Marteau Caerul

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**Marteau Caerul**, also known as **Le Liberateur** (*Ille Liberator: High Gothic*) and **Le Mangeur de Plombe** (*Plumbearum Comedenti: High Gothic*) is an Imperial  military officer and Primarch  of the Legio XIV 'Novamarines'.

## Background

### Apulien Revolution

He was artificially created on Terra from The Emperor's genetic code, but was stolen by the machinations of the Chaos Gods. He was sent through the warp and too the planet of Alpinie.

### The Liberation of Noveaux Lombardie

After his arrival he was discovered and in an unusual kindness raised by Pierre Caerul, a homeless man who's only shelter was his truck in the city of Noveaux Lombardie in the Grand Repulique Apulien. Despite his poverty, Pierre often went out of his way to care for his beloved son. When they had fuel, he would drive out to the countryside and fish. On the Primarch's "birthday" he would scrounge together some homemade toy and give it to the poor kid. He gave him a homeschool education, which taught him some very basic arithmetic, but also some good street smarts, rhetorical skills, and tactics. These were the things he had learned fighting on the cold glaciers during his time as an NCO in the Glacier War.

When Marteau was 16, tragedy struck.His adoptive father had chronic leg pain due to botched surgery from his time in the Glacier War. He was overperscribed opioids by Venetaux Medicale, which, due to his frail old body, caused him to die from an overdose soon after taking his pillls. This sent the young Caerul into a deep depression, from which he would never fully recover. He had already hated the oligarchs, who betrayed his father after he fought for them in the War, but after his father's death he developed an obsession with killing them. He didn't have the means to acquire weapons, so for 6 months this manifested itself as a general, vague anger. He had some fantasies, but nothing that he could feasibly bring about. This was until he heard about a speech being given by the CEO of Venetaux Medicale, one of the oligarchs who ruled the Republic. As he stared at the poster advertising the oligarch's reelection campaign, one thought burned in his skull over and over again. *Jaques de Venetaux must die!*

He crashed his truck into the local Venetaux Medicale office where the speech was being held. The guards fired round after round into his chest and into his skull, but nothing seemed to actually hurt him. The security guards who were escorting de Venetaux were thrown away with ease, and Jaques de Venetaux watched as he was picked up by the raging giant, his last moments spent in unimaginable fear as he felt his skull cave in on his brain, pushed together by the hands of a Primarch. He had also killed 24 innocents, and wounded 16. The memory of this incident would lead him down a path of emotional repression and stoicism for the rest of his life.

The incident was filmed, live on television. The world saw a man in common clothes kill the hated oligarch. The city was inspired by this act, and Irene Salvie, leader of a local revolutionary group, took the initiative and placed Marteau as the figurehead for her new revolutionary army. Irene was faced with an issue from the local nuclear power plant, which needed new coolant, or else it would go into meltdown. Working on a time limit, local power plant union representative Francois Bellerose worked with Marteau's army to get a stable source of water by redirecting the local river to the city, and Marteau found ways to entice more of the urban poor to join his army, which was spread thin due to needing to hold the line as well as work on the new infrastructure project. Caring about the local farmers, he resettled them along the new river's course, and provided reimbursement for any damages that may have been caused.

### The War

The war lasted for 3 years, which was thought impossible by most scholars due to the mountainous terrain. However, the mountains had been left largely undefended due to the difficulty moving troops, and the assumption that Irene's Salvienistes would use the coastal lowlands around the massive Apulien river for maneuvers, as their support was focused mostly in urban areas. Marteau had travelled much of the country with his father in their truck, so he knew the country well. Marteau knew that the mountainous countryside had been largely ignored by the oligarchs, and with the charisma of Francois Bellerose, shifted the message away from the academic theories of Irene to his more nationalist, militarist, populist approach. This gave him the bonus of being able to move troops vast distances without facing any real threat, and by being able to receive most of the country's raw resources, and allowing him to build new industries to fuel the war effort.

Those industries had a much higher focus on tanks and APC's then the Armee Republicaine, as he wanted to be able to quickly adapt to a changing battlefield situation, outflanking and encircling enemy units. Marteau himself had a strong grasp on machines from his years living in a truck, so he knew what materials were needed and could direct the Syndicats de les Traveilleurs accordingly.

### Battle of Melange

The capital of Apulie, Melange, was connected to land through a long, thin isthmus, which meant that Marteau's usual tactics of maneuver warfare would be impossible. A fleet of missile cruisers stood in the way, ready to wipe out any force that would try and attack the city. Thanks to Marteau's control of natural resources, the fleet had little fuel and little ammunition. Marteau sent a fleet of undermanned APCs crewed by volunteers to take up the fleet's ammo, and then the main force was sent in to sweep up the cities defense. The urban battle took 9 months, and a total of 1,200,000 soldiers died, and 300,000 civilians, about a quarter of the city's population

### Salvieniste Purge

Irene Salvie had been a minor figure before the Revolution. She was well known in Noveaux Lombardie, but a nobody elsewhere. Her particular ideology believed that the workers revolution would be organized into syndicates, trade unions with control over trade and production. However, outside of the military ones directed by Marteau, these syndicates were ineffective and uncooperative. Fearing a counterrevolution, Marteau proposed a bill to the Council de Syndicats to reorganize the economy under a military structure. Irene and the rest of the Council saw this for what it was: a massive power grab. He failed to get the bill passed.

To build up support outside the military, he began a campaign focused on the faulty infrastructure of Apulie. He used his organizational record in the military for rhetorical support, and had a performative speech where he bit a bar of lead to show what the people were drinking. This earned him the cognomen "Mangeur de Plomb".

A friendly Council des Syndicats appointed him President de le Council. He reorganized the structure of the economy to one based around the military, where smaller syndicates answered to larger units. He also made military service a requirement to serve in higher offices, which secured his support in the future and effectively purged the Salvienistes from the government.

To make sure that there could be no threat of a coup, Marteau formed the Programme des Informanteurs Populaire pour la Defence de la Revolution (Dark Age Albionic: *People's Informants Program for the Defence of the Revolution*; High Gothic: *Delatores Progressio Populi pro Defensionem Revolution*). It was a public informants program where citizens would report counterrevolutionary activities to Joan Amaroc, one of the Paladins of the Revolution and the head of the Bureau de Protection Interne. This provided justification for the public execution of many supporters of the old regime as well as the supporters of Salvie. Due to the controversial nature of this period, records are scarce, but it is believed that about 15 million people were killed in Apulie, and 100 million abroad.

### Global Conquest and Thermonuclear War

The new revolutionary state was seen as a threat to the Estad Onid Nabolid. As General Roland Constantine rapped up the last pieces of counterrevolutionary resistance in the colonies, Thuk Vranka of Sacala, a client state to the Nabolid, feared that Constantine's 3rd Army would wipe his relatively weak state off the continent. Against the wishes of his Nabolid military advisors, Vranka of Sacala moved to secure the Protectorate of Mila, which was under the control of Oligarchist Apulien forces. The counterrevolutionaries were not happy about their former rival's client state annexing the colony, and put up a futile resistance. Constantine's forces were not aware of the conflict, and assumed that there had been some secret alliance. Without Constantine or Caerul's approval, the 231st Armoured Division fired at the bunker complex at Mashana, which had been occupied by the Sacalans. Without proper infantry support the attack failed, and the Sacalan commander ordered a counter attack. Caerul's Apulie was now at war with the Sacalan Thukate.

Looking to protect themselves, the Sacalan commanders in Mila reported the incident back to the capitol Saracasai, which brought some worry to Thuk Vranka. The Saint Rouge Illustrated History of Alpinie states that Vranka entered a manic state, crying and praying to his false gods before consulting his masters in Nabolid. However, eyewitnesses to such an event would soon be incinerated in nuclear fire, suggesting that this story was fabricazted.

General Roland Constantine was furious at the brash actions by the 231st Armoured Division, and had them all sent to a remp in the glacial colonies. This would ironically ensure their survival in the war that was to come.