The Horus Heresy Book 7 - Inferno

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LEGio MoRTis WARHOUND PATTERN Scour TITAN - ScAR oF HoNOUR

One of the few Scout class Titans attached to the Legio Mortis detachment, the Scar of Honour was a relatively recent creation of the Martian
forges, its livery as yet unadorned by heraldic victory markings. Rather than deploy his Warhounds as a skirmish line to probe the defences of
his foe when approaching the surface ruins of the Zhao-Arkhad sub-fane, Princeps Senioris Drane, in command of the Legio Mortis planetfall,
instead deployed them as outriders out on the extreme flanks of their approach, expecting them to hunt down the fleeing remnants of a broken

foe. As a result, the Warhounds were the last to engage the Xestobiax and the last to be destroyed.



The Legio Custodes are the bodyguards and them to do so. The number of active Legio Decades later still from this infamous battle,

sworn protectors ofthe Emperor and His Custodes warriors has never, it is believed, it would be now the Custodian Guard in

chosen emissaries, and should the need arise, exceeded ro,ooo. This figure was first attained their hundreds, in a form akin to their most

His most deadly executioners. Genetically towards the middle stages of the Great modern aspect, who would be charged with

engineered warriors of unswerving loyalty Crusade and maintained diligently enough leading the cull ofthose same Thunder

and unshakable purpose, their might and that the 'Ten Thousand' itself has became a Warriors who had once served the Emperor

skill-at-arms is greater even than the Space cognomen for the Custodian Guard in the and who had then rebelled in the wake of

Marines of the Legiones Astartes, while their works of the remembrancers and the notaries their forcible disbandment and internment.

weapons and wargear are uniquely potent, of the Imperial Court since, whatever its Only this time the Custodian Guard would

representing the apex of the Imperium's literal accuracy. be accompanied by the new gene-crafted

technology. Their history is a long one, warriors meant to replace the Thunder

and for centuries they have walked in the Wrought by the Emperor's H and Warriors; th e first few thousand prototype

Emperor's shadow as His praetorians and the It is not an uncommon belief, even among Space Marines, most of whom would go on

protectors of His secrets. the learned across the wide sweep of the to form the nascent I" Legiones Astartes,

Imperium, to suppose the Custodian Guard latterly known as the Dark Angels. The

THE FIRSrBORN are themselves some variant of the Legiones evidence then is clear; since before the first

The Legio Custodes are by many accounts Astartes-if so crude a term might be worlds were conquered as the Great Crusade

the Emperor's true firstborn, prefiguring applied, an 'advanced' form, perhaps even left the Sol System, since before the taking of

even the Thunder Warriors. They are His first a second, improved iteration. While this Luna and the Treaty of Olympus, since before

genetically engineered, psycho-indoctrinated explanation might seem to fit the facts , the Cataclysm ofUrsh and the fall of the

warriors, perfected weapons crafted by the particularly to those without intimate Yndonisic bloc, before the Space Marines and

Emperor's genius from the dread lore of knowledge of the Imperium's birth pains before the Thunder Warriors, the Custodian

the Dark Age ofTechnology. They are in during the final acts of the Unification Wars Guard have walked at the Emperor's side.

almost every measurable way superhuman: on Ancient Terra, it could not in fact be

stronger, faster, more acute of senses and further from the truth. Of the Legio Cu stodes

more resilient even than the doomed and the Legiones Ast artes

Thunder Warriors or the Space Marines who The bloody chronicles of the Unification As has been mentioned, the Custodian

would follow them, and so far beyond the Wars, particularly in their earliest stages Guard and the Space Marines are related

limits of an unaugmented human as to be when the Emperor first rose from the in form, as perhaps might be expected of

almost godlike in comparison. Indeed, only nightmarish bloodshed of Ancient Terra's works of a same creator's hand, but they

the Primarchs and above them the Emperor long night to cast down the reign of the are very different in function and capacity.

Himself exceeds them in corporeal might, warlords and monsters that had long carved There are of course similarities between the

and to meet them in open conflict is to court the birth world of Mankind into a thousand two. Both are physically transformed well

death for human or alien alike. slaughter-haunted pieces, are difficult now beyond 'natural' human limits in terms of

to comprehend and many are rightly sealed strength, endurance and fortitude, and fitted

They are rare creatures, these firstborn of from the Imperium's scholars and even the for inhuman environmental adaption and

the Emperor's gene-craft. Such was their Terran Court, the dangerous truths within resilience, though in this the Legio Custodes

psycho-physical design, and the intricacy suppressed. But in those dark chronicles the are the markedly superior of the two in

and sophistication of the gene-craft involved, Custodian Guard, in some form or shape, might, if not in adaptability. Both are subject

that the modifications which went into their have their part as far back as any can record to extensive psychological and cognitive •
creation required such strict biological and or those few souls who survive yet from conditioning, and are physically and mentally
psychological criteria that only a mere one those times can remember. Upon the pillars reworked to render most of their baser i}
in many thousands of potential candidates of the Black Manse ofNas'sau, capital of drives inert and their beings rechannelled
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might prove suitable for the simplest of the one of the earliest of the techno-barbarian towards aggression, goal acquisition and the

steps involved in the Legio Custodes creation holds to submit before He who was to be fulfilment of duty, and as a further safeguard •,
process. Even of this small pool of candidates, known as the Emperor, inscriptions record against distraction and as a biological control,

survival through the decades of alchemical the 'Lord of Lightning' coming before their both are of course incapable of procreation.

augmentation and psycho-memetic training warlord-king flanked by His 'four giants of In both cases all that is left are beings

was far from guaranteed. In this fact can crimson and gold', demanding surrender. of singular purpose; in the case of each

be seen a pattern also replicated in the Decades later, according to detailed extant Legiones Astartes, what is created is a living

Space Marine Legions, only to a far more records preserved in the Trans-Nordyc engine of conquest that cares for little else,

highly pronounced degree, so that while Akashic archives, a companion guard of and in the Custodian Guard, each is created

the numbers of the Legiones Astartes were thirty 'Custodians', bearing power spears, protector of unrelenting diligence and savage

prevented from growing beyond perhaps clad in augment-armour and personally capability-a watchman whose vigilance will

a million at their greatest strength by the commanded by the Emperor, fought at the never tire.

limitations inherent in the means oftheir head of the new-born Thunder Legion in the What also differs truly between the two, i'
creation -a paltry sum compared to the assault against the formidable Maulland Sen Custodian Guard and Space Marine, is not
billions ofothers who took part in the Great Confederacy. One of their number is even '

Crusade- the Legio Custodes could never, recorded as being responsible for striking the just their functional purpose, but the extent

upon the available evidence, have operated head of the confederation's tyrant-prophet of their augmentation and the means by

on the scale of the Space Marine Legions, from its shoulders in the aftermath of the which it is accomplished. While the process

even if the attempt had been made for campaign's climactic 'Battle of the Red Frosf. through which the Legiones Astartes are
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!t fabricated from a human being is well of augm entation at all mar the Custodian; they can readily serve as both- but to create
what creates them is as invisible as it is a being whose perception and apprehension
i~~ ! enough documented in its outline, though
t its details are, of course, rightly held secret potent, worked upon the core genetics and at of threat and how to counter it is literally
by those parties involved in the process a deep cellular level, and perhaps tailored to beyond the natural limits of man or the

I on a Legion by Legion basis, genuine facts each specific inductee. There are those who powers of a machine. By means unknown
insist that so invisible and yet so powerful and unknowable beyond the Emperor's own
J about the manner in which the Custodian this process is that it crosses over into a forbidden laboratories are the minds of the
metaphysical realm ofbiomancy and psychic Legio Custodes programmed and fortified,
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Guard are created are very few, even within

the hands of the Imperium's hierarchy.

This is because -as with all else about the manipulation on a level unguessed at. Given filled with an encyclopaedic knowledge of all

Custodian Guard- it is a matter for the that it is said that the Emperor Himself the arts of death, deceit and destruction they

Imperial H ousehold alone, and that authority h as overseen the creation of every single might encounter in their duty, and how both

is one none may gainsay or question. What Custodian Guard who has ever lived, this to counter and employ them. Beyond even

is known, however, marks them as different. may well be true. this their education is prodigious, for not

Firstly, there is the matter of the age of the simply the Emperor's protectors in intention,

candidacy. For a child to become one of the The peerless warriors who then result from they are also made to be His companions

Legio Custodes, it is kn own that they must this arcane process are a rare breed indeed, and with Him they are armed to converse

begin the process in their late infancy and and not to be squandered recklessly on the on such matters of warfare, politics and

certainly before adolescence has taken hold battlefield. They were created with a single philosophy as He wished. Most importantly,

on their physical structure. This stands purpose in mind; to be the Emperor's own their psyches are also crafted and shaped

in stark contrast to the Space Marines elite guard. They were a force created both as a master gemsmith might cut and polish

whose implantation is only possible after to defend the Emperor from physical harm a perfect stone, fashioned to precise order

adolescence and best served before full wherever the Great Crusade might take Him, and pattern, a pattern to which loyalty and

maturity. This may link to a second of the few to stand watch over His private domains and discipline, duty and unflinching obedience

known facts about the creation of the Legio most guarded secrets, and to serve as the to the Emperor goes deeper than blood and

Custodes: that the gene-craft and alchemistry direct agents of His will-as His personal bone, deeper than conscious thought or

that transforms them is as absolute as it emissaries- be that will to protect, to unconscious desire. If at any stage in the

is subtle, and worked upon the smallest venture, to claim, to keep secret, or to execute process the merest flaw is encountered, as

conceivable microscopic level of their without remorse. with the gemsmith's search of the perfect

genome and cellular structure. It is a process stone, the flawed subject is discarded.

that effects such change on the mortal INCARNATE PURPOSE

human form that, when complete, unless To accomplish the ends to which the Legio The product of these amassed arts, arcane,

they suffer such massive bodily harm as to Custodes were designed, not only is a academic and militant, is a body of warriors

forcibly end their lives, they are effectively Custodian's superhuman physical power these living weapons make up- the Legio

immortal, without perceptible ageing taking honed to a razor's edge, but so also is the Custodes itself, the Ten Thousand. As an

place after full maturity. individual Custodian's intellect, mental organisation, it is in many ways both alike

fortitude and martial skill developed with and unalike to the Space Marine Legions

Not then for the Legio Custodes the pattern ruthless application and zeal. The result is in formation and structure, a paramilitary

of surgical grafting and organ implantation the creation not simply of a preternaturally force unique in history, inviolate in action

that creates a Space Marine, no such crudities deadly fighter or master assassin - though and answerable only to the Emperor. While

each Legion is, at least at conception, a The Gene-terrors ofOld Night c ;ii:·
highly stratified and self-contained military Many human mythologies, both ancient and the product of the collapse of civilisation
organisation designed to be the shock on thousands of worlds during the Age of Strife, carry legends of the apocalyptic wars of l
troops and principal agency of the Great the gods in whose aftermath terrible weapons are left upon the desolate battlefield for the
Crusade, the Legio Custodes is similarly gods' inheritors to find. Many scholars liken these legends to the fall of past civilisations •
self-suffici~nt and self-contained, but is and the discovery -or rediscovery- of some pivotal technology such as gunpowder,
never armed or expected to prosecute war, steel or atomantic force, but never has the mythic construct been more appropriate to
but instead to' utterly dominate whichever the understanding of such a perilous rediscovery than in the case of the gene-craft of
particular close battle in which they fight. Terra. At the height of humanity's ancient dominion during the Dark Age ofTechnology,
Their base of operations is Terra itself and unbridled and recklessly potent human science had unlocked the myriad potentials
their own domains interwoven with that within the human genome and even thought nothing of the terrible crimes of transgenic
of the Emperor. They hold few void ships hybridisation, the fusing of human and alien biology, if it suited the whims of the scientist-
of their own, but could command by edict kings of that lost age.
any such vessel of the Imperialis Armada to
their task, and in fact requisition anyone or The descendants of some of the Dark Age ofTechnology's more stable flesh-works
anything within the Imperium in extremis to remain with us to the present in extremes such as the high-gravity adapted Ogryns and
serve their most sacred and undaunted task; the Navigators without whom long-distance space travel would be impossible, while
the protection of the Emperor and His works others are mercifully long perished. But when the Dark Age ofTechnology ended in an
from all the foes of humanity. apocalypse of war and terror, as the masters fought their creations in the shapes known to
us now in legend as the 'men of stone and the men of steel', and the anarchy and destruction
Whether serving as part of a detachment ofwidespread psyker emergence brought the dominion ofMankind crashing down, the
acting as the destroyers of some ill-fated foe, weapons of the gods were truly left strewn upon the battlefield. Nowhere was this more so
or tasked as a bodyguard for the Emperor than on Terra itself, the seat and capital of that ancient empire, and storehouse of its secrets.
or some element of His household, or even For centuries such dread secrets slumbered; in forgotten bunkers and armoured vaults
where a handful of Custodians might be lay the masterless gene-looms and autosurgical chambers of the Dark Age ofTechnology,
deployed to act as the personal protectors waiting for the ignorant and the power hungry to set them to work once more to bloody
to an Imperial emissary or Lord Militant, and ill-reckoned purposes. The end result of their inevitable rediscoveries was a world
they are tireless, vigilant and remorseless. already plunged into violent anarchy and environmental collapse made infinitely worse by
They are armed, created and trained to be the abused powers of those lost gods and devils of ancient science unleashed, genetically
the match and the death of anything they tailored viral warfare, desperate schemes at blood-bought immortality and power, and a
might encounter face-to-face, be that human, hulking grotesquery of once-human shock troops driven into battle by the ambition of
xenos or machine, in any circumstance of crazed warlords. Mutation, monstrosity, pogrom, disease and death unimaginable were let
single combat, counter-attack to ambush loose by the warlord's lust for conquest; such was Terra's long night.
or close range assault. Again and again has
history seen the Custodian Guard stand off By the time of the coming of the Emperor to finally quell the endless war, splice-wrought
and defeat odds that seem beyond reason or and muscle-grafted warriors were the common currency of war amid the techno-
belief It has seen them slay monsters foul barbarian tribes and mercenary clans which dominated much of desolate Ancient Terra,
enough to have been dredged up from pure while degenerate gene-damaged mutants and abhumans haunted the ruins and wastes
nightmare, and defeat and slay assassins born beyond the holdfasts of petty empires. The more extreme children of the Dark Age of
of arts both dark and subtle beyond human Technology were also a fearful legend which haunted, all too real, the dreams of men, be
ken. Tested again and again, be it on alien they the Excubari Vivamorphs of Cah'marg, who culled the young for 'beautiful' flesh
worlds before now untrodden by humanity, to graft to their own failing bodies, or the nightmare horrors of the Ghourmant clans of
or within the tangled under-hives of the the deep sinks of Detra-Merica, whose terrible strength and longevity were bought only
domains of Mankind lost to the Age of Strife, at the price of a far more indiscriminate and insatiable hunger. It was both to break the
or the rwisted palaces of alien warlords, the rule of these foul abominations and the unscrupulous masters of the gene-bred dogs of
Legio Custodes proved themselves warriors war, to see them purged from Terra, that the Thunder Legion was created. It was an act of
of terrifying ability. Their service and their fighting fire with fire. Just as it was that in the creation of the Space Marine Legions was
mystery has seen the Legio Custodes quickly a tool of unparalleled conquest fashioned so that humanity could reclaim the stars. Just
become a legend equal in wonder and terror as it was that with the Legio Custodes that a body of undying, indefatigable protectors
even to those alongside whom they served was created, who like watchful demigods of myth would stand guard over the Master of
and in the echoes of whispered stories in Mankind until the stars burned cold. It was only the Emperor, in His wisdom, who could
every corner of the burgeoning Imperium. claim the inheritance of the gene-craft of the Dark Age ofTechnology, and turn it to these
To the common soldier and planetary ends, to forge angels of flesh and blood where lesser men had created mutilated monsters
governor alike, the golden-armoured image and imperfect messiahs. It was only the Emperor who was able to see that relic lore safely
of the Custodian Guard is a visible sign not contained and truly controlled, so that it might reach its apotheosis in His own works.
only of the Emperor's direct protection and
the embodiment of His will and agency, but
also the omen of His unstoppable wrath, as
personal and as terrifying in their way as
the Angels of Death, his Space Marines, are
impersonal and all conquering avatars in the
minds of many of the Great Crusade itself

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!! THE ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE oF THE LEGIO CusTODES
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The full details of the organisational Emperor directly, but serving as the head Sentinel Guard and Custodian Guard proper,

structure, disposition and regulation of the of the Order is a single officer; the Captain- as well as the elite Hetaeron Guard-the

Legio Custodes are shrouded in secrecy as General. Since any can remember or record, most skilled fighters among a force of

befits an institution dedicated to ultimate this role and dire responsibility has been warriors whose martial skills are already

security. Those outside its ranks, even though held by a single man, Constantin Valdor, or beyond human.

they operate close to the Terran Court and as he is sometimes known 'The First of the

the highest levels of the Divisio Militaris, Ten Thousand'. He is a puissant warrior and The Tharanatoi

cannot hope to know more than a degree a being of supernatural stature and gravitas, Though there are few opponents that the

of detail which is purely observational, such that many have likened him to one of Hykanatoi cannot deal with, they are not a

and likely barely scratches the surface of the Primarchs of the Space Marine Legions, rounded military force in the sense that they

the no doubt byzantine Legio. What can and though while this is doubtless hyperbole, are not configured to deal with exigencies

be outwardly observed is contained here records of his existence predate any of the such as siegecraft or attrition warfare that

within this account, as are the various details Primarchs' creation. fall outside their purview. However, the

and titles with which the Custodian Guard Legio Custodes still maintains the ability

openly interacts with the other organs of the Below the absolute authority of the Captain- to deploy its forces as heavy shock troops

Imperium's power. Generallies the Custodian Tribunate; a should the need arise, or indeed to counter a

senior cadre of perhaps ten in number, foe that directs overwhelming force against

The first mystery that outsiders must cope forming the Legio Custodes' council of war it in high-intensity warfare. These counter-

with is that of identity. The Custodian Guard and policy. This body has the incomparable assault forces are known as the Tharanatoi,

are themselves it would seem effectively privilege of providing their services as and encompass custom-modified suits of

ageless and as unchanging as granite, and counsel to the Emperor Himself should He Terminator armour optimised for use by

just as impenetrable to outsiders. They each so desire it, and in the matters of the security the Custodian's superhuman frame, as well

profess to a given name, often a compound of the Imperial Palace's inner sanctums as vastly potent portable firepower such

drawn from the lore ofAncient Terra's roll and the person ofthe Emperor, no higher as carried by the Sagittarum Guard, whose

of kings and tyrants, gods and legends. authority exists. weapons include those few dark relics

Whether or not this represents some humour known as Adrathic weapons-disintegration

or deliberate irony on the Emperor's part In rank below the Tribunes of the Legio beams of phenomenal destructive potential,

given the Legio's role is something that it is Custodes can be found the Custodian long gathered to the Emperor's household

perhaps unwise to speculate on. Such true Prefectorate and the Shield Captains. The and entrusted to no other.

names they knew as part of their birth and distinction between the two, not apparent

origin are likely obliterated by the process of entirely to outsiders, is one perhaps of The Kataphraktoi

their creation, but the myths that have grown seniority and function, with the title of Long before the Emperor's retreat and

up around the Legio Custodes have long held Prefect accorded as a reward of veterancy and seclusion on Terra after the appointment

that each Custodian Guard garners over his favour in service by the Emperor, while the of the Warmaster Horus to command His

centuries a long list of additional names and rank of Shield Captain indicates an active forces , the principal role of protection and

titles grated purely by the Emperor for their field command over a particular detachment defence the Custodian Guard engaged in

deeds, history and character. Such names or deployment. Below these ranks, the was a mobile one. They went wherever

are held as a secret of their Order and never Custodians seem to be peers as in the manner their master did, no matter what blasted

betrayed to others, though some myths of a warrior caste or aristocracy, rather than alien world or lost cityscape of ancient glory

would have it this roll of honour is graven links in the more familiar chain of command He trod. In this the elements of speed and

hidden upon their golden armour or even found elsewhere in the Imperium's armed mobility were paramount to their success,

etched microscopically into their very bones. forces. Their functional titles adapt to their as was reconnaissance and counter-strike in

chosen role and panoply of war in whichever lightning response to threat. Those of the

In terms of structural organisation, it is command they have been included, with Legio who specialised in such tactics and

apparent that the Legio Custodes is unique the following broad distinctions applied in the means of employing them were called

unto itself in terms ofform, offering little communication with external forces on a the Kataphraktoi; they flew interceptors

in common with the rest ofthe Imperium's tactical level, their titles drawn from various and gunships of sublime sophistication and

agency of warfare such as the Imperialis ancient sources. power, and piloted a range of repulsor-lift

Auxilia or the Legiones Astartes. This is grav-vehicles; tanks, transports and strike

only fitting as the Legio Custodes, like other The Hykanatoi skimmers,jet bikes and interface flyers

elements of the so called 'Talons of the The main strength ofthe Custodian Guard advanced beyond anything else in the

Emperor', can be more accurately described comprises this role at any given time. They Imperium's arsenal.

as a paramilitary rather than a strategic force, are the bearers of the spear, the bodyguard

neither geared nor equipped towards the of the Emperor and the executioners of any TheEphoroi

fighting or winning of wars, but to its duties who would offer threat or opposition to The division of the Custodian Guard about

! of protection and where needs be, execution. His will. They are the image of the golden- which the least can be said for certain, the

~' armoured warrior that is summoned in fear Ephoroi were those of the Order that were

UI~ COMMAND STRUCIURE & TACTICAL DISPOSITION and awe when the Legio Custodes is brought tasked with covert operations, counter-
The overall command of the Legio Custodes to mind. Their numbers include variations surveillance and the vitally important task

ft-J of course lies within the purview of the offorce, wargear and panoply such as the of simulated attack and infiltration. It was

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CusTODIAN KALANEMI VELT

THE EHOPHORUS-S!GMA SODALI1Y OF THE

KYKANATOI OF THE LEGIO CUSTODES
PROSPERINE CENSURE FORCE

Kalanemi Velt can in many ways be viewed as
a highly representative example of the Legio
Custodes force despatched under Constantin
Valdor as part of the Terran contingent of
the Censure Force. A veteran of more than a
century of warfare according to available records,
the Custodian had previously served at the
Emperor's side during the Urak Incursion and
the Sencari Crisis, as well as seeing detached
dury with the 38'h Expeditionary Fleet as
Imperial Emissary Militant, and serving in
a Custodian strike force during the Ullanor
Crusade. The famed and deadly war at Ullanor
had in fact been the last time Kalanemi Velt
appears to have travelled beyond Terra before
the Censure Host's mission to Prospera, and in
this he was also the representative of his Order,
who when the Emperor withdrew to His palace-
laboratories, became an increasingly rare sight
abroad in the Imperium.
Depicted here as he fought at Prospera, he wears
the archetypical crimson and gold panoply of
the Legio Custodes. He also bears the common
armorial livery of the Kykanatoi, and carries the
Guardian power spear with its inbuilt bolter.

Custodian Armour Pauldrons

.)

LEcro CusToDES CoNTEMPTOR-AcHruus DREADNOUGHT

M oRITOI ExcELCIS ABRAM HAsRUBAL

0 RESTIAN CHAMBER oF THE LEGIO CusronEs

i1 PRoSPERa CENSURE H osr
The forces dubbed the 'Talons of the Emperor' which formed part of the Censure Host sent to Prospera contained within their ranks a score of

lj1 Legio Custodes Dreadnoughts, envisioned as part of a reserve in case of emergency. As matters transpired, the Dreadnoughts of the Moritoi were
utilised as part of the Custodes' first wave, dispersed through mixed units of Custodian Guard and the Silent Sisterhood to strengthen them and
~ijf contend with Thousand Sons heavy units when encountered. Hasrubal was one such, attached to the splinter command of Prefect Tern Lanais in
the assault on the pyramid of Lhis'Ta on the northern edge of the great plaza ofTizca.
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they who tested the Legio Custodes' defences This supremacy was evident from the The reason for this supremacy above all in
and preparations just as foes would, as well auramite-alloy reinforced armour the arms was a simple one, for not only were
as conducted their own hidden missions Custodian Guard wore, each a planet's the Legio Custodes fitted to match any
to dispose of potential threats within the ransom in worth, to the plethora of potential threat from without, but also from
Imperium, and enact fin al and sometimes repulsion-lift grav-vehicles under their within, and a clear demarcation was enforced
utterly secret justice as the Emperor's will control, most of which were derived between the potency of the Legio's arms, and
demanded it. There are those who have from designs brought back by the great those of any other Imperial forces , not least
posited that where the Ephoroi ended technoarchaeologist Arkhan Land and of all the Space Marines, who they already
and the powers tha t controlled the officio forbidden fo r use by any other. Likewise, overmatched in physical might. It is perhaps
Assassinorum began at certain junctures was their singular weapon s, be they blade or one of the great questions oflost history:
difficult even for the wisest of the Lords of bolter, were masterworks, produced by entire what might have been in the wars of the
Terra to discern, and it is certain when they sequestered sub-cults of the Mechanicum Horus H eresy had the Legio Custodes not
wished that the Assassins of the Temples of and clades of hereditary artisans beholden been so heavily waylaid by the disastrous
Terra were the Legio Custodes' to command. to no other and tasked alone in the Legio consequences of Magnus' great sin on Terra
Custodes' provision. Even greater than and more able to take an active hand, had not
The Moritoi these resources at their disposal was the so many of them been trapped for years in a
The smallest and most singular division Legio's ability to draw upon any face t of the terrible parallel war all but entirely hidden
within the Legio Custodes was the Moritoi; Imperium's war machine and uncounted from the eyes of the cosmos? But that is a
the 'honoured dead who walked'. Just as with hosts it needed to meet its ends, extending darker tale yet, and the weigh ty du ty of a
the Legiones Astartes, it was possible for a its potential power to unguessed at levels. different record than this to tell.
Custodian Guard, having suffered injuries
so terrible that even they could not recover Magisterium & Misericordia
from them but within whom the vital spark One of the singular features of the Legio Custodes as an organisation , and the power of
oflife remained, to be in terred within the its individual Custodians, is their place in the scheme of the Imperium's law. While an
cybernetic life support sarcophagus of a accredited Imperial governor is effectively tyrant of their own world within the edicts
Dreadnough t. The firs t of these was made and parameters of wider Imperial law, and few would gainsay the Legiones Astartes in any
while the Unification Wars were being demands they were to make, the Legio Custodes are alone officially afforded the power of
fought, in a modified Ur-Gholem pattern the 'Magisterium Lex Ultima' in the high form, wh ich is to say they are beyond all law and
Dreadnought, the firs t iteration of its kind all command save for the direct authority of the Emperor Himself. In addition to this, each
intended for use within the Thunder one is a lord of the Imperium in their own right. Th is fact is symbolically represented not
Legions, and as the number of Dreadnought only by the right to still carry the single-headed raptor and lightning bolt heraldry of the
patterns and subtypes within the Imperium's Unification campaign, but also by the carrying of the 'Misericordia.'
arsenal increased across the Great Crusade's
decades of warfare and innovation, so too For long cen turies of un bridled internecine carnage on Ancient Terra during the Age of
did the Legio Custodes keep pace with Strife, the 'Blade of Mercy' or 'Misericordia' came to represent the complete power of life
these developments. Though they remained and death the warlords h eld over the mass of humanity wh ich toiled beneath their yolk
relatively rare, with less than perhaps and suffere d at their whim. From the dust wastes ofUrsh to the Manakonite Temples
a hundred Dreadnoughts of the Legio of the No'rad ice hive, the bearing of such a blade, usually in the form of a long dagger
Custodes in service at the time of Magnus' or short sword made to perpetrate a single, killing thrust, came to symbolise the dread
folly and the subsequent attack on Prospero, authority of the executioner-judge. Beyond the power it represented, the Misericordia
they represented a phenomenally powerful might also be used in practice to carry out a 'clean' sentence of death on a transgressor,
concentration of force, most having had their or to offer terminal surcease to a warrior grievously wounded in battle at their master's
chassis upgraded to the Achillus pattern, a discretion, in either case living up to its n ame as an agent of mercy as well as death. When
variant of the Contemptor manufactured the Emperor came to mastery ofTerra and ended the bloody cycle of the warlords' reign,
with ma terials and technologies far beyond His agents and judges, and only they, came to carry the Misericordia as His mastery
even the vaunted war machines of the eclipsed all others, and it is a tradition the Legio Custodes still uphold.
Legiones Astartes.

PANOPLY oF ARMs

The Legio Custodes' panoply of arms and
armour, its wargear and even the vehicles
and support systems it employed were often
unique to the Legio Custodes and them
alone. Whether ancient relic or newly made,
these items were not only customised exactly
to task, but were also produced without any
regard to the consumption of resources or
rarity of component or lore required; to
arm and outfit the Legio Custodes to the
optimum, nothing was spared.

LEGIO CusTODES CoRoNus
PATTERN GRAV-CARRIER

'THE IRE OF MITHRADATES' principal firepower is provided by a turret their craft to bypass the difficulties of the
emplacement of potent and flexible blaze burning wreckage and collapsing buildings
.. AsSIGNED TO THE RAsiA-lNCAL SENTINEL GUARD cannon; an advanced las weapon which uses between them and their next objective.
SoDALITY oF THE HYKANATOI different cyclic fire modes to engage infantry This strategy of mobile counter-attack and
PROSPERINE CENSURE FoRcE targets with volleys of comparably low-powered rapid reinforcement to shore up the lines
Coronus pattern grav-carriers served pulses, or using concentrated energy single of the increasingly anarchic conflict was
as the primary tactical transport of the discharges, deal with more heavily armoured instrumental in the prevention of heavy
Legio Custodes by the closing years of the targets. losses within the Legio Custodes' ranks,
Great Crusade. These repulsor/suspensor despite the nightmarishly powerful forces
lift skimmers offer both great speed and This particular grav-transport, the Ire of arrayed against them.
manoeuvrability to the Legio Custodes in Mithradates, was assigned to the Rasia-Incal
battle, allowing them to redeploy swiftly to Sodality of the Legio Custodes, a Sentinel Though it received severe damage to its port
meet threats and, if needed, to even evade Guard formation which specialised in fighting nacelle repulsor system from enemy plasma
such threats completely as required. The as an unbreakable bulwark against enemy fire during the battle, the Ire of Mithradates
Coronus is also, despite being a skimmer attack. As the fighting intensified during the survived the Prosperine engagement intact
craft, extremely durable, with battlefield Battle ofTizca's closing stages, the Rasia-Incal enough to return to its orbital conveyor
survivability almost comparable to that of Sodality fought and redeployed many times under its own power and eventually back
the Land Raider class ofbattle tank thanks across the increasingly ravaged cityscape, to Terra, where it served as part of the Legio
to its advanced material construction and using the repulsor-drive capabilities of Custodes garrison for the rest of the wars of
integrated field defences. The Coronus' the Horus Heresy.

- c' '-- . ._

The Ire ofMithradates features relatively little in the way of vehicle
insignia or numeric markings, a factor common to many vehicles in
service with the Legio Custodes, who saw little need to mark their
war engines out for the easy identification of others, or indeed to
facilitate their ready integration into wider amalgamated Imperial
forces. Featured on its hull are however more general emblems
indicating its ownership by the Legio Custodes, as well as the
cruciform insignia which has been used to designate elite close-
quarters units of the Imperium's military since the time of the
Unification Wars on Ancient Terra.

' .:.



Across the great Imperium ofMankind, the process psykers from the human population Psychic Nulls being enough even to unnerve
Sisters of Silence are figures of mys tery and of the ever-expanding Imperium, and return the blind brutal savagery of rampaging Orks,
fear. They have entered the folklore and them to the Divisio Astra Telepathica for while to the Eldar xenoform, psychically
superstitions of thousands of Compliant assessment and disposition. As part of this attuned as their race is, the presence of a
human worlds, despite the efforts of the never-ending task, their duty is also to hunt human Untouchable is a thing of acute
Imperium's iterators to stamp out such folly, down renegade psykers and destroy those existential horror.
and it is easy to understand why. Riding the who are deemed too dangerous to live. This
dark void betWeen the stars upon the dreaded is a perilous task well beyond the abilities The most potent and perhaps shocking
Black Ships, the Silent Sisterhood are the of any merely human law enforcement or power of the Psychic Null however is that
enforcers of the Great Tithe, known by some military force, but it is made possible, indeed which makes them the perfect hunters and
as the 'Psyker Cull' and the 'Hunt That Never in some cases seamless, in its execution slayers of psykers; Untouchables such as the
Ends'. Each one of them is an anathema, a not simply by the martial prowess of the Sisters of Silence are almost impossible to
soulless th ing that inspires dread wherever Sisterhood itself, but crucially by their affect with Empyreal powers. Their minds
they walk. They harvest those humans with fundamental nature as Psychic Nulls. cannot be taken over, their perceptions
the psyker's 'gift', child or adult; whether cannot be altered and their bodies cannot
given up by their kin and government free ly, The Daughters ofAnathema be possessed. Even the cruder but more
or stalked and trapped to the very ends of The most singular thing about the Order is direct manipulations ofthe environment
their world, there is no hiding place from the that each and every one within its ranks is or ambient energy by the psyker such as
Sisters of Silence, no argument that can sway an 'Untouchable', a rare sub-set of humanity conjured fire or the hurling of debris by
them, and no turning them aside. By the who cast no shadow in the Warp, and whose telekinetic force is lessened and sometimes
writ of the Emperor they come and go like minds are immune to psychic assault and negated outright by the Untouchable's
ghosts between the stars, and strike like the an anathema to those with psychic powers. proximity. With Psychic Nulls such as the
reaper of myth against any who would seek Their mere proximity is enough to cause Sisters of Silence, specifically chosen for
to thwart them. psykers discomfort and pain, and in truth the 'strength' of their gift, it is the case that
they will even sow fea r in the hearts of those their minds are not simply absent or inert to
THE HuNTTHATNEVERENns whose minds are without the psyker's gift, a psyker's mental perception, but howling
no matter how strong willed they may be. abysses of darkness that not only negate
I t is rightly said that the Sisters of Silence It is a simple and irresistible reaction to the psychic force directed at them, but actively
- to give them their most common official fundamental 'wrongness' of the Untouchable interfe re with the flow of the Warp around
designation- are one of most secretive and or as it is often put more melodramatically, them. The profoundly phobic reaction they
mysterious of all the Orders of the Emperor's a body without a soul. This curious and engender extends to both human and xenos
servants. They are a covert organisation that macabre phenomena goes beyond simple psykers as well as entities and creatures
has served as the militant arm of the Divisio absence, as one might fee l disturbed by of the Empyrean, their mere presence a
and Adeptus of the Astra Telepathica since a mannequin or automata which apes debilitating toxin.
its foundation, and within whose ranks humanity but remains unalive-instead it
and titles they are k nown, at least in formal is an observably preternatural effect which Further, there are those among the
documentation, as the 'Divisio lnvestigates'- a seems to strike deep against the fundamental Sisterhood who through arcane training and
ra ther obscure phrase which covers up a unconscious perceptions of all living beings practice, and whose nature has never been
shrouded world into which very few have as something malignant and contrary to the revealed to outsiders, are able to develop
ever had the power or the au thority to natural ord er of existence. There appears to their 'null' abilities further until they are
look within. Though markedly different be perceptible degrees of this effect which actively disruptive enough to make any use
in nature and origin, they share much in vary from individual to individual, with some of psychic power in their presence extremely
common in this regard with the Legio Untouchables 'stronger' in the phenomena hazardous. These Sisters are honed into the
Custodes, particularly in the reach of their than others, and it is from the strongest of 'Oblivion Knights', and within their Order
legal authority, which where their duties are these that the Sisters of Silence are drawn. they are the foundation stone of an elite
concerned is effectively inviolate over all the force specially tasked not with the day-to-
myriad powers and principalities of the wider It is also noteworthy in fact to the extent that day enforcement of the Great Tithe, but the
Imperium and its hundreds of thousands the disturbance caused by an Untouchable destruction of alpha-level rogue psykers
of human inhabited worlds. Markedly also, is evident not only to humanity, but also and the ceaseless training for battles of this
the Silent Sisterhood has the right and duty all other lifeforms and xenos species deadly kind.
to walk freely within the inner sancta of encountered to some greater or lesser extent.
the Imperial Vaults, the sovereign and sole There are in proof of this m any recorded
domain of the Emperor and His H ousehold incidences of the unsettling effects of human
at the behest and licence of the Master of
Mankind. It is a right they share only with
the Legio Custodes.

The duties of the Silent Sisterhood are
complex and manifold, but at their core they
are warrior-investigators, hunters and gaolers.
Their charge is to seek out, apprehend and

THE AsTRA TELEPATHJCA, THE AsTRONOMICAN AND THE GREAT TITHE

Before expanding the Great Crusade able to identify those who were strong Himself had set for the Great Crusade;
to the stars beyond Sol, the Emperor enough and so with some prudence, the marshalling and regulation of
first ordered the construction of the certain psykers were employed in a all human psykers across the ever
Astronomican on Terra. Huge numbers variety of specialised roles within the expanding worlds ofthe Imperium.
ofTech-Priests were brought from Mars Imperium, and the astropaths were to be This seemingly incomprehensible
to oversee the project and the majority such an exception, being needed not in task required hundreds of thousands
of the Terran population was drafted their hundreds, but tens of thousands. offunctionaries and technicians,
to construct the towering machine- It was to feed this need that the Great billions of tonnes of raw materials to
building or support this labour. At the Tithe was first envisioned. construct specialised facilities, and most
time, the Astronomican was the single significantly, an absolute concentration
largest artifice on Terra, and the sole The Astropaths of a body of psyker lore on a scale
purpose of this colossal endeavour was An astropath is an 'astro-telepath', an perhaps unknown before in humanity's
that the entire device was merely a individual capable of communicating long history.
focus through which the Emperor could with others of their kind over vast inter-
direct His fathomless psychic energies stellar distances through phantasmal While the astropaths remained the
to generate a partly self-sustaining signal visions, empathic transmission and major focus of the Divisio, within the
(although few involved were aware of vision allegory rather than through Great Tithe's shadow grew scores of
this fact). The psychic navigational beam words. This is an essential talent as sub-organisations: administrational
which the Astronomican generated the inhabited worlds of Mankind are blocs, logistical corpus, dedicated
was able to cut through the Warp and many light years apart in physical techno-cults and arcane academic
those attuned to its unique frequencies terms and the only practical way for the faculties, all shrouded in deep secrecy
and modulations, the Navigators, were Impetium to maintain any semblance to maintain their absolute security.
able to use it as a beacon and pole star of unity is by such communication, These included most notably the
when plotting journeys through the however temperamental it may be. All chambers of the Scholastica Psykana,
Immaterium. By this the Warp could be astropaths undergo a special process that an institution ofbound and bonded
travelled at speeds and with a margin moulds their powers and at the same psykers who were deemed strong and
of safety that had been unprecedented time strengthens them against psychic stable enough to induct and train others
-although risk of course could never danger. This is called the 'Soul Binding' oftheir own kind into the Imperium's
be fully mitigated- and this was an ritual, which shapes the mind and service. Suborned to them were new
incalculable boon to both the Great cerebral structure of the subject with the organisations such as the fledgling
Crusade and the fledging interstellar Emperor's own psychokinetic force as Primaris battle psyker programmes, the
domain it was creating. Such was its a potter shapes wet clay. Unfortunately training of the mentally conditioned
effect that even then some referred to it not all candidates survive this ritual- truthsayers of the Administratum, and
as the 'Divine Light', or the 'Emperor's some are driven insane, and all have much that went unseen.
Light', often without fully realising the their personalities altered to some
literal truth of those words. degree. The raw energy of the Emperor's Above all of these sub-groups and ofvast
will also has another effect. So powerful practical importance was the League.
In addition to this invaluable beacon are the forces involved that many of the of Black Ships, a dedicated fleet of
among the stars, the Imperium would more delicate sensory nerves can be specialised, purpose-built interstellar
not have been made possible without damaged, especially the optic nerves. craft, their masters and crew fashioned
the creation and continuation of the Consequently, almost all astropaths are to carry out the harvest of humanity.
Adeptus Astra Telepathica. This special blind, whilst many also lack a sense of From the start however, it was clear
corps of inter-stellar communicators smell, touch or hearing, a stigmata which that the Divisio would also need its
was created by the Emperor during the sets them as a breed apart even as their own militant wing specialised not
final months of the conquest of Ancient sacrifice binds the Imperium together. only in conducting the Great Tithe of
Terra, as the Emperor had foreseen their psykers the Emperor had decreed, but
absolute future need. For the most part The Great Tithe in combating the very evils the tithe
the Emperor did not favour the use of In order to fuel and provide manpower sought to prevent directly. The onus
psychic talents in others; as a psyker for the creation of the Adeptus Astra of this dread task fell upon the newly-
Himself, albeit one of unprecedented Telepathica, a vast and intricate formed Divisio Investigates.
power and control, He was well aware organisation was created, the Divisio
of the dangers inherent in contact with Astra Telepathica, and many of the
the Warp. Furthermore, the Age of Strife resources gained by the initial conquests
on Old Earth had its own 'witch-kings' of the Great Crusade were diverted to
and possessed psykers to attest to those its establishment. It was vast in scope
dangers, some of whom the Emperor and its key function was to execute one
had personally slain. However, He was of the fundamental goals the Emperor

124

THE FOUNDATION OF encompass first dozens, then scores, then Imperial governor ofa particularly dangerous ''
hundreds of inhabited star systems, and doomsday cult, calling itself the 'Final
THE Drvrsro INVESTIGATES the strain quickly began to show. It was Banquet', having taken root in a desolate
swiftly apparent in fact as the years passed slum sector known as the Distempora. The
As surprising as it may be, evidence suggests, that mortal losses among the Divisio's cult violently resisted any attempts to destroy
at least upon the surface, that the Silent armed forces, incidences of psychological it and it was reliably rumoured to be led
Sisterhood as it now stands was not part of breakdown and bloody tragedy involving by a 'holy family' with the power to 'work
the initial pattern of the Imperium's forces them were far too frequent to be borne. Such miracles'. The League of Black Ships was
laid down by the Master of Mankind. There records that exist available to the auspices duly informed, and when next one ofthe
are those however who contest this, and of the Terran Council indicate that it was tithe vessels arrived in Pentacanaes' orbit,
claim that what became the Silent Sisterhood known at the time that a better solution to a quintet of heavily armed gun-cutters was
long dwelt in the shadows awaiting their the problem of the apprehension and control dispatche'd to descend into the Distempora
time. It is doubtless true regardless of this of psykers was clearly needed, but with the sector carrying a strong Divisio Investigates
that a number of so-called Untouchables Great Crusade still in its infancy, its future force to end the cult and seize its leadership,
did serve under the banners of Unification, configurations were not yet set and much who were judged in absentia doubtlessly to
but evidence suggests that understandably was in flux, and many of the Emperor's be rogue psykers. It is not known precisely
perhaps they did so at a remove both from purposes had not yet been made plain or what happened next,but the gun-cutters and
the Emperor Himself, and His aide and found their final form. It is also said that at their crews were never heard from again,
minister, Malcador, then vizier to the Lord of this time, a number of radical solutions were and within hours all ofDistempora was riven
Lightning, the both of them being psykers put before the consideration of the Emperor with a cataclysm of hideous and unreasoning
of prodigious strength, with He who was to and His counsellors, but before a ruling bloodshed. This spread like wildfire and a
be Emperor the greatest psyker humanity was made, matters came to a head with the few hours later, all ofPentacanaes' southern
has ever known. These 'soulless' servants Cataclysm of Pentacanaes. hemisphere was ablaze and stricken with an
were, according to such rumours that persist unending tide of riot, savagery and slaughter.
from those times, in the nature of covert A Plague ofMadness It was clear that some form ofpsychic force
agents and assassins, and few in number, A largely impoverished but relatively had been unleashed on Pentacanaes, taking
rather than a distinct militant Order. In societally stable Sol pattern hive world, mere the shape of a plague of madness which
fact, the only analogue in Ancient Terran weeks in distance from Terra by the tides of had seized perhaps fully one in four of the
history for the Sisters of Silence, as they are the Empyrean, Pentacanaes had been both living as it slowly expanded out from the
now known, can be found in the Akashic an early and an easily acquired bauble for the Distempora sector like a spreading stain.
records of an entirely different age and hue; Great Crusade. Struggling to barely maintain Those it claimed became monsters, inhuman
the darkly famed 'Hollow Ones' who served an industrial technological base, its only things bent upon the perpetration of atrocity
the Unspeakable King -himself by some advantage was as a fleet anchorage, and the and wild destruction.
legends a Psychic Null- in the terrible lost only resource it offered the Imperium was
centuries ofTerra's Age of Strife before the its vast human population which ran into the A state of emergency was declared and
coming of the Emperor. tens ofbillions oflives. units of the Imperialis Auxilia barracked on
Pentacanaes were activated and moved to
The First Harvests Under an Imperial governorship which form a cordon around the affected sectors,
During the Unification Wars, there had displaced a squalid mess of rival competing but even they could not hold, and worse,
been many terrible threats born of psyker- petty kings and confederations that had soon many of their own ranks began to
witchery and warp entity possession held the planet beforehand, Pentacanaes had succumb to the madness. The Imperial
encountered during the pacification, grown first into a frontier outpost, then into governor ofPentacanaes was also a victim,
but these had been fought head on and a port-of-call, with hundreds ofimperialis shot down by his bodyguards as he attempted
overmastered by the power of the Emperor Auxilia regiments temporarily stationed to end the lives of his own children as the
and the raw might of His warriors, but in the there before mustering and redeployment madness took him. Authority now fell to
latter case at a terrible and disproportionate to the front lines. During this period, many the highest ranking Imperial officer in
cost in lives. As the Great Crusade began to of the native population's ablest and fittest orbit, the master of the same Black Ship that
leave the confines of the Sol System and the youths also took up the call of the Great had triggered the massacre: Captain Gigan
first waves of the newly created League of Crusade, thus stripping the world of its best D'antes. Elements of the VI'hLegion -not
Black Ships followed in their wake, where and brightest to form departing regiments yet known as the Space Wolves- had been
the Great Tithe was concerned initially, of its own. The end result was a planet in a alerted and were inbound from Terra, but
newly founded paramilitary investigation steady, slow rot from within. Vice and petty their arrival would not be for days and Gigan
and enforcer cadres were employed to corruption bred in the shadows of the vast D'antes judged that Pentacanaes did not
minster it on the ground, commanded by a landing yards and barracks complexes, while have that long. Even the desperate measure
cabal ofloyal Primaris level psykers drawn in the hive sinks and deep-core slum falls , of targeted lance strikes and orbital barrages
from the Scholastica Psykana -this was bypassed by the wealth that had come to could not halt the spread ofthe anarchy
the first incarnation of the Divisio the world's upper castes and bled of hope across the world, and wherever Captain
Investigates- and to Terra directly they and prospect, dark beliefs and strange cults D'antes looked, all was in disarray. No force
returned their harvest. began to fester despite the best efforts of already in combat could hold long against
locally posted iterators of the Imperial Truth whatever psyker-born madness afflicted
Though by all accounts well led and ably and enforcement purges to stamp them that damned world. No force, he noted with
armed and armoured, this new militant out. Eventually, intelligence reached the surprise, except for one.
Order's track record was not one of unalloyed
success as the size of the Imperium rose to

The Daughters of the Crow was what the
manifest of the stationed Imperialis Auxilia

named them, or more formally the s'h '9-13'

Indentured Irregular Infantry Regiment.
They were a primarily female-culturally
phenotype (techno-barbarian) force from an
obscure feral world in the southern reaches
of the Segmentum Solar, so obscure in fact
it lacked a proper name in the records, only
the designation of'9-13 .' Recently raised and
folded into the Great Crusade, landing only
weeks previously for muster, the regiment
had not yet seen active service, but the
sparse records available showed a number
of ill-defined complaints raised against the
regiment by those who had been barracked
alongside it; numerous fractious incidents
were logged and discipline masters had
been frequently sent out in force to break
up trouble between the 9-13'ers and others.
Sent in with the rest of the Auxilia as the tide
of madness had spread, the small regiment
had not only held against the onslaught,
it had driven back the affiicted horde, and
not one of its fighters had suffered psychic
contamination. Not one.

To Gigan D'antes, versed in the lore of the

Scholastica Psykana, there could only be a

single answer; the Daughters of the Crow

-or at least a very significant proportion

of them- were Untouchables. It was

unprecedented and doubtless something

that needed later investigation, but for now

they offered a lifeline to a world besieged by

madness. Swiftly organising such air support

as he could, and using Black Ship pilots

where possible to add resilience against the

growing psychic storm, Gigan paved the way

for the Daughters of the Crow, gambling all

and airlifting the entire regiment, reinforced

and up-armed in any way possible, and

blasted them a landing zone into the very It would take the arrival of the VI'h Legion was formed. Or so it seems. There are some at
this point in time who doubt the veracity of
heart ofthe nightmare, the depths ofthe to bring Pentacanaes back to heel, and in this account, or at least its significance. That
the account exists at all in the chronicles of
Distempora sector. Here they gave battle the aftermath a billion dead were accounted the Great Crusade is suspect to the minds of
other observers, when so much else around
to the transfigured horrors that had been for and half a world left a burned out sh ell. the Silent Sisterhood is shrouded in secrecy.
Others merely contest that the historical
unleashed from the gestalt minds of the 'holy By then the survivors of the Daughters of account has been doctored. Certainly, Lord
Militant Luca Kulga a century later in his
family' of the cult-gave battle and slew the Crow were long gone within the hold of treatises, Notable Battles of the Segmentum
Solar, was recorded as speculating that the
them. The effect was akin to extinguishing a D'antes' Black Ship, while far off across the whole Pentacanaes affair was arranged; a kind
of bloody experiment- a field test whose
fire by hurling an explosive into its midst. A Segmentum Solar, it is said that scores of results were bought at the deliberate sacrifice
of a billion lives. If this is the case, then by
psychic shockwave roared across the planet. other Black Ships appeared in the skies of the whom- the lords of the Divisio Telepathica,
or the Emperor directly? If so, then the
Many of the afflicted mercifully simply obscure planet designated '9-13' and in their answer becomes immediately unknowable.

died, their hearts stopped and their brains passing left a world half emptied.

sundered as some great parasitic link was

severed. Others who were less fortunate The Birth of Silence

became catatonic, but still more raved The events of the Cataclysm ofPentacanaes

on, now simply truly mad rather than the stand in blessed isolation in the Imperium's

puppets of some malign force. The spreading record as regards the origins of the Sisters

stain ofmadness however had been cut off of Silence, and it seems certain to many

~ at its source, and now mere anarchy and observers that '9-13' and its bounty of
disaster reigned, where dark purpose had Untouchables are to all evidence the core
upon which the remade Divisio Investigates
~ previously ruled all.
Ht
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Some insist that the origins of the Silent discipline, this militant arm of the Divisio hive world endures; although it is a ravaged,
Sisterhood go even further back, either Astra Telepathica operated with remorseless half-empty domain of gloom and ashes now,
in the mind of the Emperor, or some lost efficiency and under an unassailable vow steeped in old tragedy and long since left
agency of the Dark Age ofTechnology, that of silence and secrecy, a distinction which behind as the Imperium has expanded across
they awaited perhaps only a critical mass of gave them a ready common name to those of the galaxy. As for the world designated '9-13',
Untouchables to act, or at least to operate in the Imperium's authorities with whom they no such sph ere is listed in the Cartographica
the open. Regardless, within an unknown dealt, and to the Imperium through which Imperialis-the numeric is simply missing
exact number of years, but no greater than they began to pass ghostlike upon their dark from its lists.
four decades into the Great Crusade, the harvest, they became objects of fear and awe.
Divisio Investigates became synonymous THE WITcH-SEEKERS AND THEIR WoRKs
with a new militant Order, that of the Sisters Exactly where and how the Sisters of Silence
of Silence. Unique in the Imperium's service, came into being remains but one mystery The Silent Sisterhood as an organisation is
this Order comprised human Psychic Nulls, among many where they are concerned, and one of singular reach and secrecy. Its exact
all female, thousands strong and beholden that the shadow of some techno-barbarian numbers are unknown save to the Emperor,
to none but the Emperor. The Great Tithe culture is part of their bloodline seems clear, for though it remains nominally part of the
now included direct action to reinforce but from whence exactly it came not even Divisio Astra Telepathica, it has long become
their numbers in the harvest of worlds, the wisest ofrmperial military historiographs interwoven with the will and direct agency
garnering Untouchable female children can state with clarity. But as a postscript of the Emperor Himself For while the Legio
just as it did the psyker-marked. Structured to the official account of the Cataclysm of Custodes guard the Master of Mankind
in isolation and with the ironclad rule of Pentacanaes, it can be said for a fact that the directly, the Sisters of Silence have become
pivotal to the carrying out of the Emperor's

• ~• dul<< ~JJ•I' ,

great and secret works. By the later Great The Vow ofTranquillity remain an organisation dedicated not only
Crusade, the Sisters of Silence certainly Secrecy is more than just the watchword to the ministration of the Great Tithe but
numbered in their tens of thousands, though and the method of the Silent Sisterhood; also to investigation, pursuit, inquiry and
this force was widely dispersed, and the it is core to their very being. After their judgement. They also possess and must
Sisterhood's Untouchables now crewed and training is complete and their induction to express when needed an unmatched and
commanded the vessels of the League of the Sisterhood is confirmed, a process which encyclopaedic knowledge of the psyker and
Black Ships. In addition, they maintained a begins when they are taken up in childhood, the Empyrean, which they alone, owing to
strong presence both on Terra itself as well the final step on the path of the Order is the their Psyker Null status, are uniquely safe
as notably at their Luna headquarters, the Vow ofTranquillity; a solemn dedication in keeping. Communication outside their
Somnus Citadel-a facility handed over to their duty unto death which manifests ranks is usually facilitated by one of two
by the ancient Selenite cults- and the outwardly as the vow of silence which gives sources. Firstly, through the involvement
Magadan Orbital Construct-the fortified the Divisio Investigates its more common of selected apprentice-acolytes of the
orbital anchorage station utilised by the title. From this point onwards no Sister of Sisterhood, themselves Untouchables and
League of Black Ships in the Sol System Silence utters a single spoken word for the warriors in training of various ages, who act
to deliver their cargo, and forbidden to all rest of their lives, not even under duress of as intermediaries, known as the 'Proloquors',
others. It is also taken as fact that much of pain, be it the stroke of a blade or impact of and secondly through a number of techno-
the initial sifting and processing of the Great a bullet, such is their stoic resolve. No secret linguis systems which allow the symbolic-
Tithe takes place not in the Sol System but can or ever shall pass from the keeping of the structure of the Sisters' sign-forms to be
elsewhere on several isolated and otherwise Sisters of Silence, and no word of remission rendered machine-readable at great speed,
prohibited star systems nearby-an or clemency from them is ever given. and if needed in extremis, outputted as
understandable change from the tithe's early Further symbolic of this absolute vow is the vox-signal via servo-automata. The Silent
days given the sheer scale of the operation portcullis-style armoured gorget they wear Sisterhood maintains fluency in numerous
as the Imperium has expanded and the as part of their panoply of war, which, often other forms of gestural and non-verbal
potential security risks involved in so many in combination with a death's-head skull, linguistic communication such as Legiones
untrained psykers being concentrated in a has become identified with the Order in the Astartes battle-sign of various types, voidsys
single area. These Divisio Astra Telepathica iconography of the Imperium. and graph-binarc for conversing with other
administered star systems are only known military forces of the Imperium directly
to other arms of the Imperium as vague Communication within the Sisters of Silence when the need arises.
and shifting code designations,but here takes the medium of a complex series of
the Silent Sisters alone hold sway and what physical sign language forms, ranging from
numbers,facilities and resources they possess highly efficient and abrupt tactical cants
in these sovereign domains, none save they designed for the battlefield, detailed forms
and the Emperor knows. In fact, such is the geared to the ready and precise expression
shroud of secrecy surrounding the Great of strategic concepts and actions, to hugely
Tithe that only the Navigators of the League complex and mimetically sophisticated
of Black Ships know the location of these systems intended to deal with philosophical
processing worlds and various Black Ship and technical abstracts. This latter range
anchorages, collection-node stations and is needed because the Sisters of Silence
outposts scattered across the Imperium,
and their lives are led in sealed biome-
crucibles, prisoning homes which auto-
incinerate all within should their seals ever
be compromised; such is the priceless wealth
in human potential of the Great Tithe judged
and guarded.

The Art of War of the Silent Sisterhood the attainment of their goals has meaning to THE ORGANISATIONAL STRUCI1JRE
Beyond their unique abilities as Psychic them. Given this, stealth, covert surveillance OF THE SILENT SISTERHOOD
Nulls, the Sisters of Silence are also a highly and torture are all tried and tested weapons
trained and relentless paramilitary force, in their repertoire to be used when needed, The Divisio Investigates is an organisation
ably equipped to their task and skilled and they know well the value of mystery, more akin in structure to the fusion ofan
in overcoming any opposition they may shock, awe and terror in their work They will agency oflegal enforcement and a secret
encounter in their sworn duty, be it deluded readily invoke their Emperor-given authority society or secular military Order of old. As
bystanders, mind-ridden soldiers, hordes of to use and discard any intermediaries and with so much that surrounds those who
psychically-puppeted corpses or even armed agencies of the Imperium as they require, orbit close to the centre of the Emperor's
cults sat at the heart of a world's ruling caste. and 'collateral' destruction in pursuit of their work, its ways and dispositions are all but
The Sisters of Silence are as remorseless, targets is judged as a thing to be avoided as a impenetrable to outsiders beyond certain
dedicated and as formidably skilled as any matter of course, but irrelevant in cases open ranks and divisions observable by those
human fighting force of the Imperium, while of necessity. who are called to fight alongside them.
the cold darkness of their minds makes them
a more terrible foe than any to the witch, the Beyond their extreme training and coldly A complete accounting of the Sisters of
rogue psyker and the Warp-touched. rational tactical discipline, there is also Silence's ranks is then impossible, but the
something that has been quite deliberately simple extrapolation oflogic from the
Given their particular duties, their training invoked of the barbaric and the arcane notional size of the League of Black Ships
and tactical bias focuses on close-quarters about the Sisters of Silence as a militant required at the minimum for the Great Tithe
combat, short-ranged, high-intensity Order. This is not simply to provoke fear in to function, as it assuredly does, places the
warfare which often sees them fighting others, although clearly this effect is ably Sisters of Silence at tens of thousands of
from a position of numeric inferiority and achieved, but also it lends them a distinct active Witch-seekers. The high command of
on unfamiliar ground, and their skill in and singular entity, as well as a murderous the Order ourwardly comprises three high
such conditions is supreme. Fear is alien to intensity in combat seldom encountered offices and individuals that were known to
them, their conditioning and experiences beyond the Imperium's superhuman fighting the hierarchy of the Imperium at the time
exposing them to horrors against which forces such as the Legiones Astartes. This of the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, though
even a veteran of the dark frontiers of the deliberate element of feral barbarism finds doubtless there were others that went
Great Crusade could not easily endure. Glory its expression in many forms, ranging from unknown outside of the Sisterhood itself.
and honour -as these things are generally the totem-like names chosen to designate
understood- are oflittle value to the Sisters their tactical sub-units during deployment, Most famed of these is the rank of Knight-
of Silence, theirs is a higher calling and only to the aesthetic design of their ornate battle Commander; the most senior field officer of
gear, which is styled to invoke imagery of the the Silent Sisterhood. This title was held by
warriors of ages past but match the function one of the most sinisterly renowned warriors
of the finest power armour, to their manes of in the Imperium-Jenetia Krole, known
long hair, said to remain unshorn unless the also by popular myth as the 'Soulless Queen'.
Sister has a sworn quarry escape them. Of equal importance to the execution of
the Great Tithe is the rank of the Mistress
of the Black Ships, and in effect, the grand
admiral of the Divisio Investigates' fleet;
this was held by Varonika Sulath. Lastly is
the Nemesis Praxia, Ebon Naroda; she who
was high guardian of the compiled lore and
estates temporal of the Divisio Investigates,
and ultimately responsible for the training of
its acolytes.

Other ranks within the organisation progress often relied on in their duty, during the late stars of the Imperium, coming and going all

through that of Acolyte -of the First, Great Crusade these were largely replaced but unseen , even as the wars of the Heresy

Second and Third rank- more informally in the field with unique patterns of grav- unfolded, bound to no purpose or authority

known as 'Sisters-in-waiting', who have not repulsor craft outfitted with sophisticated but their own . Just as secret are the location

yet formally been initiated into the Order. covert operations and stealth systems better and capacity of many of the orbital ship

Further ranks of the Sisterhood proper were suited to their needs. Besides this, the forges and docks which serviced them. The

referred to with melodramatic flourish as the Order has access to certain far more arcane vessels are also highly automated, reducing

'Null Maidens' by the remembrancers of the technologies all but unguessed at outside the the need fo r human crew who might be

Great Crusade. These are structured both in Divisio Astra Telepathica; most prominently imperilled by their cargo, and allowing for

terms of seniority and tactical disposition, psi-negation and disruption weaponry voyages of long duration without resupply

ranking in order: Seeker, Prosecutor, and whispered to have been created for them by when needed. They are by their nature a

with Vigilator as the most senior of the three. the hand of the Emperor Himself. hell for any psyker taken on board as their

Other specialist units such as the Pursuers, structure is interlaced with systems to block

the Aquilai Astra and Questora, accounting The Black Ships out and resist the psyker's connection to

for cyber-beast handlers, pilots and void crew, The League of Black Ships itself cannot the Empyrean, as well as numerous cells for

and Investigators/ Enforcers respectively also go unremarked in any overview of the internment, punishment and interrogation,

branch off these. power of the Silent Sisterhood. It is a flee t of and cryo-crypts and stasis chambers for the

uniquely designed void craft of considerable storage of the most dangerous subjects. The

Above this level, the Order's hierarchy size and power, most being variants of more largest and most powerful Black Ships also

bifurcated to outside eyes into rwo distinct commonly known long-range cruiser and carry limited supplies of Exterminatus class

groups: the Chamber of Oblivion and the battlecruiser designs. They are heavily weaponry- usually planet-mantle breaking

Chamber ofJudgement. The first is an elite armed, well-defended, rigged fo r extended cyclonic torpedoes and rare vortex warheads

militant sub-faction comprising the most operations and above all equipped with rather than bio-weapons for reasons of

powerful Psychic Nulls and most martially systems that allow them to go un noticed by intended outcome. This enables them to

skilled ofVigilators, and from its ranks of signal and auspex scan if needed. Just how enact world-kill protocols or the more

Oblivion Knights and Knights-Centura- many there are is a matter of conjecture, but confined if no less absolute annihilation of

the battlefield commanders of the Order this figure by the end of the Great Crusade an area if a rogue psyker crisis threatens a

are taken. The latter chamber is if anything certainly ranged into the h undreds, if not catastrophic warp breach on a world's surface,

more fe ared. It comprises the dreaded Silent thousands. They are a shadow upon the though such incidents are thankfully rare.

Judges of the Excrutiatus, whose task is to

weigh the actions of the guilty and innocent

when it comes to those concealing psykers

from the tithe, and where matters are not THE PARIAH GENE
clear regards those believed to be psykers, to

determine the presence of the psyker's gift, The exact biological source -as it is believed to be- which creates in a human being

and where it is found, to pass judgement on the state of Psychic Null, the so-called 'Pariah gene', has proven an elusive and ephemeral

whether the accused should be taken by the subject of study, and in testing no single 'gene' at all. Such attempts to exploit or isolate it

tithe, or executed as a danger to humanity. when pursued by both the Imperial Archotechnologist Corps and the Mechanicum during

the Great Crusade's early years courted disaster, and as a result the Emperor decreed a

Panoply of War general moratorium upon the study of the biological basis of the Psyker Null phenomena,

In terms of armament and equipment, the affecting all but His own direct experimentation should He wish it. What remains of those

Divisio Investigates is particularly well extant studies ·indicates that most attempts to synthesise, propagate or even weaponise the

served, and second only perhaps to the Legio Psychic Null were tragic failures or worse. Despite all this evidence, shadowed accounts of

Custodes in the scope and customisation of certain Clades of the Officio Assassinorum and the dread and obscure Ordo Sinister also

its arsenal. It has long maintained myriad contain evidence of the Emperor's own 'engineered' use of the Psychic Null in warfare. To

different weapons and tactical systems others however, the mystery of the Pariah gene, if it truly exists, remains out of reach.

suited to its needs,from patterns of the

Terran bolter -a weapon more commonly So many unanswered questions revolve around this most arcane and dangerous of topics.

associated with the Space Marine Legion s- Foremost are those which centre around theories of how the Pariah gene came about:

manufactured for use by unaugmented was it perhaps the result of xenos tampering of the human genome or some strange and

humans, to the exquisitely fashioned and terrible experiment of the Dark Age ofTechnology? Or, as the wildest theories state, is it

utterly lethal executioner's power blades some perverse evolutionary development against the Warp-riven cosmos itself? There is

carried by its Vigilators. The Divisio also the observation that no Space Marine, or Custodian Guard for that matter, has ever

Investigates also has access to large stockpiles been recorded as being a Psychic Null. This factor weighs the evidence of some scholars

ofadvanced and specialised weapons such that within the Space Marine gene-seed itself is perhaps a shadow of the Emperor's own

as las-borer alchem needlers that can render genetic material and a sliver of H is own psychic power crucial to its process and -success.

a target comatose for capture as readily as If this is the case, it would be wholly an anathema to the Pariah gene and likely simply kill

! slay them, and with them a poisons cabinet its implanted subject. It can only be speculated that if even a single Legion of Psychic Null

] whose contents have been drawn from across Legiones Astartes had been possible, how very different history may have been- jus t as

~ij a thousand worlds. Though the Sisters of without the involvement of the Sisters of Silence in the war and the Emperor's great work,
Silence have access to the multitude of the Horus' treachery may well have ended in his triumph upon the broken throne ofTerra.
Imperium's STC designs, which they have
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VIGILATOR ALMATRA CRAVARE ~wI1~~.·
~
FROST SPIDER VIGILATOR CADRE
'
i "1 DoMINION oF THE SILENT SISTERHOOD
;'
OFTHE GREAT TITHE
PROSPERINE CENSURE FoRcE '
Archetypal of the Sisters of Silence present
in the Censure Force despatched to Prospera ,'
from Terra, Almatra Cravare was a veteran of
the Great Tithe, and such extant records that .
survive from the Somnus Citadel on Luna
indicate that she had more than two decades ~.
of service in the League of Black Ships. As
a Vigilator -one of the Execution blade- !l
equipped close combat elite of the Silent
Sisterhood- it was her task and the task of
cadres like hers to close rapidly in combat
with enemy psykers and dispose of them
with the bloody certainty of a power blade
strike, preferably one inflicting a decapitating
blow. While they relied not only upon their
power as Psychic Nulls, but also their skill
and speed as well as the protection of their
advanced armour to defend them from harm
in such close assaults, to serve as a Vigilator
was still to invite peril and death, but this
was an honour that the Silent Sisterhood's
ranks aspired to above all. The risk of such
service was never more evident than upon
the deadly, reality-warped battlefields of
Prospera. Amid the fury of the darkest hours
of the Battle ofTizca, the selfless sacrifice of
the Vigilator cadres was perhaps the deciding
factor in many sectors of the battle, allowing
their comrades both of the Custodian Guard
and the Space Wolves to close with the foe
without being swept aside on a tide of warp-
conjured horror. Almatra Cravare stands
as a testament to this, fighting on despite
bolter and shrapnel wounds which should
have felled an unaugmented human being
several times over, she gave up her life only
after plunging her blade through the torso
of Magister Gul Hadrastep of the Thousand
Sons Order of Ruin, disrupting the skein of
psychic energy with which he drove on the
psi-automata at his command, allowing them
to be overcome.

Vratine Armour Pauldron Iconography



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cc

The forces of the Great Crusade were myriad The purpose of what became the Ordo while new production and requisitions from

in nature, and as the remembrancers were Sinister was the battlefield employment of the Forge Worlds ofMetallica, Phaeton,

wont to style them "... as numberless as the macro-level weaponry of terrible potency Arachnus, Caradryn Magna and Voss made

stars themselves". This is only befitting, as the and of a nature which was expressly up the rest. The transfer was viewed as a

task for which the vast host of the Imperialis forbidden to any within the Imperium, be crime by some and a blessing by others, but

Militarum was conceived and embodied they Primarch or planetary governor, on of this event, or the 'Oblation' as the followers

was for no less than the staggeringly pain of death. These were weapons born of of the Machine Cult named it, nothing

incomprehensible goal of the domination the Dark Age ofTechnology and perhaps would come to pass for several years, the god-

of the entire galaxy. This required weapons ancient relics of civilisations which had engines swallowed up as if without trace on '.
and warriors as diverse as uncounted Pioneer risen and fallen before life had even begun Terra despite their scale and power. Twenty-
corps of indentured labourers, hundreds of on primeval Terra, weapons forbidden to all five of the most powerful war machines ever

thousands strong, to the superhuman might but those under the Emperor's direct shadow fashioned by humanity simply vanished.

of the Legiones Astartes, a purpose-created and control, and even then only under the

gene-crafted fighting force greater than greatest possible conditions of secrecy and The King of Terrors

any in history. The will and reason of the failsafe. The 'Ordo Sinister' was the cadre set Skagan-VI was a largely unremarkable

Emperor divined and designed for the Great up to build, maintain and use these weapons, human-occupied world upon the southern

Crusade in effect a weapon and a warrior classed as their name suggests as 'Sinistrum'. border of the Segmentum Solar. Rendered

for every conceivable form of war, and even This word has long stood as the Terran Compliant in 86o.M3o by the IV'hLegion

those inconceivable until they had to be tech-arcana classification for prohibited in a relatively bloodless action, it had grown

fought-unhallowed wars against powers technologies designed to artificially amplify rapidly in population, seeing waves of

and horrors beyond human imagining and or weaponise the psyker's gift1 usually at the migration brought in from overcrowded
beyond merely human endurance. One such cost of the psyker themself, body or mind, worlds closer to the Segmentum Solar core,

dark creation, an experiment perhaps in and examples, such as the 'Culexine-shackles' as well as the rapid increase in hive-style

weaponry long forbidden, and carried out used by the narco-enslaved psyker covens urbanisation and industrialisation which

not by any Mechanicum Archimandrite nor of the Caucasus Wastes subjugated by the followed. The result for Skagan-VI was

by Strategos Magister, but by the hand of the Emperor during the Unification Wars, had political instability, simmering insurrection

Emperor Himself, led to the creation of the long since been bywords for the evils of the and the threat of full-scale civil war by

Ordo Sinister. Dark Age ofTechnology. the year 946.M3o, when the local Lord-

FoRlliDDEN To Au SAVE ONE The Oblation Arbitrator requested aid from the Sector
overlords, saying that the world had become

The exact genesis of the experiments It is not known just how long the Ordo had a factionalised powder keg ready to ignite.

which led to the creation of the Ordo existed in the Emperor's shadow, but their

Sinister is difficult to pin down by scholarly first prominence came during 967.M3o The response to the Lord-Arbitrator when

observers in this latter age. As with almost when a Writ of Compulsion was issued by it came was an unexpected one; a flotilla of

all that began in the prohibited vaults of the Emperor requiring the deliverance of a vessels sent from Terra itself, comprising a

the Emperor's own laboratory complex grand total of twenty-five fully operational single unmarked Titan conveyor, flanked

beneath the Imperial Palace on Terra, Battle Titans of the Warlord class to the Vault by an escort of Saturnyne fleet Solar Auxilia

its nature remains sealed by time and by Imperial, in perpetuity. This extraordinary cruisers and, most shocking of all, an augur-

the destruction that was to follow. Such request caused a strong reaction in the frigate in the scarlet and gold panoply of

records that do remain within the Martian Mechanicum hierarchy, splitting it between the Imperial Household Squadron. A single

Mechanicum however, who, given the those who fervently considered the Emperor lander-crucible deployed from the unnamed

nature of the Ordo Sinister's origins, were to be the living incarnation of the Omnissiah, Titan conveyor and descended to the starport

seriously perturbed by the project -or and therefore immediately entitled to any of of Decorah Breaks near the capital city-plate

more accurately their exclusion from it- do His servant's works, and those who saw with of Skagan-VI. Its cargo upon dismounting

evidence certain speculations that it was a more political eye, deeming the demand was to be a single Warlord Titan liveried in

arrived at either as a tangent of what was to be a violation of the spirit if not the letter deep green-black verdigris and bearing a

to become the Emperor's Greater Work in of the treaty which bound the Mechanicum snarling lion in cold argent head as its sigil.

the control and manipulation of the psyker to the Imperium and guaranteedits rights. Upon its armorial was featured no symbol or

factor in human evolution, or as a direct To this latter group, the spectre ofpotential sign recognisable as belonging to any Titan

attempt to develop esoteric weaponry on the Titan Legions being formed without the Legion of the Imperium, instead it bore the

macro scale to combat certain encountered sacred imprint of the Mechanicum at words 'Ordo Sinister- Pavore Dominetur' and

menaces which had proven terrible in the their inception or control was the start of what was judged to be the Titan's blazoned

cost of their destruction. These menaces, the end for Mars' independence. Schism name, Polaris-Albedelach, though within days

such as the Enslaver Alpha-incursions, the threatened but after an audience between such a strange-sounding title was replaced

Rangdan Osseivores and the Hellespont the Fabricator-General and the Emperor, the with one far more appropriate in the

Void-forms, all of which had taken the lives colossal demand was met and any further whispers of the natives of Skagan-VI-they

of millions of soldiers and thousands of star open malcontent within the Machine Cult's called it 'The King ofTerrors' after the psyker-

vessels to combat, and had broken whole ranks over the issue was suppressed, though tarot card of the same name. For where the

Expeditionary fleets and Titan Legions in the what ill-feeling remained in secret can only god-engine walked, fear walked with it. Of

past, were menaces to which no sure counter be speculated upon in light oflater events. course, such towering colossi of destruction

existed save that ofExterminatus. Mars herself bore the brunt ofthe burden, rightly engender fear in those who look upon

delivering eight Warlords from her reserve, them, such is their inherent quality of awe

;;;;;..ru- t;t_, :"~'""'"'ulw'vk:c;;;~?if<u.,t.-wM hl--•u'- f4;i fl''-""•tziuU: i.nw: f""e:"..J:!.".."""u~~~":t,Gfii= ·~ ~ ::;t"''!;;:z~:c;;;-~. ~u..rue«<A.{md•"- .u.(, ;:;c~ r?,';(,..,~trtut.. t.-~l4~

and warlike splendour that even the most their cause~ and grievances ashes upon strange synthetic plagues that fused flesh
jaded soldier cannot help but quake wh en their tongues. The King ofTerrors brought into bloodied crystal, and fractured moons
in the presence of such a terrifying machine Skagan-VI to heel without firing a shot. and orbital stations to tumble down upon the
of destruction or while contemplating wh at worlds below.
it is capable of, but the fea r this monstrous The Witch-Idol ofMagc'Sithraal
newcomer inspired was something else. Fear The second time the Ordo Sinister would The Imperium's response to the onslaught
bled from it like a miasma, flowing out to take to the field would be a far bloodier and soon escalated until scores of regiments of
chill the bone and still the heart. Crowds fled more terrible affair, as part of a protracted the Imperialis Auxilia had been mobilised
from it in unreasoning panic, while others series of battles that has since come to be against it, with them Taghmata forces from
could do nothing but fall prostrate in abject known as the Defence ofHelioret. The Anvilus and Incaladion, supported by a demi-
Helioret sector had, since the opening years Legio of the Tiger Eyes Titans who contested
' ' terror as the Titan passed through the city's of the 96os.M3o, been under escalating attack bitterly to hold the line against the splinter-
from Eldar corsairs and marauder forces bone Wraith Titans of the Magc'Sithraal
great arterial travelways, never firing its based upon a half-shattered Craftworld Eldar at Luxor and Ratep. Utter loss of
hulking weapons nor sounding its war siren known as Magc'Sithraal. These Eldar were by those key worlds was only averted when
in anger. any example of their species who had been a full third of the strength of the Blood
encountered, insane, tortured creatures, still Angels Legion took to the fray with their
Where it walked the world was stilled, and reeling from the fall of their ancient power, Primarch Sanguinius at the fore . Not even
where its shadow passed upon the horizon, driven by grief and suicidal with bitter hate this apocalyptic force could win outright
the sleep of the just and the guilty alike was for all other races. They had fallen upon the victory though, but instead it saw the Eldar
wracked equally with cold dreams of death worlds ofHelioret with merciless violence, forced back to a defensive ring around their
and oblivion. Would-be revolutionaries were burning planet after planet, unleashing sundered and debris-trailing Craftworld.
silenced, in surrectionists abandoned their
arms and dispersed to outlying districts,

It was as the angelic Primarch girded his army of the dead; thousands of wraith ground like toys. Empyreal force had been ''
forces for an all-out attack against the war constructs ranging from swift-footed met with Empyreal force and it was clear to
Magc'Sithraal Craftworld that he was assassins to towering warriors and Titan- every spectator to this clash of colossi how;
unexpectedly joined by a squadron bearing walkers, all powered and animated by the the god-engines of the Ordo Sinister were
the Seal and Writ ofTerra and the Imperial vengeful souls of that haunted realm. Reality Psi-Titans. The conflict that followed was a
Household. With it were a dozen Black Ships rippled and shuddered as the Eldar distortion true battle of the gods, and the recovering
carrying within them cohorts ofthe Silent weaponry rent the air, tearing crimson Primarch Sanguinius had wisdom enough
Sisterhood and with them a trio of unmarked gunships from the skies, while below, ancient to withdraw the warriors of his Legion to
Titan conveyors with the Warlords of the colonnades and towers that had stood for give the Titans a wide berth for what was to
Ordo Sinister within their holds. The battle centuries toppled, hammered by remorseless ultimately follow.
which followed was shocking in its intensity, shellfire-and as missiles rained down in
with the barbed, swift hulls ofEldar warships detonating waves, the landing was forced. For three standard hours the Titans fought,
set burning across the void as they fought A score of Eldar Titans rose up from the unleashing destructive forces on a scale
both the steel-grey war-barques ofAnvilus as depths of their ancient vaults, and at the enough to break a dozen cities; pulse laser
well as the proud, white-hulled battleships head of them was a Warlock Titan, filled with slashed metre-thick ceramite Warlord
of the Armada Ultima. As the void battle the souls of Magc'Sithraal's fallen seers and armour, only to have it melt and reform
raged, the sleek Black Ships and the crimson prophets. The Imperium had encountered whole in the wake of the destruction, though
predators of the Blood Angels fleet dove it before and named it the 'Witch- Idol' and not even such occult protections could hold
straight on to their quarry. Crashing through where it had walked, no Imperial victory back the lethal strike of a gigantic Eldar
the decaying spires and force-domed had yet been won. Against this massing of power blade plunged deep into the reactor-
atmosphere of the desolate Craftworld, force , the Imperial assault first faltered and fuelled heart of one of the Ordo Sinister's
the invaders were met by Magc'Sithraal's was checked, as even the Titans of the Legio number. Ghostlike holo-fields flickered and
Fureans landing with the second wave were shuddered as the Eldar Titans danced the
swiftly torn apart by the Witch-Idol and its dance of death with impossible grace, and
kinsmen, though it is said that the Angel fusillades of screaming rockets found only
Sanguinius destroyed one of their number empty air, but not even such mastery of
himself, tearing open its head with his bare speed and confusion could stop the ravaging
hands and sending it crashing to destruction darkness of the Warlord-Sinister's baleful
before being struck a grievous blow by the primary weapons. Slowly but surely for the
Warlock's psi-lance from which none other Eldar Titans, four became three, became two,
would have survived. It was then that the became only the wounded Witch-Idol beset
three Titans of the Ordo Sinister made their still by two of the Ordo Sinister's Warlords,
landing, and at their footfalls the very fabric although both were damaged. Its lance
of the Craftworld was said to have shuddered shattered by a blast of ravening emptiness,
as if in revulsion. it sang its defiance across the Empyrean
but was answered by prisoning hurricanes
From their carapace weapons poured volleys of psychic force against which its superior
of rocket fire and searing turbo laser blasts manoeuvrability became nothing more than
as might have been expected from any battle the struggle of a battered scarecrow caught in
Titan, while their right hands were vast a storm. One of the Warlords-Sinister then
power claws which twitched in expectation seized the Witch-Idol's broken shoulder,
of the close-quarters kill, but from the holding it captive while its dark companion
baroque and strange weapons that served as tore off the Warlock Titan's head.
their left arms, there spat a silent darkness.
These bolts of black nothingness slammed With the Witch-Idol's destruction, it was if
through the ranks of the wraith-constructs, the soul ofMagc'Sithraal had died as well.
devouring everything they touched. While Lights flickered and died across the ruined
in the aftershock of their detonation, scores Craftworld, systems failed and the end began.
more wraith-kind simply fell like severed The last remnants of the Eldar who had not
marionettes, never again to stir. Howling a already fled their dying home came on in a
great chorus of griefand outrage, the Eldar suicidal frenzy, but found only the fury of the
Titans rounded on the newly arrived giants Blood Angels Legion and the cool savagery
and let fly, pulse lasers cutting the sky apart of the Sisters of Silence waiting for them.
between the two while the Witch-Idol The Psi-Titans of the Ordo Sinister did not
conjured forth a tempest ofeldritch warp- wait, instead they bore up the remains of
lightning, its coruscating wave of destruction their fallen comrade, and without further
suddenly met by an ice-white blaze offorce communication departed the battlefield.
emanating from the god-engines ofthe The last of the slaughter was not long in
Ordo Sinister and shattered. The backlash coming, and the final act of the Defence of
of the forces negating each other shook the Helioret was for the wreckage of the broken
Craftworld like an earthquake, tumbling Craftworld to be hurled into a nearby sun to
Space Marine and Wraithguard alike to the die its final death.

The Deeds ofthe Ordo Sinister The Hereteknica ofthe Psi-Titan
The account of the Ordo Sinister's While the Warlord-Sinister appears to be a singular creation in form and function, the
involvement in the Defence ofHelioret concept of the 'Psi-Titan' however is not an entirely unknown one, at least in the annals
contained within the battle chronicles of of the Great Crusade's foes, and even the more obscure reaches of the Mechanicum's
the Blood Angels remains the most detailed own Titan lore. In the depths of pre-Unification history, there are numerous occluded
and certain account of the secretive Ordo references of what might be described as 'Psi-Titans'; in this case, Titan engines designed
in battle. There are perhaps a dozen other to be piloted by and amplify the powers of a single psyker as experiments and unique relic
such incidents ofless cerrain veracity or engines of war. Though now long suppressed by Martian orthodoxy, what became of the
of little detail elsewhere, but each also machines themselves or the sub-cults of the Omnissiah who created and piloted them
features the account of some vastly potent remains unknown. Among the psychically potent xenos species with which Mankind
enemy to be contested, usually possessing has warred, psi-construct war engines were known to be possessed by both the Eldar and
great psychic power, or conversely as with the Fra'al, and more tenuously by the now exterminated Vaxal'rek, some of which easily
Skagan-VI, a fractious world brought back to matched the Titans of the Imperium in scale if not always in form.
peace through almost preternatural terror.
The most important perhaps of these is the THE w ARLORD-SINISfER god-engines, properly classified as Terranic
passage of three Titans of the Ordo Sinister In information given to the Council ofTerra pattern Warlord-Sinister Psi-Titans, were
within the Imperial host despatched to by the Ordo Sinister's representative, an each rebuilt around an Emperor-designed
censure Prospera, a fact which appears officer of the Order styled Prefect Kelner psychic amplification matrix device called
was kept even from Leman Russ until well Anahat, it was confirmed with authenticated the Ciricrux Anima. In place of the standard
after the fighting had already begun. What · patents that the organisation of the Ordo Titan configuration of mind-impulse units,
does seem certain however from all these Sinister was arranged and provisioned it was this which controlled and empowered
accounts was that very few Titans were ever entirely to an exacting order laid out by the Warlord-Sinister and in place of the
fielded at once by the Ordo Sinister, and the writ and dictate of the Emperor, from moderatii that would normally crew a battle
when they appeared, it was often without which it could not deviate nor innovate Titan, the Psi-Titans were instead crewed by
the foreknowledge of any of the forces on upon pain of destruction. It comprised four what might be considered the damned-
whose side they intervened. The Ordo was allied but self-contained fortress crypts- bound psykers surgically locked in place and
never despatched to the frontiers of the Great each with their own defences, support slaved to the will of the Preceptor-Intendant
Crusade, and never left Terra for any length staff, menials and techno-arcanists, all in
of time that can be discerned. Nor, unless by support of a 'Chamber', each comprising five
some far more secret means, does it appear specially modified Warlord Titans. These
that any more Titans were added to their
number. To many this has led to the belief
that the Ordo Sinister all through the latter
Great Crusade was an experimental field trial,
an unfinished project still in its testing stage
when the wars of the Heresy upset many
destinies and intended courses of action.
Tellingly, even before his treacherous fall
from grace, never once was the Ordo Sinister
placed at the disposal ofWarmaster Horus
or any other independent commander, but
it always remained in the shadow of the
Emperor's authority.

When the Horus Heresy came, a '
representative of the Ordo Sinister did
present himself to the Council ofTerra when
requested and answered various questions of
the force's structure and command during
the period of the Emperor's self-sequesterage;
a meeting from which some ofthe latter
details of this account are drawn, but citing
express orders from the Master of Mankind
the Order was then not included in the
general preparations for the wars of the
Heresy that came afterwards. Instead they
waited, as part ofTerra's last line of defence,
until almost the end, or at least such is the
official record.

who mastered the god-engine in place of selected it would seem on entirely different Titan itself But the most devastating use of
a Princeps. By direct cortical control, the criteria from those who served within the the psychic potential ofthe Ciricrux Anima
power and spirit of the bound psykers were Sisters of Silence or the Culexus Clade, is the focusing of its power through a unique
siphoned off and focused by the arcane and cybernetically augmented to allow for weapon system, the Sinistramanus Tenebrae.
technologies of the Ciricrux Anima, the human-machine interface. Although in his This is a hybrid of strange technologies, more
baleful de~ice that truly makes the Psi-Titan testimony Prefect Kelner Anahat would not akin to a mutilated warp engine in design
what it is. This energy was controlled by a be drawn on his or his comrades' recruitment than a conventional weapon, but it serves
techno-arcane interface quite unlike that or training, he did state that of the psykers to focus the psychic antipathy of the bound
of a standard configuration mind impulse bound within the Warlords-Sinister that "for psykers into a fracture in reality-a fracture,
unit, while much of the Psi-Titan's other some, it was a punishment for their crimes, and much like the forced warp-breach inherent
functions were slaved to sub-automata others, a blessed relief from their torments, and in vortex weaponry which is then channelled
systems and machine spirit homunculi. Set that ... a balance was maintained in order that and released as a projectile of nightmarishly
at the heart of the storm of these energies, optimum conditions were mef'. He would also destructive force. Where the projectile
the Preceptor-Intendant sat in a shielded not be drawn on the rate the bound psykers -which manifests as a sphere or bolt of
command crucible in the Titan's head. But were exhausted by the process. 'darkness' as it eats the light of whatever
even this was insufficient to entirely protect medium it passes through before striking
them from the psychic forces at play, and so Through the use of the Ciricrux Anima, a dense matter- detonates, it causes complete
each Titan commander of the Ordo Sinister Warlord-Sinister is able to project psychic annihilation in the immediate impact area,
was a psychic blank, an 'Untouchable', but phenomena on a truly gargantuan scale, as what was there is disassembled and hurled
although without any of the nuance or fine bodily into the Empyrean molecule by
manipulation available to an individual molecule until the mercifully briefrupture
trained psyker. These phenomena include self-seals. Those in the wider area of the
waves of preternatural fear, psychokinetic impact are simply struck dead, their bodies
effects, biomantic leaching of life in the left unmarked as if their souls had been
immediate area and even the temporal sheared from their bodies. While vortex
distortion-based reversion of damage to the warhead ordnance is both more powerful
in its blast and limited in range only by
I its function, the Sinistramanus Tenebrae
psi-cannon has the advantage that it may be
fired repeatedly, at least while the strength of
those on board lasts to power it.

•

•





Betrayal is a child of many sires: power, is a time now marked in the annals of days seemed to have survived it. The sealed

hate, vengeance, shame, guilt, bitterness, and the chronicles of the years as the 'Song accounts ofthose involved in the later

viciousness, callousness, all have played their of the Blood Skies' amid the much-stricken stages of the project note that successful

part in the fall of those who turned on the Nordafrik Conclaves, and as the 'Spiral implantation and integration of the _xvh

Emperor, but to this list two more must be Misrule' by the noble houses of the equatorial Legion's gene-seed was remarkably high.

added: hubris and blindness. While other plate cities,but most official records know it What is known, however, is the number who

Legions walked into infamy at their own as 'The FirstTempesf. In this time the Emperor walked from the Terran and Luna gene-

choosing, the.Thousand Sons were plunged seems to have been utterly unmoved forges , a number recorded with exactness

into that state; first by their own pride, second and unalarmed by the resurgence of the across many sources as though it held a

by the treachery of those who they trusted, phenomenon which had blighted humanity significance beyond a measure of strength.

and third by the Imperium itself Tainted for so long, and left such response needed One thousand warriors -a fully operable

by mutation and touched by the Warp, the to the judgement of His more parochial initial pattern Legion induction- clad in the

fall of the Thousand Sons seemed certain in servants of civil and military order. The grey that all Legions wore at their birth, knelt

retrospect,but that certainty is false. Another momentum of His conquests contained before the Emperor and made their Oaths

path might have waited for the _xvh Legion if by this sudden squall of the Empyrean, the ofEternity. Some who saw it say that as the

fate had not been so cruel. As it is, their story Emperor, according to available records, Emperor bade His 'Thousand Sons' to rise, at

is not one of darkness, but of a light that drew simply channelled His energies elsewhere that exact moment the storms surrounding

a Legion and Primarch higher and higher with a promptness that might imply both Terra broke, their force and fury dissipating

until they could no longer see the boundaries preparation and foresight, and it is thought and leaving only stillness and calm in the

of obedience left far below them. that several branches of the Imperium owe Warp beyond corporeal reality.

their formal origin to these times, not least

O RIGINs: THE TEMPEST BoRN amongst them the nascent silent Sisterhood The Thousand

The nature of many Legions was clear from and the Black Sentinels of the Astra At first there was little to distinguish

almost the first moment they took to the Telepathica, but perhaps chief amongst His the _xvhLegion despite their auspicious

battlefield. But the purpose of the Thousand acts was the creation of the _xvh birth, and the honour done to them by the

Sons - for purpose there undoubtedly Emperor. Though as competent in the arts

was- would unfold only slowly as a dark At first it seemed unremarkable from the of war as their brother Legions, they were

bloom, one petal at a time. The _xvhwere other proto-formations of the Legiones still relatively few in number and possessed

born late in the creation of the Legiones Astartes, save that it was clear that very no special talent or predilection that was

Astartes. The conquest ofTerra was already deliberate and exacting criteria were being immediately apparent as they acted to quell

complete, Luna had fallen, and the first-born set upon their intake, strictures imposed some limited and localised rebellion on

Legions had started to bring the rest of the that were beyond that of their fellow Terra itself before being given their first

Sol System to heel. The Great Crusade was Legions. The aspirants who would be raised warships and assignments beyond Sol. Their

about to begin, starting the cycle of conquest to the Legion were in fact drawn from initial deployments and campaigns were

that would see it flood across the stars and perhaps the most stable, loyal and culturally not remarkable. In the cloud warrens of

the strength of many Legions had begun sophisticated of the Emperor's domains on Proxima-III, they assaulted the transgenic

to wax as their ranks swelled with recruits Terra, and further sifted finely in selection blasphemies of the rotten alien cities. On

taken from conquered foes . No longer of candidates. Chief amongst these sources Gladris, they held the lines beside the far

was Unification the prize for victory, and were the Achaemenid Empire, the Enclaves larger battalions of the VI'hLegion, and on

no longer could the fires of the Imperial of the Fire Lords of Oaus, and the Kashai Seculoris, they castigated the non-Compliant

Truth be confined to Terra. It was a time Domain. All had been amongst the first mica-clans beside the Imperial Heralds

of transition, a time of endings as well as powers to give fealty to the Emperor and had of the XVII'h; all were early campaigns

beginnings, and into this time the _xvh supplied warriors for His armies since the successfully executed by the Legion. Yet

Legion were born. earliest battles of the Unification Wars. All despite the competency of their actions

of them also had populations which were there was little to draw regard or, in fact,

Storms marked the creation of the Legion. largely free of the unpredictable mutation any attention at all. The most that could be

The great warp tempests, which had which blighted so many ofTerra's children. said of the _xvhwas that they displayed a

isolated Ancient Terra during Old Night, Other aspirants of the _xvhare also known degree ofsynchronisation and integration

had boiled up again, and it was said that to have been drawn from across Terra, but in their actions beyond even that common

witch-fire lit the skies, and dreams of terror never in so great a number as to be distinct. in such exalted warriors as the Legiones

and brilliance danced through the minds The entirety of the Ionus Plateau is recorded Astartes. Perhaps early on the only notable

of humanity's birth world. For a brief time, as having only given up a single youth to the fact about them was that they had quickly

fear and revelation once again stalked the XV\ for example, though hundreds were adopted some distinct heraldry of their

turning ofthe sun and stained the light of taken and raised to the VII'hLegion from own, namely the ancient 'Millennia!' glyph

the moon. Instances of psychic mutation the region in contrast. The Emperor Himself to signify their Legion, commemorating the

and emergence spiralled to new heights, is known to have selected many of the first Emperor's pronouncement, and elements of

void shipping was trapped at anchor, and a recruits personally, an honour done to almost the ochre panoply of the storied 'Immortal

wave of panic swept the nascent Imperium no other Legion, and never to such a degree. Regiments' of the Achaemenid Empire from

strong enough to provoke a harsh response which they drew their most pronounced

from the servants of the Emperor as they It is unclear how many recruits were genetic ancestry. From the beginning it is ~
sought to crush again the woken serpent submitted to the process to raise them from certain that the Legion considered itselfa

of superstition on a newly unified Terra. It humanity to the _xvhLegion, but many breed apart, despite -and unlike certain •
~~

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other Legion raisings- being integrated While the XV'hmade no such meteoric rise, won. Perhaps it was because even as other
quickly into the Imperium's order ofbartle they remained indistinguished from their Legions grew in numbers, the XV'hgrew
as a general Space Marine force with little, at peers as the Imperium moved out into the slowly, its recruits selected seemingly with
least to begin with, to distinguish it. unconquered stars, and so it was until the great caution from the stock of many worlds
first whispers and rumours began to follow according to criteria that remained unclear.
These first years of the true Great Crusade them. Then, no sooner had the Great Crusade But perhaps it was simply suspicion bred by
were heady times, and the reputations entered its second decade, an altogether the lack of manifest reason for the unusual
and strength of the Legions grew at an stranger reputation soon clung about them manner of their creation and the apparent
accelerating pace. The Luna Wolves was like a cloak. lack of corresponding exceptional nature.
a name new on the lips of many, but one
quickly distinguished in victory -their Whispers and Fire No matter- the Thousand Sons, as the XV'h
ranks having already grown to over 30,000 Perhaps it was the honour done to the _xvh were now widely known despite having
warriors- and the reputation ofTerra's Legion by the Emperor at their creation that outgrown the literal truth of that title, were
pale 'night's children' which made up the first drew the speculation and curiosity of a Legion that moved uneasily amongst their
the VIII'h could already cow enemies and others. The Legion had become marked by brothers from their first days, and when the
potential turncoats alike by fear alone, while the Emperor's words at its oath-taking, and unique qualities of their warriors finally
conversely, the potent fortresses raised by had become known as the Thousand Sons manifested, they did not dampen the embers
the Vll'halready marked the skin ofTerra even before its first battle honour had been of distrust, but turned them into a blaze.
and a dozen worlds beyond Sol's light.

A decade after the Great Crusade spilled An Empyrean Purpose .,
beyond Sol, the first Thousand Sons began At the time of the manifestation of their psychic powers, the truth of the scheme of the
to openly manifest potent psychic abilities. Thousand Sons' creation seemed obvious, and still seems so now. How could the Emperor, , ~·
First just a handful were affected, and then in His wisdom and power, have not known what seeds lay in the flesh of the humans taken
as the years went on, more and more. These to make the Thousand Sons? How could He have not known the qualities of the gene- i
were not the petty powers ofcult prophets seed used to raise them above humanity, when it was the product of His own hand and
or even the sanctioned lesser arts of the knowledge? If we admit that He did not know what He did, then we admit to a universe
half-charlatan fate-twisters that attended the filled with doubts and bottomless uncertainty.
noble House ofTerra, but manifestations of
the true potential of the Empyrean at its most Yet if we acknowledge what seems manifestly true -that He knew full well what He had
destructive and majestic. At the hands of wrought in the creation of the Thousand Sons- then we must perhaps see that the hubris
the Thousand Sons was displayed living fire that would lay Magnus low was not his alone, but lived in his father also. Perhaps there is
made manifest, there came deluges ofbio- another truth, lurking beyond our understanding or ability to comprehend; the ways of
lightning, armour-cracking telekinetic fury, the Emperor are rarely simple, and the purposes of His actions seldom what they seem. Yet
thoughts which razored open minds, flesh what comfort is there in such possibilities besides the laughter of the universe at the pride
which healed from deathly wounds before of Man? No matter the cause, the unfolding psychic nature of the Thousand Sons created a
the blood could hit the ground, even visions single unified response amongst those who learned of it: terror.
which guided the seer to find hope in a sea
of failure. It seemed to onlookers as though Emperor about the Thousand Sons' growing THE CURSEDLEGION
the designs of the Emperor had at long last power and advocated a plan to swiftly cull The Thousand Sons remained a small Legion
begun to bear fruit. the Legion should they waver. What the even while the star of their martial success
Emperor's response to such a question rose. While the strength of other Legions
The careful selection of recruits, the hidden might have been is neither remembered or grew by the thousands or even tens of
methods of selection, the meticulous recorded, but one fact is undoubted; amongst thousands, the XV'hgrew in more modest
preparation of the Legion's warriors, even all of the calls of disgust and fear, and even numbers, sometimes even shrinking when
the low numbers taken as potential recruits, while the Thousand Sons took to battlefields war took its inevitable toll. Half a decade
all now seemed to be part of a clear purpose. in a blaze of occult fire, the Emperor after their exodus from Terra, the Thousand
The Emperor in His wisdom had created a withheld His censure and remained silent. Sons are listed in most records as no more
Legion which fused the psychic potential than ro,ooo warriors. By comparison the
of Mankind with the gene-alchemy of the Those first years were not marked by discord Luna Wolves, the largest Legion of that era,
Legiones Astartes. On the battlefield, though or isolation alone. Victories piled up in the numbered close to five times that strength.
still few in number, the Thousand Sons wake of the Thousand Sons' passage through Part of this was because the Legion accepted
proved as unpredictable a foe to the enemies the stars, victories won in spectacular so few recruits, and beyond this, further
of the Great Crusade as they proved utterly fashion, victories that became tales that filled factors came into play to limit its expansion.
deadly, but from this very success grew the listeners with dread and wonder: armies of While they harvested conquered worlds for
suspicion of their brothers. hundreds of thousands turned to ash, fortress recruits like all Legions, the numbers that the
walls cracked as if by the crushing hand of Thousand Sons took were small compared
To those who had come through the an invisible colossus, and small companies of with the mass inductions of the Luna Wolves
Unification Wars, the psyker was at best a warriors marching through storms of plasma from Cthonia, or the Imperial Heralds from
shunned instrument of occasional necessity, fire and emerging untouched. And, beside their cowed enemies. Even of these, records
and most often an abomination to be the tales of destruction, there are accounts indicate that relatively few of those chosen
destroyed. So it was that even as more and listed in records that cannot be doubted - survived the process of transformation to
more of the Thousand Sons manifested the fact that it took Captain Ohrmuzd only become a Legionary compared to the success
their abilities, so too was it that the aura of six hours to subdue the planet ofNecordo rate of th e I" Legion's induction process
curiosity which had followed them since with two hundred warriors, or that the now (generally taken as the median for such
their birth became a cloud of distrust and lost Legio Lacrimae gave oaths of perpetual things). But it cannot be disputed that during
even outright hostility. Some amongst their kinship to the Thousand Sons for driving this period what they lacked in numbers,
brother Legions refused to take to the field back a force of countless Orks from their they compensated for in effectiveness. The
alongside them, particularly during the initial crippled Titans during the reversals of the domin ant majority of the Legion were now
flowering of their powers. On Ostrastis, the Rout ofMegorania. The remembrances of fully emerged psykers of some form , though
first Millennia! of the III'd Legion withdrew Solomon Voss even imply that the Emperor of wildly differing levels of ability, and
their ships when a company of the XV'h Himself went to battle with a cadre of many of the rest seemed to harbour some
joined the mustering to take the colonies of Thousand Sons in His vanguard on at least lesser tendency. But though powerful, they
the Cyn Stars. During the Colgren Campaign, one occasion against the horrors of the foul remained few. So it was th at when disaster
the Dusk Raiders contingent mustered as xeno-form of the Khrave. These deeds are came, it almost destroyed them.
part of the force refused to look at, listen to or now the forgotten past of the Thousand Son s,
speak to any of the Thousand Sons, dealing their brief time of glory before the next dark
only through intermediaries and servitors. It mark on the page of their history.
is stated by a few fragmentary sources from
the era that even Horus -at that time the
only Primarch who was a part of the Great
Crusade- voiced direct concerns to the

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' ! It began on Bezant. Elements of the the air as all the while the nameless warrior unchanged to outward eyes. Even within
screamed for mercy in a thousand silent its ranks the feeling was that Bezant was an
Thousand Sons 2nd and s'h Chapters had voices heard in every mind of his Legion. aberration, a unique and terrible fluke caused
by the psychic energies unleashed in the
been given the task ofbringing the sun- His brothers killed him then, ripping his battle with the Bezantine. The Great Crusade
worshipping humans ofthe verdant world rebelling flesh apart with bolter fire and continued on and the Legion continued
to Compliance. The Bezantine though were bathing the remains in cleansing flame until to conquer, all the while manifesting ever
loath to give up their golden temples and the he was nothing but the dust of ashes. At the greater levels of psychic strength. We do
whispered commands of their sun-blinded time, those who were present swore to keep not know how long it was until the second
priests. That might have mattered little if it the fate of their brother from all outside warrior fell; only the Thousand Sons know
had not been that the population was witch- of the Legion. The accounts we have now the truth. Perhaps it was months, perhaps
tainted to its core. The priesthood were all of this singular event only exist because of years, perhaps longer. But a second did
chosen from those who could 'hear the light what came after, when there was no longer succumb, and then a third Legionary, their
of the stars', and the traditions of the cult had any hope of the secrets being kept, and no bodies dissolving into warp energy, mutating
shaped the population so that of every child redemption offered by keeping them. without control. The Legion gave a literal
born, one in ten were similarly blessed. name to the curse that had come upon
When the Legion descended on Bezant, they The Horror Begins them; they called it the Flesh Change. The
were met not with swords or armies but with For a time after Bezant, the Legion seemed Thousand Sons fought to control what was
fire, nightmare and the roar of dissolving
matter. It was an enemy whose arts they
understood but had seldom encountered on
such a scale. The Legion fought back using
their own powers, as keen to prove their
psychic mastery as the War Hounds Legion
of the era might have been to test their
bloody skills against a cadre of superlative
enemy warriors in a brutal pitched battle.

There are no accounts outside those of the

Thousand Sons of the battle,but if they can

be believed, it was as though the fundamental

elements of existence itself warred that day.

Clouds spun of lightning cleaved through

hurricanes ofdebris, and the shrieks of

invisible battles soared through the burning

air. The Legion had never been so tested;

its warriors poured every scrap of skill and

strength into the battle, but still could not

break the Bezantine priests. Then, as the

psychic deadlock forced black rain from the

'! sky, the pressure broke and a single scream
·~ )
echoed through every mind on the planet.

The name of the warrior who fell at that

moment is not recorded. In what remains

of the Thousand Sons Book of Days and

Passing, recovered from the burned libraries

of Prospera, he is simply called 'Daleth', and

represented by a single ancient sigil in a

dead tongue. That the warrior had another

name in life is certain, but the meaning of

the name his death is recorded under is not.

Some savants and linguist-arcanists have said

that this thought-form 'Daleth' has a purely

esoteric meaning, and might symbolise

the door from the past to the future, or

the beginning and the end of all things.

Perhaps they are right, because what is

known is that at the height of the battle, the

substance of the warrior's body slowly blew

! apart. Slick flows of malleable flesh spilled

I~ from his broken armour, bone fused with
~ the substance of his wargear, and his blood
ij misted and congealed into new forms in

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happening to them, and to keep it a secret, lll'd Legion, and did not fully suspect the retrospect can be seen as perhaps a desperate .
but both endeavours were doomed. unfolding horror for what it was. silencing ofwitnesses.
"-
The Flesh Change manifested again That the Flesh Change was linked to their There was little sympathy from their
and again, and in ever growing carnage, psychic abilities and their gene-seed cannot brother Legions, and for those within the fl~
sometimes aillicting hundreds in a single be doubted, but how or why, none save Imperium's hierarchy who learned ofor at
instant. Such an epidemic could not be perhaps the Emperor can know. That it least suspected some measure of the truth of ij..
kept entirely secret but the Legion strove affiicted Legionaries who had no, or slight, the Flesh Change (or merely the Thousand ~
mightily to do so, twisting the facts where psychic inclination did not matter to the Sons' 'ailliction' as some in ignorance called
they could not be entirely hidden, so as to shadows of hatred and fear which flocked it), a common belief was that it was just the ''
hide their shame. Those few within the around the Legion even as they floundered. manifestation of the Thousand Sons Legion's
Imperium's hierarchy who knew that some With few facts to draw upon, the forces genetic attd perhaps even philosophical
deep-rooted defect had manifested within of the Imperium saw the Legion become corruption. The whispers ofsuspicion soon
the Legion believed it a form of deep-seated withdrawn, and ever more secretive and ever became shouted condemnations. 'Sorcery',
flaw of cellular degeneration, such as had more erratic in its commitment to the Great they called the arts of the Thousand Sons,
once afflicted the Thunder Warriors, or Crusade. Also, units which fought alongside dredging up the word from the black days of
perhaps gene-seed damage such as that them increasingly suffered inexplicable the Age of Strife and setting it on the XV'h
which external tragedy had inflicted on the losses and even 'accidents', which in Legion's head like a crown of cold iron.

The Thousand Sons struggled on, their and honours struck from every record, Prospera was a world which moved between
numbers dwindling. Battles and the curse monument and memory. The Emperor high mountains and deep oceans, between
of the Flesh Change cut deeper with every did not heed the calls for Him to end His lush forests and dry deserts, a new Terra of
passing year. Shunned by their brother Thousand Sons. Whether He would have, legend, and many thousands of years before
Legions and much of the rest of the or if the Legion would have simply shd into the coming of either Magnus or the Emperor,
Imperium, they continued to slowly conquer nothingness, will never be known, because humanity had covered its surface. The
even as they seemed to whither. But even at the moment when it seemed certain that ancient Prosperine humans had built cities
as they were undone from within, their only oblivion waited for the Thousand Sons, and nations in every reach of those lands.
psychic might grew. The most powerful they were saved. But at some point during the darkness which
ascended higher still in mastery, well humanity now calls Old Night, calamity
beyond any known psyker of the few found PROSPERO: A CRYSTAL AND LIGHT had come to Prospera and almost erased its
in the ranks of other Legions; the number people from existence. The precise course of
of the surviving warriors within the XV'h Prospera was a pohshed jewel glittering this event was never known, even to Magnus
manifesting powers with increasing potency. alone in the long dark of night. At least or his most gifted sons, but it seems hkely
From a certain point of view, it might be so it appeared at the time of its discovery. that at some point the humans ofProspero
said that they had httle choice. With their While other worlds which had cradled had experienced a sudden explosion in
numbers falling, and with few others to aid the lost Primarchs it seemed were often psychic potential. Such storms of psychic
them, they fought using the weapons they unremittingly soaked in darkness, cruelty emergence left scars on many worlds during
had. There is another view, one that resonates and blood, Prospera had achieved an the Age of Strife and seldom ended in
with the paths that the Thousand Sons ascendency over such barbarity. This anything but utter disaster. To this day on
would walk over the following centuries; ascendency was not one of technology, but Terra and hundreds of other worlds, these
they persisted in using their powers not only it was because of the minds of its people, memories persist in stories of unremitting
because it was necessary, but because they minds shaped by ancient disasters and the horror passed down from those dark times,
believed that they were right to do so. necessities of survival. and with good reason. On Prospera the
terrifying nature of such a surge can only be
Decay guessed at, but in its wake a second calamity
The Thousand Sons, as has already been came upon its people.
noted, were never as numerous as their
brothers, and with this gathering calamity,
they began to spiral into nothing. Formations
which had been thousands strong became
hundreds, which became handfuls of
warriors outnumbered by the dead and
the lost. Ships which had carried great
armies of conquest now carried no more
than a haunted remnant of past glories
walking echoingly empty corridors.The
condemnations of others also grew in
intensity and strength as the Thousand Sons
shrivelled. Primarchs, Legion Masters and
figures of authority throughout the body of
the Imperium called for the XV'hLegion to
be disbanded. Some perhaps called for this
thinking it a kindness, a mercy given to a
once great Legion dying in shame. Others
called not just for the Thousand Sons to be
dissolved, but for them to be obliterated,
and some even said purged-cut from the
body of the Legiones Astartes hke a cancer,
their warriors executed, and their names

The Mind Parasites A KING FALLEN FROM mE STARS Magnus ascended to the heights of
The Psychneuein are nightmarish predatory Prospera's governmental circles, remaking
creatures who live both within the Warp Magnus came to Prospera as a comet falling the civilisation which had fostered him as
and in reality. Drawn to individuals of from a night sky. The scholars and masters he did so, perfecting and building on the
psychic potential, their reproductive cycle ofTizca looked up and saw his descent like traditions of the past and raising them and
requires their eggs to be gestated in the a slash offire cut through the firmament-a the people ofTizca to undreamed of heights
mind of a living psyker in our reality. In the line drawn from the heavens to the heart of ofintellectual and psychic attainment. From
psychic blossoming of Prospera's people, the Tizca. The ground is said to have shattered the foundations of the methods of mental
Psychneuein had found the perfect nest and where his body struck, the marble flowing control he created the Five Prosperine Cults.
swarmed onto their world in an infestation like molten silver, and the dreams of every From the roots ofTizca, the pyramids and
the likes of which has thankfully rarely been man, women and child of this world were towers rose higher and higher. Leaps of
seen the length and breadth of the galaxy. suddenly overwhelmed in a burst oflight intellecllial intuition, the deciphering of
The old civilisation of Prospera died, some and sensation. Cries of mingled terror and ancient lore and the unravelling of many
believe in a single night of witch-fire and wonder rolled through the city. Each of these mysteries became like the passing of sea
feasting horrors devouring the living from portents and many more were recorded by breezes. Tizca flowered as never before, and
within. But some few indeed survived the the masters ofTizca in exact detail, even at its head was Magnus, the 'Crimson King' of
calamity, fleeing with what knowledge and as their meaning was argued. None could an empire of dreams.
technology they could. Those few founded doubt that the child fallen from the sky -a
Tizca-the City of light, Citadel of Reason, child found unmarked in the glowing crater The Gift of Salvation
the last and only true city of Prospera. caused by his impact- could only portend It has been suggested that a connection
great change, though whether for good or existed between the Emperor and Magnus
Tizca gleamed under the light of sun and for ill none could be certain. The answer to for long years before the Great Crusade
moon. Pyramids flanked in artificial crystal that question would not be answered for came to Prospera. The truth and extent of
rose up to the azure sky between the centuries more, when Tizca and all its people this can never be known. Magnus claimed
glimmering sea and a circle of snow-capped were ashes, and its stars lost beyond storms of such a prior link, and that the understanding
mountains to house the city's masters. poisoned clouds. between the two was considerable, greater
Statues carved from coloured stone and even than that between the Emperor and any
polished metal looked down on the paved Magnus grew amongst the people ofTizca, of the other Primarchs. He is even recorded
avenues which radiated out from its centre absorbing the lessons of their masters and as having remarked that his ultimate teacher
like the rays of a noon sun. Its people exceeding their skill in every area of psychic in the psychic realm, even in the time before
were tall and handsome, with eyes that discipline, scholarship and endeavour. he was fully conscious, and during his early
held the fire of sapphires or emeralds. In Chief amongst his tutors was a man called life on Prospera, was the Emperor, and that
the millennia since the psychic cataclysm Amon, who in a different age would have the two had quested in the retheric realm
and the Psychneuein plague, the psychic been the foremost scholar of his people, beyond reality many times.
potential of the survivors' descendants but Amon's qualities extended beyond the
had not faded. Most born in Tizca, be they intellectual. While others might have chafed How much of what was claimed is true, or
patrician or pauper, possessed at least a spark at watching their pupil outstrip their own true to the extent claimed by Magnus, is
of psychic potential. That potential might accomplishments, Amon seems to have uncertain. The supremely psychic nature of
have doomed the enclave though if they realised that Magnus was far more than he Magnus and the transcendent psychic might
had not learned to control their powers. could ever be, and so set himself the task of the Emperor makes a form of connection
Traditions grew alongside the buildings of not of teaching his charge knowledge but possible, perhaps even likely, but whether
Tizca, schools of mental control, meditation wisdom. As much as Magnus' mind and it was to the extent claimed by Magnus is
and transcendent focus. Kept safe by these abilities leapt forwards, Amon tried to instil open to doubt. Perhaps he was speaking in
practices, humanity endured on Prospera, caution, to temper genius with humility. metaphor, a habit that he often demonstrated.
but it would never again flourish beyond the There came a time though when no further
bounds of its sanctuary. Beyond Tizca and its limitation could be placed on Magnus, and
cultivated environs, the landscape remained the pupil became the master in every sense.
all but empty of human life, haunted by
the unquiet ghosts of a lost past. Ruins still
dotted the land under coverings of dust or
vegetation, the wind singing through their
bones like the echoes of old nightmares.
The Desolation, the people called that empty
expanse, and shunned it in all but the direst
of necessities.

''

i•

THousAND SoNs LEGION CoNTEMPTOR DREADNOUGHT

UsHAPT-OsrRoN HEDARA ProMALAc
GuARDIAN oF THE HousE OF THE JAcKAL
One of a cadre of nine Dreadnoughts which 'slept' within the walls of the House of the Jackal, a large mortuary and memorial complex which sat
upon the western edge ofTizca's central district, serving as its ritual protectors, Hedara Ptomalac in life had been one of the first generation of
Thousand Sons inducted on Prospero. The archives of the Logistica Corpus list Ptomalac as serving with distinction as the commander of a heavy
support squad during the Relief of Keene's Landing, there receiving Imperial Citation, and years later again as honourably falling in battle at the
infamous Last Stand on Rakotis and his subsequent internment in one of the first Contemptor Dreadnoughts issued to the XV'hLegion.
After the outer structures of the House of the Jackal were shelled into ruin by the Space Wolves Legion, the Dreadnought Ptomalac and his

IDlj surviving brethren tore free of the rubble and counter-attacked the Space Wolves' heavy armour at short range, Ptomalac personally accounting
for two Typhon Siege Tanks before his obliteration.

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Perhaps it was true but not to the extent dreamed in stasis, fewer yet survived to see quest into the stars. Among these elevated

that Magnus claimed. And then there is the Thousand Sons saved. Just as at their humans was Amon, one-time faithful mentor

the possibiliry that he was deceived, in part foundation they again numbered just r,ooo turned disciple, and now Magnus' aide in the

or in the whole. This last possibiliry, given warriors, and whether by strange accident or remaking of his Legion. Much of the lore

what was to come, cannot be discounted. occult design, the exactitude of this number and technique gathered and developed by

No matter.the truth of the prior connection can only be wondered at. Again and again Magnus was passed from Amon, and these

berween the Emperor and Magnus, when the throughout their history this numeration chosen few served as teachers and mentors to

Emperor canie to Prospera, He knew enough would follow the XV'h, repeating in the both the survivors of the original Thousand

to bring with Him what remained of the cycles of their near-extinction and rebirth. Sons and its new initiates. With his Legion

Legion born of Magnus' line. It might be easy to ascribe coincidence to growing once again, its curse apparently

such phenomenon,but when considering lifted and its strength sharpened, Magnus

Master and Acolytes anything to do with the nature of the joined die Great Crusade.

War and the Flesh Change had cut deep by Emperor's creations, and the Thousand Sons

the time the XV'hwere reunited with their in particular, coincidence must be treated Visionaries and Sorcerers

sire. So many now slept in stasis or had with suspicion. Many of the Primarchs were idealists who

succumbed to battle or mutation that when saw the Great Crusade not only as a war of

the Legion came to Prospera, summoned THE N Ew SoNs OF PROSPERO conquest, or eve of survival, but a path to a

by the Emperor, a scant few thousand knelt Magnus did not just save his Legion, he greater end. Magnus undoubtedly had such

before their father. The bond berween reshaped it within and without. Prospero vision, though the utopia he saw at the end

a Primarch and his gene-sons is said to became the home world of the Thousand of the road was different from that of his

transcend even that ofhuman parent and Sons, the source of many of its new recruits, brothers. To Magnus, the purpose of the

child. Berween beings such as Magnus and its ways became the foundation of the Great Crusade was not to dominate the stars

and his psychically attuned gene-sons, the reborn Legion. In place of the old structures but to elevate Mankind. He believed that

bond seems to have been closer still, for drawn from the echoes ofthe Unification both spiritual and intellectual ascendancy

from the moment they were reunited, both Wars, Magnus created new foundations of was the ultimate destiny of Mankind. He saw

Primarch and Legion seemed extensions of authoriry, knowledge and mysteries which a golden age of enlightenment waiting for

one another in thought, outlook and spirit. spiralled through one another, transforming humaniry, one in which thoughts, knowledge

At last Magnus had pupils and disciples everything from the Legion's command and reason guided minds free to skim the

both capable of assimilating his teachings hierarchy to its panoply of war to the very surface of realities and see the great vista of

and walking the path he saw for Mankind. language it used in common discourse. Far existence. Reaching this light was the goal

But even as Magnus took command of his from denying the use of psychic powers, of any undertaking, no matter how brutal it

Legion and declared Prospera its home, so Magnus enhanced and refined their use, might seem in the short term. Armed with

the Thousand Sons succumbed to the Flesh training his sons in the arts he had distilled this certainry, Magnus and his sons set about

Change with increasing frequency, as though on Prospero. The Five Prosperine Cults not only conquering worlds, but gathering

the contact with their gene-sire had brought were spread through the Legion, with each knowledge and proliferating these ideals.

on a final, terrible phase in the curse's cycle. psychically able warrior taking one which

most fitted the nature of his gift. The abilities Wherever they went, the Thousand Sons

Faced with this unfolding disaster, Magnus of those who had survived Magnus' cure culled lore with an insatiable hunger. .'
turned all of his power, lore and learning for the Flesh Change were great, but under Parchments, books, data-vaults, works of
to discovering a cure to the curse which Magnus' tutelage they grew, became deeper artifice and art, and countless other artefacts

was killing his sons; it was not simply an in application and stronger in subtlery. from both human and alien worlds were

act of filial patronage but also, as some In fresh recruits he sought both psychic gathered by the Legion. Many were taken

have suggested, a test, and one set by the potential and intellectual excellence and during the wars of conquest prosecuted by

Emperor Himself to His strangest of sons. sophistication-no mere killers bred to the Thousand Sons, but missions sent to

What occurred next can only be guessed slaughter would carry his gene-seed. Many already Compliant worlds also recovered

at, or deduced in shape from the shadows recruits came from Prospero itself, selected wonders thought lost to the darkness

it casts from that time into the present. from the brightest of its youth, though as the of the Age of Strife. It is a well recorded

Magnus found a cure and saved his Legion. Legion ventured once again into the stars, fact, for instance, that Magnus himself

At the time none were certain how he had more would be taken from other worlds journeyed deep into the shadows ofTerra

achieved this, and such were the abilities of with a deftness of selection that fitted their in accompaniment of Perturabo ofthe Iron

the Crimson King that few, even amongst his singular purpose. Warriors in search of fragments of lore;

brothers, could have begun to understand the brother Primarchs, utterly unalike in

the answer even if he had given it. Now, with From amongst his former masters and temperament and mien, united in their

suspicion gifted from the scars of treachery, disciples, and amongst the population of desire to know what was knowable, albeit in

it seems possible that Magnus delved too far Prospero, he also raised a few to the Legion, very different fields.

beyond what Mankind should know for the even though they were too old to receive

means to save his sons, and perhaps with his the full gene-seed implantation, achieving Sometimes the campaigns fought by the

salvation sold them to a greater doom. successes in doing so unparalleled elsewhere. Thousand Sons made little strategic sense to

Prosperine alchemical techniques, arcane others, and they would often leave a conflict

The Legion had been saved by Magnus, but physiochemical augmentation, and Magnus' or join another seemingly at whim, drawing

not without loss. From amongst those few own biomantic powers allowed these half- inevitable criticism which added to the

who still walked, and amongst those who breed Legionaries to follow Magnus on his shadowed suspicions which still dogged the If

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Legion. Such acquisitiveness and quixotic For a time, it seemed as though Magnus and dislike, or even hate for the XV'h, but in this
tendencies brought derision from some, the Thousand Sons had begun to shed the brief era, it seemed at least that they had
and overt hostility from others. The cloud suspicions which had shrouded them for reached an uneasy peace with both their own
ofdistrust had not left the Thousand Sons decades. Some amongst the other Legions nature and the Imperium they were fighting
with the discovery of their Primarch. Many and Primarchs would never discard their to build. Fate, though, is relentless.
still whispered that they were tainted, that
they were little better than the sorcerer kings
and witch-priests of Old Night-for all their
claims of enlightenment. In answer to this,
Magnus sought not only to persuade the
rest of the Imperium that he was right, but
sought to make them see his rightness with
their own eyes.

Ofthe Librarius
Foremost amongst Magnus' efforts
to advance his point of view was his
involvement in the Librarius Project. While
sanctioned psykers had been used as part
of the Great Crusade from its earliest days,
their use had always been limited and never
extended to the Legiones Astartes as a
whole, or with any formality, though some
emergence ofpsyker talent had been noted
in several of the Legions, notably the Blood
Angels and the Night Lords, although in
numbers almost inconsequential to that
found in the Thousand Sons. The Librarius
Project sought to fuse together the manifest
use of psychics in battle and the superior
mental strength and physical prowess of the
Space Marines, and regulate their function.
While the Primarch Magnus was not the
project's originator, he became undoubtedly
the project's chief architect and proponent,
wisely ourwardly at least basing many of its
tenets not on Prosperine culture but on other
sources, perhaps less suspect to outsiders,
and by this and his reasoned argument,

' ' Magnus the Red persuaded a number of his

brothers of the Librarius Project's virtues.
The willingness and backing of several of
the Primarchs he swayed seems likely to
have carried the day, and the project was
sanctioned by the Emperor.

Members of several Legions who manifested
psychic potential were then trained by
the Thousand Sons in an adapted form of
the Prosperine disciplines and practices,
fused with Terran- and Baalite-derived and
Emperor-sanctioned lore. After completing
this training, they were placed back into their
Legions and trusted to further disseminate
what they had learned. Though the greater
mysteries of the Thousand Sons' arts were
clearly withheld in retrospect, the new-
formed Librarians of the Legiones Astartes
soon proved their worth.

UNIT ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE WITHIN THE LEGION

The structure of the Thousand Sons was like the Legion's deployments as a near-universal have been called a line company, but their
no other Legion. Just as Magnus the Red adjunct. The exact reasons for this are not place within the Thousand Sons was more
rebuilt his Legion from the ruin of the Flesh recorded, but it is possible that it was simply than a simple grouping of warriors under a
Change, sci he also shaped its every facet seen as the most efficient and adaptable commander. Each Circle could vary in size,
into a pattern which served his vision and method of deploying warriors into the field, being anything between a handful of squads
the needs of his teachings, a pattern named and that the psychic might of the Legion to many hundreds of Legionaries strong.
in some sources as the 'Pesedjet'. Where the made greater specialisation less necessary These variations in size were not accidental,
formations and traditions of the old Legion that it might have. This possible explanation but part of a pattern of relative strength and
coincided with his own designs he kept tallies with a number of engagements numerical relationship which functioned
them,where they did not, he removed and when the Legion deployed forces against
replaced them. armoured or fortified enemies without the to form astructure of occult significance
full complement of heavy materiel and
No part of his Legion was accident or equipment that would have been used by and hierarchy within the Legion. Each bore
coincidence -a fact he is on record as other Legions under similar circumstances, a designation formed ofboth letters and
having boasted of to Fulgrim- noting that relying upon psychic power rather than just numbers, though the progression of each
even where practices or variation had sprung shot and shell to carry the day. of these variables did not follow a strict
up seemingly spontaneously, that they were order, but again seemed part of a spiralling
'merely seeds long planted', and that 'all which It is however also notable that despite design which formed part of the Prosperine
happens in my sons is held in my eye long before this reliance on basic troops, the deadly Mysteries. From what remains known, the
it is born in their hearts and minds'. While we arithmetic of attrition-based ·warfare was Circle oflaed-9, for example, consisted of 512
might doubt the extent of his prescience, the never a game that the Thousand Sons Legion warriors divided into squads kept at strengths
implication is clear; in the business of his entered into willingly, actively avoiding of either 16, 9 or 7·
Legion nothing that endured did so without the meat grinder of mass-assault tactics
his consent, Magnus the Red was lord and and striving never to allow themselves to All Circles were part of one of the nine
master, absolute. become encircled or undertake sacrificial Fellowships. It is said that when Magnus
holding actions, regardless of the prize at first began to reorder his Legion that there
Where the Thousand Sons most resembled stake. Instead, they always strove to stack were ten Fellowships, but severe losses
their brother Legions was at the level of the odds of battle in their favour, either reduced this to nine. Whether this is true or
individual units. The full panoply of the through exacting strategic planning, the ifMagnus decided to change the structure
Legiones Astartes was represented in the considered use of ancillary forces such as because of some other, hidden, factor is
Legion,from lascannon-armed heavy support battle-automata as shields and vanguards, and not known. The number of Circles within
units, to Sky Hunter squadrons mounted of course, by far more occult and less easily each Fellowship varied just as the strength
on jetbikes and with every variation in understood means. of each Circle was clearly purposeful, but
between, they were left not lacking in was inconsistent at a superficial level. The
any theatre of war. For all their psychic Patterns and Symbols number of Circles within a Fellowship also
might, and the extent to which they used All squad leaders within the Legion were occasionally changed, but whenever this
its power to augment the waging of war, warriors who had ascended through the first occurred, the number and size of the Circles
they were still Space Marines and capable layers of knowledge within the teachings within all the Fellowships also changed,
of destruction on a much more mundane and mysteries established by their master, though never in the same way twice. Within
-yet still highly effective-level. If the and many of them were also initiates in these Circles, or sometimes forming unique
Thousand Sons displayed a favour towards a one of the Prosperine Cults. At the level Circles of their own, came other, more
unit configuration, it was to the mechanised above the individual squads, themselves specialised military sub-units more readily
tactical squad as its principal infantry sometimes name chantries, were the identified by outsiders, most notably the
paradigm, with mobile speeder and flyer- Circles. In other Legions, a Circle might 'Sekhmet', also known as the Scarab Occult
based reconnaissance units embedded across -the Primarch's own Terminator-armoured
bodyguard, and the 'Dreamers of the Osiron'
-the Thousand Sons Legion's cadre of
Dreadnoughts and those Techmarines who
stood attendant to them.



THousAND SoNs LEGION HERALDRY

.'

Fellowship Command Third Fellowship Legion Icon Votive Glyph Pattern Second Fellowship
Legion Icon with Numeral Assault Icon Variant

'Pesedjet'- Legion Strategic Legion Icon, Veteran Variant Legion Icon, Common Usage Legion Icon,
Command Icon Squad Command Variant

>.

Legion Tactical Icon, Legion Icon, Consular Variant Legion Honour Guard- Pre-Prosperine Legion Icon
Mid-Great Crusade Usage Order of the Jackal

THOUSAND SONS LEGION HELMM ARKINGS Example Legionary Standards of the Second
From the period of Magnus' reformation onwards, a number of and Third Fellowships of the Thousand Sons.
unique variants of power armour helms appear within the ranks of
the Thousand Sons. While not universal, they are believed to invoke
certain ritual factors and materials in their construction.

Mkii 'Crusade'Achean Sub-pattern
Introduced after 'Pesedjet' structural reform,
mid-Great Crusade onwards, and still used by
veteran and specialist formations by the time of
the Burning of Prospera.

MkiV 'Maximus'Achean Sub-pattern
Introduced during the latter Great Crusade,
widespread adoption ofMkiV sub-patterns
locally manufactured by Arkhadine sub-forge.

Tartaros Tactical Dreadnought Armour
Achean Sub-pattern
Variant aesthetic form and ritual materials
incorporated into recently issued Terminator
armour panoply, note also the use of 'Nemes'
- Prosperine adornment indicating rank and
status as one of the 'learned nobility'.

~I simple answer existed for all to see, but if one Magnus' close lieutenants within the Rehahti
knew a little more and looked from a slightly and who was included in its ever-shifting
'i THE ENDLESS SPIRAL different angle, that answer was replaced by membership.
Besides the Circles, Fellowships, Orders another. A little more knowledge, another
and Cults, there were dozens of other small shift in view point and another strucrure War Disposition
of seniority would layer over the first two, and The Thousand Sons Legion had never
., cabals, collegium and symposia formed by so on and on with each new detail. entirely shaken off the withering effects
of the first decades of its existence. Over
t• the Thousand Sons to pursue a particular At its simplest, the Legion can be seen as a century later, its near-extinction prior
strand ofknowledge or refine a branch of a pyramid. At its pinnacle was Magnus, to the rediscovery of Magnus still left a
supreme in every way, undisputed master of shadow on the numerical strength of the
' physic ability, offering a layer of subdivision the Thousand Sons in war, scholarship and Legion. Combined with its conservatism
power. Beneath him were the high captains in recruitment, this legacy meant that they
that inevitably spilled over to their military and magisteria of the Nine Fellowships, and were amongst the smallest Legions at the
strucrures. The membership and importance beneath them in rum the legates and line time of the Burning ofProspero. Estimates of
of these collectives waxed and waned with captains, captains-adjutant and sergeant- their strength place it as potentially being as
aspirants who variously commanded the high as Bo,ooo-Bs,ooo warriors - ironically
' ' the rise and fall of their members, and the Circles within those Fellowships and led perhaps their greatest ever number-
their tactical deployments and squads in immediately before their destruction,with
popularity oftheir concerns. Over the the field. The most senior and trusted of the bulk of this strength located on Prospera
decades between the rediscovery of Magnus the Legion's leaders formed a coven around when not explicitly sent upon a mission of
and the Council ofNikaea, there were likely Magnus, the so-called 'Rehahti,' which conquest. Even at this level of manpower,
many hundreds ofthese groupings formed replaced the shattered and threadbare Legion
within the Thousand Sons, of which few command staff strucrure the Primarch had
are now known. The 'Hands of the Drowned found when he had joined his sons.
Moon' are recorded, for example, as having
focused long hours of debate and ritual This first outward reading of authority
experimentation on what happened to a within the Legion is accurate up to a point,
living being at the moment of death. The but its simplicity hides another pattern. It
'Aquilae', meanwhile, sometimes called the is self-evident that most of the command
'denied sixth Cu!t ofProspero', investigated structure of the Thousand Sons comprised
the narure of the <ether itself until it was accomplished psykers, though there were
disbanded upon the orders of Magnus. By a few exceptions, and those of the Legion
who lacked manifest psychic ability usually
1 contrast, the 'Atmon,' a group obsessed with ranked below their psychic brothers. Even
the psychic observation of the distant past, where notional military rank was equal,
was said to have never numbered more than often it was psychic mastery not veterancy
ten initiates of the Corvidae. which denoted seniority. Even though this
distinction was never formalised , it was a
The obscure narure of the strucrure of the fact obvious to any who had insight into the
Thousand Sons to outsiders is made all the Legion. Amongst those with psychic power,
more so because it was clearly driven by a two other factors determined their place
precise design and guiding purpose, though within the order of things at any time: their
what this was none outside of their ranks rank within their Cult, and the prestige of
could say, and no member of the Legion that Cult relative to the others. A low-ranked
ever broke the bindings of secrecy placed on initiate of one Cult would not outrank a
them by their Primarch. This, amongst many senior member of another Cult, but between
other factors, further contributed to the initiates of a supposed equivalent rank, the
suspicions of those outside of the Thousand difference was all important.
Sons. Why, they asked, do these things if not
for a reason, and if it was for a reason, why Beyond the Cults were other factors which
keep that reason secret? Ofcourse, many could alter the authority of an individual.
other Legions had their mysteries; some The membership of an Order and one's place
might claim all held at least one secret in within that Order, hierarchy ofceremonial
their hearts, but most were better at keeping authority in Prosperine culrure (such as
them hidden or at least allaying suspicion, responsibility for a portion of the city of
or in the case of the XX'h were so bound up Tizca), all were absolute and measurable
in obfuscation as to be impenetrable, but factors in calculating the standing of any
unashamed in acknowledgement of their member of the Legion. All of these subtle
narure. The Thousand Sons though wore and hidden factors permeated every grain
the fact of their secrets like a crown whilst of authority within the Thousand Sons, and
all the while denying them. And unlike the reflected back to the relative standing of
Alpha Legion, whose secrets were those of
the shadow warrior, a thing that outsiders
could guess at if not fully understand, the
lingering accusation of'sorcery' carried with
it an infernal reek.

Legion Command Hierarchy
Authority within the Thousand Sons was a
matter ofperspective. As with all things a

the Thousand Sons comprised one of the close company of other forces, and while While it is likely that several thousand more
smallest of the Space Marine Legions. Their they continued to wage war unimpeachably were far off-world at the time, some of these
Legion fleet was concomitant with this size in the Imperium's name, they undertook elements were swiftly hunted down in the
comprising, by extant records, some forty few far-ranging deployments that kept them years that followed, and others yet disappeared
capital class vessels with perhaps three from the touchstone ofProspero and their without trace. This should have seen the
times that number of smaller vessels of Primarch for long. extermination of the Legion, yet it was not
various classes at their disposal. The most to be so, for in the years of the Horus Heresy,
potent of these was known to be the Photep, So it was that the bulk of the Legion was the Thousand Sons again appeared, this time
the Thousand Sons Primarch's flagship: a within range to heed their Primarch's call siding with the Traitor, and in numbers that
heavily modified Gloriana class vessel that when the Wolves came for them. Of course given their destruction make little cogent
was believed to have been augmented with a it is possible, likely even, that other forces
significant number of psychically augmented remained in Expeditionary or Conquest sense. Ifit is the case, as some claim, that the
defences and weapons of Magnus' own fleets that either did not return to Prospero in
unique design. time, or never received the communication remnants of the Legion fled to the Empyrean,
to do so. As with all things related to the and there in the dark realms beyond human
Like most Legions, the Thousand Sons forces vagaries of communication and travel within reason and beyond time grew strong again,
had previously been distributed across the the Warp, absolutes must be treated with who can say what befell them with certainty?
various fronts of the Great Crusade, but the suspicion. The Burning ofProspero was the Perhaps, even as the more crazed theorists
events ofNikaea and Magnus' reaction to doom of the Thousand Sons Legion, with claim, there were in truth no survivors of
them meant that the Thousand Sons had official estimates of their survival of the Prospero, only the echoes of the vengeful
acted alone for much of the period following planetary assault as low as r,ooo-once again,
their master's censure. They shunned the we see the numeration rears.its head! dead returned to haunt their destroyers. Ifthis

is true, what difference is made to the terrible
power the Legion came to represent in the
Age of Darkness that followed?

'..

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THE AccEREDINE DEFIANCE

xvmThis was one of the Legion's first

engagements after its foundation. Acceredine
was the dominant enclave on the human-
colonised world of Castus, which lay close to
the Sol System. The world had surrendered
and submitted to Compliance after only a
cursory engagement with the forces of the

. Great Crusade, and had swiftly been turned
into a temporary staging node from which
)
the Great Crusade forces launched deeper
into the unknown. Castus was a world of
feudal warriors who fought with the weapons
passed down to them out of the darkness of
the Age of Strife. Divided into a Hundred
Enclaves each led by a warrior chieftain,
they existed in a state of constant, low-grade
conflict. Proud and direct, many of them
were immediately gathered into the various
arms of the Great Crusade fleets and sent
to conquer other planets in the name of
the Master of Mankind. A blood price for
each warrior was paid by the Imperium to
their families in an echo of the mercenary
traditions that had existed on Castus long
before their sons and daughters went to
fight wars for their new Emperor. For a brief
time all seemed well. Forces flowed through
Castus and scattered to the stars, the warriors
of the Hundred Enclaves gathering in their
archaeo-armour to make a blood contract to
the Imperium before boarding the landing
ships which dotted Castus' plains.

Not all on Castus submitted to the yoke of
their new masters willingly, however. To
some the old traditions of blood service and
honour had been subverted, and they saw
the Imperium, which they were now a part
of, as little more than a parasite draining
them of their strength. Chief amongst these
dissenters was Assilla Gedyr, Chieftain of
the Acceredine Enclave. A year after the
Compliance of Castus, Gedyr renounced
her oath to the Emperor, calling on those
born of Castus to do the same. The heads of
a hundred iterators, officials, and garrisoning
troops were taken to mark the beginning of
her war.

The rebellion spread across Castus with

the speed of a fire across plains of dry grass.

While many of Castus' warriors had been

drawn off to fight in the Great Crusade,

many remained and they were formidable.

Their strongholds were constructed of

plasma-tempered metal, their armour could

turn all but the most potent weapons, and

!i~) while the Age of Strife had taken much, it
had left them with the mysteries of power
U field generators, plasma channelling and

~ much more besides. Caught off-guard, the

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Imperium's presence on Castus took heavy of other enclaves falling or surrendering. of Compliance. Such defiance could not •.
casualties in the first night of the uprising. Calls from her former allies reached her, stand, and against the power of a Knight
Seeing her bloody work, more enclaves rose pleading with her to surrender. Doubt Household even the Legiones Astartes could f!~
to Gedyr's call, and for a short time it seemed started to murmur between some of her be pressed. But not the Thousand Sons.
that Castus would fall. But the Imperium entourage. Then the bombardment began
could not allow such a vital world to be lost, to fall from the sky. It caged the enclave's Sixty warriors came to the plains before \ ,.
and could not let such defiance stand. defences, lashing it with a fury that blinded the fortress of Cratax under the command
all who looked at it directly. Then, as swiftly of Captain Ohrmuzd. At first Cratax must
The 15'h Expeditionary Fleet bound for as it had begun, it ended, and at that exact have considered it a joke, or perhaps another
Castus was re-tasked to put the rebellion moment the first assault hit the outer walls. attempt to make terms,for they sent only
down and restore the rule of peace. Chief Gedyr responded, rushing troops from where one of their Household out to meet with the
amongst this force's troops were the r" they had sheltered. The attack vanished, waiting warriors. The Knight fired as soon as
Brigade of the 2"d Regiment of the XV'h and another began at the same instant, then it was in range, sweeping its thermal lance
Legion. Planned and coordinated by the XV'h, another. The shields began to fail, and then across them in a line of screaming, glowing
the Imperium's rebuke to the rebels was as one, the Imperium's forces withdrew and air. None of the warriors fell. The touch
swift and devastating. The full Expeditionary the hammer of orbital fire descended on the of the Knight's fury had seemed to drain
fleet's forces dropped onto the surface of enclave and broke it open. The gunships of away into them, or dissipated into nothing.
Castus within the space of ten minutes. the XV'hflew into the breach so close to the In reply, lightning leapt from amongst the
Orbital bombardment lit the sky with a last blast of the bombardment that it is said warriors, crawling over the Knight of Cratax,
torrent of flame and actinic light as drop it seemed as if they were one. Gedyr died burrowing into its armour plates, melting
pods and gunships fell through the columns by her own hand before she could be taken, power connections and whipping through
of macro-shells and turbo-laser torrents. All but the rest of her bloodline .were sent to the its metal bones. It fell, but before it could hit
struck the strongholds of those who had death mines of Cthonia. the ground, an invisible force ripped its head
first risen in rebellion, and reduced them to from its body and cast it back before the gates
burned ruins and their garrisons to heaps of THE LEVELLING OF 72-9 of Cratax's hold.
corpse ash. Such an action, while spectacular,
was not remarkable amongst the Legiones 72-9 is now just one amongst many small The Knights came from the gates then, .' !'
Astartes, and would not be a matter of note if sparsely populated worlds eking out an every single war machine ofthe blighted
it was not the context for what was to follow. existence on the margins of the Imperium. Household. The ground around the circle of I~
Its name has remained unchanged since its Thousand Sons churned with explosions and '
The Acceredine Enclave did not fall in the conquest, and is a mark of its lowly place in melted, fused and cracked as the charging
first assault. It seems likely that Gedyr had the order of things. This unremarkable face Knights poured their fury before them. The
prepared for her rebellion, and the certain is, however, a mask painted by the Imperium telekinetic shields protecting the Thousand
punitive action that would be taken against over the planet's past in the hope that, even Sons shook, and within their circle some fell
her, by reinforcing both her stronghold's in obscurity, its people might hope for a to their knees, blood oozing from the joints
walls and augmenting its defences with better future, because before 72-9, there was of their armour to freeze and boil in the
power shield generators and slaved gun another world. warp-charged air. But still they waited as the
turrets. Fifty Legionaries of the XV'hand Knights' charge shook the ground beneath
r ,ooo human troops of the Imperial Army Valnum was a Knight World, one of the their feet.
Auxiliary had descended on the enclave, but rare few which had endured since the Dark
had failed to breach its defences. In the face Age ofTechnology, weathering the trials of When the lead Knight was a shadow above
of such resistance, many others would have Old Night to be reunited with the rest of them, Ohrmuzd raised his hand and closed
withdrawn or called in a sudden surge of humanity during the Great Crusade. Clad his fingers. The Knight stopped, staggered
reinforcements to break them. The XV'hdid in towering Knight Armours, the nobles of and then fell, its pilot's flesh turned to vapour
neither of these things. these scattered realms had stood as protectors inside its cockpit. Before the metal giant
over their people. But while other Knight had hit the ground, the Thousand Sons had
Across Castus, the spread-out forces of the Worlds had become the seats of noble dropped their shields, lifted the body of the
XV'hbegan to alter their battle tactics. In Houses whose traditions of warrior honour dead Knight into the air and cast it at one of
places, some simply crushed the enemy protected them from invaders, on Valnum its cousins. From that moment the battle is
facing them and withdrew to their gunships. the long ages of darkness had bred shadows said to have lasted no more than five hundred
In others, they stayed their hand and began and bitterness in those who called it home. seconds, and at its end the molten and twisted
to offer terms to rebel leaders at the price The ruling line ofValnum, House Cratax, remains of every single Knight lay on the
of immediate and unquestioning service. had become rotten, its noble blood tainted by witch-frosted ground. The Thousand Sons
Forces began to move, peeling away from insanity and cruelty. Their holds were dark Legion lost three warriors, two killed by
engagements at the precise moment when places, piled atop bones and sealed chambers brain haemorrhage while using their powers,
victory was assured but not yet taken, leaving that echoed to the screams of the forgotten. one crushed by the dead metal ofa Knight.
the exact strength of force required to press Those who had survived departed before the
the victory home. The first emissaries of the Imperium sent to Explorator units ofthe Mechanicum arrived
negotiate Compliance were all executed by to strip Cratax's hold. When word ofthe
Over the course of hours, the Imperium's being strapped to the gun muzzles of Cratax's victory reached the Imperium's distant War
forces began to circle the Acceredine Knights-all save one, who was flayed, and Council, it was greeted only with the sound of
Enclave. Messages began to reach Gedyr their skin scraped for parchment on which fear: silence.
the head of House Cratax wrote his rejection

The Golden Apostles were a string of star Apostles was not just a statement of intent, they were brought about remains as unclear
now as it did then. Magnus' warships seemed
systems strung between the Sol System but an answer to those whispering voices. to have been able to move fast and deep into
the system, seemingly both undetected and
and the outer reaches of the galactic core. unresisted. Once in place, the Five Circles
launched coordinated assaults which cut away
Each system possessed worlds inhabited by The campaign waged by the Thousand all resistance before it began. Once they held
the system, they began to prepare it for battle.
a menagerie ofhybridised alien and human Sons is well documented, though certain
Precisely eighty-one days after the taking
civilisations, and most possessed both specifics of methodology are notable by of this first system, a second force of the
Thousand Sons emerged from the Warp in
technology and craft which could cross the their omission. The first fact of note is that the outmost system in the Golden Apostle
chain. In contrast to the first, it arrived in
gulfs of space between planets. The presence Magnus began the attack on the Golden fire and fury. Warships burned hard from
their transition points and launched waves
of such chimeric civilisations would have Apostles while also directly engaged in the ofboarding assaults against the system's
outer defence stations. Psychic fire flickered
been enough to earn their cleansing and Survalen Surge at the side of the Sons of across the void, conjured fire filled the
companionways of the enemy stations, and
re-integration by the forces of the Great Horus, and many of the forces he would through it the Thousand Sons marched,
energy blasts dancing rainbows across their
Crusade, but they became a focus for more later call on were also engaged in actions 'kine' shields. The assaulted system called for
help and once more the other systems in the
than simple destruction because of what across other volumes of space. Where other chain answered.

bound them together. Each of the star Legions might begin such a campaign with Warships poured down the chain one after
the other. None arrived. As they passed
systems was connected by a warp channel. a great mustering of troops,Magnus did no through the system already held by Magnus,
they plunged straight into the waiting
such thing. In fact, there were no signs at embrace of warships, mines and torpedoes
surrounding the exit from the warp channel.
The Great Crusade had already encountered first that the Thousand Sons were making Burning wrecks choked the void around the
channel entrance until the roiling inferno
stable channels through the Warp which any effort to begin their promised assault. of metal and plasma ate the ships without
the Thousand Sons needing to fire a shot.
allowed ships to pass predictably and swiftly The first act that is noted in the record of the No message or warning passed back down
the chain of worlds, only cries for more
between two fixed locations even without Thousand Sons simply states that the Order ships. There are even suggestions that the
enemy forces advanced with reckless speed,
a Navigator. Some of these gates seemed to of Blindness was summoned and bidden as though overcome by the most headstrong
parts of their nature. Magnus only had to
be created by devices devised by dead alien to act 'under its ordained dominion'. Almost wait and watch the Golden Apostles bleed
themselves dry.
civilisations and, while valuable, were seen a year then passes, in which time others
When it was almost done, he moved his
as dangerous and vulnerable. The Golden began to question if another force should forces down the chain from system to
system, and at each one confronted the
Apostles were different in that the warp be committed to winning the stubbornly remaining defenders in battle. It is said, but
not recorded by the Thousand Sons, that he
channels which connected them were not resistant string ofworlds. took to the field personally on each occasion
and let the enemy mass before him and then
marked by physical objects, but simply forced them to kneel with merely a thought.
When every system was Compliant, he is
regions of space. A ship would enter these Without warning, Magnus gathered a force said to have personally sent an astropathic
message to the War Council, 'By such deeds do
regions and emerge in the next system made up of five Circles from three different we see that we are bound by no law besides that we
impose on ourselves.'
in the chain. Because of this, the Golden Fellowships. Augmented by bonded forces

Apostles represented not simply a region to from the Mechanicum and two Rogue

be conquered by the Imperium but a channel Traders, they converged and launched at

though the stars, along which the forces one of the systems in the middle of the

ofthe Great Crusade could penetrate deep Golden Apostle chain. A similar attack had

into the galactic core. But the opportunity failed during the second attempt to take the

presented by the Golden Apostle systems was string, with the Imperium's forces unable

also their greatest challenge. to break out of the system once they had

established a beachhead. The size of Magnus'

The Imperium's first attempts to take one assault force was also small, even with the

of the systems had failed, because to attack Primarch in personal command, enough to

one would invite all the other systems in subdue a planet perhaps or take a system of

the chain to pour forces in to defend their lower grade resistance, but the human-xenos

besieged brother. The price of two failed alliance which ruled the Golden Apostles

attempts on taking one system in the chain was both sophisticated and far from weak.

had already proven high when Magnus Though they lacked warp-capable space

announced that he and his Thousand Sons craft, their warships, troops and weaponry

would deliver the Golden Apostles into were more than capable of matching those of

Compliance. This may seem unremarkable if the Imperium in an equal fight. These facts,

it was not for the context of this declaration. combined with the immediate response of

It was a time when the Thousand Sons were the other systems in the chain, seemed likely

riding a simultaneous wave of success'and to see a repeat of the early failure. Observers

a renewed storm of suspicion from their amongst the rest of the Great Crusade waited

brother Legions. Corax and Mortarion both for news of defeat or sudden calls for aid. In

had called again for Magnus to be censured fact there was no word at all.

for overstepping the bounds of his mandate.

Others had begun to say that Magnus and Records made by the Thousand Sons indicate

! his breed had lost sight of their purpose, that that the system they assaulted had much

I they saw the business of conquest as beneath of its military materiel and strength drawn

them, that for all of their intelligence and offinto an adjacent system just before the
, learning, they had forgotten that they Thousand Sons arrived. Many such fortunate
synchronous events marked the later
I~U~'1€'"b4;-;;;;z:;~.;.;r;;;.;;.~·rz:t;;;;t"•'"';!~~r''_.~;,-&;;,.,were warriors. In this context, Magnus'
<'e ;;i;.-;-; e_;;?d; "T-..ta

THousAND SoNs CASTELLAX-ACHEA BATTLE-AUTOMATA .•!-

DESIGNATION: 'MMB-DYAT-lsiR'

BATTLE OF TrzcA, REF; 'SLAUGHTER AT THE GARDEN OF N AUKRATIS'
The development in secret of the Castellax-Achea class Battle-automata during the closing years of the Great Crusade was to have implications
little understood until the attack on Prospero and in the years beyond, as during the darkness of the Horus Heresy it was again to appear in the
ranks of the enemy. Unleashed during theBattle of Prospero as shock counter-assault units by the encircled Thousand Sons, their durability and
strength was enough to inflict severe losses where they were deployed and withstand, at least for a time, the onslaught of even the Legio Custodes.
The example of the war machine depicted here was one of a maniple of its kind which went berserk in the aftermath of the main battle without

direct control, eventually being destroyed by reserve forces from the Knight House ofMalinax.

THousAND SoNs LEGIONARY- BATTLE oF TrzcA

UNKNOWN LEGIONARY,
UNKNOWN FELLOWSHIP,
LEGION TACTICAL SQUAD pANOPLY
Taken from pict-captures from the Battle of
Tizca, this unknown Thousand Sons Legionary is
typical of many of the forces which resisted the

. onslaught of the Censure Host. The Legionary's

~I power armour is of the Mkiii 'Iron' pattern which

~·

was still widely present in the Legion, although
being largely phased out in favour of increasing
stockpiles of the more advanced MkiV pattern in
the Thousand Sons' line units.

The relatively little ornamentation and
insignia on the Legionary's armour other than
designations marking him as a tactical Legionary
of a line battle company, may be indicative that its
wearer was relatively fresh in his Legion's service,
perhaps with no more than a decade under arms.
It is of note however, that the presence of the
gilded Achean Scarab emblem and 'Solar Eye'
are believed to be indicative of rank and honour
gained within his chosen temple of psychic
discipline, marking him as an aspirant of promise.
Such promise was never to be fulfilled though,
as it is recorded that this unknown Legionary
fell, as did his entire squad, under the blades of
the Legio Custodes in the bitter fighting to hold
the marble-walled compounds that made up the
so-called 'Priam Colonnade' against the Censure
Host. In this too is this unknown warrior of the
Thousand Sons representative of his kind, as on
that day were the flower of the XV'hLegion cut
down, veteran and novice alike, by the wrath of
the Emperor's chosen.

''

it~

I~
Thousand Sons Tactical Legionary, Standard late-Great Crusade Iconography

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THousAND SoNs LEGION CENTURION '.

SHAJ-CAPTAIN TACHUS MAKT
FIITH FELLOWSHIP, THIRD TACIICAL SUPPORT BATTALION

493'" ExPEDffiONARY FLEET

Pictured here shortly before his landing on the
desert world of Cazhat as commander of the
Compliance force, Shai-Captain (Centurion)
Tachus Makt commanded a detachment of
the Fifth Fellowship attached to the 493'd
Expeditionary Fleet during the latter years of the
Great Crusade.

The Compliance of the desert world of Cazhat was
representative of the often unique means utilised
by the Thousand Sons Legion to meet their ends.
A feudal world sparsely populated with little
technological advancement past basic agriculture
and animal husbandry, small regressive human
colonies were crowded around the few oases
that provided water and respite from the searing
heat of Cazhat's sands, presenting no military
threat. These tribes were largely suspicious of the
emissaries of the 493'd Expeditionary Fleet, but
unlike the tribal worlds previously encountered
by the fleet, they were not immediately overawed
and Compliance was swiftly rejected by the
elders of the largest tribal group, who protested
the Imperium as being 'impure'. Within hours,
the largest oases of Cazhat were devoid of all
water, depriving the irrigation systems that
hydrated both the crops and the houses of its
defences against the dry heat of the desert. As
travellers between the tribes spread rumours of
the newcomers and their 'magic', the smaller tribes
were quick to accept the offer of security and
wealth offered by the Imperium, sure that if they
refused, such a curse would befall them too. After
some sporadic internecine violence, the entire
planet came to Compliance without a single shot
being fired by the XV'h.

Thousand Sons Legion, Late Era Tactical Command Iconography

iC~UJ-