vizn3r/warhammer40k-lore huggingface dataset:
War in Heaven (Aeldari) - Divine Bloodshed: At the outset of the conflict between the gods of the Aeldari Pantheon, Asuryan approached Morai-Heg, the goddess of fate, seeking to know the destiny of the gods. The Crone read the wild skeins of destiny and followed every tangled thread. No matter where she gazed, every path led to death and fire and pain, and she could see no further. Perturbed but undeterred, she followed Khaine, and took from him without his knowing a single thimble of his fiery blood. She placed this burning liquid upon her scales, and against it delicately set the strand of fate belonging to the mortal Eldanesh, spear-carrier and ally of the Falcon.Their weight was equal. Now in possession of an answer to the Phoenix King's question, she took it to the lord of the pantheon. The Mistress of Fate informed Asuryan of what she had learned: the fate of the gods ultimately lay in the hands of their mortal worshippers. By mortal actions alone would the Aeldari gods live or die.Many gods and lesser beings of the heavens took sides and changed sides in the conflict, struck bargains and broke them -- as was their nature -- following their own agendas as much as they pretended to follow those of others. Heaven shook with the thunder of divine battle. Only Asuryan refused to align himself with any other, though he hated the damage that was wrought. No finer example of wisdom has there ever been, for despite all the treachery and fury, when swords were finally sheathed and the dead at last buried, Asuryan still remained the lord of Vaul and Khaine both.The final battle of this conflict was fought between its instigators, the Great Smith and the Lord of War. Vaul had forged a potent blade, the one hundredth weapon he had agreed to make for Khaine, and the greatest of all the hundred Swords of Vaul. He imbued it with all the art of his mastery, utilising every skill he had ever learned, and named it Anaris, the "Light of Dawn." For many hours did the two gods clash, and severe were the wounds both suffered at the hands of their opponent. For all the might of Anaris, the Great Craftsman was no match for the Lord of War's wrath. Khaine overpowered the smith god and cast him out of heaven. Such were the injuries Vaul had suffered that he was left forever after broken in body. Then Khaine shackled the lamed Great Smith to his own anvil, using chains Vaul himself had once forged.Khaine roared, glorifying in his final triumph. All he had left to accomplish was to claim Anaris as his own. As he reached to collect the fallen blade, however, Faolchú the Falcon, consort of the Great Hawk, swept the Light of Dawn up into his great talons, crossed the barrier between realms and dropped the divinely-crafted sword into the hands of the mortal Eldanesh.
War in Heaven (Aeldari) - Murder of Eldanesh: Khaine's hatred for the mortal Eldanesh burned with all the blazing heat of his fiery blood. Long before the War in Heaven, they had once fought side-by-side. Many victories did the Lord of Murder give the mortal shield-bearer, on battlefield after battlefield. Together they struck down the Autochtinii, the Sraerkyn and the Ynk'irln. After one such glorious conquest, Khaine gave Eldanesh a wondrous vision -- in this the Aeldari champion was lord of the galaxy. None were more powerful than he. All Aeldari followed him as their greatest hero, and no enemy could stand against him and hope for anything but a swift demise. All that Khaine requested in exchange was Eldanesh's oath of fealty. But this Eldanesh refused.Even bearing mighty Anaris and filled with righteous desire to strike down the god who had gaoled and tortured his beloved divine parents, Eldanesh was feeble in comparison to the god of war, and Khaine simply tore him apart in the murderous clash that followed.As the gods declared Khaine's final victory over god and mortal alike, Anaris held firm in the hand still dripping with Eldanesh's gleaming blood, Faolchú and the Great HAwk bore the lifeless, blood-streaked corpse of Eldanesh into the air, and set it in the sky. There it became the Red Moon, which for aeons served as a constant reminder of the great champion's death. Until, that is, the Fall of the Aeldari, when that ancient race finally succumbed to its own arrogance and hubris, She Who Thirsts was born, and the ancient Aeldari Empire's homeworlds were consumed by the powers of Chaos.
War in Heaven (Aeldari) - Curse of Khaine: At long last, the War in Heaven was over, with Khaine as the undisputed victor. But his merciless slaughter of Eldanesh was not the last act of this bitter conflict. Instead it was to the god of war's brother Asuryan that the final deed fell. So appalled was the Phoenix King by the slaying of the first lord of the Aeldari that Asuryan laid a curse upon his brother Khaine.The blood of Eldanesh that dripped from the Lord of Murder's hand would now do so eternally, reminding all of what he had done, of the unnecessary life he had taken in his unchecked wrath. Thus he has been known ever since by the Aeldari as Kaela Mensha Khaine -- "Khaine the Bloody-Handed" in the Aeldari Lexicon.
War in Heaven (Necron) - War in Heaven (Necron): The War in Heaven was an ancient and devastating conflict fought between the humanoid Necrontyr xenos later known as the Necrons, their C'tan allies and the Old Ones. The war was fought over sixty million Terran years before the 41st Millennium.With the power granted by the C'tan, the Necrons ultimately proved victorious over their hated Old One adversaries, relegating that ancient species to extinction or to flight from the Milky Way Galaxy.But the suffering and destruction unleashed by the war cascaded through the Immaterium, ultimately destabilising it and unleashing the plague of Enslavers that almost destroyed all sentient life.At the same time, the ancient Aeldari -- a psychically powerful species created by the Old Ones during the war -- began their rise to galactic mastery.After overthrowing the rule of their C'tan masters, the Necrons chose to retire to their Tomb Worlds and enter the Great Sleep, waiting until the plague had passed, their own divisions and discord had faded into irrelevance and the Aeldari civilisation had passed its peak.Only then would the galaxy be ripe once more for conquest and their Great Awakening commence.
War in Heaven (Necron) - Birth of the Star Gods: The birth of the entities called the C'tan and later known as the "Star Gods" occurred at the same time as the moment of Creation itself, as they formed from the vast, insensate energies first unleashed by that churning mass of cataclysmic force. In that anarchic interweaving of matter and energy, the sea of stars began to swirl into existence and for an eon the universe was nothing more than hot hydrogen gas and light elemental dust ruled over by the gravitic force of billions of newborn suns.Long before the first planets had formed and cooled, the very first truly self-aware beings emerged into the universe, their thoughts encased within the lines of force produced by the plasma and electromagnetic flares of the stars themselves. In later times, these entities would become known as the C'tan by the Necrons, but early in their existence they were nothing like the malevolent beings they would eventually become. They were little more than monstrous energy parasites that suckled upon the solar energies of the stars that had brought them into existence, shortening the lives of otherwise main-sequence stars by millions of standard years.In time, these star vampires learned to move along the lines of the universe's electromagnetic flux, leaving their birthplaces to drift through the cosmic ether to new stellar feeding grounds and begin their cycle of stellar destruction once more. Beings of pure energy, they paid no mind to the hunks of solid matter they passed in the vacuum of space, the blazing geothermal fires and weak geomagnetic fields of these nascent planets insufficient to be worth feeding even their ravenous hunger.
War in Heaven (Necron) - Old Ones: Just as the stars gave birth to their children so the planets of the newborn Milky Way Galaxy eventually gave birth to lifeforms composed of matter which began the long evolutionary climb to self-awareness. The first intelligent beings of the galaxy known to have developed a civilisation technologically advanced enough to cross the stars was a reptilian species of beings later called the "Old Ones" by the Aeldari, who knew them best of all their creations.The Old Ones possessed a slow, cold-blooded, but still deep wisdom, having long studied the stars and raised astronomy and physics to such a level that their science and technology appear now to Humanity like an arcane art. Their understanding of the workings of the universe were such that they could manipulate alternate dimensions and undertake great works of psychic engineering.The Old Ones were potent psykers who routinely used the powers of the Warp for a wide variety of technological applications. This included the construction of a system of instantaneous faster-than-light portals through Warpspace. These portals connected all of the Old Ones' colony worlds, allowing them to cross the vast gulfs of space with only a single step through the myriad Warp Gates they built to connect the worlds of the galaxy. This was a vast interdimensional network much like the Webway of today which is its direct descendant, though on a much larger and more advanced scale.Through this network the Old Ones spread their spawn to many places in the galaxy, but they also knew that all life was precious. Where they passed, they seeded new intelligent species and reshaped thousands of worlds to make them their own according to their predetermined environmental and geographic criteria. It is believed by some in the Adeptus Mechanicus that even Terra felt the Old Ones' touch long before Humanity's rise to self-awareness, though this notion is considered heretical at best by the Ecclesiarchy, as the Imperial Creed teaches that Mankind was made in the image of the God-Emperor before His spirit was incarnated in physical flesh millennia ago.The Old Ones' civilisation reached its height in excess of 60 million standard years ago. The Old Ones were responsible for the creation or genetic advancement of most of the currently active intelligent species of the galaxy, including the Aeldari, the Krork (the Orks' precursors), the Slann and the Jokaero, though it is unknown if they played any direct role in the evolution of Humanity.
War in Heaven (Necron) - The Tide Turns: The Old Ones' psychically-empowered servant species spread across the galaxy, battling the advanced Necron technology with the psychic power of their Warp-spawned "magic." Facing this new onslaught, the C'tan's empire was shattered, as the psychic forces of the Immaterium were anathema to soulless entities whose existence was wholly contained within purely physical patterns of electromagnetic force. For all the destruction they could unleash, they were unable to stop the Old Ones and the younger races' relentless advance across the stars.The remaining C'tan, unified by this great threat for the first time in millions of Terran years, sought a way to defeat the soul-fuelled energies of the younger species. They initiated a great warding, a plan to forever defeat the psychic sorceries of the Old Ones by sealing off the material universe from the Warp, a plan whose first fruits could once be found on the Imperial Fortress World of Cadia in the form of the great pylons that littered the surface of that world in intricate networks and create the area of space-time stability near the Eye of Terror known as the Cadian Gate.With their god-like powers, it was only a matter of time until the C'tan succeeded. But before their great work was complete, the seeds of destruction the Old Ones had planted millennia before brought about an unforeseen cataclysm. The growing pains and collective psychic flaws of the younger species threw the untapped, psychically-reactive energies of the Immaterium into disorder.War, pain and destruction were mirrored in the bottomless depth of the Sea of Souls that was the Warp. The maelstrom of souls unleashed into the Immaterium by the carnage of the War in Heaven coalesced in the previously formless energies of the Warp. Older entities that had existed within the Immaterium transformed into terrifying psychic predators, tearing at the souls of vulnerable psykers as their own environment was torn apart and reforged into the Realm of Chaos.
War in Heaven (Necron) - Enslaver Plague: The denizens of the Warp, stirred into a frenzy by the conflict in the Materium, clustered voraciously at the cracks between the Immaterium and the material universe, seeking new ways to enter the physical realm. The Old Ones brought forth new genetically-engineered warrior species to defend their last strongholds, including the technology-mimicking Jokaero and the formidable, green-skinned Krork who were the ancestors of the present day Orks, but it was already too late. The Old Ones' intergalactic Webway network was breached from the Immaterium and lost to them, several of their Warp Gates were destroyed by their own hands to prevent the entities of the Warp from spreading to uncorrupted worlds and the Old Ones' greatest works and places of power were overrun by the horrors their own creations had unleashed.The most terrifying of these horrors were the Enslavers, Warp entities whose ability to dominate the minds of the younger species and create their own portals into the material realm using mutated, possessed psykers brought them forth in ever greater numbers. For the Old Ones, this was the final disaster as the Enslavers took control of their servants. The Pandora's Box unleashed by the creation of the younger species finally scattered the last of the Old Ones and broke their power over the galaxy once and for all. Life had stood at the edge of an apocalypse during the War in Heaven between the Old Ones and the C'tan. Now as the Enslavers breached the Immaterium in epidemic proportions, the survivors looked doomed.Ultimately, beset by the implacable onset of the C'tan and the calamitous Warp-spawned perils they had themselves mistakenly unleashed, the Old Ones were defeated, scattered and finally destroyed. Whether the species went extinct or simply fled the galaxy to seek a new haven elsewhere is unknown.
War in Heaven (Necron) - Silent King's Betrayal: Throughout the final stages of the War in Heaven, Szarekh bided his time, waiting for the moment in which the C'tan would prove most vulnerable.Though the entire Necron species was now his to command, the Silent King could not hope to oppose the C'tan at the height of their power, and even if he did and met with success, the Necrons would then have to finish the War in Heaven against the Old Ones and their increasingly potent allied species alone. No, the Old Ones had to be completely and utterly defeated before the C'tan could be brought to account for the horror they had wrought among the Necrontyr.And so, when the C'tan finally won their great war, their triumph was short-lived. With one hated enemy finally defeated, and the other spent from hard-fought victory, the Silent King at last led the Necrons in revolt. In their arrogance, the C'tan did not realise their danger until it was too late.The Necrons focused the unimaginable energies of the living universe into weapons, god-killing hypercannons devised by the finest Crypteks in the galaxy, too mighty for even the Star Gods to endure. Not even the great overlords of the Necron crownworlds well remember the battles against the Star Gods, for causality itself was damaged by the forces unleashed to dismember the C'tan, and the Silent King was wont to remove the knowledge of the dreadful weapons employed from his warriors after the fact in fear of what might later be done with them.Alas, the C'tan were immortal star-spawn, part of the fundamental fabric of reality and therefore nigh-impossible to destroy. So was each C'tan instead sundered into thousands of smaller and less powerful energetic fragments each with the personality of the whole entity, yet this outcome was sufficient to the Silent King's goals.Indeed, he had known the C'tan's ultimate destruction to be impossible and had drawn his plans accordingly; each newborn "C'tan Shard" was bound within a multidimensional Tesseract Labyrinth, as tramelled and secured as a legendary Terran djinn trapped in a bottle. Though the cost of victory was high -- millions of Necrons had been destroyed as a consequence of their rebellion, including all of the members of the Triarch save the Silent King himself -- the Necrons were once more in command of their own destiny.
War in the Labyrinth - War in the Labyrinth: The War in the Labyrinth is the name given to a battle between the Aeldari faction known as the Ynnari and a warband of the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion, the Prodigal Sons, led by the infamous Chaos Sorcerer Ahzek Ahriman that was fought within the confines of the Webway.A council of Asuryani elders had gathered in the aftermath of Prince Yriel's resurrection following the Battle of Iyanden. Together they discussed the new doom that faced the galaxy as the Great Rift came into being.After long debate they came to the conclusion that only by giving the teeming masses of Humanity a fighting chance to hurl back the forces of the Ruinous Powers could they avert a doom that would see the Aeldari species suffer and die.The Ynnari, now bolstered by a large contingent from Craftworld Iyanden, braved the shattered spars of the Webway once more. After a fraught journey where they were forced to face the legendary Ahzek Ahriman and his Thousand Sons Rubric Marines, they reached the ice moon of Klaisus in the Cadian System, that frozen orb which had appeared large in the divinations of the Asuryani Seers.There the Ynnari rendezvoused with the surviving Imperial forces who had fled the fall of Cadia to Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade under the command of Saint Celestine, Inquisitor Katarinya Greyfax and Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl.A pact was struck, and together the uneasy allies headed through the Webway to Macragge, the capital world of the Realm of Ultramar, there to resurrect the Primarch Roboute Guilliman who could lead Humanity in its darkest hour.
War in the Museum (Short Story) - War in the Museum (Short Story): War in the Museum by Robert Rath is a Warhammer 40,000 short story published in 2020 and collected in the anthology Nexus & Other Stories.
War in the Museum (Short Story) - Synopsis: Dormant for millions of years and now reborn into bodies of living metal, the Necrons are among the galaxy's most ancient races.Of those Necrons who have retained traces of their former personalities, the most eccentric is Trazyn the Infinite, overlord and master of the Solemnace Galleries.  He is a collector and historian, who has gathered countless living artefacts of the galaxy's history in his vast museum. In War in the Museum, Trazyn must capture a deadly alien predator that has escaped his collection.
War of Faith - War of Faith: A War of Faith is a religiously-inspired military conflict engaged in by Imperial military forces that has been ordered and blessed by the Adeptus Ministorum, the state church of the Imperium of Man.Sometimes confused with the similar state-sanctioned military campaign known as an Imperial Crusade, a War of Faith differs in both who commands it and who participates in it.An Imperial Crusade is declared on the order of the secular rulers of the Imperium, the High Lords of Terra or the Lord Commander of the Imperium, and involves multiple branches of the Imperial military, including the Adeptus Astartes, the Astra Militarum, the Imperial Navy and administrative support provided by the rest of the Adeptus Terra and the Ministorum.A War of Faith, however, is declared on the sole spiritual and temporal authority of the reigning ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum and often includes only the military forces under the control of the Ministorum. These include the Frateris Templar before the Age of Apostasy and the Frateris Militia and the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas since the 36th Millennium.However, despite this distinction, Wars of Faith and Imperial Crusades often overlap in many ways and both will be employed to seek the conquest of new territory, retake worlds lost to enemies of the God-Emperor, purge rebels or Heretics to the Imperial Creed, and eradicate xenos and mutants who threaten Mankind.Wars of Faith have also sometimes been declared against factions within the Adeptus Ministorum itself who have been deemed heretical or too radical to be tolerated even by the relatively wide bounds of the Imperial church's theological orthodoxy.Wars of Faith have been declared concurrently with an Imperial Crusade and thus are also sometimes carried out by other Imperial armed forces outside of the Adeptus Ministorum, such as the regiments of the Astra Militarum. But when a War of Faith involves only the forces of the Ministorum, it is funded and directed solely by the resources of the Ecclesiarchy.Though a War of Faith is initiated and financed on the order of the ecclesiarch, he or she does not have total control over the course or direction of a War of Faith. If they so choose, the High Lords of Terra can intervene in a War of Faith, though they usually refrain from doing so with Wars of Faith that only concern internal matters of the Ministorum.
War of Faith - Notable Wars of Faith: War of the BeastBenedictine WarWar of the ConfessorCataclysm of SoulsOrpheus RevoltPromethean WarWar for PietyDefence of DimmamarSecond Tyrannic WarDefence of San Leor
War of the Beast - War of the Beast: The War of the Beast, also known as WAAAGH! The Beast, was a massive Ork WAAAGH! of extraordinary size that threatened Terra itself in the mid-32nd Millennium and brought an end to the prosperous period of Imperial history remembered as the "Time of Rebirth." It was led by the mysterious Warboss known only as "The Beast."The Orks of this horde rampaged across the Imperium on a massive scale beginning in 544.M32. The number of attacks grew until it became the greatest Greenskin invasion that the galaxy has ever known, eclipsing even the one defeated by Horus of the Luna Wolves upon the world of Ullanor during the Great Crusade, which earned the primarch the title of Warmaster.Nothing was safe from the Orks' primal desire to conquer the galaxy, and the War of the Beast was the largest conflict fought by the Imperium since the Horus Heresy.The Orks' widespread advance was only halted in 546.M32 when the Imperium resorted to the most extreme and desperate of measures to invade the Ork homeworld of Ullanor Prime and eliminate The Beast. The war incurred terrible costs upon the Space Marine Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes and the other military forces of the Imperium. However, the war also gave birth to the Ordo Xenos of the Inquisition and the Deathwatch Chapter of Veteran Space Marines who were together tasked with making sure that no xenos threat to Human dominance of the galaxy ever grew so great again.
War of the Beast - Last Wall Protocol: Over the following solar months, it soon became apparent to the Imperium that more than one Ork Attack Moon was causing havoc, as the unstoppable tides of unusually large greenskins spread across the Segmentum Solar, swallowing up entire system. Soon entire sub-sectors faced inevitable defeat, and finally, whole sectors were overrun by the massive WAAAGH!, which saw billions upon billions of Imperial citizens perish on the conflagration. The chaos caused by the Ork Attack Moons saw powerful gravitational and psychic storms driving millions of citizens to madness, while others, driven to desperation, formed cults dedicated to the worship of the mighty Beast.Unfortunately, their foolish efforts availed them little, as they too, were slaughtered in the wake of the unstoppable greenskin tide. Faced with such an implacable enemy, the High Lords of Terra were rendered ineffective, as they continuously bickered amongst themselves of what appropriate course of action should be undertaken to defeat the Ork forces of The Beast. With no real leadership provided during this crisis, Lord High Admiral Lansun refused to cooperate with the Astra Militarum, and instead gathered his fleet at the Glaucasian Gulf. Meanwhile, as the Grand Master of Assassins, Drakan Vangorich, attempted to counter the Lord High Admiral's influence amongst their peers of the Senatorum Imperialis, he also made the troubling discovery that there were Adeptus Mechanicus forces hiding among the Ork WAAAGH! Their agenda was unknown to Vangorich, but the Grand Master of Assassins vowed to get to the bottom of this.Meanwhile, High Marshal (Chapter Master) Bohemond of the Black Templars Chapter, undertook a quest to help reunite the scattered Successor Chapters that hailed from the lineage of Rogal Dorn. Koorland, now known as the "Last Son of Dorn", took part in this clandestine meeting between several of their fellow Scions of Dorn in the Phall System, which included representatives from the Black Templars, Crimson Fists, Excoriators and Fists Exemplar. As sole remaining Imperial Fists representative, Koorland invoked the "Last Wall Protocol", a contingency established by Rogal Dorn himself, that was only to be enacted in the event Terra was under grave threat, or perhaps had even fallen. Then all the Successor Chapters of the Imperial Fists Legion would come together to deal with the matter as one. Even if the Imperial Fists Chapter itself were to be destroyed, the other Successor Chapters of the old VII Legion would assume its duties. The Iron Knights would also respond to this call-to-arms, while the Soul Drinkers Chapter could not be contact.
War of the Beast - Imperial Palace Incursion: Panic and disorder erupted within the Imperial Palace as a small Aledari strike force of seven Harlequins led by Shadowseer Lhaerial Rey, infiltrated the confines of the sprawling fortress of the Master of Mankind. Intent on delivering a message at the behest of Farseer Eldrad Ulthran, the Aeldari let none stand in their ways as they brushed past the elite Lucifer Blacks security and massacred any who attempted to impede their advance towards the Sanctum Imperialis. The Harlequins managed to reach the confines of the Inner Palace itself, where they encountered a large force of hundreds of furious Custodians of the Adeptus Custodes - the elite transhuman bodyguard of the Emperor Himself. Bound by oath and duty, the Custodians struck down the Aeldari strike force that attempted to breach Emperor's throne room. In the end, only Shadowseer Lhaerial Rey remained, grievously wounded and captured by the Custodians at the foot of the Eternity Gate. She claimed to be a messenger of "peace", but Captain-General Beyreuth refused to acknowledge the lying xenos and ordered her execution. It was at this moment, that both Grand Master of Assassins Vangorich and Inquisitorial Representative Veritus arrived on the scene. Intervening on the fallen Aeldari's behalf, they urged the Captain-General to not execute the Shadowseer and allow both of them to take the xenos into their custody so that she could be properly interrogated. Though reluctant, Beyreuth complied with the High Lords' wishes, and allowed the Aeldari to be taken away. After interrogating Lhaerial at the Inquisitorial Fortress, the Shadowseer revealed that she had been dispatched by the Farseer Eldrad Ulthran himself, in order to deliver a message to the Master of Mankind. To prove her intent that she was delivering a message of peace, she presented a tooth of a Nocturne drake that the Salamanders Primarch Vulkan has supposedly given to the Farseer Eldrad. Lhariel went on to state that through the efforts of Craftworld Ulthwé, they had managed to calm the Warp around the proximity of Terra in order to aid the Imperium's war effort against the greenskin menace. However, the true threat of Ruinous Powers was gathering.
War of the Beast - Return of Vulkan: Following this successful coup, Inquisitorial Representative Veritus informed now-Lord Commander Koorland of valuable information that could potentially drastically change the outcome of the War of the Beast -- the lost Primarch of the Salamanders Legion, Vulkan, had been rediscovered upon the world of Caldera, waging a one-man war against the greenskin hordes of The Beast. Desperate to defeat The Beast, Koorland immediately gathering an ad-hoc force of several "Last Wall" Chapters, Astra Militarum, Imperial Navy and Mechanicus forces. Lord Commander Koorland led the expedition to the world to recruit the Primarch to fight against The Beast. The Lord Commander understood that to recruit a living Primarch to their cause, that the Imperium might finally be able to tip the balance in their favour. When Lord Commander Koorland and Veritus traveled to Caldera to seek out the lost Primarch, Vulkan seemed to know who Veritus was, but his relationship to the Primarch remained elusive. Upon the Imperial fleet's arrival, they witnessed the might of the Primarch, single-handedly holding back the Ork invasion. With his innate regenerative abilities along with his powerful new weapon, Doomtremor, Vulkan was able to massacre thousands of Orks, drawing the remaining greenskins to attack him instead of Caldera's Imperial defenders.Despite his best efforts, inevitably, the planet was doomed. The Orks were in the process of converting the planet into a new Attack Moon by draining the planet's surface and core into orbit with a gravitic generator on the surface. When the Lord Commander was finally able to meet with the Primarch, Vulkan initially refused to join the Crusade, until he was able to save Caldera from destruction, honouring a vow he made long ago. With help from Koorland and his Imperial forces they were able to destroy an Ork Attack Moon in Caldera's orbit, thus averting catastrophe. Following the destruction of the gravitic generator and apparent death of the Primarch, Vulkan later appeared fully regenerated.With the planet finally saved, Vulkan agreed to join with Koorland and journey with the Lord Commander back to Terra. Once they arrived, they found the Imperial host that was set to march upon Ullanor, waiting for them. The Salamanders' Primarch scolded the High Lords for their squabbling and ineptitude, but did not purge them for the sake of unity, though it would have been beneficial had he done so. Vulkan proclaimed that he would lead the might of the Imperium's forces to Ullanor and confront The Beast himself, and finally end his menace once and for all.
War of the Beast - Aftermath: In the aftermath of the Imperium's victory achieved during the Third Battle of Ullanor, The Beast's WAAAGH! finally collapsed, though thousands of Imperial systems remained under threat of the remaining Greenskins. The newly instilled Lord Commander of the Imperium, Maximus Thane, decreed that the Imperium would raise as many new Chapters as they had gene-seed in the great vaults of Terra to sustain. All Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes were ordered to release a portion of their Veterans to provide the initial basis for this Founding, the greatest since the First Founding. Gene-seed tithing would be doubled for the next standard century to replenish the vaults. When it was done, there would be hundreds of Chapters to ring the Imperium in adamantium and ceramite instead of dozens.The Lord Commander also decreed that the Imperial Fists would no longer garrison the Throneworld of Terra, as they would become a Crusading Chapter to bring their strength and Thane's authority as Lord Commander of the Imperium to the beleaguered worlds of the Imperium, to free them from alien tyranny, and speed their reconstruction. Knowing that his labours would be long, and that he might never see the Throneworld again, Thane invested Drakan Vangorich as the new Lord Protector of the Imperium, to be his personal representative and act as his voice and his hand, to be heeded and treated with as if Thane were present himself. To allay the High Lords' misgivings, he reminded them that the threat of his return would be enough to ensure Vangorich's good behaviour.
War of the Beast - Fury of the Space Marines: When the Imperial Fists' Crusade fleet finally arrived back at Terra, four hundred Space Marines were despatched to the capital world's surface. A company each from two of the newly founded Chapters, the Halo Brethren and the Sable Swords, as well as two hundred Imperial Fists of the 1st, 4th and 5th Companies took part in the efforts to remove Vangorich from power. The commander of the strike force, Qublicus Amar, Chapter Master of the Sable Swords, was assassinated by a Vindicare Assassin's bullet soon after making planetfall.Seeing no other choice, the remaining Space Marines commenced their attack nevertheless. Assailed by hundreds of Assassins, the Space Marines lost half their number securing the Imperial Palace from the agents of the Officio Assassinorum. Confronting the Inquisitorial Representative, the elderly Wienand, she convinced Thane of her loyalty, and gave the Chapter Master the necessary intelligence he needed in order to find and remove the mad tyrant Vangorich from power.The Grand Master of Assassins had taken refuge in the Eversor Temple at Terra's north pole. Moving the retribution force there at once, the Astartes proceeded with their attack. Within the Eversor Temple, the Space Marines were assailed by a hundred Eversor Assassins. Only Maximus Thane managed to survive, to reach the Grand Master and finally deliver the Emperor's judgement personally with his Bolt Pistol. In the aftermath of Vangorich's fall, the Imperium would proceed to descend into a period of political anarchy for some time.This sorry situation would last for almost two more standard decades, until Chapter Master Agnathio of the Ultramarines gathered the support of his fellow Chapter Masters from all over the galaxy, and a combined armada of over 50 Chapters of Space Marines descended upon Terra for the first time since the end of the Horus Heresy.Agnathio provided the warring factions of the Throneworld with an ultimatum to either cease fighting and form a unified government immediately or be purged as Heretics. The factions, unable to withstand the military might of the equivalent of an entire Space Marine Legion of old, quickly fell into line, and a new council of High Lords of Terra were quickly elected and order restored at the heart of the Imperium.In the wake of these events, the Inquisition formed the Ordo Xenos and the Ordo Malleus in order to combat threats both xenos and daemonic in nature, while the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes was granted a position as one of the High Lords of Terra. In a final act, the esteemed position of Lord Commander of the Imperium was abolished, and would not be reconstituted for another nine millennia, until the resurrection of the long-dead Ultramarines primarch, Roboute Guilliman at the end of the 41st Millennium.
War of the False Primarch - War of the False Primarch: The War of the False Primarch was a conflict fought by the forces of the Imperium of Man in 860.M33. During the War of the False Primarch, a dark and bloody episode in the Imperium's history now largely lost to myth and purged from all Imperial records, the Segmentum Pacificus was plunged into anarchy, and the "Pentarchy of Blood" was convened by the High Lords of Terra to enact their judgement.Five Space Marine Chapters (the Flesh Eaters, the Carcharodons, the Charnel Guard, the Death Eagles and the Red Talons) were unleashed to systematically destroy eleven other Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes judged Traitoris Perdita and lay waste to their homeworlds, finally drawing the eight-solar-decade-long conflict to a close.
War of The Wolf - War of The Wolf: The War of the Wolf was an Imperial campaign led by the Great Wolf Logan Grimnar of the Space Wolves Space Marine Chapter in 612.M41, against the vile geneticist Fabius Bile and his Forces of Chaos. When Grimnar learned that the arch-traitor Abaddon the Despoiler had found the location of one of the long-lost members of the Space Wolves' only successor Chapter, the Wolf Brothers, the Great Wolf led his elite Champions of Fenris to rescue the battle-brother from the clutches of the Black Legion, before the Clone Lord could use him for some nefarious experiment.
War of The Wolf - History: For the Space Wolves, one of their greatest and most closely-guarded secrets is the fate of their one and only Successor Chapter, the Wolf Brothers. Created as part of the Second Founding, the Wolf Brothers' gene-seed proved unpredictable and unstable, combining all the worst aspects of the Canis Helix and the curse of the Wulfen. After the Chapter was disbanded hundreds of Wolf Brothers vanished entirely, taking with them prized gene-seed created from the Space Wolves' own stockpiles. In the year 612.M41 word reached the Great Wolf that one of these long lost brothers was found. For millennia the Space Wolves had been watching over their wayward kin, secretly shielding them from both the wrath of the Imperium and the influences of Chaos -– though not always with success. So was it to be this time, and the glad news of the Wolf Brother's discovery was tainted by word that the planet upon which he rested was in the hands of the Black Legion. Worse still, rumour placed the arch-traitor Fabius Bile within the system, and Grimnar knew it could only be the Wolf Brother and his unstable gene-seed that Bile sought. Access to the successor Chapter's gene-seed would enable the traitorous geneticist to create an army of monstrously corrupt, mutated horrors to fight for the forces of Chaos. The Great Wolf would be damned before he let this come to pass. Calling his Wolf Guard to his side the Old Wolf ordered his Great Company gathered. So armed, Grimnar, his most trusted champions and a small fleet of ships set off into the Sea of Stars to find the Wolf Brother and slay any who dared stand in their way.
War Walker - War Walker: A War Walker is a one-person, lightly-armoured, bipedal combat walker used by the Craftworld Aeldari. They are piloted by a standard Asuryani Guardian.The War Walker plays an essential role for Asuryani military forces very similar to that of an Astra Militarum Sentinel. Both are nimble, lightly armoured scouting units, though the War Walker is closer in size to the Wraithlord.War Walker pilots often become emotionally attached to their mounts, and a union of the pilot's mind with their machine ensues. This union is aided by the presence of an Aeldari Spirit Stone, containing the spirit of a deceased Aeldari that has been melded with the walker.The conjoined minds of the pilot and the individual personality within the Spirit Stone provides a much sharper focus and a deadlier concentration in combat that enhances the mission effectiveness of the walker.
War Walker - Armament: Standing three metres tall, the War Walker is the smallest and lightest of the Craftworld Aeldari's many different types of combat walkers. It is controlled by a single pilot who merges with its wraithbone core.This Asuryani enters a meditative state to become one with their machine. Piloting a War Walker is often an Asuryani warrior's first step to eventually becoming the steersman of an Aeldari Titan.The pilot is assisted by a variety of advanced support and failsafe systems, including the use of a Spirit Stone containing the soul of an experienced Asuryani warrior that has been melded with the walker in certain situations, while an advanced gyroscopic-stabilisation system and the War Walker's articulated legs allow the walker to traverse even the roughest of terrain.The War Walker mounts a pair of Aeldari heavy weapons, which can include a Brightlance, Scatter Laser, a Shuriken Cannon, a Starcannon or a Missile Launcher, giving the walker the versatility it requires to fulfill multiple tactical roles.In order to preserve its mobility and maneuverability, the War Walker lacks much in the way of armour, though the pilot is protected by a shimmering Holo-field. This Holo-field distorts the War Walker's outline and location, providing the pilot with an equivalent level of protection as to be found in a fully up-armoured vehicle of the same size and configuration.
War Walker - Defences: Though lacking much in the way of armour, a War Walker is protected by a Holo-field like many other Craftworld Aeldari vehicles and spacecraft, which blurs the image of the War Walker, making it difficult to see and target by enemy vehicles and infantry.Because their vehicle possesses so few defences, War Walker pilots rely on speed, overwhelming firepower, and their Holo-fields to allow them to destroy or rout enemies before they can be eliminated themselves.
War Walker - Deployment: War Walkers are most often deployed in squadrons comprising one to three walkers. War Walkers are first and foremost used as reconnaissance vehicles, typically operating ahead of a larger Aeldari military force to determine the location of the enemy's lines.Such is the effectiveness of the War Walkers' ranged weaponry that, after achieving their vanguard mission, they are often summoned back to the more static core of the warhost, joining their firepower with that of support weapon platforms, Dark Reapers and even Aeldari Titans.This cavalcade of fire comes later in the battle, as part of what the Asuryani call the Murehketh Bein Hekhita, or "the Sting of Grief" in the Aeldari Lexicon. Any who attempt to disrupt this fusillade by closing in on the War Walkers quickly learn that the kicking, stamping legs of the constructs are deadly weapons in their own right. Thus do the most successful War Walker pilots have both the first and last word in a battle.However, when operating in this fire support role, War Walkers often expose themselves to enemy fire, which can lead to heavy losses amongst these poorly defended vehicles.Aeldari Corsairs also commonly employ War Walkers in their raids against the worlds of the "lesser races," valuing the walker's mobility and heavy firepower, but Corsairs also employ a variant of the walker known as the Wasp Assault Walker that is more suited to being dropped from orbit to a planetary surface as part of an airborne drop infantry force.
War Walker - Rune: The War Walker rune in the Aeldari Lexicon reflects the skill and speed of these vehicles as they stalk their prey, while their Guardian pilots proudly embody the spirit of Kurnous, the horned Aeldari god of the hunt.
War Walker - Sources: Codex: Craftworlds (8th Edition), pp. 38, 102Codex: Eldar Craftworlds (7th Edition) (Digital Edition), pg. 48Codex: Eldar (6th Edition), pg. 42Codex: Eldar (4th Edition), pg. 44Codex: Eldar (3rd Edition), pp. 15, 20Codex: Eldar (2nd Edition), pg. 27Imperial Armour Volume Eleven - The Doom of Mymeara, pg. 186
War Without End (Anthology) - War Without End (Anthology): War Without End is the thirty-third volume in the Horus Heresy series of novels.
War Without End (Anthology) - Synopsis: The Emperor’s vision of Mankind ascendant lies in tatters. The Great Crusade is naught but a fading memory. The dream of Unity is no more. But with Horus’s rebellion spreading to every corner of the Imperium and war engulfing new worlds and systems almost daily, there are some who now ask: were the signs there to be seen all along? In these dark times, only one thing is certain – the galaxy will never know peace again, not in this lifetime or a thousand others...
War Without End (Anthology) - Contents: War Without End is an anthology and contains twenty-one short stories from various authors. All the stories contained within this anthology were previously published in the limited edition anthologies The Imperial Truth, Sedition's Gate, and in the novella anthology collections Death and Defiance & Blades of the Traitor:Sermon of Exodus by David AnnandaleHowl of the Hearthworld & Lord of the Red Sands by Aaron Dembski-BowdenBlack Oculus by John FrenchThe Laurel of Defiance, A Safe and Shadowed Place & Twisted by Guy HaleyArtefacts, The Phoenician, Imperfect & Chirurgeon by Nick KymeThe Devine Adoratrice & Wolf Mother by Graham McNeillHands of the Emperor & The Harrowing by Rob SandersVirtues of the Sons by Andy SmillieAll That Remains & Gunsight by James SwallowBy the Lion's Command by Gav ThorpeAllegiance & Daemonology by Chris Wraight
War World - War World: A War World is an Imperial planet that is part of an active war zone. The Imperium of Man is constantly at war and during those conflicts whole planets can burn.Massive Imperial military campaigns and Imperial Crusades can envelop dozens of star systems and hundreds of worlds, many of which are utterly devastated by orbital bombardments and artillery in planet-spanning battles that last for entire solar decades.Long-term war zones are hellish places where death comes quickly. The Imperium can field truly immense armies of millions of men and women, grinding their way across a devastated planet and reducing its cities to rubble.Mercenaries flock to such places, hoping to leave soon after with their voidships loaded with pay and loot. Deserters and escaped prisoners form bands of pirates, preying on any starships unable to defend themselves. Planetbound, these reavers roam the war-torn worlds in feral packs, stealing anything not nailed down and killing anyone who gets in their way.The Administratum sends colonists from more overcrowded worlds (sometimes willingly, sometimes not) to re-populate such war-torn worlds after the fighting has ended. But the bureaucratic wheels of the Imperium grind slowly and a world can lie devastated for Terran centuries before any effort is made to resettle it.These places can be some of the most ghastly in the Imperium, with ravaged environments, cracked planetary crusts, burnt-out cities, and plains covered in the rotting flesh of the fallen.
Warband of Sektoth - Warband of Sektoth: The Warband of Sektoth is a large warband or thrallband of Chaos Space Marines dedicated to the service of Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways. The Warband of Sektoth is a splinter warband or thrallband of the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion that was founded and commanded by the infamous Chaos Sorcerer Sektoth the False Whisper, a master manipulator of the power of the Warp.This warband is active in the Calixis Sector and the Screaming Vortex, one of two massive Warp storms which separate the Calixis Sector of the Imperium from the Koronus Expanse. Sektoth's warband consists of hundreds of Thousand Sons Rubric Marines, several other subordinate Chaos Sorcerers and thousands of lesser, mortal soldiers and Chaos Cultists who die at his bidding.
Warband of Sektoth - Warband History: Sektoth the False Whisper is a master manipulator and leader of a rather piratical warband of Heretic Astartes. He and the Thousand Sons at his command strike without warning against anyone who has resources he requires in his research of the Rubric of Ahriman. Dozens of lesser psykers have fallen under his sway, exchanging their martial utility for the honour of cowering at the hem of Sektoth's robe. His thrallband is large, with hundreds of elite Chaos Space Marine warriors that report to him and thousands of lesser, mortal soldiers who die at his bidding.When Sektoth desires the holdings of another warband he moves decisively and quickly. His light frigate, The Unyielding, arrives in orbit and hides behind a nearby astral body. He deploys his psykers into the local population to disrupt the daily operations of his target. His minions report to him telepathically, collecting information as they commit sabotage.What happens next has never been the same twice. Sektoth tends to prefer tactics that turn his enemies on themselves. He once garnered enough power to drive an entire planet mad with a single word whispered in every citizen's mind.This preference is not absolute, as he is not afraid to use more direct methods. He reduced the Gardens of the Exquisite Delight to swampland by commandeering a hijacked Iconoclast-class Destroyer and crashing the kilometre-long warship into an ocean on the far side of the world, wrecking the planet's climate in the process.In the wake of this seemingly random act, Sektoth harvests what profit he requires and leaves the vultures to pick the bones. Often, the resources expended far out-strip what he could possibly gain. Unknowable as his actions are, however, he is guided by a dark resolve and is granted resources by an impossibly powerful benefactor.