of Abhuman rather than an actual mutant.The origin of Beastmen is unknown, though it is likely that they are the result of experiments in genetic engineering stretching back to the Dark Age of Technology before the birth of the Imperium of Man, who proceeded to breed true. Other Imperial scholars claim that Beastmen are Abhumans whose unusual forms were the result of exposure to the unnatural influence of the Warp but that the subspecies somehow managed to maintain an unusual degree of genetic stability across generations, unlike other such mutants born of the power of Chaos. |
Beastmen - Imperial Beastmen: In temperament as well as appearance these Abhumans are often bestial, and possess a reputation for crudity, aggression and bad discipline. Starting in the late 30th Millennium, Beastmen were often recruited into the ranks of the Imperial Army as part of the massive galactic expansion of the burgeoning Imperium during the Great Crusade, which began after ca. 798.M30. Beastmen in the Imperial Army were regarded as useful if highly undisciplined warriors, and were ideal for suicidal assaults where brawn rather than tactical intellect was required.Other Imperial troops disliked them intently as they were quite rowdy, unsanitary and generally unpleasant for baseline Humans to deal with. Following the events of the galaxy-wide civil war known as the Horus Heresy, and the subsequent restructuring of the Imperial armed forces by the Ultramarines Legion Primarch Roboute Guilliman according to the dictats of his magnum opus, the Codex Astartes during the Time of Rebirth, Beastmen regiments were retained in the newborn Astra Militarum, where they were often led by the largest and most powerful of their kind, known as "Packmasters."Those Beastmen who have been introduced to the Imperial Cult by the missionaries of the Adeptus Ministorum possess a simple but fierce devotion to the Emperor of Mankind and regard Him as a vengeful god who demands tribute in the form of the blood of His enemies. These fanatically religious Beastmen are driven by the need to atone for their original sin of being born mutants by fighting in service to the Emperor.In recent centuries there has been a political shift within the Imperium and Beastmen are no longer seen in Imperial military service; no doubt the more Puritan elements of the Inquisition convinced the Departmento Munitorum that Beastmen could not be so radically different from the genetic Human baseline without having been in some way affected by the taint of Chaos. In the 41st Millennium, Beastmen are often now classified as mutants and as a result are the subject of severe Imperial persecution and have been placed on the "Register of Proscribed Citizens" (Class A-G worlds) by the Adeptus Arbites.This effectively precludes them from settlement on, or transportation to or from, more than three hundred thousand worlds of the Imperium and forbids their conscription as part of an Imperial Tithe obligation. All of this is a sure sign that they may soon lose their official Abhuman status completely and be reclassified as true mutants. These creatures are often hunted down during anti-mutant pogroms conducted by the Adeptus Arbites on those worlds where populations of Beastmen are known to exist. This persecution, of course, has led many Beastmen to seek protection in the service of Chaos, thus in effect producing a self-fulfilling prophecy. |
Beastmen - Chaos Beastmen: Beastmen are destined to become the outcasts of Imperial society. They are shunned and are often hunted down and killed as the Imperium has little tolerance for any who deviate from the perfection of the baseline Human form in mind or body. Mutation is considered a heretical crime against the Emperor by Imperial authorities because of its connection to sympathy with or worship of Chaos.As creatures of the Warp, these bestial warriors often fall to the service of Chaos as members of the Lost and the Damned as a means of escaping the persecution of Imperial society or are lulled into the service of one of the four Chaos Gods due to their inherent nature as creatures of Chaos.Whatever their true origins, there is no doubt that the Ruinous Powers look upon Beastmen with special favour, and Chaos "gifts" are often granted to those Beastmen who become Champions of Chaos even though they may serve no specific Chaos God. Champions who do follow Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh or Tzeentch individually often benefit from the relationship more readily than Human, Heretic Astartes or other mortal Chaos Champions, because they are closer to the true nature of Chaos. |
Beastmen - Tzaangors, Beastmen of Tzeentch: True to the Changer of the Ways, the Beastmen of Tzeentch, known as Tzaangors, are spectacularly variable -- bright of colouration and sharp of intellect. Their raptor-like beaks clack as they chant blasphemous refrains in the Dark Tongue of Chaos, gimlet eyes glowing in their aquiline skulls. Their hunger for knowledge stems from a desire for power, and even in battle they look to transcend their base existences by seeking out arcane artefacts and priceless texts.In serving their sorcerer masters, Tzaangors may earn the chance to elevate themselves above their earthly stations, but in truth such occasions are rare, for a streak of cruelty lurks within the warlike soul of every Tzaangor. When given the opportunity, they will take their ire out on those who oppose them in inventive displays of blade-work -- or, when they put aside their artistic pretensions for the gratification of raw brutality, a gory display of violence.Beastmen of Tzeentch, like all of his mortal and Daemonic servants, hate all who are mortal followers of Nurgle, including other Beastmen like Pestigors who follow that patron god. |
Beastmen - Bloodgors, Beastmen of Khorne: Those Beastmen who serve the Blood God Khorne are known as Bloodgors or Khorngors. The signature of Khorne is writ clearly upon the form of the Blood God's Beastmen. They have canine heads or faces, fierce snapping jaws, and teeth which drip with rank saliva. Their skin or fur is usually red and their eyes are all white with red pupils.Bloodgor Champions of Khorne often have fur which is especially impressive, either bright red, black with red flecks, or a strange, metallic, brassy colour. If the Beastman has horns these may be twisted into the shape of the skull-like rune known as the Mark of Khorne. The same rune is often painted or burned onto their skin or fur, and can be tattooed onto their exposed foreheads. Beastmen of Khorne always fight in their own units, although they can be led by a Beastman Chaos Champion so long as he does not follow any other Chaos God.These foul creatures, enslaved to the worship of the Blood God, populate many planets within the Eye of Terror. Dim-witted, cruel, unruly and easily startled, they are always keen to kill for their masters, usually Chaos Space Marines in service to the Blood God -- who are careless of their lives, sending Packmasters to whip them towards the enemy's guns.Beastmen of Khorne, like all of his mortal and Daemonic servants, hate all who are mortal followers of Slaanesh, including other Beastmen who follow that patron god. They also hate all enemy Chaos Sorcerers and other types of psykers. They do not hate enemy shamans who also follow Khorne, as they cannot cast sorcerous spells but have the power to nullify psychic abilities. The Bloodgors' hatred only applies to enemy troops, never to allies, even if they are followers of another one of the Ruinous Powers, including the Dark Prince. |
Beastmen - Pestigors, Beastmen of Nurgle: The Pestigors, the Beastmen of Nurgle, have blistered and broken skins, often red with cracked flesh and sores which have been given to them by a generous master. Their fur is matted and coarse, and their bodies are riddled with all kinds of disease.Yet they retain the morbid vigour that characterises their master so their afflictions in no way mar their battle-worthiness. The Mark of Nurgle is carved into their armour, daubed upon their clothes, and sometimes etched onto their skin by the path of disfiguring disease. Many Beastmen of Nurgle carry Nurgle's Rot, although thanks to their loyalty to Grandfather Nurgle, that terrible arcane disease will not affect them.Beastmen of Nurgle, like all of his mortal and Daemonic servants, hate all who are mortal followers of Tzeentch, including other Beastmen who follow that patron god. |
Beastmen - Slaangors, Beastmen of Slaanesh: Beastmen who worship or are born blessed by the Chaos God Slaanesh, known as Slaangors, have white or near-white fur and pale or pastel skins. Their eyes are green and are sometimes saucer-like in a similar way to those of the Daemonettes. The Mark of Slaanesh appears somewhere on them, painted onto their hides or carved into their armour, a bracelet or neck collar.Many of Slaanesh's Beastmen have the head or horns of a bull (known as Bovigors) just like the Greater Daemons of their patron god. They are often possessed of almost superhuman combat reflexes and are particularly skilled combtants with swords and other bladed melee weapons.Beastmen of Slaanesh, like all of his mortal and Daemonic servants, particularly enjoy targeting the servants of Khorne, including other Beastmen who follow that patron god. Slaangors will not assault Bloodgors or other servants of the Blood God who are allied to them, putting the greater interests of any Chaos host first, but are quite willing to humiliate Khorne's servants once the enemy is vanguished and the Great Game begins in earnest once more. |
Beastmen - Other Beastmen Species: To the fearful eyes of Humanity all Beastmen appear the same -- an unruly mass of flesh, fur and teeth. In their ignorance they can discern no distinguishing characteristics that mark the different physical and social types, nor any kind of social hierarchy apart from the simple supremacy of the strongest.This is a mistake often made by Humans, whose judgement of Beastmen is overwhelmed by the brutal power and savagery of these creatures. In fact, Beastmen society is very precise and ordered, and there are several distinct levels of class and rank. |
Beastmen - Minotaurs: An unusually large and aggressive strain of giant Beastman, Minotaurs are comparable in physical size and strength to an Ogryn. These creatures are massive, bull-headed monstrosities that constantly hunger for hot blood and red meat. Often growing to twice the height of a man and far greater in muscular bulk, their thick-skulled heads are broad and ugly, and their horns can eviscerate with a single thrust.Minotaurs are possessed of a terrible hunger for flesh, particularly the flesh of Mankind. Yet it is not the gnawing hunger a mortal feels when deprived of sustenance, but a deep thirst for the unholy exhilaration the Minotaurs experience when they consume the flesh of their enemies. In this state they join with the power of the Chaos Gods and share in part of their unholy glory.Minotaurs seem to be wholly creations of Chaos, and are never found in any Imperial military force. |
Beastmen - Notable Beastmen: Gor Half-Horn - Gor Half-Horn is an infamous sanctioned Beastman bounty hunter who roams the underhives of the Hive World of Necromunda's capital hive city of Hive Primus in pursuit of his quarry. |
Beastmen - Game History: Beastmen were initially part of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader 1st Edition's Imperial Guard armies. They could later be used in Imperial Guard armies with the use of the Homo Sapiens Variatus Doctrine, and in the army list for the The Lost and the Damned, though these rules are now obsolete.The Beastmen were originally part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe because, like many of the other factions, they were direct ports of Warhammer's Beastmen. On the Warhammer World, the Beastmen are mutants born as the result of Chaos influence upon their purely Human parents.In later editions of the game, Games Workshop sought to take the Warhammer 40,000 universe farther away from its fantasy Warhammer roots and create more distance between both intellectual properties, resulting in the removal of Beastmen from the game; the same impulse was responsible for the removal of the Squats as a playable race in the Warhammer 40,000 universe because Games Workshop no longer felt that a species of "Space Dwarfs" was appropriate for their science fiction universe.However, Games Workshop eventually decided to bring the Beastmen back into Warhammer 40,000, with a mention in a list of recognised Abhuman strains in the Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition rulebook. This was eventually followed by the release of rules and models for using Tzaangors as part of the 7th and 8th Edition Thousand Sons army lists, and a Beastman special character, Gor Half-Horn, for the 2017 reboot of the Necromunda tabletop miniature skirmish game. |
Beastmen - Sources: Codex: Chaos (2nd Edition), pp. 132-133Codex Imperialis (1st Edition), pg. 89Imperial Armour Volume Six - The Siege of Vraks - Part Two, pp. 135, 141Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (1st Edition), pp. 262, 274Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness(1st Edition), pp. 262, 267Warhammer 40,000: Compendium (1st Edition), "The Imperial Guard", pp. 37, 54Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (1st Edition), pg. 174Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (8th Edition), pg. 279Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (6th Edition), pp. 404-405War Zone: Fenris - Wrath of Magnus (7th Edition), pp. 144, 150White Dwarf 124 (UK), "Beastmen", pp. 60-73Necromunda Gor Half-Horn Rules |
Beasts of Annihilation - Beasts of Annihilation: The Beasts of Annihilation are a warband of Chaos Space Marines that were once the Loyalist Space Marine Chapter known as the Annihilators. Corrupted beyond recognition, these once-proud warriors are sworn to the service of the Dark Gods, and allow the daemons of the Warp to possess their superhuman Astartes bodies. As a result, this warband fields an unusually large number of Possessed Chaos Space Marine squads. |
Beasts of Annihilation - The Great Degeneration: The Beasts of Annihilation were once a Loyalist Chapter of Space Marines known as the Annhilators. After the unremitting violence of the xenocidal Quietus Campaign, the Annhilators Chapter finally succumbed to blood psychosis. Those of the Chapter still able to act rationally gathered at their fortress-monastery in the hope of finding absolution. Instead of redeeming their sins, however, their corrupted Chaplains lead them in an ancient ritual, leaving their souls wide open to daemonic influence. Every member of the Chapter was possessed over the course of a single moonlit night, shifting forms and devolving into armoured half-Daemon monstrosities. Calling themselves the Beasts of Annihilation, the Possessed Chaos Space Marines went to war again, though this time it was the Imperium that felt their wrath. |
Beasts of Annihilation - Warband Colours: The Beasts of Annihilation wear blood red coloured Power Armour with gold trim. Their armour now features the various symptoms of possession, often melding with their flesh while sporting chaotic growths. |
Beasts of Annihilation - Chapter Badge: The Beasts of Annihilation have no specific identifying symbol, instead incorporating the various blasphemous sigils and iconography of Chaos as their identifying marks. |
Behemoid Undercult - Behemoid Undercult: The Behemoid Undercult is a Genestealer Cult that operates on the fringes of the Realm of Ultramar. This hidden organisation is of such cunning it has infested several Ultramarian worlds, despite continued attacks from the Ultramarines Tyrannic War Veterans trained by Chaplain Ortan Cassius.There are rumours the cult's founders worshipped a battle-scarred Tyranid monstrosity of Hive Fleet Behemoth trapped in ice on the world of Calth after the First Tyrannic War, and that they still revere that great beast alongside their own Genestealer Patriarch as a saint of their new order.That creature, a unique Tyranid Carnifex known as "Old One Eye" in the spacefarer tales that surround it, is of such totemic importance to the Undercult that they ritually scar and tattoo themselves, or even cut out their own right eyes, in homage to the creature, seeing it as a prophet of the xenos god they simply call "Behemoth."Believing in a creed of physical strength and aggression, the cult amasses hulking, armoured war engines and lumbering Aberrants to unleash on the day of ascension. These forces they release as a single overwhelming battering ram, seeking to destroy or be destroyed in their deity's name. |
Behemoid Undercult - Sources: Codex: Genestealer Cults (7th Edition), pg. 50Codex: Genestealer Cults (8th Edition), pg. 32Codex: Genestealer Cults (9th Edition), pg. 36 |
Bekrin - Bekrin: Bekrin is a Cardinal World, the capital planet of the Ecclesiarchy diocese covering much of what is now the Achilus Crusade's Canis Salient in the Jericho Reach.Its clergy evacuated the world to escape the approaching Tyranids of Hive Fleet Dagon, and though the Tyranids were turned aside before they could reach Bekrin, the planet has never been resettled.The Adeptus Ministorum often petitions Lord Commander Sebiascor Ebongrave to reclaim Bekrin and install a new Cardinal to serve as the spiritual leader of the Canis Salient. Ebongrave, for reasons unknown, has bluntly refused at every turn, and has even proclaimed Bekrin a Quarantined World.No one knows why, though there is no shortage of speculation about what horrible sights might be found among Bekrin's fabled natural beauty and gilded temple-cities.To some, Bekrin is an example of Ebongrave's paranoia, but others insist that there must be something terribly wrong with the planet. In any case, no official word on Bekrin has been forthcoming in more than forty standard years. |
Belacane - Belacane: BelacaneForge WorldCalixis SectorSegmentum ObscurusAdeptus MechanicusOnce known across the galaxy for its expertise in the manufacture of temporal Stasis Fields, the Forge World appears now to be dedicated solely to hoarding its technologies and jealously guarding its sacred scientific wisdom. |
Belacane - Departmento Cartographicae Planetary Database: Equatorial circumference: 18,000 Miles.Gravity: 1.2G.Class: Forge World.Years and Days: Belacane takes 408 Terran days to orbit its star and spins on its axis every 30 Terran hours.Satellites: No natural moons, but the planet maintains a vast starship repair complex in low orbit, together with a series of defensive weapons platforms.Population: 2,700,000,000.Atmospheric Conditions: Belacane has a thin, unbreathable atmosphere which offers little protection from the "season of iron," a hail of asteroids that bombards the planet once every Belecane year.Governing System: Archmagos Daedus has ruled Belacane from his vitae-tank for over three standard centuries. A genius of the first order, he is said to have the most encyclopaedic knowledge of temporal stasis systems in the Imperium, and is rumoured to have been consulted in centuries past by the Tech-Adepts who maintain the Golden Throne and the Shrine of the Primarch on the Ultramarines' homeworld of Macragge that maintained the stasis field surrounding Roboute Guilliman. He has not been seen in public for over thirty standard years, but continues to issue decrees and manufacture quota demands via the planet's Machine Spirit network, and is said to be in daily communication with the highest figures in the order.Religions: As Tech-priests make up a large percentage of the population, the Cult of the Machine God is the most prevalent faith. The Ecclesiarchy maintains small chapels for the benefit of the slave-workers.Climate: Belacane is a rocky world with no breathable atmosphere and little surface water. The planet is, in any event, so cold that any liquid water simply turns to ice instantly. Most of the planet's water is subterranean, and great effort must be expended to mine it. However the planet is amazingly rich in iron deposits, giving it a reddish appearance from orbit. Combined with the vast iron asteroids of the Panevrian Belt, this makes Belacane a major mining centre as well as a Forge World.Society: The people of Belacane live in gloomy underground Hive Cities, hermetically sealed to preserve their precious atmospheres against the environmental extremes of their world. Each city squats near vast underground ice deposits. Life is harsh for the people of Belacane, with 95% of the population consisting of indentured slave-workers who either work in the manufactoria or spend their lives mining ice or iron. The Tech-priests of Belacane have a dark secret: they have lost the ability to manufacture their once-famous stasis field projectors, the device upon which their world's reputation is based. Their Archmagos, Daedus, jealously hoarded all data relating to stasis fields for himself for solar decades, seeking to understand the inner mysteries of this long-lost ancient technology. He claimed to his high-ranking colleagues that he was on the verge of a great breakthrough: then, suddenly, he was found by his colleagues dead in his vitae tank, a victim of a severe stroke that even his mastery of technology could not prevent. A leading cabal of techlords have kept his death a secret from the planetary population and are resorting to increasingly desperate measures to maintain the status of their world in the face of their own total ignorance about the temporal stasis technologies they are supposed to be experts in. This facade has involved senior techmages in increasingly humiliating deceptions in order to maintain this lie, the most recent of which involved 200-year-old High Magos Burke crouching in Daedus' stinking vitae-tank and imitating his booming voice for the benefit of visiting Scintillan nobles from the sector capital.Water Supply: A portion of the ice mined on Belacane is set aside, melted, treated and rationed out to the slave-workers.Exports: Belacane once was an amazingly wealthy Forge World which produced virtually the entire Imperial stock of stasis fields, stasis projectors and stasis grenades. However, the supply of these items has dried up over the past 500 years, and many whisper that Belacane now lacks the means to produce them. The planet also exports a variety of field-based technologies, such as Void Shields, for use on millions of Imperial planets and Imperial starships. It also produces (of course) large numbers of weapons, with a particular emphasis on large scale defence lasers for the starships of the Imperial Navy.Imports: Foodstuffs and some rare minerals.Defence Systems: The Forge World is the base for the "Lightbringers," a small Titan Legion consisting of five Warhound-class Scout Titans and a pair of Reaver-class Battle Titans. It also operates a large contingent of cybernetic Skitarii Tech-Guard. Most famously, however, the planet is home to the deadly Ordinatus Belacane, an ancient and forbidding device mounted upon a colossal tracked crawler which can project a vast stasis field up to a kilometre away. This field can either freeze anything in the path of its beam immobile, making it vulnerable to missile attacks, or age the target by centuries in a second if it is organic. It has not been used in anger for over 500 standard years, and is now regarded as too precious to leave the planet. |
Belaphor - Belaphor: Belaphor is the current Master of the Rock for the Dark Angels Chapter of Space Marines, which makes him the equivalent of a Codex Astartes-compliant Chapter's Master of the Forge.Belaphor is cybernetically hard-wired into the systems of The Rock and is NOT a member of the Chapter's Inner Circle because of his shared allegiance to the Adeptus Mechanicus. |
Belaphor - Role: Most Space Marine Chapters have a Master of the Forge: the most senior Techmarine within the Chapter. With deep understanding of the arcane sciences refined over many standard years of experience, the Master of the Forge is comparable to a Tech-priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Dark Angels maintain a similar role within their Chapter known as the Master of the Rock, although there is an ominous difference.Upon ascending to the honoured position, the Master of the Rock follows his predecessors in the office by being permanently and cybernetically hard-wired into the control nave of Cogitators located deep within the asteroid base that serves as the Dark Angels' mobile fortress-monastery.It is his solemn duty to placate the most important Machine Spirits, directing the maintenance of the engines and Warp-Drive that allow the enormous asteroid to navigate the galaxy.It is his mind alone that perceives the workings of the force field that still shields the asteroid base. The previous Masters of the Rock, whose bodies of flesh and bone have withered, are left in place, their mechanical upgrades still functioning while their bones fall in dusty heaps below. Eventually, these bodies will be collected for display in the Alcoves of Honour.Because of their dual allegiance to the Chapter and the Adeptus Mechanicus, Techmarines are never inducted into the Deathwing. This includes the Master of the Rock; he is privy only to the secrets of the Dark Angels' asteroid base and its hoard of ancient technology, but never to the greatest secrets shrouding the Chapter's origins. |
Belial - Belial: Belial is the current Grand Master of the Dark Angels Chapter of Space Marines' elite 1st Company, known as the Deathwing. The 1st Company of every Space Marine Chapter represents the apex amongst a warrior elite, and none are held in higher regard than the Deathwing of the Dark Angels. Lauded for countless victories across the millennia, the Deathwing are the epitome of their primarch Lion El'Jonson's ideals: courageous, noble, indefatigable and unwavering in their dedication to the service of the Emperor's ideals.To lead such a company requires a commander of the most exceptional ability, judgement and fortitude. Grand Master Belial is just such an individual. He commands the Deathwing in their never-ending hunt for the Fallen Angels. Belial swiftly earned the approval of the Chapter's Supreme Grand Master Azrael, as well as the admiration and unswerving loyalty of those under his command.To be named the Grand Master of the Deathwing is to be recognised as a lion of the battlefield, a tactician without peer and the Chapter's most loyal paladin. Grand Master Belial, to whom the title currently belongs, has earned such an honour with deeds that would fill volumes, if the Dark Angels allowed such things to be written. Belial is a warrior born -- a killer whose skill with bolter and blade have always stood out, even amongst his transhuman brethren.His martial prowess is without style or artifice; there is no flourish to Belial's swordplay, no extravagance to his movements. Yet even as a neophyte, none but the other Masters of the Chapter could best him in practice. Throughout his rise through the ranks, it was noted that Brother Belial was a perfectionist -- chastising himself for a single missed shot. As a commander, Belial did not revel in triumphs, but instead, he begrudged the losses, castigating himself for the least mistake. Those beneath him came to expect that, after each action -- even the most glorious victories -- Belial would find them and assign each his own specific penitence, be it battle drills, hymnals, or arduous rites of atonement. Such discipline was not lamented, but embraced -- for it was easy to see that Belial was righteous and his success undeniable.The Deathwing have fought in scores of battles under the leadership of Belial, distinguishing themselves in such campaigns as the fighting around the Eye of Terror during Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade. Belial and the Deathwing would prove pivotal in subsequent victories over the forces of Chaos on Crassia II and routing the Renegade Chapter of the Violators on the world of Terraq after a brutal campaign.During the Arks of Omen Campaign of the Era Indomitus, Belial was badly wounded in combat against the Daemon Primarch Angron. To save his life, he was forced to cross the Rubicon Primaris and become a Primaris Space Marine.Amongst all the Dark Angels, there are none who judge themselves more abrasively than Belial. To the Grand Master of the famed Deathwing, every battle-brother lost, every foe not efficiently slain, only makes the defence of the Imperium of Man, and the path to redemption for himself and his Chapter, that much more difficult. |
Belial - Blade Born: The semi-Feudal World of Bregundia is ruled by a number of knightly orders called "societies," and it was into the nobility of the Society of the Ebon Star that Belial was born. Son of the society's governing Magister Militum, Belial was destined from birth to be a warrior and a leader and was raised accordingly. He learned to wield a sword as soon as he was able to lift one, and into his young mind were poured all the principles of Bregundian chivalry, military strategy and the precepts of command.As a recruiting world for the Dark Angels, Bregundia is visited by the Chaplains of the sons of the Lion every few solar decades so that they might pick the most prominent and skilled knightly aspirants and squires for testing. Such an event happened shortly after Belial's seventeenth local birthday (the equivalent of eleven standard years by Terran reckoning) but the youth's father forbade him from entering the tournament which would determine the hopeful boy's fate -- Belial was destined to become Magister Militum of the Society of the Ebon Star like his forefathers.Stealing the armour of a lowlier knight, Belial ignored his father's command and entered the contest, keeping his visor lowered to conceal his identity. None could best him, and he was duly declared the Ebon Star's candidate to be tested as a Chapter aspirant. When Chaplain Lamorak demanded that the young knight remove his helm to be identified, Belial refused, fearing that his father would see him and withdraw his application. Lamorak insisted and Belial again deferred, claiming that he would rather face the Chaplain in combat than reveal himself.Lamorak accepted the challenge, expecting to best the upstart squire in moments, but the duel that followed lasted a full seven solar minutes -- an extraordinary effort for any non-augmented Human. Eventually, Lamorak landed a blow that sent Belial crashing to the floor and the youth was bested. Forced to remove his helm, he revealed his true identity.As Belial feared, his father demanded that the Dark Angels choose another aspirant -- but Lamorak overruled the Magister Militum, saying that Belial was surely the most capable recruit he had encountered since becoming a Chaplain. The Society of the Ebon Star would lose a proud warrior and future leader, but their loss was to the benefit of the Dark Angels -- and the Imperium of Man. |
Belial - The Perfection of Self: Throughout his time as an aspirant and a Scout, few could defeat Belial with a blade, and as he acclimated to the Adeptus Astartes' genetic enhancements and gene-seed organ implants, only the most experienced warriors of the Chapter could defeat him. When he ascended to the full rank of battle-brother, Belial's first act was to challenge Chaplain Lamorak to a rematch -- a duel Belial won in under a solar minute.The teachings of the Dark Angels and the doctrines of the Society of the Ebon Star are combined in Belial, driving him to seek a state of perfection as both a warrior-noble and a Space Marine. Brutally efficient with bolter and blade, as a warrior, Belial had few peers amongst his brethren. He applied the same drive to learning the principles of tactics and strategy, command and logistics, and though his rise was not as meteoric as some of the most famed Masters of the Chapter, Belial's knowledge and skill is wide-ranging and perhaps without equal.Motivated to learn as much from every victory as defeat, Belial would frequently impose penitence and atonements upon himself for perceived failures, and when he was promoted to sergeant, such impositions were shared with the other warriors of his squad. No matter how small or seemingly insignificant a flaw he found, Belial was ready to atone and improve. A missed shot, a delay of solar seconds in responding to an order, a wayward blow or clumsy step, all were treated with the same regard as a failure.Over the solar decades, Belial and his squad gained renown amongst the Dark Angels' 3rd Company in which they served, and their ethos spread to other battle-brothers. Many of those who learned from Belial's example went on to serve in the Deathwing, so that at one time, the 3rd Company provided twice as many warriors to the 1st Company as any other. |
Belial - Furion's Black Crusade: Belial rose to prominence as a Master of the Chapter whilst fighting during the Black Crusade of Furion, a formidable Heretic Astartes Chaos Lord dedicated to the bloodthirsty Chaos God Khorne. In the ruins of the vast Temple Saturnis on the ravaged Cardinal World of Durga Principe, the Dark Angels' 3rd Company were set to halt the Black Crusade of Furion. Furion had already laid waste to seventeen star systems in the name of the Blood God. Imperial forces including Space Marines from several Chapters, amongst them the Angels of Absolution, confronted the horde of the Chaos Champion. In support of their Unforgiven successor, the Dark Angels dispatched the 3rd Company.Master Nadael placed his warriors directly in the path of Furion's berzerkers, planning to hold the coming attack long enough for the other Imperial forces to surround and crush the invading Chaos army. However, such was Furion's hunger for bloodshed that he force-marched his army through the long, freezing Durga night and came upon the Dark Angels before their defences were fully prepared.As the lead elements of the Khornate host entered the Temple Saturnis, Nadael moved with his Command Squad to bolster the outer perimeter. He arrived only to find the outlying squads overrun and was himself slain soon after. Belial was the most senior sergeant of the company left alive, and it was no surprise that the rest of the company instantly looked to him for leadership.As they had been unable to fortify the Temple Saturnis sufficiently, the sprawling chambers, corridors and cloisters would eliminate the Dark Angels' advantage of firepower and become a killing ground for the Khornate Berzerkers; to withdraw immediately would leave the raging pursuers free to fall upon the 3rd Company's rear. Belial and his squad formed a rearguard to allow the rest of the company to withdraw in good order, and set off into the ruins to combat the incoming Chaos horde. Using the maze of ruins to manoeuvre and fire, Belial and his squad ambushed several Khornate Berzerker squads and destroyed them without taking any losses. Buying time for the retreat, the Dark Angels were eventually forced to hold ground at the edge of the ruins, and it was here that Furion himself led the next attack.Furion was carnage incarnate, tearing into the Dark Angels without pause. Belial met the Khornate Champion face-to-face even as the rest of his squad battled Furion's personal guard. Matching discipline against pure rage, Belial eventually managed a bloody victory by slicing through Furion's leg and placing two bolt rounds into his corrupt hearts as he fell. The death of Furion threw the Chaos army into disarray. The 3rd Company were able to pour fire on the Khornate horde from their new positions, and with their leader dead, the Black Crusade splintered and was destroyed over the following solar months.Returning to The Rock, Belial was promoted to the rank of Master of the 3rd Company. To mark his achievement against Furion, Azrael himself presented Belial with the Sword of Silence, one of the fabled Heavenfall Blades. This blade has traditionally been gifted to the most lethal close-quarters combatant in the Chapter. It was forged from the same meteorite as the Sword of Secrets, and by some trick of its making, the weapon seems to swallow nearby sound, absorbing it into its energised obsidian blade. It has been Belial's badge of office and honour ever since. |
Belial - A Demanding Master: Despite his victories, Belial's quest for perfection continued as he became accustomed to his new role. The 3rd Company was turned into a benchmark of discipline and lethal efficiency. Never once giving thought to defeat, Belial fought in dozens of campaigns, most notably against the Ork warlords Ghazghkull Thraka and Nazdreg on the world of Piscina IV during the campaigns preceding the Third War for Armageddon in 998.M41.Despite suffering near-terminal injuries, Belial went on to command a successful holding action against the Ork invaders, saving the planetary capital of Kadillus Harbour from repeated attacks. Ghazghkull himself led the assault on the plasma reactor of Kadillus Harbour, seeking to use it to power the Orks' tellyportas. Master Belial led a counter-attack that sent the Orks reeling, and it seemed that the Space Marines would prevail. But it was then that Ghazghkull himself attacked Belial, and almost killed him. The plasma reactor fell to the Greenskins soon afterward.With the Orks' tellyportas now fully operational, massive Ork reinforcements flooded onto Piscina IV. The wounded Belial continued to lead the Dark Angels, who were now outnumbered several thousand to one. The battle for Piscina IV raged for another two solar weeks until the remainder of the Dark Angels arrived and drove off the Ork horde. Thanks to the actions of Master Belial and his small force, Piscina IV was saved from the Greenskins' assault, and Ghazghkull's ambitions were held in check, for a time at least, until he descended upon the Armageddon System.When Grand Master Gabriel was later slain leading the Deathwing aboard the space hulk Charnel Shrine during the events of the 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41, there was only one candidate for his replacement voiced by the Inner Circle of the Chapter.Belial's reputation as a hard but fair taskmaster, coupled with his personal prowess, made him the obvious successor. Becoming Grand Master of the Deathwing did not soften Belial's demeanour in any respect. He leads from the front of every campaign, setting an example to his warriors that has further heightened the expertise and dedication of the Dark Angels' 1st Company. |
Belial - Vengeance Delivered: Though other matters demanded his attention, and he had not been in command at the time, Belial was driven to atone for the Deathwing's defeat on the Charnel Shrine. He was now of the Deathwing, and their reputation and his were one and the same. The mark against the elite Veteran company was a dishonour that gnawed at Belial, and when he was granted the opportunity, he requested that he lead the Deathwing back to the space hulk to correct the previous failure.Knowing that such a thorn can work terrible injuries in the mind of one such as Belial, Supreme Grand Master Azrael granted the 1st Company commander any resources required for the mission. Belial turned down the assistance of any other company, saying that it was the Deathwing alone that would pass judgement on the denizens of the Charnel Shrine.The space hulk was an enormous conglomeration of dozens of different vessels, stretching over twenty cubic kilometres. It was inhabited by both a large brood of Genestealers and an Ork tribe, which occupied opposite ends of the massive structure. They seemed oblivious to each other's presence, and having discovered the Orks in the previous engagement, it was the unexpected appearance of the Genestealers that had doomed the first attack.Grand Master Gabriel's initial plan had been a targeted strike to reactivate a plasma reactor on one of the dormant vessels, which would initiate a chain-reaction detonation to destroy the hulk. Belial eschewed this strategy, preferring systemic cleansing, corridor by corridor, chamber by chamber. By this means alone would he be satisfied that every foe had been slain.In a campaign that was waged incessantly for seventy-three solar days, the Deathwing launched assault after assault, driving the Genestealers out of their brood-nests towards the Orks, whilst simultaneously purging the Ork settlements to force the Greenskins into the claws of the Tyranid bio-constructs. The inevitable conclusion was fighting between the two alien species, draining their strength further.Like a predator stalking its prey, the Deathwing cleansed the passages and rooms, eliminating the survivors of both xenos species, advancing deep into the hulk with Belial always at the forefront. The final engagement aboard the Charnel Shrine took place around the plasma reactor previously selected by Gabriel. Assured that the xenos inhabitants had been corralled on this one component-vessel of the hulk, Belial led another strike team accompanied by several Techmarines.The reactor was brought back on-line and forced into overcharge. Under bombardment by the Dark Angels vessels in attendance, the Orks and Genestealers were prevented from escaping while the Deathwing teleported to safety. The resulting explosion ripped apart the hulk, destroying everything that remained. Never one to overlook any detail, Belial sent search-and-destroy teams into the remnants for a further eighteen solar days, until he finally declared the enemy wiped out and the company's honour restored. |
Belial - Hunt for the Fallen: As well as campaigns against xenos, Heretics, mutants and the forces of Chaos, Belial has been instrumental in the hunt for the Fallen Angels. His temperament of ruthlessness and efficiency intersects well with the more flamboyant approach practised by Grand Master Sammael of the Ravenwing. Recent plans to capture the Fallen combine Sammael's daring and creativity with Belial's thoroughness and persistence, and the Interrogator-Chaplains have been kept busy by their efforts over the latter decades of the 41st Millennium.To Belial, every Fallen yet to be captured is a stain upon the Chapter's honour -- and his own -- and their continued existence is an affront to his nature. To the Grand Master of the Deathwing, the quest for redemption and the search for perfection are one and the same.Under Belial's austere and exacting leadership, the Deathwing continues to earn praise in the fighting around the Eye of Terror, winning victories on the marshes of Crassia II and routing the Violators on the planet Terraq after a brutal campaign. It was Belial who arrived in time to save his fellow Sammael of the Ravenwing from the crushing death grip of Marbas -- cutting the Fallen Daemon Prince's hand off with the Sword of Silence.Alas, Belial could not finish the job, however, as the lion-headed Daemonic foe won free and escaped, his loathsome claw-hand regrowing anew even as he took flight. In all his long service to the Dark Angels, the only other foe to have bested Belial in close combat was the Ork Warlord Ghazghkull Thraka on Piscina IV. Such memories of failure still cause Belial pain. |
Belial - Arks of Omem Campaign: During the siege of The Rock in the Arks of Omen Campaign in the Era Indomitus, Belial took part in the defence of the Dark Angels' mobile fortress-monastery against an invasion of the forces of Chaos led by the Greater Daemon Vashtorr. During the battle, Belial was appointed by Azrael as the commander of the defence of The Rock within the command spire known as the Tower of Angels while the Supreme Grand Master focused on facing Vashtorr personally.Later in the same campaign during the Battle of Idolatros, Belial led the Deathwing in a boarding action against the Chaos-corrupted remains of the Dark Angels lost homeworld of Caliban, now a Daemon World that had been dubbed "Wyrmwood." However, when the Daemon Primarch Angron entered the battle against the Dark Angels, Belial was badly injured by the Daemon Primarch's axe and had to be carried away by his Deathwing veterans.To save his life, the Dark Angels' Apothecaries ultimately determined that Belial's only chance for survival was to cross the Rubicon Primaris. The agonising surgery proved successful, and Belial has now joined the ranks of the Primaris Space Marines. |
Belial - Wargear: Master-crafted Indomitus Pattern Terminator Armour - To represent his venerable status within the ranks of the Chapter, Grand Master Belial wears master-crafted Indomitus Pattern Tactical Dreadnought Armour into battle.Storm BolterThunder Hammer - When leading the Deathwing to war, Belial is known to wield a Thunder Hammer. Favoured by those wearing Terminator Armour, this formidable melee weapon releases a terrific blast of coruscating electromagnetic energy when he strikes his foes.Iron HaloStorm Shield - Used in conjunction with a Thunder Hammer or the Sword of Silence, Belial's Storm Shield provides additional protection when fighting in close quarters. The shield's energy field generator is very useful in close combat where it is capable of deflecting almost any attack, even blows from Power Weapons.Sword of Silence - In times of need, Belial wields the famous master-crafted Power Sword known as the Sword of Silence. This sword is one of a quadrumvirate of legendary swords collectively known as the Heavenfall Blades. These formidable weapons are only carried by the highest-ranking members of the Inner Circle of the Dark Angels. The Chapter's lore states that these blades were forged from the core of a meteorite that struck The Rock in orbit around the Feral World of Al Baradad. The mightiest of these blades is the Sword of Secrets, carried by the Supreme Grand Master of the Chapter, and the current wielder of that sword is Azrael. The blades wielded by the Master of the Deathwing and the Master of the Ravenwing also utilise small amounts of the obsidian taken from the meteorite in their working. It is also said that a small portion of this meteoric substance was despatched to each of the Dark Angels' Successor Chapters, so that the senior members of the Unforgiven's own Inner Circles would also bear the same heritage forged in steel as those borne by the Masters of the Dark Angels. The Sword of Silence has traditionally been gifted to the most lethal close-quarters combatant in the Dark Angels. The Sword of Silence seems to swallow nearby light and sound, absorbing them into its glowing obsidian blade. |
Belial - Sources: Codex Supplement Dark Angels (10th Edition), pg. 82Codex Adeptus Astartes - Dark Angels (8th Edition), pp. 48, 77Codex: Dark Angels (4th Edition), pp. 42-43Codex: Dark Angels (6th Edition), pg. 56Warlords of the Dark Millennium: Belial (Digital Edition), pp. 3-9, 22-26Master of Sanctity (Novel) by Gav ThorpeThe Unforgiven (Novel) by Gav ThorpeWarhammer Community - Angels Appear on Christmas Day |
Belial (Ship) - Belial (Ship): The Belial, flagship of Commodore Thalion Vycorious, is an Emperor-class Battleship of the Imperial Navy.Under the command of Vycorious, the Belial has become a legend of the Achilus Crusade battlefleets, having fought at the head of a dozen engagements against alien forces.Belial's presence amongst the other ships of the line is considered a sign of the Emperor's favour, and its crew is considered one of the most elite amongst the crusade forces. |
Belis Corona - Belis Corona: Belis Corona is an Imperial Dead World located near the Eye of Terror, which serves as the Segmentum Obscurus' primary base for the Imperial Navy's Battlefleet Obscurus as well as essentially the Imperium's administrative capital for the entire segmentum. There is a vast conglomeration of orbital dockyards in geosynchronous orbit about Belis Corona where entire sector battlefleets can be serviced and refitted. Massive stockpiles of munitions, supplies and other war materiel are stored in armoured bunkers buried many kilometres below the planet's barren surface. Belis Corona saw many battles during Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41 and served as the headquarters for the Imperium's overall defence of the segmentum and the Cadian Gate. |
Belis Corona Sector - Belis Corona Sector: The Belis Corona Sector of the Milky Way Galaxy is a Sector of the Imperium of Man in the Segmentum Obscurus to the galactic north of Terra that is located adjacent to the vital Fortress World of Cadia. The Belis Corona Sector lies adjacent to the great Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror and was one of the locations where Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade was fought in 999.M41. The Imperium was able to largely hold at Belis Corona, the capital of the sector, suffering the worst excesses of a Tyranid splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Leviathan, and the horrific plagues bestowed upon the world's hive cities by the Death Guard Traitor Legion. The world of Subiaco Diablo within the sector saw the Convent of the Order of the Ermine Mantle hold out against overwhelming odds, before being relieved by a host of Adepta Sororitas' Sisters of Battle from across the region, their assault spearheaded by the celebrated Canoness Astra. |
Belis Corona Sector - Belis Corona Sub-sector: The Belis Corona Sub-sector is the most strategic and important part of the Belis Corona Sector, which is one of the Imperial sectors closest to the vitally important Fortress World of Cadia and the Cadian Gate. The Cadian Gate is the only predictably stable Warp route that leads out of the Eye of Terror and into the realm of the Imperium. Only a few hundred light years from Cadia, the Belis Corona sub-sector is one of those in the narrow gap that lies squarely between humanity and the rapacious host of Abaddon the Despoiler. With all the rising Chaos activity in the sub-sectors surrounding Cadia, prior to the 13th Black Crusade, is was only a matter of time before the Chaos Fleets of the Arch-enemy would make their presence known there as well.The Imperial Navy shipyards for the sector were located on the Forge World of Belis Corona. Belis Corona is a vitally important Imperial Dead World located in the Belis Corona Sub-sector which serves as the Segmentum Obscurus' primary base for the Imperial Navy's Battlefleet Obscurus as well as essentially the Imperium's administrative capital for the entire Segmentum. There is a vast conglomeration of orbital dockyards in geosynchronous orbit about Belis Corona where entire sector battlefleets can be serviced and refitted. Massive stockpiles of munitions, supplies and other war materiel are stored in armoured bunkers buried many kilometres below the planet's barren surface. |
Belis Corona Sector - 2nd Black Crusade: As part of the 2nd Black Crusade launched in 597.M32, Abaddon wove a terrible hex upon a number of worlds close to the Eye of Terror, seeding them with the taint of the Dark Gods. Leading a small band of his elite warriors from the Black Legion, Abaddon breached the Imperial Navy base at Belis Corona. While his fleet launched a diversionary attack against the orbital shipyards, Abaddon and his Bringers of Despair, the strongest and most vicious members of the Black Legion's Terminator elite, landed on one of the system's outermost moons. Slaughtering the garrison, Abaddon crafted a complex sorcerous ritual using their mangled remains and invoking a curse that would sink deep into the core of the moon. Only centuries later would the curse awaken at the Despoiler's behest and do its terrible work, unleashing a mutagenic plague upon the Imperial defenders stationed there. By the time Battlefleet Corona had mustered to repel the attacks on the core worlds of the Belis Corona Sector, Abaddon had already departed, his mission complete.Shortly after the assault on the shipyards of Belis Corona, an attack occurred on the Inquisitorial vaults of the world of Nemesis Tessera. Hidden beneath layers of ice and snow, the Inquisition had constructed a watch station from which to study the Eye of Terror along with hexagramatically warded cells to hold daemonic prisoners. It remains unknown if this was the work of Abaddon, but in a swift and brutal assault, one of the cells deep beneath the station was opened and the daemon contained within was released. By the time Inquisitorial forces had secured the facility, the attackers were gone, leaving only a trail of smoking corpses and spent Bolt shells to mark their passage. |
Belis Corona Sector - 13th Black Crusade: In 999.M41, war came without warning to the Belis Corona Sub-sector. It was only two months after word arrived that Cadia was engaged in a war for its very survival that contact with the picket stations in Phonosar were lost. Three weeks later the battered Victory-class Battleship Warspite and two Cobra-class Destroyers from the venerated escort squadron "Torchbearers" entered the system with a pitifully small handful of transports, the sole surviving remanants of a vast flotilla tasked with defending the system. Having faced a vastly superior force, the fleet fought a desperate series of running battles while a rearguard straggled to hold back the invaders, but in the end nothing could prevent the fall of the system. With Phonosaur lost, it would only be a matter of time before Chaos would attempt to take the Belis Corona sub-sector in its foul grip. In only scant weeks, rumours abounded that the dreaded Slayer of Worlds once again stalked the sea of stars, and later is was speculated that Abaddon's two befouled engines of destruction escorted by the twin Despoiler-class Battleships Merciless Death and Fortress of Agony also once again had come to terrify the domains of men. It was only a matter of time before reinforcements and supplies coming to the system slowed to a trickle and then stopped, with nothing more in the way of explanation than a terse, pleading astropathic message fraught with horror. Cadia was under siege, and the long-dreaded 13th Black Crusade had begun.The opening moves by the Forces of Chaos saw large number of plague-ridden Space Hulks entering Imperial space. Though many were intercepted by the Space Marines and destroyed, some managed to escape the Astartes' attention. Some of these foul vessels of contagion found their way into the Belis Corona Sector, spreading their disease and pestilence amongst the masses throughout the sector. Along with the adjacent Agripinaa Sector, they were some of the first to bear witness to the rise of hordes of infectious, undead zombies that threatened billions of people on many of the Imperial worlds within the sector. This plague was later named the Curse of Unbelief.While the defence of the Cadian Gate from the Forces of Chaos continued to go badly upon the surface of many worlds in the Cadian System, in particular Saint Josmane's Hope and Solar Mariatus, the war in space was fought more on the Imperium's terms. The Cadian System had been the focus of Abaddon's primary fleet actions, and the Imperium's fortunes there changed from day to day. The situation was highly fluid and the Chaotic naval forces found themselves stretched to exploit the victories they had won.The inevitable sense of doom pervaded the worlds of the Belis Corona System, despite the Commissars' and military commanders' best attempts at maintaining the peoples' sagging morale. Laurentix was seized by riots in virtually all of its scattered mining settlements, and soon contact was lost with the world. Chaos Cults crying out to the End Times broke out on the Pleasure World of Belisimar, and it was all it could do for the Adeptus Arbites simply to maintain control. Despite these portents of doom, Belis Corona was not without its defences. It is home to vast orbital dockyards, decommissioned warship reserve fields and repair facilities that dwarf even those of Armageddon's St. Jowen's Dock in importance to the security of the Imperium. Due to its proximity to the Eye of Terror and its vital role in maintaining the fleets that guard the Cadian Gate, the system is guarded by a vast, integrated network of remote monitoring stations that orbit its sun just outside the orbit of blasted Malusoir.Under nearly constant solar bombardment, Malusoir circles its star in the shadow of the nearby Crown Belt, a dense cluster of asteroids noted for their high percentage of heavy, radioactive metals. Interference from the Belt created such a significant gap in the sensor network that the specialised monitoring station Adelphia was put in place to cover it. Holding a solar co-orbital position near Malusoir, it keeps a lonely vigil over the only sensor gap in the Belis Corona System, and the Mechanicus Adepts that maintain the station are the subject of routine visits by replenishment transports, system ships and the occasional Cruiser or Escort squadron on their way in or out of the system.As a Warp shadow fell over Subiaco Diablo System, indicating the imminent arrival of a vast Chaotic war host, terrified pleas for reinforcements were sent via garbled astropathic transmission to the fleet command at Belis Corona. More than forty vessels were mobilised and sent with great haste, leaving Belis Corona with only a reserve force of warships that was deemed sufficient to hold the well-defended system under the command of Admiral Guerrero Benedorn, an experienced and well-respected commander and veteran of the Curettes Pacification. When contact was lost with the scattered mining settlements on Laurentix, Admiral Benadorn directed an investigation be conducted with haste, and a party descending aboard the ore transporter Geniis Five reported that many of the settlements were abandoned without a trace of any of the personnel. Later, a survey team discovered grisly evidence of a coven of Chaos Cultists on Laurentix when investigating the disappearance of the entire population of Plainer, the largest mining settlement on the world. An urgent petition was sent by Astropaths for a Space Marine company to cleanse the world as critical preparations were undertaken to fortify the defence network of the system. |
Belis Corona Sector - The Imperium Gathers its Strength: A fleet the size of which has not been seen since the end of the Gothic War eight standard centuries earlier had been dispatched from Cypra Mundi, and arrived at Belis Corona in preparation for a massive Imperial counter-offensive into the Cadian Gate. The arrival of this vast armada allowed those Imperial vessels that had been fighting continuously since the beginning of the invasion a brief respite. Severely depleted ship's companies were bolstered through indiscriminate press-ganging, and hasty repairs and refits were undertaken on those vessels most in need of them. Many warships at Belis Corona were interred as part of the reserve fleet or were undergoing extensive repairs and refitting, including the Retribution-class Battleship Interdictor and the Victory-class Battleship Warspite, and only a small handful of vessels could be mobilised and put underway quickly. Though it was certain that no fleet would attempt to break itself against the vast orbital defence network and densely seeded minefields of Belis Corona (itself capped by the Ramilies-class Starfort Shield of the Emperor), the Imperium could ill-afford the enemy to take the outer planets, sunder the sensor network and assemble a blockade akin to the one that nearly starved out heavily-defended Port Maw during the Gothic War.The Imperial reinforcements were split into battlegroups, each tasked with bolstering the defences in a specific sector of the Segmentum Obscurus. The regions around the Eye of Terror encompass many millions of cubic light years, and only by the concentrated application of resources in those areas in most desperate need could the Imperial Navy hope to make inroads and slow, stall, and eventually repel the Chaos warfleets plaguing the region. A small number of Imperial Navy starships won a decisive victory when they managed to hold back a larger Chaos Fleet at the Ilthirium Belt, buying time for Battlefleet Agripinaa to arrive and allow the remaining ships to retreat. This course of action however, left the Agripinaa Sector open to invasion and soon the worlds of this sector and the Belis Corona Sub-sector was transformed into nightmarish realms of plague and pestilence. |
Belis Corona Sector - Engaging the Arch-Enemy: Admiral Guerroro Benadorn tasked Captain Johan Abearsen of the Lourdes Divina to lead Flotilla Malleus in a reconnaissance-in-force of the sensor grid. Having recently returned from action in the Elaysion Sector, the Dictator-class Cruiser Lourdes Divina had only recently replenished the losses of its Attack Craft wing, and Captain Abearsen tasked his Master of Ordnance to keep his flight crews drilled on an exhaustive schedule as Belis Corona receded behind them, escorted by the newly-refitted Sword-class Frigates of the 128th Escort Squadron, "Ghost Wing." Understrength with half of their complement still under repair, they nonetheless resolutely took screening positions as the flotilla was met by the Dauntless and Endeavour-class Light Cruisers Macedon and Just Cause. The Macedon was a highly decorated vessel with a long history of valiant service, but the Just Cause was only recently re-commissioned after nearly a millennium of internment, and the flotilla had a lot of work ahead of it before it could effectively operate as a cohesive group. As Admiral Benedron aboard the venerable Mars-class Battlecruiser Imperious took the rest of his fleet (codified Flotilla Incudis) to secure and fortify remote Bairsten Prime's duralium mining facilities on the other side of the system, Captain Abearsen led his flotilla to the one place the vast sensor network in the system was weakest, the Crown Belt and the vital orbital dock of Adelphia. |
Belis Corona Sector - Battle of Crown Belt: While Admiral Benadorn's flotilla set a course at best speed toward Bairsten Prime in its far orbit opposite the sun, Flotilla Malleus quickly reached the Crown Belt and approached the Adelphia only to find a sizable Chaos raiding force as already racing inward. Convinced this was a feint, Benedorn instructed the flotilla to hold course, for while it was likely the enemy would seek to find or create a clandestine route into the inner system, they would be no match for the heavy defenses of the inner worlds, whereas Bairsten Prime orbited distantly from its sun, and even its closest approach was millions of kilometres outside the sensor network. Its duralium mines and processing facilities were not only critical to the war effort (it was imperative that their resources not fall into enemy hands) and its distance meant that any action against it would most certainly result in its loss before reinforcements could arrive unless a sizeable forces was ready in its place. He placed his faith in the Emperor, the easily defended position Adelphia held near the perilous Crown Belt and the dense minefields that surrounded the voidstation, as well the tactical skill of Flotilla Maelleus' commander.Admiral Benadorn instructed his astropaths to keep him personally appraised on the Crown Belt battle as it unfolded. Travelling at maximum speed, his fleet made excellent time and was only a few hours from Bairsten Prime, but the wide disparity in performance between the ships in his flotilla meant they were stretched out over hundreds of thousands of kilometres, and some of the ships in his flotilla had fallen almost an hour behind. To make matters worse, it appeared his hunch was correct, and a sizeable invasion fleet was settling itself upon the mining world. Though his fleet as larger, it was desperately out of position and only his flagship and a small covering force would be in position to repel the invaders until his reinforcements could arrive.It would be another forty-five minutes until the enemy fleet approached close enough to taste the metal and plasma of his guns. The Master of Ordnance reported Attack Craft prepped and ready to launch, and his Master of Gunnery already reported that the Nova Cannon was laid in and awaiting his order to fire. The news from his astropaths was not good. As Flotilla Malleus rushed forward between the Crown Belt and one of the minefields, to position itself to defend Adelphia, a squadron of Infidel-class Raiders had rushed forward to launch salvoes of torpedoes straight into the perilous asteroid field. Sure enough, one of the asteroids went critical in a blinding torrent of heat and light that set fires raging on all decks of the Just Cause and eliminated the entire "Ghost Wing" Escort squadron outright.With the remaining elements of Flotilla Malleus and the Adelphia engaged in the fight of their lives, Admiral Benadorn took a moment to sit back and gaze around his expansive stateroom just aft of the main bridge. Many heroes had sat in this room, in the same old chair that sill stood before him and rested their eyes on the very bulkheads he did now. It was in this room that Compel Bast put together his strategy and led the victorious defence of Orar during the Gothic War. Here took place the meeting between the ship captains that held off the Ork hordes during the Second War for Laurentia. And it would be here, from this ship, that he would uphold the tradition of his forebears and repel the Chaos scum from this system. |
Belis Corona Sector - Imperial Flotilla Maellus: Lourdes Divina (Dictator-class Cruiser)Macedon (Dauntless-class Light Cruiser)Just Cause (Endeavour-class Light Cruiser)128th Escort Squadron "Ghost Wing" (3 Sword-class Frigates)Orbital Dock Adelphia |
Belis Corona Sector - Chaos Reconnaissance Force: Chaos Eternus (Acheron-class Heavy Cruiser)Blood Scythes (Devastation-class Cruiser)Eternal Suffering (Devastation-class CruiserBlood Singers (Raider Pack - 3 Infidel-class Raiders and 1 Iconoclast-class Destroyer) |
Belis Corona Sector - Defending Bairsten Prime: As the fleets engaged, the Nova Cannon of Admiral Guerrero's flagship sang out its fierce war-song to score a telling hit against the Traitor Battleship Wage of Sin. The flagship of the Tributor Berephon, the hated vessel was no stranger to Segmentum Obscurus, and it bought him great satisfaction to visit a measure of the Emperor's mercy upon their hated foe. Calling up his lectern, the Admiral saw that Imperial reinforcements had arrived. The Emperor had smiled on them this day, and the fleet managed to arrive in force much earlier than expected, their numbers and position perfect for a devastating pincer movement that would trap the entire enemy fleet. No matter how it was looked upon, it could be nothing less than a decisive Imperial victory, and it would easily make up for the crushing defeat the Imperial Navy suffered at the Crown Belt. Despite the Navy's loss at the Belt, it managed to batter the enemy nearly into oblivion, with only the accursed Chaos Eternus remaining to deliver the Adelphia's killing blow. With this incursion fleet destroyed as well, the yards of Belis Corona would have the time to get enough warships into space to plug the sensor hole near Malusoir for good.As the fleets closed to join the battle, the Admiral pondered the significance of the Chaos Eternus' reappearance. Believed to be the only example of the Mechanicus project BF/67-A, rumours of the Acheron-class Heavy Cruiser's reappearance had come to light several times following its supposedly confirmed destruction by Warp-Drive implosion after a concerted series of attacks and boarding actions by the Space Wolves several centuries after the Gothic War. Should it prove to be true, either the ship was not destroyed and still plied the stellar main, or even more disturbingly, the Traitor host had gained the ability to build more of those accursed vessels, a possibility not entirely out of the scope of an enemy capable of building the titanic Planet Killer. Suddenly the hololithic display changed radically as the red-glowing runes of enemy vessels began to scatter. The Chaos fleet had suddenly disengaged without warning. Even as the Imperial Navy officers shouted directions back and forth and the astropathic choir sent out the Admiral's demands, he knew it would be for naught. At their current range, their greater speed and acceleration would pull their fleet away without a single loss long before they would be able to get in range, and amid the nearby asteroids and dust clouds, their slow transports would all but disappear.Amid the tumult, Guerrero's astropath informed the commander that Laurentix was under attack. Admiral Beneadorn was aghast at the dire news. The invasion of Bairsten Prime was a ruse, and it succeeded in pulling half of the system's Battlefleet millions of kilometres out of position while their real objective was overrun virtually unopposed. He sent an urgent astropathic message for all reinforcements still en route to Bairsten Prime to come about and head at best speed towards Laurentix, and he hastily directed his vessels assembled above the planet to break orbit and push back in-system. |
Belis Corona Sector - Imperial Flotilla Incudis: Imperious (Mars-class Battlecruiser, flagship)Cardinal Demos (Tyrant-class Cruiser)Agamemnon (Dauntless-class Light Cruiser) |
Belis Corona Sector - Reserve Component: Steadfast (Executor-class Grand Cruiser)Achilles (Dauntless-class Light Cruiser)Ajax (Dauntless-class Light Cruiser, squadroned with the Achilles)125th Escort Squadron, "Torchbearers" (4 Cobra-class Destroyers with retrofitted sensors, 2 Sword-class Frigates)122nd Escort Squadron, "Sons of Ogala" (3 Firestorm-class Frigates, 3 Sword-class Frigates)Interdictor (Retribution-class Battleship)Aegis (Relentless-class Cruiser)Excelsis Gloria (Dictator-class Cruiser) |
Belis Corona Sector - Chaos Invasion Fleet: Wage of Sin (Desolator-class Battleship)Insidious Horror (Retaliator-class Cruiser)Killfrenzy (Slaughter-class Cruiser)Dangerous Wind (Devastation-class Cruiser)Revolution (Murder-class Cruiser)Destructors (Raider Pack - 6 Infidel-class Raiders) |
Belis Corona Sector - Defence of Laurentix: Hanging in orbit amid the orbital defences and hastily sown minefields above Laurentix, Captain Cobrec Sorensen of the Victory-class Battleship Warspite gazed into his hololithic display with grim anticipation. With Flotilla Incudis on the other side of the system, it would take them more than a week to reinforce Laurentix, and that would likely be several days too late. With Adelphia gone, the sensor hole made it impossible to determine the strength and numbers of the approaching Chaos Fleet, but the coruscating tendrils of light and impossible colour stretching hundreds of thousands of kilometres past the warp point indicated that the Renegade war host was vast. Captain Sorensen resolved to hold this world without Admiral Benadorn and his flotilla. This suited him just fine. Being in command of a Battleship, the next step in his career path was the sunburst and Aquila of an Admiral, with the vaunted badge of commander in charge of his own flotilla of warships. He activated the ship-wide Vox-caster and delivered a stirring speech to his vessel's crew. Should Malleus acquit itself well, he had no doubt his future would be bright, and then that blundering, arrogant son of klepseed farmers Benadorn would see who really was best qualified to lead a battle group. His speech elicited a silent, respectful nod of approval from Commissar Darin Fentress, who like the Captain, fully appreciated the stakes involved here.The tempo of chatter on the bridge suddenly raised excitedly as the Officer of the Watch approached the command pulpit. As he informed his Captain of the encroaching enemy fleet, the hololithic screen on the dais suddenly lit up with a blur of angry, crimson runes indicating the enemy fleet's position. With little more than a nod of acknowledgement, he directed the fleet to close formation and ready for battle. Deep within the bowels of the ship, the archaic weapons of unimaginable power hummed to life, and the Master of Gunnery personally supervised the loading of the awesome Nova Cannon as gangs of men numbering in the dozens opened the thirty-metre wide breech to accept the massive, multi-ton shell being trundled into place by more lash-motivated gangs pulling on an enormous overhead gantry under the careful eye of gunnery chiefs and Mechanicus adepts.The runes began updating and targeting information, and Captain Sorensen ordered the Master of Gunnery to sight on the largest target, which resolved itself to be the Treacherous, the accursed Desecrator-class Battleship of Heinrich Bale, the infamous system-cracker and tactical genius responsible for the deaths of millions by starvation and dehydration with his ironclad, years-long blockade of the Port Maw system during the Gothic War. The Captain mused that he would achieve no such feat here, as he ordered his gunner to centre the Nova Cannon on the hated ship. With a mighty roar that shook the ship, the massive gravitic accelerators hurled the giant round torward the hated vessel as the fleet broke orbit to meet the foe.Rushing to the fore, the Genesis Chapter's Strike Cruisers Victorious and Unyielding under heavy gunship support engaged and grappled with the hated Devastation-class Cruiser Deathbane, crippling it with a fierce series of boarding actions before breaking off. To the starboard side arrived the Endeavour-class Light Cruiser Henderson and the "Torchbearers" escort squadron, the vanguard of Admiral Benadorn's fleet. Though the rest of his fleet was too far behind to affect the outcome of this battle, the supposed "second enemy fleet" alluded to by intelligence sources and astropathic tarot readers was nowhere to be found. In short order the mysteriously re-appearing Chaos Eternus was once again destroyed in a titanic Warp-Drive implosion that tore the fabric of nearby space, and the Treacherous was reportedly venting air into space across several decks. Amazingly, the "Ghost Wing," which until then had performed unremarkably in the series of battles for the system, suddenly pushed through a debris field near the planet unscathed and locked onto a transport convoy attempting to flank around the primary gun line heavily engaging the invasion force. In a mighty fusillade, four transports were destroyed outright, single-handedly turning the tide of battle. Soon afterward, the Chaos fleet turned to disengage, with the Warpsite's ravening lances serving to cripple the Teacherous before it could make good its escape. By the time the reinforcing Chaos fleet arrived on long-range sensors, the invasion fleet was in tatters, with only one Strike Cruiser and the "Torchbearers" Escort squadron taking crippling losses. Sorensen was unsurprised to see the reinforcing fleet turn away, refusing to engage. |
Belis Corona Sector - Chaos Invasion Fleet: Treacherous (Desecrator-class Battleship)Raining Death (Carnage-class Cruiser)Deathbane (Devastation-class Cruiser)Chaos Eternus (Acheron-class Heavy Cruiser)Injustice (Hades-class Heavy Cruiser)Skull Breakers (Raider Pack - 4 Idolator-class Raiders and 2 Iconoclast-class Destroyers) |
Belis Corona Sector - Chaos Reserve Components: Wage of Sin (Desolator-class Battleship)Insidious Horror (Retaliator-class Cruiser)Killfrenzy (Slaughter-class Cruiser)Dangerous Wind (Devastation-class Cruiser)Revolution (Murder-class Cruiser)"Destructors" (6 Infidel-class Raiders)Heathen Promise (Slaughter-class Cruiser, additional shield generator, squadroned with Killfrenzy) |
Belis Corona Sector - Imperial Flotilla Malleus: Warpsite (Victory-class Battleship)Allegiance (Armageddon-class Battlecruiser)Unyielding (Space Marine Strike Cruiser, Genesis Chapter)Victorious (Space Marine Strike Cruiser, Genesis Chapter) |
Belis Corona Sector - Imperial Reserve Component: 125th Escort Squadron, "Torchbearers" (4 Cobra-class Destroyers retrofitted sensors, 2 Sword-class Frigates)Henderson (Endeavour-class Light Cruiser) |
Belis Corona Sector - Planetary Defences: Monitor Squadron Excise (2 Defence Monitors, Orbital Weapons Battery Platform, 2 Minefields) |
Belis Corona Sector - Battle of Belis Corona: Admiral Benadron was ordered by the belis Corona Sector Command to retire to the Shield of the Emperor and command the defence of Belis Corona from a Ramilies-class Starfort's vantage point. As the Admiral's pinnace approached the Starfort, he allowed the impressive display of massed Imperial might to calm his anxious thoughts. The relentless attacks by the foul Traitors had been swiftly leap-frogging from world to world, and though their attempts at invasion were so far unsuccessful, they had succeeded in wreaking havoc upon the support infrastructure of the entire system. Though the main force of Flotilla Incudis and Malleus was assembled here, at least as many warships were scattered throughout the system plugging the ever-increasing number of holes in the sensor net or scrying for some sign of the enemy's next objective. After an unrelenting tempo of operations, the foul Chaos minions had simply stopped, and for more than two weeks there was not a single reported sighting of Chaos movement or activity throughout the system. While it was a welcome respite that allowed the ships to conduct hasty repairs and the fleets to assemble into coordinated defensive formations, it was unlike Chaos simply to give up the initiative, though admittedly to attempt to understand the motives of the dark powers was to invite madness.The Admiral arrived to the bridge of the Starfort to a flurry of commotion, with the alarm klaxons of battle stations wailing seconds later. Captain Altus Cornelian, the harried commander of the battlefortress approached him and informed the Admiral they had located the enemy fleet. Without wasting time with idle pleasantries and standard protocols of assuming command, the Admiral approached the command pulpit. The fleet was bearing down on them at full speed and would be in range soon. A massive host it was, twelve capital ships, two of them Battleships, all escorting an object so vast it could only be one thing -- a Space Hulk. |
Belis Corona Sector - Planetary Defences: Shield Of The Emperor (Ramilies-class Starfort)Monitor Squadron Anvil (3 Defence Monitors, 2 Orbital Weapons Battery Platforms, 1 Orbital Lance Platform and 2 Minefields) |
Belis Corona Sector - Imperial Battlefleet Incudis: Warpsite (Victory-class Battleship)128th Escort Squadron, "Ghost Wing"Allegiance (Armageddon-class Battlecruiser)Henderson (Endeavour-class Light Cruiser)Unyielding (Space Marine Strike Cruiser, Genesis Chapter)Victorious (Space Marine Strike Cruiser, Genesis Chapter)125th Escort Squadron, "Torchbearers" (4 Cobra-class Destroyers retrofitted sensors, 2 Sword-class Frigates)Imperious (Mars-class Battlecruiser)Cardinal Demos (Tyrant-class Cruiser)Agamemnon (Dauntless-class Light Cruiser)Excelsis Gloria (Dictator-class Cruiser)Aegis (Relentless-class Cruiser)Steadfast (Executor-class Grand Cruiser)Achilles (Dauntless-class Light Cruiser)Ajax (Dauntless-class Light Cruiser)122nd Escort Squadron, "Sons of Ogala" (3 Firestorm-class Frigates, 3 Sword-class Frigates)Interdictor (Retribution-class Battleship) |
Belis Corona Sector - Chaos Invasion Fleet: Desolation's Stronghold (Space Hulk)Treacherous (Desecrator-class Battleship)Raining Death (Carnage-class Cruiser)Deathbane (Devastation-class Cruiser)Desecrator (Devastation-class Cruiser squadroned with Deathbane)Injustice (Hades-class Heavy Cruiser)"Skull Breakers" (4 Idolator-class Raiders, 2 Iconoclast-class Destroyer)Wage of Sin (Desolator-class Battleship)Insidious Horror (Retaliator-class Cruiser)Killfrenzy (Slaughter-class Cruiser)Heathen Promise (Slaughter-class Cruiser, additional shield generator, squadroned with Killfrenzy)Dangerous Wind (Devastation-class Cruiser)Revolution (Murder-class Cruiser)"Destructors" (Raider Pack - 6 Infidel-class Raiders)"Blood Singers" (Raider Pack - 3 Infidel-class Raiders, 3 Iconoclast-class Destroyers)Canticle of Pain (Repulsive-class Grand Cruiser) |
Belis Corona Sector - Invasion Transports: Bird of Prey (Heavy Transport)Sirius (Heavy Transport, squadroned with Bird of Prey)"Lost Souls" (Transport Squadron - 3 transports, 2 armed freighters)"Dark Light" (Transport Squadron - 2 fast clippers) |
Belis Corona Sector - Defending the Cadian Gate: Upon arriving at the Cadian Gate, the Doom Eagles Space Marine Chapter dispatched forces to a number of warzones, notably areas that had already suffered terribly at the hands of the Forces of Chaos. The largest of these detachments, under the command of Captain Luctus of the 3rd Company, was involved in operations within the Belis Corona Sub-sector, where the notoriously pious Chapter battled those who had fallen to the Curse of Unbelief. Only those without the strength of faith to resist were afflicted by the Zombie Plague, and it has been noted that not a single Doom Eagles Battle-Brother was affected by its blight. The Doom Eagles proved effective in combating the Plague Zombies infesting many worlds of the sub-sector, though, typically for this aloof Chapter, they had refused all offers of support in consolidating these successes.The Cadian Sector High Command was also briefed by the Ordo Xenos on a number of other factions which assailed Mankind as the Forces of Chaos battered at the doors of the Cadian Gate. The Inquisition warned the Cadian High Command to be alert for seemingly incongruous reports of alien infiltrations in the region near the Subiaco Diablo System, particularly for attacks coming up from below the galactic plane. They would not expound further on what they meant by this, but insisted that the Cadian High Command should inform the Inquisition immediately should any such attacks by unknown xenos materialise. Despite being beset on all sides, the Imperial forces and their commanders remained imbued with a sense of righteous indignation. If every damned creature in the galaxy was now ranged against them, then they were determined to take them all into oblivion with the last cry of the human race.The Imperial forces largely held at Belis Corona, the location of the greatest orbital shipyard of the Imperium, which suffered the worst excesses of a Tyranid splinter Hive Fleet, and the horrific plagues bestowed upon its hive cities by the Death Guard Traitor Legion. At the height of the invasion, something truly unexpected occurred. Defenders in the outlying star systems reported contact with Tyranid organisms -- at first individual vanguard-organisms such as Lictors, but soon entire broods of Genestealers and Hormagaunts. A splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Leviathan, a Tyranid fleet known to be attacking up through the galactic plane, was taking advantage of the mass destruction initialed by the Chaotic invasion to gain a foothold in strategically vital Imperial space. Faced with both the pestulant forces of the Death Guard, and the voracious hordes of Tyranids who were, unlike the human defenders, immune to the Plague God's blessings, the forces of the Imperium were hard-pressed to defend the vital worlds of the Belis Corona Sector. It was the intervention of the forces of the Eldar of the Ulthwé Craftworld and then the orbital bombardment of Laurentix that allowed the forces of the Imperium to fight back, despite the disastrous ambush of forward elements of Battlefleet Solar at the Bairsten Prime Warp jump point. Subiaco Diablo saw the Convent of the Order of the Ermine Mantle hold out against overwhelming odds, though at terrible cost, before being relieved by a host of Adepta Sororitas units drawn from across the region, thanks to the leadership of the renowned Canoness Astra. |
Belis Corona Sector - Belis Corona Sub-Sector: Belis Corona - Dead World. Designation: IN45.554, Orbital Distance: 3.94AU, 0.76G, Temperature: 2C, Tithe Grade: Adeptus Non, Aestimare: K500. A vast conglomeration of orbital dockyards, this vital Imperial Navy facility orbits the Dead World of Belis Corona. Entire battlefleets can be serviced there and the munitions stockpiles are stored in armoured bunkers kilometres below the planet's barren surface.Subiaco Diablo - Hive World. Subiaco Diablo was the first planet in the Belis Corona sector to come under the heel ot the forces of Disorder, as the Plague Marines of the Death Guard Traitor Legion unleashed their foulest contagions upon its populace. Soon, the shattered streets were home lo the unquiet dead, the Plague Zombies of Nurgle, reanimated victims of the Plague God's choicest gifts. Throughout the opening phase ot trie invasion, only the convent of the Order of the Ermine Mantle held out, though at terrible cost, against the shuffling hordes of undead.Phonosar - Agri-World. |
Belisarian Furnace - Belisarian Furnace: The Belisarian Furnace, also called the Revitaliser, is one of the twenty-two gene-seed implant organs of the Adeptus Astartes, and one of the three unique only to the Primaris Space Marines.This is a dormant organ that connects to both Astartes hearts. In times of extreme stress, or should the warrior's body undergo violent, damaging trauma, it expels great blurts of self-synthesized chemicals -- a hyper-cocktail that simulates the biological action of combat stimms while also aiding in the rapid regrowth of tissue, bone and muscle. The gland then falls dormant again, and takes some time to metabolically build itself up once more for the next usage. |
Belisarius Cawl - Belisarius Cawl: Belisarius Cawl is a ten-thousand-standard-years-old archmagos dominus of the Adeptus Mechanicus, one of the ruling lords of the Priesthood of Mars. He played a pivotal role in the events of the 13th Black Crusade, the Celestinian Crusade and the Terran Crusade, and shared responsibility with the Ynnari for the resurrection of Primarch Roboute Guilliman as the lord commander of the Imperium and Imperial Regent.Cawl was also responsible for the creation of the Primaris Space Marines, a variety of new Imperial weapons technologies and vehicles, and his help proved invaluable to the triumphant resolution of the first phase of the Indomitus Crusade to stabilise the Imperium Sanctus in the early Era Indomitus. He is currently at work seeking to discover a way to use the Necrons' blackstone Cadian Pylon technology to close the Great Rift once and for all.Skittering into battle on a multitude of metal legs, Belisarius Cawl is a nightmarish amalgam of flesh and machine swathed in robes of Martian red. Millennia of tinkering and obsessive self-improvement have left Cawl as a grotesque, and his lumpen form towers to several times the height of a grown man.The archmagos dominus can unleash tank-busting firepower upon his foes, even as their panicked return-fire rebounds from his thrumming defensive force field. His many mechanical limbs terminate in glowing energy weapons, piston-claws and vicious combat armaments capable of peeling open a tank like a ration tin.Clustered eyelenses glow beneath his heavy cowl, their gaze insectile and utterly remorseless as it cooly dissects his victims' every weakness. A master of the manifold binharic cants of the Lingua-technis, Cawl can reinvigorate a Machine Spirit or stop its reactor heart with but a single phrase. No secret is safe from his acquisitive grasp, and those who seek to keep Cawl from his prize are soon nothing but glowing ashes upon the wind.Quick Answers What role did Belisarius Cawl play in the 13th Black Crusade? During the 13th Black Crusade, Belisarius Cawl, an archmagos dominus, led the Mechanicus fleet to Eriad VI, guided by Sylandri Veilwalker. He retrieved a Necron artefact and then moved to Cadia, under assault by Chaos forces. Cawl's timely arrival provided desperately needed reinforcements for the embattled Imperial forces. While on Cadia, Cawl began his investigation of the local xenos pylons with the knowledge recovered from Eriad VI. During his investigation, the Necron Overlord Trazyn the Infinite, who had decided to intervene to aid Humanity against their mutual enemy in the Warp, made his presence known. With Trazyn's knowledge, Cawl activated the pylons. The Necron technology cut off Cadia from the Warp, banishing the Daemons of Chaos. Unfortunately, Abaddon sent the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity hurling into the surface of Cadia. The massive kinetic strike destroyed the world's defences, ensuring its envelopment by the now rapidly-expanding Eye of Terror. Provided by: Community How was Belisarius Cawl involved in the resurrection of Primarch Roboute Guilliman? Primarch Roboute Guilliman entrusted Belisarius Cawl with the development of a resurrection method and the creation of the Primaris Space Marines. After Guilliman's fall in the Battle of Thessala in the early 31st Millennium, Cawl, in collaboration with the Ynnari, resurrected him over ten thousand years later through the use of the Armour of Fate. This suit of unique Artificer Armour's inner workings had been enhanced with advanced life-sustaining technologies and protected the resurrected primarch from even the most dolorous of blows. Cawl's technology healed Guilliman's fatal wound while Yvraine, an Aeldari priestess of Ynnead, the god of the dead, and leader of the religious cult known as the Ynnari, restored his fading life force with the aid of her still-gestating god. Provided by: Community What is the significance of the title 'archmagos dominus' in the Adeptus Mechanicus? In the Adeptus Mechanicus, "Archmagos Dominus" denotes a senior Tech-priest tasked with commanding the Mechanicus' military forces and advancing the Imperium's military technology. They are custodians of significant military secrets from the Age of Technology, including the ancient combat robot technology of the Battle-automata. This title signifies high seniority and experience as is true for all archmagi within the Priesthood of Mars. Provided by: Community Who are the Primaris Space Marines and how did Belisarius Cawl contribute to their creation? Belisarius Cawl, the Archmagos Dominus, created the Primaris Space Marines, a new legion of improved Adeptus Astartes. This was part of a plan that spanned over 10,000 standard years, and had been initiated by Roboute Guilliman following the Horus Heresy during the Time of Rebirth using recruits who had been kept in stasis on Mars since the time of the Great Scouring. Cawl perfected the Emperor's original genetic template for the Space Marines, using genomes from the original primarchs to enhance the Emperor's original work. However, he was directed to create Primaris Marines solely from the genetic material of the nine Loyalist Space Marine Legions. Provided by: Community What is the 'Cawl Inferior' in relation to Belisarius Cawl? The 'Cawl Inferior' is a digital construct devised by Belisarius Cawl, designed to undertake various tasks to free up his focus for more critical matters. It's a limited reflection of Cawl's cybernetically augmented Human mind, composed of sanctioned organic servitor brains. It performs multiple functions, including communication across astrotelepathic distances. However, it raises concerns among those aware of its existence of it being a form of prohibited artificial general intelligence -- the dreaded "Silica Animus." Provided by: Community{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","name":"Belisarius Cawl","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What role did Belisarius Cawl play in the 13th Black Crusade?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"During the 13th Black Crusade, Belisarius Cawl, an archmagos dominus, led the Mechanicus fleet to Eriad VI, guided by Sylandri Veilwalker. He retrieved a Necron artefact and then moved to Cadia, under assault by Chaos forces. Cawl's timely arrival provided desperately needed reinforcements for the embattled Imperial forces. While on Cadia, Cawl began his investigation of the local xenos pylons with the knowledge recovered from Eriad VI. During his investigation, the Necron Overlord Trazyn the Infinite, who had decided to intervene to aid Humanity against their mutual enemy in the Warp, made his presence known. With Trazyn's knowledge, Cawl activated the pylons. The Necron technology cut off Cadia from the Warp, banishing the Daemons of Chaos. Unfortunately, Abaddon sent the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity hurling into the surface of Cadia. 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Cawl's technology healed Guilliman's fatal wound while Yvraine, an Aeldari priestess of Ynnead, the god of the dead, and leader of the religious cult known as the Ynnari, restored his fading life force with the aid of her still-gestating god."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the significance of the title 'archmagos dominus' in the Adeptus Mechanicus?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"In the Adeptus Mechanicus, \"Archmagos Dominus\" denotes a senior Tech-priest tasked with commanding the Mechanicus' military forces and advancing the Imperium's military technology. They are custodians of significant military secrets from the Age of Technology, including the ancient combat robot technology of the Battle-automata. 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However, he was directed to create Primaris Marines solely from the genetic material of the nine Loyalist Space Marine Legions."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the 'Cawl Inferior' in relation to Belisarius Cawl?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The 'Cawl Inferior' is a digital construct devised by Belisarius Cawl, designed to undertake various tasks to free up his focus for more critical matters. It's a limited reflection of Cawl's cybernetically augmented Human mind, composed of sanctioned organic servitor brains. It performs multiple functions, including communication across astrotelepathic distances. However, it raises concerns among those aware of its existence of it being a form of prohibited artificial general intelligence -- the dreaded \"Silica Animus.\""}}]} |
Belisarius Cawl - Origins: Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl has been alive since the time of the Horus Heresy, though how he managed to maintain his life over more than ten thousand Terran years is unknown. Even the most advanced Rejuvenat and augmetic systems cannot normally maintain an organic Human mind for such a long period.During that span of ages the Tech-priest has served Mars and the Machine God as a Forge Lord and a Lexico Arcanus, but it is in his role as Magos Biologis that Cawl's greatest mastery lies. It is rightfully said that the aged archmagos dominus has forgotten more knowledge, particularly about genetics, than all but the most studious could ever hope to learn.Cawl was born on Mars, created in the birthing facilities of Xanthe Terra controlled by Magos Biologis Hammareth at some point during the early 31st Millennium. Like most Martian children he was vat-born and at the time of his birth already was physically and mentally a young adolescent. However, unlike most Martian children, he was able to speak normally at the time of his birth, a result of absorbing more fully the data uploaded into all Mechanicum fetuses while he was gestating.Cawl's first confirmed appearance in Imperial history came during the Horus Heresy, where he was a Tech-acolyte on the Mechanicum world of Trisolian-A4 in the Trisolian System. He was trained under the Magos Domina Hester Aspertia Sigma-Sigma, herself a master of the art of "soul-merging," essentially the digital duplication of another being's mind and psyche and the ability to merge it with another using cybernetic implants. His greatest friend and companion at this time was his fellow Tech-priest Friedisch Adum Ship Qvo.Cawl, the last remaining disciple of this technology, maintained that the Emperor was the Omnissiah, which was the theological position of the orthodox Mechanicum, but disagreed with a great deal of the rest of Mechanicum dogma as he felt the true Quest for Knowledge was to pursue technological innovation rather than ritualistically and mindlessly maintain the Imperium's existing technology base.Cawl believed in the superiority of the Human form as the Emperor had taught and refused many of the more visible cybernetic modifications commonly utilised by other Tech-priests. However, at the same time, the young Cawl secretly performed illegal brain enhancement surgeries on himself in order to increase his own intelligence.When the Trisolian System was assaulted by Traitor forces led by Horus himself Cawl was betrayed when his mistress Hester Aspertia Sigma-Sigma defected to the service of the Warmaster. Cawl was disgusted at the sight of the Chaos-corrupted Horus, but feigned submission to the servants of the Ruinous Powers to survive.Later during the battle to take control of Trisolian-A4, Cawl, alongside Friedisch Adum Ship Qvo, were able to kill Aspertia Sigma-Sigma for her betrayal and escape the Trisolian System -- but not before Cawl first merged his own mind with Aspertia Sigma-Sigma's own intelligence core and gained her mastery of soul-merging and cloning. |
Belisarius Cawl - Sedayne Soul-Merge: Cawl and Friedisch successfully fled the Trisolian System and sought refuge on Terra, where Cawl had been recalled under a pretext by Ezekiel Sedayne, the brilliant geneticist and the second director of the Biotechnical Division whose main task was creating and improving the genetic lines of the Legiones Astartes.In truth, Sedayne had grown so old that even rejuvenat treatments were no longer enough to keep him alive. Desperate to achieve immortality so that he could continue his work for the Emperor, Sedayne simply wanted Cawl's knowledge of cloning and soul-merging in the belief that if his psyche was added to Cawl's mind, his personality would reemerge as the dominant one. To achieve his end, Sedayne had his servant Altrix Herminia shoot Friedisch. The geneticist promised to restore Cawl's companion to life only if the Tech-priest agreed to use his soul-merging technology to combine their psyches together within Cawl's own body so that Sedayne could live forever.However, after the merger was completed, Sedayne's personality within their merged gestalt consciousness was overwhelmed by Cawl's own. Upon awakening following the procedure, Cawl relived an old memory of Sedayne when he had first met the Emperor of Mankind early in the Unification Wars. When the Emperor first saw Sedayne, He addressed the scientist as Belisarius Cawl rather than by his own name, for with His potent psychic prescience, the Emperor had foreseen Sedayne's ultimate fate hundreds of standard years in the future.The Emperor explained to the future Cawl in the memory that it would be his responsibility to continue His work, and must continue to do so even on the day that Cawl came to believe that he had betrayed all that the Emperor stood for. The very idea of betraying the Emperor horrified the young Cawl.After the end of the Horus Heresy, Cawl was charged by Roboute Guilliman, then the first lord commander of the Imperium and the new Imperial Regent, to oversee two responsibilities should the primarch fall, one of which was the construction of the life-sustaining suit of Artificer Armour known as the Armour of Fate. The other was the preservation of the Emperor's Sword, the blade given to Guilliman by the Master of Mankind Himself and which contained a fragment of His divine power.Cawl's knowledge of genetics gained from his soul-merger with Sedayne, along with the potent genetic material contained within the device known as the Sangprimus Portum, allowed Cawl to successfully complete the creation of the Primaris Space Marines and implement the Ultima Founding in ca. 999.M41, using candidates kept in stasis deep beneath Mars from the time of the Heresy until the 41st Millennium. This was the culmination of ten millennia of work intended to perfect the Emperor's creation.But over the course of his ten thousand Terran years of work, Cawl changed dramatically. Once a Tech-priest who had disdained the extensive cybernetic augmentation used by other Tech-adepts, Cawl slowly transformed his body until he was far more machine than man.He began to combine more psyches within his own cybernetic intelligence core using the soul-merging technology. Over the centuries, the archmagos was slowly transformed into a gestalt being who is now best described as a mesh of souls rather than a combination of minds. As the millennia passed, Cawl also began to lose much of his memory as he was forced to dump data from his intelligence core's limited storage capacity approximately every 500 standard years. |
Belisarius Cawl - Prime Conduit of the Omnissiah: Despite his own memories being stolen -- twice has Cawl also suffered mindwiping as well as his periodic memory dumps -- he remains a tech-savant, a genius at the forefront of whatever field to which he turns his mind. Even amongst the ranks of the Adeptus Mechanicus -- where artificial devices increase brain capacity and extend life beyond measure -- such an accumulation of knowledge in multiple disciplines is exceedingly rare. The Priesthood of Mars titles such beings as Prime Conduits of the Omnissiah, or as Dominatus Dominus -- "Master of Masters" -- and of those few that still survive, Cawl is by far the most active.Cawl dedicates himself to a multitude of projects, his mind leaping from the construction of Mars' largest Macromag-cannon, to perfecting his stasis field work, or to the endless experiments he conducts within his city-sized laboratories housed in Mars' extensive underground complexes.The majority of these obsessive undertakings are done in secret. Cawl has so many projects running simultaneously that he has added multiple, independent consciousnesses to track them and employed furtive measures to keep them hidden from his many rivals. Deep in sealed vaults, countless experiments await Cawl's multi-faceted servo-eyes.Since reloading a portion of his stored memories, the ancient Tech-priest has become forgetful, prone to spending recuperative solar decades within his own stasis crypts. Yet such prolonged periods offline inspire Cawl to once more take to the field in his hunt for knowledge.It is during such times that Cawl dons the mantle of archmagos dominus, gathering about him Skitarii Legions and maniples of the Legio Cybernetica. Although Mars is his homeworld, other Forge Worlds often place troops beneath Cawl's command, asking only that he shares any knowledge accumulated.On the battlefield Cawl is a force to be reckoned with, and he fearlessly scuttles into the thick of the fighting. Most enemy weapons fire is thwarted by Cawl's force field, however, even when parts of his mechanised body are blasted off, cables snake out to effect immediate repairs or swarm any foes that come close.The hunched figure is a whir of activity as Cogitators adjust firing angles and broadcast orders to his troops. Amidst the maelstrom of combat, the Tech-priest himself remains calm, his mind assessing threats, predicting enemy attacks, and calculating victory probabilities. |
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