Belisarius Cawl

Belisarius Cawl is a ten-thousand-standard-years-old Archmagos Dominus of the Adeptus Mechanicus, one of the ruling lords of the Priesthood of Mars. He played a pivotal role in the events of the 13th Black Crusade, the Celestinian Crusade and the Terran Crusade, and shared responsibility with the Ynnari for the resurrection of the Primarch Roboute Gulliman as the Lord Commander of the Imperium.

Skittering into battle on a multitude of metal legs, Belisarius Cawl is a nightmarish amalgam of ﬂesh and machine swathed in robes of Martian red. Millennia of tinkering and obsessive self-improvement have left Cawl as a grotesque, and his lumpen form towers to several times the height of a grown man. The Archmagos Dominus can unleash tank-busting frepower upon his foes, even as their panicked return-fire rebounds from his thrumming defensive force field. His many mechanical limbs terminate in glowing energy weapons, piston-claws and vicious combat armaments capable of peeling open a tank like a ration tin. Clustered eyelenses glow beneath his heavy cowl, their gaze insectile and utterly remorseless as it cooly dissects his victims' every weakness. A master of the manifold binharic cants of the Lingua-technis, Cawl can reinvigorate a Machine Spirit or stop its reactor heart with but a single phrase. No secret is safe from his acquisitive grasp, and those who seek to keep Cawl from his prize are soon nothing but glowing ashes upon the wind.

History
Cawl himself is known to be over ten thousand standard years old, having been alive at the time of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, though how he managed to maintain his life over more than ten thousand standard years is unknown. Even the most advanced Rejuvenat and augmetic systems cannot normally maintain an organic human mind for such a long period. After the end of the Horus Heresy, he was charged by Roboute Guilliman, then the Lord Commander of the Imperium, to oversee two great tasks should the Primarch fall, one of which was the construction of the life-sustaining suit of Artificer Armour known as the Armour of Fate. The other task remains unknown.

At the time of the 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41, Cawl, in command of the Ark Mechanicus Iron Revenant and a large Mechanicus fleet including Skitarii troops and powerful Kataphron Battle Servitors, was guided by the Eldar Harlequin Shadowseer Sylandri Veilwalker to the world of Eriad VI, a former Imperial Navy base which had been abandoned during the 4th Black Crusade in the 32nd Millennium. Unknown to the Imperials, Eriad VI had also been a Necron Tomb World. After battling Orks who had been drawn to combat on the empty world with the powerful Mechanicus fleet, he recovered an ancient Necron artefact. He also learned more about the nature of the Cadian Pylons originally built by the Necrons that were tasked with restraining the eruptions of the Immaterium -- especially the Eye of Terror -- into realspace. Cawl uneasily accepted Veilwalker's enigmatic instructions to make his way to Cadia, already under siege by Abaddon the Despoiler's massed Forces of Chaos, where his timely arrival provided desperately-needed reinforcements for Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed's embattled Imperial forces.

While on Cadia, Cawl began his investigation of the local pylons, He was eventually joined into a reluctant alliance with the Necron Lord Trazyn the Infinite and the duo joined together to activate Cadia's Pylon array. While initially successful in activating the Pylons, Cadia was shattered by Abaddon's redirection of the remains of a Blackstone Fortress into the planet. Cawl fled the Cadian system with his artifact and several allies including Saint Celestine, Inquisitor Greyfax, and Marshal Marius Amalrich. Hounded by the Black Legion who sought his artifact of still unknown significance, Cawl and his allies were eventually guided into the Webway on Kalisus by his saviors: Eldar under Eldrad Ulthran.

The Eldar guided the expedition to Macragge where Cawl revealed that his precocious artifacts were the Emperor's Sword and a suit of Power Armour that could heal the comatose Primarch Guilliman. During the Ultramar Campaign Cawl was able to successfully work with the Eldar in resurrecting Guilliman, who drove the Chaos invaders from Ultramar. Cawl accompanied Guilliman in the subsequent Terran Crusade and was one of the few to reach Terra. Once on Terra Cawl talked with Guilliman of a secret pact with Mars and of his work nearing completion. He then made his way to the Red Planet to oversee its success.

Cawl's attempt to use the Cadian Pylons to disrupt the Chaotic forces' connection to the Warp failed when the Despoiler hurled the damaged bulk of the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity from orbit as an artificial meteor into the surface of Cadia. The massive kinetic strike destroyed what remained of the world's defences, ensuring its envelopment by the rapidly expanding Eye of Terror. Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed ordered an evacuation of the dying world, and the Imperial survivors of Cadia led by Saint Celestine, now called the Celestinian Crusade, used every voidship at their disposal, including the Iron Revenant, to ferry the three million survivors off Cadia. Unable to enter the Warp because of the roiling instability of the Immaterium near the Cadian Gate, the Imperial fleet was forced to flee through the Cadia System at sub-light speed, and the Chaos warfleets gave chase. The largest and most powerful remaining Imperial capital ship, the Iron Revenant heroically sacrificed itself in battle against Abaddon's flagship the Vengeful Spirit so that the Celestinian Crusade could escape to the nearby ice moon of the world of Kasr Holn called Klaisus. The Iron Revenant's loss was not in vain, for the surviving Celestinians were rescued at the last by the arrival of the Ynnari through Klaisus' hidden Webway gate. Though his flagship was lost, Belisarius Cawl had rescued its most precious cargo -- the Armour of Fate, key to the resurrection of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman.