Word Bearers

The Word Bearers are one of the nine First Founding Space Marine Legions which betrayed the Emperor of Mankind during the Horus Heresy, becoming Chaos Space Marines, their allegiance pledged to their Daemon Primarch Lorgar and to Chaos Undivided. The Word Bearers were also the first Space Marine Legion to be corrupted by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos and through their actions they corrupted the Warmaster Horus and brought on the terrible civil war of the Horus Heresy in all its savagery.

Pre-Heresy
The Primarch of the Word Bearers, Lorgar, vanished from Terra while still an infant, just like all of the other Primarchs, when they were myteriously transported through the Warp by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos from the Emperor of Mankind's gene-lab beneath the Himalayan Mountains. Lorgar was discovered by the Emperor on a feudal world named Colchis, which he had eventually unified beneath his authoritarian rule in a series of brutal religious wars in response to his visions of the Emperor's coming arrival. When the Emperor did arrive, as Lorgar had foreseen, the Primarch dropped to his knee, leading the population of his world in rejoicing and worship of the Emperor as a god. At the conclusion of these festivities, the Emperor bade Lorgar take his best warriors and induct them into the XVII Space Marine Legion derived from his own genome which he named the Word Bearers and join his father on the Great Crusade to reunify the human worlds of the galaxy under a new Imperium. Lorgar appointed trustworthy regents to rule over Colchis in his absence and devoutly complied with his father's direction.

Lorgar was an unusually pious Primarch. While the other Space Marine Legions were rapidly conquering planet after planet, the Word Bearers proceeded much more slowly, as they would build temples and shrines in veneration of the Emperor, who was also deemed the God of Mankind by Lorgar, on each newly conquered planet. All forms of blasphemy and heresy that threatened the divine centrality of the Emperor in the new regime, all manner of ancient scrolls, books, artwork and icons dedicated to the worship of beings other than the Emperor were burned and smashed before the advancing ranks of the Word Bearers Legion. In their place, vast monuments and cathedrals all dedicated to the worship of the Emperor were erected upon the mounds of corpses belonging to those who had resisted conversion. The greatest Chaplains of the Word Bearers Legion produced enormous devotional works on the divinity and righteousness of the Emperor, and Lorgar himself delivered countless speeches and sermons, converting millions to the worship of the Emperor with his words alone.

However, the Emperor became impatient with the Word Bearers, and ordered them to cease this religious activity, as their mission was to reunify the galaxy under the banner of secular Imperial Truth, not preach of the Emperor's personal divinity. The Emperor had long opposed the spread of organized religion and was determined to use the creation of the new Imperium of Man to enshrine reason and science, not religion, as the true guiding light of a new interstellar human civilization. The Emperor was particularly troubled by any notion that he should be worshipped as a god and the actions of the Word Bearers in slaughtering those who refused to accept the Emperor's divinity stank of the religious excesses that had so often poisoned human history. Lorgar is said to have been stunned by his father's reproach and refusal to accept his worship, and to have fallen into a melancholic state. Feeling betrayed by the Emperor, he refused audience to all but Kor Phaeron, a Word Bearers Cardinal and Lorgar's chief lieutenant and adviser since his time ruling as the theocrat of Colchis. Kor Phaeron sympathised with Lorgar's unrequited religious longings, and felt that the Word Bearers should serve gods truly worthy of worship. Kor Phaeron explained that he knew of such gods, and thus, Lorgar learned of the existence of the Chaos Gods, who not only accepted the zealous worship he offered, but demanded it. Thus the seeds of the Horus Heresy were first sown among the Word Bearers, and when the Warmaster Horus finally turned against the Emperor in the name of Chaos largely due to the machinations of the Word Bearers' Chaplain Erebus, who arranged for Horus to be exposed to the Chaos Gods in the first place, the Word Bearers quickly joined the rebellion. The worlds they had conquered since their conversion also joined the side of Chaos, having been secretly corrupted to the worship of the Ruinous Powers in the final days of the Great Crusade.



The Horus Heresy
As the Heresy unfolded, the Word Bearer battleship Furious Abyss set off for the realm of Ultramar in the Eastern Fringes of the galaxyafter its construction was completed on the Jovian moon of Thule. The Furious Abyss' first kill was the Ultramarines starship Fist of Macragge as it was heading for repairs to the Vangelis spaceport. The astropaths of the Fist of Macragge managed to send out a telepathic warning through the Warp, ultimately received as a very powerful psychic scream at the Vangelis spaceport. Seeing visions of Macragge and the impending terror brought by the Traitor Marines of the Word Bearers, Captain Cestus, the Fleet Commander of the Ultramarines Legion, quickly gathered a force of starships at the main Vangelis hub of Coralis. He managed to find seven Loyalist starships: the Wrathful (which Cestus commandeered as his flagship) and her escorts, the Fearless, the Ferox, the Ferocious, the Fireblade, and the Thousand Sons Legion's starship Waning Moon. Captain Vorlov of the starship Boundless also requested to join Captain Cestus, and was accepted. The Loyalist fleet pursued the Furious Abyss and battled with it, suffering heavy casualties (all of the Loyalist starships but the Wrathful and Fireblade were destroyed), ending when the Furious Abyss entered the Warp to continue its journey to Ultramar. The Wrathful and Fireblade made the transition as well, but the Furious Abyss deployed a psionic mine which disturbed the Warp, causing the Fireblade's Gellar Field to fail, and the ship was torn apart by the daemonic forces of the Immaterium.5

When the Word Bearers of the Furious Abyss finally launched their attack against the Ultramarines' dominion of Ultramar, the strike against the world of Calth was led by Lorgar's greatest champion, the former Master of the Faith, Kor Phaeron. He swore to utterly destroy the Ultramarines' planet, and was very nearly successful. From his personal battle-barge, now renamed Infidus Imperator (False Emperor), Kor Phaeron directed a full-scale invasion of the Calth System. Calth's three sister planets were all destroyed, massive geo-nuclear strikes ripping them apart at the core. The system's once gentle sun was laced with deadly heavy metals and other unstable substances that increased the star's radiation output tenfold; within a century after the Heresy's end, the final elements of Calth's atmosphere were burned off and the world was left an airless void, its populace forced to live in gigantic underground caverns.

The war on Calth was devastating and horrific. The Ultramarines were shocked by the millions of Chaos Cultists the Word Bearers used as human shields and disgusted by the hordes of daemons they unleashed from the Warp. The Word Bearers, in turn, had underestimated the tenacity and resolve of their Loyalist foes. In the end, Lord Kor Phaeron was defeated when Ultramarine reinforcements from Macragge drove the Word Bearers from the surface of Calth. Kor Phaeron retreated all the way to the Maelstrom, a turbulent Warp rift much like the far larger Eye of Terror where the Immaterium of Chaos seeped through into the material realm of the universe.

Lorgar himself lead the rest of his Traitor Legion alongside the Warmaster Horus in the forces of Chaos' siege of the Imperial Palace on Terra, where he helped invade the realm of the master he had once served with the fanaticism of a zealot. In the end, Horus was defeated personally by the Emperor aboard his own flagship in orbit of Terra, and the Traitor Legions of Chaos were forced to flee into the Eye of Terror. The Word Bearers were also forced to retreat to the Eye of Terror with their traitorous brethren, and there they have remained, returning to the worlds of the Imperium only to raid, pillage, and destroy.

Post-Heresy
From the Daemon World of Sicarus, Lorgar now watches over his Legion and orchestrates the vast corruption from within that the Imperium suffers at the hands of his various sponsored Chaos Cults and covens. Unlike many of the other Traitor Legions of Chaos Marines, the Word Bearers have remained a unified, if loosely organised, military force, the main ruling body of which is known as the Dark Council, which rules in Lorgar's self-imposed absence as he meditates on the mysteries of Chaos.6 From the two primary bases of the Legion, Sicarus and the factory-world of Ghalmek which is located within the Maelstrom, the Word Bearers launched twisted wars of faith against the Imperium. On each world they attack, they incubate a seed of heresy that will one day contribute to their ever-expanding web of Chaos Cults. Sometimes, however, this brings them into competition with the efforts of the Alpha Legion. Though the Alpha Legion and the Word Bearers have united several times to take part in the Black Crusades of Abaddon, they are more usually in states of bitter division and rivalry. However, these conflicts are but distractions as their war against the Imperium of Man is a total one, and they do not intend for it to end until every icon of the False Emperor lies shattered at their feet.



Organization
Word Bearers do not worship the Chaos Gods individually. Instead, the Word Bearers venerate and regard them as a Dark Pantheon of Chaos Gods, placing their faith within the concept of Chaos Undivided. The Sons of Lorgar view those who limit their worship to a single Chaos God with contempt and are partially at odds with the Emperor's Children for their decadence and devotion to Slaanesh alone. The Word Bearers often rely on daemons as shock troops, meatshields, and to form the bulk of their armies. Their elite Chaos Space Marines are used to accomplish vital tasks. The Word Bearers have been known to have a massive base of Chaos Cultists, and have used cultists and insurgents in their assaults since the Great Crusade. However, unlike the Alpha Legion, the primary use of Chaos Cultists for the Word Bearers is only as cannon fodder and distractions.

The Word Bearers are notable for being the only Traitor Legion who still have a corps of Chaplains, now known instead as Dark Apostles. The Word Bearers follow the words of their Dark Apostles with total faith in battle. The Dark Apostles divine through many ways how a battle is to be fought and won, and the warriors of the Host of Lorgar obey unquestioningly. Before battle, the Word Bearers gather in ritual prayer, chanting hymns and cult doctrine to affirm their faith in the power of Chaos Undivided. Often these chants will be answered and it is common for the Word Bearers to fight alongside daemonic entities.

This evil priesthood enforces a strict regime of worship of theRuinous Powers upon their fellow Word Bearers and are also highly likely to be found leading the Legion in battle. Each is gifted an army of their own, known as a Host. The numbers vary, with the smallest typical size for a Word Bearers Host roughly analogous to that of a Space Marine Company, and the largest exceeding the manpower of a full Space Marine Chapter.

The organizational make-up of each Host differs wildly as well, and can change depending on the whims of the Dark Apostle that leads it. Often they will suddenly alter the hierarchy of their Host for reasons known only to themselves. These changes can result in seemingly unwieldy or tactically inflexible formations. The Word Bearers themselves accept these changes without question.1

The largest known Host of the Word Bearers numbered over two thousand Chaos Marines at its peak. The size of this force required that the Dark Apostle be served by two chief lieutenants, his First Acolyte and a Chaos Champion, called the Coryphaus. The role of the Coryphaus is to be the intermediary between the Dark Apostle and his Host. This allows the Dark Apostle to be seen primarily as a spiritual figure. Furthermore, the Coryphaus is essentially in charge of the majority of tactical decisions on the battlefield, freeing the Dark Apostle to commune with the dark powers, fuel the hatred of the Host and ponder strategic matters. Additionally, the Host possessed an Icon Bearer and an elite unit of over two hundred Chaos Space Marine Terminators known as the Annointed.4

The most commonly occurring structure for a Word Bearers Host is that roughly equating to a Space Marine Company, with the Host broken down into units of about twelve Traitor Marines. Each is commanded by a Chaos Champion of the Word Bearers who strives to become as devout a war leader as the Dark Apostle in the hope of one day being chosen to succeed him on the occasion of his death.

The Word Bearers then march into battle beneath their standards, bellowing catechisms of hatred at their foe as drums beat out a dolorous thunder. The relentless advance of the Word Bearers is a terrifying sight, as the monotonous chant and beat of drums can break even the strongest will. The unshakable belief of the Word Bearers in the truth of Chaos and their cause has seen them marching into certain death, yet unwilling to take a single step backwards. A battle ends either in victory or the utter destruction of the Word Bearer Host.1

Before the Horus Heresy, the Word Bearers Legion was split into Chapters of 1000 Word Bearers each, made up of 10 Companies of a hundred Word Bearers5. Each Chapter of the Word Bearers possessed their own iconography. Four of these Chapters remain known to the Imperium today, bearing these logos: Each of these Chapters represented a different aspect of the Word of Lorgar.5
 * A quill with a drop of blood at the nib
 * An open hand with an eye in the palm
 * A burning book
 * A sceptre crowned with a skull

Notable Word Bearers

 * Lorgar - Primarch of the Word Bearers.1
 * Kor Phaeron - Black Cardinal of the Word Bearers.1
 * Erebus - First Chaplain of the Word Bearers.1
 * Jarulek - Dark Apostle. (Deceased) 4
 * Marduk - Dark Apostle, former First Acolyte of Jarulek. 4
 * Kol Badar - Coryphaus of Jarulek and then Marduk. 4
 * Eliphas the Inheritor - Dark Apostle, leader of the Dark Crusade on Kronus. Currently allied with the Black Legion. 3
 * Zadkiel - Fleet Captain of the Furious Abyss.5
 * Baelanos - Assault-captain of the Furious Abyss.5
 * Ikthalon - Brother-Chaplain of the Furious Abyss.5
 * Reskiel - Sergeant-commander of the Furious Abyss.5
 * Malforian - Weapon Master of the Furious Abyss.5

Fleet
During the Horus Heresy the Word Bearers are known to have possessed the following vessels:2
 * Kamiel - Battleship
 * Lorgar's Spite - Battleship
 * Destiny's Hand - Battle Barge. Commanded by First Chaplain Erebus.
 * Infidus Imperator - Battle Barge. Commanded by Lord Kor Phaeron.1
 * Infidus Diabolus - Strike Cruiser. Commanded by Dark Apostle Jarulek. 4
 * Furious Abyss - Specially-built Battleship. Commanded by Fleet Captain Zadkiel.5

Trivia

 * In Squad Command and Chaos Gate, the Word Bearers are the primary enemy of the Imperial forces.


 * The Word Bearers are the Chaos force in the singe player campaign of the Dawn of War expansion pack, Dark Crusade.

Gameplay
In the tabletop wargame of Warhammer 40,000, it is necessary to have the Codex Chaos Space Marines in order to properly field a Word Bearers army.