She Who Thirsts

Emperor's Children Development 2nd Edition

Angels of Death (1996)

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.

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.

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.
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CODEX CHAOS (1996)

Codex chaos would be released with details expanding upon the legion

Codex Chaos 2E (1996) EC / Slaanesh Lore

“Being in Part a Disclosure of the dread Powers of Chaos, and in the Main an Illustration of said Powers' Followers and Daemons and other divers Abominations, especially those damned Warriors and Heretics that comprise the Traitor Legions, and I wherein is conducted an Examination of the most...
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WD 201

Kharn the Betrayer would receive a model with details of his escapades on Skalathrax against the third also being detailed. The Emperor's Children and other legions would also have shoulder pad upgrades released.

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CODEX SISTERS OF BATTLE (1997)



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THE HORUS HERESY
Even before his internment in the Golden Throne, the Emperor was worshipped as a god by many members of the Imperium, especially on the more regressive planets rediscovered during the Great Crusade. Primitive peoples spoke of gods descending from the skies in chariots winged with fire, and of beings who could smite down a foe with a mere glance. Of course, such fanciful descriptions could apply to almost any Imperial servant landing on a planet in a dropship, but the Emperor’s unique powers and presence meant that he was venerated as a living god wherever he passed. Then the tortuous storm of the Horus Heresy tore at the fabric of the Imperium. As humanity was embroiled in an apocalyptic civil war, the fate and future of mankind hung in the balance. If Horus were to triumph, humanity would be swept into the power of the dark Chaos Gods. In the end, while the followers of Horus assaulted the Imperial palace on Terra, the traitor Warmaster and the Emperor faced each other on the rebel Warmaster’s battle-barge. Their titanic conflict reflected the Heresy as a whole — a battle fought in the mind as well as with physical weapons. After a bitter struggle, the Emperor destroyed Horus but was fatally wounded himself. The Space Marine Primarch Rogal Dern discovered the Emperor’s devastated body, held alive only by the enormous power of his will. The Emperor was placed in stasis and the Adeptus Mechanicus constructed the Golden Throne to sustain his shattered form. As the Emperor’s body was incarcerated into the Throne and its life-giving properties flowed through his carcass, the Emperor’s great mind soared into the warp.
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