The Word bearers fleet Soul spreaders is very much an enigma. On one side, there are bloodthirsty butchers, killers leading hordes of debased men in search of glory. On the other, there are elite, packs of heretic astartes indulging in ever greater atrocities. Founded in the ruins of war of Sagittarius, they ran rampart until an alliance of Space marines and guardsmen drove them away, taking hordes of cultists with them. However, some saw that in bringing the common man, they were taking away their glory. They were, after all, the dark gods chosen. Taking their favored warriors and the cultists that were proven, they struck out, toppling worlds.
Lord Halgrim was born from terranite stock, and was an old veteran of the word bearers well before the heresy started. He was one of the first converts to chaos throughout the legion, and distinguished himself so much that during the drop site massacre he led a force of possessed fighters, pushing his fanaticism to the extreme. During the heresy, he continued to perform atrocity’s, until he was elevated to a daemon prince in M.38. When the soul flayers broke, he went with them, seeing that on their path lay a key to even greater power.
DA NEVA-ENDING BATTLA
HE DAKKAZ ROUND DA KLOK --
DA ROOFLESS OVA-THROTTLA,
MOGA DIMMU VAPALOKK!
WE'S FAST AND RED
OUR DAKKA'S DA BEST
FIRST WE SHOOTS YOU DEAD
DEN WE KRUMP WOTS LEFT!
WE MAKES BIG NOIZE
WE'S COMES TO FIGHT
SADDLE UP, BOYZ
WE BRINGS DA WAAAGH TONIGHT!
As the close of the 41st Millennium approaches, the current Forgefather of the Salamanders is Vulkan He'stan. Since his earliest days as a Scout Marine, He'stan had been a much-noted warrior. He alone of his recruiting class captured a unique beast. For his mantle he slew a mottled tri-horn, amongst the most vicious and cunning of their reptilian breed. Even teams of veteran drake-hunters might struggle to accomplish such a deed. He'stan's skills as a smith -- working his hammer upon the anvil -- were such that the master artificers stopped over his works and admired them. The sentiment was expressed in a number of ways, but all amounted to the same: truly did the blood of Vulkan himself run in the Novice.
Vulkan He'stan devotes his every hour towards the recovery of the final four relics and the completion of the quest. It is written in the Tome of Fire that only when all nine artefacts have been recovered and returned to Nocturne will Vulkan judge the Salamanders to be sufficiently tempered; only then will he return to lead his sons to battle. Hunting for the relics is dangerous work. So far, the quest has claimed the lives of each Forgefather that came before He'stan. It seems an impossible task, for the Forgefathers have been hard at work searching for many thousands of Terran years -- but the Salamanders do not begrudge this challenge. Rather they accept it with the same stoic pragmatism with which they go about all their duties.
Nobody knew exactly how long The Blade Seer had been walking the path, but it was long enough to amass a considerable following. With his oratory he proclaimed a bright future for the aeldari defined in the haunting whistle and shrieking cuts of shuriken weaponry. His credo was strange, but he insisted that every desirable future was haunted by the sound, and he was not shy in spreading it. From system to system and battlefield to battlefield he led his followers to the places his glimpses told him they needed to be. What they used to achieve their aims when they got there was a conclusion foregone…heralded always by the hail of fire molecular lengths thick and as monolithic as a stormwall.
Followers of The Blade Seer, amassed from preaching across many craftworlds and many years, the Shuriken Legion are a Corsair fleet large enough at this point constitute a small craftworld in their own right. In the wake of the Blade Seer’s flagship, itself the reclaimed core of a long lost but rediscovered aeldari world vessel, they traverse the galaxy following their enigmatic leader’s glimpsed visions. Where inevitable conflict occurs, the legion enacts its will with a system of weapons that are part both religion and part military artform.
Sir Brunel commands his company with a rigid focus on trim and proper discipline, as befits representatives of a civilized society such as theirs. He likens himself to an adventurous explorer, although others might view his unit as being more akin to thieving thugs. As a low-ranking scion of a Rogue Trader family, he earned his commission as much through nepotism as through merit and is always eyeing opportunities for personal advancement above all else.
Heralding from a world that is nominally under the administrative control of Praetoria, but functionally run by the interests of a mercantile Rogue Trader family, the 9th Lancers operate as much as their benefactor's private military as loyal servants of the Imperium. Often dispatched to acquire relics and items of interest for the Rogue Trader lineage ruling their world, or to secure their personal trade interests, the Lancers have a reputation for operating in isolation from standard Imperial supply lines for extended periods of time.
Olympus' Revenge is a fallen knight house who's original name was lost during the civil war on Holy Mars. Ancient texts describe a Knight house closely allied with the infamous Kelbor Hal launched the initial attacks on loyalist forge cities at the dawn of the Long War. Led by the Knight who breached the defenses of Magma City, Golgoth the Bane of Gates, the House as emerged from time to stalk the Imperium once again.