Jubal Khan

Jubal Khan is the current Chapter Master or "Great Khan" of the White Scars Space Marine Chapter.

History
Jubal was named the Great Khan of the White Scars after the previous Chapter Master, Kyublai Khan, disappeared while fighting the Drukhari in 943.M41. He successfully survived the trials set by the Stormseers to emerge as the new leader of the Chapter.

Jubal and three other candidates for the position had gathered in the Khum Karta mountains, within the Valley of Khans, and only Jubal had emerged alive. What the candidates must face during the trials remains a mystery as none who survive them ever again will speak of what transpired within the Valley of Khans.

During his time, Jubal has fought countless battles and faced an endless array of opponents. One of his greatest achievements came during the Jopal Uprising. He led the White Scars' 1st Brotherhood in several raids and strikes against the enemy's supply and communication lines.

Such was the devastation wrought that the enemy were forced to divert large numbers of troops to deal with the White Scars, but this allowed the regiments of the Astra Militarum to batter through the weakened front lines and end the insurrection.

Third War for Armageddon
When the Ork Warlord Ghazghkull Thraka launched his second WAAAGH! against the ash-choked Hive World of Armageddon, initiating the Third War for Armageddon, over twenty Space Marine Chapters answered the call for aid. The White Scars were among them, with the strength of three brotherhoods to drive the Orkoid menace from the invaluable world.

Millions of greenskins swept across the planet, burning, destroying, killing and looting. But their attacks were not random. The Kults of Speed assaulted the Deadlands in Armageddon's south, a frozen wasteland but nevertheless the site of vital infrastructure that the Imperium could not afford to lose.

Jubal Khan's White Scars were deployed entirely to the Deadlands as part of the wider Imperial war effort. Suboden Khan, Jubal's second, commanded a separate strike force and was responsible for securing the promethium and water processing stations.

Jubal took his remaining forces to the northern coast, where orbital reconnaissance had detected Orks at work building huge structures. The greenskins could not be allowed to continue unimpeded.

By the time Jubal Khan and his forces arrived, the Orks had built up a sprawling complex of factories along the coastline. His Scout Marines reported a maze of debris-strewn yards and vast numbers of Orks. Most importantly, they discovered that this ever-growing facility was a shipyard, and that dozens of huge, ramshackle vessels were being prepared. For what purpose, none could say.

All knew, however, that the submersibles could cause terrible damage and could not be allowed to be brought to completion. Jubal Khan had no choice but to attack.

Initially, his strategy was to draw out the Orks, tempting them with battle and luring them away from their labours. With the Orks distracted, White Scars Kill-teams raided the shipyard, destroying as many structures as possible before the greenskins could respond.

Despite these efforts, construction continued apace. The Orks were building faster than the White Scars raids could destroy, and hulking Ork Nobz bullied their charges into maintaining production even when the prospect of battle was so near. Jubal decided it was time to take the fight to them.

Amidst the shipyard's confines, the White Scars made slow progress. They fought from rusted building to rusted building, in savage close-quarters combat. They met Orkish roars with Korchin battle cries.

Each day they pressed further, fighting amidst burning metal, treading over the corpses of Orks and dead brothers alike. Their Vox grilles and Bolters were choked with ash and grime, and still they fought. But it was not enough.

When the White Scars saw flotillas of massive submersibles and Ork ships akin to floating shanty-towns lurching out into the Tempest Ocean, they knew they had failed. Determined to make up for this, Jubal made it his crusade to destroy the remaining facilities and stop the Orks from building fresh waves of invasion craft.

These efforts proved more successful. In one instance, Jubal's warriors destroyed an entire Ork brigade without taking any losses or firing a single shot, presumably through isolating the Orks from their supplies and reinforcements.

Battle of Chogoris
When the White Scars homeworld of Chogoris came under assault by the forces of Chaos under the command of Huron Blackheart and his Red Corsairs Heretic Astartes, Jubal Khan was still fighting on Armageddon.

His forces returned to Chogoris while the White Scars garrison forces were defending the world under the command of the Barutai Khan of the 2nd Brotherhood, but proved ineffective at turning the tide until the arrival of a strike force commanded by Kor'sarro Khan of the 3rd Brotherhood, the Master of the Hunt, successfully forced the Red Corsairs to withdraw.

Attack on the Seethnar
Seeking revenge for the severe damage inflicted on Chogoris, the Great Khan, Jubal, lead a daring attack upon Seethnar -- the vast space station seized by Huron Blackheart as a main dockyard for his piratical war fleets.

In a swift naval attack, the Seethnar was boarded from multiple locations, each war party racing into the station and planting Melta Bomb charges.

After brutal fighting, Jubal Khan and his Honour Guard reached the Seethnar 's heart and caused catastrophic damage to its Plasma Reactors, but become trapped by collapsing corridors.

Solar weeks after the White Scars' attack on Seethnar, the White Scars ambushed the warship on which Jubal Khan was imprisoned. They liberated their lord but found him tortured close to death.

Jubal Khan was returned to Chogoris and installed into a life-preserving Apothecarion cradle in his inner sanctum.

Jubal Khan still lives, and thanks to his indomitable spirit remains capable of serving as his Chapter's lord and grand strategist; prognoses for his physical recovery are dire, however, and many whisper that it might have been kinder for their Great Khan to die in battle than to face a future trammelled within his strategium, unable to lift a blade or sit a saddle.

Fate of Jubal
Since he was retrieved from the clutches of the Red Corsairs, Jubal has ruled from his chambers in the White Scars fortress-monastery of Quan Zhou, where his ravaged body hangs in a life-support cradle of burnished calipers and hissing stimm-dispensers.

He is examined daily by the Chief Apothecary, but Ogholei's prognosis never improves. The Great Khan's body has been subjected to untold horrors, and is beyond the Imperium's arts to heal. All the Apothecaries can hope to do is sustain his mind for as long as possible.

The shadow of the trauma he suffered at the hands of the Red Corsairs' torturers lies heavy upon him, but Jubal has lost none of his keenness. He issues commands with relentless assurance, seeing through the eyes of White Scars outriders and orchestrating his Chapter's actions on a Segmentum-wide scale.

If anything, it seems his strategic nous has increased with his physical confinement, freed from the distractions of leading his armies in person. Jubal's will is enacted through his closest advisors, who ensure his orders are relayed clearly to the many White Scars strike forces on campaign at any time.

Jubal and Kor'sarro Khan
Jubal Khan was not pleased to learn that Kor'sarro Khan had undergone the Rubicon Primaris treatment to become a Primaris Marine in the wake of the Battle of Chogoris.

The Master of the Hunt was summoned before the Chapter Master, striding into Jubal Khan's incense-thick sanctum with the look of one who goes to battle.

The two proud warriors faced one another, and it is said that the air crackled between them like dry lightning over the Khum Kharta Mountains.

Kor'sarro virtually glowed with the newfound vitality of his transformation. Yet it was he who averted his gaze, who had the humility to kneel and to ask forgiveness of his lord for his rash deed.

What passed between the two khans that day was not recorded, and none know of what was said.

What is known is that when Kor'sarro emerged from his audience with the Chapter Master, he wasted no time in calling his battle-brothers to him and preparing to take the fight to the heretics still ravaging the Yasan Sector; his hunt was not over, but for now it was set aside, for a new duty was his to complete.

The Yasan Sector seethed with foes, and all else would have to wait until it was secured.

It is as a token of Jubal Khan's faith and favour that Kor'sarro Khan is now accompanied by the cyber berkut called Anzuq. Known to the White Scars as the "Hawk of Fire and Water," this ancient creature has been the familiar of only a handful of khans throughout the Chapter's history, and has slumbered through the aeons within the protective aegis of a suspension field when not in service.

It is said that Anzuq's wingbeats echo the fury of the Chogorian storms, that his blood is the planet’s running rivers and his ferocious gaze its swift-leaping wildfires.

Where Anzuq strikes, so too strikes the harnessed spirit of Chogoris itself, reaching out with vicious talons and flashing beak to savage those who would stand against the Master of the Hunt.

Of course, some amongst the White Scars whisper that this gift may have an another, altogether different purpose; all that Anzuq sees, it records within capacious mnemonic datacoils.

Perhaps, some whisper, Jubal Khan wishes to keep his huntmaster on a shorter leash after his impetuous deeds of late. If so, then Anzuq is that leash.