Balphomael

Balphomael, the Horned Darkness, is a daemonic power
that has seemed to lurk in the shadows of
the Calixis Sector since it was founded,
and is doubtless far older than this. It is the master of its own cult, the Brotherhood of the Horned Darkness. Over
the years the Inquisition has acquired
considerable lore and anecdotal evidence
about this being whose power is at least
that of a daemon prince, if not considerably
greater. Seemingly owing no direct fealty or
allegiance to any other of its kind, it has
the characteristics and nature of a power
broker. It is a being who demands worship
and obeisance and sacrifice, who in return
grants patronage and power.
Legends and scraps of lore describe
Balphomael as a towering figure of unholy
fire and billowing darkness, a horned
shadow that can be summoned from a bonfire
piled high with burning hearts given in offering. The testimony of cult members brought to question by
the Holy Ordos claims that the daemon may also take the shape of a saturnine man or striking
woman of imperious manner---a dealmaker whose honeyed tongue might corrupt a saint, but whose eyes
burn like embers and whose shadow is cast in the terrible flickering shape of its true nature. The
daemon is a powerful and dangerous entity, and one that cannot be commanded or controlled, by even
the most powerful sorcerer. Some scholars within the Ordo Malleus speculate that its “appearances”
in corporeal reality (including on one occasion when a powerful avatar of the beast was battled by the
Holy Ordos and the Grey Knights) are actually little more than warp-projections, the meanest
portion of a far greater whole that coils in the empyrean beyond.