Maeleum Datum : 444.M35
On the verge of the Eye of Terror, where the light of the Astronomican met the roiling tides of half-reality of the great Warp Storm, were the Radiant Worlds. There was the one front of the Long War where deceit, intrigue and corruption had no place : only the clash of raw, unthinkably powerful psychic energy. The Firetide of the Astronomican swept over the Radiant Worlds, scorching them clean of life, while the storms of Chaos raged against the Anathema's brilliance.
Of all the powers in the Eye, only one dared to brave the Firetide to bring war to the Emperor's own light : Angron, the Prince of Blood, and the Khornate infernal legions that followed in his wake. Since the days of the Broken Conclave, the Daemon Primarch of the World Eaters had waged the Radiant War, a conflict of truly mythical nature and proportions, whose smallest skirmishes made a mockery of the greatest battles of the Horus Heresy.
Though he was the most powerful daemon of Khorne involved in the Radiant War, Angron didn't really 'lead' the forces of Chaos. His mind had been almost completely destroyed by his ascension on Nuceria and banishment during the Siege of Terra, and the shreds of sanity he'd regained since had been lost during the Broken Conclave. Rather than give commands to the Legions of Blood, the Daemon Primarch rampaged across the frontlines of the War, crushing everything in his path and bellowing his hatred for the father that had denied him death millennia ago.
Aside from Khorne's Legions of Blood, a handful of mortals also fought in the Radiant War. Those of the World Eaters who were most steeped in the Warp made pilgrimage to the Radiant Worlds in order to dedicate themselves to this holy crusade against the False Emperor's light, as did especially powerful human and mutant warriors. Such apostles of the Blood God were richly rewarded by their divine patron, granted weapons and armor with which they could fight the angelic hosts of the Anathema on equal ground.
Alongside the ships of bones and brass that carried the Legions of Blood from one battlefield to the next sailed a ship that had first been built in the orbital dockyards of sacred Mars itself : the Conqueror, Gloriana-Class battleship and flagship of the Twelfth Legion. The warship had changed greatly since the start of the Heresy : now it was a terrifying daemonship, its malevolent sentience fused with the brilliant tactical mind of its former captain, Lotara Sarrin, the Blood Rose, who sat on her command throne, an accursed eidolon of blood, shadow and wrath, on the very threshold of full-blown daemonhood herself.
Over the centuries, many brave or foolish scholars of Ruin had sought to investigate the Radiant Worlds, and the forces of the Astronomican in particular. Almost none of them had ever returned, consumed by the Firetide or slaughtered by the hordes of Khorne, but some lore about the Emperor's Radiant Host had still made it back to the other powers of the Eye of Terror. In time, these pieces of knowledge were compiled together by Horusian Cabalites – for the Prince of the Eye was always searching for more information about his father and enemy.
The fires of the Astronomican were powered by the sacrifices of thousands of psykers, their life-force ripped from them in order to keep the Great Beacon lit so that it might guide the Imperium's ships through the Warp. However, the belief of trillions of souls regarding it as the Emperor's Light had altered their nature. Thanks to Sanguinius being so prevalent in the theology of the Ecclesiarchy, angelic iconography was prominent in most versions of the Imperial Creed, and the hosts of the Astronomican thus appeared in angelic forms as well, not too different from the way ancient depictions of Hell's denizens had shaped the appearance of the Daemons of Chaos.
The Host of the Astronomican was therefore composed of billions of pure, merciless angels of fire and lightning, driven by holy zeal and hatred of the impure. They flew among the Radiant Worlds or were carried by the ghosts of martyr-ships, lost to the Warp in the course of their duties to the God-Emperor and given a new half-existence in order to prosecute the Radiant War, crewed by faceless ghosts of the Imperial Navy condemned to an eternity of service. Though the angels were entirely devoid of individuality, there were ranks among them, their substance shaped to fit particular purposes in their endless conflict against the legions of Chaos.
On very rare occasions, a Firetide angel had been captured by curious Sorcerers. Binding them was extremely difficult, as no standard daemonology circle could contain them, but with chains forged of infernal steel and drenched in the blood of still-living Blanks, they could be contained. Spiritual vivisection had revealed that every angel was composed of the alloyed souls of dead Imperials who had perished with the name of the God-Emperor on their lips, their immortal essence claimed by the Astronomican before being broken apart and remade into these faceless divine warriors.
To the Traitor Legions, this discovery was another proof of the Emperor's lies, and the true nature of His plan for Mankind as fodder for His own divine ascension. Many unflattering comparisons were drawn between the so-called God-Emperor and the Inferna Astra, whose daemonic radiance broke minds and flesh alike to create mindless thralls of the living suns.
Out of a dark sense of humor, the Cabalites decided to use names from the ancient and long-forbidden faiths of Old Earth to describe the differenty types of angelic spirits that made up the Host, as one more reminder of the Master of Mankind's endless hypocrisy.
The Seraphim, the Most Holy, were the generals of the Host, its champions and warlords. They were made from the immortal essences of the greatest commanders of the Imperium : Space Marine Praetors, Astra Militarum generals, Imperial Navy Admirals, Militant Cardinals of the Ecclesiarchy and the like. Shaped from blinding light into the aspect of many-winged angels, they tore through the ranks of the Blood Legions with impunity and clashed against the Bloodthirsters of Khorne, the shockwaves of their duels levelling mountains.
The Cherubim, the Guardians, served as the vanguard and shocktroops of the Host. In life, they'd been Space Marines of the Loyalist Legions, who had died in battle against the enemies of the Imperium. In death, the last trappings of mortality had been stripped from them, replaced by the image of the Angels of Death the Ecclesiarchy had cultivated on a million worlds for generations. They were figures of towering human perfection rendered in lightning and fiery wings, with none of the brutish features that most transhuman warriors possessed, for how could His angels be anything but perfect ?
The Ofanim, the Wheels, were created from the souls of Inquisitors and Judges. Hooded silhouettes, thin to the point of almost being skeletal, they projected an aura around them that weakened daemons and strengthened the other seraphic spirits, drawn from the holy terror they inspired in the Imperium's entire population. Their name came from how swiftly they could move, not just across a particular battlefield but also between the fronts of the Radiant War, in an echo of the belief that the Ordos and the Arbites were always watching.
The Elohim, the Powers, were nearly as rare as the Seraphim, for they were forged from the souls of soul-bond Imperial psykers whose spirits had been rescued from the hungry maws of daemons upon their heroic deaths in battle. The fear and hatred of the psyker shaped them, giving them an eldritch aspect that made them the most terrifying of all the Host's angels. Chains of duty hang from their unknowable shapes, the only part of them that could be held in mortal memory for more than a moment. They were the artillery of the Host, raining desolation upon daemonic hordes from afar.
The Malakim, the Virtues, made up the rank and file of the Host. Each was an amalgmation of the souls of dead soldiers of the Astra Militarum, in the guise of a seraphic spirit with two wings of light and a body of silver and gold. Armed with a spear and a shield, they flew in perfect formations, the smallest of which numbered in the thousands, while the greatest could cover entire continents with their massed numbers. They had no fear, no doubt, no ability to disobey the commands of the Seraphim – they had no will, no emotion, no thought. The Imperium's perfect soldiers : fearless and faceless.
The Radiant War had raged since the end of the Horus Heresy, when the Emperor had been trapped on the Golden Throne by His sons in order to preserve the last guttering spark of His existence. On some of the most violently disputed worlds, entire continents had formed covered in the bones of dead angels and daemons, their essences intertwined and trapped, unable to dissipate. Such was the scale of the divine conflict that it echoed in the dreams of the cults of the World Eaters, showing them a promised afterlife where they would contine the struggle against the very incarnation of the oppression and slavery they fought against in life.
Around a century and a half after the Ruin of Commoragh, however, something happened that changed the course of the Radiant War forever. In the years since the doom of the Dark City, Slaanesh had grown steadily more powerful, digesting the bounty of Drukhari souls and feasting on yet more horrors committed by his followers. This infuriated Khorne, who despised the Youngest God above all else save the Anathema itself. Though the secession of Pacificus had fuelled his own might, and the galaxy echoed with thousands of smaller conflicts which all served him in the end, the Lord of Skulls couldn't let his younger sibling scoring such a blow in the Long War go unanswered.
And so the God of War had brooded and schemed, for though he was the most direct of the Ruinous Pantheon, his was all the cunning and imagination with which mortals had killed one another since the dawn of sentient life. A plan was wrought, and enacted.
In the Radiant Worlds, the Daemon Primarch Angron felt a tug, that became a pull, that became an order. The will of the Blood God was not made clear to him through visions or divine decrees, but by the brutal command of a cruel master to his hunting hound, promising only pain if the hound refused. Once, the very idea would have enraged the Lord of the Red Sands, but by now, all thoughts of rebellion had long been beaten out of the Prince of Blood, who sought only the false solace of slaughter. Now, that futile pursuit was focused on a name, burned into his tormented mind by his divine patron : Imperius, the Voice of the Astronomican.
Among the countless, faceless creatures of the Host of the Astronomican, Imperius stood unique in that it appeared to possess sentience and individuality. As the most powerful of the Seraphim, it claimed to speak for the God-Emperor, its thunderous voice echoing across entire daemon worlds as it proclaimed the will of its distant master. There was some debate among the scholars of the Eye as to whether Imperius truly was some avatar of the False Emperor, a mouthpiece through which He could speak despite being trapped on the Golden Throne, or just one more random manifestation of the Firetide, created by the desperate prayers of the Imperials for their Lord to guide them.
Angron, however, cared not for such theological debates. Khorne had demanded Imperius' skull, and the Daemon Primarch would deliver it to him. The Daemon Primarch's aimless rampage had been given a target, and he tore through the ranks of the Host like a meteor, sensing the location of Imperius at all times thanks to Khorne's command. Gorefather tore through the ranks of the Malakim, and the Black Blade drank deep of the golden vitae of the Cherubim who tried to stop the rampage of the Prince of Blood.
Imperius swiftly realized its peril, as well as the opportunity it represented. It withdrew deep in the Radiant Worlds, not out of cowardice, for it was as unable of fear as any other angel of the Astronomican, but in order to force Angron to move far beyond the nominal lines of the Radiant War. With its voice of golden thunder, Imperium commanded the Host to move to cut off Angron and the daemonic horde that had managed to follow him off from the rest of the Legions of Blood.
Perhaps in time Angron might have managed to fight his way to Imperius, though the effort would likely have weakened him to the point the Voice of the Astronomican could have defeated him. But Khorne had other plans. In truth, and entirely without his knowledge, Angron had never been anything more than a distraction to draw the attention of the Host's commander. From the Realm of Blood, Khorne sent another agent, one who had spent the last decades (though time meant nothing in the Warp) proving his worth in the endless battleground at the foot of the Skull Throne.
Drazhar, once known as Arhra, Phoenix Lord of the Striking Scorpions, then as the Executioner of the Incubi Temples, had undergone his third rebirth in the fires of Khorne's domain. The last guttering spark of Asuryan's fire in his soul had been smothered and replaced with the raging inferno of the Blood God's power, heralding Drazhar's transformation into a Daemon Prince of Khorne. His aspect was little changed from his days as the Executioner, though his black armor was now arterial red, and the skull-rune of Khorne was emblazoned in his crested helmet.
As Imperius sent more and more of its reserves at Angron in order to defeat him, Drazhar struck at Imperius' stronghold from another direction. The Daemon Prince was accompanied by eight Exalted Bloodthirsters of Khorne, who shattered the walls of Imperius' fortress and opened the path for him to confront the Voice. The ensuing battle was brutal but swift, for Imperius was no martial spirit. Imperius was slain by Drazhar, who departed the Radiant Worlds and returned to Khorne's realm in order to present his enemy's golden skull to his new master. Angron was robbed of his purpose and the tantalizing promise of relief once more, his rage surging even higher in response, and he continued his rampage with renewed vigor, while the Host was suddenly deprived of its overall commander, allowing the Legions of Blood to gain ground.
The Radiant War was the greatest of the fronts where the slaves of the Blood God waged the Long War, for every victory they scored against the Hosts of the Astronomican resulted in disturbances in the beacon's guiding light. Imperius' death was the single greatest victory won by the champions of Khorne since the conflict's inception, and its consequences were accordingly cataclysmic.
The Astronomican's light weakened across the entire galaxy, with entire Sectors being plunged into spiritual darkness as a result. Hundreds of thousands of ships were lost to the Warp, tearing apart the fragile web of transportation on which the Imperium's structure rested. Star systems starved, while cut off from the rest of the Imperium and aware of the difficulties its armies would face to reach them, numerous planets rose up against their Imperial rulers. Space Marine forces were sent en masse to quell these uprisings, their Librarians being somewhat able to guide their ships through the darkness that had befallen the Sea of Souls, but they couldn't be everywhere at once.
The Century of Rebellions had begun, and on his Throne of Skulls, Khorne beheld the results of his plan and smiled.
AN : And here is Khorne's reaction to Slaanesh getting a headstart in the Great Game. The names for the categories of the Astronomican angels are lifted right out of the TTRPG In Nomine, which I assumed lifted them from the Bible.
As several of you noted, yes, I did wipe out the ancestors of the Tau in the last chapter by mentioning off-hand that the Drukhari had enslaved their entire population. If you are a fan of the faction, sorry about that. I promise they'll get more screentime in the next chapter of the Roboutian Heresy (I am going to need to do a lot of research to get them right, even with the ... let's say, alterations I have made to their history).
Next up, it will be Nurgle's turn. I have an idea for Grandfather's move, but it needs a lot of fleshing out. If you have ideas of your own for Nurgle or Tzeentch, don't hesitate to mention them in your reviews.
Zahariel out.