Rylanor

Rylanor is a Dreadnought Loyalist of the traitorous Emperor's Children Legion, and the last survivor of the Isstvan III Atrocity, who spent the next ten thousand years plotting revenge against the traitor Primarch Fulgrim. Rylanor was featured in a few works of the Warhammer 40k franchise, such as The Horus Heresy - Book One: Betrayal, Galaxy In Flames, Fulgrim, and Sons of the Emperor.
== Biography ==
=== Great Crusade ===
In the 31st millennium, the Emperor of Mankind led the Great Crusade across the stars, seeking to return a divided, crumbling humanity to its golden age. He began with the Unification Wars, bringing Earth under His command, and in the latter phases of the war, created the Space Marine Legions. The IIIrd Legion, known as the Emperor's Children, were raised from the most aristocratic of Terran youths. Rylanor was of this first Space Marine generation, and bore the honor of fighting alongside the Emperor Himself in the last days of the Unification Wars. Once the Sol System was under the Emperor's command, Rylanor would accompany the Emperor's Children to the furthest depths of space to reclaim all the scattered human worlds in the void, creating the Imperium of Man.
During this time, the Primarchs, the Emperor's long-lost superhuman sons, were found across the galaxy, each already designated to be given command of a Legion. Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children, was found on the once-bleak world of Chemos, which he had transformed into a flourishing center of art and prosperity. Now with Fulgrim at the helm of his Legion, Rylanor was among the first to bear the symbol of the Palatine Aquila into battle. However, during a conflict against Eldar, Rylanor was grievously wounded beyond repair. As such, his body was placed into a Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought, a heavily armored mech suit that would keep its pilot alive indefinitely, a means for Space Marines to serve even in death.
As a Dreadnought, Rylanor became the Emperor's Children's Ancient of Rites, presiding over the IIIrd Legion's Ceremonials of Induction aboard the IIIrd Legion's capital ship Andronicus, as well as lending his might to the line of battle.
=== Horus Heresy ===
Many decades later, Warmaster Horus Lupercal, Primarch of the Sons of Horus Legion, was forming a great betrayal against the Imperium of Man. Corrupted by Chaos, Horus swayed several of his Primarch brothers to his side, including Fulgrim, who had grown increasingly corrupted by Chaos after retrieving a Daemon-hosting sword from the xenos world of Laeran, which was linked to the Chaos God Slaanesh. This unholy blade led Fulgrim to become more vain, seeking only the perfection of himself and his Legion. However, even while his own Primarch and most of his Legion turned to Horus' side, Rylanor remained steadfastly loyal to humanity and the Emperor, becoming uneasy of the change in Fulgrim's character and the direction he was taking the Legion. Rylanor's loyalty was so unshakable that he, along with the remaining loyalists within the Emperor's Children, were marked for death.
In 005.M31, Governor Vardus Praal of Isstvan III, another world corrupted by Slaanesh, revolted against the Imperium. As such, Horus was deployed to put down the rebellion, but Horus and three other Traitor Primarchs, namely Mortarion, Angron, and Fulgrim, all sought to use the operation to purge Loyalists still in their Legions. As the Emperor's Children approached the planet, Captain Saul Tarvitz, another loyalist, was beginning to unravel the truth behind the changing character of the Legion, especially because Lord Commander Eidolon, who had also fallen to corruption, was staying behind on the ship rather than deploying to Isstvan III. As such, Tarvitz realized something was wrong, as normally Eidolon would spearhead such a campaign, and requested that he trade places with Rylanor. Rylanor accepted, not realizing what was really going on.
Upon landing on Isstvan III and entering battle against the rebels, Rylanor and his fellow Loyalists were promptly betrayed- Horus bombarded the planet with Virus Bombs, quickly killing the planet's populace and any Space Marine who could not get to shelter. As Tarvitz raced towards the surface, Rylanor, who had survived the attack and subsequent firebombing, rallied with other Loyalist survivors. Angron ordered his soldiers of the World Eaters Legion to finish off survivors, soon joined by Horus' Luna Wolves. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, Rylanor refused to stand down, mowing down line after line of Traitor Space Marines, quickly becoming a priority target. The other Loyalists saw Rylanor as a beacon of hope, a symbol of undying loyalty to the Emperor, and although he took heavy damage, Rylanor continued fighting. Tarvitz, once on the surface, helped to convert the surviving Loyalists into a more cohesive fighting force, turning the massacre into a successful guerrilla war. However, overwhelming waves of Traitor Space Marines and renewed orbital bombardment soon took out the last of the Loyalists, and with Tarvitz' dying act, he ordered Rylanor to guard something in the deepest tunnels under the planet's capital, Choral City. Rylanor retreated to that area, and was promptly sealed off by thousands of tons of radiactive slag and debris. He was chased by several Traitor Emperor's Children, now mutated into grotesque Noise Marines, but killed the Noise Marines and took their sonic weapons.
=== Final confrontation ===
For thousands of years, Rylanor was trapped within an empty emergency hangar bay deep beneath the ruins of Choral City, still alive despite extensive damage. Rylanor knew that Fulgrim had betrayed the Imperium, and the isolation threatened to drive him mad. Over the centuries, Rylanor forgot his name, and the names of his Loyalist battle-brothers, but always held on to one thing- a burning desire for righteous vengeance against the Primarch that betrayed him and the Imperium. The final attack by the Noise Marines had left Rylanor critically damaged and unable to stand, but he still managed to convert the sonic weapons into a beacon. Once it was ready, Rylanor fired the beacon, sending a message that only said "the Ancient awaits", attracting three Chaos Marines of the Thousand Sons Legion, named Murshid, Akhtar, and Malin Vistario. The three Thousand Sons marines managed to get into Rylanor's chamber, thinking him long dead after seeing Rylanor's corroded form, only for Rylanor to awaken when the Chaos Marines tried to unplug a beacon device built into the Dreadnought's back. Rylanor, still prone on the ground, quickly grabbed Murshid and held Malin at gunpoint, but declared that he did not want the three Thousand Sons. In reality, Rylanor did not know that the Thousand Sons had also turned traitor, so Malin attempted to lie about the Thousand Sons still enduring, but Rylanor saw through the ruse.
Malin tried to insist that Rylanor would not like to hear the truth, but when he asked who Rylanor was, Rylanor could only respond that he was the Ancient of Rites, which caused Malin to get psychic visions of Rylanor's past. Malin then asked if the beacon was a distress signal, which Rylanor scoffed at, revealing that it was a lure for none other than Fulgrim. Right on cue, Fulgrim himself entered the chamber. Unbeknownst to Rylanor, during the course of the Horus Heresy, Fulgrim had ascended into a Daemon Prince, now being a horned, four-armed, semi-humanoid serpentine Warp monster. Rylanor was horrified by the sight of his former Primarch, who merely laughed at Rylanor's eroded frame and asked why Rylanor called him. In response, Rylanor forced himself to sit up while Fulgrim mocked Rylanor for wasting away in a cave while the Emperor's Children, now servants of the Chaos God Slaanesh, were supposedly gaining glorious victories and perfection in the galaxy. However, as Rylanor moved, he revealed that for the past few millennia, he had been laying on top of an unexploded virus bomb, and had wired its controls into his own chassis. With that, he detonated the warhead, but Akhtar used his psychic abilities to contain the blast.
As Akhtar struggled to contain the fury of the superweapon, Fulgrim attacked Rylanor in rage, quickly tearing apart the ancient Dreadnought and ripping out the mutilated, but still-living remains of Rylanor's original body. Fulgrim then offered Rylanor the chance to rejoin the Emperor's Children and be given a new body by Slaanesh, a supposedly perfect form, but Rylanor defiantly roared back that he is a servant of the Emperor, and would reject Fulgrim for all time.
The Thousand Sons marines were left stunned by the turn of events, their psychic abilities allowing them to feel Fulgrim's unending malice and vanity, while Rylanor emanated nothing but pride and honor, which remained intact even as he grew into obsessive madness plotting revenge. Deeming nothing worthy in Fulgrim and already shocked by the grotesque appearance of the Daemon Prince, Malin exclaimed that Rylanor deserved better than any of them, and promptly shot Akhtar in the head, killing him and dispersing the psychic shield. As such, the warhead's explosion erupted outwards and once again burned the surface of Isstvan III. Rylanor and the Thousand Sons marines died in the blast, and Fulgrim's form was damaged, but the Daemon Prince survived. However, even as Fulgrim dug himself out from the ruins, Fulgrim found his soul broken and his pride deeply wounded, for Rylanor was able to deny Fulgrim's imagined magnificence, cutting deep into Fulgrim's very being as the last victory of Rylanor.
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