This was not what they had been promised by the White Scars' treacherous warrior lodge brothers, but the Death Lord refused to lose a fleet for the sake of this fight. A skilled warlord in his own right, Mortarion was immediately given command of the XIV Legion of Astartes which carried his genetic inheritance, and did so on his own terms. Virus bombardments preceded the Death Guard. Mortarion with his Deathshroud during the Horus Heresy. The Overlord kept him caged to acclimate to the poison, and taught him the art of war. [1][6b], People say that Mortarion flattened the wooden door to the banquet room and he found the elders and a stranger who was their opposite in every way. Either way, the troubled Death Guard Primarch saw a worthy leader in Horus, whereas in the Emperor he saw only a self-serving and pompous pretender who had stolen Mortarion's hard-won kingship in a single day while engaging in hypocrisy concerning his own use of the Warp. [1][6b], The warlord tested how high the child could survive in the poisonous atmosphere of Barbarus and then erected a massive wall of black iron. The Black Legion is a Traitor Legion of Heretic Legionaries that is the first in infamy, if not in treachery, whose name resounds as a curse throughout the scattered and war-torn realms of Humanity. Official lore and fan fluff are welcomed. The constant exposure to the toxins hardened his warriors, a useful and transferable skill retained by the Death Guard. Guilliman heard Mortarion speak, but he could not see, and he could sense nothing else but pain. A Primarch! He Speaks. Administering the Godblight, Mortarion attempted to goad his brother down the path of corruption by stating Nurgle could save him from his agonizing death. He said something similar to Konrad Kurze via meat scarecrow. Deep within the noisome swamps of Nurgle's Garden in the Realm of Chaos, a conclave of Great Unclean Ones listened indulgently to the frantic babbling of messenger flies. He only ever found friendship in two other Primarchs, Night Haunter and Horus. He was still waiting, though not for very much longer. Mortarion returned to his village, confident in the knowledge that he would return for his final battle. He wore a grey cloak over his personalised suit of brass and bare steel power armour known as The Barbaran Plate. The daemon's final task would be to show him how. The first invaders to issue forth from the Scourge Stars were the Death Guard, led by grim Mortarion, who now brought the fabled Realm of Ultramar, gem of the whole segmentum, under siege. [4], After Roboute Guilliman was resurrected in the closing days of the 41st Millennium, Mortarion sensed his brother's rebirth. By this point, Calas Typhon served one master alone, and it was not his Primarch. Solar decades of endless battle changed the Death Guard, and over time the Terran influences on the Legion became less and less apparent, with the panoply and traditions of the Dusk Raiders and the Officio Militaris erased in favour of Barbarus' bleak creed of war. the emperor speaks to mortarion. When Mortarion had recovered he bent his knee to the stranger and pledged his service. "Maybe I can fix you Mort, but not now" - here, "Perhaps I'll fix that later, if I have time" - The Board is Set, referring to Ferrus losing his head, "Everything can be rebuilt, as long as I live" - Master of Mankind, talking to a Custodian. The battle for the human future was one that could only be won by enduring any hardship, no matter how terrible, and not shirking from any act, no matter how savage in pursuit of victory. Horus had been one of the few primarchs with whom Mortarion had felt comfortable, and as such he showed more loyalty to the Warmaster during the Great Crusade than to the Emperor Himself. He would have to master all the paths of ruin. [22b] According to Rotigus, both Mortarion and Ku'gath have earned the displeasure of Nurgle for their insubordination and failure. The Primarch was enraged at the creature's proclamation -- even his father the Emperor could not claim him. He is order. "Say what you like about the Fourteenth Legion. Later the Khan's badly wounded body was recovered by Imperial forces. . At the heart of them was the unshakeable determination that Mankind should be free of oppression and terror. If Magnus yet lived then everything could be salvaged. Toying with Mortarian would be from a place of emotion, it would serve no real purpose for him. As for the purely human Death Guard that had once fought for him against the overlords of Barbarus, many now became the masters of that world. [1][6b], Mortarion then recruited the strongest and most resilient of warriors from the villages he went to. As they hacked and countered, neither giving up a single measure of ground, their blood mingled upon their blades' edges, as rich and dark as wine. The Emperor's fleets arrived on Barbarus, toppling the final alien stronghold, rescuing Mortarion, and - in his eyes - robbing him of both victory and vengeance. Jaghatai proceeded to warn his brother that though his Legion might be free of the Warp's corruption for now, the change would come, for Mortarion had made his pacts with the masters of the Empyrean, and now they would come to collect their due. As the creature died, and her quintessential matter was sucked back into the maw of the aether, she managed a mock salute, "Hail, Master of the Plague!" "There is no darkness to be found between the void of stars, nor the deepest pits of the earth that equals the darkness of Mankind's deeds.". 'Do you see, Guilliman, you follow the wrong master,' said Mortarion. [22a] On Iax, the two Primarch's came to blows but Mortarion was able to emerge the victor thanks to his Daemonically-enhanced strength and resilience. The Khan correctly surmised that Horus had not sent Mortarion, he had come of his own accord, with his own agenda. The family, along with thousands of others, lived in an internment camp for the duration of World War II, their only crime being their Japanese heritage. From that power base, the Death Guard and daemonic Plague Legions issued, systematically reaping planet after planet. The connection between father and son immediately formed and was plain to see, although Mortarion knew nothing of the link. A valiant band known as the Ynnari, a mixed faction of Aeldari and Drukhari in service to their awakened God of the Dead Ynnead, followed a radical path that they believed would see Chaos defeated and the Aeldari race resurgent. True to his earlier pledge, Horus let Mortarion's Death Guard be the first to land upon Terra. Warhammer 40k Wiki is a FANDOM Games Community. The infant primarch was screaming and wailing where a normal child would have suffocated and died long before. The Khagan ordered his Legion to head for the source of the trouble, to find the architect of the chaos engulfing the Imperium. Their weapons and armour were powered by the energies of Chaos and they became known as the Plague Marines, although they would still use the name of the Death Guard for themselves. Their father's time was over -- the Khan could either be a part of the new order that replaced Him or be swept aside in its wake. However, Horus at last found a chink in Mortarion's armor; he was beginning to see the Emperor as having been corrupted with power and now was just another tyrant drunk with power. The Black Legion was one of the nine original First Founding Space Marine Legions who turned Traitor to the Imperium during the Dornian Heresy in the early 31st Millennium. It was during this time that Typhon caught a glimpse of what the Astartes could truly become if they shrugged off the yoke of the Emperor's ambitions. Nurgle responded gleefully and took the XIV Legion and Mortarion for his own champions. Then, Roboute Guilliman returned from the end of the first phase of his galaxy-spanning Indomitus Crusade. A shame, the setting has a lack of human factions that hate both chaos and the imperium, i dont like how renegade space marines are doomed to fall to chaos for example. Mortarion revealed his true colours during the scouring of Istvaan III, when he willingly sent potentially Loyalist elements of the Death Guard into Horus' trap. He brings decay and sickness, despair and fear to all those who witness his dark majesty. So inhumanly neutral. Faced with Mortarion's new Daemonic endurance and strength, the Khan was brutally beaten down and nearly defenseless. Official By the time he led his Death Guard in the Siege of Terra, Mortarion had been fully embraced by the Plague God Nurgle, and transformed into the vast, bug-winged, daemonic form he . Genres Science Fiction 40k Fiction. The daemon continued to taunt the Primarch, goading him. [13], After these campaigns, Mortarion received orders from Horus to make for Terra. Choose between the Classic and Contrast Methods, then bring your miniatures to life. He experimented with both Xenos and Chaos artifacts, vowing to remain pure through understanding. Hold your bitterness deep within, and there let it fester. The Citadel Colour System breaks down painting your models into just a few easy steps. The pre-industrial population of the world was split into two groups: the controlling . Magic makes life easier for any adventurer, and if you're a Diviner, then it gets even easier. Mortarion would later live among the farmers in . As the Heresy reached its conclusion, Mortarion ordered his fleet to head for Terra with all haste, intending for the Death Guard to join the other Traitor Legions in the destruction of the False Emperor. But Mortarion admitted that he was guilty of patricide long before the seeds of treachery were sown in the Warmaster Horus' heart. Instead, as he stared with glowing eyes across the mist-wreathed parade grounds of his Plague Planet, and the massed ranks of Death Guard there assembled, Mortarion vowed that he would render Guilliman and his empire to rot soon enough. Even the hoses of his suit began to corrode and rot down and Mortarion was gasping for breath. Observing the physical changes in his brother, he noticed that Mortarion's power seemed to have grown. How could he not be? "It starts here. Canon He shaped it so well that Nurgle promoted him to Daemon Prince. As fresh intakes of new Space Marines came in from Barbarus, the surviving core of Terran blood in the XIV Legion became a minority as the Great Crusade burned on across the stars, the Death Guard at the forefront of the fighting in the most hellish war-zones imaginable. Mortarion stood over the crushed heap of broken flesh, breathing heavily. Mortarion's resistance to the use of bloodstock other than that of Barbarus wavered only because of the need to keep his Legion's strength battleworthy in his eyes. If he wanted to know the truth, then it would be revealed. But when asked by a reporter how he would handle the war in Ukraine as President and Commander-in Chief, the far-right Republican was suddenly unable to offer [] Where the seeds of corruption had been planted by the Plague That Walks, a new and terrible contamination spread. Eventually, only one peak denied them access, the one on which Mortarion's adoptive father had made his home. An Ordo Sepultura Map of Death Guard Traitor Legion activity across the galaxy after the formation of the Great Rift in 999.M41. The Marines' once gleaming armour was corroded and shattered, barely containing their bloated, pustule covered bodies. The people of Barbarus were slow to accept this pale, gaunt stranger from the mountains, but Mortarion was given a chance to prove his worth when creatures enthralled to another warlord attacked the village. The old shamans were guided by the warp and in their turn guided their people. As they interpreted the astropathic messages they received in a contradictory manner, they began to suspect that things were not right. Already deeply angry with his father, it did not take much for Horus to push the idea upon his brother that the Emperor was in truth a sorcerer not much different from the High Overlord Necare on Barbarus, Mortarion's hated adoptive father. https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/qt3zwm/book_excerpt_warhawkjaghatai_khan_is_as_deadly/. Let it roil and squirm and churn, until you are filled with bile so poisonous that all you touch falls to ruin. A dread aristocracy they soon became, while the youngest and strongest like Calas Typhon took full or partial conversion into the Legiones Astartes, heedless of the high fatality rate that late induction carried with it. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . The normal humans, dropped off millennia before, were forced to live in the lowest areas of the planet, amidst the choking fog. Moreover, it was no mere squadron that had arrived, but an entire Death Guard battle group. Their pestilential master would no doubt value such a prize most highly. the emperor speaks to mortarion. There's no one else I'd rather have by my side in a war of attrition, and almost anyone else I'd rather have against me.". In an instant, the Death Lord and his retinue were snatched away, sucked into the vortex of the Warp. Nurgle was apparently pleased by this act of cultivation. The Death Guard primarch attempted to sway the Khan to Horus' cause as Jaghatai had surmised, to imagine a galaxy of warriors, of hunters, where the strong were given their freedom to act as they would, unbound by the Emperor's demands. These were members of Mortarion's elite bodyguard, the Deathshroud. Unable to escape thanks to the Sagyar Mazan and the vessels reactivated Void Shields, Mortarion led the massacre of the Scars suicidal rear guard while directing his fleet to combine its fire and reduce the Swordstorms shields. Daemon Primarch Mortarion leads the Forces of Chaos against the Grey Knights. So close did Mortarion and Horus become that the ever watchful Roboute Guilliman of the Ultramarines and Corax of the Raven Guard approached the Emperor with concerns as to where Mortarion's loyalties lay. " I am not like you. This changed the culture and traditions of the Legion, so much so that by the last days of the Great Crusade in the early 31st Millennium, there were increasing tensions between the Barbarus-born Astartes and the Terran minority who remained in the Legion and who remembered the Dusk Raiders' earlier martial traditions brought out of Old Terra. When the shields were depleted shortly after he personally killed Torghun Khan, Mortarion barely teleported off the Swordstorm before it exploded. Together, the Ynnari and their newfound Imperial allies forged a path through their foes and the Webway to Ultramar. This was a war to be fought without mercy or limit, without restraint or relenting. Thinking for a moment that the worst was finally over, they soon saw dirty contrails of Drop Pods split the smoke-barred skies. Oh sorry I misheard only the heretics and xenos must burn !! Mortarion simultaneously experienced himself before the Emperor after his failure to kill his father, and finally snapped. In Julie Otsuka's novel, When the Emperor was Divine, a nameless Japanese-American family is uprooted, exported, and abandoned by their own government. Mortarion was found on Barbarus, a planet covered in toxic fumes. His brother had tasted the fruits of treachery and found them bitter. Watching the ash settle and the residual snags of aether-burn ripple into nothing, seven figures within the maelstrom emerged. Breaking through the poisonous mists, Mortarion discovered that the prey of the warlords were in fact the same species as he, and swore to deliver them from their oppression. In Mortarion's opinion it should have been cordoned off, put away, forgotten about forever by Mankind. [10], Mortarion next appeared during the Battle of Dwell, summoned by Horus alongside Fulgrim to aid him in gaining the powers of the Emperor on Molech. [1][6b], Only the top of the mountains denied him access. The Second Battle of Prospero was over. The Death Guard were subjected to the terrible infection of the Destroyer Plague and Nurgle's Rot, as Nurgle's power managed to infiltrate the vessels of the XIV Legion. It therefore made a great impact upon the opinion of the Emperor, and drove Magnus to defend the use of psychic abilities with more drive and passion than he had originally intended. Attempting to give Morty hope, even if false, does have practical use, since hope is antithesis to Nurgle and would weaken its hold over him, if only by a tiny amount. The Death Lord informed Jaghatai that their respective fleets in orbit of Prospero were now at war. Something terrible came out of the Warp Storms as they roiled through the southern reaches of the Ultima Segmentum. It's probably a very long ways off, and there's a chance they don't get there at all, but he does mean that he could save him. He strode above his fellow humans, dwarfing all around him. Though Mortarion ultimately escaped, it would be many long Terran years before he could enter the mortal realm once more. Enraged, Mortarion engaged Typhon in a duel, with the First Captain's psychic abilities allowing him to hold off the Primarch's attacks for a time. Perhaps, they chortled mockingly, they might even arrange a final reconciliation between the bitter Mortarion and his brother. Perhaps he is actually opening up a tiny chink in mortars armour. If he is planting a seed of hope in a servant of despair, it is for the purpose of getting him on to a path to salvation. Their restless fleet ploughed the cold void from one campaign to the next, resupplying on the move, never pausing but to make war. The entirety of the Death Guard Legion had come to the doomed world. classification and properties of elementary particles I control it. 'Divine One,' he said, before he knew he was going to say anything at all. This combat tactic worked brilliantly, and Mortarion grew close to Horus. In one conversation in Plague Wars Ku'gath, a greater daemon of Nurgle and Mortarion of the Death Guard discuss the possibility that the Emperor is awaking: The Death Lord knew he would have to learn more. [16] In anticipation he created 7 new diseases with the Hand of Darkness, one of which was a blindness-inducing plague that swept through Ultramar. Two accompany him at all times and are never more than forty-nine paces from his side. In an ironic twist of fate, Mortarion has become exactly like the Overlords of Barbarus he vowed to kill ten thousand years ago. For the first time in history, Mortarion had led the people into the toxic fog and survived. Although second perhaps in their gene-father's eyes, the Terran contingent remained stubborn in the ranks, hardened veterans and a force to be reckoned with in the Legion. Accepted into the village without further reservation, Mortarion began to train the villagers in the art of warfare. You can help Lexicanum by fixing it. He was constantly at the front fighting against all of the other warlords' armies, sometimes of undead humans, sometimes of more daemonic creatures. It should have been easy to dismiss, to put down to the warping power of the Empyrean. Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition Daemon Prince Mortarion. However with submission would come new unparalleled endurance and power. But the foul creature laughed at Mortarion's efforts. On the highest peaks where the air was most poisonous lived the Overlord, who claimed Mortarion as his foster son. The Legion's name was then changed in accordance with this decree, and Mortarion's words were engraved above the airlock door of the Battle Barge Reaper's Scythe in honour of that moment.