The Dornian Heresy - The Bolter and Chainsword

to be Corax, but all have been
discredited over the millennia. As the
corrupter of one of the Emperor's loyal
legions, much time and effort has gone
into establishing the real identity and
fate of the Clonelord, though after ten
thousand years the trail has grown
cold. No-one by that name has been
associated with the Raven Guard since
they fled Deliverance, although he
could easily have taken another.
Post-Heresy
In the wake of Dorn‟s Heresy, the
corrupted Raven Guard fled their home
moon of Deliverance and scattered to
the whims of the Warp. While many of
the Traitor Legions gravitated to the
Eye of Terror to craft daemon worlds
in their own images, the Raven Guard
rejected such stagnation and have
never been observed to stay in one
place for long. Instead they endlessly
move from planet to planet and from
place to place, following the
unfathomable whims Tzeentch, their
dark God of Endless Change.
Anywhere touched by their foul
presence is never the same again, as
crops grow twisted and insanity and
mutation run rampant. Investigations
by the Adeptus Mechanicus, Thousand
Sons and the Ecclesiarchy have each
put forward theories to explain these
phenomena, yet none have been able to
effectively combat the corruption.
Purging the area with fire and sowing
the ground with salt seems to be the
only way to prevent further loyal
Imperial subjects from becoming
corrupted.
For all the many changes that their
corruption had wrought, they retained
their primarch‟s ability to cripple an
enemy before they even know they are
fighting. In the centuries following
their Fall, the Raven Guard carried out
raids on disparate targets that left
Imperial commanders bemused. While
they had been bloody and militarily
successful, the targets themselves were
unusual, leaving other, much higher
priority locations untouched. Initially it
was attributed to the inevitable insanity
associated with the worship of Chaos.
In time, though, it became clear that
Corax loped through the shadows, slipping effortlessly back into the role of the
terror in the dark. It was only a matter of time before the bodies were found
and the alarm was raised, but for now he ruled the darkness. The raven, though
bloodied and broken, had returned to him at long last and had purged his mind
of the madness that had poisoned him. He didn‟t even want to consider the
deeper significance of the apparition's torn flesh and ragged plumage. Here
and now he knew what he had to do. With the controls to the force domes and
the fortress-monastery‟s blast doors set and locked down – a repeat of his
earliest visit to the tower - only one thing remained.
He caught sight of his prey, surrounded by those monstrous acolytes. Corax
was emaciated, exhausted and unarmed, but he was one of the Emperor‟s
primarchs, and still more than a match for the grubby little apothecary that had
murdered his legion. Then the alarm howled through the halls of what had once
been his home, and more of the creatures started to arrive. There was no other
choice. Without a sound he scaled the wall, the better to leap over the heads of
the beasts and get as close as possible to the Clonelord. Whatever else
happened with the force dome, however thorough it might be at expunging his
mistakes, he had to end the life of the traitor no matter the cost.
Embracing his fate, Corax leapt.
these small, seemingly unconnected
attacks were part of something far
more sinister. For instance, a chain of
events that started with a small raid on
a promethium refinery in Pinosa Minor
has been shown, with nudges from the
Raven Guard, to have caused the loss
of the entire Jhadra sub-sector a
century later.
Because of this, confirmed attacks by
the Raven Guard are analysed time and
again by Imperial commanders for fear
of where it might lead. Sometimes the
very reinforcements and pursuit forces
requested to bolster a region pays
directly into their hands, as defences
around the legion‟s true target are
drawn away and left ripe for
destruction. Such are the subtle
weaving of fates the Raven Guard seek
to engineer.
Of all the loyal legions of Astartes, the
one with the best record of deflecting
and thwarting the Raven Guard‟s wiles
are the Thousand Sons. Their psychic
divinations have enabled them to set
traps for the Raven Guard, to counter
their sorcerers, and banish their
daemonic allies back to the warp. This
rivalry has led to titanic battles
between the two legions, although
many of the worlds caught in these
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aetheric conflagrations have been left
as uninhabitable husks.
Recruiting
Sometimes on their twisting path
through the galaxy the Raven Guard
choose to take captives rather than
simply kill their victims. Among those
destined to become slaves and
sacrifices for their dark rituals, a few
may be chosen to join the legion‟s
ranks. Given their eldritch powers, it
has been postulated that they are drawn
to claim those with psychic potential.
Be it an isolated agri-world settlement
or the depths of the underhive, it seems
that nowhere is beyond their grasp.
Whereas in most legions the creation
and implantation of new marines is the
responsibility of the Apothecarion, in
the Raven Guard this grisly duty is
solely the domain of their sorcerers.
The process is an abomination of warpcraft
which transcends any mere
chirurgical procedure. It wipes away
the conscience and morality of the
victim and opens them up to the God
of Change, and in doing so unlocks
their psychic potential. This horrific
process unleashes an uncanny ability to
twist flesh and armour so that, as
Corax put it, „form follows desire‟, and
in the most receptive individuals