Los Caballeros Maliciosos

Los Caballeros Maliciosos are a Chaos Warband with pairs of marines who oppose each other.

### Specialty

Anarchy, Anti-Chaos, Anti-Imperial, Raiding

### Battle Cry

"For Malice, For the Truth in the Lie, For the Lie In the Truth!"

The story of Los Caballeros Maliciosos ("The Malicious Knights") is two fold, an image reflected across an axis of fate. They are a warband of marines who worship Malice, the Chaos god of anarchy. They arrive on battlefields to do the bidding of their anarchist master; laying waste to the Ruinous Powers and their plans and actively killing the more tyrannical and fascist aspects of the Imperium. Still, they sometimes aid the Imperium when their cause is just and their leaders gallant.

## The Slow Descent to Mediocrity

The Caballeros were a chapter that had fallen on hard times. They were established during the 8th Founding with Imperial Fist genetic stock to combat a tyranid invasion but they failed to quell it. Only with the intervention of other Imperial forces were they able to drive it back.

They were then assigned to aid in the quelling of a chaos rebellion that had sprung up on several imperial worlds on the fringe. During this campaign they recovered an ancient artifact of tremendous power named “The Repercussion Engine”. They were ultimately successful but suffered greatly, winning a pyrrhic victory rather that marred their glory as much as it bolstered it.

They were then sent to do battle with a small band of pirates raiding Imperial outposts, a task normally reserved for lesser military components of the Imperium. Even this task proved to be too much for them as it turns out the pirates were under the sway of a powerful daemon. Rather than fail the chapter librarian decided to engage The Repercussion Engine and in that moment reality changed.

## The Repercussion Engine

The Repercussion Engine is a daemonic engine of the mysterious chaos god known as “Malice”. It sucked the soul from the chapter’s librarian and split every member of the chapter into two beings and empowered them all with the strength of Malice. With their new strength they overcame the Daemon and their pirates, slaying it and claiming their spoils for themselves.

The price of this victory was steep but the marines of the warband did not regret it- for too long had they been regarded unfairly by the Imperium and insulted for their failures.

## A Parasite Upon the Universe

To date the Los Caballeros Maliciosos have most commonly been seen attacking the forces of Chaos but have occasionally done battle with Imperial forces; particularly the tyrannical or fascist elements of their government.

They also have a parasitic relationship with their enemies; they regularly raid both Chaos and Imperial transports for supplies. They also capture both Loyalist and even Chaos Space Marines for new recruits. They seduce the marines, breaking their conditioning or pact with other gods with the Repercussion Engine and dedicate them to Malice in the process. Not all survive the process, particularly those who are dedicated too strongly to their cause; often scouts or neophyte Chaos Space Marines are the best candidates.

## Repercussion Marines

The Repercussion Engine reflects a person across the axis of fate: one where they had opposite allegiances and temperaments.

The following are qualities of a pair of marines affected by the Repercussion Engine:

* They can communicate mentally across any distance.
* They know whatever the other one knows.
* They can see/smell/hear/feel what the other is experiencing.
* If one dies the other dies as well.

In each pair (or “Repercussion Pair”) there is the “original”, typically a marine loyal to the Emperor, and a “reflection” which is a half-mad Chaos Space Marine.

### Relationship

Members of a pair despise each other, particularly at their creation. Pairs will actively try kill each other at first and need to be isolated until the brainwashing of the warband can take hold.

They have a form of “doublethink” where opposites are seen as the “the same” or “complimentary”. Things like: *“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it”.*

By embracing this dulling of morality and thus extremity the Los Caballeros Maliciosos eventually learn to both love and hate their twin. The loyalist twin will often accept “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and the ruinous one will accept that their loyalist counterparts are a means to an end. Still, pairs bicker almost incessantly and there are many deaths due to inter-pair suicide.

## Organization

The warband is a total mess, anarchy incarnate, yet it still manages to function.

Their “rules” are dictated by might, survival, and getting ahead. Malice speaks though the “Lords of Malice”, a pair of Chaos Lords who command the warband through their brutal power and willingness to spread riches.

Most assets of the warband are organized on the squad level, with various marines in those components all vying for power amongst each other. Only the strength and generosity of the Aspiring Champion/Chosen of each squad keeps the others in line.

Unique to the chapter are their doubled nature. Pairs will sometimes serve in the same squad to protect their own life more easily but they’ll also sometimes serve in different squads for a tactical advantage. (Imagine being a sniper who had eyes right next to the target they were aiming at!)

It’s not uncommon to see pairs of Caballeros Maliciosos roaming the battlefield without a squad and Malice embraces this disregard of rules.