A dread aristocracy they soon became, while the youngest and strongest like Calas Typhon took full or partial conversion into the Legiones Astartes, heedless of the high fatality rate that late induction carried with it. Over time Mortarion shaped the creed and practice of the Death Guard, his beliefs in many ways forming a natural extension of their own, beliefs and doctrine becoming ever more refined and extreme. . The daemon explained to the Primarch that the Empyrean had many great forces within it, and one of them had Mortarion's name etched over his rusting throne. The infant primarch was screaming and wailing where a normal child would have suffocated and died long before. [13], After these campaigns, Mortarion received orders from Horus to make for Terra. [19] During a war council he mocked Perturabo for not fully embracing Chaos but nonetheless allowed Typhus to work with the Iron Warriors Primarch as part of a ritual to weaken the Emperor's psychic shield of the Palace. At the heart of them was the unshakeable determination that Mankind should be free of oppression and terror. But even death brought no freedom from its torment. He now had a son, something he had craved for years despite his dark magical powers. [9] Following the battle, Mortarion abandoned his pursuit of the White Scars and instead began a spiteful purge of the systems surrounding Prospero. Finally, knowing he would be unable to find the answers he desired from his adoptive father, Mortarion broke out of the fortress that had been his home and prison after killing several guards stationed at the gates of the fortress, and headed for the valleys of Barbarus. Then, the stranger stepped between them and, defying the fog, killed the warlord with one mighty sweep of his sword[1][6b]. Alone and unaided, Draigo smashed his way through Mortarion's bodyguard of Plague Marines, struck the ancient Primarch to the ground and carved Geronitan's name on the Daemon Prince's diseased heart. There are lots of great details including a really interesting Death Guard backpack variant." You can help Lexicanum by fixing it. Eventually the only warlord left was the Overlord himself. During the fight the two Primarchs were able to challenge the other, with the Great Khan proving faster and the Death Lord proving more durable. One softens the earth. The stranger challenged the young primarch to capture the last mansion alone, but if he failed he would join the stranger in total obedience. Struggling to contain his anger at the Khan's refusal of his please for alliance, the Death Lord warned Jaghatai that he had come to give his brother a choice -- half of the White Scars Legion had already declared for Horus, and the others would follow wherever the Khagan ordered them. the tall man aboriginal spirit; metadata api request failed: component conversion failed: file_ended; caleb foote sandlot Mortarion was a grim and driven Primarch, his breathing apparatus and scythe an inseparable component of his aspect. October 20, 2021. [1][6b], When the confrontation came, it was mercifully short. He realised that the prey that the warlords fought over was his own people, and with this came a sense of hatred and he vowed to give them justice over their oppressors. During the fight for the Spaceport the 2 Primarch's once again came to blows. The warlord smiled and withdrew to the poisonous area above, unaware of the primarch's amazing respiratory abilities. The Death Lord knew he would have to learn more. Though Mortarion had completed his great mission and the Emperor had handed down the Edicts of Nikaea forbidding the use of sorcery and the disbandment of the Legions' Librarius divisions, there were now more sorcerers than ever amongst the ranks of the Traitors. The Despoiler's agents repeated the same act on every world that harboured similar structures. His scythe fell into the guard position and a thin coughing broke from his mask, which the Khan realised was an exhausted kind of chortle. Though Mortarion ultimately escaped, it would be many long Terran years before he could enter the mortal realm once more. [16] In anticipation he created 7 new diseases with the Hand of Darkness, one of which was a blindness-inducing plague that swept through Ultramar. Wishing his brother the best of luck, Jaghatai wished to seek his answers elsewhere. [23], After Horus was defeated, Mortarion reappeared and claimed the Plague Planet in the Eye of Terror as his new base. January 18, 2021. "So the choice has been made.". A subreddit for the lore and stories encompassing the dark future of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise Only Guilliman's presence could cure the sickness. Finally he found what he sought for upon the world of Terathalion, a former library-world where knowledge coalesced, all under the benign guidance of distant masters on Prospero. Ignoring the protests of his Death Guard, Mortarion left alone to confront his adoptive father, motivated by a compulsion to prove himself to the stranger below. Emperor talks : 40kLore IAEIH: Well, That Was Awkward. Only then did the stranger reveal himself to be the Emperor of Mankind and Mortarion's father. In his place, the Grey Knights elevated the hero Kaldor Draigo amidst the din of the battlefield and Draigo immediately vowed vengeance against the Daemon Primarch. Many have claimed to have conversed with the Emperor. The Death Lord at last was worthy of his title. Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children. However, the young primarch's questions began to turn towards subjects the Overlord did not want to talk about, namely the pitiful creatures in the valleys that the many warlords preyed upon for corpses to reanimate and bodies to warp. They are marines who are listed as killed in action and then wear a mask for the rest of their lives so that only Mortarion may know their true identity. What if he came back under a different identity? His brother had tasted the fruits of treachery and found them bitter. [1][6b], The winner of the battle in which Mortarion had landed was the greatest of the warlords. Attempting to give Morty hope, even if false, does have practical use, since hope is antithesis to Nurgle and would weaken its hold over him, if only by a tiny amount. If he was dead, then the Imperium was finished. The Khan had seen the overall picture perfectly. This article needs work on its citations.For help on citation see the citation guidelines. I think "saved" in his eyes would be the chance to die a true death back in the good graces of their creator. Despite all that had occurred, Mortarion still believed that all sorcery was a cancer. Mortarion had never encountered its kind before, believing his father, the Emperor, that such fell creatures did not exist. [2], The Deathshroud are his personal bodyguard. As each battle in the mists was fought, Mortarion and his Death Guard would learn how to better adapt the armour, and themselves, to reach the more poisonous heights. The old shamans were guided by the warp and in their turn guided their people. The plague that came could not be resisted, something that terrified Mortarion and the Death Guard. Mortarion was present at the Council of Nikaea, where he spoke out against his brother, the Primarch Magnus the Red. And lets face it, GW wont go for it anyway, so this off hand comment is just a red herring. The strange tides of the Empyrean are notoriously fickle, and during their voyage the entire Death Guard fleet was becalmed within its shifting dimensional tides. The Terminators turned to face it, powering up their weapons. Either way, the troubled Death Guard Primarch saw a worthy leader in Horus, whereas in the Emperor he saw only a self-serving and pompous pretender who had stolen Mortarion's hard-won kingship in a single day while engaging in hypocrisy concerning his own use of the Warp. He recently returned to Imperial space for the first time in ten thousand standard years when he led the forces of the Plague God in the invasion of the Realm of Ultramar during the Plague Wars. Mortarion himself left his humanity far behind and was transformed into Nurgle's greatest mortal Champion: the Prince of Decay, the very image of death. The first invaders to issue forth from the Scourge Stars were the Death Guard, led by grim Mortarion, who now brought the fabled Realm of Ultramar, gem of the whole segmentum, under siege. [22c], Sometime after the formation of the Great Rift, Mortarion battled his brother Perturabo in the War of Rust and Ruin. . His words were simple and delivered in a harsh whisper that never the less carried to each and every one: "You are my unbroken blades. Mortarion is the Primarch of the Death Guard, and fourteenth son of the Emperor. [19a] Mortarion next met with Magnus in order to discuss an attack on the Colossi Gate, revealing to his brother that he hated his current Daemonic visage and was in constant pain. the emperor speaks to mortarion. Eventually, Mortarion could suffer no more and gave himself over to Chaos to stop the pain. Mortarion got what he wanted, a world of his own. The decastated world's wind howled in their empty wake, stirring the ashes of ruined Tizca. Garro rejected his fathers offer to return to the Death Guard and instead challenged Mortarion to a duel, buying time for Euphrati Keeler to escape. [1][6b], The warlord tested how high the child could survive in the poisonous atmosphere of Barbarus and then erected a massive wall of black iron. As they interpreted the astropathic messages they received in a contradictory manner, they began to suspect that things were not right. The end of Old Night and the beginning of a brighter future for mankind. Meanwhile, Mortarion was frequently critical of Magnus the Red over his use of Librarians and was one of the chief voices to ban Psykers among the Astartes Legions at the Council of Nikea. Jaghatai explained that the reason neither one of them would ever rule the galaxy is that both of them were never the empire-builders. If Magnus yet lived then everything could be salvaged. World after world soon fell to this horrific onslaught, and yet the insular and secretive Primarch seemed preoccupied by some other, unspoken goal. But he would endeavour to understand it -- to overcome it. Mortarion didn't need much convincing to join Horus, having come to hate both his father and the civilian leadership of the Imperium, wanting the strong to rule over the weak. Returning to the village, Mortarion's mood darkened when he found his people talking not of his victory but of the arrival of a benevolent stranger who promised salvation to the people of Barbarus. The Khagan ordered his Legion to head for the source of the trouble, to find the architect of the chaos engulfing the Imperium. Yet, only one soul could see the Warp as it truly was, and that was Magnus the Red, the only one of his brothers that Jaghatai had ever truly trusted. Compelled by fate or circumstance, the Ynnari lent their aid to Archmagos Belisarius Cawl, Saint Celestine and Inquisitor Katarinya Greyfax and rescued them from the forces of Abaddon on Klaisus, the ice moon of Kasr Holn after the fall of Cadia. He had come home.[1][16][25]. Until he knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, who was ally and who was an enemy, he refused to choose sides. Official Abaddon the Despoiler united the disparate factions of the Eye of Terror and unleashed the 13th Black Crusade to bring ruin to the world that had proven his nemesis for millennia. The Overlord kept him caged to acclimate to the poison, and taught him the art of war. The Luna Wolves lacked any form of command structure other than rank and had more of a gang culture than soldier. Mortarion's name comes from the Latin word Mors, meaning death. Toying with Mortarian would be from a place of emotion, it would serve no real purpose for him. Within the Eye of Terror, Mortarion was elevated to become a Daemon Prince by Nurgle, and given control of a Daemon World, now known as the Plague Planet, which he moulded into a new and despicable form, making it a virtual copy of Barbarus, placing himself in his adoptive father's position as its chief tyrant. Despite his adoptive father being a ruthless necromancer, Mortarion felt reluctant to attack the man who took him in and called off the planned attack on the advice of Calas Typhon, who warned that he was not yet ready to face the High Overlord even with the new suits of armour. 'A compromised primarch is still a primarch,' the Emperor mused, still distracted. Perhaps he is actually opening up a tiny chink in mortars armour. His first captain Typhon killed all of his navigators claiming they were loyalists, and convinced Mortarion he could travel the warp without them. The Black Legion is a Traitor Legion of Heretic Legionaries that is the first in infamy, if not in treachery, whose name resounds as a curse throughout the scattered and war-torn realms of Humanity. The Daemon explained that Mortarion's brothers had come to see the true order of things. . The primarch-child was taken in by the most powerful of the Overlords, who found him amongst the corpses of a battlefield where he had been engaged in one of the endless conflicts he fought with the other Overlords. Though the Primarch's physical strength was enormous, the daemon knew that it would not help him, for she was not a creature of realspace, defined and constrained only by laws and powers that the Primarch feared to invoke. He only ever found friendship in two other Primarchs, Night Haunter and Horus. In the subsequent Battle of Catallus, the joint Death Guard-Emperor's Children fleet led by Mortarion cornered the White Scars fleet at the Dark Glass artifact. [6b], Mortarion crash landed on the world of Barbarus. On Barbarus, Mortarion climbs into the mountains to face the High Overlord Necare for the final time. [1][6b], Mortarion then recruited the strongest and most resilient of warriors from the villages he went to. Finding this stranger in conference with the village elders, Mortarion claimed that his people needed no outside help. His physical form devastated and his spirit sent to the Immaterium, Draigo carved his forebear's name into the Daemon's heart, an insult Mortarion has never forgotten. All around him were strewn the bodies of the dead and dying for miles in all directions. So neutral. The connection between father and son immediately formed and was plain to see, although Mortarion knew nothing of the link. The Death Guard primarch attempted to sway the Khan to Horus' cause as Jaghatai had surmised, to imagine a galaxy of warriors, of hunters, where the strong were given their freedom to act as they would, unbound by the Emperor's demands. I have no idea why people think Mortarion was not loved. Didn't Khan come back to life and end up fucking off into the webway after that? Mortarion even proved critical of Horus' promotion to Warmaster, agreeing that while Horus was the best choice the Emperor's decision to name a Warmaster in the first place had been a mistake. So close did Mortarion and Horus become that the ever watchful Roboute Guilliman of the Ultramarines and Corax of the Raven Guard approached the Emperor with concerns as to where Mortarion's loyalties lay. As the two demi-gods battled, their respective retinues also fell onto one another in deadly close combat. He had even told the Khan all of this on Ullanor after the triumph. Previously, the walking corpses could be destroyed, but now doing so only released hordes of Nurglings that writhed impossibly out of the withered flesh of the fallen. Enraged, Mortarion engaged Typhon in a duel, with the First Captain's psychic abilities allowing him to hold off the Primarch's attacks for a time. Though still gravely wounded and in deep pain, the Death Lord teleported down to the surface, seeking a mortal woman. Mired amid plans that were nearing fruition, the Daemon Primarch of the Death Guard could not yet act to strike at Guilliman. In the early editions of 40K Horus is presented as the Emperors greatest generals before the Primarchs and Legions were a thing. He ruled over a toxic death world of poison, horror and misery, with his own position ironically mirroring the one his monstrous step-father had held on Barbarus. Following the Heresy, the ascended Mortarion shut himself off from the affairs of the Materium. He strode above his fellow humans, dwarfing all around him. As the daemon sagged back against the wall, feeling her soul pulled back to the Empyrean by the Primarch's psychic might, Mortarion continued to hammer her furiously with his fists, pouring out all of his fury onto the broken physical shell. [6a] Mortarion led his Legion in their betrayal of the Imperium at the Battle of Isstvan III and Drop Site Massacre. Thus shall you spread his virulent gifts across the false Imperium, and watch its final rotting", Mortarion, Prince of Decay, Daemon Prince of Nurgle. When his voidships emerged from the system's Mandeville Point in 007.M31 and spread out through the local system, they were not the sleek and gloriously decorated crimson-coloured system-runners of Magnus the Red's XVth Legion, but corpse-grey, vast-hulled leviathans. However, the Emperor's slaying of the Primarch's adoptive father -- the Emperor's denial of his final vengeance, of the proof that he was worthy -- became a grudge Mortarion forever after held against Him. Condemned to a deathless state of decay, the Death Guard would spread their pestilent diseases the length and breadth of the galaxy for the greater glory of Chaos. " I am not like you. It transformed them into bloated mutants, yet none could die, their own body being their undoing. [12] On Ynyx Mortarion and Typhon reunited, and their whole fleet set course of Terra for the coming battle. HOW TO PAINT: Mortarion, Daemon Primarch of Nurgle. The attacks were slow but relentless, wearing down Ultramar's defending Ultramarines and their vaunted Ultramar Auxilia. They're still aware enough, were both tricked into servitude and do seem to hate their situation in some way. Daemon Primarch Mortarion leads the Forces of Chaos against the Grey Knights. After destroying an entire world in his search for answers, he yearned to know the truth about Chaos. He still believed that humanity must guard against it -- push it back. He hated to see the three of them getting dragged in deeper by the Emperor's hypocrisy. Soon, representatives from other villages journeyed to learn from Mortarion, while the villages scattered across the valleys of the world were transformed into strongpoints. Choose between the Classic and Contrast Methods, then bring your miniatures to life. The normal humans, dropped off millennia before, were forced to live in the lowest areas of the planet, amidst the choking fog. Seeing that the peasants were unable to effectively fight back, Mortarion joined the fray, wielding a massive harvesting scythe that made short work of the beasts. They were condemned to an endless life of servitude and were in constant fear of those who moved above them. [12], By the time of the Battle of the Kalium Gate late in the Heresy, Mortarion's forbidden knowledge had grown considerably. He later came to blows with Jaghatai Khan on Prospero after failing to convince him to join with them in rebellion. Mortarion became a Daemon Prince after the Heresy, when he occupied the plague planet and made it more like Barbarus. In an instant, the Death Lord and his retinue were snatched away, sucked into the vortex of the Warp. Unlike the other speakers at Nikaea who stood against the use of psychic powers and who mostly harangued Magnus and reviled the Thousand Sons but brought little proof or argument to the debate, Mortarion's intervention was short, impersonal and to the point. Their father's time was over -- the Khan could either be a part of the new order that replaced Him or be swept aside in its wake. The Khan merely smiled -- a cold smile, imperious in its contempt. The Citadel Colour System breaks down painting your models into just a few easy steps. The Death Lord had never hidden what he wanted. Without these lynchpins to hold the material dimension sacrosanct, the Materium could take no more, and a titanic Warp rift tore across the galaxy, spreading from the Eye of Terror to the Hadex Anomaly on the Eastern Fringe. Mortarion massacred the population of entire worlds in an attempt to goad Guilliman to battle. Grulgor strangled Typhon to death, fulfilling his oath to Mortarion to kill the First Captain. Couch theft as redemption in whatever way you'd like. Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines who had been trapped for 10,000 standard years in stasis, was restored to the realm of Mankind. Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure/Sci-Fi - Space Marines, Primarch/s - Chapters: 16 - Words: 345,044 . The daemon's final task would be to show him how. Magnus' shade had showed him. The Khan sprang forward, seeing too late what was happening. He would have to master all the paths of ruin. the emperor speaks to mortarion; the emperor speaks to mortarion. However Mortarion eventually prevailed and struck down Typhon with his scythe. Many of these Loyalist Death Guard Astartes were Terran-born, former Dusk Raiders like Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro of the 7th Great Company whose loyalty to the Emperor outweighed their devotion to their Primarch. https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Mortarion&oldid=508031. Mortarion would have none of this, for Barbarus now belonged to his people, bought and paid for by generations of blood and terror, and its strongest sons would now serve as recruits for his new Death Guard. Already deeply angry with his father, it did not take much for Horus to push the idea upon his brother that the Emperor was in truth a sorcerer not much different from the High Overlord Necare on Barbarus, Mortarion's hated adoptive father. After hundreds of battles and wars, there was just one inaccessible mansion, one which Mortarion knew well, the one where his adoptive father resided. He was constantly at the front fighting against all of the other warlords' armies, sometimes of undead humans, sometimes of more daemonic creatures. After witnessing the Overlords hauling captive humans away for torture and experimentation[17a], Mortarion escaped from his holdings and descended the mountain, the warlord bellowing after him of his treachery and that to return would mean death. Each of them had fought many times like this during their lives and it was all they could do not to run, let alone put up an effective counter manoeuvre. [5], In 901.M41, during the Battle of Kornovin, Mortarion killed Geronitan, Supreme Grand Master of the Grey Knights. Horus eventually used these doubts to bring Mortarion to his cause. However Mortarion found his once-beloved brother Typhon changed, and once their vessels were inside the Warp the First Captain framed all of the fleet's Navigators. The XIV Legion's Astartes had been primarily Terran-born before Mortarion joined the Legion; after that time almost all of the Legion's Neophytes were drawn from the Feral World of Barbarus. Silence the witches. . Desperate, Mortarion offered his Legion and his own soul up to the Ruinous Powers in exchange for deliverance. [9], Like Perturabo, Mortarion proved bitter over his perceived sidelining and under-appreciation by other Primarchs during the Great Crusade. During their meeting, Mortarion survived an assassination attempt by Shadrak Meduson, who assaulted the Primarchs with a trio of Fire Raptors. Mortarion predicted that only strife between the Primarchs would rise if the Emperor were to abandon the Great Crusade personally and used Horus as his . https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/qt3zwm/book_excerpt_warhawkjaghatai_khan_is_as_deadly/. I think he is serious as this is a consistent trend. True to his earlier pledge, Horus let Mortarion's Death Guard be the first to land upon Terra. But as others have said, 'salvation' can also just mean death. He could free him from Nurgles service with a true death, but not yet. com Mutilators.34 Chaos Rhino.34 Chaos Bikers.35 Raptors.35 Warp Talons.36 Chaos Spawn.36 Heldrake.37 Chaos Land Raider.37 Chaos Predator.38 Chaos Vindicator.38 Obliterators.39 Havocs.39 Forgefiend..40 Maulerfiend.40 Defiler.41 Khorne Lord of Skulls..42 orld Ef Gathering them before him, a grim and spectral figure robed and bearing the great black scythe that had once belonged to his nightmarish foster-father, it must have seemed to the Terran-born Dusk Raiders that an ancient, graven image of the Grim Reaper had come before them as their new master. Their weapons and armour were powered by the energies of Chaos and they became known as the Plague Marines, although they would still use the name of the Death Guard for themselves. I really think he does see a path through which Mortarion could one day be redeemed. Recruitment solely from Barbarus was however aided by the high suitability of the planet's hardy feral population to the conversion process. . [Excerpt- The Verdict of the Scythe] Mortarion tries being benevolent, he feels icky. The Overlord kept him caged to acclimate to the poison, and taught him the art of war. [1][6b], His acceptance into the community of humans was not easy. The loyalist Primarch decapitated Mortarion, who was banished into the Warp in a massive explosion similar to that of a Vortex Weapon. Guilliman heard Mortarion speak, but he could not see, and he could sense nothing else but pain. "Saved" might just mean permanently killed, not purified and redeemed. Mortarion was given the Death Guard legion, who specialized in bio-weapons and rad-weapons, as they could endure far more harsh conditions than their brothers. Jaghatai proceeded to warn his brother that though his Legion might be free of the Warp's corruption for now, the change would come, for Mortarion had made his pacts with the masters of the Empyrean, and now they would come to collect their due.
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