Fanfic / The Roboutian Heresy

"Roboute... Wise Roboute... Roboute with his scratching quills and his plans and his hope! Too understanding... Too strong... Too damn perfect... I wish I had seen it before it was too late!"

— Warmaster Horus

The Roboutian Heresy describes an alternate universe for Warhammer 40,000, where Roboute Guilliman was the one to lead nine Space Marine Legions in rebellion against the Emperor. The Legions which were loyal in canon are traitor in this universe, and vice-versa.

Because this is a fanfiction of Warhammer 40,000, please consult that page for tropes pertaining to the original universe of which this fanfic is set.

It can be found FanFiction.net and SpaceBattles Forum

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Tropes:

A-E

• The Ace: Many of the finest of the Astartes Legion and the Imperium in canon remain the same in the RH-Verse, with only their alliegiances changed.
  • The Sons of Horus are an interesting case of this AND the Butt-Monkey: They were acclaimed as the greatest of the Space Marines during the Great Crusade and is still considered so in the RH-verse. In contrast to the Ultramarines in canon however, ever since Horus' untimely demise their grand glories are often overshadowed by misfortune, sometimes rivalling the Lamenters in canon, with many failures and setbacks tainting even their greatest victories as well as countless grudges and oaths of vengeance against their archenemies which remain unresolved well over ten thousand years.
  • Ahzek Ahriman and Khayon the Black are and remain The Ace among the Thousand Sons, being some of the greatest Psykers the Imperium had whose feats and deeds during the Great Crusade and the Roboutian Heresy are the stuff of legends.
  • Lucius the Reborn, having never fallen to Slaanesh worship as the rest of the Third Legion, was and potentially only remaining in his Legion one of if not the finest swordsman among Astartes, especially after he had his formerly prideful and petulent character humbled and broken by the cruel tortures of the Dark Eldar during the Bleeding War. Among his most impressive kills include among other things a traitor Titan during the Siege of Terra and a Keeper of Secrets during the Angel War when he inexplicably returned from the dead again.
  • Sigismund the Destroyer was the sword champion of Primarch Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists during the Great Crusade, representing his primarch's fury unleashed in battle, and his skill with the chainsword was such that he had defeated all his counterparts in sparring matches and bouts, a winning streak which was only broken by Captain Sevartar of the Night Lords Legion (by head-butting him) after thirty hours of dueling. When the Imperial Fists fell to the worship of Khorne, he out of all Imperial Fists and even his Primarch became the Champion of Khorne. The Cadian Apocalypse reveals him to be a canny strategist as well, and willing to accept thousands of years of hatred by Dorn in order to successfully undo Guilliman's More than Mind Control upon him.
• Adaptation Expansion: The Alpha Legion's origins are revealed in this story, as their canon counterparts origins still remains a mystery. Some light has been shed on their canon counterparts, but Unreliable Narrator has been employed.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • The Emperor seems to be much more openly caring of his sons, with the fic detailing several heartwarming moments between him and characters such as Lorgar, Perturabo, Angron, etc., when they first meet. There is one aversion of this trope, however: when the Emperor comes to rescue Corax from the Tech-lords, he seems to view Corax as nothing more than a tool to be used (which is disturbingly similar to what the canon Emperor told Guilliman). However, it's implied the Emperor merely pretended to act coldly in order to avoid looking weak in front of the Tech-lords, who might have tried to manipulate him into an unfavorable bargain if he openly displayed affection and concern for his son. in addition the scene is from Corax's perspective, who may be an Unreliable Narrator.
  • In general, the loyal Legions seem a lot more polite and appreciative of normal humans in general than the canon loyal Chapters.
• Adaptational Heroism: Famous Traitor Space Marines in the canon are Loyalist in this story like Abaddon, Sevatar, Lucius and Kharn. Averted with Fabius Bile, who remains evil in both canon and RH continuity. Interestingly, though, this universe's Fabius was "driven mad" by the Dark Eldar, whereas the canon Bile has no such excuse.
  • Ahzek Ahriman gets a big dose of this due to the fic taking an alternate interpretation of his Rubric. Unlike canon, where the Rubric is treated as folly Ahriman is desperate to undo and Magnus took thousands of years to forgive him for, in this story Ahriman with help from a returned Magnus, who is not angry with him realizes the fault for the deaths is Tzeenthch's as the mutations in this universe were slowly killing the legion anyway and thus the Rubric saved those who could be saved.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Like the above, famous Loyalist Space Marines in canon are now traitors in this story like Azrael, Sigismund, Marius Gage, Marneus Calgar, Cato Sicarius and Gabriel Angelos, "the Blood Raven".
  • There are also quite a few notable aversions to this trope. The first are loyalists from the canon Traitor Legions such as Nathaniel Garro, Barbaras Dantioch, and Garviel Loken, who remain heroic in both timelines. There are also several marines from the RH Traitor Legions who remain loyal such as Yesugei, Xa'ven, and Alexis Pollux, some of whom ultimately join together to form the RH's version of Malcador's Knights-Errant.
  • While all the Loyalist-turned-Traitor Primarchs are examples of this trope, Vulkan in particular stands out among them. In canon, Vulkan is a Pro-Human Transhuman and a Nice Guy. Here, he's The Sociopath, driven by greed and lust for power. While canon Corax's morality is ambiguous given he handed his homeworld to the Ad Mech oppressors he fought against, he stands with Vulkan as a brother in trope demonstration given his RH incarnation.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: In the Iron Hands chapter, it's implied that all Abominable Intelligences turn on Mankind because they inevitably come to the conclusion that the species is a threat to the galaxy. Come Chapter 40(At Light's End), Moravec believes the threat is specifically humanity in its current form is tied to Chaos and thus must transcend the sin of flesh, and he also believes the Great Machines agree with him.
• Alternate History: Following the Dornian Heresy's example, the RH begins with a Space Marine from the canon Heralds of Ultramar Chapter fighting a Daemon of Tzeentch, and being thrown into a vision where his gene-father Roboute Guilliman turned traitor.
• Ambiguous Situation: In any scene from Azraels perspective it's unclear how accurate the information were getting is. Tzeentch "blessed" him by making it so Tzeentch could rewrite his memories at a whim to suit whatever scheme the changer of ways has in mind for him. Because of this his narration is full of unacknowledged contradictions and Insane Troll Logic.
  • Notably when Magnus is permanently killing Sarthoreal he repeatedly declares each new series of events to be exactly what had been planned for and a great victory, until his mind is briefly freed by the impossibility to justify what was happening as a victory.
• And I Must Scream:
  • Roboute's fate, which destroyed whatever little goodness was left in him, before he was freed from stasis at the conclusion of the Black Crusade on Macragge.
  • The Emperor is interned in the Golden Throne post-Heresy, as in canon, where he would endure unending torment for the next ten thousand years even as he continue to hold back the forces of Chaos and keep the Imperium alive in what little way he could. He is finally relieved of it when Magnus, Lorgar and Omegon saw his true state in the Immaterium and Lorgar euthanizes him in Warp- and Real-space, and despite the chance offered he refuses to fully ascend into Godhood against Omegon's hopes and instead let himself and his power disperse across time and space as part of his final gambit against the Ruinous Powers.
• Anti-Magic: Necrons apparently developed planet wide versions of this.
• Anti-Magical Faction: Among humans, the Death Guard and the pre-heresy Space Wolves; the Death Guard because Mortarion remembered his Dark and Troubled Past under Sorcerous Overlords all too well, the Space Wolves largely because of cognitive dissonance.
• The Anti-Nihilist: Both the Word Bearers, who are utterly atheistic and proud of it, and the Iron Warriors who know how horrible the galaxy is but are still willing to fight for humanity. The Alpha Legion is an interesting variation: The world has no God, so they're going to create one.
• Asshole Victim: In contrast to prior institutions of the Imperium that are attacked during the events of the Angel War, the Adeptus Arbites is framed extraordinarily critically by both Magnus and the narration in general, as the organization valued law and order over actual justice. The characters featured defending the headquarters are similarly shown in a less than flattering light, in contrast to previously featured one-off characters who were at worst Noble Demons still trying to fight for the wellbeing of the Imperium and its people. Unsurprisingly, this is the only front during the Angel War that the forces of Slaanesh win.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: How many Chaos warbands work: in particular, Ultramarines warbands practice a twisted sort of meritocracy.
• The Atoner:
  • Several Legions have or are connected to organizations made of people who want redemption for their sins.
  • Eldrad Ulthran and Asurmen have regrets that they were unknowingly used by the Chaos corrupt Cabal to try and turn two of the Primarchs to Chaos which led to Eldard almost attacking Angron and Asurmen accidentally killing Konrad's adoptive mother.
• Awful Truth: Whatever it was that drove the Raven Guard off the deep end.
• Ax-Crazy: When we see from the perspective of Imperial Fists it comes across as this in part.
  • The warband of Blood Angels named Violators is absolutely insane and acts more like an unnatural disaster than an organized force.
• Badass Boast: Plenty. Ephrael Stern and Ahzek Ahriman in particular have this trope down in the bag during the latest chapter of the Siege of Terathalion.
  "You may think you have won the day, traitors, but we own the night!" - Sevatar, before leading the Night Lords and Emperor's Children into the Siege of Terra.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • The Raven Guard, personally led by Corax, sacks Hydra Cordatus, carrying off the entire repository of Iron Warrior geneseed stored therein, and subjecting one of its commanders to a Fate Worse than Death.
  • The Fall of Chemos. The Emperor's Children Legion is dead and Fabius Bile gets everything he wanted out of it.
  • A more ambiguous one in “The Tower of Uralan”. On one hand, Tu’Shan and the Salamanders failed to get Drach'nyen as it was destroyed with the Emperor’s death (it's a long story, but basically Drach'nyen, being by nature the Emperor's Evil Counterpart as a destroyer of civilizations, was remade by the Ruinous Powers so that its sole purpose was to kill the Emperor. But since the Emperor is already dead, it can no longer fulfill its destiny, and so it is undone). On the other hand, the power it possessed was transferred to Arguleon Veq and transformed him into the ‘Slaughtersong’, a being serving as an Evil Counterpart to the ‘Sword That Was Promised’ in possessing the power/potential to destroy the Chaos Gods themselves - something which Daemon Primarch Vulkan feel inclined to do as it would allow him to replace them.
  • By the end of "The Cadian Apocalypse Part II", the Cadian fortress-world of Kasr Partox has fallen to the Khornite forces with all Imperial defenders killed and its civilian population slaughtered or soon to be slaughtered/corrupted. Sigismund the Destroyer had achieved his true goal of freeing his gene-sire Daemon Primarch Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists from the More than Mind Control ploy Guilliman pulled to put them under their control, and incidentally kick-started the greatest Black Crusade against the Imperium and the galaxy to date with Bile's Black Legion and the Dark Angels which could pave the way to an 'Age of Blood' of Khornite conquest and carnage across the galaxy. While Dorn kills him after being summoned out of the Eye of Terror, Khorne was so impressed with Sigismund's achievements that Sigismund would come Back from the Dead as a Khornite Daemon Prince, and after Sigismund explained everything the two even managed to (sort of) reconcile, opening the possibility of the broken Seventh Legion being reunited.
  • "The Doom of Eisenhorn": Eisenhorn's quest to stop the Yellow King's advent has utterly failed, and in fact his entire obsession with and actions against it had been a centuries-long plot by the unborn Warp deity reaching out beyond time and space to turn the unwitting Radical inquisitor into a vessel to incarnate into the Materium, which the Yellow King promptly does on Sancour.
• Batman Gambit: The reason Fabius Bile attacks Chemos? It's all because he wanted to see if Fulgrim will come running to save the planet and its Legion. Fulgrim doesn't appear, so Bile concludes he must be dead.
• Becoming the Mask: Happens depressingly frequently when the Alpha Legion is infiltrating Chaos. Still, they keep it up, because the alternative is all-out war.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Corvus Corax, who was raised as a lab subject and who may well be the worst of the Primarchs.
  • Fabius Bile, as mentioned above.
• Believing Their Own Lies: The Space Wolves as a whole since before the Heresy - their canonical denial that Rune Priests have anything to do with the Warp is amplified into believing that they are not even psykers (when in canon Rune Priests privately admit that one needs psychic potential to communicate with the spirit of Fenris in the first place), and after Fenris was destroyed, now they're divided evenly between Tautological Templars who believe that somehow Fenris still exists somehow within them, and those who have plummeted past the Despair Event Horizon and admit the truth - but in the same breath blame the Thousand Sons for their current state.
• Berserk Button: Really, every Legion has them. Don't trick the Night Lords into putting down a well-intentioned rebellion or support slavery in front of the World Eaters, unless you want your death and humiliation to be spectacular. The Dark Eldar are a rather sore topic for the Emperor's Children, for very good reason. The Death Guard have two: Never try to blow up a planet if the Death Guard thinks it can be saved. And never tell a Death Guard marine they take in survivors from their purges. They don't leave survivors.
• Beyond the Impossible:
  • After being forced to kneel before Guilliman, the sheer rage inside Titus allows him to overcome the holds enforced by Guilliman’s genetic code and Khornate blessings.
  • The true nature of the Emperor's Heroic Sacrifice is to invoke this, by making it possible for mortals to harm and even outright kill gods, which should had been impossible. Since the Immaterium operates on Clap Your Hands If You Believe, where "Perception becomes Reality becomes Law", by letting himself, who had been made a god by Humanity despite his insistence otherwise, be euthanized by Lorgar with the Sword That Was Promised, on top of finally being freed from his torment, the Emperor has resetted the game being played for aeons via making deicide, and the death of the Ruinous Powers by mortal hands, no longer an impossible prospect.
• Big Damn Heroes: Happens fairly often for both Imperials and Traitors. The return of Guilliman at the end of the Battle of Macragge probably counts. Part 2 In Part One of the Terran Crucible, Inquisitor Czevak is saved from Dark Angels by Cypher. Near the end, Cypher is himself saved from Lion El'Johnson by Lorgar - though Cypher dies soon afterwards.
• Blessed with Suck: The Sons of Horus constantly have bad luck. This is due to the sheer spite for the Sixteenth Legion the Ruinous Power developed after the Mournival (with the help of Ahriman) saved Horus from their corruption and the legion as a whole defied them from the start of the Roboutian Heresy well into the present day. The Chaos Gods' hatred for them would become a real force in the Warp, constantly weigh the dice of destiny against the Sons of Horus and sabotaging them at every turn. That the Sixteenth Legion continued to not only survive in spite of their curse but also remain among the greatest protectors of Humanity for over ten thousand years is a testament of the Sons of Horus' collective strength and determination.
• Body Horror:
  • The traitor Raven Guard dabble in this, as a result of their fleshcrafting obsession. This is particularly pronounced in their Spawn Marines, mass-manufactured clone Space Marines with utterly warped features.
  • As in canon, the Thousand Sons suffered from a high mutation rate that exploded after the heresy (here the explosion blamed on Tzeentch's wrath). Ahriman's Rubric put a stop to it...at the cost of killing most of the legion and trapping their souls in their armor as Rubrics. In-universe, this is treated as the right decision as it at least ended up saving who could be saved.
  • Bile's experiments, as in canon.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: As with canon 40k, most bodyguard units including Custodes, who guard the Emperor. Azkaellon and the rest of the Sanguinary Guard deserve an honorary mention for guarding a lord hiding away from the rest of the galaxy in reclusive madness. It has been revealed as a ruse, and Azkaellon dies rather pathetically, bleeding to death, abandoned by Sanguinius.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only had their souls stolen by the Dark Angels and turned into the Lord of Wraiths and his undead army, having broken his mind so all he could focus on was the feeling of abandonment. Cain recognizes this after he becomes a Living Saint and breaks the spell, returning Gaunt's free will.
• Break the Haughty: The Emperor's Children go through a legion-wide example when they all end up in the Webway fighting the Dark Eldar. Fulgrim came out of it no longer the pretty one.
• Came Back Wrong: Implied to happen when the Raven Guard Apothecaries bring someone back to life. Also happened to Jaghatai Khan, who wound up as a daemonhost.
• Cavalry of the Dead:
  • In the final stages of the Siege of Terathalion, as Ragnar Blackmane attempts to invade the sanctum, Iskandar Khayon awakens the Rubric Marines, a long-held secret of the Thousand Sons, to unleash a brutal and devastating counter-attack against the invaders. Said army is currently still in action.
  • The Dark Angels try for an evil version, by unleashing the Lord of Wraiths (an undead, brainwashed Ibram Gaunt) on Ciaphas Cain and his forces, which works...for about two minutes before Cain becomes a Living Saint and breaks their control, causing the entire Tanith First and Only to have a Heel–Face Turn and become another straight example.
• Cosmic Horror Story: The setting as usual, but the Raven Guard seem to be living one. Even by 40K standards.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Bile's personal bodyguard and assassin "the Eldest" inflicts it two times during the Chapter 33. During his firt appearance he slaughtered 47 Astartes from the Third Legion and didn't seem to get any crippling injures. When he appeared for the second time, "the Eldest" killed most of Inquisitor Covenant's retinue. Chapter 73, 'The Cadian Apocalypse - Part I' reveals why and how this is the case: He is none other than a revenant of Horus Lupercal. Not just a clone, but his original soulless dead body reanimated by Fabius Bile (the one the Sons of Horus destroyed was apparently a clone body used to trick them). Incidentally, he also curbstomped the Warp-empowered Cerberus (real identity Gaviel Loken) in the same chapter when he tried to kill Fabius Bile again.
  • Daemon Primarch Corvus Corax alone versus Cadmean Citadel's garrison. It took him a single mental command to incapitate three Warhound Titans.
• Cursed with Awesome: Cypher is revealed to have Resurrective Immortality due to being possessed by a mostly dormant piece of an Eldritch Abomination.
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • Unlike their canon counterparts, the Night Lords of this story are justice-obsessed mystics who see justice as the ultimate end, and terror is just a means to attain it. The canon Night Lords saw terror as an end in itself.
  • Post-Dark Eldar, the Emperor's Children have developed a not-so-odd acceptance of pain and hardship. In their eyes, you have to earn perfection, otherwise you wouldn't have the wisdom and honor that makes perfect perfect.
    "We bleed. We endure. And in enduring, we grow strong."
  • Garviel Loken, now Cerberus, is revealed to not only be still alive in the present, but he has become infused with the power of the Warp, making him "more daemon than man" in the mocking words of Bile. Despite this, however, he is still a firmly heroic character who utterly rejects the corruption of Chaos, and has dedicated the rest of his existence to destroying Bile and his clones once and for all.
  • Aeonid Thiel was able to fake being a Daemon Prince (he might have been one, technically), but he never lost his loyalty to the Imperium; he actually managed to successfully turn Chaos upon itself.
  • Cypher spent ten thousand years being inhabited by the Ouroboros, to the point where the light of the Blade that was Promised hurt him as much as any daemon. But he still finished his mission of delievering the Blade to Terra, and was completely loyal until his final death.
  • Colonel-Commissar Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only, after Cain breaks the sorcerous control of the Dark Angels. He's still the undead Lord of Wraiths, but he has all of his heroic living personality and very pissed off at what the Traitor Marines did to him and his men.
• Dark Lord on Life Support: Gulliman is trapped in a state between life amd death before reviving at the end of the Black crusade on Maccragge.
• Deader than Dead: Sanguinius is gone, completely and absolutely gone, its soul was obliterated by Lorgar and Epharel Stern, signaling, as of now, the greatest victory against the Force of Chaos and specially Slaneesh.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Inquisitor Fidus Kryptman (best known for exterminating planets to starve tyranids, and luring them to fight the orks) runs into conflict with Death Guard over said practice, which escalated to the point that Inquisition decided that it's easier to throw him under the bus than make peace between them. He was eventually tracked down and killed, but not before causing much more destruction.
  • Gaunt's Ghosts, and Colonel-Commissar Gaunt himself, all fall in battle on Tanith when the planet was assaulted and razed by an Imperial Fists warband. Gaunt's body was never found, however - later revealed to have been taken by the Dark Angels to turn into a Brainwashed and Crazy undead revenant.
  • The Emperor of Mankind himself also dies at Lorgar's hands to be freed of the Golden Throne.
• Despair Event Horizon: Just before Horus kill him, Sanguinius breaks down and allows Slaanesh to take his pain away. He just has to kill Horus first...
• Deal with the Devil: After being banished by Magnus during his journey to Terra, the Keeper of Secrets M'kari makes a deal with the masters of the Forge of souls to return to the Materium sooner that it normally would, losing its allegiance to Slaneesh in the process.
• Determinator: Against the one Primarch considered Horus' equal, who by then had slain Horus and had ascended to become a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, the Mournival take him on in a last-ditch counterattack after the Emperor's Children and Night Lords attack the traitors in the rear. Granted, it was four-on-one, and the Mournival were wearing Terminator armor, but even then they barely won. Towards the end of the battle Abaddon was reduced to crawling through dirt, Tarik had lost an arm, and Aximand had half his face torn off and his guts ripped out, and even Loken was sporting several injuries. It took a last-minute trans-Human burst of power (possibly psychic in nature, given Abaddon and Aximand gained them when they picked up Horus' weapons) to allow them to banish Sanguinius.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • The Mournival defeat Daemon Prince Sanguinius after Horus kicks the bucket.
  • While assisting the Mournival in their rescue of Horus' soul in the Warp, Ahzek Ahriman inflicts a blow on Tzeentch. And ten thousand years later, he and the spirits of the original Mournival would do it again, to ALL OF THE CHAOS GODS while rescuing the soul of Magnus the Red from the clutches of the Chaos Gods.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Daemon Prince Marius Gage is actually Aeonid Thiel, who somehow pretended to be Marius for millennia. Even the Chaos gods were fooled!
• Doomsday Device: Vulkan, just like in canon, built many of these. Unlike his canon self, however, he was more than happy to use them, attaching them to the Chalice of Fire.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Thiel's ultimate fate is to die peacefully knowing he completed his final duty to the Imperium despite how deeply he dove into Black Magic to save it.
• Eldritch Abomination: All Daemon Primarchs, the Unkind, the Yellow King and Weregelds.
  • Drach'nyen, the End of Empires, the daemonic embodiment of Humankind's murderous and malicious impulses born from the very first murder by Humanity's ape-like ancestors (implied to be the one inspiring Cain and Abel), is portrayed as this when not in its usual 'daemonic sword' form: a terrible thing towering over titans appearing as either a "living storm of teeth sharp as knives", a "pillar of flesh covered in hands holding bloody rocks" or a "hungry blackness darker than even that which can be glimpsed in the Webway's cracks", depending on the viewer watching its ever-shifting forms.
• Empowered Badass Normal: "Normal" is a bit of a stretch for a Space Marine, but Thiel has no psychic potential at all and became something that could pose a fair fight to Guilliman.
• Enemy Civil War: The other eight Traitor Legions have never forgiven Roboute and the Ultramarines for not only using them as cannon fodder during the Roboutian Heresy but also abandoning them when Roboute fell. Their hatred was so great that when two Black Crusades led by the Ultramarines and the other Traitor Legions respectively were launched after the end of The War of the Beast, a perfect opportunity since the Imperium was at its weakness, rather than both forces uniting and finally crushing the Imperium, they instead went to war with each other to settle their grudges, allowing the Imperium to rebuild their forces and attack the now-weakened remnants. Operatives of the Hydra who infiltrated the two forces did have a hand in it though, as did Thiel in his guise as "Gage".
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • All the other Traitor Legions despise the Space Wolves for their occasional alliances with xenos.
  • The Traitor Legions as a whole thoroughly despise the Ultramarines for abandoning them when Guilliman fell, to the point that they, as a united Black Crusade, chose to attack a separate Black Crusade led by the Ultramarines instead of attacking an Imperium weakened by the War of the Beast. Though this may not be moral outrage as much as it is a desire for vengeance.
  • The RH Raven Guard are considered thoroughly evil and despicable even by the other Traitor Legions, and dabble in darker powers that even your "standard" Chaos Space Marine would balk at. According to Zahariel's beta-reader Janeara Targaryen, Fabius Bile broke his association with them out of DISGUST.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: A frequent and reoccurring theme that is addressed frequently in-canon, as the forces of Chaos are often undone by their own selfishness and assumptions that humanity can be no better. To whit:
  • The Unborn Crusade, while manipulated by Alpha Legion and Aeonid Thiel, hinged on the idea that the non-Ultramarine traitor legions hated them and the hatred was reciprocated. Later, during the Angel War a smaller-scale version of this occurs as Slaaneshi-bound Ultramarine Constantinius frees scores of imprisoned Chaos Space Marines, only for them all to turn against him simply because he was an Ultramarine. Even the Blood Angels, who also serve Slaanesh, joined the other traitor Marines in the fight against him.
  • In order to breach the final protective wards shielding the comatose Magnus, Sarthoreal sacrificed all his fellow Lords of Change so he could safely enter. Later on, the absence of any Greater Demons allows Ephrail Stern and the few remaining Thousand Sons to hold off the last few waves of demons and traitor marines.
  • It is what saved Lorgar from continuing to be lost in the Warp. He noticed the Fallens's calls to save Cypher's life when in the Webway. Daemons never tried to lure him into an ambush with a cry to help someone else, and so he actually followed it to get into the Webway - and from there, realspace.
  • The Emperor's final Hail Mary against Chaos involved him dying to give rise to all Living Saints in the past, present, and future, as well as revealing a hidden foe (first mentioned in RH Raven Guard's index entry, known as the Yellow King) who is implied to be responsible at least in part for Chaos and virtually everything else bad in the setting stemming from it. While it by no means will guarantee the survival of Humanity, it was the only course of action he could take that Chaos wouldn't be able to predict and plan for, and in doing so at least give humanity a chance.
  • Subverted with Daemon Primarch Sanguinius, after the reveal that he is not as crazy as he pretends to be. The Chaos Gods, by their very natures as monstrously-selfish reality-cancers, were unable to predict and thus prepare for the Emperor's final Hail Mary against Chaos. However, Daemon Primarch Sanguinious who before his downfall was one of the closest Primarchs to the Emperor, possessed both the memories and just enough Humanity left in him to deduce the Emperor might pull something as selfless as his Hail Mary, and thus prepared accordingly through his avatar/alias of the Sanguinor to take advantage of it while the Imperium is still reeling. If true, it would explain why and how Sanguinius/Sanguinor was able to engineer the Angel War to strike at the Sol system almost the moment the Emperor died from his sacrifice, potentially giving Slaanesh the best shot at destroying the Imperium at its heart or at the very least cripple it before they can rally and take advantage of the Emperor's sacrifice against them.
  • Then played straight with Rogal Dorn, as upon learning of the death of the Emperor that he is going to turn his attention away from the Imperium and instead wage war against the other forces in the Warp, simply because he thinks he can get away with it now and conquering the Imperium itself will just be a victory lap.
  • The same is for returned Guilliman, who believes the Emperor chose to die out of despair and to spite Dark Gods.
• Evilutionary Biologist:
  • Bile, just like in canon.
  • Corvus Corax and Apothecaries from his legion.
• The Extremist Was Right: Thiel made a pact with an entity (likely Malal) and spent thousands of years in the Ruinstorm turning the Ultramarines upon themselves; one of the quotations in the Battle of Macragge reveals his actions have changed fate, making it so that it's possible for Roboute to lose the final battle.

F-J

• Fatal Flaw:
  • Dorn's is rage: lots and lots of rage. Meanwhile, Lion El'Jonson suffered from paranoia (due to the whispers of Kalros Fateweaver). Sanguinius was willing to do anything to save his Space Marines, and Ferrus Manus couldn't stand weakness, including his own. Finally, Leman Russ couldn't trust psychic powers (despite making use of them) and Roboute ultimately made an impulsive decision when a demon brought up his adopted family. Corax's is mistrust of the Emperor and Khan's was his reclusiveness.
  • Subverted with Magnus as his own temper is almost this, but he reins himself in to be the leader his men and the Imperium as a whole need after his absence.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Some is done by having something be similar to canon. Magnus was in a coma-like state to preserve his life while his soul was trapped in the warp, making him an analogue to canon!Roboute and therefore the first Primarch to return (although technically Omegon never left).
  • Marius Gage seems to often regret what he has become and tries to invoke redemption a lot with other Ultramarines, which is pretty strange for a Daemon Prince. Because he isn't Gage, let alone a Daemon Prince; he's the loyalist Aeonid Thiel, and he regrets turning to Xanthist-esque ideals of turning Chaos against itself.
• For Want Of A Nail: As a result of some changes in this timeline, the Primarchs that turned traitor in canon remained loyal while the loyals one in canon turned traitor.
  • For the Loyalists:
    • When Magnus was purging Prospero of the Psychneunn, he encountered a "Psychneunn Prime", which could nullify his psychic powers and nearly killed him. The creature also wounded him, destroying his right eye, and Magnus only managed to kill it by body-slamming it to the ground and pummeling it to a pulp. This implicitly taught him that psychic powers and the Warp weren't everything, and that things are more than they seem (the Psychneunn Prime was frail physically, but it certainly didn't stop it from briefly dominating Magnus). This would later allow Magnus to see Tzeentch for what he was (the Lie), and by literally turning his back on Tzeentch in the Warp, broke his hold over the legion (the Flesh Change). Much later, in the Council of Nikaea, Magnus remained silent throughout the proceedings rather than join the pro-psyker camp as expected, which is implied to have been a factor in the Emperor's final decision being to not ban the use of psyker powers, ensuring that psykers, while still feared, are treated with more respect than in canon.
    • Konrad Curze was raised by a human mother who cared for and loved him, preventing his rise as a psychotic Punisher expy in canon while becoming a noble Batman-like figure who valued life.
    • Librarians of the Emperor's Children noticed the trap in the Laer temple much earlier, alerting everyone to the Chaos corruption in a timely manner. Also, Fulgrim never picked up the Blade of the Laer and it was instead used on Vespasian, who resisted the daemon's corruption until the Thousand Sons could banish the daemon back into the Warp. Because of this, there was nothing to corrupt him and he remained loyal. Later, their encounter with the Dark Eldar, while horrific, taught him much-needed humility and reminded him of he and his Legion's mortality.
    • Eldrad ordered the Eldar not to attack the baby Angron when he crashed landed. As he was not injured, Angron was not captured by Slavers and given the Butcher Nails, which made Angron in this timeline not driven to anger and madness and not falling into Chaos, and raised by peasants who taught him to despise pointless war.
    • Horus is implied to have a slightly more positive view on his father as a result of how their first meeting went. The Emperor was also less blunt and a much nicer person than in Canon, so he was able to put his son's concerns and questions at ease when he withdrew from the Great Crusade and made Horus the Warmaster. Horus was also helped by his more compassionate and diplomatic brothers in shouldering his duties as Warmaster so he was not overwhelmed by the burdens of his position, and was encouraged to soften his approach to make things easier, leaving him less doubtful of himself and less obsessed with his achievements. Also, as they were no Poor Communication Kills between them, the Sons of Horus did not exterminate the Interex after both sides were able to clear up any confusion between them with the latter helping the former prevent Horus from being corrupted (Sadly, the Interex are still killed off by an unknown force after the Sons of Horus were forced to leave their new allies when the Roboutian Heresy began). Additionally the now-loyal Erebus, rather than orchestrating Horus' downfall, alerts Horus to the Chaos corruption on the planet, prompting them to exterminate the Davinite tribes.
    • While Alpharius and Omegon don't have enough of a canon backstory to to state where the divergence was, Curze gave them both a What the Hell, Hero? moment that reminded them there's a point where I Did What I Had to Do stops being a justification for the means. One thing that change with canon was their relationship with the Cabal. Unlike their canon counterparts, the Alpha Legion didn't join the Cabal but destroyed them as both the Chapter and ex-Cabal members like Eldrad Ulthran learned the organization was infiltrated by Chaos agents and unknowingly serving for Chaos.
    • Mortarion escaped from the Witch-King earlier and chose to live among normal humans peacefully for a time, causing him to value life more. More importantly, unlike in the HH timeline, the Witch-King actively attacked and killed everyone in Mortarion's village that he had grown close to. His need to avenge his family gave him a resolve and motivation that he lacked in the original timeline, and allowed him to kill the Witch-King himself where he would have failed in the canon timeline. As a result, the Emperor never took the kill from him, and there was no resentment between him and his father, even when the Emperor later ruled in favor of the Librarius at the Council of Nikaea, a decision that Mortarion was adamantly opposed to but ultimately respected (it helped that he was given the Sisters of Silence to compensate for a lack of a Librarius). His and his legion's later cooperation with the Thousand Sons during the Roboutian Heresy and the subsequent Scouring led to a grudging respect forming between them.
    • Perturabo's hated foster father died before the Emperor showed up, and having authority and responsibility thrust on him caused him to mature and become a Humble Hero who was content with the Boring, but Practical work.
    • On Colchis, Lorgar grew up as part of a family in Colchis that directly suffered under the Covenant's oppression, becoming the Covenant's worst enemy and the most ardent supporter of the Imperial Truth, as well one of the most anti-Chaos Primarchs in the entire Imperium.
  • For the Traitors:
    • In addition to some rather deep personal tragedies (especially the loss of his wolf-siblings) and as implied, destruction of two Space Marine Legions with their Primarchs, the Emperor's decision to allow psychic powers greatly angered Leman Russ, who became obsessed with proving to the Emperor that psychic powers were evil. This led him and his legion to obsessively search for xenos evidence to prove his point, destroy Prospero (a loyal world) of his own accord, break the Webway in an attempt to assassinate Magnus, and fully turn traitor through Lion'El Johnson's influence.
    • Large armies of orks found Inwit before the Emperor did while Rogal Dorn was in command, ultimately resulting in the destruction of Inwit, an event which would haunt Rogal Dorn and bring out the worst aspects of his personality. He became obsessed with strength (of the martial variety in particular) over all else, his bluntness is magnified to offensive levels, he became merciless to even enemies who surrendered, and he swapped places with Perturabo in canon as the immature Glory Seeker of the two, all of which alienated him from his brothers and even his father and eventually even cost him the chance of becoming the Praetorian of Terra (which went to Perturabo, still his rival in the RH-verse). His growing rage at being denied recognition as well as perceived growing 'softness' of the Imperium and even his brothers in the face of their external enemies and internal dissent allowed Gulliman to persuade him into rebellion and for Khorne's corruption to take hold in him and his Legion.
    • Instead of being raised by the prisoners of Kiavahr, Corvus Corax was handed over to the Tech-lords to be tortured and experimented on, which played a huge role in his corruption. It also didn't help that when the Emperor arrived to recover him, he had to hide any emotional attachment to Corax and instead pretend that his interest in him is purely that of an amoral scientist wanting to recover his creation simply because he had a use for them, even to the point of referring to Corax as "it"... and poor Corax was conscious enough to hear that, leading him to draw the worst possible conclusions about the Emperor.
    • Kairos Fateweaver drove Lion'El Johnson mad through voices in his head, ultimately luring him to Tzeentch's side. This had the side effect of making Luther and his Fallen the Loyalists instead.
    • Instead of being found by humans when he landed in Nocturne, Vulkan was found by a Nocturne Salamander who raised him, only to attack him when he grew older due to his lack of the salamanders' instincts to leave the nest when he should, which emotionally scarred him forever. He died only to find himself returning to life due to his Perpetuity, which combined with his emotional trauma led to him and his legion to disregard transient mortals as worthless and becoming one of the cruelest, greedy and domineering, instead of one of the compassionate, generous and nurturing of all the Primarchs and Space Marines.
    • Be'lakor stirred up war in Macragge that led to the deaths of the two people Guilliman considered as parental figures, and years later Guilliman furiously pursued Be'lakor into the Warp and exposed himself to the corruption of the Ruinous Powers. Not to mention his growing lack of trust in the Emperor after Khur.
    • Rather than raising him as one of their own, the nomadic Baalite Human tribe which found Sanguinius instead gave him to a sealed vault shelter populated by pureblood Baalites in his youth, where he was raised to despise the mutant and deviant even more than in canon, which also planted a seed of doubt in his own purity considering his wings along with all other differences between him and other pureblood Humans. When the flaws of the Blood Angels start to afflict his Legion, he was even more obsessed in finding a cure for it out of fear of his Legion degenerating and that the Emperor would have him and his Legion purged for his deviancy. Ultimately, in his desperation, he would accept a pact with Slaanesh offered by the Keeper of Secrets Kyriss the Perverse at Signus Prime to free the Blood Angels of their flaws, damning them all.
    • Jaghatai Khan was found by the Palatine (who turned out to be a Chaos worshipper) instead of the tribes, exposing him to the corruption of Chaos early and allowing the Warp Storms at Chondrax to whisper into mind and corrupt his heart, and giving him a fundamental distrust of anyone who called themselves Emperor, causing him to become even more isolated than in canon.
    • After his/her attempt to corrupt the Emperor's Children through the Laer failed, Slaanesh collaborated with Nurgle to bring Ferrus Manus and the Iron Hands to Nurgle and to lure the Dark Eldar to attacking Fulgrim (and indirectly claim vengeance for refusing Slaanesh's corruption). Not helping matters was that Ferrus Manus already had a crack in his spiritual armor due to having been defeated by the Silver Wyrm, Asirnoth, in their first round when his arrival on Medusa unleashed it, and by the time he defeated it in the rematch a whole Medusan tribe was slaughtered, something which he blamed himself for and planting a seed of doubt about his own fallibility which, on top of making him double-down on his Might Makes Right beliefs and despise weakness even more than in canon, gave Nurgle an opening to infect him and then his Legion with Nurgle's Rot, which gradually eroded their resolve until they broke and turned to Nurgle for deliverance.
• Glamour Failure: Blood Angels can suffer from this, which they don't like at all. A big example of this is the beginning of Ahzek Ahriman's confrontation with Rafen the Kinslayer, the leader of the attack on the Black Library. Ahriman briefly is lured by the angel's unholy beauty, but quickly remembers all of the atrocities committed by Sanguinius and the Blood Angels. This realization immediately destroys the Glamour, which reveals Rafen's hideous true form and sends him frothing with rage.
  • Ahzek Ahriman not only repeats but magnifies this feat a hundredfold by sacrificing his own life to destroy the Glamour of Sanguinius himself, causing him to be exposed as the monster that the truly is and transforming his army from an organized force into a chaotic mess of mutated and bloodthirsty savages.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • The Death Guard is not called in to carry out Exterminatus. No, they're called in when Exterminatus wouldn't be thorough enough. Or if they can't reach the planet to do an Exterminatis.
  • During the Angel War, when the Chapter Master Geronitan of the Grey Knights realize he was going to lose the duel against the Damned Lord - who with his warband the Regals had been designed in every aspect to counter and destroy the Grey Knights - Geronitan decided to counter him and them in turn with one of the secret weapons created by the Emperor which the Grey Knights had kept sealed on Titan, described as among those tools of war so potent even the Emperor is scared of its full potential. With the Grey Knights and the Sol system threatened with destruction, however, there was nothing left for Geronitan to lose in unleashing 'The Angel' upon the Damned Lord and the rest of the Regals. True to Geronitan's hopes, 'The Angel' obliterated the Regals and mortally-wound the Damned Lord in short order before vanishing elsewhere, saving Titan and the Grey Knights but in the process releasing the uncontrollable and extremely destructive being back into the galaxy.
• Go Mad from the Revelation:
  • The Raven Guard like to do this to people.
  • Subverted by Magnus: after he confronted and rejected Tzeentch in the Warp, he rushed to see the Emperor at once, distraught at what he had learned. The Emperor personally checked Magnus for taint, and after swearing Magnus to secrecy he reassured Magnus by telling him that he had a plan to deal with it.
  • Also subverted by Lorgar: his reaction to the 'Primordial Truth' is to put everything he has to its destruction.
    "No god worthy of worship would demand such horror committed in his name."
• Guile Hero:
  • The Alpha Legion, naturally. They've also become something of a Terror Hero Legion as well, because they're smart enough to outwit Tzeentch cultists a significant portion of the time.
  • Aeonid Thiel spent millennia as The Mole pretending to be Marius Gage, all to cripple the Ultramarines before the final battle.
• The Heavy: Of the four Chaos Gods, Slaanesh comes across as being the most influential and active in the story, with Tzeentch coming in second place. Three Legions' fall to Chaos can be blamed on the Dark Prince, with Khorne wanting the Blood Angels only for them to be stolen by Slaanesh instead. This necessitated him shifting his focus to the Imperial Fists instead, and Slaanesh helped Nurgle claim the Iron Hands so they wouldn't be able to rescue the Emperor's Children from the Dark Eldar. Additionally, of the battles of the End Times, the Angel War is by far the biggest both in terms of scale (with an all-out assault by Slaaneshi forces on the Solar System and Terra especially) and length (dwarfing the length of all End Times content written before it combined) such that Zahariel has vowed to avoid writing similar-length battles afterwards.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Plenty, since just like in canon 40K, the martyr’s grave is the keystone of the Imperium.
  • At Istvaan, Typhon sacrificed his life and rammed his ship Terminus Est into the Traitor Legion formations to open a hole for the Loyalists to escape, Kroeger led a sacrificial assault to distract the traitors from the inner defenses in the final stages of the Siege of Terra, Dantioch sacrificed his life to allow Lorgar and Angron's forces to escape the Ruinstorm and transport them to Terra, etc.
  • The biggest and likely most consequential one yet occurred in Chapter 40, The Terran Crucible Part 2: The Emperor rejecting godhood and finally dying in order to pull a hail-mary against Chaos, upsetting the board of fate and giving Humanity a fighting chance to survive and prevail in the Time of Endings.
• History Repeats: The destruction of Rafen the Slayer, Slaanesh's chosen champion in the invasion of the Black Library, causes a repeat of Sanguinius' death where all of the Blood Angels are consumed in their leader's death throes, reducing the Blood Angels to utter uselessness and leading to a complete and total victory for the defenders of the Black Library.
• Hive Mind: The original Fabius Bile is dead, but he preserved his consciousness through clones of himself that share thoughts when close together.
• Hope Spot: The Interex are spared by the Sons of Horus thanks to their help in preventing Horus being corrupted by Chaos with the Primarch himself hoping to learn more about the ways the Interex deal with Chaos and a possibility of having xeno races living peacefully with the Imperium rather than be exterminated. Then Horus is killed during the Siege of Terra and the Interex were wiped out by an unknown race of Chaos-corrupted xenos during the Heresy.
• Humanoid Abomination:
  • Some Children of the Raven are this. All Blood Angels are underneath their Glamour.
  • Unusually given the nature of the setting, Garviel Loken is at least implied to have become a heroic version.
  • And let's not forget about Spawn Marines and Purebloodes from the Nineteenth Legion.
  • Roboute Guilliman after his awakening in Chapter 31.
• Humans Are Cthulhu: What drove the Raven Guard into the arms of Chaos, upon discovering the true nature of the Primordial Annihilator: They are us. Or rather, the psychic reflections cast into the Warp by the collective soul of Humankind and the countless other species to had, have and will ever live in the galaxy. The horrible realization that Human/Sapientkind itself created such a terrible evil that is Chaos and that they are seemingly doomed to be consumed by it pretty much broke them completely.
• Humongous Mecha: Plenty given it's an Alternate Universe of Warhammer 40,000.
  • The Plague Colossi are Battle-Titans which fell to the corruption of Nurgle, twisted into horrific amalgramations of flesh, bone and metal. Their crew are fused with their titans, their weaponry and armor mutated into Warp-grown, tumorous chitin and organic-looking cannons, and their Machine Spirits replaced by daemonic fusion of all the souls who were linked to them. Many of them originated from the Titan cohorts which accompanied the Iron Hands when they fall prey Nurgle's infecting gifts and corruption, and more were lost post-Heresy as other cohorts fell to corruption. They could be bound to service of Chaos sorcerers who telepathically direct them and their firepower, and it's mentioned in the Iron Hands' entry that some like Iron Hands legionnaire Anatolus Gdolkin are working to bind and unify as many of them as possible into a unified force which could tear their way out of the Eye of Terror and rampage across the Galaxy.
  • The Wardens of Ahat-iakby are Warlord-class Titans custom-made for the Thousand Sons Legion which were made in the image of Prospero's ancient gods, and are basically Psi-Titans capable of wielding psychic powers and destroy their enemies with purifying fire and kinetic blasts, though at the literal cost of being five times more expensive than the average Warlord-class Titan and possessing proud and powerful Machine-Spirits which takes themselves after the gods of Prospero they were modelled after and could only be awakened by a deluge of psychic energy supplied by a powerful psyker - a process which usually kills them, making the awakening of any of them requiring a sacrifice, like a Thousand Son member or a non-Astarte psyker of relatively equal power, who would serve as its princep until the battle is over and their lives are spent, reduced to a psychic echo in the Titan's core.
  • Chapter 64, 'The Angel War: Titanomachy' is essentially one gigantic slugfest between Titans as the God-Machines of the Legio Titanica, supported by Imperial Knights and later joined by the forbidden Psi-Titans of the Ordo Sinister fought against the Slaanesh-aligned warhost under the command of Daemon Prince Leonatos, the 'Tyrant of Eidolon', and his packs of Slaanesh-corrupted Battle-Titans and other machines at the Transsyberian Line (the only place on Holy Terra open and sturdy enough for the warring cohorts of Titans to battle each other) as part of the Angel War. One of its highlights is the epic duel between the the Imperator-Class Battle Titan Dies Irae - which unlike in canon fought for the Loyalists during the Roboutian Heresy - commanded by Princeps Julius and Leonatos' own Chaos-corrupted Imperator-class Battle Titan - the eponymous Tyrant of Eidolon - from which he's personally commanding the Eidolon warhost. Against all odds, Princeps Julius and Dies Irae narrowly wins, destroying the Tyrant of Eidolon and banishing Leonatos back into the Warp, winning the battle of the Imperials as the Eidolon warhost lost all cohesion without their Tyrant's dominating will and are destroyed piecemeal.
  Princep Julius: [Annoucing through Vox] ENGINE KILL.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Many Iron Warriors and Alpha Legionnaires are willing to do horrible things for the greater good. The Death Guard destroys planets for the greater good, and still feels horrible about it despite knowing it must be done.
• "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Luther, to Zahariel after the latter was possessed by the Ouroboros. Which actually worked, causing Zahariel to become the dominant personality and assume the identity of Cypher.
• In the Blood: the Children of the Raven, unfortunates who had Raven Guard Apothicaries play with their family's genomes and turning them into lineages of latent mutants. The Inquisition is so understandably terrified of them that some minor Radicals keep Genestealer Hybrids around, because Children can't be infected, and they can detect Tyranid infection. Some more Radical ones, naturally, keep Children who only mutate physically around as secret weapons and Chaos infiltrators.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Fabius Bile still turns traitor, even though the Emperor's Children remained loyal to the Imperium.
  • The Cabal, the secret Xenos organization that fought Chaos in canon, are villains in this fanfic as the Alpha Legion and some former members of the Cabal learned the organization was unknowingly serving Chaos and had Chaos corrupted members in their ranks. However, the canon Cabal's precog device, the Acuity, was corrupted by Chaos, which means in the end both serve Chaos unknowingly.
  • The Imperial Webway still gets wrecked, this time by a failed assassination attempt by the the Space Wolves, only Magnus was working in the Webway at the time... In addition, the Space Wolves also still attack Prospero and destroy it.
  • The War of The Beast-era High Lords are still a bunch of incompetent, bickering manchildren here, driving Drakan Vangorich to purge the lot of them in "The Beheading".
  • Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, exists, and he's the same Lovable Coward he always was; he just bumbled into being an operative of the Alpha Legion as well when he did the Fake Ultimate Hero act in front of one.
  • Despite some roles being swapped around, after the backstories we're still in a place where the Demon Prince Primarchs are mostly inactive and the Loyal Primarchs are absent or incapacitated. Similar to the long time it took for canon to rouse just Roboute, it takes a long time to get any Loyal Primarch active again, in this case, Magnus.
• Immortality Seeker: Vulkan, sort of. He was already immortal, but he wanted to be invincible.
• Internal Affairs: Fabius Bile has a weird version of this. His greatest creation, the Eldest, is tasked with covertly eliminating potential threats to Bile's rule. Where this trope comes into play is that the Eldest also eliminates Bile clones that are lacking in...Bile-ness.
• I Reject Your Reality:
  • Much of the Dark Angels Traitor Legion is a case of this as a result of their wholehearted embrace of Tzeentch, as it means they don't have to face the truth that they had been played like a fiddle by the 'Architect of Fate', that they not only betrayed the Imperium and failed to avert the Bad Future that prompted their betrayal in the first place, but actually made it happen because of their actions. None embraced the lie more than the Primarch Lion El'Jonson himself, to the point that he's frequently described as little more than a puppet of Tzeentch. Justified in that the Chaos God they embraced IS basically an incarnation of Humanity's, if not all sapient life's capacity for self-deceit.
  • Sanguinius is this following his ascension as a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, on account of him going completely insane rather than face the horrible reality of what he and his Legion became as a result of his bargain with Slaanesh, although he had already started deluding himself well before he took the Dark Prince's offer by killing Horus at the Gates of Eternity. The scene depicting the moment of his final downfall explicitly noted he embraced this trope when he took it, stating that "He turned his back on the truth, and embraced the lie".
  • The Index Astartes Characters Annex demonstrated this trope in the character of the Deluded Rune Priest, who still adamantly believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that there is a difference between the psychic abilities they call upon - which they believe to originate from the World-Spirit of Fenris, never mind that it had been long destroyed by this point - and psychic abilities used by the Loyalist Thousand Sons and other non-Fenrisians which they arbitrarily classified as 'Maleficarum' black magic. Believing that the Fifteenth Legion had 'hidden' the truth from the rest of the Space Wolves somehow with some curse, the Deluded Rune Priest is determined to find traces of the Fenris World-Spirit which he believes must still exist somewhere among the surviving Fenrisians, and is willing to go as far as to literally cut apart and flay the souls of as many of them as it takes if it means finding it. Much of the Sixth Legion who still hold onto the old beliefs of Fenris are implied to think the same way.
  • Sanguinius is so delusional and in denial of his fall to Chaos that he most of the time during and after the Heresy living an alternate reality in his head where he stayed loyal to the Emperor and that it was Horus who succumbed to Chaos. He’s still technically this even after it’s revealed he stopped being in denial and fully embraced Slaanesh after the War of Woe with Dorn and the Imperial Fists, as while sane enough to plan for millennia his grand scheme to conquer the Sol system once his father commits his Heroic Sacrifice, he believes in his twisted solipsistic narcissism that he’s the rightful heir to the Emperor, the Golden Throne and the Imperium, and is willing to whatever it takes to make that fantasy a reality.
• Inverse Ninja Law: Justified with the Thousand Sons; besides the fact that Magnus' geneseed only works with psykers, they have to combine the implantation with the incredibly dangerous Rubric of Ahriman to stabilize the implantation. The very few who survive were already the toughest psykers around, and Magnus' power makes them even more so. Also averted, as the Sons usually fight with their personal detachment of the Imperial Guard, the Spireguard, backing them up.
• Irony: Given that this is a mirror universe of the canon WH40k universe, there are too many instances of this to count.
• The Juggernaut: "the Eldest", Fabius Bile's bodyguard and assassin. Because he's a being whose body belonged to Horus.
• Jerkass:
  • Ferrus Manus and the Iron Hands Legion in this continuity were, to quote the Emperor from If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, "brutish asscracks with a survival of the fittest mindset" who openly disdained those who they deemed as weak. Ironically, they end up being one of the more sympathetic and least villainous Traitor Primarchs, having lost less of their humanity and kept more of their unity and brotherhood, at least in comparison to the likes of the Blood Angels, the Salamanders, and the Raven Guard, probably due to Nurgle's influence.
  • There's also Rogal Dorn and Vulkan, both of whom shared Ferrus Manus's philosophy of Might Makes Right and were also assholes even before turning Traitor and falling to Chaos.

K-Z

• Knight in Sour Armor:
  • The Iron Warriors, who are aware of how impossible their task is, but on going in knowledge that even one planet saved for a while longer matters.
  • The Alpha Legion as well, after realizing how truly corruptive Chaos is, but also that not all aliens are threats. They know they're the Legion of Dirty Business, and they accept that, for nobody else in the Imperium wants to do their job.
  • Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) is this plus a Cowardly Lion, being an endless source of snark on the state of the Imperium and his own cowardly desires.
• Last of His Kind: Cypher is the very last loyalist Dark Angel; all others have been captured and killed.
• Last Stand: One of the most notable is that of an Alpha Legionnaire (who turns out to be Kernax Voldorius) finally having run out of sneaky tricks to use against the enemy meets the traitors on the battlefield alongside the Imperial Army. Deprived of any means of evacuation, the newly-formed Tanith 1st to 3rd regiments resist the Chaos invasion of their planet to the last.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In "The Doom of Eisenhorn", The Yellow King's explanation of how it came to exist might equally be addressed to Inquisitor Pontius Glaw (who was eyewitness to its birth) as to the reader (who had just finished reading the part where it is born).
• Lighter and Softer: Zahariel has stated that this universe is a bit better off than the canon one because he cannot match that level of Grimdark (specifically using the fan-term "nobledark" over "grimdark"). To elaborate, the Imperium as a whole is much more unified than in the HH timeline, especially since the Loyalist legions have not been divided by the Codex Astartes. The average citizen is intelligent enough to recognize and report corruption by Xenos or Chaos (as opposed to being utterly ignorant), and the Inquisition, while still as ruthless as ever, is more reasonable or at the very least more pragmatic than in the HH timeline. The Emperor and the Loyalist Primarchs are much more firmly heroic and sympathetic (with the Traitor Primarchs being more firmly evil as a result), and Guilliman's strategy of Istvaan V was not as effective as Horus's since the Night Lords and the Alpha Legion sensed a trap was coming. Finally, the Traitor Legions after the Heresy are overall much more divided and arguably less effective than in canon. They are more securely trapped in their respective Warp Storms thanks to the Iron Cages and also thoroughly hate each other (especially between the Ultramarines and the rest of the traitors) to the point that have even given up opportunities to attack a weakened Imperium to wage war with each other instead (such as the Unborn Crusade).
  • Inverted with the RH Raven Guard and RH Salamanders, which are arguably the darkest and most evil Traitor Legion out of both the canon and RH Traitor Legions combined. The former are insane, nihilistic masters of Body Horror; the latter are utter monsters as well, but their evil is based on the all-too-human attributes of Greed and Pride rather than the unholy nature of Chaos. Also, the fact that Zahariel has started to write the End Times doesn't bode well for this universe.Although that while costly, the First Battle of the End Times ended with a massive victory to the Imperium, including the defeat of Sanguinius, the return of three Primarchs and the shattering of the idea that Chaos Gods are invincible. But it should be noted that this victory costed the Emperor Himself.
• Light Is Not Good: The Blood Angels are still creatures of shining light with superhuman charisma...and then the Glamour breaks. To an extent, the Imperium has an extremely uneasy view of angels, since both the Blood and Dark Angels are traitors here.
• Mad Scientist: The Raven Guard is infamous for being even more darkly innovative than Fabius Bile. Not that the latter is any lacking in this category compared to his canon counterpart, mind you. Thrar Haldir of the Space Wolves also qualifies.
• Made of Evil: Anything made up of Warp matter and tainted by the Ruinous Powers, such as Daemon Princes and Daemons in general, are by their nature nothing short of evil incarnate, especially given Word of God indicated that the RH-verse do NOT subscribe to theory that the Chaos Gods also embody the 'positive' sides of what they embody, and at best they merely pretend to be such in order to lure more fools into worshipping and serving them.
  • Drach'nyen, the End of Empires, like in canon is portrayed to be nothing less than evil incarnate, to the point that in some ways it is the Arch-Enemy and Evil Counterpart of the Emperor Himself, since being the 'Echo of the First Murder' born of Humanity (which is heavily implied to be the one which inspired the myth of Cain and Abel), it represents everything opposite to the Emperor's nature as a creator of civilization. The entirety of its being is described as being composed of the impulse to murder and general pure malice against everyone and everything. This was why the Dark Gods reforged it such that its destiny and purpose was to destroy the Emperor of Mankind, a fact which ultimately proved to be its undoing in the "The Tower of Uralan", as the moment the Emperor died, it can no longer fulfill its purpose, and as it had been changed too much to withstand it, Drach'nyen essentially self-destructed, its power possessing Arguleon Veq and turning him into the Slaughtersong.
• Mama Bear: Curze's adoptive mother. Despite being elderly, she insisted on accompanying him onto the ship of a potential invader in case it was a trap, and took a blow meant for him.
• Meaningful Rename: 'I am Barban Falk no more, father. That man died in the Noctis Labyrinthus. I am the Warsmith.'
  • Garviel Loken gave up his past entirely and has taken on the name and identity of Cerberus, marking his change into a silence hunter dedicated to destroying Fabius Bile once and for all.
• Mind Rape: One of the trials an Emperor's Children Scout goes through upon graduation is the Pilgrimage to where Fulgrim initially landed on Chemos, attacked by a strange Warp entity that shows them visions of themselves as a canon Emperor's Children Space Marine. By the end of it, no Neophyte wants to journey through the desert ever again.
• Morality Kitchen Sink: The Primarchs and Legions are this to the Imperium prior to the heresy:
• Nay-Theist: The Word Bearers, since they don't think the God-Emperor is actually a god, and because of their utter loathing of Chaos, which is led by four of them. Explicitly because Lorgar was not raised in a temple, and all he saw was the dark side of the Covenant.
• Never Be Hurt Again:
  • This was what began Vulkan's transformation into the cruel Immortality Seeker he is now, even after becoming a Daemon Prince.
  • Defied and lampshaded by Ciaphas Cain, after a Dark Angel kills Jurgen. He briefly hears Khorne's whispers to make a Deal with the Devil, and from it has a moment where he understands that Khorne's promise is to kill everything that causes you pain. He shakes it off immediately, knowing it would be an insult to Jurgen's memory.
• Nice Guy: Angron, of all people, due to his significantly less screwed up past, a tendency that's been passed down to the World Eaters.
• Not Quite Dead: Roboute for the Traitor Legions, Ephrael Stern and Cypher on the side of the Imperials. Cypher did completely die and face his ultimate death with a smile in the story.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In the canon timeline, a Chaos Daemon tries to break an Ultramarine's spirit by showing him visions of the Roboutian Heresy, pointing out that despite what the Space Marine believes, Roboute was not perfect and incorruptible, as he would have fallen to Chaos just like the canon traitor Primarchs did had things turned out differently for him.
• One-Steve Limit: Parodied; the Salamanders will fight to the death if they find out that two of them have the same name.
• Orcus on His Throne: Played with. All of the Daemon Primarchs have a reason they're sitting around in the Eye of Terror instead of going out to destroy the Imperium. Lion'El Johnson suffers from a debilitating Wound That Will Not Heal until all the loyalist Fallen Angels are dead, and so he sits on the throne until that happens. Rogal Dorn is busy searching for Sigismund, who betrayed him and broke his Legion (and made Dorn so angry that he became a Daemon Prince). Sanguinius is completely insane and spends most of his time in a self-imposed (and imperfect) Lotus-Eater Machine. Ferrus Manus actually isn't fully attuned to Nurgle due to his metal hands, and is waiting for them to flake off. Vulkan is implied to be worried about being Killed Off for Real. It is also implied Vulkan intends to become a full blown Chaos God, which he can safely do from his throne. Finally, Corax is too busy torturing the people who made his life a living hell. The moment they're Deader than Dead, he gets off the throne. Actually Corax Invokes and Subverts this trope because time is weird around the raven guard homeworld is different than time everywhere else allowing Corax to be able to still effectively give orders and carry out plans with his legion while everyone else thinks he is too occupied torturing the tech-lords.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The Salamanders are themed after them, being proud, loot-obsessed conquerors who pillage and dominate largely to prove they can. Their Daemon Primarch, Vulkan, has taken the form of a great black dragon after his ascension, and the Dragon Warriors take similar forms.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The Blood Angels do not strictly need blood, but given how they absorb all the memories of people whose blood they drink, blood raids are their only consistent motivation.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Most prominently the Daemon Primarchs. Many Chaos and even Imperial characters fit the bill too.
• Plague Master: The Iron Hands. Bile has been mentioned creating a plague in preparation for his attack on Chemos.
• Poor Communication Kills: This playing straight and subverting did much to change the fates of the Loyalist and Traitor legions from canon.
  • This being subverted saved Horus from corruption by Chaos. His father, being a much nicer person than canon, did much to assure and encourage Horus when he critically needed it, ensuring he would never develop the self-doubts of his worthiness and fears of being forgotten that allow him to resist Chaos during the Interex Incident and remain loyal. His father's answer to Horus' question over why he was withdrawing from the Great Crusade after Horus was made Warmaster at Ullanor exemplifies this.
  The Emperor: I cannot tell you my plans, Horus. Not yet. Until I and Magnus know for sure that what I intend is truly possible, I refuse to burden you with hope that may prove false. If I fail … If I cannot complete my grand vision, then it will fall to you and your brothers to guide Mankind, my son. You must find your own path, your own dream, your own ideal, so that if mine cannot become true, you will have the strength to make yours a reality.
  • Played straight with Corvus Corax as he was being recovered from the Tech Lords by the Emperor and Horus when the Great Crusade reached Kiavahr. The Emperor was forced to hide his familial affections from his son before the Tech Lords in order to not let them gain a leverage in the negotiations to peacefully fold them into the Imperium (as the alternative was war and the Tech Lords nuking their own world just deny it to them). Being addressed by his number and as 'it' by his father while he was just waking up led to Corvus making the worst possible assumption about his father as being no different from the Tech Lords and a tyrant who just saw him as a tool, contributing significantly to his and his Legion's betrayal at the outbreak of the Heresy.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Roboute suffers one as part of his awakening; he's active again, but his Legion has been devastated by Aeonid Thiel, Macragge has been blown up, and he's lost control of the Five Hundred Worlds; Thiel died, but he achieved essentially every single one of his primary objectives to weaken Chaos and divide it against itself.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: A Dark Angel kills Jurgen when trying to get Ciaphas Cain, and then then taunts Cain about it. That was the last mistake that Dark Angel ever made, as Cain gets so pissed he's actually briefly tempted by Khorne, and then wields Jurgen's melta in one hand.
• Scary Black Man: Unlike in the Horus Heresy timeline, the Salamanders are every bit as terrifying and brutal as they appear.
• Secret War: Since the end of the Heresy, the Adeptus Mechanicus has been waging a war of containment against the Dark Mechanicus elements beneath the Martian soil. To keep morale up during the final stages of the Heresy, and to hide from the invading forces the existence of potential Chaotic reinforcements in Mars, it was decided by Barban Falk and the the lords of the Mechanicum to keep this charade.
• Screw Destiny: The Roboutian Heresy partially happened because the plans of the Dark Gods were derailed unintentionally (Curze being Happily Adopted, the Blade of the Laer being used on Vespasian before Fulgrim could pick it up, Eldrad being present for the raid on Nuceria and realizing attacking Angron was a bad idea, etc.).
  • There are multiple implications that victory of Chaos was inevitable, but the Emperor's sacrifice gave chance to avert this.
• Sealed Evil in a Can:
  • The Iron Warriors maintain sector-sized ones, the Iron Cages.
  • Roboute is this, with the can keeping him alive.
• Sealed Good in a Can: Besides those mentioned in canon, such as the Emperor, Pertarubo has apparently been placed in a Dreadnought due to injuries and spends most of his time resting; Magnus is in a coma after a Daemons sealed away his soul; Lorgar was last seen fighting off Chaos Daemons, and is implied to be still fighting them. Magnus and Lorgar both return in later chapters.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Rogal Dorn, Leman Russ, Ferrus Manus, and Roboute started as such. Then they got worse.
• Split-Personality Takeover: Positive version; after his adoptive mother pulled of a Heroic Sacrifice, Konrad Curze entered into a brief mental battle with his Night Haunter persona, one in which his noble side emerged as the sole victorious personality as the King of the Night.
• Stable Time Loop:
  • It's implied a bunch of Tyrannids entered the Ruinstorm because they sensed a signal from their own future selves.
  • Aeonid Thiel is the product of one; a fragment of his soul from his Heroic Sacrifice which contains his fundamental nature as The Determinator embeds itself in his infant self, which causes him to join the Ultramarines before they turned traitor but remain loyal to the end, which leads to his Heroic Sacrifice.
  • After his corruption to Chaos, Corax was hurled into the past long enough to sabotage the Gellar field protecting the Emperor's gene-labs, causing the infant Primarchs (including him) to be scattered in the first place. This turns out to be enclosed by another stable loop: the Yellow King, newly-incarnated through the flesh of Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn and having claimed the soul of Gideon Ravenor (a Child of the Raven), uses the latter's mind-voice to communicate with Corax in the past, causing to happen all events which will lead to his materialization in the first place (including the corruption of the Raven Guard and their creation of the Children of the Raven).
• Strange Minds Think Alike: RH-verse Roboutte Guilliman and HH-verse Horus Lupercal have almost the exact same strategies in their attempts to eliminate their remaining loyal sons at the Isstvan Atrocity and destroy the loyal Legions the Drop Site Massacre. The author Zahariel had explained at one point that the Drop Site Massacre was by any consideration a strategic masterstroke, leading to the death of a loyalist Primarch, nearly annihilated three loyal legions and all-but-crippled the Imperium's ability to fight the traitor legions, so it was not inconceivable that both Primarchs could have had the same idea. That being said, the Drop Site Massacre proved to be less effective in the Roboutian Heresy than in the Horus Heresy as two of the three loyal legions (the Night Lords and the Alpha Legion) suspected a trap from the onset and made preparations to both reduce the casualties and continue fighting effectively even in the potential death of their commanding gene-father, while Guilliman had less control over his allies than Horus did and cannot execute his strategy to its full potential. Even the Death Guards, the loyal legion who got decimated the most during the Drop Site Massacre, fared a little better than say the Salamanders did in the Horus Heresy timeline, with thousands of survivors instead of hundreds, though they were still pretty much annihilated as a fighting force.
• Tautological Templar: The Space Wolves and White Scars have been reduced to this to justify their corruption.
  • The Space Wolves still believe themselves to be loyal to the Emperor, but that he was deceived by Magnus and his supporters into accepting maleficarum as a useful tool of the Legions. As a result, the Space Wolves embracing maleficarium to oppose the Thousand Sons is the fault of the Thousand Sons.
  • White Scars believe that anyone who lives under the aegis of the Imperium is guilty of cowardice, otherwise they would rebel. Thus, it's not that the White Scars are "enslaving" anyone, just "changing who the masters are."
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • Members of the Imperial Cult and the Word Bearers don't get along well due to their views on the Emperor. While the former views the Emperor as a God, the latter only sees him as a great man and nothing more and still preaches the Imperial Truth which doesn't please the former. Despite attempts by the Inquisition to keep peace between both sides, some fanatical Imperial Cultists try to have the Word Bearers killed for their "heresy" but these attempts are quickly squashed by the Inquisition.
  • The Dark Angels (lead by Azrael) and the Space Wolves (led by Logan Grimnar) are working together for the Siege of Terathalion. From the dialogue between Azrael and Grimnar, it's abundantly clear that they really don't like each other, with Azrael secretly having attempted to assassinate Grimnar multiple times, but their hatred of the Thousand Sons is outweighing their hatred for each other.
  • Deconstructed and subverted with Ahzek Ahriman and the Eldar defending the Black Library from Slaanesh's invasion. Though Ahriman does momentarily feel some disdain at working with Eldar, he immediately puts that thought aside and recognizes that the defeat of Chaos is much more important, and that he and the Eldar are allies in this goal. There's even a mention of the cooperation between the Interex and the Sons of Horus in his thoughts.
  • This happens frequently enough with the Craftworld Eldar that the second Cabal can pull entire armies that have worked with the Eldar to stop a bigger threat. But it's also pointed out that this has more to do with the Imperium's size rather than any cooperative spirit from either faction.
• Terror Hero: Like their canon counterparts, the Night Lords rely on fear and stealth to demoralize their opponents. Unlike their canon counterparts, they balance this out with a code of honor, the use of 'Sin-Eaters' to help them cope with the horrors of their jobs, and their respect for human life.
• That Man Is Dead: Cerberus has cast aside his past identity, otherwise known as Garviel Loken. He is now a completely silent hunter dedicated to destroying Bile and his work, as atonement for allowing his Primarch's remains to be desecrated by Bile and the Blood Angels.
• Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: the Raven Guard. True, extensive knowledge of them is enough to drive Inquisitors insane, and they themselves were corrupted by the revelation that Humans Are Cthulhu.
• 13 Is Unlucky: Invoked by Magnus in a saying regarding the Ultramarines; he says that perhaps, it's not a coincidence that worst of the traitors are Thirteenth legion and Thirteenth Primarch: after all, the number thirteen is traditionally associated with misfortune, treachery and doom, and perhaps, it was an early warning which they disregarded, and paid the price.
  Magnus: Throughout our history, thirteen has ever been regarded as an accursed number. In many of the old religions, there were twelve main gods and a thirteenth being regarded as evil. It evokes an unneeded addition to something already perfect, which can bring it down from within. For thousands of years of mysticism, it has been associated with treachery. Maybe we should have paid more attention to the wisdom of the ancients when we dismissed it all as superstition.
• Tragic Monster: Jaghatai Khan wasn't so much corrupted as dragged to Chaos by the heels and possessed by a Greater Daemon, the same fate canon Fulgrim was subjected to. Mortarion himself feels that Jaghatai and the Khagan are two different entities, with the former trapped within it.
• Tragic Villain:
  • The Space Wolves, corrupted by their desperation to protect the Imperium. It's all but stated they hate what they are and what they do. Though they lose points due to their hypocrisy regarding Psykers and their Wolf Priests.
  • Sanguinius is one of the few Traitor Primarchs who retains some sympathy. There's regret, and then there's getting Fabius Bile to clone Horus thousands of times largely so that maybe, eventually, one who does not remember Sanguinius killed him is created, and they can be brothers again. But then at the turning point of the Terran Crucible it turns out that this was all a ruse so he could preparer for the the death of the Emperor. Killing all the Horus clones? Yeah that was all to just purge himself of any hesitation or regret. He's fallen so hard that Lorgar, who had previously tried to offer redemption and forgiveness to Lion El'Johnson, understood immediately that there was nothing left of Sanginuius worth saving.
  • Downplayed with Ferrus Manus. While he was very much a Jerkass compared to the other Primarchs during the Great Crusade, he didn't willingly embrace Chaos and instead had Nurglite corruption forced upon him due to the collaboration of Nurgle and Slaanesh. It also helps that, unlike canon Fulgrim's murder of canon Ferrus, RH Ferrus and the Iron Hands didn't deliberately betray and lure the RH Emperor's Children into the Dark Eldar trap when they called for help against the Diasporex. It's revealed after War of Angel he still wondered if his father would forgive him.
• Tranquil Fury: In an inversion of the canon Blood Angels' Death Company, the Word Bearers have the Iconoclast Marines, who, barring the intervention of Lorgar (long gone missing at that point) or an Imperial Saint (very unlikely due to the Bearer's views of the Imperial Creed), are permanently locked into the condition. And even Lorgar's intervention may no longer be enough to break that lock.
• The Unfettered: Corvus Corax and Vulkan.
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • The Cabal was formed to fight Chaos, but was infiltrated by Chaos agents within their ranks and unknowingly serve the very enemy they fought.
  • Rogal Dorn was unknowingly bound sorcerously to Roboute Guilliman by the Deal with the Devil he made to save his sons' remaining sanity. Defied by Sigsimund, who went Fake Defector to find a way to break Dorn's binding.
• War Is Hell: The Alpha Legion beats this into the heads of its Neophytes— that's why they prefer To Win Without Fighting.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Several Traitor Marines (especially Fabius Bile) are, if you ask them, trying to save humanity. Everyone else is... skeptical, to say the least.
  • The Death Guard is called in up planets and sterilize populations if there is no other choice. They feel really bad about it though.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 28, The Rise of Ynnead. Omegon, the Alpha Legion and their allies help Eldrad and the Eldar summoned The Eldar Death God Ynnead while protecting them from the Necrons with Eldrad becoming Ynnead's Avatar. Lord Ur-Pharezon, the Necron Lord who lead the attack, is killed by Omegon, only to be resurrected by Chief Apothecary Vincente Sixx of the Raven Guard in a clone Necrontyr body, revealing Ur-Pharezon is working with the Raven Guard. Also, it's now easier to revive the dead.
  • Chapter 31, The Battle of Macragge - Part Two. Roboute Guilliman is awakened, which everyone expected. But then it turns out "Marius Gage" is an impostor.
  • Chapter 32, The Battle of Macragge - Part Three. Aeonid Thiel somehow impersonated Marius Gage and waged the war with other Ultramarines. The Ascended One, mentioned in the chapter about the Ultramarines, was actually an Alpha Legionary in disguise. Aeonid detonated a bomb he brought with him to Macragge, killing anyone on the planet who did not escape or wasn't saved by Guilliman.
  • Chapter 33, The Fall of Chemos. Fabius Bile and his Black Legion desolated and pillaged Chemos and destroyed all ground forces of Emperor's Children here. Meanwhile, the reborn Laers claimed many Emperor's Children reinforcements travelling in the Warp.
  • Chapter 39, The Terran Crucible Part 1: Cypher is revealed to be Zahariel, who was possessed by the Ouroboros and still has a fragment of the beast within him, Lorgar returns to save Cypher from Lion, gaining Luther's sword and arriving on Luna through the webway gate. Cypher dies giving the sword to Lorgar, but Luther's daughter Morgana, mentioned in the flashback sections of the chapter, is still alive. She is an Inquisitor of great power and also tied into the Fallen spell, so now the Lion is still weakened by Luther's last spell.
  • Chpater 40, The Terran Crucible Part 2. The Emperor dies at the hands of Lorgar, using his power to create all the living saints in history, and gives humanity a chance at winning the Times of Ending.
  • Chapter 69, The Terran Crucible Part 5: Against all odds, the Imperium has claimed victory in the Angel War at the Battle of Lupercal Gate, at the cost of Ahzek Ahriman performing a Heroic Sacrifice. Daemon Primarch Sanguinius is not only stopped from claiming the Golden Throne, he is Killed Off for Real and rendered Deader than Dead, and Lorgar and Ephanel Stern were able to frighten and wound SLAANESH hirself via the Sword That Was Promised while at it. And to cap it all off, at the prompting of Lucius the Reborn, Primarch Lorgar Aurelian is proclaimed Warmaster of the Imperium.
  • Chapter 73, The Cadian Apocalypse Part I: Fabius Bile and his Black Legion are launching a Black Crusade against Cadia and the Imperium, and he has brought allies with significant forces of Dark Angels and Sigismund the Destroyer's Black Templars. Among other things revealedd, it turns out The Eldest bodyguarding Fabius Bile is none other than a revenant of Horus Lupercal. Not just a clone, but his original soulless dead body reanimated by Fabius Bile (the one the Sons of Horus destroyed was apparently a clone body used to trick them), who proceeds to stop and capture Cerberus when he attempted to kill Fabius Bile again. Also, Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed is exposed by Commissar Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) as an Archduke of Cysgorog in disguise - possibly from the time he was rescued by Imperial forces when he was a boy - and upon being killed and banished by the commissar and his aide Jurgen, Ciaphas found himself in charge of Cadia and its defences against Bile's Black Crusade with everyone else higher-rank than he is dead or compromised by Bile's Dark Angels allies' plots.
  • Chapter 74, The Cadian Apocalypse Part II: Sigsimund summons Rogal Dorn to realspace near Cadia, and is immediately killed - and promptly revives as a Daemon Prince, as his real goal was to draw Dorn away from Guilliman long enough to reveal that Dorn was an Unwitting Pawn of the Dark Master of Chaos all along. Sigsimund has always been his father's most loyal son, and the Breaking of the Legion was his cover so the Ultramarines didn't suspect anything while he dedicated a Blood Crusade to Dorn's freedom. Dorn forgives Sigsimund to the extent he is capable of, and the Black Templars rejoin the Imperial Fists.
  • Chapter 75, The Cadian Apocalypse Part III: While making his way to the Cadian Pylons to prevent the Dark Angels from using them to widen the Eye of Terror, Ciaphas Cain is hit by the psychic shockwave of the Emperor's death, and accidentally cements his heroic legend even more when his (intentional) Rousing Speech to pull a Custodes out of a Heroic BSoD is broadcast across the entire planet by Jurgen - at which point Jurgen is killed by a Dark Angel aiming for Cain, sending the Commissar on such a Roaring Rampage of Revenge that Nephalor, the admiral of the First Legion fleet, realizes that he needs to get rid of Cain now. To that end, he reveals his secret weapon, the Lord of Wraiths - aka, Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, bound necromantically to his own corpse and with him and the ghosts of the Tanith First and Only forced to serve the Dark Angels. Gaunt finally manages to overcome Cain's luck and skill, but his men refuse to break, which sends out a psychic beacon draws a fragment of the God-Emperor that uses the newfound return of the Warp presence around Cain due to the lack of of Jurgen's Null field to fuse with him, reviving him as a Living Saint. Cain uses his newfound powers to disarm Gaunt, and recognizing his fellow Commissar wasn't actually corrupted by his own free will, destroys the Artifact of Doom keeping the sorcerous binding in place and using Vindicta's power to sustain Gaunt's existence as a ghost in realspace, as he joins the living Imperium again as a much-needed reinforcement.
  • Daemon Primarch Corvus Corax alone versus Cadmean Citadel's garrison. It took him a single mental command to incapitate three Warhound Titans
  • The Doom of Eisenhorn: The Yellow King is born on Sancour, and it's none other than the 'Shadow' of the Emperor himself. And Gregor was manipulated during all his life into becoming his vessel, successfully.
  • The Ruinstorm Breaks, Part 1: The T'au have been manipulated by a Chaotic force heavily implied to be Guilliman throughout their history, turning the Ethereals into his willing cultists and enforcing More than Mind Control on other T'au. The Fire Caste opens the Iron Cage, but a Thousand Sons Dreadnaught manages to free Commander Farsight from the reprogramming and Farsight helps the awakened Peturabo escape.
• Wham Line:
  • From the Battle of Macragge - Part 2: "You," said Guilliman, "are not Marius."
  • Another one in The Terran Crucible Part 1: Lorgar: "Hands off my nephew, Lion"
  • The Terran Crucible Part 2: The Emperor: "Farewell, my sons. Know that I have always been and always will be proud of you."
  • The Doom Of Eisenhorn: Reply to Yellow King, by Pontius Glaw "You are my Emperor".
    • Before that, by Pontius to Eisenhorn: "It's you, Gregor. You are the Yellow King."
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Most of the Traitor Primarchs, but especially Corvus Corax and Sanguinius.
  • Zig-Zagged with Corax. While it is unquestionable that he suffered at lot at Kiavahr, it also prevented him from having any form of cultural upbringing. Because of that, he never developed neither conscience nor empathy. At all. And his morals can be described as "ends justify the means". With all horrible consequences. Reinforced when it's revealed that Yellow King is the dark side of the Emperor, meaning that all Corax's misadventures is connected to the very being he hates and at least indirectly serves.

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