++Lore of the Wulfen through the Ages++

[Valerian]

Rogue Trader Era, White Dwarf 156

 

 

The Blooding

 

When the aspirant awakes he is freezing cold. He lies naked in the snow with a knife of meteoric iron close at hand. He is feverish and distressed. His head throbs and his muscles ache. His gums bleed and his mouth burns. Near him stands the Wolf Priest that selected him, who tells the aspirant that the true test has now begun. To prove himself worthy, he must make his way back to the Fang and gain entrance. He is now at the other side of the continent, a thousand miles away from home. The Wolf Priest disappears and the candidate is truly on his own.

 

Although the aspirant did not know it, the feast had a purpose. The geneseed is beginning to work on his body, rushing through it and restructuring it. Muscle mass is being added, bones are beginning to fuse together, and the very structure of his brain is beginning to alter, quickening his reflexes and heightening his perceptions. Vestigial fangs are beginning to emerge. The venison provides the raw protein needed for this, and the sacred ale was laced with the necessary trace chemicals to fuel the change.

 

The aspirant knows none of this. He is wracked with pain as his body stretches and grows. His mind is haunted by visions and sanity fades. He becomes wolf-like, feral, maddened by agony and hunger. Now is the worst time - he is constantly hungry because his changing body needs more and more nourishment if it is to sustain its growth. Failure to provide this will be fatal as his body begins to cannibalise itself.

 

These first few days are the most critical. The aspirant must feed often. He has usually been left near a source of food such as an elk herd. Near mindless, he must hunt them down, eat their raw flesh and drink their blood. Some aspirants, unable to meet the challenge, perish. Some, whether due to some flaw in themselves or the geneseed, never get beyond this stage. They become mindless animals, with an animal's cunning. They continue to grow and hunger for flesh, eventually becoming Wulfen, the most feared monsters on Fenris, creatures that are hunted down by all sane men.

 

 

Chapter Organization

 

The Space Wolves are organised in a very different way from most other Space Marine Chapters. The Chapter dates from the First Founding and its structure owes more to the personality of Leman Russ than it does to the Codex Astartes. It also reflects the preferred fighting style and social organisation of the native Fenrisians. 

 

There are a dozen Great Companies, all of whom owe allegiance to the Chapter's commander, the Great Wolf. Each company is led by a Wolf Lord and his circle of advisors. Each company has its own Lair within the Fang and its own allocation of starships and weapons. A Great Company takes as its totem and insignia one of the legendary wolves of Fenris tamed by Leman Russ in ancient times. One company is named after the Blackmane wolf, the Howler in the Night. Another company takes as its insignia the Thunderwolf who it is said still flees in terror from Russ around the world, the sound of its paws being the thunder, the glint of its teeth the lightning. Still another takes the two-headed wolf as its emblem, this being the symbol of both the monster that guards death's gate and the sign of Russ's two wolves, Freki and Geri.

 

Tales are told of a thirteenth Great Company that took as its sign the pelt of the Wulfen, the legendary spirit of evil whose curse can still turn Space Wolves into the monsters of that name. This was a bad choice for a banner; the Great Company vanished into the Eye of Terror during the Horus Heresy, and none know its fate. Since then the Space Wolves have traditionally considered the number thirteen unlucky.

Space Wolves Codex, Second Edition

 

Many are the trials which a young Fenrisian warrior must endure before he can join the ranks of the Space Wolves.  Even to catch the eye of one of the wandering grey Wolf Priests he must do some deed of valour which exceeds even the common bravery and might of the Fenrisians.  The many tests will try the warrior’s wit as well as his strength, and place him in moral dangers from which he must emerge alive if not unscathed.  Although the nature of these trials is varied, being determined by the great cunning of the Wolf Priests, the final test is always the same.  This is the test of Morkai, named after the legendary two-headed wolf that guards the gate of death.

 

Some fail this final test and are claimed by Morkai and forgotten.  The trial is long, for the young warrior is taken a thousand miles into the barren wastes beyond the Space Wolves fortress of the Fang.  He drinks from the Cup of Wulfen, and his body absorbs the first and most deadly gene-seed of the Space Wolves – the unique Canis gene helix, without which none of the other gene-seeds will work.

 

The Wulfen seed grows fast within the warrior, splitting bone and distorting flesh, turning man into a howling savage that is half human and half wolf.  The warrior hungers for flesh and his mind is possessed with bestial instincts which override his natural sanity.  Only one thought remains, and that is to return to the Fang, where his humanity can be restored by the insertion of other gene-seeds.  Many die under the curse of the Wulfen.  Others lose their way and are left to wander the barren wastes of Asaheim.  Yet some succeed, despite the multitude of wild beasts and natural perils that lie between them and their goal.  Even years afterwards, a Space Marine always retains a small part of the Wulfen spirit within him, a dark memory of the savage and bestial self that he has overcome.

 

 

The Wulfen Stone

 

This ancient gem was worked into a suit of armour by the great artificer Iron Priest Fengri and is one of the Space Wolves’ greatest treasures.  Within its murky depths lies the raging image of the Were, the monster of Fenris that lies coiled within the gene-helix of every Space Wolf.  As the bearer of the Wulfen Stone charges into combat his image changes into that of the Wulfen, its horror can be borne by few creatures. 

Space Wolves Codex, Third Edition

 

The Grand Annulus

 

The blank name stone once belonged to Jorin Bloodfang’s Great Company, known after as the Wulfen-kind.  It has come to represent all of the Great Companies in the history of the Space Wolves who have been destroyed in battle, lost on campaign or recanted their oaths of fealty.

 

 

The Mark of the Wulfen

 

 

This is a form of genetic instability to which some members of the Space Wolves are prone.  These individuals are literally ‘marked out’ by facial tattoos that are applied by a Wolf Priest.  Warriors bearing the Mark are both feared and revered by their fellow Space Wolves…  A model bearing the Mark of the Wulfen explodes into wild bestial fury in close combat…  He undergoes a physical transformation into a wild beast-like creature…

[Valerian]

Third Edition Era, White Dwarf  244

 

Month after month, the Battle of the Fang continued.  Cardinal Bucharis ordered suicide squads to storm the armored portals of the Fang, promising massive promotions and rewards for the first berserk soldiers to break through.  The Space Wolves repelled each and every attack, inflicting crippling casualties on the Apostate's forces.  For three blood-stained years the siege carried on.  Assault after assault, shelling for weeks on end, fell against the Fang and yet the walls of the ancient citadel of the Space Wolves remained unbreached.  As the battle began its third year, it drew in more and more of Bucharis' soldiers, until almost three quarters of all his armies were on Fenris, many hundreds of thousands of men.

 

Even as Bucharis' second-in-command, Colonel Gasto of the Rigellian XXV, began preparations for what might have been the final, deciding assault, fate intervened.  On the edges of the Fenris star system a war fleet broke through from warpspace.  As Sehalla's fleet moved to attack, they were confronted by an armada of Space Wolves battlebarges and strike cruisers, returning to their home planet from a distant war.  The fury of Kyrl Grimblood's attack was unbounded, smashing over half of the renegade fleet in a single cataclysmic engagement.  As Grimblood's Great Company herded the traitors towards Fenris, the rest of the Space Wolves' starships attacked, catching Sehalla between two unstoppable forces.  Sehalla managed to escape with barely a quarter of his ships intact.  Wasting no time in pursuit, the newly arrived Space Wolves headed for Fenris.

 

 

The attack by Kyrl Grimblood's Great Company swept away tens of thousands of traitor Guardsmen in the first few days.  They were flung from the mountain passes around the Fang and those few that survived to reach Asaheim were set upon by giant wolf packs and the savage Wulfen.  Bucharis himself managed to avoid capture by escaping on a shuttle, meeting with Sehalla who dropped back out of the warp just long enough to pick up his master.  For those that remained on Fenris, death was a certainty.

[Valerian]

Third Edition Era, White Dwarf  245

 

The Wulfen

 

These fragmented pieces of text have been excerpted from Dionerius' Rise of Man, M31

 

 

...Among them were companies of savage creatures, their bestiality far outstripping even the barbaric Children of Russ.  By the Space Wolves these were called the Wulfen, at times spoken of as the thirteenth company.  They were feral of eye and febrile in nature, strong of limb and blanched by savage tattoos, able to tear a man asunder with their clawed hands and fangs.  Eschewing weapons of distance they would stalk their foes as wild beasts, slinking in the shadows and hunting by night 'neath the light of the full moon.  Variously, captains say the Wulfen were led by Hirkon Grail or Jorin Bloodfang, maybe when one was slain another took his place.

 

Fragment II

 

Now in the aftermath of the Siege of Terra there was a great confusion among the loyal followers of the Emperor, for they had lost their liege lord and were as knights without their king.  [[Text lost]] Many voiced loud the thought in the hearts of all - give chase to the traitors and destroy them utterly for the woe they had wrought.  The voice of Russ was raised loudest of all, [[Text lost]]  but Guilliman and Dorn gainsaid his counsel.  To enter the Occularis Terriblis would bring disorder on the surviving Legions, they said, leaving Man vulnerable to both the xenite and the apostate.  It is said that Russ, as was so often the way, took his own counsel and sent forth the Wulfen to hunt down Abaddon and his followers.  Others say that the thirteenth company pursued the heretics of their own accord, as hounds at the chase who heed not the calls of their huntsman.  Others still maintain that the Wulfen had been tainted by the Dark Gods and were summoned by their call to join the traitor legions in the netherworld.

 

Fragment III

 

 

The Wulfen were never seen nor heard of again, passing into the void and becoming lost to the eye and ear of Man.  It is said that upon the Space Wolves homeworld of Fenris the loss of the Wulfen was known by the wolves of Asaheim.  The great packs gathered before the gates of the Space Wolves monastery in their thousands until every wolf in the world was there.  That grey host howled of their loss for a hundred nights before returning to the hinterlands.

[Valerian]

Third Edition Era, White Dwarf  246

 

Tales are told of a thirteenth Great Company whose Wolf Lord took as his sign the pelt of the Wulfen, the legendary spirit of evil whose curse can still turn Space Wolves into monsters of that name.  This Wolf Lord, his name has been lost to the ages, said that he could overcome anything, even the curse of the Wulfen, and that was why he took it as his totem.  His hubris cost him dear; the Great Company vanished into the Eye of Terror during the Horus Heresy, and none know of its fate.  Since then the Space Wolves have traditionally considered the number thirteen unlucky and a portent of bad omen.

 

 

The Horus Heresy

 

The rebellion of Warmaster Horus tore the Imperium apart at its very birth.  Horus was the Emperor's most trusted General and commanded almost a third of the forces of the Imperium at the time he rebelled.  The conflict set Space Marine against Space Marine as Legions (as the Chapters were then known) sided both for and against Horus.  At first, few suspected the heinous evil that was to be revealed as the Horus Heresy, and some Legions stood aside from the conflict unsure of what to do.  Some of the Legions that sided with Horus did so out of a sense of loyalty to their old Warmaster.  Legend has it that Horus denounced the Emperor and convinced his followers that the leader of humanity had been stricken with a murderous insanity spawned of warp-contagion or worse still, daemonic possession.  His loyal troops had no reason to suspect Horus at the time.  It was only later that they had cause to regret their decision, for it was Horus who had pledged allegiance to the Chaos gods in return for powers unimaginable to mortals, even such mortals as the Primarchs.

 

The Space Wolves remained loyal to the Emperor throughout the Heresy and took part in some of its most renowned actions.  From those times, ten thousand years ago, come few details of any certainty.  It was a time of legends.  It was an age of war.  Such records as made have not survived, and only later did chroniclers of the Administratum describe the bloody events of those days.  According to their own tradition, the Space Wolves were pivotal in one of the early campaigns of the war, when the entire Legion attacked and devastated the Thousand Sons Space Marines on their home world of Prospero.  The Primarch of the Thousand Sons, the cyclopean giant Magnus the Red, is said to have fought Leman Russ whilst all around the rival Space Marines battled for supremacy.  Eventually the Thousand Sons gave way and Magnus the Red fled with what remained of his forces.  It was while pursuing the Thousand Sons that the Space Wolves lost the Thirteenth Company, the Wulfen.  Since then the Space Wolves have never had a thirteenth Company nor has any Wolf Lord born the badge of the Wulfen.

 

The Space Wolves were not present during the final battle for Earth which ended the Heresy and doomed the Emperor to a living death in the stasis field of his Golden Throne.  Afterwards, Leman Russ was to rage against events that kept him from his beloved Emperor.  He led the Space Wolves deep into the Eye of Terror in pursuit of the renegade Space Marine Legions of Chaos.

 

 

The Blooding

 

When the aspirant awakens he is freezing cold. He lies naked in the snow with a knife of meteoric iron close at hand. He is feverish and distressed. His head throbs and his muscles ache. His gums bleed and his mouth burns. Near him stands the Wolf Priest that selected him, who tells the aspirant that the true test has now begun. To prove himself worthy he must make his way back to the Fang and gain entrance. He is now at the other side of the continent, a thousand miles away from home. The Wolf Priest disappears and the aspirant is truly on his own.

 

Although the aspirant does not know it, the feast had a purpose. The geneseed is beginning to work on his body, rushing through it and restructuring it. Muscle mass is being added, bones are beginning to fuse together, and the very structure of his brain is beginning to alter, quickening his reactions and heightening his perceptions.  Vestigial fangs are starting to emerge. The venison provides the raw protein for this, and the sacred ale was laced with the necessary trace chemicals to fuel the change.

 

The aspirant knows none of this. He is wracked with pain and his body stretches and grows. His mind is haunted by visions and sanity fades. He becomes wolf-like, feral, maddened by agony and hunger. Now is the worst time, he is constantly hungry because his changing body needs more and more nourishment if it is to sustain growth.  Failure to provide this will be fatal as his body begins to cannibalise itself.

 

These first few days are the most critical. The aspirant must feed often. He is usually left near a source of food such as an elk herd. Near mindless, he must hunt them down, eat their raw flesh and drink their blood. Some aspirants, unable to meet the challenge, perish. Some, whether due to some flaw in themselves or the geneseed, never get beyond this stage. They become mindless creatures, with an animal's cunning. They continue to grow and hunger for flesh, eventually becoming Wulfen, the most feared monsters on Fenris. Others only partially overcome this stage, and in later life will revert to the Wulfen state in times of crisis.

 

 

Wolf Priests

 

 

The Wolf Priests guard the Chapter's genetic seed, bio-culturing new implants and maintaining the vigour of the strain by weeding out any weakness or mutation. Their knowledge is deep, and for many centuries they have studied the effects of the cursed Wulfen gene helix in a search for a way to modify it and make safe the Chapter's genetic seed. However, their efforts have only succeeded in preventing the curse spreading, and it is unlikely that the damage can ever be repaired completely.

[Valerian]

Third Edition Era, White Dwarf  283

 

 

Children of the Night: The Space Wolves 13th Company

 

Origins

 

Legend states that, many centuries ago, the Space Wolves numbered 13 Great Companies.  To this day, a place is reserved at the feasts held in the Hall of the Great Wolf for a Lord who has not attended his liege since the time Russ himself led his sons into battle.  Tales of this Company are vague and often contradictory, but one fact is known: the men of the 13th Great Company were marked apart from the rest of their Chapter, for every one of them bore the Curse of the Wulfen.

 

The origins of the 13th Great Company lie in the dawn of the Age of the Imperium, when the Primarchs were reunited with the Emperor and their Legions.  The Space Wolves, the 6th Legion, were the genetic progeny of Russ and carried within them a unique gift: the Canis Helix, the Mark of the Wolf that sets the Space Wolves apart from the Space Marines of other Chapters.  The Canis Helix invests the Space Wolves with the acute predatory senses of the wolves native to their home world of Fenris, but this gift comes at a price: the Curse of the Wulfen.  Those brothers who succumb to the Curse degenerate into savage, malformed parodies of their brethren.  In most cases, the Curse manifests during training, but in others, the effects of the Curse become apparent many years later in the heat of battle.  The Space Wolves' harsh induction regime generally ensures that these individuals perish at an early stage in the process.  However, at the time of the Great Crusade, when the Emperor and his Legions were conquering vast swathes of the galaxy in the name of Mankind, those brothers touched by the Curse were banded together into the 13th Company, where their feral ferocity could be brought to bear en masse and contained for the safety of the whole Legion.

 

That the 13th Company accompanied Russ on the Great Crusade is known, although the details of the campaigns in which they fought are lost to antiquity.  Only the names of actions long since forgotten - battles such as the First Siege of Methrix, the Battle of the Plains of Mo-Shan, the Fall of the Paramors of the Morpheus Rift, and the Crossing of Hangman's Void - appear in the archives.

 

The fate of the 13th Company is a subject of numerous myths, and the Space Wolves themselves will not say which hold the true account.  In truth, it is probable that an element of veracity exists within each and that none are wholly inaccurate.

 

There are some sagas that outsiders are never permitted to hear, ones told by the Rune Priests on only the most sacred of occasions.  Though some sagas have been set to record by strangers, and the Space Wolves have spoken, some would say bragged, at length regarding certain aspects of their long and glorious history, there are other passages that mean death should outsiders overhear them.

 

The saga known as "The War of the Giants" purports to be a record of the fall of Prospero, one of the opening conflicts of the Horus Heresy.  The Space Wolves were ordered to asault their brother Legion, the Thousand Sons, and to call them to account for the sorcerous actions of their Primarch, Magnus the Red.  The saga states that the 13th Company was at the head of the assault on the Thousand Sons' home world and that the sheer ferocity of their attack smashed a hole in the traitor lines through which the remainder of the Space Wolves could penetrate.  At the height of the battle, it is told that Magnus opened a portal, a means of escaping the destruction wrought by the Space Wolves, Magnus and the remnants of his Legion fled, but it is said that Russ ordered the 13th Company to give chase.  In so doing, they left the realm of Man, never to return.

 

Fragments of other records suggest that the disappearance of the 13th Company did not occur until after the Siege of the Emperor's Palace, which saw the rebel Warmaster Horus finally defeated and the Traitor Legions routed back to the Eye of Terror.  It is stated that in the wake of the galaxy-spanning civil war, which saw the Imperium brought to its knees by Horus's treachery, the Ultramarines' Primarch Roboute Guilliman sought to consolidate the forces of Mankind.  But Leman Russ, headstrong and proud as he was, demanded that the Traitors not be allowed to establish a foothold within the Eye of Terror and that the Imperium should strike immediately.  Though Guilliman and Dorn overrode him, it has been suggested that Russ may have dispatched the 13th Company with orders to hunt down Abaddon, the Warmaster's Lieutenant, and bring his head as a trophy to set before the Emperor.  Other, less charitable theories suggest the Wulfen gave chase on their own accord, and some even whisper that the 13th Company had been tainted by Chaos all along and were seeking to join the ranks of the Traitors.

 

This legend bears up well to the little evidence that exists to support it, and the timing of their emergence from the Eye indicates that the Wulfen may be pursuing Abaddon.

 

 

 

It has been noted by Inquisitor Asmorales that the numbers of the Wulfen-kind that disappeared 10,000 years ago must have been equivalent to a contemporary Space Marine Chapter, owing to the far larger size of the First Founding Legions[/b].  To date, only a handful of men of the 13th Company have been observed.  Thus, the Inquisitor believes that the majority of the Company remains within the Eye of Terror, has been slain, or has embarked on a mission the nature of which only the 13th Company understands.  it is also likely that a number of separate contingents of Wulfen-kind are at large, each harrying the forces of Chaos and led by a Lord who is vassal to an individual yet to reveal his hand in the conflict.

 

 

Gene-Seed

 

That the Canis Helix is responsible for the condition of the Wulfen is known, and it has been suggested that the savage force that resides within each Space Wolf has allowed the 13th Company to survive the long millennia of contact with the power of Chaos.

 

What is not known is whether the 13th Company's presence within the Eye of Terror has tainted its gene-seed in any way.  Many simply point to the bestial appearance of the Wulfen-kind and their use of scavenged Traitor wargear as all the evidence needed to condemn them, but others defend their methods as pure necessity.

 

Wulfen packs are often led into battle by Wolf Priests, and it is theorized that these individuals play a vital role in controlling the excesses of the Curse.  Wolf Priests of the Space Wolves are the keepers of the genetic lore passed down to them in direct line from Russ and appear to be the only men able to control a Space Wolf when the Were is upon him.  The Wolf Priests are obviously acting as guardians, leading packs of Wulfen in combat, and ministering to their charges between conflicts.

 

The Adeptus Mechanicus undoubtably wish to analyze the gene-seed of slain 13th Company Space Wolves but, to date, have not succeeded in doing so.  Should the Adeptus Mechanicus find any impurities, then the scale of the Imperium's response and which side the Space Wolves would take could only be imagined.

 

Battle-Cry

 

Legends tell of the howl of the Wulfen; mortal ears have now heard it for the first time in 10,000 years.  Eyewitnesses report that the effect is devastating to enemy morale and often equally unnerving for friendly troops.

 

 

From the Saga of Jorin Bloodfang

 

In time, the ranks of the 6th Legion

 

swelled to a great host.

 

And many bore the Mark

 

[FRAGMENT MISSING]

 

 

And so Russ banded them all into

 

one Great Company.

 

And to Bloodfang fell the honor

 

Of leading them to laurels and glory

 

In the name of Russ and the

 

All Father.

 

 

Bloodfang named [FRAGMENT MISSING]

 

Grail, Orkbane, Sigurd, Thorbrand,

 

and Grafield.

 

To each a retinue was granted.

 

 

 

And as a band of brothers the

 

13th Great Company

 

Reaved across the stars.

 

Neither xenite, or Apostate,

 

nor Fiend

 

Could stand before [FRAGMENT MISSING]

 

the Were was upon them.

 

 

But at the Gates of [FRAGMENT MISSING]

 

did Bloodfang rage

 

And plunge headlong into

 

[FRAGMENT MISSING]

 

Neither kin nor Master could

 

restrain him.

 

 

 

And beyond the Gates did the

 

Wulfen-kind pass.

 

At Asaheim, the Wolves did cry for

 

one hundred nights

 

To mourn the passage of their kin.

[Valerian]

Space Wolves Codex, Fifth Edition

 

The Test of Morkai

 

 

Many are the trials which a young Fenrisian warrior must endure before he can join the ranks of the Space Wolves.  The many tests will try the warrior’s wit as well as his strength, and place him in mortal dangers from which he must emerge alive if not unscathed.  Although the nature of these trials is varied, the final test is always the same.  This is the test of Morkai, named after the legendary two-headed wolf that guards the gates of death.

 

Some fail this final test and are claimed by Morkai and forgotten.  The trial is long, for the warrior is taken a thousand miles into the barren wastes beyond the fortress of the Fang.  He drinks from the Cup of Wulfen, and his body absorbs the first and most deadly gene-seed of the Space Wolves – the unique Canis gene helix.

 

The frightening potency of the Canis Helix is legendary, and has accounted for the lives of millions of aspirants as their bodies writhe and churn in anguish.  Those it does not kill, it transforms into a slavering monster.  The Canis Helix is necessary, however, as without this essential part of Leman Russ’ heritage the other gene helices cannot be implanted at all.  Whilst in the throes of transformation, the aspirant is cast out into the wilderness to make his own way back to the Fang.  The gene works hideous changes on the warrior’s mind and body; he reverts to a primal state where his bones split and buckle, thick hair sprouts across his body and his only desire is to gorge on fresh meat and glut himself on blood.  His body mass grows by up to eighty percent, many of his bones fuse, and fangs sprout from his gums as he undergoes the transformation.  Whilst his body is wracked with pain, the warrior must overcome the shadow within him lest it possess him entirely.  If he does not, he will become one of the giant , feral creatures, known as the Wulfen, who failed to overcome the curse.  To become one of the Wulfen is to fall from grace, and to roam the wilderness for evermore as a creature of the darkest night.

 

If the aspirant manages to find his way back to the Fang through the predator-haunted blizzards of Asaheim, he is implanted with the remainder of the Space Wolves’ gene-seed, stabilizing the Canis Helix and completing his apotheosis.  A minority of these warriors do not completely conquer the gene-seed’s original effects, however, and in times of great stress, they revert to the hulking, bloodthirsty state that haunts their soul like a ghastly shadow.  This is the Curse of the Wulfen, and it is rightly feared.

 

Yet some succeed, despite the ravages wrought upon them, the multitude of wild beasts and the natural perils that lie between them and their goal.  These aspirants are welcomed to the Chapter and take their place amongst the Space Wolves.  As Space Marines they will live for hundreds of years, if they do not die in battle, and they will voyage through the stars to fight in the Emperor’s name.  They will fight monstrous Orks and heinous Daemons of Chaos.  They will encounter the mind-numbing horrors of the Tyranids and they will endure the indescribable perils of Warpspace.  To a man born and raised amidst the ice and fire of Fenris, this is indeed a life amongst the gods.

 

 

The Sons of Russ

 

As incredible as it may sound, Space Wolves have uncanny abilities above and beyond even the superhuman Space Marines of the other Chapters.  Due to the peculiarities of Russ’ heritage, each of the Space Wolves has incredibly acute senses that can detect the scent of his prey in a snowstorm or pick out his quarry’s breathing pattern in the midst of a raging battle.  Over the course of his life, his teeth will lengthen and stretch into vicious-looking fangs that are capable of denting plasteel, and his skin becomes as resilient as cured leather.  Some carry the genetic heritage of the Canis Helix even deeper within them, and there are many dark tales of the horrific transformations that these warriors undergo when the battle-rage is upon them.

 

The Wulfen Unleashed     999.M41

 

When the Cadian battlegroup ‘Creed’s Blade’ volunteers for a controversial counter-invasion in the Eye of Terror to destabilize the daemonic armies massing upon the hell-world of Voidsoul, many high-ranking strategos consider the Candians damned to a futile and horrific death.  Sadly, their calculations prove correct.  Thousands of Imperial Guardsmen die in terror and pain over the first few hours of the invasion.  Just as the Daemon warhost begin to surround the Cadian invaders, however, something incredible happens.  Long-limbed silhouettes appear amongst the greenish fires of Voidsoul for a moment, and out of nowhere come pack after pack of ravenous wolf-things, jaws snapping and claws caked with blood.  Bipedal only in the loosest sense, with pieces of broken power armour clinging to their overly muscled frames the slavering, hair-covered beasts fall upon the Daemon legions with a savage fury.  Even the upright, proud figures that stalk amongst them are hideous to behold.  The few Guardsmen that escape the resultant carnage and make it back to the Cadian Gate alive speak of their feral rescuers in hushed tones, for if they were indeed the lost brothers of the 13^th Company, they were every bit as terrifying as the Daemon-things of Voidsoul.

 

Wolf Priests

 

Wolf Priests are learned in the ways of bio-mechanics and chirurgy, and it is they who oversee the long and dangerous transformation from human aspirant to superhuman Space Marine.  The first and last face a warrior will see in his career as a Space Wolf is the lupine skull-mask of the Wolf Priest, for it is he who guides a warrior’s apotheosis in those early years, and he who administers the Rites of Morkai when that warrior bleeds his last upon the field of battle.

 

Though they reap the gene-seed of the fallen in much the same way as the Apothecaries of other Space Marine Chapters, preserving the genetic heritage of his brethren is far from the Wolf Priest’s only duty.  The also function as cult leaders and spiritual guides in the manner of a Space Marine Chaplain, each a living conduit that maintains the Chapter’s connection to the Imperial creed.  It is the Wolf Priests who keep the curse of the Wulfen from overtaking the Space Wolves, and they take full responsibility for the development of their charges, be it martially, spiritually, and mentally.  Wolf Priests are beholden to none save the Great Wolf and the Primarch himself.  Even the proudest Wolf Lord bows before the ancient wisdom of a Wolf Priest and will step aside from his path, for every Lord was brought into the brotherhood of the Space Wolves by such a mentor, and will honour this debt until death.

 

The Mark of the Wulfen

 

 

The Mark of the Wulfen is a corruption of the Canis Helix that can cause the bearer to devolve into a killing machine when the battle frenzy is upon him…These attacks are made using the marked models’ claws and teeth…

Space Wolves Codex, Seventh Edition

 

 

Prospero Burns

 

The Space Wolves were pivotal in one of the early campaigns of the war, when the entire Legion attacked and devastated the Thousand Sons Space Marines on their home world of Prospero.  At the battle’s height, Leman Russ fought the Primarch of the Thousand Sons, the cyclopean giant Magnus the Red, in personal combat.  Though Magnus was a psyker of terrible magnitude, he could not withstand the strength and ferocity of the Wolf-King.  After a short but fierce duel, Russ struck Magnus down, though the Prosperine Sorceror used fell magicks to escape before Russ could deliver the killing blow.  With the loss of their Primarch, the Thousand Sons faced annihilation.  In their desperation, the fled the field of battle through a portal that led to the daemonic realm known as the Eye of Terror.  It was whilst pursuing the Thousand Sons that the Space Wolves lost the Thirteenth Company.  These ferocious warriors, their ranks riddled with a bestial genetic curse, were known as the Wulfen-kind.  Since its loss that day, the Space Wolves have never again had a Thirteenth Company, nor has any Wolf Lord borne the badge of the Wulfen.

 

The Forging of a Legend

 

As incredible as it may sound, Space Wolves have uncanny abilities above and beyond even the superhuman Space Marines of the other Chapters.  As genetic descendants of Russ, whose own lupine senses were as razor-sharp as an apex predator, every Space Wolf has incredible eyesight combines with a sense of smell that can detect the scent of his prey in a snowstorm, and acute hearing that can pick out his quarry’s breathing pattern in the midst of a raging battle.  During his life, his teeth will lengthen and stretch into vicious-looking fangs that are capable of denting plasteel, and his skin becomes as resilient as cured leather. 

 

By some quirk of fate, a genetic flaw took root deep within the Canis Helix very early in the Chapter’s history, and it affects each and every one of the Sons of Russ.  For most, this manifests in a berserk battle-fury when their inner beast takes over.  Some Space Wolves, however, carry the genetic heritage of the Canis Helix even deeper within them, and there are many dark tales of the horrific transformations that these warriors undergo in battle.

 

The Wulfen Stone

 

 

The Space Wolves fear and revere this gem in equal measure, for it represents both the greatest strength of their gene-heritage and their most terrible curse.  Bound within a large blood diamond like a caged animal lies the raging spirit of the Wulfen – the inner beast that lurks within the heart and soul of every Space Wolf.  Forged by the Iron Priest Fengri, the greatest artificer of his time, the Wulfen Stone is a relic carried to battle in only the most extreme circumstances.  Its presence triggers violent urges within the Sons of Russ, an uncontrollable rage to spill blood that any who bear the Canis Helix cannot deny.

++Reserved++

[Valerian]

++Reserved++

[Valerian]

++For the benefit of the denizens of the Fang, I have scoured the annals, questioned the data-servitors, and listened intently to the sagas of the skalds.  Here I now provide to you all of the tales and whispers of our brother-Wulfen that could be found throughout the ages.++

 

Enjoy,

 

Valerian

[Wulvenblut]

Thank you very much for this compendium. The Wulfen are one of the most interesting aspectos of the Space Wolves by far.

[Feyralwolf]

Indeed, I love the Wulfen and have been working on my own Codex based around some of the older rules for them (3rd Edition Eye of Terror) blended with the new stuff.  I went a little lore heavy with digging into what I could find of the Wolf Brothers and this all looks very useful!

[Guest Triszin]

I've been trying to find the short 2-3 paragraph story that, took place on Cadia? when the planet was overrun and the last fortress in the area was surrounded by the black legion and was going to fall. And int he dead of night, the guardsmen heard Howls that filled the still air. And heard the Black legion, begin to panic, and scattered bolt shots and screams filled the air. Chaos marines upturned and dragged away in but a moment. And within minutes the attack black crusade force was silent, The heretics no longer heard outside trying to force there way in. Only blood and the distant howls of the unknown saviors.

 

(this is the basic summary of that story =D)

[Feyralwolf]

Triszin, I know the one you're talking about.. I just can't remember WHERE I read it, I'd swear it was a Codex, maybe 5th edition Space Wolf.  I'll see if I can find it.

[alakinsky]

I think it was in the 13th Crusade mini-dex where both Cadians and 13th Company had army lists.

[Feyralwolf]

I looked though the Eye of Terror codex and 5th edition Space Wolves without finding it.  I'll keep hunting though.

[Jarl of Wulfen]

There was a background book that was put out after the World campaign. It was written from the perspective of someone in the high command. Here's the wiki link http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_13th_Black_Crusade_(Background_Book) The situation you recall was the Raiders on Ormantep Listening Post

[Jarl of Wulfen]

Here's the ormantep wiki http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ormantep_Raid

[Grimtooth]

Wolf at the Door. Basically a whole Stroh about the 13th Co with reference to how some of Russ' older retainers were part of the 13th as they took to the geneseed differently due to their age.

[Valerian]

Ah, yes, Ormantep; I thought that story description sounded familiar. I'll try to remember to edit the full original entry in up above later. I'm going to be pretty busy for the next few days/weeks, though.