Madrigal

References to Ist Legion to be swapped to IInd

Departmento Cartographicae pict-file of Madrigal, Legion Homeworld of the Ist Legion.

## Planet

### Gravity

1.88 Gs
(Terran Standard comparable.)

## Location

### System

Realm of the Sphere

**Madrigal** was the Legion Homeworld of the valiant Lightning Bearers Legion and served as the capital of the Madrigal Sphere.

## Background

### Edge of the Maelstrom

Compared to many worlds that became host to a Primarch, Madrigal's prior existence is well-documented in the annals of the Mechanicum, being a colony founded by Mars as the Age of Strife set in. While the Red World and Terra warred with each other and then themselves, Madrigal endured the onset of Old Night. Drawing in cultures which struggled to hold together, it became a powerful stellar polity. Even a large and growing psyker population was a source of prosperity rather than a cause for alarm, though the Warp anomaly known as the Maelstrom loomed close to the world. By the time contact was established with Mars and the Mechanicum sent its Explorators, Madrigal was strong enough to be accepted as a partner to those magi who made their way to the edge of the Maelstrom. The world itself remained verdant even as its moon Akira grew into a shipyard to rival Saturn in its golden era.

But this happy equilibrium was not to last. The surviving archives attest to growing tensions within and without the Mechanicum sect, of clandestine meetings and increasingly esoteric research as a cabal sought to combine forbidden science and psyker arts prohibited by the rulers of Madrigal. Finally, the conspiracies took nightmare form, coalescing into an individual: the Thunder King. Machine-lord and blasphemous sorcerer, he unleashed a war which consumed the fertile surface of Madrigal in atomic fire and Warp-spawned horror. Though the Thunder King was eventually defeated, entombed beneath the world’s crust, Madrigal was irrevocably changed. The survivors were confined to the fortress-cities they had built upon the world’s mountains, and the extent of the strife had drawn a tendril of the Maelstrom perilously close. Every two centuries, the world would pass through it and endure what became known as the "Time of Storms."

The people of Madrigal and the surviving magos of Akira conferred, and realised that their orbit would carry them through the Warp-tendril. Necessity forced them to cooperate, and they threw themselves into the construction of what came to be known as the Macro-Geller Field. While not as secure as the ubiquitous, ship-sized field, this shielded Madrigal and Akira from the worst of the Warp’s onslaught, and those spectres that menaced the world and moon were destroyed by the warriors of Madrigal. When the threat abated, the rulers of Madrigal and Akira vowed that they would never again permit the power of the Warp to be abused in such a fashion.

The people of Madrigal honed their martial skills, developing lethal vibro-blades and power armour with which to brave the terrors in the rad-clouds. Their increasing prowess was complimented by their psyker-talents, which had become a uniform gift of precognition, merely latent for most but astonishingly potent in the hands of those who set themselves to mastering it. One day, on the cusp of a new century, one of these masters was struck by a vision. His name was Ikaru Anasem, and he foresaw the arrival of a child who would restore the fortunes of Madrigal.

### The Stormborn

Many responded with skepticism to Ikaru's pronouncement, but the Magister stuck to his belief and when the infant’s pod came streaking down through Madrigal's atmosphere it landed not on the surface, but in a suspensor web constructed by the technologists of Anasem. Taken in by Ikaru and his immediate family, he was raised as both a warrior and scholar. His curiosity was boundless, whether in the arts of war, science or history. While he had not yet attained the mastery of foresight which allowed him to gaze years into the future, his "immediate" precognition was superlative, and he soon proved himself on several expeditions to the surface. Yet he resisted the injunctions of his adoptive father to take part in politics, instead preferring to explore and test his own limits.

It was perhaps inevitable then that he drew envy from his contemporaries. By far the most important of these was the scion of the Clan Tokawa, Hirato. Until Icarion grew into adolescence, Hirato was reckoned the most promising young warrior on the planet, and he studied with the young Primarch. It seems that Hirato came to resent the ease with which Icarion mastered so many skills, and the crippling of his father during an expedition - one which ultimately saw him killed by radiation exposure - soured it further as the responsibilities of ruling his Clan weighed on him, while Icarion was free to earn renown. Over the years, bitterness became violent ambition as another passage through the Time of Storms loomed.

Struggle between Clans was no stranger to Madrigal, though hostilities were traditionally put on hold when the baleful tendril loomed in the skies. Fourteen years after Icarion's arrival, Tokawa and Anasem had become embroiled in a war against the Clan Kadora. Hirato and Icarion fought together in the battle that brought the renegades to heel with only weeks to spare before the Time of Storms, which would have allowed them to entrench. In the aftermath, Hirato received the leaders of Anasem in his sky-city, only to bare his teeth. It was an observed phenomenon that when the Time of Storms drew near, the seers of Madrigal often had their second sight occluded by the tides of the Immaterium, and Hirato exploited this against his unsuspecting guests. After the feast’s conclusion, Hirato’s soldiers descended upon the Anasem quarters with cruel efficiency, murdering all they found. Icarion fought his way free with a few of his kin, only for their craft to be torn from the sky, vanishing into the clouds.

No one imagined that any could have survived the crash, and with Clan Anasem devastated, Hirato met with no meaningful opposition when he declared himself Shogun over the planet. With ruthlessness and cunning, he tightened his hold, pillaging ever more ruinous weapons from the surface and even building hermetically sealed strongholds in a few places, garrisoned by loyal soldiers and manned by slaves taken from among his subjects. Most cruelly, he began to banish his opponents to the wastes to be hunted by his warriors. While his rival was most assuredly dead, he seems to have grown obsessed with augmentation and surpassing Icarion's power. Five years later, he was barely human, a tyrant of metal and ceramite, and even the Magos of Akira quailed at him. Ship-building was renewed in the void around Madrigal, ready to spread his tyranny to the stars.

Then expeditions to the ruined cities began to vanish. The butchered carcasses of animals appeared, seemingly killed for food. Redoubts were broken open, weapons and supplies taken, their personnel vanished or slain, and the icon of the Clan Tokawa desecrated wherever it was depicted. Soldiers dispatched to find the cause found either nothing or death, but a picture emerged nonetheless. Something was stalking the wastes and ruins, able to endure the rad-scoured environs and overcome anything sent against it, intelligent enough to outwit and overcome anyone sent after it, and implacable once roused to anger. In other words, a Primarch.

When Icarion emerged he did not do so alone. He had carefully assembled an army from liberated slaves and rescued outcasts, housing them in the catacombs beneath the Tiger Claw Mountains. The carefree warrior of his youth faded rapidly as he learned of the crimes being visited upon his people, and as he plotted Hirato’s downfall the solemn warlord of Imperial history coalesced. Over half a decade his army amassed weapons and trained, waiting to exact retribution. Then they struck. From a seething mass of storm clouds they emerged, clad in plain grey armour and Icarion bearing two exquisite archeotech blades, a spear and sword. They moved as one, and quickly seized the city built atop the mountains. The news triggered unrest across Madrigal, as people saw a potential saviour in the vengeful warrior.

Hirato meanwhile was frenzied in his reaction, calling his army together to slay Icarion once and for all. Icarion must have foreseen this, immediately attacking one of the outlying Tokawa bases. Hirato took the bait, racing there before his forces could fully assemble, and the fortress burned. Amid the carnage the two met, the gene-forged warrior and the machine-bulked despot now equal in stature. Their duel raged across the landing plates, lesser warriors scattering from their path, savaging one another until Icarion finally plunged his spear through Hirato's throat. He had taken grievous wounds, his armour gouged and scorched, but the victory was his. Now, as people came forth to see this liberator had felled their ruler, Icarion knelt and took up the mantle Ikaru had intended for him. To his last breath, he would be the guardian of Madrigal.

Icarion was tireless in his work from this day. His first move was to reform the Astral Colleges, aiming to ensure that they exerted greater authority over their students. Destructive pride and ambition were to be discouraged, self-control stressed from the lowliest novice to the highest circle of magisters. Men of courage and wit were drawn from across the Clans to govern the world, and Madrigal began to move past the recent strife. Progress accelerated at a constant rate, making it difficult to say with any certainty when Icarion first became aware of the father coming to claim him. Scholars have passionately argued for almost any time-frame, some claiming that his first inkling precipitated the end of his exile, others suggesting that he only knew a few days before the Imperial fleet translated into the system. Regardless, when the Emperor arrived, He found His son waiting.

### The Third Son

"*You shall be likened to a thunderbolt, the essence of my wrath, the liberators to Humanity.*"
— Emperor of Mankind to Primarch Icarion Anasem, upon his assumption of command of the IInd Legion.
Reunion was treated with all the pomp and ceremony such an occasion deserved, both on Madrigal and the worlds of the existing Imperium. Primarch and Legion accepted one another eagerly. Examining the records, speaking with his sons and fairly devouring the *Principia Belicosa* and other texts, Icarion found little in the Legion's structure that he wished to alter. Their ethos he adapted subtly, weaving the teachings of the Astral College into the fabric of the Legion. This became the way in which Aspirants from both Terra and Madrigal learned to wield their powers. Resources flowed into his realm, and Akira became capable of supplying many of the Legion's demands by itself. This can be seen in their distinctive armour variants and the preponderance of vibro-blades among the Lightning Bearers.