THE TRAITOR LEGIONS
The Eye of Terror is a region of space cut off by warpstorms, wreathed in dust clouds, cloaked in mystery and danger. While it lies inside Imperial Space, it is not part of the Imperium. It is a desolate volume of space – the small number of systems to be found within the Eye have few habitable planets. However, its isolation from the Imperium is due to another cause. The Eye of Terror is home to the Imperium’s oldest enemies and greatest rebels: the Traitor Legions.
Banished from the Imperium, the Traitor Legions are the remnants of nine Marine Chapters from the First Founding. Deep inside the Eye, beyond the range of even the most sensitive psyker, the Traitor Legions made planetfall. There they have remained to the current day, a threat to the Imperium and to the natural order of the universe. From their fastness within the Eye of Terror, the Traitor Legions emerge in force, falling upon Imperial worlds, rekindling the fear and despair of the Horus Heresy.
THE HORUS HERESY
Imperial entanglements with Chaos have a long and bloody history, dating back almost to the First Founding of the Legiones Astartes. The most serious incident was the so-called Horus Heresy of the 31st Millennium, now commonly assumed to be a conventional revolt. Only the Emperor and the Cyber-libraries of the Ordo Malleus have an accurate recollection of the Heresy.
General Horus was regarded as the finest military commander that the Imperium had produced. His abilities were faultless, and eventually the Emperor granted him the title of Imperial Warmaster. This was a high honour, even in the early years of the Imperium, when brave deeds were commonplace.
Before Horus could travel to Terra to receive his reward he fell ill on the feral world of Davin. This was his undoing. During his convalescence on Davin he was inducted into a secret warrior’s lodge, which proved to be little more than a coven. A change of character became evident in the Warmaster – he had been possessed by a Daemon. Horus’ membership of the secret lodge was not unusual; Imperial soldiers were often encouraged to join warrior societies of this type. Recruiting was felt to be easier on worlds where ‘warriors from the stars’ had become ‘brothers’.
Warmaster Horus was recalled to duty in preparation for a new Imperial Crusade. It is clear that the Warmaster introduced a system of ‘warrior lodges’ into the five Legiones Astartes Chapters under his direct command. The Chapters were entirely corrupted as the lodges revealed their true nature and showed themselves to be nothing less than Chaos covens. The infection rapidly spread to the Orders of Adeptus Mechanicus attached to Horus’ command. From there the rot spread further into the Imperial forces. More than half of the Adeptus Mechanicus, including many units of Collegia Titanica and the Legio Cybernetica wholeheartedly supported Horus and his vision of a new Imperium of Chaos. This wholesale treachery went undetected by the Inquisition.
Before Horus could move, the Imperial Commander of Isstvan III declared the entire Isstvan system to be an independent principality. The Emperor and Administratum, ignorant of the change in Horus, his subordinate chapters and the parts of the Adeptus Mechanicus, ordered the Warmaster to secure the system. Horus chose a bioweapon bombardment on Isstvan III, and the planet became a tomb in seconds. The psychic death scream of the 12 billion who died during the Scouring of Isstvan is reputed to have been louder than the Astronomican.
During the bombardment, loyal Adeptus Astartes officers and troops managed to seize control of the frigate Eisenstein. They had discovered the rot that had been spread through the the Warmaster’s Chapters and the Adeptus Mechanicus. As Horus completed his withdrawal to Isstvan V the loyalists fled into warp space, carrying a warning to the rest of the Imperium. The seizure of the Eisenstein is regarded as the start of the First Inter-Legionary War.
The Emperor now became aware of the danger, and the Inquisition began a purge of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Fighting broke out immediately as the Mechanicus split into loyalists and rebels. The Legio Cybernetica and Collegia Titanica bases on Mars were immediately besieged by loyalist troops. Out of all the Titan Legions of the Divisio Militaris only those on Terra remained loyal. The rest declared for Horus.
With the wholesale treachery of the Divisio Militaris, the loyalist faction within the Collegia Titanica was forced to husband its battlefield resources. Fortunately, many of the weapon shops and supply depots of the Collegia had remained loyal. The priesthood were in control of the Collegia depots, and their presence ensured that these vital resources remained in the hands of the Imperium. The rebels were presented with an immediate supply problem; damaged and destroyed Titans could not be repaired with the limited spares stockpiles held by individual Orders.
Savage battles broke out between loyalist and rebel Titan Orders. Faced with extinction through lack of spares if they delayed or acted defensively, the rebels attacked. The Collegia histories list many construction adepts who performed the dedication rites on a new Titan, and then mounted their charge and took it straight into battle. In some cases the libations were still wet when it reached combat. Only able to match such fanaticism with their sheer weight of numbers, the rebels were often forced into a position of stalemate. However, despite the valiant defence of these loyal remnants of the Collegia Titanica, enough supplies were captured to allow the rebels to make good use of their Titans during the final assault upon Earth.
Across the Imperium rebel units attacked loyalists and vice versa. Old feuds were revived in many systems, giving additional excuses for battle. The rule of the Imperium dissolved into planetary battles. Many units of the Imperial Guard declared for the Warmaster. The Imperial Fleet dithered and managed only to drive rebel ships from the Imperial home system. In the process they took heavy casualties and retired to their Luna bases.
The Emperor took stock of the situation, and ordered seven entire Marine Chapters, a third of the Legiones Astartes, to destroy Horus and his rebels. Only with the death of the Warmaster, the figurehead and inspiration of rebellion, would the revolt come to an end. The crusade against Horus, although of the utmost urgency, took more than 180 days to plan and launch. Horus used the time well, establishing his claim as a ‘New Emperor’ with many of the rebels, and spreading the worship of Chaos further afield.
The Warmaster had established a temporary headquarters on Isstvan V. The loyalist Chapters struck in quick succession, and the battles of the Pacification of Isstvan were bloody in the extreme. The first assaults by loyalist Chapters were mauled during their landings, and then destroyed in detail. Three complete Chapters took part in the initial landings on Isstvan; only five Marines, bearing the gene-seed of their departed brothers, eventually managed to escape to carry the news of the disaster to the Emperor. Their own ‘loyalist’ follow-up waves, rather than attacking the rebels, fell upon their erstwhile allies. Horus had, apparently, managed to corrupt four of the seven Chapters sent against him.
With nine rebel Chapters and the bulk of the Adeptus Mechanicus behind him, and three loyal Chapters destroyed, Horus assaulted Earth. Throughout the Imperium rebel and loyalist units were fighting each other to a virtual standstill, although the tide of battle was turning, ever so slowly, in the Emperor’s favour. Possessed as he was, the Warmaster had lost none of his strategic bluntness: crush the heart, and the Imperium could be remoulded in his own warped image.
The Imperial Fleet was bypassed, and its Luna bases destroyed. Within 30 standard days the Warmaster had reduced the system defences, invested Earth, and thrown a ring of troops about the Imperial Palace. The forces under Horus’ command had ceased to be loyal Imperial Marines. They had become the Traitor Legions.
The Adeptus Custodes, the Imperial Fist and Whitescar Chapters, and loyalists of the Collegia Titanica were all that remained on Earth. Even their suicidal bravery and the leadership of the Emperor were not enough to prevent the battle turning into a siege. The rebel Traitor Legions were aided by the machines of the Adeptus Mechanicus and, outnumbered by these, even the bravest loyalists could do little. By the 55th day the Traitor Legions and the rebel Adeptus Mechanicus Legions had reached the walls of the Inner Palace.
The situation grew more desperate by the hour and, when the Outer Palace was abandoned to the Traitor Legions and their allies, the Emperor acted. He disconnected himself from the Astronomican, a signal to the remainder of the Imperial Fleet that the end, one way or another, was approaching. The Emperor and an elite company of Custodes Adeptus soldiery and Imperial Fist Marines were then teleported into Horus’ command bunker. In the fierce fighting that followed Horus was killed, although his body was never found, and the Emperor seriously wounded. With the death of the Warmaster the rebels paused in their assaults, then fell back to their transports and fled into space. The Imperial Fleet, which had been powerless to intervene while the rebels were within the Palace, gave chase. The Emperor returned to the Palace, where he was placed within a life-bubble; his wounds would have been fatal for an ordinary man. Under his watchful eyes the construction of the Golden Throne, which sustains him to this day, began.
His future assured, the Emperor pronounced judgement on Horus and his Legions. They had broken faith with the Emperor and trafficked with Daemons. They were declared to be the Traitor Legions, rebels against the Emperor and Mankind. The Fleet was ordered to drive them into the Eye of Terror, a system of hell-worlds wrapped in a dust nebula and awash with warpstorms. Here the Traitor Legions would be confined for all eternity; all records and memories of the lapsed Marine Chapters would be expunged from Imperial Archives. Their tied servants and support troops were to be removed from the Isstvan and Davin systems, and sent into the Eye aboard almost derelict hulks. It would be as if the Traitor Legions had never existed. In this decision the Emperor tempered his vengeance with reality – the Imperium had been so weakened by the struggle that no other punishment was possible.
As news of the Warmaster’s defeat spread though the Imperium widespread fighting was renewed. The loyalists were revitalized by the news, and fell on the rebels. Many Guard and Fleet detachments had withheld their support from both sides. Such indecision was punished by the rebels and loyalists alike. The loyalists bled such formations white in attacks against rebel strongholds. The rebels turned on all within reach in a final despairing orgy of destruction. The fighting continued another seven years before the last rebel formations were destroyed or exiled.
Those who could flee did so, heading for the Eye of Terror. Many had declared for the Warmaster without understanding that Daemon-worship had been the rebellion’s cause. They rapidly fell victim to the cultists of the original Traitor Legions, who, it is said, grew bored of a diet of human flesh.
The destroyed Chapters were slowly re-established using what gene-seed had been saved. Many systems, including Davin and Isstvan, were cleansed and placed under the protection of the Inquisition. The unit designations of the Traitor Legions were placed on the inactive list and assigned to new Marine Chapters raised during later Foundings.
The Emperor’s body had breathed its last, and he entered the Golden Throne. The Traitor Legions and their dead Warmaster vanished into the Eye of Terror. The First Inter-Legionary War – the Horus Heresy – lasted less than a decade, but it nearly destroyed the Imperium.
THE EYE OF TERROR
Within the Eye of Terror the Traitor Legions established the rule and worship of Chaos – with their exiled slaves they have created their own Imperium of Chaos. The warp storms isolated the Eye’s only system, and the poison of Chaos seeped into reality, creating a zone of madness and insanity to rival and finally dwarf the Chaos Wastes. The Eye’s habitable planets became Warp Worlds, entirely given over to mutation, twisted reality and Chaos.
The warping of Chaos has also worked its foul changes upon the Traitor Legions. Where once were Space Marines – eaten by the rot of Chaos but Marines nonetheless – there are now only Traitor Legionnaires. Chaos has wrought changes of a subtle and gross nature in the minds and bodies of the Legionnaires. They are the same beings who revolted against the Imperium ten thousand years ago, made ageless by the seeping power of Chaos.
They are not, however, unchanged. Few of the Legionnaires have escaped mutation in one form or another. Many have made personal pacts with Chaos, allowing their bodies to be possessed by Daemons. Many of the officers of the Legions, seeking to prove their loyalty to their dark masters, have given themselves to Daemons.
In more extreme cases Legionnaires and some of the lesser exiles have become hosts for Summoned Daemons. Over the course of centuries, The Eye of Terror has been warped to such a degree that Summoned Daemons can exist comfortably within reality. Only when they leave the Eye as part of a raiding force, for example, do the stresses of reality affect them.
The Traitor Legions and the Eye of Terror have also acted as a magnet for the darkest elements of the Imperium. Chaos Renegades often retreat there, where their presence is not only tolerated but welcomed.
The Traitor Legions have retained their old Chapters, now dedicated to the service of the Chaos Powers rather than the Imperium. They have also maintained the ancient technology of gene-seeding and adaptive surgery. The children needed to become new Legionnaires have been bred from slave stock and a variety of Humans captured on Legion raids into the Imperium.
Although nominally loyal to the dead Warmaster and his clone-sons, the history of the Traitor Legions is littered with internecine struggles, as one Legion has fought with the servants of a rival Chaos Power. For the most part, however, rival Legions vent their hatred upon the Imperium that defeated and imprisoned them. Possessed Legionnaires are naturally attuned to the warp, and have no difficulty in guiding their Legion transports, which are now little better than hulks, across warp space to almost any point in the galaxy. The Legionnaires descend from their ships, destroy and plunder an Imperial world, and retreat into the Eye. Only when a loyal Chapter of Space Marines is nearby does a raid meet formidable opposition.
The Inquisition has maintained a watch upon the system within the Eye through its irregular nullship probes. The nullships, spy vessels hidden behind screening shields and psychic barriers, are equipped with massive sensor arrays to take physical readings of the Eye warp worlds and collect data on the various Traitor Legion bases and fortresses. Specially trained psykers, themselves watched for signs of Chaos-contamination and wrong-thinking, monitor the thoughts and feelings of the Legionnaires. For all this, the information collected by the nullships is fragmentary. Many are lost to the natural hazards of the Eye, destroyed as their psyker crews are driven insane by the images they have sensed, or taken by Traitor Legionnaires in boarding actions.
TRAITOR LEGIONNAIRES
The Traitor Legionnaires were once First Founding Space Marines, the most exceptional humans of their Age. Corrupted by Chaos as they are, they have retained much of their Marine heritage, which makes them the most deadly opponents that Marine Chapters are likely to encounter.
Even after ten thousand years of Chaos, the basic profiles of the Traitor Legionnaires are still recognizable as those of Space Marines. Their service to Chaos has, as often as not, strengthened them and taken them to even greater heights of combat excellence.
The Legions have also retained much of their Marine heritage in weapons and equipment. For many the Bolter, no matter how baroque its design has become, is still the main weapon. Knives, blades and combat accessories of all types are also employed. Magical swords, imbued with the power of Chaos, or Daemon Weapons are marks of a Power’s great favour. They are extremely rare, and the bearer of such a weapon is regarded as specially chosen or honoured.
Over the millennia the original design for Marine armour in the Legions has developed and changed in strange ways. It still functions as well as it ever did, rivalling the best powered armour of the true Adeptus Astartes. Each suit still includes auto-senses, a communicator and a respirator. Intricate, grotesque decoration and gothic flamboyance have become the hallmarks of the Traitor Legions. Each Legionnaire’s armour varies from that of his fellows in some small detail, producing a macabre variety and perverse uniformity in each Legion. In this the Legionnaires’ powered armour apes and echoes the Chaos Armour of the Daemon allies and their highest, most favoured officers.
Suits of powered armour have lasted over the centuries, and these are still used by the surviving original Traitor Legionnaires. With only minor modifications and replacements, these suits are standard Adeptus Astartes issue. The original chapter colours of the Traitor Legions have, in most cases, long since vanished; all armour is painted and decorated in the colours of the Legion’s Chaos Power.
