The Dornian Heresy - The Bolter and Chainsword

most of the Chaos Legions they have
never felt the draw of the Eye of
Terror, and have certainly not been
lured by the offer of inhabiting a
daemon-world created in Nurgle‟s
image. Though the Blood Angels had
already turned their back on the place,
Abaddon‟s massed Crusades against
the homes of the Chaos Legions drew
them inexorably there. By this point
the changes wrought by Nurgle were
so advanced that even Mortarion of the
Death Guard, brought up breathing the
noxious chemical smog of Barbarus,
would not risk setting foot on the
planet without his armour tightly
sealed. The loyalists found something
approaching a daemon-world,
inhabited only by shambling warp
entities of the Plague god. The
Imperial forces withdrew to orbit, and
subjected Baal Secundus to a sustained
atomic bombardment which exceeded
even that of its Great War in its
ferocity.
The thrice devastated moon was
declared Perditia and quarantined by
the Imperium until it was swallowed
by the ever-expanding borders of
Ultramar Segmentum. Be it through
arrogance or ignorance, the
Ultramarines chose to settle what
remained of the moon. The subsequent
plague and the renegade actions of the
chapter founded to guard the area sent
convulsions through the realm for
nearly a century afterwards.
Recruitment
Although the tribes of the Changed on
Baal Secundus are now but a memory,
mutants can be found on the fringes of
every human society. Captives bearing
the stigmata are thrown into the
stygian, foetid darkness of the ship‟s
holds, and those resilient enough to
survive until their captors have finished
their work on the organ-harvesting and
exsanguination decks are tested further
for compatibility with the Blood Angel
gene-seed. If deemed worthy, aspirants
are subjected to batteries of surgical
procedures and blood-rites to implant
and initiate the Sanguinius gene-seed,
before being entombed within a
medicae sarcophagus for a year. These
arcane mechanisms feed and guide the
changes wrought by the various
implants so that when it finally opens,
they emerge bloody, but transformed,
an echo of their cadaverous primarch.
Through a combination of psychoindoctrination
and gene-line
transference they become imprinted
with memories and character traits
from Sanguinius‟s earliest days on
Baal Secundus. In this way they are
reborn sharing an unbreakable bond
and a unified purpose.
Those who fail the selection
procedures serve the legion for the rest
of their lives, guarding and tending to
their Astartes lords as they slumber
within their sarcophagi. In part this is
due to fear, but a more powerful
motivation is the desperate hope that
their actions might prompt their
masters to deem them worthy to
become Astartes after all. Given the
myriad diseases that proliferate aboard
the Blood Angels‟ fleets, the life
expectancy of most of these serfs is
Sergeant Yorah of the World Eaters brought his chain-axe around in a tight
arc and decapitated the skittering mutant thing in mid-leap. They were
getting bogged down, and every second brought this hulk of a plague ship
closer to the planet. He ordered Brother Kellion to clear the corridor with
his heavy bolter and checked the auspex for the best route to the life-support
systems. They were so few – a single squad against a whole enemy ship –
that their only chance was to destroy the Blood Angels before they could
awaken.
In the seconds it had taken Yorah to pinpoint the correct path, his auspex
had filled with encroaching blips. Despite the danger, he urged his brethren
on into the fray. They were the sons of Angron, unmatched in martial
discipline. They would prevail against this Chaos rabble.
79
measured in weeks or months. Some,
however, gain the favour of Nurgle and
build a symbiotic relationship with
their diseases, treating every new sore
and pustule as an agonising blessing.
Gene-seed
The original gene-seed borne by the
Terran legionnaires of the Ninth
Legion was stable, efficient and pure,
but they, along with their gene-line
were wiped from existence. Unknown
to Sanguinius, just as Nurgle had
polluted his soul, he had also tainted
his flesh, and in turn the implants
prepared from it to create the new
Blood Angels. Because of this the
gene-line of Sanguinius has become a
curse, acting as a mark of Nurgle upon
every marine who bears it. These
implants act more like a single
parasitic organism than mere lumps of
flesh. They aggressively drain nutrients
and vitality from their host, causing the
Blood Angel‟s characteristic gaunt,
cadaverous appearance. In turn the
implants produce a seemingly endless
array of potent diseases to which the
marine becomes a carrier. The geneseed
shields the host from the worst of
the symptoms, and also protects itself
by making the bearer remarkably
resilient to damage, or at least heedless
of its effects until after the battle has
ended.
The effect of all this is a build-up of
toxins in the bloodstream which
damages the organs, and if left
unchecked they penetrate the brain
causing the insanity of the Black Rage.
The Sanguinary Priests treat the
symptoms by administering frequent
transfusions of uninfected blood,
although in extremis it can be drunk
and utilised by the body via a unique
adaptation to the preomnor implant, or
second stomach. The Blood Angels
spend much of the long warp-journeys
between raids inside their sarcophagi,
waking only as the next planet
approaches. Each sarcophagus
incorporates arcane life support
equipment which filters the toxin from
their blood and allows the marine to
enter an enhanced state of suspended
animation to slow down his constant
decline.