World Eaters – Dramatis Personae

Khorne’s Eternal Hunt – the World Eaters’ 4th assault company

 

Lord Captain Lorimar, Master of the Hunt

Baltus Lorimar has been the 4th assault company’s commander ever since the days of the Great Crusade. A divisive figure among the officers of his sundered legion due to his actions at the battle of Skalathrax, Lorimar has nevertheless managed to stay in command of one of the biggest World Eaters warbands, and one of the few still managing to maintain some kind of discipline and order.

Born on the blasted plains of Europa in the aftermath of the Unification Wars, Lorimar was indentured into the growing Legiones Astartes as part of the tithe the Terran clans had to pay to the Emperor who had defeated them. He became a legionary of the XII Legion, quickly rising to the position of a line officer during the Great Crusade. When the legion was reunited with its Primarch, Lorimar had been stripped of his command and incarcerated by Valna, Captain of the War Hounds’ 4th assault company, because he had refused an Imperial noble’s order to execute a squad of abhuman auxiliarii after a battle. Once the Primarch came across Lorimar during his inspection of the legion flagship, he freed him and offered him another chance to prove himself. This act made Lorimar fiercely loyal to Angron, and he would continue to follow the Primarch unquestioningly, even as his fellow legionaries grew more and more wary of the Red Angel. Lorimar later won his captaincy in the fighting pits, killing his former captain Valna and taking command of the 4th.

During the latter days of the Great Crusade, the 4th fought in the Eastern Fringe at the side of the Word Bearer’s Piercing Gaze Chapter. Lest the 4th evade the corrupting influence of the ruinous powers, First Chaplain Erebus of the XVIIth tasked the Chaplain of the Piercing Gaze Chapter, Belzas Azalon, with introducing warrior lodges and the covert worship of the Primordial Truth to the 4th assault company. Azalon brought Lorimar into contact with the Cult of Cron, a warrior cult the young captain eagerly adopted in order to provide his company with an identity and a code of martial honour.

Once the 4th was reunited with the rest of the legion, Lorimar was very pleased to see that a similar warrior culture had begun to form all across the legion, with the legionaries accepting their Primarch’s gladiatorial origins and cobbling together a mongrel culture from it.

The Heresy itself went by in a red haze, with Lorimar, like many of his battle brothers, growing more and more into a frenzied madman. He and his company were on their way to madness and damnation until the Skalathrax campaign. During the Long Night of Skalathrax, Lorimar suddenly came to and realised, in a terrible moment of lucidity, that the actions of 8th Captain Khârn were about to shatter the legion and wipe out the company he had sacrificed everything for.

In a move nearly unprecedented for a World Eaters officer, Lorimar and the remains of his company withdrew from Skalathrax before the battle was over. While Lorimar’s actions saved a substantial part of the company and made sure it would continue to function as a fairly coherent fighting force, they also earned him the disdain, if not enmity, of many of his fellow officers, who still refer to him as “Lorimar the Craven”.

Ever since, the 4th has been just as threatened by the corrupting influence of chaos and the madness of the Butcher’s Nails as every other World Eaters warband. To combat the effects of this decline and in order to keep the madness at bay, Lorimar used the ancient warrior codes of his company to formulate an ethos strictly based on honour and martial pride: His company embarked upon an Eternal Hunt, endeavouring to kill the strongest warriors and run down the worthiest prey.

Even though the 4th has remained a fairly large and coherent force, the legionaries always have to fight against the encroaching madness, with infighting and rampant frenzy all too common within the company. So far, Lorimar has managed to quell these uprisings with an iron fist.

When not on the battlefield, the Lord Captain is given to bouts of dark brooding, filled with resentment at the ruination of his legion, with disgust at the depths to which many of his former brothers have sunk, and with burning hatred at Khârn, whom he considers the destroyer of the XII Legion.

 

First Hunter Alrik Skarn
An officer in the 4th assault company. Master of the “Sons of Cron” and Lorimar’s second-in-command

 

Huntmaster Bardolf, Lord of the Huntsmen

Bardolf is the commander of the 4th assault company’s corps of regular infantry, the Huntsmen. Fiercely loyal to the 4th assault company, he is a reliable officer and a trusted adviser to Lord Captain Lorimar. Off the battlefield, Bardolf is taciturn and levelheaded, but once an engagement begins, he is terrifying to behold, a menacing figure advancing purposefully and relentlessly towards the enemy lines, dispatching opponents with brutal efficiency by cutting them down with his twin axes, Gram and Zorn.

 

Huntmaster Charun, Lord of the Harriers

Charun is the commander of the 4th assault company’s corps of jump infantry, the “Harriers”. They are wild and proud warriors, and first among their number is Huntmaster Charun.

Where his fellow officer Bardolf is purposeful and taciturn, Charun is mercurial and haughty, and sometimes arrogant to a fault. In battle, the thrill of the hunt sometimes threatens to overpower him, and while it turns him into a warrior without match, there are those in the company who fear that Charun is too far gone already, as much a danger to his allies as to his enemies.

Few would dare utter such words to his face though, lest they face his wrath. Singing daemon weapon in hand and murder in his eyes, the Master of the Harriers is a frightening sight to friends and enemies alike.

 

Huntmaster Gerrax, Lord of the Hounds
Commander of the 4th assault company’s corps of bikers.

 

Huntmaster Deracin, Keeper of the Forge

During the time of the Great Crusade, when the XIIth Astartes Legion was still known as the War Hounds, brother Deracin was a brilliant and ferocious warrior who could be found at the forefront of every battle. This zeal cost him dearly when he sustained horrific injuries during the Nove Shendak campaign, requiring extensive augmentic reconstruction work to be saved. Worse still than the lost limbs was the heavy nerve damage Deracin incurred, damage that necessiated complex cranial implants to keep him combat-worthy. A lesser man might have been interred into the sarcophagus of a dreadnought due to such injuries, but Deracin trained relentlessly to overcome his injuries and push the artificial parts of his body to the limit, trying to prove to his brethren that his “reconstruction” hadn’t dulled his edge one bit.

All of this should be for naught, however, once the legion had been reunited with its Primarch and renamed the “World Eaters”: Angron ordered his Apothecaries and Techmarines to outfit the whole legion with the Butcher’s Nails, implants patterned after those he had received as a gladiator on the world of Nyceria.

The nails implanted into the Primarch’s skull were artifacts from the Dark Age of Technology, and the Techmarines’ dabbling in archaeotech was far from an exact science, producing all kinds of unforeseen incidents. As a consequence, the implants Deracin had received earlier to mend his injuries interfered with the nails, preventing him from utilising his full potential on the battlefield. For Angron, a legionnaire that couldn’t unlock the nails’ full power could only be considered a failure. So Deracin found himself relegated to the rear guard in more and more battles, sidelined and tasked with petty battle logistics and mundane assignments, and growing ever more frustrated.

It was Lord Captain Lorimar who discovered that, deprived of a chance to prove himself in battle, Deracin had begun to apply himself to the maintenance of the legions’ wargear and weaponry, demonstrating a brilliant grasp of technology and an intuitive understanding of even the most complex mechanisms. So Lorimar requested Deracin for his company and let him be trained as a Techmarine. And it was then that brother Deracin found his true calling:

He may have been a brilliant fighter, but as a Techmarine, Deracin became a marvel. His brilliant, analytical mind allowed him to construct mechanisms on par with the most advanced work of the Mechanicus. His work earned him the envy of numerous Techmarines from different companies and, indeed, other Legiones Astartes. In time, even Angron himself began to display a sort of grudging respect for the son he had despised. And through fateful irony, the implants that prevented Deracin from tapping into the Butcher’s Nails’ full potential actually kept his brilliant mind intact, even as the rest of the legion descended into frenzy and insanity.

Ever since the Horus Heresy, during the millennia of the Long War, Deracin’s knowledge has grown far beyond the petty boundaries of Imperial orthodoxy: He has learned to forge flesh and steel, and to imbue his creations with the raw powers of the warp through the incantations and pacts of daemoncraft. The towering daemon engines deployed by the 4th assault company are a chilling testament to his skill. The Great Forge aboard the company’s capital ship never sleeps, and Deracin is its undisputed master. And during his long life, he has retained two features nearly unheard of among the members of the XIIth legion: A surgically analytical mind as well as a wry sense of humour.

On the battlefield, Deracin is a giant even among Astartes: His augmented frame towers above even his tallest brethren. Encased in a baroque suit of artificer armour of his own design and equipped with all kinds of arcane weapons and warp-infused tools, the Keeper of the Forge is every bit the warrior he was during the days of the Great Crusade.

 

Huntmaster Stian Gul, Bearer of the Horn of Leires

Many forces of the traitor legions let themselves be inspired by the flaming words of heretical preachers and orators, among them the fanatical Dark Apostles of the Word Bearers. Yet the warriors of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt have little tolerance for sermons: For them, war itself is the sole worthy act of worship, and the sounds of hunting horns, howling chain weapons and pounding artillery are all the inspiration they need. And so the task of fueling the fires of their belligerence falls not to any preacher, but to Huntmaster Stian Gul, also called the Apostle of War:

Even in a force of superhuman warriors, Gul is an arresting presence: Clad in full baroque plate of uncertain origin, his head crowned with a set of horns, Gul resembles the appearance of the archetypal god of the hunt as described in a million different mythologies. He wields the Horn of Leires, a huge warhorn etched with runes of dark power, said to be fashioned from the horn of a Greater Daemon. Its sounds incite the legionaries’ rage and bloodlust far more than any sermon ever could. And it is well, for Stian Gul is a mysterious and taciturn figure, only seeming truly alive at the heart of battle, while shadowy and reclusive between engagements.

Those who have to face the World Eaters’ 4th assault company in battle fear the mournful sounds of the Horn of Leires, for they signal not only the beginning of battle, but also the fact that the Apostle of War has come and demands his due, to be paid in blood.

 

Huntmaster Valkar, the Scarred One, Lord of Chains and Master of the Brazen Hunters

In the latter days of the Great Crusade, Brother Valkar was fighting as a line officer in the 12th legion’s assault formations, and it was during the pacification of a cluster of feudal worlds in the eastern fringe that he incurred a wound that would change his life forever: A maddened cultist attacked him with a weapon wreathed in sorcerous flame, taking Valkar’s right eye and leaving him with a hideous, eight-pronged scar over the right side of his face. To make matters worse, the damaged eye socket wouldn’t take any augmetic replacement for some reason unfathomable even to the Legion’s Apothecaries, leaving Valkar permanently one-eyed. In any other Astartes Legion, that would have surely relegated him to the place of an Auxiliarii or a diplomat – a bleak prospect for one who had been bred for war. But Angron’s legion had little use for diplomats, and even crippled officers could hold a command as long as they knew how to hold their own in the fighting pits. So Valkar learned to balance the consequences of his disability and returned to battle, seemingly as effective as before.

However, it seemed his scars ran deeper still, as Valkar started hearing voices: Harsh whispers now spurred him onward in battle, inciting him to ever growing acts of bloodshed, bellowing excitedly at every kill, and howling in frustration at each denied killing stroke. Valkar feared he might be growing insane, but in a legion wracked with the influence of the Butcher’s Nails, sanity was not exactly a priority.

For Valkar’s seeming descent into madness only mirrored that of his legion: The World Eaters became ever more brutal and uncontrollable, finally siding with the Warmaster Horus and becoming one of his most effective terror weapons. And Brother Valkar was always there, swept along with the tide.

The last time he heard the mysterious voices was when the drop pods of the XII legion rained down on the blasted hellscape Istvaan III had become: When the doors of his Dreadclaw hissed open and Valkar began charging at his erstwhile brothers and their fellow loyalists with a blood curdling roar on his lips, the voices broke into triumphant laughter one last time – and then fell silent. The pact had been sealed.

Over the following centuries and millennia, Valkar has become a mighty champion of Khorne. He was one of the first officers in the World Eaters’ 4th assault company to be granted a daemonic steed by the powers of the warp, and riding this beast wrought from brass and hellfire, he became nigh invincible. He has gathered similarly gifted brethren around him, forming an elite cadre of mounted legionaries called the Brazen Hunters.

And once again, there are voices: Whispers in the shadows that Valkar the Scarred One could one day challenge the Lord Captain himself for the command of the company.

 

Huntmaster Bafram
An officer in the 4th assault company

 

Apothecary Dumah, Chooser of the Slain and  Keeper of the Seed

The presence of Lord Dumah could be one of the most important reasons for the ability of the 4th to still function as a fairly coherent fighting force, for it is due to his art that the company still has access to a way of replenishing its ranks instead of being left to slowly bleed out over the millennia: Apothecaries are a rare enough breed in the traitor legions, and especially so among the World Eaters, whose Apothecaries have succumbed to the bite of the nails for the most part, abandoning their former battlefield role in favour of bloodshed and insanity.

During the times of the Great Crusade, Dumah served directly under First Apothecary Fabrikus, and he was among those tasked with duplicating the archaic and little-understood neural implants Angron had been outfitted with on Nuceria. While working on the task of implanting an ever increasing part of the legion with those “Butcher’s Nails”, Dumah became aware of their debilitating nature and began in-depth research into the possibility of mitigating the negative effects of the implants.
Yet there was little tolerance for this kind of experimentation within the legion, as the Red Angel himself regarded any attempt at tampering with the function of the nails as a way of compromising their effectiveness and purity. So this line of research was quickly abandoned by all but a few Apothecaries, while the legion fell deeper and deeper into madness and bloodlust.

Ten millennia later, Dumah still serves as the 4th assault company’s Primus Medicae and has earned the epithet “Chooser of the Slain”, as his task is twofold: As a dark, Grim Reaper-like figure, he moves among the fallen and chooses which geneseed to harvest from fallen World Eaters and which to leave to rot, because it is too twisted and curdled by corruption to be safely used for implantation any longer. And he looks for those fallen enemies whose prowess in battle and martial honour have made them eligible for being inducted into the XII legion – either by being granted the kiss of the nails or, in very rare cases, a full conversion to an Astartes in the first place.

When off the battlefield, Dumah still continues his experiments with the aim of countering the nails’ degrading effects, and he feels that he is coming closer to a possible breakthrough with every generation of new implants and with every harvested progenoid. The only question is if there will still be enough of the company left to profit from his eventual success…

Huntmaster Kharduun, Keeper of the Lost

Commander of the Lost Brethren

 

Huntmaster Torus, Taker of Skulls

Zegram Torus is an officer of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, yet he does not command an arm of the company. A silent and solitary figure among his brethren, his task is more grim than any other, for he serves the 4th assault company as a Headsman. His work is twofold: He takes the heads of those legionaries who fall in battle, making sure their passage into Khorne’s own realm is paid for. But he also hunts down those who have drawn the company’s ire: Traitors, cowards and tricksters — those beyond contempt and undeserving of an honourable death. Torus comes for them, and their lives are ended by the razor-sharp edge of his giant axe, Strafe.

Torus seldom speaks, and it is said that to hear his voice is to be close to death. His grim presence fills even his own brethren with unease. But his task is a necessary one and those whose heads he takes deserve their punishment.

 

Huntmaster Isgarad

An officer in the 4th assault company and a member of Lorimar’s Fist.

 

Huntmaster Kharan
An officer in the 4th assault company and personal equerry to Lord Captain Lorimar

 

Brother Barras Ergha, “Flamecaller”
The 4th assault company’s Master of Signal

 

Vorl Dustwalker, Lord of the Pit

Some members of the War Hounds Astartes Legion may have loathed the brutal, gladiatorial style of warfare introduced by the Primarch Angron, but Vorl Dustwalker was not one of them. Even before the legion’s reunion with its Primarch, he had already established himself as a master of the fighting style that would become a trademark of the legion in later years. On the War Hounds’ vassal world of Bodt, Vorl was one of the Astartes tasked with training the legionaries in combat at close quarters. And many mighty champions of the World Eaters still hold in their hearts a feeling of shame at being brought low by him during sparring matches, the acrid taste of Bodt’s volcanic soil still etched into their memory as a reminder of their failure.

After gladiatorial fighting had become one of the mainstays of the World Eaters’ cobbled-together warrior culture, Vorl became known as the Dustwalker, a legend in the fighting pits, almost on par with mighty Delvarus, the legion’s uncontested champion on the Hot Dust.

How the Dustwalker came to be a member of Lorimar’s 4th assault company after the madness at Skalathrax is difficult to ascertain. But ever since, he has been serving as a combat instructor and an insurmountable contestant in the fighting pits nestled in the bowels of the company’s capital ship.

Vorl Dustwalker is not often seen outside the pits, for ordinary fights tend to be beneath his notice. Once the Dustwalker’s interest is piqued by a battle or an adversary, however, he may take to the field, accompanied by a coterie of his most talented gladiators. Their only partially armoured bodies and comparatively primitive weapons are both a mockery of their opponents and a testament to their skill, and Vorl is the first among these capricious warriors.

 

Brother Hokar
Master of the Guard and member of Lorimar’s Fist

 

Brother Garron, “The Doomwall”

In battle, the hulking figure of Brother Garron is a sight to be feared, a towering, utterly silent warrior, smashing all opposition with mighty swings of his enormous thunder hammer, his baroque suit of artificer warplate seemingly impervious to damage. This has earned him the epithet Doomwall, and it is a name spoken with a certain tenseness by the legionaries of the 4th, for so much about this silent Behemoth is shrouded in mystery: Why does his weapon still bear the heraldic device of the War Hounds? And while his heavily modified suit of prototype Tactical Dreadnought Armour stands as a testament to Huntmaster Deracin’s ingenuity, what remains of the man within?

Some whisper that Garron actually fought in the first wave at Istvaan III, as part of the loyalist remnants of the legion that were to be purged by their own brethren. Yet how he survived that ordeal and why he now serves as a silent enforcer to Lord Captain Lorimar remains an enigma. Only the Master of the Hunt himself and his most trusted lieutenants could divulge more of the Doomwall’s history, yet they seem reluctant to do so.

And in any case, the only mind holding the absolute truth of the matter would be that of Brother Garron himself — and he remains ever silent…

 

Brother Raas, “The Butcher”

The warrior known as Raas the Butcher is one of the 4th assault company’s oldest veterans and serves in Lord Captain Lorimar’s personal guard, known as Lorimar’s Fist. Even among this band of ruthless killers, his thirst for blood excels, and his penchant for tearing his opponents limb from limb is well known and feared by those who have to stand against him: Watching Raas charging the enemy with surprising speed, a blood curdling howl on his lips, is terrifying to behold, and usually the last sight his victims are afforded before his mighty war halberd effortlessly shears through their armour and flesh. His bloodlust is so great that he spends most battles completely lost to the nails, as much of a danger to his friends as to his enemies. Chains adorn his ancient suit of modified Cataphractii armour as if to bind him, but it is clear that the Lord Captain’s abyssal growl is the only thing that will bring this wild hound to heel…

 

Brother Verak
Bearer of the company standard

 

Brother Khoron the Undying, Keeper of Trophies

In a way, Khoron the Undying was old already when the World Eaters legion was still young. Having been a warrior from a very early age, he was already a battle-hardened veteran, forged in the fires of the Unification Wars, when Lorimar ascended to command of the 4th assault company. Brother Khoron had seen battle and he had the scars to prove it. He served unter Lorimar’s command, but he was a trusted friend of the young Captain, full of experience and wisdom and gifted with a deep understanding of what it was that bound the legionaries together as brothers. He stood with Lorimar during his search for an identity for the legion. And he stood with him when the Captain decided to follow his Primarch to Terra to depose the false Emperor. For many years, he was a tower of strength for the company and came to be respectfully called “older brother” by the legionaries.

Shortly after the Skalathrax campaign had sundered the legion, Khoron was mortally wounded during a hunt. The man who had survived a thousand battles was powerless in the end, as the alien powers of a Xenos weapon tore his body apart. With his dying breath, he implored Lorimar to let him continue fighting, accepting the dangers of being entombed within the sarcophagus of a Dreadnought. Lorimar was hesitant, for he had witnessed the effects of such incarceration on the Fallen, but in the end he granted his old friend’s wish.

And thus the “older brother” became the being known as the Undying. For the last millennia, his colossal frame has continued to be a sight of inspiration to his brothers. Where Marax the Fallen is a warning of the damnation awaiting the company, the Undying symbolises a way of keeping this grisly fate at bay. It is only at the most chaotic moments of battle that he will succumb to rage and frenzy, and each time this happens, his brothers hope that he will come to eventually. And they fear the day when their older brother’s mind will finally cave in on itself.

When not in battle, Khoron the Undying serves as a master of rites to the company, residing in the Hall of Hunters aboard the company’s capital ship, Aeternus Venator. There he guards the trophies and weapons assembled by the Warriors of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt and presides over the ceremonies held by the legionaries since the times of the Great Crusade.

 

Brother Marax the Fallen

When Lorimar ascended to the rank of captain of the 4th assault company, brother Marax stood at his side. Likewise, during the years of the Great Crusade, he proved to be a loyal retainer, time and time again.

But after Marax had undergone the psychosurgical treatments introduced to the legion by its primarch Angron, he began to change. The occasions when Marax would succumb to frenzy and insatiable bloodlust on the field of battle grew ever more frequent. But the negative effects of this development were ignored, for Marax had become an insurmountable warrior. While the World Eaters grew more and more fervent in their worship of Khorne, Marax was one of those who welcomed the bloody rituals. During all this time, Lorimar kept his brother under close scrutiny, for he feared what Marax might become. Though he was a force of nature on the battlefield, his frenzy made him more and more difficult to control.

The Skalathrax campaign, during which the legion tore itself apart in a single night, marked the decisive point in the tale of Marax.  After Kharn the Betrayer had begun the senseless slaughter, Lorimar had to use all of his authority to keep at least his company together as an organised force. But amidst the chaos of blood and flame, he was opposed by Marax. The once loyal battle brother considered Lorimar’s refusal of bloody slaughter to be treason and threw himself at his captain, filled with daemonic rage.

While the World Eaters were tearing each other apart, Lorimar and Marax were locked in a fight for life and death of their own.
Marax was an unfathomably powerful warrior, and his anger transformed him into a whirlwind of destruction, but in the end, it was his rage that spelt his doom: He fell for a feint and was almost cut in two by Lorimar’s axe. The battle was decided.

Even with death drawing near, Marax still tried to reach his foe. When he breathed his last, Lorimar, towering over his shattered body, promised him this: He would receive a grave that was worthy of a true warrior. And he would be feared for eternity.

Apothecary Dumah had to employ every mystery of his art to trap the last spark of life within the shattered form of Marax. But he was successful: Marax was interred into the sarcophagus of a dreadnought and thus sentenced to an eternity of war – truly a worthy grave for a warrior.

Being trapped inside the dreadnought for millennia has irrevocably shattered Marax’s mind, and all that might have been left of the once proud warrior has been drowned in a sea of bloodlust and insanity. When the 4th assault company is not at war, his eternal grave is secured within a stasis field, which is only deactivated once the battle begins. On the battlefield, he rushes forward like a wild beast, tearing apart enemies and war machines alike with crackling lightning claws, howling with rage and hatred. And it is not easy to decide who fears Marax more: Those who have to face him in battle or the warriors of the 4th assault company themselves, to whom he has become an undying reminder of what will befall them, should they give in to the curse of blood frenzy.

 

Brother Khorlen the Lost

Ever since the Skalathrax campaign, the warriors of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt have been trying to keep the inevitable descent into madness that has claimed most of their legion at bay, instead clinging to their fierce martial pride. However, Lord Captain Lorimar’s retreat from Skalathrax earned him no small number of opponents amid the ranks of his own legion. One such enemy, Karakar the Exalted, considered Lorimar and his company cravens and hypocrites, unworthy of Khorne’s blessings and ignorant of the true nature of chaos: Karakar was furious about the Eternal Hunt looking down upon daemonhood and the gifts of the Warp, and he vowed he would educate the fourth assault company about the true meaning of chaos.

In late M39, Karakar and his warband fell upon the Fourth in a series of rapid assaults. During the initial phase of the fight, Huntmaster Khorlen, then a senior officer of the company, and his retinue were captured on the daemon world of Skabrea. Lorimar himself led an attack into the heart of the enemy stronghold, in order to rescue his battle brother and put Karakar to the sword.

When they reached the innermost sanctum of the fortress, the warriors of the fourth discovered a chilling scene: Karakar had wanted to punish the Eternal Hunt for their selfish pride, and for clinging to their long-obsolete past, so he had undertaken a sinister ritual to call the forces of the warp into the vessel provided by Huntmaster Khorlen’s body. He had paid dearly, however, as Khorlen – his body twisted and wracked with the raw powers of chaos – had broken his chains and slain everyone present in the ritual chamber. There his brothers found him, crippled and bloodied, his form twisted beyond reason, but yet imbued with a sinister resilience through the powers of the warp. And against all odds, Khorlen remained completely sane, and aware of the horrible changes that had been wrought upon him.

Lorimar and his warriors were at a loss: Had Khorlen’s mind been shattered by the ritual, it would have been easy enough to put him out of his misery. But their brother was still sane, and begged them to allow him to continue fighting. So a compromise was reached: Khorlen’s twisted remains were interred into a dreanought ironform, in an attempt to keep him combat worthy.

But the ritual had been so powerful that even the internment did not protect Khorlen against the forces of the warp: His ironform began to change and mutate, turning Khorlen into a hulking beast of steel and fleshmetal. Yet at the heart of the hellish contraption, the proud spirit of Huntmaster Khorlen still remained, untainted and unbroken.

Khorlen spends most of his days hidden deep within the great forge aboard the Aeternus Venator, his condition closely monitored by Huntmaster Deracin. Only in times of battle is he released to walk among his brothers once more, seeking a worthy death in battle as long as he is still himself...

 

Brother Damokk “The Breacher”

Originally a member of the fabled Triarii, Brother Damokk quickly found his true calling as a Breacher Sergeant and member of the 4th assault company during the turbulent days after the purging of Nuceria. He excelled as a warrior in shipboard actions and when it came to breaching fortified positions, and his prowess was so great that, upon suffering fatal injuries during a boarding action, it was decided to grant him the honour of serving the 4th as a Dreadnought.

Damokk’s ironform still bears many cues of his former station, such as his stylised boarding shield or the visor of his primary visual interface unit, shaped like an Mk 3 helmet. And his favourite armament, a combination of Multimelta – complete with underslung chainblade –  and siege claw, serves as yet another reminder of his time in the World Eaters’ Breacher squads.

On the battlefield, Damokk implacably dismantles enemy fortifications with a surgical precision not often seen in a World Eater. In fact, Huntmaster Deracin has been known to jest that, if not for the numeral “XII” emblazoned on his ironform, Damokk would probably forget the fact that he is not an Iron Warrior…

 

Bruul

A Skull Champion in the 4th assault company’s corps of Huntsmen

 

Memnar

A Skull Champion in the 4th assault company’s corps of Huntsmen

 

Kadesh
A Skull Champion in the 4th assault company’s corps of Huntsmen

 

Syrax
A Skull Champion in the 4th assault company’s corps of Harriers and Huntmaster Charun’s second-in-command

 

Lorimar’s Fist

Lord Captain Lorimar’s personal retinue

 

The Sons of Cron
An elite corps of warriors within the 4th assault company, tracing back its origins to the warrior lodge formed around the Cult of Cron during the Great Crusade.

 

The Gladiatorii

Vorl Dustwalker’s elite cadre of pitfighters, trained in the use of gladiatorial weapons passed down to the legion by its Primarch or even recalling ancient Terran customs.

 

The Harriers

The Harriers are the 4th assault company’s corps of jump infantry. For these warriors, the hunt from the sky is the ultimate thrill. In battle, they try to reach the enemy lines as quickly as possible, the howling sound of their jump packs driving fear into the hearts of their opponents.

 

The Hounds
The 4th assault company’s corps of bikers

 

The Huntsmen

The 4th assault company’s corps of regular infantry, mostly composed of Khorne Berzerkers

 

The Lost Brethren

Those warriors of the 4th assault company whose psychological or physical corruption makes them as much of danger to their brothers as to the enemy. Assembled into vanguard squads, these lost souls are given a chance to die in a last blaze of glory before they are overwhelmed by their transformation.

 

The Forsaken

There are those individuals among the 4th assault company’s Lost Brethren whose fall has taken them even further. It is the purpose of the Lost to die, so that the company may endure. Their ferocious vanguard assaults often end with all the legionaries wiped out, killed in a last blaze of glory, their last chance at an honourable death.

But there are those whose combat prowess is far too great, even burdened with mutation and insanity. Or those whose corruption is the very thing that made them more resilient. Those legionaries live through the ordeal that was meant to kill them, devolving further and further into mere beasts. They become The Forsaken.

The Forsaken are kept in the fighting pits, located in the bowels of the company’s battleships. Legionaries test their power against them on the Hot Dust, giving these feral beasts a taste of the gladiatorial lifestyle that once defined them and in turn allowing their brothers to face the company’s daemons and their own fate, should they give in to the madness.

It is only under the most dire circumstances that the Forsaken will be allowed to participate in battle, for they cannot be controlled, and their deadliness makes them as much of a danger to their allies as to the company’s foes.

 

The Blood Wolves

A warband of former Space Wolves Astartes fighting alongside Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, ever since the sundering of their Great Company.

 

Joras Turnpelt

Joras Turnpelt was once a member of Einar Longbeard’s Great Company, and served as the Wolf Lord’s second-in-command as well as his trusted friend. When the company found itself facing the warriors of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt in battle, the fighting turned out to be extremely bloody and unforgiving, due to both sides’ ferocity in combat. With the battle dragging on, the Space Wolves found themselves slowly bleeding out from the costly engagements. And to make matters even worse, Longbeard and Joras did not see eye to eye regarding how to proceed: The Wolf Lord knew that the Space Wolves were in acute danger of losing the battle and wanted to consolidate their forces, maybe even order a tactical retreat, while Joras would hear none of it. Seething with adrenaline and beginning frenzy, he wanted to press on and obliterate the enemy, and ordered an attack in direct defiance of his superior’s orders. During the ensuing fight, Joras eventually flew into a berserker rage, slaying his own Wolf Lord, who was trying to intervene. This act of betrayal shattered the great company, with the brethren falling on each other as well as the World Eaters. In the end, only a small band of warriors remained, defeated and encircled by the warriors of the 4th, shaken by their own actions and ready to be killed. But Lorimar let them live, feeling that Joras, in the depths of his rage, had found something dark and powerful. The Master of the Hunt was intrigued.

Ever since, Joras and his remaining warriors have been fighting alongside Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, adopting some of the 4th’s traditions while also keeping themselves apart in other respects. And Joras has become known as the “Turnpelt”, considered a despised traitor of his own chapter and hated enemy by the sons of Russ…

 

Baron Augustus Melchiah Harrowthorne

Knight Baron Harrowthorne was the leader of the honourable Covenant of Paladins, an alliance of knight households formed to defend a forgeworld in the eastern fringe. While several of the other powerful houses were forever planning and plotting to engineer their own rise to power, Harrowthorne’s honour and purity cemented his position as the Covenant’s leader, and his ancestral fortress, the Harrowspyke, remained the seat of government of his knight world.

When the world came under heavy attack from an Ork invasion, an expeditionary fleet made up of elements of the XIIth and XVIIth Legion Astartes arrived in the nick of time, supporting the Covenant of Paladins and routing the xenos attack force. With the world saved, Baron Harrowthorne felt honour-bound to not only pledge allegiance to the Imperium of Man, but also to join the expeditionary fleet himself as a representative of the Covenant, in order to pay back the debt of honour he owed the Legiones Astartes.

Harrowthorne fought alongside the XIIth legion during the latter Great Crusade and was still attached to the World Eaters when the Horus Heresy broke out. The events at Isstvan made him realise that the Warmaster’s forces were now considered heretics and traitors by the rest of the Imperium. To distance himself from them would have been the most prudent course of action, and possibly the only way of preventing his own knight world from being purged by the loyalists. But Harrowthorne still felt indebted to the legion that had saved him.

Harrowthorne came up with the only compromise that would keep both his knight world and his own honour intact: He stepped down from his position as head of his household and leader of the Covenant of Paladins. He would remain with the the Astartes of the XIIth legion, to whom he still felt indebted. He also sent word to his sons to fight him and bring him to justice, should he ever return to his homeworld, for he was to be considered a traitor.

As prudent and honourable as this course of action had been, it did not work out: Word was sent by astropath that Harrowthorne’s whole household had been wiped out by the rivaling nobles. The Harrowspyke had been razed to the ground, and Harrowthorne’s two sons had been shot dead in sight of the smouldering ruins, without even a chance to prove their honour in a knightly duel.

Harrowthorne was beside himself with grief and self-hatred, when Lord Captain Lorimar of the 4th assault company approached him: Lorimar proposed to accompany the Knight Baron to his homeworld, where he would have his revenge. His debt of honour, Lorimar argued, went both ways, and the World Eaters would not forget Harrowthorne’s brave service at their side.

The Covenant of Paladins may have been a formidable force, but it was all but powerless against the wrath of an entire assault company of World Eaters: The 4th fell onto the world like a pack of wolves falls upon its prey. With Harrowthorne leading the assault, all the noble houses that had engineered his downfall were wiped out. The leader of the conspiracy was shot in the head with a mere service pistol on the plains surrounding his smouldering keep, denied the courtly respect that he himself had denied Harrowthorne’s sons.

Afterwards, Harrowthorne felt nothing but a great emptiness. But Lorimar approached the Knight Baron and offered him a chance at revenge even beyond his own homeworld: Once again, the Baron and the World Eaters would be united by a common goal: Terra must burn!

 

Gilgamesh, the Warrior King, the Twice-Consecrated, Son of the Ember Queen

Harrowthorne’s ancient Knight Titan has become a sight to be feared on battlefields across the galaxy. Its baroque form towers over the ranks of World Eaters marching to war alongside it, and seems like an avatar of the Blood God given form, clad in monstrous, barbed plate of arterial red and darkened brass. No traces of House Harrowthorne’s original heraldry remain on Gilgamesh’s body, as the Knight has been repainted and re-consecrated to mirror the post-heresy heraldry of the XII Legion Astartes – proof of the Baron’s honorary membership in the legion.

Trophies and totems cover the machine’s form, and battle honours from its ten millennia of service alongside the World Eaters are still displayed proudly on banners and armour plates: the details of bloody campaigns on Jubal, Badlanding, Armatura and countless other worlds. The badge of the Legio Audax, commemorating the day when Gilgamesh was named “Son of the Ember Queen” by the Legio’s Princeps Ultima. And, of course, the bloody handprints adorning the Knight’s shin armour, placed there before every battle by the legionaries of the 4th, both as an oath of moment and a good luck charm.

Gilgamesh’s metallic form houses a particularly vicious and spiteful machine spirit, driven to anguish over the fall of House Harrowthorne just like its master. In communion, man and machine now turn their cold fury towards the enemies of the 4th assault company, and few can stand before the wrath of the Warrior King and live to tell the tale…