Death Guard - Into Damnation, M30-M31: Conquest of Galaspar (Unknown Date.M30) - This was the first major independent campaign conducted by the Death Guard after Mortarion took charge of the XIVth Legion. The conquest of the non-Compliant Hive World of Galaspar remains one of the most remarkable and brutal victories of the Great Crusade's course through the near reaches of the Segmentum Pacificus. Galaspar was a main Hive World located at the heart of a pocket empire consisting of 11 primary stars in cluster proximity. Galaspar and its satrap worlds had been for centuries thrall to a bureaucratic tyranny known simply as "the Order", which reduced its people to "labour units" to immediately be euthanised when they no longer had value to its system, and ruled through a mixture of crushing oppression and forced chemical dependence. When Imperial Explorator ships first entered the Galaspar Cluster they were immediately fired upon and all subsequent communication attempts were met with violence. The estimate of military resources to take this system was extremely high and such forces assigned to this Segmentum were unavailable at the time. The newly discovered Primarch Mortarion petitioned the Emperor for the opportunity to bring this system into Imperial Compliance. The Emperor acquiesced and allowed his newly discovered son to proceed. The XIVth Legion attacked without warning, the Death Guard fleet bludgeoning its way through the system's outer defences on a direct course for their target world. Caring nothing for secondary targets the Death Guard attacked the Hive World, taking the fight to the planet's surface. With their capital ships unleashing a hurricane of their own supporting fire, Mortarion descended through the fire and ash to the surface in the specially configured assault barque Fourth Horseman. The barque smashed into the upper structures of the primary hive-fortress causing a massive hive quake. The Death Guard then launched a massive wave of Drop Pods and Storm Eagle gunships in the barque's wake, descending to the surface like a force of nature. 11,000 grey-clad Space Marines with Mortarion's spectral figure at their head. Death had come to Galaspar. Slowly and inexorably the Death Guard proceeded to kill anyone that took up arms against them. The troops of the Order found themselves recoiling in terror at the onslaught of the unstoppable enemy. The Order's generals blindly continued to force their drugged slave-soldiers against the armoured giants. The resultant slaughter was on an unimaginable scale. There was no mercy and no unrelenting in the Death Guard's punishment, whether the enemy had to be run down in the poisoned, reeking hive-sumps or across the blasted rad-wastes, not one member of the Order survived. When the Imperial support fleet arrive they were horrified by the aftermath of the slaughter. The billions of humans "liberated" by the Death Guard were almost childishly eager to accept the Emperor's servants and adopt their ways. In the wake of the conquest of Galaspar, the cluster of worlds quickly capitulated with terrified speed, all willing to submit to Imperial Compliance under any terms as long as they were spared the reaper's scythe.Kajor Compliance (Unknown Date.M30) - On Kajor during the Great Crusade, the Death Guard Legion encountered a warrior race of humans that had fallen to barbarism. Extensive orbital surveys detected no trace of advanced technology, yet it took the XIVth Legion nearly six months to bring Kajor to submission. Though the Kajori were savages, armed with little more than blades and crude flintlock carbines, this feral race was able to hold the Death Guard at bay. They were able to do so because they possessed fell powers and unseen allies. Every night, creatures of witchery hunted in the shadows and killed for the joy of killing. Blood red hounds stalked the darkness of the forests with savage instinct, and juggernauts of thunder broke the Death Guard's lines with every charge. That anything could sunder a Death Guard formation was nothing short of a miracle. Mortarion's warriors had fought xenos species of every stripe and defeated them, but these were not creatures of flesh and blood. These were summoned into life by Kajori warlocks. These magi conjured lightning from their flesh, set fires with their thoughts and cracked the very earth with their shouted oaths. No power comes without a price, and with every victory the Death Guard won, they discovered what that truly meant. At the heart of every city they captured, Death Guard warriors found vast structures they came to know as Blood Fanes. Each one was a charnel house of bones and death. They destroyed every one, and with each one lost, the strength of their Kajori foes waned. In the end, the Death Guard ground down every ragamuffin force sent against them. Surrender was not in the Kajori's blood and they died to a man, destroyed by a ruling caste of warlocks who could not bear to relinquish their power. In quieter moments, Mortarion still thought of the Kajor campaign and shuddered. Mortarion would later recount the tale of this campaign during the Council of Nikaea as one example of many why he took a personal stance against sorcery and the use of psychic abilities.Krypt Prosecution (Unknown Date.M30) - The Compliance of Krypt was a relatively short campaign conducted during the Great Crusade by both the Death Guard and the Luna Wolves Legions against the Orks upon the frozen plains of the world of Krypt. Fighting together for more than a week across the frozen surface of the planet, the Legiones Astartes turned the blue ice dark with xenos blood. Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro and his 7th Great Company were known to have fought alongside the Luna Wolves' Captain Garviel Loken and his 10th Company during this action.Preaixor Campaign (Unknown Date.M30) - This was an Imperial Compliance campaign that was jointly carried out by the Death Guard and the Emperor's Children Legions. During this campaign, Captain Saul Tarvitz of the Emperor's Children earned Death Guard Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro's amity, proving to him that for all the reputation of Fulgrim's Astartes as overconfident peacocks, there were still men amongst the ranks of the IIIrd Legion that embodied the ideals of the Imperium. The two became Honour Brothers, carving a small eagle on each others vambrace by knifepoint, a sign of the battle debt they owed one another. When they clasped each others' vambraces in a warrior's handshake, the two eagles joined together to form the Imperial Aquila.Battle of Gyros-Thravian (Unknown Date.M30) - The Battle of Gyros-Thravian was a massive joint Imperial Compliance action carried out by three Space Marine Legions, composed of the Luna Wolves, Death Guard and Imperial Fists against the extremely powerful Ork Warboss Gharkul Blackfang, one of the most powerful Ork warlords ever encountered up until that time. Despite the strength arrayed against the vile Greenskin, it was the Imperial forces who were soon on the verge of defeat. It was then that the Emperor Himself, aboard His flagship Bucephelus, came to the aid of His sons. He personally led a force composed of 1,000 Legio Custodes into the heart of the mighty Ork horde. Blackfang was confronted by the Emperor and killed atop his Gargant while the Custodians proceeded to lay waste to the rest of the Greenskin horde. The Custodians accounted for the slaughter of the Orks, slaying over 100,000 of the savage xenos, with the loss of only three Custodians. Following their momentous victory, the Emperor commemorated the Custodians' sacrifice by engraving the names of the three fallen Custodians into His own personal Power Armour.Battle of Rennimar (865.M30) - This was a massive Imperial Compliance conducted by the Imperial Fists Legion against the massive Ork WAAAGH! of Over-Tyrant of Grel in the Rennimar System, who himself, was already under siege by both the Death Guard and Space Wolves Legions. Primarch Rogal Dorn, alongside Captain Archamus, the commander of his Huscarl Honour Guard, led a force of 10,000 Imperial Fists against the greenskin forces. Typical of the Imperial Fists Legion, they established heavy-walled bulwarks on the planet Rennimar, which enticed the Orks to hurl themselves and futilely smash against the Imperial Fists' stalwart defences. This enabled the combined might of the Legiones Astartes to utterly crush their xenos foes.Compliance of 154-4 (Ibsen/Caldera) (ca. 001.M31) - This was an unusual campaign of the Great Crusade that involved bringing the world of 154-4, known as Ibsen by its inhabitants, into Imperial Compliance. The Salamanders Legion, led by the Primarch Vulkan, was joined by the Death Guard and the Iron Hands Legions, both led by their own respective Primarchs. The world was undeveloped, and largely inhospitable to human life, but possessed valuable mineral deposits. However, the Imperial forces faced stiff resistance for control of the planet from the Eldar, who had placed a garrison upon Ibsen. The Eldar forces -- including Seers, Warlocks and other combat psykers -- could not have expected to defeat one Legion of Astartes, let alone three. The mystery deepened when the semi-feral, primitive human tribes inhabiting the planet seemed more sympathetic to the Eldar, or at the very least, not welcoming to their human liberators. The Salamanders and other Imperials defeated the Eldar relatively easily as expected. After the conquest, the Salamanders learned that the Eldar had been defending a network of menhirs which served as psychic nodes and that fed into a giant arch, where the final and most brutal confrontation between the Astartes and the xenos had taken place. The arch itself had been located thanks to a mysterious Remembrancer attached to the Salamanders, with whom Vulkan had had an unsettling conversation before the battle. After the slaughter ended, Vulkan saw the Remembrancer loitering by the arch and then suddenly disappearing. Following him, Vulkan and his elite Pyre Guard descended into the chambers beneath it, through a portal at its base. There they found a crude warding ceremony taking place, conducted by the primitive human tribal priests, who were ready to sacrifice an ancient Dark Eldar witch. Finally, Vulkan realised the truth: the arch was in reality a Webway portal (though none of the Imperials, including Vulkan, knew this at the time); Vulkan had seen a "gate" like this before, in his Nocturnean youth, when Dark Eldar repeatedly utilised such a portal to raid and pillage the planet. The Eldar had taken control of the portal by defeating their dark cousins, and in the process had freed the indigenous human population of Ibsen from the horrors of Dark Eldar raids; the Eldar had been seen by the native humans as liberators. Terrified by the defeat of their liberators at the hands of the Imperium, the natives had sought to sacrifice their Dark Eldar captive to ward off the inevitable return of her race; the mysterious "Remembrancer" who was nowhere to be seen had actually been the Emperor in disguise, who must have had a great interest in the particulars of this mission since He had ordered so many resources committed to it. Vulkan ordered Ibsen and its irredeemably corrupted population cleansed by flame. He renamed the scoured, Nocturne-like Dead World that remained Caldera. The world was now ready to receive new human colonists and to be exploited for the benefit of the Imperium.Jorgall Execution (005.M31) - The Jorgall campaign was carried out during the Great Crusade against a xenos race of humanoid aliens known as the Jorgall. They possessed a basic humanoid anatomy and also bled dark crimson coloured blood, similar in colour to that of a human's. But their brain and central nervous system was located inside their chest cavity. Nearly all Jorgalli featured extensive cybernetic physical enhancements to improve their physical forms and enhance their fighting abilities, such as hands replaced by lethal claws, feet replaced by wheels for rapid mobility and teleoptic cameras for eyes as well as sub-dermal protective armour. Some Jorgalli even had basic needler-type weapons implanted within the cavities of their bodies. They occupied the Tasak Beta and Fallon Systems in Imperial space. Elements of the 1st, 2nd and 7th Great Companies with Mortarion as the commander launched an assault into the main Jorgall cylinder world. This battleground was suited to the Death Guards' unique talents. The Jorgall breathed a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen with heavy concentrations of chlorine, a weak poison that a Death Guard Astartes' lungs could resist with little effort. First Captain Calas Typhon provided support for the Primarch while Commander Ignatius Grulgor penetrated the drive cluster and took out the control of the cylinder world's motive power centre. Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro, alongside an elite cadre from the Sisters of Silence, neutralised the construct's hatcheries. Following their hard-fought victory, there were dissenting voices from the Adeptus Mechanicus contingent aboard the warship Spectre of Death petitioning Mortarion for a few days in which to loot the alien craft of technology. The Primarch, as was his prerogative, refused the request. The letter of Malcador the Sigillite's orders -- and therefore, by extension, those of the Emperor Himself -- was that the Jorgall incursion into the sector was to be exterminated and nothing more. The master of the Death Guard clearly saw no point of confusion in those orders. Nothing was to be left of the aliens.Battle of Istvaan Extremis (005.M31) - The elite 1st Company of the Emperor's Children Legion fought in concert with the Death Guard Legion's 7th Company under the command of Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro against traitorous forces on Istvaan Extremis, the outermost planet within the Istvaan System. Whilst fighting against a powerful Slaaneshi psyker known as a Warsinger, Garro sustained serious injuries; crushing damage to his torso and arm as well as the loss of his right leg from the mid-thigh down. He was only saved from certain death by the timely ministrations of the Emperor's Children's Chief Apothecary Fabius. Taking stock of the desperate situation, the Emperor's Children Lord Commander Eidolon made use of a hitherto unknown ability -- a modified tracheal implant bonded with the Lord Commander's vocal chords, that allowed him to produce a nerve paralysing shriek similar to that employed by certain warrior breeds of the xenos Laer. This powerful ability killed the Warsinger and helped the Astartes carry the day.Battle of Istvaan III (Istvaan III Atrocity) (005.M31) - The Imperial Planetary Governor of Istvaan III, Vardus Praal, had been corrupted by the Chaos God Slaanesh whose cultists had long been active on the world even before it had been conquered by the Imperium. Praal had declared his independence from the Imperium, and had begun to practice forbidden Slaaneshi sorcery, so the Council of Terra charged Horus with the retaking of that world, primarily its capital, the Choral City. This order merely furthered Horus' plan to overthrow the Emperor. Although the four Legions under his direct command -- the Sons of Horus, the World Eaters, the Death Guard and the Emperor's Children -- had already turned Traitor and pledged themselves to Chaos, there were still some Loyalist elements within each of these Legions that approximated one-third of each force; many of these warriors were Terran-born Space Marines who had been directly recruited into the Astartes Legions by the Emperor Himself before being reunited with their Primarchs during the Great Crusade. Horus, under the guise of putting down the rebellion against Imperial Compliance on the world of Istvaan III, amassed his troops in the Istvaan System. Horus had a plan by which he would destroy all of the remaining Loyalist elements of the Legions under his command. After a lengthy bombardment of Istvaan III, Horus despatched all of the known Loyalist Astartes down to the planet, under the pretence of bringing it back into the Imperium. Initial attacks on the Choral City had washed away any feelings of unease, the release of the Loyalists' anger and hurt in bloodshed reassuring them that things were as they should be, and that their earlier misgivings were no cause for concern. Then Captain Saul Tarvitz of the 10th Company of the Emperor's Children had arrived with an incredible tale of betrayal and imminent attack. Many had scoffed at Tarvitz's warning, but some had immediately known the truth of it, and had fought to make their brothers realise their danger. As the monstrous scale of the betrayal sank in, the Loyalist Sons of Horus, World Eaters and Emperor's Children had raced to find shelter before the deadly viral payload struck the world intended to be their tomb. The Loyalists on the surface watched in horror as the first streaks of light lit up the sky and the detonations covered the clouds in thick starbursts of deadly viral agents. The screaming of the city as it died haunted them, as they could not even begin to imagine the horror that must have filled the minds of those who watched as the Life-Eater virus devoured the flesh of their loved ones, before reducing them as well to disintegrated hunks of rotted, dead matter. Many within the Loyalists' ranks knew what the deadly Life-Eater virus was, and they knew that within hours the entire planet would be a charnel house. Then the firestorm came as the tons of dead organic matter ignited and razed the surface bare of any signs of its former inhabitants, burning them to ashen flakes on the wind as it destroyed all in its path and howled across the surface of Isstvan III in a seething tide of flame. The Primarch of the World Eaters, Angron, realising that the virus-bombs had not been fully effective at eliminating all the Loyalists, flew into a rage and hurled himself at the planet at the head of 50 companies of World Eaters Traitor Marines. Discarding tactics and strategy, the World Eaters Traitors worked themselves into a frenzy of mindless butchery fed by their growing if unwitting allegiance to the Blood God Khorne. Horus was furious with Angron for delaying his plans, but Horus sought to turn the delay into a victory and was obliged to reinforce Angron with troops from the Sons of Horus, the Death Guard, and the Emperor's Children. Fortunately, a contingent of Loyalists led by Battle-Captain Garro escaped Istvaan III aboard the damaged Imperial frigate Eisenstein and fled to Terra to warn the Emperor that Horus had turned Traitor. On Istvaan III, the remaining Loyalists, under the command of Captains Saul Tarvitz, Garviel Loken and Tarik Torgaddon, another Loyalist member of the Sons of Horus, fought bravely against their own traitorous brethren. Yet, despite some early successes that delayed Horus' plans for three full months while the battle on Istvaan III played out, their cause was ultimately doomed by their lack of air support and Titan firepower. During the battle the Sons of Horus Captains Ezekyle Abaddon and Horus Aximand were sent to confront their former Mournival brothers, Loken and Torgaddon. Horus Aximand beheaded Torgaddon, but Abaddon failed to kill Loken when the building they were in collapsed. Loken survived and witnessed the final orbital bombardment of Istvaan III that ended the Loyalists' desperate defence. To prove his worth and loyalty to Lord Commander Eidolon of the Emperor's Children -- and thus to his Primarch, Fulgrim -- Captain Lucius of the 13th Company of the Emperor's Children, the future Champion of Slaanesh known as Lucius the Eternal, turned against the Loyalists that he had fought beside because of his prior friendship with Saul Tarvitz. Lucius slew many of them personally, an act for which he was then accepted back into the Emperor's Children Legion on the side of the Traitors. In the end, the Loyalists retreated to their last bastion of defence, only a few hundred of their number remaining. Finally, tired of the conflict, Horus ordered his men to withdraw, and then had the remains of the Choral City bombarded into dust for a final time from orbit.Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V (566006.M31) - The world of Istvaan V was the location of the infamous Drop Site Massacre where the Traitor Legions of Horus redeployed following the virus-bombing of their own Loyalist members at Istvaan III at the start of the Horus Heresy. Upon learning of the terrible atrocity Horus had committed, the Emperor deployed seven Loyalist Legions of Space Marines to bring Horus to account for his actions. The Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard made up the first wave of the attack, but were pushed back by the superior tactics of Horus' maddened Chaos Space Marines. The Loyalist reserves were called in, but the four Space Marine Legions comprising them -- the Iron Warriors, the Alpha Legion, the Word Bearers and the Night Lords -- had also secretly betrayed the Emperor and were prepared to follow Horus and swear themselves to Chaos. The three Loyalist Legions were almost annihilated in the resulting crossfire but several thousand survivors from each Legion managed to escape off-world, though they were too decimated to play much of a further role in the defence of the Imperium from Horus' betrayal. During this engagement, the Death Guard made extensive use of surprise attacks from concealed positions, mines, Alchemical Weaponry and heavy sustained close-range fire, principally against the Salamanders Legion, and were met in resolve and fury by Vulkan's Legion, incurring massive casualties on both sides. During the ensuing slaughter, Fulgrim came face-to-face with his former brother and closest friend, Ferrus Manus. The two Primarchs engaged in a titanic struggle, but in the end The Gorgon was mortally wounded, and at the urging of the Laer daemonblade that he always carried, Fulgrim beheaded the Iron Hands' Primarch. The civil war that began in earnest at Istvaan V pitched the whole Imperium into the seven years of anarchy, death and chaos remembered only as the Horus Heresy.Second Battle of Prospero (007.M31) - After White Scars Primarch Jaghatai Khan refused to aid Leman Russ and his battered Space Wolves fleet against the Alpha Legion in the Alaxxes Nebula, he finally arrived to the Thousand Sons' ravaged world of Prospero seeking answers for himself. Teleporting down to the planet's surface with a small Keshig Honour Guard detachment, Jaghatai explored the ruins of the planet's former capital of Tizca. During his explorations, the Primarch became separated, and soon found himself within a network of subterranean caverns, where he was confronted by the ætherial projection of his brother Primarch Magnus the Red. Magnus implored his brother to choose a side and to not trust their father, the Emperor. Finding the answers he sought, Jaghatai made his way towards the surface and was reunited with his Keshig, who were soon beset by Mortarion and a contingent of elite Deathshroud Terminators. The Death Guard Primarch tried to persuade his brother to join the Warmaster's cause, but Jhagatai refused, and proceeded to fight his brother, gravely wounding him and forcing him to withdraw. Teleporting back aboard his flagship, the Primarch then ordered his fleet to depart for Terra.Persecution of the White Scars (007-011.M31) - For the next four years, the Death Guard continuously harried the White Scars fleet which was trapped far from Terra due to the massive Warp Storm, known as the Ruinstorm, which made all long-distance Warp travel impossible. Seeing no other choice, the White Scars were forced to begin a hit-and-run guerilla campaign against the Traitor Legion forces to slow their advance on the Throneworld. The White Scars proceeded to lose nearly one-fifth of their fighting forces over the course of the next few years. After nearly four years, the Death Guard, working in conjunction with a large Emperor's Children contingent commanded by Lord Commander Eidolon, knew the White Scars Legion would soon face inevitable defeat and destruction at their hands. Having adjusted to the Vth Legion's tactics, it became apparent to Jaghatai Khan that they were slowly being boxed in. Desperately, the White Scars sook out one last approach, and discovered a hidden Navigator facility within the Catallus Warp Rift. Within they found the Dark Glass artefact -- a far-less powerful prototype of the Emperor's own Golden Throne device, which was capable of accessing the Webway. The White Scars Stormseer, Targutai Yesugai sacrificed himself, when he sat upon the Dark Glass throne in order to open a temporary path through the Webway, which allowed the White Scars to escape from the massive Traitor fleet, and exit at the outer edge of the Segmentum Solar.Battle of Perditus (008.M31) - When the Dark Angels received intelligence from an Astropathic message from the nearby Perditus System, they acted accordingly and moved to intercept. Upon arrival, they interrupted the month-long conflict between the Iron Hands 98th Clan-Company, led by Casalir Lorramech and a large Death Guard contingent, led by First Captain Calas Typhon. Both sides had been fighting over an ancient sentient device, known as the Tuchulcha Engine. This device was a part of a triumvirate of similar sentient devices (another being the Ouroboros and a third, unnamed engine) which when combined could create temporal rifts that bridges space and time. On its own, the Tuchulcha was capable of precise and extremely efficient Warp jumps. Faced with the prospect of fighting the entirety of the much larger Ist Legion fleet, both sides retreated from the planet's surface at the Lion's request. Wary of both sides' motives, especially First Captain Typhon's, the Lion prevented the device from falling into the Death Guard's hands for his own nefarious ends. He then proceeded to serve his own ambitions and requisitioned the device for his own use. The Lion then ordered the destruction of Perditus, much to the consternation of both commanders.The Incident at Dwell (009.M31) - Having escaped death at Arissak, one of the the surviving Shattered Legions cells of the Iron Hands commander Shadrak Meduson launched a daring assassination attempt on Warmaster Horus at Dwell. With his brother-Primarchs Fulgrim and Mortarion at his side, Horus prevailed, but having had the true threat revealed to him, granted Captain Tybalt Marr permission to take any action he deemed appropriate to eradicate the so-called "Shattered Legions".The Battle of Molech (009.M31) - Horus led a massive invasion, which included the Sons of Horus and Death Guard Legions, against the Fortress World of Molech in order to obtain the power of the Emperor by means of a hidden Warp portal that led into the Realm of Chaos itself. It was during the height of this conflict that Knight House Devine turned against the Imperium and joined the invading forces, betraying the defenders to their deaths. A force of the elite Knights-Errant, a secretly founded Order of Loyalist agents, was dispatched to Molech by Malcador the Sigillite to prepare the way for a direct assault by the Space Wolves against the Warmaster's flagship. Having recently won the full blessings of the Ruinous Powers, Horus was undefeatable and only a handful of Knights-Errant escaped to bring news of his redoubled strength back to Terra.Battle of Terra (014.M31) - As the events of the Horus Heresy neared their tragic conclusion nine standard years after the fateful betrayal at Istvaan III in 005.M31, those Loyalist Legions not committed to the defence of Terra raced through the Warp, converging on the homeworld of Mankind. The Traitor Legions also massed above Terra to assault the Imperial Palace. The Battle of Terra was the final confrontation of the Horus Heresy that raged on Terra itself between the Forces of Chaos led by the Warmaster Horus and the Loyalist armies of the Imperium of Man led by the Emperor of Mankind Himself. When Horus was en route to launch his final siege of Terra itself, the warriors of the Death Guard found themselves becalmed in the Warp and assailed by Warp-born plagues so virulent that not even their legendary resilience could withstand them. Soon, the entire Legion was beset by a sickness that bloated their bellies with corpse gas, caused flesh to slough from their bodies and made these mightiest of human warriors into crippled wretches assailed by delirium. Though none can say exactly what forces acted upon the soul of the Primarch of the Death Guard, whether he was already damned or whether he made his pact in some state of fever, he must have called out for deliverance, and his call must have been answered. When finally the Death Guard Legion's fleet emerged from the Warp, its vessels and its warriors were entirely changed. The once-gleaming white and grey armour was stained with filth, and the noble warriors were transformed into walking hives of death and abomination. Worse still, the "Plague Marines" of the Death Guard were now hosts for the most virulent afflictions that their new patron, the Plague God Nurgle, could concoct. Condemned to a deathless state of decay, the Death Guard would spread their pestilent diseases the length and breadth of the galaxy for the greater glory of the Plague Father. The Loyalist forces ultimately proved victorious in their defence of the Imperial Palace, though only just barely, and Horus was ultimately slain by the full psychic powers unleashed by the Emperor on the deck of his massive Battle Barge the Vengeful Spirit, though the Master of Mankind was mortally wounded and had to be interred within the cybernetic life support mechanisms of the advanced psychic augmentation technology known as the Golden Throne. Those Imperial vessels which pursued Mortarion's plague fleet from Terra followed a trail of devastated worlds, where corpses were piled high, survivors pleaded to be allowed to die to escape their nightmares and, ominously, thousands more were simply missing, never to be seen again. Eventually, after countless atrocities, the Death Guard reached the Eye of Terror where they and their fellow traitors hid from the vengeance of the Imperium. Within this hellish realm, Mortarion claimed the Daemon World which would become known as thePlague Planet as his own; its location near the fabric of reality was ideal for launching new strikes into the Imperium and across the galaxy as the Death Guard continued their Long War against the "Corpse Emperor" and his false Imperium.Rise of the Plague Planet (Unknown Date.M31) - Alone amongst the Traitor Legions, Mortarion's sons retreat from Terra in good order. They reave a path of desecration and atrocity across the Imperium, before finally plunging into the horrific sanctuary of the Eye of Terror. For his victories during the Heresy, his unshaken faith, and for the singular achievement of holding his Legion together in the face of the Imperium's vengeful ferocity, the Plague God gifts Mortarion with daemonhood and a world to rule over as his own. So is a new Barbarus created near the fringes of the Eye of Terror, a more nightmarish hellscape than even Mortarion's homeworld once was.