State of the Legions
This is something that I’ve wanted to do for some time. It’s an overview about how the Legions that joined with Horus are faring at present in my game. Obviously this will come into conflict with various canon sources and stuff but I am aware of it. I’ve also added a part about how I could see that bringing in Traitor Legionaries could work and be explained in a Black Crusade game. Look forward to any and all comments and examples for the how the Horusian Legions (made that one up so that the Chaos followers won’t need to use the Imperial “Traitor Legions” term).
And also because there was some time since we had a good fluff discussion over at the BC forum.
I apologize for the crappy English
Black Legion: The Black Legion is in terms of organization splintered into a number of warbands of different seizes but most of them maintain an identity on some level as Black Legionaries even while a significant portion of them are either converts from other legions, warbands, Chapters or were created with stolen gene-seed. The unifying force within the Black Legion is Abaddon under whom the Black Legionaries gathers for major operations, the most famous of these being the Black Crusades. At most times the various warbands are pursuing their own agendas however there is a collective view within the legion that they are the given leaders in the Long War against the Imperium and that they are superior to all other legions, loyalist or Horusian. This is an assertion that more than a few would like to challenge even though no one wields the same influence as the Black Legion Warmaster. The most significant splinter group within the legion’s ranks, and which are actually working against the rest, are the Sons of Horus warbands. These warbands left the main body when Abaddon destroyed Horus’ body and re-formed the former Sons of Horus as the Black Legion. Those who balked at the changes either fled atop the tides of the Warp to the corners of the galaxy or where slain by Abaddon and his loyalists. To this day they preserve their hatred and work for revenge against both the Imperium of the Carrion God and the traitors in their own legion who betrayed the Warmaster’s legacy.
It is natural with those who have turned to Chaos that some have left the warbands to make their own way for one reason or another. Some of these legionaries have fled due to problems of conflicts but even more have ambitions that they felt were strangled within their former warbands and so they sat out to find their own way to power in the galaxy. While some Black Legionaries obviously have disregarded any and all connections to the greater Black Legion most still harbor the ambition to return to the fold, with their own warband at their back.
Word Bearers: The Word Bearers are reasonable united with their two bases of operations in the Eye of Terror and the Maelstorm respectively. Formally the legion is ruled by the Dark Council who acts as the representatives of the Primarch Lorgar and rule in his name. Thanks to the mostly intact legion structure the Word Bearers are a power to be counted with and the various campaigns undertaken by the legion are coordinated with each other and the forces present have at most times been assigned from above in the hierarchy. Unlike almost all legions the Word Bearers still create their recruits almost exclusively from the pure Word Bearer gene-seed and while Chaos Space Marines can be allowed to accompany Word Bearer formations and fight with them these Marines can never become Word Bearers themselves. The Word Bearers tends to view themselves as the most devoted, faithful and true of all the servants of Chaos and it’s a common thinking within their ranks that Mankind would be better off with Chaos than with the Carrion God. Much thanks for their maintained organization and driven ambition the World Bearers may be the most numerous legion of all, and certainly the most numerous when if counting only those members who have a pure gene-seed.
Due to the zealous culture of the legion, the madness of Chaos and the strict hierarchies of the legion there are large numbers of Word Bearers whose beliefs does not fit the ones accepted by the legion as such. Many of these dissidents have left the main legion and often organized in a small cult around a charismatic leader with commonly held beliefs regarding Chaos. These splinters can leave for all manner of reasons, from a belief that the gods have called them, they have experienced some truth they wish to share with the galaxy at large, a bad run-in with a superior over matters of theology, considering themselves to be held back by the legion’s hierarchies etc. the reasons are almost as many as there are Word Bearers who strikes out on their own but very often their faith is involved on some level or another. But while there are those who leaves the legion one shouldn’t discount the many emissaries and missionaries who are sent out to spread the word of Chaos to the galaxy on behalf of the legion itself.
World Eaters: The World Eaters legion has completely disintegrated and splintered into different warbands following their leader or smaller groups or even lone warriors who attach themselves to large warbands for the promise of glorious bloodshed and slaughter in the name of the Blood God. While many veterans of the Long War remembers and reveres Angron most World Eaters cares little for anything other than to kill in the name of their bloodlust and what is supposed to be World Eaters warbands can often be made up mostly of other Khornate renegades with no interest or even understanding the legion concept. Ironically enough these makes the World Eaters very much like their Primarch who cares nothing for his supposed legion and only lives to kill for his god. Some of the larger warbands maintain the ability to create new Marines with appropriate gene-seed and make the same implants that Angron used on his legion but this gene-seed is more often than not either mixed between World Eater and other or entirely belonging to another group and only accessible to the warband after looting or a brutal and uncertain retrieval from the corpses of the slain. Due to the limited numbers of new World Eaters created and their constant attrition from their endless fighting the World Eaters are among the least numerous legions of all.
Due to the nonexistent of a World Eater legion to splinter from all World Eaters are more or less splinter groups or individuals. No matter if they do so alone or in a warband numbering thousands of warriors, the World Eaters lives only for the sake of glorious bloodshed and eternal war.
Emperor’s Children: Just like the World Eaters the Emperor’s Children have been broken up into many different warbands each looking for opportunities to satisfy their lusts and cravings. The legion’s own Primarch, Fulgrim, has retreated to his own daemon world which he rules with only his inhuman whims to care for. Cut off from their Primarch and overtaken by the influence of Slaanesh anything beyond personal gratification has largely become meaningless and the concept of legion is at best a trivia to them. They disregard the creation of new Emperor’s Children, with a very few exceptions like Fabius Bile. And just like the World Eaters the Emperor’s Children are getting all the rarer even while their attrition rate isn’t nearly as high as that of the later.
The Emperor’s Children travel across the galaxy in order to find their cravings satisfied, their warp-tainted fantasies realized and their unnatural urgings slaked. While the embrace of Slaanesh have left them with similar outlooks the nature of the urgings, fantasies and cravings for which their entire existence circulates can and often are radically different between individual Emperor’s Children.
Thousand Sons: The Thousand Sons are formally based on the Planet of Sorcerers in the Eye of Terror although the unity that their physical concentration gives is an illusion. The sorcerers of the legion have been drifting further apart and been spending more and more time pursuing their personal agendas rather than working for some abstract “legion” interests. The Primarch himself, Magnus the Red, has become more and more distant as the millennia passes and only rarely interacts with anyone as he’s fallen to dark brooding. He loves the ideal of his legion and his memories of the legion that was once his while he hates the legion that he has now and so would rather not have anything to do with them. Much due to the Rubric which Ahriman cast over it to protect it from the destroying mutations of the warp. Due to the current situation the creation of new Thousand Sons sorcerers happens very seldom and only when several existing sorcerers think that they would have something to gain from the creation of a new addition to their ranks and not see it as just another rival to contend with. When a new sorcerer is created it is always from the use of sorcery and which means that there is something that separates the sorcerer from more conventionally created Space Marines. The Tomb Marines themselves tend to be summoned back into their armors when casualties have been taken to continue the Long War at the behest of their sorcerer masters for all eternity. While there are some numbers of Rubric Marines the sorcerers themselves are very few and while often powerful are not likely to get more numerous any time soon.
Many sorcerers have left the Planet of Sorcerers for various reasons and now walk alone with larger warbands. Some of them seek arcane knowledge, some power, some to escape the constant scheming and manipulations between the sorcerers and some fears that Magnus will one day decide to destroy the mockery of his legion that dwells with him and want to keep a distance to him when that time comes.
Death Guard: Unlike the other three Cult-legions, those who have been claimed by one Chaos god for itself, the Death Guard has remain somewhat viable as a legion even with several drastically changes to them. The Plague Planet is the legion’s base of operations and from there they launch their expeditions to spread the plagues of Father Nurgle. The Daemon Primarch Mortarion rules over his world and legion from a great citadel atop the highest mountain on the planet with his legion similarly entrenched in citadel overlooking the landscape. But even while not splintered entirely the legion has fractured and reformed itself into various sub-factions and warbands who compete with each other for the favor of Nurgle and Mortarion. Due to the resilient nature of the Plague Marines who makes up the majority of the legion the creation of new Death Guards is not a high priority although it still does happen but more common is for Nurglitch Chaos Space Marines to join with one of the warbands and in that way fill any gaps in the ranks. Still the Death Guard has some degree of numbers and while not very numerous they are not sparse either.
While the Death Guards are pretty united there are those who want to try their own wings, be it from a zeal for Nurgle, desire for glory, fleeing from some past or anything else. The Death Guards leaves the Plague Planet for sometimes centuries on end in shifting numbers and lets the tides of the bring them where them were the warp pleases and in that way several of them have either left his previous comrades or wandered off by his own free will.
Alpha Legion: The most successful legion in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy is most likely the Alpha Legion for it has maintained more or less the same bases that it occupied before the Horus Heresy and remains operational also within Imperial space despite repeated Imperial attempts to track down and destroy them. No one really knows what the Alpha Legion’s true situation is but the most plausible scenario is that it has fractured into warbands with loose lines of communication and occasional cooperation between each other, and possibly under some nominal guidance from Alpharus and/or Omegon. What is certain is that the Alpha Legion is very active to fight the Imperium and anyone else that might get in their way and that includes other Horusian legions as well as other Alpha Legion warbands. What the real goals and status of the legion actually are, if there are any, there probably isn’t anyone who knows for just as the Alpha Legion uses miss- and disinformation against their enemies and allies on the outside so does it also do on the inside in all directions. The officers lies to their men and peers while the men deceives their comrades and superiors alike, in an effort to gain an advantage over each other and Alpha Legion warbands undermining each other’s efforts are far from rare.
One can encounter Alpha Legionaries alone or in groups of almost any seize across the galaxy and due to the subterfuge of the legion neither anyone meeting the legionary or the legionary himself can be sure for the real reason that he is in one place or another. It may be due to his own will, according to the instructions he’s been given or there might be some other reason. Some legionaries get fed up by the constant deception and leaves to make their own ways and some are sent on missions that leads them away from their previous warbands and often under misleading labels. All in all there are a thousand reasons that are given for why an Alpha Legionary would strike out on his own and most likely there are a thousand hidden reasons behind the ones given.
Iron Warriors: The Iron Warriors are a legion which has halted halfway between unity and dissolution. The legion is centered on Medrengard where the Daemon Primarch Perturabo rules over an industrial hell from his Fortress of Hate. The Iron Warriors themselves are divided into different warbands and sects, like most other legions, but the most notable are the Grand Companies who are a kind of a halfway creature between the old pre-Heresy organizational form of the legion and a “traditional” Chaos Space Marine warband under the command of a warsmith. While all Iron Warrior warbands hail Perturabo as their overlord due to his mastery over the world on which they dwell they are constantly at war with each other or launching raids against both other daemon worlds or the Imperium While the Iron Warriors fights Perturabo broods in his fortress for reasons unknown and is rarely seen or heard from. The Iron Warriors are notable for their drive to create new warriors to both fill and expand their ranks in which they use both their own gene-seed as well as that captured from loyalist forces and which is causing the legion to actually grow in numbers. If Perturabo or some other leader could unite and focus the Iron Warriors in the same manner that the Word Bearers and Black Legion are focused and unified then the Iron Warriors would stand a good chance to challenge both these legions for the position as the “leading” legion in the Long War and the Eye of Terror. But so far there hasn’t been any signs of it.
Naturally there are great numbers of Iron Warriors who have wandered away from Medrengard in order to find power, escape vendettas, find freedom or some other reason. Due to the industrial nature of Medrengard and the legion’s traditional interest in technological skills and sciences of siegecraft many Iron Warriors are recruited as much for their martial power as for their technological skills and knowledge into other warbands.
Nights Lords: Splintered and divided the Nights Lords have turned themselves against both the galaxy and each other. When their Primarch was slain by an Imperial assassin there was little to prevent the legion from turning to lesser warbands or joining others. While most Night Lords would count themselves as godless after their apostasy from the Emperor’s light a significant minority of the legion has embraced Chaos akin to the ways of the other Traitor Legions. The relations between the two groups are tense at best and often turn to violence when they cross paths. While many remember the Nights Haunter almost every single member of the legion twists that memory to serve his own purpose and justify his own choices and despite the vocal veneration there isn’t any vision or interest in re-forging the legion among the Night Lords’ bitter, cynical and hateful ranks. Most Night Lords considers themselves to be free from any chains and fight only for their own survival, and occasionally their sadistic satisfaction. The Night Lords, when they are able, creates some new members but not enough to stand out either for being few or many and unlike some of the larger legions they lack the drive to really do more than necessary.
There are a great many ways that a Night Lord may break away from his fellows as the concept of breaking apart is almost a theme within the legion where cynics, bitterness, brooding and hate make up much of their intellectual culture. The same reasons that can motivate other Chaos Space Marines to break with their legions can also motivate Night Lords and once they join with other heretics the illusion of freedom that they cherish often shows itself to be empty and many starts on the steps down the road to corruption in service to the Chaos gods, no matter if they know or acknowledge it or not.
But it wouldn't suprise me if it was like that.
