Ahriman

"And what are the achievements of your fragile Imperium? It is a corpse rotting slowly from within while maggots writhe in its belly. It was built with the toil of heroes and giants, and now it is inhabited by frightened weaklings to whom the glories of those times are half-forgotten legends. I have forgotten nothing, and my wisdom has expanded far beyond mere mortal frailties." -- Ahriman of the Thousand Sons

Ahzek Ahriman is a Chaos Space Marine and the most powerful Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion after their Daemon Primarch Magnus the Red himself. Ahriman seeks to gain entry into the Black Library so that he might better comprehend the nature of his patron Chaos God Tzeentch and of the force of Chaos itself and gain the unrivalled power such knowledge will bring. His action in crafting the Rubric of Ahriman, perhaps one of the greatest works of sorcery in history, would ultimately result in his banishment from the Legion he had hoped to safeguard. He remains a wanderer across the galaxy, forever seeking out any knowledge that will allow him to finally grasp the greatest of all enigmas in the galaxy -- the true nature of Tzeentch himself.

Origins
Ahzek Ahriman was born on Terra in the 30th Millennium, among the wealthy techno-barbarian tribes of the Achaemenid Empire whose kings had allied with the Emperor of Mankind during the Unification Wars that reunited the Earth under the new government of the Imperium of Man. Because of this early political alliance, Ahriman's tribes were largely spared the horrors of the atomic wars and proto-Astartes invasions of the Unification Wars period. Following the Emperor's victory and Terra's alliance with the Mechanicum of Mars to forge the Imperium, Ahriman and his twin brother Ohrmuzd were selected to be inducted into the ranks of the Astartes Legions. Ahriman fought alongside the Emperor and the other Space Marine Legions at the start of the Great Crusade, but five years into the expedition the Astartes of the Thousand Sons Legion began manifesting psychic abilities, and with these manifestations began the flesh-changes. Terrible mutations gripped the entire Legion, as countless warriors succumbed and fell to the metamorphoses, many becoming hideous mutants who had to be euthanised by their fellows. Over time, the mutational problem within the Legion grew so severe that many voices throughout the Imperium began suggesting that the Thousand Sons be disbanded as they had become hopelessly genetically tainted. Ahriman even lost his own twin brother Ohrmuzd to the effects of the mutations, which instilled within the young Astartes a terrible fear of mutation and a willingness to do anything to stop it from afflicting his remaining Battle-Brothers. In tribute to his own beloved sibling, Ahriman had Ohrmuzd's prized pendant, a keepsake from their mother just like the one Ahriman wore, worked into the shoulder-guard of his Power Armour.

Great Crusade
Eventually the Great Crusade reached the world of Prospero, and the discovery of the Primarch Magnus the Red, the Thousand Sons' genetic progenitor, could not have come soon enough. The discovery of their sire marked a turning point in the fortunes of the Thousand Sons Legion, for Magnus was able to seemingly cure the mutational effects of his genetic material and the devastation they had wrought upon his Legion. However, Magnus sacrificed much in order to achieve this victory, including the loss of his eye in the effort, which involved bargains with the Ruinous Powers of the Warp to gain the knowledge required to halt the mutations.

Little is known about Ahriman's exploits during the Great Crusade. Additionally, Ahriman was seconded by the Thousand Sons for 5 Terran years to the Word Bearers Legion, which he found to be an uncomfortable experience because of the Word Bearers' insistence on worshipping the Emperor of Mankind as a divine being in violation of the tenets of the Imperial Truth. Despite this, Ahriman still managed to strike up a friendship with the Word Bearers' Chaplain Erebus. Ahriman is also one of the few Astartes from this period who was publicly supportive of the Emperor's initiative to require civilian Remembrancers to record the exploits of the Astartes Legions and the other Imperial forces during the Great Crusade, as he hoped that an accurate record of the Thousand Sons' exploits would teach the wider Imperium to no longer be afraid of or prejudiced against psykers or the use of psychic powers.

The earliest surviving mention of an Ahzek Ahriman in Imperial records occurred during the Aghrou Campaign in the final years of the Great Crusade's second century, a standard action of that time in which a pre-industrial human world was brought into Imperial Compliance by the 28th Expeditionary Fleet, with aid from a contingent of the Space Wolves Legion. Ahriman risked his Primarch Magnus the Red's wrath when he lead a search team in pursuit of the Primarch after Magnus had made himself absent from his Legion, despite Magnus' prior insistence that he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances. This incident represented the first time that Ahriman was known to have mistrusted the judgement of his Primarch and then acted contrary to his expressed desires. It would not be the last. Towards the end of the Aghrou Campaign, when a contingent of Space Wolves Astartes arrived to convey a message to Magnus from their own Primarch Leman Russ, Ahriman found fellowship with the Space Wolf Rune Priest Othere Wyrdmake, during which he shared information on the Thousand Sons' psychic disciplines in what he thought was a meeting of convivial Brother Astartes, but which later proved treacherous when the Space Wolves used this conversation against the Thousand Sons' position in favour of supporting continued use of the psychic arts at the Council of Nikaea. Ahriman's relationship with the Rune Priest proved useful when both the Space Wolves and the Thousand Sons were forced to engage in combat with alien "weaponforms" similar to Imperial Titans and the daemons of the Warp before leaving Aghoru. This represented the first time that both Legions had come into contact with the realities of Chaos.

It was also at this time that Ahriman was charged by his Primarch with inducting the Remembrancer Lemuel Gaumon into the ways of the Thousand Sons. This was intended to develop Gaumon's own psychic abilities and thus through his spread Magnus' pro-psyker beliefs through the Imperium. Ahriman took Gaumon on as his Probationer, and spent a significant amount of time training the Remembrancer and teaching him the sorcerous knowledge of the Thousand Sons during the time leading up to the Fall of Prospero. This training included allowing Gaumon to accompany the Thousand Sons on combat missions during the pacification of the world of Heliosa, where Ahriman was present for the sudden resurgence of the mutational flesh-change within the Legion and the granting of the Emperor's peace to the afflicted mutant Thousand Sons Astartes by the Space Wolves' Primarch, Leman Russ. The return of rampant mutation to the Thousand Sons after Magnus had previously promised that he had banished its danger forever deeply hurt Ahriman, to the point that his feelings of betrayal were detectable even to a mortal like Gaumon.

Ahzek Ahriman was present at the great review of the Imperial military on the world of Ullanor at the conclusion of the Ullanor Crusade when the Emperor named Horus as the Warmaster of the Great Crusade. More importantly, Ahriman attended the great Imperial conclave known as the Council of Nikaea when the Emperor outlawed the use of psychic abilities within the Space Marine Legions and sorcery across the Imperium. To Ahriman the Council of Nikaea felt like a trial of the Thousand Sons. He felt betrayed once more by the Emperor's decision. Far worse was the fact that the first person to step forth and accuse the Thousand Sons of engaging in the malignant and dangerous practice of sorcery was the fellow Astartes he had believed to be his friend within the Space Wolves Legion, the Rune Priest Othere Wyrdmake. Betrayal seemed to hammer Ahriman from every side as it was also at this time that he first learned that Magnus had not only been aware of the Ruinous Powers' existence within the Immaterium, but that he had likely struck some form of malign bargain with them which had resulted in the end of the rampant mutations within the Thousand Sons Legion. Aghast at a revelation which gave some truth to the charges of the Space Wolves and the Emperor's fears of allowing the practice of sorcery, Ahriman found his trust in his Primarch further shaken, though Magnus ultimately used his own potent psychic abilities to remove the details of the deal he had struck with the Dark Gods from his Chief Librarian's mind before Ahriman could understand its full import.

Horus Heresy
Before the the Horus Heresy began, Ahriman had risen to the position of Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons Legion, the Captain of its 1st Fellowship and the leader of the Sekhmet or Scarab occult who served as the elite Veterans of the Legion and deployed in Terminator Armour. Ahriman was also the leader of the Thousand Sons' most powerful sorcerous cult, the Corvidae, who were skilled in the psychic discipline of precognition, which was the ability to determine the likely probabilities of future events. They served as the Legion's seers, warning their Battle-Brothers of dangers before they materialised. The Corvidae Cult also helped guide the Thousand Sons Legion along the lines of Fate during times of conflict and in pursuit of their overall psychic and material growth as a Legion, as well as serving as the Legion's primary strategic planners. Ahriman had come to share his Primarch's obsession with the pursuit and preservation of arcane knowledge and the unraveling of the mysteries of the Warp. By the beginning of the Horus Heresy, Ahriman had come to be the keeper of the now mythical Book of Magnus, a tome of incalculable sorcerous power said to contain arcane secrets of power and the true nature of the Warp revealed to Magnus the Red by Tzeentch himself.

It may have been knowledge gleaned from that very tome with which Ahriman conjured his now infamous master spell, the "Rubric of Ahriman," which was intended to stop the terrible mutations that once again afflicted the Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines after they fled into the Eye of Terror at the end of the Horus Heresy and were exposed to the constant warping power of undiluted Chaos energies. The result of the so-called Rubric of Ahriman, while imperfect, is said to have satisfied Ahriman in its consequence because it did halt any further mutations, though at a terrible price. In essence, it turned all the warriors of the Thousand Sons Legion without psychic abilities into mindless automata, and greatly amplified the abilities of all who had more then a spark of psychic strength. Yet the price for this boon was that the souls of every psychic Thousand Sons Marine was fused for all eternity into their Power Armour, their physical bodies turning to dust. Ahriman was a veteran Thousand Sons Marine of Terran lineage who had been an Astartes even before the discovery of Magnus the Red, and Ahriman's revulsion at the mutational corruption of the Legion was so great that even the terrible price paid for reversing it did not seem too high to him. Ahriman attempted the spell alone at first. He proved unsuccessful and he later required a large Cabal of Sorcerers to assist him, who were only motivated to do so upon Magnus' elevation to the power of a Daemon Prince by Tzeentch. The last vestiges of humanity were purged from the Thousand Sons by the completion of the Rubric of Ahriman, and they came to accept the price as the only way to avoid the fate of being transformed into mindless Chaos Spawn.

Magnus the Red was not of like mind, however. So great was his wrath when the Cabal who had performed the sorcerous ritual was discovered that the Daemon Primarch threatened to obliterate them utterly, but Tzeentch himself is said to have intervened in the matter, seeing the Sorcerers as useful pawns. Who can say what that most enigmatic and capricious of entities intended? In any event, the Daemon Prince stayed his hand, instead banishing Ahriman from the Thousand Sons' Daemon World within the Eye of Terror known as the Planet of Sorcerers and condemning him to wander the Eye of Terror and the wider galaxy beyond in a hopeless quest to understand the mind of the Chaos God Tzeentch.

For his part, Ahriman refuses to acknowledge either Tzeentch or Chaos itself as his master. Across the ensuing millennia he has become a scourge of the Imperium, raiding ancient museums, librarium, scholaria and reclusia, places of learning, religion and contemplative thought. He seeks to acquire artefacts, data, or even persons he believes can lead him to master the way of the sorcerer. He fosters Chaos Cults on dozens of worlds at a time, providing the cults' magi with sorcerous power until such time as they have acquired some antiquarian trinket or satisfied another of Ahriman's demands before turning the wrath of his Thousand Sons' warband of Chaos Space Marines upon them. It is rumoured that Ahriman has of late turned his relentless predation upon the Eldar, determined in his belief that the lost knowledge he seeks can only be found in that darkest of halls of enlightenment, the vast repository of sorcerous arcana referred to in whispers as the Black Library of Chaos.

Current Activities
During Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade, Ahriman was able to gain access to the Eldar Webway using the knowledge of the captured Inquisitor Czevak and a long forgotten Webway portal that existed on the world of Etiamnum III. It was rumoured that if Ahriman ever gained entry into the Black Library, he could use the information contained within it to become a new and powerful Chaos God within the Warp, though he actually sought to enter the Black Library to steal an artefact of the Harlequins known as the Sword of Lathrilaq. At one point, Ahriman captured the Daemonifuge Ephrael Stern and following his conquest of the Black Library he intended to use the former Sister of Battle against his rivals. Despite summoning a Leviathan, a giant flying Warp beast, and inflicting horrendous casualties on both sides of the conflict, Ahriman was ejected from the Webway with his goal unattained. Inquisitor Czevak was captured by Eldar Harlequins and is believed to still be held within the Webway while the Webway gate Ahriman had used to gain entry to the Black Library was sealed, never to be opened again. Following the end of the 13th Black Crusade Ahriman's "star is on the rise" with Magnus the Red once again, mostly due to the great chaos caused by his battles against the Eldar within the Webway, the prowess he displayed in capturing Inquistor Czevak, and the extraordinary knowledge and ability required to even come close to entering the fabled Black Library.

Wargear and Abilities
Ahriman is a true master of sorcery and one of the most powerful psykers in the galaxy. His knowledge of the dark arts is rivaled only by the Greater Daemons of his patron Chaos God, the terrible Lords of Change. In addition to the multitude of Chaotic psychic powers he can call upon, Ahriman is armed with the Black Staff of Ahriman; an ornate Force weapon which provides a potent focus for his psychic energy. He also carries an enchanted bolt pistol which fires powerful Inferno bolts similar to the weapons used by the Rubric Chaos Space Marines of his Thousand Sons warband.