Angels of Death (1996) Chaos Lore

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Apr 18, 2024
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THE SPACE MARINES
In the dark universe of the 41st millennium, vast and terrible forces threaten the very existence of humanity. Alien races such as Orks and Tyranids ravage entire solar systems, and the soul of every living human is menaced by the daemonic powers of Chaos. Shielded only by the potent psychic power of the immortal Emperor, the Imperium of Man is besieged by hostile forces. Ranged against these inimical enemies are the armies of the Imperial Guard, the giant war machines of the Titan Legions, and most potent of all, the mighty Space Marines of the Legiones Astartes. A Space Marine is a towering warrior, the product of intensive training and genetic manipulation. This transforms mortal men already selected from the deadliest warrior races in the known universe into superhuman killing machines armed and equipped with the best weapons humanity can devise. Every Space Marine is born an ordinary human. The conversion into a super-warrior is achieved by the careful implantation of genetically cultured organs, created originally from the gene-seeds of the Primarchs themselves. Once * implanted these organs grow and modify the recipient’s genetic structure. Selected hormones are boosted to aid growth, expand muscle tissue and strengthen bone structure, while other genetically tailored substances are released into the Space Marine’s bloodstream which cause further changes throughout his body. This process takes many years and can only occur while the Space Marine is still growing, which means that all Space Marines are recruited at an early age and Start training before they reach adulthood.


SPACE MARINE CHAPTERS
The Space Marines are organised into Chapters. Each Chapter is a self-sufficient army, equipped with spacecraft and supplies, and capable of responding at a moment’s notice to any threat to the security of the Imperium. Many of these Chapters have histories pre-dating the Imperium itself, back to a time more than ten thousand years ago when the Emperor still walked among men. In those days the Emperor created the Primarchs, twenty immortal superbeings who were to be his generals and comrades during the Great Crusade to reunite the human worlds. The Primarchs were the creations of the Emperor himself, and they wielded powers the like of which are not known in the universe today. The first Space Marines of the nascent Imperium were also the creation of that period. In those days the Space Marines were organised into formations known as Space Marine Legions. Each Legion was led by a Primarch, and they were considerably larger than the later Space Marine Chapters.

Many of the Primarchs’ names ring down the millennia, and the tales of their deeds are legendary. Names such as Leman Russ, Rogal Dorn and the angel-winged Sanguinius are spoken of with awe on any worlds where mankind dwells. They command a reverence second only to that afforded the Emperor himself. Other names are cursed wherever men gather, for many Primarchs rebelled against the Emperor and followed Horus, mightiest of their number, when he raised his standard against all mankind. During the dark time known as the Horus Heresy they gave themselves over to Chaos, and ravaged the worlds of the Imperium, in a war that was to eventually lead to the death of Horus, and the incarceration of the fatally wounded Emperor within his life-preserving Golden Throne.

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THE HORUS HERESY
Horus was the greatest of the Primarchs and the most trusted of all the Emperor’s generals. None guessed that he owed his success to more than mortal courage. Later events showed that Horus served a darker master and that his loyalty to humanity was nothing but a pretense from the start. Somehow his geneseed had mutated, corrupting both the Primarch and his Legion. While pretending to fight for humanity, Horus and the troops under his command were actually slaves of the Chaos Gods. When the time was right Horus turned on the Emperor, leading his Legions upon Earth in an attempt to crush the Emperor with one swift blow. Between nine to eleven Legions sided with Horus, accounting for more than half of the entire Space Marine forces and including the most experienced and battle-hardened armies of the Imperium. It would take many pages to describe in full the attack of Horus upon Earth and his subsequent defeat. Suffice to say the short war ended when the Emperor teleported onto Horus’s battle-barge and slew the traitor. However, before he died Horus mortally wounded the Emperor and killed Sanguinius, Primarch of the Blood Angels.

The wounds inflicted by Horus on the Emperor were grave, but somehow he survived long enough for his body to be encased in the Golden Throne which has preserved him for over 10,000 years. The defeated Traitor Legions were driven from Earth and escaped to a region of the galaxy known as the Eye of Terror. From there they have continued to raid the Imperium ever since, slowly becoming more and more physically corrupted by the influence of the Chaos gods as time passes. Now there can be no doubting the gods they worship and the malevolent effect this dark allegiance has on the human mind and body. These are not merely the same Traitor Legions that attacked Earth all those millennia ago, but the very same Space Marines, doomed to battle for their dark masters for all eternity.
 
THE CODEX ASTARTES
The Horus Heresy revealed weaknesses in the gene-seed of several of the early Space Marine Legions, which had been exacerbated by the need to keep the huge Space Marine Legions up to strength in the terrible wars being fought at the time. The powers of Chaos had been able to use the resulting corruption to turn Horus and many of the Space Marines under his command against the Emperor. Once Horus had been defeated it was decided to reorganise the structure of the forces in the Imperium so that a similar catastrophe could not happen again in the future.

This work was undertaken almost single-handedly by the Primarch of the Ultramarines, Roboute Guilliman, whose hugely influential work the Codex Astartes laid down the basic organisation and tactics of the new Space Marine Chapters. The Codex Astartes decreed that the old Legions be broken up and reorganised into smaller fighting forces which would be less of a threat to the Imperium if they became corrupted. Most, but not by any means all, of the new Chapters numbered about 1,000 men, organised into 10 companies of one hundred men each. Some Chapters were considerably larger or smaller than this however, and Chapters are often increased beyond their standard strength if they are involved in a protracted or highly intensive war. The old Space Marine Legions were divided up to create a Chapter of the same name as the Legion and a number of other Chapters with new names. It is not known exactly how many Chapters were created after the Horus Heresy, as many Imperial records have been lost, and many Chapters have been created and destroyed in the 10,000 years that have followed. The only thing that can be said for certain is that at present there are just over 1,000 Chapters scattered across the Imperium. Because of this uncertain history the list below cannot hope to be complete, but it includes all of the Chapters known to have been created immediately following the Horus Heresy, in what became known as the Second Founding.

Not all Chapters follow the strict organisational and tactical guidelines of the Codex Astartes rigidly. Those that do are sometimes referred to as ‘Codex Chapters’ because they adhere so closely to the organisation and indentification markings laid down in the Codex Astartes. Of all the Codex Chapters the oldest and most famous is the Ultramarines, the Chapter of Roboute Guilliman himself. Many of the other Codex Chapters are Ultramarine Successors. However, most Chapters do not stick rigidly to the Codex patterns laid down for organisation, tactical roles or other processes. A small number of Chapters do not follow the Codex at all, the most famous of these being the Space Wolves, whose strong-willed Primarch moulded his Chapter according to his own views. Many more Chapters are organised largely according to Codex guidelines but have slight variations. Both the Blood Angels and the Dark Angels fall into this category, as will become clear when we examine the two Chapters in more depth in the pages that follow.
 
THE DARK ANGELS

The origins of the Dark Angels Chapter are shrouded in mystery. There are no records of its beginnings nor any mention of its part in the Emperor’s Great Crusade. Any reference in the Imperial histories of its deeds during the accursed times of the Horus Heresy has been deleted. But yet a legend persists that once the Dark Angels teetered on the brink of Chaos, that a terrible betrayal besmirched all of the Chapter’s feats of valour and left an enduring stain on the Chapter’s honour. Such is their shame that from that time on they have striven for absolution from the sins of millennia past. The Dark Angels are now considered to be one of the greatest of all the Space Marine Chapters with their Deathwing company being particularly revered. Only the highest ranking members of the Dark Angels Chapter know the terrible, shameful secret of what happened ten thousand years ago — a secret that drives the Dark Angels to search throughout space and time for the final conflict that will bring them redemption or damnation...

THE PRIMARCHS
To understand what happened to the Dark Angels we must return to a time more than 10,000 years ago. To a time before there were any Space Marines: to the time when the Emperor created the Primarchs. To help him in his Great Crusade to reclaim the galaxy for humanity, the Emperor, in his wisdom, created the genetically-engineered superhuman Primarchs. The mutant genes used as the basic building blocks for these elite warriors had taken centuries to gather and refine, and despite the Emperor’s best efforts of psychic shielding, his industry did not go unnoticed by the Dark Gods of Chaos. Not having the resources to actually destroy the incubator capsules in which the embryonic Primarchs grew, the Chaos Powers combined their energies and instead stole them away from the Emperor, scattering the amniotic tanks and their foetal occupants throughout the warp. The twenty incubation capsules drifted through the warp for decades or even centuries, until finally coming to rest on human-inhabited worlds throughout the galaxy. The capsule of one Primarch, he who was to become known as Lion El’Jonson, founder of the Dark Angels, was dropped on an isolated planet on the northern fringe of the Eye of Terror — the death world of Caliban.

CALIBAN
Caliban was as cruel and harsh an environment as any in the galaxy. In the bleak forests that covered the globe lived creatures that had been warped by Chaos, and which were of such ferocity that mere day-to-day survival was a constant struggle. The human inhabitants of Caliban were forced to live in huge fortresses and castles, located in clearings hacked from the forests of the planet. Cut off from Earth by the warp storms that savaged the galaxy in the Age of Strife, civilisation on Caliban devolved back into a semi-feudal state, with most of the population ruled over by a small warrior elite.

The nobility of Caliban were a bluff and pugnacious race. Raised from childhood to live and die by the sword, they were great warriors and extremely brave. They fought in a form of power armour much like that used by the first Space Marines, and like them their main weapons were the chainsword and bolt pistol. Most other forms of advanced technology had, however, been lost, and the warrior nobility therefore rode into battle on huge warhorses known as destriers. The nobles’ life was one of constant struggle as they fought against the multitude of chaotic creatures that threatened to overrun their small settlements. Sometimes a particularly fearsome creature would stay in one area and terrorise it, in which case the ruler of the community would declare a quest against the monster, and nobles from all around would come to attempt to kill the beast. Slaying a quest-creature could bring honour and fortune for the noble lucky enough to kill it — more often than not though it brought only a bloody and horrific death at the teeth and talons of a hell-spawned abomination.

THE YOUNG LION
Such then was the planet where the young Primarch’s capsule crash-landed. Most of the other Primarchs were fortunate enough to be found and raised by the local human inhabitants of the planet they landed on. Such was not to be Jonson’s fate, for his capsule landed in a remote and isolated region of Caliban many miles from the nearest human settlement. 10How Jonson survived those early years on Caliban is a complete mystery. By rights he should have died within the first few minutes he was exposed on the planet. But Jonson did not die. Somehow, as a young child on one of the most deadly death worlds in the Imperium he not only survived, but grew strong and tall. What it was like for him in those grim and dark days none can say, for there was no-one there to record the events of his life, and Jonson never spoke of those times himself. All that can be said for certain is that for a decade Jonson was forced to trust to his own wit and skill in order to survive. He had no-one to aid him, he could rely only on himself. And so it was, in this state, that at the turn of the decade since his arrival on the planet, the Primarch encountered his first humans.

THE ORDER
The brave warrior knights he encountered belonged to a group known simply as the Order. The Order had a reputation across all of Caliban for the honesty, nobility and fearless skill of its brother-knights in battle. Uniquely amongst the knights of Caliban, the members, or brothers, of the Order were selected by merit rather than inheritance. Anyone could join the Order, no matter how low-born they might be. Contingents of brother-knights from the Order travelled across the planet, giving their aid wherever it was needed. It was while on one of their great expeditions that a band from the Order came upon the wild man that lived in the forests. Thinking him a monster, the knights were ready to kill the Primarch when one of their number, sensing that there was something more to the creature than was at first apparent, halted his fellows. Luther, for such was the name of the THE DARK ANGELS Primarch’s saviour, and the other knights returned to civilisation, taking with them the man born of the forest. Because of his appearance and the place of his discovery, the Order gave the wild man the name of Lion El’Jonson, which meant ‘The Lion, the Son of the Forest’. Jonson easily adapted to the ways of humans, learning to speak remarkably quickly. But of his time growing up in the forest he never spoke.

Within the fortress monastery of the Order the Primarch was assimilated into human society on Caliban. There he and Luther formed a close friendship. It appeared that the two men filled in the gaps in each other’s personalities. Where Jonson was temperamental and taciturn, Luther was charming and charismatic. Where Luther was rash and emotional, Jonson was a brilliant strategist and unstoppable once decided upon a course of action. They realized that they complemented each other and, as such, became an incomparable team. Over the following years Jonson and Luther rose through the ranks of the Order. Their exploits became the stuff of legend on Caliban, and the reputation of the Order rose accordingly. The number of young warriors wishing to join the Order grew and grew, so that in time many new fortress monasteries had to be built. As the Order grew in size Jonson and Luther argued for a crusade against the monsters that infested the forests, to cleanse the planet once and for all of their foul presence. The oratory of Luther convinced the Grand Masters of the monasteries and most of the nobles of the planet to join in the crusade, but it was Jonson’s supreme ability at planning and organisation which ensured that within the course of a single decade the entire planet of Caliban was cleared of the monstrous creatures that had once inhabited it. A golden age dawned for the inhabitants of the once troubled planet. In recognition of his triumph against the creatures of Chaos Lion El’ Jonson was proclaimed new Supreme Master of the Order and Caliban. Although Luther did not openly begrudge Jonson the great honour he had won, he would have not been human if he did not feel some twinge of jealousy. Thus was lit the first small spark that would lead to the schism which would tear the Dark Angels Chapter apart. But all this was in the future — for the present the people of Caliban enjoyed a time of peace and plenty.
 
THE EMPEROR REACHES CALIBAN
Meanwhile, unbeknown to Jonson and the people of Caliban, the Emperor was waging his Great Crusade across the galaxy, ] reuniting humanity and purging entire star systems of their alien oppressors. As the Imperium’s wave of conquest advanced across the galaxy, Imperial Scouts rediscovered the isolated world of Caliban. It was not long before the Emperor was at last reunited with the Primarch and was filled with joy as would be a father on finding his lost son. The Emperor’s first action was to give Lion El’ Jonson control of the Dark Angels Legion. This body of Space Marines had been created by the Emperor from its Primarch’s gene-stock and had fought alongside the other Imperial forces as the Great Crusade was waged across the galaxy. Caliban was made the home world of the Dark Angels and the whole of the Order moved to join its ranks. Those knights who were still young enough had the Legion’s gene-seed implanted within them, while those too old for this process underwent surgery to transform them into elite warriors of the Imperium. The first to be brought into the Legion in this way was Luther, who became Jonson’s second-in-command, just as he always had been within the Order.

The Great Crusade, of course, had to go on: there were countless human worlds that were still under the influence of Chaos or suppressed by the harsh rule of alien races. So it was that Jonson and many of the Dark Angels set out with the Emperor to continue the battle for humanity and Luther was left behind in charge of the remainder of the Legion on Caliban. Despite the importance of Luther’s position, it was not one that suited his ambitious personality. As Jonson’s fame spread throughout the galaxy and reports of his great deeds and prowess in battle reached the Legion’s home world, Luther felt robbed of his share of the glory. He wanted the fame and recognition that he felt he deserved as Jonson’s equal. His role as planetary governor of some halfforgotten backwater world seemed more and more to him like an insult. The seed of jealousy and dissension that had been planted within Luther when Jonson was made the Supreme Master of the Order now began to grow and rankle within his heart as the Primarch became more and more celebrated and famous.

THE FALL OF CALIBAN
Then came the terrible days of the Horus Heresy. As the Emperor fought Warmaster Horus for the possession of the Earth, Lion El’Jonson was far away fighting for humanity alongside Leman Russ, Primarch of the Space Wolves Legion of Space Marines. Hearing of the potentially disastrous proceedings taking place around Earth, the two generals hurried back as quickly as they could. Coming into Earth’s orbit they realized that they had arrived too late. Events had already taken their terrible course and the cataclysmic final battle was over. The forces of Chaos had been defeated, but they had left the Imperium in ruins. And for Jonson one final, shattering betrayal remained to be discovered on his return to his home world of Caliban. It had been many long years since Jonson had been to Caliban, and he longed to see his home world once more. As the unsuspecting ships of Jonson’s fleet moved into orbit they were met by a devastating barrage of defence laser fire. Ships exploded into flame and crashed to the surface like monstrous comets. Stunned by the attack, Jonson withdrew and attempted to find out what had happened. A captured merchant ship soon provided the answer: Luther had used his skills at oratory to lead the Dark Angels under his command to the path of Chaos, instilling his own feelings of jealousy and rage in the Dark Angels who had been left on Caliban during the Great Crusade. Luther had convinced them that they had been shamed, that the Emperor had turned his face from them.

While Jonson and those Space Marines who had gone with him battled for humanity light years away, Luther’s feelings of anger and jealousy had grown within him like a corrupting canker until they were his only purpose and driving motivation. Luther was now a man obsessed, whose own neuroses had pushed him over the edge and made him dangerous beyond imagining. The fury of Jonson and the loyal Dark Angels at learning this horrible information knew no bounds. They had fought from one end of the galaxy to the other and thought that the curse of Chaos had been cleansed from the planets of the Imperium, and now they found that their own home world, and their own brethren, had been corrupted and turned against them. Jonson immediately ordered an assault on the planet. The massed guns of the fleet easily disabled Caliban’s defence laser batteries and then scoured the planet, driving the rebel Dark Angels back to their fortress monasteries.

Knowing that one surgical strike was all that was needed to end the conflict Lion El’Jonson led an assault on the greatest of the monasteries himself. He knew that this was where he would find Luther: and so it was that there the two former friends, now mortal enemies, faced each other. Even though the Primarch possessed superhuman powers, the two opponents were equally matched, for Luther’s own, already considerable abilities, had been enhanced by the dark gods of Chaos. What followed was a fight of titanic proportions during which the two equally-matched adversaries laid blow for blow against each other, tearing down the monastery around them until the whole massive edifice had been levelled by their battle. Meanwhile the massed guns of the fleet carried on pounding the planet, reducing the other fortress monasteries to rubble. The very surface of Caliban began to crack and heave under the strain of the bombardment.

As the planet itself started to break apart, the battle between Jonson and Luther reached its climax. Luther, weakened by the long combat, staggered and fell, leaving himself open to a death blow from Jonson’s power sword. But Jonson could not bring himself to strike the fatal blow. As he hesitated, Luther, aided by the powers of Chaos, unleashed a furious psychic attack that knocked Jonson to his knees and left him mortally wounded. But as the dying Primarch struggled to stand, his noble features wracked with pain, it was as if a curtain was lifted from Luther’s eyes and he realised the full extent of what he had done. His was a triple betrayal: of his friend, of the Dark Angels, and of the Emperor. The truth shattered his sanity and he slumped down beside Jonson, no longer willing to fight. Luther’s psychic cry of pain and despair echoed through the warp and the Chaos gods realised that, once again, they had been defeated. They lashed out in fury and frustration. A rent appeared in the very fabric of space and a warp storm of unprecedented fury engulfed Caliban. In an uncontrollable, swirling flood of psychic energy the warp rushed into the physical universe. Those ‘fallen’ Dark Angels who had served under Luther and his clandestine masters were sucked from the face of Caliban into the warp and scattered throughout space and time. Caliban, already weakened by the loyal Dark Angels’ bombardment, was ripped apart and destroyed, the debris being sucked into the warp.

The only part of the planet that survived the storm was the huge fortress monastery where Jonson and Luther had fought. Protected by force fields of awesome power the monastery and a huge chunk of the bed-rock of Caliban held together. When the storm abated this was all that was left of the once magnificent home world of the Dark Angels. The Dark Angels flew down to the surface of the rock and gazed about them in horror at all that remained of their once beautiful home world. The great fortress had been razed to the ground and of all the living things that had once teemed across the face of Caliban only one remained. At the heart of the ruined wasteland the Space Marines found Luther. The warriors were unable to get anything coherent out of the shell of a man who had once been Jonson’s closest friend and second-in-command., Luther just constantly repeated the same words over and over again: the Primarch had been carried away by the Watchers in the Dark and one day he would return to forgive Luther for the terrible sins he had committed. Of the mighty Primarch, Lion El’Jonson, there was no sign.
 
THE FALLEN DARK ANGELS
In the eyes of the Dark Angels Space Marines, the only way that they can rid themselves totally of their shame, and restore their honour and trust in the Emperor’s eyes, is if all the Fallen are found and either made to repent or are slain. However, since the Fallen were cast through the warp to all corners of space and time, this is no mean task for the Dark Angels to achieve. Unlike the Inquisitors and Grey Knights of the Imperium, whose role it is to root out the agents of Chaos at work within the galaxy, in this regard the Dark Angels are only concerned with finding the Fallen of their Chapter. Although the Dark Angels will be called upon for many different missions for the Imperium, the search for their Fallen comrades is a constant quest that they can never relinquish. Not all of the Dark Angels’ damned brethren have succumbed to the power of Chaos to the same degree. Some of the Fallen have embraced the ways of the Dark Gods totally becoming true Chaos Space Marines. These Fallen do not belong to a Chapter of their own, like Angron’s World Eaters. Instead they are dispersed throughout space and time as either isolated individuals or in small bands.

However, most of the Fallen realise that their actions during the fall of Caliban were wrong. Disgusted by the corrupting influence of the Chaos gods and unable to reconcile themselves with their order they lead a solitary existence. Many of them become mercenaries or pirates, roaming the galaxy as masterless men. Others are willing to atone for their sins and in an attempt to do so have integrated themselves back into human societies taking on the role of any ordinary person. This only makes the Dark Angels’ task of finding the Fallen harder as they are not easy to identify as such. But it is still the Dark Angels’ duty to try and track them down. In order to do so, they must investigate any rumour or story relating to the Fallen, just in case it should lead them to one of their corrupted brethren. The Dark Angels can go for years without hearing any rumours that might lead them to one or more of the Fallen. When they do however, and their mission is a success, those Fallen that are captured are taken back to the Rock. Deep inside its dungeons Interrogator-Chaplains attempt to make the Fallen repent. Occasionally they do and for their pains die quickly. More often than not though the captured Fallen refuses and suffers a long, drawn-out and agonising death at the hands of those who would save their soul.

THE FINAL SECRET
The only people who know about the disastrous events that took place on Caliban all those millennia ago are the Emperor and the Dark Angels themselves. The Dark Angels will never reveal the truth to anyone outside the Chapter for they could not bear others to know the truth of their terrible shame. And all the while, deep within his cell, Luther, the betrayer, speaks of what is to come. Yet even the highest ranking Dark Angels do not know everything, although they may think that they do. Buried even deeper within the Rock, is the final, greatest secret of the Chapter. Only one person in the entire universe knows the truth — the Emperor himself. For hidden inside a secluded, unreachable chamber at the heart of what was once the planet Caliban, Lion El’Jonson lies sleeping, waiting with the Watchers in the Dark for that time when he will be needed once again to defend the Imperium against its enemies.
 
“Repent! Repent!”

The Master Chaplain’s words echoed resoundingly off the rough walls of the cavernous cell. Rather than sounding like one man, the echoes created the impression that a whole army of Chaplains were interrogating the Space Marine. The Fallen Dark Angel said nothing. The Chaplain paced across the stone floor before the restrained Dark Angel. The glow of halogen lamps reflected off the polished black surface of his armour while with one hand he toyed with the rosarius around his neck. Asmodai had served the Chapter for over a century and in all that time only two of the Fallen had repented of their sins to him.

The Chaplain stopped in front of his prisoner and turned to face the broken warrior. Cold, dark eyes stared out from behind the skull-mask of Asmodai’s armour. “Repent!” he hissed.

The Fallen shut his eyes tight in an attempt to avoid the Interrogator’s piercing gaze.

“Repent now and your death will be swift and relatively painless,” Asmodai stated coolly. “Continue to refuse to admit your guilt and you will die in agony, the like of which you will only have imagined in your worst nightmares. The savagery of the daemons of the warp is nothing compared to the wrath of the Emperor!”

The Fallen Dark Angel opened his bloodshot eyes again and looked about him. The cold, unforgiving walls of the gloomy chamber held no encouragement. The imposing figure of the Interrogator-Chaplain glowered back at him.

The constant drip of water from the damp walls of the dungeon filled the captured Space Marine’s ears. He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the sound of the water. The dripping became a tapping, the tapping a thumping until it was the panicked beating of his own heart pounding inside his head.

Shadows flickered and writhed across the fissured rock and the darkest shadow in the cell moved closer.

“Who is your lord?” demanded Asmodai.

“I have no lord and master.”

“The Emperor is your lord!”

“The Emperor rejected us, Chaos curse his soul,” whimpered the Fallen, his spirit on the verge of breaking. “Lion El’‘Jonson betrayed us!”

“The Primarch is our saviour!” the Chaplain roared. “The Lion sacrificed himself that the order might survive. It is to him we owe everything: our Chapter, our strength, our salvation, the very fibre of our being. And you dare say you have no lord?” Asmodai spat, his growling whisper full of contempt.

The Fallen Dark Angel knew not how long he had been imprisoned within the Rock or for how many days the interrogation had lasted so far. All he knew now was that he just wanted to get away from the Chaplain’s constant goading and torments. Restrained by the plasteel clamps, however, all he could do was turn his head away from his interrogator.

His voice composed again the Master Chaplain Asmodai spoke matter of factly in an emotionless tone as if he were reciting words he had uttered on countless occasions: “As you will not admit to your wrong-doing and will not repent of your sins then it falls to me to relieve you of your guilt by whatever means are necessary.”

At this moment the Fallen noticed the device the Chaplain had picked up in his other hand. Its many sharply-honed and polished blades gleamed red in the dim light.

“It is my sacred duty to save your soul from the Dark Gods of Chaos,” Asmodai intoned, “and I will save your soul, even if you die in the process.”
 
THE BLOOD ANGELS

Each Chapter of Space Marines owes much to the characteristics and powers of the Primarch from which it sprang. Thus do the Space Wolves reflect the power, ferocity and impetuousness of Leman Russ. Thus do the White Scars possess the aptitude for lightning warfare that was the hallmark of Jhagatai Khan, and thus also do the Blood Angels share some of the blighted, tragic destiny of their Primarch, the noble Sanguinius. Sanguinius distinguished himself during the siege of Earth, when it looked as if the Imperial palace and the entire home world might fall under the iron heel of Chaos. He organised the final defence of the Emperor’s palace and held the Ultimate Gate alone when all others had fled. When the Emperor teleported aboard Horus’s battle-barge for his final confrontation with the rebel Warmaster, Sanguinius also was there.

Battle raged throughout the daemon-infested spacecraft, and Sanguinius became separated from the Emperor. While he was still alone he chanced upon Horus and, although he knew it would almost certainly spell his doom, he immediately attacked the Warmaster. But Sanguinius was no match for Horus at the height of his daemon-provided power, and was slain by the Warmaster with contemptuous ease. The psychic echo of his terrible death can still sometimes be heard by those of his gene-seed, causing a madness and a fury to come upon them, and tainting their souls with a darkness of vision. Some also say that this psychic cry affected the gene-seed itself and is responsible for the errors of replication that affect the Chapter to the present day. Others whisper a darker rumour: that the gene-seed was tainted from the beginning. To this day the Blood Angels are among the most feared and least trusted of all Space Marine Chapters, their souls haunted by the horror of those ancient events and their bodies wracked by a secret and terrible thirst.

THE COMING OF SANGUINIUS
It happened that after the Emperor created the Primarchs, the infants were stolen from the chamber in which they lay. The forces of Chaos made off with the infants and carried them through the warp. Unable to destroy the infants because of the powerful protections laid on them by the Emperor, the daemonic powers of the warp nonetheless did their best to alter and mould the Emperor’s work to their own evil ends. Thus it was that even the best of the Emperor’s creations became corrupted at the outset. The pod that housed the infant Sanguinius came to rest upon the surface of Baal Secundus, at the place now known as Angel’s Fall. The infant Primarch was found by one of the wandering tribes of humans who called themselves the Folk of Pure Blood, or simply the Blood. The young Sanguinius’s life almost came to an end then and there, for the touch of Chaos had changed him. Tiny vestigial wings, like those of an angel, emerged from his back. Many wanted to kill the child as a mutant, while others wanted to spare the boy, for in all other ways he was as perfect a child as had ever been seen. Eventually common humanity prevailed and the child was spared.

The infant Sanguinius grew quickly and learned everything his parents could teach him. After three weeks he was as large as a child of three years, and could walk. It is said that at this age he slew a giant fire scorpion with his bare hands. As Sanguinius grew his wings grew also, changing from tiny vestigial things into mighty pinions that could bear him aloft onto the desert air. By the time he was one year old, he looked and acted like a man in his youthful prime. He could walk without a rad-suit in the poison desert, and could shatter mighty boulders with a single blow of his outstretched hand. In the use of all weapons he soon excelled his teachers.

When a wandering band of mutants surprised the tribe, Sanguinius slew them all, although they numbered over a hundred. This was the first time the members of the Blood had ever seen him truly angry, for he felt his comrades’ lives were in danger. When the blood-rage overtook him Sanguinius was indeed terrible to behold. His full Primarch powers came upon him and a nimbus of light played about his head. Sanguinius distinguished himself in the fateful days and years that followed. He soon rose to leadership of the Blood, and under his guidance they rolled back the mutant tide. For a time mankind had a breathing space on the moon called Baal Secundus. Sanguinius was worshipped as a god by his followers. They felt that if they followed him they could once more create a paradise in their dreadful land.

It was shortly thereafter that fate intervened once more. The Emperor had been questing across the galaxy in search of his lost children and his incredible psychic powers led him to Baal. His ship landed at the Conclave of the Blood, and he walked straight to the home vehicle of Sanguinius. Others among the Primarchs are said to have fought against the Emperor when first they met but this was not the case with Sanguinius. He immediately recognised the Emperor for who he was and bent his knee before the Lord of Mankind. The Emperor raised him up and looked upon his people and saw that they were fair and noble. The best of the warriors he offered to raise up into Space Marines. The others were to be honourably left behind to defend mankind’s birthright upon Baal Secundus. The Emperor performed the complex operation that would extract the gene-seed from Sanguinius’s genetic codes and he implanted ten thousand warriors with it. Thus were born the Blood Angels, among the Chapters of the First Founding. They joined the Emperor’s fleet and sailed across the Sea of Stars to participate in the Great Crusade.

THE FLAW
Although it is known to but a few, the Blood Angels are a dying Chapter, and they suffer from a dreadful flaw. This Chapter, once the most golden and blessed of all the Chapters, now shuns the company of its fellows where possible. Some it is said are driven by a terrible death-seeking madness, brought on by visions of the death of their Primarch. Others are afflicted by the terrible Red Thirst, a craving for blood, which some claim may be the first signs of a descent into Chaos. It is known that the Blood Angels themselves spend much time seeking a cure for their condition, although many have resigned themselves to the slow and terrible decline of their Chapter. Some say that it is because Sanguinius was more touched by Chaos than the others during his flight through the warp. They cite the fact that he possessed wings — an obvious mutation — to support their case. Their argument runs that the gene-seed which was extracted from him was flawed even before the first Blood Angels were created, and thus terrible consequences were preordained.

Others deny this, citing that the Emperor himself trusted the winged Primarch implicitly, and oversaw the creation of the Blood Angels. Certain heretics counter this with the argument that the Emperor also trusted Horus. Other scholars claim that the flaw lies in the process that is used to create each new generation of Blood Angels. They claim it has crept in down the generations because the Blood Angels use the process known as Insanguination to activate the gene-seed. To understand the arguments here one needs to know something about the processes used originally to create the Space Marines of the First Founding. All Space Marine Chapters use gene-seed to trigger and control the processes that transform an ordinary mortal into a Space Marine. The gene-seed is encoded with all the information needed to reshape ordinary cell clusters into the special organs Space Marines possess, and it contains viral machines which rebuild the body to the template contained within the gene-seed. However, from the beginning there was no set way to activate the gene-seed.

Indeed, at the time when the Chapters of the First Founding were created, the process was still highly experimental and many different ways of controlling and managing the change were tried. This led to the Space Wolves using the ritual known as Blooding, the Imperial Fists using the process known as the Hand of Faith and the Blood Angels using Insanguination. The process was originally triggered by injecting the Aspirants with tiny samples of their Primarch’s own blood. This practice of course ended with the death of Sanguinius. However, some of his blood was kept and preserved in the Red Grail. The living blood could not be kept this way for long and it was injected into the veins of the Sanguinary Priests. In this way they became living hosts to the power of Sanguinius. To this day, drinking the collected blood of the assembled Sanguinary Priests from the Red Grail is part of the ritual of creation of all Blood Angels Priests.

It is from these Priests that the blood is taken to begin the transformation of Aspirants into Space Marines. It is possible that over the countless generations since the time of the Heresy these cells have mutated, slowly at first but more quickly in recent years, and that errors in replication have resulted in the Flaw. Still others cite the fact that all the Blood Angels come from a highly irradiated world, and that a certain amount of mutation is inevitable. Whatever the reasons are it is certain that these terrible things have been on the increase. There are very few records of their occurrence in the early years of the Imperium, or throughout the long millennia during which the Blood Angels were shaped.
 
DARK ANGELS INTERROGATOR-CHAPLAINS

When Dark Angel Chaplains have proved themselves they are inducted in the Deathwing and given the title of InterrogatorChaplain. This title is awarded because it is their sacred duty to attempt to make any of the Fallen that are captured repent their past actions. Fallen who repent are rewarded with a quick and relatively painless death. Those who refuse inevitably die in agony during the interrogation, as the Interrogator-Chaplain is forced to use ever more drastic measures to try to make the heretic understand the error of his ways. An Interrogator-Chaplain is allowed to add a single black pearl to his rosarius for each of the Fallen that he convinces to repent. Such is the power of Chaos, or such were the archheretic Luther’s oratorical skills, that few of the Fallen repent before they die. Master Molocia, the greatest of the Dark Angels’ Interrogator-Chaplains, died after over 300 years service to the Chapter with only 10 black pearls on his rosarius. To this day no other Interrogator-Chaplain has been able to emulate his achievement. The Dark Angels Chapter has a number of inner levels or circles. It is only when a Dark Angel reaches the highest level, or Inner Circle, that he learns the full truth of the history of the Chapter. Chaplains who reach this level are known as Master Chaplains

THE DEATHWING

The Deathwing is the Ist Company, or Terminator Company, of the Dark Angels Chapter of the Space Marines. Originally the Terminator armour used by the Deathwing was painted black, but after a single squad of Dark Angels Terminators rescued their home world from the grip of a Genestealer invasion the suits were recoloured white to honour their memory. Their unique appearance and terrifying name has made the Deathwing renowned throughout the Imperium, and their bravery and single-mindedness of purpose has become legendary. It is only when a Dark Angels Space Marine is promoted to the Deathwing that he first starts to learn the history of the Chapter and of their unrelenting mission to hunt down and destroy all of the Fallen Dark Angels, no matter how long this may take. Even the Space Marines of the Ravenwing are unaware that the Chaos Space Marines they are so often called on to hunt down were once fellow Dark Angels. However, a Dark Angel does not learn the full truth even when he joins the Deathwing. Instead, slowly over time he will be promoted through a number of levels known as circles, assuming that he survives long enough and is found worthy enough to progress, of course. As a Dark Angel is initiated into each succeeding circle he learns more and more of the truth, but it is only if he reaches the highest level known as the Inner Circle that all is revealed to him.

Dark Angels that reach the Inner Circle are given the honorary title of Master, and perform all of the most important functions within the Chapter. Each company is commanded by a Master from the Inner Circle, and a Space Marine cannot become Chief Librarian or one of the dreaded Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplains without reaching this exalted level. It is thus only a small group of the most senior Dark Angels that knows all the dreadful secrets of the Chapter, and of the horror —and the hope — that is entombed deep within the heart of the Rock.