Jaghatai Khan - Youth: It is said that after being mysteriously transported from Terra through the Warp in his gestation capsule by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos, Jaghatai landed on a planet in the Yasan Sector of the Ultima Segmentum later named by the Imperium Mundus Planus, or as the native population called it, Chogoris. It was a fertile world with wide, open, green plains and tall, white mountains and blue seas.At the time of the Great Crusade, the Chogorian people had managed to restore their technological level in the wake of the Age of Strife to one similar to the pike-and-shot level of the late Renaissance on Old Earth. The dominant empire was a well-organised feudal aristocracy which had conquered most of the planet with well-equipped and highly disciplined armies, maintaining plate-armored horsemen and tight blocks of pike and arquebus-armed infantry. Their leader was called "the Palatine," and he won all of his battles with this great army.To the west of the Palatine's empire was the Empty Quarter, a barren grassland with few resources, and as such it was never invaded by the Palatine's armies. It was home to wandering tribes of vicious, nomadic horsemen and pastoralists who fought each other for their ancestral lands. The Palatine or other nobles of his empire would sometimes lead forces into the Empty Quarter to capture slaves or merely to hunt the tribesmen for fun.Jaghatai's legacy began in the Empty Quarter. He was found by Ong Khan, the chieftain or "khan" of a small tribe called the Talaskars, who saw the young primarch as a gift from the gods. It is said he had a "fire in his eyes," the sign of a great warrior among the nomads. He was hated by the other tribes because of his ability to see beyond the constant warfare on the steppes to a vision of unity for all the downtrodden peoples of the Empty Quarter.Legends recount that the most influential moment in Jaghatai's life was the slaying of his adopted father by the rival Kurayed tribe. Jaghatai, even as a young child, was the greatest warrior of the tribe and gathered Talaskar troops to avenge the death of his father. They moved on the Kurayed tribe and razed its yurts to the ground, slaying every man, woman and child in a murderous, revenge-driven frenzy. Khan took the head of the enemy tribal leader and mounted it on his tent. This is what shaped him into a man of fierce honour, loyalty and ruthlessness. From then on, he swore to end the constant tribal in-fighting, unite all the people of the Empty Quarter and bring an end to the practice of brother fighting brother.Khan fought hundreds of battles against other tribes and defeated hunting packs of nobles sent by the Palatine. Each tribe the Talaskars conquered was absorbed into the larger Talaskar confederacy and Jaghatai made military service mandatory while splitting tribes up and merging them with others to remove and ameliorate tribal differences and long-standing blood feuds. His warriors were fiercely loyal and Jaghatai promoted from the ranks based on merit and ability.Ten summers after his arrival on Chogoris, as his tribe moved to their winter settlements, the primarch was travelling on a mountainside with a group of his followers. A vast avalanche pushed him and his group back down the mountain, killing the normal men. Jaghatai survived, but could not get back up the mountain in time before the tribe moved on. Jaghatai was caught by one of the Palatine's aristocratic hunting bands led by the son of that emperor. All that returned of that band was one mutilated rider carrying the head of the son of the Palatine and a note saying that the people of the steppes were no longer his toys.When the snows cleared that year, an enraged Palatine gathered a massive army and determined to march west to wipe the tribes of the Empty Quarter from the face of the planet. He had, however, underestimated the power and ability of Jaghata and brought his highly-disciplined army of heavily armoured warriors and arquebusiers. This proved to be his downfall as they could not catch the lightly armored Talaskar tribesmen.The constant rain of arrows from the tribesmen took their toll on the tight ranks of the Palatine's warriors. Eventually the tribesmen defeated the army of the Palatine, who escaped back to his capital with a select few bodyguards. The rest of his army was slaughtered, almost to the last man.After the battle, all the tribal elders of the Empty Quarter gathered and announced that Jaghatai Khan was now the Khagan, the "Khan of Khans," of the Empty Quarter, the rightful ruler of all its people. The Khagan now began the long process of conquering the rest of the planet, which possessed only a single continent. It was during this momentous time that Jaghatai would meet several lifelong comrades -- including Targutai Yesugei, Qin Xa and Hasik -- all of whom would fight alongside the primarch during their conquest of Chogoris, and would eventually go on to serve the Khagan for many Terran centuries to come.Jaghatai gave those cities of the Palatine he besieged two choices -- to surrender or die. Most surrendered, but many resisted and were destroyed, utterly wiped from the face of the planet. Eventually the armies of Jaghatai came to the Palace of the Palatine, where the primarch demanded the head of the Palatine on a spike. His request was obliged by the capital city's population, which turned on their ruler to save their own lives from the fierce tribesmen of the Empty Quarter. Jaghatai Khan adorned his tent with his greatest conquest's head, just as he had with his first enemy two solar decades before.In only twenty standard years Jaghatai Khan had conquered the largest empire in his world's history. He now had the problems of ruling that empire, not something he had originally expected. His nomadic people had no wish to rule these new, settled lands, only to carry on living in their old ways. The Talaskar people dispersed back to a tribal existence in the Empty Quarter and Khan ruled over them all with his generals by his side.As the ruler of his world, Jaghatai ended the wars that had wracked Chogoris, keeping the peace with the threat of utter ruin for those who transgressed his simple laws. What the Khagan might have created in isolation from the embers of Human civilisation on Chogoris will never be known, for it was but a short while after his ascension to the throne that the Emperor of Mankind arrived to change his destiny forever.