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I am not posting anything new here, as the background is the same that you can find in my army log. Despite this, I decided to open a separate topic in this section, because I am specifically looking for critics, comments and feebacks. I put quite some effort in making up my fluff and would really like to refine it. I'd like to hear from you what you like and what you don't, what works fine and what is weak, what makes sense and what does not. Any comment and constructive criticism is more than welcome. Thank you all for you attention /ACCESSING ARCHIVES/ /SEARCH CATEGORIES: XII LEGION/XVI GREAT COMPANY / /ALL RECORDS SEALED/EXCOMMUNICATE TRAITORIS/INSERT IDENTIFICATION CODE/ /PROCESSING/ /IDENTIFICATION CODE ACCEPTED/LORD INQUISITOR VAN HEKT/ /ACCESS GRANTED/ /SEARCH CATEGORIES: XVI GREAT COMPANY/NOTABLE BATTLES/ /PROCESSING/ /SEARCH RESULTS/ ++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++ ++BAEBLONIAN INCIDENT [RECORD AVAILABLE]++ ++SIEGE OF HIEROTZELEM [RECORD AVAILABLE]++ ++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++ ++GOLGOTHAN SLAUGHTER --- ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED ---SIEGE OF SARUM [RECORD AVAILABLE]++ ++CLEANSING OF ARRIGATA [RECORD AVAILABLE]++ ++GHENNA SCOURING [RECORD UNAVAILABLE]++ ++NIGHT OF THE WOLF [RECORD AVAILABLE]++ ++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++ ++ISSTVAN III ATROCITY [RECORD AVAILABLE]++ ++ISSTVAN V DROPSITE MASSACRE [RECORD AVAILABLE]++ ++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++ ++SHADOW CRUSADE ---ASSAULT ON MARDRION [RECORD AVAILABLE]++ ---ANTROTH CAMPAIGN [RECORD AVAILABLE] ++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++ ++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++ ++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++ ++BATTLE OF TERRA [RECORD TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE]++ ++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++ Numeration: Legio XII, Company XVI Primogenitor: Angron the Conqueror Battlebarge: The Merciless Tactical specialization: Boarding assaults, Exterminatus and Zone Mortalis operations, Line-breaker attacks Allegiance: Traitoris Perdita http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121009164521/warhammer40k/images/4/43/World_Eaters_Pre-Heresy_Icon.jpg Dramatis Personae [updated to: The Fall of Virtus Prime] The World Eaters Legion Tiberius Thanatos, Centurion and ship captain Irex Nornas, Legate Commander [KIA: Isstvan III] Solomon Drakon, Champion of the Pits Borg “Redhands”, Champion of the pits [shadow Crusade/Pits of the Merciless – Drakon] Skath, Chaplain Garalth, Master of Signal [KIA: Isstvan III] Verjell, High Codicer [isstvan V/Pits of the Merciless - Thanatos] Regran, Primus medicae [KIA: Cleansing of Arrigata] Kallax “Night Lord”, Primus medicae Arkadios, Apothecary Drapaes, Apothecary Abyron, Apothecary Ancient Daegron, Contemptor Dreadnought Balon, Contemptor Dreadnought Rhaskos “Headbutter”, Sergeant – II Tactical squad Lennar “Blooddrinker”, Sergeant – IV Tactical squad “Bad Luck” Kull, Sergeant – XII Tactical squad Urron, Sergeant – I Outrider Squad [MIA: Isstvan V] Gerakh, Sergeant – I Outrider Squad Rakhan, Sergeant – II Assault Squad Personnel of the Merciless Val Kheren, Senechal BIRTH: Hounds of war The first known references to the 16th company of the 12th Legion come from the fragmented accounts of the 32nd Fleet, where it is reported as one of the three War Hounds companies assigned to the Expedition. By that time, the Legion had already cemented his savage reputation by repressing the Cerberus Insurrection [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA], and the Merciless -as the 16th was named by their horrified comrades of the Imperial Army- lived up to that fame, acting as brutal shock troops for the Expeditionary Fleet. [OPEN DATA: BAEBLONIAN INCIDENT] [OPEN DATA: SIEGE OF HIEROTZELEM] EVOLUTION: Sons of a broken God As the Legions grew in size and many came to be reunited with their Primarchs the task of reinforcement became less important, and the 12th Legion was brought back together under the banner of the “Bloody 13th”, the Expeditionary Fleet with the largest number of War Hounds along with dedicated assault and fleet support elements. The 16th mustered on the planet Bodt along with the rest of the Legion, and saw its ranks refilled with new stocks of wargear and fresh recruits to be trained on volcanic sands. Available informations about the finding of the Primarch Angron can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA]. In this account, it will be enough to say that in a Legion already based on honor and fighting prowess the martial ideal represented by Angron found a vast number of devoted followers, not least among them Centurion Thanatos of the 16th. Having been told of the latter's escalade to command the Primarch laughed his approvation, thus “officially” confirming his position as captain of the Battlebarge Merciless and commander of three hundred Astartes. After reshaping the War Hounds and making them his World Eaters, Angron departed Bodt with his men and launched himself in a bloody rampage across the galaxy, where his Legion gave a total new meaning to its fame for brutality and bloodshed. A report of the late Heresy era states that “The planets upon which the World Eaters fell were not merely crushed – they were destroyed utterly. Where once resistance had been found, now were left only grave worlds in their stead – planets not merely burned or blasted from on high but slaughtered in their streets and palaces, factories and fortresses […] the World Eaters Legion became a byword for unbridled violence and slaughter on a gran scale, shunned by many of their fellow Legions for their excesses and whispered of in fear by those who in theory they had been created to protect”. The first known target to have suffered their wrath was the Golgothan Sector [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA]. The campaign that ensued lasted eleven terran years and entered in the annals of the Imperium as the “Golgothan Slaughter”, and saw “no less than forty-eight worlds and outposts ravaged […] and seven separate dangerous xeno species rendered extinct”, though only minor documental evidence of these conflicts survived to these days. Most of the informations we currently have focus on what is spoken of as the first and most important battle of the whole campaign: the Siege of Sarum. Non-16th company specific informations about the siege can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA] [OPEN DATA: SIEGE OF SARUM] Its wargear repaired and restocked by the Red Priests of Sarum, the 16th Great Company is also reported to have partecipated in Spake Hulk cleansing operations during the extermination of the Ork empires of Blitzklaw and Neverlight and in line-breaker assaults against the xeno Khrave of Serreak-17 and the Craftworld Tuonoetar. The same report previously quoted in this account states that “nor were human and abhuman worlds spared the Legion's wrath: Susa, Gwydion, Jubal, Badlanding and a dozen more all fell before those Angels of Death[...]” and altough no documental evidence survived of the 16th's involvement in such massacres, it's not hard at all to hypotize it, as there is no other document stating XII Legion activity anywhere else in the galaxy at that time. The first documental evidence we have about the 16th Great Company after its involvement against the Craftworld Tuonoetar comes in the form of a sworn testimony made by Praetor Tullius Maemnionem of the Ultramarines Legion during Lord Guilliman's denounce of his brother's methods that ensued their collaboration on the rebel planet Arrigata. General informations about the conflict can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA]. [OPEN DATA: CLEANSING OF ARRIGATA] The World Eaters' spiral of violence had its apex in the most dreaded Scouring of Ghenna [RECORDS UNAVAILABLE], when the planet was deprived of its whole population in the course of a single night. As the massacre's bloody legend began to circulate, so did the rumors about widespread use of psycho-surgery within the Legion. The confession of Hjell Serask, berserker of the warband “Angron's Chosen” that is suspected to originate from the 16th company, should be certainly taken as that of a snake-tongued heretic, but also represents the only direct sources we have about the company's involvement in such practices. The studies conducted on Serask's body about the cortical implants called “Butcher's nails” can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA]. The berserker revealed that the Primarch Angron himself had been implanted such devices on [REDACTED], and wanted to pass them on to his sons to boost their battle prowess and ferocity to yet higher levels. Most of the Legion accepted it: some enthusiastically, others reluctantly, but all willing to be closer to their genetic father. The Merciless were among the first kind: the Nails quickly saw widespread use within the Company and Centurion Thanatos greatly encouraged their use, being one of the first in the whole Legion to willingly submit himself as a tester for the implancts reproduced by the Apothecarion of the Conqueror. As soon as the wispers about this practice became openly voiced demands for censure from Imperial authorities -Roboute Guilliman first among them, after witnessing the Legion at work on Arrigata- the Emperor sent Primarch Leman Russ to meet Angron on the very field of Ghenna and make him stop with such a prohibited and foul surgery. This resulted in the incident known as “The night of the Wolf”. [OPEN DATA: NIGHT OF THE WOLF] After that, the Emperor directly called Angron before him for reprimand, forbidding once more the use of the Butcher's Nails and exiling the World Eaters in the northern fringes of the galaxy, where they could slaughter a great number of xeno races aways from the Imperium's core worlds. Unfortunately, there is no surviving source regarding this period of the Company's history. BETRAYAL: The blood of my brother The name of the World Eaters returns in the annals of the Imperium in occasion of the mustering called by Warmaster Horus Lupercal in order to suppress the Isstvan III uprising. General informations about the rebellion and the infamous Atrocity that followed can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA] [OPEN DATA: ISSTVAN III ATROCITY] MASSACRE: Void hunter It would later be clear that many of the experimental implancts received by the Merciless were particularly strong, and degenerated faster than those of their brothers. After the Betrayal many of them had already reached the point of no return, though a pirric majority still retained some kind of control over the Nails. Those members who returned from the ruined surface of Isstvan III were quickly reorganised and resupplied on board of the Merciless as the Warmaster prepared the next stage of his plan, which would come to be known as the Isstvan V Dropsite Massacre. General informations regarding the battle can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA]. [OPEN DATA: ISSTVAN V DROPSITE MASSACRE] CONQUEST: The Five Hundred Worlds Burn After the ninety eight days of Isstvan V, the World Eaters were sent in the Segmentum Ultima along with the Word Bearers to begin the bloody campaign which would come to be known as The Shadow Crusade [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA], meant to shed enough blood and despair to tear the veils of reality and unleash a violent warpstorm capable of isolating the realm of Ultramar from the rest of the Imperium. In the opening stages of the conflict the Merciless were sent right outside the borders of the Five Hundred Worlds, in the Australis Ultima Sector, and tasked to unleash as much devastation as possible to cause a minor storm which would cut off that border of the Ultramarine Empire from every possible link with Australis. Other than the aid given by the massive presence of traitor solar auxilia, it is safe to assume that the ranks of the Merciless had been refilled before the beginning of the attack, as their numbers after the Isstvan Campaign would have never been enough to sustain the amount of losses required in the invasion of a System. [OPEN DATA: ASSAULT ON MARDRION] [OPEN DATA: ANTROTH CAMPAIGN] With no Astartes left to protect it, and with the local militia severely weakened by the attrition war sustained against his traitor counterpart, the Prosperine System was little more than a hopeless victim waiting for the final, murderous strike. The World Eaters were free to unleash their savage instincts on its worlds, each of them ravaged beyond recognition and forever scarred in its history. Everything that remains of this period are the horrific Prosperinian tales about the atrocities and slaughterfeasts committed by the sons of Angron, which I renounce to describe in detail in this account. A collection of those stories can be found in the volume [REDACTED] by [REDACTED]. /ACCESSING ARCHIVES/ /SEARCH CATEGORIES: XII LEGION/XVI GREAT COMPANY / /ALL RECORDS SEALED/EXCOMMUNICATE TRAITORIS/INSERT IDENTIFICATION CODE/ /PROCESSING/ /IDENTIFICATION CODE ACCEPTED/LORD INQUISITOR VAN HEKT/ /ACCESS GRANTED/ /SEARCH CATEGORIES: XVI GREAT COMPANY/PIC-CAPTURES/PERSONALITIES/ /PROCESSING/ /SEARCH RESULTS/ Captain Tiberius Thanatos, Commander of the Merciless First born son of a Terran tech-barbarian warlord, Tiberius Thanatos was taken as a tribute and recruited in the Emperor's 12th Legion after his father was cast into submission at the end of the Unification Wars. He swiftfully emerged from the ranks, being the exact kind of officer the twelfth needed at the time: a brutal, cunning but noble leader driven by his own pragmatic honor code, as he had been raised up to be when he was meant to inherit the mantle of command in his tribe. When the 16th Company's Centurion died in the Siege of Hierotzelem, Tiberius won command over the Merciless by defeating every other pretendant in the ritual fights that followed: not yet satisfied, he also challenged those of the other two companies attached to the 32nd expedition along with the 16th, who had also lost their respective Centurions during the Siege. Bending or killing every opponent, he found himself alone to command a battleship and -at full strenght- three hundred Astartes, a position that would later be confirmed with a laughter of approval by the Primarch Angron. In the following years he proved himself a skilled void commander and a warm brother for all of the 12th Legion, respected for his insight and martial sense of humor as well as for his physical resilience and hand-to hand skills, but he was never animated by the same fervour some of his brothers had towards the Emperor of Mankind. To Tiberius he was a distant, brutal tyrant who destroyed the life he was meant to live and whom he was forced to serve by lack of choices. This is why when Angron came to the Legion with his tragic story and his bloody warrior code he was seen by Thanatos as a similar soul to him, and easily won his loyalty over that for the Emperor. In Angron, Thanatos found a true leader to follow, someone he would gladly fight for, and who would also later give him the opportunity to stand against the Emperor he so clearly hated. Such was Tiberius' devotion to his genesire that he was among the first to volunteer as a test for the cortical implants soon to become widespread within the Legion, and it comes to no surprise that he followed him in the events of the Horus Heresy. Unfortunately his Nails were a particularly strong device and degenerated sooner than expected: after the battle for Isstvan V they had already eroded much of the man he was, allowing him only glimpses of the leader his men were used to and turning him into a colder, killing addicted monster who gladly broke his former self on the same anvil that twisted his father, and would do so again even knowingly. Contemptor Dreadnought Ancient Daegron An original Warhound from Terra who fought since the foundation of the Legion, he reported critical wounds after Hierotzelem's self destruction and was interred in one of the recently issued Contemptor Pattern Dreadnoughts. At first he was a well esteemed veteran among the 16th, and even Thanatos often sought his wisdom, but when Angron's hand reshaped the Legion, not being able to receive the Nails isolated him from the once respectful Merciless. He was left alone, with High Codicer Verjell and the other outcasts from the Librarium, to remember the times of the Old Legion and see the new one fall into corruption before his eyes. By the time of Isstvan III the Contemptor's machine spirit had put its capricious roots deep into the warrior's consciousness, who was now awaken by his forgetful brothers only when war called as a weapon to be used and then restrained without remorse. Primus Medicae Kallax “Night Lord” Recruited from a death world during the Golgothan Slaughter, Kallax had pale skin and ice-blue eyes that made him stand out from the rest of his Legion. Proving himself a quick learner, he was chosen to be part of the Conqueror's Apothecarion and suitably trained by the masters of the 12th. The match between his world's man-hunting culture and anathomical studies soon gave birth to a cynical and sadist individual with a passion for psycological tortures and those mouse-and-cat situations which he would come to live quite often given the 16th company's -where he was detached at the end of his training- specialization for Zone Mortalis and Boarding actions, and this would prove to him a Nails-feeding method far more satisfying than crude slaughter. Kallax became Primus Medicae of the Merciless when his predecessor Regran was slain during the Cleansing of Arrigata, being by far the strongest member of the Apothecarion left alive. He started getting called “Night Lord” after the ninety-eight days of Isstvan V, where after the chase for any loyalist survivor a VIII Legion Praetor had his suit improved with fearful embellishments and silenced serfs for stalking operations in memory of the “great time they had together”. Kallax is nevertheless a trusted lieutenant to Thanatos, who greatly esteems his feral cunning and discipline-enforcing methods. Sergeant “Bad Luck” Kull A Bodt born Astartes who entered service during the Ghenna Scouring, Kull is a cynical officer who has since earned many honours. He is famous in the company for wielding a bolt pistol with Space Wolves iconography earned in the Night of the Wolf, despite the Legion's belief of inherited weapons bringing bad luck. “Only the weak needs luck” he always says, and has so earned the nickname “Bad Luck” Kull. During the assault on Mardrion, a Raven Guard terminator punched his head with a powerfist: an ironic fate wanted Kull lucky enough to survive by some dark miracle, though half of his skull and even part of his brain needed mechanical replacement. Sergeant Lennar Lennar is a Terran Veteran of renown among the ranks of the Merciless who led the the 4th Tactical Squad through most of the Great Crusade. Some reports state that he lost his mind on Isstvan III and started drinking his loyalist brothers' blood. He led a task force in the vaults of the Alpha-51 training complex on Mardrion, retrieving a relic phase-walker device that was stored as a trophy in the armory of the Merciless. Pit Champion Borg “Redhands” Arrogant, unsubtle and Nails-driven, Borg was among those recruited on Bodt to replenish the Legion's ranks before the retrieving of their Primarch. He became the 16th 's youngest officer of all times after leading a band of survivors who had lost contact with the battlebarge against the Khrave of Serreak-17 for more than three months, surviving against all odds and even organising a series of raids against those foul xenos. After rejoining his brothers he was named a line officer, a position he shared with Irex Nornas: they often clashed, the latter being far more cool headed and reflective than the bold and young Borg, who was instead impulsive and eager to prove himself worthy of his position. He ultimately did so in the Pits of the Merciless, where brotherhood was forged and legends written in blood. His elegant fighting style with his charnabal blade earned him a reputation in all of the Legion, and he rarely met any match before Delvarus himself stepped in for a challenge at third blood. Borg managed to inflict two wounds to the champion of the Conqueror, before being finally defeated in a match that was discussed and remembered for a very long time. His nickname “Redhands” is due to the rumor that he smashed a Space Wolves Centurion's head with his bare hands during the Night of the Wolf. Borg met his end in the pits during the Shadow Crusade, finally bested by Vexillarius Solomon Drakon, who took his place as Champion of the Merciless. Pit Champion Solomon Drakon First mentioned as a rank and file Astartes during the Cleansing of Arrigata, Drakon rose to the position of Company Vexillarius at the beginning of the Horus Heresy. According to Senechal Val Kheren's personal audio logs, Drakon mantained a singular rationality despite the Butcher's Nails. As the mental conditions of Tiberius Thanatos worsened every day faster during the civil war, Solomon emerged de facto as a leader among men, taking those internal decisions that the Captain did not bother anymore and mantaining the Merciless as united and efficent as possibile. During the Shadow Crusade his importance was contested by Borg “Redhands”, who claimed such an authority for himself, being the Champion of the Pits and a veteran of longer date than Drakon. This conflict inaivoidably led to a face-off in the arena, where to everyone's surprise a new champion was appointed after a spectacurarly brutal fight. Drakon would be put to test again during the Siege of Iulia Augusta, when he led a task force into the city to free Captain Tiberius, captured by the enemy Salamanders during the opening phase of the conflict.