White Scars - Khan of Khans: Scattered across the galaxy through the Warp from the Emperor of Mankind's secret gene-laboratory beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains of Terra along with the 19 other primarchs by the machinations of the Ruinous Powers of Chaos, the gestation capsule of the special child later known as Jaghatai Khan was deposited on the vast steppe-lands of the fertile Feudal World sometimes listed on older Imperial star charts as Mundus Planus.The inhabitants of Mundus Planus, who knew the world as "Chogoris" rather than by its official (and overly literal) High Gothic name, had managed to struggle back from the terrible destruction of the Age of Strife to a pre-industrial level of technology.The dominant Chogorian culture was technologically analogous to that of the Renaissance period of the 2nd Millennium in ancient Terran history by the time of the Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium, having just rediscovered how to incorporate gunpowder into the weapon systems of its armies. Most of Mundus Planus was under the rule of an organized feudal aristocracy, led by a monarch known as the Palatine.Jaghatai was discovered just after his arrival on the world as an infant by Ong Khan, the chieftain or khan of a small Chogorian nomadic tribe called the Talskars, who adopted the extraordinarily beautiful infant into his family, foreseeing that he would one day become a great warrior unlike any other the steppe-lands had ever known.Jaghatai's adoptive father and his Keshig was later killed by another of the tribes inhabiting the Chogorian steppes, most often identified as the Kurayed. This was an act which in the nomad culture of Chogoris demanded retaliation. Already the greatest warrior in the Talskar tribe, despite his young age, Jaghatai led many Talskar warriors in vengeance against the Kurayed.In years gone past, the son of a fallen khan would have set out on his own murder-raid, slain some few of the rival clan's own warriors or driven off their prize horses, perpetuating the endless cycle of the feud. Jaghatai chose a different path and in a single night of blood and slaughter he put an end to both the feud and the Kurayed, leaving not one of that kindred alive. He razed the enemy village to the ground, killed every inhabitant, and took the Kurayed chieftain's head to mount above his own tent.His reputation as a warrior of surpassing cruelty and skill, but little mercy, was born from this act, spreadingacross the "Empty Quarter," as the rugged and sparsely inhabited western plains were known.Following this victory, Jaghatai was elected as the Khan of the Talskars, in the process swearing to unite the tribes of the steppes and bring an end to the internecine tribal warfare that dominated their lives.The young khan pursued a campaign of subjugation among his own people, attacking each tribe in turn and offering them a simple choice: death or life under his rule. Having heard of the ruin he had made of the Kurayed, there were few who chose to oppose him and, in his wisdom, Jaghatai treated those who submitted freely with honour, raising many up to his Keshig to fight at his side.Each tribe Jaghatai and his warriors defeated had protions of its population integrated into the Talskar tribe. Jaghatai utilised his military talents and the sheer force of his superhumanly charismatic personality to win himself many followers. He made military service with his army mandatory among the Chogorian steppe tribes, and combined warriors of various tribes into mixed units, to break up previous associations and to create a common loyalty among them based in the foundation of their allegiance to him rather than their tribe.In a similar fashion, the tribes themselves were consolidated, merged together or split apart in order to foster unity and end the feuds that had kept them at each other's throats for Terran centuries. Jaghatai's own Keshig and Talskar tribe he filled with men and women of talent from across the plains, promoting ability and loyalty to the whole over bloodlines and old rivalries, and within the span of a few short solar decades, the nomadic tribes were unified under his control, naming him the Khan of Khans or "Khagan."Jaghatai's abilities enabled him to weld together a coalition of the steppe tribes to battle a Chaos Cult whose foul power was spreading throughout the main continent of Chogoris. In the final battle, he led 10,000 steppe warriors on horseback in a gallant charge against the cultists and their crude black powder cannons. Despite horrendous losses, the Chogorian tribes' charge smashed the enemy. The tribesmen pursued the cultists, butchering every one of them as they tried to flee.Since before any elder of the nomadic tribes could remember, one empire had ruled much of Chogoris, an empire of tall cities and proud princes that lay far to the east of the Empty Quarter. The lands of the horse nomads, barren and inhospitable as they were, had always been beneath its notice, save as a hunting ground for bored nobles seeking to slake their bloodlust.Ten Terran years later after uniting all the tribes of the Empty Quarter, Jaghatai was caught in an avalanche. He was discovered by the son of the Palatine, the ruling emperor of the eastern empire's nobility, who like many Chogorian nobles had taken to the sport of capturing an Empty Quarter tribesman and hunting him through the mountains. The exact course of events is unknown, but it was said that only a single man of the hunting party returned, bearing the head of the Palatine's son along with a message for that ruler. "The people of the steppes are yours no longer."The enraged Palatine gathered his army and marched west with his disciplined heavy infantry and armoured lancers, to engage the wild horse tribes of the Empty Quarter in combat, but was soundly defeated in a battle that lasted a local day and a night.Heavily armoured in mail and plate armour, and accustomed to engaging in decisive melee combat with other heavy cavalry and heavy infantry forces supported by light infantry arquebusiers, the Palatine's pike-and-shot army was no match for the light cavalry and relentless bow fire of Jaghatai's forces. The Khan of Khans met the Palatine with the full muster of the tribes of the Empty Quarter and destroyed his army, making full use of the mobile tactics and speed he would later use to mould the White Scars.The Palatine barely escaped capture, but was eventually killed as Jaghatai's army flowed into the lands once held by the Palatine's aristocracy, either conquering or destroying everything in their path. The victory over the Palatine was the first step along a path of conquest that would see Jaghatai crowned ruler of the entire world of Chogoris.He prosecuted the same strategy that he had employed among the horse tribes, but on a grander scale. To each city and nation his undefeated armies encountered he offered his choice, to serve or to die, and with each victory and submission his power grew. With cruelty in one hand and generosity in the other, both held in plain sight for all his subjects to see, the Khagan overtook the world and bent it to his whims.Jaghatai's power eventually encompassed the planet's lone continent, a global empire forged across the breadth of Chogoris in less than twenty standard years. As the ruler of his world, Jaghatai ended the wars that had wracked Chogoris, keeping the peace with the threat of utter ruin for those who transgressed his simple laws.What the Khagan might have created in isolation from the embers of civilisation on Chogoris will never be known, for it was but a short while after his ascension to the throne that the Emperor of Mankind arrived to change his destiny forever.