Looking for Black Legion Fluff

[Seth the Dark]

I am looking for any extra Black Legion fluff outside of the Codices. Anything will help thanks.

[Dammeron]

The Black Legion were originally known as The Lunar Wolves, but it was as The Sons of Horus that they fought during the Horus Heresy. Their primarch Horus was discovered amongst the gangs of the once industrial world of Cthonia, that had once been a mining planet but whose populace had devolved to a tribal state over many generations. The first Primarch to be rediscovered by the Emperor, he shared an especial kin-ship with his Creator, and the Emperor treated him as his most favoured son.

 

Placed in command of the Space Marine legion created from his genetic code, Horus emphasised a tactic of diplomacy before violence, utilising oratory and politics before initiating military action. When military action was called for, he emphasised a doctrine of ripping the heart out of the enemy, his forces striking directly into the heart of enemy encampments or strong points and inhuming their commanders and centres of leadership. The legion was glorified during the Great Crusade for its accomplishments, to the point whereby it was eventually renamed as The Sons of Horus in honour of its primarch's accomplishments in the Ullanor crusade.

 

Horus was eventually honoured with the title of Warmaster, placed in charge of The Great Crusade itself whilst the Emperor retreated to Ancient Terra in order to coordinate his expanding empire. The burden was an extremely heavy one, even for a being such as a primarch, and it was as a result of this strain that Horus began his descent into darkness.

 

Summoned back to a tribal world known as Davin, that Horus and his legion had conquered in concert with Lorgar and his Word Bearers, Horus was critically wounded whilst fighting against the rogue Commander who seemed to be the focus of the insurrection. Due to their super-human metabolism, it was almost unheard of for a primarch to fall ill, yet as a result of his wounds, Horus languished at death's door 'til a secret warrior lodge at work within his legion determined to aid their Lord and Master through less conventional means.

 

Under the guidance of the Word Bearer Chaplain Erebus, they transported the prone Horus to one of the tribal lodges of Davin, whose priests then enacted a series of rituals purportedly designed to purge the War Master of his malady.

 

Horus eventually emerged seemingly cured, though some of his closest advisors noticed a change in the War Master. It was at this point that Horus began to stoke the fires of insurrection in his own legion and several others whose loyalty he commanded, making plans to move against the Emperor whom he had come to regard as a weak willed hypocrite, willing to surrender the galaxy he had helped conquer to petty scribes and bureaucrats. It was also at this point that, via Erebus, Horus began to directly commune with the Powers of Chaos, regarding them not as his Masters, but as allies who might help him in his cause.

 

Unfortunately, any noble intentions Horus may have began with fell away as Chaos slowly saturated his soul, feeding him with enough power to rival the Emperor himself, and become the Messiah of the Dark Gods in the material universe.

 

When Horus was eventually defeated during the assault on Terra, the Sons of Horus were the first to withdraw under the direction of their new Master, Abaddon, Captain of the First Company. Finally finding themselves becalmed in the Warp, the Sons of Horus were bled white in a series of raids by the other Traitor Legions, who blamed them for beginning the route from Earth and leaving the traitor forces leaderless on the planet below. To add to their ignominy, Horus's body was eventually stolen and cloned by a being calling himself "The Primogenitor." On the verge of destruction, the remaining Sons swore allegiance to Abaddon as their new War Master. Abaddon's first edicts rejected the ancient name of Horus and the failure that it now implied, and ordered the remaining sons to paint their armour black in eternal memory of their shame.

 

In a lightning raid, Horus destroyed both the clones of Horus and the Warmaster's body, then retreated in the legion's last existing battle barge into a dust nebulae at the edge of the Eye of Terror.

 

Since then, Abaddon has worked to restore his legion's strength and pride. At first he earned the grudging respect of captains within the other Traitor legions with his increasingly daring raids and attacks upon Imperial space, and eventually their whole hearted support. Still maintaining Horus's original edict of tearing the heart out of the enemy, Abaddon often led from the front amidst a bodyguard of elite Terminators, personally ripping apart enemy commanders and displaying their broken, mutilated corpses to their former comrades. His forces, that originally comprised little more than the remnants of the all but obliterated Sons of Horus, have become swollen by many new initiates, renegades from other Traitor Legions who have sworn loyalty to his cause, turn coats amongst the more recently created Space Marine Chapters, not to mention countless cults, traitor guard and titan legions, mutant covens and daemonic hordes.

 

The legion itself is loosely organised into "Black Companies," forces that range in size and composition depending on the proclivities of their captains. The legion owes fealty to no one particular chaos god, though there are cults within it to all of the Four Great Powers as well as minor chaos deities and chaos undivided. As such, internal politics and conflicts of interest are quite common, and most likely encouraged by the War Master as a means of rooting out the strong from the weak. It is also quite common for the battle brothers and ranking officers of the legion to give themselves up for possession by daemons, as a great many believed that Horus himself was possessed following his experiences on Davin.

 

Abaddon seeks to reunite the scattered forces within the Eye of Terra into a single unstoppable horde, and lead them against the Imperium that he wishes to see reduced to little more than ash and bone. Perhaps then he will ascend to the mantle of daemonhood that has been no doubt offered to him before on a number of occassions, and take his place beside the Gods he serves.

 

Collated from various sources including: The Second Ed Chaos codex, the Black Legion Index Astartes article, the Horus Heresy artwork books, the Horus Heresy novel series from the Black Library.

[chillin]

Very good Dammeron.

Just to add a few things.

Back in StD, BL got hatred toward pretty much everybody in pwr armor loyal and chaos.

This business of BL accepting strays from other chaos legions is new to this latest codex (and this latest dex is pretty poor at upholding years established fluff). People w in the BL are free be aligned with any chaos pwr they wish (or undivided), so BL brzrkrs need not be x-WE's but Black Legionaires who have aligned w Khorne, same goes with all the cult troops w in the BL.

[Seth the Dark]

Very nice. Thanks!

[Brother Nihm]

I am looking for any extra Black Legion fluff outside of the Codices. Anything will help thanks.

Check the stickies. :)

 

Sons of Horus/Lunar Wolves/Black Legion

Index Astartes IV.

Novel: Horus Rising.

Novel: False Gods.

Novel: Galaxy in Flames, by Ben Counter.

Novel: Execution Hour, by Gordon Rennie.

Novel: Shadow Point, by Gordon Rennie.

UK White Dwarf: #199, The Warmaster of Chaos - Abaddon, by Andy Chambers.

UK White Dwarf: #238, Abaddon and the Planet Killer.

UK White Dwarf: #268, Abaddon the Despoiler, by Graham McNeill.

UK White Dwarf: #268, Index Astartes First Founding - Sons of Horus, The Black Legion Space Marine Chapter, by Graham Davey.

UK White Dwarf: #283, Fleet Actions of the Eye of Terror Campaign - Abaddon's Chaos Fleet in Battlefleet Gothic, by Matt Keefe.