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Abaddon - Dark Vision: Abaddon explained to his fellow Legionaries that it was he who had summoned them there. He had sent Sargon to Falkus in order to lure them to the Vegeful Spirit. Though they were not the only souls he had called to him, they had the honour of being the first. Abaddon sought warriors who wished to be more than the legacies of their diminished Legions. He knew that these warriors who had sought him out no longer considered themselves brothers of their respective Legions. Their former Legions' names no longer rang proud in their heats and souls. They were no longer the sons of their fathers, respecting them and embodying their failures. Abaddon's prophet Sargon had looked into the skeins of fate and saw that there was more to all of them than the call of worthless bloodlines. But that was not the only reason he had summoned them. Abaddon knew that a reborn Horus could not be allowed to walk once more. Not because of destiny, or fate, or the whims of the Pantheon of Chaos. The First Primarch, mockingly called the Sacrificed King by the Neverborn (Daemons), had died in shame and failure. The former First Captain's gift to his Legion when he abandoned them was to let them die with dignity. The Emperor's Children and their allies now threatened that dignified end. Abaddon was done with cold allegiances and temporary alliances. If he was to return to the battles raging throughout the Eye of Terror, he sought something more real, something pure. A war that meant something.Sharing his vision with the assembled Legionaries, Abaddon knew that they all could become so much more than their fathers' sons. Both he, and those Legionaries before him, all craved true, honest brotherhood. They all missed it -- a Space Marine Legion's unity and its bonds of loyalty. Its explicit purpose. Its focused pursuit of victory. Abaddon missed what a Legion could do, and the fact it was empowered to do it. All of the Nine Traitor Legions, they were Legions in name, colour and the dregs of culture, but they were a horde, not an army, linked by fading loyalties and fighting to survive. Once they were bound by brotherhood and fought only to win. Their kind no longer waged war, they raided and pillaged. They no longer marched in regiments and battalions, but scattered in packs and warbands. Abaddon had no wish to change how things were -- he wished to embrace it. He knew that many amongst the Nine Traitor Legions cried out to be part of a true Legion once more. Abaddon's pilgrimage with Sargon had been more than learning how the tides of the Eye of Terror ebbed and flowed. It was about seeking those who would stand with him.The former High Chieftain of the Justaerin saw the true strength and purity in what they had become. There was a savage honesty in the Nine Traitor Legions' warbands now. They followed warlords of their choosing instead of those assigned to them. They created traditions rooted in the cultures of their parent Legion, or completely defied their origins according to their own whims. Abaddon shared his vision for taking what the Nine Legion now had and refining it -- perfecting it. He meant to form a new Legion. A new war. The real war, the Long War. Not a petty rebellion swallowed by Horus' pride and his hunger for the Terran Throne. A war for the future of Mankind. Horus would have sold out Humanity to the Pantheon of Chaos for the chance to sit on the Golden Throne for a single heartbeat. But the Nine Traitor Legions could now allow themselves to be used the way Horus had been. The Chaos Gods existed and they could not pretend otherwise, nor could they allow a sacred duty to devolve into such weakness, as Horus did.Revelation was a long process. Abaddon was now wiser than he had been during his father's rebellion. He had seen a great deal more of what the galaxy could offer, as well as what lay behind reality's veil. But he was not arrogant. He knew there was a great deal left to do, and a great deal left to learn. All he knew for certain was that he was finished with his years walking along. So now he reached out to those most like him -- in thought, in action, and in ambition. Abaddon did not offer any of them a place in a tyrant's plan. What he offered them was a place at his side as they found a path together -- brotherhood. A brotherhood for the brotherless. |
Abaddon - Attack on Canticle City: After being reunited with former Justaerin Commander Falkus Kibre aboard the Tlaloch, the Legionaries returned to the dormant flagship. They gathered on the Vengeful Spirit 's command deck, where Horus and his Primarch brothers had once stood with the lord-captains of the Space Marine Legions, first presiding over the fate of the Great Crusade, then deciding the fate of the rebellion. Now these few Legionaries, with Abaddon at their head, the genesis of the Ezekarion and the future Black Legion, had gathered around the central hololithic table to plan their assault upon the Emperor's Children's Canticle City. Falkus Kibre, the "Widowmaker," last chieftain of the broken Justaerin and lord of the Duraga kal Esmejhak warband stood with them. With Kibre were almost thirty of his brothers, clad in the heavy war plate of their murderous clan. Telemachon Lyras, Sword-Captain of the Emperor's Children. Ashur-Kai, the "White Seer," sorcerer and sage of the Thousand Sons. He stood with a phalanx of Rubricae, numbering one hundred and four of his ashen brothers. Lheorvine Ukris, known to all as Lheor, and much to his gall, as "Firefist," gunner-captain of the World Eaters and commander of the Fifteen Fangs warband. He stood with former Sergeant Ugrivian and their four surviving brothers, each one holding a massive Heavy Bolter. Sargon Eregesh, Abaddon's oracle, a former warrior-priest of the Word Bearers' Brazenhead Chapter. And finally, Iskandar Khayon, sorcerer and sage of the Thousand Sons and warleader of the Kha'Sherhan warband. There was no formal order beneath the dusty banners of the past, only warriors speaking of their intent. Each of the gathered Legionaries spoke of Legions they no longer believed in, of Primarch fathers they no longer idolised, of daemonic Legion homeworlds they refused to claim as havens. These were soldiers citing their histories, laying out how their hatreds and talents alike bound them together to a greater whole.These were mere formalities before Abaddon spoke the reason they were gathered together. These warriors had not been brought together to talk of the past, but by living through battle in the present. For Abaddon's ambitions to bear any weight, he would have to give them victory. He spoke of the Canticle City and how they would plunge a spear tip through the fortress's heart. He spoke of how the Vengeful Spirit would be able to sail with a skeleton crew of the damned, guided by the powerful Machine Spirit of Khayon's ship, known as the Anamnesis. Abaddon spoke of the threat posed by Horus Reborn. Distant as the threat seemed to be, for surely the Emperor's Children had decades of failed alchemical experimentation ahead of them, they would hit it before it became a threat, striking to prevent the Emperor's Children winning the Legion Wars. Abaddon cared nothing for extinguishing the XVI Legion's shame -- he cared only for casting aside those last shackles from the past. The Primarchs were dead or ascended past mortal concerns in the tides of the Great Game of the Gods. As he finished speaking, Abaddon promised them a place aboard the Vengeful Spirit if they desired it -- if they would stand with him for this one brutal assault. They would form a new Legion -- forged as they desired, not as slaves to the Emperor's will and cast in the image of His flawed Primarchs. Bound together by loyalty and ambition, not nostalgia and desperation. Untainted by the past they would no longer be the sons of failed fathers.The first time any of the gathered warriors had seen the Canticle City was the night they darkened the skies of the Daemon World of Harmony. Despite the breaking of Emperor's Children at Skalathrax, the Canticle City served as a haven to many IIIrd Legion warbands and their allies. It was a populated world with ore-rich moons claimed in turn by feuding Dark Mechanicum city-states. yet, for all of the Vengeful Spirit 's size and strength, only a handful of warriors populated the Battleship's halls. Even in orbit, their enemies outnumbered them twenty to one. Though the odds were heavily stacked against them, Abaddon and his fellow Legionaries would carry the day through the assault's audacity and through loyalty to one another. They would win by going for the throat. The sorcerer Khayon was burdened with a heavy duty at Abaddon's request. A monumental task that did not allow for Khayon to spare his attention for anything else. As the Vengeful Spirit sailed towards Harmony, the Thousand Sons sorcerer used all his psychic abilities to pull a monumental weight in their wake.After several months' passage, the Vengeful Spirit arrived at their intended target. Waking Khayon from his meditative state, Abaddon asked the sorcerer if he was ready to do his duty. As the Vengeful Spirit moved closer to their intended target they were beset by an unrelenting barrage from the Emperor's Children fleet which ringed the massive flagship. Weapons-fire hammered uselessly against the Vengeful Spirit's inviolate shields. The moment of truth came at last. Abaddon ordered Khayon to launch the spear. Mustering his strength one last time on the immense weight out there in the void, Khayon first raked back the concealing shroud of Aetheria hiding the spear from sight. The enemy fleet immediateley turned their guns upon it. Abaddon screamed at Khayon to launch the spear. The sorcerer rose to his feet, hands curled into claws as he screamed at the city he was about to kill. With every iota of concentration he possessed, Khayon hurled the spear at the world called Harmony.The Canticle City was prepared to repel assaults, with its skyline's armoured bastions aiming defence turrets and flak cannons towards the heavens. But while fighting back an invasion was one thing, resisting a cataclysm was another. A black shape swallowed the sun, burning as it fell. The Tlaloc was almost two kilometres and eight megatonnes of ancient, ironclad anger. Once it had sailed the stars in the name of the XVth Legion, crewed by twenty-five thousand loyal souls. Khayon had telekinetically dragged its empty corpse across the Eye of Terror, just as Abaddon had asked of him. And then he hurled it right into the heart of the IIIrd Legion's fortress. Less than a solar minute passed from the moment the derelict vessel entered Harmony's atmosphere to the second it struck the ground. Long enough to let the population see death falling towards them. Not long enough to do anything about it. The Vengeful Spirit 's sensors recorded tectonic unrest grave enough to send tremors rippling across the other side of the world. Harmony itself heaved with torment. In the aftermath of the devastating attack, Canticle City was no more. A screaming maelstrom of liquid fire and violence had torn out in all directions from the Tlaloc ' impact site. Everywhere was dust, ashes and flame. Satisfied that rightful vengeance had been served upon the IIIrd Legion, Abaddon ordered his flagship to be taken back up into high orbit. |
Abaddon - Killing a Primarch: As the Vengeful Spirit rose higher into orbit, the first ships rose from the battered surface of Harmony. They came without formation or order, fleeing their doomed planet. The mighty Gloriana-class Battleship was merciless as its guns opened fire on the enemy refugee ships, sending some back to the ground in flames, letting others pass untouched. As the Vengeful Spirit continued its brutal barrage, Sargon informed Abaddon that their primary objective had been spotted -- the Pulchritudinous, a Lunar-class Cruiser, Halcyon Pattern variant hull of the IIIrd Legion. It had been born on the orbital docks above sacred Mars. Abaddon ordered his crew to let the other voidships run. Though they could have decimated the enemy vessel with the Vengeful Spirit 's mighty prow Lances, Abaddon ordered the guns to stand down.They would take the enemy vessel by conducting a boarding action. The taking of the Pulchritudinous would shape Abaddon's Traitor Legionaries before they formally wore his newborn Legion's black. It would be the first time the preferred style of warfare of the nascent Black Legion would be displayed -- striking with overwhelming force to achieve a single goal. Let the Four Gods empower whomever they chose.Abaddon had cast the enemy in disarray, then went for the throat. Victory above all else -- the mantra of the Black Legion. The Legionaries struck the enemy ship's hull. Drills and magna-melters quickly chewed their way through compacted adamantium alloy, as the assault pods bore their way down into the iron flesh of the Pulchritudinous. As Abaddon's warriors entered the enemy vessel, they soon came upon a flesh-crafted horror -- part daemon, part lab-forged monstrosity, that was prowling the deck. They quickly dispatched the vile creature.Khayon inquired of the former Emperor's Children swordsman, Telemachon, who commanded this vessel. The swordsman informed him that it was commanded by none other than Primogenitor Fabius, the so-called "Clone Lord." He also remarked that they did not call the vessel the Pulchritudinous any longer, now the Emperor's Children called it the Fleshmarket. Telemachon also informed his companions that they should count their dark blessings that they boarded this ship during the confusion and chaos of an evacuation. This ship was a fortress of horrors. If the Primogenitor had prepared for them, they would already be dead.Even so, the Legionaries pressed on, encountering no shortage of resistance from the foulness left to wander and rot in the ship's halls. Bonecrafted human thralls and monstrous Daemons that reeked of alchemical meddling. The assault party fought for an indeterminate amount of time before reaching a chamber large enough for the next stage of Abaddon's plan. Khayon contacted his fellow sorcerer Ashur-Kai aboard the Vengeful Spirit 's bridge. Both of them utilised their powerful sorcery to simultaneously tear open portals in the fabric of reality, which would enable the Terminator armoured Justaerin to stride forth between the two ships, instantaneously. The first to step through the conduit was an armoured giant in massive black Terminator war-plate. It was Abaddon himself. His veins ran black beneath his sallow skin. His gaze burned with psychic gold. In one hand he carried a battered Power Sword, in the other -- the claws of his right hand were scythe blades still ringing with the resonance of the Emperor's murder. For the first time, he wore the Talon of Horus. It was in this first moment that Abaddon became his warriors' Warmaster as well as their brother-in-arms. Behind him came the hulking forms of Falkus and the Justaerin, shadows coalescing into reality as they passed through the conduit. Abaddon had chosen to wear the Talon in the poetry of the moment. With his father's own weapon, he would destroy all hope of his rebirth.The battle was brief with Abaddon leading the way, followed by thirty Justaerin, six World Eaters and one hundred Rubricae, the Black Legionaries slaughtered everything alive on the ship between where they came aboard and where they found Primogenitor Fabius. The warship's halls ran with blood and filth, runnels of it straining through to the lower decks, raining gore on the slave too wise to stand against the intruders. Squads of Emperor's Children took positions at critical junctures to defend their master's vessel, pouring Bolter fire down the corridors. But the Terminator plate of the Justaerin was proof against most of the punishing barrage. Implacably, the Justaerin advanced, and those who stood against them died beneath claws and hammers, each falling blow ending a life. Those who fled bought their lives at the cost of pride. Abaddon led them, killing with his sword and the double-barrelled Storm Bolter mounted on the Talon's bulk. But the claw's blades, still stained with Sanguinius' and the Emperor's lives, remained unsullied. Only when they reached the Apothecarion did they break their stride. All of the Traitor Legionaries present had long been inured to horror, for it was not the abundance of flesh heresy taking place inside the chambers that brought them to a halt. It was the fact that the overseer of this foul place had succeeded in his endeavours. This was not a laboratory of those who struggled and failed to manipulate one of the most arcane and flawed sciences. This was the sanctum of madmen who had already succeeded.They had been wrong all this time. The Emperor's Children were not unknowable years away from a cloning genesis. They had already mastered that darkest lore. Here was the Emperor's sacred genetic project rebuilt through daemonic lore and gutter genius. Row upon row of life pods contained mutated children and deformed adolescents. These were not just any children, they were replicated clones of the twenty Primarchs! The chamber had room for hundreds of tanks. Many sockets were empty, but the majority housed thrumming life pods with barely visible limbs moving through the carrion water. This chamber alone represented heresy beyond measure. It was not known if there were any more such tanks or whether this was all the Primogenitor could evacuate from Harmony. The Chief Apothecary of the IIIrd Legion came forth from an adjoining annex chamber and approached the band of interlopers. He had the audacity to entreat Abaddon and his warriors to take his side with sympathy, lamenting the loss of centuries of study and irreplaceable work. Disgusted by the fleshcrafter's words, Abaddon ordered Khayon to destroy the vile hell-spawned creations. The sorcerer sent a mental command to his Rubricae warriors, "Leave nothing alive," and with a roar of a hundred Bolters, the Rubricae rained a tide of explosive fire across the laboratory. A second later the Justaerin and every warrior present joined in. After what seemed an eternity, the guns fell quiet. Fabius taunted Abaddon that some things never changed, chiding him for still using the brute application of violence to solve all his problems. Abaddon explained to the Chief Apothecary that everything had indeed changed. Suddenly the sound of more bootsteps could be heard from the same annex chamber from which Fabius emerged. A heavier tread. Measured, confident. The Apothecary's eyes focused on the Talon Abaddon wore on his right hand, commenting that "He will enjoy the irony of that." Abaddon narrowed his eyes and asked, "He?" And that is when death came for them.A massive figure emerged from the annex chamber, swinging the immense maul Worldbreaker, a gift made to Horus by the Emperor Himself upon the First Primarch's ascension to the rank of Warmaster, into the first rank of Rubricae, sending three of them crashing against the shell-pocked walls. The figure then turned towards the Traitor Legionaries' loose ranks and charged. This was not a child cloned from scraps of tissue and drops of blood. Nor an abomination half lost to mutation's touch. It was Horus Lupercal, cloned from dead flesh harvested directly form his stasis-preserved corpse, clad in the breathtaking black war-plate stripped from his dead body, replete with the long fall of his white-wolf fur cloak and the pale shimmer of a kinetic force field protecting him like a halo. Horus Reborn charged into the Legionaries and began to slaughter them with Worldbreaker. Lheor and the last warriors of the Fifteen Fangs reacted faster than any of their comrades. Their Heavy Bolters opened up, firing their explosive rounds at the former Warmaster of the Imperium, with every bolt hitting home. But even as their bolts tore at Horus's armour and flesh, their initiative did little but doom them before the rest of their fellow warriors. The gathered warriors broke before the cloned Warmaster's onslaught and fell back, scattering to the edges of the room to escape the immense war maul of the enraged revenant. Khayon hurled bolt after bolt of mutagenic warpfire at Horus Reborn. It burst what remained of the creature's force field in a whiplash of air pressure, and boiled the skin and hair from its head. He came for the sorcerer and beat him mercilessly with the deadly maul, nearly killing him. Others attempted to cease the revenant's rampage, but all fell before the cloned-Primarch's might.Abaddon stood behind Horus, and with a single word he halted the Primarch's rampage. "Enough." He had barely even raised his voice, as the absolute authority in his tone was all that was required. Horus turned in a blur, swinging the massive war maul at this newest threat. Abaddon not only parried the mace, he caught it. He held it. He gripped it in the great Talon stained with the blood of a god and His angel. Father and son faced each other, breathing spite into each other's snarling features. For the first time the Primarch spoke, "That. Is. My. Talon." Abaddon closed the massive fist. Worldbreaker broke, shattering against a superior weapon. Scrap metal fell from Abaddon's finger. Despite the legends and stories told about this moment, there were no entreaties made to his gathered sons and nephews; no glorious speech about the possibilities of a new era, or how he begged for mercy when faced with Justaerin blades. There was no impassioned judgement delivered by Abaddon as destiny changed hands from one Warmaster to the next. There was only a cloned father and a prodigal son, surrounded by the dead and the wounded, so similar that only by their weapons and wounds could you tell them apart.Recognition finally flared in the revenant's remaining eye. "Ezekyle. My son. My son." All five of Abaddon's claws rammed so deeply into Horus's chest that they burst from his back. Dark redness spread across what was left of the white fur cloak draped in tatters across Horus's shoulders. A genetic god's blood rained down to the filthy laboratory floor. The Storm Bolter on the Talon's back kicked three times, burying six bolts inside Horus's exposed chest and neck. They blasted him apart from within, sending viscera and blood splattering upon those left prone, watching in mute witness. Horus' knees buckled but Abaddon would not let him fall. Horus's mouth worked but no sound came forth. If his last words found any voice, Abaddon was the only one to hear it. With a slow, smooth withdrawal, Abaddon pulled the Talon clear of his father's body, and the moment before Horus fell -- the moment before the light finally went out in the reborn Primarch's eyes -- Ezekyle Abaddon whispered five soft words. "I am not your son." |
Abaddon - Vanquishing the Past: Their fortress in ruins and their Legion decimated, the Sons of Horus stood on the brink of vanishing forever from the galaxy and fading into cursed memory. The XVI Legion devolved into in-fighting amongst themselves, giving in to dark despair or uncontrolled rage. The divisions between the Legion's captains turned into bitter bloodshed and murder, as order completely collapsed. The salvation of the Sons of Horus came when one of its greatest captains, Ezekyle Abaddon, returned from his Dark Pilgrimage in time to watch the battle from afar. It was in that moment that he saw, with cold clarity, that it was Horus' failure that had led the Legion here, to them tearing each other apart in the blood-soaked ruins of Maeleum. Abaddon swore that he would succeed where Horus had failed in overthrowing the "Corpse-Emperor" and proclaimed himself the new Warmaster of Chaos. Finally, sickened by how far the Legion had fallen, he stalked through the ruins hunting down his fellow captains, cooling his rage with their final screams. In the end, Abaddon alone remained of the Legion's leaders, demanding obedience from his brothers.Some saw Abaddon as Horus' rightful successor and fell at his feet willingly, while others recognised his raw strength and bowed their heads to his might. A few turned their back on Abadodn, and were either cut down by their brothers or managed to escape into the Warp. With his Legion brought to heel, Abaddon turned his attention to the clones of Horus; he commanded his warriors to extinguish all trace of their former Primarch and free themselves from his shadow. He then personally led an attack on the Emperor's Children that destroyed the body of the Primarch Horus and all its clones, and in so doing, ushered in a new age for the XVI Legion. He had the Sons of Horus repaint their viridian Power Armour black, the colour of mourning and of vengeance, and cast-off the XVI Legion's former moniker of the Sons of Horus. From then on, they became known as the Black Legion. Through his actions, the Despoiler had reinvigorated the Legion, reviving the old notion that none could stand in their way and that they stood first amongst the Traitor Legions, destined by the will of the Dark Gods to one day inherit the galaxy itself. When the warbands of the Black Legion and the other forces of Chaos gather under the wrathful banner of Abaddon the Despoiler to unleash yet another of their Black Crusades to overthrow the False Emperor, the words of Horus are heard upon their lips -- let the galaxy burn. The Long War for control of the galaxy by Chaos and the Black Legion had begun. |
Abaddon - The Folly of Drecarth: When Abaddon ascended to command of the Sons of Horus, not every warrior of the XVIth Legion swore allegiance to him. Many of the Traitors clung to their worship of Horus as a god, believing that he would one day return to lead them and punish those who had forsaken their oaths. Others considered the Horus Heresy to be the end of their subservience to gods and masters; the Emperor and their Primarch were the last overlords they would ever bow down to and they saw no reason to make an exception for Abaddon. Most of these Renegades were gradually lost to the Warp, disappearing into the Eye and vanishing from record, though some prospered and would return to be a thorn in the side of Abaddon.One of these splinter warbands was the Sons of the Eye, led by Drecarth the Sightless. A former Battle-Brother of Abaddon's, Drecarth had been one of Horus' captains, escaping in the chaos after Maeleum fell. Abaddon had heard whispers of Drecarth's escape and treachery from his cabal of Chaos Sorcerers, who also claimed that an old ally would one day rise to subert the Black Legion, twisting its loyalty with the memory of the dead Primarch. So, under the guise of truce, Abaddon made a pact with the Sons of the Eye and allied with them during the 6th Black Crusade in 901.M36. Abaddon wanted to make an example of the Sons of the Eye, a dire warning to any that would consider challenging his power, but he needed to set the stage for his vengeance just right so that none would ever doubt his resolve.During the 6th Black Crusade, Abaddon besieged the Imperial Forge World of Arkreach, offering Drecarth and his Sons of the Eye an equal share of the plunder. For months, the two forces of Chaos Space Marines fought side-by-side against the defences of the Adeptus Mechanicus, bombarding their great forge cities from space. Finally, the Traitors stood triumphant in the smouldering ruins of the great manufactoria, dead littering the ground. As Drecarth extended his hand in greeting, Abaddon grasped it with his own, only to thrust the claws of the Talon of Horus into his fellow Chaos Space Marine's gut. Drecarth lived long enough to see the Sons of the Eye bow to Abaddon and be reabsorbed into the Black Legion before the Warmaster of Chaos tore out his skull and spine. Thus did Abaddon deliver a dire warning to any who dared challenge his power. |
Abaddon - A New Champion: His control secured, Abaddon started expanding the ranks of the Black Legion, consumed by the desire to launch an assault against the Imperium. Word spread across the Eye of Terror that any Space Marine who bowed before the Despoiler would be granted a place in his Black Legion and a part in his grand plan for revenge against the False Emperor. Many of the other Traitors mocked and derided Abaddon for his arrogance. However, the endless wars and corruption of the Warp had sown disillusion in the hearts of others and the promise of a place in a Legion led by a warlord determined to continue the war against the Imperium appealed to a great number. The insulting defeat at the hands of the Loyalist Space Marine Legions was still fresh in the minds of many of the Chaos Space Marines, and they hungered for a chance to spill the blood of their former brothers. Other Traitor Legionaries cared not whose blood they spilled, only that Abaddon could lead them to worlds where they could tear piteous screams from the dying and crush the corpses of their foes underfoot. The legend of Abaddon was also spreading, and those Traitor Marines who respected only strength, cruelty and dark majesty already marked him out as a Chaos warlord to rule all others.Abaddon soon earned an enduring reputation among the Traitor Legions for the terrifying vengeance he visited upon those who betrayed him. Some Traitor Legionaries and daemonic warlords attempted to use the Black Legion for their own ends, infiltrating its ranks with false promises of loyalty. Others attempted to whisper promises in the ears of those that had sworn fealty to the Black Legion and tried to turn them against the Despoiler. In the end, the heads of all those Chaos Champions and Chaos Lords adorned Abaddon's trophy rack, their warbands destroyed and their fortresses torn down stone by stone. Eventually, only the very foolish or terminally insane would break their oath to Abaddon the Despoiler.The new Warmaster was a master of manipulation and knew just what combination of fear, greed and vanity would sway the minds of both men and daemons. Warlords would come before Abaddon merely to verify this Champion of Chaos and his Black Legion for themselves, but found themselves scorching their armour black and joining his cause. As the numbers of the Black Legion swelled, Abaddon ravaged the worlds of the Eye of Terror with his fleet, claiming more warriors and slaves for his cause. This time, the Despoiler was careful not to create such an easy target for his foes, and the Black Legion remained a fleet-based formation, slipping like shadows across the Warp. Aboard the Vengeful Spirit Abaddon led his war against the other Traitor Legions, their allies and their enemies, creating an army to rival any force in the galaxy.Such is the nature of the Traitor Legions that no individual warlord could ever rule over all of them, but Abaddon hoped to one day unite them toward a single goal as Horus had done before him. The Black Legion could only hope to destroy the Emperor and His Imperium with the help of the other Traitor Legions, combining to brush aside the armies ranged against them and launch a single massive assault on Terra. This was Abaddon's dark dream and the path that would shape his destiny for centuries to come. |
Abaddon - Dark Pacts: While other Chaos Space Marine warlords were content to make pacts with individual Chaos Gods and daemons, eagerly giving up control for a sliver of power, Abaddon was different. In the long decades of the Great Crusade and the bloody years of the Horus Heresy that followed, he had studied the way in which Horus had waged his wars and dominated his allies. What Abaddon observed was, first, the hand of the Emperor and then later the influence of the Dark Gods at work, limiting the greatness of his Primarch and ultimately leading to his demise. Abaddon would make no such mistake, and though he would court the Chaos Gods as allies, he vowed, foolishly perhaps, never to be completely in their thrall.It is still unclear how Abaddon was able to use the will of the Dark Gods for his own ends while remaining unscathed by their power. Some say that it is the blood he shares with Horus, fuelling old rumours that he was the Warmaster's one pure clone son. Others say that Abaddon was broken in some fundamental way by the death of his Primarch and the defeat on Terra, his mind consumed by hatred and rage until nothing of his humanity remained. Another tale maintains that Abaddon was never human at all and is instead a construct of the Dark Gods -- an expression of their hatred for Mankind. Whatever the reason, the Ruinous Powers chose Abaddon to be their champion and gifted him with a freedom of will denied to so many of their servants, perhaps impressed by the audacity and grandeur of his vengeance.Regardless of how this favour was won, the period after the destruction of the clones of Horus during the Slave Wars and the renaming of the Sons of Horus was a time of war and domination for Abaddon and the Black Legion. As it grew in size and strength, it exerted its power over the other Chaos Space Marine warbands within the Eye of Terror, crushing and absorbing countless lesser warbands, bending them to the will of the Legion and adding their strength to its growing ranks. Meanwhile, Abaddon also sought other ways both to increase his personal power and to learn all he could about the new and dangerous realm in which the Traitor Legionaries found themselves. The Despoiler had already discovered much during his own Dark Pilgrimage, the journey he took in the lost years between the end of the Horus Heresy and his return to the ruins of Maeleum. On his travels, he had learned that the power that daemons represented and embodied could be harnessed and controlled, just as one man might control another. He also realised that the Eye of Terror was a place containing unnumbered arcane devices, forbidden weapons and lost worlds, the likes of which were unknown to much of the galaxy -- and that many of them could be turned to his ends. |
Abaddon - Black Crusades: In 781.M31, five centuries after his retreat from Terra, Abaddon returned to Imperial space at the head of a host of Traitors and daemons. It was the Imperium's first encounter with the newly founded Black Legion and the return of a brutal and bitter enemy many had thought lost to the graveyard of history. Since the Great Scouring, Abaddon had remained within the Eye of Terror, rebuilding the Black Legion as a vengeful reflection of its former glory. At last, the Black Legion and the other Traitors returned to realspace, the first chapter in their Long War against the Emperor ready to be written in the blood of Imperial worlds. Through alliance, threats and promises, Abaddon was able to muster the largest force of Traitor Legions seen since the Horus Heresy and took the Imperium by surprise. Worlds close to the Eye of Terror fell into mayhem and chaos as Legions descended from the sky and daemons tore their way into reality. Only Cadia, with its formidable defences, stood firm, its brave regiments fighting from the towering gates and bastions of their cities.To counter the invasion, the Imperium was forced to divert many of the newly-formed Space Marine Chapters of the Second Founding from war zones across the Segmentum Obscurus. The Traitor Legions basked in their return from the Eye of Terror, bathing in the blood of innocent worlds and filling the holds of their voidships with slaves. On a dozen planets, the Black Legion proved worthy of their fallen Primarch and the martial prowess of the ancient Luna Wolves. Abaddon had chosen his generals well, and each competed for glory as the Legion tore a bloody gouge across the stars. The Black Legion's greatest achievement was not only its brutal victories, but also the unity it had managed to forge among the Traitors and their daemonic allies. Even though the Traitor Space Marines, daemons and Heretics turned on each other once Imperial resistance had been crushed, in the presence of the Black Legion, they gave grudging respect. This was the Legion of fear and domination Abaddon had wrought, and it was to be an ominous sign of things to come for the Imperium.In what would become a festering thorn in the side of the Imperium, the Traitor Legions, often led by the Black Legion or even Abaddon himself, would repeatedly spill out of the Eye of Terror to burn and pillage entire sectors. In the light of dying stars and flaming cities, the Black Legion would indulge their hatred of the Imperium, indiscriminately killing the servants of the False Emperor and tearing down anything they saw as a symbol of the Corpse-God. During these so-called "Black Crusades", whole star systems would be destroyed in conflicts that would drag on for standard decades or centuries until, as suddenly as they had appeared, the Black Legion would retreat into the Eye of Terror, their holds filled with slaves and plunder. The Segmentum Obscurus suffered terribly in these endless wars against the fallen Space Marine Legions, but in truth nowhere was safe from their treacherous reach. This was something the Black Legion proved time and again as it cemented its infamous reputation among the armies of the Imperium as a pitiless foe. |
Abaddon - The Tower of Silence: As the bloodshed of the 1st Black Crusade reached its frenzied heights, cities burned and worlds were stripped of people to feed the dark desires of the Traitor Legions. Leaving his Black Legion to continue their brutal reprisals and raids against Imperial worlds, Abaddon pursued his own plans. Using the howling souls unleashed into the Warp by so much death and destruction, he made a secret daemonic bargain. In payment for the feast of despair, pain and anguish Abaddon had created with his Black Crusade, the Dark Gods gifted him with knowledge of the secret location of the Tower of Silence on the world of Uralan.Cloaked in the shadow of the Eye of Terror, Uralan was whispered of in daemonic lore as a place where the gods themselves locked away their secrets. Following strands of fate unravelled by his cabal of Chaos Sorcerers, Abaddon had discovered a concealed path through the Warp and across the shifting sea of worlds beyond to reach Uralan without needing to breach the Cadian Gate. With a cadre of the Black Legion's elite warriors, each one a brutal veteran of a thousand battles, Abaddon set foot on Uralan and entered the Tower of Silence. Almost at once, the tower's guardians set upon them, ancient constructs of dark energy that shifted and flickered, their claws tearing at the ragged edges of his warriors' souls.After the bitter battle, Abaddon climbed down into the mirrored heart of Uralan. There, Abaddon wandered the massive haunted labyrinth for what seemed an age, fighting off the spirits of the dead that threatened to add him to their ranks. Eventually, Abaddon made his way towards the centre of the labyrinth where a shard of shifting darkness hung suspended in the air. Reaching out into the void, Abaddon felt the cold hilt of a blade meet his palm and he pulled it into reality; the Daemonsword Drach'nyen took terrible shape before his eyes. After the recovery of the malefic sword, Abaddon's power swelled to inhuman proportions and the new Warmaster of Chaos become nigh unstoppable. Whole cities were burned in sacrifice to the every-hungry daemons of Chaos, and entire armies were torn apart by gibbering Warp entities. Abaddon's power swelled to inhuman proportions as the Gods of Chaos rewarded him lavishly and he undertook acts of fiendish bravery which horrified those who stood against him. |
Abaddon - Black Legion Ascendant: Infused with the might of Chaos, the Black Legion grew in power and glory during the 1st Black Crusade. Under the command of Abaddon, they seized ever more victories and triumphs. It was a glorious time for the XVIth Legion, as the bloodshed and death of the Crusade washed away some of the memories of the Horus Heresy and their great defeat before the gates of the Emperor's Palace. However, despite the reckless carnage and terrible destruction it caused, eventually, the 1st Black Crusade ended. Responding to the deadly peril, the Imperium had gathered its newly founded Space Marine Chapters and Titan Legions and sent them against the Traitors. Even so, scores of worlds had been silenced forever and millions of slaves were dragged screaming back into the Eye of Terror. Abaddon had tested the defences of his enemies and vastly increased his power with his newly acquired Daemonsword Drach'nyen. He also took to using the title of Warmaster of Chaos, rising to claim all that Horus had once possessed. None within the Black Legion argued Abaddon's right to the title, the 1st Black Crusade proof of his right to lead.For the Black Legion, their first foray out of the Eye of Terror had done much to restore their position among the Traitor Legions, fostering a new grudging respect for the black armoured warriors and their self-proclaimed Warmaster. If nothing else, Abaddon had proven that the Dark Gods favoured him, something not even the Daemon Primarchs could ignore. Conflict still sputtered and flared between the Traitor Legions, but they now had a new purpose, something they had almost forgotten in the half millennia since the fall of Horus. In the wake of the 1st Black Crusade, a time of constant raiding of Imperial space began. Abaddon was content to give a Black Legion warlord and his warband of Chaos Space Marines the chance to make a name for themselves, allowing them the freedom to strike where and when they would. He fostered this independence on one condition: the atrocities they committed must be done in the name of the Black Legion and at cost to the Emperor. |
Abaddon - Black Legion: Abaddon has long since fought to rebuild the pride and reputation of the warriors he named his Black Legion. At first, he accomplished much through sheer determination and a talent for slaughter that exceeded that of every Chaos Lord outside the gates of Khorne's own fortress. Slowly but surely, Abaddon won the grudging respect of the other Traitor Legions, leading his shattered armies again and again against the reviled Imperium of Man. As his deeds grew mightier and his base of power more solid, Abaddon succeeded in winning their support too. His impassioned words rekindled the Traitor Legions' smouldering hatred of the Emperor on dozens, perhaps hundreds of worlds. As the centuries rolled on, warriors of all the Traitor Legions fought beneath his banner. Those who opposed him were crushed, and those who joined him added their strength to the greatest army ever assembled in the Eye of Terror. When the warbands of the Black Legion gathered anew under the wrathful banner of Abaddon the Despoiler, the words of Horus were heard once more upon their lips — "let the galaxy burn!"Abaddon has tested the strength of the Imperium many times in the Long War, and with each victory his power grows. Over the millennia, he has led no fewer than thirteen Black Crusades, each of which has emerged from the Warp and culminated in a spectacular invasion of realspace. The first of these saw him recover the Daemon Sword Drach'nyen, a writhing Warp entity that can rend reality wherever it strikes, and every crusade since has seen him destroy a prospective foe or claim another valuable relic for his own. During the 12th Black Crusade early in the 41st Millennium, a conflict better known in Imperial records as the Gothic War, Abaddon unleashed upon the Imperium of the "Corpse Emperor" his newest superweapon, the Planet Killer. This was a massive starship crafted through the amalgamation of Imperial technology and Chaotic sorcery that was capable of destroying entire worlds. However, even this formidable weapon was but a deceit, as Abaddon's real goal behind the Gothic War was not to destroy planets, but to seize the six Blackstone Fortresses, ancient weapons originally created to oppose the Necrons, which the Imperium had found abandoned and used as mere space stations, unable to divine their true purpose. Abaddon's ultimate success was only foiled by the Eldar, who had foreseen his plan through the visions of their Farseers and entered a desperate alliance with the Imperium in order to stop the Black Legion's attempt to seize all of the Blackstone Fortresses. Abaddon was forced to retreat after seizing only two of his six prizes. Though these would prove devastating enough when they were unleashed upon the Imperium nearly a thousand standard years later.Though the High Lords of Terra believe that these Black Crusades have been repelled, albeit at great cost, they are unaware that each was keyed to a specific goal. As epic in scale as they may be, Abaddon's Black Crusades are but stepping stones, rungs in the ladder that leads to the Despoiler's ultimate vengeance. The destiny the Despoiler has chosen is not that of daemonhood -- though he has been offered the ultimate reward of immortality by each of the Chaos Gods, he has held back from surrendering his soul to their ultimate control. The prize he seeks is nothing less than to tear the Emperor from his Golden Throne upon Terra and, in the process, plunge the Imperium into the darkness of anarchy forever. Without the Astronomican, the psychic beacon with which the Emperor steers His flock across the stars, the Imperium will swiftly collapse into a scattering of cold and lonely worlds, each easy prey for the Despoiler's nightmarish allies. |
Abaddon - 13th Black Crusade: The last and greatest of Abaddon's thirteen Black Crusades has plunged the crucial Cadian System into a war of unsurpassed intensity. The ninth planet in the system, St. Josmane's Hope, has already been utterly destroyed, and war raged across every district and kasr of Cadia itself. The uninitiated questioned the Despoiler's motives, for he had ploughed the broad-bladed spear of his invading forces right into the heart of Fortress Cadia and her many-layered defences.Those who knew of the daemonic bargains Abaddon struck in the depths of the Eye of Terror realised the true scale of his ambitions. Within the toxic swamps of the Plague Planet, Abaddon bartered the Chaos relic known as the Hand of Darkness for the aid of the gaunt monstrosity Mortarion, Daemon Primarch of the Death Guard, and earned the blessings of Nurgle.Within the surreal, spawn-infested planescapes warped by the power of Tzeentch, Abaddon gained the use of the Rubricae of the cursed Thousand Sons.Within the red bowels of the Goreswirl, the Despoiler duelled the finest of Angron's champions, cutting off their heads one after another with the Daemon Sword Drach'nyen before gifting the Hellfire Stone to the Daemon Primarch of the World Eaters and earning his respect in the process.Upon the flesh-world of Oliensis, the serpentine Daemon Prince Fulgrim swore his aid in exchange for a Pythonian psyker-innocent and the promise of a third-share of those civilians caught in the path of the Black Crusade to come. All that remained was to pave the way for the Daemon Primarchs and their hordes to breach realspace.Abaddon managed to unite all the forces of Chaos that exist within the Eye of Terror under his leadership as the Warmaster of Chaos in 999.M41, after many solar decades of preparation to unleash the greatest Chaos assault upon the Imperium of Man since the Horus Heresy, more than 10,000 standard years ago. This great campaign, Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade against the realms of the Emperor of Mankind, focused its assaults upon the sectors of the Segmentum Obscurus surrounding the Fortress World of Cadia and the Cadian Gate it protected.The Cadian Gate is the only known free passage through the roiling Warp Storms of the Eye of Terror into Imperial space, and the capture of Cadia would allow the forces of Chaos their first uninterrupted chance to assault the heart of Imperial space in millennia. In the end, after solar months of truly titanic fighting that spread across hundreds of worlds and tested the resources of the Imperial military as never before, the campaign proved successful for the servants of the Ruinous Powers despite the heroic resistance of the Cadian defenders led by the Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed.Cadia fell when Abaddon sent the damaged wreckage of the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity hurtling to the planet's surface like an artificial meteor. The massive impact exterminated most of the defenders and caused the Necrontyr-built Cadian Pylons which had held the expansion of the Eye of Terror at bay for millennia to fail, allowing the great Warp rift to envelop the Fortress World at long last.Though Cadia itself has fallen, possession of the Cadian Gate -- the only stable path from the Eye of Terror -- still hangs in the balance. Should Abaddon triumph, the dark tide of Chaos will pour from the Eye of Terror along the length of the Crimson Path to strike at the most prized world of all -- Holy Terra itself.With several hundred thousand Chaos Space Marines falling upon Cadia in his name, Abaddon spilt enough blood that the walls of reality thinned to the point of total collapse, giving birth to the Great Rift that cut the Imperium in half. The gates of hell are yawning wide. Abaddon intends to drive the speartip of his Traitor Legions deeper and deeper into the Segmentum Solar, numberless daemon hordes sowing utter destruction in his wake.His ultimate goal is to capsize realspace itself in a localised swathe of ever-escalating battles that allow the poisonous half-realm of the Eye of Terror to bleed outward all the way to Terra. Once he completes his evil pilgrimage, the Despoiler will dash the "Corpse-Emperor" from His throne of lies and forge an empire of madness in the name of the Dark Gods.As the various Tyranid Hive Fleets are also inexorably moving towards the shining Astronomican beacon of the Emperor's mind that shines out like a light in the darkness from Terra, and the Adeptus Mechanicus reports that the Golden Throne is finally failing, it may well be that the current era of the Age of the Imperium, the Time of Ending, is well-named. In the face of the terrible threat presented by Abaddon the Despoiler and the other enemies of the Imperium, only one true hope may remain for the salvation of Mankind, drawn from the most ancient litany of the Imperial Creed: the Emperor protects... |
Abaddon - Chosen of Abaddon: The Chosen of Abaddon are four powerful Chaos Lords that serve under the patronage of Abaddon the Despoiler, the Warmaster of Chaos and master of the Black Legion of Chaos Space Marines. Rather than a single force with a single leader, the Black Legion became after the Horus Heresy a mighty host of many warbands and warlords. Within this host, all would swear complete allegiance to Abaddon, and through an inner circle, he would lead them with absolute dominion. These favoured lieutenants became known as the Chosen of Abaddon.The Chosen were his favoured generals, standing above all others and enacting his dark will; a warped shadow of the Luna Wolves' Mournival in which he had once served. Nowhere in the galaxy can a more feared and merciless collection of tyrants be found, always eager to put entire worlds to the sword in the name of Chaos. Nowhere in the galaxy can a more feared and merciless collection of tyrants be found, always eager to put entire worlds to the sword in the name of Chaos. The last recorded deployment of a full Officio Assassinorum Execution Force was against the so-called Chosen of Abaddon. These four individuals were so hated by the Imperium of Man that an entire team of Assassins infiltrated Abaddon's flagship. This was an extraordinary event, for it is rare for even one Assassin to be sent to deal with a threat. Abaddon learned of the impending attack and laid a trap for the Assassins, slaying all four and protecting his Chosen.The Chosen bear an assortment of titles, reflecting their role in a past Black Crusade or honouring particular acts of cruelty for which they are infamous. Their numbers are ever-changing, for Abaddon has little tolerance for failure amongst those who serve him. The current holders of these four titles are described below. |
Abaddon - Lord Ravager: The Lord Ravager leads the Black Fleet of the Black Legion and its allies. It is he who first makes landfall on the surface of a world.Devram Korda - Devram Korda, also known as "The Tyrant of Sarora," is a servant of the Chaos God Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure. A former Veteran sergeant of the Sons of Horus Legion, after the events of the Horus Heresy, he rose to prominence and became a Chaos Lord. He became infamous for his blasphemous actions on the doomed world of Sarora, where he distilled the life essence of the citizens of the planet's largest hive city for a single vial of a sorcerous elixir which made him virtually invincible. He eventually became the current Lord Ravager, the individual who leads the invasion fleets of the Black Crusade in the name of Abaddon the Despoiler. It is Korda who first makes landfall on the surface of a world about to be assaulted by the forces of Chaos. Korda also commands the personal retinue of the Despoiler, known as the Chosen of Abaddon. In the closing days of the 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41, Devram Korda returned to his master's side, bringing with him two individuals (later identified as Skyrak Slaughterborn and Urkrathos) who had journeyed to the centre of the Eye of Terror. Together with the Chaos Sorcerer Ygethmor the Deceiver, they presented Abaddon with the Heart of Chaos, a powerful artefact that Zaraphiston, a Chaos Sorcerer and rival Chaos Lord of the Despoiler, had long claimed could not exist. |
Abaddon - Lord Deceiver: The Lord Deceiver is a powerful Chaos Sorcerer whose visions of the Warp lead the Black Crusade from star system to star system.Ygethmor the Deceiver - Ygethmor the Deceiver, known also as the "Twice Damned" and the "Purgator of Corrialis," is a formidable Sorcerer Lord of the Black Legion. He currently serves as one of Abaddon the Despoiler's lieutenants and a member of his personal retinue, the Chosen of Abaddon. Ygethmor is the current Lord Deceiver, whose visions of the Warp lead the Black Crusade from star system to star system. During the 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41, the Officio Assassinorum sanctioned the deployment of an assassin team to eliminate Ygethmor, amongst other notable targets in service to the Archenemy. Whilst scrutiny of their field records is impossible, at least seven Assassinorum agents are known to have failed in the attempt to take the life of the Deceiver. Ygethmor led the assault of the forces of Chaos during the campaign known as the Fall of Medusa V in an attempt to become a Daemon Prince. This effort failed and Ygethmor was slain by the blade of the Eldar Autarch Elarique Swiftblade of Craftworld Alaitoc, and those Champions of the Dark Gods who had followed him were left to their fates on the dying world as Medusa V was consumed by an onrushing Warp Storm. However, death rarely represents an end to the service of a Chaos Lord, if the Dark Gods still have use for him. The galaxy may yet suffer the tread of Ygethmor the Deceiver once more. |
Abaddon - Lord Corruptor: The Lord Corruptor is tasked with instilling fear and hatred amongst the Chaos Space Marines of the Black Legion. His trophy rack is adorned with the skulls of failed servants.Skyrak Slaughterborn - The Chosen of Abaddon lieutenant named Skyrak Slaughterborn, the current Lord Corruptor, leads the warbands of Nurgle within the Black Legion into battle. Collectively known as the Bringers of Decay, they spread their disease and corruption throughout the Realms of Man. Skyrak is known to have led the large warband of Chaos Space Marines known as the Slaughterkin in the assault on Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade. |
Abaddon - Lord Purgator: It falls to the Lord Purgator to ensure that every man, woman and child left alive on a world conquered by the Black Legion is dragged in chains into the hold of the Legion's starships, and that no edifice remains undedicated to the Dark Gods.Urkrathos - Within the ranks of the Black Legion are those who are bloody-handed servants of Khorne. Though not a single unified warband within the Black Legion, they are collectively known as the Hounds of Abaddon. Urkrathos, also called Urkanthos, is the current Lord Purgator of the Chosen of Abaddon and commander of the Legion's Black Fleet, claims all followers of Khorne within the Legion as his own and directs them according to the will of Abaddon. Ironically, Urkrathos, who had become a Daemon Prince after pleasing his patron, was temporarily slain during the 13th Black Crusade on Cadia itself. He fell just before Cadia's destruction at the siege of Kasr Kraf combatting Saint Celestine and her two Geminae Superia, the Living Saint's protectors, the former Adepta Sororitas Canonesses Eleanor and Genevieve of the Order of Our Martyred Lady. Urkrathos had previously killed both in combat before their resurrection by the power of the Living Saint to serve as her eternal honour guard. |
Abaddon - Bringers of Despair: Abaddon also formed from the Black Legion's ranks a personal bodyguard known as the Bringers of Despair, among other dark titles. Selected from the strongest and most vicious of his Chaos Terminator elite, these fearsome warriors are a terrifying sight, their arrival announcing the presence of the Despoiler himself. |
Abaddon - Personality: Prior to the Horus Heresy, Ezekyle Abaddon looked up to his primarch Horus Lupercal as his rightful leader and a father figure, equal to, if not above the Emperor of Mankind in his esteem. As the loyal First Captain of the Luna Wolves' 1st Company, Abaddon was proud, irascible and someone who could inspire men to "cry out for Abaddon's return" if he were to die, though Abaddon became inexplicably darker and quicker to anger as the Great Crusade reached its final stage in the early 31st Millennium. Abaddon was prone to panic and desperation when Horus' life was in danger and quick to cast blame on others (such as the Emperor and the Luna Wolves' Apothecary Vaddon, who attempted unsuccessfully to treat Horus after the Primarch was wounded on Davin's Plague Moon).Initially displaying examples of dogmatic devotion towards Imperial doctrine and the traditional Imperial distrust for anything inhuman or alien, Abaddon followed Horus unquestioningly into service to Chaos and rebellion against the Emperor after the Primarch's recovery from his mortal wounding. Abaddon came to believe that the Horus Heresy was the best outcome for the Great Crusade since it would allow humanity to be ruled by a true leader like Horus rather than a weaker ruler like the Emperor. As he fell more and more under the spell of Chaos, Abaddon came to believe that winning and victory were the only things that matter and that the acquisition of power was the rightful role of the Astartes, since they should rule over their fellow men rather than just serve as their protectors and guardians as the Emperor had intended. The very fact that the Emperor had sought to replace the Primarchs and the Astartes with legions of "mortal" officials and bureaucrats in the governance of the Imperium after the Ullanor Crusade only further convinced Abaddon that the Emperor was a weakling and a fool who did not deserve to rule over Mankind.Physically, Abaddon was a towering and truly imposing Space Marine, taller even than the vast majority of his fellow Astartes, with a crested top-knot atop his shaven head and the straight nose and wide-spaced eyes reminiscent of Horus' own visage as was common among the Sons of Horus Astartes, though not enough for Abaddon to truly be a doppelganger of the Primarch.After the end of the Heresy, Abaddon's view of Horus abruptly changed and he came to view the defeated Warmaster with disdain in light of his new view that what truly mattered was the acquisition of power. Abaddon effectively stepped out of Horus' shadow, as was exemplified when he said, "Horus was weak. Horus was a fool. He had the whole galaxy within his grasp and he let it slip away."Abaddon also displayed the psychotic contempt for human life characteristic of most servants of Chaos and was willing to inflict an endless stream of atrocities upon other human beings so long as such actions enhanced his own power and position. Through his martial skill and personal might and the obvious favour he held among the Ruinous Powers after Horus' death, Abaddon won the respect of the other Traitor Legions and proved to be an inspiration to the Chaos Space Marines who dwell within the Eye of Terror. Some of the Traitor Legions, namely the Word Bearers under the leadership of the Dark Apostle Erebus, think that Abaddon is not fit for the position of Warmaster of Chaos and their cause would be better served if it was lead by a leader with more strategic acumen and less temperamental choler.Abaddon's troops among the Traitor Legions and the other forces of Chaos know that he will not accept failure in any form, much like his divine masters, and follow his every command without question. He is the only person to command the obedience of all 9 Traitor Legions during a Black Crusade; no other Chaos Warmaster has ever been able to do the same. Abaddon is the personification of the power of Chaos, the ultimate prodigal son whose return will one day bring the apocalypse to the Imperium of Man. |
Abaddon - Vengeful Beyond Reason: Whilst his rival Traitor Legions struggle amongst themselves for the fickle favour of their chosen gods, Abaddon has a purity of purpose that all have come to respect. Under his banners march twisted Chaos Space Marines from every Traitor Legion, Renegade Chapters that have defected from the post-Heresy Imperium, hordes of Chaos Cultists, beast-headed mutants, Abhumans, Space Marines who have given their bodies to possession by daemons, war engines from the Soul Forge and a thousand other freakish strains of anarchist and monster. The denizens of the Eye of Terror have learned over the millennia that those who swear an oath of fealty to the Despoiler would do well not to break it.When the World Eaters that had promised their aid to Abaddon left his armies to join the fighting upon Skalathrax, the Warmaster abandoned his plans, tracked the Berzerkers down and severed their limbs before cauterising their wounds with a Flamer, leaving them as little more than screaming stumps unworthy of a place at the Blood God's table. When the Emperor's Children that had joined the Black Legion turned upon their masters at Faeruthia he blinded and deafened them to a man, tearing out their tongues and sealing them in inert gel-skin so their sensory deprivation was complete. Upon the crystal planet of Liolonac the Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons denied Abaddon the audience they had promised him, having found a Chaotic relic of unsurpassed value. The Warmaster visited a mutagenic plague upon them that twisted them into bulging repulsive mounds of flesh before lobotomising them and hunting them until death with a pack of warped, daemonic hounds.Abaddon's vengeance is not limited to his brother Traitors. When a wilderness shrine upon Plutol refused to bow to his authority, Abaddon killed every other human upon the planet before personally visiting the shrine and forcing the priests who maintained it to eat the bodies of those they had once prayed for. Such is the magnitude and thoroughness of each act of revenge that even daemons fear to cross Abaddon. In his singleminded quest to bring the galaxy to heel he earned a new name; the Despoiler, he who would stop at nothing to secure his revenge against the Corpse-Emperor. |
Abaddon - Abilities: Abaddon is possibly the most powerful still-mortal individual in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Abaddon is a powerful warrior of immense strength and skill who is armed with a deadly array of both Chaos artefacts and abilities that make him an overpowering foe to face on the battlefield. Abaddon bares the Mark of Chaos Ascendant, which bestows all the benefits of the four other Marks of the Chaos Gods, forever branding him as the greatest Champion of Chaos Undivided.He is also described as a demagogue, able to sway other followers of Chaos to his cause against the Imperium despite their natural inclination towards internecine conflict. Abaddon's extraordinary connection to all four of the major Chaos Gods and multiple arcane layers of Daemonic protection means that he cannot be killed outright by anything in the purely physical world, even direct fire from a super-heavy tank such as a Baneblade or a Land Raider.Like his predecessor Horus, only the power of the Warp, harnessed by a psyker of immense power and undoubted purity of mind and heart, will be able to slay Abaddon the Despoiler for all time and forever place his soul beyond the capabilities of even the Ruinous Powers to resurrect. |
Abaddon - Wargear: Abaddon is known to bear the following weapons into battle:Drach'nyen - In his left hand Abaddon bares the Daemon Sword Drach'nyen. The origins of this fell blade are a mystery. Daemons speak of the blade in fear, calling it the "Thorn in Reality" or the "Shard of Madness." Alive with dark intelligence, Drach'nyen has the power to sunder the material universe with its edge, cutting through matter as a mundane blade moves through smoke. In battle, Drach'nyen has been witnessed to destroy a Space Marine Land Raider and flay the souls from those it struck with a single touch. Even the hardened skin of daemons or armour sealed with the power of the Warp is little proof against its assault, as it drinks in the energy of the Immaterium like water, consuming all in its path utterly. The dark spirit that inhabits this fell weapon can alter the blade's appearance, revealing the skulls and faces of the souls it has devoured. This is because Drach'nyen is actually an ancient daemonic entity of infinite malice -- the cryptical seers of the Eye of Terror maintain that the creature inhabiting the weapon was born from the first act of murder ever committed. The truth is lost in the mists of the Imperium's prehistory, but the daemon itself is still very much at large. The arcane blade borne by Abaddon contains the bound essence of the daemon Drach'nyen -- indeed, some say that the sword is composed of nothing else, that it is a writhing Warp entity in a different physical form. Whatever the truth, the blade can rend reality apart wherever it strikes; Drach'nyen rips through steel, flesh and bone like a hungry ghost, making a mockery of physical armour. It was the blade Drach'nyen which Abaddon used to hew open the gates of the Kromarch's citadel, in doing so disrupting the nullification fields with which they were reinforcing the fabric of realspace. It was this same blade that Abaddon used to impale the Great Technomandrite of Danth, thereby sealing the fate of the anti-empyric Lemuel Cluster. Legend has it that those it slays have their souls consumed by the magic of the sword -- the screaming faces of a thousand victims can still be seen twisting and churning within the blade even as it hacks down it next victims.Talon of Horus - Upon his right hand Abaddon wears the Talon of Horus, an archaic Lightning Claw with a built-in Combi-bolter, which he took from his fallen Primarch Horus Lupercal after the siege of the Imperial Palace during the Battle of Terra. With this armoured claw Horus fought the Emperor of Mankind and mortally wounded Him. It was this legendary artefact that strangled the Primarch Sanguinius, digging into the alabaster flesh of the Angel and spilling his rich red blood across the deck of the Vengeful Spirit. After the Warmaster Horus was defeated by the Emperor's last stand, the Talon was torn from Horus' armour by Abaddon. It has claimed unnumbered victims since; perhaps sustained by its own malevolence, it has never once seized up no matter how encrusted with blood and shattered bone it becomes. Over time the Talon of Horus has bonded to Abaddon body and soul; it is now fused to his own armour by its innate psychic energies. Yet the Talon of Horus ' import is far more than that of any mere weapon. The Talon is an icon of evil incarnate to the Imperium, especially the warriors of the Blood Angels, who to this day bear a psychic curse caused by its fell deeds. Their hatred rages strong even ten thousand standard years after their Primarch fell. In this way they echo those they despise, for hate is an emotion known to Abaddon better than any other.Armour of Abaddon - Abaddon wears highly customised archaic suit of Cataphractii Pattern Terminator Armour. Abaddon's armour is covered with many archaic devices, runes, and fetishes that he has collected over the millennia during the Long War. The ancient Sons of Horus Terminator Armour Abaddon wears still incorporates a Daemonic Rune gifted to him by the Daemon-Oracle of Asellus Tertius which greatly enhances his protection from mortal weapons. |
Abaddon - Trivia: Abaddon (also known as Abaddan, Apollyon, Appolyon and Appolion) literally meaning "destruction," "ruin" or "perdition" -- is the Hebrew name of the demon identified as the "angel" of the bottomless pit, or the abyss, in the Christian Bible in the Book of Revelation of St. John; Revelation 9:11.Abaddon has also earned the nickname "Failbaddon" by Warhammer 40,000 fans, due to his many failed Black Crusades -- until the last one. |
Abaddon - Sources: Apocalypse: Reload (4th Edition), pg. 55Arks of Omen: Abaddon (9th Edition), pg. 17Battlefleet Gothic RulebookCodex Heretic Astartes - Chaos Space Marines" (8th Edition), pp. 90-91, 118Codex: Chaos Space Marines (6th Edition), pp. 11-12, 20, 57, 92Codex: Chaos Space Marines (4th Edition), pp. 22, 46-47Codex: Chaos Space Marines (3rd Edition, 2nd Codex), pp. 8-9, 44-45Codex: Chaos Space Marines (3rd Edition, 1st Codex), pp. 22-23Codex: Chaos (2nd Edition), pp. 17-18, 34, 98-99Codex: Eye of Terror (3rd Edition)Deathwatch: First Founding (RPG), pg. 91Gathering Storm - Book One - Fall of Cadia (7th Edition), pp. 36-53Index Astartes IV, "Sons of Horus - The Black Legion Space Marine Legion"The 13th Black Crusade by Andy Hoare, pp. 18, 72, 79The Art of Warhammer 40,000 (Art Book) edited by Matt Ralphs and Marc Gascoigne, pg. 150The Fall of Medusa V (Booklet), pp. 12, 16-17Warlords of the Dark Millennium: Abaddon The Despoiler (Digital Edition), pp. 5-6, 8-10, 12-13, 27-32White Dwarf 287 (UK), "Death by a Thousand Cuts," pg. 36White Dwarf 239 (UK), "The Slayer of Worlds," by Gav Thorpe, pp. 103-109Horus Rising (Novel) by Dan AbnettFalse Gods (Novel) by Graham McNeillGalaxy In Flames (Novel) by Ben CounterAge of Darkness (Anthology) edited by Christian Dunn, "Little Horus"Nemesis (Novel) by James SwallowExecution Hour (Novel) by Gordon RennieDark Adeptus (Novel) by Ben CounterSoul Hunter (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-BowdenThe Talon of Horus (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-BowdenForgeworld - Abaddon vs. Loken DioramaForgeworld - Abaddon vs. Loken VideoWarhammer Community - Abbadon RevealedThe Horus Heresy - Siege of Terra Website, Book 1 The Solar War (Image) |
Abdemon - Abdemon: Abdemon was a notable lieutenant commander of the Emperor's Children Legion during the Great Crusade and the opening days of the Horus Heresy.He commanded the campaign remembered as the Katara Xenocide, where he was charged with prosecuting a campaign against the Abhuman civilisation known as the Katara. Abdemon brought the conflict to an end by besting a Kataran champion in single combat. Unfortunately, the defeat was such a dishonour in the Kataran culture that the entire Kataran people proceeded to commit suicide.Abdemon himself is believed to have died on the traitorous blade of one of his own captains on the field of the Choral City during the Isstvan III Atrocity. |
Abdemon - History: The xenocide of the alien Katara was a brutal campaign of extermination carried out against this insular Abhuman civilisation that had evolved in the Kenuit System during the Age of Strife, turning irrevocably from the sacred purity of the Human form and the fellowship of Mankind. When first discovered by an Emperor's Children expeditionary fleet, the first signs indicated that the star system's Imperial Compliance could be achieved without bloodshed.Initially offering no resistance, matters only deteriorated when the Katara were asked directly to formally surrender to the Imperium. Soon a lone Kataran warship arrived and destroyed the light cruiser Locrian before sustaining damage itself and withdrawing. So provoked, acting Lieutenant Commander Abdemon ordered the invasion of the largest Kataran city-complex the Imperial fleet's augurs could detect.Commencing an orbital bombardment which cracked open the upper levels of the Kataran city, the Emperor's Children landed, suspecting that they would face mass resistance to their invasion. Instead, they encountered lone Kataran warriors clad in strange armour made from an exotic metal who fought with leaf-bladed ceramic axes, plasma-tipped spears that burned like suns and swords of black glass that could cut ceramite with a delicate stroke.The skill with which the Katarans wielded their weapons was dazzling even to the Emperor's Children. The Katara's diplomatic representatives came forward again after hundreds of their warriors had died in their seemingly insane, staggered attacks and requested to meet once more under truce. The Kataran diplomat brought a proposal: let the war be decided by a chosen champion from each side. At the end the victor would claim not only victory for himself but for his civilisation.Incredibly, Lieutenant Commander Abdemon agreed and said that he would enter the field as the Imperium's champion, while the Kataran Champion was known as the Hamaya. The two warriors fought, until at last both were covered in blood. That is when the Imperial champion got under the alien's guard and delivered the killing blow. With their champion defeated, the Kataran representatives ordered that all should know that their people had been defeated by an enemy of equal honour but superior arts.The order given, the Kataran leaders fell on their own swords before the Emperor's Children. Across all their domains every member of the Katara followed their leaders into death and the great Kataran cities became mass graves. Though some advocated stripping the now-unoccupied worlds and beginning a process of resettlement, Lieutenant Commander Abdemon and the Emperor's Children refused, decreeing that the Kataran home planet would become a Mortuary World.The cites would remain untouched until time remade them, and the corpses of their makers returned to dust. Relics were collected from their dead so that the Katara would be remembered: the body, weapons and armour of the Hamaya were set in a stasis coffer, and a token was taken from each of the Kataran warriors slain by the Emperor's Children. Throughout the rest of the Great Crusade, it is said that Abdemon and the members of his cohort trained and fought with the weapons of the Katara. It is believed that Abdemon, who remained always loyal to the Emperor and the high ideals of the Imperium, fell to the traitorous blade of one of his own captains on the deadly field of the Choral City of Isstvan III during the Isstvan III Atrocity. |
Abdul Goldberg - Abdul Goldberg: Abdul Goldberg is an Imperial Rogue Trader infamous for his treacherous and double-dealing behaviour across the galaxy. |
Abdul Goldberg - History: Goldberg is known to have won another captain's starship in a rigged poker game, in which he spiked his opponent's drink. The enraged captain and his crew, who had been evicted from their vessel along with their belongings after the game, tried to retake it by force before Abdul and his own men fled aboard it. The final outcome of the clash is unknown.On another occasion, Goldberg agreed to provide a getaway ship for a fleeing band of thieves of unclear motivations, but when these reached the spaceport with the local authorities on their tails, Abdul was nowhere to be found. This forced the fugitives to try and hijack another ship present there that was in the process of being refuelled.Goldberg facilitated certain Imperial criminals' capture to later engineer their escape from high-security jails, in order to follow them to their secret hideouts so that he could locate their ill-gotten gains and steal them.These exploits have understandably earned Goldberg many enemies, and he is under constant threat from vengeful ambushes and raids against his forces when he is out on the Imperial frontier far from the Emperor's light. |
Abelard Werserian - Abelard Werserian: Abelard Werserian is a former officer of the Navis Imperialis who has served as seneschal of the House von Valancius Rogue Trader dynasty in the Koronus Expanse for solar decades under the leadership of Theodora von Valancius.When Theodora was recently assassinated during a Warp incursion on her flagship, Werserian had to transfer his solar decades of loyalty and experience to the house's new Rogue Trader, a distantly related individual who had met Theodora only a scant few solar hours before her death. |
Abelard Werserian - History: Rogue Traders are the bright stars of the Koronus Expanse. They traverse the void, conquering savage worlds, hunting ancient treasures, and bringing the light of the Emperor to the wild frontier. Their great minds are focused on major tasks (or distracted by the pleasures that the lavish lifestyle of Imperial nobility brings...but that's another matter). In any case, each Rogue Trader needs a trusted person to handle the not-so-great tasks, like keeping the colonial governments on all those conquered worlds from falling apart, or turning all those ancient treasures into actual profit. Enter the dynasty's seneschal.Solar decades ago, the diligent and imperious Abelard Werserian was first officer on a Navis Imperialis cruiser, until fate intervened in the form of Theodora von Valancius, an eccentric, wayward Rogue Trader. Different as night and day, the pair learned to appreciate and respect each other during a joint operation between Navis Imperialis and Rogue Trader forces. Impressed, Theodora used the right of requisition granted by her Warrant of Trade to claim Abelard as her new seneschal -- a position that confers the highest honours, as well as the greatest burdens.Decades later, Abelard, as the Rogue Trader's right hand, remains vigilant against threats to House von Valancius' trade empire. Time and its tribulations have turned his hair gray and his demeanour even more difficult than it was in his Imperial Navy days. And yet Abelard is still one of the most reliable of the Rogue Trader's crew, fiercely loyal to the trade empire he helped to build and operate. Anything that endangers this precious creation he views as a personal threat. And these dangers are many, for great and fearsome powers lurk in the depths of the Koronus Expanse. Is there still enough strength in the aging seneschal's hands to hold the trade empire together and protect it from ruin as he seeks to guide a new and untested Rogue Trader in their duties? |
Abelard Werserian - Wargear: ChainswordFlak VestMedi-kit |
Aberrant - Aberrant: An Aberrant is a Genestealer hybrid who was born mutated for a number of different reasons from the normal phenotype for their generation of the brood cycle.Though misshapen and possessed of an inferior intellect, Aberrants are physically powerful, have superhuman endurance and are possessed of a potent need to protect the other members of their Genestealer Cult. For this reason, they are used as shock assault troops by their cult's leaders.Like Hybrid Metamorphs, Aberrants also sometimes undergo a rapid genetic restructuring as a Tyranid hive fleet draws near their homeworld and they spontaneously develop the biomechancial biomorph weapons of other Tyranid bioforms. |
Aberrant - Role: Misshapen, lumpen and inhumanly strong, the Aberrants are the repugnant offshoots of the brood cycle. Though dim-witted, their instinctive need to defend their broodkin makes them valuable assets to the cult. In battle, they stomp and shuffle to the greatest concentrations of resistance. With heavy industrial tools raised, they moan slurred praise to the Genestealer Patriarch as they charge in, causing impressive carnage with only their brute force and single-minded determination.What manner of strange processes gives rise to an Aberrant is unknown. Some quirk of ancestry ordains their fate as the normal Genestealer hybrid genetic pattern is somehow perverted. Perhaps the initial implantation of the Purestrain Genestealer's ovipositor in one of the Aberrant's parents was interrupted or spoiled, perhaps the interbreeding happened during a Warp event or sorcerous ritual, or perhaps the forbidden dabbling of curious bio-alchemical engineers gave rise to monsters that killed their creators upon birth.Whatever the circumstance that leads to their inception, these Aberrants soon seek out the lowest of their gene-sect's dungeon-like lairs, shambling through the darkness until they find a Magus or Patriarch that will give them new purpose. From that point on, they are used as pure muscle for the cult's purposes. Armed with power-field augmented tools, Aberrants are set to the task of digging tunnels and clearing out caverns beneath the cities of their prey world, expanding the subterranean networks through which the cult can move unseen.Buried hab-blocks and long-forgotten weapons caches are cracked open and plundered, or hollowed out and seeded with enough mining explosives to bring the structures built above them crumbling down.The majority of any cult's most horrific and inhuman-looking broodkin like Aberrants are put to work in mines or tunnels far from the sight of the authorities, or confined to the lair of their gene-sect's Biophagus, where they are relentlessly experimented on. A rare few, however, are cultivated and trained to become competent assassins. When the need arises, a Magus, Primus or other cult leader will despatch these creatures on missions of murder, conferring their target's scent or psychic spoor to their bestial minions.The thuggish hybrids are sent out at night, swathed in sackcloth, hessian or industrial webbing to lumber through sewers and undercrofts in search of the foolish individual who would work against the cult's agendas. Under lambent moonlight, they climb up to the surface world and into the hab-quarters of their victim. Once the fresh scent of their mark is in their nostrils, all stealth is abandoned. With Power Hammer and Power Pick, the murderous beasts smash and gouge a path to their prey, the last few moments of their victims' lives spent in abject horror and confusion.Once the deed is done, the hybrids hack their way back into the underworld and vanish as swiftly as they appeared. Many long Terran years can slide past before such creatures are able to vent their pent-up fury once more. When the day of the cult's grand uprising finally arrives, these gruesome giants immerse themselves in wanton butchery at the first opportunity.The Aberrants emerge from the darkness along with the rest of the cultists. Brandishing their filth-encrusted claws and wielding heavy mining tools, they tear with equal ease through hastily assembled infantry garrisons, fortified defence emplacements and armoured vehicles that are brought to bear against them. Their masters deploy them as they would attack dogs, sending them to spread terror and confusion through grievous acts of destruction.Due to their incredible endurance, Aberrants are able to wade through heavy enemy fire, sustaining horrendous injuries yet losing none of their deadliness. In this way they serve as a moving wall of flesh, behind which the other cultists advance upon their foe. |
Aberrant - Aberrant Hypermorphs: Like Hybrid Metamorphs, some Aberrants mutate as the Hive Fleet approaches, in response to the psychic command of the nearing Hive Mind. As these mutations take hold, the creature's spinal column extends into a muscular tail, tipped with a hooked barb sharp enough to slice through meat, bone and even infantry armour.Known as Aberrant Hypermorphs, these creatures are even more ferocious than their kindred, lashing out mindlessly with their industrial weapons or grabbing whatever makeshift weapon they can even as they charge towards their foes.The occurrence of Aberrant Hypermorphs is more sporadic than that of Hybrid Metamorphs, with individual Aberrants mutating rather than whole broods, yet their appearance is still seen as portentous by the cultists around them. |
Aberrant - Unit Composition: 5-10 Aberrants1-2 Aberrant Hypermorphs |
Aberrant - Aberrant: Rending ClawHeavy Power Hammer or Power Pick |
Aberrant - Aberrant Hypermorph: Rending ClawHypermorph TailHeavy Power Hammer or Heavy Improvised Weapon |
Aberrus System - Aberrus System: The Aberrus System is an Imperial star system located in the Eastern Fringe of the Imperium Nihilus close to the Grendl Stars. It is currently gripped in a conflict between the military forces of the Imperium of Man and a tendril of the Tyranids' Hive Fleet Kraken known as the War for the Aberrus System.The invasion of the system by the Tyranids in the Era Indomitus was picked up by the ancillary scry-station located on Hedhan, the outermost world of the system, that was controlled by the Iron Lords Chapter of Space Marines. The Chapter homeworld of the Iron Lords was Sternac, which was located close to the Aberrus System.The Iron Lords had long sworn to protect the rest of the Imperium from the hyper-violent xenos species known as the Barghesi, who they had quarantined within the Grendl Stars.But if Hive Fleet Kraken managed to overrun the Imperial defenders of the Aberrus System, then they would be able to sweep into the Grendl Stars, potentially adding the Barghesi's savage genetic diversity to their own. The Ordo Xenos feared that were Aberuus to fall, the fate of the entire Eastern Fringe could be put at risk. |
Aberrus System - Notable Planets: The following six worlds orbit the Aberrus star, listed in order from closest to farthest from the star.Vander's Folly (Dead World)Ligrides (Dead World)Luann (Jungle World) - Luann is one of the two Human-settled worlds of the Aberrus System, the other being Glacemaw. Luann is home to its own militarum regimento of the Astra Militarum, the Luann Lineholders, who were heavily engaged in the battles to save the world from the hundreds of millions of Tyranid bioforms who are currently seeking to claim it. Luann's ecosystems were home to extremely carnivorous fauna, which had been contained by a string of fortresses known as the Four Towers. These fortresses are now under siege by the Tyranids as is the Hinnoq Delta Tribridge, where the 81st and 935th Luann Lineholders Regiments assigned to its defence proved unable to withstand the pressure and collapsed.Glacemaw (Ice World) - Glacemaw is the second Human-settled colony world of system. It is a frigid planet, marked by sweeping tundras. It is also home to an Astra Militarum militarum regimento, in this case the Glacemaw Ridgeguards. Glacemaw, like Luann, has also been invaded by hundreds of millions of Hive Fleet Kraken bioforms and hundreds of the feared Tyranid Bio-Titans. The Permaberg Citadel has already been toppled by the Tyranid assault, The Tredi Forest on Glacemaw, viewed as impenetrable for millennia, was all but consumed -- only by the efforts of the Catachan Jungle Fighters LV Regiment, supported by the Knights of House Curtana and House Borgius and the Sisters of Battle of the Order of the Crimson Chalice, had the outer reaches been held. The Sanctuary of Saint Vilutia was sure to fall if the forest was lost. The ice fields of Kutris crawled with Tyranid bioforms rampaging towards the major settlement of Glation City, which was expected to be destroyed within three local days of a concerted attack by the Tyranids.Saint Vaux's Hope (Mining World) - Saint vaux's hope has already fallen to the Tyranids, its enitre biosphere consumed by the maw of the great Devourer.Hedhan (Iron Lords Ancillary Scry-Station) - This world long served as the base for a scry-station or observer's post of the Iron Lords Chapter. When this scry-station picked up the Tyranid invasion of the Aberrus System, it relayed its warnings to the Iron Lords who initiated the Adeptus Astartes reinforcements who have recently joined in the War for the Aberrus System, providing renewed hope and morale for the beleaguered defenders. |
Abeyant - Abeyant: An Abeyant is an anti-gravitic transportation device often used by high-ranking tech-priests of the ancient Mechanicum and the Adeptus Mechanicus.Considered in part as a symbol of status as well as a functional tool, an Abeyant is the name given to a class of anti-gravitic, hovering conveyances into which the rider's augmetic and life support systems are connected, so that the machine-vehicle becomes an extension of their own body. Often taking the form of a stylised throne or enclosing scarab-like framework, its levitation suspensor field allows the owner to cross most war-torn battlefields with ease. They are commonly used by high-ranking Tech-priests, especially in battlefield situations.As a powerful archmagos of the Dark Mechanicum domain of Cyclothrathe, it was not unheard of for Yelav Draykavac, the commander of that Forge World's Taghmata, to stride into battle mounted in an Abeyant such as he did during the Liberation of Numinal in the Horus Heresy. |
Abheilüng - Abheilüng: Abheilüng is a former Imperial vassal world now controlled by the Dark Mechanicus and wholly dedicated to the Ruinous Powers. It was lost to the Imperium in 995.M41, when elements of the Dark Mechanicus that had long been hidden in the subterranean depths of this volcanic world caused every volcano on the planet to erupt simultaneously, killing millions.The servants of the Dark Gods then unleashed a horde of Daemon Engines to cleanse the planet of any survivors. Those few unfortunate souls who remained after the slaughter were taken as slaves to toil in the hellish forges of their new, dark masters. |
Abheilüng - History: Much of the early history of this isolated world has been lost to the long passage of millennia. Abheilüng was once considered a vital deep void empyreal waystation since it lay on the Armageddon-Paramar Grand Conduit. The survivors of a mission group despatched by the Inquisition to the Abheilüng System recently returned and reported that Abheilüng was now lost to the Imperium.They revealed that elements of the Dark Mechanicus, who had hidden beneath the surface of the world, employed forbidden rites of techno-pyroclasm to cause the many dormant volcanoes present on Abheilüng to erupt as one, sealing the deaths of millions in a single moment. Worse was to come, for out of the roiling black clouds and rivers of molten rock charged an uncountable host of Daemon Engines.It was estimated that the entire population of Abheilüng has now fallen to the Dark Mechanicus; slaughtered, consumed or dragged beneath the ground in fetters to tend the infernal forges below. It is believed by many within the Inquisition that Abheilüng is now entirely in the hands of the Dark Mechanicus, which must have lurked unseen in its volcanic labyrinths for centuries.While that admission galls many within the Imperial government, Abheilüng is now beyond any hope of deliverance. Furthermore, it is likely that Abheilüng is already on the path to becoming a significant locus of production for infernal engines of war and that soon the Traitor Legions and others dedicated to the Ruinous Powers will be able to procure the services of machines wrought in its forges. |
Abhorrent-class Knight - Abhorrent-class Knight: An Abhorrent-class Knight is a Chaos Knight of any standard class that has been so warped by the energies of the Warp that their very structures have mutated into savage new forms.These war engines are often hybrids of the Knight's original mechanical form and daemonic flesh grafted onto its frame by the reality-reshaping powers of Chaos. |
Abhuman - Abhuman: An Abhuman is a descendant of baseline Human settlers whose ancestors mutated and physically adapted to various extreme environmental conditions after being isolated for thousands of standard years on colony worlds across the galaxy. Some Abhumans may also be intentionally genetically engineered mutants created for a specific purpose.The term may be short for "aberrant Human", "abnormal Human," or, less pejoratively, derived from the High Gothic term ab humanis, "from Humans."In an Imperium of Man where genetic mutation from the Human baseline and spiritual corruption are often viewed as interrelated or one and the same, Abhumans are a focus of much controversy for the Imperial government. Abhumans are distinct from true mutants in that they conform to a common physical phenotype, demonstrate reproductive stability and are no more susceptible to further mutation than normal Humans.In more enlightened times under the direct rule of the Emperor of Mankind during the Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium, even markedly divergent Abhumans such as the Beastmen could serve in the Imperial Army.Since the Emperor's stasis on the Golden Throne began at the end of the Horus Heresy, however, only the lesser Abhuman mutants, such as Ogryns and Ratlings, are allowed full citizenship in the Imperium. However, they are still distrusted by the Puritan members of the Inquisition and by the more devout believers in the Imperial Creed in every corner of the Imperium. Imperial citizens tend to treat Abhumans with a mixture of hatred, fear and prejudice and it is rare for Abhumans to reach positions of power within Imperial society.By the 41st Millennium, the Adeptus Terra had recognised seventy-three different Abhuman strains, of which forty-six have been declared extinct, and twelve more are on the verge of being declared so due to lack of contact with Imperial representatives. Some of the most important and notable Abhuman strains in the Imperium are detailed below.Abhumans like Ratlings and Ogryns who are considered Imperial citizens have proved their worth as specialists in the Militarum Auxilla, an auxiliary specialist appendage of the Astra Militarum. Indoctrinated in the Imperial Creed to ensure their loyalty to the Emperor, they are taught self-loathing, and watched closely by the commissars and priests of the Ecclesiarchy. |
Abhuman - Navigators: A Navigator (Homo navigo) is a very particular form of Imperially-sanctioned Human mutant, who possess the Navigator Gene and have existed within the Human gene pool since the time of the Dark Age of Technology. All Navigators possess a third eye, commonly called the "Warp Eye," on their foreheads which gives them the unique ability to see into the Empyrean without losing their sanity.Using the psychic beacon generated and directed by the Emperor known as the Astronomican as a stable reference point, Navigators use the power granted by their third eye to guide Human starships through the currents of the Warp. Their ability to sense the tides of the Warp is considered psychic, although Navigators never possess any psychic abilities beyond the powers of astronavigation their Warp Eye affords them.Since the Navigator Gene is hereditary rather than a recurring random mutation, the existence of Navigators is tolerated by an edict from the Emperor Himself issued at the time of the Unification Wars in the 30th Millennium as the Navigators and their politically powerful Navis Nobilite aristocratic houses were essential to the continued functioning of the Imperium's commerce and defence.Navigators all live within the special precinct of the Terran world-city that was given to them by the Emperor millennia ago. The politics of the Navigator Houses are known to be byzantine and treacherous in the extreme. |
Abhuman - Afriel Strain: Afriel Strain soldiers are genetically-engineered warriors created during an experimental project conducted by the Adeptus Mechanicus, of which little is known.The initiative was an attempt to capitalise on the characteristics of the heroes of the Imperial past's genetic material, to recreate all the best traits which had made them great. The project was ultimately an attempt to create the perfect Human soldier, and it failed miserably.Afriel Strain warriors, for some reason, have the worst luck ever seen among Humans, to the point that some Mechanicus adepts believe that their cloned genetic makeup may interface with the Warp in some way to alter the laws of probability. Afriels are normally albinos, with pale alabaster skin, pale hair and colorless, pink eyes. |
Abhuman - Beastmen: Beastmen (Homo sapiens variatus) are horned, hoofed, and quite hairy Abhumans who appear like nothing so much as humanoid goats or rams. They were formerly recruited for the Imperial Army and later the Astra Militarum, where they used their innate bloodlust to fight for the Emperor and atone for the sin of being born as mutants. They were led by other Beastmen called "packmasters."At present, "Pureblood" Beastmen are no longer seen in Imperial service, since overt mutants now only serve in the forces of Chaos. No doubt Puritan elements of the Inquisition convinced the Administratum that the Beastmen could not be so radically altered from the normal Human form without being tainted by Chaos.Some lesser variants of the H.s.variatus strain, who are less physically mutated than their peers, are allowed to still exist within the Imperial armed forces, where they are used as cannon fodder and as expendable assault troops. These Beastmen are the Warhammer 40,000 equivalent of the Warhammer universe's Beastmen. |
Abhuman - Ogryns: The dim-witted Human sub-species called Ogryns (Homo sapiens gigantus) evolved on high-gravity, low-temperature prison planets. They are huge and unusually stupid for a Human subrace, but unquestionably loyal to the Imperium once introduced to the faith of the Imperial Cult.Ogryns are used as the Astra Militarum's shock troops, and for this role, they are commonly outfitted with the Ripper Gun. The Ripper Gun is a weapon simple enough for them to operate, although some feral Ogryn cannot even fathom this device. Ogryn are also frequently used as bodyguards by Imperial military commanders.Ogryns tend to be claustrophobic and thus are difficult to transport. They are typically led by "Bone 'eads," who have undergone a procedure known as Biochemical Ogryn Neural Enhancement (or BONE treatment), improving their intellect to near-Human standards.Sometimes, when speed is of the essence, Imperial commanders with a fresh batch of conscripted Ogryns do not bother to teach them the comparatively complicated use of the standard Ogryn Ripper Gun, merely giving them another club and telling them to smash the enemy with it.As one might guess, the Ogryns are the Warhammer 40,000 equivalent of the Warhammer Ogre. |
Abhuman - Ratlings: Ratlings (Homo sapiens minimus) are small, loud, hungry and lecherous Abhumans who often serve as snipers in the Astra Militarum, a role at which they excel.Ratlings also serve as cooks for Astra Militarum regiments, a skill they no doubt learned in order to feed their own seemingly bottomless stomachs; and they also have kleptomaniac tendencies, as commissars report petty theft and illegal gambling rings increase substantially when Ratlings are attached to a platoon, company or regiment.One named Ratling homeworld is Ornsworld, which was attacked by Abaddon the Despoiler during the Gothic War. Ratlings are a mutant sub-branch of the Human race, like the Ogryns, who adapted to living in underground tunnel systems on worlds with hostile surface environments.Due to their small size, they often bear the brunt of normal Human soldiers' jokes, although more than one soldier has been saved by the Ratlings' superior marksmanship. Essentially, Ratlings are the Warhammer 40,000 equivalent of Warhammer's Halflings. |
Abhuman - Squats (Original): The Abhumans called Squats (Homo sapiens rotundus) originated on high-gravity Mining Worlds close to the galactic core, making them short, muscular and tough. Their homeworlds briefly seceded from the Imperium during the Age of Apostasy, though they later returned to the Imperial fold as autonomous but loyal worlds.Squats are talented engineers, and known to hold long-standing grudges, particularly against the Orks. In combat, Squats use combat motorcycles and support from superheavy artillery weapons, such as Leviathans and Colossi.Squats for a long time were officially no longer part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe due to decisions made by Games Workshop to bring the universe closer to a true science fiction reality; in the universe's mythology they were said to have been nearly driven extinct by the attack of the Tyranids on their homeworlds in the 41st Millennium, though some Squats survived to seek vengeance across the Human-settled galaxy.The Squat race was an equivalent of the Warhammer Dwarfs, but following the removal of the Squats from the game for two decades, the part of a Dwarf analogue in the Warhammer 40,000 universe was taken for a time by the T'au-allied alien species called the Demiurg.The Squats are now once more a full-fledged faction of the Warhammer 40,000 universe as the Kin of the Leagues of Votann and the Demiurg are now considered a Prospect of the Kin. |
Abhuman - Leagues of Votann: The Leagues of Votann is the collective name for the various confederations of the species of squat but powerfully-built Abhuman clones who refer to themselves as the "Kin." They are sometimes pejoratively called "Squats" by the Humans of the Imperium. The Kin are an advanced, starfaring race who possess highly advanced technology and live amid the extreme environments that mark the resource-rich worlds of the galactic core. The Kin share their lives with self-aware, robotic constructs called Ironkin, which they treat as full societal equals in every way.The Kin have sometimes been misidentified by Humans and xenos species alike as different Abhuman or alien species than their true identity. For instance, the Kin have been mistakenly known to both the T'au and Humans as the "Demiurg," to the Aeldari as the "Heliosi Ancients," and to various other peoples as the "Gnostari," the "Grome" or the "Kreg," among others.The Kin vary in their classification by the Imperium between a sanctioned Abhuman sub-species of Humanity or a xenos species. However, the Kin's earliest surviving records do establish an ancient link between their Ancestors who settled the galactic core and the sublight, generational Long March mining fleets sent out by pre-Imperial Old Earth, thus making the Abhuman designation the correct one. For their part, the Kin care little what others think of them.Each of the Leagues of Votann are divided up into groupings similar to clans or nation-states known as "Kindreds," and are ultimately led by a self-aware machine intelligence called a Votann or "Ancestor Core." The Votann are treated as objects of near-worship by the Kin, and when they die, each Kin and Ironkin has their cerebral data uploaded into their Kindred's Votann, a semi-mystical practice referred to as "returning to the Ancestors."Few intelligent species in the galaxy are as redoubtable, courageous or determined as the Kin who comprise the Leagues of Votann. Nor are many as ruthless when it comes to the risk-and-reward calculus of war. To face them in battle is to stand before an armoured avalanche that crushes all in its path. It is to be appraised and then brusquely dealt with by attackers who see any foe as little more than an obstruction, or else as a hated nemesis whose annihilation is worth any cost.To those they fight alongside or trade with, the Kin are invaluable allies. However, those they deem a risk to their people's survival they destroy with the same relentless rigour that the Kin apply to harvesting black hole accretion discs, manufacturing their incredible technologies or, indeed, anything else they set their minds to.The Leagues of Votann are huge and formidable stellar empires, united by a shared history, genetic kinship and culture. As the emergence of the Great Rift sends ripples of upheaval through the galactic core and beyond, they are coming into violent collision with the other starfaring races more than ever before.The Leagues of Votann represent the completely reworked return of the 1st Edition Squats into the Warhammer 40,000 universe as a full faction of their own. |
Abhuman - Gland War Veterans: Gland War Veterans were created to fight invading Tyranids on the Forge World of Dantis III, which was heavily polluted. The Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-priests who ruled Dantis III genetically modified several companies of the Lostok 23rd Regiment of the Astra Militarum to fight in the hellish conditions.They had many organs and drug-secreting glands implanted in their bodies so that they could survive in the Dantisian environment unprotected. Their combat abilities and physical aggressiveness were also genetically increased.Thanks to the heavy losses they took to ensure the successful defence of Dantis III, only three Gland Warriors are believed to have survived, who were taken by the Inquisition for study and debriefing. |
Abhuman - Goliaths: The Necromundan House Goliath owns and operates many of the great foundries of the Hive World of Necromunda and its workers are the masters of the furnace and of metal, the raw materials of which are traded from the mines of House Orlock.The house values nothing higher than physical strength, and to this end breeds its workers like prize cattle in an effort to create the strongest, toughest and most unthinkingly loyal workers of the furnace in the galaxy.The core of these workers are huge brutes -- incredibly strong and tough, but often mentally unbalanced and extremely short-lived. House Goliath furnace-tenders -- Goliaths -- are often bigger than a Space Marine and some Imperial scholars regard them as a classifiable strain of Abhuman. |
Abhuman - Nightsiders: Nightsiders are Abhumans who live out their lives in near or complete darkness on worlds that either are so far from their primary star that little or no light is shed or planets that do not rotate and so one side is always facing away from the sun.Nightsiders may have developed larger eyes than a normal Human, almost bulbous; others may have vestigial eyes with their other senses greatly enhanced to compensate for the near-blindness. |
Abhuman - Other Notable Abhumans: The Adeptus Administratum's records of officially Sanctioned Abhumans further mention the following Abhuman subspecies, but does not provide much more detail about them other than their existence:Troths (Homo sapiens verdantus) - Troths are endemic to the world of Verdant, and unable to leave it due to their particular, unknown physical adaptation to its environment. They are virtually unknown to the Imperium at large.Longshanks (Homo sapiens elongatus) - These Abhumans have genetically adapted to habitable worlds with particularly low gravity, and are tall, elongated and emaciated. They find it nearly impossible to survive on worlds with gravity heavier than what they endure on their homeworlds.Pelagers (Homo sapiens oceanus) - Pelagers have either evolved or were genetically altered during the Age of Technology to live on Ocean Worlds, those habitable planets of the galaxy almost entirely covered in liquid water. They possess a set of both gills and lungs, and other adaptations for an aquatic lifestyle such as webbed hands and feet. They are a common sight on such worlds of the Imperium, but virtually unknown everywhere else.Felinids (Homo sapiens hirsutus) - Felinids are endemic to the Imperial world of Carlos McConell. Whether this is due to the particular biological requirements of that planet, prior genetic modifications made to a Human population during the Dark Age of Technology or prior Imperial regulation is unknown, but they are virtually unheard of in the Imperium at large. Felinids are Humans who have had their genomes spliced with genetic sequences derived from various species of Terran felines, and they possess many felinoid traits, including a light covering of fur over their entire body, extended canine teeth and superhuman agility and grace.Neandors (Homo sapiens hyannothus) - Descendants of the original base-line Human colonists of the world of Hyannoth IV, the Neandors have adapted over the Terran millennia to the particular ecological demands of their frigid and high gravity homeworld. These adaptations, which include hirsutism and a much more robust skeletomuscular system, however, prevent them from leaving Hyannoth IV easily. As a result, Neandors are virtually unknown to the wider Imperium. |
Abhuman - Usage In-Game: In the most recent editions of Warhammer 40,000, only the Ogryns and Ratling snipers are mentioned in the main rulebook. However, in the U.S. edition of White Dwarf 302 (UK) (numbered as White Dwarf 303), an official article was published featuring doctrines that allow Astra Militarum armies to take units of Abhumans, expanding on the Ratling Snipers and Ogryns of the core rulebook.The article featured Beastmen (or Homo sapiens variatus), Mutant Slave Levies (ordinary mutant slaves rounded up to serve as Imperial cannon fodder), Feral Ogryns (even nastier and more primitive creatures than regular "civilised" Ogryns), Nightsiders (mutants originating from worlds of perpetual or near-perpetual darkness, who have little to no ability to see but are the perfect warriors for night-fighting missions), Afriel Strain Soldiers (Human clones genetically engineered from DNA taken from the greatest heroes of the Imperium, very unlucky and unpopular), Subs (relatively genetically stable but still hideously deformed mutant sub-breeds) and Gland Warriors (genetically-normal Imperial Guardsmen implanted with special organs and glands that secrete combat-useful chemicals, such as stims and pain-killers). |
Abominant - Abominant: An Abominant is a mutant Genestealer hybrid who has been genetically reshaped by the will of its Genestealer Cult Patriarch to become a potent, hulking monstrosity that leads other Aberrants into battle.The Abominant is psychically directed by the Mindwyrm Familiar that created it so that its line-breaking combat power is deployed during the Genestealer Cult's military actions to where it can have the greatest tactical effect upon the defenders' forces. |
Abominant - Role: The Abominant comes lumbering across the field with a rolling, lopsided stride. A champion amongst the mutant Aberrants of its cult, each is a misshapen wrecking ball of muscle and chitin that wields a heavy bludgeoning instrument as if it weighed no more than a switch of willow.So hideous is this gene-cursed monster that Imperial soldiers recoil in revulsion at the sight of its bifurcated features and twisted, alien anatomy. Only when the roaring, demented brute crushes all before it in a spasmodic frenzy, crying out in a mixture of anger, pain and self-loathing, does the true horror of its existence become clear.Like the Aberrants from which they are created, Abominants are born from a deviation in the typical Genestealer Cult brood cycle. Usually occurring towards the latter iterations of a cult's lifespan, an Abominant begins life as any other Aberrant -- a freak occurrence, a mistake that occurred during the implantation of the original Genestealer DNA or as a result of an interbreeding between its parents gone awry. After its unnatural birth, however, its power is fostered and nurtured to new levels, for such raw strength and destructive potential is not to be wasted by the cult.In order to better herd its Aberrant shock troops to battle, the Genestealer Patriarch visits its blessings upon a chosen Aberrant in each gene-sect. He does so using a Mindwyrm Familiar, a diminutive xenos creature that is both progenitor and guide to the larger entity.A bio-psychic construct that is given life in the decaying slurry that gathers in the Patriarch's lair, it is the Mindwyrm Familiar's role to implant the soon-to-be-Abominant with a portion of its master's own biomass and genetic structure.It does so with a strange echo of the Genestealer's Kiss, implanting its tiny ovipositor into the toughened hide of the Aberrant and placing a potent gene-curse within its cellular structure. Thus is an Abominant born.Once the mutagen is implanted into the chosen Aberrant, the creature is reshaped over long and agonising nights of physical metamorphosis. Its already robust frame grows even larger and more powerful.Its flesh splits and its bones break under the strain of rampant gigantism. Such wounds are quickly healed by the Patriarch-bestowed mutagen infesting the Abominant's body, just as the blows of enemy warriors are shrugged off or rent flesh swiftly regenerated in battle.The Mindwyrm Familiar does not depart after this strange gift is given, but continues to exert the will of the Patriarch on the Abominant. It uses the hulking thrall's bulk to break open enemy lines by shepherding it headlong into the most redoubtable foes, where its hammer smashes an opening by sending warriors flying.The creature's Aberrant kindred blindly follow the lumbering brute into the fray, incited to ever-greater acts of slaughter.They see the Abominant as a saintly figure, a blessed disciple chosen by their god and anointed with his most blessed mutations. In truth the Abominant is no more emotionally or spiritually attached to the cult's masters than the hammer it wields.The creature is useful indeed, but with its intellect not much greater than that of a Human toddler, the role of true war leader is forever denied to it.If the Patriarch is the heart of the gene-sect and the Magus its psyche, the Abominant is its gnarled fist. It is its role to shatter, to crush, to destroy with brute force that which stands in the path of the cultists' ultimate victory.Before the day of ascension, these grotesque beasts are typically put to work in conquering an underground region or distant outpost -- for should an Imperial citizen see an Abominant roaming the streets in broad daylight, the subsequent panic might do the cult more harm than good.When the gene-sect lies low, the Abominant is often given playthings to keep it docile -- the broken bodies of those the Magus has ordered slain, captured animals, or even simple toys taken from the houses of the upworlders.To take these amusements away from the Abominant is to drive it into a rage that can last for solar days -- all the war leaders need to do at that stage is to simply point the creature in the direction of those the cult needs crushed into a crimson paste, and its blind rage will do the rest.When the cultists cast off their disguises on the day of uprising, the Abominant is given free rein to wreak destruction as it sees fit, its Mindwyrm Familiar hissing and rubbing its claws like a fly preparing to feast on a mound of rotting offal. |
Abominant - Wargear: Rending ClawPower SledgehammerMindwyrm Familiar |
Abominatus - Abominatus: Abominatus, known as the "Despoiler of Worlds," is a hellish union of a Chaos-corrupted Imperator-class Titan of the Legio Magna and a Greater Daemon of Khorne. Abominatus has fought in many blood-soaked campaigns throughout the known galaxy.This notorious and formidable Chaos Battle Titan's current whereabouts are unknown, though it is highly unlikely such a vile creation would die quietly or go unheralded by its bloody-handed Khornate kin. |
Abominatus - Role: Abominatus is one of the most terrifying of all the servants of the Blood God. When it walks the ground shakes beneath its steel-shod feet and the enemies of the Blood God quail in fear.This Chaos Titan wields fire and steel against its foes, with flames and gun smoke flickering from each casement and embrasure in its massive body, its soul burns with the unquenchable fire of a Daemon's hate.Abominatus carries a veritable arsenal of weapons built onto its body. Its main armament, the Hellstorm Cannon and Plasma Annihilator, along with its main battery function in an identical fashion to its Imperial counterpart. However the weapons on its main fighting platform are quite different.This Chaos-possessed Titan also has a Scorpion Cannon, a lethal, multi-barrelled weapon used for close assaults that is normally mounted on Daemon Engines of Khorne.It possesses Manglers, huge battle claws which can sweep aside battle tanks and flay enemy Titans to twisted metal. As Abominatus is part Daemon and part machine, this makes it particularly resistant to psychic attack as well. |
Abominatus - Weapons: Mark of KhorneHellstorm CannonBlood CannonScorpion CannonPlasma AnnihilatorManglersLarge Bore Cannon or Mortars |
Abominatus - Secondary Weapons: Secondary weapons stud the outer carapace of the "Despoiler of Worlds." Rapid Fire Cannons jut form casements and barbettes, Lascannons swivel in turrets and on platforms. As Abominatus strides into battle its silhouette is lit with the myriad flashes of its secondary weapons spewing death at the enemy. Its secondary weapons include the following:Heavy BoltersBoltersLascannonsRapid Fire Cannons |
Abrasax - Abrasax: Abrasax, also known as Abraxus Ghent, was one of the first prototype Space Marines of the Primordial Strain created from the gene-seed of the first primarch, Lion El'Jonson, before the primarchs were lost to the Warp. Abrasax fought in the Siege of Terra during the climax of the Horus Heresy as a defender of the Imperial Palace, and his fate remains unknown. |
Abrasax - History: Of all the tens of thousands of subjects that bled and died within the hidden genetic laboratories of the Emperor beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains, the names of all but a handful are unknown. Most were, and remain, anonymous vessels used to nurture the first crude batches of gene-seed distilled from the blood of the unborn primarchs, test subjects for the earliest organs cultured from that gene-seed and all were considered disposable in the cause of the Space Marines' genesis. Some few, however, served as something more: functional prototypes of the new breed of transhuman warrior the Emperor had envisaged for His conquest of not just Old Earth but the entire Human-settled galaxy.They were likely not quite as their present-day cousins -- unrefined and ill-favoured but potent nonetheless -- and served as the bridge between the unique power of the primarchs and their gene-sons; a formula by which the process could be repeated and perfected. The vast majority of these were born of the strain of gene-seed extracted from the first of the primarchs, Lion El'Jonson, noted as it was for its stability, with a single warrior listed by name in the oldest of records salvaged from the depths of the Imperial Palace Archives: Abrasax, of the fourteenth Ghent intake.No mention of this figure is to be found again in Imperial records, nor in the order of battle of any of the Legiones Astartes, save in one obscure text. A brief account, written by one of the councillors attending the Emperor during the Siege of Terra, notes a warrior by the name of Abraxus Ghent, clad in unadorned power armour, who had served as one of the many guardians of that venerated building's vast halls and who fought as part of the rear guard that held the precincts of the Inner Palace against the Traitor hordes while the Emperor and his primarchs led the assault on Horus' flagship, the Vengeful Spirit. His death is not noted in the account, nor does he appear on the lengthy rolls of honour naming the veterans of that climactic battle, either living or dead. |
Abrial's Claw - Abrial's Claw: Abrial's Claw is a warband of Heretic Astartes that took part in the Scouring of Makenna VII.It was once led by the Chaos Lord Abrial Shard, who relinquished control of the warband to the exiled Iron Warriors Warsmith Balduran during that campaign. Since that time, the warband has become infamous across many sectors of the Imperium. |
Abrial's Claw - Notable Campaigns: Scouring of Makenna VII (Unknown Date.M41) - This campaign was conducted by various factions of the forces of Chaos under the command of the Chaos Lord Davroth of the Word Bearers Traitor Legion. The forces of Chaos sought to conquer and enslave the Imperial Mining World of Makenna VII. An outcast from the Iron Warriors since his defeat at the Fortress of Ventemar on the Iron Warriors' Daemon World of Medrengard, Warsmith Baldarun sought the means to rebuild his standing, and to do so he sought to take part in the Chaos campaign on Makenna VII. He became the leader of a Renegade Space Marine warband known as Abrial's Claw after swearing an oath of brotherhood to its former Chaos Lord, Abrial Shard. In return, Baldarun relinquished the secrets of his beloved Obliterator technovirus to Shard's men. |
Abrial's Claw - Notable Warband Members: Warsmith Balduran - Baldarun is an Iron Warriors warsmith, who once commanded a Grand Battery. He was exiled from his Traitor Legion following a previous defeat against rival warsmiths on the Iron Warriors' Daemon World of Medrengard in the Eye of Terror. Baldarun wandered the galaxy, seeking the means to rebuild his standing. Seeing the campaign known as the Scouring of Makenna VII as a chance to do so, he became the new leader of the warband called Abrial's Claw after making a pact with its former Chaos Lord, Abrial Shard. In exchange for command of Abrial's warband and the right to use them against his enemies, Baldarun agreed to share with him the secret of the technovirus that creates Chaos Obliterators.Abrial Shard - Abrial Shard is a Renegade Space Marine and Chaos Lord, infamous across a dozen sectors. He swore an oath of brotherhood with the Iron Warriors Warsmith Baldarun long ago on a Daemon World in the Eye of Terror. He is greatly interested in the secrets of Baldarun's technovirus, and hoped to obtain its secrets in exchange for giving the warsmith control of his warriors during the Scouring of Makenna VII. |
Abrial's Claw - Warband Colours: The colours of Abrial's Claw are unknown in Imperial records. |
Abrial's Claw - Warband Badge: The badge of Abrial's Claw is unknown in Imperial records. |
Absolvers - Absolvers: The Absolvers is a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter that is a successor of the Blood Angels, founded sometime during the 34th Millennium. Despite being members of the Sanguinary Brotherhood, the Absolvers are known for their near-dogmatic adherence to the Codex Astartes.Enigmatic and dour, the Absolvers Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes are based -- and now trapped -- in the Gilead System of the Imperium Nihilus. Recruitment of neophytes has skyrocketed since the appearance of the Great Rift to alleviate the burden of these stalwart warriors, oath-bound as they are to defend the Imperium's citizens from the fell foes of the Emperor. The citizens of the Heartworlds in the Gilead System whisper of the righteous wrath of the Absolvers, relentless and draconian in their fight against heresy.Each noble Astartes of this Chapter knows they have no reinforcements; they are cut off from the vast war machine of the Imperium, and instructed to savour every bolt round. They have been informed that to save the many they may have to sacrifice the few. Many Absolver Space Marines and Scout Marines have been allowed to operate within the system individually, lending their strength to covert operations by other Imperial forces to serve as force multipliers.The Great Rift spews Daemonic monstrosities into the Gilead System daily. Although Astartes-led warbands have proven more than capable of beating back Daemonic incursions, there has been notable collateral damage among the system's civilians.Space Marine Scouts are viewed as demi-gods among the people of the Heartworlds of the Gilead System; though the Absolvers Chapter have a reputation for being as fearsome as they are fearless, most Heartworlds citizens still put their faith in the Emperor's greatest warriors. The Chapter's lack of resources and dwindling gene-seed reserves in-system mean there are many Scouts operating as part of the Absolvers who have not yet completed their full transhuman transformation and initiation into the Chapter. Leading a small cadre of mortal warriors on focused missions is considered a rite of passage for the neophytes of the Chapter; one that some Absolvers Scouts have been committed to complete for solar decades whilst they await the implantation of their Black Carapace. |
Absolvers - Origins: The Absolvers have protected the Gilead System since their first Chapter Master, Tygranas Dalir, swore a solemn vow to defend its people in perpetuity. His Astartes carry this mantle still, tightly bound as they are to every vow they make. They are a Chapter that bears a litany of glories, earned both in defence of the Gilead System and in war zones scattered far and wide across the galaxy.However, honoured as they are, the Absolvers harbour an ancient and shameful secret. Far from the blood-soaked battlefields of the 41st Millennium, in the heart of the Gilead System, failed aspirants and broken brethren speak raw damnation, recounting incoherent prophecies to their watchful guardians.The history of the Absolvers is both a chronicle of solemn oaths sworn to safeguard enigmatic secrets, and a burden of unrelenting shame, for when their will falters, the resulting actions can violate the very essence of what it is to be a Space Marine. To ascend to the ranks of the Absolvers is to inherit a heinous flaw, but also the vows to temper it, a history of hubris and the iron will to seek redemption.The history of the Absolvers is inextricably bound to that of the Gilead System. Here, the Chapter earned its well-deserved reputation for ruthlessly enforcing the Emperor's will, and here too did they forge an altogether less honourable legacy.The Gilead System is rich in resources and host to numerous Human-habitable worlds. Nestled on the border of the Segmentum Obscurus, it has always been a tempting target for conquest. By the 34th Millennium it lay in the grip of the forces of Chaos, its many worlds cut off from the Emperor's light by darkness and damnation. The system stood as a gateway into the depths of Segmentum Obscurus, presenting an ideal early conquest in a campaign to emancipate these beleaguered worlds and press further into the unknown.An Imperial Crusade to do just that was raised in the 34th Millennium, and at its head was Saint Julyanna Gilead, though she had yet to earn that lofty title. To a mighty fleet of Navis Imperialis voidships, she gathered a host of towering Imperial Knights, innumerable regiments of Astra Militarum soldiers, and the backing of a Tech-priest Dominus and her Battle Congregation. Despite the might of the host Julyanna Gilead assembled, one thing was conspicuously and inauspiciously absent -- the wrath of the Emperor Himself in the form of a contingent of Adeptus Astartes.Many stories are told of the Gilead Crusade, the high hopes and boundless ambition that launched it, and the glory and horror it would find amidst the far-flung stars to which that duty would carry it. One of the most revered tales is that, on the very eve of the fleet's departure beyond the Segmentum Solar, Tygranas Dalir, a storied Astartes warrior, came to Julyanna Gilead unheralded and pledged himself to her cause. With him, he brought a newly-founded Chapter of Space Marines. Tygranas hoped the nascent Chapter would earn the first of many honours acting as the Emperor's own armoured fist amidst the crusade's already formidable arsenal. To the leadership of the crusade, it seemed that the Emperor Himself had blessed their efforts, and all were overjoyed.As commonly told, the tale ends there, though certain records held by the Absolvers carry it further. Tygranas was so certain of the glory and honour to come that, by his decree, the Chapter he led bore no name, such that their presence was recorded under ambiguous and reverential appellations like "Dalir's Astartes" and the generic "Angels of Death." He hoped that by mighty deed and hard-earned victory, the newly founded Chapter would find on the battlefield a name worthy of its primarch, the mighty Sanguinius, noblest of all the Emperor's gene-sons.The tale of how Tygranas Dalir arrived with his nameless Chapter of Space Marines just in time to lend their aid to the Gilead Crusade is recorded in numerous Adeptus Ministorum tracts, but the truth of the matter seems clouded at best. Some scholars have suggested that the Chapter was established in an earlier Founding and its former name and history buried for reasons unknown.For a time, it seemed certain that this would be the case. Many hard-fought victories were won, and in the wake of some notable battle, the Chapter command would gather to consider if their victory was noteworthy enough to have earned them a name. The Liberation of Anacarsus, the Desolation of Minas, the Battle of the Nameless Gates -- none were judged sufficiently great, but as each conclave debated the matter, the Apothecarion recruited new aspirants from among the newly liberated populace. It seems this gave rise to the Chapter's tradition of recruiting from many diverse worlds and cultures, but in truth, even the Absolvers' own records of this time are deeply redacted.If any harboured doubts that the Emperor was truly with the crusade during those early, glorious days, then the actions of His Astartes in capturing and bringing the Gilead System to Compliance was a balm to such fears. They were ferocious in their persecution of the enemy, often pushing to engage the Chaos-worshippers that infested the system in brutal hand-to-hand combat.They were stalwart defenders of worlds brought back into the glorious fold of the Imperium, rooting out corruption wherever it was found and pushing back raids of foul xenos and desperate Heretics with the same unbridled ferocity with which they liberated the system. Would that the history of the Chapter ended here, or continued across the Terran millennia echoing these early, glorious victories. But even in these earliest days of the Chapter's history, signs of a devastating flaw were beginning to emerge, for the Absolvers were members of the Sanguinary Brotherhood, the genetic lineage of Sanguinius, and they suffered from the terrible curses of his bloodline -- the Red Thirst and the Black Rage. |
Absolvers - Gilead Crusade: As the formidable fleet of Julyanna Gilead burst forth from the Immaterium to commence their hallowed Imperial Crusade, it was confronted by a system befouled, a vile dominion of the legions of Chaos. Corruption and heresy had infested the entire star system, from the densely-populated spires of the Hive World that would be later known as Gilead Primus to the once lush and verdant fields of Ostia, a fertile world soaked in the blood of feuding Chaos warlords.The battle for the Hive World marked the crusade's opening engagement. The fleet plunged deep into the cankerous heart of the system, deft manoeuvring and brave sacrifices allowing the crusade to bypass much of the Heretics' defences. An unrelenting, two-solar-week orbital bombardment razed numerous spires, teeming with those pledged to the Ruinous Powers, down to their very foundations. Once the thunderous cannons of the Navis Imperialis' warships finally fell silent, the Space Marines descended upon the surface with unbridled ferocity, bringing the full fury of the Imperium to bear on the scattered throngs of Traitors that remained. In the midst of unrelenting warfare they set to work laying claim to the world.Both in anticipation of victory and out of a need for a fortified command structure, the Chapter's Techmarines laid the foundations for the great fortress that would become Castle Grigori. Adepts of the Adeptus Mechanicus deployed a colossal Ion Shield to safeguard this beachhead from the Heretics and Warp-spawned horrors that emerged from the ruins of the world's smouldering hives. Within, Adeptus Astartes battle-brothers and Astra Militarum soldiers laboured side-by-side to erect stalwart rockcrete walls and fortifications, knowing that the Tech-priests' stores of Motive Force would not sustain the energy shield forever.Although victory over Gilead Primus would come, the crusade nearly stumbled at this first hurdle. By thrusting so deeply into the system, the fleet was left prey to a strikeforce of Heretic voidships, and resupply lines to the fleet's logistics vessels fell under constant assault. Supplies of ammunition and other equipment dwindled quickly in the face of this endless battery, and only the iron will of the Adeptus Astartes held the field. Salvation arrived in the form of a missive from the Adeptus Mechanicus contingent of the fleet.One of their number had discovered an ancient refinery temple beneath the oceans of the relatively nearby world of Charybdion. This ancient artefact would later prove to be one among dozens, but even that single facility, swiftly rededicated to the Omnissiah, was sufficient to replenish Imperial forces on the worlds of Ostia, Enoch, and Gilead Primus. From the sturdy redoubt of Castle Grigori, the Chapter prepared to launch their conquest of the entire system. Conscious that relief and resupply might continue to be sporadic, they next turned their attention to the Agri-world of Ostia.The brutal struggle to subdue Ostia marked one of the darkest days of the Gilead Crusade, and the events that unfolded on the befouled Agri-world would come to shape the fledgling Chapter more than any glorious victory. The event is the founding entry in the Absolvers' Book of Broken Bonds, and by decree of the first Chapter Master, it is forbidden to make a record of it anywhere else.Yellem was one of Ostia's most vital voidports, the main hub through which the world's agricultural bounty was reaped. Despite the ruthless tyranny of the feuding Chaos warlords who ruled there, the population, forced to labour in the production zones under the lash and partake in vicious gladiatorial bouts for the amusement of bloodthirsty Traitors, clung to a fading memory of the Imperium. Their faith in the Emperor, whom they named the "Lord of Dawn," endured by way of secret traditions and hidden rites that defied even the corrupting touch of Chaos.An entire company of Space Marines was despatched to purge Yellem of Traitors, though precisely which one has since been struck from even the Absolvers' own records. They descended from the sky, the embodiment of the Emperor's fury, and the Loyalists of Yellem rejoiced, believing deliverance was upon them at last. Nevertheless, the strike force encountered bloody and determined resistance as they fought to retake Yellem. Field by field and hab-unit by hab-unit, they fought against swathes of mortal Chaos Cultists led by Heretic Astartes in crimson power armour. A lightning strike to seize crucial infrastructure became a solar-days-long battle of attrition, and the Space Marines' assaults became increasingly frenzied, strategy and order slowly disintegrating. Communications with those of their battle-brothers on the surface were lost, the last vox messages simply unintelligible screams of fury.In stark contrast to the disciplined actions on the Hive World, this offensive turned into a rampage, indiscriminately slaughtering ally and enemy alike. Even as the last of their cowering victims fell, their blood staining the white armour of their would-be saviours, the Astartes did not find their thirst for battle slaked. Brother turned on brother, and the slaughter continued through a long night of horror from which only a single battle-brother emerged.It is whispered among those who know this tale that Tygranas Dalir, picking through the remains of the massacre, slew this warrior himself in a frenzy of bloodshed so brutal that some who witnessed it feared that their Chapter Master too had succumbed to the madness that had claimed so many.When the dust settled, and the carnage subsided, it became apparent that all those on Yellem had succumbed to the Black Rage, a curse common to most, perhaps all, of the genetic sons of the primarch Sanguinius. This genetic flaw must have been known of by many within the Chapter, certainly to Tygranas Dalir, but for so many to fall in a single battle, to lose an entire company to the affliction, was and remains almost unheard of among the Sanguinary Brotherhood.The details were quickly expunged, blamed on the unusually fierce resistance of a world of Heretics, but the shameful truth weighed heavily on those who knew of it. In the aftermath, Tygranas Dalir swore the "Oath to Gilead," pledging his Chapter to the system's continued and perpetual defence. And at last, he chose a name for his Chapter -- the "Absolvers" -- to underscore their deep need to make amends for the terrible events at Yellem, and the shame they brought upon their brethren among the Adeptus Astartes, the sons of Sanguinius, the Imperium, and the Emperor Himself.The crusade continued into other systems and sectors, and more battle-brothers fell to the madness that afflicted them at Yellem. The losses at the Ostian voidport had been substantial and were added to by Dalir, who threw the Absolvers into every desperate fight and nigh-hopeless assault to be found, all to assuage something of the Chapter's great shame. As a result, when the Absolvers returned to Gilead Primus in the wake of the crusade they were much diminished and began the slow and painful process of rebuilding their strength and their honour.Tygranas Dalir's fate is not recounted in either the Imperium's heavily redacted records nor the Chapter's own great tomes in its Librarius -- a notable omission that has raised many uncomfortable questions over the centuries. His successor was Anthon Emascus the Reforger, who had the unenviable task of stabilising the Chapter and ensuring its long-term survival. |
Absolvers - Recovery and Reforging: In the wake of the Gilead Crusade, it fell to the Absolvers' second Chapter Master to lay a lasting foundation for the Chapter. Anthon Emascus, now recalled by the epithet "the Reforger," set about this task with the uncompromising single-mindedness that would come to characterise his battle-brothers. Emascus had joined the Chapter as an aspirant during their voyage to the Gilead System, but so long was the crusade that, by its final years, he was an experienced warrior honoured by his comrades and rightly feared by Heretics. During the crusade, he had witnessed both the very best and very worst of what the Absolvers might be, and was known even in those early days as an ardent dialectician. Under his leadership, recruitment efforts redoubled, and the gene-seed recovered from those who fell during the crusade was put to good use.Some whisper that Emascus hoped to find a population of aspirants that would prove resistant to the curse of his gene-sire, but if so, the effort would be counted among his few failures. In this time, the first signs of the Red Thirst were observed -- another flaw inherent to the genetic lineage of Sanguinius. This powerful drive to consume the blood of foes afflicts many Blood Angels and their successors among the Sanguinary Brotherhood, but usually only after solar decades of service. It emerged far earlier in the careers of the Astartes of the Absolvers, afflicting Veterans and newly elevated aspirants alike. Where others might have despaired or, like his predecessor Tygranas Dalir, searched for redemption in a string of near-pyrrhic victories, Emascus sought to dissect this problem as he did all others. He began by treating the issues of his Chapter as one of discipline and structure. He had felt the call of the Black Rage in his own heart, but had resisted -- could that capacity not be fostered in his own brothers? Looking for a source of proven stability, he turned first to the Codex Astartes.Though the Absolvers had largely adhered to the tenets of the Codex, under Emascus, the Chapter committed itself to it as strictly as any of Roboute Guilliman's own gene-sons. Those found engaging in the bloodletting of Chapter serfs or allied mortal soldiery of the Astra Militarum were heavily censured, and the worst excesses of the Chapter during the Gilead Crusade were radically curtailed. A blood tithe was instituted in the hive cities of Gilead Primus, ostensibly to fuel the training and rituals needed to replenish the Absolvers' ranks, and the Chapter's provisions were universally infused with this blood to dull the Red Thirst.Perhaps in memory of the tragedy at Yellem, and all those that followed, Emascus renewed focus upon the vow of Tygranas Dalir to the people of the Gilead System to always come to their defence, establishing a tradition that all Chapter Masters since have abided by. Here, he found his second source of stability for the Absolvers, and the culture of swearing vows became a core tenant of the Chapter. For the Absolvers, vows became a tool by which they tempered their own warrior soul and restrained the worst of their impulses. Though the Red Thirst could never be fully denied, it did appear to be somewhat mitigated, and a culture of swearing solemn vows was forever established amongst the Absolvers.Anthon the Reforger's decrees reshaped the Absolvers, but his tenure as Chapter Master was relatively short. He fell in battle with an Ork warboss almost a standard century to the day after he rose to lead the Chapter, and the Terminator Armour he wore remains a carefully guarded relic of the Absolvers to this day.Alongside Anthon Emascus, the Absolvers were also reforged by the initiatives undertaken by Chaplain Deikan, a powerful orator and bulwark against the encroaching despair that afflicted the Chapter as it came to terms with the events at Yellem where the Red Thirst and Black Rage had overwhelmed the Absolvers and led to terrible civilian casualties and the adjustments made by Chapter Master Anthon Emascus' decrees in response.Following the tragedy at Yellem, whispers of Chaos taint and corruption spread among the Absolvers, accompanied by rumours that the eyes of the Inquisition had fallen upon the fledgling Chapter. At a time when the Absolvers needed it most, Deikan acted as both its most ardent and vocal defender and its most captious judge. With determined will and iron fist, Deikan crushed the rumours and galvanised the rank-and-file of the Chapter. The Chaplain was the first to understand the potential for prophecy in the haunting visions of those who fell to the Flaw of Sanguinius called the Black Rage. He vowed to oversee these young wards vigilantly, prepared to eliminate any who spoke of visions that jeopardised the Chapter's future. This duty was a heavy burden, but this resolute and watchful Chaplain guided each new generation of the Absolvers through their challenging early years.Deikan oversaw the construction of a great vault, the site of which was to be kept secret by blood-bonded vow among those of the Chapter Reclusiam alone. Here those among the Absolvers plagued by unrelenting visions as a result of the Flaw, and the remaining evidence of the Chapter's transgression, would remain hidden from the wider Gilead System. Under Deikan's influence, the Chapter found renewed strength and the will to bear what burdens the Emperor wills upon it while continuing to serve the Imperium. The legacy of Deikan's dedication to this duty has become a cornerstone of the Chapter's legacy to this day, and each Chaplain to succeed him in the long millennia that followed has borne the burden of this dark duty with honour. |
Absolvers - Era Indomitus: In the Era Indomitus, with the Gilead System now cut off from the rest of the galaxy due to the birth of the Great Rift and its location in the Imperium Nihilus where the psychic beacon of the Astronomican no longer shines to guide Navigators, the Absolvers have acquiesced to many difficult orders in such trying times, often causing collateral damage as they ensure they keep their word; citizens of the Gilead System that have seen their ghastly work and those who have survived now speak of them with fear.The Firstborn Astartes of the Absolvers refuse to initiate their newly-introduced Primaris Space Marine brethren into the Chapter's secret rites; another isolation they must bear.Raised in the Ultima Founding and first ferried to the Gilead System by the Varonius Flotilla of the Rogue Trader Jakel Varonius who is working closely with Imperial forces to combat threats to the worlds of the Imperium Nihilus, these Intercessor reinforcements have met with a cold welcome by their brethren despite a proven prowess in combat.The unwillingness of the Firstborn Absolvers to fully work alongside their Primaris Intercessors has led to them being assigned to watch over less-powerful agents of the Imperium in need of heavy combat support. |
Absolvers - Chapter Recruitment: Since they first swore oaths in its defence, much of the Absolvers' recruitment has taken place within the Gilead System, though aspirants from further afield are gathered frequently. From the scions of high-born noble houses, to the most brutal underhive gangers, to the most reclusive of Nethreus' nomads, all have offered up their offspring to Gilead's mightiest defenders. The Absolvers have ever drawn aspirants from unusual backgrounds, and with the coming of the Great Rift and the desperate need for new Space Marines to replace those lost in battle, this practice has continued to serve them well.All new recruits undergo the gruelling regimen of surgical and genetic alterations required to elevate a mere mortal into a transhuman Astartes warrior. Unique to the Absolvers, their training includes each prospective warrior swearing a personal vow that must be dutifully upheld until they become a full-fledged battle-brother. Set by the brothers who train them, these vows range from simple tasks, such as only wielding a weapon in their left hand, to more complex challenges or dedications. Despite being sworn by uninitiated novices, these vows are treated as a solemn oath by the Chapter's instructors. Each vow is designed to help strengthen the aspirants' skills where they are lacking. The practice serves to establish the importance of upholding one's vows, and any who break such an oath rarely survive their already harrowing induction.As the aspirants join the Scout Company, each one must serve a period leading a strike team composed of mortal Humans, a rite known as the Dux Mortalium. This tradition, initiated millennia ago by Chapter Master Anthon Emascus, helps to make the Absolvers aware of their solemn duty to the mortals of Gilead and to solidify the first vow of the first Chapter Master Tygranas Dalir to protect the people of the system further. An aspirant can only be fully inducted into the ranks of the Absolvers once this task is completed, so they approach this duty with reverence.The final act of each neophyte's biological transformation is the implantation of the Black Carapace, the bio-augmetic subdermal implant that allows a Space Marine to neurologically interface with their power armour as if it were a second skin. This process is a uniquely excruciating experience, yet for the aspirants of the Absolvers, who have sworn solemn vows, trained relentlessly, and mentally steeled themselves in preparation for this moment of ascension, it carries even greater risk -- the potential to trigger their genetic flaw.The invasive and agonising surgeries employed in the implantation triggers horrific prophetic visions in some individuals, suffering a series of vivid images of what may come to pass, usually blood-soaked and tainted by death. For those who foresee an honourable end, this moment is often a comfort, the reassuring knowledge that their death shall not find them wanting for courage or meaning. For others, it is maddening, as visions of a shameful fate is burned into their souls.Some claim these visions are the result of the aspirant inheriting some sliver of their progenitor Sanguinius' well-documented prescient powers, while others suggest the visions are the result of the incredible pain and metabolic stress created by the augmentation process, and any apparent truth to be found in them is little more than a self-fulfilling prophecy.Occasionally an aspirant may be afflicted by a particularly haunting prophecy, a terrible fate that pertains to the Chapter's future and the role that they may play in it. This vision might foretell of a great shame they may bring upon the Absolvers, vows they may come to break, or battle-brothers they may fail. It remains the solemn duty of each serving Chaplain of the Absolvers to judge whether such events may be allowed to come to pass. If not, it falls to them to sever that thread of fate in that moment. Why this same mercy is not extended to those who later fall to the Black Rage is known only to the Chaplains of the Absolvers, and is never discussed. |
Absolvers - Chapter Beliefs: If an Absolver proclaims that he will take an action, nothing but death stops him. This has garnered a famed reputation for the Chapter of utter trustworthiness and dependability, coupled with an infamously obstinate inflexibility. Beset on all sides by Warpborne evil, opportunistic xenos, wary allies, and rebellious mortal citizens, the Absolvers rely on their faith to shield them more than ever before -- after all, the Emperor protects.The Absolvers Chapter has 1,000 names they deem sacrosanct, one of which is ritually tattooed onto a Space Marine's magnified form when the Chapter Master deems it has been earned.Many Absolvers decorate their wargear with their names, knowing that when they fall in glorious battle their designation will be passed to a new aspirant. |
Absolvers - Notable Absolvers: Chapter Master Aureus Erinyes - Aureus Erinyes is the current master of the Absolvers Chapter.Chapter Master Tygranas Dalir - Also known as the "Emperor's Archangel," Tygranas Dalir was the first Chapter Master of the Absolvers Chapter at the time of its Founding and led the Chapter during the Gilead Crusade of the 34th Millennium that brought the Gilead System into Imperial Compliance by eliminating the forces of Chaos that had previously occupied it. He most notably pledged the Absolvers to the eternal defence of an Imperial sub-sector including the Gilead System, which has become the Chapter's greatest acclaim and glory. Dalir also was the first Absolvers Chapter Master to have to come to terms with the Flaw present in the lineage of all the gene-sons of Sanguinius, the terrible Red Thirst and Black Rage. To deal with the shame the Absolvers felt over the deaths that resulted from these conditions among the civilians and other Imperial forces they fought beside during the crusade, Dalir sought redemption in the pursuit of a string of pyrrhic victories over the Emperor's foes that nearly destroyed the Chapter. Details on the fate of Tygranas Dalir are scant. Had he died during the Gilead Crusade, a monument would most certainly have been raised to him and his contributions lauded alongside those of Saint Julyanna Gilead herself. Inquisitor Calux attempted to confirm a rumour that the Chapter Master may have fallen to some inescapable battle rage, but efforts ended with the death of the Inquisitor at the hands of xenos raiders in the late 38th Millennium.Chapter Master Anthon Emascus - Anthon Emascus, known as "the Reforger" in the Chapter annals, was the second master of the Chapter who succeeded Tygranas Dalir in the wake of the successful Gilead Crusade. As described above, it was Emascus who found a way to control the early onset of the Red Thirst in the Absolvers' Astartes and who created much of the Chapter's foundational culture. The Absolvers' Chapter cult is dedicated to providing some form of stability in the face of the Flaw that afflicts Sanguinius' genetic lineage and does so through the practice of intense mental discipline through the use of vows and regular blood infusions taken as a tithe from the people of the hive cities of Gilead Primus to hold the worst of the thirst at bay. Though Emascus was the master of the Chapter for only a relatively short time before his death at the hands of an Ork warboss a standard century after his ascension to leadership, his actions saved the Absolvers from ultimate extinction and laid the basis for its future success as the protectors of the Gilead System and the surrounding sub-sector, upholding the pledge made by Tygranas Dalir. It is for this reason he has been named "the Reforger," for he reforged the Absolvers into the template that would carry them into the 41st Millennium.Captain Syres - Syres is a company captain of the Absolvers Chapter. Syres is currently the official commanding officer of the battle barge Vow of Absolution. In the aftermath of the Great Rift's creation, Syres is leading his company in the defence of the Imperial sub-sector the Absolvers have pledged to defend. The Vow of Absolution remained behind in the Gilead System where it is currently commanded by Brevet Captain Akahir since that system has been cut off from the rest of the galaxy by the opening of the Great Rift.Brevet Captain Akahir - Akahir is an Absolvers Primaris brevet captain and is among the Chapter's forces now trapped within the Gilead System due to the birth of the Great Rift. Akahir is actually a sergeant of the Chapter, but attained his current, acting officer rank after most of the Absolvers' Chapter Command departed Gilead for a mission before the Great Rift formed. Now he commands the battle barge Vow of Absolution, which is located in the region of the Gilead System known as the Reach. Though he stands barely over 7 feet tall, Brevet Captain Akahir looms large among the Astartes of the Absolvers Chapter. The inscrutable ritual scarring popular amongst the Absolvers intermingles with the twisted scars Akahir earned through battling Daemons, attesting to the violence of his three standard years of service. His dark skin has been stretched thin over his enhanced transhuman form since he became an Astartes, his only imperfection a patchwork augmetic eye installed midway through the battle for Villum Fundus. In the absence of the Chapter Master and with the anarchy of the Noctis Aeterna bearing down on the system, the Absolvers within the Gilead System had grave need of leadership. It was Chaplain Heractis who took it upon himself to anoint Akahir as a brevet captain and the acting commander of the Absolvers in the system, in recognition of Akahir's early success in rallying Gilead's mortal defenders. In privacy, Heractis spoke also of a prophecy from the forgotten annals of the Chapter's history, and the role he foresaw for Akahir. Akahir has shown a greater knack for diplomacy than many of his battle-brothers. He tolerates much of the politicking and debate of the Circlet Council with stony silence before voicing his opinion with both tact and finality.Invictor Braham - Braham is a Primaris Space Marine Intercessor sent to defend the Gilead System. Like the other battle-brothers of his Chapter stationed in the system, Braham is zealously dedicated to defending the Emperor's holdings within the Gilead System.Chaplain Deikan - Deikan was a Chaplain of the Absolvers during the 34th Millennium in the Chapter's founding solar decades. He was a powerful orator and bulwark against the encroaching despair that afflicted the Chapter as it came to terms with the events at Yellem where the Red Thirst and Black Rage had overwhelmed the Absolvers and led to terrible civilian casualties and the adjustments made by Chapter Master Anthon Emascus' decrees in response. Following the tragedy at Yellem, whispers of Chaos taint and corruption spread among the Absolvers, accompanied by rumours that the eyes of the Inquisition had fallen upon the fledgling Chapter. At a time when the Absolvers needed it most, Deikan acted as both its most ardent and vocal defender and its most captious judge. With determined will and iron fist, Deikan crushed the rumours and galvanised the rank-and-file of the Chapter. The Chaplain was the first to understand the potential for prophecy in the haunting visions of those who fell to the Flaw of Sanguinius called the Black Rage. He vowed to oversee these young wards vigilantly, prepared to eliminate any who spoke of visions that jeopardised the Chapter's future. This duty was a heavy burden, but this resolute and watchful Chaplain guided each new generation of the Absolvers through their challenging early years. Deikan oversaw the construction of a great vault, the site of which was to be kept secret by blood-bonded vow among those of the Reclusiam alone. Here those among the Absolvers plagued by unrelenting visions as a result of the Flaw, and the remaining evidence of the Chapter's transgression, would remain hidden from the wider Gilead System. Under Deikan's influence, the Chapter found renewed strength and the will to bear what burdens the Emperor wills upon it while continuing to serve the Imperium. The legacy of Deikan's dedication to this duty has become a cornerstone of the Chapter's legacy to this day, and each Chaplain to succeed him has borne the burden of this duty with honour.Chaplain Shahin - Shahin serves as a Chaplain of the Absolvers Chapter in the company commanded by Captain Syres. In the aftermath of the Great Rift's creation, Syres is leading his company in the defence of the Imperial sub-sector that the Absolvers have pledged to defend. However, this sub-sector is within the Dark Imperium, cut off from the light of the Astronomican, and along with the upheaval caused by the Great Rift, the Chapter's numbers have dwindled in battle against the Imperium's enemies. In order to be able to continue to carry out their pledge, Shahin and Syres both agreed that the Absolvers' tactics needed to change. They decided to send individual battle-brothers to combat the numerous minor threats within the sub-sector that the company as a whole could not respond to. The first to take part in this new initiative was Battle-Brother Gulkir, who Shahin ordered to the Gilead System after Yaril Varonius, eldest daughter of the Rogue Trader Jakel Varonius, requested aid to combat a threat to Gilead, which her dynasty was currently protecting.Gulkir - Absolvers battle-brother sent to defend the Gilead System.Scout Atticus - Standing over 2 metres (over 6.5 feet) tall and rippling with muscle, Atticus is a proud Astartes of the Absolvers Chapter. Grim but honourable, he follows his Chapter's strictures rigorously, refusing to ever break his word. Atticus' dour personality was intensified by his trials to be accepted as a neophyte and the subsequent gene-seed implantation operations, leaving him psychologically disconnected from the mortals he protects. He seeks only to bring honour to his Chapter through his actions, and earn a Black Carapace, becoming a full-fledged Space Marine. |
Absolvers - Chapter Fleet: Vow of Absolution (Battle Barge) - The Vow of Absolution is among the Chapter's forces now trapped within the Gilead System due to the birth of the Great Rift. It is currently based in the region of the Gilead System known as the Reach, which is infested by xenos and Chaos forces. The Vow of Absolution is commanded by Captain Syres but is under the temporary command of Brevet Captain Akahir. |
Absolvers - Chapter Colours: The Absolvers Chapter wears white power armour with black shoulder plate trim.The Aquila or Imperialis on the chest armour is red. The red squad tactical specialty symbol -- battleline, close support, fire support, Veteran or command -- is indicated on the right shoulder plate.Squad number is indicated by the white High Gothic numeral centred in the squad specialty symbol. The Chapter iconography is on the left shoulder guard. |
Absolvers - Chapter Badge: The Absolvers' Chapter badge is a red chalice, with a white Aquila in the middle of it, all centred on a field of white. |
Abyss-class Battleship - Abyss-class Battleship: The Abyss-class Battleships were a triumvirate of unique Imperial battleships of special configuration secretly constructed for the Word Bearers Legion by the Dark Mechanicum faction of the ancient Mechanicum in the days just before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy.The Furious Abyss, the first ship of its class, was built in the Jovian shipyards of Thule which orbited the gas giant of Jupiter in the Sol System in the early 31st Millennium. Its sister ships, the Blessed Lady and the Trisagion, were constructed at the same time in an undisclosed location.These vessels were constructed in secret during the latter years of the Great Crusade by the Renegade Mechanicum faction loyal to Kelbor-Hal, the traitorous Fabricator-General of Mars' ancient Mechanicum.These vessels were always intended for use by the Word Bearers Space Marine Legion, who were secretly ordered by the rebellious Warmaster Horus to bring their unfettered wrath down upon their hated rivals, the Ultramarines Legion.The Furious Abyss was to play an instrumental role in the Battle of Calth and the Traitor Legions' destructive campaign known as the Shadow Crusade into the Realm of Ultramar. |
Abyss-class Battleship - Furious Abyss: During the latter days of the Great Crusade, the Fabricator-General of Mars, Kelbor-Hal, had already thrown in his lot with the Traitor Warmaster Horus and committed to his cause. He had been tasked with the construction of a mighty vessel of unique design, an Abyss-class Battleship, built on a scale never before seen by Humanity.Kelbor-Hal had allowed the commissioning of vast quantities of materiel, menials and munitions in the construction of the mighty battleship because it suited his purposes. Horus had unfettered Mars in its pursuit of the divine machine, countermanding the Emperor's restrictions on what technologies the Mechanicum could research and develop. For Kelbor-Hal the question of his allegiance and that of the Mechanicum was one of logic, and had required mere nanoseconds of computation.The gargantuan warship, christened by the Word Bearers as the Furious Abyss, had been forged with such heavy armour that it could withstand even a concerted assault from a Laser Defence Battery. Its blunt bullet prow, and the way its flanks splayed out to encompass the enormous midsection, spoke of strength and precision.Three massive crenellated decks extended from it like the sharpened prongs of a stygian trident. Twin banks of laser batteries gleamed in dull gunmetal down its broadsides. Cannon mounts sat idle on angular blocks of metal filled with viewports that hinted at the myriad chambers within.The rapacious bristle of the defensive turrets along the dorsal and ventral spines, and the dark indentations of the torpedo tubes, shimmered with violent intent. Spiked antenna towers punched outward from multitudinous sub-decks, interspersed with further weapon arrays and torpedo bays. The warship's ribbed belly shimmered like oil and was replete with dozens of fighter hangars.At the stern, the huge cowlings of the exhausts flared over the deep glow of the warming engines, primed to unleash enough thrust to force the warship away from Thule. Like chrome hexagons, the engine vents were so vast and terrible that to stare into their dormant hearts was to engulf all sense and reason in a fathomless, darkened void.Finally, sheets of shielding peeled off the prow, revealing a massive figurehead: a book, wreathed in flame, wrought from gold and silver, intended to represent the Book of Lorgar. Words of Lorgar's choosing were engraved on the pages in letters many metres high.It was the greatest and largest vessel ever forged by Humanity, unique in every way and powerful beyond reckoning. This vessel had been crafted for the Word Bearers, and in the Jovian shipyards its long-awaited construction had finally reached an end. The Furious Abyss was to be a blow against the Emperor, a blow for Horus. None would know of the vessel's existence until it was too late.The Furious Abyss was manned by one thousand Astartes, a full Chapter of the XVIIth Legion split into ten companies, each a hundred Space Marines strong. The Legionaries were resplendent in their new crimson-coloured power Armour, replacing the Legion's original grey, sheaves of prayer parchment, scorched trails of vellum writ over with litanies of battle, and the bloodied pages ripped from sermons of retribution also affixed to their battle plate, openly declaring their allegiance to Chaos Undivided.They were led by Fleet-Captain Zadkiel, a devout and zealous Astartes and a deep believer in the Word of Lorgar. He was charged by the Dark Apostle Kor Phaeron to lead the assault upon the world of Macragge, where the Word Bearers would strike the first blow against the hated Imperium of Man.But ultimately, Zadkiel failed in achieving his objective when the Furious Abyss was boarded by a small ad hoc force of Loyalist Astartes who had learned of the Word Bearers' role in Horus' rebellion and who proceeded to sabotage the massive vessel's plasma reactors and destroy it before its array of formidable weaponry could be brought to bear against the worlds of Ultramar. |
Abyss-class Battleship - Shadow Crusade: In the meantime, the Word Bearers' invasion of Ultramar proceeded to achieve a monumental victory at the Battle of Calth. The Ultramarines Legion was badly crippled by the Word Bearers' assault at Calth and no longer presented a viable threat to Horus' plan to drive on Terra.The Dark Apostle Erebus had managed to complete his blasphemous ritual on Calth's surface, which summoned the beginnings of the sorcerous Ruinstorm to the galaxy's Eastern Fringe -- a monstrous Warp Storm larger and more destructive than anything space-faring humanity had witnessed since the days of the Age of Strife.Simultaneously, with the Word Bearers' assault on Calth, Lorgar and the more reliable Word Bearers under his command launched a second offensive, a joint Shadow Crusade with his brother Angron and his World Eaters Legion into the rest of the Realm of Ultramar.They would go on to lay waste to the Five Hundred Worlds with reckless abandon, slaughtering twenty-six worlds in rapid succession. This was to ensure the success of the sorcerous Ruinstorm, which would ultimately split the void asunder, dividing the galaxy in two and rendering vast tracts of the Imperium impassable for the duration of the Heresy, effectively cutting Ultramar off from the rest of the Imperium. |
Abyss-class Battleship - Assault on Armatura: During one of their early campaigns, the joint Traitor fleet was to assault the War World of Armatura, a vitally important planet that fed the Ultramarines Legion with recruits and munitions. Its close-orbit played home to immense Imperial shipyards.Orbital bastions of linked gantries and docking maws drifted above the placid world. Above and beyond the shipyard was the first concentric ring of void defences. Here, weaponised satellites and fire platforms bristled with turrets, alongside independent landing decks for fighter craft in lockdown.Beyond those, the true defences began. These were literal castles in the sky: great fortress-stations with their own racks of fighters and entire battlements given over to plasma batteries, laser broadsides and ship-killing Lance arrays. In highest orbit, the outer sphere of satellites was a three-dimensional spread of solar panels, clockwork engines and slaved servitor brains all connected to vast long-range weapons arrays.Amidst that outermost defence sphere waited the Evocati fleet. While the Legion mustered at Calth, the XIIIth Legion's War World could never be left undefended. The Evocati was comprised of several thousand Ultramarines drawn from a dozen Chapters of the Legion, awarded the highest honour of all: overseeing the operations of Armatura and the training of new recruits, commanding an Imperial fleet to rival any other.It appeared that Lorgar's plans to assault Armatura were for naught, for to attack the War World the Word Bearers would need a vessel to rival anything Humanity had ever wrought. The Word Bearers had possessed such a vessel once -- the Furious Abyss. But it had been destroyed days earlier, close to the same moment Kor Phaeron's expeditionary force had struck Calth. Its corpse was probably still a shadow in the skies of Macragge, a monument to the Word Bearers' failure.Lorgar had told Zadkiel he was foolish to attack Macragge, but the fleet-captain was so keen to bathe in glory, for all he ever heard were the whispers begging for revenge for the humiliation of the Word Bearers on Khur. So the Aurelian had indulged him. But Lorgar had been underestimated, for he had planned for just such an eventuality.He had been planning the events that led up to the Horus Heresy for nearly half a Terran century. Lorgar's foresight became apparent when a vast trident of dark metal emerged from Warpspace near Armatura, a great warship whose shape was immediately familiar to the Word Bearers fleet approaching Armatura.The starship that emerged into reality was a reflection of the slain colossus once called the Furious Abyss. A veritable city of monasteries and cathedrals rose from its back with the reverence of clawed hands sculpted to clutch at the stars. Where most Imperial battleships were spears of crenellated intent and iron-ridged might, this was a fortress in space, borne on the back of a great trident.The central tine served as the vessel's core: dense at the stern, encrusted with massive engines and tapering towards the prow, where it formed a pointed ram the size of lesser vessels. The trident's adjacent tines formed smaller blade-wings, each one barnacled with laser broadsides and Macrocannon batteries.If one were to clad the concept of spite in iron and set it sailing amongst the stars, it might approach the image of what burst back into the universe in that moment. It was, in every way, the Furious Abyss reborn. This mighty vessel was the Blessed Lady. This colossus was named for the Word Bearers' former confessor, Cyrene Valantion, the Confessor of the Word, and the lone survivor of the destruction of the Perfect City of Monarchia at the hands of the Ultramarines on the world of Khur over four solar decades before.The Blessed Lady easily eclipsed the Gloriana-class Battleships used as flagships by most of the other Space Marine Legions. But Lorgar's final secret was yet to be revealed. He had not only had two of these mighty vessels built in the Mechanicum shipyards orbiting Jupiter.As a second Warp-slice ripped across the stars near Armatura, another colossus was revealed. This was the Blessed Lady's twin sister-ship, the Trisagion. The pair of dreadnoughts rivaled even the Imperial Fists' Primarch Rogal Dorn's precious Phalanx in size and firepower. Lorgar had secretly had three of these mighty vessels built for the service of the Word Bearers.The Blessed Lady and the Trisagion proceeded to make a mockery of Armatura's orbital arrays, dismantling one of the best-defended worlds in the Imperium with barrage after barrage from their howling, flashing weapon decks. The warships' sheer size and scale rendered all countermeasures obsolete.For the first hour, nothing could punch through their Void Shields. Nothing even managed to scrape their skin. It took the combined firepower of a battle-station, two orbital defence platforms and a suicidal ramming from an Imperial warship to finally penetrate the Blessed Lady's shields.She sailed on, oblivious to the thousands dying within one of the flaming monasteries on her back, for their agonies made no difference at all to a crew composed of half a million men and women, all singing the praises of Lorgar and the Chaos Gods. The Word Bearers' mighty battleships made a mockery of the Ultramarines' defences and helped crush the Evocati fleet and win the day at Armatura for the Traitors.The fate of the Blessed Lady and the Trisagion following the campaign at Armatura is shrouded in mystery; it is however known that on its desperate voyage back to Nocturne, the Salamanders Legion Battle Barge, Charbydis, encountered the wreck of a gargantuan ship at the heart of a debris-field on the outer edges of the Realm of Ultramar.The ship had been broken and there were vast holes in its hull; some even large enough for the battle barge to pass through. Legionaries of both sides of the civil war -- the majority of them in the azure of the Ultramarines and the deep crimson of the Word Bearers, but some in the liveries of the Shattered Legions -- had been frozen mid-battle on ruptured decks by the freezing void.As only the Abyss-class has been recorded to be greater than the mighty Gloriana-class vessels, evidence would suggest that the unidentified wreck must have been of the Abyss-class. The true identity of the wreck remains uncertain, but it seems unlikely that this could have been the wreck of the Furious Abyss. |
Abyss-class Battleship - Armament: An Abyss-class Battleship possessed a formidable array of weaponry, with hundreds of laser batteries that ran the length of both of its sides. It also possessed an experimental weapon: a Plasma Lance embedded in its prow, developed as a direct fire close-range weapon for ship-to-ship combat, able to fire at point-blank ranges.Dozens of attack craft and starfighter bays allowed the vessel to serve as a potent attack carrier, playing multiple roles in naval combat. An Abyss-class Battleship could also deploy Psionic Mines when in transit in the Warp, to collapse stable Warp routes when being followed by enemy vessels. |
Abyss-class Battleship - Trivia: The Abyss-class Battleship is most likely based off of the original Gothic Battleship from the White Dwarf 139 (UK), "Space Fleet," by Jervis Johnson and Andy Jones.This original design possesses the same blunt bullet prow, and its flanks are splayed out to encompass the enormous midsection.It also possesses the same three massive crenellated decks that appear like prongs of a trident. This design was an obvious inspiration to Ben Counter when he wrote the Horus Heresy novel Battle for the Abyss. |
Abyssal Crusade - Abyssal Crusade: The Abyssal Crusade was a massive military campaign undertaken in 321.M37 by the Adeptus Astartes of the Imperium of Man into the hellish realm known as the Eye of Terror located in the Segmentum Obscurus.The corrupt Imperial Saint Basillius passed judgement and 30 Space Marine Chapters were found wanting. The guilty embarked upon a Penitent Crusade into the Eye of Terror, to purge those worlds stolen by the birth of the Prince of Pleasure, Slaanesh.They succeeded in battling the forces of Chaos across 400 worlds within the Eye, but suffered horrendous casualties. Thousands of Astartes were slain or corrupted by Chaos.In the aftermath of the Abyssal Crusade, the number of raids conducted by Chaos Space Marines on worlds in Imperial space increased dramatically. |
Abyssal Crusade - History: After the Ecclesiarchal Purges of 321.M37, Saint Basillius the Elder was ascendant within the Imperial Cult. His "Puritas Divisions" of the faithful included several Chapters of Space Marines, each of which was extremely fierce in their vigilance; wherever a mutant or Chaos Cultist was found, an execution would immediately follow, regardless of age, sex, station or circumstance.For once, the Ecclesiarchy worked in concert with the Inquisition and the Adeptus Astartes across the entire Segmentum Solar, making it mandatory for the populace to inform on anyone they suspected to bear the spoor of Chaos.Those few civil liberties the Imperial citizenry had left were degraded further, and countless false allegations were made, but the tactic was ultimately effective; the incidence of insurrection against the Emperor dropped to almost nothing. |
Abyssal Crusade - Tides of Change: This short period of peace did not last, as over a dozen star systems were soon engulfed by Warp Storm Dionys, its echoes rippling along the spiral arms of the galaxy as it raged through the Empyrean.Records of mutation and Chaos Cultist activity quadrupled overnight. Worse yet, it was not only the citizens who were affected by the sudden influx of Chaos.Many of the Space Marine Chapters with homeworlds affected by the Warp Storm found that the secret imperfections in their gene-seed were writ large upon their new recruits, giving rise to a wave of disturbing manifestations both physical and psychological.When the Ecclesiarchy heard of this sinister turn of events, Saint Basillius demanded that all those Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes whose homeworlds had been touched by the Warp Storm be rendered unto his judgement. Such was the elder's influence with the High Lords of Terra that within a standard year this had come to pass.After a series of stringent tests and prognostications, hundreds of Chapters were deemed unaffected by the Warp Storm. No less than thirty were found wanting. "The Judged," as these fallen Chapters came to be known, volunteered to undertake a redemptive Imperial Crusade.The most militant of their number demanded the right to purify their tainted flesh in the fires of battle, to make a noble end from tragic misfortune. To the surprise of his closest advisors, Saint Basillius agreed to their proposal.He saw it as fitting to send the accused into the Eye of Terror, taking the fight for the Imperium's future to the Daemon Worlds inhabited by the Chaos Space Marines.A representative from each of the doomed Chapters held an emergency Council of Dismay to discuss the proposed crusade. After scant solar hours of debate, they acquiesced to Basillius' demands, for they believed that martyrdom was preferable to an existence of suspicion and doubt.The last few days of 321.M37 saw a solemn procession of strike cruisers and battle barges pass through the Cadian Gate into the Eye of Terror, relay systems dormant and heraldic colours obscured by black mag-plates.One by one, the Chapters of The Judged disappeared into the iridescent dust nebulae that surrounded the Eye, flickering out of reach from Cadia's astropaths within a single night. |
Abyssal Crusade - Ill-Fated Odyssey: Less than a solar hour after The Judged had made transition into the Eye of Terror, a warfleet of misshapen battle craft encrusted with the sigils of Chaos emerged from the dust clouds to intercept them.Torpedoes ripped open hulls and blew out docking bays, and Lance fire crackled through the ether to stab through the leviathans of the Imperial fleet. Soon, the battle raged so fiercely that all cohesion amongst The Judged's fleet was lost.The sheer amount of destruction meted out caused a great turmoil in the Warp, and the fabric of space itself began to tear open. Just as the Chaos warfleet retreated, the ships of The Judged were scattered to the furthest corners of the Eye.The journeys of The Judged could fill the Great Elucidan Library twice over, each tale with a sorry ending. For one does not venture into the Eye of Terror without courting grievous misfortune. |
Abyssal Crusade - Bitter Redemption: The adepts of the Administratum outright deny any link between the loss of The Judged and the increased frequency of Chaos Space Marine raids out of the Eye of Terror thereafter.All that is known, almost 800 standard years after the Abyssal Crusade began, the remnants of some of The Judged Chapters returned from the Warp in 112.M38, having purged more than 400 worlds within the Eye of Terror.They could barely contain their fury when they were detained by agents of the Inquisition and tested for the taint of Chaos. As they passed every test, a horrible truth came to light.Saint Basillius still lived, and the testimony of Konvak Lann, Chapter Master of the Vorpal Swords Chapter, revealed him as a false idol, guilty of sending innocents into the jaws of damnation in the service of the Dark Gods.The Vorpal Swords led the other survivors, blazing with righteous anger, to penetrate the defences of Basillius' palace. They found the unaccountably ancient saint and finally revealed Basillius' true nature as an apostle of Chaos.In less than a standard year, every known sepulchre and shrine dedicated to the false saint was destroyed. After his execution by the Inquisition, an Edict of Obliteration was carried out.The Heretic saint's bones, along with countless relics, books of doctrine and thousands of living worshippers were placed on a derelict bulk-freighter and launched directly into a nearby star, purging all taint of Basillius as if he had never existed.Even so, the full extent of his corruption and the reach of his influence has never been fully discovered in the millennia since. |
Abyssal Crusade - Notable Excommunicated Chapters: The following once-Loyalist Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes are known to have been corrupted, in whole or in part, during their time in the Eye of Terror as part of the Abyssal Crusade and to have become Heretic Astartes Renegade Chapters, declared Excommunicate Traitoris by the High Lords of Terra. (Post-Abyssal Crusade, M37 - Appended to the Grimoire Hereticus of M35):Adeptus Astartes ChapterExcommunicate DesignationAltar BrethrenIconoclastsArgent HammersTalons of AnathraxBlades EternalPENDINGBronze GorgonsCrystal WyvernsBrothers of the AnvilDeathmongersClerics of SteelInvocatorsCrusaders of DornBrotherhood of LetheDoom LegionVectors of PoxGraven FistsTwisted BladesIllustriansThe Black PsalmInvictorsThe UnhallowedIron DrakesThe Grey DeathJusticarsThe FracturedKnights ExcelsiorMagma HoundsLances of PterosLords of DecayLectors of IxisOracles of ChangeLionguardDeath ShadowsSanctors of TerraThe Blighted ClawSentinelsCorpus BrethrenSerpents of LightPredator LegionSigilitesMalefactorsSpears of OlympusBloodlordsStar GryphonsSons of MidnightTempest LegionThe Revelation of GoreVengeance ChapterThe FlylordsViridian ConsulsThe Broken |
Abyssal Staff - Abyssal Staff: An Abyssal Staff is a Necron weapon used only by Cryptek Psychomancers. Indeed, it can be considered their signature weapon and symbol of office.Taking on the appearance of a simple staff, its ornate head is as dark as onyx and decorated with arcane symbols designed to prey on the subconscious fears of mortals.An Abyssal Staff is capable of summoning gouts of shadow that are emitted in a similar way to how flames may be emitted from an Imperial Flamer.However, to succumb to the swirling ebon mists and shroud of despair called by an Abyssal Staff is to be swallowed in impenetrable madness, for it is designed to strike at the sanity of the foe and sap their willpower to live, thus causing enemies to be turned into gibbering wrecks of their former selves if they are not slain outright by the experience. |
Acastus Knight Asterius - Acastus Knight Asterius: The Acastus Knight Asterius was a massive, super-heavy pattern of Imperial Knight deployed during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras. This pattern of Knight was specialised for long-range firepower and destroying fortifications.Of the gigantic Acastus Pattern Knights, some of the largest such war machines still in existence, the Asterius is among the most rare.Like its more common cousin, the Acastus Knight Porphyrion, it boasts an armoured hide near impervious to weapons fire, striding across the battlefield like an angry giant beset by insects, and also wields a pair of twin ancient Conversion Beam Cannons.These weapons are irreplaceable relics of a lost technology, each capable of sundering the walls of mighty fortresses and laying low powerful foes in a single blast.The Asterius is even more immense than most other Knight classes, standing almost as tall as a Scout Titan. Its bulky frame was home to an impressive array of long-ranged firepower, which allowed it to lay waste to the Emperor's enemies from afar. |
Acastus Knight Asterius - Role: Acastus Knights were already rare in the age of the Horus Heresy, and Asterius patterns were even more scarce than Porphyrions. Like its counterpart, they were amongst the most massive and formidable engines of destruction available to Knight Houses.These mighty behemoths were armed to raze the mightiest edifices with Conversion Beam Cannons -- even its secondary weapons were deadly in their own right.The carapace hid a massive Karacnos Mortar Battery, capable of saturating fortress ramparts with high-impact rad-phage explosives, as well as two Volkite Culverins to demolish targets of priority.One of the most heavily armed and armoured of all Imperial Knight chassis, few Houses are able to muster Acastus suits. They are therefore seen as symbols of favour by the lords of the Omnissiah's cult, and even the greatest Knight Houses only claim a handful of these savage machines.To the ancient Mechanicum, they represented the double purpose of serving as a battlefield supremacy weapon and as an icon of the Machine God's divinity -- a symbol of control and lethal sanction. |
Acastus Knight Asterius - Unit Composition: 1 Acastus Knight Asterius |
Acastus Knight Asterius - Armaments: 2 twin-linked Conversion Beam CannonsKaracnos Mortar Battery (Carapace mounted)2 Volkite CulverinsIon ShieldOccular Augmetics |
Acastus Knight Asterius - Sources: Warhammer Community - Forge World Acastus Knight Asterius Pre-Order (07 June 19)Warhammer Community - Acastus Knight Asterius Forge World Rules (07 June 2019)Forge World Acastus Knight Asterius |
Acastus Knight Porphyrion - Acastus Knight Porphyrion: The Acastus Knight Porphyrion is one of the most heavily armed and armoured chassis of Imperial Knight ever produced by Imperial technology, a design that essentially sacrifices the mobility valued by most Knights for greater firepower.Even at the height of the Great Crusade Acastus Knight Porphyrions were incredibly rare and only a few households were able to field Acastus armours. In the 41st Millennium, they are even rarer; ancient reminders of the Adeptus Mechanicus' lost power and technological mastery. |
Subsets and Splits