The Covenant of Colchis, usually simply called the Covenant, was the theocratic state religion whose priests ruled the Feudal World of Colchis, the destroyed homeworld of Primarch Lorgar Aurelian and his Word Bearers Legion. The Covenant originally worshipped a variant of the Ruinous Powers of Chaos as part of a religion remembered as the "Old Faith", but after Lorgar's coming to Colchis and his bloody struggle to take control of the Covenant in the Schism Wars, the faith was recentred on the worship of the Emperor of Mankind as its chief deity.
Later, after Lorgar turned to the service of Chaos Undivided, the people of his homeworld turned back to the worship of the Chaos Gods in a far more virulent and heretical form before Colchis' destruction by the vengeful forces of the Imperium in the wake of the Horus Heresy.
History[]
A Planet of Faith[]
Ancient Departmento Cartographicae map depicting the location of Colchis in the Segmentum Pacificus.
The world of Colchis was one of the first planets settled in Mankind's exploration of the stars during the Age of Technology. Located to the galactic north-west of Terra within the region of space later known to the Imperium as the Segmentum Pacificus, Colchis was located towards this segmentum's westernmost region along the border of the neighbouring Segmentum Obscurus. Colchis' continental masses were dotted with strange, crumbling edifices, and no amount of exploration and research could fathom their purpose.
At three times the size of Terra, with a fraction of the population, it took almost five standard years to turn once around its merciless sun. And it turned with great patience; a local day lasted a Terran week, a week lasted a Terran month. From orbit, its skin was a visage of unforgiving mountain ranges and auburn desert plains, veined by threading rivers. It was in dry lands like these that Humanity's ancestors -- the very first men and women on the world no longer called Earth -- rose in lands that would become known as the cradle of civilisation.
Mechanicum Explorators at the time of the Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium put the date of its first Human settlement sometime during the 16th Millennium A.D., though it is impossible to be certain. Imperial scholars and historitors believe that the world of Colchis was once highly advanced technologically during the Dark Age of Technology like much of the rest of Human-settled space, but fell into anarchy during the turbulent time known as the Age of Strife and that its population regressed to the level of a pre-industrial, feudal society.
Colchisian Society[]
Few records remain of the Colchisian society that arose from the ashes of the Age of Strife. Various fragments of these records are reproduced in the Speculum Historiale, the exhaustive history of the Great Crusade penned by the historitor Carpinus. In his description of Colchis, Carpinus tells of a caste of priests calling themselves the "Covenant" who rebuilt the shattered society of Colchis on the promise that a great leader would one day come to deliver them from the darkness their world had descended into.
With harsh religious observance, the Covenant's strict dogma became a monolithic belief structure that permeated every facet of daily life on Colchis. Colchis was a world of peace and law, and the people of Vharadesh, the capital city of the world also known as the "City of Grey Flowers," respected its holy leaders above all.
Over the generations, civilisation had spread itself thin across the arid continents of Colchis, with most of its city-states clinging to the coasts. Each city-state maintained links to the others though sky trade and ocean freight, on a world where roads across the desert plains would be little more than folly. Unlike much of the emergent Imperium, Colchis was unprotected by vast orbital weapon platforms. More tellingly, it also had little in the way of the industrious void stations responsible for feeding and refuelling expeditionary fleets in their crusades through the galaxy.
Colchis at this time still bore the scars of long-forgotten greatness -- an age of wonders, ended in fire. In that sense, it was a future echo of what the world of Khur would eventually become following the rebuke of Lorgar and his entire Word Bearers Legion by the Emperor of Mankind. The world's surface was bruised dark by the bones of dead cities, fallen in unrecorded ages, never resettled. New cities had risen elsewhere with the genesis of a simpler, quieter culture. The ancient ruins suggested a machine-driven empire had once ruled Colchis, though little evidence ever came to light regarding its destruction. The lost kingdom's legacy was evident even in orbit, where drifting, dead hulks -- locked in orbits that would still take millennia to completely decay -- marked the graves of once-thriving interstellar shipyards.
At that time, few Imperial fleets ventured near Colchis, and not merely because of its lack of resupply capacity. Rumours circulated, citing unreliable shipping lanes, and the disappearance of the 2188th Expeditionary Fleet in a nearby region added fuel to that particular fire. Colchis seemed a world focused upon looking inwards, even backwards, refusing to clear its skies of wreckage from the Dark Age of Technology, and resisting all Imperial edicts to establish new orbital bases.
The planet's one concession was to allow the Mechanicum of Mars access to those serene orbiting hulks, letting the Tech-priests plunder whatever they desired. The region was not haunted. No Imperial commander would ever give voice to such a laughable superstition, when such words were holdovers from a more indecorous age. Yet still Colchis saw scarce Imperial commercial traffic, and its resistance to supplying the Great Crusade remained inviolate.
It was said this defiance could only have come from Lorgar, the Emperor's Seventeenth Son, for no other authority would allow a planet to remain so curiously provincial. In the capital city of Colchis, Vharadesh, a golden plaque was fixed to the immense doors leading into the Spire Temple of the Covenant. This tablet marked the primarch's supposed words -- words he had never admitted, yet never denied, speaking to his father. It was also said, by the few that witnessed such rare moments, that the primarch smiled each time he passed those words, and reached out to stroke his golden fingertips across the etched lettering.
Colchis was hardly devoid of technology during the Imperial era. It enjoyed the benefits of Imperial life and culture after its unification with the Imperium, despite its master's hesitance to supply materiel for the Emperor's war. Auspices in the skytraffic towers of Vharadesh tracked the activity in orbit, with scanner consoles lighting up at the sudden pulse of so many signals. Word from the XVII Legion's expeditionary fleets was constantly cycled back to Colchis, for the people of the homeworld took great interest, and great pride, in the conquests of their chosen champions.
Mothers and fathers listened in the hope some chronicle would detail the glory of a son taken from them in childhood and reshaped as one of the Astartes. Covenant clergy listened for inspiration to preach of the primarch's righteousness. This network was maintained by astropaths, sending short, psychic pulses of information back to their counterparts on the homeworld. Several times a solar week, broadcast from speaker towers across the Holy City of Vharadesh, updates of the Legion's progress drew flocks of listeners. City-wide celebrations were declared by the Covenant, the world's theocratic rulers who maintained their control over the world after being led by Lorgar, each time a XVII Legion expedition completed an Imperial Compliance action upon a new world in the name of the God-Emperor.
On Colchis, as on many of the Imperium's most arid worlds, the indigenous life coped with the climate however it could. For the Human population, it was a matter of coastal cities, immense water filtration facilities, irrigation farming, and dealing with the seasonal floods from the rushing rivers that acted as blood vessels for the arid plains.
Vharadesh, the Holy City, was the nexus of such industrious efforts. Swathes of irrigated farmland reached out from the city walls, a triumph of ingenuity over nature. Colchis was an arid, thirsty world, but the perfection of the Human form showed in all things.
Coming of Lorgar[]
Of Lorgar's coming, Carpinus speaks of a fiery comet smashing into the foremost temple of the Covenant bearing the infant primarch, while Lorgar himself often made oblique references to his "pilgrimage" to Colchis. Another tale tells of the arrival of a strange, golden-skinned child at the doors of the Covenant's largest temple, asking to be schooled in their ways. The child was taken into the temple and given the name Lorgar, growing to manhood within its walls and quickly mastering the many tenets and codes of faith imposed by the Covenant.
The truth of the matter will, in all likelihood, never be known, though the answers may lie in the blasted words of the Liber Malum which is sealed in the deepest vaults of the Library Sanctus on Terra, though its pages must never again be opened.
However it came to pass, Lorgar eventually became a devout member of the Covenant, taking fiery words of faith to every corner of the globe, where the power of his oratory and charisma won him many supporters. In his preaching, Lorgar promised the population of Colchis that a saviour god would soon come to them, offering them both spiritual and material salvation. He rose rapidly through the ranks and though the people of Colchis loved him, he had political enemies within the Covenant who grew jealous of his popularity and challenge to their power.
Schism Wars[]
His enemies had vastly underestimated the depth of belief in Lorgar's words and the Covenant eventually split into two factions, the believers in the "Old Faith" of the Great Powers and the so-called "Godsworn" of the Brotherhood of Lorgar who believed in the imminent coming of Lorgar's saviour god, each deeply opposed to the other's belief, and each believing that only they could save their people.
A holy war of horrific proportions erupted, with more and more of the population forced to choose sides as the battles grew larger and spread across the planet. For six Terran years the fighting in these "Schism Wars" raged across Colchis and many were the atrocities carried out in the name of holy righteousness.
Arrival of the Emperor[]
With the end of the war and the triumph of the Godsworn faction of the Covenant over the Old Faith, the people awaited the arrival of the divine being prophesised by their saviour Lorgar, and less than a standard year after the final battle, a mighty, sky-borne vessel descended to the main temple in Vharadesh on a trail of fire. The Apocrypha of Skaros tells that the Emperor and the primarch of the Thousand Sons Legion, Magnus the Red, descended to Colchis with two squads of Thousand Sons Astartes, to meet its mighty war leader.
Lorgar dropped to one knee, immediately recognising the Emperor from his visions, and swore his undying fealty to him. Under Lorgar's rule, every facet of the Covenant's belief structure was already devoted to the worship of the Emperor and the population of Colchis rejoiced at the culmination of Lorgar's prophecy, united behind their new and wondrous god.
The arrival of Lorgar had brought with it both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because the primarch's presence later brought the world into the fold of the Imperium with all its advancements, a curse because his arrival signed the planet's death warrant two hundred standard years later. Under Lorgar's brief rule the planet prospered, but when the Emperor came to Colchis and put Lorgar in command of the XVII Legion, the Imperial Heralds, who Lorgar renamed the Word Bearers, those officials of the Covenant Lorgar left behind to govern the world allowed the planet's civilisation to fall into decline.
Under their rule, the planet rapidly plummeted back into a feudal, pre-industrial state. Imperial commericial traffic avoided Colchis not only due to its lack of orbital infrastructure but also due to rumours that the region suffered from unstable Warp routes after the disappearance of the 2188th Expeditionary Fleet near the planet under suspicious circumstances.
Fate of Colchis[]
Following the end of the Horus Heresy in 014.M31, the Imperium launched a retribution crusade, known as the "Great Scouring," to drive out the remaining Traitor Legion forces and those mortal Heretic forces still loyal to them and corrupted by Chaos-taint. Following this period of bloody vengeance and violence, around 032.M31 the Ultramarines finally took the fight to the Word Bearers' Legion homeworld of Colchis, in retribution for what the Word Bearers had done to Calth during the early years of the Horus Heresy.
When they arrived they found a devastated world, its industry in ruins and its people clinging desperately to civilisation. Given Lorgar's treachery and the Imperium's fear that his Chaos taint had spread throughout the population who had converted to the Word Bearers' heretical faith in the Ruinous Powers, the newly-formed Inquisition ordered the planet to undergo Exterminatus, and following a planetary assault of the planet, the Ultramarines' battle barge, Octavius, bombarded Colchis with Cyclonic Torpedoes.
The geological structure of Colchis was highly unstable and the resultant seismic activity caused by the torpedoes' detonations split the planet apart. Nothing now remains of Colchis and where it once existed is still a closely guarded secret by the Inquisition.
Beliefs[]
The Covenant's belief in a divine leader and saviour was laid out in the sacred text of the faith known as the Canticles of the Covenant. The Covenant's strict dogma permeated every facet of daily life for the people on Colchis. The Covenant originally followed what was known as the "Old Faith," which shared its roots with thousands of Human cultures, across thousands of Human-settled colony worlds and was actually a variant of Chaos-worship. What was known in other cultures as "heaven" was called the "Empyrean" on Colchis, a realm of infinite possibility that was almost assuredly a reference to the Immaterium.
Colchisian legend also talked of great prophets named Khaane, Tezen, Slanat and Narag who made a journey to seek the home of the gods known as the "Pilgrimage". Of course, these names were corruptions of the names of the four major Chaos Gods, Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh and Nurgle, respectively.
Following Lorgar's assignment to command the Word Bearers Legion and departure from Colchis on the Great Crusade, the Covenant changed its belief structure to match that of what would later be known as the Imperial Creed, teaching that the Emperor was the god of Humanity. Speaker towers were erected across Colchis that broadcast updates of the XVII Legion's progress in the Great Crusade and city-wide celebrations were declared each time a Legion expedition reached Imperial Compliance on a new world. In the Word Bearers' case, this meant that the world was often forcibly instructed in the new faith of Emperor-worship. After the events on Khur, the celebration was really
Organisation[]
In the Colchisian capital city of Vharadesh, the "City of Grey Flowers," known to the Covenant simply as the "Holy City," the primary temple of the faith was known as the Spire Temple of the Covenant. Another temple was named the Cathedral of Illumination.
Before Lorgar's arrival on the world from Terra, the Covenant was led by high priests called "Kingpriests," who were anointed by the rituals of a maiden's dance and blood sacrifices, betraying the Old Faith's roots in Chaos-worship.
It is not clear if the Ushmetar Kaul, or "Brotherhood of the Knife", a society of assassins, were part of the Covenant, though their name is Colchisian in origin.
Hierarchy[]
The Covenant's priests were divided into different ranks, which were distinguished by the colour of their robes, usually some pattern of white and grey. From highest rank to lowest, this hierarchy included the following:
- Ecclesiarch - An ecclesiarch was one of the hiughest-ranking priests below the Kingpriest and later Lorgar after he became the Archpriest of the Covenant. They wore dove-grey robes.
- Hierarch - A hierarch was a high-ranking priest just below an ecclesiarch who wore grey-white robes.
- Archpriest - An archpriest was a senior cleric of the Covenant. After Lorgar and his Emperor-worshipping Brotherhood of Lorgar won the Schism Wars, the primarch replaced the old title of "Kingpriest" with Archpriest, and so this became the new title of the Covenant's high priest. The original archpriest's robe colour is unknown.
- Priest - Priests were the fully initiated clergy of the Covenant. They wore Colchisian glyph-embroidered robes.
- Deacon - Deacons were low-level clergy who had not yet been fully initiated as priests of the Covenant. They wore white and grey robes.
The Covenant also maintained a large army of military forces who wore similarly coloured robes to the clergy and ceremonial plate armour.
Dark Heart[]
The Dark Heart was a secret sect within the Covenant that served Kor Phaeron. As he made the transition to become a pseudo-Astartes of the Word Bearers Legion, the sect continued to exist within the Covenant and serve him.
It was dedicated, like Kor Phaeron himself, to eventually resurrecting the beliefs of the Old Faith, i.e., the worship of the Chaos Gods, and replacing the belief in Emperor-worship. One of its members was Bel Ashared.
Sources[]
- Aurelian (Novella) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Prologue
- Dark Heart (Short Story) by Anthony Reynolds
- Dark Creed (Novel) by Anthony Reynolds, Chs. 3, 8
- The First Heretic (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Chs. 5, 7-8, 11-13, 15
- Know No Fear (Novel) by Dan Abnett, Ch. 6
- Lorgar: Bearer of the Word (Novel) by Gav Thorpe, Ch. 1
- White Dwarf 270 (AUS), pp. 66-67, 69