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KeeperofSecretsAmnaich

A Keeper of Secrets similar to Amnaich.

Amnaich, known as "Amnaich the Golden" and the "Lord of Hosts," is a powerful Keeper of Secrets, a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh. Amnaich was considered to have been granted the most perfect form ever visited by the Dark Prince upon one of its Daemons.

Amnaich was among the Daemons summoned by the Thousand Sons during the Siege of Terra to assault the bastions surrounding the Lion's Gate of the Imperial Palace. Amnaich and the other Daemons were ultimately defeated by the Loyalist defenders and banished back into the Warp.

Later, in the 39th Millennium, Amnaich sought to prey upon the Human-settled worlds of the Golwyn Belt, a distant star system that lay outside of Imperial space.

The Daemon founded a new religion with itself as the deity known as Amnaich the Golden. It promised its followers that on the turn of the millennium, if they committed mass suicide, it would take them to a heavenly new "promised land."

In truth, the Daemon intended to use the mass suicide of billions of souls in its name to rip open a Warp rift that would cast the entire star system into the Immaterium where it would feed upon its former worshippers for eternity.

But the growing strength of the Daemon was detected in the Warp by Imperial astropaths. The Inquisition dispatched an Imperial fleet which conducted an orbital bombardment of the planets of the Golwyn Belt at the exact moment that Amnaich's followers began the mass-suicide ritual.

As the Daemon had dispersed its essence into hundreds of golden idols of itself to receive its worshippers' souls, the destruction of those idols in the Imperial bombardment disrupted the ritual, destroying both Amnaich and all those of its followers who had been engaged in the ceremony.

In the wake of the assault, the survivors of the Golwyn Belt were incorporated into the Imperium and reeducated in the Imperial Creed by the Ecclesiarchy. By the 41st Millennium the people of the Golwyn Belt were staunch supporters of the God-Emperor and contributed many elite regiments to the Astra Militarum.

History[]

Siege of Terra[]

Amnaich was among the many Greater Daemons summoned by the sorcerers of the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion into realspace on the Throneworld during the Siege of Terra to assault the Imperial Palace.

After the Outer Palace's Lion's Gate Spaceport fell to the Traitor forces, the Thousand Sons summoned the daemonic legions to assault the Colossi Gate, a bastion guarding the northern approach to the Lion's Gate from the Lion's Gate Spaceport.

While they succeeded in tearing down the outer defences of Colossi, the Daemons, including Amnaich, were banished back to the Warp by the efforts of the White Scars' Stormseers and the Custodians of the Legio Custodes before they were able to completely penetrate the bastion.

False God of the Golwyn Belt[]

In the centuries after the end of the Horus Heresy, the Greater Daemon Amnaich was the scourge of the unsurveyed Human-settled worlds of the Golwyn Belt during the latter centuries of the 39th Millennium. It sought to pull the entire star system into a new realm in the Immaterium where no outside influence could reach it.

In this manner, Amnaich intended to feed from the exquisite pain and pleasure of the billions of souls held captive within this Warp rift for Terran millennia without fear of retribution from the forces of the Imperium.

Amnaich had assumed a truly gargantuan form upon its achievement of Daemonhood, as close to physical perfection as its patron, Slaanesh could bestow. Its voice was described as like rolling thunder in a drought, its seemingly benevolent gaze like the first rays of sun after an eternity of night.

Such was Amnaich's charisma and presence that all who saw it worshipped the Daemon as a god, turning from their traditional fertility deities in the face of this towering manifestation of perfection.

Even the daemonic hosts that cavorted in the Greater Daemon's wake were perceived as shining angels by the populations of the Golwyn Belt, such was the aura of deception the narcissistic Amnaich was capable of casting about itself.

Those fools that worshipped Amnaich travelled far and wide as the Daemon's missionaries, spreading the word of Amnaich, preaching harmony and tolerance across each and every civilisation they encountered.

Such was their conviction and such was the favour Amnaich held with Slaanesh that more and more conversions to the Amnaichan religion erupted with each passing day. Amnaich was truly favoured in the eyes of the Ruinous Powers and sought to orchestrate a mass sacrifice of such magnitude that it would wrench the star system across the skein of reality into Amnaich's promised land in the Warp.

At the height of its power, Amnaich was adored by the populations of every one of the planets populating the Golwyn Belt. His image graced every altar, grail and banner on a hundred worlds, and worship of these graven idols was ingrained upon their populations over the centuries.

This false faith was unshakeable, for the god they worshipped walked among them once every generation. During these manifestations Amnaich appeared to spread joy and light where in reality it spread corruption and false hope.

Under the Daemon's instruction, a vast golden colossus was erected at the heart of each city in the Golwyn Belt, as faithful a representation of Amnaich as the finest sculptors of the day could create.

Such was the scale and perfection of each edifice that it took the labour of entire bloodlines to complete each one and many hundreds died in their creation. This was all the better in the eyes of Amnaich, for his plan neared completion.

As the end of the 39th Millennium neared and the system prepared to celebrate the dawn of a new millennium, the religious creed Amnaich had spread reached a fever pitch. On the eve of the millennial celebrations, the Daemon would take the most devout of its followers to the "promised land," which would actually be a new Slaaneshi hell-realm in the Warp.

Ever eager to be seen as devoted in the omniscient gaze of their god, each and every citizen across the worlds of the Golwyn Belt vowed to transcend mortal existence in the most final and irrevocable way, in a ritual whose culmination would be mass suicide on a star system-wide scale.

The resultant psychic traum in the Warp caused by a suicide pact of such magnitude was certain to rend reality apart across the entirety of the Belt, pulling it within the Immaterium for all eternity.

If Amnaich succeeded in its diabolic plan, it would certainly garner enough power to become the god it had always claimed to be.

Imperial Response[]

Needless to say, such a burgeoning presence in the Warp had not gone unnoticed by Imperial astropaths, despite the remote location of the Golwyn Belt outside Imperial space.

An investigation was launched by the most talented psykers in the Inquisition and the nature of the threat posed by Amnaich was finally realised. An Imperial fleet of then-unprecedented scale was despatched toward the distant star system.

In the days preceding the millennial celebrations, Amnaich undertook a great ritual that allowed it to fragment its consciousness into countless parts, instilling a piece of itself into each of the golden titans at the heart of its disciples' cities.

As its minions ended their lives at the feet of these mighty icons, their souls would flow into each statue, granting Amnaich existence within hundreds of these mighty forms.

With these he would achieve indestructibility, an army of golden titans forged in his own image, feasting from his captive populations in a reign of terror that was to last till the end of time.

On the eve of the millennial celebrations, Amnaich's plans were in place, and it seemed nothing could stop its ascension to godhood. Around each of the golden titans of the Daemon were gathcrcd millions of the faithful, chanting Amnaich's name in unison aod debasing themselves as they prepared to sacrifice themselves to its glory.

Amnaich's consciousness filtered into the statues as its vile ritual reached its climax, ready to gorge on the departing souls of its billions of disciples.

But the Imperial fleet had wasted no time. Such was the sheer size of the golden idols that they could be detected from orbit, and above every one was an Imperial warship.

At a prearranged signal, each of these craft launched a lance strike upon the exact locale of the golden colossi. Each of the sacrilegious structures was blown apart in an instant, the explosion killing every one of those faithful to Amnaich's false religion.

Only those few who had not bowed to Amnaich's epic religious conversion of the Golwyn Belt remained alive. At a stroke, the Imperial fleet had not only obliterated Amnaich for eternity but also selectively destroyed virtually every adherent to its faith.

The dawn of the 40th Millennium did indeed see a new world order as the servants of the Ecclesiarchy were dispatched en masse to convert the confused and frightened survivors of the Golwyn Belt to the Imperial Creed. After such a potent display of force none dared question the might of the God-Emperor.

In the 41st Millennium, the elite Astra Militarum regiments of the Golwyn Strike Corps number well over 200, and the system's planetary tithes regularly exceed even the most stringent demands of the Administratum.

Sources[]

  • Saturnine (Novel) by Dan Abnett, Chs. 2, 5
  • White Dwarf 274 (UK), "Index Malleus: Infernal Threat" by Phil Kelly and Graham McNeill, pp. 34, 37
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