Lorgar

Lorgar is a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided and the former Primarch of the Word Bearers Chaos Space Marine Legion. He was the first Primarch of the Space Marine Legions to fall to the corruption of Chaos before the Horus Heresy and it was he who ordered the corruption of the Warmaster Horus. He and his Word Bearers Chaos Space Marines can today be found on the Daemon World of Sicarus within the Eye of Terror.

Early Youth
The Primarch Lorgar vanished from the gene-labs on Terra while still an infant, along with the other nineteen Primarchs, who were all transported through the Warp to random worlds across the galaxy. After his spiriting away by the forces of Chaos he was found on a feudal planet named Colchis. The infant Lorgar was discovered by followers of the predominant religion on the world, the Covenant, and was raised amongst them. Studying within a temple of the Covenant, Lorgar quickly became a devout preacher, his skill in oratory and the power of his charisma winning him many followers. Perhaps Lorgar's staunchest ally and friend was the High Priest of the Covenant named Kor Phaeron. However, as Lorgar grew in standing amongst the people, the other members of the Covenant's hierarchy began to grow jealous of his popularity.

Lorgar's youth was plagued by visions of a mighty warrior in gleaming bronze armour coming to Colchis, a cyclopean giant in blue robes standing beside him. At one point, the visions reached such intensity that Lorgar claimed that the prophesied return of Colchis' god was soon to occur. He began to preach this news to the people of Colchis, causing disruptions to the rule of the Covenant as people converted to his dissident beliefs. Lorgar's enemies in the Covenant saw this as the opportunity they had been waiting for to remove the threat that Lorgar was to the status quo, declaring him a heretic.

Those who came forward to arrest Lorgar were killed by his followers. The Covenant split into two factions, and a holy war of immense proportions erupted, eventually forcing the entire population of the world to choose a side. This war lasted six years, ending when Lorgar and his supporters stormed the temple at which the Primarch had trained, killing the monks within and eliminating the heart of the religious resistance to his ideas.

The Coming of the Emperor
Less than a year after the victory of Lorgar's people, a landing craft carrying the Emperor of Mankind and the Primarch Magnus the Red, along with two Tactical Squads of Thousand Sons Space Marines, descended from orbit and landed near the temple. Lorgar was said to immediately recognise these people as the ones in his visions, and swore his fealty to his father and creator.

Every facet of the Covenant's belief structure was reorganised as the worship of the Emperor as the saviour of Mankind, and the people of Colchis united behind their new living god. The elaborate celebrations and displays of piety lasted for months, although it was said that the Emperor did not approve of this, wishing to rejoin the Great Crusade as soon as possible and being dismissive of organized religion in general. The Emperor had not begun the Great Crusade to reshackle humanity within the chains of superstition and ignorance but to spread the light of reason and science. At the conclusion of the celebrations, Lorgar was made commander of the XVII Space Marine Legion, which came to be known as the Word Bearers. Kor Phaeron survived the augmentation process to become an adult Space Marine and became Lorgar's chief adviser, lieutenant and the commander of the Word Bearers' elite First Company.

The Great Crusade
Lorgar led his Legion throughout the Great Crusade, as the Word Bearers sought to eliminate all blasphemy and heresy within the new Imperium of Man. Ancient texts and icons of other faiths were burned. The construction of vast monuments and cathedrals venerating the Emperor was supervised. The greatest Chaplains of the Word Bearers produced enormous works on the divinity and righteousness of the Emperor, and gave grand speeches and sermons to the masses. The progress of the Word Bearers was slow in bringing new worlds under Imperial Compliance, but domination of the defeated was complete. At some point during this period, Lorgar penned the work known as the Lectio Divinitatus, postulating the worship of the Emperor as a divine being1. This book would later, ironically considering who its author was, become instrumental in the founding of the Imperial Cult and the Ecclesiarchy.

However, the Emperor was not pleased with the lack of progress the Word Bearers were showing, and was even more dismayed at their religious zeal; one of the main goals of the Great Crusade was to free humanity from the ignorance and superstition of religion. And so the Emperor personally reprimanded Lorgar, informing him that the mission of the Space Marines was for battle, not the propagation of faith. Lorgar was said to mourn the Emperor's command for a month, speaking to nobody, wearing only hairshirt robes. The Emperor was about to reprimand the Legion again for their lack of action when news reached him that the Word Bearers had gone back on the offensive, and this time, worlds fell before them in rapid order.

The Corruption
It was this event, the Imperial reprimand, that ultimately turned the Word Bearers to Chaos. Whilst Lorgar brooded over the Emperor's reproach, Kor Phaeron, his trusted lieutenant and closest friend, whispered to Lorgar of the great Chaos Gods: beings that welcomed, even demanded zealous worship and devotion, unlike the Emperor, who clearly was not divine if he refused to accept rightful worship. Lorgar was slowly poisoned against the Emperor by Kor Phaeron, who was appointed Master of the Faith, and was tasked with converting the entire Legion to the worship of Chaos. The Word Bearers came to venerate the Gods of Chaos, but instead of throwing their support to one God, they worshipped Chaos Undivided, a pantheon composing the four Ruinous Powers.

It was Lorgar and the Word Bearers who ultimately converted the Warmaster Horus to the worship of Chaos, by introducing his Legion, the Luna Wolves, to the warrior lodges which were picked up from the world of Davin. Later, in a plot involving the Word Bearer Chaplain Erebus, Horus was manipulated to return to Davin, where he could be wounded, and in that poisoned state prove more malleable to corruption by the Chaos Gods.

The Legion kept their new devotion secret, until the Warmaster Horus declared his own faith in Chaos, and began the galactic civil war known as the Horus Heresy. The Word Bearers quickly joined the rebellion, and many of the worlds they had conquered since their conversion turned as well, having been corrupted by the Word Bearers to their new faith in Chaos during their conquest.

The majority of the Word Bearers Legion was ordered by Horus to see to the entanglement and possible destruction of the Ultramarines Legion, so that their vast forces could not be brought to bear against Horus' march on Terra. This was a task the Word Bearers took up with joy, for even as he chastised the Word Bearers for their faith, the Ultramarines had become the favoured Legion of the Emperor. The assault on Ultramar was led by Kor Phaeron, who swore to utterly destroy the Ultramarines. The Word Bearers ambushed the Ultramarines at the world of Calth, an attack which eventually turned to defeat when reinforcements from the Ultramarines homeworld of Macragge arrived, and the Word Bearers were routed from the system.

The rest of the Word Bearers were led by Lorgar to Terra, where Horus and his forces were repulsed and ultimately defeated after a fifty-five day siege of the Imperial Palace. The Legion took refuge within the Eye of Terror and the Maelstrom, vast wounds in space where the Immaterium leaked into reality, coming to rest on the daemon world of Sicarus.



After the Heresy
Eventually, the atrocities committed by the Word Bearers allowed for Lorgar's ascension to daemonhood, becoming the equal of a god in the eyes of his Legion. It is said his birth scream as a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided echoed across the Immaterium with triumphant vindication, his faith and devotion rewarded with immortality and unbridled power. He has since isolated himself within the Templum Inficio on the daemon world of Sicarus where he has remained for thousands of years, forbidding anyone to interupt his meditation and thus allowing the Word Bearers to be taken over by a Dark Council of the Word Bearers' most powerful Dark Apostles (Chaplains).2