vizn3r/warhammer40k-lore huggingface dataset:
Banish - Basilica Malefex: Beneath the steaming acid swamps of Banish lies the Exorcists' fortress-monastery, the Basilica Malefex. This mysterious underground complex is unusual for being home to not only the strategicheadquarters, Armoury and other facilities typical of most Space Marine homeworlds, but also the extensive precincts of the Radical Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus known as the Plutonians. It is here that Exorcists initiates are ushered into the gloomy depths of the Halls of Tempering where they will be possessed by Daemons. Full details of the arcane technologies housed in thisplace of possession are known only to the Ordo Malleus Radicals and senior figures in Chapter command, and those Exorcists who emerge do so with no memory of the means by which the Inquisitors work.The remainder of the fortress-monastery houses all of the infrastructure required by any more orthodox Space Marine Chapter, along with a number of peculiarities. At the heart of the complex, a quadriform walkway called the Cloister of Scars links together the Chapter's training grounds, living quarters and command centres, while the huge atrium at the cloister's centre acts as a burial ground for the battle-slain, with dimly-lit spaces reserved for private meditation. The outer walls of the Cloister of Scars are studded with many stone archways of varying size and grandeur. The larger of these lead off to the great institutions of the Chapter -- the Reclusiam, Apothecarion, Armoury and the Council Chamber where the Chapter Master presides.The mightiest doorway of all leads to the Chapter Librarius. Behind thick blast doors sentried at all times, the Chief Librarian and his subordinates preserve detailed records of every Exorcists battle, paying special attention to any Daemonic foes encountered and the methods used to defeat them. While all Space Marines seek to know their enemies and capitalise on their weaknesses, the Exorcists take this belief to the extreme, and their diligent accumulation of occult lore would be considered heretical by many other Chapters.The Librarians understand the risks, however, and the dim vaults that harbour such tracts are wreathed in hexagrammatic wards and a perpetual haze of purifying incense. In truth, arcane subject matter forms a relatively small part of the Chapter's record-keeping; the Exorcists are a well-rounded fighting force equipped to engage all manner of enemies, and through keen analysis of Chapter records they strive to be as prepared as possible for any threats they might face -- Daemonic or otherwise.
Banish - Purgatomb: Soon after the Plutonians began their work, it became clear that the Exorcists were not just capable of enduring Daemonic possession. Their corporeal forms also proved strangely suited to retaining any entities that were not successfully banished. In a series of horrifying experiments, the Plutonians found that the living bodies of failed initiates were able to hold indefinite numbers of Daemons prisoner, some subjects becoming so saturated with Warp-spawn that they were sustained in a state of deathless torture, their bodies enduring for standard centuries while their minds broke apart. Even in this ignoble end, however, the Exorcists found a use for their fallen sons.If these "Broken Ones" could not serve the Chapter on the battlefield, they could at least live on as vessels of imprisonment, harbouring in their flesh the myriad entities driven out of successful initiates -- immortal beings that might otherwise return to the Warp and scatter the Exorcists' deepest secrets far and wide. Thus arose the most chilling of all practices conducted within the Halls of Tempering of the Basilica Malefex, and over the millennia, the numbers of accursed Broken Ones have continued to grow.Accommodating such vessels of evil on Banish would be unthinkably dangerous, however. As the Exorcists' Apothecarion is concerned with retaining only the untarnished gene-seed of successful initiates,Broken Ones are dispatched into deep space under maximum security protocols, to live out their untold years within a secret prison-craft known as the Purgatomb. Within the pitch-black bowels of this immense drifting bastion, the Broken Ones are left to writhe and scream, locked within the hyper-dense walls of their warded cells.For some five standard millennia the Purgatomb has served the Exorcists' grim purposes, and though its location has become known on occasion, its abominable contents have never yet become known to any ally or enemy. This is well, as if even a single Broken One were to escape, the consequences for the Chapter -- perhaps even for the Imperium itself -- would be catastrophic.
Banisher - Banisher: A Banisher is a specialised holy warrior who is a member of a special religious order of the Adeptus Ministorum known as the Collegia Exterminatus that was formed by the Ordo Malleus of the Calixis Sector.A Banisher is equally skilled at both delving into the forbidden knowledge required to understand the nature of daemons and eradicating daemonic forces with fire and Chainsword.Chosen at a young age from the most pious of children in the Calixian Schola Progenium, their training takes a great deal of time and effort as they earn the faith necessary to fortify their souls against the information they might uncover during their studies of forbidden knowledge.As a result, many Banishers are relatively advanced in age by the time they become Acolytes in service to an Inquisitor.The intensity of their training often leaves a Banisher with scars and augmetic replacements. Their bodies show the sacrifices they have made to keep themselves pure in the eyes of the God-Emperor.
Banisher - Becoming a Banisher: To be a Banisher is to seek out knowledge many believe is best left buried. They combine lore with faith, without failing to bring a Flamer to bear should it be necessary. Their will is fortified against the madness which accompanies such endeavours, for they must go where few dare.They must be prepared to face many horrors in their search for manuscripts, ancient legends, and even the true name of a powerful Daemon.Most Banishers are raised up from those children in the local Schola Progenium who already possess and extraordinary degree of piety and faith in the God-Emperor.
Banisher - Notable Banishers: Keramiah Tor, the Hollow Priest - A Banisher formerly serving Inquisitor Ahmazzi of the Tyrantine Cabal, Keramiah Tor is now a senior member of the Collegiate Exterminatus and one of the most experienced of his rank in the Calixis Sector. Tor served Ahmazzi for many standard years, and by all accounts stood on the verge of elevation to the rank of Interrogator. His peers fully expected that he would eventually ascend to bear the Inquisitorial Rosette, but sadly, it was not to be. Two solar decades ago, Tor was brought before the high council of the Calixian Conclave to be judged, and was found wanting. Although the Banisher was found to be free from corruption and untouched by the taint of the Warp, his mind and soul had become so entrenched and rigid by what he had witnessed in the course of his duties that the assembled Inquisitors decided he lacked the wits to progress further in rank. Ahmazzi, who had willingly submitted his Acolyte to the conclave's judgement, was bitterly disappointed. Though he could have ignored the judgement of his peers and elevated Tor to Interrogator status, Inquisitor Ahmazzi saw that to do so would be divisive and cause certain other Inquisitors to align themselves against him. Reluctantly, Ahmazzi acceded to the council's verdict. The Banisher himself appeared unmoved by the judgement, a fact that served to confirm the decision in the minds of the members of the conclave. Ahmazzi retained Tor's services, for he had served stoically against the foes of Mankind for many years, and so his master sponsored his induction into the upper echelons of the Collegiate Exterminatus, where he serves to this day.
Banner of Macragge - Banner of Macragge: The Banner of Macragge is the ancient Battle Standard of the Ultramarines Chapter and it is considered to be one of its most revered Chapter relics. It was touched by the Emperor of Mankind's own hand when He presented it to the XIII Space Marine Legion's Primarch Roboute Guilliman at the beginning of the Great Crusade in ca. 798.M30. The Ultramarines have preserved it for ten millennia through fire and war and decimation, each generation passing it on to the next as a burning torch of their love for the immortal Emperor who created them. It has languished in dull stasis chambers and flown beneath the suns of a thousand alien worlds. It has flown on Macragge itself, whenever the whole Chapter is gathered together, and it has been carried forth whenever the Ultramarines have fought as one against the direst of foes. It is said to be made of a strange material known only to the ancients; light as silk but strong as steel; flame cannot burn it and where it is rent asunder it re-spins itself as perfect as the day it was first made. It is marked with the names of all seventy Chapter Masters of the Ultramarines, beginning with Roboute Guilliman and ending with young Marneus Calgar. The Banner carries an honorific for each Victorix Maxima (High Gothic for "great victory") of the Chapter which has been declared at the Imperial Palace on sacred Terra. The Standard Bearer given the honour of carrying the Banner of Macragge always bears the title of "Ancient."Tall and intricate in detail, the banner displays a gold Ultramarines icon overlaid on a field of blue. It is made of an unknown material that is fireproof and able to seal any rents and tears made in the fabric in such a manner that the damage cannot be detected. The staff of the banner is made from adamantium, and at last sighting it appeared scored and pitted as if it had been splashed with acid. It is inscribed with the names of all 77 Chapter Masters of the Ultramarines, from Roboute Guilliman to Marneus Calgar, as well as devices noting every major victory the Ultramarines have won in their long history.The Banner of Macragge has endured long periods of safekeeping, rather than display, for various reasons. The most recent of these was the 200 standard years that it spent secured and unused after the Battle of Macragge; Marneus Calgar declared that it would not be flown again until the Ultramarines Chapter had returned to full strength and had recovered from the casualties and damage inflicted by the Tyranids in that campaign.
Banner of Macragge - Notable Standard Bearers of the Banner of Macragge: Ancient Galatan - Ancient Galatan was the Bearer of the Banner of Macragge in times past, taking part in the Corinth Crusade from 698-705.M41. During a fierce battle against the Orks of WAAAGH! Skargor, he briefly dropped the sacred standard when his arm was chopped off by the Ork Warboss Skargor. While distracted with trying to break the banner with his Power Claw, Ancient Galatan impaled his Power Sword through the back of Skargor's head, killing him instantly and breaking the spirit of the Greenskins. Though he later died from the wounds incurred in the encounter, the Banner of Macragge remained upright for the remainder of the battle, rallying the Ultramarines to finally defeat the Orks.Ancient Helveticus - Ancient Helveticus was another the Bearer of the Banner of Macragge. He bore the Chapter's Banner during the Battle of Macragge, and was present aboard Marneus Calgar's Battle Barge when it was boarded by Tyranids. He led the fierce counterattack against the encroaching xenos, and was subsequently killed in battle, both fatally poisoned and burned by the assault of the horrific xenos. His grip upon the shaft of the banner was said to be so tight, that initially it could not be pried from his hands even after his death.Ancient Tortalus - After the Battle of Macragge, the young Chapter Master Marneus Calgar declared that the Banner of Macragge would not be carried forth again until the Ultramarines had rebuilt their strength, when they were once again a whole Chapter. It has taken them two standard centuries to bring the 1st Company back to full strength after their sacrifice at Macragge. Only then did the Chapter Master believe that the Ultramarines were fit to carry the Banner of Macragge into battle once more. Ancient Helveticus was succeeded in this duty by Ancient Tortalus.
Banner of Macragge - Canon Conflict: If the Banner of Macragge supposedly dates from the time of the Great Crusade, it shouldn't depict a Tyranid organism being slain by Primarch Roboute Guilliam, as this xenos race didn't make contact with the Imperium until the current millennium, with some sources stating that the Imperium possible made first contact with them no earlier than the 35th Millennium. The explanation for this depiction has not been adequately explained by Games Workshop, nor has it yet to be retconned in any Black Library publications. The only possible explanation is that the Tyranid organism might have been added later, following the disastrous events of the Battle of Macragge while fighting Hive Fleet Behemoth in 745.M41. This most likely would have been done to honour the great sacrifice made by the Ultramarines, and most especially their veteran 1st Company, who were slain to a man.
Banshee Mask - Banshee Mask: A Banshee Mask is a war helm worn by the Howling Banshees Asuryani Aspect Warriors in battle. Each Warrior Aspect has its own distinctive helmet, and within each shrine the helmet may vary in form slightly, with correspondingly more elaborate versions for the shrine's Exarchs.A standard Howling Banshees Aspect Warrior's Banshee Mask is tall in profile, with long flowing hair spilling from the top of it like a lion's mane.Their distinctive design contains psychosonic amplifiers that magnify the keening battle screams of their wearers into mind-destroying shockwaves. This inflicts severe damage to the central nervous system of an Asuryani warrior's foe, inspiring a feeling of mortal terror and causing momentary paralysis.By custom, it is this helmet that marks the Howling Banshee Aspect Warriors as the protectors and avengers of their craftworld. The helm traditionally bears the Howling Banshees Aspect rune traced upon its forehead.
Banshee Mask - Gift of the Crone Goddess: The banshee is a harbinger of woe in ancient Aeldari legend and mythology, whose cry is said to herald such ill fate that it can even wrench a soul from its Spirit Stone, before casting it into depths of the Immaterium; there to be plaything of Daemons.It is fitting then that the most feared of all the Craftworld Aeldari Aspect Warriors, the Howling Banshees, draw inspiration from this unearthly creature and take on its name; and it is from the scream of the creature that is the mythological source of their most potent weapon: the Banshee Mask.In Aeldari mythology, the Crone Goddess Morai-Heg sought to partake of the wisdom contained in her divine blood. Knowing there was only one with the power to harm a god, she sent her daughters to haunt their father Khaine's steps with their piercing screams.The infernal noise drove the war god Khaela Mensha Khaine into a bloody rage that saw his mind begin to unravel. Promising an end to this curse, the Crone Goddess bade Khaine to cut off her hand that she might drink deep from her own veins. With this deed, Morai-Heg gained the knowledge of blood, and the Aspect of the Banshee was granted to Khaine in return.
Banshee Mask - The War Mask: The concept of the war mask is at the core of the Path of the Warrior. Aeldari, being more highly evolved than other, "lesser" species, feel all sensations more keenly than do Humans, T'au or Orks. This allows them to embrace positive emotions, such as love, with a greater fervour than members of these other species can conceive, but it also heightens their experience of darker feelings, such as rage, fear and grief.The act of killing is likewise amplified. Where a Human can kill another being with little guilt or remorse, for an Aeldari to do so is an act that can endanger their very soul and risks drawing the dark attentions of She Who Thirsts. While their sensation-craving Drukhari cousins draw pleasure from bringing death, the Asuryani prefer to separate their souls from the act of murder, and so they don their "war masks" before combat.The war mask is as much a metaphysical concept as a physical artefact. When Aspect Warriors prepare for battle, they ritually take up their war masks, adopting another persona, one at ease with the blood that is soon to flow, and temporarily abandoning the person they are away from the shrine. They embrace the savage instincts that lurk in the heart of every Aeldari, and prepare to bring death in the name of the Bloody Handed God, Khaine.As they kill, it is their warrior persona who risks feeling the touch of She Who Thirsts, and when the battle is done and the foe vanquished, the Aspect Warriors remove their war masks and return to the person they were before, the bloody acts they have committed more distant dream than fresh memory.In this way can the Asuryani eventually move on to other Paths without bringing with them the trauma of the acts they have performed and atrocities they have committed.Some Aspect Warriors who cleave too close to the Path of the Warrior find that their war mask and true persona become one and the same. It is these lost souls who don the most ancient and potent wargear of their shrines and become Exarchs, training others in the arts of war and leading them on the battlefield.
Banshee Mask - Howl of the Banshee: The war masks worn by Howling Banshees are remarkably simple in function, but devastating in effect. Built into their helmets are potent psychosonic amplifiers, linked to a central mouthpiece that is permanently fixed into a terrifying snarl.In their traditional bone-white garb, they appear like the banshee of ancient Aeldari myth, a pale, wraithlike figure that chills the blood with its cry of despair and pain.Alongside the martial skills that the Banshees learn during their time in the Aspect Shrine, they are also taught how to channel the grief and rage that they experience in killing into a terrifying shriek. Imbued with psychic dread and channelled through the amplifiers, the Banshees' scream becomes a weapon as effective, in its way, as their shuriken pistols or power swords.As the Banshees charge into combat, their howls combine to create a barrage of psychosonic force known to the Aeldari as the "Scream that Steals." This combination of noise and esoteric energies not only temporarily deafens their enemies, but also floods their nervous systems with psychic power -- not enough to risk opening them up to possession by beasts of the Warp -- but enough to temporarily disorient or even paralyse them.By the time they recover their senses, the Howling Banshees are amongst them, bringing death with shuriken and energy-wreathed blade. In this way do they emulate the mythological horror from which they take their name, as the sound of the banshee's howl presages doom for all who hear it.
Banshee Mask - Sources: Codex: Eldar (2nd Edition), pp. 9, 12, 86Codex: Eldar (3rd Edition), pg. 10Codex: Eldar (4th Edition), pp. 31, 63Codex: Eldar (6th Edition), pp. 32, 66Path of the Warrior (Novel) by Gavin Thorpe, pg. 160Planetstrike (5th Edition), pg. 55Rogue Trader: The Koronus Bestiary (RPG), pg. 51Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook (5th Edition), pg. 157Warhammer 40,000: Munitorum - Banshee Masks (Digital Edition), pp. 25-30
Baraban - Baraban: BarabanXenos WorldT'au EmpireVelk'HanSeptJericho ReachAstra MilitarumAchilus CrusadeThe planet's endless temperate forests are home not only to huge Vespid and Kroot armies, but to spectral presences that prey on the sanity of the Imperial Guardsmen fighting there.The war on Baraban is a conventional one, with battle lines of trenches and fortifications, attacks and counterattacks, as each side tries to push the other back.Time and again the Astra Militarum launch armoured spearheads that shatter the xenos lines and it seems that surely a crushing victory will at last be won. Then the ghosts of Baraban make themselves known, and the Imperial forces fall apart in terror and madness.A whole Human army can suddenly be assailed by bizarre visions and sensations, and must fight to save themselves from crazed comrades as well as the xenos.The source of Baraban's ghosts is unknown, but everyone who has been there and survived has his own explanation. They appear to each guardsman differently: some as voices in the mind, others as visions of loved ones long dead or resident on distant worlds.Even the Deathwatch who have participated in the battle for Baraban report witnessing their Primarch wading into battle, or feeling the agony of the Emperor as Horus dealt Him His mortal wound.Many Astra Militarum commanders believe the T'au have a hand in Baraban's ghosts, but others believe the Kroot and the Vespid have their own difficulties on the planet.The Kroot, in particular, evolve into strange and apparently useless strains very easily, with dead-end strains like mindless cattle or uncontrollable predators resulting from the planet's cruel influence.
Barabas Dantioch - Barabas Dantioch: Barabas Dantioch was a formidable Warsmith of the Iron Warriors Space Marine Legion during the Great Crusade and the opening days of the Horus Heresy. Having fallen out of favour with his Primarch Perturabo, he was relegated to performing garrison duty upon the barren world of Lesser Damantyne, where he was responsible for the construction of the formidable fortress known as the Schadenhold.When a fellow Warsmith loyal to the traitorous Warmaster Horus came to Lesser Damantyne to inform Dantioch that his fortress would be used as a staging area and resupply point for the inevitable campaign of the Traitors against Terra, Dantioch refused to acknowledge his former brethren, declaring his loyalty to the Emperor.Following a brutal internecine conflict that raged for just over a Terran year, the mighty fortress fell to the Traitor Iron Warriors, but not before Dantioch played one last desperate hand. He and a small contingent of Loyalists managed to teleport aboard the Traitors' command ship, commandeered it and escaped to Ultramar.Dantioch ultimately gave his life to protect the alien artefact known as the Pharos on the world of Sotha from being seized by a contingent of the Night Lords Traitor Legion in their attempt to reunify their scattered forces in the wake of the Thramas Crusade.
Barabas Dantioch - A Light in the Darkness: From the heart of the Ruinstorm they came, over hours, then days, then weeks: lone voidships, wounded vessels, broken flotillas and piecemeal fleets. Some of these ships brought much needed imports and materials from the other Five Hundred Worlds. All brought news, or pieces of news of Horus' rebellion. Many were warships of Guilliman's own Legion, storm-lost on their way back from the Underworld War raging on Calth, or the bitter campaign against the Traitor sons that snarled across Ultramar as a whole. Some carried more of the Shattered Legions -- the Iron Hands, Raven Guard and a handful of Salamanders -- survivors of the treachery of the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V.It was later discovered that the Pharos possibly possessed some sort of sentience. Dantioch first discovered this by-product of its process when he was conducting his daily communique with the Imperial Fists Captain Alexis Polux, a survivor of the Battle of Phall, who had been drawn to Ultramar by the strange navigational light of the Pharos. When the Dark Angels' entire expeditionary fleet arrived at Macragge, drawn by the light of the Pharos, they carried with them a most dangerous prisoner -- the murderous Konrad Curze, Primarch of the Night Lords Legion. The Night Lords Primarch and some of his Astartes had been captured months earlier aboard the Dark Angels flagship Invincible Reason, but somehow the Night Haunter had effected his escape. Over the next four solar months he managed to stay one step ahead of his pursuers within the bowels of the mighty warship. Once the Dark Angels had arrived in Ultramarran space, Curze managed to make his way down to the surface of Macragge in order to spread as much murder and mayhem amongst the populace as possible. The majority of the Night Haunter's murderous spree occurred behind the supposedly impenetrable walls of the Lord Macragge's mighty citadel, the Magna Macragge Civitas.During his daily communication briefing with Captain Pollux, Dantioch had empathically detected the presence of the Night Haunter, and quickly warned the Imperial Fist of his impending attack. Utilising the communication field of the Pharos, the empathic resonance enabled Dantioch to detect Konrad Curze in the darkness and forewarn Polux before each of the Renegade Primarch's impending strikes. Then, when his life was in true jeopardy, Dantioch wanted to save him, and so, he reached out and took the hand of the fallen Imperial Fist, and pulled him through into the massive chamber of Primary Location Alpha on Sotha. When both Primarchs Guilliman and Lion El'Jonson confronted the Night Haunter a short while later, and their lives, too, were imperiled, both Polux and Dantioch were able to pull the Primarchs through the Pharos, saving them from certain death.
Barabas Dantioch - Battle of Sotha: Following their defeat at the hands of the Dark Angels at Tsagualsa, remnants of the Night Lords Legion followed the strange beacon they detected in the Warp, which guided them safely to the world of Sotha. Over many solar months, the Night Lords secretly gathered intelligence on the suspicious activities of the Ultramarines, and soon discovered the nature of the arcane device, named the Pharos, upon the restricted planet.The Night Lords launched a surprise assault upon the lightly garrisoned world, intent on seizing the Pharos in order to use it to determine the location of their flagship, the Nightfall, as well as the whereabouts of their missing Primarch Konrad Curze. In the ensuing battle, Warsmith Dantioch sacrificed himself by overloading the Pharos, so that the Night Lords would be unable to utilise the device's powerful empathic abilities. The far-reaching consequences this had for the galaxy would not come to pass for another ten millennia -- with the arrival of the Tyranid Hive Fleets, drawn like moths to a candle across the intergalactic void by the Pharos' powerful beacon.
Barbarossa Crusade - Barbarossa Crusade: Barbarossa CrusadeImperial CrusadeBlack TemplarsSpace MarineChapterBarbarossa IVOrksHive WorldArmageddonThird War for ArmageddonChaosThe Black Templar Crusade forces under the command of Castellan Hermann fought to cleanse the Chapter Keep of both the Greenskins and the Chaos taint, which had manifested in the form of a daemonic intrusion and the Chaotic corruption of the Black Templars garrison which had held the keep.The Black Templars eventually crushed the threat, eliminated the Warp-taint and their Renegade Battle-Brothers and recaptured their ruined keep. The Astartes then moved on to eradicate the remaining Ork forces on the world.
Barbarus - Barbarus: The Feral World of Barbarus was the homeworld of the Primarch Mortarion and the former Legion planet of the traitorous Death Guard Space Marine Legion.Like the homeworlds of all the Traitor Legions, it was ultimately destroyed by an Exterminatus action carried out by Cyclonic Torpedoes just before the end of the Horus Heresy by the Dark Angels Legion because of the sheer levels of Chaos corruption that prevailed upon its surface.
Barbarus - The Poisonous World: Of all the worlds upon which the Primarchs were scattered, few were as terrible or forlorn a place as damned Barbarus. This Feral World orbited near a dim yellow sun in the Segmentum Tempestus, which created a thick, miasmic atmosphere of toxic chemicals. The most virulent of these gases rose through Barbarus' perpetual clouds towards the heat of its star, making the world beneath a dismal place of night, unbroken by starlight and possessed of short, shadowy days.Very little can be said for certain about this remote and baleful planet, or the Primarch Mortarion's formative years spent there as it appears even at the time of his finding the truth was carefully edited and obscured by the hand of the Emperor Himself. What consistent information can be gleaned now of Barbarus and the Death Guard Primarch's story have a singe source, the so-called Stygian Scrolls of Lackland Thorn, authored by the famed and disreputable Remembrancer. He was a historian attached to the Crusade Fleet that breached the dark nebula that surrounded Barbarus.The world on which the young Mortarion fell was the very epitome of the terrors which had befallen Mankind during the long night of the Age of Strife -- a domain of savage, alien overlords who ruled over an entrapped and preyed-upon human population as cruel as terrible gods. The only atmosphere breathable by humans existed only in the lowest elevations, on flat moors and in the valley basins of the jagged, stony mountains which spined the world. These unknown alien overlords were immune to the toxic soup of the planet's upper atmosphere, building great keeps of grey stone in the mountain fastnesses.When humans first settled Barbarus, the horrific environmental conditions from which they had to eke out survival quickly reduced them to a pre-feudal state. The higher beings' incomprehensible Warp-based powers, their ability to survive where men could not, and above all their hunger to prey upon and experiment with humankind, caused the settlers to ascribe to those beings a medieval supernaturalism and an evil animus. The true nature of these dark overlords, beyond their obvious connection to the dark entities of the Empyrean, will likely never be known.
Barbarus - Birthright: Descending beneath the mists was a revelation to Mortarion; his lungs were filled with air free of poisons for the first time. He smelled aromas of food being prepared, of crops freshly harvested, heard voices unmuffled by fog and, for the first time, heard laughter. The young Primarch realised that he was among his own kind, that the "fragile prey" of the warlords were his own people. And with the realisation came rage. He was determined to bring them the justice denied them by the dark powers which moved above.Mortarion's acceptance amongst the human settlers of Barbarus was no simple thing. However like them he felt himself to be, to them he was little different from the monsters above. Towering over even the tallest of his fellow Barbarans, gaunt and pallid, with hollow, haunted eyes which betrayed the horrors he had seen, Mortarion terrified most of the settlers.They looked upon him with suspicion and fear. It stung the young Primarch, but he bided his time, using his great strength to work the fields for their meager harvest, knowing that his opportunity to prove himself would come. When it did in the twilight hours, he was ready.
Barbarus - Savior of Barbarus: The village was eventually attacked by a lesser lord and his corpse-thralls. The villagers fought back with their farmer's tools and torches but were unable to prevent the shambling creatures from carrying out their master's dark purposes. Mortarion strode forth, a large two-handed starveling scythe in his hands, and charged into the ranks of the enemy and annihilated them with his Primarch-borne rage.Their dark lord smiled at Mortarion as the Primarch neared, withdrawing into the poisonous heights where he thought this rebellious human could never reach him. He was still wearing his contemptuous smile when Mortarion caught up with him on the mountainside and exacted his vengeance for the 'fragile prey' below. After that night, Mortarion's place among the settlers was never in doubt.As he matured, Mortarion taught the settlers of Barbarus what he knew of warfare. Word of his exploits spread, and many others made the perilous journey to learn. Slowly, villages became strongpoints, and the villagers more effective defenders. Eventually, Mortarion went amongst the people, traveling from settlement to settlement, teaching, building and, when occasion demanded, defending them. Always, however, his ultimate justice was denied; the dark powers could always retreat into the impregnable bulwark of their poisonous mists. His people could only fight in defense. That had to change.Mortarion recruited the toughest, most resilient of Barbarus' population, forming them into small units which he drilled himself, teaching them not only defence but also attack. He turned blacksmiths from tool-working to weapons-making when time allowed, and crafters to the shaping of armour. And, with the best artificers he could find, he bent his formidable intellect to the problem of the poisonous air.
Barbarus - Rebellion: When one of the overlords descended from the poisonous fog blanketing the mountainous crags, the villagers not only managed to mount a successful defence, but were led by Mortarion into the poisonous fog where the overlord's army thought it would escape the marauding humans. Masked with crude filtering hoses and breathing apparatus, the Primarch led his retinue to bring death into the realm of death.They killed the warlord and massacred his army. The Primarch continued to improve the breathing apparatus of his "Death Guard," as his retinue of warriors came to be known, campaigning ever higher into the dark overlord's domain. Encountering ever more virulent pestilence, the constant exposure to the higher doses of toxins toughened the Death Guard. These traits would eventually prove to be transferable to each new iteration of the Death Guard, building up their legendary resilience to the poisonous toxins and studiedly harsher environments that they encountered.Mortarion and his Death Guard warred for solar months across the poisonous spine of Barbarus, until only one grim, but very familiar manse stood against them. The concentration of poisonous toxins was such that they threatened to overcome the Death Guard and the Primarch himself, forcing him to withdrew. Upon his return, however, his world was destined to once again spin out of his control.
Barbarus - The Emperor Arrives: Mortarion and his brethren arrived to find the village alive unlike he had ever known it. On everyone's lips was word of the arrival of a stranger, a great benefactor who brought promise of salvation. The Primarch's mood darkened; this day of deliverance was one he had worked for all his life, and he found himself altogether unhappy to see it co-opted by the arrival of some newcomer of uncertain agenda.The Primarch entered the hall and saw the stranger, who was opposite in every imaginable way, seated at the banquet table. The stranger was robust with bronzed flesh and possessed an utterly perfect physique, whereas the people of Barbarus were gaunt, unhealthy-looking and pale. Despite the affect wrought upon him by Barbarus' poisons, the connection between the new benefactor and their defender was nevertheless plain to them all.As plain as father and son. However, Mortarion was oblivious to any connection. He greeted the stranger with barely masked hostility, which quickly turned to outright anger at the stranger's utter unflappability. Angry, Mortarion declared that he and his Death Guard needed no help to finish their quest for justice.It is said that the benefactor quietly challenged the stormy young Primarch's assertion, pointing out the Death Guard's failure to reach the last high citadel, and then threw down a gauntlet. If Mortarion could defeat the high overlord alone, he would withdraw and leave Barbarus to its own means. But if he failed, they would join his Imperium of Man and Mortarion would swear total fealty and allegiance to him.Over the protests of his Death Guard, he spun on his heel and struck out alone for the last manse standing against him, the keep of the overlord he had called father. Mortarion climbed ever higher, driven by the inevitability of the imminent conflict with his once master, driven by his desire to bring final justice for the people of his world. However he was mostly motivated by a compulsion to prove himself to the stranger below.The confrontation, when it finally came, was mercilessly brief. Mortarion, choking in air so toxic that the hoses of his protective breathing gear began to rot away, struggled to the very gates of the overlord's citadel, calling out his defiance. The last thing he saw as he fell to his knees, the world turning grey as he was overcome, was the Overlord of Barbarus coming for him, to fulfill the promise he had made generations before. Then the mighty stranger stepped between them, defying the death-fog, and felled the overlord with a single blow of his gleaming power sword.
Barbarus - The Death Guard: Mortarion was true to his oath. When he recovered, he bent his knee to the stranger and swore himself and the Death Guard to his service. Only then did the Emperor of Man reveal Himself as the young Primarch's true father, and the destiny such service would bring: command of the XIV Legion of the Legiones Astartes, the Space Marines.The XIV Legion were already known as the "Dusk Raiders." The Space Marines that had been created from his genetic material had already developed their signature strategy; attacking their foes at nightfall, thus earning them this moniker. The Dusk Raiders' Power Armour was storm-grey in colour whilst their right arm and one or both shoulder plates were painted crimson. This was done with the intent to symbolically show their enemies what they truly were -- the Emperor's red right hand, relentless and unstoppable. Many enemies would throw down their weapons the moment the sun dipped beneath the horizon, rather than dare to fight them.Mortarion changed the name of the Legion to the Death Guard after the name of the military force he had raised on his homeworld of Barbarus to overthrow the rule of that feudal world's necromantic warlords. He began to enlarge the Legion's ranks with men taken from the population of Barbarus. Upon first seeing them he told them: "You are my unbroken blades. You are the Death Guard." The Legion's name was then changed in accordance with this decree.
Barbarus - The Fate of Barbarus: Barbarus was destroyed by the Dark Angels Legion in an Exterminatus action carried out with Cyclonic Torpedoes shortly before the start of the Siege of Terra. When Mortarion learned of his homeworld's death, he showed little emotion, though the destruction of their homeworld led many Astartes of the Death Guard Legion to hope to carry out a similar extermination upon the Dark Angels' world of Caliban following their expected victory over the Emperor.
Barbarus - Plague Planet: Within the Eye of Terror, Mortarion claimed the world which would become known as the "Plague Planet" as his own; its location near the fabric of reality was ideal for launching new strikes into the Imperium and across the galaxy.He shaped it so satisfactorily and defended it with his Plague Marines so well that his patron, Nurgle the Plague Lord, elevated the primarch to daemonhood as a Daemon Prince and gave Mortarion what the Emperor had denied him, and what Horus had not been able to provide: a world of his own. Mortarion became the overlord of a world of poison, horror and misery. He had come home.Since his elevation to daemonhood, Mortarion has, consciously or not, remade the Plague Planet very much in Barbarus' image. Its citizens cower in festering villages on the planet's surface, serving their supreme masters, Mortarion's champions and other daemonic servants of Nurgle who reside in mighty fortress-citadels high above them. Diseased things which should be dead, yet are not, roam the landscape, and skeletal Mortarion rules over all, enthroned upon the highest peak of the world.
Barbarus - Canon Conflict: In the novel Lords of Silence it is said that Barbarus was destroyed after the Horus Heresy by virus bombs dropped by the Imperial forces as they scoured all the Traitor Legion homeworlds from existence.However the novella Dreadwing and the novel The Buried Dagger explained that Barbarus had been destroyed before the end of the Heresy by the actions of the Dark Angels as described above.
Bards of Twilight - Bards of Twilight: The Bards of Twilight are an order of mystical Craftworld Aeldari poets and storytellers. They are tasked with reciting the ancient Aeldari epic poem known as the Asuryata once in each generation.The tale is composed of many well-known parables intended to pass on important teachings about life and Aeldari culture. The Asuryani use the text to derive guiding principles for both their day-to-day lives and their military campaigns.
Barghesi - Barghesi: The Barghesi, also spelled Bhargesi in some Imperial texts, are an extraordinarily aggressive and violent intelligent alien species that inhabits the Grendl Stars region of the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy in the Imperium Nihilus.Three thousand standard years ago, in the 38th Millennium, the Iron Lords Chapter of Space Marines managed to contain the Barghesi within the Grendl Stars cluster and also prevented the Tyranid Hive Fleet Kraken from entering the region and harvesting the genetic potential of the Barghesi for use in new Tyranid bioforms.The Barghesi are such a violent species that the Drukhari sometimes raid their worlds and take slaves that are used by the Drukhari Beastmasters as opponents in the blood-stained gladiatorial arenas of Commorragh, their Dark City within the extradimensional confines of the Webway.If Hive Fleet Kraken were to defeat the Imperial defenders in the War for the Aberrus System, the Ordo Xenos fears that the Kraken would sweep into the Grendl Stars and seal the fate of the entire Eastern Fringe.
Baroda - Baroda: Baroda was an Imperial Knight World located in the Grail Abyss at the extreme northern border of the Segmentum Obscurus and the Imperium itself. Before the Age of Strife Baroda was a populous world, rich in minerals and home to dozens of Knight houses which would dramatically decay and go on to destroy themselves in internecine warfare.Baroda is perhaps best known for being the former homeworld of the infamous and ill-reputed House Makabius, which committed countless atrocities alongside the Traitor Death Guard Legion throughout the Cyclops Cluster. The planet was abandoned early on in the Horus Heresy, forcibly evacuated and stripped of its resources and manpower by the orders of the sinister Death Guard Primarch Mortarion in 007.M31.
Barracuda - Barracuda: The Barracuda air superiority fighter is the most common atmospheric combat aircraft used by the T'au Air Caste.Faster than the Imperial Navy's Marauder bomber, but lacking the high maximum speed of the Thunderbolt or Lightning fighter, it makes up for this lack with its sophisticated electronic systems and the natural talents of its T'au Air Caste pilots.In a dogfight, the Thunderbolt and the Barracuda are very closely matched, with the Thunderbolt having the edge in speed, and the Barracuda having the greater manoeuverability.Imperial pilots of the Aeronautica Imperialis often have a hard edge of combat experience that the pilots of the Air Caste find hard to match, though the superior handling and armament of the Barracuda often proves decisive in encounters between T'au and Imperial combat aircraft.Utilising the natural advantages of its Air Caste pilots, the Barracuda excels in its main role as an air-to-air combat interceptor. Barracuda are commonly used by the T'au to intercept enemy fighter squadrons that are assaulting T'au ground forces, attack enemy air transports and their fighter escorts on their way to the front, and escort T'au transports such as Orcas and Mantas as they deploy Hunter Cadres.Barracudas are also commonly tasked with carrying out ground attacks in direct support of Hunter Cadres and providing overall air support for T'au ground forces in combat.Barracudas often strafe and harass enemy troop movements and also disrupt enemy supply lines and bases, which was common during the Taros Campaign. Barracudas are also capable of operating in the hard void of space, where they fulfill the Attack Craft role for the T'au Navy.Barracudas can be transported through interstellar space via larger Warp-capable carrier vessels such as the Custodian, Protector, and Emissary-class starships.
Barracuda - History: The T'au forces deployed to seize control of the former Imperial Mining World of Taros during the Taros Campaign in 998.M41 included a large contingent from the Air Caste which formed an integral part of the T'au's overall strategy for securing victory.Winning the air war against the Imperial Navy was vital to the T'au's plans, and Barracudas and Thunderbolts fought daily for control of the skies. Flying from well-concealed desert air bases on the Iracunda Isthmus, the Barracudas eventually won the battle.As well as engaging in dogfights, the Barracudas also targeted the Astra Militarum's supply columns, operating in unison with infiltrating Pathfinder teams to destroy Trojans and the supplies vital to keeping the Astra Militarum fighting.Due to these severe losses, Imperial troops on the frontlines quickly began to run out of basic supplies such as water, causing much of the Imperial offensive to grind to a halt.Imperial Guardsmen on the ground also faced the ever-present danger of low-level Barracuda strafing attacks where the T'au fighters would commonly slip low over the desert, hugging valleys and ridge lines only to rise suddenly in a whirl of firepower that raked the sand and sent everybody diving for the nearest cover. Although exact figures are unknown, it is thought by the Imperial Navy that the T'au Air Caste deployed an estimated 150 aircraft on Taros.The most deadly Barracuda pilots encountered so far by the Imperium are those whose squadron name is believed to translate into Low Gothic as "the Gift of Silence." This single Barracuda squadron has thus far accounted for the loss of 27 Imperial bombers and 18 interceptors. It has also claimed an Astra Militarum Tetrarch Heavy Lander as it made planetfall, resulting in the loss of an entire Imperial Guard regiment.Barracudas have also been fielded in large numbers in the Canis Salient of the Jericho Reach, to try and achieve air superiority over the many conflict zones against Imperial forces in the Achilus Crusade.