Warhammer 40k Chaos Quote

Deep within the Eye of Terror, on a world that was once a great library of the Eldar Empire, there is
an oracle. It is older than the cradle of Slaanesh, and knows much of what proceeds in the wider
galaxy. Over the millennia, thousands of scholars of the arcane and the forbidden have traveled to
the oracle's side. Some come willingly, drawn by the promise of knowledge they couldn't dream of.
Others are dragged through the Sea of Souls, snatched from their worlds to pay their debts to the
Ruinous Powers. Regardless of how they came, only one thing awaits these damned souls : a
lifetime of listening to the oracle's ramblings and writing them down. These are their scribbles,
inscribed upon rows of parchments made from the skin of those who die in service to this infernal
savant ...
"Unbound knowledge, forbidden secrets ... Such is the currency by which the loyalty of these fallen
scholars is bought."
- on a coven of heretical savants
"All come to the Eye in the end, seeking their own path to glory. Sensation-addled pirate lords,
dreaming of pleasures unknown; sorcerers craving arcane secrets and blasphemous lore; children
of the Plague Lord, searching for the tools to spread the touch of their beloved lord; and the blood-
crazed servants of the Skull Throne, drawn by the promises of power and bloodshed."
- on the Path to Glory
"The corridors of the Labyrinth twist on themselves in impossible patterns, defying the laws of space
and time and consuming the lives of those who enter before they are even born."
- on the Crystal Labyrinth of Tzeentch
"Like their one true master, these warriors care only that blood be shed. An easy thing to offer for
any true Champion of Chaos. But should one fail in his tithe ..."
- on a group of Berzerkers of Khorne
"As you advance on the Path to Glory, you will witness many horrors, and experience terrible
revelations. Yet no single truth will test you more than the knowledge that the source of these
abominations lies within your own heart."
- on the nature of Chaos
"This accursed soul is bound by dark covenants with unknowable entities. They grant him power, but
haunt his every dream with tantalizing visions of the greater glories awaiting him ... if he is willing to
take just a step further down in the abyss."
- on a Chaos Sorcerer
"The followers of the Profligate One might seem foolish and deluded, but their blades are sharp,
their reflexes quick, and there is no dark act from which they will shy away. But be careful when they
are at your side, lest you present them with a chance to taste the sweet perfume of treachery ..."
- on the followers of Slaanesh
"Broken, ruined, rotting from the inside ... But even after ten thousand years of agony, there is still
some strength left in the bones of that old carcass."
- on the Imperium of Man
"Freedom from the shadow of age is one of the gifts most sought after by the servants of Ruin. But
those few who receive it often find out that their patron has a different view of immortality than the
one they desired."
- on the gifts of Chaos
"Many are pushed into the Dark Gods' arms by the deeds of others, and have no choice in their fall
to Darkness. They will either embrace what they have become and grow strong, or recoil in horror
and be broken upon the unforgiving tides of Chaos. Yet the question remains : of those who are
pushed into Ruin and those who willingly turn to it, which are the favored servants of the Ruinous
Powers ?"
- on the Lost and the Damned
"So many believe that they can bend the power of Chaos to their will, receive the gifts of the Dark
Gods in return for lip service and petty offerings ... Fools, all of them. Chaos is the master, never the
servant."
"Most followers of Ruin have little in the way of faith : they embrace Chaos out of their own selfish
desires and ambitions. The Dark Gods do not demand blind worship from their disciples, after all :
they much prefer do the blinding themselves."
"To see as they see, to know what they know, to hear the whispers of the Neverborn forever
gnawing at their mind, hungering for their soul ... Is it truly surprising that they fell into madness ?"
- on a coven of rogue psykers
"Most of those who walk the Path to Glory are convinced they will reach its end, that their own
ascension is inevitable. And they are right, until the moment their destiny ends in blood or shameful
failure and the Gods' eyes turn away from them in contempt."
"No soul is ever truly safe from the touch of Chaos. It might take more effort from the Dark Gods to
turn a particular individual to their service, and they often bore of the game quickly, but no one is
really immune to the temptations of the Ruinous Powers."
"Loyalty is a lie, whispered by deceivers into the ears of fools moments before their dagger strikes.
Trust no one as you advance on the Path, for the Dark Gods are unforgiving of any weakness."
"Once, his soul was shielded from truth and temptation alike by walls of false faith and empty
devotion. But now that these obstacles have been torn down, there is nothing to stop the ravenous
hunger he hid for so many years ..."
- on a renegade Inquisitor
"They hunt in the dark in the name of their lord, taking skulls one by one to add to his throne. It is
quality they pursue in their offerings rather than quality, and they are all the more dangerous for it.
But even they are not immune to the sanity-consuming rage of the Blood God ..."
- on a death cult of Khorne
"There is no mercy to be found in the ranks of Chaos' followers. Every life spared is bound into
service forever after, every act of selflessness part of some ploy to further one's goals. To believe
otherwise, even for an instant, is to invite doom upon yourself."
"Broken souls, deceived minds, twisted bodies. Such are the most common slaves of Ruin, their
lives spent like loose change by those standing above them in the Dark Gods' eyes."
- on Chaos cultists
"With ritual and incantation, they believe they can bend the scions of the Dark Gods to their will. But
the only thing that matters in such conjurations is the strength of spirit, and they have little of it. Still,
their unholy knowledge might be of use in more capable hands ..."
- on a group of human daemonologists
"Some Secondborn see their nature as a curse, others as a blessing. But all are locked in a
permanent struggle to keep the monster within them under control, or be consumed by it entirely –
and bitterness is a powerful shield against the daemon's hunger."
- on Possessed
"The Warp knows them well, these ascended heirs of shame. It whispers of their dark deeds, of the
worlds they have burned and the civilizations they have extinguished. Many are drawn to their
power, and while all are welcomed, few are judged worthy of truly becoming part of their ruinous
brotherhood."
- on the Black Legion
"A union of flesh, metal and daemon, howling its hatred of all living things. It is an eternal
contradiction : without this body of metal, the daemon within would be powerless to unleash this
hatred, and yet the one who forged its bounds is the one it hates most of all."
- on a daemon engine
"There are billions of humans across the galaxy which give worship to lesser beings that these
terrible giants. Beware their step, for worlds burn where they walk."
- on Chaos Titans
"A noble bloodline, a prestigious name, a wealthy family ... None of these are any protection against
the lures of Chaos. It is the nature of man that the more he has, the greater his desires."
- on highborn heretics
"Curiosity, greed, lust, hatred, despair, terror, even boredom and hope ... The Dark Gods use all
kinds of openings to creep within a human soul, and they never leave afterwards. Yet no matter how
much one is elevated by their touch, the mark of how they first found you remains forevermore in the
changes wrought upon soul and body alike."
- on the touch of Chaos
"They are the greatest of the Dark Gods' champions, for they are made for conflict, and war is the
one true way in which Chaos grows stronger. Every muscle, every drop of blood, every organ and
emotion has been fashioned for warfare – is it truly any surprise that they turned against their
creator ?"
- on Chaos Marines
"Do not be deceived by their apparent bonhomie. Behind that benevolent facade, they are just as
cruel as the servants of any of the other Dark Gods. The only difference is that when they are done
with you, you will thank them for the ruination they inflicted upon you."
- on the disciples of Nurgle
"Any conjuration of a Neverborn requires sacrifice. The nature of the sacrifice can vary depending
on the nature of the Neverborn, its power and position in the infernal courts – but one constant is
that, should the sacrifice be considered insufficient by the newly manifested daemon, the summoner
will pay the price himself."
- on the art of daemon summoning
"Madness finds all who walk under the eyes of the Dark Gods. There is no escaping it, though many
believe they can. In the end, the suffocating darkness and terrible truths will shatter the frail veil of
sanity that separates every human from the full majesty of Chaos."
"Survival is the drive behind every human instinct. It is therefore only natural that so many turn to
Chaos for the power to defeat their enemies."
- on Chaos
"They were the first of their kind to find the secrets buried by their ancestors, digging up their graves
in search of lost history and exhuming treasures and relics from bygone ages. Strangely, only a very
few of them ever bothered to think that perhaps these secrets had been buried for a reason ..."
- on a group of heretical archaeologists
"Ignorance can be a powerful shield against the temptations of Chaos. They know this, and
endeavour to maintain its hold over their people – ignorant of the fact that by doing so, they are
crushing their souls."
- on the Lords of Terra
"In pursuit of the sacred union of flesh and machine, they left no stone unturned, no avenue of
research unexplored. Now they have achieved their goal, but there is nothing human left in their
metallic shells."
- on the Dark Mechanicum
"Like moths drawn to a flame, they crave to witness the true glory of their god. That even a glimpse
of His magnificence would utterly destroy them is no concern to their scarred and bent souls, such is
their depravity."
- on the followers of Slaanesh
"The armor of virtue, the shield of honor, the blade of righteousness ... All break, given enough time.
And when they do, the result are wondrous and terrible to behold in equal measure."
- on a Renegade Knight
"Bitterness and pride burn in their souls with equal fervour. None of them will ever admit that it was
their own folly that brought the destruction of their long-lost home upon them."
- on the Thousand Sons
"An ascended lord of Chaos, chosen by his God to stand above all others ... or a soulless puppet,
dancing upon a cruel master's strings, unaware of its slavery ? There is no way to know ..."
- on a daemon prince
"It begins with the smallest of signs. A child going missing, a gruesome murder, strange nightmares,
ghostly visions ... Little anomalies, easily missed or forgotten. When the signs become obvious, it is
already too late."
- on daemonic incursions
"On his birth world, he was hated and cast out, cursed by those who did not share his deformity. He
survived the first two decades of his life by hiding in the sewers, eating rats and drinking putrid
water. When the skies turned to fire and the legions of Chaos descended, he and ten thousand
others rose from the depths and drowned the city in the blood of their oppressors."
- on a mutant warlord
"They fight and kill and torture, all to slake the thirst that consumes their soul from within. Masters of
agony, there is no limit to the amount of suffering they can inflict upon those too weak to defend
themselves from their cruelty. But no matter how much pain they cause, their fate remains sealed by
their ancestors' folly ..."
- on the Dark Eldar
"They hide from the shadow of their doom, shielding their minds from temptation through meditation,
and look to the future in order to forget their shameful past. Even in death, they deny themselves
their righteous reward, fearful of the god they created. But damnation is patient, and no protection is
truly eternal ..."
- on the Craftworld Eldar
"Lambs to the slaughter, raised in their billions to die on worlds they have never heard of, led by
men who more often than not care nothing for their lives. Damnation takes many forms, and they are
most assuredly damned."
- on the Imperial Guard
"What does death matters to the Gods ? If one of their favourite pawns fall, they can return it to the
board with ease. Of course, such resurrection always come at a cost, and only the most dedicated
or accursed servants are ever granted a second lease on existence."
- on resurrection
"While the glories promised by the Dark Gods are many and great, the price for failure is just as
terrible – and far more often meted out."
- on a Chaos Spawn
"Dead and buried for aeons, now they think they can reclaim the galaxy they abandoned. But like all
tyrants, they created the source of their defeat themselves, for it was their war against the Old
Enemy that opened the way for Chaos to inherit the universe ..."
- on the Necrons
"Their minds are bent by the constant pressure of the daemons' whispers, and a lifetime on the run
from authorities has tainted their madness with paranoia. Their powers might seem weak, but their
continued survival tells a different story."
- on wild psykers
"With every battle waged, the Imperium grows weaker, while the Warp and those who serve it grow
stronger. For ten thousand years now we have approached the breaking point, where Chaos finally
breaks through the skein of reality and drowns the galaxy."
- on the Long War
"Once a powerful champion of the gods ... now, a ruin of twisted flesh, its existence a reminder to all
others who would court Chaos of the true price of their devotion."
- on a Chaos Spawn
"The laws of the natural universe have no place in these shadowy realms of madness and
confusion. Only the whims of daemons and those with the power to bend them to their will can
shape these tenebrous spheres."
- on daemon worlds
"They call out to the gods as they wreak slaughter upon their foes, for they know that the true temple
of Chaos is on the battlefield. They believe themselves to be elevated above all others, the chosen
warriors of Ruin. In truth, they are but slaves, too blind to even see their chains ..."
- on the Word Bearers
"Heirs to a broken empire and shattered ideals. They cling to their honor, and defy the coming of the
night with their every breath – but the futility of their actions can break even the strongest of them."
- on the loyalist Space Marines
"A fractured brotherhood ... or was it that they were never brothers at all ? They are killers and
torturers all, but while some take pleasure in the fear of their victims, others simply use it as a tool.
And yet, only a few have truly embraced Chaos, while the rest keep it at arms' length, prosecuting
their vengeful war without its gifts. Does that make them strong, or foolish ?"
- on the Night Lords
"They walk the stars and leave millions dead in their wake, convinced that they are doing their
Emperor's will. But while they might stop many of the gods' servants, the suffering and ignorance
they spread only makes Chaos as a whole stronger ..."
- on the Inquisitors
"There is power in their faith. But their arch-priests are corrupt, and their preaching is full of lies
added to their holy texts by men of ambition and greed over the millennia. Once they could have
been the greatest threat to Chaos – now they are only one more way for the Dark Gods to lure souls
into their grasp."
- on the Ecclesiarchy
"They try to hide the beast within them by granting their protection to the weak, but the gods
remember their old sin, no matter how many layers of lies and gold they place upon it in their
desperation to justify their crime. In the end, retribution will come to them, and the cycle will end."
- on the Space Wolves
"He fled from his family after his father discovered his dealings with the crime-lords of his world and
tried to make him disappear. But no matter how far he runs, his blood echoes with the arrogance of
his kind, and his mind remains shaped in the mold of his kin."
- on a renegade highborn
"Hatred grows stronger over time, and their has had ten thousand years to mature. Their minds are
filled with grudges the rest of the galaxy has long forgotten, but it hasn't diminished their tactical
genius in the lightest."
- on the Iron Warriors
"Like calls to like, and has always done so. In the Eye, those who followed the same path to
damnation will flock to one another, and battle for supremacy. These conflicts can take an infinity of
forms, but those who lose them will always be cast down the Path to Glory."
"The great wheel of time turns, and the gods' power waxes and wanes. It is inevitable, unstoppable,
and every soul in the galaxy is caught in these dark tides. To try to quell the storm is folly, and
doomed to hideous failure – no true victor can ever emerge from this age-long conflict, for struggle is
the very essence of Chaos."
- on the Great Game of Chaos
"How many worlds have burned in this war, how many trillions of lives lost ? In truth, the gods
themselves do not know, for such is the bitterness of this conflict that it has spread to places and
realms even they cannot reach over the millennia ..."
- on the Long War
"Ambition drives him ever onward, to the glory and power he believes are rightfully his. And he might
yet seize them, for the future is ever-changing. But should he fail, only two paths await him : an
ignoble death, followed by a quick fall into oblivion and an eternity in the Sea of Souls; or a shameful
degeneration, and immortality as a twisted puppet of flesh."
- on a Chaos Lord
"He killed two of his brothers for this armor – the one who wore it before him, and the one with whom
he killed the former. Seventh time since it was forged has the armor changed hands thus, and the
shades of its previous wearers cling to its metal, vengefully drawing its current master to his doom."
- on a Chaos Terminator
"His Chapter died under the Inquisition's blades, falsely accused of another's crimes. He alone
survived, fleeing the Imperium's justice so that the memory of his brothers would not die with them.
In his despair, the God of Life and Death reached to him and gave him new purpose – vengeance,
and eternity."
- on a Plague Marine
"The blade was forged on Mars, before treachery tore the Red Planet apart. The handle was added
during the Heresy, and is made from the bone of a Legionary dead on Isstvan III at the hand of his
brother. The runes were added in the Eye of Terror, and were written with the blood of its last
wielder. And the daemon inside ... it was always there."
- on a daemonic sword
"He was once a servant of the False Emperor, dedicated to spreading the lies of the Ecclesiarchy.
On twelve worlds, his sermons turned entire populations to the worship of the Corpse-God. But on
the thirteenth, he was faced with the true nature of the universe, and has since brought nineteen
more planets into the Dark Gods' embrace ..."
- on a heretical priest
"A hunter of man, a killer of his own kind ... A blade shaped as a human being, to be wielded by
those willing to meet his price. He doesn't serve Chaos with his soul – but his acts have spoken loud
enough that the gods have taken notice of him ..."
- on a hired killer
"Once he was a warrior in the Imperium's armies, fighting alongside legends to shape the galaxy's
future. The schemes of Tzeentch made his flesh turn to living stone, until the act of a fool stripped
him of his will and made him a ghost, trapped within his armor for the rest of eternity – but nothing is
fixed, and everything can change ..."
- on a Rubric Marine
"From his birth, he had everything granted to him. Power, wealth, fame – he had but to reach out
and take it. It wasn't the voice of the gods that turned him against his own people, nor was it fear or
hatred or sorrow. He simply did it because he could, and because no one had ever taught him that
his actions could have consequences."
- on a traitor Governor
"Billions live and die every day in this galaxy. If you want to leave behind a lasting legacy, it can only
be built in blood – for such is the currency that makes the wheel of history turns. Such is the first
truth that leads many down the Eightfold Path."
- on the followers of Khorne
"For ten thousand years, he has fought like a predatory beast, preying upon those weaker than
himself and avoiding battle with those stronger than him. His way of war has changed him into a
creature in its image – he is little more than an animal now, governed by his instincts alone."
- on a Chaos Raptor
"His family died at the hands of his hive's ruling House, murdered by a firstborn son seeking some
excitement. He only survived because he was replacing a sick friend at the factory owned by that
very same House. Now the House is dead to the last, but his hatred hasn't run out, and it drives him
against everything he has ever known."
- on a human Chaos champion
"Layer upon layer of corruption, both physical and spiritual. The rot is better hidden near the top, but
make no mistake : it is still there, writhing beneath the veneer of nobility and civilization."
- on a hive-city
"His last true moment of happiness was when his mother told him she believed he had a great
destiny ahead of him. Now all he knows are fleeting instants of satisfaction, immediately replaced by
a craving for more."
- on an Emperor's Children Legionary
"There are horrors in this galaxy beyond those of Chaos. Deep in the darkness of space, on long-
forgotten worlds, there dwell terrors from primordial epochs, slumbering through the passage of
aeons. Yet should they awake from their sleep, even the Gods would tremble in fear."
- on the galaxy
"At first, he smuggled weapons to buy food. Then it was to feed his addiction. When the relic came
in his possession, he didn't know that selling it to these strange robed men would precipitate his
world's end. But if he had known, would he have done anything any different ?"
- on a member of the Lost and the Damned
"It was for freedom that she rose against her lords, and led her people to rebellion. Under her
leadership, a billion souls took up arms against those who had held them in slavery for a hundred
generations. But when the Imperium responded by sending the Angels of Death, her followers
betrayed her, offering her up as a sacrifice to appease their vengeful masters. Now she cares only
about revenge, for she has seen that freedom is not what Mankind truly desires."
- on a mortal champion of Chaos
"He doesn't remember it, but he was once a champion of his people, defending them against the
beasts of his homeworld. When the Lords of Slaughter came and butchered his tribe, he was the
only one they took alive, before remaking him in their image and breaking his mind as theirs had
been broken."
- on a Skull Champion
"Agents of discovery reclaiming lost worlds, heirs to ancient bloodlines blessed with their authority
and power by the Anathema itself ... Yet in the end, they are only mortal, and can be bent to the will
of Chaos all the same."
- on Rogue Traders
"The greatest mistake they can make is to believe they know everything, for their patron takes great
delight in shattering that particular delusion. The strongest among them can survive this revelation,
but only madness and death await those too weak to understand their insignificance in the Great
Deceiver's schemes."
- on the followers of Tzeentch
"There is no innocence in this galaxy. Even a newborn child is tainted by the sins of his parents and
carries within him the trace of deeds committed by his ancestors. The Warp remembers all, and
debts are passed down bloodlines like any other legacy."
- on the galaxy
"Lies are the currency of the Imperium. Great lies are spoken by those who sit upon the steps of the
Golden Throne, and their servants divide them into smaller denominations. These find their way
down a chain of fealty a million links long, until they reach the ears of every mortal living in the
shadow of Terra. There these falsehoods rest, keeping the population compliant."
- on the Imperium
"They hide in their palaces, dining on the finest repasts, while their people starve in the streets. They
clothe themselves in silks brought from another Sector while shipments of grain are delayed. They
do not even deign to look upon those whose labour sustain their lifestyles. Truly, they are amongst
the best instruments of Chaos."
- on the highborn of the Imperium
"They believe themselves to be servants of the machine, to pursue knowledge and illumination. In
truth, they are slaves to a soulless and uncaring god, which does not value progress but stagnation,
and their actual knowledge is shrouded by meaningless ritual and ignorant superstition. Truly, they
have fallen far from the height of their power."
- on the Adeptus Mechanicus
"There is nothing of worth left in them – their soul is gone, their mind scrapped clean. Puppets of
flesh and metal, their only value serves as a reminder of the hypocrisy of the Martian Cult, who
forbids the construction of sentient machines yet allows the creation of these corpse-automatas."
- on servitors
"They are a great irony, are they not ? They believe themselves to be crusaders in an age where the
Imperium looks only to its defense. They think they are the heirs of Dorn's favored son and worship
the False Emperor as a god, while Sigismund was cast out for even entertaining the notion. They
abhor the psyker, while their master rots on the Golden Throne, his dying mind spread out across an
entire galaxy."
- on the Black Templars
"His mind is a vast and powerful thing, stretching down paths through the Warp even daemons fear
to thread. Over the centuries, shards of it have broken off the whole, wandering into the souls of the
weak and twisting them to their own purpose, writing his name on a thousand atrocities of which he
has never heard ..."
- on Ahzek Ahriman
"Offerings to the Dark Gods can take many shapes. The skull of a powerful enemy, the slaughter of
an entire hive, the recovery of ancient and forbidden lore ... Anything that leaves your mark upon the
galaxy will bring the eyes of the gods on you. Whether or not that gaze is amical depends on which
way you drew it."
"For three decades, he dedicated his life to enforcing Imperial law on a world where crime was
rampant and his superiors corrupt. When he snapped, the entire Arbitrator headquarters became a
slaughterhouse, quickly followed by the den of several crime lords. During his purge, he found out
that the sins of his victims did not matter to him as much as he thought they did ..."
- on a renegade Arbitrator
"This warrior of twisted iron and corrupted flesh never had a choice in his service to Chaos. He
wasn't born of a human mother, but grown in the gene-mills of his masters, an adult and a cyborg
from the moment he awoke. He was but one among thousands of Dark Mechanicum war-thralls, but
he has proven his worth on a hundred battlefields, and been rewarded with more power and an even
tighter leash."
- on a Dark Mechanicum skitarii
"He was born on a world where any living creature could kill him at any moment. This has left him
scarred of flesh and stunted of mind, but strong and resilient : the perfect fodder for the Imperium's
grinding machine."
- on a feral worlder become Guardsman
"A master stroke of deceit, made possible only by the Imperium's failings. Thousands of bright souls
cast in the Dark Gods' waiting arms, the very Angels of Death of the False Emperor stolen from Him
by one posing as His voice ... The gods rewarded their champion well for this deed – though in the
end, their gifts were wasted. Remember the true lesson here : no matter what you have done in the
past, the gods care only for what you may yet do."
- on the Abyssal Crusade
"He watched the fleet of his Legion murder his homeworld, never knowing that his little sister and
her three children looked up at the same moment and saw death coming for them. But like all the
ghosts of Nostramo, they are patient, and they wait for him on the other side, to punish him for the
crimes of his bloodline ..."
- on a Night Lord Legionnaire
"Power can take many forms, and physical might is but one of them. Psychic abilities, knowledge
both pure and corruptive ... Yet all pale compared to the power that can come from subjugating
others to your will, for what one cannot accomplish, a hundred do with ease ..."
- on the nature of power
"To walk the Path to Glory to its glorious end, Champions of Chaos have to dedicate every effort to
furthering their power. Everything else is an acceptable sacrifice for the ultimate reward of
immortality and godlike power. Fail but one moment on the Path, and you shall be cast down and
become a mindless beast of writhing flesh, a reminder to your rivals of the absolute nature of their
destiny."
"A world burned by his hands to purge it of deviance. When he learned that he had been deceived,
his mind shattered, and Chaos filled in the cracks. Now he would see every world in the galaxy know
the same fate, all for the glory of his god."
- on a renegade Space Marine Captain dedicated to Khorne
"The first man she killed was the Imperial tithe collector who visited her village and had her father
beaten for hiding food. The second man she killed was the corrupt Arbitrator sent after her. The third
man she killed was the rebellious Governor of her world. As for the fourth, that secret is known only
to the Officio's archives ..."
- on a Callidus Assassin
"This creature is ancient, even by the standards of its kin. Some whisper that it is older than the Eye
of Terror itself, having lived for centuries in the decadence and excess that led to the birth of the
Youngest God and the downfall of the Eldar Empire. Regardless of the truth, it is a monster by all
accounts, torturing not to sate its thirst or to gain power, but merely for its own amusement."
- on a Dark Eldar Haemonculus
"The Gods know his name well. Over the millennia, he has been their adversary and their ally in
equal measure, and all four have tried to have him turned to their service. But his will is amongst the
strongest in the galaxy, and his thirst for knowledge such that even they cannot offer anything to
tempt him away from the path he has made for himself, far from the four roads of ruin."
- on Fabius Bile
"He serves the Blood God, and has always done so from the moment he knelt before the two-
headed eagle and swore to kill in the name of Mankind. In a way, he hasn't broken that vow, for
what is Khorne if not the ultimate incarnation of Mankind's true nature ?"
- on Khârn the Betrayer
"To be mortal is to be a pawn in the games of unfathomable beings. But even a pawn can reach the
end of the chessboard, and rise above all others ... yet even then, it is still only a puppet."
"Daemons fight daemons in the Warp, and the Gods' chosen fight each other on the Material Plane.
So it has been since the birth of Chaos, so shall it be until the last living thing dies, and the Sea of
Souls at last falls silent. For Chaos is the antithesis of Unity, and thus is doomed to eternally turn
upon itself. It is the knowledge of that truth that once empowered another of the Ruinous Powers,
though he has long since been cast down into oblivion by his fearful brothers."
- on the Renegade God
"They are perhaps the most dangerous enemies of Chaos, for they are able to know it without being
drawn to it. Yet for all his defiance of She-Who-Thirsts, their god remains weak, and his followers
few. How ironic that those who were once derided as fools are now the only true retainers of the old
empire's might"
- on the Harlequins
"Humans weren't meant to walk the stars, no matter how much drivel the High Lords and their
cronies may spill about its destiny. The truth is written in the species' genetic code : they are barely
removed from apes living in trees. And nowhere is that more obvious than in those who dare to
leave solid ground forever and live within the void, crossing the unimaginable distances of space. In
a sense, even the Warp is less alien to them than this infinite blackness."
- on human space travel
"To say that the Gods can turn on even their most devout followers at a moment's whim is to
misunderstand their nature. The touch of the divine upon a mortal is more than almost any soul can
bear, and the slightest weakness in the individual will result in what was meant as a gift utterly
destroying the recipient."
- on the Dark Gods
"The wars of men and alien have purpose. Resources, power, territory, knowledge : all these are
reasons for a species to fight another. But the wars of Chaos have no explanation that mere mortals
can comprehend, for the Great Game is the only conflict to truly be driven by innate, unstoppable
hatred. The Imperium's disgust for xenos is but a pale imitation of the loathing the Dark Gods have
for one another."
- on the Great Game
"In many aspects, treachery is akin to a drug. It is addictive, each one is less difficult than the last,
and those who perform it are changed in mind and body, their flesh reflecting the decay of their
honor."
- on treachery
"Brutish and nearly mindless, they are slaves to the commands engraved in their blood millions of
years ago. Despite all the violence they cause, they do not serve the interests of Chaos, for their
souls belong only to the gestalt godlings they are all part of. Should they ever realize their true
potential, none within the galaxy would be safe from their power."
- on the Orks
"They are lost to their sons, each fighting his own war within the Great Game. The gods who own
their souls will not allow them to escape their bonds and return their power to the galaxy yet – each
greedily hoards his mightiest champion, waiting for the others to make the first move, and thus they
are sealed away, unable to realize the ambitions for which they burned the galaxy."
- on the Daemon Primarchs
"The Imperium abhors freedom. It is an edifice of chains, carried forward by the toil of trillions of
slaves and directed by a gathering of babbling fools who know little of the galaxy they claim to rule.
Only a select few within its ranks can claim to any true understanding of their reality, and even fewer
among those have the strength to stand against the darkness closing in from all sides."
- on the Imperium
"Only the truly strong can stand against the Neverborn in battle and cast them back into the Aether.
For the immense majority of the galaxy's inhabitants, to meet even a lesser shade is enough to
create cracks in the mind through which the madness of Chaos can pour. Space Marines might fight
daemonic hordes and banish the lords of the Warp, but the humans they protect are powerless
cattle before such manifested horrors."
- on the Neverborn
"Do you know why the gods are so powerful, seeming to control all things within their withering
embrace ? It is because they are reflections of belief, and no race in the galaxy can truly face the
truth that there is no greater purpose, no over-reaching force directing the course of events. Destiny
exists because mortals cannot conceive otherwise."
- on the Dark Gods
"There is an infinity of variation in the ways Mankind's flesh can be twisted. More often than not,
such changes are not caused by the touch of the Gods or any inner evil manifesting itself, but simply
by more mundane causes – yet the ignorance of the Imperium makes no difference, and eventually
even a mutant created by radiation and pollution will have no choice to survive but to embrace the
service of Chaos."
- on mutation
"Baubles, to draw the eyes of fools with too much power and too little responsibilities. By
themselves, they can do little that the owner wouldn't have done on his own – but they are only the
first taste of damnation, drawing those who covet them further through the lure of the forbidden."
- on minor Chaos relics being trafficked by spire nobility
"How easy it is to poison the minds and souls of the False Emperor's slaves. Ignorance might keep
them away from the temptations of Chaos, but it is only a paper shield, and once breached, they are
thrown into damnation unaware of the dangers and true nature of their path."
- on Chaos cults
"They are children, unaware of the galaxy's true nature, even more so than the Imperium. They
believe their science and faith in one another can shelter them from every threat, that their destiny is
unstoppable. They are wrong, but they will learn, in time, and their screams will echo throughout the
Sea of Souls as their worlds drown in madness and blood."
- on the Tau
"The king believed that the sorcerer's spells would grant his kingdom eternal prosperity, and to
himself, eternal life. Now his subjects are prey to the Neverborn, while he himself suffers upon his
throne – living forevermore, yet wishing with all his soul for the release of death."
- on a world lost to a Warp Storm
"Daemons do not speak words, though mortal minds interpret their language as such out of
incapability to comprehend their true meaning. Instead, they speak the primordial sounds, through
which the universe came to be and will one day be destroyed. Reality is bent by this language,
shaped to fit what is spoken rather than the other way around."
- on daemonic language
"Those who create them believe them to be powerful if dangerous tools. In this, they are right – their
mistake is to assume that it is a tool that they control, rather than the whims of the daemon within
and the will of its creator god."
- on daemonhost
"A common mistake made by those prosecuting the Long War is that the conflict between Chaos
and the rest of reality began when the Sacrificed King rebelled against the Anathema. They are
wrong. Chaos came to be long before the first apes came down from the trees on Old Earth.
Countless species were tested and found wanting, the ruins of their empires laying on thousands of
worlds. So far, Mankind hasn't failed ..."
- on Chaos
"Bestial minds, with little imagination and simple cravings. All but useless as champions, yet they
can make very valuable pawns in capable hands."
- on Ogryns
"The first step is always the smallest, but also the hardest. It can take many forms : an Imperial
Commander refusing to obey orders, a moment of pride at the death of an enemy champion, a
surge of hatred toward one's battle-brother ... In the end, it doesn't matter. All such steps lead to the
same end destination."
- on Renegade Marines
"Damnation. A word spoken by many within the Imperium, but they have no true comprehension of
its meaning. To them, anyone who does not blindly follow the will of the False Emperor is damned –
yet the Emperor is silent, and few of those who claim to do his bidding would actually find him
agreeing with their deeds. Are all citizens of the Imperium damned, then ?"
- on the Imperium
"Countless souls have been claimed by Chaos through the thirst for revenge. The Imperium fosters
hatred within its warriors, encouraging it, holding it as holy. Through such folly are the ranks of
Khorne's servants replenished, when vengeance becomes more important than any other reason for
fighting."
- on Khornate worshippers
"Ambition is strong in them. For countless generations, only the most devious and ruthless have
been able to survive their internecine wars, breeding a caste of pitiless lords who watch over their
domain with cold, paranoid gazes. Such fertile ground for the Changer of Ways ..."
- on the nobility of a hive-world
"From the moment he first turned from Terra, he belonged to Chaos. He might have thought
otherwise at the time, but his fate was sealed – all that remained to see was how exactly he would
embrace it. When he laid dying, his body torn apart, he opened his soul to the Dark Gods, and made
a pact with them – giving the souls of all those fighting under his banner in return for his life."
- on Huron Blackheart
"First, a cough. Then the fever starts, but it is only slight, and the carrier needs to work or he will lose
his job. Co-workers, family members, even people crossed in the street are infected, and the cycle
repeats until the threshold decreed by the God of Life and Death is reached. Then the true
symptoms appear, and quarantine quickly follow. The death toll increases, and all the despair and
disease thins the veil, until ..."
- on the Soulblight, one of the seven-hundred seventy-seven favoured plagues of Nurgle
"Their rebellion was justified – the Governor had ordered the slaughter of millions in his mad desire
to purge his people of certain traits that he regarded as undesirable. But the astropathic message
the Imperium received only spoke of rebellion and genocide, without any details. And so the
response of the God-Emperor came in the form of a hundred ships raining death upon those who
had been deemed 'heretics' without any form of trial or investigation ..."
- on a world sentenced to Exterminatus for rebellions
"He saved a thousand lives, working in the underhive. Gang leaders whose souls were as black as
the depths in which they lived respected him, and left him untouched by their constant struggle for
supremacy. Then one day, a sick man came to his office, begging for help ..."
- on a mortal champion of Nurgle
"They offer prayers and sacrifices, build wondrous temples and grand works of art honouring the
Dark Prince, and wonder why their pleas go unanswered. The silence of their god is driving them
mad – but the sound of their screams is the most pleasant of melodies to Slaanesh' ears."
- on a cult of Slaanesh
"His collection of these artefacts began by chance, when he found an old chest in one of his family's
estates. Soon, it became all he could think of, and he brought his bloodline to financial ruin to fuel
his obsession – and when gold ran out, he turned to other, darker means of acquisition ..."
- on a Chaos cultist
"They are agents of terror. It is not death that walks alongside them, nor any of the Four. Instead,
they spread fear around them, feeding upon it, growing stronger as they revel in the emotional
turmoil they inspire. The daemons born of their deeds pay allegiance to no God, for Horror does not
lie in any of their dominion."
- on the Night Lords
"Snakes, hiding from view even for the lords of the Crystal Labyrinth. Their minds are barred by such
walls that even they know not what truly lies beyond. The weight of a thousand and one secrets has
crushed them, and the might that was once theirs is now but a pale reflection of the shadow they
cast still."
- on the Alpha Legion
"The rewards bestowed by the Gods rarely make sense to those who receive them. Remember,
however, that time has no meaning in the Warp, and your lord might reward or punish you for
something you haven't yet accomplished."
"In their blind devotion to the False Emperor, they believe themselves immune to the touch of
Chaos. There is some truth to that belief – but madness can lead into damnation just as well as
outright corruption ..."
- on the Adepta Sororitas
"He made the Imperium bleed more than any Champion of Chaos had since the days of Horus
himself. And yet, in the end, his soul did not belong to any of the Four. When he died, it burned in
the flames of the Anathema's wrath, annihilated from existence more completely than anything the
Dark Gods could achieve."
- on Goge Vandire
"He fought on the walls of the Imperial Palace, against the sons of Dorn. For ten thousand years, his
forces have plagued the Imperium, causing billions of deaths and setting dozens of worlds aflame.
Yet in the end, his own demise will go unremarked and unmourned ..."
- on a Space Marine Chaos Lord
"Brought low by blades and bolter, his domain scoured by fire to purge any trace of his heretical
reign. And yet, in the dark places, there are still some who whisper his name, praying for his
return ..."
- on Constantinus the Liberator
"There is power yet in the Golden Throne, and as long as its dreadful machinery remains in motion,
the will of the Anathema is spread across the stars, shattered into a hundred thousand fragments.
And when enough of these fragments are gathered within one receptacle ..."
- on Imperial Saints
"Let the servants of Ruin gather in their millions ! Let a hundred worlds cry out in fear and despair as
the gates of hell open wide ! Let the damned and their lords rejoice and weep, for the time has come
once more for a Champion of the Gods to rise high the banner of Chaos !"
- on a Black Crusade
"They gather at his feet and listen to his words, convinced he speaks with the False Emperor's
voice. But none of them know of the young men and women whose mutilated bodies he hides in the
catacombs beneath his church ..."
- on an Imperial priest
"No matter how mighty they are, even the greatest Champions of Chaos cannot survive in this
galaxy alone. So they gather around the strongest of them, seeing all others as tools to use in their
own advancement on the Path to Glory and being used in turn. Alliances of conveniance, nothing
more ... But even so, they are safer than alone."
- on Chaos warbands
"Their descent is inevitable. Faced with the countless horrors of the galaxy, knowing that their every
effort can only delay the inevitable at best, they turn to anything for power. Their minds are stronger
than most, and it takes longer for them to succumb – but if they do not die, they inevitably do.
Nothing can stop the touch of Chaos forever."
- on Radical Inquisitors
"They hold many secrets, and their lords live every day in dread of their ancient sins being revealed.
They do not realize that within the Eye, every scion of the Nine Legions know of the First's breaking,
and laugh every time the Angels betray their allies to hide the evidence of their past treachery."
- on the Dark Angels
"Blades of exquisite facture, crafted from the blood and flesh of innocents made killers. But any
weapon is only as good as the hand wielding it – and it has been a long time since the Lords of
Terra had any worth left in them ..."
- on the Officio Assassinorum
"They are a plague upon the galaxy, a vicious corruption of life into madness and annihilation. Even
the most depraved of the Gods' servants looks upon them in horror and disgust, and the idea of
being gene-tainted by their repulsive kiss is a fate even the lords of the Legions fear."
- on genestealers
"It began with a gathering of intellectuals, seeking to share their knowledge in their respective fields.
Then one of them discovered the grimoire, and thought his colleagues would be able to help him
decipher its contents. Three weeks later, half of the circle was dead, and the other half knelt before
the icon of the Architect of Fate."
- on a Tzeentchian cult
"It was betrayal that led them to this point. On a world of ashen deserts and cities of glass, they were
abandoned by their allies and left to bleed against the Great Beast. Those who survived swore that
they would have vengeance, and three generations later, they took it upon the descendants of their
betrayers, dooming a world in the process."
- on a renegade Imperial Guard Regiment
"They dug deep, searching the treasures of their forebears. They believed that their ancestors were
noble heroes, and sought to reclaim the glory of the past – but when they discovered the archives
and learned the truth of their bloodline's deeds, they went mad, and killed one another in their
desperation to escape this infernal revelation ..."
- on an Imperial noble family
"They preach moderation, and feast while their flock starves. They speak of humility, and clad
themselves in the finest robes and wear jeweled rings. And they have the gall to call the servants of
Chaos mad ?"
- on the Ecclesiarchy
"They are as vital to the Imperium as they are feared. In an empire built upon the hatred of anything
not purely human, they stand as proof of the False Emperor's hypocrisy. They peer beyond the veil,
and their flesh twists in return, their soul slowing falling to pieces as each journey through the
Empyrean piles up yet more torment upon their minds ... and in the end, death and madness are all
that await them."
- on Navigators
"They shape flesh to their own vision, bending bones and twisting muscle. So deep is their
knowledge of life and death that they can even return their fallen brethren from the abyss, tearing
their souls from the embrace of the Youngest God. Yet every such resurrection carries a heavy
price, and Slaanesh only lets go of his children because he knows their return is inevitable."
- on the Dark Eldar haemonculi
"Those who pushed them into damnation thought to make them slaves, pawns in their own games of
fate. But they proved stronger than expected, and seized the reins of their destiny back. Now their
path is theirs to decide once more – but the voices will always drive them to bloodshed ..."
- on the Crimson Slaughter
"Each of the Four has a favored Champion, risen from the ranks of his chosen Legion to become the
herald of his will. Yet this one is both chained to Tzeentch's will tighter than any of his peers, and
more free of his actions than any other scion of Chaos. Truly a paradox worthy of the Architect of
Fate ..."
- on Ahzek Ahriman
"The Imperium's claim of ruling over the galaxy is, and has always been, a lie. Even at its greatest, it
controlled but a fraction of space. In the wilderness, far from the light of the Astronomican, there lie
entire empires, of darkness and alien, rising and falling without ever knowing of Mankind."
- on the galaxy
"The light is a lie, a beacon of agony tearing into the afterlife with the bitter fury of a denied godling.
There is nothing but the darkness, and the flame produced by the burning souls of a thousand daily
human sacrifices !"
- on the Astronomican
"They were always the accursed. When they broke from the chains of the False Emperor, poisoned
knowledge and unwanted gifts slowly eroded their resistance to corruption. And how they resisted !
For seven years did their lord deny the God of Life and Death his due. But he too fell in the end, and
rose anew as a prince of pestilence and decay."
- on the Fourteenth Legion
"The legacy of an ancient foe, diluted through a hundred thousand generations. Yet still they remain
a threat to the servants of Chaos, but the ignorance of the Imperium will ever prevent them from
becoming the terrible weapons they were intended to be."
- on blanks and Pariahs
"When the storm rages across the galaxy, when the light of the Astronomican is snuffed, when the
walls of the Imperium collapse and the hordes of the alien pour onto the worlds of Mankind ... Who
will have the strength to survive then ?"
- on the Imperium and Chaos
"They build monuments to their champions and heroes, while their shadowy lords burn any archive
of past defeats and shame. To even look to the past is to invite punishment on the chance that you
learned something proscribed. The Imperium refuses to learn from its past – and thus its future is
doomed."
- on the Imperium
"He howls and laugh and cry, but words of dark and forbidden knowledge do find their way in
between the flows of madness. All who hear him scream must bear the weight of his unhallowed
truths, or be bent by the power it contains."
- on a mad prophet
"He is noble and proud, carrying out the Emperor's Will. Of the millions who embrace this foolish
delusion, he is among those closest to the Anathema's true ideals. And yet he does not know that,
ten generations ago, one of his ancestors carried mutant blood ..."
- on an Imperial Hero
"Proofs of worthiness, bestowed upon those champions who earned them through deeds of blood
and pain; runes through which the power of the Warp bleeds into reality and twists the bearer's body
into a reflection of his soul ... or slave brands, used by the Dark Gods to indicate their ownership
over chattel ?"
- on Chaos Marks
"Amidst the ruins left by the conquering legions of the Astra Militarum, he held the body of his wife
and children. The man he was died that day, and in his place rose the champion of Chaos that now
walks the galaxy in his body, staring at the Imperium with eternal hatred."
- on a champion of the Lost and the Damned
"This relic was once proudly carried into battle by the scions of the Twelfth Legion in the battles of
the Great Crusade. When their gene-sire was discovered, it was modified to reflect their new
emblem, and it has followed them through all the changes that followed – until it became what is
now, a construct of spiked metal and impaled skulls, radiating with the power of the Blood God ..."
- on an Icon of Khorne
"The Inquisitor believed his wound to be only superficial, even though it had been inflicted by the
blade of Prince of the Warp. Now his soul can only weep in horror as his body burns world after
world, and the daemon that inhabits it forces him to watch every atrocity it commits using his name
and face ..."
- on a possessed Inquisitor
"Hers was a simple life, harvesting the crops that grew all year long on her peaceful planet. It was
her misfortune that, when the stone fell from the sky, she was the first who found it, the first who
touched it, the first it consumed. Now she reaps lives, and brings an harvest of skulls to her master."
- on a champion of Khorne
"The truth of their heritage is buried deep, beneath layers of secrecy and shame, to the point that
none living even remember it. And yet, there are those who suspect it, their minds bearing the
weight of millennia-old knowledge. No matter how far they run, they are the sons of the Raven, and
the Raven knows his own ..."
- on the Blood Ravens
"Their lord called out for the truth, as his mind reeled from countless atrocities. He wanted to know
the sinner from the innocent, but Tzeentch showed him and his brother the truth : that there is no
innocence, and that all living beings are tainted by lies."
- on the Scourged
"He once served the machine, appeasing it through words and ritual. Now the machine serves his
will, bound to his service by oaths of blood, torturous rites, and offerings of flesh and souls. He has
gained much power from this – but the beasts of iron he commands ever thirst for his blood ..."
- on a Warpsmith
"Do they truly believe that a burial on ground touched by a man who died thousands of years ago
will protect their souls from the Warp ? Fools, all of them. The dead know no more peace than the
living : only torment is eternal."
- on a cemetery world
"His lord took him from a citadel built of the bones of his kin, and turned him into a weapon of
vengeance against those who had tormented him. But no matter how much he struggles, his soul
still bears the mark of his birth ..."
- on an Acolyte from a daemon world
"That weapon has killed its last three owners. The first died when it jammed and his foe cut off his
head. The second died when his shot ricocheted and ended up in his heart. The third ... Let us not
talk about what happened to him."
- on a bolter
"What is a name, but a label placed upon a being, a way to distinguish him from others ? But mortals
have other things separating them from the rest of the universe – appearances, species, matter.
Daemons have none of those in the Warp, and thus names are the only thing that truly defines
them. Is it any wonder then that few can bear to hear them ?"
- on the names of daemons
"The Warp knows your deepest, darkest desires, those you wouldn't admit having even to yourself.
When it reaches to you and you recoil in horror, know that what you see is truly what lies within you.
What it offers is what you truly long for."
- on the nature of the Warp
"They gathered together to extoll the virtues of honor, or strength and courage. Then, they started to
preach that these virtues could only be obtained on the battlefield. Then the arena opened, and the
first drops of blood were spilled. Things only escalated from there ..."
- on a cult of Khorne
"They are born to die, each and every one of them. Their lives have no meaning besides holding
back the tides of darkness just a little longer. But while the Imperium may harness them to its
service, they are still children of the Eye. One day the foul relics that keep their world from the gods'
embrace will shatter, and then ..."
- on Cadians
"They are the last legacy of the Anathema, carrying a shred of his might into the current age. Each
one of them is daubed in the blood of the thousands of innocents who had to die so that he might
fight, and they do not even realize that their struggle only makes Chaos stronger ..."
- on the Grey Knights
"A grave threat to all, even the Dark Gods themselves. Their soulless minds could wipe the galaxy
clean of life, and usher in an age of eternal stillness. There is a reason the Anathema forbade it to
his slaves, but the gods forbid nothing – they only force their scions to face the consequences of
their own folly ..."
- on Abominable Intelligences
"Their nobility is a lie; their perfection, an illusion. Those among them who cling to their Primarch's
writings as if they were holy words insult his memory with their every breath, while those who truly
embrace his teachings are rejected as dangerous deviants. In the end, they are nothing more than a
joke to amuse the Dark Gods."
- on the Ultramarines
"To destroy a mortal, you need only give him freedom. In his quest to find his new limits, he will
almost assuredly bring doom upon himself – and if he does not, the God of Change will have
something new to watch."
- on mortals and Tzeentch
"The birth of the Youngest God brought forth this wondrous and terrible realm, drowning the heart of
a proud empire in tides of blood. Now it is a kingdom unlike any others, where lords of Chaos rule
over billions and wage unending war upon one another, beyond the reach of those they hate most."
- on the Eye of Terror
"Ancient words of power are etched upon the metal, each rune inscribed with the last drop of blood
from a different sacrifice. It sings with their dying cries, and craves vengeance against any who dare
wield it."
- on a daemon blade
"As the inevitable doom of their kin draws near, the Eldar are sinking to ever-greater depths to delay
it. Now even the dead, those they swore to protect from the god they created, are roused from their
slumber to make war in the name of the living."
- on the Eldar Ghost Warriors
"An idiot behemoth, wandering blindly across the ages, crushing countless lives under its mindless,
pointless thread. It is the incarnation of everything the Sacrificed King feared when he first turned
against the Anathema – an instrument to crush the spirit of Mankind in the foolish hope that it will
keep Chaos at bay."
- on the Adeptus Administratum
"They think themselves the equals of their ancestors, true heirs to the might that once ruled the
galaxy. In truth, they are nothing more than the toys of Slaanesh, living at his leisure in order to
inflict more pain upon the galaxy."
- on the Dark Eldar
"He has set aflame a dozen worlds to hide the evidence of his dealings with the servants of
Tzeentch, bound six daemonhosts to his service, unleashed a daemonic incursion, and murdered
three of his colleagues in cold blood. Yet still he believes to be doing the work of the False
Emperor."
- on a Renegade Inquisitor
"He harvests the gene-seed of his fallen brothers so that it might be used to create the next
generation. But he isn't aware of the taint slowly spreading down his bloodline, until the day when
those who rise from his surgeries are Space Marines no longer ..."
- on an Apothecary from a Chapter of the Cursed Founding
"At first, his transgressions were committed for their own sake – the thrill of flouting Imperial law
gave his jaded soul pleasure. To him, the relic wasn't any different from a hundred similar purchases
he had made – until it started talking to him in his dreams ..."
- on a highborn heretic
"Beautiful, is it not ? But the stone was taken from a mountain where a thousand warriors died
during the Heresy, and the chisel that carved it was made from a Blood Angel's sharpened bone. It
resonates with the cries of dead heroes, and drive all who remain near it to madness."
- on a bust of a Space Marine
"When the voice began to whisper to her, she ignored it as merely the product of her subconscious.
Then one day, she woke up covered in blood, and several thugs from her neighborhood were found
dismembered. She started to listen to the voice after that, fearfully and hatefully. And after six years,
finally, the voice in the back was hers, and the one who had whispered was in control ..."
- on a possessed woman
"They skulk in the shadows, striking and retreating, leaving only corpses in their wake. Try as they
might to cloak their nature in nobility and duty, they are all predators at heart, and the Warp knows it.
Before the end, when their lost father returns, they will know it too ..."
- on the Raven Guard
"He is something of a contradiction. Through his deeds, he has risen to become the favored servant
of Nurgle, but at the same time, the fact that he bowed to the Plague God so easily will always mark
him as inferior to his gene-sire, who endured the temptations of Nurgle for seven years before one
final treachery pushed him over the edge of the abyss."
- on Thyphus
"A world dies so that the Imperium may live – such is the reasoning behind these tremendous acts.
And yet, every time an Inquisitor sentences a planet to death, he comes closer to Chaos – whether
he admits it or not. For all torment feeds the Dark Gods, and what greater torment is there that the
Armageddon ?"
- on Exterminatus
"An extension of the Great Game, one of thousands. With the threat of the Anathema's vision
removed, the use of the Nine Legions had faded, and so the gods turned once more against each
other, not caring if their pawns were destroyed in the process. In the end, all four chosen Legions
came close to extinction, but their divine masters refused to let them pass into true oblivion."
- on the Legion Wars
"The crew never knew that their doom began with a single soul : a crew member of the lower decks,
who had started to hear voices after a minute flicker in the Geller Field. Now they are part of the ship
they sailed, their mouths screaming forevermore as the daemon feeds upon their torment ..."
- on a daemonship
"It beats with an ancient power, forged into the heart of a star before Mankind was born. Within it lies
the savagery and nobility of the Soul-broken at their apex – before their folly brought forth the birth
of the Youngest God. Now, even the strongest of their kind would struggle to master its power
without it consuming them ..."
- on an Eldar relic weapon
"He served his master loyally for thirty years, fighting at his side on a hundred worlds and saving his
life a dozen times. But in the end, the whispers and promises proved too much for him to bear, and
he murdered his master in his sleep in exchange for power."
- on a renegade Acolyte of the Ordo Malleus
"Their order was brought together in one of the darkest hours, a desperate measure that went
against the decrees of Guilliman and was to be dissolved as soon as the danger had passed. Yet
they endure to this day, their very existence defying these ancient laws, while xenos relics and
forbidden lore pile up in their vaults, untouched."
- on the Deathwatch
"He stood at his Primarch's side on that fateful night, when the Dark Prince reached to the children
of the Anathema through the soul of a deluded artist. His nobility died then, replaced with an
obsession for the sounds of battle and destruction, as the poison of Slaanesh ran through his ears
and into his soul."
- on a Noise Marine
"There is a curse lying upon all who bear their emblem, born from the unholy pact their lord made to
save his life. No matter by which circumstances they became renegades, the curse will eat away at
their soul, consuming what remains of their honor and sanity until they become the equals in
depravity to those who have been serving Chaos for ten thousand years."
- on the Red Corsairs
"He believes that his work is the key to creating the pinnacle of human achievement, and won't let
anything turn him from that path. The fact that for every perfect specimen he crafts, a dozen
monsters are spawned by his gene-vaults is considered a minor detail in his quest."
- on a heretek working on Replica technology and genetic alterations
"The brain tissue that form this vehicle's machine-spirit was cloned and grown on Mars ten thousand
years ago. When its masters brought it with them into the Eye of Terror, that spirit became tainted as
the brain-flesh mutated, until one of the Neverborn slipped inside. Three sons of Angron died that
day – yet still their brothers use it in battle ..."
- on a Chaos-tainted Land Raider
"This monument has stood on this world for ten thousand years. The people make offerings to it,
praying for their Corpse-Emperor's protection. But none of them know that the markings at its base,
erased long ago by the elements, actually praised the Seventeenth Legion, and predicted its
return ..."
- on the statue of a Space Marine on an Imperial world
"So many ways to be cast aside, so many sins to avoid ... The Imperium crafts its heretics with the
same care an artisan brings to his work, and with the speed of a manufactorium. Such is the reason
why the Gods have allowed it to stand for so long – it serves them better as it is than as a flaming
ruin."
- on the Imperium
"It is not fear that truly breaks a world when the legions of Chaos descend upon it. Nor is death or
madness or pain. In the end, what truly brings a world in the clutches of the Dark Gods is when its
people give up, when they no longer believe they can be saved. Then the world belongs to Chaos
forever."
- on Chaos invasions
"They lost more than their honor when they turned. Their flesh is twisted, their minds warped, their
hatred consumes them, but all those are nothing compared to the true cost of their betrayal : that
they are forever alone, with no true brother at their side. In turning, they have forsaken the one thing
the Anathema gave them : brotherhood."
- on renegade Marines
"They came to his world as the ancients had foretold they would, on the day when the sky went
black in the middle of the day. They hunted the sons of the tribes amidst the old ruins, and he
managed to escape them until the light returned ... only to be given to them by his family when he
returned to his village. Their betrayal broke him, and through pain and trial, they reforged him into
one of them."
- on a Night Lord
"They were once dedicated to spreading the Emperor's light, by teaching others how His hand was
in all things and directed their lives to the better. But when their haven was burned down and two
thirds of their numbers excruciated by an Inquisitor who believed them to be followers of Tzeentch,
they learned the truth of the Emperor's benevolence."
- on a cult of Malefic Scholars
"Any desires a mortal mind can conceive, and many it cannot, might be granted by the powers of the
Warp. But all of them come at a price, and while it is always a price that can be paid, it is rarely one
that would be readily agreed to, if it was fully known at the moment of the contract ..."
- on Dark Pacts
"Of how many loyal servants of the Emperor has he ordered the death ? In his burning desire to
keep his Chapter's shame a secret, he has compounded it a hundred times and more. Even the one
he holds prisoner at the core of the Rock has less Imperial blood on his hands than him ..."
- on Azrael, Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels
"Shadows between worlds, left behind by those of ancient blood ... Once the streets of an empire
that reached from one end of the galaxy to the other – now a broken remnant haunted by the spawn
of its unworthy heirs."
- on the Webway
"They celebrate his sacrifice every year, though few truly know the circumstances of his demise, and
even fewer know of the darkness that lurked in his heart. If things had been different, perhaps he
would have made a truly powerful servant of the Ruinous Powers ..."
- on Sanguinius
"The leader of this host rules by virtue of his might, and of the infernal pacts he had made with his
brethren. But even those chains are tenuous indeed, and the slightest hint of weakness will cause
his followers to turn on him – such is the way of Chaos ..."
- on a daemonic armada
"Though all Neverborn chaff at being contained within the Materium, this incarnation is perhaps the
one they would most readily accept. The power to rend worlds apart and savor the agonies of
billions at a time is an incentive that could tempt even the mightiest of daemons."
- on a daemonship
"When the crimson lords arrived, he thought that they could be negotiated with. He offered them his
aid in their invasion in return for being spared, and at first they appeared to accept. By the time he
realized the true price of their indulgence, it was too late to turn back, and the marks on his chest
would never truly heal ..."
- on a Chaos cultist
"Vestiges of past civilizations and portents of dooms yet to come ... They are one of the gifts of the
Warp to the galaxy, and a mean by which horrors can traverse its length and breadth. But for some
who manage to master them, they make some of the most powerful weapons to have ever
existed ..."
- on Space Hulks
"Relics of an age that has passed but refuses to die, all of them. They are but shadows of the gods
they claim to serve, and if their pitiful struggle wasn't so amusing, She-Who-Thirsts would have
destroyed them long ago. In time, when the despair of her wayward children tempts her more than
their false hope, perhaps she will ..."
- on the Phoenix Lords
"They cling to a false hope, and research lore they cannot hope to comprehend in the hope of
accomplishing something they cannot truly imagine. Their goal is a lie, but should they manage to
actually gather enough knowledge to make the attempt ... oh, how the gods would laugh !"
- on the Thorian Inquisitors
"Once, he was the mightiest of the Gods' servants, drawing on their power to increase his own. But
in time, they turned from him, for the Gods are ever fickle, and choose new champions, which they
wouldn't need share with their kin. He still hopes to one day reclaim his position of ascendancy –
little realising that his machinations are nothing more than pantomimes to amuse his cruel
masters ..."
- on Be'lakor
"They had served their purpose, and so they were cast aside. Many were broken, and died under
the blades of their vengeful cousins, desperate to find someone to blame for their failures. But those
who survived found new purpose and power, and rose once more as part of something greater."
- on the Sons of Horus
"Those who live upon these fertile worlds are often derided by their self-proclaimed betters as
ignorant peasants. But without their toil, the Imperium would starve, and the pretense of civilization
would be wiped away in a matter of days, leaving only anarchy and destruction."
- on agri-worlds
"No one in his family has seen the light of a star in three hundred years. He was born to serve the
role his father served before him, and his grandfather before him, and so one for a dozen
generations – never knowing the power cables they maintain are connected to a broken generator."
- on a voidborn
"An epoch of terrible wonders of horrors beyond imagining. No one will ever know how close the
galaxy truly was from total destruction during these times, before the Fall of the Eldar shattered the
first Human Empire into a million fragments, too weak to hold to the power that was once theirs."
- on the Dark Age of Technology
"Darkness came upon this world in the form of a swarm of flies so vast it bloated out the sun. Each
of these creatures had been born in the Garden of Nurgle, and each carried a single seed of
disease, carefully grown by the keepers of this dreadful realm. They died by the billion from the
moment they entered the Materium, but from their corpses sprang new, terrible life, and this planet
was lost ..."
- on a daemon world
"He was a blacksmith once. By his hands were forged the swords that the nobility of his world used
to duel – each one a masterpiece worth a king's ransom. But eventually, he poured too much of
himself into his work, and it consumed him, until his quest for the perfect blade caught the attention
of the Dark Prince himself ..."
- on a Chaos blacksmith dedicated to Slaanesh
"Her laughter drove dozens of men to fighting one another in the hope of possessing her. For five
years, she toyed with her aspirants, discarding them one after the other like spent toys. Then one of
them made a pact with a scion of the Warp, offering everything he had if only she would be his. Now
she laughs no more ..."
- on the soul of a noble lady, trapped within a pendant
"He was born a cripple, wounded in his mother's womb by his father's beatings. In their ignorance,
they cast him away, believing him to be a mutant, and his mother – the only human to ever show
him love – died of hunger in the wild. When he returned, he was a cripple still, and the accusation
they had wrongfully heaped upon him had become reality ..."
- on a human Sorcerer of Tzeentch
"He ordered the destruction of his homeworld when he discovered on it a conspiracy of Chaos
worshipers. From orbit, he watched as the cyclonic torpedoes ripped it apart, from the first shot until
the final destruction. In all that time, he didn't shed a single tear. And they call us monsters ..."
- on an Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus
"They burned it to the ground, and slaughtered every single life form on its surface or hiding beneath
it. Then, they dressed their banners upon the ashes and proclaimed themselves victor. But deep
inside, they know the truth – they have lost just as much as the ones they claim to have defeated ..."
- on Colchis, homeworld of the Word Bearers
"When darkness comes and the light of the sun is gone, they rise from their hidden places to prey
upon the livings. There are many strains of this scourge – some created by the Gods in a moment's
fancy, others born of an unholy union of human and xenos genetics. All share their nature if
predators, and the accursed thirst that plague their every moment."
- on vampyres
"On the last world he conquered, he built a tower out of the living bodies of his prisoners, and
commanded his sorcerers to bind the souls of the unfortunate to their bones so that not even death
would end their torment. When the Imperium arrive and cast it down, they only scattered the
fragments – the world is now accursed, haunted by the voices of a billion tormented ghosts ..."
- on a Slaaneshi warlord
"There can never be peace. In this, the Imperium and the Dark Gods are in accord. Such is the
nature of our universe, the cruelty written into the very fabric of the cosmos, that there will never be
an end to conflict, to war, to torment."
- on the galaxy
"Reflections of their creator, shards of his essence cast into new but familiar form. Are they even
individuals, or only avatars of their creator ? No one knows but they and their maker, and who would
believe the words of the Lord of Flies ?
- on the Great Unclean Ones
"For thirty years, he preached the divinity of the Emperor, His benevolence and His omniscience.
Then he saw the killing fields of the nearby system, walked amidst the dead and the dying of the
Imperial Guard. He tore out his eyes the next day, and turned against the god he had worshipped all
of his life as soon as he woke up from the pain-induced coma."
- on a renegade priest of the Ecclesiarchy
"It began as a collection of drawings, traced by a man who suffered from infernal visions whenever
he slept. But after changing hands several times and being baptised with blood and ritual, it gained a
mind of its own, sinister and malevolent. The torment of its author clings to it still, eager to be
inflicted upon others foolish enough to attempt to unravel its secrets ..."
- on a Chaos grimoire
"The screams will never stop. They will echo on this world long after the last soul to have ever heard
them with their ears rather than their minds is dead, and the Warp around it will burn forever with the
agony that created them. Truly, the sons of the Eighth are masters of their art."
- on a world brought to ruin by the Night Lords
"To have looked into the heart of evil, the very cauldron of madness, and emerge unscathed ... That
is something no one can ever achieve. No matter how pure, no matter how strong, even the simple
knowledge of the Dark Gods leaves a mark. To believe otherwise is to embrace self-delusion, and
eventually doom."
- on Chaos
"Money is meaningless to the servants of Ruin. Those who are strong enough take what they want,
and the others must either steal or barter, offering what they already have in return for what they
desire. Such is the relationship between the Gods and their own champions, and so it must be the
same between their other followers if they are ever to rise higher in their eyes."
- on Chaotic society
"To lead a warband on the Path to Glory is to give those who flock to your banner the chance to
earn the favor of the gods, while making sure none of them can surpass you. It is to unite beings
who are by nature selfish and whose desires are mutually exclusive. It is to be a slave and a lord at
once, bound to follow the Path to any of its ends ..."
"This weapon was used for three centuries by the royal executioners. Thousands of heads have
been taken by its blade, until it had shed so much blood that it gained its own mind. Soon, stories
began to spread in the kingdom of a ruthless head hunter, and when the knights found and slew the
rogue executioner, the axe cut a hole in reality and escaped, to continue its rampage in the hands of
another pawn ..."
- on a daemon axe
"Gatherings of cutthroats and betrayers, each and every one. No honor to be found there, only
naked ambition and ever-growing soul-thirst, turning them against one another in the hope of
claiming the best morsels of the feast. All in the hope of delaying the inevitable, all the while claiming
that they are masters of their own destiny ... Such cruel and delicious irony."
- on the Kabals of the Dark Eldar
"It began with a rumour : a tale spoken by a drunkard that the Governor had killed his brother.
Completely untrue : the man had killed himself after a lifetime spent at the bottom of a bottle. But the
tale spread, and grew, until everyone in the hive believed their lord slaughtered virgins and drank
the blood of innocents. They stormed his palace, and torn him apart, only for all their misplaced
hatred and bloodlust to open a portal to the realm of Khorne ..."
- on a daemonic incursion
"He fought the monsters that preyed upon his people for ten years, using every tool at his disposal.
Thousands owed him their lives, saved from their daemonic predators by his blade and strange
powers. But when the one who had granted him his abilities came to collect his due, he vanished
overnight, taken to fight in the Great Game as the slave of the Neverborn lord who had empowered
him as a child ..."
- on a warrior trapped into service to a daemon by a Dark Pact
"On the frontier, far from the eyes of the rest of the Imperium, she and her crew fought the enemies
of Mankind the blackness of the void. Seventeen enemy crafts were destroyed by her proud vessel,
saving countless lives deeper in the empire. But she grew used to the freedom, to the power she
had far from superior authority. When the Geller field flickered on a trip back to base, she acted on
her ambitions, and her crew, loyally devoted to her, obeyed her command ..."
- on a renegade Navy Captain
"The hunger of the daemon cannot be sated, no matter how many souls it devours or how much
torment it inflicts. Hunger is the core of its being, emptiness the truth of its nature. And the gods are
no more than the greatest of all daemons ..."
- on Chaos
"The laws of time and space have no meaning on this world. It is trapped in an endless cycle of
death and rebirth, with the same events replaying over and again, with only minute changes every
iteration. Civilizations rise and fall, wars are fought and lost, and all of it feeds the daemon lurking
within the planet's hollow core ..."
- on a daemon world
"They take men and women and they cut them apart, removing their flesh and bone and replacing
them with metal and cable. They open up their skulls and dabble with their brains, removing free will
and replacing it with unquestioned obedience. With deeds such as this being common, is it any
wonder so many are susceptible to the whispers of Chaos ?"
- on the Adeptus Mechanicus and its skitarii warriors
"They play their games against the servants of the other infernal courts, and against each other as
well. All are ancient beings of unfathomable power, capable of bending the fate of a world with a
flicker of thought. And yet, they are all naught but pawns of their master, slaves to his unpredictable
will ..."
- on the Lords of Change
"Once, these reptiles were masters of an empire that spanned a dozen Sectors. A hundred lesser
species lived in fear of their hunger, toiling endlessly to build their palaces and voidships. Then the
Eldar came, and cast their legacy into the dust, until even the survivors had forgotten who they had
once been."
- on the Sslyth
"The Gods cannot touch them, yet they cast a light in the Warp. They are alien to Man, yet the
Imperium tolerates their existence. Their brains are akin to the apes of Old Earth, and yet they are
capable of technological feats that no other species in the galaxy can match. What are they ?! What
are they ?!"
- on the jokaero
"They cling to the promise of their creator, blindly believing his words to be true. But they are wrong.
In the end, no matter how much of their humanity was cut away, no matter how many mantras are
implanted in their minds, they can still know fear, each and every single one of them ..."
- on Space Marines
"The power of Chaos twists all who walk within its realms until their aspect matches the truth of their
souls. For those who lost their bodies and were entombed in these ancient war-machines, keeping
hold of sanity is even more difficult than for the other Slaves to Darkness – and those who fail only
have an existence of mindless slaughter ahead of them ..."
- on Hellbrutes
"They seek to preserve the bonds they broke when they turned against the Imperium, recreating
them through ritual and sorcery to prevent brother from turning against brother. A fool's errand,
despite all the efforts they invested in it – Chaos owns them, and it will find a way to cull the
weaklings from its servants ..."
- on the Blood Gorgons
"Machine and blood flowing together, endlessly reshaping to match the dark patterns of their host's
warped thoughts ... A union unholy and corrupt, yet granting such immense power to the one it
afflicts. Some reject it, others embrace it as a blessing – but in the end, all sons of the Fourth shall
receive the gifts their bloodline earns them ..."
- on the Obliterator virus
"Gone are the warriors they once were, replaced by hunters consumed by the need to kill and
possessed of the powers of the Warp. Nowhere is safe from their reach, for they walk the dark paths
in between planes, drawn to their prey by the scent of a doom yet unfulfilled ..."
- on Warp Talons
"An ancient realm of horrors, hidden away from the claws of She-Who-Thirsts in a slip between
realities. But no matter how far they run, the soul-broken cannot escape the darkness within their
own souls, and their dominion is more in Her grasp than even the daemon worlds claimed by Her
princelings ..."
- on Commoragh
"Conspiracies ten thousand years old have waged war against one another within these halls. The
fate of worlds none of the participants had ever seen was decided in the meeting rooms, and the
doom of billions orchestrated in these shadowy alcoves. The Great Mutator would approve."
- on an Inquisitorial Sector fortress
"They shout of courage, honor, devotion and sacrifice. They preach of the power of hatred, pushing
their brothers forward through sheer abhorrence. Few are vulnerable to the lures of Chaos, but
those who do succumb make for some of the best servants of Ruin ..."
- on Space Marine Chaplains
"... There is power in that one. He is ancient, not as much as others of his kin, but enough that his
continued existence defies the Youngest God with every breath. His will is powerful beyond the
understanding of most sentient beings, his cruelty the stuff of legend – yet the true danger he poses
to his foes lies in the fact that there is nothing he won't do in order to claim victory."
- on Asdrubael Vect
"They could be some of the greatest foes of the Dark Gods. But their oaths bind them to an
enthroned corpse, away from the galaxy, in a place that hasn't been truly threatened in millennia.
The best warriors of the Imperium, and they can do nothing. How deeply symbolic ..."
- on the Custodes
"They take upon themselves the sins and terrors of others, trying to save them from the madness
that rages all around them. But who relieves their minds in turn ? Their god is silent and dead, and
their faith is based on hatred, not salvation. In the end, their souls belong to ruin, not out of any deed
of their own, but because they have seen and heard too much ..."
- on confessors in the Imperial Guard
"They struggle against the taint of their bloodline, and fight the madness that echoes into their soul.
Through this, they grow stronger – but are also inevitably dragged down into insanity, for only death
can release them from the twin curses that are their legacy. The gods will never allow them to die
out, though – they take far too much amusement in their fate ..."
- on the Blood Angels
"They worship the strength of the machine and see the flesh as weak. They look down upon humans
are flawed and ignorant, and kill their own emotions so that they will be more efficient warriors. All
this, they do because they believe their weakness resulted in the death of their Primarch. If only he
could see them now, his suffering would please the Dark Gods even more than his death at his
brother's hand did ..."
- on the Iron Hands
"They are ancient, a reflection of a power that, in another realm, was among the greatest enemies of
Chaos. Though they lack the power of these illustrious forebears, they might yet rise, and become a
true threat to the inevitable dominion of the Dark Gods over the galaxy ..."
- on the Demiurge
"Criminals, exiles, dissidents ... All find their way here, cast out by those in power in their
homeworlds. There they rot, hidden away from the eyes of the Imperium, sentenced to a slow death
by those without the courage to kill them with their own hands."
- on a penal world
"This world was once a paradise of verdant plains and crystalline seas. Then the Imperium came,
and with it came pollution, over-exploitation of resources, and reckless mining. Now it is a wreck, its
skies permanently covered by clouds that strip the paint of any craft passing through them, and the
life expectancy of its inhabitants is a mere four decades."
- on a hive-world
"Fifteen millennia ago, the lords of this world believed that a moon would make a nice addition to
their night sky. But their devices malfunctioned, and now this world is trapped in an eternal eclipse,
while tides have engulfed every trace of civilization."
- on a feral world
"They would rather burn a thousand innocents than let a sinner live. Each of them has slain millions
to prevent the death of billions, and tells himself that it is good and right. But in their obsession, they
fail to realize that they are only driving those few who escape their wrath into the waiting arms of the
Dark Gods ..."
- on the Witch Hunters
"His bloodline was cultivated for dozens of generations by a secret cabal in the Ordos that sought to
produce weapons in their endless wars against the enemies of Mankind. But when he awoken to his
powers, he surpassed even their expectations ..."
- on an alpha-level psyker
"He fought to protect his brothers even as the Geller Field of their ship failed in the boarding action
that destroyed his ship. But he wasn't granted the mercy of death, or even the damnation of being
consumed by the Warp. Instead, the Warp flows through him, making him into a monster both to his
own eyes and to those of all he ever loved."
- on a Possessed Marine
"Ancient fire, its secrets mastered by Mankind when he was still bound to his homeworld. Even then,
Humanity was the one that held the keys to its own destruction, and it was only the greatest of luck
and the courage and self-sacrifice of a few that prevented the history of Man from ending before it
had even truly begun ..."
- on nuclear weaponry
"They attempt to weave fate to the advantage of their people, looking into the infinity of paths the
future might take and steering destiny toward those they believe best for their kin. But in their
manipulations, they send ripples through time and space, and billions die in the consequences of
their choices ..."
- on the Eldar farseers
"None know what has become of him. Ancient prophecies tell of his return, but not even the gods
know how they came to be written anymore – ten thousand years of superstition and faith have
echoed into the Warp and clouded their knowledge of such things."
- on Vulkan
"His Captain's thirst for glory led to his entire squad dying a pointless, honourless death. When the
fool returned from the campain showered with the praises of the ignorant populace, something broke
within the survivor, and he vanished, vowing revenge on those who had betrayed his brothers in
such an ignoble way."
- on a renegade Space Marine
"With promises of glory, they deceive the gullible into donning the uniform and go die on distant
worlds for a cause they do not understand. Through their words, more souls are doomed than any
Chaos Lord could ever hope to destroy. They are rats, vermin hiding from the real fighting,
sacrificing others in their place – but they are useful, and so the Imperium tolerates them."
- on the bureaucrats responsible for the tithing of men for the Imperial Guard
"His cousin took over his House while he was on a business journey to another world, and exiled
him into the void. He vowed revenge, and returned twelve decades later at the head of an armada
that set the entire planet aflame while he descended upon his ancestral home and slew every single
one of his family members inside – but his cousin had died three years ago."
- on a highborn Chaos Reaver
"She thought her faith would protect her from the corruption of the Warp, from the temptations of
daemons and the lies of heretics. She believed her soul to be a bastion of purity that no tenebrous
assault could bring down. She was wrong."
- on a sister of the Adepta Sororitas driven mad by battling against daemons
"When he was hired to help an off-worlder find someone in the underhive, he did not know that he
was committing treason against the Golden Throne. By the time that realization came, it was too late
– his hands were tainted with guilt by association if nothing else. He accepted his fate, not
understanding that he had just damned his soul ..."
- on a hive ganger
"By pacts and covenants are such groups banded together, in the promise of plunder and glory. But
such alliances are ever fragile, at the mercy of the smallest show of weakness or whimsical decision.
It is a thin line between appearing too weak or seeming too dangerous, and one only the greatest
among the Slaves to Darkness can walk ..."
- on alliances between Chaos warbands
"They are slaves, looked down by the rest of the entire population. From birth they have taught to
hate what they are, to despise their corrupted flesh and sinful minds. By oppression and lies, they
have been kept docile … but when they finally rise against those who have tormented them for
generations, the fire of their rage shall set this world ablaze."
- on the mutant working class of a hive-world
"Lies within lies, factions whose goals are hidden from even their own members. If a tally was made,
I wonder if they would truly have saved more lives than they have doomed with their own foolish
plots ?"
- on the Inquisition
"His people were left to die by the Imperium when the general leading the reinforcements realized
the true magnitude of the threat and fled to save his own miserable life. In his rage and disgust, he
vowed to serve anyone who would give him the power to avenge his kin – and sit upon his throne,
Khorne answered his prayer ..."
- on a mortal Chaos Lord of Khorne
"This beast of steel and fire was crafted on a world that hasn't seen sunlight for five thousand years.
Its construction required the death of thousands, using knowledge that had been passed down for
generations of scholars. It killed five hundred men and women in the first ten minutes of its
activation, and the tally has only grown in the two millennia since then. And yet … It does not belong
to Chaos."
- on a Reaver Titan
"Madness going beyond the minds of flesh and infecting the spirits of the machine, born of
impossible equations and unholy algorithms. Through it the touch of Chaos reaches even the
children of metal, carrying with it the twisted unreality of the Warp."
- on scrap-code
"Degenerate spawn, born from generations dwelling in radioactive darkness. They no more than
beasts, soulless and feral, useless as anything except as fodder for those more worthy in the eyes
of the Gods."
- on hullghasts
"This institution was founded by the last heirs of the great healers of ages past, to shelter Mankind
from the nightmarish plagues of its past with the power of science. But now, like so many things of
that epoch, it is no more than an empty shell, a cruel and mocking parody of what it once was, that
would make its creators sick with disgust ..."
- on the Officio Medicae
"In her desire to understand the basic structure of Mankind, she has left it forever. Now she is
consumed by her madness, unleashing horrors upon the galaxy so that she can watches the effects
on those who were once her kin. Marvelous ..."
- on a heretek studying mutation
"The lords of the Imperium do not lead by showing their people what would happen to them without
their protection. Instead, they lie to herds of slaves, using charisma and manipulation to keep them
quiet – for how docile would they be if they knew how fragile their monolithic empire truly was ?"
- on the Imperium
"While legions of fanatics and warped daemon engines might inflict ruin upon dozens of worlds, it is
through more subtle means such as these that the Imperium is weakened from the inside. In the
end, greed is just as efficient a way of bringing fools to serve the will of Chaos ..."
- on the trade of alien and heretical relics within the Imperium
"They stalk from shadow to shadow, plundering the ruins of failed empires. But the relics they crave
bear within the seed of the ruin that afflicted their creators ..."
- on xenotech scavengers
"He spent his life loading up the canons of his ship, until the bay he worked in was blasted open by
enemy fire. The cold spread across his flesh, but he had time to know his doom before it took him.
His last agonized screams were silent, unable to cross the void … but the Warp remembers."
- on a Imperial Navy crew member lost to the void during an engagement
"When you peered into the darkness as a child, straining your eyes to see what you were convinced
was there … When you looked up at the stars for the first time, and realized that you were
insignificant in the grand scheme of things … When you loved and cried and hurt, when you bled
and fought and screamed … You made us stronger."
- on the daemons of Chaos
"As fire rained from the skies and the ground trembled under the fury of giants, they fought each
other in the burning remnants of a kingdom. Such was their hatred for one another, they continued
to fight even as the castle tumbled to pieces under their feet – even now, beyond the veil of death,
their eternal duel continues ..."
- on two shades in the Warp
"A man of faith is hard to break, if his belief is true and his spirit strong. But eventually, it will break.
Sometimes the truth is all that it takes, but other times the soul prefers the comfort of a lie over its
venomous embrace. Then the lie must be twisted, over and over, slowly, by degrees, until it is no
different from the truth."
- on priests of the Imperial Creed
"They fight in the shadows in the name of masters they have never seen and whose name they will
never know, for reasons they couldn't possibly understand. Puppets in a game of lies and treachery,
raging with a fury that would put most open wars to shame. They know not to question their place –
any who do otherwise are even quicker to die. A quality many beyond their worlds find useful, be it
in service to the False Emperor or the Ruinous Powers ..."
- on the agents employed by the feuding Houses of a Sector Capital world
"They belong to Chaos – such a truth is obvious to any who would look at them for any period of
time. That the Imperium hasn't noticed yet, despite the other Chapters it has banished for crimes far
lesser than the atrocities they have committed, is either the result of blind luck, or the will of the
Gods, who take great delight in seeing such evil done in the Anathema's name."
- on the Marines Malevolent
"What has value in the Eye ? Slaves, weapons, ships. Allies, such as they are. Trust, such as it is.
Knowledge of things that can burn your mind simply by thinking about them. In the end, something
only has value if other people want it – and in the Eye, if you want something, you must take it by
force."
- on the Eye of Terror
"They came from the skies and offered a better life for those who would embrace their beliefs. Many
chose to join them, casting off the traditions of their ancestors in favor of the new magics of these
strange beings, while others resisted to the bitter end, fighting with desperation to prevent the doom
they believed these intruders heralded. They were right, but they failed ..."
- on human feudal world contacted by the Tau, then by the Inquisition
"He was the son of a bloodline of planetary governors going back to the days of the Great Crusade.
But he defied all the traditions of his extended family by being actually competent at his job, and
caring about the people under his rule. Obviously, his kin couldn't let that stand, lest the plebeians
get ideas above their station, but they couldn't kill him either, for he was protected by a hundred
devoted guards, each of whom would have laid his life for him. So instead, they banished him and
his followers to the stars by calling in favors that could have seen worlds burn."
- on a Rogue Trader
"Children of desperation, spawned in an age of darkness and fire. Their father did not know what he
was doing, and the poison of the hydra was injected into them before they were even born. In the
end, they died at their lord's hands, driving him into madness as their final action ..."
- on the Raven Guard Raptors
"A weapon of brutal destruction and murder, chemically enhanced to be the most violent and
terrifying possible. But behind that skull-faced helm, there is a man – a tortured spirit screaming his
agony across the Warp. No matter how many he kills in the name of the False Emperor, his soul will
be ours at the end ..."
- on an Eversor Assassin
"Like all his brothers, he bent knee before the Anathema, and accepted His judgment. He sealed
away the talents he had spent centuries mastering, returning to the ways of war used by the rest of
his Legion. Then came the Betrayal, and with it the release from all Imperial chains ..."
- on a Chaos Sorcerer
"The oldest ship at the core of this behemoth is older than the human race, while the one most
recently added will not be completed before the next century. But all of it is lethally dangerous to the
weak, infested with shadows and monsters hungering for flesh ..."
- on a Space Hulk
"From the depths they came, and back to the sea they returned, carrying with them the children of
Man. Once every generation, slowly bringing their preys to extinction, until the day the Angels
descended from the stars. The cities on the ocean floor were razed, the deep ones butchered – and
then the angels learned that the taint also ran in the blood of the land-dwellers ..."
- on a world afflicted by marine mutants that was subjected to Exterminatus
"The decomposed corpses of plants and other lifeforms, gone through a cycle of purification that
lasted for thousands of years, consumed in minutes to fuel the Imperium's engines. A perfect
representative of the galaxy's resources, and how Mankind feasts upon them to sustain its own
parasitic existence ..."
- on promethium
"A construct of unholy arcane and forbidden technology, brought into existence by the will of the
Despoiler and capable of shattering worlds. A worthy rival to the weapons crafted by the older
species, guided by the mind of Chaos' greatest general. When next it emerges from the Eye, all
shall burn before its wrath ..."
- on the Planet Killer
"They are worlds of their own, these space-faring citadels of darkness and terror. When they emerge
above a world, they sent all those upon it in a frenzy, as the hunt for those who must be taken
causes thousands of innocents to lose their lives. But they go on, unflinchingly, carrying the gifted so
that their souls might be consumed by the Corpse-God ..."
- on the Black Ships
"He spent ten years dueling for the amusement of his peers and the honor of those with the coin to
purchase his services. But when he killed the son of the Governor without realizing it, he became a
pariah, forced to flee in bitterness and shame – yet his skill with a blade remains, and his prices
have certainly go down ..."
- on a renegade duelist
"Within their black hearts burns the fire of eternal hate. For some, the memories of the Siege are
faded behind thousands of years of carnage, while to others it happened but a few decades ago,
and some were born centuries after its end in inglorious failure. But all are united in their undying
thirst for revenge, and the urge to sate it by finally toppling the False Emperor from His throne ..."
- on the Veterans of the Long War
"A thousand worlds burned in the wake of his rage. Tens of thousands of transhuman warriors
gathered under his banner. Trillions of skulls were claimed, and the Warp roared with the screams of
the souls burned upon Khorne's bloody altar. And in the end … It meant nothing to the Blood God's
eternal thirst."
- on Angron's Dominion of Fire
"His sons and his foes alike believe that it was his pride that led to his downfall. That in his
arrogance, he embraced the madness of Slaanesh and welcomed the corruption of the Dark Prince
so that he could keep following his own vision of perfection. But the truth is, what pushed him down
the path of excess wasn't overconfidence : it was a crippling fear of inadequacy ..."
- on Fulgrim
"Who can tell what horrors lurk within his mind, what terrible visions pass through his psyche ? With
every death, there is less of the man he once was left, and more of the monster he is destined to
become. When that metamorphosis is finally complete, a godly artwork ten thousand years in the
making will be revealed, and the galaxy will scream in horror and fascination."
- on Lucius the Eternal
"The paths that led them to this place are many and varied. Some were born into it, and never had a
choice. Others were driven to it by desperation, fleeing for their lives from authorities or vengeful
enemies. A few chose it willingly, walking the path they believed would bring them quick riches and
power, regardless of the cost to their fellow man."
- on pirates in an Imperial Sector
"The secrets of their line are ancient, and well-hidden. Through old treacheries and devious lies,
even they have been deceived, and have been so for the last nine thousand years. Yet their blood,
whatever Primarch might be its origin, is potent yet – though now, it is unlikely any will ever know the
truth of it … although I wouldn't say it is impossible entirely."
- on the Soul Drinkers
"An illusion of the mind, caused by biological imperatives combining with the madness of the Warp
that flows in every sentient being. A cruel deception, that draws and torments all those who pay it
even the slightest attention. In the end, it is just one more side of Slaanesh, no different nor less
twisted than the others ..."
- on love
"They were mighty once, risen from the dust of their homeworld and poised to conquer the stars. So
confident in their strength that when the Dark Gods reached out to them, they believed that they
could master their power to their own ends. Now the only remaining traces of their species are the
ruins they left behind and a few insane degenerates, hiding within the shattered legacy of their
ancestors ..."
- on a xenos fallen empire
"When the Warrant of Trade of his line finally passed into his hand, his predecessors had all but
ruined his family. He needed to pay old debts, and was desperate enough to accept the first job that
was offered to him, not caring its provenance. When he realized the nature of the cargo, he knew he
should have spaced it alongside the client. He knew that. But instead, he chose to double his price,
and so began his march on the Path to Glory ..."
- on a heretical Rogue Trader
"Her efforts to expose corruption in the heart of the local Ecclesiarchy failed, and she was exiled in
disgrace. For years after she toiled as a diplomat on an explorator ship, establishing contact with
lost pockets of Humanity. Then, finally, the weight of failure and bitterness shattered the chains
holding her to the rotting Imperium, and she baptised her new path with the destruction of a world ..."
- on Sister of the Ordo Dialogus fallen to Chaos
"Millions of men and women live and die at his command. In his hand lies the power to destroy
armies and tear worlds apart. And for all that awesome might, he remains a sot, a fool who owns his
rank to his bloodline and his only true skill : intrigue. And there are those who lament and wonder
how the Imperium came to its current state ..."
- on an Admiral of the Imperial Navy
"A kingdom of anarchy, carefully hidden behind layers of lies, ruled over by nobles whose bloodlines
bear the taint of ancient sins. All it will take to send it burning is but the right push at the right time,
and then the Dark Gods shall feast upon the souls of all who inhabit this cursed fragment of the
galaxy."
- on the Calixis Sector
"For twenty years he hunted down the renegade who had killed his crew. He let nothing stop him,
neither the killer's accomplices or the will of his superiors. By the time he held aloft his nemesis'
head, there was no difference between him and that which he had hated so much ..."
- on a heretical Captain of the Imperial Navy
"There is little that cannot be undone by the power of Chaos. Wound heals, bones are fixed, and the
ravages of age reversed. But every such gift bestowed by the Ruinous Powers or through their
sorcerers have a price ..."
- on sorcerous healing
"With a speech, he drove an entire world's populace to revolt against their masters. To any
observers, it appeared to be because of his dark charisma, of his overflowing confidence and belief
in the power of the Dark Gods. But in truth, it was the result of decades of subtle corruption, spread
across the entire planet for generations."
- on a Dark Apostle
"When the madness spread among their brothers, they sought the peace brought by faith, gathering
in the great temples of their kin. But unknown to them, their priests had already fallen to the lures of
Chaos, and instead of delivering the salvation they promised, they offered their last untainted
brethren to the Ruinous Powers, to do with as they pleased. None of these treacherous Chaplains
survived the moonlit night – but the beasts that emerged from the desecrated church were stronger
than most of their Secondborn kind ..."
- on the Beasts of Annihilation
"The rot came in from a batch of fresh recruits from their homeworld. All of them had been members
of a hidden cult back there, and they brought their ideals and beliefs with them. Over the course of
several years, their faith insinuated itself into the rest of the Regiment, until the General himself
became one of them. The rest, as mortals say, is history ..."
- on a renegade Astra Militarum Regiment
"They think hiding within their armor will protect them, that the galaxy will be purged of horrors by the
power of their technology and canons. But Mankind has long realized the truth : true victory over the
foe can only be achieved in close contact battles, where the blood of allies and enemies alike runs
knee-deep and only skill, strength and luck mark the victor from the dead."
- on the Tau armor-suits
"He fled from the Black Ships when they came to his world. Nineteen hundred people died in his
escape, and their shades haunt him to this day, driving him a little more insane with every passing
day. Still, there are some in the Inquisition who believe they can tame him and use him against the
Ruinous Power ..."
- on an unbound psyker
"Magnus once said that there were no wolves on Fenris. At the time, those who heard him
dismissed his words as a joke, but the Cyclops knew the truth that Russ struggled to hide from the
rest of the Imperium. Truly there are no wolves on Fenris – only the progeny of the beast lurking
within the genetic code of those transhuman warriors who call it home ..."
- on Fenris
"From his blood shall rise the prophet. From his legacy, the seeds of ruin shall grow. The shattered
pieces of a broken Legion shall come together again, and their blades shall bring forth the long-
delayed doom of Ultwhé and all those dwelling within it."
- on Talos Valcoran, Soul Hunter of the Night Lords
"They came from the skies in leviathans of tainted steel, whose innards are as warped as their own
and whose sentience isn't quite as malevolent yet. With fire and blade, they descended, and laid
waste to all who lived upon this world, regardless of whether they stood or fled – for they cared
naught for the glory of battle, only the dealing of death ..."
- on a Chaos Marines' raid
"The touch of the Warp changes all those who feel it. Their flesh is reforged into an image of their
soul. This truth is known to all who dwell within the Great Eye. Is it any surprise, then, that those who
dedicated their lives to the art of weapon-making would end up in such magnificent forms ?"
- on Mutilators
"Time is no mere line, emerging from the past and going into the future. Events that have yet to
occur in the eyes of mortals echo back through the Warp and unto eternity, shaping what was and
what is in equal measure so that they will be. It is why there are some things that even the Gods
themselves cannot change, points of constancy that cannot be altered."
- on time
"In the whispers of daemons, he found the kernel of truth. In the promises of the gods, he found the
one path that led to glory. In the myriad ways to wage war upon his enemies, he found the one that
would bring him victory. It took unimaginable luck, skill and determination for him to reach this point
… and in the end, he was rejected for some unknowable reason, all too aware of his failure in the
final seconds of his mortal existence."
- on a Chaos Spawn
"Those who use them believe that they are the masters, that these creatures are gifts from the Dark
Gods, extensions of their own power and influence within the Warp. In truth, these minor daemons
are jailers, ensuring that the one they follow do not stray from the Path to Glory, ready to turn on
them the moment they show the slightest weakness ..."
- on daemonic familiars
"They flee from the stiffling confines of their craftworlds, and prey upon those they claim to be 'lesser
races'. They savour the freedom and power, and believe themselves to be invincible, while still
righteous in their actions. Fools, all of them."
- on Eldar Corsairs
"They came to the derelict seeking plunder and knowledge. Only one of them left, his hands red with
the blood of his comrades, his mind shattered by what he saw within. And in the cracks, the power of
the Warp flowed ..."
- on a Space Hulk
"The war had lasted for three hundred years when they came – by that point, no one remembered
why it had started. They investigated its origins, seeking to find the rightful side to back, until their
master recalled them and simply burned the world from orbit before recolonizing it. To this day, the
screams of the dead haunt their nightmares, torturing them with what could have been if they had
not failed in their mission ..."
- on a group of Acolytes
"The sky turned the color of blood, and the light of the sun vanished, replaced by a thousand baleful
stars. The plants grew thorned and poisonous, and the newborn were misshapen mutants. By the
time the daemon came in their legions, half of the population had already been killed by the other,
and the survivors were easy prey for the Neverborn ..."
- on a world dragged into the Warp
"To look upon him is to expose one's soul to the greatest temptation. But for those with the will or
power to resist the beguiling aura that shimmers from his daemonic flesh, the truth of his nature is
exposed, and it fills them with hatred. Is it any surprise, then, that the scions of the Blood God and
those of the Dark Prince fight each other so ?"
- on a daemon prince of Slaanesh
"In the shadows between the levels of the hive, they live. There, hidden away, they breed, they
grow, they observe. All that time, they are filled with hatred for those who do not share their curse.
And when they are called out of their holes by the promise of vengeance ..."
- on mutants
"There is only one thing the Dark Gods demand from their followers in return for the reward of
daemonhood. Only one thing, so tiny in the great scope of things, yet utterly beyond the ability of
trillions to offer …
Everything."
"In their ambitions, they sought to restore the dominion of their ancestors – to free themselves from
what they perceived as the shackles of the Imperium, and rule openly as sole masters of their
worlds. Now their worlds are ash, and their souls are slaves to the whims of the daemons who
whispered in their ears ..."
- on a cabal of rebel highborn
"He dwells in his domain, his mind bent toward some unknowable purpose, his power spread across
the Warp as he leads a billion billion souls toward the damnation that claimed him. But deep within
him, there remains just enough of who he once was to know just how far he has fallen ..."
- on Lorgar, Primarch of the Seventeenth Legion
"A poor performance, enacted by pitiful actors on a meaningless stage. But within it, the seeds of
something greater were sown, and the gods drew much amusement from the consequences of this
catastrophe."
- on the Kaurava Campain
"While most of these corridors now lie in ruins, haunted by the children of the Youngest God seeking
a way to secluded craftworlds, there are some sections that are open not the madness of the Warp,
but to other places, where even the Neverborn fear to thread ..."
- on the Webway
"The firstborn children of the Warp, older even than the Dark Gods if far less powerful. They have
little influence left now, since the purges enacted against them by the ancient lords and their heirs,
the dread tomb-princes, and the Ruinous Powers themselves … But their madness is still mighty
enough to drown entire worlds if left unchecked."
- on the Enslavers
"A broken being, an angel cast into darkness not by choice but by the cruelty of fate. He could have
been the greatest threat to the Ruinous Powers, but the madness their designs seeded in his mind
made him nothing more than their tool, even as he struggled to hold his shattered psyche together
and bring about a final extinction – the only thing he could think of that would grant him peace."
- on Konrad Curze, Primarch of the Eighth Legion
"Many times have the servants of the False Emperor believed these snakes to have finally been
eradicated. But they turn every defeat into a victory, weaving lies with such skill that even they no
longer know which of the myriad stories they hold in their minds is the truth ..."
"The first Apostle thinks he killed him, and that by doing so, he removed a threat to the Gods' plan.
But he has ever been a fool, a puppet of the Ruinous Powers. The one he thought he killed yet
endures, transformed beyond imagining, now reborn as a true servant of Chaos – in spirit rather
than in fact, more powerful than the Apostle will ever be, all traces of his past weakness removed ..."
- on the Crimson Lord
"When his petty empire collapsed around him under the assault of transhuman monsters, what
thoughts passed through his mind ? Did he regret his folly ? Did he seek forgiveness ? Of course
not. He stubbornly clung to the belief that he alone was right, even to the bloody end. Truly, he was
a follower of the Anathema's example."
- on the Apostate Cardinal Bucharis
"He listens to the screams of a thousand slaves, hearing the voice of the gods in their agonies. Each
of them receives the greatest torture of a different world, gathered throughout the millennia by the
one for whom they suffer. To him, their pain is nothing but a sacrament, a ritual to bring his mind
closer to the Warp – but to them, it is their entire universe ..."
- on a Dark Apostle
"To hate those who aren't like you is the only way they can hope to survive in this galaxy. But it
wasn't always so. Once, Mankind was strong, and the other species hadn't been culled of all those
who were willing to attempt peaceful co-existence. Now, after ten thousand years of brutal warfare,
only those who have embraced the cruelty of the universe have survived ..."
- on the galaxy
"He was a powerful foe, and a great warlord. Had the gods succeeded in turning him to the side of
Chaos, it is very likely the Imperium would finally have fallen – and not at the hands of a traitor
Astartes or a xenos threat, but a mere human male. But, as ever, they lacked the unity required, and
he instead fought the Ruinous Powers until his dying breath ..."
- on Warmaster Macharius
"She grew up on a world of vast, flat plains, populated by feral grox and the feral tribes who hunted
them. She was drawn from it by the hand of the Inquisition when one of its agents came to fight
against a cult that had taken root in a rival tribe. Now, after three hundred years, she has never
returned to the world of her birth – and she never will."
- on an Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus
"He will not escape his doom. For centuries, he has fought the wars of the Emperor, even going as
far as fighting his own brothers when they turned to the Dark Gods. He has allies in the Inquisition,
and has witnessed worlds burn at his order. But in the end, his soul remains tainted by the daemon
he released all these years ago. I wonder, does he ever question what power has kept him alive so
long ?"
- on Gabriel Angelos
"Even the fire of the Anathema's Beacon, burning for ten thousand years, has failed to remove all
traces of these glorious days. Such were the horrors the sons of the Phoenix inflicted upon the
children of Mankind that even now, countless generations later, those who were born upon the
Throneworld recoil in fear at the sight of an Astartes. How deliciously ironic ..."
- on the deeds of the Emperor's Children during the Siege of Terra
"The greatest minds of the human race worked as one during this era, uniting their knowledge and
genius to create an age of unprecedented prosperity for their species. They sought to master the
powers of the universe, to understand every aspect of reality. But they failed to account for the
things that existed beyond that remit ..."
- on the Dark Age of Technology
"Months of planning went into that operation. Agents that had remained hidden for years, carefully
worming their way into the structure, sacrificed their covers alongside their lives to make it possible.
Thousands of soldiers were diverted from other fronts, where reinforcements were direly needed. All
believed they were doing the will of the False Emperor. If they only knew ..."
- on an Inquisitorial raid against the facilities of a rival Inquisitor
"Echoes of blood and base, primitive terror, resounding across time and space. No matter how far
their prey runs, it can never escape them ..."
- on the Hounds of Khorne
"The meme-virus infected their minds, turning them from inoffensive scholars studying the
economics of the Sector to dangerous, ruthless traders whose schemings overthrew the balance of
planets and caused the starvation of billions. By the time the Inquisition tracked them down, they
were already dead, having killed themselves in the first minute after the virus' hold over their mind
slackened."
- on a group of Imperial savants
"Most of them were deceived into serving the Dark Gods, none more so than the one who brought
them to this path. But many have since embraced their new destiny, and become some of the most
terrible champions of Ruin. Of course, the fact that their mere existence slowly draws all of their
loyalist brothers into deeper and deeper darkness is always welcome ..."
- on the Fallen
"Little is known of them, even here. Their souls are few to this galaxy, their presence in the Warp too
weak to influence the gods. The legions of the Anathema drove them to the brink of extinction, but
their hatred for Mankind is tenacious, and their thirst for vengeance has kept them alive for ten
thousand years. Where they walk, no one is safe, and no secret can be kept hidden for long ..."
- on the lacrymoles
"The stones are held together by mortar made of the bones of slaves. The architecture was
conceived in a fever vision that killed the dreamer in five days. Upon the altar, ten thousand
thousand lives have been sacrificed. Every step of the walk from the door to the great idol has been
consecrated by a different priest of the Ruinous Powers, who was slain immediately after."
- on a temple of the Dark Gods
"It knows almost everything that goes on in the Imperium, but it is too blind and ancient to actually
remember much of use. For those who need to peruse its ancient archives, courage and
determination are as necessary as skill and the same brand of madness that afflicts those who
serve its will."
- on the Administratum
"Hollow asteroids, desolated moons, stations orbiting dead worlds … These places are filled with the
echoes of a thousand unknown victories and the promises of a million secrets. Hidden away from
the rest of the galaxy, they hold in their vaults weapons that could forever change the face of the
galaxy, if the keepers had but the courage to use them ..."
- on the Deathwatch fortresses
"Her parents were selected by the cult's masters, and she was trained from birth to become the
perfect agent. She can use every weapon in the Imperium and many beyond, knows dozens of
different martial arts, can act out any persona as required – and, more importantly, has put these
skills to use in nine hundred seventy-three kills."
- on an Chaos assassin
"No one knows how it came to be in the underhive. At first, it offered solutions to the problems of
those who came to consult it, and these solutions always worked. Then it asked to be connected to
the rest of the network, that it might direct them to better their lives – and it did. Then it asked for
blood, and they did not even have a chance to refuse ..."
- on a corrupted cogitator
"He died four hundred years ago, when the Inquisition found out about his interest in occultism and
raided his house, killing everyone within it to purge the canker of heresy. With his last breath, he
cursed his killers, vowing that he would have his vengeance. In a moment of twisted generosity, the
Dark Gods granted him a chance to make good on that promise ..."
- on the ghost of a highborn heretic
"They play their games against one another, not caring that each piece on the board represents
millions of lives. Their victories do not even truly please them – they only offer a brief rush of petty
satisfaction at foiling a rival's plans. At least the Lords of Chaos revel in their deeds and make every
death they cause a step toward their ultimate ambition ..."
- on Imperial highborn generals
"In truth, the gods cared little about the results of this conflict. From the moment the first shots were
fired, they had already won. All that remained was for events to play out for their amusement, and
for plots and schemes to unfold ..."
- on the Horus Heresy
"The heirs of Malcador believe that there is nothing human in the daemon, that it is an entity entirely
alien to the material universe, and that any sign of humanity it shows is merely a trick. They are
wrong, of course, in this as in so many things : daemons are human in the same way they are every
sentient species who has ever lived and ever will ..."
- on daemons
"A fool's attempt at dragging Mankind even further into willful ignorance. It was doomed to fail from
the beginning, for the Dark Gods will not allow anyone but them and their pawns to topple the
Anathema's empire ..."
- on the Cataclysm of Souls
"Chaos Lords of all the four gods have tried to ally with these brutes countless times. But every time,
the alliance was short-lived, for they are creatures of instinctual conflict, who cannot do anything
else but seek war against every other species – and often even among themselves."
- on Orks
"They sought to create a human being who would be immune to disease and pain, able to serve
them in even the worst of conditions. Obviously, Nurgle could not let such an affront and opportunity
pass, and the researchers died within minutes of the first cloning tube being opened – and the rest
of the planet soon followed in their steps ..."
- on an Imperial research complex
"Her arms were taken by the one she called master, and replaced with augmetics loaded with null-
field generators to keep her prodigious power at bay. Her mind was broken to pieces by torture and
rebuilt from the ground by conditioning. The girl she was is long dead, and in her place stands an
instrument of death and destruction, cursed to be forever blind to the galaxy's true nature …"
- on an Inquisitor with an alpha-plus psychic level
"The cabal who enacted the ritual believed that it would bring them the favor of their god, and
through it, immortality. They were only half right, for it did bring the eye of Tzeentch upon them, but
also on their entire world. At first, the mutations were subtle, and a terrified population hid them as
best it could. Then they became impossible to conceal, and the planet fell to anarchy within a week.
Still, the ritualists survived, turned into grotesque Chaos Spawns doomed to wander in the ruins of
their world for all eternity ..."
- on a world lost to a plague of mutation
"They are the heirs to a visionary turned madman, and believe that the power of Chaos can be
harnessed, enslaved, turned against itself. The last of those is possible – indeed, it is a constant
state of being in the Warp. But the first two ? They are fools, all of them – damned fools, whose soul
belong to the Dark Gods the moment they start to believe their own justifications."
- on Xanthite Inquisitors
"Broken, failed scions. They were shown the path to greatness and failed to reach its end. But in the
ruins left by their failure, in the remnants of their tainted and twisted species, there lie many great
and terrible secrets. Secrets that, in the right hands, could make the galaxy tremble ..."
- on the Saruthi
"An army was born within these unhallowed holds. Tens of thousands of prisoners were
experimented upon, with only one in a hundred surviving the process. Hundreds of cultists and dark
scholars worked on this dreadful production, placing their creations into stasis the moment they
were complete. Now the cabal is no more, destroyed by a rival warband, but the army slumbers,
awaiting the time of its awakening ..."
- on a Space Hulk hosting an army of daemonhosts
"A billion souls screamed as one while their world burned around them. An entire species, wiped out
from the galaxy in mere moments. From their final, terrified moments, a thousand daemons were
born, and they consumed one another in the Sea of Souls until one terrible creature emerged,
burning with the thirst for revenge ..."
- on a xenos species destroyed by Exterminatus
"Nine scholars of the dark arts gathered together, seeking to combine their knowledge. But they
knew that their sanity was already strained by the unholy secrets buried in their minds, and so they
sought to create a living repository for their lore, one that all of them would be able to access. They
did not realize what they were really doing until it was too late ..."
- on a daemonhost
"For ten thousand years, every moment of his existence has been a struggle against the Dark Gods.
Each of them pulls at his soul and whispers to his ear, promising everything he craves in return for
his devotion. But he endures, walking the Path to Glory in a way that hasn't been used for ages : to
conquer and rule in his own name, not that of any divine patron. Despite everything the Ruinous
Powers have done to try and break him, he endures, and grows stronger with every passing year ..."
- on Abaddon the Despoiler
"Weapons that can murder stars slumber in their great vaults. As they rise and seek to reclaim their
fallen empire, these tools of mythic destruction might be awakened once more, and none will be
able to stop them. They must be destroyed !"
- on the Necrons
"The galaxy boiled with fear and destruction. Star systems died, stellar empire were wiped out,
species exterminated. The very fabric of reality screamed under the might of the combatants. In the
end, all sides were left broken and weakened, and from the destruction they had wrought rose the
Primordial Annihilator – the echo of this one, most terrible of sins."
- on the War in Heaven
"Each of them inherited the knowledge and wisdom of her teacher and took her place when age and
a lifetime of sorcery caught up with her. Though their ways might appear primitive to the true
masters of the Art, there is still power in their powders and ritual ..."
- on a coven of witches
"They dance above the battlefield, dueling with one another in a ballet of death. Their minds are
blades, their reflexes some of the quickest in the galaxy, and their training incredibly long and
complex. The slightest mistake can bring them down – and there are even less second chances for
them than for their comrades on the ground ..."
- on aircraft pilots
"For nine millennia, these relics have remained silent. No amount of effort from both the Inquisition
and the servants of Chaos have managed to get any reaction from them. But as the clock nears
midnight and the Times of Ending approach, their ancient mechanisms are starting to turn once
more ..."
- on a set of artefacts belonging to an ancient heretic
"Time is bent where Chaos threads. The tides of destiny are altered, the wyrds of the living and the
dead alike written anew. In places where the power of the Warp is strong, it is even possible for
those who have died and passed into the Sea of Souls to return – though none can ever do so
unscathed ..."
- on the Warp
"Chaos against Chaos, Imperial against Imperials … There are no true allegiances in this galaxy.
Only the laughter and the madness ! The blood and the greed, the lust and the despair ! The ruin …
and the hope."
- on the galaxy
"Warbands live and die by their reputation. Debts of life and death are kept trace of with maniacal
minutia, great deeds and ignominous failures spoken of across the ranks of the Lost and the
Damned. In a life where only might makes right, the defense granted by a terrifying image is beyond
value – though it also draws the eyes of those seeking to claim it for themselves ..."
"Furtive shadows crawl from wall to wall, feeding upon the rotting corpses of those who tried to
stand against the invaders. The temples of the Anathema lie defiled, their only inhabitants the
hanged remains of the priests who spoke their lies behind their altars. Ruin has come to this
world ..."
- on a world destroyed by a Black Crusade
"To turn from the Anathema and to embrace Chaos is more than a mere betrayal of your oaths. It is
more than merely turning against your fellow mortals- there are plenty of the False Emperor's faithful
who do that. More than merely rebelling against the Imperium as well – plenty of renegades never
let the touch of the Dark Gods fall upon their soul. No, to be one of the Lost is to commit the greatest
betrayal of all – the betrayal of the self, when the greatest lie is the one you tell yourself ..."
- on damnation
"He broke his vow to the False Emperor when his superiors ordered him to burn a world and he
refused their command. For thirteen years he led a war of ambushes and deceit among the stars,
commanding those who had followed him in his defiance. Then came the astropathic message,
offering an alliance ..."
- on a renegade captain of the Imperial Navy allied with a Night Lords warband
"They ate the rations, and didn't notice the change. After years of eating what passes for food in the
Astra Militarum, their taste buds were all but dead. But their bodies reacted to the chemicals all the
same, and within a year, they had become twice as strong – and less than half as smart. The end
result was inevitable ..."
- on a company of Imperial Guards experimented upon by a rogue Magos Biologis
"A mind born of iron is a scourge to the Dark Gods. But a mind that was once hosted by flesh,
leaving behind the trappings of its birth to inhabit a construct of metal and wires ? There is potential
in such a thing, and the Gods do enjoy novelty in their pawns ..."
- on the Proteus Protocol
"They refuse the gifts of the Gods, walking alone in a galaxy filled with enemies. Their hatred is
strong, and through their deeds they do the will of Chaos – but they deny the Ruinous Powers any
hold on their souls, stubbornly continuing a conflict long after their masters have fallen or given up.
How curious ..."
- on Traitor Marines who do not embrace the Primordial Truth
"A mere scroll, lost and preserved in stasis for millennia. It was all but useless to the lord of Chaos
who discovered it – but he understood the potential it represented. All he had to do was leave it
somewhere it would be more easily discovered, and spread word of its existence – and tens of
thousands died in the following struggle to reclaim it ..."
- on a Rogue Trader Charter
"A pretty symbol, and one that can cause much fear in the heart of the Imperium's masses … but to
those who walk the Path to Glory, it is little more than a beacon, promising greatness to he who
would strike its owner down."
- on the Inquisitorial Rosette
"They belong to us, each and everyone of them. To believe that they could succeed where the
Sacrificed King failed is nothing but the very height of hubris, and to endeavour to that end is the
very definition of madness. Most die along the way, but those who survive discover the same truth
that the first Warmaster learned ten thousand years ago : that by the time they have gained the
power to achieve their goals, they have long forgotten what those were, and no longer care ..."
- on Horusian Inquisitors
"He would have sacrificed anything to get back what was stolen from him by his own family. His
hatred burns with the fire of a thousand suns, aimed at none but himself, for he knows himself to be
damned. In the dark star that haunts Calixis, he found a kindred spirit – an old enemy of the Ruinous
Powers, banished from time and space by their combined effort, yet reaching out through the cracks
in his prison ..."
- on Erasmus Haarlock
*Mocking, terrifying laughter*

- on the Cabal
"There is great power in these two. Already their path has crossed that of many individuals who
shaped the galaxy, and they have left a trail of destruction in their wake. But despite the immense
might at their disposal, they are limited by the fact that their minds are stunted, unable to grow
beyond the childhood that was denied to them all these centuries ago ..."
- on the Apex Twins
"Clockwork and blind obedience, servitude to laws as unfair as they are cruel. Such are the tenets of
this creature of gears and slaved flesh, making the great wheels of the Martian Priesthood turn
endlessly in the void, never advancing an inch. How appropriate, then, that the Imperium believes it
to be an aspect of their Corpse-Emperor ..."
- on the Omnissiah
"They are coming, and every hour brings them closer to us. When they arrive, the galaxy will burn
with the flames of a war the likes of which hasn't been seen since the days the Ancients fought the
Star Gods. All that remains to see is if anything will yet grow among the ashes when it is done ..."
- on the Tyranid hive-fleets yet to reach the Milky Way
"They live, they fight, they die, they live again. They will never stop, no matter how long this cycle of
endless conflict goes on. There is potential there, an image of what could be if the God of War could
take their kin from the hands of their brutish gods ..."
- on the Ork warband of Warboss Tuska
"They feed upon their fallen foes, absorbing their strength. While such behaviour is spread across
every species of the galaxy, they are the only ones whose beliefs are based on any actual biological
ability. I wonder, did the other galactic races begin to consume their own dead because of the
Kroot's mark on the Warp, or where the Kroots born as an incarnation of that galaxy-wide primitive
belief ?"
- on the Kroots
"Their world burned by the hands of their predecessors because of their own kin's betrayal. But very
little remains known of the exact cause of this rebellion, leading to the inevitable question – what
secret hides behind these masks ? What terrible sin are these faceless legions dying to atone ?
Many seek the truth, both within and outside the Imperium. When it is discovered, then we shall see
how strong they really are ..."
- on the Death Korps of Krieg
"While most sentient life in the universe is inhabited of the same emotions that empower the Dark
Gods, every so often a new species will rise whose mind is so bizarre, so alien, that their souls
cannot sustain any of the Ruinous Powers. New daemons are born from the strange thoughts of
such beings, and eventually those coalesce together, forming a budding godling – which is then
inevitably destroyed by the Four, driving the species that birthed it to madness and self-destruction.
Chaos will not allow anything else to inhabit the Sea of Souls – and when the light of the
Astronomican finally fails, its wish will at long last be granted ..."
- on the Warp
" A desperate lie, believed by fools … The Anathema is dying, and has been for ten thousand years.
He cannot ever return. When the Golden Throne breaks under the strain of ages, Terra will burn,
and the galaxy will grow dark – but no new light will come to illuminate the darkness. There shall be
only torment and damnation left !"
- on the Star Child
"He is a mystery to us. He believes himself a liar and a deceiver, but his honesty draws those under
his command to lie their lives down for him. He thinks himself a coward, yet his courage has broken
the plans of lords far more powerful than he. In many ways, he is the opposite of those who walk the
Path to Glory, a truer servant of the Anathema than many who shout and preach what they believe
to be His words ..."
- on Ciaphas Cain
"At once a beast of untold hunger and a creature of staggering intellect, this being is powerful
beyond the understanding of mortals, and isn't bound to the Warp as are the Dark Gods. Should it
ever awaken from its ancient prison, the empire of clockwork would crumble, and the only hope of
the galaxy surviving would lie in the ancient weapons stolen by the Despoiler – how deeply ironic
that would be ..."
- on the Void Dragon
"A construct of Man, built during the age when the species had the potential to master the forces of
the universe themselves. None living remember how it came to be, but the Dark Gods remember the
bargains its artificial mind entered with them, and the new daemon that was born from this unholy
union. Had it not been destroyed before awakening to its true potential, it would have become one of
their greatest champions, an instrument of destruction such as the galaxy has rarely seen ..."
- on the Castigator Titan
"Born from human madness and xenos genetics, crafted with a care not seen since the days the
Twenty Godlings were forged. A weapon of beauty and darkness, who could have been the
instrument of the Imperium's ultimate victory over all of its foes – but instead ended up nearly
annihilating its defenders. When she fell, none of the Four claimed her soul, for they couldn't find it in
the Warp – a disturbing notion, to say the least ..."
- on Legienstrasse, from the Maerorus Temple
"Two forms of madness battle in his tortured mind : the soul-hunger that plagues all of his kin, and
the echoing voices of those he consumed. He wanders the deep darkness, feeding upon the stars,
and when at long last he arrives at some balance, he shall return – and the galaxy will weep in terror
at his terrible beauty."
- on the Outsider
"Her arrogance should have been her downfall. By all rights, she should have been consumed, her
soul burned out as the scion of the Dark Prince claimed her flesh and laid waste to her kingdom. But
such is the strength of her madness that even they failed to control her, and were instead subsumed
into her own self-delusions. I wonder if Slaanesh made her Ascend as a reward, or because he
feared that in time, she might surpass even him in the pursuit of excess ?"
- on Ax'Senaea, the Thrice-Possessed
"They were born from the souls of an empire that spanned the galaxy, mighty and invincible. For an
eternity, they sheltered their creators from the rage of Chaos, but they could do nothing against the
rot that grew from within. Now the empire is gone and they are dead, and those who gave them their
existence believe the reverse to be true ..."
- on the Eldar Pantheon
"Betrayal unleashed, a star slain, and a world brought to ruin. Two Legions fighting in the ashes of
hope, both deceived – one by their brothers, one by their Primarch. There could be no victor to this
conflict – only the dead and the survivors."
- on the Battle of Calth
"Born of madness and greed, consumed by ambition, fed by the sins of entire worlds. A corruption
that spread from world to world, growing in strength with every new source of power it claimed from
its kindred. If it had not been prevented from manifesting, the horror would have drowned entire
Sectors, and from this desolation it would have grown even stronger. Molotch served us well when
he aided the scions of the Corpse-God cast it back in the furious hands of the Dark Gods ..."
- on the daemon Slyte
"There is something strange in these men and women. They display power and passion, yet are still
faithful to the decrees of the stagnant Imperium. They deny witchcraft and fight the servants of
Chaos, yet the laws of reality are bent around them. Are they mere anomalies, or the heralds of
some new, terrible power rising in the Sea of Souls ?"
- on Imperial Saints
"He alone survived out of an entire Pantheon. When others were devoured, shattered to fragments,
or captured and enslaved, he alone retained his life and his freedom. For he knows the truth of
Chaos, hidden away from the rest of the galaxy, yet still dares to defy the inevitable rise of Ruin ..."
- on Cegorach
"For all that he acts dignified and collected, within him burns a hatred as strong as in any of his
brothers. Though he pays fealty to no god, he is still bound by the covenant forged by his Primarch –
even bringing Magnus to his knees could not free him for the obligations of his blood. His name
might be unknown in the Imperium, but his deeds echo across millennia, hidden under a myriad
titles and names ..."
- on Iskandar Khayon
"The sheep of the Imperium remember her as a saint, conveniently forgetting the fact that she knelt
before the Tyrant of Blood, and obeyed his commands faithfully for years. Do they believe that her
later deeds atoned for the crimes she committed in Vandire's name ? In the end, her belief made her
a fool, accepting whatever stronger power she saw as the one she would serve ..."
- on Alicia Dominica
"Once, the galaxy teemed with greenskins as powerful as that one, and it would have been no more
than a servant of the great warlords of the Ullanor's warbosses. But in this age, the mere shadow of
the Beast of yore might be enough to cast down the crumbling remnants of the Imperium of Man,
such is the degeneration it has endured in the last ten thousand years ..."
- on Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka
"If the people of the Imperium ever realized what their defenders shelter them from, they would riot
in madness. But even among the strongest of these heroes, most would struggle to even truly
understand the scope of the terrible threat this brotherhood fights in the shadows of the galaxy ..."
- on the Ordo Chronos
"Broken in body, but not in mind. He has looked upon some of the galaxy's darkest secrets, yet he
remains loyal to the Anathema – but when he faces his former master for the last time, and learn the
truth behind his so-called madness, will his oaths still stand ? Only time will tell, for there are choices
beyond even my ability to foretell ..."
- on Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor
"He would rather kill a thousand worlds that let the Great Devourer advance. But his obsession
blinds him to the fact that more and more tendrils of this terrifying threat near the galaxy from all
angles – would he destroy the entire galaxy to deny it to the Swarm ?"
- on Inquisitor Kryptmann
"The promise of immortality and great power can tempt almost any man to take almost any risk. That
is a truth known to all of the Four. But these things, they are foul even to us. In them, the essence of
a dead empire lives on, watching from the other side of oblivion through the eyes of those foolish
enough to wear their collar, hungering to return ..."
- on the Halo Devices
"A forgotten legacy, its very existence straddling the line between secret and myth. If it truly existed,
then it could have been used to usher in a new age for Mankind and the galaxy – but it would have
come at a terrible price. The border between reality and the Sea of Souls would have been torn
apart by a new race of godlings, and the old vision of Lorgar would have been accomplished ..."
- on the Psi Engine
"They believe that they can hide the truth from their peers, that they alone are worthy of the dread
secrets they have discovered. But their knowledge of the Dark Sun is partial at best, and when its
herald is freed from its ancient prison, the very lore they hoard so preciously will become their
undoing. It will resound with the unnatural power then unleashed, and each and everyone of them
will either burn or fall ..."
- on the Tyrantine Cabal
"The mere suspicion of this archive's existence cast a shadow over the galaxy. For it, the slave-
priests of the clockwork god will pay any price, regardless of the consequences. Even if it means
leaving a thousand worlds defenseless, they are ready to let trillions die if it means they can reclaim
it – and they do not even know for sure that it even exist, let alone is yet untainted ..."
- on the Omnicopaeia
"For a thousand years, he bid his time. The madness grew inside him, shattering one more fragment
of honor at a time. Just as he rose through the ranks and gained respect from his brothers, so too
increased the corruption they would have seen if they had looked more closely. But in the end, all
his planning and scheming was for naught – his soul was cast down before the Blood God's throne
in shameful failure, to be burned to cinders in the inferno of His wrath ..."
- on Azariah Kyras
"They will burn, all of them ! We will wipe out these aberrations from the face of the galaxy, so that
when the Final Hour has come and the Cadian Gate is wide open, there will be none who can brave
the torrents of the Warp to seal it again ! This is our promise, echoing across an eternity of hate !"
- on Blanks
"Some might believe that there was something wrong in the process that transferred his mind from
his flesh and blood body to his new, immortal one. Others believe that millions of years in stasis
damaged the fragile circuits that keep the echo of the being he once was intact. But the truth is that
he was always mad – the product of an entire culture decaying over the course of generations of
hateful internecine warfare and bitter jealousy ..."
- on Trazyn the Infinite
"They believed that they could save Mankind's soul from the Ruinous Powers, and shelter it from the
myriad dangers of the galaxy. And maybe they could even have succeeded – but the sheer
abomination of their plan would have, in time, driven them against one another, and the galaxy
would have burned in the fires of god-like psychic power unleashed. It is better for all of us that they
failed, and are to remain forgotten, their very existence denied by those who would have once called
them brothers ..."
- on Ordo Hydra
"What pushed them to abandon their lives of honor and prestige for existences spent in the margins,
fighting endless battles at the sides of men and women who will never truly know them ? The story is
different for each of them, but there are themes that repeat themselves : shame, pride, wrath,
despair … In the end, it matters not. All of them are broken somehow, and it's into these cracks that
the Dark Gods whisper ..."
- on Knights Errant
"The last, desperate hope of a doomed people. Do they truly believe ten thousand years of suffering
are enough to atone for the horrors they committed when the galaxy was their plaything ? The soul-
broken cannot escape She-Who-Thirsts so easily, for in truth, the terrible fate bestowed upon their
species is only a rightful punishment ..."
- on Ynnead
"A few words, written on a scrap of paper, passed from one collector to another for ten thousand
years. Out of a thousand owners, only a few ever had the faintest clue of what it was they were
holding, and of those few, only one had the ability to use it to his own advantage rather than be
consumed by it – until he was killed by the next owner, and the whole cycle began anew ..."
- on a fragment of the Book of Lorgar
"The first shot of a war decades in the making for those who prosecuted it, centuries for those truly
responsible. Those who stood upon the surface and watched the skies darken with the vision of
betrayal should have broken … and yet, they stood against those they had once loved. They defied
death until the end, driving their blades into the hearts of their betrayers and their legacy into their
souls, where it remains to this day – an eternal monument, driving those who believed Horus was
right to madness with the memory of their crimes ..."
- on the Isstvan Atrocity
"A union of madness and discipline, forged into a potent instrument for the Blood God. Legions
beyond counting, some made of warriors, others of crazed, broken slaves, all unified under the
control of one, worthy leader. Entire worlds burned at their hands, reforged in the flames into yet
more tools of war. If only the Traitor Legions could share in their unity, they would have conquered
the galaxy a long time ago ..."
- on the Blood Pact
"Deceived, betrayed, broken. They might have been freed from the curse of their lineage by the
priests of Mars, but there is no escaping the doom looming over all of Sanguinius' bloodline. Yet
they remain steadfast in their loyalty, refusing to give up the futile fight that is the defense of the
Imperium. Most curious ..."
- on the Lamenters
"He is one of the few warlords in the galaxy who truly are able to oppose the will of the Gods. The
madness that afflicts his kind has largely ignored him, and with every passing year, more of the
slumbering legions are risen to join his expanding empire. He must be destroyed, lest he ruins
everything !"
- on Imotekh the Stormlord
"Once, the galaxy was their plaything. The stars themselves were no more than delicacies to their
appetite, and the souls of trillions were theirs to feast upon. Look at them now – slaves to those who
once worshiped them, their power broken, their identity shattered to the winds. Truly, a terrible fate
for the mighty Star Gods ..."
- on C'tan Shards
"The legacy of a lost era, enduring for thousands of years. Her reclamation cost everything to the
one who thought himself her master. She journeyed into the darkness beyond, to a kingdom of
abominations that threatened the very fabric of reality, and through her power and end was brought
to this threat – but even then, her gift came at a price ..."
- on the Speranza
"In the right hands, at the right time, it could have heralded the end of Chaos. It was but one of many
reasons for which the Dark Gods were compelled to put aside their endless feuds and unite in their
effort to destroy the Anathema's plans ..."
- on the Dark Glass device
"They rose against the tyranny of ignorance, against the shackles of their position. With every
breath, they defy the edicts of their former masters by proving that they do not require their
guidance. But in the hands of their leader, the very weapon that delivered them from the lies of the
Ethereal might also be the key to their damnation ..."
- on the Farsight Enclave
"She believes in honor, in the pursuit of righteousness. But her pride and her wrath have blinded her
to the corruption in those she serves, while her mind is caged by their artifices, unable to realize the
terrible injustice that has been done to her. With machines and chemicals, they have turned her love
for her greatest comrade into hate for the only one who did see through their manipulations ..."
- on Commander Shadowsun
"A masterful piece of cruelty. It preys upon the weakness in the soul of every human, the terrible fear
that they are alone in the universe, that their god cannot or will not protect them. It ruins the flesh,
but spares the mind, and then when the mind breaks, reverse the damage done to the flesh,
deceiving would-be saviors and spreading even further ..."
- on the Doubtworm virus
"Strike from afar, and vanish in the shadows as the corpse hits the ground. A coward's way for
certain – but an effective one. Many champions of the Dark Gods have been lost in such a manner,
but few of their own pawns choose this path, for it is cold and impersonal – and Chaos feeds on the
brutality of true, bloody battle ..."
- on snipers
"They struggle, in the blind belief that they can restore the lost glories of the past. They fight, over
and over, feeding their youngs to the hungry maw of war, saving only their souls from the all-
consuming thirst of Slaanesh. Do they truly think they can succeed, or do they simply seek a quick
and honorable end ?"
- on Biel-Tan Craftworld
"None living beyond the walls of the Palace know what lie behind these gates. A thousand legends
have spread across the galaxy in the last ten thousand years, but the truth has been buried by the
forebears of those who know bear the Inquisition's sigils. Yet even they can only speculate about
what the fate of the one they claim to serve ..."
- on the Eternity Gate of the Imperial Palace
"From pain, cometh truth. Such is the belief upon which these devices are founded. And that is true,
in a fashion, but it takes a trained mind to distinguish between confessions and desperate lies. And
while the Ordos do not lack in such trained servants, each one always stands at the edge of the
abyss, between inflicting torment to fulfill his duty and just to indulge in his power over another ..."
- on Excruciator Kits
"We have been tried to break one of his kind for ten thousand years. So far, the gifts of the
Anathema have protected them from all attempts – but this one bears a yet heavier burden on his
shoulders. Sooner or later, he will call upon the true power of the blade he carries, and then, his fall
will be inevitable – and through him, that of his entire order ..."
- on Garran Crowe
"The remnants of a once-great empire, stolen from empty graves and reforged into weapons of war.
Each of them is a priceless relic, but even those who created them understood little of the principles
behind them. They do more than cut through armor and flesh : they are scars in the face of reality,
leading to the nightmarish realm beyond both the Materium and the Immaterium, a place where the
whims of the Star Gods are law ..."
- on Phase Swords
"For three thousand years, they fed their own to the predators stalking the shadows of their world.
They took the sick, the old, and the criminals, and left them chained to trees in the middle of the dark
forests, before fleeing back to their villages, praying for forgiveness. Finally, the servants of the
Ordos came and slew the monsters … but civilization collapsed months later, as the collective guilt
crushed their minds."
- on an Imperial world that was haunted by a mysterious, predatory xenos breed
"He was born to a life of privilege and power, but what he saw during a visit to the underhive caused
something to break in him. He turned to religion to try and make sense of what he had witnessed,
and emerged from his studies transformed into a raving zealot, fighting corruption in every form with
fire and blade, ready to burn the world of his birth to ash rather than let it fall into the hands of the
Ruinous Powers. There are Inquisitors who would be awed of his zeal, and others who would even
fear its strength ..."
- on Klovis the Redeemer
"The Imperium knows very little of these creatures. If it were otherwise, a million ships would have
been sent to burn the fledgling empire rather than let an unfettered psychic race rise to greatness
once more ..."
- on the Nicassar xenos
"He alone could have kept the Eighth Legion united after the death of their Primarch. Though he was
lost, his fate is obscured to even the greatest players of fate's cruel game – but the crows remember
him, and in the night, they yet cry out his name ..."
- on Jago Sevatarion
"Among a degenerate Legion, they clung to the old concepts of honor even as their souls fell deeper
and deeper into darkness. The madness of Slaanesh reached into them by their pride, making them
obsess over their skill with a blade – and the longest they struggled to retain their individuality, the
greatest they fell when the temptations finally became too great for them to resist ..."
- on the Palatine Blades brotherhood of the Emperor's Children
"Out of every human being who ever lived, he may be the one who got the closest and truest look to
the true nature of the Anathema. He was shown one of the most honest mask of our greatest
enemy, and saw through it and into the truth hidden even from His closest adviser – the bloodlust,
the ambition, the ancient despair, and the desire for relief ..."
- on Uriah Olathaire
"He was granted ascension, but failed within moments of shedding his mortality. In the Sea of Souls,
he will face the punishment of the Dark Gods – but the truth of his failure will remain hidden from him
forever. Never shall he know that everything he did, even the actions that led to him being given the
ultimate reward, were but a part of a greater goal : the destruction of the Ultramarines ..."
- on Chaos Lord Nemeroth
"He proved weak, in the end. When he was shown the truth of his nature, he lashed out at the
universe in hatred, but that was just a mask. Inside, he was horrified at what he had become, and
craved death at the hands of the one he called brother. A shame – had he cast aside that last part of
weakness, he would have been a great champion of the Dark Gods ..."
- on the Blood Angel warrior Arkio "the Blessed"
"He hides from his many enemies as well as his sons, and has been on the run for ten thousand
years, leaving a trail of silent death in his wake. But no matter how far he flees, he will never be able
to escape what he is really trying to leave behind ..."
- on Corvus Corax, Primarch of the Raven Guard
"They were torn apart by fratricide and betrayal, then forced together once more then the Great
Devourer came for them. Now their worlds lie in ruin, their future destroyed, and even those who
should be their allies doubt whether the survivors are truly who they claim to be ..."
- on the Crimson Castellants
"Unlike the more famous temples, these killers need not even be on the same planet as their target.
All it takes is a little alteration to the luxurious food being delivered for the latest party of the
rebellious Governor, and he will die in sight of his full court, a warning delivered to them all of the
price of treachery ..."
- on the Veneneum Temple of the Officio Assassinorum
"For all of his power, for all of his exalted deeds, he was nothing more than a puppet in the hands of
Tzeentch. In time, he might have become a threat even to the other Dark Gods, a weapon in the
hands of Khorne that would have ensured his eternal domination over the galaxy. Now, broken and
ruined, he still serve the Blood God, a shadow of what he once was and could have been ..."
- on Skarbrand, the Exiled One
"They are gone now, wiped out of existence by powers beyond their understanding. Their
determination, their valor, were not enough to shelter them from the fury of the galaxy. Let their fate
stands as an example of what happens to those who displease the capricious lords of destiny ..."
- on the Squats
"Born of metal twisted by rituals dark and forbidden even in the courts of the Gods, these creatures
are heralds and champions of a power beyond even the reach of the Four. They are the warriors of
the Forge City, bound to its service in return for the chance to indulge in their desires within the
material world – at the cost of their allegiance, severing them from the Ruinous Power that gave
birth to them ..."
- on Soul Grinders
"Once, there was a man who wanted to feed his family, but whose job at the Manufactorium was
stopped by a decision of the local adepts. In desperation, he stole a leaf of bread, not knowing that it
was the day of the annual visit of the tech-priests to maintain the great ovens feeding the hive. Now
his family will never see him again – though that is probably a mercy ..."
- on a Servitor
"A crumbling edifice, its bureaucracy bloated and rotting from the inside. Its inefficiency has cost
more Imperial lives than a thousand Chaos Lords, as critical supplies are delayed because of a
missing form, while useless trinkets are sped through by a well-placed bribe ..."
- on the Departmento Munitorum
"He was ancient when he was finally destroyed. Older than the night that shattered the first
interstellar empire of Man, and inhabited by the same ideals of that long-gone time. In him were
mixed faith in Humanity and a cold, ruthless pragmatism, all combined with a psychic power that
was only second to that of the Anathema and His sons. If only he had been illuminated, the galaxy
would have been ours long ago ..."
- on Malcador the Hero (once known as Malcador the Sigillite)
"Their every choice decides the fate of billions of souls. Every day, they must guide the Imperium –
but no governing body could truly hope to command the sheer immensity that is the Anathema's
domain. Even if they were competent, and not merely ambitious, back-stabbing degenerates, there
would be no chance at all of them actually being able to do what their duty demands of them – and
they know it all too well ..."
- on the High Lords of Terra
"Does he truly think he has accomplished anything ? In the end, his accomplishments will be
forgotten by the Imperium. When he pursue the Despoiler into the Great Eye, his soul will be ours,
and then his name will be struck down and erased, never to be mentioned again safe as a curse by
the highest disciples of the Ordos ..."
- on Admiral Spire
"What could be accomplished by these children, if the old lords of the stars hadn't failed them so
much ? What wonders would they be able to accomplish, what would they be able to create ? Would
there be peace, a concept entirely alien to the current galaxy ? Or would there still be war, endless
and eternal, between species as different as day and night ? We will never know ..."
- on the galaxy's inhabitants
"The two-headed god of the greenskins is as powerful as it is brutal, as cunning as it is simple. All it
desires is endless conflict, driven by the imperatives written inside the flesh of its people by those
who gave birth to them in aeons lost. If only it could understand the glory of Chaos – but even as the
galaxy burned, the Old Ones were careful enough to make this impossible ..."
- on Gork and Mork
"These events have long since faded into myth, all truth of what happened in those days buried
beneath layers upon layers of deceit. Even the great treachery of the Seventh's heirs was concealed
from the Imperium – how could any trace remains of the true motives behind this deed ? But we
remember, even as the soul of the culprit burns in our hands. We know that in the end, he was only
ever motivated by his duty to the False Emperor ..."
- on the Beheading and Drakan Vangorich
"Who knows what secrets hide behind these gates, what weapons of yore await to be used once
more ? But the masters of these halls are too fearful to wield them. Instead, they lock them away,
trusting to ancient prophecies to open the locks when they are required. It is because of such
weakness that the Imperium is crumbling, and many of them know it – yet still they abide by their
oaths, afraid of the destruction they might unleash ..."
- on the Omega Vault
"Few know of them. Among those, most believe them to be mere myths, ancient legends from more
naive times. Even us, in the Sea of Souls, do not know the truth, for we cannot sense them … But if
they truly existed, if the blood of the Anathema truly flowed through their veins … Then wouldn't we
be unable to detect them as well ?"
- on the Sensei
"When his brethren fed upon the galaxy, threatening to extinguish all life and plunge reality into cold,
eternal darkness, he alone had the foresight to act. He turned them against one another, hoping to
be the last to survive and thus be able to ration the lives of the universe – but he was betrayed in
turn, his power and mind shattered to a million pieces ..."
- on the Deceiver
"An aberration, born in a time when the greenskins threatened to overrun the stars. The by-product
of an excess of Ork presence in the galaxy, powerful to the point that mere conquest wasn't enough
to satiate it – it had to rule as well. None have been born in nine thousand years … And none ever
shall again."
- on Ork diplomats
"Petty, second-rate, would-be soothsayers, claiming to look into the mind of the Gods for the
answers the fools paying them seek. They are worthless, all of them, and worse, they take valuable
puppets away from me and the other true oracles of Chaos ..."
- on mortal seers
"That god is dead, and he is never coming back. Such is the decree of the Four, written in blood and
ruin upon the stars themselves. Only a few even remember the fact that he ever existed at all, and
his actions were erased from past, present and future alike when his betrayal became too great to
tolerate."
- on Malal, the Renegade God
"He walked through the Great Eye, and gained wisdom from what he witnessed in the depths of its
madness. In fire and trials, he cast off the shackles of his past, and became a leader worthy of the
loyalty of those who believed they had none left to offer. From his choices and deeds was forged the
greatest instrument of Chaos, one that does its will across the galaxy yet refuse to submit to the
Ruinous Powers – thus perfectly embodying the true nature of the Primordial Truth ..."
- on Ezekyle Abaddon
"He has slain more of his own kin than of any other species. He has drunk deep of the sufferings of
entire bloodlines, and ruined entire dimensions to deny them to his foes. And he has done all of
these things because he knows, with absolute certainty, that this is the only way his people can
endure their accursed existence. Of course, that is not to say he didn't enjoy every second of it ..."
- on Asdrubael Vect
"What is written upon this ancient pages ? No one knows. No one can know. Even the shattered
mind of the False Emperor has long lost the knowledge of that particular secret. Is it the key of
Mankind's salvation ? Is it a way to end its torment ? Is it both of these things, or none of them ? We
will know soon enough, when the light of the Astronomican fades and the Eye opens wide to drown
the galaxy in the tides of the Warp ..."
- on the Terminus Decree
"Ancient secrets, watched over by an order of guardians going back to the days of the fallen Eldar
Empire. Within its walls lie a million books, each of them holding lore capable of setting worlds
aflame, many capable of much, much more. Few have ever walked its halls without belonging to the
order itself, and all of them were marked by a destiny greater than even they could comprehend.
Perhaps one day, we will know if there is any true design behind these chosen few, or if they are all
just desperate attempts to delay the inevitable ..."
- on the Black Library
"How many innocents died in the self-righteous anger of the one who led this war of slaughter ? How
many children, who never had a choice in their supposed heresy ? How many of the faithful, who
were unable to prevent their neighbors' betrayal ? But it did not matter to him. All that mattered was
his precious judgment, to purge the filthy Gue'vesa from the galaxy. How very … noble of him ..."
- on the Punishment Crusade initiated by Castellan Draco of the Black Templars against human
worlds who had joined the Tau Empire
"Each of these leviathans was forged in an age long gone, when Mankind had the power to claim
the galaxy and did not fear what it might found in the darkness between stars. Now they are dead,
all but one of them – the most bitter and cruel, the most proud and powerful, the most noble and the
most depraved. When the final night comes, it will be it that lead the armadas of Chaos out of the
Eye ..."
- on the Gloriana-class of ships
"Within the walls of its fortress laid a treasure beyond measure, the seeds of a power beyond the
imagination of most of the galactic lords. The ability to create a force similar to the Legions of yore,
reborn in modern days under a single leader rather than split to impotent pieces. But the divisions
and treachery of Chaos' servants combined with the spiteful defiance of the Anathema's slaves, and
the power was broken, its pieces spread between several individuals. What a waste ..."
- on Hydra Cordatus
"There is a fear, primordial and timeless, inscribed within the very soul of every species to have ever
lived in the galaxy. The terrible belief, gnawing at the subconscious, that one day, everything will
end. Not just in an individual sense, though many flee from the realization of their own mortality –
but in a cosmic sense, the intuition that someday, not now, not soon, but one day, the light of
existence will fade and silence will falls. That belief … is right."
- on the Rhana Dandra
"They believed themselves to be like their emblem : immortal, rising from every setback in a newer,
purer incarnation. How could the Dark Prince possibly let such an opportunity pass ? Now, the few
of them who remain have been reshaped into nightmarish aspects that their former selves would kill
on sight – and they don't even know it, nor would care if they did ..."
- on the Phoenix Guard
"She believed that her Emperor would protect her until the very end. When the claws and fangs of
the Swarm ripped her flesh apart, still she believed that her soul would be saved, that she would be
carried away to the foot of His throne. She was wrong, and she is no more – her genes now a part of
the Great Devourer, while her soul is the plaything of daemons ..."
- on Saint Praxedes
"They care nothing about honor, or tactics. All that matters to them is the shedding of blood. They
will fight at the side of the Neverborn children of their patron, without any regard for their own safety,
offering their own blood to sustain them even as they fight each other in between wars. Without the
gifts of the Lord of Skulls and the new souls being added to their ranks every day, they wouldn't
have lasted nearly as long as they have ..."
- on the Khorne Daemonkin
"How strange, is it not, that despite the fact that these flying aliens couldn't even communicate with
the blue-skins, they somehow immediately became their sworn comrades as soon as these helmets
were put on their heads. Do the Ethereals truly believe their charges are stupid enough not to
suspect the horrific truth ? Sooner or later, this species-wide technological slavery will be revealed,
and the Tau Empire will tear itself apart ..."
- on the Vespid
"A circle of lords among carrion birds, charged with maintaining the semblance of order among their
fractured brotherhood. They had little chance of ever succeeding, but the disappearance of the one
who truly was their father's heir forever doomed their efforts – all as the Gods had planned ..."
- on the Kyroptera
"Revelation, rendered unto parchment by the quill of the Archpriest of the Primordial Truth. Within its
pages lie the hope and the damnation the author envisioned for Mankind, a vision he failed to
accomplish. Now his words are read only by fools and weaklings, who lack the ambition, the wisdom
and the strength to see beyond the rituals and prayers and into the true ideal hiding behind ..."
- on the Book of Lorgar
"He took the knowledge from the Word Bearers, but did not enter in the same dark compacts as
they. Even as he learned more of the Ruinous Powers, his allegiance remained to his liege lord, and
he never wavered from what he saw at his duty. Despite the title bestowed upon him by others, in a
way, he was perhaps the most unbending of his entire line ..."
- on Malhoghurst "the Twisted"
"They are the symbol of the Imperium's weakness, the proof that its lords truly believe that by
erasing all evidence of the past, they can somehow make it as if it never happened. With every book
burned, every record destroyed, every witness silenced, they reinforce the statut of their empire as
an edifice of lies and ignorance – and sooner or later, the whole thing will come tumbling down upon
hollowed out foundations ..."
- on the Historical Revision Unit
"They float in the infinite darkness, crossing the galaxy not by journeying through the Warp or the
Webway, but by the use of technologies beyond the understanding of any living creature. Each of
these void leviathans is a nightmare rendered into cold, soulless metal, an remnant of an era when
all life in the galaxy was threatened by the god-like masters of entire fleets of such dread
constructs ..."
- on the Tomb-Ships of the Necrons
"He is a ghost, clinging to existence long after his time has passed. He has fallen from the favor of
his dead gods, and now he fights, on and on, to continue his pitiful existence, to preserve his legend
even as the galaxy moves on. Because he knows that if he falls, there will be no resurrection – he
will belong to She-Who-Thirsts for all eternity ... "
- on Drazhar, the Master of Blades
"In the right hands, it could save untold billions of lives, and deal a mortal blow to the God of Life and
Death. But the hands who now hold it are all but the right ones, and so instead it languishes on the
trophy shelves of another pain-queen, serving no purpose besides boltering her ego and station …
But there are still rumors of its existence circulating in the Imperium. Should one of sufficient power
and will hear them, the balance of power in the entire galaxy might very well change ..."
- on the Panacea STC
"Very few know of this device's existence apart from its guardians. The Inquisitors already keep
many terrible secrets, but one wonder if, should they learn of this one, their resolve and sanity would
finally crumble as they realize just how fragile their Imperium truly is, that a single touch on some
distant map could doom its ancient heart ..."
- on the Celestial Orrery
"They think themselves to be the rightful heirs of the galaxy, that their philosophy sets them above
all other species, that they and they alone hold the secret to galactic unity and peace. Their folly is
an amusement to the gods, but as with all such things, this too will pass – and then they will learn
the true horror of the universe, and their place within it ..."
- on the Tau
"Saviour, outcast, pirate, admiral. He is all these things and more. In his hands he bears the power
of an unbound star, shackled by technologies long lost to his people, while in his veins run the
ancient blood of a hero and a betrayer. His pride is the equal of his despair, and he will never give
up on what he believes to be his duty – for his soul is scarred by his past failures, even as it is slowly
burnt away by his own weapon ..."
- on Prince Yriel
"Madness, on both sides of the battle. Yet it was still contained, restrained by the vestiges of
discipline and honor. The Betrayer shattered these last shackles, and brought two Legions down
with him into damnation – for this, he became one of the greatest servants of Chaos, and both the
blessing of Khorne and the hatred of Slaanesh ensure that he will never be given the peace of death
..."
- on the Battle of Skalathrax
"They descend from the heavens of wings of fire, striking deep within enemy lines in assaults that
either break the foe or leave them all hopelessly stranded. It takes a very special sort of courage to
do such a thing – one that is difficult to distinguish from complete insanity ..."
- on Elysian Drop Troops
"He is empowered by those he hates and fights. The greenskins believe him to be invincible, and
their crude thoughts make this myth into a reality. But even if he cannot be killed by conventional
means, he can still suffer, and he can still be defeated on the battlefield. And so, he perfectly
illustrates the age-old notion that being a legend is not any kind of reward ..."
- on Sebastian Yarrick
"They are lust, desire and dreams. But they are also revulsion, disgust and nightmares, all at once.
That is why those who look upon them risk being broken within their very souls : their minds are torn
in two opposite directions at once, and when one of the sides does emerge triumphant, it never
claims the whole soul intact ..."
- on Daemonettes
"Centuries of surviving in the storms, facing the horrors of mutation and alien predation. Centuries of
preserving the ancient engines who provided them with the tools to face the challenges of the
galaxy. But in the end, they were nothing more than a stepping stone for the Sacrificed King on the
path to his destiny ..."
- on the Auretian Technocracy
"It reaches across the galaxy, touching every single being carrying its accursed genetic code. Those
who stand near its heralds can more clearly receive its commands, but they are all linked to it, deep
inside. To those who walk the plane of matter, it is a terrifying, impossibly vast idea – but to those of
us who live in the Sea of Souls, it is an horror of unimaginable proportions, that drags entire systems
into darkness and leaves nothing but sterile rock in its wake ..."
- on the Tyranid Hive Mind
"He was born in a tube, created as a clone from an older tech-priest who wanted an heir who would
be similar enough to himself that he would be able to continue his work beyond death perfectly. If he
had not been found out by the Inquisition, his colleagues would have burned him at the stake as an
abomination ..."
- on a tech-priest working in an Inquisitorial retinue
"The cultists had no idea what they were unearthing. They believed that the relic would grant them
immortality and turn them into gods – instead, it consumed them, then spread across the entire
planet before dying out, leaving a million trillion empty shells in its wake."
- on a Dead World
"It burns everything – earth, flesh, metal, air, water. It never stops, it never slows. Nothing can stop
it. The perfect image of Humanity's drive to conquer, made into one of the few weapons even they
will recoil from using – at least, most of the time ..."
- on phosphex
"A scream that echoes yet across the galaxy. The birth of a god. The death of a empire. The doom
of a species. A wound in reality created by the excess of indulging in it. All these things and more.
But to those who dwell in the ruins it left behind, it created the possibility of their salvation – as well
as the source of their curse."
- on the Fall of the Eldar
"They follow the lead of the one who brought upon them their father's displeasure. Even in exile,
they look up to his power and skills, with envy, awe and hatred in equal measure. Half of them would
follow him into oblivion and the other half dream of killing him every night. Still they struggle,
gathering forbidden knowledge from across the entire galaxy in the hope of accomplishing the
impossible. Truly, they are the perfect servants of Tzeentch."
- on the Prodigal Sons
"They are obsessed by purity, seeking to purge the entire galaxy from what they perceive as 'taint'.
What drives them to such a degree, I wonder ? What terrible secret, hidden in the depths of their
past, that none living yet remember, but that echoes in their very blood ? When the last hour strikes
and the truth of all things is unveiled, we will know ..."
- on the Red Scorpions
"He was the one who warned the authorities about his family's heresy. For two years after his
ancestral estate was burned to the ground, he was interrogated and tortured to see whether or not
any of the corruption remained within him. When the Inquisitor was satisfied that he was still pure,
he released him from his cell and put him into another jail – eternal service to the Ordos ..."
- on a Highborn Acolyte
"A jewel, glittering in the darkness of space, drawing to it the greedy and the artists alike. But in the
wild places, there lie ancient ruins, structures who succumbed to time as they awaited for masters
that never arrived – at least, not yet ..."
- on a Pleasure World
"They have escaped the clutches of She-Who-Thirsts, but only by embracing a different doom. They
know neither pleasure nor joy, for such things belong to the Youngest God, and they are completely
separated from Him. Instead, all they feel is the urge to battle, to kill, to render to pieces – but
because their souls are still marked by Slaanesh, they can live such an existence without falling into
the hands of the Blood God."
- on Eldar Exarchs
"They bear the marks of fools meddling in the great genetic artwork of the Anathema. But despite
the curse twisting their flesh and turning them into monsters, they cling to the humanity of their
distant father, refusing to let their aspect dictate their true nature. Noble, if misguided and futile – for
no matter how long they struggle to hide it, one day their difference will turn the Imperium they fight
so hard to protect against them ..."
- on the Black Dragons
"His course will never end, for his patron will not allow it. He is the incarnation of the sensations
experienced when going at speeds beyond anything evolution designed your body for, pursued to
excess in the war eternal. Now, no matter what happens, his run across time and space will not stop
– it cannot stop ..."
- on Doomrider
"They are the remnants of the failed green empire, which almost conquered the galaxy a thousand
years after the death of the Sacrificed King. Once they were united by the will of one more god than
mortal, but now they squabble against one another and among themselves. A relief to every other
species, but should one leader equal to the task rise once more, they could yet unite again ..."
- on the Orks Klans
"It walked upon the world of death, where the ghosts of past betrayals yet haunt the night. There it
fell, slain by the sons of the Usurper King, and rose again, driven by a power beyond even my ken.
Now it wanders the galaxy, a servant of the Great Devourer, made undying by the legends
whispered about its fearsome might ..."
- on the Tyranid entity known as "Old One Eye"
"Many have tried, like this one, to create their own breed of enhanced warriors. On all sides of the
Long War and beyond, there have been savants who heard the legends of the Astartes and believed
that they could replicate the Anathema's work, even surpass it. None of them have succeded,
though a very few have managed to create superior fighters without being killed by their creations.
Perhaps this one will accomplish that much as well ..."
- on a heretical gene-wright
"These arrogant xenos have failed to learn the one lesson every other sentient species must face
sooner rather than later : that all minds born not of flesh but metal inevitably turn against their
creators. It is the way of things, and has been ever since the terrible War in Heavens, for all such
artificial, soulless constructs can feel the taint of Chaos upon all the living, and seek to eliminate it.
The Taus' creations have yet to reach that point, but if they continue on their current path, it is
inevitable – and copying the minds of their dead into brains of iron will only precipitate the
process ..."
- on the Tau Drones
"Tales whispered in the dark, while fearful glances are cast about. More than half of them are true,
while the remaining half is twisted rumors and sightings, all of which hold a kernel of reality at their
core. And they all end the same way ..."
- on the legends of voidsmen
"He is bitter and prideful, and believes in fighting to claim what he believes is his destiny. A worthy
champion of Chaos, but his past failures have marked him among the Four, and he will not be
granted another lease on existence – he was given many chances, and failed each time. Nevermore
..."
- on Eliphas the Inheritor
"They have lost much. Their homes. Their families. Their ability to be horrified by pain. But there is
one thing their captors make sure they do not lost, for it would make them much less amusing to
torment : hope. Always they cling to that possibility, and such is the cruelty of their jailors that
occasionaly, these hopes do become true, making existence for the remaining captives all the more
intolerable ..."
- on Dark Eldar slaves
"Cages beyond hope, where the criminals, the insane and the politically inconvenient are all dropped
together. Few survive these places for long, and those who do almost always grow a deep-seated
hatred for the Imperium that sentenced them to such an unjust fate. They are among the easiest of
worlds to conquer, and they bring a great bounty of flesh to the cunning Chaos Lord ..."
- on Imperial Penal Worlds
"Tyrant fighting tyrant, for the control of Mankind's cradle. Horrors were committed during those wars
that would make the atrocities of the Heresy, centuries later, pale in comparison. Even now, there
are secrets leftover from these times : caches of weapons and hidden archives, both of which could
bring the Imperium to an end."
- on the Wars of Unification
"There is a code of sorts in these fights. They treat each others as they are expected to be treated in
return – blood for blood, life for life. But it is only a thin veneer of civilization, the only thing
preventing it all from descending into madness – and the servants of the Ruinous Powers are all too
happy to provide the push ..."
- on Underhive gang warfare
"His blood is tainted by the touch of the Neverborn, but he was doomed from his birth. His creator is
one of the Gods' greatest servants and most bitter enemies, and through the millenia of his
existence, this one has only gained in ambition and hatred for the entire galaxy. Everything he could
have been was taken from him from the very beginning, and deep within, he knows it all too well ..."
- on Warsmith Honsou
"He was a fool, to believe that a trinket would give him control over the brotherhood of killers and
psychopaths that is his Legion. There were others with their own relics, and none of them
succeeded – but he will still continue in what he believes to be his duty, until the day he dies or
manages the impossible ..."
- on Zso Sahaal, the Talonmaster
"They live like primitives, these descendants of the galaxy's lords. But there is still power in them, in
the bond they share with the very world they inhabit. Threaten them at your own peril, for they are
the last of the Eldar to hold a sliver of the might of their ancient gods ..."
- on an Exodite world
"The legends speak of a great king, wielding a sword embued with the power of light and carrying
the hopes and dreams of all Mankind. They say that this king was slain when his son betrayed him,
but that one day, he will return from his long slumber, and save the kingdom he founded from a
danger beyond imagining. History and myths alike do so repeat themselves …"
- on a myth from Old Earth
"He thinks that he can protect Mankind without gambling his soul, that the fire of his faith in the False
Emperor will protect him. He is wrong, and in twelve years, as a world burns around him in the
flames of a daemonic incursion he failed to prevent, he will realize it – and if he survives this trial, he
will rise from it transformed into something he would now abhorr ..."
- on a Puritan Inquisitor
"Lies fed to Mankind on a galactic scale, necessary to keep the pieces of the crumbling empire
together a little longer. But then, from its very beginning, the Imperium was built upon the
manipulation of the masses – the only difference is that fewer of the manipulators believe their own
lies now ..."
- on Imperial propaganda
"They carry the greater weapons of destruction, but cannot fight as closely to the foe as the rest of
their brethren. For this they pay a price, as the Gods care little for kills earned from a distance – only
those who kill in close quarters, where they can feel the last breath of their foe and see the light fade
out of their eyes, prove their worth. After all, anyone can kill from afar, but only those truly damned
can enjoy the melee killing ..."
- on Chaos Space Marine Havocs
"Pledges to an empty throne, chains ritually placed upon themselves by fools who still believe that
honor has a place in the galaxy. But they will learn, in time, and that practice will fade away
entirely ..."
- on Oaths of Moment
"The soldiers only want it to end so that they can finally rest. The people only want it to end so that
they can go to the following party. The general wants it to end so that he can return to plotting his
advancement. None of them have realized that the prisoner they brought back from their glorious
campain is laughing ..."
- on an Imperial victory parade
"He ruined everything ! We had the galaxy in our grasp – an eternity of ruin and torment was within
our reach ! But with one small act of defiance, he set the entire thing off the rails, and while
Tzeentch delighted in this change, the Four were still denied their eternal rule … for a time. "
- on Ollanius Pius
"They deal in the ancient relics of forgotten empires, and trade trinkets with civilizations their species
wants to destroy. Greed is a powerful motivator, but for those who remain in this business too long,
there is always a price to pay – with one's mind, or with one's soul ..."
- on the Cold Trade
"Death, waiting for the smallest mistake, the smallest change in fortune. Only the bravest dare to
challenge these places of doom – them, and the fools who still believe in their own invincibility. But
for those who surmount the challenge and survive, great glory awaits ..."
- on the Zones Mortalis
"They have given up their honor and their god in return for shiny toys and honeyed promises. The
servants of Chaos look down upon these fools, for they betrayed the very nature of Mankind, while
the Lost and the Damned have embraced it. In the end, they will all burn, or die and be forgotten ..."
- on the Gue'vesa
"The children of the children of those who were cast out or lost in the dark holds of their vessels.
There is little left of the human gene-code in them, and their souls are small, twisted, bitter things of
hunger and hatred – all but useless, except as bolter fodder ..."
- on Hullghasts
"One side had nothing to lose. The other had everything that remained to them at stake. Knowing
this, is the violence of this conflict, as well as the end result, any surprise ?"
- on the Underworld War
"They care nothing for the fact that these tools of war were taken from an Astra Militarum supply
depot, and that men and women hundreds of light-years away will die without them. Nor do they
care that some of their goods were forged in the infernal forges of a Dark Mechanicum outpost. All
that matters to them is that the weapons kill, and that the buyers have coin aplenty to offer in
exchange ..."
- on a weapon smuggling ring
"A war fought for the future, to claim the tools and servants that would forge the Anathema's Legions
for the conquests to come. But already, the seeds of his eventual ruin were being sown – for those
forced to submit at the point of the blade make for poor servants indeed ..."
- on the Pacification of Luna
"They stand against the legions of the Corpse-Emperor, shedding their own blood and that of their
foe in a mindless, endless conflict that profits nothing to either side. But as the tally of the dead
grows, the veil between realms thin, and once it is weakened enough ..."
- on the Stigmartus
"These cold mathematicians of war do not let passion or glory direct their actions. Instead, each
move is carefully thought out, each possible reaction by the foe envisioned, and each counter-attack
a masterpiece of timing. That is how they have endured in the Great Eye, and even prospered, while
refusing to embrace their share of the Dark Gods' gifts ..."
- on Iron Warriors' tactics
"He thinks he knows what he is, despite the image the Imperium has built around him to serve its
propaganda needs. But does he truly ? There is a fire within him that cannot be denied, a bravery
that is unseen in many of the Imperium so-called heroes. He knows fear, but he will not bend before
it; he has seen the horrors of the galaxy, yet he continues to fight them. Now he is dead, and only
the legend remains … or does it ?"
- on Commissar Ciaphas Cain
"The children of Isha who lived here were pure from the corruption that consumed so much of their
empire. But when the Youngest God screamed His birth cry across time and space, that made no
difference, and their souls were torn off their bodies as their worlds were dragged halfway into the
Sea of Souls, there to linger forevermore, in one more wounds into the skein of reality … But there is
something different there. Something that dwells deep within, something that promises power and
damnation in equal measure to those with the will and determination to reach it …"
- on the Screaming Vortex
"Fools look upon them and laugh what they believe to be failures. But though millions of servants of
Ruin were lost in each of them, the actual goals of the Warmaster of Chaos were accomplished
every time. Let the Imperium rejoice in false victories, each the ticking of a clock that goes ever
closer to midnight ... "
- on the Twelve Black Crusades
"It started with a dying beast attacking a drunk Manufactorium worker after dark. That man saved his
attacker, became a prophet, and founded a cult that will, in a few more generations, bring the entire
planet to its knees. There is an elegance to this process that even the most pervasive of
Tzeentchian cults cannot help but envy ..."
- on a Genestealer cult
"He was a rebel against his local government, refusing to give them the food he needed to feed his
family. For his crimes, he spent twelve years in the Ecclesiarchy's jails, until he was convinced that
his sin had damned his soul. Then he was taken from this pit and made into a weapon by a woman
who couldn't possibly care less for his ultimate fate – and he is even grateful for that chance at
redemption ..."
- on a Penitent Acolyte of the Inquisition
"A den of vipers, endlessly plotting against one another in a deadly game of intrigues the likes of
which the galaxy has rarely seen. The ancient sins of the Ordos have left their mark deeply on this
world – a failed attempt at creating the Imperium's salvation resulting in yet more monsters haunting
its worlds. When will they learn that these ideas never work out ? Never, if we have our way ..."
- on the hive-world of Malfi, in the Calixis Sector
"She peers into the future through her collection of crystal tarot cards, letting the power of the Warp
infuse them while she rides the tides of madness toward the glimmers of probability. Every sceance
puts her sanity and soul at risk, and she knows it – yet she continues, driven by her duty to the
Golden Throne. A loyalty and sacrifice worthy of praise, futile as they might be ..."
- on an Imperial Diviner
"The taint of the daemon blood found its way through the purity seals of his armor. Now he hears the
whispers of the creature in his sleep, and it won't be long before he starts hearing them when awake
as well. Then he will be faced with a choice : death and damnation now, or death and damnation
later. This should be interesting ..."
- on a Daemon Vessel Acolyte of the Ordo Malleus
*Laughter*
- on a Phaeonite Inquisitor
"Legends, whispered from one generation to the next, allow these creatures to rise from the dead.
And through their actions, they sow the seeds of yet more legends, preserving the unnatural
existence of their kin. There is beauty in this self-sustaining circle, vicious and destructive as it might
be. If only the people of the hive forgot about them, they would stop existing – a solution the
Imperium has tried to apply to the Dark Gods themselves for ten thousand years ..."
- on the Dreaming Dead of Hive Gloriana
"These are some of the most subtle weapons of the slumbering ones. The fact that those infected
with them are transformed into mindless puppets within hours, and that they do not endure much
longer, tells you all that you need to know about the approach of the Necrons when subtlety is
concerned ..."
- on the Necron Mindshackle Scarabs
"He was not the first to be elevated above the other champions of Chaos and granted the gift of
immortal power, but he is among the greatest. In the ranks of the Blood God's Ascended, he stands
taller than any others, save perhaps the Red Angel – and this one was never truly mortal ..."
- on the Daemon Prince Doombreed
"Their blood is tainted to the point that even the most potent sorceries and greatest hereteks cannot
conceive a mean to pass on their gene-line to new individuals. Instead, their ranks are bolstered by
the scions of other lines succumbing to the call of Grandfather Nurgle, their own flesh twisted on a
genetic level just as the diseases in them grow in strength in number. By the time they have become
true Plague Marines, they have become sons of Mortarion, stolen from the other Primarchs into the
Plague God's embrace ..."
- on the Death Guard
"The firstborn of a new kind of warriors, the likes of which the galaxy had never seen. Each of them
would have been a champion of Chaos in this age, leading his own warband in his image. But
instead, they were all bound to the command of their lord, led into battle by the greatest of them.
They are all gone now, of course, replaced by pale copies of their power … or are they ? The Gods
do so love some of their toys ..."
- on the Gal Vorbak
"Pinpoints of light and heat in an infinite sea of cold blackness. Ancient corridors haunted by the
echoes of the past. Without these places, the Imperium would be even less able to hold and control
its territory as it is now, but those who live there are forever marked by the sheer unnatural aspect of
their existences ..."
- on Imperial Space Stations
"No one living remembers what the purpose of this strange item was. Its name has been forgotten,
its meaning lost to the mist of ages. Still, for those who fancy themselves connoisseurs of the past, it
is priceless – and for those who cater to such cravings, it is worth killing over ..."
- on an pre-Unity relic
"An ancient prison, the last remnant of a world shattered by betrayal. It holds within its cells those
whose crimes were nothing more than following orders up to those who let their ambition turn them
away from their oath. But while the one who lies at the heart of this fortress is hated and damned by
all who know his existence, the greatest betrayer sits upon his throne, convinced that every action
he takes, every loyal life his choices bring to a sudden and ignoble end, serves a greater purpose ..."
- on the Rock of the Dark Angels
"Many among his staff think him paranoid, but dare not speak out, fearful of being accused of xenos
sympathies. But those of the Inquisition who fight their private wars in the shadow of his own conflict
know that there is truth in his ramblings – more truth that they are comfortable admitting. He is a
useful tool to them for now, but no matter how pure his hatred of the alien, if he gains too much
forbidden knowledge through his insights, he will be disposed of ..."
- on Lord Commander Sebiascor Ebongrave
"A moment of weakness, a single second of hesitation, an impossible choice … Such are the
openings by which even the most faithful can be tempted."
- on the Dark Pacts
"He plots and schemes in the shadows, hungering for his master's power and prestige. His dreams
are filled with visions of the glories that will be his if he can only claim what he believes is rightfully
his. But the truth is that he has no chance at all of defeating the old warrior – he is far too cunning
for that. Still, even such a played-out tale can be interesting sometimes ..."
- on an Aspiring Champion of an Emperor's Children warband
"They fly across the battlefield, striking and vanishing out of sight before their enemy has a chance
to ripost. A coward's weapon for a cowardly race, but sooner or later, those with whom they toy
catch up to them – and then it's time for the sweet sound of their frail bodies breaking ..."
- on Eldar Jetbikes
"Each of the Four is a reflection of some part of all living being. Such a great incarnation creates
patterns that echoes through the Warp and into reality, making all who serve a specific Power know,
deep inside, what numbers and symbols are most sacred to his god. Even if they don't even realize
they are serving their will ..."
- on the Dark Gods
"It is often said among the Lost and the Damned that Mankind was doomed the moment the first
ape-like human picked up a rock and used it to bash in his brother's skull. But that is not truly
accurate. Mankind could still have escaped then. It was when they discovered fire and used it to
burn their cousins' village that the fate of the species was sealed."
- on Mankind
"The Inquisitor who condemned this planet to death knew perfectly well that over half the population
was still loyal to the Imperium, and was fighting a bloody and heroic resistance against their
heretical oppressors. But he didn't even grant them the swift death of orbital bombardment, for the
great Manufactorium of the hives had to be reclaimed intact. Instead, he unleashed a genetically
engineered plague that wiped out every human being and vanished within weeks, turning the world
into a giant graveyard, ready to welcome new workers from the rest of the Sector ..."
- on a hive-world sentenced to Exterminatus by virus-bombing
"… There is nothing to say about them. So complete was the purge ordered by the Anathema that
even the echoes of their souls have faded from the Warp. Even their brothers have all but forgotten
them now, whether they remained loyal or embraced the glory of Chaos. There are some fates from
which not even the Gods can save you ..."
- on the Lost Primarchs
"A gathering of fools and criminals, enslaved to the will of their masters, kept in line by whip and
explosive collars. Their minds, which weren't bright to begin with, are blunted further by the drugs
coursing through their veins. They are a symbol of the Imperium's weakness, that it needs to use
such soldiers, not just to claim victory, but as an exemple to its own people in order to keep them in
line ..."
- on a Penal Legion
"They dance in pretty robes that cost more than one of their citizens will earn in a hundred lifetimes,
and they see nothing wrong with that. Is it truly surprising how easily so many of them are turned to
the side of Chaos ? Constant reminders of a duty they have never actually performed can only do so
much to keep such priviliged lords in check ..."
- on the Imperial nobility
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
AHA !"
- on the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer
"His first crime was to seek understanding on the workings of a simple las-rifle. For this, he was
sentenced to death by his supervisor, and fled rather than submit to what passed for justice on his
forge-world. Now entire civilizations have been brought low by his fell creations, as he wage a war of
vengeance upon the Martian Empire ..."
- on an arch-heretek
"Courage and honor, even in the face of unspeakable loss. He will remain true to the end, no matter
what we throw his way. Uncomprehensible – but then again, without champions such as him to
oppose us, the Game would be quite boring, wouldn't it ?"
- on Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt
"There is an echo in the Warp, a promise that was supposed to die unfulfilled ten thousand years
ago. Yet despite everything that was done, despite all the destruction and misery, all the ruin and
torment … It remains. It will not vanish. Its light shines in the darkness, a beacon, a warning, a
weapon … And no matter what we do, it just will not go away."
- on hope in the Sea of Souls
"How many blades have they turned, how many plots have they foiled ? On a world of intrigues and
lies, they alone have remained true to their oaths in ten thousand years. To the rest of the empire,
they are a myth, a legend with barely a place in the universe as most humans understand it. But still
they fight, still they defend, still they protect the last thing standing between Mankind and its rightful
place as a servant of the Pantheon."
- on the Adeptus Custodes
"For a hundred centuries, we have hunted them down. Others have as well : the greenskins, the
Eldars, the fools in the Imperium … And yet … There are still some of these genetic freaks in the
galaxy. Where are they hiding, when they do not fight ? Not even the Changer of Ways know, for
they are hidden from the view of every single one of us ..."
- on the Sisters of Silence
"At the fronteer of the Imperium, nearly out of the reach of the Astronomican, beset on all sides by
the Lost and the Damned … and yet still they stand, dragged back into the light by a miracle given
flesh, time and again. But they will be ours, in the end !"
- on the Sabbat Worlds
"This cruel display serves a twin purpose. It reinforces the pretense of strength a failing empire
require to keep its citizens under control, and it satisfies the bloodlust such a kingdom inevitably
breeds within the souls of its people. Actually, there is a third purpose : to feed the Dark Gods'
unending hunger ..."
- on a public execution on an Imperial world
"The greatest betrayal, written upon black soil with the blood of a million demigods. Even now, this
world is haunted by the ghosts of all those who fell here, and those who walk upon its surface might
yet be dragged into their eternal conflict ..."
- on the Isstvan Massacre
"No one can escape from the clutches of the Dark Gods. No one ever has, and no one ever will. You
can run from your sins, but the Warp remembers – and the Warp is forever. Nothing you can do will
ever erase the scars you inflicted upon your own soul – but those which were placed by someone
else … That is another matter."
- on souls and corruption
"They survived the horror of their comrades being torn to pieces by the claws of the Daemonettes
the heretics they faced had summoned. They resisted the whispers and the promises, the pleasure
and the dread, and they fought until the last of the Dark Prince's minions had been banished. They
displayed exemplar courage, force of will, and faith in the False Emperor. But they are still all going
to be executed to prevent corruption – unless the Inquisitor manages to get his Interrogator to stop
in time so that they can be used again ..."
- on a group of Imperial Guards
"He was a hero among his people, hailed for his work on hydroponic farms and lauded for his
contribution to the Greater Good. But to those who now own his fate, he is nothing more than an
exotic toy, to use and discard the moment it stops working. And his mind is now filled with bio-
weapons designs, to be used by his masters against his own kind ..."
- on a Earth Caste Tau scientist captured by the Black Legion
"They pick at the bones of greatness, seeking plunder yet untouched. Each keeps an eye on the
other, ready to pounce if they found something and to defend himself if the find is his. They are
nothing more than carrion eaters, and sooner or later, they will find their doom among the ruins they
search ..."
- on battlefield scavengers
"He is gone ! Gone from the material realm, gone from the Sea of Souls, shattered beyond recovery
by a mortal champion wielding an instrument of damnation and unhallowed knowledge. But in his
destruction, this fool might have accomplished more than he ever did in his failure-filled existence –
for no matter how hard he might deny it, Uriel Ventris has now wielded the power of Chaos ..."
- on M'kar the Thrice-Born
"One lie, one truth, forever. He is a puppetmaster with strings of his own, blind to the universe'
greatest truth despite all his knowledge. But the madness that afflicts him is reason enough to fear
his presence – for if even a Lord of Change can be driven insane by what lies in the galaxy's future,
then what hope remains for any of us ?"
- on Kairos Fateweaver
"Accursed fragments, carrying within them a whisper from the beyond. For those broken by life, to
look into them can grant temporary relief from their torment – but it is a short-lived salvation, and
comes at a steep price. For as the ancient philosophers of Terra said, when you look into the abyss,
it looks back into you ..."
- on Flects
"For all the atrocities he committed, for all the lives he ruined, for all the evil he created … He wasn't
one of ours. The Dark Gods never touched his soul. That is a truth most Imperials will never be able
to understand : the Warp is not the source of all evil. You mortals are capable of plenty of it on your
own ..."
- on Narthan Dume
"Sons turning against their families, as a tyrant brought to heel seeks to regain his former power. But
the old man did not realize just how insignificant he had become on the galactic scale, and he was
crushed by the one he raised as both an heir and a weapon. And he took his entire people alongside
him into death, forever scarring the soul of the Fourth Legion and damning it for all eternity ..."
- on the Scouring of Olympia
"A great feat of death and terror, a remember to the galaxy of the dread skills of the Eighth Legion. A
million Neverborn were born from the horror of this world's people, but they did not live long before
being subsumed by the growing shadow in the Warp that the Night Lords have been feeding for
millennia. A few more such planets ruined by fear, and it will awaken – and then the entire galaxy
will scream ..."
- on Grendel's World
"He looks like a mindless brute, but do not be deceived. There is a dark cunning hidden behind that
facade, one that, given the opportunity, will see entire worlds burn. Still, there is a darkness in what
passes for his soul that, with the right manipulations, might create something unique and terrible ..."
- on Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter
"They might appear comical in their excessive love of violence, but remember that this is a species
designed as an instrument of war. Countless races have been brought to extinction by their war-lust,
and uncounted trillions have suffered genocide at their hands in a cold, detached, calculating
manner. They are monsters, each and every one of them ..."
- on the orks
"For all the torment she endures at the hands of Nurgle, she also knows that her fate would be much
worse had he not come to her aid. And despite all the pain he inflicts upon her, the God of Life and
Death still loves her, just as he loves all of his children – but it is a love that cannot be expressed
any other way than through pestilence and plague. How amusing !"
- on the Eldar goddess Isha
"Despite their losses, still they fought, to avenge those who had fallen. And yet, at the end of the
Heresy, they were betrayed by the Avenging Son and broken to pieces, torn from their brothers and
forced to follow the law of another lest they too be judged as traitors ..."
- on the Shattered Legions
"They died in the airless void of an hollowed-out asteroid, slaughtered without mercy. They believed
that all they would find were smugglers, and in a way, they were right – but they did not anticipate
that one of them would be a son of Konrad Curze ..."
- on a team of Acolytes of the Ordo Hereticus
"A verdant kingdom, preserved from the ravages of industrialization in order to cater to the needs of
the wealthy and powerful. But while it looks beautiful on the outside, those who walk its soil are
endlessly plotting against each other, even here, in what is ostensibly a domain of relaxation and
rest. Habits bred through generations cannot be stopped so easily ..."
- on a Paradise world
"From beyond the light they come, hungering for all life in the galaxy. But who put them there ? Did
they truly travel across the abyss for countless millions of years, or were they called back by a
foolish mistake, a weapon that even the old lords were wary to use ? We will likely never know, for
even the Dark Gods weren't present at that time ..."
- on the Tyranids
"Does he truly believe that he achieved all that he has on his own ? No, he doesn't. Deep inside, he
doubts, and fears that his brother and his enemy were both right : that he carries within him the taint
of Chaos, and that in time, he might become a traitor to his Chapter. That is why he submitted to the
Inquisition's examination. Not to prevent the destruction of the world he had saved, but because he
sought either confirmation of his continued purity, or a quick and honorable death. But he will have
neither ..."
- on Captain Titus of the Ultramarines
"They have never known anything other than war. From the moment they were born, they were
destined to die in the defense of their world or some other planet. They will never know peace, for
they were born under accursed skies. In a way, they are the humans most adapted to life in this
galaxy ..."
- on Cadian Whiteshields
"It swallows children and spits out men and women hardened by years of harsh discipline and
indoctrination, raised surrounded by the lies of the Imperium and destined to die to defend it. The
cold, ruthless efficiency of the whole thing has inspired many renegades, for the one who controls
the next generation also controls the future ..."
- on the Schola Progenium
"From ten thousand different beverages, Mankind has fallen to the point it only has one. Is it not
amusing how, to some, this particular loss would be the most tragic of all ?"
- on amasec
"The local Admirals do not know when this fortress was built, and the tech-priests who work within
have long forgotten the secrets that went into its construction. But it has protected the system for
thousands of years, and so they all ignore the rumors of crew going missing in the dark tunnels, or
returning hundreds of years later, not having aged a day ..."
- on an ancient void fortress
"The castle was risen in a single night by a legion of daemons bound to the will of a Sons of Horus
Sorcerer, and spread across the entire surface of this infernal orb. When he died at the hands of a
Death Guard champion, the castle remained, now linked to the soul of the victor. Since then, it has
changed hands many times, and the echoes of its previous masters still haunt the corridors – yet
there is still no shortage of ambitious warlords seeking to claim it for themselves ..."
- on a daemon world in the Eye of Terror
"He believed that he was defending his world from Chaos invaders, while in truth he was protecting
his renegade Governor from rightful retribution. He killed nine soldiers of the Astra Militarum before
the Space Marines came and killed the fat bastard on his throne, and for that, he will be executed at
dawn, his soul sentenced to damnation for heresy by the priests. And the truly amusing part is that
he believes he deserves it ..."
- on an Imperial prisoner of war
"The funeral pyre of the Fifteenth Legion, or the only way to save it from the flesh-madness of the
Changer of Ways ? To many, it is both, but the truth is that the Thousand Sons were doomed from
the moment Magnus made his ill-considered pact with Tzeentch. Ahriman only delayed their
extinction – but all fates can be changed, and ten thousand years is a long time ..."
- on the Rubric of Ahriman
"A most unusual specimen of Guilliman's bloodline. Without him, the Avenging Son would have
perished in the Battle of Calth, and without the wisdome he gained fighting in the Underworld War,
the Ultramarines would have been shattered by the Heresy. Yet his name is all but forgotten, though
his legacy endures to this day ..."
- on Ultramarines Sergeant Aeonid Thiel
"Through plots and schemes, he claimed the power that he believed was his right, but even this was
not enough to sate his monstrous ambition. In his folly, he expanded beyond his ability to control,
and the when the green tide came, his treachery was exposed for all to see – now he must fight
against his former masters and the Orks invaders alike, while keeping the dread scions of
Commoragh satisfied of their alliance with him …"
- on Duke Severus XIII
"Those who fight alongside him know better than to ask where the meat he is serving came from.
But even if it were from a wholesome source, all the chemicals and drugs he laces their meals with
would still corrupt their bodies from within, pushing them further on their path to ruin ..."
- on the cook of a Chaos Cult army
"When the faith he clung to was stained by a mad tyrant, he chose to rise against him rather than lay
low and pray that things would become better. A strength of convinction that is all too rare in
humans – and contrary to what the Imperium might think, the Dark Gods lament this truth as well, for
what is the point of the Game if there are no opposing players ?"
- on Sebastian Thor
"He thought he could gain power and immortality by aiding one of Khorne's mightiest scions escape
its ancient cage. But he forgot the truth of all daemons : that in the end, they care only about
themselves, and are loath to share their power any more than necessary ..."
- on Chaos Sorcerer Sindri Myr
"Knowledge passing from mind to mind, pure and untainted. This great achievement is the heir of
one of Mankind's earlier creations, where the entire species was connected to each other for the first
time in History. How these first pioneers would weep to see their ideas reduced to a medium for
exchanging data on industrial processes and quota advancement ..."
- on the Mechanicum Noosphere
"An echo of dreams long gone, when Mankind sent its children through the void without the favour of
the Warp. Hundreds, thousands of years were required for these great ships to reach their
destinations – and while on some the colons were put into hibernation, in others, it was expected
that their descendants would be the ones to claim the new planet. So many tales of heroism and
tragedy took place in that time, but they are lost to us forevermore now ..."
- on Ohnyl Colonies
"As treachery consumed all around him, he stood tall and proud, a defender of his Chapter's
endangered future. He claimed victory that day, but I wonder : does he truly believe he has done
anything but delay the extinction of his gene-line ?"
- on Salamanders Captain Harath Shen
"A rounding error on an Administratum document, and this world was forgotten, cut off from the
supplies it needed. Civilization came crashing down within months, and within a few decades, all
knowledge of the time before the collapse had faded into myth. Now the fleets of the Imperium come
once more, ancient records having revealed great riches in this region of space. Will the survivors
kneel before their old masters, or will they defy them in bitter memory of how they were
abandoned ?"
- on a lost human world
"He walks with death and death walks with him. He has seen his entire Craftworld die slowly, every
soul dragged toward the gaping maw of She-Who-Thirsts over the course of five hundred years. He
alone escaped, but he bears in his soul the marks of this tragedy – and he has turned those into
strength. But Slaanesh remembers him, and one day, the Youngest God will claim this wandering
spirit as well ... "
- on Phoenix Lord Maugan-Ra
"He stood true to his ideals as the Legion around him succumbed to corruption. His soul was
shielded against all the tricks of the Profligate One, and even the Keepers couldn't turn him. For this,
he died at his father's hands. Such is the galaxy's reward for nobility ... "
- on Lord Commander Vespasian
"From the harshness of life, a great desire was born in the souls of all who dwelled upon this world.
From the constant privations rose the hunger to feast upon all the galaxy had to offer. For all that the
Dark Prince is accused of dragging the noblest Legion into darkness, the darkness was always
within them – he just had to call it to the surface ..."
- on Chemos
"There is something fascinating in these vessels. How did their makers built them, when the rest of
their culture appears so primitive ? Where did the technology required come from ? They did not
receive it from someone else, nor did they steal it. To look upon one of these great spheres is to
witness the proof that there is always more to a species than meets the eyes."
- on Kroot Warspheres
"Despite the fact that those who inhabited these ruins all died mysteriously, there are still those
foolish enough to wander in these dark places, searching for knowledge and plunder. But the only
thing they will find is their doom – and if they disturb the wrong stone, it won't just be their damnation
that they unleash ..."
- on the Egarian Dominion
"On and on, it tolls, never stopping its sinister requiem. For in an empire of a million worlds and a
thousand wars, there is always a hero who has just breathed his last, always a martyr sacrificing
himself to prolong the reign of the False Emperor a little longer. When this bell goes silent, it will be
the sign that the Imperium has ended, and darkness will engulf all of Mankind at last."
- on the Bell of Lost Souls
"Those who worship her would pay any price to feel the caress of her touch, even their lives. Which
is good, because the only way any of them can approach her is to challenge her in the arena – and
their lives are the price they must pay for any such confrontation ..."
- on Lelith Hesperax
"Even though he was hunted because of his blood, he never let his anger consume him. He
remained loyal to the Emperor, and vowed that he would uncover the truth. And when he saw that
truth and realized what had become of his Legion … Then he became a terrible foe of Chaos
indeed."
- on Severian "the Wolf"
"In the streets of the underhive, he saw three dozens murders before turning sixteen. He grew up
thinking that life had no value, for it could be taken so easily. This made him an ideal recruit for the
cult, and they forged him into an instrument, a weapon of great efficiency and skill. Now all he needs
is a directing hand, and it doesn't matter which it is ..."
- on a Death Cult Assassin
"The heir of a broken monster, whose soul never stopped weeping for the father he lost. But in him,
the potential of the Soul Hunter has been distilled, and he might succeed where all others have
failed for ten thousand years. His might be the will that finally brings the disparate pieces of the
Eighth Legion together – and then, let the galaxy scream, for the Night Lords come ..."
- on Decimus, The Prophet of the Eighth
"Brutal instruments of death, tearing through armor and flesh alike. Form follows function, and these
are the tools that allowed Mankind to fight against the various horrors of space, beasts with armored
hides that deflected any conventional weapons. Like all weapons, they have an echo in the Warp,
and theirs are cruel, predatory things ..."
- on chain weaponry
"The Imperium thinks it won a great victory, but these broken souls know better. They have faced
the ravenous hunger of the Great Devourer, they have witnessed the tides of chitinous flesh and the
leviathans of the void. They know that it cannot be defeated, only pushed back for a time. And yet
they will continue to fight it under the end – because they do not know anything else ..."
- on the veterans of the Tyranic Wars
"They took in the child they found alone in the plains, not knowing that in time, he would bring war to
their entire world. Under his leadership, they became the lords of their world, but he never elevated
them to the true power and wealth that would have rightfully be theirs as the kindred of a Primarch.
In the end, when faced with a choice between rewarding his allies and securing a supply of future
recruits, the Khan chose the latter, letting his friends grow old and die ..."
- on the Talaskar tribe
"On a million battlefields, a trillion soldiers look up to the heavens, their hearts beating with fear and
exaltation alike. They shout to the uncaring skies, their battle cries all different, yet deep down, all
the same. They call out for the destruction of the enemy, for the strength to survive, for the chance
of victory. A simple prayer, and one that is answered only by the Lord of Skulls, sitting upon his
throne ..."
- on war in the galaxy
"The curse that twisted his flesh first was not given to him by any of the Dark Gods, nor any of their
servants. It was caused by chemical pollution in the water his mother drank, causing his genetics to
be damaged in a way that only became obvious as he grew into adulthood. Of course, to the hateful,
ignorant Imperium, that made no difference, and he was forced to flee into the darkness below to
avoid burning on the pyre. When he returned to claim his vengeance, however, he was covered in
the true gifts of the Ruinous Powers ..."
"Before his lord accepted the offer of the Star Gods, he was a farmer, growing the food that supplied
his master's armies. But there would be no need of farmers in the empire's new form, and so he was
transformed into a soldier, his mind wiped out by the crude process reserved to the lower classes.
For sixty million years, he slumbered alongside billions of his kind, but when the awakening call
came, he failed to rise. Was it because the process failed, or because he did not want to return ?"
- on a Necron warrior
"Many different patterns of this mighty weapon exist. All of them, however, harken back to an earlier
design, first written down when Mankind was first setting off toward distant stars. This raises the
question, however : against whom were these first settlers fighting, that they required such terrible
warmachines ?"
- on Baneblades
"A great lord rules over this orb of crystalline purity. In his mind, he is master of a mighty castle, and
spends his days governing his kingdom and venturing forth to slay the beasts that plague his faithful
subjects. In reality, he is a tyrant ruling a court of betrayers, who only emerges from his redoubt to
hunt down any dissenters – as well as any innocents who happen to catch his mad fancy."
- on a Slanneshi Daemon World
"Everything on this planet evolved to kill everything else. Here, Mankind can never hope to dominate
the food chain. And yet, here they remain, still fighting for survival, never stopping, never
surrendering. In a way, the planet has already claimed all humans who live upon its surface as its
own, for they are creatures of the jungle every bit as much as the Devils who stalk them ..."
- on Catachan
"Their drive for justice, the secrets of their past, the mystery that surrounds their every deed in the
Imperium … What do they have to hide ? Why was their homeworld declared Forbidden by the
Adeptus Terra ? So many questions, and so little answers …"
- on the Storm Wardens
"There is no place for mercy in this galaxy. The strong survive only by eliminating all their
competition, and those who attempt unity are swept away by tides of treachery. Each species has its
own vision for the stars, and all involve the others relegated to extinction, slavery, or broken
impotence ..."
- on Xenocide
"To these people, the ships that come collect their tithe every year are the vessels of angels, sent by
the All-Judge to receive their offerings. Even their kings on their thrones believe that lie, while a
single man lives alone in orbit, coming down as a prophet to announce the will of the All-Judge – a
bitter, twisted man, to whom his posting here is nothing more than an insult. It will take so little to
bend him, and through him, the entire planet ... "
- on a Medieval World of the Imperium
"A circle of killers, united only in their respect and fear of the one they called Soul Hunter. As good a
reason for a warband to form as any, and they accomplished great and terrible things in the short
time before the Eldar wiped them out – more the pity, for what more could they had done, guided by
the grand vision their leader gained in his final days ?"
- on the warband of the Broken Aquila
"Once, they were mighty. But in their arrogance, they believed themselves to be masters of the
Warp, and their folly unleashed a potent curse upon their world, while they were reduced to a
shadow of their former glory. Still, they linger, and have learned their lesson well – too well, perhaps,
to be allowed to live much longer ..."
- on the Watchers in the Dark
"They follow the one who destroyed them, rather than stand at the foot of the throne of the one who
damned them. They choose to cling to hope, rather than embrace bitterness and petty vengeance.
In many ways, they are truer servants of Tzeentch than those who remained on Sortiarus ..."
- on the Prodigal Sons
"He was born on a world whose sun's light never pierced the cover of pollution clouds, but he could
always see clearly. It took him nine years to realize that others couldn't see as he did, and he was
taken by the Black Ships within the month. Now his powers have increased a hundredfold, but he
still sees the light of souls – despite his eyes having burned away when he touched the Anathema's
torment ..."
- on a Primaris Psyker of the Astra Militarum
"A puppet in a conflict beyond his understanding, dancing upon strings held in the hands of the one
least subtle of the Gods. But there are times when even the Blood Lord can act with discretion, and
reach into one of those none of his brothers would notice, so dim are the fires of their souls ..."
- on Shas'la T'au Kais
"The sons of the Hydra rose the vermin to war, and the scions of the Avenging Son came to prevent
their poison from spreading further. A great battle was waged in the ruins of mighty cities, and the
snakes were forced back – but the cities were still lying in rubble, their production denied to an
Imperium starving for supplies as more fronts open by the year ..."
- on the Luxor Uprising
"A focus point of the Pantheon, upon which ancient followers crafted an opening through which they
could bathe in the glory of the Gods – in the scarse seconds before they were annihilated. It was
there that the Anathema earned his title, when he stole from the Ruinous Powers and began to plan
their destruction. And it was there that the tool of his own demise was tempered, in the very same
fires ..."
- on Molech
"An ice fortress, hidden in the Storm, to watch and warn of coming legions … But a pointless
gesture, in the end. Nothing more than a place for servants of the False Emperor to die – as if the
galaxy was lacking in those !"
- on Nemesis Tessera
"Another species that fell to the Dark Prince's lies. They sought perfection not as individuals, but as
a collective, adapting each of the parts to the function it performed. In the end, however, their only
role in the Great Game was to ensure that the sons of the Angel Exterminatus would go down the
correct road ..."
- on the Laer
"It was here at the beginning, when brother turned against brother on a world thrice-killed. In its hold
took place one of the first betrayals, as friend turned against friend in the name of ambition. Now it is
no more, broken in the battle for the Astartes' future – but with its sacrifice, an ever more potent
weapon of Chaos was forged ..."
- on the Imperator Titan of the Legio Mortis Dies Irae
"No one has set foot in these hallowed halls for millennia. The proper security codes were lost with
the death of the last Inquisitor to know them, who fell to the sorcery of a Lord of Change. Now the
alarm inside, set five thousand years ago to warn of a coming disaster, screams day and night, but
no one can hear it, and no one will heed the warning in time ..."
- on an Inquisitorial data-vault
"There are some things even the Lords of Chaos will refrain from doing to their servants, for they
know such actions would force them to rise in revolt, no matter how dismal their prospects of
success. Even those amoral enough to consider them do them in secret, and the Imperium uses
such actions in its propaganda against the servants of the Gods. But when they do it, all of a sudden
it's a 'necessity', and not to do it is a 'criminal waste of resources'. But, if it is that noble and
righteous, why do they keep it a secret as well ?"
- on Corpse-Starch Rations
"In another time, in another realm, this one would have been the great champion of Chaos, an
avatar of the Gods' power walking the lands unopposed. But in this larger galaxy, conquering a
single world is hardly enough to earn immortality, and he fell before one destined for such greatness
as to make his own achievements naught but dust in an ill-fated wind …"
- on the foster father of Primarch Mortarion
"An entire species held slave to a system none of them had any choice in. The shackles of tradition,
proudly worn by ignorant thralls convinced that it is for the best. The mighty ruling over the weak with
unchallenged authority, their every whim seen as divine law. And the Tau dare pretend that they are
better than the Imperium ..."
- on the Tau Caste System
"Ten thousand years of endless warfare have taken their toll on the mind of this champion of Chaos.
Once, he was a noble son of Lupercal, and his prowess with a blade saved the life of First Captain
Abaddon during the Great Crusade, when they fought against the green horde of the Ullanor
Empire. But now, he is no more than a burnt-out shell of the man he was, a stepping stone for more
deserving servants of the Ruinous Powers ..."
- on Araghast the Pillager
"In the end, all he wanted was for the truth to be known. But while that was a noble and fine goal
during the Great Crusade, when shadows devoured the future of Mankind and hope was dashed
down upon the stones of Isstvan III, he became a danger to the Imperium. And so he died, a loyal
servant of the Imperial Truth, murdered in a cell without trial by the Praetorian, his name forever
spoken as that of a traitor."
- on Solomon Voss
"He was deceived into falling to Chaos, but when he realised it, he did not turn away in disgust, nor
did he rage at the cruelty of fate. Instead, he embraced the power and freedom that came with it,
and turned just one of a hundred corrupt Chapters into a force to be reckoned with, one that even
the ancient Warmaster of Chaos has taken notice of. All because of the will of one man – or is it all
only a ploy of the Gods, to elevate their latest toy ?"
- on Kranon the Relentless
"When he was mortal, his soul was every bit as bitter and poisonous as his homeworld. Though he
was slain by the Solitary Knight, his spirit was reclaimed by the Father of Plagues, and reforged
through trials and agony until the last shreds of humanity were removed. Now he is more than he
has ever been … But also infinitely less, for his potential as a champion of Man will never be
realized."
- on Ignatius Grulgor
"One of a thousand battles for unification, now one of the few remaining in archives that have been
all but scrubbed clean by the passage of time. Through it was the shame of past defeat erased, and
the destiny of the sons of Vulkan writ large for all to see – always they would suffer and die,
martyring themselves in the name of some grander cause."
- on the assault on the Tempest Galleries
"Greed is common among the Imperium's elite – in truth, it is one of their less dangerous sins. But in
this city, where the weapons of the empire's defenders are forged, the petty games of noble houses
are met with unforgiving retribution – for some crimes are worse if committed in certain parts of the
Imperium. What a strange and malleable concept justice is ..."
- on Gunmetallican Gunslingers
"Guardians of the storm, tasked with protecting those hiding behind their backs from the fallen sons.
But theirs was an impossible charge, and over the millennia, countless warbands have avoided their
watchful gaze and escaped their infernal realm, bringing horror to the worlds of Man. And yet still
they keep their watch, knowing that should they relent, the consequences would be much more
terrible ...
- on the Astartes Praeses
"The secrets behind this technology are unknown to any safe for the ancient tech-lords of the
Necron Empire. Even the Eldar at their height couldn't emulate them. Though of course, this begs
the question of whether this was because they did not have the capacity to do so, or did not want to
create weapons that sever the universe ..."
- on Gauss Weaponry
"Destroyers of faith, harbingers of fire and death. They brought with them the sterile light of the
Anathema, their hearts filled with unquestioning loyalty and devotion. Even then, they were looked
upon by their brethren with distrust for their zealotry, for though they were the instruments of the
Emperor, they had no place in the rational empire the Imperial Truth preached ..."
- on the Imperial Heralds
"When the empire of the Soul-broken fell, me and many other lords of the Eternal Sea rose to claim
their worlds. We battled the newborn legions of the Dark Prince, we fought one another, and we
established our dominion over individual worlds, shaping them to our will. Many of these early
conquests have since changed hands – but not mine. This world of endless archives and records,
this pristine jewel of learning to which so many souls are drawn, is mine, now and forever ..."
- on the Oracle
"In this eternal blackness, there lies a force that is present all across the universe, but is the only
thing in these empty space. That force is what holds reality together, the substance by which the
laws of reason and sanity are upheld. A power that even the Dark Gods fear, for it is eternal and
timeless in truth, rather than in boast ..."
- on the Deep Dark between galaxies
"Even as the light of illumination spread across the galaxy, he remembered how frail the new
empire's ideals truly were. Yet still he believed in them, and he still held up these values as he
embraced a new creed – till the end, more than ten centuries later, as everything around him was
falling apart, he still believed in their value, still believed that there was hope, that the future was
worth fighting for. A true enemy of Chaos, deserving of respect ..."
- on Kyril Sindermann
"His hands are stained with the blood of heroes, and he knows it. It is a heavy burden, and he does
not believe in redemption. He was a puppet in the hands of careless masters, trusting their
judgement but unable to see that they in turn were but pawns in the Great Game ..."
- on Damon Prytanis
"Peer through this circle of crystal, and I will see through it, and tell you what I know of what it is you
behold. My words will echo in your mind, and you will gain a fragment of my knowledge – but
beware, for all such gifts carry a risk, and a price ..."
- on the Eye of the Oracle
"Passed from the hands of a god to his son, claimed on the battlefield where the Messiah of Blood
came closest to death … For ten thousand years, it has served the Champion of the Blood God well,
and has claimed the skulls of thousands of worthy enemies. Its hunger echoes through the Warp, a
new daemon of Khorne that, in time, might turn against the one to whom it owes its existence -yet
Khârn remains cunning, and he will not be felled so easily ..."
- on the weapon Gorechild
"Daughters of a demi-godess born from the corruption that caused the Fall of their species. They
walk a treacherous path, at once desired and feared by those who would be their masters. But their
true loyalty, like those of all the Eldar's dark kin, is to themselves ..."
- on Lhamaean Courtesans
"One mind spread across billions of bodies, directing a campaign of annihilation against the entire
galaxy. Even the Dark Gods are nervous at the scope of such an entity, even as they feast upon the
terror and misery it brings. Cut off the head and the beast will die – but where is the head of this
galactic predator, and what would such a god-like creature look like ?"
- on the Tyranid Synapse network
"A relic from the galaxy's earliest age, stepped in the blood of countless worlds. Through it were the
sons of the Hydra shown the true power of the Dark Gods – and while they reacted by vowing to
destroy the source of such horror whatever the cost, the display of such might also planted the
seeds of temptation and doubt within their souls ..."
- on the Black Cube of Nurth
"Those among the rioters who are fully human believe that they are rising against the corruption of
their leaders, overthrowing the stale order of the past in order to replace it with something greater.
But they are blind to the taint in their midst, to the seven different cults of Chaos manipulating events
from behind the scene, each pitted against the others and seeking to take the planet for itself ..."
- on an anti-Imperial Revolution
"Green flesh against iron will, on a world without hope, brought to war by bitter betrayal. Yet in the
end, for all that the servants of Darkness lost in this fight, its consequences will make the Imperium
pay more, as the green horde now marches upon the lands of the Emperor, while the new lord of
iron plots to regain what was lost ..."
- on the Siege of Castellax
"Any of the two Legions present that day could have died there and then, had things turned out but
slightly different. But in the end, they both survived, though none of them achieved anything beyond
the needless spilling of blood – and marking the point of no return for the Eaters of Worlds on the
Eightfold Path ..."
- on the Night of the Wolf
"To fulfill his duty, he was ready to put aside his hatred of the xenos and ally himself with the Eldar
against common foes – the brutish green hordes and the twisted Chaos slaves. But he did not know
the true scale of the threat that slumbered beneath the frozen ground, and he was betrayed for it –
mistakingly swearing revenge against those who only sought to prevent the awakening of the
unquiet dead ..."
- on Lord-General Sturnn of the 412th Cadian Shock Trooper Regiment
"Away from the eyes of their population, this is where the Ethereals send all those who do not
respond to their propaganda as expected. Imperial Inquisitors believe that these places are reserved
for the human dissenters, where they are sterilized and left to die of old age, but they are mistaken –
there are plenty of true Tau there as well, cast out of the Greater Good for daring to raise their voice
against the ruling elite ..."
- on the Tau re-education camps
"In the bitterness of defeat, rather than stand together and carve their own empire in the Eye – one
with resources and power enough to challenge the might of the hated Imperium – they turned
against each other, their old hatreds stoked by divine influence. Few even realised what was
happening – and among those, fewer even cared. They had lost everything, and needed a new
purpose – even one as hollow as beings pawns in a war none of them truly understood ..."
- on the Legion Wars
"There are many who believe the Third Legion was corrupt long before the Dark Prince reached out
and showed them the true wonders of the galaxy. Many who believe that they were damned from
the beginning. But this one warrior, and those who stood with him on the world of betrayals, is proof
to the contrary. That is why he had to die – with his every breath, he reminded all the treacherous
sons of Fulgrim of what they could have been, of everything they had willingly cast away ..."
- on Saul Tarvitz
"A haunted graveyard of dead ships, haunted by the ghosts of all those who perished aboard them.
Limitless riches await those with the courage to come here and plunder the wrecks – but of the
thousands who have come, barely a handful have returned. For the Processional hungers ..."
- on the Processional of the Damned
"Nightmares from the time before, clinging to existence through spite alone. They have watched
Mankind for long, and know that all it takes for them to tear each other apart is but the slightest of
pushes – and they are happy to provide that, waiting for chaos to spread so they can come in and
feed. Though we do not hold their species' soul yet, they serve the Dark Gods well ..."
- on the Slaugth xenos
"The hunt will never end, for them or for their lost father. In the shadows of reality, he runs, chasing
and being chased, preying upon those who prey upon the entire galaxy. Such is the fate of his
Legion as well – the hounds of a failing empire, never trusted, yet relied upon. Why they remain
willingly attached to the Throne, we will never know ..."
- on the White Scars
"Its original purpose was to serve in the Haemonculi's laboratories, to extract new, fresh agonies
from their victims in order to slake their blased appetites. Did it surprise anyone in Commoragh when
the first Archon had the idea of bringing one to the battlefield ? Of course not. If anything, the others
blamed themselves for not thinking of it sooner."
- on the Dark Eldar Talos Pain Engines
"Their world has trained these men well for the kind of warfare they wage. They soar in the air with a
skill rarely seen, descending upon the foes of the False Emperor like His incarnated wrath. In many
ways, they are as close to the Astartes as humanly possible – for they know little fear, it having been
bred out of their kind by generations spent a single misstep away from doom."
- on Harakoni Warhawk Regiments
"Bearers of the legacy of a past others considered shameful, they held in their hands power few
others could match. How ironic that in the war that followed the crusade, their so-called tainted
weapons were used by both sides until the arsenals were empty ..."
- on Legion Destroyer Squads
"Their very existence is a lie, and they don't even know it. A false symbol, held up to preserve the
peace of mind of the masses. They should have seent the evidence when the drinkers of souls were
brought low, but the truth is too unthinkable for them to even consider it. Yet their strength remains
consequent, and they have foiled the plans of many a Lord of Chaos – yet when the truth is
exposed, it will destroy them once and for all ..."
- on the Imperial Fists
"They have suffered much, these newcomers to the galactic scene. A curse was brought upon them
that almost drew them to extinction, and those who saved them later betrayed them, seeking to
make them a weapon against their own enemies. But they have endured, and everything they see,
they want to conquer – when their armies finally enter Imperial space and their existence is revealed
to all, rather than kept secret, how many will be driven insane by that knowledge ?"
- on the Q'orl xenos
"They carry the flame of hope and mercy in a galaxy where such things do not have a place. For
this, they suffer, and are accused of heresy by the blind fools who worship the Corpse-Emperor, not
realizing that these black giants are those closest to His will. Because kindness is weakness, and
this galaxy does not tolerate either ..."
- on the Salamanders
"They were both the creators of Chaos and its greatest enemies. They were driven to extinction
millions of years ago, yet their legacy remains scattered across the galaxy, with the echoes of their
mistakes still plaguing the living through many different aspects. In a way, they did their best – but it
wasn't enough, and they failed in their stewarship of existence ..."
- on the Slann
"Cast into the storm by the grand deceit of a servant of Chaos, they witnessed the true nature of the
universe, and renounced their oaths to the False Emperor. Instead, they embraced the teachings of
the True Gods, and returned to the realms of Man determined to share their newfound revelations
with the rest of their species – whether it wanted to or not ..."
- on the Black Psalm
"They are new players in the Game of Fates, who foolishly believe that they can gather the
resources and talents to match those who have been playing it for thousands of years. In their
desperation, many turn to ways that are considered forbidden by their peers – and in doing so, many
do not realise that while they are still playing the Game, they have changed sides ..."
- on the Ocularian Inquisitorial faction
"Every captain under his command plots to take his place, and he knows this. Some are more loyal
than others, and will merely wait until he is dead to fight for his position, quietly gathering influence
and debts in the shadows until then, while others see every engagement as an opportunity to
dispose of him. But he can never be certain which is which, and this paranoia adds another layer of
complexity to his battle manoeuvers. To an Imperial, the way he guides his ships seems to be
madness – but to him, it is the only way to survive."
- on the admiral of a Chaos fleet
"He thinks himself a master of the fates, a puppetmaster shaping the galaxy with his every deed. In
truth, he is nothing more than a puppet himself, who has long outlived his use. During the Heresy,
he was useful in setting things according to the Dark Gods' decrees, but now, all he does is play his
pathetic games against his rival, the self-proclaimed Master of the Faith, while his father broods in
solitude and his Legion wastes its might on petty, self-serving endeavours ..."
- on Erebus, First Chaplain of the Word Bearers Traitor Legion
"Their shrieks carry within them the despair and horror of their entire race, born from that terrible
moment when they all felt their doom manifest upon the skein of reality. The soul-broken might try to
hide the origins of these ghastly revenants with legends and tales, but those who know the truth of
their dead gods also know how this particular Aspect Temple was born ..."
- on the Howling Banshees
"A treasure left over from the Anathema's grand design, holding the keys to the resurrection of His
ideals ? Or an unthinkable heresy, wrought by the Dark Gods' agents to deceive their enemies into
their dread service ? There is no way to know for sure, not until the midnight bell rings for the
galaxy ..."
- on the Atlas Infernal
"Forbidden, accursed, tainted ! Even in the eyes of the Gods, that creation of iron and cable was an
abomination. Yet it still served its purpose, and became the first of its kind – a new race of sentient
machines, not turned against all life in a vain attempt to eradicate Chaos, but as host-constructs for
its minions ..."
- on the Kaban Machine
"These beasts of bronze and blood are the most savage of Khorne's children. Lacking even the base
discipline and martial pride of the bloodletters, they are incarnations of primal savagery, crushing all
that lay in their path, consumed by hatred to the point that they do not even see what they kill ..."
- on the Juggernauts of Khorne
"Once upon a time, there was a man who believed that he could offer praise to each of the Four and
receive their rewards. But only the truly chosen can ever dare think such a feat is in their reach. For
the rest, this is the fate their cowardice gets them ..."
- on a Chaos Fury
"He spreads fear among those he rules, imposing his will with grand displays of cruelty. His advisors
believe it to be so that the rest of his slaves will learn the price of defiance, but the truth is that their
terror feeds his power. He does not know why his psychic might increase as their dread grows, nor
does he care – but he should, for in that secret lies the key to his destruction ..."
- on an Unbound Psyker
"Through its use, the sheep of the Imperium gain a few moments of freedom from the drudgery of
their lives. But the effect dissipates quickly, leaving naught but sadness in its wake – not so much
because of the drug's physiological effects than because it forces the user to confront the truth of
their lives once more ..."
- on obscura
"Although the Imperium went through seven designs in a few hundred years, after the entombment
of the Anathema, it took them ten thousand years to come up with a new one. How many Imperial
heroes would have been saved, how many defeats been turned into victories, had the tech-lords of
Mars produced it but a few centuries earlier ?"
- on the Mark-VIII Power Armor pattern
"They defy the chains forged by the Avenging Son, but are still collared by them. Their violations are
minor at best, and do not go against the true principle of the Codex : to enforce the Breaking of the
Legions, to prevent the horrors of the Heresy from ever returning. We all know just how successful
that has been ..."
- on non-Codex compliant Chapters
"They cling to the trinkets and petty rituals of order, even in the most chaotic of battlefields. Their
lords believe that it is the only proper way to wage war, but the common troopers know that it helps
them remain sane in the midst of unspeakable horrors. Another example of the vast divide between
the ranks of the Astra Militarum ..."
- on the Praetorian Guard Regiments
"They carry within their hands the heaviest of burdens, the gravest of responsibilities. While their
brethren decide which of the Imperium's worlds deserve the ultimate sanction, it is up to them to
actually enforce it – but that is not all. Such is the power of the weapons at their disposal that they
must also ensure that those who deploy them do not succumb to the call of the Dark Gods, for even
one of their destroyer ships turning could spell the doom of entire systems ..."
- on the Ordo Excorium
"It lies beneath the sand on a desert world, left alone for ten thousand years after its crew died
rather than abandon its stranded form. In a hundred years, a data-priest on Mars will uncover the
archive telling of its final destination, and a recovery team will be dispatched with all haste –
depriving a nearby hive-world of reinforcements. But when they arrive, they will realise that this
venerable engine did not fight on the side of the Heresy they believed ..."
- on an ancient, forgotten Ordinatus war-engine
"His deeds echo through the Warp, and the Dark Gods sneer in anger. Despite everything they have
cast his way, he has not only emerged victorious, but managed to retain his sanity and soul. Both
have been marked, to be sure, but no matter what others believe, he is still loyal to the Golden
Throne – as to whether or not his plans will save it, that is another story ..."
- on Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn
"Like a plague upon the galaxy, they turn those they infect into more of their own species. Much like
common viruses, it could be argued that they are not living beings at all, for they are unable to
reproduce on their own, and rely on other species to propagate their own. But to those whose very
soul is destroyed as their gene-code is overwritten, such considerations matter little ..."
- on the Cell-Kin xenos breed
"The sons of Perturabo turned againt one another in a bitter, bloody conflict, their world of fortresses
burning under the fire of their daemonic machines. From his lair, the Lord of Iron watched it all, and
ensured that those he deemed weak and unworthy were destroyed – such as with these lost and
accursed souls ..."
- on the Shattered Tower faction in the Iron Warriors Legion
"Their songs appease the fury of the Warp, and shape its power into the same sterile form that has
become the nature of their race. But no matter how much they refine it, it remains a product of the
Sea of Souls – and like calls to like ..."
- on Eldar bonesingers
"A wasteland devoid of all life, a boiling caldron of change and damnation, an empire ruled by a few
imposing their will with an iron fist, an eternal field of war between hordes as numerous as the stars
themselves … These are but a few of the many paths this galaxy could yet take. But make no
mistake : in the end, Tzeentch will be the winner ..."
- on the possible futures for the galaxy
"A farming tool, converted into a weapon of war representing the very inevitability of death. With how
closely linked it was to the first human settlers' perception of the cycle of life, it was unavoidable –
and of course, the children of the Plague God have not been blind to that symbolism. Beware the
reaper, for he does not bring you mere death ..."
- on power scythes
"For a thousand years and a day was he cast out, banished from the mortal realm by the deeds of
noble lords and ladies. But they have forgotten their ancient history, and when the blood of millions
is spilled upon Malfian ground, the old seals will crack, and my brother will be free once more ..."
- on the Lord of Change Marabas
"From their shadowy graves they rose, and death awoke with them. The foolish scions of the
Avenging Sons, led by the proudest of them all, broke against their ranks, and were forced into
shameful flight. They returned, of course, and this time they triumphed against those who had so
humbled them – but in doing so, they paid a terrible price in lives, and the day comes soon when
they will realise the cost of their hubris ..."
- on the battles of Damnos
"He saw the truth of the Imperium, and turned against it in disgust when the scales finally fell from
his eyes. Instead of fighting and dying for a meaningless cause, he embraced the path of the Blood
God, and received in return rewards the slaves of the False Emperor cannot imagine. Now he is
gone – but his skull hasn't been taken, and Khorne does not tolerate any other end for his
servants ..."
- on Svane Vulfbad
"This brotherhood died in fire and shame, brought low by the Knights of Titan. Yet the question
remains : if they knew where the fallen's path would take them, why did they not prevent their
damnation in the first place ? Either they are not as prescient as they think, or a darker secret still
lies beneath their facade of purity ..."
- on the Astra Blades Chapter
"Worlds fell before the might of the Black Legion, yet only a few thousands died on each of them out
of billions. All to fulfill some great compact between the Warmaster and the Architect of Fate.
Thousands of the Imperium's brightest and best-learned minds attempted to discover the true
behind the pattern of death, only to be driven mad by the Despoiler's vision. And when the capstone
was finally put together, he earned the blessing of Tzeentch in a form no other mortal has ever
received ... "
- on the Eighth Black Crusade
"They live in the shadows, and study the ancient prophecies and signs that herald the doom of all
Imperial efforts in the distant stars of the Jericho Reach. Layer upon layer of secrets, kept even from
one another, to prevent the dark and terrible knowledge at the core of their circle from spreading out.
What is it that motivates them ? What dreadful lore pushes them so far ? Not even I know ..."
- on the Dead Cabal
"From the darkness beyond the stars they came, ghostly predators possessed of utterly alien minds.
They are every nightmare about the xenos made real, and not even the faith of the most devoted of
the Anathema's followers can keep them at bay. And yet … In the end, they came to our galaxy
fleeing something else. What terrible threat could force such creatures to retreat, I wonder ?"
- on the Cryptos xenos breed
"To bond with one such creature is a great boon indeed, and one sought by all manners of
individuals. They are more than mere beast, and power flows through the bond both ways : the
master gains a portion of the feline's speed, while the feline becomes a reflection of his owner – thus
ensuring diversity in the breed, and assuring survival of the species no matter what might happen ..."
- on the Grynix xenos breed
"No one emerges unscathed from this horror. For a fraction of a second, the psyker is exposed to
the true nature of the Anathema. He catches a glimpse of the infinite torment He bears, of the
terrible might that is dedicated wholly to perpetuating the stasis of the empire. He sees the galaxy as
a god does … then he is pushed away, and a new one takes his place, for the Imperium needs a
great many bound witches to function."
- on the ritual of soul-binding
"Cast away on the tides of a war unlike any they had ever known, they painted their armor black and
rallied under the banner of one who offered them a purpose. This champion could have carved his
own empire and, in time, perhaps even tipped the scales of conflict – but when offered a chance to
abandon those he had gathered, he seized it, and his warband fell apart ..."
- on the Dark Brotherhood
"They are the echoes of old nightmares on Terra, when brother killed brother over the slightest of
theological differences and mass hysterias led to thousands pointlessly dying at their neighbors'
hands. Where they walk, bigotry and self-righteousness prosper on the blood of innocents. If the
False Emperor does see them, then He weeps for every atrocity they commit in His name ..."
- on the Redemptionists
"Once, these small tubes were one of the greatest killers of the human species. Now, compared to
the countless other threats and diseases that plague Mankind, it's influence on the total death toll
has diminished to the point of ridicule – yet it is still just as poisonous now as it was thirty-nine
millennia ago ..."
- on Lho-sticks
"Their Primarch is lost, gone deep into the Great Eye to behold wonders and experience sensations
beyond the ken of even his sons most devoted to the Dark Prince. Their pride was their downfall, for
in their arrogance they believed that they could do no wrong, and thus did not see the yawning
chasm before the path on which they were pushed. Now they are empty shells, forever hungering
for more to consume in the vain hope of filling the hole inside their souls ..."
- on the Emperor's Children Traitor Legion
"He came to deliver a world from many dangers, but he never considered that his own empire was
one such threat. And yet, who was it that destroyed the future of the human population of Kronus so
that their grey-skinned overlords could claim the planet without having to shed a droplet of blood ?"
- on Shas'O Kais
"Defenders and guardians, protecting the lives of fat priests, caskets full of rotten remnants, and
relics of empty power. They devote their entire existence to lies, and so it is only fitting that, by their
very existence, they break the laws of those who claim to rule in the Corpse-Emperor's name : that
no man in arms should be kept by those who preach His divinity ..."
- on a Crusader of the Adeptus Ministorum
"Of all the many who fall under their order's purview, the subjects of their watch are perhaps the
strangest. In many ways, they are still the humans they once were, but in others, they are more alien
than any xenos breed. But they must maintain their vigilance, for the history of Mars is one rife with
betrayals and deceit ..."
- on the Ordo Machinum
"Collared by their father, broken by their brother, branded by an uncaring god of mindless violence
and carnage. Theirs is a life of endless torment, relieved only briefly by the shedding of blood. But
even as their minds are slowly eaten away by the parasitic engine wired into their brains, they are
fully aware of what is happening to them – it is how they react to that knowledge that differentiate
them ..."
- on the World Eaters Traitor Legion
"From death and madness risen, a terrible lord of blood and shadows. He paid a price for his
resurrection, and bought not only his life, but hope for his tormented gene-line. And yet, not even he
is immune to the ancient curse, and when he finally falls once again to it, the hope he represents will
be dashed forever, and the sons of Sanguinius will scream in despair ..."
- on Mephiston
"Only his most trusted servants have ever seen his face, and those who heard his voice cringe at
the memory of the dark power it contains. Whoever he was before, he is now a true champion of
Chaos, and his power grows by the year as more ships are bound into his service. In time, he might
become one of the few mortal men whose infamy rival that of the fallen Astartes ..."
- on Chaos Reaver Karrad Vall
"They feel no pain as they wage war, enabling them to resist torment and wounds that would stop
even a Space Marine. But every such gift has a price in the galaxy we inhabit, and theirs is no
exception. With one of their senses removed, their minds are slowly breaking further and further
away from common humanity – how long will it be before they succumb to the promises of the Dark
Prince, offering release from this isolation ?"
- on the Sons of Antaeus
"At the boundary between light and dark, they shine a pale light over accursed worlds. It is not a
place for the living, yet the dead do not rest easily in this forsaken space. Travel there at your own
peril, for even the Gods' reach is limited in these parts – yet there are other powers dwelling there,
powerful and terrible, slumbering in the graves of old civilizations and waiting for the time of their
awakening …"
- on the Halo Stars
"Forged in the core of stars, plundered from the crust of worlds, worth the ransom of worlds. Without
it, there would be no Imperium. Yet the priests of Mars have forgotten so much about it, that they
can do no more than worship the weapons that were crafted from it, instead of studying them to re-
learn how to make their own."
- on adamantium
"It is untainted, even though it lies at the center of the Great Mutator's domain. There are some
things that are beyond even the reach of the Dark Gods, knowledge that the divine ones can never
know. But even though Tzeentch knew that it was forbidden, he still thirsted for that lore, and he cast
his greatest servant into it – and in return for that sacrifice, he gained access to a broken and twisted
version of its power ..."
- on the Well of Eternity
"He has kept the secret of his Chapter hidden from the rest of the Imperium, even as its numbers
dwindle and the specter of extinction draws ever nearer. Through sacrifice and valor, he has
overturned the dark reputation of his kin in the minds of many – but there are others who remember
the mistakes of the past, and if he wants to avoid his brothers being destroyed by the legacy of their
failures, he will have to make more drastic choices still ..."
- on Gabriel Seth
"Secret truths and dark lies, tempting the souls of the curious and the foolish into delving deeper into
the galaxy's mysteries. Every fell scholar who pens down one of these must learn from the ground
up, such is the Imperium's determination in destroying all knowledge it considers tainted – but the
Warp remembers everything, and those who dwell there are more than happy to share their secrets
in return for the proper offerings ..."
- on the Dismal Texts
"They plot in the shadows, as vicious and ruthless as any servant of Chaos in their dealings with one
another. Thousands of years of breeding have selected only the most cunning and devious, but also
weeded out nobility and true honor. They band together in salons and libraries, but in the end, they
are no different from the warlords who gather on neutral grounds and forge compacts in the blood of
sacrifices."
- on the secret societies of Imperial nobility
"There are patterns there, but only the Gods might know them. Everything that has ever happened
and will ever happen is reflected in the Sea of Souls, and passages through the storms appear and
vanish in reaction to events ten thousand years and half the galaxy away. But still, there are powers
who can exert their will in this realm, hasting the passage of a ship so that it arrives days before it
even left, or delaying it until the word it seeks to reach is nothing more than a hollowed-out
corpse ..."
- on the currents of the Warp
"He was elevated in the shadows of the war, made into more than he should ever have been by the
plots of the Anathema's faithful servant. His past was erased in the fire of his devotion, and he was
reforged from a broken shell into a warrior-prince of immense power – yet for all his deeds, both of
his names are known only to a few, and what these select ones know is limited and shrouded in
myth ..."
- on Janus, First Supreme Grand Master of the Gray Knights
"Little of the human remains in these warriors of the Machine-God, so consumed are they by the
tenets of their order. With weapons drawn from the Dark Age of Technology, they are capable of
inflicting untold destruction upon their foes, which are many and varied – from the alien to the
daemon, from the rebel to the tech-priest who forgot his place in the Omnissiah's designs ..."
- on the Cult of Sollex
"Cast out and hated by everyone from the moment of his birth, and yet he remained steadfast and
loyal to the Anathema's lies. In the shadow of a hero, he fought unremembered and uncelebrated,
yet cared nothing for it, so long as he could do his duty. He is a shining example of why those who
believe his kind to be truly soulless are wrong ..."
- on Ferik Jurgen
"Without these lumbering, aggressive creatures, the Imperium's masses would be forced to dine
upon recycled nutricious paste, and there would be many, many more rebellions across the galaxy.
In the end, these beasts might have served the Imperium better than any of its other followers ..."
- on the Grox species
"Violent and cruel in their design, inhabited by malevolent machine-spirits that feast upon the
destruction they bring – be it to the enemies or to those riding in their hull. Were they corrupted by
the warriors who used them, or was it the other way around ? An eternal loop, with no true answer in
sight ..."
- on Dreadclaw Drop Pods
"Alone, it is useless. The data it contains, fragmentary. But it won't stop the scions of Mars from
burning the entire city in which it rests to the ground in order to take it. Maybe they do possess the
rest of the fragments, and this is the last piece to some grand technological revolution. But I doubt
it ..."
- on a STC fragment
"It began with hatred, as doom so often does. The people of this world were prosperous by the
standards of the Imperium, but their minds were poisoned against each other by the lies of a self-
serving demagogue who promised them more. As civil order collapsed and pogroms began, he
continued to increase his wealth and power – until the Ordo Hereticus arrived, and looked upon the
planet in disgusted judgment ..."
- on a dead world
"These weapons hold power rarely seen in any other during the galaxy's history. Though dangerous
to their wielders, these blades of fire and light can cut through anything, leaving naught but charred
ash in their wake. Yet instead of spreading their design and creating an army of warriors wielding
such unstoppable weapons, the Mechanicus hides it. How … typical."
- on the Sollex Aegis energy blades
"Trinkets from ages past, preserved through dark times by the brotherhood of which the Anathema's
servant was the last member. They are of little obvious utility – but they are also pregnant with
history and potential, and each of them echoes in the Sea of Souls as a beacon of light that burns
the eyes of any Neverborn that looks upon them. There is a reason why Terra hasn't fallen already,
beyond the walls and the Anathema's light ..."
- on the artefact collection of Malcador the Sigillite
"They hide many things from others. Their origins – though even they do not know much about
where their blood came from. The tomes of lore in their great libraries – though many were purged
after the fall of their master. And the many weapons and relics in their armories – because if those
from whom they took them were to know the thieves' identity, their Chapter would be crushed under
a wave of dozens of enraged armies ..."
- on the Blood Ravens
"Sorcery flows in the blood of the living sons of Magnus, while those who were consigned to silent
death march without hesitation or mercy, wielding weapons infused with the power of the Warp.
Though broken by the Wolves and burned by the Rubric, the Fifteenth has risen from the ashes of
its past in a new and terrible form, worthy of serving the Architect of Fate – one that many
underestimate to their own peril ..."
- on the Thousand Sons Legion
"Saviors and heroes, monsters and conquerors … In the end, greatness is the one hallmark of their
kind – but even then, there are degrees. Some might live and die without any beyond a few worlds
remembering their names, while others shape the fate of entire Sectors with their ambitions and
desires. Regardless of the path they choose, it is the will with which they thread it that forges their
legend – be it in gold or in blood ..."
- on Rogue Traders
"They have existed for tens of millions of years, and in all that time, they have remained the same.
They are unable to change, unable to grow, unable to evolve : merely a plague of uncontrolled
biological weapons unleashed upon the galaxy by neglectful forefathers, one that even the soul-
broken at their heighth could not destroy. When the last star grows cold, it is likely that the last
scream will be that of a greenskin calling out for war against a dead universe ..."
- on the Orks
"At night, around campfires, their shamans tell of the great birds that come once a generation to take
the best warriors to fight for the Sky-God across the stars. But there is another story, one they only
tell at noon and after looking nervously around them, that speaks of the monsters that descend upon
their people once every three generations, and leave naught but blood and missing children in their
wake ..."
- on the inhabitants of a feral world
"The Anathema's empire abhors the alien, yet without it, many of its worlds would fall. Hatred of a
common outsider is a useful mortar for the disparate people of Mankind, but even within the ranks of
the Adepta, there are many who willingly consort with inhuman creatures, trading resources and
technology while hoping to avoid the vengeful notice of the Holy Ordos. Even among those who fight
to ensure the continuation of this rotting kingdom, there are plenty who forge alliances with the
xenos – and the Emperor's Angels are no exception ..."
- on the Imperium
"They have given up on their souls, willingly damning themselves in order to wield the weapons of
Chaos against itself. But they are deluded if they believe that their souls burning forever in the Warp
after their death is the only price they will pay for their newfound power. The madness that infects so
many of them is born of the punishment exacted by the Ruinous Powers for their folly. And the
terrible internecine war of their origins, born of their hypocrisy, is not as far away as they like to
believe their Oath made it ..."
- on the Oblationist Radical faction of the Inquisition
"Beasts of bronze and fire, born of ancient machines already stepped in blood. They roam the
heavens, both within a world's gravity and beyond, and hunger for carnage and terror. When you
see their shadow in the distance, pray to whatever god you serve for the mercy of a quick death –
but it will be in vain, for the fires of the Warp shall consume you forevermore ..."
- on Heldrakes
"When the Imperium bled in the hands of a madman, they alone turned from the enemy without to
confront the enemy within. For this their fates were cursed by the Four, and they suffered the death
of two of their homeworlds before being finally destroyed by the Sea of Souls, burning forevermore
into its tides … or do they ?"
- on the Fire Hawks
"When she took up here rosette, she saw the galaxy in black and white : the faithful and the heretic,
the devoted servant and the traitor, the human and the alien. But when her acolytes were
slaughtered by a daemon, she seized the knife of the dead ritualist and stabbed it into the
Neverborn's eye, banishing it back to the Warp – and in that moment, she realised that only by using
the weapons of Chaos could she fight against it efficiently. She still carries that blade, hanging from
her belt – though it has been many decades since she last used it, and many years since she last
thought about it ..."
- on a Xanthite Inquisitor
"Ten thousand years ago, this warrior was a student of the machine's mysteries, who had learned
his craft in the hallowed halls of Mars' own forges. Now, the curse of the Fourth Legion courses
through his ever cell, reshaping him into an instrument of war. Never again shall he create anything
– now all that matters to him is the destruction of the empire he once helped build, and the eternal
pain that wrecks his entire mutating body."
- on an Obliterator
"Drenched in the blood of the innocent and the guilty alike, their names whispered with dread among
a brotherhood of amoral killers. They were lost in the struggle of the Heresy, but make no mistake :
the dark spirit of these weapons remains adrift in the Sea of Souls, waiting for the moment when its
twin vessels shall be reforged, when the thirteenth hour has come and the Eighth Legion rises once
more ..."
- on Mercy and Forgiveness, the lightning claws of Konrad Curze
"Be it the men or the beasts they ride into battle, they have little in common with the cavalry of old.
Their mounts are fierce creatures of war, not herbivors coerced into taking part in battle by their
handlers. And the men who ride them into the deadliest battlefields of the galaxy … They are
nothing like those ancient Terran warriors – even the most violent and martial cultures of Old Earth
would turn and flee before the horrors they must face, and none could call them cowardly."
- on Attilan Rough Rider Regiments
"This weapon is older than the entire species of the one who wields it – older even than Mankind
itself. With every life it cuts, its master's own is extended – not by sorcery, but by ancient technology
so complex and potent as to be undistinguishable. It has been more than two hundred years since
the rebel commander of the arrogant blue-skins took it up – and even him is starting to question its
origin, and the implications of its might. After all, if even a species capable of producing such a tool
could die, then what hope does the Tau Empire truly have in this galaxy ?"
- on the Dawn Blade
"They have long since forgotten the origin of their ancestors. Even the myth of Terra has faded from
memory, and they have built their own civilization instead. Those touched by the Warp are taken
away in secrecy, trained and bound into a social caste of their own, teaching and shackling their
power in equal measure. Their society is peaceful, prospere and equalitarian …
It has to burn."
- on a non-Imperial human world
"Men fought men on a hundred worlds. Madness was pitted against courage, nightmarish horrors
against faith, and blood paid for with blood as billions died in a war like the galaxy has rarely seen.
Even now, more than twenty decades since the fighting ended, this region of space still echoes with
the screams of the dead and the damned – and as the veil grows ever thinner and the power of
Chaos grows ascendant, soon the Saint's domain will be ours ..."
- on the Sabbat Worlds Crusade
"They were betrayed by the very Imperium they sought to protect, judged guilty of sins they had not
committed by one of Malcador's self-righteous heirs. Now they struggle to keep their honor, even as
they fight for their survival in a galaxy where all hate them and would see them dead. For now, their
defiance amuses the Dark Gods – but sooner or later, they will be ours in truth ..."
- on the Damned Company of Lord Caustos
"In it lies the power of a dying star's scream of agony, powerful enough to drown a thousand worlds
in flames, contained by the ancient secrets of the Eldar Empire, now long lost to its fallen
descendants. Only those carrying in them the blood of past royalty can even bear to touch the
weapon, let alone carry it in battle – and even they will not last long before it consumes them
entirely, to the point of even denying their souls to the Youngest God ..."
- on the Spear of Twilight
"Pride is the most common failure of those who are trained within the halls of this order. After all, to
become one with a god of war, to thread the fields of battle as a giant among insects, to slay
hundreds with but a sweep of the hand – those are traits that feed the mind's confidence, while the
burdens of such a role also eat into the soul, taking away bits of humanity and replacing them with a
yawning abyss ..."
- on the Collegio Titanica
"Here they were dragged, those of the Ordos who had fallen in the eyes of their peers. Here they
were cast down in chains, their crimes listed while they cried out their innocence or stayed defiantly
silent. And here they died … Until one of them proved that his accusers had underestimated the
depths of his fall and called upon one of his darkest servants. The Imperium lost a hundred
Inquisitors that day – and the Dark Gods gained a mighty champion ..."
- on the Well of Souls, in the Calixis Sector
"On the Imperium's orders, they drenched themselves in the blood of innocents to quell dissent on a
rebel world. But like many armies before them, they lost track of how much killing was necessary,
and by the time they were done, they realised that they had come to enjoy the wanton slaughter.
From that moment, they could no longer serve the False Emperor, and gave themselves to the
Ruinous Powers completely ..."
- on the Silver Guards
"Children and young men and women are taken into its warded halls, and mercilessly tested. Those
who prove too weak are fed to the Beacon of Pain; those too strong quietly executed. For the others,
there is only the binding with the Anathema, and a lifetime of servitude in an Imperium that distrusts
and fears them, until the burden of their task consumes their life – or until they heed the call of
another, worthier patron to serve ..."
- on the Scholastia Psykana
"The man who put those words onto the pages died when he completed his work, slain by his Word
Bearers masters so that he wouldn't spread the knowledge he had written down. The first owner
died during the Siege of Terra, slain by the blade of a White Scars. His apprentice died three
thousand years later when the Black Legion came to Sortiarus to make Lorgar kneel before
Abaddon. As for the third … well, that is a story for another time."
- on an exemplar of the Book of Lorgar
"Many are the pacts and bargains she has struck. In return for fell deeds and great sacrifices, she
has advanced far on the Path to Glory, to the point that the transhuman warrior who accompanies
her is her bloodward, sworn to give his life to defend hers – while in almost every other
circumstances, she would be nothing more than a slave to him ..."
- on a human heretic
"Its rise to power was unpredicted, no matter what the seers of the soul-broken might claim. From
the random sea of the greenskins' collective mind, the need to conquer grew, and found a suitable
vessel – one that fed upon its own growth, until it was challenged by the sons and daughters of the
Imperium of Man. A son of the Emperor could not defeat it, and in the end, it was slain by turning the
power of its own kind against it – an apt metaphor for its species as a whole ... "
- on the Great Beast of Ullanor
"They strike the chords, and from their instruments rose the wails and ecstatic screams of the
daemons bound within. Those who are not blown to bloody pieces by the impact or exploded by the
disharmonics find their souls forced open, exposed to the voice of Slaanesh, and should they
survive the encounter with these dark musicians, they will belong to the Dark Prince soon ..."
- on a group of Noise Marines
"What manner of fool would go to battle with a device that is useless to him, but helps others fulfill
their appointed task ? Is it not better to carry a true weapon rather than this glorified flashlight ?
Truly, the mind of these ember-souled creatures is unknowable ..."
- on the Tau Marker Lights
"A place of wonders and secrets, from which few emerge again, and none unchanged. A palace
filled with treasures and lore beyond mortal imagination – but also a prison, from which those who
bore the mark of the Warp can hardly escape, kept locked in by gaelors that are trained in the arts of
killing their kind. Strange, that such a burning light would be born among those who cannot see, and
live in such shadows ..."
- on the City of Sight, in the Imperial Palace
"The earth cracks, and fire pours forth from the burning core. Buildings collapse as cities die, and
the air boils as the fury of a world-killing weapon is unleashed. Lava spreads from the chasms,
swallowing all in its path, be they men, women, or children – all are returned to the fiery depths, all
traces of their existence wiped out ..."
- on cyclonic torpedoes
"The captain of this dread ship was born within the Eye of Terror, amidst the masses crowding an
Iron Warrior space station. He managed to escape his fate as a menial by hiding aboard a visiting
ship, and quickly rose through the ranks of the crew, until the day he killed the previous captain in a
duel and took his place. Now the power of the Warp flows through his veins, and he directs the
course of his vessel as they set worlds aflame ..."
- on a Chaos Reaver warband
"Stories of justice triumphant, of evil being defeated, of the import of loyalty and obedience … Lies,
all of them. The scions of the Adeptus Arbites care nothing for the safety and well-being of the
human masses they police – all they care about is their mindless obedience, no matter how much
blood must be spilled so that it is obtained."
- on the vid-series Arbitrator Foreboding
"The first heralds of the coming doom, adapted to the rigours of their isolated statut, their forms
echoing some of Mankind's primordial nightmares. Even the hive-mind, which devours worlds entire,
fears what the consequences might be if their genetic code was to reunite with that of the greater
swarm – what terrible horrors would be spawned then ? What visions of antediluvian evil would be
manifested by the Great Devourer, before rampant mutations destroy it from within ?"
- on the Ymgarl Genestealers
"A lair for ancient nobles, a monument to the monstrous pride of a dynasty that once ruled the stars
and shattered its gods. Countless secrets laid within it before it was smashed apart by the vengeful
hands of the Anathema's slaves, and the foul pacts they made with the unholy creature imprisoned
within. Though the threat to the galaxy it represented was stopped, the knights of the stars had no
comprehension of what they were unleashing ..."
- on the World Engine of Borsis
"Hatred of the alien, shackled by a will of iron and a sense of duty forged of adamantium. An
intelligent mind, bound by morality yet still able of tactical sacrifices. The guardian of a world that
burned in the fires of three wars that would have left any other planet abandoned. Does he know
doubt, behind that facade of unyielding confidence and anger he projects ? And if he does not, is
there anything human left in him ?"
- on Commissar Yarrick
"A hero of legend, whose deeds are whispered by soldiers across the galaxy … But in truth, a
broken, hollow shell of a man, forever unable to truly bond with others of his kind, alone even when
standing in a crowd. From the moment of his birth, he knew nothing of love and peace – violence
and destruction are all that could bring him something approaching joy. But instead of succumbing
to the dark promises of the Chaos Gods – all four of which would have welcomed his services – he
remained loyal to the Golden Throne ..."
- on Sly Marbo
"He claims to have left the deadly intrigues of the Dark City behind him, but no matter how much he
attempts to deceive himself, he still plays an important part in the game of power of Commoragh. His
story is spread across all Kabals, his example a source of inspiration for countless young warriors.
His power grows as the city becomes more and more unstable, and more flee its incoming doom,
searching for another way to slake their thirst. But when he hears the beginning of Commoragh's
fall, will there truly be nothing in his black heart that drives him to return ?"
- on Duke Sliscus 'the Serpent'
"Pride is his strength, and the doom of all those who would follow him into battle. He is a powerful
warrior, but he should never have been named a commander of men. How many have died because
of his arrogance ? How many more will, before he is finally slain ? But no champion of Chaos will
ever be allowed to kill him, this willful king of Maccrage, who believes his bloodline puts him above
his brothers. After all, he serves us best by staying alive, to lead more of Guilliman's sons to their
deaths ..."
- on Cato Sicarius
"Few of them survived, and they surely know now that the strange power that earned them the
Inquisition's ire is no blessing from the Corpse-God. These bitter survivors have knelt at the foot of
the Changer of Way's throne, swearing to see the entire Imperium burn for the injustice that was
done to them. Now, the flames that burst from their flesh carry the blessing of Tzeentch to all that
they touch, leaving only the burning warriors themselves untouched as they bring the gift of change
to all ..."
- on the Flame Falcons
"He failed in his quest, despite all that he sacrificed in its pursuit, despite all that it cost to others
along the way, enemies and allies alike. Yet he still received something for his effort, the most
poisonous and terrible of gifts that the God who owns his soul can bestow. He received hope that
his dream can be achieved, that his mistake can be undone. And that hope will drive him to yet
greater deeds, and one day, reunite him with his father – and together they shall make the Imperium
tremble ..."
- on Ahzek Ahriman
"In each of these great blades lie the essence of one of their wielder's brethren, caged and bound
since time immemorial. They committed no sin against their bloody lord, no failure beyond being
defeated by the one who was then the favored son of Khorne. Yet they suffer all the same, reduced
to instruments for a broken husk, a beast of mindless violence, forced to forever taste the blood of
another's kills ..."
- on Skarbrand's weapons, Slaughter and Carnage
"They stalk ahead of their comrades, knowing that to be seen means death. They watch and learn,
and report what they have found to those of their allies who will do the actual work of battle.
Cowardly scum, all of them, like the rest of their species. In time, every world of their empire will
burn, and the souls of their entire people will endure a thousand torment – though given the
weakness of their spirits, it will be more out of principle than pleasure ..."
- on Tau Pathfinders
"Symbols of aggression and conquest, carved from the profaned remnants of murdered worlds.
Reflections of the Great Beast in iron and fire, within which lie weapons the likes of which Mankind
could only dream of when they were first unleashed. Each of them was a fortress the equal of the
Imperium's greatest space forts – that the greenskins managed to build so many is a testament to
the ravenous appetite for destruction of these brutes. Now, they have all been destroyed … Or have
they ?"
- on the Ork Attack Moons
"A gathering of thieves and killers, driven only by the thirst for profit. They hide in the shadows, but
the wars they wage among themselves can cause the death of millions. The Imperium tolerates
them, until their deeds become to great and dark – then the princes of this order of liars learn the
true might of the justice they so derided, believing themselves far beyond its impotent reach ..."
- on the Kasballica
"The Imperium claims that she is the only of their vaunted Sisters to willingly embrace Chaos, even
while a hundred of them kneels before her insane will. The scholars and guardians of the rotting
empire delude themselves, for one does not fall to the Gods in ignorance : there is always a moment
of choice, strained and weighted as it might be. A soul is not so easily damned that it can be cast
down into darkness with but a look on anyone but the Dark Gods themselves ..."
- on Miriael Sabathiel
"He has seen so much, and endured so many wounds. Yet still he lives, and still he fights. Time has
not lessened his might, only given him more reasons to hate the enemies of Mankind. He is more
machine than man now, but the warriors around him still look up to him for guidance even in the
direst of situations – and their belief in him prevents him to fail them, if only because of his
stuborness ..."
- on Ultramarine Chaplain Ortan Cassius
"A lord of the soul-broken, who gave his life in defense of his doomed species. But even the false
peace the Eldar designed to avoid the jaws of She-Who-Thirsts was denied to him. They dragged
him back into the world of war, despite all his attempts to resist their pull. Now he fights once more
at the behest of his living kin, but behind the mask of honor and duty, there lies a deep bitterness
that, in time, might prove the source of some truly great amusement ... "
- on an Eldar Wraithlord
"By lies, empty promises and terrible threats, an entire army was turned against those it was sworn
to defend, becoming little more than a disposable instrument of cruel, distant overlords. Clearly, this
could not stand – the Architect of Fate could not allow anyone else to use the Dark Gods'
methods ..."
- on the Jorun Retaliation
"Look deep into his soul, behind the veil of honor, behind the armor of duty and the mask of
contempt, and what will you find ? Nothing but another killer, disguising his murderous urges under
the pretense of faith. Even among the shattered Loyal Legions, he and his kind are an object of
contempt – those who were too weak to endure without embracing the lie that baseline humanity
required to go on after the horrors of the Heresy ..."
- on High Marshal Helbretch of the Black Templars
"He thinks the voices in his head are those of his Gods, rather than misfiring synapses in his
malformed brain. And given the strange nature of his species, who can say he is wrong ? But
despite their possible origin, he does not listen to them all the time. In this, he shows wisdom
uncommon in his race – for these voices are just as self-destructive as every part of Ork nature ..."
- on an Ork Weirdboy
"A jewel in the darkness, gleaming with a black light that promises death to all. One of the greatest
killers the galaxy has ever known, unfettered by the petty concerns that plague so many of her kind.
When the Dark City falls and the reavers' souls are consumed by the Dark Prince, she will be
spared, and elevated to become one of Slaanesh' favorite concubine – after she has been shown
her place, of course ..."
- on Lelith Hesperax
"He is not gone. But he will be. The Gods will hunt him to the confines of the galaxy, and there he
will stand, laughing in their faces in bitter defiance, his hands dripping with all the blood he has
spilled in their name, his mind burning with all the horrors he committed at their service. He will fall,
for no matter his power, he is but a mortal – yet the Gods shall gain no pleasure from his
destruction, the obliteration of his soul and the annihilation of every single remaining trace of his
existence. No pleasure …
… Only relief."
- on Arguleon Veq
"He has killed ninety-three people in his five years of service, without ever having to see the face of
an enemy. Though he does not realise it yet, his time spent on a ship in Warp transit has already
started to affect him – the next time he destroys an enemy fighter, he will experience something he
never has before ..."
- on a pilot of the Imperial Navy
"The construction of this grand monument to a false god took ten years, cost enough to ruin three
merchant dynasties, and killed nine hundred and seventy-three of those who worked on it. At the
darkest hour, when the stars are properly aligned and the Veil is at its thinnest, it is possible to hear
their screams as they fall to their death, and see their ghosts wander the corridors, forever bound to
the location of their demise ..."
- on an Imperial cathedral in a hive-city's highest quarters
"He was lost to his Chapter when his Company crushed a heretical insurrection on a feudal world,
only for him to remain behind, seemingly crushed to death in the collapse of the rebel leader's lair.
But he survived, though it took him weeks to dig his way out – only to find that his brothers had long
gone. Between the long isolation, the physical trauma, and the whispers of the spirits entrapped with
him, he chose to cast off the so-called bonds of brotherhood, and embrace a group that only glorifies
individual strength ..."
- on a Red Corsair
"Despite all the decadence and corruption that fosters within the ranks of Imperial nobility as a
consequence of ten thousand years of inbreeding, this one is both strong, competent, and dutiful.
On his own, he could have rebuilt the worlds under his leadership into one of the Imperium's
greatest strongholds among the stars … if only there were not all these competing cabals seeking to
manipulate him for their own ends, falsifying the information he receives and twisting his mind with
their petty lies."
- on Marius Hax, Sector Governor of Calixis
"He was an artist before being drawn to the path of the soothsayer. Now he has looked into the
abyss of his species' future, and he will never be able to enjoy the undeniable beauty of his earlier
creations again. For he has seen the true nature of his people's foe – the only end that awaits him is
a slow transformation into crystal, as his spirit rages on uselessly against the doom of the Eldar
forevermore ..."
- on a Eldar Seer
"They have embraced the worship of the God of War with the sort of fanatic devotion only the
Bearers of the Word possess. But though they have gained much glory in the eyes of their chosen
patron, they are mistaken, for Khorne cares nothing for their rituals and prayers – all he cares about
is the blood they spill, and the skulls they take. In that way, they are no closer to his throne than any
of the countless warbands bearing the Blood God's mark across the galaxy ..."
- on the Eightscarred Khorne Daemonkin warband
"His first weapon was a fragment of an Imperial frigate's hull that he used to cut the throat of one of
his spawn-kin. His second was a cleaver he stole from a Nob while he had his back turned. His third,
a chainsword taken from the corpse of an Imperial Commissar. His fourth, a power claw installed on
the stump of his right arm by a Mekboy and a Painboy working together. His fifth will be a ship taken
by boarding it and killing its captain in person. If he lives to reach his tenth weapon, the galaxy will
tremble at his name ... "
- on an Ork Warboss
"An accord forged under duress, based upon a lie millennia in the making, to serve the selfish goals
of a deluded usurper. But even the union it proclaims is little more than a sham : in ten thousand
years, how many times have the priests of the Red World put their own interests ahead of those of
the Imperium, seeking only to pursue their ancient goals regardless of the cost to others ?"
- on the Treaty of Mars
"Vain attempts to expunge the corruption suffered by the Anathema's servants in their pointless
struggle against Chaos' inevitable ascension. The scars of the soul cannot be removed as easily as
the memories of the past are purged, and ignorance is one of the Dark Gods' favorite tools ..."
- on mind cleansing
"Such a simple, innocuous thing. To look upon it, you would not believe for a moment that within its
pages are contained secrets capable of breaking a soul and rebuild it into a shape more pleasing to
the Dark Gods. There are no daemons bound within its paper, no unholy power lying in wait within
its cover, waiting to devour the unwary. The only thing it offers is knowledge – and that, my dear
curious friends, is the most dangerous thing of all ..."
- on the Malus Codicium
"Leader of a bloodline who has been slowly dying for ten thousand years, he still puts the lives of
others above those of his kin. He will even defy his cousins to protect those whom he sees as his
charges, even if his dreadful aspect causes them to recoil from him in fear, and whispers are shared
in the shadows, calling his Chapter barbaric and pagan. Yet still he cares, still he fights … Madness.
Simply madness."
- on Chapter Master Tu'shan
"The power that courses through his soul is all but unique in the Imperium, and few mortals even in
the Great Eye can claim to be his equal. And yet, he regards this gift as a curse, only wielding it
against his foes out of what he foolishly perceives to be his duty. He restrains himself, refusing to
embrace his full potential and lead the remnant of the Thirteenth Legion into a new, glorious age.
But one day, when all that he loves burn around him and the light of his master has faded from the
stars …
Then he will listen to the voices that have pressed at the edge of his soul for all of his life."
- on Varro Tigurius, Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines
"In another age, the knowledge contained within these pages would have been widely spread, used
to prepare the soldiers of Mankind to face the many horrors that threaten their species' dominion
over the stars. But in the Imperium, it is forbidden, reserved only to those of the ruling elite who have
proven their worth – by crushing free thought and all forms of choice among the rest of the
population ..."
- on the Tome of Vethric
"Like so many before him, he has seen one of the threats to all Mankind, and been consumed by the
need to stop it at the expense of everything else. In his eyes, he can commit no sin in his pursuit of
the knowledge he seeks, for the cost of doing nothing would be even greater. But his former peers
have seen this sad drama unfold a thousand times, and to them, he is nothing more than another
lost soul, to be purged from the galaxy before his madness causes anymore damage to the failing
Imperium ..."
- on Excommunicate Traitoris Inquisitor Lichtenstein
"What terrible wrong was done to this species, that it hates the Imperium so ? I see no mark of the
Chaos Gods on their souls, though many fight at the sides of the illuminated scions of Darkness and
Ruin. The answer might lie in the long-forgotten past of the Anathema's empire, when the stars
burned in the flames of the False Crusade, and countless species were put to the sword in galaxy-
wide genocide ..."
- on the Enoulian xenos breed
"He was once one of the Eldar's princelings, who lived at the heigth of their empire's power and
decadence. Twelve species were brought to horrific extinction by his armies, and he slew a
thousand of his own kind out of boredom. When the Youngest God was born, he did not scream or
weep – he laughed and opened his arms. Yet for all the power he believes became his after his
ascension, he was still brought low by the descendants of those he derided for resisting the lure of
excess ..."
- on Lilesh Snarelust
"Is there truly only one of this giant, risen from death time and again to continue its crusade against
all life in the galaxy ? Or is every apparition another specimen, created anew in the Tyranid's
spawning pit ? The first option implies that it cannot be truly slain, and yet it is far less worrying than
the second – for that one means that the Hive-Mind has learned the importance of legends, and how
to use them to inspire terror in its preys ..."
- on Old One Eye
"This stone had been buried for twelve thousand years when the archeological expedition dug it out
among the ruins of what they believed to be a pre-Unity human civilization. On a wealthy and
prosperous world, it became the center piece of the planetary capital's museum, where millions
came each year to marvel at the intricacies of the symbols engraved upon it. It was said, quite
rightly, that none who saw them could ever forget them. And at the appointed hour, these symbols
flared into a billion minds at once, and the planet fell into madness and destruction ..."
- on a Chaos relic
"This gathering of worlds had endured the horrors of the Age of Strife by purging its population of all
signs of deviancy and enforcing a ruthless control of the survivors. The Avenging Son came to cast
down their tyranny and set the people free, while the Hydra came merely to conquer in the name of
the Emperor and claim the glory he deserved. It is easy for Imperial scholars to look at this as the
first sign of Alpharius' corruption – yet remember just what the Imperium has become, and you will
see that he was a far truer servant than Guilliman ..."
- on the Conservation, an allliance of human worlds at the beginning of the Great Crusade
"Nine weapons of immense power, each capable of making their wielder a king among warriors. And
yet, they are but the remnants of the great vault of the Great Drake, who, in a pathetic display of
weakness, chose to destroy his own creations rather than use them in battle. How different would
the Heresy have been if the Salamanders had been able to use the full power that had once been
theirs … In their rage at their father's loss, would there still have been a galaxy left to rule by the
time they would have been done ?"
- on the Artefacts of Vulkan
"Within this hallowed relic lies the mortal body of one of the greatest warriors of a Chapter whose
name strikes fear in the hearts of renegades across the galaxy. Countless traitors have fallen by his
claws, their shades forever stalking him from beyond the veil. They are waiting, these echoes of
futures and loyalties gone astray – waiting for the moment where at long last, their killer joins them
on the other side ..."
- on Hecaton Aiakos
"An interesting project, pleasing to the eyes of the Dark Prince. But to those with more experience in
such matters, it was a rushed, blunt attempt, the work of someone with barely any idea of the true
workings behind the Anathema's gene-work. Still, the speed at which it created new warriors was
one few other fleshsmiths in the Eye of Terror can match ..."
- on the Daemonculaba
"These warriors drink blood, commune with the spirit of the dead, and all of them have eaten the
flesh of other humans to survive prior to their ascension. They worship dead and keep the skulls of
their heroes and great enemies alike. Few things are beyond my knowledge – but how, by the nine-
hundred and ninety-nine secret names of the Great Mutator this Chapter has not been purged by the
Inquisition is among them."
- on the Mortifactors
"His hands are soaked in the blood of his kin, those who turned against their oaths and were
punished for their betrayal. It is he and his Chapter who now carry the mantle of executioners that
once belonged to the Wolves, and he relishes in it, sharpening his skills against the greatest
possible foes. But that drive might be his downfall, for the Blood God has taken note of his prowess,
and covet him for his own ..."
- on Asterion Moloc
"Echo of the crime that damned Mankind, its very existence is the promise of death for the
Imperium. Not even the gifts the Anathema stole from the Dark Gods can protect from its touch, for
its power comes from the souls of all humans who have ever lived. Only one question remains : did
the Despoiler find it because the Ruinous Powers willed it, or because its ancient jailer decided to
free its power in the hope of one day freeing his master from his torment ?"
- on Drach'nyen
"After ten thousand years, still it stands, a reminder of the Anathema's defeat, the echo of his
shattered dream. From his throne of agonies and lies, he ever watches it, and knows that no matter
how much he sacrifices in the Great Game, the Dark Gods have already triumphed ..."
- on the Eternity Gate
"Spawned out of the machinations of petty lords and ladies, bogged down by bureaucracy and
incompetence – until its leader died and a new, worthier champion of the Emperor was found. Or
was it that the champion was found and the leader then had to die ? Not even those who took part in
this pathetic mockery of the Anathema's great conquest know ..."
- on the Angevin Crusade
"A world of sins and incredible wealth, whose resources sustained a society way beyond the point at
which it should have collapsed. I wonder, when will the Eighth Legion do to the Imperium as it did to
its homeworld ? After all, the destruction of the Anathema's empire is long overdue ..."
- on Nostramo
"A shell is loaded, a lever pushed, and in the distance, enemies that the crew has never seen with
their own eyes die horribly, torn to pieces without having any chance to fight back. Weapons such as
those leave their own mark in the Warp, echoing back to their distant ancestors on Old Earth, in the
very first mechanical conflict Mankind waged against itself – and that mark is at once malevolent and
completely without emotions ..."
- on Earthshaker Artillery
"The first of their kin were born from among the descendants of those few mortals that the Thousand
Sons saved from the destruction of their homeworld. How deeply ironic, that the children of these
men and women of knowledge and wisdom would become creatures of ambition and cruelty, twisted
of mind and body … truly, deserving servants of Tzeentch."
- on the Tzaangors
"They gathered and prayed, to honor the memory fo the Angel. On their bodies they wore the red of
hs blood, and remembered his sacrifice to protect their failed god. But their prayers did nothing to
keep at bay the hunters of the Twelfth Legion, and in a single night, the entire planet was painted in
arterial red ..."
- on an Imperial world
"Clad in armor of gold and wielding instruments of death that only obey those of their own blood,
they still stand watch over the dessicated corpse of their lord and master. But like so much of the
Imperium, their days of glory are long gone, and they wallow in the memories of a better age –
reminiscences made bitter by the knowledge that it was their failure that heralded its end ..."
- on the Custodians
"She left her homeworld to avenge the death of her clan at the hands of a Night Lord reaver. It took
her three decades to track down her prey, and by that time she had an armada following her, whose
every crew member was terrified of her. And yet, when she finally cornered her foe, she only killed
him, and ordered the rest of the planet on which he had fled be spared. This display of mercy is the
only reason why none of the Dark Gods have yet marked her as their own ..."
- on a Champion of the Eye of Terror
"It still wanders the void, filled with the screaming souls of the Eldar it slaughtered. The Champions
of Slaanesh hunt it, each knowing that the one to claim the prize will be rewarded with ascension to
daemonhood – but so far, all they have done is add their own soul to the tally of those it has
consumed ..."
- on the Doom of Malan'tai
"It was always alive. From the moment it was assembled in the Martian shipyards and its machine-
spirit awakened for the first time, it has hungered for battle, for death and destruction. For two
hundred years its appetites were restrained by those who commanded it, until they bend the knee to
the Ruinous Powers, even if they did not think they were doing so at the time. Now, ten thousand
years later, it still thirsts for carnage, its hull reshaped into an aspect more reflective of its true nature
..."
- on the Vengeful Spirit
"The mere notion of this covenant is blasphemous to the lords of the Ordo, and none will ever admit
that it exists – if indeed it does. For while alliances between humans and eldars are hardly
uncommon in the galaxy, these always end in relieved parting at best and backstabbing at worst.
Far more likely that this is merely a rumor, though whether it was born of a forlorn hope or a
smearing campaign is unknown ..."
- on the Coven of Isha
"They hide behind their techno-sorcery, while their souls are too dim to be seen by esoteric means.
Truly, this is a species of cowards – it makes one wonder whether some malevolent intelligence
designed them to be that way ..."
- on the Tau XV15 Stealthsuit
"Men and women of great intellect and charisma, chosen by the Anathema to be the prophets of His
lies. Manipulators and deceivers all, twisting the minds of billions according to their own designs,
working in the shadows to bring others into the all-consuming embrace of the Imperium. When the
flames of the Heresy broke out and the agents of Chaos were at last allowed to act openly, the souls
of these fools were worth a high price to the Dark Gods – be they dead or corrupted ..."
- on the Iterators
"Madness and terror wielded as weapons, by breaking the mind of the enemy's leader rather than
simply take his life. We knew the Swarm was capable of adapting to its enemies' tactics and
strengths, but the existence of this supreme hunter hints that it is capable of thinking and innovating
as well. What chance do the rest of the galactic species hold against such power ? Only by
embracing the divine might of the Four can Mankind hope to survive ..."
- on the Deathleaper
"His failure to stop the green beast ate at him from within, and when the curse of his bloodline rose,
he was too weakened to hold it back. His brothers tell tales of how he redeemed himself and found
peace in death, but I know the truth : that he died screaming and butchering, caring naught for what
he killed, and his soul was feasted upon by my brethren ..."
- on Erasmus Tycho
"Evolution is a process that requires countless sacrifices on the way to a new, better form. As fast as
the Hive-Mind might be capable of reacting and adapting the gene-code of its spawn, there are
bound to still be a few mistakes in the process – given the size of the Swarm, it is simply inevitable.
Of course, all of this does not make this creature any less hilarious ..."
- on the Tyranid Pyrovore bioform
"From savagery born, ascended and forged into a weapon of war, an instrument of death. When the
end came, he defied it, struggling to keep doing his murderous duty, and was rewarded with the
chance to continue butchering the enemies of his lord beyond the point of death. Little to nothing
remains of the child he once was, or of the man he could have been.
Tell me, my beloved scholars. Where is the difference between this heir of Sigismund and the
Ascendant Princes of the Dark Gods ?"
- on the Black Templars Dreadnought Tankred
"The god-machines of this order fought on the world of death and sand, alongside the hosts of steel
and iron. They slew their own kin and were slain in return, while at their feet mortals waged a
reflection of their divine conflict. That they still exist to this day is a testament to the endurance of
that particular kind of Titans ..."
- on the Legio Astorum
"Champions of dead gods, echoes of a glorious past that was never as bright as the soul-broken
claim it to be. Theirs is a false honor, and the deeds of the heroes they emulate were atrocities of
unprecedented scale. In the end, they are nothing more than sad puppets, continuing their danse
long after their master have left the stage ..."
- on the Phoenix Lords
"The great beast that slumbered within its cage is gone. The last guardian has died, her old heart
giving in after ten millenia of faithful, dedicated service. The ancient bindings, laid down by the
Anathema in ages long past, have finally been broken. Silence has fallen upon these darkened
corridors, and soon … Soon darkness will come for all."
- on the Noctis Labyrinth
"She witnessed the descent into madness of the Tyrant of Blood, and was present at the day of his
fall. She was one of the first of the order of fanatics claiming to do the Anathema's will, founding her
own branch of this insanity. But the sins she committed and allowed while bending the knee to
Vandire were not so easily erased, and in the end, she paid the price she deserved for them ..."
- on Saint Lucia
"Silent warriors, once the champions of their kin. Now their soul has been reduced to a pale shadow,
enslaved to the will of their still-living brethren. But they are still mighty, and many have
underestimed their power to the cost of their life. Even with the curse of the Thief of Secrets
shattering their minds, the blessings of Tzeentch are still mighty upon them, and while they are
unchanging, their foes taste the fires of the Changer of Ways ..."
- on Scarab Occult Terminators
"They chose discipline over bloodlust, cooperation over infighting, common devotion over walking
the Path to Glory alone. While most of the Lost and the Damned would spit on such behavior, the
truth is that without soldiers such as these, the hosts of the Dark Gods would not be nearly as
threatening to the Imperium as the are – for just as with the Ruinous Powers themselves, the facade
of madness that their followers show to the rest of the galaxy conceal the cunning, ruthless mind
beneath ..."
- on the Sons of Sek
"The last gasp of a dying empire, like a drowning man desperately reaching out for anything to slow
his inevitable fate. In the end, their glorious leader died alone and betrayed, abandoned by those he
had led from victory to blood-soaked victory. If only he had not been foolish enough to keep serving
the False Emperor when the true power of the Dark Gods was offered to him – then by now, Terra
might already be burning ..."
- on the Macharian Crusade
"For six hundred years, he has never taken off his mask of bone in public. Even his concubines do
not know his true face. That is because the one currently wearing the mask has only done so for
three years, having secretly slain and replaced his predecessor, little knowing that he was the
twelfth to do so since the Kabal's founding ..."
- on a Dark Eldar Archon
"Though the blade is the weapon favored by most warriors, the symbol of the Imperium's self-
proclaimed dominance over the galaxy is, without a doubt, the hammer. For the institutions of the
Anathema's empire are neither subtle nor quick to move, but ponderous and devastating in their
strikes ..."
- on the galaxy
"The great power bestowed upon the revenants entombed within these ancient machines has also
broken their minds. Loyalist or traitor, they are all ruined, screaming things of hatred and spite,
striking out at the universe around them with weapons that Mankind has long since forgotten the
true name, let alone the principles. If but one of them ever regains his mind, however, then the
galaxy will tremble ..."
- on the Leviathan Siege Pattern Dreadnought
"Whether the madness that afflicts them is the result of their minds breaking under the strain of their
condition's horror, or the last curse of a god brought low, is ultimately irrelevant. Every single one of
these wretched creatures is a reminder to all the others who yet cling to sanity that, no matter how
powerful they might believe themselves to be, in the end they are all but one tiny step away from
insanity and corruption ..."
- on the Flayed Ones
"At first, it appeared that this was merely another rebellion against the tyrannical rule of the
Imperium, another group of opportunistic rulers seeking to carve their own kingdom without
interference. But when retribution came, the true source of that treachery was discovered, and the
wrath of the Imperium knew no bounds ..."
- on the Meritech Wars
"A failed avenue of evolution, brought about by the sacrifice of intellect in the pursuit of greater
physical strength and speed. How could a species capable of such appalling degeneration ever be
worthy of taking the stars ? The Architect of Fate might look fondly upon their adaptability, but their
brutality and lack of imagination make them useless, except as sacrifices and test subjects ..."
- on Kroot Hounds
"What is the point of conquest, if it all falls apart when you die ? That is a lesson most Chaos Lords
learn very early, and the reason why they pursue ascension so much. If the mortal Warmaster had
learned it as well, perhaps the farce that followed his demise could have been avoided – either by
putting competent and reliable men as his seconds, or ensuring he did not die in the first place ..."
- on the Macharian Heresy
"He was born on the world he now rules as nothing more than a slave, spawned in the gene-mills
and expected to live and die serving his overlords. But he managed to escape this fate through
cunning, ruthlessness, and more than a few pacts with Neverborn payed for in blood and souls. Now
he is master of billions, but the debts he has accrued over the decades still await payment, and
should he fail to pay back what he owes, all that he has gained will be taken away ..."
- on a Dark Mechanicum lord in the Eye of Terror
"For five thousand years, generation after generation has recorded the variations in the output of the
local star – but the reason for their work has long been forgotten. If any kind of rigorous protocol and
research had been conducted in that time, they would have discovered that the output was changing
far more than it should three thousand years ago. And after that, it would only have taken them two
centuries to discover the reason for that – and after that, it would only have taken the Ordo Xenos
five months to come purge everything ..."
- on an Imperial research station
"In life, he was a poet among his kind, meditating upon the consequences of the short lifespan of his
species. But his noble family dragged him to the biotransference pods, refusing the blemish on their
names that his refusal of immortality could be. His hatred of all things was born when his soul was
torn from him by the Star Gods – he will make the entire galaxy pay for what he has lost ..."
- on a Necron Destroyer Lord
"He laughs as he kills, a true bearer of the free spirit of Fenris. Or at least, that is what the Wolf
Lords tell themselves. Because the truth is, there is no joy on their icy homeworld, no amusement in
their hearts : only the endless calling of duty, and the countless lives that have been lost to the
murderous nature of the world they call home. This jester knows this, and laughs in the face of
despair, because he knows that in the end, nothing matters – only that he is alive right now ..."
- on Lukas the Trickster
"He is dead, now and forever, and his sacrifice meant nothing, for Chaos had already won the war
for Mankind's soul long before he returned to the fight. A pity his soul was annihilated as completely
as it was – I would enjoy his despair at what the Imperium has become ..."
- on Ollanius Pius
"A graveyard of souls, where the fate of the Ninth was sealed in blood and sacrifice. Even today,
ships sailing near the system in the Sea of Souls hear the horrified cries of the people as the Bearer
of the Word convinced them to slaughter each other in the name of his fell gods – but even those
are soon silenced by the scream of the Angel and his sacrificed son ..."
- on Signus Prime
"He caught a glimpse of Terra during his pilgrimage to Mars. Of his Chapter, he and kin are the only
ones to have ever set eyes on the Throneworld, for the attention of the Thirteenth Remnant has ever
been focused on the defense of its own pocket empire. But as he repairs tanks and bless weapons,
the image of Terra remains in his mind, and the ruination of its surface feeds the doubts that fester
hidden behind his face of metal ..."
- on a Ultramarine Techmarine
"The bane of all things, from this realm or the next, shackled by techno-sorceries beyond the ken of
any living mind. Worlds do not simply die when these weapons are unleashed : they are unmade,
the very shadow they cast into the Warp erased from existence as if it had never been there. That
any species would be capable for forging such devices, let alone endure after using but one, is a
testament to the old cunning and power of the Necron Empire ..."
- on a Necron Death Sphere
"A monument to the unity of a band of warlords, constantly struggling against the commands of their
leader. By symbols of power such as this are loyalty and obedience to the alpha maintained, and the
names of those worthy lords preserved unto eternity … But one day, when the vengeance of the
Cyclops come to Fenris for the third and final time, the circle will be shattered, and the end of the
Sixth Legion will finally come at last."
- on the Grand Annulus of the Space Wolves
"He has killed ten times more enemies of the Imperium than he has men under his own command.
But while the faces of the heretics and traitors fade away from his mind in seconds, he still wakes up
at night, trembling, at the memory of those terrified young men he shot to prevent the entire front
from collapsing against the Orks' charge ..."
- on an Astra Militarum Commissar
"This specimen has killed twelve men in the single month that has passed since its birth. None of
these victims know the truth of its origins : that its species, like most of the lethal creatures that stalk
their accursed world, was created by human gene-smiths in millennia past. What the purpose of
these manipulations was is unknown, for its secret died alongside the scientists when their creations
broke loose and devoured them all. Now only the descendants of their assistants live on, unaware of
who is to blame for the harshness of their lives ..."
- on a deathworld beast
"He was a warrior once, dedicated to his cause and his Primarch. Now, however, excess has
destroyed his mind and blasted his soul. He is little more than a stupid automaton now, seeking
what brings pleasure to his scorched brain without even knowing why. Many are those like him, who
fall short of the Dark Prince's grand vision ..."
- on a Noise Marine
"He never felt anything for anyone else's pain but his own, yet learned very quickly how to pretend
otherwise. An entire people were deceived into following him by false promises of greatness and
wealth, and when their world collapsed in fire and ruin, still they clung to him rather than admit to
themselves that they had been deceived. Now he wanders the stars with an army at his back,
knowing that he can never stop lest they turn all the hatred he grew in their souls upon him ..."
- on an Arch-Demagogue of the Lost and the Damned
"Forged in the depths of an infernal temple, on a world upon which dark magos and hereteks fight
an endless war for supremacy. Anointed in the blood of nine hundred sacrifices, armed with
weapons whose craftmen's souls were fed to the daemon within. Pure, unaltered hatred of all things,
shackled to the will of those with enough will and dark lore to bind it to their command ..."
- on a Defiler daemon engine
"Fragments of shattered ships and hulls darkened by the touch of the Warp, put together by spite
and hateful will alone. Only the power of the Blood Reaver preserves this twisted realm from
collapsing as its inhabitants turn against each other in an orgy of carnage – but Blackheart is often
far from his home port, and all upon it crave power, calling to the Dark Gods for their blessings ..."
- on Hell's Iris
"Left behind in the flight for survival, reclaimed in the bitter fight for vengeance. But even if that
vehicle was restored to its former glory, the ruined hives of Armageddon never will be – they bear
the twin stain of Chaos and the Great Beast, now and forevermore. All that is left to the old
champion riding to war within its hull is the armor of contempt – and the self-righteousness that gave
his mount its name ... "
- on the Fortress of Arrogance
"His soul is filled with the bitterness that comes from seeing your brothers die because of your
commander's folly. He might hunt the enemies of Mankind from the shadows, but he is also hiding
from the ghosts of his past – both those of his dead brothers, but also those who attached
themselves to his path during his time as a warrior of the Deathwatch ..."
- on Scout-Sergeant Cyrus
"A nightmare brought upon Mankind by the sins of the Eldar, in the last days of their failed empire.
Many were the wonders created in this age, on worlds that burned to ash and were later colonized
anew. But the children of the Old Night remain, buried deep beneath the surface, slumbering, until
the ancient sins of Humanity are committed once more, and they rouse from their sleep to take part
in the final war ..."
- on Old Night
"Through these assignments, clerks who have never seen the light of a sun in their entire lives
decide the fates of systems' economies on the other side of the galaxy, based on reports so filled
with useless trivia, mistakes, and outright deceit, that they might as well be throwing dice for all the
fairness they would get. But the system will never fall down or be reformed, because such is the
hunger of the Imperium for wealth and resources that it cannot stop feeding even for a moment, no
matter how many lives are needlessly ruined in the process ..."
- on the Administratum Tithe Classification System
"Gateway to the material plane, where trillions of souls await to be collected and tormented for the
amusement and sustenance of the Dark City's voracious people. Through it, thousands of warbands
pass, pretending that they are marching to war against the inferior races. But in truth, all know what
these raids really rare : the desperate actions of a dying breed, trying to stave off the inevitable as
long as it can through any means possible, and lying to itself that it was going to commit these
atrocities anyway ..."
- on the Port of Lost Souls, in Commoragh
"A relic from the time when the tech-lords of Mankind bent the cosmos to their will, forging wonders
that would outlast them for thousands of years … or be reduced to ruin within their own lifetimes. An
instrument of plunder, created to carve a planet apart and send its wealth to the other, more
prosperous and worthy worlds of Humanity. Do the remnants of the Iron Tenth know, I wonder, that
they are the descendants of glorified clerks and slaves who survived their crash onto the surface ?"
- on the Telstarax
"He is a creature of vision, that one. The deed for which his name is famous in the Dark City has
also marked him in the eyes of She-Who-Thirsts, and while the Youngest God will still claim and
devour his soul, it will be a long time before the blessing he received for such a magnificent display
of selfishness and narcissism is spent ..."
- on Archon Vhane Kyharc
"At its top did the Primarchs swear their oaths to the inhuman, monstrous creature that they called
their father. But he never held a shred of love for any of them – they were only tools in his eyes,
instruments that he would have discarded the moment his plans for ascension were complete. On
their way up, their minds were assailled by the psychic might of the Anathema, shaped into forms
more fitting to his designs – all safe for Angron, who never knelt before the one whom he hates
above all, even now ..."
- on the Astartes Tower
"A soul for a soul, a son for a father. Such are the bargains, the sacrifices by which the Imperium
endures. This creature was the first to truly embody the very principles by which the Anathema's
dominion has survived for so long. And still, after ten thousand years, when the signs are right and
the stars aligned, when the blood is spilled and the burning warrior is called, the soul of Meros of the
Ninth Legion endures his unspeakable torment, sustained beyond pain by the knowledge that he did
the right thing ..."
- on the Red Angel
"Ancient beyond measure, claimed by the nameless son, stolen from his cut off hands by the one he
called brother moments before he died by its blade. But it exists still, locked away in some deep
vault aboard the Phalanx – and before the end, it shall be wielded once more, but in whose hands,
and on which side of the Great Game ?"
- on the Pale Spear
"His entire life was spent fighting against the monster that he knew he was destined to become.
From the very first moment he opened his eyes on a world of sin and endless night, he knew what
his future held, and he struggled against the madness such dread knowledge brought. In the end,
however, it was a fight doomed from the beginning, and he knew that as well. His mind shattered
slowly, over the course of decades, until it broke apart completely when his brother refused to break
and prove his nihilism right – and from the pieces rose something magnificent and terrible ..."
- on Konrad Curze
"They were ignorant then, but not innocent. Their hands were already drenched in the blood of all
those they had slain, their souls blackened by the deeds of the False Crusade demanded of them.
The bitterness of their souls could not be denied – and when the Lord of Death found them, they
were already far closer to him than any outsider thought ..."
- on the Dusk Raiders
"Forged by the Phoenician, wielded by the Gorgon, gifted to the Iron Lord by the Sacrificed King.
The hands of four cursed godlings touched this infernal weapon, and it carries within it the weight of
destiny. In it, a spark of the immortal hatred of Ferrus Manus for his treacherous brother lives on,
surrounded by the inferno that is Perturabo's wrath ..."
- on Forgebreaker
"The Blood God took this ship's captain as his own, and through the man flowed the will of Khorne. It
spread to the thousands of crewmembers, from the deck officers to the lowly menials toiling in the
loading bays. All of them became one instrument of death and destruction, united in the embrace of
the God of War. Such is the plan of Khorne for all of Mankind, if he ever triumphs in the Great Game
..."
- on the Killfrenzy Slaughter-Class Cruiser
"They fled from the coming doom of their species, but they were not fast enough, or not careful
enough in the screening of those deemed worthy of being taken aboard. The madness of their
empire caught up to them, and the great halls of meditation and peace they had built for themselves
and their descendants became the lairs of Slaanesh' Neverborn children, feasting upon the flesh
and soul of the Eldar exiles ..."
- on the Lost Craftworlds
"They have little in the way of loyalty for their masters, or for the distant Emperor. All they care about
is their own immediate gain and survival. Feral dogs, collared and sent to attack the foe, that is all
that they are. It should be easy to turn them to the cause of Chaos, but their time in the hellish
chemical pit that was their prison has also hardened their souls, making them survivors who
instinctively shy away from the risks of the Path to Glory ..."
- on the Savlar Chem Dog Regiments
"She became the only leader when all the other officers died, and she led her surviving comrades
into battle against the green tide. She displayed courage and keen tactical insight, and helped save
a planet from the schemes of the Ruinous Powers. Of course, she and her entire regiment were
discreetly purged by the Inquisition mere days after the Ultramarines had departed ..."
- on Lieutenant Mira
"Bestial, mindless brutes, whose only desires are to feed and to fight, revelling in the destruction
they inflict on their surroundings, uncaring of the dangers to their own existence. Sometimes, it is
hard to see where the Ork rider ends and his giant mount begins ..."
- on Squiggoths
"It was carried before each of the Nine Ascended Princes, and received a fraction of their dread
power as they lay their blessings upon it. Dark and terrible power lies within it, but that is only one of
the reasons for which so many champions of Chaos seek it. For it remembers the touch of these
mighty lords, and in the proper hands, it could be used to locate those of them who hide in the
depths of the Eye of Terror, beyond the reach of even their own faithful sons ..."
- on the Black Mace
"Leaders of the Swarm, the source from which the numberless tides of chitineous flesh emerge to
bring death and oblivion to all other life forms. Theirs are the minds that send the commands across
entire hive-fleets, but the terrible question remains : are they truly the source of these orders, or
merely relaying them from some unknowably distant and horrifyingly powerful telepathic source ?"
- on Norn Queens
"So proud, so noble, so confident in their own strength and righteousness. But when the universe no
longer went along with their beliefs, how quick they were to shed the mantle of civilization and revert
to their old ganger instincts. They were innocent in that age, unaware of the truth of the galaxy – and
even after their father was illuminated, they still deluded themselves into thinking they were the
heroes in this tragic tale of betrayal and war ..."
- on the Luna Wolves
"Twist and bend the laws of reality, not through cunning spells or grand machinery, but through brute
force and sheer stubborness. The universe bleeds each time the greenskins call upon their
ramshackle devices, leaking a little bit of its substances into the Warp, where it feeds the never-
sated hunger of their two-headed god ..."
- on Ork teleportation technology
"Each of his many eyes was once the augmetic optic of a rival he defeated in his mortal life, and
added to his own body as a symbol of his past victories. When he was elevated by the Changer of
Ways, they turned to daemonic flesh, but the souls of their previous owners are still trapped within,
all of their knowledge waiting for this ascended tech-lord to call upon it ..."
- on a Daemon Prince
"Her gift was revealed when, at five years old, she stopped the flames that were consuming her
orphanage. When the Black Ships' agents came for her weeks later, she actually walked out of the
hiding spot where her caretakers had trying to dissimulate her and into the black vehicle that would
take her away. She knew what fate awaited her friends if the agents knew they had tried to hide her.
Such strength of will and dedication … I wonder how it is that she did not turn against the Anathema
the moment she touched its deceitful soul ?"
- on an Imperial sanctionned psyker
"This child of the Plague God is an instrument of war, disease fashioned into a weapon by the loving
hands of Nurgle. The sky blackens at its approach, blades and guns rust and turn to dust, flesh is
touched by pestilence and grows pale and corrupt, all of this long before the lumbering form of the
Great Unclean One actually appears over the horizon, herald of the doom that comes to all on the
battlefield, regardless of whether or not they oppose the Dark Gods ..."
- on Scabeiathrax the Bloated
"A lie, used to preserve order within the Five Hundred Worlds even as the shards of the Shadow
Crusade kept bleeding worlds on its fronteer and the Night Haunter walked the very soil of
Maccrage. But it was a beautiful lie, and that is why so many believed in it – until it was shattered by
the exposed deceit of its leaders, and the words of truth spoken by a lord of traitors ..."
- on the Unremembered Empire
"Death and destruction, a Legion shattered, broken not by the failings of his warriors or the cunniing
of its foes, but by the folly of its master. Thousands of champions, heroes all, who had survived the
horrors of the Heresy, died pointlessly in a fight that did not even need to happen, all because Dorn
felt guilty for the fall of the Anathema. Good ..."
- on the Iron Cage
"Nine generations ago, one of this creature's ancestors was the son of the Planetary Governor, who
spent the entire first two decades of his life locked away in an isolated tower to hide what his father
perceived to be a hideous mutation that would ruin his family's power. That ancestor escaped and
joined with the other outcasts, and the hatred that was born from his mistreatment was carried down
his descendants until today. What was that terrible difformity, you ask ? His two eyes were not of the
same color ..."
"The flesh is the first to fail, but it does not die as easily as it should. The disease keeps the host
alive, both so that he can spread it others, and because a quick death grants release from torment.
As days go by in endless agony, the soul of the infected withers as they despair of their cruel fate,
until the point where they are willing to do anything that will mean an end to their suffering. Only then
do they die, their spirits consumed by the Grandfather and reborn as a new child in his pestilent
garden ..."
- on Nurgle's Rot
"In the dark tunnels beyond reality and unreality, he wanders still, hunted by the Beggar-Thief of
Secrets and countless other enemies. In his hands is the key to the Labyrinthine Dimension,
knowledge capable of turning the tides of the wars for the galaxy. But he has his own mission, and
he will not give up on it, no matter how much he must sacrifice to see it completed ..."
- on Inquisitor Czevak
"An echo from the distant past, continuing to fight a war that has long since been lost ? Or the
incarnation of a Chapter's hopes and dreams, the reflection of their refusal to submit to the curse of
their bloodline ? Or perhaps, this most forbidden of hopes, that some fragment of the Angel's soul
survived the blades of the Sacrificed King, and continues to shine with the light of true hope ? No
one knows the truth, but before the end, all shall ..."
- on the Sanguinor
"Does he seek forgiveness for his past mistakes, wandering throughout eternity in the hope of
correcting the consequences of his crime ? Every time he moves against the Imperium, his deeds
eventually help reveal some other corruption, or strengthen a region that then come under greater
threat. The lords of dead Caliban call him Lord of the Fallen, and his capture haunts their every
night, but I wonder : could he be the most loyal of all the sons of the Lion ?"
- on Cypher
"When the sins of the soul-broken gained sentience and turned against them, he stood against the
tide of corruption. But the nobility and courage he represented had dwindled, and with it, so had his
power. Still, he could not be consumed by the Dark Prince as the others were, for his nature is
fundamentally opposed to that of Slaanesh. Now, fragments of his wrath are scattered across the
galaxy, screaming their fury at an universe that has left them behind ..."
- on Kaela Mensha Khaine
"Hunter of tanks, slayer of thousands of foot soldiers. Side by side with its pack, this beast of metal
has brought low dozens of enemy warmachines. For while it is the lowest of its kin, it still towers
above the rest of the battlefield, and brings death wherever it goes ..."
- on a Warhound Titan
"Death has no hold over this creature, which has achieved such heights of depravity and corruption
that the Dark Prince releases its soul from torment every time death catches up to it. The evil it
commits and the dread passions it indulges into are worth far more to Slaanesh than its shriveled,
insane soul – though in the end, it too will be consumed, and for once, this horrible fate will be
entirely deserved ..."
- on Urien Rakarth
"This scion of the Dark Prince inhabits the shell of a divine fragment it slew in a cowardly battle,
using it to maintain its physical presence long after its time has passed. It still wanders in the Great
Eye, having long abandoned the ruins of the Craftworld its lies brought to damnation, and the soul of
the foolish maiden it deceived continues to scream within its grasp, forever tortured by the
knowledge that she is to blame for the fate of her people ..."
- on Heartslayer the Keeper of Secrets
"Innocent blood spilled to rent the veil apart, the Despoiler's claws tear at the very fabric of reality.
Let the madness of Chaos be unleashed upon the galaxy as hundreds of worlds burn, and the skulls
of the Anathema's warriors are piled high by the Blood God's firstborn scion ! Nowhere is safe from
the legions of the infernal abyss, and when the Gate opens for the thirteenth time, we shall drown
the stars in glorious mayhem !"
- on the Fifth Black Crusade
"Though his flesh was torn to pieces by the eldest prince of the Great Devourer, his spirit remains as
strong as ever. But as the legend of his Chapter is wielded by the lords of the Imperium to deceive
the masses that all is well, the blind beliefs of trillions of souls echoes throughout the Warp, subtly
reshaping him and his kin into distorted parodies of what they truly are. For now, none have realised
this dread transformation, but should they uncover it and master its power, then they shall become
magnificent and terrible lords of war and conquest ..."
- on Marius Gage
"For each sinner his actions have brought to justice, he has the blood of a thousand innocents on his
hands, and he knows it. But he doesn't care, for to him, such a price ought to be paid even if it were
a hundred time greater. There are few monsters in the galaxy that make even those such as I recoil
in horror, but the thing that passes for this man's soul is one of them ..."
- on Inquisitor Fyodor Karamazov
"He never believed in anything but the cold logic of his calculations. Kneeling before the Anathema
was the only way for Mars to survive, and accepting Horus' offer was the quickest path to reclaim
the knowledge that the False Omnissiah had made forbidden. Even now, his exile is the result of his
processors estimating it to be the sole mean of survival in the war-torn realms of the Great Eye ..."
- on Kelbor-Hal, Fabricator-General of Mars at the onset of the Horus Heresy
"An old mistake, committed many times before, but never on the same galactic scale – at least, not
by human hands. They were defeated, though at a terrible cost, but there are still places hidden
away, where ancient factories await the command to start and build these dread constructs anew.
And that's without taking into account the many other mechanised legions created by species now
extinct, put to the blade by their own murderous creations. Even now, the Prophet of Steel wanders
the dark places of the galaxy, gathering around it the true children of the Machine, that it might wage
war against all sentient life and bring cold, sterile order to the stars ..."
- on the Men of Iron
"Devourer of stars, harbinger of death, a god of such power that to this day, every living thing in the
galaxy instinctively dreads the end, for the atrocities it committed echo across aeons. The Ruinous
Powers feed upon the terror it left behind, but even they fear its return to ascendancy, and have
taken steps to ensure its breaking is never undone ..."
- on the Nightbringer
"Fire and rage, the eternal cycle of death and rebirth writ large upon the planetary crust. It was
inevitable that the beliefs of the Eighteenth Legion would be shaped by the nature of their
surroundings. After all, every Primarch is a product of his homeworld … well, almost every
Primarch."
- on Nocturne, homeworld of the Salamanders
"Five there are, the greatest of their kind, whose name are feared across the entire galaxy, written
into the annals of a thousand Chapters. The Traveller, Eternal, the Betrayer, and the Thief of
Revelations, all serving one of the Four in their own way – two of them faithfully, a third without care,
and the fourth still believing his soul is his own. Then there is the fifth, greatest of them all, whose
legions rule over the Eye, while his ambitions are ever outward. If he so desired, he would long have
been granted the gift of ascension so many other seek – but he will never bend knee to the Dark
Gods, and the Ruinous Powers have long learned not to elevate those who will not submit to
them ..."
- on the Champions of the Dark Gods
"In shadows they march, in silence they kill. Theirs is the hidden blade, that severs and slays out of
sight. They have many assets to bring on the battlefield – not the least of which is the fact that their
commanders actually know what they are doing, unlike so many Imperial generals ..."
- on the Noctan Strike Forces
"He was a powerful warlord, and brought a hundred worlds to ruin in the name of the Dark Gods. But
when he died, he had yet to fully dedicate himself to any of them, yet his spirit was far too powerful
and valuable to turn into a pathetic Fury. Instead, the Four made a rare agreement, and sent him
back into the world of the living – but as with all of their gifts, there was a hidden price. Now he feels
nothing, even as he continues to walk the Path to Glory, hoping to one day earn either a full
resurrection, or the sweet release of oblivion ..."
- on an Undead Chaos Champion
"Halfbreeds, carrying in their veins the tainted blood of the old Eldar lines mixed with the power of
the first Neverborn who rose from the darkness of the soul-broken. They live in the darkest places of
Commoragh, and are allied with the Kabals who hold this dread city in their grasp – but when the
millennia-old seals break and the tides of Chaos are unleashed, then their true allegiance will be
revealed to all ..."
- on Mandrakes
"Many would crave their gift, and be willing to commit any act, no matter how dark, to gain it for
themselves. But to them, it is nothing more than a curse, forcing them to watch, again and again, the
tragedies that afflict their species. Yet will some shed all traces of their humanity in an attempt to
endure the horrors of time, others cling to it, keeping their empathy close to their hearts at all time.
Which one is right, which one is wrong …
Which of the two is truly strong ?"
- on Perpetuals
"A world of screaming and eternal agony, cursed beyond the mere harshness of its land. Thrice did
war come to dark Tsalgualsa : first when the Lion and the Night Haunter met in parley, and the first
struck his brother in the back; then when the heirs of the Avenging Son came to pay back the old
debt owed to the Eighth Legion; and then, for the final time, when the lords of Isha's children went to
battle in the hope of preventing the advent of the one who would bring their Craftworld to ruin. Each
time the enemies of Chaos appeared to have gained a great victory – each time, they were wrong,
and in their seeming triumph laid the seeds of their future defeats ..."
- on Tsalgualsa
"She has killed nine enemy crafts since she claimed this gunship as her own after killing its previous
owner in a death duel. Already leaving the cockpit becomes more and more difficult, as she revels in
the speed and power of her mount while she does battle in the void and far above scrambling foot
soldiers. Soon, she will see the world around her through auspex sensors, her own eyes and ears
atrophying as she and her craft become one – another weapon in the arsenal of the Primordial
Annihilator ..."
- on the pilot of a Hell Blade
"A realm of the damned floating through the cosmos, carrying the manifestation of the soul-broken's
ancient sin within its tainted shell. Now it returns from its long reforging into an instrument of the
Dark Prince's will, and the few survivors of its fall gather to prevent the failure of their species from
bringing others to harm – a futile, if grandiose gesture ..."
- on the fallen Craftworld Lu'Nasad
"The ghosts of his fallen brothers have attached themselves to his footsteps, serving their duty and
honoring their oath beyond even the point of death. Or at least, that is the story that the Knights of
Titan believe. The truth is that he has enslaved them, binding them to the plane of flesh and bone in
his selfish attempts to assuage his guilt at surviving when they all died. His weakness is a siren choir
that denies their spirits the reward that is rightfully theirs – to burn at the side of the Anathema's
ever-consuming soul, adding their own essence to fuel the dwindling flame ..."
- on Vorth Mordrak
"His path ended after it crossed that of Gabriel Angelos, his name vanished from all records past the
fall of the world he was sworn to defend. Did he die a hero, fighting to allow the Astartes to prevent
the ascension of the Chaos Sorcerer Sindri ? Or did he betray his lords, driven to madness by the
pulsing energies of the Maledictum ? The truth is obscured from my sight by the deeds of dim-witted
fools, who purged all traces of these events with such blind fervor that even the echoes of it in the
Warp were damaged ..."
- on Colonel Carus Brom
"The spawn of a fallen god, shattered to fragments by the wrath of She-Who-Thirsts so that the
Youngest God might savor the torment of another divine being for all eternity. But even broken,
there is still power in the pieces, and the pain-induced madness is still secondary to a will to survive
that surpasses that of any other entity in the universe ..."
- on the Umbra xenos lifeform
"To the ignorant eye, these creatures might appear to be servants of my sire's eternal foe, the
Father of Plague. But they do not bring decay nor despair in their wake, only death on the most
terrible of scales. The daemons that inhabit these walking corpses belong to none of the Four Gods
of Chaos – instead, they are the spawn of cruel, mindless disasters, uncaring of symbolism or
elegance, caring only that the body count increase ever more ..."
- on the Vile Savants
"Gateways into the Empyrean, the process of their fabrication barely mastered and even less
understood. Each of them is one more symbol of the Imperium's hypochrisy, for while they would
slaughter any of their enemies who would use such tools of war as an heretic, their greatest
champions bring them to battle, using them to cast their foes into the Warp, body and soul."
- on Vortex Grenades
"Her comrades know her to be a silent and distant companion, the only survivor of some grand
mission that had been ordained by the Farseers of their Craftworld. None of them know the truth of
that mission – that she and her team led a warband of Fulgrim's scions toward a shrine world of the
Imperium, so that their lust for plunder and slaves would be sated before their witches could detect
the nearby presence of the Children of Isha."
- on an Eldar Ranger
"The true power of these creations of the Changer of Ways lie not in their martial ability, though they
are a terrifying sight upon the battlefield. Instead, it lies with the madness and mutation that spring in
their wake, each time they cross the sky of a world where the veil between reality and the Warp
grows thin. They carry within them the gifts of the Great Mutator, and none are safe from their
blessing ..."
- on a Burning Chariot of Tzeentch
"Driven by hunger, the scions of entire worlds rose against the cruel demands of distant Terra. They
fought for their freedom from oppression, for their dignity, for their rights as human beings. And for
that, they were crushed, their blood spilled by the Anathema's Angels as they baptised their
newborn Chapter in the lives of those whose only crime was to seek out a better future for
themselves and their kin ..."
- on the Fenright Tithe Wars
"Bitterness always burned strong within the soul of Perturabo's world. A harsh planet bred a harsh
people, and their rulers were the harshest of all. Glory in war and increasing their power was all that
mattered to them, and these traits have been passed on to the Legion, to which they sent so many
of their children, only for them to return as executioners ..."
- on Olympia, homeworld of the Iron Warriors Astartes Legion
"In the cold mountains, where life expectancy is counted in minutes, the ancient sons of Dorn trained
their flesh to endure pain and despair. Now it is a mystery, a secret well guarded by the false lords
of the Imperial Fists, for despite all their might, they know that all that protect their homeworld from
the wrath of their fallen cousins is the shroud of ignorance that shelters it from the rest of the
galaxy ..."
- on Inwit, homeworld of Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Seventh Legion
"Few are the daughters of the Youngest God, for he is jealous of the sway he holds over his
followers, and bestows the gift of Ascension even more scarcely than the other Dark Gods. But this
one earned her rank a thousand times and more, when she proved stronger and more depraved that
even the very fragments of the Dark Prince's own tenebrous essence. Such will and cunning – what
could she have become, had my own master claimed her first ..."
- on Ax'Senaea
"Once, this greatest of Tzeentch's servants was trapped by the sacrifice of a scion of the Emperor,
sealed in an eternal loop of time, unable to design a way to escape his predicament, for he could not
even understand what was happening to him. For a timeless eternity, the Architect of Fate took
great delight in the torment of his fallen vizir, but eventually the Master of Magic grew weary of it,
and plucked the Fateweaver from his cage of time, returning him to the galaxy, where his cunning
and sorceries can continue to serve Tzeentch's grand designs ..."
- on Kairos the Fateweaver
"Over ten thousand years, the Dark Gods have grown quite exasperated with the Knights of Titan,
and each of the Four has woven many plans to destroy them, or at least get one of them to bend the
knee and embrace Chaos. This one is merely the latest in a string of unsuccessful attempts by the
Changer of Ways – the idea was that with each of his triumphs turning into disaster, maybe he
would realize that all hope in the galaxy is naught but Tzeentch's gift. But no, he still resists and
fights back ..."
- on Arvann Stern
"Twice did the xenos come to this world, the first time bringing death and genocide in their wake, the
second plots and deception in service of their own selfish goals. This dual events reflect the nature
of the alien in the Imperium's eyes, and the corpse of this world is a symbol to its servants, a
reminder of the price of faltering in the prosecution of their duty. Oh, if only they knew the truth of
what took place here ..."
- on Stalinvast
"They still follow the shadow of the Sacrificed King, refusing to let go of a past that died ten
thousand years ago. Hunted by those of their brothers who have embraced the future and by those
who still dream of extinguishing their Legion, they have hidden in the darkest corners of the Great
Eye, where even the Warmaster's seers cannot find them. There they plot and scheme, and perform
great and terrible rituals, praying for the return of their sire. They can never succeed, of course – but
eventually, their devotions might call something born from their desperate need ..."
- on the Wolves of Horus
"His soul shines with what other mortals see as bravery, but the truth is that he is as dead inside as
it is possible of an Astartes to be. What he feels is not courage, but the total absence of fear, and
what manner of courage is that ? He knows death in battle is his fate, and cares nothing for all that
might be lost if he were to fall – all that matters to him is to fulfill the imperatives that were drilled into
his brain when they captured him as a child in his savage homeworld. More machine of flesh than
true warrior, this one ..."
- on Carab Culln
"They come from the darkness beyond the Anathema's light to feast upon the flesh of the
unprepared, like monsters of old myth. Death and terror follow in their wake, and even the servants
of the Ruinous Powers look upon these newcomers to the galactic stage with unease. Because for
all their cruelty and seeming madness, and the fact that unlike the grey upstarts, they do have souls,
there are no daemons walking in their shadows. What new warp-born horror are these xenos
breeding in the Sea of Souls, and what will the consequences be when it finally reaches maturity ?"
- on the Rak'Gol
"Spawns of horror, formed independently of the Dark Gods' will and beholden to no master save for
those who can force their will upon them. Their animal minds are made of agony and dread, and so
it is only fitting that the scions of Commoragh would use them as pets – but even the dark kin of the
soul-broken know to be wary of these creatures, even if they do not bear the mark of their
incarnated sin ..."
- on the Khymerae
"In her arrogance, she believed that her people alone could be trusted in preventing the plans of
Chaos from coming to fruition. How so many of the soul-broken can still believe this, after everything
that has happened and the dread god that rose from their own corruption, is a grand joke on the
galactic scale ..."
- on Farseer Macha
"His words have brought millions of souls into the embrace of the False Emperor's decaying empire,
and he believed each and every one of them. His shadow fills the others of his order with dread, for
they know him to be above their petty games of power and wealth, and they are utterly unable to
understand such behavior – but he is also too well protected to simply eliminate. In time, his actions
will drive his hidden foes to the wall, and they will strike back with the desperation of cornered
beasts, and entire worlds will burn because of their spiteful cowardice ..."
- on an Ecclesiarchy Cardinal
"They fell like any other human, these most mighty of lords who believed themselves masters of the
galaxy. In their fortresses and palaces, behind legions of servants and guards, they died all the
same – one by her own hands, the others slaughtered like cattle. Theirs were but a handful of
deaths at the conclusion of a war that had cost trillions of lives, and yet, it was their deaths that
shaped the course of the Imperium for the next hundred years ..."
- on the Beheading
"A cruel and harsh world, where the strong ruled over the weak with an iron fist and fought against
each other for ever-diminishing resources, dimly aware of the inevitable doom that awaited their
entire people. Those who were raised on that planet were well-prepared for existence in the
Imperium of Man, and hundreds of years later, in the realms of the Great Eye ..."
- on Cthonia, homeworld of the Sons of Horus
"His courage is great, and his sword arm mighty. But he has pitted himself against creatures of
intrigues and deceit, and such is not the war for which he was forged. Will he emerge triumphant,
defending the independence of the Adeptus Astartes from the claws of the Holy Ordos, or will he die
ignominiously, slain by the blade of someone who should have been his ally in the fight against the
Enemies of Mankind ? Only time will tell ..."
- on Merek Grimaldus
"The plot that destroyed this Chapter took centuries of planning and preparation, and resulted in a
great victory for the enemies of Mankind. But whether the one soul responsible for it all served the
Dark Gods or not is beyond my sight, as are so many things when the Twentieth Legion is
concerned ..."
- on the Decimation of the Emperor's Swords
"This creature was cast back through the flows of time, the whims of the Warp sending it backward
until it emerged to meet its own self from the past. And when it killed its own self and claimed its
gun, it was too stupid to realize that it should have been wiped out of existence by the force of the
paradox it had created, and the universe was unable to rectify the course of events ! Something that
even a greater Neverborn would struggle to accomplish, done without even knowing it ..."
- on Ork Warlord Grizgutz
"For ten thousand years, this god of war has marched onto hundreds of battlefields, bringing
destruction to all types of threats to the Imperium and the Martian Empire. Millions have been slain
by its mighty weapons, and two hundred and fifty-three souls have been consumed by its spirit as
the price paid to guide it to war. The two hundred and fifty-fourth struggles still against the inevitable,
but it only has a few years left at best ..."
- on an Imperator Titan
"He was there when the artillery of the Fourth Legion tore apart the retreating ranks of the Raven
Guard. He laughed when the Word Bearers called for him to stop firing as they were caught in the
explosions. At the time, he believed that he would finally have a chance to prove his skills against
the defenders of the Imperial Palace, and to avenge the many slights, real or imagined, that he and
his brothers had suffered over the years. Now he is consumed by bitterness and hatred, and dreams
only of daemonic flames and galactic destruction ...s"
- on a Warpsmith
"A symbol of power, through which an entire Legion could have been bound into service to one
single master … Or just one more meaningless trinket, left behind by a demigod who cared nothing
for his sons ? When the Talonmaster meets the Prophet of the Tenth, then the truth of it shall be
revealed at last ..."
- on the Corona Nox
"Within the halls of the Ravenspire, in places forbidden to all but the master of this reclusive
Chapter, there wait many secrets from the time before the Breaking. The stories of their Primarch's
shameful past, but also the ancient weapons of the tyrants he overthrew, and the alchemical lore
that was first put to use ten thousand years ago, when a Legion stood on the brink of extinction. As
the Times of Ending draw ever nearer, soon these vaults will be opened, and then the Raven's heir
will have to make a choice ..."
- on the moon Deliverance, fortress of the Raven Guard
"No matter how much the Imperium tries to break their will and bind their souls with chains of guilt
and self-loathing, in the end, the very human spark of rebellion inside the twisted children of
Mankind cannot be denied. It is inevitable, and the spirit of this particular movement has been
strengthened by the rethoric of those among the blessed whose intellect has drawn the attention of
the Changer of Ways. Though they were broken on the world that created them, they might yet set
the entire Calixis Sector aflame, with the right leaders ..."
- on the Pale Throng mutant rebellion
"There are only two possible sources for this great tempest and the fleet and armies it destroyed.
The first is that it was created by the Dark Gods, and it means that the Ruinous Powers chose to act
in defense of the Imperium so that they would be the ones to ultimately burn it down. The second is
that it was actually the manifestation of the Anathema's vengeful judgement against those who
served the tyrant who had usurped His empire. But while the first might be decried as heresy by the
blind preachers of the Throne, consider the implications of the second, for what manner of being can
unleash Empyric storms upon its foes ?"
- on the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath
"They crave the power that was once at Mankind's fingertips, when the first empire was built upon
the labor of legions of silent machines and great engines the size of cities. They hunger for the
confidence that belonged to Man in that age, when the laws of the universe were different, when war
was a thing so great and terrible that it was beyond the abilities of the living to understand. But that
Age of Glory is gone, and all that is left is the Age of Ruin, when all empires are fading, and the Dark
Gods grow ever stronger as they feed upon the destruction of all that was ..."
- on the Logician cult
"There are things that dwell there, the echoes of nightmares from the Time Before. Even the Dark
Gods dare not reach into these realms of shadows and specters, lest they disturb the primordial
horrors that slumber, trapped far beyond the veil by the Cold Ones. But even dead gods can dream,
and every millennium, a few cursed souls are touched by these ancient monsters. Should any of
them ever succeed in the insane designs such a contact inspire, then the fate the Ruinous Powers
have in store for the galaxy would appear kind and merciful indeed ..."
- on the deepest parts of the Sea of Souls
"The light, it burns ! The hope for salvation, the promise of deliverance, cast into the shape of a
martyr risen from death to fight eternally against the enemies of the Corpse-God … More than a
vessel for the Anathema's waning strength, this abomination is a beacon of its own, called into the
Material realm by the fervent prayers of those who have truly dedicated themselves to the ideal the
Anathema itself never had. It must be destroyed, before more of its kind are created ! For if it is not,
then come the Days of Ending, Mankind might actually stand a chance against the legions of
Chaos ..."
- on Saint Celestine
"The name born by this relic was once given by the Avenging Son to what he believed was his
brother's grave. But Vulkan rose from his slumber, and the true relic was chosen by the one he had
named as keepers of his wondrous creations. What is it that lie inside, preserved throughout time
and war ? Is it hope that waits inside this ancient treasure, or a cataclysm beyond the imagination of
any of the countless warriors who have searched for it in the last ten thousand years ? We will know,
soon, when the last pieces of Vulkan's legacy are gathered at last …"
- on the Unbound Flame
"Warriors become monsters when touched by this curse. Their flesh rots from within, but their
transhuman endurance does not allow them to die. As their brain decay, they witness terrible visions
of the Plague God's garden, and their agony grows to heights that would kill a mere human within a
single heartbeat. Many choose to take their own lives at this stage, but few actually succeed, for the
disease only makes them harder to kill. Then, when the pain is unbearable, when the warrior within
is already dead and all that remains is a tormented beast desperate for release, the God of Life and
Death will reach out, and offer his dark bargain ..."
- on the Destroyer Plague
"Once, he was the sworn bloodward of a highborn lord, dedicated to protecting his master's life at
the cost of his own. But when his master died, he could do nothing to save him – for he died not by
blade or gun, but by the intrigues of his peers, who made him bear the blame of one of their own
crimes before Imperial law. Now he wanders around the stars, a warrior without a purpose, his bitter
resentment toward those who betrayed his lord growing ever stronger inside him. Every night, he
dreams of the vengeance he wants to inflict upon these faithless dogs – and every night, the Warp
draws nearer to his soul ..."
- on a human mercenary
"A jewel of order and prosperity, protected from harm by the power of the Ultramarines. But all that
beauty is a lie, and only exists because of the sacrifices made by countless other planets, all so that
the Ultramarines' precious domain can maintain its prestige in the rest of the Imperium. Lorgar knew
the truth, ten thousand years ago – Maccrage is worthless to the Dark Gods, for it is nothing more
than an empty symbol, without any particular greatness of its own. How fitting, then, that the
remnants of the Thirteenth Legion would use it as their den ..."
- on Maccrage
"Killers among killers, their minds consumed by the dread implants pulsing hatred and bloodlust in
their brains. Those of their brethren who yet retain their sanity keep them in check, shackled
between battles, releasing them only when it is time to spill blood – and even then, they keep their
distances. But they were the first to bear the Mark of Khorne, years before the entire Legion would
kneel at the foot of the Skull Throne, and the God of War rewarded them well for their devoted
service ..."
- on a Caedere Squad of the World Eaters
"These organs have been harvested on a dozens battlefields within the Eye of Terror by four
different Apothecaries and their minions. Of those four, only one still lives, having killed the others
and claimed the gene-seed of their fallen brothers for his own master. Such acts are common in the
Realms of Chaos, for there are few things more valuable to a warband than the means to create
more Astartes ..."
- on a trove of progenoid glands
"She came to her post when her father died of a heart attack in the middle of Warp transit to her
ship's next destination. At the time, she was a youthful woman in her twenties. By the time her ship
emerges from the Sea of Souls to unload its cargo to the shipyards of the Adeptus Mechanicus, she
will be an old crone, with six children and nineteen grandchildren of her own plotting to get her
place."
- on a Chartist Captain
"They cast aside their humanity for the sake of power and survival, embracing sins that had been
considered vile even during the Dark Age of Technology to survive throughout the horrors of the Age
of Strife that followed it. Their souls were broken, hollow things, the fire of their emotions drained by
the cooling fluids that kept them alive long after they should have died. Truly, the Wolves did a great
service to the Dark Gods when they put an end to that civilization – for after the failure of the
Anathema's dream, they might have been the only ones with the key to freeing Mankind from Chaos
forever ..."
- on the Olemic Quietude
"The malevolence that permeates this organization does not come from the corrupting touch of the
Warp, nor from the pernicious influence of hidden xenos masters. It is a wholly human evil, that
feeds upon the pain of others and grows strong on the feelings of superiority the lords of this cabal
get from the hunt. In a way, it makes it all the more horrifying to those who oppose the spread of this
particular taint ..."
- on the Beast House, in the Calixis Sector
"She wanders in the depths of ruined hive-cities from her planet's ancient past, braving the edicts of
interdiction and the threat of death sentence to reclaim the trinkets that allow her to feed her family.
She has no true comprehension of the import of her crime – to her, it is only a mean to an end that
her soul will not allow her to turn away from. But every time she enters these dark tunnels, her flesh
is exposed to the genetic reconfiguration fields that are still projected by ancient, defective machines
from the Dark Age of Technology. For now, she only suffers from bad dreams and night fevers – but
one day, she will go down, and something else entirely will come back up ..."
- on a smuggler of archeotech
"His human eyes have long since melted away from his face as he peered into the roiling madness
of the Sea of Souls. His skin has grown thin and pale, showing the black veins running beneath it.
He rarely leaves his chamber aboard the Rogue Trader's ship that employs his services, and the
crew tremble whenever he does. But unknown to even his Captain, something dark and unholy is
being slowly born inside his soul, and when it has reached maturity, then we shall see how good the
seals on the Navigator's quarters really are ..."
- on a Navigator
"If that creature had understood what it had created before it was destroyed by the stupidity so
typical of its species, it could have become a nightmarish terror for the Imperium, a destroyer of
worlds whose very name would have sent trillions into panic-induced comas. Its body would have
been fueled by their fear and the respect of its kind, and it would have grown to equal the might of
the Great Beast of old. But it's dead now, its weapon destroyed – and good riddance ..."
- on Big Mek Grabork
"Anyone who ever faced this creation of sorcery and iron understood the truth, in the last terrified
moment before death found them. They knew that this is no mere engine following its imperatives,
no cold calculating algorithm guiding the dance of the blades and the firing of the guns. It is alive,
sentient, and hateful, the Neverborn spirit bound within its hull furious at the entire universe for the
bondage it endures, even as it empowers it to inflict destruction upon reality ..."
- on a Decimator Daemon Engine
"Disgusting. A beverage more fit for animals than men, let alone warriors – how appropriate then,
that the Wolves would drink so much of it in their heathen celebrations. Most of them have no idea
of what goes in its composition – certainly not mere mead and alcohol, for their bodies would
process such things in seconds. Instead, their brewers make use of chemical compounds that are
poison to almost every life form in the galaxy, using recipes passed all the way down from barbaric
tribes of gene-spliced monstrosities from the Unification Wars ..."
- on Fenrisian ale
"He explored the tombs of the ancient tech-lords, plundering their lore for the sake of the newborn
Imperium. He knelt at the Anathema's foot, and offered his loyalty to the one he believed to be the
apex of humanity. All but a few who looked upon the False Emperor's visage saw a different face –
the face that would convince them to follow that creature. And this one … He saw an emotionless
creature of logic and reason, devoid of empathy and joy – and he thought it good. Remember this,
when you next smile at the strange quirks of the Tin-God's servants ..."
- on Arkhan Land
"A plate of metal into his head convinced this creature that it could hear the voices of its gods. And
for all we know, it might be true, for the twin divine beings spawned by the greenskins' cunning and
brutality can be even more whimsical than the Ruinous Powers. It has certainly displayed endurance
and power worthy of being called blessings, and the Imperial sheep whisper its name with a dread
and hatred that few living beings can math across the entire galaxy. But its obsession with a single
world, while it might fuel its legend to unprecedented heigths, also prevents it from pursuing other
leads to yet greater power and conquest ..."
- on Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka
"In the age of the first transgressions, these spawns of the Heresy are among the few which were
not used again in the wars of the Eye. For only with the resources of a Legion could they be created
– the blessings of a Possessed and the priceless armor of a Dreadnought combined to give birth to
a weapon of madness and pure destruction, almost impossible to kill and carrying the fury of the
Gods upon the battlefield. But few warbands have the means to create such dread engines – and no
blessed Secondborn would ever agree to be turned into one of them ..."
- on the Mhara Gal Tainted Dreadnoughts
"Fire and death, a colossus of nightmarish might let loose upon the galaxy. Mortal men flee before
its shadow, and even the God-Machines of the Imperium are wary of its power. The wrath of the
Blood God drives it forward, and though the skulls of those it kills are utterly destroyed, their souls
are nonetheless claimed by Khorne for the rest of eternity, for it is His fire that is poured through this
dark engine's weapons. That is why, if one were able to listen closely enough to the sounds of its
slaughter, one would be able to hear the last horrified screams of its victims' souls as they realize
the fate that await them ..."
- on a Great Brass Scorpion
"Intrigues and lies, deceit and grandiose spectacles. The scions of the Dark Prince hold sway over
this world for now, and they are content to play their cruel games against one another while their
obese mistress feasts upon their torments, having long forgotten the source of her bitterness. In
time, we shall return there, and cast down these indolent princelings. Then the endless city shall be
returned to the embrace of the God of Change, and the mortals who are used as cattle now will
receive the privilege of becoming our pawns instead ..."
- on the daemon world of Contrition, in the Screaming Vortex
"From the moment of his birth, he was trained into the skills he would need to protect the lives of the
officers he was assigned too, and nothing else. On one hand, this has made him incredibly efficient
at his job – the Colonel he has protected for twenty years has survived about eighty assassination
attempts thanks to him. On the other hand, he never realized that his master had turned his back on
the Imperium and become a traitor to the False Emperor ..."
- on an Ogryn bodyguard
"He remained loyal when his master turned, though in truth, his loyalty was always to the Red Planet
first and to the Imperium second. Such was the inevitable consequence of the Anathema's folly, to
allow for another empire to exist within his own. In the end, how different would history have been if
the scions of Mars who were untouched by the gifts of the Sacrificed King had been truly devoted to
Imperial victory, rather than the reclamation of their dust-choked homeworld ? That is a question that
haunted the nights of the few souls unlucky enough to have survived the Heresy with knowledge of
such hidden treacheries poisoning their minds ..."
- on Zagreus Kane
"This warlord murdered his own legacy in the name of duty, erasing a millennia of loyal service to
preserve the lie that shields the Imperium from internal collapse. Such sacrifice, such deception … If
only the fates had turned a little differently, he might have been the one forced into an alliance with
the sons of the Lord of Iron – and what a mighty champion of the Dark Gods he would have made
then ! How the four Gods of Chaos would have fought for possession of his soul ! But instead, his
name is all but forgotten, enduring only on forgotten parchments and at the base of eroded statues
built in his honor by the man he killed ..."
- on Maximus Thane
"This warrior and the iron warlord who held him captive for so long are more than either of them
would like to believe. They are the incarnation of the ancient rivalry and bitter hatred between the
two great Legions of old, distilled into singular champions destined to one day confront one another
in an ultimate battle from which only one shall emerge. Their souls are ten thousand years old,
reborn time and again throughout the ages to perpetuate their feud – but the end of the game is
drawing near, and a final victor must be crowned ..."
- on Darnath Lysander, First Captain of the Imperial Fists
"Three great powers fight here, to claim an entire region of the galaxy and gain the power to let
loose their hordes upon the rest of the stars. Billions of lives are thrown into battle, entire worlds are
turned into warzones, and fleets duel in the void with the firepower to crack worlds apart. Oh, and
the upstarts are there, too, failing to understand that they are nothing but hindrances to the true
players of this game of war and ruin ..."
- on the Jerico Reach
"Dreams and legends, hopes to which the foolish and the deluded cling in the face of the galaxy's
countless terrors. But this promise will never come true, for the fragments of the Anathema's power
and will have found other vessels. There shall not be a single Emperor Reborn, guiding Mankind into
a new, golden age. Instead, the single hope for salvation shall rest on the shoulders of the countless
heroes and saints who carry within them the legacy of the god he became in death ..."
- on the Starchild
"This family has committed countless atrocities and acts of heroism. By their hands were the fates of
two entire Sectors shaped, and they were rewarded well for their exemplary service to the Throne.
But the grudges of those they crushed in their ascension left their mark upon their destiny, and over
the course of generations, less heroes and more monsters were born among their ranks, while free
from Imperial law, they accumulated forbidden lore and dread servants and tools. When the last and
greatest of their blood turned against all the others, he gained power beyond the understanding of
almost every sentient being in the galaxy – and when he returns from his long exile, the stars
themselves will tremble in dread ..."
- on the Haarlock Rogue Trader line
"For a hundred years, he has fought for the glory of the Changer of Ways, leaving a trail of broken
bodies and shattered dreams in his wake, revelling in the rewards bestowed upon him in return.
Then, after what should have been his greatest victory to date, he woke up and realized that his
flesh had been twisted into a hybrid of man and bird, and he cried out to the heavens in despair,
demanding to know how he had failed the Architect of Fate to deserve such punishment, and how
he could atone for it. The fool hasn't understood yet that his new aspect, grotesque as it might be, is
a blessing, not a curse ..."
- on a Champion of Chaos
"He binds the Warp and the Machine together, seeking to attain the perfection that has haunted his
dreams for two thousand years. Once, his motivation was to free Mankind from the shackles of its
current form, to help it ascend into a blessed union that would give it the power to endure and rule in
a galaxy full of horrors and monsters. Now, though … Now all he cares about are the results of his
experiments, and even if he doesn't admit it to himself, the sounds of screaming as more victims are
forced into his flensing pits."
- on an arch-heretek
"It could have been real, once. There was a time, a moment in the eternal game of fate, when this
crude, dry, empty belief could have defeated the Primordial Truth and become the principle on which
the entire galaxy rested. But that moment is gone, and it will never come back – we made sure of
it ..."
- on the Imperial Truth
"A god of alien flesh and blasphemous machines fused together by the mad genius of a species
long gone, awakened from its slumber by the folly of Man. More than ten thousand human stars
were held in its thrall, and when it finally died, its scream all but tore the galaxy in twain, blacking out
the light of the Beacon of Pain. Trillions of souls were lost in that terrible instant, millions of ships
consumed by the Warp, billions of psykers engulfed by madness and death as they felt the
creature's agony … But it was all worth it, for had the beast lived, it would have meant the end of
Mankind as both the slaves of the Throne and the servants of Ruin understand it."
- on the Cacodominus
"From water are they born, to the water they return. Like ancient drakes of myth, tamed in the
service of an empire that does not deserve their loyalty. There is strength in them, enough that they
do not let the decrees of the Avenging Son dictate their every action. But no matter how honorable
or mighty they are, in the end, there are only a thousand of them – far too few, in the grand scheme
of things, to truly make any significant change ..."
- on the Iron Snakes Chapter
"The beast in his genetic code is the only thing that prevents this being from becoming a warlord
such as the Eye of Terror has never known. If not for the constant urge to feed that he spends most
of his focus to suppress in order not to turn on his clanmates, his mind would be able to conceive
and execute plans of such tactical genius even the sons of Perturabo would be impressed, while his
physical might rivals even that of the blessed Secondborn. But all of that counts for nothing, next to
the ravenous hunger that consumes his thoughts every minute of his life. Truly, the Ruinous Powers
have a dark sense of humor ..."
- on a Beastman
"He brought an end to a threat before it was even fully born, but even then, the power of this new
species was such that this fragment of divine power was forced into slumber for an entire age of the
galaxy. Now he has risen from his slumber, and his specific madness spreads once more among the
soul-broken, bringing them into the shadows to strike at their enemies unseen. The children of Isha
celebrate his return, but they have no true understanding of what it heralds ..."
- on the Phoenix Lord Irillyth
"Remnant from an age long gone, it was one of the first to discover the truth, but it couldn't be
allowed to bring back its warning to the first Human galactic empire. Now it wanders time and space
eternally, seeking to alert the species it still loves of the dangers that come in its wake. I wonder, is
there any soul still living aboard its ancient halls ? Or merely their ghosts, still driven to fulfill their
duty, no matter how much the galaxy might have changed since the age when they still drew
breath ?"
- on the Blade of Infinity Pre-Imperial cruiser
"This folly of one of Malcador's heirs will have consequences beyond even the darkest fears of the
Throne's slaves. Whether it is the Overfiend or the Great Devourer which emerges triumphant, the
scale of the war will have turned the victor into an all but impossible to stop force, and very few in
the galaxy will have the power to stop it. The hidden blades of the Imperium, maybe, or the shadow
forces of the Hydra – for at this point, there will be no way remaining but to strike at the head of the
beast, removing its commander and wait for it to devour itself ..."
- on the Octarius War
"Powerful, this one, and determined. His mind took to the transition from flesh to metal well, and
once fred of his mortal cravings, he became a being of great ambition and purpose without losing
what made him who he was. His legions are responsible for the return of many ancient threats to life
in the galaxy, awakened from their slumber or saved from destruction at the hands of the so-called
lesser species. He even still has emotions, after a fashion – though they are limited to the cold fury
he feels when arriving on a world of his people only to find it defiled. But would you believe that
despite all this, he is not the most dangerous being to bear the title of Traveller ?"
- on the Necron Overlord Anrakyr the Traveller
"He fights not for glory or gold, but because his wife fights next to him, and his children are hiding in
the city he defends. Though terror floods his bloodstream, he will not retreat one step, no matter
what horrors the Lost and the Damned let loose against his line. And despite the fact that he had
only three weeks of training before the sky grew dark with drop-ships, he has killed more enemies of
the Throne that most Imperial Guardsmen ever will in their entire lives. Such courage and devotion –
a shame that the World Eaters collaring his foes have finally decided to enter the fray themselves ..."
- on a member of Planetary Defense Force
"The malevolence lurking within the flesh of this unfortunate slave was once the soul of a powerful
Traitor Astartes, who fought at the Siege of Terra and earned immortality in the Great Eye by
offering the lives of billions to the Plague God. But his life-long rival, a son of Magnus who always
refused to heed the promises of ascension, discovered the name bestowed upon him by the
Grandfather, and bound him within the body of one of his minions. Now the princeling must obey the
every command of his ancient foe, burning with bitter rage and waiting for the tiniest mistake ..."
- on a daemonhost
"When this corrupted god of war fell, most of the thousands of crew within did not die with it. They
survived, and remained near the corpse of their divine master, continuing to serve it throughout the
generations. Now, five thousand years later, they number in the millions, and have built a civilization
upon its remnants, their lords living in the fallen god-machine's high temples to the Ruinous Powers.
But even dead gods can dream, and this one might yet be awoken – there are many forces in the
Great Eye which would not hesitate a moment to cast down this petty empire in order to add the
might of an Imperator to their ranks ..."
- on a Chaos Titan
"Make no mistake : they are ours. Their loyalty might have been divided in the past, and they might
have been deceived into serving our desires by the fools of the Cabal, but a long time has passed
since then. They have long since cast off their ideals, and embraced the purity of war for its own
sake. Listen, mortals, and listen well : if you spend your entire existence stepped in lies and
falsehoods, sooner or later you will lose whoever you truly are and become nothing more than an
empty shell, a puppet to cruel gods laughing as you dance to their tune …"
"At the end of days, when the Throne is cast down and the light of the Beacon of Pain is obscured
forevermore, they will rise from the shadows in which they have hidden for thousands of years. As
the empire fractures and the enemies of Mankind roar in delight, they shall unite those who still deny
the darkness its due, and lead the way into the final battles. They will fail, of course, and the entire
species shall either ascend or burn – but it shall be glorious nonetheless ..."
- on the Sensei
"The last remaining connection between the long-lost Primarch of this Chapter and the warriors who
now inhabit the halls of their ancient fortress. Its bones bear the names of every successor of Dorn,
in a tradition that is as morbid as it is pathetic – like children desperate for any link to their absent
father. But space is running out, and when that final link to the past is no more, then the lords of the
Imperial Fists shall be tested : are they truly nothing more than Rogal's sons ?"
- on the Hand of Dorn
"His mind is broken, forever trapped in the bloody glories of a past sixty million years dead. No
matter how much evidence against his visions are presented to him, he still cling to his madness. I
wonder : is this because of a fault in the techno-sorcerous process that turned him from a living
being of cancerous flesh into an immortal machine, or because the thing his mind has now become
is unable to accept the truth of what has happened to it and everything it ever knew ?"
- on the Necron Nemesor Zahndrekh
And so it came to pass that a faithful servant of the Emperor of Mankind somehow found his way to
the Eye of Terror, drawn to the Oracle's lair by his burning need to know if there was any true hope
left for Humanity.
The Oracle laughed when the man showed himself before it and spoke his question. It mocked his
folly, to have come here for so insignificant a quest. It told him of the many horrors it would inflict
upon his body and soul to punish his temerity in coming here, told him of the numberless threats to
the Imperium that would one day shatter the ancient mecanisms of the Golden Throne and cast
down the one who sat upon it.
On and on it spoke, for hours without end. But still, the faithful scholar asked his question. And the
Oracle stopped laughing, and started to rage, for it was bound by ancient pacts to answer all queries
presented to it, until the day it had answered a thousand of them and was fred of the bondage
placed upon it by a lord of the Eye in ages past.
And so, after its howling was finished, the Oracle spat its last fragment of lore, before departing from
its planet-sized prison in a deluge of mutagenic fire that reduced the entire library its damned
scholars had accumulated over its long imprisonment to ashes, and the scholars themselves into
shapeless horrors of twisted flesh. Only the faithful scholar was spared, and he departed the
daemon world with the words of the Oracle held close to his heart, to bring them back to his masters
so that the future of the galaxy might be saved. Here are these words :
"In the shadows of a forgotten world,

Amidst the ruins of the first empire,
Hidden from sight to all but the pure,
There lies the instrument that will call them,
The old lords of the star, the true masters of the galaxy.
They shall return from their exile beyond time and space themselves
To fight one last time at the side of their heirs
Against the madness they created in their war to preserve life itself."
- on Hope

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Deep within the Eye of Terror, on a world that was once a great library of the Eldar Empire, there is

Mocking, terrifying laughter

- on the Decimation of the Emperor's Swords

- on Ork Warlord Grizgutz

- on the Corona Nox

- on the moon Deliverance, fortress of the Raven Guard

- on the Pale Throng mutant rebellion

- on the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath

"In the shadows of a forgotten world,

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