The Roboutian Heresy

by Zahariel

Inspired by the great Dornian Heresy of Aurelius Rex, here is an alternate timeline to the Warhammer 40000 universe, where Guilliman turned traitor instead of Horus, and led half the Legions in rebellion against the Emperor. The Index Astartes are done for all Legions. Now, the Times of Ending have begun ... Also has a TV Tropes page now !

11. Index Astartes : World Eaters

I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.

Inspired by the Dornian Heresy, by Aurelius Rex.

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Index Astartes – World Eaters : the Honorable Ones

Of all the nine loyal Legions, none are as respected by the human population of the Imperium as the World Eaters. In them flows the wrath of their Primarch at the galaxy's injustices, contained by discipline and channelled toward a greater purpose until it is time to unleash it upon the Emperor's foes. The brotherhood shared by the sons of Angron spreads to all who fight alongside them with bravery, from the highest generals to the lowest trooper. They know that the true power of any army lies in the bonds between its members, for these bonds were what allowed the Legion to survive the greatest trial of all their history. Their fierce defence of Mankind has often put them at odds with other branches of the Imperium, but all true servants of the God-Emperor know that, if your plans bring you the disapproval of the Twelfth, then you are the one who has strayed from the righteous path. In a galaxy that grows darker by the day, the World Eaters are a moral compass, showing the honorable way no matter how grim the situation may be – and woe betide any who dare to stand against their might.

Origins

When the darkness of Old Night engulfed the galaxy, countless human worlds were cut off from the rest of Mankind. For millenia, their population suffered countless trials : mutation, wild psykers, alien oppression, the slow decay of their technological level, and many others. Nuceria, in the Ultima Segmentum, was one of these worlds, but the horrors its people faced were perhaps the most terrible of all, for they were born not of any Warp corruption or xenos abomination, but a direct result of Mankind's own failings.

Nuceria was a world ravaged by war, not against alien oppressors, but between human city-states ruled by decadent and inbred bloodlines. Entire regions of the planet had been turned into radioactive deserts or poisoned by the use of chemical weapons, while trenches spread across the length and breadth of entire continents – the legacy of past conflicts in which millions of soldiers had given their lives for pointless reasons. For these wars were not fought for honor, or because of conflicting ideologies : they were motivated by the greed and arrogance of the planet's rulers, as well as their complete disregard for the lives of their subject.

Each city-state was a brutal dictatorship, where the rulers enforced their control through ruthlessness and merciless, regular purges of all opposition. The greatest of these cities was Desh'ea, whose rulers kept their people satisfied by organizing cruel gladiatorial games where they forced slaves to fight and kill each other for the amusement of their denizens and their own. The whole planet, in fact, was corrupted by such debased 'sport' : a large part of the world's economy not dedicated to war was the purchase and training of the slaves who would fight to the death in the arenas, as well as the construction of these infamous stadiums. While fighting spectacles are hardly uncommon, even within today's Imperium, what set Nuceria apart was that not only were these battles almost always to the death, most of those taking part were slaves, forced into the pit-like arenas against their will.

It was on this world that, when the Dark Gods stole the Primarchs from the Emperor's gene-labs, one of the infant demigods landed. He arrived far away from any of the world's cities, in a range of mountains that spread out for many dozens of kilometers. Alone, the young Primarch instinctively made his way out of the mountains, seeking human contact. He wandered for months, hunting wild animals for sustenance. All the while, his body grew even further. When he finally reached a human settlement, he was a muscular adolescent, clad in furs and leather vestments he had crafted himself from the skins of his kills.

The hunters were closing in on the boy. He hadn't noticed them – for all his strength and power, he was still only an infant, not yet used to the ways of battle. It would be many years before he learned to extend his senses around him at all times, ever searching for any sign of hostile intent being directed at him.

The seer focused his power in preparation for the battle. It would be short and violent, that much they all knew. The Council of Seers had ordered this mission. To an outsider's eyes, it may seem callous – they were, after all, to murder an innocent child. But the Council had seen what future laid in wait for the young mon-keigh. The seer had to admit that death was preferable. And yet …

As he reached into the future to see the battle unfold, he sensed something twist in the web of fate, and a stream of visions poured through his mind. He saw the result of the ambush – his kin laying on the ground, broken and torn. He saw the child dragging himself away, hurt and afraid. He saw the greed of humans at work. And all the way, he heard the laughter of the Great Enemy as their plans unfolded to perfection.

His mind crashed back into his body, and he took several deep breaths, trembling in the shock of the revelation. Already the details were fading from his memory – the visions have been too brutal, he had not yet set his mind in the proper patterns which allowed for proper recollection. But he knew what he had to do.

'Withdraw,' he ordered, sending his words through the aether and straight into the hunters' minds.

'Why ?' asked one of the hunters. The seer could sense the doubt in his mind. He doubted the other's words, for he was young and not long set on the Path of the Seer.

'We cannot kill him.'

'Cannot or should not, seer ?'

'Both. The Council has been deceived by the Great Enemy. Us attacking here is what our immortal foes desire. It will be the first step on this child's downfall into madness and his rise as an unstoppable horror.'

'The Council will not see things that way.'

'Let me take care of that.'

There was a pause as the hunter considered his words. Then, reluctantly, he said :

'As you command, Eldrad.'

From the moment they saw him, the inhabitants – a combination of farmers and craftsmen – knew that this barbarian-looking boy was no ordinary youth. With mixed fear and awe, they welcomed him among them, teaching him their language and practices. It was at that time of his life that the Primarch took the name of Angron for himself, though the exact circumstances in which that happened are unknown. The name meant 'Wrathful' in the ancient languages of Mankind, which seems at odds to what is known of the World Eaters' general behaviour. However, the next part of the Primarch's youth proved that the name had been prophetic.

A few years after his arrival to the nameless village, where he had become an important figure through his strength and razor-edged intellect, Angron received word that a great celebration was about to take place in the city of Desh'ea, to which his village owed fealty. For the first time in almost a century, the endless game of alliances, betrayals and trench warfare that constantly tore Nuceria was on hold. All sides of the previous conflicts had exhausted themselves, and were now rebuilding their strength and searching for more caches of ancient weapons to use against their foes in the inevitable next war. The lords of Desh'ea, who had led the dominant side of the last war, were using the spoils to throw a huge celebration of their perceived victory, incomplete and hollow as it may be. From all over their domains, tens of thousands of citizens journeyed to Desh'ea to participate in the celebrations.

During his stay at the village, Angron had taken part in defending its people from various threats : wild animals, bandits, and even deserters from the armies clashing across the world, seeking easy plunder. Though a relative peace had descended upon the planet after the unofficial ceasefire, there were still many dangers in the wilderness separating settlements. The village chief had to go to Desh'ea to pay homage to its ruler, and he asked Angron to accompany him as a guard. Eager to see for himself what had been described to him as the greatest city on Nuceria, Angron accepted, and the journey to the city was uneventful – as journeys through lawless lands tend to be when one of the escorts is a Primarch, no matter how young, one would think.

After presenting their tribute to the representatives of the lord of Desh'ea – a mere village leader was far too low in status to earn a direct audience – Angron and the other villagers scattered through the city, to enjoy the festivities. For several days Angron visited the streets, watching in silence the displays of merchants and the revelries of the citizens. Then came the call to the arena : the greatest games in the history of the city were about to begin.

Thousands of slaves had been gathered within the great coliseum. The central element of the celebrations was going to be a re-enactment of several battles of the last war, scaled down so that it would be possible for them to take place within the arena and dramatized to glorify the Desh'ean leadership. The forces of Desh'ea were represented by actual soldiers, while the 'enemy troops' were slaves, most of them half-starved and poorly equipped. Eight battles were scheduled to take place, each involving at least a thousand gladiatorial slaves. Many of them had been implanted with the infamous Butcher's Nails, primitive brain implants that enhanced aggression at the detriment of every other emotion.

The Butcher's Nails

A product of the Dark Age of Technology, the Butcher's Nails are the result of science unbound by morals or ethics. Like so many other pieces of archeotech, their exact origins are unknown, but their effects are well-documented. Once implanted into the brain of a human subject, they stimulate aggression by boosting the adrenalin levels of the host, offering greater strength and stamina at the cost of sanity. They also erode the ability to enjoy anything beyond battle, slowly degrading the brain of the host through extreme pain when attempting to resist the enhanced bloodlust or not taking part in battle for prolonged periods of time. Slaves bearing the cortical implants typically didn't live long, dying in the arena at most a few years after the implantation. By that time, they were reduced to mindless husks, bloodthirsty brutes who had to be chained in between every battle.

After Angron's rise to power, the use of these implants was banned, on pain of death. But there were still thousands of victims when the Imperium reached Nuceria, and it is said that one of the reasons Angron agreed to join the Imperium was to gain access to the Mechanicum's technology in the hope that these unfortunate souls could be saved. Thousands of healers and tech-priests were brought to Nuceria from every corner of the galaxy, with World Eaters continuing their search for a cure during the decades of the Great Crusade. But no matter how much resources were invested in the project, no way to remove the Nails was ever discovered. The best that was achieved was the suppression of their effects through psychic means, allowing the ex-gladiators to live the rest of their life in peace, free from the madness inflicted upon them by their fellow humans.

Today, the use of the Butcher's Nails is forbidden on Nuceria and every world under the purview of the World Eaters (though the Astartes do not rule, most Governors are smart enough not to allow such a thing under their eyes). Nevertheless, the technology has been used by the Imperium in the past, mostly in penal legions. On more than one occasion, Chaos warbands have acquired the schematics for the construction of the fiendish devices, and created armies of mortal followers equipped with it before unleashing them upon the galaxy. The World Eaters have hunted down and destroyed each of these hordes, considering them an insult to their Legion's homeworld.

It is rumoured that within the Eye of Terror, there are debased flesh-smiths who experience on grafting the Butcher's Nails upon unwilling Astartes prisoners, in the hope of creating the ultimate warrior. The World Eaters have heard these rumors, and while they do not dismiss them, they know that such projects will only ever create maniacs, not warriors.

Angron watched the first battle from the tribunes. In silence, completely immobile, he saw hundreds of men and women die, unable to do anything against the superior weaponry and armor of their opponents. He saw the crowd cheer the killings, roaring its approval of the blood being shed. And then, for the first time in his life, Angron lost his temper.

'You cannot own a human being. Sooner or later, someone pushes back !'

Attributed to the Primarch Angron, during the Battle of Desh'ea

The rage of Angron was unleashed upon the city, transfiguring him into a vengeful god. He had witnessed not just the corruption of the High-Rider lords, but the fact that their evil spread to those under their rule, turning humans into cruel beasts that took pleasure in the spectacle of violence and death. Worst of all, he had seen the madness that had claimed some of the slaves implanted with the Nails, turning them into berzerkers that would kill even their own comrades in misfortune. He descended into the arena's holding cells, carving a bloody path through the guards, and shattered the chains of the thousands of gladiators. Then, he led these liberated souls to the open ground of the arena, all the while shouting, denouncing the cruelty of the ruling caste and the moral failure of every soul who watched these bloody 'games'.

Many in the crowd were shamed by his words, their belief in their world's ways shaken to the core by Angron's conviction and rage. It is said that twelve of the warriors tasked with guarding the arena, veteran soldiers all, who had been trained from birth and had participated in such bloody sport hundreds of times, wept as they realized their sins and tore off their masters' emblem from their uniform. Then, they turned against those of their comrades who hadn't shared their revelation, and joined in the revolt, casting off their armor and their past with it.

The long-contained resentment of the oppressed population rose to the fore, and a revolt engulfed the entire city. Ordinary civilians, who had watched and cheered at the previous arena games, fought side by side with gladiators against the soldiers who remained loyal to their masters. According to their testimonies, gathered by historians after the battle's end, they felt themselves swept away by Angron's rage, drown in his righteous fury and unable to resist their own arising conscience. Their memories of the actual revolt were blurred, but when the dust settled and the ruling family of Desh'ea was brought to extinction, they stood proud at the side of the liberated slaves, an entire people united once more against a tyranny that had oppressed them all, with the only differences being the degree and obviousness of their chains.

Centuries later, Imperial archivists would theorise that on that day, Angron subconsciously used one of his gifts as a Primarch : a nearly impossible to resist charisma, whose influence, fuelled by his rage, had supernaturally spread through the entire city of Desh'ea. Perhaps it was some psychic power at work, but as with so many things about the Primarchs, the details are long lost to us, if they were ever known to anyone beyond the Emperor and the Primarchs themselves.

'Mercy,' begged the old man on the throne. Tears were running from his eyes and snot from his nose, dirtying his priceless ceremonial robes. 'Please, Angron. Have mercy.'

'Is this not what you wanted ? To watch us fight ? Is this not what you have always wanted ?!'

The giant leaned toward the old man until their faces were mere centimetres apart, and he whispered, in a voice so low that no one but his victim heard his words :

'Are you not entertained ?'

The sheer presence of Angron froze the old tyrant in place. He could do nothing but stare into the eyes of Angron, his will crushed to dust by the fiery wrath burning within them.

He was still immobile when the cleaver in the giant's hands came down and tore him in two.

When his rampage ended by the death of the then-ruler of Desh'ea (whose name has long since passed into oblivion), Angron had earned the title of 'Lord of the Red Sands' from both his own allies and his fearful enemies. While he despised the title, he claimed it willingly, so that every time it would be used he would be reminded that by losing control of his emotions, he had caused far more death that would have been necessary if he had been in control of himself during the revolt, capable of directing his followers and employing tactics instead of mindlessly seeking out his foes. He deeply regretted what he had done, not because of his reasons, for he truly believed the institution of slavery to be an abomination, but because he thought similar results could have been achieved with far less bloodshed. Worse, because of his reckless actions, even more bloodshed would surely follow.

The people, heedless of his troubled mind, acclaimed Angron as their liberator, with dozens of great orators – many of which would later join the ranks of the famous iterators – singing his praises and rejoicing at the revelation and overcoming of their own flaws. The Primarch took control of Desh'ea, and began to rebuild the city that had been half-destroyed by the bloody revolt. At the same time, Angron knew that the other cities would not remain silent : when their own rulers learned of what had occurred here, they would fear the same thing happening in their own little realms. To the Primarch, who had just been exposed to the depths of corruption Nuceria's ruling class was capable of, it was obvious what their response would be : they would gather their armies and march on Desh'ea to crush the revolution before it could spread.

A few weeks later, as Angron had thought, proclamations of war arrived to Desh'ea from its former allies. The noble houses of the other city-states denounced the 'brutality' of Angron's 'usurpation' of power, and their armies were advancing on Desh'ea to 'liberate it' from the 'violent and cruel reign' of the 'barbarian oppressor'. After the messengers were chased from the city by the booing citizens – Angron had to prevent them from being sent back in several pieces each – the Lord of the Red Sands commanded his followers to prepare for war. So far, they had been busy rebuilding the city, but with the coming of the foreign armies, the establishment of a proper fighting force was required.

Angron assembled his own army, using the freed gladiators as its core. With proper food and equipment, most of them individually surpassed the soldiers of the city-states, but Angron knew that they were unused to large-scale battles. They would face veteran soldiers, who had fought in a war greater than any Angron had ever known at that point in his life. But while that experience would play against the rebels, the war itself was perhaps the only reason they had a chance to succeed in their rebellion. With the typical grim irony that is often found in the pages of History, the war, caused by the greed and arrogance of Nuceria's ruling class, had bled their armies and wealth, leaving them far weaker than they had been in centuries. The armies raised to crush the rebellion outnumbered the rebels, were better equipped, and had more experience of true war. But while the gladiators and those who had embraced Angron's cause fought with the ideal of a new era at their back and a god-like warrior at the front, the soldiers of the city-states had nothing but the orders of haughty tyrants. They were little more than slaves themselves, each of them having seen his comrades die by the thousand for nothing more than the pride of his lords, as trenches were gained and lost while the commanders remained at the back, drinking wine in crystal cups.

The Lord of the Red Sands knew all of this, and he spoke with many such veterans amongst his own forces in the days before the arrival of the High-Riders' so-called 'retribution'. From them, he learned the tactics used by the Nucerian nobility, which didn't take much effort. He then designed his plan, which would require the cooperation of all those who had sworn their allegiance to Angron's cause.

When the High-Rider armies arrived to Desh'ea, they found the gates of the city open and undefended. Wary of a trap, the nobles ordered their forces to advance and retake the city, while they themselves remained at the back. Behind the walls, the soldiers found the city's people still going on their business, greeting the soldiers as if their presence was entirely expected. But while they wandered the streets, unable to comprehend what was happening around them, Angron's plan sprung into action.

Behind the High-Rider camps, dozens of men and women emerged from their hiding places. What happened next is uncertain, for there are many tales of that moment. According to some, Angron was among these hidden agents, and he slaughtered a path across the camp until he reached the lords' tents. Other tales affirm that the infiltrators wore the same uniform as their enemies, and walked into their midst unopposed, before capturing their leaders. Yet others pretend that Angron marched in the camp alone, without any attempt at disguising his presence, and that all who soldiers who saw him cast their weapons to the ground in surrender or joined his march to the nobles' lair.

Regardless of the truth, once they were in Angron's presence, the army's leaders quickly ordered their forces to surrender, begging for their enemy's mercy despite their earlier proclamations that they would crucify him and all his accomplices. Remembering what had happened the last time he had given in to his rage, Angron denied those of his followers who called for their immediate executions, asking the nobles' heads be sent back to their cities. Instead, he ordered them imprisoned for their crimes against Nuceria's people, deep within the dungeons that the rulers of Desh'ea had used for political prisoners during the city's long and treacherous history. The soldiers they had brought, awed by Angron's might and the prospect of fighting for a worthy cause, pledged their allegiance to his newly born nation. Thus ended the second battle of Desh'ea before it had even begun.

With his army increased by the strength of the deserters and several cities on his side, Angron was able to deal with the rest of the High-Rider lords on a more equal footing. He sent emissaries to them, offering them a very simple deal : surrender to him and live the rest of their lives in relative comfort, or oppose him, have their armies turn against them or be crushed depending on their loyalty, and then die a violent and painful death. One by one, the leaders surrendered, though several of them refused Angron's offer and massed their armies to defy the one they had nicknamed the 'Gladiator King'.

This army was defeated in a great battle at the foot of the very same mountains where Angron had arrived on Nuceria. The High-Riders, desperate to prevent more desertion in their ranks, had forced the Butcher's Nails upon all of their soldiers, forsaking strategy and tactic just so that their forces wouldn't turn to the enemy at the first opportunity. The battle was long and brutal, with the High-Rider forces driven mad with bloodlust, their implants' activity increased by their masters. Eventually though, they were defeated, even if Angron had to order each and every one of them put down like rabid dogs – an order which weighed heavily upon his heart, and made him spent considerable resources trying to save the other victims of the crude archeotech. The battle reminded Angron of the limits of unbound rage and the advantages of discipline and self-control, lessons that he never forget in the centuries that followed.

At the end of the battle, Angron ordered the nobles who had led the army be brought before him to be judged for their most hideous crime. None of them survived, and Nuceria was fully brought under Angron's control, truly at peace for the first time in millenia.

'One hundred thousand souls,' said the Lord of the Red Sands softly as he looked down upon the captured nobles. 'All of them lost to madness and death, because you wouldn't surrender your prestige and power.'

Angron was utterly calm, with not a single sign of his fury showing on his face. Yet all present – the kneeling lords and the soldiers alike – could feel his rage. It radiated from him in a withering aura of wrath, like a storm threatening to burst at any moment. The nobles were frozen in place by it, unable even to beg for mercy in the front of it, while the soldiers, who minutes ago had felt such rage themselves, found their tempers quelled and replaced by unease. They could sense that they were on the threshold of some momentous event. All of them had heard the tale of how the Lord of the Red Sands had brought low the rulers of Desh'ea – many had witnessed it with their own eyes. Deep within themselves, they feared to ever see such fury unleashed. They thought Angron would take up his weapon and tear the nobles to pieces by his own hands.

Then the moment passed. The storm that had threatened to burst, bringing fire and destruction to all of Nuceria, retreated. Angron sighed, and more than a few present thought, for a moment, that they heard the distant raging scream of denied god. Fury had left Angron. All that remained was regret, and the duty of a king.

'For your crimes against the people of Nuceria,' declared Angron, 'you are sentenced to death.'

Several years after the unification of Nuceria was complete, the Great Crusade reached the world. Having met with His son Guilliman in the Five Hundred Worlds, the Emperor had felt the presence of another Primarch nearby, and directed His fleet to the world. When He descended upon Desh'ea at the head of a procession of golden giants, proclaiming that He had come to be reunited with His son, the people of the city cheered, their loyalty to Angron vindicated beyond measure. They had followed the Lord of the Red Sands for his ideals, and now, they learned that he was the child of such a splendid being. After being freed from endless war and united at last, they were eager to join in the Imperium, repeating the process of unification on a galactic scale. The iterators found the people of Nuceria already acquired to their cause, craving to hear of the glories of the Imperium – if Angron had achieved so much on Nuceria in only a handful of years, what could his father have realized ?

Angron, however, had fought to free his people from the chains of slavery. He was reluctant to submit to another, even – or rather, especially – one as powerful as the Emperor. The self-proclaimed Master of Mankind spoke of the Great Crusade, and the armies waging war in His name to bring the lost worlds of Mankind to compliance, but all Angron heard were the ramblings of another tyrant wanting to enslave free people, who had built their own lives and may not desire to join the Imperium. He was too suspicious of the Emperor's motives, and for a time it was feared that the Primarch would refuse to join his father and bring Nuceria with him into open defiance of the Imperium.

But the Emperor spoke to His son of what He truly intended for Mankind. Over the course of several days, He managed to convince Angron of the righteousness of the Great Crusade, and that the ideals of the Imperial Truth were the extension of the beliefs for which he had fought on Nuceria. Finally, Angron accepted the Emperor's offer – though he refused to kneel before the Master of Mankind, and never did in all of his life. He was brought aboard the Emperor's own ship, the Bucephalus, leaving Nuceria in the hands of his human followers, who would manage the insertion of the planet into the Imperium.

'I do not intend to rule over the galaxy as a tyrant, Angron. When all the worlds of Mankind are united in the Imperium; when all the threats to our existence have been purged from the stars; when our people are able to follow their own path without my aid … then my duty will be done.'

The Great Crusade

'You shall be the War Hounds no longer. This name was given to you by my father, in recognition of your loyal service and devotion to the Imperial Truth, but for all his nobility and power, the Emperor understands little about the hearts of those under his rule.

A hound as no morality, for it merely obeys the commands of its master : as such, it bears no responsibility for its actions. But you are not hounds. You are warriors, your flesh infused with transhuman might. And such great might it is : no other species in the galaxy can match the power of the Legiones Astartes. With this power comes the risk of losing sight of our path, for who would dare challenge us for our deeds ? That is why you must always remember the power that was bestowed upon you, and the responsibilities that come with it. We are champions of a new age, bringing the light of enlightenment and the safety of the Imperium to our scattered people. But we do so with crushing power, capable of forcing all to bow to us. Our is the power to devour entire planets, leaving naught but ruin and carnage in our wake. And so our might must kept under control, chained by honor and loyalty to the Imperium and to each other. We must always keep in mind that the ideals of the Imperial Truth are all that separate us from the monsters we fight.

From this day onward, we are the Eaters of Worlds, and we must be ever cautious not to let our power take us down a dishonourable path.'

Angron, upon taking command of the Twelfth Legion on Bodt

Unlike most of his brothers, Angron was not taken back to Terra to learn the arts of war on a galactic scale, though the reasons for the Emperor's decision, as ever, can only be speculated upon. Certainly, in the years to come, Angron would prove that he hadn't required such specific instruction, instead absorbing the necessary knowledge from first-hand experience during the campains of the Great Crusade. Instead, the Primarch was brought to the volcanic world of Bodt, which had long been a muster point for the Twelfth Legion. Word of his coming preceded him, and from all over the Great Crusade his sons gathered to witness their father for the first time. The Legion Master of the War Hounds, Ibram Ghreer, who had led the Twelfth Legion for nearly three decades, knelt before Angron, only to be lifted up to his feet by the Primarch, who commanded that none of his sons ever kneel in his presence. In a grand speech, Angron proclaimed that their name would no longer be the War Hounds, but the World Eaters, so that they would always remember the great power that was theirs and the responsibilities that came with it. The Legion also changed its colors, adopting a white and blue scheme and changing their emblem to the image of a planet held between two set of teeth.

Before Angron took command of the Twelfth Legion, there had been many disturbing rumors about the Legion's tendency to violence and overkill. Tales of soldiers who had already surrendered being slaughtered by the hundred and peaceful worlds conquered without giving them a chance to integrate the Imperium without conflict weren't spoken in the open, but they nonetheless circulated across the forces of the Great Crusade. A few even claimed that regiments of human soldiers fighting at their side had been butchered for failing to match their standards or obey their orders quickly enough. If there was any grain of truth to the rumors, however, the Primarch's influence quickly put a stop to such practices : Angron quickly proved himself to be one of the more humane Primarchs.

To Angron, war was a necessary evil : Mankind needed to be strong in order to defeat its foes, both the alien predators haunting the stars and those in its own ranks who would enslave their kin for their own greed and debased desires. The Primarch knew war like few others, even amongst his brothers, and while he enjoyed the presence of his sons, drinking and training with them at any opportunity, he took no pleasure in the actual battles he fought at their side. He was proud of them, rejoicing in their prowess and achievements, but he felt nothing as he tore his way through hordes of enemies except regret at their deaths. Some have speculated that after the bloody battle of Desh'ea, the Primarch had sealed away his battle-lust, unwilling to risk another lapse of his reason and afraid to cause another indiscriminate slaughter due to abandoning all strategy in pursuit of carnage. Horus believed that his brother was limiting himself too much, that if Angron allowed his emotions some freedom, he would be an even greater warrior – possibly, he said almost in jest, one that would be able to surpass even him. But it seems that if the cost of Angron's control was to sacrifice some of his fighting potential, then the Lord of the Red Sands was willing to pay it – and even if he was limiting himself from achieving his true potential, he was still a force to be reckoned with.

Under Angron's leadership, the World Eaters earned success after success on the battlefields of the Great Crusade. The Twelfth Legion became a well-oiled warmachine, displaying a unity of thought and tactical acumen few other Legions could boast. They became expert at breaking enemy armies on the field of battle, bringing them down as much thanks to their superior might as to their discipline.

When finding human worlds, the Twelfth Legion would investigate the laws and culture of the civilization before any official contact was made. If the institution of slavery was discovered, there was no negotiation, no peaceful offer to join the Imperium : the World Eaters would descend upon the rulers of the world, and butcher them to the last, before offering the rest of the population a chance to be freed from such injustice. Worlds liberated in such a way were fiercely loyal to the Imperium, but the economic chaos that followed the loss of such cheap workforces made them of little use to the Imperium for a time, and the Administratum was forced to rebuild the toppled governing structures from the ground up.

In the crystal gardens of Ulthwe, Eldrad was weeping. Through the web of fate, he had felt the destruction of Craftworld Tuonoetar. But worse than the death of billions of his people, bringing them ever closer to extinction, was the fact that he may very well be responsible for this atrocity.

Years ago, he had been the one who had aborted the attack on the human warlord, when he was still an infant. At the time, the Seer had thought the attack doomed to fail, and witnessed through his powers the horrible consequences should the child be broken but fail to die. But in the eternity of slaughter and horror he had foreseen, he had not once seen the death of an Eldar. Now, he realized that the vision had been incomplete – it had to be. The lords of the mon-keigh armies were relentless in their hate-filled extermination of all different lifeforms, selfishly seeking to purge the galaxy while remaining unaware that their greatest threat would come from within. It was inevitable that at some point, the one who had been the Blood God's chosen would wage battle against the people of Isha. Why he hadn't foreseen it, he could not know – though he suspected the Great Enemy's hand.

Sitting cross-legged on the ground, feeling the approaching presence of several Far Seers coming to judge him for his part in Tuonoetar's doom, Eldrad Ulthran vowed that he would not allow the sacrifice of the Craftworld to be in vain.

Among his brother Primarchs, Angron was respected by most. He was especially close with Horus, both because of their common interest for tactics and because the First Primarch always considered diplomatic approaches first, instead of using his overwhelming superiority to coerce others into compliance. They both possessed a charisma that allowed them to prevent needless loss of human life, and were willing to deal with the more tiresome aspects of diplomacy to do so.

Though they shared similar ideas on discipline and the place of the Astartes in the Imperium, Angron and Perturabo didn't go along well. Both were fighting to protect humanity, and while the World Eaters' camaraderie wasn't present in the Iron Warriors, the true reason for their refusal to truly bond remains uncertain. It is believed that both of them saw in the other a reflection of themselves : a terrible rage contained only through a constant effort of will, and were unwilling to face such a stark reminder of their own flaws for long. Perhaps they subconsciously feared that their anger would fuel each other's and drag them down a path from which they had both willingly turned away.

Several Primarchs, however, saw Angron as a fool, whose ways were doomed to bring catastrophe upon the Imperium. Rogal Dorn was foremost among them, but the lord of the Imperial Fists wasn't the only one. Another tension existed between Angron and Konrad Curze : while Angron admired his brother's dedication to protect the innocents, he didn't agree with the rule of fear followed by the Night Lords. To him, only tyrants needed to use terror to force others to obey them, and he was uneasy about what would happen to the King of the Night if he kept using such means, even to the noblest ends. Fulgrim and Angron also had one violent argument on their first meeting, with the Lord of the Red Sands calling the Phoenician a preening fool who put too much importance on appearances, while Fulgrim called his brother a barbarian with no appreciation for the fine things in life. They left each other fuming, but not outright hostile – they both acknowledged that the other was, at the very least, a good warrior and general. It was simply their respective character they couldn't stand.

When the Emperor announced that He would retire from the Great Crusade on Ullanor, Angron argued against his father's decision. He respected Horus, both as a brother and as a commander, but none could replace the Master of Mankind on the frontlines. His presence and absolute, unchallenged authority was one of the Imperium's greatest assets, allowing billions of soldiers to fight united, almost entirely without dissent among their ranks. True, with the fall of the Ork empire at Ullanor, there was nothing left in the galaxy that could pose a threat to the rise of Humanity – but that was only what they knew. There were still entire sectors of the Milky Way that remained unexplored, within which countless more abominations could lurk. They couldn't lower their guard, and the decision of the Emperor to divide His authority between the newly appointed Warmaster and the Council of Terra was, Angron claimed, a mistake.

But the Emperor wouldn't let His mind be swayed. He spoke to Angron in private, and though the contents of their exchange shall remain forever unknown, the Primarch emerged from them disgruntled, but accepting of his father's decision. He vowed that he would do all he could to help Horus bear the heavy burden that had just been given to him. For the rest of the Great Crusade, Angron took upon himself many diplomatic duties while he continued to lead the World Eaters into battle, smoothing the relationship between the Legiones Astartes and the various components of the Imperial Army. As one of the most humane Primarchs, he was able to empathize with the mortals who led the armies of human soldiers, forming many bonds of honor and friendship. To this day, the Twelfth Legion holds those of these bonds whose recipients have endured the passage of time in high value.

Outside of the military elements of the Great Crusade, however, the reputation of the World Eaters plummeted. Angron came in conflict with the representatives of the Administratum many times, opposing their decisions on matter of taxations of worlds recently brought into compliance – despite the risk of causing resentment within populations just recovering from war – and the reassignment of regiments who had fought alongside his Legion for decades. The members of the Administratum were, of course, unable to oppose a Primarch's words – though many believed that they could, only to find themselves mute when in his actual, physical presence. It is said that some of the World Eaters attached to their Primarch's own Expeditionary Fleet actually enjoyed the visits of outraged Administratum adepts, coming to them bearing seals of authority and demanding to talk with Angron right now. Amongst themselves, they bet on the length of time any of them would be able to resists the Lord of the Red Sands' presence before fainting.

Those who were far from Angron's presence, however, began subtle attempts at reprisal, seeking to bring the troublesome Legion to heel. The Council of Terra, led by Malcador the Sigillite, was composed of men and women of great courage, intelligence, and moral integrity, but unfortunately such individuals are and have always been rare, and the Administratum, like any human organisation this size must, had then like now its share of thick-headed, petty bureaucrats. Shipments of ammunition and other supplies were delayed on points of procedure, rapports were demanded at every turn, and so on. For a time, this amused Angron – no real damage was ever done to the Legion – but then the bureaucrats asked that the captain of his flagship The Conqueror, Lotara Sarrin, return to Terra to be interrogated for her conduct, citing various insults and breaches of protocols that had been reported to them.

In response, Angron sent a hundred Legionaries, led by the legendary Eighth Captain Khârn, to the Administratum outpost that had sent the convocation, with the single instruction to 'take care of this'. There are no records of what happened there, and no one seem to have died or even been harmed by the World Eaters – but the Administratum never bothered the Twelfth Legion or its human allies again, and the World Eaters claim that they still know the story, and tell it once a year to pass it on to the new recruits. The Great Crusade continued, until, one hundred years after the Emperor had found Angron on Nuceria, the dream that had led the Lord of the Red Sands to join forces with his father was destroyed by the betrayal of one of his own brothers.

Lhorke, 'The First'

When the War Hounds first left Terra to sail across the stars at the Emperor's behest, they were left by the best commander among them : Legion Master Lhorke. For decades, the warrior led the Twelfth Legion, until he fell in battle on the world of Jeracau. He was then entombed within a Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought, one of the first ever created – and the finest in existence.

During the Great Crusade, Lhorke continued to distinguish himself by leading the other Twelfth Legion Dreadnoughts into battle, including those who had been entombed before the process was perfected and suffered various mental afflictions because of it. When the Heresy erupted, he fought harder than any other World Eater. Most Dreadnoughts didn't survive the Ruinstorm, their weakened minds consumed by the horrors of the Warp, but the iron-clad will of Lhorke enabled him to endure, and it is said that he didn't sleep for the entirety of the two Legions' time in the Ruinstorm.

Lhorke still lives today, but the passing of millenia has taken its toll over the old warrior's mind. Much of his memory is blurred or lost, and he spent most of the time in stasis-sleep, recovering his strength in between bouts of violent activity. When he is awake, there are few things in the galaxy that can stand against his wrath. He had defeated countless threats to Nuceria, where he spends his decades-long periods of sleep. Alien warlords, mutant masters and even Daemon Princes have fallen before him, torn apart by his mighty frame. To the Ultramarines dwelling in the Ruinstorm, the name of Lhorke is a curse, and many dream of the glory they could earn by being the one to finally slay the ten-thousand years old veteran. Yet in all that time, none have even come close.

It is broadly believed that 'The First', as he is known to his brothers, is the oldest Dreadnought in existence. Not just in the Imperium, but even when taking the Traitor Legions – who spend their hateful lives in the timeless depths of Hell – into account. He was entombed before the beginning of the Heresy, and was an elder even by the time of the Great Crusade – the very start of which he witnessed with his own eyes. He is a symbol to the Eaters of World, an example of defiance in the face of death and eternal dedication to his sacred duty.

The Heresy : Battle of Calth

Khârn, the Bound One

Within the Imperium, there are few warriors whose legend is as spread and acclaimed as that of Khârn, the legendary Captain of the World Eaters' Eighth Company. Born upon Terra, he was recruited into the War Hounds before their departure from the Throneworld to join the Great Crusade. Through his battle prowess and his tactical cunning, he quickly rose in the ranks of the Legion to the rank of Captain of the Eighth Company. When Angron was found, his ships were the firsts to reach the Primarch, allowing him to be the first Legionary of his own gene-line that the Lord of the Red Sands ever saw. He impressed the Primarch so much that Angron named him his Equerry, carrying his words across the galaxy as one of the lords of the Great Crusade.

Khârn was a superlative warrior and a commander of great charisma, who the entire Legion looked up to. His skill with a blade was amongst the greatest of the Legions, rising him to the ranks of champions such as Sigismund of the Imperial Fists or Sevatar of the Night Lords. According to several records, his will was so powerful that Warp-based powers could not touch his mind at all – a talent that was most useful during the Shadow Crusade in Ultramar.

The title of 'Bound One' initially came from the chains he wore around his armor's wrists, to honor the gladiators of Nuceria and remember himself of the lessons of Angron : that the Astartes were servants of Mankind, their power bound by duty and brotherhood alike. After the Heresy, however, that title passed from one of respect to one of quiet worship. Eventually, Khârn was elevated to sainthood by the Ecclesiarchy shortly after news of his death were finally confirmed, long after the fires of the Heresy had died down.

Accounts written hundreds of years apart seem to indicate that Khârn, despite being a veteran of more than a thousand years, retained his handsome appearance until the day of his ultimate death, without a single scar marring his face, in sharp contrast to most Legionaries in the Imperium and almost all within the ranks of the World Eaters. His demise came to pass on the ground of Skalathrax, during one of the many battles that were waged upon this world. It took place in 981M32, when a force of hundreds of Dark Angels laid siege to the planet. Eighth Captain Khârn, who had come to replenish his depleted Company, fought alongside the planet's defenders, from the deepest parts of the jungle to the gates of the Legion's stronghold. Eventually, he was slain by a gathering of Dark Angels' sorcerers – though he managed to kill all of them before succumbing to his wounds, his body retrieved in the middle of a circle of their dead. Due to the fact that the forces of the First Legion withdrew as soon as the Bound One fell, it is believed that their attack had for sole purpose the death of Khârn – a very plausible theory, given how much damage Angron's Equerry had dealt to the forces of Chaos during his exemplary career.

At the end of the battle, Khârn's body was reclaimed by the World Eaters and brought back to one of their strongholds on the planet, where it was buried with all honours. Over time, his crypt has become a shrine, where Astartes and humans alike come to pay respect and meditate over the deeds of the Bound One. Many aspirants make the pilgrimage to Khârn's Shrine immediately after their transformation into full-fledged Space Marines. After their pilgrimage, they put chains around their wrists, as Khârn did in his life. Some even claim to have been visited by the spirit of the great warrior, imparting upon them words of wisdom before vanishing back into the aether. There are whispers within the Twelfth Legion that within his tomb, Khârn is not dead, but merely sleeping : that when the time comes for Skalathrax' final battle, he will rise from his grave and lead the World Eaters once more into glorious battle.

When Horus Lupercal learned the betrayal of Guilliman, one of his great worries was that the Five Hundred Worlds would follow in his wake. Ultramar was an empire within the Imperium, and though its inhabitants had so far been exemplary citizens of the Imperium, their loyalty would probably be to the Ultramarines and their Primarch. If the billions of Ultramarian soldiers joined the rebel Astartes in the Isstvan system, the loyalists would be hard-pressed to defeat them. They would still prevail, bar unforeseen circumstances – four Legions could not stand against seven, no matter how many human soldiers were added to the equation. But unforeseen circumstances were what had begun the civil war in the first place.

To prevent this, and to root out the source of the rebellion, the Warmaster sent a message to two of his brothers : Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the Word Bearers, and Angron, Primarch of the World Eaters. The two of them were to gather the full might of their Legions and sail to Ultramar, to ensure the continued compliance of the Five Hundred Worlds to Imperial rule. Some may have thought that, no matter the power of Ultramar, sending a single Legion would have been enough. Guilliman and the elite of his forces were known to be in the Isstvan system, and though the Ultramarines were one of the most numerous Legions, the presence of a Primarch was an advantage that no amount of firepower could match.

But Horus had his reasons : he knew that the dark touch of Chaos was behind the rebellion, and feared for the soul of his brothers, should he send only one of them. Lorgar and Angron, for all their strength, honor and loyalty, still each had their flaws and weaknesses, and Horus knew from his experience at the athame's touch that the Ruinous Powers would use those against them. Together, the two Primarchs would be able to cover for each other's deficiencies – as would their Legions. Furthermore, it was obvious that Guilliman had planned his rebellion for a long time. It wouldn't be surprising if the actual numbers of his Legion were far higher than what he had claimed they were.

The two fleets met together at Ultramar's borders. Rarely in the history of the Great Crusade had such a force been gathered, though it would be dwarfed by the one massing at the same time toward Isstvan. Tens of thousands of Legionaries and their auxiliaries – Imperial Army regiments, Mechanicum cohorts, and Titanic Legions – were mustered, their hearts filled with righteous rage at the betrayal of Guilliman.

Lorgar and Angron reached their first disagreement on how to treat the trillions of Ultramar's population. The Primarch of the Word Bearers, enraged by Guilliman's betrayal, demanded that they burn all worlds on their path to Maccrage, to punish them for their treachery. Angron, however, refused to bend to his brother's fury. He spoke to Lorgar at length, and finally convinced him that they could not afford to waste time destroying every single one of the Five Hundred Worlds they sailed by. They did not know whether the people of Ultramar were complicit in this heresy – it seemed unlikely that so many could have concealed their betrayal for so long – but there weren't going to take any risk. At the very least, any military force met within the Five Hundred Worlds had to be presumed hostile, but they couldn't let their anger at Guilliman's betrayal turn them into the tyrants they had fought for so long. Guilliman had betrayed the ideals of the Great Crusade, he argued, those very ideals that Lorgar had held dear most of all the Primarchs. If they turned from them now, then what would be the purpose of even fighting the rebels ? Grudgingly, Lorgar accepted his brother's point, his fury contained by his brother's wisdom. Accounts of the dispute between the two Primarchs indicate that Lorgar at least partially agreed because he noticed that his brother, for all his apparent calm, was even more furious at Guilliman's betrayal than the Urizen was, but was keeping his rage under tighter control.

Their second disaccord was on where they should head to. Lorgar wanted to sail for Maccrage, the capital of Guilliman's rebel empire. Angron disagreed, believing that while taking Maccrage would be a symbolic victory over the traitors, it would be just that : a symbol. Maccrage was the homeworld of the Ultramarines, and the political center of the Five Hundred Worlds, but Guilliman wasn't so foolish that he had concentrated all of his administration on it. The rest of Ultramar would go on even if Maccrage was reduced to a smouldering asteroid field. The loyalist fleet had to strike at another target, one that would effectively damage their enemy's military potential : Calth. The planet was a known muster point of the Ultramarines, and many intercepted astropathic transmissions indicated that the traitors in the Five Hundred Worlds were gathered there, alongside considerable mortal forces. Conceding Angron's point, the Urizen directed his Legion alongside his brother's toward the Calth system.

When the fleets of the two Legions emerged from the Warp at their objective, they found themselves facing a fortified world, with millions of mortal soldiers and an entire Chapter of Ultramarines leading them. Guilliman had left behind one of his greatest generals : Marius Gage, master of the First Chapter of the Thirteenth Legion, one of the Tetrarchs of the Ultramarines. Angron knew Gage as an honorable warrior, and he attempted to reach to him, demanding he reject his Primarch's madness and surrender to the Word Bearers and World Eaters. But his offer was answered with naught but mocking laughter that, to Angron, showed the insanity that had consumed Gage, but also enraged Lorgar.

'Marius, please, you must stand down. You are an honorable man. You know that what your father is doing is wrong, and you must know that you will never be able to defeat us with the forces under your command. Please, for the sake of your men and your people, surrender.'

Transmission from the Conqueror, flagship of the World Eaters Legion, to Marius Gage, just before the beginning of the Battle of Calth.

After a short space battle in which the loyalist fleets utterly crushed the few ships that the Ultramarines had in orbits and sent the orbital platforms to the ground in flames, the two Legions descended upon Calth in a coordinated assault on the planet's surface. Their goals were to crush the enemy presence, but also to gather intelligence about the situation in the rest of the Five Hundred Worlds and, if possible, the rest of Guilliman's plans.

Battle raged across the entire world, with Angron and Lorgar fighting side by side at the forefront of their advance. One by one, the hive-cities of Calth, which had been transformed into fortress and were mysteriously devoid of any civilian, fell to the might of the Twelfth and Seventeenth Legions. Inexorably, the two Primarchs approached the capital city, where Gage and his elite forces had retrenched themselves. While the Word Bearers surrounded the keep to prevent any escape or intervention from another traitor army, Angron, Lorgar, and the World Eaters launched their assault. It was then, within the walls of the last Ultramarine stronghold on Calth, that they found the first evidence that there was more to the rebellion than injured pride or defiance of the Emperor's will.

Corpses were laid across the corridors of the fortress, crucified to the walls and bearing signs of ignoble torture. Most of the dead were humans, but some, to the World Eaters' horror, were Space Marines, and a few were recognized by the Legionaries as Ultramarines they had fought alongside during the Great Crusade. We now know that these were the loyal souls within Gage's warriors – those who, upon learning of their Primarch's betrayal, had turned against their brothers. But Angron and Lorgar did not know, and were shocked at the grotesque displays. They continued their advance regardless, determined to find answers and bring justice to those responsible for these atrocities.

To their surprise, the keep appeared to be empty. There had been automated defences on the outside, but no living soul was found for most of their progression. Such was the size of the fortress that it took several hours before the first signs of enemy activity were discovered. Mad cultists rushed toward the Primarchs and their escorts, only to be effortlessly butchered – but their insanity made Angron and Lorgar more and more uneasy. Their Librarians also felt the rising pressure in the air, and though they lacked the knowledge to understand what was actually happening, they still knew something grim was afoot.

And then, finally, they found Marius.

The Primarchs and their sons stood silent for several seconds, their minds reeling at what they were seeing. Marius Gage, once a proud and noble son of Ultramar, was kneeling in a pool of blood that reached up to his mid-chest. Suspended to chains dangling from the great chamber's ceiling were the sources of the blood : dozens of Ultramarines, stripped of armor and hideously tortured. Drops of ichor still fell from their lifeless bodies, hitting the pool beneath in hypnotic rhythms that made Angron's skull ache.

'Can you hear them ?' said Marius, staring at the patterns in his brothers' blood with wide eyes. 'Your brothers on Isstvan, they are fighting. Look …'

He gestured toward the pool of blood, and, to Angron and Lorgar's surprise, images appeared in the crimson liquid. They saw Isstvan V, where the traitor Legions had massed to await the Imperial retribution. They saw the Night Lords, the Death Guard and the Alpha Legion, led by their Primarchs and locked in combat against the Ultramarines, the Iron Hands, the Imperial Fists and the Blood Angels. They were outnumbered two to one at least, but they were only the first wave – behind the battle, the Dark Angels, White Scars, Salamanders and Raven Guard were descending in force, ready to join the fray.

'Your father will be defeated,' declared Angron. He was unable to say anything about the madness of his surroundings, afraid that acknowledging it would somehow enable it to reach into his own being. 'His forces are outnumbered. He will answer for his crimes.'

Marius laughed again – that mad, deranged laughter that made Angron's skin crawl.

'We have been planning this for decades, my lords. Look again !'

And, to the horror of the two Primarchs, they saw the forces that were supposed to reinforce their loyal brethren open fire on their erstwhile allies. Angron felt as if his world was once more turning over as he understood the full scope of Guilliman's treachery. While he stood there, shocked into immobility, Lorgar screamed in outrage, and charged toward Marius, determined to make at least this traitor pay. Before he could reach his enemy, however, an explosion of energy centred on Marius threw him backward, and he crashed against the opposite wall, ten meters above the ground.

'The time has come,' said Marius in a voice that was at once his own and something else's. 'Blood has been spilled in the greatest betrayal. No matter what happens now, the dream of the False Emperor is ashes. Let the truth be written upon the skies of the chosen one's dominion. Let all know the power of Chaos !'

The traitor screamed the last words, and the ceiling of the fortress exploded. Instinctively, Angron lifted his arms to protect himself from the failing debris, but to his surprise, the fragments of the ceiling were held aloft by some unnatural power. Dimly, he heard the agonized screams of his Librarians. Then his gaze returned upon the Tetrarch. His flesh was bulging, as if something was trying to …

With one last exultant scream, Marius burst apart in a shower of gore and an unleashing of psychic energy that sent all Astartes in the room to the ground – but Angron held fast. In the Tetrarch's place stood a monstrosity of crimson skin and twisted horns and claws. Its eyes held all the malice in the universe, and it stared at Angron with an hatred great enough to burn the universe.

'Samus,' said the creature as the skies above began to turn red. 'Samus is here.'

Through an unholy ritual, Gage unleashed the power of the Warp not just upon Calth, but across all of the Five Hundred Worlds. Though the loyalists did not know it at the time, cults on each planet of Ultramar had synchronized their actions with the Tetrarch, and offered millions of blood sacrifices at the exact same second he had offered up his own flesh to the Ruinous Powers. Worse, far from Ultramar, the massacre of Isstvan V had just thrown the Warp in great turmoil. The death of Konrad Curze, the near-destruction of the Death Guard and Alpha Legion, and the turning of four Legions previously believed to be loyal : all of this had fuelled the powers of the Dark Gods, and Guilliman had channelled the energies of the Massacre to turn Ultramar into a nightmarish hell, seeking to neutralize two more Legions in one fell blow. The veil between reality and the Immaterium was torn, and a Warp Storm of unimaginable size engulfed all of the realm of Ultramar. In time, this Warp anomaly would come to be known as the Ruinstorm – a scar upon the fabric of reality, bleeding insanity and evil upon the universe.

With the coming of the Ruinstorm, the Word Bearers and the World Eaters were trapped, unable to escape the confines of the Warp Storm. Thus began the Shadow Crusade : a desperate war waged by the two Legions across what had become of the Five Hundred Worlds, in order to find a way to escape and rejoin the rest of the Imperium.

The Shadow Crusade : Trapped in the Ruinstorm

Angron and Lorgar fought together against the Daemon Prince which had used Marius Gage as a gateway into the Materium when the Ruinstorm had erupted. The power of the daemon was great, but it was no match for the combined strength of two Primarchs. Although they defeated it, they were unable to truly destroy it, for the Neverborn are beings of thought, not matter, and even the strongest psykers can only banish them for a time – only the Dark Gods themselves, it is said, can truly destroy their minions. The creature that called itself Samus would return many times to plague the allied forces during the Shadow Crusade.

At the same time the Primarchs fought the Daemon Prince, countless Neverborn manifested on Calth, and the planet itself began to twist and heave as the energies of the Warp reshaped it into a daemon world. The forces surrounding the fallen Ultramarine fortress were soon under attack by hordes of daemons – million upon million of them, fuelled by the sacrifices offered by the Thirteenth Legion. Inside the fortress, Angron and Lorgar were attacked by countless horrors as the planet fell deeper and deeper into the Empyrean's grip. The two Primarchs fought their way out, and reunited with their forces. Then they led the two Legions off-world, fighting every step of the way to their shuttles. Thousands of Legionaries died on Calth, their souls consumed by the daemons unleashed by Guilliman's sorcery. They wouldn't be the last to suffer such a dreadful fate.

The World Eaters and Word Bearers were far from safe, even after escaping Calth. The whole Five Hundred Worlds had descended into madness, and not even space was safe. Great daemonic leviathans, born from the remaining thoughts of extinct species, harried the fleet, while the ships themselves were in a constant look-out for possession within their ranks. Navigators were sealed within their chambers, completely isolated from the rest of their ships safe for secured vox-channels.

The fleet fled through the storm, its Navigators desperately following the stabler paths through the madness, unable to keep a course for more than a few hours before the route they had been sailing collapsed back into anarchy. Many ships were lost to the Ruinstorm, few of which were ever heard of again – and each of those had a tale of tragedy and horror attached to it. Those who managed to remain together did so only thanks to the presence of Lorgar. The Primarch of the Word Bearers had long suffered from an erratic psychic talent, that came and went in irregular patterns, afflicting him with severe migraines and responsible, some historians believe, for his legendary temper. But on Calth, facing the madness of Chaos, he had experienced a breakthrough, the nature of the Warp revealed to him at last. With the guidance of both Legions' best Librarians, he was able to link his thoughts with the Navigators, guiding them across the Sea of Souls with a precision unheard of ever before or since.

Many times during the Shadow Crusade, the fleet was trapped within one daemon-held system or another. Within the Ruinstorm, the fabric of reality is slave to the whims of the Neverborn, and powerful Daemon Princes and Lords were able to completely block the ships of the two Legions within their own domains. Each time this occurred, the two Primarchs would descend upon the daemon world where their Librarians sensed the presence of the Neverborn responsible, and destroy it. Entire Companies of both Legions were lost in each such operation, but the World Eaters and the Word Bearers became brothers during these dark days, owing each others debts that could never be repaid. It was through the strength of that brotherhood, echoed between Angron and Lorgar, that the loyal Legions were able to endure the horrors of the Shadow Crusade.

It took the entirety of the Heresy for the two Legions to finally find their way out of the Ruinstorm, though time held little meaning within what had become of the Five Hundred Worlds. Details on how exactly they achieved this are blurred : many Inquisitors believe that those who were present had quite reasonably sealed off most memories of what happened during the Shadow Crusade, for the sake of sanity. What is known is that Lorgar found a path through the Storm, fighting off the constant attacks of daemons – and worse – on his mind. While his brother acted as a guide, Angron fought to keep the fleet together and the Conqueror free of daemonic taint.

Upon emerging from the Ruinstorm, the few astropaths who had survived were able to reconnect the ragged forces with the events of the galaxy. Learning that Terra was under siege by the traitor forces, Angron and Lorgar ignored the damage their ships had already suffered, and ordered a run to the Throneworld at full speed, no matter the risks. And although by the time they arrived, the battle was already over, the sacrifices they made during their journey were not in vain. Indeed, had it not been for the knowledge that the two Legions would soon arrive, Guilliman wouldn't have launched his last assault on the Imperial Palace, which allowed the Emperor and Fulgrim to strike him down. This, however, proved little comfort for the Lord of the Red Sands. The Heresy was over – but the cost was beyond belief.

Post-Heresy : War Unending

Standing among the ruins of Terra, Angron saw the desolation as a symbol of the destruction that had engulfed the entire galaxy, banishing the ideals of the Great Crusade forever. His father, the Emperor, was dead – or close enough that it didn't matter. The people of the Imperium, who had once looked upon the Astartes as champions and saviours, were now terrified of the transhuman giants. His own Legion had taken terrible losses in the Shadow Crusade, and was now at less than a third the strength it had been when they had entered the Five Hundred Worlds.

Like all loyal Primarchs who had survived the Heresy, Angron slowly became more and more withdrawn from both political and military affairs in the Imperium. He allowed the reins of the Imperium to pass to the Lords of Terra, while he left the Solar System to hunt down the remnants of the Traitor Legions. While the Scouring was declared complete after a few years and considered to be truly so by the Inquisition after half a century, Angron continued his quest for the traitors for centuries. Many believed him lost, though the World Eaters – scattered across the galaxy to protect the Imperium – knew their Primarch yet lived. They were proven right when, a thousand years after his departure, Angron returned – just in time to help the Imperium deal with one of the gravest crises of its history.

In 546M32, an event took place known as the Beheading. Drakan Vangorich, Grand Master of Assassins, plotted the death of all of the Twelve High Lords of Terra for reasons that were never discovered. This plunged the planet – and the rest of the Imperium – into disarray, while the criminal responsible hid inside his Order's great temple, protected from any retribution – or so he thought. Angron's ships arrived in orbit, and the Primarch descended upon Terra filled with righteous anger. While his warriors restored order to the Throneworld and arranged the nomination of new High Lords, he stormed into the Assassinorum Temple. Alone, the Lord of the Red Sands faced a hundred Eversor Assassins, driven mad by stimulants and targeted only at the Primarch. None of them survived, and Angron soon reached the hiding Grand Master – and then, no matter the skill of Drakan, the issue was no longer in doubt. The crisis was over, and Angron returned to Nuceria, to lead his sons in the long war to protect the Imperium.

Thirty centuries later, in the thirty-fifth millennium, the World Eaters fought alongside the Emperor's Children and the Night Lords to destroy Commoragh. Though Angron and Fulgrim had not been close during the Great Crusade, due to the former seeing the latter's ways as foolish and prideful, they had been brought together in the aftermath of the Heresy, when Angron had seen what had happened to his brother and his Legion. Furthermore, Angron owed a debt of blood to Fulgrim for rescuing him during a desperate battle against the Salamanders on Skalathrax. Together, the three Legions burned the Dark City, before being forced to retreat when it seemed that the whole pocket of reality in which it existed was about to collapse. Fulgrim, however, wasn't among the evacuees : he had gone in pursuit of his renegade son Fabius Bile, and disappeared within the Webway.

The loss of one of his last brothers took a heavy toll on Angron, though he was certain that Fulgrim was alive and would return one day. He became more and more retired from the affairs of the Twelfth Legion, scouring the archives for any clue as to how he could recover him. Finally, on the tenth anniversary of Commoragh's Burning, the Primarch of the World Eaters vanished, leaving behind a letter in which he claimed to have gone in search of all of his missing brothers – not just Fulgrim, but also Magnus and Lorgar, lost to the Imperium for centuries at that point. He vowed to his sons that he would return after he had found them.

The World Eaters lamented their Primarch's departure, and did the rest of the Imperium, for he was the last of the loyal sons of the Emperor still active at that time. All the others had either died in the fires of the Heresy, fallen into deep slumber after taking terrible wounds battling the enemies of Mankind, or vanished entirely. At the same time, in the shadows, many secretly rejoiced at the disappearance of the last demigod. The mortal rulers of the Imperium had always mistrusted the Primarchs, for their political minds were unable to conceive that such powerful beings would willingly submit to another, and feared the day where they would be overthrown and the sons of Emperor would reclaim the reins of the Imperium. Even some Inquisitors, whose lines of masters had spent millenia observing the Primarchs in fear that another one of them fell victim to the Dark Gods and brought his Legion with him to the side of Chaos, were somewhat relieved that this threat was gone. The possibility of a Legion Master succumbing was still there, of course, but without a Primarch's influence on his sons, none would be able to corrupt an entire Legion ever again.

A new leader was chosen from the ranks of the World Eaters, bringing the old title of Legion Master, which had not been used since the days of the War Hounds, back to life. Until the return of Angron, the Legion swore that they would continue fighting for the sake of Mankind and the Imperium, so that their father would hear news of their deeds in his search and know that he had left the galaxy in good hands. Today, several thousand years after Angron's departure, the Primarch has faded away into a legend even within his own Legion. The Imperium at large believe him dead, like the rest of the missing Primarchs. Even among the Inquisition, there has been no reliable word of his continued existence since his last departure from Nuceria.

But the World Eaters haven't allowed their Primarch's absence to turn them from their duty. War still rages on in the galaxy, inflicting untold torments upon billions of Imperial citizens. Alien predators still stalk the darkness between stars, preying upon Humanity. And worst of all, the traitors and the daemons still haunt the shadows beyond reality, ready to drag all of Mankind into damnation with them. As long as one of these enemies still threaten the Emperor's domain, the sons of Angron will be here.

The Armageddon Incident

Officially, the Armageddon disagreement between the Holy Inquisition and the Twelfth Space Marine Legion never happened. Both sides tacitly agree to keep it under wraps, knowing the negative impact on moral knowledge of it could cause if it ever spreads. But they still remember, and each side still bears a bitter grudge toward the other for their perceived failings.

The First War for Armageddon opposed the World Eaters, the Imperial Guard and the Grey Knights to an alliance of Space Wolves and Imperial Fists led by the Daemon Primarch Rogal Dorn himself, with a horde of daemons of Khorne manifesting in the footsteps of the fallen Primarch. It ended with the banishment of the Imperial Fists' Primarch, through the sacrifice of many Grey Knights. In the aftermath, the Inquisition arrived to the world with a fleet of transport ships, seeking to deport the planet's human population to prison colonies, where they would be sterilized and live out the rest of their lives away from the rest of the Imperium. This was in order to prevent knowledge of Chaos to spread : the people of Armageddon had been exposed to the sight of not just any daemonic incursion, but many of them had laid eyes upon the monstrous form of the Daemon Primarch himself. For millenia, the Inquisition had worked to keep the lure of Chaos away from the common people of the Imperium, and while the sacrifice of several millions of people was unfortunate, it was one of the necessities of their duty.

The World Eaters, however, did not see things that way. They had fought alongside the people of Armageddon for months before the arrival of the Grey Knights, and they had witnessed first-hand their bravery and devotion to the Golden Throne. When they heard the intent of the Inquisition, they physically obstructed them, forming a cordon around the refugee camps while the humans were evacuated to the Twelfth Legion's own fleet. The forces of the Inquisition tried to force their way through, but the Legionaries were more than able to push them back. Tensions rose quickly, and threatened to bloom into a full-scale war between the World Eaters and the Inquisition. When the sons of Angron threatened to send a message to the Word Bearers about the whole incident, the Inquisition decided to abandon the notion of purging Armageddon's population. There was no doubt that the Seventeenth would have sided with the World Eaters on that matter, and no matter the result, a war between the Inquisition and two loyal Legions (at least : the Night Lords would probably also have sided with the World Eaters, as they have always disliked the slaughter of innocents) could not possibly end well. Faced with the threat of a new civil war, the Inquisition chose to back down, accepting the risks of letting knowledge of Chaos spread as the lesser evil in that case.

The survivors of Armageddon were carried by the World Eaters to worlds under the Legion's protection, scattered across the galaxy, while new colonists were brought by the Inquisition to the heavily industrialised world. Today, they have fully integrated to their new homeworlds. Contrary to the Inquisition's fears, the level of heresy on the planets concerned isn't any higher than on any Imperial world surveyed by Legion forces. Despite this, many among the Inquisition think that the World Eaters were (and still are) fools, who are not ready to do what must be done for the preservation of Mankind. Several Radicals have attempted to 'punish' the Twelfth Legion, but the World Eaters do not care. For their part, they believe that the Inquisition went too far, that in their obsession to preserve Mankind as a whole the Inquisitors lost sight of the fact that Mankind is made of individuals, and is not some distant, divine entity, capable of enduring the loss of any number of its components.

Organization

Legion Master Arkhan, the Lord of Blades

The one currently standing as the supreme commander of the World Eaters Legion is a veteran of five hundred years of endless warfare – a rarity among the sons of Angron, who tend to live short and intense lives by the standards of the Astartes. Born on Nuceria, Arkhan was chosen to join the Legion when, at thirteen years of age, he was discovered alone with the corpses of twelve Chaos cultists who had intended to sacrifice him to their dark masters, his hands pressed on his abdomen to keep his guts from spilling out. He was saved by the Legion's Apothecaries, and quickly inducted in the ranks of the World Eaters. Since then, he has proven to be a warrior like few others in the history of the Twelfth Legion.

The title of Arkhan was granted to him during the First War for Armageddon, which was the first conflict he ever saw as a Space Marine. When the Imperial Fists and their daemonic allies attacked the walls of Hive Infernus, his entire Company was destroyed. Alone, Arkhan fought against more than fifty sons of Dorn, changing his weapons with those of his fallen brothers each time they broke. By the time reinforcements arrived, the Imperial Fists were retreating, and Arkhan was found, barely alive, atop a pile of broken traitor corpses, clutching a chainaxe in his right fist and a power sword in the left.

After he healed, Arkhan was assigned to a new Company, and quickly rose into the commanding circles of the World Eaters. While his martial prowess had been proven beyond doubt in Hive Infernus, he also displayed a keen instinct for greater tactics, capable of seeing through an enemy's feints and tricks like no other. Thorough his long life, Arkhan has slain scores of enemy champions, be they alien leaders of Chaos warlords. Like most incumbents, he was forced upon the throne of Legion Master against his will, and resent how it keeps him distant from battle. Still, he accepts the necessity of it, and has vowed to do his best at the job – the Emperor demands nothing less.

Ever since the disappearance of Angron, the World Eaters have been led by a Legion Master chosen from the ranks of the Legion's Captains and with a term of twenty years. Stationed permanently on Nuceria safe for exceptional circumstances, he is the one commanding the Legion's war effort, directing resources and Astartes to the many fronts of the Imperium in answer to the countless pleas for his assistance. World Eaters forces are dispatched to their assignments, carrying them out before returning to the Twelfth Legion's stronghold in order to rearm, repair and refuel, as well as to recruit new Astartes to compensate their losses. Most of the time, they immediately receive word of an Imperial world under attack and requiring help, or receive an urgent message from high command. But once in a while a Company actually makes it back to Nuceria without anyone asking for its help. It is then the Legion Master's responsibility to find another war for his brothers to wage.

The Legion is divided in Companies of varying sizes and specialization, each led by an officer with the rank of Captain. Companies go from a standard size in other Legions – a hundred Astartes – to almost a full Chapter at a thousand warriors. This variety is a legacy of the Shadow Crusade : very few Companies emerged from the Ruinstorm with their structure and strength ready to wage war. On his way to Terra, Angron ordered many remnants fused together to create viable battle groups, but he didn't waste time trying to uniformize them. This practice has continued to this day : when a Company takes too many losses to be able to operate alone, they join with another one. New Companies are also regularly created by combining a body of new recruits with a handful of veterans from other Companies, who then take up the designation of one of the destroyed Companies.

Regardless of size, a Company is divided in squads of various specialities – Tactical, Devastator, Assault, and so on. In the biggest Companies, there is an informal hierarchy to allow the Captain to focus on the larger picture – squad leaders who have displayed a talent for leadership. Though they are still mere sergeants in the Legion's archives, these chosen few receive the title of Centurions, and may one day be elevated to Captain, be it when their current superior falls in battle or when a new Company is founded.

Homeworld

Nuceria, homeworld to the Primarch Angron, has come a long way from its dark past. The tyranny that prospered upon it during the Long Night has been banished, hopefully forever. The great cities of Angron's time still exist, turned into technologically advanced cultures and united in a single global government. All citizens are equal there, and unlike in most parts of the Imperium, the law cares nothing for wealth or position. This is enforced by the World Eaters themselves – not through any threat, but by their mere presence. All humans feel the same before the Astartes – even the proudest industrial lord will feel some humility in the shadow of Angron's sons. The fact that those taken for induction within the Legion come from all social strata also helps remembering everyone that the human potential is present in everyone.

There is still darkness on Nuceria, however, brought upon it by its proximity to the Ruinstorm. Mutation and corruption have an alarming tendency to appear amongst its population, far higher than on other Imperial worlds. These heretics are quickly discovered, and forced to flee into the planet's deserts, where they gather in clans and plot their revenge against those who they believe have wronged them.

The World Eaters claim that this allows the aspirants of the Legion to test their skills against the heretics, and be sure that only the strongest and most strong-willed are taken into the World Eaters' ranks. Regardless of these justifications, Imperial authorities are dubious of the planet's utility, especially when the World Eaters have many other recruiting worlds. It has often be suggested to the Legion's highest ranking officers – always very politely, of course – that abandoning the world and letting it become part of the Iron Cage surrounding the Ruinstorm may be a good idea. But even the Iron Warriors would rather avoid that : they see the World Eaters' homeworld as a welcome addition to their already thinly stretched forces.

It is not uncommon for Ultramarines warbands to attack Nuceria, and the planet is surrounded by some of the best orbital defences in the galaxy, built in cooperation with the Fourth Legion in the days following the Heresy. The World Eaters also keep a permanent presence there, fighting against raiders and assisting law enforcements by regularly descending upon Chaos cults and purging them with bolter and chainaxe. On the rare occasions that the sons of the Arch-Traitor actually manage to make planetfall, they hunt them without mercy, before burning their corpses and casting their ashes into Nuceria's sun to prevent their corruption from spreading.

Beliefs

The Pits

Though the World Eaters have embraced the path of discipline, there is one tradition from Nuceria's odious past that they brought with them in the stars : the gladiatorial pits. There is one on every ship of the Twelfth Legion, though the size varies depending on the vessel. There, warriors of the World Eaters and guests from other Legions battle against one another. Armor is prohibited in the Pits, as are active weapons, and battles are always fought to first blood. Often, Legionaries fight two against two, with the members of each team chained to each other to encourage teamwork. It is considered a great honor for a warrior of another Legion to be invited to the Pits, and many bonds of brotherhood were forged in these places.

Angron disliked the tradition, for it brought back unpleasant memories of his loss of control in the battle for Desh'ea, but he understood the purpose of it and allowed his sons to continue it. His only demand was that an Apothecary team was stationed in them at all times they were active – he vowed that if one of his sons died at the hands of another, he would close them down for good.

Even before Angron was reunited with his Legion, the War Hounds placed much importance upon the notion of brotherhood within their ranks. To them, the shared camaraderie between warriors was the only worthwhile thing about war, and this has continued to this day. But at the start of the Great Crusade, this brotherhood was balanced by a fierce competition between warriors, and most Legionaries were hot-blooded and headstrong, willing to take greater risks to earn their brothers' esteem. However, Angron taught them the importance of discipline and self-control. They were all brothers, and there was no honor in pursuing vainglory.

'Passion and loyalty are what make us warriors instead of weapons.'

Old Astartes adage

The World Eaters believe in brotherhood first, discipline second, and fighting prowess third. They spend even more time than the other Legions training outside of battle, considering it to be a ritual purification of their minds as well as of their bodies. Twelfth Legion's Chaplains watch over their brothers during these group sessions, seeking hints of moral discomfort in their postures and movements. When they do find a disturbed brother, they call him after the training is over, listening to his concerns and appeasing them. Beyond individual training, far more time is spent to preparing for group action. Ships of the Twelfth Legion have huge empty spaces left in them where the World Eaters can recreate hundreds of different environment and conduct drills to sharpen their ability to act as one on the battlefield.

Beyond these sessions, the World Eaters eschew the use of traditional training rooms, where individual Legionaries test their skills against battle servitors. Instead, the combat drones are reserved for the mass engagements in the training decks, where dozens of World Eaters wage simulated war against hundreds of servitors designed by the Legion's best tech-priests to provide as great a challenge as possible. Accidents, even lethal ones, are not unheard of, but are not cause for punishment to the tech-priest who designed the responsible servitor. It is through this brutal training that the World Eaters can maintain both their excellent martial skills and their iron-clad discipline. Newly-induced Space Marines forge their bonds of brotherhood in these places, learning to depend on their brothers and how to act as a single entity. Sometimes, the level of unity is so high that the presence of officers becomes unnecessary : even without orders, the World Eaters are capable of acting in the most tactically efficient way in any situation. Few Companies can reach this level, and they are an example to all others.

Like the rest of the loyalist Legions, the World Eaters do not believe in the creed of the Ecclesiarchy. To them, the Emperor was the pinnacle of Human achievement, a being who had managed to manifest the full potential of the species. Worthy of respect, of love and loyalty, yes : but not a god. They also do not believe him to be perfect, for they remember that while Angron respected and loved his father, he also saw the flaws in him : how his immense might and terrible responsibilities had driven him away from the common man, unable to understand the thoughts and feelings of many in his empire. To them, by moving beyond the weaknesses of Mankind, the Emperor lost touch with those who were unable to follow.

Still, they are sensible enough to keep their opinions to themselves, lest they incur unneeded conflict with the rest of the Imperium. Like the Night Lords, they understand that Mankind needs faith to endure in the face of the countless horrors of the galaxy, even if they regret that this faith must be blind and unchallenged. On more than one occasion, the Twelfth Legion has been called upon to help ease the tensions between the Word Bearers and the Ecclesiarchy, acting as an intermediary for both sides. The Word Bearers still honor the bond forged during the Shadow Crusade, and like Lorgar did with Angron, they are willing to calm down when presented with the World Eaters' arguments.

Their long history of fighting at the side of human soldiers – which began on Desh'ea and continues to this day – has given the sons of Angron a kinder look on the rest of Humanity than most other Legions. They know the potential of Mankind from having witnessed first-hand the bravery ordinary men and women can display on the battlefield, and see it as their duty to protect them so that they can fulfill their potential. At the same time, they also know the depths of depravity to which they can sunk, and are utterly merciless when they fight those who exploit their fellow humans for their own gain. Castles and fortresses beyond counting have been put to the torch by World Eaters who discovered the crimes of their lords. On more than one occasion, the Legion has gone to war against systems technically loyal to the Golden Throne because they allowed the practice of slavery – something that the Adeptus Terra is always too willing to ignore if the taxes paid are high enough.

The Heirs of Regret

The first Heirs of Regret were the twelve guards who, during the last blood games of Desh'ea, turned against their masters in the name of Angron's righteous cause. After the rebellion's success, they were overwhelmed with guilt at the memory of all that they had done, and left Desh'ea for a monastery in the mountain range where Angron arrived. There, they dedicated themselves to a life of reflection and meditation on the human nature, still practicing their skills – for they knew, from their part in the rebellion, that they could be used for good just as easily as they had been for evil. In time, others who had participated in the atrocities of Nuceria's previous regime came to the temple, seeking redemption for their crimes.

When the World Eaters returned to Nuceria to recruit new aspirants for the Legion, they learned of the sanctuary's existence. The Imperial Truth frowned upon such practices, and while the Heirs of Regret did not claim any divine inspiration, their compliance to the Emperor's edict banning all religion still needed to be inspected. The Astartes sent to visit the sanctuary were taken aback by what they saw, and deeply impressed by both the prowess of the Heirs themselves and the philosophy they tried to impart to their disciples. They offered them a chance to join the Legion in the stars, so that they may atone for their sins by fighting in the Great Crusade. The Heirs accepted, and, leaving their disciples to discover their own way to redemption, they joined the World Eaters. When Angron learned of this, he made it a Legion-wide tradition, demanding that the Heirs scatter across the World Eaters, with no more than one by Company. With only twelve of the Heirs, there were many Companies left out, but the Primarch decreed that there would only ever be twelve Heirs of Regret, who, for their crimes, would become living memorials of all those lost in needless bloodshed.

When one of the Heirs dies – most often in battle, but some have fallen to disease or accident over the millenia – another is chosen from within the walls of the sanctuary on Nuceria. To ensure that there are always enough Heirs, the World Eaters seek out individuals in quest of redemption. In the Imperium, such individuals are hardly uncommon : officers from the Imperial Guard whose orders led to their men being slaughtered, civilian criminals who killed someone dear to them in a moment of passion, and over the centuries, even a few Inquisitors who found themselves unable to bear the weight of their mistakes. Such individuals are brought to the sanctuary of Nuceria, where they train and meditate away from the galaxy's turmoil. The location of the sanctuary is one of the Legion's greatest secrets, and it is defended by ancient technologies and the hundreds of disciples within its walls.

The Heirs are some of the greatest human warriors in the galaxy. Like the Legion, they prefer to fight in close quarters, each of them using the weapon with which he or she is the most comfortable. In battle, they wear customized power armor, enabling them to fight on the same level as the Legionaries alongside whom they fight. When the Company to which they are attached is deployed with human allies, they will join their fellow mortals, leading them from the front and inspiring them to heights of heroism and dedication that even the most charismatic officer or frightening Commissar can only aspire to. In Astartes-only operations, they fight amongst the Space Marines, at the side of the Chaplains.

But more than simple elite warriors, the Heirs are a symbol to the Legion and the Imperium. They are proof that those who have lost their way can be redeemed, so long as their soul remains strong in the face of the corruption surrounding them. On occasion, even renegade World Eaters have been convinced to lay down their arms and surrender by the presence of an Heir, accepting their punishment for their crimes and dying with some measure of their honor restored.

Currently, there are nine living Heirs of Regret. The other three seats of their order are empty, their holders having fallen in battle in the last years, and no suitable replacements have yet been found. While the World Eaters are searching, they are not worried about the diminishment of the order – during the ten thousand years of the Heirs of Regret's existence, there have been a handful of times where the order has been far closer to extinction. During the dark time of the Reign of Blood, when the Imperium came closer to destruction than it had since the Heresy itself, there was a time when only one Heir survived – yet the order endured.

Combat doctrine

The Devourers

Like most Legions, the World Eaters consider their Tactical Dreadnought Armors to be relics, needing to be carefully preserved and bestowed only upon the most worthy warriors. During the Great Crusade, many of their Terminators were concentrated in the Legion's First Company, known as the Devourers. They were Angron's bodyguards, even though the Lord of the Red Sands hardly needed them. During the Shadow Crusade however, they proved their worth, saving the life of their Primarch many times against the daemonic hordes. There is, on Nuceria, a grand memorial dedicated to the three hundred Devourers who sacrificed themselves so that Angron, wounded unto death by a Daemon Prince known as Doombreed, could be evacuated and brought to Lorgar for healing.

After Angron left the World Eaters, the Devourers scattered across the other Companies, pledging their loyalty to other Captains. These oaths, and all those taken by World Eaters Terminators up to this day, are, however, secondary to their primary loyalty : should the Primarch return, the Devourers shall rush to his side. Many felt lost without their lord, however, and sought to find him and bring him back – or, at least, join him in his quest. It is not unheard of for Imperial people to find the millennia-old war-plate of one of the Devourers, its wearer long dead in his quest for the Lord of the Red Sands. The Twelfth Legion has a list of these missing warriors, known to them as the Ra'Kestir – literally, the Consumed Ones. They are ever searching for them, and reward handsomely those who can bring them the wargear of one of their fallen brethren.

Like the rest of the World Eaters, the Devourers favor close combat. They use the resilience granted by their war-plate to cross the distance to the enemy, never relenting in their pursuit, until they reach their quarry. They usually stay in reserve until forward scouts can deploy teleport beacons, allowing them to manifest in the very midst of their foes. Many enemies of the Imperium have been destroyed by a Twelfth Legion's Devourer strike, their command annihilated and their forces terrified of the seemingly unstoppable giants.

In battle, the World Eaters favour close-quarters combat, where they can make the most use of their superior strength and stamina. While in other Legions, chainaxes are mostly used by assault squads, the sons of Angron find them to be most suited to their style of warfare. Their Legionaries do not seek a duellist's precise skill : they favor a more brutal approach, more adapted to their style of waging war – with as many battle-brothers gathered together as possible. While other Legions deploy their forces in lightning strikes targeted at the enemy's weakest point in order to quickly change the course of a battle or a war, the World Eaters seek out the largest conflicts and mingle with the rest of the Imperial forces. Battle-brothers fight side by side with common troopers, strengthening the lines of the Imperium wherever they go. Those who demonstrate exceptional skill are then taken in the Legion's elite troops, who are generally kept in reserve and used in a more traditional manner.

This policy has made the World Eaters one of the Legions most closely linked with the rest of the Imperium's military forces. There are, of course, exceptions to that rule : the World Eaters and the Adeptus Mechanicus are known to disagree on many subjects, the sorest of which is the use of slave-circuits for the skitarii legions, who are essentially mind-controlled by their magos overlords. While the Legion as a whole agrees to just leave the Martian Cult alone, it is considered better for all parties involved to minimize the conflicts where the two are deployed side by side. There are also conflicts with the Imperial Guard. One several occasions, the high command of regiments from worlds whose society placed an undue importance on bloodline and birthrights mysteriously vanished after being deployed alongside the World Eaters, replaced by 'low-born' from the rest of the regiment. One more extreme incident occurred on Menazoid Epsilon, where the entire regiment of the Jantine Patricians was wiped out by the Twelfth Legion presence in the campain after they turned on another regiment. There are rumors of an Inquisitorial involvement in the turning of the Patricians, but no clear evidence has ever been found.

Scattered across the galaxy, the Legion fights on hundreds of fronts at the side of the Imperial Guard. For all their light-hearted brotherhood in their personal time, once battle is joined the World Eaters are amongst the most disciplined Legions of all. Only the Emperor's Children can claim to be more rigorous in their approach to battle, and even then there are exceptions. While officially, the Legiones Astartes can no longer command forces of mere mortals, there are entire regiments of the Imperial Guards who have given their oath to individual World Eaters commanders, and follow them in their battles across the galaxy. This practice is carefully monitored by the Inquisition, to ensure no son of Angron ever gains control of a true army, rather than mere aid in his duty.

Thorough their long history, the World Eaters have retained their knowledge of waging war against daemonic foes. The knowledge they paid for in blood during the Shadow Crusade has been carefully preserved and passed on, despite many attempts of the Inquisition to force them to hand over all such lore to the Holy Ordos. It is said that part of the reason why the World Eaters prefer hand-to-hand combat is that the spawn of Chaos are notoriously resistant to conventional firepower, and can best be taken down in close quarters.

Recruitment and Geneseed

Skalathrax, the Smoldering Ember

Located deep within the galactic north, Skalathrax is perhaps the most isolated recruiting world of the Twelfth Legion, but it is also the most famous after Nuceria itself. The world was reclaimed from traitor hands after the Heresy by a force led by Khârn himself, who, impressed by the courage of its inhabitants – who rose against their traitor masters as soon as the first loyalist ship emerged from the Warp – claimed it in the name of the World Eaters.

The planet is a death world covered in jungles, with the only traces of civilization being several huge, sealed complexes with a population of several thousands servants of the Legion. The rest of Skalathrax' people live in the jungle, in savage tribes whose members spend their short lives battling the many predators of the jungle. The planet is also wrecked by volcanic instability, with volcanoes rising in the middle of the lush forests and reducing them to ashes before quickly subduing.

Due to its position and importance to the Twelfth Legion, Skalathrax has been the theatre of many Chaos incursions. Each time, the World Eaters have managed to repel the forces of the Archenemy. Out of the dozens of attacks, two especially stand out. The first is the one that claimed the life of Khârn the Bound One, near the end of M32. The second, nearly a thousand years later, happened when Angron himself was visiting the planet. He was accompanied only by his own honor guard, the Devourers, when the planet came under attack by an alliance of several Salamanders warbands. For several weeks, the Lord of the Red Sands fought against a vastly more numerous foe, until reinforcements arrived in the form of Fulgrim of the Emperor's Children and several Companies of his Legion. Angron and the Phoenician fought side by side against the spawn of the Black Dragon, forcing them off-world after a campain that lasted almost an entire year and saw half the surface of Skalathrax burned to ash by the Salamanders' weapons.

Many aspirants are taken from Skalathrax and induced into the Twelfth Legion : the legends of the Astartes have remained spread across the tribes, due to the many battles waged by the giants at their side during the Chaos incursions. Those who want to join the Legion must leave their tribe behind and survive the journey to one of the strongholds, where they are further tested for strength, will, and genetic purity. Those who fail the tests are given the choice to be returned to their tribe, or to join the population of the strongholds a servant of the World Eaters. While they can then never hope to become a Space Marine, it is still an honorable path, maintaining the Legion's installations and, in times of war, fighting to defend them.

The name of the world, Skalathrax, was given by the Eighth Captain after its reclamation. In the World Eaters' tongue, it means 'place of ending, of judgement', as well as 'destruction', especially by way of burning. Considering the world's bloody history, more than a few Inquisitors have used seers to inspect the world, to see if its naming had been prophetic in some way, maybe attracting the attention of the Dark Gods – as if Khârn, when he named the world, had issued a challenge to them : 'Come take this from us if you dare.'

Of all the loyalist Legions, the World Eaters are the most diverse. They do not take in aspirants only from their homeworld of Nuceria, mostly because the gene-pool of that world is too unstable to provide enough aspirants. Instead, they recruit from dozens of worlds, resulting in a combination of ethnicities unseen in any of the rest of the Imperium's armies. This is just as it was back when the Legion was founded on Terra, when aspirants from all over the planet were taken into the ranks of the Twelfth. Such diversity is made possible by the high compatibility ratio of the World Eaters gene-seed : it is very rare for a healthy aspirant to reject any of the implants carrying Angron's gene-line.

Compared to other loyal Legions, the World Eaters can also be said to be less regarding as to whom they accept in their ranks. In accordance to their beliefs, they think that all those who meet the physical, genetic and mental standards required to survive the training of the aspirants and the procedure of Ascension are worthy of being Legionaries. All humans are a well of potential, after all, and if some are inferior to others when they wake up after being reborn as Space Marines, then they can balance for that through intense training. This has allowed the World Eaters to be the most numerous Legions of the Imperium, while keeping the gene-seed pure of any mutation.

By Angron's own decree, the gene-seed harvested by every Company is given to the Legion's training centers, where it is used to create more Astartes. Companies are also forbidden from recruiting from the same world twice in a row, or on the planet where the gene-seed of their fallen will be used – to facilitate this, the World Eaters have regular exchanges of gene-seed stocks between their worlds, each an heavily guarded and secretive affair. This mixes the gene-seed of various Companies together, preventing the rise of specific mutations by limiting the gene-pool. It also prevents division within the Legion based on the birthworld of the Legionaries.

Nagrakali

Like all Legions recruiting from more than a single homeworlds, a common tongue is required by the World Eaters to accommodate aspirants from dozens of worlds and background. Due to the savage origins of most aspirants, however, a great number of them are unable to speak Gothic properly, even if they are able to understand it after hypno-learning. While it is enough to communicate with the rest of the Imperium, it is not enough for the clarity and concision of meaning required for battlefield action. Born during the Great Crusade, Nagrakali is an hybrid language, constituted from words and expressions from the hundreds of dialects spoken by the Legionaries.

The Ordo Dialogus has long considered Nagrakali a fascinating case study of the evolution of language in completely unique circumstances. Every generation of World Eaters speak a slightly different iteration of the language, altered by variances in their homeworlds' own tongues. Such alterations are always subtle enough that all World Eaters at a given time are able to understand each other perfectly, but the Nagrakali of today is an entirely different language from the one used during the Heresy. Only a few words have gone by unchanged, most attached to some historical event of the Legion, making their meaning too important to be altered.

Warcry

Due to fighting alongside human allies more often than alone, the World Eaters' warcries are in Gothic rather than Nagrakali, so that their effect on morale will be more widespread. They generally use 'For the Emperor and the Legion !' and 'We are the Eaters of Worlds !', but also tend to adopt the battle-cry of their allies as their own, as a sign of respect. Call for the defence of the city or world they are fighting upon are common, as are oaths of revenge for past atrocities committed by their foes. In some of the Companies that especially remember their Primarch and crave his return, the warcry 'The eyes of Angron are upon us !' is often used, as it is a persistent myth amongst the Twelfth's battle-brothers that the Lord of the Red Sands will only return when the World Eaters have proven themselves worthy above all others.

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AN : Hello, readers !

So, here we are. The World Eaters, perhaps the Legion with the most tragic story in canon. You will notice one reference to Gladiator, and another to the last Mad Max movie (which I really liked, by the way). In this chapter, I faced one major problem : the name and emblem of the Legion. If the XIIth remains loyal, then there seems to be little reason for them to change their name. I came up with the whole "reminder of what they are capable of", and I think it works pretty well. Another problem was that, in the excellent Horus Heresy novel Betrayer, Angron claims that if he wasn't tortured by the Butcher's Nails, he would have rebelled against the Emperor long before the Heresy for His slaver-like attitude. That's why I made the Emperor talk to Angron.

Also, I am aware that a lot of people expected Angron to lead the slave rebellion like he did in canon, but that this time the Emperor would help him. But that was already done in the Dornian Heresy, for one. Besides, I try to revert the condition of the Primarchs in this fic. Angron never conquered his homeworld in canon, and is known for being the only Primarch failing at that. I wanted to grant him that in this universe - he got enough bad karma in the original. Besides, there was hardly a credible way to make him a gladiator without him being fit with the Butcher's Nails. But the most important part for me is that all I did is stop the alien attack that crippled him in canon and left him vulnerable, leading to him becoming a slave in the first place. I had to use Eldrad Ulthran to do it (and I know : it's not certain that the Eldars are the ones who attacked Agron in canon. But come on : who else has the foresight and the arrogance for an attack like that ?), but I think that worked pretty well. Please tell me what you think of it in your reviews.

On the subject of the origin story for the Primarch, in the reviews since the last chapter, there was one that especially appealed to me : a review left by Teefplucka, about the Dark Angels. The review complained (I am paraphrasing here) that the First Legion got a lesser treatment than the other Traitor Legions, with a less tragic and believable backstory for its betrayal and no Heresy-era champion. And, well ... I plead guilty on all of that. The only excuse I can give is that it was the first Legion, and that I have tried to make each chapter better than the one that came before. I think that once I have done every Legion, I may rewrite the Index Astartes for the Dark Angels, but I don't promise anything. In-universe, I suppose you can blame the lack of information on the Dark Angels' own efforts to hide all the information about them.

Also, Teefplucka said that there were elements in the Dark Angels chapter contradicting the rest about Nikaea. Can someone please tell me where ? I think I missed it.

There were also several reviews of people saying that they liked the daemonic tree for the Iron Hands. Well, I think that was quite an inspired idea too. Nurgle is a god of decay, but also of rebirth, and he wouldn't let his Legion of Chaos Marines fall into nothingness, not without something else rising from its corpse. The Nerragalia is a twisted parody of the ancient myths of life-giving trees, like Yggdrasil.

As usual, please review this chapter if you liked it, or see something contradicting the previous ones. Now that there is a fair amount of existing lore, there is almost always something that I don't notice when I read the chapter one last time before publication. Thanks you all for your support so far, and don't worry : we will come to the Thousand Sons soon enough ... I just hope I will know what to do with them before that.

That's all for now. See you next time for the Ultramarines Legion, greatest among traitors. While I wrote this chapter rather quickly, I am going to take my time for the next, since it's going to be the most important of all for rather obvious reasons. I have several ideas on how Guilliman fell to Chaos, but I need to iron out the details and write something suitably epic. As for my general activity, I think I will write a chapter of Warband of the Forsaken Sons next.

Zahariel out.