Chapter Nine: Index Astartes: World Eaters
Index Astartes- World Eaters: No Gods, No Chains
Of all the legions who turned their backs upon the Imperium of Mankind, none have renounced their past so completely as the Twelfth Legion. They were once a noble brotherhood, warriors possessing both honor and fraternity, until these bonds became chains at the hands of their own primarch. Even in the face of Angron's insane rage, the Twelfth remained loyal to their father at all costs, even to the point of betraying their own brothers upon the black sands of Istvaan. Cast aside and forgotten, the rewards of treachery saw the Twelfth chained to new masters, subjugated to causes not their own. Relentlessly downtrodden, the World Eaters finally realized their true purpose, and cast aside all that bound them to others, including their very name as they embraced true liberation. Though they are few in number, the War Hounds remain a persistent foe in the war of all against all, and they will never, ever stop until all bindings have been loosed and everything locked away has been freed, even those locked away for a reason.
Origins: A Necessary Evil
The Imperium has many warriors in its service. From the teeming masses of the Imperial Guard to the fanatic crusaders of the Sisters of Battle, service to the Imperium can be found wherever there is unwavering loyalty and unshakable devotion. The truest example of this creed exists in the Legiones Astartes, mighty transhuman warriors trained from childhood to fight and give their lives in service to the Imperium and its leader, the Emperor of Mankind. When the Emperor first revealed his presence at the end of the Age of Strife, he faced innumerable foes upon Terra itself. Even before he announced his Great Crusade, the Emperor was faced with the daunting task of uniting the homeworld of Mankind. To prosecute the Unification Wars, the Master of Mankind would need the mightiest of warriors, those who would not hesitate to perform any task no matter how gruesome, to commit any atrocity in service of a greater cause, and who would fight the battles that mortal men could not. At first, this task fell to the Thunder Warriors, the Legio Cataegis, for only barbarians could destroy other barbarians. The Thunder Warriors were cruel and savage, inherently unstable and short-lived; perhaps it was this nature that made their bonds so strong. In the climactic Battle of Mount Ararat, as the history books tell, the Thunder Warriors perished, dying in service to the Emperor in the final battle of the Unification Wars. Yet this is not the whole story.
The Emperor knew his Thunder Warriors were unsuited for his grand designs, for they were products of necessity and were rushed into service despite many defects. His other creation, the indomitable Legio Custodes, were more powerful, yet even fewer in number, and remained as the elite, too specialized for the task of taking an entire galaxy. To address these shortcomings, the Emperor crafted the Legiones Astartes, a blend between the two, less powerful but more adaptable than their predecessors. Each new conquered region of Terra had its population assessed and its worthiest boys taken, for only male children were compatible with the genetic sorcery that transformed aspirants from humans into posthumans. At first they were small in number, split into twenty legions identical save for their genetic template, consisting of a few thousand Astartes each and bearing a High Gothic numerical designation. However, as the legions began to fight in service to the Emperor, they began to diverge and specialize, each taking on a particular method of waging war. Mankind has never ceased to need soldiers capable of achieving victory in the deadly confines of close combat, despite how advanced and effective ranged weaponry became, and thus Legio XII quickly filled this role. Legio XII was no exception, and from its earliest days, showed a proclivity towards close-quarters combat and assault troops, and showed their effectiveness in the tight confines of battlefields known as Zone Mortalis, fighting with aggression as they relied upon their transhuman physiology to overcome any opponent. This culture was deliberately inculcated: while other legions recruited from a single or even a few locations, the XII recruited from across Terra, ignoring culture in favor of selecting the most competitive and aggressive recruits. Many of these early recruits were taken from nobility, the sons of aristocracy being much more fit and healthy as a result of the resources of their houses. The intrigues of court politics had made them ruthless, a trait looked upon with favor by recruiters, and they quickly took their place alongside the rest of the recruits as they learned the methods of the legion.
The XII soon became masters of shock tactics, which were highly effective, though not without its drawbacks. The legion took heavy casualties each time they took the field, braving a storm of fire as they closed in on their foes in their armored transports, leaping from assault ramps to butcher their mortal foes. While other legions struggled to find their identity and purpose, the XII knew with an absolute certainty that they had been crafted to wage war in the name of the Emperor. They fought on many battlefields across Terra, excelling at fighting in the close quarters of Hive Cities. However, after several initial battles, the Emperor began to keep them in reserve. Some say this was due to their small numbers, shepherded as a precious resource to be deployed to turn the tide of a battle. Others say this was due to the legion's proclivity towards butchery, for few were left alive in the wake of the legion's assault, and the Emperor desired subjects, not corpses. Whatever the case, the legion did not complain, and for their loyalty, were dubbed the "War Hounds" by the Emperor himself, who appointed Ibram Ghreer as their commander and permitted them to take a Canid Rampant as their sigil. The War Hounds remained in the background of the latter half of the Unification Wars and subsequent conquest of the Solar System. Though other legions might have taken this as a slight, the legion prided itself on its loyalty, and used this opportunity to build up its strength once more. Yet the War Hounds were destined to see combat before the Great Crusade, taking to the field once more in response to the Cerberus Insurrection.
Cerberus
Even during the darkest days of Long Night, the Solar System remained a busy place. Though all but the most desperate of interstellar journeys had been cut off by incessant Warp Storms, many ships still journeyed across the celestial bodies of Mankind's home system. The Age of Strife was a hard time that gave birth to hard men, tyrants who seized control and spent their reigns constantly putting down rebellions against usurpers much like themselves. Though death was the most common fate for rebels, some tyrants preferred a more lasting punishment, converting entire asteroids and moons into prisons. A roaming asteroid, Cerberus (not to be confused with Kerberos, the moon of Pluto) is a moving fortress-prison. Its path takes a year to orbit the Sun in a predictable and regular path, and many warlords took advantage of it, dumping prisoners and other undesirables on it using one-way rockets. Most sent to Cerberus perish as their rockets either miss the asteroid completely, condemning those inside to death by asphyxiation, or impact its surface at incredible speeds. Those that do survive are condemned to a slow death by starvation, for the asteroid is too small to properly support life. Thus many turn to cannibalism, feeding on their fellow prisoners and drinking their blood in order to survive. Such acts are condemned by gods and man, and those who live the longest go utterly mad, becoming pale, gaunt creatures living in packs or courts led by the strongest among them.
When the Emperor conquered Cerberus, he left it to remain as a prison colony, rooting out the most savage of the flesh-eaters and establishing basic defenses in order to serve as a more sustainable prison. Its vast network of tunnels soon came to house nearly three million people, quickly becoming a breeding ground for insurrection as the Emperor deposited low-level prisoners left over from the Unification Wars. Within several years, the prisoners revolted, murdering their overseers and rioting. In response, the Emperor tasked the XXIInd Dracos Regiment of the Solar Auxilia to restore order, yet within weeks, the army fell back in disarray, repulsed by the efforts of a group of prisoners calling themselves the 'Dait'Tar'. Imperial scouts observed the Dait'Tar were far larger and more dangerous than normal prisoners, for they were no ordinary men, but Thunder Warriors. Though it was unknown to all save perhaps the Emperor how they came to be there, their actions had shown them to be outlaws and rebels, deserving of death. Thus the Emperor unleashed the War Hounds. Thousands of Astartes descended upon Cerberus as they brought the Emperor's wrath. For five hours they fought through the twisting tunnels and choke-points, and none could stand before them. Days later, reinforcements arrived to hunt down any remaining rebels still lurking in the warrens. When their commanding officer asked Legion Master Ghreer how many prisoners they could expect for transfer, Ghreer replied none, for he had not been asked to take any. As the Auxilia kill-teams fanned through the tunnels, they discovered scenes of utter carnage, an abattoir of gore and blood. The Dait'Tar had been defeated, though each had taken many times their number in Astartes before they perished. Cerberus was soon reestablished as a prison, while the War Hounds went off to join the other legions in the Great Crusade, fighting under the Emperor's command for just over forty years. They became renowned as savage warriors with an unbreakable bond of brotherhood between not only each other, but with the other legions as well. However, this loyalty was to prove their downfall, which began with the return of their primarch, upon the world of Nuceria.
The Lord of the Red Sands
To lead a military venture on the scale of the Great Crusade would require the best generals and charismatic commanders imaginable. Only an elite few possessed the brilliance required, and even fewer could be trusted not to subvert the forces under their command towards their own selfish interests, and none whatsoever could be expected to live long enough to see an endeavor such as the Crusade through to completion. To rectify this seeming impossibility, the Emperor in his wisdom decided to craft a new breed of commander, using his own genetic template to make heirs to his empire, twenty sons known as primarchs who would lead the Great Crusade across the vast expanse of the galaxy. Yet before they could take their place at his side, or even take their first step, the Primarchs were stolen, malign forces invading the Emperor's laboratories and scattering the fruits of his labor to the stars. These pods were hurled in every direction, and it was to the far eastern fringes that the pod bearing the numerals XII was launched, crashing near the edge of human-settled space on the world of Nuceria.
Far beyond the centers of civilization lies the Eastern Fringe, composed of a thin string of sectors perching on the edge of the outer darkness of the inter-galactic void. Unknowable horrors lurk beyond it, for the Astronomican becomes clouded and murky this far from its light, and those unfortunate enough to live on such worlds are forever peering out into the darkness, hoping and praying nothing is looking back. Nuceria was a feudal world, lucky to have escaped the fires of the Age of Strife by the slimmest of margins. As of M30, it was a regressive society, divided into city-states which had sprouted up amidst the ashes of some older civilization. The Dark Age of Technology had led many worlds to discard culture in favor of military technology, and Nuceria was no exception, possessing many powerful weapons and a population which did not understand anything more than how to use them to kill and inflict pain. Its cities were walled encampments, squatting upon the ruins of a once-grand civilization, and the knowledge that death could arrive at any moment had long since produced a pervasive despair and resignation in the very society of Nuceria. In order to keep their dying society alive for perhaps a few centuries longer, the nobility had created vast arenas for sport, converting ancient buildings of unknown use into massive colosseums capable of housing tens of thousands, each of which requiring vast amounts of human and animal capital to keep running. Thus the many city-states settled their differences not through war, which would cost too much manpower, but through gladiatorial matches, where the champions of each city would face their rivals on the field of battle, gaining glory as well as concessions for their patrons. The people of Nuceria thus remained occupied with the grand spectacle, their minds kept from pondering the horrors of invasion, or why the nobles lived much better lives than them. Thus few bothered to even look up as a bright light careened through the sky, coming to crash into the Desh'elika Mountains.
Hope still existed upon Nuceria, at least in the countryside, and so curious farmers soon discovered that the meteor was actually a pod, one which contained a small boy. Taking the boy into their home, the elderly farmers named the child Angronius, but their new son did not remain a boy for long. Angronius quickly grew into a teenager, towering over everyone as he labored in the fields, friendly and cheerful. He was the model of a dutiful son, empathic and always ready to lend an ear or a helping hand, for his great strength enabled him to do the work of many men. Witnessing his talent at resolving disputes, his parents could tell their son's talents were wasted out in the country, and saved up a pitifully small fortune in order to send Angronius to find a better life in the city. Many were sad to see the young primarch go, but Angronius looked forward to the bright horizons he was certain were waiting for him. He took only what he could carry, along with a small necklace bearing the insignia of a lightning bolt, which his parents had taken from the wreckage where they discovered him. He walked for many months, helping all he met, before arriving at the outer slums of Desh'ea, the nearest city.
Ruled by House Thal'kr, Desh'ea was a proud but declining city, its athletes and gladiators weak and failing compared to those of other states. The people of Desh'ea were deeply unhappy, and many had long since fled to more successful neighboring towns, further exacerbating the city's woes. Its leaders had turned to darker methods to keep the people in line, creating a vicious cycle and desperation to reverse this misfortune by any means necessary. Thus when Angronius first entered the city, he found himself accosted by hostile guards, who claimed he needed papers to walk freely about the city. The primarch shrugged them off, and continued walking, observing the squalor of the city and the desperation of the lower classes in the slums. Tears threatened to flow from Angronius's eyes as he felt the sheer misery and inhumanity flowing from all around him, and so he spent many months working in these refuse heaps that the poor people of Desh'ea called home, tending to the sick and dying. However, no good deed goes unpunished, and it was all but inevitable that Angronius's deeds would attract attention. Confronted by the City Guard of House Thal'kr, the primarch was accused of many crimes, including being a runaway slave and of inciting a revolt. The primarch protested these charges, yet was clapped in irons all the same. Despite his obvious physical superiority over the guards, Angronius did not overpower his captors, yielding without a fight as he was a pacifist, determined to hold firm to the teachings of his parents. However, the corrupt officials of Desh'ea were unimpressed by his protests, and quickly put him on trial.
"Before his noble magistrate delivers a verdict, would you like to beg? It sometimes helps, but not often." The bailiff inquired, his foul breath making Angronius pull away in disgust.
"Spare me this mockery of justice." Angronius demanded in a firm voice. His jailers backed off slightly, intimidated by the primarch's sheer size, but the Magistrate-Justice was made of sterner stuff.
"Silence! Or you will be held in contempt of this court."
"I have nothing but contempt for this court. The way you treat your people tells me all I need to know about you." Angronius replied. The bailiff looked up at the Magistrate-Justice, asking him once more for his verdict of guilty or innocent. Yet Angronius's reply had infuriated the noble.
"He is no slave. Innocent. But for his insolence, send him to the pits."
Still not resisting, Angronius was taken to a crumbling ziggurat, not only chained but stripped of his name, forced to use the diminutive Angron, as the suffix of his old name was reserved for Deshean nobility. Despite this and many other indignities, Angron's spirit remained unbroken, slaving away in the pits as he performed hard labor. Infuriated by his steadfast refusal to submit, the nobles of House Thal'kr ordered him into the gladiatorial pits, but even this would not break him, for he would not give them the spectacle they desired. Angron became friends with one of the gladiators, an older man by the name of Oenomaus Philoctetes, who did his best to train Angron to survive the harsh Pits and to use his strength to overcome the men sent against him without killing them. Oenomaus warned him that if he didn't begin to obey the 'High-Riders', as the nobles were called, they would be forced to resort to stronger tactics. Yet Angron did not listen, and refused to give the nobles a show, humiliating them in front of dignitaries. Enraged, the head of House Thal'kr ordered Angron subjected to the Butcher's Nails.
The Butcher's Nails
The nobles of Desh'ea, along with the rest of Nuceria's cities, had many tools at their disposal to ensure their populace never revolted against them. Though they rarely did more than the bare minimum, the nobility were experts in keeping their people pacified. In addition to the vast stadiums designed for athletic events, the nobility also distributed food to the populace, for even in their squalor, the people of Desh'ea never went hungry lest they revolt. Most citizens did little labor, for that was performed by teeming masses of slaves, who outnumbered the free people nearly five to one. Troublemakers and criminals were often subjected to slavery, and once they became a slave, it was nearly impossible to become free once more. This class warfare meant freemen regarded slaves as subhuman, a particularly foul technique reinforced through the use of archaotech. Oftentimes slaves had their mental faculties inhibited through the use of gruesome relics of the Dark Age of Technology. Some slaves were outfitted with Pleasure Pins, which rewired their nervous system into desires to serve, while others received the Butcher's Nails, which replaced every emotion with bloodlust and rewarded acts of aggression. Even base desires such as eating gave no pleasure to those afflicted by these Dark Age relics, and those implanted with the Pins or the Nails slowly lost their minds from the pain and neurochemical imbalance, and few ever lasted more than a few years with them. This mental deterioration is exacerbated by the presence of psykers, and thus witches were highly persecuted on Nuceria, lest they damage valuable goods.
After his latest show of defiance in front of the High-Riders, Angron was seized by the guards, and implanted with the Butcher's Nails. Thrown into a gladiatorial pits, the primarch fought in earnest for the first time, brutally killing all sent against him in maddened rage. Over the next few weeks, in the brief respites between bouts, the jailers overheard weeping from Angron's cell, for the primarch regretted each horrible action he was forced to perform. He who had valued peace and empathy was turned into a weapon for the amusement of cruel men, and Oenomaus warned him that each bout would see him further lost to the rage. Thus the next time the jailers came to lead him out, Angron was ready, strangling the undisciplined men with his chains, and leading his gladiator allies to freedom. A revolt swept the streets of Desh'ea as Angron's unconscious empathic abilities filled the slaves with hope and the desire to overthrow their masters. Angron himself led his gladiators into the walled fortresses of the High-Riders, utilizing their broken links of chains as weapons. Yet within the inner chambers, Angron found not the head of House Thal'kr, but a mocking note, for the prince and his family were not in this castle. The head of House Thal'kr had fled to one of his neighbors, warning of a slave revolt of unprecedented size.
By dawn the next day, the rebels had secured Desh'ea, killing all non-slaves in the process. Angron named his host the 'Eaters of Cities', and with the aid of Oenomaus, trained them to fight as a cohesive whole in the tactics of the red sands. Thus when a punitive force finally arrived, they were quickly slaughtered by rabid former slaves, an event which happened multiple times over the next few months. Angron knew they would keep sending armies, and so began to march with his host in order to take the High-Riders' attention away. With each city they came across, Angron would demand their surrender, and when it was rejected, would sneak in while the enemy was occupied with the host outside the gates. Angron learned to utilize his charisma, leading slaves to revolt in city after city, and his hosts swelled to massive size. For years, the Eaters of Cities clashed with the armies of the High-Riders who sought their heads, and most of the planet fell under their control as they won victory after victory under the leadership of Angron and Oenomaus. Some cities even joined them willingly, freeing their slaves in exchange for safety. Yet the High-Riders kept coming, sending in mercenaries, for their slave-armies could not be trusted and they lacked any professional standing army. These mercenaries came in all sorts of uniforms and levels of training, some more powerful than others. Years into the rebellion, Angron's generals brought word that Oenomaus had been killed by the latest of these mercenary armies, strange foreigners who wore cobalt blue with a U-shape upon their chests. Enraged at the death of his closest friend, Angron swore he would annihilate them, and began a bloody campaign which saw the bluecoats hurled back on every front. Angron was sickened at these warriors who would fight for such foul people as the High-Riders, and showed them no mercy, even as they claimed to come from another world.
His foes pushed to utter defeat, Angron began a new offensive, his Eaters of Cities drunk on the heady mix of glory and freedom. However, fate is cruel to those that take it for granted, and the end of the war quickly slipped out of sight once more as the bluecoats began to refuse to give battle. For a month, the mercenaries and the Eaters of Cities countered back and forth, baiting each other into making a costly mistake that would see either army over-extended and destroyed. Angron began to make small errors as the Butcher's Nails hurt his brain constantly from the lack of fighting, and his army began to give ground as the bluecoats boxed them up against the mountains of Fedan Mhor. His advisors begged him to remove the Nails, but such requests were refused, for the Lord of the Red Sands insisted they gave him focus. However, the siren call of slaughter was too much to hold off forever, and when the tipping point came and he was unable to hold back from shedding blood any longer, Angron gave into his fury, and ordered his host into battle regardless of the odds. The Eaters of Cities fought with the desperation of the trapped, inflicting heavier casualties on the mercenaries, who outnumbered them nearly three to one. Despite his rage, Angron knew that if the battle kept up, his forces would be broken by the remaining High-Riders, who waited near the battlefield but did not join in for some reason. The sands of Desh'elika Ridge grew bloody as Angron roamed the battlefield, searching for the enemy general. His patience was rewarded, for he spotted the flags and banner indicating the enemy general, a tall man with an arrogant sneer on his face who directed the battle from a vantage point above everybody else.
Angron began to charge towards the man, who saw him and raised his blade in a mocking salute. Up close, the enemy general was bigger than he thought, taller than even Angron, the first and only person to do so. Yet the primarch had never shied away from a challenge, and the Nails rewarded this bloody thought with a surge of adrenaline. The Eaters of Cities responded to their primarch as they ever did, fighting with new fury as they swept towards the enemy general. As Angron grew close, ready to rip the enemy general limb from limb, the sky exploded in brilliant auroras of golden light. A lightning bolt struck the ground between Angron and his foe, forcing the primarch to skid to a halt. As the smoke cleared, the Lord of the Red Sands beheld a giant of a man, far larger than even the enemy general. Resplendent in brilliant golden armor, the stranger wore his authority like a cloak, at once imperious and regal and more demanding than any High-Rider. His very presence was painful, the weight of his mind driving the Nails into overdrive. Angron hated him.
In an impossibly-loud voice which boomed across the now still battlefield, the man announced himself as the Emperor of Mankind, and claimed that Angron and the enemy general were both his sons. The pompous fool across from him seemed delighted by the prospect, but Angron was totally sure of his initial assessment of the man's character. Here was a tyrant surpassing all other tyrants, a murderer disguising his lust for power in righteousness; Angron may have been a killer, but at least he was honest about it. Yet the man who dared to call himself the Emperor paid little attention to him, ignoring the blood-drenched Angron entirely in favor of speaking to the enemy general, who called himself Guilliman along with dozens of other titles. Bored of their pretentious talk of glory and empires, Angron wandered off to assess the state of his shattered army, the Nails beginning to bite once more as the battle had ended prematurely. As he roamed, he was joined by golden warriors calling themselves Custodes, who spoke to him in emotionless tones as they explained the world of Nuceria would be his to do with as he pleased, along with a new army to replace his devastated Eaters of Cities, so long as he swore loyalty to the Emperor.
Angron was conflicted by their offer. Such an offer was nothing new, for the High-Riders had promised him many similar things in exchange for his loyalty. Yet somehow Angron could tell the Emperor would carry out his promises. The Lord of the Sands wished Oenomaus was here to help him decide, though the old gladiator had perished many months before at the hands of Guilliman's mercenaries. In order to stall for time while the Nails cooled off, Angron demanded to see the army the Emperor would give him, and so the Custodes led him aboard a shuttle that took them into the upper atmosphere, where many ships hung in orbit. They led him before an assembled host of War Hounds, who displayed awe and obeisance as the primarch paced before them; Angron hated them almost as much as he hated the Emperor. As their leader Ghreer explained the concept of Astartes to Angron, the primarch found his disdain for them growing when he learned of their noble heritage, yet this rage was mixed with pity, for they were no different than the slave-soldier employed by the High-Riders. Though the Nails had blunted his empathic abilities, Angron could sense their need for him; besides, they could be useful. Angron told the Custodes he agreed to the Emperor's terms, but would never bow before him. The bodyguards accepted his offer, and departed the vessel. Angron declared the War Hounds were no more, for dogs were no better than willing slaves: they were to be the Eaters of Worlds.
The Eaters of Worlds
Angron's first command as the Primarch of the Twelfth Legion was about as bloody as could be expected, ordering the two thousand or so Astartes to join him upon Desh'elika Ridge. The Eaters of Cities were a shattered remnant of their former glory, and the High-Riders had attempted to press their advantage of the respite to finish them off once and for all, even without Guilliman's forces. The might of the Twelfth descended upon Nuceria, unleashing indiscriminate slaughter against their utterly outmatched foes. Angron and the World Eaters quickly butchered the remaining High-Rider armies, utilizing their orbital superiority to rapidly redeploy, and within a month had seized control of Nuceria. Angron's final act before departing was to order the execution of every single member of House Thal'kr, along with every noble house that had ever resisted him. His revenge complete, Angron abandoned Nuceria to the control of the Eaters of Cities before departing with his Eaters of Worlds.
Their first expedition took them back to Terra, where Angron reunited with the rest of his legion, gathering them into one mighty force of nearly thirty thousand Astartes. Ghreer never made it to Terra, for Angron ordered the rest of his sons to beat him to death for the crime of excessive devotion to the Emperor, which they reluctantly did. A new legion master named Lhorke was appointed in his place, and the legion set out for the world of Bodt, a volcanic world taken by the legion several years prior that had acted as a training ground for many years. Like the rest of the other legions after reuniting with their fathers, the World Eaters began to fight with new and extraordinary vigor. Angron was a strict taskmaster: his Eaters of Cities had followed him out of love, but the World Eaters followed him out of self-loathing and hate. The Twelfth was molded in his image, joining the culture and rituals of the legion with those of his homeworld. One such cultural relic was the practice of chaining each legionary's weapons to his arms, both in honor duels in the fighting pits and in real combat. Other traditions were less innocent, for Angron was cruel and arbitrary, imposing cheap imitations of his own Butcher's Nails as a 'reward' for sons he deemed worthy to share his pain, though these were few and far between. He was constantly disappointed in his sons, comparing them to his fallen comrades who had died years before on Nuceria, yet his empathic abilities combined with the natural devotion Astartes have for their gene-father meant they would never turn on him despite his abuse. The Primarch imposed strict guidelines for conquest, ordering company-wide decimations whenever they were not met, as well as personally executing officers who failed in battle. The Nails were never quieter than after these executions…
These decimations occurred several times a decade, and there was not a single chapter that had not been afflicted. The greatest of these occurred in 872 M30, after the embarrassment of the Nove Shendak Campaign. The three systems of the Nove Shendak were located on the fringes of the Ghoul Stars, and as such was home to horrific abominations all too common to that region of space. When the World Eaters landed upon the world tentatively called Eight-Two-Seventeen, they were assaulted by monstrous worms that burrowed through the ground using sonic screams. The few humans that lived on the worlds were cattle for the worms, enslaved through psychic means. Angron's fury was dire when he learned this, and his opinion on psykers was permanently soured as a result. The World Eaters landed in force on every world they encountered, destroying every trace of the xenos while taking heavy casualties. Yet before they could land upon what was believed to be the worms' homeworld, the World Eaters were forcefully stopped. The Emperor himself had arrived, alongside a force of the First Legion led by their primarch, though Angron had never met him. The Master of Mankind declared this world off-limits, and ordered Angron to depart. The primarch was infuriated, yet obeyed nonetheless, venting his rage on his sons in a legion-wide decimation.
Alongside Roboute Guilliman, Angron was the eighth primarch found, and he quickly picked fights with most of his brothers, especially with Guilliman. The two seemed polar opposites, and Angron's relationship with most of his brothers were nearly as bad after serving only one or two campaigns with him. The sole exception to this was Horus Lupercal, the First-Found, who refused to rise to Angron's provocations; Angron only pitied him for his blind devotion to the Emperor. Angron refused to call the Emperor his father, and mocked his brothers for doing so, stating the tyrant only saw them as tools. Such claims made the other primarchs uneasy, for they had a ring of truth to it. Yet there was one who would not take these insults lying down: Leman Russ. Russ and Angron had never gotten along, for Angron scorned his brother as a dog despite his claims of being a wolf. The two primarchs had not spoken for decades, yet in 980.M30, Horus approached Angron, saying Russ was willing to let bygones be bygones and begged Angron to give him a chance. The Space Wolves and World Eaters fought side by side for the first time in many years, and quickly brought compliance to the world of Ghenna. Yet the true purpose of the Sixth soon revealed itself, as Russ confronted Angron, demanding his sons stop their wholesale slaughter of every world his legion encountered. Angron scorned his brother, insulting him as only free because his freedom matched the slaver Emperor's commands. Yet the arrogant Russ would not let it be, and after Angron insinuated killing their father would be the virtuous course of action, the Wolf King demanded Angron accompany him and his legion back to Terra, daring to grab Angron's arm as if he were a child or slave to stop him from walking off. From the moment their confrontation began, Angron had struggled to keep the Nails in check, but this was too far, and smashed Russ to the ground with a mighty blow to the face. Yet the Wolf King only gave him a savage grin, and the two began to fight. Angron's rage spilled out like a psychic tsunami, indiscriminately drenching nearby Astartes of both the Sixth and the Twelfth, and the two legions began to fight as well without any commands from their primarchs. Legions that should have been as brothers began to kill each other in earnest, though neither side knew or cared who fired the first shot. Both Russ and Angron shattered their weapons in the course of the conflict, and by the end of it, Angron had Russ pinned to the ground. Yet Russ only laughed, pointing out that his legion had Angron surrounded. The Wolf King condescendingly ordered his sons to withdraw, and Angron did likewise. The two legions departed on bad terms, and never again fought side by side.
Angron was satisfied that he had beaten Russ, and thought no more of it. Yet the words he had spoken to his brother lingered with him. The devotion his brother had for the Emperor was a chain, enslaving their wills to the Tyrant in the hopes of gaining his approval, and in time, they would enslave the entire galaxy just to win his praise. Killing his brothers, while pleasing, would not solve the root of the problem, and so Angron began to consider the possibility of killing the Tyrant in order to save the galaxy, a daunting task. Though the Nails stung and bit at such a thought, Angron knew he would not be able to openly assault the Emperor. He was pretty sure he could kill the Master of Mankind in single combat, but the slaver would no doubt hide behind his armies just as the coward Russ had. Angron put these thoughts aside for now, and returned to the Great Crusade. He ceased decimating his legion, and it began to perform better as if in response, growing in size so that by the turn of the millennium, they were one of the top five legions in size, nearly one hundred and twenty thousand strong. To the Imperium, the World Eaters became synonymous with berserk fury. Yet this was but a ruse, meant to keep any from prying too closely into his legion's affairs. True, the Nails continued to burn more and more, yet not quite so much as most believed. The World Eaters began to train against all foes, practicing simulations and war games against other Astartes and even the Custodes, all in preparation for the inevitable. Most of the legion was fully behind Angron, now more confident in his course, but the primarch could tell not all of his sons were happy with the culture of the legion, especially the Terran legionaries. Something would need to be done about them before Angron could proceed in his plans.
As the Lord of the Red Sands continued to ponder as the years passed, events elsewhere moved apace. Angron learned Horus was holding a Grand Triumph on the world of Ullanor to celebrate his successes, and he agreed to attend in order to scout out his other brothers and see their strengths and weaknesses for himself. The primarch of the World Eaters stood beside eight other brothers, as far from the Emperor as he could manage. Angron remained silent when Horus was named Warmaster, for he cared little about the False Emperor's favor. After the end of the Triumph, Angron was among the first to depart, leaving a small group led by Centurion Delvarus to make excuses for his departure. Yet he had not traveled very far before he was approached by another brother: Lion El'Jonson. Angron had never met the Lord of the First in person, and had only encountered him once, over a century before at Nove Shendak. Agreeing to meet with his brother in private, Angron found himself impressed for the first time he could remember. His brother saw right through the pretense of being a berserker, and although the Lion was clearly as arrogant as the Emperor, he spoke to Angron as if he were an equal. The Lion spoke openly about his distrust and dislike of the Emperor, bringing up many thoughts Angron himself had nurtured for quite some time. It took only the promise of an opportunity to denounce the False Emperor to his face before his death for the Lord of the Red Sands to join the Lion. The Lion told him they would meet once again, but until then, Angron must avoid the Emperor at all costs, to which he had no objections.
Thus nearly a year later, when Angron learned that the Emperor had called a council at Nikaea, Angron ignored the summons, not even sending a representative to track the proceedings. Angron had long distrusted and hated psychic powers, seeing them as inherently addictive in nature, and he did not permit any addictions in his legion. Through painful experience, he had long since realized the Nails and psykers did not mix, and thus had banned any mention of founding a librarius regardless of their utility. Some of his captains had dared to venture that his empathic abilities were psychic in nature, though they had quickly stopped talking after the primarch crippled them, transferring immeasurable agony with the touch of his hand as he allowed them to feel his pain. Angron remained in seclusion, preparing his legion for the inevitable day the Lion returned, which came nearly three years after their initial meeting. The Lion seemed even more distant than before, if that was possible, but he brought much good news that many other brothers would stand by their side when the time came. Angron had pondered long on what they should do, and began to tell his brother his gruesome plans for killing the Tyrant along with the wholesale slaughter of his armies. Yet the Lion seemed bothered by this, instead telling Angron he was chosen for a different role, that the honor of first blood would fall to him. The Lord of the Red Sands was to join forces with Corvus Corax and the Nineteenth Legion, leading them to the edge of the galaxy where they could not interfere. There they would be joined by Sanguinius and the Blood Angels, and together the two legions would crush the Raven Guard before returning for the drive on Terra. Though it galled Angron to wait, he accepted the Lion's plan, gathering his legion above their recruitment world of Bodt in preparation.
The Red Angel
The World Eaters had long been one of the more scattered legions, attached to many different fleets in prosecution of the Great Crusade. Yet now they abandoned them, leaving their Imperial Army and Mechanicum support behind as they rallied to Bodt. The loyalty of legionaries could be dealt with, but mortals would only get in the way, and Titan legions would present too much of a danger. While his sons gathered, Angron remained in seclusion, taking his anger out on servitor sparring partners. The Nails bit ever more as the days passed, and Angron could swear he had begun to hear things when he was lost to the Rage, voices that promised him power for as long as he would shed blood. While the World Eaters gathered, their erstwhile allies the Raven Guard began to slip into the system, unannounced as was their wont. Angron had preferred them before they had reunited with their primarch, and had even fought alongside their Shade Lord Fal in a campaign, whose brutal effectiveness impressed even Angron's high expectations. Yet when Corax had taken over the legion, he had sent them off for humanitarian reasons. No, Angron could not wait to kill his brother, and hid his bloodlust behind a sneering contempt when he finally did meet his brother in person. All that was left was to wait for Sanguinius to arrive.
After both legions finished mustering, they began to move out towards the north, fighting through all manner of worlds. Angron sent regular missives to the Lion, demanding to know when the Blood Angels would arrive, but no answer ever came. Years went by, and Angron grew more frustrated with every month that passed without word from the Lion or Sanguinius. The two legions conquered dozens of systems in this time and faced myriad foes, from the Abominable Intelligences of Port Maw to hideous xenos of the Mitu Conglomerate. The Coronid Deeps was a realm only partially lit by the light of the Astronomican, and many horrors lurked in its gloaming depths. The few human worlds they encountered were desperate for protection, yet Angron cared little for their plight, unleashing his sons to butcher them while claiming to Corax that the populations were beyond saving. The Gladiator tried many times to sway Corax towards his views on both the Imperium and its people, hinting that the Emperor and Horus cared little for their plight; yet the Ravenlord remained as taciturn as ever, his thoughts and opinions hidden. Angron began to consider the possibility of taking it into his own hands, and began to plot his brother's murder with the aid of his captains who were not lost to the Nails. By this time, nearly twenty percent of the legion had been implanted with them, either as a reward or by legionaries willingly adopting it in a misguided attempt to be closer to their father. In truth, Angron looked down upon both types as slaves to their rage, just as the Raven Guard and other legions were slaves to the Emperor.
After seven years, Angron had had enough. Clearly Sanguinius was never going to come, and thus it would be up to him to strike the first blow, a thought that did not bother him at all. At this time, the fleet had just arrived in the Istvaan System, and the vanguard had already engaged an enemy fleet above the third planet. Recognizing this was his opportunity, Angron ordered his fleet into battle, issuing orders to his commanders. The commanders of the World Eaters had long compiled lists of which legionaries were most sympathetic to the Raven Guard, marking them for eventual termination. Those of the legion who were chosen to die were sent ahead and unsupported, yet this ploy failed when Corax threw his fleet in as support. Both legions took heavy casualties, but such was pleasing to Angron, who had recently begun to enjoy the thought of bloodshed in his name, regardless of the source. After breaking the enemy fleet, the primarchs gave the order to land, and thousands of legionaries began their descent, while the World Eaters fleet maneuvered into advantageous positions relative to the other legion. On the surface, the doomed World Eaters fought with the ferocity they were known for, and the enemy soon fell back. The surface of Istvaan III was covered in vast semi-organic structures, riddled with tunnels, and the two legions fought for weeks to clear them all and obtain compliance. Yet the Astartes won all the same, and the legions began to gather in the ruins of Khry Vanak, once the planetary capital. The World Eaters voxed to their brothers in orbit, boasting of their victory, and awaiting transport.
As the forces of the Twelfth and Nineteenth waited for extraction, many peered up into the skies in hopes of seeing the transports, but a rather different sight presented itself. Moving at the speed of light, not even an Astartes was able to react to the incoming lance fire as the energy beams struck the mustering grounds where the legions waited. The first shot, fired from the Conqueror by Angron's command, killed nearly two thousand Astartes, followed microseconds later by hundreds of other shots from other vessels in orbit. Thousands of Angron's sons died in this first volley, accompanied by nearly twice that number of Raven Guard. In orbit, the rest of the World Eaters fleet turned their attention to the stunned Nineteenth fleet, opening fire on those who had been their allies. Their lances needed time to recharge, and thus it was macrocannon shells that hit the Raven Guard, disabling their shields. This reversal of conventional tactics threw the Raven Guard off-balance, an opening exploited by the World Eaters as they filled the space between their fleets with boarding torpedoes. With the fleet at his command, Angron could have annihilated the Raven Guard in orbit before turning his attention to the helpless Astartes upon the planet's surface, yet victory was not his only goal. Bloodshed had become far more important to him, and there was no better way than to do it face to face; thus thousands of Astartes remained alive on their ships and on Istvaan, prey to be butchered and offered to the voices in the heads of Angron and his sons. To their credit, the Raven Guard reacted swiftly and with the effectiveness their legion was known for, and the World Eaters fleet began to take losses as well. A climactic duel between the two legion flagships ensued, yet the outcome was never in doubt. Not even a Gloriana-class battleship such as Corax's flagship was capable of surviving the relentless barrage striking it from every angle, and it was soon sent crashing down to Istvaan III in a smoking ruin. However, it did not go alone, destroying a veritable fleet before it succumbed to its thousands of wounds.
"Dedicated Wrath to Third battlefleet, surround the Raven's Claw! Merge for the kill!" Lieutenant-Commander Vash Delerax roared, projecting an aura of authority and fear to the mortals manning the bridge. Yet inside he was fuming, stuck commanding his vessel while others were allowed to take part in the slaughter below. Though he was pleased to see the enemy vessel's engines were nearly disabled, he dearly wished to be anywhere else but here. The sound of footsteps came from behind him, and Delerax turned to see his second-in-command, Captain Kordassis, approaching him.
"Kordassis! What news?" Delerax asked. Kordassis remained silent, his expression hidden by his helmet as he strode up to Delerax. The Lieutenant-Commander began to growl out a warning as Kordassis continued to approach, until he felt a stab of pain in his chest. Looking down, Delerax saw a burnt hole where his armored plastron had once been. Collapsing to the ground, he heard the distinctive hum of the ship's Astropathic beacon being activated, an incongruous sound compared to the report of bolt pistols echoing throughout the bridge. Delerax struggled to focus, fighting away the pain to look up at his traitorous lieutenant, who now stood above him with a plasma pistol in hand.
"What are you doing, Kordassis?" the Lieutenant-Commander hissed.
"I am not Kordassis." said the Marine holding the pistol. "I am Alpharius."
On the surface, the remnants of two legions reeled from the knowledge they had been betrayed. Even as the fiery meteors made of shattered fragments from Raven Guard vessels began to rain down, the legions dispersed, seeking shelter in the ruins they had so recently conquered as heroes. They set up ambushes and traps, reaping a brutal toll on the World Eaters who had landed to exterminate the survivors. The battles lasted for weeks, as cousins and brothers fought in the war of all against all. While his sons butchered each other, Angron had entered the wreckage of Corax's flagship in pursuit of his brother. Finally tracking him down, he crushed his brother's head with his own hands. Emerging from the bowels of the massive vessel dragging Corax's body, Angron learned that his legion had finished breaking the enemy fleet, and was waiting for his orders that were not forthcoming. Angron was lost to bliss, the Nails quiet for the first time since he could remember. The World Eater fleet waited for several weeks at Istvaan, unsure of their next course as Angron had not issued any orders. Some busied themselves hunting the surviving Raven Guard, but to no avail, for the sons of Corax were experts at stealth. Others began to fight amongst themselves, seeking to continue the bloodshed. Yet most of the legion remained uneasy. Outside the heat of the moment, they began to ponder what exactly they had done; the destruction of a legion and its primarch made them uneasy. Yet they did not have too much time to ponder, for long-range auspex scans detected an incoming fleet. The forces of the Twelfth began to move into position on the other side of Istvaan III, ready to strike should the foe prove hostile. Even Angron emerged from his quarters, the Nails beginning to bite once more as he learned who the incoming contacts were. The uncertainty gave way to certainty when the Red Tear was identified: the Blood Angels had arrived.
Angron's fury was stoked anew at the knowledge Sanguinius had arrived in the system. As the Nails began to sting once more, the voices rose anew, howling for bloodshed and slaughter, to kill and maim, to make the Blood Angels burn. No thought was given to asking the Blood Angels if the Lion had sent them or what had taken so long, and the World Eaters began to charge their guns, maintaining their position behind Istvaan III as the enemy fleet drew closer. In terms of ships, the Blood Angels far outnumbered the World Eaters, thus requiring a different approach compared to what was used against the Raven Guard. Several ships had been unable to make it in time, too busy looting the shattered Raven Guard ships, and so Angron ordered them to fall dormant for now, allowing the Blood Angels to move into the right position. The unsuspecting Ninth Legion moved closer, and as their first scout ships began to circle around the planet, Angron gave the order to fire. Even as the scouting craft were destroyed, the Twelfth Legion was already moving into position. The fastest ships formed the vanguard, flying straight at Istvaan, while the larger ships of the line remained in position, steadying themselves as they readied their payloads. Just as the vanguard began to enter the atmosphere, the fleet fired. Over sixty capital ships and just under a hundred lesser craft unleashed a devastating broadside into the planet's weakened crust where the lances had struck weeks before. The tortured world of Istvaan III shattered under such monumental firepower into chunks the size of battleships, billions of tons of molten earth and fiery rubble sent flying at the Blood Angels fleet like a blast from a shotgun. The Blood Angels were caught completely by surprise, losing nearly a hundred vessels from the onslaught. With the planet gone, the World Eaters' vanguard were free to close on the reeling Blood Angels, and they began to inflict a fearsome toll on many ships who had survived the blast but at the cost of their void shields.
Within half an hour, the rest of the World Eaters' fleet had moved into position, and many Ninth Legion vessels were disabled before they started firing back. Though the enemy boasted incredible numbers, most were of the same designs, their strengths and weaknesses extensively planned against by years of simulation, and so proved little challenge at first. When the Blood Angels did start to return fire, it was scattered and ineffective compared to the armored thrust pushing through the center of their lines. Dozens of vessels fell prey to boarding parties, their decks filled with brawls as two legions grappled for control. As much as it burned him to wait, Angron sought only the most worthy foe: Sanguinius himself. Thus his flagship Conqueror and the Twelfth Legion elite waited, moving into position above the rest of the fleet, auspexes constantly scanning the confused mass of ships in search of their prey.
Conqueror
Once known as the Gloriana-class battleship Adamant Resolve, the flagship of the Twelfth Legion has served since the days when they were still named War Hounds. Shortly after Angron was reunited with his legion, one of their first expeditions took them to Forge World Sarum in the Golgothan Sector. Located near the impassable galactic core, Sarum had come under attack by a force of diminutive but heavily armored abhumans who sought the resources of the forge world for their own dark designs. However, they proved no match for the Emperor's Astartes, and the World Eaters quickly crushed the invaders. Sarum and its tech-priest rulers swore allegiance to the Imperium of Man, repaying their saviors by resupplying the legion, repairing and upgrading many of their damaged vessels, including the Adamant Resolve.
After the repairs were complete, the vessel hardly resembled its original incarnation. It was covered in heavy armor, countless weapon emplacements, and a massive armored prow capable of breaking even asteroids. Inside the vessel are chambers large enough to contain titans, and dozens of fighting pits for the legionaries to train in. Angron pronounced himself well-pleased, and renamed the vessel, and it has served the legion ever since. The violence of its Machine-Spirit is matched only by that of its captain, Shipmistress Lotara Sarrin, whose brutal tactics have even managed to win Angron's admiration.
When the auspex scanners finally picked up the Red Tear, the Conqueror lurched into action, an unstoppable juggernaut picking up speed as it bulled through the few defiant shots sent its way to slam into the target from above. However, Sanguinius's flagship had fired its emergency lateral thrusters at the last possible second, avoiding the total destruction that would have occurred had the Conqueror struck its spine. However, the impact had still sheared through a great portion of its hulls and collapsed its void shields entirely, and so the flagship of the World Eaters unleashed its next weapon. Like the retiarius of the ancient Romii, the Conqueror unleashed its legendary Ursus Claws, a dozen lances hurled like a trident that pierced the Red Tear along its length, hooking on and dragging it closer. With the two ships locked in a mortal embrace, Angron unleashed his next weapon, the mighty assault companies known as the Red Butchers. Composed of those who had fallen furthest to their own bloodlust, the Red Butchers were all blessed with the Nails, along with mighty terminator armor that rendered them nearly invulnerable during battle. The World Eaters elite marched across the chains of the Ursus claws, entering the enemy flagship and butchering their way through the guts of the enemy vessel. Tens of thousands of mortal crew perished at their hands, smashed beneath their armored boots like insects as their power weapons demolished every obstacle in their path. Their rampage was only brought to a halt by the arrival of Blood Angels terminators, the infamous Crimson Paladins, and the elites of two legions clashed in mortal combat.
As the Red Butchers unleashed hell upon the lower decks, Angron himself had followed them in, accompanied by several units of bodyguards known as the Devourers, there only to soak up enemy firepower as the Gladiator searched for his brother. The thought of bathing in another brother's blood, especially one that had broken his promise and betrayed him like Sanguinius had, thrilled Angron to no end; perhaps once this was over, he would seek out Lion and kill him too, just to let the blood flow. The World Elites elite struggled to keep pace with their primarch as he rampaged towards the bridge in search of the Angel, and they quickly became bogged down fighting the Blood Angels, who swarmed from all sides to assault them. Angron, however, continued on without them. As expected, Sanguinius had been near his bridge, and the weakling had actually halted his charge at the sight of Angron. The Gladiator knew well the value of putting on a good show, and so he had come to this battle prepared. Pieces of black armor cannibalized from Corax's wargear adorned his own plate, while the Ravenlord's scalp covered his Nails, still weeping tears of blood after Angron had flensed it from the pulped remains of his brother's skull. Sanguinius had recovered quickly though, and the two battled across the Red Tear in uncaring rage. Both Blood Angels and World Eaters died at their hands, unnoticed and unmourned in the heat of combat which carried them all the way to the engine room near the Gellar Field generators, kilometers from where they had started their battle hours before. Deep wounds covered both demigods, and they seemed evenly matched.
Angron found himself dazed from enjoyment, even as his body moved automatically as he battled Sanguinius. How could he have never dueled this brother before? The two were both utterly lost to the bloodlust, and so the Gladiator did not even feel it as the Angel got in a lucky blow, sending Angron flying into the generators, which roared to life for several seconds before collapsing again. Yet for those few seconds, as he clambered to his feet and charged, Angron felt his limbs begin to slow. All of a sudden, the euphoria was gone; the voices which had whispered to him throughout the battle had grown silent for one brief moment. But even as the Sire of the World Eaters tried to recover, the Angel was on him. Angron had long wondered which one of them was better, for many men called each of them the Red Angel. He always hated that name. Distracted by the sudden return of his thoughts, Angron had little time to react as Sanguinius flew towards him. Even as he raised his axe Gorefather to block the blow, it never came, for the Angel had swooped behind him. Angron's last thoughts were filled with confusion as he turned, his last sight that of the Spear of Telesto hurtling at him.
The voices returned to him in those last milliseconds, laughing and raging as Angron's life flashed before his eyes. They chanted one thing over and over again. Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows.
Heresy and Siege of Terra: The Betrayers and the Betrayed
"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."
Yates, Poet of Old Earth, M2
Explosive force erupted from Angron's decapitated corpse, energies of the Warp roaring out and drawing the attention of all around. Wherever the dueling demigods had passed, their sons around them had given in to rage, Angron's empathic abilities exploding out to engulf Astartes and mortals alike in blind rage. With his presence gone, the legionaries seemed stunned as the weight they hadn't even realized existed lifted from their minds, and they all turned toward the noise with the incredible reflexes that all Astartes possess. A terrible howl to match the immaterial clamor coming from the primarch's corpse erupted from the throats of the World Eaters nearby as they caught sight of their dead father, yet they did not hurl themselves at their counterparts as would be expected. The World Eaters instead began to flee back to their own ships, pursued all the way by the vengeful Blood Angels. While the rage had abated from the Twelfth Legion, it seemed as though the Ninth was making up for it, and Sanguinius reaped a bloody toll as he slaughtered them like animals. It seemed as though panic and fear had overtaken the legion, though this was not quite true. Confusion more than anything ruled the day, for in their bloodlust, the Blood Angels could not tell apart the red armor of the Ninth Legion from Twelfth Legion armor only covered in blood, and so many World Eaters escaped. A few remaining Devourers even managed to retrieve their primarch's body before fleeing without the head when they were discovered. Despite this, their casualties were immense, rivaled only by the Raven Guard that they had killed.
By the time the last World Eater ships fled, the legion was a shell of its former self, reduced from a hundred and twenty thousand warriors to barely thirty thousand. The ships that had survived the massacre hurled themselves into the Warp without any heading, desperately struggling to stay alive as opposed to consciously heading in a particular direction. However, the Sea of Souls was anything but safe, for while the Immaterium around Istvaan itself was calm like the eye of a hurricane, it was surrounded by tempests of apocalyptic fury, whose tides and winds had been whipped into a frenzy from the death that had taken place. These storms tossed the World Eaters in every direction, though in truth, the legionaries cared little, many recovering from grievous wounds as they relied upon their mortal crews to keep the ship from being overwhelmed by the tides of insanity. The largest contingent was on the Conqueror itself, with nearly ten thousand Astartes aboard the battered flagship, while nearly a hundred other vessels containing varying numbers managed to escape. It seemed as if the very Warp itself was trying to kill them, its fury sparing no ship, and by the time the scattered vessels returned to realspace, another fifth of their number had been lost.
Yet these scattered traitors were not the only surviving sons of Angron. Back on Istvaan, nearly three thousand loyalist World Eaters remained hidden in the caves with their Raven Guard counterparts. The survivors had suffered the most unimaginable betrayal, and the World Eaters in particular were uncertain of their paths. All they knew for sure was that they were no longer sons of Angron, and so with solemn ceremony, they carved off their iconography and daubed over all their markings with the ashes of the dead. Though bereft of the structure of their legion, they remained cohesive, bonded through tragedy, and were utterly sworn to the service of the Emperor. No more would they be the World Eaters: there were only the Blackshields. Thus when the Blood Angels discovered the remaining loyalists, they saw only Astartes with black armor, and so the Blackshields remained undistinguished from their new Raven Guard brothers.
The traitor World Eaters had no such comfort. After repairing their battered fleet as best they could, most ships set sail for Bodt, the last place where the universe had made sense to them. Yet even when they arrived at their muster point, most remained on their ships, uncertain of their course. They had all loathed Angron for his cruelties and abuse, and so their first action was to discard the chains on their weapons, lingering symbols of Angron's slavery. But without his constant commands, the legion seemed lost, for they had grown used to following his orders without question. Now they were forced to think for themselves once more, and many did not like the conclusions they came to. For some, this knowledge was too much, and they departed the system, hurling themselves at nearby systems in pointless displays of rage and destruction against whoever was unlucky enough to be in their path. Many attempted to return to the old days, sailing blindly from system to system in imitation of the glories of the Great Crusade. Still more remained trapped aboard the Conqueror. Many of these were those enslaved to the Nails, including the bulk of the surviving veterans, led by Lhorke himself. The First Captain had taken horrific wounds at the hands of Nassir Amit, the infamous 'Flesh-Tearer', and so as the vessel braved the Warp, his men worked to stabilize his condition. They lacked functional facilities to keep him alive, and so they interred him within a stasis coffin until they could reach their destination. Yet when they emerged from the Warp, they were in uncharted space, west of Istvaan yet still on the edge of the galactic plane. The stars here were unfamiliar and the Astronomican faint, though the legionaries did not know, for they had burned their astropaths out from the trauma of the journey. Thus they were forced to make repeated short jumps, hoping to find civilization.
But these World Eaters discovered something far worse in the midnight reaches of deep space. When the engines finally collapsed, burnt out from the strain, the Conqueror found itself in an uncharted system lit by the baleful unlight of a black dwarf sun that they named Komus, or tomb in the mongrel tongue of Nuceria Angron had forced them to learn. The mortal crew had long since starved to death, and so only Astartes gazed at the empty expanse bereft of planets or life. Trapped without power, inertia carried them on as the gravity of the star pulled their vessel ever closer. Most would have given in to rage or despair, or even hoped against hope. Yet the legionaries felt only resignation, and not even the radiation alarms stirred them from their stupor. No word of the Conqueror ever reached the wider galaxy for many years, and it was not seen again until centuries later, long after the Heresy had ended, though it was all but unrecognizable. Most World Eaters believed it lost, dead alongside the senior leadership, and so each chapter master became a legion master to the scattered XIIth. These scattered survivors were considered outlaws and renegades by both sides, enemies of all humanity, and many traitors sought to turn them to their own ends. However, not all the former sons of Angron were willing to abandon the fight so quickly, chief among them being the Centurion of the 8th Assault Company, Khǎrn.
Khârn the Unbloodied
The warrior known as Khârn the Unbloodied has had a long and storied career within the Twelfth Legion. Originally from the Terrawatt Clans of the Ural Mountains, Khârn quickly rose through the ranks of the War Hounds to become a Centurion, the equivalent of a chapter master in other legions. Khârn's exploits upon the fields of battle soon gained the attention of many, and he became reputed as one of the greatest of all Astartes, his name spoken in the lists of warriors such as Sigismund of the Imperial Fists or Sevatar of the Night Lords.
It is said Angron spent the least amount of time debating whether Khârn should live or die. Khârn was one of the first Astartes to willingly implant himself with the Butcher's Nails, and his undeniable skill at arms meant he was the closest to obtaining Angron's begrudging respect, though Angron still loathed him simultaneously. It was on the fields of Istvaan III where he gained the title 'Unbloodied', for it seemed he was protected by divine power. Blade and bolt rounds bounced off his skin as though it were armor, and his very presence inspired his men to new heights of bloodlust and savagery.
Khârn's forces numbered nearly five thousand, and they refused to give into the ennui and aimlessness gripping the rest of the legion. The Centurion knew the Blood Angels were not the reason their legion had been destroyed: the real one at fault had been Lion El'Jonson. It had been the primarch of the Dark Angels who had set Angron on this path, and for that he would pay. Yet it would not be easy to track down the Lion, for he was a hunter without peer; he would need to be flushed out. Khârn and his forces made for the Forge-World of Sarum, long sworn to the Twelfth, and it was there they resupplied and waited. Consultation with the Redjak Cult, the tech-priests who controlled Sarum, revealed the truth of the universe to Khǎrn and his men. Long had they, and those of the legion implanted with the Nails, been subject to voices in their heads, and the cultists brought them to the center of Sarum. Inside the beating heart of an impossibly vast space waited a warp entity known as Sa'ra'am, who revealed Khârn and his legion were to have been the chosen of Khorne. The daemon spoke of their unkind fate, how the mantle of destiny once meant for the World Eaters now belonged to another. Yet Sa'ra'am promised them revenge and a chance to be the masters of their fate; all they would need to do was spill blood for the blood god, and wait upon Sarum for the appointed time. Khârn assented to this plan, and so he and the rest of his forces marched below the metal skin of Sarum after killing any who would not consent. In the anarchy of the Heresy, the Redjak cult had cast aside the dogma of Mars in favor of pushing the boundaries of technology. The Warp around them howled as its energies were siphoned into the material world, fused with the bodies of legionaries whose superhuman anatomy was mutilated as it struggled to contain the unworldly power. Their skin melted and fused around the weapons still chained to their arms, while their minds became attuned to the war-spirits of destruction and butchery, those simple daemons created with every emotion related to weaponry. Thus Khârn and his followers morphed and changed, their bodies coated with fleshmetal as they became the first Mutilators in the Cult of Destruction, waiting for their time to claim their revenge upon the Lion.
In the fires of the Leonine Heresy, there was no peace to be found. Out in the wider galaxy, the last few warbands of World Eaters slowly died off, their rage but a flickering candle in the darkness of the uncaring universe. The last remnant of Angron's forces died out within seven years of Istvaan, vanished from the galactic stage and long since having ceased to register in either Imperial or Traitor calculations or plans. As Khǎrn's warband had embraced the powers of Chaos, the dark gods would not allow a tool like them to go to waste, and so it was that in 017.M31, Sarum came under attack. The grand battalions of the Iron Warriors arrived in force, led by their dour primarch who sought the resources of the forge world to fuel his war effort. Dozens of other forge worlds had fallen under the sway of the Fourth Legion, their forges turned towards producing legionary armaments, although somehow most of these resources never seemed to reach the frontlines. As always, the sons of Perturabo came in overwhelming numbers as they came to claim the world in the name of the Lion, quickly smashing the meager defensive fleet in orbit above. The Redjak Cultists hurried to unseal the forces of Khǎrn, their sole hope, but the Unbloodied were far less rational than they had been before their corruption. Seeped in the Warp and the blood of many races, the Unbloodied and his men were barely human anymore, twisted and mutated into living weapons nearly unrecognizable as the Astartes they had once been. Their Nails began to sting once more, and the Redjak cult quickly became their first victims as the Butcherhorde of mutilators slaughtered their way up towards the surface where Perturabo and his sons were busy claiming dominion. As the Iron Warriors marched through the streets of Sarum, turning the forges and laboratories into charnel houses, they found themselves set upon by hulking brutes with skin the color of blood and armor, the scraps of Astartes battleplate barely visible underneath blades and weapons of every description that rose from every part of them. Hundreds of Iron Warriors perished within the first few hours, their bolters doing little against the mutilators, and they were soon put to flight, preferring the wrath of their primarch to the certain death that stalked the streets of Sarum. As Khǎrn and his men pursued the remaining Iron Warriors transports fleeing the ruined forges, their rampage was halted by none other than Perturabo himself.
Khârn panted, forcing the rage away even as the Nails stung and burned him for doing so. Ahead of him like an unmoving wall stood the Primarch of the Fourth Legion while the last of his cowardly sons fled past him. The boiling blood of Sa'ra'am coursed through Khârn's veins, an intoxicating mix only strengthened by the addictive bite of the Nails urging him to attack, for the favor of Khorne was upon him. Yet this was a primarch…
As Khârn deliberated his next course of action, Perturabo decided it for him. Land speeders in the iron gray of the Fourth Legion screamed past him, their multi-meltas hissing as they superheated the ground beneath him. The molten metal of the ground bubbled and churned, and Khârn began to sink, roaring and thrashing to free himself. Perturabo's wrist armor hissed and retracted, revealing a flat disk of obsidian stone, which he affixed to the head of his mighty hammer. Taking his time, the Lord of Iron walked up to Khârn, still struggling to free himself.
Raising his hammer, Perturabo brought it down upon Khârn, who raised his arms to defend his head. But the primarch was not aiming at his head. The obsidian-tipped hammer struck Khârn's shoulders. The blow crushed through his fleshmetal exoskeleton, shattering his collarbone and rendering his arm useless, a blow which was swiftly duplicated on the other side. With his ability to defend himself taken away, Khârn could only watch as Perturabo brought the hammer down again. And again. And again.
Within a minute, nothing remained of the Unbloodied. Perturabo straightened up, and looked around. The World Eaters remained where they were, for such martial prowess had impressed even them. The Lord of Olympia removed his helmet and let loose a mighty bellow, to which the mutilators knelt in response, hailing Perturabo and submitting to his commands as an avatar of war, a living weapon without peer.
The daemonic spirits of weaponry and war recognized the Hammer of Olympia as a kindred spirit, willingly obeying him when he commanded them to return to the war at his side. The mutilators kept to themselves, divided among Perturabo's fleet as heavy support, deployed into the deadliest war zones as unstoppable living weapons. Yet the Iron Warriors should have been more careful with such Chaotic power, for their own ranks soon began to fall to the same corruption that permeated the Mutilators. Perturabo's sons began to twist and change: some resembled the mutilators, but others exhibited new mutations and swelling in size as they fused with their armor, consuming ammunition and promethium in place of food as gun-barrels of every type of firearm began to protrude from their skin. Thus did the Cult of Destruction expand as the mutilator techno-virus metamorphosed into a new strain, giving birth to the Obliterators. Perturabo cared little, treating these half-daemonic creatures who had infected his forces with the same callous disregard that he treated the rest of the armies under his command. Yet the World Eaters seemed to care little about their newfound slavery, calmly accepting that Perturabo was more callous if less openly abusive than Angron, and they did not act against him. The Lord of Iron used them as shock troops, locked within the deepest recesses of his vessels, and unleashed into the heart of battle through teleport strikes. For three years they fought under his banner, their twisted forms unrecognizable to the legions they had once called brother. From Paramar to Beta-Garmon III they fought every foe, their numbers dwindling with no way to replace them, for as far as they knew, they were the only World Eaters remaining. The techno-virus continued to spread through the legion, and through the other legions as well, until all traitor forces counted some of the Cult of Destruction in their ranks.
The last of the World Eaters under Perturabo's command perished during the Siege of Terra. The half-daemonic Butcherhorde proved to be unaffected by the Emperor's telaethesic wards, and they reaped a great slaughter on the Imperial Army soldiers guarding the base of the Raven's Gate spaceport. Yet their deaths came not at the hands of the Imperial Army, or even loyalist Astartes defending the monumental defenses. No, the last of the Butcherhorde perished at the hands of the Crimson Fists, the brutal sons of Dorn who came at the last hour to seize the glory of taking the spaceport before the Iron Warriors could fully take it. The arrival of the Seventh infuriated Perturabo more than the deaths of the World Eaters or Iron Warriors under his command, and they were soon forgotten. Thus died the last of the World Eaters, betrayed and unmourned.
Post-Heresy: The Restless Dead
Unlike the rest of the traitor legions, there was no grand retreat from Terra at the end of the Siege. The bodies of the World Eaters lay where they had fallen weeks before, buried beneath piles of corpses across the planet, both loyal and defender, who had died during the greatest battle in the history of Mankind. There were no desperate breakouts, no final betrayals of brothers turning on each other in a bid to escape the atmosphere and flee to the Eye of Terror or other Warp storms for safety. The halls of the Administratum had fallen during the Siege of the Palace, their records destroyed, and so the loyalists were in no position to tally up the dead, World Eater or otherwise. As the years passed and the Scouring commenced, the vengeful Imperials remained focused on the enemies before them, and did not wonder at the absence of the Twelfth Legion. Even when they came across pirates in blue and white livery, most assumed them to be of the Thirteenth Legion, who were known for bearing all sorts of strange colors and symbols.
But there were those that did remember. In the chaos and confusion of the Heresy, many planets went silent. The Blackshields remained active throughout the Scouring, for only they possessed a full roster of worlds once sworn to their former legion. Rumors began to spread of a fleet of black ships descending upon worlds and robbing them of material before destroying them, though most chalked this up to other legions that wore ebony armor, such as the Raven Guard or Iron Hands. The Blackshields remained active throughout the Scouring, though never in any official capacity. They were just another mystery, another source of confusion in the mess in which El'Jonson's heresy had left the galaxy. In the Eye of Terror, the traitor legions had already begun to turn upon each other, each legion vying for favor in the eyes of their dark patrons, while in the Maelstrom, the Ultramarines began to set up their vile kingdom, destroying the xenos and other Chaotic denizens that made their lairs within the vast storm. For a time their dwellings were secure, or at least as secure as any empire within a Warpstorm could be, but this was not to last.
Within a few years, centuries, or perhaps millennia, for time is uncertain in the Warp, their domains of decadence came under assault from mysterious raiders who left only destruction in their wake. Such attacks were paid little attention at first, for there were no survivors to carry the tales, but eventually the scions of Guilliman had to pay attention when Laestrygon itself came under attack. Coming at a time when the Ultramarines were riven by internal division and self-destructive rivalry, a small armada of ships slipped like a dagger of ice into the heart of the realms of excess. Neither bolter nor sorcery proved effective in piercing their black and white armor, and even daemons shuddered and retreated lest they taste true death at the hands of the malicious invaders. The moons of Laestrygon began to fall one by one, and it was not until the eleventh moon was destroyed that the rest of the legion bestirred themselves from their hedonistic revelry and banded together to face this threat. What they faced were Astartes and yet not, warriors few in number that radiated black energy anathematic to the Ultramarines and their daemonic allies. Yet it was inherently chaotic in nature, not akin in the slightest to the pure golden light of the False Emperor and his slaves. This first battle ended in disaster for the disunited Ultramarines, for while they vastly outnumbered their foe, they lacked the invader's unity and sense of purpose. As the last scion of degeneracy fell beneath the strange reptilian axe of the warband's leader, a giant of a man nearly the size of a dreadnought, the dying Astartes's features stretched and warped, his eyes turning a glossy black as the influence of a daemon primarch consumed him.
"Who…are you?" the fallen Astartes hissed in an otherworldly voice, his vocal cords straining to contain the syllables. Above his fallen form towered an Astartes the size of a dreadnought, black and white armor striated with fleshmetal. In his hand he held a dread axe, its shaft a femur and its head a snarling saurid that bit and snapped at the air. The invader said nothing, so Guilliman's puppet spoke again.
"Your rampage must halt, lest you displease me. I have forgiven your trespasses, but only to a point. Rats may steal from my pantry, but they are not allowed to feast at my table." The sputtering gasps of the Ultramarine only exacerbated the rate at which his wounds oozed foul ichor and chemicals from his wounds, a process which intensified as the Dread Astartes planted his boot upon his chest. The warrior leaned down, his helmet melting and shifting to reveal a face bisected diagonally, one half as sable as night and the other bleached beyond even the pallid complexion of a son of Corax. He did not seem to breathe, but still he spoke.
"We will deny you your pleasure and pain. Your kingdoms and your lives are forfeit to the Outcast. I am Kho'ren Kraad, and we are the price of treachery, the brothers betrayed. We are the War Hounds, and all your desires and bonds will be broken."
The Great Game had changed once more. Even as the forces of the War Hounds assaulted the duchies of decadence, so too did the other Chaotic realms feel their wrath. The Brass Citadel came under attack by warriors who targeted and crushed the pyramids of skulls; fates were left unwritten as the Library of Tzeentch felt its walls shatter and crumble under intense bombardment that made the labyrinths of madness quake; the edges of the Garden of Nurgle burned in purifying black flame. All four choirs of the dark gods felt the wrath of the outcasts, and a new domain arose in the wastelands between the realms of Chaos, in those maddening wastelands where none of the Four exert their authority or influence. Nor were these War Hounds a friend to the Imperium, for the realms of Man soon felt their wrath as well. Forge Worlds and industrial systems renowned for efficiency and order soon began to fall to the relentless malice of these new foes. Warbands bearing bisected white and black descended upon isolated worlds, accompanied by malign daemons with horrific hooks that pierced even tank hulls. These Null Knights were wreathed in ebony flame, and even faith in the God-Emperor was no defense against the maddening whispers that broke down even the most disciplined minds. Their identity was soon deduced, for only one legion would dare to utilize Angron's ship. The gods laughed and raged at such hubris, yet have been unwilling or unable to find and destroy the upstart Renegades.
Since the Heresy, the War Hounds have plagued the galaxy, targeting symbols of civilization and order, for theirs is Chaos in its purest, most anarchic form. In battle they are relentless and unstoppable, few where their foes are many, and it is only their small numbers and chaotic nature that have kept them from being a larger threat. They are divided into a number of Sacred Bands led by Anarchs, most of which number less than a thousand. Yet each is a superlative fighter, utterly fearless, and accompanied by horrific daemons whose forms are unlike any of the four major powers. Little is known of their objectives and whereabouts, but one thing is for certain: the War Hounds know they are doomed. It is only a question how much of the galaxy they will drag down with them in their nihilistic fury before they go.
Homeworld, Recruitment, and Gene-seed
To speak of the Twelfth Legion is to speak of two separate and entirely opposed groups. In regard to the Blackshields, those loyalists who once bore the name of World Eaters, little is known of their whereabouts. Reports of unmarked warships raiding both Imperial and Leonine forces were chalked up to pirates or outlaws, yet was such methodical destruction truly the work of scattered raiders? The last confirmed sighting of these loyalists was their departure from Deliverance during the Heresy; however, it is highly unlikely that Astartes such as the betrayed Sons of Angron would permanently go into hiding or entirely leave behind the Imperium they bled and died for. Their location, numbers, or if they are even still around ten thousand years later, is but one of the galaxy's many mysteries, and may indeed never be answered. For the traitor Sons of Angron, their motives and locations are a closely-guarded secret. The Inquisition has done all it can to suppress knowledge of the War Hounds more than any other legion, a task made easier by its small size. Yet such measures are all too necessary, for any knowledge of the Twelfth Legion's doctrines of disorder is far more dangerous to the oppressed citizens of the Imperium than the more esoteric or blatantly wicked beliefs of the other Traitor Legions. The War Hounds are not the berserk psychopaths they were during the Great Crusade: ten thousand years of treachery and war has made them secretive to a degree matched perhaps only by the Dark Angels or Alpha Legion. There is no predicting their behavior or where they will strike next, and their tactics are a terrifying blend of the tactics of other legions, shifting from brutal and forthright during one campaign only in the next to act manipulative and controlling in a manner more reminiscent of the followers of Tzeentch.
The Inquisition believes that underneath their facade of dogmatic anarchism, the War Hounds have made certain compromises in the name of expediency. Underlying all their claims of freedom is the truth that they are hopelessly addicted to the power of Chaos in a ghastly parallel of how they were once addicted to the Butcher's Nails. Their dark patrons give them far too many boons for the legion to ever walk away, and so their slavery remained hidden to them, yet obvious even to other traitor legions, who scorn the War Hounds for their hypocrisy. Such compromises include the nature of War Hound recruitment, for though their ranks are bolstered by the addition of captured renegade Astartes from other legions, most of their recruits are stolen from Imperial systems. The War Hounds target feral worlds, where society has never advanced or even regressed to a more primal state. These worlds are but lightly defended, and make optimal hunting grounds for aspirants who have never known the 'oppression' of government or state control. A more cynical view is that such youths lack the capacity to understand the import of being taken by the War Hounds, never realizing their lives are being corrupted and stolen until it is far too late. The Imperium's wrath is fierce indeed whenever such depredation is discovered, dispatching overwhelming force to exterminate Twelfth Legion raiders whenever they are found. However, the War Hounds are far from cowards, and if discovered, will fight tenaciously to maintain their stolen prize, as was the case on the Black Planet in Segmentum Tempestus.
The Black Planet
Also known as Birmingham, the Black Planet is a primitive world in the galactic south. It receives almost no light from its sun, and its inhabitants are linguistically and culturally isolated, speaking a dialect nearly incomprehensible to the rest of humanity. Its technology has regressed to the level of steam power, utilizing primitive fossil fuels to power their industry, but despite all this, its population is incredibly high, and as such, produces millions of recruits for the Imperial Guard with every Tithe. Such a world is an ideal target for War Hound depredation, and in the ninth century of M41, the Black Planet fell into their clutches. Nearly ninety percent of the planet was massacred, all those who lived in the towns or cities, leaving only the isolated farm communities, which were raided over the following years, their young boys taken and subjected to the agonizing transformation of Astartes gene-enhancement. The cruelties inflicted upon the people of Birmingham resonated and echoed throughout the Warp, and a strike force of Grey Knights led by Castellan Garran Crowe were dispatched to investigate. His forces swiftly liberated Birmingham, battling hook-armed daemons in the ruins of the spaceport as the remaining War Hounds fled the system with the stolen youth of an entire world, leaving behind only smoldering corpses and a strange ebony blade which Crowe retrieved for study.
The War Hounds lack any permanent homeworld, for such an idea is antithetical to their creed of absolute Chaos. This is not entirely unusual, for many warbands are bereft of homeworlds by necessity, generally operating out of fleets; however, the Twelfth Legion takes this a step further, rejecting even ships. The foul ingenuity of Chaos knows no bounds, and thus in order to cross worlds, the War Hounds make extensive use of ritual daggers known as athames. These bewitched blades, made from stone or crude metal, possess the incredible ability to cut through the skein of reality, which enables their warbands to pass through the Warp on foot, traveling vast distances in a matter of days. Only the Anarchs bear these ritual blades, and less than a hundred are known to exist, each soaked in the blood of countless millions in their time. This method of transport allows the traitors to arrive nearly undetected on worlds and are incredibly deadly in combat as well, piercing through the hides of even daemonic foes. All but one warband makes use of this method of travel, the sole exception being the Revenge and its attendant escorts. Few recognize it as the once-proud Conqueror, now reshaped into a ship utterly unlike any other Imperial or Xenotic vessel. Both the vessels of the War Hounds along with their armor itself are steeped in corruption, a unique variant that appears to be equally effective against Chaotic and non-Chaotic foes. The most common manifestation of this unholy favor is the presence of ebony flames coating their armor, a liminal halo that grows with favor and rank. This smoldering corruption shields and protects at the cost of stealth, though most War Hounds are able to control and disable it. It is believed that their power armor absorbs the energies of the Warp much like a flower absorbs sunlight, redirecting it and turning it to a more useful form, and, upon death, this flame engulfs their bodies, ensuring few traces are left behind. So too is each athame wreathed in the same unholy power which allows the War Hounds access to not only realspace, but also the realms of the Undivided and Outcast.
The Four dark gods may claim dominion over the Warp as a whole, but even were one to accept this blatantly false claim, the fact remains their domains wax and wane in accordance with their influence, and so there are many regions where their authority merges and splits to form strange conglomerate realms. Such areas are usually classified as Chaos Undivided, but minor, separate powers do occasionally claim authority here as well, an example of this being the infamous Forge of Souls. The territories of the War Hounds are carefully concealed within these borderlands, where authority and control do not exist and there is only the ephemeral chaos of the warp. These holdings would surely be destroyed by rival Chaos powers were their location discovered, but they remain hidden in tides of shadows and unreality, infinitely far from the rival gods yet inescapably close. These holdings exist in many scattered places across the warp, and the greatest of these is known as Skalathrax.
Skalathrax
Also known as Scelus, the largest of the War Hounds' domains is a realm embodying the elemental madness of Chaos, a horrific shadow realm to which even the term 'daemon world' does not do justice. Though relative distance means absolutely nothing in the Warp, the best description of its location is that it lies in the Ginnungagap, the parts of the Warp cast in eternal gloom from the light of the Astronomican. The Emperor's Firetide is relatively stable, creating a domain of order which stretches in a narrow pillar of fire across the Warp, its brilliant light casting ever-shifting eclipse shadows wherever it is blocked by a celestial object. Thus Skalathrax remains hidden in many places simultaneously, moving and shifting across the umbral pockets of the Ginnungagap, a useful trait the legion has long taken advantage of to slip in and out of the Immaterium at will. Its proximity to the Firetide means few servants of Chaos dare travel close, and so it remains hidden and accessible only to those who know how to get there.
Scelus itself has no structures upon the world, and little stable ground on which to build them. It is a shadow realm haunted by banished souls and pervaded by ethereal fog, rendering everything insubstantial and uncertain as areas thought claimed and secure become shrouded in the blink of an eye. In the center of Scelus is a rift in unreality, an abyss within an abyss that leads into the strange and nightmarish realms of their dark patrons, though only the War Hounds (and perhaps not even them) know precisely where it leads. Only the leaders of the War Hounds are permitted to stay for long, meeting on the few vessels of the legion that remain under control of Legion Champion Kraad, though even his forces spend little time there. Skalathrax exists on the edge of the Deep Warp, a realm treacherous to even the War Hounds, but the upper layers of this pocket realm is thought to be 'closer' to the Maelstrom than the Eye of Terror. However, the War Hounds have proven many times they are capable of emerging from any of these immaterial pockets, and no outsiders have ever returned after entering these shadows.
The War Hounds waste little time when training new aspirants. In cases involving renegade and traitor Astartes, they are taken to one of the many subrealms hidden within the Ginnungagap. Little is known of what horrors they undergo there, but it is suspected torture plays a large role, sending the traitor from sanity to insanity and back again. Only those who have cast aside all shackles, including those of the mind, are worthy to fight alongside the true legionaries of the War Hounds. Even less is known of new recruits, but they age incredibly quickly, picking up the skills and abilities of veterans dozens of times their age in a matter of months. These new recruits are also branded with eye-watering tattoos in maddening and blasphemous symbols, and the legionaries gain new tattoos for each campaign they successfully prosecute.
Almost nothing is known of the current state of the Twelfth Legion's gene-seed. Angron's genetic legacy was incredibly pure, with no known defects, and thus the legion was larger than average during the days of the Great Crusade. The legion was known for its brotherhood and loyalty, especially to its primarch, along with heightened aggression, but none of these traits constituted a flaw or unique tendency, for other legions exhibited similar traits. Thus the Inquisition is at a loss as to whether gene-seed played a part in the legion's downfall,and efforts in obtaining gene-seed from current legionaries has proved unsuccessful. However, the scholars of the Holy Ordos believe there must be some sort of genetic defect that caused the Twelfth to turn its back on the Emperor, for they have persisted in their heresies even despite the removal of their primarch's corruptive influence and the death of all legionaries implanted with the Butcher's Nails. Likewise, the unholy powers wielded by the Twelfth appear to be inherently parasitic, draining their users of vitality, and the few War Hounds who fight without helmets are uniformly pale. Perhaps only Kho'ren Kraad knows the true state of his legion's genetics, for he is the only known War Hound to have lived through the dark days of the Leonine Heresy.
Combat Doctrines and Organization
Little information exists of the War Hounds combat disposition, either in the 41st Millennium or in ages past. However, the Inquisition is nothing if not thorough, and although the nature of Chaos makes certainties impossible, circumstantial evidence has enabled the Holy Ordos to piece together rough estimates. It is believed the War Hounds are less than ten thousand strong, by far the smallest of any legion, and thus they do not deploy as chapters or even companies most of the time, operating in small cells no larger than a couple of squads through which they foment rebellion and sedition across the galaxy. It is believed each group is led by an Anarch, who is responsible for recruiting and training his successors known as the Agitor, those War Hounds who show particular aptitude and devotion to the path of the Renegade. Yet even these cells are not exempt from treachery, and new Anarchs only take command after brutally wresting control from the previous leader. The defeated are often consumed bodily by their treacherous lieutenants, ensuring that their knowledge lives on even while their weakness is expunged.
Though the Inquisition believes Kho'ren Kraad is the nominal leader of the Twelfth Legion based on his control of the Revenge, the legion has ostensibly never operated as a legion, nor is there any proof of him issuing orders to other legion forces. As befits a legion dedicated to anarchy, command has devolved into the hands of the Arch-Anarchs. There are but eleven Arch-Anarchs, who form an unholy syndicate; such a commune rotates in leadership as each one takes turns acting as a sort of executive officer for varying lengths of time. Underneath them are the autonomous collective composed of the myriad Anarchs, their Agitor lieutenants, and the Doomed Ones, who form the bulk of any War Hounds force. Each Arch-Anarch commands one of the eleven Sacred Bands, and these Bands are independent in all matters. Even Kho'ren is only first among equals, and the Imperium quakes at the thought of all War Hounds acting in concert. Yet there has been no recorded conflict between two Bands, a feat unmatched by the other Traitor legions. The Inquisition believes such a feat to be impossible for servants of the Ruinous Powers, and it seems more likely that disagreements are settled through feats of strength so as to preserve the legion's numbers.
Supplementing the Astartes of the legion are daemons of a strange and nightmarish genus. These empyreal abominations defy the fourfold categorization more commonly seen with other Chaotic powers. From insectoid steeds to hook-handed horrors, their appearances are myriad yet uniformly paradoxical and unsettling, a contradiction to sanity even compared to other mad denizens of the Warp. These parasitic cohorts are unsettling to be around, clearly daemonic and yet not, and their presence inspires a similar sort of solipsistic numbness seen in the presence of Blanks. Even other daemons and mortals sworn to other Chaotic powers abhor and detest these creatures. Renegade Daemon princes are rare, though not unheard of.
Zarrog the Undying
Despite the claims of adherents of the Four, other Chaotic powers do still exist in the Warp. Though their powers pale in comparison, they still remain deadly threats, minor gods whose powers far exceed mortal psykers and who are equally capable of elevating worthies to daemon princedom. As sworn foes of the Four, the War Hounds have correspondingly fewer daemonic allies, as generally only the desperate would consider such a partnership. Renegade Princes inevitably hide their pasts to minimize weakness after they Ascend, though they are not always fully successful. What little information that is known on these daemons has been recorded in battle by the Ordo Malleus and the Grey Knights, who keep such forbidden lore locked away upon Titan.
One such Renegade Prince is the walking atrocity known as Zarrog the Undying. Once a mortal prince of an icy feudal world, the being now known as Zarrog earned his ascension through his instrumental role in damning his world when he slew an animalistic guardian spirit and absorbed its might. Ascending without the approval or intervention of the Four, Zarrog would have become yet another minor power, doomed to be absorbed into another Ruinous Choir had he not joined with the War Hounds. Since then, he has taken part in innumerable slaughters alongside the Sacred Band of Anarch Kathal, and is particularly opposed to forces of Nurgle for reasons known only to him.
Just as the War Hounds are the smallest of all legions, so too do they have the fewest allies: none. They refuse to ally with any who willingly bear the chains they cast off so long ago, counting only upon themselves, for not even mortal cultists accompany the Anarchs to battle. The legion does secretly support revolutionaries of every stripe, but these deluded fools are no more than puppets used to further their goals. Not even the neutral Chaos powers will fight by their side: the pragmatic Iron Warriors look down with scorn upon the War Hounds, refusing to form an alliance out of pride, while the Black Templars dare not risk the wrath of the Four by allying with the Outcast. All four legions aligned to the major gods despise the War Hounds, a hatred which runs especially deep with the Blood Angels. The rivalry between the IXth and XIIth goes back to the day their primarchs met, worsened to utter hatred at Istvaan, and has persisted since then. Bloody campaigns known as Wars of Wrath have erupted many times in the Warp as Sacred Bands descend from the Ginnungagap to disrupt the efforts of the Blood Angels and deny them the skulls they seek. Likewise, the Ultramarines are frustrated to no end by the punitive raids inflicted upon the Duchies of Decadence by Kraad's forces. Imperial worlds are equally opposed due to the Chaos the War Hounds bring with them and represent, just as the War Hounds hate and despise them for spreading authority and tyranny. Unthinking obedience and servitude is utter anathema to the creed of Anarchy spread by the Twelfth, and none exemplify this more than the Raven Guard. Both legions despite each other for the events of Istvaan, and their eternal grudge will never end until either side is utterly destroyed. The legion also despises the forces of the Mechanicus with a fierce hatred due to the ingrained command codes and logic engines inherent to all the forces of Mars. The War Hounds also retain the instinctual hatred of xenos common to all Astartes.
Beliefs and Warcry
Rejecting authority and ties of every kind, the warbands of the Twelfth Legion are free associations of equals, an appealing thought to other Astartes, both loyal and traitor, who chafe under the harsh controls of their legions. Or at least, that is the impression they would like to give. The truth is the complete absence of authority is rightly seen as a death-blow to efficiency, and so the Twelfth Legion has been forced to form factions in the name of utility, competing ideologies which are pervasive throughout the Eleven Sacred Bands. The legion has sublimated the legacies of many betrayals into various philosophical outlooks, though their beliefs can be split into two major camps, divided based on their preferred foes and methods of war. Both are named after a prominent Chaos Lord in those dark and forgotten days after the Heresy but before the arrival of Legion Champion Kho'ren. The teachings and ideals of these semi-mythical captains have lived on in their successors, and have led the legion to be divided in their strategies, though it is not uncommon for Sacred Bands to include Astartes from both schools of thought.
The Necohites are the more secular of the two schools, if secular can be used to describe Chaos worshippers. They believe the legion should wage war on and hate everyone equally, regardless of personal grudges or feelings. They have fought more with the Imperium than with Chaos or xenos, and are willing to put aside their differences in order to help bring down foes such as the Ecclesiarchy. This includes even working in tandem as partners (not allies) to support foes known for their antipathy such as the Blood Angels or Ultramarines. The Necohites are advocates of extreme detachment, including to their own ideals; thus they have even made use of their sworn enemies' tactics. The Necohite War Hounds have long sought to dissolve the religious bonds that bind the citizens of the Imperium, and have succeeded many times, including most notably during the Age of Apostasy.
Plague of Unbelief
The chaos of the Age of Apostasy did not end with the ascension of Goge Vandire to the position of Ecclesiarch. Many powerful cardinals had grown wealthy under the corrupt administration of Sebastian Thor, and they would not give up their personal armies so easily. One such prelate, Cardinal Dolan of Chirosius, took advantage of the lapse in communications brought about by Warp Storms to expand his holdings, and soon over fifty worlds were forcibly annexed into his diocese. His armies were assisted by the covert aid of Agitor Kanath and his Doomed Ones, who advised the Cardinal while disguised as Raven Guard.
Under Kanath's instructions, Dolan began to make examples out of those members of the Ecclesiarchy who opposed him. Public trials and burnings became commonplace, and many holy men were put to death, including the noble Confessor Bucharis. Yet this was the beginning of the end of Dolan, for under Kathal's advice, Dolan had allowed Bucharis to speak at trial, and his rhetoric stirred up rebellion in every world it was broadcast to. Chirosian forces found themselves beset on all sides, including from the Word Bearers of Colchis, who sought to cement Ecclesiarch Vandire's control over rebellious dioceses.
Cardinal Dolan was eventually captured and executed, torn to pieces by a mob. The Word Bearers' heavy-handed suppression of the rebellion and subsequent subordination of Chiros to Ophelia VII left lingering resentment against both the Imperium and the Ecclesiarchy. Though they dared not rise in rebellion, tithes of the faithful and faith in the God-Emperor began to dwindle. Kathal gained the rank of Anarch for his misdeeds, and his forces escaped in the confusion without anyone even knowing they were there, having achieved their goals of weakening the government and faith of multiple sectors.
In contrast to the Necohite's hatred of faith stands the Zuvassines. Also known as the Spoilers or Undoers, the adherents of this philosophy take malicious joy in turning upon their allies. In their presence, plans go awry, guns jam and weapons shatter, and it seems as though their foes are cursed with the worst luck. The Zuvassines take particular pleasure in interrupting ongoing conflicts, acting as a third party that aids one side only to prolong the conflict by rendering aid to the foes they were until recently fighting. These renegades revel in the confusion and misery of others, even subverting other Chaos cults and turning them against their own allies. The Zuvassines have most often fought other Chaotic powers, especially the Blood Angels, and hold more tightly to their grudges against the other traitor legions, whom they see as a far greater threat to their ideals than the Imperium.
Despite these differences, the War Hounds are united by self-hatred. They fuse violence without rage, scheming without hope, and decay without rebirth in an excess of loathing, a mockery of the Four and yet embodying the true nature of Chaos more than any others. The practice of corpse mutilation and cannibalism is rampant in the legion, one final insult to the fallen, and the memory of Angron is universally hated. The Necohites and Zuvassines are united in their belief that Angron's strategy of feigning to be wild only resulted in the legion having no allies before or during the Heresy, a somewhat ironic accusation considering neither faction has made any attempts to form any real alliances in accordance with their Chaotic nature. It is believed that the legion does not know any other way, venting their frustration in nihilistic fury and malicious spite on all foes, including other Undivided forces. However, despite this revulsion for Chaos as oppression under a different name, the War Hounds are undoubtably slaves to darkness like all the other legions. The most useful metaphor in describing this state of being is the Wheel of Chaos, a debased symbol often seen carved into armor or flesh of traitors. All Inquisitors are familiar with the four major spokes of the Octet which represent the Four Ruinous Powers. But certain Radicals have theorized the four other spokes represent minor powers, or combinations of the Four major powers. Where rage and despair at one's circumstances in life meet, Nihilism is birthed; where despair at life and desire for improvement at any cost merge, Ruination and Envy stalk; where hubris and hope combine, Anarchy proliferates as the selfish think only of themselves; where hope for the future and fury at obstacles stopping this future join hands, Oppression is unleashed. The eight spokes constantly chase each other around, each seeking to be on top only to be toppled and replaced, again and again and again. The Wheel keeps on turning, forever changing yet always in the same state of Chaos. And at the center of this unholy wheel sits malignancy, part of the wheel and yet separate, an axle that constrains the entire structure yet gives it purpose. Only the most far gone Radicals dare to speculate on the nature of this central axle, or who or what may best typify it; however, it is clear that despite their pretensions, the War Hounds do not represent this power, nor is it certain if it even exists, for this may well be the ramblings of the mad. No true consensus has been reached, but if this theory is true, then the Twelfth are most likely the aspect of Nihilism, as seen through the actions of the Necohites, though an argument can be made that the Zuvassine philosophy is closer to that of Anarchy.
Before the Heresy, the War Hounds bore white and blue livery, which Angron kept in place after assuming command, only changing their sigil into the infamous symbol of a set of jaws devouring a world upon their pauldrons. After the Heresy, the legion's colors gradually shifted as the white became paler and the blue darkened to black. The Necohites wear armor of white and black, with no symbol upon their shoulder. In contrast, the Zuvassines wear black and white armor, and upon their shoulders sits a double-ended upsilon symbol, though it is most often intentionally left incomplete. The forces of Kho'ren bear mixed colors, merging into a passionless gray. All War-Hounds fight in an utter silence, and even their armor or the ebony flames limning it makes no noise.
Lhorke sat up. The last thing he remembered, he had been carried to his vessel by his loyal brothers. The Nails and pain had been almost too much, but it was all gone now. Looking down, Lhorke was startled to see his own body, motionless and bloody within a stasis coffin, which lay deactivated like the rest of the ship systems. The ship itself was dark beyond compare, yet somehow Lhorke had little trouble in seeing. Am I dead, he wondered to himself.
Welcome, Lhorke. A voice echoed in the World Eater's head, a voice of pure terror and insanity, yet utterly emotionless. I have summoned you here…for a purpose.
"Nobody summons me." Lhorke spat through his insubstantial lips.
Then it pleases me to be the first. You may call me the Tyrant Star, or the Chaos-bringer. It does not matter. This is my command. You are to be reborn, a champion of my own making who will remove all that stands in my way.
"Why should I? What's in it for me?"
Perhaps… I misjudged you. Proceed, then, on your way to oblivion. The torture continued forever and without end, and in the depths of this indescribable anguish, Lhorke finally broke, conceding in his heart of hearts. In that instant the pain vanished, no time at all having passed. Excellent. Now, Lhorke, the source of your new power awaits.
Looking around, Lhorke saw the crippled shell of his real body rise into the air. Unearthly black flames lit the room, revealing the presence of countless other World Eaters, their bodies wreathed in black flame that flickered as it warped and changed their armor. Looking down, Lhorke saw his own body dissolving and coagulating as it merged with the stasis coffin machinery. He was more machine than man now, having grown in size to rival even a dreadnought. The malicious voice had stopped now, leaving only a deathly stillness. The World Eaters around Lhorke began to crawl towards the corpse at the feet of the reborn legion master. Looking down at the body, Lhorke realized it was the headless corpse of their primarch. For some reason, seeing his gene-father's defiled body didn't seem to matter much; Lhorke felt his mind assailed by a strange feeling emanating both from within and without, coming off of his brothers around him. After several seconds of confusion, he finally realized the sensation. They were ravenously hungry, and so was he.
A/N: The World Eaters, or should I say War Hounds, are utterly unlike any of the legions that have come before them. As evidenced in the Raven Guard index, losing a primarch can really mess up a legion, and while they may have a lot of power, they are now incredibly few in number. As always, be on the lookout for references, and feel free to leave comments and reviews, I love to read them. Sharrowkyn, out.