Pilgrimage of Lorgar

The Pilgrimage of Lorgar was the spiritual quest undertaken by the Primarch Lorgar of the Word Bearers Space Marine Legion during the Great Crusade of the 31st Millennium to discover whether humanity's ancient beliefs in supernatural entities were true or whether his father the Emperor of Mankind's athetistic, rationalist Imperial Truth was the correct philosophy to guide Mankind's future. In the course of his Pilgrimage, Lorgar learned that the Emperor had lied and that supernatural entities, the Chaos Gods, did exist and he believed that they were worthy of humanity's worship. Lorgar would spend the next 40 years seeking to turn his fellow Primarchs to the service of Chaos and was ultimately responsible for setting in motion the events that bring on the cataclysmic Horus Heresy.

History
Prompted by the so-called Pilgrimage of the Primarch Lorgar of the Word Bearers Legion to discover whether or not the Gods once worshipped by adherents of the Old Faith of the Word Bearers' homeworld of Colchis actually existed, Lorgar journeyed with his Word Bearers Legion's Chapter of the Serrated Sun to what was then the fringes of known Imperial space as part of the 1301st Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade. At this time, Lorgar had not yet fallen to Chaos, though he had turned against the Emperor of Mankind as a deity no longer worthy of his worship after the Emperor and the Ultramarines had personally humiliated him and the entire Word Bearers Legion on the world of Khur 43 years before the start of the Horus Heresy. The Emperor had come to Khur personally with Malcador the Sigillite after ordering the Ultramarines to destroy the Khurian city of Monarchia where the Emperor was worshipped as a God as a result of the teachings of the Word Bearers. He made his displeasure known to Lorgar about the Word Bearers spreading the religion of Emperor-worship to every world they brought into the Imperium, in direct contravention of the rationalist, atheist philosophy of Imperial Truth. The Emperor forced the entire Legion to kneel against their will through the use of his psychic might and then explained that they were the only Astartes Legion to have failed his purpose on the Great Crusade. After this humiliation Lorgar, on the advice of his First Captain Kor Phaeron and the Word Bearers First Chaplain Erebus, decided to undertake a Pilgrimage to discover if the Gods worshipped by the ancient Old Faith of Colchis were real and worthy of the Word Bearers' faith and allegiance.

The Word Bearers were also accompanied on this Pilgrimage by 5 members of the Adeptus Custodes who had been set by the Emperor to watch over everything the Word Bearers did to prevent them from falling back into error once more. The 1301st Expeditionary Fleet exited the Warp near the largest Warp Storm in the universe, later known as the Eye of Terror. The Fleet's Master of Astropaths advised Lorgar that unusual "voices" in the Warp were heard in the vicinity of the great Warp rift, voices that spoke directly to the Primarch as well, the voices of the Chaos entities within the Immaterium.

The decision was made to hold orbit over Cadia and for the 1301st Fleet's elements to make planetfall on the unknown world, designated as 1301-12. The landing force was comprised of Imperial Army, Word Bearers, Adeptus Custodes and Legiones Cybernetica elements. The landing party, led by Lorgar, was greeted by a large number of barbaric human tribes, tribes described as "dressed in rags and wielding spears tipped by flint blades...yet they showed little fear." Most notable were the barbarians' purple eyes, which reflected the colour of the Eye of Terror itself in the spectrum of visible light. Despite the Custodian Vendatha's protests and request to execute the heathens, the Word Bearers approached the natives. A woman emerged from the crowd and addressed the Primarch directly, calling him Lorgar Aurelian and welcoming him to Cadia. This woman, the priestess Ingethel, would ultimately lead the Primarch down a path of spiritual enlightenment that actually marked the beginning of Lorgar's fall to heresy and Chaos. Later, the Priestess Ingethel of Cadia would lead the 1,301st Fleet's scout vessel Orfeo's Lament into the Eye of Terror and thus change the Word Bearers forever as they were exposed to the Ruinous Powers of Chaos and slowly corrupted, the first of the Legiones Astartes to worship the Chaos Gods and become Traitors to the Emperor.