Maugan Ra

"War is my master; Death my mistress."

— Phoenix Lord Maugan-Ra

Maugan-Ra, Phoenix Lord of the Dark Reapers Aspect Warriors, wielding his infamous weapon, the Maugetar

Maugan Ra, the Harvester of Souls, is the founder and Phoenix Lord of the Eldar's Dark Reaper Aspect Warriors.

History

Altansar was one of the many Craftworlds, large and small, that survived the Fall of the Eldar following the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh. It rode out the initial psychic shockwaves that destroyed the Eldar realms but was subsequently caught in the gravity well of the Eye of Terror. Although the Eldar of Altansar fought valiantly against the encroachment of Chaos, they were unable to escape their inevitable doom. Within five hundred Terran years of the Fall their Craftworld was swallowed whole into the Warp. The only soul that escaped the clutches of this roiling Warp Storm was the Phoenix Lord known as Maugan Ra, the Harvester of Souls -- the mightiest of Altansar's Exarchs and founder of the Warrior Aspect of the Dark Reapers.

When Asurmen first taught his brethren the arts of war and trained the first Phoenix Lords in the days immediately after the Fall, it was Maugan Ra that fell furthest from the fold. He fashioned baroque weapons of occult nature; not the blades of his brethren but dark and malefic artefacts that could slay his foes from afar. As his craft progressed, Maugan Ra learnt that even the mightiest weapon could be wielded with surgical precision. This discovery, and his mastery of each of the diverse facets of ranged combat, led to the creation of the deadly Maugetar, loosely translated as the "Harvester," a potent Shuriken Cannon fitted with an in-built Executioner Power Weapon and later to the disciplines of the Dark Reaper Aspect itself.

The Great Devourer

In 997.M41, the last and greatest of the Hive Fleets of the alien menace known as the Tyranids descended upon the galaxy. On the planet of Stormvald in the Segmentum Tempestus, Maugan-Ra stood alone against a Tyranid swarm from Hive Fleet Leviathan and single-handedly triumphed over the horde of savage alien creatures. But this was not the only time that the Harvester of Souls came to the defence of the Eldar against the Tyranid menace. In 992.M41, Maugan Ra played a vital role in the defence of the Eldar race when he made a significant contribution to the victorious last stand of Craftworld Iyanden in the face of the Tyranid invasion of Hive Fleet Kraken.

13th Black Crusade

In 999.M41, Abaddon the Despoiler, the Warmaster of Chaos and the greatest Champion of Chaos Undivided in the galaxy, launched his so-called 13th Black Crusade, the largest and most devastating invasion of realspace by the Forces of Chaos in over ten thousand standard years. Maugan Ra came to the aid of the Ulthwé strike force deployed against the forces of the Great Enemy. As the nightmarish realm of the Eye of Terror vomitted the legions of Chaos into the material universe, it left a gaping lesion in space where realspace and the Warp could coexist. Whilst the great rift was still open and the armies of that hell-plane were spewing forth, Maugan Ra seized his chance. He plunged into the unreality of the Warp and searched its malignant reaches for what was left of his lost people. Over the course of many adventures, Maugan Ra eventually found the remains of his Craftworld. The Eldar of Altansar lived on still, after a fashion.

Maugan Ra guided what was left of his Craftworld out of the Eye of Terror and led them against the Forces of Chaos to deny them their victory. However, at the war councils of the Eldar that followed Altansar's return, there was no welcome from the other Craftworlds' Autarchs for their long-lost kin. Though the Phoenix Lord's people certainly fight hard, not one of them will remove their helm, even under duress, and they speak only in whispers. The question has been asked many times, though never in Maugan Ra's presence -- how could any living Eldar warrior remain untouched by the predations of the Eye of Terror and Chaos itself for so many millennia?

Wargear

Maugan Ra wielding his potent Shrieker Pattern Shuriken Cannon Maugetar

• Phoenix Armour - The legendary Phoenix Lords wear ancient, invaluable Aspect armour so finely wrought it is proof against almost any weapon. Maugan Ra's armour is composed of fragments of the Dark Reaper Aspect Shrine of Altansar. According to Eldar legends, Maugan Ra emerged from the Fall encased in black armour "sculpted with golden bone" wearing a skull helm, the "very image of Death itself."
• Maugetar - Maugan Ra found, in his studies of warfare, that a weapon can be used as carefully as a scalpel, be it a blade or a ranged weapon. As such, Maugan Ra constructed and wields the Maugetar ("Harvester" in the Eldar Lexicon), an ancient and more potent variation of the standard Eldar Shuriken Cannon with an in-built Executioner Power Weapon for melee combat. This scythe-like weapon was built into what is essentially a Shrieker Pattern Shuriken Cannon. The mind-linked discs it fires are large enough to decapitate a swathe of foes one after another before vanishing into nothingness, and the curved blade it sports is worthy of its grim reputation.

Sources

• Codex: Eldar (6th Edition), pp. 61, 65
• Codex: Eldar (4th Edition), pg. 57
• Codex: Eldar (3rd Edition), pg. 40
• Codex: Eldar (2nd Edition), pp. 36, 44, 83
• Codex: Tyranids (5th Edition), pg. 28
• Warhammer 40,000: Munitorum - The Maugetar (Digital Edition)
• Eye of Terror Campaign: Death By A Thousand Cuts

Gallery

The Phoenix Lord Maugan-Ra

Ancient drawing depicting the deadly aspect of the Phoenix Lord Maugan Ra

Maugan Ra in his full panoply of war

The Maugetar, Maugan Ra's formidable Shuriken Cannon