The Dornian Heresy - The Bolter and Chainsword

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
hopeless battle to come, Imperial ships
of the Great Crusade hastily entered
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' 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 Luna 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
Tactical squad Brother-Sergeant of the World Eaters
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 Luna
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 Luna Wolves in action,
Angron knew that such things were
merely tools to make them more
10
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 ironwilled
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
In 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
Luna Wolves, with Angron‟s idealism
tempering Horus‟ 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