Alternate Heresy - Index Astartes: World Eaters

[Aurelius Rex]

I have always loved the idea of Alternate universe tales of what might of happened if things had taken a different path - Buffy's 'Dopplegangland' episode is a favourite of mine - and there have even been ideas thrown around of what the legions might have been like if the Heresy had occurred differently. Usually these cool ideas are never followed through, so I decided to go the whole hog and write a complete Alt-history complete with Index Astartes articles for each of the legions...

 

... You can't say I don't like a challenge!

 

Anyway, the overall history of my Alt-Heresy has been accepted by the Librarium, (Check it out using the hyperlink here!) and I am ploughing through the IA's nicely, and thought that the Alt-World Eaters Index Astartes article would be of interest to the home of DIY IA's, and my home on the B&C, Liber Astartes.

 

Bear in mind that my own DIY chapter, the Scions of Dorn, was about five years in the making, so cutting this down to weeks per article is quite an increase in speed! ;)

 

I hope you enjoy my view of what they might have become if Angron's meeting with The Emperor had been just a little different, and look out for other Alternate IA legion articles soon!

 

Regards,

Aurelius.

 

 

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Index Astartes: World Eaters

 

An Alternate Heresy

 

Of all the Space Marine Legions, none exemplifies the virtues of martial honour and strict self-control more than the World Eaters. Just as Angron transcended his violent youth, he ensured that his Legion would shrug off every setback and betrayal to become paragons of the warrior creed, and ardent supporters of The Emperor's intention to unify the galaxy.

 

Origins

A

ccording to Carpinus’ Speculum Historiale, the best record of Angron’s early years, the young Primarch was born and raised into bloodshed and death, but never let these things claim him. Stolen away from The Emperor by the Ruinous Powers and scattered throughout the galaxy, the infant Angron was found, on an un-named planet, surrounded by the corpses of what were thought to be armed bandits that prowled the region. He was taken in by the locals, was fed and clothed, and according to their traditions promptly sold into slavery to repay their generosity. Given his obvious skill in the combat arts, he was forced into first small-time pit-fighting, and inevitably was traded to the capital city’s gladiatorial arena.

 

At that time The Emperor’s Great Crusade to re-unite the galaxy had not yet reached this world, and the planetary rulers used the grand spectacle of the gladiatorial arenas to slake their population’s bloodlust, and to remind them of the penalty for thoughts of revolt. As the Primarch grew, so too did his reputation, and his frustration with his situation. The slavers, ever-eager to boast of the brutality of their fighters had named him Angron, but The Emperor had made him to be more than a bloodthirsty taker of skulls. It was his name, but not what he was.

 

Angron resented that he and his fellow gladiators were being forced to fight and kill for the pleasure of their masters, and that of the baying crowds. Even worse were the physical and mental mutilations imposed upon them to provide better sport. Implants, ‘glanding’ and the replacement of arms with hooks or blades were all commonplace in the arenas. Angron saw them all as an attempt to steal the only thing the slaves still possessed; their dignity and sense of self. The worst insult was the psycho-surgical procedures to implant ‘aggression chips’ directly into the brain, turning the subject into little better than a mindless berserker. After suffering this fate, Angron bent all his will to escaping his puppet masters.

 

The walls were high and the guns of their guards powerful, but using his natural talent as a warrior and leader of men, at last he found a way. During a massed display of gladiatorial combat the slaves, as one, turned their weapons on their guards. Angron’s meticulous and inspired planning saw to it that they took control of the arena with a minimum of casualties, but the bloodshed that followed shocked him to the core. With freedom in sight, many of Angron’s gladiator brothers became uncontrollable and with the guards routed, continued to fight rather than make good their escape. In the height of blind fury some of the berserkers turned on the fleeing crowds and even, in their madness, their brother gladiators.

 

The slave army escaped the city, but without their berserker brethren, which remained to kill and be killed. The experience brought home to Angron that without iron-willed self-control they would lose themselves. The look in the eyes of his blood-drunk former brothers he had been forced to kill that day convinced Angron that he himself must never suffer that fate.

 

While the gladiators fled into the wild-lands, the rulers of the city assembled and despatched an army of mercenaries to chase them down. Angron and his brothers ambushed the overconfident and ill-disciplined soldiery, stripped them of their weapons and provisions, and sent them back to the city as a bloodied warning not to pursue them any further. However, with word of Angron’s escape spreading and fomenting unrest among the gladiators in other cities, this was not something the planet’s rulers were able to ignore. Fearing for their grip on power and no longer underestimating this ‘simple gladiator’ a force a hundred thousand strong was mobilised and sent to scour the land. Against such overwhelming force, Angron’s only option was to press further and further into the mountains, but eventually there was nowhere left to go. At the summit of Fedan Mhor, Angron and his brothers prepared to make their stand.

 

In the time since the loss of the Primarchs, The Emperor had not been idle. Guided by His unparalleled psychic talents He homed in on His lost sons. And so it was that as Angron prepared to address his army for the coming, hopeless battle, Imperial ships of the Great Crusade came hastily into orbit. Unwilling to risk losing his son before they had even been reunited, The Emperor ordered that Angron be teleported aboard, but Horus, who was accompanying his father, urgently counselled against it. Horus's peerless insight into the psychology of the warrior recognised that to whisk a true leader to safety while his army was butchered would be intolerable. He saw that such an act would irrevocably taint the relationship with bitterness and resentment from the start.

 

Horus successfully convinced his father that there was a better way, and when the sun rose on the mountain, the slaver's armies were faced not only by Angron's former gladiators, but by The Master of Mankind, and the Astartes of the Lunar Wolves. Against such powerful adversaries, the slaver’s forces were easily routed. As they fled the field in disarray, Angron approached his father through the smoke, and knelt in supplication, recognising the bond between them, and respecting the true nobility of The Emperor and His cause. Accepting the inevitable, the planet’s ruling elite quietly stepped down from power, and the world rapidly acceded into the Imperium.

 

Horus took Angron under his wing, educating him in every aspect of the Imperium. In doing so, he was able to assuage his brother’s lingering doubts that he would simply be swapping one set of chains for another; that The Emperor was far from being just another slaver who wanted him to fight and die for his own amusement. Their first meeting on Fedan Mhor had gone a long way towards this, and the presence of Horus and his Lunar Wolves overcame Angron’s initial misgivings about the implants and psycho-conditioning that becoming a marine entailed. At first, the process seemed to be eerily similar to the aggression chips and cybernetic implants that the slavers had forced upon the gladiators, and which had made them less than human. However, after seeing the Lunar Wolves in action, Angron knew that such things were merely tools to make them more efficient warriors, and with rigid self-control they were nothing to be feared. When the Twelfth Legion finally arrived to formally meet their primarch, Angron was ready for command.

 

Angron had not forgotten his old comrades, and the army of former slaves were the first from the planet to join his new legion. The aggression chips were cast off as tools of the oppressor, and the legion was dedicated to the course of martial honour and iron-willed self-control. Berserker fury became a shadow of the past; a legacy of their enslavement that would never again be permitted. Committed to the glory of the Imperium and The Emperor, they would be masters of their own fates. Some aspects of his past - such as his own name - Angron retained, and even embraced as reminders of what they must always fight against. Back in the arena, the slavers called Angron and his fellow gladiators the 'World Eaters' to brag to other cities of how violent and frenzied they were. Thus, to the surprise of members new and old, he chose it to remind them of the darkness against which they must always guard. He renamed the Twelfth Legion the World Eaters.

 

The Heresy

I

n the following years the World Eaters became synonymous with martial honour, and were paragons of The Emperor’s dream to re-unite humanity in the galaxy. Their Grand Companies often fought alongside those of the Lunar Wolves, with Angron’s idealism tempering Horus’s more pragmatic approach. In fact, at a banquet to celebrate the successful completion of the Herax compliance, Horus publically praised Angron as his ‘moral compass’. When Horus was elevated to the rank of Warmaster at Ullanor, none was more forthcoming in support for his mentor than Angron, and it seemed that even with The Emperor returning to Terra, the Great Crusade would be in safe hands.

 

Sadly, it was not to be. First the Warmaster was laid low by an unknown malady, and then word came that Roboute Guilliman had declared the vast swathes of the galactic east liberated by his Ultramarine Legion to be an independent realm - the so-called Ultramar Segmentum. Such an affront to the Imperial dream saw the World Eaters pledge themselves immediately to bringing Guilliman back to his senses, or to end this betrayal once and for all. Under the command of Rogal Dorn, The Emperor’s Praetorian, seven legions assembled in orbit around the Ultramarine’s latest conquest, at the fifth planet of the Istvaan system. The World Eaters, along with the Emperor’s Children and Raven Guard made planet-fall into what they were told was a shattered and broken rebel legion, but instead were devastated by the guns of both the Ultramarines, and their erstwhile allies. Dorn had been corrupted by the Chaos Gods, and had taken the Imperial Fist, Iron Hand, Dark Angel and Salamander legions with him into that damnation. Knowing the World Eater’s legendary idealism and loyalty to the Warmaster, Dorn had not even attempted to turn them to his cause. Instead, he opted to use them as a blood sacrifice to his Dark Masters, and to buy the Ultramarine’s neutrality in the coming war.

 

Wading through rivers of their own blood, the shattered remnants of the three loyal legions fought their way to evacuation. Angron’s martial code demanded that such a gross betrayal must not stand unchallenged, but even he knew there was nothing to be gained from suffering a glorious massacre. Their mission became to get word of Dorn’s treachery back to The Emperor. After dragging as many of their fallen brethren as they could onto the evacuation landers, they came under intense fire from heavy weaponry from Salamander devastator squads commanded by their unmistakable, disfigured Primarch, Vulkan. With shuttles and landers full of his brothers exploding around him, Angron took this final opportunity to save his legion, and to fulfil his personal code. He threw open the hatch and leapt out of the slowly rising vessel into the midst of the Salamanders.

Khârn the Deathless

Angron’s noble sacrifice on Istvaan allowed a precious few World Eaters to escape the carnage, and with them they dragged as many of their fallen brothers as they could. Among the corpses was Captain Khârn, equerry to the primarch himself. Covered in the blood of a hundred grievous wounds, Khârn woke in the makeshift morgue, later saying that Angron had come to him in a vision and told him that it was not yet time for Khârn to join him, and that he still had a mighty task ahead. This proved to be the case. Khârn led the tattered shreds of the legion back to their homeworld, and as Legion Master overcame insurmountable challenges to rebuild and revive the World Eaters. Having passed into the vale of death, and yet returning all the stronger, Khârn the Deathless is an analogy for the legion itself.

The heavy weapons directed against the transports were silenced, and the few survivors of the three legions evacuated to safety. While Angron’s ultimate fate is a matter of heated conjecture. The World Eaters and Emperor’s Children both assert that he met his end in combat with the turncoat Vulkan, while the scurrilous black propaganda spouted by the Salamanders hints at a considerably less heroic end. Needless to say, any battle involving these two legions, such as the Battle of Skalathrax and the Gorthan-Liess Cleansing, are bitterly contested in the extreme.

 

After Istvaan, the World Eaters were reduced to a shadow of their former strength. They limped back to their homeworld with the intention to rebuild their forces, and to play some part in ending Dorn's treachery, but it was not to be. The Heresy had reached even their own planet. The former rulers of the world were gone from power, but still retained much wealth and influence. On their isolated estates, away from prying eyes, they continued their decadent ways and fell into the worship of Chaos. History is unclear whether this happened independently, or part of Dorn's plot to destabilise the legion, but when they realised that the World Eaters had been decimated, and the Imperium wracked by civil war, they seized their opportunity. Private armies besieged the legitimate Imperial government, and paid agitators, sought to raise mobs in rebellion. The war was short, though, as even in their weakened state the World Eaters were quickly able to rout the enemy and re-establish order.

 

Enraged at having power snatched away a second time, the deposed leaders enacted their final solution: If they could not have the planet, then no-one would. At their command powerful explosives detonated along seismic fault-lines and inside the planet’s geothermal power plants, spewing lava across the land and choking the atmosphere with ash. This triggered further waves of volcanic activity that plunged the world into darkness, and caused a global extinction event. The World Eaters, protected by power armour were the only survivors of the cataclysm, but even their fortress-monastery on Fedan Mhor was seriously damaged. Evacuating to their orbiting fleet, the legion stood vigil over their dying homeworld for one hundred days, and then left vowing always to remember, but never to return.

 

Recruitment

B

efore the Heresy, the World Eaters recruited extensively from the former gladiator and pit-slave population of their homeworld. These proved to be a hardy and talented source of marines, although to their regret they found that not all were suitable. A proportion, be it through ill-treatment or by inclination, took such enjoyment and abandon in the spilling of blood that to become a World Eater was simply out of the question. Angron had seen the damage that the blood-drunk could do, to both themselves and their erstwhile friends, and decreed that iron-hard self-control was vital to become one of his legionnaires.

 

Part of this was the removal of their aggression chips, and the ugly scar tissue that resulted from the procedure became a palpable reminder of their rejected past. In solidarity the Terran legionnaires that had never had the procedure took to tattooing the scalp above the left temple, and even ten millennia later, this practice still endures.

 

After the destruction of their homeworld the legion necessarily had to draw their recruits from other systems. The World Eater fleet ranges far across the Imperium, so the legion is able to select the finest candidates wherever they may be found. Each Grand Company’s battle barges have the knowledge and resources to recruit and train the next generation of World Eaters. The legion is well respected and universally regarded as being fair and honourable, and most planetary governors are eager to become a recruiting world, with all the added protection this entails.

 

Combat Doctrine

Skalathrax

Their shared experiences on Istvaan brought the legions of the World Eaters and Emperor's Children together, and forged a strong bond of friendship between the two despite their philosophical differences. Just decades after the heresy, while both legions were still in the midst of rebuilding, they deployed together to defend the world of Skalathrax from the Salamanders. The traitor legion claimed that the incineration of Skalathrax would anoint it as their new daemon-world, but together the loyalists managed to avert this, and in doing so extracted a measure of vengeance for the Salamander's betrayal at Istvaan. The phrase 'Remember Skalathrax' became a rallying cry for a resurgent Imperium, one that echoed from the halls of the High Lords on mighty Terra to the darkest depths of the Eye of Terror.

G

iven their Primarch’s origins as a pit-fighter and gladiator, and Angron’s devotion to martial honour, it is unsurprising that the legion places such a particular emphasis upon close combat. This is reflected by the high number of Assault squads found in their orders of battle, but far from being bloodthirsty maniacs, its roots come from their own code of martial honour, and ironically, a desire to avoid indiscriminate slaughter. Where many legions routinely use orbital bombardment and saturation firepower against a rebellious world, the World Eaters take great pains to minimise civilian casualties, even when it means that they themselves suffer greater losses as the result. It is against an enemy’s leaders and military forces that they take the fight, and test their mettle; there is no honour to be gained in butchering the old, infirm or infants, especially when done from orbit. In close combat the World Eaters know and suitably value each human life they take.

 

On many occasions, most notably the famous assault on the rebellious Partrum Junta and the boarding of the Battle Barge Black Narcissus, entire Grand Companies of World Eaters have taken to the field armed solely with bolt pistol and chain-axe. However, that is not to say that the World Eaters eschew ranged weaponry - particularly when facing xenos and warp-tainted opponents. The bolter is as holy an instrument of The Emperor’s will to them as it is to any of the other loyal legions, and since their earliest days, World Eater Devastator squads have been referred with genuine honour as ‘The Teeth of the World Eaters’. The legion is clinical in its assessment of the best method to eliminate the Imperium’s foes, and on the battlefield Assault, Tactical and Devastator squads mesh seamlessly into an unstoppable white and azure engine of power armoured death.

 

 

 

Organisation

H

aving no homeworld, the World Eater legion is now fleet-based, and has spread itself out amongst the stars. Each Grand Company, numbering upwards of a thousand battle brothers and commanded by a Brother-Captain and his lieutenants strive to perform their assigned duties to the utmost. Normally at least two-thirds of World Eater Grand Companies are to be found engaged in the Crusades proclaimed by the High Lords of Terra, a proportion unmatched by any other legion. These Grand Companies are at the vanguard of the battle against the Ruinous Powers and xenos threats and reclaiming areas of the galaxy long-lost to Imperial rule. Such a role is a dangerous one even for the Legionnes Astartes, and the vehemence with which the World Eaters pursue this task is enviable.

 

Once the crusade has achieved its objective, or grudgingly when the losses sustained by the Great Company become too great, they return to the Imperium proper to recruit, train and replenish their strength. Though this could be considered as reserve status, there are still many battles to be fought inside the Imperium. Rebellions against rightful Imperial rule are sadly all-too common, pirate fleets plague the space-lanes and even the Imperial crusades are unable to prevent wide-scale invasions by heretics and warlike alien races.

 

The diffuse nature of the World Eater legion means that, in practice, each Grand Company retains a great degree of independence. The ultimate authority is the Council of Captains, headed by the Legion Master, which by necessity meets almost exclusively by astropathic means. It is essential in coordinating the actions of the World Eaters across the Imperium, as well as ruling on the commitment of forces to Imperial Crusades, and on rare occasions sanctioning the creation of a new Grand Company.

 

Beliefs

T

he World Eaters retain their Primarch’s sense of martial honour, discipline and iron-willed self-control. They are, if anything, even more organised and regimented than the secessionist Ultramarines and their successor chapters, although the World Eaters restrict themselves to military matters rather than extending it into the civilian side of things. Despite the betrayals and losses they suffered during the Heresy, the World Eaters have never lost their idealistic belief in the concept of The Emperor's Imperium. To this end they are endlessly willing to contribute forces to crusade alongside other legions and the Imperial Army. Unlike some of the other legions though, the World Eaters are motivated by a deep-seated belief that it is the right thing to do, rather than as part of some political machination to serve their own agendas.

 

While the legion does maintain a Librarium of psychically gifted battle brothers, they are few in number, and their remit specialised. This springs primarily from their innate distrust of the immaterial, instead preferring to rely on the heft of an honest chain-axe to the summoning of eldritch fire. After the Heresy revealed the horrifying scope of the threat posed by the Ruinous Powers, successive Legion Masters began to realise the value of being able to fight on the aetheric plane as well. To this end, World Eater librarians are charged with the vital role of sensing the malefic, and warding the souls of their brethren from harm. These roles do not exempt librarians from their normal duties. They are World Eaters, and so are expected to prove themselves at the bloody edge of battle - a place in which their psychically attuned force weaponry comes in extremely useful.

 

Varren stepped aside of the wildly swung frost-blade. In return he brought the chain-axe round and caught the Space Wolf in the vulnerable area between upraised arm and toughened breastplate. Energised teeth churned easily into armour and flesh, sending an arterial spray across the room, and coating his face and once-white and blue armour in darkest crimson.

 

The traitor slumped to the floor, nearly chewed in half by the blade. He was incapacitated, but still clinging to life. It saddened Varren that one of The Emperor’s legions could have fallen to the worship of the Ruinous Powers, dedicated only to the spilling of blood and the taking of skulls. Looking into the madman’s eyes, a chilling thought struck him; would this have been his fate if Angron hadn’t turned his back on bloodshed? There but for the grace of The Emperor...

 

‘Do you have any last words, oath-breaker?’ Varren asked, raising his chain-axe in preparation for a warrior’s execution.

 

‘Blood for the Blood God. He cares not from where it flows,’ rasped the Space Wolf with a burbling chuckle. ‘We are brothers in blood now –’ the sacrilegious insult was cut off abruptly by the falling blade.

 

Varren absently licked his lips, and tasted the coppery tang of the traitor’s blood. Just for the briefest second his mind filled with the memories of his opponent, and he experienced the joy of losing himself within the rising blood-tide...

 

Then the walls of self-control slammed back into place, and with revulsion he fell to his knees. Over the sound of his own retching, Captain Varren was certain he could hear the taunting laughter of the Dark Gods.

[clearfloat][/clearfloat]

 

Gene-Seed

G

ene-seed of the Angron line suffers an unusual degree of genetic drift, and the omophagea implant is absent altogether. Adeptus Mechanicus records showed that the implant abruptly and inexplicably disappeared from samples submitted for purity testing in mid-M34. When the offer was made to return gene-seed from tithed stocks which still contained the omophagea, the legion declined the offer, stating in no uncertain terms that the implant was no longer required.

 

The general degradation in gene-seed quality is attributed to the use of higher than recommend doses of certain chemicals involved in marine hypnotherapy and indoctrination. This hazardous treatment allows World Eater marines to control their responses, emotions and autonomic reactions beyond that of other legions, in line with their compulsion to enforce iron-willed self-restraint on the battlefield. While this genetic drift has not yet been observed to have materially affected implant quality, there is serious concern that eventually the long term viability of the gene-seed as a whole could be in jeopardy. The Imperium can ill-afford to lose the World Eaters, but despite this the legion has strenuously resisted pressure to modify its procedures.

 

Battlecry

'F

or Angron and The Emperor!' is a common battlecry, although where World Eaters face traitors of the Salamanders legion, 'Remember Skalathrax!' is often used instead.

[Ferrus Manus]

Very good Aurelius . I'm looking forward to seeing the IA: Word Bearers, who are you planning to write next?

[Aurelius Rex]

Thanks. ;)

 

IA: Emperor's Children is done and IA: Ultramarines is in the final stages of proof reading. I plan to tackle IA: Raven Guard next, followed by the Thousand Sons, although I have been thinking a lot about what the Word Bearers were up to the last few days...

 

So many ideas, so slow typing skills. ;)

[The Dean]

I must say that I really like your alternative reality approach. Read your Librarium article as well, and I must say it seems to be quite a bit more interesting and multi-faceted than the black-and-whiteish affair that is the current state of fluff. :)

 

Keep on writing, I'll keep on reading.

[Hasoroth]

That was great stuff. I think you mean the "veil of death" though, not "vale of death"

[Aurelius Rex]

That was great stuff. I think you mean the "veil of death" though, not "vale of death"

I see what you mean - it could certainly be used in that context as well, but I was going for it in the 'vale of tears' way.

 

Now you have got me wondering about it!. ^_^

 

I have got some very useful notes and feedback from people such as Ferrata and Sigismund Himself which I will incorporate before I submit this to the Librarium, but any more is obviously welcomed.

 

 

Something I was thinking about when writing this was the colour piece with Captain Varren. Was the link to what happened with the gene-seed implants clear - I wanted to make it subtle, but was it too subtle?

 

Oh, and for a bonus point, what role did Captain Varren of the World Eaters play in the Norm-'verse? Heresy? ;)

[Gree]

In the old fluff he led the loyalist world eaters on the Esentein. (?)

[h6x6n]

i have nothing particularly useful to say, as I am no super fluff meister. but it sounds tight ;) nice job

[Aurelius Rex]

In the old fluff he led the loyalist world eaters on the Esentein. (?)

A bonus point to Gree! In the rulebook to the 'Space Marine' game (a forerunner to Epic) Varren led the loyal World Eaters that helped the Eisenstein to escape. It also mentions Tarvitz, so perhaps Varren will eventually get a mention the Horus Heresy novels too. I have always liked the colour piece here, and especially the quote that "Your World Eaters are our only hope." It is not often that this is said about the World Eaters in the Norm-'verse, so it always stuck with me. :teehee:

 

Having Varren be the first to experience the danger of Chaos corruption via the omophagea also seemed like a nice twist, but if he fell, or did his experiences just tip off the Apothecarion of the dangers, I will leave that up to the reader...

[Hasoroth]

Varren is mentioned in the "Flight of the Eisenstein". I'm not sure if he's referred to a Garro's Honor Brother or just as an honorable brother, but he's definitely in there.

[CantonWC]

Very nice, I really like where you're going with this Alternate Heresy project. It's familiar, yet refreshing; I really like the little nods and the reversals of the official fluff. Honestly, this could probably turn out much better than what GW has.

 

I notice that my favored Raven boys still remain Loyalists - and still get their bums handed to them at Istvaan :( I wonder what you have in store for them? How soon can we expect the other IA's to arrive?

[Aurelius Rex]

I notice that my favored Raven boys still remain Loyalists - and still get their bums handed to them at Istvaan ;) I wonder what you have in store for them? How soon can we expect the other IA's to arrive?

I have started writing the Raven Guard Alternate IA yesterday, and things are not as simple as they seem for them. Still, there are hints in the overview if you read between the lines. It will be a while before it hits the board, but IA: Emperor's Children may arrive in the next fortnight. :(

[brother heckengar]

I want to thank you, for the great words on our Legion. I always have played World Eaters, as true soldiers, and not just mindless killers. So please keep up the great work. And I will be reading all of you work from now on, to see what might have been.