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Charnabal Sabre - Charnabal Broadsword: The Charnabal Broadsword was a greatly enlarged version of the Charnabal Sabre with a much wider blade. These weapons were also often employed by officers of the Adeptus Astartes and the Sisters of Silence, and one such was Captain Saul Tarvitz of the Emperor's Children.
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Charnel Guard - Charnel Guard: The Charnel Guard is a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter and a Successor Chapter of the Blood Angels suspected to have been raised during the Third Founding though they are not acknowledged as a member of the Sanguinary Brotherhood by their ancestral Chapter.This reclusive, fleet-based Chapter's chronicle threads through many dark passages of the Imperium's history.The Charnel Guard are known to seal themselves away in vast stasis crypts when not on campaign, and the Chapter's Armoury holds countless examples of weapons rarely seen in the 41st Millennium.Evidence for this lies in the number of ancient war relics the Charnel Guard is known to possess, such as a Fellblade super-heavy tank and at least two other super-heavy tanks of similar provenance. In particular, this Chapter makes use of a sizable fleet of Fire Raptor gunships, a specialised variant of the Storm Eagle.This Chapter is most notable for having been a member of the Maelstrom Warders, an alliance of Space Marine Chapters dedicated to the defence of the volatile and dangerous region of the Ultima Segmentum of the galaxy known as the Maelstrom Zone from the Chaos Renegades of the nearby Warp rift of the same name.The Charnel Guard are also part of an alliance of Blood Angels successors known as the "Triarchy" that includes the two successors of the Blood Eagles Chapter, the Angels Numinous and the Red Seraphs.The Triarchy dedicated itself to battling the foes of the Emperor wherever they could be found in the Imperium Nihilus after the birth of the Great Rift cut the Imperium in half during the Era Indomitus.
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Charnel Guard - Chapter History: At some point in their history, the Charnel Guard formed an alliance with two other Blood Angels successors, the Angels Numinous and the Red Seraphs, to form what was called the "Triarchy."Both of those Chapters were themselves the direct successors of the Blood Eagles, a Blood Angels successor that had torn itself in half during an unknown conflict. The two surviving halves of the Blood Eagles then formed their own Chapters, which became the Angels Numinous and the Red Seraphs.Though now allied through the Triarchy, the Angels Numinous and Red Seraphs Chapters were noted to agree on nothing.The Chapters of the Triarchy used the ritualistic phrase, "We are Three, drawn from Two, born of One," to define their traditional partnership and kinship to one another.It was a tradition of representatives of those three Chapters to meet at the abandoned homeworld of the Blood Eagles to determine a course of action that would involve the entire Triarchy. The ritual words were always spoken by the Triarchy representatives before any conclave could begin.At one such conclave held after the birth of the Great Rift during the Era Indomitus, Ynoch of the Red Seraphs, Jagudir of the Angels Numinous and Mordath of the Charnel Guard gathered to discuss how the Triarchy would deal with their growing isolation in the Imperium Nihilus, as the Chapters were unable to cross the Great Rift and were coming under increasing threat from xenos and the forces of Chaos.They decided to reject their traditions, and rather than defend their shrinking domains they would seek out the foes of the Emperor in the Dark Imperium and fight aggressively even if it meant the death of their Chapters. And they promised that if they could find Roboute Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade, they would join it.
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Charnel Guard - Notable Campaigns: Pentarchy of Blood (860-940.M33) - During the War of the False Primarch, a dark and bloody episode of the Imperium's history, now largely lost to myth and purged from the record, which plunged the Segmentum Pacificus into anarchy, the Pentarchy of Blood was convened by the High Lords of Terra to enact their judgement. Five Chapters; the Charnel Guard, the Carcharodons, the Death Eagles, the Flesh Eaters and the Red Talons were used to systematically destroy eleven Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes judged Traitoris Perdita and lay waste to their homeworlds, finally drawing the eight decade long conflict to a close.Great Malagantine Purge (770-791.M38) - The Great Malagantine Purge was an Imperial military operation carried out by 5 Space Marine Chapters collectively termed the Manus Irae ("Hands of Wrath" in High Gothic) who unleashed the Emperor of Mankind's wrath upon the heretical Malagant Sector in the Segmentum Tempestus. The details of this operation have been kept secret from the Imperial Adepta, including the Inquisition, with the records of the campaign sealed deep within the Celarno Vaults on Terra. What is recorded in fragmentary Imperial records is that the Manus Irae were charged by the High Lords of Terra of that era to "spare none and set a bloody, fearful example to the realm of Mankind." The death toll unleashed by the Manus Irae during the course of this 21-year long campaign is believed to have been enormous and to have reached hundreds of billions of lives. Whole worlds were put to the sword by the Astartes or were wiped clean of all life by Exterminatus orders that unleashed a hideous, flesh-dissolving virus upon their inhabitants. The Black Fragments of Cardinal Bloch the Reviled, one of the few remaining heretical sources which contain information concerning the Purge of Malagant, explains that the Manus Irae consisted of 5 Chapters, but listed only three by name, including the Fire Hawks, Silver Skulls and the Charnel Guard.Messallas Purgation Campaign (Unknown Date.M38) - The Charnel Guard's Fellblade tank Mori Drakka is known to have taken part in this campaign.Angevin Crusade (322-384.M39) - Praetor Golgenna Angevin, a powerful noble from the Terran Court was raised to the rank of Lord Militant and granted a writ from the High Lords to persecute the Angevin Crusade to liberate and dominate the area of space designated as the Calyx Expanse. His Crusade forces were drawn principally from the Segmentum Solar and numbered over 17 million levied troops divided into four battle groups and a strategic reserve, re-enforced by Titans drawn from the Legio Venator and Legio Magna, as well as the Charnel Guard, Black Templars, Tigers Argent, and Sons of Medusa Chapters of Adeptus Astartes and a significant naval deployment from the Battlefleets Solar and Obscurus. A score of Rogue Trader and Explorator fleets ranged ahead of the main forces identifying targets and providing active reconnaissance in this dangerous region of space. Swelling the Imperial forces' already vast ranks were tens of thousands of "pauper warriors" of the Frateris Militia whipped up into a frenzy of holy zeal by the Ecclesiarchy and innumerable petty hangers-on, opportunists and logistical transports, with supply trains leading back whole sectors away from the front. With their final victory achieved in 384.M39, the Angevin Crusade officially ended, giving rise to the birth of the Imperium's Calixis Sector.Death of the Witching Moon (013.M41) - The Forge Moon of Keziah, in the strategically vital Agathon System, fell into an unnatural eclipse during which its population was driven to murder and madness in an endless night of horror. The dread forces of the Tenebrae and Company of Misery reigned as dark kings amid the nightmare, and the baleful light of the "Witching Moon" that Keziah had become spread calamity and warp-tainted phenomena wherever it now fell, threatening the entire star system. The first Imperial attacks by the Astra Militarum, squadrons from Battlefleet Ultima and the Inquisition were hurled back in tatters by the madness of the black light and the warp-fuelled savagery of the defenders. It was only by the unexpected arrival of the Charnel Guard Chapter, accompanied by a sacred band of Adepta Sororitas from the Order of the Black Sepulchre bearing the holy relic known as the Book of Tears before them, that the imminent loss of tens of billions of lives on Agathon Prime was prevented, and the insanity-inducing radiance of the Witching Moon was held back. The Charnel Guard led a fresh assault as further Adeptus Astartes, including the Iron Hands, Storm Lords and Angels Porphyr, and Adeptus Mechanicus reinforcements arrived, fighting a brutal battle of tank and gunship clashes across the soaring metal canyons which razed the moon's surface and chamber-by-chamber Zone Mortalis actions to purge Keziah of the shadow that had befallen it. When the Charnel Guard launched their orbital assault of Keziah's Moon each of their Storm Eagle attack waves was accompanied by a rare Fire Raptor gunship to provide additional fire support, the largest deployment of these vehicles observed in at least the last three millennia. Of note, several different variations of this formation have been observed by the Charnel Guard. The Chaos Astartes inflicted fearful losses on their besiegers before they were driven into the deeper darkness of the Warp. In the wake of their retreat, all life was purged from Keziah before it was given back to the hands of the Machine Cult for tech-exorcism and eventual reclamation.Maelstrom Warders (587.M41) - In direct response to the numerous dire predations from the Maelstrom an Edict Imperialis was pronounced by the High Lords of Terra and the order was given to permanently base several Space Marine Chapters in the Maelstrom Zone in order to protect the Imperium's interests and pacify the region. The Astral Claws Chapter, in recognition of their past glorious service to the Imperium, was given the high honour of commanding the newly formed Maelstrom Warders task force. This force also included the fleet-based Charnel Guard and Lamenters Chapters, who were specifically charged to patrol the Maelstrom's outer regions, and was also to incorporate the Mantis Warriors who were already based in the nearby Endymion Cluster within its command.Scourge Campaign (640-651.M41) - The Scourge Campaign was one of the largest Imperial operations conducted in the Maelstrom Zone, in which the Maelstrom Warders carried out a series of major combat operations, striking deep into the heart of the Maelstrom itself and taking the battle to the Renegade servants of Chaos, the first Imperial force in centuries to do so. Despite the Space Marines' numerous successes, their efforts were suddenly curtailed when the Charnel Guard Chapter was abruptly withdrawn from the Maelstrom Zone entirely. By direct intervention of the Adeptus Terra, the Chapter's ties to the Warders were severed and they were dispatched on the Thanatos Crusade into the Veiled Region at the edge of the Segmentum Tempestus.Devastation of Baal (ca. 999.M41) - The Charnel Guard were among the forces deployed by the Blood Angels Successor Chapters to defend their parent Chapter's homeworld of Baal from an assault by the Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan.
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Charnel Guard - Chapter Gene-Seed: A mutation in the Charnel Guard's gene-seed leads its Astartes to often develop unusually elongated eye teeth.They also seem to develop the appearance of a partially dead or decaying body, including grey skin, breath and skin that smells of rotting flesh, and eyes that are completely white, showing no visible pupils.
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Charnel Guard - Notable Charnel Guard: Chapter Master Zephon - Zephon, known as "The Bringer of Sorrow," was the first Chapter Master of the Charnel Guard. Noble, though bleak in character, Zephon suffered from an extreme blood thirst that he desperately held in check. Zephon was a former Exarch of the High Host and warrior of the Blood Angels Legion. He served as a Dominion of the Blood Angels, a commander of a company, during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. As a Destroyer Marine during the IX Legion's Compliance actions during the Great Crusade, Zephon earned the moniker "The Bringer of Sorrow" for his ruthless methods of war. Like his fellow Blood Angels, Zephon was both a warrior and an artist, as he was an accomplished musician with skill playing both the harp and the piano. During a battle against an unknown xenos assailant, Zephon was grievously injured, losing both his arms, his left thigh, knee, and right foot to its blade. Surviving the battle, Zephon's limbs were replaced with augmetic appendages, though he often suffered the symptoms of rejection of the bionics which dramatically worsened his health. No longer able to fight as well as his kin and lacking the finesse to play the instruments he had once mastered, Zephon would fall into a deep depression. With his martial prowess significantly diminished, Zephon was despatched to Holy Terra to become a member of the Crusader Host comprised of one Legionary from every Space Marine Legion. Yet with the betrayal of Horus Lupercal and the eruption of the Horus Heresy, the Crusader Host was disbanded and its members imprisoned for interrogation to ensure no Traitors lurked in Terra's midst. Freed to aid the Imperium's war effort, Zephon tallied the dead of the war, yet grew restless while separated from his far-flung Legion. Denied sanction to venture into the galaxy to locate his Legion, Zephon was recruited by the Custodian Diocletian Coros to aid in the secret War Within the Webway being fought beneath the Imperial Palace. Spending many of his days off-duty within the Imperial Palace, Zephon formed an unlikely friendship with the genius Mechanicum Techno-Archaeologist Arkhan Land. Re-fitting Zephon's cybernetic limbs with improved augmetics, Land enabled the crestfallen Blood Angel to fight with renewed vigour. However, Zephon's body still rejected the bionic implants after a period of time, much to the frustration of both the Blood Angel and Land. The Blood Angels finally made their triumphant return to the Throneworld in the days before the start of the Siege of Terra. With the arrival of his Legion, Zephon openly wept at the sight of his Primarch Sanguinius and his fellow Blood Angels. Following Zephon's reunion with his Legion, Land agreed to help Zephon overcome his immune rejection of his augmetic limbs. Land chose to integrate ancient artificial intelligence technology dating back to the Age of Technology into Zephon's body to trick his physiology into accepting the new implants. In return, Zephon agreed to take Land before Sanguinius. During the Siege of Terra, Zephon returned to the side of his kin at the forefront of battle. Zephon fought in defence of the Gorgon Bar and was wounded defending the Imperial historitor Ceris Gonn. Placed within a stasis pod and delivered to Arkhan Land, Zephon's body was swiftly healed through the ministrations of Land and his three Bloodthralls Shafia, Shenkai and Eristes. Following his recovery, Zephon aided in Land's escape from his now-besieged underground laboratory. Returning to the front line in defence of the Eternity Gate, Zephon and Arkhan Land faced the hordes of Traitors. Zephon briefly reverted to his more menacing persona by ordering Land to protect his thralls in the coming battle or be beaten to death should he retreat. Though stern in this assertion, Zephon defended Land from the assaults of the Traitors while the two fought side-by-side. Escorting his ally back to the Sanctum Imperialis as the Traitors pushed their advance forward and took the Bhab Bastion, Zephon rallied several remaining Loyalist Astartes officers such as Fafnir Rann, Maximus Thane, Azkaellon, Satel Aimery and the White Scars' Keshig commander Namahi to serve under the command of Terra's most senior Astartes, Archemus, who was charged with defending the Inner Palace. During the subsequent battle, Zephon succumbed to his incandescent rage during the Traitors' assault, tearing apart the oncoming Heretic Astartes in a hail of gore. Despite this state, Zephon ultimately survived the Siege of Terra. Following the end of the Horus Heresy and the subsequent campaigns of the Great Scouring, the Space Marine Legions were reorganised and broken down into separate, smaller Chapters starting with the Second Founding initiated by Lord Commander of the Imperium Roboute Guilliman. One of these later Successor Chapters was the Charnel Guard, raised from the ranks of the surviving Blood Angels. Zephon was installed as the first Chapter Master of this Blood Angels successor. As the memories of the Heresy transitioned from fact to myth, Zephon rarely told his battle-brothers of his gene-father's glorious deeds, though he would interject if other tellers of the tale claimed that Sanguinius waited during the Battle for the Sanctum Imperialis. He would correct them by saying that Sanguinius did not stand with his back to the Eternity Gate and watch as the "Bane of the Ninth Bloodline" -- the Bloodthirster Ka'Bandha -- attacked the Royal Ascension. Though his listeners were always interested in hearing this first-hand account, Zephon often deferred to others to set the historical record straight as legend replaced history. Zephon continued to fight for the Imperium as a dour yet respected legend of the Siege of Terra. The remainder of his deeds after becoming master of the Charnel Guard are lost to history.First Captain Paracelius - Paracelius is the current captain of the Charnel Guards 1st Company and was part of the forces that the Chapter sent to aid the Blood Angels during the Devastation of Baal by Hive Fleet Leviathan. It is unknown whether he survived the destruction of the Chapter flagship.Mordath - Mordath was the representative of the Charnel Guard on the Blood Eagles' abandoned homeworld at the Triarchy conclave that made the decision to take the offensive against the enemies of the Emperor in the Imperium Nihilus during the Era Indomitus.
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Charnel Guard - Chapter Fleet: The Chapter fleet of the Charnel Guard is known to consist of the following warships:Invictrix (Battle Barge) - The Invictrix was the flagship of the Charnel Guard and was sent to aid the Blood Angels during the Devastation of Baal. The Invictrix was destroyed in a void battle during that campaign with the Tyranid Hive Ships.Tacit Canticum - A warship of unknown class that bore Mordath to the Triarchy conclave on the Blood Eagles' abandoned homeworld.
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Charnel Guard - Chapter Colours: The Charnel Guard's Chapter colours are known to be primarily black and maroon. Their power armour is fashioned to mimic the polished black of volcanic glass.
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Charnel Guard - Chapter Badge: The Charnel Guard's Chapter badge is a black stylised fleur-de-lis cross, adorned with lily petal flourishes at the arm-ends, outlined in white.A maroon, diamond-shaped lozenge is centred on the cross with a fanged skull in its centre.
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Charon Stars - Charon Stars: The Charon Stars, located near the Hadex Anomaly, are filled with life tainted by the Warp. Because of the Warp-breach's unpredictable motion, agents of the Ordo Malleus have been unable to determine just how far these contaminants may extend.While stars that have left its effect no longer glow with sickly red light, their worlds are hardly cleansed of its influence. Rather, these systems may bear the subtle markings of Chaos taint for millennia to come.
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Charon Stars - Known Worlds of the Charon Stars: MagogResgulusTabius RasaVespasia
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Charpactin - Charpactin: The Charpactin are a xenos species of sentient fungoids who communicate entirely in bursts of ultraviolet colour.These strobing emanations prove surprisingly effective at subduing and transfixing living beings, rendering them docile and amenable.When Water Caste diplomats from the Fifth Sphere Expansion Fe'saan Sept encountered them, the T'au quickly negotiated a client-state treaty, drafting many of these creatures into their growing Edification Corps which was intended to maintain the loyalty of the Fire Caste to the Ethereals.
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Chartist Captains - Chartist Captains: The Chartist Captains, also called the Free Captains, are the commanders of the state-owned merchant starships that are the primary commercial vessels of the Imperium of Man and belong to the Imperial Merchant Fleets. They are called "Chartists" because every captain and their voidship must have a Merchant Charter granted by the Administratum in the segmentum of the galaxy that their route takes them through.The space lanes of the Imperium are plied by huge, often ancient, merchant starships commanded by the Chartist Captains. Lacking Navigators and sometimes even astropaths to guide them through the Warp or maintain communication with the rest of the Imperium, these civilian voidcraft take Terran years to travel their pre-planned, circuitous routes between the stars, trading and bringing supplies to worlds which need them.The starships of the Chartist Captains are the only contact many worlds have with the galaxy at large, and to some primitive worlds their arrivals are long-prophesied events of great spiritual significance. Similarly, the reports of Chartist Captains are often the only evidence that many Human-settled worlds still exist at all.The route of each starship, set down in its charter written up by the Adeptus Terra, can take generations to complete and a Chartist starship is home to a spacefaring community of "Void Born" souls who can live and die without ever setting foot on the surface of a planet.Chartist Captains are not Rogue Traders, and are not given the nearly limitless power of a Warrant of Trade. However, unlike Rogue Traders, they sometimes garner enough political power to be represented on the Senatorum Imperialis of the High Lords of Terra. Chartist Captains are also ensured a level of financial security unknown to Rogue Traders by virtue of their route being approved and made stable by a segmentum lord or equally powerful individual within a segmentum government.It is not unknown for Chartist ships to follow the path of an Imperial Crusade or other warfleet, delivering supplies to Imperial forces left behind on conquered worlds, though their lack of Navigators means they cannot hope to maintain pace with the galaxy-crossing warships of the Imperial Navy.
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Chartist Captains - Notable Chartist Ships: Bountiful Beast - Livestock and Victual Mass Conveyance Provender Bountiful Beast, to give it its proper title, or the Reek as it has been known for centuries, has since the Calixis Sector's founding plied the cold void carrying a cargo of live flesh and dead meat to assuage the hunger of the masses. A vast patchwork relic of ancient days, the Bountiful Beast rivals the largest Imperial warships in size and takes the form of an irregular, fat cylinder nearly sixteen kilometres long from stem to stern; its hull is heat-blackened and corroded, pitted with ancient scars and haloed with debris and vented vapour mist that shrouds its passage. The Bountiful Beast's origins are lost to antiquity, but it seems certain it first came to the nascent sector as part of the forces of the Angevin Crusade as a long-range supply vessel, though the voidship's prior history no doubts predates this by at least several millennia and perhaps longer. In the aftermath of the crusade's success it seems the ship's master became one of the earliest Chartist Captains, and this independence and license has never been given up by any of the D'Rais family line since. The Bountiful Beast follows an erratic path around the fringes and backwaters of the Calixis Sector from the Periphery to the edges of the Threnos Zone. Garnering livestock for transport and meat for rendering at Feral and Feudal Worlds in return for manufactured goods, before transporting its processed cargo to isolated mining colonies and frontier planets, the Bountiful Beast's appearance can mean the difference between starvation and plenty for the inhabitants. But to the other Chartist Captains and the Void Born it is a bloody and ill-omened thing. The Bountiful Beast is no silent, steel coffin sailing the darkness; it is a mobile, steaming, bustling, stench-ridden and blood soaked industry unto itself. At once a cattle-wagon, breeding pen, abattoir and freighter, it is crewed by thousands of victualers, cooks, cold-bloods, slaughtermen, beast-handlers and skinners in addition to the thousands of ratings and crewman needed to run a starship of this size, and they in turn are dwarfed in numbers by the potential tens of thousands of creatures, live or dead, in the Bountiful Beast's holds. As with most large interstellar vessels, many of those who serve aboard are Void Born, or more accurately "darkholders," a particularly notorious strain of the type and likely the latest generation of their families in an unbroken chain down the centuries on this single ship. In the Bountiful Beast's case many more of its crew are taken on during its many stops as volunteers and hired muscle. The ship's industries are arduous and ceaseless, and it has a rapacious desire for new blood, so it is that each time the Bountiful Beast makes port it has need for scores of new crew members; losses caused by desertions are one culprit, and a great many die on board either through accident, brawling or factional fighting. Many more simply disappear mid-voyage. More than enough tales of its vast slaughter-chambers, lakes of rendered fat, and red-dewed corridors have been spoken by those that have left this iron abattoir to have painted pictures as close to hell as any could wish for to those that listen to the tales told in starports and way stations across the sector.Misericord - The Misericord is an example of the many Chartist spacecraft that ply the trade routes between Scintilla, Iocanthos and Sepheris Secundus and the other worlds of the Calixis Sector. It is an ugly and enormous voidship, resembling a barnacle-encrusted, spacefaring whale, from which jut haphazard clusters of engines and towers, and it trails a long tail of debris like a comet. The Misericord carries huge quantities of trade goods between its client worlds, along with many passengers. Buying passage on a voidship like the Misericord is the most common method of travelling between planets in the Calixis Sector. Its round trip -- Scintilla/Iocanthus/Sepheris Secundus -- a route laid down on the Merchant Charter carried by its captains, takes well over a standard year. Ships like the Misericord are very common in the Calixis Sector and throughout the Imperium, plying a slow, thankless route across the stars. Without the Chartist ships, large swathes of the Imperium would be completely cut off and whole sector economies would fail. In spite of this, few have much regard for the Chartist ships, and their crews are stereotyped as rough, untrustworthy Void Born with few scruples and even fewer refinements. Each Chartist voidcraft needs an Imperial Merchant Charter that sets out its permitted trade routes and activities, and the Misericord's charter was signed by one of the earliest generation of Calixis Sector governors.
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Chartist Captains - Notable Chartist Captains: Captain Kobal Aizdar - Captain Aizdar is a roaring giant of a man, quick to curse but quicker to laugh. His family lineage is an ancient one: his most prized possession, which he'll eventually get around to pointing out to all of his passengers, is his hereditary charter to ply the space lanes of the Calixis Sector. Sealed behind a small void shield, the charter has been passed down his family line for close to a thousand Terran years and bears the signature of no less a person than Saint Drusus himself. Captain Aizdar has a stunning collection of oddities and artworks that he has amassed over the years, a common affectation with Rogue Traders, which he’ll proudly show off to passengers he comes to favour.
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Chem Cannon - Chem Cannon: The Chem Cannon is a virulent chemical weapon utilised by the armoured forces of the Astra Militarum. Specifically, by the "Bane Wolf" variant of the standard Hellhound pattern tank, which has been modified to unleash a noxious cloud of gas.This gas is so toxic that it dissolves all organic material it comes into contact with, stripping flesh from bone, before rendering even that down into a bubbling pool of rank, festering ooze.Using such a lethal weapon is not without its risks as should environmental conditions shift on the battlefield, the highly acidic clouds of gas can quickly drift over the Astra Militarum's own troops killing and maiming infantry and even affecting tank crews if their vehicle is not completely sealed against such toxic airborne contaminants.When a Bane Wolf rumbles past, it is up to a regiment's commissars to ensure that those under their charge do not immediately flee in fear of the horrors their own machines of war can unleash.
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Chem World - Chem World: A Chem World is an Imperial planetological classification used as a sub-classification for certain Industrial Worlds whose atmospheres have been poisoned by the industrial waste of billions of people that has been pumped out of their manufactoria for standard millennia.Described as being the Imperium's oubliettes and the filthiest of its worlds, Chem Worlds' populations must wear helmets or respirators at all times when outside in order to safely breathe their atmospheres. Needless to say, the life spans of the inhabitants of Chem Worlds are some of the shortest in the Human-settled galaxy.
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Chem World - Notable Swamp Worlds: Planet NameSegmentumSectorSub-SectorSystemPopulationAdrionUnknownUnknownUnknownUnknownUnknown
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Chemos - Chemos: ChemosEmperor's ChildrenTraitor LegionChaos GodSlaaneshEmperor of MankindHorus HeresyplanetPrimarchFulgrimEmperorGreat CrusadeIn ancient days Chemos was classified as a Mining World. By the time of the later Great Crusade it was classified as a Civilised World, but following its scouring after the Horus Heresy by the Loyalist forces of the Imperium, it is now a Dead World, wiped clean of all life.
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Chemos - Origins: The world of Chemos in the Ultima Segmentum's Aquitane Sector was originally settled by Human colonists before the Age of Strife, when Warp travel became impossible due to the numerous Warp storms that cut off the Human-settled worlds from one another, forcing these isolated planets to fend for themselves without the support of their Human-settled neighbours in other star systems. An ancient surviving text from that time, known as the Libram ex Dominar, tells that Chemos was one such world, an industrious mining colony dependent on interstellar trade for food. The planet's rulers made every effort to extract enough raw food from the harsh environment to feed their people, but Chemos was a planet dying a slow death.During its isolation, the archivists of Chemos recorded a picture of a bleak, unforgiving world. Warmed by two small, distant suns and surrounded by a nebular dust cloud, it experienced neither day nor night, only a perpetual grey twilight in which the stars never shone. Settled long ago as a mining colony, the cities, outposts, mining centres and towns of Chemos had fallen into decay since their isolation from Terra. Without resources from other worlds to sustain the people of Chemos, trade with other planets ended, thousands starved, cities were abandoned, and eventually it fell down to just a few hardy fortress-factories to keep Humanity alive on Chemos.Short of food, water and energy, the people of Chemos were forced to limit themselves to the meagre supplies available, all citizens worked every waking hour, operating the vapour mines that drew moisture from the thin air, and the huge synthesisers that endlessly recycled food, turning yesterday's waste into today's sustenance. When not working, the inhabitants of the factory-fortresses would march through the ruins of the world's once-great industrial cities, searching for building materials, salvageable technology and the ruins of voidships to strip of useful parts.Recreation, art and leisure were sacrificed in order to ensure survival, and efficiency became the only value adhered to. This all changed when one day the guards on the crumbling walls of Callax, the largest remaining factory-fortress of Chemos, saw a meteor descend from the clouds, trailing fire across the sky before impacting onto the rocky, dusty ground barely a kilometre from the fortress walls. Though little manpower could be spared, the ruling Executive Board of Callax sent a handful of scouts to investigate the impact site, hoping for some evidence of Human survivors on other worlds. What they found became legend.
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Chemos - Discovery of Fulgrim: In the centre of the crater, surrounded by the white-hot remains of a stasis capsule, was a child, barely more than an infant. Orphans were normally put to death on Chemos -- the Executive Boards of the various settlements spared no resources to look after those who were unable to return their investment by working in the factory-fortresses -- but the captain of the Callax scouts looked into the eyes of the child and saw something more than Human.In defiance of tradition, the captain of the scouts appealed to the Executive Board that ruled Callax. Because of his value to Callax, the captain was allowed to adopt the infant as his own. He named his adopted son after an old legend long-since discarded by the people of Chemos, the mythical god of creation Fulgrim. The child named after this legend soon created a legend of his own, one that would become known to all the people of his world.Fulgrim grew unnaturally fast, becoming a strong, capable man. At half the age of his fellow workers he was able to fulfill his obligations to the Executive Board, working for solar days without rest. Not only was he physically proficient, he quickly grew to understand the technology of the machines he worked with, and began to contemplate their improvement. By the fifteenth anniversary of his fall from the sky, Fulgrim had risen from the ranks of the workers, first becoming an engineer, then one of the Executives himself. Learning of the slow technological deterioration in Callax and the other remaining settlements of Chemos, Fulgrim set himself the task of saving his world and changing it from a dying ex-mining planet into the centre of art and wealth it became under Imperial rule.One by one he convinced his fellow members of the Executive Board to fight against the entropy that was destroying Chemos. Under Fulgrim's leadership, teams of engineers travelled far from the factory-fortresses, reclaiming and repopulating long-dead outposts, mining centres and fortresses in the planet's most inaccessible regions. The ancient mines were reopened and expanded, bringing more and more minerals into Callax and allowing the construction of more sophisticated machines.Recycling efficiency grew until, at last, Callax was producing more that it consumed. Seeing his people prosper, Fulgrim took pride in fostering the re-emergence of art and culture, reclaiming the spirit of Humanity that had been sacrificed so long ago in the struggle for survival. Terraforming technology was reinvented, allowing forests, oceans, plains and rainforests to spread from the reclaimed outposts and bring life to the planet. As Callax grew, the other settlements began to ally themselves with Fulgrim and helped him rebuild and repopulate the long-abandoned cities of the planet. Using building materials mined out of the reopened mines, ancient buildings were patched up and reconstructed even as towers and skyscrapers rose over the ground. Fifty standard years after Fulgrim fell from the sky, he rose to sole rulership of Chemos.As beautiful forests were planted on ground once mined for metals and wondrous cities of glass, gold, crystal and steel rose to new heights of glory, Fulgrim's presence drove a resurgence of craft, art and intellectual refinement, and through dint of his intellect and achievements he halted the backsliding of this hardscrabble world and set it upon a path, if not to greatness, then at least to a betterment of its lot. Metropolises built over rocky plains and forests grown on stony ground, this impulse to strive for something better would allow the people of Chemos to attain something akin to great heights, and the changing of Chemos into a world of art and culture inspired Fulgrim the will to grasp even more greatness.It was not long after this that the planet's isolation came to an end in the year 830.M30 by the Imperial Calendar. From the blue sky came a flight of dropships, armoured and battle-scarred, each bearing the same symbol, a two-headed eagle. On hearing of this, some fragment of memory stirred in Fulgrim. Chemos had no formal army, but the dropships' landing zone had been surrounded by the Caretakers, the police-soldiers once responsible for maintaining order in the factory-fortresses. Fulgrim sent word to the Caretakers to stand down and allow the visitors from above into Callax.
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Chemos - Arrival of the Emperor: In his spartan quarters in a tower at the heart of the greatest city on the planet, Fulgrim was faced by armoured warriors from the stars. Their faces bore the scars of many battles, and from their shoulders hung scrolls listing their achievements. Their armour and weapons were finely-worked, and their banners and pennants were works of art. Fulgrim recognised that these men were not merely more advanced than the people of Chemos, but truly civilised -- his lost brothers from the stars had preserved the arts he had longed to return to Chemos. From the midst of these warriors stepped their leader, the Emperor of Humanity. Fulgrim surveyed him and, without a word, knelt and offered his sword. On that day Fulgrim swore to serve the Imperium with all his heart.From the Emperor Himself, Fulgrim learned of Terra, of the Great Crusade to reclaim the galaxy, and of his own origins. Though the story was fantastical in nature, he knew it to be true, and at the Emperor's request Fulgrim travelled to Terra to join the Space Marine Legion that had been created from his genetic material.Unlike the other Legions fighting in the Crusade, the Astartes of the IIIrd Legion were few in number -- an accident had destroyed nearly all of the Legion's precious gene-seed during transit from Luna to Terra and the reserves had been corrupted by a terrible infection.With the primarch himself lost, the rebuilding of the Legion's gene-seed had proven to be a slow and difficult process. Fulgrim addressed the two hundred warriors who were then all that the IIIrd Legion could muster. There were so few that each of them bore a banner of a company of the Legion that had either perished, or now numbered only a handful of warriors.Yet they were unbowed and stood with pride, as if in defiance of fate. The Primarch may have seen an echo of the struggle of Chemos in his remaining gene-sons. To them he gave the sacred task of bringing the Emperor's wisdom to all the stars in the sky, "You are the Emperor's chosen, his heralds, his warriors, his children, for this is only the beginning," the Book of Primarchs relates he told them upon their first meeting.On hearing of Fulgrim's words, the Emperor renamed the IIIrd Legion the "Emperor's Children," ratifying a name long known within the Legion since their defence of the Master of Mankind during the Proximan Betrayal early in the Great Crusade but now given the full legal force of Imperial decree. The Officio Militaris' College of Arms recorded the change and marked the III Legion's panoply as imperial purple with the talon-spur as their emblem and the unique right to bear the Aquila Palatine as executors of the Imperial will, an honour given to the Emperor's Children alone among the Space Marines until after the betrayal of the Horus Heresy.Fulgrim was anxious to begin his conquest of the unknown regions of the galaxy as part of the ongoing Great Crusade, but realised that his two hundred warriors were far too few to undertake the Crusade on their own. With the Emperor's blessing Fulgrim and his IIIrd Legion joined the Luna Wolves on campaign, and Fulgrim fought side-by-side with his brother Primarch Horus, aiding him in his newly-assigned task of pacifying the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy. The Warmaster himself soon praised Fulgrim and his Legion, declaring them the living embodiment of the everything the Legiones Astartes aspired to be.
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Chemos - Great Crusade: Swelled by new recruits drawn from Chemos and Terra, the Emperor's Children finally mustered the strength to undertake a portion of the Crusade alone, and Fulgrim proudly led his warriors into the unknown. To countless worlds he brought the rule of the Emperor, crushing any resistance in the certain knowledge that any who fought against the Emperor fought against humanity itself. From the growing ranks of his Legion, Fulgrim selected a few individuals, the bravest, strongest and noblest, to bear the rank of Lord Commander, each given charge of a full battle company.Fulgrim taught the Lord Commanders personally, taking care that they were worthy of the honour of being the representatives of the Emperor. In turn the Lord Commanders passed Fulgrim's words on to the officers under their command, and they to their squads. In this way, through their leaders, each Space Marine of the Emperor's Children Legion followed the Emperor himself.To honour the Emperor, they strove for perfection in all things: battlefield doctrine was obeyed to the letter, tactics and strategy were studied in minute detail and perfected, and the Emperor's decrees were memorised by every Space Marine, adhered to in every way. While the Emperor's Children, like many Legions, considered the Emperor a man, not a god, their reverence and adoration for him bordered on the fanatical.After coming under the rule of Fulgrim and its rediscovery by Imperial forces, Chemos quickly expanded its industrial base tо become both an important source of processed minerals and, more importantly, a centre of Imperial culture, art and high society. No longer would a traveler from another world see crumbling factory-fortresses, now they would see a paradise planet of beautiful forests, shining, wealthy cities, marble palaces and monuments of marble and diamond."Beautiful Clemos", as it was known, provided the majority of the early Imperium's scholars, actors, merchants and great beauties. The grand fortress-monastery of the Emperor's Children was established on the magnificent forested hills near Callax (now having grown into a shining city of art, pleasure and commerce that bore no resemblance to the factory-fortress of old), drawing recruits from the strongest, bravest and most intelligent of the planet's population.Though Fulgrim himself never returned to Chemos, he took great care to see that his will, as the emissary of the Emperor, was followed. The recruits for the III Legion from Chemos proved themselves strong and resourceful warriors, but even so only a handful of them passed the rigorous tests imposed by Fulgrim to satisfy himself that they were worthy of becoming one of the Emperor's Children.
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Chemos - Post-Heresy: After the lifting of the Siege of Terra, and the end of the Horus Heresy, Imperial forces set out to assault Chemos from orbit, intending to destroy the Emperor's Children's fortress-monastery established outside the capital city of Callax. They bombarded all the other factory-cities and palaces of the III Legion from orbit into nonexistence and eradicated any trace of Chaos from the world.Following this action Chemos was quarantined by the Inquisition, and in the past ten millennia no further information, not even a record of an Exterminatus action carried out on the planet, has appeared in Imperial databases regarding Chemos, though the orbital bombardment rendered the once beautiful and wealthy world lifeless.Bored by the pedestrian excesses of his Legion in the wake of the Horus Heresy, Fulgrim, now a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, isolated himself on a Slaaneshi Daemon World in the Eye of Terror, which he renamed Callax, after the capital of Chemos. He spent Terran centuries transforming Callax into a reflection of his homeworld, and then recreated the circumstances of his arrival. Fulgrim now spends most of his time recreating the old battles that unified his homeworld. He fights them repeatedly, attempting different strategies in search of the perfect victory to rewrite his history. Sometimes, he even allows the enemy to win.During Chemos' final hours, the work known as the Chemosian Cantos had been penned. It was later revered as a sacred scripture by the Human slaves and Chaos Cultists who served the Emperor's Children Legion and worshipped Slaanesh. Gilded exemplars of the Cantos can be purchased on Callax.
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Chemos - Notable Locations: Callax - Callax was the largest of Chemos' factory-cities and the initial city ruled by Fulgrim after his arrival on Chemos. It served for a long time as the world planetary capital.Sulpha - Suplha was a region of Chemos inhabited by a nomadic people who were famed for the artistry of their sword-dancers.Phoenicia - Phoenicia was the name of the new factory-city established by Fulgrim as the planetary captial after he came to rule over Chemos and reformed its society.
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Chemos - Trivia: In the epic seventeenth century poem Paradise Lost by John Milton, Chemos was the name of a demon of lust who drives mortals towards the pursuit of sexual perversions.
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Cherub - Cherub: A Cherub (pl. Cherubim or Cherubs) is a cybernetic construct created by the Magi Biologis of the Adeptus Mechanicus for various adepta of the Imperium of Man, including the Adeptus Ministorum, the Inquisition, the Adepta Sororitas and the Adeptus Astartes. Cherubim are often used by Inquisitors with psychic abilities as familiars who can act to augment their powers.The use of cherubim is especially widespread among the orders of the Ecclesiarchy, and they're a common sight fluttering above the aisles of Ministorum cathedra and the convents of the Adepta Sororitas. The Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas are often accompanied to battle by cherubim, where they fulfil a number of duties. Through the use of loaded doctrines, cherubim can assist the battle-sisters with front-line weapon maintenance, purification rituals, the bearing of relics and any number of other roles.A cherub's flesh can even be integrated with different mechanical appendages and daubed with unique unguents, allowing it to better perform its purpose.Cherubim have been intentionally biologically shaped by the Mechanicus to resemble the child-like angels of ancient Terran myth to symbolise their purity in the eyes of the Emperor.Cherubim are usually grown from pre-selected genetic templates in vats or clone tanks by the Magi Biologis who then outfit them with various cybernetic components depending upon the task for which they are intended.In many ways, cherubim are simply a variant of servitors who have been granted a unique appearance and a smaller size, as well as the ability to fly. Cherubim, like servitors, are not considered self-aware beings by the Imperium, and most could be considered to have the intelligence of an unusually bright dog or sub-sentient primate.
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Cherub - History: The bio-constructs known as cherubim are of uncertain origin, but they are one of the few permitted examples of such bio-sculpted homunculi allowed within the Imperium.Taking a form most commonly resembling that of somewhat corpulent and unwholesome-looking genderless children, they are also often implanted with augmetic feathery wings and an anti-gravitic generator allowing limited flight, since their wings are wholly aesthetic and not capable of bearing their weight.Cherubim are not truly alive at all and their synthesised, bloodless and waxen flesh needs neither to eat nor sleep and is fed from their internal power-cell. They are controlled by a cybernetically-augmented biological cortex and nervous system usually harvested from or genetically patterned upon some lesser, non-sentient creature of Terra such as a simian, bird, swine or felid.They are implanted with a set of programmed commands that allows them to perform some simple task such as copying text, fetching and carrying small items, lighting candles or tirelessly singing the Emperor's praises with augmetic vocal cords.Outside the rarefied noble houses and Imperial adepta hierarchy (most notably the Ecclesiarchy) where they are used, most Imperial citizens view cherubim with a degree of distaste and superstitious fear. This is not entirely without cause as it is a matter of record that in rare instances cherubim have been known to "devolve," allowing some corrupted and mangled version of their organic cortex to take over their behaviour with unpleasant consequences.
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Cherub - Armourium Cherub: Armourium Cherubim are diminutive, flying cybernetic bio-constructs created to assist the Emperor's servants, be they scribe or soldier.Among the Adeptus Astartes they are rarely seen outside of the Librarius, save for those few that are assigned to a Chapter's Armoury and relay targeting data and carry spare ammunition for Devastator Squads.
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Cherub - Sources: Codex: Daemonhunters (3rd Edition), pg. 14Codex: Space Marines (7th Edition) (Digital Edition), "Armoury of the Space Marines - Special Issue Wargear - Armourium Cherub", pg. 440Codex: Witch Hunters (3rd Edition), pg. 16Dark Heresy: The Inquisitor's Handbook (RPG), pg. 192White Dwarf Weekly 71 (June 6, 2015) "Space Marines - Devastator Squad," pg. 7Games Workshop Online Store - Space Marine Librarian with CherubWarhammer Community - Battle Sister Bulletin – Part 19: Cherubs!
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Cherubael - Cherubael: Cherubael, or the Cherub of Bael, was a daemonhost of immense power. Cherubael was formerly in the service of the infamous Heretic Quixos, a Renegade Inquisitor slain by Gregor Eisenhorn. Although Eisenhorn, as an Inquisitor himself, despised Cherubael at first, he began to find a need for the daemonhost's extraordinary power which led to Eisenhorn's slide into Radicalism. Cherubael is currently bound within Godwyn Fischig, a close friend and ally of Eisenhorn's.
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Cherubael - History: Cherubael was once a Daemon Prince on the Feral World of Clanar II, where he dominated the primitive locals who came to worship him as a god. The Inquisitor Quixos defeated Cherubael and enslaved him in the body of one of the warriors of Clanar II. Cherubael served Quixos until the Inquisitor's death at the hands of Eisenhorn.
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Cherubael - Relationship to Eisenhorn: Cherubael was able to discern the future from the Warp, and saw that Eisenhorn, if allowed, would destroy his physical body and so set Cherubael free. For over a century, from the 240s until the 340s.M41, Cherubael manipulated and protected Eisenhorn so that Eisenhorn would start down the path of Radicalism and set in motion the events that would free Cherubael. Eisenhorn, aided by a Runestaff crafted by Magos Geard Bure of the Adeptus Mechanicus with the diabolic knowledge of Pontius Glaw, finally destroyed Cherubael's host body on the world of Farness Beta and banished him to the Immaterium. Eisenhorn also believed he annihilated another daemonhost known as Prophaniti.
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Cherubael - Enslavement to Eisenhorn: Following these events, Eisenhorn re-summoned Cherubael and imprisoned him in a host body in 345.M41, sealing the daemon within a void-vault that he might suffer eternally, caged in flesh and trapped as a punishment for manipulating his master. However, during his conflicts with the heretic Fayde Thuring and his Corrupted Titan, the Cruor Vult, Eisenhorn found himself sorely pressed and summoned Cherubael, whom he had bound into a new host after defeating and banishing it.Eisenhorn came to rely heavily on Cherubael in the coming years, much to the dismay and anger of his staff and fellow Inquisitors. Notably he utilised the Daemonhost to defeat the Heretic Pontius Glaw, who also utilised a daemonhost of his own, and against the daemonhosts of the Divine Fratery, whom Cherubael seemed to take great pleasure in destroying.On Sancour, Cherubael later rescued the imprisoned clone of Elizabeth Bequin from Eisenhorn's pupil-turned-enemy, Gideon Ravenor.
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Chicano - Chicano: Chicano is a former Imperial Mining World that fell to Chaos.The Chaos Lord Karazantor the Vile was originally from Chicano and played a crucial role in the downfall of the planet to the machinations of the Chaos God Tzeentch.
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Chicano - History: The world of Chicano lay at the centre of a rich trading sector in the eastern part of the Imperium of Man known as the Ultima Segmentum. The skies of Chicano were continually crisscrossed with the vapour trails of merchant lighters carrying precious fuel minerals to the orbital trading stations far above.Interstellar spacecraft from the whole sector clustered around Chicano. Their merchant crews bid frantically for cargoes while Free Captains stood ready in orbit, awaiting the chance to snap up a lucrative contract. Below on the planet itself the mining machines and tireless fuel pumps worked at the harsh rock, squeezing the wealth of the world from the ground.In control of it all was Lord Xian Torus, hereditary planetary governor and the ultimate power over everything and everyone on Chicano. It was he that approved the inheritance of the Mine Lords and who allowed the shipping families to pass on their starships and contracts to their eldest sons. As the whole world prospered, so the ruler and lords of Chicano also prospered. The planet's people grew to be rich and content.Today Chicano is a barren rock where a few tired barbarians scrape a living from the ruins of its once-thriving cities. The skies of Chicano are an unblemished blue and when a passing spacecraft is spotted traveling through the night it is accounted a rare wonder. Now Chicano is famous not for its wealth or commerce, but because it is the world that died in one night.From a thousand hidden Chaos Cults the followers of Tzeentch revealed themselves: lords and labourers alike. They had undermined the rule of Lord Torus in more ways than one. Tunnelling machines burst from beneath the royal palace, driven by the frenzied hands of the cultists so that the palace and a greater part of the capital sank into a vast pit and vanished forever.As the city collapsed, a million cultists sprang from their hiding places to reclaim what remained. The staffs of merchant princes, the retinues of Mine Lords, warriors of the Chicanan army, and even some amongst Xian's most trusted ministers were revealed for what they had become.And from beyond the Warp came the laughter of Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, and his minions on Chicano rejoiced to hear it, as for the first time they knew in their hearts what they had done.
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Chief Victualler - Chief Victualler: The Chief Victualler is a title traditionally held by the Captain of the 7th Company of a Codex Astartes-compliant Space Marine Chapter.The Chief Victualler is responsible for all of the Chapter's supply needs, particularly those pertaining to food, drink and the other personal requirements of the Chapter's Astartes and human support personnel.
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Child of Night (Short Story) - Child of Night (Short Story): Child of Night is the sixteenth short story published in the Horus Heresy that was not originally part of an anthology novel. Child of Night was originally released on October 27, 2014 on the Black Library's website. It is also now included in The Silent War anthology novel.
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Child of Night (Short Story) - Synopsis: In the dark hive sumps beneath Terra, Chief Librarian Fel Zharost of the Night Lords Legion is being hunted. Having abandoned his insane Primarch and brothers many years ago, he doesn't know what he's done wrong, but he's sure he doesn't want to be captured. What will happen when he discovers that his Legion has fallen into heresy? And where will his loyalties lie?
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Children of Blain - Children of Blain: The Children of Blain, sometimes known by the more common moniker "Chil'Blains", is a warband of Chaos Space Marines dedicated to Nurgle that was once the Loyalist Space Marine Chapter known as the Steel Cobras.It is now a component warband of the Death Guard.
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Children of Blain - Warband History: The Children of Blain were originally a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter known as the Steel Cobras. After turning Heretic, they hid from Imperial forces on the Ice World of Tukaroe VII, but they became caught in a Chaos-tainted storm. The Space Marines started to become sick with unnatural diseases, and infections quickly spread between them.His warriors dying, Chapter Master Akhasis Blain made a pact with a mysterious wanderer known as Barkahran, who promised he could save Blain’s warriors if they dedicated themselves to the Plague God Nurgle. They became the Children of Blain warband, commonly known as the Chil'Blains.
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Children of Blain - Notable Children of Blain: Akhasis Blain - Akhasis Blain is the Chaos Lord and eponymous founder of the Children of Blain warband. He was once the Chapter Master of the Steel Cobras but convinced his warriors to turn to the service of Nurgle at the behest of the sorcerer Barkahran to escape an unnatural series of infections that were killing them as they hid from the Imperium.Septus - Septus is a Lord of Contagion of the Children of Blain who was once a first captain of the Steel Cobras.Barkahran - Barkahran is a Chaos Sorcerer of the Children of Blain warband.
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Children of Blain - Warband Colours: While the warband still wears the same bronze-green power armour of the Steel Cobras, they now paint sections of it white to represent the Ice World of Tukaroe VII, where they were reborn as Nurgle's servants.
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Children of Blain - Warband Badge: The badge of the Children of Blain is unknown in Imperial records.
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Children of Blain - Note: The Children of Blaine were a warband created and painted by the Games Workshop miniatures designer Alexandre Dumillard to be showcased in an article in the September 2019 issue of White Dwarf magazine.
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Children of Blain - Canon Conflict: The Steel Cobras were a Renegade Chapter originally introduced in the second 3rd Edition Codex: Chaos Space Marines. They were said to have fallen to Chaos to protect themselves after being unfairly targeted by an Imperial Crusade led by an Ecclesiarchy cardinal for their blasphemous worship of the Emperor in the form of an animal totem.They built a base of operations beneath the frigid ammonia ice surface of Tukaroe VII. It is likely that the Children of Blain are the survivors of that same Renegade Chapter.
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Children of Purgatos - Children of Purgatos: The Children of Purgatos are a Renegade Chapter of Chaos Space Marines of unknown Founding and genetic origin, that was declared Excommunicate Traitoris for reasons that are unknown.
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Children of Purgatos - Chapter Colours: The Children of Purgatos' power armour is painted emerald green trimmed with gold. They often decorate their armour with images of golden flames projecting from their armour's golden trim.
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Children of Purgatos - Chapter Badge: The Children of Purgatos do not possess a standardised icon. They have a tendency to decorate their battle plate with flame iconography and the usual Chaos fetishes.
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Children of Sicarus (Audio Drama) - Children of Sicarus (Audio Drama): Children of Sicarus is the thirty-seventh audio drama for The Horus Heresy series that was not originally released as part of an anthology or other release. Children of Sicarus was first released as an audio drama in October 2016, and portrays the actions of Kor Phaeron and his retinue on Sicarus after the events of Macragge's Honour by Dan Abnett.
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Children of Sicarus (Audio Drama) - Official Synopsis: After the destruction of the Infidus Imperator, Kor Phaeron of the Word Bearers brought his followers to supposed safety in the Eye of Terror. However, their newly adopted home, the Daemon World Sicarus, is far from the sanctuary they imagined -- the twisted hordes of the Kairic Adept Larazzar seek to crush these newcomers and all who would ally with them. Only in the ancient legends of Sicarus can their salvation be found, but is Kor Phaeron the one to lead them to it?
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Children of Thorns - Children of Thorns: The Children of Thorns are an exiled kabal of the Drukhari who are active in the Calixis Sector, the Koronus Expanse and in the permanent Warp storm of the Screaming Vortex in the Segmentum Obscurus in search of slaves, wealth and new technologies that they can use to reclaim a place of prominence -- if not the outright overthrow -- of the Dark City of Commorragh in the Webway.When voidfarers in the Koronus Expanse speak of the fickle and vicious ways of Aeldari Corsairs, their tales most often speak of the corsairs known as the Children of Thorns, who are actually a renegade kabal of the Drukhari. Clad in glossy, beetle-black Kabalite Armour, the proud and capricious Kabalite Warriors of the Children of Thorns are merciless in combat and are said to slaughter their enemies to the last once battle is joined.The Children of Thorns are one of the weaker Drukhari kabals. Exiled from the Drukhari's city of Commorragh, the Children of Thorns consist of ex-slaves, fugitives, the dregs of Commorrite society, and fallen Drukhari lords who have come together in an attempt to regain their glory. To do this, they spend most of their time in realspace in search of slaves and plunder and have even allied with ambitious Human lords, such as the secessionist Duke Severus XIII of the Calixis Sector's Periphery Sub-sector.They are also active within the Warp storm known as the Screaming Vortex, where they also collect slaves and weapons from among the Human Heretics and servants of Chaos who find refuge there.While other kabals desire to overthrow Supreme Overlord Asdrubael Vect so they can take his place as the rulers of the Dark City, the Children of Thorns want instead to tear down the old order of the Drukhari and replace it with their own. To do this, they secretly arm their followers lurking in the deepest, darkest sub-reality sinks of Commorragh, who wait for their chance to strike back against their oppressors.It is said that one is fortunate to hear the keening war cries of the Children of Thorns and live to tell of it. The leader of the Children of Thorns is a female Aeldari archon who long ago cast herself from the strictures of the Asuryani Path to lead her Children of Thorns in bloodshed across the Halo Stars in pusuit of the Path of Damnation. Her true names long ago discarded, she is now simply known as the "Mother of the Shadows."When attacking in the void, the night-black ships of the Children of Thorns prize stealth above all other tactics. Only once they have ensured complete surprise and a perfect position of attack, they strike with ferocity and precision, crippling their prey and leaving the foes' voidship reeling and boarded by screaming, dark, and graceful shapes that kill and kill until there is nothing left alive and the prize is theirs.Despite their terrifying reputation, the Children of Thorns have had dealings with a number of Rogue Traders in the Koronus Expanse and have even made compacts with a few or fought as mercenaries for those brave enough to seal such a bargain. It is perhaps these ties that give the Children of Thorns the phenomenally accurate information that allows them to strike at Human voidcraft close to the Maw with such accuracy. One or more Rogue Traders have sealed a compact with the Children of Thorns -- one paid for in the blood of their rivals.
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Children of Thorns - Calixis Sector and the Spinward Front: In 779.M41 Duke Severus XIII of Kulth assumed power over what little remained of his house and its territories in the Periphery Sub-sector of the Calixis Sector. Unlike his predecessors, Severus XIII had managed to claw his way up the rungs of power in the Calixis Sector, drawing upon methods and means yet to be fully revealed. Yet, just like his predecessors, Severus had been raised to believe that his forebears had been denied their rightful place as the masters of the new sector by the machinations of Saint Drusus, the man who had completed the Angevin Crusade to conquer the Calyx Expanse and establish the new sector in the 39th Millennium.In 799.M41, Severus XIII assumed the appointment to which he had worked his entire life, the position from which he might finally realise the dreams of his entire line. He ascended to the position of Lord Sub-Sector, the Adeptus Administratum prefect of the region his eponymous forebear Severus I had founded -- the Periphery.But in truth, Severus XIII could never have gained ascendancy over his peers to become the recognised Imperial governor of the Periphery without the aid of the Drukhari group known as the Children of Thorns. This outcast Drukhari kabal, exiled from the Dark City of Commorragh.In aiding Severus XIII, the Children of Thorns kabal gained easy access to a region in which the Imperium's forces are unable to oppose their realspace raids. Thousands of men, women and children were dragged screaming back to the dark sub-reality sinks of the Dark City in the Labyrinth Dimension of the Webway, yet there are those that question whether the kabal's involvement in the wars of the Spinward Front that now consume the Periphery might be more pernicious still. Some fear that the Drukhari might be working towards another agenda entirely -- one that can only bring more doom and disaster upon the war-torn worlds of the Periphery and beyond.His ambitions echoing those of the progenitor of his house, Severus XIII believed that the Periphery should be his, yet he knew that overtly declaring secession from the Imperium would cause the sub-sector's Loyalist planetary governors to rise up against him and bring the force of the Imperium crashing down upon his head.Instead, he sought allies in the darkness spinward of the Periphery, his spies seeking out any who might lend him aid, no matter their price. Waiting in the darkness, his spies discovered the Drukhari of the outcast Children of Thorns, and vile pacts were made in exchange for the aliens' lethal services.Severus XIII consigned entire Frontier Worlds to the Drukhari's cruel mercies, ensuring that when realspace raids occurred, the sub-sector's military reserves were always too distant to intervene. Xenos chattel-barques swollen with slaves delivered hundreds of thousands of Human beings to their doom in the pits of Commorragh, while the court of Severus XIII gained a host of new veiled courtiers and black-eyed assassins.For over a solar decade, Severus and his cruel xenos agent-allies worked tirelessly to cut the ties between the Periphery and the sector at large, one at a time, so that none even noticed as it was slowly transformed into his personal realm. Planetary governors resistant to corruption or subversion were quietly removed, but always the eight worlds closest to the border with the Malfian Sub-sector were maintained in a state of outward normality.The worlds spinward of them were entirely in the sway of the secessionist noble, who had at last attained his ancestor's dream of an independent stellar empire of his own in all but name.The Children of Thorns had long tolerated and exploited the Human presence in this region of the galaxy. Prior to the arrival of the Imperium, the scarcely populated worlds of the Periphery presented a steady supply of slaves to be used for their needs in Commorragh.As the Imperial presence intensified, worlds which were once easy prey became increasingly resistant to the kabal's slave raids. When Severus XIII offered to selectively lower defences against realspace slave raids in exchange for assistance in consolidating his power in the region, the Drukhari were swift to agree to his generous terms. Since their initial agreement, the duke has mercilessly condemned entire worlds to the Children of Thorns. Hundreds of thousands of Imperial citizens have gone screaming into the slave pits of the Dark City. Outwardly, the duke has shown no remorse for these actions. He firmly believes that without the assistance of the xenos, his fledgling nation might have already collapsed.More recently, however, problems have begun to surface in the agreement between the Secessionists and the xenos. As the Severan Dominate has lost control of worlds due to the invasion of the Ork WAAAGH! Grimtoof, their available assets have significantly decreased. As the duke is losing his stranglehold on additional planets, he is unable to consign the inhabitants of those worlds to a life of torture at the hands of the Children of Thorns.Several worlds which have already been restored to the Imperium after the intervention of Astra Militarum forces in the Periphery to both reclaim the Severan Dominate and throw back the Greenskins are no longer suitable targets for the slavers. This is increasingly true of worlds where the Imperium has chosen to maintain a significant number of reserve forces -- in those star systems, slave raids are often overwhelmed by the coordinated Astra Militarum efforts.In reaction to this difficulty, representatives of the kabal were swift to bring their "concerns" to the duke and his court. After all, their agreement to ally was based entirely upon his ability to provide them with worlds well-suited to their slave-raiding efforts. However, as he continued to lose worlds, the duke's ability to provide such access became limited.The fact that he has become increasingly dependent upon the limited number of worlds he still controls has only exacerbated the issue at hand. Unless there is a swift change in his fortune, the Severan Dominate might soon run out of worlds that can provide an adequate number of slaves to the Children of Thorns. The duke is well aware of the deteriorating situation, and has begun efforts to renegotiate the scope of their agreement.Key to that negotiation is the issue of the compensation that the Secessionists receive from the Drukhari. To date, the xenos have provided the Severan rebels with a limited supply of advanced Drukhari weapons and technology. In general, these armaments provide the Secessionists an edge only within a very constrained set of circumstances.Additional favours have been promised -- including actual direct military support from the kabal in the form of mercenary troops. However, that support has only materialised within a very few, specific situations -- ones in which the Children of Thorns were able to acquire additional slaves in the face of minimal resistance.As the Severan Dominate's resources have begun to dwindle and its needs increase, it has begun to try to press the Drukhari ever harder in their negotiations. This creates a situation where neither side is negotiating in good faith. Just as the duke and his representatives make promises that they have no hope of delivering, the representatives of the kabal also have no intention to honour many of the pathetic Human lord's desperate requests.To date, both sides have continued to pay lip service to their agreements, but both factions have also begun to push the boundaries wherever it is possible to do so. Both sides now recognise the deceptions posed by their opposite parties, and seek to take full advantage of the situation before everything completely collapses in the warfare consuming the Spinward Front.Each side has responded to the perfidy in its own way. On the part of the Severan Dominate, this has been to attempt to decrease the number of opportunities that the xenos have to take Human slaves. In part, this has meant better securing many of their isolated facilities from kabal assault. However, this has not always been an effective deterrent.The Children of Thorns have technology that exceeds Humanity's, and the ability to strike at a moment's notice through the Webway. In contrast, the Severan Dominate's resources have become increasingly strained by the ongoing, multiple wars in the sub-sector. Resources which they could not effectively guard prior to the agreement remain very poorly protected. Consequently, in spite of their best efforts, the Secessionists remain largely dependent upon the kabal honouring its word to only strike at previously agreed-upon targets.In contrast, the Children of Thorns have continually looked for ways to exploit their relationship with the Severan Dominate. As they consider the duke little more than a talking prey animal like all other Humans, they hardly feel any strong obligation to honour their agreements with him. As long as it serves their purpose, they are likely to continue to at least pay lip service to his nation and his cause.For the time being, this also includes cooperating with him, for exactly as long as the Drukhari can fully take advantage of his information and his assets. However, they feel no loyalty at all to his cause. In situations where they may be able to acquire additional assets without any added expense, they are certain to do so. They feel no qualms about exploiting the duke, as they have every expectation that he treats them in the same manner. Notably, in the event that they can confirm an act of betrayal or accumulate strong evidence of his deception, they are certain to turn against him. If this were to happen, the Secessionists would suddenly add an additional front to their war -- one which might well spell their doom.A further complication in their agreement is the loyalty of Severan Dominate citizens to the Imperial Creed. A working relationship with these sadistic xenos is anathema to their religious beliefs. To assuage this issue, the Severan-Drukhari alliance is a highly-kept secret; only the highest-ranking Dominate officers are even aware of the cooperation, and soldiers of the line are warned to ignore any scandalous rumours about the matter by Ducal Legates and other authority figures. Should the true extent of the alliance become known, the Dominate's war efforts could completely unravel as large portions of the duke's people return to the Imperial fold.
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Children of Thorns - Screaming Vortex: The Children of Thorns are one of the two Drukhari groups that routinely pass through the Webway gate known as the Forbidden Portal into the Screaming Vortex alongside the Kabal of Crimson Woe. The Children of Thorns represents a kabal of outcast Wyches, Hellions, Reaver gangs and disgraced Drukhari nobles. Instead of surrendering to the inevitable doom that Commorragh normally visits upon such dregs, the Children of Thorns have determined to reclaim their fate and strike back against their oppressors. The group aims to replicate the fete of the Drukhari's Supreme Overlord Asdrubael Vect himself, who rose from the lowest station of a slave to topple the old noble order of Commorragh and take control of the Dark City for himself.The Children of Thorns range far and wide in their activities, collecting slaves and weapons and taking them back to Commorragh, where they arm their followers lurking in the deepest, darkest sub-reality sinks of the city. While the Kabal of Crimson Woe desires the overthrow of Vect so that they themselves may replace him, the Children of Thorns seek to raze the entire edifice of Drukhari society to the ground, tearing down the old order and replacing it with their own. It is not known if Vect is yet aware of their activities, though it can scarce be imagined that one who rose to power in such a manner would not take every precaution to ensure that others did not attempt to imitate him.And some say that another Drukhari group utilises the Forbidden Portal, though not to make slave raids. Who these bright-clad and deadly graceful warrior hunters might be, none can say, for no Disciple of Chaos has ever faced one in battle and lived to tell the tale.
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Children of Torment - Children of Torment: The Children of Torment are a special formation of Chaos Space Marines found within the Black Legion who are wholly dedicated to the service of Slaanesh.Hundreds of followers of the Prince of Pleasure have sworn their allegiance to Abaddon the Despoiler and joined the ranks of the Black Legion, where they are all gathered under the collective label of the Children of Torment. Under the guidance of warlords such as Devram Korda and Zagthean the Broken, they are comprised of multiple powerful warbands which comprise this hedonistic collective.These devotees of the Prince of Chaos bow to Abaddon, for he grants them unending opportunities to wallow in the pleasure provided by the anguish of his mortal victims, and feed upon their gushing lifeblood.Even though they are fellow devotees of Slaanesh, the Children of Torment are despised by members of the Emperor's Children Traitor Legion, who see them as traitors to the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim and the lapdogs and puppets of a lesser Warmaster.The Children of Torment took part in the Diamor Campaign as a part of the Chaos military force known as the "Hand of Xorphas," the army of the Chaos Sorcerer Xorphas.
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Children of Torment - Sources: Black Crusade: Traitor's Hate (7th Edition), Ch. 3Black Legion: A Codex Chaos Space Marine Supplement (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), pp. 55-63Codex Heretic Astartes - Chaos Space Marines (8th Edition), pg. 19Codex Heretic Astartes - Chaos Space Marines (8th Edition) (Revised Codex), pg. 19
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Chimera - Chimera: The Chimera is the standard armoured personnel carrier (APC) of the Astra Militarum and its chassis is the basis for a large number of other Imperial armoured vehicles such as the Basilisk artillery and Salamander scout vehicles. The basic Chimera is equipped with a Multi-Laser but can also be outfitted with a variety of other heavy weapons, such as Twin-linked Heavy Bolters, an Autocannon or a Heavy Flamer.The Chimera also mounts a hull-mounted Heavy Bolter or Heavy Flamer and 6 hull-mounted Lasguns on the vehicle's flanks which can be fired from the passenger compartment, allowing the infantry inside to fire at the enemy. It can carry up to 12 guardsmen, 6 Heavy Weapons Teams or 4 Ogryns. The Chimera also has amphibious capabilities, allowing it to take part in naval amphibious assaults or overcome watery obstacles like swamps and rivers.Over the millennia, the Chimera has been pressed into service in a variety of different forms, proving its reliability and worth time and again. It is a highly versatile vehicle capable of operation in the most hostile environments. Its tracks are capable of traversing almost any surface, and its amphibious design allows it to move through dense swamps, deep marshes and even rivers.Many an enemy army has been destroyed because its general thought his flanks protected by such obstructions, only to find ranks of Imperial Guardsmen -- supported by the fearsome anti-personnel weaponry of their Chimera transports -- disgorging into the very heart of his forces.Squads of Astra Militarum troopers mounted in Chimeras are sometimes referred to as Armoured Fist Squads. These squads lend speed and tactical flexibility to the often slow and rigid ranks of the Imperial Guard. An Astra Militarum infantry regiment does not typically include any mechanised elements, as it is difficult for most Imperial planetary governors to obtain and then maintain the vehicles from the Adeptus Mechanicus needed for such units. Because of this reality, it is quite common for Astra Militarum commanders to attach Armoured Fist squads from other, fully mechanised regiments to provide fast-moving armoured transports to non-mechanised infantry units.Armoured Fist Squads are able to respond quickly to emergent threats or forge ahead of the main Imperial advance and seize vital objectives until reinforcements arrive. Enemy positions are quickly overrun, the heavy weaponry of Chimeras spitting a stream of death into the packed ranks of the foe. Infantry squads then charge down the steel ramps at the vehicles' rear and despatch survivors at point blank range.Armoured Fist squads have a reputation for "getting the job done" and are in high demand by Astra Militarum infantry commanders. The armoured protection of a Chimera is vital for a successful assault, and so they are typically deployed against the most heavily defended of enemy positions. It is therefore no surprise that Armoured Fist Squads suffer even higher casualty rates than standard infantry formations.
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Chimera - Capabilities: The Chimera is the Astra Militarum's most commonly used armoured personnel carrier (APC). These nearly ubiquitous vehicles are extremely durable and practical, capable of mounting a wide array of support weapons. From within the armoured confines of the Chimera, an Imperial Guard infantry squad can use the vehicle's hull-mounted weapons to unleash a lethal wave of firepower into an enemy, protected from all but the most heavy weapons in return.Chimeras are also a powerful symbol of the might of the Imperial Guard and are fitted with a range of equipment, including searchlights, to locate the enemy, and massive bulldozer blades to clear all obstacles in the way of the Imperial Guard's heavier main battle tanks. With scanners and communication voxes, Chimeras are also suitable mobile bases of operations from which Imperial Guard officers can efficiently direct their forces.Squads of Imperial Guardsmen mounted on Chimeras are usually called "Armoured Fist" mechanised infantry squads. These squads lend speed and tactical flexibility to the otherwise often slow and rigid formations of the Astra Militarum. Armoured Fist squads are able to respond quickly to emergent threats or move ahead of the main body of an advancing Imperial force and seize vital objectives until reinforcements from the infantry arrive for garrison duty. Enemy positions are quickly overrun as the heavy weaponry of the Chimeras, spitting a stream of fiery death into the packed ranks of the enemy, is accompanied by the charge of the infantry squads on-board who move down the vehicles' rear steel ramps and mow down all the survivors at point blank range.Armoured Fist squads have a reputation in the Imperial Guard for getting the job done and are in high demand by infantry regiment commanders. Typically deployed against the most heavily defended of enemy positions where the armoured protection of a Chimera is vital for a successful assault, it is no surprise that Armoured Fist squads have an even higher rate of attrition than standard Imperial Guard heavy infantry units.Over the millennia, the Chimera has been pressed into service in a variety of different forms, proving its reliability over and over again. The Chimera is a highly versatile armoured vehicle able to operate in the most hostile environments faced by the Imperial Guard. Chimeras are amphibious vehicles and are able to move through dense swamps, deep marshes and even rivers.Many an enemy of the Imperium has been destroyed because its commander believed his flanks protected by such watery obstructions, only to find ranks of Imperial Guardsmen, supported by the potent anti-personnel weaponry of the Chimera that had transported them, driving into the very heart of his forces.
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Chimera - Armament: The most common variant of the Chimera armoured personnel transport, the Mars Pattern, is armed with a turret-mounted Multi-Laser, a hull-mounted Heavy Bolter, and six Lasguns controlled by the tank's passengers. Another common variant of the Chimera mounts a Heavy Flamer on the turret and sometimes the hull, or a turret-mounted Heavy Bolter which allows the Chimera to act as close fire support for infantry operating in dense terrain.The Forge World of Gryphonne IV produces its own unique variant armed with a turret-mounted Twin-linked Heavy Bolter, and while not very effective against enemy armour it is able to lay down a hail of explosive bolts that are highly effective against densely packed enemy infantry, such as the forces commonly deployed by the Tyranids and the Orks.Chimeras can also be equipped with an Autocannon which allows them to be used as light anti-vehicle tanks. Another variant derived from STC data discovered on the world of Kronus by Imperial Guard forces during the Dark Crusade allows a pattern of Chimera, known as the Kronus Pattern, to be built that replaces the normal Chimera turret with one similar to the Space Marine Predator tank turret, including its Autocannon.The Chimera can also be outfitted with Camouflage Netting, Extra Armour Plating, track guards, improved communications equipment, a Hunter-Killer Missile Launcher, a Pintle-mounted Heavy Stubber or Storm Bolter, rough terrain modifications, a Dozer Blade, a Searchlight, or Smoke Launchers.
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Chimera - Known Formations: Emperor's Wrath Artillery Company - An Emperor's Wrath Artillery Company will begin the Imperial Guard's march to war, preceding the troops and vehicles with a thunderous barrage of heavy artillery fire. The battlefield is turned into a smoking, crater-strewn ruin, amidst which the enemy can find no cover or shelter from the death raining down upon them. These bombardments can last for solar hours, days, weeks, or even longer, and few defences can withstand the sheer destruction that is unleashed. These companies usually consist of three ordnance batteries, with each battery ccomposed of up to three Basilisk or Colossus artillery tanks and a single command Chimera tank.
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Chimera - Notable Users of the Chimera: Astra Militarum - The Chimera is the most common vehicle used by the forces of the Imperial Guard and most Guard regiments have more of this vehicle in their armouries than any other.Inquisition - The Inquisition uses Chimeras to transport both Inquisitors and infantry such as Inquisitorial Storm Troopers during their operations.Planetary Defence Forces - Many Planetary Defence Forces make use of Chimeras in the same way that the Imperial Guard uses them; many PDF units possess no heavy tanks and must rely solely on Chimeras for their armoured support.Adeptus Arbites - The Adeptus Arbites use the Chimera for transportation during large scale planetary riots or rebellions and these Arbites Chimeras are sometimes equipped with water cannons for non-lethal crowd suppression.Lost and the Damned - The Lost and the Damned consists of Traitoris Militarum soldiers, Chaos Cultists and others that have turned against the Imperium and have either sided with the forces of Chaos or have became Renegades against Imperial rule. These Renegades and Traitors still use the Chimera as their armoured transport of choice.Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor Tyrus - Tyrus used Chimeras to carry Inquisitorial Storm Troopers during the Purging of Gladrinus VIOrdo Malleus Inquisitor Lord Coteaz - Chimeras were used during the Cleansing of OpridiaOrdo Malleus Inquisitor Hector Rex - The Chimera was used as a transport for Inquisitorial Storm Troopers by Hector Rex during the Siege of Vraks6th Magdellan Armoured Regiment - Used during the Battle of Tsaragrad18th Krieg Armoured Regiment - Used during the Barbarius Campaign98th Cadian Armoured Regiment - Used during the Luxor Uprising113th Cadian Mechanised Infantry Regiment - Part of the Cadian Gate garrison forces7th Mortant Regiment, "The Headhunters" - Took part in the Sacking of Colonia3rd Tallarn Armoured Regiment, "Desert Storm" - Fought during the Defence of Balle Alpha, and during the Taros CampaignArmageddon Steel Legion - Involved in the Defence of Hive Infernus during the Third War for Armageddon193rd Tallarn Armoured Regiment - Used during the Achernar Prime Campaign84th Mordian Armoured Regiment - Used as standard transportation vehicles527th Valhallan Ice Warriors Infantry Regiment - Used as standard transportation vehicles81st Phyressian Armoured Regiment - Used as standard transportation vehicles8th Palladius Armoured Regiment, "The Warhounds" - Fought during the Atria Wilderness Campaign23rd Krieg Mechanised Infantry Regiment - Took part in the Cleansing of Radnar114th Cadian Armoured Regiment - Took part in the Taros Campaign266th Cadian Armoured Regiment - Fought against escaped Tyranids from a secret Adeptus Mechanicus research base on the planet of Beta Anphelion IVVraksian Traitor Militia - The Vraksian Traitor Militia fought against Loyalist forces during the Siege of Vraks alongside the other forces of Chaos, using the Chimeras stored in the Departmento Munitorum's stockpiles on Vraks PrimeForces of the Inquisition - Fought using Chimeras as armoured transports during the Betalis III Campaign against the Eldar of Craftworld MymearaTyrant's Legion - The Tyrant's Legion used Chimeras against the Loyalist forces during the Badab War
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Chimera - Derivatives: The Chimera chassis is the basis for many other Imperial armoured vehicles, including the following:Basilisk - Long range artillery vehicleGriffon - Heavy mortar vehicleColossus - Heavy artillery vehicleMedusa Siege Tank - Short range artillery vehicleHellhound - Flame tankHydra- Anti-air tankManticore - Missile tankDeathstrike Missile Launcher - Long-range missile tankSalamander- Scout vehicleTrojan - Utility vehicle
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Chimera - Variants: While there are many variants of the Chimera, there are three special variants -- the Chimerax, Chimedon and Chimerro -- that are used by the Imperium. All of these variants of the Chimera retain the original's amphibious capabilities and transport capacity.
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Chimera - Chimerax: The Chimerax is by far the most widespread variant of the Chimera, armed with turret-mounted, quad-linked Autocannons.Its design was intended to serve as a mobile anti-aircraft artillery piece in extreme situations where no other anti-aircraft capability was present that could also carry a squad of Imperial Guardsmen and provide close fire support for them.While the Chimerax's quad-linked Autocannons actually fared poorly against aircraft they proved more than capable of supporting the ferried troops. This variant has been mostly replaced with the much more effective Hydra anti-air tank.
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Chimera - Chimedon: The Chimedon is essentially a heavier armed version of the Chimera that serves as a light tank. The Chimedon is armed with a turret-mounted Conqueror Cannon for added firepower.Some Chimedons were further upgraded with a Battle Cannon, but the stronger recoil of this weapon had the chance to seriously damage the vehicle itself upon firing the gun.
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Chimera - Chimerro: The Chimerro possessed either a single Hunter-Killer Missile Launcher tube attached to the turret and an automated reloading system or a rack of 8 cubic box Missile Launchers on the top of the rear hatch.While the former variant of the Chimerro still retained the top hatch, it was difficult to keep it in proper working order, so it was rarely used.The second variant of the Chimerro was more common in Imperial service as its Missile Launcher was useful in providing combat fire support for Imperial Guardsmen attacking strongly fortified targets.
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Chimera - Storm Chimera: The Storm Chimera is a minor Chimera variant used by the regiments of the Death Korps of Krieg.The preferred combat doctrine of the Death Korps holds that either its troops not be reliant on mechanised transports or that its regiments utilise much larger and heavier transports such as the Gorgon for heavy assaults. As such, the Chimera sees limited use in the Death Korps of Krieg and most commonly as the Storm Chimera variant.This configuration is issued to specilised frontline assault units and is simply an up-armoured standard Chimera with extensive ablative armour plating to increase its endurance. The Storm Chimera is also always armed with a turret-mounted Autocannon in place of the standard Multi-Laser, for both its increase in firepower and its ease in munitions resupply.
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Chimera - APDS-6a Defender: The APDS-6a Defender was a variant of the Chimera armoured personnel carrier developed on the Imperial Hive World of Armageddon. The Defender was armed with a hull-mounted Heavy Laser Destroyer, much like the Destroyer Tank Hunter, and was used to bolster that beleaguered planet's Planetary Defence Forces.The vehicle proved effective as a stop-gap measure during the Ork invasion of Armageddon (Imperial records do not state whether this happened during the Second or Third War for Armageddon, or whether this variant was used in both conflicts).
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Chimera - Wheeled Chimera: The Wheeled Chimera is simply a Chimera chassis that has been modified to use six large reinforced tires in place of tank treads.While this variant is uncommon in the Astra Militarum, Planetary Defence Forces on Frontier Worlds may use these variants as they are less advanced and thus easier to manufacture for a limited colonial economy.
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Chimera - Adeptus Mechanicus Technical Specifications: Chimera Armoured Personnel CarrierVehicle Name:ChimeraMain Armament:Heavy Bolter or Twin-linked Heavy Bolter or Heavy Flamer or AutocannonForge World of Origin:Mars, Gryphonne IV, and many othersSecondary Armament:Heavy Bolter or Heavy FlamerKnown Patterns:II - XITraverse:360 degreesCrew:1 Commander, 1 Driver, 1 GunnerElevation:-2 to 25 degreesPowerplant:Vulcanor 16 Twin-Coupled Multi-BurnMain Ammunition:Varies by Weapon EquippedWeight:38 tonnesSecondary Ammunition:400 Rounds or 10 ShotsLength:6.9 metresArmour:Width:5.7 metresHeight:3.72 metresSuperstructure:150 millimetresGround Clearance:.45 metresHull:100 millimetresMax Speed On-Road:70 kilometres per hourGun Mantlet:N/A millimetresMax Speed Off-Road:55 kilometres per hourVehicle Designation:0427-941-30XX-CHXXXTransport Capacity:12 Infantrymen, 4 OgrynsFiring Ports:6 LasgunsAccess Points:Rear Ramp, Top HatchTurret:150 millimetres
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Chimera - Sources: Codex: Astra Militarum (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), "Chimeras," "Dedicated Transports - Chimera"Codex: Astra Militarum (8th Edition), pp. 42, 115Codex: Imperial Guard (2nd Edition), pg. 30Codex: Imperial Guard (3rd Edition), pp. 17, 30Codex: Imperial Guard (4th Edition), pg. 45Codex: Imperial Guard (5th Edition), pg. 39Imperial Armour, pp. 28-31Imperial Armour Volume One - Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy, pp. 12, 111-128Imperial Armour Volume One - Imperial Guard (Second Edition), pp. 63-71, 246, 248, 252, 256-258, 265, 267, 274Imperial Armour Volume Two - Space Marines and Forces of the Inquisition, pp. 200-201Imperial Armour Volume Three - The Taros Campaign, pp. 89 ,127 ,128Imperial Armour Volume Four - The Anphelion Project, pp. 64-65Imperial Armour Volume Five - The Siege of Vraks - Part One, pp. 36, 66Imperial Armour Volume Six - The Siege of Vraks - Part Two, pp. 28, 90Imperial Armour Volume Seven - The Siege of Vraks - Part Three, pg. 24Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two, pg. 29Imperial Armour Volume Eleven - The Doom of Mymeara, pg. 65Imperial Armour Volume Twelve - The Fall of Orpheus, pg. 193Imperial Guard Collector's Edition 2003, pp. 86-87Only War: Core Rulebook (RPG), pp. 217-218, 274White Dwarf 185 (UK), pp. 24-26Warhammer 40,000: Apocalypse (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), pp. 368, 411Dawn of War - Winter Assault (PC Game)Dawn of War - Dark Crusade (PC Game)Dawn of War - Soulstorm (PC Game)Dawn of War II (PC Game)Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising (PC Game)Dawn of War II - Retribution (PC Game)
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Chinchare - Chinchare: Chinchare is a vivid blue mineral-rich Imperial Mining World in the Chinchare System located in the Segmentum Obscurus, with many clashing gravity wells, orbiting a rogue star, currently dueling with Pymbyle Minor, the system wanders between the Halo Stars on the far edge of the Imperium, suffering many devastating cosmological collisions.
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Chinchare - History: Around the time of the Great Crusade in the 30th Millennium, the Chinachare System was comprised of nine planets and an asteroid belt. This system had been a neighbour of nearby 3458 Dornal, but sometime between the 30th and 40th Millennia, the Chinchare System had reached the Pymbyle Systems, Major and Minor, and had suffered two serious cosmological collisions, and was now comprised of six planets and radiating sheets of asteroid belts.Chinchare is an irregular, blue mineral-rich asteroid locked in a figure of eight orbit around a binary star. Once home to a creature of Chaos formed from the coagulated bodies of pilgrims who had descended into the asteroid to worship a corrupted crystal structure known as the Lith. The creature was destroyed by Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn and Magos Geard Bure.The only reason for any venture of man to this forsaken place is its wealth of ultra-rare metals such as ancylitum and phorydnum. The mining rights for the world officially belongs to the Imperial corporation known as Allied Imperial, which supported a workforce of almost 3,000, but in such a desolate region of space there was very little to stop the infestation of rogue prospectors.Chinchare's mines were the site of a massive Hrud infestation in 844.M41 that was defeated by Terminators drawn from the 1st Company of the Dark Hands Space Marine Chapter with support from the Astra Militarum's 39th Cadian "Xenobane" Regiment of the Cadian Shock Troops. The combat was fought in the close, shadowy confines of the myriad mining tunnels that snaked through the planet's crust like a rat's nest. The Imperial forces successfully rid several worlds in the Chinchare System of the xenos Hrud, halting what was later determined by Ordo Xenos investigators as the beginning of a potentially devastating entropic infestation.Later in 999.M41 the Chinchare System, along with several neighboring star systems, lost all contact with the Imperium as a direct result of the massive incursion by the Forces of Chaos during the 13th Black Crusade. Chinchare's current status is unknown.
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Chinchare - Sources: Codex: Eye of Terror (3rd Edition), pg. 25Imperial Armour Volume Two - Second Edition: War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes, pg. 21Planetstrike (5th Edition), pg. 54White Dwarf 287 (UK), pg. 40White Dwarf 291 (UK), pg. 96Hereticus (Novel) (Book 3 Eisenhorn Trilogy) by Dan Abnett
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Chirurgeon - Chirurgeon: Possessed of a darkling sentience of its own, the Chirurgeon is a complex, part-sorcerous/part-technological device attached to former Emperor's Children Chief Apothecary Fabius Bile's spine that extends its spidery limbs over his shoulders. It pumps life-giving ichor around his body, charged with the immortal energy of the Warp itself, resulting in vast variations in his strength and other physical abilities. It often gives him many of the immunities enjoyed by Daemonkind, whilst boosting his physical abilities to superhuman levels.Bile made the Chirurgeon of his own design at the end of his training. It was originally a standard cybernetic harness intended to assist Bile in his duties as an Apothecary, but after the Emperor's Children Legion escaped into the Eye of Terror, it began to change under the influence of the Warp. It evolved into a semi-organic monstrosity with a chitinous shell and oozing, organic wounds. Most frighteningly, however, was that it began to develop its own consciousness. This circumstance was first expressed in subtle movements that occurred independent of Bile's mental commands, but later the Chirurgeon learned to move completely without commands from its master.Bile suspects that the Chirurgeon has developed a degree of sentience over his years within the Eye of Terror, and often has dreams of the device scurrying about and conducting its own activities while he slumbers. Bile also suspects at times the Chirurgeon is responsible for the fits of pain he experiences that have become ever more common over the millennia.One day the Chirurgeon disappeared for a long period of time, so Bile had to send his minions to locate it. When they found the Chirurgeon in an abandoned cargo bay, they were horrified to discover that it wasn't alone. It had laid a series of egg sacs from which miniaturized versions of itself hatched. Apparently the Chirurgeon had reproduced, although not even Bile could tell what it had mated with. After Bile reunited with the Chirurgeon, he discovered that the "mother beast" was telepathically connected to its offspring. Bile thought about vivisecting the Chirurgeon, but quickly dismissed the idea. In a world full of traitors, it is his only ally.On the battlefield, Bile might also bestow the questionable gift of his enhancements to others, with uncertain results. Sometimes the experiment is a success, creating psychotic killers superhuman even in comparison to their corrupted Chaos Space Marine brethren, but sometimes the subject's metabolism disintegrates in the face of the stress, resulting in instant death. The Chirurgeon is a construction of Fabius' own invention and he has perfected it over a long period of time to more intimately bond with his body, enabling him to even perform surgery on himself with his own contraption. It has been said that the Chirurgeon is Bile's life's work and that it works to keep him alive.
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Chirurgeon - Sources: Codex: Chaos Space Marines (6th Edition), pp. 63, 93Codex: Chaos Space Marines (4th Edition), pp. 52-53Chirurgeon (Short Story) by Nick KymeFabius Bile: Primogenitor (Novel) by Josh Reynolds, Ch. 3Fabius Bile: Manflayer (Novel) by Josh Reynolds, Ch. 2
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Chirurgeon (Short Story) - Chirurgeon (Short Story): Chirurgeon is a short story published in the Horus Heresy Series. Chirurgeon was originally published simultaneously as a part of the anthology novella Blades of the Traitor and as a stand-alone e-book. It was later released as an audiobook as part of the Black Library's Audio Week 2015. It is now also included in the War Without End anthology novel and in The Last Phoenix Omnibus.
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Chirurgeon (Short Story) - Synopsis: In its earliest days, the III Legion was blighted by a genetic flaw that threatened to end the Phoenician's bloodline forever. Fortunately, through tireless effort and the miracle of the Primarch's own genetic perfection, visionaries like Apothecary Fabius Bile were able to halt the corruption and restore the Emperor's Children to their former glory. Except, it would seem, that a terrible secret has been kept from the rest of the Legion, and the threat of further degeneration is quite real...
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Chogoris System - Chogoris System: The Chogoris System is an Imperial star system located at coordinates MX/46359//m/AE (Location: Stellar Grid 183-SPN/JN-32) in the Yasan Sector of the Ultima Segmentum near the Warp rift known as the Maelstrom.The system is home to the White Scars Chapter homeworld of Chogoris, for which the system is named.
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Chogoris System - History: In 999.M41, Huron Blackheart, the Chaos Lord of the Red Corsairs Heretic Astartes warband, launched a massive invasion of the Yasan Sector out of the Maelstrom.The bulk of the White Scars Chapter was deployed to other conflicts across the galaxy. The Chaos forces succeeded in occupying several systems within the sector and nearly overwhelming the White Scars garrison left on Chogoris itself.While the White Scars were able to rally their forces and successfully threw back the Red Corsairs' assault on their fortress-monastery of Quan Zhou, only the ebbing of the Noctis Aeterna and the subsequent loss of their daemonic allies as a result convinced the Red Corsairs to withdraw from Chogoris and pursue the destruction of the White Scars at a later date.However, the Red Corsairs have managed to maintain a presence on the Chogoris System world of Shovith and have essentially claimed the neighboring Gartuli and Thaxis Systems outright.The Heretics are currently using these footholds in the Yasan Sector to continue to launch new attacks upon the White Scars' homeworld.
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Chogoris System - System Worlds: The Chogoris System's worlds in order of their distance from the system's star include:Chogoris (Feudal World / Space Marine Chapter Homeworld) - Chogoris, officially known in Imperial records as Mundus Planus, is the Chapter world of the White Scars Space Marines. Its people are pre-industrial and the world is dominated by the nomadic horse tribes of the great plains known as the "Empty Quarter" who serve as the primary recruiting source for the White Scars. Chogoris is the primary and most populous world of the star system named after it.Khalotus Aleph (Death World)Shovith (Chaos Tainted World) - Shovith has been declared Perditum Extremis by the Imperium as it is now occupied by the Chaos forces of the Red Corsairs.Thanadus (Hive World)Rastorphin (Dead World)
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Cholercaust Blood Crusade: The Cholercaust Blood Crusade was an exceptionally large and brutal Chaos warhost dedicated to the murderous service of the Blood God Khorne that was composed of Traitors, Daemons and Heretics.In the 41st Millennium the Cholercaust followed the unpredictable route of the ancient blood-red Keeler Comet out of the Eye of Terror, which they believed embodied the will of Khorne, laying siege to Imperial worlds across the stars in a celebration of slaughter for the Blood God.Their ultimate goal was to assault the Imperial Palace on Terra and bring an end to the reign of the Corpse Emperor, but the Blood Crusade was stopped by the 5th Company of the Excoriators Chapter of Space Marines and the intervention of the revenant Astartes known as the Legion of the Damned on the Ecclesiarchy Cemetery World of Certus-Minor.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Blood Crusade: There had been other Blood Crusades dedicated to the murderous will of the Blood God Khorne in Imperial history: the Odium Wars, the Coming of the Brazen Host, the Dominion of Fire, and the Black Crusade of the Daemon Prince Doombreed.But not since the First War for Armageddon had so many of the berzerker brethren of the World Eaters Traitor Legion gathered under a single banner. The Cholercaust Blood Crusade's tactics were always the same: uncompromising, overwhelming and savage. Where hearts beat with the defiance of life, the goremongers raged, honouring only the razored edge and baptising world after world in torrents of blood.Inquisitorial records often identified the Blood God's servants operating in wretched warbands that roamed the galaxy in search of slaughter. Greater concentrations of Khorne's faithful were rare, since the traitorous XII Space Marine Legion's primordial hate seemed to extend to its fellow servants of the Blood God as well as the innocents of the Imperium of Man.The Cholercaust had been different, however. The planetary populations upon which it descended were always slaughtered to the last man, woman and child. Failed Adeptus Astartes interventions and [[Navis Imperialis] gauntlets had confirmed large numbers of ancient World Eaters vessels dating to the time of the Horus Heresy in the Blood Crusade's armada, which seemed to grow with every conquest. Some of those frigates and cruisers had not been seen for more than 10,000 standard years.Little was known about the Daemon Prince who led the Cholercaust Blood Crusade, the blood-spattered maniac who had managed the impossible and gathered so many of his murderous and fractious brethren in service to a single objective. He was known only as "The Pilgrim" and led his vast host with religious conviction, following the strange path of a blood-red comet that had emerged from the Eye of Terror into the realspace of the galaxy. Celestial cartographers believed it to be the Keeler Comet, a long-period astronomical body with a highly eccentric orbit, recorded to have passed through both the Segmentum Obscurus and the Segmentum Solar nearly ten thousand Terran years before.Euphrati Keeler, the Remembrancer and early Imperial Saint of great antiquity, immortalised the comet over El'Phanor in The Ancient Traveller, a pict rumoured to hang in the Imperial Palace and reproduced across the Imperium. The comet had found the galaxy much-changed upon its most recent return. The xenos empire of the Aeldari had fallen, the Imperium had been shattered by civil war and the colossal and permanent Warp storm known as the Eye of Terror had erupted in its path following the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh in the 30th Millennium.As the Keeler Comet blasted out of the Empyrean regions of the Eye, it became apparent that it too had changed. A blood-red beacon, it appeared to wander with a mind of its own and trailed in its wake The Pilgrim and his Cholercaust Blood Crusade. The Daemons, Chaos Cultists and World Eaters Chaos Space Marines that made up the Blood Crusade seemed to believe that the cursed comet embodied the will of the Blood God and would lead them across the stars in a celebration of slaughter, right to Terra and the gates of the Imperial Palace itself. Hadria, Dregeddon IV, L'Orient, Callistus Mundi, Port Koronach and a hundred other worlds were all similarly butchered; all became victims of the Cholercaust Blood Crusade.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Cholercaust Warfleet: The Cholercaust Blood Crusade's warfleet was led by the ancient World Eaters battle barge Rancour, under the command of the Master of the Fleet, the vile World Eater Chaos Space Marine Havloc the Cold-Blooded. Behind the mangled blasphemy of the battle barge's once stately dimensions a colossal Chaos warfleet extended. Like a growing stain on the empty void, the Cholercaust continued to grow.Daily, vessels of all descriptions joined the bloody-minded armada. Some were Renegade warships, eager to join the Blood Crusade and prove themselves worthy of Khorne's favour. Others had been led there under the command of killers and Champions of Khorne, whose carnage-clouded visions had revealed to them the potential for a slaughter without end, a patron-pleasing brotherhood of the barbarous. Others still were captured freighters, traders and heavy transports, swarming with the surrendered slave-stock of sundered worlds; Imperial innocents whose fate now lay in the Blood God's claws and whose depraved treatment aboard the seized vessels ultimately led them to embrace Khorne's doomed path as Chaos Cultists.Under the ruthless leadership of The Pilgrim the Cholercaust intended to slaughter its way towards Terra, to the crumbling walls of the Corpse Emperor's palace and ultimately through the Eternity Gate itself where they would hack apart the Emperor's decaying body upon the Golden Throne.For his amusement, the Blood God had blessed the Blood Crusade by placing across their path a world dedicated to the false faith of the Corpse Emperor. A virtual planet of the dead, where the Corpse-Emperor's cult ministered to the galaxy's true silent majority, the dead. The Pilgrim ordered his berserker followers to hone their blades, for they would soon taste priest-flesh.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Defence of Certus-Minor: The tiny Ecclesiarchy Cemetery World of Certus-Minor in the Praga Sub-sector lay directly in the path of the Keeler Comet, the blood-red harbinger which heralded its doom. The Navis Imperialis reported sightings of the vast Chaos armada following in the wake of its crimson tail. The Exorcists, the Grey Knights and the Imperial Fists Chapters of Space Marines were rumoured to man a defence cordon at the world of Vanaheim intended to block the Blood Crusade's advance into the Segmentum Solar.The inevitable invasion was first brought to the attention of the Excoriators Chapter. The 5th Company, under the command of Corpus-Captain Zachariah Kersh, was quickly dispatched to the funerary world. The Certusians were first made aware that something heralded their coming doom during a land reclamation project. While the Certusians were moving forward with the drainage of a lake intended to maximise new space for grave plots and extend the burial grounds, they noticed the top of an unusual structure within the lake as its water levels fell. Two pyramids made of skulls, sitting one within the other, that formed a star of eight points -- eight sides to a face, eight corners to run. Eight was the Blood God's sacred integer. The pyramids formed an impromptu throne of skulls. It was a throne to be taken, an invitation issued. A beacon beckoning forth the Cholercaust Blood Crusade.Upon further inspection by the Excoriators' 5th Company, they discovered that the monument had only recently been constructed. The bodies used in its construction probably belonged to Chaos Cultists who had devoted themselves to the Blood God and his murderous ideals. Recently, the Certusian adepts had noticed that graves had been robbed and skulls taken from the desecrated bodies. The martial burial grounds had been especial targets for this desecration since Khorne favoured the skulls of warriors for his throne.The caskets were reburied to avoid suspicion in the same way that the monument had been constructed in secret on the lake bed. The monument had been entirely constructed by hand as each skull added to the submerged structure would be the death of its bearer. Each cultist wore a lead cape and took a blade with them. The lead cape would sink them to the bottom of the lake, where they would add their grave-robbed gift to the throne. Then each cultist would slit their own throats and baptise the unholy monument in the murk of their offered blood as a sacrifice to their bloody-minded divine lord.But this was not the only sign of the coming of the Blood Crusade, for many of the Certusian population began losing their sanity to a mysterious gall-fever. It was not physiological in origin and it did not seem biologically transmissible like a viral or bacteriological infection. It was a malady of the mind. Men were no more susceptible than women, the young no more than the old. The mental transformation wrought by the gall-fever from civilised Human to a bloodthirsty savage was unpredictable and swift, and the first symptom was usually an outbreak of unexpected and murderous bloodshed. The Excoriators' Apothecary suspected that the illness was some kind of psychological condition brought on by the proximity of the strange comet and its emanations of Chaos energies.Corpus-Captain Zachariah Kersh knew that the Cholercaust was coming to the doomed planet and that he could rely on the Blood God's servants to meet them blade to blade. They were not known for their tolerance for long-range warfare. Kersh's previous experience with Khornate Berserkers had taught him that beyond the ancient warships of the Traitor Legions, Khornates favoured simple cultships. The Cholercaust armada would likely be made up of armed freighters, fat transports and plundered system ships, loaded to piratical proportions and ready to disgorge their savage cargos of Human detritus in a swarm of battered lighters, barges, haulage brigs, tugs and hump shuttles, all reinforced and outfitted as simple drop-ships.The 5th Company did request reinforcement from the rest of their Chapter, but had little expectation of its arrival in time to make a difference. The 5th Company sent long-range astrotelepathic requests to the regiments of the Astra Militarum's Viper Legion at Hellionii Reticuli, the 2nd Company of the Novamarines Chapter stationed at Belis Quora and the Angels Eradicant Chapter at Port Kreel. They even sent a message to the Vanaheim Cordon where Imperial forces had gathered to face the oncoming Cholercaust, in full knowledge of its futility, for the Imperial Fists, Exorcists and Grey Knights Astartes stationed there would not leave the line of defence for fear that the Keeler Comet and the trailing Cholercaust Crusade might resume its progress on towards Terra. The Adeptus Astartes contingents stationed at Vanaheim would never leave the sacred soil of Terra open to attack to help defend a tiny Cemetery World.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Initial Assault: The Keeler Comet was no longer an ordinary astronomical body, a simple amalgam of ice, rock and metal plummeting through the void, enslaved to an orbit and the long chain of gravity. It had punched through the Eye of Terror and into the Warp and had been changed by this transgression, its nature abnormal, its purpose twisted. Like a claw tearing at the very fabric of reality, the blood comet had opened rents in time and space, tainting the darkness of realspace and creating an immaterial breach through which the raw essence of the Empyrean could bleed through wherever it went.Looking towards the unnatural flux of the sky, the comet's tail was such a rift, and the unfiltered insanity of the Warp was pouring out into the void before falling towards Certus-Minor with gravitational certainty to streak down through the Cemetery World's atmosphere. It is hypothesised that weak Daemonic entities and Warpforms might burn up on descent, and that the grip other such creatures had on reality might be weakened by such a scorching. What horrified Corpus-Captain Zachariah Kersh was his Librarian's belief that anything resilient enough to survive planetfall and impact would be equally difficult to kill.Much to the 5th Company's dismay, Corpus-Captain Kersh ordered them to make a defiant last stand against the invaders, and stranded his forces on the doomed world by sending their Apothecary and their crippled strike cruiser, the Angelica Mortis, to a nearby Forge World out of the comet and the Blood Crusade's path. The strike cruiser took the 5th Company's precious gene-seed with it to be used to create future generations of Excoriators after the Astartes remaining behind had been slain.Kersh commanded less than half of a full company of Space Marines as well as an Astra Militarum regiment of Certusian Charnel Guard against a legion of Chaos Traitors, Daemonic Bloodletters and Khornate Berserkers. Despite the odds, Kersh formulated a plan worthy of the Chapter's ancestors who had defended the Imperial Palace during the Siege of Terra, leading a bold last stand by the Imperial defenders at Certus-Minor's capital necropolis of Obsequa City.The weight of the initial Khornate assault far exceeded even Kersh's estimates, and things began to look grim for the Imperial forces. The first wave was composed of hordes of chitinous, foul Warp spawn and Daemons. The valiant Imperial defenders managed to hold back the first assault after fighting continuously for over 20 solar hours of hard combat. But Kersh understood that what they had seen was merely the beginning of what the Blood Crusade could throw at them. The comet's malign influence had turned the Certusian people against themselves and further bolstered the enemy's number. The horrors they had witnessed thus far were merely immaterial overspill, the detritus of the Warp, bleeding through into material existence.The main body of the Cholercaust had yet even to arrive. When it did, it would make what they had seen so far seem like nothing. An invasion made up of countless Chaos Cultists, the Blood God's Daemons and, worst of all, the Heretic Astartes of the World Eaters Legion. The Khornate Traitor Marines were insatiable in their thirst for slaughter and unparalleled in their desire for wanton carnage. They spearheaded a Blood Crusade that had never known defeat and that had consumed hundreds of Imperial worlds -- and they would kill everything living on the surface of Certus-Minor.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Final Assault: After the initial assault, the Blood Crusade threw its second wave of attackers at the Imperial defenders. Thousands of slave-soldiers from a myriad of conquered worlds, Traitoris Militarum, Heretic militia, mutants, fallen mercenaries, piratical raiders, bestial Abhumans, and Chaos Cultists launched themselves screaming at the Imperial lines within Obsequa City. Corpus-Captain Zachariah Kersh had fought all of them before on battlefields bordering the Eye of Terror. All had gone down under the Excoriators' blades. Never before, however, had Kersh seen so many servants of Chaos gathered in one place.Beyond, Kersh could see an ocean of Human detritus. An unending army of ruthless killers. The Cholercaust's slaughterkin, united in a common purpose: to work through the private deviancy of their murderous inclination while simultaneously feeding their faith and Daemonic deity with acts of wanton annihilation. The Cholercaust invaders just kept coming, birthed by darkness, and beyond the gloom, Kersh could hear the savage howls of even more maniacs-in-waiting.Amongst the slave-soldiers, Traitors and Chaos Cultists, Kersh picked out increasing numbers of Chaos Space Marines, lost battle-brothers who had fallen to the Blood God's predatory temptations and indulged their base desire to kill over the Emperor's need for them to do so. In addition to the World Eaters, warbands representing the Blood Storm, the Goremongers, the Sanguine Sons, the Thunder Barons, the Renegade Red Heralds, The Cleaved, the Angels Apocrypha, the Brazen Guard and the bone-dusted Skulltakers could all be seen in service to the Blood God's murderous crusade.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - The World Eaters: Umbragg of the Brazen Flesh, a World Eaters Heretic Astartes and a Skull Champion of the Blood God, led the Cholercaust's ground assault once the berserker armies of Khorne stepped onto the earth of Certus-Minor. With his warband, The Clysm, the World Eaters Chaos Champion had fought on a thousand worlds, butchered Human and alien alike in the name of wanton carnage, and brought glory to Khorne's name through his prosecution of myriad Blood Crusades, the slaughter of Slaanesh's perverse followers and the taking of skulls on an obscene scale.He had killed at the great Doombreed's side, slayed with Skarbrand, murdered his own with Khârn the Betrayer and fought in every Black Crusade to ever strike fear into the weak heart of the Imperium. He had served with Primarch Angron himself, during the First War for Armageddon and before the walls of the Imperial Palace during the Siege of Terra. Now, he served The Pilgrim -- a Daemon Prince and the Right Claw of Khorne -- the leader of the Cholercaust, who would take the Blood God's disciples back to Terra and finish what they had started 10,000 standard years before.He observed the Aspiring Champions take their place in the mob-ranks of common killers. Warlords and butchers, their prodigious taking of life had warmed Umbragg towards them. Amongst these were bands of Chaos Space Marines whose shame it had been not to see the slaughter of the Horus Heresy and the apocalypse wrought on the sacred soil of Terra. It was only after these Renegades -- young in the ways of the blade -- had thinned out the enemy, leaving only the worthiest skulls for the taking, that The Pilgrim unleashed his warbands of World Eaters.The World Eaters were the living expression of the Blood God's destructive power. His Daemons might be a bloodthirsty essence, tapping directly into Khorne's primordial fury, but it was thousands of standard years of bloodshed, committed in the Blood God's name by the death-defying sons of Angron, that fuelled the World Eaters' ancient power. A power deployed by the XII Legion's brethren whose only remaining desire was to see the galaxy burn.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Last Stand: As Corpus-Captain Zachariah Kersh fought pauldron-to-pauldron with his Excoriator battle-brothers, he quickly saw the anatomy of a world's demise. He saw how the Cholercaust Blood Crusade had sundered planet after planet, and how it would go on doing so -- right up to the Vanaheim Cordon and beyond. It would continue throughout Segmentum Solar and the core systems; right up to an unsuspecting Terra. The Imperial defenders would underestimate the Keeler Comet and its strange ability to turn a population against itself, creating reinforcement for a Khornate army as yet unarrived.What they would see as a simple comet he now knew was a gateway to Chaos. They would not call for reinforcement, as others had failed to do, until far too late. They would fail to appreciate the Cholercaust's number and overestimate their own. They would make a stand -- as he had done -- because that is what true warriors do. They would stand aghast, as he did now, at the Cholercaust's speed and hunger for annihilation. They would not imagine that a force could end a world in but a single solar day, overrunning an entire planet with Heretics, Renegades and Daemons. Finally, with Traitor Marines falling from the stars and hunting them for sport, they would see how easily they had fallen and the horror that awaited others for whom the same mistakes were equally inevitable.The Astra Militarum's Charnel Guard were all but decimated and many of Kersh's Excoriators had fallen. Palatine Sapphira and several of her battle-sisters of the Adepta Sororitas Order of the August Vigil remained, along with a small collection of Chapter serfs. Beyond that, only Excoriators had survived the Khornate onslaught. The remaining Astartes of the 5th Company had held off impossible numbers as they paired and grouped up. Battle-brothers found each other, protecting each other's backs, knowing in their hearts that they were to die together in the tight passageways in the shadow of the Ecclesiarch Umberto II's great mausoleum.Pushed back into the steep streets and narrow alleys with the full force of the Cholercaust swallowing Obsequa City, the Space Marines found their retreat compromised. From the sky the Khornates assaulted the Imperial defenders with their best. The 5th Company and the remaining Imperial defenders faced their inevitable deaths at the hands of the forces of Chaos, and in desperation sent a last, prayerful plea to the Emperor of Mankind for assistance of any kind. For a miracle. Beyond all hope, their prayers were answered.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Miracle of the Damned: The Blood God's butchers became the butchered with the timely intervention of the mysterious revenant Astartes who called themselves the Legion of the Damned. A colossal Gothic vessel of unknown origin had remained hidden within the tail of the Keeler Comet. The vessel appeared to be completely without power, a derelict floating in the cold darkness of space.Its massive construction was stunning from a distance, but close up the starship appeared gaunt and weathered. The hull was cracked, granular and disintegrating, the victim of an eternity of etherical erosion. The craft would have been nearly invisible against the backdrop of empty space were it not for the spectral fire that burned across every surface and suffused the derelict vessel with a golden, phantasmal glow.Suddenly the ruined Imperial star fortress powered itself up, preparing to launch torpedoes. The great torpedo tubes flared brightly as the spectral gleam of a warhead erupted from the star fortress' primary weapon. The ghostly torpedo flew straight and true towards Certus-Minor. As it streaked away from the mobile fortress-monastery, the ghostfire of its appearance suddenly intensified to become a halo of plasmic propulsion. The Keeler Comet, which had been traversing the galaxy for aeons and had last passed through the Imperium ten thousand Terran years before, exploded.The flash of the torpedo's impact picked out the irregular shape of the object before the destructive force of detonation ripped through its body, wracking it to its frozen core and smashing it into a billion astral splinters. Within moments the comet was no longer there, just the bloody reminder of its void-smearing tail. Instead, the comet had become a fall of black ice shards, enormous rock fragments and rare metal nuggets, accelerating towards Certus-Minor at high speed.The violently transformed Keeler Comet had changed direction once again, this time blasted towards the Cemetery World's gravitational pull. The Cholercaust's warfleet, stationed in low orbit, did not see the catastrophe coming. The massive debris rained down upon the marauding fleet and destroyed the vast Chaos armada in a conglomeration of wicked explosions.On the surface of Certus-Minor, the darkness of shadows became silhouettes in the smoke. Revenants appeared in bone-moulded plate, ethereal flames dancing off their ceramite battle-plate's bitter, black surface. Their ghostly, burning weapons cleaved the World Eaters like so much wheat before a scythe. Charred Chaos Cultist survivors reported sightings of silent warriors in sable armour who corralled the Chaos Lord Umbragg and his sadists with flamers before cremating the entire retinue of Khornate Berserkers and sending their souls shrieking in pain and fury to the skull-strewn realm of their sadistic god.The revenant Astartes of the Legion of the Damned burned with an ethereal fire. Every stride they took, though silent, was a step of fearless determination. Whereas World Eaters came at them with the heat of mindless fury and angry blades, the accursed Legionaries were cold to the point of repose. They moved with the certainty of the grave and killed with the indomitable will of beings who already knew what it was to lose life and know the end of all things. Their unnatural presence gave birth to a fear in their enemies that they had not ever known, an antiquated darkness beyond petty notions of survival or an agonising death.This was an eventuality so hopeless and final that the Legion's victims did not dread the end of their existence -- they feared not existing at all. Corpus-Captain Zachariah Kersh recognised the flame-swathed angels of his salvation as a Legion of the Damned, moving about the graves of the Cemetery World like an army of ghosts, executing the tainted and delivering doom to the Emperor's enemies.In the end, all of the Space Marines of the 5th Company valiantly lost their lives in the effort to stop the Blood Crusade, save for their commanding officer, Corpus-Captain Kersh. Kersh would go on to become Chapter Master of the Excoriators after this pyrrhic victory. The Cholercaust Blood Crusade had been utterly defeated, but many servants of the Blood God remained, still eager to taint their blades with the pumping blood of the innocent and the pious.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Commanders: Corpus-Captain Zachariah Kersh - Corpus-Captain of the Excoriators Space Marine Chapter's 5th Company.Palatine Sapphira - Senior battle-sister and commander of the Order of the August Vigil, the Order Militant of the Adepta Sororitas charged with the protection of the Adeptus Ministorum mausoleum complex of Ecclesiarch Umberto II.Pallmaster-General Vasco Ferreira - Senior commander of the planetary militia forces of the Certus-Minor.High Constable Colquhoun - Senior commander of the Astra Militarum Charnel Guard regiment of Certus-Minor.Proctor Kraski - Kraski was a grizzled veteran Adeptus Arbites Arbitrator in the senior years of his life, charged with keeping order and upholding Imperial Law on Certus-Minor with a small team of fellow Arbites arbitrators.Pontifex Oliphant - The senior representative of the Adeptus Ministorum's clergy on Certus-Minor.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Astra Militarum: Charnel Guard Regiment
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Navis Imperialis: Apotheon - Commanded by Lieutenant Heiss, the Apotheon was the remaining Navis Imperialis starship that held geo-stationary orbit near the northern pole of Certus-Minor, a silent observer of the incoming Keeler Comet. The Apotheon observed the intervention of the unknown vessel of the Legion of the Damned which destroyed the Keeler Comet. The resulting explosion and destruction of the comet annihilated the Cholercaust Blood Crusade armada in orbit.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Adepta Sororitas: Order of the August Vigil - The Order of the August Vigil was the Militant Order of the Adepta Sororitas charged with the protection of the holy shrine of Umberto II upon the Cemetery World of Certus-Minor.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Adeptus Astartes: Excoriators Chapter 5th Company - The 5th Company of the Excoriators Chapter valiantly defended the doomed Cemetery World to the last man. Corpus-Captain Zachariah Kersh was the sole survivor of his devastated company.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Commanders: The Pilgrim - Known only as "The Pilgrim", the Right Claw of Khorne, The Pilgrim was the Daemon Prince of Khorne who led a vast host of the forces of Chaos dedicated to Khorne known as the Cholercaust Blood Crusade with an uncanny religious conviction, following the strange path of the crimson Keeler Comet out of the Eye of Terror. It was his intention to lead his Khornate warhost to the gates of the Imperial Palace on Terra itself. Little was known about the Champion of Khorne who led the Blood Crusade, or how he had managed the impossible and united so many of his murderous and notoriously fractious fellow Khornates in the pursuit of a single objective. He was slain in an orbital lance strike upon Umberto II's mausoleum.Umbragg of the Brazen Flesh – Umbragg was a World Eaters Chaos Space Marine and Skull Champion of Khorne, who led the Cholercaust's Khornate Berserkers to the blood-drenched surface of Certus-Minor. With his warband, the Clysm, the World Eaters Chaos Champion had fought on a thousand worlds, butchering Human and alien alike in the name of wanton carnage and murder, bringing glory to Khorne's name through the prosecution of Blood Crusades, the slaughter of Slaanesh's perverse followers and the collection of skulls on an obscene scale. He was killed on Certus-Minor by the revenant Astartes of the Legion of the Damned.Havloc the Cold-Blooded - Havloc was the Master of the Fleet for the Cholercaust Blood Crusade. He spearheaded the armada from the Command Pulpit of the World Eaters battle barge Rancour. Havloc was killed when the Legion of the Damned's vessel destroyed the Keeler Comet and the debris from its explosion rained down upon the Cholercaust fleet orbiting Certus-Minor, destroying it utterly.
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Heretic Astartes: Angels ApocryphaBrazen GuardThe CleavedGoremongersRed HeraldsSkulltakersThunder BaronsWorld Eaters
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Traitoris Militarum Forces: Anarchan RazorbacksArmoured Volscani CataphractsAttilan Traitor 32nd RegimentThe BloodsakenThe DeathfestFrater VulgariateGornan VenalsHellion DawnKrugarian TurncoatsNecromundan Crazy EightsRegna-RougeClan Gamibal, Vessorine Janissaries
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Abhuman Forces: Cannibal Ogryns of the Blood Moons of Goethe
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Cholercaust Blood Crusade - Cholercaust Blood Crusade Warfleet: Rancour - An ancient battle barge dating back to the era of the Horus Heresy.
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