Ghargatuloth

'''This is a new article for the Warhammer 40’000 wiki. Content is still being added. PLEASE DO NOT MAKE ANY  EDITS UNTIL THIS SIGN HAS BEEN REMOVED and the article declared finished by its inceptor.'''

Ghargatuloth is one of the Greater Daemons of Tzeentch, an entity that has been known by a myriad of names in the material realm: the Prince of a Thousand Faces, the Forger of Hells, the Whisperer in the Darkness, the God of the Last Hunt, and the Seventy-Seventh Masque. Countless atrocities have been committed in his name, for Ghargatuloth's true lifeblood is knowledge, the true vector of all change in the universe. With each foul deed accomplished, with every man killed, with every secret gleamed or divulged, Ghargatuloth learns more and thus becomes more powerful. The first time Ghargatuloth revealed his hand, he was a mere child in the eyes of his overlord and still it took the sacrifice of no less than three Grand Masters of the Grey Knights Chapter and three hundred of their brethren to banish Ghargatuloth from the material realm. Ten thousand standard years later, on the eve of the 13th Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler, the plans spun by Ghargatuloth bore fruit and the Prince of a Thousand Faces was reborn on the almost forgotten world of Volcanis Ultor in the Segmentum Solar, far to the galactic south of the Imperium of Man's main line of defence around the Cadian Gate. Fortunately for Mankind, Ghargatuloth was confronted by the heroic Justicar Alaric who succeeded in banishing him for the second time. Nevertheless, Ghargatuloth still remains a threat, and although the Emperor's Tarot indicates that his banishment is to last for the next 1,000 standard years, who truly knows what dark plans Ghargatuloth hatches from beyond the veil?

History
A daemon has no real date of birth, for its essence comes from the Warp, yet Ghargatuloth was once young and in his youth he showed considerable interest in the material realm, and in particular in the species known as man. Like many of the Greater Daemons of the Ruinous Powers, he craved the new experiences and sensations of the Materium, crossing the veil whenever he found a mind of sufficient psychic power to harbour him. Escaping the Warp, he revelled in the feeling of having a physical body, from the weight of his own muscle and bone to the dullness of possessing only five senses. The material world offered him countless new sensations and experiences. Ghargatuloth used his physical body to interact with mankind, for he had emerged in the troubled time known as the Age of Strife. His words or stories were perceived as the insane gibbering of the mentally-ill amongst the petty, narrow-minded human beings he encountered. The aura of power surrounding him was such that everybody who laid eyes upon him instantly knew that he was not human. Yet in the tumultuous time of war and bloodshed that was the Age of Strife even a madmen like Ghargatuloth could become a king. It is the firm belief of the Inquisition that Ghargatuloth spent almost the entirety of the Age of Strife under various human identities. He was the brutal warlord who condemned whole worlds to burn just to satisfy his ego, and the hero whose name was venerated by millions. He was both the woman who would bathe every morning in seas of the lifeblood of her exsanguinated foes and the pirate-king who united a dozen star-systems only to let them fight each other and see which would prevail. Ghargatuloth watched as entire empires in the void rose and fell, as cities were erected and torn down. As a species, Mankind ultimately lost the ability to travel the stars, fracturing into a thousand different worlds, stellar empires and kingdoms, all at war with each other.

In countless disguises and under many different names, Ghargatuloth gathered knowledge and grew ever more powerful. He became the Prince of a Thousand Faces. Many times he knew defeat and even pain when his host's physical body was killed. The Age of Strife lasted longer than many humans could comprehend, longer even than history could properly record. Every life Ghargatuloth lived fed his lust for the pursuit of knowledge that was the true mark of every servant of Tzeentch, but after centuries of bloodshed, the truth dawned upon Ghargatuloth: he was a mere child, and the Age of Strife was his playground. For every victory he achieved, he had also known defeat. For each empire that rose to power, another fell into anarchy. Ultimately, Mankind had one inherent flaw: it was weak. However powerful, Mankind could not endure, for the slow passage of time would see it fail time and time again, for the only eternal power-- that of the gods -- rested within the Warp. Only the Chaos Gods were truly eternal and Mankind could not hope to emulate them. When Ghargatuloth realised this fundamental truth, he began to despise the species he had toyed with for so long. He still occasionally ventured into the material realm to cause wanton panic and havoc, but it was an action devoid of sense, only meant to distract him from his state of boredom. There was no knowledge to be found there, no secrets to learn, for Mankind was but a crude and ignorant animal that could never gain true, meaningful power. Until one man changed all this.

On distant Terra, the cradle of Mankind, a visionary warlord had risen to power and seized control of the homeworld, a stranger calling himself the Emperor. The Emperor had something others of His ilk lacked: He had a vision, a vision called the Great Crusade. Whether He knew it or not, whether He wanted it or refused the very notion of it, the Emperor had declared every human being an automatic citizen of the newly founded Imperium of Mankind. Through violence and peaceful negotiations, the Emperor strove to reunite the scattered species and establish Mankind as the dominant race of the galaxy, a people that could rival the might of the Eldar of old. Such raw ambition piqued Ghargatuloth's interest, but the Prince of a Thousand Face refrained from interfering. For centuries, the Great Crusade conquered Mankind's scattered domains, unifying them into the Imperium. For the first time in its history, Mankind secured lasting power. The Imperium even survived the great wars of the Horus Heresy, when the Emperor's favourite general, Horus, the Warmaster, guided by blessed Chaos, turned his back on his father's plans and declared war upon Him. The Imperium even survived the loss of its founder and ruler, pushing back the forces that threatened it time and time again, vanquishing its many foes, surviving both civil wars and alien invasions. And suddenly the galaxy became interesting again. Ghargatuloth had found a new purpose: to ensure that the mighty Imperium, as all empires before it, would fall.

Thalassocres
As one of the most powerful beings of his kind, Ghargatuloth is able to exist simultaneously both within the physical realm and the Warp. So while his physical body roamed the galaxy, Ghargatuloth's essence was able to heed his master's call when the Changer of Ways, the Chaos God Tzeentch, called for a conclave of his most devoted servants on the world of Thalassocres. These events roughly took place in the 37th Millennium, some two thousand standard years before Inquisitrice Ligeia and Justicar Alaric would discover Ghargatuloth's taint upon the Trail of Saint Evisser. Historical data show a notable increase of civil unrest, mass hysteria and daemonic possession at that time, without humanity's protectors every connecting the two events. As discovered by Ligeia, it was the gathered might of the Conclave of Thalassocres that wreaked havoc on humanity's collective psyche.

Within the Warp, the power of Tzeentch had grown strong enough to eclipse that of the other Gods of Chaos, and like the toll of a gigantic bell, Tzeentch's call gathered his followers to the world of Talassocres, a planet deep within the Immaterium that embodied the Change. Every hour, Thalassocres' continents rearranged themselves, great mountains suddenly spilling forth from seas of nitrogen before fading away or turn into thick forest of strange growth or plains of colourful grass. The armies of the Changer of Ways assembled there, settling old scores or creating new rivalries as one by one the Princes arrived: those greater daemons that were princes of their kind. As his generals competed in the might of their armies, Tzeentch bestowed gifts upon his Lords of Change, ignoring the most able and rewarding the least gifted with boons that in centuries to come would lead to their fall. As Tzeentch's most capable generals gathered on this mad world, the lesser daemons,Screamers and Horrors fled before the might of those ancient beings such as Bokor the Wildsman, Maleficos of the Burning Hands and Themiscyron the Star-Dragon. Last to arrive where old Master Darkeye and Ghargatuloth himself, for they hid amongst Mankind and tormented it invisibly. With their courts of Greater Daemons gathered around them, these favoured few awaited the revelations their God would see fit to grand them.

When Tzeentch finally spoke, Thalossocre was devasted. The godly verb striped the planet of its crust and mantle, reducing it to a shoal of drifting continents resolving around a single fiery core like a miniature star-system.

Known Agents

 * Gholic Ren-Sar Valinov - Former pupil of the esteemed Inquisitor Lord Barbillus, Gholic Ren-Sar Valinov was once an Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus before Ghargatuloth sank his clutches deep into the man. Valinov was one of Ghargatuloth's most important agents in the Materium, and although Valinov committed countless atrocities in his master's name, his true purpose was quite different: the spreading of disinformation. Ever the manipulator, Ghargatuloth used Valinov to convey false information to his enemies. Valinov sought to make the Ordo Malleus and the Grey Knights believe that only an ancient relic weapon, the Sword of Mandulis, could destroy Ghargatuloth's physical body. In unearthing the sacred blade, the Grey Knights did not know that they were in fact playing into Ghargatuloth's hands. The sacrifice that would allow the Prince of a Thousand Faces to enter the material realm needed to be slain by the weapon which had first banished him, the Sword of Mandulis. Having accomplished his mission, Gholic Ren-Sar Valinov claimed his reward. He left the physical realm behind and was absorbed by his new master, becoming yet another identity for the Prince of a Thousand Faces.
 * Missionary Crucien - "Crucien" was an immensely powerful and ancient Chaos psyker whose existence was uncovered by Inquisitrice Ligea in her hunt for Ghargatuloth. For ten standard millenia, Crucien had been living under different identities on the Feudal World of Sophano Secundus, masquerading as the local Missionary of the Missonaria Galaxica. In secret, he had corrupted every level of Sophano Secundus' society, turning it to the worship of Tzeentch and Ghargatuloth in particular. His true name remains a mystery.