Fan-Made Alternate Timeline: Rogal's Rebellion

[Redboot Giddyman]

With my custom minis still a long, long ways off from being ready to start showing, I figured I'd share something else of mine here in the meantime. Namely some Alternate Heresy AUs I conceived of, starting with the first one: Rogal's Rebellion.

 

As the name implies, this is a timeline where Rogal Dorn becomes the chief traitor Primarch instead of Horus Lupercal. I am aware that there is an "official" Dornian Heresy online, but mine is different (which was part of why I gave mine a different name)¹. 

 

The Tone

More "Nobledark" compared to standard 40K's Grimdark². The Galaxy is still not a pleasant place to be in overall, and the Imperium remains beset on all sides by threats, including and especially the Ruinous Powers. But crucially, the Imperium is way, way less horrible than its canon version. Not squeaky clean, but also not killing millions to billions of people on an hourly basis, maintaining a system of brutal repression, torturing, imprisoning, and executing people for ridiculous reasons³, etc. Basically, the Imperium in this timeline is an entity that's actually worth saving, being closer to, say, the Empire of Man in Warhammer Fantasy or the Cities of Sigmar in Age of Sigmar. Flawed, yes, but (again), not engaging in genocides every day of the week. Simply put, there are actual good guys in this timeline (which is more than I can honestly say for canon 40K). 

 

How things went down

 

Rogal Dorn is the one corrupted by Chaos God intervention instead of Horus, and the Imperial Fists in turn rename themselves "The Fists of Chaos" (since having "Imperial" in their names wouldn't really make sense if they were no longer serving the Imperium). Ironically, with Rogal Dorn and Perturabo (whose story plays out more closely to his canon self overall), both falling to Chaos in this timeline, it leads to them becoming friends instead of the bitter enemies they normally are. The Fists of Chaos and Iron Warriors are essentially "bash brothers", each one's specialty complementing the other. 

 

One of the first big divergences from this the main timeline though is that the Emperor is, frankly, way less of a jerk than his canon self. Instead of, for instance, destroying Monarchia and in so doing giving Lorgar a gift-wrapped excuse to turn on him...he doesn't destroy Monarchia. Instead of leaving Angron's gladiator buddies to die for no reason other than idiotic cruelty...he airlifts all of them along with Angron, and in so doing, secures Angron's loyalty. This prevents Angron's turning on the Emperor later on, and also makes his relationship with his legion less hateful because he still has his adopted family instead of being bitter at losing them. With that said, Angron still very much prefers his gladiator buddies to his Astartes, and the World Eaters in turn start to resent Angron's companions because of it, though this does not prevent them from remaining loyal. But it does mean that, even in this timeline, Angron isn't super close with his legion, respecting their abilities more than in canon but also keeping them at arm's length. 

 

Other divergences (and their consequences) are as follows:

 

• Fulgrim avoided falling and the Emperor's Children remained worthy of the name. They are, in this timeline, essentially the Ultramarines equivalent, and likewise Fulgrim has Guilliman's usual role of "Lead Reasonable Primarch". In turn, Guilliman and the Ultramarines are here the ones who fell to Slaanesh, right down to Guilliman killing Ferrus Manus at Isstvan V instead of Fulgrim (and in turn ensuring that 1), the Iron Hand's arch-enemy in this timeline are the Ultramarines rather than the EC, and 2) that the EC and Iron Hand's friendship remains intact here). Marius Gage in turn takes Lucius the Eternal's role of "Slaanesh Chapter Master who was alive during the Horus Heresy and is an egotistical swordmaster". 
• Similarly, the Blood Angels and World Eaters also basically switched roles, with the former becoming the legion to fall to Khorne⁴ and the latter being a melee-focused loyalist legion who begin to suffer from severe anger issues after losing their Primarch. In Angron's case he is not killed by Rogal as Sanguinius was killed by Horus in canon, rather he dies from the Butcher's Nails, as he would have done had he not become a Daemon Prince. The Blood Angels who are Psykers (something Khorne is no fan of), either remain loyal, turn to Chaos Undivided, or in the case of Mephiston when he shows up later in the timeline, favor Tzeentch instead. To make them more distinct from the canon World Eaters though, the Blood Angels retain a lot of the charisma they once had (especially in the case of Sanguinius), and so despite being Khorne followers usually aren't near-mindless, screaming lunatics. They have the bloodlust of Khorne, but can also be persuasive when they want to be, which in a way makes them more dangerous, since they don't rely solely on primal savagery. 
• Another pair of Legions to switch roles are the Death Guard and Thousand Sons. Here, Nurgle catches wind of what Tzeentch is planning with Magnus and basically just spoils it. When Magnus goes into the Emperor's Webway, Nurgle convinces Magnus that there is no hope to save his legion from its curse, and that the Emperor will never be made to accept the Thousand Son's sorcery or see Magnus' genius, and will instead punish him for using sorcery again. Magnus despairs, and becomes Nurgle's chosen. Most of the Thousand Sons follow, and between their now decaying/rotting bodies and Ancient Egyptian aesthetic, they essentially become Space Marine Mummies. A few though, led by Ahriman and Phosis T'kar, refuse to embrace Nurgle and instead abandon the rest of the legion. The Chapter Master of the Thousand Sons instead becomes Amon. However, Tzeentch (being Tzeentch), had anticipated that Nurgle might catch wind of his plans with Magnus and spoil them...so he pays Nurgle back by helping himself to the Primarch Nurgle had been eyeing. He works on Mortarion, exploiting his hatred for the disease world he landed on and eventually getting his hooks into him to such a degree that he's able to convince Morty that 1) Nurgle sucks, and 2) sorcery is actually awesome and convinces him to do a 180 on the subject. In turn, the Death Guard become basically "Space Marine Grim Reapers/specters"⁵ to the Thousand Son's Space Marine Mummies and the Blood Angel's Space Marine Vampires. Ahriman still uses the Rubric of Ahriman, here much less reluctantly since he's appalled by what his brothers have become as Nurgle followers. The Rubric works for him and a few others like in canon, while the rest still turn to dust. Here though, that "dust" becomes a force of pure miasma that spreads disease wherever it goes, and the fact that so many of the Thousand Sons are now reduced to that only reinforces the sense of despair and inevitable decay that keeps them in Nurgle's pocket. 
• And yet another pair of Legions that switch roles are the Night Lords and Raven Guard. Here, similar to the fan-made Roboutian Heresy, Konrad was found and raised by a mother who showed him kindness, which helped his development and prevented him from going full on murderpsycho. Also, when he realized that crime doesn't lessen simply by being an insane murder-crazy "all crimes are equal" type, Konrad decides, instead of doubling down on terror, to try a different, smarter approach. Basically, he was at a fork in the road and made the choice opposite the one made in canon. As such, he and the Night Lords are basically Space Marine Batmen in this timeline, still using stealth and fear as weapons, but being something other than totally deranged sadists like in canon. Conversely, the Raven Guard become more like the canon Night Lords; a pack of deranged killers and sadists who use the shadows as a weapon and are in the running for the most evil Traitor Legion of them all. Not quite as messed up as the Roboutian Heresy's take on the Raven Guard, but still pretty twisted. If the Night Lords here are Batman as a legion of Space Marines, the Raven Guard are Owlman. In Konrad's own words, he and Corvus both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at them…Corvus blinked.
• While the Emperor doesn't destroy Monarchia, he also never bothers to correct Lorgar's view of him as a god. This means that, essentially, Lorgar in this timeline learns absolutely nothing and just goes right on deifying the Emperor. Ironically, this causes this timeline's Word Bearers to become more like the canon Imperium; a bunch of ultra-violent, intolerant zealots who revere the Emperor as a God. When Lorgar dies later, it only makes him a martyr and he gets deified right alongside the Big E. Far more ruthless than the other loyalist legions in this timeline (since again, this is more of a "Nobledark" timeline instead of a Grimdark one), the Word Bearers here are basically The Friend Nobody Likes with regards to the loyalist legions. None of them especially like the Word Bearers for their zealotry and ruthless methods (AKA the things that would make them right at home in canon 40K), and keep their distance. Erebus, ever the scheming villain, tried to corrupt the Word Bearer's religion for his own purposes, but Kor Phaeron found out and had him killed as a false prophet and deceiver. The Word Bearer's current Chapter Master is thus an OC, while Kor Phaeron meanwhile is a kind of dark Space Marine Pope. 
• The Space Wolves basically became a 40K version of WHF's Beastmen. And yes, I know there are Beastmen in 40K already, but there they seem to be just another Abhuman race who don't HAVE to be Chaos, as opposed to the "monster men who are pure Chaos through and through" that they are in WHF. Here, the Space Wolves become that, mutating into more Werewolf like forms and being a similar kind of savage, war-like horde of brutes. But also like the Beastmen, some favor different individual Chaos Gods, with the Runepriests and other Psykers mostly going to Tzeentch, the most berserker-minded mostly going to Khorne, etc.
• As for the other "Wolf" chapter, the Luna Wolves here stay loyal, with Horus resisting succumbing to Chaos' corruption. But ever after the Luna Wolves armor would add some black to their once all-white armor, as a constant reminder of how close they and their Primarch came to falling, and of the darkness that lurks in the hearts of all men whether embraced or not. Horus opted not to succeed the Emperor as the Imperium's leader for this reason, as he feared the risk of corruption that having absolute power might cause.
• As mentioned above, the Perturabo and the Iron Warriors still fall to Chaos, but again, because he and Rogal both fell, they ironically became friends. Apart from their better working relationship with the Fists though, the Iron Warriors are overall one of the legions that have changed the least in this timeline. Another is the Alpha Legion, who also still fall to Chaos. The big difference here is that Alpharius Omegon becomes a Daemon Prince and Perty...does not. 
• On the Loyalist side, the White Scars, Iron Hands, Salamanders, and Dark Angels are the ones who have changed the least overall. The main difference (aside from the aforementioned bit about the Ultramarines being the Iron Hand's arch-foe here instead of the EC) is that, with Fulgrim as the lead reasonable Primarch, human/Eldar relations are much better in this timeline, which rankled the anti-Eldar Vulkan. The two had a falling out, and Vulkan disappeared much as he did in canon. The Lion and Jaghatai Khan, conversely, stuck by Fulgrim's side and became his top advisors, with the Khan's more liberal and easygoing personality ensuring reforms got passed that are a big part of why the Imperium is way less awful in this timeline. 
• While the Emperor's Children as a whole remained loyal, Fabius Bile did not. Mostly because it's just that hard for me to picture Fabius Bile as anything other than the absolute, irredeemable monster he is. But canon Fabius Bile has already basically turned his back on his home legion and gone his own way, so I figured it wouldn't be too outrageous for a very similar thing to happen here. In the "present day" of the setting, he implanted the Butcher's Nails into Astorath's head mostly because he thought it would be funny, making Astorath the one Blood Angel who acts more like the canon World Eaters as a pure frothing lunatic. 

 

Post-Heresy

As in canon, the Traitor Legions mostly fled into the Eye of Terror after the Siege of Terra and the defeat of the Chaos forces. Also like in canon, the "lead" Traitor Legion were hated by the others something fierce, and the Fists of Chaos largely fell out of favor, with only the Iron Warriors still in their corner (and even then not entirely). Seeing their chance, the Raven Guard moved in to become the new lead Traitor Legion, leading to a rather bitter rivalry between them and the Fists that continues to the present. Sigismund and Abaddon essentially switch roles, and the former still forms the Black Templars, but here as a Chaos faction launching the Black Crusades. He kills Abaddon in battle instead of the other way around (with Abaddon trying to reason with him first as in canon, with the twist being trying to convince Sigismund to reject Chaos instead of embracing it). Just as Abaddon had Iskandar Khayon and Telemachon Lyrus as his lieutenants, so too does Sigismund here have Typhus (in place of Khayon) and Aeonid Thiel (in place of Lyrus) as his. He likewise has his own equivalent to Abaddon's rival Daravek in a Chaos Lord of Raven Guard origin, who is likewise killed in battle during the First Black Crusade. 

 

Finding Drach'nyen, Sigismund discards his former Black Sword, which then falls into the possession of Ahriman, now a wandering exile after his earlier refusal to follow most of his brothers into Nurgle's service. Through Warp shenanigans and a willingness to tap into powers most Loyalists would shun, Ahriman is still alive in the 41st Millennium despite not being Chaos here. Instead, Ahriman is more of an "independent", pursuing his own goals that include trying to free his brothers from Nurgle's corruption. While often an ally of the Imperium, he sometimes manipulates them also, and is even willing to pursue temporary alliances with some Chaos followers if it serves his purposes. So basically, Ahriman is a wild card here.

 

The subsequent Black Crusades play out very similarly to the canon ones overall, but various details are changed, such as the presence of a Daemon Prince of Fallen Dark Angels origin in place of Tallomin during the 3rd Black Crusade. The biggest overall difference is that much of the Black Crusades are really the work of Corvus Corax's mind rather than Sigismund's, with the latter being essentially manipulated into taking the actions Corvus wishes him to take rather than Sigismund being the chessmaster. After all, Primarchs>Space Marines, and Corvus here is much more active than many of the Traitor Primarchs in canon are post-Heresy. The absence of the Sons of the Eye and Perturabo also means that the 6th and 10th Black Crusades are probably the most drastically different overall, though the Iron Hands might still be the targets/punching bags for the latter and the Adeptus Mechanicus for the former. Cadia still falls during the 13th Black Crusade, though the circumstances differ. Because the Siege of Baal still occurs around the same time, the Blood Angels largely miss out while the World Eaters are largely there to help defend Cadia, weakening Chaos' overall attack and requiring Corvus Corax's personal and direct intervention to ultimately allow Chaos to achieve victory. During these events, Sigismund realizes how much Corvus has been manipulating him over the last ten millennia, and though he does not mind the damage done to the Imperium through this, he nevertheless seethes at having been someone else's tool. As such, after Cadia's fall, Sigismund declares another, "special" Black Crusade with the Raven Guard as the principal targets. This infighting is a relief to the Imperium though, because it means the two most powerful Traitor Legions are now often bogged down fighting each-other instead of the Imperium, giving the latter time to recover following the loss of Cadia. 

 

Primarch's Current Statuses

• Lion el Johnson: Active. Power behind the Golden Throne and part of Fulgrim's inner-most circle.
• Fulgrim: Active. Current de facto leader of the Imperium of Man.
• Perturabo: Dead. Attempted to avenge his friend Rogal Dorn by launching a new Heresy against the Imperium, but fresh off of the last, was left too weakened to muster up an immediate offensive. May have been able to eventually, but Corvus betrayed his location to Imperium forces, who laid siege to his base. Perturabo fell during the fighting.
• Jaghatai Khan: Missing. As in canon, the Khan disappeared into the Webway, but not before helping to leave the Imperium better than he found it. 
• Leman Russ: Dead. Killed by The Lion at the Siege of Terra.
• Rogal Dorn: Killed in the last battle of his Rebellion by Fulgrim.
• Konrad Curze: Active. Continues to look after Nostromo and is a member of Fulgrim's inner-most circle. Sometimes goes into The Warp to hunt Daemons and mitigate their intrusions into "our" world, as Konrad has found he is one of the only things they seem to fear. 
• Ferrus Manus: Dead. Beheaded by Roboute Guilliman after the latter's embracing of Slaanesh, an act that ensured the Iron Hands and Ultramarines would be arch-enemies forever after.
• Sanguinius: Ascended to Daemonhood after being mortally wounded by Horus in the last battle of Rogal's Rebellion. Now Khorne's greatest Daemon Prince.
• Angron: Dead. Died from the effects of the Butcher's Nails. 
• Roboute Guilliman: Ascended to Daemonhood for his "services" to Slaanesh. Now the Prince of Pleasure's greatest Daemon Prince. His role in the Emperor of Man's death⁶ ensures he is particularly hated by the Imperium, even though some consider his actions a necessary part of the Emperor's martyring. 
• Mortarion: Ascended to Daemonhood. The greatest of Tzeentch's Daemon Princes.
• Magnus: Ascended to Daemonhood. The greatest of Nurgle's Daemon Princes. Now known as "Magnus the Rot" instead of Magnus the Red. 
• Horus Lupercal: Missing. Disappeared on an unspecified mission considered vital to humanity's survival (believed by some to have been an attempt to bring back the deities of old as a counter to Chaos' power).
• Lorgar Aurelian: Dead. Unfortunately, his death only served to make him a martyr, and he is now deified alongside the Emperor by the ever-fanatical Word Bearers. 
• Vulkan: Missing. Vulkan disappeared not long after his infamous falling out with Fulgrim on the subject of the Eldar. 
• Corvus Corax: Ascended to Daemonhood after "merging" with Be'lakor, becoming the new Dark Master and Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided. Chaos' current champion, ever-plotting to bring about Chaos' ultimate victory.
• Alpharius Omegon: Ascended to Daemonhood, becoming the third ever Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided (and only one of two presently active). Corvus' primary rival, as Corvus had intended to get rid of the brothers as he did Perturabo (not wishing to have any competition in the field of "Chaos Undivided Daemon Primarch"), but was unable to get to them in time. 

 

And that's everything for right now. Hope you found it interesting. I'm new to doing Heresy AUs, so I hope you'll be understanding. 

 

Footnotes

 

¹: Also because I wanted an alliterative title similar to the actual Horus Heresy, which "Rogal's Rebellion" is. I am also not sure why a Rogal Dorn-led Heresy would not have his first name in the title when Horus' Heresy did. 

²: Truth be told, the "everyone is awful" nihilism of the setting is actually my least favorite thing about it. I know it seems ridiculous for any 40K fan to object to grimdarkness, but...I kind of do. To the extent that I'm into 40K, it's in spite of the relentless, crushing nihilism, not because of it. A Nobledark version of 40K (or heck, one not as Grimdark), would not be a version I'd like any less. Yes, yes, I know, this is blasphemy on my part, but it's also my honest opinion. 

³: Such as, say, the backstories of the player characters in Darktide. 

⁴: Because seriously, they're already halfway there. The red armor, the focus on melee combat, the word blood in their name, etc. Beats me why so many alternate heresies have the Blood Angels falling to other Chaos Gods when Khorne is so clearly the one they'd be most likely to get snatched up by. 

⁵: Since they still have their power scythes, but are now Tzeentch blue, more overtly magical, and give off an eerie, glowing ethereal feel as they're imbued with the powers of the Warp. 

⁶: Which I basically did as a nod to the Crucifixion, given the Ultramarine's whole Roman vibe/aesthetic. 

 

Edited January 6 by Gillyfish
Removed a word.

[Brother Tyler]

This sounds like a very interesting and ambitious project. Do you plan to develop this beyond the "history" into something playable (i.e., with rules)?

 

You mentioned the Dornian Heresy, but I think the "official" description is inaccurate. It was simply the first of the major alternate history projects to become popular. It is decidedly unofficial, though it holds a well-deserved place of honor in the realm of fan-created content for the Warhammer 40,000 setting. It's too bad that @Aurelius Rex never completed the work (though we have his in-progress discussions held in reserve in case he ever decides to take the project up for completion).

 

Getting back to your project, I recommend leveraging the capabilities of the B&C for both development and presentation of your work. At this point I assume that this is intended to be a labor of love on your part, though you may solicit input and feedback throughout your effort. In that case, I recommend using the Blogs feature as the focal point of your developmental efforts. This will allow you to organize your material based on your preferences, and you can create parallel outreach topics in the Forums. I recommend the + SPECIAL PROJECTS + forum as the main point of outreach, but you can supplement that with other forums as needed (e.g., issues specific to a specific legion can be asked in the associated (sub)forum even though the character of the legion may change under your alternate heresy, issues about Chaos and the Warp in general might be brought up in the + REALM OF CHAOS + forum, etc.). These outreach topics allow you to get eyeballs from members that may have interest in specific areas but who might not otherwise wander into a blog. As you get content finished, you can then present it using the Articles and/or Downloads features. Articles allow content to be viewed online while files (downloads) allow the content to be downloaded and printed/used by other hobbyists. An alternative to conducting this project as a blog is to conduct it as a club in the Clubs feature. I would normally recommend this option if you intend for this to be a group effort, but clubs work equally well for solo efforts. The main advantage of clubs is that you can include the full range of the site's features within, including albums for images, articles, blogs, files, and even calendar events if you want to coordinate things such as playtesting. The discussion Forums have been the traditional place for this kind of thing, but the other features offer a lot more power for you to leverage. Regardless, there are lots of ways to skin this cat and a lot of it comes down to personal preference and comfort.

[Redboot Giddyman]

1 hour ago, Brother Tyler said:

This sounds like a very interesting and ambitious project. Do you plan to develop this beyond the "history" into something playable (i.e., with rules)?

 

You mentioned the Dornian Heresy, but I think the "official" description is inaccurate. It was simply the first of the major alternate history projects to become popular. It is decidedly unofficial, though it holds a well-deserved place of honor in the realm of fan-created content for the Warhammer 40,000 setting. It's too bad that @Aurelius Rex never completed the work (though we have his in-progress discussions held in reserve in case he ever decides to take the project up for completion).

 

Getting back to your project, I recommend leveraging the capabilities of the B&C for both development and presentation of your work. At this point I assume that this is intended to be a labor of love on your part, though you may solicit input and feedback throughout your effort. In that case, I recommend using the Blogs feature as the focal point of your developmental efforts. This will allow you to organize your material based on your preferences, and you can create parallel outreach topics in the Forums. I recommend the + SPECIAL PROJECTS + forum as the main point of outreach, but you can supplement that with other forums as needed (e.g., issues specific to a specific legion can be asked in the associated (sub)forum even though the character of the legion may change under your alternate heresy, issues about Chaos and the Warp in general might be brought up in the + REALM OF CHAOS + forum, etc.). These outreach topics allow you to get eyeballs from members that may have interest in specific areas but who might not otherwise wander into a blog. As you get content finished, you can then present it using the Articles and/or Downloads features. Articles allow content to be viewed online while files (downloads) allow the content to be downloaded and printed/used by other hobbyists. An alternative to conducting this project as a blog is to conduct it as a club in the Clubs feature. I would normally recommend this option if you intend for this to be a group effort, but clubs work equally well for solo efforts. The main advantage of clubs is that you can include the full range of the site's features within, including albums for images, articles, blogs, files, and even calendar events if you want to coordinate things such as playtesting. The discussion Forums have been the traditional place for this kind of thing, but the other features offer a lot more power for you to leverage. Regardless, there are lots of ways to skin this cat and a lot of it comes down to personal preference and comfort.

 

OK, thanks for the info.

 

And yeah, I know the Dornian Heresy isn't official in the sense of being made by GW proper. I meant "official" in the sense that it's content that everyone online knows about (at least relative to the countless other 40K fan-works out there).

 

Any specific things that caught your notice with this? I'm always looking for detailed (non-scathing) feedback.