Ullanor Crusade - Triumph of Ullanor: With the greatest victory of the Imperium to that date sealed in blood and iron, the call to an Imperial triumph was sounded, to recognise this highpoint of the Great Crusade and to honour all the warriors of the Ullanor Crusade, mortals and Astartes alike, for their extraordinary valour and service to humanity's cause. By the Emperor's command, Ullanor was remade as a trophy world, designated Mundus Tropaeum on all galactic maps and records of the Imperial Tithe.It would be a site of glory and spectacle to cement not only this single conquest over the forces ranged against Mankind, but a greater symbol of the Great Crusade itself. For two hundred Terran years the Emperor's mighty endeavour had moved across the face of the galaxy to bring unity and illumination to the lost daughter-worlds of Old Earth. It had pushed back the night, reforged old links between human civilisations, battled alien threats -- and with regret, it had often punished those who refused to return to the Imperial fold.A change was coming, though, a change that found its fulcrum on Ullanor. None who walked upon that world knew that the echo of that Triumph would sound for solar decades, for Terran centuries, for millennia. The glory of this triumphant spectacle as so many of the Imperium's scattered military forces gathered in one place for the first time in centuries was to remain in the mind of every Astartes as the high-point of the great endeavour that they had been engaged upon. It would prove to be a bright memory to recall in the dark days of the Horus Heresy after Astartes had turned against Astartes and Primarch against Primarch.To prepare the world for the Triumph of Ullanor, geoformer platoons from the Mechanicum brought world engines and mobile stone-burners to cut a massive swath across the broken landscape left in the battle's wake. Orkish dead were buried by the millions within their savage ruins, interred beneath transplanted rocks and the heads of crushed mountains. The Mechanicum eradicated every last remaining trace of the enemy and paved over them with a giant boulevard, a parade stage as wide as the footprint of some entire Imperial cities.They built a highway and allowed only one structure to stand besides the great platform -- an ornamental pavilion of black marble and heavy granite that had been built piecemeal on Terra and then shipped across the void by special envoy. Marker posts decorated with the skulls of Ork commanders paced out the length of the road, and behind them great bowls of smokeless Promethium burned brightly, endlessly lighting the highway with their blue-white fire.When the Mechanicum had finished their work, the honoured came to pay homage to the battle won, the Great Crusade's ideal of human unity and the Emperor who was father to all Mankind. The Imperial Army and the Titan Legions bracketed the gathering. Human troops were ranked in uncountable numbers, their host so wide they became a sea of battle armour and dress uniforms. Every common man and woman who stood on Ullanor Prime's soil that day had been selected for their valour and conduct, and until the day they died each would have the singular honour of wearing the onyx-and-gold Ullanor Triumph Bar upon their uniforms.The award was forged from Bolter shells recovered from the field and melted down. Ranged around them, the great war machines of the Legio Titanica towered towards a sky cut to ribbons by the contrails of a thousand aerospace fighters; and above those, high over the thin white cirrus clouds of Ullanor Prime's day, Imperial warships moved as slow as they dared through the upper atmosphere, washes of interface heat rolling off their Void Shields as they showed their flanks in a gesture of renewed fealty.A full fourteen of the eighteen active duty Space Marine Legions stood represented at the Ullanor Triumph, and with them came nine beings of superhuman power and majesty. Nine gods and angels made flesh, the Primarchs of the greatest armies ever created by human hands.Mortarion, the reaper of men and master of the Death Guard, cowled and lethal in aspect, matched by the warrior-guardians of his Deathshroud honour guard. The Phoenician, Fulgrim, resplendent in his finery and handsome in aspect, lit by the reflection of gold and platinum. Magnus the Red, the Crimson King of the Thousand Sons, the lord of the unknown, his soul as much a mystery to the common world as the workings of the Warp and the ghosts within it. Lorgar Aurelian, the quiet and brooding zealot of the Word Bearers who burned with such intensity and buried it all deep in his heart, saying little and standing watchful, already long a Traitor to the Emperor's cause.His polar opposite was Angron of the World Eaters, the gladiator-lord and son of grief, never able to settle or moderate his seething, endless fury, always on the verge of outburst and violence. Rogal Dorn, the stalwart man of stone, the Imperial Fist with his unswerving manner and unbreakable focus, the one who would always obey, would always be ready for duty. Jaghatai Khan, his fur-trimmed robes and ornate armour detailed with a thousand narratives of the White Scars Legion, his every step across the land a challenge to the galaxy.Then Sanguinius of the Blood Angels, flanked by the gold-armoured honour detail of the Sanguinary Guard, his mighty wings folded back across his battle-plate, his face turned to the sky to welcome the impossible, majestic sight before him. Then, finally, came Horus of the Luna Wolves, the Hero of Ullanor, liberator and first among equals. Horus, who was to be given the new honour of an Imperial title above and beyond any that had been bestowed before; a title, it could be said, that would forever carry the echo of his name.After declaring Horus as Imperial Warmaster and the new supreme commander of the Great Crusade, the Emperor to the shock of those assembled announced his own intention to return to Terra to pursue a secret project intended to benefit all Mankind. He would not say more, and his announcement immediately drew great concern among the Primarchs -- and not a little bit of resentment.It was this resentment, combined with each Primarchs' own flaws and hidden jealousies, that the Chaos Gods would use to worm their way into the hearts of nine of their number, turning them in time against the Emperor and unleashing a civil war that would scar the galaxy for millennia. The Triumph of Ullanor represented the high point of the Emperor's dream to reunite Mankind -- and also the beginning of its end.