Horus Heresy - Castigation of Khur: At this time, some 40 standard years before the start of the Horus Heresy, the absolute loyalty of Lorgar and the Word Bearers Legion to the Emperor and his Imperium was unquestioned. Their Compliant worlds regularly delivered tithes in the Emperor’s name, and the orders of Terra were accepted without question throughout the worlds liberated by the Word Bearers. Lorgar and his Legion had successfully prosecuted the Emperor's Great Crusade for almost a full Terran century, and in that time the Emperor had never once admonished His zealous son or the Word Bearers Legion for their fervent worship of Him even though such doctrine clashed with the Emperor's Imperial Truth.But the Emperor, for all His love for His son, was deeply disturbed by Lorgar's unwillingness to embrace reason or alter his practices despite decades of exposure to the advanced science and technology of the Imperium. He had initially tolerated the beliefs of his deeply religious son, but as the Great Crusade reached its height, the Emperor found Himself increasingly frustrated with the slow pace with which Lorgar conquered and then brought worlds into Compliance for the Imperium. The Emperor finally ordered the Word Bearers to cease their religious activities, as their mission was to reunify the galaxy under the banner of the secular Imperial Truth, not preach the word of the Emperor's personal divinity. The Emperor had long opposed the spread of organised religion and was determined to use the creation of the new Imperium of Man to enshrine reason and science, not religion, as the true guiding light of a new interstellar human civilisation. The Emperor was particularly troubled by any notion that He should be worshipped as a God and the actions of the Word Bearers Legion in slaughtering those who refused to accept the Emperor's divinity stank of the religious excesses that had so often poisoned human history.The Emperor ordered a task force composed of the Ultramarines Legion and lead by their Primarch Roboute Guilliman and accompanied by a force of his elite personal bodyguards, the Legio Custodes and the Imperial Regent, Malcador the Sigillite, to raze the capital city of the planet Khur, a world dear to the Word Bearers, who considered its capital, Monarchia, the "perfect city" because of the intense religious devotion of its citizens and the sheer number of cathedrals and monuments dedicated to the worship of the Emperor as a God. Following the city's destruction by the Ultramarines, the entire Word Bearers Legion, 100,000 Space Marines strong, were ordered to assemble on the planet's surface, within sight of the smoldering ruins of Monarchia, where its Astartes were humiliated and rebuked by the Emperor Himself, who psychically forced everyone, including Lorgar, to kneel before Him, and explained to them that they had failed both Him and humanity. Lorgar was stunned by his father's reproach and refusal to accept his worship, and fell into a deep melancholy.Feeling betrayed by the Emperor, Lorgar refused audience to all but Kor Phaeron, the Word Bearers' First Captain and Cardinal of its faith. Kor Phaeron was Lorgar's adoptive father and had raised him from infancy on Colchis as a member of the Colchisiam religious order called the Covenant. Kor Phaeron had served as Lorgar's chief lieutenant and advisor since the time when he ruled as the theocrat of Colchis. Lorgar also called the the Legion's First Chaplain Erebus to his side, who had long been another trusted advisor. Kor Phaeron and Erebus sympathised with Lorgar's unrequited religious longings, and felt that the Word Bearers Legion should serve gods truly worthy of their worship. Kor Phaeron and Erebus explained that they knew of such gods, the divine beings once worshipped by the Old Faith of Colchis. Thus, it was in this way that Lorgar first learned of the existence of the Chaos Gods, who not only accepted the zealous worship he offered, but demanded it. Thus the seeds of the Horus Heresy were first sown amongst the Word Bearers. Intrigued, Lorgar demanded that the Legion find these gods, and Kor Phaeron and Erebus, both of whom had been secret devotees of Chaos for decades, proposed a pilgrimage.