The Kulleretari

Despite the atrocities and savage nature of the Legiones Astartes and the brutal regime the Emperor of Mankind sought to forge his empire into, there were technologies that even He felt were beyond the pale. Weapons whose destructive nature were so horrific, He banned them from nearly all use; the caveats being the Priests of Mars as a concession to their alliance, and relegating them to the Destroyer Squads of the Legions. So harmful were these weapons that they even poisoned their wielders, ensuring a slow, and honorless death to those “gifted” with such insidious tools of slaughter. Many within the Legions harbored grudges or even outright animosity, towards those who were to be found amongst the Destroyer Squads, feeling their very presence tainted everything around them.

Yet, when the Master of Mankind fashioned the XX Legion, he saw a unique opportunity therein, the final Legion would be his final solution to any obstacle he found. A Legion of Destroyers; Astartes who would bring complete and total annihilation to the enemies of the Imperium, scoring planets of all life with the very weapons He had caused to dwindle away from use. While the other Legions might contain a few squads, to several Companies of Destroyers, nearly a third of the XX Legion were placed into Destroyer Companies; the ruin they would bring to the worlds they subjugated would render them useless to the Imperium, and so with deliberate precision was the XX unleashed.

Upon being reunited with his gene-sons, Surmah found a Legion as ruthless as himself, ready to do any job in order to serve their higher purpose, so that Mankind could claim its birthright. And yet, he found a Legion that was rife with sickly and wasted warriors, the poisons of their weapons having penetrated their armor and even overcome their transhuman resilience. How could his Legion reconquer the stars and reclaim the lost dregs of Humanity if his warriors were too feeble to carry out such a task? No, such a hindrance was unbecoming of one of the sons of the Emperor of Mankind. However, rather than eliminate the source of the ailment, Surmah instead took it upon himself to better protect his sons. Seeking aid from the Breacher Lord, he designed a unique variant of the MK II “Crusade” pattern power armor, employing technologies and materials from his homeworld, and the enhanced servo-units gifted to him by Shaaa, the “Stalkkeri” sub-pattern was born; boasting higher resistance to radiation and thermal energy, the battleplate was better able to stave off the abhorrent effects of the weapons his sons bore into battle, while increasing their agility and speed beyond the regular levels of power armor.

With refined armaments and renewed purpose, Surmah remade his Destroyers, and from their ashes, the Kulleretari were born; The Ill-Fated Sons. Bounding across the field of battle on jump packs, the Kulleretari slaughter their prey with impunity. Phosphex rains from the sky as irradiated rounds and grenades poison the very earth, driving their foes from what little cover can be found, only for them to fall onto the blades of thirsting Hounds. As the Apostasy ground on, the Kulleretari would see their numbers swell until they had become the majority within the Legion, a reflection of their gene-sire’s nihilistic aspect.

As the XX descended further into its pact with Chaos, and the Astartes began to bear the gifts of their new patrons, the ranks of the Kulleretari began to adapt to their weapons, the need for protection against them ebbing away. So polluted had their blood become, that it could be weaponized; the Kulleretari enacting horrifying exsanguination rituals to fill the bolt rounds and grenades with their toxic blood and connecting feeder hoses to flamer weapons to contaminate the fuel reservoirs. Most disturbing however were the voluntary surgeries they subjected themselves to; the Legion apothecaries reworking the Betcher’s Gland and modifying the throat musculature, the Kulleretari were now capable of vomiting up gouts of their radioactive, Warp-tainted blood and acidic saliva, liquifying those unfortunates who strayed too close. Truly, they had become a weapon of the most agonizing design in every aspect, an embodiment of their father’s vicious nature.