Ghargatuloth - The Trail of Saint Evisser: Millennia before Mandulis and his brethren had taken the fight to Khorion IX, Ghargatuloth had already begun to enact his master plan, discretely planting the seeds of his eventual return. The events leading up to the assault on Khorion IX and even his own banishment had been mere distractions, a ploy to lead the Imperium to believe he was gone.As the Inquisition would only discover in the late 41st Millennium, Ghargatuloth's taint had befallen almost the entirety of the Trail of Saint Evisser, a loose collection of planets on the western edge of the Segmentum Solar. The origin of the taint was identified to have been the Feudal World of Sophano Secundus, a planet colonised in the wake of the Great Crusade, when the Emperor was already worshipped as a god. In the wake of the Emperor's entombment in the Golden Throne, a hence unknown figure, Missionary Crucien of the Missonaria Galaxia, settled on Sophano Secundus and began to preach the teachings of the Lectitio Divinitatus. Or at least this was what the Administratum was led to believe. In truth, Crucien was an agent of Ghargatuloth and a powerful psyker who, over the following millennia, fully corrupted Sophano Secundus' society. With the cunning so typical of the followers of Tzeentch, Crucien changed his identity every few standard decades as not to alert the Inquisition as to his unnatural longevity; a tactic that proved so effective that Crucien's true identity would only be discovered by the investigations of Inquisitrice Brei Ligea in the late 41st Millennium.As he had done on Sophano Secundus, Ghargatuloth chose to infiltrate and corrupt Imperial agencies, using the inner workings of the Imperium to spread his cult and the worship of Tzeentch. With Sophano Secundus firmly under his control, Crucien chose one of his followers to serve as a simple Administratum clerk on the neighbouring world of Solshen XIX, an Agri-world that soon became the target of an Ork invasion. The Orks slaughtered the planet's population, but Ghargatuloth's pawn, undoubtedly protected by his dark master, was miraculously spared. The clerk's name was Kelkannis Evisser, and within a few short standard years, he became the lauded Saint Evisser from which the Trail of Saint Evisser would eventually derive its name. Refusing to be reassigned to another post, Kelkannis Evisser became a popular figure for the hard-working and oppressed masses of the Imperium, for he had been a nobody elevated to the rank of true greatness. Although never officially canonised by the Adeptus Ministorum as an Imperial Saint, Evisser was soon referred to as "Saint Evisser," his status seemingly confirmed by the many miracles he accomplished during his travels across the region. On the world of Treyptos, a savage plague was decimating the population of the hive cities and Saint Evisser spent six solar months in the quarantine zone, comforting the dying without contracting the disease. On the Forge World of Magnos Omicron, Saint Evisser convinced the mutant slave-caste that had taken up arms against their Mechanicum overlords to lay down their weapons and willingly return to work. Within a standard year, Evisser's fame lead countless masses of believers to flock to him. Entire worlds petitioned the Living Saint to come to them and bless their cities and populations in exchange for erecting chapels, churches, monuments, museums and cathedrals in his honour. Continent-spanning celebrations and masses were held in his honour, as in the wake of Saint Evisser's pilgrimage the very essence of the Warp was made calm and trade and travel brought prosperity to the Trail of Saint Evisser. When the unproclaimed saint eventually died, the Adeptus Ministorum buried him on the Hive World of Volcanis Ultor, allowing time to slowly erode the memory of the saint that was not. Ghargatuloth had successfully manufactured his own Imperial Saint, a powerful relic he could corrupt and thus reenter the material realm. Worse yet, on every world visited by Saint Evisser, hidden Chaos Cults began to blossom, until Ghargatuloth's influence had spread to each and every world of the Trail and even into Imperial Adepta such as the Adeptus Administratum and even the Inquisition itself.As the 13th Black Crusade drew near, Ghargatuloth buried his clutches deep within one of the Imperium's finest: Inquisitor Gholic Ren-Sar Valinov of the Ordo Malleus, the very agency charged with tracking and banishing the daemonic servants of the Chaos Gods. Valinov's corruption served two purposes: first to steal an original edition of the famed Codicium Aeternum -- the Ordo Malleus' repository of knowledge concerning the True Names of those Greater Daemons encountered by the Grey Knights and the Inquisition -- and second to convince the Grey Knights to deliver the final relic needed for Ghargatuloth's rebirth: the weapon that had slain him on Khorion IX, the Sword of Mandulis. Having successfully manipulated the Imperium to aid him in his rebirth, Ghargatuloth showed his hand, letting the Trail of Evisser descend into anarchy as to better prompt the Grey Knights' and the Inquisition's intervention. Through a carefully orchestrated escalation of conflict, Ghargatuloth ensured that the Grey Knights would play the role he had chosen for them: to deliver the final element that would allow him to return to realspace.