Thramas Crusade - On the Eve of Thramas: In the fifth year of the 31" Millennium Horus Lupercal, Warmaster, most favoured son of the Emperor and hero of the Great Crusade, plunged the Imperium of Man into a civil war from which it would never truly recover. Amid the shattered cities of the lonely and distant world of Isstvan III, he set the transhuman warriors of the Legiones Astartes against their brothers, raising the banner of rebellion and drowned his oaths of loyalty in blood. Those of his brothers that held true to their oaths would come to face him at the Drop Site Massacre on Isstvan V, only to find that Horus had laid well his plans of treason. Fully half of the Emperor's primarchs and Space Marine Legions were already secretly sworn to Horus' side and they turned their guns upon their kin with abandon, leaving the pride of the Imperium broken upon the black sands of that once insignificant world.Worse yet, the Primarch Ferrus Manus would be slain outright, his head made a trophy for the traitor Warmaster, and Corvus Corax and Vulkan lost to their sons. At a stroke Horus had shattered the Legions that had all but conquered the galaxy, cleaved apart the heart of the Imperium and laid clear his path to the throne.That would be his ultimate goal, Terra, the Throneworld of the Imperium, that he might cast down his own father and take His place. In his way stood Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian of Terra, and the few remaining steadfast Loyalist armies of the Imperium, the other loyal primarchs scattered to the far corners of the Imperium and unable to come to the Emperor's aid. A narrow belt of worlds held the main route from the far north and Isstvan to Terra, the fortresses of Paramar V, Beta-Garmon and Lorin Alpha. Here would be fought a desperate holding action, Rogal Dorn spending all his resources and committing all those warriors at his command to slowing the advance of the increasingly Chaos-corrupted Traitor hordes.For two long standard years they would hold the line, keeping Horus at bay at the cost of millions of lives in a series of bitter sieges and desperate battles, a conflict that would spawn legends and myths to last 10,000 Terran years. Yet even as they fought, the flame of rebellion spread and took root in all the worlds of the wider Imperium, the war no longer a simple matter of overthrowing Terra and claiming the Imperial throne, but a sprawling morass of old grudges and feuds now ignited into open battle.The short and decisive war that Horus had planned for had not come to pass, his triumphant advance on Terra stymied in standard years of grinding conflict, all while the Imperium bled and suffered. Those few loyal Legions that retained the force of arms to resist the Traitors in open war were penned in small enclaves, unable to halt the chaos that now spread to engulf the realm they had fought to create.The Imperial Fists were arrayed defiantly about Terra, their strength the only remaining bar to the Warmaster's onslaught. Distant Ultramar, the rich domain of the Ultramarines where the largest army in all the Imperium waited for the call to arms, was in ruins and cut off from all contact with Terra, which they presumed had now fallen to the enemy.Even the fortress system of Baal and the proud warriors of the Blood Angels sat within a cage of the Warmaster's making, paralysed by the absence of their master deployed on the Signus Campaign and inundated with the broken survivors of Isstvan V and the terrible doubt those broken warriors of the Shattered Legions carried with them. Yet, despite their hardships these disparate forces had managed to slow the Traitors with their stubborn refusal to fall before the might of their treasonous brothers, keeping alive the embers of the Loyalist cause as they fought.Defeat loomed dark and grim on the horizon for the forces of the Emperor, for though they could delay the Warmaster and his hordes, they could strike no decisive blow to end his onslaught. It would simply be a matter of bitter time and gruesome sacrifice before Horus tightened his grip around Terra and took the throne for himself. Those that still remained loyal would not make this task easy, they would fight to their last drop of blood to oppose the Warmaster and those of their brothers that had forsaken their oaths in order to serve him, fighting a series of grim sieges and bitter raiding campaigns to hold them at bay.The fortress of Paramar V would change hands many times, the three major assaults upon it consuming millions of lives and costing Horus many long solar months of battle, while the daring assaults of the Raven Guard and White Scars would slow the passage of Traitor troops and munitions from Horus' northern strongholds to a crawl. Yet, even this bravery would last only so long, and in return Horus would claim dominion over all the worlds of the northern galaxy; from the dark machine-vaults of Xana II to the shining spires of Angelis, the Eye of Horus flew triumphant and the isolated pockets of resistance were crushed beneath the heel of his vast army.Worlds that had once given their loyalty only grudgingly to the Emperor now gleefully threw off those shackles to take up the cause of the Warmaster, eager to curry his favour in the hope they too could reap their share of the spoils of war. Even those worlds that had once freely bent the knee to the Emperor now forsook their vows in the face of His apparently inevitable defeat, fearing that Horus would wreak a terrible vengeance on those that did not join him once he had taken Terra.Worlds that stood strong in the face of the storm that was the Horus Heresy would find themselves alone amid a sea of foes, never knowing which of their once stalwart allies they could trust in the chaos. Human cultures that had survived all the terrors of Old Night would fall silent in the face of this new war, consumed not by the wrath of the xenos scourge that had once terrorised them but by those they had once called brother.Old allies who had gone to war under the Aquila banner of the Emperor would fall upon each other in red abandon, while those that had once been rivals for glory in the Great Crusade now found themselves desperate allies against the traitorous hordes. All that had once seemed right and good, all the ceremonies of innocence and loyalty, were drowned in blood and none could see where the death would end.The galaxy-wide empire that had been built during the Great Crusade began to tear itself apart, a final fall of darkness upon the grand dreams of unity and empire that the Emperor had kindled in Mankind's collective soul. The fragile web of courier frigates and astropathic relays that bound its worlds together began to fray as war and madness took its toll, the remaining fragments singing a grim dirge of terror and destruction, word of the Warmaster's bloody march on Terra and the fall of Loyalist strongholds.Fear ruled in almost every sector of that wide realm that the Legiones Astartes had forged, a fickle master that goaded its subjects to unwise war and futile battle, to abandon their neighbour and offer up the weak in the hope of their own salvation. In those savage years there were but few lights in the darkness, a few fleeting tales of bravery and respite that passed like whispers through the tattered remnants of the astropathic network.They spoke of the return of Corvus Corax from the grave of Isstvan V, of the valiant defence of Baal and the gathering might of Ultramar waiting to be unleashed. Few believed such tales, for all about them was now blood and ruin, death and terror. Such was the fragile nature of civilisation in those years that each rumour of doom held more power than any loudly broadcast litany of hope.All it would take was one final blow to the structure of the Imperium, one more strike to the heart of that fragile Human empire and it would crumble to dust and ashes. Once again it would plunge into the abyss of chaos and isolation that had sought to swallow it once before, and Horus would be left with only the broken fragments of the Emperor's glorious vision.As the seventh year of the 31st Millennium began, the second full standard year of the civil war for the Imperium, there were few parts of that wide realm that had not given themselves over to bloodshed and madness, few worlds of import not invested by the warriors of one side or another. Of those, lost amid the darkness at the far Eastern Fringe of the Imperium, Thramas seemed an unlikely fulcrum upon which to lever the course of history, but this oft-forgotten outpost of the Great Crusade was now to take its place in the annals of the Horus Heresy. Here would the fate of emperors and empires be sealed, here would the last of the great warlords of the Age of Darkness take their place upon the stage.